Actually if you were in Europe if you pointed a dish at 28.2 East you would have access to bbc1 to 4 cbbc and cbeebies also itv1-4 channel 4 e4 more4 film4 and channel 5 all are broadcast in the clear with no encryption. The bbc does limit it's output on the Internet but presumably it has to pay for the bandwidth used. so bbc says yes to give away for free, no to paying to let you watch for free.
UK Diesel is 10% more than petrol ireland 10% less. my 2litre diesel gets about 50 to a gallon the equivilent petrol version is lucky to get 30 thats about 2 gallons of diesel to 3+ of petrol or about 50% more miles from diesel. There is a premium on diesel cars, they always cost more than petrol but for me its worth it.
Train times probably are not copyright, however the train timetable probably is. with open street map you can't take existing street map data provided by tele-data or the ordinance survey (except out of copyright maps of course) for example and use it to form open maps. Instead you need to drive around the area collecting gps information to create an original map from roads you have surveyed.
So taking the information from the original timetable almost certainly infringes however if he was to go onto the train platforms and record the arrivals and departures of each train then he hasn't breached copyright and then is legally in the clear.
However theres a chance he might be suspected of being a terrorist and be arrested. Probably not a good idea to try this on the London Underground for example.
I like that linux.com for commercial ventures, linux.org for individuals, I know thats a blury line but perhaps it is two different area's to address. Linux in the commercial environment has a different focus to what individuals want from their linux systems.
Corporate Linux solutions for 100's of desktops and servers is a bit different from the usual newbs cry of my wifi won't work...
So yes commercial applications and solutions with Linux for the.com org for the rest of us who use linux because we want to.
appropriate really even linux.edu deals with linux in education who'da thought
Any idea what package is being used for the text to speech? If it's any good it might be a nice addition to my desktop.
As most text to speech is pretty poor I doubt it is much better than an aid to blind kindle users.
Actually perhaps the best computerised voice would be anthony hopkins doing his hannibal lector voice. or maybe nelson mandela. wonder how long it would take to produce a large lexicon of words with minimal computerised substitution
As it happens there are a number of politicians that are known to have smoked cannabis in several Governments, who was it who famously didn't inhale, Bill Clinton
I guess anyone who speeds for example breaks the law and it's pretty likely that many people administering the law have been guilty if not charged of doing so in their misspent youth. Torches and Pitchforks for this too? So it depends which crime not legality in its self?
The real issue is that due to most drug use being illegal it means that your usage brings you into association with criminals and can you be trusted not to abuse your position as a police officer or judge when it comes to dealing with these criminals. It's a fair question but then again the phrase sober as a judge might be seen as an oxymoron. The legal use of alcohol v the illegal use of cannabis seems rather hypocritical and unjust morally there is little to choose between them but professionally one of them is likely to limit your opportunities in this life (usually if they are limited to start with).
I guess if your fortunate enough use of cannabis will still mean your ok to be president of the USA.
Actually unless your talking purely commercially it was books first then music (mods, midi, mp3) then animation then video.
I would say by 1996 there existed for example the LSD Docs series of releases a lot of stuff scanned and OCR'd Mainly manuals for games and utilities and a few articles all squeezed into 800 k floppys. And perhaps one of the most infamous publications the anarchists cook book
Book publishers still don't get digital content. As a Consumer I want stuff now and an excellent compromise would be to deliver me a DRM free pdf file or similar and post me the book when you can. The digital file should be free with the physical book or a trivial price a matter of cents without. I don't particularly care that I might need to credit my account with say 10 dollars at a time to make the transaction feasable.
it's that simple but until publishers get it, there will be electronic copies made anyway gaining the authors nothing.
Linux is continually improved by it's developers and it's users, while many users are unable to fix a gui problem they can help by filing a bug report when gui issues occur.
If you want something fixed the first thing you need to do is provide the developers with feedback to identify the problem. It's your opportunity to contribute to the community. A politely worded bug report is likely to result in the problem being resolved.
Got to admit far too often I ignore the gui bugs I come across, I really should make an effort to report them.
