I really wish my new boss would realize that. For the 4 months or so that I didn't have a boss, I was treated well. Sure I was overworked, but I was almost always treated well by our users, many of whom seemed to show genuine concern when they could tell that I was being stretched too thin. Since my boss has come along, he has instituted new policies and more strictly enforced others with his eventual goal being that we never have to leave our offices to solve most issues. It's frustrating to both me and and our users. I can understand that it's more efficient this way, but I'm beginning to miss some of those more personal relationships that I've made with some of our users in the past.
I share many of your same sentiments. We don't always get treated equally around here, and since ours is a small office, many times the IS department is also the moving department, since we're both youngish males and already have variable duties. Whatever, I'm not going to complain, though. What has started getting on my nerves lately is all the stupid user issues. And I'm not talking about, users accidentally doing stuff to their computer. I'm talking about users who magically forget their password and then blame it on the system, or the user who intentionally deleted her files, just so that she didn't have to do that part of her duties until her work was restored from backup. Most of the people are OK, but I do get tired of hearing them whining about how so-and-so has one of those new mice with the little light, so why do I have to get one with a ball? Or people arguing with me about the way a particular system or process works when they don't realize that I was the one who set the policies to make the process work that way.
In general I like my job. Most of the people are nice people. And I have great patience for the genuinely computer illiterate, especially if they don't act out their frustrations with their computer on me. (Something a lot of other IS people don't have.) It's just the intentionally computer illiterate that get on my nerves. But what really gets to me some days is the lack of upward mobility offered to an entry-level IS position. My pay isn't bad for my region, but I don't see many ways that I can advance in my career and increase that pay. However, it is frustrating to see my friends with liberal arts degrees making just as much, if not more than me at jobs that require less skill. (Or less of my skills that I have, anyway.)...jobs that I could do with my eyes closed....Which is why I think I'm going to go back and get an MBA. It'll be boring as hell, but I'm still young enough that I think I can make a move like that without any serious consequences to my well being. (Other than my financial well-being, that is.)
As an aside, I sometimes have trouble with my transmission getting out of 2nd, requiring - get this - a rolling restart (shift to neutral and turn the engine off and on). Which leaves me wondering - did Microsoft somehow get into Chrysler vehicles??
Actually, that was common practice in my roommate's RX-7 before some crackhead pulled out in front of him. From the factory RX-7s are designed to pump a little bit of oil into the combustion chamber in order to keep the apex seals and such lubricated. It's very common practice for owners with some engine work to start using a technique commonly termed pre-mixing. Instead of relying on the engine to pump oil into the combustion chamber, the owner will pour a measured amount of 2-stroke motor oil into the gas tank. It burns better than regular motor oil, but still keeps everything lubricted. This means that you have to disconnect the oil metering pump from the engine. Unfortunately, if you're still using the factory ECU, you can't remove it completely as the ECU still needs to get signals from it. Well, the oil metering pump on my roommate's car started to fail (probably due to the fact that it wasn't actually pumping oil any more, and so wasn't being lubricated itself) and would send signals to the ECU telling it to enter "limp mode." This would basically cut fuel to the engine past a certain RPM and in certain high load situations. It's very frustrating when it kicks in while trying to pull out into heavy traffic or when trying to pass somebody. Anyway, the temporary fix for the problem was, you guessed it, a rolling restart. Just flick the ignition to reset the ECU. I kept telling my roommate that he should hook up a dedicated switch to reset the ECU and label it Ctrl+Alt+Del. I don't think he found that comment too funny.
...it would go up to 95 MPH, slow to 90, then back to 95, repeating. Probably a limitation in the vehicle that prevents it from going faster.
That sounds very much like what happens when you hit a vehicle's speed governor. It will momentarily cut fuel to the engine, causing the car to slow down. Although, I am surprised that it happens at 95 on your car. I've had my own Civic well in excess of that speed (on a track, of course), but I guess you may have one of the non-Vtec engines with lower power... or an older model. I guess my car really doesn't apply to any other cars than 7th generation EX Civics...
I believe most cars are built like that for safety reasons. That's not to say that having your ABS suddenly fail is safe, per se, but I would think that the manufacturers would almost have to design in a fail-safe in the event of ABS failure.
