First off phone companies are highly regulated businesses. They're monopolies providing a vital public service. They're required to support all sorts of law enforcement, privacy, emergency, and low cost services.
For a demonstration take a look at the recent blackout in the NE USA & Ontario. Line phones kept working, exchanges had battery backups, 911 service was in place (unless it failed at the far end as it did disturbingly often.)
Cell phones? Many were deaders. Cable TV? Often the same. So the VOIP providers are getting to skip out an a lot of responsibility that the local monopolies can't.
Further then that the issue isn't local monopolies getting to charge for calls coming over their service, the bigger issue is that soon they won't ever even know about the calls for increasingly many folks.
Vonage works by going over your own high-speed service. That could be some flavor of DSL, or cable, or 802.something, or eventually some sorta ultra wideband decentralized mesh with reverse polarity neutron switching. In any case packets are packets and it'll be part of a flat rate.
Then the monopoly ain't worth a darn but the responsibilities remain the same. The poor, the clueless, the mandated, the emergency services, they'll all continue using the local monopolies while the high value cream (at least as the monopolies see it) abandon them for the alternatives.
They're freaked.
A couple years ago the panacea was going to be getting to handle long distance. Now the economics of that look nearly as bad as local service. Data? Glutted in a market the locals don't have the capitol or freedom to go into. Convergence? Nifty tech keeps getting developed but doing increasingly clever things with twisted pair is expensive.
Most folks see a complete rewrite of the market, from regulations to pricing to the services themselves coming. The upside would probably be cheaper services and investment in new roll outs like fiber to the curb but it'll be an ugly tumultuous process getting there with trillions of bucks riding on all of it.
Small wonder MCI plans to shift 25% of its voice traffic to the Internet backbone by the end of 2003. By 2005, 100% of MCI's traffic will be carried over the Net, instead of traditional copper lines.
Uh, No.
Neither MCI or any other carrier is routing their calls via "the Internet". They're carrying them on internal networks over TCP/IP. That they share a common set of protocol and hardware infrastructure doesn't make them "Internet".
Indeed the closest this sort of inane statement could get to being correct is that some carriers might be routing some of their telephony and traditional data services over the same connections using the same hardware; hardly news and not at all what the article implies.
What makes you believe that's ALL he did?
As to a security hole, the asshole coulda just dropped them a note, not taken advantage of it to vandalize 'em.
he put his Name and contact information in the editorial database
That's altering files. Furthermore that's what he claims he did, NYT then had to go and verify that is actually all he did, that it and other databases were still valid, etc. Tha'ts a lot of hours of work.
The "it could have been worse" agument doesn't make it any better.
There's this awesome way of broadcasting TV wirelessly - it's called "TV broadcasting".
Seriously, by the time your get all the software set up, the players in place, everyone knowing how to click on the right thing, the bandwidth straightened out (you didn't actually think you'd get what the spec claimed it could max out at did you?) plus dealt with network congestion, codecs, encoding servers, weird antennae patterns, dead spots, hand-offs, enabling multicast... You'll be graduating.
Buy a small TV transmitter. Or get it donated. Or try for a grant. Get the local TV station staff involved, not the anchordroid but the behind-the-scenes folks. Heck they might have just what you folks need sitting in their to-be-replaced bin. Tell them you're their role models, inspiring today's youth, yada yada yada.
Or, if you're like many schools, check to see if there already isn't coax installed in the building at some point as some educational initiative or cable TV license package deal.
In any case streaming video reliably across a wired network is tough enough, across a wireless one you're really asking for problems. Unless there's some really compelling reason use TV equipment for TV-style transmissions.
OK - since the topic is up I'll ask for recommendations:
I'm looking for the cheapest CF-based mp3 player on the market.
Small, light, long-life, all pluses. Don't need a fancy display, lotsa controls, or other snazzy features. Just something I can load an hour or two of music into for the train or the gym. The market seems going baroque in features and 'additionial value', how about just "plays mp3s - cheap, long, reliable"?
"The contractor involved and the armed forces instead outright lied through their teeth and ignored the problems while soldiers continued to die."
Cite where Bell in any way lied or otherwise acted improperly in regards the V22. Every document I've seen was clear that Bell was on the up & up and was in no way responsible or supportive of the deceitful military program managers.
Well, actually with MS Office it wasn't so black & white as you present. Until a few years ago the Win & Mac version of MS Office, components like Word & Excel, were indeed 'just recompiled for the other platform'.
