The cameraphones are getting better, but I can appreciate that some with want better quality.
I can recommend http://www.nanika.net/metro/ for getting around local metro/underground systems. Available for free on multiple platforms.
All my devices use SD cards, which helps minimise the media I need to buy. Newer devices are using the new, smaller options, but many of those can fit in an SD slot with an adaptor.
I expect that some of the latest phones reduce the need for a separate camera unless you are fussy about your pictures. They'll do the PDA part too. A few ebooks on your memory card will add nothing to the weight you carry. Memory cards are so cheap that you may as well carry a few. Load them up with music. They are probably cheap enough to post home loaded with pictures.
Make sure you backup the PDA and keep that separate. Can be useful if you battery runs down.
I'm still on old technology (Palm Zire 71 + Acer n35 PDAs, Samsung V200 phone and basic Canon camera), but then I don't generally need to travel that light. It would still be nice to get by most of the time with one gadget when I do travel, but it generally involves compromise. I'll probably get a all-in-one eventually. The http://openmoko.com/ looks like a possible candidate if it works out.
Someone introduced a few rabbits to Australia so he could shoot them. There's a few million now, even after myxomatosis was used to try and control them.
Pigs and goats have ruined a few ecosystems. Rats too, but they were not put there intentionally. Gardeners have introduced a few plant species that that taken over, e.g. giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed.
Ecosystems only get balanced over long periods. I'm sure there are plenty of cases in pre-history where a new species has moved in and destroyed what was there before, but eventually a predator/parasite/disease will move in or evolve to control it.
You would hope that we know enough now not to just introduce a species without planning for controlling it's spread. In any case it should be possible to re-forest using local species in most cases. I expect someone will propose genetic manipulation to help things along, but that has it's own dangers/unknowns.
There's also a petition to make software patents unenforcible that people may wish to sign. It would be good to see it get more signatures than some of the sillier ones.
The road pricing petition is doing suspiciously well with 30x the signatures of the next most popular. That's over 1% of the population. Either someone has been marketing it well or there may be invalid signatures. You have to submit your address, but that's not hard to fake.
I've played with XFN and FOAF on my site, but have seen very little take-up in the last couple of years. There are some social network sites that incorporate them, but I think you can only link to others in a given site.
There's also clainID to show what pages relate to you, or not as the case may be. In some cases you will be able to prove ownership by setting a tag in the page header. del.icio.us and last.fm support this feature.
Of course, in some cases, you don't want a site to be traced back to you.
When I built my house (UK) I had to have CFs in a certain proportion of rooms due to building regulations (Part L). Not only that, but I had to use special light fittings that include the ballast so that it would be slightly trickier to change over to incandescents after the inspector has been.
I ended up with CFs in 2 bedrooms, the study and the hall. None has failed in the 3 years we've been in.
One downside is that they are not dimmable, so I had to use the relay type X10 units on those circuits. All my lights are under X10 control, but I'll admit to not exploiting the full potential of it. I just have some that turn on when you wander around after dark, but those are not the CF ones. At least I have less issues with the kids leaving lights switched on.
I'm sure Walmart will make lots of money from this, but it may have some general benefits. I remember hearing of an electricity company (I think it was in the US) that gave away CFs to customers so that they could put off building a new power station.
I'm not even bothered about getting money for my old cards. I've tried putting them on the local Freecycle list. I've got someone interested in my Smartmedia cards. So try the local options first.
I've got all sorts of old computer bits, but I'm resigned to having to throw most of it away. It's all well below the minimum spec that charities will take. It seems they only look at PCs from maybe 700MHz, but I'm sure I saw mention of one that starts at 2GHz. That's faster than my main PC.
I've put out some requests to try and find some bits to upgrade my PC. It's a socket A board, but I could still go to double the CPU speed and add a lot more memory for some serious gains. It's usable now, but could be better.
I'm still using a couple of old CRTs too. I know they use a lot more power than LCDs, but I'm not dumping them until they die. That could be some time.
