Today I went to a restaurant for lunch. I bought a soda for $1.59. I could have bought that soda for as little as $0.25 - was the restaurant screwing me? No! They provided a cold beverage where, when and how I wanted it. For that service, I willingly paid a significant upcharge. You might pick to take your own cold can of soda to the restaurant, but I choose not to.
What he's saying is that he provides a service to his customers. In general, they want it to "just work" and look to his team to provide a comprehensive system that does that. When they see the itemized list, they feel like the TV is a commodity and are getting screwed. They don't know that the "model D" of that TV system includes a different interface, or is not compatible with components X, Y, and Z. Whether he charges them more as a part of the TV price, or as a separate charge in the services is irrelevant, but it would be kind of Panasonic to let him know that they offer wholesale prices to the general public over the web.
Just because one person is a hypocrite doesn't make the whole platform unstable.
For that matter - there are Democrats who think that abortion and homosexuality are wrong. Does that make them hypocrites? Does that make the platform of the Democrats invalid?
1. Please define homophobe. I just want to make sure that we're meaning the same things by the terms that we use.
Adults on equal footing are free to do whatever they like in privacy. For what it's worth, regardless of sexual preference I tend to believe that most people live in sexual immorality. In a free society, it's my obligation to tolerate their behavior, as it is theirs to tolerate mine. We need not agree, we merely need to tolerate each other's views. And their right to hold their view is every bit as valid as mine.
2. Homosexuality aside, "between consenting adults" is relevant how? Despite the fact that legally the age of consent in Massachusetts was apparently 16, they were hardly on equal footing. At the time, Studds was 46 years old - 29 years the senior of his sex partner. The elder was a congressman, the younger was his employee. For what it's worth, Studds apparently said he demonstrated "a very serious error in judgement." because "it had been inappropriate to engage in a relationship with a subordinate"
And how does this one guy's wrongdoing implicate the party?
I have plenty of reason to be displeased with the Republicans, and sexual impropriety on the part of individuals is one thing - this behavior is not limited to members of one party.
As an example, in 1983 Gerry Studds (D) did exactly he same thing - except he refused to resign! Studds, however, refused to apologize and even turned his back and ignored the censure being read to him. He called a press conference with the former page, in which both stated that they were consenting adults at the time of the relationship (the page was 17 at the time) and that it was therefore not the business of others to censure them for their private ephebophilic relationship, and he continued to be reelected until his retirement in 1996.
What about Barney Frank allowing a prostitution ring to be run from his house for a year and a half! He was censured for his behavior, and got away with fixing 33 parking tickets for his lover, and lied to get him probation.
The point is that the Democrats have always been lax about punishment for sexual impropriety, and for them to make accusations about Republicans for DOING EXACLY WHAT THEY HAVE DONE is ludicrous.
I live in a community without a homeowner's association. Some of my neighbors come from cultures where the standard for maintaining a home differs significantly from typical suburban US standards.
When my neighbor began parking his truck in his yard, began storing applicances and garbage in his lawn, installed a new concrete porch without a permit, refused to cut the grass, and ordered a portable storage unit delivered to his house where it has sat in the driveway for more than a year, what is my recourse?
I'm still not anxious to be a part of an HOA, but there are some advantages.
not only did these companies have totally stupid policies that were very likely to result in danger, once disaster struck they were totally unaccountable for the damage they caused.
With all due respect,I believe that you're overstating or over simplifying your case.
The Bhopal disaster was a combination of UCC, Indian government failures and cultural issues. High population density because UCC provided JOBS that paid well, challenges due to differences between American and Indian culture, no infrastructure to support the people (hospitals, sewage treatment, 10K phone lines for 1M+ people, water only a few hours per day, no public transport, so people lived adjacent to the plant) The Indian government turned down offers from UCC to pay for the disaster - because they had an agenda in how the political implications were to be presented and managed.
UCC ponied up $470M for relief for the victims and families. Half a BILLION dollars seems like more than "totally unaccountable."
Exxon paid more than $2.5B to clean up after the oil spill. They paid $1.1B in settlements, and they were fined $5B. On top of that, their image was tarnished to the point that people today still avoid buying gas from them.
Look, I'm no apologist for corporate entities (or government for that matter) but your argument is weakened by your overstatement.
Why not provide booze and hookers - after all, at 14, he would probably just find those things on his own anyway. In fact, why establish any limits at all?
Boundaries and limits for kids are like the guardrails or jersey walls on bridges across a deep chasm - they provide security and safety. Perhaps a 14 year old knows a great deal about computers - perhaps not. Setting limits, building relationship with him, and "inspecting what you expect" (aka trust but verify) will be a major boon to him.
Not establishing limits - including protecting him from spyware and pornography - is really stupid.
A 14 year old is a big child. Science tells us that his brain will still grow and develop for about 10 more years. He needs structure, discipline and guidance. I highly recommend the book "It's better to build boys than to mend men" by the founder of Chik-fil-a. He has built and operated foster homes for kids and knows a great deal about how to help them.
I voted in Montgomery county today without any problems at all.
Of course, my confidence in the technical security and integrity of the Diebold terminals is about the same as my belief that prohibiting screwdrivers and pocket knives on planes makes for safe air travel.
That having been said, people were stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes long before I was born. The fact that technology makes it possible and fairly simple to game the system just shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Your sister is not lucky - she's making lifestyle choices. Most people can make similar lifestyle choices as well. As I was telling a coworker yesterday "You can do anything you want to do, but not everything you might want to do. Choose wisely."
My wife and I made plans even before we married to live a simple life. From the beginning we lived on my income even though she was working professionally. This makes it possible for her to be a stay-at-home mom.
We give up some things, but frankly I don't miss what we have had to "give up."
Our kids have access to TV (heavily filtered via Tivo) and access to a computer (internet access filtered by dansguardian) Both of which have heavy usage restrictions -
Our kids love toys, have unstructured play time *every* day, do craft projects, physical activity (playing outside) and every room in the house has books. We read to our kids every day, and they love books.
In terms of lifestyle to support this, I'm a geek who chooses to: 1. Work close to home - Lots of great jobs in the greater DC area, but I work where I'm ~10mins from home
2. Earn less money - time with my wife and kids is precious and irreplaceable. I could earn lots more by consulting and traveling, but money is not the highest priority for our family
3. Buy and drive used cars - every new car becomes a used car when you drive it off the lot.
4. Don't buy anything (other than my house) on credit. If I don't have the money, I probably don't need it.
5. Work flexible, generally short hours - I work 40-50 hours/week - some of those from home. Occasional weekend and evening hours are required in this profession, and of course I do those.
6. Think about what commitments are required before taking on new activities in my personal life. How much time, effort, emotional energy and money will this take?
7. Simplify - if something is optional - say no. We spend far more time in our lives deciding what not to do than we do picking what *to* do.
8. Eat out occasionally, not all the time.
9. Shop smart - It's FAR cheaper to buy at Sams and the discount grocery store than to buy at the "open all the time, a store on every corner" store.
Hmm. I'm sorry that you're prejudiced, bitter and negative. I too am almost 40, have lived through divorce, and statistically speaking, am more intelligent than most in the general population.
I'm neither prejudiced, bitter nor negative. Skeptical? Sure, at times, however I hope that's an indication of wisdom based on experience in life where things are not as they seem on the surface.
I have tremendous hope in life based on my relationship with God. I hope that you can find some reason for hope - based on truth and not mere speculation. If you are interested in finding out more about the hope that I have, please email me.
Does your PXE process automatically partition/format the disk with the OS?
I used PXE boot on Linux a few years ago with great success, but when I was considering doing an appliance-type solution, I created a customizedsystem rescue CD which included a.tar.gz of each filesystem.
This would have allowed me to script the partitioning process, as well as the extraction of the filesystems to end up with a bootable CD which would create an appliance hands-free. (At least that is what I was on target to complete when the project was cancelled by management.) Our original goal was to be able to distribute the media to a remote location and have unskilled people create applicances from commodity hardware.
Theoretically the same thing could be done with a PXE and a boot menu. Is that what you've done?
One important point not yet raised is that you need to control the platform for your appliance. Every customer should be on a release of your code, tested and deployed on a release of the platform - hardware as well as OS configuration.
Security and features patches are helpful, but can also bring complexity and confusion when it comes to troubleshooting.
Your best bet is to tweak a build of the OS (shut down unneeded services, automatic updates, etc) then GHOST (or equivalent) the disk so that EVERY customer gets the same thing.
If you choose to rev the hardware or the OS, how will you make sure that your installed base has the same stuff? I can't emphasize enough how important this is to long-term support.
You'll need to consider how to slipstream patches in (connection to your website, flash drive, CD, etc) for both the OS and your code.
You'll need to design it so that you can upgrade the OS install without affecting your application (perhaps a separate filesystem?) What will happen after your customer has installed and used your application for 12 months and you decide to upgrade your code? Do they have customizations? Will your upgrade work?
Your peppered moth was bad science and a hoax. Not taking shots, but the facts don't support the oft-repeated story.
Mutation is observable and observation makes for good science. Extrapolation allows for the possibility of mutation combining to make new types of creatures, but that has not been observed - just postulated.
Of course mutations occur. Frankly they are almost always "less fit" and become a failure.
Adaptation through natural selection appears to make "more fit" creatures and does create specialization. Interestingly, while it makes creatures more fit for a specific environment, the narrowing of the gene pool (in general) makes the overall creature less fit for general purposes - if conditions change, the genetic information allowing for more fitness for the new conditions is less present in the gene pool of the survivors.
While observation of variation through adaptation and natural selection is reliable and repeatable, this does not make for creation of new species, just new variants which are extremely similar.
We can even look to smart naturalists who can help discredit evolution. Gould said that "phyletic gradualism" was "never seen in the rocks" which is why he created the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This has never been observed, either, but it shows that lack of evidence doesn't necessitate discrediting conventional wisdom.
I'll admit that there is evidence which appears explainable via evolution, but there are other explanations as well. Things which have not been directly observed leave evidence - the cause of which is fodder for speculation. Evolutionists, naturalists, and creationists agree on the data. What we disagree about is the root cause and mechanism of the evidence.
