Actually, many A/Cs now do run according to the clock. For the past 10 years, my thermostat has been programmable on a weekly schedule, and thanks to our government changing the weekends of the DST changes, I have had to manually reset its clock 4 times a year: correct it for not shifting on the right weekend in the spring, correct it again when it shifts automatically on the wrong weekend, correct it for shifting automatically on the wrong weekend in the fall, and correct it again when the right weekend arrives.
I recently upgraded to a wi-fi capable one (so much easier to program the schedule through a web interface), and it will change correctly on its own (I assume, since this weekend will be the first DST change since I've had it).
I would still prefer to get rid of the DST shift altogether.
The one time I got bumped from behind, a very light bump (no visible damage to my car), my glasses flew off my head, and I was probably rolling a good 5 seconds before I even realized I was moving and stuck my foot back on the brake; I hadn't even realized it had come off. The three cars behind me were crunched up pretty bad, but the police offer didn't even believe I'd been hit. So, yeah, I can easily believe your foot can come off the brake when you get bumped.
I don't buy many ebooks, mainly because I can often get the same book on paper for the same price (or less!) than the ebook. With the drawbacks of the ebook (difficult or impossible to share, may be disappeared at any time, cannot resell, etc.), I am not willing to pay the same for the ebook as I am for the paper book.
I do own a kindle and have read a few books on it. But overall, there's just something about the paper book that is a better reading experience.
What I do like about ebooks is that I can keep one loaded on my phone, so I always have a book available on the spur of the moment when I have an unexpected 10+ minutes of idle time.
I wish they'd hurry up and get to my area. I love my Galaxy Nexus, but it's really irritating to have to pay the 4G surcharge when the 4G isn't even on the schedule to come to my area.
There are so many streets out in the area I''m at that either don't have signs or have small, hard-to-find signs (imagine trying to find a sign on a random corner of an intersection of a 4-lane-plus-turn-lanes road and a 2-lane side road, with trees and poor lighting). Often by the time I've found the sign, assuming I even find it at all while making sure I don't hit something, I've gone right through the intersection I was supposed to turn at. I've seen a lot of accidents and close calls caused by people slowing to a crawl coming up on an intersection, presumably trying to find the sign to see what street they've reached, sometimes swerving into the turn lane at the last second. I don't want to be one of those.
For some reason, the DOT out here doesn't seem to have heard of the concept of putting the signs up on the traffic light cross-poles or even putting up signs on multiple corners of a large intersection.
I love my GPS just for that.
It's just an added bonus that I don't have to pull over and pick up the tattered old map to remind myself which tree-named street I want again, and is it the 3rd or 4th turn after the last major intersection that I haven't reached yet, and then is it left-right-right-left or left-right-left-left once I get into the subdivision. It's not because I can't use a map of because I'm lazy, but the GPS is so much easier and a time-saver, that I am able to concentrate more on the driving and not on where I'm trying to go, that I feel it's much safer to use the GPS than to not use it.
I don't pay $4 for a coffee or a latte; it's not that hard to make my own. I don't like paying $2 for a soft drink at a restaurant when I can buy a full 2-liter bottle for $1.25; often times I choose to stick to water instead, which is probably better anyway.
I don't like paying $1 for an app, because of the insanely short return period. Other than the very basic features, which I should already know about before I buy it, it's hard to figure out I dislike the app until well after the return period is up. If I could have a few days to evaluate it and return it for a full refund if I don't like it, I'd be a lot more willing to spend that $1 up front.
but that's the whole point. Do you really think a bottle of Jack Daniels in a movie really contains Jack Daniaels or even real whiskey? Do you think some guy in a white house set that some other character calls "Mr. President" is really the president or even an actual politician? What makes the "Louis Vuiton" bag so special that the prop has to be an actual LV bag?
It's just a prop. Do props have to be the real thing? Should we sue because the nuclear sub in a movie isn't a real nuclear sub? How about an intergalactic space ship? Maybe we should go back to obvious props like laundry detergent being labeled "SOAP" and soda pop being labeled "COLA" and so on.
Or maybe expand the standard disclaimer "any resemblence to real people or events is uninentional" to add "or objects".
