The 'anonymous commentator' in the summary is being a bit thick. Here in the UK there are (generally) two kinds of path, a footpath or a bridleway.
Bicycles are not allowed on footpaths, but they are on bridleways (as well as horses).
If Google really are planning this, they'll be mapping well-maintained bridleways and tracks, which seems logical to me (although they'd better have a fast shutter speed as these tracks are bumpy).
However, you're probably thinking what I'm thinking - why not have horse-mounted Google cameras? That would be AWESOME!
All the other UK law enforcement agencies pay ISPs for investigation, and have never raised a stink about it. The only reason why this has become news is because child abuse is a highly emotional and touchy subject here in the UK at the moment.
As bad as child abuse is, what good reason is there for giving the investigators cost benefit over, say, murder and rape investigations?
Maybe not... I know it's a very different market, but look at the iPhone App store. IIRC 69c is the lowest possible price for an app (apart from free). Most apps started way higher, but quickly went as cheap as possible when they realised that's what the market wanted. I don't think many songs will stay high for long... and the expensive ones will be the brand new, manufactured pap that serious music fans won't be buying anyway.
Yeah, it's annoying. Although I've got idle turned off on my/. preferences for the front page, it doesn't change the RSS feeds, so I clicked on this from iGoogle thinking it was a serious article. I don't have a sense of humour, you insensitive clod!
I'm not trolling, and don't worry about modding this question, I just want to read the answers. But... I assume you're in the USA? Does the government there really not equip public schools with IT facilities? I'm genuinely astonished. Surely schools have some facilities, if only a computer room for IT lessons? Is IT on the curriculum at all?!
Unfortunately I bought the Arcade version of the xbox a few weeks ago, so have a pitiful 256mb of memory to play with. With all my saved games and a bare minimum of downloaded content, I have nowhere near 128mb free to get the new front end.
I know, I know, I can just buy a bigger card or HDD... but it just bugs me that a) the update doesn't write over the existing front end, and b) Microsoft has known the release date for this for a long time, but still sold the Arcade with inadequate storage.
I'm not in the USA, so the variety press I saw can't be accused of party bias. And yes, I saw more headlines about Obama.
But isn't the reason obvious? He generated more newsworthy headlines. He was, frankly, more interesting, regardless of your opinion of him
And surely it wasn't completely one-sided - Palin was in MANY, MANY headlines - whereas I didn't see anything of Biden.
Everything press-related is so controlled, I see no reason to be surprised by this - the Democrats knew Obama was a strong personality and good headline generator; the Republicans knew that they needed to push Palin to reassure their traditional voters who were worried about McCain.
The politest, friendliest, most trustworthy forum I belong to forces you to register with your real name. As it's linked to a commerce system, I imagine they can double-check it with the credit details they have on file for me. I know a lot of people would hate this, but I love it - everyone on there thinks very carefully before posting.
It would be more interesting and productive to know which cities have the most (intentionally) open, publicly usable, free-to-use access points, in useful places.
In London, I can generally only find a few I can use - and mainly only because I have access to the BT ones, in places like Waterloo station
However, Paris is the bee's knees. Every public park has free to use WiFi, and it's simply wonderful. In the summer I lay on the grass working with my laptop, and noticed many local business people doing the same.
I know London has a lot of FON hotspots, but I've never bothered subscribing to it, as they generally pop up in residential areas - and when I want WiFi, it's in a busy commercial area or a train station, not in the middle of the suburbs.
I have no desire to enter a political argument here, but I feel the +5 insightful parent should be balanced by the point that South Ossetians have struggled for independence from Georgia since the early 90s, and have had stronger ties with Russia than Georgia for a long time. It was Georgia 'invading' South Ossetia that sparked the conflict - and even if you don't recognise South Ossetia as a country, you have to admit that this upset the fragile balance.
I'm not sure how the conflict is being portrayed in the USA - there's been quite a PR battle raging in the ex-Soviet states, with America and Russia battling over business and cultural ties; it wouldn't surprise me if the American news reports come out heavily in Georgian favour (likewise, Russian news reports supporting the South Ossetians).
While my initial reaction to that Yahoo! Answers page was 'LOL dumb American', she doesn't specifically say that she's in the US state - isn't everyone who is laughing at her making exactly the same mistake as they are assuming she is making?
