You'd lose that wager... I work out of the house. Since the trip is only one-way, there's about 15 minutes to take my daughter to school and pick her up. (as apposed to half hour each way it takes me). Throw in a post work trip to get the other hour. I think it's a safe bet that more than half of the local population isn't going to work at the same time.
I do agree that 66% may be a little generous, but your 12% is much too low. Do you really think more than half of all vehicles are on the road at the same time? Does an entire office building ever arrive at the same time? Even still, "congestion pricing" could cause people to vary times. I can see 40-50% being a floor... much higher than 12%. Still plenty of room for profit.
(BTW, I doubt we would get to automated taxis, but this is all hypothetical).
If you are using something *daily*, owning is going to be cheaper than renting over the long term..
I use my car daily... about 2 hours on average. If an automated taxi runs 66% of the time (18 hours), it could still be cheaper than my 8.3% load factor.
ReplayTV and Tivo came out at about the same time. Both were similarly priced, and ReplayTV also went to the low-unit cost and subscription model. (not just lifetime units)
TiVo did a much better job of marketing, but IMHO ReplayTV had a slightly better product. (I found the Tivo UI annoying and slow.)
The 4000 and 5000 units had automatic commercial skip, and the networks sued ReplayTV into bankruptcy. The final model had commercial skip disabled, but it was too late. Eventually the company was gutted and sold for parts/patents.
On 7/15/2015 DNNA (the final owner of the guide service) declared bankruptcy and guide service stopped (The community has found ways to provide guide data!) DirectTV still owns the patents and the name.
It will be interesting to see if Tivo is sued out of existence as well.
As much as I'd like to think he "saw the light" and decided to care about the already-born, I don't think that's the case. He would be much more effective if he used his position and tried to steer Congress to be in line with compassion until they voted him out (which would have also been a statement).
I suspect he was planning this for a while, but stuck around until after the Pope's visit.
I don't agree with many of his positions, but I do thank him for his service to the country.
I was in the same boat. I am severely near-sited late 40's.
Doc prescribed progressive bifocals, then later switched me to "computer" glasses, which were basically monovision with a focal point at arm's length.
I soon realized that I always forgot to switch glasses when I got up from my desk. This year I just have plain "computer" monovosion glasses and skipped the expensive progressive bifocals.
I do have a distance monovision prescription which I'll probably fill this summer with sunglasses.
I think progressives and bi-focals just don't work for computer users. Docs prescribe them out of habit.
The headline says "focus". I take that to mean a lot of time has been spent on internal failures and external ones just need more study. That's not unreasonable. When I worked at one, I could imagine a movie plot military attack easily getting through security. I suspect that's the sort of thing they need to give more thought to.
I've developed payment interfaces for PayPal, Google Checkout (may it RIP), and Amazon Payments.
Amazon Payments is by far the most sloppy interface I've used. Embarrassingly bad.
1. There's no way to search transactions on their web interface by email, only transaction id. 2. You can't use the "monthly statement" to reconcile because the "beginning balance" is at the *END* of day 1, not the beginning! (opening balance doesn't match previous monthly closing balance) 3. The math in a transaction report never adds up (opening + Payments - Fees - withdrawals=balance) because (I assume) factional fees aren't reported and always seem to round in amazon's favor. 4. Support is only available through their forums, and answers are slow coming if at all. (hint.. if you're going to use a forum for support, unanswered issues from years ago makes you look worse!)
I still offer it because the code is done and it is functional.... still annoying though.
Some (most?) parts of the government have not been funded for FY 2014 and have shut down.
The Health Care Exchanges were funded under a separate law (The Affordable Care Act) so are not affected by the shutdown.
U.S. Republicans are holding up the primary funding bill because they want to amend (defund) an existing law not directly related to the funding being withheld.
who cares about battery life.. you run the Looj 3-4 times a year. Just recharge and go. If the battery dies before you get all your gutters done, start again tomorrow.
The $100 (woot just had it for $69) cost can pay for itself in one cleaning. (If you would pay to have it done)
It works well if you have long gutters, otherwise you still move the ladder a lot.
