Re:Any new news on eliminating pennies?
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 1
I know that many post office stamp machines can take and give out the $1 Sacajawea coins. Other than that I've run across very few machines where they are accepted. They explanation I've been getting is that people don't want to pay/bother to modify their machines. This is dissapointing. Right now when I get money back at the car wash it comes in quarters. One day I got $16 worth of quarters. The dollars would make so much more sense. I don't know why more people don't use/like them. It seems to me like there aren't that many in circulation. Anyone have any theories? Why don't you use/like the dollar coins? I first experienced them when traveling in the UK, and they seem to be wholeheartedly accepted over there.
Better than getting it all in a smaller denomination. Recently I put a $20 in at the car wash and got $16 dollars worth of quarters back! It's like hitting a slot machine, except you don't have a bucket to put all the change in.
The only other place I get the dollar coins is a store here called Dollar General. They actually advertise that they give out those as change. I myself prefer them, and don't know why more people don't use them unless it's just the fact that there aren't many in circulation. Many people seem to think they are collectors items and save them rather than spending them.
This is a very neat competition. I enjoyed reading through the team's descriptions and goals for making their games. Everything from making a game that's easy to start but hard to stop, to making a 3D only game, etc.
Just wanted to mention too that this bright purple/blue color still makes reading game stories very hard on the eyes. I thought after the huge number of posts lamenting this fact that perhaps the editors would actually change it. Don't know what I was thinking.
I agree. I also started mousing left handed due to pain and numbness I was having in my right hand and arm. It took a little while for me to gain the precision necessary to draw with my left, but once I got used to it, it was great.
When I was having problems with carpal tunnel, I moused with my left hand. It took some time to gain as much control so I could have the precision to draw, but wasn't bad. My dh is left handed and we have the standard mice at home. I don't see what is so horrible about using a right-hand mouse with the left hand. Is it just that it doesn't shape to your hand as nicely? Or that you don't have enough control with your right hand? I'm genuinely wondering what the big deal is.
I'd love to have one that I could just plug my USB key into. I can hold at least a CDs worth of songs on my little USB key and I can change the songs on a daily basis rather than having to burn a new CD. That's how I transport them to play at work. Now how about letting me play them in the car along the way?
We've been looking for something like this for my grandma as well. To give you examples of things closer to what this reader and I are looking for, take a look at http://www.southwestlowvision.com/video.htm#max
A magnifying glass is a nice, cheap solution, but nothing like what a magnifying device like this can do for you. Ever tried to use a large magnifying glass to read something? They're heavy. It's hard to hold them and your reading item at the same time, especially for someone that's elderly. And these device can give you closeups of anything, not just reading materials, allowing you to see the details on a picture someone sent you, the knitting you're working on, etc. These devices are very important to improving quality of life for vision impaired people, yet they're often so expensive.
I couldn't get the official site's link to the NVIDIA Gear Store to work. It says the link won't work if it's out of stock, but it's hard to believe it's out of stock already! I thought this book was pretty new and this is before the/. crowd even knew about ordering it. It's only like 50 cents cheaper than ordering from BN anyway, but I wanted to check it out.
we should "give up on the notion that computer security can be improved by putting more people in prison."
The big thing to me is whose definition of computer security are we going to use? I think there's a big difference between hacking into somebody else's system and destroying things, and reverse engineering something to work better or downloading a software crack. However, in the eyes of the governement, and their new tough on computer crimes approach, this can be treated as practically the same thing!
I'm pretty sure that this is already in progress. This article indicates they have a director and gives a little about their plans: News about Ender's Game: The Movie
Creating your group is a good start! I didn't go through a CS program, but as a woman who works in a related field I can say that I feel part of the problem is not having any other women around. It can add a lot of pressure to only have guys as coworkers, classmates or professors. There are always guys that will hit on you, treat you like you're dumb, etc. This can happen anyplace, but it seems to happen more in a male only environment. Having at least one other female to comiserate with can help. Having a group to go to would be a major bonus!!
