I can see your point, but you must bear in mind that non-projectile weapons force the would-be attacker to physically 'fight' with their intended victim and get close. If you're a skinny wuss who couldn't even push open the swing-door to the gym, even a knife doesn't guarantee a victory against the 6'6 steriod-pumped brute you want to attack. A gun, however, means you can be a nice safe distance away as you unleash your pent-up anger on Captain Testosterone there.
Same goes for the wannabe 'gangsta' who without a gun might just be your average lout instead of a murderer. This is significant difference between guns and blades/clubs.
What is annoying to me is carry-on luggage period. You have to wonder how much quicker it would be to load and unload a plane if there was zero carry-on., And wouldn't it be nice not to have people opening the overhead compartment to yank down their bag to get some stupid thing out of it in the middle of a flight ?
A 13 hour flight would feel a hell of a lot longer if you couldn't bring on books/a nintendo/work to do. What does annoy the hell out of me is people bringing carry-on that's too large, or are just being thoughtless when getting on and off the plane. The people who procrastinate, or who don't allow people past whilst they search around inside their bags instead of waiting until the plane is up in the air. Similarly, once landed, people sit around gassing, then as soon as the doors open and people start making their way out, *then* they decide to stand up, block the aisle and take their hand luggage thus slowing the whole exiting process down. Usually after 13 hours of cramped conditions and fetid air I'm somewhat cranky, and small annoyances like this feel ten times worse.
So I went through Heathrow security a few weeks back: I had to take my shoes off, have them scanned, I went through the metal detector and of course enjoyed a healthy frisking. They also had a full body scanner that certain lucky people were envited to try out. So, past security, I was truly safe: no gels, matches or lighters. I could never be a threat!
Then I went to the waiting area where I promptly picked up a pack of matches and was browsing the duty free. Nothing would stop me from buying a 1 liter bottle of vodka, going on board, smashing it over someone's head, setting them on fire, then terrorising the plane/whatever with the remainder of my broken bottle (the weapon of choice for many louts in the UK which can scar, blind and even kill). If people want to be a dick and terrorise people, it's going to happen one way or another. Why not detonate their bombs in the packed ques for security checks?
If we live in fear and terror the terrorists have won.
I'm not liking the use of the word torture here in the responses. Torture is performed on victims who are restrained or incarcerated; this is very different to the intended use of the above device as it is simply a method of dispersing crowds who are completely free to move away from the source of pain.
If people were being tied up and having this thing pointed at their balls, then yes, the term torture would be accurate.
I live on a small island in between France and the UK. Because of this, we get French, English and local radio stations. Even though all the frequencies stay the same, it's still a nightmare finding a free, clean frequency. Cars are also much better insulated these days: an old original mini I had worked far better than a modern VW we have that clearly shields the head unit in the car from interference as the FM transmitter won't work if it's anything more that maybe 1 foot away. The mini, in comparison, didn't have any insulation, so the transmitter could be several feet away.
Finally, going across a country such a France is a further nightmare as you're forced to changed frequency every half hour or so as you go through regions with different radio staion frequenies.
The solution? Buy a head unit with an audio input socket, then you can use a cable, thus saving interference issues and saving a shed-load of power.
You must be thinking of 5 years ago, or '98 or ME. The average windows install is pretty damned stable these days, and the constantly blue-screening nightmare of times past is a myth that I believe is hugely overblown by linux and apple proponents. Uptimes measured in weeks or months aren't uncommon on my work and home machines. The box only ever goes down to save power when I'll be away for a time. Linux, however, is still a PITA *TODAY*.
Of course Windows doesn't come with all those drivers pre-loaded, you have to install them yourself. That your keyboard or mouse or network card (and there's a bunch out there that don't work vanilla) isn't working on startup isn't relevant, you don't need to use those to... oh wait, you DO need those to download your patches and drivers... Since that is not painless either, well, it's your hardware, not a problem with Windows.
