I'd imagine it'd more useful to dispute land boundaries, i.e. who owns that strip of land between us. Assuming there are no other more recent records, an entry there would probably be acceptable in court as evidence of which house owned it.
You don't specify which country you actually live in, which makes it rather tricky to give advice. Given that the device is actually english, and sold in england, I'm assuming that's where you live.
If that is the case, then there are laws against domestic noise nuisance, and it's not just decibels, it can be the type of noise and its duration. Your first step is to ask the guy politely to stop. Get the nicest and oldest local person that's sympathetic and can hear the noise (wouldn't hurt if they were female either) and basically talk to him politely. Invite him over for a cup of tea, and see if there's a way that you can find out what specifically is annoying him - it may be something very minor that wouldn't be a hassle to stop doing, or move a little way.
Assuming that fails, then make a formal complaint to the local council. You'll need to make logs of the times that the noise is turned on, it's level of annoyance. Logs from multiple people would help, and it's especially useful if it's annoying when you're on your own property. Also, make a note of when you talked to him, and the outcome. The council will guide you through this. Assuming the council think you have a case, they'll start proceedings on your behalf. They'll pay for the court costs, arrange everything, you just have to turn up to give evidence.
Your council probably has a website on the matter, look for 'domestic nuisance'. This is Sheffield's, as an example.
Just wanted to say, thanks! Was just trying to find a way round my only copy of windows 2000 server OEM being unreadably scratched, and just tried WD40 plus a little rubbing from in-to-out with a cloth.
Worked a treat, even on the long circular scratch going half way round the disc, which are the nastiest. Just successfully ripped an ISO of it. Cheers, if you're ever in Dorset, I owe you a beer!
"Since April 2004, the police in England and Wales have been able to take DNA samples without consent from anyone arrested on suspicion of any recordable offence. Recordable offences include begging, being drunk and disorderly and taking part in an illegal demonstration." (It also includes many driving offences) "Both DNA profiles (the string of numbers used for identification purposes) and DNA samples (which contain unlimited genetic information), are kept permanently, even if the person arrested is never charged or is acquitted. A massive expansion in the number of individuals on the Database has not led to any noticable increase in the likelihood of identifying a suspect."
When the national database was orginally setup, DNA profiles were removed if the person was not convicted, and after a while for non-serious offences. Now they keep not only the database profile (the number representing 'unique' ID) but the original full DNA sample as well. Permanently.
We have number-plate recognition cameras going up everywhere to record everywhere we drive, possibly to be followed by satellite tracking for the road tax. We have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else. Oh, and our passports are going to have biometric data, i.e. fingerprints and iris records initially, and likely DNA later. All this info will be stored in the central government database. National ID cards are pretty much dead, but only because of costs. After a few years of the passport office building up biometric data on much of the population, having to carry a national ID card will come back, piggybacked off the passport system. Don't forget the email and internet records being kept, and the credit card databases, and access to the phone records.
Welcome to total surveillence in the UK. All applauded by the general population, as it will 'keep us safe from crime'. I'm just wondering when mandatory CCTV cameras will be installed in homes, to allow the police to spot terrorists and pedophiles.
Gah. My other half is literally moving from France today to come live with me in the UK. Now I'm considering turning her round, hitching a lift, and going to live in France!
Holy hell, this is quicker than my Gigabit LAN. My hard-drives already aren't quick enough to saturate the network, I'm trying to imagine downloading files at 2.5Gbit/sec. The mind boggles.
It's not that it's a defence to download a copy of something you already own - though it should be - but that WHY would he download it in the first place if he already had a copy?
You could try the bluetake BT500 mouse; it's really really small, ideal for a lappy, made by a thermaltake spinoff company. Nice crisp movement with the 800 dpi laser. You should be able to get one without a bluetooth adapter, which will make it a bit cheaper. Also, it does work on linux - see note 4.
There's also the logitech MX900 if you fancy a more conventionally-sized mouse, and are a right-hander.
They're not linked per se, but they have a lot of symptom similarities, which makes scientists think that the molecular mechanism underlying both of them could be the same.
This means that a treatment for one, *might* give insights into treatments for the other, not that a drug will treat both. nvCJD (what BSE is in humans) and alzheimers are thought to be caused by buildups of different proteins, though they do have very similar structures.
