Rewired the whole house (50 years old). I put RJ45 sockets in various rooms, and CAT5 from them to where the fuse box is. Bought a 19" rack case from a music shop, and managed to get a 19" RJ45 patch bay from work that they were going to throw out.
So far, so good. Connecting a hub or switch in is easy, but the question is about the telephone, so here's what I did: I got ISDN. ISDN devices use RJ45 connectors too! They only need 4 of the 8 strands in CAT5, and if you move a phone you can repatch the socket and use it for a computer.
ISDN is a bus system, so unlike ethernet, you can stick a splitter in and plug multiple devices into one socket - same as you would do with power. You can chain sockets together too if you like. The downside is that you need ISDN capable devices. It is possible to get converters for analogue devices, but that might mean you can't use some of the ISDN advanced functionality.
ISDN modems (PCI cards) are well supported on a number of operating systems, including Linux (but check that the chipset is supported). Passive cards are quite cheap now too. You can use your computer as a fax and answering machine. Because it's ISDN, you can have your fax on a different number. (You can tell ISDN devices which numbers not to ignore.)
Of course, this is all dependant on your telephone company offering ISDN as a service. You don't need different physical cables to your home, but they must have an ISDN capable exchange. Depending where you are, ISDN might be unreasonably expensive too. It's not here (Germany); I have an ISDN/DSL combination. Being able to use two different phones AND have Internet all at the same time is useful is you have a family!
I don't know about alternative solutions with cable TV and phone together. Talk to your phone company and other providers to see what they offer.
what about multiplayer? IPX i assume works, if the kernel is set up to use it, or does it do TCP/IP?
I have to admit that I never tried that. Sorry.:-(
There was a bug with running under Wine, where just occasionally the mouse pointer would disappear. Didn't happen often though; you could still click on things, but when you can't see your pointer it's a little difficult.
While I'm here, some other tips:
When I ran it, I had it run in its own X instance, which was set to 640x480; no window manager or anything else needed - X exits when you exit from RA. You'll need a second XF86Config, and a small shell script to help you start everything. I seem to have lost mine (IBM DeskStar died).
You can make actually get the English version of RA working on 2K/XP: make a shortcut on your desktop to the setup.exe on the CD. In the shortcut properties, change the mode to emulate Win98, and then start the setup via the shortcut. You also need to install the updates (on the Counterstrike and Aftermath CDs). After that, it worked fine for me! You may have problems if you have another language - I couldn't get the German version to work using this method.
CnC was not the first RTS in the same way that Doom was not the first 3D shooter. They are both the one that many people remember as leading in the genre.
I think he's right about the decline - at least to a certain extent. Here's my quick summary of the Westwood games as I remembered them:
Command and Conquer Groundbreaking; excellent story, gameplay and music. Very easy to get into. Liked it lots.
Red Alert Prequel to CnC, so the story fits in. Gameplay much the same, but different units (including ships and planes) made it interesting. Excellent music. Decent skirmish mode too (which CnC lacked). Liked it lots.
CnC Tiberian Sun Story continues from CnC, so it fit in (ok, a little stretched, but we'll allow it!). New graphics engine, new units, still interesting. Music didn't kick like the first two. Mild cheesiness, but I still thought it was OK.
RA II Story somewhere between first RA and CnC, but no Kane (some Yuri person instead), so didn't feel quite right. New units, but the cheesiness factor was way up (eg: units all cheer when you complete a mission). Don't remember the music - I was too distracted by all the cheese.
RA II - Yuri's Revenge Still annoyed at having been ripped off last time, so didn't bother with this. Smelled like cheese to me anyway.
CnC Generals By now I was into Team Fortress, so I didn't bother. Still annoyed with them too.
Occasionally, I still fire up Red Alert (which runs just fine under wine). It's still fun. It's certainly nostalgic.
The article didn't talk much about Age of Empires, which for me at least, brought some interesting game play - the different types of units and the whole development concept.
