Because the sandbox area is specifically for dinking around posting test messages, so nobody particularly maintains it. Normal discussion boards and blogs *do* get hit (Google for "comment spam"), but they're more likely to get cleaned up before Google spiders the page.
Writers and layout people use cap lock all the time.
What for?
There's a setting for that, just like bold and italic and whatnot. Indeed, some of us are sufficiently old-fashioned to prefer small-caps for acronyms and whatnot within text, but in these days of electronic "fonts" [sic] where "small caps" just means an electronically reduced size of the same font (and not a smaller font of the same typeface, or even a distinct small-caps font). Bah.
(Yeah, okay, I learned typesetting from a Baskerville.)
It's interesting to talk to another parent in the same situations, here on slashdot of all places!
I was just thinking that. Especially when the article's old enough nobody's reading it anymore.
Yeah, we've been appropriating and reappropriating space for years.
Same here. If it weren't for the exercise equipment (we have free weights out in the garage, but no elliptical) and the Tivo (which we've discussed but never seriously), I'd be suspecting my husband got a Slashdot account when I wasn't looking. Well, that and the fact that he'd recognize my username/email.
That makes sense. I wish I had room for one of those, or a treadmill, other than the (detached) garage.
That's one of the drawbacks of being home with kids... it takes awhile for the invisible leash to get long enough to encompass the whole property. Our (semi-finished) basement became no more than a storage unit during his mobile-but-needs-constant-supervision stage... now that he's more independent, it's time to reclaim that space. But right now it's a catch-22... there's too much stuff for him to get into down there, so we can't have him down there while we're cleaning it so that there isn't so much stuff for him to get into.
Simpsons and Futurama episodes will only get you so far.
That's why I just don't watch TV. Hubby's been going through Buffy, Stargate, and lately Firefly, though. I'd rather read a book, if I'm not coding. (He, on the other hand, listens to audiobooks (via Audible) on his commute, so he's getting both done. Sort of.)
I have two kids now and I follow NO television shows. When I can watch the Simpsons or one of my other favorites, great, but I don't plan on it.
I've never been a big TV watcher to begin with, but my husband's learned the joys of watching TV series via Netflix... if you can't stand being behind the curve, you could do the same thing with a VCR or Tivo. He'll grab a couple episodes after our son's in bed, or watch a whole season when we're (me and our son) off visiting my mom (he only comes along every third or fourth trip).
programming takes quite a lot of concentration and commitment and I'm not of the belief that one can maintain a high level of productivity when other areas of their lives are radically changing.
I'm not sure this means you should always hire singles vs. family people, just that if you can avoid it you don't want to have an employee in transition. I don't think it much matters if the transition is having kids, getting married, building a house, going back to college, whatever.
Once they're settled, it's just as possible for a parent to have a passion for their chosen career as a single.
And on the other hand, unless you've got serious headcount churn, you're going to have people long enough that either they're going to have transitions, or they're not terribly balanced people, which is its own problem.
So lemme guess - either your kids are old enough to sleep without waking up every half hour asking for mommy or daddy, or you just don't sleep at all. Or both.
That doesn't have to be that old... mine was sleeping 6-8 hours a night from about three months old on. Nowadays, now that he's not taking naps, he sleeps 11-12 hours straight. My husband and I alternate on putting-to-bed duty, so at 8 or 8:30 I get to take off my Mommy hat and put on my Perl coder hat.
Nope. Some states, including California, did away with passing lane laws because they're not very useful in urbanized environments where optimizing traffic flow requires that all laned be used.
Not necessarily specifically passing-lane law, but (as you later mentioned) everybody's got an "obstructing traffic" statute one way or another.
And I don't think the Arkansas law I mentioned earlier says you can't *use* the left lane (which on a four-lane isn't merely a passing lane), it's just that if somebody faster than you wants to use it, you need to get over to let them. You can continue to use it either to drive in or to pass even slower cars as long as you're doing so in a reasonable time period. You just can't sit left paralleling a car going the same speed, even if both of you are 5 (or 20) mph over the speed limit.
(Of course, I got it all secondhand, since I don't live in Arkansas, but I do travel 540/71 fairly often and got to see it in action. Very nice.)
In Virginia, failure to yield the passing lane, regardless of speed, is illegal. Unfortunately, it's not enforced as often as it should be.