Where you're getting these ps/2 comliant keyboards that don't work I have no idea... even a £1.99 keyboard I have works fine. The only hardware I've ever had driver trouble with in XP was a cheapo video input card made by a company that went bust before XP even came out. On the other hand I think I have spent over 20 hours trying to get drivers to work on linux boxes and I've only tried to get maybe four or five running, ever.
The difference between having to install drivers for the hardware on linux and windows is that windows takes ~5 minutes once downloaded (google manufacturer -> click support -> divers -> download -> double click downloaded file -> click install -> reboot and you're done compared with potential hours spent trying to get a driver to work in linux. You have to install a compiler, hunt though obscure websites for ages and praying that this driver you have works. I once found myself having to compile my bloody kernel just trying to get a driver to work for my wirelss NIC. It's a joke. Once you have an SP2 install of XP on the go, it takes less that 1 hour to install all the drivers (mobo, graphics card, sound card... and you're done.).
I have ubuntu installed on a couple of machines and have been using it for some time. It still is a total pain in the ass, though, I'm afraid to say. On the plus side, it sets itself up *ok* if you let it do it's thing, and run the http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=138405 Automatix install script. However, it's still got all the same issues as any other linux distro.
I spent hours trying to set up an application that used the wireless card (I was trying to find out how hard it would be to break into my own wireless network). It seemed that for every step I wanted to take forward, I needed to take 10 steps backwards. For example, I needed to installa a driver, so I research which I need (find the chipset of the card, hunt around in forums, etc), download the driver and boom! No go. Why? Oh right, I need to compile the driver, but there is no compiler installed (I find this after much hunting on the net). OK... so I need the compiler.... more hunting, more hunting, bingo! I find how to install the compiler. Easy enough, I just have to run a command or five in the terminal (didn't windows 95 remove the need for a terminal? That was 11 years ago...) and it's installed (oh, that's once I set up ubuntu to allow root logon, which it doesn't do as default (more researching!)). Ok, so I have the compiler installed, I compile the driver. Hunt around for the obscure location to which it's been installed and run it. Goody goody! I'm going to use my wireless card soon and it's only been three hours! Uh oh.... something's balked... oh right... hmm.. now I need to recompile my fucking kernal to install a bloody driver!! Some more research uncovers that it can take several hours for a kernal to compile, at which stage I switched off my linux box, turned on my mac and was doing what I had originally intended within 10 minutes, including research and application download time.
My previous mission was to get quake 3 running on linux. After much research and time spent, I got the game running with accelerated graphics, but I never got sound to work. I dunno... I guess I've been spoilt by windows and osx where I just double click on something and it works. Yeah, I may have to reboot the machine for a driver update, but that time spent is *nothing* compared to the time spent trying to get linux to run.
I see linux as the kit car of operating systems: you can get it to do anything, but you really need to learn a huge amount before you get anywhere worthwhile. I guess OSX would be more like a Mercedes in that you turn the key and it works, and if you lift the bonnet (hood) you have a big piece of plastic hiding everything with a shiny logo on it. Windows would be something like a ford or renault: cheap, cheerful, fairly reliable.
Thieves used a hydraulic ram to knock a section of wall down to get into my gran's house. This was they could do it hidden behind the house instead of having to go in the front door. All the windows and doors had steel bars on them, and the front door was seriously heavy with 3 different locks on it. They did it on bastille day (french holiday) when loads of fireworks going off so noone would be suspicious of a few bangs. Luckily, she's moved to a slightly less dodgy area now.
I hope the US government doesn't see them as potentially usable by 'terrorists' and ban these things in case some clown decides to make himself into a human V2 flying bomb...
I hate this world of paranoia in the US, especially when being fat is killing waaay more people in the US than any terrorist attack has or could.
And I'm still waiting to recieve my paycheck for my part-time job as a bag-boy and cashier...