Before everyone freaks out bear with me for a moment:
MS Excel was originally a Mac product. The GUI version of Word too. They were both built using an Apple tool called MacApp. When they were ported to Windows the solution was to stay on MacApp and run it under Windows. This kept on for years and years, even after Apple discontinued MacApp MS kept their own version going internally to support their products based upon it.
Thus for many versions MS Word & Excel were indeed pretty much the same under the hood on both platforms. Indeed this became a big problem for Mac folks when a version of Word looked & behaved too much like it's Windows brother (not cousin: "brother", heck "fraternal twin").
Eventually the effort of keeping the underlying platform going, the amount of customization required for each OS, etc. all finally made the common code base too much effort. That was when they finally made the break a few years ago and yeah, the Windows versions were solidly the flagship products and the Mac one's became re-implementations, albeit with access to the original code for guidance.
Some parts of Office were never common. PowerPoint on Mac was never very closely linked. Access never was brought over, ironically MS even recommends FileMaker on the Mac and builds in support for it on their Mac Office suite. Outlook, there's been a long and ugly history of sorta-products with a new version coming out recently but never has it been a peer with the Windows version.
None of the internet division code ever had anything in common on any platform, or with their Office division cousins for that matter (the boneheaded naming of "Outlook Express" atyer "Outlook" notwithstanding). Indeed when IE 5.0 for Mac shipped it was arguably a far better browser then IE 5.0 for Windows.
So yeah, in the case of the two leading MS Office components, going back a few years ago, there was a common code base and yes, it could have been characterized (loosely) as just a recompile away.
Nowadays that isn't the case at all, and indeed with both platforms having large libraries of components and APIs any "native" application is gonna need a serious rewrite for each platform. Ports from 'nix, easier to do if it doesn't mind being a 2nd class citizen, Java on MacOS X is pretty much peer, but outside of that it's a lot of work.
Time-tested, widely applied, easily audited and low cost: Little Old Ladies.
I'm NOT kidding.
Lots of countries use 'em including many parts of the US. They're cheap, reliable, dificult to corrupt and easy to correct. Heck they even take care of themselves between elections.
The only need for an automated system is for that-night-returns, which really is a silly requirement driven only by TV new's demand for the results: RIGHT NOW.
Get over it.
Counting an election properly takes time. Enough with the EyeCluelessNews InstaPolls, the talking head prognosticators desperately trying to fill the air ("Heh heh heh, good one Chuck! Reminds me of the '54 campaign where..."), the half-assed predictions, and let the process proceed appropriately.
No need for expensive fancy gadgets of dubious utility. No need for overnight results to sate the network's clamor. No need to take the simple process of voting and make it some complicated confusing morass further turning off the voters.
Take the money, the time, and the energy and spend it on getting the damn voters out in the first place. All the shiny expensive finicky technology in the world won't help that.
And leave the Little Old Ladies to their counting. They'll get you the results cheap, soon, and right.
OK, first off really do consider an over-the-wire strategy. I use Unison between my desktop and my server, also between my server and another. In my case that's between servers at my two residences so in case of disaster at one I'm good at the other. Of course it's also convenient as I've always got my files synced between both places too. I've buddies who pair up and sync with each other for their own off-site backups.
With 160GB HD's available for US$100 the space isn't much of an issue. Also Unison is pretty clever about how it updates the files (rsync) so bandwidth use is reasonable enough even for home use.
FWIW For a server I use the free e-smith Red Hat-based distribution which is trivially managed from a web browser. It has a custom Unison rpm available for really simple synchronization setup.
The second suggestion is my other solution; an external drive. A cheapie USB2/Firewire case can be picked up for US$40 and any IDE drive popped into it. Again instant reasonably high-speed storage. One can even compress the files to it for more savings, use PGPdisk, encrypted NTFS, etc.
However if you're wedded to using CR/Rs or CD/RWs check out the free Burn to the Brim. While not specifically a backup application (no compression) it does pack the files best for CDs, can sort on many criteria including mp3 tags, and can generate ISO images.
Finally if you really do want a full backup strategy then I suggest Dantz's Restrospect package. Under US$100, very easy to use, cross-platform, long track record and does all that you'd want of it. Good product at a good price with good support.
That would be like rilly rilly insightful if I like lived in the US?
But I don't.
So instead you just look kinda rilly rillyarrogant and obnoxious and like ignorant assuming that, like how many folks characterize Americans?
Oh and that whole "fees" thing: Don't you like have property taxes and drivers license fees and excise taxes and fishing licenses and like, all that? And didn't the US gov't make like bayillions off of auctioning off radio spectrum permits a few years ago? Isn't that like SOOO totally "ridiculous"?
