and those costs are even higher when done by a law team during a discovery process. Gets quite expensive when law teams are billing $1k per hour to do discovery.
I myself have found it far cheaper as a small business owner to have a written document retention policy along with a written policy that all business docs have a VCS Date and Number. In fact after I discussed the matter with another local small biz owner, I'm damn glad I've got such a policy in place as they're already going through the distraction and resulting loss of business while attempting to archive to CD/DVD several years worth of email archives (Outlook/Outlook Express/AOL).
As far as having a written policy goes, that's not enough. You also have to follow it, otherwise the court will hang your ass for destruction of records along with contempt, possibly costing you the case. So once the policies are in place follow them.
Every American Citizen over the age of 16 be armed and dangerous with the government providing both the training and a standard format firearm (eg: 9mm or.45 ACP) based upon personal preferences. Throw out two thirds of the damn laws and make dueling legal with full rules and regulations/public referees to oversee such events. Hell even charge a damn fee for the privilege of dueling so that it's almost self supporting.
Now if we were to implement this simple change to our legal system, we could easily reduce the level of policing now required, criminal prosecution and jail costs by at least one half since most of the crooks would already be dead while ensuring that people are a whole lot more polite once again.
Even for use in space, I still think it's a waste of, well, space. Either you're going to connect it to a real computer for display and use (with that big monitor and keyboard) or you're not, and all those jacks are a waste of space.
Well that's just it. It most likely wont include the Graphics, USB, Audio or Card Reader ports as they add undesired weight to the unit nor do they suit it's intended function, which is as a remote enabled controller/communication device for the various sensors it's supposed to connect to using the "Space-Wire" port.
Remember, this device was created to go into space and that means they'll strip as much off it in order to cut the weight to a bare minimum as fuel costs are still damn expensive.
Lots of people here and analysts have written off AMD. I think AMD is in a great position if they can survive their short term debt problems which is looking increasingly likely.
Everyone forgets that AMD purchase ATI not for their GPU line (bonus) but for their North/South Bridge chipsets as it offered them the ability to finally provide a complete solution as Intel Does. For example - Asus only designs the PCB used in their Motherboard while using either an Intel chipset (Socket 775/ICH9/GMA3100) or an AMD (Socket AM2) with either an ATI northbride or the Nvidia Nforce Chipset. The only thing AMD gets from this is the Socket and CPU sell, while ATI or Nvidia gets the rest of the business. Not a good deal in comparison to Intel who gets everything but the PCB motherboard business.
Remember who gets the blame if something's wrong with the board? Even if it's actually Intel's fault, Asus bites it, not Intel and that is just one of the advantages of producing not only the CPU but the entire chipset, which is exactly what AMD wants.
Now that AMD is finally digesting the meal called ATI, we're beginning to see the advantages that we're the reason for the purchase. Improved energy efficiency and performance from AMD branded motherboards along with the profits. We're also going to begin seeing the real opensource support from ATI GPU's that everyone wants yet has been lacking to date (docs released to the devs under NDA's). In fact I can see ATI doing the same as Nvidia yet in reverse. Open Source drivers with a Windows only Binary blob for their video cards.
A couple of area's they get upset with your for Vid-Cam usage is the bathroom and any bedroom. Otherwise you're fine to bug/video monitor any public area of your own home.
The only problem with VMWare is that they don't support any 64bit Host OS. This means you are stuck with a 32bit OS to emulate a 64bit OS if you want to run a 64bit OS. Sorry but that's the big reason I gave up on VMWare. No support for a 64bit Host OS.
I also wonder why you'd dual boot for Windows games when Virtual Box allows you to run XP or any other version of Windows in a true protected virtual environment that doesn't take you're whole system down when it pukes/crashes/BSOD's on you.
That's the key term. Simply put, what it means is that "you have to ask" and can't simply waltz in at any time day/night that you please. This even applies to things like Repairs (Plumbing & Electrical) unless it's an immediate hazard (flooding from broken lines/breakers tripped due to shorts/overloads).
To many landlords think that reasonable access means when ever they're present and thus it's abused drastically when the law is very clear on this.
I've been a renter in the past and my landlord got snippy about it one day when they asked to inspect the premises as I was leaving for work. My answer: "Sorry but I'm heading to work, you'll have to come back tomorrow as I'm running behind schedule." Cost them quite a bit of money when they tried to break my lease (had to buy it out and pay both legal & moving costs).
Some of the spelling issues I've seen on forums revolve around the fact that English is not the posters main language. Of course the other issue is the fact that the United States is graduating high school students who are functionally illiterate and unable to perform simple math (add/subtract) or even reason through a problem.
