Phillip K Dick wrote that story. I think it's titled "Sales Pitch".
Yeah, it was either him or Fred Pohl, I think. The story was about a hypothetical future where all goods in the supermarket, for instance, had small radios build into them and would be screaming "Buy me! Buy me!" from the shelves. The only place to escape these constant adverts was prison; the plot revolved around a mother or grandmother who got herself imprisoned to escape the constant adverts. Son/grandson, who just happened to work for the Dept. of Corrections, noted how sad it was that criminals missed these small soundbites in prison. I mean, it's such an ideal tool for reform, isn't it? So you can guess what he did...
For another vision of advertising gone mad, I'd try Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth's books, The Space Merchants and The Merchant's War (second one written by Pohl alone). Don't know if these two are still in print though.
Isn't it sad that one of the first things they think of doing is using it to send adverts?
Advertising everywhere... no escape. I remember reading a short sci-fi story about this many years ago. Unfortunately, it looks like somebody else read it as well...
Hmm, I thought people who shout things like "Heil Hitler" are giving Nazi salutes. I thought people who gave "Roman salutes" tended to shout things like "ave, Caesar, morituri te salutamus" ('hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you').
No, Hitler nicked the salute from the Romans.
The swastika was stolen from the Indians. To this day, Indians still use swastikas as decoration, as they have done for thousands of years.
There are two types of swastika: a past-facing one and a future-facing one. IIRC, he used the future-facing one. In German, it is called a Hakenkreuz (hooked cross).
But that's enough about the Nazis. For further reading, see 'Hitler' - a 2-part biography (Can't remember who wrote it and can't be bothered rummaging around to find it...).
That's the Act of Union. It's not a constitution, it's more of an economic treaty between Scotland and England.
Yes, the British Constitution is vague. Incredibly so. It is based on case law and common law. There is no one document you can point to and say "That is the Constitution".
Instead, it is a vague jumble of established laws dating back to the Magna Carta (and possibly beyond?).
Re:Someone hook me up
on
Xandros 1.0
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I always wondered what that error was. I always assumed it was some star trek style geek message.. Close Enough. DomainOS was still badass for its time, even if the hardware was a little goofy.
Talking of which... I was told of an old version of Dynix (a Unix-based library catalogue program) at my former University, which printed the following error message on the console when it crashed:
For really gnarly error messages, try VMS's kernel-mode debuggers, DELTA and XDELTA (DELTA can be loaded with the system running; XDELTA can be loaded as a bootstrap so that you can debug a system boot. Or something. I never really get a chance to use them:)
In contrast to the rest of VMS, which is positively verbose, DELTA/XDELTA has ONE error message:
Actually, that is very poor error reporting. It gives no indication of what the error is. It gives no indication of *where* the error is.
At the very least, the line number should be written to a log file, with as much data as you can pull together. A better thing to do is to write a stack trace to a log file, with a snapshot of the environment when it occurred (what you tried to do, locals, globals, etc).
Ahhh... now this is one of the reasons I like VMS's three-level error messages:
$ dir foo:[bar]
%DIRECT-E-OPENIN, error opening FOO:[BAR]
-RMS-E-FNF, file not found
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE, no such file
To explain:
%DIRECT-E-OPENIN : The DIRECTORY utility encountered a problem opening the directory file FOO:[BAR]
-RMS-E-FNF : The Record Management System (RMS) could not find the file.
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE : The operating system couldn't find the file.
Each message is split into four parts, a FACILITY (DIRECT), a SEVERITY (E), an ID (OPENIN) and a textual MESSAGE (error opening FOO:[BAR]). VMS being VMS, you can turn off the display of any or all of these, so you can get:
Error opening FOO:[BAR]
File not found
No such file
by typing SET MESSAGE/NOFACILITY/NOSEVERITY/NOID (oh, you can abbreviate that to SET MES/NOFAC/NOSEV/NOID btw:).
When you call SYS$PUTMSG to display a message (it doesn't have to be an ERROR; you get status (S) and informational (I) messages as well), you can specify up to three error codes - giving you a multi-layer error message as above.
