I have to agree with jamesh. I just got a bunch of Dell XPS w/ vista a couple of weeks ago and they were blue screening at random just sitting open. I ran windows update and installed SP1 and they've been running solid since.
So my anecdotal evidence is Vista used to blue screen often and SP1 fixes it. If we'd gotten these laptops before SP1 I could see the users being frustrated and the OS getting a rep for being flaky.
I just wish I knew why Dell doesn't have SP1 installed by default. It came out over a year ago. I wonder if they do this to all their users or just their education users.
Wow I'm actually liking this idea. Groups could focus on hiring the best hackers to break in and run the country while other hackers try to get in and steal the presidential power.
It would do wonders for encouraging computer literacy and would be less corrupt than our current system.
It is an article about finches on the Galapagos Islands that went through rapid evolution because of a drought. Of course this just shows that evolution works on a small scale (the whole micro vs. macro evolution argument).
I really don't care about the whole evolution thing though. I'm more interested in gene splicing and the creating of chimeras. I keep trying to make this half pony half monkey monster but it never turns out right. I think I'm using to many monkeys.
It is useless as a debit card, but it can still be used as a credit card that automagically withdraws the money from your account (think instant electronic check). If you dispute the claim you will get your money back, but like several other posters mentioned if you have any automatic withdrawals or outstanding checks they can bounce/overdraft until the bank refunds your money. You'll probably be stuck paying any fees/penalties with the bank or vendor.
With a true credit card you aren't out any cash if you dispute a claim unless you actually made the purchase.
Bank of America and Citibank have this cool thing called Virtual Numbers (other cc companies may have them but these are the ones I know about). Anytime you buy online you can create a "fake" number that is good for one use and a certain $$ amount. Once it is used the number is recycled and can never be used again.
I can even generate the number on a web capable cell and use it in person. Though I've had stores refuse to take it. It would be an awesome addition if you could also limit who could use it, but like you say that will probably be the future.
You stop cooking outside in the cold? I grill year round. There is nothing better than freshly grilled meat/veggies in January. You just have to keep the lid closed so one side of your food doesn't freeze.
I think their map is great for letting you know who uses what equipment. I'd need to see a little more documentation and research on their part before I'd trust their rankings though.
What a damned fool waste of taxpayers' money! There is a HUGE supply of public domain music, and what is in the public domain is some of the best music ever written, by composers like Bach, Beethoove, Handel, Tchaicovsky, etc. But they're wasting good money on modern stuff.
That is part of the problem. The music might be in the public domain, but the sheet music probably isn't. The school would likely spend $300 on sheet music for something written 300 years ago. They probably figure they are going to have to pay for music anyway so they might as well buy something the parents will enjoy (or at least fondly remember) and might raise them a bit more cash when the band is looking for donations.
My grade school did something different (since you couldn't search the interwebs at that time for free stuff). They bought all the music required for a full recital sometime in the 60's. The sheet music was sealed up with contact paper and used year after year. (It was either this or cut the music program). They always announced at the beginning and the end that if parents were tired of the same old thing they could donate to the sheet music fund. Once enough money was raised a new set of music was purchased and a little variety would be added to the next recital. I'm not recommending this course of action for any school. I'm still a bit traumatized by some of those songs and can't listen to them to this day:P
What the schools should be doing is looking for current works (classical or otherwise) that the creator is providing for free or sheet music that folk preservationists provide at no cost so that the music isn't forgotten.
I think you are right. One of the few classes I vividly remember from college was chemistry. The guy did some extreme science. He let us stick our hands (very quickly) into liquid nitrogen and even poured it over his head. He'd also stick a piece of dry ice in his mouth and blow the smoke out. He loved explosions and at least 2 times a week he'd blow something up.
I didn't care if I had the flu I dragged myself to his class because I never wanted to miss an explosion.
Check out http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiments/ he's done some experiments on Ellen and has a collection of fun science. Though the site is geared to sell you stuff some of the experiments are a blast. I love the cornstarch & water one.
Excellent points! Plus it works against them. I got into Blizzard games because of game spawning at a LAN party. I ended up buying the game so that I could practice and not get stomped the next time we played. Others who didn't own the game did the same thing. I think a big reason that StarCraft and WCIII are still on the shelves of most gaming stores is that people are still getting hooked at LAN parties.
The other down side with the remote server you get lag. There's not a lot of lag when everyone is local on a gig LAN.
Wasps unfortunately do have a purpose. They eat/kill the larvae of plant damaging bugs. We had a really bad infestation of Japanese Beetles in the farms around my place a few years ago and the best way to get rid of them was to release a bunch of wasps. It did help get the population down without chemicals or losing a bunch of crops. Unfortunately it sucked to be outside that year. No BBQ's at my place.
and of course since I'm such a geek I immediately think Mulder & Scully for M & S.
