Sounds like a great hot project for a lot of people to collaborate on like Gnome and KDE at the moment.
It would be insanely complicated to write, but I think the hardest part would be coming up with the framework to hang all the functionality off. Would require a big paradigm shift like BeOS tried to do.
If strangeness decreases from a positive value to 0, meaning not strange at all, then by definition, a negative strangeness must be even less strange than not strange at all, and certainly not a different kind of strange, which by definition would have to be positive.
"Hyper-boringness", well I'm not sure about that though....
"Three facilities were found to have hired 11 workers aged 15 in countries where the minimum work age is 16,..."
Holy cow, I was expecting some nasty child exploitation article conjuring images of appalling sweat-shop conditions containing 5-year olds or worse scrabbling under machines catching scraps of wool and linen like that common during the industrial revolution.
So we have some guys at 15 making out they're 16 to do some iPod assembly and this is supposed to shock us? How the world has changed....
The Vulcans prime function during the cold war would be to drop self-guided blue steel missile nukes from extremely high altitude, higher than any missile could reach at the time, practically skirting the atmosphere.
That was the real reason for the number and size of the engines so that they could actually run in such thin air. Once the poor russkys knew that a missile was on the way, the Vulcan would have long gone...
> each pilot was determined to show off to the maximum.
The version of the story I heard from my Dad who was in the RAF at the time was that to teach the "cheeky" yanks a thing or two about aircraft power was that the pilots of one of the Vulcans as they were leaving the base was to take off normally, then at the end of the runway they climbed vertically at full throttle into the clouds. At the time, (and probably true today), the Vulcan was the only bomber that could do this. I bet it made a bit of a racket.
They would have needed special clearance to perform this manoevre due to the enormous frame stress to the aircraft. I can only imagine....
And yes, the 4 Olympus engines have more than enough clout to do it.
Jaunty was superb for me, everything largely just worked.
Karmic was a failure on so many levels. They tried to change too much too soon with insufficient testing. I do remember seeing a comment from Mr Shuttleworth that they were going to concentrate on stability with the lynx and I bloody well hope so.
"I am no fan of the police state, but if the police did nothing about the twitterings and then something happened we would castigate them."
Well I'm sure the papers would pillory them.
But I don't think it is a good justification for the police to jump on anyone that says something that they don't like the sound of. There must be thousands of incidents a week of people saying things like "I'm gonna kill you for this", many of them in public: should they all be hauled before the beak because he threatened someone with murder?
If you said something unpleasant about a bouncer's girlfriend, sure he would wallop you, but he would still be guilty of assault and rightly so. We should expect a higher standard from our police than from a bouncer.
So what is the level of evidence provided with a DMCA takedown notice anyway?
Or is there typically any evidence provided with these things?
Throwing a legal-type notice at an organisation and expecting them to comply with it without any kind of due process is a bit rich. What if they're hosting their own material?
...didn't Germany pass some legislation regarding banning the use of compound packing materials, the type that is almost impossible to recycle? Like silvered paper or card fused with plastic.
Can't wait for that one. Seriously, how in this day and age can it be legal to manufacture packing materials that can only be put into landfill? That's a no-brainer.
That's the big failure with the "I'd like to vote for LibDems but it would be a wasted vote" argument.
Believe me, just vote with your conscience.
At the end of the day, it won't make any difference to the outcome anyway unless the voting ends up with one vote deciding, which is, erm, not really likely.
There is a definite resemblance between the last 2 bars of the flute riff and the first 2 bars of the Kookaburra song.
It is rather obviously accidental though.
Given all the music out there it is almost inconceivable that there wouldn't be accidental collisions between the odd bar here or there. They would have to prove intent and since this song isn't about birds (at least not that type anyway) I think they would have a hard time convincing me....
I don't think in reality that you would be able to see the ejected particles from the block hole's axis unless you were looking along the axis anyway, certainly not from the side.
1. If the flight is fully booked or over-subscribed, then they don't get a refund. They've paid for the extra seat so they still get it. By paying for an extra seat, they prevented another paying passenger from boarding.
2. If the flight is not fully booked then they do get a refund because the extra seat that they have paid for would have been empty anyway.
Well, I guess if you had a million churches and each had to stump up a cost of $1 then that would be right.
If you have a large number of any organisations even with a modest contribution each, you're going to come up with a pretty big figure that means exactly nothing in real terms.
