jbond posted a photo:

The temperature controller is quite large and there's no obvious place to put it with the handlebar cover. So I tie wrapped it into the left dash box. "Start" is the full max temperature and gets pretty hot. High is ok once everything is warmed up. Low hardly warms the grips at all.

[from: Flikr Photos]

jbond posted a photo:

With some estate agent sign and duct tape I've made some extensions to the bottom of the screen to keep the wind a bit more off my hands in the winter.

[from: Flikr Photos]

What is it? [from: del.icio.us]

Must read story [from: del.icio.us]

This is something I've wanted for decades now. Wireless stereo headphones that have a boom microphone attached. In these days of Bluetooth, VoIP, Skype, Mp3s, Winamp and so on I'm amazed I still can't find it.

I listen to a lot of music via the PC. I also use Skype. I've got Skype set so it auto-pauses the music on an incoming or outgoing call. What I want to do is to be able to get up and walk around rather than be tied to a cable. And to be able to get up and make a cup of tea without having to unplug myself.

If this was Bluetooth, it would be cool if the same approach could be used to link the headset, phone and portable music player (iPod).

As the headphones would need local power perhaps they could be noise cancelling as well. [from: JB Ecademy]

UK Copyright lawyer wanted to definitively answer two questions that are bugging me.

Regardless of the copyright notice inserted by the copyright holder, is it
1) legal to make a copy of the content for personal use?
2) legal to you to take a copy from somebody else for personal use.

The first is about doing things like ripping a CD to MP3 so you can play it on your iPod. My understanding is that ever since the first cassette tape recorders it became legal to do this. Somewhere prior to that you had to get a "license" of some sort to do it, but the law changed to allow it. It's also related to things like video recording commercial TV programs. It's important to point out that this is for personal use not for sharing with others.

The second is a little more awkward because I'm only talking about the person receiving the copy, not the person giving it. And this is specifically about downloading music from an untrusted source that may or may not have a license to distribute it.

I'm not interested in talking about the morals of all this. I'm trying to get sopme sort of definitive answer about whether it's legal and whether you're breaking the law by ignoring the copyright notice that may forbid it and hence whether the copyright notice is enforceable in these specific circumstances.

If you can throw any light on the same issues in other jurisdictions so much the better. [from: JB Ecademy]

IT Facts is a wonderful aggregated blog that consists of nothing but links to stories containing statistics. eg
- By 2008 the market for semiconductors in China will be the largest in the world at about $50 bln
- Gartner forecasts worldwide PC sales would hit 51.9 mln for Q4 2004
- Medium-size online stores lose 2.5% of revenues to online fraud

This must be an invaluable resource for all those analyst companies that produce nothing but statements that say "The X market will be Y big in Z years". [from: JB Ecademy]

An interesting thread is developing on the decentralization mailing list on the issues of Decentralising Single Signon and how it relates to SXIP. Here's my latest post.

>As for single sign on (Sxip), I only see this working for homogeneous
>security domains. The likelihood of a system being used for on line
>banking as well as weblog comment posting is almost zero.

Agreed. But while lots of work is being done in the B2B area the only
people I'm aware of working at the weblog end, and with something
demonstrable is SXIP. The thing is Passport has failed, Liberty is aimed
at B2B. Which means there's a chance for a properly architected bottom
up solution to become the standard. If it's built right there's no
telling how high up the ladder it could go.

This is a pretty boring area ;-) but at the weblog end, comments spam is
a problem we all have *right now*. And the spammers and scammers are
getting more inventive and prepared to do work. It's not at all unusual
now for a scammer to go through the whole signon process, wait a week
and then use the system's internal processes to start sending the
message.

We're seeing each major blog platform introduce it's own centralised
authentication to try and deal with this. So in order to leave a comment
I have to have a Blogger, Typekey, Userland, etc etc account depending
on where the blog is located. I'd much rather just say "My authenticated
home account is at Ecademy, use that" and with no changes to any of the
systems, you should be able to say "My authenticated home account is at
TuCows, use that".

A recent post on the decentralization list.

>I do agree that a system based on unsolicited requests for your
>attention will devolve into spam at some point.

There's a social paradox here that systems like Linkedin attempt to
solve.

