Trick out home videos with a fun, featureful menu system that viewers can navigate from a regular DVD player.
Traditionally, DVD authoring has been an expensive affair. Full-featured professional applications can cost thousands of dollars, while cheaper products, such as Apple's iDVD, have arbitrary restrictions that significantly reduce their usefulness. A new open-source effort, dvdauthor, is bringing the possibility of low-cost, professional-grade DVD authoring to Linux. Although it doesn't yet support all the features of the DVD specification, development is proceeding at a fast pace, and new features are being added with each release. Together with a more established open-source toolkit, mjpegtools, this article explains how to construct a relatively complex DVD application, a photo album, with dvdauthor. We also illustrate the various features that dvdauthor currently supports and how to use open-source tools to construct a DVD-R that can play on almost every DVD player. How a DVD Works (Quick Version)
A DVD is comprised of one or more video title sets (VTSes), which contain video information in the form of MPEG-2 video streams. Each disc can have up to 99 VTSes, and each title set can be subdivided further into as many as 99 chapters, allowing DVD players to jump to a certain point within the video stream. Within each VTS, a DVD can have up to eight different audio tracks and 32 subtitle tracks that the viewer can switch between at will. A menu system can be included within a title set, allowing the viewer to select between the different subtitle and audio tracks. An optional top-level menu, known as the video manager menu (VMGM), is used to navigate between the different title sets. One VTS may contain a feature film and another may contain a documentary on the film, and the VMGM allows viewers to select which one they want to watch.
The DVD format doesn't eliminate the differences between the two competing broadcasting formats, NTSC (primarily used in America) and PAL (the standard in Europe and Japan). I live in Britain, so the frame information and resolution details used in this article are for a PAL system, but I point out the differences you need to be aware of when they appear and offer appropriate settings for an NTSC disc.
The DVD specification includes advanced features, such as the concept of region coding, the possibility of viewing different angles of a video stream and simple computations using built-in registers provided by a DVD player. I don't know much about these features, and they aren't discussed in this article. The dvdauthor mailing list is a good source for further information. Planning
Before we rush headlong into creating menus, subtitling and multiplexing, it's a good idea to sketch out the structure of the DVD with paper and pencil. Proprietary DVD tools offer GUI systems for creating this type of structure, but no such tools are available yet for DVD production on Linux. As you'll soon see, the command-line tools have a lot of different options, so having your ideas on paper is preferable to trying to keep everything in your head.
The DVD application I'm creating is a photo album, using pictures that I took while studying abroad at UNC-Chapel Hill this past year. For simplicity's sake, I have only six photos in each category. On paper, I decide that the main menu (the VMGM unit) should have five buttons, four of which are simple text buttons (one for each different photo category), plus a secret link unlocking extra pictures (secret extra features are a common occurrence in commercial DVDs) and a music track playing in the background. The four regular buttons link to one of four menus, one for each different section. The menu system for each section consists of two menus and an audio track, with selectable preview images of the slideshow, a button to move onto the next set of preview images and two buttons that allow the viewer to watch the complete slideshow or go back to the main menu. To keep things simple, the photo slideshow s
Technologically inclined countries would suffer the most from such attacks.However, terrorists would rather use low-cost/high-bodycount methods, like hijacking a plane and flying it into a building; no cost to Al Queda (they just had to pay for training and carpet knives).
That would depend on who the teroists are. Al Queda are not the only teroist group, and they are considered unusual because they are prepared (even eager) to commit attrocites with a high civilian death toll.
According to conventional doctrine a rational terrorists group will avoid killing large numbers of civilian bystanders in order to avoid aleanating the community from which they draw their support (and funding). For such a teroist group, a weapon capable of causing billions of dollars of economic damage to an enemy, while killing few if any civilians would be quite attractive.
An example of and economic attack would be the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombs in the City of London financial district, which killed few if any people, (I can't remember the details) but did close to a billion dollars of damage. Had microwave weapons been avalable to the IRA at the time, it is likely that they would have used them.
