As someone who gave up watching TV in february, allowing the license to expire, I agree with the above, and can state the following:
the gov't outsourced the collection of licenses to TV Licensing Ltd, so it's no longer the TV licensing authority, but they use the very similar logos and imply they have the full force of the gov't
the letters they send get progressively nastier and more intimidating. every advice I've read says to totally ignore them. they are agressive and accuse the householder of being a criminal and watching without a license.
they have sent one person round, a neighbour was house-sitting at the time, and he sent them away and refused entry - they will invite themselves in, but can't enter without a warrant
no detector vans have been seen
----
from what I've read, the law courts see watching TV without a license as a civil, not criminal act, and fines for a first offense are typically only UK£200, not the UK£2000 that TVL threaten.
The TV tax (for that's what it is in the UK - you have to pay it whether you watch BBC or not) is UK£120, or US$200.
Interestingly, the European Union have been looking into the way various countries grant special rights to the national broadcaster, and the way they are funded, as it looks as if most (incl. the BBC) break EU rules on gov't subsidy/support and taxation rules. There's also a "television without frontiers" project, but like most EU initiatives it dodges the issues of the commercial TV companies operating a cartel to control pricing of high-value channels such as sports.
The bang the/. drum, yet again, globalisation seems to actually translate to screw the workers with outsource jobs or reduced salaries, combined with screwing the consumer by locking down regional sales (Sony's PSP springs to mind).
I note that slashdot editor didn't read the license page, it doesn't say anything about having a TV license to access this BBC archive.
why new?
self-winding watches have been around for many years to store energy in springs to power a watch, and Seiko and other companies have watches which store electricy in ultra-capacitors.
why a backpack?
why not use wrist- or ankle-mounted generators, which get a lot more movement, so presumably the generator could be a lot smaller and lighter?
FreeBSD... linux great but... only Gentoo comes close to the ports system
I've used many different package systems - solaris's, linux (debian's apt, suse's yast, redhat's), ipkg on zaurus... and maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't find FreeBSD's ports better than debian's system, or even much better than yast's... and it wasn't entirely unbreakable either.
I'm sorry, FreeBSD guys, but it's still too much of a minority interest, with too many real-world solutions missing.
function of the new mouse...sense if there is wireless interference from other devices, an increasingly common problem with today's numerous wireless devices, and to change channels
what was wrong with bluetooth, use encryption too, problem solved!?
this mouse is a marketing person's madness:
1) add a few completely pointless features to a mouse
2) add a new nearly pointless feature to a mouse in the hope of disguising 1
3) persuade the millions of people who already have a mouse that this one is essential
4) profit!
Re:Other measurements (Score:4, Insightful)
I would question how much energy is required to pelletize the hydrogen? Hopefully not more energy than can be reasonably extracted from the hydrogen after the fact.
Obviously not THAT insightful, nor RTFA'd... amminex say the storage of H2 is reversible, i.e. once you've created the pellets, they will store & release H2 repeatedly.
No information on the number of cycles possible, or how resilient they are in a tough environment like a vehicle.
You can get a PhD with 5+ years of experience in India for less than
the good news for us programmers in EU and USA is that salaries of skilled IT workers are rising fast in India, such that Indian companies are out-sourcing to Africa and the Philippines. Likewise in China in manufacturing (where it costs only one tenth the salary for an equivalent skilled position to one in USA).
Yes, globalisation makes life tough for a while, but salaries will rise overseas and fall locally, then pick up and level out as equilibrium is achieved. Somehow, we just have to ride the wave.
Eventually, the price of everything will be fixed relative to the cost of fuel and food, which are the fundamental staples of civilisation.
It's a pity that Sharp didn't see fit to opensource the customised QT & QT/e that runs on the Zaurus... this caused a lot of work for quite a few people in trying to recreate some of the features. Sharp also didn't do anyone any favours in the way they ported the linux kernel - their SD flash driver is still closed/proprietary (and is now discovered to be broken on 2GB cards).
So, whilst the Z is a great device, it's not quite the shining star of openness that people outside the community think!
Oh yeah, and the point of my rambling? Trolltech's lpotter and team have done a GREAT job of providing support to zaurus developers, especially in producing their own Trolltech ROM image. I just pray that IPO won't devalue their urge to generate good will.
the problem isn't so much the quality of the electronics which turn D->A->line-out->amplifier, it's the problem of keeping the digital noise out.
with s/pdif from my SBLV! I can turn the amp up to the point where it'd destroy my speakers and hear practically nothing with my ear next to the speaker, just a slight whisper of noise from the preamp stages! [I love my Yamaha AX1!!!].
