I think Wii Fit looks pretty cool, and if I had some spare cash I'd maybe get one for my housemate's Wii, however I do have a cautionary tale.
One of my friends bought Wii Fit recently and was doing some jogging on it (I know - jogging on a big plastic board? Some of the other stuff looks cool but I'm dubious about the jogging!) however it was quite late at night and his flatmate asked him to keep the noise down a bit. He therefore took his trainers off and kept going in his socks for a while. The next morning he woke up with his ankles in agony and had to go to hospital. The doctor asked what he'd been doing but my friend was too embarrased to tell him the truth, so he said that he'd been running with hiking boots on. The doctor of course told him he was an idiot (or something along those lines), but didn't think that my friend's story quite added up. Eventually he got the truth and, again, told him he was a silly boy and not to run again without appropriate footwear again.
It will be a while before my friend does so (either virtually or realityally) however - the doctor gave him a 3 month ban on running while his ankles heal.
Of course, this is a "User too stupid" error as opposed to any fault on Nintendo's part, however I thought it was an interesting story. Virtual joggers, you have been warned!
Please be accepting my sincerest apologies for the transgressions of my website "mugupatentlawyers4u.ru". I will send the $5350.00 requested by Western Union wire transfer as soon as I receive the $1500.00 payment processing fee required by my countries banking laws.
Your humble servant,
Dr Steve Mugu,
Attorney at law
Lagos, Nigeria
In Scots law at least (and I think it's the same in England and Wales/NI - IANAL though), threatening to sue someone doesn't amount to extortion. Given that the article suggests the evidence is pretty dubious though, I'd guess that any civil court in the UK would throw the case out, even if it got that far. Even though you can send a letter saying "I'll sue you!" to whoever you want, I think most judges/sheriffs/magistrates would expect the pursuer/plaintiff to have made reasonable efforts to resolve the issue before claiming, and that their claim has some merit.
Of course we don't know the full facts in this instance but it sounds like there pretty much isn't any evidence, and if there is, that it was obtained in a dodgy way. I'd type more if I hadn't just cycled back from work (I'm about as fit as your average Slashdotter)...ask for proof as mentioned...ISP...Data Protection Act.. etc etc.
Nothing to see here...
on
The DIY Tank
·
· Score: 1
...well maybe that's a bit harsh. It's a cool project, but not unique by any means - I've heard of a few people building replica tanks and the like for airsoft and paintball. If you haven't heard of the former, it's way more fun than paintball and also crosses over with reanactment/milsim - players at most skirmishes use modern replicas (I've got a H&K G36C, and hopefully my new P226 will have arrived by the time I get back from work!) but there's also an active WWII element which I've been wanting to get involved with.
Sorry, have to correct you there. SonyBMG is a record label not a publisher, Sony and BMG's music publishing subsidiaries were not merged. I don't mean to be pedantic but describing SonyBMG as a publisher is maybe analagous to describing Dell as a software developer.
There are a couple things I'd like to add to this mostly informative but somewhat patronising post. moosesocks' definition of a college in the UK is a little confusing - what he seems to be describing is a 6th Form College which only exists in England and Wales AFAIK (not 100% sure about Northern Ireland) and is basically a senior high school but with a learning/teaching style more analogous to further education, or actual colleges. These are further education institutes found throughout the UK and while they are mostly attended by 16-18 year olds who may be studying A Levels, Highers or vocational qualifications (such as car maintenance), they offer a range of qualifications from short casual courses to diplomas and entry is open to any age group. Confusingly, some art institutes refer to themselves as colleges or schools, e.g. Edinburgh College of Art and Glasgow School of Art. These offer degrees and post-graduate courses and tend to be independent institutions, however some such as the two I've mentioned have their degrees validated by a university.
The "Legal Adulthood" thing is also complicated. I think moosesocks is referring to the age of contractual capacity which is indeed 16 in Scotland, however with some caveats (which the interested or bored can Google for themselves). AFAIK he's right that it's 18 in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland (the other two UK legal jurisdictions), however other "legal ages" vary, for example driving is 17 (with a probationary period in NI), drinking is 18 everywhere, the age of consent is 16 except for NI (where it is 17 for the moment, however it is being reduced in the near future) and voting is 18 everywhere. The UK has never had uniform laws because of the three distinct legal systems the fact that NI had its own government for about 50 years until the early 1970s. Since devolution in 1998, we're now a de facto federation (albeit a rather ad hoc and unbalanced one) so in a way we're a little closer to the US than we used to with respect to geographical differences in law and policy.
