A rough cut of the disk disappeared from a recording studio in Nice during a photo shoot. The band was putting together the finishing touches. Most of the album had previously been recorded in Dublin.
Maybe I'm a little cynical, but this sounds very fishy.
Why would U2 take the actual CD of their incomplete album to a photo shoot? And since it was a rough cut, it almost certainly was a CD-R, so you would think that any old blank CD disc would photograph just as well.
U2 has been out of the spotlight for several years, and somewhat forgotten. Then all of a sudden, their CD is "stolen" and they are back in the news. And to top it off, they "threaten" to release their album early to foil those dastardly P2P pirates.
As pool.ntp.org will assign you timeservers from all over the world, time quality will not be ideal. You get a bit better result if you use the continental zones (europe, north-america, oceania and asia.pool.ntp.org currently exist), and even better time if you use the country zone (like ch.pool.ntp.org in Switzerland). Note, however, that the country zone might not exist for your country, or might contain only one or two timeservers. If you know timeservers that are really close to you (measured by network distance, with traceroute or ping), time probably will be even better.
You will definitely want to use either the continent or country code versions of pool.ntp.org, otherwise you might end up sychronizing with a very distant timeserver, resulting in more NTP jitter and less accurate time.
For example, us.pool.ntp.org or north-america.pool.ntp.org would be a good choice for people in the United States.
Would you take a 6MP camera capable of shooting 3 frames per second(!) on an around the world trip on the back of a 40 year old Italian motorcycle? I wouldn't.
Even if you did, at an average of 2,200kB per image with acceptable compression from a 6.1MP camera (that is about what I typically see), you could get upwards of 3700 pictures on the 2 4GB cards. That's 10 "keeper" pictures every day for a year. If that is not enough, just keep buying those $200 MuVo2s.
Just buy a couple of $200 MuVo2 MP3 players, extract the 4GB compact flash cards, and you have more than enough storage for the whole trip on 2 cards. Or if your camera doesn't support Type III CF or are worried about moving parts, buy several cheap 512MB solid state cards.
Either way, it is going to be more compact and reliable than dragging around a fragile CD writer + batteries and, unless you hope to buy them along the way, fragile and bulky CD-R discs. Copy the Win98 drivers onto a floppy, and you'll have no problem finding a compatible computer to upload images from the CF cards.
Creating a mutex at startup is by no means universal, and in fact, I doubt that very common at all.
If there was a mutex checker/blocker program developed, you would just see worm authors switch to a different method of determining if their worm was already running, or randomize the mutex name.
For a more accurate battery guage, create an empty file called "_show_voltage" (no quotes) in iPod_Control\Device.
For 3G iPods with the latest firmware, this will cause the default battery meter to be replaced with a digital voltage display, in 1/10th volts. So a fully charged iPod might display 500 (5.00V), while a nearly dead iPod will be under 200 (2.00V).
Overall, according to this benchmark, Java scored slightly higher than scripting languages. But if you consider memory usage, Lua/Python/Perl/Ruby all blow Java out of the water.
Basically, it should work. It sounds like your problem is more of a Windows driver/installation problem. Try going to Device Manager and deleting/removing your 802.11 mini-PCI card. Then reboot and see if it works. If not, you might need to play around with installing/uninstalling the driver, and deleting the card from Device Manager until it works.
The longer answer is that unless the manufacturer prevents unknown mini-PCI adaptors (IBM Thinkpads prevent non-IBM 802.11 adaptors), any mini-PCI card should be compatable. There are some complications, however. Unless you want to do some soldering, you must insure that the mini-PCI card has an antenna jack that is compatable with your laptop's antenna. Even then, there can be problems - I installed the mini-PCI card from a D-Link DWL-G520 in my Dell Inspiron 4100 laptop. I had to do some soldering, since the G520 doesn't have antenna jacks, and even then, the reception is really bad. The 4100 antenna(s) are in a bad location to begin with, but I suspect that the G520 is tuned to the much larger antennas that D-Link provides.
So in conclusion, it is possible to save some money by removing the mini-PCI card from a desktop adaptor. But unless you have a really good reason (for example, you need a specific chipset for a non-Windows OS), it is best to stick with the mini-PCI adaptor that is designed for your laptop.
This will be using licensed frequency blocks, and won't interfer with the 2.4GHz unlicensed frequences used by 802.11.
