Don't worry about it. There's a saying that if anything really bad happens in Britain, two things will happen. Someone will put a kettle on, and someone will crack a joke. True in my experience.
Well, I can think of at least one example. GSM phones use SIMs (UICCs), which are a type of smartcard. These have a secret key on them, Ki, which is also present in the home network's authentication centre (AuC) - and nowhere else. A challenge and response mechanism is used to authenticate the SIM when it is used in a phone, and to create a session key (Kc) for air encryption. It is essential that no-one is able to determine Ki, since this would allow the SIM to be cloned, allowing fraud. I imagine similar principles apply to credit and ATM cards.
BTW, yes I know some SIMs have been broken - they used an inappropriate algorithm.
These machines are in "experimental" use at London Heathrow. If you are queueing at security, you have about a 1:20 chance of being invited to use them. You are not told that they use X-rays.
As a frequent traveller, I refuse to use them. I'm not personally concerned about being seen naked, although it would be a big deal for me if this happened to my wife or female relatives. I am however hugely concerned about the radiation exposure. On average, how much time does this take off my life? It appears that this has not been adequately assessed.
I'm always a bit doubtful of these surveys. Some companies run an open network, but to reach any network resources you need to set up a VPN. This avoids possible problems with air-side encryption (yes, I know there are many other solutions) and allows visitors to use the network.
It may not be legal to let the dog loose - depends on where your sister will live. In some areas of Swedish Lapland, only the Saami are allowed to lets dogs loose or use motorised vehicles. It's possible that these are relatively small areas, perhaps just the national parks, but it's worth checking if she's up in the north.
I don't think there would be be any problem with starting on a modern diesel. FWIW, I run a diesel Rover 75 (fairly large and heavy by UK standards) which behaves in every respect like a petrol car except that I average 39mpg (UK gallons - 25% larger than US gallons). It has the usual arrangement whereby if you switch on the engine and hold for a few seconds before running the starter motor then the "glow plugs" will produce hotspots in the combustion chambers. This is intended to help with cold starts, but even in the coldest weather it has never been necessary to use this mechanism - probably just necesary for Scandinavian winters.
It could be done for all public transport in the UK, I believe. All transport authorities are required to maintain timetable information in ATCO CIF format. This is capable of carrying dynamic information (e.g. a late-running bus) as well as static timetables, but I'm not sure how widely this is implemented.
Sorry, but OS X by default is not as safe as you think. Yes, most of the time you are not running as root, but many important actions are enabled by your group if rather than your user id - for instance installing/removing applications. If you are an admin user (i.e. one with access to sudo, if you use the OS X user manager) then you are a member of the wheel group, which gives you the relevant privileges. This removes most of the apparent protection that you get from not being root.
For safety, I recommend that you make a new admin user, then use the user manager to set your own privileges to not be an admin. OS X will then ask you for the username and password of a admin user to perform certain actions such as installing apps, but other than that everything will continue to work as normal (unlike Windows). You may also find it convenient to add your own user id to the/etc/sudoers if you use the command line.
BTW, another little-known weakness of OS X seems to be that the firewall only blocks TCP, not UDP.
I'm sitting here looking at a P100 and wondering what it's still good for.
I use an old 133MHz machine as my web and email server. It's small, quiet, and uses little power. Since I use X to administer it from my Mac, I don't have a display or keyboard attached but I can still use the GUI. Something of this generation doesn't need a special distro - I use Suse, for instance. Yes, a mini-ATX box would do the job, but no better, so I'll hang on to my money and use the old machine.
hokay, if you want to be pedantic - (a) I said it was like wine; (b) beer has hops in it, you're thinking of ale; (c) "wine" comes from a Latin root which only covers grapes, not other fruits.
Now go and compare sake and a rice "beer" and you'll see that they are very different drinks.
Ditto. I have also had people from companies I work with come over from the US for the same reason (i.e. my privacy, not a wish to be spiteful). This costs c. $15k in lost productivity at their end, plus flights, on each occasion.
We have a written constitution. We have elections on fixed dates, not whenever the Queen consents to them
We have constitutional law (you will have heard of the Magna Carta, for instance). Just because there is no single document marked "Constitution" doesn't mean there isn't a written constitution.
As to the fixed dates of elections - so what? There is a maximum period that a government can sit, so is there any major problem with allowing the Prime Minister to call an early election? I am sure you know that the Queen does not decide the date.
That may have been the case 10 years ago, but most of the EU falls under the Schengen treaty now. The border posts are unmanned on the roads, and there are no border controls on the airlines. Can't answer for train as I don't use it internationally. UK is not a Schengen signatory, so a passport is required (except I think for the border to Eire).
In Europe, they only hold the passport in hotels to copy the information into the police forms. You never need to leave it with them, and I never do. You're correct on reqt to carry id in some contries, and some countries (e.g. France) do track foreigners.
They're actually pretty advanced in the work, and they've already bootstrapped the compiler. They've not actually released the source, so I'm taking bit of a risk in putting it up on the net, but here it is:
One vaguely similar case is the use of GANTT charts in project management, which are used to show concurrent activities and the dependencies between them. MS Project is the commonest example of such a "development" environment, and has higher-level features such as hierarchical grouping of activities. I have to handle GANTT charts frequently, and they are an absolute pig to debug, and understanding someone else's chart takes an hour or so of talking through it to work out whether it is consistent with the one you've been drawing up. That's with only 50-70 activities.I've seriously thought about describing a project in some Prolog-type language and converting to graphics at the last stage for printout.
