After many years in a house and many more years in the industry, here are a few things I've discovered through experience and many professionals:
Do not pay extra on your mortgage. While you will feel better watching your balance drop, your bank will not care. Miss a payment and watch all those extra dollars and equity disappear. Better: place the money in a savings account. When the balances equal, pay off the house. In the meantime, you will have the money in the bank in case of job loss, medical emergency, or home improvement. Being able to pay the mortgage in a crisis is more important than the balance.
Do not by nifty gadgets. They will never pay for themselves. Solar roof fans? 35 years to break even. Expected life is 10 years. They are only there for your enjoyment and look at them as such.
Appliances: your most efficient appliance is the one you already have. Don't replace it until it breaks. Then by the most efficient one you can.
Spend your money on the most efficient things you can afford.
Do not get behind on maintenance. You will find yourself quickly paying more to fix your house than it is worth.
Buy a programmable thermostat. This will pay for itself in a couple of months.
Ensure your house is weather sealed. This and the thermostat can easily cut your heating and cooling in half. Don't over do it though. You'll find yourself spending lots to make the house livable again with air exchangers/circulators etc.
Unless you spend top dollar, an instant hot water heater is a disappointing luxury.
By things that make you happy. You will be in the house a long time, but don't do it with money savings in mind. You'll get more satisfaction out of a kick-ass stereo/home theatre than some lights you can turn on remotely. Light timers are way cheaper and do the same thing at a fraction of the cost.
Oh, and get you a good lawn mower, step ladder, 10-in-1 screwdriver, hammer, and inexpensive cordless drill.
No, Nukes are not a subset of WMD's. Weapon of Mass Destruction. Sarin, vx, gb, mustard, chlorine, etc, are not weapons of mass destruction. Never have been and never will. The military has classified the weapons as area denial weapons for the better part of a century. (think similar to mines) There is only one weapon of mass destruction. The only time in history similar destruction was carried out was Dresden at the end of WWII when the Allies bombed it with phosphorous for a month. It still wasn't a weapon of mass destruction. It was a bombing raid from hell. Literally.
As a retired military person myself, I fully agree that we have been walking down the path of religious and political oppression and have enacted legislation in the last 40 years that would make our founding father's roll in their graves. But, this type action has a long history in our country.
In 1918 the Sedition Act was passed in response to a similar situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 Luckily it was finally declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS in 1969. During the 60's and 70's this was followed by numerous other acts (I'm not even going to list them, too many to count and all passed in the "save the children" mindset.
Let's jump to the Patriot Act: This was basically an unofficial declaration of Martial Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law ) and along with all the legislation passed with the War on Drugs has made everyone a criminal and has bypassed the Constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs
Now in 2007, our strong leaders passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007... see where this is going?
So basically, this man has committed treasonous acts against the government and the people of this country. His speak is protected as it should be, but the actions taken place as a result of his speech are not. If you tell some one to kill another person, by them a gun, and then drive them to the crime scene, you are now an accessory and eligible for the same punishment. As stated in one of the other comments, you do not necessarily get a trial if you are caught in the commission of a crime and their is fear of imminent danger to myself or others. There are numerous laws that give me the right to defend myself and many states allow me to defend others also. In some states, you don't even have to be committing a crime: Just the appearance. I personally think this raises a lot of questions we need to address with our congress critters, but justification is not one of them.
Oh, and the declaration of war thing: We have had a joint declaration to use military force with authorized all the powers of a declaration of war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror
Sorry for the rant.
While I agree with 99.5% of what you have said, In 1998 I could download the ephemeris from the constellation and store it for years. I also had access to printed copies that I could manually enter into my GPSS units to start a baseline database and it would update with the "exact" data within seconds. Surely TomTom has the ability in 2009 to add the ephemeris data to there basic programming to ensure their units do not spend the next half hour attempting to download an accurate almanac.
Just my $.02.
