Safe Speed Forums

Wiki is doing a 24 hour blackout of its English site as a protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).

If you want to get around this (but can't disable javascript, or at least can't be bothered): load the wanted page (and allow the SOPA page), then press the F5 key quickly followed by the ESC key. The right timing will give you what you need. This can easily be repeated if you are too fast with the ESC key (loads a blank page) or too slow (loads the SOPA page again).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I guess you have been trying that out then !

Further info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16596577 - Sopa and Pipa anti-piracy bills controversy explained
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj - What Is SOPA Anyway? A Guide to Understanding the Online Piracy Bill

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I can't believe the fuss about this. Is it not easily possible for people to get through a whole 24hrs without some online crutch?

However, I have some sympathy for the online directories and the like as they are really just the messenger and you shouldn't shoot them. It is like requiring Royal Mail to open and police every letter in case they might contain illegal material. The people placing illicit material on sites are the miscreants but it's difficult to track them down.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

The majority can be tracked to the house where the computer is located. Those on mobile broadband can be tracked to the phone.
It takes time and money to do it, and the return is low.
The SOPA and PIPA act just stop sites that are carrying the links and/or the material. Note that people in this country doing so can be extradited to the US and prosecuted in court there.
Of course, if...say...the University of East Anglia made a complaint against WUWT for displaying confidential emails then the WUWT host could be told to stop providing service to same.
Obviously, the site could relocate abroad....but then US sites enabling the banned site to "exist" in the US could be ordered to stop...and on it goes.
You need to look behind to find out whose hand is up the puppets bum....and what the desired end result actually is.
Somehow I doubt that "online piracy" is the real reason......and that would mean the politicians are lying.......who wudda thunk that.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Yes, I agree that even if the copyright holders tracked down teenage John in his bedroom, there would not be much point in prosecuting him.

I am a bit concerned about the conflation of sites carrying links and sites which actually have the pirate material. The former are just "the messenger". The latter could properly be shut down.

The real worry here is the "mission creep" which is likely to happen. You don't like the political opinions expressed on a site? Just complain that it links to some pirate (no evidence required) and get it shut down.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Heard an analogy on the radio yesterday regarding this.

There's a lot of cars on the roads
Cars are sometimes used in bank robberies
Let's ban cars to help stop bank robberies
You can't do that!
Oh so you are in favour of banks being robbed then?

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

Just quoting a happening -not justifying anything .

Year or two ago , I bought a pukka copy of Windows XP Pro - and installed it . i also made a copy, for security reasons. ( as I am allowed to do ) . AT one stage , I had problems with my PC and simplest iption was to re install . Great ,till origonal self destructed in CD drive . One new drive later - and back up copy had problems. Tried MS -answer "TOUGH-you need new copy " . ( although I had genuine key etc) . Only alternative was to buy new cd ,with another key . OUCH .
What I didn't know ,and MS coudn't/wouldn't tell me( I found out later) was that I could have downloaded a copy from a site ,and used my key .
SO ,if folk see a way of bypassing the MS greed monopoly - I won't judge them as pirates .To me MS & distributers are the real pirates . If they were to lower the greed element and sell more at lower pfofit -then piracy ( as they define it ) would not be as much of a problem .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Under SOPA, you could get 5 years for uploading a Michael Jackson song, one year more than the doctor who killed him.



mb

Yes, you could have downloaded a copy. And legally.
Compare that to when you upgrade your system, for instance a new fixed disc, where your xp will cease downloading upgrades.
You then get onto those ever-unhelpful MS people who note what you have done....more often they tell you to buy another copy.
Or, like me, you buy a LEGAL version of XP from a large dealer, which has NEVER upgraded because #Windows Genuine Advantage# says it is not legal........................
Anyway.....bored.........I discovered Ubuntu-Linux.
F### MS.
And now with Ubuntu V11.10, MS can F### RIGHT OFF.
The operating system is supposed to be just that....not a perpetual obstacle course in the operation of a computer.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Thing is Jom, a guy at work who boasts a software degree and bigged-up Linux ad nauseam over about two years brought it one day and guess what? He couldn't install it and get it to work properly for one reason or another.

While us MS users quietly did our Mutley laugh, I concluded he was either a bull shister or it really was a difficulty.

Speaking as a Linux virgin, but maybe you can tell me, can Mr or Ms average buy it, install it and use it?

Or put another way, cynic hat on, if it really is as good as the few say why isn't it the world standard?

Cheers Jom

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

My last phone ran off Palm OS (their own software) and worked extremely well.
Linex: It has been around for a long time and has slowly been gaining support. It is out there, but perhaps not that 'obvious', for example it is pm my (recently upgraded) Samsung phone, and it works extremely well - slick.