I'll assume that you're over in the states as this isn't really the case anymore in the UK. Back in the day, British schools were filled with BBC Micros instead of Apple IIs (that's plural, not the model name BTW) and later on Macs were indeed the dominant platform. However things have changed a bit in the past few years, many local authorities have moved over to Windows and I'd guess that Microsoft is now the dominant platform.
Also, is BECTA UK wide? I think it is, however keep in mind that the UK has three completely different education systems for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Furthermore I think it's pretty much down to local authorities to choose computing platforms for their schools AFAIK.
When I was in my final year at high school in Edinburgh back in 1998, things were a bit strange when it came to computing. My school just starting to get money for its first new Macs in a while and the curriculum was also being changed. Because of this we were programming using a strange language called COMAL under BBC Micro emulation on a mixture of PowerMacs, LCs and Pluses! There were even a few actual BBC Micros still in use!
But seriously, I've really enjoyed these recent articles on Slashdot's setup and history, especially as I recently tried, and failed, to install Slash!
There seem to be a few comments, mostly from those in the states talking about this in relation to HDTV. The UK is still fairly far behind with regard to HDTV, however this is about the switch to SD digital terrestrial broadcast, which is much further along in terms of adoption.
AFAIK, HDTV is only available with subscription satellite and cable services at the moment as opposed to Freeview (free digital terrestrial, there are no longer any paid-for terrestrial services). You can also buy a dish and decoder to watch free satellite channels, but again these are digital SD, you have to subscribe AND buy an HD decoder and TV to get HD cable/satellite.
Also, AFAIK analogue cable was switched off some time ago in the UK (we're down to one cable provider and one satellite provider, how's that for competition?!), although I could be wrong.
Here in UK, government taxes you! But seriously, we've always been taxed on Interweb access just like we get taxed 17.5% on everything else. Obviously the situation is a little different for you guys as sales tax varies by state, however our telcoms (and pretty much everything else) are poorer value for money than in the US and even our European friends. Until I managed to negotiate a massive discount from them recently, I paid around $100 a month to my ISP for my 8mbit ADSL and landline (inc. VAT and free calls to geographic numbers).
Remember that iWork is the successor to Apple's "Office" - AppleWorks, née ClarisWorks, née AppleWorks. While iWork is very different, given Apple's 20-odd years of development of something that's not an Office clone, it makes sense for them to go their own way rather than fork OoO.OooO, or however the hell you abbreviate it.
PC World are generally rubbish, however you can get a good deal out of them if you know what you're looking for. I just bought myself a new MacBook, sat nav, and a Philips laptop for my fiance from there and saved over £100 on RRP, and 6 months interest free credit. I actually got my last machine (a G5) from there too as it was ex-demo and heavily discounted. Where they make there money however is from people who don't have a clue about computing who they can sell machines to that are way more powerful than they need along with their extended warranties and extra stuff ("Are you sure you don't want a 42" LCD to surf the web with?"). It's also the people who don't know any better (or are too lazy to check the agreement) who get 6 months interest free and forget/can't be bothered to pay it off before the interest free term and get landed with loads of interest (and then complain on consumer forums about being shafted).
If I had any problems with any of said machines though I wouldn't let PC World near them and would go straight to the manufacturer.
As for this case, you're probably best doing just that and sending it to Acer. On the other hand however, it might be an idea to speak to the store manager armed with the appropriate bit of legislation and tell him that if he doesn't honour the warranty, then you'll report him to Trading Standards and let Acer know about it too (for the greater good and all that). Mentioning the right to start a civil action against PC World's parent company DSG wouldn't do any harm either.
There's nothing to stop you unlocking any other phone (in Europe anyway), so I doubt the iPhone will be any different. If anything, if Apple tries to prevent it, I could see the European Commission stepping in.
Because it's true, especially in the case of the Marines from what I've read. I'm not talking about physical and weapons training, but appropriate tactics and background information about the environment they're deployed in, the local population and how to deal with them.
