Mozilla with bugmenot & flashback extensions. Gets just about every popup. Why don't I like pup-ups? Because they are annoying. Especially the ones that pop up multiple windows, each with an on-close javascript triger to open multiple more windows. That's not advertising... unless you run the company that makes pop up blocking software.
A popup is not the same thing as an ad in a magazine... ads in magazines don't cover what I'm trying to read.
that sonic blast will be like a beacon in the night pin pointing the targets' location
Just a hunch, but I'd imagine that if your ship has a torpedo coming for it, your location is no longer entirely secret.
And in response to countless posts that assume this is on a submarine, I saw no evidence in the article that this is actually for a submarine. I'd picture this more on a larger battleship or carrier.
To the environmetalists: I'm sure that the pressure wave of the torpedo detonating and then bringing the ship down (with all the chemical pollution involved there) would cause great environmental damage as well. Granted, in the article it seems they were more concerned about the environmental damage caused by TESTING the thing versus actually using it, but...
You could always go with this tiny monstrosity. The 7280 is VERY tiny. It does have a very small display, but it doesn't even have number keys. Granted, it's not meant to be your primary cell-phone, just one for a night out on the town (and that means it does have camera functionality.) From what I'd guess, you basically transfer numbers from another phone or your computer or something like that, then select which one to call.
I personally think it's really not $500, but looking at the pictures of the people using them I really don't get the feeling that I'm the target demographic here (even though I do have the tiny iPod shuffle, which is pretty much the same size. But then again I did carry an MP3 diskman around before a cellphone... maybe Apple will come out with an iPhone shuffle that just calls random people in your phone book?)
Doctors will not make the decision to treat or not to treat based on family history, but health insurance companies could make the decision to cover or not to cover based on family history. I've never beed asked about my family backround when going to a doctor. Only when filling out insurance forms. (then again, my doctor is the family practitioner so he knows anyways.)
Schmoozing. And I honestly don't mean that in a bad way. It's important for a company to keep contacts with the other companies they work with, or are considering entering into business with. When a CEO makes a deal, that deal is made with the other CEO, not the entire business (at least psychologically.) The CEO therefore wants to be someone that the other can relate to socially.
Woah, that leads to another odd thought. Most people have a very hard time sociallizing with someone much lower than themselves economically. (I have heard that for most people 80 percent of their social acquaintances have less than 20% discrepancy in annual income. Can't find any sources though, so could be just urban legend, but seems to hold true for people I know.) So for one company to do business with another, it makes reasonable sense for their CEO to make about as much money as the CEO of the other company. A company whos CEO makes less money will be put at a competitive disadvantage in inter-organizational dealings, so paying more for that salary might actually end up making more money for the corporation. I'm not saying this is actually true, but it is a possibility of the way things work.
There would be times when it makes sense to go over the head of your manager in communications.
1)Is of course when the idea that you have is not in the field of expertise of your manager. It could be an idea for a different department, or??? Specialization is such that you can NOT expect every manager to have a firm grasp on every task.
2)Your direct manager may simply be too busy to deal with the problem, and knowing that adding this task to his load may result in unacceptable short term reductions in productivity. Passing it on to a higher level of management instead means that your direct manager simply does not have to deal with the problem. The CEO or whoever can then simply delegate the problem to someone who does have time/resources to properly address it.
3)Is when your manager is incompetent, lazy or outright malevolent. Your manager will do anything in his power to prevent the higher-ups from finding that out, so direct communication with your boss's boss is necesary to get your boss straightened up or shipped out. Most people will not be comfortable ratting out their own boss, and having a pre-existing line of direct candid communication may help bring these concerns forward.
I'm sure there are many other equally valid reasons for direct communication up the chain of command. It does rely on trusting the individual employees to have a sense of proportion on what to bring up directly to the CEO, and where to find answers to find if the problem is important enough. Empowerment always comes with responsibilities.
