Just tack on a PayPal "processing fee" for anyone that wants to use that method. This is an extra charge to cover the chance that PayPal will jerk you around. For example: Check, Visa, or Mastercard = $20 entry fee, Paypal = $20 + $5 Paypal processing fee = $25. This will make most people use another method, but still leave the option open for people who have no other way to pay. The extra fee covers your risk and hassle in using PayPal.
I had been using PayPal as a onesy-twosy seller on eBay for a long time and never had a problem with PayPal. The guy running the event had had a eBay store and never had a problem with PayPal. It seemed like a safe, easy way to handle online entry fee payment. PayPal was our way to accept credit card payment. Based on our experiences, we had thought that people who had had problems with PayPal must have done something wrong.
Now we know better.
For this year's iteration of the event, with more time, we have found ways to accept credit cards (with code that we can drop into our website for online payment) that are safer for us (and less expensive) than PayPal.
I am involved with organizing a sporting event. This last year was our seventh running of the event. In previous years, the sanctioning body would collect the entry fee and send the events their portion. Because of some issues with the sanctioning body (not really set-up for credit card payment and slow payment to events), the system was switched to where events collected the entry fee.
We decided to go with PayPal for most of the normal reasons folks go with PayPal. I had the PayPal-based payment system up on the event web site in a couple of hours. The first month of getting entry fee payments went fine and we could transfer the funds into the event's bank accounts (to cover pre-event costs like venue deposits and insurance).
The trouble started at the end of the early entry period for the event (when entry fees increased). To avoid the increase in entry fees, almost everyone entered in the event who had not already done so, paid their entry fee on the same day. This triggered PayPal's fraud system and the event's PayPal account was locked. Although we had successfully run the event for the six prior years (with outside media coverage to prove it) and our paperwork was in order, PayPal decided that they would not give us access to the funds until after the event had run, "just in case the event was cancelled and the entry fees needed to be refunded".
PayPal's actions were almost a self-fulfilling prophesy. Without access to the funds to cover pre-event costs, the event was almost cancelled. Luckily, between the entry fees collected before the PayPal account was locked, the entry fees that we collected directly after the account was locked and understanding vendors, we were able to cover the pre-event costs and the event was held.
After successfully running the event, we contacted PayPal to get the account unlocked. At first, they wanted to make us wait six weeks. However, we pressed the point that we had bills that had to be paid and needed access to the funds ASAP. After an hour on the phone, they unlocked the funds and gave us access to the funds.
Compared to some people that I have spoken with, we got off easy.
I don't care what PayPal's new policy is. We are not putting our event at risk again by accepting payment via PayPal.
Why is he designing it primarily for 2m and 70cm (better known in amateur radio land as 440)? 2m is kinda crowded around here and 70cm doesn't seem to like the hills and trees around here. Our local ham group (in particular our ARES/RACES subgroup) is thinking about going to 6m.
I'd be more interested in something like this if it went down to 50MHz. But I don't know enough about designing this kind of thing to know if that is feasible.
What do they mean there is nothing like Tri-X? What about HP5 Plus?
The article mentions Tri-X's hard-core following, the demise of Pan-X and how Fujifilm has done better, but it completely neglects to mention Ilford. Ilford sells films that compete against Tri-X (HP5 Plus) and Pan-X (HP4).
I believe that Ilford went through a bankruptcy, but is doing OK now. I think it would be interesting to learn how they are doing compared to Kodak's analog film division.
So many other museums like... the Museum of Flight in Seattle do a much better job with their priceless artifacts.
Yes and no. There have been numerous complaints about the Museum of Flight's treatment of the planes, including the Concorde, left out in the lot next to the building built for the Shuttle. Also, someone managed to get into their Concorde and cut out the captain's hat that was wedged in the spot in the instruments that expands open in flight during the last time that it flew.
Given their poor record the Intrepid should not have even been a finalist for a shuttle.