The Register also have an article today on the subject.
According to the article in The Register, the old discs where unpopular with consumers because they could not be played on PCs, or riped to portable music players.
The new discs will have a second session, containing encrypted audio data, that can be played on a PC, using Sony's software (On supported platforms, non lintel users need not apply). The audio can also be copied to a portable music player, but only sony players are supported.
In conclusion, I would say that while sony have listened to consumer complaints about their last copy protected disc, their solution is hardly any better. Even John Q Public will see these new discs as no better than the old ones if he owns another brand of portable music player.
The Economist also have an article today on the subject of Goggle.
The article speculates a possible $15bn Goggle IPO, and argues that this would be risky, because unlike Yahoo, Lycos, MSN etc, Goggle have only a single product, and can easily be displaced by a couple of clever computer geeks, just like the founders of Goggle did with Alta vista.
Worryingly, they argue that Goggle should head into the paid for search search market in order to increase their current $150 m profit. ($150m is clearly not enough to justify a $15bn market cap).
They also cite Google's perceived 'goodness' compared with Microsoft, as an advantage in any battle against MS, and a barrier against any takeover.
A meteorite of not much larger mass could have
caused far more widespread destruction. I could be off on my facts
here, but I remember reading about a similar event taking place in
Russia,
devastating several many acres of open forest. Should it have
impacted a city, the city would have been leveled.
Perhaps even scarier, is if this meteorite had been as big as the Tunguska
event, it would probably have been mistaken for a nuclear explosion.
With the ongoing cold war between India and Pakistan, the Indian
military might well have shot first, and asked questions later, causing
a small nuclear war, and a much greater loss of life than the initial
meteorite.
ESD Product service support subject: New Retain tip
Record number: H031944
Device: D/T8550
Model: M
Hit count: UHC00000
Success count: USC00000
Publication code: PC50
Tip key: 025
Date created: O89/02/14
Date last altered: A89/02/15
Owning B.U.: USA
Abstract: Mouse balls now available as FRU (Field Replaceable Unit)
Text:
Mouse balls are now available as a FRU. If a mouse fails to operate, or should perform erratically, it may be in need of ball replacement. Because of the delicate nature of this procedure, replacement of mouse balls should be attempted by trained personnel only.
Before ordering, determine type of mouse balls required by examining the underside of each mouse. Domestic balls will be larger and harder than foreign balls. Ball removal procedures differ, depending upon manufacturer of the mouse. Foreign balls can be replaced using the pop-off method, and domestic balls replaced using the twist-off method. Mouse balls are not usually static sensitive, however, excessive handling can resutlt in sudden discharge. Upon completion of ball replacement, the mouse may be used immediately.
It is recommended that each servicer have a pair of balls for maintaining optimum customer satisfaction, and that any customer missing his balls should suspect local personnel of removing thes necessary functional items
P/N33F8462--DOMESTIC MOUSE BALLS
P/N33F8461--FOREIGN MOUSE BALLS
(Copy typed from the rec.hummor.funny archive. Typos are mine, the origonal posting was in all caps, which does not pas the Lameness filter)
The problem with that scheme is proving, obviousness and prior art after the event.
My suggestion:
Inventor submits electronically. The PHP server at the patent office digitally signs the patent and records the date of submission.
The patent contains two parts, an Abstract that species the problem, and which parts of the problem the patent claims to have solved, and a body, that contains the actual description of the device (or what ever) that solves the problem.
The Abstract is published on the patent office web site immediately, The body is published after a short delay (4 weeks?)
Anyone reading the abstract who is working on the same problem, can submit another patent claiming to solve the same problem. If any two independently submitted patents for the same problem match, that solution is clearly obvious, so those patents are not granted. Members of the public can also submit solutions without requesting a patent, at no fee.
In any case, everything submitted is published on the patent office website at the end of the delay.
