This time I remembered the tab key instead of the return key dammit, maybe the filter will save me.
From an email I received 2 weeks ago
[*
Check out comp.risks digest 22.66 which has a discussion of legislation
being considered by Massachusetts, Texas and some others. The start of
this discussion was an article by Ed Felten, "Use a Firewall, Go to Jail"
Freedom to tinker archives/000336.html
These laws aim to prohibit any technique used to hide the source of any
communication. For example, tunnelling over SSH or using TLS with your
email. Even NAT would be illegal because the ultimate source of the IP
traffic would not be evident to the recipient nor to any ISP.
Apparently similar laws have already been passed in Michigan, Virginia,
Delaware and Illinois.
Of course, making something illegal doesn't stop it happening, and if
every business which uses a NAT-enabled router was prosecuted you could
imagine the outcry.
*]
And when I finally learnt to put the url in the search...
DRM and Threat Analysis
On March 19th, 2003 with 185 comments
miladus writes "A timely and concise intervention by Ed Felten
on the topic of DRM and the models used (or not used) to represent the
threats to defeat. In...
Section: Main > News
I wonder if AC posts are legal?
And at least now I know why my submisson got rejected...
Although they're not often roadkill. Dunno why, but perhaps they are less nocturnal. There's nothing worse than a wombat though. They tend to kill the car. And sometimes the driver too. We don't have night time speed limits although perhaps we should. The only place a speed limit is variable depending on what time it is, for the same stretch of road, is a school zone.
In Canberra, I had to drive through a farm to get where I was going, and if I was late the cows would be bedded down on the dirt road cos it was warmer than the pasture. The only thing that would shift them was the sound of a blue heeler dog (they like biting cows). Fortunately I can imitate that noise.
My bladder usually gets me well before 400 miles (650km) is up especially if I've been drinking water.
I dunno what the rules for roadkill are in Oz. Mostly people leave it there, although some councils send trucks to pick it up. Nobody thinks it is any good for anything, even feeding the farm dogs. The Wedgetail eagles like it.
Camels. Hmm on the desert tracks, the camels will run in front of the car and won't leave the track. And eventually they'd drop from exhaustion. We learnt to stop and get out. Initially to take photos. And then they clear off the track to get a better look at us because we've gone off the track to take a photo.
You've got to be careful about what camels though. The males can be a bit nasty. The females usually travel without the males, and they are curious like cows. Obviously depends a bit on how much they've been shot at.
They want to reduce the country speed limits here. Somebody has pointed out to the minister that it can cause other problems, but a govt site of statistics would be handy.
Slow driving round australia is very popular with our retired people. And they can organise to be in the best weather all year round. I like to laugh at tourists who want to do Adelaide - Darwin including Uluru, and Kakadu with a stop at kings canyon, by road in one weekend. Just because they can see all these places on the same map, doesn't mean they can visit them all in a weekend without an airforce fighter jet. And then I don't think Kings Canyon has a suitable airstrip. Some of our road trip movies, eg Priscilla, are very misleading about what spectacular scenery is where.
I think it would take two years to do a slow driving trip around Australia. But it would be excellent fun. NZ is quicker. I still only did about half what I wanted with three or four weeks. My parents took three months to do Adelaide - Broome - Kununurra and back through the deserts. I joined them for a month between Broome and Kununurra. And there were lots of places they missed like the Pilbarra and the stuff between Alice Springs and Darwin. The best places were the ones that didn't have names on the map.
Until Bush got in charge the USA - Oz exchange rate was very good. Ie a coffee here is around $2.50 and it would only have cost you $1.25 USA. I think our fuel might be dearer though, $1 for a litre of diesel in town, and double in the desert centre. Dunno how many litres in a gallon.
I clicked on the original link and got some evil thing with a cartoon kid buried to his neck in a cemetary having his brain pecked out by crows.
Why is it kids like watching this stuff but won't eat what you serve up for dinner? (unless disguised as a mcdonalds burger or meat pie (works in oz only)).
Yes. People still do it. I've done the nullabor once, each way (east west) and once north south (ouch - like 200km of uneven concrete steps with 24 open-gate shut-gate stops) but not by myself, we were sharing driving. On the east-west trip, one guy managed to fall asleep, fortunately he woke up when he went onto the shoulder, and fortunately it was a good flat shoulder. After that we were much stricter about changing drivers every stop or every second service station (they are around 130 to 180km apart). BTW 60mph is approximately 100km/h, which is the National limit on open, not otherwise marked roads. Some properly built roads or long straight bits or bits in South Australia have 110. The NT is supposed to be limited to 100km/h because of the National road funding deal that everyone signed up to was tied to that, but they don't enforce it much. They used to be what ever people thought they could manage. Their road toll was fairly low, but I think thats because there aren't many people out there. WA has more of a problem with rural drivers pranging each other, the wild life, the farm animals, and trees.
My special used to be the Hay plains (South Western NSW between Sydney and Adelaide). If you didn't stop at Hay, you could do 300km without a stop. And my car can do 800 - 1000km on one fill. But I like to stop every couple of hours. I get a lot further if I eat and drink cordial while I'm driving and cruise control makes things much easier because you can watch the road 100% and not worry about lead foot. I haven't driven the Hay plains for a while, but I don't like flying either. The way they are cutting costs on airplane maintenance and my flights last year were all held up due to planes not properly maintained, puts me off flying.