My sentiments exactly. It reminds me of the US tipping system. Everyone is expected to tip the pizza delivery guy because they are paid less as management presume the buyer will pay a tip. Therefore the pizza company has lumbered paying their staff directly onto the consumer thus incresing their profits. That $9.99 pizza you ordered actually is ~$15.99 or whatever...
Lots of 'stupid' tagging.
on
Fashion in Space?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It seems many (most?) stories these days seem to have earned the 'stupid' tagging underneath it. Any chance of some proper news? I feel that over the last few weeks, slashdot has really gone downhill in terms of news quality. Today's 'spy gadgets' advert pissed me right off.
Rephrase it: "Decide that, while my time isn't valuable at all when I did learn how to use DOS/Windows/whatever, it suddenly becomes extremly valuable when I have to google a bit to figure out how to make things work on Linux, no matter how really simple they are."
Wow. it's just like being back in the Linux forums and being called a 'noob' and that it should just work.
I understand your point, but personally, I like to get on with simply using the computer, not spending time getting it to work. Check out OSX for an example of how this is possible.
Well, it'll allow me to ditch my windows machine that's long overdue an upgrade, and instead have a hot mac that can also boot into windows should I feel like gaming. It's the ultimate combination!
My number one concern is the graphics cards that'll be available with them...
Here's my Linux experience. The goal I set out beforehand was to install a Linux OS and play quake 3 on it. Plain and simple.
Windows:
1) Insert CD
2) Partition, answer a few questions, etc.
3) Be impressed with interface that isn't bad for 1998.
4) Download graphics card driver
5) Double click on icon, hit 'next' a few times then reboot.
6) Insert Q3 CD, click 'next' a few times, startup game & play.
My Linux Experience:
1) Spend an age figuring out which linux distro to use, sift through conflicting information.
2) Download fedora through recommendation
3) Install fedora - insert CD, answer questions
4) Be impressed with interface that really isn't bad for 1998.
5) Download drivers. Watch it balk as you've not installed something it needs to run the install app
6) Scratch head, search forums, be called a n00b and that it should just be working.
7) Bring around friend with unix (OSX) experience, mess around for 45 minutes not getting anywhere
8) Download Ubuntu from another recommendation
9) Install, answer questions, etc.
10) Run automatix script that sorts everything out for you.
11) Install quake 3 as per the handy online guide.
12) Try installing it again once you've enabled the root user and logged in.
13) Fire up quake 3.
14) Turn up speakers as sound doesn't appear to be coming from them, despite movies playing sound within ubuntu.
15) Scratch head, go to forums, get called a n00b and be told that it should be working.
16) Decide my time is too valuable for all this pissing around.
16) Stick with windows, and wait for the X86 powermac to come out.
I'm happy with my choice, and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. My 2.5 year old install has never crashed apart from through a hardware failure. I've not had one piece of spyware nor a single trojan or virus. It'll see me through till that powermac comes...
Boot Camp will do little to coax Windows XP users into switching to Mac OS X.
There are even examples of people here on slashdot who have stated that they have bought an apple simply because of bootcamp. I'm in the same boat, although I'm going to wait for the powermac and am hoping that we'll be able to choose/buy later on a hefty graphics card (eg 7800 or even 7900) with full driver support in Windows. My current PC is physically failing, but I'm holding off for the powermac.
If anything, bootcamp will drastically improve apple sales. I'd put money on this being the case.
My only concern is the lack of being able to transfer files between the OS's. It'd be useful to be able to create a third FAT32 partition of maybe a few gigs for this purpose.
I'm really chuffed with my SLVR. It is fairly basic in functionality (which I like) but most importantly it's beautifully slim and a more mature phone. To me, far too many phones are becoming like the Wasp T12 Special, appealing to younger generations who like to impress each other with the sheer volume of gadgets/crap on their handsets. Who really needs a program to compose" 'music' on their phones?
To me, less is more. I do like a handset to have a smart appearance, however, and the C116 just doesn't do it for me...