When it is all published, anyone can claim that there is prior art. If there is the patent is revoked. Likewise they might claim that the abstract does not describe the problem in sufficient detail or clarity.
The system would be enforced by denying abusers the right to make patents for a time.
A friend of mine used to be in an unsigned Metal band. He told me that one of the most boring parts is copying CDs. Apparently commercial CD copy companies usually had a minimum order that was quite large, and always invented problems with whatever was sent to them, creating longer turn around and more hassle. The cost per CD was also quite high compared with burning their own on a CDR.
Instead, what he would do, is to setup his PC next to a sofa in front of the TV, and manually swap CDs, while watching TV. He said that if he managed 20 CDs per hour (on his 40x burner) he would be doing well, but tropically managed less than that.
It was of course, boring, and prone to error.
A contraption to automatically load, burn and unload CDs, like in the article, would have been much better. He could have loaded it up with 200 blanks, gone to bed and come back in the morning to find it jammed, but at least with ~100 CDs done:-)
I would have thought, that the publishers would have learnt their lesson, and made sure that translations into the other languages where Harry Potter has a large fan base would be released on the same day as the english version, or failing that, not more than a month later.
Considering the huge volume of pre-orders that there where for book 5 in english, I think it was unreasonable to expect German fans to wait 3 months for the official translation, or Czech fans to wait 8.
Obviously some fans can read the book in english, but considering that the book is aimed at children, many will not, Instead they will ask their parents to read the book and give them the plot highlights. Is it not surprising that some of those adults are organising themselves to translate the book.
I am not condoning the what is happening, it is still a copyright violation, but it was entirely predictable, and IMHO, the publishers only have themselves to blame.
If I had something worth protecting, I would agree. But if someone sinister really wants to attack my computer while I'm in the middle of a mad game of scrabble with my Wife...then I'll fix whatever they broke and take the needed security precautions.
Bad idea! If someone hacks your network and used your connection, then you could get into serous trouble
About a month ago, My next door neighbour was convicted of downloading child porn from the internet. When people in my neighbourhood read about it in the newspapers, they broke all his windows, wrote graffiti, and hounded him away.
Had I been running a wireless network, he could have easily leeched my internet connection to download the filth. Then the cops would have come knocking on my door. Even if I had been able to convince them that it was someone else, there would still be a nasty air of suspicion, from my other neighbours. Mud sticks.
After that incident, I would advise anyone thinking of setting up a wireless network to secure it well, and if they grant access to any third party, they should log EVERYTHING, as they may need those logs to defend themselves.
Likewise, an open network could be used to send spam, or hack attacks, but that is less likely to cause criminal charges back in the real world.
This is an Excellent example of why software patents are bad
Right now, if you are a European citizen, like I am, then Write to your European Member of Parliament (MEP), and tell them that you think software patents are a bad thing, and that they should vote against them on June 30th.
The forthcoming European vote was covered here on slashdot a few days ago, but did not make the front page, so did not get much coverage.
You can find a list of European Members of Parliament here To avoid annoying them, do write you your MEP, not to a party leader. If you have several, please take a look at which issues they cover, and chose the one that take an interest in trade/technology etc.
Remember, Write NOW! we don't want this sort of cr*p in
To download the data, I use the Garmin Mapsource software under windows. I beleve there is also a linux program avalable called gpstrans that allows you to dump the memory of a Garmin GPS recever to a text file. Both are Garmin Specific. For your magellan, you might try gpsman which is a Tk/TCL program that allows you download routes, from many makes of GPS. I don't know how good the export facilites are though
Once I have exported the track, I get about a thousand waypoints in a flat text file, like this:
Header Position Time Altitude Depth Leg Length Leg Time Leg Speed Leg Course
Trackpoint SU 72030 76363 80.4 m Trackpoint SU 71964 76159 78.5 m 214.3 m 199 true Trackpoint SU 72053 76430 77.5 m 285.2 m 19 true Trackpoint SU 72443 76564 79.4 m 411.9 m 72 true Trackpoint SU 73069 75936 71.3 m 886.6 m 136 true
One regular expresson later, and I have the data loaded into my perl script;-)
For a base map, I download mapping data from one of those web sites that will give you a map when you type in a street address or postal code. Needless to say, the site's T&Cs forbid downloading.
