I have a similar problem. Can't even get them to put a camera on the roof with a video feed. Mind you, I couldn't use a live feed - I work nights... Have to pick a rerun of nice day.
Actually, come to think of it, I could record an hour or so of a nice day at home, or at a beach, and run it on my second monitor... Not quite as good as an actual window, but a 20 inch monitor isn't too bad.
Hey, there's a whole new legal reason for p2p networks - trading video clips of scenery.
Does she really think the voters are going to put Bill back into the White House, even as First Husband?? Think of the children!! All those poor interns...:)
Violent games?? Shoot, the British Public School I went to actually supplied the guns... They own 300 Lee Enfield.303 rifles, 9 Bren guns, 6 Sterling submachine guns, a number of Webley revolvers and Browning 9mm automatics, some 2inch mortars, a rocket launcher, and some bayonets. Of the Bren guns, 3 would fire live rounds and the other 6 had the firing pin filed short, though the quartermaster had scrounged up spare firing pins...
One afternoon a week we were taught how to handle the weapons safely and how to work in sections and platoons. Age range was 13 to 18. Number of accidents?? Zero, in the 5 years I was there. 13-year-olds running around the woods and fields armed with.303 rifles and blank ammunition, and nobody "accidentally" shot anyone else.
I wonder how many Senators would line up to get such a school shut down if it were in the US??
Personally, I think it's because video games are an easy target. How many Senators and Representatives are young enough to have played realistic video games in their youth?? Maybe they had Pong, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, etc, but not the near photo-realistic games we have now. No, the current crop of politicians experienced WWII, Vietnam, Korea, and now someone's telling them that violent video games are like that and should be banned before the players go postal.
Does anyone have any hard numbers for the deaths and injuries directly related to violent video games?? How do they compare to deaths and injuries due to, for example, vehicle accidents, hunting accidents and misuse of alcohol (including drunk driving and bar fights)?? Politicians can't realistically fight gun ownership, car ownership and drinking, though.
Reminds me of a guy I knew in school. We had a "cadet force" (in the UK - OTC in the US??) and every summer about 150 of us would go to Annual Camp, which was held on a regular Army training ground. After a week of learning and practicing fieldcraft, using blank ammo and thunderflash grenades, this one guy was on his way home. As he was walking down the street, a car backfired nearby. Reflexes took over and he hit the ground and was crawling for cover without even thinking about it.
Yes, that's not as extreme as coming home from an actual battlefield, but it shows what even a small amount of conditioning can do.
You t hink that's bad - an otherwise level-headed guy I used to know wouldn't permit his kids to have a Rubic's Cube because it was also known as the "Magic Cube". Wouldn't even let one into the house. He was a strict Roman Catholic and strongly believed in the Biblical view on witches, magic, Satanism, etc. Don't think I'm painting all RC with that brush - I'm not, just this particular guy. Anyways, I never managed to get a straight answer from him about his position on those big, fat, felt tip pens commonly known as "Magic Markers"... Personally I think he felt threatened anyone smart enough to do the Cube, because he couldn't.
you don't determine facts and intelligence around a goal
But that's exactly what people are saying the memo means - that Bush wanted a war and was directing the intelligence community to come up with a set of facts that would support an invasion, ignoring or downplaying any facts that said otherwise.
How about DotNetNuke?? I only ask because a couple of consultants suggested it when my wife was asking about getting some web content updated at school, and the existing app really, *really* sucks...
I suggested she might want to avoid getting sucked into using a Microsoft-only product... I pointed out that Zope/Plone appears to be good enough for NATO, NASA/JPL, AARP, Lufthansa and the Governors of Texas & Hawaii, according to their lists of happy users.
Heh. I'm stuck with dual booting my work laptop. But then, that's OK, because work also supplies nicely packaged updates which will install themselves whenever the Tivoli Framework updater gets them downloaded. We're told never to enable Windows Update, nor to download patches from Microsoft. That's not because all 100,000 employees have illegal copies, either. The company isn't just in bed with Microsoft, we're joined at the hip and shoulder... We have some kind of "all you can eat" license agreement, and besides, every new laptop comes with WinXP Pro and a legit key.
Ah, sweet!! I wonder if the Governor of California could be persuaded to switch the state over to OSS - the sound/video bites would be excellent. Ahhnold waving a big machinegun, shooting the crap out of Windows, saying "Hasta la Vista, baby"... Oh, yeah!!
I'm not really too worried about the install being illegitimate. I just wanted to drag Fujitsu's name through the dirt again. Here's their actual comment, direct from Fujitsu Support:
I understand you are inquiring about reinstalling windows. There are two ways to have this done. One is to send the system to our depot to have the factory software reloaded which would cost $150.00 plus tax not including a new hard drive. The other option is to buy a retail copy of windows to install.
