Three hours? All that money to shave away 120 minutes?
If it weren't for CHP, I'd make it in five, every time, no problem...
Google Maps reports LA-->SF at 382 mi, 5 hours 35 minutes. To do this in 3 hours, on existing roads requires an average speed of 382/3 = 127 mph.
Tomorrow's NASCAR race at Michigan will be 500 miles and the winner's average speed is likely to be over 160 mph including pitstops and caution periods to clean up wrecks. A number of cars qualified (solo run) at over 200 mph. The Silver State Classic Challenge is held on closed public roads, http://www.sscc.us/history.aspx and the current record for 90 miles now stands at 207.7801 mph.
If there is really a $10 Billion prize, that should be enough to bribe the CHP to look the other way for one fast trip. Where are the rules for this contest...?
...will install such a hose, and never buy stupid toilet paper again
From USA, on a septic system--local waste processing with older style septic tank (settling tank) and leach field. I like the idea of not using tp, but I've always wondered how you dry your ass after washing (bidet, hose or other). Is there a community towel for this purpose--yuck!! Or, do you just pull up your clothes and walk around damp?
Yep, I bought a 3D tv, but didn't buy glasses -- we wanted the 240Hz update of this Samsung LED model. I'm don't like motion blur and ghosting, and this one seemed to be the best in the store, in that respect.
A year later (when they were much cheaper), we bought the glasses for fun, have only used them a few times.
Not long ago, I put a 25" Sony WEGA Trinitron tv on Craigslist and a young buyer showed up right away--he was going to use it with old video game consoles and he mentioned that it was much better than any flat panel, no trails.
If you can't profit in 10-15 years, it's not our responsibility to help you out any more.
We wrote a unique engineering book, it took 8 years. We were lucky and it's been picked up as a textbook. I'd hope that "your" society would be willing to let us collect royalties a bit longer than 10-15 years. Only now are the royalties adding up to a modest wage for our effort -- the book is still selling reasonably (about 1000 copies/year) and it's been 18 years since publication. It's still the first edition, although our publisher allows us to make corrections that stay on the same page (~200 small improvements to date)
Of course, if your shortened (c) term were in effect, we would do what the big textbook companies do -- produce new editions that have different pagination and try to strongarm the profs to teach from the new version... As it stands now, used copies circulate among the students, sold by former students who don't choose to work in our specialty.
Seconded. Also, with the water from the Great Lakes flowing past in Lake Erie & Lake Ontario, Western New Yorkers will be the last to have to worry about drought and lack of fresh water. When the grid runs out of fossil fuel, we still have Niagara Falls hydro.
... They'd pay high, but you had to shave all facial hair off and dress exactly as their code dictated. After a probationary period they cut those they didn't see fitting in - which meant you ended up with a bunch of conformists who wouldn't take a risk, by pointing out something may not have been a good idea or there was a weakness in a plan somewhere. Good ol' Ross Perot - run a company like the army.
I was working in a mechanical test lab (as a frequent guest) when EDS first appeared at GM -- mid 1980's. A bunch of idiots with brush cuts tried to take over the engineering computing as well as the business computing. Went around putting EDS stickers on anything that looked like a computer. What a disaster, took a year or more to throw them out and get the dedicated real-time control systems back working properly. This may explain (in part) why GM's car engineering got such a bad reputation back then. Plenty of smart GM employees that were not able to do their job.
Some of us are more-or-less required to use MS-Word...but that doesn't mean you have to stick to the default keyboard shortcuts. A reasonable subset of the Emacs commands are available for Word through VBacs (Visual Basic Emacs) licensed under GPL, http://rath.ca/Misc/VBacs/ Lots of fun when a "normal" MS-Word user tries to use shortcuts on my system!
Well, AUM also employs the Prof that censored Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- "The new edition's Alabama-based publisher, NewSouth books, says the development is a "bold move compassionately advocated" by the book's editor, Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben of Auburn University, Montgomery." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word It's all starting to fit together...
I had never heard of Auburn University Montgomery before today; given the nature of this story, I don't expect ever to hear of it in any serious context again.