And yes I could do the Adelaide - Sydney trip (1200km) in a day, and the faster you did it the better. But I've also experienced an accident due to flat tyre at 80km/h and that was very scary, nobody hurt seriously. I hate to think what the same thing would be like at 100km/h or faster. Fuel economy goes to shit at 120km/h anyway, even though that speed can cut an hour or more off the trip.
I guess it is a bit of a double edged sword. Do you decrease the speed limit and increase the number of accidents but hopefully decrease the number of deaths? Are the people having deaths from excessive speed, exceeding a little bit or a whole lot?
And how do you avoid a suicide kangaroo at 100km/h in the dusk/dark - you can't. But if you are doing 60 - 80km/h they're a lot better at avoiding you. After all they can do 60km/h too and that speed they can judge right. 80km/h and over they stuff up. I don't even see them.
Of course you can avoid pranging kangaroo by not travelling at dusk or later. But during daylight you have a much better chance of getting a farm animal instead.
Oh yeah, there is a rail line that goes from Sydney to Perth sort of. I think the guage changes once or twice. And there used to be problems getting your car on the rail car past Pt Augusta (ie the locals used to help themselves). But people who have put their car on the train recently haven't had problems that I know of. It's a very boring train trip.
If you like train trips to avoid dangerous roads, I recommend NZ. Great train rides (especially if you pack your own food). Spectacular scenery. For the same reason that the scenery is spectacular, the roads are dangerous (mad NZ drivers and excessively windy narrow roads).
eg do you think I can find a team list for the Italian Men's basketball team that participated in the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
One guy in that team had a name that may or may not have been censored on USA TV eg I thought it would be good for the censorship slashdot thread, but I can't find the team list.
Fucka. Fucka, Fucka
The search engine that routinely gets my business will be the one that produces the most relevant link for what I'm trying to find. In the meantime I will continue to use many.
There are a lot of rules in Australia that try to prevent contracts that expect drivers to break the limits. Things are much better than they used to be, because the employers/hirers cannot push the limits as far as they used to.
For instance there are cameras along the Hume Highway that links our biggest towns, Sydney and Melbourne. They photograph the truck at various points along the highway and then use those to calculate how fast the truck was going. If the truck makes the distance, say, in less than 5 hours then he's been speeding and he hasn't had his compulsory 30 minute break (for every 5 hours of driving). And there are no faster shortcuts between Sydney and Melbourne, something to do with a mountain range.
The truck union in Australia is really strong and I think that helps a lot of the independent drivers. You still get "cowboys", but I suspect they have other problems besides trying to make a living. Mostly they can't use the main links if they're speeding anymore. It isn't a perfect system but it is a whole lot better than it used to be on the main highways.
We still have a problem with drivers of cars falling asleep and drifting into the trucks. We're trying to fix that with driver revivers. Community clubs of country towns will run a free coffee and muchie and toilet stop just before their town so that drivers are encouraged to take a break. That's been reasonably successful. But they're usually only out there on the holiday weekends.
Other rules that make it harder to exploit workers are: minimum wage (but that gets abused by excessive overtime), minimum sick leave, holiday leave, superannuation. For contract or casual workers they are deemed to have the same rights to employer super contributions if they have worked for the same employer for more than 3 months straight or earn 80% of their income from the same employer. So things are a bit different in Australia.
I think your door key example is why people aren't supposed to secure their homes with booby traps. And we usually use a few people to house fires who can't get out of their homes because of window shutters or door deadlocks, deadlocked while people are at home (oops). My new deadlock automatically undeadlocks when I open it from the outside to get in, but I'd have to bust the windows to get out of my bedroom, unless I had time and presence of mind to find and use the keys.
We already have speed limiters on big trucks in Australia. I think it isn't compulsory, but they get better rego deals if they do fit one. In my experience, a speed limited truck at 100km/h seems to be able to do 120km/h too especially down a hill. The limiters have reduced the number of trucks doing more than 120km/h almost completely.
Now if only we could stop them doing no-doze and driving.
The dangers of limiting are mixed problem. I have a naturally limited car, it being a diesel, it accellerates like cold molasses (as one of my sports car driver friends pointed out). The top speed of the diesel is good, ie around 130km/h, but the accelleration to that point is slow, and I try to drive accordingly. Unfortunately I need a litte sign on the back to inform the zippy city car drivers who get stuck behind me.
I thought something like:
Accelerates from 0 to 100(km/h) in 10
minutes
Please be patient.
The best prank we computer scientists ever did was invite a stripper to the lecture. The stupidest thing we did was let the engineers (those guys that go to engineering school, mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical etc) know that we had invited the stripper.
lecture was eventually held in tutorial room out the back, and lecturer was unexpectedly lecherous - yuk.
Best prank engineers did was hang a roadworthy(?) volkswagon underneath the footbridge and over the river.
Best prank I ever contributed to was the kidnap and ransom of a local politician (with his consent). Raised $40 from the parliament house to keep him, and $300 from the uni bar to give him back.
That sounds good, but if I was on the ground spasming, I wouldn't want a stranger trying to stuff a tictac or anything else down my throat.