In a later email they admitted to using a ghost image to install from, which was given as the reason why they wouldn't supply an install disk, and never mind that they *give* you what's effectivly an iso. There's a note in the User Manual, on page 82, somewhere in the Troubleshooting section, that suggests making a boot disk. I think it actually says "boot floppy", though it probably means "burn a CD from the ISO".
Putting that remark in the Troubleshooting section is pretty stupid, as you're only likely to find it when it's too late. What they really need to do is write it in the Welcome section: "Thanks for buying Fujitsu. Please insert a blank CD-R and copy the recovery ISO to it, because we're too fucking cheap to burn one for you."
The last email I got from them said, "send us the laptop with $200 and we'll put in a new disk with Windows." I didn't even bother replying, because I'd already picked up a replacement drive from eBay and borrowed a legit copy of XP Home to install from. The new drive is 40Gb, replacing the old 20Gb, and the whole exercise cost $72.
Guess they did. Are you sure that's actually a recovery CD, not just an installation kit for the drivers??
The instruction manual for the C-Series 2010 (or whatever it is) explicitly states that the user "might want to make a boot floppy so that in the event of a crash, the main partition can be restored." I don't think it even takes into account that a disk crash could make the recovery partition unusable.
This particular laptop is about 3 years old. If yours is older, maybe that's a real install disk. Back in Feb this year, their attitude was "send us the laptop and $150, we'll reinstall Windows for you. Not including the cost of a new hard disk." I doubt they've changed since then. Who knows, though? I copied the email to a Fujitsu engineer at work after we talked about it. He said he'd forward it, so maybe that made a difference...
I think my daughter's laptop is a Lifebook C2010, or something similar. About 3 years old. I replaced the 20Gb disk with a 40Gb from eBay for about $72. While I was waiting for it to arrive, I was able to boot Knoppix and export to another computer a large part of the data she wanted to keep.
I could have given her some version of Linux, but I figured she'd be better off with something she recognized. She's doing schoolwork on it and doesn't really have the time for the learning curve.
Sounds a lot like my daughter's Fujitsu Lifebook laptop. The hard disk died, neve mind why, and Fujitsu Support's response was: "you'll have to buy a new copy of Windows to install on the new disk. Or, pay us $200 and we'll install a new disk and a new copy of Windows." Yep, that was their response, swear to God!!.
The Fujitsu Lifebook comes with a system image installed on the hard disk, with instructions buried in an appendix in the manual saying that it might be a good idea to make a backup. If you don't make a backup, and if you're unlucky enough to score a hard disk crash, then Fujitsu's official standing is that you're fucked. Totally fucked. They say you have to go out and buy another copy of Windows, and never mind the completely valid license key on the hologram sticker on the underside of the system.
The best answer I got was completely unofficial, from a Fujitsu engineer attached to my work - he said, just borrow a copy of Windows and install it with the valid license key. By that time I'd already made my own arrangements that, coindicentally, corresponded fairly closely to that recommendation...
So, dear daughter is now running an illicit copy, but with the original license key.
For anyone that missed it the first time, Fujitsu doesn't give a shit about you losing your one and only system install disk. They don't include a CD because: "it's installed from an image CD in the factory", and they don't care enough about their customers to include a CD of that image. What's the cost of an image CD these days?? About $0.50?? That's too much for Fujitsu to spend...
Any Fujitsu employee wanting to dispute these facts should supply an email address, so that I can forward the emails I exchanged with Fujitsu "you're screwed, fuck off" Support.
Telus has blocked access to a union-run website, claiming it posted confidential information and was attempting to harass and intimidate workers by publishing their pictures.
Apparently the photos posted are of non-union employees, which could endanger them, and Telus also claims the site encouraged union members to tie up the call center with bogus calls. If true, that puts them on the side of the good guys, right??
That's right - licensing is OK, because there's agreement between the parties involved. Allowing possibly infringing use to continue without challenging it - that's what loses you your trademark status.
And worse, I think if the infringing product is ubiquitous enough, the owner *might* be able to take the trademark away from the original owner, then sue if they continue to use it. I don't remeber who that happened to, but I think it has happened.
The way I understand it, you have to defend against any possible trademark infringement, because letting just one infringement pass means you could lose control of it.
OK, so if the two parties have wildly different products, there's usually no problem. This is how Apple and Apple Records settled - Apple Records agreed to let Apple use the name, on the condition that Apple wouldn't produce music, and presumably Apple Records wouldn't make computers. I suspect there's some fancy footwork going on to get over any objections over iTunes & iPods...