Being a geek has become a lot easier these days. Rather than having to know all these things beforehand, we can just pop over to wikipedia and find out about it. It really covers just about everything scientific discussed on Slashdot. I'm using the term scientific here as opposed to programming and engineering.
The poster has it easier because they do not have to choose between A)assuming the audience knows everything you're talking about or B)cover every little thing to the finest detail. The reader has it easier because A)if they don't know something, they can just pop over to wikipedia or google and just search for the term and B)they don't have to read through all the stuff they already know in order to get to the point of the post.
1) Tidal forces will slow down rotation, but that is on the axis of spin, not the rotation of orbit. Eventually orbiting bodies come into lock step such that one face is always facing the other (much like how we always see the same side of the moon.)
If I'm not mistaken, tidal forces would INCREASE the distance between two rotating bodies, as the momentum or axis rotation is transfered to orbital momentum. The decay of orbit here happens due to gravitational waves caused by the massive density of the neutron stars.
The original reason for copyright, patent, etc was to stimulate the creation of Arts (using the classical definition of Arts) by granting the artist a temporary monopoly to recoup the costs of creation. The ultimate goal is that these works would enrich the American (or whichever country the copyright is granted in) culture once they are released into common domain. The problem is that this "temporary" monopoly's timeframe is getting stretched longer and longer, and it is generally not the actual artists that are benefitting. Copyright is getting so absurdly long that almost nothing actually enters the public domain. In fact, nothing will enter the public domain due to expiration of copyright untill January 1st, 1918. The works that enter PD will be those from 1923. This of course assumes that the government does not extend copyright yet again in the next 12 years.
Considering that the vast majority of the creative work produced in the United States is no longer relevant even 5 years later a 95 year copyright is simply asinine.
That analogy isn't quite right. It's more "Yeah, you can come over whenever you want and have some beer, but you gotta drink it here. Just no beers to go. Last time I did that someone had all their friends over to his place for a party with my beer."
No, you can thank the "copyright infringers" for the use of "pirating" in that way. It's been common for about as long as I can remember. The 1987 movie Amazon Women on the moon even has a skit called "video pirates" where they have pirates on the sea in search of movies to copy.
Pirate 1: Help yourself, mates. A chest full of video discs.
Pirate 2: No!
Pirate 3: What good are they?
Pirate 4: Can't record on 'em.
Pirate 2: They're not compatible with my system.
Pirate Captain: [looking at the FBI Warning on the video] Ohhh, I'm so scared.
Just so you know, I highly doubt that you will get better efficiency with a higher octane rating gasoline. The tanks kinda make it look like it is the percentage of octane in the fuel, but in reality the octane number is basically related to the range of conditions in which the fuel will ignite. The lower the number, the easier to ignite. The higher the number, the more specific conditions are needed to ignite. In higher compression sporty engines you need the higher octane gas to prevent preignition (the gasoline igniting off of residual heat in the cylinder rather than the spark.) In most commuter car engines this really isn't a concern at all.
You're best off buying whatever gas your owners manual tells you to use. Some engines with particularilly low compression or simply poor tuning will actually run WORSE on high octane gas, as they do not reach the pressures required to ignite the gasoline vapors. With most engines you're just throwing your money away by going premium.
The answer is more obvious than just pumping air in to dissipate the hydrogen gas. Simply capture the hydrogen, and run it through an H2 fuel cell to help power the car during acceleration.
Don't worry, I realize that there are probably more drawbacks to this than actual benefits. But a man can dream... right?
Most cars perform far worse power and efficiency-wise in cold weather. Your standard Chevy Caprice with a 305 engine will get around 18 MPG in the summer, and drop to about 14 MPG in the winter. Yes, you can cram more air/fuel into the cylinder when the combustion mixture is cold, but in winter temperatures the mixture can be so cold that the engine does not reach optimal operating temperatures during a drive of average length.