Speaking of just my situation, and definitely not all women:
I agree with many of the posts on here saying that many women do think differently from men. Some women don't belong in CS because they don't have the logic or reasoning abilities necessary. I am one of those people. As an example I took Intro to Programming (with C++) at a local college with my husband out of interest. The one thing that I noticed out again and again was that for him things just clicked. With me, I could do the work as asked, I could learn the steps involved, but I couldn't come up with new ways to do something. I could mimic what I already knew how to do, or change examples to work correctly, but couldn't do much more than that. I experienced major frustration, instead of satisfaction with my work. I knew after that class that I would never be a good programmer. I think it's possible other women come to this conclusion too, and that's why they don't stick around.
Also, the higher levels of math necessary to go through the program were intimidating (for me anyway). When I saw upper levels of calculus as a requirement, those liberal arts classes looked pretty good. And it was something I knew I could succeed at.
One other thing, it seems like a lot of childhood games geared towards boys involve logic. Logic was something I never had much experience in, and didn't come naturally. I wish it was something I'd been taught more of in school.
More power to women who are into CS, but it's not the career for everyone.
As an alternative to pop, I switched to tea. Iced, hot, whatever. As long as you drink it without putting any sugar in it, it's a nice choice to have besides just water. I figure it's probably ok for you, as when my grandma recently found out she was diabetic, her dr. told her she could drink as much tea as she wanted without causing problems with her diet. It seems to be helping me lose weight, just because all the empty sugar calories from the soda aren't in my diet anymore. And I really like it!
As a bonus, it's been suggested there are other health benefits to drinking tea.
Take a look at Iceland's initiative to go to all hydrogen powered vehicles. Do a search for "Iceland's Hydrogen Economy" to find all sorts of info on how hydrogen is working for them and their bid to convert their country completely by 2030-40. They'll open their first hydrogen filling station in April of this year, starting with some of their bus lines using it, and eventually plan to convert their fishing fleet, etc. Some amazing stuff really.
Answering as if this is legitimate, since I really don't know... It's a tough decision to reject a gift as large as this - especially for a small institution. In this case though, it's probably worth. It would be one thing if he wanted the school to convert certain parts of the institution to using non-MS products, or even to ask them to consider open source alternatives first, but I think it's wrong to rule out a product based on it's brand name. What about comparing cost, benefit, and quality of the products? In some cases this would rule out the Windows products anyway, but I'd bet there'd be some situations where the MS product really is the best or even only option available.
Lottery Goes Scratch and Sniff Much less controversial is the Lottery's other scratch game called Easy as Pie. This game features the first scented lottery tickets introduced in Iowa. Tiny capsules of the pumpkin pie scent were applied to the edges of the latex area on the front of Easy as Pie tickets. The scent of cinnamon and pumpkin pie will be released when players scratch their tickets.:-)
Iowa was the first to offer this Treasue Tower game. The story on this page from 11/16/00:
Lottery's Treasure Tower Sales Going Well
Iowa is the first state in the nation to offer an instant-ticket lottery game that can be played on a home computer. Sales of the game began in October, and have gradually been introduced to all of the game at select shopping malls. As of November 14th, the Iowa Lottery has collected approximately $187,456 in sales from the game. Treasure Tower is a unique combination of a scratch game and CD-ROM technology, with the security of built-in parental control. The Treasure Tower CD cannot be activated without a code from a scratch ticket, which must be purchased at an Iowa retailer by someone age 21 or older. Players initially buy a Treasure Tower pack containing a CD and three scratch tickets for $12. After the game is installed, future tickets can be bought for $4 per ticket. Recommended minimum computer re-quirements for the game:
Pentium® 166 MHz compatible
Windows® 95, Windows® 98 or Windows® 2000
32 MB main memory
20 MB available on hard disk
CD-ROM player 8X
Sound card (compatible with DirectSound®)
SVGA Graphics card (640 x 480 pixels in 16-bit mode) The game will not operate on Windows NT, Mac or Linux systems. Players experiencing difficulty playing the game can call 1-888-852-5558 for assistance from 8 a.m. to midnight. The game will automatically install itself when inserted into the computer. Treasure Tower then asks for an access code, which is found on scratch tickets in the game. Each ticket contains a single access code good for one adventure. Once installed, the game can be played again and again with different tickets granting access to different adventures.
