Most of the time sharp braking is for something which shouldn't be in front of the car, if anything this sounds like it will reward drivers who aren't as focused on the road, blindly running over pedestrians and driving dangerously slow to avoid "badly managed turns."
If it happens once or twice a month, they can consider it an anomaly due to something completely unexpected in front of your car. But if you're swerving or slamming on the brakes every time you drive, then maybe you need to slow down and leave more space between you and the car in front of you.
used to mandate refunds for DRM-protected materials in the event that the parent company shuts down / goes bankrupt, which is one of the biggest problems with our increasing use of digital media (books, movies, etc).
Right because companies that are shutting down or filing for bankruptcy have money to pay their debts...
They could keep the DRM keys in escrow, to be released to the world if the company shuts down and no one else steps in to keep the DRM servers running.
In large disk subsystems used for archival, the assumption is generally that >90% of the data is never read back. That's why they're heavily write-optimized. Now if we could determine which data isn't needed any more, we could store it on/dev/null.
I once worked at a place that had a hierarchical storage system that did pretty much just that -- little used data was migrated off of expensive disks to tape. However, due to a a flaw in the tape drive or the tapes themselves, over time the data became unreadable, leaving much of the data that was migrated off of disk unreadable. Most of it was recovered from backups (which fortunately used a completely different tape system).
Do companies still use HSM that moves data to tape or is everyone using cheap SATA disks for "cheap" storage now?
What is key management like on these civilian encrypted radio systems? Can a single stolen (or hacked) key decrypt transmissions indefinitely? Do they regularly replace the keys? How do they securely update keys across hundreds of radios in the field?
It seems more fair for the individual investor - if they want in on an IPO, they can do it, they don't have to be an "insider".
It seems better for the company - their stock gets issued at the maximum price the market is willing to pay, so they get the best valuation they can get.
Of course, it's bad for the banks since they don't get insider shares to give to their preferred investors who all get to share in the "pop" after the IPO. This pop does no one any good except the insiders that got to buy the shares at the IPO price. It's money that the company left on the table, they should have priced higher.
Oh wait, I guess I answered my own question - banks would never go for it for most companies. But, like Google, Facebook had the clout to force it on them.
They do occasionally find stolen cars. Mine was found after 3 weeks, sitting on a side street. They called me to come get it, didn't run prints or in any way investigate who might have stolen it, "just get it out of here"
At least they let you come pick it up -- in many cities they'll treat it as an abandoned vehicle and tow it and charge you the tow and impound fees:
Who needs GPS tracking if you can put these on every government building, police car, and city vehicle (including buses) to track license numbers? City surveillance cameras could be linked in too.
(I realize this article is about use in Canada, but this technology is starting to get some use in the USA as well)
What does "Fresher skills" even mean? The only skills I've seen someone fresh out of college have are coding skills. That's not the same as software development skills. That 45 year old developer that cut his teeth on C/C++ can pick up Ruby in a short time, but it's going to take the fresh college graduate years before he learns the skills he needs to work on a large development effort as a part of a team. Granted, there are exceptions to both rules. Sometimes the 45 year old doesn't want to learn anything new, and sometimes the college grad is some kind of programming god. But what I've usually seen happen is that the senior members of the team end up cleaning up after the junior members.
What is true, of course, is that the new college grad is often willing to work for more hours and less pay than the older guy. But then, the older guy never comes in hung over and rarely breaks his leg on a ski trip or while mountain biking (I've had both happen to 20-something year old employees). And he's less likely to job hop -- one thing managers tend to underestimate is the cost of losing an employee because of all of the institutional knowledge that leaves with them.
The best hiring decision I made was bringing in a 50 year old developer to work on a project that had been developed by our young, bright team. The project was becoming unmaintainable, bugs were adding up and the team was falling behind. The senior guy helped rearchitect the software to make it not only more maintainable, but more scalable - the newly designed product was more easily scaled horizontally and it needed about 30% less hardware to run. Th funny thing is that since we were competing with startups, we were paying some of the younger team members more than the more senior guy.
I had a biology professor who studied with someone who had a tapetum lucidum, which was great fun when they were working on a field survey in the desert at night -- the guy almost got shot as an aggressive coyote until he got close enough for the others to see his outline. Fortunately, the professor wasn't a trigger happy sort of person.
Anecdotal reports in that class suggested that humans were selectively bred for lousy night vision; those whose eyes glowed in the dark were burned as witches or lynched as werewolves or whatever during the middle ages. Also, physics suggests that increasing light sensitivity by using a tapetum lucidum comes at a cost to resolving power and angular resolution.