It didn't work in Jersey, UK. Parts of bikes were stolen (need new brake pads on a budget?) or kids/'hooligans' would trash them and treat them really badly. Drunken people also had a penchant for saving a few quid and using the freebee bicycles to get home. It was considered a risk, and wrecked bikes were becoming a public nuisance, so the scheme was stopped.
Incidentally the bikes here were painted green and it was known as 'the green bike scheme'.
A good friend of mine is an airline pilot and he keeps his phone switched on in the cockpit. The only concern for him is the radio is situated near the center of the aircraft under a wing, so it is possible to get interference from a mobile phone over the radio if someoen is sitting close to it with the phone on.
In an unrelated, but interesting side note, they turn the internal lights off when landing or taking off so that in case of emergency, your eyes are already accustomed to the dark in order to speed up the escape out of the aircraft.
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
on
Obesity Contagious?
·
· Score: 1
Also, my pet theory is that humans are designed to be social eaters (sharing the kill, the harvest, etc). Company makes foods better. Ever smell a McDonald's burger that smells as good as a backyard barbecue one? Now, however, a lot of people wolf down their food by themselves in the car, or while working. They don't stop to pay attention to it, and they also frequently ingest several hundred calories of soda while eating.
I agree. These days eating can be more of a chore in our busy lifestyles. We cram in a quick lunch at our desks soley in order to keep hunger at bay so we can carry on working. Having said that, I believe this is mainly a US/UK issue as in France, for example, companies often allow for 2 hour lunch breaks for the staff. Everything closes (including supermarkets) at lunchtime for a good hour or two. It's no good for the demands of the fussy consumer and it's a far cry from the 24 hour service we're all getting used to, but if you look around at the general french public, you'll find that they are much healthier (at least slimmer) than their UK/US counterparts.
Seriously, do you think this is some Andy Kaufman prank where many members of the public are the victim and the only people who find the joke funny are the moderators? It's just getting silly now.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see your point, but you must bear in mind that non-projectile weapons force the would-be attacker to physically 'fight' with their intended victim and get close. If you're a skinny wuss who couldn't even push open the swing-door to the gym, even a knife doesn't guarantee a victory against the 6'6 steriod-pumped brute you want to attack. A gun, however, means you can be a nice safe distance away as you unleash your pent-up anger on Captain Testosterone there.
Same goes for the wannabe 'gangsta' who without a gun might just be your average lout instead of a murderer. This is significant difference between guns and blades/clubs.
What is annoying to me is carry-on luggage period. You have to wonder how much quicker it would be to load and unload a plane if there was zero carry-on., And wouldn't it be nice not to have people opening the overhead compartment to yank down their bag to get some stupid thing out of it in the middle of a flight ?
A 13 hour flight would feel a hell of a lot longer if you couldn't bring on books/a nintendo/work to do. What does annoy the hell out of me is people bringing carry-on that's too large, or are just being thoughtless when getting on and off the plane. The people who procrastinate, or who don't allow people past whilst they search around inside their bags instead of waiting until the plane is up in the air. Similarly, once landed, people sit around gassing, then as soon as the doors open and people start making their way out, *then* they decide to stand up, block the aisle and take their hand luggage thus slowing the whole exiting process down. Usually after 13 hours of cramped conditions and fetid air I'm somewhat cranky, and small annoyances like this feel ten times worse.
/rant over
So I went through Heathrow security a few weeks back: I had to take my shoes off, have them scanned, I went through the metal detector and of course enjoyed a healthy frisking. They also had a full body scanner that certain lucky people were envited to try out. So, past security, I was truly safe: no gels, matches or lighters. I could never be a threat!
Then I went to the waiting area where I promptly picked up a pack of matches and was browsing the duty free. Nothing would stop me from buying a 1 liter bottle of vodka, going on board, smashing it over someone's head, setting them on fire, then terrorising the plane/whatever with the remainder of my broken bottle (the weapon of choice for many louts in the UK which can scar, blind and even kill). If people want to be a dick and terrorise people, it's going to happen one way or another. Why not detonate their bombs in the packed ques for security checks?