When it was announced that Intrepid got one, I was surprised.
All an iPod is is an over priced flash drive. Who actually uses it for anything other than a music storage device? Most of the time you either "dock" it or you just use your smart phone instead when you're on the go.
An iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone. Sorry, but none of my flash drives can run iPhone apps or have a camera or connect to Wifi.
The iPod nano has the Nike+ app and a FM radio and you can watch videos on it. You must have some fancy flash drives if they can do that.
If you are gonna knock something, at least do enough research about what you are knocking that you don't come across as, uh,..., less than knowledgable.
I read the transcript from voir dire. Given the way that the questions were asked, I don't think that Mr. Hogan was given the opportunity to mention the other cases.
He described the most recent case and indicated that it wouldn't affect his ability to be a good juror. Then the next person was asked about their case. Then the question was asked of "anyone else".
In my brief experience in court, one lesson that my lawyer taught me was to honestly answer questions, but don't offer info not asked for. Mr. Hogan was never asked about additional court cases after he described the most recent one.
Isn't also possible that the FBI hacked Blue Toad and got the list and then the Anonymous guys hacked the FBI and got the list from them? There is about as much public evidence for that scenario as any other.
Also, if the Anonymous guys supposedly got the list from Blue Toad, why is it 98% match for Blue Toad's and not a 100% match?
In ICS, the Logistics Branch gets the stuff and the Finance/Admin branch figures out where the money is coming from.
Yes. And I typically don't pay attention to that stuff because our gear is already there and paid for (or, as volunteers and ham radio enthusiasts, we stock our own go-bags). But we had more than enough hams at the last drill, so I had time to pay attention to what was going on with the city staff (and I hung around for the after-action review) and the Logistics people were getting clearance and budgets from the Finance people before proceeding.
My point was that the "it is an emergency, so cost is no object" attitude doesn't apply in the drills that I have participated in.
Iridium airtime costs are high, about $1.29 per minute, but in an emergency that's the least of your problems.)
Have you seen the movie Contagion? There is a scene in the movie where the CDC reps are scoping out a sports arena to use as a make-shift hospital and the local people come in and ask "whose budget is this coming out of?" I am a county ham radio volunteer (backup communications) and, having been through a number of county and regional drills, this scene struck me as so true. There are budget people at the EOC who clear the simulated expenses run up dealing with the simulated emergency and know what budget the expenses will come out of.
Our local club is playing with HSMM-MESH to supplement our existing ham radio set-ups (two repeaters and an "assigned" ARES/RACES-type simplex frequency (in the last regional drill, hams in the next county were demanding that we get off "their" frequency, which is why "assigned" is in quotes)). Some times it would be helpful in an emergency situation to be able to transfer files or stream video and Wifi speeds are better than TNC speeds.
A bunch of us have purchased a bunch of WRT54Gs and reprogrammed them, but we haven't yet tried to get them to mesh.
I have had good luck replacing batteries and making repairs on iPhones. I have had horrid luck replacing batteries and making repairs on iPod touches. I haven't had to open an iPad yet.
I just bought a new MBP and have torn down the old to refurbish it before selling it (don't know how all that hair gets under the keys or how the keys continue to work with all of that hair under there!).
I have seen the tear down videos of the RMBP. It looks like a pain to service and very hard to upgrade (why the mSATA that isn't really mSATA?). But I don't see the problem tearing one down for recycling. Given the march of technology, it is not like much of it is going to be reused without significant processing. A putty knife should easily separate the battery. The SSD unplugs. The old memory, being fixed to the system board, should be recycled the same way the boards and chips are recycled. Exactly what is the problem here?
Still I am not sure why there is an expectation that laptops be upgradeable. It seems to me that they are moving into the appliance (or consumer electronics) space and what other devices in that space are readily upgradeable? (Note that I am not saying that this is a good thing.)