I'd like to see a source for this -- having a human spontaneously develop a tapetum lucidum seems unlikely and details about any human who did so should be well documented since it would be such an unusual case.
Furthermore, there is no single genetic mutation that could produce a fully formed and functioning tapetum lucidum, Reynolds explained; such an ability would require multiple mutations, which don't just happen all at once. Evolution happens incrementally, he said, not by leaps and bounds. "Evolutionarily, mutations can result in differences that allow for new environmental niche exploitation. But such mutations are modified over long periods. A functional tapetum in a human would be just as absurd as a human born with wings. It can't happen,
I'll go tell _average joe/jane_ to go and get AIX, and dump ubuntu+unity which they like so much because it's shiny and pretty.
Few average Joe's have 72TB of disk space, and even for those that do, they're probably ok with 30 - 60 minutes of FSCK time. And more likely, instead of 100's of millions of files, they probably have a few million, so their fsck time will be in the 3 - 15 minute time range.
I've seen servers that take over 3 minutes for their POST check.
In the footage, Nong's teacher claims the boy's eyes flash when shined with a flashlight in the dark, but the reporters don't seem to be able to catch the effect on camera. When Nong's eyes are illuminated in the dark, they appear normal. James Reynolds, a pediatric ophthalmologist at State University of New York in Buffalo, noted, "A video could capture [eyeshine] easily, just like in nature films of leopards at night."
I can't seem to take a flash photo of my dog without seeing her eyes shine back at me, so I don't see why they can't capture the effect in this boy if it exists.
I think he's just a blue-eyed chinese boy (which is unusual but not unheard of) with exceptionally good low-light vision, but I don't believe he's developed the same low-light vision adaptation that some animals have.
Certs matter don't let this post fool you for a minute. Most of those hiring out there want everything now they don't understand it takes time hands on time to hone skills. Since they don't know the technology themselves they rely on certs as a measure of competency (their competency). Its a business and it worth a lot of money. Its not going away. It does have some value i might admit to discard altogether is ignorant. As mentioned in above posts demonstration of hands on cert understanding is impressive, but again it does not guarantee you a job just you paid more for your cert.
Lets face it who you know is probably worth more than your cert.
It really depends on the hiring manager and the type of position. If you're looking to be a cog in a big corporation hired by a non-technical manager, some certs on your resume may help you. In all likelihood you can make up any certs you want and he'll never know or check up on you.
But if you're working for a smaller company or a tech company with a hiring manager that has some technical knowledge, the cert might have some value at getting you past HR, but won't help you get the job.
I know I never look at certs, but I do like to see at least a 4 year degree in a technical major (but experience trumps education)
If you aren't capable of, nor driven to, research on your own to find this answer, then you don't deserve the jobs.
They want to hire people who can get things done....not people who just ask other people on the Internet to do their work for them.
Which, loosely translated, means "I don't know either, but if you look hard enough you might find something, but it's probably not going to be one of the countries you'd be willing to move to".
Uh... Outlook doesn't come "free with office". In fact, the versions of Office with Outlook are much more expensive than those without. Outlook is the killer app in the group. That said, I agree with the rest of your post.
I'm talking about enterprise licensed Office - I don't know what comes with the consumer/small business Office suites. By the time you're big enough to need an AD server to manage your network, you're big enough for a volume license program.
The "Office Standard 2010" available under their volume licensing program comes with Outlook:
It's easy to just ditch any Microsoft technology. But for once, Hyper-v isn't totally crap. It's a way better than ESXi, and comparable to Xen (in fact, they got their inspiration from working with Xen guys, and the architecture is the same as for Xen). The issue here, btw, wasn't hyper-v itself, just its support inside OpenStack.
It's not that easy to ditch any MS technology - they built their company on tie-in, both for technical reasons and licensing reasons.
Their products work so well together that it's easy to get locked in. You start with MS-Office on Windows, then as your office grows you add a Windows Fileserver and AD server to manage the workstations and an Exchange server since it integrates well with Outlook and Outlook comes free with Office. Your accounting system runs on SQL/Server and you want to see more detailed reports so you add a reporting server. So many people want to see real-time reports so you add a Sharepoint server.
Now you've got a half dozen (or more) Window servers running your office. When it comes time to build your website, well you've already got Windows admins and developers, so.Net is the natural platform to use. You've committed yourself to buying so many CAL's for various products that new servers don't really cost much, certainly not enough to make it worthwhile to hire a Linux admin and start building on open source.
