The thermometer, calorie counter and sound meter in the Nokia 5100 phone give approximate values only and they should not be used for professional purposes.
The included sound meter application is probably one of the most useless applications available on any phone. It measures the decibel rating of the sound level around you. Why anyone would want this is beyond us.
Think construction sites, factory floors, heavy machinery, kindergartens (picture 20 kids playing, er, screaming at the top of their lungs) etc. All extremely noisy, sometimes over the top. Developed countries have regulations on noise level, the responsible personnel needs a simple and practical way to measure the level.
There's lots more... see Frederick Noronha's status of Free Software in Asia broken down by country. The same page also has similar reports for Latin America (by Cesar Brod) and Africa (by Nico Coetzee).
By the way, a lot is happening in developing countries. On May 22nd, I had the opportunity to attend the publication seminar of the interesting Free as in Education research report by Niranjan Rajani, sponsored by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Other writers published in the study are Cesar Brod (Brazil), Frederick Noronha (India) and Nico Coetzee (South Africa). Also attending the seminar, among many others, was Edgar Villanueva (Congressman, Peru), who sent the famous response letter to Microsoft, giving a talk on "Legal and Other Experiences in Promoting FLOSS in Peru".
But cities are not the only ones interested in Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), of course. For example, what do you like the government of South Africa open source software web site at http://www.oss.gov.za/? Their Government OSS Strategy Document (in PDF format) could be interesting reading.
FSF's Bradley Kuhn comments on SCO case
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
In an e-mail interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, FSF's executive director Bradley Kuhn says several interesting things, for example:
"Indeed, FSF holds documents from SCO regarding some of this code. SCO has disclaimed copyright on changes that were submitted and assigned by their employees to key GNU operating system components."
and earlier:
"SCO was not merely a distributor of the kernel named Linux; they were the distributor off the entire GNU/Linux system, which includes Linux as well as the core components of the GNU operating system, such as glibc, GCC, GDB, etc.
"Most of the core GNU components are all copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation and distributed under our auspices under GPL. SCO's right to redistribute them, and Linux too, is the GNU GPL and only the GNU GPL."
[...]
"For nearly two decades, the FSF has carefully and arduously collected copyright assignments on each contribution to the GPL'ed programs on which we hold copyright. We carry out due diligence to ask contributors if they have any reason to believe that trade secrets, patents, or other copyright claims cover their work before they submit it to us. We then collect a copyright assignment from the contributor (and a copyright disclaimer from their employer when necessary) to ensure that we hold proper title to the software on which we place our copyright notice and license freely under GPL or LGPL.
"Individuals and companies using FSF copyrighted programs know as much as one can know that the software has been examined carefully, that its authors certify that the work is their own, and that the authors have no knowledge of other claims conflicting with its licensing under GPL or LGPL."
CodeWeavers have contributed a lot to the WINE project. However, have they commited to releasing Crossover as source within a reasonable time frame? Compare how Aladdin handled Ghostscript dual-license releases in the early days of development.
U.S. Optical Fiber Communities - 2003 20 Communities Added to U.S. Optical Fiber Communities List Brings Total to 70 With Customers Served Today via Fiber to the Home. Published 3/18/03.
"The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council is a non-profit organization established in 2001 to educate the public on the opportunities and benefits of FTTH solutions. FTTH Council members represent all areas of broadband industries, including telecommunications, computing, networking, system integration, engineering, and content-provider companies, as well as traditional telecommunications service providers, utilities and municipalities."
It's not as simple as that, I'm afraid. If the public can use the cameras and they show events in real time, then someone could place a bomb and make it detonate at the "right" moment. Delaying the video has its own set of problems.
The reasons we have surveillance cameras is, I guess, that they are cost effective. I don't see them going away (politically, there will always be something more pressing to spend money on, or so it will be argued).
But in the tradition of Juvenal, how about monitoring cameras and microphones on each and every person who monitors the surveillance cameras, with public access?
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes."
-- Juvenal (ca 60 bis 130 n.C.), Sat. 6, 347
The Google zeitgeist has a graph of what browsers are used to access Google, spanning a couple of years back. Look for "Web Browsers Used To Access Google
March 2001 - January 2003". And indeed, "Netscape 5.x" usage is rising.
Also noteworthy is that Linux machines accounted for 1% of the operating systems used to access Google in January 2003, while different flavors of Windows account for 91%. Macs accounted for 4%, the "other" category for the remaining 4% (Source: Google Inc.). I guess that gives a pretty good picture of where Linux on the desktop is right now, it will be interesting to follow how that figure develops over the next few years.
The Tesla biography by O'Neill covers the story in detail, quite interesting reading if you ask me!
Complete online volume:
PRODIGAL GENIUS
The Life of Nikola Tesla.