For most things, once you're out on the ground, it's too late for the pills. For epileptics it is best to make sure they can't hurt themselves, ie try to get a pillow or rolled up jacket under their head, and then let them finish. And then for around 20 minutes or so you have to tell them who they are, they're ok, over and over...
If a diabetic is going nutty, try to get a lolly or OJ into them before they collapse, but don't expect them to be nice. And there is no way I'd want to be trying to guess their dose or sticking a needle into them.
If it's heart pills, call an ambulance...With most pill bottles these days, you could probably get away with stomping on one to open it. Put it in a plastic bag first if you want to keep the contents vaguely clean. Again stuffing something into their gob when they are unconscious will probably just block their airway and kill them.
Maybe what we really need is some sort of intelligent security system that will let me and nobody else into whatever, unless it senses that I am incapacitated or have delegated authority, and the additional person has good intentions. A bit like how power of attourney is supposed to work. I know what I mean, even when I say something completely different, but nobody else does...
I have the same mixed feelings about the idea of speed limiters on cars and trucks. Sometimes you really need the accellerator but mostly it gets abused. Would we save more lives with a limiter, or lose more lives?
If people can make and profit from the likes of the blair witch project, or something really good like Bend it like Beckham or Frida, then Ben's movie can happen without the hollywood execs and probably be better for it.
And if you can't get big distribution, it is possible to tour a movie through local town halls until it takes off. And if you haven't got any money you could make a movie like "tape" (starring Ethan Hawke). One room, script pre-written.
Good movies still get made even if Hollywood has its head up its arse.
Do you suppose if they used Bulletin boards and forums for script writing ideas, they could make the plots of porno movies better/exist or would they be just the same?
This feels like linking the application to the hardware and perhaps the user so nobody else could possibly use it.
I feel that might be good for some things, like my prescription drug might be better off in a container only I could open. I'm not sure I like the idea for software I buy. It is like saying if I buy a book, I can put it on my bookshelf in my house but if my brother tries to read it, or I try to take it on the bus, it will have blank pages.
I suspect that the reason for most of this extra security is not concern for the user and their data, but some way of making extra profit by the manufacturers ie, if the authorised user is indisposed or incapacitated, then the hardware and software has to be re-purchased.
I'd like to make things difficult for a thief, but for me that mostly means encrypting and backing up data, not rendering the hardware and software useless by anyone but me. How inconvenient. Every time I want to rebuild the hard drive, or install a new one or buy a new computer, I'd have to buy the apps all over again.
I can see I'm going to get so very good at open source products.
Stuffed if I know what is funny about the parent, but I'll take what I can get.
Maybe this moderator got the wheel mouse, like when you pick a mod and forget to click off the mod box before trying to scroll down with a wheel mouse. That's how to go instantly from interesting to troll.
Which might explain why my informative posts get modded troll, my insightful ones get modded funny, and my funny ones get modded interesting. Viva diversity of humour (or shoot the guys who made dumb and dumber).
must be more complicated, although some of the websites I looked up suggested same as Carnivore.
For instance I can make my 14" TFT screen on the laptop display at UXGA/1600x1200 but I can't read it because the pixel pitch or pixels per inch isn't dense enough. Ie its a bit like when you make a jpg and compress too much and then the picture is too fuzzy to read/recognise people or places. Ie the display software uses some sort of interpolation to map the 1600x1200 onto its native resolution.
But depending what software I use, if I try to display 1600x1200 on 800x600, mostly I have to scroll to see the whole picture.
Ie I'd be really pissed off if I bought a screen which the manufacturer/sales guy told me was UXGA, when it really was only XVGA in native resolution.
I know CRTs follow different rules, but on the LCD/TFT, they are limited by the actual native pixel count.
Right now I have cool set up, which allows me to plug the desktop monitor into the laptop and use both screens at once, so I have the realestate from both screens at once. That's only limited by the memory and software available to the graphics card. I love having two monitors though, cos I can open the help doco/debug/test window on one monitor and the code window in another
It seems that native uxga seems to be available on the 20" LCD desktops (ie screen is larger cos they can't fit the pixels closer together for a marketable price) although I've seen it advertised for 15" laptop screens, so I wonder if the higher density pixel LCDs come out for laptops/notebooks/palms before they are available for Desktop monitors.
Ok since you seem to know a lot more than me about the way monitor-displays work, can I ask a stupid question:
What is the difference between XGA and UXGA and why is UXGA more common (hypothetically) in laptop TFT than desktop TFT?
And is this anything to do with the pixel pitch that I was talking about ie how close the pixels are together, and the native resolution of a TFT/LCD screen.
I suspect I may know but have been overtaken by the corporate jargon generator...
[the rest of it was]
I think 17" qualifies as UXGA (I think 1280x1024), which of course, can be had for $500. I am pretty sure one can get a laptop with 1400something x 1000 screen for $1000. Not exactly an apples comparison but the laptop has a better resolution screen than what you can find as a stand-alone monitor for $1000.
My school would never have found such a system more cost effective than checking the rolls and making phone calls and they didn't get their first computer until my penultimate year at school and I was one of only three who knew how to work it, and it wasn't connected to the phone lines.
When I wanted a day off, I used to tell my mum, then I'd ring the school and tell them I was sick. The receptionist used to say "sick of school?" and I'd say "yes, but don't tell anyone".