Oh, and hard-core WIndows developers/admins are just like hard-core Mac and Linux developers/admins - they love their platform and don't want to try anything else.
"How extensive? 25 million dollars worth of extensive."
"has damaged a $244 million aircraft beyond repair."
get your damn story right, is it going to take 25 million to hose out the inside of this wing, or is this mistake going to cost us 244 million to replace? The whole situation sounds over dramatic and blown out of proportion anyway.
Exactly - if the airplane was not recoverable, then it was $244M of damage, not $25M. Or maybe if there was $100M of damage then it was not worth trying to fix it.
I know someone who spent $3K putting a new engine into his $30K car after the oil change place didn't tighten the drain plug sufficiently and it worked itself loose on the highway and he dumped all of his oil. (well the oil change place paid for it).
While paying 10% of the price of the car was expensive, it was still worth fixing it. Why didn't they fix the $244M plane when it had $25M of damage?
If TSA is compiling data about me from public posts, can I file a FOIA request to see what information they've compiled so I can verify that it's accurate and really is from me?
I'm assuming that they aren't restricting themselves to scanning foreign based tweets only since any terrorist intent on destroying America by digging up the remains of a long-deceased Hollywood starlet could avoid detection by tweeting from a USA account.
If I said "I'm dying for a cigarette" would you immediately put me on suicide watch or would you recognize the cultural meaning of "I really need a cigarette"? In British parlance, they'd say "I could murder a fag" (fag means cigarette there, and the usage of "destroy" or "murder" can mean "ravenously consume"
Maybe they should say "I could suck a fag" which clarifies the intent?
Manufacturer brand names count for a lot these days. Viz. Apple, Android, ThinkPad, Samsung
Not as much as you might think.
Large retailers can set pricepoints the manufacturer has to meet if they want to sell product in their store. Apple's brand name might be safe, but Android means nothing (look at the cheap Android tablets that don't have access to the Google app store) and Samsung is probably just as happy as anyone else to create a low-end product for the chain stores.
See the classic example of Snapper Mowers, the company that decided that sacrificing quality was not worth the better sales (at lower margins):
And I believe it's true... you get what you pay for when you shop at Walmart - a Walmart mower is practically disposable every year or two, even if you can manage to get it to start up again after a couple seasons, you'll find that the mower deck is rusting through and the bolts that hold the engine to the deck are pulling out. I'm still using the Snapper mower that my dad gave me 10 years ago, the only work I've done is regular oil changes, cleaning the air filter, and I rejetted the carburetor the year I forgot to drain the gas before storing it. Good luck finding parts for a 5 year old Walmart mower.
Their worst nightmare is people like me that usually choose to research and shop online without ever setting foot in the store.
Say you buy a laptop, but you can't stand its screen. Or you buy a smartphone, but you can't stand the typo rate when you try to enter text with your fat fingers on its on-screen keyboard. If you had had a chance to try it in the store, you might have been able to avoid buying it in the first place.
That's why I do online research first - I have never bought a laptop or phone in a retail store, and I've never returned either a laptop or a phone because I didn't like it.
10 minutes in a store is hardly enough time to decide if I'm going to like it when I use it long-term at home anyway.
A retailer's worst nightmare isn't people that come into their stores and comparison shop online while they are surrounded by in-store advertising and are subject to impulse purchases. Their worst nightmare is people like me that usually choose to research and shop online without ever setting foot in the store.
If Target starts selling a bunch of house-brand crap that I can't research online, I'll be even less likely to buy something there. Unless it's cheap stuff like cleaning supplies, but I usually just buy the store brand of stuff like that anyway.
I just snapped together 3 black legos to create a nearly exact replica of an I.C... at least as close to the original as I could make with legos.
If I can find a few more black legos, I think I can make a replica of the 40 pin DIP package of the Z-80 CPU that drives the original poster's ZX81 computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the time sharp braking is for something which shouldn't be in front of the car,
if anything this sounds like it will reward drivers who aren't as focused on the road,
blindly running over pedestrians and driving dangerously slow to avoid "badly managed
turns."
If it happens once or twice a month, they can consider it an anomaly due to something completely unexpected in front of your car. But if you're swerving or slamming on the brakes every time you drive, then maybe you need to slow down and leave more space between you and the car in front of you.
Do you really think your GPS is accurate enough to detect a swerve? (:
Don't worry, I'm quite sure it isn't and that they won't be judging you by that kind of maneuver.