Maybe you forgot? Home of the Prof that censored Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- "The new edition's Alabama-based publisher, NewSouth books, says the development is a "bold move compassionately advocated" by the book's editor, Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben of Auburn University, Montgomery." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word
As an author (for a small engineering publisher) Amazon is very much a mixed blessing. It's true that Amazon can sell some books, but they insist on huge discounts and nasty terms. There have been times when our publisher didn't accept the terms and then our books have been listed on Amazon as "out of print" -- a bold faced lie. Other times our books have been listed as long lead time (6 weeks, etc) items -- which means that Amazon is going to hold the customer order until they have enough to order a larger quantity of books from the small publisher. Both of these have the "black ball" effect of dissuading potential customers from looking further...since everyone knows that Amazon has everything, right? Another problem is that at various times, Amazon's price in USA has been 10% higher than the full retail price direct from the publisher.
...When I had to look at setup up sales taxes for a business last year that had offices in multiple locations it quickly become a nightmare to deal with because you have different rates based upon the state, and sometimes even the county, and even the city. What all these different places want is for Amazon to collect their individual rates and submit them to each of them....
I've heard this argument before, but I don't buy it. As soon as there is a general requirement for big companies to pay sales tax to all the jurisdictions where they sell things (in USA), some company will see the opportunity to create, maintain and sell/license a database that tracks all these different taxes. With a few big customers, the cost per transaction to pay the sales tax will soon be very small.
... but if the models are right we are screwed, screwed, screwed because CO2 is going to cook us all.
First time I thought about the end of cheap oil was in college, in the late 1970's, along with the US gasoline "crisis" at that time. This led (in part) to a decision to not have kids. 30 years later, that still seems like a good decision, it doesn't seem like the next generation or two are going to have an easy time.
No one has mentioned health care proxy yet. Here in New York State, this is the way to specify, in advance, who will make decisions if you become unable. It also lets you make, in advance, decisions on life extending treatment. Here's one link:
http://www.health.state.ny.us/professionals/patients/health_care_proxy/about.htm
My uncle named me his proxy. When he suddenly was hospitalized, we followed his wishes. Not easy, but much easier than trying to figure out what he wanted after he wasn't able to communicate.
Amazon have done a lot of chilling things to me over the years, although from their perspective it's probably just business as usual... As noted by others, Amazon's policies are hell on small specialty publishers. I never buy anything from Amazon or any of their affiliates. Our automotive engineering textbooks are published by a small press and the first book has been in print continuously since 1995. The other two books are somewhat more recent. All remain in print and sell between 300 and 1500 copies/year. Typical press runs are 2000-3000 copies at a time. Our publisher has their own warehouse which stocks books and sells direct (web/phone/mail order) as well as quantity sales to wholesalers (worldwide) and college book stores. On several occasions, our publisher has not accepted Amazon's draconian terms[1] and in response (retaliation??), Amazon has listed our books in various ways such as: as "out of print", "possibly out of print", "out of stock", "special order only" or "availability 6-8 weeks". This has a chilling effect on potential customers. For example, I've received multiple emails through our company website (where we have a page on the books) asking if we might still have a copy for sale. After all, Amazon carries *every* book, right? So if Amazon says it's "out of print" that must be true, eh? Pure BS from Amazon. Amazon is also the lowest price source, right? Not true, the price on Amazon has been both higher and lower than the direct list price from our publisher. I just checked to see what they are up to now. Amazon lists our first book (best selling of the three) as follows:
"(Title) (Hardcover - Nov 1997) Buy new: $149.95 Not in stock; order now and we'll deliver when available" Our publisher's list price for this book is $99.95 and they ship same day if you order in the morning. Our other books are also listed on Amazon at prices above publisher's list price. I've also had emails from a number of people that have bought our books and report extremely bad service from Amazon, for example, delivery times of two months are common. I suspect that Amazon sits on orders and waits until there are enough from one specialty publisher to attempt to strong-arm the small publisher into a low price. When I want to order a book from a small press, I order directly from the source. It might cost a few bucks more (yes, I'm in USA) but I choose to support small publishers this way. [1] The terms that I heard were that Amazon would only pay 40% of the list price (60% discount) and also insisted that our publisher would cover the cost of any unsold books that Amazon chose to return.
Slashdot Mirror
Three hours? All that money to shave away 120 minutes?
