Hybrids are probably overhyped, but I thought most educated consumers these days realized that they got the biggest efficiency gains in two types of driving: 1) lower-speed, stop-and-go city traffic, where they can mainly use the electric drivetrain, and sometimes turn off the engine entirely for brief periods; and 2) constant-speed highway travel, where they mainly use the gas engine, but one that can be made smaller due to being able to rely on the electric assist when needed. Yes, if you frequently accelerate at higher speeds, you'll use both the electric and gas engines and not save much. Do people not know this?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, people are stupid and don't care to educate themselves.
The specs are EPA fuel economy, which is actually a pretty decent system (disclaimer: I hate many things the EPA does, like diesel particulate filters, among other things). The BEST thing about EPA fuel economy ratings is that they're the same test across the board. Miles uphill/downhill/stop and go/air conditioning on/off/windows up/down/highway/slow speeds etc.
No one can expect to always get what the EPA rates a vehicle at.
Hybrids ARE overhyped, though. They are not the end-all cure-all of the fuel problems that the new Prius commercials try to show. We will see, as the cars begin breaking down, how large their actual carbon footprint is. As far as fuel economy, they aren't the best either. VW Jetta TDI's typically enjoy similar mileage as a Prius. A hybrid is a good vehicle used in city driving conditions, especially taxis.
Hybrids aren't great. But they are a good step in the right direction. I still think a hybrid Jetta TDI would be way better than a Prius could ever be, simply because its diesel engine alone is as efficient as the whole Prius power train.
Part of the problem with this is that the pro-PIPA/SOPA groups themselves are larger and more numerous and wealthier than the anti-PIPA/SOPA groups. But it looks like all my reps will be voting for it, and that is NOT an adequate representation of my interests.
I E-mailed my senators about Net Neutrality stuff, and I'd very much like to E-mail them about this.
The problem is that I'm not familiar enough with SOPA/PIPA to adequately explain it to them, I'm in college and with my course load and job search now I don't have the time to research it in detail, otherwise I'd be on top of it.
Honest question: What would be the best letter to write to my state senators (and I'll try to get people I know to do similar) to sum up SOPA/PIPA and demand that they vote it down?
I've got a nephew that I very much want to foster such curiosity. Not just computers but all the STEM disciplines. He's four now so I'm working on getting stuff set up for the next several years.
Do you know of anything online that is similar to Nibble & Byte magazine? Or would I most likely have to come up with my own games?
It's General Dynamics and Fluor and countless other DOD contractors. My time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Infantryman was beyond understandably austere. Larger bases has clean flush toilets, clean showers every day, fresh cooked food every day including pop (soda) and ice cream. They had Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway, Green Beans coffee, movie theaters, dance night... Reliable communication back home. Mail delivery every day. Gyms. And electricity. We shat in bags and burned it. We were able to shower at most once a week. Our Staff NCO's had to pay out of their own pocket to get a water pump that worked. We usually lacked air conditioning or heat in our bunks...
All that we lacked is understandable and doesn't bother me at all. What bothered me was that the POG's had it, and bitched if they lost it like it was their right to have it while we ate stuff I wouldn't feed to my dogs.
When it was suggested by a Marine General in charge of such things that they cut back on these MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) activities in Stars and Stripes, there was outlandish backlash from POG's (Person Other than Grunt) about how it would affect them and how they needed these services. Nevermind that he wanted to cut them back to divert the funding for these activities to us that were farther deployed and had practically none of that.
Virtually all of these services are provided by civilian DOD contractors. I think the largest compound in Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan was the Fluor compound.
While there IS waste in military spending, it dwarfs compared to what is spent on unnecessary contractors. Hell, they built a golf course in Baghdad for the Generals to play golf!
I do think it was a fantastic ending. I just wanted him to win, so the ending came at a shock initially. I buddy that read it agreed. There's no closure. But the closure is kinda deeper, as you mentioned: it's the entire story again, but better.
