Microsoft are pushing "Windows Desktop Search" (Office 2007 beta seems to want it.) It offers vastly supperior searching to the old search utility in Windows XP. The last time I used Vista was RC1 and the search tool seemed to be identical. Considering how useless I find MSN Live search I was suprised at how good and how much I like Windows Desktop Search.
The actual article is awfull, the writer is obviously a Mac fan boy and seems to attack Vista for things which I see as improvements or extremely usefull. I like being able to see a network topology of how I'm connected to the net (it has been usefull), I like the new way they classified things, Computer, Games, Programs, Documents, Audio. Telling me that I've plugged in a mouse is a usefull thing and a positive, asking me permission multiple times is also good because stupid users will hopefully read at least one of the messages and stop themselves before they install malware. Windows has many awfull features, it would have been nice to read about those and see how the Mac does things differently.
I had a same error trying to get Ubunutu running, as far as I could figure when you run the installer the IDE drive your installing to has to be the primary master drive, try install onto a slave, GRUB error 15. Try install with a SATA drive still plugged in? GRUB error 15. Try to install onto a SATA with IDE drives plugged in? GRUB error 15. As soon as the installation is completed you can switch it back.
The again with a debian installation I saw GRUB Error 15 & 18, on some old tired out machines which really did have knackered hard drives.
Microsoft may have an extremly awfull policy on windows disks but its the third party implementation which sucks not neccessarily Microsofts policy. Dell disks are like the HP ones described in the article, perhaps people should be demanding HP to make a better disk? My Medion MCE 2005 disk is a Windows MCE 2005 disk with Medion stamped on it instead of Microsoft (oh and they've modified it to load a Medion wall paper on completion) it installs the full range of XP vanilla drivers and I've seen Acer and Asus disks which act similary. Perhaps we should turn our attention to HP for creating for practical purposes a defunct windows disk rather than Microsoft for wanting the cheap copies of windows to be tied into the machine they were sold with. I don't necessarily agree with Microsofts policy but it seems that other companies don't decide to lock the disk in nearly as much and it was the lock in which made the disk useless.
Its a parents don't care attitude, mixed with the atmosphere in school, the little buggers are the same from 11 to 25 (I'm not kidding.) The only real way to tackle it is through schooling and forcing parents to get off their arse and actually do some proper parenting. Unfortunatly that takes time and even when you just on the spot fine a parent for the misbehavoir of their little kid they don't care. Some things mask the symptons (like increased policing, cctv, asbo's), its like having American White trailer trash living in the inner city. The only real solution I've ever heard is sterilising the lot of them, but I somehow think this is overkill and unacceptable and worse than the problem itself, as for expecting government to come up with a real solution its not poverty thats put them there its choice. How do you stop a bunch of people choosing to forgo any form of education or responsibility?
Sorry I live in Plymouth, ASBO's are a damm good idea. There is a strong 'chav culture' here during the xmas late night shopping gangs would take turns dashing into the place I work in steal some pic n mix and get back out. We couldn't catch them all and while some were 22-25, most were under 16. Giving them an asbo was a damm good thing, there are for the most part used very responisbly and when abused you do tend to see it in glaring big letters on the local or national news. It seems fining parents for the misbehavoir of thier kids doesn't work.
I'll tell you what come to Plymouth I'll take you around the city we can go security camera hunting the only time your aware of them is in the dangerous sorry 'troublespot' areas if the city and to be honest its reassuring to see a camera in those places. No I don't like oppressive police states, or the idea of being constantly watched but I'll put up with it as a necessary evil because I know what Chavs are like without them around. I won't judge your system because I don't live with it or know it all, do the same.
Go read the patent, its a system where a program can read in different formated RSS feeds, store them in a Microsoft RSS format and then allow other programs to access them So IE7 picks up your latest feed stores it in a "RSS platform" which allows other programs to access it, so when you open outlook rather than having to download the thing again it uses the RSS platform copy. Read the Patent its not stopping Firefox, Opera and everything else from reading feeds in vista its stopping them create a similar system in vista. The Article is FUD
Recently I tried Ubuntu to see if Linux had improved, Ubuntu from reputation is supposed to be people friendly, so lets look at the ease of installation.
Try to install Linux on a primary slave 40gb drive, doesn't work setup randomly crashes evntual fix is to remove the SATA drive.
Installed ok, keeps freesing with grub 1.5 loading screen with error message 15, solution is removing the primary master drive and switching the Primary slave to a master, but as soon as the old master goes in as master system locks up. SOlution to reload drive again this time with it being primary master, then turn it into slave.
Download video driver from Nvidia break Xwindows, after spending a few hours talking to a Linux fan boy give up and reload AGAIN.
Got Nvidia driver installed, trying to figure out why there is no sound, after a few hours looking at a blank wall I realise the sound manager lists things by chipset and my motherboard onboard sound chiptset is selected.
See Beryll start googling for information on Beryll, after following the Wiki I reach a point which seems to be a known error but nothing more is said. Give up reload, try again no sucess.
Ask Linux online friends how to access NTFS drives in linux after 45 minutes of a MSN conversation, anouther hour browsing forums give up.
I didn't even reach the stage of trying to get some of my Games working on WINE. Linux is good to install if all you want is a corporate desktop with word,outlook style of things. It Linux isn't easy to install, my 12 year old near computer iliterate sister can install windows XP (she also can install the sims.) It was only my desire to see Ubunutu and three solid days of browsing forums which got a semi working version of linux on my machine. open source sounds great it is a great idea but if all Nvidia are going to release is closed source drivers give me a distro with them on, give me a distro which lets a heavy windows user switch to and maintain their applications.
As for improving computer literacy sorry your missing the point, we could improve peoples understanding of how their car works but people aren't interested they have a grasp of whats going on and can change the oil but ask them to swap spark plugs.... Thats all you can hope for with PC's which, are much more complicated and scary. Make the desktop more user friendly and people will learn and move over you need a majority of people to be running Linux to be able to force Nvidia or ATi to give you your open source driver.
Company A develops a process to do a particular thing, this process isn't that obvious (well it ain't to me) they apply for a patent. People cheer as a patent goes through and uses the US patent system properly (unlike the overbroad and ambigious patent descriptions which are rife in the system.)
Now lets try that again, Microsoft develop a way of dealing with RSS feeds for Vista its new and their patented process. It's very specific, people begin a fud campaign and start talking about the evil empire. I just don't get how this is news, unless people using the system properly is so unusual over the pond.
Only big businesses which had a contractal agreement with Microsoft have Vista. Microsoft actually released early (November 30th) to meet that agreement. Consumers won't get Vista until January 30th. If you go into you nearest PC world, Currys, Comets you will find a lot of PC's and Laptops with non offical "Vista Compatible" stickers on them.