I think pretty much all states have this law, and only the enforcement varies.
NW Arkansas is very well-enforced, especially along I540/US71 (a four-lane divided) because of the combination of a lot of semi traffic and a lot of elderly drivers (it's a big retirement area, and grandmothers were regularly getting splattered by semis along there). It's really kind of nice to be buzzing along in the fast lane and having people zip out of your way without you having to touch your cruise. First time it happened I thought "Everybody's getting over... and I'm not even driving a Crown Vic." (The drawback is when someone comes up behind *you* and there's no way to time it such that you can let them pass without having to drop in behind someone slower, but so it goes.)
That's because "flashing your lights" isn't supposed to be "flashing your high beams"... you're supposed to turn your headlights off and back on (same as you do to indicate to a semi that he's clear to come into your lane, incidentally).
Which doesn't explain why my minivan can flash its highbeams by pulling back on the turnsignal stick, but to flash the main lights requires reaching down to a dial on the dash. Oh well.
I'm guessing that since so many people are buying minivans, SUVs, and trucks instead of cars that this brings the average weight for a "car" up considerably
Wow.
I mean, I'd been thinking that it was kind of odd that the van, which initially felt like a semi after my compact, no longer felt so "big" on the road. I thought I was just getting used to the size of the vehicle.
IIRC from Texas History class, we are the only state in the union whose constitution allows for legal secession.
Popular legend, but untrue.
It also provides for breaking the state up into five smaller states...although why we would do so I have no idea.
You'd do so because the slave states wanted to be able to balance the admission of free stats.
However, Article IV, Section 3 of the US constitution trumps that, sort of... Congress *and* the state(s) in question have to agree to any dividing, combining, or trading. Texas ends up with no more and no less ability to do it than any other state has.
But, most people that I know that got them was to use them as 'work horses'.
My folks bought one (a sissy Bravada with gold wheels and stuff) because they'd just moved into the Ozark hills and were concerned about being able to get around in the snow. One cross-country trip, stopping every 200 miles for gas (small tank, pathetic mileage) convinced them it was a bad idea. (Well, that and my mocking of it... so far as I know, the SmarTrac never kicked in during their entire ownership period, despite me saying "Hey, let's go mudding!" whenever I visited.) Mom drives a much more practical car these days.
On the other hand, when Dad died Mom gave us his vehicle: a Windstar. I felt silly rattling around in what, after my compact, felt like a giant vehicle. But you know, *that's* become our "work horse" vehicle. It's going on ten years old now, so we're starting to think about replacing it (in a few years, but it's time to start making payments to a savings account), and my husband observed that "We're going to have to buy another minivan, aren't we?" Heck with the coolness factor... we couldn't live without it now.
OTOH, I can't see the smaller SUVs having the same convenience factor. The Bravada was dinky inside. I could haul more in my so-called compact (mid-80's bubble-back Capri). But you *do* get used to the higher POV pretty fast. When I drive the truck (late 80's Toyota 1-ton) I feel like I'm crawling along on the pavement. And the Windstar doesn't sit *that* high.
Of course, if the law allowed unpiloted PMs (and why not, if it allowed slaved ones?) that'd solve the major problem with the van: when you *don't* need all that hauling space, you still have to haul it along. I've always felt like I should put a notice in the paper when I'm driving 250 miles one-way to visit Mom: "Minivan headed for Arkansas: five empty seats available." With a herd of PMs, you could just take one when you're just driving yourself somewhere, and two or three when you're going grocery shopping or whatever.
Uh-oh. I better tell the users of my 800-person list and my 500-person list that it's been a great 8-year run, but we shouldn't be using a home mail server for this.
I don't think that that counts as a "home mail server" under the previous poster's definition. The Phoenyx lives in the basement of my home, but we don't consider it a "home mail server" because of that... it's got a business-style contract with our ISP, that sort of thing. It's not just the physical location.
Because you know that immoral as their means of marketing are, they are quite effective (i.e. spam). You just turn a blind eye until the cops come calling.
That's what I mean: that's not (or ought not be) an adequate excuse.
At which point, what's to prevent you from saying we were not entirely aware that they were not abiding by the law?