Stephen King was right when he said that it wasn't the ending that mattered, it was the story. If it was the ending, everyone would just flip to the last page and be done with it (said in the prologue to one of the newer-released versions).
I just got done with Don Quixote which I found highly amusing and funny, if difficult to follow at times. Very verbose, but extremely interesting. Unlike many story-telling media these days where we wind up with repetitive stories (Dan Brown's novels all share very similar plotlines/main characters/rising action/falling action/plot twist; other better examples exist), Don Quixote never seemed repetitive. I enjoyed it greatly.
My next is Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno. I don't care much for poetry but I'm giving it a shot.
After that I'm tackling the Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist papers, and some Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Machiavelli, and The Social Contract (I have minor political ambitions, mostly just want to be able to affect lawmaking)
I'd recommend grabbing something you normally don't read, that's what I did with Don Quixote; I grabbed it because it's the first "modern novel" and I wanted to see what that was all about.
If you want something else fun, might I recommend Lolita. It's interesting. I've had several friends that have read Atlas Shrugged with mixed reviews. Battlefield Earth is one of my favorites, despite the movie and author's religions nutcrackery (that should totally be a word!).
I've had my share of fantasy, from "Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan, to "Sword of Truth" by Terry Goodkind, and Elantris and "Mistborn" trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Of those my favorite were everything AFTER "Wheel of Time" (mostly because they have been finished).
Band of Brothers and Generation Kill were also very good books. If you want any kind of insight into what Marines faced in Iraq, definitely read Generation Kill, it's the best I've found that captures the experience of being an infantry Marine in a combat zone.
I also read Neil Strauss' Emergency and based on his writing style picked up and read The Game. Those were interesting in themselves...
The Gunslinger series by Stephen King is also fantastic. Definitely THE best series I've read, though I disliked the part where he brought himself into the books, I felt he overdid that a bit. The ending will piss you off, though.
With "innocent until proven guilty", the burden should be on the plaintiff to prove that the defendant didn't have the right to use it as it was used. You don't have to necessarily prove your innocence, THEY have to prove your guilt.
Seriously. Call me ignorant, or just plain dumb, if you must, but what is so bad about a software patent?
Here's my understanding of the patent system...
Basically, a normal patent protects an inventor for the product invented for a set number of years. One can argue all day about the implementation of the system, which I do understand is broken, but it seems that the basic premise is fine.
The logical extension of this leads to software patents; in software, though, the "product" is an idea, but how is this different from a normal patent? In the normal situation, a product is created and is patented. In software, an idea is created and patented, they are both effectively the same thing.
From a post above:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack
Let's rephrase: The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a product that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
In my understanding, the former is bad, but the latter is acceptable. Why is this so, or are software patents and physical patents equally evil? Or are the patents fine, just the implementation that is screwed? It seems no different to me than a physical patent protecting an inventor for his invention, in the case of software just change "physical" to "software" and what's the problem?
Sure, anyone can come up with an idea, and people see it as unfair that the originator of the idea is the only one that can get the credit and can claim ownership, but isn't that kind of the way of the world? Einstein owns relativity, but surely someone would have come up with it later if he did not. There are numerous patents on various physical objects we use everyday and they belong to their originator (or first to file the claim for it) and those who use the design later are infringing...so why is it so bad/different when done with software? Scale?
You don't see that sort of thing with gas or diesel cars, so it is worth noting.
No, you only see something like my friend's truck, which spontaneously caught fire driving down the road and burned up the entire cab.
It was determined to be a rotted fuel line
But fire many weeks after, and seemingly unrelated, is totally an EV problem, you're totally right.
It's also worth testing to determine just how much of an accident it takes to cause this. Are we talking back into a pole in the parking lot and three weeks later it burns your house down or is it just in the sort of accidents where you won't be driving it afterward anyway?
Obviously it will have to be an accident of sufficient force to impale the battery. Have you ever tried to impale a battery? It's not the simplest thing in the world to do.