Besides, intercoolers are stricly for forced induction (supercharged/turbocharged) cars. What these do is get rid of the excess heat due to an increase of temperature from compressing the intake air. However, engines are designed to run most efficiently with standard temperatures of intake air. Artificially increasing the temperature will decrease efficiency, but so will drawing in extremely cold air. And volumetric efficiency is far different than miles per gallon efficiency. Volumetric efficiency is all about shoving more air into the cylinder for each stroke, thus allowing more fuel to be injected on each cycle. This works out to the same effect as a larger cylinder. Shoving more fuel into the cylinder may be a good way to get more power, but it's a horrible way to get better fuel efficiency. It's like having a 350 in that Caprice rather than a 305.
If anything, peer to peer downloading of music would decrease shoplifting. I'd imagine that the two most shoplifted items (at least when teenage males are doing the shoplifting) are music and pornography. Music simply because it is mostly teenagers who are into it, and teenagers are generally A)rebellious B)into music and C)bored. Porn would be shoplifted because of A) B) and C), but also because stores are not allowed to sell it to teenagers even if they have the money. Considering that most of the traffic on P2P is music and porn, that would drastically reduce the motive to shoplift said items. Well, throw in movies and there you have it.
The recording industry as a whole may be ahead of the curve, problem is that all these technologies allow for smaller start-up labels to actually afford some serious competition. This means that the large companies whose business model is based on huge record sale volume really can't compete in this new era. Better to just vilify all P2P, methinks.
But if it has been shown repetedly that P2P downloading actually INCREASES sales of records, then wouldn't the best interest of the recording industry be to work to INCREASE file sharing? I think that record companies are not afraid of people downloading music and then not buying the albums. I think what they are afraid of is losing their bands... The major services that a record company provides are A)recording B)publishing and C)marketing.
A)Technology has recently made recording cheap enough that anybody with enough motivation can set up their own home studio that can record well enough. The big problem comes in finding a good enough sound engineer, but there are enough young people out there who will do it for a very reasonable fee.
B)Record sales have historically made very little money for the band itself. The bands real money comes through merchandising and touring (I guess kinda like Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade?)
So, that leaves C)marketing as the main service that the recording industry provides. With P2P and other online phenomenon (blogs, etc) the marketing can now be done by the band itself at very low cost. What recording executives fear about P2P is that artists will soon realize that they don't need the record companies to actually make it big. Soon enough people will be exposed to music that is actually good, not just engineered for mass consumption. People rarely turn back once they experience real music. Especially if the distribution is essentially free, people will be willing to take the risk to listen to a new band or genre and choose for themselves what is good music.
Even if it isn't quite feasible for individual bands to start up and market themselves, a dedicated person can quite easilly start up their own recording studio which competes with all the RIAA studios. Small runs of CDs are cheaper than ever to burn, or even just go to a shop and have them actually pressed. Support for bands will come from the people that listen to them rather than some record executive. While this does mean that bands will have to work a little harder to make enough money to become music professionals, it also means that they will able to retain far more control of their own music, and bands can actually play around with different genres and sounds, coming up with the holy grail of music: something original.
What you'd really want is a pair of Redwing 2245's. Kinda expensive, but the best piece of footwear I've ever seen. Extremely durable. Waterproof ABOVE the boot for short periods of time in my experience camping in the Minnesota boundary waters (IE accidentally stepping in water and quickly pulling your foot out, or even briefly fording shallow water, socks will stay completely dry below the bootline.) Extremely light, not very clunky. VERY comfortable... Once the boots are broken in your feet won't hurt even after a day of walking on concrete carrying heavy construction materials. Grips great on just about any surface...
Biggest problem you'd probably run into is enough time to break them in. It takes about a day or two of walking before they're really comfortable (Although non-broken in Red Wing shoes/boots seem to be at least as comfortable as a cheap pair of boots.)