I plot my route onto the map, by using libGD in perl, and display it by generating an html file, which I can view or print with mozilla. Unofortunately, I don't have an A2 colour printer, so my maps come out rather small, and in sections:-(
If you live in the UK, or consider yourself a skilled perl hacker, I would be happy to give you a copy of the script, but as it is quite closely tied to the British national grid, I don't think it would be usefull to anyone outside the UK, who is not able to a lot of modification
My first hobby is Cross Country Mountain biking. One of my first uses of the internet was to read about it in rec.bicycles.offroad (A sadly defunct news group thanks to trolling).
Back when I was a student, I even went to the trouble of leaning a fair bit about engineering and metallurgy. (eg The effect of heat treatments on the crystal structure of aluminium alloys). Now I just ride more instead:-)
I still involve computers though. I have a GPS mounted on my bike, which I use to record my route. When I get back I download the route to my PC, and then use some perl scripts I wrote to create a highlighted map of my route, which I can print out for later use.
Do many other slashdoters share my hobby? Back when I was at university, most of my fellow club members where engineering students rather than anything else. (One had even welded his own frame).
I agree that it's not safe to rely on humans to keep systems patched. But, for one, if most systems are kept patched, a worm like SLAMMER would be useless. This is an obvious point you neglect, but not an interesting one.
I would disagree there. Computer worms actively seek out computers to infect, compared with viruses that only spread by contagion.
With human diseases, if most potential hosts are immune, then an epidemic cannot develop. The minimum immunisation level is generally considered to be about 95%. At that level, the chance that an infections person will meet and infect a non immune person in the week or so that they are infections but not obviously sick is low. The situation is similar with old style (boot sector) viruses.
On the other hand, modern worms, are designed to seek out susceptible hosts, so even if only 1% of computers are susceptible, then they will all become infected, quite quickly.
The rest of us, who have patched our systems, now have to put up with constant probing from the infected systems out there. What we need to do, is to find a way to quarantine infected hosts as close to source as possible so that they are less of an hazard to the rest of us.
According to the product info, it is battery powered and does not need a PC. You can copy data between flash cards and the internal hard drive.
Using one of these readers, the questioner could copy photos from their camera's flash card to a larger hard drive. They might then post the flash card home, while retaining a backup with them in case it is lost in the post.
That is a good idea, and something that I would find very usefull. I find it annoying that everytime I want to setup some common service on my linux box, I have to wade through a huge HOWTO and read a some articles online, when I could simply modify a simple code snippet.
Does such a repository of snippets exist anywhere?
...before the RIAA start requiring watermarked cinema screens and/or cinema footage so that they can process the telesync'ed versions to discover which cinema and/or "reel" were used in its making, and so zero in on the individual pirates?
I dare say such watermarks can be detected and removed by the pirates
In any case, if the practice became widespread, pirates could rob the reels of film directly from the cinema or delevery truck.
I doubt it would be very difficult. One local cinema I vist often has the boxes of film sitting in the lobby on wednesday afternoons. I would not take very much for someone to just grab them.
Having stolen he films, the pirates would not need a cinema projector, as they could simply put the film through a standard 35mm film scanner.
Please excuse me if I have missed some obvous point, but why not put up
on your 'compiler website' an applet that does the complition on the
user's computer, in order to avoid using up cycles on the server? It
should be relatively simple to put together such an applet, with two
text boxes, one to paste the source into, and one for compler messages. When compilation is complete, The user clicks a button to copy the compled class onto the system clipboard from where it can be saved.