A good practice, however is to always drive like you don't have ABS. I had the ABS system give out on my 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. At first, it was just an occasional failure. Maybe once every couple of months, so I didn't think about it too much. Until the day I came close to putting the car in a canal. It was raining and I was cruising along a boulevrd style street with a canal between the two lanes. (Very common in the New Orleans area.) I was driving along looking for my left turn (which passes over the median/canal), when suddenly I realize that it's practically right in front of me. No problem, I have ABS, right? Nobody's behind me, so I just slam on the brakes and begin turning the wheel to the left. This was fine, the car was slowing and turning at the same time... until the ABS went out, mid turn. Suddenly, my brakes were locked and the car was plowing straight for the curb and the several foot drop into the canal past that. Thankfully, I wasn't going to fast to begin with and managed to modulate the brakes to get the car back under control. After that incident though, probably the one time in my life where I conciously decided to take advantage of the fact that I had ABS (my first car didn't have ABS), I made sure that I always drive like I don't have it.
The moral of the story: don't rely too much on these silly driver assist controls, and instead rely on learning good driving skills.
I think the truth behind the story is that the gentleman in the Renault most likely panicked, as people often do in unusual situations.
I know I almost did when I lost braking power. I used to drive a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. A couple of years ago I was starting my car and released it a fraction of a second too early, causing some sort of backfire under the hood. After getting over the initial shock of a bang and black smoke coming out from around my hood, I let the car sit a bit and started it again. The engine was idling higher than normal, but maybe the ECU was just confused due to the extra, unburnt fuel left in the combustion chambers.
After letting the car idle a bit I decide to take it out for a drive and see if the idle will settle down on it's own. I press in the brake to shift to reverse and then begin to back out of my garage, probably modulating the brake a bit on the way out. Eventually I let off the brake completely and when I went to get back on the brake the pedal doesn't appear to want to move, while I'm backing up at an unusually high rate of speed due to the car idling higher than normal, and I'm heading right for my grandfather's house.
I immediately slaped the gear lever into neutral and stomp on the emergency brake (foot operated) to stop the car, and kill the ignition, still not sure why my brakes aren't working.
After poking around under the hood, it turns out that the backfire had caused the vacuum line for the brake booster to pop off. I still had brakes, but becuase the pedal had so much more resistance, and because the car was already acting weird, I immediately assumed the worst. That, and I had to think and act fast before I put a hole in my grandfather's living room. I've driven cars without power brakes before (namely my dad's heavy, 4-wheel drum braked 1955 Chevy), but I was simply surprised by the lack of pedal movement with the small ammount of pressure that's usually required. Since I knew I was going slow enough, but was running out of room, the emergency brake seemd like the best course of action. The vacuum leak was also presumably the reason for the high idle, I just wished I'd seen it when I was checking under the hood in the garage.
Actually, come to think of it, I've experienced a stuck throttle before, too. I was driving my roommate's car at a local SCCA Solo II driver's school event. I'd already had a few events behind me (including one in the '95 Cutlass, much to the ammusment of the onlookers, but where I surprisingly managed times that put me about mid-pack out of the attendees), but I was still a novice driver and felt the driver's school would provide a lot of seat time and a lot of needed instruction. Anyway, one of the exercises they had was a braking exercise. You start from a stand still, launch the car, and accelerate towards a braking box, with the goal of the exercise being to practice braking at the threshold. I had a few runs under me, and had planned to really push it this time. I launched the car hard, had a perfect upshift to 2nd, and waited just a hair longer before getting on the brakes... and instead of rolling on them, I hit them too hard, and felt them lock. I eased off, blew through the box, and pushed in the clutch to shift to neutral and come to an easy stop. As soon as I pushed in the clutch, the engine jumped up to about 5000 rpms, so I killed the engine and pulled over. The throttle return seemed fine. It tunred out to be a problem with the ported throttle body on the engine. We later found out that if you hit the throttle with exceedingly hard force as I had done when I had that "perfect" shift into 2nd, it has a tendency to stick open, as I found out that day, and again at a later autocross. Go figure.