We used to have X-files viewing parties at my dorm where we'd have bowls of M & M's mixed w/ Skittles to get M & S. The freaky kids next door would mix Skittles with M & M's to get S & M's:)
*sniff* I miss Strange Luck. I keep waiting for it to come out on DVD.
Honestly how long until Fox realizes the scatter shot programming is killing their viewer base. I stopped watching new series on Fox because I figured I'll just wait until their canceled. At least then when they get released on DVD they'll have all the episodes that never aired included.
The only reason I even started watching Fringe & Dollhouse was that they are being aired with limited commercial interruptions.
According to the audio w/ the video the reporter states that Dell would not let them show the damage. They also said that particular demo had been dropped over 100 times from the 4ft height which does seem pretty robust.
I do like how the Dell seals up to prevent water/dust damage. It seems more robust than the Panasonic plastic tabs. Our students always manage to break those off when storm or weather balloon chasing.
She did press charges. It took almost 2 years for the case to make it to trial. The cops didn't even pick him up. They stopped by and gave him a "warning" to stay away from her, but that was it. Once the case made it to trial he was convicted but I think he was out in 6 months. If he breaks the restraining order he goes back for a long time. Plus she now lives in Ingham where the cops said they guarantee on domestics they pick the offender up and throw them in jail until they can see a judge.
In theory this might be how it is "supposed to work" in practice not so much. A friend of mine had an abusive husband and she lived in Washtenaw County (one of the more "civilized" counties in MI). The last time her hubby put her in the hospital she decided it was time to get the kids out. She left and after several months of trying to get a restraining order she still had to contact him because he still had visitation rights. They did visitation exchanges at the local police station, but some direct contact via the phone was required especially since was often late in returning the kids. If she had gone to a shelter they may have had someone handle that for her, but staying at one is a terrible thing. They are horribly overcrowded.
What she ended up doing is moving in with me in Ingham county. Once she had moved in we went to the special domestic abuse court Ingham County has and she walked out with temporary full custody and a restraining order. This lasted until the actual abuse case made it to court nearly a year and a half later then she got permanent full custody and a more permanent restraining order.
So while you say that even the Brazilian police take this serious, what happens to you in the US is soley dependent on the county you live in.
Half the people in a group of 36 male and 65 female college students
So even though the gaming community contains more males they skewed those tested towards female. I think they knew the results they wanted and chose the participants accordingly. I remember reading a while back that women often preferred complex games in 2d w/ simple controls and men preferred simple games in 3d w/ complex controls.
lol I'll take that as a compliment. Yes I am a no-nonsense-lady-farmer-techie. I did realize after I posted people were going to mistake pet rat w/ pest rat. All my pet rats lived to the ripe old age of three or four (the main reason I don't have them anymore).
Having had rats as pets, I can attest that rats can chew through concrete. Poison sucks because when they die you've got rotting corpses all over the place. The most important thing to do is get rid of food sources. Once that is done, there are several options. Some police stations are using stray cats to help with the rodent problem. They are using feral cats though so they don't desire human interaction. Throw a feral cat in a building and you may never see it again, just clean up the box and keep food & water out. They also are good at getting up into drop ceilings. Be careful though I've got a cat who is a wire chewer so you may just be adding another cable destroyer to the mix.
Some people recommend plaster of paris (dry) mixtures because when they eat it, it clogs them up and I guess they don't stink as much when they die. I haven't tried it so I can't say for sure. Mix this with traps in areas that are easy to clean and you've got a start. My personal preference for keeping rats out of my barn/hay is the rat snake. They don't chew on cables and unlike a cat, they hunt out rats nests. A good rat snake(s) will eat most if not all of the litters and that can do more to get rid of your population than anything else.
I used to have this problem and then I found this product: http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ It is much quicker than manually pulling cables out of switches. Those switches will no longer be passing any amounts of junk data through them.
Even better it works on that old BNC crap you still have hanging around the office.
You may not even have to find someone who looks all that similar. My husband and I just got our passports renewed and the new "theft prevention" measures makes id'ing someone by the photo difficult. There are so many wavy multicolored lines over the picture that it is very difficult to make out any distinguishing features. We can barely recognize ourselves.
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I have to agree with jamesh. I just got a bunch of Dell XPS w/ vista a couple of weeks ago and they were blue screening at random just sitting open. I ran windows update and installed SP1 and they've been running solid since.
So my anecdotal evidence is Vista used to blue screen often and SP1 fixes it. If we'd gotten these laptops before SP1 I could see the users being frustrated and the OS getting a rep for being flaky.