So, let's get this straight: Switzerland is a very large valley in the middle of the Alps. When it snows, the country is cut off from the rest of the world for 6 months or more (not so much now with air travel and rail/road tunnels). So, to mount a successful offensive, one would have 6 months to mount an invasion, bring in enough supplies and reinforcements, and then fight off every man, woman, and weapon capable bearing child for the next six months before you were reinforced, resupplied, or able to retreat. In those days, as well as today, it is considered suicide all for a piece of land that has no port or other strategic value.
Me too with reservations. From someone who manages 300 plus local and remote printers, let me tell you, HP printers suck. They rocked 10 years ago. At least their higher quality ones. They have too many models that rely on windows to function, they quality is subpar, their drivers are deplore-able, and their support isn't much better. And, they cost way too much per page to operate. Kyocera, ricoh, and samsung make some rock solid printers with low per page operating costs, well supported drivers that just work with everything, and easy (mostly) management tools. If you don't have the money for a new one, get one used. I just picked up a 6 year old ricoh from work for $20. It still prints like a dream after printing 200 pages a day and I can refill it for less than 40 bucks, or by a 5000 page cartridge for less than 100. Ebay's got some deals or even your local goodwill.
I don't see what all the fuss is about vm's. It allows you to continue to run one service per "box" and cut down on the amount of servers. Using vm's has allowed us consolidate numerous slightly used, dedicated boxes. In turn, we have improved out fail overs with vmware's management console and snap shots saved to a SAN. Near instantaneous recovery without all the head aches. We still do tape and spinning disk backups depending on how critical the machine's mission. There are still a lot of services the best practices requires they have their own box: Infrastructure services being the critical one. All the rest do just fine virtualized. As for the remote offices, the should need more than slaved DHCP,DNS, LDAP/Active Directory, gateway, and a firewall unless your using the remote location for load balancing on web, connection redundancy, etc. We use an MPLS to one of our remote office for this ourselves.
HTH,
will
Slashdot Mirror
I can not even begin to imagine the implications this will have. Let the fishing begin!
has been. the new crew seems to be much more responsive. Hell, whiplash had that fixed in less than a minute.
I am encouraged with our new overlords!!!
After many years in a house and many more years in the industry, here are a few things I've discovered through experience and many professionals: Do not pay extra on your mortgage. While you will feel better watching your balance drop, your bank will not care. Miss a payment and watch all those extra dollars and equity disappear. Better: place the money in a savings account. When the balances equal, pay off the house. In the meantime, you will have the money in the bank in case of job loss, medical emergency, or home improvement. Being able to pay the mortgage in a crisis is more important than the balance. Do not by nifty gadgets. They will never pay for themselves. Solar roof fans? 35 years to break even. Expected life is 10 years. They are only there for your enjoyment and look at them as such. Appliances: your most efficient appliance is the one you already have. Don't replace it until it breaks. Then by the most efficient one you can. Spend your money on the most efficient things you can afford. Do not get behind on maintenance. You will find yourself quickly paying more to fix your house than it is worth. Buy a programmable thermostat. This will pay for itself in a couple of months. Ensure your house is weather sealed. This and the thermostat can easily cut your heating and cooling in half. Don't over do it though. You'll find yourself spending lots to make the house livable again with air exchangers/circulators etc. Unless you spend top dollar, an instant hot water heater is a disappointing luxury. By things that make you happy. You will be in the house a long time, but don't do it with money savings in mind. You'll get more satisfaction out of a kick-ass stereo/home theatre than some lights you can turn on remotely. Light timers are way cheaper and do the same thing at a fraction of the cost. Oh, and get you a good lawn mower, step ladder, 10-in-1 screwdriver, hammer, and inexpensive cordless drill.
No, Nukes are not a subset of WMD's. Weapon of Mass Destruction. Sarin, vx, gb, mustard, chlorine, etc, are not weapons of mass destruction. Never have been and never will. The military has classified the weapons as area denial weapons for the better part of a century. (think similar to mines) There is only one weapon of mass destruction. The only time in history similar destruction was carried out was Dresden at the end of WWII when the Allies bombed it with phosphorous for a month. It still wasn't a weapon of mass destruction. It was a bombing raid from hell. Literally.