Come on though, most of these churches are likely to be using illegal equipment. It's kinda like thieves complaining that breaking into houses has just become illegal, except in this case, it was already against the law....
No, Sorry, the point, that you missed, went that way.....
Lewis has it spot on.
The remaining threat is vanishingly small. It is just not practically possible to eliminate the terrorist threat entirely. Just look at the number of people that died in the west from terrorism compared to other factors of sudden death: drunk driving, electrocution, heart attack, and many others. Terrorism just doesn't even appear on the radar.
If I decided tomorrow to go into a shopping centre with a big knife and hack a load of people to death, there is absolutely nothing anybody could do to stop me. The only thing that keeps our society together is a certain amount of trust and most people's abhorrence of such acts.
The issue comes down to a case of what it is reasonable to do to prevent possible attacks given their likelihood, the cost and the effect that those measures have on our daily life.
I for one think that full body searches and expensive scanning machines are a step too far.
What happened to the British wartime spirit? All the way through the Irish terror attacks and WWII, the message was "They will never change our way of life. We will continue living as we always have despite their best efforts."
The aim of these groups is not practical disruption, it is psychological disruption and fear.
Unfortunately, the politicians and the media are doing that quite nicely for them.
The problem with the tablet/slate thing is that it is not going to be the answer for the great majority of users. Certainly, there are applications, and I have programmed some industrial systems with touchscreens, but apart from the slate's portability, I don't see where they are a big commercial winner for most users particularly in the office.
The next BIG game changing thing will be machines that you can talk to "naturally" and have it understand you in a manner which sufficient for the purposed that you need it (I mean other than phone speed dial and the like of course) which will pose some interesting issues when working in an office environment.
Speaking is what comes most naturally for us for communication.
Anyone that can crack that nut is onto a huge winner.
More and more people are using VPN access to make home working a reality.
As a computer professional (and I know many others that do the same from time to time) a fast Internet connection is essential for a practical home solution.
Granted, you don't need 50Mbit but how many people actually have that? An insignificant proportion I would guess.
When broadband was first being bought up, it was probably true that the vast majority were tech-savvy hackers wanting the latest cinema-ripped off content from some dodgy sites. Today, although they are the bandwidth hoggers, I suggest that they are a very small minority of Internet users.
I thought the whole point of patents was to encourage full disclosure in exchange for a time-limited government granted monopoly on the product described in the patent.
If the technology is patented, why do Seagate need an NDA and "secret" details?
Firstly, there are various references to the "facts" referred to and additionally, since the article is a comment on a "possible" future, I think you will find it hard to find "facts" until the future actually arrives...
"I expect when steam engines were coming into fashion, Mr Ludd was writing similar articles about the danger of machinery replacing people, etc...."
Well let's explore that idea for a second.
Before the machines came, we had thousands of cottage industries making cloth in their own establishments using their own tools. People with their own businesses in control of their lives (well inasmuchas was possible then). They weren't wealthy people but they had pride and some self-determination.
Then the machines and big business came all in the name of efficiency and cheap prices. A few people became rich. Many thousands lost their businesses and their livelihoods and became destitute since they could not compete against this new efficiency. People had to leave their homes and villages to work for these monstrosities since there was no alternative; terrible conditions, a pittance of a wage, all so that we could get more cheaper cloth and make some wealthy people insanely rich.
I think there are a few parallels to be drawn there to events happening now and they're NOT good.
Which companies did Google bribe/blackmail to provide only their products at the explicit expense of others?
When did Google get shafted in court over anti-competitive practices?
Just how much handy software/services has Microsoft just given away compared to Google (and I'm thinking Google Maps, Streetview, Sketchup, Earth, and the list is a lot longer).
Being very successful is not being evil, that's "business".
I would agree that Google are far from perfect but M$ were definitely the bad boys of the last 20 years or so.
That depends on how the patent defines an overlay.
Is this an overlay in the sense of a binary patch or an overlay in the sense of "you need this extra DLL for it to do anything useful"?
If the second sense, then you get into all sorts of issues as to whether the full version of Doom is guilty as you receive extra WADs which augment the original limited package to finish the game.
...unless you need some important treatment that Medicare doesn't pay for.
And you spend the next few years paying off the debt.
Emergencies are one thing but long term medical care for cancer etc is far more expensive in the long run and you don't usually get it for "free".