If you use the restore CDs that came with the laptop, that'll be a custom version of windows (tied to that model of laptop) that uses a pre-activated key owned by the laptop maker, so you don't need to worry about activation theoretically; though a windows update might still bugger it up.
If you use your COA number on your laptop with a vanilla windows CD, it'll most likely work at most once. After that, you'll need to ring microsoft every time to activate your computer ever time you reinstall it, a windows update goes haywire, or you install the wrong device.
Yes, the keys microsoft provide are useless, which is very annoying if you wish to install a different base language of windows than came with it. Might be worth having another go with fedora...
Hah. They've already lost to the EU courts, but still fail to admit it. From here:
"Communications protocols. Microsoft will make available, on commercially reasonable terms, all of the communications protocols that it has built into Windows and that are used to facilitate communication with server versions of Windows. To facilitate this, Microsoft will document protocols supported in Windows as part of the product design process. We will also work closely with firms with particular needs to address interoperability scenarios that may require licensing of other protocols."
It's the 'commercially reasonable terms' and 'licensing of other protocols' that the EU courts are unhappy with, as that does not comply with their ruling. Effectively, you can get access to some of microsoft's SMB and CIFS info, but only if you pay for it and don't use it to write GPL code. Plus, this only appears to apply to new code, they're rather quiet on documenting their existing protocols properly, rather than 'part of the product design process'.
This bit shows they're only doing what they were forced to do by the US anti-trust case, and they're doing the bare minimum to give the appearance of fair play so they don't get hit again. If they had really changed their spots, they'd commit to doing what they've been ordered to do by the EU anti-trust courts.
I agree with your examples, but not with your linking of them with the original problem. A bank or computer maker or hotel's CUSTOMERS are committing the illegal act. You're right, the business should not be held liable for what their clients do, i.e. myspace shouldn't be held liable for what their users hosting pages put on them.
This is different. This is the business putting up an advertising hoarding that is dangerous to visitors. The business already vets its adverts (so no porn), so it has the duty and capability to vet its adboards for viruses, just as if it was hosting auto-install viruses on the front page in their own webspace.
Just because it subcontracts the advertising out to a third party doesn't get myspace off the hook, any more than a bank with a beartrap inside the front door wouldn't be liable because their builders put it there.
Yes, but the government raises mosr of its money from taxes, so a fine collected by the government ought to either pay off a bit of the debt (thus reduced taxes slightly in the long term) or lead to a little more money in the kitty so that taxes don't need to be raised as much later.
Bwahahaha. Sorry, can't keep a straight face any more, even I don't believe it...
It's a little more complex than that, but you're largely right. In British english, it depends whether we're referring to a collective noun as a group, or as individuals. If it's referring to the entire group in concert, then we use 'is', if we're referring to them as individuals who are grouped together, we use 'are'. This is rather subtle though, so we tend to use 'are' most often.
In this case, you could use either 'is' or 'are' to refer to Apple, but the correct usage technically is 'is', i.e. Apple is is ending its court action - because we're referring to the company as a whole; though I suppose if you were referring just to the part of Apple (i.e. the legal dept) that decided to drop the case, you'd say Apple are dropping the case.
Apple is a big company. Apple's lawyers are not very nice sometimes. Apple are about to fire their useless lawyers. The team is on the pitch. The team are celebrating hugely after that goal.
We use the same method for non-human or even abstract collective nouns, though we almost invariably use 'are' in that situation. Fish are often found swimming in the sea. The herd are running away. It's very odd, I can't imagine saying 'fish is often found...' - makes me sound like an east Londoner!
Oh, and aluminium just has that 1 extra i - it's not that tricky. Aloomeeneeum. You Americans are hopeless sometimes;)
True, but the worst that'll happen for violating the TOS is that your ISP account would be terminated. That's better than being sued by an organisation funded by multimillion-dollar mafia-like music companies for an offence that you didn't commit!
Because of the 111 individuals who settled out of court, who decided it was cheaper and simpler to pay the settlement than pay for a solicitor and go for the longer drawn out battle in court, even if they might have won on the merits of their case?
Because there's 24 people who have neither settled or been found guilty, and are presumably going through this long, expensive process?
Because not all of us agree that the penalties for copyright infringment levelled against private individual sharing are necessarily fair and just?
Because many people infringing are children, and NOT aware of the law and its consquences, so their parents end up with multi-thousand pound fines?