My old MBP is 4.3333 years old. I just replaced it because the display failed because of misuse on my part. I could have just replaced the display (with a used part) and continued using it. It continues to run the software that I regularly use as well as it ever did. However, I really wanted a unibody model (which wasn't available when I got my old MBP) since they came out and I wanted to go to a smaller display (which wasn't available either) anyway, so I ran with the excuse and got a newer MBP. I am replacing the display on the old one and, based on what the old ones are selling for, I will get much of the money that I spent on the new one back when I sell the old one.
About a year after I got my old MBP, my wife needed a new Windows laptop. I got her a Sony VAIO. Various bits on it have broken since then and, when it because unusable for her about 6 months ago, I had to buy her a new laptop. Used prices for her old VAIO that it isn't worth trying to sell. I bubble-gummed it together that the kids can play games on it.
I think the per-year costs were about the same for both laptops.
I think that my 15-year-old Lotus with a chassis made from aluminum extrusions that are glued together (and still holding up fine) was the result of proper engineering. Lotus looked at welding vs. gluing and determined that, with welding, the extrusions would need to be significantly thicker. It is a Lotus, so low overall weight was a goal (my car weighs 705kg), yet the chassis is as rigid as a BMW sedan from the same era. Use of glue was part of the engineered solution.
1. You can't just rebroadcast a television signal, even if it is an OTA broadcast. That is part of the law and the NAB will remind you of it if you ever think about doing it. Rebroadcasting it would be a violation of US copyright law. You have to get a license from the content provider to broadcast. (Lots of cases in US copyright law revolve around whether some action qualifies as 'broadcasting'.)
2. Dish has legal agreements with Fox (and the other networks) to rebroadcast their programming. I have a hard time believing that Dish's actions here aren't a violation of those agreements and pulled the plug. That does raise the question of why haven't they.
3. Networks and individual stations routinely get in fights with Dish and DirecTV and cut-off their service.
You and I have an individual right to FF over the commercials. As a rebroadcaster of someone else's content stream, Dish has legal obligations that you and I don't have.
Bingo. Facebook is a reasonably good service, but all it doesn't take much to launch a competitor.
How's that working for Google Plus?
I think that Facebook is poorly done. Most of their attempts to "improve" it make it worse (in my opinion). Knowing how iOS apps work and seeing the delays that I have seen running the Facebook iPhone app, it appears to be poorly coded. I would love to stop using Facebook, but it is the primary way that I am able to stay in touch with a lot of the people that I know. Facebook's advantage is that there are so many people on Facebook.
I hate to say Obama's right, but he's right that the Canadian shale oil will be mined and used regardless of what we do (unless we intervene militarily, of course).
I have a bunch of friends in Alberta and a few even work in the oil sands business. Obama is right. Hansen can "call out" Obama all he wants, but it isn't gonna change what the Canadians will do.
Looking at new license applications, there were 21112 in 2006, 26728 in 2007, 28066 in 2008, 30144 in 2009, 27528 in 2010, 24,072 in 2011 and 7532 in Q1 of this year. That doesn't look like a dying hobby to me.
However, I don't think it has the DIY element as much as it used to have. But I have only had my license since 2008, so I don't know for sure. I just get that sense looking at the equipment from the silent key acquisitions that I have been involved with as part of my local radio club.
Slashdot Mirror
Just tack on a PayPal "processing fee" for anyone that wants to use that method. This is an extra charge to cover the chance that PayPal will jerk you around. For example: Check, Visa, or Mastercard = $20 entry fee, Paypal = $20 + $5 Paypal processing fee = $25. This will make most people use another method, but still leave the option open for people who have no other way to pay. The extra fee covers your risk and hassle in using PayPal.
I had been using PayPal as a onesy-twosy seller on eBay for a long time and never had a problem with PayPal. The guy running the event had had a eBay store and never had a problem with PayPal. It seemed like a safe, easy way to handle online entry fee payment. PayPal was our way to accept credit card payment. Based on our experiences, we had thought that people who had had problems with PayPal must have done something wrong.