You should like pay more attention, then you'd like know how these things work and not like go telling other folks how you like kinda think they might like work?
So in other words none of your crap has anything to do with me, you're just acting out your personal issues on some other subject.
Get some help, freak. Find someone who cares.
I'm on my time and really don't give a fart any inane projecting you've got going. Work it out somewhere else.
I truly don't give a rats ass what some AC burps up. 99% of them are juvenile hit & run artists without the integrity to stand behind their words, invest the minimal effort into establishing some sort of identity. You can argue there's 1% of content in their shit but I don't care, I've got a life full of interesting things to do and no interest in picking through the dross.
If that concerns you then go read all the tabloids by the checkout line, dumpster dive for that possibly perfect meal, and waste your time on street-corner "personality tests".
But don't bother the rest of us with better things to do with out time & attention.
Why shouldn't they expect to get back return on their property?
I'm sorry, but I don't really see where "they" is valid if you're a citizen of said country and have the same rights to public property as anyone else.
Fine, I'll be paving over that park down the steeet from you. It's public property. What? Got a problem with that?
I've got nothing against "open forums". What I DO have is criteria of the folks I choose to pay attention to. What have YOU got against MY exercising discretion in how I apply MY attention?
Someone can't be bothered to establish the minimal amount of credibility not to be an AC I ignore. So? How exactly is that your business? What offends you so much about it?
Do I have some sort of right to dictate how YOU chose what to read? Please advise.
Most nations consider their telecommunications spectrum to a natural national resource the same as public lands, airspace, coasts, mining, etc. Indeed at one time the US licensed on the basis that "aether" was a physical medium.
You're proposing a business built on using the publics property - their radio frequencies. Why shouldn't they expect to get back return on their property?
In many countries operators are required to give back in return via community-interest programming, being requisitioned in times of emergency, providing other services. Different countries prefer a straight licensing fee: Pay to use the medium or get shut down. Most use some combination as does the USA.
However your asking on/. for an interpretation of St. Lucia law is absolutely ludicrous. Pay for competent local legal advice and don't go asking the geeks for what most of them know little about: International telecommunications law and specifically St. Lucia law.
Why does/. post these garbage questions every so often anyhow? Raise pageviews? It's gotta be obvious few if any of the readers here will have the requisite knowledge, hell half are probably unaware there is non-US law anywhere.
It's good to see Apple and Microsoft are now providing it with some timely competetion [sic].
Yes.
Probably better then you.
I also remember it was based on the early QT codecs with lots of support from Apple. Indeed Cornell used to be quite publicly appreciative of the support they had gotten from Apple on CUSeeMe. In return Apple loved to show off CUSeeMe to it's academic customers as an example of the kind of cutting edge technologies universities going Mac could have.
Did I mention I used to work for a university media lab at the time?
So, yes some of us remember, and even though it wasn't Apple-branded there was CUSeeMe for Mac, and soon thereafter for the brand new Win3.11a.
Thanks but I'm a great cook, so's my partner. We also have busy lives and sometimes just want to nuke up a box of whatever and get back out the door.
We've got a freezer full of home-made frozen stuff and also a few favorite pre-made ones (less then in the US, Quebecers aren't big on frozen foods and the stores have small selections compared to US ones) but yeah, something plug-in-and-forget would work well this evening.
A playwright buddy has a show in the Fringe Festival again this year. I'm going to be out picking up stuff for this weekend, he's is going to be getting in from the gym, we're both going to have to rush and shower, dress for the play and then taking the author out afterwords. If we could toss something in the oven and know that it would come out hot and tasty at the right time with no intervention, no calculating settings, well that'd be great.
Would Alton Brown mind? I bet not, he seems an on-the-go guy with a practical attitude toward food. I know Julia Child wouldn't, we had a chat on the topic a few years ago (we were seated at adjacent tables, she alone and welcoming of discussion.) Turned out she's a fan of frozen string beans in the off-season.
I'm sure parents of babies would appreciate built-in directions - toss the baby food in and know it'll come out properly heated. As well mini-market owners with self-serve microwaves, no more watching the stoners try and figure out how to heat their snacks. Company break rooms with their invariably quixotic ovens would benefit too. Elderly folks would be thrilled - the print on packaging is terrible to try and read, microwave keypads are difficult for them, and when the bones are tired a no-muss hot meal is appreciated.