You don't need to move the ladder to the end of the gutter to pick it up. Simply run the Looj in reverse and bring it back to you.
The key to running a Looj is do it *slow*. Forget the speed on the iRobot web site. If you run that fast it will flip over (usually recoverable by reversing the auger) or get stuck. You also don't need a lock in forward. I've gotten the best results inching it forward every few seconds.
Yes it's slow (but not as slow as moving the ladder every 6'), Yes it's messy (all the stuff falls to the ground). But *IT WORKS*. My gutters were a mess, 1=2" of basically mulch!
Now that the gutters are better, running the Looj next time should be faster.
Judging by all the comments, I didn't do a great job explaining myself.
By "everyone" I meant admins... those are the folks who support the servers.
By "Comfort" I meant if my boss came to my the day after I installed the server wanted something done or changed immediately, I'm comfortable I could do it.
I tried not to imply that I couldn't become comfortable, but I'll have to spend quite a bit of $$$ to come up to speed, and I really don't have any major incentives to do so.
Everyone is comfortable with windows, even if they don't like it.
Many admins are comfortable with Linux/Unix. It's what has gotten the job done for years.
I have used lots of different operating systems, CPM/TRSDOS/OS-2/VMS/Unix/Windows but have NEVER used a Mac, so I'm not comfortable recommending it. I expect it to be very different from the CLI world I'm used to.
In order for me to get comfortable, I'd have to play with it. If MacOS ran on PC hardware, I would consider setting up a partition to boot it, but that's not the case. It's expensive to learn, and I have no incentive.
I don't think P2P or servers is what AOL/TW is looking to fight.
They want to lock Video on Demand providers other than themselves. (Their VOD will not count against your quota, someone else's will.)
Is this legal? Sure... Is it right? Sure.. their costs go up.
The problem is lack of competition. If base price of broadband goes up, competitors will sprout. If the price is kept artificailly low (like local phone service) there will be no competition.
Email and most web browsing can be done dialup, so customers will pay dialup like rates for that sort of broadband usage. If you want more bandwidth, you pay, pay, pay.
This is an an email version of Don Novello's (Father Guido Sargucii) "The Lazlo Letters". Lazlo Toth, American: wrote many companies and politians to see if they would write back. My favorite is the letter to Hershey about the defective M&M and what would that say to our country if it got exported ( M&M is made by M&M Mars, not Hershey)
Pause Technology is an intellectual property company focused on the Personal Video Recorder market and related industries ...
Pause Technology, founded in 2000, is an LLC that has been well funded by major corporate and individual shareholders
Let's see. This new company finds old, overreaching, undefended and ignored patents, buys them and then sues people who came up with the same idea independently and DOES SOMETHING WITH IT.
I like the Cinema 7, hacked with JP1 Interface. It's intutive, even my wife can use it. It controls *ALL* of the functions of my TV, 2 VCRs, and Replay
TV has never been better since the Replay protocol hack with 3-minute skip came out!
The JP1 can control many UEIC remotes ( All-for-One, Radio Shack, some OEMs)
If you don't like some MPEG artifacts, you'll record at a higher quality. ( 17 hours )
You can also take an entire series you don't watch during the main season and watch it over the summer.
Another feature of a PVR is you tell it what you like to watch ( Replay: Themes,Zones, Tivo: Thumbsup/down ) and it records things you *MAY* be interested in.
When you sit down at your TV, you have 320 hours of revolving programing to *CHOOSE FROM*, not necessarily watch.
While the official Replay service doesn't support Canada, someone on the AVSForum has written some code to fetch guide info from web sites, reformat them, and then load on his replay so he can get Canadian listings.
He doesn't even dial the official service any more.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd lose that wager... I work out of the house. Since the trip is only one-way, there's about 15 minutes to take my daughter to school and pick her up. (as apposed to half hour each way it takes me). Throw in a post work trip to get the other hour. I think it's a safe bet that more than half of the local population isn't going to work at the same time.
