Totally agree. Look at the people being prosecuted by the RIAA and others, the crime is not downloading music it's uploading and sharing. As soon as you start uploading music into "The Cloud" then you are painting a target on your own back.
T-Mobile are always the cheapest UK provider and they have always had the worst coverage to go with it. I'm sure most urban areas in England are now fairly well covered but here in Scotland it's a different story where many areas don't just have bad reception, they have zero signal (and no, I'm not talking about up in the mountains where it's accepted that coverage may be spotty at best).
To be honest, I'm surprised anyone was able to download large amounts of data over their network.
Not even a tiny bit? What about the sound of your ISP being dialled then that short burst of noise as you got a connection?
And how about waiting for that huge download (say 5MB) to finish when you hear a click and watch your connection drop before you hear "Sorry, were you using the phone-line, honey?"
Almost right, except that bandwidth is always expressed in terms of bits rather than bytes (i.e. Mbps - "Mega Bits Per Second" where Mega = 1,000,000). In general, due to overheads from error correction, signalling and control protocols the actual throughput of a circuit does not equal the Mbps value divided by eight.
My bank has recently sent me a Chip & PIN Card Reader for use with their Online banking service.
IMHO their security was already good; you don't login with a simple username and password but have to answer one of several preset questions and pick digits from a PIN number and characters from your password (in other words you never transmit all of the information all at the same time). Now, however, if I want to make changes or transfer funds I have the additional security of using my bank card, at home, in their card reader.
Basically it works like this, I login to my online bank account as normal and when I try and make a change that needs further authentication the server generates a unique number. At this point I put my bank card in the card reader and authenticate with my PIN number, then I type in the unique number which the card reader uses to produce a new number. I enter the new number online and I've just proved I've physically got the bank card and PIN number for this account.
Sure, I can still be stupid and give phishers all sorts of information but now I also have to physically give them my bank card (and the reader).
Simple rule, if I didn't initiate contact with my bank then whoever I'm dealing with isn't getting any details from me at all.
Mod parent up please! This point is often skimmed over or simply ignored by those people who insist on a shiny new car every 3 years. Instead you hear them claim "It's low emissions, much better for the environment" or "I've gone for a smaller engine to be eco-friendly". The stark fact is that the cost to the environment of actually producing the new car is staggering.
Also, congrats to the GP, 30 years with one vehicle is impressive.
I visited Portmeirion a couple of years back while on holiday in Wales. IMHO it was the perfect location for The Prisoner - a quirky, custom made village built into the hillside/cliffs leading down to a stretch of beach. The original show used this location to great effect and as I walked around the village I felt sure I was about to be chased by a seemingly sentient, menacing, white bubble - either that or knocked down by a jaunty Mini Moke!
Did they replicate the concrete boat in Swakopmund (Namibia)? I somehow doubt it and hope they didn't just fall back on cheesy CGI.
Fair point, but with Debian you have a longer review period than many other distros. Part of the ethos that makes Debian "Stable" stable is the fact that it has been looked at by several developers, not just one agent. One guy may package the code but several others have to review it before acceptance.
I take some comfort from the fact that the "SSL debacle" was such big news, that problems that serious don't happen very often. I agree that it's bad that they did happen at all but they were spotted and fixed real fast. I don't think closed and/or proprietary code stands up so well, look at the recent adobe problems,
This might earn me a "whoosh" but I trust those Debian guys to check the code before they build it into securely signed binary packages for me and other joes to consume. Before it reaches me the software has already had "many eyes" looking at it.
Sounds like you all need to go out and buy the latest copy of the Profanisaurus, subtitled "The Magna Farta". This is the "World's Sweariest Dictionary" compiled by Viz magazine with over 10,000 rude words and phrases.
Should give you plenty of new phrases to use in your protest letters - many of which will not be understood by those in power unless they too resort to looking them up!
Plus this is one of those books which is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud - much like this new law.
Has anyone tried this in a QEMU session? I had real problems getting the last version to install under QEMU most often ending in a QEMU lock up. For info this is the QEMU that comes with Intrepid on AMD64 X2 but using an "i386" guest as the x86_64 guests wouldn't even start to boot.
Wish I had mod points right now as the above comment is a top tip often overlooked by people.
You can use VLC in a similar manner to play-and-record "troublesome" DVD's.
Keeping everything in the digital domain cuts out any interference from the digital/analogue conversion stage.
Care to state your sources on that?
I know for a fact that the Mathematical and Statistical figures for life expectancy, and especially child mortality, vary wildly, depending on location, and have never been authoritatively "averaged".
I don't care to state my sources either.
Is that really all that they think is possible in the next 7 years? I thought we were meant to be accelerating toward a technological singularity, sometime around 2037 (IIRC), and yet the advances they propose are touch screens, virtual keyboards and laptops that work as e-books! WTF? They can do all that stuff right now!
