Build a Windows XP desktop for my father out of assorted spare parts and a Shuttle SV25. I'm getting tired of trying to figure out what is wrong with his old Win98 system, so this one is set up with Cygwin and VNC for remote administration.
Build a new Gentoo Linux server to replace my aged RedHat Linux server.
Fix a friend's computer after it crashed in the middle of installing SP1 for WinXP. It wouldn't reboot, and Sony's lame "system recovery" disk is actually a "system initializion" disk (losing all the files). I used tomsrtbt to boot the laptop and cpio/rsh all files to Linux server mentioned above. Then, recovered the laptop with a real Windows XP CD-ROM. Didn't need the backup, after all.
Deliver computer (above) to my father and fix the telephone wiring in his house so that DSL works a bit better (I hope).
Re-cable a couple of hard drives and use the Promise Raid controller on the Asus A7V333 in my Win2K desktop.
Clean house, as I've been out of town for three weeks and a friend is visiting New Year's Eve.
Not much of a vacation, I suppose -- except that I'm actually at home and not in a hotel. That's a vacation for me.
Why do other nations have wireless networks that are so much better than those found in the USA? Because they didn't become heavily entrenched in landlines the way the USA did, so they were able to leapfrog.
Not quite.
There are two factors that have caused wireless technology rollout to lag in the US:
Most of the other countries are the size of one of our larger or medium-size states. And we have 50 of them.
The installed base is much larger. The US was slow to move to digital cellular because the providers had just invested a lot of money in buildout of analog systems. Since those systems couldn't be replaced at the same time, it was necessary to implement a digital standard that could co-exist with analog.
It has been complicated by the several competing digital standards in the US: TDMA, CDMA, GSM, and others that I can no longer keep up with. Some providers were desparate to rollout digital technology in any form to solve their capacity problems in certain areas, while others chose to wait until the dust settled.
For me to write legibly, I have to write painfully slow, but I'm even slower with Graffiti. So, I still use a planner/notebook for meeting and project notes.
But, my Palm V has been very useful in simply keeping my phone numbers, travel arrangements, appointments, meetings, and to-do lists in a place where I can access them quickly without booting up my laptop. I still enter everything in Outlook, then sync the data to my Palm V.
It only has 2M of RAM, so I can't load a significant number of games or other applications. But as an extension of Outlook, it meets my primary requirements.
Razor/Cloudmark derives several different signatures from the body text (and attachments). At least one of the algorithms is designed to sample only parts of the message.
It appears to cause an occasional false positive, but overall I've found that it deals with "personalized" spam effectively.
I've installed HDD coolers in the slots normally used for CD-ROMs and DVD drives, but found the tiny fans are really unreliable after a few months of full-time use.
Antec cases include a removable "box" for mounting hard disks. The entire assembly locks into place, but can easily be removed. The box includes a snap-in bracket for an 80-mm fan.
So, you can put a ball-bearing 80mm fan in a position that blows air directly over the hard drives. I ran a pair of IBM DeathStars 24 hours a day in up to 80-degree(F) ambient for over a year without any problem (while so many people were reporting failures after a few months)..
I've since switched to a pair of Western Digital SE's. But, I'm wondering if the reason I never had any trouble is because I'm keeping the drives cool.
I've had two VP6 motherboards fail in the past year: the second one almost exactly a week ago. I just replaced it with an ASUS A7V333.
I never knew why, but your description showed me where to look. Two of the capacitors have something (tan-colored) seeping out of the top, and three more are bulging at the top like they are about to do the same.
I never had an explosion or a bad smell, so I didn't connect it with a catastrophic component failure.
Wouldn't blocking those ports cause sporadic communications failures in programs such as web browsers?
No, a browser uses a TCP port, at least to make a request to a web server (after DNS lookup on UDP port 53). These are UDP ports -- a different port space.
Any first year law student could argue that any linux/BSD/otherOS replaces the Windows OS UI, thus no OEM can install an alternate OS.
Read the rest of it:
B. Microsoft shall not restrict by agreement any OEM licensee from exercising any of the
following options or alternatives:
[....]
4. Offering users the option of launching other Operating Systems from the Basic
Input/Output System or a non-Microsoft boot-loader or similar program that
launches prior to the start of the Windows Operating System Product.
We dealt with this in Texas by charging the end user $3.00 (I think) to get on the list. That paid for support of the list and kept you on it for a period of 3 years, IIRC
It's currently $2.40 for both no-call lists for 5 years, at least until the end of 2002: http://www.texasnocall.com/.
All telemarketers doing business in Texas are required to download the list (free of charge, I think)
In case anyone is confused why there are two lists: electricity deregulation was enacted by the Texas Legislature during the same session as the telemarketing no-call list. The electricity deregulation bill separately required a no-call list for electric utilities. So, they had to set up both of them at the same time. I suspect there will be legislation to merge them next year.
The matching funds program that you reference is funded by the voluntary "Presidential Election Campaign" checkoff on the 1040 form (and its variants).
When people ask me why people yell into cellphones, I always explain that its because the phones typically don't replay their own voice into their earpiece like normal house phones do. Therefore, if they can't hear themselves, they assume the person on the other end can't hear them either. Then they yell.
That may be one reason, but I have had to check myself after falling into the trap a few times. After doing it on a landline phone a few times (when talking to a person on a cellphone), I realized the problem:
It's a natural response to a noisy connection. When you have to repeat something because of static (analog) or drop-outs (digital), my tendency is to repeat it louder. And then I keep talking at the same volume.
Although I carry a cell-phone, I leave it off and require people to page me. Then, I excuse myself and return the call where I won't disturb people.
I would imagine the biggest cost has got to be the use of that giant friggin radio telescope.
SETI@home simply records data while the telescope is being used for other objectives, wherever it might be pointing. They don't task the telescope to point in a particular place, at least not until they find a signal worth investigating.
My vision is deteriorating due to old age. I can still pass the driving test without glasses, but I need mine to look at a computer screen for more than a few minutes at a time or I get terrible headaches.
I've asked my optometrist about LASIK. First, he told me (as expected) that my eyesight isn't yet bad enough to justify it.
Second, he said that there are new developments on the horizon. He can have his eyes done for free, but he is waiting for the technology to develop further (and presumably gather data on long term effects).
I've read something very brief about a future version of LASIK that is completely computer-controlled in real-time, i.e. the result is checked during surgery and the feedback loop yields better than 20/20 vision for some people.
I use my desktop with specialized simulation software. There's a direct relationship between processor speed and the amount of time required for me to complete a simulation. The faster I can do the simulations, the faster I can provide results for clients.
I don't try to stay on the bleeding edge, but I typically upgrade when I can double the processor speed. I build my own computers and sometimes just swap out the motherboard, leaving everything else substantially the same.
I usually upgrade about once a year, but it looks like this interval will be about 18 months. I haven't decided if I will upgrade when Barton hits the streets or if I will wait for Hammer.
TITLE 9. OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER AND DECENCY
CHAPTER 42. DISORDERLY CONDUCT AND RELATED OFFENSES
42.01. Disorderly Conduct
(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly:
(3) creates, by chemical means, a noxious and unreasonable odor in a public place;
OK, it's not really intended to prohibit "farting", but I always thought it was an amusing interpretation.
How come you pay 15% of earnings (plus same again from your employer / self-employed company) to "social security" yet still have to pay for treatment at hospital?
Only about 3% of that 15% (or 20% of the 15%, depending on your frame of reference) is for health-care, and that's only for people over age 65. The remainder is OASDI (old age, survivor, and disability insurance). Full benefits start at age 67 for OA, rules for survivor and disability are different.
Another poster contends that the current tax rates just barely support benefits. That may be true for Medicare (the health care), but OASDI is actually overfunded on the order of a couple of hundred billion dollars a year. But, the government spends the money on other stuff, issues special bonds (called the "Trust Fund") to cover it and in an amazing sleight of hand that would put even Enron to shame -- subtracts the amount from the annual federal government deficit.
