Gotta agree with you as far as 'Ergonomics Deptartments' though. And like any market, once a need is demonstrated, a dozen companies spring up out of the woodwork to convinence gullible managers that they must implement the new 'X' item.
That doesn't necessarily negate the value of ergonomics work aids, but there is a middle ground. Much of the ergonomic necessity is due to simple lack of excercise on the worker's part. When I've been actively studying martial arts over the years, I find that my bodies capacity to sit comfortably in a chair at work is much greater than when (like the last couple years) I'm not actively working out.
Physical excercise can help tremendously, but ergonomics keyboards, mice, etc, can be useful too.
Been programming, gaming, and hacking out code for over 20 years now (since I was 12) and about 5 years ago I started to develop carpal tunnel symptoms. I switched to an ergonomic (LogiTech) keyboard and began to notice an immediate reduction in my wrist pain.
Since I spend an average of 10 hours a day in front of a computer (more when Sid Meier release a new Civ game;) it's made a pretty dramatic impact. Once I started actually doing exercises in conjunction with using an ergo keyboard, my CT symptoms decreased to almost nothing.
If I have to spend a day on a non-ergo keyboard, I notice pain again within a few hours.
I've had three businesses, functioned as an independent contractor, and been an employee of several firms over the years. Here is my take:
Corporation:
I've been VP of a C-corporation that we formed for consulting purposes. Positive: Can use corporation to fund retirement funds (401k, Simple IRA, SEP, etc) in excess of what you as an individual can contribute. Veil of protection from lawsuits (though you can open yourself up to liability). Negative: May pay taxes twice. Corporation pays taxes, and you draw a salary or income from the corporation that you may have to pay taxes on. Much paperwork and filings. Corporation must carry insurance.
Independent Contractor:
Positive: Not bound by as many corporate tax and functional regulations. If you track your costs and expenses very carefully, you can write off a lot. Negative: Must declare all income as taxable personal income; Can't help fund retirement or medical plans; You should be bonded and carry liability insurance.
W2-Employee with stipend
Positive: Freedom from the paperwork and accounting requirements of the other two choices. Ability to participate in union and/or group benefits (retirement, medical/life insurance) offered through employer. Employer pays half of state employee insurance. Eligable for unemployment. Negatives: Not as much personal freedom in performing work. Audits. Performace reviews. 9-5 type requirements.
I recommend Spazmania's method, but pne additional suggestion I'd make is to run a pull string (get some nice nylon thread) through each condiut from your primary access point. Label each pull string as to the room or box it terminates at.
This will allow pulling your future cables, fiber, etc, to be much easier. When you pull in the future, pull another string through with the cable you are running, and, voila, you are all set for another future pull.
I worked for a nutritional firm that wholesaled and retailed nutritional supplies all over the world.
We used UPS ground (unfortunately) due to supposed cost saving. At one point our ratio of damaged shipments to good shipments was 1 to 8. Over 12% of our shipments arrived in less that pristine condition. Over the course of two years, we had to triple our shipping and handling charges, and started insuring even the smallest shipments that we had.
One time we shipped seven medium sized barrels of powdered algae, clearly labled 1 of 7, 2 of 7, etc. and marked 'VACUUM SEALED. DO NOT OPEN'. 1 of the 7 never arrived, 1 arrived late (and unsealed), and 1 of the other 5 was unsealed on arrival. Total distance involved in shipping ? About 800 miles.
That has to be one of the stupidest things I've heard in a long time. You should care about your potential employer for several reasons:
Money isn't everything. I've worked in hell, and I'm currently in my dream job. If I was offered twice what I'm making, but had to go work at I company I hate, I wouldn't take it.
The reputation of the company can affect your future. If you work for a crappy company, with a totally cutthroat reputation and lousy PR, that will follow you to your next job and on your resume for some time.
--
root@universe # rm -fr/
root@universe # ls -la/
bash: ls : no such command
root@universe # shutdown -h now
System Halted.
Power Off.
"...Does childhood end when computers come into their lives..."
I'd have to disagree. I honestly don't believe that computers have altered the '15' year-old psychological makeup at all. Granted it has provided them with a heretofore undreamed of ability to connect with people they never would have connected with (hence the overnight explosion and dissapation of the fad-of-the-week).
But has it fundamentally altered their worldview? At 13 I was in on the first entrance of the PC into our school system (Tandy I with no casette backup even). And now I have a 15 year old son who currently lives for NeoPets. And I don't see much difference in his interaction, attitudes, and/or culture than that of the 15 year olds when I was in school.