Perhaps not, but an accelerometer is.
used to mandate refunds for DRM-protected materials in the event that the parent company shuts down / goes bankrupt, which is one of the biggest problems with our increasing use of digital media (books, movies, etc).
Right because companies that are shutting down or filing for bankruptcy have money to pay their debts ...
They could keep the DRM keys in escrow, to be released to the world if the company shuts down and no one else steps in to keep the DRM servers running.
In large disk subsystems used for archival, the assumption is generally that >90% of the data is never read back. That's why they're heavily write-optimized. /dev/null.
Now if we could determine which data isn't needed any more, we could store it on
I once worked at a place that had a hierarchical storage system that did pretty much just that -- little used data was migrated off of expensive disks to tape. However, due to a a flaw in the tape drive or the tapes themselves, over time the data became unreadable, leaving much of the data that was migrated off of disk unreadable. Most of it was recovered from backups (which fortunately used a completely different tape system).
Do companies still use HSM that moves data to tape or is everyone using cheap SATA disks for "cheap" storage now?
What is key management like on these civilian encrypted radio systems? Can a single stolen (or hacked) key decrypt transmissions indefinitely? Do they regularly replace the keys? How do they securely update keys across hundreds of radios in the field?
Why don't more companies use an IPO auction format so anyone that wants shares can get them? Google did it and it seemed to work out ok for them:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125045821555835141.html
It seems more fair for the individual investor - if they want in on an IPO, they can do it, they don't have to be an "insider".
It seems better for the company - their stock gets issued at the maximum price the market is willing to pay, so they get the best valuation they can get.
Of course, it's bad for the banks since they don't get insider shares to give to their preferred investors who all get to share in the "pop" after the IPO. This pop does no one any good except the insiders that got to buy the shares at the IPO price. It's money that the company left on the table, they should have priced higher.
Oh wait, I guess I answered my own question - banks would never go for it for most companies. But, like Google, Facebook had the clout to force it on them.
They do occasionally find stolen cars. Mine was found after 3 weeks, sitting on a side street. They called me to come get it, didn't run prints or in any way investigate who might have stolen it, "just get it out of here"
At least they let you come pick it up -- in many cities they'll treat it as an abandoned vehicle and tow it and charge you the tow and impound fees:
http://blog.sfgate.com/cwnevius/2009/11/11/car-stolen-that-will-cost-you-300-part-ii/
Wouldn't this be an end-run around warrantless GPS tracking, which the USA Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/supreme-court-holds-warrantless-gps-tracking-unconstitutional.ars
Who needs GPS tracking if you can put these on every government building, police car, and city vehicle (including buses) to track license numbers? City surveillance cameras could be linked in too.
(I realize this article is about use in Canada, but this technology is starting to get some use in the USA as well)
What does "Fresher skills" even mean? The only skills I've seen someone fresh out of college have are coding skills. That's not the same as software development skills. That 45 year old developer that cut his teeth on C/C++ can pick up Ruby in a short time, but it's going to take the fresh college graduate years before he learns the skills he needs to work on a large development effort as a part of a team. Granted, there are exceptions to both rules. Sometimes the 45 year old doesn't want to learn anything new, and sometimes the college grad is some kind of programming god. But what I've usually seen happen is that the senior members of the team end up cleaning up after the junior members.
What is true, of course, is that the new college grad is often willing to work for more hours and less pay than the older guy. But then, the older guy never comes in hung over and rarely breaks his leg on a ski trip or while mountain biking (I've had both happen to 20-something year old employees). And he's less likely to job hop -- one thing managers tend to underestimate is the cost of losing an employee because of all of the institutional knowledge that leaves with them.
The best hiring decision I made was bringing in a 50 year old developer to work on a project that had been developed by our young, bright team. The project was becoming unmaintainable, bugs were adding up and the team was falling behind. The senior guy helped rearchitect the software to make it not only more maintainable, but more scalable - the newly designed product was more easily scaled horizontally and it needed about 30% less hardware to run. Th funny thing is that since we were competing with startups, we were paying some of the younger team members more than the more senior guy.
I had a biology professor who studied with someone who had a tapetum lucidum, which was great fun when they were working on a field survey in the desert at night -- the guy almost got shot as an aggressive coyote until he got close enough for the others to see his outline. Fortunately, the professor wasn't a trigger happy sort of person.
