And that's why you don't stomp on the accelerator the second the light turns green.
I, and I imaging most people, have developed a natural habit of pausing for a half second when the light turns green, this gives the average red light runner the chance to become obvious so you can avoid them, and anyone who was "in the intersection" the chance to get clear of it. So I sit at the light an extra half second, anyone behind me who gets pissed off that quickly doesn't deserve to have their opinion of my driving count.
Yes, I have been to quite a few defensive driving classes* in my day. Ya know what, sometimes they actually teach you things.
* In Texas if you get caught speeding you have the option of taking Defensive Driving up to once a year and getting the ticket wiped from your record.
A lot of these exist in workplaces as well. If you're ever up in the plenum and notice what appear to be paint cans hanging around, they're white noise generators. They have become very popular in cube land as you no longer have to listen to absolutely everyone else's conversations
It's amazing how much a trip to the park can brighten the day of your average four year old.
I spent an hour and a half there yesterday with my little ones, climbing in the jungle jim (or at least the super duper triply safe child exploration environment that has replaced what we grew up with), jumping from the swings, and just generally being a kid again myself.
Now that spring has firmly taken hold here, I plan on at least two trips to the park a week. Knowing me though, it will probably be more like 3-4 pre week. Kites, basketball, riding bikes, and exploring the creeks; things that can only be done outside.
Yep, they do, but not directly from Dallas. The Wright Ammendment prohibits any direct flights out of Dallas Love Field to any destination not in Texas or one of it's adjacent states unless the plane is only equiped to carry under a certain number of passengers.
This means that if I wanted to fly Southwest from Dallas to LA, I would have to change planes in Midland, El Paso, or Albequerque. Truly annoying in that you have to deplane, pick up your baggage, and recheck in. That's exactly what Americas Airlines wants as I would be more prone to fly out of DFW (their home hub) than Love Field (Southwest's home hub).
If you check southwest's flight schedule, you will see that yes, they fly into a bunch of places outside the 5 state area, but not from Love.
I have a tiBook and macally icemouse. I have found that for the majority of stuff I do, the trackpad is great. Reading email, surfing the web, iTunes, word processing etc. works just fine with one mouse button and the ability to ctrl-click (? - I do it automatically so can't remember the exact key off hand) for second button type things.
However whenever I do design work, it is infinitely easier to use a mouse, so I bust one out whenever I need it. This is really no different on a PC than a mac, the main reason I use the mouse is that moving the pointer to within a pixle sucks on a trackpad.
Give it a try, just make sure you get an optical mouse, they're much easier to keep clean in a computer bag and can be used anywhere you feel like pulling it out.
Nope, the code doesn't get cleared, but with most cars you can just disconnect the battery for a couple of minutes and it will reset everything. I had to do this after I did some maintenance on my car. the downside is that you might lose your radio presets, but that's about it.
You know, I'm as concerned about personal privacy as the next slashdotter, but come on, this is just good supply chain management.
They have no idea who purchased their beer, they're not keeping your personal buyig habits ina massive database to use against you when you run for president. They're just trying to make sure that everytime you walk into your local store, they don't lose business because you want one of their products which is currently out of stock.
AB makes a product here in Texas called Ziegen Bock, not my personal favorite, but I know people who like it. It's primary competitor is Shiner Bock. Now I'm sure the AB people want to make sure that they don't run into cases where Shiner is in the store and not Ziegen. This benefits my friends as they also want to make sure that Ziegen is there so they don't have to get back in their cars and go to the next store down the road. Oh look, incentive for the stores to help AB in this data collection.
I see a win-win-win situation here, not a threat to my personal privacy.
Almost any decent auto parts store will carry replacement rear view mirrors, both the basic replacements and ones specifically designed to eleminate the blind spot. Admittedly they usually work by using a couple mirrors at slightly different angles to minimize distortion but I've seen a whole lot more of them on the store shelves than on the road.
Maybe someday the car companies will wise up and offer these for an extra $10 or so. Most people aren't willing to go to the effort of replacing their rear view mirrors just for safety.