I want them to showcase the technology that they think might be achievable in 7 years: where's the roll-up paper thin screen, hell, why can't the whole laptop be embedded into the paper thin screen. Where's the wearable HUD or good 'ol VR Goggles?
Basically they see the laptop still existing in 7 years and it's pretty much the same but has adopted some of the tech-style from the mobile phone industry. Well done. No innovation stagnation here, now move along...
Just as well we write Wright right from left-to-right, right? Or he might have written Wright wrong from right-to-left, then again that might have made is wrong Wright right. I hope his name isn't Wright, it would be just plain wrong for Wright to write Wright wrong...
I use a MythTV box which was fairly hard to get working but is simple to use. It can change channels on my Sky Digibox so I can record shows automatically using the built in TV guide. I can archive recordings to DVD or play back DVD's on the same box. It cost around £400 (GBP) to build 2 years ago, with a lot of the money going on a Hauppauge PVR-350 card and a small form factor case.
I've also bought a Pioneer DVR for my father in law, the DVR-540HX-S with 160GB hard drive, this was much the same price and does almost as much as the MythTV box including controlling a Sky box. It's also quieter and lacks the initial setup complexity of the Myth box (meaning less support for me!).
If you want total simplicity go for the prebuilt DVR - for total control it has to be MythTV
In all this discussion of Big Business "Open Source" software let's tip our hats to the thousands of Debian Developers who help keep software FREE. Not just free in monetary terms, free of the stranglehold that big business can place on software development when they decide to move on to the next big thing.
I hope big business keep pumping money into worthwhile open source projects. I really hope they truly support free software. I'm smart enough to know that at least some of these players are only in it to foister some competition against the Microsoft camp and whether that is good enough for the community remains to be seen.
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Totally agree. Look at the people being prosecuted by the RIAA and others, the crime is not downloading music it's uploading and sharing. As soon as you start uploading music into "The Cloud" then you are painting a target on your own back.
I'm still using my original Gameboy you insensitive clod!
T-Mobile are always the cheapest UK provider and they have always had the worst coverage to go with it. I'm sure most urban areas in England are now fairly well covered but here in Scotland it's a different story where many areas don't just have bad reception, they have zero signal (and no, I'm not talking about up in the mountains where it's accepted that coverage may be spotty at best).
To be honest, I'm surprised anyone was able to download large amounts of data over their network.
Don't forget the really important sticker:
No tools* left in this TARDIS over night.
*includes sonic equipment
I still don't miss them even a little.
Not even a tiny bit? What about the sound of your ISP being dialled then that short burst of noise as you got a connection?
And how about waiting for that huge download (say 5MB) to finish when you hear a click and watch your connection drop before you hear "Sorry, were you using the phone-line, honey?"
Oh wait, you were right in the first place.
Almost right, except that bandwidth is always expressed in terms of bits rather than bytes (i.e. Mbps - "Mega Bits Per Second" where Mega = 1,000,000). In general, due to overheads from error correction, signalling and control protocols the actual throughput of a circuit does not equal the Mbps value divided by eight.
Just my tuppence worth ;-)
My bank has recently sent me a Chip & PIN Card Reader for use with their Online banking service.
IMHO their security was already good; you don't login with a simple username and password but have to answer one of several preset questions and pick digits from a PIN number and characters from your password (in other words you never transmit all of the information all at the same time). Now, however, if I want to make changes or transfer funds I have the additional security of using my bank card, at home, in their card reader.
Basically it works like this, I login to my online bank account as normal and when I try and make a change that needs further authentication the server generates a unique number. At this point I put my bank card in the card reader and authenticate with my PIN number, then I type in the unique number which the card reader uses to produce a new number. I enter the new number online and I've just proved I've physically got the bank card and PIN number for this account.
Sure, I can still be stupid and give phishers all sorts of information but now I also have to physically give them my bank card (and the reader).
Simple rule, if I didn't initiate contact with my bank then whoever I'm dealing with isn't getting any details from me at all.
Mod parent up please! This point is often skimmed over or simply ignored by those people who insist on a shiny new car every 3 years. Instead you hear them claim "It's low emissions, much better for the environment" or "I've gone for a smaller engine to be eco-friendly". The stark fact is that the cost to the environment of actually producing the new car is staggering.
Also, congrats to the GP, 30 years with one vehicle is impressive.
I visited Portmeirion a couple of years back while on holiday in Wales. IMHO it was the perfect location for The Prisoner - a quirky, custom made village built into the hillside/cliffs leading down to a stretch of beach. The original show used this location to great effect and as I walked around the village I felt sure I was about to be chased by a seemingly sentient, menacing, white bubble - either that or knocked down by a jaunty Mini Moke!