I just wish I knew why Dell doesn't have SP1 installed by default. It came out over a year ago. I wonder if they do this to all their users or just their education users.
As usual YYMV
Wow I'm actually liking this idea. Groups could focus on hiring the best hackers to break in and run the country while other hackers try to get in and steal the presidential power.
It would do wonders for encouraging computer literacy and would be less corrupt than our current system.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/07/13/darwinfinch_ani.html
It is an article about finches on the Galapagos Islands that went through rapid evolution because of a drought. Of course this just shows that evolution works on a small scale (the whole micro vs. macro evolution argument).
I really don't care about the whole evolution thing though. I'm more interested in gene splicing and the creating of chimeras. I keep trying to make this half pony half monkey monster but it never turns out right. I think I'm using to many monkeys.
It is useless as a debit card, but it can still be used as a credit card that automagically withdraws the money from your account (think instant electronic check). If you dispute the claim you will get your money back, but like several other posters mentioned if you have any automatic withdrawals or outstanding checks they can bounce/overdraft until the bank refunds your money. You'll probably be stuck paying any fees/penalties with the bank or vendor.
With a true credit card you aren't out any cash if you dispute a claim unless you actually made the purchase.
Bank of America and Citibank have this cool thing called Virtual Numbers (other cc companies may have them but these are the ones I know about). Anytime you buy online you can create a "fake" number that is good for one use and a certain $$ amount. Once it is used the number is recycled and can never be used again.
I can even generate the number on a web capable cell and use it in person. Though I've had stores refuse to take it. It would be an awesome addition if you could also limit who could use it, but like you say that will probably be the future.
I have to say this is one area that the RIAA is right. I'm scared to walk the streets at night because the roaming nun problem.
You stop cooking outside in the cold? I grill year round. There is nothing better than freshly grilled meat/veggies in January. You just have to keep the lid closed so one side of your food doesn't freeze.
Take a look at :
http://dvice.com/voting/
I think their map is great for letting you know who uses what equipment. I'd need to see a little more documentation and research on their part before I'd trust their rankings though.
What a damned fool waste of taxpayers' money! There is a HUGE supply of public domain music, and what is in the public domain is some of the best music ever written, by composers like Bach, Beethoove, Handel, Tchaicovsky, etc. But they're wasting good money on modern stuff.
That is part of the problem. The music might be in the public domain, but the sheet music probably isn't. The school would likely spend $300 on sheet music for something written 300 years ago. They probably figure they are going to have to pay for music anyway so they might as well buy something the parents will enjoy (or at least fondly remember) and might raise them a bit more cash when the band is looking for donations.
My grade school did something different (since you couldn't search the interwebs at that time for free stuff). They bought all the music required for a full recital sometime in the 60's. The sheet music was sealed up with contact paper and used year after year. (It was either this or cut the music program). They always announced at the beginning and the end that if parents were tired of the same old thing they could donate to the sheet music fund. Once enough money was raised a new set of music was purchased and a little variety would be added to the next recital. I'm not recommending this course of action for any school. I'm still a bit traumatized by some of those songs and can't listen to them to this day :P
What the schools should be doing is looking for current works (classical or otherwise) that the creator is providing for free or sheet music that folk preservationists provide at no cost so that the music isn't forgotten.
I think you are right. One of the few classes I vividly remember from college was chemistry. The guy did some extreme science. He let us stick our hands (very quickly) into liquid nitrogen and even poured it over his head. He'd also stick a piece of dry ice in his mouth and blow the smoke out. He loved explosions and at least 2 times a week he'd blow something up.
I didn't care if I had the flu I dragged myself to his class because I never wanted to miss an explosion.
Check out http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiments/ he's done some experiments on Ellen and has a collection of fun science. Though the site is geared to sell you stuff some of the experiments are a blast. I love the cornstarch & water one.
Excellent points! Plus it works against them. I got into Blizzard games because of game spawning at a LAN party. I ended up buying the game so that I could practice and not get stomped the next time we played. Others who didn't own the game did the same thing. I think a big reason that StarCraft and WCIII are still on the shelves of most gaming stores is that people are still getting hooked at LAN parties.
The other down side with the remote server you get lag. There's not a lot of lag when everyone is local on a gig LAN.
Wasps unfortunately do have a purpose. They eat/kill the larvae of plant damaging bugs. We had a really bad infestation of Japanese Beetles in the farms around my place a few years ago and the best way to get rid of them was to release a bunch of wasps. It did help get the population down without chemicals or losing a bunch of crops. Unfortunately it sucked to be outside that year. No BBQ's at my place.
and of course since I'm such a geek I immediately think Mulder & Scully for M & S.