Windows, Office, Media Player, Xbox, Internet Explorer are all developed by their own devisions.
The UK wants the source code because it wants to be able improve it and get it working to its own standards, as well as wanting proof that the Americans haven't jammed it full with backdoors. This isn't about Iraq, its not about the US military being useless in a heart & mind war, its about the US military's need to hold onto secrets. Considering how often the pentagon has shafted the UK military in the past concerning inteligence, and R&D. Can you blame the UK for wanting to review the code?
I swear we could have a news article on the BPI giving away music for free and demanding an abolishment of copyright and I'm sure the entire comment list would be about the RIAA.
Orange give unbelievably crappy service these days, to give an example my SPV m500 boke after the 100th time of me dropping it. So I phoned orange and asked if I could extend my contract now and get the handset early (something I did four years ago) "sure we can do you the spv m3100 for £249.99 on a £45 (dolphin I think) contract" when I replied that a new customer would get it for FREE on that plan, they told me it was £249.99 and my current £25 contract offered twice what the dolphin did. They just held that line, so I told them I'd pay up the account and move since it was cheaper which they were happy with (£50 cost for new phone and contract instead of £249.99 and twice the contract cost) I have three accounts linked to mine we all go over the plan and all spend a fair bit. Now I'm with O2, and those accounts will be joining me when they come up in 5 months. oh the icing on the cake was the letter they sent me to say "sorry your leaving" aparently the deals available to the new custoemrs are avaliable to the old ones as well.
Orange don't care about their customers in that way anymore if you don't believe me just go into a vodaphone/O2 shop and say your thinking of leaving orange, their getting customers from orange in droves.
Oh orange don't do credit on an account its debited right back at you, it can make your billing very confusing if they debit back the 3 months they accidently took extra last month and then debit this months all on one bill. From what i've learnt over the year you can only agree to a 12/18th contract halfway through your current contract. Orange broadband isn't 6 months old.
When Apple and Motorolla partened to make that ROKR device I was wondering if it was a cheap attempt at seeing if people were interested. A Mac OS X based smartphone would be something very cool, but I doubt we will see much for a while.
Look at the current smartphone market, I owned a Nokia 7650. It was a great advance on other phones of the time, but had limited memory, tended to crash, weighed twice as much and that stick hurt your thumb after a while. It took Nokia a few years to get to the Nokia 7610 stage and to be honest I think the symbian OS system has reached its current peak, its a good offering one that has managed to get everyone who's owned a n70 and n80 to want that in their next phone.
Microsoft's offering of PDA's and PPC's is much more mature, A friend of mine had the IPAQ a few years ago and I thought Windows Mobile 2002 was kinda lame, I bought a Orange SPV m500 and have to say really enjoyed using it, my chief complaints were the battery life, lack of wifi and the low quality camera. A few days ago and 18months since my SPV m500 I got my hands on a XDA Mini S. Everything I disliked in the M500 has been fixed, my only wish in a phone would be making it lighter and a higher quality camera (say 2 or 3 megapixels.)
The current Smartphone and PPC offerings have taken a good three to four years to get to that stage, I know apple can make some good products but I don't expect much, considering the relative flop of the ROKR and the news source I'm more inclined to think they haven't spent the money and this is a just a wish of mac lovers.
I know I'm more or less reiterating whats said above but really depth and the ability to pick up, play and drop are key. GTA SA and HL2 are great examples of this, each level is smallish and the save points frequent, in GTA once you have a level you can play, if you die so be it. HL2 took me a month of playing to get done, it had large enough maps that I enoyed going back to it and trying again. I picked up San Andreas for the PC 6 months ago, I have already completed it on the PS2, but the last six months have been brilliant fun, I've found towns I never knew existed, found sub missions I missed and generally been able to fit it in my rather hectic life.
The Myst series is anouther one which is capable of this, but its thinking nature means an hour really is the minimum time you can spend on it, however the little added details make them replayable.But things like Black and White 2 are where it goes wrong, it took 6 months to get to the final level, each time I play I find I need to be there for a couple of hours otherwise things go wrong. I've been sat on the final level for months now because I lack the time to commit a big sitting to it and replaying the earlier levels has no appeal to me since I have literally seen it all.
I ran Beta 2 and RC1 versions of vista on my home machine what your talking about is nonsense, I had ran Doom 3, GTA San Andreas, Quake 4 and Until Uru. Running fraps on the OS I got the same frame rates I got in Windows XP and Until Uru (a MMOG) was considerably less buggy and faster to run over the net.
Don't get me wrong I think I'll have to upgrade to 2Gb of ram from 1Gb, the fact my Graphics card stayed at 40% usuage even when I only had My Computer open bugs the hell outta me. But the only difference I could find in running games was a feeling that they were loading faster, fraps didn't turn anything up, and my in game expearence (running the same level/mission) couldn't show any difference in lag or loading. Not even my Intel Express using laptop noticed a playing difference on Vista (although Aero was turned off) thats a 1.7Ghz Intel with 512mb of ram. It ran Vista RC1 well, thats not "Incredibly overpecd hardware" its a £300 laptop.
Last year I went looking for a gap year job (as a part of my degree), I couldn't find a remotely challenging job and by remotely challenging I mean a job my 14 year old sister couldn't do (writing a lay persons anti phishing guide was the hardest one) companies wern't looking to develop any of the gap year students either, I asked everyone if the given job tasks would change in difficulty or content to suite the applicant. Every answer was no, if you took the job you were there to do that one thing, without chance of an change based on a persons abilities. They wern't interested in gap year students but cheap labour (All of my University mates faced same problems and we all pretty much went "stuff that")
Oh there were one or two interesting jobs, but of those, less than 60% wern't created for a specific family member in mind. My friend found a semi interesting one £4000 for ten months work, no board, no benifits. I earn more than that a year stacking shelfs part time. You cant live for ten months on £4k its not possible.
Oh and it gets worse every entry level job expects 2-3 years of job expearence in that field. How can it be entry level if you should already have worked in it for two years? From what we have been told our only real hope of getting employed is coming up with a blinder of a final year project and impressing the hell out of a small company on the open day, its that or join the services who are willing to actually train people for a job. This is in the UK, if things don't change I am really considering joining the RAF or Navy because not only is the pay great, they want university candidates to mould, rather than most companies ready made and packaged 5 year expearenced Electrical Engineer, Computer Engineer or Computer Science grad who is willing to work for the same amount as my shelf stacking job.
Recently (Monday) I thought I would try Ubunutu (64 bit version) which so many have been praising, the expearence was less than I'd hoped for.
