The internet is dangerous? Oh, for Zog's sake. Yeah, and cars are dangerous too if you allow unqualified people to drive them with several litres of beer in their systems. Is the next step in this crazy world to announce a "Cars Are Dangerous" month? I can really see Ford and GM going for that one....
More proof, if needed, that those who legislate often have no idea about the subjects they are talking about. And if it's something new, that counts double. But of course, what we don't understand we fear, and what we fear we try to destroy, or ridicule, or ignore in the hope it'll just go away.
take one TV show's worth of commercial breaks as an example. In a 30 minute show, that's usually 3 breaks. Your bigger advertisers will have the same commercial in ALL 3 BREAKS! Why do I need to see the same Pantene commercial 3 times in 1/2 hour. And more if I watch TV for more than 30 minutes!
Now you understand why we invented a thing called the licence fee:)
Actually, the commercial channels over here are rapidly becoming like the commercial channels over in your part of the planet. Time was when a 30-minute show would have just one internal break on ITV (as it was then called - ah, the luxury of three channels) and an hour show would have two. The absolute maximum amount of time allowed for commercials was seven minutes, and the average over the whole day had to be no more than six. So you didn't see the same commercial too often. (also, they tended to be better quality ads back then, though this may be the Old Fogey (TM) effect kicking in)
Now, things are different. Which is why I watch everything through the PVR these days. Which is why advertisers will have to do things like this to get our attention. Or make better ads.
As I remember, the Royal Bank of Scotland finally (and quietly) stopped printing the £1 note sometime around 2003 - though you're right that they still do circulate. They are getting more and more rare though - I haven't seen one for at least six months.
As for legal tender, IANAL but I've read that Scots law lacks even the concept of "legal tender", so that doesn't just apply to Scottish banknotes here - which explains the poll tax protesters circa 1990 paying their tax in pennies and such like.
Sorting people by first names is actually done in Iceland. Well, when you've got a country which doesn't use surnames, it makes excellent sense (you're either a -son or a -dottir, which is added to your father's - or in some cases your mother's - name, such as Bjork Gudmunsdottir).
This has to be borne in mind when travelling to Iceland and doing things like poste restante, because they will sort by first name only even when you're not Icelandic. Also the telephone directories work the same way.
And, as a great side effect, everyone in Iceland is thus automatically on first name terms. Even the Prime Minister.
Oh, their date format? DD.MM.YYYY of course!
I actually find the p2p networks a great place to look for all those songs I liked growing up in the 70s and 80s - you'd be amazed what you find from that era there. With the additional plus that said songs, when you download them, tend to be the real McCoy instead of a fake.
Doing things this way means you're a lot less likely to incur the wrath of the authorities than trading in billions of music files on peer-to-peer networks.
Let's face it, we all taped each other's records to make our own greatest hits compilations in the 70s, and most of us with home computers did the same thing with that software in the 80s - I personally cost the software industry hundreds of euros, and I was typical of my friends - but because we were doing it on a small scale with our friends, and more importantly not worrying about making a profit, we could pretty much do it with impunity. When we heard about software pirates, those were the guys dealing in thousands of units at a time, to make money, and therefore making themselves conspicuous.
So the strategy now seems to run something like this: Go down to a local second hand CD store, buy the CDs you like, rip 'em, take 'em back, accept you're going to lose some money on the discs and feel thankful that you're still "sticking it to the man" by not buying the albums at full price. Plus, as I said, it is very unlikely that you will be targeted by the authorities, particularly if there's two second hand CD stores in your town and you can buy from one and sell to the other.
Well, that's testament to the power of Moore's Law (six and a bit iterations per decade, hence a 101.59x increase of power - 2^(120/18) - Zog alone knows where we'll be in 2014.
(yes, I know, another six and a bit iterations of Moore's Law further down the road, before anyone comes in with that.....any ideas when said law is likely to be broken?)
Slashdot Mirror
No, it was clearly pining for the FiOrds...
