It's not about a "flair for the dramatic", it's about getting votes by creating an enemy against which you can unite the masses. For the Democrats, it's the Republicans. Likewise, for the Republicans, it's the "eastern elites" and "liberals". We can't run the country this way anymore, as it's clear that we're running it into the ground.
Wish I had mod points... And there was a "Score 6: Brilliant!".
I'm posting this using Safari 4.0.5 (4531.22.7) running on a 1st generation PPC Mac Mini running 10.4.11. But yes... This machine is seeing it's last days on my desk. It stays to keep my iPhone company... I'm otherwise giving up my 9 year Apple flirtation and moving back to a Linux desktop. Their support limitations have exceeded my patience, particularly with regards to Java. I sense they may even be contemplating another arch shift. If I bought in to an Intel Mac, (with my luck) they'd skip off to multicore ARM a year later, leaving me stranded again.
Apple would need to cut the price of a new Mini to ~$350 to keep me interested, or start supporting non-Apple HW. They seem more interested in "Curated Computing", which beyond the iPhone, doesn't interest me.
Now if someone could fix the > 16Tb ext3 FS problem...:-)
Actually, a lot of the Texas wind potential is up around Lubbock & Amarillo. Not exactly desert, but not far from it. It's actually the one of the biggest cotton producing regions in the US. The farmers are used to the concept of leasing out the "energy rights" of their land, and providing access to contractors to perform work, etc... Driving a tractor around a jack pump and a windmill is pretty the same thing.
Texas has a fully deregulated electric grid. Not unlike what California tried to do, but with safeguards against the kind of shenanigans Enron pulled. Add to this, it's almost completely isolated from the rest of the country. Last I heard there were three interconnects. They're building a fourth superconducting DC interconnect up near Amarillo, specifically to export panhandle wind energy to NM and the western US grid.
All this wind power has had some interesting side effects. A couple months ago I was looking at switching providers, and I could have purchased a 6mo contract of 100% renewable wind energy for 9.8 cents/kwh. I'm still kicking myself. However, the wind forecasting and spinning reserve backup issue is very real. Texas very narrowly averted rolling blackouts a couple years ago when wind generation dropped off quite unexpectedly. They have emergency plans in place for large industrial users to shed load. It almost wasn't enough.
You can't just shutdown those other production facilities. Some of them need to be fired up in spinning reserve, ready to shoulder the load while additional plants are brought online. Wind can disappear in 5 minutes. It takes hours if not days to start a coal plant from a cold state. Natgas turbines 15 to 20 minutes.
No kidding... I did my internship at a US Govt. lab. We were still using hard-sectored 8-inch floppies for science instruments in 1993. PDP-11/03's no less...
When using directional antennae with 2.4 GHz Wifi, you're limited to tens of milliwatts or even less, depending on the gain.
Last time I checked Ham's are authorized 1500 watts @2.4Ghz. They just need to conduct the safety evaluation. Now meeting the safety requirements with a 24dbi dish might prove difficult... But if you can, you're good to go. (yes, I'm serious, think morse code via moon bounce...)
Temkin's u-verse tip... Turn off the TV using the native remote. The box stays on, and continues to stream for hours. It eventually turns off after a timeout of roughly 6 hours. But they can never be certain where I stopped watching. Just adds a little noise to their data.
you can expect to start to see real problems soon,
Soon? I've had so many Kingston thumb drives fail, I've stopped buying the brand. I have an NSLU2 hiding in a closet running on a thumb drive that's been running for years. It ate a Kingston thumb drive in a matter of weeks...
Not go get all "Dan Brown", but... The phrase "well regulated" has meaning to Masons, and it has almost nothing to do with being well armed, or provided for.
Last I heard, Vinnie had resurrected Quinn's, or at least attempted to. I no longer live in the area to check. I grew up near by, and got to meet Mike only once.
Here in Austin we have M.C. Howard Electronics. Perhaps not the legend that was Quinn's or the big three in the south bay, but not bad. We have a great Goodwill Computer Works for more run-of-the-mill computer stuff.
Indeed! That transformer was 2x the mass of a D11N Cat. That's quite a rare vehicle in most parts though. Gravel trucks are a dime a dozen around a quarry.
