presumably something like a "car share" program would cover you for the few times you're going on a long drive
Where I'm from, we call him "the train driver". I would quite happily swap for an EV. I'm quite happy to drive to Paris or Milan but having my car there is a "nice to have" and not a "need to have". I would quite happily swap to having to take plane/train for long distance journeys followed by taxi/bus/tram the other end to get to my destination, in return for a silent but wickedly quick EV that costs pennies to refill.
I don't see why there has to be one way to go for two very different needs. EVs are perfect for non-professional drivers, moms doing the school run or somebody commuting to work. They are simple to refill from home, have few moving parts to break down, and reduce noise pollution in the city centres. For professional drivers, such as delivery vans, traveling salesmen, taxis, etc, they will be happy to use hydrogen and trade the extra cost for the extra range. I can see both being successfully developed in parallel.
The Scandinavians take it quite seriously too. For instance Norway generates over 99% of all its electricity needs by hydro. Sweden is heading for 100% renewable energy within the decade (was 26% in 2006, not sure what they are at now). Denmark gets 20% of its power just from wind.
We all know Clarkson loves the M3 and hates the Prius, so it must have given him extra pleasure to stitch up the Prius like that. Top Gear is the equivalent of FHM magazine. They are there to gain viewing figures, and they do it by showing cool cars, cracking jokes, and deliberately trying to wind up those whom they consider "stuffy people". I love the show, but they are a joke when it comes to any science. A couple of episodes ago they were claiming to have solved the pollution problem by piping the exhaust through a greenhouse of tomato plants being towed behind the car.
I remember this study from a book I read around 20 years ago. It said good looking people were more likely to get off, or off more lightly, except in the case of fraud. With the latter, people were unconsciously angry at somebody using their good looks to take advantage and actually came down heavier on them.
Google makes money and needs to protect its core assets. Apple are a threat to this by their iPhone walled garden. For instance Apple have banned Google Voice apps from the iPhone. They won't allow any 3rd party browsers (a brief respite for Opera but that can be revoked any time) which means they control the default search page. On a whim, any other Google apps such as Google Maps, a Wave client, or their next innovation, can be ejected. Google is cash rich and it is in their interests to push an open environment that allows them entry to that market. If Google fail to make a profit through Android it's irrelevant to cell phone manufacturers, they are taking advantage for free! Either in vanilla form or like HTC with its Sense UI.
Android does not have to be a proven money maker to continue, only to cost less to license than rival products. Free is pretty hard to beat.
It's true that good content needs to be paid for, and that people are prepared to pay for good content, but The Times isn't it. The FT and the Economist have plenty of paying subscribers, but for many it is crucial to their work hence provides a tangible ROI. I cannot see a propaganda sheet, disguised as a generic newspaper, being something worth paying for over all the free quality alternatives.
There will be people that take up the service, an older generation that have been stuck in a rut reading The Times for a decade and unwilling to make the switch, and they may consider this small percentage as an encouraging success. However, this will not grow as all the other papers poach today's more fickle readers to grow their own ad revenue.
A micro-payment service like Flattr would work much better. If a paper has a quality or provocative journalist, like Jeremy Clarkson, I would happily put them on my list. If he is the only benefit but I would have to take out a site-wide subscription, it would be cheaper to buy his book. For now it appears advertising will be the principle revenue generator, and that isn't being fully exploited yet. For instance, I notice there are no Google-style search ads when I do a keyword search in the Guardian. Does their RSS feed have ads? Much as I hate ads, Google have shown us how it can be done without being as annoying yet still provide plenty of revenue. They should learn from successes such as Google, not failures like Salon.
Unfortunately Slashdot chose to link to an article in The Times, so in a couple of months you will no longer be able to read it (unless you subscribe).
He seems a nice but geeky guy. He loves maths, but doesn't want some prize he never applied for. Good for him. Of course there are plenty that would love to leech off him, 'charity' or not, which is all the more reason not to set himself up as a target by accepting. It will be interesting to see what Grigory comes up with next.
With the fashion side of the art world, we may think the ridiculous cat-walk haute-couture costing exorbitant amounts of money are a waste of time, but apparently a lot of it gets diluted down and then made available for public consumption. Maybe it is similar with the aloof avant garde artists you refer to? As an aside, I don't really think the artists care for your sympathy. Many do it for passion not profit.
That's a poor analogy. They have laws against fraud. The article says it will take longer to gather evidence and proof of wrong-doing to put them in jail, rather than being able to short-cut and just tie them to a bunch of hacked IP addresses to put them in the slammer. If you bash somebody with an object, it's pretty easy to identify the victim and get prints off the object. The article implies that the digital forensics in this instance is hard work.