Microsoft has released SP3 as an ISO image that can be conveniently burned to disk for offline installation and "YES" I have a copy of the ISO along with several copies of the burned disk to give to friends on dial-up.
Tom Swift and the Old Hardie Boys series. Almost anything from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Phol and the other early masters and there are two reasons. Most of the early masters included lots of hard science (they knew what they were talking about) while offering damn good writing that used correct grammar and spelling. Another I'd consider is James P. Hogan as he's in the same sense as the old masters like Asimov and Clarke with lots of hard science behind what he writes and don't forget Tom Clancey and many of the other Techno-thriller writers. It may not be called Sci-Fi but much of what they write about might be possible in the next 10-20 years.
I'll give them their remote kill switch in exchange for automated highways and vehicles they're responsible for maintaining/fueling along with increased training requirements before issuing a manual control license.
I feel that this would be a fair trade off to me as the price of fuel is becoming a concern and I'm not driving near as much as I used to when fuel was $3 per gallon.
Which is exactly why I drive a 68 VW Bug without any electronics at all. Of course my neighbors scream when I run it since I use solid core (real wire) plug wires and non-supression plugs for maximum spark and fuel mileage. It's also much easier to work on then these new fangled Nanny Cars, seeing as how it doesn't require a 5k investment into diagnostic tools to figure out a loos wire is causing the problem.
My ISP already throttles my connection by price. I've currently got 256/768 as that suits my needs. If they were to start throttling any more of my net access (I'm paying for unlimited at 256/768) I'd have their asses in court in a hurry for false advertising and violation of contract, which I have kept the hard copy of from the day I signed up for service.
I was one of the first adopters to get broadband when it became available 6 years ago in my area and according to the original contract (have hardcopy on file) they planned offering tierred service with it being a simple change in minimum speeds and thus not requiring a new contract. I also informed them that I'm worse then a squeaky wheel, I'm like a brake that's gone metal to metal since I'm semi-retired and disabled with plenty of time on my hands to pursue things every time they try to change my contract without consent.
The interobserver variability in the study was high, and they defined an event very broadly, essentially as any change in the operation of a device. It is a bit aggressive -- and I fear that good technology may inadvertently be stifled for "interference" concerns... When dealing with life support and such medical devices. Death from a malfunction is a possibility and the liability issue is upon the Manufacturer. That's why most manufacturers do not sell such equipment but lease it to the hospital with a maintenance program. It's to protect themselves from a liability issue and should a hospital deploy an RFID system without input from the vendors, someone will be at an increased risk of death.
Oh Good: This means my surgeon can talk on his bluetooth headset and have a fight with his S.O. while removing a brain tumour.
Oops. Sorry about that but I just removed your visual cortex instead of the tumour we were after.
The impact of multi-tasking is directly porportional to the complexity of the task being interupted. In other words we can do 2 + easy things acceptably or 1 difficult/complex thing at a time and to me, driving an automobile is a complex task as has been shown by available research. So hang up and drive before you run over a child or grandma because you were too busy talking to pay attention to your driving.
AFAIK running 12V or 24V cabling through your house does not require an electrician.... Depends on your local laws. Where I live - Solar Power is a viable alternative and yes any PV system has to meet minimum Federal Electrical Standards for DC systems. Furthermore, it's quite easy to overload standard 12volt Automotive grade wire with a PV panel if the amperage is high enough. The big question to ask is how many amps of 14-18 volts is being output by the panel or is the panel configured for 24volt operation (28-32 volt output).
Making a blanket statement as you did tends to result in severe cases of "Foot in Mouth" disease. FYI a 50watt 12v PV panel requires a minimum of 8ga wire to connect to the busbar while a 200watt panel requires at least (4)0 wire (quad aught) to handle the amperage it can easily output and most PV panels over the 150watt rating are configured for 24v output.
Now depending on what the OP wants to do with the PV system is going to determine what he needs. If it's simply lighting for a shed, then the issue is even simpler. Get a small PV powered light unit (Brinkman/Others) from the local Home Improvement Center or order it online and use it to light the shed. If it's anything more then lighting, then you need to consider appropriate wire gauge to minimize voltage drops, Purchasing of DC rated switches (standard household switches aren't safe due to arcing).
In regards to the 120/240 AC voltages, you're actually better off putting the Inverters near the batteries and running standard house wiring because of safety factors. We're damn familiar with AC power and there's plenty of standards to follow when working with it. PV systems with high amp DC circuits are very dangerous Common Automotive Batteries can output in excess of 1200A when the posts are shorted, so you damn well better protect those batteries.