Sigh. I do wish Dave Cutler had had a chance to do a better job of NT when he moved to Microsoft:)
-Malcolm.
%SLASHDOT-E-OPENSIG, error opening signature
-SLASHDOT-I-USERID, for userid "Malcolm MacArthur"
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE, no such file:)
I.E. for legal purposes, the country of England and the country of Wales are one and the same. As far as I know:)
Until Welsh devolution, it used to be quite common to refer to "England & Wales" in statistics, etc.
The reason we have different legal systems is because it's a United Kingdom : they were all separate nations at one point and became part of the United Kingdom. Except Wales, which was annexed by England - hence England and Wales have a common legal system.
History lesson time: First England was formed out of various small kingdoms, then England entered into a union with Cornwall (at that time independent). England invaded Wales. Then it invaded Ireland. So now we have England, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland. That's three legal systems - Cornwall, Ireland, and "England and Wales".
The royal houses of England and Scotland were united in 1606 (?) when King James I ascended to the throne of England. Scotland and England remained separate countries until, thanks mainly to an attempt to found a colony on a swamp (Darien), Scotland was bankrupted (about 30-40% of the nation's wealth was sunk into this failed colony...) - this made union with England attractive, and the Act of Union was passed in 1707, unifying Scotland, England, Wales and Cornwall into what was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain. As part of the act, Scotland retained its own legal system. So now we have four.
Some point along the line, Ireland got added in and it became the United Kindgdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Now we have five legal systems (Ireland had its own legal system as well...).
Time passes.
Cornwall's status as a country and its powers gradually eroded, until, in the 1800s, it became a county of England. Previously, Cornwall had its own parliament and legal system - this was abolished when it became a county. Now we're back down to 4, Cornwall becoming part of England...
Time passes.
Eventually, after many years of fighting, the UK govt. gave up on Ireland. However, the mainly Protestant North of Ireland (known as the Six Counties of Ulster) was determined to remain part of the UK. So, they stayed part of the UK, the other 26 counties of Ireland forming Eire (now known as the Republic of Ireland). This is the cause of all that stuff you might see on the news about Northen Ireland (remember? Some bloke called Clinton went there...;).
So, when Northern Ireland was created (at which point IIRC, it was called Ulster), it was given home rule, or devolution. So Northern Ireland ended up setting up its OWN legal system as well... So you have five legal systems.
Oh, and of course there's the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, which are basically a vestige of the Norman kingdom which invaded England in 1066... So, that's seven legal systems. (actually, it's nine because Jersey, Guernsey and Sark have separate governments:).
Well.. the UK has a restriction of the press when dealing with crimes.
Let's take the DC Area sniper as an example. If this was the UK, the press would not be allowed to cover this, until someone was caught, and put to trial, and then, no names could be used.
Not quite.
It is true that there are some limitations on reporting on a trial in progress or revealing certain details of a suspect who has been formally charged - for instance, as pointed out, when a suspect has a previous criminal record. Under the legal systems (there are separate judicial systems in England and Wales (both share the same judicial system), Scotland, Northen Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), a paper cannot report whether a person who has been charged holds a criminal record. This is because this prior knowledge might unfairly influence a jury, who are supposed to be fair and unbiased. The judge/sherriff/magistrate/whatever does however have access to this information, and takes it into account when passing sentence. The idea being that everyone going into court is treated equally, no matter what their previous record. However, if a member of the jury knows that the accused is a criminal, this doesn't preclude them from serving on a jury trying the accused - unless they have some sort of relationship with the accused.
If the person was found Not Guilty, the press wouldn;t be allowed to talk to the person, their family, friends, etc, unless that person came to THEM first.
Not quite true, there are one or two exceptions for the victim in certain crimes - rape, for instance. I believe there were plans to extend anonymity to those accused and cleared of rape, but I don't know if they were passed or not.
A court MAY, however, pass an injunction banning the reporting of names or details of the trial in a case while the case is ongoing. But if an injunction is not sought, there is no automatic ban on the reporting of the facts of the case. It's basically on a case-by-case basis, and the vast majority of cases have no injunctions against the reporting of the case.
