Comment US and Canada only (Score 1) 204
Oh, US and Canada only. Never mind then.
Comment Europe... (Score 5, Interesting) 199
From my time in Moldova with native students, all they want is to join up with the rest of Europe and get the show on the road. They're really frustrated at "the Man". There's the Romanians who don't want to reunite the countries (since Moldova is poorer), the Russians who keep feeding the border conflict with Transnistria (fascinating read about that tin pot narco/weapons state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria ), there's the EU that doesn't even want to consider Moldova as long as there's an unsolved border conflict, there's the communists in power, and so on. Doesn't surprise me much that they're going the same way as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine -- which was much the same circumstances.
Totally OT: Moldova has the BEST wine and the CRAZIEST Nightclubs. Gotta believe me on that one
Comment We will be the first digital settlers (Score 1) 313
I believe that we (us netizens right now) will be remembered as the root users of the internet, the place where the buck stops, the people alive at 0 A.D. if you will. Sort of like us surfing to web.archive.org to check out sites from 1995, only people in 2500 will be checking us out and tracking us down. Perhaps even celebrities may come of it, unknown in our time. In 20 years people will have all of today's internet on an USB stick (or obviously some other far more advanced replacement) and this whole data retention thing won't be an issue. We're here to stay, from now on we're switched on. Cheers.
Comment Re:Available in certain areas in the Netherlands n (Score 1) 119
Because Amsterdam is not in the UK...
The Dutch television distribution system is kind of weird. The BBC does not allow any provider but the old fashioned cable companies to distribute BBC1 and 2. As a kind of compensation the alternatives offered by the digital-over-the-air-TV-providers and these fibre providers is to offer BBC world. Yeah right... that doesn't do it for me.
There is a lawsuit going on at the moment that challenges exactly this 'bbc1 and 2 only on cable' deal.
Comment Available in certain areas in the Netherlands now (Score 2, Interesting) 119
Some cities in the Netherlands already have broadband fibre options for residential connections. Living in one of the pilot areas in Amsterdam, I am currently enjoying 20 Mbit/s (symmetrical!), but could go up to 100 Mbit/s (also symmetrical) if I'm willing to pay more.
Internet service can be combined with telephone and radio/TV. RTV is converted to old fashioned cable signal in your home, which with good cabling (and proper channel separation (which they did take care of)) gives excellent TV image quality, without slow channel switching, digital artefacts, and one-TV-only downsides typical for other digital TV services.
The good thing is (IMHO) they separated the network itself from the service providers, so you can have your choice of who (and what) you pay for. I'm just getting internet, because the TV package is missing BBC1 and 2 due to stupid monopoly of the old fashioned cable companies.
Comment Re:$1 per Watt or per kW? (Score 1) 381
Are you sure you want to suggest another wrong unit?
Comment Re:as old ben would say (Score 2, Informative) 690
Oh come on. Remember Napoleon?
I live in Europe and hate the French just as much as anyone, but you have to admit that their stance on the Iraq war was both reasonable and correct. Why the grudge? Cling to talking points much?
Pirate Bay Operators Stand Trial On Monday 664
Anonymous Pirate writes "Operators of The Pirate Bay stand trial on Monday in Stockholm. The four defendants from the popular file-sharing web site are charged with being accessories to breaking copyright law and may face fines or up to two years in prison if found guilty. The four defendants have run the site since 2004 after it was started in 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån. The Swedish public service television announced that they are going to send a live audio stream from the trial. It will be broadcast without editing or translation."
US Nuclear Weapons Lab Loses 67 Computers 185
pnorth writes "Officials from New Mexico's Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory have confessed that 67 of its computers are missing, with no less than 13 of them having disappeared over the past year alone. A memo [PDF] leaked by the Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost nuclear laptops to the public's attention, but the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration dismissed fears the computers contained highly-sensitive or classified information, noting it was more likely to cause 'cybersecurity issues.' Three of the 13 computers which went missing in the past year were stolen from a scientist's home on January 16 and the memo also mentioned a BlackBerry belonging to another staff member had been lost 'in a sensitive foreign country.' The labs faced similar issues back in 2003 when 22 laptops were designated as being 'unlocated.'"
Comment Re:Palantype, Velotype, Stenotype (Score 1) 663
In short: they suck. They are aimed toward natural text. You can type special symbols on them, but usually it's torturous.
Speed of composition is another issue. Your speed of coding is not limited by the IO of the keyboard or the speed with which you type, but by the speed at which you think. Which is also something to keep in mind with chorded keyboards: you may type fast, but can your thinking keep up? Anyway, for coding you're probably better off with a qwerty keyboard and some fancy substitution macros for your text editor.
Network Neutrality — Without Regulation 351
boyko.at.netqos writes "Timothy B. Lee (no relation to Tim Berners-Lee), a frequent contributor to Ars Technica and Techdirt, has recently written 'The Durable Internet,' a paper published by the libertarian-leaning CATO institute. In it, Lee argues that because a neutral network works better than a non-neutral one, the Internet's open-ended architecture is not likely to vanish, despite the fears of net neutrality proponents, (and despite the wishes of net neutrality opponents.) For that reason, perhaps network neutrality legislation isn't necessary — or even desirable — from an open-networks perspective. In addition to the paper, Network Performance Daily has an interview and podcast with Tim Lee, and Lee addresses counter-arguments with a blog posting for Technology Liberation Front."
Study Recommends Online Gaming, Social Networking For Kids 189
Blue's News pointed out a report about a study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation which found that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children, teaching them basic technical skills and how to communicate in the Information Age. The study was conducted over a period of three years, with researchers interviewing hundreds of children and monitoring thousands of hours of online time. The full white paper (PDF) is also available.
"For a minority of children, the casual use of social media served as a springboard to them gaining technological expertise — labeled in the study as 'geeking out,' the researchers said. By asking friends or getting help from people met through online groups, some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played, edit videos and fix computer hardware. Given that the use of social media serves as inspiration to learning, schools should abandon their hostility and support children when they want to learn some skills more sophisticated than simply designing their Facebook page, the study said."
Comment Industrial designer or architect. (Score 1) 564
Industrial designer or architect, depending on whether you want to design either the props or the stage of everyday life. Seriously, both are interesting, creative and fun, require an analytic mind without rubbing it in, and can be mixed with their more "serious" sister disciplines (mechanical engineering and civil engineering, respectively) at will. You have all the benefits of being able to "geek out" with the technical fundamentals, while you also have the whole human factors side. I'm an industrial design student and I find it a really well rounded field for us geeks.
Comment Re:When beer is free... (Score 0, Offtopic) 272
RMS, is that you?
How 10 Iconic Tech Products Got Their Names 247
lgmac writes "Think Windows Azure is a stupid name? Ever wonder how iPod, BlackBerry and Twitter got their names? Author Tom Wailgum goes inside the process of creating tech product names that are cool but not exclusionary, marketable, and most of all, free of copyright and trademark gotchas. Here's the scoop on ten iconic tech products and how they got their monikers, plus a chat with
the man responsible for naming Azure, BlackBerry, and more. (What's the one he wishes he'd named but didn't? Google.)"