All this really is, is warmed over MMDS. MMDS was going to be the next big thing in the 90's - Sprint, in particular, was active in MMDS (you might remember it was called Sprint ION). As with a lot of new technologies, it was rolled out into a few markets, lost a lot of money, and was shut down.
Flash forward a couple of years - 802.11b/g (WiFi) is hot (hence the name - WiMax), broadband Internet usage popular, and the equipment is better/cheaper, so wireless companies are going to give it another go - except this time it will be sold as broadband Internet + VOIP, instead of a replacement for cable TV and also broadband Internet.
From browsing the user reports in the DSL Reports forum, it looks like, despite Sprint's best efforts to feck it up, most people really were happy with their ION performance, and very sad to see it shut off.
You completely missed the point - $299 is a lot less than 299GBP (= $533.86 as of today).
Also, no state has a 17.5% sales tax. Even including local option taxes, the highest tax rate is 10.75% (Louisiana), the average is closer to 5-7%, and several states have no sales tax.
As anyone who was around in the 1980's probably remembers, pirate C=64 games were rampant (maybe even worse than today, especially most copying was done person to person, as opposed to via P2P networks).
In addition to the usual 1541 drive errors, it was common for the copy protection to include secret decoder wheels or references to a specific page in the manual, which provided the code you had to input before running the game. Some manuals even had the code printed such that you needed a red plastic lens to be able to see the code (to prevent photocopying).
Damn those codes were a pain in the butt! And of course, there were cracks and ways to bypass the codes, but the extra packaging, manuals, and maps did provide an incentive to actually buy the game. Today, companies are happy to sell nothing more than a CD-ROM and jewel case - and people are happy to download the game use their own CD-R disc.
I wonder how many other law abiding citizens, who would have never considered scanning and printing US currency, have done so tonight just because of this story?
My experience:
I scanned a crisp new $20 at various resolutions, color and black and white, from the TWAIN interface in Photoshop, and Photoshop CS refused to handle the image. It simply displayed a warning dialog and suggested visiting www.rulesforuse.org. The bill did scan as line art, so the algorithm must do some fine detail pattern matching, as opposed to detecting colors or sizes.
The bill was successfully scanned into Paint Shop Pro 7. Even when printed at 1440dpi, it is obviously counterfeit, but that didn't stop me from accidently mistaking it for the real bill when I had set it aside for a few minutes while doing other work. And this is simply printed on one side on normal inkjet paper, cut out freehand with scissors, and not even color matched.
So I guess the real lesson here is if you tell someone you can't do something, they are more likely to try it out. I just saw a show on the History Channel about the history of US currency, and afterwards, I didn't even have the slightly notion of scanning and printing out a bill. But here I am, after skimming an article on Slashdot, with a fake (but probably passable) $20 bill.
Now I'm an adult, and I understand the necessity of preventing counterfeit currency and the punishment given to counterfeiters, so I have no desire to do anything more than this quick test. But I can only imagine how many 14 year olds are cranking out their own bills tonight, thanks to Adobe!
It is a PCI or ISA card that emulates a VGA video adaptor, with all video text output sent over a serial connection, and all text input presented to the PC as coming from a keyboard. It can even remotely reset a computer, and since it appears to the system as a normal video card, you can even edit the BIOS settings over a serial link.
It is a very cool hack, and even has open source firmware. It was mentioned on Slashdot a few years ago.
First of all, you should buy a GSPr with built-in mapping. Even for simple A->B uses (like geocaching), having a built-in map is invaluable. For example, a non-mapping GPSr will tell you that point B is 1.5 miles straight ahead. A mapping GPSr will show you that there is a stream and steep canyon straight ahead, and going a less direct route will be much easier. The only downside is cost - a mapping GPSr will cost about $100 more than a non-mapping model, and if you want detailed maps, you'll need additional software (~$100).
For a mapping GPSr, I highly recommend Magellen's SporTrak Pro. It is lightweight, durable, waterproof, and has been reported to be one of the most accurate GPS receivers available. It uses 2 AA batteries and has about a 16 hour battery life (using NiMH batteries). It also has 23MB of non-removable memory, which is enough for all of Southern California + the SF Bay area, for example. Some other receivers have more memory or removable memory cards (e.g. Magellen Meridian), but 23MB is plenty unless you will be travelling long distances with no access to a computer to upload new maps. The unit comes with some maps built in, but to get street level and topo maps, you'll need to buy the $100 MapSend Topo CD-ROM.