In order to work the applet would call the classes in
com.sun.tools.javac.* to do the compilation, and have access to all the
other classes in the java class libaries so that everything could be
validated for the correct method prototypes etc.
So that a low bandwith user only downloads the classes that they need,
and that their program refers to, the classes would need to be served
individualy, rather than residing in a huge jar file.
Anything wrong with this plan? (appart from a redistibution clause in
SUN's EULA?)
Do you actualy NEED 2 Mpix+ or is that is that just a 'nice to have'? like wise do you need a flash, or will you mostly be taking pictures out doors?
If neither apply, you might be better served by buying a load of cheap digital cameras, and while trying not to break them, not worrying over much if you break a few. After all, that $1000 budget will buy an awfull lot low cost $50 cameras like this one.
Of course you can still keep arround a few disposable cameras, in case you need to take picutes at night or such like.
In any case, do you expect to break them that often? the conditions on a construction site can't be that much harsher from those experenced by backcountry hikers and campers, who don't usualy break their equipment.
Slashdot Mirror
Trick out home videos with a fun, featureful menu system that viewers can navigate from a regular DVD player.
Traditionally, DVD authoring has been an expensive affair. Full-featured professional applications can cost thousands of dollars, while cheaper products, such as Apple's iDVD, have arbitrary restrictions that significantly reduce their usefulness. A new open-source effort, dvdauthor, is bringing the possibility of low-cost, professional-grade DVD authoring to Linux. Although it doesn't yet support all the features of the DVD specification, development is proceeding at a fast pace, and new features are being added with each release. Together with a more established open-source toolkit, mjpegtools, this article explains how to construct a relatively complex DVD application, a photo album, with dvdauthor. We also illustrate the various features that dvdauthor currently supports and how to use open-source tools to construct a DVD-R that can play on almost every DVD player.
How a DVD Works (Quick Version)
A DVD is comprised of one or more video title sets (VTSes), which contain video information in the form of MPEG-2 video streams. Each disc can have up to 99 VTSes, and each title set can be subdivided further into as many as 99 chapters, allowing DVD players to jump to a certain point within the video stream. Within each VTS, a DVD can have up to eight different audio tracks and 32 subtitle tracks that the viewer can switch between at will. A menu system can be included within a title set, allowing the viewer to select between the different subtitle and audio tracks. An optional top-level menu, known as the video manager menu (VMGM), is used to navigate between the different title sets. One VTS may contain a feature film and another may contain a documentary on the film, and the VMGM allows viewers to select which one they want to watch.
The DVD format doesn't eliminate the differences between the two competing broadcasting formats, NTSC (primarily used in America) and PAL (the standard in Europe and Japan). I live in Britain, so the frame information and resolution details used in this article are for a PAL system, but I point out the differences you need to be aware of when they appear and offer appropriate settings for an NTSC disc.
The DVD specification includes advanced features, such as the concept of region coding, the possibility of viewing different angles of a video stream and simple computations using built-in registers provided by a DVD player. I don't know much about these features, and they aren't discussed in this article. The dvdauthor mailing list is a good source for further information.
Planning
Before we rush headlong into creating menus, subtitling and multiplexing, it's a good idea to sketch out the structure of the DVD with paper and pencil. Proprietary DVD tools offer GUI systems for creating this type of structure, but no such tools are available yet for DVD production on Linux. As you'll soon see, the command-line tools have a lot of different options, so having your ideas on paper is preferable to trying to keep everything in your head.
The DVD application I'm creating is a photo album, using pictures that I took while studying abroad at UNC-Chapel Hill this past year. For simplicity's sake, I have only six photos in each category. On paper, I decide that the main menu (the VMGM unit) should have five buttons, four of which are simple text buttons (one for each different photo category), plus a secret link unlocking extra pictures (secret extra features are a common occurrence in commercial DVDs) and a music track playing in the background. The four regular buttons link to one of four menus, one for each different section. The menu system for each section consists of two menus and an audio track, with selectable preview images of the slideshow, a button to move onto the next set of preview images and two buttons that allow the viewer to watch the complete slideshow or go back to the main menu. To keep things simple, the photo slideshow s
That would depend on who the teroists are. Al Queda are not the only teroist group, and they are considered unusual because they are prepared (even eager) to commit attrocites with a high civilian death toll.