If the person was found Guilty, then they can use names, and cover it in greatest detail.
Usually, unless the court meets in camera. In which case the business of the court in camera remains confidential. Quite rare as far as I know.
Also, sometimes court injunctions can apply for a long time after the case. As far as I know, there is no limit on the length of time an injunction can apply for. One case I recall involved a woman who had an affair with a Government minister in the 1980s... an injunction was placed on the woman which barred her from discussing the case OR the affair with the media for 10 years (or was it longer?) after the trial. I don't know what the grounds were for such a lengthly injunction.
Honestly, I wouldn;t mind something like that around here... too often I see the press trying to give every little detail of what's going on, and fouling up investigations by tippig off the perps.
Absolutely. I believe that (where not abused, as in the case of the Government minister and his lover...) it is far better. There was a notable case against some famous person that collapsed on a technicality because of certain details that were reported in the Press; this has led to calls for MORE controls on what the newspapers may publish - which is probably not a good move...
Just for your information, there are also some other weirdnesses with the UK's legal systems:
Photography, painting and even SKETCHING in court is banned. Here in the UK we have a whole cadre of court artists... their task is to go into the court, write down notes on the appearance of the court and the people within, try to memorise as much as they can, then leave the court and draw sketches for the media! If you ever see UK TV news of a trial, you will see what I mean. Now you know why.
Judges really DO wear wigs, and High Court judges in England do still wear judicial robes and silk stockings...
Trial by combat in Scotland was only struck off the statute books in the late 1980s. Although no one had elected for trial by combat for several hundred years, two brothers who were fighting a court case asked for trial by combat. After a few months' legal confusion (which was probably what they really wanted:), their request was denied...
Some matters (very few) are still heard by ecclesiastical (Church) courts. One recent example was a church official, who insisted an employment case be heard by an ecclesiastical court. This made the trial cost about a quarter of a million pounds, as the court had to be specially convened.
Final Court of Appeal in all jurisdictions is the House of Lords, which has a quorum of... three. (To put that in perspective, there are several hundred Lords who may sit in the house...)
Oh, and to return to the topic on hand. As far as I know (gleaned from Mark Thomas' Secret Map of Britain programme and books I've read), there are no formal channels in the UK for censorship of the press (excepting a court injunction). Basically, if there is news of a sensitive nature, the Government will talk to editors and programme producers in the mass media and tell them not to publish. And if they do, then they break the Official Secrets Act and go to jail. Simple as that.
There have been cases of papers breaching D (or DA) notices. None ended up in court IIRC. But it does prevent the worst stuff from leaking out...
You are right,with respect to the American system as it currently stands.However, not all civilizations have been this way. The ancient Greeks, who were the prototype for a large part of our legal system, allowed any citizen to advocate. I'm not sure when it was, in the evolution of law, that the Bar came about, preventing anyone other than barristers from going in front.
AIUI, any citizen can still advocate - but you have to be qualified to do it for reward. So, if you represent a friend, you have to do it for free... unless you're qualified.
The other problem comes when you set up a new machine. So you install IIS on it... which is unpatched as it comes out-of-the-box. Then you go off and download the patches... but by that time it's too late, and you've already been infected!
If I recall correctly, this is one of the big reasons why Nimda still persists...
$2 a gallon? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You think THAT's expensive?
Currently, here in the UK, it's 73p a litre or thereabouts. 4.5 litres/gallon = £3.28, or at current exchange rates, $5.12. Most of that is tax.
Diesel is slightly more expensive, which is a perfect example of free market forces at work: the tax on diesel is lower, so the petrol companies increase the base price that the tax is applied to so that they get more money:)
If I recall correctly, untaxed diesel (also known as Rebated Fuel Oil, dyed red, available to farmers and people operating things like generators, etc. - basically, non-road vehicle engines) is about 40p a litre, or £1.80 ($2.81) a gallon. Woe betide you if you get caught using it on the road though...