In response to the currently open bill regarding repealing the FCC's rules on Net Neutrality:
Sen. <LASTNAME>,
I am not sure what your current stance is on Net Neutrality, but as a citizen in your state I urge you to vote this down. Net neutrality is a good thing. In it's most basic form, net neutrality keeps the internet AS IT IS NOW; removing net neutrality will allow ISP's to regulate traffic based on content provider (suppose Microsoft pays Comcast a fee; in return, Comcast is legally allowed to restrict/slow traffic from competing providers such as Google and Yahoo). This is not NECESSARILY what will happen, but with money and profits motivating, is pretty much the only foreseeable consequence of repealing net neutrality, if not with Microsoft/Google/Yahoo necessarily, then with others.
Ending net neutrality could open the doors to other services doing the same: cellular phone providers providing less reliable service to phone calls to other networks, for instance.
The internet started open, it needs to remain open. Many people are simply unaware of this issue due to the technological nature of it, but speaking with anyone as to whether to keep the internet as is or allow restrictions based on who the content provider is, almost everyone will see the sense in keeping the internet as-is.
There is no benefit FOR THE PEOPLE of ending net neutrality. It only benefits corporations and profits.
I again strongly urge you to MAINTAIN NET NEUTRALITY.
Thank you for your time,
My name
I know I'm not totally 100% correct on everything, but it gets the point across. Hopefully it gets read and enough are sent in that it gets noticed before they vote.
Well said. Being an atheist does give some hurdles to the election process, and you're probably right; I doubt you could get elected to any serious position that had a possibility of effecting some change.
So spreading the word is the best you can do, same with me for now. Too often I hear people that just complain and don't do anything except say how much things suck. Myself, I actually started a website, but had to take the server down due to an unfortunate series of events that cause me to lose my free hosting.
So let's get started. If you aren't actively pursuing this, you are part of the problem (the problem being our country's quiet acquiescence to total government control).
There shouldn't be even a single person complaining about the bank bailouts or Wall Street who still has an account with these money pimps. If you do business with them, you are an enabler and partially responsible for the bank meltdown of '08.
Use credit card with rewards and no annual fees. Pay off credit cards monthly to incur 0 interest. Redeem rewards.Visa/Mastercard/Discover/AmEx still get their cut, but the card issuer doesn't. Just be responsible with it, and there's no reason people can't take advantage of rewards cards.
I remember a tour of the courthouse in town one time, the judge's dais had a hole in the floor; he could open the trap door with his feet and stand, and appear at the same level as if he were sitting on his chair. This allowed him to sit or stand, so that he didn't get uncomfortable during long trials.
May or may not be an option for you, but if it is, I'd imagine it'd be cheaper than an adjustable desk.
These computers are classified, that means no connection to the net, no writable media drives...
Classified computers have writable media drives.
And just because it's classified, doesn't mean data can't get onto the 'net. It's the same wires, and if it's SIPR, that's already been done. During my Iraq tour NIC's were sending usage information back to the manufacturer, the computers were on SIPR, the manufacturer wasn't. The manufacturer was getting the information...
Specific steps are taken when moving data off them to prevent any data except what was requested is removed.
Yes, that is how it is SUPPOSED to be. But that's not how it IS.
My mother went through a similar situation. Sort of.
It went like this: She got a job offer at a company (B) that had better offices, a more interesting aspect of the same job, giving her more importance at the company, more respect, and significantly more money.
She told her boss where she worked (company A) that she got this job offer and was considering it.
Boss A counter-offered with more money. She considered.
Company B counter-offered with more money. She considered.
A counter-offered, B counter-offered...each time she'd tell the other company what the new offer was, and finally decided after 4 counter-offers to go with Company B.
So my advice would be to tell your colleagues and friends that you've received this offer. Tell them it's extremely tempting (do it over a beer or something) because it's more money and gives you way more time during your day, but you understand the burden it would place on your existing company and friends/colleagues.. I think, especially in an informal setting like a few drinks, it would naturally move to how it would affect your current company, and maybe what they can do for you.
