I buy stuff online for two reasons: firstly, there's a wider choice than in the local shops and secondly, it can still be much cheaper due to economies of scale and low overheads (like all mail order).
A couple of examples: DVDs are typically between 8 and 10 UKP from the supplier I use (based in the Channel Islands, which is tax-free BUT because the discs all cost under 18 UKP, they're exempt from having UK duty and VAT loaded onto them when they arrive at Customs). Shop prices are 20 UKP for the same DVDs, although if you're lucky you can find a 2-for-1 offer, which only goes to show what a rip-off the headline price is. Big online suppliers of PC components are so much cheaper than PC World stores, it's not even funny.
I really, really like the World Trade Center one (with the toilet gag) and the one where Homer becomes a Shuttle astronaut (the NASA guy with the cosh is brilliant), but following recent events I doubt we'll be seeing either for a long, long time.
Damn you, Osama bin Laden and..er..whatever happened to Columbia.
So will you run three cables to a home if the customer has three PCs?
Personally I wouldn't go with a provider that had such limits - not that I use much bandwidth, it's just that it's too inconvenient not to have all PCs connected to the Internet (Windoze Update etc requires it).
Of course, sharing a 64k ISDN connection isn't much fun, but I lost my cable service when I moved to the countryside:-(
If we're talking about central heating, it's mainly because gravity based systems require much larger diameter pipes; there is no pump pushing the water around the circuit, so water would hardly flow if there was any appreciable resistance.
Some old gravity systems you see in churches and schools have cast iron pipes 2 or 3 inches in diameter. A pumped system can use 8mm OD "microbore" copper pipe, although 15mm is more common.
Smaller pipes are cheaper, and can be more easily run between walls and floors, especially if being retro-fitted. There is also some reduction in heat losses from the pipe itself (the radiators are supposed to do the heating!).
The electricity cost of adding a pump is quite modest. Of course, a pumped system means you have no heating in the event of a power outage, but then most modern boilers are also dependent on electricity (spark ignition and fanned flues).
If I remember my chemical engineering degree properly, forced circulation gives a higher Nusselt number (fluid engineers love their dimensionless groups) due to higher turbulence, which reduces the effect of the fluid insulating itself. More stuff here.
Water is a very bad conductor of heat without good convection - you can boil water in the top half of a test tube while ice is happily sitting at the bottom - wrapped in gauze to make it sink, obviously.
I'm sure small businesses will be delighted to hear that the extortionate sum they're paying for Office licences is going towards propping up a failing gaming platform.
It's also a brain damaged design - although I like PC games (imagine Quake without a mouse) I can't help but think that putting a HDD in one of these devices is asking for trouble. There will never be a PS2 virus, but it's only a matter of time before J. Random Hacker wakes up to the presence of XBoxes and proceeds to spread havoc. That's a lot of *identical* DDoS clients out there on broadband.
In the UK, anyway, so this isn't a simple phenomenon.
However, received wisdom suggests that going through AOL increases latency so much that gamers wouldn't want AOL even if it was BB. There's more to life than raw bandwidth.
Re:where this will be really used....
on
Paper Mounted CPUs
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· Score: 2, Funny
More worringly, they could start putting chips in Kleenex to ascertain whether they're being used for their intended purpose:-O
Gives new meaning to the expression
on
Paper Mounted CPUs
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· Score: 4, Interesting
"Cheap as chips".
For uninitiated readers, this is the catch phrase of current student TV favourite David Dickinson on his UK "Bargain Hunt" show.
More seriously, one of these would be a really good idea for books - you could get it to remember which page you were on without a bookmark (or bending over the corner of the page, as is my habit).
...as I had the first HDD failure warning this evening on my "auto destruct after 12 months" IBM 60GXP. I wouldn't mind so much if it had been hammered, but it's in a PC that gets used about twice a month. Does 99.9% of the population care less about the availability of 200GB hard drives? Surely the priority should be data security, then speed (it's the biggest bottleneck in your PC), then capacity?
The BSA take a similar approach to software "piracy". I've seen one of their spokespeople on TV saying they're not interested in the home user.
Probably because (a) there are too many of them; (b) they wouldn't have stumped up for Photoshop or Office anyway; (c) it's hard to track down where they live and collect evidence and (d) they haven't got enough money to make them worth suing.
Therefore it's much easier to go after businesses which have bigger bank accounts, a known location and, let's face it, if they're making a living using your product they really should have paid for it, shouldn't they? Shades of grey, but the BSA probably have the balance right in this case.
If so, why? (Apart from stuff like Windows Update, where you have no choice).
Mysterious index.dat files tracking your browsing, pop-up windows, vulnerabilities all over the place, broken HTTP requests unless you're connecting to an IIS server etc etc.
Mozilla is good enough for me - I've even converted a couple of friends.
If you transplant the lungs of an asthmatic into another person, they will then have asthma for the rest of their life. My UK donor card doesn't have "lungs" ticked, for that reason.
Not being available on download.com hasn't stopped people getting hold of unlicensed MP3 encoders, which are still easy to find on servers located in East European countries (who have more important things to worry about than a bit of "home taping").