Maybe a better analogy is gun or knife control. In the US, carrying a gun or knife (I know each State has difference laws, but in general) is legal. If somebody is murdered, you then have to find the weapon, the perpetrator, and circumstantial evidence or witnesses. In the UK we short-cut this and just assume anybody carrying a gun or knife is guilty, either having committed a crime or is about to, and we put them directly in jail if anybody is found in the streets to be carrying one. A botnet, ignoring abusing somebody else's resources, could in theory be used to try and find a cure for cancer. In practice it will probably be used by spammers. So do you ban the tool or punish the ultimate crime? There is no clear cut answer, it is very much influenced by democratic ideals vs police resources.
I personally disagree with either jail time or simply a fine. Many hours of community services, tidying pavements or painting over graffiti, seems a more appropriate punishment.
"That is why MP3 stomped Vorbis and FLAC, because it was easy"
Because it was first, and gained momentum. At the end of the day, MP3 gained popularity because of pirates and they aren't exactly known for caring about patents. Those that were ripping from their personal collection often chose FLAC or Vorbis. A codec is just a codec, there is nothing more 'easy' about any one of them.
"can't say about Vorbis as I've honestly never come across a Vorbis player"
Any Samsung player, but then if Vorbis became popular it would only take a firmware update for every player to support it.
"The average Joe really doesn't give a shit about "free as in freedom" all he gives a shit about is does it work and is it easy."
I'm sorry, why do I care about average Joe? If he is prepared to fork out hundreds for XP, then again for Vista, then again for Win7, etc, why would I care if he forks out for yet another bunch of proprietary rubbish? However, on the distribution side things are different. An Internet 'video tax' is unacceptable.
In France you also pay a mandatory TV license fee (around £110/year last time I looked, though I don't have a TV). The television here is appalling, either dubbed A-Team / 70's detective series or a panel of boring middle-aged guys waffling whilst ogling the cute under-aged female pop singer that serves as eye candy. Every channel is chock full of adverts. The Brits are getting a pretty good deal from the BBC.
collect all articles about cellular tower effects on health
put negative articles in Folder A "Show to seller" and positive articles in Folder B "Show to buyer"
use Folder A to negotiate a healthy discount
realise that the antenna ramps power up/down depending on the distance of handsets to base station, so in a dense urban area like Manhatten it will be operating on minimum power - relax and enjoy apartment
sell when 2.5G infrastructure has been turned off, or use Folder B
The government has already introduced a bill mandating you lodge all your private encryption keys with the government. It was called the Key Escrow Bill introduced by the Conservatives. Labour pledged to throw it out in their manifesto, then when elected promptly tried to steam-roller it into law. Headed by numerous ministers (off the top of my head, Mandelson, Hewitt, Straw) it was eventually watered down into RIPA.
The only EU country that made encryption illegal AFAIK is France, until they found the States were passing on their key industrial secrets to their own corporations, which led to the fastest policy about turn I can remember.
I do exactly that. The doctor tells me I won't get better unless I take x pills. I then throw them in the bin and still get better anyway. If I had taken them, I would have thought them really effective! I think doctors prescribe medicine routinely (a) for kick-backs, (b) as placebo, or (c) to shut patients up. Regarding the latter, there does seem to be a segment of the population who feel if they aren't being given pills the doctor isn't doing his job. They want their 'quick fix'.
The only real way to enjoy the game is to join a dedicated server where the admin is online and can kickban the player. As a poster mentioned above, it's pretty easy to confirm a cheat by spectating their pov. Unfortunately votekick rarely works, even with a really bad cheat there are too many that won't bother.
By the way, I liked your suggestion that departments should be "running their own PKI." That made me laugh, thanks.
Yes, departments as in plural. A simple set-up would be one Uni to volounteer to run a key server which then use the default used by collaborating Universities. It's really NOT that hard.
I know it's bad form to reply to your own post, but I'd like to pre-apologise for suggesting you shouldn't work in IT. You are entitled to your own opinions. I strongly disagree, however, that simply dismissing email as insecure is an excuse for not properly mitigating risks for those that do use email to send private information.
Are you quite mad? I seriously hope you don't really have a job in IT. Email was invented by academics as a means to share information with other academics. Telling them not to use it is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Departments with sensitive information should be using mail clients with GPG, and running their own PKI, but at least by running your own email servers you have more control (eg limit logins to campus IP addresses and provide VPN for remote login).
Slashdot Mirror
presumably something like a "car share" program would cover you for the few times you're going on a long drive
Where I'm from, we call him "the train driver". I would quite happily swap for an EV. I'm quite happy to drive to Paris or Milan but having my car there is a "nice to have" and not a "need to have". I would quite happily swap to having to take plane/train for long distance journeys followed by taxi/bus/tram the other end to get to my destination, in return for a silent but wickedly quick EV that costs pennies to refill.