Although I suppose the most important thing to have down there is a contact... someone who knows were help is needed, where to get supplies, knows somewhere you can stay, etc. Without knowing someone, you won't be able to actually get anything productive done, possible even just getting in the way. Red Cross, local churches, or government organizations may be the best place to look for contacts if you don't have any yet at this point.
Besides that, lots of fresh drinking water (for you and for people you are helping), non-perishable food, basic hand tool kit. Make sure to pack enough toiletries for yourself. A good reserve of hard cash for gas on the way, plus buying those things you forgot is also a must.
I guess we could argue about where the line is for "quantum principles" but it would probably be pointless, as I suspect neither you nor I would be qualified to determine it's location.
Besides, if you did determine the location of that line to a sufficient degree, you would no longer know the line's velocity.
You can still find "old world crastmanship", but just not in the day to day homes that the average person lives in. This craftsmanship is very labor intensive and uses expensive materials, so it is unrealistic for everyone to be able to afford it. You will still find it in very high end homes currently being built (and I'm not talking about McMansions either... those are pretty low quality, just big.) But most modern housing is far more comfortable, durable and low maintenance than many of the homes that common people from previous eras lived in. It's just that those houses didn't make it to today, so all that we have left from then are the examples of exemplary craftmanship.
And the knowledge that flood plains are dangerous is still there, it's just that those areas often have other benefits that draw people and so the risk is weighed against the advantages.
Your boss is the COORDINATOR of tech support. That means he doesn't need to know the nuts and bolts of computer tech support, but instead how to connect the people that do know how to fix things to the people that have problems. Part of that connecting people would probably include hiring and firing of techs, doing payroll, and making sure that the techs are adequately doing there job. A succesful coordinator does and should have a different set of skills than the techs doing the job.
Otherwise, that would be like saying that a good travel agent should know how to fly a 747. Or like saying a good bartender should know the finer points of brewing, distilling, bottling, distrobution, financing said operation, etc. I'd rather have the bartender know how to properly pour a beer, mix a drink, slice lemons and keep them fresh, suggest drinks for different people and hold intersting conversations. Now, the finer points of brewing and distilling may make for interesting conversation for many bar patrons, but this knowledge is not essential to the trade.
Oh... thank's for the horrible memories. I used to work helpdesk for a university, and the professors were the worst clients. Some types of profs were great, some were just painful, and it pretty much depended on what type of professor they were. In order of best to worst:
Math professors: Almost never had to do anything for them, and when I did I often ended up learning new things from them. If I was called in to help them, it was almost always because they didn't have access to the resources (passwords, permissions, tools, authority to RMA parts) they needed to fix the problem themselves. Hard sciences: Just wanted it to be fixed, generally had enough of a grasp to be able to tell what they needed and enough sense to get out of the way and let me do my job. Social Sciences (psych, sociology, etc): Generally knew what they wanted to accomplish, but would have a hard time explaining what they wanted. Fine Arts: Fascinated by computers, but didn't know much aside from how to operate photoshop, word, etc. Would always promptly forget advice given. Liberal Arts (especially english): Knew exactly what they wanted their computer to do, even though it was physically impossible for them to do it at the time. Would pitch a fit when told that it's impossible, or that they would have to change the way they were doing things. Never understood why their Mac Plus was slower than everyone elses computer, or why they had to buy new stuff to get it hooked up to the internet.
I thought Toyotas made bland looking cars because of differences between American and Japanese culture. In Japan you generally won't be able to see a car from far away, so the overall shape is less important than little flourishes such as tight seams and little decorative elements. That, and the automobile is considered more of a utilitarian tool there than some fulfilment of a lifestyle.
Okay, the rules the FEC are working on here are not on whether or not you can have a political blog, they are more involved with how you finance that blog. Trying to cover loopholes which allow unethical donations (read: bribes.)
Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla with bugmenot & flashback extensions. Gets just about every popup. Why don't I like pup-ups? Because they are annoying. Especially the ones that pop up multiple windows, each with an on-close javascript triger to open multiple more windows. That's not advertising... unless you run the company that makes pop up blocking software.
A popup is not the same thing as an ad in a magazine... ads in magazines don't cover what I'm trying to read.
A punster doesn't exactly win... it's more that everyone else loses.
that sonic blast will be like a beacon in the night pin pointing the targets' location
Just a hunch, but I'd imagine that if your ship has a torpedo coming for it, your location is no longer entirely secret.
And in response to countless posts that assume this is on a submarine, I saw no evidence in the article that this is actually for a submarine. I'd picture this more on a larger battleship or carrier.
To the environmetalists: I'm sure that the pressure wave of the torpedo detonating and then bringing the ship down (with all the chemical pollution involved there) would cause great environmental damage as well. Granted, in the article it seems they were more concerned about the environmental damage caused by TESTING the thing versus actually using it, but...
You could always go with this tiny monstrosity. The 7280 is VERY tiny. It does have a very small display, but it doesn't even have number keys. Granted, it's not meant to be your primary cell-phone, just one for a night out on the town (and that means it does have camera functionality.) From what I'd guess, you basically transfer numbers from another phone or your computer or something like that, then select which one to call.
I personally think it's really not $500, but looking at the pictures of the people using them I really don't get the feeling that I'm the target demographic here (even though I do have the tiny iPod shuffle, which is pretty much the same size. But then again I did carry an MP3 diskman around before a cellphone... maybe Apple will come out with an iPhone shuffle that just calls random people in your phone book?)
Doctors will not make the decision to treat or not to treat based on family history, but health insurance companies could make the decision to cover or not to cover based on family history. I've never beed asked about my family backround when going to a doctor. Only when filling out insurance forms. (then again, my doctor is the family practitioner so he knows anyways.)
Schmoozing. And I honestly don't mean that in a bad way. It's important for a company to keep contacts with the other companies they work with, or are considering entering into business with. When a CEO makes a deal, that deal is made with the other CEO, not the entire business (at least psychologically.) The CEO therefore wants to be someone that the other can relate to socially.
Woah, that leads to another odd thought. Most people have a very hard time sociallizing with someone much lower than themselves economically. (I have heard that for most people 80 percent of their social acquaintances have less than 20% discrepancy in annual income. Can't find any sources though, so could be just urban legend, but seems to hold true for people I know.) So for one company to do business with another, it makes reasonable sense for their CEO to make about as much money as the CEO of the other company. A company whos CEO makes less money will be put at a competitive disadvantage in inter-organizational dealings, so paying more for that salary might actually end up making more money for the corporation. I'm not saying this is actually true, but it is a possibility of the way things work.
There would be times when it makes sense to go over the head of your manager in communications.
1)Is of course when the idea that you have is not in the field of expertise of your manager. It could be an idea for a different department, or??? Specialization is such that you can NOT expect every manager to have a firm grasp on every task.
2)Your direct manager may simply be too busy to deal with the problem, and knowing that adding this task to his load may result in unacceptable short term reductions in productivity. Passing it on to a higher level of management instead means that your direct manager simply does not have to deal with the problem. The CEO or whoever can then simply delegate the problem to someone who does have time/resources to properly address it.
3)Is when your manager is incompetent, lazy or outright malevolent. Your manager will do anything in his power to prevent the higher-ups from finding that out, so direct communication with your boss's boss is necesary to get your boss straightened up or shipped out. Most people will not be comfortable ratting out their own boss, and having a pre-existing line of direct candid communication may help bring these concerns forward.
I'm sure there are many other equally valid reasons for direct communication up the chain of command. It does rely on trusting the individual employees to have a sense of proportion on what to bring up directly to the CEO, and where to find answers to find if the problem is important enough. Empowerment always comes with responsibilities.
