I have Freesat. I was in the same situation as the GP up until the switchover - I was on a relay that wasn't transmitting Freeview at all (and analogue reception was quite poor), and there was no cable provider in the area. The flat I was living in had a satellite dish attached by a previous occupant, and so I picked up a Freesat HD box as soon as they became available.
Now that the switchover has happened, I receive what my local MP is referring to as 'Freeview Lite' - I only receive the 'public service' channels provided by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (and Channel 5 as well I suspect, although the Freeview website is telling me otherwise).
The thing is, Freesat doesn't offer much more than that. The channels that I get on Freeview are also the only ones really worth watching on Freesat. Most other channels are garbage. I would only really recommend Freesat under the following circumstances:
If you absolutely must have the one-and-a-half HD channels (BBC HD and the half-a-channel ITV HD).
If it's your only digital TV option that doesn't require a subscription, and you can't wait for your switchover date.
If you're a Scottish Gaelic speaker and want to watch BBC ALBA, which is only available via satellite.
If you want to receive local programming from another part of the UK. A friend of mine in London is considering Freesat so that he can watch Scottish programming.
If you live in the Republic of Ireland, where DTT isn't nearly as well developed (rebranded boxes are available under the name Sat4Free).
There are other options beside Sky and Virgin - Tiscali and BT IPTV services are available in some areas. I'm currently using Tiscali alongside Freesat, and it provides as good a range of channels as I want along with a lot of on-demand content. It's not the most reliable service in the world however, and I'm not sure I want to recommend them over Sky just yet.
If you're paying by direct debit, try talking to your bank about it. Under the direct debit agreement you're entitled to a full and immediate refund from the bank if a payment has been taken improperly. This means that you'll get your money back first, and questions will be asked later.
It's at the discretion of the bank of course, and if your contract with Sky doesn't actually guarantee you'll get anything for your money then you may struggle to persuade the bank, but it's always worth a shot.
I'd also factor in the perception that the consequences are low. Taking drugs, especially 'soft' drugs like cannabis, doesn't have a direct impact on anybody but yourself. Doing 80mph on a 70mph motorway doesn't result in significantly more danger to anybody. Jaywalking isn't actually an offence in the UK and I had to Google it to find out what it was (I thought personal freedom was meant to be an American thing?). Running red lights? People may accelerate late on a yellow when other traffic has barely begun to move, but blatantly skipping a red is very rare. And fly-tipping tends to happen in secluded areas where it's reasonable to suggest that it's not going to cause anybody a huge amount of harm.
I'm not sure causing a cell tower to stop functioning would be done quite so casually.
On blueboxing you may have a point, it depends on how easy it would be to detect I guess. Likelihood of getting caught is also a factor.
I've never heard it mentioned that one of their discriminating criteria is because it has a higher content of nutrients.
Actually the woman interviewed on BBC News this morning made exactly that claim. Granted, I'd never heard it claimed until this morning (also I have no idea who she was, and I can't find anything on the BBC website to tell me who she was).
I'm one of those people that has more inclusive minutes and texts than I'll ever use, and although I'm probably paying over the odds it means that I can use my phone to my heart's content without every worrying about exceeding my limit and incurring extra charges. The fixed monthly fee makes it easy to budget for.
What I do think is unfortunate is that because handset subsidy is so common, there isn't nearly as much choice between contracts if you want a SIM-only contract.
The BBC have an excellent documentary on this subject called The Incredible Human Journey up on the iPlayer at the moment. Its focus isn't quite the same as the article's, as it discusses genetics only as a means to confirm or reject theories of how humans made their way around the planet, but it's definitely worth watching if you're in the UK or can use a UK proxy.
You'd probably find learning a lot easier if you actually used metric in real life. Visualising a kilometre is pretty difficult when all the roadsigns are in miles. I live in the UK and we were taught metric exclusively in school. We used kilometres, but the roadsigns are in miles, and I now think in miles and metres - give me a value in feet or kilometres and I'll convert it (approximately) in my head.
Another example is volume - I can deal with pints when buying beer, but when I'm buying milk I have to approximate in litres because I'm not used to dealing with pints in quantities other than one (at a time).
If the US is going to convert, it should be done in one go. The halfway-house that the UK has is absolutely the wrong way to go about it - to this day we still have people who see metric as unusual and foreign.