I didn't see Total Anihilation mentioned anywhere, which I found odd. That game took the graphics to new hights, and the gameplay too, with much more in the way of ships, subs and planes than Red Alert. Having a commander and nanolathing were interesting. If you were quick, you could have a transport plane pick up the enemy commander at the beginning of a multiplayer game!
OK, so the basic strategies are much the same, but that's the RTS genre. For me, the decline has not been the lack of new stragies. It's been the lack of new story lines and cool music.. and the addition of cheesey units
It's not so much the cost - it's more the cost effectiveness.
I remember hearing a company say that even with the higher employee costs in Germany, it ends up costing the same as places like South America, because the workers are much more effective.
Germans are certainly good engineers - just look at their cars. Germany also has a strong infrastructure, so things like telecommunications and transport are very reliable, and I'm sure that the German government gave AMD
Of course, the other reason for choosing Dresden must be the good protection it offers from natural disasters, such as flooding...:-)
It's nice - for those living in Germany - that AMD chose to build there. A lot of companies are wanting to get out - due to higher taxation and overbureaucratisation (is that a word?).
There was a port to HP-UX too. I tried it. It sucked. Badly. It couldn't even view local files (no file:/ protocol support). It was never as good as Netscape.
It's a fair bet that they were from the same codebase. It was a hybrid thingy that used the Motif library to display stuff, but had some Windows API emulation underneath, which let them use a lot of the code from the Windows version. I vaguely recall the debug logs referencing c:\usr\local or somesuch.
If you purchased an OEM version of Windows with a system you are *not* allowed to move it to another system regardless of what happens to the original system. This is part of their EULA and it's clear and non-disputable.
You may not be, but I am. The courts have said so. I am allowed to buy an OEM version of Windows completely separately from any hardware, and I can sell it on as I wish. Furthermore, any EULA that is not available prior to purchase is completely null and void.
Of course, I don't think that I live in the same country that you do.
And extra vitamins don't do any harm. See it as a bit of insurance.
Multivitamins != solution
Let me assure you: extra vitamins can be quite harmful. Ever heard of free radicals?
It's not so much that extra vitamins are harmful. It's that taking them separated from their natural environment is bad for you - you need other elements to be able to process the vitamins properly.
Best course of action: plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Except, I sure wish that the PC had a Commodore 64 keyboard and would turn on as soon as I flipped the power switch!
I had a VIC 20 (3583 bytes free!). The 16K RAM pack made a big difference, but actually the screen resolution really was pants - in the multi colour graphics mode the pixels were just too wide. I later got a 64, which was so much better.
One of my machines now is a palmtop. I still think it's amazing that this little thing has orders of magnitude more computing power than my old machines. The graphics certainly are way better, but the both share one feature which rocks: instant on.
Here's another thought: there were a whole load of cool games back then that were relatively simple, but quite addictive. I think the C64 had around 32K of RAM, so the games were tiny by today's standards. I keep wondering when I'll be able to get re-issues for my palmtop (or my phone). I haven't seen any, but paying a small fee for such things would not be out of the question. Maybe nobody makes simple platform games anymore...
Use a valid email address for the ISP you are sending through, and set your "Reply-To" field. You then have a different "From" address, but you can have any email to that address rejected/deleted/ignored. The "Reply-To" thing is quite an old standard - I was using it 10 years ago to let people reply to me when a direct reply wouldn't work (company had no mail routes set up). Most mail programs will support setting "Reply-To".
Do the spam messages occur at regular intervals? You could try turning your voice mail box off for an hour/day/week. The idea being that they call, find no box, and delete your number from the list.
Starting the message with a "disconnected" tone or somesuch might help. This might not work though - if they're using a computer with ISDN technology, the card gets told digitally when the call is disconnected (or rerouted etc).
Have you registered a complaint with your telephone company (mobile provider or whatever)? Even if they refuse to do something, make sure they get a complaint - written is usually best. If enough customers complain about something they will look into it. Find out if their competitors are willing to help, and if they are mention it in your letter. The prospect of losing a customer to a competitor will carry more weight!