It's the THREAT of court by a private body that forces settlements from the majority. Whether they are guilty or not, we'll never know. Personally, I think they should concentrate on commercial infringement, and making their product valuable on its merits, rather than constantly try to sell us less and less of a product, for more and more money, and using the law to enforce it.
Just because the big 4 have the law on their side doesn't make them right, or worthy of my business. I've made my choice to only buy from independants, you're welcome to make your own.
Yes, that's a blank tax media. I thought of that one after posting, but I figured someone would leap in for me:)
It also applies to standalone audio CD duplication devices, as opposed to generic 'data' ones that you find in computers. Hasn't really been relevent for years though, as everyone just buys data CDs and burners, they're physically identical to the 'music specific' audio CDs. Haven't even seen an audio specific CD for ages.
However, there's no general blank-media tax on data CDs, DVDs, flash players, hard-drives etc etc. Only the tax on Audio CDs and DAT tapes, both of which are rather obsolete these days.
A private business has every right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason ( despite what the equal rights groups may tell you ).
Under UK and EU law, you're entirely wrong. You cannot refuse service based on race, sex, age, disability and now I believe religion - based upon the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Equal Opportunities Act.
'Needing my internet fix' however, I believe doesn't fall under any protected class at this time.
The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy traffic going across their wires.
So in effect, the BPI are doing the same thing that anti-spammers do; ask the ISP to enforce their existing contract terms with the user, and terminate it for 'abuse'.
Once the contract is terminated, then the ISP is done. No further action would be taken by the ISP, so the courts don't get involved. Of course, the customer could start a civil suit against the ISP for breach of contract (good luck with that!), or breach of EU data privacy laws if the ISP handed personally identfying info over the BPI without a court-order. Note, I'm not a solicitor, so the previous paragraph could be complete rubbish, but it's how I understand it.
The BPI are a trade organisation, like the RIAA; no government powers at all. They have to go to court to pursue civil cases, or ask the police to investigate criminal cases, just like everyone else. This however is just one company asking another to enforce their contract against a 3rd party, i.e. the users. No doubt the ISP's will jump through hoops to do it though, they've not got a great history of standing up for their users against accusations that may or may not be true.
The BPI have sued some people in the UK for copyright infringement, it's at the bottom of the FA.
"BPI has taken legal action in 139 filesharing cases. The four that have gone to court have produced verdicts in BPI's favour, while 111 individuals have settled out of court."
Remember, the RIAA and BPI are just the legal mouthpieces of the major international record labels. Anything they do, they do at the behest of:
* Universal Music Group ($7 billion revenue), which includes A&M, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon, Geffen, Interscope, Island Def Jam, Motown, Philips, Rampagge, Universal, and others;
* Sony BMG Music Entertainment ($5 billion), which includes: Arista, (American) Columbia, Epic, J, Jive, LaFace, Ravenous, RCA and others;
* EMI Group ($4 billion), which includes Angel, Blue Note, Capitol, European Columbia, Elektrola, Odeon, Parlophone, Pathé Marconi, Positiva, Virgin and others;
* Warner Music Group (a.k.a. WEA) ($2.5 billion), which includes Asylum, Atlantic, Elektra, Erato, Heiress, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire, Sub Pop (49% Warner ownership), and others.
Let this inform your music purchasing choices appropriately.
Intel VT is codenamed vanderpool, here's a link to a pdf with a list of which processors have it. It's mainly the core duo's, and some of the pentium D and EE 9xx series. Core 2 Duo's will also support it.
AMD's VT is codenamed pacifica, and as far as I know, no processors have actually launched with it yet, though it's due soon. I stand to be corrected on that point, all AMD's articles press releases say yet is 'due first half 2006'
It basically comes down to how you play, and friction. If you're a twitch gamer and use a high DPI mouse with teflon feet, the low-friction surface you get on hard gaming pads can be definitely worth it in terms of responsiveness (UT springs to mind) - it's less tiring on your wrist if nothing else. Plus they're easy to clean. A pure matt surface also tends to work better with lasers, anything reflective can make the mouse go a little crazy at times. If you're a low sensitivity player (and play roles which require very high precision, such as sniping) they still have their uses, but you probably want something with a rougher surface and a big surface area. You still want smooth movement though - a large gaming cloth pad can be better suited for this kind of thing.
I have a razer exactmat for gaming, and an everglide titan which I only tend to use for general computer work. Still, the everglide is HUGE which can be very nice if you have the space. The exactmat has a glide side which is very slippery, and a control side which I tend to use for most games, as it lies roughly between the cloth everglide and the glide side in terms of grip.