Now, with Vista being a software house, and Windows Vista supposedly being actual software (eventually), there's a lot of scope for confusion. Vista's products could be tainted by Microsoft's track record on screwing stuff up. If Vista ever wanted to market a product called Windows Vista, that's definitely a problem...
You can see the ditch on the satellite view. Switching between satellite and hybrid views makes it really obvious to anyone with any kind of clue. And the satellite view shows 42nd.St running along what would be the fenceline between the backyards of two rows of houses, if they had fences. It passes through someone's house and swimming pool, crosses a real road, and ends up in someone else's storage barn. It's not a big secret...
I would agree with that - anyone with eyesight good enough to be allowed to drive ought to be able to spot a drainage ditch or a place where there's no road.
On the other hand, if you're in an unfamiliar city and you're using one of these flawed maps to navigate to a hospital in an emergency, for example, the consequences could be life-threatening. But you know, I'm abso-fucking-lutely sure that somewhere in the packaging, or in the click-though EULA, there'll be weasel words that absolve the maker of all responsibility.
"This product is for informational purposes only. It is not warranted for use in an actual emergency. If this product performs flawlessly, be surprised - we certainly will be, because we're just trying to ship it out the door as fast as possible. Any resemblance between this product and an actual verfified-accurate map is entirely coincidental."
Never mind that on a good day the GPS unit can pinpoint your position to within about 3 feet...
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Actually, come to think of it, I could record an hour or so of a nice day at home, or at a beach, and run it on my second monitor... Not quite as good as an actual window, but a 20 inch monitor isn't too bad.
Hey, there's a whole new legal reason for p2p networks - trading video clips of scenery.
Curtains and shutters work pretty damn well on real windows. Why not on the fibre-optic system as well??
Park it at the Space Station for use as quarters and an extra instrument platform, then send up a couple of extra Soyuz to bring the crew down??
Does she really think the voters are going to put Bill back into the White House, even as First Husband?? Think of the children!! All those poor interns...:)
One afternoon a week we were taught how to handle the weapons safely and how to work in sections and platoons. Age range was 13 to 18. Number of accidents?? Zero, in the 5 years I was there. 13-year-olds running around the woods and fields armed with .303 rifles and blank ammunition, and nobody "accidentally" shot anyone else.
I wonder how many Senators would line up to get such a school shut down if it were in the US??
Does anyone have any hard numbers for the deaths and injuries directly related to violent video games?? How do they compare to deaths and injuries due to, for example, vehicle accidents, hunting accidents and misuse of alcohol (including drunk driving and bar fights)?? Politicians can't realistically fight gun ownership, car ownership and drinking, though.
Yes, that's not as extreme as coming home from an actual battlefield, but it shows what even a small amount of conditioning can do.
You t hink that's bad - an otherwise level-headed guy I used to know wouldn't permit his kids to have a Rubic's Cube because it was also known as the "Magic Cube". Wouldn't even let one into the house. He was a strict Roman Catholic and strongly believed in the Biblical view on witches, magic, Satanism, etc. Don't think I'm painting all RC with that brush - I'm not, just this particular guy. Anyways, I never managed to get a straight answer from him about his position on those big, fat, felt tip pens commonly known as "Magic Markers"... Personally I think he felt threatened anyone smart enough to do the Cube, because he couldn't.
But that's exactly what people are saying the memo means - that Bush wanted a war and was directing the intelligence community to come up with a set of facts that would support an invasion, ignoring or downplaying any facts that said otherwise.
I suggested she might want to avoid getting sucked into using a Microsoft-only product... I pointed out that Zope/Plone appears to be good enough for NATO, NASA/JPL, AARP, Lufthansa and the Governors of Texas & Hawaii, according to their lists of happy users.
Heh. I'm stuck with dual booting my work laptop. But then, that's OK, because work also supplies nicely packaged updates which will install themselves whenever the Tivoli Framework updater gets them downloaded. We're told never to enable Windows Update, nor to download patches from Microsoft. That's not because all 100,000 employees have illegal copies, either. The company isn't just in bed with Microsoft, we're joined at the hip and shoulder... We have some kind of "all you can eat" license agreement, and besides, every new laptop comes with WinXP Pro and a legit key.
Ah, sweet!! I wonder if the Governor of California could be persuaded to switch the state over to OSS - the sound/video bites would be excellent. Ahhnold waving a big machinegun, shooting the crap out of Windows, saying "Hasta la Vista, baby"... Oh, yeah!!
In a later email they admitted to using a ghost image to install from, which was given as the reason why they wouldn't supply an install disk, and never mind that they *give* you what's effectivly an iso. There's a note in the User Manual, on page 82, somewhere in the Troubleshooting section, that suggests making a boot disk. I think it actually says "boot floppy", though it probably means "burn a CD from the ISO".