The realities of any healthcare system is that there are people (like myself) that require very little from it, and some unfortunates that were born with a greater need through no fault of their own, and you won't necessarily know in advance of that need, which is why in the NHS we do not (in principle at least) pay at the point of need.
Notwithstanding that you can spend an infinite number of dollars/pounds/euros/... on Healthcare, it really should be to the #1 priority for ANY country as everyone needs it at some point in their lives.
"...and that the confidentiality of evidence in such an inquiry was vital."
Erm, no. Confidentiality of the evidence means that the witnesses can lie to their back teeth without fear of exposure.
You only have to look at the Canadian Dziekanski tasering case to know that the truth would not have come out if it wasn't for the video showing the cops tasering the poor guy and his stapler to death. The cops lied about the circumstances and the video evidence showed it in shocking clarity.
In this particular case, I'm sure the enquiry will listen to the tape, but I'm not sure why publishing the tape would make the witnesses' evidence any less reliable. More reliable more likely.
I now run Ubuntu on my Macbook Pro and it "feels" faster and more nippy than the XP or OSX that I had before. It just feels more responsive.
With 4Gb memory I can quite happily run both XP and CentOS in VirtualBox VMs at the same time and it still feels pretty good. Don't have any figures, just a gut feeling.
[BTW I don't have an axe to grind against any particular OS, it's just a tools don't ya know?]
Samsung UN55B8000 55" LED TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
LG Electronics 42LH30 42" LCD TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
Samsung UN55B8500 55" LED TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
Sony BRAVIA KDL-40EX400 40" LCD TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
Samsung UN40B6000 40" LED TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
171 posts • joined Monday 18th August 2008 17:08 GMT
Page:
skelband
Well it's gone now → #
Posted Friday 19th March 2010 17:14 GMT
In Energizer site still plagued by data-stealing trojan
...and if you read the press release, the software has a "vunerability".
I guess that's easier to say than, "we accidentally put a virus in the software" :D
skelband
In what way is it like the Timotei ad? → #
Posted Friday 19th March 2010 01:11 GMT
In Windows Phone 7 Series gets Timotei rinse
Pipe music, no.
Boats, no.
Soft focus, no.
Shampoo, no.
"So mild you can use it every day", erm, check.
Just asking.
skelband
"Hey Janelle... → #
Posted Friday 12th March 2010 00:44 GMT
In Password reset questions dead easy to guess
... what's wrong with Wolfie?"
"Wolfie's fine...."
A little bit of knowledge can go a long way :D
skelband
Tesco? → #
Posted Wednesday 10th March 2010 01:21 GMT
In Cisco 'forever changes internet' with... a router
Am I the only one that thinks Cisco's logo looks like the old Tesco logo?
Conjures up images of shopping bags.
And even the name rhymes.
skelband
Well why not? → # ↑
Posted Monday 8th March 2010 21:45 GMT
In Microsoft's dual-screen booklet shows 'face' on web
Sounds like a great hot project for a lot of people to collaborate on like Gnome and KDE at the moment.
It would be insanely complicated to write, but I think the hardest part would be coming up with the framework to hang all the functionality off. Would require a big paradigm shift like BeOS tried to do.
skelband
Stop digging → #
Posted Friday 5th March 2010 18:51 GMT
In Man of God backs Beverley porncoder
Holy cow - is the editor of this paper mad?
They are just building a stronger and stronger harrassment case for Mr Smith.
I'll enjoy watching that.
skelband
No I'm with Lewis on this one. → # ↑
Posted Friday 5th March 2010 18:43 GMT
In 'Negatively strange' antihypermatter made out of gold
If strangeness decreases from a positive value to 0, meaning not strange at all, then by definition, a negative strangeness must be even less strange than not strange at all, and certainly not a different kind of strange, which by definition would have to be positive.
"Hyper-boringness", well I'm not sure about that though....
skelband
"5 minutes with Dr Linda" → #
Posted Monday 1st March 2010 18:35 GMT
In Sexy is as sexy does: UK.gov struggles with sexualisation
Yeah, baby.
That site is so sexed-up.
How can that lady keep a straight face?
skelband
So what? → #
Posted Monday 1st March 2010 04:49 GMT
In Apple uncovers child workers in its plants
"Three facilities were found to have hired 11 workers aged 15 in countries where the minimum work age is 16,..."