I also used to sign my own homework book. Teachers really didn't have a clue whose signature was what anyway. Homework was something to be done in the gap time between when I got to the classroom, and the teacher showed up. Five minutes = sufficient for three page essay, and the text was usually more coherent than when I had time to think about it and edit the life out of it.
Yeah, it had a degaussing button that you could press, and the whole screen would go "Blung", lose the picture briefly and then come back. Perhaps it did this on power up too, I've never seen the new monitor (same model and brand) do it by itself.
But the old one used to do it, without pressing button, all by itself, every half an hour. It wasn't until I persuaded the fixit shop to plug it in somewhere and just leave it on that they saw the problem and replaced it since they couldn't figure out what caused it. My bet would have been a faulty capacitor or fuse like system somewhere but I'm not a monitor/display mechanic so I have no clue really. It was truly devastating if I was playing a game either against the computer or on the net, because I couldn't see what was on the screen for a couple of seconds, and that would be when the game/other players would get me. Mostly it was just annoying. But I couldn't just ignore it because it started at about once every two hours and was becoming progressively more frequent, over period of a couple of months. All the other mitsubishi monitors I've come across have been fine. I've never seen any other monitor do that either. Mostly they die of colour misalignment or one colour dies altogether.
If you're worried about unit to unit variance, discuss, and if you feel it's necessary, get in writing, that your shop will let you bring the unit back if you're not happy. Don't buy from the elcheapo that is on the TV, buy from somewhere you or your friends have done good business before.
I like the reviews (and the classifieds) from this magazine: australian pc magazine. They have good list of what to look for and why.
I bought a Sony 17" LCD SDM S71R. It has no speakers or usb port. Sony wanted nearly $1500 aus for it, my local pc shop wanted $1395 for it, but I got it at mates rates from the same people that supply most of my friends and my work for $1329. The shop I think likely to be most difficult with the returns would have been the sony shop, parking for starters, a complete nightmare, but they're also very inflexible, and couldn't budge on the price even though they were the most expensive.
Of course I found several other brands at better prices later, but not so sure about their specs. And the main pain is about a month after you buy, all better specs come out anyway.
Need to pay attention to the
refresh rate (the higher the better 75 and up...)
native resolution (on 17" should be able to do
1280 x 1024 and still be able to read it)
pixel pitch (this comes under a lot of different names, the smaller the better eg.3 is thick,.26 is good,.25 is fine, clear, precise, and.24 beautiful, unavailable and expensive.)
I also like Mitsubishi CRT monitors. My first one used to deguass by itself, but I got it replaced. My Mum has never had any problems with hers.
I like the LCDs better, because I don't need a crane to lift one and I can fit more on to the screen and my desk. The Sony unit is brilliant. I got it out of the box sight unseen (although I did look at one similar in the sony shop). Not a single dead pixel anywhere. The main problem was finding drivers to work it with win98 and my graphics card. But it is happy now.
Locking all the windows in the house and the sliding doors with locks that require keys to open, is my token gesture at keeping my computer equipment in the house and burglars out.
I know it doesn't work always. And my contingency escape plan is throw chair through window in case of fire. Which will work unless I install security window tinting. In which case I may need a special ice pick to get out. Hmm, that might double as burglar repellant.
friendly fire - caused by operator incompetence (personally I'd rather call it fuckup fire)
perhaps if we got rid of all the operators? or better if we made it more difficult for them to fuck up.
The fact that operator incompetence can have lethal consequences, means that the technology needs modification. I'm in favour of increasing safety equipment and procedures.
And can somebody explain to me how a pilot cannot tell the difference between a convoy of trucks with cars, and a tank?
"Fancy a shag?"
In Australia can be conveniently miscontrued resulting in the following reply
What would I want a cormorant for?
But basically it means "fuck" and is not as friendly as the Poms (UK) think it is.
Likewise "nice ass" will get the comment: "What donkey? Where?"
And don't get me started on "fanny". Hint - Australian men do not have a fanny of their own. And women don't generally sit on theirs. The theme song for "the Nanny" was considered very crude here.
A pity there is no unix for wombat: eats, roots and leaves.
Slashdot Mirror
This time I remembered the tab key instead of the return key dammit, maybe the filter will save me.
From an email I received 2 weeks ago
[* Check out comp.risks digest 22.66 which has a discussion of legislation being considered by Massachusetts, Texas and some others. The start of this discussion was an article by Ed Felten, "Use a Firewall, Go to Jail" Freedom to tinker archives/000336.html
These laws aim to prohibit any technique used to hide the source of any communication. For example, tunnelling over SSH or using TLS with your email. Even NAT would be illegal because the ultimate source of the IP traffic would not be evident to the recipient nor to any ISP.
Apparently similar laws have already been passed in Michigan, Virginia, Delaware and Illinois.
Of course, making something illegal doesn't stop it happening, and if every business which uses a NAT-enabled router was prosecuted you could imagine the outcry.
*]
And when I finally learnt to put the url in the search...
other slashdot links
Michigan First With A Law That Could Outlaw VPNs
On March 30th, 2003 with 554 comments
zaren writes "Holy frell, Taco, we're gonna be criminals! I was checking out Freedom to Tinker after reading the posting about that multi-state anti-VPN-style...