If you're new and get killed all the time, you need to get into a scenario where you have better chances. One good way is to play a team-based game where friendly fire is disabled - then half of the players won't be trying to kill you!
Another big factor is ping. My accuracy is much better at 80ms than at 130. Analogue modems really do suck. ISDN is good, as is DSL if your provider hasn't enforced the extra error checking. This is one reason why real LAN gaming is popular - no latency problems.
Try using traceroute to check the number of hops to various servers. It's not the exact same thing as ping response time, but fewer hops are better. The more hops, the more likely you are to have your data rate upset by something else.
Although it has less effect than high ping times, optimising your hardware can help. That doesn't so much mean getting the latest greatest, it means making the most of what you have. I know it doesn't look as good as higher resolutions, but 640x480x16bit may well help. Winmodems (software control/compression etc) also mean a performance hit.
In addition to the already mentioned 5x86 chips, there were in fact also things called the 486DX4. Whereas the DX2 had an internally doubled clock (ran at 66MHz on a 33MHz bus), the DX4 was tripled or quadrupled, depending on whether you had the 100 or the 133 version. I'm pretty sure it was an AMD chip.
I had one, which replaced the DX2/66 I had before. It worked well, but needed a voltage conversion socket and active cooling (ie: a fan), both of which were not required for the DX2.
I think that machine is stacked somewhere in a friend's garage. I stopped using it 4 or 5 years ago when I replaced it with a P-II/350, but the DX4 (and a 32MB SIMM) extended the machine's life long enough that I could do everything I needed to.
I would not necessarily call Philo Taylor Farnsworth the inventor of TV. Electronic TV, yes, along with transmission of TV signals (demonstrated in 1927), but Baird was the first to demonstrate a working "television" - a mechanical device, demonstrated in 1925. Farnsworth's used a scanning technique, much different in design to Baird's.
I think Baird was the first to get colour working (in WW2). There were many others too, such as Zworykin (invented similar things, parallel to Farnsworth), Du Mont (invented the CRT), and Nipkow (invented the scanning disk in 1884, the basis for mechanical TVs).
It's hardly something I'd want to rely on as a primary source of power, but it would definately help on those hot sunny days when everyone is running an air-conditioner.
On a hot sunny day, a solar panel will help you much less than you think. Their efficiency decreases when it gets hot (ie: direct sunlight). On the other side of the scale, solar panels are still quite effective on overcast autumn days.
A normal set of panels on a house roof will generate enough electricity for 3-4 houses during the day. You still have the main grid as your backup, and you can often sell your excess back to the power company. A lot of setups have battery installations, which can run your house at night.
However there is also a widely recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
Of course. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
I wouldn't bother buying one of these if I lived in London! The Thames (at least as far in as London) is a controlled river - all traffic is directed by the habour master (bit like 2D air traffic control), so you can't just zoom up and down the river as you wish. They also limit the amount of traffic, so you might end up having to wait for a slot. There'd be parking to pay for too. All in all, I think the London Underground is a better bet. Chances are you'd have to use it anyway to get from the river to your final destination. None of the other waterways around there are really big enough for such a vehicle.
It comes from the Catholic church misinterpreting a story from the Bible about a guy called Onan. Onan's brother had died, which made it Onan's job to give his brother's widow a family of her own (I think he inherited her as a wife). Onan "spilled his seed on the ground" and that made God angry. The Catholic church will tell you that "spilling seed" is the sin. The rest will say the problem was him denying his brother's wife's right to children.
So, now you know. It's because of that that the Catholic church is against contraception.
Some of the old games from the 8-bit era were updated and brought out again, but not all were really much better, and some were definately worse.
I spent a fair amount of time playing Frontier: First Encounters, which was nearly a really good game. The idea (based on Elite if you don't know it) was good, but the implementation was pretty poor. After the 5th or 6th patch came out, it didn't crash too often, but there were still a number of bugs, which made some missions impossible.