Holy cow, I was expecting some nasty child exploitation article conjuring images of appalling sweat-shop conditions containing 5-year olds or worse scrabbling under machines catching scraps of wool and linen like that common during the industrial revolution.
So we have some guys at 15 making out they're 16 to do some iPod assembly and this is supposed to shock us? How the world has changed....
skelband
Which still leaves the question of... → #
Posted Friday 26th February 2010 21:36 GMT
In Gay site says bank shut account over 'objectionable' blog
...what exactly was the problem then?
If it wasn't related to the website content, then why did they suspend the account?
skelband
High altitude → # ↑
Posted Thursday 25th February 2010 23:13 GMT
In Vulcan kept airborne by £400k refuel
The Vulcans prime function during the cold war would be to drop self-guided blue steel missile nukes from extremely high altitude, higher than any missile could reach at the time, practically skirting the atmosphere.
That was the real reason for the number and size of the engines so that they could actually run in such thin air. Once the poor russkys knew that a missile was on the way, the Vulcan would have long gone...
skelband
Different version → # ↑
Posted Thursday 25th February 2010 23:13 GMT
In Vulcan kept airborne by £400k refuel
> each pilot was determined to show off to the maximum.
The version of the story I heard from my Dad who was in the RAF at the time was that to teach the "cheeky" yanks a thing or two about aircraft power was that the pilots of one of the Vulcans as they were leaving the base was to take off normally, then at the end of the runway they climbed vertically at full throttle into the clouds. At the time, (and probably true today), the Vulcan was the only bomber that could do this. I bet it made a bit of a racket.
They would have needed special clearance to perform this manoevre due to the enormous frame stress to the aircraft. I can only imagine....
And yes, the 4 Olympus engines have more than enough clout to do it.
skelband
There is something in that. → # ↑
Posted Thursday 25th February 2010 01:11 GMT
In Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx to Facebook and Twitter you
Jaunty was superb for me, everything largely just worked.
Karmic was a failure on so many levels. They tried to change too much too soon with insufficient testing. I do remember seeing a comment from Mr Shuttleworth that they were going to concentrate on stability with the lynx and I bloody well hope so.
skelband
In Canada → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 24th February 2010 00:54 GMT
In Vodafone Ireland admits pocketing dormant PAYG cash
That's fine, but in Canada, Virgin Mobile steals all your credit if you don't use it in one month.
And don't even get me started on paying for incoming calls
skelband
And me → # ↑
Posted Friday 19th February 2010 00:39 GMT
In 'Fat birds get laid sooner, have more one-night stands'
..well half way down the comments actually.
skelband
But... → # ↑
Posted Friday 19th February 2010 00:37 GMT
In Twitter 'airport bomb hoax twit' charged
...didn't the underpants bomber (or one of the other recent terrorist wannabees?) tell his family what he was going to do before he did it?
skelband
The title is required, but I can't think of anything at the moment..... → # ↑
Posted Friday 19th February 2010 00:37 GMT
In Twitter 'airport bomb hoax twit' charged
"I am no fan of the police state, but if the police did nothing about the twitterings and then something happened we would castigate them."
Well I'm sure the papers would pillory them.
But I don't think it is a good justification for the police to jump on anyone that says something that they don't like the sound of. There must be thousands of incidents a week of people saying things like "I'm gonna kill you for this", many of them in public: should they all be hauled before the beak because he threatened someone with murder?
If you said something unpleasant about a bouncer's girlfriend, sure he would wallop you, but he would still be guilty of assault and rightly so. We should expect a higher standard from our police than from a bouncer.
skelband
Prices? → #
Posted Thursday 18th February 2010 00:41 GMT
In MS botches Office 2010 prices, hikes Professional by £30
Is that right then? $499 for the US version and £429 for the UK version?
"Rip off Britain" - we need an icon for that surely?
skelband
To be fair... → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 16th February 2010 23:13 GMT
In Scots unleash world's strongest beer
....I think he means the strongest in Wal-Mart.
skelband
Wires → # ↑
Posted Saturday 13th February 2010 00:44 GMT
In Chip and PIN security busted
...until someone does or Wireless version.
In which case, how would anyone know?
skelband
Due process → #
Posted Thursday 11th February 2010 23:36 GMT
In Google's 'Musicblogocide' - blame the DMCA
So what is the level of evidence provided with a DMCA takedown notice anyway?
Or is there typically any evidence provided with these things?
