..is British (from Stafford), and not a bad drummer. Don't know if he still plays. My then drummer had bought his kit off him. Apple nabbed him in the very early nineties (or possibly the late eighties even), and dragged him off to the US. Prior to Apple, he was working for a design studio, in London I think.
No, it assumes Apple thinks EULAs are valid contracts, which it's pretty safe to assume they do.
Actually, in this country, EULAs are legally non-binding, according to the courts, as they're post-sale (and not known beforehand). Apple can think they're valid as much as it likes, but it can't do a thing about it.
Simply connecting things together wil not necessarily cause a ground loop problem, but connecting devices on different power loops probably will. Houses will generally have different loops for different floors (each with its own fuse), and quite possibly different loops for different rooms on the same floor.
If you do any PA work outside, you'll realise how easy it is to get a ground loop - it can literally be quite shocking! Although we had a generator, we would wire earth to a foot long copper spike, which was hammered into the ground behind the stage.
Another thing I've found: check your power cables, especially the connections inside the plugs, as these can come loose with time.
For instance, a Porsche can fly down the highway, but its engine has insufficent power to tow a 5th wheel RV.
Actually, with a few hundred bhp, the Porsche in not lacking in power. Consider this though: if I had a large van, I could transport my sofa all in one go. My Golf doesn't have the space, so I'd have to break up the sofa and make the trip more than once.
If you don't need to transport a sofa, you might as well stick with the Golf, as both go the same speed.
I'm in Germany, and was going to write about IDSN and DSL, but given that everybody and their dog has already done that, here's some other advice:
Beaurocracy!
Lots of it. You need the right piece of paper with the right stamp on it, or things don't happen. Probably the worst thing about Germany, this.
Learn German!
Yes, lots of them do speak English, but that's no reason for being lazy. As soon as you have to do anything important, you'll probably find yourself needing to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English. A little German will go a long way, especially in terms of the impression you make.
Get your lane discipline sorted.
Cruise on the right, overtake on the left, and then move back to the right. If there's a BMW behind you flashing his lights, don't worry too much - BMW drivers are like that. If it's some other make of car, you're going to slow - get out of that lane! They make nice cars in Stuttgart, by the way.
Watch out for speed cameras
They take your photo from the front, so there's no "it wasn't me" excuses. There are both stationary cameras on posts and mobile units (hidden in hedges or wherever). More than 30km/h over the limit can result in a 1 month driving ban.
Watch your speed on the Autobahn
Not all of the Autobahn has no speed limit. Where there is one, it's clearly marked. Where there isn't one, enjoy yourself! Be aware that having no speed limit doesn't often help, due to the volume of traffic (and the guy three cars ahead, going way too slow in the overtaking lane).
Most bottles have a deposit on them
So take them back to the supermarket. Germans like to buy drinks by the crate. Look for a "Getränkemarkt" if you're thirsty.
German beer is stronger than US beer
Purity laws and all that. The lack of nasty chemicals means you can get hammered and not have a major hangover next morning. Make sure you get to the world's biggest Fest - the Oktoberfest in München (not called Munich on Germany!), or the second biggest - the Volksfest in Stuttgart. If you want an English-speaking pub, look for an "Irish Pub". It's a chain (I think). There are quite a lot now; they stock Guiness too.
There are no Reeses Pieces
If you find somewhere that sells them, post it on Slashdot:-)
Not as many really fat people
This one will only hit you when you go back to the US...
this case would be in the UK, where click through licenses are not valid anyway [...]
That's not quite the entire truth. The click-through licence is not invalid because it's a click-through licence. The problem is that the customer is able to buy the software (which closes the deal) without seeing or agreeing to any terms first.
I read today (albeit about German law, but it might well be the same in the UK) that even a notice on the outside of the box saying you must agree to an EULA is not enough to make the EULA legitimate.
Furthermore, there are legitimate questions as to whether clicking something may represent contractual agreement. What if someone under 18 (who can't legally be bound by many such contracts) clicked it? There's no proof who clicked something - a signature shows who the signer was; it could be forged but that's what witnesses are for. There's also the problem of pre-installed (ie: pre-clicked) software...