They don't hugely improve performance. A better 'net connection, a better PC, and a high-res mouse all are more important, but a gaming pad can be a nice luxury that gives you less stress on the wrist and a small responsiveness boost. Considering how much time I spend on the computer generally, it was worth a few quid for a low-friction surface.
FYI, Konqueror is part of kdebase, but it'd probably be easier to just install all of kde, if you have the space. That also means you get to install and play with amarok (media player), digikam (photo manager) and k3b (cd/dvd burner) that I consider to be best of breed apps on any platform. It's worth pointing out that both fedora and ubuntu are mainly Gnome platforms, though they do support vanilla kde installs.
If you do end up liking KDE more than gnome - which happened to me - your two main choices of other distros are SUSE and mandriva for slightly better KDE integration. I'm a firm believer in sticking to the distro you know and making it work though, rather than jump around too much. If you like fedora - and yum is very nice - stick with it, you won't be missing out as such.
As far as speed goes, if your box is a little light on horsepower, you might have the most joy with xfce or the rox desktop, both sort of 'gnome-lite'. You'll still be able to use all the kde and gnome apps you've got installed, so you can pick the desktop that suits you best.
Also, if you can confirm opengl is working ok, you can give Xgl a go. It's very new and pretty buggy yet, but it's part of the future of 3D accelerated desktops on linux, and very swish. You'll need a fairly beefy nvidia card though.
Ignore those flagging your original post as a troll; linux has zealots who can't stand criticism or basic questions, just like any platform. There's plenty of sane and helpful people who are happy to see people finding the fun that linux can be.
Re:My Linux Annoyances as a Hardended Windows user
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Linux Annoyances For Geeks
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· Score: 5, Informative
1. No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. Wtf? Codecs for avi's and DVDs were a simular story; all had to be downloaded via yum (bloody excellent tool!). Seriously; not good, but fixed in the end.
Alas, blame the law. The US allows software patents. Software patents means that codecs like mp3, mpeg2, ac3 etc etc are patented, and they can only be distributed if licence fees are paid by the distro. Since fedora is distributed free, they can't pay the licence fees, and they don't want to get sued if they distribute the distro in the US, so the only option is to host the codec packages outside the US where the patents don't apply, and you get them yourself. Note, Windows doesn't come with DVD playback out of the box for the same reason. If you want codecs and other patented software out of the box, you need to pay for a distro, and the US codec licence fees will be paid for out of your purchase price. No way round this, short of getting US patent law reformed.
2. Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel? Why? I've never had to on Windows - why is Linux different? Is it so buggy?... 68 cock-ups so great in the kernel build from release-time until that now they had to re-release 68 times?
Two main reasons. First, a lot of the linux drivers are in the kernel, so new kernel versions include improved drivers and ones for new hardware. Second, the linux kernel is adding a lot of extra features and improvements, as well as bugfixes (not even a majority of bugs are security holes, don't forget). Third, windows does indeed get kernel updates, they just get included in Windows Update. Be glad linux is evolving so quickly:)
3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'. For the love of god, why?!
Nvidia don't want to release open-source drivers. They have a great big chunk of closed driver, with a 'shim' that links that binary code to a particular kernel. The kernel is updated, the shim needs to be redone for your particular kernel. Admittedly, the linux devs don't exactly make life easy for nvidia to do it this way. Chalk it up to the conflict between the open-source and closed-source world. Still, life isn't exactly rosy in the closed-source world either, I've lost count of the times I've needed to update drivers on windows to fix some bug or conflict, especially when it comes to video card drivers and PC games. Tell nvidia you'd like proper open-source drivers for the hardware you paid for...
4. X-Windows. What a mess. Why do I have to tell it my x & y refresh rates for my monitor? Windows just 'knows'. Many more things here I feel that X-Windows should just 'know' - the number of buttons on my USB mouse for-instance. If Windows can do it, there's no reason why Linux can't. Also, X-Windows 'feels' slower than Windows. I'm sure there's good reasons for this, but I don't care; Windows is snappier.
Agreed on the Xorg config problems. Largely a hold-over from a long period of political infighting, now resolved. Xorg is rapidly improving, and many features are coming in now that have been held up for years. The slowness is probably down to a slight problem with the config (possibly the openGL parts) - properly setup, I find Xorg quicker than windows. Still, it should be easier to 'automagically' configure it than it is - too many times I've had to fix an Xorg setup manually.
