That's exactly the kind of thing that those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say is going on all the time. Alas, we are powerless to prevent it.
Err, yes they can. The detector vans work by picking up the signal generated by the local osciallator in your tv's tuning circuit (well, maybe not yours:). Doesn't matter if it's a crt, flat screen, whatever.
They can even work out which channel you're watching, because the frequency output by the local oscillator is always 39.5MHz above the frequency of the broadcast channel.
Of course it's a bit different now digital telly has arrived, but the principle remains the same, and if you've got satellite/cable etc. you should be in their database anyway. In fact, whatever method you use to receive TV short of streaming over the 'net, there's going to be some giveaway signal at some point. This site is pretty informative:
He's talking about the current, unbroken 18 year run from TNG through DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Read Braga's comments on the 'these are the voyages' link.
> this was going to be a movie with Monty Python like humour and would hold no enjoyment for a real fan.
Sorry, but have you seen Life of Brian? You're doing Python a massive disservice. If this version of HHGG had had possesed one iota of the drive, wit, integrity and downright quality of almost any Python film I'd have been a happy man.
Instead, much though it pains me to say it, I mostly agree with you about this film version of the Guide. Arthur and Trillian were mostly harmless but Zaphod and especially Ford were, despite my willingness to accept any effective re-imagining of my favourite story, almost but not entirely unlike their characters should have been.
I loved Marvin (apart from his very last line obv...) and Bill Nighy as Slarti though, and the production design was stunning - the Vogons (and Vogsphere itself), the Heart of Gold and the whole Magrathean factory floor sequences were superbly realised. At the 'guide' credit sequence, when 'journey of the sorcerer' kicked in, my heart genuinely skipped a beat.
It was great to see 'millions of people' turn up to witness deep thought's answer, too, rather than just two blokes on a gangway a la the TV series.
Hopefully this film will do well at the box office, and HHG2: The Restaurant At the End of the Universe will be comissioned - but with a decent writer & director (I'm sure we'll never see DNA's semi-completed script for this film but i have a hard time believing it was anything like what we've ended up with).
13 regenerations isn't it? Anywaym IIRC there is precedent for Timelords to be 'given' more lives - as this is what The Master is offered in 'The Five Doctors'.
Nope, that's the real thing; it's the Magic Roundabout, in Swindon, Wiltshire, England (and we drive on the left:). My sister used to live just down the road. It's designed to cope with a staggering amount of traffic, but it is bloody confusing.
One of my favourite DNA quotes, especially as I've recently had the pleasure of transiting through LAX: "It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear."
Sorry, that's rubbish - but I can see whey you're getting confused. Rather than get together and agree on an international standard, it seems we're being treated to a country-by-country bodge job.
However most of the systems being implemented at the moment use some variant of the UK-led DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) system, the main difference being what frequency range you broadcast on.
That said most DAB radios now being sold in the UK are multi-frequency and so can be used in other imlementing the system (France in particular have a pilot system in place at the moment). Oh, and Canada:-)
DAB is great - apart from the fact that it uses MP2 as the codec. Coupled with the fact that most UK stations have picked a woeful bitrate, the result is far from hi-fi quality; actually a step back from FM quality IMHO (especially if you have a high end FM radio that can get rid of multipath distorsion).
On the plus side, you do have lots of stations to choose from on Digital, including the excellent BBC7 on which the Beeb have been dusting off some of their best radio comedy, drama and documentary series.
All true, though remember this is going to be a rural application, so line of sight shouldn't be too difficult to achieve; as soon as you get to a built up area, you'll be able to get 'proper' broadband.
I have enough problems getting a gsm signal in hilly areas like the Yorkshire moors, mind you, so it doesn't seem like such good news for people up here and in the Pennines/Welsh mountains/Scottish highlands etc.
Erm, as the WB themselves indicated it was Sir George Cayley (born 1773 in Yorkshire, England) who provided the, as you put it, 'foundation [of] aviation principles'.