For one theres no simple installer, everythings done through terminal, now I didn't mind figuring out how terminal works it took the better part of the day but I managed it. What happens when my Dad who worries about windows installers has to add a new device? Or install software? Until theres a friendly GUI that can act like terminal thats going to keep your basic user from adding any new hardware.
The Nvidia driver installation was a nightmare (my first time using Terminal) I managed to stop xorg.conf, since there was no usefull guide on how to not get Ubunutu to boot into Command Line I tried reinstalling.
13 installs, Ubunutu wanted to write changes to two drives I don't want it touching, when I refused to let it the installer would crash, when I tried to install Ubunutu to a slave drive, Ubuntu crashed, I had to remove two drives to install it. Other times the whole install app would crash when it tried unmounting the CD drive at the end.
I use two sound cards a Audigy LS and a onbaord Realtek, for inputs I use the Realtek for outputs the Audigy. Ubuntu won't let me do this, further more it defualted my onbaord realtek as the primary card. Something I would have noticed if the ALSA sound mixer specified card name instead of chipset (since the device manager see both cards and a sub category shows their chipset why can't it?)
The lack of drivers due to the many distros, my TV card comes with a Mandrake, Fedora or Suse driver, I have tried figuring out how to put these on but so far its elluded me and I'm begining to think its impossible. I have two other devices which have the same problem.
Why isn't there NTFS drive access built into it? I've been told its possible but to me such things shouldn't require arranging.
Lastly WINE, I can't get this running on Ubuntu I've tried and tried and its still escaping me, I've had friends, Linux expearenced friends try and they have met with problems. There are industry standard app's which I need to use which are windows only, you will find this sort of problem with people from all walks of life, its one of the reasons I couldn't switch to OSX.
Ubuntu is great I'm willing to persist to figure out whats going on, but if people think its ready for joe consumer your sadly mistaken.
It depends on the set up and can prove worthwhile, my university is in the main city center with student accomadation surrounding it. WiFi was rolled out on campus and has complete coverage there.
But more to the point the university bagan to move over to a net based material system, since all lecture material is online, easy net access is a must, there were RJ45 sockets in the technology and engineering buildings, but there are around 12, 10 storey buidlings on campus, whats easier and cheaper
Putting 10 or more RJ45 sockets in around 1000 rooms, which are all managed through a fibre backbone
Or putting one or two access points on each floor tied into a fibre optic backbone
Sure governments don't have to but many resturants, bars, cafes and even banks do offer a WiFi service, the infrastructure exists, heck I can walk three miles away from the city centre and keep at least one WiFI network in range. If someone told me I could get my net access for free (or discounted) in exchange for running a router which would provide such a service I'd do it in a flash.
As a part tme job to get me through uni I work in woolworths, I really like the idea of RFID tags for two reasons.
Firstly the security tags stores use are a major pain, I can lose a lot of time when new shop workers either forget to remove them or diasble them. Some of the tags DO damage clothing, having the ability to simply put the tag in the barcode which you can rip off would be great, we'd stop damaging some items of stock, my time wouldn't be wasted and we would cut done of shop theft since not every item does get tagged even if its supposed to.
But my real reason? I work on the sweets department we have to do something called stock checking, the idea is to go through all your stock, checking the dates bringing the oldest to the front so our stock doesn't run out of date and become unsellable. One day I hope they put these things into sweets and crisps. Today I went through just over a thousand packets of crisps to make sure none were out of date and reordered the lot. If i could wave a scanner, see that the earliest date going was the 1st of Febuary I could have saved myself ALOT of time.
I know of several of people who work in stores who face similar issues when you talk about some of the benifits it would be extremly helpful. But then in my business module (yes the IET make you do them) it could see my lecturer practically salavating over the possible uses which does make me worry about the potential missuse of the technology.
Ok why can't we be logical about this? That ex world bank economist said acting to prevent global warming would effect global GDP by 2%, thats the worst case senerio (of acting). Not acting it could cost the world 20% GDP to deal with the results.
Ok so worse case senerio's are we could act for no reason and lose 2% of the worlds GDP for no reason what so ever, or we could not act and cause human extiniction as glocal warming causes the planet to turn into the next Venus.
Personnally I'd rather play it safe be a bit more poor, even if it turned out to be for no reason.
Comparing Sony's position now with their position six years ago isn't going to give any idicator on how a console will do. The PS1 and PS2 did so well because of the games. The Xbox was aimed at the hard core gamer, most of the games were bloods/guts style. Nintendo aimed the Gamecube at the 'new market' and ended up producing a ton of strange and bizare games no one really cared for (excusing Super Smash Brothers) girls wern't engaged with the Gamecube games, hard core gamers saw the thing as stupid only really leaving the fanboys.,br.The PS2 had it all so to speak with many games appealing to the hard core gamer, but not being afraid of pushing non standard games like the Dance mat ones, the singing one and that buzz off. Also games like GT, Tekken FF and GTA were all pick up and drop games which a beginner could pick up and enjoy. Those games appealed to girls and people who don't normally play games because they were simple and fun.
What do we see now?
Well The PS3 will have the same style of games coming up, which should appeal to the PS2 market, the Xbox360 is carying on with its blood and guts titles but is moving into the PS2 game market and well the Wii, well just the name suggests what sort of games we will see. When I justify a console in my house a 'media station' will go a long way in supporting my arguement, just as argueing that a console we can both enjoy will. The PS3 price tag isn't the factor people make it out to be, its the Xbox360 games. If I can get a console which will support dance games, singing games and a few other titles (GTA anyone) then you can't justify the extra expense.
I realise a ton of Wii fanboys will start blasting me for this, but its the truth. Most people I know who aren't tech savey have seen the Xbox360 and been amazed at what it can do, but many of them have said "I'll wait for the PS3 cause that will be better" its a perception based on the PS2. If the Xbox360 can give the right games then it will win, in either case I'm not buying either console until I can get it with a game for £250.
This "masked man" analogy is very lame, cameras are unobtrusive, and they may follow you they may not. Having a masked man follow you with a camera is harassment. If that man was stood on the pavement with a video camera, no one would care. I know this as do you it happens on the streets all the time, you might be indirectly caught in someone else photo, an amateur movie production might use a real location with the public in the vicinity.
To try and salvage your 'masked man' analogy I'll ask: How would you feel if there was a masked man on every corner of the street with a video camera? Furthermore how would you feel if every one of those masked men were to follow you with the camera?
But again a flawed question! Because there are only so many CCTV operators, you can have a CCTV operator watching dozens sometimes hundred of cameras at once. If someone is tagged as suspicious then they follow this person, but the fact remains unless you're doing something a little suspicious you're unlikely to be followed around. Then again CCTV operators are people and abuses will occur. But there is a point when we must trust the ones who protect us (I'm not saying oversight and accountability are important we need those too.)