Throwing a legal-type notice at an organisation and expecting them to comply with it without any kind of due process is a bit rich. What if they're hosting their own material?
skelband
Correct me if I'm wrong but... → # ↑
Posted Thursday 11th February 2010 00:59 GMT
In Govt inserts battery take-back scheme
...didn't Germany pass some legislation regarding banning the use of compound packing materials, the type that is almost impossible to recycle? Like silvered paper or card fused with plastic.
Can't wait for that one. Seriously, how in this day and age can it be legal to manufacture packing materials that can only be put into landfill? That's a no-brainer.
skelband
Hear, hear → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 10th February 2010 21:44 GMT
In Microsoft drops open-source birthday gift with FAST
I'm no M$ fanboy but IIRC SQL Server 6.5 was basically a Sybase fork and was therefore sh*te.
SQL Server 7 was a first proper rewrite by some clever clogs at M$ and it was like a breath of fresh air.
It's about the only decent software to come out of Microsoft that was any good in my humble opinion.
skelband
Don't worry → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 10th February 2010 04:25 GMT
In OpenOffice is the new David Hasselhoff
Your vote on its own means diddly squat.
That's the big failure with the "I'd like to vote for LibDems but it would be a wasted vote" argument.
Believe me, just vote with your conscience.
At the end of the day, it won't make any difference to the outcome anyway unless the voting ends up with one vote deciding, which is, erm, not really likely.
skelband
Well I certainly did → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 9th February 2010 10:01 GMT
In Microsoft kills FAST's Linux and Unix search biz
Who's this other FAST then?
skelband
It's two bars from what I can tell → #
Posted Thursday 4th February 2010 21:52 GMT
In Men at Work swiped Down Under riff
There is a definite resemblance between the last 2 bars of the flute riff and the first 2 bars of the Kookaburra song.
It is rather obviously accidental though.
Given all the music out there it is almost inconceivable that there wouldn't be accidental collisions between the odd bar here or there. They would have to prove intent and since this song isn't about birds (at least not that type anyway) I think they would have a hard time convincing me....
skelband
Yeah right → #
Posted Thursday 4th February 2010 01:20 GMT
In Microsoft's SVG talk a prelude to IE support?
....."write SVG once and know that it will be interoperable across versions of IE on Windows".
There, fixed it for you.
skelband
Whereas.... → #
Posted Thursday 4th February 2010 00:17 GMT
In Fugitive VoIP hacker admits 10 million minute spree
...if he killed someone through drunk driving he *might* have got some points on his license and a big fine, a small amount of jail time tops.
I do wonder why you can defraud companies out of some money and get 25 years, but what amounts to a slap on the wrist for killing some one.
skelband
Not realistic either. → # ↑
Posted Thursday 28th January 2010 20:00 GMT
In 'Tightly bound' stars seen locked in 'diabolic strip waltz'
I don't think in reality that you would be able to see the ejected particles from the block hole's axis unless you were looking along the axis anyway, certainly not from the side.
It's definitely an artist's impression.
skelband
Double standards → #
Posted Thursday 28th January 2010 01:00 GMT
In Amateur CCTV sleuth site probed by privacy watchdog
If these cameras are in public places, then I can't see a logical argument against it other than I think it's a daft idea.
Similar arguments are used to justify the (correct) freedom to photograph and video in public places by photographers.
It's either public and therefore open to scrutiny, or it's not.
Private establishments where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy is different of course.
skelband
Nah → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 20th January 2010 21:05 GMT
In Air France offers two-seat deal for fatties
1. If the flight is fully booked or over-subscribed, then they don't get a refund. They've paid for the extra seat so they still get it. By paying for an extra seat, they prevented another paying passenger from boarding.
2. If the flight is not fully booked then they do get a refund because the extra seat that they have paid for would have been empty anyway.
It's logical innit?
skelband
In Canada.. → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 20th January 2010 00:24 GMT
In Cadbury flakes in face of Kraft bid - cuts expected
..we have Hershy's chocolate "Kisses".
Basically chocolate drops.
They taste like sick.
How on earth you can make something simple like choc drops taste like sick is quite beyond me.
skelband
$1 million? → #
Posted Wednesday 20th January 2010 00:13 GMT
In Church of England takes on Ofcom
Well, I guess if you had a million churches and each had to stump up a cost of $1 then that would be right.
If you have a large number of any organisations even with a modest contribution each, you're going to come up with a pretty big figure that means exactly nothing in real terms.