It would help to cut down on the standing waves if people applied the 'join slowly, leave quickly' rule. If you see a queue ahead then slow down to give it time to move before you get there, then as soon as the road is clear accelerate away (to a safe speed). I see waves like this every day and see many people rush to join it so they have to slam on the brakes. When I get out the other side people are leaving huge gaps that slow down the escape of others.
There's an old article on this, with animations, here.
Okay so I'm a geek, but I have had a IIIx and a Zire 71 and found them to be great at what they do. I recently got an Acer n35 with Windows to use as a GPS and it's a usability nightmare. I can do address book and calendar functions in a fraction of the time on the Palm. Icons are better than menus when you want to just run one of a few apps and you can do it with your finger. The Palm battery life is better too.
I did get frustrated with the lack of things like GPS and wifi for my Zire. I may get a wifi card for the Acer for the rare occasions I need it.
The Palm is also easier to sync with KDE apps. That's what's stopping me from switching everything to the Acer for now. I end up carrying both around in my bag.
I also have a personal rule of not paying more than UKP200 for a mobile device. If it cost much more I'd be paranoid about losing or breaking it.
Or pump that heat to local homes, offices etc during the winter. That would help balance out the local energy consumption.
I read years ago that some homes in the old East Germany (GDR/DDR) were heated by the local power station. Due to a lack of thermostats they had to open the windows if it go too warm. Then Germany re-unified and they started shutting down those dirty coal power stations. I don't recall what happened after that.
As a datacentre can probably be just about anywhere in the world where there is a fat data pipe then why not site them all near hydroelectric/geothermal/wind power sites. If power costs keep rising maybe Google will kickstart some of these projects themselves.
For cooling more use could be made of lakes like I believe they do in Toronto.
I use site specific addresses when I have to register. So far this has only flagged one case where one of those addresses has been used for spam. Meanwhile I get loads to my personal address. That could be from one of a few places including my GPG keyserver entries and my FOAF file. Then there's all the random addresses being used that get bounced to my domain.
Meanwhile I'm playing with claimID. I've used their OpenID facility on a couple of sites. It's preferable to having to register on each site, even if it exposes a little bit about me. I could always register on another service using a more anonymous email address if I want to be less traceable.
I'm running FF 2.0 on XP and I think it may have crash once with plenty of usage. The spell checker is good, even if it uses US English. The ability to re-open tabs could be useful, but I don't like the close button on tabs.
I've had a public key for a few years and have cross-signed keys of a few people I know, but most do not encrypt or even sign their emails despite knowing the insecurities of email. I'm surprised that it is not used more commercially, but I have never had a signed or encrypted email at work and that often involves commercially sensitive information.
Could it be that encryption is still to complex for most people?
I will continue to encrypt emails to those I know can handle it and will sign others.
I had a 500 plus and a 1200 that was progressively upgraded all the way to a 68040. I had great fun with them, but it was a frustrating experience as the brand was bought by various people who did nothing with it. In the end I had to give it up for a Windows PC, but eventually found Linux and feel good about my computer again.
OGG would be a minimum requirement. That's what all my music gets ripped to these days. I have yet to buy a download of anything. Generally with a CD you are still free to do what you want with the music. I don't have anything that plays any of the protected formats (Linux PC, Palm, iRiver iFP).
If I ever buy a large capacity audio player I want it to have some recording functionality as well, mainly for jam sessions.
I think I'll have to look at the VMWare option. My kids use a 98 PC (Duron 800, 256MB?, 8GB HD) so they can play some old edutainment titles. I'm not going to buy XP just so they can keep playing those. One title won't run on anything newer and complained when I tried it on Wine. Said I was running Win2k (I think). I ought to try the other games on Wine then have a VM for the exceptions.
As far as general internet usage goes Windows should be redundant, but there's the odd one the kids play on that must be using media formats I don't have set up.
"I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software.
One sort of social network that many of us have been exposing on-line for years is that implied by public key signatures. Not only does it imply who you know, but also that you are the sort of person the NSA should be investigating.
Another network that makes life easier for them is FOAF. All that RDF data is trivially easy to process. Probably a lot less people using it that are on Myspace or whatever, but some networking sites do auto-generate FOAF.