In certain BMW M3s, the transmission mounts get a little sloppy, and engine torque reaction under hard acceleration can rotate the transmission enough to move the shift gates. It's possible then to try and go 2->3 or 3->4, and hit 1 or 2 instead. This is invariably fatal to the motor. You will bring your pistons home in a bucket.
This happened to one of the guys in our local SCCA chapter at an autocross. He was driving an E36 M3, went to shift to third, and *POP*! Ended up being pretty costly to him, and it took a while for him to feel comfortable shifting to 3rd on the track again.
I remember when I used to get excited about getting moderation points. These days I rarely find the time to use my points. Every once in a while I may use one her or there to boost a comment scored 3 or 4 higher, but the sad truth of the fact is that 80% of the time I have mod points, I never use them. Gone are the days that I had the time to read all the posts scored 0 or greater...
An informative post responding to a post that noted that they got insightful modding when they tried to joke, gets modded funny?
Wow! Imagine the karma I'd get if I started to troll or, I dunno... post offtopic? O:)
Eh, I wouldn't worry about it too much. The Karma Game isn't nearly as much fun since they got rid of the numerical scores. Bastards! Now how am I supposed to know when I hit the karma cap and beat the game?
People wear analogue watches because they look much nicer than tacky digitals. Wrist watches are essentially jewellery that is culturally acceptable for both men and women to wear. That fact that analogue displays are more readable at glance is merely a bonus.
Add to that the fact that wearing a nice watch can have a significant impact in the dating scene. It's like an instant credit check. I know that may sound shallow, and it makes many women sound shallow, but let's face the facts. If you're in a bar trying to pick up women, it never hurts to let them think you have money.
You know, I've never experienced this problem much in any of the numerous cars that I've driven on long trips. The worst I've seen was in my '91 Jimmy which would drop about 2 mph initially, before getting back up to speed. I think you just have a particularly bad cruise control system.
(On a side note, I do have to say how pleasently surprised I am at the cruise in my '03 Civic EX with the 5-speed. Or rather, just the car as a whole. The first time I took it on a long trip I entirely expected to see the car bog down the first time it came to a hill with cruise on. Not so! The car sits at about 3000rpms in 5th at 60, which gives it plenty of power to climb most hills without loss of speed. Add to that fact that the cruise control is pretty responsive when climbing and descending hills, and it makes for a pleasant drive.)
I would think the bigger problem would be that speed limitation - even in small towns, the lowest the speed limit normally gets outside school zones is 30-35 mph.
Actually, in Metairie, LA (and from what I can tell, most of Jefferson Parish, which includes the majority of the area surrounding Orleans parish (read, New Orleans)), speed limits in most residential areas are 20 mph on non-divided streets. It can be kind of frustrating some times, but the low speed limit is appreciated when you live here. Still, yours is a very valid point. Especially around here where people barely give room for bikes, let alone an entire car moving that slow. Most places that I can think of, a vehicle travelling that slow is more of a nuissance than a convenience.
Me, I don't know how much my work really matters at the end of the day. But the fact that my bosses go out of their way to tell (and show) me that they appreciate the job I do, plus admiring remarks from colleagues who also do what I do (Web designer/Webmaster), make it worthwhile to me to get my ass out of bed in the morning.
I think this is one of the reasons that I don't feel very motivated at my job any more. Aside from the fact that I don't feel that my knowledgebase is increasing any, the only comments I seem to get from my boss are generally negative criticisms. That and the fact that he's "never wrong" kind of grate on my nerves. Other people in the office do show their appreciation to me, but not my boss, and that bothers me.
Oh, and guess where the full-ride scholarships go? Yup, football. Which is part of why one of my favorite schools is my favorite - no football team:)
Which is exactly why I didn't even apply to some schools. Of all the universities that sent me material, the one I wanted to attend the most was Notre Dame, just because of it's reputation. I had contacts on the Admissions Board through my uncle, but what I didn't have was a scholarship. You see, they apparently don't give out academic scholarships, or at least not ones large enough to offset the rest of the cost to my parents. (I don't remember which was the case.) Oh, they have athletic scholarships and need based scholarships, but since I destroyed my shoulder in High School football and the government said my parents could afford a $30k+ per year school, I didn't qualify for either one of those.