Section: Your Rights Online > Privacy
Broad Bills to Protect 'Communications Services'
On March 28th, 2003 with 550 comments
mttlg writes "According to Freedom to Tinker, MA, TX, SC, FL, GA, AK, TN, and CO have introduced similar bills that would make it illegal to possess, use, etc....
Section: Your Rights Online > United States
DRM and Threat Analysis
On March 19th, 2003 with 185 comments
miladus writes "A timely and concise intervention by Ed Felten on the topic of DRM and the models used (or not used) to represent the threats to defeat. In...
Section: Main > News
I wonder if AC posts are legal?
And at least now I know why my submisson got rejected...
or brahmen cattle
Although they're not often roadkill. Dunno why, but perhaps they are less nocturnal. There's nothing worse than a wombat though. They tend to kill the car. And sometimes the driver too. We don't have night time speed limits although perhaps we should. The only place a speed limit is variable depending on what time it is, for the same stretch of road, is a school zone.
In Canberra, I had to drive through a farm to get where I was going, and if I was late the cows would be bedded down on the dirt road cos it was warmer than the pasture. The only thing that would shift them was the sound of a blue heeler dog (they like biting cows). Fortunately I can imitate that noise.
My bladder usually gets me well before 400 miles (650km) is up especially if I've been drinking water.
I dunno what the rules for roadkill are in Oz. Mostly people leave it there, although some councils send trucks to pick it up. Nobody thinks it is any good for anything, even feeding the farm dogs. The Wedgetail eagles like it.
Camels. Hmm on the desert tracks, the camels will run in front of the car and won't leave the track. And eventually they'd drop from exhaustion. We learnt to stop and get out. Initially to take photos. And then they clear off the track to get a better look at us because we've gone off the track to take a photo.
You've got to be careful about what camels though. The males can be a bit nasty. The females usually travel without the males, and they are curious like cows. Obviously depends a bit on how much they've been shot at.
They want to reduce the country speed limits here. Somebody has pointed out to the minister that it can cause other problems, but a govt site of statistics would be handy.
Slow driving round australia is very popular with our retired people. And they can organise to be in the best weather all year round. I like to laugh at tourists who want to do Adelaide - Darwin including Uluru, and Kakadu with a stop at kings canyon, by road in one weekend. Just because they can see all these places on the same map, doesn't mean they can visit them all in a weekend without an airforce fighter jet. And then I don't think Kings Canyon has a suitable airstrip. Some of our road trip movies, eg Priscilla, are very misleading about what spectacular scenery is where.
I think it would take two years to do a slow driving trip around Australia. But it would be excellent fun. NZ is quicker. I still only did about half what I wanted with three or four weeks. My parents took three months to do Adelaide - Broome - Kununurra and back through the deserts. I joined them for a month between Broome and Kununurra. And there were lots of places they missed like the Pilbarra and the stuff between Alice Springs and Darwin. The best places were the ones that didn't have names on the map.
Until Bush got in charge the USA - Oz exchange rate was very good. Ie a coffee here is around $2.50 and it would only have cost you $1.25 USA. I think our fuel might be dearer though, $1 for a litre of diesel in town, and double in the desert centre. Dunno how many litres in a gallon.
like www.whitehouse.com
you'd have to be really cautious going near any website with whitehouse in it for more reasons than one.
happy tree friends doesnt look any worse than southpark or even that homestarrunner thing.
just means you have to really check everything.
except kids at school are going to share this kind of stuff, cos they like gross things.
buffy's world meets homestar
I clicked on the original link and got some evil thing with a cartoon kid buried to his neck in a cemetary having his brain pecked out by crows.
Why is it kids like watching this stuff but won't eat what you serve up for dinner? (unless disguised as a mcdonalds burger or meat pie (works in oz only)).
http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/ - slightly older kids maybe 10+
m
http://www.abc.net.au/outthere/stuff/animal01.htm educational
from here http://www.abc.net.au/kidsabc kids
Sesame streethttp://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/
Play Schoolhttp://www.abc.net.au/children/play/home.ht
my favourite beginners site. Not specifically aimed at kids but steers well clear of nasty stuff.
Lots of computer links
http://www.blackstump.com.au/
From the black stumphttp://www.blackstump.com.au/kids.htm
at this point you are never going to run out of links, theres links of links
zoo flash extra cool with sounds http://www.oac.schools.sa.edu.au/oes/zoo/
Yes. People still do it. I've done the nullabor once, each way (east west) and once north south (ouch - like 200km of uneven concrete steps with 24 open-gate shut-gate stops) but not by myself, we were sharing driving. On the east-west trip, one guy managed to fall asleep, fortunately he woke up when he went onto the shoulder, and fortunately it was a good flat shoulder. After that we were much stricter about changing drivers every stop or every second service station (they are around 130 to 180km apart). BTW 60mph is approximately 100km/h, which is the National limit on open, not otherwise marked roads. Some properly built roads or long straight bits or bits in South Australia have 110. The NT is supposed to be limited to 100km/h because of the National road funding deal that everyone signed up to was tied to that, but they don't enforce it much. They used to be what ever people thought they could manage. Their road toll was fairly low, but I think thats because there aren't many people out there. WA has more of a problem with rural drivers pranging each other, the wild life, the farm animals, and trees.
