I did something similar, was looking to make a cable for my TiVo to connect serial to DB25 on the back of my router box so I could dial out over ppp instead of phone (was getting rid of home phone service).
I knew what I needed, a DB25 male kit and a 1/4" stereo jack. I went o Radio Shack and was looking at the parts on the wall when the kid came up and asked if I needed help.
"Yes, I need a DB25 connector kit and a 1/4" stereo jack"
"What for?"
I took a deep breath. I wasn't really looking for help on my part selection, just trying to find what should have been $5 in parts on a hook on the wall, really.
But I couldn't help myself.
"I'm making a cable for my TiVo"
"Why? TiVo should have come with all the cables"
"Yes, but I am building a serial cable to connect from the TiVo to a PC"
"Why?"
"To dial up over PPP"
*blank stare*
"so, I just need these parts to make a cable, do you have them?"
"Well, the cables are over on this wall..."
felt like I was talking to the Secretary of the Interior
Yup, the Moto i880 my work uses for the rotating support phone does this. (my Sanyo PM-8200 personal cell does not).
Actually, anytime the phone is in use anywhere near my PC speakers I get a rhythmic pulse of EM interference -- annoying as hell for those times I am working from home and get a support call (unplugging the speakers is about the only fix).
1. Remember hanging chads? You know, the thing where some people couldn't figure out that you had to poke the entire piece of paper out.
I thought the problem was the chads from previous votes were jamming up the machines so that it was harder/impossible to punch all the way through?
Look, nothing is idiot-proof -- they will just keep making better idiots. The goal should be to have as few failure modes as possible and to have some reasonable verification and correction mechanism.
seeing this around the Chicago suburbs where I live as well.
Things have gotten tight, we've started avoiding the major grocery chains and started going to the smaller 'discount' stores and a mom & pop place we found (have much better meat and produce).
They don't supply bags for free, you can bring your own or buy re-usable cloth bags for $1. We made it our daughter's 'chore' to unload & clean the bags and put them back in the wife's car for next time, so we always have some with. They don't last forever, so it doesn't hurt to buy new ones once in a while if we happen to be somewhere without the bags for some reason.
One of the stores even has nicer ones (like $4) that are made of actual canvas and have insulated, removable, washable liners -- great for packing in the frozen foods. Plus, these bags hold a lot more than the plastic so it is easier to put it in the car and bring it in the house.
cingular did indeed buy at&t wireless (which had been spun off as a separate company from AT&T) -- I worked at the company that did the billing for AWS and cingular took it in-house
cingular became at&t through the SBC/AT&T merger and name change
Stephen Colbert has a pretty funny bit about the whole full circle path that AT&T has taken
employers expect to be able to contact their minions whenever and wherever they please.
Sure, they provide a company phone in that case. My boss has my home number and personal cell and I expect her to use those numbers for 'emergencies' like notifying me of a snow day, or "I'm taking my son to the emergency room, can you cover the 9am meeting tomorrow in case I'm late" kinds of things. If I'm on support rotation or have the kind of position where she needs to have instant access 24/7, then I expect to have a phone provided (and to get paid a lot more ).
having said that, and responding to the op, living without a cell phone is certainly possible, but not very practical for most people in our current reality.
It is therefore the declared policy of the United States--... to require that each Federal agency, by a date certain and to the extent economically feasible by the end of the fiscal year 1992, use the metric system of measurement in its procurements, grants, and other business-related activities, except to the extent that such use is impractical or is likely to cause significant inefficiencies or loss of markets to United States firms, such as when foreign competitors are producing competing products in non- metric units;
1975
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-168) passed by Congress. The Metric Act established the U.S. Metric Board to coordinate and plan the increasing use and voluntary conversion to the metric system. However, the Metric Act was devoid of any target dates for metric conversion.
I guess "voluntary" is the key here. Does the US constitution actually give congress the power to tell everyone what units of measure to use? I do remember that highway signs use to show speed limits and distances in metric for a while.
Yeah, I've had similar experience and have adjusted use of compacts to specific applications. I tend to use CFs in things like closet lights where it is not frequently used and hard to change. Also places where lights get left on like laundry room and kids' bathroom.
I stocked up at Home Depot just last week where they were selling them "cheap" in 5-packs. I'll use these to replace bulbs as they go out in places like bathrooms and the basement & garage, but areas like living room, kitchen and bedrooms will probably stay standard bulbs (have a buttload of 'reveal' bulbs bought from Costco).
Anyone use these for outdoor lighting? My house has coach lights that use the smaller 'candelabra' type bulbs and those are forever going out and they get left on a lot. I'm about ready to replace the fixtures this year and I'm wondering if I should switch to something with regular bulb sockets and use CF?