If I'd used analogue, I'd probably be able to hear digital hash at normal volumes.
in my humble experience, the only time a standard sound card can have an audiophile function is when you only use the s/pdif in and out, and ignore the analogue, so that the card is no more than a buffer.
my olde SB!Live!Value! with a hoontech adaptor works pretty well hooked into my Yamaha AX1 home cinema amp using fibre. Oh yeah, the downside is that this card has a fixed 48kHz sampling rate, so playing back mp3's captured off CD means the sound has been through some mangling, but when I record* off digital satellite which is also 48kHz, the sound quality is pretty good.
* I use audiograbber, once commercial, now free, which as well as a no-brainer GUI for ripping CDs, has an excellent line-in timed-recording feature.
Imagine if your automobile (or car as we Brits say) came with a Microsoft EULA...
We, Forgenchrymotor Corp license this vehicle to you on the understanding that you purchase it without any implied fit-for-purpose, and shall have no right for compensation if the vehicle at any time refuses to start, stop or turn; if the vehicle spontaneously explodes, you are responsible for reassembling the vehicle. We reserve the right at any time to render the vehicle obsolete and stop providing spares or service without notice. Should we think you have tampered with the vehicle we reserve the right to disable it remotely without warning or due process.
Long ago the BBC used to wipe and re-use tapes of programs that didn't get much interest or they felt had no long-term historical value.
I recall that they only managed to recover some of the earliest Dr. Who's from fan's own recordings, even though the fair-use principles in the UK don't permit sharing off-air recordings and these fans shouldn't have kept them.
The irony is now that they are trying to sue fans who got hold of the latest Dr. Who via P2P...
They're also launching their own P2P service with DRM, but that's another story.
I hope that the text you posted above was from a translation which is now free of copyright! If it was from the ASV or NIV, you're probably in Big Trouble!
East Anglia in the UK also does this: to protect the City of Cambridge, outlying fields are allowed to flood.. even so, some houses right by the river can end up flooded, perhaps by a foot or two of water, but its's relatively controlled, a slow rising rather than a surge.
Global warming may end up killing enough of the human population so that equilibrium will be restored - i.e. the use of fossil fuels will fall in relation to the reducing population. The snag for many of the world's people is that the first mass deaths will probably be those who didn't "enjoy" the wealth/energy that caused it.
there is nothing like books when it comes to learning
you're making two mistakes... firstly that the students can actually read, and secondly that they're not just going to the library to browse for p0rn!!!
Another excellent documentary is "The Blue Planet" series from the BBC. They also cover penguins, but not in as much detail, but then you get to see polar bears, whales, and the weird things deep down. It really gives an insight into the amazing variety of life on "our" planet.
The quality of the video is stunning - it's almost as if you have a window into the undersea....one of the best GBP30 I spent on DVDs.
I'd agree to some extent, but would say that most Palm enthusiasts use their PDAs as pim, as ebook reader and as games device. The Zodiac was pretty good for all those. The results at the PDA247 survey are quite interesting.
The zodiac had some clever custom hardware (video and audio) which meant games writers had to learn a new non-Palm API, but it did give the devices a real performance boost *if* the developer used them, and were able to spring for the licenses too.
People have been saying how wonderful Sony are, and how well the PSP will be supported. Well, Sony's versions of the Palm, their Clies, also had custom hardware did that with their Clie's, used non-standard APIs but not consistently between devices. And then to cap it all, Sony shafted developers and customers by withdrawing their support websites minutes after announcing the end of sales of Clies outside Japan. Nope, I won't be buying another Sony product.
On the subject of PDAs, I'd like to say Sharp and the Zaurus is better supported by Sharp. Sadly, it's the enthusiasts who make the Zaurus what it is today (new kernels, better applications, etc), seemingly with no relatively little cooperation from Sharp at all; there's people at trolltech who do quite a lot to help out.
actually landing on the moon...[snip] proceeds from selling moon rocks on ebay etc. would get some of that money back.
the last time a NASA astronaut gave souvenirs to his kids, the MiBs came and took them all away.