ZIF socket - 7. More pins than the rest of the plugs put together, and they still fit perfectly. But alignment is tougher than usual and you have to get through all the crap piled on top of the CPU first.
Non-ZIF Socket - 0. Total bastard of a connector. I had one of these on an old Dell P100. Removing the CPU involved getting a sharp knife and gently prying the CPU up a fraction of an inch a time, one corner at a time. Putting in the new P133 (wow!:) was accomplished by laying it on top of the socket, pressing it in gently and doing a visual check for misaligned pins, then (gently) hammering the CPU in with the end of a screwdriver. (to those open-mouthed in astonishment, the computer was still in regular use up to five weeks ago, when my father replaced it with a P350, so it wasn't all bad).
You can forget what they say about wobbling the chip from side-to side to free it - it doesn't work. This was such an old Pentium, it had a 486 socket with an adapter board plugged into it; the Pentium then plugged into that. Wobbling merely pulled oy the Pentium and its adapter...
I'm not from the UK myself, but judging from home wiring manuals originating there the kind of distribution panel fuses where you don't change a cartridge but clamp a length of bare stock fuse wire in between two supports seem to be still in common usage there.
Certainly not for new houses, although as most houses aren't new, they still have them.
Anyway, they're not that complicated. Even a five year old could wire them up.
(Well, actually, I didn't wire it up *personally*, but when I was five I did teach my mother how to wire it up. Sometimes it pays to watch what Dad is doing [at this point, the house was in darkness and he was at work]. I even told her to pick the correct current rating [or, as I put it, "use the same kind of wire that's already in there"]:)
I also wired in a cooker age 11 (not much harder than a plug, unless you're colour-blind - UK plugs have brown live, blue neutral and green/yellow earth - high current appliances and the wires going to plugs use the 'traditional' red, black and green...) and put my own plugs on from the age of 10 upwards (as previously mentioned, you always used to have to wire your own plugs on in the UK). Dad always checked them afterwards tho'...
One reason I heard for the lack of plugs on appliances was that some houses still had 'old' style sockets with round pins (this is still true even today in one or two houses I know) and so plugs were not provided because the manufacturer couldn't tell what kind of wiring you had. Old-style plugs also came in two sizes as well (5 amp rating and 15 amp rating) just to confuse things...
Talking of electric shocks, I have been shocked several times at 240V and once at 10KV or so (ignition system). But, as said before, it's the current that kills you! Never use both hands...!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, it was either him or Fred Pohl, I think. The story was about a hypothetical future where all goods in the supermarket, for instance, had small radios build into them and would be screaming "Buy me! Buy me!" from the shelves. The only place to escape these constant adverts was prison; the plot revolved around a mother or grandmother who got herself imprisoned to escape the constant adverts. Son/grandson, who just happened to work for the Dept. of Corrections, noted how sad it was that criminals missed these small soundbites in prison. I mean, it's such an ideal tool for reform, isn't it? So you can guess what he did...
For another vision of advertising gone mad, I'd try Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth's books, The Space Merchants and The Merchant's War (second one written by Pohl alone). Don't know if these two are still in print though.
-M.
Advertising everywhere... no escape. I remember reading a short sci-fi story about this many years ago. Unfortunately, it looks like somebody else read it as well...
Buggers Buggered Up
No, Hitler nicked the salute from the Romans.
The swastika was stolen from the Indians. To this day, Indians still use swastikas as decoration, as they have done for thousands of years.
There are two types of swastika: a past-facing one and a future-facing one. IIRC, he used the future-facing one. In German, it is called a Hakenkreuz (hooked cross).
But that's enough about the Nazis. For further reading, see 'Hitler' - a 2-part biography (Can't remember who wrote it and can't be bothered rummaging around to find it...).
-Malcolm.
That's the Act of Union. It's not a constitution, it's more of an economic treaty between Scotland and England.
Yes, the British Constitution is vague. Incredibly so. It is based on case law and common law. There is no one document you can point to and say "That is the Constitution".