I know my own parent's, aged 65 & 66, both very bright people, Dad an engineer, Mom a nurse, don't find their new ovens the easiest possible to operate. Setting sequential cycles on the microwave is a hassle and calculating settings for the convection oven (I was careful to include all ovens in my wouldn't-that-be-nice, you seem only to think as far as the microwave) is always trial and error.
Along with the ease of coding manufacturers would be able to include better directions for the automated systems. Right now the goal is as few steps as possible, often to the detriment of the final product. With the settings automated more complex directions could be implemented with a a thaw, a cook, perhaps even keep-warm cycles included.
So, sorry if automation offends your elitist sensibilities but for most folks machines serve us, not the other way 'round. If a device can take a product we place in it and calculate it's own optimum settings then that's an excellent use of technology.
That you disdain commercially prepared items is your own bigotry, I bet your mother considered frozen & pre-made foods a godsend, they certainly seem to sell well and yes, there are some very good products out there
OK, a 17-inch screen "for less than $2500" is kinda outrageous, even with a nifty mirror in front.
However LCD monitor/TVs are really great and I've been looking for one for awhile. I've a couple of buddies with them in their kitchens and been itching to put one in myself. Something that won't take up counterspace, can be hung on the wall, let me use a wireless keyboard & mouse if I want to look up that FoodTV recipe directly, etc.
Doesn't need incredible brightness, not gaming so response time isn't critical, the wider the viewing angle the better but anything over 120 degrees should be fine, LCD resolution is fine no need for great quality. What is does require is a wireless remote, really as few wires as possible. I've looked at the $99 converters and they're all awkward and way to much of a hassle in the kitchen.
So, any recommendations for a good LCD Monitor with a built in TV tuner? 15", 17", with remote, wall-mountable?
That's one piece of home automation I'd appreciate:
Run a chicken pot pie beneath the barcode reader on the microwave and it sets the time and temperature.
It'd be great to have a barcode describing a pre-made food's heating requirements. Something that the oven (microwave, conventional or convection) could apply against it's own known characteristics and produce the best results that can be expected.
No more "9 minutes in a low-wattage microwave, 5 in a powerful one, rotate 1/4 turn after 3 minutes" just a high density coding letting the oven set itself. Heck if developers were clever the coding could even be stenographically embedded in the packaging artwork so it'd be invisible to the consumer, not distract from the pretty pictures.
Put a self-setting item into a smart-oven, it reads off the directions and 4 cycles and however many minutes later your whatsits comes out perfectly cooked.
Oh well yeah, now that all the rumors are in one place...
OK, my predictions:
Apple will come out with a new motherboard design. It will feature HyperTransport architecture from AMD.
Even more support for multiple CPU's including multiple cores.
Serial ATA. Apple will implement it, probably find some clever way to take advantage of it for another radical system case.
USB 2.0. Sure Apple is unimpressed with it but the market demands it and it costs nothing more.
Updated standard graphics cards, probably from both nVidia & ATI.
Apple will continue to grossly overcharge for RAM. Then of course nearly every OEM also does so.
Continue to ship the 1-button/no-button mouse reasoning if folks want more buttons they can spend $10 for another mouse, the OS already supports the other buttons.
Include 802.11g antennas in all offerings.
Apple will do something with video. They've got all the components, now they'll do something different and dramatic like they did with audio.
Something new on the low-end, either a significant change to the eMac or a completely new design.
Apple will announce the next version of MacOS X but probably not ship it, or at least only release it as a beta.
Apple will make some sort of announcement regarding further office applications to compliment Keynote. These may or not be based on OpenOffice/StarOffice.
Lots more functionality included for MacOS X Server. Possibly a small-office/all-in-one/out-of-the-box solution.
A remote client for MacOS X.
Some sort of clustering.
Longshot - Some sort of Exchange/Outlook killer.
Longshot - Wireless webcam.
Longshot - Server blades.
Longshot - A built-in phone management system including universal inbox, menu options programmed graphically, fax management, etc.
So I didn't do my research and other people already called me on it in a more subtle manner. I'm terribly sorry if I offended you in some way (because you certainly seem offended). Anyway, thanks for being redundant.
Clue 1: My post wasn't redundant when composed.
Clue 2: Yes implying long-standing respected organizations are somehow suspect because you've never heard of them is so fantastically asinine it does deserve open derision.
Clue 3: That you go on to suggest they may be "posers" when it's you talking out his, ass, well, that's just too rich.
So yeah, you got trashed. And you deserved it. The adult thing to do would be to acknowledge such, learn from it, not follow up with a lame attempt to justify one's public embarrassment. Apparently too much to expect...