The problem that many face, (me included) is that the software that we need/want to run, isn't available on Linux.
Then if you use Linex the output of files produced may not cross platforms very well.
As one has to buy off MS the code to enable these cross platform abilities they are terribly greedy.
MS is a software mess IMHO and the crashing and ongoing problems are a feature of bug filled software that still has problems and when resolved instead of given away as free upgrades they add a feature or two and sell it as an upgrade.
The problem when one organisation holds a monopoly. Good business but can and has left millions of people worldwide left dealing with massive problems that might take hours or even days to fix or find work-arounds.
I will say that more recent MS software has been a bit more stable.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Download page, Ubuntu 11.10:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

Screenshot:

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/10/13/ubuntu-11-10-screenshots/

You can download and burn a bootable disc, and run from that without altering your sys at all, or a bootable USB memory stick.
You can install as a dual-boot system.
On the screenshot the icons look a bit large, but they can be scaled down.
As for software....had MS word, now got the linux word version. Not too much difference.
Had Gimp on MS, got Gimp on Ubuntu.
Had Firefox on MS, got Firefox on Ubuntu.
Had Google Chrome on MS, still got it on Ubuntu.
Had Avira anti-virus on MS, don't need an anti-virus on Ubuntu-Linux.
Had a sluggish laptop that took ages to boot into MS, now boots into Ubuntu in a minute.
I won't say it was plain sailing, but it was fun...still is.
Desktop dual boot, laptop Ubuntu.
Or try Linux Mint, it may be better.

http://www.linuxmint.com/

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

And dont forget openoffice!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Does that come with 24/7 support? PM me your number if you would please Jom.

OK, I'll give it a go. I'll do a back up first. Presumably I can format the hard drive and just install it? If not, I can foresee a problem straight away. Is there an Ubuntu for Dummies? What about everything I’ve done in Word, Access and Excel. Will they open under the Ubuntu OS?

Back on topic.. I don't know why Wiki or having access to the Net is such a desperate necessity these days. In fact I think it’s worrying just how much we feel our lives are somehow empty without it. In the 70s I used to go out with one door key and a fiver in my pocket; simples. I met my friends and arranged things without it ever being a problem. About 90% of it is used for porn anyway, which is bad so my mum led me to believe. “There are two types of people in the world. Those having lots of sex and jealous people”. Ardal O'Hanlon.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not hooked on wiki or anything like that. However, it is a rather convenient repository of factoids that I like to check when watching shows like QI - which was exactly what I was doing when I came across the Wiki blackout.

Wiki isn't exactly the least productive way to pass time ...

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Why would you believe wiki ?
It wasn't so long ago that one of their "moderators" was removed for moderating things he didn't like out of global warming items....anything that suggested it wasn't human-caused got chopped.
How many others are doing the same ?
As for linux.....backups should be done anyway...once done you can install linux as a dual-boot OS. You will, on boot, be given a list of OS to use.
Or, the better option, you can burn it to a cd as a bootable disc and then check it out.
I think that excel files will still run in LibreOfficeCalc, the open-source version of excel. Just checked, it opens and saves in excel format.



http://www.libreoffice.org/features/

I'm not saying it's easy, just that it works, works well, and like everything else....it takes time and patience.
And there are a whole load of dedicated forums as well....

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Which most people access via Windows (Please forgive me, I just couldn’t resist). I wish I had you here to help me with it when I try. BTW, did you know you can get £300 per hour, per hour, for teaching Access? My work colleague is currently looking into it. Maybe you could get the same for Ubuntu tuition.

Ah, a fellow QI lover. Me too Steve. There was a comic on TV the other day who said the old fib about us having more canals than Venice. More Snopes than Wiki but QI dispelled that myth I remember.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Nice to see that a lot of US Senators have cooled off following this -otherwise it might be "open oriface" with MS charging what they like .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Tone,

you missed that bit where he said "You can download and burn a bootable disc, and run from that without altering your sys at all" - so have a play after booting from a CD without affecting you existing system (indeed you can prolly disconnect you hard-drive for the duration if you are paranoid ).

mb

I trust Wiki more than the "stupid man's clever person".

I accept nothing at face value, which is why I check.



Can Linux run my: Photoshop, Photolapse, Canon Digital Photo Professional, Goldwave Audio editor, Media Player Classic, Virtualdub, my Thermal Imaging programs and all my other little quirky programs designed for Windows, without hours of hassle and WINEing? If so then I would certainly consider shifting. If not then I won't.

I do respect Linux, it gives Windows a serious run for its money and forces Microsoft to be (somewhat) competitive.

I'm still on XP. Both my XP machines boot from cold, to opening Google in FF, in about 35 seconds.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign