As someone else pointed out, with the switch to ULSD there is no longer a significant difference between North American and European diesel. We have gone from 500ppm sulfur to 15ppm sulfur.
When it burns it gives off thick black smoke that makes a coal burning locomotive look clean.
That isn't related to sulfur, that is either unburnt fuel or soot. Too often it's because some jerk has chipped their truck because they think it looks cool. They're still looking for horse power bragging rights and completely misunderstanding that with diesel trucks you are looking at torque. With the ULSD and new clean diesel regulations for 2007 it will mostly be a thing of the past. My 1994 F350 has the injector pump tuned correctly for the turbo, and it is rare that you will see any black smoke from it.
Because we don't have the infrastructure to make biodiesel in quantity, in order to switch over to biodiesel, first you need to get people to switch to diesel.
We don't have the infrastructure for ethanol either. From the crop feedstock perspective it comes down to whether you grow corn or canola (or soybean). Biodiesel has plenty of non-food sources as well. As far as switching people to diesel, American's tend to trade off their cars every 3-5 years. You have to sell them new cars for flex fuel cars as well. And while the diesel is more expensive up front, with it's better fuel economy it should even out fairly quickly. Particularly if they understand that they will get lower fuel economy from E85 than regular gasoline because it has a lower energy content. I don't believe that is the case with diesel vs biodiesel.
Of course regular gasoline will still be available for decades, simply because of classic cars and people who won't get rid of their old cars until they absolutely have to. It took a long time to get rid of leaded gasoline too.
Oh, almost forgot. You are more likely to get fuel with ethanol in the summer because it burns cleaner. Any city having trouble meeting EPA air quality guidelines is required to switch to cleaner blends during the summer. Those cleaner blends are generally made by replacing MTBE with ethanol.
The US isn't going to grow crops for biodiesel then export them to the rest of the world.
We would if we had the capacity to produce a significant amount of crops/biodiesel to the point that it would be economical to export it. But we are decades away from being able to produce enough to meet our own needs. If we had a scientific break through that allowed us to economically produce huge quantities of biodiesel without starving our population, we'd be more than happy to compete with OPEC.
I have ethanol in my car's tank right now.
My little truck (S10) has run 10% ethanol since it was new. And my big truck (F350) runs B2, soon to be increased to B10 once the fuel system is clean. The difference in the two, the little truck will never run more than E10, while the big truck is perfectly capable of running B100 once the fuel system is clean of dino-diesel dirt. To use increasing percentages of ethanol requires engine modifications. Last time I checked, GMs 4.3 engine wasn't even certified for E85. But any diesel engine can run biodiesel with minor modifications. (removing natural rubber hoses and gaskets, cleaning the debris from dino-diesel from the fuel system)
FWIW, I'd prefer to trade my little truck for another diesel, something along the lines of a Toyota HiLux, if it was available in the US. I wonder how many other Americans would buy diesel cars if they were just simply available.
In warehouses, people typically use handheld devices, today. They're much, much, much more reliable than wi-fi.
Nearly all of the wireless handheld devices used in warehouses have moved to 802.11. And it made life a whole lot easier when they did, no more proprietary protocols like we had in the 900 band.
If they seem more reliable, it's because they tend to be low data rate devices. At least I've never seen a forklift driver browsing multimedia web sites on their 3"x4" screens. The lower data rate allows them to fall back to slower speeds to overcome a poor signal without annoying the user.
BTW, if connectivity is important in a warehouse? With leaner inventories and management's desire for real-time information, I don't see how a modern warehouse could function without wireless devices.
use a very efficient client based around VIA/mini-itx for the frontend, which is still a bit more than a set top box, but is still an improvement. Not to mention that there are now purpose-built devices for that, such as the AppleTV, Slingbox, etc. You just have to do some research to find one that works with MythTV. My understanding of the Slingbox is that it's a back-end device. It connects to your cable, etc and then streams to other devices, like a cell phone or pc. Am I missing something?
I ended up getting a Buffalo LinkTheater. To use it with MythTV all you would need to do is run a DLNA daemon to serve the video directory.
Personally, and I say this as a person who is not normally all that risk-averse, I've been interested in getting a motorcycle for a while, but I'm just not sure that I trust the drivers around me enough to want to ride one in the traffic where I live (DC Metro area).
I bought my first motorcycle 27 years ago. My current bike I bought new in 2003, and it has less than 500 miles on it because I just got tired of being tailgated by Explorers. On one occasion, I had a guy driving 10 feet behind me at 55, then passed me straddling the center line, forcing me to move toward the shoulder, then slammed on his brakes in front of me. I used to ride to relax, but I started to feel that I needed to carry a gun to ride so I haven't ridden in 2 years. Obviously I wasn't finding it very relaxing. I'll probably go look at a Cabrio when they are available. Too bad they won't be offered with a diesel.
I know several people who have 1st generation Smarts and they love them. The 1st gen are popular with RVers because they can be loaded sideways (less than 102" long) on the truck pulling their 5th wheel.
This will stop most credit card companies from mailing offers, but not all. I get offers from Discover, Citibank and Bank of America fairly regularly.
Another problem that is just as bad won't be addressed; banks sending checks that apply to your credit card. It used to be just balance transfer checks to entice you to move your debt from another credit card, but now they send checks to use at 'places that don't accept credit cards.'