Expansion of Gambling? Critics contend that Treasure Tower is an ex-pansion of gambling, and is a form of video gam-bling at home. They are also concerned that the game, with cartoon characters, targets kids. The Iowa Lottery is emphasizing the parental control features of the game that allow adults to block access to the game by those under the age of 21. By entering their own password in the game, players can block anyone else from playing the game. Set in the Babylonian era, Treasure Tower takes players with a character known as "the Traveler" as he explores the Treasure Tower, a desert castle. The tower has 100 rooms and the code on each ticket gives the player 10 lucky stones that grant access to at least 10 of the rooms. As the traveler searches the tower, the player helps him find objects and symbols in each room. Finding three identical symbols wins a prize. Prizes start at $4, and reaching room 100 at the top of the tower wins the top prize of $10,000.
I strongly second Dotster as a good registrar! I have quite a few domains with them and they've provided nothing but good service. They even managed to wrestle away a name of mine that NetSol was reluctant to let me transfer.
Nobody has forgotten about her. In almost everything I've seen mentioned they've addressed her contributions. On the NPR interview, they even said she'd probably have figured it out herself within a short time after they did. It's just that the awards can't be given posthumously, as I'm sure everyone on here has already stated.
Interesting that you mentioned this. I do this too. Having clicked on both inside and outside the UK buttons, I find they are significantly different on occasion and that it pays to switch between the two using the option to change editions (now a link at the top of the screen) to see if there's anything I've missed.
I can't say I like their new news format as well as the last one though. To me it's harder to scan the headlines now.
I've tried to shorten my list lately because I find I'm spending too much time going through each of these.
I visit these pretty much every day: Globe Gazette - local paper at globegazette.com Slashdot BBC News The Scotsman - thescotsman.co.uk User Friendly Various email account sites
If I have time I'll also visit: The Register sffworld.com Message Boards - sf/fantasy book discussions babynames.com Message Boards - people ask for advice on names for their kids
I also get a NY Times email update in the morning and sometimes visit their site to read the stories when a headline grabs my eye.
One other site I recently started checking out is the World News Network - WN.com
However, the ISP part doesn't make much sense, unless they wanna be able to send tons of junk mail to their MSN subscribers about other MS junk.
Unfortunately this is exactly what they do. I still have a Hotmail account that I opened about 6+ years ago. I have it set to the highest spam level, meaning I only get messages from people on my preferred list. However, I also get messages from Microsoft that I can't opt out of. They tell me the latest and greatest news about Hotmail, MSN, etc and offer me the chance to buy more space for my Hotmail account, which really only gets messages from Microsoft! Nobody else uses this one to email me really, but it's good to use to sign up for things.
According to a slightly more inclusive NYTimes article I read on this earlier today, one of Iowa's senators - Charles Grassley - co-sponsored the bill. I wrote him a letter this morning thanking him for it. It's the first time ever I've felt like I had a reason to do so.
I appreciated his quote from the article,
"Protecting Americans' civil liberties while at the same time winning the war against terrorism has got to be top priority for the United States. Congressional oversight of this program will be a must as we proceed in the war against terror. The acceptance of this amendment sends a signal that Congress won't sit on its hands as the TIA program moves forward."