So... instead I went to the school that offered me the most money. (That's something that Tulane is apparently very good at, judging by how many of my friends were on scholarship there. Or maybe I just hung out with the smart people...)
Will require GPS to be effective, and that means they know where you're driving. If your work happens to be near a "bad" intersection for accidents, your rate goes up, even if you have a perfect record.
I shudder to think what that could mean for me. I live about a mile from and frequently drive through State Farm's 9th most dangerous intersection. They recently changed the layout of the intersection since it was ranked number 9, but it's still not much better and still a crazy/unsafe interesection.
(On a side note, I also frequently pass through Louisiana's 2nd worse intersection, but I guess that's not as bad as some people I work with who pass through LA's 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th worst going to and from work. They would have it really bad.)
The can opener on my Swiss Army Knife made me a very popular man for about 3 days on our freshman floor. Some guys had gone out and bought a bunch of canned food, only to discover that nobody had a can opener on the floor. Except for me, on my knife. I'm probably still the only person I know who can actually use the thing.
Then i see people riding with out helmets, on tv, on the internet. Soon Virginia will get rid of its helmet law. I am really saddened when i see this kind of thing
First, let me preface my comments by stating that I am very pro-helmet. It just plain makes sense to me.
However, I don't feel that we should have legislation dictating that helmets must be worn. As I see it, if somebody is stupid enough to ride without a helmet (and yes, they are stupid), then they probably deserve to have their head cracked in an accident. I don't, however, see where this would have much effect on other parties, and so I see no reason that wearing a helmet should be mandated by law. In fact, I'm not sure we need people who don't wear helmets in the gene pool anyway...
You can do this with pretty much any kind of tray from a fast food restaurant. Cookie sheets also seem to work.
There are websites out there dedicated to tray sliding, but I am at work and don't have time to google them. I'll let somebody with more time provide the linkage.
Paper Carriage make so much more sense. For the longest time I was trying to figure out why it wants the PC to load the letter paper, and not the PC's operator. I always thought it should be something along the lines of DA Load Letter.
That's why I figured they'd start giving it away. You know, a freebie that wouldn't cost them much (becuase it wouldn't be used) that they could use to intice their customers to sign up for the latest and greatest long distance plan or something.
When the batter runs out, you just plug the phone in to the charger. Every phone I've ever used will allow you to talk while it's charging on the wall. I also briefly looked into having multiple phones on the same number, but couldn't find anybody who had ever heard of it being done, including a few friends who have worked for cell providers in the past. Although I would think that it would be theoretically possible. (As proof one only need look at cell phone spoofing. The spoofers essentially did the same thing.)
What I want to know is if it would be possible for me to get two numbers to ring on my one cell phone? I've been considering starting a side business, but would prefer to have a seperate phone number/voice mailbox for the business so that I didn't have to give out my personal number.
I was wondering when something like that would happen, although I have my doubts that it will happen that quickly here in the US. At least not until a larger portion of the population upgrades to 3G phones so that the providers can make up the extra costs via software dowloads, ringtones, etc.
Of course, a few years back I also predicted that telcom providers would start offering free dial-up as an incentive for various service changes, but that hasn't happened yet, either... So maybe I will be wrong here as well.
Cox Cable actually does this in New Orleans. They call it the Cox digital suite or something like that - digital cable, cable internet, and VOIP all for some ridiculous price. I guess it does make sense for some people who have a need for all of that, but for somebody like myself who lives and dies by his cell phone and who rarely watches TV, it just seems overpriced.
When I graduated from college back in May of 2003, my roommate and I had to make a decision when we moved to an off-campus apartment. That's when we realized that, even though we had a land line in the apartment, the only thing it was used for was so our friends could call us from the front gate and ask us to let them in. Even then, since we lived right above one of the back gates, our friends just called from their cell phones most of the time. Everybody knew our cell numbers and called us almost exclusively on those. And if one of our cell phones ever breaks, we can always just borrow the other's. We were also able to get the front gate at this apartment keyed to my cell, so there's no need for a land line.
Honestly, at this point I don't really see a reason for a regular land line. I've become so used to my cell phone, so accomidated to it that even when I go home to my parent's place I still just whip out my cell to call people. I don't think I'll ever go back to a land line.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot really should have a -1 Slashbot moderation choice...
[Posting without karma bonus since this is waaaay OT]
I really wish my new boss would realize that. For the 4 months or so that I didn't have a boss, I was treated well. Sure I was overworked, but I was almost always treated well by our users, many of whom seemed to show genuine concern when they could tell that I was being stretched too thin. Since my boss has come along, he has instituted new policies and more strictly enforced others with his eventual goal being that we never have to leave our offices to solve most issues. It's frustrating to both me and and our users. I can understand that it's more efficient this way, but I'm beginning to miss some of those more personal relationships that I've made with some of our users in the past.
I share many of your same sentiments. We don't always get treated equally around here, and since ours is a small office, many times the IS department is also the moving department, since we're both youngish males and already have variable duties. Whatever, I'm not going to complain, though. What has started getting on my nerves lately is all the stupid user issues. And I'm not talking about, users accidentally doing stuff to their computer. I'm talking about users who magically forget their password and then blame it on the system, or the user who intentionally deleted her files, just so that she didn't have to do that part of her duties until her work was restored from backup. Most of the people are OK, but I do get tired of hearing them whining about how so-and-so has one of those new mice with the little light, so why do I have to get one with a ball? Or people arguing with me about the way a particular system or process works when they don't realize that I was the one who set the policies to make the process work that way.
...jobs that I could do with my eyes closed. ...Which is why I think I'm going to go back and get an MBA. It'll be boring as hell, but I'm still young enough that I think I can make a move like that without any serious consequences to my well being. (Other than my financial well-being, that is.)
In general I like my job. Most of the people are nice people. And I have great patience for the genuinely computer illiterate, especially if they don't act out their frustrations with their computer on me. (Something a lot of other IS people don't have.) It's just the intentionally computer illiterate that get on my nerves. But what really gets to me some days is the lack of upward mobility offered to an entry-level IS position. My pay isn't bad for my region, but I don't see many ways that I can advance in my career and increase that pay. However, it is frustrating to see my friends with liberal arts degrees making just as much, if not more than me at jobs that require less skill. (Or less of my skills that I have, anyway.)
As an aside, I sometimes have trouble with my transmission getting out of 2nd, requiring - get this - a rolling restart (shift to neutral and turn the engine off and on). Which leaves me wondering - did Microsoft somehow get into Chrysler vehicles??
Actually, that was common practice in my roommate's RX-7 before some crackhead pulled out in front of him. From the factory RX-7s are designed to pump a little bit of oil into the combustion chamber in order to keep the apex seals and such lubricated. It's very common practice for owners with some engine work to start using a technique commonly termed pre-mixing. Instead of relying on the engine to pump oil into the combustion chamber, the owner will pour a measured amount of 2-stroke motor oil into the gas tank. It burns better than regular motor oil, but still keeps everything lubricted. This means that you have to disconnect the oil metering pump from the engine. Unfortunately, if you're still using the factory ECU, you can't remove it completely as the ECU still needs to get signals from it. Well, the oil metering pump on my roommate's car started to fail (probably due to the fact that it wasn't actually pumping oil any more, and so wasn't being lubricated itself) and would send signals to the ECU telling it to enter "limp mode." This would basically cut fuel to the engine past a certain RPM and in certain high load situations. It's very frustrating when it kicks in while trying to pull out into heavy traffic or when trying to pass somebody. Anyway, the temporary fix for the problem was, you guessed it, a rolling restart. Just flick the ignition to reset the ECU. I kept telling my roommate that he should hook up a dedicated switch to reset the ECU and label it Ctrl+Alt+Del. I don't think he found that comment too funny.
...it would go up to 95 MPH, slow to 90, then back to 95, repeating. Probably a limitation in the vehicle that prevents it from going faster.
That sounds very much like what happens when you hit a vehicle's speed governor. It will momentarily cut fuel to the engine, causing the car to slow down. Although, I am surprised that it happens at 95 on your car. I've had my own Civic well in excess of that speed (on a track, of course), but I guess you may have one of the non-Vtec engines with lower power... or an older model. I guess my car really doesn't apply to any other cars than 7th generation EX Civics...
I believe most cars are built like that for safety reasons. That's not to say that having your ABS suddenly fail is safe, per se, but I would think that the manufacturers would almost have to design in a fail-safe in the event of ABS failure.