Instead, it is a vague jumble of established laws dating back to the Magna Carta (and possibly beyond?).
ftp://2130706433/pub/warez/0day :-)
-M.
Ah yes, most annoyingly - as it used to mean end-of-file in DOS, and means end-of-file in VMS
As a VMS sysadmin, I've lost count of the number of times I've lost large amounts of text because I pressed ^Z !! Aargh!
(At least on Unix, it backgrounds your job, which is usually recoverable :)
Tell me if you figure out how to unpack it... :)
System paging space critical, system trying to continue.
That was the last message until we hit the power.
Ah, good old %SYSTEM-F-PAGECRIT. Pray you never see it, if you run a VMS system (I haven't, but then we have 5.5 GB of memory :)
-M.
Talking of which... I was told of an old version of Dynix (a Unix-based library catalogue program) at my former University, which printed the following error message on the console when it crashed:
Full power to the warp shields, Mr. Sulu...
-Malcolm.
In contrast to the rest of VMS, which is positively verbose, DELTA/XDELTA has ONE error message:
Eh?
Not for the fainthearted ;)
-Malcolm.
At the very least, the line number should be written to a log file, with as much data as you can pull together. A better thing to do is to write a stack trace to a log file, with a snapshot of the environment when it occurred (what you tried to do, locals, globals, etc).
Ahhh... now this is one of the reasons I like VMS's three-level error messages:
$ dir foo:[bar]
%DIRECT-E-OPENIN, error opening FOO:[BAR]
-RMS-E-FNF, file not found
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE, no such file
To explain:
Each message is split into four parts, a FACILITY (DIRECT), a SEVERITY (E), an ID (OPENIN) and a textual MESSAGE (error opening FOO:[BAR]). VMS being VMS, you can turn off the display of any or all of these, so you can get:
Error opening FOO:[BAR]
File not found
No such file
by typing SET MESSAGE /NOFACILITY /NOSEVERITY /NOID (oh, you can abbreviate that to SET MES /NOFAC/NOSEV/NOID btw :).
When you call SYS$PUTMSG to display a message (it doesn't have to be an ERROR; you get status (S) and informational (I) messages as well), you can specify up to three error codes - giving you a multi-layer error message as above.
Sigh. I do wish Dave Cutler had had a chance to do a better job of NT when he moved to Microsoft :)
-Malcolm.
%SLASHDOT-E-OPENSIG, error opening signature :)
-SLASHDOT-I-USERID, for userid "Malcolm MacArthur"
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE, no such file
I.E. for legal purposes, the country of England and the country of Wales are one and the same. As far as I know :)
;).
:).
;-)
Until Welsh devolution, it used to be quite common to refer to "England & Wales" in statistics, etc.
The reason we have different legal systems is because it's a United Kingdom : they were all separate nations at one point and became part of the United Kingdom. Except Wales, which was annexed by England - hence England and Wales have a common legal system.
History lesson time: First England was formed out of various small kingdoms, then England entered into a union with Cornwall (at that time independent). England invaded Wales. Then it invaded Ireland. So now we have England, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland. That's three legal systems - Cornwall, Ireland, and "England and Wales".
The royal houses of England and Scotland were united in 1606 (?) when King James I ascended to the throne of England. Scotland and England remained separate countries until, thanks mainly to an attempt to found a colony on a swamp (Darien), Scotland was bankrupted (about 30-40% of the nation's wealth was sunk into this failed colony...) - this made union with England attractive, and the Act of Union was passed in 1707, unifying Scotland, England, Wales and Cornwall into what was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain. As part of the act, Scotland retained its own legal system. So now we have four.
Some point along the line, Ireland got added in and it became the United Kindgdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Now we have five legal systems (Ireland had its own legal system as well...).
Time passes.
Cornwall's status as a country and its powers gradually eroded, until, in the 1800s, it became a county of England. Previously, Cornwall had its own parliament and legal system - this was abolished when it became a county. Now we're back down to 4, Cornwall becoming part of England...
Time passes.