You can sent crack troops in to Baghdad but they won't be much use if all they're taught to do is shoot any towelhead that looks at them funny. As other posters (with far more insight into the situation than I) have mentioned, there's no way the US can "win the war" without the support of the Iraqi people, and to do that (if it's possible that this stage), a completely different approach is needed.
Another thing about Marathon was that it was scary. Sure, I was maybe 14 when I originally played it, but I gave it a go again recently and it still creeped me out.
And although many people aren't familiar with the Marathon series, fewer are familiar with Bungie's equivalent of Wolfenstein, Pathways into Darkness. While not as technically accomplished, it was also very atmospheric and way ahead of its time.
It's pundemonium! I don't mind, I'm a sucker for punishment. Speaking of which, seemingly Rage Against the Machine have been drawing inspiration from Lord of the Rings for their new comeback songs, when they take to the stage at Coachella they'll be called Mage Against the Machine.
Who the hell (with a quark of technical knowledge) even considers "upgrading" to vista... Just don't do it
I think you meant: "Who the hell (with technical knowledge of Quark) even considers "upgrading" to vista"
Microsoft does not offer refunds for purchases made through their web site
Surely refusing to give a refund for a product that doesn't work is unlawful? I know it is in the UK, and AFAIK across the EU, don't you guys have similar consumer protection laws in the States?
So the iPhone will work with all carriers as well?
Yes, probably. Depending on which networks Apple choose in Europe, the iPhone will probably be SIM locked, however users can just get it unlocked, either by the network or by the first guy with a mobile repair shop that figures out how to do it. It might even be possible to flash it, who knows? Some EU countries (I forget which), even have laws that require networks to provide unlock codes 6 months after the purchase of the phone.
Of course, some of the features such as the random access voicemail and EDGE will probably still be network dependent however by the time the European release comes out, there will probably be a 3G update anyway.
Remember that RIAA labels are in the business of selling licences to listen to recordings. They have nothing to do with the songs themselves which are either owned by the songwriter, or more commonly a music publisher. In some cases, the publisher will also be owned by the same group as the label but most writers have publishing deals with companies who aren't also their label (for example Jay-Z is with EMI Publishing IIRC).
Royalties for the songs themselves from recordings (mechanicals) are collected by an agency (MCPS in the UK, Harry Fox in the US), as are royalties from public performance (TV, radio, live gigs) which are collected by ASCAP and BMI in the US. This money usually gets passed on to the publisher who takes a cut and gives the rest to the writer. Bear in mind that the writer might not be the artist.
RIAA labels are of course entitled to take action against people or organisations distribute recordings they own without permission, but this has been getting out of hand for quite some time. The US (and to a lesser extent the UK, hopefully it won't be the UK for much longer) is creeping towards being a totalitarian state, nobody should be sending SWAT teams in to arrest DJs.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Wii Fit looks pretty cool, and if I had some spare cash I'd maybe get one for my housemate's Wii, however I do have a cautionary tale.
One of my friends bought Wii Fit recently and was doing some jogging on it (I know - jogging on a big plastic board? Some of the other stuff looks cool but I'm dubious about the jogging!) however it was quite late at night and his flatmate asked him to keep the noise down a bit. He therefore took his trainers off and kept going in his socks for a while. The next morning he woke up with his ankles in agony and had to go to hospital. The doctor asked what he'd been doing but my friend was too embarrased to tell him the truth, so he said that he'd been running with hiking boots on. The doctor of course told him he was an idiot (or something along those lines), but didn't think that my friend's story quite added up. Eventually he got the truth and, again, told him he was a silly boy and not to run again without appropriate footwear again.
It will be a while before my friend does so (either virtually or realityally) however - the doctor gave him a 3 month ban on running while his ankles heal.
Of course, this is a "User too stupid" error as opposed to any fault on Nintendo's part, however I thought it was an interesting story. Virtual joggers, you have been warned!
Dear Mr VueStar,
Please be accepting my sincerest apologies for the transgressions of my website "mugupatentlawyers4u.ru". I will send the $5350.00 requested by Western Union wire transfer as soon as I receive the $1500.00 payment processing fee required by my countries banking laws.