However, as the baby boomer generation retires, the annual surplus will disappear and OASDI will run a net deficit each year. The government will have to pay back those "Trust Fund" bonds, boosting federal income taxes (a different levy) to do so. In 30-40 years, the "Trust Fund" will be exhausted and OASDI taxes will have to be raised significantly (double or triple the current rate) to maintain the current benefits.
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- Build a Windows XP desktop for my father out of assorted spare parts and a Shuttle SV25. I'm getting tired of trying to figure out what is wrong with his old Win98 system, so this one is set up with Cygwin and VNC for remote administration.
- Build a new Gentoo Linux server to replace my aged RedHat Linux server.
- Fix a friend's computer after it crashed in the middle of installing SP1 for WinXP. It wouldn't reboot, and Sony's lame "system recovery" disk is actually a "system initializion" disk (losing all the files). I used tomsrtbt to boot the laptop and cpio/rsh all files to Linux server mentioned above. Then, recovered the laptop with a real Windows XP CD-ROM. Didn't need the backup, after all.
- Deliver computer (above) to my father and fix the telephone wiring in his house so that DSL works a bit better (I hope).
- Re-cable a couple of hard drives and use the Promise Raid controller on the Asus A7V333 in my Win2K desktop.
- Clean house, as I've been out of town for three weeks and a friend is visiting New Year's Eve.
Not much of a vacation, I suppose -- except that I'm actually at home and not in a hotel. That's a vacation for me.Not quite.
There are two factors that have caused wireless technology rollout to lag in the US:
It has been complicated by the several competing digital standards in the US: TDMA, CDMA, GSM, and others that I can no longer keep up with. Some providers were desparate to rollout digital technology in any form to solve their capacity problems in certain areas, while others chose to wait until the dust settled.
But, my Palm V has been very useful in simply keeping my phone numbers, travel arrangements, appointments, meetings, and to-do lists in a place where I can access them quickly without booting up my laptop. I still enter everything in Outlook, then sync the data to my Palm V.
It only has 2M of RAM, so I can't load a significant number of games or other applications. But as an extension of Outlook, it meets my primary requirements.
http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/01nall.pdf.
In 2000, Fuel mismanagement was determined to be the cause of 5.5% of all pilot-related accidents, ranking it #5.
For comparision:
This is for all accidents. Fatal accidents have a different distribution: Fuel mismanagement is tied for 6th place with three other causes.
http://www.campchaos.com/othershows/stonetrek/
Includes Star Trekkin' "Music Video".
It appears to cause an occasional false positive, but overall I've found that it deals with "personalized" spam effectively.
Antec cases include a removable "box" for mounting hard disks. The entire assembly locks into place, but can easily be removed. The box includes a snap-in bracket for an 80-mm fan.
So, you can put a ball-bearing 80mm fan in a position that blows air directly over the hard drives. I ran a pair of IBM DeathStars 24 hours a day in up to 80-degree(F) ambient for over a year without any problem (while so many people were reporting failures after a few months). .
I've since switched to a pair of Western Digital SE's. But, I'm wondering if the reason I never had any trouble is because I'm keeping the drives cool.
I never knew why, but your description showed me where to look. Two of the capacitors have something (tan-colored) seeping out of the top, and three more are bulging at the top like they are about to do the same.
I never had an explosion or a bad smell, so I didn't connect it with a catastrophic component failure.
No, a browser uses a TCP port, at least to make a request to a web server (after DNS lookup on UDP port 53). These are UDP ports -- a different port space.
SquirrelMail is a WebMail client implemented in PHP. I use the client, but not the plugin (I use Razor).
Read the rest of it:
B. Microsoft shall not restrict by agreement any OEM licensee from exercising any of the following options or alternatives:
[....]
4. Offering users the option of launching other Operating Systems from the Basic Input/Output System or a non-Microsoft boot-loader or similar program that launches prior to the start of the Windows Operating System Product.
We dealt with this in Texas by charging the end user $3.00 (I think) to get on the list. That paid for support of the list and kept you on it for a period of 3 years, IIRC
It's currently $2.40 for both no-call lists for 5 years, at least until the end of 2002: http://www.texasnocall.com/.