After I posted that comment I continued reading the wiki articles on both and was surprised to learn that the common characterization of plutonium as "one of the most toxic substances known to man" is pretty much bunk. The particles it emits don't penetrate the skin, you have to breate or ingest particles for it to do any real harm, apparently.
But then there was the case where they deliberately injected it into convicts and terminally ill patients to see what would happen. That would have sucked.
Criticality accidents where fission chain reactions expose you to massive radiation and you die within days is probably what I was thinking about. Yeah, that's it.;-)
Yeah, same here -- felt bad, but halfway on the second side of the Judges I gave up and left a bunch blank. I didn't recognize the names and it seemed stupid to just vote based on party affiliation, so I left them blank.
Here in an Illinois precinct, we were actually given a choice of "paper or plastic". On one side of the room were two touch-screen machines, on the other three paper ballot stations.
I chose paper.
I signed in and then got two card sheets with the little "connect the dots" things were you used a marker to draw a line between the dots next to the candidate.
Couldn't be more clear or simple.
When done, you take the sheets over to the machine were the election judge watches you feed them into the reader. The reader beeps and lights up a red led indicator indicating if the ballot was read with/without errors and a little strip of paper comes out of the top.
Thank you for voting, have a nice day.
That made me feel much more confident that everyone's votes were being counted and there would be a paper trail if needed.
Funny thing, I was there for a total of 10 minutes and I didn't see anyone choosing the touch-screens.
Slashdot Mirror
exactly
I did something similar, was looking to make a cable for my TiVo to connect serial to DB25 on the back of my router box so I could dial out over ppp instead of phone (was getting rid of home phone service).
I knew what I needed, a DB25 male kit and a 1/4" stereo jack. I went o Radio Shack and was looking at the parts on the wall when the kid came up and asked if I needed help.
"Yes, I need a DB25 connector kit and a 1/4" stereo jack"
"What for?"
I took a deep breath. I wasn't really looking for help on my part selection, just trying to find what should have been $5 in parts on a hook on the wall, really.
But I couldn't help myself.
"I'm making a cable for my TiVo"
"Why? TiVo should have come with all the cables"
"Yes, but I am building a serial cable to connect from the TiVo to a PC"
"Why?"
"To dial up over PPP"
*blank stare*
"so, I just need these parts to make a cable, do you have them?"
"Well, the cables are over on this wall..."
felt like I was talking to the Secretary of the Interior
"but, Brawndo has what plants crave"
Yes, I've turned them off, the only thing that makes a difference is to unplug them from the PC and remove them from the room.
Yup, the Moto i880 my work uses for the rotating support phone does this. (my Sanyo PM-8200 personal cell does not).
Actually, anytime the phone is in use anywhere near my PC speakers I get a rhythmic pulse of EM interference -- annoying as hell for those times I am working from home and get a support call (unplugging the speakers is about the only fix).
1. Remember hanging chads? You know, the thing where some people couldn't figure out that you had to poke the entire piece of paper out.
I thought the problem was the chads from previous votes were jamming up the machines so that it was harder/impossible to punch all the way through?
Look, nothing is idiot-proof -- they will just keep making better idiots. The goal should be to have as few failure modes as possible and to have some reasonable verification and correction mechanism.
nice.
I love learning little tidbits about language like this.
No really.
Anyone care to explain "by and large"?
seeing this around the Chicago suburbs where I live as well.
Things have gotten tight, we've started avoiding the major grocery chains and started going to the smaller 'discount' stores and a mom & pop place we found (have much better meat and produce).
They don't supply bags for free, you can bring your own or buy re-usable cloth bags for $1. We made it our daughter's 'chore' to unload & clean the bags and put them back in the wife's car for next time, so we always have some with. They don't last forever, so it doesn't hurt to buy new ones once in a while if we happen to be somewhere without the bags for some reason.
One of the stores even has nicer ones (like $4) that are made of actual canvas and have insulated, removable, washable liners -- great for packing in the frozen foods. Plus, these bags hold a lot more than the plastic so it is easier to put it in the car and bring it in the house.
heh, I imagined that with a Don King reading
not quite -- cingular was bellsouth and SBC
cingular did indeed buy at&t wireless (which had been spun off as a separate company from AT&T) -- I worked at the company that did the billing for AWS and cingular took it in-house
cingular became at&t through the SBC/AT&T merger and name change
Stephen Colbert has a pretty funny bit about the whole full circle path that AT&T has taken
Greek and Roman deities walk among us, but only 12 year old Homer Ulysses Jones can see
... The Lightning Thief
first thing I thought of
employers expect to be able to contact their minions whenever and wherever they please.