Not all internet users are American - she might well have asked the question from the country of Georgia, in which case the Yahoo! Answers are pretty damn useless... it would also explain her tenuous grasp of the English language.
Oh for Christ's sake - when will Slashdotters learn, the Daily Mail is nothing more than a comic? I realise most contributors here are American and can't be expected to know the wide ranging differences between British news rags, but our tabloids like the Mail can be trusted as far as you can throw a UFO. If an 'inside source' really did leak this story, and nowhere else but the Daily Mail has reported it, it's because everyone else has laughed the source out of the door.
Sorry to burst the balloon, but apart from the one German article that was picked up by AFP, there's no source for this story.
And NASA and the ESA deny ever saying that the schoolboy was right.
It seems that the schoolboy's sums were wrong, and NASA's original workings are right.
More info: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/
I'd file this under 'web hoax' or 'lazy journalists pick up on anything sensational'
I use eBay occasionally but my email address and bank details are barred from PayPal, so if this happens I won't be able to use eBay at all.
I'm barred because I (as a seller) was scammed and left £300 out of pocket - when I tried to complain to PayPal, I couldn't even get through to a human being, and they automatically assumed that I was the fraudster, and shut down my account. Ironically, they were slower at shutting down the scammer's account on both eBay and PayPal, despite my attempted warnings, and they went on to scam a few other people before they were finally barred.
By the way, is there a decent alternative to eBay, or have they got a complete monopoly?
Firstly: I admit, I bought one last night. I'm an Apple fan; but NOT a fanatical one.
I bought mine in Southampton, where there's an Apple store. I did go there with the intention of buying one there, but the queue was longer than outside O2 or Carphone Warehouse (the only other two sellers) and the staff had obviously been hyped up to whoop and holler and run along high-fiving the queue, which might herald excitement in the US, but in the conservative UK is distinctly embarrassing and probably put a lot of people off queueing.
I bought mine at an O2 shop and there were more staff (at least 15) than people queueing, even at quarter past six when I turned up (the launch was at 6pm). The staff looked a little embarrassed.
What was most irritating was that I simply wanted to hand over my £270 and take away the damn phone, but while I was waiting I was besieged by O2 staff asking if I was OK, offering me muffins, trying to demo the iPhone, trying to get me to sign up to some expensive insurance deal, trying to sell me accessories, trying to lick my ass... if they had put all these staff behind sales terminals, they would have sold them a damn sight faster and probably sold more of them, as several people got bored and wandered off!
When the Apple shop in Southampton opened for the first time, and when the Nintendo Wii was launched in a variety of local shops, I saw excitement and queueing that deserved this kind of reception. However, it was patently obvious that Apple have vastly overestimated the demand for the iPhone in the UK; I haven't seen the local papers today but I suspect Apple won't be delighted with the coverage (I saw some photographers having a field day making the queue look as small as possible).
As to why, I'm sure everyone knows, but here's a recap as to why it's not the saviour of the UK's mobile industry; 1. We're used to either paying for the phone, or the contract, but not both; 2. We're used to accessing mobile internet on 3G, which was rolled out wider and earlier here than across the USA; 3. There have been several competing devices launched recently, which appeal to a range of demographics; for example, techies will like the N95 while fashion victims will like the Prada wotsit; 4. It's quite chunky as phones go - which might sound pernickerty but the market here is very much geared towards fashionable, neat phones (for example, no manufacturer would dare launch a phone with an aerial here within the last few years as they look so dated, while I hear they're still available in the US).
A final thought on a different note though; I have no doubt that the iPhone will be a success here, it's just Apple misjudged the launch a little. Apple have the marketing power that other manufacturers only dream of, and at the end of the day, the public have little regard for technical features or even cost, it's what they perceive to be fashionable and/or popular that will be a success. And I hope it is; despite it not being perfect, it does a few simple things well, and is a pleasure to use. And me? I say, roll on the open API:-D
Interesting that the column refers to 'BBC translators' with no link. There's no sign of this story on the BBC website. Would it be cynical of me to suggest that the columnist has inflated this story out of hearsay?