Come on though, most of these churches are likely to be using illegal equipment. It's kinda like thieves complaining that breaking into houses has just become illegal, except in this case, it was already against the law....
skelband
Recycling → # ↑
Posted Friday 15th January 2010 22:48 GMT
In China's doomed attempt to hold the world to ransom
That's actually a good point.
How recyclable are these materials and could it become cost-effective to do so?
skelband
Nah → # ↑
Posted Friday 8th January 2010 23:36 GMT
In Trouser-bomb clown attacks - how much should we laugh?
No, Sorry, the point, that you missed, went that way.....
Lewis has it spot on.
The remaining threat is vanishingly small. It is just not practically possible to eliminate the terrorist threat entirely. Just look at the number of people that died in the west from terrorism compared to other factors of sudden death: drunk driving, electrocution, heart attack, and many others. Terrorism just doesn't even appear on the radar.
If I decided tomorrow to go into a shopping centre with a big knife and hack a load of people to death, there is absolutely nothing anybody could do to stop me. The only thing that keeps our society together is a certain amount of trust and most people's abhorrence of such acts.
The issue comes down to a case of what it is reasonable to do to prevent possible attacks given their likelihood, the cost and the effect that those measures have on our daily life.
I for one think that full body searches and expensive scanning machines are a step too far.
What happened to the British wartime spirit? All the way through the Irish terror attacks and WWII, the message was "They will never change our way of life. We will continue living as we always have despite their best efforts."
The aim of these groups is not practical disruption, it is psychological disruption and fear.
Unfortunately, the politicians and the media are doing that quite nicely for them.
skelband
It's not going to the big ground breaker. → #
Posted Friday 8th January 2010 00:02 GMT
In Ballmer preempts Jobs with
tabletslate trioThe problem with the tablet/slate thing is that it is not going to be the answer for the great majority of users. Certainly, there are applications, and I have programmed some industrial systems with touchscreens, but apart from the slate's portability, I don't see where they are a big commercial winner for most users particularly in the office.
The next BIG game changing thing will be machines that you can talk to "naturally" and have it understand you in a manner which sufficient for the purposed that you need it (I mean other than phone speed dial and the like of course) which will pose some interesting issues when working in an office environment.
Speaking is what comes most naturally for us for communication.
Anyone that can crack that nut is onto a huge winner.
skelband
And more... → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 5th January 2010 20:31 GMT
In U2 frontman bitchslapped by TalkTalk
More and more people are using VPN access to make home working a reality.
As a computer professional (and I know many others that do the same from time to time) a fast Internet connection is essential for a practical home solution.
Granted, you don't need 50Mbit but how many people actually have that? An insignificant proportion I would guess.
When broadband was first being bought up, it was probably true that the vast majority were tech-savvy hackers wanting the latest cinema-ripped off content from some dodgy sites. Today, although they are the bandwidth hoggers, I suggest that they are a very small minority of Internet users.
skelband
How can a patented technology be secret? → #
Posted Monday 4th January 2010 20:31 GMT
In Seagate may face noise reduction patent payout
I thought the whole point of patents was to encourage full disclosure in exchange for a time-limited government granted monopoly on the product described in the patent.
If the technology is patented, why do Seagate need an NDA and "secret" details?
skelband
Did you read the article? → # ↑
Posted Thursday 31st December 2009 20:36 GMT
In Welcome to the out-of-control decade
Firstly, there are various references to the "facts" referred to and additionally, since the article is a comment on a "possible" future, I think you will find it hard to find "facts" until the future actually arrives...
skelband
Interesting point → # ↑
Posted Thursday 31st December 2009 20:36 GMT
In Welcome to the out-of-control decade
"I expect when steam engines were coming into fashion, Mr Ludd was writing similar articles about the danger of machinery replacing people, etc...."
Well let's explore that idea for a second.
Before the machines came, we had thousands of cottage industries making cloth in their own establishments using their own tools. People with their own businesses in control of their lives (well inasmuchas was possible then). They weren't wealthy people but they had pride and some self-determination.
Then the machines and big business came all in the name of efficiency and cheap prices. A few people became rich. Many thousands lost their businesses and their livelihoods and became destitute since they could not compete against this new efficiency. People had to leave their homes and villages to work for these monstrosities since there was no alternative; terrible conditions, a pittance of a wage, all so that we could get more cheaper cloth and make some wealthy people insanely rich.