My only Windows PC at home is running 98. The only reason for having it is that my kids have a few 'edutainment' titles that use it. If I could get those running on Wine I would switch it to Linux.
98 is getting a pain to use as when you install it you have to get a newer IE in order to run the Windows Update.
I have no desire to buy any newer Windows at the moment. If my kids start demanding better games I might consider a console.
My Win98 CD came with my first PC and has migrated to various PCs over time. Only installed on one at a time of course.
I pay several pence per SMS and that it taxed. I also pay for my broadband and that is taxed. Isn't that enough for them?
The government also takes a large wedge of my wages before I even get a chance to spend it. Then everything I buy involves more tax. Adding more taxes must involve more bureaucracy that will cost us more money. If they need more money why not just raise one of the existing taxes that everyone has to pay?
I've been pushing for years to get some form of wiki in our company. We develop a large application, but different teams don't keep up with what the others are doing. I wanted a way to extract information from peoples' heads into a usable form.
Recently our IT people installed MediaWiki and I have been entering every bit of information I have to look up from other sources whilst trying to maintain a consistent structure.
I've talked a few other people into using it, but takeup is very slow even though I can see from the user list that most people have accessed it. Perhaps part of the problem is that many of them, unlike me, are not used to web pages being updateable. Perhaps they will just claim they don't have the time, but then will spend much more time looking up information in Word documents, emails and out issue tracking system.
My hope is that the wiki will reach a point where people find it already contains most of what they want and then they will start using it and become 'dependent'. I personally do not have the corproate authority to make them use it and management shows no inclination to push the concept.
I'll keep using it even if it's only benefiting me. If anyone asks me anything I can refer them there.
Re:The Computer Programme
on
On The BBC 2.0
·
· Score: 1
Maybe they could revive the old Teletext pages where you could download programs if you had the right hardware! I had loads of fun with my old BBC Micro.
Slashdot Mirror
The cameraphones are getting better, but I can appreciate that some with want better quality.
I can recommend http://www.nanika.net/metro/ for getting around local metro/underground systems. Available for free on multiple platforms.
All my devices use SD cards, which helps minimise the media I need to buy. Newer devices are using the new, smaller options, but many of those can fit in an SD slot with an adaptor.
I expect that some of the latest phones reduce the need for a separate camera unless you are fussy about your pictures. They'll do the PDA part too. A few ebooks on your memory card will add nothing to the weight you carry. Memory cards are so cheap that you may as well carry a few. Load them up with music. They are probably cheap enough to post home loaded with pictures.
Make sure you backup the PDA and keep that separate. Can be useful if you battery runs down.
I'm still on old technology (Palm Zire 71 + Acer n35 PDAs, Samsung V200 phone and basic Canon camera), but then I don't generally need to travel that light. It would still be nice to get by most of the time with one gadget when I do travel, but it generally involves compromise. I'll probably get a all-in-one eventually. The http://openmoko.com/ looks like a possible candidate if it works out.
Someone introduced a few rabbits to Australia so he could shoot them. There's a few million now, even after myxomatosis was used to try and control them.
Pigs and goats have ruined a few ecosystems. Rats too, but they were not put there intentionally. Gardeners have introduced a few plant species that that taken over, e.g. giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed.
Ecosystems only get balanced over long periods. I'm sure there are plenty of cases in pre-history where a new species has moved in and destroyed what was there before, but eventually a predator/parasite/disease will move in or evolve to control it.
You would hope that we know enough now not to just introduce a species without planning for controlling it's spread. In any case it should be possible to re-forest using local species in most cases. I expect someone will propose genetic manipulation to help things along, but that has it's own dangers/unknowns.
There's also a petition to make software patents unenforcible that people may wish to sign. It would be good to see it get more signatures than some of the sillier ones.
The road pricing petition is doing suspiciously well with 30x the signatures of the next most popular. That's over 1% of the population. Either someone has been marketing it well or there may be invalid signatures. You have to submit your address, but that's not hard to fake.
But why is Cholmondley pronounced Chumly?