Ok the majority then, my favourite city centre pub didn't have door staff and there rarely was trouble, guess that comes with the place being filled with Bikers rockers and goths.
Unfortunately your probably right about some things and definitely right on some others. I would hope that the general population would vote out a government at some point who took things too far. But if the steps are small enough and slow enough too far may be further than we would hope.
CCTV does deter criminal activity in the presence of the camera's, it also makes people uncomfortable with being watched and monitored. Thing is that the positive things like a peaceful atmosphere , no fighting nobody getting a glass in the face surely is something most people want in a night out. Perhaps if your having an affair though being recorded on cctv is the last thing you want. Maybe your out with friends and you engage in some harmless flirting but how would your partner view that.
CCTV doesn't make up for lack of a good team working in your business, some places will require door staff to ensure nobody gets too far out of line but often a quite word can save a violent confrontation a CCTV camera just records the carnage.
As for CCTV in our homes, watching our property is one thing, quite another to be watching us. In the UK some offenders, people on probation are tagged and have curfews imposed. The electronic tags ensure the curfew is being kept and records when it is broken. Pretty much this is all that is needed in terms of monitoring, I'm unaware of any audio visual monitoring being used. Perhaps CCTV could have a role in monitoring a refuge for battered wifes, helping them to feel safer.
The real problem is whilst CCTV can provide positive benefits, it is harder to point to the negative sides to CCTV. I don't want to be watched and monitored but find it difficult to be able to say why exactly.
I don't get carded for buying beer , too old, but in the UK at least there are shops that ask for proof of age if you look under 30 let alone 18 which is the legal age for buying alcohol in the UK.
With Councils sending under age people into stores to buy alcohol and the result of them succeeding being a loss of license to sell alcohol it's sadly understandable.
Most of the pirate content is worth damn all, and if it wasn't available for free nobody would miss it, nobody that gets it via links found on pirate bay at least.
TV is just TV it could be recorded at home or someone elses home but the TPB takes care of it Movies are not the same on a Monitor compared to a big screen or the same social experience which is what you pay for. Music is also valueless to most of us most of the time, but we tend to buy what we really like.
TPB frankly gives a lot of exposure to products for free and pushes the profits higher than they would have been without TPB.
When it comes to paying for stuff people are selective and if its pay for it or do without then we do without in most cases.
If there was no pirate bay we'd miss it since it makes most media readily available when we want it but without it we would get along just fine, there are alternatives that wouldn't involve getting took to court for 100's of thousands of dollars.
I hope the pirate bay wins, since if they lose we all lose and that includes the producers of the pirate available content.
Just thought i'd reply to you , i'm on an aspire one with a bluetooth connection to a £40 prepay skype phone, its costing me £5 for 30 days internet access. (I use a usb cable to keep the phone charged (no usb driver for linux with this phone)). Wifi is a service not a profit centre, I'll probably use your business given that I can get a faster connection (than my cell phone) over one that charges me silly money or no connection at all.
Theres a HSPDA version of the phone which would work even better for me.
Yes working in India will mean making less than you would in the United States but there are other countries some of which would mean making more than in the United States.
Generally speaking the USA is a nation of immigrants at some point your ancestors hoped to build a better life in the USA. Perhaps it's time to think like them and consider your options both inside and outside the USA.
Take for example someone living in Louisiana who according to statistics apparently makes far less than if they lived in California. Would they be better off to relocate?
There are some pretty good places to live in the world and if you have the opportunity and desire you could be living there, and so could your kids.
I'm living in Europe and have the opportunity to move anywhere in Europe at will and do better than where I am now. My brothers moving further still he's going to Australia and will make perhaps 3x more than if he stays where he is.
I'm not saying that I think IBM is doing it's workers a favour but perhaps new horizons can open new doors. Would you rather keep on your career path and go where the work is now, or accept redundancy and perhaps being on welfare for a while? If your being laid off your taking a massive hit and you now face massive competition locally along with your former work colleagues trying to get into one of the few remaining vacancy's locally in your field, probably having to drop a few grades to get an opening.