So I'll try again: How would you feel if there were cameras on tripods on every corner, and sometimes there would be a masked man behind one making it follow you?
Well yes you'd be a little creeped out, but at the same token we live with this feeling already with CCTV cameras. You have to assume that there is always someone on the other end. You can deal with this in three ways:
1. Get used to them and ignore them (what everyone has done)
2. Act like you're always being watched in a public space (hrmm people being civil to each other, and less crime)
3. Freak out about your privacy
This information isn't kept forever nor is it added to a dossier on you, they keep the tapes for a set time (so if a crime has happened they can use it to reconstruct events) then they use the tapes to record everything again. I think if the government did start keeping this information forever and creating secret portfolios of your every movement I'd be getting in contact with my local MP and making enquires about Guy Fawkes masks.
They can do a lot of good the abuses (ignoring a totalitarian state because the UK isn't one even if it does make the occasional step that way) are minor. Get over yourself no one cares what shops you went into, or how your hair looked that day.
Everyone keeps going on about the lack of privacy but, if you get any large group of people you start finding out how they have been used to help people. I've been helped by a CCTV camera with a speaker scaring off some chavs, a friend of mine had several attackers arrested as CCTV spotted him being beaten up (by them.) You do hear these stories when this ever comes up as a topic of conversation (which is almost never) for the most part you don't see these CCTV cameras and so you don't think about them. People can shout about Orwell all they like but unless the CCTV operations units start getting much bigger staffing budgets I'm not worried.
hehe I have something to add to this when I was at school a few years ago our cafeteria instigated this policy in my second to last year, since I was part of the Young Enterprise thing we saw it as a missed opportunity not to provide a service through thr local bakery and newsagent. We were banned from doing it the school 'owned' the cafeteria and since we started serving an appreciable fraction of the pupils the cafeteria became unprofitable.
They tried putting a 'fuit' vending machine in the sixth form block, we unplugged it, put some cash together signed a petition and put in our own chocolate vending machine.
Kids want choice at the end of the day this is stupid over protective parenting, our school learnt that you need choice, so they still sell burgers and chips with the heathlier options, although I believe they still don't have a chocolate machine in the cafeteria anymore its a fruit machine, although speaking to lower year friends I know for a fact year 11 and above are making a absolute fortune selling choclate on campus.
Some days you want pasta some days you want chips, it should be your choice be you 11 or 65
Your full of Crap aren't you? I just bet your American
Lets see President Roosevelt being a idiot about European geography takes the time to appease the Jewish voters and just creates a country out of air, which would annoy the people who live there. Then in a continued effort to appease the voters America arms and supplies Israel. The years go on...
The countries around Israel try to take back what they feel was there, and I would argue justly so. America funds Israel and effectively helps them beat the crap out of their neighbors. The illegally occupies the surrounding states, facing overwhelming force and seeing that pacifistic measures don't work against the Israelis they turn to violence. So you get suicide bombers, and guerilla fighters attacking targets whenever they can.
I mean have you even looked at Israel's responses, oh a rocket blows up a field ok we're going to flatten your capital, if you don't leave your house and only place to stay we are going to kill you. That's not a responsible attitude, Israel is like a big bully, hrmm one of our soldiers have died ok that's not on lets perform a 'surgical strike' oh and by surgical I mean takes out 10 times more civilians than the guerillas. If Israel were to take a sensible and legal method to help resolve this conflict, but lets be honest Israel doesn't like sensible and really goes in for the 'eye for and eye' or in their case 'and eye for a head oh and maybe an arm, and that leg looks threatening'
I'm not saying the launching of rockets is right or good I don't support that but Israelk needs to back off and stop violating internal law and quite frankly treat the locals with some respect else that's all they are going to get.
I'm twenty, before this January I went to the cinema withouth fail every single week and by and large I loved every film I saw, yes there were some very crap films but there was always atleast one decent film a month, I stopped doing this in January after Aeon Flux. From November until January I never saw one film which could be described as 'average', 'ok' or 'decent' they sucked hugely, (admittedly I missed Serinity in the box office.) When the quality of films has gotten so bad that a person who was adddicted as me goes 'enough is enough' then I think the parents right. This month is the first month this year which has enough to tempt me back into the cinema (that and a very cute girl likes films). I left Superman wondering what the hell they think they were doing with the charracter and disapointed that the film started so promisingly and then just nose bombed, Pirates of the Carribian 2 was ok I wouldn't say it was speacial but then for £2.5 i'm not going to complain either.
The truth is theres a lot more on TV thats more interesting and gripping than there is in the cinema this year, in previous years we have had some actually interesting things from Kill Bill, Saw, Sin City, Layer Cake, Night Watch, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Shuan of the Dead, Spiderman 2, The Matrix Reloaded (I liked it) . So far this year the best film out was Serintiy that was more than 6 months ago, nothing else has come close films like Saw 2 with the predicitable plot and extreme gore without any form of taste aren't that interesting, The Creep? The Decent? The Cave? V for Vendetta the words crap beyond belief only begin to describe.
The only films left of interest for me are Miami Vice and Cars, Cars because pixar do reasonably enjoyable films even if your 20, and Miami Vice because it looks 100 times better than anything else
ASBo's are being used respsonibly and apporpiatly in the UK, take where I live, there was an area you didn't go if you went there past 10PM there was a high chance of either yobs trying to mug you, someone trying to set fire to soemthing or the incidental kniging (btw I'm not exagerating.) Since ASBO's have arrived the area is much much improved, certain familes have been banned from this and that and when they breeched the order were thrown in jail. Suddenly I'm not afraid to drive through the area past 10PM, its still not a nice place but is a hundred times improved.
ASBo's stop certain behavoir, in the park example, cameras can be set up and teenagers arrested, but as soon as they are out and probably during the behavoir continues. By banning them from the area, you clean up the place, ok you have moved them onto anouther one, but with the right ASBO you can slowly improve the whole area for the better.
There have been some rediculous ASBO's, I know one Judge ordered that a family wern't allowed within a certain distance of each other, because often when they were lots of crime would ensue. It was impractical and amended soon after.
A lot of people get away from court trials on technicalities and jail does not seem the detirent it once was, in the area mentioned above alot of the people in the three bad families had been in jail several times for ABH/GBH/Vandalisim had served many community hours.
Judges use a lot of restraint in their use heck many in the UK think Judges are often to restrained in their actions, I would imagine this would be used when the police know the individual is guilty, when everyone in the room knows the person has commited the crime, but when the person has managed to escape the issue through a loophole or one part of the police's evidence falls down around them. I think it will be used sparingly and since the UK now has a decent opposition party again, it may well be overturned if its abused.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft are pushing "Windows Desktop Search" (Office 2007 beta seems to want it.) It offers vastly supperior searching to the old search utility in Windows XP. The last time I used Vista was RC1 and the search tool seemed to be identical. Considering how useless I find MSN Live search I was suprised at how good and how much I like Windows Desktop Search.