Being a geek has become a lot easier these days. Rather than having to know all these things beforehand, we can just pop over to wikipedia and find out about it. It really covers just about everything scientific discussed on Slashdot. I'm using the term scientific here as opposed to programming and engineering.
The poster has it easier because they do not have to choose between A)assuming the audience knows everything you're talking about or B)cover every little thing to the finest detail. The reader has it easier because A)if they don't know something, they can just pop over to wikipedia or google and just search for the term and B)they don't have to read through all the stuff they already know in order to get to the point of the post.
1) Tidal forces will slow down rotation, but that is on the axis of spin, not the rotation of orbit. Eventually orbiting bodies come into lock step such that one face is always facing the other (much like how we always see the same side of the moon.)
2) The moon is moving FURTHER away from Earth, not closer.
If I'm not mistaken, tidal forces would INCREASE the distance between two rotating bodies, as the momentum or axis rotation is transfered to orbital momentum. The decay of orbit here happens due to gravitational waves caused by the massive density of the neutron stars.
The original reason for copyright, patent, etc was to stimulate the creation of Arts (using the classical definition of Arts) by granting the artist a temporary monopoly to recoup the costs of creation. The ultimate goal is that these works would enrich the American (or whichever country the copyright is granted in) culture once they are released into common domain. The problem is that this "temporary" monopoly's timeframe is getting stretched longer and longer, and it is generally not the actual artists that are benefitting. Copyright is getting so absurdly long that almost nothing actually enters the public domain. In fact, nothing will enter the public domain due to expiration of copyright untill January 1st, 1918. The works that enter PD will be those from 1923. This of course assumes that the government does not extend copyright yet again in the next 12 years.
Considering that the vast majority of the creative work produced in the United States is no longer relevant even 5 years later a 95 year copyright is simply asinine.
That analogy isn't quite right. It's more "Yeah, you can come over whenever you want and have some beer, but you gotta drink it here. Just no beers to go. Last time I did that someone had all their friends over to his place for a party with my beer."
No, you can thank the "copyright infringers" for the use of "pirating" in that way. It's been common for about as long as I can remember. The 1987 movie Amazon Women on the moon even has a skit called "video pirates" where they have pirates on the sea in search of movies to copy.
Pirate 1: Help yourself, mates. A chest full of video discs.
Pirate 2: No!
Pirate 3: What good are they?
Pirate 4: Can't record on 'em.
Pirate 2: They're not compatible with my system.
Pirate Captain: [looking at the FBI Warning on the video] Ohhh, I'm so scared.
Just so you know, I highly doubt that you will get better efficiency with a higher octane rating gasoline. The tanks kinda make it look like it is the percentage of octane in the fuel, but in reality the octane number is basically related to the range of conditions in which the fuel will ignite. The lower the number, the easier to ignite. The higher the number, the more specific conditions are needed to ignite. In higher compression sporty engines you need the higher octane gas to prevent preignition (the gasoline igniting off of residual heat in the cylinder rather than the spark.) In most commuter car engines this really isn't a concern at all.
You're best off buying whatever gas your owners manual tells you to use. Some engines with particularilly low compression or simply poor tuning will actually run WORSE on high octane gas, as they do not reach the pressures required to ignite the gasoline vapors. With most engines you're just throwing your money away by going premium.
More information can be found at Wikipedia.
The answer is more obvious than just pumping air in to dissipate the hydrogen gas. Simply capture the hydrogen, and run it through an H2 fuel cell to help power the car during acceleration.
Don't worry, I realize that there are probably more drawbacks to this than actual benefits. But a man can dream... right?
Most cars perform far worse power and efficiency-wise in cold weather. Your standard Chevy Caprice with a 305 engine will get around 18 MPG in the summer, and drop to about 14 MPG in the winter. Yes, you can cram more air/fuel into the cylinder when the combustion mixture is cold, but in winter temperatures the mixture can be so cold that the engine does not reach optimal operating temperatures during a drive of average length.