I don't see why there has to be one way to go for two very different needs. EVs are perfect for non-professional drivers, moms doing the school run or somebody commuting to work. They are simple to refill from home, have few moving parts to break down, and reduce noise pollution in the city centres. For professional drivers, such as delivery vans, traveling salesmen, taxis, etc, they will be happy to use hydrogen and trade the extra cost for the extra range. I can see both being successfully developed in parallel.
Phillip.
The Scandinavians take it quite seriously too. For instance Norway generates over 99% of all its electricity needs by hydro. Sweden is heading for 100% renewable energy within the decade (was 26% in 2006, not sure what they are at now). Denmark gets 20% of its power just from wind.
Phillip.
We all know Clarkson loves the M3 and hates the Prius, so it must have given him extra pleasure to stitch up the Prius like that. Top Gear is the equivalent of FHM magazine. They are there to gain viewing figures, and they do it by showing cool cars, cracking jokes, and deliberately trying to wind up those whom they consider "stuffy people". I love the show, but they are a joke when it comes to any science. A couple of episodes ago they were claiming to have solved the pollution problem by piping the exhaust through a greenhouse of tomato plants being towed behind the car.
Phillip.
"All data past 5 GB per month is now billable by the bit."
You can save 12.5% on your web browsing costs by reading my web site. I only serve up 7-bit ascii.
Phillip.
I remember this study from a book I read around 20 years ago. It said good looking people were more likely to get off, or off more lightly, except in the case of fraud. With the latter, people were unconsciously angry at somebody using their good looks to take advantage and actually came down heavier on them.
Phillip.
I think the silent majority are with GooberToo on this one. Blender do software, not Hollywood movies.
Phillip.
Google makes money and needs to protect its core assets. Apple are a threat to this by their iPhone walled garden. For instance Apple have banned Google Voice apps from the iPhone. They won't allow any 3rd party browsers (a brief respite for Opera but that can be revoked any time) which means they control the default search page. On a whim, any other Google apps such as Google Maps, a Wave client, or their next innovation, can be ejected. Google is cash rich and it is in their interests to push an open environment that allows them entry to that market. If Google fail to make a profit through Android it's irrelevant to cell phone manufacturers, they are taking advantage for free! Either in vanilla form or like HTC with its Sense UI.
Android does not have to be a proven money maker to continue, only to cost less to license than rival products. Free is pretty hard to beat.
Phillip.
"Don't get me wrong, I still love it, but these annoyances do not give me brownie points with the wife when I want to have a no-windows home... :)"
You could use the couple of hundred bucks you're saving on Win7 to buy her a nice present?
Phillip.
No, but I am for a little mermaid figure.
Phillip.
"Ban all advertising directed at children. Period."
Done that in France. Works fine. No cartoon shortage.
Phillip.
Is talking on a mobile hands-free any more/less dangerous than talking to somebody in the passenger seat?
Phillip.
It's true that good content needs to be paid for, and that people are prepared to pay for good content, but The Times isn't it. The FT and the Economist have plenty of paying subscribers, but for many it is crucial to their work hence provides a tangible ROI. I cannot see a propaganda sheet, disguised as a generic newspaper, being something worth paying for over all the free quality alternatives.
There will be people that take up the service, an older generation that have been stuck in a rut reading The Times for a decade and unwilling to make the switch, and they may consider this small percentage as an encouraging success. However, this will not grow as all the other papers poach today's more fickle readers to grow their own ad revenue.
A micro-payment service like Flattr would work much better. If a paper has a quality or provocative journalist, like Jeremy Clarkson, I would happily put them on my list. If he is the only benefit but I would have to take out a site-wide subscription, it would be cheaper to buy his book. For now it appears advertising will be the principle revenue generator, and that isn't being fully exploited yet. For instance, I notice there are no Google-style search ads when I do a keyword search in the Guardian. Does their RSS feed have ads? Much as I hate ads, Google have shown us how it can be done without being as annoying yet still provide plenty of revenue. They should learn from successes such as Google, not failures like Salon.
Phillip.
Unfortunately Slashdot chose to link to an article in The Times, so in a couple of months you will no longer be able to read it (unless you subscribe).
Phillip.
He seems a nice but geeky guy. He loves maths, but doesn't want some prize he never applied for. Good for him. Of course there are plenty that would love to leech off him, 'charity' or not, which is all the more reason not to set himself up as a target by accepting. It will be interesting to see what Grigory comes up with next.
Phillip.
With the fashion side of the art world, we may think the ridiculous cat-walk haute-couture costing exorbitant amounts of money are a waste of time, but apparently a lot of it gets diluted down and then made available for public consumption. Maybe it is similar with the aloof avant garde artists you refer to? As an aside, I don't really think the artists care for your sympathy. Many do it for passion not profit.