Right now the best solution would be to head over to Mr Solar where you can find plenty of PV related equipment and kits for numerous projects.
The best archive longevity can only be had from archive rated disks and the only disks rated for archive use (part of the disk spec) are DVD-RAM disks. Note that DVD-RAM disks are engineered with a minimum archive period of 20+ years while both CD/DVD do not even have a minimum archive period in the specification. Simply put, most if not all new burners can actually handle DVD-RAM disks, which although expensive are worth the money as they are also rewritable. Write Speed is not important (2.4x) as the usage patterns for DVD-RAM is archive instead of day-to-day read.
As part of an archive strategy, you will need to refresh the archive about every 5 years, which means checking the integrity of all disks in the archive on a regular basis. You will also need to construct the archive in such a manner to provide redundancy of files even if it's as simple as creating two copies of each archive.
The biggest problem though is that the C/E/I/O's of American Companies rarely give a damn about anything more then next quarters profits. Because of this growing attitude, long term planning in the States is simply not happening and it indicates why our R&D efforts are simply fading into the past. Most of Corporate America's problems can be directly linked/traced to the profit now above all else thinking that's pervading our culture, which goes right back to the I want it Now cultural thinking (consumerism) that's been pushed by our great and fearless marketing leaders.
If I was paranoid: I'd be thinking that Cumo and others are working hand in hand to restrict our internet access to a limited number of points that can then be monitored by the federal government but ya know what?
I'm impressed that the Xorg Devs have managed to get code that builds successfully under 3+ different GCC ABI's in the same package. Remember that GCC changed the ABI between 3.3 and 3.4. Then they did it again between 3.4 and 4.0 (was supposed to be the same). Once again they've changed the ABI, this time between 4.1 and 4.2 and don't even get me started on the changes introduced in 4.3 that's supposedly stable and yet over half the Gentoo packages fail to build successfully with it.
Yes I'm a Gentoo user and I have to say that the changes in the toolchain are creating lots of probs for devs all over the place. Changes in the ABI itself that mean your freshly minted code no longer compiles or if it does, subtle and unpredictable bugs are introduced. That's the entire reason the Gentoo Project has stabilized on the 4.1 toolchain. All supported apps build successfully and any problems can be traced down to either a hardware issue, useflags, patch or actual bug in the code that gets pushed upstream to the developer.
Right now, cpu's are fast nuff to handle unoptimized code and that's only part of the reason the FreeBSD team has started work on their own toolchain. Forget having the toolchain optimize things, instead they're working on getting a toolchain that builds stable and consistent C/C++ standards compliant code all the time and I wish them well because even if released under the BSD license, I suspect that many others would use it for the stability aspects just as I will even though running Linux.
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I'd actually go with the 5th Amendment (The right to not incriminate myself) as the subject to throw out all of the information collected.
and those costs are even higher when done by a law team during a discovery process. Gets quite expensive when law teams are billing $1k per hour to do discovery.
I myself have found it far cheaper as a small business owner to have a written document retention policy along with a written policy that all business docs have a VCS Date and Number. In fact after I discussed the matter with another local small biz owner, I'm damn glad I've got such a policy in place as they're already going through the distraction and resulting loss of business while attempting to archive to CD/DVD several years worth of email archives (Outlook/Outlook Express/AOL).
As far as having a written policy goes, that's not enough. You also have to follow it, otherwise the court will hang your ass for destruction of records along with contempt, possibly costing you the case. So once the policies are in place follow them.
Every American Citizen over the age of 16 be armed and dangerous with the government providing both the training and a standard format firearm (eg: 9mm or .45 ACP) based upon personal preferences. Throw out two thirds of the damn laws and make dueling legal with full rules and regulations/public referees to oversee such events. Hell even charge a damn fee for the privilege of dueling so that it's almost self supporting.
Now if we were to implement this simple change to our legal system, we could easily reduce the level of policing now required, criminal prosecution and jail costs by at least one half since most of the crooks would already be dead while ensuring that people are a whole lot more polite once again.
Even for use in space, I still think it's a waste of, well, space. Either you're going to connect it to a real computer for display and use (with that big monitor and keyboard) or you're not, and all those jacks are a waste of space.
Well that's just it. It most likely wont include the Graphics, USB, Audio or Card Reader ports as they add undesired weight to the unit nor do they suit it's intended function, which is as a remote enabled controller/communication device for the various sensors it's supposed to connect to using the "Space-Wire" port.