I can't imagine the tourist being allowed to keep *anything*.
snippet:
"At its annual MOTONOW event in Chicago, Illinois, Motorola today introduced the A910, a clamshell smartphone powered by Linux and Java. The handset is Motorola's first to integrate the standards-approved Unlicensed Mobile Access, or UMA, technology, which aims to enable the delivery of mobile services over unlicensed spectrum such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. "
Slashdot Mirror
the gov't outsourced the collection of licenses to TV Licensing Ltd, so it's no longer the TV licensing authority, but they use the very similar logos and imply they have the full force of the gov't
the letters they send get progressively nastier and more intimidating. every advice I've read says to totally ignore them. they are agressive and accuse the householder of being a criminal and watching without a license.
they have sent one person round, a neighbour was house-sitting at the time, and he sent them away and refused entry - they will invite themselves in, but can't enter without a warrant
no detector vans have been seen
----
from what I've read, the law courts see watching TV without a license as a civil, not criminal act, and fines for a first offense are typically only UK£200, not the UK£2000 that TVL threaten.
Interestingly, the European Union have been looking into the way various countries grant special rights to the national broadcaster, and the way they are funded, as it looks as if most (incl. the BBC) break EU rules on gov't subsidy/support and taxation rules. There's also a "television without frontiers" project, but like most EU initiatives it dodges the issues of the commercial TV companies operating a cartel to control pricing of high-value channels such as sports.
The bang the /. drum, yet again, globalisation seems to actually translate to screw the workers with outsource jobs or reduced salaries, combined with screwing the consumer by locking down regional sales (Sony's PSP springs to mind).
I note that slashdot editor didn't read the license page, it doesn't say anything about having a TV license to access this BBC archive.
self-winding watches have been around for many years to store energy in springs to power a watch, and Seiko and other companies have watches which store electricy in ultra-capacitors.
why a backpack?
why not use wrist- or ankle-mounted generators, which get a lot more movement, so presumably the generator could be a lot smaller and lighter?
I've used many different package systems - solaris's, linux (debian's apt, suse's yast, redhat's), ipkg on zaurus... and maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't find FreeBSD's ports better than debian's system, or even much better than yast's... and it wasn't entirely unbreakable either.
I'm sorry, FreeBSD guys, but it's still too much of a minority interest, with too many real-world solutions missing.
what was wrong with bluetooth, use encryption too, problem solved!?
this mouse is a marketing person's madness:
1) add a few completely pointless features to a mouse
2) add a new nearly pointless feature to a mouse in the hope of disguising 1
3) persuade the millions of people who already have a mouse that this one is essential
4) profit!
I would question how much energy is required to pelletize the hydrogen? Hopefully not more energy than can be reasonably extracted from the hydrogen after the fact.
Obviously not THAT insightful, nor RTFA'd... amminex say the storage of H2 is reversible, i.e. once you've created the pellets, they will store & release H2 repeatedly.
No information on the number of cycles possible, or how resilient they are in a tough environment like a vehicle.
the good news for us programmers in EU and USA is that salaries of skilled IT workers are rising fast in India, such that Indian companies are out-sourcing to Africa and the Philippines. Likewise in China in manufacturing (where it costs only one tenth the salary for an equivalent skilled position to one in USA).
Yes, globalisation makes life tough for a while, but salaries will rise overseas and fall locally, then pick up and level out as equilibrium is achieved. Somehow, we just have to ride the wave.
Eventually, the price of everything will be fixed relative to the cost of fuel and food, which are the fundamental staples of civilisation.
It's a pity that Sharp didn't see fit to opensource the customised QT & QT/e that runs on the Zaurus... this caused a lot of work for quite a few people in trying to recreate some of the features. Sharp also didn't do anyone any favours in the way they ported the linux kernel - their SD flash driver is still closed/proprietary (and is now discovered to be broken on 2GB cards).
So, whilst the Z is a great device, it's not quite the shining star of openness that people outside the community think!
Oh yeah, and the point of my rambling? Trolltech's lpotter and team have done a GREAT job of providing support to zaurus developers, especially in producing their own Trolltech ROM image. I just pray that IPO won't devalue their urge to generate good will.
with s/pdif from my SBLV! I can turn the amp up to the point where it'd destroy my speakers and hear practically nothing with my ear next to the speaker, just a slight whisper of noise from the preamp stages! [I love my Yamaha AX1!!!].
If I'd used analogue, I'd probably be able to hear digital hash at normal volumes.
my olde SB!Live!Value! with a hoontech adaptor works pretty well hooked into my Yamaha AX1 home cinema amp using fibre. Oh yeah, the downside is that this card has a fixed 48kHz sampling rate, so playing back mp3's captured off CD means the sound has been through some mangling, but when I record* off digital satellite which is also 48kHz, the sound quality is pretty good.