I do agree that 66% may be a little generous, but your 12% is much too low. Do you really think more than half of all vehicles are on the road at the same time? Does an entire office building ever arrive at the same time? Even still, "congestion pricing" could cause people to vary times. I can see 40-50% being a floor... much higher than 12%. Still plenty of room for profit.
(BTW, I doubt we would get to automated taxis, but this is all hypothetical).
If you are using something *daily*, owning is going to be cheaper than renting over the long term..
I use my car daily... about 2 hours on average. If an automated taxi runs 66% of the time (18 hours), it could still be cheaper than my 8.3% load factor.
We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because it is easy, because it is cheaper...and easier.
Once we go to the moon, we can store all our nuclear waste there... what can go wrong?
Many Guitars were saved.. because we all know United Breaks Guitars.
ReplayTV and Tivo came out at about the same time. Both were similarly priced, and ReplayTV also went to the low-unit cost and subscription model. (not just lifetime units)
TiVo did a much better job of marketing, but IMHO ReplayTV had a slightly better product. (I found the Tivo UI annoying and slow.)
The 4000 and 5000 units had automatic commercial skip, and the networks sued ReplayTV into bankruptcy. The final model had commercial skip disabled, but it was too late. Eventually the company was gutted and sold for parts/patents.
On 7/15/2015 DNNA (the final owner of the guide service) declared bankruptcy and guide service stopped (The community has found ways to provide guide data!) DirectTV still owns the patents and the name.
It will be interesting to see if Tivo is sued out of existence as well.
As much as I'd like to think he "saw the light" and decided to care about the already-born, I don't think that's the case. He would be much more effective if he used his position and tried to steer Congress to be in line with compassion until they voted him out (which would have also been a statement).
I suspect he was planning this for a while, but stuck around until after the Pope's visit.
I don't agree with many of his positions, but I do thank him for his service to the country.
I was in the same boat. I am severely near-sited late 40's.
Doc prescribed progressive bifocals, then later switched me to "computer" glasses, which were basically monovision with a focal point at arm's length.
I soon realized that I always forgot to switch glasses when I got up from my desk. This year I just have plain "computer" monovosion glasses and skipped the expensive progressive bifocals.
I do have a distance monovision prescription which I'll probably fill this summer with sunglasses.
I think progressives and bi-focals just don't work for computer users. Docs prescribe them out of habit.
The headline says "focus". I take that to mean a lot of time has been spent on internal failures and external ones just need more study. That's not unreasonable. When I worked at one, I could imagine a movie plot military attack easily getting through security. I suspect that's the sort of thing they need to give more thought to.
I've developed payment interfaces for PayPal, Google Checkout (may it RIP), and Amazon Payments.
Amazon Payments is by far the most sloppy interface I've used. Embarrassingly bad.
1. There's no way to search transactions on their web interface by email, only transaction id.
2. You can't use the "monthly statement" to reconcile because the "beginning balance" is at the *END* of day 1, not the beginning! (opening balance doesn't match previous monthly closing balance)
3. The math in a transaction report never adds up (opening + Payments - Fees - withdrawals=balance) because (I assume) factional fees aren't reported and always seem to round in amazon's favor.
4. Support is only available through their forums, and answers are slow coming if at all. (hint.. if you're going to use a forum for support, unanswered issues from years ago makes you look worse!)
I still offer it because the code is done and it is functional.... still annoying though.
Some (most?) parts of the government have not been funded for FY 2014 and have shut down.
The Health Care Exchanges were funded under a separate law (The Affordable Care Act) so are not affected by the shutdown.
U.S. Republicans are holding up the primary funding bill because they want to amend (defund) an existing law not directly related to the funding being withheld.
any policy purchased on the exchanges don't take affect until January 1.
How many of us got a start with "Basic Computer Games" by David H. Ahl?
Without that, I bet many would not be posting here.
who cares about battery life.. you run the Looj 3-4 times a year. Just recharge and go. If the battery dies before you get all your gutters done, start again tomorrow.
The $100 (woot just had it for $69) cost can pay for itself in one cleaning. (If you would pay to have it done)
It works well if you have long gutters, otherwise you still move the ladder a lot.