Maybe a passenger train might derail if it hit a big truck
No, not really. Many of the passenger locomotives are derived from freight units. I was riding ACE from Livermore, CA to Santa Clara back in 2001 - 2002. This consist is 6 Bombardier split-level commuters, with a Boise rebuilt F40PH. We departed Livermore one day, and were running along the south side of Pleasanton at about 45 mph (72 km/h) along the big gravel pits (now closed). A fully loaded gravel truck parked across the tracks trying to gain entry to one of the pits that had recently changed it's rules regarding cross property truck transit. He was arguing with the security guard and hopped out of the truck and ran rather than drop the clutch and run the chain link gate.
The impact was pretty much a non-event for us passengers. I knew something was up due to the horn, and recognized when the brakes went to emergency. I was riding backwards and put my head against the head rest and braced for impact. 1+ million Kg. vs 36,000 Kg. semi truck. I felt a "thud", and that was pretty much it. It was a bit more exciting for the people in the lead car. The got to roll thru the debris field. The trailer was completely destroyed, and the cargo distributed among the ballast along the track. The tractor lost both rear axles and the 5th wheel, and had it's frame rails twisted like pretzels. Damage to the locomotive was slight. No injuries, no derailment, I think there was some air plumbing damage, and the plow was pushed back 2 inches. ACE called in their bus fleet to finish the trip for us. I was close enough to home that I just had my wife pick me up, and I drove in.
That was just one event, but... Pretty much the highest mass kind of truck event, load of rock. Might have been worse if it was a D11 CAT on a low-boy I suppose.
I think this is as good as any proof that society and culture (at least in California) is pretty damn broken.
I take it you've never been to Richmond, CA. You seem to have no idea how big an understatement that is. Richmond is a freaking war zone. It's a petro-chemical industry hellhole. I used to work there. There were 4 superfund sites with in walking distance of my office, if you dared venture out. I spent a night there once house sitting for a co-worker. Gunfire all night. The cops... Forget about 'em. They'll show up in the morning to clean up.
No. The discharge of every coastal sewage plant and every storm drain is your fuel. Then there's these things called "rivers". I understand something like 0.01% of all water on the planet flows through them every year. As small as that sounds, it's a substantial number in terms of solar kJ's sequestered in its distillation.
I drive thru Clovis every now and then, and always stop for fuel. It's a convenient shortcut from central Texas to I-40, which I find preferable to I-10 when doing a TX to SF Bay RV run. Clovis is in pretty dire circumstances, and it's likely to get worse when the Air Force base closes. I doubt this will do much for their job market.
This is total bullshit. I built a house in Los Angeles. The big money went to the contractor. All the permits were billed separately and I therefore know they were on the order of several thousand dollars, not the ludricous $100,000 you claim.
So you built in one of the irresponsible Socal sprawl cities. Go price some of the SF bay area "smart growth" cities. The ~$100k number was from Livermore. It's one of the highest, or at least was 4+ years ago when I left.
Wrong - Tax revenue from property tax has grown faster than any other California revenue source, outpacing inflation + population growth by 50%+
You don't think it actually costs $400k to build a house in Tracy or Apple Valley, do you? Prop 13 forced the cities to rig the system. Here's how it works:
1. People want housing, developer wants to build a house... City has to expand services, including schools, police, roads, water & sewer.
2. Cities set up exorbitant planning and permit fee's to offset costs. These fee's can be as high as $100,000 per house!
3. Permit fee's build in a market floor. Any house with a valid occupancy permit is worth more than the fee's. This lifts all home values.
4. Fed loans banks fiat money at obscenely low rates. Banks turn around and loan it to home buyers at higher rates.
5. Homeowner's now pay banks 5 - 6 - 7% on permit fee's collected up front, rather than as yearly property taxes. Bankers laugh all the way their country clubs, where they meet with their colleagues and find ways to encourage more.
Slashdot Mirror
Never do this:
"Do you know why I pulled you over today?"
"Yes sir, you are conducting an investigation in the discharge of your official duties, and had probable cause to do so."
They don't like that one at all....
It's not about a "flair for the dramatic", it's about getting votes by creating an enemy against which you can unite the masses. For the Democrats, it's the Republicans. Likewise, for the Republicans, it's the "eastern elites" and "liberals". We can't run the country this way anymore, as it's clear that we're running it into the ground.
Wish I had mod points... And there was a "Score 6: Brilliant!".