Eventually, after many years of fighting, the UK govt. gave up on Ireland. However, the mainly Protestant North of Ireland (known as the Six Counties of Ulster) was determined to remain part of the UK. So, they stayed part of the UK, the other 26 counties of Ireland forming Eire (now known as the Republic of Ireland). This is the cause of all that stuff you might see on the news about Northen Ireland (remember? Some bloke called Clinton went there...
So, when Northern Ireland was created (at which point IIRC, it was called Ulster), it was given home rule, or devolution. So Northern Ireland ended up setting up its OWN legal system as well... So you have five legal systems.
Oh, and of course there's the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, which are basically a vestige of the Norman kingdom which invaded England in 1066... So, that's seven legal systems. (actually, it's nine because Jersey, Guernsey and Sark have separate governments
Confused? You are now
-M.
Let's take the DC Area sniper as an example. If this was the UK, the press would not be allowed to cover this, until someone was caught, and put to trial, and then, no names could be used.
Not quite.
It is true that there are some limitations on reporting on a trial in progress or revealing certain details of a suspect who has been formally charged - for instance, as pointed out, when a suspect has a previous criminal record. Under the legal systems (there are separate judicial systems in England and Wales (both share the same judicial system), Scotland, Northen Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), a paper cannot report whether a person who has been charged holds a criminal record. This is because this prior knowledge might unfairly influence a jury, who are supposed to be fair and unbiased. The judge/sherriff/magistrate/whatever does however have access to this information, and takes it into account when passing sentence. The idea being that everyone going into court is treated equally, no matter what their previous record. However, if a member of the jury knows that the accused is a criminal, this doesn't preclude them from serving on a jury trying the accused - unless they have some sort of relationship with the accused.
If the person was found Not Guilty, the press wouldn;t be allowed to talk to the person, their family, friends, etc, unless that person came to THEM first.
Not quite true, there are one or two exceptions for the victim in certain crimes - rape, for instance. I believe there were plans to extend anonymity to those accused and cleared of rape, but I don't know if they were passed or not.
A court MAY, however, pass an injunction banning the reporting of names or details of the trial in a case while the case is ongoing. But if an injunction is not sought, there is no automatic ban on the reporting of the facts of the case. It's basically on a case-by-case basis, and the vast majority of cases have no injunctions against the reporting of the case.
If the person was found Guilty, then they can use names, and cover it in greatest detail.
Usually, unless the court meets in camera. In which case the business of the court in camera remains confidential. Quite rare as far as I know.
Also, sometimes court injunctions can apply for a long time after the case. As far as I know, there is no limit on the length of time an injunction can apply for. One case I recall involved a woman who had an affair with a Government minister in the 1980s... an injunction was placed on the woman which barred her from discussing the case OR the affair with the media for 10 years (or was it longer?) after the trial. I don't know what the grounds were for such a lengthly injunction.
Honestly, I wouldn;t mind something like that around here... too often I see the press trying to give every little detail of what's going on, and fouling up investigations by tippig off the perps.
Absolutely. I believe that (where not abused, as in the case of the Government minister and his lover...) it is far better. There was a notable case against some famous person that collapsed on a technicality because of certain details that were reported in the Press; this has led to calls for MORE controls on what the newspapers may publish - which is probably not a good move...
Just for your information, there are also some other weirdnesses with the UK's legal systems:
- Photography, painting and even SKETCHING in court is banned. Here in the UK we have a whole cadre of court artists... their task is to go into the court, write down notes on the appearance of the court and the people within, try to memorise as much as they can, then leave the court and draw sketches for the media! If you ever see UK TV news of a trial, you will see what I mean. Now you know why.
- Judges really DO wear wigs, and High Court judges in England do still wear judicial robes and silk stockings...
- Trial by combat in Scotland was only struck off the statute books in the late 1980s. Although no one had elected for trial by combat for several hundred years, two brothers who were fighting a court case asked for trial by combat. After a few months' legal confusion (which was probably what they really wanted
:), their request was denied...
- Some matters (very few) are still heard by ecclesiastical (Church) courts. One recent example was a church official, who insisted an employment case be heard by an ecclesiastical court. This made the trial cost about a quarter of a million pounds, as the court had to be specially convened.