I am an extremely firm believer that communication easily eliminates over 95% of people's problems with each other. If you communicate this to your current company, and it goes extremely bad, the decision is made; that's the worst that happens. The best is that you get the companies fighting over you like my mother and get to pick the best for you.
Also, unless these are going to be friends for many, many years, do what YOU have to do. What YOU want to do. Sometimes you have to take care of Number 1 first.
So basically, this system is selecting people to turn into criminals. There is no preventative value here... increased surveillance on anyone will eventually yield evidence that can be used for criminal prosecution.
DHS has no real intrinsic value. There is no perceivable "terrorist" [in quotes because ANYTHING is "terrorism" these days] threat to us; DHS is just looking for something to do to keep them "important." There are people who hate us, and if they decide to use terrorist tactics, they WILL succeed. We have to live with that, you can't openly fight an enemy that does not show his face. What DHS DOES, though, is make it extremely EASY and very damaging for a terrorist act, with HUGE lines at airports for "security" where people stand around impatiently waiting and wouldn't ever notice a bag sitting on the floor in throngs of people. Then it goes "boom" and everyone dies and our totalitarian state gets kicked up a notch.
No, this isn't DHS trying to protect us. This is the government going 1984 on our asses.
And seriously, WHO in the DHS actually thinks this is a good idea? The people developing this, obviously, but how can they possibly think it's a good idea?
Slashdot Mirror
What's next; extraditing people to China for speaking badly of the communist regime over there?
Shit dude. Umm, you shouldn't have said that. It's been nice knowing you. Those bastards are going to...shit, I better go hide now...
Hybrids are probably overhyped, but I thought most educated consumers these days realized that they got the biggest efficiency gains in two types of driving: 1) lower-speed, stop-and-go city traffic, where they can mainly use the electric drivetrain, and sometimes turn off the engine entirely for brief periods; and 2) constant-speed highway travel, where they mainly use the gas engine, but one that can be made smaller due to being able to rely on the electric assist when needed. Yes, if you frequently accelerate at higher speeds, you'll use both the electric and gas engines and not save much. Do people not know this?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, people are stupid and don't care to educate themselves.
The specs are EPA fuel economy, which is actually a pretty decent system (disclaimer: I hate many things the EPA does, like diesel particulate filters, among other things). The BEST thing about EPA fuel economy ratings is that they're the same test across the board. Miles uphill/downhill/stop and go/air conditioning on/off/windows up/down/highway/slow speeds etc.
No one can expect to always get what the EPA rates a vehicle at.
Hybrids ARE overhyped, though. They are not the end-all cure-all of the fuel problems that the new Prius commercials try to show. We will see, as the cars begin breaking down, how large their actual carbon footprint is. As far as fuel economy, they aren't the best either. VW Jetta TDI's typically enjoy similar mileage as a Prius. A hybrid is a good vehicle used in city driving conditions, especially taxis.
Hybrids aren't great. But they are a good step in the right direction. I still think a hybrid Jetta TDI would be way better than a Prius could ever be, simply because its diesel engine alone is as efficient as the whole Prius power train.
Part of the problem with this is that the pro-PIPA/SOPA groups themselves are larger and more numerous and wealthier than the anti-PIPA/SOPA groups. But it looks like all my reps will be voting for it, and that is NOT an adequate representation of my interests.
I E-mailed my senators about Net Neutrality stuff, and I'd very much like to E-mail them about this.
The problem is that I'm not familiar enough with SOPA/PIPA to adequately explain it to them, I'm in college and with my course load and job search now I don't have the time to research it in detail, otherwise I'd be on top of it.
Honest question: What would be the best letter to write to my state senators (and I'll try to get people I know to do similar) to sum up SOPA/PIPA and demand that they vote it down?