Plenty of people have pointed out that 1000W PMPO is irrelevant, but I will tell you that the total of 505W RMS doesn't mean that much either - at least without other information.
What I want to know is: how many decibels @ 1W, 1m? I have a pair of speakers which are 200W each, and I bet they're louder! There's also the harmonic dirstortion - will the system start flattening out sine waves when it gets near the maximum output level?
Here's another thing: the quoted range for the system is 35Hz - 20kHz, but they don't specify the frequency deviation. If it's more than +/- 3dB, then it's going to start sounding uneven.
Someone asked about the difference between good speakers and bad ones. Here's a couple:
more volume per Watt (cheap speakers are not so efficient)
flatter frequency curve
frequency curve doesn't change with volume
That last one is something I really appreciate with my speakers. Try this: turn your speakers up to a good volume, good pumping bass etc. Then turn them right down - can you still hear the bass? On cheapers systems that'll disappear quicker than the higher frequencies. Good speakers will "kick" without being intrusive.
Even with the source readily available, there are plenty of old guys in the English-speaking world who won't want German software near their networks.
These are the same people who like to drive Mercedes cars - or Porsche even! (OT: see that Carrera GT3? Mmmmmm!) While there are a few old guys who still think that Germans are Nazis and Hitler is in charge, most everybody else has recognised German engineering for what it is: second to none. I'm not a German, but I drive a German car!
If Sun had used KDE, the desktop would tie back to a German group.
I've heard rumours that StarOffice is still being developed by Germans. KDE was started by a German, but has long since been an international effort. By that reasoning, GNOME would be Mexican, right?
It's only important to (some) Americans that something was developed by Americans. Some Americans can very very prejudiced and racist, and it's this attitude that make certain other parts of the world prefer products which have not been touched by Americans! The rest of us don't care who made something, as long as it works.
The article description clearly says "it runs on Linux" and not that Linux runs on the robot. Must be a virtual robot, if it runs on Linux. I wonder if someone's ported it to BSD/Mac/Win/my fridge...
I can understand him wanting to kill genuinly malicious processes on other peoples' machines. I would want to too. My problem is that it's open to abuse. Who decides what malicious processes are? What if a malicious person starts using this to kill other processes?
There's also the whole legal kettle of fish. AFAIK, killing processes on someone else's machine is illegal. Even if the US government passed laws allowing such actions (which I think unlikely), you can guarantee that major parts of the rest of the planet wouldn't, which in turn could land people in hot water...
As has already said, I think the best course of action is that the ISP be held responsible for terminating the network connection of any machine behaving maliciously (mbm), which means that nobody messes with the mbm itself. It's legally, and IMO ethically, much safer, but you'd still need to define precisely what malicious behaviour is, eg: just because a server is sending lots of data to one IP address doesn't make it malicious.
So, I was looking out of the window at the traffic down below, and I've come to the following conclusion: tune your car all you want. They all wait at the lights at the same speed!
OK, I know... racing tracks, Autobahn etc. I've noticed that most cars seem to be capped at 250-270 km/h (155-170 mph). Mine certainly is, but that's actually fast enough for me. I don't drag race - if anything, I end up sitting in a jam on the Autobahn, at the same speed as everyone else - zero (see first paragraph). So much for having no speed limits.:-(
Now for something completely different: Audi is taking the record industry to court.
It seems that customers have complained that certain CDs won't play in their cars, and Audi wants the record companies to pay to have the car CD players fixed/changed, as they are producing non-standard CDs.
I heard that two days ago from an employee of said company. It must have been an internal announcement; haven't found anything on the web about it yet...
1 - not legal. The EULA specifically says it's legally bound to the hardware it was bought with
Not legal for whom, precisely? It's explicitly legal where I live (Germany). There was a court decision not too long ago, saying that Microsoft have no right to restrict the way in which OEMs resell copies of Windows; what they write in the licence is not above the law of the land. I'd go so far as to say this (unrestricted reselling) is probably the case for the rest of the EU.
I just looked in ebay.de and found OEM versions of XP for sale, so it doesn't look like Ebay is killing those auctions.