First of all, I assume that neither Apple nor the The Open Group reads what I post, and I would not care for them to; it never was my purpose.
Actually that's not "first of all" and then what exactly was your "purpose"?
To try and impress the/. folks? Spread a little hysteria? Misinformation?
What possible positive purpose could you have intended with your post? You rush to submit without so much as looking up The Open Group, you imply they might be part of some nefarious plot, you then go and suggest they might be somehow at odds with FSF...
Well, news for ya kid: Last time I checked the two organizations were cordial with each-other, had no outstanding issues either was beefing about.
Ya see, that's the danger of bullshitting in public: Every so often you get caught by folks who really do know the score.
In this case I know TOG & I know FSF. I interviewed at TOG years ago, keep in touch with buddies there, have known any number of FSF staffers over the years, been at industry events and private parties with folks from both organizations. Heck, I just realized I've dated Sr. folks from both organizations.
So yeah, when you start spreading your bullshit around I do find it offensive. There's enough crap in this world without little grandstanders like you making more up. Take the lesson.
If you'd bother to actually go to the web page in question you'll find they very (VERY) clearly define what is meant.
MacOS X met (meets?) the criteria for Unix(tm), not just as a goal but as an evaluated certified paid-for-licensing criteria. Not as some dippy lets-all-love-eachother goal but as a stringent test suite paid for and applied.
They have also "threatened" to sue mfg'rs of toasters, PC accessories, and other computer mfg'rs for using pastel and bright color schemes on their products.
Cite that.
Seriously.
Apple has sued other PC makers for too closely copying the iMac. That's their trade dress and they've every right to it.
However Apple hasn't sued any toaster manufacturers unless you're referring to some of the really bad Compaq designs that ran really hot. Nor blender makers, vacuum manufacturers, not even the George Foreman Grill folks.
Just PC and OS folks too closely infringing on the iMac's trade dress.
Go ahead, rebut me. Find a citation where Apple has sued a non-computer related company for infringing. Apple iMac-identical items aside Apple has and can lay no claim to products with swoopy translucent plastic casings in bright colors. Rowenta irons, vTech phones, PaperMate ballpoint pens, all can be as harmonious as they wish with apple's iMac and remain unharassed.
If you've got a problem with a company go ahead and express it but don't go making things up.
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For a demonstration take a look at the recent blackout in the NE USA & Ontario. Line phones kept working, exchanges had battery backups, 911 service was in place (unless it failed at the far end as it did disturbingly often.)
Cell phones? Many were deaders. Cable TV? Often the same. So the VOIP providers are getting to skip out an a lot of responsibility that the local monopolies can't.
Further then that the issue isn't local monopolies getting to charge for calls coming over their service, the bigger issue is that soon they won't ever even know about the calls for increasingly many folks.
Vonage works by going over your own high-speed service. That could be some flavor of DSL, or cable, or 802.something, or eventually some sorta ultra wideband decentralized mesh with reverse polarity neutron switching. In any case packets are packets and it'll be part of a flat rate.
Then the monopoly ain't worth a darn but the responsibilities remain the same. The poor, the clueless, the mandated, the emergency services, they'll all continue using the local monopolies while the high value cream (at least as the monopolies see it) abandon them for the alternatives.
They're freaked.
A couple years ago the panacea was going to be getting to handle long distance. Now the economics of that look nearly as bad as local service. Data? Glutted in a market the locals don't have the capitol or freedom to go into. Convergence? Nifty tech keeps getting developed but doing increasingly clever things with twisted pair is expensive.
Most folks see a complete rewrite of the market, from regulations to pricing to the services themselves coming. The upside would probably be cheaper services and investment in new roll outs like fiber to the curb but it'll be an ugly tumultuous process getting there with trillions of bucks riding on all of it.
Neither MCI or any other carrier is routing their calls via "the Internet". They're carrying them on internal networks over TCP/IP. That they share a common set of protocol and hardware infrastructure doesn't make them "Internet".
Indeed the closest this sort of inane statement could get to being correct is that some carriers might be routing some of their telephony and traditional data services over the same connections using the same hardware; hardly news and not at all what the article implies.
What makes you believe that's ALL he did? As to a security hole, the asshole coulda just dropped them a note, not taken advantage of it to vandalize 'em.
The "it could have been worse" agument doesn't make it any better.