The SporTrak Pro also doesn't have a lot of the more gimmicky features, like a color screen, electronic compass, and barometers. All of those are more or less useless and just drain the batteries faster.
The less expensive alternative is a non-mapping GPSr. Look for a used Garmin GPS12 on eBay, or consider its new replacement, the GPS72 for around $150.
Finally, be sure to go to GPSInformation.net. It is an excellent source of information and reviews, and even an article which recommends various GPSr based on price and your needs.
The most interesting information here is about the accidents - which there have been a surprisingly large number of, including an incident in 1978 where a 20-25% of a Soviet fission reactor re-entered and was scattered across Canada.
You'll probably find that, even with light traffic, 802.11b is going to be too slow and unrealiable for 30fps streaming video...
Since you are going to output to a TV anyway, why bother with computers/802.11b and broadcast directly using a small TV transmitter. I would have expected Ramsey to have a transmitter kit, but all they seem to have these days is a semi-cheesey 'cube' transmitter. Even so, the high powered version might be good enough for what you are looking for, especially with a good antenna.
A quick Google search turned up someotherkits. Most of these have a fairly short range, but with good antennas, they'll easily transmit further (and with higher quality), than compressed video over 802.11b. Plus, if you get a kit, building it can be a nice little project for an electronically minded student.
"But that's not the only radical idea behind this venture. At Easycinema there is no popcorn stand, hot dog stall or pick 'n' mix concession. In fact, there is not even a box office."
...
"The sign above the old pick 'n' mix concession remains, but the fittings have been stripped out and it will stay empty.
We don't aspire to be professional caterers, we aspire to show films people want to see
James Rothnie, Easygroup
The same goes for the old refreshments counter. If customers want popcorn at Easycinema they will have to bring their own, says Mr Rothnie.
"When you look at the cost of serving popcorn it's actually quite expensive - you have to buy it, cook it, employ people to sell it, get a health and safety person to check it's at the right temperature.
"Then you have to employ someone to clean it up after the show. We don't aspire to be professional caterers, we aspire to show films people want to see." "
Re:Military Relies on Microsoft Technology
on
The Internet and The War
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm sure that there is encryption at the network layer (ala IPSEC or VPN), so using an unencrypted application layer program (like MS Chat) isn't a problem.
On the recent mini-ITX boards, there is one RCA connector for either coaxial SP/DIF or composite video out, with an internal jumper to switch between the outputs. This can be switched on the fly while the system is running, BTW.
Since s-video has its own connector, you can have both coaxial SP/DIF multichannel digital audio and s-video out.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would U2 take the actual CD of their incomplete album to a photo shoot? And since it was a rough cut, it almost certainly was a CD-R, so you would think that any old blank CD disc would photograph just as well. U2 has been out of the spotlight for several years, and somewhat forgotten. Then all of a sudden, their CD is "stolen" and they are back in the news. And to top it off, they "threaten" to release their album early to foil those dastardly P2P pirates.
For example, us.pool.ntp.org or north-america.pool.ntp.org would be a good choice for people in the United States.
Would you take a 6MP camera capable of shooting 3 frames per second(!) on an around the world trip on the back of a 40 year old Italian motorcycle? I wouldn't.
Even if you did, at an average of 2,200kB per image with acceptable compression from a 6.1MP camera (that is about what I typically see), you could get upwards of 3700 pictures on the 2 4GB cards. That's 10 "keeper" pictures every day for a year. If that is not enough, just keep buying those $200 MuVo2s.
Just buy a couple of $200 MuVo2 MP3 players, extract the 4GB compact flash cards, and you have more than enough storage for the whole trip on 2 cards. Or if your camera doesn't support Type III CF or are worried about moving parts, buy several cheap 512MB solid state cards.
Either way, it is going to be more compact and reliable than dragging around a fragile CD writer + batteries and, unless you hope to buy them along the way, fragile and bulky CD-R discs. Copy the Win98 drivers onto a floppy, and you'll have no problem finding a compatible computer to upload images from the CF cards.
Creating a mutex at startup is by no means universal, and in fact, I doubt that very common at all.
If there was a mutex checker/blocker program developed, you would just see worm authors switch to a different method of determining if their worm was already running, or randomize the mutex name.