Perhaps I'm missing the entire point here, but I honestly don't think that computers per se are creating any more of a shift psychologically in our kids than did any other technologically revolutionary advance (telegraph, television, radio).
Figures. I finally found a good magazine, subscribe, order a bunch of back issues (which explains why I haven't seen the back issues btw) and now it looks like they might vanish.
Kinda makes you wonder about things like Linux Journal, Linux Mag, and others.
Apparently you didn't read the article completely. The problem he is discussing is not the existence of the TNEF format, and he does mention the other formats - and switching them.
His problem is with the fact that the default format is TNEF and that it's entirely possible that if you don't send your mail via Exchange server, other won't be able to read it.
That was a pretty good read, and presents a rather chilling scenario. Oddly enough, I don't see it as being as far fetched as 1984 was for it's time. It really makes me wonder what kind of world my grandkids will live in... or even my kids when they hit their 30's or 40's.
The rise of the multi-national corporation is playing a big part in the changes in society, don't you think? When a single corporation can challenge laws in two or three countries simultaneously, that has some rather disturbing implications for freedom.
There are some excellent points to his article. However I think that one aspect he fails to mention (as a couple other posts have touched on) is the fact that many of our megalithic corporations are so large that any type of innovative change requires months to even reach proof-of-concept testing. I don't think it is so much a deliberate resistance to innovation (as he seems to imply) as it is the bureaucratic inertia that has to be overcome.
Of course there is a certain tendance among the wireless carriers to not take any risks ("stick with the tried and true").
I don't think that the situation will remain this way for too much longer however. With the advent of technologies like Bluetooth, Breezenet, Palm Vii, and other wireless/mobile solutions (coupled with the incredible shriking die size and power requirements of CPUs) I think that the Cell phone is going to be one of those 'transition' technologies. It'll be around for years, but it will rapidly become a legacy technology - replaced by more appropriate and advanced solutions.
I can't wait for the day that I can make a phone call on my PDA. =)
Well I work for an ISP in Washington state, and I have/. open from the time I get to work till whenever I go home. I have it open at home as well much of the time. And while I'm 13 hops from the/. server I can only recall once or twice since the upgrade and move to exodus that I've had any problem reaching them at all.
It seems to me that this leads back to the old (relatively) discussion about public key encryption of email. I routinely encrypt most of my email - except for that going to people that I can't get them to set up PGP on their systems. Over the years, I've had people ask me "Why do you do that if you aren't doing something illegal?"
This relates very well back to the analogy of postcards vs. letters in envelopes. Why don't people do all their 'private' correspondence on postcards? Why use envelopes if you aren't writing something that is illegal? It really does boil down to the right to communicate (1st amendment) with those whom I choose, in the manner in which I choose.
One of the things that concerns me most is the potential for abuse in this system. This comes back to the same issues I had with the census. I refused to answer anything but the constitutionally mandated 'How many people live at this address?'. Just as the government used the census data - illegally - to forcibly inter the Japanese-Americans during WWII, you will never convince me that the Carnivore system doesn't have the potential for 'first strike' use. Here is an example:
The government suspects that there may be criminal activity in a geographical region. Terrorism would be the best choice for this, as they can claim 'national security interest' and get a court order to install the system.
They monitor various ISPs to find 'messages' of interest.
Then they use THAT to obtain orders for monitoring specific individuals that they previously had no interest in, and wouldn't have been under suspiscion otherwise.
In my 20 plus years as a geek I've encountered a few true girlgeeks. Almost without exception, they mirrored the personality traits of guy geeks. Tending (not always) towards obsessive fixation (I mean, come on, what other mentality can happily pull 24+ hour sessions simply because they're compelled to crush that bug or beat that level?), as well as a desire to control their enviornment.
Generally, guys are externalized in focus. i.e. They exert control over their world though the manipulation of the material/physical. This is exhibited also in the tendency of guys to be less introspective than women. Though this does seem to be changing gradually over the last decade or so.
Girls however tend to take control of their enviornment though people and relationships, thus internalizing and being less obsessed with changing their physical enviornment to retain control. Someone pointed out in another post that if they give a young boy and a young girl the same toy the boy is more likely to take it apart and the girl is more likely to try to use it. This is an astute and generally correct observation.
I think that these psychological characteristics have more to do with the perceived gender gap. Which I don't think is necessarily a gender gap at all, but a simple outgrowth of the natural differences between guy and girls.
I wonder if this is why they changed the terms of service recently to imply that they retain ownership of the domain names? The implication I got from reading that post was that effectively, you are only 'leasing' a domain name from them and they reserve all rights and control.
I have a sneaking suspiscion that this was the part of the real reason they made that change.