I'll keep recording BBC TV/radio with my DVB card. Currently using ZapDVB
Or something more lightweight and insulating.
Hi mate, nice to see you active here again.
iDog & Bone (cockney version)
I've played with XFN and FOAF on my site, but have seen very little take-up in the last couple of years. There are some social network sites that incorporate them, but I think you can only link to others in a given site.
There's also clainID to show what pages relate to you, or not as the case may be. In some cases you will be able to prove ownership by setting a tag in the page header. del.icio.us and last.fm support this feature.
Of course, in some cases, you don't want a site to be traced back to you.
When I built my house (UK) I had to have CFs in a certain proportion of rooms due to building regulations (Part L). Not only that, but I had to use special light fittings that include the ballast so that it would be slightly trickier to change over to incandescents after the inspector has been.
I ended up with CFs in 2 bedrooms, the study and the hall. None has failed in the 3 years we've been in.
One downside is that they are not dimmable, so I had to use the relay type X10 units on those circuits. All my lights are under X10 control, but I'll admit to not exploiting the full potential of it. I just have some that turn on when you wander around after dark, but those are not the CF ones. At least I have less issues with the kids leaving lights switched on.
I'm sure Walmart will make lots of money from this, but it may have some general benefits. I remember hearing of an electricity company (I think it was in the US) that gave away CFs to customers so that they could put off building a new power station.
I'm not even bothered about getting money for my old cards. I've tried putting them on the local Freecycle list. I've got someone interested in my Smartmedia cards. So try the local options first.
I've got all sorts of old computer bits, but I'm resigned to having to throw most of it away. It's all well below the minimum spec that charities will take. It seems they only look at PCs from maybe 700MHz, but I'm sure I saw mention of one that starts at 2GHz. That's faster than my main PC.
I've put out some requests to try and find some bits to upgrade my PC. It's a socket A board, but I could still go to double the CPU speed and add a lot more memory for some serious gains. It's usable now, but could be better.
I'm still using a couple of old CRTs too. I know they use a lot more power than LCDs, but I'm not dumping them until they die. That could be some time.
It would help to cut down on the standing waves if people applied the 'join slowly, leave quickly' rule. If you see a queue ahead then slow down to give it time to move before you get there, then as soon as the road is clear accelerate away (to a safe speed). I see waves like this every day and see many people rush to join it so they have to slam on the brakes. When I get out the other side people are leaving huge gaps that slow down the escape of others.
There's an old article on this, with animations, here.
Try and be part of the solution.
Okay so I'm a geek, but I have had a IIIx and a Zire 71 and found them to be great at what they do. I recently got an Acer n35 with Windows to use as a GPS and it's a usability nightmare. I can do address book and calendar functions in a fraction of the time on the Palm. Icons are better than menus when you want to just run one of a few apps and you can do it with your finger. The Palm battery life is better too.
I did get frustrated with the lack of things like GPS and wifi for my Zire. I may get a wifi card for the Acer for the rare occasions I need it.
The Palm is also easier to sync with KDE apps. That's what's stopping me from switching everything to the Acer for now. I end up carrying both around in my bag.
I also have a personal rule of not paying more than UKP200 for a mobile device. If it cost much more I'd be paranoid about losing or breaking it.
Or pump that heat to local homes, offices etc during the winter. That would help balance out the local energy consumption.
I read years ago that some homes in the old East Germany (GDR/DDR) were heated by the local power station. Due to a lack of thermostats they had to open the windows if it go too warm. Then Germany re-unified and they started shutting down those dirty coal power stations. I don't recall what happened after that.
As a datacentre can probably be just about anywhere in the world where there is a fat data pipe then why not site them all near hydroelectric/geothermal/wind power sites. If power costs keep rising maybe Google will kickstart some of these projects themselves.
For cooling more use could be made of lakes like I believe they do in Toronto.
So can Bruce Schneier. He uses the result as his private key.
I use site specific addresses when I have to register. So far this has only flagged one case where one of those addresses has been used for spam. Meanwhile I get loads to my personal address. That could be from one of a few places including my GPG keyserver entries and my FOAF file. Then there's all the random addresses being used that get bounced to my domain.