For a more accurate battery guage, create an empty file called "_show_voltage" (no quotes) in iPod_Control\Device.
For 3G iPods with the latest firmware, this will cause the default battery meter to be replaced with a digital voltage display, in 1/10th volts. So a fully charged iPod might display 500 (5.00V), while a nearly dead iPod will be under 200 (2.00V).
Benchmarks:
Overall, according to this benchmark, Java scored slightly higher than scripting languages. But if you consider memory usage, Lua/Python/Perl/Ruby all blow Java out of the water.
That is the antenna...
This has been discussed to death on the DellTalk Forum.
Basically, it should work. It sounds like your problem is more of a Windows driver/installation problem. Try going to Device Manager and deleting/removing your 802.11 mini-PCI card. Then reboot and see if it works. If not, you might need to play around with installing/uninstalling the driver, and deleting the card from Device Manager until it works.
The longer answer is that unless the manufacturer prevents unknown mini-PCI adaptors (IBM Thinkpads prevent non-IBM 802.11 adaptors), any mini-PCI card should be compatable. There are some complications, however. Unless you want to do some soldering, you must insure that the mini-PCI card has an antenna jack that is compatable with your laptop's antenna. Even then, there can be problems - I installed the mini-PCI card from a D-Link DWL-G520 in my Dell Inspiron 4100 laptop. I had to do some soldering, since the G520 doesn't have antenna jacks, and even then, the reception is really bad. The 4100 antenna(s) are in a bad location to begin with, but I suspect that the G520 is tuned to the much larger antennas that D-Link provides.
So in conclusion, it is possible to save some money by removing the mini-PCI card from a desktop adaptor. But unless you have a really good reason (for example, you need a specific chipset for a non-Windows OS), it is best to stick with the mini-PCI adaptor that is designed for your laptop.
This will be using licensed frequency blocks, and won't interfer with the 2.4GHz unlicensed frequences used by 802.11.
All this really is, is warmed over MMDS. MMDS was going to be the next big thing in the 90's - Sprint, in particular, was active in MMDS (you might remember it was called Sprint ION). As with a lot of new technologies, it was rolled out into a few markets, lost a lot of money, and was shut down.
Flash forward a couple of years - 802.11b/g (WiFi) is hot (hence the name - WiMax), broadband Internet usage popular, and the equipment is better/cheaper, so wireless companies are going to give it another go - except this time it will be sold as broadband Internet + VOIP, instead of a replacement for cable TV and also broadband Internet.
From browsing the user reports in the DSL Reports forum, it looks like, despite Sprint's best efforts to feck it up, most people really were happy with their ION performance, and very sad to see it shut off.
You completely missed the point - $299 is a lot less than 299GBP (= $533.86 as of today).
Also, no state has a 17.5% sales tax. Even including local option taxes, the highest tax rate is 10.75% (Louisiana), the average is closer to 5-7%, and several states have no sales tax.
The Inquirer has many articles about how the British and others routinely get shafted due to companies using exchange rates to their own advantage.
Maybe it is a (bad) design decision, or perhaps it is related to this: Adobe Sues Over Tabbed Widgets
As anyone who was around in the 1980's probably remembers, pirate C=64 games were rampant (maybe even worse than today, especially most copying was done person to person, as opposed to via P2P networks).
In addition to the usual 1541 drive errors, it was common for the copy protection to include secret decoder wheels or references to a specific page in the manual, which provided the code you had to input before running the game. Some manuals even had the code printed such that you needed a red plastic lens to be able to see the code (to prevent photocopying).
Damn those codes were a pain in the butt! And of course, there were cracks and ways to bypass the codes, but the extra packaging, manuals, and maps did provide an incentive to actually buy the game. Today, companies are happy to sell nothing more than a CD-ROM and jewel case - and people are happy to download the game use their own CD-R disc.
I wonder how many other law abiding citizens, who would have never considered scanning and printing US currency, have done so tonight just because of this story?
My experience:
I scanned a crisp new $20 at various resolutions, color and black and white, from the TWAIN interface in Photoshop, and Photoshop CS refused to handle the image. It simply displayed a warning dialog and suggested visiting www.rulesforuse.org. The bill did scan as line art, so the algorithm must do some fine detail pattern matching, as opposed to detecting colors or sizes.