There are a lot of people who:-
- Want to network and receive unsolicited approaches from people who can
provide mutual benefit.
- Don't want to receive spam and want to be able to block unsolicited
approaches from people who are a PITA.

What we need for this is systems that allow "arms length" initial
communication. Something that allows the progressive opening up of
layers of protection as the relationship deepens. The problem with email
addresses now seems to be that they are binary. Keep them secret or be
deluged by spam with nothing in between.

"True Names" comes to mind here as does all the work on anonymous
remailers.

Listen to the sweet sound of electro groove, jazz and funk broadcasting from Paris. [from: del.icio.us]

A YASN intimately linked to Skype.

They seem to have an online presence indicator for embedding in a web page. Among other things.

Blahgger: The Closing of a Chapter

So as the Winamp team at AOL winds down, it looks like the end of the road for Winamp. Maybe not tomorrow, but the day after. This is really sad.

Maybe AOL could spin it off like they did with Mozilla.

10x10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris

Another way of viewing the zeitgeist. Fun to play with, but I can't imagine myself coming back.

It's a shame the algorithm doesn't do more duplicate checking as well. [from: JB Ecademy]

Search any specified extension in Google Desktop [from: del.icio.us]

BT in VoIP giveaway | The Register

- Free PC-to-PC calls
- Free PC to UK calls
- Sign-up for the package online,
- Need to be an existing customer of a BT Together fixed-line package.
- Free calls do not include non-geographic numbers such as those beginning with 0870 and 0845, premium rate services, mobile and International calls.
- Offer is only available to the first 50,000 BT residential punters who sign up for one of BT's broadband packages before December 31.
- Runs as a badged version of Yahoo IM

Could be worse, I suppose. [from: JB Ecademy]

Tesco have launched a music download service. but like all such services, it's wonderfully illogical. Let's take a sample from the current album charts, Scissor Sisters.

- Buy the CD for £8.99
- Buy the download for £7.99
- Look at the usage rights and details.
- WMA (no ipod),
- 192Kb (good),
- DRM, Only allowed to transfer to devices that support SDMI DRM (ie not many)
- 3 backups. which is better than none.

So for £1.00 over buying the CD and ripping it yourself, you get a lower quality file, WMA only and no transfer to an iPod or most other portable music players.

Or you could go to Allofmp3.com and buy the download in MP3, no DRM, 192K VBR for $0.60 or in lossless FLAC format (identical to the CD) for $5.66

So why would you buy the Tesco Download?
[from: JB Ecademy]

A Petition for California's Secession from the Federal Government

Heh! This makes complete sense to me.
- Schwarzenegger could become 1st Emperor of California without the messy business of needing an Amendment to the Constitution first.
- Hollywood could fight the IT industry directly without having to go via DC
- California is already one of the top 10 countries by GNP
- It already has ample natural resources including oil and gas
- It would be free to open it's borders with Mexico and exploit migrant workers openly.
- Most of the rest of the USA would say "Good riddance to Munchkinland"
- They could legalise gay marriage (and any other strange sexual relationships) without upsetting the Evangelists.

But really this doesn't go far enough. They should encourage the other states from Alaska, through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Baja Mexico to seccede and join them to form a new nation of PacifiCa. Then the fight for title of Emperor could be between Arnold and Bill(Gates) (With Larry Ellison on the outside). And between Hollywood, IT, Microsoft, Boeing and leasing military bases, they'd have no problem with balance of payments. There's even probably a good business to be made by providing outsourced Correctional Facilities to the rest of North America.

Vote Seccession! You know it makes sense! [from: JB Ecademy]

Tony Marston's unique perspective on PHP database-driven site-building [from: del.icio.us]

Republican vs Democrat
Bush vs Not-Bush
Right wing vs Not quite so right wing
Metropolitan vs Rural
Informed vs Ill-Informed
Written word vs TV
Intelligent vs Stupid
Educated vs Illiterate
Religious vs Secular
Rich vs Poor
East and West vs Middle and South
Moral vs Realistic
Faith based vs Reality based
Hawk vs Dove

I'm reminded of Abraham Lincoln's famous speech "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand"

This is now the greatest challenge facing the USA. To unite these black and white viewpoints and achieve some synthesis. And not forgetting of course that they are all gross simplifications and reality, as always, is made of many shades of gray. Or should that be purple.