Read any science fiction from the '40s, and you will find confrontations between scientists where they both reach for their belt holsters and pull out their slide rules to resolve an argument.
One of my favourite scenes in "Apollo 13" is when Hanks (as Lovell) is trying to calculate one of his burns (maybe the de-orbit burn, can't remember) and he asks mission control to confirm his math. We cut to the engineers at their stations all whipping out their slide rules to confirm his calculations are correct - "Looks good flight!"
"There you have it: the most objective comparison of two cellphones ever made. I think I'll take the rest of the afternoon off and copy and paste text on my cellphone because I can"
I dunno about that... I've got some 'actor friends,' I've seen a lot of plays and movies and TV shows and I don't know / haven't seen too many people who could have rivalled Sean Penn's performance in "Milk" or Winslet's in "The Reader..." and on it goes. Utterly brilliant.
This is Slashdot - On Slashdot all media 'wants to be free.' All modern media apparently should be free and then apparently people will magically contribute what it's worth and the contributors will become magically rich. Or something.
why can't our terrestrial equipment be this efficient?
It can be, it's just too expensive or annoying. My PC has all these high tech power saving features. I've disabled most of them because they're annoying.
What I'm getting at is, what difference does it make? Why does it frustrate you that you don't see advertising for some other non-local market? Why would you want to see that instead of something a little more relevant to you?
Because often the switchover isn't handled well.
If I'm watching NBC's suite of Thursday night shows from 8pm to 11pm, and my tuner is set to the Seattle NBC Station (KING-TV) then the cable company toggles from GLOBAL TV to CTV to CITY and then back to CTV, as those different stations have rights to broadcast the various programs in Canada. As a result, the beginning or ends of the shows are sometimes clipped off, as "A Supersized My Name is Earl" runs to 8:35 or whatever.
It was particularly annoying with the post-superbowl office episode, where the two feeds were about 4 minutes apart and the cable co. kept toggling back and forth between the two.
You also occasionally get 'technical difficulties' with one broadcast, but I can't toggle over to the other broadcast because, surprise, surprise, it's been overwritten with the one with 'technical difficulties.'
It's even worse with syndicated shows - If a Canadian channel and an American channel are both showing a Simpsons rerun at 7pm, the US feed is overwritten with the Canadian one, ever if they're both showing different episodes!
Not if you live in a border town with a good antenna that pulls in the US stations. I grew up in Vancouver in a house on a big hill, and when I was a kid we had an antenna on the roof that did a very good job of pulling in TV from Washington state.
In fact, these days I wish I still could do this - I'm tired with the CRTC mandate of overwriting an American feed with a Canadian one if they're both broadcasting the same show. Time and time again it screws up.
There are also quite a few people who (probably for quaint religeous reasons), still rely on the analog wireless broadcasts to receive their pre-scheduled, pre-chosen video stream.
Everyone I know who watches OTA TV does it by and large for one reason: It's free.
Yes, you have to watch ads, nothing is free, blah blah blah, but the fact remains that once they've bought the set and the antenna they don't have to pay to watch TV. In my jurisdiction, basic cable is nearly $450 per year. Some people just choose to spend that $450 elsewhere.
One thing I don't hear much about with the chatter around digital conversion is VCRs. If my parents are going out for the evening and they don't want to miss programs, my dad will 'program the VCR'to record channel 8 from 8pm to 9pm, then channel 11 from 9pm to 10pm. They're on analog cable, so nothing impacts them (plus we're in Canada to boot), but I assume those people with analog antennas hooked up to the VCRs are losing the ability to timeshift, unless I'm missing something?
One *in* for the Cable Companies might be to offer a cheap basic PVR along with basic analog cable. That might lure away the mom and pops who can no longer timeshift.
Your question is a little confusing - It's not clear to me whether you're asking for a mechanism for employees to make suggestions to 'improve the workplace' ("Gee it sure would be nice to have a ping pong table!") or a mechanism for them to make suggestions for feature improvements ("We should build a Linux version of your application!").
If it's the former, be careful. Generally, employee suggestions for workplace improvements cost money (real or perceived), be it "pizza Friday," a ping pong table or better telecommuting policies. Unless you have buy-in from upper management for a genuine $$$ budget for 'morale' these requests just to into a black hole, so why bother providing the mechanism? Make sure you have a budget first.
If it's the latter, I've never worked for a company yet that didn't have a shortage of employee suggestions of good ideas for a given product. Sales is full of suggestions. The tricky part is having a mechanism to evaluate & estimate those suggestions, build business cases and all that tricky stuff...
They used to demonstrate this on The West Wing pretty well. Bartlet never had a cell phone - If he had a call an aide (usually "Charlie") would hand him a phone and when the call was complete he'd hand the phone back. If he had to make a call he'd say "Someone get Leo on the phone" and then a minute later someone would hand him a phone.
And you are ignoring known behavior of the RIAA and their agent in taking screen shots of files on another computer and convincing a jury that a screenshot of a program on MY computer proves beyond a reasonable doubt that you were breaking the law on YOUR computer.
This isn't how the law works. An RIAA suit is a CIVIL action, not a CRIMINAL action. In a criminal suit, the burden of proof is high - 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. In a civil suit, the burden of proof is lower - 'preponderance of evidence'. This is why RIAA suits, while one might argue the defendants have broken the law, are not tried in criminal court. The burden of proving a case is too high for criminal court. They are tried in civil court, where the burden of proof is much lower. If you civilly sue someone for crashing their boat into your dock, you only have to prove to the jury that, by the preponderance of evidence, they crashed their boat into your dock.
A famous example of this is the OJ trial. OJ was found criminally 'not guilty', but was successfully sued in civil court for wrongful death.
Except your nutshell isn't quite right - What the article is also saying is this: If you're charged with a crime you can argue NAT and open WAPs and all the rest until you're blue in the face, but a case against you is built on a pile of forensic evidence typically found on hard drives and in your desk drawers and the like and the fact that your WAP is open isn't worth a pile of fetid dingo's kidneys if prosecutors have other hard evidence that's been found via a search warrant.
I've also heard it's even possible to do aerobatics in a 747, in a rather... large... sort of way, but given that I can't find any actual footage I suspect that's apocryphal
I have a friend who flies heavies for a major intl carrier. He's never done actual aerobatics in a four-seven, but he has done it in the 747 simulator. He's done barrel-rolls and flown under the Golden Gate bridge. In all cases the simulator allowed it, which means the plane would have 'allowed it.'
I live in Vancouver, Canada. I used to work for a software company here that was acquired by a company headquartered in Washington, DC. In the summer of 2006, once the 'merger' was complete those of us that worked in Vancouver were given an option: Move across the continent and to a new country and join the DC head office, or be let go. The majority of us chose to stay and found ourselves unemployed.
The squad was always based on Earth since its creation.
What I enjoy is the fact that in the 60s, 70s and 80s, all alien worlds resembled southern California. Today, with most TV SciFi shot in Vancouver, alien worlds resemble the Pacific Northwest.
What I think is interesting about the deaths in NASA is none of them actually happened in space. Apollo 13 might have ended badly, but it didn't. No one died on the moon because the ascent stage rocket on the LEM failed to fire. No one has had a space suit spring a leak or spiraled away during an EVA.
Seems if you're an astronaut, the safest place for you is in space.
My parents are European immigrants, my mum was born in 1939, just before the start of the war, my dad in 1941, during the war.
They both grew up with post-war shortages, and as a result they're naturally frugal. My dad uses the internet for email, forums and light web surfing, all on dial-up. Why? Because it's cheaper.
Here in Vancouver, dial up is about $10 per month, broadband is about $30 per month. To my dad's thinking, that's an extra $240 per year that he'd rather have in his pocket. If he needs broadband for something like Google earth he just strolls down to the library and surfs for free. He's retired, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Read any science fiction from the '40s, and you will find confrontations between scientists where they both reach for their belt holsters and pull out their slide rules to resolve an argument.
One of my favourite scenes in "Apollo 13" is when Hanks (as Lovell) is trying to calculate one of his burns (maybe the de-orbit burn, can't remember) and he asks mission control to confirm his math. We cut to the engineers at their stations all whipping out their slide rules to confirm his calculations are correct - "Looks good flight!"
"Have you got an assignment, James?"
"Yes Moneypenny. I'm to eliminate all free radicals."
"Oh! Do be careful James!"