Remember, this device was created to go into space and that means they'll strip as much off it in order to cut the weight to a bare minimum as fuel costs are still damn expensive.
Lots of people here and analysts have written off AMD. I think AMD is in a great position if they can survive their short term debt problems which is looking increasingly likely.
Everyone forgets that AMD purchase ATI not for their GPU line (bonus) but for their North/South Bridge chipsets as it offered them the ability to finally provide a complete solution as Intel Does. For example - Asus only designs the PCB used in their Motherboard while using either an Intel chipset (Socket 775/ICH9/GMA3100) or an AMD (Socket AM2) with either an ATI northbride or the Nvidia Nforce Chipset. The only thing AMD gets from this is the Socket and CPU sell, while ATI or Nvidia gets the rest of the business. Not a good deal in comparison to Intel who gets everything but the PCB motherboard business.
Remember who gets the blame if something's wrong with the board? Even if it's actually Intel's fault, Asus bites it, not Intel and that is just one of the advantages of producing not only the CPU but the entire chipset, which is exactly what AMD wants.
Now that AMD is finally digesting the meal called ATI, we're beginning to see the advantages that we're the reason for the purchase. Improved energy efficiency and performance from AMD branded motherboards along with the profits. We're also going to begin seeing the real opensource support from ATI GPU's that everyone wants yet has been lacking to date (docs released to the devs under NDA's). In fact I can see ATI doing the same as Nvidia yet in reverse. Open Source drivers with a Windows only Binary blob for their video cards.
A couple of area's they get upset with your for Vid-Cam usage is the bathroom and any bedroom. Otherwise you're fine to bug/video monitor any public area of your own home.
The only problem with VMWare is that they don't support any 64bit Host OS. This means you are stuck with a 32bit OS to emulate a 64bit OS if you want to run a 64bit OS. Sorry but that's the big reason I gave up on VMWare. No support for a 64bit Host OS.
I also wonder why you'd dual boot for Windows games when Virtual Box allows you to run XP or any other version of Windows in a true protected virtual environment that doesn't take you're whole system down when it pukes/crashes/BSOD's on you.
Business Card/Biometric Scanner (fingerprint reader)
Reasonable Access
That's the key term. Simply put, what it means is that "you have to ask" and can't simply waltz in at any time day/night that you please. This even applies to things like Repairs (Plumbing & Electrical) unless it's an immediate hazard (flooding from broken lines/breakers tripped due to shorts/overloads).
To many landlords think that reasonable access means when ever they're present and thus it's abused drastically when the law is very clear on this.
I've been a renter in the past and my landlord got snippy about it one day when they asked to inspect the premises as I was leaving for work. My answer: "Sorry but I'm heading to work, you'll have to come back tomorrow as I'm running behind schedule." Cost them quite a bit of money when they tried to break my lease (had to buy it out and pay both legal & moving costs).
Naw - that quick freeze will soon thaw so enjoy it while it lasts.
Some of the spelling issues I've seen on forums revolve around the fact that English is not the posters main language. Of course the other issue is the fact that the United States is graduating high school students who are functionally illiterate and unable to perform simple math (add/subtract) or even reason through a problem.
Microsoft has released SP3 as an ISO image that can be conveniently burned to disk for offline installation and "YES" I have a copy of the ISO along with several copies of the burned disk to give to friends on dial-up.
Tom Swift and the Old Hardie Boys series. Almost anything from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Phol and the other early masters and there are two reasons. Most of the early masters included lots of hard science (they knew what they were talking about) while offering damn good writing that used correct grammar and spelling. Another I'd consider is James P. Hogan as he's in the same sense as the old masters like Asimov and Clarke with lots of hard science behind what he writes and don't forget Tom Clancey and many of the other Techno-thriller writers. It may not be called Sci-Fi but much of what they write about might be possible in the next 10-20 years.
I'll give them their remote kill switch in exchange for automated highways and vehicles they're responsible for maintaining/fueling along with increased training requirements before issuing a manual control license.
I feel that this would be a fair trade off to me as the price of fuel is becoming a concern and I'm not driving near as much as I used to when fuel was $3 per gallon.
Which is exactly why I drive a 68 VW Bug without any electronics at all. Of course my neighbors scream when I run it since I use solid core (real wire) plug wires and non-supression plugs for maximum spark and fuel mileage. It's also much easier to work on then these new fangled Nanny Cars, seeing as how it doesn't require a 5k investment into diagnostic tools to figure out a loos wire is causing the problem.