As a retired military person myself, I fully agree that we have been walking down the path of religious and political oppression and have enacted legislation in the last 40 years that would make our founding father's roll in their graves. But, this type action has a long history in our country. In 1918 the Sedition Act was passed in response to a similar situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 Luckily it was finally declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS in 1969. During the 60's and 70's this was followed by numerous other acts (I'm not even going to list them, too many to count and all passed in the "save the children" mindset. Let's jump to the Patriot Act: This was basically an unofficial declaration of Martial Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law ) and along with all the legislation passed with the War on Drugs has made everyone a criminal and has bypassed the Constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs Now in 2007, our strong leaders passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007... see where this is going? So basically, this man has committed treasonous acts against the government and the people of this country. His speak is protected as it should be, but the actions taken place as a result of his speech are not. If you tell some one to kill another person, by them a gun, and then drive them to the crime scene, you are now an accessory and eligible for the same punishment. As stated in one of the other comments, you do not necessarily get a trial if you are caught in the commission of a crime and their is fear of imminent danger to myself or others. There are numerous laws that give me the right to defend myself and many states allow me to defend others also. In some states, you don't even have to be committing a crime: Just the appearance. I personally think this raises a lot of questions we need to address with our congress critters, but justification is not one of them. Oh, and the declaration of war thing: We have had a joint declaration to use military force with authorized all the powers of a declaration of war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror Sorry for the rant.
While I agree with 99.5% of what you have said, In 1998 I could download the ephemeris from the constellation and store it for years. I also had access to printed copies that I could manually enter into my GPSS units to start a baseline database and it would update with the "exact" data within seconds. Surely TomTom has the ability in 2009 to add the ephemeris data to there basic programming to ensure their units do not spend the next half hour attempting to download an accurate almanac. Just my $.02.
So, let's get this straight: Switzerland is a very large valley in the middle of the Alps. When it snows, the country is cut off from the rest of the world for 6 months or more (not so much now with air travel and rail/road tunnels). So, to mount a successful offensive, one would have 6 months to mount an invasion, bring in enough supplies and reinforcements, and then fight off every man, woman, and weapon capable bearing child for the next six months before you were reinforced, resupplied, or able to retreat. In those days, as well as today, it is considered suicide all for a piece of land that has no port or other strategic value.
Me too with reservations. From someone who manages 300 plus local and remote printers, let me tell you, HP printers suck. They rocked 10 years ago. At least their higher quality ones. They have too many models that rely on windows to function, they quality is subpar, their drivers are deplore-able, and their support isn't much better. And, they cost way too much per page to operate. Kyocera, ricoh, and samsung make some rock solid printers with low per page operating costs, well supported drivers that just work with everything, and easy (mostly) management tools. If you don't have the money for a new one, get one used. I just picked up a 6 year old ricoh from work for $20. It still prints like a dream after printing 200 pages a day and I can refill it for less than 40 bucks, or by a 5000 page cartridge for less than 100. Ebay's got some deals or even your local goodwill.
I don't see what all the fuss is about vm's. It allows you to continue to run one service per "box" and cut down on the amount of servers. Using vm's has allowed us consolidate numerous slightly used, dedicated boxes. In turn, we have improved out fail overs with vmware's management console and snap shots saved to a SAN. Near instantaneous recovery without all the head aches. We still do tape and spinning disk backups depending on how critical the machine's mission. There are still a lot of services the best practices requires they have their own box: Infrastructure services being the critical one. All the rest do just fine virtualized. As for the remote offices, the should need more than slaved DHCP,DNS, LDAP/Active Directory, gateway, and a firewall unless your using the remote location for load balancing on web, connection redundancy, etc. We use an MPLS to one of our remote office for this ourselves. HTH, will