I'd say you probably could learn passable Norwegian by studying alone. To be fluent in any language you've really got to surround yourself with native speakers. I think what makes Norwegian difficult is the diversity of dialects - a learner that could get by in Oslo might struggle in for example Ålesund.
English doesn't really have that problem as it's fairly standardised worldwide, although there's a bit of variation in the UK and Ireland. The problem with English is the sheer size of the vocabulary and the writing system that bears only a passing relation to the sounds that the words make.
are morally dubious at worst, and morally justifiable at best (i.e. western governments are doing it too)
The American public certainly didn't find torture morally reprehensible enough to actually do something about it, especially as it was happening to 'bad people'.
Nokia Siemens Networks provided equipment to Iran last year under the internationally recognized concept of "lawful intercept," said Mr. Roome. That relates to intercepting data for the purposes of combating terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking and other criminal activities carried out online, a capability that most if not all telecom companies have, he said.
So look at it this way - the equipment was provided for purposes which, from a western perspective, are morally dubious at worst, and morally justifiable at best (i.e. western governments are doing it too). That the equipment is now being used for another, morally reprehensible purpose is not a reflection on the worthiness of the equipment itself. It's a similar argument to the one that P2P proponents would use - that there are legal uses, and that their provision should not be impinged simply because there are also illegal uses.
The other argument is that Iran has bought this equipment, and it's not up to Nokia Siemens Networks how it is used. A number of Slashdotters argued for the same principle in today's iPhone C64 emulator thread.
Apple UK didn't seem to think it violated the SDK agreement, as they gave the go-ahead (As per the article). It was only later that the app was rejected when it was submitted to the app-store.
I think it's more a case of Apple UK making promises regarding the waiving of the App Store rules that they weren't in a position to keep. Perhaps a command in Apple UK becomes a request to lower management in Cupertino becomes a suggestion to upper management in Cupertino becomes a memo that someone forgot to send to the App Store submission monkeys.
And if you assume that the use of regenerative braking in cars will rise over time, then it follows that this is a method of power generation that will become less green over time. Not something that I would invest money in personally.
Unless you're driving a car that already uses regenerative braking, in which case you'll lose some energy that you would otherwise have gained back (in theory).
I don't agree with your first point. First of all, rarely benefits everybody equally (not directly, anyway); those that contribute less generally receive more. You wouldn't expect the highest earners and the unemployed to benefit equally from unemployment benefit, for example.
Second, I'm not sure large companies will be large beneficiaries of this scheme, since they tend to be based in urban areas. Small companies based in rural areas will find it much easier to remain in those rural areas and contribute to the local economy if the basic necessities are available to them.
If bread was priced at a proportion of a person's income, then the poor would do a roaring trade on the black market by buying up loads of bread and selling it to the rich at twice the price they paid for it, but less than the rich would have to pay. It's an idiotic idea that doesn't take into account the market value of bread.
Broadband of course cannot be bought and sold like this because it's a service, not a product, and the physical aspects of it (i.e. infrastructure) is tied to geography.
First of all, I did mention the vetting of candidates.
Second, my post wasn't intended to argue that Iran today is a democracy, but to argue against the charge that Iranians replaced a dictator with another dictator.
I'd contend that any election in any country can be stolen, given enough supporters.
The whole basis of your argument is that Iranians knowingly installed an absolute dictator. Actually, we're discussing violence following a contested election result.
The BBC has a good overview of the Iranian political system, which includes a directly elected President, Parliament and Assembly of Experts. Other institutions are appointed, as they are in other democracies.
The whole system looks very similar to the electoral system used in the UK. Our monarch is hereditary, our House of Lords is a mixture of hereditary and appointed, our judiciary is (obviously) appointed. We don't have a President and our PM is appointed by Parliament, making Iran theoretically more democratic than the UK.
The largest UK parties even make it known that they support the first-past-the-post method of vote-counting "because it keeps small parties out", which is not unlike the Guardian Council's responsibility for vetting candidates.
The UK is not a repressive country, despite what the tabloids might say, and I can promise you a change in government this time next year. Iran's problem is that its system of "checks and balances" was set up during a time of high emotions and anti-Western sentiment, which has proven very difficult to shift.