A good practice, however is to always drive like you don't have ABS. I had the ABS system give out on my 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. At first, it was just an occasional failure. Maybe once every couple of months, so I didn't think about it too much. Until the day I came close to putting the car in a canal. It was raining and I was cruising along a boulevrd style street with a canal between the two lanes. (Very common in the New Orleans area.) I was driving along looking for my left turn (which passes over the median/canal), when suddenly I realize that it's practically right in front of me. No problem, I have ABS, right? Nobody's behind me, so I just slam on the brakes and begin turning the wheel to the left. This was fine, the car was slowing and turning at the same time... until the ABS went out, mid turn. Suddenly, my brakes were locked and the car was plowing straight for the curb and the several foot drop into the canal past that. Thankfully, I wasn't going to fast to begin with and managed to modulate the brakes to get the car back under control. After that incident though, probably the one time in my life where I conciously decided to take advantage of the fact that I had ABS (my first car didn't have ABS), I made sure that I always drive like I don't have it.
The moral of the story: don't rely too much on these silly driver assist controls, and instead rely on learning good driving skills.
I think the truth behind the story is that the gentleman in the Renault most likely panicked, as people often do in unusual situations.
I know I almost did when I lost braking power. I used to drive a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. A couple of years ago I was starting my car and released it a fraction of a second too early, causing some sort of backfire under the hood. After getting over the initial shock of a bang and black smoke coming out from around my hood, I let the car sit a bit and started it again. The engine was idling higher than normal, but maybe the ECU was just confused due to the extra, unburnt fuel left in the combustion chambers.
After letting the car idle a bit I decide to take it out for a drive and see if the idle will settle down on it's own. I press in the brake to shift to reverse and then begin to back out of my garage, probably modulating the brake a bit on the way out. Eventually I let off the brake completely and when I went to get back on the brake the pedal doesn't appear to want to move, while I'm backing up at an unusually high rate of speed due to the car idling higher than normal, and I'm heading right for my grandfather's house.
I immediately slaped the gear lever into neutral and stomp on the emergency brake (foot operated) to stop the car, and kill the ignition, still not sure why my brakes aren't working.
After poking around under the hood, it turns out that the backfire had caused the vacuum line for the brake booster to pop off. I still had brakes, but becuase the pedal had so much more resistance, and because the car was already acting weird, I immediately assumed the worst. That, and I had to think and act fast before I put a hole in my grandfather's living room. I've driven cars without power brakes before (namely my dad's heavy, 4-wheel drum braked 1955 Chevy), but I was simply surprised by the lack of pedal movement with the small ammount of pressure that's usually required. Since I knew I was going slow enough, but was running out of room, the emergency brake seemd like the best course of action. The vacuum leak was also presumably the reason for the high idle, I just wished I'd seen it when I was checking under the hood in the garage.
Actually, come to think of it, I've experienced a stuck throttle before, too. I was driving my roommate's car at a local SCCA Solo II driver's school event. I'd already had a few events behind me (including one in the '95 Cutlass, much to the ammusment of the onlookers, but where I surprisingly managed times that put me about mid-pack out of the attendees), but I was still a novice driver and felt the driver's school would provide a lot of seat time and a lot of needed instruction. Anyway, one of the exercises they had was a braking exercise. You start from a stand still, launch the car, and accelerate towards a braking box, with the goal of the exercise being to practice braking at the threshold. I had a few runs under me, and had planned to really push it this time. I launched the car hard, had a perfect upshift to 2nd, and waited just a hair longer before getting on the brakes... and instead of rolling on them, I hit them too hard, and felt them lock. I eased off, blew through the box, and pushed in the clutch to shift to neutral and come to an easy stop. As soon as I pushed in the clutch, the engine jumped up to about 5000 rpms, so I killed the engine and pulled over. The throttle return seemed fine. It tunred out to be a problem with the ported throttle body on the engine. We later found out that if you hit the throttle with exceedingly hard force as I had done when I had that "perfect" shift into 2nd, it has a tendency to stick open, as I found out that day, and again at a later autocross. Go figure.