Temkin... Ex-Californian in Texas no less....
I'm posting this using Safari 4.0.5 (4531.22.7) running on a 1st generation PPC Mac Mini running 10.4.11. But yes... This machine is seeing it's last days on my desk. It stays to keep my iPhone company... I'm otherwise giving up my 9 year Apple flirtation and moving back to a Linux desktop. Their support limitations have exceeded my patience, particularly with regards to Java. I sense they may even be contemplating another arch shift. If I bought in to an Intel Mac, (with my luck) they'd skip off to multicore ARM a year later, leaving me stranded again.
Apple would need to cut the price of a new Mini to ~$350 to keep me interested, or start supporting non-Apple HW. They seem more interested in "Curated Computing", which beyond the iPhone, doesn't interest me.
Now if someone could fix the > 16Tb ext3 FS problem... :-)
Actually, a lot of the Texas wind potential is up around Lubbock & Amarillo. Not exactly desert, but not far from it. It's actually the one of the biggest cotton producing regions in the US. The farmers are used to the concept of leasing out the "energy rights" of their land, and providing access to contractors to perform work, etc... Driving a tractor around a jack pump and a windmill is pretty the same thing.
Texas has a fully deregulated electric grid. Not unlike what California tried to do, but with safeguards against the kind of shenanigans Enron pulled. Add to this, it's almost completely isolated from the rest of the country. Last I heard there were three interconnects. They're building a fourth superconducting DC interconnect up near Amarillo, specifically to export panhandle wind energy to NM and the western US grid.
All this wind power has had some interesting side effects. A couple months ago I was looking at switching providers, and I could have purchased a 6mo contract of 100% renewable wind energy for 9.8 cents/kwh. I'm still kicking myself. However, the wind forecasting and spinning reserve backup issue is very real. Texas very narrowly averted rolling blackouts a couple years ago when wind generation dropped off quite unexpectedly. They have emergency plans in place for large industrial users to shed load. It almost wasn't enough.
You can't just shutdown those other production facilities. Some of them need to be fired up in spinning reserve, ready to shoulder the load while additional plants are brought online. Wind can disappear in 5 minutes. It takes hours if not days to start a coal plant from a cold state. Natgas turbines 15 to 20 minutes.
No kidding... I did my internship at a US Govt. lab. We were still using hard-sectored 8-inch floppies for science instruments in 1993. PDP-11/03's no less...
Why on God's green earth would I want to "spice up" my shell scripts?!?! Spicey shell scripts... What the hell is the world coming to?
Now you kids get off my lawn!
When using directional antennae with 2.4 GHz Wifi, you're limited to tens of milliwatts or even less, depending on the gain.
Last time I checked Ham's are authorized 1500 watts @2.4Ghz. They just need to conduct the safety evaluation. Now meeting the safety requirements with a 24dbi dish might prove difficult... But if you can, you're good to go. (yes, I'm serious, think morse code via moon bounce...)
Are you sure you weren't thinking "intact liver"?
Temkin's u-verse tip... Turn off the TV using the native remote. The box stays on, and continues to stream for hours. It eventually turns off after a timeout of roughly 6 hours. But they can never be certain where I stopped watching. Just adds a little noise to their data.
you can expect to start to see real problems soon,
Soon? I've had so many Kingston thumb drives fail, I've stopped buying the brand. I have an NSLU2 hiding in a closet running on a thumb drive that's been running for years. It ate a Kingston thumb drive in a matter of weeks...
Not go get all "Dan Brown", but... The phrase "well regulated" has meaning to Masons, and it has almost nothing to do with being well armed, or provided for.
Last I heard, Vinnie had resurrected Quinn's, or at least attempted to. I no longer live in the area to check. I grew up near by, and got to meet Mike only once.
Here in Austin we have M.C. Howard Electronics. Perhaps not the legend that was Quinn's or the big three in the south bay, but not bad. We have a great Goodwill Computer Works for more run-of-the-mill computer stuff.
Indeed! That transformer was 2x the mass of a D11N Cat. That's quite a rare vehicle in most parts though. Gravel trucks are a dime a dozen around a quarry.