Every phone on the market, with the exception of the iPhone, has an attachment hook that's mainly used these days by teenage girls to attach decorations. You should be able to attach a stock Wiimote strap to your phone without too much trouble... although I wouldn't recommend stress-testing it.
Slashdot Mirror
A ballot? If you don't vote for the winning candidate in your constituency your vote is effectively discarded.
Fortunately this measure only applies to those UK citizens that don't have an alternative parliament.
Myth.
You are honestly the first person I have ever heard complain that the BBC doesn't repeat programmes enough. Most people make the opposite complaint.
I have Freesat. I was in the same situation as the GP up until the switchover - I was on a relay that wasn't transmitting Freeview at all (and analogue reception was quite poor), and there was no cable provider in the area. The flat I was living in had a satellite dish attached by a previous occupant, and so I picked up a Freesat HD box as soon as they became available.
Now that the switchover has happened, I receive what my local MP is referring to as 'Freeview Lite' - I only receive the 'public service' channels provided by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (and Channel 5 as well I suspect, although the Freeview website is telling me otherwise).
The thing is, Freesat doesn't offer much more than that. The channels that I get on Freeview are also the only ones really worth watching on Freesat. Most other channels are garbage. I would only really recommend Freesat under the following circumstances:
There are other options beside Sky and Virgin - Tiscali and BT IPTV services are available in some areas. I'm currently using Tiscali alongside Freesat, and it provides as good a range of channels as I want along with a lot of on-demand content. It's not the most reliable service in the world however, and I'm not sure I want to recommend them over Sky just yet.
If you're paying by direct debit, try talking to your bank about it. Under the direct debit agreement you're entitled to a full and immediate refund from the bank if a payment has been taken improperly. This means that you'll get your money back first, and questions will be asked later.
It's at the discretion of the bank of course, and if your contract with Sky doesn't actually guarantee you'll get anything for your money then you may struggle to persuade the bank, but it's always worth a shot.
I'd also factor in the perception that the consequences are low. Taking drugs, especially 'soft' drugs like cannabis, doesn't have a direct impact on anybody but yourself. Doing 80mph on a 70mph motorway doesn't result in significantly more danger to anybody. Jaywalking isn't actually an offence in the UK and I had to Google it to find out what it was (I thought personal freedom was meant to be an American thing?). Running red lights? People may accelerate late on a yellow when other traffic has barely begun to move, but blatantly skipping a red is very rare. And fly-tipping tends to happen in secluded areas where it's reasonable to suggest that it's not going to cause anybody a huge amount of harm.
I'm not sure causing a cell tower to stop functioning would be done quite so casually.
On blueboxing you may have a point, it depends on how easy it would be to detect I guess. Likelihood of getting caught is also a factor.
Actually the woman interviewed on BBC News this morning made exactly that claim. Granted, I'd never heard it claimed until this morning (also I have no idea who she was, and I can't find anything on the BBC website to tell me who she was).
They claim that they "season them with a pinch of salt and pepper after cooking" and that no fat is added.
There's also salt in other parts of the burger. A Big Mac has added salt in the bun, sauce, cheese and pickle.
I'm one of those people that has more inclusive minutes and texts than I'll ever use, and although I'm probably paying over the odds it means that I can use my phone to my heart's content without every worrying about exceeding my limit and incurring extra charges. The fixed monthly fee makes it easy to budget for.
What I do think is unfortunate is that because handset subsidy is so common, there isn't nearly as much choice between contracts if you want a SIM-only contract.
But have all the badger scenes been fully restored? http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/special+edition/
The BBC have an excellent documentary on this subject called The Incredible Human Journey up on the iPlayer at the moment. Its focus isn't quite the same as the article's, as it discusses genetics only as a means to confirm or reject theories of how humans made their way around the planet, but it's definitely worth watching if you're in the UK or can use a UK proxy.
You'd probably find learning a lot easier if you actually used metric in real life. Visualising a kilometre is pretty difficult when all the roadsigns are in miles. I live in the UK and we were taught metric exclusively in school. We used kilometres, but the roadsigns are in miles, and I now think in miles and metres - give me a value in feet or kilometres and I'll convert it (approximately) in my head.
Another example is volume - I can deal with pints when buying beer, but when I'm buying milk I have to approximate in litres because I'm not used to dealing with pints in quantities other than one (at a time).