It's not fair, It's not ideal but it's a reality, IBM is a Corporation that has no sympathy no guilt, no matter what the people working in IBM personally feel. It's up to you to do the best for you and your family no one owes you or me a living. We are lucky to have the freedom to be able to be able to make change in our lives, There are plenty stuck in lethal situations where a pay cut isn't even a factor in their lives.
Earning less in US Dollar terms only effects you if you need to convert back into US Dollar terms, you don't have to return to the USA.
Well I haven't got a hp mini but the Desktop theme looks quite good on an Aspire One maybe a little too dark. The Colours seem to restrict the viewing angle.
Sheffield's changed if they are voting libdem it used to be solid labour except dore and totley which was true blue conservative. It's pretty understandable too with the way sheffields industry was pretty much destroyed by the Tories. The East end of the city which was miles and miles of Steel Works became a wasteland with very few redeeming features. The Meadowhall shopping centre doesn't hold much of a candle to the once mighty sheffield Steel Industry, The Mining industry is a shadow of its former self and once strong pit villages are decaying, with unemployment still high (25 years since the pits shut).
The positive things that have happened have been in spite of national government of either colour with huge amounts of European money being invested in Sheffield and many other area's.
Tony Blair managed to do a few positive things one being the minimum wage which at least allows people to work for more than a few pounds above benefit levels. The Conservatives on the other hand wouldn't lift a finger to try and curtail the blight of unemployment. Gordon Brown is trying hard to fight the recession and trying to stimulate the economy and create jobs.
Unfortunately Britain is pretty much a two party system with a third party which siphons votes from the other two. The libdems are not a bad party but to stand a chance of winning they have to build up local support for local council officials ward by ward until they have enough support to win a seat in parliament unfortunately this takes decades to achieve, which leaves voters the lesser of two evils. If your making good money and you feel secure then the conservatives will be better for you. If your getting by or unemployed and your jobs at risk then you will probably vote labour.
Unfortunately the united kingdom is pretty racial the English are a majority and many people consider themselves as English regardless of their Irish, Welsh or Scots heritage. Which means having a Scot running the country is unpopular, although not as bad as a welshman. The UK doesn't vote for a prime minister but for candidates representing different parties but that doesn't stop many feeling cheated that Gordon Brown has the job now.
Fortunately the UK is part of the EEC which gives all of it's citizens the right to work and settle else where in Europe, it's the third option for those who can't stand either of the two main parties. Unfortunately the tribal response is to try and block the European option and force us all to remain stuck on this desolate rock like they think they are, It would be a natural consequence of trying to force the creation of British jobs working for French Oil Companies in the UK. Yesterday the unofficial strikers decided to accept an offer and being so desperate for work will return to work Monday -hardly worth going in today is it lads what with it being the weekend tomorrow.
This last week has seen a huge national skive as a little snow made it take a bit longer to get to work. In the seventys schools closed due to broken and run down heating , and not the inability of parents to get their kids to walk to school. Why did the underground stop running as being underground its hardly going to be suffering with snow.
To top things off there is a perverse national pride amongst the countrys of the united kingdom where each country see's itself as far superior to any other country in the world including each other and they seem to think that everyone is desperate to come to the uk to clean toilets and other quality jobs for below minimum wage (since obviously these foreigners are too thick and incapable of claiming their legal working rights).
It's lunacy of the first order and the worst of it is there are people desperate to get in the asylum.
"Avoid accidents at traffic signals by not braking suddenly when the lights turn to amber. This note particularly applies to drivers from GB who frequently create accident situations for themselves by not adopting to the driving style of the country they are driving in."
I think it's supposed to be stop if its safe to do so, and pretty much it is not safe to do so if there are cars behind you. Whats really annoying is when people enter a junction when they cannot clear the junction and block it for the drivers who have a green but can't proceed because of the idiot straddling the junction. Obviously volume of traffic is going to cause jams, but blocking junctions makes it worse. Too many drivers drive with complete self interest when really enlightened self interest is better. John Forbes Nash got this right http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Equilibrium
For example near my home is a road,with cars parked either side, which generally only has room for one lane of traffic at a time . It's best negotiated by traffic taking turns, one direction will wait till the other direction has cleared before going the other way. Locals know this but other drivers sometimes ignore this common sense and then you get two cars or more meeting in the middle with the only answer being for someone to reverse. Sometimes people try to take advantage of the otherside waiting, and think they can go anyway even when really its time to give way since there's a queue waiting in the other direction. The problem with this is that it becomes impossible to proceed if too many cars are waiting to go the other way.