The actual article is awfull, the writer is obviously a Mac fan boy and seems to attack Vista for things which I see as improvements or extremely usefull. I like being able to see a network topology of how I'm connected to the net (it has been usefull), I like the new way they classified things, Computer, Games, Programs, Documents, Audio. Telling me that I've plugged in a mouse is a usefull thing and a positive, asking me permission multiple times is also good because stupid users will hopefully read at least one of the messages and stop themselves before they install malware. Windows has many awfull features, it would have been nice to read about those and see how the Mac does things differently.
I had a same error trying to get Ubunutu running, as far as I could figure when you run the installer the IDE drive your installing to has to be the primary master drive, try install onto a slave, GRUB error 15. Try install with a SATA drive still plugged in? GRUB error 15. Try to install onto a SATA with IDE drives plugged in? GRUB error 15. As soon as the installation is completed you can switch it back.
The again with a debian installation I saw GRUB Error 15 & 18, on some old tired out machines which really did have knackered hard drives.
Microsoft may have an extremly awfull policy on windows disks but its the third party implementation which sucks not neccessarily Microsofts policy. Dell disks are like the HP ones described in the article, perhaps people should be demanding HP to make a better disk? My Medion MCE 2005 disk is a Windows MCE 2005 disk with Medion stamped on it instead of Microsoft (oh and they've modified it to load a Medion wall paper on completion) it installs the full range of XP vanilla drivers and I've seen Acer and Asus disks which act similary. Perhaps we should turn our attention to HP for creating for practical purposes a defunct windows disk rather than Microsoft for wanting the cheap copies of windows to be tied into the machine they were sold with. I don't necessarily agree with Microsofts policy but it seems that other companies don't decide to lock the disk in nearly as much and it was the lock in which made the disk useless.
Its a parents don't care attitude, mixed with the atmosphere in school, the little buggers are the same from 11 to 25 (I'm not kidding.) The only real way to tackle it is through schooling and forcing parents to get off their arse and actually do some proper parenting. Unfortunatly that takes time and even when you just on the spot fine a parent for the misbehavoir of their little kid they don't care. Some things mask the symptons (like increased policing, cctv, asbo's), its like having American White trailer trash living in the inner city. The only real solution I've ever heard is sterilising the lot of them, but I somehow think this is overkill and unacceptable and worse than the problem itself, as for expecting government to come up with a real solution its not poverty thats put them there its choice. How do you stop a bunch of people choosing to forgo any form of education or responsibility?
Sorry I live in Plymouth, ASBO's are a damm good idea. There is a strong 'chav culture' here during the xmas late night shopping gangs would take turns dashing into the place I work in steal some pic n mix and get back out. We couldn't catch them all and while some were 22-25, most were under 16. Giving them an asbo was a damm good thing, there are for the most part used very responisbly and when abused you do tend to see it in glaring big letters on the local or national news. It seems fining parents for the misbehavoir of thier kids doesn't work.
I'll tell you what come to Plymouth I'll take you around the city we can go security camera hunting the only time your aware of them is in the dangerous sorry 'troublespot' areas if the city and to be honest its reassuring to see a camera in those places. No I don't like oppressive police states, or the idea of being constantly watched but I'll put up with it as a necessary evil because I know what Chavs are like without them around. I won't judge your system because I don't live with it or know it all, do the same.
Go read the patent, its a system where a program can read in different formated RSS feeds, store them in a Microsoft RSS format and then allow other programs to access them So IE7 picks up your latest feed stores it in a "RSS platform" which allows other programs to access it, so when you open outlook rather than having to download the thing again it uses the RSS platform copy. Read the Patent its not stopping Firefox, Opera and everything else from reading feeds in vista its stopping them create a similar system in vista. The Article is FUD
Recently I tried Ubuntu to see if Linux had improved, Ubuntu from reputation is supposed to be people friendly, so lets look at the ease of installation.
Try to install Linux on a primary slave 40gb drive, doesn't work setup randomly crashes evntual fix is to remove the SATA drive.
Installed ok, keeps freesing with grub 1.5 loading screen with error message 15, solution is removing the primary master drive and switching the Primary slave to a master, but as soon as the old master goes in as master system locks up. SOlution to reload drive again this time with it being primary master, then turn it into slave.
Download video driver from Nvidia break Xwindows, after spending a few hours talking to a Linux fan boy give up and reload AGAIN.
Got Nvidia driver installed, trying to figure out why there is no sound, after a few hours looking at a blank wall I realise the sound manager lists things by chipset and my motherboard onboard sound chiptset is selected.
See Beryll start googling for information on Beryll, after following the Wiki I reach a point which seems to be a known error but nothing more is said. Give up reload, try again no sucess.
Ask Linux online friends how to access NTFS drives in linux after 45 minutes of a MSN conversation, anouther hour browsing forums give up.
I didn't even reach the stage of trying to get some of my Games working on WINE. Linux is good to install if all you want is a corporate desktop with word,outlook style of things. It Linux isn't easy to install, my 12 year old near computer iliterate sister can install windows XP (she also can install the sims.) It was only my desire to see Ubunutu and three solid days of browsing forums which got a semi working version of linux on my machine. open source sounds great it is a great idea but if all Nvidia are going to release is closed source drivers give me a distro with them on, give me a distro which lets a heavy windows user switch to and maintain their applications.
As for improving computer literacy sorry your missing the point, we could improve peoples understanding of how their car works but people aren't interested they have a grasp of whats going on and can change the oil but ask them to swap spark plugs.... Thats all you can hope for with PC's which, are much more complicated and scary. Make the desktop more user friendly and people will learn and move over you need a majority of people to be running Linux to be able to force Nvidia or ATi to give you your open source driver.
Company A develops a process to do a particular thing, this process isn't that obvious (well it ain't to me) they apply for a patent. People cheer as a patent goes through and uses the US patent system properly (unlike the overbroad and ambigious patent descriptions which are rife in the system.)
Now lets try that again, Microsoft develop a way of dealing with RSS feeds for Vista its new and their patented process. It's very specific, people begin a fud campaign and start talking about the evil empire. I just don't get how this is news, unless people using the system properly is so unusual over the pond.
Only big businesses which had a contractal agreement with Microsoft have Vista. Microsoft actually released early (November 30th) to meet that agreement. Consumers won't get Vista until January 30th. If you go into you nearest PC world, Currys, Comets you will find a lot of PC's and Laptops with non offical "Vista Compatible" stickers on them.