I believe in a God who created order and who created us with the capacity to study the universe to understand it - something which we have done, and will continue to do.
Some of the best scientists of antiquity have been men of deep unwavering faith. Why is that so upsetting to so many today?
I love it - all the features listed above, plus a plugin framework that supports sftp, ftp, and a zillion other tools. (Only complaint is no seamless svn checkin/checkout)
Java - so it runs exactly the same on Windows, Mac, Linux - makes platfor transitions quite smooth.
Not dinging any other tools - just saying that this is an essential tool in my (expanded) toolkit.
The patch appears not to be malware - (always a risk when downloading from someone other than MS - and sometimes a problem from them directly!)
I applied it, restarted, turned off swap, restarted, fired up a ton of apps, then hibernated and restored without a blue screen! First time in a year I could pull that off.
Thanks for the help. (I wish the XP swap algorithm was tunable or at least was not so aggressive about swapping. Running w/o swap is a risk, too, although not too great of one.)
I've got an XP box with 1.5GB RAM. Just checking Process Manager, I've got ~900MB RAM free - and less than 500MB of apps using RAM. Windows' default paging algorithm aggressively swaps LRU blocks, so regardless of whether I'm using all of my RAM (or more than 30%) I can count on windows swapping for a good amount of time during my work day - especially if I've had an application open and unused for a few hours.
Your suggestion about disabling SWAP works - application access is rather like a rocket. Good show! Except for the fact that when swap is disabled, hibernation no longer works. In fact, I have to use a RAM defragger to keep Windows from blue screening when I hibernate. I call it "hibernation roulette."
So, with windows, I have to choose whether I swap during the day, or whether I have to shut down and restart all of my applications every day. Ick.
We have multiple locations. Most are "low security" where passing an access badge is a requirement to enter the facility and largely movement in the building is unrestricted.
In our secure environment, we have a policy which requires scan "in" and "out." Each person is required to scan every pass through doors. If you scan "in" and don't scan "out" you are prevented from scanning "in" anywhere until you see security to clear your card. This works pretty well.
I'm not an expert in ancient Egypt, but it seems to me that a historical document contains specific details about the exodus. I am a student of the Hebrew scriptures, and they contain a great deal of information (for a document from antiquity) about the matter. As far as Egyptian documents, it seems unlikely to find such a thing. How much reason would there be for them to have been routed by an enemy without weapons, who were formerly slaves?
There is a great deal of secular archeological evidence supporting many of the events in the Hebrew scriptures. If many other parts of that set of documents is consistent with secular evidence, why wouldn't the whole thing be more credible before a secular audience?
With respect to the accuracy of the scriptures affecting my faith, it comes down to this: God created the universe, including two specific people who made the choice to reject God's rules in favor of becoming "like God"
God, who is perfect and Holy, was unable to have relationship with people who were imperfect, and could have, in the name of justice eradicated them and created new people. But He is rich in mercy and longsuffering, so He made it possible for them to have relationship with him through a system of animal sacrifices which would allow the blood of the animals to cover the imperfections of the people.
Ultimately, God sent Jesus - perfect and holy - unstained by the sin of Adam - to live a life of perfection and to become the ultimate sacrifice. No longer would a continual flow of animal blood be required to cover up sin. His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead provided the final sacrifice for sin.
I am an imperfect man who chooses far too often to reject God's plan in favor of my own. My hope in maintaining relationship with God is based not on my performance but on the promise of scripture that Jesus would make a way for an imperfect man like me to have relationship with a perfect and Holy God in spite of my flaws. More than that, I have the hope that God is working in me to make me more righteous all the time.
My hope is in the promises of God that I find in the scriptures. If the Hebrew scriptures are unreliable, then the "problem" that Jesus solves may not be a problem after all.
please explain why the scientific method can't be used to probe the origins of the universe? Can it be observed? Can you repeat it and document the results of the repetition?
Seriously. It's not testable. If it's not testable, it's not science.
What theoretical physics is doing is gathering data, speculating about what *might* have happened, and calling it science. This is not the stuff of science. For that matter, creationists have the same data as naturalists and have a different, non-testable explanation. To me, it's the same thing, with just as much religious fervor. I don't claim that creationism is scientific in nature, although I do lend great credence to the ID argument - "look, all of the stuff around you is so complex it certainly appears to have been designed."
To my way of thinking, that's just as credible as the multiverse theory.
And what exactly do you expect to fill the role of evolution? Evolution as it describes variation within types of creatures is testable and credible science. Evolution as a means of speciation is not supported by the fossil evidence. This is demonstrated in the need to develop "new" theories like punctuated equilibrium.
My view is that God created the universe from nothing. Perhaps you don't find that believeable. I find the idea that it all came from nothing by natural processes to be ridiculous. If matter is "all there is, all there ever was, and all that ever will be" then the universe should have equilibrated an eternity ago. All heat and motion and should have stopped virtually an infinite amount of time before you and I existed.
Frankly origins is not science and has no place in science textbooks because it's all speculation.
and we, especially Americans, are programmed to associate worth with salary. Clearly I'm not included in that "we."
marital tensions arise from ambiguity about the contribution of each person in the couple to the family unit When my wife worked outside the home we had conflicts about who should take care of chores. By having her in the home, we erased MANY of those conflicts.
most men do not really understand what's involved in keeping a home Here we agree completely. This is a solvable problem, however.
How many times have you heard a man complain that his wife is wasting "his" money Only on so-called sitcoms. I have never had a man say that to me. (And I have a great deal of experience with conversations about areas of marital stress - I do marriage counseling for couples, so I know the kinds of things couples fight about)
When the women works, the value of her contribution is made explicit I disagree. The gender pay gap demonstrates that in general women doing the same job as men tend to be paid less. Does that mean that her contribution is worth less to the company (or the family?)
Housewives often have a distorted view of what men consider "the real world" --- ie: the workplace in which the man spends most of his day I agree that there's a misunderstanding of what a workday is like, but frankly that's unrelated to time in the workplace. My wife's comment to this idea of yours was "and women and men experience the workplace in the same way?" To her, that seems laughable.
Let me ask you two other questions: 1. What about the additional stress in the relationship caused by having less time to allocate to chores and relating to your spouse?
2. What about PARENTING? When the wife is in the workplace, who is raising the children? Certainly not the people who are busy at the office!
I'm a father of five, and I can tell you that there's no amount of money you could PAY me to do what I need to do as a dad!
Culturally I hear discussions referring to "high-quality day care." Frankly, this idea is silly. First, the amount paid for the day care needs to be less than the woman in the "workplace" earns. So, they are saying that the value of the time that a mom spends with her kids is less valuable than the amount of money she can earn in the marketplace.
Secondly, who provides that care? How many men do you know of who do day care?
Finally, since I can't pay anyone to love my kids as much as I do, and it's not possible for anyone to want them to succeed more than I do, why would I want a low-paid woman, who cares less than I do to provide ongoing care and instruction to my kids?
It's better for marriage and better for the kids to have mom home rather than trying to "have it all" by being an excellent worker, caring for the home AND investing in raising the children!
Since there's no place in our culture to learn about roles and responsibilities in marriage, I think that it's reasonable to suggest that most people are clueless about what makes a great marriage.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation Thoreau This is true, and based on my experience with couples (in crisis and not in crisis) is extensible to reflect marriages as well.
-- get your stickers out of my science book. I don't paste crap in your bible. Witty, but content-free.
If you're saying that your science book reflects the same theological content as my Bible, then you're absolutely right and I'll keep my stickers off as long as you keep your theological tome out of the SCIENCE classroom.
I assume that you're saying that things influenced by theology should not contaminate science books. In that, you and I are in complete agreement. Get your materialistic philosophy out of my science books and I'll stop trying to restrict that content.
You think that the universe came from nothing via the Big Bang? You're free to believe that but since the scientific method can't be used to test that concept, it's not science and does not belong in science books.
Evolution as a means of speciation? Perhaps that is current thinking in science, but I expect that to change in the next 50 years. This theory will be the 19th and 20th century's equivalent of "stone knives and bearskins" to quote Star Trek.
As for working moms, its an almost universally good thing. Staying at home results in psychological pathologies, especially in our modern social structure where women don't congregate in the large social groups they do in more traditional societies. It's a loney, stressful, and largely unrewarding experience for many people, and results in an often contorted relationship between husband and wife. Any research that suggests that these "pathologies" actually exist?
My wife gets more than enough social opportunities - really - I just asked for a comment on your idea from her, and that's what she said, not what I said. She's got a master's degree in her chosen field and had a season of excellence in that area before she became a stay-at-home mom for our five kids.
I'll grant you that raising children is hard work, and underappreciated. The "lonely" part has to do with the support structure in place - and that's directly related to the strength of the marriage, and how much emotional support and child care responsibilities is provided by the husband. My wife has the freedom to schedule time with her friends and I'll make the time to be with my kids exclusively so that she can have some fun time.
As far as rewarding is concerned, it's a matter of defining your success criteria. There's little in life more rewarding than making a baby laugh, or that life-altering moment when your child develops the ability to read. Once a child becomes a reader, he or she has the ability to self-educate. It's empowering in a phenomenal way. Having a child spontaneously choose to hug you and say "I love you daddy" is rich, too. The examples are endless, but seeing the investments in character development revealed when a child demonstrates compassion, selflessness, or deferred gratification is tremendously enriching.
Contorted relationship between husbands and wives? That's unrelated to work-outside-the-home status. The vast majority of marriages are pretty contorted regardless of how many breadwinners there are in the home.
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Today I went to a restaurant for lunch. I bought a soda for $1.59. I could have bought that soda for as little as $0.25 - was the restaurant screwing me? No! They provided a cold beverage where, when and how I wanted it. For that service, I willingly paid a significant upcharge. You might pick to take your own cold can of soda to the restaurant, but I choose not to.