I think there are a few parallels to be drawn there to events happening now and they're NOT good.
skelband
Are you sure about that? → # ↑
Posted Thursday 17th December 2009 01:10 GMT
In How Google became Microsoft: A decade of hits, misses and gaffes
Which companies did Google bribe/blackmail to provide only their products at the explicit expense of others?
When did Google get shafted in court over anti-competitive practices?
Just how much handy software/services has Microsoft just given away compared to Google (and I'm thinking Google Maps, Streetview, Sketchup, Earth, and the list is a lot longer).
Being very successful is not being evil, that's "business".
I would agree that Google are far from perfect but M$ were definitely the bad boys of the last 20 years or so.
skelband
What is an overlay anyway? → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 16th December 2009 22:19 GMT
In Mystery co. sues Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle...
That depends on how the patent defines an overlay.
Is this an overlay in the sense of a binary patch or an overlay in the sense of "you need this extra DLL for it to do anything useful"?
If the second sense, then you get into all sorts of issues as to whether the full version of Doom is guilty as you receive extra WADs which augment the original limited package to finish the game.
What about plugins? Are they "overlays"?
skelband
I don't care what anyone else says... → #
Posted Wednesday 9th December 2009 22:26 GMT
In 'Friends with Benefits' sex does no psych harm - profs
...but I think your articles are great Lewis!
Keep up the good work!
skelband
That's all very well... → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 9th December 2009 22:26 GMT
In US told to keep its beak out of European decisions
...unless you need some important treatment that Medicare doesn't pay for.
And you spend the next few years paying off the debt.
Emergencies are one thing but long term medical care for cancer etc is far more expensive in the long run and you don't usually get it for "free".
The realities of any healthcare system is that there are people (like myself) that require very little from it, and some unfortunates that were born with a greater need through no fault of their own, and you won't necessarily know in advance of that need, which is why in the NHS we do not (in principle at least) pay at the point of need.
Notwithstanding that you can spend an infinite number of dollars/pounds/euros/... on Healthcare, it really should be to the #1 priority for ANY country as everyone needs it at some point in their lives.
skelband
Not true. → #
Posted Wednesday 9th December 2009 22:25 GMT
In UK air traffic control goes after Wikileaks
"...and that the confidentiality of evidence in such an inquiry was vital."
Erm, no. Confidentiality of the evidence means that the witnesses can lie to their back teeth without fear of exposure.
You only have to look at the Canadian Dziekanski tasering case to know that the truth would not have come out if it wasn't for the video showing the cops tasering the poor guy and his stapler to death. The cops lied about the circumstances and the video evidence showed it in shocking clarity.
In this particular case, I'm sure the enquiry will listen to the tape, but I'm not sure why publishing the tape would make the witnesses' evidence any less reliable. More reliable more likely.
skelband
Well I hope... → #
Posted Monday 7th December 2009 00:13 GMT
In Mozilla lights fire under Thunderbird
... that they don't bugger about with it too much unless it is for things that I would use.
I actually like it quite a bit.
Perhaps they should concentrate on the bugs both on Thunderbird and Lightning (which I use and is nice but is buggy as hell)
skelband
And.. → # ↑
Posted Friday 4th December 2009 21:33 GMT
In Physicists assemble world's smallest snowman
Good to know spelling and grammar are still being taught in British schools.
skelband
Well.. → # ↑
Posted Friday 4th December 2009 21:25 GMT
In Microsoft's Silverlight 4 - Flash developers need not apply
Their flash player is crap and the world is STILL waiting for a shockwave player.
They'll have a long wait.
skelband
@@Adobe has every reason in the world to make Flash work on as many platforms as possible → # ↑
Posted Friday 4th December 2009 09:55 GMT
In Microsoft's Silverlight 4 - Flash developers need not apply
...apart from Linux of course which they couldn't give a horse's todger for.
skelband
Well I think it's faster → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 1st December 2009 19:08 GMT
In Windows 7 - Microsoft minus the martyrdom
I now run Ubuntu on my Macbook Pro and it "feels" faster and more nippy than the XP or OSX that I had before. It just feels more responsive.
With 4Gb memory I can quite happily run both XP and CentOS in VirtualBox VMs at the same time and it still feels pretty good. Don't have any figures, just a gut feeling.
[BTW I don't have an axe to grind against any particular OS, it's just a tools don't ya know?]
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