Your humble servant,
Dr Steve Mugu,
Attorney at law
Lagos, Nigeria
2) ???
3) Profit!
Actually, number 2 should perhaps be "Invest in iRobot Corporation." After all, monkeys don't clean up after themselves.
In Scots law at least (and I think it's the same in England and Wales/NI - IANAL though), threatening to sue someone doesn't amount to extortion. Given that the article suggests the evidence is pretty dubious though, I'd guess that any civil court in the UK would throw the case out, even if it got that far. Even though you can send a letter saying "I'll sue you!" to whoever you want, I think most judges/sheriffs/magistrates would expect the pursuer/plaintiff to have made reasonable efforts to resolve the issue before claiming, and that their claim has some merit.
Of course we don't know the full facts in this instance but it sounds like there pretty much isn't any evidence, and if there is, that it was obtained in a dodgy way. I'd type more if I hadn't just cycled back from work (I'm about as fit as your average Slashdotter)...ask for proof as mentioned...ISP...Data Protection Act.. etc etc.
...well maybe that's a bit harsh. It's a cool project, but not unique by any means - I've heard of a few people building replica tanks and the like for airsoft and paintball. If you haven't heard of the former, it's way more fun than paintball and also crosses over with reanactment/milsim - players at most skirmishes use modern replicas (I've got a H&K G36C, and hopefully my new P226 will have arrived by the time I get back from work!) but there's also an active WWII element which I've been wanting to get involved with.
Sorry, have to correct you there. SonyBMG is a record label not a publisher, Sony and BMG's music publishing subsidiaries were not merged. I don't mean to be pedantic but describing SonyBMG as a publisher is maybe analagous to describing Dell as a software developer.
Surely Linux users have enough tin foil to protect their basements from the detector van's spy rays.
The "Legal Adulthood" thing is also complicated. I think moosesocks is referring to the age of contractual capacity which is indeed 16 in Scotland, however with some caveats (which the interested or bored can Google for themselves). AFAIK he's right that it's 18 in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland (the other two UK legal jurisdictions), however other "legal ages" vary, for example driving is 17 (with a probationary period in NI), drinking is 18 everywhere, the age of consent is 16 except for NI (where it is 17 for the moment, however it is being reduced in the near future) and voting is 18 everywhere. The UK has never had uniform laws because of the three distinct legal systems the fact that NI had its own government for about 50 years until the early 1970s. Since devolution in 1998, we're now a de facto federation (albeit a rather ad hoc and unbalanced one) so in a way we're a little closer to the US than we used to with respect to geographical differences in law and policy.
What russ1337 isn't telling you is that this Sam B. Carswell is the dude who's been banging his wife.
UK != England
I'll assume that you're over in the states as this isn't really the case anymore in the UK. Back in the day, British schools were filled with BBC Micros instead of Apple IIs (that's plural, not the model name BTW) and later on Macs were indeed the dominant platform. However things have changed a bit in the past few years, many local authorities have moved over to Windows and I'd guess that Microsoft is now the dominant platform.
Also, is BECTA UK wide? I think it is, however keep in mind that the UK has three completely different education systems for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Furthermore I think it's pretty much down to local authorities to choose computing platforms for their schools AFAIK.
When I was in my final year at high school in Edinburgh back in 1998, things were a bit strange when it came to computing. My school just starting to get money for its first new Macs in a while and the curriculum was also being changed. Because of this we were programming using a strange language called COMAL under BBC Micro emulation on a mixture of PowerMacs, LCs and Pluses! There were even a few actual BBC Micros still in use!
I've visited the iPhone factory and I only saw one Oompa Loompa. It was in a cage, and it wasn't moving.
But seriously, I've really enjoyed these recent articles on Slashdot's setup and history, especially as I recently tried, and failed, to install Slash!
There seem to be a few comments, mostly from those in the states talking about this in relation to HDTV. The UK is still fairly far behind with regard to HDTV, however this is about the switch to SD digital terrestrial broadcast, which is much further along in terms of adoption.
AFAIK, HDTV is only available with subscription satellite and cable services at the moment as opposed to Freeview (free digital terrestrial, there are no longer any paid-for terrestrial services). You can also buy a dish and decoder to watch free satellite channels, but again these are digital SD, you have to subscribe AND buy an HD decoder and TV to get HD cable/satellite.