In certain BMW M3s, the transmission mounts get a little sloppy, and engine torque reaction under hard acceleration can rotate the transmission enough to move the shift gates. It's possible then to try and go 2->3 or 3->4, and hit 1 or 2 instead. This is invariably fatal to the motor. You will bring your pistons home in a bucket.
This happened to one of the guys in our local SCCA chapter at an autocross. He was driving an E36 M3, went to shift to third, and *POP*! Ended up being pretty costly to him, and it took a while for him to feel comfortable shifting to 3rd on the track again.
I remember when I used to get excited about getting moderation points. These days I rarely find the time to use my points. Every once in a while I may use one her or there to boost a comment scored 3 or 4 higher, but the sad truth of the fact is that 80% of the time I have mod points, I never use them. Gone are the days that I had the time to read all the posts scored 0 or greater...
Wow! Imagine the karma I'd get if I started to troll or, I dunno... post offtopic? O:)
Eh, I wouldn't worry about it too much. The Karma Game isn't nearly as much fun since they got rid of the numerical scores. Bastards! Now how am I supposed to know when I hit the karma cap and beat the game?
/joke
People wear analogue watches because they look much nicer than tacky digitals. Wrist watches are essentially jewellery that is culturally acceptable for both men and women to wear. That fact that analogue displays are more readable at glance is merely a bonus.
Add to that the fact that wearing a nice watch can have a significant impact in the dating scene. It's like an instant credit check. I know that may sound shallow, and it makes many women sound shallow, but let's face the facts. If you're in a bar trying to pick up women, it never hurts to let them think you have money.
You know, I've never experienced this problem much in any of the numerous cars that I've driven on long trips. The worst I've seen was in my '91 Jimmy which would drop about 2 mph initially, before getting back up to speed. I think you just have a particularly bad cruise control system.
(On a side note, I do have to say how pleasently surprised I am at the cruise in my '03 Civic EX with the 5-speed. Or rather, just the car as a whole. The first time I took it on a long trip I entirely expected to see the car bog down the first time it came to a hill with cruise on. Not so! The car sits at about 3000rpms in 5th at 60, which gives it plenty of power to climb most hills without loss of speed. Add to that fact that the cruise control is pretty responsive when climbing and descending hills, and it makes for a pleasant drive.)
I would think the bigger problem would be that speed limitation - even in small towns, the lowest the speed limit normally gets outside school zones is 30-35 mph.
Actually, in Metairie, LA (and from what I can tell, most of Jefferson Parish, which includes the majority of the area surrounding Orleans parish (read, New Orleans)), speed limits in most residential areas are 20 mph on non-divided streets. It can be kind of frustrating some times, but the low speed limit is appreciated when you live here. Still, yours is a very valid point. Especially around here where people barely give room for bikes, let alone an entire car moving that slow. Most places that I can think of, a vehicle travelling that slow is more of a nuissance than a convenience.
Me, I don't know how much my work really matters at the end of the day. But the fact that my bosses go out of their way to tell (and show) me that they appreciate the job I do, plus admiring remarks from colleagues who also do what I do (Web designer/Webmaster), make it worthwhile to me to get my ass out of bed in the morning.
I think this is one of the reasons that I don't feel very motivated at my job any more. Aside from the fact that I don't feel that my knowledgebase is increasing any, the only comments I seem to get from my boss are generally negative criticisms. That and the fact that he's "never wrong" kind of grate on my nerves. Other people in the office do show their appreciation to me, but not my boss, and that bothers me.
Oh, and guess where the full-ride scholarships go? Yup, football. Which is part of why one of my favorite schools is my favorite - no football team :)
Which is exactly why I didn't even apply to some schools. Of all the universities that sent me material, the one I wanted to attend the most was Notre Dame, just because of it's reputation. I had contacts on the Admissions Board through my uncle, but what I didn't have was a scholarship. You see, they apparently don't give out academic scholarships, or at least not ones large enough to offset the rest of the cost to my parents. (I don't remember which was the case.) Oh, they have athletic scholarships and need based scholarships, but since I destroyed my shoulder in High School football and the government said my parents could afford a $30k+ per year school, I didn't qualify for either one of those.
So... instead I went to the school that offered me the most money. (That's something that Tulane is apparently very good at, judging by how many of my friends were on scholarship there. Or maybe I just hung out with the smart people...)