On a related note: you will see more and more recovery CDs. Although you may be able to sell them as you want, people generally aren't interested in buying them.
They copied the Harry Enfield ad in Germany, and re-did it with German actors. While the original was good, the German version wasn't funny at all. Go figure.
Like most others, I don't use the floppy except for installing network card drivers or doing BIOS upgrades. I wouldn't mind if it went - as long as I get a reasonable rewritable alternative. If ZIP or LS-120 drives and media were reasonably priced, I'd be plenty happy. The idea somebody had about compact flash cards was a good one. Whatever the media, the BIOS must be able to boot from it.
Killing other things like PS/2 keyboard/mouse connectors isn't so bad; I would like to see a USB keyboard with a 1-port USB hub in it for the mouse. Actually, make that more than 1 port, then I can plug in a USB to serial adaptor for my palmtop. Then I can get rid of any serial/parallel ports I don't need. All in all I get at least 3 IRQs freed up.
Actually, having said that, I must say that a PS/2 mouse is more responsive than a USB one - at least on my system. I don't know if that's a software or a hardware problem though.
dont need to worry about tri-band phones or which carrier offers what network where, i just/will/ have coverage. hate to state the obvious, but what use is a mobile phone if you cant use it?
I have a German phone (GSM 900/1800); I've used it up in the UK and Scandinavia, down in Italy and Croatia, and all the countries in between.
It's not just Europe. My phone worked just fine in the Middle East and in Africa too! Consider this - in the middle of some African desert, I get max signal strength! (SA and Namibia)
I think the only continents where I can't reliably use my phone are America and Antarctica!:-)
If anyone wants an HP laptop, they can buy them from Dell... the main difference is that they're black and have a Dell badge on them, but that's about is. They're all made by another company.
It still rocks! No need to spend big bucks for the latest games. You should be able to pick up a bargain-priced copy of HL - if you're lucky with Opposing Force and maybe even Blue Shift. HL is still (IMO) the best single-player experience that ever happened.
Download the latest patch and you become part of the biggest online gaming community. Team Fortress Classic and Counter Strike are included in the patch, and are the most well known, but there are others. See Planet Half-Life for more mods/skins/levels/cheese.
Another FPS which had a good immersive story line was Who Wants To Live Forever. More tongue-in-cheek than violent. Shouldn't be too expensive now either.
Other classics would be the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert. Tiberian Sun wasn't bad, but RA2 was pure cheese.
Also worth a mention: Total Annihilation (along with expansion packs Core Contingency and Battle Tactics), and Age of Empires II. I liked those.
The game I play the most: TFC (online of course). I'm looking forward to TFC2.
Go with MiniDisc. Even the portable MD players have optical in. There are soundcards available with optical I/O, which enables you to record onto MD digitally. (Lots of HiFi CD players have optical out now, so you can use that if your CD-ROM can't play a CD.)
If you want to record MD -> PC digitally, you'll need a MD player with digital out, but these are readily available (often with both optical and co-ax).
You can get a MD/Radio for your car. Some are expensive (eg: DM1500 or $750), but there are others (eg: the Kenwood for DM450). The disks are smaller than cassettes and aren't that expensive. I can get a pack of 5 74Min Sony disks for DM15 ($7.50).
BTW: I recently got the Sony CD/MD combo which will record CD->MD at 4x speed. Works very nicely. Tip for anyone in Germany: it was cheaper at www.thomann.de.
Slashdot Mirror
..is British (from Stafford), and not a bad drummer. Don't know if he still plays. My then drummer had bought his kit off him. Apple nabbed him in the very early nineties (or possibly the late eighties even), and dragged him off to the US. Prior to Apple, he was working for a design studio, in London I think.
-- Steve
If you're in Germany, you can get one for free! The ISP 1&1 is giving away the 32MB version when you sign up for DSL. The offer ends in a week.
Some features it lists:
Although it doesn't say so, it is the Laks watch that they are offering. Personally, I preferred the combo DSL/ISDN PCI card that 1&1 used to offer.
-- Steve
Fish? You mean women are using this thing?