Slashdot Mirror
I know that many post office stamp machines can take and give out the $1 Sacajawea coins. Other than that I've run across very few machines where they are accepted. They explanation I've been getting is that people don't want to pay/bother to modify their machines. This is dissapointing. Right now when I get money back at the car wash it comes in quarters. One day I got $16 worth of quarters. The dollars would make so much more sense. I don't know why more people don't use/like them. It seems to me like there aren't that many in circulation. Anyone have any theories? Why don't you use/like the dollar coins? I first experienced them when traveling in the UK, and they seem to be wholeheartedly accepted over there.
Better than getting it all in a smaller denomination. Recently I put a $20 in at the car wash and got $16 dollars worth of quarters back! It's like hitting a slot machine, except you don't have a bucket to put all the change in.
The only other place I get the dollar coins is a store here called Dollar General. They actually advertise that they give out those as change. I myself prefer them, and don't know why more people don't use them unless it's just the fact that there aren't many in circulation. Many people seem to think they are collectors items and save them rather than spending them.
This is a very neat competition. I enjoyed reading through the team's descriptions and goals for making their games. Everything from making a game that's easy to start but hard to stop, to making a 3D only game, etc.
Just wanted to mention too that this bright purple/blue color still makes reading game stories very hard on the eyes. I thought after the huge number of posts lamenting this fact that perhaps the editors would actually change it. Don't know what I was thinking.
I agree. I also started mousing left handed due to pain and numbness I was having in my right hand and arm. It took a little while for me to gain the precision necessary to draw with my left, but once I got used to it, it was great.
When I was having problems with carpal tunnel, I moused with my left hand. It took some time to gain as much control so I could have the precision to draw, but wasn't bad. My dh is left handed and we have the standard mice at home. I don't see what is so horrible about using a right-hand mouse with the left hand. Is it just that it doesn't shape to your hand as nicely? Or that you don't have enough control with your right hand? I'm genuinely wondering what the big deal is.
I'd love to have one that I could just plug my USB key into. I can hold at least a CDs worth of songs on my little USB key and I can change the songs on a daily basis rather than having to burn a new CD. That's how I transport them to play at work. Now how about letting me play them in the car along the way?
We've been looking for something like this for my grandma as well. To give you examples of things closer to what this reader and I are looking for, take a look at http://www.southwestlowvision.com/video.htm#max
A magnifying glass is a nice, cheap solution, but nothing like what a magnifying device like this can do for you. Ever tried to use a large magnifying glass to read something? They're heavy. It's hard to hold them and your reading item at the same time, especially for someone that's elderly. And these device can give you closeups of anything, not just reading materials, allowing you to see the details on a picture someone sent you, the knitting you're working on, etc. These devices are very important to improving quality of life for vision impaired people, yet they're often so expensive.
I couldn't get the official site's link to the NVIDIA Gear Store to work. It says the link won't work if it's out of stock, but it's hard to believe it's out of stock already! I thought this book was pretty new and this is before the /. crowd even knew about ordering it. It's only like 50 cents cheaper than ordering from BN anyway, but I wanted to check it out.
we should "give up on the notion that computer security can be improved by putting more people in prison."
The big thing to me is whose definition of computer security are we going to use? I think there's a big difference between hacking into somebody else's system and destroying things, and reverse engineering something to work better or downloading a software crack. However, in the eyes of the governement, and their new tough on computer crimes approach, this can be treated as practically the same thing!
I'm pretty sure that this is already in progress. This article indicates they have a director and gives a little about their plans:
News about Ender's Game: The Movie
Creating your group is a good start! I didn't go through a CS program, but as a woman who works in a related field I can say that I feel part of the problem is not having any other women around. It can add a lot of pressure to only have guys as coworkers, classmates or professors. There are always guys that will hit on you, treat you like you're dumb, etc. This can happen anyplace, but it seems to happen more in a male only environment. Having at least one other female to comiserate with can help. Having a group to go to would be a major bonus!!