5. Lack of decent file-browser. The best I've come across is Nautilus in a mode that resembles Windows Explorer. It'll do for now, but as far as I'm aware, offers no context-sensitive menus for applications (like the Winamp "Play in Winamp" right-click menu on fo
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I'd imagine it'd more useful to dispute land boundaries, i.e. who owns that strip of land between us. Assuming there are no other more recent records, an entry there would probably be acceptable in court as evidence of which house owned it.
You don't specify which country you actually live in, which makes it rather tricky to give advice. Given that the device is actually english, and sold in england, I'm assuming that's where you live.
If that is the case, then there are laws against domestic noise nuisance, and it's not just decibels, it can be the type of noise and its duration. Your first step is to ask the guy politely to stop. Get the nicest and oldest local person that's sympathetic and can hear the noise (wouldn't hurt if they were female either) and basically talk to him politely. Invite him over for a cup of tea, and see if there's a way that you can find out what specifically is annoying him - it may be something very minor that wouldn't be a hassle to stop doing, or move a little way.
Assuming that fails, then make a formal complaint to the local council. You'll need to make logs of the times that the noise is turned on, it's level of annoyance. Logs from multiple people would help, and it's especially useful if it's annoying when you're on your own property. Also, make a note of when you talked to him, and the outcome. The council will guide you through this. Assuming the council think you have a case, they'll start proceedings on your behalf. They'll pay for the court costs, arrange everything, you just have to turn up to give evidence.
Your council probably has a website on the matter, look for 'domestic nuisance'. This is Sheffield's, as an example.
Just wanted to say, thanks! Was just trying to find a way round my only copy of windows 2000 server OEM being unreadably scratched, and just tried WD40 plus a little rubbing from in-to-out with a cloth.
Worked a treat, even on the long circular scratch going half way round the disc, which are the nastiest. Just successfully ripped an ISO of it. Cheers, if you're ever in Dorset, I owe you a beer!
The police in England and Wales have more DNA samples than in any other country - 5% of the population. Scotland don't allow the retention of DNA for those not convicted.
"Since April 2004, the police in England and Wales have been able to take DNA samples without consent from anyone arrested on suspicion of any recordable offence. Recordable offences include begging, being drunk and disorderly and taking part in an illegal demonstration." (It also includes many driving offences) "Both DNA profiles (the string of numbers used for identification purposes) and DNA samples (which contain unlimited genetic information), are kept permanently, even if the person arrested is never charged or is acquitted. A massive expansion in the number of individuals on the Database has not led to any noticable increase in the likelihood of identifying a suspect."
When the national database was orginally setup, DNA profiles were removed if the person was not convicted, and after a while for non-serious offences. Now they keep not only the database profile (the number representing 'unique' ID) but the original full DNA sample as well. Permanently.
The government also insists on the right to DNA profile juveniles.
We have number-plate recognition cameras going up everywhere to record everywhere we drive, possibly to be followed by satellite tracking for the road tax. We have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else. Oh, and our passports are going to have biometric data, i.e. fingerprints and iris records initially, and likely DNA later. All this info will be stored in the central government database. National ID cards are pretty much dead, but only because of costs. After a few years of the passport office building up biometric data on much of the population, having to carry a national ID card will come back, piggybacked off the passport system.
Don't forget the email and internet records being kept, and the credit card databases, and access to the phone records.
Welcome to total surveillence in the UK. All applauded by the general population, as it will 'keep us safe from crime'. I'm just wondering when mandatory CCTV cameras will be installed in homes, to allow the police to spot terrorists and pedophiles.
Gah. My other half is literally moving from France today to come live with me in the UK. Now I'm considering turning her round, hitching a lift, and going to live in France!
Holy hell, this is quicker than my Gigabit LAN. My hard-drives already aren't quick enough to saturate the network, I'm trying to imagine downloading files at 2.5Gbit/sec. The mind boggles.
It's not that it's a defence to download a copy of something you already own - though it should be - but that WHY would he download it in the first place if he already had a copy?
You could try the bluetake BT500 mouse; it's really really small, ideal for a lappy, made by a thermaltake spinoff company. Nice crisp movement with the 800 dpi laser. You should be able to get one without a bluetooth adapter, which will make it a bit cheaper. Also, it does work on linux - see note 4.
