I foresee a frenzy of cheap Chinese-made DVD recorders where you can simply press "tray open" and "0" to switch off the DRM system. They made region coding look a bit of a lame duck, anyway.
They still can't prevent me from watching the film and telling people what happens...but I'm sure the MPAA is currently bribing a senator to sponsor the Psycho-Implant Motion Pictures Erased Digitally (PIMPED) bill.
Apart from the bulk, battery life is "a few months" - reminiscent of the first digital watches which used LEDs, so the display had to be turned on to read the time. Still, an unsubtle but doubtless effective bit of late product p1mpage in time for Christmas;-)
or we'd have had Carlsberg pumps in the Prancing Pony, Pippin and Merry would be smoking Golden Virginia and Frodo/Sam/Gollum would have used the 2006 Land Cruiser to get through those irritating Dead Marshes.
The body slows down in winter. If you do the same exercise regime all year round your heart rate will be higher in winter because the body is less fit. I cycle regularly and my legs turn to mush in October. That's why there's a close season.
What depresses me is Greenwich Mean Time - if the UK could have Central European Time it wouldn't be going dark as I write this (3.45pm). I don't mind if it's dark until 9am; I go to work in the dark as it is and at weekends I'm probably not outdoors at that time. Apparently the Scots (being closer to the Arctic Circle) don't like the idea because their mere 5 hours of daylight would be at the wrong time, or something.
Absolutely right about the broadcast quality. The main Sky Digital channels are worse than a decent Sky analog(ue) signal ever was, with the exception of UK Gold which had a notoriously bad transponder on analog. Any smooth gradations of colour exhibit banding even on the "good" channels, and there are hundreds of crappy overcompressed channels where, to borrow Rimmer's line from Red Dwarf, it's like watching Spanish TV.
However, for a truly wasted opportunity look at UK DAB radio. The bitrates are soo poor you might as well stick with FM. It's the worst DAB implementation in the world.
People (OK, mad people) have been doing this for years. I remember someone even fitted little red LEDs inside their HDD.
Obviously cutting open your hard drive is not a very sensible idea, but you'd think that one of the manufacturers would have started making HDDs with a window by now.
Many of them use HID (high intensity discharge) lamps, like those horribly dazzling bluish lights you see on some cars. They use an electric arc in a xenon atmosphere - not a filament - and are very expensive. They generally last longer than a filament lamp and are much brighter per watt.
What is even more interesting is not only is it a mammal, but it is a carnivore. This means that is relatively high on the food chain, but it has gone unnoticed thus far. This begs the next question: has it really gone unnoticed for so long, or has the species only recently evolved?
They're like Slashdot readers. They stay in all the time and send out for pizza and nachos.
Looks like good old-fashioned social engineering to me, probably kicking off with some even more old-fashioned dumpster-diving to get the names and addresses of the target's friends and acquaintances.
There's a road on my way home that used to have the national speed limit (60mph in the UK). One day they changed it to *30mph*, and this gets enforced by speed traps. The road is very wide - it was built fairly recently - the curves are gentle and I know of no accidents. Don't get me wrong, it only extends my journey by 1 minute or so and it's no big deal, but silly limits like these to tend to build resentment. In this case I think it was a local children's nursery that wanted the limit, although they never actually let the kids outside!
Heat lost from your hot water cylinder (at 60 deg C) is degraded; you can't put the heat back from your 20 deg C house back into the cylinder. So it's still better not to store the hot water if possible.
Instantaneous electric showers are common in the UK, because our 240V supply allows them to use 9kW or more without the current draw getting really stupid. Even so, a massive 45A circuit breaker and very thick cable are needed. With US voltage, no, it's not practical.
As an aside, the wimpy US voltage has been put forward as a theory as why Americans don't drink as much tea as Brits; the kettle takes too long to boil;-)
...was about Audible Magic, a technology that is supposed to identify music from a "fingerprint", regardless of what it's called, and theoretically would negate the need for a keyword search filter. I'd be genuinely interested to see how this works, given that different mp3 encoders produce different results given the same CD or can use different bitrates - and that's without OGG, WMA and other home-creatable formats.