Seriously, by the time your get all the software set up, the players in place, everyone knowing how to click on the right thing, the bandwidth straightened out (you didn't actually think you'd get what the spec claimed it could max out at did you?) plus dealt with network congestion, codecs, encoding servers, weird antennae patterns, dead spots, hand-offs, enabling multicast... You'll be graduating.
Buy a small TV transmitter. Or get it donated. Or try for a grant. Get the local TV station staff involved, not the anchordroid but the behind-the-scenes folks. Heck they might have just what you folks need sitting in their to-be-replaced bin. Tell them you're their role models, inspiring today's youth, yada yada yada.
Or, if you're like many schools, check to see if there already isn't coax installed in the building at some point as some educational initiative or cable TV license package deal.
In any case streaming video reliably across a wired network is tough enough, across a wireless one you're really asking for problems. Unless there's some really compelling reason use TV equipment for TV-style transmissions.
I'm looking for the cheapest CF-based mp3 player on the market.
Small, light, long-life, all pluses. Don't need a fancy display, lotsa controls, or other snazzy features. Just something I can load an hour or two of music into for the train or the gym. The market seems going baroque in features and 'additionial value', how about just "plays mp3s - cheap, long, reliable"?
Cite where Bell in any way lied or otherwise acted improperly in regards the V22. Every document I've seen was clear that Bell was on the up & up and was in no way responsible or supportive of the deceitful military program managers.
Before everyone freaks out bear with me for a moment:
MS Excel was originally a Mac product. The GUI version of Word too. They were both built using an Apple tool called MacApp. When they were ported to Windows the solution was to stay on MacApp and run it under Windows. This kept on for years and years, even after Apple discontinued MacApp MS kept their own version going internally to support their products based upon it.
Thus for many versions MS Word & Excel were indeed pretty much the same under the hood on both platforms. Indeed this became a big problem for Mac folks when a version of Word looked & behaved too much like it's Windows brother (not cousin: "brother", heck "fraternal twin").
Eventually the effort of keeping the underlying platform going, the amount of customization required for each OS, etc. all finally made the common code base too much effort. That was when they finally made the break a few years ago and yeah, the Windows versions were solidly the flagship products and the Mac one's became re-implementations, albeit with access to the original code for guidance.
Some parts of Office were never common. PowerPoint on Mac was never very closely linked. Access never was brought over, ironically MS even recommends FileMaker on the Mac and builds in support for it on their Mac Office suite. Outlook, there's been a long and ugly history of sorta-products with a new version coming out recently but never has it been a peer with the Windows version.
None of the internet division code ever had anything in common on any platform, or with their Office division cousins for that matter (the boneheaded naming of "Outlook Express" atyer "Outlook" notwithstanding). Indeed when IE 5.0 for Mac shipped it was arguably a far better browser then IE 5.0 for Windows.
So yeah, in the case of the two leading MS Office components, going back a few years ago, there was a common code base and yes, it could have been characterized (loosely) as just a recompile away.
Nowadays that isn't the case at all, and indeed with both platforms having large libraries of components and APIs any "native" application is gonna need a serious rewrite for each platform. Ports from 'nix, easier to do if it doesn't mind being a 2nd class citizen, Java on MacOS X is pretty much peer, but outside of that it's a lot of work.
I'm NOT kidding.
Lots of countries use 'em including many parts of the US. They're cheap, reliable, dificult to corrupt and easy to correct. Heck they even take care of themselves between elections.
The only need for an automated system is for that-night-returns, which really is a silly requirement driven only by TV new's demand for the results: RIGHT NOW.
Get over it.
Counting an election properly takes time. Enough with the EyeCluelessNews InstaPolls, the talking head prognosticators desperately trying to fill the air ("Heh heh heh, good one Chuck! Reminds me of the '54 campaign where..."), the half-assed predictions, and let the process proceed appropriately.
No need for expensive fancy gadgets of dubious utility. No need for overnight results to sate the network's clamor. No need to take the simple process of voting and make it some complicated confusing morass further turning off the voters.
Take the money, the time, and the energy and spend it on getting the damn voters out in the first place. All the shiny expensive finicky technology in the world won't help that.
And leave the Little Old Ladies to their counting. They'll get you the results cheap, soon, and right.
With 160GB HD's available for US$100 the space isn't much of an issue. Also Unison is pretty clever about how it updates the files (rsync) so bandwidth use is reasonable enough even for home use.
FWIW For a server I use the free e-smith Red Hat-based distribution which is trivially managed from a web browser. It has a custom Unison rpm available for really simple synchronization setup.