Definitely room 101, though I always used to confuse it with 113 for some reason...
....how about a nice game of chess? :)
I'd imagine the US government has much more important things it could be discussing, Iraq (from either viewpoint's stance) being just one.
The internet is dangerous? Oh, for Zog's sake. Yeah, and cars are dangerous too if you allow unqualified people to drive them with several litres of beer in their systems. Is the next step in this crazy world to announce a "Cars Are Dangerous" month? I can really see Ford and GM going for that one.... More proof, if needed, that those who legislate often have no idea about the subjects they are talking about. And if it's something new, that counts double. But of course, what we don't understand we fear, and what we fear we try to destroy, or ridicule, or ignore in the hope it'll just go away.
Actually, the commercial channels over here are rapidly becoming like the commercial channels over in your part of the planet. Time was when a 30-minute show would have just one internal break on ITV (as it was then called - ah, the luxury of three channels) and an hour show would have two. The absolute maximum amount of time allowed for commercials was seven minutes, and the average over the whole day had to be no more than six. So you didn't see the same commercial too often. (also, they tended to be better quality ads back then, though this may be the Old Fogey (TM) effect kicking in)
Now, things are different. Which is why I watch everything through the PVR these days. Which is why advertisers will have to do things like this to get our attention. Or make better ads.
On the fifteenth of Fenruary nineteen seventy one... There is going to be.... Decimal currency.... And a hundred pennies in the new pound!
As for legal tender, IANAL but I've read that Scots law lacks even the concept of "legal tender", so that doesn't just apply to Scottish banknotes here - which explains the poll tax protesters circa 1990 paying their tax in pennies and such like.
It is a Crown Dependency, which is a different thing entirely.
Same goes for the Channel Islands, and places like the Falklands.
Well, you did say, pedantic mode ON...
Sorting people by first names is actually done in Iceland. Well, when you've got a country which doesn't use surnames, it makes excellent sense (you're either a -son or a -dottir, which is added to your father's - or in some cases your mother's - name, such as Bjork Gudmunsdottir). This has to be borne in mind when travelling to Iceland and doing things like poste restante, because they will sort by first name only even when you're not Icelandic. Also the telephone directories work the same way. And, as a great side effect, everyone in Iceland is thus automatically on first name terms. Even the Prime Minister. Oh, their date format? DD.MM.YYYY of course!
I actually find the p2p networks a great place to look for all those songs I liked growing up in the 70s and 80s - you'd be amazed what you find from that era there. With the additional plus that said songs, when you download them, tend to be the real McCoy instead of a fake.
Doing things this way means you're a lot less likely to incur the wrath of the authorities than trading in billions of music files on peer-to-peer networks.
Let's face it, we all taped each other's records to make our own greatest hits compilations in the 70s, and most of us with home computers did the same thing with that software in the 80s - I personally cost the software industry hundreds of euros, and I was typical of my friends - but because we were doing it on a small scale with our friends, and more importantly not worrying about making a profit, we could pretty much do it with impunity. When we heard about software pirates, those were the guys dealing in thousands of units at a time, to make money, and therefore making themselves conspicuous.
So the strategy now seems to run something like this: Go down to a local second hand CD store, buy the CDs you like, rip 'em, take 'em back, accept you're going to lose some money on the discs and feel thankful that you're still "sticking it to the man" by not buying the albums at full price. Plus, as I said, it is very unlikely that you will be targeted by the authorities, particularly if there's two second hand CD stores in your town and you can buy from one and sell to the other.
In Capitalist America, spammers block YOU!
Well, that's testament to the power of Moore's Law (six and a bit iterations per decade, hence a 101.59x increase of power - 2^(120/18) - Zog alone knows where we'll be in 2014. (yes, I know, another six and a bit iterations of Moore's Law further down the road, before anyone comes in with that.....any ideas when said law is likely to be broken?)
Dear sweet Jesus, no!