No. Laks (or Lachs) translates as salmon, in at least one European language. <><
-- Steve
No, it assumes Apple thinks EULAs are valid contracts, which it's pretty safe to assume they do.
Actually, in this country, EULAs are legally non-binding, according to the courts, as they're post-sale (and not known beforehand). Apple can think they're valid as much as it likes, but it can't do a thing about it.
This country, by the way, is Germany.
-- Steve
Simply connecting things together wil not necessarily cause a ground loop problem, but connecting devices on different power loops probably will. Houses will generally have different loops for different floors (each with its own fuse), and quite possibly different loops for different rooms on the same floor.
If you do any PA work outside, you'll realise how easy it is to get a ground loop - it can literally be quite shocking! Although we had a generator, we would wire earth to a foot long copper spike, which was hammered into the ground behind the stage.
Another thing I've found: check your power cables, especially the connections inside the plugs, as these can come loose with time.
-- Steve
Slackware is closing down.
Patrick is abandoning it for a superior distribution going by the name of SLS...
-- Steve
Wouldn't that be "midnight last night" ????
Is Slashdot messing with the time-space continuum? (Maybe that's why meteor-sized VW bugs are flying throught the sky)
Someone had better explain this concept to me...
-- Steve
For instance, a Porsche can fly down the highway, but its engine has insufficent power to tow a 5th wheel RV.
Actually, with a few hundred bhp, the Porsche in not lacking in power. Consider this though: if I had a large van, I could transport my sofa all in one go. My Golf doesn't have the space, so I'd have to break up the sofa and make the trip more than once.
If you don't need to transport a sofa, you might as well stick with the Golf, as both go the same speed.
-- Steve
I'm in Germany, and was going to write about IDSN and DSL, but given that everybody and their dog has already done that, here's some other advice:
Beaurocracy!
Lots of it. You need the right piece of paper with the right stamp on it, or things don't happen. Probably the worst thing about Germany, this.
Learn German!
Yes, lots of them do speak English, but that's no reason for being lazy. As soon as you have to do anything important, you'll probably find yourself needing to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English. A little German will go a long way, especially in terms of the impression you make.
Get your lane discipline sorted.
Cruise on the right, overtake on the left, and then move back to the right. If there's a BMW behind you flashing his lights, don't worry too much - BMW drivers are like that. If it's some other make of car, you're going to slow - get out of that lane! They make nice cars in Stuttgart, by the way.
Watch out for speed cameras
They take your photo from the front, so there's no "it wasn't me" excuses. There are both stationary cameras on posts and mobile units (hidden in hedges or wherever). More than 30km/h over the limit can result in a 1 month driving ban.
Watch your speed on the Autobahn
Not all of the Autobahn has no speed limit. Where there is one, it's clearly marked. Where there isn't one, enjoy yourself! Be aware that having no speed limit doesn't often help, due to the volume of traffic (and the guy three cars ahead, going way too slow in the overtaking lane).
Most bottles have a deposit on them
So take them back to the supermarket. Germans like to buy drinks by the crate. Look for a "Getränkemarkt" if you're thirsty.
German beer is stronger than US beer
Purity laws and all that. The lack of nasty chemicals means you can get hammered and not have a major hangover next morning. Make sure you get to the world's biggest Fest - the Oktoberfest in München (not called Munich on Germany!), or the second biggest - the Volksfest in Stuttgart. If you want an English-speaking pub, look for an "Irish Pub". It's a chain (I think). There are quite a lot now; they stock Guiness too.
There are no Reeses Pieces
If you find somewhere that sells them, post it on Slashdot :-)
Not as many really fat people
This one will only hit you when you go back to the US...
this case would be in the UK, where click through licenses are not valid anyway [...]
That's not quite the entire truth. The click-through licence is not invalid because it's a click-through licence. The problem is that the customer is able to buy the software (which closes the deal) without seeing or agreeing to any terms first.
I read today (albeit about German law, but it might well be the same in the UK) that even a notice on the outside of the box saying you must agree to an EULA is not enough to make the EULA legitimate.