Dangerous to pedestrians? Come on. I don't have a hybrid, and I don't worry about not hearing them, because I actually listened when I was taught to look both ways before crossing!
"The cost of reproducing and distributing an ebook is a good approximation of zero so the notion of lending makes a lot less sense."
That's what I would have thought, too, except that the prices of ebooks are typically higher than the physical book in the bookstore down the street. Apparently, that server costs a lot more to maintain than all that paper costs to ship.
Yeah. The one 2 blocks from my house is long gone. "Going to the bookstore" has for years been "going to Borders". I know it's gone. I just have to re-train my internal labeling system inside my head. The Barnes & Noble down the street is not nearly as convenient, and I don't go nearly as often. It's just as easy to visit the used book store a few miles away as it is to visit B&N.
I don't think it's so dumb. Why should I buy a book that's permanently attached to me if I only expect to read it one time? Maybe if I like it enough and want to re-read it, I'll go buy it. A good book will be permanently mine, while a lesser book will be returned.
It's easy enough to pirate ebooks already. Amazon makes it easy to buy books, and soon borrow them, so there is little incentive to pirate them. I agree that a nice organized ebook store can be better than piracy. However, many ebooks currently are priced higher than the same physical book; this does not do much to encourage the purchase of the ebook.
A lending library for ebooks will at least let you decide if the book is worth purchasing before you are committed to a non-refundable purchase.
I'm still waiting for the used ebook market to claw it's way to life. Unfortunately, it seems as if the first sale doctrine has been derailed by DRM to become the only sale doctrine.
I love my kindle, but I am reluctant to buy new books unless I am absolutely sure I will like them. At Borders (I guess Barnes & Noble now) I flip through the book, which I can to a limited extent with Amazon. However, with ebooks, I can not take a stack of finished books to the used book store and sell them for a fraction of the cost, and then buy more used books at half the original price. What really bugs me, though, is that the ebooks are often priced higher than the ones in Borders! As much as I like my knidle, I'm still more inclined to browse the used book store than to buy new ebooks.
One good thing from this is that I've been re-reading a bunch of the classics lately, since they're all free.
Check out the rates for: 4-door sedan vs. 4-door sedan SUV vs. SUV 4-door sedan vs. SUV
From what I've read over the years, sedan vs. sedan is a lot less dangerous than SUV vs. SUV. Unfortunately, the sedan vs. SUV makes people think SUVs are safer. As the numbers of SUVs out there keep growing, SUV vs. SUV is getting more and more common. So overall, the danger is growing, and the people in the sedans get to suffer for it.
The insurance don't bear the bulk of those costs. Any "cost" they have to pay out is reflected in a rate increase for everyone else. They never lose. Insurance is one of the biggest scams around. When you pay for insurance, you are essentially placing a bet that you will have an accident. If you don't have an accident, you lose and are out that month's wager. If you do have an accident, you "win" and recover most (but never all) of the costs of dealing with the accident.
The insurance just lets you spread out the cost of the accident across months/years ahead of time, so that when it does eventually occur you're not hit with an unbearable giant debt.
The problem is not someone pulling in front of you. the problem is that it is impossible to leave the proper amount of space, because it will be filled no matter what. Either you slow down more and more to keep re-opening the space, or you end up on the bumper of the last person who squeezed in. There is no middle ground.
If people would stop weaving in/out of lanes trying to get another car-length ahead of everyone else in traffic, you wouldn't have traffic keep slowing down. We could all maintain a safe speed and distance and all get home that much quicker. Some days, I'm amazed I actually reach home intact.
"adequate"? My headlights do a perfectly fine job of illuminating the road in front of me. That is, until someone with HID or LED headlights comes up behind me. Then all I can see is the cone of shadow my car casts in its own headlights, and a pretty brightly illuminated shoulder of the road, so bright that I find it difficult to see the actual road where I am trying to drive.
Are people really so blind that they must have the road lit to daylight levels to be able to see?
"consider just moving your whole data center to a location that's been conveniently pre-hardened, like a water tower or a boiler room."
So, move it to a place where if something does go wrong, in addition to the disaster you also have a huge tank of water nearby to douse your whole center? I'm not so sure I'd like that idea.