Anecdotal reports in that class suggested that humans were selectively bred for lousy night vision; those whose eyes glowed in the dark were burned as witches or lynched as werewolves or whatever during the middle ages. Also, physics suggests that increasing light sensitivity by using a tapetum lucidum comes at a cost to resolving power and angular resolution.
I'd like to see a source for this -- having a human spontaneously develop a tapetum lucidum seems unlikely and details about any human who did so should be well documented since it would be such an unusual case.
http://www.livescience.com/18209-china-cat-eyed-boy-night-vision.html
Furthermore, there is no single genetic mutation that could produce a fully formed and functioning tapetum lucidum, Reynolds explained; such an ability would require multiple mutations, which don't just happen all at once. Evolution happens incrementally, he said, not by leaps and bounds. "Evolutionarily, mutations can result in differences that allow for new environmental niche exploitation. But such mutations are modified over long periods. A functional tapetum in a human would be just as absurd as a human born with wings. It can't happen,
I'll go tell _average joe/jane_ to go and get AIX, and dump ubuntu+unity which they like so much because it's shiny and pretty.
Few average Joe's have 72TB of disk space, and even for those that do, they're probably ok with 30 - 60 minutes of FSCK time. And more likely, instead of 100's of millions of files, they probably have a few million, so their fsck time will be in the 3 - 15 minute time range.
I've seen servers that take over 3 minutes for their POST check.
Despite the claims that his eyes have a retroreflective tapetum lucidum, they can't capture it on camera:
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2115-china-cat-eyed-boy-night-vision.html
In the footage, Nong's teacher claims the boy's eyes flash when shined with a flashlight in the dark, but the reporters don't seem to be able to catch the effect on camera. When Nong's eyes are illuminated in the dark, they appear normal. James Reynolds, a pediatric ophthalmologist at State University of New York in Buffalo, noted, "A video could capture [eyeshine] easily, just like in nature films of leopards at night."
I can't seem to take a flash photo of my dog without seeing her eyes shine back at me, so I don't see why they can't capture the effect in this boy if it exists.
I think he's just a blue-eyed chinese boy (which is unusual but not unheard of) with exceptionally good low-light vision, but I don't believe he's developed the same low-light vision adaptation that some animals have.
Certs matter don't let this post fool you for a minute. Most of those hiring out there want everything now they don't understand it takes time hands on time to hone skills. Since they don't know the technology themselves they rely on certs as a measure of competency (their competency). Its a business and it worth a lot of money. Its not going away. It does have some value i might admit to discard altogether is ignorant. As mentioned in above posts demonstration of hands on cert understanding is impressive, but again it does not guarantee you a job just you paid more for your cert.
Lets face it who you know is probably worth more than your cert.
It really depends on the hiring manager and the type of position. If you're looking to be a cog in a big corporation hired by a non-technical manager, some certs on your resume may help you. In all likelihood you can make up any certs you want and he'll never know or check up on you.
But if you're working for a smaller company or a tech company with a hiring manager that has some technical knowledge, the cert might have some value at getting you past HR, but won't help you get the job.
I know I never look at certs, but I do like to see at least a 4 year degree in a technical major (but experience trumps education)
If you aren't capable of, nor driven to, research on your own to find this answer, then you don't deserve the jobs.
They want to hire people who can get things done....not people who just ask other people on the Internet to do their work for them.
Which, loosely translated, means "I don't know either, but if you look hard enough you might find something, but it's probably not going to be one of the countries you'd be willing to move to".
Uh... Outlook doesn't come "free with office". In fact, the versions of Office with Outlook are much more expensive than those without. Outlook is the killer app in the group. That said, I agree with the rest of your post.
I'm talking about enterprise licensed Office - I don't know what comes with the consumer/small business Office suites. By the time you're big enough to need an AD server to manage your network, you're big enough for a volume license program.
The "Office Standard 2010" available under their volume licensing program comes with Outlook:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/office2010.aspx
It's easy to just ditch any Microsoft technology. But for once, Hyper-v isn't totally crap. It's a way better than ESXi, and comparable to Xen (in fact, they got their inspiration from working with Xen guys, and the architecture is the same as for Xen). The issue here, btw, wasn't hyper-v itself, just its support inside OpenStack.
It's not that easy to ditch any MS technology - they built their company on tie-in, both for technical reasons and licensing reasons.
Their products work so well together that it's easy to get locked in. You start with MS-Office on Windows, then as your office grows you add a Windows Fileserver and AD server to manage the workstations and an Exchange server since it integrates well with Outlook and Outlook comes free with Office. Your accounting system runs on SQL/Server and you want to see more detailed reports so you add a reporting server. So many people want to see real-time reports so you add a Sharepoint server.