I believe that probe used an ion drive (quite different from a plasma drive). We've had operational ion drives since the late 70's if I recall correctly, but it's only been recently that the cost/effeciency ratio has made the actual use of them for propulsion a feasible option.
And isn't DS1 still out there running on an ion drive too?
Hydrogen provides the best option for this use I'd think. Since it only carries one electron/proton pair it will require less energy to bring to plasma state than anything else. Helium is too stable.
Also, hydrogen compresses well and is the lightest element. Not to mention that it can be extracted from many sources, so it's possible that while on Mars, we could set up an extraction plant as a refueling station.
As a programmer and engineer for an ISP (who shall remain anonymous here) we have switched almost all of our systems from RedHat to Debian and are in the process of replacing and converting our last few RH servers over. We write all our own tools, apps, and management tools, and purchase nothing.
However, it has nothing to do with the free/open-source/non-free issue. We've switched to Debian simply because it's better for our needs. Please note that I didn't say better for everyone. For our purposes it's an easier load, bugs get fixed faster, packages are easier to build and distribute, etc.
If they pull the non-free stuff from the servers, we'll simply pull down the appropriate.rpm from another site and either convert and store them locally, or we'll pull down the.debs from another server. As far as I can tell it won't really make much difference one way or the other to us.
Slashdot Mirror
Gotta agree with you as far as 'Ergonomics Deptartments' though. And like any market, once a need is demonstrated, a dozen companies spring up out of the woodwork to convinence gullible managers that they must implement the new 'X' item.
That doesn't necessarily negate the value of ergonomics work aids, but there is a middle ground. Much of the ergonomic necessity is due to simple lack of excercise on the worker's part. When I've been actively studying martial arts over the years, I find that my bodies capacity to sit comfortably in a chair at work is much greater than when (like the last couple years) I'm not actively working out.
Physical excercise can help tremendously, but ergonomics keyboards, mice, etc, can be useful too.
Been programming, gaming, and hacking out code for over 20 years now (since I was 12) and about 5 years ago I started to develop carpal tunnel symptoms. I switched to an ergonomic (LogiTech) keyboard and began to notice an immediate reduction in my wrist pain.
;) it's made a pretty dramatic impact. Once I started actually doing exercises in conjunction with using an ergo keyboard, my CT symptoms decreased to almost nothing.
Since I spend an average of 10 hours a day in front of a computer (more when Sid Meier release a new Civ game
If I have to spend a day on a non-ergo keyboard, I notice pain again within a few hours.
I recommend Spazmania's method, but pne additional suggestion I'd make is to run a pull string (get some nice nylon thread) through each condiut from your primary access point. Label each pull string as to the room or box it terminates at.
This will allow pulling your future cables, fiber, etc, to be much easier. When you pull in the future, pull another string through with the cable you are running, and, voila, you are all set for another future pull.
I worked for a nutritional firm that wholesaled and retailed nutritional supplies all over the world.
We used UPS ground (unfortunately) due to supposed cost saving. At one point our ratio of damaged shipments to good shipments was 1 to 8. Over 12% of our shipments arrived in less that pristine condition. Over the course of two years, we had to triple our shipping and handling charges, and started insuring even the smallest shipments that we had.
One time we shipped seven medium sized barrels of powdered algae, clearly labled 1 of 7, 2 of 7, etc. and marked 'VACUUM SEALED. DO NOT OPEN'. 1 of the 7 never arrived, 1 arrived late (and unsealed), and 1 of the other 5 was unsealed on arrival. Total distance involved in shipping ? About 800 miles.
To this day, I use UPS as a last resort.
- Money isn't everything. I've worked in hell, and I'm currently in my dream job. If I was offered twice what I'm making, but had to go work at I company I hate, I wouldn't take it.
- The reputation of the company can affect your future. If you work for a crappy company, with a totally cutthroat reputation and lousy PR, that will follow you to your next job and on your resume for some time.
--root@universe # rm -fr
root@universe # ls -la
bash: ls : no such command
root@universe # shutdown -h now
System Halted.
Power Off.
Doh. Sorry. dropped a decimal point in the wrong spot. 5909/(186282*3600) = 8.811e-6.
And to think I did quite well in math.....
Considering that 5909 mph is 3.17% of light speed, I'd be interested in seeing some tests done on time dialation factors and mass distortion.
It's a virtual pet that you can battle against other owners pets, take on quests, explore etc.
Sortof a dumbed down, htmlized mud.
"...Does childhood end when computers come into their lives..."
I'd have to disagree. I honestly don't believe that computers have altered the '15' year-old psychological makeup at all. Granted it has provided them with a heretofore undreamed of ability to connect with people they never would have connected with (hence the overnight explosion and dissapation of the fad-of-the-week).