Did they replicate the concrete boat in Swakopmund (Namibia)? I somehow doubt it and hope they didn't just fall back on cheesy CGI.
Where have all the original story tellers gone?
Fair point, but with Debian you have a longer review period than many other distros. Part of the ethos that makes Debian "Stable" stable is the fact that it has been looked at by several developers, not just one agent. One guy may package the code but several others have to review it before acceptance.
I take some comfort from the fact that the "SSL debacle" was such big news, that problems that serious don't happen very often. I agree that it's bad that they did happen at all but they were spotted and fixed real fast. I don't think closed and/or proprietary code stands up so well, look at the recent adobe problems,
This might earn me a "whoosh" but I trust those Debian guys to check the code before they build it into securely signed binary packages for me and other joes to consume. Before it reaches me the software has already had "many eyes" looking at it.
For which I am extremely grateful!
Sounds like you all need to go out and buy the latest copy of the Profanisaurus, subtitled "The Magna Farta". This is the "World's Sweariest Dictionary" compiled by Viz magazine with over 10,000 rude words and phrases.
Should give you plenty of new phrases to use in your protest letters - many of which will not be understood by those in power unless they too resort to looking them up!
Plus this is one of those books which is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud - much like this new law.
Has anyone tried this in a QEMU session? I had real problems getting the last version to install under QEMU most often ending in a QEMU lock up. For info this is the QEMU that comes with Intrepid on AMD64 X2 but using an "i386" guest as the x86_64 guests wouldn't even start to boot.
Wish I had mod points right now as the above comment is a top tip often overlooked by people.
You can use VLC in a similar manner to play-and-record "troublesome" DVD's.
Keeping everything in the digital domain cuts out any interference from the digital/analogue conversion stage.
Care to state your sources on that? I know for a fact that the Mathematical and Statistical figures for life expectancy, and especially child mortality, vary wildly, depending on location, and have never been authoritatively "averaged". I don't care to state my sources either.
I think we can just look at the sun itself
My eyes, my beautiful eyes!
That line sounds best in the style of K-9 being smug with his "I'm far superior to you humans" attitude.
Or have I just been watching too much old Doctor Who?
Is that really all that they think is possible in the next 7 years? I thought we were meant to be accelerating toward a technological singularity, sometime around 2037 (IIRC), and yet the advances they propose are touch screens, virtual keyboards and laptops that work as e-books! WTF? They can do all that stuff right now!
I want them to showcase the technology that they think might be achievable in 7 years: where's the roll-up paper thin screen, hell, why can't the whole laptop be embedded into the paper thin screen. Where's the wearable HUD or good 'ol VR Goggles?
Basically they see the laptop still existing in 7 years and it's pretty much the same but has adopted some of the tech-style from the mobile phone industry. Well done. No innovation stagnation here, now move along...
Just as well we write Wright right from left-to-right, right? Or he might have written Wright wrong from right-to-left, then again that might have made is wrong Wright right. I hope his name isn't Wright, it would be just plain wrong for Wright to write Wright wrong...
Must stop, Dr. Seuss overload.
I use a MythTV box which was fairly hard to get working but is simple to use. It can change channels on my Sky Digibox so I can record shows automatically using the built in TV guide. I can archive recordings to DVD or play back DVD's on the same box. It cost around £400 (GBP) to build 2 years ago, with a lot of the money going on a Hauppauge PVR-350 card and a small form factor case.
I've also bought a Pioneer DVR for my father in law, the DVR-540HX-S with 160GB hard drive, this was much the same price and does almost as much as the MythTV box including controlling a Sky box. It's also quieter and lacks the initial setup complexity of the Myth box (meaning less support for me!).
If you want total simplicity go for the prebuilt DVR - for total control it has to be MythTV
Yeah, when I read "designed like a snake" I thought the same thing.
Then I saw the photo and decided there's a long way between a fully autonomous Sentinel and this thing built from parts out of the Maplin catalogue.
Why does our new technology always look so lo-tech? Get some of those Hollywood designers involved early on ;-)
In all this discussion of Big Business "Open Source" software let's tip our hats to the thousands of Debian Developers who help keep software FREE. Not just free in monetary terms, free of the stranglehold that big business can place on software development when they decide to move on to the next big thing.
I hope big business keep pumping money into worthwhile open source projects. I really hope they truly support free software. I'm smart enough to know that at least some of these players are only in it to foister some competition against the Microsoft camp and whether that is good enough for the community remains to be seen.
How old are you?
You could be experiencing what the Simpsons refer to as the "dumbening"!
It appears that these kids have escaped this awful syndrome by a fair degree.
I collect spores, mold, and fungus. -Dr. Spengler