There's also the logitech MX900 if you fancy a more conventionally-sized mouse, and are a right-hander.
They're not linked per se, but they have a lot of symptom similarities, which makes scientists think that the molecular mechanism underlying both of them could be the same.
This means that a treatment for one, *might* give insights into treatments for the other, not that a drug will treat both. nvCJD (what BSE is in humans) and alzheimers are thought to be caused by buildups of different proteins, though they do have very similar structures.
If you use the restore CDs that came with the laptop, that'll be a custom version of windows (tied to that model of laptop) that uses a pre-activated key owned by the laptop maker, so you don't need to worry about activation theoretically; though a windows update might still bugger it up.
If you use your COA number on your laptop with a vanilla windows CD, it'll most likely work at most once. After that, you'll need to ring microsoft every time to activate your computer ever time you reinstall it, a windows update goes haywire, or you install the wrong device.
Yes, the keys microsoft provide are useless, which is very annoying if you wish to install a different base language of windows than came with it. Might be worth having another go with fedora...
Hah. They've already lost to the EU courts, but still fail to admit it. From here:
"Communications protocols. Microsoft will make available, on commercially reasonable terms, all of the communications protocols that it has built into Windows and that are used to facilitate communication with server versions of Windows. To facilitate this, Microsoft will document protocols supported in Windows as part of the product design process. We will also work closely with firms with particular needs to address interoperability scenarios that may require licensing of other protocols."
It's the 'commercially reasonable terms' and 'licensing of other protocols' that the EU courts are unhappy with, as that does not comply with their ruling. Effectively, you can get access to some of microsoft's SMB and CIFS info, but only if you pay for it and don't use it to write GPL code. Plus, this only appears to apply to new code, they're rather quiet on documenting their existing protocols properly, rather than 'part of the product design process'.
This bit shows they're only doing what they were forced to do by the US anti-trust case, and they're doing the bare minimum to give the appearance of fair play so they don't get hit again. If they had really changed their spots, they'd commit to doing what they've been ordered to do by the EU anti-trust courts.
I agree with your examples, but not with your linking of them with the original problem. A bank or computer maker or hotel's CUSTOMERS are committing the illegal act. You're right, the business should not be held liable for what their clients do, i.e. myspace shouldn't be held liable for what their users hosting pages put on them.
This is different. This is the business putting up an advertising hoarding that is dangerous to visitors. The business already vets its adverts (so no porn), so it has the duty and capability to vet its adboards for viruses, just as if it was hosting auto-install viruses on the front page in their own webspace.
Just because it subcontracts the advertising out to a third party doesn't get myspace off the hook, any more than a bank with a beartrap inside the front door wouldn't be liable because their builders put it there.
Yes, but the government raises mosr of its money from taxes, so a fine collected by the government ought to either pay off a bit of the debt (thus reduced taxes slightly in the long term) or lead to a little more money in the kitty so that taxes don't need to be raised as much later.
Bwahahaha. Sorry, can't keep a straight face any more, even I don't believe it...
It's a little more complex than that, but you're largely right. In British english, it depends whether we're referring to a collective noun as a group, or as individuals. If it's referring to the entire group in concert, then we use 'is', if we're referring to them as individuals who are grouped together, we use 'are'. This is rather subtle though, so we tend to use 'are' most often.
;)
In this case, you could use either 'is' or 'are' to refer to Apple, but the correct usage technically is 'is', i.e. Apple is is ending its court action - because we're referring to the company as a whole; though I suppose if you were referring just to the part of Apple (i.e. the legal dept) that decided to drop the case, you'd say Apple are dropping the case.
Apple is a big company. Apple's lawyers are not very nice sometimes. Apple are about to fire their useless lawyers.
The team is on the pitch. The team are celebrating hugely after that goal.
We use the same method for non-human or even abstract collective nouns, though we almost invariably use 'are' in that situation.
Fish are often found swimming in the sea.
The herd are running away.
It's very odd, I can't imagine saying 'fish is often found...' - makes me sound like an east Londoner!
Oh, and aluminium just has that 1 extra i - it's not that tricky. Aloomeeneeum. You Americans are hopeless sometimes
True, but the worst that'll happen for violating the TOS is that your ISP account would be terminated. That's better than being sued by an organisation funded by multimillion-dollar mafia-like music companies for an offence that you didn't commit!