I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. While I wouldn't advocate bringing back the physical punishments, I think the social punishments would go a long way to getting people to think before acting. Post it where their friends will see it, on facebook or google+. Stick a sign in their yard. Publishing it in the newspaper may work, but there are a lot of people that don't read newspapers. However, before you do, make sure the facts are right and you have the right person's facebook account.
"If you land a plane at an airport, and go and park at a gate, what are the odds that the people waiting for a flight at that gate are supposed to be on the same plane that you just parked there?"
Pretty good odds, actually. Every time I've been waiting at the gate when a plane arrived and disgorged passengers, that was always the same plane that we eventually got on. Except for one time they had to replace it due to mechanical problems.
It doesn't make any sense to pull up to one gate, empty the plane, and then move it to another gate for a new load.
A cup full of caffeine and sugar is supposed to help you calm down?
I used to carry a couple extra books in my carry-on bag, as I have seldom had a flight even come close to being on time (except for connecting flights which are almost always on time no matter how late my initial flight is).More recently, I just make sure my phone charger is with me, so I can keep my battery topped off as I read ebooks or play games on my phone instead. My only real complaints are that I have yet to find an airport with even slightly comfortable seating and that there is never any place at all to get away from all the noise of the multiple TVs tuned to multiple stations all at full volume and the incessant security announcements just in case there is someone in the airport who hasn't flown in the past 20 years.
Overall, I agree with what you said. Only one part didn't make any sense, though: "With the system down they don't even know when/where plane 'A' is in order to get butt 'X' onto it."
Couldn't they just look out the window? Maybe that big thing outside the window that a whole bunch of people recently walked off of just happens to be the plane everyone at the gate is waiting to board?
Yeah, just loading it up and taking off would make a huge mess of the paperwork, but don't tell me they can't find the plane.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, many A/Cs now do run according to the clock. For the past 10 years, my thermostat has been programmable on a weekly schedule, and thanks to our government changing the weekends of the DST changes, I have had to manually reset its clock 4 times a year: correct it for not shifting on the right weekend in the spring, correct it again when it shifts automatically on the wrong weekend, correct it for shifting automatically on the wrong weekend in the fall, and correct it again when the right weekend arrives.
I recently upgraded to a wi-fi capable one (so much easier to program the schedule through a web interface), and it will change correctly on its own (I assume, since this weekend will be the first DST change since I've had it).
I would still prefer to get rid of the DST shift altogether.
The one time I got bumped from behind, a very light bump (no visible damage to my car), my glasses flew off my head, and I was probably rolling a good 5 seconds before I even realized I was moving and stuck my foot back on the brake; I hadn't even realized it had come off. The three cars behind me were crunched up pretty bad, but the police offer didn't even believe I'd been hit. So, yeah, I can easily believe your foot can come off the brake when you get bumped.
I don't buy many ebooks, mainly because I can often get the same book on paper for the same price (or less!) than the ebook. With the drawbacks of the ebook (difficult or impossible to share, may be disappeared at any time, cannot resell, etc.), I am not willing to pay the same for the ebook as I am for the paper book.
I do own a kindle and have read a few books on it. But overall, there's just something about the paper book that is a better reading experience.
What I do like about ebooks is that I can keep one loaded on my phone, so I always have a book available on the spur of the moment when I have an unexpected 10+ minutes of idle time.
I wish they'd hurry up and get to my area. I love my Galaxy Nexus, but it's really irritating to have to pay the 4G surcharge when the 4G isn't even on the schedule to come to my area.
There are so many streets out in the area I''m at that either don't have signs or have small, hard-to-find signs (imagine trying to find a sign on a random corner of an intersection of a 4-lane-plus-turn-lanes road and a 2-lane side road, with trees and poor lighting). Often by the time I've found the sign, assuming I even find it at all while making sure I don't hit something, I've gone right through the intersection I was supposed to turn at. I've seen a lot of accidents and close calls caused by people slowing to a crawl coming up on an intersection, presumably trying to find the sign to see what street they've reached, sometimes swerving into the turn lane at the last second. I don't want to be one of those.