Nothing. But what's to say that's a legitimate excuse? They're acting as your authorized agent, so you're responsible for their actions. If you weren't diligent enough to pick someone who'd behave in a legal manner, you have to pay the price. And that durn well better be a higher price than the profits you made.
When you are just a manufacturer, and your distributors/marketers make a mistake, you cannot be held liable. Not unless they are all the same corporation.
I dunno about that. WalMart got held liable (unless it's been overturned on appeal and I didn't hear) for defective children's apparel when they couldn't produce the name of the manufacturer, who otherwise would have been liable. I don't see why you can't hold somebody responsible for the way they market your product. If you didn't get a complete rundown of how they were going to do it beforehand, that's your own fault.
Well, nerd anyway, but that's to be expected here.
I was inclined to put "CIOUS" on my previous car (it was a Capri). Either that, or "CHEVY" ("CAPRICE" if I wanted to be blatant) just to perpetuate the confusion. Never got around to it.
On t'other hand, Kansas doesn't require front plates, so it's cheaper to get an unofficial plate made at the mall. Which I also haven't done.
No, but I considered something similar. Kansas' custom plates are different than their standard plates, and during some years were much prettier (metallic sparkly gold with black letters). I couldn't thing of a durn thing worth actually putting on a plate, so I said I was going to just get my existing plate number as a custom plate, and let people puzzle over the meaning in three random letters, one space, three random digits.
My plan was thwarted when I found out the DMV computers couldn't deal with that (it would all-too-correctly reject the request as an already-issued plate).
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is the availability of easily abused areas such as these "sandboxes."
One of the first things I did was delink the sandbox on my TWiki install.
If I really felt the need for one, I'd point to the one on TWiki.org. But a well-written wiki shouldn't really need a sandbox.
Because the sandbox area is specifically for dinking around posting test messages, so nobody particularly maintains it. Normal discussion boards and blogs *do* get hit (Google for "comment spam"), but they're more likely to get cleaned up before Google spiders the page.
Writers and layout people use cap lock all the time.
What for?
There's a setting for that, just like bold and italic and whatnot. Indeed, some of us are sufficiently old-fashioned to prefer small-caps for acronyms and whatnot within text, but in these days of electronic "fonts" [sic] where "small caps" just means an electronically reduced size of the same font (and not a smaller font of the same typeface, or even a distinct small-caps font). Bah.
(Yeah, okay, I learned typesetting from a Baskerville.)
It's interesting to talk to another parent in the same situations, here on slashdot of all places!
I was just thinking that. Especially when the article's old enough nobody's reading it anymore.
Yeah, we've been appropriating and reappropriating space for years.
Same here. If it weren't for the exercise equipment (we have free weights out in the garage, but no elliptical) and the Tivo (which we've discussed but never seriously), I'd be suspecting my husband got a Slashdot account when I wasn't looking. Well, that and the fact that he'd recognize my username/email.
That makes sense. I wish I had room for one of those, or a treadmill, other than the (detached) garage.
That's one of the drawbacks of being home with kids... it takes awhile for the invisible leash to get long enough to encompass the whole property. Our (semi-finished) basement became no more than a storage unit during his mobile-but-needs-constant-supervision stage... now that he's more independent, it's time to reclaim that space. But right now it's a catch-22... there's too much stuff for him to get into down there, so we can't have him down there while we're cleaning it so that there isn't so much stuff for him to get into.
Simpsons and Futurama episodes will only get you so far.
That's why I just don't watch TV. Hubby's been going through Buffy, Stargate, and lately Firefly, though. I'd rather read a book, if I'm not coding. (He, on the other hand, listens to audiobooks (via Audible) on his commute, so he's getting both done. Sort of.)
I have two kids now and I follow NO television shows. When I can watch the Simpsons or one of my other favorites, great, but I don't plan on it.
I've never been a big TV watcher to begin with, but my husband's learned the joys of watching TV series via Netflix... if you can't stand being behind the curve, you could do the same thing with a VCR or Tivo. He'll grab a couple episodes after our son's in bed, or watch a whole season when we're (me and our son) off visiting my mom (he only comes along every third or fourth trip).
programming takes quite a lot of concentration and commitment and I'm not of the belief that one can maintain a high level of productivity when other areas of their lives are radically changing.