Also, if you want to see mirror safety taken to its extreme, flip on the next NASCAR race, those guys have mirrors that are 18+ inches long.
I currently have digital cable but was interested in finding out what else is out there, so I have done a little research on this recently.
First off, let me tell you why I considered changing, cost. We currently pay Comcast just over $60/month for their extended package covering everything but the movie channels. A couple of years ago we got everything we have now, plus the big HBO pack for about $55/month. You can see why we looked elsewhere. Do the satellite companies keep jacking up their prices like this?
I found that a lot of the programming I like isn't available on the Satellite channels. I like Discovery Wings, but it's not on DirectTV, and I like the SPEED channel, but it's not on Dish Networks. Which one would I have to give up? However the Satellite networks all offered 3 room systems as a basic package, right now we're paying extra to have cable in our extra rooms. Also, I already have a Tivo so that wasn't a really big selling point for me either way. The biggest advantage teh satellite providers had was cost. They were in the $60/month range for TV in three rooms and getting HBO back.
In the end, we decided that the hassle of losing channels we had grown to like, and having to change everything over wasn't worth the cost benefit.
Just one person's take on it. Maybe one system will offfer you all the channels you want and you don't need three rooms, maybe you're in it to save every penny. Your call.
I've always viewed certs with a watchful eye. I've seen people with no certs who know their stuff inside and out, people with certs who make you worry if they touch your stuff, and people with certs who can make their machines sing.
"This discussion tells me I should care less about getting certs as long as I can still get a comfortable job in the industry. "
I very much agree with this statement, I got a bunch of certs in my first couple of years in IT. When your boss says "I'll give anyone who get's their MCSE a 10K/yr raise" guess what you go out and get:). I think the biggest factor in your decision should be how the certs will help you. I got mine back when they were a sure way to get a better job, they just don't have that pull anymore unless you're lookig for an entry level position, or have one of the high-end certs.
I say, if you've got a good job and have no real incentive to get a cert, don't lay out the $600+ for the tests. Sure, get the books, study like you're going to test and learn everything you can, but unless you need the letters to get your resume past the screening software, keep the extra cash. Inthe long run, your ability to do your job well and to network other IT folks will get you much farther than any letters will.
I don't think the CCNA is worthless as long as you understand where it falls in the grand scheme of things.
Getting your CCNA is about the equivalent fo getting your MCP, they're both entry level, one or two test, certs. You don't expect someone with a CCNA to be able to configure BGP anymore than you would expect an MCP to set-up your Active Directory. The next step up is a whole other issue, the CCNP/CCDP is significantly harder to obtain than an MCSE, and there's really no MS equivalent of a CCIE.
It shows the person knows their ethernet cords from their power cords and is probably willing to learn more, if you expect anything else, it's your own fault.
They are out there, trying to stop the people who actually turn a profit by selling stolen goods. This isn't the kind of case where they're going to sue some 12 year old girl who wanted to share her Britney collection, they're going after the people who actually deserve to be busted.
My issue is with the jackets, saying "we never thought that dressing up like cops and acting like cops, and saying next time we'll handcuff your ass and haul you off would make people think we're cops" is pretty stupid. The same effect could be had by a bunch of very official looking guys in suits who say "we represent the RIAA, give us all your pirated stuff now voluntarily and promise to stop selling copies of our stuff or next time we come back with the cops". You will still get most of the people to give up the pirated CD's and you won't have to take the real cops off their beats.
I am fortunate that I live in the Dallas area and have access to August.net which is one of the more sensible ISP's around.
Realizing that as an ISP they have to pay thier upstreams for the actual bandwidth used not just theoretical speeds, they vary their prices by allowing users to determine just how much bandwidth a month they want to use. You can enter in at the "email and web only" 5 GB/month or go all out, run bittorrent, and buy 40 GB/month. I buy in at the 10 GB level and usually come in just a little under, in the months I'm over, the charge all of $5/GB extra. This way nobody can complain that they are paying the same amount as someone who is using 10x as much bandwidth.