According to conventional doctrine a rational terrorists group will avoid killing large numbers of civilian bystanders in order to avoid aleanating the community from which they draw their support (and funding). For such a teroist group, a weapon capable of causing billions of dollars of economic damage to an enemy, while killing few if any civilians would be quite attractive.
An example of and economic attack would be the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombs in the City of London financial district, which killed few if any people, (I can't remember the details) but did close to a billion dollars of damage. Had microwave weapons been avalable to the IRA at the time, it is likely that they would have used them.
The Register also have an article today on the subject.
According to the article in The Register, the old discs where unpopular with consumers because they could not be played on PCs, or riped to portable music players.
The new discs will have a second session, containing encrypted audio data, that can be played on a PC, using Sony's software (On supported platforms, non lintel users need not apply). The audio can also be copied to a portable music player, but only sony players are supported.
In conclusion, I would say that while sony have listened to consumer complaints about their last copy protected disc, their solution is hardly any better. Even John Q Public will see these new discs as no better than the old ones if he owns another brand of portable music player.
The Economist also have an article today on the subject of Goggle.
The article speculates a possible $15bn Goggle IPO, and argues that this would be risky, because unlike Yahoo, Lycos, MSN etc, Goggle have only a single product, and can easily be displaced by a couple of clever computer geeks, just like the founders of Goggle did with Alta vista.
Worryingly, they argue that Goggle should head into the paid for search search market in order to increase their current $150 m profit. ($150m is clearly not enough to justify a $15bn market cap).
They also cite Google's perceived 'goodness' compared with Microsoft, as an advantage in any battle against MS, and a barrier against any takeover.
Almost any pen will write acceptably well, so the pen I carry was chosen for different reasons. It was the one my Girlfriend gave me for christmas.
For the record it is a Waterman fountain pen, that I have filled with black ink. I think it cost her about $20.
With the ongoing cold war between India and Pakistan, the Indian military might well have shot first, and asked questions later, causing a small nuclear war, and a much greater loss of life than the initial meteorite.
Review in The Register here.
Nokia page about the phone, with a better listing of fetures here.
You can, though it is easier to see Kent from france, as the white cliffs of dover stand out quite well.
BTW, it is about 20 miles, (across the straights of dover) and there are tall cliffs on both sides, which improves sight lines
New Sun Microsystems Chip May Unseat the Circuit Board
ESD Product service support subject: New Retain tip
Abstract: Mouse balls now available as FRU (Field Replaceable Unit)
Text:
Mouse balls are now available as a FRU. If a mouse fails to operate, or should perform erratically, it may be in need of ball replacement. Because of the delicate nature of this procedure, replacement of mouse balls should be attempted by trained personnel only.
Before ordering, determine type of mouse balls required by examining the underside of each mouse. Domestic balls will be larger and harder than foreign balls. Ball removal procedures differ, depending upon manufacturer of the mouse. Foreign balls can be replaced using the pop-off method, and domestic balls replaced using the twist-off method. Mouse balls are not usually static sensitive, however, excessive handling can resutlt in sudden discharge. Upon completion of ball replacement, the mouse may be used immediately.
It is recommended that each servicer have a pair of balls for maintaining optimum customer satisfaction, and that any customer missing his balls should suspect local personnel of removing thes necessary functional items
(Copy typed from the rec.hummor.funny archive. Typos are mine, the origonal posting was in all caps, which does not pas the Lameness filter)
The problem with that scheme is proving, obviousness and prior art after the event.