Speaking of just my situation, and definitely not all women:
I agree with many of the posts on here saying that many women do think differently from men. Some women don't belong in CS because they don't have the logic or reasoning abilities necessary. I am one of those people. As an example I took Intro to Programming (with C++) at a local college with my husband out of interest. The one thing that I noticed out again and again was that for him things just clicked. With me, I could do the work as asked, I could learn the steps involved, but I couldn't come up with new ways to do something. I could mimic what I already knew how to do, or change examples to work correctly, but couldn't do much more than that. I experienced major frustration, instead of satisfaction with my work. I knew after that class that I would never be a good programmer. I think it's possible other women come to this conclusion too, and that's why they don't stick around.
Also, the higher levels of math necessary to go through the program were intimidating (for me anyway). When I saw upper levels of calculus as a requirement, those liberal arts classes looked pretty good. And it was something I knew I could succeed at.
One other thing, it seems like a lot of childhood games geared towards boys involve logic. Logic was something I never had much experience in, and didn't come naturally. I wish it was something I'd been taught more of in school.
More power to women who are into CS, but it's not the career for everyone.
I should have given this link too, with links to various articles about all the health benefits.
Adagio Summary of Health Benefits
As an alternative to pop, I switched to tea. Iced, hot, whatever. As long as you drink it without putting any sugar in it, it's a nice choice to have besides just water. I figure it's probably ok for you, as when my grandma recently found out she was diabetic, her dr. told her she could drink as much tea as she wanted without causing problems with her diet. It seems to be helping me lose weight, just because all the empty sugar calories from the soda aren't in my diet anymore. And I really like it!
As a bonus, it's been suggested there are other health benefits to drinking tea.
Take a look at Iceland's initiative to go to all hydrogen powered vehicles. Do a search for "Iceland's Hydrogen Economy" to find all sorts of info on how hydrogen is working for them and their bid to convert their country completely by 2030-40. They'll open their first hydrogen filling station in April of this year, starting with some of their bus lines using it, and eventually plan to convert their fishing fleet, etc. Some amazing stuff really.
Some other good links are:
American Hydrogen Association
and
Fuel Cells Explained
Answering as if this is legitimate, since I really don't know...
It's a tough decision to reject a gift as large as this - especially for a small institution. In this case though, it's probably worth. It would be one thing if he wanted the school to convert certain parts of the institution to using non-MS products, or even to ask them to consider open source alternatives first, but I think it's wrong to rule out a product based on it's brand name. What about comparing cost, benefit, and quality of the products? In some cases this would rule out the Windows products anyway, but I'd bet there'd be some situations where the MS product really is the best or even only option available.
BTW, on that same page
:-)
Lottery Goes Scratch and Sniff
Much less controversial is the Lottery's other scratch game called Easy as Pie. This game features the first scented lottery tickets introduced in Iowa.
Tiny capsules of the pumpkin pie scent were applied to the edges of the latex area on the front of Easy as Pie tickets. The scent of cinnamon and pumpkin pie will be released when players scratch their tickets.
Iowa was the first to offer this Treasue Tower game. The story on this page from 11/16/00:
Lottery's Treasure Tower Sales Going Well
Iowa is the first state in the nation to offer an instant-ticket lottery game that can be played on a home computer. Sales of the game began in October, and have gradually been introduced to all of the game at select shopping malls. As of November 14th, the Iowa Lottery has collected approximately $187,456 in sales from the game.
Treasure Tower is a unique combination of a scratch game and CD-ROM technology, with the security of built-in parental control. The Treasure Tower CD cannot be activated without a code from a scratch ticket, which must be purchased at an Iowa retailer by someone age 21 or older.
Players initially buy a Treasure Tower pack containing a CD and three scratch tickets for $12. After the game is installed, future tickets can be bought for $4 per ticket.