Furthermore, there are legitimate questions as to whether clicking something may represent contractual agreement. What if someone under 18 (who can't legally be bound by many such contracts) clicked it? There's no proof who clicked something - a signature shows who the signer was; it could be forged but that's what witnesses are for. There's also the problem of pre-installed (ie: pre-clicked) software...
-- Steve
Plenty of people have pointed out that 1000W PMPO is irrelevant, but I will tell you that the total of 505W RMS doesn't mean that much either - at least without other information.
What I want to know is: how many decibels @ 1W, 1m? I have a pair of speakers which are 200W each, and I bet they're louder! There's also the harmonic dirstortion - will the system start flattening out sine waves when it gets near the maximum output level?
Here's another thing: the quoted range for the system is 35Hz - 20kHz, but they don't specify the frequency deviation. If it's more than +/- 3dB, then it's going to start sounding uneven.
Someone asked about the difference between good speakers and bad ones. Here's a couple:
That last one is something I really appreciate with my speakers. Try this: turn your speakers up to a good volume, good pumping bass etc. Then turn them right down - can you still hear the bass? On cheapers systems that'll disappear quicker than the higher frequencies. Good speakers will "kick" without being intrusive.
-- Steve
Even with the source readily available, there are plenty of old guys in the English-speaking world who won't want German software near their networks.
These are the same people who like to drive Mercedes cars - or Porsche even! (OT: see that Carrera GT3? Mmmmmm!) While there are a few old guys who still think that Germans are Nazis and Hitler is in charge, most everybody else has recognised German engineering for what it is: second to none. I'm not a German, but I drive a German car!
If Sun had used KDE, the desktop would tie back to a German group.
I've heard rumours that StarOffice is still being developed by Germans. KDE was started by a German, but has long since been an international effort. By that reasoning, GNOME would be Mexican, right?
It's only important to (some) Americans that something was developed by Americans. Some Americans can very very prejudiced and racist, and it's this attitude that make certain other parts of the world prefer products which have not been touched by Americans! The rest of us don't care who made something, as long as it works.
-- Steve
The article description clearly says "it runs on Linux" and not that Linux runs on the robot. Must be a virtual robot, if it runs on Linux. I wonder if someone's ported it to BSD/Mac/Win/my fridge...
I can understand him wanting to kill genuinly malicious processes on other peoples' machines. I would want to too. My problem is that it's open to abuse. Who decides what malicious processes are? What if a malicious person starts using this to kill other processes?
There's also the whole legal kettle of fish. AFAIK, killing processes on someone else's machine is illegal. Even if the US government passed laws allowing such actions (which I think unlikely), you can guarantee that major parts of the rest of the planet wouldn't, which in turn could land people in hot water...
As has already said, I think the best course of action is that the ISP be held responsible for terminating the network connection of any machine behaving maliciously (mbm), which means that nobody messes with the mbm itself. It's legally, and IMO ethically, much safer, but you'd still need to define precisely what malicious behaviour is, eg: just because a server is sending lots of data to one IP address doesn't make it malicious.
-- Steve
So, I was looking out of the window at the traffic down below, and I've come to the following conclusion: tune your car all you want. They all wait at the lights at the same speed!
OK, I know... racing tracks, Autobahn etc. I've noticed that most cars seem to be capped at 250-270 km/h (155-170 mph). Mine certainly is, but that's actually fast enough for me. I don't drag race - if anything, I end up sitting in a jam on the Autobahn, at the same speed as everyone else - zero (see first paragraph). So much for having no speed limits. :-(
Now for something completely different: Audi is taking the record industry to court.
It seems that customers have complained that certain CDs won't play in their cars, and Audi wants the record companies to pay to have the car CD players fixed/changed, as they are producing non-standard CDs.
I heard that two days ago from an employee of said company. It must have been an internal announcement; haven't found anything on the web about it yet...
-- Steve
1 - not legal. The EULA specifically says it's legally bound to the hardware it was bought with
Not legal for whom, precisely? It's explicitly legal where I live (Germany). There was a court decision not too long ago, saying that Microsoft have no right to restrict the way in which OEMs resell copies of Windows; what they write in the licence is not above the law of the land. I'd go so far as to say this (unrestricted reselling) is probably the case for the rest of the EU.