All telemarketers doing business in Texas are required to download the list (free of charge, I think)
No, the telemarketers are required to pay a fee of $45 or $50 each calendar quarter: https://www.texasnocall.com/subscriberFAQ_TX.asp.
In case anyone is confused why there are two lists: electricity deregulation was enacted by the Texas Legislature during the same session as the telemarketing no-call list. The electricity deregulation bill separately required a no-call list for electric utilities. So, they had to set up both of them at the same time. I suspect there will be legislation to merge them next year.
Yes, I do.
The matching funds program that you reference is funded by the voluntary "Presidential Election Campaign" checkoff on the 1040 form (and its variants).
That may be one reason, but I have had to check myself after falling into the trap a few times. After doing it on a landline phone a few times (when talking to a person on a cellphone), I realized the problem:
It's a natural response to a noisy connection. When you have to repeat something because of static (analog) or drop-outs (digital), my tendency is to repeat it louder. And then I keep talking at the same volume.
Although I carry a cell-phone, I leave it off and require people to page me. Then, I excuse myself and return the call where I won't disturb people.
SETI@home simply records data while the telescope is being used for other objectives, wherever it might be pointing. They don't task the telescope to point in a particular place, at least not until they find a signal worth investigating.
If you can't find it locally, you can rent The Dish from NetFlix.
I've asked my optometrist about LASIK. First, he told me (as expected) that my eyesight isn't yet bad enough to justify it.
Second, he said that there are new developments on the horizon. He can have his eyes done for free, but he is waiting for the technology to develop further (and presumably gather data on long term effects).
I've read something very brief about a future version of LASIK that is completely computer-controlled in real-time, i.e. the result is checked during surgery and the feedback loop yields better than 20/20 vision for some people.
I don't try to stay on the bleeding edge, but I typically upgrade when I can double the processor speed. I build my own computers and sometimes just swap out the motherboard, leaving everything else substantially the same.
I usually upgrade about once a year, but it looks like this interval will be about 18 months. I haven't decided if I will upgrade when Barton hits the streets or if I will wait for Hammer.
I suspect the recharge time is probably highly classified.
But, don't sabot rounds have to be fired by another tank or anti-tank gun?
This is being promoted as a defense against inexpensive man-portable RPG's, rather than a heavy weapon.
Already been done. From the Texas Penal Code:
TITLE 9. OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER AND DECENCY
CHAPTER 42. DISORDERLY CONDUCT AND RELATED OFFENSES
42.01. Disorderly Conduct
(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly:
(3) creates, by chemical means, a noxious and unreasonable odor in a public place;
OK, it's not really intended to prohibit "farting", but I always thought it was an amusing interpretation.
Only about 3% of that 15% (or 20% of the 15%, depending on your frame of reference) is for health-care, and that's only for people over age 65. The remainder is OASDI (old age, survivor, and disability insurance). Full benefits start at age 67 for OA, rules for survivor and disability are different.
Another poster contends that the current tax rates just barely support benefits. That may be true for Medicare (the health care), but OASDI is actually overfunded on the order of a couple of hundred billion dollars a year. But, the government spends the money on other stuff, issues special bonds (called the "Trust Fund") to cover it and in an amazing sleight of hand that would put even Enron to shame -- subtracts the amount from the annual federal government deficit.
However, as the baby boomer generation retires, the annual surplus will disappear and OASDI will run a net deficit each year. The government will have to pay back those "Trust Fund" bonds, boosting federal income taxes (a different levy) to do so. In 30-40 years, the "Trust Fund" will be exhausted and OASDI taxes will have to be raised significantly (double or triple the current rate) to maintain the current benefits.
You are doing better than I. Only 1 out of 10 (at the most) ask to see mine, even though the signature line says "DEMAND PHOTO ID".
But, it's not a big deal. I put it on there mainly to discourage someone from trying to use it if my wallet is stolen.
No, no, no. Helicopters fly only because they beat the air into submission.