So essentially it pays to wait a little while if the flow is against you and it pays to wait a little if the other direction is already backed up. I just wish more drivers were aware that their self interest was increasing their (and everybody elses) journey times.
The thing that ticks people off is that the OEM picks a version that should do for most people, Slashdotter comes along wants all features and gets, "well that will be $300 retail please" when the OEM could have supplied ultimate for a few dollars more with their volume discount.
Even more annoying is at work where some bean counter decides you don't need ultimate and saves $5 on a system which is now deliberately crippled.
At least with xp home or pro the choice was simple if its for work its Pro.
Of course the real pain is trying to find out what's been crippled in each version and does it matter for the role it's to be used for.
Chances are you would start, after all your paying for it. you might buy more music after being exposed to more
Imagine the music sites that might exist free to share a love of music, would you spend less time on slashdot if you could freely explore the worlds music without being threatened?
Companies going bankrupt because of lost sales doesn't occur, companies going bankrupt because they didn't have a good enough product at a reasonable price point does occur.
Piracy is probably a positive thing in that it helps popularise many products. A lost sale may be a lost sale but it may actually be a positive if it results in positive recommendations for that product.
It's where something is outed as not being really particularly high quality that sales suffer.
A poor quality album or film may well lose sales due to the honesty of people who pirated and said it was crap. Most game reviews for example are presented with a positive bias whatever generally.
You never get a film being advertised as a bit slow and boring with a weak script, although you can't deny you've watched films which were terrible. The highlights in previews are normally the best bits and don't prepare you for the reality of what your going to see.
Most retailers will take some losses from shop lifting , however the problem is the only sure way to stop these losses is to lock the doors and not let anyone in. Meaning no sales at all. You could perhaps organise things so that there is no way a customer could get to your products, however you then run the risk they will go to your competitor who doesn't treat the customers as thieves (at least not obviously).
Piracy really does tend to equal publicity which makes the vendor money. You can play around with law suits like the RIAA but its not working at all well since most people will not get sued. If the risk became too great good ole sneakernet would be used instead and if the product was poor not pirated at all.
Another thing that you should realise is that digital data is mostly entertainment, thats non essential and a cost easy to forgo. Make it too hard on your consumers and you won't have consumers people have less money now and will pay for essentials first.
Probably not a great time trying to make a living from entertaining people
I was surprised to find my fridge freezer needs 100 watts when running the compressor 12 watts for the light and 0 for most of the time. If yours is using much more perhaps its time to invest in a newer fridge.
I like the term risk adverse, driving whilst stoned can be positively scary while driving while drunk your less aware of how impaired your driving is neither are a good state to be in whilst behind the wheel of a car.
You can straighten up a lot faster from being stoned than being drunk but I honestly think your fooling yourself if you think your driving skills are as good as when you are sober.
I love drivings funny little statistic that over half the drivers surveyed think they are better than the average driver. which really means that most people over estimate their abilities as a driver. It's pretty likely some people drive better stoned than some drive sober, but you really should drive to the best of your abilities since your going to encounter many bad drivers and your skill can save lives.
I'm pro legalisation but surely its better to get a few hours sleep prior to getting on the road.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually if you were in Europe if you pointed a dish at 28.2 East you would have access to bbc1 to 4 cbbc and cbeebies also itv1-4 channel 4 e4 more4 film4 and channel 5 all are broadcast in the clear with no encryption. The bbc does limit it's output on the Internet but presumably it has to pay for the bandwidth used. so bbc says yes to give away for free, no to paying to let you watch for free.