If it weren't for CHP, I'd make it in five, every time, no problem...
Google Maps reports LA-->SF at 382 mi, 5 hours 35 minutes. To do this in 3 hours, on existing roads requires an average speed of 382/3 = 127 mph.
Tomorrow's NASCAR race at Michigan will be 500 miles and the winner's average speed is likely to be over 160 mph including pitstops and caution periods to clean up wrecks. A number of cars qualified (solo run) at over 200 mph. The Silver State Classic Challenge is held on closed public roads, http://www.sscc.us/history.aspx and the current record for 90 miles now stands at 207.7801 mph.
If there is really a $10 Billion prize, that should be enough to bribe the CHP to look the other way for one fast trip. Where are the rules for this contest...?
...will install such a hose, and never buy stupid toilet paper again
From USA, on a septic system--local waste processing with older style septic tank (settling tank) and leach field. I like the idea of not using tp, but I've always wondered how you dry your ass after washing (bidet, hose or other). Is there a community towel for this purpose--yuck!! Or, do you just pull up your clothes and walk around damp?
Yep, I bought a 3D tv, but didn't buy glasses -- we wanted the 240Hz update of this Samsung LED model. I'm don't like motion blur and ghosting, and this one seemed to be the best in the store, in that respect.
A year later (when they were much cheaper), we bought the glasses for fun, have only used them a few times.
Not long ago, I put a 25" Sony WEGA Trinitron tv on Craigslist and a young buyer showed up right away--he was going to use it with old video game consoles and he mentioned that it was much better than any flat panel, no trails.
Haptically Enhanced Advanced Virtual Environment Network
H.E.A.V.E.N.
aka teledildonics -- a name I remember from the 1980's at MIT Media Lab.
If you can't profit in 10-15 years, it's not our responsibility to help you out any more.
We wrote a unique engineering book, it took 8 years. We were lucky and it's been picked up as a textbook. I'd hope that "your" society would be willing to let us collect royalties a bit longer than 10-15 years. Only now are the royalties adding up to a modest wage for our effort -- the book is still selling reasonably (about 1000 copies/year) and it's been 18 years since publication. It's still the first edition, although our publisher allows us to make corrections that stay on the same page (~200 small improvements to date)
Of course, if your shortened (c) term were in effect, we would do what the big textbook companies do -- produce new editions that have different pagination and try to strongarm the profs to teach from the new version... As it stands now, used copies circulate among the students, sold by former students who don't choose to work in our specialty.
Seconded. Also, with the water from the Great Lakes flowing past in Lake Erie & Lake Ontario, Western New Yorkers will be the last to have to worry about drought and lack of fresh water. When the grid runs out of fossil fuel, we still have Niagara Falls hydro.
... They'd pay high, but you had to shave all facial hair off and dress exactly as their code dictated. After a probationary period they cut those they didn't see fitting in - which meant you ended up with a bunch of conformists who wouldn't take a risk, by pointing out something may not have been a good idea or there was a weakness in a plan somewhere. Good ol' Ross Perot - run a company like the army.
I was working in a mechanical test lab (as a frequent guest) when EDS first appeared at GM -- mid 1980's. A bunch of idiots with brush cuts tried to take over the engineering computing as well as the business computing. Went around putting EDS stickers on anything that looked like a computer. What a disaster, took a year or more to throw them out and get the dedicated real-time control systems back working properly. This may explain (in part) why GM's car engineering got such a bad reputation back then. Plenty of smart GM employees that were not able to do their job.
Some of us are more-or-less required to use MS-Word...but that doesn't mean you have to stick to the default keyboard shortcuts. A reasonable subset of the Emacs commands are available for Word through VBacs (Visual Basic Emacs) licensed under GPL, http://rath.ca/Misc/VBacs/
Lots of fun when a "normal" MS-Word user tries to use shortcuts on my system!
Well, AUM also employs the Prof that censored Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- "The new edition's Alabama-based publisher, NewSouth books, says the development is a "bold move compassionately advocated" by the book's editor, Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben of Auburn University, Montgomery."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word
It's all starting to fit together...
I had never heard of Auburn University Montgomery before today; given the nature of this story, I don't expect ever to hear of it in any serious context again.