What he's saying is that he provides a service to his customers. In general, they want it to "just work" and look to his team to provide a comprehensive system that does that. When they see the itemized list, they feel like the TV is a commodity and are getting screwed. They don't know that the "model D" of that TV system includes a different interface, or is not compatible with components X, Y, and Z. Whether he charges them more as a part of the TV price, or as a separate charge in the services is irrelevant, but it would be kind of Panasonic to let him know that they offer wholesale prices to the general public over the web.
Just because one person is a hypocrite doesn't make the whole platform unstable.
For that matter - there are Democrats who think that abortion and homosexuality are wrong. Does that make them hypocrites? Does that make the platform of the Democrats invalid?
1. Please define homophobe. I just want to make sure that we're meaning the same things by the terms that we use.
Adults on equal footing are free to do whatever they like in privacy. For what it's worth, regardless of sexual preference I tend to believe that most people live in sexual immorality. In a free society, it's my obligation to tolerate their behavior, as it is theirs to tolerate mine. We need not agree, we merely need to tolerate each other's views. And their right to hold their view is every bit as valid as mine.
2. Homosexuality aside, "between consenting adults" is relevant how? Despite the fact that legally the age of consent in Massachusetts was apparently 16, they were hardly on equal footing. At the time, Studds was 46 years old - 29 years the senior of his sex partner. The elder was a congressman, the younger was his employee. For what it's worth, Studds apparently said he demonstrated "a very serious error in judgement." because "it had been inappropriate to engage in a relationship with a subordinate"
And how does this one guy's wrongdoing implicate the party?
I have plenty of reason to be displeased with the Republicans, and sexual impropriety on the part of individuals is one thing - this behavior is not limited to members of one party.
As an example, in 1983 Gerry Studds (D) did exactly he same thing - except he refused to resign!
Studds, however, refused to apologize and even turned his back and ignored the censure being read to him. He called a press conference with the former page, in which both stated that they were consenting adults at the time of the relationship (the page was 17 at the time) and that it was therefore not the business of others to censure them for their private ephebophilic relationship, and he continued to be reelected until his retirement in 1996.
What about Barney Frank allowing a prostitution ring to be run from his house for a year and a half! He was censured for his behavior, and got away with fixing 33 parking tickets for his lover, and lied to get him probation.
The point is that the Democrats have always been lax about punishment for sexual impropriety, and for them to make accusations about Republicans for DOING EXACLY WHAT THEY HAVE DONE is ludicrous.
I live in a community without a homeowner's association. Some of my neighbors come from cultures where the standard for maintaining a home differs significantly from typical suburban US standards.
When my neighbor began parking his truck in his yard, began storing applicances and garbage in his lawn, installed a new concrete porch without a permit, refused to cut the grass, and ordered a portable storage unit delivered to his house where it has sat in the driveway for more than a year, what is my recourse?
I'm still not anxious to be a part of an HOA, but there are some advantages.
not only did these companies have totally stupid policies that were very likely to result in danger, once disaster struck they were totally unaccountable for the damage they caused.
With all due respect,I believe that you're overstating or over simplifying your case.
The Bhopal disaster was a combination of UCC, Indian government failures and cultural issues. High population density because UCC provided JOBS that paid well, challenges due to differences between American and Indian culture, no infrastructure to support the people (hospitals, sewage treatment, 10K phone lines for 1M+ people, water only a few hours per day, no public transport, so people lived adjacent to the plant) The Indian government turned down offers from UCC to pay for the disaster - because they had an agenda in how the political implications were to be presented and managed.
UCC ponied up $470M for relief for the victims and families. Half a BILLION dollars seems like more than "totally unaccountable."
Exxon paid more than $2.5B to clean up after the oil spill. They paid $1.1B in settlements, and they were fined $5B. On top of that, their image was tarnished to the point that people today still avoid buying gas from them.
Look, I'm no apologist for corporate entities (or government for that matter) but your argument is weakened by your overstatement.
Why not provide booze and hookers - after all, at 14, he would probably just find those things on his own anyway. In fact, why establish any limits at all?
Boundaries and limits for kids are like the guardrails or jersey walls on bridges across a deep chasm - they provide security and safety. Perhaps a 14 year old knows a great deal about computers - perhaps not. Setting limits, building relationship with him, and "inspecting what you expect" (aka trust but verify) will be a major boon to him.
Not establishing limits - including protecting him from spyware and pornography - is really stupid.
A 14 year old is a big child. Science tells us that his brain will still grow and develop for about 10 more years. He needs structure, discipline and guidance. I highly recommend the book "It's better to build boys than to mend men" by the founder of Chik-fil-a. He has built and operated foster homes for kids and knows a great deal about how to help them.
It's a small world. I'd imagine that the set of slashdot readers who homeschool is relatively small. :) We started homeschooling this year.
I have the same opinion about TV shows. VERY few are worth watching. I have found "How It's Made" to be interesting - if a little light on content.
I'm holding on to every issue of Make until my kids are old enought to do the projects with me. I can't wait!
I voted in Montgomery county today without any problems at all.
Of course, my confidence in the technical security and integrity of the Diebold terminals is about the same as my belief that prohibiting screwdrivers and pocket knives on planes makes for safe air travel.