I've got a nephew that I very much want to foster such curiosity. Not just computers but all the STEM disciplines. He's four now so I'm working on getting stuff set up for the next several years.
Do you know of anything online that is similar to Nibble & Byte magazine? Or would I most likely have to come up with my own games?
The waste isn't necessarily the military.
It's General Dynamics and Fluor and countless other DOD contractors. My time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Infantryman was beyond understandably austere. Larger bases has clean flush toilets, clean showers every day, fresh cooked food every day including pop (soda) and ice cream. They had Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway, Green Beans coffee, movie theaters, dance night... Reliable communication back home. Mail delivery every day. Gyms. And electricity. We shat in bags and burned it. We were able to shower at most once a week. Our Staff NCO's had to pay out of their own pocket to get a water pump that worked. We usually lacked air conditioning or heat in our bunks...
All that we lacked is understandable and doesn't bother me at all. What bothered me was that the POG's had it, and bitched if they lost it like it was their right to have it while we ate stuff I wouldn't feed to my dogs.
When it was suggested by a Marine General in charge of such things that they cut back on these MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) activities in Stars and Stripes, there was outlandish backlash from POG's (Person Other than Grunt) about how it would affect them and how they needed these services. Nevermind that he wanted to cut them back to divert the funding for these activities to us that were farther deployed and had practically none of that.
Virtually all of these services are provided by civilian DOD contractors. I think the largest compound in Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan was the Fluor compound.
While there IS waste in military spending, it dwarfs compared to what is spent on unnecessary contractors. Hell, they built a golf course in Baghdad for the Generals to play golf!
I do think it was a fantastic ending. I just wanted him to win, so the ending came at a shock initially. I buddy that read it agreed. There's no closure. But the closure is kinda deeper, as you mentioned: it's the entire story again, but better.
Stephen King was right when he said that it wasn't the ending that mattered, it was the story. If it was the ending, everyone would just flip to the last page and be done with it (said in the prologue to one of the newer-released versions).
I just got done with Don Quixote which I found highly amusing and funny, if difficult to follow at times. Very verbose, but extremely interesting. Unlike many story-telling media these days where we wind up with repetitive stories (Dan Brown's novels all share very similar plotlines/main characters/rising action/falling action/plot twist; other better examples exist), Don Quixote never seemed repetitive. I enjoyed it greatly.
My next is Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno. I don't care much for poetry but I'm giving it a shot.
After that I'm tackling the Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist papers, and some Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Machiavelli, and The Social Contract (I have minor political ambitions, mostly just want to be able to affect lawmaking)
I'd recommend grabbing something you normally don't read, that's what I did with Don Quixote; I grabbed it because it's the first "modern novel" and I wanted to see what that was all about.
If you want something else fun, might I recommend Lolita. It's interesting. I've had several friends that have read Atlas Shrugged with mixed reviews. Battlefield Earth is one of my favorites, despite the movie and author's religions nutcrackery (that should totally be a word!).
I've had my share of fantasy, from "Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan, to "Sword of Truth" by Terry Goodkind, and Elantris and "Mistborn" trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Of those my favorite were everything AFTER "Wheel of Time" (mostly because they have been finished).
Band of Brothers and Generation Kill were also very good books. If you want any kind of insight into what Marines faced in Iraq, definitely read Generation Kill, it's the best I've found that captures the experience of being an infantry Marine in a combat zone.
I also read Neil Strauss' Emergency and based on his writing style picked up and read The Game. Those were interesting in themselves...
The Gunslinger series by Stephen King is also fantastic. Definitely THE best series I've read, though I disliked the part where he brought himself into the books, I felt he overdid that a bit. The ending will piss you off, though.
With "innocent until proven guilty", the burden should be on the plaintiff to prove that the defendant didn't have the right to use it as it was used. You don't have to necessarily prove your innocence, THEY have to prove your guilt.
At least, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Or just done it on like, the second floor. Or the third.
The third floor of a concrete building is pretty immune to flooding.