Maybe you forgot? Home of the Prof that censored Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- "The new edition's Alabama-based publisher, NewSouth books, says the development is a "bold move compassionately advocated" by the book's editor, Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben of Auburn University, Montgomery."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word
As an author (for a small engineering publisher) Amazon is very much a mixed blessing. It's true that Amazon can sell some books, but they insist on huge discounts and nasty terms. There have been times when our publisher didn't accept the terms and then our books have been listed on Amazon as "out of print" -- a bold faced lie. Other times our books have been listed as long lead time (6 weeks, etc) items -- which means that Amazon is going to hold the customer order until they have enough to order a larger quantity of books from the small publisher. Both of these have the "black ball" effect of dissuading potential customers from looking further...since everyone knows that Amazon has everything, right? Another problem is that at various times, Amazon's price in USA has been 10% higher than the full retail price direct from the publisher.
...When I had to look at setup up sales taxes for a business last year that had offices in multiple locations it quickly become a nightmare to deal with because you have different rates based upon the state, and sometimes even the county, and even the city. What all these different places want is for Amazon to collect their individual rates and submit them to each of them. ...
I've heard this argument before, but I don't buy it. As soon as there is a general requirement for big companies to pay sales tax to all the jurisdictions where they sell things (in USA), some company will see the opportunity to create, maintain and sell/license a database that tracks all these different taxes. With a few big customers, the cost per transaction to pay the sales tax will soon be very small.
Do you mean "cords", as in insulated wires?
Or lines through circles - radius, diameter, chord?
... but if the models are right we are screwed, screwed, screwed because CO2 is going to cook us all.
First time I thought about the end of cheap oil was in college, in the late 1970's, along with the US gasoline "crisis" at that time. This led (in part) to a decision to not have kids. 30 years later, that still seems like a good decision, it doesn't seem like the next generation or two are going to have an easy time.
My uncle named me his proxy. When he suddenly was hospitalized, we followed his wishes. Not easy, but much easier than trying to figure out what he wanted after he wasn't able to communicate.
Amazon have done a lot of chilling things to me over the years, although from their perspective it's probably just business as usual... As noted by others, Amazon's policies are hell on small specialty publishers. I never buy anything from Amazon or any of their affiliates.
Our automotive engineering textbooks are published by a small press and the first book has been in print continuously since 1995. The other two books are somewhat more recent. All remain in print and sell between 300 and 1500 copies/year. Typical press runs are 2000-3000 copies at a time. Our publisher has their own warehouse which stocks books and sells direct (web/phone/mail order) as well as quantity sales to wholesalers (worldwide) and college book stores.
On several occasions, our publisher has not accepted Amazon's draconian terms[1] and in response (retaliation??), Amazon has listed our books in various ways such as: as "out of print", "possibly out of print", "out of stock", "special order only" or "availability 6-8 weeks".
This has a chilling effect on potential customers. For example, I've received multiple emails through our company website (where we have a page on the books) asking if we might still have a copy for sale. After all, Amazon carries *every* book, right? So if Amazon says it's "out of print" that must be true, eh? Pure BS from Amazon.
Amazon is also the lowest price source, right? Not true, the price on Amazon has been both higher and lower than the direct list price from our publisher.
I just checked to see what they are up to now. Amazon lists our first book (best selling of the three) as follows:
"(Title) (Hardcover - Nov 1997) Buy new: $149.95 Not in stock; order now and we'll deliver when available"
Our publisher's list price for this book is $99.95 and they ship same day if you order in the morning. Our other books are also listed on Amazon at prices above publisher's list price.
I've also had emails from a number of people that have bought our books and report extremely bad service from Amazon, for example, delivery times of two months are common. I suspect that Amazon sits on orders and waits until there are enough from one specialty publisher to attempt to strong-arm the small publisher into a low price.
When I want to order a book from a small press, I order directly from the source. It might cost a few bucks more (yes, I'm in USA) but I choose to support small publishers this way.
[1] The terms that I heard were that Amazon would only pay 40% of the list price (60% discount) and also insisted that our publisher would cover the cost of any unsold books that Amazon chose to return.
On a really small scale you can "make your own waves" -- see the Pogo Foil. I rode it once, lots of fun. http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/faculty/parker/pogo_foil.htm