That having been said, people were stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes long before I was born. The fact that technology makes it possible and fairly simple to game the system just shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Your sister is not lucky - she's making lifestyle choices. Most people can make similar lifestyle choices as well. As I was telling a coworker yesterday "You can do anything you want to do, but not everything you might want to do. Choose wisely."
My wife and I made plans even before we married to live a simple life. From the beginning we lived on my income even though she was working professionally. This makes it possible for her to be a stay-at-home mom.
We give up some things, but frankly I don't miss what we have had to "give up."
Our kids have access to TV (heavily filtered via Tivo) and
access to a computer (internet access filtered by dansguardian)
Both of which have heavy usage restrictions -
Our kids love toys, have unstructured play time *every* day, do craft projects, physical activity (playing outside) and every room in the house has books. We read to our kids every day, and they love books.
In terms of lifestyle to support this, I'm a geek who chooses to:
1. Work close to home - Lots of great jobs in the greater DC area, but I work where I'm ~10mins from home
2. Earn less money - time with my wife and kids is precious and irreplaceable. I could earn lots more by consulting and traveling, but money is not the highest priority for our family
3. Buy and drive used cars - every new car becomes a used car when you drive it off the lot.
4. Don't buy anything (other than my house) on credit. If I don't have the money, I probably don't need it.
5. Work flexible, generally short hours - I work 40-50 hours/week - some of those from home. Occasional weekend and evening hours are required in this profession, and of course I do those.
6. Think about what commitments are required before taking on new activities in my personal life. How much time, effort, emotional energy and money will this take?
7. Simplify - if something is optional - say no. We spend far more time in our lives deciding what not to do than we do picking what *to* do.
8. Eat out occasionally, not all the time.
9. Shop smart - It's FAR cheaper to buy at Sams and the discount grocery store than to buy at the "open all the time, a store on every corner" store.
Hmm. I'm sorry that you're prejudiced, bitter and negative. I too am almost 40, have lived through divorce, and statistically speaking, am more intelligent than most in the general population.
I'm neither prejudiced, bitter nor negative. Skeptical? Sure, at times, however I hope that's an indication of wisdom based on experience in life where things are not as they seem on the surface.
I have tremendous hope in life based on my relationship with God. I hope that you can find some reason for hope - based on truth and not mere speculation. If you are interested in finding out more about the hope that I have, please email me.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Does your PXE process automatically partition/format the disk with the OS?
.tar.gz of each filesystem.
I used PXE boot on Linux a few years ago with great success, but when I was considering doing an appliance-type solution, I created a customized system rescue CD which included a
This would have allowed me to script the partitioning process, as well as the extraction of the filesystems to end up with a bootable CD which would create an appliance hands-free. (At least that is what I was on target to complete when the project was cancelled by management.) Our original goal was to be able to distribute the media to a remote location and have unskilled people create applicances from commodity hardware.
Theoretically the same thing could be done with a PXE and a boot menu. Is that what you've done?
Regards,
Anomaly
One important point not yet raised is that you need to control the platform for your appliance. Every customer should be on a release of your code, tested and deployed on a release of the platform - hardware as well as OS configuration.
Security and features patches are helpful, but can also bring complexity and confusion when it comes to troubleshooting.
Your best bet is to tweak a build of the OS (shut down unneeded services, automatic updates, etc) then GHOST (or equivalent) the disk so that EVERY customer gets the same thing.
If you choose to rev the hardware or the OS, how will you make sure that your installed base has the same stuff? I can't emphasize enough how important this is to long-term support.
You'll need to consider how to slipstream patches in (connection to your website, flash drive, CD, etc) for both the OS and your code.
You'll need to design it so that you can upgrade the OS install without affecting your application (perhaps a separate filesystem?) What will happen after your customer has installed and used your application for 12 months and you decide to upgrade your code? Do they have customizations? Will your upgrade work?
Hope these ideas help.
Regards,
Anomaly
Your peppered moth was bad science and a hoax. Not taking shots, but the facts don't support the oft-repeated story.
Mutation is observable and observation makes for good science. Extrapolation allows for the possibility of mutation combining to make new types of creatures, but that has not been observed - just postulated.
Of course mutations occur. Frankly they are almost always "less fit" and become a failure.
Adaptation through natural selection appears to make "more fit" creatures and does create specialization. Interestingly, while it makes creatures more fit for a specific environment, the narrowing of the gene pool (in general) makes the overall creature less fit for general purposes - if conditions change, the genetic information allowing for more fitness for the new conditions is less present in the gene pool of the survivors.
While observation of variation through adaptation and natural selection is reliable and repeatable, this does not make for creation of new species, just new variants which are extremely similar.
We can even look to smart naturalists who can help discredit evolution. Gould said that "phyletic gradualism" was "never seen in the rocks" which is why he created the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This has never been observed, either, but it shows that lack of evidence doesn't necessitate discrediting conventional wisdom.
I'll admit that there is evidence which appears explainable via evolution, but there are other explanations as well. Things which have not been directly observed leave evidence - the cause of which is fodder for speculation. Evolutionists, naturalists, and creationists agree on the data. What we disagree about is the root cause and mechanism of the evidence.
I believe in a God who created order and who created us with the capacity to study the universe to understand it - something which we have done, and will continue to do.