Now we know better.
For this year's iteration of the event, with more time, we have found ways to accept credit cards (with code that we can drop into our website for online payment) that are safer for us (and less expensive) than PayPal.
I am involved with organizing a sporting event. This last year was our seventh running of the event. In previous years, the sanctioning body would collect the entry fee and send the events their portion. Because of some issues with the sanctioning body (not really set-up for credit card payment and slow payment to events), the system was switched to where events collected the entry fee.
We decided to go with PayPal for most of the normal reasons folks go with PayPal. I had the PayPal-based payment system up on the event web site in a couple of hours. The first month of getting entry fee payments went fine and we could transfer the funds into the event's bank accounts (to cover pre-event costs like venue deposits and insurance).
The trouble started at the end of the early entry period for the event (when entry fees increased). To avoid the increase in entry fees, almost everyone entered in the event who had not already done so, paid their entry fee on the same day. This triggered PayPal's fraud system and the event's PayPal account was locked. Although we had successfully run the event for the six prior years (with outside media coverage to prove it) and our paperwork was in order, PayPal decided that they would not give us access to the funds until after the event had run, "just in case the event was cancelled and the entry fees needed to be refunded".
PayPal's actions were almost a self-fulfilling prophesy. Without access to the funds to cover pre-event costs, the event was almost cancelled. Luckily, between the entry fees collected before the PayPal account was locked, the entry fees that we collected directly after the account was locked and understanding vendors, we were able to cover the pre-event costs and the event was held.
After successfully running the event, we contacted PayPal to get the account unlocked. At first, they wanted to make us wait six weeks. However, we pressed the point that we had bills that had to be paid and needed access to the funds ASAP. After an hour on the phone, they unlocked the funds and gave us access to the funds.
Compared to some people that I have spoken with, we got off easy.
I don't care what PayPal's new policy is. We are not putting our event at risk again by accepting payment via PayPal.
Why is he designing it primarily for 2m and 70cm (better known in amateur radio land as 440)? 2m is kinda crowded around here and 70cm doesn't seem to like the hills and trees around here. Our local ham group (in particular our ARES/RACES subgroup) is thinking about going to 6m.
I'd be more interested in something like this if it went down to 50MHz. But I don't know enough about designing this kind of thing to know if that is feasible.
Didn't the Monza come after the Vega?
What do they mean there is nothing like Tri-X? What about HP5 Plus?
The article mentions Tri-X's hard-core following, the demise of Pan-X and how Fujifilm has done better, but it completely neglects to mention Ilford. Ilford sells films that compete against Tri-X (HP5 Plus) and Pan-X (HP4).
I believe that Ilford went through a bankruptcy, but is doing OK now. I think it would be interesting to learn how they are doing compared to Kodak's analog film division.
When you have a product that actually kills kids, it's not mindless regulation to ban it.
Here's a list of some products that I have within reach of my desk right now that have actually killed kids:
Add balloons to the list. The brother of one of my neighbors died when he was a kid after accidentally ingesting a balloon.
So many other museums like ... the Museum of Flight in Seattle do a much better job with their priceless artifacts.
Yes and no. There have been numerous complaints about the Museum of Flight's treatment of the planes, including the Concorde, left out in the lot next to the building built for the Shuttle. Also, someone managed to get into their Concorde and cut out the captain's hat that was wedged in the spot in the instruments that expands open in flight during the last time that it flew.
Given their poor record the Intrepid should not have even been a finalist for a shuttle.
When it was announced that Intrepid got one, I was surprised.
The only reason New York has a shuttle is it was the shuttle that was left after all the deserving blue states got one.
Washington state is a blue state and the Museum of Flight in Seattle tried to get a shuttle, but got the full fuselage trainer instead.
Can't wait for "Star Wars on Ice"
"Robot Chicken" already did this.