If we live in fear and terror the terrorists have won.
I'm not liking the use of the word torture here in the responses. Torture is performed on victims who are restrained or incarcerated; this is very different to the intended use of the above device as it is simply a method of dispersing crowds who are completely free to move away from the source of pain.
If people were being tied up and having this thing pointed at their balls, then yes, the term torture would be accurate.
I live on a small island in between France and the UK. Because of this, we get French, English and local radio stations. Even though all the frequencies stay the same, it's still a nightmare finding a free, clean frequency. Cars are also much better insulated these days: an old original mini I had worked far better than a modern VW we have that clearly shields the head unit in the car from interference as the FM transmitter won't work if it's anything more that maybe 1 foot away. The mini, in comparison, didn't have any insulation, so the transmitter could be several feet away.
Finally, going across a country such a France is a further nightmare as you're forced to changed frequency every half hour or so as you go through regions with different radio staion frequenies.
The solution? Buy a head unit with an audio input socket, then you can use a cable, thus saving interference issues and saving a shed-load of power.
I like the
You must be thinking of 5 years ago, or '98 or ME. The average windows install is pretty damned stable these days, and the constantly blue-screening nightmare of times past is a myth that I believe is hugely overblown by linux and apple proponents. Uptimes measured in weeks or months aren't uncommon on my work and home machines. The box only ever goes down to save power when I'll be away for a time. Linux, however, is still a PITA *TODAY*.
Of course Windows doesn't come with all those drivers pre-loaded, you have to install them yourself. That your keyboard or mouse or network card (and there's a bunch out there that don't work vanilla) isn't working on startup isn't relevant, you don't need to use those to ... oh wait, you DO need those to download your patches and drivers... Since that is not painless either, well, it's your hardware, not a problem with Windows.
Where you're getting these ps/2 comliant keyboards that don't work I have no idea... even a £1.99 keyboard I have works fine. The only hardware I've ever had driver trouble with in XP was a cheapo video input card made by a company that went bust before XP even came out. On the other hand I think I have spent over 20 hours trying to get drivers to work on linux boxes and I've only tried to get maybe four or five running, ever.
The difference between having to install drivers for the hardware on linux and windows is that windows takes ~5 minutes once downloaded (google manufacturer -> click support -> divers -> download -> double click downloaded file -> click install -> reboot and you're done compared with potential hours spent trying to get a driver to work in linux. You have to install a compiler, hunt though obscure websites for ages and praying that this driver you have works. I once found myself having to compile my bloody kernel just trying to get a driver to work for my wirelss NIC. It's a joke. Once you have an SP2 install of XP on the go, it takes less that 1 hour to install all the drivers (mobo, graphics card, sound card... and you're done.).
Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing!
I wonder if they now ship with asbestos battery surrounds in case the battery pack explodes?
Wasn't apple begining to open up "cans o' whupass(tm)" on those using the term 'podcast'?
I have ubuntu installed on a couple of machines and have been using it for some time. It still is a total pain in the ass, though, I'm afraid to say.
On the plus side, it sets itself up *ok* if you let it do it's thing, and run the http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=138405 Automatix install script. However, it's still got all the same issues as any other linux distro.
I spent hours trying to set up an application that used the wireless card (I was trying to find out how hard it would be to break into my own wireless network). It seemed that for every step I wanted to take forward, I needed to take 10 steps backwards. For example, I needed to installa a driver, so I research which I need (find the chipset of the card, hunt around in forums, etc), download the driver and boom! No go. Why? Oh right, I need to compile the driver, but there is no compiler installed (I find this after much hunting on the net). OK... so I need the compiler.... more hunting, more hunting, bingo! I find how to install the compiler. Easy enough, I just have to run a command or five in the terminal (didn't windows 95 remove the need for a terminal? That was 11 years ago...) and it's installed (oh, that's once I set up ubuntu to allow root logon, which it doesn't do as default (more researching!)). Ok, so I have the compiler installed, I compile the driver. Hunt around for the obscure location to which it's been installed and run it. Goody goody! I'm going to use my wireless card soon and it's only been three hours! Uh oh.... something's balked... oh right... hmm.. now I need to recompile my fucking kernal to install a bloody driver!! Some more research uncovers that it can take several hours for a kernal to compile, at which stage I switched off my linux box, turned on my mac and was doing what I had originally intended within 10 minutes, including research and application download time.