I'm British. I'm guessing most of the readers here are not. PLEASE don't assume that the Daily Mail is representative of, or in touch with, any part of British culture. They are a populist tabloid who don't shy from publishing any old headline-grabbing bollocks without the slightest grain of truth. It was the Daily Mail, as I recall, who published a list of paedophiles, most of whom turned out to be paedotricians. Without even checking the source, I can reliably recommend that the Slashdot editors pull this story; there won't be an ounce of truth in it. Believe me, if there was, it would be all over the mainstream press, not just one particular tabloid.
Although I'm still skeptical about the quality (until I've seen it) and speed of takeup, it's worth congratulating the studios for innovating (talkies were a novelty to begin with, as was colour and widescreen). Particularly during the era of piracy - regardless of the pros and cons of free sharing, while the 3D film can only be seen in a cinema, people are going to pay to see it. Hell, if I downloaded a 2D film and it was really decent (ie. not generic Disney saccharine) I would pay to see it in 3D.
It's fine here in the UK, and the rest of Europe. As far as I can tell it's the US server, which 'only' serves the USA and Canada. As mentioned by others though, one point of failure destroying such a large portion of the network is bad planning at the very least!
I might be a reasonably good test bed. I recently installed Ubuntu on my home PC as my first taste of Linux. I find it easy enough to use once everything is set up, but the fact that I couldn't just click-and-install a wireless card driver just drew a blank look from me (why the hell should I need to edit config files and compile stuff for something so simple?)
From my point of view, Ubuntu is pretty much there in terms of basic user friendliness and ease of use, it just needs more drivers and less applications when you first install it. There are some things I find a doddle and far easier than Windows - eg. installing updates - and some very basic things that continue to confuse me - eg. setting VLC as the default video player for all video files - which I'm sure I could figure out eventually but gave up after five minutes as it's not worth my time.
Slashdot Mirror
The 'anonymous commentator' in the summary is being a bit thick. Here in the UK there are (generally) two kinds of path, a footpath or a bridleway.
Bicycles are not allowed on footpaths, but they are on bridleways (as well as horses).
If Google really are planning this, they'll be mapping well-maintained bridleways and tracks, which seems logical to me (although they'd better have a fast shutter speed as these tracks are bumpy).
However, you're probably thinking what I'm thinking - why not have horse-mounted Google cameras? That would be AWESOME!
All the other UK law enforcement agencies pay ISPs for investigation, and have never raised a stink about it. The only reason why this has become news is because child abuse is a highly emotional and touchy subject here in the UK at the moment.
As bad as child abuse is, what good reason is there for giving the investigators cost benefit over, say, murder and rape investigations?
Tiered Pricing.
Maybe not... I know it's a very different market, but look at the iPhone App store. IIRC 69c is the lowest possible price for an app (apart from free). Most apps started way higher, but quickly went as cheap as possible when they realised that's what the market wanted.
I don't think many songs will stay high for long... and the expensive ones will be the brand new, manufactured pap that serious music fans won't be buying anyway.
Yeah, it's annoying. Although I've got idle turned off on my /. preferences for the front page, it doesn't change the RSS feeds, so I clicked on this from iGoogle thinking it was a serious article. I don't have a sense of humour, you insensitive clod!
Windows Now Runs British Royal Navy Submarines?
I'm not trolling, and don't worry about modding this question, I just want to read the answers.
But... I assume you're in the USA? Does the government there really not equip public schools with IT facilities? I'm genuinely astonished. Surely schools have some facilities, if only a computer room for IT lessons? Is IT on the curriculum at all?!
Thanks for that, it's been genuinely useful... now all I have to complain about is that Microsoft haven't let me know about that program themselves!
Unfortunately I bought the Arcade version of the xbox a few weeks ago, so have a pitiful 256mb of memory to play with. With all my saved games and a bare minimum of downloaded content, I have nowhere near 128mb free to get the new front end.
I know, I know, I can just buy a bigger card or HDD... but it just bugs me that a) the update doesn't write over the existing front end, and b) Microsoft has known the release date for this for a long time, but still sold the Arcade with inadequate storage.
I'm not in the USA, so the variety press I saw can't be accused of party bias. And yes, I saw more headlines about Obama.