For some reason, the DOT out here doesn't seem to have heard of the concept of putting the signs up on the traffic light cross-poles or even putting up signs on multiple corners of a large intersection.
I love my GPS just for that.
It's just an added bonus that I don't have to pull over and pick up the tattered old map to remind myself which tree-named street I want again, and is it the 3rd or 4th turn after the last major intersection that I haven't reached yet, and then is it left-right-right-left or left-right-left-left once I get into the subdivision. It's not because I can't use a map of because I'm lazy, but the GPS is so much easier and a time-saver, that I am able to concentrate more on the driving and not on where I'm trying to go, that I feel it's much safer to use the GPS than to not use it.
least likely to develop normal social tendencies
Well, from what I remember of "normal social tendencies" in high school, maybe it's better that fewer people develop them.
I don't pay $4 for a coffee or a latte; it's not that hard to make my own. I don't like paying $2 for a soft drink at a restaurant when I can buy a full 2-liter bottle for $1.25; often times I choose to stick to water instead, which is probably better anyway.
I don't like paying $1 for an app, because of the insanely short return period. Other than the very basic features, which I should already know about before I buy it, it's hard to figure out I dislike the app until well after the return period is up. If I could have a few days to evaluate it and return it for a full refund if I don't like it, I'd be a lot more willing to spend that $1 up front.
but that's the whole point. Do you really think a bottle of Jack Daniels in a movie really contains Jack Daniaels or even real whiskey? Do you think some guy in a white house set that some other character calls "Mr. President" is really the president or even an actual politician? What makes the "Louis Vuiton" bag so special that the prop has to be an actual LV bag?
It's just a prop. Do props have to be the real thing? Should we sue because the nuclear sub in a movie isn't a real nuclear sub? How about an intergalactic space ship? Maybe we should go back to obvious props like laundry detergent being labeled "SOAP" and soda pop being labeled "COLA" and so on.
Or maybe expand the standard disclaimer "any resemblence to real people or events is uninentional" to add "or objects".
Dangerous to pedestrians? Come on. I don't have a hybrid, and I don't worry about not hearing them, because I actually listened when I was taught to look both ways before crossing!
"The cost of reproducing and distributing an ebook is a good approximation of zero so the notion of lending makes a lot less sense."
That's what I would have thought, too, except that the prices of ebooks are typically higher than the physical book in the bookstore down the street. Apparently, that server costs a lot more to maintain than all that paper costs to ship.
Yeah. The one 2 blocks from my house is long gone. "Going to the bookstore" has for years been "going to Borders". I know it's gone. I just have to re-train my internal labeling system inside my head. The Barnes & Noble down the street is not nearly as convenient, and I don't go nearly as often. It's just as easy to visit the used book store a few miles away as it is to visit B&N.
I don't think it's so dumb. Why should I buy a book that's permanently attached to me if I only expect to read it one time? Maybe if I like it enough and want to re-read it, I'll go buy it. A good book will be permanently mine, while a lesser book will be returned.
It's easy enough to pirate ebooks already. Amazon makes it easy to buy books, and soon borrow them, so there is little incentive to pirate them. I agree that a nice organized ebook store can be better than piracy. However, many ebooks currently are priced higher than the same physical book; this does not do much to encourage the purchase of the ebook.
A lending library for ebooks will at least let you decide if the book is worth purchasing before you are committed to a non-refundable purchase.
I'm still waiting for the used ebook market to claw it's way to life. Unfortunately, it seems as if the first sale doctrine has been derailed by DRM to become the only sale doctrine.
I love my kindle, but I am reluctant to buy new books unless I am absolutely sure I will like them. At Borders (I guess Barnes & Noble now) I flip through the book, which I can to a limited extent with Amazon. However, with ebooks, I can not take a stack of finished books to the used book store and sell them for a fraction of the cost, and then buy more used books at half the original price. What really bugs me, though, is that the ebooks are often priced higher than the ones in Borders! As much as I like my knidle, I'm still more inclined to browse the used book store than to buy new ebooks.
One good thing from this is that I've been re-reading a bunch of the classics lately, since they're all free.
Will this be like a library, where you check out a book for free, or will it be a rental, where you pay to borrow it?