UK Diesel is 10% more than petrol ireland 10% less. my 2litre diesel gets about 50 to a gallon the equivilent petrol version is lucky to get 30 thats about 2 gallons of diesel to 3+ of petrol or about 50% more miles from diesel. There is a premium on diesel cars, they always cost more than petrol but for me its worth it.
Train times probably are not copyright, however the train timetable probably is.
with open street map you can't take existing street map data provided by tele-data or the ordinance survey (except out of copyright maps of course) for example and use it to form open maps. Instead you need to drive around the area collecting gps information to create an original map from roads you have surveyed.
So taking the information from the original timetable almost certainly infringes however if he was to go onto the train platforms and record the arrivals and departures of each train then he hasn't breached copyright and then is legally in the clear.
However theres a chance he might be suspected of being a terrorist and be arrested. Probably not a good idea to try this on the London Underground for example.
I like that linux.com for commercial ventures, linux.org for individuals, I know thats a blury line but perhaps it is two different area's to address. Linux in the commercial environment has a different focus to what individuals want from their linux systems.
Corporate Linux solutions for 100's of desktops and servers is a bit different from the usual newbs cry of my wifi won't work...
So yes commercial applications and solutions with Linux for the .com org for the rest of us who use linux because we want to.
appropriate really even linux.edu deals with linux in education who'da thought
Any idea what package is being used for the text to speech? If it's any good it might be a nice addition to my desktop.
As most text to speech is pretty poor I doubt it is much better than an aid to blind kindle users.
Actually perhaps the best computerised voice would be anthony hopkins doing his hannibal lector voice. or maybe nelson mandela. wonder how long it would take to produce a large lexicon of words with minimal computerised substitution
As it happens there are a number of politicians that are known to have smoked cannabis in several Governments, who was it who famously didn't inhale, Bill Clinton
I guess anyone who speeds for example breaks the law and it's pretty likely that many people administering the law have been guilty if not charged of doing so in their misspent youth. Torches and Pitchforks for this too?
So it depends which crime not legality in its self?
The real issue is that due to most drug use being illegal it means that your usage brings you into association with criminals and can you be trusted not to abuse your position as a police officer or judge when it comes to dealing with these criminals. It's a fair question but then again the phrase sober as a judge might be seen as an oxymoron. The legal use of alcohol v the illegal use of cannabis seems rather hypocritical and unjust morally there is little to choose between them but professionally one of them is likely to limit your opportunities in this life (usually if they are limited to start with).
I guess if your fortunate enough use of cannabis will still mean your ok to be president of the USA.
Actually unless your talking purely commercially it was books first then music (mods, midi, mp3) then animation then video.
I would say by 1996 there existed for example the LSD Docs series of releases a lot of stuff scanned and OCR'd Mainly manuals for games and utilities and a few articles all squeezed into 800 k floppys. And perhaps one of the most infamous publications the anarchists cook book
Book publishers still don't get digital content. As a Consumer I want stuff now and an excellent compromise would be to deliver me a DRM free pdf file or similar and post me the book when you can. The digital file should be free with the physical book or a trivial price a matter of cents without. I don't particularly care that I might need to credit my account with say 10 dollars at a time to make the transaction feasable.
it's that simple but until publishers get it, there will be electronic copies made anyway gaining the authors nothing.
Linux is continually improved by it's developers and it's users, while many users are unable to fix a gui problem they can help by filing a bug report when gui issues occur.
If you want something fixed the first thing you need to do is provide the developers with feedback to identify the problem. It's your opportunity to contribute to the community. A politely worded bug report is likely to result in the problem being resolved.
Got to admit far too often I ignore the gui bugs I come across, I really should make an effort to report them.
Ok the majority then, my favourite city centre pub didn't have door staff and there rarely was trouble, guess that comes with the place being filled with Bikers rockers and goths.
Unfortunately your probably right about some things and definitely right on some others. I would hope that the general population would vote out a government at some point who took things too far. But if the steps are small enough and slow enough too far may be further than we would hope.
CCTV does deter criminal activity in the presence of the camera's, it also makes people uncomfortable with being watched and monitored. Thing is that the positive things like a peaceful atmosphere , no fighting nobody getting a glass in the face surely is something most people want in a night out. Perhaps if your having an affair though being recorded on cctv is the last thing you want. Maybe your out with friends and you engage in some harmless flirting but how would your partner view that.