My special used to be the Hay plains (South Western NSW between Sydney and Adelaide). If you didn't stop at Hay, you could do 300km without a stop. And my car can do 800 - 1000km on one fill. But I like to stop every couple of hours. I get a lot further if I eat and drink cordial while I'm driving and cruise control makes things much easier because you can watch the road 100% and not worry about lead foot. I haven't driven the Hay plains for a while, but I don't like flying either. The way they are cutting costs on airplane maintenance and my flights last year were all held up due to planes not properly maintained, puts me off flying.
And yes I could do the Adelaide - Sydney trip (1200km) in a day, and the faster you did it the better. But I've also experienced an accident due to flat tyre at 80km/h and that was very scary, nobody hurt seriously. I hate to think what the same thing would be like at 100km/h or faster. Fuel economy goes to shit at 120km/h anyway, even though that speed can cut an hour or more off the trip.
I guess it is a bit of a double edged sword. Do you decrease the speed limit and increase the number of accidents but hopefully decrease the number of deaths? Are the people having deaths from excessive speed, exceeding a little bit or a whole lot?
And how do you avoid a suicide kangaroo at 100km/h in the dusk/dark - you can't. But if you are doing 60 - 80km/h they're a lot better at avoiding you. After all they can do 60km/h too and that speed they can judge right. 80km/h and over they stuff up. I don't even see them.
Of course you can avoid pranging kangaroo by not travelling at dusk or later. But during daylight you have a much better chance of getting a farm animal instead.
Oh yeah, there is a rail line that goes from Sydney to Perth sort of. I think the guage changes once or twice. And there used to be problems getting your car on the rail car past Pt Augusta (ie the locals used to help themselves). But people who have put their car on the train recently haven't had problems that I know of. It's a very boring train trip.
If you like train trips to avoid dangerous roads, I recommend NZ. Great train rides (especially if you pack your own food). Spectacular scenery. For the same reason that the scenery is spectacular, the roads are dangerous (mad NZ drivers and excessively windy narrow roads).
I write too much.
eg do you think I can find a team list for the Italian Men's basketball team that participated in the Sydney 2000 Olympics. One guy in that team had a name that may or may not have been censored on USA TV eg I thought it would be good for the censorship slashdot thread, but I can't find the team list. Fucka. Fucka, Fucka The search engine that routinely gets my business will be the one that produces the most relevant link for what I'm trying to find. In the meantime I will continue to use many.
There are a lot of rules in Australia that try to prevent contracts that expect drivers to break the limits. Things are much better than they used to be, because the employers/hirers cannot push the limits as far as they used to.
For instance there are cameras along the Hume Highway that links our biggest towns, Sydney and Melbourne. They photograph the truck at various points along the highway and then use those to calculate how fast the truck was going. If the truck makes the distance, say, in less than 5 hours then he's been speeding and he hasn't had his compulsory 30 minute break (for every 5 hours of driving). And there are no faster shortcuts between Sydney and Melbourne, something to do with a mountain range.
The truck union in Australia is really strong and I think that helps a lot of the independent drivers. You still get "cowboys", but I suspect they have other problems besides trying to make a living. Mostly they can't use the main links if they're speeding anymore. It isn't a perfect system but it is a whole lot better than it used to be on the main highways.
We still have a problem with drivers of cars falling asleep and drifting into the trucks. We're trying to fix that with driver revivers. Community clubs of country towns will run a free coffee and muchie and toilet stop just before their town so that drivers are encouraged to take a break. That's been reasonably successful. But they're usually only out there on the holiday weekends.
Other rules that make it harder to exploit workers are: minimum wage (but that gets abused by excessive overtime), minimum sick leave, holiday leave, superannuation. For contract or casual workers they are deemed to have the same rights to employer super contributions if they have worked for the same employer for more than 3 months straight or earn 80% of their income from the same employer. So things are a bit different in Australia.
Hi Reziac
I think your door key example is why people aren't supposed to secure their homes with booby traps. And we usually use a few people to house fires who can't get out of their homes because of window shutters or door deadlocks, deadlocked while people are at home (oops). My new deadlock automatically undeadlocks when I open it from the outside to get in, but I'd have to bust the windows to get out of my bedroom, unless I had time and presence of mind to find and use the keys.
We already have speed limiters on big trucks in Australia. I think it isn't compulsory, but they get better rego deals if they do fit one. In my experience, a speed limited truck at 100km/h seems to be able to do 120km/h too especially down a hill. The limiters have reduced the number of trucks doing more than 120km/h almost completely.
speed limiters must be working
Standard for speed limiter Unfortunately the actual text is not available online.
Now if only we could stop them doing no-doze and driving.
The dangers of limiting are mixed problem. I have a naturally limited car, it being a diesel, it accellerates like cold molasses (as one of my sports car driver friends pointed out). The top speed of the diesel is good, ie around 130km/h, but the accelleration to that point is slow, and I try to drive accordingly. Unfortunately I need a litte sign on the back to inform the zippy city car drivers who get stuck behind me.
I thought something like:
Accelerates from 0 to 100(km/h) in 10
minutes
Please be patient.
The best prank we computer scientists ever did was invite a stripper to the lecture. The stupidest thing we did was let the engineers (those guys that go to engineering school, mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical etc) know that we had invited the stripper.
lecture was eventually held in tutorial room out the back, and lecturer was unexpectedly lecherous - yuk.
Best prank engineers did was hang a roadworthy(?) volkswagon underneath the footbridge and over the river.
