Checks on your way out are minimal. I haven't crossed the US-Canada land border in some years, but as I recall there was no inspection on the US side (Niagara Falls), and the customs officer on the Canadian side just asked for valid papers to enter. There was no record on either side. If you fly then you'll be logged somewhere, but if you walk or drive you can get out easily; thousands of people get in even.
It doesn't matter how nearsighted you are. You can be an excellent marksman as long as you wear glasses (or adjust the sight). One can have other vision issues, of course, but inability to focus the eye is not a showstopper here. I am nearsighted, but I can shoot a rifle pretty well (but not a handgun, even though the target is closer.)
Hell, you could put everyone in the world in Texas, and none of them would be able to touch another.
Humans need far more space to live, work and enjoy life. The current 6B population seems to be OK, but I am not so sure about 12B, and a population of 60B would be stepping on each other's toes all the time. The problem is that not all land on our planet is habitable. Most of Texas, for example, is not very hospitable, just like most of Antarctica or Himalayas or land areas near the North Pole. Fresh water would be in short supply very fast.
There is plenty of food, and we can bring it anywhere. The problem is political.
The problem is financial, not political. There are millions of people in Africa who are hungry. However they have nothing to give US farmers in exchange for grain and shipping, or to chemical companies for fertilizers and seeds, or to other companies for harvesters and fuel for them. Now, that might be a political issue, but here we stand.
We could, for example, implement a Moon use tax, and all people on Earth would be getting an equal share from use of each square mile of Moon's surface, payable by Moon mining companies to the governments and then distributed as people of each country want. That tax would be small, compared to the costs involved in Moon mining and sales of resulting goods.
The sad part is that this one employee who does not do anything bad probably does not do anything good either. It is a completely bland person with no interests, no curiosity, and who is even afraid to do something minor and be responsible for that. This is the kind of person who warms his chair for 40 hours per week and collects a paycheck. There is place for those people - a security guard maybe, or a help desk operator, but not in positions that require open mind and power to make decisions.
Well, this is exactly why I do my best to never sell anything privately, especially such a complicated thing as a computer. In the gsfprez's case it's obvious that the sale was not very profitable. The sale was legal and all that, but some people just don't understand what they are buying, and even if they do they like to think that the sale contract can be changed at will, at any time, as long as one side wants it bad enough. Do you think this girl's boyfriend would be stalking the local Fry's manager, for example? He'd be in jail already, convicted upon one phone call to the said manager at work (which was recorded "for quality assurance purposes".)
The same prohibition covers service of personal computers of my friends and acquaintances. The rule of thumb is simple: just don't do it. It's not worth the trouble, and even if you are paid for the initial visit there will be always a follow-up, one after another, until you are in loss for a hundred hours of labor, then you start hiding. And threats - I have no illusions about that either, even from people that I know as "normal". A phrase "you came yesterday and broke my Internet" is probably familiar to many/.ters. Just don't do it.
And BTW, I also have a PowerBook 5300c with System 7.x loaded, and I am not selling it:-) Though I have no clue how to use it these days.
Even that will cost him 15 seconds of his time, and probably a few minutes more to regain the lost thought. Can you work at all if telemarketers call you every minute? They can, there are enough people in the world (or even in the country) who are not qualified for anything better.
You just had a bad thin client, that's all. Everyone today can try RDP into their own WinXP box and see firsthand that it is responsive and works just fine. The advantage of a centralized terminal server, big, fast, on a 1 Gbps LAN and with a hot backup, is immense. Price-wise thin clients still lose only because of the greed of MS who charges an arm and a leg for a terminal server license. If you can run your terminal server on Linux then you can deploy hundreds of terminals for hardware cost only, and enjoy the disposable nature of the terminals.
Yes, you still need to have/some/ IT support locally, but even that can be outsourced. For example, many large companies do not have their own building maintenance people any more - companies like Johnson Controls step in and provide this service; they in fact may have a team on a large site 24/7 if that is necessary - try that with your hourly employees.
But even if we forget about contracted local help, the people who swap burned up computers are the lowest level of IT imaginable. Would/you/ want to limit yourself to crawling under desks, in dust, and connecting cables every day of your remaining life? That surely can be arranged, for maybe $20k/yr, just on par with a janitor.
But nevertheless automation of labor is not new, and it does displace certain workers. The problem is that the industry does not need workers that it just kicked out. Many of laid off IT workers are simply not needed any more, even if they are smart - the work that they were doing is not needed any more. Do you have many people around who, for example, clean chimneys for a living? They were plentiful a century ago. Know where your local blacksmith works? Know who sells oats for your horse? Know a data entry / punch card operator? Know a programmer who works at a company on a home-grown accounting software? Those professions are gone.