I'm not sure this means you should always hire singles vs. family people, just that if you can avoid it you don't want to have an employee in transition. I don't think it much matters if the transition is having kids, getting married, building a house, going back to college, whatever.
Once they're settled, it's just as possible for a parent to have a passion for their chosen career as a single.
And on the other hand, unless you've got serious headcount churn, you're going to have people long enough that either they're going to have transitions, or they're not terribly balanced people, which is its own problem.
So lemme guess - either your kids are old enough to sleep without waking up every half hour asking for mommy or daddy, or you just don't sleep at all. Or both.
That doesn't have to be that old... mine was sleeping 6-8 hours a night from about three months old on. Nowadays, now that he's not taking naps, he sleeps 11-12 hours straight. My husband and I alternate on putting-to-bed duty, so at 8 or 8:30 I get to take off my Mommy hat and put on my Perl coder hat.
I physically cannot turn my car headlights off while driving. So what choice do I have but to use my brights when signalling?
Pfft. Cycle your ignition, of course.
(But really... I thought the "daytime headlights" were lower-power than actually having the headlights on. Are they not anymore?)
Nope. Some states, including California, did away with passing lane laws because they're not very useful in urbanized environments where optimizing traffic flow requires that all laned be used.
Not necessarily specifically passing-lane law, but (as you later mentioned) everybody's got an "obstructing traffic" statute one way or another.
And I don't think the Arkansas law I mentioned earlier says you can't *use* the left lane (which on a four-lane isn't merely a passing lane), it's just that if somebody faster than you wants to use it, you need to get over to let them. You can continue to use it either to drive in or to pass even slower cars as long as you're doing so in a reasonable time period. You just can't sit left paralleling a car going the same speed, even if both of you are 5 (or 20) mph over the speed limit.
(Of course, I got it all secondhand, since I don't live in Arkansas, but I do travel 540/71 fairly often and got to see it in action. Very nice.)
In Virginia, failure to yield the passing lane, regardless of speed, is illegal. Unfortunately, it's not enforced as often as it should be.
I think pretty much all states have this law, and only the enforcement varies.
NW Arkansas is very well-enforced, especially along I540/US71 (a four-lane divided) because of the combination of a lot of semi traffic and a lot of elderly drivers (it's a big retirement area, and grandmothers were regularly getting splattered by semis along there). It's really kind of nice to be buzzing along in the fast lane and having people zip out of your way without you having to touch your cruise. First time it happened I thought "Everybody's getting over... and I'm not even driving a Crown Vic." (The drawback is when someone comes up behind *you* and there's no way to time it such that you can let them pass without having to drop in behind someone slower, but so it goes.)
That's because "flashing your lights" isn't supposed to be "flashing your high beams"... you're supposed to turn your headlights off and back on (same as you do to indicate to a semi that he's clear to come into your lane, incidentally).
Which doesn't explain why my minivan can flash its highbeams by pulling back on the turnsignal stick, but to flash the main lights requires reaching down to a dial on the dash. Oh well.
Well, it's a *more* modern incarnation, but even so it's out of print.
Ah yes...I believe normal people do things like take walks, for us it's "maybe we can fit another mission in before bedtime!"
My husband or I will occasionally stop in the middle of an ubergeek conversation and say, "I wonder what *normal* couples talk about."
We've managed to avoid City of Heroes (and all the other MMORPGs) so far, mainly because we know we'd *both* be sucked into it.
I'm guessing that since so many people are buying minivans, SUVs, and trucks instead of cars that this brings the average weight for a "car" up considerably
Wow.
I mean, I'd been thinking that it was kind of odd that the van, which initially felt like a semi after my compact, no longer felt so "big" on the road. I thought I was just getting used to the size of the vehicle.
Apparently it wasn't just my imagination.
You can also get your source oil from Krispy Kreme
With Krispy Kremes, I find it hard to believe that there's any oil/grease *left* in the fryer after they take the doughnuts out.
4000 pound vehicle around (average new car weight)
You're kidding. The *average* new-car weight is 200 pounds heavier than my minivan?
I can't believe all the Aspires and whatnot don't bring that down. Or are they just not counted as cars?
IIRC from Texas History class, we are the only state in the union whose constitution allows for legal secession.
Popular legend, but untrue.
It also provides for breaking the state up into five smaller states...although why we would do so I have no idea.