If the US is going to convert, it should be done in one go. The halfway-house that the UK has is absolutely the wrong way to go about it - to this day we still have people who see metric as unusual and foreign.
I'd say you probably could learn passable Norwegian by studying alone. To be fluent in any language you've really got to surround yourself with native speakers. I think what makes Norwegian difficult is the diversity of dialects - a learner that could get by in Oslo might struggle in for example Ålesund.
English doesn't really have that problem as it's fairly standardised worldwide, although there's a bit of variation in the UK and Ireland. The problem with English is the sheer size of the vocabulary and the writing system that bears only a passing relation to the sounds that the words make.
You quoted me out of context. The full quote:
The American public certainly didn't find torture morally reprehensible enough to actually do something about it, especially as it was happening to 'bad people'.
FTA:
So look at it this way - the equipment was provided for purposes which, from a western perspective, are morally dubious at worst, and morally justifiable at best (i.e. western governments are doing it too). That the equipment is now being used for another, morally reprehensible purpose is not a reflection on the worthiness of the equipment itself. It's a similar argument to the one that P2P proponents would use - that there are legal uses, and that their provision should not be impinged simply because there are also illegal uses.
The other argument is that Iran has bought this equipment, and it's not up to Nokia Siemens Networks how it is used. A number of Slashdotters argued for the same principle in today's iPhone C64 emulator thread.
I think it's more a case of Apple UK making promises regarding the waiving of the App Store rules that they weren't in a position to keep. Perhaps a command in Apple UK becomes a request to lower management in Cupertino becomes a suggestion to upper management in Cupertino becomes a memo that someone forgot to send to the App Store submission monkeys.
And if you assume that the use of regenerative braking in cars will rise over time, then it follows that this is a method of power generation that will become less green over time. Not something that I would invest money in personally.
Unless you're driving a car that already uses regenerative braking, in which case you'll lose some energy that you would otherwise have gained back (in theory).
You replied to the wrong comment, I take it?
I don't agree with your first point. First of all, rarely benefits everybody equally (not directly, anyway); those that contribute less generally receive more. You wouldn't expect the highest earners and the unemployed to benefit equally from unemployment benefit, for example.
Second, I'm not sure large companies will be large beneficiaries of this scheme, since they tend to be based in urban areas. Small companies based in rural areas will find it much easier to remain in those rural areas and contribute to the local economy if the basic necessities are available to them.
If bread was priced at a proportion of a person's income, then the poor would do a roaring trade on the black market by buying up loads of bread and selling it to the rich at twice the price they paid for it, but less than the rich would have to pay. It's an idiotic idea that doesn't take into account the market value of bread.
Broadband of course cannot be bought and sold like this because it's a service, not a product, and the physical aspects of it (i.e. infrastructure) is tied to geography.
First of all, I did mention the vetting of candidates.
Second, my post wasn't intended to argue that Iran today is a democracy, but to argue against the charge that Iranians replaced a dictator with another dictator.
I'd contend that any election in any country can be stolen, given enough supporters.
The whole basis of your argument is that Iranians knowingly installed an absolute dictator. Actually, we're discussing violence following a contested election result.
The BBC has a good overview of the Iranian political system, which includes a directly elected President, Parliament and Assembly of Experts. Other institutions are appointed, as they are in other democracies.
The whole system looks very similar to the electoral system used in the UK. Our monarch is hereditary, our House of Lords is a mixture of hereditary and appointed, our judiciary is (obviously) appointed. We don't have a President and our PM is appointed by Parliament, making Iran theoretically more democratic than the UK.
The largest UK parties even make it known that they support the first-past-the-post method of vote-counting "because it keeps small parties out", which is not unlike the Guardian Council's responsibility for vetting candidates.
The UK is not a repressive country, despite what the tabloids might say, and I can promise you a change in government this time next year. Iran's problem is that its system of "checks and balances" was set up during a time of high emotions and anti-Western sentiment, which has proven very difficult to shift.
Rubbish, there are loads of phones with accelerometers. The Nokia N95 for instance.
Every phone on the market, with the exception of the iPhone, has an attachment hook that's mainly used these days by teenage girls to attach decorations. You should be able to attach a stock Wiimote strap to your phone without too much trouble... although I wouldn't recommend stress-testing it.