But isn't the reason obvious? He generated more newsworthy headlines. He was, frankly, more interesting, regardless of your opinion of him
And surely it wasn't completely one-sided - Palin was in MANY, MANY headlines - whereas I didn't see anything of Biden.
Everything press-related is so controlled, I see no reason to be surprised by this - the Democrats knew Obama was a strong personality and good headline generator; the Republicans knew that they needed to push Palin to reassure their traditional voters who were worried about McCain.
In other words - nothing to see here, move along.
The politest, friendliest, most trustworthy forum I belong to forces you to register with your real name. As it's linked to a commerce system, I imagine they can double-check it with the credit details they have on file for me. I know a lot of people would hate this, but I love it - everyone on there thinks very carefully before posting.
It would be more interesting and productive to know which cities have the most (intentionally) open, publicly usable, free-to-use access points, in useful places.
In London, I can generally only find a few I can use - and mainly only because I have access to the BT ones, in places like Waterloo station
However, Paris is the bee's knees. Every public park has free to use WiFi, and it's simply wonderful. In the summer I lay on the grass working with my laptop, and noticed many local business people doing the same.
I know London has a lot of FON hotspots, but I've never bothered subscribing to it, as they generally pop up in residential areas - and when I want WiFi, it's in a busy commercial area or a train station, not in the middle of the suburbs.
I removed the exhaust baffles so cars know I'm filtering :) Harleys have had this technology for decades!
I call Rule 34; zero-g porn has already been done, utilising parabolic flight aircraft;
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/movies/uranus_experiment_000516.html
Surprise surprise, the title is 'The Uranus Experiment'.
I have no desire to enter a political argument here, but I feel the +5 insightful parent should be balanced by the point that South Ossetians have struggled for independence from Georgia since the early 90s, and have had stronger ties with Russia than Georgia for a long time. It was Georgia 'invading' South Ossetia that sparked the conflict - and even if you don't recognise South Ossetia as a country, you have to admit that this upset the fragile balance. I'm not sure how the conflict is being portrayed in the USA - there's been quite a PR battle raging in the ex-Soviet states, with America and Russia battling over business and cultural ties; it wouldn't surprise me if the American news reports come out heavily in Georgian favour (likewise, Russian news reports supporting the South Ossetians).
While my initial reaction to that Yahoo! Answers page was 'LOL dumb American', she doesn't specifically say that she's in the US state - isn't everyone who is laughing at her making exactly the same mistake as they are assuming she is making? Not all internet users are American - she might well have asked the question from the country of Georgia, in which case the Yahoo! Answers are pretty damn useless... it would also explain her tenuous grasp of the English language.
Oh for Christ's sake - when will Slashdotters learn, the Daily Mail is nothing more than a comic? I realise most contributors here are American and can't be expected to know the wide ranging differences between British news rags, but our tabloids like the Mail can be trusted as far as you can throw a UFO. If an 'inside source' really did leak this story, and nowhere else but the Daily Mail has reported it, it's because everyone else has laughed the source out of the door.
That sounds horrible! Please can we put it back and choose another planet?
Sorry to burst the balloon, but apart from the one German article that was picked up by AFP, there's no source for this story. And NASA and the ESA deny ever saying that the schoolboy was right. It seems that the schoolboy's sums were wrong, and NASA's original workings are right. More info: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/ I'd file this under 'web hoax' or 'lazy journalists pick up on anything sensational'
I use eBay occasionally but my email address and bank details are barred from PayPal, so if this happens I won't be able to use eBay at all.
I'm barred because I (as a seller) was scammed and left £300 out of pocket - when I tried to complain to PayPal, I couldn't even get through to a human being, and they automatically assumed that I was the fraudster, and shut down my account. Ironically, they were slower at shutting down the scammer's account on both eBay and PayPal, despite my attempted warnings, and they went on to scam a few other people before they were finally barred.
By the way, is there a decent alternative to eBay, or have they got a complete monopoly?
Firstly: I admit, I bought one last night. I'm an Apple fan; but NOT a fanatical one.
:-D
I bought mine in Southampton, where there's an Apple store. I did go there with the intention of buying one there, but the queue was longer than outside O2 or Carphone Warehouse (the only other two sellers) and the staff had obviously been hyped up to whoop and holler and run along high-fiving the queue, which might herald excitement in the US, but in the conservative UK is distinctly embarrassing and probably put a lot of people off queueing.