You'd do so because the slave states wanted to be able to balance the admission of free stats.
However, Article IV, Section 3 of the US constitution trumps that, sort of... Congress *and* the state(s) in question have to agree to any dividing, combining, or trading. Texas ends up with no more and no less ability to do it than any other state has.
But, most people that I know that got them was to use them as 'work horses'.
My folks bought one (a sissy Bravada with gold wheels and stuff) because they'd just moved into the Ozark hills and were concerned about being able to get around in the snow. One cross-country trip, stopping every 200 miles for gas (small tank, pathetic mileage) convinced them it was a bad idea. (Well, that and my mocking of it... so far as I know, the SmarTrac never kicked in during their entire ownership period, despite me saying "Hey, let's go mudding!" whenever I visited.) Mom drives a much more practical car these days.
On the other hand, when Dad died Mom gave us his vehicle: a Windstar. I felt silly rattling around in what, after my compact, felt like a giant vehicle. But you know, *that's* become our "work horse" vehicle. It's going on ten years old now, so we're starting to think about replacing it (in a few years, but it's time to start making payments to a savings account), and my husband observed that "We're going to have to buy another minivan, aren't we?" Heck with the coolness factor... we couldn't live without it now.
OTOH, I can't see the smaller SUVs having the same convenience factor. The Bravada was dinky inside. I could haul more in my so-called compact (mid-80's bubble-back Capri). But you *do* get used to the higher POV pretty fast. When I drive the truck (late 80's Toyota 1-ton) I feel like I'm crawling along on the pavement. And the Windstar doesn't sit *that* high.
Of course, if the law allowed unpiloted PMs (and why not, if it allowed slaved ones?) that'd solve the major problem with the van: when you *don't* need all that hauling space, you still have to haul it along. I've always felt like I should put a notice in the paper when I'm driving 250 miles one-way to visit Mom: "Minivan headed for Arkansas: five empty seats available." With a herd of PMs, you could just take one when you're just driving yourself somewhere, and two or three when you're going grocery shopping or whatever.
Uh-oh. I better tell the users of my 800-person list and my 500-person list that it's been a great 8-year run, but we shouldn't be using a home mail server for this.
I don't think that that counts as a "home mail server" under the previous poster's definition. The Phoenyx lives in the basement of my home, but we don't consider it a "home mail server" because of that... it's got a business-style contract with our ISP, that sort of thing. It's not just the physical location.
Because you know that immoral as their means of marketing are, they are quite effective (i.e. spam). You just turn a blind eye until the cops come calling.
That's what I mean: that's not (or ought not be) an adequate excuse.
At which point, what's to prevent you from saying we were not entirely aware that they were not abiding by the law?
Nothing. But what's to say that's a legitimate excuse? They're acting as your authorized agent, so you're responsible for their actions. If you weren't diligent enough to pick someone who'd behave in a legal manner, you have to pay the price. And that durn well better be a higher price than the profits you made.
When you are just a manufacturer, and your distributors/marketers make a mistake, you cannot be held liable. Not unless they are all the same corporation.
I dunno about that. WalMart got held liable (unless it's been overturned on appeal and I didn't hear) for defective children's apparel when they couldn't produce the name of the manufacturer, who otherwise would have been liable. I don't see why you can't hold somebody responsible for the way they market your product. If you didn't get a complete rundown of how they were going to do it beforehand, that's your own fault.
My custom plates are PC FXR. Yes, I am a dork.
Well, nerd anyway, but that's to be expected here.
I was inclined to put "CIOUS" on my previous car (it was a Capri). Either that, or "CHEVY" ("CAPRICE" if I wanted to be blatant) just to perpetuate the confusion. Never got around to it.
On t'other hand, Kansas doesn't require front plates, so it's cheaper to get an unofficial plate made at the mall. Which I also haven't done.
Anyone out there ever done this?
No, but I considered something similar. Kansas' custom plates are different than their standard plates, and during some years were much prettier (metallic sparkly gold with black letters). I couldn't thing of a durn thing worth actually putting on a plate, so I said I was going to just get my existing plate number as a custom plate, and let people puzzle over the meaning in three random letters, one space, three random digits.
My plan was thwarted when I found out the DMV computers couldn't deal with that (it would all-too-correctly reject the request as an already-issued plate).