My suggestion:
A friend of mine used to be in an unsigned Metal band. He told me that one of the most boring parts is copying CDs. Apparently commercial CD copy companies usually had a minimum order that was quite large, and always invented problems with whatever was sent to them, creating longer turn around and more hassle. The cost per CD was also quite high compared with burning their own on a CDR.
Instead, what he would do, is to setup his PC next to a sofa in front of the TV, and manually swap CDs, while watching TV. He said that if he managed 20 CDs per hour (on his 40x burner) he would be doing well, but tropically managed less than that.
It was of course, boring, and prone to error.
A contraption to automatically load, burn and unload CDs, like in the article, would have been much better. He could have loaded it up with 200 blanks, gone to bed and come back in the morning to find it jammed, but at least with ~100 CDs done :-)
I am surprised they let this happen
The thing is, exactly the same thing happened last time, when Book four was published.
At the time, (August 2000 BTW), some German fans started a distributed translation effort, as reported at the time in the Register
I would have thought, that the publishers would have learnt their lesson, and made sure that translations into the other languages where Harry Potter has a large fan base would be released on the same day as the english version, or failing that, not more than a month later.
Considering the huge volume of pre-orders that there where for book 5 in english, I think it was unreasonable to expect German fans to wait 3 months for the official translation, or Czech fans to wait 8.
Obviously some fans can read the book in english, but considering that the book is aimed at children, many will not, Instead they will ask their parents to read the book and give them the plot highlights. Is it not surprising that some of those adults are organising themselves to translate the book.
I am not condoning the what is happening, it is still a copyright violation, but it was entirely predictable, and IMHO, the publishers only have themselves to blame.
Bad idea! If someone hacks your network and used your connection, then you could get into serous trouble
About a month ago, My next door neighbour was convicted of downloading child porn from the internet. When people in my neighbourhood read about it in the newspapers, they broke all his windows, wrote graffiti, and hounded him away.
Had I been running a wireless network, he could have easily leeched my internet connection to download the filth. Then the cops would have come knocking on my door. Even if I had been able to convince them that it was someone else, there would still be a nasty air of suspicion, from my other neighbours. Mud sticks.
After that incident, I would advise anyone thinking of setting up a wireless network to secure it well, and if they grant access to any third party, they should log EVERYTHING, as they may need those logs to defend themselves.
Likewise, an open network could be used to send spam, or hack attacks, but that is less likely to cause criminal charges back in the real world.
This is an Excellent example of why software patents are bad
Right now, if you are a European citizen, like I am, then Write to your European Member of Parliament (MEP), and tell them that you think software patents are a bad thing, and that they should vote against them on June 30th.
The forthcoming European vote was covered here on slashdot a few days ago, but did not make the front page, so did not get much coverage.
You can find a list of European Members of Parliament here To avoid annoying them, do write you your MEP, not to a party leader. If you have several, please take a look at which issues they cover, and chose the one that take an interest in trade/technology etc.
Remember, Write NOW! we don't want this sort of cr*p in
I just got back from a ride :-)
Mine is a Garmin GPS (eTrex)
To download the data, I use the Garmin Mapsource software under windows. I beleve there is also a linux program avalable called gpstrans that allows you to dump the memory of a Garmin GPS recever to a text file. Both are Garmin Specific. For your magellan, you might try gpsman which is a Tk/TCL program that allows you download routes, from many makes of GPS. I don't know how good the export facilites are though
Once I have exported the track, I get about a thousand waypoints in a flat text file, like this:
One regular expresson later, and I have the data loaded into my perl script ;-)
For a base map, I download mapping data from one of those web sites that will give you a map when you type in a street address or postal code. Needless to say, the site's T&Cs forbid downloading.
I plot my route onto the map, by using libGD in perl, and display it by generating an html file, which I can view or print with mozilla. Unofortunately, I don't have an A2 colour printer, so my maps come out rather small, and in sections :-(
If you live in the UK, or consider yourself a skilled perl hacker, I would be happy to give you a copy of the script, but as it is quite closely tied to the British national grid, I don't think it would be usefull to anyone outside the UK, who is not able to a lot of modification
I hope you find this informative.