Speaking of which, I always liked the old C64 games Mission Impossible (or was it Impossible Mission?) The graphics were much smoother than other platform games of the time. Elite (the SW house) produced some good games too. I liked Kokotoni Wilf (or whatever ot was called).
Despite much improved graphics and sound, it seems that modern games often lack the simple playablility that the old games had. I don't want to learn loads of button combinations - I just want to play. That said, plenty of the old games were utter pants too.
These days, I'm still playing TFC. It's not the latest and greatest (well, not the latest at least), but I like the gameplay. What is new is NeoTF (no download necessary!). That really rocks.
Well, first off, the link is generally called "Nero Burning ROM", which gives a good impression that it's what you'd want to "burn" a CD-"ROM".
In some languages, ROM is the name of the Italian city you probably know as Rome, which Nero did actually burn down. It's a nice play on words, but there are plenty of people who won't make the link between that and writing data onto an optical disk.
While fraud is a major problem with international sales, the credit card companies are very intent on making it work safely. Eurocard, Mastercard and Visa are working on a common solution for making the cards more secure, involving using a chip on the front (instead of the mag-stripe on the back). The chip can partake in something a bit like an SSL handshake, with which it can identify itself. This makes the cards significantly more difficult to fake, although that doesn't help with remote transactions where the card is not physically available (like over the phone, over the web etc).
While international trade is certainly possible, there aren't many checks in place. A number of years ago, some companies said they would only ship to the cardholder's address. This is a help, but if corrupt customs/postal workers are stealing your packages, you're effectively back to square one. Certain countries are known for this type of behaviour. I would at least like to see an address verification system for retailers, as this would help. If fraud can be significantly reduced, international trade becomes significantly more viable.
For the record, neither of my parents were smokers. I think I might know how I am going to die.
Smoking is apparently the number two cause of cancer; the number one is diet. Eat more fresh vegetables and fruit, and less processed foods full of chemicals, and less meat! Vitamin supplements don't fill the gap. Make sure you know the origin of what you're eating, and when it was harvested etc. Oranges, for example, can be stored for a few years before appearing on the shelves.
The point is not so much that reverse engineering - it's more the whole thing about the EULA. Here's a quote:
The legality of this practice, called reverse engineering, is in question after a lower court found that a software company had violated a shrink-wrapped license contract when it reverse-engineered a competitor's piece of software.
Another quote:
Although the breach of contract ruling applies only to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court's lack of action could embolden other software companies to prohibit reverse engineering or take away other fair use rights allowed under copyright law by including such prohibitions in an end user license agreement, said Karen Copenhaver, a patent and intellectual property lawyer with Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault, of Boston.
.. and another:
The impact of the case, said Copenhaver, is that end user license agreements could become more restrictive. "Saying you can reserve that [reverse engineering prohibition] in a shrink-wrap license is saying a company can put virtually anything in a shrink-wrap," Copenhaver said. "Now there are very few limitations on what people will try to put on a shrink-wrap."
The EULA terms are unavailable at the time of purchase, so you might be buying software you can't even use! This was the reason that Germany decided that such licences are not legally binding (which avoids the other problem entirely). What other rights will they to take away from us?
Does the US have a concept of inalienable rights? (i.e. rights that can't be taken away, for those who don't speak such good English) Even if reverse engineering is not inalienable, I'd be trying to show that the buyer was forced to give legal rights, without being able to find out about it before purchasing.
Slashdot Mirror
Rewired the whole house (50 years old). I put RJ45 sockets in various rooms, and CAT5 from them to where the fuse box is. Bought a 19" rack case from a music shop, and managed to get a 19" RJ45 patch bay from work that they were going to throw out.
So far, so good. Connecting a hub or switch in is easy, but the question is about the telephone, so here's what I did: I got ISDN. ISDN devices use RJ45 connectors too! They only need 4 of the 8 strands in CAT5, and if you move a phone you can repatch the socket and use it for a computer.