Putting that remark in the Troubleshooting section is pretty stupid, as you're only likely to find it when it's too late. What they really need to do is write it in the Welcome section: "Thanks for buying Fujitsu. Please insert a blank CD-R and copy the recovery ISO to it, because we're too fucking cheap to burn one for you."
The last email I got from them said, "send us the laptop with $200 and we'll put in a new disk with Windows." I didn't even bother replying, because I'd already picked up a replacement drive from eBay and borrowed a legit copy of XP Home to install from. The new drive is 40Gb, replacing the old 20Gb, and the whole exercise cost $72.
The instruction manual for the C-Series 2010 (or whatever it is) explicitly states that the user "might want to make a boot floppy so that in the event of a crash, the main partition can be restored." I don't think it even takes into account that a disk crash could make the recovery partition unusable.
This particular laptop is about 3 years old. If yours is older, maybe that's a real install disk. Back in Feb this year, their attitude was "send us the laptop and $150, we'll reinstall Windows for you. Not including the cost of a new hard disk." I doubt they've changed since then. Who knows, though? I copied the email to a Fujitsu engineer at work after we talked about it. He said he'd forward it, so maybe that made a difference...
I could have given her some version of Linux, but I figured she'd be better off with something she recognized. She's doing schoolwork on it and doesn't really have the time for the learning curve.
It is, in fact, most likely legal, unmodified software, even if the CD copy I made is not strictly legal.
The Fujitsu Lifebook comes with a system image installed on the hard disk, with instructions buried in an appendix in the manual saying that it might be a good idea to make a backup. If you don't make a backup, and if you're unlucky enough to score a hard disk crash, then Fujitsu's official standing is that you're fucked. Totally fucked. They say you have to go out and buy another copy of Windows, and never mind the completely valid license key on the hologram sticker on the underside of the system.
The best answer I got was completely unofficial, from a Fujitsu engineer attached to my work - he said, just borrow a copy of Windows and install it with the valid license key. By that time I'd already made my own arrangements that, coindicentally, corresponded fairly closely to that recommendation...
So, dear daughter is now running an illicit copy, but with the original license key.
For anyone that missed it the first time, Fujitsu doesn't give a shit about you losing your one and only system install disk. They don't include a CD because: "it's installed from an image CD in the factory", and they don't care enough about their customers to include a CD of that image. What's the cost of an image CD these days?? About $0.50?? That's too much for Fujitsu to spend...
Any Fujitsu employee wanting to dispute these facts should supply an email address, so that I can forward the emails I exchanged with Fujitsu "you're screwed, fuck off" Support.
Apparently the photos posted are of non-union employees, which could endanger them, and Telus also claims the site encouraged union members to tie up the call center with bogus calls. If true, that puts them on the side of the good guys, right??
And worse, I think if the infringing product is ubiquitous enough, the owner *might* be able to take the trademark away from the original owner, then sue if they continue to use it. I don't remeber who that happened to, but I think it has happened.
OK, so if the two parties have wildly different products, there's usually no problem. This is how Apple and Apple Records settled - Apple Records agreed to let Apple use the name, on the condition that Apple wouldn't produce music, and presumably Apple Records wouldn't make computers. I suspect there's some fancy footwork going on to get over any objections over iTunes & iPods...
Now, with Vista being a software house, and Windows Vista supposedly being actual software (eventually), there's a lot of scope for confusion. Vista's products could be tainted by Microsoft's track record on screwing stuff up. If Vista ever wanted to market a product called Windows Vista, that's definitely a problem...
You can see the ditch on the satellite view. Switching between satellite and hybrid views makes it really obvious to anyone with any kind of clue. And the satellite view shows 42nd.St running along what would be the fenceline between the backyards of two rows of houses, if they had fences. It passes through someone's house and swimming pool, crosses a real road, and ends up in someone else's storage barn. It's not a big secret...
Interesting. Thank you. Once I get everything back together on my laptop, I'll see whose map it actually was that's wrong.
But also, if Vista has already trademarked their name, they *have* to defend it, or lose it.
From the XMLTV grabber for North America:
XMLTV merely fetches and formats the listings, which are provided by someone else.
On the other hand, if you're in an unfamiliar city and you're using one of these flawed maps to navigate to a hospital in an emergency, for example, the consequences could be life-threatening. But you know, I'm abso-fucking-lutely sure that somewhere in the packaging, or in the click-though EULA, there'll be weasel words that absolve the maker of all responsibility.
Never mind that on a good day the GPS unit can pinpoint your position to within about 3 feet...