My first hobby is Cross Country Mountain biking. One of my first uses of the internet was to read about it in rec.bicycles.offroad (A sadly defunct news group thanks to trolling).
Back when I was a student, I even went to the trouble of leaning a fair bit about engineering and metallurgy. (eg The effect of heat treatments on the crystal structure of aluminium alloys). Now I just ride more instead :-)
I still involve computers though. I have a GPS mounted on my bike, which I use to record my route. When I get back I download the route to my PC, and then use some perl scripts I wrote to create a highlighted map of my route, which I can print out for later use.
Do many other slashdoters share my hobby? Back when I was at university, most of my fellow club members where engineering students rather than anything else. (One had even welded his own frame).
I would disagree there. Computer worms actively seek out computers to infect, compared with viruses that only spread by contagion.
With human diseases, if most potential hosts are immune, then an epidemic cannot develop. The minimum immunisation level is generally considered to be about 95%. At that level, the chance that an infections person will meet and infect a non immune person in the week or so that they are infections but not obviously sick is low. The situation is similar with old style (boot sector) viruses.
On the other hand, modern worms, are designed to seek out susceptible hosts, so even if only 1% of computers are susceptible, then they will all become infected, quite quickly.
The rest of us, who have patched our systems, now have to put up with constant probing from the infected systems out there. What we need to do, is to find a way to quarantine infected hosts as close to source as possible so that they are less of an hazard to the rest of us.
What about one of these:
6 in 1 Card Reader (SM/MMC/SD/CF/Microdrive/Mstick) + Takes 2.5" HDD (not Supplied)
According to the product info, it is battery powered and does not need a PC. You can copy data between flash cards and the internal hard drive.
Using one of these readers, the questioner could copy photos from their camera's flash card to a larger hard drive. They might then post the flash card home, while retaining a backup with them in case it is lost in the post.
I hope this helps.
That was probably this article entitled: Britannia to issue WiFi PDAs to cabin crew on the register a couple of months ago
Britannia are a low cost airline that mosty do charter flights for package holidays in the med. I have never flown with them.
Mod parent up.
That is a good idea, and something that I would find very usefull. I find it annoying that everytime I want to setup some common service on my linux box, I have to wade through a huge HOWTO and read a some articles online, when I could simply modify a simple code snippet.
Does such a repository of snippets exist anywhere?
I dare say such watermarks can be detected and removed by the pirates
In any case, if the practice became widespread, pirates could rob the reels of film directly from the cinema or delevery truck.
I doubt it would be very difficult. One local cinema I vist often has the boxes of film sitting in the lobby on wednesday afternoons. I would not take very much for someone to just grab them.
Having stolen he films, the pirates would not need a cinema projector, as they could simply put the film through a standard 35mm film scanner.
In order to work the applet would call the classes in com.sun.tools.javac.* to do the compilation, and have access to all the other classes in the java class libaries so that everything could be validated for the correct method prototypes etc.
So that a low bandwith user only downloads the classes that they need, and that their program refers to, the classes would need to be served individualy, rather than residing in a huge jar file.
Anything wrong with this plan? (appart from a redistibution clause in SUN's EULA?)
Do you actualy NEED 2 Mpix+ or is that is that just a 'nice to have'? like wise do you need a flash, or will you mostly be taking pictures out doors?
If neither apply, you might be better served by buying a load of cheap digital cameras, and while trying not to break them, not worrying over much if you break a few. After all, that $1000 budget will buy an awfull lot low cost $50 cameras like this one.
Of course you can still keep arround a few disposable cameras, in case you need to take picutes at night or such like.
In any case, do you expect to break them that often? the conditions on a construction site can't be that much harsher from those experenced by backcountry hikers and campers, who don't usualy break their equipment.
That's insightfull, Moderators... you know what to do.