All an iPod is is an over priced flash drive. Who actually uses it for anything other than a music storage device? Most of the time you either "dock" it or you just use your smart phone instead when you're on the go.
An iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone. Sorry, but none of my flash drives can run iPhone apps or have a camera or connect to Wifi.
The iPod nano has the Nike+ app and a FM radio and you can watch videos on it. You must have some fancy flash drives if they can do that.
If you are gonna knock something, at least do enough research about what you are knocking that you don't come across as, uh, ..., less than knowledgable.
I read the transcript from voir dire. Given the way that the questions were asked, I don't think that Mr. Hogan was given the opportunity to mention the other cases.
He described the most recent case and indicated that it wouldn't affect his ability to be a good juror. Then the next person was asked about their case. Then the question was asked of "anyone else".
In my brief experience in court, one lesson that my lawyer taught me was to honestly answer questions, but don't offer info not asked for. Mr. Hogan was never asked about additional court cases after he described the most recent one.
Isn't also possible that the FBI hacked Blue Toad and got the list and then the Anonymous guys hacked the FBI and got the list from them? There is about as much public evidence for that scenario as any other.
Also, if the Anonymous guys supposedly got the list from Blue Toad, why is it 98% match for Blue Toad's and not a 100% match?
In ICS, the Logistics Branch gets the stuff and the Finance/Admin branch figures out where the money is coming from.
Yes. And I typically don't pay attention to that stuff because our gear is already there and paid for (or, as volunteers and ham radio enthusiasts, we stock our own go-bags). But we had more than enough hams at the last drill, so I had time to pay attention to what was going on with the city staff (and I hung around for the after-action review) and the Logistics people were getting clearance and budgets from the Finance people before proceeding.
My point was that the "it is an emergency, so cost is no object" attitude doesn't apply in the drills that I have participated in.
Iridium airtime costs are high, about $1.29 per minute, but in an emergency that's the least of your problems.)
Have you seen the movie Contagion? There is a scene in the movie where the CDC reps are scoping out a sports arena to use as a make-shift hospital and the local people come in and ask "whose budget is this coming out of?" I am a county ham radio volunteer (backup communications) and, having been through a number of county and regional drills, this scene struck me as so true. There are budget people at the EOC who clear the simulated expenses run up dealing with the simulated emergency and know what budget the expenses will come out of.
Our local club is playing with HSMM-MESH to supplement our existing ham radio set-ups (two repeaters and an "assigned" ARES/RACES-type simplex frequency (in the last regional drill, hams in the next county were demanding that we get off "their" frequency, which is why "assigned" is in quotes)). Some times it would be helpful in an emergency situation to be able to transfer files or stream video and Wifi speeds are better than TNC speeds.
A bunch of us have purchased a bunch of WRT54Gs and reprogrammed them, but we haven't yet tried to get them to mesh.
For everyone misspelling Tim's last name, it has only one 't' - Paterson.
I was going to say "and that's why you're still a virgin", but you mentioned your wife, so, um ... never mind.
I also mentioned my kids.
Don't get why you are hung up on 4.3333 years. That is 4-1/3 years. Or 4 years 4 months.
But your response is modded higher than my post that you are making fun of, so clearly you are on to something.
I have had good luck replacing batteries and making repairs on iPhones. I have had horrid luck replacing batteries and making repairs on iPod touches. I haven't had to open an iPad yet.
I just bought a new MBP and have torn down the old to refurbish it before selling it (don't know how all that hair gets under the keys or how the keys continue to work with all of that hair under there!).
I have seen the tear down videos of the RMBP. It looks like a pain to service and very hard to upgrade (why the mSATA that isn't really mSATA?). But I don't see the problem tearing one down for recycling. Given the march of technology, it is not like much of it is going to be reused without significant processing. A putty knife should easily separate the battery. The SSD unplugs. The old memory, being fixed to the system board, should be recycled the same way the boards and chips are recycled. Exactly what is the problem here?