For another example, you have one database admin who oversees five databases, 40 hr/week. In reality he is spending maybe 20% of his time on real work, and 80% on something else - maybe useful, maybe not. You just can't hire 0.2 of such a specialist. But with outsourcing to foreign or local companies this becomes possible - one admin can service not five but 100 databases (with better tools, and if necessary - with backup of more admins.) We do not generate electric power at every home - we instead outsource it to a company who has big, powerful generators (which are more efficient) and who has a team at the controls 24/7.
There are definitely financial and technical (but not social!) advantages to outsourcing. For example, you can build your own HR software - or you can outsource it to a company who/already/ built it all, and maintains for free. Fidelity NetBenefits is one such example. It would cost you a fortune to redo their work, and 10 full time coders to maintain (to comply with ever-changing laws) - but sign a contract and you don't need to do any of that.
Same with conferencing. You can set up your own video/desktop conferencing thing, if you want. It will only cost you a few million dollars and a few years (don't mention NetMeeting, it's for small meetings only.) Or you can sign a contract with a company like Webex who already designed the whole thing - servers, clients, Web scheduling and the rest. Get instant results, pay as you go - why would this be a bad deal?
So outsourced / contracted out tasks are reality and the role of IT will be shifting from designing software to maintaining some software to maintaining hardware... to eventually nothing. Once you are at the level of thin terminals you don't maintain those, you replace them. But this is far away, many companies depend on powerful PCs to run stuff locally. But even that may happen - need ANSYS to model your gizmo? Fork over some $20K (depends on what you are buying) and have a license; or pay $200 per hour and connect to a remote terminal server where ANSYS is already running and licensed. If you need 2 hours to run your simulation you pay only $400 - considerably less than many kilobucks that otherwise would be necessary.
In any case, yes, some IT people will be washed out of the system; in fact, the best will be washed out, and only the least demanding, and with least amount of skill, will stay. Those best can go to the outsourcing companies. But those companies don't need 20 database admins, they need only one (because s/he is more efficient.) What the remaining 19 good admins should do? In an ideal world many
Any kernel developer is perfectly qualified to write userspace code. They might not want to do so, however, because userspace is fragmented, has ho unified API and generally is not as glamorous. Some code (SANE) is awfully hackish at places.
Depends on the logger; however if l were designing one and had to log once per minute I would record minimum and maximum speeds per logging interval, otherwise the log is of little use.
First: That the person knowingly and willfully devised a scheme to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false pretenses, representations or promises;
Comcast devised a scheme to get rich by selling a promise of unlimited, unfiltered network access and then by failing to fulfill those promises.
Second: That the person knowingly transmitted or caused to be transmitted by wire in interstate commerce some sound for the purpose of executing the scheme to defraud.
Comcast knowingly transmitted by wire "some sound" for the purpose of executing the said schema by reducing the available bandwidth that the subscriber is entitled to. Without this transmission taking place the subscriber would have received the promised service and Comcast would be unable to execute the fraud.
The GPS receiver is likely to measure your speed by dividing the length of a 3D vector between two points (separated by one second of time) by that one second. So the speed would be the true 3D speed, regardless of the slope and of the orientation of your 2D map.
On the other hand, radar guns DO NOT measure "ground speed" at least because it's unclear what it is. They measure the speed of the car relative to the radar. If you use a radar gun from a car you need to subtract (or add) your own speed. If you are on the side of the road then you need an even fancier math to get to the right results (but your error will be so high that your measurements will be useless anyway.)
Yes, and besides the GPS signal is a wideband CDMA, so there is no single frequency to lock onto and try to determine its shift relative to something else. All you get out of the correlator is the bitstream; the signal itself is below the noise floor and can not be perceived directly.
A common GPS sends reports (3D position, time, and optional derived parameters) once per second. You only need to feed this into an approved, secure recorder that can not be tampered with.
What if your insurance company gave you a recording device that you can not control? For example, it may record everything for last 24 hours (and erase older recordings.) In case of a dispute there is plenty of time for the company's agent to retrieve the recorder and stop it. But a police officer can't force you to do that because you can't, and the device is not yours to begin with.
I don't know if you have any religious inclination at all; however if you do you then define quite a set of boundaries for the behavior of your God. Your God must give you good (in your opinion, not God's!) answers; it must motivate you; it must say that the life is worth living (where did this random assertion come from?) and "many other things." I guess it's a tough job to be your God; he'd have to be your servant, and you'd want to be his boss, since you tell him how to behave.
Most religions, however, define their God(s) as omnipotent (compared to humans, at least) and unknowable. There are solid reasons to do so. Gods don't really manifest themselves on a daily basis, and the flock soon starts asking inconvenient questions - such as "where was your God when my child drowned?" Priests had to think fast, and one of the common answers is that we can not comprehend the ways of Gods (and consequently that the child's death was somehow necessary and part of the God's plan.)