Best prank I ever contributed to was the kidnap and ransom of a local politician (with his consent). Raised $40 from the parliament house to keep him, and $300 from the uni bar to give him back.
That sounds good, but if I was on the ground spasming, I wouldn't want a stranger trying to stuff a tictac or anything else down my throat.
For most things, once you're out on the ground, it's too late for the pills. For epileptics it is best to make sure they can't hurt themselves, ie try to get a pillow or rolled up jacket under their head, and then let them finish. And then for around 20 minutes or so you have to tell them who they are, they're ok, over and over...
If a diabetic is going nutty, try to get a lolly or OJ into them before they collapse, but don't expect them to be nice. And there is no way I'd want to be trying to guess their dose or sticking a needle into them.
If it's heart pills, call an ambulance...With most pill bottles these days, you could probably get away with stomping on one to open it. Put it in a plastic bag first if you want to keep the contents vaguely clean. Again stuffing something into their gob when they are unconscious will probably just block their airway and kill them.
Maybe what we really need is some sort of intelligent security system that will let me and nobody else into whatever, unless it senses that I am incapacitated or have delegated authority, and the additional person has good intentions. A bit like how power of attourney is supposed to work. I know what I mean, even when I say something completely different, but nobody else does...
I have the same mixed feelings about the idea of speed limiters on cars and trucks. Sometimes you really need the accellerator but mostly it gets abused. Would we save more lives with a limiter, or lose more lives?
If people can make and profit from the likes of the blair witch project, or something really good like Bend it like Beckham or Frida, then Ben's movie can happen without the hollywood execs and probably be better for it.
And if you can't get big distribution, it is possible to tour a movie through local town halls until it takes off. And if you haven't got any money you could make a movie like "tape" (starring Ethan Hawke). One room, script pre-written.
Good movies still get made even if Hollywood has its head up its arse.
Do you suppose if they used Bulletin boards and forums for script writing ideas, they could make the plots of porno movies better/exist or would they be just the same?
This feels like linking the application to the hardware and perhaps the user so nobody else could possibly use it.
I feel that might be good for some things, like my prescription drug might be better off in a container only I could open. I'm not sure I like the idea for software I buy. It is like saying if I buy a book, I can put it on my bookshelf in my house but if my brother tries to read it, or I try to take it on the bus, it will have blank pages.
I suspect that the reason for most of this extra security is not concern for the user and their data, but some way of making extra profit by the manufacturers ie, if the authorised user is indisposed or incapacitated, then the hardware and software has to be re-purchased.
I'd like to make things difficult for a thief, but for me that mostly means encrypting and backing up data, not rendering the hardware and software useless by anyone but me. How inconvenient. Every time I want to rebuild the hard drive, or install a new one or buy a new computer, I'd have to buy the apps all over again.
I can see I'm going to get so very good at open source products.
Stuffed if I know what is funny about the parent, but I'll take what I can get.
Maybe this moderator got the wheel mouse, like when you pick a mod and forget to click off the mod box before trying to scroll down with a wheel mouse. That's how to go instantly from interesting to troll.
Which might explain why my informative posts get modded troll, my insightful ones get modded funny, and my funny ones get modded interesting. Viva diversity of humour (or shoot the guys who made dumb and dumber).
must be more complicated, although some of the websites I looked up suggested same as Carnivore.
For instance I can make my 14" TFT screen on the laptop display at UXGA/1600x1200 but I can't read it because the pixel pitch or pixels per inch isn't dense enough. Ie its a bit like when you make a jpg and compress too much and then the picture is too fuzzy to read/recognise people or places. Ie the display software uses some sort of interpolation to map the 1600x1200 onto its native resolution.
But depending what software I use, if I try to display 1600x1200 on 800x600, mostly I have to scroll to see the whole picture.
Ie I'd be really pissed off if I bought a screen which the manufacturer/sales guy told me was UXGA, when it really was only XVGA in native resolution.
I know CRTs follow different rules, but on the LCD/TFT, they are limited by the actual native pixel count.
Right now I have cool set up, which allows me to plug the desktop monitor into the laptop and use both screens at once, so I have the realestate from both screens at once. That's only limited by the memory and software available to the graphics card. I love having two monitors though, cos I can open the help doco/debug/test window on one monitor and the code window in another
It seems that native uxga seems to be available on the 20" LCD desktops (ie screen is larger cos they can't fit the pixels closer together for a marketable price) although I've seen it advertised for 15" laptop screens, so I wonder if the higher density pixel LCDs come out for laptops/notebooks/palms before they are available for Desktop monitors.
Ok since you seem to know a lot more than me about the way monitor-displays work, can I ask a stupid question:
What is the difference between XGA and UXGA and why is UXGA more common (hypothetically) in laptop TFT than desktop TFT?
And is this anything to do with the pixel pitch that I was talking about ie how close the pixels are together, and the native resolution of a TFT/LCD screen.
I suspect I may know but have been overtaken by the corporate jargon generator...
Sources of my confusion:
LCD price fixing thread
UXGA on laptop not the same as what you get on a desktop LCD monitor?
and specific post although I can't find the post that inspired this reply...
Huh? A 15" LCD isn't UXGA, it is XGA (1024x768).