But has it fundamentally altered their worldview? At 13 I was in on the first entrance of the PC into our school system (Tandy I with no casette backup even). And now I have a 15 year old son who currently lives for NeoPets. And I don't see much difference in his interaction, attitudes, and/or culture than that of the 15 year olds when I was in school.
Perhaps I'm missing the entire point here, but I honestly don't think that computers per se are creating any more of a shift psychologically in our kids than did any other technologically revolutionary advance (telegraph, television, radio).
We want REVENGE!!!!!!
(tic)
Kinda makes you wonder about things like Linux Journal, Linux Mag, and others.
- I sure as heck wouldn't send anything that needed to be encrypted via a webmailer in the first place.
- Yeah, I'm gonna trust third party, non-opensource encryption schema on a site that I have no access to, and no control over my keys.
- If I desire the privacy of encrypted mail, I'll use PGP or GnuPGP where I have control over the encryption/decryption process.
Sheesh.The AudioRequest home mp3 system from thinkgeek, currently priced at $799 list ($999 MSRP).
His problem is with the fact that the default format is TNEF and that it's entirely possible that if you don't send your mail via Exchange server, other won't be able to read it.
*sheesh*
Future scenario prediction under communism is impossible because communism has no future.
The rise of the multi-national corporation is playing a big part in the changes in society, don't you think? When a single corporation can challenge laws in two or three countries simultaneously, that has some rather disturbing implications for freedom.
Of course there is a certain tendance among the wireless carriers to not take any risks ("stick with the tried and true").
I don't think that the situation will remain this way for too much longer however. With the advent of technologies like Bluetooth, Breezenet, Palm Vii, and other wireless/mobile solutions (coupled with the incredible shriking die size and power requirements of CPUs) I think that the Cell phone is going to be one of those 'transition' technologies. It'll be around for years, but it will rapidly become a legacy technology - replaced by more appropriate and advanced solutions.
I can't wait for the day that I can make a phone call on my PDA. =)
Well I work for an ISP in Washington state, and I have /. open from the time I get to work till whenever I go home. I have it open at home as well much of the time. And while I'm 13 hops from the /. server I can only recall once or twice since the upgrade and move to exodus that I've had any problem reaching them at all.
This relates very well back to the analogy of postcards vs. letters in envelopes. Why don't people do all their 'private' correspondence on postcards? Why use envelopes if you aren't writing something that is illegal? It really does boil down to the right to communicate (1st amendment) with those whom I choose, in the manner in which I choose.
One of the things that concerns me most is the potential for abuse in this system. This comes back to the same issues I had with the census. I refused to answer anything but the constitutionally mandated 'How many people live at this address?'. Just as the government used the census data - illegally - to forcibly inter the Japanese-Americans during WWII, you will never convince me that the Carnivore system doesn't have the potential for 'first strike' use. Here is an example:
This is just my $0.02.
Generally, guys are externalized in focus. i.e. They exert control over their world though the manipulation of the material/physical. This is exhibited also in the tendency of guys to be less introspective than women. Though this does seem to be changing gradually over the last decade or so.
Girls however tend to take control of their enviornment though people and relationships, thus internalizing and being less obsessed with changing their physical enviornment to retain control. Someone pointed out in another post that if they give a young boy and a young girl the same toy the boy is more likely to take it apart and the girl is more likely to try to use it. This is an astute and generally correct observation.
I think that these psychological characteristics have more to do with the perceived gender gap. Which I don't think is necessarily a gender gap at all, but a simple outgrowth of the natural differences between guy and girls.
Yes, I'm expecting massive flames here. =)
I have a sneaking suspiscion that this was the part of the real reason they made that change.
I believe that probe used an ion drive (quite different from a plasma drive). We've had operational ion drives since the late 70's if I recall correctly, but it's only been recently that the cost/effeciency ratio has made the actual use of them for propulsion a feasible option.
And isn't DS1 still out there running on an ion drive too?
Also, hydrogen compresses well and is the lightest element. Not to mention that it can be extracted from many sources, so it's possible that while on Mars, we could set up an extraction plant as a refueling station.
However, it has nothing to do with the free/open-source/non-free issue. We've switched to Debian simply because it's better for our needs. Please note that I didn't say better for everyone . For our purposes it's an easier load, bugs get fixed faster, packages are easier to build and distribute, etc.
If they pull the non-free stuff from the servers, we'll simply pull down the appropriate .rpm from another site and either convert and store them locally, or we'll pull down the .debs from another server. As far as I can tell it won't really make much difference one way or the other to us.