CCTV doesn't make up for lack of a good team working in your business, some places will require door staff to ensure nobody gets too far out of line but often a quite word can save a violent confrontation a CCTV camera just records the carnage.
As for CCTV in our homes, watching our property is one thing, quite another to be watching us. In the UK some offenders, people on probation are tagged and have curfews imposed. The electronic tags ensure the curfew is being kept and records when it is broken. Pretty much this is all that is needed in terms of monitoring, I'm unaware of any audio visual monitoring being used. Perhaps CCTV could have a role in monitoring a refuge for battered wifes, helping them to feel safer.
The real problem is whilst CCTV can provide positive benefits, it is harder to point to the negative sides to CCTV. I don't want to be watched and monitored but find it difficult to be able to say why exactly.
I don't get carded for buying beer , too old, but in the UK at least there are shops that ask for proof of age if you look under 30 let alone 18 which is the legal age for buying alcohol in the UK.
With Councils sending under age people into stores to buy alcohol and the result of them succeeding being a loss of license to sell alcohol it's sadly understandable.
"(b) download and install every malware/spyware/virus removal program that you can get your hands on"
Hold it right there, thats probably what got you the infection in the first place.
I trust adaware and spybot S&d for malware clamav avg for virus and thats pretty much it. Also www.mywot.com and www.virustotal.com
Most of the pirate content is worth damn all, and if it wasn't available for free nobody would miss it, nobody that gets it via links found on pirate bay at least.
TV is just TV it could be recorded at home or someone elses home but the TPB takes care of it Movies are not the same on a Monitor compared to a big screen or the same social experience which is what you pay for. Music is also valueless to most of us most of the time, but we tend to buy what we really like.
TPB frankly gives a lot of exposure to products for free and pushes the profits higher than they would have been without TPB.
When it comes to paying for stuff people are selective and if its pay for it or do without then we do without in most cases.
If there was no pirate bay we'd miss it since it makes most media readily available when we want it but without it we would get along just fine, there are alternatives that wouldn't involve getting took to court for 100's of thousands of dollars.
I hope the pirate bay wins, since if they lose we all lose and that includes the producers of the pirate available content.
Just thought i'd reply to you , i'm on an aspire one with a bluetooth connection to a £40 prepay skype phone, its costing me £5 for 30 days internet access. (I use a usb cable to keep the phone charged (no usb driver for linux with this phone)).
Wifi is a service not a profit centre, I'll probably use your business given that I can get a faster connection (than my cell phone) over one that charges me silly money or no connection at all.
Theres a HSPDA version of the phone which would work even better for me.
Yes working in India will mean making less than you would in the United States but there are other countries some of which would mean making more than in the United States.
Generally speaking the USA is a nation of immigrants at some point your ancestors hoped to build a better life in the USA. Perhaps it's time to think like them and consider your options both inside and outside the USA.
Take for example someone living in Louisiana who according to statistics apparently makes far less than if they lived in California. Would they be better off to relocate?
There are some pretty good places to live in the world and if you have the opportunity and desire you could be living there, and so could your kids.
I'm living in Europe and have the opportunity to move anywhere in Europe at will and do better than where I am now. My brothers moving further still he's going to Australia and will make perhaps 3x more than if he stays where he is.
I'm not saying that I think IBM is doing it's workers a favour but perhaps new horizons can open new doors. Would you rather keep on your career path and go where the work is now, or accept redundancy and perhaps being on welfare for a while? If your being laid off your taking a massive hit and you now face massive competition locally along with your former work colleagues trying to get into one of the few remaining vacancy's locally in your field, probably having to drop a few grades to get an opening.
It's not fair, It's not ideal but it's a reality, IBM is a Corporation that has no sympathy no guilt, no matter what the people working in IBM personally feel. It's up to you to do the best for you and your family no one owes you or me a living. We are lucky to have the freedom to be able to be able to make change in our lives, There are plenty stuck in lethal situations where a pay cut isn't even a factor in their lives.