[the rest of it was] I think 17" qualifies as UXGA (I think 1280x1024), which of course, can be had for $500. I am pretty sure one can get a laptop with 1400something x 1000 screen for $1000. Not exactly an apples comparison but the laptop has a better resolution screen than what you can find as a stand-alone monitor for $1000.
My school would never have found such a system more cost effective than checking the rolls and making phone calls and they didn't get their first computer until my penultimate year at school and I was one of only three who knew how to work it, and it wasn't connected to the phone lines.
When I wanted a day off, I used to tell my mum, then I'd ring the school and tell them I was sick. The receptionist used to say "sick of school?" and I'd say "yes, but don't tell anyone".
I also used to sign my own homework book. Teachers really didn't have a clue whose signature was what anyway. Homework was something to be done in the gap time between when I got to the classroom, and the teacher showed up. Five minutes = sufficient for three page essay, and the text was usually more coherent than when I had time to think about it and edit the life out of it.
Yeah, it had a degaussing button that you could press, and the whole screen would go "Blung", lose the picture briefly and then come back. Perhaps it did this on power up too, I've never seen the new monitor (same model and brand) do it by itself.
But the old one used to do it, without pressing button, all by itself, every half an hour. It wasn't until I persuaded the fixit shop to plug it in somewhere and just leave it on that they saw the problem and replaced it since they couldn't figure out what caused it. My bet would have been a faulty capacitor or fuse like system somewhere but I'm not a monitor/display mechanic so I have no clue really. It was truly devastating if I was playing a game either against the computer or on the net, because I couldn't see what was on the screen for a couple of seconds, and that would be when the game/other players would get me. Mostly it was just annoying. But I couldn't just ignore it because it started at about once every two hours and was becoming progressively more frequent, over period of a couple of months. All the other mitsubishi monitors I've come across have been fine. I've never seen any other monitor do that either. Mostly they die of colour misalignment or one colour dies altogether.
Buying a monitor.
.3 is thick, .26 is good, .25 is fine, clear, precise, and .24 beautiful, unavailable and expensive.)
If you're worried about unit to unit variance, discuss, and if you feel it's necessary, get in writing, that your shop will let you bring the unit back if you're not happy. Don't buy from the elcheapo that is on the TV, buy from somewhere you or your friends have done good business before.
I like the reviews (and the classifieds) from this magazine: australian pc magazine. They have good list of what to look for and why.
Benq TFT review
I bought a Sony 17" LCD SDM S71R. It has no speakers or usb port. Sony wanted nearly $1500 aus for it, my local pc shop wanted $1395 for it, but I got it at mates rates from the same people that supply most of my friends and my work for $1329. The shop I think likely to be most difficult with the returns would have been the sony shop, parking for starters, a complete nightmare, but they're also very inflexible, and couldn't budge on the price even though they were the most expensive.
Of course I found several other brands at better prices later, but not so sure about their specs. And the main pain is about a month after you buy, all better specs come out anyway.
Need to pay attention to the
refresh rate (the higher the better 75 and up...)
native resolution (on 17" should be able to do 1280 x 1024 and still be able to read it)
pixel pitch (this comes under a lot of different names, the smaller the better eg
Lots of LCDs on test
I also like Mitsubishi CRT monitors. My first one used to deguass by itself, but I got it replaced. My Mum has never had any problems with hers.
I like the LCDs better, because I don't need a crane to lift one and I can fit more on to the screen and my desk. The Sony unit is brilliant. I got it out of the box sight unseen (although I did look at one similar in the sony shop). Not a single dead pixel anywhere. The main problem was finding drivers to work it with win98 and my graphics card. But it is happy now.
Greetings from Mad Bess Flint...Hard, sharp and flakey...
>inexpensive, fast, good - choose two
I have a similar thought about horse riding
desired direction, right speed, balanced in the saddle - choose two.
If I got speed and balance right, the horse was usually headed for the nearest low branch.
If I got direction and speed right, I usually wasn't in contact with the saddle. Ie standing in the stirrups.
If I got direction and balance right, usually the horse was stopped and eating.
Hmm wonder how I could bring it back to topic?
popular, secure, profitable - choose two?
Locking all the windows in the house and the sliding doors with locks that require keys to open, is my token gesture at keeping my computer equipment in the house and burglars out.
I know it doesn't work always. And my contingency escape plan is throw chair through window in case of fire. Which will work unless I install security window tinting. In which case I may need a special ice pick to get out. Hmm, that might double as burglar repellant.
caused by operator incompetence
friendly fire - caused by operator incompetence (personally I'd rather call it fuckup fire)
perhaps if we got rid of all the operators? or better if we made it more difficult for them to fuck up.
The fact that operator incompetence can have lethal consequences, means that the technology needs modification. I'm in favour of increasing safety equipment and procedures.
And can somebody explain to me how a pilot cannot tell the difference between a convoy of trucks with cars, and a tank?
"Fancy a shag?"
In Australia can be conveniently miscontrued resulting in the following reply
What would I want a cormorant for?
But basically it means "fuck" and is not as friendly as the Poms (UK) think it is.
Likewise "nice ass" will get the comment: "What donkey? Where?"
And don't get me started on "fanny". Hint - Australian men do not have a fanny of their own. And women don't generally sit on theirs. The theme song for "the Nanny" was considered very crude here.
A pity there is no unix for wombat: eats, roots and leaves.