Besides, intercoolers are stricly for forced induction (supercharged/turbocharged) cars. What these do is get rid of the excess heat due to an increase of temperature from compressing the intake air. However, engines are designed to run most efficiently with standard temperatures of intake air. Artificially increasing the temperature will decrease efficiency, but so will drawing in extremely cold air. And volumetric efficiency is far different than miles per gallon efficiency. Volumetric efficiency is all about shoving more air into the cylinder for each stroke, thus allowing more fuel to be injected on each cycle. This works out to the same effect as a larger cylinder. Shoving more fuel into the cylinder may be a good way to get more power, but it's a horrible way to get better fuel efficiency. It's like having a 350 in that Caprice rather than a 305.
If anything, peer to peer downloading of music would decrease shoplifting. I'd imagine that the two most shoplifted items (at least when teenage males are doing the shoplifting) are music and pornography. Music simply because it is mostly teenagers who are into it, and teenagers are generally A)rebellious B)into music and C)bored. Porn would be shoplifted because of A) B) and C), but also because stores are not allowed to sell it to teenagers even if they have the money. Considering that most of the traffic on P2P is music and porn, that would drastically reduce the motive to shoplift said items. Well, throw in movies and there you have it.
The recording industry as a whole may be ahead of the curve, problem is that all these technologies allow for smaller start-up labels to actually afford some serious competition. This means that the large companies whose business model is based on huge record sale volume really can't compete in this new era. Better to just vilify all P2P, methinks.
But if it has been shown repetedly that P2P downloading actually INCREASES sales of records, then wouldn't the best interest of the recording industry be to work to INCREASE file sharing? I think that record companies are not afraid of people downloading music and then not buying the albums. I think what they are afraid of is losing their bands... The major services that a record company provides are A)recording B)publishing and C)marketing.
A)Technology has recently made recording cheap enough that anybody with enough motivation can set up their own home studio that can record well enough. The big problem comes in finding a good enough sound engineer, but there are enough young people out there who will do it for a very reasonable fee.
B)Record sales have historically made very little money for the band itself. The bands real money comes through merchandising and touring (I guess kinda like Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade?)
So, that leaves C)marketing as the main service that the recording industry provides. With P2P and other online phenomenon (blogs, etc) the marketing can now be done by the band itself at very low cost. What recording executives fear about P2P is that artists will soon realize that they don't need the record companies to actually make it big. Soon enough people will be exposed to music that is actually good, not just engineered for mass consumption. People rarely turn back once they experience real music. Especially if the distribution is essentially free, people will be willing to take the risk to listen to a new band or genre and choose for themselves what is good music.
Even if it isn't quite feasible for individual bands to start up and market themselves, a dedicated person can quite easilly start up their own recording studio which competes with all the RIAA studios. Small runs of CDs are cheaper than ever to burn, or even just go to a shop and have them actually pressed. Support for bands will come from the people that listen to them rather than some record executive. While this does mean that bands will have to work a little harder to make enough money to become music professionals, it also means that they will able to retain far more control of their own music, and bands can actually play around with different genres and sounds, coming up with the holy grail of music: something original.
What you'd really want is a pair of Redwing 2245's. Kinda expensive, but the best piece of footwear I've ever seen. Extremely durable. Waterproof ABOVE the boot for short periods of time in my experience camping in the Minnesota boundary waters (IE accidentally stepping in water and quickly pulling your foot out, or even briefly fording shallow water, socks will stay completely dry below the bootline.) Extremely light, not very clunky. VERY comfortable... Once the boots are broken in your feet won't hurt even after a day of walking on concrete carrying heavy construction materials. Grips great on just about any surface...
Biggest problem you'd probably run into is enough time to break them in. It takes about a day or two of walking before they're really comfortable (Although non-broken in Red Wing shoes/boots seem to be at least as comfortable as a cheap pair of boots.)