Check out the rates for:
4-door sedan vs. 4-door sedan
SUV vs. SUV
4-door sedan vs. SUV
From what I've read over the years, sedan vs. sedan is a lot less dangerous than SUV vs. SUV. Unfortunately, the sedan vs. SUV makes people think SUVs are safer. As the numbers of SUVs out there keep growing, SUV vs. SUV is getting more and more common. So overall, the danger is growing, and the people in the sedans get to suffer for it.
The insurance don't bear the bulk of those costs. Any "cost" they have to pay out is reflected in a rate increase for everyone else. They never lose. Insurance is one of the biggest scams around. When you pay for insurance, you are essentially placing a bet that you will have an accident. If you don't have an accident, you lose and are out that month's wager. If you do have an accident, you "win" and recover most (but never all) of the costs of dealing with the accident.
The insurance just lets you spread out the cost of the accident across months/years ahead of time, so that when it does eventually occur you're not hit with an unbearable giant debt.
The problem is not someone pulling in front of you. the problem is that it is impossible to leave the proper amount of space, because it will be filled no matter what. Either you slow down more and more to keep re-opening the space, or you end up on the bumper of the last person who squeezed in. There is no middle ground.
If people would stop weaving in/out of lanes trying to get another car-length ahead of everyone else in traffic, you wouldn't have traffic keep slowing down. We could all maintain a safe speed and distance and all get home that much quicker. Some days, I'm amazed I actually reach home intact.
"adequate"? My headlights do a perfectly fine job of illuminating the road in front of me. That is, until someone with HID or LED headlights comes up behind me. Then all I can see is the cone of shadow my car casts in its own headlights, and a pretty brightly illuminated shoulder of the road, so bright that I find it difficult to see the actual road where I am trying to drive.
Are people really so blind that they must have the road lit to daylight levels to be able to see?
"consider just moving your whole data center to a location that's been conveniently pre-hardened, like a water tower or a boiler room."
So, move it to a place where if something does go wrong, in addition to the disaster you also have a huge tank of water nearby to douse your whole center? I'm not so sure I'd like that idea.
I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. While I wouldn't advocate bringing back the physical punishments, I think the social punishments would go a long way to getting people to think before acting. Post it where their friends will see it, on facebook or google+. Stick a sign in their yard. Publishing it in the newspaper may work, but there are a lot of people that don't read newspapers. However, before you do, make sure the facts are right and you have the right person's facebook account.
"Even if you get lucky, how is anyone supposed to even know what gate they are supposed to be at?"
It's printed on my ticket. Except for the rare last minute gate change, it's been pretty accurate.
With the computers down, it can't be perfect, but for *most* of the flights, the available data is still good.
"If you land a plane at an airport, and go and park at a gate, what are the odds that the people waiting for a flight at that gate are supposed to be on the same plane that you just parked there?"
Pretty good odds, actually. Every time I've been waiting at the gate when a plane arrived and disgorged passengers, that was always the same plane that we eventually got on. Except for one time they had to replace it due to mechanical problems.
It doesn't make any sense to pull up to one gate, empty the plane, and then move it to another gate for a new load.
A cup full of caffeine and sugar is supposed to help you calm down?
I used to carry a couple extra books in my carry-on bag, as I have seldom had a flight even come close to being on time (except for connecting flights which are almost always on time no matter how late my initial flight is).More recently, I just make sure my phone charger is with me, so I can keep my battery topped off as I read ebooks or play games on my phone instead. My only real complaints are that I have yet to find an airport with even slightly comfortable seating and that there is never any place at all to get away from all the noise of the multiple TVs tuned to multiple stations all at full volume and the incessant security announcements just in case there is someone in the airport who hasn't flown in the past 20 years.
Overall, I agree with what you said. Only one part didn't make any sense, though: "With the system down they don't even know when/where plane 'A' is in order to get butt 'X' onto it."
Couldn't they just look out the window? Maybe that big thing outside the window that a whole bunch of people recently walked off of just happens to be the plane everyone at the gate is waiting to board?
Yeah, just loading it up and taking off would make a huge mess of the paperwork, but don't tell me they can't find the plane.