The second suggestion is my other solution; an external drive. A cheapie USB2/Firewire case can be picked up for US$40 and any IDE drive popped into it. Again instant reasonably high-speed storage. One can even compress the files to it for more savings, use PGPdisk, encrypted NTFS, etc.
However if you're wedded to using CR/Rs or CD/RWs check out the free Burn to the Brim. While not specifically a backup application (no compression) it does pack the files best for CDs, can sort on many criteria including mp3 tags, and can generate ISO images.
Finally if you really do want a full backup strategy then I suggest Dantz's Restrospect package. Under US$100, very easy to use, cross-platform, long track record and does all that you'd want of it. Good product at a good price with good support.
But I don't.
So instead you just look kinda rilly rilly arrogant and obnoxious and like ignorant assuming that, like how many folks characterize Americans?
Oh and that whole "fees" thing: Don't you like have property taxes and drivers license fees and excise taxes and fishing licenses and like, all that? And didn't the US gov't make like bayillions off of auctioning off radio spectrum permits a few years ago? Isn't that like SOOO totally "ridiculous"?
You should like pay more attention, then you'd like know how these things work and not like go telling other folks how you like kinda think they might like work?
Get some help, freak. Find someone who cares.
I'm on my time and really don't give a fart any inane projecting you've got going. Work it out somewhere else.
I truly don't give a rats ass what some AC burps up. 99% of them are juvenile hit & run artists without the integrity to stand behind their words, invest the minimal effort into establishing some sort of identity. You can argue there's 1% of content in their shit but I don't care, I've got a life full of interesting things to do and no interest in picking through the dross.
If that concerns you then go read all the tabloids by the checkout line, dumpster dive for that possibly perfect meal, and waste your time on street-corner "personality tests".
But don't bother the rest of us with better things to do with out time & attention.
[flush]
That's how it's valid.
Someone can't be bothered to establish the minimal amount of credibility not to be an AC I ignore. So? How exactly is that your business? What offends you so much about it?
Do I have some sort of right to dictate how YOU chose what to read? Please advise.
You're proposing a business built on using the publics property - their radio frequencies. Why shouldn't they expect to get back return on their property?
In many countries operators are required to give back in return via community-interest programming, being requisitioned in times of emergency, providing other services. Different countries prefer a straight licensing fee: Pay to use the medium or get shut down. Most use some combination as does the USA.
However your asking on /. for an interpretation of St. Lucia law is absolutely ludicrous. Pay for competent local legal advice and don't go asking the geeks for what most of them know little about: International telecommunications law and specifically St. Lucia law.
Why does /. post these garbage questions every so often anyhow? Raise pageviews? It's gotta be obvious few if any of the readers here will have the requisite knowledge, hell half are probably unaware there is non-US law anywhere.
Probably better then you.
I also remember it was based on the early QT codecs with lots of support from Apple. Indeed Cornell used to be quite publicly appreciative of the support they had gotten from Apple on CUSeeMe. In return Apple loved to show off CUSeeMe to it's academic customers as an example of the kind of cutting edge technologies universities going Mac could have.
Did I mention I used to work for a university media lab at the time?
So, yes some of us remember, and even though it wasn't Apple-branded there was CUSeeMe for Mac, and soon thereafter for the brand new Win3.11a.
Thanks but I'm a great cook, so's my partner. We also have busy lives and sometimes just want to nuke up a box of whatever and get back out the door.
We've got a freezer full of home-made frozen stuff and also a few favorite pre-made ones (less then in the US, Quebecers aren't big on frozen foods and the stores have small selections compared to US ones) but yeah, something plug-in-and-forget would work well this evening.
A playwright buddy has a show in the Fringe Festival again this year. I'm going to be out picking up stuff for this weekend, he's is going to be getting in from the gym, we're both going to have to rush and shower, dress for the play and then taking the author out afterwords. If we could toss something in the oven and know that it would come out hot and tasty at the right time with no intervention, no calculating settings, well that'd be great.
Would Alton Brown mind? I bet not, he seems an on-the-go guy with a practical attitude toward food. I know Julia Child wouldn't, we had a chat on the topic a few years ago (we were seated at adjacent tables, she alone and welcoming of discussion.) Turned out she's a fan of frozen string beans in the off-season.
I'm sure parents of babies would appreciate built-in directions - toss the baby food in and know it'll come out properly heated. As well mini-market owners with self-serve microwaves, no more watching the stoners try and figure out how to heat their snacks. Company break rooms with their invariably quixotic ovens would benefit too. Elderly folks would be thrilled - the print on packaging is terrible to try and read, microwave keypads are difficult for them, and when the bones are tired a no-muss hot meal is appreciated.