Phillip.
That's a poor analogy. They have laws against fraud. The article says it will take longer to gather evidence and proof of wrong-doing to put them in jail, rather than being able to short-cut and just tie them to a bunch of hacked IP addresses to put them in the slammer. If you bash somebody with an object, it's pretty easy to identify the victim and get prints off the object. The article implies that the digital forensics in this instance is hard work.
Maybe a better analogy is gun or knife control. In the US, carrying a gun or knife (I know each State has difference laws, but in general) is legal. If somebody is murdered, you then have to find the weapon, the perpetrator, and circumstantial evidence or witnesses. In the UK we short-cut this and just assume anybody carrying a gun or knife is guilty, either having committed a crime or is about to, and we put them directly in jail if anybody is found in the streets to be carrying one. A botnet, ignoring abusing somebody else's resources, could in theory be used to try and find a cure for cancer. In practice it will probably be used by spammers. So do you ban the tool or punish the ultimate crime? There is no clear cut answer, it is very much influenced by democratic ideals vs police resources.
I personally disagree with either jail time or simply a fine. Many hours of community services, tidying pavements or painting over graffiti, seems a more appropriate punishment.
Phillip.
"That is why MP3 stomped Vorbis and FLAC, because it was easy"
Because it was first, and gained momentum. At the end of the day, MP3 gained popularity because of pirates and they aren't exactly known for caring about patents. Those that were ripping from their personal collection often chose FLAC or Vorbis. A codec is just a codec, there is nothing more 'easy' about any one of them.
"can't say about Vorbis as I've honestly never come across a Vorbis player"
Any Samsung player, but then if Vorbis became popular it would only take a firmware update for every player to support it.
"The average Joe really doesn't give a shit about "free as in freedom" all he gives a shit about is does it work and is it easy."
I'm sorry, why do I care about average Joe? If he is prepared to fork out hundreds for XP, then again for Vista, then again for Win7, etc, why would I care if he forks out for yet another bunch of proprietary rubbish? However, on the distribution side things are different. An Internet 'video tax' is unacceptable.
Phillip.
In France you also pay a mandatory TV license fee (around £110/year last time I looked, though I don't have a TV). The television here is appalling, either dubbed A-Team / 70's detective series or a panel of boring middle-aged guys waffling whilst ogling the cute under-aged female pop singer that serves as eye candy. Every channel is chock full of adverts. The Brits are getting a pretty good deal from the BBC.
Phillip.
I was thinking along similar lines.
Phillip.
The government has already introduced a bill mandating you lodge all your private encryption keys with the government. It was called the Key Escrow Bill introduced by the Conservatives. Labour pledged to throw it out in their manifesto, then when elected promptly tried to steam-roller it into law. Headed by numerous ministers (off the top of my head, Mandelson, Hewitt, Straw) it was eventually watered
down into RIPA.
The only EU country that made encryption illegal AFAIK is France, until they found the States were passing on their key industrial secrets to their own corporations, which led to the fastest policy about turn I can remember.
Phillip.
I do exactly that. The doctor tells me I won't get better unless I take x pills. I then throw them in the bin and still get better anyway. If I had taken them, I would have thought them really effective! I think doctors prescribe medicine routinely (a) for kick-backs, (b) as placebo, or (c) to shut patients up. Regarding the latter, there does seem to be a segment of the population who feel if they aren't being given pills the doctor isn't doing his job. They want their 'quick fix'.
Phillip.
The only real way to enjoy the game is to join a dedicated server where the admin is online and can kickban the player. As a poster mentioned above, it's pretty easy to confirm a cheat by spectating their pov. Unfortunately votekick rarely works, even with a really bad cheat there are too many that won't bother.
Phillip.
By the way, I liked your suggestion that departments should be "running their own PKI." That made me laugh, thanks.
Yes, departments as in plural. A simple set-up would be one Uni to volounteer to run a key server which then use the default used by collaborating Universities. It's really NOT that hard.
Phillip.
I know it's bad form to reply to your own post, but I'd like to pre-apologise for suggesting you shouldn't work in IT. You are entitled to your own opinions. I strongly disagree, however, that simply dismissing email as insecure is an excuse for not properly mitigating risks for those that do use email to send private information.
Phillip.
Are you quite mad? I seriously hope you don't really have a job in IT. Email was invented by academics as a means to share information with other academics. Telling them not to use it is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Departments with sensitive information should be using mail clients with GPG, and running their own PKI, but at least by running your own email servers you have more control (eg limit logins to campus IP addresses and provide VPN for remote login).
Phillip.