Earning less in US Dollar terms only effects you if you need to convert back into US Dollar terms, you don't have to return to the USA.
Well I haven't got a hp mini but the Desktop theme looks quite good on an Aspire One maybe a little too dark.
The Colours seem to restrict the viewing angle.
http://hpmini.archive.canonical.com/dists/hardy-hpmini/universe/binary-lpia/
holds the goodies it's largely the themes you want and background although possibly the hp toolbar and browser bar do something too.
Pity they can't get the people down the street to act as a relay, perhaps even offer them free access so a few more homes got access at normal rates.
Sheffield's changed if they are voting libdem it used to be solid labour except dore and totley which was true blue conservative. It's pretty understandable too with the way sheffields industry was pretty much destroyed by the Tories. The East end of the city which was miles and miles of Steel Works became a wasteland with very few redeeming features. The Meadowhall shopping centre doesn't hold much of a candle to the once mighty sheffield Steel Industry, The Mining industry is a shadow of its former self and once strong pit villages are decaying, with unemployment still high (25 years since the pits shut).
The positive things that have happened have been in spite of national government of either colour with huge amounts of European money being invested in Sheffield and many other area's.
Tony Blair managed to do a few positive things one being the minimum wage which at least allows people to work for more than a few pounds above benefit levels. The Conservatives on the other hand wouldn't lift a finger to try and curtail the blight of unemployment. Gordon Brown is trying hard to fight the recession and trying to stimulate the economy and create jobs.
Unfortunately Britain is pretty much a two party system with a third party which siphons votes from the other two. The libdems are not a bad party but to stand a chance of winning they have to build up local support for local council officials ward by ward until they have enough support to win a seat in parliament unfortunately this takes decades to achieve, which leaves voters the lesser of two evils. If your making good money and you feel secure then the conservatives will be better for you. If your getting by or unemployed and your jobs at risk then you will probably vote labour.
Unfortunately the united kingdom is pretty racial the English are a majority and many people consider themselves as English regardless of their Irish, Welsh or Scots heritage. Which means having a Scot running the country is unpopular, although not as bad as a welshman. The UK doesn't vote for a prime minister but for candidates representing different parties but that doesn't stop many feeling cheated that Gordon Brown has the job now.
Fortunately the UK is part of the EEC which gives all of it's citizens the right to work and settle else where in Europe, it's the third option for those who can't stand either of the two main parties. Unfortunately the tribal response is to try and block the European option and force us all to remain stuck on this desolate rock like they think they are, It would be a natural consequence of trying to force the creation of British jobs working for French Oil Companies in the UK. Yesterday the unofficial strikers decided to accept an offer and being so desperate for work will return to work Monday -hardly worth going in today is it lads what with it being the weekend tomorrow.
This last week has seen a huge national skive as a little snow made it take a bit longer to get to work. In the seventys schools closed due to broken and run down heating , and not the inability of parents to get their kids to walk to school. Why did the underground stop running as being underground its hardly going to be suffering with snow.
To top things off there is a perverse national pride amongst the countrys of the united kingdom where each country see's itself as far superior to any other country in the world including each other and they seem to think that everyone is desperate to come to the uk to clean toilets and other quality jobs for below minimum wage (since obviously these foreigners are too thick and incapable of claiming their legal working rights).
It's lunacy of the first order and the worst of it is there are people desperate to get in the asylum.
I am not at all sure if this is official or not for Ireland but this appears on many websites
http://www.iol.ie/~discover/driving.htm
"Avoid accidents at traffic signals by not braking suddenly when the lights turn to amber. This note particularly applies to drivers from GB who frequently create accident situations for themselves by not adopting to the driving style of the country they are driving in."