Maybe it's a large scale meatware solution where a downloading clip is streamed in real time into a room full of music experts, probably in Bombay?
You can't heat water up quickly enough with conventional resistance-based electric elements, as it would require huge amount of electricity
I am placing you under arrest for violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You do not have to say anything. Anything you do say will be written down and sold to those guys who spam Usenet with ads for "friction free" bicycle lights.
Slashdot Mirror
I foresee a frenzy of cheap Chinese-made DVD recorders where you can simply press "tray open" and "0" to switch off the DRM system. They made region coding look a bit of a lame duck, anyway.
They still can't prevent me from watching the film and telling people what happens...but I'm sure the MPAA is currently bribing a senator to sponsor the Psycho-Implant Motion Pictures Erased Digitally (PIMPED) bill.
Apart from the bulk, battery life is "a few months" - reminiscent of the first digital watches which used LEDs, so the display had to be turned on to read the time. Still, an unsubtle but doubtless effective bit of late product p1mpage in time for Christmas ;-)
or we'd have had Carlsberg pumps in the Prancing Pony, Pippin and Merry would be smoking Golden Virginia and Frodo/Sam/Gollum would have used the 2006 Land Cruiser to get through those irritating Dead Marshes.
What depresses me is Greenwich Mean Time - if the UK could have Central European Time it wouldn't be going dark as I write this (3.45pm). I don't mind if it's dark until 9am; I go to work in the dark as it is and at weekends I'm probably not outdoors at that time. Apparently the Scots (being closer to the Arctic Circle) don't like the idea because their mere 5 hours of daylight would be at the wrong time, or something.
My wife thought until quite recently that the chorus to Dido's "White Flag" was "I will go down with this shit".
Dude, that's cos you're watching *American* TV ;-)
However, for a truly wasted opportunity look at UK DAB radio. The bitrates are soo poor you might as well stick with FM. It's the worst DAB implementation in the world.
Obviously cutting open your hard drive is not a very sensible idea, but you'd think that one of the manufacturers would have started making HDDs with a window by now.
Spare him his life from these pork sausages!
/looks up "Cleveland Steamer" in Roger's Profanisaurus
You, sir, are one sick, sick, puppy.
Many of them use HID (high intensity discharge) lamps, like those horribly dazzling bluish lights you see on some cars. They use an electric arc in a xenon atmosphere - not a filament - and are very expensive. They generally last longer than a filament lamp and are much brighter per watt.
I wouldn't want it in my living room.
Just imagine a Wulffraat cluster of those mammals!
They're like Slashdot readers. They stay in all the time and send out for pizza and nachos.
Looks like good old-fashioned social engineering to me, probably kicking off with some even more old-fashioned dumpster-diving to get the names and addresses of the target's friends and acquaintances.
There's a road on my way home that used to have the national speed limit (60mph in the UK). One day they changed it to *30mph*, and this gets enforced by speed traps. The road is very wide - it was built fairly recently - the curves are gentle and I know of no accidents. Don't get me wrong, it only extends my journey by 1 minute or so and it's no big deal, but silly limits like these to tend to build resentment. In this case I think it was a local children's nursery that wanted the limit, although they never actually let the kids outside!
My sexagenarian father-in-law still wears his!
LOL at the A&M shop, which appears to be next door to a pr0no store!
"Hey Jesse, go turn on the de-teenulator to get rid of them there varmints."
"What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
...at least in the town where I live.
Heat lost from your hot water cylinder (at 60 deg C) is degraded; you can't put the heat back from your 20 deg C house back into the cylinder. So it's still better not to store the hot water if possible.
As an aside, the wimpy US voltage has been put forward as a theory as why Americans don't drink as much tea as Brits; the kettle takes too long to boil ;-)
Maybe it's a large scale meatware solution where a downloading clip is streamed in real time into a room full of music experts, probably in Bombay?
I am placing you under arrest for violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You do not have to say anything. Anything you do say will be written down and sold to those guys who spam Usenet with ads for "friction free" bicycle lights.