Also, AFAIK analogue cable was switched off some time ago in the UK (we're down to one cable provider and one satellite provider, how's that for competition?!), although I could be wrong.
Here in UK, government taxes you! But seriously, we've always been taxed on Interweb access just like we get taxed 17.5% on everything else. Obviously the situation is a little different for you guys as sales tax varies by state, however our telcoms (and pretty much everything else) are poorer value for money than in the US and even our European friends. Until I managed to negotiate a massive discount from them recently, I paid around $100 a month to my ISP for my 8mbit ADSL and landline (inc. VAT and free calls to geographic numbers).
Remember that iWork is the successor to Apple's "Office" - AppleWorks, née ClarisWorks, née AppleWorks. While iWork is very different, given Apple's 20-odd years of development of something that's not an Office clone, it makes sense for them to go their own way rather than fork OoO.OooO, or however the hell you abbreviate it.
If I had any problems with any of said machines though I wouldn't let PC World near them and would go straight to the manufacturer.
As for this case, you're probably best doing just that and sending it to Acer. On the other hand however, it might be an idea to speak to the store manager armed with the appropriate bit of legislation and tell him that if he doesn't honour the warranty, then you'll report him to Trading Standards and let Acer know about it too (for the greater good and all that). Mentioning the right to start a civil action against PC World's parent company DSG wouldn't do any harm either.
There's nothing to stop you unlocking any other phone (in Europe anyway), so I doubt the iPhone will be any different. If anything, if Apple tries to prevent it, I could see the European Commission stepping in.
You can sent crack troops in to Baghdad but they won't be much use if all they're taught to do is shoot any towelhead that looks at them funny. As other posters (with far more insight into the situation than I) have mentioned, there's no way the US can "win the war" without the support of the Iraqi people, and to do that (if it's possible that this stage), a completely different approach is needed.
Another thing about Marathon was that it was scary. Sure, I was maybe 14 when I originally played it, but I gave it a go again recently and it still creeped me out.
And although many people aren't familiar with the Marathon series, fewer are familiar with Bungie's equivalent of Wolfenstein, Pathways into Darkness. While not as technically accomplished, it was also very atmospheric and way ahead of its time.
It's pundemonium! I don't mind, I'm a sucker for punishment. Speaking of which, seemingly Rage Against the Machine have been drawing inspiration from Lord of the Rings for their new comeback songs, when they take to the stage at Coachella they'll be called Mage Against the Machine.
I think you meant: "Who the hell (with technical knowledge of Quark) even considers "upgrading" to vista"
Surely refusing to give a refund for a product that doesn't work is unlawful? I know it is in the UK, and AFAIK across the EU, don't you guys have similar consumer protection laws in the States?
Yes, probably. Depending on which networks Apple choose in Europe, the iPhone will probably be SIM locked, however users can just get it unlocked, either by the network or by the first guy with a mobile repair shop that figures out how to do it. It might even be possible to flash it, who knows? Some EU countries (I forget which), even have laws that require networks to provide unlock codes 6 months after the purchase of the phone.
Of course, some of the features such as the random access voicemail and EDGE will probably still be network dependent however by the time the European release comes out, there will probably be a 3G update anyway.
Remember that RIAA labels are in the business of selling licences to listen to recordings. They have nothing to do with the songs themselves which are either owned by the songwriter, or more commonly a music publisher. In some cases, the publisher will also be owned by the same group as the label but most writers have publishing deals with companies who aren't also their label (for example Jay-Z is with EMI Publishing IIRC).
Royalties for the songs themselves from recordings (mechanicals) are collected by an agency (MCPS in the UK, Harry Fox in the US), as are royalties from public performance (TV, radio, live gigs) which are collected by ASCAP and BMI in the US. This money usually gets passed on to the publisher who takes a cut and gives the rest to the writer. Bear in mind that the writer might not be the artist.
RIAA labels are of course entitled to take action against people or organisations distribute recordings they own without permission, but this has been getting out of hand for quite some time. The US (and to a lesser extent the UK, hopefully it won't be the UK for much longer) is creeping towards being a totalitarian state, nobody should be sending SWAT teams in to arrest DJs.