* I use audiograbber, once commercial, now free, which as well as a no-brainer GUI for ripping CDs, has an excellent line-in timed-recording feature.
Imagine if your automobile (or car as we Brits say) came with a Microsoft EULA...
We, Forgenchrymotor Corp license this vehicle to you on the understanding that you purchase it without any implied fit-for-purpose, and shall have no right for compensation if the vehicle at any time refuses to start, stop or turn; if the vehicle spontaneously explodes, you are responsible for reassembling the vehicle. We reserve the right at any time to render the vehicle obsolete and stop providing spares or service without notice. Should we think you have tampered with the vehicle we reserve the right to disable it remotely without warning or due process.
branwashing? is this committed by a cereal killer?
In another news flash,,, DVD Jon cracks ROT13, used by SCO to protect their secret sources.. Darl BigMac promises to sue.
Long ago the BBC used to wipe and re-use tapes of programs that didn't get much interest or they felt had no long-term historical value.
I recall that they only managed to recover some of the earliest Dr. Who's from fan's own recordings, even though the fair-use principles in the UK don't permit sharing off-air recordings and these fans shouldn't have kept them.
The irony is now that they are trying to sue fans who got hold of the latest Dr. Who via P2P...
They're also launching their own P2P service with DRM, but that's another story.
I hope that the text you posted above was from a translation which is now free of copyright! If it was from the ASV or NIV, you're probably in Big Trouble!
East Anglia in the UK also does this: to protect the City of Cambridge, outlying fields are allowed to flood.. even so, some houses right by the river can end up flooded, perhaps by a foot or two of water, but its's relatively controlled, a slow rising rather than a surge.
Global warming may end up killing enough of the human population so that equilibrium will be restored - i.e. the use of fossil fuels will fall in relation to the reducing population. The snag for many of the world's people is that the first mass deaths will probably be those who didn't "enjoy" the wealth/energy that caused it.
there is nothing like books when it comes to learning
you're making two mistakes... firstly that the students can actually read, and secondly that they're not just going to the library to browse for p0rn!!!
you don't get much choice about using wmp10 on XP if you want the latest security fixes, as wmp9 has unfixed holes and won't be fixed.
lasers are wonderful... they can vaporize a bulldozer at 10 miles, or perform the most delicate eye surgery.
I just hope when I go in for my eye operation, the surgeon remembers to switch it over first!
Another excellent documentary is "The Blue Planet" series from the BBC. They also cover penguins, but not in as much detail, but then you get to see polar bears, whales, and the weird things deep down. It really gives an insight into the amazing variety of life on "our" planet.
...one of the best GBP30 I spent on DVDs.
The quality of the video is stunning - it's almost as if you have a window into the undersea.
A Cambridge (the real one in the UK!) company called CacheLogic is probably one of a number who are creating products for ISPs.
and do you ever expect to get it back when SCO fold?
The zodiac had some clever custom hardware (video and audio) which meant games writers had to learn a new non-Palm API, but it did give the devices a real performance boost *if* the developer used them, and were able to spring for the licenses too.
People have been saying how wonderful Sony are, and how well the PSP will be supported. Well, Sony's versions of the Palm, their Clies, also had custom hardware did that with their Clie's, used non-standard APIs but not consistently between devices. And then to cap it all, Sony shafted developers and customers by withdrawing their support websites minutes after announcing the end of sales of Clies outside Japan. Nope, I won't be buying another Sony product.
On the subject of PDAs, I'd like to say Sharp and the Zaurus is better supported by Sharp. Sadly, it's the enthusiasts who make the Zaurus what it is today (new kernels, better applications, etc), seemingly with no relatively little cooperation from Sharp at all; there's people at trolltech who do quite a lot to help out.
actually landing on the moon...[snip] proceeds from selling moon rocks on ebay etc. would get some of that money back. the last time a NASA astronaut gave souvenirs to his kids, the MiBs came and took them all away. I can't imagine the tourist being allowed to keep *anything*.
snippet:
"At its annual MOTONOW event in Chicago, Illinois, Motorola today introduced the A910, a clamshell smartphone powered by Linux and Java. The handset is Motorola's first to integrate the standards-approved Unlicensed Mobile Access, or UMA, technology, which aims to enable the delivery of mobile services over unlicensed spectrum such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. "