If you compare your demands to God to many religious texts you will find that all ancient Gods (incl. the most recent arrivals, such as Jesus and Allah) do not comply with your requests. There is no answer to the purpose of life (other than God was bored, sitting in darkness and void for [no time scale either].) Jewish God did mention something to the tune of "get out of here and multiply" to Adam & Eve while booting them out, but that is not an answer to "why to bother."
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Checks on your way out are minimal. I haven't crossed the US-Canada land border in some years, but as I recall there was no inspection on the US side (Niagara Falls), and the customs officer on the Canadian side just asked for valid papers to enter. There was no record on either side. If you fly then you'll be logged somewhere, but if you walk or drive you can get out easily; thousands of people get in even.
It doesn't matter how nearsighted you are. You can be an excellent marksman as long as you wear glasses (or adjust the sight). One can have other vision issues, of course, but inability to focus the eye is not a showstopper here. I am nearsighted, but I can shoot a rifle pretty well (but not a handgun, even though the target is closer.)
Humans need far more space to live, work and enjoy life. The current 6B population seems to be OK, but I am not so sure about 12B, and a population of 60B would be stepping on each other's toes all the time. The problem is that not all land on our planet is habitable. Most of Texas, for example, is not very hospitable, just like most of Antarctica or Himalayas or land areas near the North Pole. Fresh water would be in short supply very fast.
There is plenty of food, and we can bring it anywhere. The problem is political.
The problem is financial, not political. There are millions of people in Africa who are hungry. However they have nothing to give US farmers in exchange for grain and shipping, or to chemical companies for fertilizers and seeds, or to other companies for harvesters and fuel for them. Now, that might be a political issue, but here we stand.
He failed to specifically name any Moon aborigines who also believe that Moon's surface has intrinsic value.
We could, for example, implement a Moon use tax, and all people on Earth would be getting an equal share from use of each square mile of Moon's surface, payable by Moon mining companies to the governments and then distributed as people of each country want. That tax would be small, compared to the costs involved in Moon mining and sales of resulting goods.
You mean iron?
That's quite small, I admit. How did you do that? I thought even a single cell is more complex than 60 chemicals...
The sad part is that this one employee who does not do anything bad probably does not do anything good either. It is a completely bland person with no interests, no curiosity, and who is even afraid to do something minor and be responsible for that. This is the kind of person who warms his chair for 40 hours per week and collects a paycheck. There is place for those people - a security guard maybe, or a help desk operator, but not in positions that require open mind and power to make decisions.
$50/mo for the second line + answering machine hassle + the need for someone to listen to the spam every day ... in exchange for what real advantage?
The same prohibition covers service of personal computers of my friends and acquaintances. The rule of thumb is simple: just don't do it. It's not worth the trouble, and even if you are paid for the initial visit there will be always a follow-up, one after another, until you are in loss for a hundred hours of labor, then you start hiding. And threats - I have no illusions about that either, even from people that I know as "normal". A phrase "you came yesterday and broke my Internet" is probably familiar to many /.ters. Just don't do it.
And BTW, I also have a PowerBook 5300c with System 7.x loaded, and I am not selling it :-) Though I have no clue how to use it these days.
Even that will cost him 15 seconds of his time, and probably a few minutes more to regain the lost thought. Can you work at all if telemarketers call you every minute? They can, there are enough people in the world (or even in the country) who are not qualified for anything better.
You just had a bad thin client, that's all. Everyone today can try RDP into their own WinXP box and see firsthand that it is responsive and works just fine. The advantage of a centralized terminal server, big, fast, on a 1 Gbps LAN and with a hot backup, is immense. Price-wise thin clients still lose only because of the greed of MS who charges an arm and a leg for a terminal server license. If you can run your terminal server on Linux then you can deploy hundreds of terminals for hardware cost only, and enjoy the disposable nature of the terminals.
But even if we forget about contracted local help, the people who swap burned up computers are the lowest level of IT imaginable. Would /you/ want to limit yourself to crawling under desks, in dust, and connecting cables every day of your remaining life? That surely can be arranged, for maybe $20k/yr, just on par with a janitor.
But nevertheless automation of labor is not new, and it does displace certain workers. The problem is that the industry does not need workers that it just kicked out. Many of laid off IT workers are simply not needed any more, even if they are smart - the work that they were doing is not needed any more. Do you have many people around who, for example, clean chimneys for a living? They were plentiful a century ago. Know where your local blacksmith works? Know who sells oats for your horse? Know a data entry / punch card operator? Know a programmer who works at a company on a home-grown accounting software? Those professions are gone.