Just one niggle with "This Sceptred Isle" - despite the billing, it's a history of England, not of Great Britain or the British Isles. Scotland gets about as much attention as the American Colonies, and less than France. Wales and Ireland are barely mentioned, and the minor countries of the British Isles (Man and the Channel Islands) are not mentioned at all. If you just want a history of England, it's very good.
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That would depend on your role in the Party.
(in UK, not in London)
BTW, yes I know some SIMs have been broken - they used an inappropriate algorithm.
As a frequent traveller, I refuse to use them. I'm not personally concerned about being seen naked, although it would be a big deal for me if this happened to my wife or female relatives. I am however hugely concerned about the radiation exposure. On average, how much time does this take off my life? It appears that this has not been adequately assessed.
I'm always a bit doubtful of these surveys. Some companies run an open network, but to reach any network resources you need to set up a VPN. This avoids possible problems with air-side encryption (yes, I know there are many other solutions) and allows visitors to use the network.
Why yes, of course - providing they are over 18, and pass the written and practical tests for the licence.
It may not be legal to let the dog loose - depends on where your sister will live. In some areas of Swedish Lapland, only the Saami are allowed to lets dogs loose or use motorised vehicles. It's possible that these are relatively small areas, perhaps just the national parks, but it's worth checking if she's up in the north.
I don't think there would be be any problem with starting on a modern diesel. FWIW, I run a diesel Rover 75 (fairly large and heavy by UK standards) which behaves in every respect like a petrol car except that I average 39mpg (UK gallons - 25% larger than US gallons). It has the usual arrangement whereby if you switch on the engine and hold for a few seconds before running the starter motor then the "glow plugs" will produce hotspots in the combustion chambers. This is intended to help with cold starts, but even in the coldest weather it has never been necessary to use this mechanism - probably just necesary for Scandinavian winters.
It could be done for all public transport in the UK, I believe. All transport authorities are required to maintain timetable information in ATCO CIF format. This is capable of carrying dynamic information (e.g. a late-running bus) as well as static timetables, but I'm not sure how widely this is implemented.
For safety, I recommend that you make a new admin user, then use the user manager to set your own privileges to not be an admin. OS X will then ask you for the username and password of a admin user to perform certain actions such as installing apps, but other than that everything will continue to work as normal (unlike Windows). You may also find it convenient to add your own user id to the /etc/sudoers if you use the command line.
BTW, another little-known weakness of OS X seems to be that the firewall only blocks TCP, not UDP.
I use an old 133MHz machine as my web and email server. It's small, quiet, and uses little power. Since I use X to administer it from my Mac, I don't have a display or keyboard attached but I can still use the GUI. Something of this generation doesn't need a special distro - I use Suse, for instance. Yes, a mini-ATX box would do the job, but no better, so I'll hang on to my money and use the old machine.
Now go and compare sake and a rice "beer" and you'll see that they are very different drinks.
No, that's much more like a wine, and it's served hot.
No such restriction on Vodafone. I think it's only 3 that does that.
UK also has 25p and £5. I've only seen 25p coins bought from the bank as novelties, but I've had a £5 coin in my change.
Ditto. I have also had people from companies I work with come over from the US for the same reason (i.e. my privacy, not a wish to be spiteful). This costs c. $15k in lost productivity at their end, plus flights, on each occasion.
We have constitutional law (you will have heard of the Magna Carta, for instance). Just because there is no single document marked "Constitution" doesn't mean there isn't a written constitution.
As to the fixed dates of elections - so what? There is a maximum period that a government can sit, so is there any major problem with allowing the Prime Minister to call an early election? I am sure you know that the Queen does not decide the date.
That may have been the case 10 years ago, but most of the EU falls under the Schengen treaty now. The border posts are unmanned on the roads, and there are no border controls on the airlines. Can't answer for train as I don't use it internationally. UK is not a Schengen signatory, so a passport is required (except I think for the border to Eire).
In Europe, they only hold the passport in hotels to copy the information into the police forms. You never need to leave it with them, and I never do. You're correct on reqt to carry id in some contries, and some countries (e.g. France) do track foreigners.
One vaguely similar case is the use of GANTT charts in project management, which are used to show concurrent activities and the dependencies between them. MS Project is the commonest example of such a "development" environment, and has higher-level features such as hierarchical grouping of activities. I have to handle GANTT charts frequently, and they are an absolute pig to debug, and understanding someone else's chart takes an hour or so of talking through it to work out whether it is consistent with the one you've been drawing up. That's with only 50-70 activities.I've seriously thought about describing a project in some Prolog-type language and converting to graphics at the last stage for printout.
Just one niggle with "This Sceptred Isle" - despite the billing, it's a history of England, not of Great Britain or the British Isles. Scotland gets about as much attention as the American Colonies, and less than France. Wales and Ireland are barely mentioned, and the minor countries of the British Isles (Man and the Channel Islands) are not mentioned at all. If you just want a history of England, it's very good.
Yes, but my ISP's based in Bracknell. Last I looked, that was a few miles away from me in the south of England!
Just tried www.whois.sc. Apparently I'm in Morrocco! I even use the DNS geographical extensions to give my physical location, so that's pretty poor.
Worth mentioning - the numeric keypad was supposed to be used left-handed, with the thumb on that big enter key. Pity that IBM put it on the rhs.