ISDN is a bus system, so unlike ethernet, you can stick a splitter in and plug multiple devices into one socket - same as you would do with power. You can chain sockets together too if you like. The downside is that you need ISDN capable devices. It is possible to get converters for analogue devices, but that might mean you can't use some of the ISDN advanced functionality.
ISDN modems (PCI cards) are well supported on a number of operating systems, including Linux (but check that the chipset is supported). Passive cards are quite cheap now too. You can use your computer as a fax and answering machine. Because it's ISDN, you can have your fax on a different number. (You can tell ISDN devices which numbers not to ignore.)
Of course, this is all dependant on your telephone company offering ISDN as a service. You don't need different physical cables to your home, but they must have an ISDN capable exchange. Depending where you are, ISDN might be unreasonably expensive too. It's not here (Germany); I have an ISDN/DSL combination. Being able to use two different phones AND have Internet all at the same time is useful is you have a family!
I don't know about alternative solutions with cable TV and phone together. Talk to your phone company and other providers to see what they offer.
-- Steve
what about multiplayer? IPX i assume works, if the kernel is set up to use it, or does it do TCP/IP?
I have to admit that I never tried that. Sorry. :-(
There was a bug with running under Wine, where just occasionally the mouse pointer would disappear. Didn't happen often though; you could still click on things, but when you can't see your pointer it's a little difficult.
While I'm here, some other tips:
When I ran it, I had it run in its own X instance, which was set to 640x480; no window manager or anything else needed - X exits when you exit from RA. You'll need a second XF86Config, and a small shell script to help you start everything. I seem to have lost mine (IBM DeskStar died).
You can make actually get the English version of RA working on 2K/XP: make a shortcut on your desktop to the setup.exe on the CD. In the shortcut properties, change the mode to emulate Win98, and then start the setup via the shortcut. You also need to install the updates (on the Counterstrike and Aftermath CDs). After that, it worked fine for me! You may have problems if you have another language - I couldn't get the German version to work using this method.
-- Steve
CnC was not the first RTS in the same way that Doom was not the first 3D shooter. They are both the one that many people remember as leading in the genre.
I think he's right about the decline - at least to a certain extent. Here's my quick summary of the Westwood games as I remembered them:
Groundbreaking; excellent story, gameplay and music. Very easy to get into. Liked it lots.
Prequel to CnC, so the story fits in. Gameplay much the same, but different units (including ships and planes) made it interesting. Excellent music. Decent skirmish mode too (which CnC lacked). Liked it lots.
Story continues from CnC, so it fit in (ok, a little stretched, but we'll allow it!). New graphics engine, new units, still interesting. Music didn't kick like the first two. Mild cheesiness, but I still thought it was OK.
Story somewhere between first RA and CnC, but no Kane (some Yuri person instead), so didn't feel quite right. New units, but the cheesiness factor was way up (eg: units all cheer when you complete a mission). Don't remember the music - I was too distracted by all the cheese.
Still annoyed at having been ripped off last time, so didn't bother with this. Smelled like cheese to me anyway.
By now I was into Team Fortress, so I didn't bother. Still annoyed with them too.
Occasionally, I still fire up Red Alert (which runs just fine under wine). It's still fun. It's certainly nostalgic.
The article didn't talk much about Age of Empires, which for me at least, brought some interesting game play - the different types of units and the whole development concept.
I didn't see Total Anihilation mentioned anywhere, which I found odd. That game took the graphics to new hights, and the gameplay too, with much more in the way of ships, subs and planes than Red Alert. Having a commander and nanolathing were interesting. If you were quick, you could have a transport plane pick up the enemy commander at the beginning of a multiplayer game!
OK, so the basic strategies are much the same, but that's the RTS genre. For me, the decline has not been the lack of new stragies. It's been the lack of new story lines and cool music.. and the addition of cheesey units
-- Steve
and I'm sure that the German government gave AMD
... an incentive.
