Ixlr8 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Available in certain areas in the Netherlands n (Score 1) 119

by Ixlr8 on Sunday March 22, 2009 @10:22AM (#27287711) Attached to: BT Shows First Fiber-Optic Broadband Rollout Plans

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

by Ixlr8 on Sunday March 22, 2009 @08:25AM (#27287257) Attached to: BT Shows First Fiber-Optic Broadband Rollout Plans

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

by Ixlr8 on Sunday March 01, 2009 @04:17PM (#27032293) Attached to: Solar Panels Reach $1 a Watt

Are you sure you want to suggest another wrong unit?

Pirate Bay Operators Stand Trial On Monday 664

Posted by timothy on Friday February 13, 2009 @02:17AM from the stay-warm-date-a-swede dept.

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

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 12, 2009 @05:26PM from the unlocated-is-doubleplus-good-doublespeak dept.

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.'"

Submission + - Thermal IR imaging suggest half of Mars has ice

Submitted by

Ixlr8

on Thursday May 03, 2007 @04:05AM

Ixlr8 writes: "BBC news is running a story that suggests up to half of Mars may have ice. From the article:

Up until now, scientists had been able to search for water deposits using a spectrometer fixed to the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft. However, only readings that are accurate to within several hundred kilometres can be obtained.
By comparing seasonal changes in thermal infrared patterns, detected by the same Odyssey spacecraft, (scientists)[ed] can make readings accurate to within just hundreds of metres."

Slashdot Top Deals