Although I suppose the most important thing to have down there is a contact... someone who knows were help is needed, where to get supplies, knows somewhere you can stay, etc. Without knowing someone, you won't be able to actually get anything productive done, possible even just getting in the way. Red Cross, local churches, or government organizations may be the best place to look for contacts if you don't have any yet at this point.
Besides that, lots of fresh drinking water (for you and for people you are helping), non-perishable food, basic hand tool kit. Make sure to pack enough toiletries for yourself. A good reserve of hard cash for gas on the way, plus buying those things you forgot is also a must.
I guess we could argue about where the line is for "quantum principles" but it would probably be pointless, as I suspect neither you nor I would be qualified to determine it's location.
Besides, if you did determine the location of that line to a sufficient degree, you would no longer know the line's velocity.
You can still find "old world crastmanship", but just not in the day to day homes that the average person lives in. This craftsmanship is very labor intensive and uses expensive materials, so it is unrealistic for everyone to be able to afford it. You will still find it in very high end homes currently being built (and I'm not talking about McMansions either... those are pretty low quality, just big.) But most modern housing is far more comfortable, durable and low maintenance than many of the homes that common people from previous eras lived in. It's just that those houses didn't make it to today, so all that we have left from then are the examples of exemplary craftmanship.
And the knowledge that flood plains are dangerous is still there, it's just that those areas often have other benefits that draw people and so the risk is weighed against the advantages.
Your boss is the COORDINATOR of tech support. That means he doesn't need to know the nuts and bolts of computer tech support, but instead how to connect the people that do know how to fix things to the people that have problems. Part of that connecting people would probably include hiring and firing of techs, doing payroll, and making sure that the techs are adequately doing there job. A succesful coordinator does and should have a different set of skills than the techs doing the job.
Otherwise, that would be like saying that a good travel agent should know how to fly a 747. Or like saying a good bartender should know the finer points of brewing, distilling, bottling, distrobution, financing said operation, etc. I'd rather have the bartender know how to properly pour a beer, mix a drink, slice lemons and keep them fresh, suggest drinks for different people and hold intersting conversations. Now, the finer points of brewing and distilling may make for interesting conversation for many bar patrons, but this knowledge is not essential to the trade.
Oh... thank's for the horrible memories. I used to work helpdesk for a university, and the professors were the worst clients. Some types of profs were great, some were just painful, and it pretty much depended on what type of professor they were. In order of best to worst:
Math professors: Almost never had to do anything for them, and when I did I often ended up learning new things from them. If I was called in to help them, it was almost always because they didn't have access to the resources (passwords, permissions, tools, authority to RMA parts) they needed to fix the problem themselves.
Hard sciences: Just wanted it to be fixed, generally had enough of a grasp to be able to tell what they needed and enough sense to get out of the way and let me do my job.
Social Sciences (psych, sociology, etc): Generally knew what they wanted to accomplish, but would have a hard time explaining what they wanted.
Fine Arts: Fascinated by computers, but didn't know much aside from how to operate photoshop, word, etc. Would always promptly forget advice given.
Liberal Arts (especially english): Knew exactly what they wanted their computer to do, even though it was physically impossible for them to do it at the time. Would pitch a fit when told that it's impossible, or that they would have to change the way they were doing things. Never understood why their Mac Plus was slower than everyone elses computer, or why they had to buy new stuff to get it hooked up to the internet.
I thought Toyotas made bland looking cars because of differences between American and Japanese culture. In Japan you generally won't be able to see a car from far away, so the overall shape is less important than little flourishes such as tight seams and little decorative elements. That, and the automobile is considered more of a utilitarian tool there than some fulfilment of a lifestyle.
Okay, the rules the FEC are working on here are not on whether or not you can have a political blog, they are more involved with how you finance that blog. Trying to cover loopholes which allow unethical donations (read: bribes.)