Note to self: don't get involved in long discussions in the middle of writing a post.
-- Steve
It's not so much the cost - it's more the cost effectiveness.
I remember hearing a company say that even with the higher employee costs in Germany, it ends up costing the same as places like South America, because the workers are much more effective.
Germans are certainly good engineers - just look at their cars. Germany also has a strong infrastructure, so things like telecommunications and transport are very reliable, and I'm sure that the German government gave AMD
Of course, the other reason for choosing Dresden must be the good protection it offers from natural disasters, such as flooding... :-)
It's nice - for those living in Germany - that AMD chose to build there. A lot of companies are wanting to get out - due to higher taxation and overbureaucratisation (is that a word?).
-- Steve
There was a Solaris (SPARC) port.
There was a port to HP-UX too. I tried it. It sucked. Badly. It couldn't even view local files (no file:/ protocol support). It was never as good as Netscape.
It's a fair bet that they were from the same codebase. It was a hybrid thingy that used the Motif library to display stuff, but had some Windows API emulation underneath, which let them use a lot of the code from the Windows version. I vaguely recall the debug logs referencing c:\usr\local or somesuch.
-- Steve
If you purchased an OEM version of Windows with a system you are *not* allowed to move it to another system regardless of what happens to the original system. This is part of their EULA and it's clear and non-disputable.
You may not be, but I am. The courts have said so. I am allowed to buy an OEM version of Windows completely separately from any hardware, and I can sell it on as I wish. Furthermore, any EULA that is not available prior to purchase is completely null and void.
Of course, I don't think that I live in the same country that you do.
-- Steve
And extra vitamins don't do any harm. See it as a bit of insurance.
Multivitamins != solution
Let me assure you: extra vitamins can be quite harmful. Ever heard of free radicals?
It's not so much that extra vitamins are harmful. It's that taking them separated from their natural environment is bad for you - you need other elements to be able to process the vitamins properly.
Best course of action: plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
-- Steve
There's supposed to be an umlaut (two dots) over the "a". OK, so Slashdot is broken and you can't use them, but there's still the alternate form:
Don't forget - it doesn't rhyme with "brow". It's pronounced like "broy". If you're going to use foreign words, use them properly!
Except, I sure wish that the PC had a Commodore 64 keyboard and would turn on as soon as I flipped the power switch!
I had a VIC 20 (3583 bytes free!). The 16K RAM pack made a big difference, but actually the screen resolution really was pants - in the multi colour graphics mode the pixels were just too wide. I later got a 64, which was so much better.
One of my machines now is a palmtop. I still think it's amazing that this little thing has orders of magnitude more computing power than my old machines. The graphics certainly are way better, but the both share one feature which rocks: instant on.
Here's another thought: there were a whole load of cool games back then that were relatively simple, but quite addictive. I think the C64 had around 32K of RAM, so the games were tiny by today's standards. I keep wondering when I'll be able to get re-issues for my palmtop (or my phone). I haven't seen any, but paying a small fee for such things would not be out of the question. Maybe nobody makes simple platform games anymore...
-- Steve
Another possibility:
Use a valid email address for the ISP you are sending through, and set your "Reply-To" field. You then have a different "From" address, but you can have any email to that address rejected/deleted/ignored. The "Reply-To" thing is quite an old standard - I was using it 10 years ago to let people reply to me when a direct reply wouldn't work (company had no mail routes set up). Most mail programs will support setting "Reply-To".
-- Steve
Do the spam messages occur at regular intervals? You could try turning your voice mail box off for an hour/day/week. The idea being that they call, find no box, and delete your number from the list.
Starting the message with a "disconnected" tone or somesuch might help. This might not work though - if they're using a computer with ISDN technology, the card gets told digitally when the call is disconnected (or rerouted etc).