You don't need to move the ladder to the end of the gutter to pick it up. Simply run the Looj in reverse and bring it back to you.
The key to running a Looj is do it *slow*. Forget the speed on the iRobot web site. If you run that fast it will flip over (usually recoverable by reversing the auger) or get stuck. You also don't need a lock in forward. I've gotten the best results inching it forward every few seconds.
Yes it's slow (but not as slow as moving the ladder every 6'), Yes it's messy (all the stuff falls to the ground). But *IT WORKS*. My gutters were a mess, 1=2" of basically mulch!
Now that the gutters are better, running the Looj next time should be faster.
song by Kraftwerk
Judging by all the comments, I didn't do a great job explaining myself.
By "everyone" I meant admins... those are the folks who support the servers.
By "Comfort" I meant if my boss came to my the day after I installed the server wanted something done or changed immediately, I'm comfortable I could do it.
I tried not to imply that I couldn't become comfortable, but I'll have to spend quite a bit of $$$ to come up to speed, and I really don't have any major incentives to do so.
Robert
as I mentioned in a response to Bob.
It's an issue of comfort.
Everyone is comfortable with windows, even if they don't like it.
Many admins are comfortable with Linux/Unix. It's what has gotten the job done for years.
I have used lots of different operating systems, CPM/TRSDOS/OS-2/VMS/Unix/Windows but have
NEVER used a Mac, so I'm not comfortable recommending it. I expect it to be very different
from the CLI world I'm used to.
In order for me to get comfortable, I'd have to play with it. If MacOS ran on PC hardware,
I would consider setting up a partition to boot it, but that's not the case. It's expensive
to learn, and I have no incentive.
Robert
This certainly sounds like the 1996 Great Northest Blackout.
http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1965.html
Robert
I don't think P2P or servers is what AOL/TW is looking to fight.
They want to lock Video on Demand providers other than themselves. (Their VOD will not count against your quota, someone else's will.)
Is this legal? Sure...
Is it right? Sure.. their costs go up.
The problem is lack of competition. If base price of broadband goes up, competitors will sprout. If the price is kept artificailly low (like local phone service) there will be no competition.
Email and most web browsing can be done dialup, so customers will pay dialup like rates for that sort of broadband usage. If you want more bandwidth, you pay, pay, pay.
Robert
This is an an email version of Don Novello's (Father Guido Sargucii) "The Lazlo Letters". Lazlo Toth, American: wrote many companies and politians to see if they would write back. My favorite is the letter to Hershey about the defective M&M and what would that say to our country if it got exported ( M&M is made by M&M Mars, not Hershey)
The Lazlo Letters
Pause Technology is an intellectual property company focused on the Personal Video Recorder market and related industries
...
Pause Technology, founded in 2000, is an LLC that has been well funded by major corporate and individual shareholders
Let's see. This new company finds old, overreaching, undefended and ignored patents, buys them and then sues people who came up with the same idea independently and DOES SOMETHING WITH IT.
Can you say leeches?
I like the Cinema 7, hacked with JP1 Interface. It's intutive, even my wife can use it. It controls *ALL* of the functions of my TV, 2 VCRs, and Replay
TV has never been better since the Replay protocol hack with 3-minute skip came out!
The JP1 can control many UEIC remotes ( All-for-One, Radio Shack, some OEMs)
Get a wireless access node, crossover cable, and you're in business.
(expensive, but most 10baseT is more common than 802.11b)
Robert
If you don't like some MPEG artifacts, you'll record at a higher quality. ( 17 hours )
You can also take an entire series you don't watch during the main season and watch it over the summer.
Another feature of a PVR is you tell it what you like to watch ( Replay: Themes,Zones, Tivo: Thumbsup/down ) and it records things you *MAY* be interested in.
When you sit down at your TV, you have 320 hours of revolving programing to *CHOOSE FROM*, not necessarily watch.
Robert
While the official Replay service doesn't support Canada, someone on the AVSForum has written some code to fetch guide info from web sites, reformat them, and then load on his replay so he can get Canadian listings.
He doesn't even dial the official service any more.
Robert