Some of the best scientists of antiquity have been men of deep unwavering faith. Why is that so upsetting to so many today?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
http://www.jedit.org/
I love it - all the features listed above, plus a plugin framework that supports sftp, ftp, and a zillion other tools. (Only complaint is no seamless svn checkin/checkout)
Java - so it runs exactly the same on Windows, Mac, Linux - makes platfor transitions quite smooth.
Not dinging any other tools - just saying that this is an essential tool in my (expanded) toolkit.
Thanks for the tip.
The patch appears not to be malware - (always a risk when downloading from someone other than MS - and sometimes a problem from them directly!)
I applied it, restarted, turned off swap, restarted, fired up a ton of apps, then hibernated and restored without a blue screen! First time in a year I could pull that off.
Thanks for the help. (I wish the XP swap algorithm was tunable or at least was not so aggressive about swapping. Running w/o swap is a risk, too, although not too great of one.)
Regards,
Anomaly
Can I disable swap and still have hibernate work after applying this patch?
This is a sore point for me.
m p;displaylang=en&familyid=4cbc68d2-09e1-4511-af14- 03f357180135&displaylang=en
I've got an XP box with 1.5GB RAM. Just checking Process Manager, I've got ~900MB RAM free - and less than 500MB of apps using RAM. Windows' default paging algorithm aggressively swaps LRU blocks, so regardless of whether I'm using all of my RAM (or more than 30%) I can count on windows swapping for a good amount of time during my work day - especially if I've had an application open and unused for a few hours.
Your suggestion about disabling SWAP works - application access is rather like a rocket. Good show! Except for the fact that when swap is disabled, hibernation no longer works. In fact, I have to use a RAM defragger to keep Windows from blue screening when I hibernate. I call it "hibernation roulette."
So, with windows, I have to choose whether I swap during the day, or whether I have to shut down and restart all of my applications every day. Ick.
Any suggestions about how to be able to avoid swap *and* hibernate?
FWIW, upgrading to SP2 and applying http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?a
didn't help.....
We have multiple locations. Most are "low security" where passing an access badge is a requirement to enter the facility and largely movement in the building is unrestricted.
In our secure environment, we have a policy which requires scan "in" and "out." Each person is required to scan every pass through doors. If you scan "in" and don't scan "out" you are prevented from scanning "in" anywhere until you see security to clear your card. This works pretty well.
I'm not an expert in ancient Egypt, but it seems to me that a historical document contains specific details about the exodus. I am a student of the Hebrew scriptures, and they contain a great deal of information (for a document from antiquity) about the matter. As far as Egyptian documents, it seems unlikely to find such a thing. How much reason would there be for them to have been routed by an enemy without weapons, who were formerly slaves?
There is a great deal of secular archeological evidence supporting many of the events in the Hebrew scriptures. If many other parts of that set of documents is consistent with secular evidence, why wouldn't the whole thing be more credible before a secular audience?
With respect to the accuracy of the scriptures affecting my faith, it comes down to this:
God created the universe, including two specific people who made the choice to reject God's rules in favor of becoming "like God"
God, who is perfect and Holy, was unable to have relationship with people who were imperfect, and could have, in the name of justice eradicated them and created new people. But He is rich in mercy and longsuffering, so He made it possible for them to have relationship with him through a system of animal sacrifices which would allow the blood of the animals to cover the imperfections of the people.
Ultimately, God sent Jesus - perfect and holy - unstained by the sin of Adam - to live a life of perfection and to become the ultimate sacrifice. No longer would a continual flow of animal blood be required to cover up sin. His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead provided the final sacrifice for sin.
I am an imperfect man who chooses far too often to reject God's plan in favor of my own. My hope in maintaining relationship with God is based not on my performance but on the promise of scripture that Jesus would make a way for an imperfect man like me to have relationship with a perfect and Holy God in spite of my flaws. More than that, I have the hope that God is working in me to make me more righteous all the time.
My hope is in the promises of God that I find in the scriptures. If the Hebrew scriptures are unreliable, then the "problem" that Jesus solves may not be a problem after all.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
http://www.bibleandscience.com/archaeology/exodus. htm
which proves that:
a) anyone can write anything on the internet, and
b) anyone can link to that content
Blah blah blah
Neither point affects my faith in Jesus Christ as my savior.
please explain why the scientific method can't be used to probe the origins of the universe?
Can it be observed? Can you repeat it and document the results of the repetition?
Seriously. It's not testable. If it's not testable, it's not science.
What theoretical physics is doing is gathering data, speculating about what *might* have happened, and calling it science. This is not the stuff of science. For that matter, creationists have the same data as naturalists and have a different, non-testable explanation. To me, it's the same thing, with just as much religious fervor. I don't claim that creationism is scientific in nature, although I do lend great credence to the ID argument - "look, all of the stuff around you is so complex it certainly appears to have been designed."
To my way of thinking, that's just as credible as the multiverse theory.
And what exactly do you expect to fill the role of evolution?
Evolution as it describes variation within types of creatures is testable and credible science. Evolution as a means of speciation is not supported by the fossil evidence. This is demonstrated in the need to develop "new" theories like punctuated equilibrium.