Meanwhile I'm playing with claimID. I've used their OpenID facility on a couple of sites. It's preferable to having to register on each site, even if it exposes a little bit about me. I could always register on another service using a more anonymous email address if I want to be less traceable.
I'm running FF 2.0 on XP and I think it may have crash once with plenty of usage. The spell checker is good, even if it uses US English. The ability to re-open tabs could be useful, but I don't like the close button on tabs.
Most of my extensions are working happily.
I've had a public key for a few years and have cross-signed keys of a few people I know, but most do not encrypt or even sign their emails despite knowing the insecurities of email. I'm surprised that it is not used more commercially, but I have never had a signed or encrypted email at work and that often involves commercially sensitive information.
Could it be that encryption is still to complex for most people?
I will continue to encrypt emails to those I know can handle it and will sign others.
I had a 500 plus and a 1200 that was progressively upgraded all the way to a 68040. I had great fun with them, but it was a frustrating experience as the brand was bought by various people who did nothing with it. In the end I had to give it up for a Windows PC, but eventually found Linux and feel good about my computer again.
OGG would be a minimum requirement. That's what all my music gets ripped to these days. I have yet to buy a download of anything. Generally with a CD you are still free to do what you want with the music. I don't have anything that plays any of the protected formats (Linux PC, Palm, iRiver iFP).
If I ever buy a large capacity audio player I want it to have some recording functionality as well, mainly for jam sessions.
So basically it's not for me.
I think I'll have to look at the VMWare option. My kids use a 98 PC (Duron 800, 256MB?, 8GB HD) so they can play some old edutainment titles. I'm not going to buy XP just so they can keep playing those. One title won't run on anything newer and complained when I tried it on Wine. Said I was running Win2k (I think). I ought to try the other games on Wine then have a VM for the exceptions.
As far as general internet usage goes Windows should be redundant, but there's the odd one the kids play on that must be using media formats I don't have set up.
One sort of social network that many of us have been exposing on-line for years is that implied by public key signatures. Not only does it imply who you know, but also that you are the sort of person the NSA should be investigating.
Another network that makes life easier for them is FOAF. All that RDF data is trivially easy to process. Probably a lot less people using it that are on Myspace or whatever, but some networking sites do auto-generate FOAF.
My only Windows PC at home is running 98. The only reason for having it is that my kids have a few 'edutainment' titles that use it. If I could get those running on Wine I would switch it to Linux.
98 is getting a pain to use as when you install it you have to get a newer IE in order to run the Windows Update.
I have no desire to buy any newer Windows at the moment. If my kids start demanding better games I might consider a console.
My Win98 CD came with my first PC and has migrated to various PCs over time. Only installed on one at a time of course.
I pay several pence per SMS and that it taxed. I also pay for my broadband and that is taxed. Isn't that enough for them?
The government also takes a large wedge of my wages before I even get a chance to spend it. Then everything I buy involves more tax. Adding more taxes must involve more bureaucracy that will cost us more money. If they need more money why not just raise one of the existing taxes that everyone has to pay?
I've been pushing for years to get some form of wiki in our company. We develop a large application, but different teams don't keep up with what the others are doing. I wanted a way to extract information from peoples' heads into a usable form.
Recently our IT people installed MediaWiki and I have been entering every bit of information I have to look up from other sources whilst trying to maintain a consistent structure.
I've talked a few other people into using it, but takeup is very slow even though I can see from the user list that most people have accessed it. Perhaps part of the problem is that many of them, unlike me, are not used to web pages being updateable. Perhaps they will just claim they don't have the time, but then will spend much more time looking up information in Word documents, emails and out issue tracking system.
My hope is that the wiki will reach a point where people find it already contains most of what they want and then they will start using it and become 'dependent'. I personally do not have the corproate authority to make them use it and management shows no inclination to push the concept.
I'll keep using it even if it's only benefiting me. If anyone asks me anything I can refer them there.
Maybe they could revive the old Teletext pages where you could download programs if you had the right hardware! I had loads of fun with my old BBC Micro.