The bill was successfully scanned into Paint Shop Pro 7. Even when printed at 1440dpi, it is obviously counterfeit, but that didn't stop me from accidently mistaking it for the real bill when I had set it aside for a few minutes while doing other work. And this is simply printed on one side on normal inkjet paper, cut out freehand with scissors, and not even color matched.
So I guess the real lesson here is if you tell someone you can't do something, they are more likely to try it out. I just saw a show on the History Channel about the history of US currency, and afterwards, I didn't even have the slightly notion of scanning and printing out a bill. But here I am, after skimming an article on Slashdot, with a fake (but probably passable) $20 bill.
Now I'm an adult, and I understand the necessity of preventing counterfeit currency and the punishment given to counterfeiters, so I have no desire to do anything more than this quick test. But I can only imagine how many 14 year olds are cranking out their own bills tonight, thanks to Adobe!
Try a PC Weasel - PC Weasel.
It is a PCI or ISA card that emulates a VGA video adaptor, with all video text output sent over a serial connection, and all text input presented to the PC as coming from a keyboard. It can even remotely reset a computer, and since it appears to the system as a normal video card, you can even edit the BIOS settings over a serial link.
It is a very cool hack, and even has open source firmware. It was mentioned on Slashdot a few years ago.
First of all, you should buy a GSPr with built-in mapping. Even for simple A->B uses (like geocaching), having a built-in map is invaluable. For example, a non-mapping GPSr will tell you that point B is 1.5 miles straight ahead. A mapping GPSr will show you that there is a stream and steep canyon straight ahead, and going a less direct route will be much easier. The only downside is cost - a mapping GPSr will cost about $100 more than a non-mapping model, and if you want detailed maps, you'll need additional software (~$100).
For a mapping GPSr, I highly recommend Magellen's SporTrak Pro. It is lightweight, durable, waterproof, and has been reported to be one of the most accurate GPS receivers available. It uses 2 AA batteries and has about a 16 hour battery life (using NiMH batteries). It also has 23MB of non-removable memory, which is enough for all of Southern California + the SF Bay area, for example. Some other receivers have more memory or removable memory cards (e.g. Magellen Meridian), but 23MB is plenty unless you will be travelling long distances with no access to a computer to upload new maps. The unit comes with some maps built in, but to get street level and topo maps, you'll need to buy the $100 MapSend Topo CD-ROM.
The SporTrak Pro also doesn't have a lot of the more gimmicky features, like a color screen, electronic compass, and barometers. All of those are more or less useless and just drain the batteries faster.
The less expensive alternative is a non-mapping GPSr. Look for a used Garmin GPS12 on eBay, or consider its new replacement, the GPS72 for around $150.
Finally, be sure to go to GPSInformation.net. It is an excellent source of information and reviews, and even an article which recommends various GPSr based on price and your needs.
While looking up the previous USA space fission reactor, I came across this interesting site: Nuclear Powered Space Missions - Past and Future.
The most interesting information here is about the accidents - which there have been a surprisingly large number of, including an incident in 1978 where a 20-25% of a Soviet fission reactor re-entered and was scattered across Canada.
You'll probably find that, even with light traffic, 802.11b is going to be too slow and unrealiable for 30fps streaming video...
Since you are going to output to a TV anyway, why bother with computers/802.11b and broadcast directly using a small TV transmitter. I would have expected Ramsey to have a transmitter kit, but all they seem to have these days is a semi-cheesey 'cube' transmitter. Even so, the high powered version might be good enough for what you are looking for, especially with a good antenna.
A quick Google search turned up some other kits. Most of these have a fairly short range, but with good antennas, they'll easily transmit further (and with higher quality), than compressed video over 802.11b. Plus, if you get a kit, building it can be a nice little project for an electronically minded student.
I'm sure that there is encryption at the network layer (ala IPSEC or VPN), so using an unencrypted application layer program (like MS Chat) isn't a problem.
On the recent mini-ITX boards, there is one RCA connector for either coaxial SP/DIF or composite video out, with an internal jumper to switch between the outputs. This can be switched on the fly while the system is running, BTW.
Since s-video has its own connector, you can have both coaxial SP/DIF multichannel digital audio and s-video out.
- Your power load is decreased because you are generating some of your own electricity.
- Your power load is decreased because you are conserving electricity.
Either way, you aren't contributing enough to paying off those utility bonds.