My ISP already throttles my connection by price. I've currently got 256/768 as that suits my needs. If they were to start throttling any more of my net access (I'm paying for unlimited at 256/768) I'd have their asses in court in a hurry for false advertising and violation of contract, which I have kept the hard copy of from the day I signed up for service.
I was one of the first adopters to get broadband when it became available 6 years ago in my area and according to the original contract (have hardcopy on file) they planned offering tierred service with it being a simple change in minimum speeds and thus not requiring a new contract. I also informed them that I'm worse then a squeaky wheel, I'm like a brake that's gone metal to metal since I'm semi-retired and disabled with plenty of time on my hands to pursue things every time they try to change my contract without consent.
Oh Good: This means my surgeon can talk on his bluetooth headset and have a fight with his S.O. while removing a brain tumour.
Oops. Sorry about that but I just removed your visual cortex instead of the tumour we were after.
The impact of multi-tasking is directly porportional to the complexity of the task being interupted. In other words we can do 2 + easy things acceptably or 1 difficult/complex thing at a time and to me, driving an automobile is a complex task as has been shown by available research. So hang up and drive before you run over a child or grandma because you were too busy talking to pay attention to your driving.
Making a blanket statement as you did tends to result in severe cases of "Foot in Mouth" disease. FYI a 50watt 12v PV panel requires a minimum of 8ga wire to connect to the busbar while a 200watt panel requires at least (4)0 wire (quad aught) to handle the amperage it can easily output and most PV panels over the 150watt rating are configured for 24v output.
Now depending on what the OP wants to do with the PV system is going to determine what he needs. If it's simply lighting for a shed, then the issue is even simpler. Get a small PV powered light unit (Brinkman/Others) from the local Home Improvement Center or order it online and use it to light the shed. If it's anything more then lighting, then you need to consider appropriate wire gauge to minimize voltage drops, Purchasing of DC rated switches (standard household switches aren't safe due to arcing).
In regards to the 120/240 AC voltages, you're actually better off putting the Inverters near the batteries and running standard house wiring because of safety factors. We're damn familiar with AC power and there's plenty of standards to follow when working with it. PV systems with high amp DC circuits are very dangerous Common Automotive Batteries can output in excess of 1200A when the posts are shorted, so you damn well better protect those batteries.
Right now the best solution would be to head over to Mr Solar where you can find plenty of PV related equipment and kits for numerous projects.
The best archive longevity can only be had from archive rated disks and the only disks rated for archive use (part of the disk spec) are DVD-RAM disks. Note that DVD-RAM disks are engineered with a minimum archive period of 20+ years while both CD/DVD do not even have a minimum archive period in the specification. Simply put, most if not all new burners can actually handle DVD-RAM disks, which although expensive are worth the money as they are also rewritable. Write Speed is not important (2.4x) as the usage patterns for DVD-RAM is archive instead of day-to-day read.
As part of an archive strategy, you will need to refresh the archive about every 5 years, which means checking the integrity of all disks in the archive on a regular basis. You will also need to construct the archive in such a manner to provide redundancy of files even if it's as simple as creating two copies of each archive.
The biggest problem though is that the C/E/I/O's of American Companies rarely give a damn about anything more then next quarters profits. Because of this growing attitude, long term planning in the States is simply not happening and it indicates why our R&D efforts are simply fading into the past. Most of Corporate America's problems can be directly linked/traced to the profit now above all else thinking that's pervading our culture, which goes right back to the I want it Now cultural thinking (consumerism) that's been pushed by our great and fearless marketing leaders.
If I was paranoid: I'd be thinking that Cumo and others are working hand in hand to restrict our internet access to a limited number of points that can then be monitored by the federal government but ya know what?
I doubt it they'll release a Sultry Sasquat. More likely it'll be Slippery Slope
Yes I'm a Gentoo user and I have to say that the changes in the toolchain are creating lots of probs for devs all over the place. Changes in the ABI itself that mean your freshly minted code no longer compiles or if it does, subtle and unpredictable bugs are introduced. That's the entire reason the Gentoo Project has stabilized on the 4.1 toolchain. All supported apps build successfully and any problems can be traced down to either a hardware issue, useflags, patch or actual bug in the code that gets pushed upstream to the developer.
Right now, cpu's are fast nuff to handle unoptimized code and that's only part of the reason the FreeBSD team has started work on their own toolchain. Forget having the toolchain optimize things, instead they're working on getting a toolchain that builds stable and consistent C/C++ standards compliant code all the time and I wish them well because even if released under the BSD license, I suspect that many others would use it for the stability aspects just as I will even though running Linux.