Recommended minimum computer re-quirements for the game:
Pentium® 166 MHz compatible
Windows® 95, Windows® 98 or Windows® 2000
32 MB main memory
20 MB available on hard disk
CD-ROM player 8X
Sound card (compatible with DirectSound®)
SVGA Graphics card (640 x 480 pixels in 16-bit mode)
The game will not operate on Windows NT, Mac or Linux systems. Players experiencing difficulty playing the game can call 1-888-852-5558 for assistance from 8 a.m. to midnight.
The game will automatically install itself when inserted into the computer. Treasure Tower then asks for an access code, which is found on scratch tickets in the game. Each ticket contains a single access code good for one adventure. Once installed, the game can be played again and again with different tickets granting access to different adventures.
Expansion of Gambling?
Critics contend that Treasure Tower is an ex-pansion of gambling, and is a form of video gam-bling at home. They are also concerned that the game, with cartoon characters, targets kids. The Iowa Lottery is emphasizing the parental control features of the game that allow adults to block access to the game by those under the age of 21. By entering their own password in the game, players can block anyone else from playing the game.
Set in the Babylonian era, Treasure Tower takes players with a character known as "the Traveler" as he explores the Treasure Tower, a desert castle. The tower has 100 rooms and the code on each ticket gives the player 10 lucky stones that grant access to at least 10 of the rooms. As the traveler searches the tower, the player helps him find objects and symbols in each room. Finding three identical symbols wins a prize. Prizes start at $4, and reaching room 100 at the top of the tower wins the top prize of $10,000.
I strongly second Dotster as a good registrar! I have quite a few domains with them and they've provided nothing but good service. They even managed to wrestle away a name of mine that NetSol was reluctant to let me transfer.
Nobody has forgotten about her. In almost everything I've seen mentioned they've addressed her contributions. On the NPR interview, they even said she'd probably have figured it out herself within a short time after they did. It's just that the awards can't be given posthumously, as I'm sure everyone on here has already stated.
Interesting that you mentioned this. I do this too. Having clicked on both inside and outside the UK buttons, I find they are significantly different on occasion and that it pays to switch between the two using the option to change editions (now a link at the top of the screen) to see if there's anything I've missed.
I can't say I like their new news format as well as the last one though. To me it's harder to scan the headlines now.
I've tried to shorten my list lately because I find I'm spending too much time going through each of these.
I visit these pretty much every day:
Globe Gazette - local paper at globegazette.com
Slashdot
BBC News
The Scotsman - thescotsman.co.uk
User Friendly
Various email account sites
If I have time I'll also visit:
The Register
sffworld.com Message Boards - sf/fantasy book discussions
babynames.com Message Boards - people ask for advice on names for their kids
I also get a NY Times email update in the morning and sometimes visit their site to read the stories when a headline grabs my eye.
One other site I recently started checking out is the World News Network - WN.com
However, the ISP part doesn't make much sense, unless they wanna be able to send tons of junk mail to their MSN subscribers about other MS junk.
Unfortunately this is exactly what they do. I still have a Hotmail account that I opened about 6+ years ago. I have it set to the highest spam level, meaning I only get messages from people on my preferred list. However, I also get messages from Microsoft that I can't opt out of. They tell me the latest and greatest news about Hotmail, MSN, etc and offer me the chance to buy more space for my Hotmail account, which really only gets messages from Microsoft! Nobody else uses this one to email me really, but it's good to use to sign up for things.
We all know the awarding of patents has gotten out of control. This is just another example...
According to a slightly more inclusive NYTimes article I read on this earlier today, one of Iowa's senators - Charles Grassley - co-sponsored the bill. I wrote him a letter this morning thanking him for it. It's the first time ever I've felt like I had a reason to do so.
I appreciated his quote from the article,
"Protecting Americans' civil liberties while at the same time winning the war against terrorism has got to be top priority for the United States. Congressional oversight of this program will be a must as we proceed in the war against terror. The acceptance of this amendment sends a signal that Congress won't sit on its hands as the TIA program moves forward."