Will require GPS to be effective, and that means they know where you're driving. If your work happens to be near a "bad" intersection for accidents, your rate goes up, even if you have a perfect record.
I shudder to think what that could mean for me. I live about a mile from and frequently drive through State Farm's 9th most dangerous intersection. They recently changed the layout of the intersection since it was ranked number 9, but it's still not much better and still a crazy/unsafe interesection.
(On a side note, I also frequently pass through Louisiana's 2nd worse intersection, but I guess that's not as bad as some people I work with who pass through LA's 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th worst going to and from work. They would have it really bad.)
The can opener on my Swiss Army Knife made me a very popular man for about 3 days on our freshman floor. Some guys had gone out and bought a bunch of canned food, only to discover that nobody had a can opener on the floor. Except for me, on my knife. I'm probably still the only person I know who can actually use the thing.
Then i see people riding with out helmets, on tv, on the internet. Soon Virginia will get rid of its helmet law. I am really saddened when i see this kind of thing
First, let me preface my comments by stating that I am very pro-helmet. It just plain makes sense to me.
However, I don't feel that we should have legislation dictating that helmets must be worn. As I see it, if somebody is stupid enough to ride without a helmet (and yes, they are stupid), then they probably deserve to have their head cracked in an accident. I don't, however, see where this would have much effect on other parties, and so I see no reason that wearing a helmet should be mandated by law. In fact, I'm not sure we need people who don't wear helmets in the gene pool anyway...
Also known as tray sliding...
You can do this with pretty much any kind of tray from a fast food restaurant. Cookie sheets also seem to work.
There are websites out there dedicated to tray sliding, but I am at work and don't have time to google them. I'll let somebody with more time provide the linkage.
Paper Carriage make so much more sense. For the longest time I was trying to figure out why it wants the PC to load the letter paper, and not the PC's operator. I always thought it should be something along the lines of DA Load Letter.
Dial-up is obsolete, that's all.
That's why I figured they'd start giving it away. You know, a freebie that wouldn't cost them much (becuase it wouldn't be used) that they could use to intice their customers to sign up for the latest and greatest long distance plan or something.
When the batter runs out, you just plug the phone in to the charger. Every phone I've ever used will allow you to talk while it's charging on the wall. I also briefly looked into having multiple phones on the same number, but couldn't find anybody who had ever heard of it being done, including a few friends who have worked for cell providers in the past. Although I would think that it would be theoretically possible. (As proof one only need look at cell phone spoofing. The spoofers essentially did the same thing.)
What I want to know is if it would be possible for me to get two numbers to ring on my one cell phone? I've been considering starting a side business, but would prefer to have a seperate phone number/voice mailbox for the business so that I didn't have to give out my personal number.
I was wondering when something like that would happen, although I have my doubts that it will happen that quickly here in the US. At least not until a larger portion of the population upgrades to 3G phones so that the providers can make up the extra costs via software dowloads, ringtones, etc.
Of course, a few years back I also predicted that telcom providers would start offering free dial-up as an incentive for various service changes, but that hasn't happened yet, either... So maybe I will be wrong here as well.
Cox Cable actually does this in New Orleans. They call it the Cox digital suite or something like that - digital cable, cable internet, and VOIP all for some ridiculous price. I guess it does make sense for some people who have a need for all of that, but for somebody like myself who lives and dies by his cell phone and who rarely watches TV, it just seems overpriced.
When I graduated from college back in May of 2003, my roommate and I had to make a decision when we moved to an off-campus apartment. That's when we realized that, even though we had a land line in the apartment, the only thing it was used for was so our friends could call us from the front gate and ask us to let them in. Even then, since we lived right above one of the back gates, our friends just called from their cell phones most of the time. Everybody knew our cell numbers and called us almost exclusively on those. And if one of our cell phones ever breaks, we can always just borrow the other's. We were also able to get the front gate at this apartment keyed to my cell, so there's no need for a land line.
Honestly, at this point I don't really see a reason for a regular land line. I've become so used to my cell phone, so accomidated to it that even when I go home to my parent's place I still just whip out my cell to call people. I don't think I'll ever go back to a land line.