For another example, you have one database admin who oversees five databases, 40 hr/week. In reality he is spending maybe 20% of his time on real work, and 80% on something else - maybe useful, maybe not. You just can't hire 0.2 of such a specialist. But with outsourcing to foreign or local companies this becomes possible - one admin can service not five but 100 databases (with better tools, and if necessary - with backup of more admins.) We do not generate electric power at every home - we instead outsource it to a company who has big, powerful generators (which are more efficient) and who has a team at the controls 24/7.
There are definitely financial and technical (but not social!) advantages to outsourcing. For example, you can build your own HR software - or you can outsource it to a company who /already/ built it all, and maintains for free. Fidelity NetBenefits is one such example. It would cost you a fortune to redo their work, and 10 full time coders to maintain (to comply with ever-changing laws) - but sign a contract and you don't need to do any of that.
Same with conferencing. You can set up your own video/desktop conferencing thing, if you want. It will only cost you a few million dollars and a few years (don't mention NetMeeting, it's for small meetings only.) Or you can sign a contract with a company like Webex who already designed the whole thing - servers, clients, Web scheduling and the rest. Get instant results, pay as you go - why would this be a bad deal?
So outsourced / contracted out tasks are reality and the role of IT will be shifting from designing software to maintaining some software to maintaining hardware ... to eventually nothing. Once you are at the level of thin terminals you don't maintain those, you replace them. But this is far away, many companies depend on powerful PCs to run stuff locally. But even that may happen - need ANSYS to model your gizmo? Fork over some $20K (depends on what you are buying) and have a license; or pay $200 per hour and connect to a remote terminal server where ANSYS is already running and licensed. If you need 2 hours to run your simulation you pay only $400 - considerably less than many kilobucks that otherwise would be necessary.
In any case, yes, some IT people will be washed out of the system; in fact, the best will be washed out, and only the least demanding, and with least amount of skill, will stay. Those best can go to the outsourcing companies. But those companies don't need 20 database admins, they need only one (because s/he is more efficient.) What the remaining 19 good admins should do? In an ideal world many
You do not need polls if you live in the country, among the people.
Any kernel developer is perfectly qualified to write userspace code. They might not want to do so, however, because userspace is fragmented, has ho unified API and generally is not as glamorous. Some code (SANE) is awfully hackish at places.
That's easy: I don't smoke :-)
Depends on the logger; however if l were designing one and had to log once per minute I would record minimum and maximum speeds per logging interval, otherwise the log is of little use.
First: That the person knowingly and willfully devised a scheme to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false pretenses, representations or promises;
Comcast devised a scheme to get rich by selling a promise of unlimited, unfiltered network access and then by failing to fulfill those promises.
Second: That the person knowingly transmitted or caused to be transmitted by wire in interstate commerce some sound for the purpose of executing the scheme to defraud.
Comcast knowingly transmitted by wire "some sound" for the purpose of executing the said schema by reducing the available bandwidth that the subscriber is entitled to. Without this transmission taking place the subscriber would have received the promised service and Comcast would be unable to execute the fraud.
On the other hand, radar guns DO NOT measure "ground speed" at least because it's unclear what it is. They measure the speed of the car relative to the radar. If you use a radar gun from a car you need to subtract (or add) your own speed. If you are on the side of the road then you need an even fancier math to get to the right results (but your error will be so high that your measurements will be useless anyway.)
Yes, and besides the GPS signal is a wideband CDMA, so there is no single frequency to lock onto and try to determine its shift relative to something else. All you get out of the correlator is the bitstream; the signal itself is below the noise floor and can not be perceived directly.
If the police sticks to that it loses the case. The interval between measurements is one second, and any user of a navigation system knows that.
A common GPS sends reports (3D position, time, and optional derived parameters) once per second. You only need to feed this into an approved, secure recorder that can not be tampered with.
What if your insurance company gave you a recording device that you can not control? For example, it may record everything for last 24 hours (and erase older recordings.) In case of a dispute there is plenty of time for the company's agent to retrieve the recorder and stop it. But a police officer can't force you to do that because you can't, and the device is not yours to begin with.
Most religions, however, define their God(s) as omnipotent (compared to humans, at least) and unknowable. There are solid reasons to do so. Gods don't really manifest themselves on a daily basis, and the flock soon starts asking inconvenient questions - such as "where was your God when my child drowned?" Priests had to think fast, and one of the common answers is that we can not comprehend the ways of Gods (and consequently that the child's death was somehow necessary and part of the God's plan.)
If you compare your demands to God to many religious texts you will find that all ancient Gods (incl. the most recent arrivals, such as Jesus and Allah) do not comply with your requests. There is no answer to the purpose of life (other than God was bored, sitting in darkness and void for [no time scale either].) Jewish God did mention something to the tune of "get out of here and multiply" to Adam & Eve while booting them out, but that is not an answer to "why to bother."
I also can answer your questions about life, Universe and everything. Will you pray to me?