He is widely considered to be the inventor of the aeroplane (uk spelling:), and he was certainly the inventor of the science of flight.
He was the first person to understand and write down the mathematical model describing the relationship between thrust, lift, drag and weight, for instance.
He also wrote about the ratio of lift to wing area, the determination of the center of wing pressure and the importance of streamlined shapes. He recognised that a tail assembly was essential to stability and control and produced the concepts of the braced biplane structure and the wheeled undercarriage.
But he wasn't just a scientist - he was an engineer too. Though he never built a powered plane - no powerplant light enough existed at the time - he successfully constructed gliders (complete with fixed, cambered wings, fuselage and a tail unit with elevators and rudder), and a 10 year old boy became the first person ever to fly as we understand it in 1849, on Brompton Dale in North Yorkshire, followed a few years later by Cayley's footman in an improved model, who became the first adult to fly.
He spent a lot of his life looking for that crucial power source, producing many innovative steam engine designs along the way. He had amazing foresight for a man of his time, speculating that 'when 100 horsepower can be contained in a pint pot, man will be able travel through the skies as easily as he presently travels on the oceans'.
Oh, and in his spare time, he invented the modern bicycle wheel, a mechanical hand (for one of his farm workers who lost his real hand in a threshing machine), the caterpillar tractor, stabiliser fins for missiles, railway safety equipment, and made several advances in Engine design that laid the foundations for the internal combustion engine.
As a fellow Yorkshireman I'm quite proud of his achievements. It sadens me that he is all but unknown in this country - in fact he is more widely known and acknowledged in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, we're all using Konqueror...
That's exactly the kind of thing that those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say is going on all the time. Alas, we are powerless to prevent it.
Thanks, Douglas.
Luxury. We used to live in t'shoebox in't'middle o't' road...
Err, yes they can. The detector vans work by picking up the signal generated by the local osciallator in your tv's tuning circuit (well, maybe not yours :). Doesn't matter if it's a crt, flat screen, whatever.
They can even work out which channel you're watching, because the frequency output by the local oscillator is always 39.5MHz above the frequency of the broadcast channel.
Of course it's a bit different now digital telly has arrived, but the principle remains the same, and if you've got satellite/cable etc. you should be in their database anyway. In fact, whatever method you use to receive TV short of streaming over the 'net, there's going to be some giveaway signal at some point. This site is pretty informative:
http://www.tvlicensing.biz/detection/
I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition...
He's talking about the current, unbroken 18 year run from TNG through DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Read Braga's comments on the 'these are the voyages' link.
> this was going to be a movie with Monty Python like humour and would hold no enjoyment for a real fan.
Sorry, but have you seen Life of Brian? You're doing Python a massive disservice. If this version of HHGG had had possesed one iota of the drive, wit, integrity and downright quality of almost any Python film I'd have been a happy man.
Instead, much though it pains me to say it, I mostly agree with you about this film version of the Guide. Arthur and Trillian were mostly harmless but Zaphod and especially Ford were, despite my willingness to accept any effective re-imagining of my favourite story, almost but not entirely unlike their characters should have been.
I loved Marvin (apart from his very last line obv...) and Bill Nighy as Slarti though, and the production design was stunning - the Vogons (and Vogsphere itself), the Heart of Gold and the whole Magrathean factory floor sequences were superbly realised. At the 'guide' credit sequence, when 'journey of the sorcerer' kicked in, my heart genuinely skipped a beat.
It was great to see 'millions of people' turn up to witness deep thought's answer, too, rather than just two blokes on a gangway a la the TV series.
Hopefully this film will do well at the box office, and HHG2: The Restaurant At the End of the Universe will be comissioned - but with a decent writer & director (I'm sure we'll never see DNA's semi-completed script for this film but i have a hard time believing it was anything like what we've ended up with).
That's not merely impossible but clearly insane. Anyone for breakfast?
13 regenerations isn't it? Anywaym IIRC there is precedent for Timelords to be 'given' more lives - as this is what The Master is offered in 'The Five Doctors'.