I bought mine at an O2 shop and there were more staff (at least 15) than people queueing, even at quarter past six when I turned up (the launch was at 6pm). The staff looked a little embarrassed.
What was most irritating was that I simply wanted to hand over my £270 and take away the damn phone, but while I was waiting I was besieged by O2 staff asking if I was OK, offering me muffins, trying to demo the iPhone, trying to get me to sign up to some expensive insurance deal, trying to sell me accessories, trying to lick my ass... if they had put all these staff behind sales terminals, they would have sold them a damn sight faster and probably sold more of them, as several people got bored and wandered off!
When the Apple shop in Southampton opened for the first time, and when the Nintendo Wii was launched in a variety of local shops, I saw excitement and queueing that deserved this kind of reception. However, it was patently obvious that Apple have vastly overestimated the demand for the iPhone in the UK; I haven't seen the local papers today but I suspect Apple won't be delighted with the coverage (I saw some photographers having a field day making the queue look as small as possible).
As to why, I'm sure everyone knows, but here's a recap as to why it's not the saviour of the UK's mobile industry;
1. We're used to either paying for the phone, or the contract, but not both;
2. We're used to accessing mobile internet on 3G, which was rolled out wider and earlier here than across the USA;
3. There have been several competing devices launched recently, which appeal to a range of demographics; for example, techies will like the N95 while fashion victims will like the Prada wotsit;
4. It's quite chunky as phones go - which might sound pernickerty but the market here is very much geared towards fashionable, neat phones (for example, no manufacturer would dare launch a phone with an aerial here within the last few years as they look so dated, while I hear they're still available in the US).
A final thought on a different note though; I have no doubt that the iPhone will be a success here, it's just Apple misjudged the launch a little. Apple have the marketing power that other manufacturers only dream of, and at the end of the day, the public have little regard for technical features or even cost, it's what they perceive to be fashionable and/or popular that will be a success. And I hope it is; despite it not being perfect, it does a few simple things well, and is a pleasure to use.
And me? I say, roll on the open API
Interesting that the column refers to 'BBC translators' with no link. There's no sign of this story on the BBC website. Would it be cynical of me to suggest that the columnist has inflated this story out of hearsay?
I'm British. I'm guessing most of the readers here are not. PLEASE don't assume that the Daily Mail is representative of, or in touch with, any part of British culture. They are a populist tabloid who don't shy from publishing any old headline-grabbing bollocks without the slightest grain of truth. It was the Daily Mail, as I recall, who published a list of paedophiles, most of whom turned out to be paedotricians. Without even checking the source, I can reliably recommend that the Slashdot editors pull this story; there won't be an ounce of truth in it. Believe me, if there was, it would be all over the mainstream press, not just one particular tabloid.
Although I'm still skeptical about the quality (until I've seen it) and speed of takeup, it's worth congratulating the studios for innovating (talkies were a novelty to begin with, as was colour and widescreen). Particularly during the era of piracy - regardless of the pros and cons of free sharing, while the 3D film can only be seen in a cinema, people are going to pay to see it. Hell, if I downloaded a 2D film and it was really decent (ie. not generic Disney saccharine) I would pay to see it in 3D.
It's fine here in the UK, and the rest of Europe. As far as I can tell it's the US server, which 'only' serves the USA and Canada. As mentioned by others though, one point of failure destroying such a large portion of the network is bad planning at the very least!
I might be a reasonably good test bed. I recently installed Ubuntu on my home PC as my first taste of Linux. I find it easy enough to use once everything is set up, but the fact that I couldn't just click-and-install a wireless card driver just drew a blank look from me (why the hell should I need to edit config files and compile stuff for something so simple?) From my point of view, Ubuntu is pretty much there in terms of basic user friendliness and ease of use, it just needs more drivers and less applications when you first install it. There are some things I find a doddle and far easier than Windows - eg. installing updates - and some very basic things that continue to confuse me - eg. setting VLC as the default video player for all video files - which I'm sure I could figure out eventually but gave up after five minutes as it's not worth my time.