You're missing the point. Someone is still paying for overpriced music. It just isn't you.
That was the case until AT&T started this 150gb data limit and I get throttled and charged extra if I go over.
Doesn't that count as a limited connection?
Or have they stopped advertising Unlimited Internet? I don't know, I don't get caps like that, but someday I will.
Thanks.
Basically, they aren't any more worse, it's just that the problem is exacerbated with software.
Seriously. Call me ignorant, or just plain dumb, if you must, but what is so bad about a software patent?
Here's my understanding of the patent system...
Basically, a normal patent protects an inventor for the product invented for a set number of years. One can argue all day about the implementation of the system, which I do understand is broken, but it seems that the basic premise is fine.
The logical extension of this leads to software patents; in software, though, the "product" is an idea, but how is this different from a normal patent? In the normal situation, a product is created and is patented. In software, an idea is created and patented, they are both effectively the same thing.
From a post above:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack
Let's rephrase: The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a product that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
In my understanding, the former is bad, but the latter is acceptable. Why is this so, or are software patents and physical patents equally evil? Or are the patents fine, just the implementation that is screwed? It seems no different to me than a physical patent protecting an inventor for his invention, in the case of software just change "physical" to "software" and what's the problem?
Sure, anyone can come up with an idea, and people see it as unfair that the originator of the idea is the only one that can get the credit and can claim ownership, but isn't that kind of the way of the world? Einstein owns relativity, but surely someone would have come up with it later if he did not. There are numerous patents on various physical objects we use everyday and they belong to their originator (or first to file the claim for it) and those who use the design later are infringing...so why is it so bad/different when done with software? Scale?
You don't see that sort of thing with gas or diesel cars, so it is worth noting.
No, you only see something like my friend's truck, which spontaneously caught fire driving down the road and burned up the entire cab.
It was determined to be a rotted fuel line
But fire many weeks after, and seemingly unrelated, is totally an EV problem, you're totally right.
It's also worth testing to determine just how much of an accident it takes to cause this. Are we talking back into a pole in the parking lot and three weeks later it burns your house down or is it just in the sort of accidents where you won't be driving it afterward anyway?
Obviously it will have to be an accident of sufficient force to impale the battery. Have you ever tried to impale a battery? It's not the simplest thing in the world to do.
In response to the currently open bill regarding repealing the FCC's rules on Net Neutrality:
Sen. <LASTNAME>,
I am not sure what your current stance is on Net Neutrality, but as a citizen in your state I urge you to vote this down. Net neutrality is a good thing. In it's most basic form, net neutrality keeps the internet AS IT IS NOW; removing net neutrality will allow ISP's to regulate traffic based on content provider (suppose Microsoft pays Comcast a fee; in return, Comcast is legally allowed to restrict/slow traffic from competing providers such as Google and Yahoo). This is not NECESSARILY what will happen, but with money and profits motivating, is pretty much the only foreseeable consequence of repealing net neutrality, if not with Microsoft/Google/Yahoo necessarily, then with others.
Ending net neutrality could open the doors to other services doing the same: cellular phone providers providing less reliable service to phone calls to other networks, for instance.
The internet started open, it needs to remain open. Many people are simply unaware of this issue due to the technological nature of it, but speaking with anyone as to whether to keep the internet as is or allow restrictions based on who the content provider is, almost everyone will see the sense in keeping the internet as-is.
There is no benefit FOR THE PEOPLE of ending net neutrality. It only benefits corporations and profits.
I again strongly urge you to MAINTAIN NET NEUTRALITY.
Thank you for your time,
My name
I know I'm not totally 100% correct on everything, but it gets the point across. Hopefully it gets read and enough are sent in that it gets noticed before they vote.
Well said. Being an atheist does give some hurdles to the election process, and you're probably right; I doubt you could get elected to any serious position that had a possibility of effecting some change.