That number is higher than what I was able to find references to, most everything I found said he drank 50+ cups a day. This is still quite respectable though, assuming a standard 8oz cup, the man drank a little over 3 Gallons of cofee a day.
There has been much discussion about whether it's worth it to shut off your land line and go totally cellular or to just put up with the telemarketers. I think there's a relatively simple solution most people are overlooking...turn off your ringers.
Giving up my land line wouldn't really be an option for me, my cablebox uses it, my home burglar/fire alarm uses it, TiVO uses it, and ADSL uses it so giving it up really isn't an option. A couple other posts mentioned services, pizza guys and UPS, who specifically require a land line for confirmation. So, I kept my phone line and only turn on the ringer when I are specifically expecting a call on that line, the rest of the time the ringer is off and anyone who wants to reach us uses our cell numbers.
This way I have the best of both worlds, all my equipment that needs a phone line has one, we can talk to our family and friends whenever we want, and telemarketers get endless ringing that we never hear.
If someone says, here I'll give you this shiny object in return for your password, I'd just make up a random password, get my bobble, and be done with it.
As far as they know they have my password, what are they going to do come up to me later and say that they tried to use my password even though they promised not to and it didn't work?
I worked for a company that dot-comed in a blaze of glory, but even through the layoffs we managed to keep morale relatively high by simply showing the employees that we valued them.
I was a low level manager in the NOC and found that by keeping the employees up on what was going on in the big picture, allowing them to have input in some of the decisions which directly impacted them, and not being afraid to roll up my sleves and work side-by-side with them they respected me more and were always willing to go the extra mile for me. The most detrimental thing to their morale were the company meetings where the C*O's tried to rah-rah the troops with buzzwords and press releases. People like to feel as though they have some controll over thir future and they know that upper management is the proverbial irresistable force, so keep them away from that and help them focus on the things they can change for the better.
In short the best thing for morale is the respect of your direct manager and as little of the corporate crap as possible.
To me this is a classic case of flash over substance. Why pay the extra for a window/lights/rounded cables when that money can be put into a faster CPU, a better video card, or a bigger hard drive? It reminds me of the people who buy a cheap ass Honda then trick it out with everything they can bolt on only to have their doors blown off by a stock Camaro SS which costs less.
Whoop-tee-dee you have LCD's on your fan, I can push twice the fps you can and will procede to hand you your ass in tournament play. Just a thought.
I am in a similar position to the one you are in, I have a nine year old and a two year old both of whome love working and playing on the computer.
You said that the games ran fine on 98, why upgrade to XP at all? At that age they don't care about the new features XP offers, they just want their stuff to work. Your 11 year old might complain some, but the other two don't give a flip at to what OS is on there.
As for saving money, you have already had a computer that did everything your kids need prior to the upgrade, just go back to that and sell your copy of XP to a friend. Talk about being cheap, you can make money back on this solution.
My biggest mantra is that the newest isn't always the best, and many times is even worse. In my opinion, for a system where reliability and stability is important, don't upgrade unless there are significant benefits awaiting you, in this case it doesn't sound like there are.
The single best source for a basic explanation of much of modern physics is Richard Feynman's Six Easy Pieces, and at 137 pages you won't feel like it's too great an undertaking to ever be acomplished.
It contains a basic history of physics, how it relates to the other sciences, and then goes into energy, gravitation, and basic quantum mechanics. Feynman is someone I had heard of in my college physics courses, but until I read this book I had never realized what an incredible man he was. He was a brilliant physicist but at the same time can explain things in a language anyone can understand, a definite rarity these days.
Anyway, Six Easy Pieces is definitely a great starting place, if you start really getting into physics you might want to look into his entire series Lectures on Physics, but I'm not gonna lie to you he gets pretty deep in some of them.
Slashdot Mirror
And that's why you don't stomp on the accelerator the second the light turns green.
I, and I imaging most people, have developed a natural habit of pausing for a half second when the light turns green, this gives the average red light runner the chance to become obvious so you can avoid them, and anyone who was "in the intersection" the chance to get clear of it. So I sit at the light an extra half second, anyone behind me who gets pissed off that quickly doesn't deserve to have their opinion of my driving count.