The same applies to DeCSS, which takes all of 10 seconds to find on Google. There's also the decentralised binary newsgroups for this kind of "merchandise".
I have a small key (not sure where it came from) that opens about 50% of cheap padlocks. I think my landlady was surprised to find a 5 pound note locked in the gas meter box one day...I really needed the 50p pieces for the pool table, you see.
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A couple of examples: DVDs are typically between 8 and 10 UKP from the supplier I use (based in the Channel Islands, which is tax-free BUT because the discs all cost under 18 UKP, they're exempt from having UK duty and VAT loaded onto them when they arrive at Customs). Shop prices are 20 UKP for the same DVDs, although if you're lucky you can find a 2-for-1 offer, which only goes to show what a rip-off the headline price is. Big online suppliers of PC components are so much cheaper than PC World stores, it's not even funny.
Damn you, Osama bin Laden and..er..whatever happened to Columbia.
Personally I wouldn't go with a provider that had such limits - not that I use much bandwidth, it's just that it's too inconvenient not to have all PCs connected to the Internet (Windoze Update etc requires it).
Of course, sharing a 64k ISDN connection isn't much fun, but I lost my cable service when I moved to the countryside :-(
Some old gravity systems you see in churches and schools have cast iron pipes 2 or 3 inches in diameter. A pumped system can use 8mm OD "microbore" copper pipe, although 15mm is more common.
Smaller pipes are cheaper, and can be more easily run between walls and floors, especially if being retro-fitted. There is also some reduction in heat losses from the pipe itself (the radiators are supposed to do the heating!).
The electricity cost of adding a pump is quite modest. Of course, a pumped system means you have no heating in the event of a power outage, but then most modern boilers are also dependent on electricity (spark ignition and fanned flues).
Water is a very bad conductor of heat without good convection - you can boil water in the top half of a test tube while ice is happily sitting at the bottom - wrapped in gauze to make it sink, obviously.
If not, have a look at this. Rather amusing the first time you see it.
Like FTP, ICQ, NetMeeting, e-mail and P2P applications aren't enough? ChatZilla doesn't do file transfers anyway!
It's also a brain damaged design - although I like PC games (imagine Quake without a mouse) I can't help but think that putting a HDD in one of these devices is asking for trouble. There will never be a PS2 virus, but it's only a matter of time before J. Random Hacker wakes up to the presence of XBoxes and proceeds to spread havoc. That's a lot of *identical* DDoS clients out there on broadband.
However, received wisdom suggests that going through AOL increases latency so much that gamers wouldn't want AOL even if it was BB. There's more to life than raw bandwidth.
More worringly, they could start putting chips in Kleenex to ascertain whether they're being used for their intended purpose :-O
For uninitiated readers, this is the catch phrase of current student TV favourite David Dickinson on his UK "Bargain Hunt" show.
More seriously, one of these would be a really good idea for books - you could get it to remember which page you were on without a bookmark (or bending over the corner of the page, as is my habit).
...as I had the first HDD failure warning this evening on my "auto destruct after 12 months" IBM 60GXP. I wouldn't mind so much if it had been hammered, but it's in a PC that gets used about twice a month. Does 99.9% of the population care less about the availability of 200GB hard drives? Surely the priority should be data security, then speed (it's the biggest bottleneck in your PC), then capacity?
Probably because (a) there are too many of them; (b) they wouldn't have stumped up for Photoshop or Office anyway; (c) it's hard to track down where they live and collect evidence and (d) they haven't got enough money to make them worth suing.
Therefore it's much easier to go after businesses which have bigger bank accounts, a known location and, let's face it, if they're making a living using your product they really should have paid for it, shouldn't they? Shades of grey, but the BSA probably have the balance right in this case.
What a bunch of muddy funsters. They can soak my cake.
Mysterious index.dat files tracking your browsing, pop-up windows, vulnerabilities all over the place, broken HTTP requests unless you're connecting to an IIS server etc etc.
Mozilla is good enough for me - I've even converted a couple of friends.
Now to find the decent snow you REALLY have to go off-piste.
If you transplant the lungs of an asthmatic into another person, they will then have asthma for the rest of their life. My UK donor card doesn't have "lungs" ticked, for that reason.
The same applies to DeCSS, which takes all of 10 seconds to find on Google. There's also the decentralised binary newsgroups for this kind of "merchandise".
"I'm not hearing anything."
"You would, though, if I had an RJ45 cable."
1. Tell everyone you've made an improved digital interface
2. Change the plug design from a big jack to RJ45
3. ???
4. Profit!
Now they'll be 0wning me at Quake, in between sexing penguins or whatever they do ;-)
Even Lycos' MP3 search used this system before the RIAA followed all the links and shut them down. It's not rocket science.
I have a small key (not sure where it came from) that opens about 50% of cheap padlocks. I think my landlady was surprised to find a 5 pound note locked in the gas meter box one day...I really needed the 50p pieces for the pool table, you see.
Seriously, is Robbie Williams *really* worth 80 million UKP? I mean, what can he possibly spend it on?
This is vaguely ironic...or do they use lethal injection in Texas these days?