Windows, Office, Media Player, Xbox, Internet Explorer are all developed by their own devisions.
The UK wants the source code because it wants to be able improve it and get it working to its own standards, as well as wanting proof that the Americans haven't jammed it full with backdoors. This isn't about Iraq, its not about the US military being useless in a heart & mind war, its about the US military's need to hold onto secrets. Considering how often the pentagon has shafted the UK military in the past concerning inteligence, and R&D. Can you blame the UK for wanting to review the code?
I swear we could have a news article on the BPI giving away music for free and demanding an abolishment of copyright and I'm sure the entire comment list would be about the RIAA.
Orange give unbelievably crappy service these days, to give an example my SPV m500 boke after the 100th time of me dropping it. So I phoned orange and asked if I could extend my contract now and get the handset early (something I did four years ago) "sure we can do you the spv m3100 for £249.99 on a £45 (dolphin I think) contract" when I replied that a new customer would get it for FREE on that plan, they told me it was £249.99 and my current £25 contract offered twice what the dolphin did. They just held that line, so I told them I'd pay up the account and move since it was cheaper which they were happy with (£50 cost for new phone and contract instead of £249.99 and twice the contract cost) I have three accounts linked to mine we all go over the plan and all spend a fair bit. Now I'm with O2, and those accounts will be joining me when they come up in 5 months. oh the icing on the cake was the letter they sent me to say "sorry your leaving" aparently the deals available to the new custoemrs are avaliable to the old ones as well.
Orange don't care about their customers in that way anymore if you don't believe me just go into a vodaphone/O2 shop and say your thinking of leaving orange, their getting customers from orange in droves.
Oh orange don't do credit on an account its debited right back at you, it can make your billing very confusing if they debit back the 3 months they accidently took extra last month and then debit this months all on one bill. From what i've learnt over the year you can only agree to a 12/18th contract halfway through your current contract. Orange broadband isn't 6 months old.
When Apple and Motorolla partened to make that ROKR device I was wondering if it was a cheap attempt at seeing if people were interested. A Mac OS X based smartphone would be something very cool, but I doubt we will see much for a while.
Look at the current smartphone market, I owned a Nokia 7650. It was a great advance on other phones of the time, but had limited memory, tended to crash, weighed twice as much and that stick hurt your thumb after a while. It took Nokia a few years to get to the Nokia 7610 stage and to be honest I think the symbian OS system has reached its current peak, its a good offering one that has managed to get everyone who's owned a n70 and n80 to want that in their next phone.
Microsoft's offering of PDA's and PPC's is much more mature, A friend of mine had the IPAQ a few years ago and I thought Windows Mobile 2002 was kinda lame, I bought a Orange SPV m500 and have to say really enjoyed using it, my chief complaints were the battery life, lack of wifi and the low quality camera. A few days ago and 18months since my SPV m500 I got my hands on a XDA Mini S. Everything I disliked in the M500 has been fixed, my only wish in a phone would be making it lighter and a higher quality camera (say 2 or 3 megapixels.)
The current Smartphone and PPC offerings have taken a good three to four years to get to that stage, I know apple can make some good products but I don't expect much, considering the relative flop of the ROKR and the news source I'm more inclined to think they haven't spent the money and this is a just a wish of mac lovers.
I know I'm more or less reiterating whats said above but really depth and the ability to pick up, play and drop are key. GTA SA and HL2 are great examples of this, each level is smallish and the save points frequent, in GTA once you have a level you can play, if you die so be it. HL2 took me a month of playing to get done, it had large enough maps that I enoyed going back to it and trying again. I picked up San Andreas for the PC 6 months ago, I have already completed it on the PS2, but the last six months have been brilliant fun, I've found towns I never knew existed, found sub missions I missed and generally been able to fit it in my rather hectic life.
The Myst series is anouther one which is capable of this, but its thinking nature means an hour really is the minimum time you can spend on it, however the little added details make them replayable.But things like Black and White 2 are where it goes wrong, it took 6 months to get to the final level, each time I play I find I need to be there for a couple of hours otherwise things go wrong. I've been sat on the final level for months now because I lack the time to commit a big sitting to it and replaying the earlier levels has no appeal to me since I have literally seen it all.
I ran Beta 2 and RC1 versions of vista on my home machine what your talking about is nonsense, I had ran Doom 3, GTA San Andreas, Quake 4 and Until Uru. Running fraps on the OS I got the same frame rates I got in Windows XP and Until Uru (a MMOG) was considerably less buggy and faster to run over the net.
Don't get me wrong I think I'll have to upgrade to 2Gb of ram from 1Gb, the fact my Graphics card stayed at 40% usuage even when I only had My Computer open bugs the hell outta me. But the only difference I could find in running games was a feeling that they were loading faster, fraps didn't turn anything up, and my in game expearence (running the same level/mission) couldn't show any difference in lag or loading. Not even my Intel Express using laptop noticed a playing difference on Vista (although Aero was turned off) thats a 1.7Ghz Intel with 512mb of ram. It ran Vista RC1 well, thats not "Incredibly overpecd hardware" its a £300 laptop.
Last year I went looking for a gap year job (as a part of my degree), I couldn't find a remotely challenging job and by remotely challenging I mean a job my 14 year old sister couldn't do (writing a lay persons anti phishing guide was the hardest one) companies wern't looking to develop any of the gap year students either, I asked everyone if the given job tasks would change in difficulty or content to suite the applicant. Every answer was no, if you took the job you were there to do that one thing, without chance of an change based on a persons abilities. They wern't interested in gap year students but cheap labour (All of my University mates faced same problems and we all pretty much went "stuff that")
Oh there were one or two interesting jobs, but of those, less than 60% wern't created for a specific family member in mind. My friend found a semi interesting one £4000 for ten months work, no board, no benifits. I earn more than that a year stacking shelfs part time. You cant live for ten months on £4k its not possible.
Oh and it gets worse every entry level job expects 2-3 years of job expearence in that field. How can it be entry level if you should already have worked in it for two years? From what we have been told our only real hope of getting employed is coming up with a blinder of a final year project and impressing the hell out of a small company on the open day, its that or join the services who are willing to actually train people for a job. This is in the UK, if things don't change I am really considering joining the RAF or Navy because not only is the pay great, they want university candidates to mould, rather than most companies ready made and packaged 5 year expearenced Electrical Engineer, Computer Engineer or Computer Science grad who is willing to work for the same amount as my shelf stacking job.
Recently (Monday) I thought I would try Ubunutu (64 bit version) which so many have been praising, the expearence was less than I'd hoped for.