I just looked in ebay.de and found OEM versions of XP for sale, so it doesn't look like Ebay is killing those auctions.
On a related note: you will see more and more recovery CDs. Although you may be able to sell them as you want, people generally aren't interested in buying them.
-- Steve
No, No.
It should be: Phönix!
-- Steve
They copied the Harry Enfield ad in Germany, and re-did it with German actors. While the original was good, the German version wasn't funny at all. Go figure.
-- Steve
Like most others, I don't use the floppy except for installing network card drivers or doing BIOS upgrades. I wouldn't mind if it went - as long as I get a reasonable rewritable alternative. If ZIP or LS-120 drives and media were reasonably priced, I'd be plenty happy. The idea somebody had about compact flash cards was a good one. Whatever the media, the BIOS must be able to boot from it.
Killing other things like PS/2 keyboard/mouse connectors isn't so bad; I would like to see a USB keyboard with a 1-port USB hub in it for the mouse. Actually, make that more than 1 port, then I can plug in a USB to serial adaptor for my palmtop. Then I can get rid of any serial/parallel ports I don't need. All in all I get at least 3 IRQs freed up.
Actually, having said that, I must say that a PS/2 mouse is more responsive than a USB one - at least on my system. I don't know if that's a software or a hardware problem though.
-- Steve
I went to Scotland on my honeymoon, and didn't see a single alien.
:-)
- Wherever i go in Europe, i /will/ have coverage.
dont need to worry about tri-band phones or which carrier offers what network where, i just /will/ have coverage. hate to state the obvious, but what use is a mobile phone if you cant use it?
I have a German phone (GSM 900/1800); I've used it up in the UK and Scandinavia, down in Italy and Croatia, and all the countries in between.
It's not just Europe. My phone worked just fine in the Middle East and in Africa too! Consider this - in the middle of some African desert, I get max signal strength! (SA and Namibia)
I think the only continents where I can't reliably use my phone are America and Antarctica! :-)
-- Steve
If anyone wants an HP laptop, they can buy them from Dell... the main difference is that they're black and have a Dell badge on them, but that's about is. They're all made by another company.
-- Steve
Doesn't HP still have a pretty healthy medical products division that they haven't even mentioned?
Said medical division was part of what went to Agilent; Agilent subsequently sold Medical to Philips.
Agilent also got Components and Test & Measurement (which is what HP started with).
-- Steve
It still rocks! No need to spend big bucks for the latest games. You should be able to pick up a bargain-priced copy of HL - if you're lucky with Opposing Force and maybe even Blue Shift. HL is still (IMO) the best single-player experience that ever happened.
Download the latest patch and you become part of the biggest online gaming community. Team Fortress Classic and Counter Strike are included in the patch, and are the most well known, but there are others. See Planet Half-Life for more mods/skins/levels/cheese.
Another FPS which had a good immersive story line was Who Wants To Live Forever. More tongue-in-cheek than violent. Shouldn't be too expensive now either.
Other classics would be the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert. Tiberian Sun wasn't bad, but RA2 was pure cheese.
Also worth a mention: Total Annihilation (along with expansion packs Core Contingency and Battle Tactics), and Age of Empires II. I liked those.
The game I play the most: TFC (online of course). I'm looking forward to TFC2.
-- Steve
Go with MiniDisc. Even the portable MD players have optical in. There are soundcards available with optical I/O, which enables you to record onto MD digitally. (Lots of HiFi CD players have optical out now, so you can use that if your CD-ROM can't play a CD.)
If you want to record MD -> PC digitally, you'll need a MD player with digital out, but these are readily available (often with both optical and co-ax).
You can get a MD/Radio for your car. Some are expensive (eg: DM1500 or $750), but there are others (eg: the Kenwood for DM450). The disks are smaller than cassettes and aren't that expensive. I can get a pack of 5 74Min Sony disks for DM15 ($7.50).
BTW: I recently got the Sony CD/MD combo which will record CD->MD at 4x speed. Works very nicely. Tip for anyone in Germany: it was cheaper at www.thomann.de.
-- Steve