Yes, I have been to quite a few defensive driving classes* in my day. Ya know what, sometimes they actually teach you things.
* In Texas if you get caught speeding you have the option of taking Defensive Driving up to once a year and getting the ticket wiped from your record.
A lot of these exist in workplaces as well. If you're ever up in the plenum and notice what appear to be paint cans hanging around, they're white noise generators. They have become very popular in cube land as you no longer have to listen to absolutely everyone else's conversations
It's amazing how much a trip to the park can brighten the day of your average four year old.
I spent an hour and a half there yesterday with my little ones, climbing in the jungle jim (or at least the super duper triply safe child exploration environment that has replaced what we grew up with), jumping from the swings, and just generally being a kid again myself.
Now that spring has firmly taken hold here, I plan on at least two trips to the park a week. Knowing me though, it will probably be more like 3-4 pre week. Kites, basketball, riding bikes, and exploring the creeks; things that can only be done outside.
Yep, they do, but not directly from Dallas. The Wright Ammendment prohibits any direct flights out of Dallas Love Field to any destination not in Texas or one of it's adjacent states unless the plane is only equiped to carry under a certain number of passengers.
This means that if I wanted to fly Southwest from Dallas to LA, I would have to change planes in Midland, El Paso, or Albequerque. Truly annoying in that you have to deplane, pick up your baggage, and recheck in. That's exactly what Americas Airlines wants as I would be more prone to fly out of DFW (their home hub) than Love Field (Southwest's home hub).
If you check southwest's flight schedule, you will see that yes, they fly into a bunch of places outside the 5 state area, but not from Love.
Yeah, but the Mythbusters proved you can't get the smell out.
As a matter of fact, I do carry a mouse.
I have a tiBook and macally icemouse. I have found that for the majority of stuff I do, the trackpad is great. Reading email, surfing the web, iTunes, word processing etc. works just fine with one mouse button and the ability to ctrl-click (? - I do it automatically so can't remember the exact key off hand) for second button type things.
However whenever I do design work, it is infinitely easier to use a mouse, so I bust one out whenever I need it. This is really no different on a PC than a mac, the main reason I use the mouse is that moving the pointer to within a pixle sucks on a trackpad.
Give it a try, just make sure you get an optical mouse, they're much easier to keep clean in a computer bag and can be used anywhere you feel like pulling it out.
Nope, the code doesn't get cleared, but with most cars you can just disconnect the battery for a couple of minutes and it will reset everything. I had to do this after I did some maintenance on my car. the downside is that you might lose your radio presets, but that's about it.
You know, I'm as concerned about personal privacy as the next slashdotter, but come on, this is just good supply chain management.
They have no idea who purchased their beer, they're not keeping your personal buyig habits ina massive database to use against you when you run for president. They're just trying to make sure that everytime you walk into your local store, they don't lose business because you want one of their products which is currently out of stock.
AB makes a product here in Texas called Ziegen Bock, not my personal favorite, but I know people who like it. It's primary competitor is Shiner Bock. Now I'm sure the AB people want to make sure that they don't run into cases where Shiner is in the store and not Ziegen. This benefits my friends as they also want to make sure that Ziegen is there so they don't have to get back in their cars and go to the next store down the road. Oh look, incentive for the stores to help AB in this data collection.
I see a win-win-win situation here, not a threat to my personal privacy.
Already out there.
Almost any decent auto parts store will carry replacement rear view mirrors, both the basic replacements and ones specifically designed to eleminate the blind spot. Admittedly they usually work by using a couple mirrors at slightly different angles to minimize distortion but I've seen a whole lot more of them on the store shelves than on the road.
Maybe someday the car companies will wise up and offer these for an extra $10 or so. Most people aren't willing to go to the effort of replacing their rear view mirrors just for safety.
Also, if you want to see mirror safety taken to its extreme, flip on the next NASCAR race, those guys have mirrors that are 18+ inches long.
I currently have digital cable but was interested in finding out what else is out there, so I have done a little research on this recently.