- Final Court of Appeal in all jurisdictions is the House of Lords, which has a quorum of... three. (To put that in perspective, there are several hundred Lords who may sit in the house...)
Oh, and to return to the topic on hand. As far as I know (gleaned from Mark Thomas' Secret Map of Britain programme and books I've read), there are no formal channels in the UK for censorship of the press (excepting a court injunction). Basically, if there is news of a sensitive nature, the Government will talk to editors and programme producers in the mass media and tell them not to publish. And if they do, then they break the Official Secrets Act and go to jail. Simple as that.There have been cases of papers breaching D (or DA) notices. None ended up in court IIRC. But it does prevent the worst stuff from leaking out...
Methanol, IIRC. Might also run on ethanol, so if your laptop starts running low, just pour some vodka into it :)
Donaudampfschifffahrgesellschaftskapitansmütze
Donau = Danube
Dampf = Steam
Schiff = Ship
Fahrgesellschaft = Travel company (roughly)
The S indicates the genitive.
Kapitans = Captain's
Muetze = Club, mess, something like that.
So, it's the Danube Steam Ship Travel Company's Captain's Club.
Oh, and the longest recognised word in French is anticonstitutionellement (English: anticonstitutionally)
AIUI, any citizen can still advocate - but you have to be qualified to do it for reward. So, if you represent a friend, you have to do it for free... unless you're qualified.
If I recall correctly, this is one of the big reasons why Nimda still persists...
Currently, here in the UK, it's 73p a litre or thereabouts. 4.5 litres/gallon = £3.28, or at current exchange rates, $5.12. Most of that is tax.
Diesel is slightly more expensive, which is a perfect example of free market forces at work: the tax on diesel is lower, so the petrol companies increase the base price that the tax is applied to so that they get more money :)
If I recall correctly, untaxed diesel (also known as Rebated Fuel Oil, dyed red, available to farmers and people operating things like generators, etc. - basically, non-road vehicle engines) is about 40p a litre, or £1.80 ($2.81) a gallon. Woe betide you if you get caught using it on the road though...
- ZIF socket - 7. More pins than the rest of the plugs put together, and they still fit perfectly. But alignment is tougher than usual and you have to get through all the crap piled on top of the CPU first.
Non-ZIF Socket - 0. Total bastard of a connector. I had one of these on an old Dell P100. Removing the CPU involved getting a sharp knife and gently prying the CPU up a fraction of an inch a time, one corner at a time. Putting in the new P133 (wow!You can forget what they say about wobbling the chip from side-to side to free it - it doesn't work. This was such an old Pentium, it had a 486 socket with an adapter board plugged into it; the Pentium then plugged into that. Wobbling merely pulled oy the Pentium and its adapter...
Certainly not for new houses, although as most houses aren't new, they still have them.
Anyway, they're not that complicated. Even a five year old could wire them up.
(Well, actually, I didn't wire it up *personally*, but when I was five I did teach my mother how to wire it up. Sometimes it pays to watch what Dad is doing [at this point, the house was in darkness and he was at work]. I even told her to pick the correct current rating [or, as I put it, "use the same kind of wire that's already in there"] :)
I also wired in a cooker age 11 (not much harder than a plug, unless you're colour-blind - UK plugs have brown live, blue neutral and green/yellow earth - high current appliances and the wires going to plugs use the 'traditional' red, black and green...) and put my own plugs on from the age of 10 upwards (as previously mentioned, you always used to have to wire your own plugs on in the UK). Dad always checked them afterwards tho'...
One reason I heard for the lack of plugs on appliances was that some houses still had 'old' style sockets with round pins (this is still true even today in one or two houses I know) and so plugs were not provided because the manufacturer couldn't tell what kind of wiring you had. Old-style plugs also came in two sizes as well (5 amp rating and 15 amp rating) just to confuse things...
Talking of electric shocks, I have been shocked several times at 240V and once at 10KV or so (ignition system). But, as said before, it's the current that kills you! Never use both hands...!