I think it's supposed to be stop if its safe to do so, and pretty much it is not safe to do so if there are cars behind you. Whats really annoying is when people enter a junction when they cannot clear the junction and block it for the drivers who have a green but can't proceed because of the idiot straddling the junction. Obviously volume of traffic is going to cause jams, but blocking junctions makes it worse. Too many drivers drive with complete self interest when really enlightened self interest is better. John Forbes Nash got this right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Equilibrium
For example near my home is a road ,with cars parked either side, which generally only has room for one lane of traffic at a time . It's best negotiated by traffic taking turns, one direction will wait till the other direction has cleared before going the other way. Locals know this but other drivers sometimes ignore this common sense and then you get two cars or more meeting in the middle with the only answer being for someone to reverse. Sometimes people try to take advantage of the otherside waiting, and think they can go anyway even when really its time to give way since there's a queue waiting in the other direction. The problem with this is that it becomes impossible to proceed if too many cars are waiting to go the other way.
So essentially it pays to wait a little while if the flow is against you and it pays to wait a little if the other direction is already backed up. I just wish more drivers were aware that their self interest was increasing their (and everybody elses) journey times.
The thing that ticks people off is that the OEM picks a version that should do for most people, Slashdotter comes along wants all features and gets, "well that will be $300 retail please" when the OEM could have supplied ultimate for a few dollars more with their volume discount.
Even more annoying is at work where some bean counter decides you don't need ultimate and saves $5 on a system which is now deliberately crippled.
At least with xp home or pro the choice was simple if its for work its Pro.
Of course the real pain is trying to find out what's been crippled in each version and does it matter for the role it's to be used for.
And what if you never download music?
Chances are you would start, after all your paying for it. you might buy more music after being exposed to more
Imagine the music sites that might exist free to share a love of music, would you spend less time on slashdot if you could freely explore the worlds music without being threatened?
Would you have bought that media without the tax being introduced?
If not then they are still up on the deal, it only counts as a loss if you would have bought it without the tax in place.
They could be up still further if as a result of exposure to their media, you actually buy something you wouldn't have bought otherwise.
would you agree the best media you have, you bought it?
Companies going bankrupt because of lost sales doesn't occur, companies going bankrupt because they didn't have a good enough product at a reasonable price point does occur.
Piracy is probably a positive thing in that it helps popularise many products. A lost sale may be a lost sale but it may actually be a positive if it results in positive recommendations for that product.
It's where something is outed as not being really particularly high quality that sales suffer.
A poor quality album or film may well lose sales due to the honesty of people who pirated and said it was crap. Most game reviews for example are presented with a positive bias whatever generally.
You never get a film being advertised as a bit slow and boring with a weak script, although you can't deny you've watched films which were terrible. The highlights in previews are normally the best bits and don't prepare you for the reality of what your going to see.
Most retailers will take some losses from shop lifting , however the problem is the only sure way to stop these losses is to lock the doors and not let anyone in. Meaning no sales at all. You could perhaps organise things so that there is no way a customer could get to your products, however you then run the risk they will go to your competitor who doesn't treat the customers as thieves (at least not obviously).
Piracy really does tend to equal publicity which makes the vendor money. You can play around with law suits like the RIAA but its not working at all well since most people will not get sued. If the risk became too great good ole sneakernet would be used instead and if the product was poor not pirated at all.
Another thing that you should realise is that digital data is mostly entertainment, thats non essential and a cost easy to forgo. Make it too hard on your consumers and you won't have consumers people have less money now and will pay for essentials first.
Probably not a great time trying to make a living from entertaining people
I was surprised to find my fridge freezer needs 100 watts when running the compressor 12 watts for the light and 0 for most of the time. If yours is using much more perhaps its time to invest in a newer fridge.
I like the term risk adverse, driving whilst stoned can be positively scary while driving while drunk your less aware of how impaired your driving is neither are a good state to be in whilst behind the wheel of a car.
You can straighten up a lot faster from being stoned than being drunk but I honestly think your fooling yourself if you think your driving skills are as good as when you are sober.
I love drivings funny little statistic that over half the drivers surveyed think they are better than the average driver. which really means that most people over estimate their abilities as a driver. It's pretty likely some people drive better stoned than some drive sober, but you really should drive to the best of your abilities since your going to encounter many bad drivers and your skill can save lives.
I'm pro legalisation but surely its better to get a few hours sleep prior to getting on the road.