Now you've got a half dozen (or more) Window servers running your office. When it comes time to build your website, well you've already got Windows admins and developers, so .Net is the natural platform to use. You've committed yourself to buying so many CAL's for various products that new servers don't really cost much, certainly not enough to make it worthwhile to hire a Linux admin and start building on open source.
Oh, and hard-core WIndows developers/admins are just like hard-core Mac and Linux developers/admins - they love their platform and don't want to try anything else.
What? No CZ on Linux?
Ok, I give up, what is CZ?
The closest I could find was Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, but I'm not sure why that particular game (which came out 7 or 8 years ago) is relevant?
There is a Linux game company?
"How extensive? 25 million dollars worth of extensive."
"has damaged a $244 million aircraft beyond repair."
get your damn story right, is it going to take 25 million to hose out the inside of this wing, or is this mistake going to cost us 244 million to replace? The whole situation sounds over dramatic and blown out of proportion anyway.
Exactly - if the airplane was not recoverable, then it was $244M of damage, not $25M. Or maybe if there was $100M of damage then it was not worth trying to fix it.
I know someone who spent $3K putting a new engine into his $30K car after the oil change place didn't tighten the drain plug sufficiently and it worked itself loose on the highway and he dumped all of his oil. (well the oil change place paid for it).
While paying 10% of the price of the car was expensive, it was still worth fixing it. Why didn't they fix the $244M plane when it had $25M of damage?
If TSA is compiling data about me from public posts, can I file a FOIA request to see what information they've compiled so I can verify that it's accurate and really is from me?
I'm assuming that they aren't restricting themselves to scanning foreign based tweets only since any terrorist intent on destroying America by digging up the remains of a long-deceased Hollywood starlet could avoid detection by tweeting from a USA account.
If I said "I'm dying for a cigarette" would you immediately put me on suicide watch or would you recognize the cultural meaning of "I really need a cigarette"? In British parlance, they'd say "I could murder a fag" (fag means cigarette there, and the usage of "destroy" or "murder" can mean "ravenously consume"
Maybe they should say "I could suck a fag" which clarifies the intent?
Manufacturer brand names count for a lot these days. Viz. Apple, Android, ThinkPad, Samsung
Not as much as you might think.
Large retailers can set pricepoints the manufacturer has to meet if they want to sell product in their store. Apple's brand name might be safe, but Android means nothing (look at the cheap Android tablets that don't have access to the Google app store) and Samsung is probably just as happy as anyone else to create a low-end product for the chain stores.
See the classic example of Snapper Mowers, the company that decided that sacrificing quality was not worth the better sales (at lower margins):
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapper.html
And I believe it's true... you get what you pay for when you shop at Walmart - a Walmart mower is practically disposable every year or two, even if you can manage to get it to start up again after a couple seasons, you'll find that the mower deck is rusting through and the bolts that hold the engine to the deck are pulling out. I'm still using the Snapper mower that my dad gave me 10 years ago, the only work I've done is regular oil changes, cleaning the air filter, and I rejetted the carburetor the year I forgot to drain the gas before storing it. Good luck finding parts for a 5 year old Walmart mower.
Their worst nightmare is people like me that usually choose to research and shop online without ever setting foot in the store.
Say you buy a laptop, but you can't stand its screen. Or you buy a smartphone, but you can't stand the typo rate when you try to enter text with your fat fingers on its on-screen keyboard. If you had had a chance to try it in the store, you might have been able to avoid buying it in the first place.
That's why I do online research first - I have never bought a laptop or phone in a retail store, and I've never returned either a laptop or a phone because I didn't like it.
10 minutes in a store is hardly enough time to decide if I'm going to like it when I use it long-term at home anyway.
A retailer's worst nightmare isn't people that come into their stores and comparison shop online while they are surrounded by in-store advertising and are subject to impulse purchases. Their worst nightmare is people like me that usually choose to research and shop online without ever setting foot in the store.
If Target starts selling a bunch of house-brand crap that I can't research online, I'll be even less likely to buy something there. Unless it's cheap stuff like cleaning supplies, but I usually just buy the store brand of stuff like that anyway.
I just snapped together 3 black legos to create a nearly exact replica of an I.C... at least as close to the original as I could make with legos.
If I can find a few more black legos, I think I can make a replica of the 40 pin DIP package of the Z-80 CPU that drives the original poster's ZX81 computer.