Have you registered a complaint with your telephone company (mobile provider or whatever)? Even if they refuse to do something, make sure they get a complaint - written is usually best. If enough customers complain about something they will look into it. Find out if their competitors are willing to help, and if they are mention it in your letter. The prospect of losing a customer to a competitor will carry more weight!
-- Steve
If you're new and get killed all the time, you need to get into a scenario where you have better chances. One good way is to play a team-based game where friendly fire is disabled - then half of the players won't be trying to kill you!
Another big factor is ping. My accuracy is much better at 80ms than at 130. Analogue modems really do suck. ISDN is good, as is DSL if your provider hasn't enforced the extra error checking. This is one reason why real LAN gaming is popular - no latency problems.
Try using traceroute to check the number of hops to various servers. It's not the exact same thing as ping response time, but fewer hops are better. The more hops, the more likely you are to have your data rate upset by something else.
Although it has less effect than high ping times, optimising your hardware can help. That doesn't so much mean getting the latest greatest, it means making the most of what you have. I know it doesn't look as good as higher resolutions, but 640x480x16bit may well help. Winmodems (software control/compression etc) also mean a performance hit.
-- Steve
In addition to the already mentioned 5x86 chips, there were in fact also things called the 486DX4. Whereas the DX2 had an internally doubled clock (ran at 66MHz on a 33MHz bus), the DX4 was tripled or quadrupled, depending on whether you had the 100 or the 133 version. I'm pretty sure it was an AMD chip.
I had one, which replaced the DX2/66 I had before. It worked well, but needed a voltage conversion socket and active cooling (ie: a fan), both of which were not required for the DX2.
I think that machine is stacked somewhere in a friend's garage. I stopped using it 4 or 5 years ago when I replaced it with a P-II/350, but the DX4 (and a 32MB SIMM) extended the machine's life long enough that I could do everything I needed to.
-- Steve
I would not necessarily call Philo Taylor Farnsworth the inventor of TV. Electronic TV, yes, along with transmission of TV signals (demonstrated in 1927), but Baird was the first to demonstrate a working "television" - a mechanical device, demonstrated in 1925. Farnsworth's used a scanning technique, much different in design to Baird's.
I think Baird was the first to get colour working (in WW2). There were many others too, such as Zworykin (invented similar things, parallel to Farnsworth), Du Mont (invented the CRT), and Nipkow (invented the scanning disk in 1884, the basis for mechanical TVs).
More info here and here.
-- Steve
It's hardly something I'd want to rely on as a primary source of power, but it would definately help on those hot sunny days when everyone is running an air-conditioner.
On a hot sunny day, a solar panel will help you much less than you think. Their efficiency decreases when it gets hot (ie: direct sunlight). On the other side of the scale, solar panels are still quite effective on overcast autumn days.
A normal set of panels on a house roof will generate enough electricity for 3-4 houses during the day. You still have the main grid as your backup, and you can often sell your excess back to the power company. A lot of setups have battery installations, which can run your house at night.
-- Steve
However there is also a widely recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
Of course. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
-- Steve
I wouldn't bother buying one of these if I lived in London! The Thames (at least as far in as London) is a controlled river - all traffic is directed by the habour master (bit like 2D air traffic control), so you can't just zoom up and down the river as you wish. They also limit the amount of traffic, so you might end up having to wait for a slot. There'd be parking to pay for too. All in all, I think the London Underground is a better bet. Chances are you'd have to use it anyway to get from the river to your final destination. None of the other waterways around there are really big enough for such a vehicle.
-- Steve
I've never understood where this idea comes from.
It comes from the Catholic church misinterpreting a story from the Bible about a guy called Onan. Onan's brother had died, which made it Onan's job to give his brother's widow a family of her own (I think he inherited her as a wife). Onan "spilled his seed on the ground" and that made God angry. The Catholic church will tell you that "spilling seed" is the sin. The rest will say the problem was him denying his brother's wife's right to children.
So, now you know. It's because of that that the Catholic church is against contraception.