For one theres no simple installer, everythings done through terminal, now I didn't mind figuring out how terminal works it took the better part of the day but I managed it. What happens when my Dad who worries about windows installers has to add a new device? Or install software? Until theres a friendly GUI that can act like terminal thats going to keep your basic user from adding any new hardware.
The Nvidia driver installation was a nightmare (my first time using Terminal) I managed to stop xorg.conf, since there was no usefull guide on how to not get Ubunutu to boot into Command Line I tried reinstalling.
13 installs, Ubunutu wanted to write changes to two drives I don't want it touching, when I refused to let it the installer would crash, when I tried to install Ubunutu to a slave drive, Ubuntu crashed, I had to remove two drives to install it. Other times the whole install app would crash when it tried unmounting the CD drive at the end.
I use two sound cards a Audigy LS and a onbaord Realtek, for inputs I use the Realtek for outputs the Audigy. Ubuntu won't let me do this, further more it defualted my onbaord realtek as the primary card. Something I would have noticed if the ALSA sound mixer specified card name instead of chipset (since the device manager see both cards and a sub category shows their chipset why can't it?)
The lack of drivers due to the many distros, my TV card comes with a Mandrake, Fedora or Suse driver, I have tried figuring out how to put these on but so far its elluded me and I'm begining to think its impossible. I have two other devices which have the same problem.
Why isn't there NTFS drive access built into it? I've been told its possible but to me such things shouldn't require arranging.
Lastly WINE, I can't get this running on Ubuntu I've tried and tried and its still escaping me, I've had friends, Linux expearenced friends try and they have met with problems. There are industry standard app's which I need to use which are windows only, you will find this sort of problem with people from all walks of life, its one of the reasons I couldn't switch to OSX.
Ubuntu is great I'm willing to persist to figure out whats going on, but if people think its ready for joe consumer your sadly mistaken.
It depends on the set up and can prove worthwhile, my university is in the main city center with student accomadation surrounding it. WiFi was rolled out on campus and has complete coverage there.
But more to the point the university bagan to move over to a net based material system, since all lecture material is online, easy net access is a must, there were RJ45 sockets in the technology and engineering buildings, but there are around 12, 10 storey buidlings on campus, whats easier and cheaper
Putting 10 or more RJ45 sockets in around 1000 rooms, which are all managed through a fibre backbone
Or putting one or two access points on each floor tied into a fibre optic backbone
Sure governments don't have to but many resturants, bars, cafes and even banks do offer a WiFi service, the infrastructure exists, heck I can walk three miles away from the city centre and keep at least one WiFI network in range. If someone told me I could get my net access for free (or discounted) in exchange for running a router which would provide such a service I'd do it in a flash.
As a part tme job to get me through uni I work in woolworths, I really like the idea of RFID tags for two reasons. Firstly the security tags stores use are a major pain, I can lose a lot of time when new shop workers either forget to remove them or diasble them. Some of the tags DO damage clothing, having the ability to simply put the tag in the barcode which you can rip off would be great, we'd stop damaging some items of stock, my time wouldn't be wasted and we would cut done of shop theft since not every item does get tagged even if its supposed to.
But my real reason? I work on the sweets department we have to do something called stock checking, the idea is to go through all your stock, checking the dates bringing the oldest to the front so our stock doesn't run out of date and become unsellable. One day I hope they put these things into sweets and crisps. Today I went through just over a thousand packets of crisps to make sure none were out of date and reordered the lot. If i could wave a scanner, see that the earliest date going was the 1st of Febuary I could have saved myself ALOT of time.
I know of several of people who work in stores who face similar issues when you talk about some of the benifits it would be extremly helpful. But then in my business module (yes the IET make you do them) it could see my lecturer practically salavating over the possible uses which does make me worry about the potential missuse of the technology.
Ok why can't we be logical about this? That ex world bank economist said acting to prevent global warming would effect global GDP by 2%, thats the worst case senerio (of acting). Not acting it could cost the world 20% GDP to deal with the results.
Ok so worse case senerio's are we could act for no reason and lose 2% of the worlds GDP for no reason what so ever, or we could not act and cause human extiniction as glocal warming causes the planet to turn into the next Venus.
Personnally I'd rather play it safe be a bit more poor, even if it turned out to be for no reason.
Comparing Sony's position now with their position six years ago isn't going to give any idicator on how a console will do. The PS1 and PS2 did so well because of the games. The Xbox was aimed at the hard core gamer, most of the games were bloods/guts style. ,br.The PS2 had it all so to speak with many games appealing to the hard core gamer, but not being afraid of pushing non standard games like the Dance mat ones, the singing one and that buzz off. Also games like GT, Tekken FF and GTA were all pick up and drop games which a beginner could pick up and enjoy. Those games appealed to girls and people who don't normally play games because they were simple and fun.
Nintendo aimed the Gamecube at the 'new market' and ended up producing a ton of strange and bizare games no one really cared for (excusing Super Smash Brothers) girls wern't engaged with the Gamecube games, hard core gamers saw the thing as stupid only really leaving the fanboys.
What do we see now?
Well The PS3 will have the same style of games coming up, which should appeal to the PS2 market, the Xbox360 is carying on with its blood and guts titles but is moving into the PS2 game market and well the Wii, well just the name suggests what sort of games we will see.
When I justify a console in my house a 'media station' will go a long way in supporting my arguement, just as argueing that a console we can both enjoy will. The PS3 price tag isn't the factor people make it out to be, its the Xbox360 games. If I can get a console which will support dance games, singing games and a few other titles (GTA anyone) then you can't justify the extra expense.
I realise a ton of Wii fanboys will start blasting me for this, but its the truth. Most people I know who aren't tech savey have seen the Xbox360 and been amazed at what it can do, but many of them have said "I'll wait for the PS3 cause that will be better" its a perception based on the PS2. If the Xbox360 can give the right games then it will win, in either case I'm not buying either console until I can get it with a game for £250.