Bill Gates did not build Microsoft by being a good programmer
Perhaps not, but he *started* MS by being a good programmer. Getting off the starting line is half the battle...
From his post (warning: Strong Language):
"There you have it: the most objective comparison of two cellphones ever made. I think I'll take the rest of the afternoon off and copy and paste text on my cellphone because I can"
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
Acting is pretty easy
I dunno about that... I've got some 'actor friends,' I've seen a lot of plays and movies and TV shows and I don't know / haven't seen too many people who could have rivalled Sean Penn's performance in "Milk" or Winslet's in "The Reader..." and on it goes. Utterly brilliant.
And, uh, where exactly is the profit for that?
This is Slashdot - On Slashdot all media 'wants to be free.' All modern media apparently should be free and then apparently people will magically contribute what it's worth and the contributors will become magically rich. Or something.
why can't our terrestrial equipment be this efficient?
It can be, it's just too expensive or annoying. My PC has all these high tech power saving features. I've disabled most of them because they're annoying.
How is this different from cable?
The main reason I have analog cable is I get more channels - Around 50 or so. I can't get Discovery or CNN or History or HGTV or SpaceTV over-the-air.
What I'm getting at is, what difference does it make? Why does it frustrate you that you don't see advertising for some other non-local market? Why would you want to see that instead of something a little more relevant to you?
Because often the switchover isn't handled well.
If I'm watching NBC's suite of Thursday night shows from 8pm to 11pm, and my tuner is set to the Seattle NBC Station (KING-TV) then the cable company toggles from GLOBAL TV to CTV to CITY and then back to CTV, as those different stations have rights to broadcast the various programs in Canada. As a result, the beginning or ends of the shows are sometimes clipped off, as "A Supersized My Name is Earl" runs to 8:35 or whatever.
It was particularly annoying with the post-superbowl office episode, where the two feeds were about 4 minutes apart and the cable co. kept toggling back and forth between the two.
You also occasionally get 'technical difficulties' with one broadcast, but I can't toggle over to the other broadcast because, surprise, surprise, it's been overwritten with the one with 'technical difficulties.'
It's even worse with syndicated shows - If a Canadian channel and an American channel are both showing a Simpsons rerun at 7pm, the US feed is overwritten with the Canadian one, ever if they're both showing different episodes!
Stupid Canada nanny-state.
All is well with my TV in Canada as well..
Not if you live in a border town with a good antenna that pulls in the US stations. I grew up in Vancouver in a house on a big hill, and when I was a kid we had an antenna on the roof that did a very good job of pulling in TV from Washington state.
In fact, these days I wish I still could do this - I'm tired with the CRTC mandate of overwriting an American feed with a Canadian one if they're both broadcasting the same show. Time and time again it screws up.
There are also quite a few people who (probably for quaint religeous reasons), still rely on the analog wireless broadcasts to receive their pre-scheduled, pre-chosen video stream.
Everyone I know who watches OTA TV does it by and large for one reason: It's free.
Yes, you have to watch ads, nothing is free, blah blah blah, but the fact remains that once they've bought the set and the antenna they don't have to pay to watch TV. In my jurisdiction, basic cable is nearly $450 per year. Some people just choose to spend that $450 elsewhere.
One thing I don't hear much about with the chatter around digital conversion is VCRs. If my parents are going out for the evening and they don't want to miss programs, my dad will 'program the VCR'to record channel 8 from 8pm to 9pm, then channel 11 from 9pm to 10pm. They're on analog cable, so nothing impacts them (plus we're in Canada to boot), but I assume those people with analog antennas hooked up to the VCRs are losing the ability to timeshift, unless I'm missing something?
One *in* for the Cable Companies might be to offer a cheap basic PVR along with basic analog cable. That might lure away the mom and pops who can no longer timeshift.
Your question is a little confusing - It's not clear to me whether you're asking for a mechanism for employees to make suggestions to 'improve the workplace' ("Gee it sure would be nice to have a ping pong table!") or a mechanism for them to make suggestions for feature improvements ("We should build a Linux version of your application!").
If it's the former, be careful. Generally, employee suggestions for workplace improvements cost money (real or perceived), be it "pizza Friday," a ping pong table or better telecommuting policies. Unless you have buy-in from upper management for a genuine $$$ budget for 'morale' these requests just to into a black hole, so why bother providing the mechanism? Make sure you have a budget first.