For once, this is something they got right in the UK (they still drive on the wrong side of the street, though.;-)
What you propose was actually the standard way of adressing internet hosts in the UK many moons ago. Since all net related software was provided with source, they were patched to handle this way of addressing hosts.
Reminds me of X.400 e-mail addresses, which weren't so successful. The main reason were exactly their long and unwieldy addresses: multi-line e-mail addresses! There too, applications were supposed to hide the complexity, but someone has to type it into the application to begin with.
The reason cracking machines are built is that they don't leave trails. A key keeps increasing in value when its unsuspecting owner keeps using it after it has been cracked.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right.
Think construction sites, factory floors, heavy machinery, kindergartens (picture 20 kids playing, er, screaming at the top of their lungs) etc. All extremely noisy, sometimes over the top. Developed countries have regulations on noise level, the responsible personnel needs a simple and practical way to measure the level.
There's lots more... see Frederick Noronha's status of Free Software in Asia broken down by country. The same page also has similar reports for Latin America (by Cesar Brod) and Africa (by Nico Coetzee).
Note: the first link above has more information and additional material. The research was sponsored by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland.
Your suspicion of secret back doors are not off the mark. If you familiarize yourself with the upcoming security technology from Microsoft, called Palladium or more recently NGSCB, you will find that backdoors are likely to be mandatory in it. Furthermore, such backdoors in crypto-processors are already patented, see for example the patents ep1059578 Secure backdoor access for a computer or us5970246 Data processing system having a trace mechanism and method therefor.
No, that's not true. A couple of other cities running Linux:
By the way, a lot is happening in developing countries. On May 22nd, I had the opportunity to attend the publication seminar of the interesting Free as in Education research report by Niranjan Rajani, sponsored by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Other writers published in the study are Cesar Brod (Brazil), Frederick Noronha (India) and Nico Coetzee (South Africa). Also attending the seminar, among many others, was Edgar Villanueva (Congressman, Peru), who sent the famous response letter to Microsoft, giving a talk on "Legal and Other Experiences in Promoting FLOSS in Peru".
But cities are not the only ones interested in Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), of course. For example, what do you like the government of South Africa open source software web site at http://www.oss.gov.za/? Their Government OSS Strategy Document (in PDF format) could be interesting reading.
For several other interesting quotes, see the whole interview.
There are so many of these Big Brother spying technologies, I don't even know where to begin. You should at least learn about Echelon II, though.
...and mentioned in the review here:. html
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7770280571
http://office.microsoft.com/ProductUpdates/default .aspx
CodeWeavers have contributed a lot to the WINE project. However, have they commited to releasing Crossover as source within a reasonable time frame? Compare how Aladdin handled Ghostscript dual-license releases in the early days of development.
It is well worth a read giving an insightful historical perspective and with translations to a number of other languages available.
Kutztown's Hometown Utilicom fiber to the home network.
20 Communities Added to U.S. Optical Fiber Communities List Brings Total to 70 With Customers Served Today via Fiber to the Home. Published 3/18/03.
Download File: 031803 US Opt Fiber Commun List 2003.pdf
See Fiber to the Home Council for much more information such as case studies etc.
The original page has been moved here and now also have two new presentations (in Swedish).
The reasons we have surveillance cameras is, I guess, that they are cost effective. I don't see them going away (politically, there will always be something more pressing to spend money on, or so it will be argued).
But in the tradition of Juvenal, how about monitoring cameras and microphones on each and every person who monitors the surveillance cameras, with public access?
Also noteworthy is that Linux machines accounted for 1% of the operating systems used to access Google in January 2003, while different flavors of Windows account for 91%. Macs accounted for 4%, the "other" category for the remaining 4% (Source: Google Inc.). I guess that gives a pretty good picture of where Linux on the desktop is right now, it will be interesting to follow how that figure develops over the next few years.
The Register has an article on the deal today, with some other speculation: Future fuzzier for Mac, Linux as MS buys Connectix tech
...now we can have a tail-recursive win32 delay loop.
For more on SIP, please see:
Also see: NIKOLA TESLA 1856 - 1943 FORGOTTEN AMERICAN SCIENTIST
The above page is in co-operation with Yale Scientific Magazine, who has this story: To the Smithsonian or Bust: The Scientific Legacy of Nikola Tesla
It's not fixed on any of the other MSN sites, such as msn.fi or msn.se for example.
What you propose was actually the standard way of adressing internet hosts in the UK many moons ago. Since all net related software was provided with source, they were patched to handle this way of addressing hosts.
I prefer callto:// URI:s any day.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: ILETS AND THE ENFOPOL 98 AFFAIR
America's guiding hand revealed - the secret international organisation behind Europe's controversial plans for Internet surveillance
Related stories: Telepolis-enfopol papers
The reason cracking machines are built is that they don't leave trails. A key keeps increasing in value when its unsuspecting owner keeps using it after it has been cracked.