The halcyon period of the ATM could be over, at least in the UK, as the number of machines that charge up to 1.75UKP for a 10UKP withdrawal continues to increase. Some of the big banks are selling off their networks to the fee-charging operators, although it's possible to make very good money from an ATM network on interchange fees alone.
A tip for/. readers driving in the UK: only stop at Moto service stations when using the motorway network. They use free ATMs; most of the others have signed up with the fee-charging vampires.
As two of the things/. readers most hate come from Utah, can't we form a "coalition of the willing" and bomb the state out of existence? We could pretend there are WMDs there if it helps - this has been shown to work in the past;-)
Once Utah is a smoking hole, we can claim the axis of evil also included Washington state.
Better, a Lindows^H^H^H^Hspire PC, which is really, really cheap. Put up the Linux sales figures and rip off MS at the same time. What a piece of Linspirational thinking. Not that *I* would actually condone such behaviour, mind;-)
Provided the clueless millions install the Service Pack, that is. They obviously don't use updated anti-virus software to stop the mass-mailing worms, so I won't hold my breath. Everything you ever wanted to know about SP2, and many things you didn't, is here.
It's worse than that. A paediatrician was hounded out of her house (in Portsmouth, I think) when the mob found out what her job title was. Apart from being so stupid as to not know the difference between -phile and -iatrician, did the cretins really think paedophiles would list themselves as such in the Yellow Pages?
The Windows firewall has been much improved for SP2 and now works more like ZoneAlarm, i.e. it now looks at packets going out as well as coming in. Personally I'll disable it because I have a hardware firewall and I don't need the processing overhead, but it's still a good thing for J. Random User.
My company has just had to replace the floors at two large data centres because of zinc whiskers. The replacement floor panels will be galvanized, not electroplated.
And before anyone points out that they're the same thing, they're not. Galvanizing involves dipping steel into molten zinc. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with galvanic action, electroplating or Mr Galvani. Galvanized panels don't suffer from zinc whiskers, anyway.
Most petrol (gasoline) cars will show the same effect. There are several possible factors:
1) Faster warm-up. Engines, even fuel-injected ones, always run on a rich cold-start cycle (to allow for poor fuel vaporisation in a cold engine) until they get warm. This hammers mpg, although it's not as bad as it used to be with modern FI systems. I suppose my mpg is about 15-20% lower for the first two miles, compared to a carburettor engine on choke, when you can smell (and sometimes see) the raw fuel.
2) Summer gasoline contains more energy. It's less volatile to prevent vapour locks, and it doesn't have to have lots of light fractions in there to get a sub-zero engine to fire. As an aside, at least some of a diesel engine's greater efficiency is for the same reason; diesel fuel has a higher energy density.
3) The incoming air is warmer. This may reduce peak power, but the fuel is more likely to vaporise completely in the cylinder. Liquid gasoline does not burn.
4) Lower use of heated rear screens, lights, heater fans and other electricity-consuming devices. Of course, turn on the aircon and the mpg swings the other way;-)
But seriously, we have urban, extra-urban and "combined" mpg. I find that I get almost exactly the "combined" mpg from a car once it's been run in, and I don't do many long trips. On long trips the mpg is quite close to the extra-urban rating. The EU measurements are actually very good compared to the pointless "constant 30mph/constant 56mph/constant 70mph" figures that were used in Britain until about 10 years ago.
One of the most notorious examples was "It's Grim Up North" sprayed on most of the M1 motorway bridges so it could be seen by northbound traffic. Questions in the Houses of Parliament and talk of a North-South economic divide (as if they hadn't realised).
It was actually thought to have been a publicity stunt by sometime dance artists The KLF - the same guys that set fire to 1 million UKP on a Scottish island, because they could afford to.
I believe c't magazine successfully fooled more than 50% of scanners by placing a clear plastic bag, filled with water, on top of the glass. This makes the greasy residue of the genuine user's fingerprint show up clearly to the scanner.
Quake: 1996
Quake II: 1997 (1 year later)
Quake III Arena: 1999 (2 years later)
Quake IV: 2005? (6 years later)
id are certainly less prolific these days, but I suppose when you have more money than God and your own spaceship, the incentive just ain't there any more.
I've had a Yahoo! Mail account for about 9 years (I'm British, but I had my yahoo.com account before they introduced a.co.uk service). It's the address I give out to untrusted third parties, and more than 90% of the spam - and I get a LOT of spam after all this time - goes straight in the bulk mail folder where I can safely ignore it. It's a good service which does exactly what it says on the tin and costs me nothing.
If only I could have a more snappy address though. Even in ye olden days of Windows 95 all the best ones were taken:-(
BTW, i know that here in Italy some outfits offer on the sly to change the electronic parameters of a car, especially turbo diesel, to increase max power and torque.
AKA "chipping". At the expense of engine life, this can get huge power gains out of turbocharged cars by increasing the maximum boost. Normally aspirated cars can be pushed up a few bhp by messing with the fuelling, but generally the gains are less obvious so they're sold as "driveability improvements" for non-turbos. To get a decent power increase from a non-turbo engine you need to make it breathe better. Porting and gasflowing the head is most effective (and expensive). Fitting bigger valves, hotter camshafts etc will all still do a lot more than a chip!