I know my own parent's, aged 65 & 66, both very bright people, Dad an engineer, Mom a nurse, don't find their new ovens the easiest possible to operate. Setting sequential cycles on the microwave is a hassle and calculating settings for the convection oven (I was careful to include all ovens in my wouldn't-that-be-nice, you seem only to think as far as the microwave) is always trial and error.
Along with the ease of coding manufacturers would be able to include better directions for the automated systems. Right now the goal is as few steps as possible, often to the detriment of the final product. With the settings automated more complex directions could be implemented with a a thaw, a cook, perhaps even keep-warm cycles included.
So, sorry if automation offends your elitist sensibilities but for most folks machines serve us , not the other way 'round. If a device can take a product we place in it and calculate it's own optimum settings then that's an excellent use of technology.
That you disdain commercially prepared items is your own bigotry, I bet your mother considered frozen & pre-made foods a godsend, they certainly seem to sell well and yes, there are some very good products out there
However LCD monitor/TVs are really great and I've been looking for one for awhile. I've a couple of buddies with them in their kitchens and been itching to put one in myself. Something that won't take up counterspace, can be hung on the wall, let me use a wireless keyboard & mouse if I want to look up that FoodTV recipe directly, etc.
Doesn't need incredible brightness, not gaming so response time isn't critical, the wider the viewing angle the better but anything over 120 degrees should be fine, LCD resolution is fine no need for great quality. What is does require is a wireless remote, really as few wires as possible. I've looked at the $99 converters and they're all awkward and way to much of a hassle in the kitchen.
So, any recommendations for a good LCD Monitor with a built in TV tuner? 15", 17", with remote, wall-mountable?
No more "9 minutes in a low-wattage microwave, 5 in a powerful one, rotate 1/4 turn after 3 minutes" just a high density coding letting the oven set itself. Heck if developers were clever the coding could even be stenographically embedded in the packaging artwork so it'd be invisible to the consumer, not distract from the pretty pictures.
Put a self-setting item into a smart-oven, it reads off the directions and 4 cycles and however many minutes later your whatsits comes out perfectly cooked.
OK, my predictions:
Clue 2: Yes implying long-standing respected organizations are somehow suspect because you've never heard of them is so fantastically asinine it does deserve open derision.
Clue 3: That you go on to suggest they may be "posers" when it's you talking out his, ass, well, that's just too rich.
So yeah, you got trashed. And you deserved it. The adult thing to do would be to acknowledge such, learn from it, not follow up with a lame attempt to justify one's public embarrassment. Apparently too much to expect...
Actually that's not "first of all" and then what exactly was your "purpose"?To try and impress the /. folks? Spread a little hysteria? Misinformation?
What possible positive purpose could you have intended with your post? You rush to submit without so much as looking up The Open Group, you imply they might be part of some nefarious plot, you then go and suggest they might be somehow at odds with FSF...
Well, news for ya kid: Last time I checked the two organizations were cordial with each-other, had no outstanding issues either was beefing about.
Ya see, that's the danger of bullshitting in public: Every so often you get caught by folks who really do know the score.
In this case I know TOG & I know FSF. I interviewed at TOG years ago, keep in touch with buddies there, have known any number of FSF staffers over the years, been at industry events and private parties with folks from both organizations. Heck, I just realized I've dated Sr. folks from both organizations.
So yeah, when you start spreading your bullshit around I do find it offensive. There's enough crap in this world without little grandstanders like you making more up. Take the lesson.
MacOS X met (meets?) the criteria for Unix(tm), not just as a goal but as an evaluated certified paid-for-licensing criteria. Not as some dippy lets-all-love-eachother goal but as a stringent test suite paid for and applied.
Seriously.
Apple has sued other PC makers for too closely copying the iMac. That's their trade dress and they've every right to it.
However Apple hasn't sued any toaster manufacturers unless you're referring to some of the really bad Compaq designs that ran really hot. Nor blender makers, vacuum manufacturers, not even the George Foreman Grill folks.
Just PC and OS folks too closely infringing on the iMac's trade dress.
Go ahead, rebut me. Find a citation where Apple has sued a non-computer related company for infringing. Apple iMac-identical items aside Apple has and can lay no claim to products with swoopy translucent plastic casings in bright colors. Rowenta irons, vTech phones, PaperMate ballpoint pens, all can be as harmonious as they wish with apple's iMac and remain unharassed.
If you've got a problem with a company go ahead and express it but don't go making things up.