Maybe a passenger train might derail if it hit a big truck
No, not really. Many of the passenger locomotives are derived from freight units. I was riding ACE from Livermore, CA to Santa Clara back in 2001 - 2002. This consist is 6 Bombardier split-level commuters, with a Boise rebuilt F40PH. We departed Livermore one day, and were running along the south side of Pleasanton at about 45 mph (72 km/h) along the big gravel pits (now closed). A fully loaded gravel truck parked across the tracks trying to gain entry to one of the pits that had recently changed it's rules regarding cross property truck transit. He was arguing with the security guard and hopped out of the truck and ran rather than drop the clutch and run the chain link gate.
The impact was pretty much a non-event for us passengers. I knew something was up due to the horn, and recognized when the brakes went to emergency. I was riding backwards and put my head against the head rest and braced for impact. 1+ million Kg. vs 36,000 Kg. semi truck. I felt a "thud", and that was pretty much it. It was a bit more exciting for the people in the lead car. The got to roll thru the debris field. The trailer was completely destroyed, and the cargo distributed among the ballast along the track. The tractor lost both rear axles and the 5th wheel, and had it's frame rails twisted like pretzels. Damage to the locomotive was slight. No injuries, no derailment, I think there was some air plumbing damage, and the plow was pushed back 2 inches. ACE called in their bus fleet to finish the trip for us. I was close enough to home that I just had my wife pick me up, and I drove in.
That was just one event, but... Pretty much the highest mass kind of truck event, load of rock. Might have been worse if it was a D11 CAT on a low-boy I suppose.
I think this is as good as any proof that society and culture (at least in California) is pretty damn broken.
I take it you've never been to Richmond, CA. You seem to have no idea how big an understatement that is. Richmond is a freaking war zone. It's a petro-chemical industry hellhole. I used to work there. There were 4 superfund sites with in walking distance of my office, if you dared venture out. I spent a night there once house sitting for a co-worker. Gunfire all night. The cops... Forget about 'em. They'll show up in the morning to clean up.
The Python zealots will be along shortly to defend their indentation insanity in 3... 2... 1...
Of course they can't find the G-spot. They're British!
I live in Texas. We hang our lights sideways.
No worries about snow down here of course... :-)
Nor will you see a big-block putting out 700+ ft/lbs. of torque for 250K miles. 12.5 mpg vs. 7 mpg in heavy towing applications plays a part as well.
The BB's were great engines, but there's a reason why there's all those diesel pickups out there these days.
No. The discharge of every coastal sewage plant and every storm drain is your fuel. Then there's these things called "rivers". I understand something like 0.01% of all water on the planet flows through them every year. As small as that sounds, it's a substantial number in terms of solar kJ's sequestered in its distillation.
I drive thru Clovis every now and then, and always stop for fuel. It's a convenient shortcut from central Texas to I-40, which I find preferable to I-10 when doing a TX to SF Bay RV run. Clovis is in pretty dire circumstances, and it's likely to get worse when the Air Force base closes. I doubt this will do much for their job market.
This is total bullshit. I built a house in Los Angeles. The big money went to the contractor. All the permits were billed separately and I therefore know they were on the order of several thousand dollars, not the ludricous $100,000 you claim.
So you built in one of the irresponsible Socal sprawl cities. Go price some of the SF bay area "smart growth" cities. The ~$100k number was from Livermore. It's one of the highest, or at least was 4+ years ago when I left.
Wrong - Tax revenue from property tax has grown faster than any other California revenue source, outpacing inflation + population growth by 50%+
You don't think it actually costs $400k to build a house in Tracy or Apple Valley, do you? Prop 13 forced the cities to rig the system. Here's how it works:
1. People want housing, developer wants to build a house... City has to expand services, including schools, police, roads, water & sewer.
2. Cities set up exorbitant planning and permit fee's to offset costs. These fee's can be as high as $100,000 per house!
3. Permit fee's build in a market floor. Any house with a valid occupancy permit is worth more than the fee's. This lifts all home values.
4. Fed loans banks fiat money at obscenely low rates. Banks turn around and loan it to home buyers at higher rates.
5. Homeowner's now pay banks 5 - 6 - 7% on permit fee's collected up front, rather than as yearly property taxes. Bankers laugh all the way their country clubs, where they meet with their colleagues and find ways to encourage more.
6. Lather rinse repeat for 30 years...
My family has a couple kids in private schools. You're going to tax me even though I'm not using your public system?
Seems so.
Not me... I'm for vouchers.