First off, let me tell you why I considered changing, cost. We currently pay Comcast just over $60/month for their extended package covering everything but the movie channels. A couple of years ago we got everything we have now, plus the big HBO pack for about $55/month. You can see why we looked elsewhere. Do the satellite companies keep jacking up their prices like this?
I found that a lot of the programming I like isn't available on the Satellite channels. I like Discovery Wings, but it's not on DirectTV, and I like the SPEED channel, but it's not on Dish Networks. Which one would I have to give up? However the Satellite networks all offered 3 room systems as a basic package, right now we're paying extra to have cable in our extra rooms. Also, I already have a Tivo so that wasn't a really big selling point for me either way. The biggest advantage teh satellite providers had was cost. They were in the $60/month range for TV in three rooms and getting HBO back.
In the end, we decided that the hassle of losing channels we had grown to like, and having to change everything over wasn't worth the cost benefit.
Just one person's take on it. Maybe one system will offfer you all the channels you want and you don't need three rooms, maybe you're in it to save every penny. Your call.
What's up with the Judiciary committees? The Senate one just passed a bill (S1177) which prohibits the sale of cigars via mail-order.
There's a lot of internet cigar shops stressing about that one.
I've always viewed certs with a watchful eye. I've seen people with no certs who know their stuff inside and out, people with certs who make you worry if they touch your stuff, and people with certs who can make their machines sing.
:). I think the biggest factor in your decision should be how the certs will help you. I got mine back when they were a sure way to get a better job, they just don't have that pull anymore unless you're lookig for an entry level position, or have one of the high-end certs.
"This discussion tells me I should care less about getting certs as long as I can still get a comfortable job in the industry. "
I very much agree with this statement, I got a bunch of certs in my first couple of years in IT. When your boss says "I'll give anyone who get's their MCSE a 10K/yr raise" guess what you go out and get
I say, if you've got a good job and have no real incentive to get a cert, don't lay out the $600+ for the tests. Sure, get the books, study like you're going to test and learn everything you can, but unless you need the letters to get your resume past the screening software, keep the extra cash. Inthe long run, your ability to do your job well and to network other IT folks will get you much farther than any letters will.
I don't think the CCNA is worthless as long as you understand where it falls in the grand scheme of things.
Getting your CCNA is about the equivalent fo getting your MCP, they're both entry level, one or two test, certs. You don't expect someone with a CCNA to be able to configure BGP anymore than you would expect an MCP to set-up your Active Directory. The next step up is a whole other issue, the CCNP/CCDP is significantly harder to obtain than an MCSE, and there's really no MS equivalent of a CCIE.
It shows the person knows their ethernet cords from their power cords and is probably willing to learn more, if you expect anything else, it's your own fault.
That's my porn, I'm not sharing with the neighbors.
This was my thought, to a certain extent.
They are out there, trying to stop the people who actually turn a profit by selling stolen goods. This isn't the kind of case where they're going to sue some 12 year old girl who wanted to share her Britney collection, they're going after the people who actually deserve to be busted.
My issue is with the jackets, saying "we never thought that dressing up like cops and acting like cops, and saying next time we'll handcuff your ass and haul you off would make people think we're cops" is pretty stupid. The same effect could be had by a bunch of very official looking guys in suits who say "we represent the RIAA, give us all your pirated stuff now voluntarily and promise to stop selling copies of our stuff or next time we come back with the cops". You will still get most of the people to give up the pirated CD's and you won't have to take the real cops off their beats.
Good Plan: Yes
Good Execution: No
I am fortunate that I live in the Dallas area and have access to August.net which is one of the more sensible ISP's around.
Realizing that as an ISP they have to pay thier upstreams for the actual bandwidth used not just theoretical speeds, they vary their prices by allowing users to determine just how much bandwidth a month they want to use. You can enter in at the "email and web only" 5 GB/month or go all out, run bittorrent, and buy 40 GB/month. I buy in at the 10 GB level and usually come in just a little under, in the months I'm over, the charge all of $5/GB extra. This way nobody can complain that they are paying the same amount as someone who is using 10x as much bandwidth.