Because of the 111 individuals who settled out of court, who decided it was cheaper and simpler to pay the settlement than pay for a solicitor and go for the longer drawn out battle in court, even if they might have won on the merits of their case?
Because there's 24 people who have neither settled or been found guilty, and are presumably going through this long, expensive process?
Because not all of us agree that the penalties for copyright infringment levelled against private individual sharing are necessarily fair and just?
Because many people infringing are children, and NOT aware of the law and its consquences, so their parents end up with multi-thousand pound fines?
It's the THREAT of court by a private body that forces settlements from the majority. Whether they are guilty or not, we'll never know. Personally, I think they should concentrate on commercial infringement, and making their product valuable on its merits, rather than constantly try to sell us less and less of a product, for more and more money, and using the law to enforce it.
Just because the big 4 have the law on their side doesn't make them right, or worthy of my business. I've made my choice to only buy from independants, you're welcome to make your own.
Yes, that's a blank tax media. I thought of that one after posting, but I figured someone would leap in for me :)
It also applies to standalone audio CD duplication devices, as opposed to generic 'data' ones that you find in computers. Hasn't really been relevent for years though, as everyone just buys data CDs and burners, they're physically identical to the 'music specific' audio CDs. Haven't even seen an audio specific CD for ages.
However, there's no general blank-media tax on data CDs, DVDs, flash players, hard-drives etc etc. Only the tax on Audio CDs and DAT tapes, both of which are rather obsolete these days.
A private business has every right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason ( despite what the equal rights groups may tell you ).
Under UK and EU law, you're entirely wrong. You cannot refuse service based on race, sex, age, disability and now I believe religion - based upon the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Equal Opportunities Act.
'Needing my internet fix' however, I believe doesn't fall under any protected class at this time.
The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy traffic going across their wires.
So in effect, the BPI are doing the same thing that anti-spammers do; ask the ISP to enforce their existing contract terms with the user, and terminate it for 'abuse'.
Once the contract is terminated, then the ISP is done. No further action would be taken by the ISP, so the courts don't get involved. Of course, the customer could start a civil suit against the ISP for breach of contract (good luck with that!), or breach of EU data privacy laws if the ISP handed personally identfying info over the BPI without a court-order. Note, I'm not a solicitor, so the previous paragraph could be complete rubbish, but it's how I understand it.
The BPI are a trade organisation, like the RIAA; no government powers at all. They have to go to court to pursue civil cases, or ask the police to investigate criminal cases, just like everyone else. This however is just one company asking another to enforce their contract against a 3rd party, i.e. the users. No doubt the ISP's will jump through hoops to do it though, they've not got a great history of standing up for their users against accusations that may or may not be true.
The BPI have sued some people in the UK for copyright infringement, it's at the bottom of the FA.
"BPI has taken legal action in 139 filesharing cases. The four that have gone to court have produced verdicts in BPI's favour, while 111 individuals have settled out of court."
Remember, the RIAA and BPI are just the legal mouthpieces of the major international record labels. Anything they do, they do at the behest of:
* Universal Music Group ($7 billion revenue), which includes A&M, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon, Geffen, Interscope, Island Def Jam, Motown, Philips, Rampagge, Universal, and others;
* Sony BMG Music Entertainment ($5 billion), which includes: Arista, (American) Columbia, Epic, J, Jive, LaFace, Ravenous, RCA and others;
* EMI Group ($4 billion), which includes Angel, Blue Note, Capitol, European Columbia, Elektrola, Odeon, Parlophone, Pathé Marconi, Positiva, Virgin and others;
* Warner Music Group (a.k.a. WEA) ($2.5 billion), which includes Asylum, Atlantic, Elektra, Erato, Heiress, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire, Sub Pop (49% Warner ownership), and others.
Let this inform your music purchasing choices appropriately.
There's no blank media tax in the UK as far as I'm aware, it's one of the few countries in the EU that doesn't have one.
Intel VT is codenamed vanderpool, here's a link to a pdf with a list of which processors have it. It's mainly the core duo's, and some of the pentium D and EE 9xx series. Core 2 Duo's will also support it.
AMD's VT is codenamed pacifica, and as far as I know, no processors have actually launched with it yet, though it's due soon. I stand to be corrected on that point, all AMD's articles press releases say yet is 'due first half 2006'
Penny arcade have a better critique of wikipedia and how it works.