Sure, they provide a company phone in that case. My boss has my home number and personal cell and I expect her to use those numbers for 'emergencies' like notifying me of a snow day, or "I'm taking my son to the emergency room, can you cover the 9am meeting tomorrow in case I'm late" kinds of things. If I'm on support rotation or have the kind of position where she needs to have instant access 24/7, then I expect to have a phone provided (and to get paid a lot more ).
having said that, and responding to the op, living without a cell phone is certainly possible, but not very practical for most people in our current reality.
my son is all excited as the next ratchet and clank installment supposedly will support usb keyboard input.
oops, thought parent was replying to different post -- missed it entirely :-(
wait, better link
sorry, what does this have to do with YouTube?
...right??
;-)
he said the 'tubes' as in
"The internets is a series of tubes" - Ted Stevens speech
-but your points are otherwise spot-on
It is therefore the declared policy of the United States--
ah, here was the truck-sized loophole
I wish everyone in the US had switched to metric before I was born
I remember back in grade school being told the US would switch to metric (I think Carter was pres) over the next 10 years.
A chronology of the metric system says
1975
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-168) passed by Congress. The Metric Act established the U.S. Metric Board to coordinate and plan the increasing use and voluntary conversion to the metric system. However, the Metric Act was devoid of any target dates for metric conversion.
I guess "voluntary" is the key here. Does the US constitution actually give congress the power to tell everyone what units of measure to use? I do remember that highway signs use to show speed limits and distances in metric for a while.
Yeah, I've had similar experience and have adjusted use of compacts to specific applications. I tend to use CFs in things like closet lights where it is not frequently used and hard to change. Also places where lights get left on like laundry room and kids' bathroom.
I stocked up at Home Depot just last week where they were selling them "cheap" in 5-packs. I'll use these to replace bulbs as they go out in places like bathrooms and the basement & garage, but areas like living room, kitchen and bedrooms will probably stay standard bulbs (have a buttload of 'reveal' bulbs bought from Costco).
Anyone use these for outdoor lighting? My house has coach lights that use the smaller 'candelabra' type bulbs and those are forever going out and they get left on a lot. I'm about ready to replace the fixtures this year and I'm wondering if I should switch to something with regular bulb sockets and use CF?
Yes, you're right.
;-)
After I posted that comment I continued reading the wiki articles on both and was surprised to learn that the common characterization of plutonium as "one of the most toxic substances known to man" is pretty much bunk. The particles it emits don't penetrate the skin, you have to breate or ingest particles for it to do any real harm, apparently.
But then there was the case where they deliberately injected it into convicts and terminally ill patients to see what would happen. That would have sucked.
Criticality accidents where fission chain reactions expose you to massive radiation and you die within days is probably what I was thinking about. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, I thought the same thing when reading the summary.
the article actually says
I had to read that a couple times because I kept seeing "plutonium" and ended up going to wikipedia to make sure it wasn't.
Also called Radium F, polonium was discovered by Maria Skodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie in 1898 and was later named after Marie's home land of Poland (Latin: Polonia).
Plutonium was first produced and isolated on February 23, 1941 by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Dr. Michael Cefola, Edwin M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron at Berkeley.
So no, Marie Curie would have died a lot sooner had she carried plutonium around. As it happened, what she did carry around killed her by 1934.
I think that was the one in Spiderman II --- no, wait...
Yeah, Pelosi was just about to clear her calendar for January too.
well, we're talking about Cook County, as in Chicago
;-)
I'm not exactly sure about the process of nominating and retaining Judges, but I am pretty sure there are some politics involved.
Yeah, same here -- felt bad, but halfway on the second side of the Judges I gave up and left a bunch blank. I didn't recognize the names and it seemed stupid to just vote based on party affiliation, so I left them blank.
Here in an Illinois precinct, we were actually given a choice of "paper or plastic". On one side of the room were two touch-screen machines, on the other three paper ballot stations.
I chose paper.
I signed in and then got two card sheets with the little "connect the dots" things were you used a marker to draw a line between the dots next to the candidate.
Couldn't be more clear or simple.
When done, you take the sheets over to the machine were the election judge watches you feed them into the reader. The reader beeps and lights up a red led indicator indicating if the ballot was read with/without errors and a little strip of paper comes out of the top.
Thank you for voting, have a nice day.
That made me feel much more confident that everyone's votes were being counted and there would be a paper trail if needed.
Funny thing, I was there for a total of 10 minutes and I didn't see anyone choosing the touch-screens.