If it's the latter, I've never worked for a company yet that didn't have a shortage of employee suggestions of good ideas for a given product. Sales is full of suggestions. The tricky part is having a mechanism to evaluate & estimate those suggestions, build business cases and all that tricky stuff...
The Prez doesn't have a cellphone?
They used to demonstrate this on The West Wing pretty well. Bartlet never had a cell phone - If he had a call an aide (usually "Charlie") would hand him a phone and when the call was complete he'd hand the phone back. If he had to make a call he'd say "Someone get Leo on the phone" and then a minute later someone would hand him a phone.
And you are ignoring known behavior of the RIAA and their agent in taking screen shots of files on another computer and convincing a jury that a screenshot of a program on MY computer proves beyond a reasonable doubt that you were breaking the law on YOUR computer.
This isn't how the law works. An RIAA suit is a CIVIL action, not a CRIMINAL action. In a criminal suit, the burden of proof is high - 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. In a civil suit, the burden of proof is lower - 'preponderance of evidence'. This is why RIAA suits, while one might argue the defendants have broken the law, are not tried in criminal court. The burden of proving a case is too high for criminal court. They are tried in civil court, where the burden of proof is much lower. If you civilly sue someone for crashing their boat into your dock, you only have to prove to the jury that, by the preponderance of evidence, they crashed their boat into your dock.
A famous example of this is the OJ trial. OJ was found criminally 'not guilty', but was successfully sued in civil court for wrongful death.
here it is in a nutshell
Except your nutshell isn't quite right - What the article is also saying is this: If you're charged with a crime you can argue NAT and open WAPs and all the rest until you're blue in the face, but a case against you is built on a pile of forensic evidence typically found on hard drives and in your desk drawers and the like and the fact that your WAP is open isn't worth a pile of fetid dingo's kidneys if prosecutors have other hard evidence that's been found via a search warrant.
If you've got a legal question, ask your attorney
Huh?! Isn't that what "Ask Slashdot" is for? Sheesh.
I've also heard it's even possible to do aerobatics in a 747, in a rather... large... sort of way, but given that I can't find any actual footage I suspect that's apocryphal
I have a friend who flies heavies for a major intl carrier. He's never done actual aerobatics in a four-seven, but he has done it in the 747 simulator. He's done barrel-rolls and flown under the Golden Gate bridge. In all cases the simulator allowed it, which means the plane would have 'allowed it.'
Hey, how long can you keep a bunch of people around to write free Linux, free Java
Do0d, where ya been? Software *wants* to be free, man.
I live in Vancouver, Canada. I used to work for a software company here that was acquired by a company headquartered in Washington, DC. In the summer of 2006, once the 'merger' was complete those of us that worked in Vancouver were given an option: Move across the continent and to a new country and join the DC head office, or be let go. The majority of us chose to stay and found ourselves unemployed.
The squad was always based on Earth since its creation.
What I enjoy is the fact that in the 60s, 70s and 80s, all alien worlds resembled southern California. Today, with most TV SciFi shot in Vancouver, alien worlds resemble the Pacific Northwest.
What I think is interesting about the deaths in NASA is none of them actually happened in space. Apollo 13 might have ended badly, but it didn't. No one died on the moon because the ascent stage rocket on the LEM failed to fire. No one has had a space suit spring a leak or spiraled away during an EVA.
Seems if you're an astronaut, the safest place for you is in space.
My parents are European immigrants, my mum was born in 1939, just before the start of the war, my dad in 1941, during the war.
They both grew up with post-war shortages, and as a result they're naturally frugal. My dad uses the internet for email, forums and light web surfing, all on dial-up. Why? Because it's cheaper.
Here in Vancouver, dial up is about $10 per month, broadband is about $30 per month. To my dad's thinking, that's an extra $240 per year that he'd rather have in his pocket. If he needs broadband for something like Google earth he just strolls down to the library and surfs for free. He's retired, after all.
"If your good at something never do it for free."
Obviously one thing 'your' not good at is grammar.
They will be fine
I dunno about that... The articles in the Canadian media seem to suggest otherwise...?
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=e1ddec82-8a3d-4523-8db0-088e4c2c2bdb