91440
submission
highestregards writes:
20 years ago when I moved into my house and ordered land line phone service from Bell Canada, I opted to go for the pulse line rather than touch tone. The reasoning back then was simple, I only had a rotary phone and the pulse service was cheaper. Flash forward to present day. Although the phone company no longer offers the choice of line for new activations, they haven't disconnected those with pulse service. I'm now the only person that I know who still has a pulse line.
All of the phones in the house are of the push-button variety, so they can be used to respond to interactive prompts, but the phones are set to pulse dial mode. Over the years, I have heard a variety of reasons why I should upgrade to a touch tone line, but I have yet to be convinced. Common arguments are that dial up modems don't work on a pulse line (they do, you usually just preface the dialing string with a "P") and that extra services like 3-way calling and call return don't work (they do, but there's usually a different sequence to dial since rotary phones don't have a "*").
Considering that now, 20 years later, the monthly line charge is still marginally more expensive for a touch tone line than for a pulse one, I have decided to stick with pulse. A couple of questions: do any of you still use a pulse line? For those who choose to pay more for a touch tone line, what are your reasons?
90780
submission
Hello Kitty writes:
Computerworld is covering issues with various XP games crashing or crawling under Vista. The problems lie with DirectX 10 — and according to a number of interviews with the usual suspects, it's not looking too good for decent first-person shooter support for a while, maybe even next year. Of course, one of the quotes in the artcle sums it up for a lot of us: "You installed Vista. You deserve your problems. Heh."
68598
story
theodp writes
"Justice Eta, a Nigerian infant, has an ink spot on his tiny thumb to show he was immunized against polio and measles thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But Justice still faces respiratory trouble, which locals call 'the cough' and blame on fumes and soot spewing from 300-foot flames at a nearby oil plant owned by Itallian energy giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Part one of an L.A. Times investigation reports that the world's largest philanthropy pours money into investments that are hurting many of the people its grants aim to help. With the exception of tobacco companies, the foundation's asset managers do not avoid investments in firms whose activities conflict with the mission to do good."
68570
submission
tomjen writes:
What if a well known laptop company had silently placed an ActiveX Control on their computers that allowed any webpage to execute any program?
Well Acer did and they have (based on the last modified-by date of the file) been doing this since 1998.
"Checking the interface of the control reveals it has a method named "Run()" as shown below. The method supports parameters "Drive", "FileName", and "CmdLine". Isn't it strange for a control that's marked "safe for scripting" to allow a method that is suggestive of possible abuse?"