Still I am not sure why there is an expectation that laptops be upgradeable. It seems to me that they are moving into the appliance (or consumer electronics) space and what other devices in that space are readily upgradeable? (Note that I am not saying that this is a good thing.)
My old MBP is 4.3333 years old. I just replaced it because the display failed because of misuse on my part. I could have just replaced the display (with a used part) and continued using it. It continues to run the software that I regularly use as well as it ever did. However, I really wanted a unibody model (which wasn't available when I got my old MBP) since they came out and I wanted to go to a smaller display (which wasn't available either) anyway, so I ran with the excuse and got a newer MBP. I am replacing the display on the old one and, based on what the old ones are selling for, I will get much of the money that I spent on the new one back when I sell the old one.
About a year after I got my old MBP, my wife needed a new Windows laptop. I got her a Sony VAIO. Various bits on it have broken since then and, when it because unusable for her about 6 months ago, I had to buy her a new laptop. Used prices for her old VAIO that it isn't worth trying to sell. I bubble-gummed it together that the kids can play games on it.
I think the per-year costs were about the same for both laptops.
Glue is not a replacement for proper engineering
I think that my 15-year-old Lotus with a chassis made from aluminum extrusions that are glued together (and still holding up fine) was the result of proper engineering. Lotus looked at welding vs. gluing and determined that, with welding, the extrusions would need to be significantly thicker. It is a Lotus, so low overall weight was a goal (my car weighs 705kg), yet the chassis is as rigid as a BMW sedan from the same era. Use of glue was part of the engineered solution.
This "accord" is for low earth orbit commercial space launches. Orion is intended for beyond LEO. Or something like that.
1. You can't just rebroadcast a television signal, even if it is an OTA broadcast. That is part of the law and the NAB will remind you of it if you ever think about doing it. Rebroadcasting it would be a violation of US copyright law. You have to get a license from the content provider to broadcast. (Lots of cases in US copyright law revolve around whether some action qualifies as 'broadcasting'.)
2. Dish has legal agreements with Fox (and the other networks) to rebroadcast their programming. I have a hard time believing that Dish's actions here aren't a violation of those agreements and pulled the plug. That does raise the question of why haven't they.
3. Networks and individual stations routinely get in fights with Dish and DirecTV and cut-off their service.
You and I have an individual right to FF over the commercials. As a rebroadcaster of someone else's content stream, Dish has legal obligations that you and I don't have.
Bingo. Facebook is a reasonably good service, but all it doesn't take much to launch a competitor.
How's that working for Google Plus?
I think that Facebook is poorly done. Most of their attempts to "improve" it make it worse (in my opinion). Knowing how iOS apps work and seeing the delays that I have seen running the Facebook iPhone app, it appears to be poorly coded. I would love to stop using Facebook, but it is the primary way that I am able to stay in touch with a lot of the people that I know. Facebook's advantage is that there are so many people on Facebook.
I hate to say Obama's right, but he's right that the Canadian shale oil will be mined and used regardless of what we do (unless we intervene militarily, of course).
I have a bunch of friends in Alberta and a few even work in the oil sands business. Obama is right. Hansen can "call out" Obama all he wants, but it isn't gonna change what the Canadians will do.
2012 Continues to Show Growth in Amateur Radio Licensing
http://www.arrl.org/news/2012-continues-to-show-growth-in-amateur-radio-licensing
Looking at new license applications, there were 21112 in 2006, 26728 in 2007, 28066 in 2008, 30144 in 2009, 27528 in 2010, 24,072 in 2011 and 7532 in Q1 of this year. That doesn't look like a dying hobby to me.
However, I don't think it has the DIY element as much as it used to have. But I have only had my license since 2008, so I don't know for sure. I just get that sense looking at the equipment from the silent key acquisitions that I have been involved with as part of my local radio club.