This "masked man" analogy is very lame, cameras are unobtrusive, and they may follow you they may not. Having a masked man follow you with a camera is harassment. If that man was stood on the pavement with a video camera, no one would care. I know this as do you it happens on the streets all the time, you might be indirectly caught in someone else photo, an amateur movie production might use a real location with the public in the vicinity. To try and salvage your 'masked man' analogy I'll ask: How would you feel if there was a masked man on every corner of the street with a video camera? Furthermore how would you feel if every one of those masked men were to follow you with the camera? But again a flawed question! Because there are only so many CCTV operators, you can have a CCTV operator watching dozens sometimes hundred of cameras at once. If someone is tagged as suspicious then they follow this person, but the fact remains unless you're doing something a little suspicious you're unlikely to be followed around. Then again CCTV operators are people and abuses will occur. But there is a point when we must trust the ones who protect us (I'm not saying oversight and accountability are important we need those too.) So I'll try again: How would you feel if there were cameras on tripods on every corner, and sometimes there would be a masked man behind one making it follow you? Well yes you'd be a little creeped out, but at the same token we live with this feeling already with CCTV cameras. You have to assume that there is always someone on the other end. You can deal with this in three ways: 1. Get used to them and ignore them (what everyone has done) 2. Act like you're always being watched in a public space (hrmm people being civil to each other, and less crime) 3. Freak out about your privacy This information isn't kept forever nor is it added to a dossier on you, they keep the tapes for a set time (so if a crime has happened they can use it to reconstruct events) then they use the tapes to record everything again. I think if the government did start keeping this information forever and creating secret portfolios of your every movement I'd be getting in contact with my local MP and making enquires about Guy Fawkes masks. They can do a lot of good the abuses (ignoring a totalitarian state because the UK isn't one even if it does make the occasional step that way) are minor. Get over yourself no one cares what shops you went into, or how your hair looked that day.
Everyone keeps going on about the lack of privacy but, if you get any large group of people you start finding out how they have been used to help people. I've been helped by a CCTV camera with a speaker scaring off some chavs, a friend of mine had several attackers arrested as CCTV spotted him being beaten up (by them.) You do hear these stories when this ever comes up as a topic of conversation (which is almost never) for the most part you don't see these CCTV cameras and so you don't think about them. People can shout about Orwell all they like but unless the CCTV operations units start getting much bigger staffing budgets I'm not worried.
hehe I have something to add to this when I was at school a few years ago our cafeteria instigated this policy in my second to last year, since I was part of the Young Enterprise thing we saw it as a missed opportunity not to provide a service through thr local bakery and newsagent. We were banned from doing it the school 'owned' the cafeteria and since we started serving an appreciable fraction of the pupils the cafeteria became unprofitable.
They tried putting a 'fuit' vending machine in the sixth form block, we unplugged it, put some cash together signed a petition and put in our own chocolate vending machine.
Kids want choice at the end of the day this is stupid over protective parenting, our school learnt that you need choice, so they still sell burgers and chips with the heathlier options, although I believe they still don't have a chocolate machine in the cafeteria anymore its a fruit machine, although speaking to lower year friends I know for a fact year 11 and above are making a absolute fortune selling choclate on campus.
Some days you want pasta some days you want chips, it should be your choice be you 11 or 65
Your full of Crap aren't you? I just bet your American
Lets see President Roosevelt being a idiot about European geography takes the time to appease the Jewish voters and just creates a country out of air, which would annoy the people who live there. Then in a continued effort to appease the voters America arms and supplies Israel. The years go on...
The countries around Israel try to take back what they feel was there, and I would argue justly so. America funds Israel and effectively helps them beat the crap out of their neighbors. The illegally occupies the surrounding states, facing overwhelming force and seeing that pacifistic measures don't work against the Israelis they turn to violence. So you get suicide bombers, and guerilla fighters attacking targets whenever they can.
I mean have you even looked at Israel's responses, oh a rocket blows up a field ok we're going to flatten your capital, if you don't leave your house and only place to stay we are going to kill you. That's not a responsible attitude, Israel is like a big bully, hrmm one of our soldiers have died ok that's not on lets perform a 'surgical strike' oh and by surgical I mean takes out 10 times more civilians than the guerillas. If Israel were to take a sensible and legal method to help resolve this conflict, but lets be honest Israel doesn't like sensible and really goes in for the 'eye for and eye' or in their case 'and eye for a head oh and maybe an arm, and that leg looks threatening'
I'm not saying the launching of rockets is right or good I don't support that but Israelk needs to back off and stop violating internal law and quite frankly treat the locals with some respect else that's all they are going to get.
I'm twenty, before this January I went to the cinema withouth fail every single week and by and large I loved every film I saw, yes there were some very crap films but there was always atleast one decent film a month, I stopped doing this in January after Aeon Flux. From November until January I never saw one film which could be described as 'average', 'ok' or 'decent' they sucked hugely, (admittedly I missed Serinity in the box office.) When the quality of films has gotten so bad that a person who was adddicted as me goes 'enough is enough' then I think the parents right. This month is the first month this year which has enough to tempt me back into the cinema (that and a very cute girl likes films). I left Superman wondering what the hell they think they were doing with the charracter and disapointed that the film started so promisingly and then just nose bombed, Pirates of the Carribian 2 was ok I wouldn't say it was speacial but then for £2.5 i'm not going to complain either.
The truth is theres a lot more on TV thats more interesting and gripping than there is in the cinema this year, in previous years we have had some actually interesting things from Kill Bill, Saw, Sin City, Layer Cake, Night Watch, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Shuan of the Dead, Spiderman 2, The Matrix Reloaded (I liked it) . So far this year the best film out was Serintiy that was more than 6 months ago, nothing else has come close films like Saw 2 with the predicitable plot and extreme gore without any form of taste aren't that interesting, The Creep? The Decent? The Cave? V for Vendetta the words crap beyond belief only begin to describe.
The only films left of interest for me are Miami Vice and Cars, Cars because pixar do reasonably enjoyable films even if your 20, and Miami Vice because it looks 100 times better than anything else
ASBo's are being used respsonibly and apporpiatly in the UK, take where I live, there was an area you didn't go if you went there past 10PM there was a high chance of either yobs trying to mug you, someone trying to set fire to soemthing or the incidental kniging (btw I'm not exagerating.) Since ASBO's have arrived the area is much much improved, certain familes have been banned from this and that and when they breeched the order were thrown in jail. Suddenly I'm not afraid to drive through the area past 10PM, its still not a nice place but is a hundred times improved.
ASBo's stop certain behavoir, in the park example, cameras can be set up and teenagers arrested, but as soon as they are out and probably during the behavoir continues. By banning them from the area, you clean up the place, ok you have moved them onto anouther one, but with the right ASBO you can slowly improve the whole area for the better.
There have been some rediculous ASBO's, I know one Judge ordered that a family wern't allowed within a certain distance of each other, because often when they were lots of crime would ensue. It was impractical and amended soon after.
A lot of people get away from court trials on technicalities and jail does not seem the detirent it once was, in the area mentioned above alot of the people in the three bad families had been in jail several times for ABH/GBH/Vandalisim had served many community hours.
Judges use a lot of restraint in their use heck many in the UK think Judges are often to restrained in their actions, I would imagine this would be used when the police know the individual is guilty, when everyone in the room knows the person has commited the crime, but when the person has managed to escape the issue through a loophole or one part of the police's evidence falls down around them. I think it will be used sparingly and since the UK now has a decent opposition party again, it may well be overturned if its abused.