All in all a very sane way of doing things.
daaammmmnnnnnn... 200 cups of coffee a day.
That number is higher than what I was able to find references to, most everything I found said he drank 50+ cups a day. This is still quite respectable though, assuming a standard 8oz cup, the man drank a little over 3 Gallons of cofee a day.
How he ever got out of the can, I have no idea.
Woohoo...not it
There has been much discussion about whether it's worth it to shut off your land line and go totally cellular or to just put up with the telemarketers. I think there's a relatively simple solution most people are overlooking...turn off your ringers.
Giving up my land line wouldn't really be an option for me, my cablebox uses it, my home burglar/fire alarm uses it, TiVO uses it, and ADSL uses it so giving it up really isn't an option. A couple other posts mentioned services, pizza guys and UPS, who specifically require a land line for confirmation. So, I kept my phone line and only turn on the ringer when I are specifically expecting a call on that line, the rest of the time the ringer is off and anyone who wants to reach us uses our cell numbers.
This way I have the best of both worlds, all my equipment that needs a phone line has one, we can talk to our family and friends whenever we want, and telemarketers get endless ringing that we never hear.
Who says the people gave their real passwords?
If someone says, here I'll give you this shiny object in return for your password, I'd just make up a random password, get my bobble, and be done with it.
As far as they know they have my password, what are they going to do come up to me later and say that they tried to use my password even though they promised not to and it didn't work?
I worked for a company that dot-comed in a blaze of glory, but even through the layoffs we managed to keep morale relatively high by simply showing the employees that we valued them.
I was a low level manager in the NOC and found that by keeping the employees up on what was going on in the big picture, allowing them to have input in some of the decisions which directly impacted them, and not being afraid to roll up my sleves and work side-by-side with them they respected me more and were always willing to go the extra mile for me. The most detrimental thing to their morale were the company meetings where the C*O's tried to rah-rah the troops with buzzwords and press releases. People like to feel as though they have some controll over thir future and they know that upper management is the proverbial irresistable force, so keep them away from that and help them focus on the things they can change for the better.
In short the best thing for morale is the respect of your direct manager and as little of the corporate crap as possible.
To me this is a classic case of flash over substance. Why pay the extra for a window/lights/rounded cables when that money can be put into a faster CPU, a better video card, or a bigger hard drive? It reminds me of the people who buy a cheap ass Honda then trick it out with everything they can bolt on only to have their doors blown off by a stock Camaro SS which costs less.
Whoop-tee-dee you have LCD's on your fan, I can push twice the fps you can and will procede to hand you your ass in tournament play. Just a thought.
OK, everyone raise your hands who remembers this when it first surfaced back in '95.
I am in a similar position to the one you are in, I have a nine year old and a two year old both of whome love working and playing on the computer.
You said that the games ran fine on 98, why upgrade to XP at all? At that age they don't care about the new features XP offers, they just want their stuff to work. Your 11 year old might complain some, but the other two don't give a flip at to what OS is on there.
As for saving money, you have already had a computer that did everything your kids need prior to the upgrade, just go back to that and sell your copy of XP to a friend. Talk about being cheap, you can make money back on this solution.
My biggest mantra is that the newest isn't always the best, and many times is even worse. In my opinion, for a system where reliability and stability is important, don't upgrade unless there are significant benefits awaiting you, in this case it doesn't sound like there are.
The single best source for a basic explanation of much of modern physics is Richard Feynman's Six Easy Pieces, and at 137 pages you won't feel like it's too great an undertaking to ever be acomplished.
It contains a basic history of physics, how it relates to the other sciences, and then goes into energy, gravitation, and basic quantum mechanics. Feynman is someone I had heard of in my college physics courses, but until I read this book I had never realized what an incredible man he was. He was a brilliant physicist but at the same time can explain things in a language anyone can understand, a definite rarity these days.
Anyway, Six Easy Pieces is definitely a great starting place, if you start really getting into physics you might want to look into his entire series Lectures on Physics, but I'm not gonna lie to you he gets pretty deep in some of them.