It basically comes down to how you play, and friction. If you're a twitch gamer and use a high DPI mouse with teflon feet, the low-friction surface you get on hard gaming pads can be definitely worth it in terms of responsiveness (UT springs to mind) - it's less tiring on your wrist if nothing else. Plus they're easy to clean. A pure matt surface also tends to work better with lasers, anything reflective can make the mouse go a little crazy at times. If you're a low sensitivity player (and play roles which require very high precision, such as sniping) they still have their uses, but you probably want something with a rougher surface and a big surface area. You still want smooth movement though - a large gaming cloth pad can be better suited for this kind of thing.
I have a razer exactmat for gaming, and an everglide titan which I only tend to use for general computer work. Still, the everglide is HUGE which can be very nice if you have the space. The exactmat has a glide side which is very slippery, and a control side which I tend to use for most games, as it lies roughly between the cloth everglide and the glide side in terms of grip.
They don't hugely improve performance. A better 'net connection, a better PC, and a high-res mouse all are more important, but a gaming pad can be a nice luxury that gives you less stress on the wrist and a small responsiveness boost. Considering how much time I spend on the computer generally, it was worth a few quid for a low-friction surface.
FYI, Konqueror is part of kdebase, but it'd probably be easier to just install all of kde, if you have the space. That also means you get to install and play with amarok (media player), digikam (photo manager) and k3b (cd/dvd burner) that I consider to be best of breed apps on any platform. It's worth pointing out that both fedora and ubuntu are mainly Gnome platforms, though they do support vanilla kde installs.
If you do end up liking KDE more than gnome - which happened to me - your two main choices of other distros are SUSE and mandriva for slightly better KDE integration. I'm a firm believer in sticking to the distro you know and making it work though, rather than jump around too much. If you like fedora - and yum is very nice - stick with it, you won't be missing out as such.
As far as speed goes, if your box is a little light on horsepower, you might have the most joy with xfce or the rox desktop, both sort of 'gnome-lite'. You'll still be able to use all the kde and gnome apps you've got installed, so you can pick the desktop that suits you best.
Also, if you can confirm opengl is working ok, you can give Xgl a go. It's very new and pretty buggy yet, but it's part of the future of 3D accelerated desktops on linux, and very swish. You'll need a fairly beefy nvidia card though.
Ignore those flagging your original post as a troll; linux has zealots who can't stand criticism or basic questions, just like any platform. There's plenty of sane and helpful people who are happy to see people finding the fun that linux can be.
Alas, blame the law. The US allows software patents. Software patents means that codecs like mp3, mpeg2, ac3 etc etc are patented, and they can only be distributed if licence fees are paid by the distro. Since fedora is distributed free, they can't pay the licence fees, and they don't want to get sued if they distribute the distro in the US, so the only option is to host the codec packages outside the US where the patents don't apply, and you get them yourself. Note, Windows doesn't come with DVD playback out of the box for the same reason. If you want codecs and other patented software out of the box, you need to pay for a distro, and the US codec licence fees will be paid for out of your purchase price. No way round this, short of getting US patent law reformed.
Two main reasons. First, a lot of the linux drivers are in the kernel, so new kernel versions include improved drivers and ones for new hardware. Second, the linux kernel is adding a lot of extra features and improvements, as well as bugfixes (not even a majority of bugs are security holes, don't forget). Third, windows does indeed get kernel updates, they just get included in Windows Update. Be glad linux is evolving so quickly :)
Nvidia don't want to release open-source drivers. They have a great big chunk of closed driver, with a 'shim' that links that binary code to a particular kernel. The kernel is updated, the shim needs to be redone for your particular kernel. Admittedly, the linux devs don't exactly make life easy for nvidia to do it this way. Chalk it up to the conflict between the open-source and closed-source world. Still, life isn't exactly rosy in the closed-source world either, I've lost count of the times I've needed to update drivers on windows to fix some bug or conflict, especially when it comes to video card drivers and PC games. Tell nvidia you'd like proper open-source drivers for the hardware you paid for...
Agreed on the Xorg config problems. Largely a hold-over from a long period of political infighting, now resolved. Xorg is rapidly improving, and many features are coming in now that have been held up for years. The slowness is probably down to a slight problem with the config (possibly the openGL parts) - properly setup, I find Xorg quicker than windows. Still, it should be easier to 'automagically' configure it than it is - too many times I've had to fix an Xorg setup manually.