We used to have X-files viewing parties at my dorm where we'd have bowls of M & M's mixed w/ Skittles to get M & S. The freaky kids next door would mix Skittles with M & M's to get S & M's :)
*sniff* I miss Strange Luck. I keep waiting for it to come out on DVD.
Honestly how long until Fox realizes the scatter shot programming is killing their viewer base. I stopped watching new series on Fox because I figured I'll just wait until their canceled. At least then when they get released on DVD they'll have all the episodes that never aired included.
The only reason I even started watching Fringe & Dollhouse was that they are being aired with limited commercial interruptions.
One of my favorite articles showing that animals plan ahead:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1543432/Birds-not-so-stupid-after-all.html
And birds are often considered "stupid" compared to primates.
According to the audio w/ the video the reporter states that Dell would not let them show the damage. They also said that particular demo had been dropped over 100 times from the 4ft height which does seem pretty robust.
I do like how the Dell seals up to prevent water/dust damage. It seems more robust than the Panasonic plastic tabs. Our students always manage to break those off when storm or weather balloon chasing.
She did press charges. It took almost 2 years for the case to make it to trial. The cops didn't even pick him up. They stopped by and gave him a "warning" to stay away from her, but that was it. Once the case made it to trial he was convicted but I think he was out in 6 months. If he breaks the restraining order he goes back for a long time. Plus she now lives in Ingham where the cops said they guarantee on domestics they pick the offender up and throw them in jail until they can see a judge.
In theory this might be how it is "supposed to work" in practice not so much. A friend of mine had an abusive husband and she lived in Washtenaw County (one of the more "civilized" counties in MI). The last time her hubby put her in the hospital she decided it was time to get the kids out. She left and after several months of trying to get a restraining order she still had to contact him because he still had visitation rights. They did visitation exchanges at the local police station, but some direct contact via the phone was required especially since was often late in returning the kids. If she had gone to a shelter they may have had someone handle that for her, but staying at one is a terrible thing. They are horribly overcrowded.
What she ended up doing is moving in with me in Ingham county. Once she had moved in we went to the special domestic abuse court Ingham County has and she walked out with temporary full custody and a restraining order. This lasted until the actual abuse case made it to court nearly a year and a half later then she got permanent full custody and a more permanent restraining order.
So while you say that even the Brazilian police take this serious, what happens to you in the US is soley dependent on the county you live in.
I find the more interesting part:
Half the people in a group of 36 male and 65 female college students
So even though the gaming community contains more males they skewed those tested towards female. I think they knew the results they wanted and chose the participants accordingly. I remember reading a while back that women often preferred complex games in 2d w/ simple controls and men preferred simple games in 3d w/ complex controls.
lol I'll take that as a compliment. Yes I am a no-nonsense-lady-farmer-techie. I did realize after I posted people were going to mistake pet rat w/ pest rat. All my pet rats lived to the ripe old age of three or four (the main reason I don't have them anymore).
Having had rats as pets, I can attest that rats can chew through concrete. Poison sucks because when they die you've got rotting corpses all over the place. The most important thing to do is get rid of food sources. Once that is done, there are several options. Some police stations are using stray cats to help with the rodent problem. They are using feral cats though so they don't desire human interaction. Throw a feral cat in a building and you may never see it again, just clean up the box and keep food & water out. They also are good at getting up into drop ceilings. Be careful though I've got a cat who is a wire chewer so you may just be adding another cable destroyer to the mix.
Some people recommend plaster of paris (dry) mixtures because when they eat it, it clogs them up and I guess they don't stink as much when they die. I haven't tried it so I can't say for sure. Mix this with traps in areas that are easy to clean and you've got a start. My personal preference for keeping rats out of my barn/hay is the rat snake. They don't chew on cables and unlike a cat, they hunt out rats nests. A good rat snake(s) will eat most if not all of the litters and that can do more to get rid of your population than anything else.
I used to have this problem and then I found this product: http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/
It is much quicker than manually pulling cables out of switches. Those switches will no longer be passing any amounts of junk data through them.
Even better it works on that old BNC crap you still have hanging around the office.
You may not even have to find someone who looks all that similar. My husband and I just got our passports renewed and the new "theft prevention" measures makes id'ing someone by the photo difficult. There are so many wavy multicolored lines over the picture that it is very difficult to make out any distinguishing features. We can barely recognize ourselves.
When I first heard about the incident I was shocked it didn't happen to Cox Cable.
I think Microsoft finally found a way to get MSN search used. They bribed Badware.org to flag every site as infected so Google Search is worthless.