My previous mission was to get quake 3 running on linux. After much research and time spent, I got the game running with accelerated graphics, but I never got sound to work. I dunno... I guess I've been spoilt by windows and osx where I just double click on something and it works. Yeah, I may have to reboot the machine for a driver update, but that time spent is *nothing* compared to the time spent trying to get linux to run.
I see linux as the kit car of operating systems: you can get it to do anything, but you really need to learn a huge amount before you get anywhere worthwhile. I guess OSX would be more like a Mercedes in that you turn the key and it works, and if you lift the bonnet (hood) you have a big piece of plastic hiding everything with a shiny logo on it. Windows would be something like a ford or renault: cheap, cheerful, fairly reliable.
Thieves used a hydraulic ram to knock a section of wall down to get into my gran's house. This was they could do it hidden behind the house instead of having to go in the front door. All the windows and doors had steel bars on them, and the front door was seriously heavy with 3 different locks on it. They did it on bastille day (french holiday) when loads of fireworks going off so noone would be suspicious of a few bangs. Luckily, she's moved to a slightly less dodgy area now.
If they want to get in, they will.
I hope the US government doesn't see them as potentially usable by 'terrorists' and ban these things in case some clown decides to make himself into a human V2 flying bomb...
I hate this world of paranoia in the US, especially when being fat is killing waaay more people in the US than any terrorist attack has or could.
And I'm still waiting to recieve my paycheck for my part-time job as a bag-boy and cashier...
My sentiments exactly. It reminds me of the US tipping system. Everyone is expected to tip the pizza delivery guy because they are paid less as management presume the buyer will pay a tip. Therefore the pizza company has lumbered paying their staff directly onto the consumer thus incresing their profits. That $9.99 pizza you ordered actually is ~$15.99 or whatever...
Not cool.
Mac mini?
It seems many (most?) stories these days seem to have earned the 'stupid' tagging underneath it. Any chance of some proper news? I feel that over the last few weeks, slashdot has really gone downhill in terms of news quality. Today's 'spy gadgets' advert pissed me right off.
Rephrase it: "Decide that, while my time isn't valuable at all when I did learn how to use DOS/Windows/whatever, it suddenly becomes extremly valuable when I have to google a bit to figure out how to make things work on Linux, no matter how really simple they are."
Wow. it's just like being back in the Linux forums and being called a 'noob' and that it should just work.
I understand your point, but personally, I like to get on with simply using the computer, not spending time getting it to work. Check out OSX for an example of how this is possible.
Well, it'll allow me to ditch my windows machine that's long overdue an upgrade, and instead have a hot mac that can also boot into windows should I feel like gaming. It's the ultimate combination!
My number one concern is the graphics cards that'll be available with them...
Here's my Linux experience. The goal I set out beforehand was to install a Linux OS and play quake 3 on it. Plain and simple.
Windows:
1) Insert CD
2) Partition, answer a few questions, etc.
3) Be impressed with interface that isn't bad for 1998.
4) Download graphics card driver
5) Double click on icon, hit 'next' a few times then reboot.
6) Insert Q3 CD, click 'next' a few times, startup game & play.
My Linux Experience:
1) Spend an age figuring out which linux distro to use, sift through conflicting information.
2) Download fedora through recommendation
3) Install fedora - insert CD, answer questions
4) Be impressed with interface that really isn't bad for 1998.
5) Download drivers. Watch it balk as you've not installed something it needs to run the install app
6) Scratch head, search forums, be called a n00b and that it should just be working.