So spreading the word is the best you can do, same with me for now. Too often I hear people that just complain and don't do anything except say how much things suck. Myself, I actually started a website, but had to take the server down due to an unfortunate series of events that cause me to lose my free hosting.
Yes.
So let's get started. If you aren't actively pursuing this, you are part of the problem (the problem being our country's quiet acquiescence to total government control).
There shouldn't be even a single person complaining about the bank bailouts or Wall Street who still has an account with these money pimps. If you do business with them, you are an enabler and partially responsible for the bank meltdown of '08.
Use credit card with rewards and no annual fees. Pay off credit cards monthly to incur 0 interest. Redeem rewards.Visa/Mastercard/Discover/AmEx still get their cut, but the card issuer doesn't. Just be responsible with it, and there's no reason people can't take advantage of rewards cards.
I remember a tour of the courthouse in town one time, the judge's dais had a hole in the floor; he could open the trap door with his feet and stand, and appear at the same level as if he were sitting on his chair. This allowed him to sit or stand, so that he didn't get uncomfortable during long trials.
May or may not be an option for you, but if it is, I'd imagine it'd be cheaper than an adjustable desk.
These computers are classified, that means no connection to the net, no writable media drives...
Classified computers have writable media drives.
And just because it's classified, doesn't mean data can't get onto the 'net. It's the same wires, and if it's SIPR, that's already been done. During my Iraq tour NIC's were sending usage information back to the manufacturer, the computers were on SIPR, the manufacturer wasn't. The manufacturer was getting the information...
Specific steps are taken when moving data off them to prevent any data except what was requested is removed.
Yes, that is how it is SUPPOSED to be. But that's not how it IS.
There really is no surprise here.
My mother went through a similar situation. Sort of.
It went like this: She got a job offer at a company (B) that had better offices, a more interesting aspect of the same job, giving her more importance at the company, more respect, and significantly more money.
She told her boss where she worked (company A) that she got this job offer and was considering it.
Boss A counter-offered with more money. She considered.
Company B counter-offered with more money. She considered.
A counter-offered, B counter-offered...each time she'd tell the other company what the new offer was, and finally decided after 4 counter-offers to go with Company B.
So my advice would be to tell your colleagues and friends that you've received this offer. Tell them it's extremely tempting (do it over a beer or something) because it's more money and gives you way more time during your day, but you understand the burden it would place on your existing company and friends/colleagues.. I think, especially in an informal setting like a few drinks, it would naturally move to how it would affect your current company, and maybe what they can do for you.
I am an extremely firm believer that communication easily eliminates over 95% of people's problems with each other. If you communicate this to your current company, and it goes extremely bad, the decision is made; that's the worst that happens. The best is that you get the companies fighting over you like my mother and get to pick the best for you.
Also, unless these are going to be friends for many, many years, do what YOU have to do. What YOU want to do. Sometimes you have to take care of Number 1 first.
Hope this was helpful
So basically, this system is selecting people to turn into criminals. There is no preventative value here... increased surveillance on anyone will eventually yield evidence that can be used for criminal prosecution.
DHS has no real intrinsic value. There is no perceivable "terrorist" [in quotes because ANYTHING is "terrorism" these days] threat to us; DHS is just looking for something to do to keep them "important." There are people who hate us, and if they decide to use terrorist tactics, they WILL succeed. We have to live with that, you can't openly fight an enemy that does not show his face. What DHS DOES, though, is make it extremely EASY and very damaging for a terrorist act, with HUGE lines at airports for "security" where people stand around impatiently waiting and wouldn't ever notice a bag sitting on the floor in throngs of people. Then it goes "boom" and everyone dies and our totalitarian state gets kicked up a notch.
No, this isn't DHS trying to protect us. This is the government going 1984 on our asses.
And seriously, WHO in the DHS actually thinks this is a good idea? The people developing this, obviously, but how can they possibly think it's a good idea?
Sure, almost like they do in our own country. Or England. Or China, I hear they're rife with infringes upon basic liberty.