-- Steve
Some of the old games from the 8-bit era were updated and brought out again, but not all were really much better, and some were definately worse.
I spent a fair amount of time playing Frontier: First Encounters, which was nearly a really good game. The idea (based on Elite if you don't know it) was good, but the implementation was pretty poor. After the 5th or 6th patch came out, it didn't crash too often, but there were still a number of bugs, which made some missions impossible.
Speaking of which, I always liked the old C64 games Mission Impossible (or was it Impossible Mission?) The graphics were much smoother than other platform games of the time. Elite (the SW house) produced some good games too. I liked Kokotoni Wilf (or whatever ot was called).
Despite much improved graphics and sound, it seems that modern games often lack the simple playablility that the old games had. I don't want to learn loads of button combinations - I just want to play. That said, plenty of the old games were utter pants too.
These days, I'm still playing TFC. It's not the latest and greatest (well, not the latest at least), but I like the gameplay. What is new is NeoTF (no download necessary!). That really rocks.
-- Steve
Well, first off, the link is generally called "Nero Burning ROM", which gives a good impression that it's what you'd want to "burn" a CD-"ROM".
In some languages, ROM is the name of the Italian city you probably know as Rome, which Nero did actually burn down. It's a nice play on words, but there are plenty of people who won't make the link between that and writing data onto an optical disk.
-- Steve
Anyone else packing up their things and moving to Germany? ;)
Already here! :-)
Somethings to whet your appetite:
-- Steve
While fraud is a major problem with international sales, the credit card companies are very intent on making it work safely. Eurocard, Mastercard and Visa are working on a common solution for making the cards more secure, involving using a chip on the front (instead of the mag-stripe on the back). The chip can partake in something a bit like an SSL handshake, with which it can identify itself. This makes the cards significantly more difficult to fake, although that doesn't help with remote transactions where the card is not physically available (like over the phone, over the web etc).
While international trade is certainly possible, there aren't many checks in place. A number of years ago, some companies said they would only ship to the cardholder's address. This is a help, but if corrupt customs/postal workers are stealing your packages, you're effectively back to square one. Certain countries are known for this type of behaviour. I would at least like to see an address verification system for retailers, as this would help. If fraud can be significantly reduced, international trade becomes significantly more viable.
-- Steve
For the record, neither of my parents were smokers. I think I might know how I am going to die.
Smoking is apparently the number two cause of cancer; the number one is diet. Eat more fresh vegetables and fruit, and less processed foods full of chemicals, and less meat! Vitamin supplements don't fill the gap. Make sure you know the origin of what you're eating, and when it was harvested etc. Oranges, for example, can be stored for a few years before appearing on the shelves.
-- Steve
The point is not so much that reverse engineering - it's more the whole thing about the EULA. Here's a quote:
The legality of this practice, called reverse engineering, is in question after a lower court found that a software company had violated a shrink-wrapped license contract when it reverse-engineered a competitor's piece of software.
Another quote:
Although the breach of contract ruling applies only to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court's lack of action could embolden other software companies to prohibit reverse engineering or take away other fair use rights allowed under copyright law by including such prohibitions in an end user license agreement, said Karen Copenhaver, a patent and intellectual property lawyer with Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault, of Boston.
.. and another:
The impact of the case, said Copenhaver, is that end user license agreements could become more restrictive. "Saying you can reserve that [reverse engineering prohibition] in a shrink-wrap license is saying a company can put virtually anything in a shrink-wrap," Copenhaver said. "Now there are very few limitations on what people will try to put on a shrink-wrap."
The EULA terms are unavailable at the time of purchase, so you might be buying software you can't even use! This was the reason that Germany decided that such licences are not legally binding (which avoids the other problem entirely). What other rights will they to take away from us?
Does the US have a concept of inalienable rights? (i.e. rights that can't be taken away, for those who don't speak such good English) Even if reverse engineering is not inalienable, I'd be trying to show that the buyer was forced to give legal rights, without being able to find out about it before purchasing.
-- Steve