7) Bring around friend with unix (OSX) experience, mess around for 45 minutes not getting anywhere
8) Download Ubuntu from another recommendation
9) Install, answer questions, etc.
10) Run automatix script that sorts everything out for you.
11) Install quake 3 as per the handy online guide.
12) Try installing it again once you've enabled the root user and logged in.
13) Fire up quake 3.
14) Turn up speakers as sound doesn't appear to be coming from them, despite movies playing sound within ubuntu.
15) Scratch head, go to forums, get called a n00b and be told that it should be working.
16) Decide my time is too valuable for all this pissing around.
16) Stick with windows, and wait for the X86 powermac to come out.
I'm happy with my choice, and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. My 2.5 year old install has never crashed apart from through a hardware failure. I've not had one piece of spyware nor a single trojan or virus. It'll see me through till that powermac comes...
Boot Camp will do little to coax Windows XP users into switching to Mac OS X.
There are even examples of people here on slashdot who have stated that they have bought an apple simply because of bootcamp. I'm in the same boat, although I'm going to wait for the powermac and am hoping that we'll be able to choose/buy later on a hefty graphics card (eg 7800 or even 7900) with full driver support in Windows. My current PC is physically failing, but I'm holding off for the powermac.
If anything, bootcamp will drastically improve apple sales. I'd put money on this being the case.
My only concern is the lack of being able to transfer files between the OS's. It'd be useful to be able to create a third FAT32 partition of maybe a few gigs for this purpose.
With a little luck, they'll finally get rid of the hugely irritating copy+paste bug that still seems to be lingering about...
I'm really chuffed with my SLVR. It is fairly basic in functionality (which I like) but most importantly it's beautifully slim and a more mature phone. To me, far too many phones are becoming like the Wasp T12 Special, appealing to younger generations who like to impress each other with the sheer volume of gadgets/crap on their handsets. Who really needs a program to compose" 'music' on their phones?
To me, less is more. I do like a handset to have a smart appearance, however, and the C116 just doesn't do it for me...
It didn't work in Jersey, UK. Parts of bikes were stolen (need new brake pads on a budget?) or kids/'hooligans' would trash them and treat them really badly. Drunken people also had a penchant for saving a few quid and using the freebee bicycles to get home. It was considered a risk, and wrecked bikes were becoming a public nuisance, so the scheme was stopped.
Incidentally the bikes here were painted green and it was known as 'the green bike scheme'.
A good friend of mine is an airline pilot and he keeps his phone switched on in the cockpit. The only concern for him is the radio is situated near the center of the aircraft under a wing, so it is possible to get interference from a mobile phone over the radio if someoen is sitting close to it with the phone on.
In an unrelated, but interesting side note, they turn the internal lights off when landing or taking off so that in case of emergency, your eyes are already accustomed to the dark in order to speed up the escape out of the aircraft.
Also, my pet theory is that humans are designed to be social eaters (sharing the kill, the harvest, etc). Company makes foods better. Ever smell a McDonald's burger that smells as good as a backyard barbecue one? Now, however, a lot of people wolf down their food by themselves in the car, or while working. They don't stop to pay attention to it, and they also frequently ingest several hundred calories of soda while eating.
I agree. These days eating can be more of a chore in our busy lifestyles. We cram in a quick lunch at our desks soley in order to keep hunger at bay so we can carry on working. Having said that, I believe this is mainly a US/UK issue as in France, for example, companies often allow for 2 hour lunch breaks for the staff. Everything closes (including supermarkets) at lunchtime for a good hour or two. It's no good for the demands of the fussy consumer and it's a far cry from the 24 hour service we're all getting used to, but if you look around at the general french public, you'll find that they are much healthier (at least slimmer) than their UK/US counterparts.
Seriously, do you think this is some Andy Kaufman prank where many members of the public are the victim and the only people who find the joke funny are the moderators? It's just getting silly now.