So no problem really...
Only for sufficiently high values of 1...
"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle."
Someone been reading too much Iain M. Banks?!
Multiple Spammed Denial of Service?
Nope, that's the real thing; it's the Magic Roundabout, in Swindon, Wiltshire, England (and we drive on the left :). My sister used to live just down the road. It's designed to cope with a staggering amount of traffic, but it is bloody confusing.
It's probably just as well the French Navy would be operating close to home - does the Charles de Gaulle actually get to leave port these days?!
No - it's clearly a PADD!
One of my favourite DNA quotes, especially as I've recently had the pleasure of transiting through LAX: "It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear."
As Alan Partridge might say... 'Jurassic Park!'
Sorry, that's rubbish - but I can see whey you're getting confused. Rather than get together and agree on an international standard, it seems we're being treated to a country-by-country bodge job.
However most of the systems being implemented at the moment use some variant of the UK-led DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) system, the main difference being what frequency range you broadcast on.
That said most DAB radios now being sold in the UK are multi-frequency and so can be used in other imlementing the system (France in particular have a pilot system in place at the moment). Oh, and Canada :-)
DAB is great - apart from the fact that it uses MP2 as the codec. Coupled with the fact that most UK stations have picked a woeful bitrate, the result is far from hi-fi quality; actually a step back from FM quality IMHO (especially if you have a high end FM radio that can get rid of multipath distorsion).
Look here for more info on DAB.
On the plus side, you do have lots of stations to choose from on Digital, including the excellent BBC7 on which the Beeb have been dusting off some of their best radio comedy, drama and documentary series.
All true, though remember this is going to be a rural application, so line of sight shouldn't be too difficult to achieve; as soon as you get to a built up area, you'll be able to get 'proper' broadband.
I have enough problems getting a gsm signal in hilly areas like the Yorkshire moors, mind you, so it doesn't seem like such good news for people up here and in the Pennines/Welsh mountains/Scottish highlands etc.
Bloody Southern fairies.... ;-)
Erm, as the WB themselves indicated it was Sir George Cayley (born 1773 in Yorkshire, England) who provided the, as you put it, 'foundation [of] aviation principles'.
:), and he was certainly the inventor of the science of flight.
He is widely considered to be the inventor of the aeroplane (uk spelling
He was the first person to understand and write down the mathematical model describing the relationship between thrust, lift, drag and weight, for instance.
He also wrote about the ratio of lift to wing area, the determination of the center of wing pressure and the importance of streamlined shapes. He recognised that a tail assembly was essential to stability and control and produced the concepts of the braced biplane structure and the wheeled undercarriage.
But he wasn't just a scientist - he was an engineer too. Though he never built a powered plane - no powerplant light enough existed at the time - he successfully constructed gliders (complete with fixed, cambered wings, fuselage and a tail unit with elevators and rudder), and a 10 year old boy became the first person ever to fly as we understand it in 1849, on Brompton Dale in North Yorkshire, followed a few years later by Cayley's footman in an improved model, who became the first adult to fly.
He spent a lot of his life looking for that crucial power source, producing many innovative steam engine designs along the way. He had amazing foresight for a man of his time, speculating that 'when 100 horsepower can be contained in a pint pot, man will be able travel through the skies as easily as he presently travels on the oceans'.
Oh, and in his spare time, he invented the modern bicycle wheel, a mechanical hand (for one of his farm workers who lost his real hand in a threshing machine), the caterpillar tractor, stabiliser fins for missiles, railway safety equipment, and made several advances in Engine design that laid the foundations for the internal combustion engine.
As a fellow Yorkshireman I'm quite proud of his achievements. It sadens me that he is all but unknown in this country - in fact he is more widely known and acknowledged in the US.
James
Such as the Starship Heart of Gold? :-)
> An oddly shaped object that looks like
> a art-deco running shoe?
"If it had been one of our modern trains he would certainly have been killed."
Fairly good odds on surviving, then!
j.