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A tip for /. readers driving in the UK: only stop at Moto service stations when using the motorway network. They use free ATMs; most of the others have signed up with the fee-charging vampires.
Once Utah is a smoking hole, we can claim the axis of evil also included Washington state.
Better, a Lindows^H^H^H^Hspire PC, which is really, really cheap. Put up the Linux sales figures and rip off MS at the same time. What a piece of Linspirational thinking. Not that *I* would actually condone such behaviour, mind ;-)
You're talking about "security through obscurity". It's never been a good model, and if it was there wouldn't be half the Windows worms running round.
Provided the clueless millions install the Service Pack, that is. They obviously don't use updated anti-virus software to stop the mass-mailing worms, so I won't hold my breath. Everything you ever wanted to know about SP2, and many things you didn't, is here.
It's worse than that. A paediatrician was hounded out of her house (in Portsmouth, I think) when the mob found out what her job title was. Apart from being so stupid as to not know the difference between -phile and -iatrician, did the cretins really think paedophiles would list themselves as such in the Yellow Pages?
The Windows firewall has been much improved for SP2 and now works more like ZoneAlarm, i.e. it now looks at packets going out as well as coming in. Personally I'll disable it because I have a hardware firewall and I don't need the processing overhead, but it's still a good thing for J. Random User.
You are over 40 and I claim my five pounds.
And before anyone points out that they're the same thing, they're not. Galvanizing involves dipping steel into molten zinc. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with galvanic action, electroplating or Mr Galvani. Galvanized panels don't suffer from zinc whiskers, anyway.
1) Faster warm-up. Engines, even fuel-injected ones, always run on a rich cold-start cycle (to allow for poor fuel vaporisation in a cold engine) until they get warm. This hammers mpg, although it's not as bad as it used to be with modern FI systems. I suppose my mpg is about 15-20% lower for the first two miles, compared to a carburettor engine on choke, when you can smell (and sometimes see) the raw fuel.
2) Summer gasoline contains more energy. It's less volatile to prevent vapour locks, and it doesn't have to have lots of light fractions in there to get a sub-zero engine to fire. As an aside, at least some of a diesel engine's greater efficiency is for the same reason; diesel fuel has a higher energy density.
3) The incoming air is warmer. This may reduce peak power, but the fuel is more likely to vaporise completely in the cylinder. Liquid gasoline does not burn.
4) Lower use of heated rear screens, lights, heater fans and other electricity-consuming devices. Of course, turn on the aircon and the mpg swings the other way ;-)
But seriously, we have urban, extra-urban and "combined" mpg. I find that I get almost exactly the "combined" mpg from a car once it's been run in, and I don't do many long trips. On long trips the mpg is quite close to the extra-urban rating. The EU measurements are actually very good compared to the pointless "constant 30mph/constant 56mph/constant 70mph" figures that were used in Britain until about 10 years ago.
Pink and green text is an option if you supply the pickled beetroot and asparagus spears.
It was actually thought to have been a publicity stunt by sometime dance artists The KLF - the same guys that set fire to 1 million UKP on a Scottish island, because they could afford to.
In which case he can burn in hell ;-)
I believe c't magazine successfully fooled more than 50% of scanners by placing a clear plastic bag, filled with water, on top of the glass. This makes the greasy residue of the genuine user's fingerprint show up clearly to the scanner.
Thirty storeys high,
Breathing fire,
His head in the sky,
Mozilla! Mozilla!
(with apologies to the 1980s cartoon)
OK, it was a joke. But with Yahoo! at least, the stuff that gets filtered into "Bulk Mail" doesn't count towards your total.
Quake II: 1997 (1 year later)
Quake III Arena: 1999 (2 years later)
Quake IV: 2005? (6 years later)
id are certainly less prolific these days, but I suppose when you have more money than God and your own spaceship, the incentive just ain't there any more.
And no, I'm not going to include a link in this reply, because /. readers tend not to trust URLs with "goat" in them ;-)
But they found a huge cache of Ogg Vorbis. Just imagine the damage *that* could do if you used it as the payload of a SCO missile.
After all, they already have the beards, and I'm sure sandals are pretty popular in the Arabian desert ;-)
If only I could have a more snappy address though. Even in ye olden days of Windows 95 all the best ones were taken :-(
You've never watched a certain M Schumacher, obviously. The guy is a robot.
AKA "chipping". At the expense of engine life, this can get huge power gains out of turbocharged cars by increasing the maximum boost. Normally aspirated cars can be pushed up a few bhp by messing with the fuelling, but generally the gains are less obvious so they're sold as "driveability improvements" for non-turbos. To get a decent power increase from a non-turbo engine you need to make it breathe better. Porting and gasflowing the head is most effective (and expensive). Fitting bigger valves, hotter camshafts etc will all still do a lot more than a chip!
This lot must have come from one of those places where it's still legal to marry your sister...