My view is that God created the universe from nothing. Perhaps you don't find that believeable. I find the idea that it all came from nothing by natural processes to be ridiculous. If matter is "all there is, all there ever was, and all that ever will be" then the universe should have equilibrated an eternity ago. All heat and motion and should have stopped virtually an infinite amount of time before you and I existed.
Frankly origins is not science and has no place in science textbooks because it's all speculation.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
and we, especially Americans, are programmed to associate worth with salary.
Clearly I'm not included in that "we."
marital tensions arise from ambiguity about the contribution of each person in the couple to the family unit
When my wife worked outside the home we had conflicts about who should take care of chores. By having her in the home, we erased MANY of those conflicts.
most men do not really understand what's involved in keeping a home
Here we agree completely. This is a solvable problem, however.
How many times have you heard a man complain that his wife is wasting "his" money
Only on so-called sitcoms. I have never had a man say that to me. (And I have a great deal of experience with conversations about areas of marital stress - I do marriage counseling for couples, so I know the kinds of things couples fight about)
When the women works, the value of her contribution is made explicit
I disagree. The gender pay gap demonstrates that in general women doing the same job as men tend to be paid less. Does that mean that her contribution is worth less to the company (or the family?)
Housewives often have a distorted view of what men consider "the real world" --- ie: the workplace in which the man spends most of his day
I agree that there's a misunderstanding of what a workday is like, but frankly that's unrelated to time in the workplace. My wife's comment to this idea of yours was "and women and men experience the workplace in the same way?" To her, that seems laughable.
Let me ask you two other questions:
1. What about the additional stress in the relationship caused by having less time to allocate to chores and relating to your spouse?
2. What about PARENTING? When the wife is in the workplace, who is raising the children? Certainly not the people who are busy at the office!
I'm a father of five, and I can tell you that there's no amount of money you could PAY me to do what I need to do as a dad!
Culturally I hear discussions referring to "high-quality day care." Frankly, this idea is silly. First, the amount paid for the day care needs to be less than the woman in the "workplace" earns. So, they are saying that the value of the time that a mom spends with her kids is less valuable than the amount of money she can earn in the marketplace.
Secondly, who provides that care? How many men do you know of who do day care?
Finally, since I can't pay anyone to love my kids as much as I do, and it's not possible for anyone to want them to succeed more than I do, why would I want a low-paid woman, who cares less than I do to provide ongoing care and instruction to my kids?
It's better for marriage and better for the kids to have mom home rather than trying to "have it all" by being an excellent worker, caring for the home AND investing in raising the children!
Since there's no place in our culture to learn about roles and responsibilities in marriage, I think that it's reasonable to suggest that most people are clueless about what makes a great marriage.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation Thoreau
This is true, and based on my experience with couples (in crisis and not in crisis) is extensible to reflect marriages as well.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
-- get your stickers out of my science book. I don't paste crap in your bible.
Witty, but content-free.
If you're saying that your science book reflects the same theological content as my Bible, then you're absolutely right and I'll keep my stickers off as long as you keep your theological tome out of the SCIENCE classroom.
I assume that you're saying that things influenced by theology should not contaminate science books. In that, you and I are in complete agreement. Get your materialistic philosophy out of my science books and I'll stop trying to restrict that content.
You think that the universe came from nothing via the Big Bang? You're free to believe that but since the scientific method can't be used to test that concept, it's not science and does not belong in science books.
Evolution as a means of speciation? Perhaps that is current thinking in science, but I expect that to change in the next 50 years. This theory will be the 19th and 20th century's equivalent of "stone knives and bearskins" to quote Star Trek.
As for working moms, its an almost universally good thing. Staying at home results in psychological pathologies, especially in our modern social structure where women don't congregate in the large social groups they do in more traditional societies. It's a loney, stressful, and largely unrewarding experience for many people, and results in an often contorted relationship between husband and wife.
Any research that suggests that these "pathologies" actually exist?
My wife gets more than enough social opportunities - really - I just asked for a comment on your idea from her, and that's what she said, not what I said. She's got a master's degree in her chosen field and had a season of excellence in that area before she became a stay-at-home mom for our five kids.
I'll grant you that raising children is hard work, and underappreciated. The "lonely" part has to do with the support structure in place - and that's directly related to the strength of the marriage, and how much emotional support and child care responsibilities is provided by the husband. My wife has the freedom to schedule time with her friends and I'll make the time to be with my kids exclusively so that she can have some fun time.
As far as rewarding is concerned, it's a matter of defining your success criteria. There's little in life more rewarding than making a baby laugh, or that life-altering moment when your child develops the ability to read. Once a child becomes a reader, he or she has the ability to self-educate. It's empowering in a phenomenal way. Having a child spontaneously choose to hug you and say "I love you daddy" is rich, too. The examples are endless, but seeing the investments in character development revealed when a child demonstrates compassion, selflessness, or deferred gratification is tremendously enriching.
Contorted relationship between husbands and wives? That's unrelated to work-outside-the-home status. The vast majority of marriages are pretty contorted regardless of how many breadwinners there are in the home.