Personal property taxes generally are not applied to roads. The biggest component of most personal property tax is the levy for your local school district. There are also levies for rural fire departments, ambulance services, mental health facilities, and occasionally a special road district. If you aren't paying for these with personal property tax, you are probably paying them with real estate taxes or sales tax.
Sales tax also rarely goes to roads. Indirectly it might be allocated from the general budget. The only common tax that is truly for roads are the fuel taxes.
BTW, Missouri also went to a 6 year license a few years back. And while technically you are supposed to change your license when you move, I wonder how many people actually do. And if you buy two year tags for your car, you only need an inspection every two years. Frankly, I've seen what passes for cars in some states that don't have required inspections, and I'm happy Missouri still does. Even if I do have to take vacation time to get my motorcycle inspected.
Missouri doesn't have toll roads, with the exception of a few local bridges and expressways. While tolls are a direct use tax, it's much more convenient to pay fuel tax than it is to fish for change on a toll road.
The appropriate retaliation is to improve their own defensive capability.
Not if they are still honoring their commitment to the 1972 ABM treaty. By building more effective ICBMs they can offset missile defense systems and maintain MAD. And if they replace old ICBMs with new ones, they stay in compliance with START I and START II. And since they are testing missiles and not nuclear warheads, they stay in compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Sadly, I've learned more about these treaties in the last few weeks that I ever wished to know. When it comes to nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction, defensive weapons can be viewed as offensive threats.
A couple things you might want to think about on your design. If you only run off of batteries when the grid is down you will reduce the life of your batteries and have a very low ROI on your PV and wind turbine. Overall efficiency wise, you'd be better to drop those and just install the right size generator. Assuming the power grid is reasonably reliable.
If you want to have all those components in your system, investigate dedicating critical circuits to your batteries/inverter. Use the PV, wind, and grid to maintain the charge. This way you would use your own generated power first, all the time, and make up for shortfalls from the grid. You can then back up the grid with a small generator.
And rather than trying to capture heat from the exhaust of the generator, consider passive solar to heat water for radiant heat. You could also tie into the same system with a pellet boiler as a backup heat source. If you try to pull heat from the exhaust (or the generator's cooling system), you will have to custom build equipment and it will need to monitor head temperature and EGTs to make sure you aren't pulling too much heat. Diesel engines depend on head temp to run efficiently.
If you are building your new house, use geothermal heating/cooling by installing a ground source heat pump. You could also avoid the CFL mercury issue by installing fiber optic lighting with a high efficiency light source.
she's openly advocated "taking" the profits of the US energy industry for her purposes
As opposed to taking the profits of average Americans and giving them to the US energy industry. We're talking about companies that are making record profits quarter after quarter by manipulating the system. Currently there are radio ads running trying to convince people to write their congressmen to REDUCE the regulations on the energy industry so they will be free to increase their profits. These ads sound a lot like the ones the cable/telecom industry were running a few months ago trashing net neutrality. Both industries say they need to be free to innovate. Telecom innovated by giving us ISDN, and then DSL once the cable companies gave us faster broadband. The tech was old by the time we got it, and had limited availability because the Bell monopolies previously had no incentive to upgrade their switches.The energy industry innovates by not building a single refinery in 30 years and shutting down refineries 'for maintenance' at the beginning of the summer season. When do you suppose they are going to 'innovate' emission controls and CO2 sequestration at coal powered power plants if the government doesn't threaten to beat them with a big stick?
BTW, the US government openly takes profits from businesses and individuals every day of the year. That's how we pay for our schools and our roads and our war against terrorism.
But I'm not worried about scaring you. Your used to that. Politics have been nothing but scare tactics since 9/11.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing abhorrent behavior, as long as you're willing to accept criticism yourself. The problem I had with the post I replied to was the idea that fear is a worthy response to disagreeing with the politics of another nation.
New missile tests - While here in the US we have been doing missile interceptor tests, yep, missiles of our own, that we intend to install in Poland. We have also been testing obscenely large conventional bombs and not 100 miles from where I live we have delivery systems capable of stealthily dropping them anywhere in the world. Keep in mind that we, the US, shortly after 9/11 withdrew from the ABM treaty after 30 years. It does concern me that they feel the need to test new ICBMs, but I see it as a diplomatic problem that is being complicated by rhetoric from the current administration in Washington.
alleged poisonings - Alleged. It was also alleged that Saddam had WMD.
building reactors for Iran - several countries export reactors. Iran just happens to be a country that we don't have diplomatic relations with and they say bad things about us. If we still had the relationship with them that we had 30 years ago, we'd be the ones building the reactors. I would rather someone built them reactors and supplied them with fuel than have them continue with their own nuclear processing programs.
suppression of political opposition - because our news isn't processed. But really, is it any of our business? I don't remember hearing anyone ask for our opinion of their political processes.
America are getting scarier and scarier recently. Invading sovereign nations, new missile installations, secret CIA prisons, human rights violations of 'enemy combatants', an administration that disregards world opinion. More than a little worrying, especially the pace it seems to be going at.
Well, you would think so. My house had 3 cable drops in it when I bought it. The only one that was where I needed it (office) had to be rerun to get the proper signal strength. The one in the bedroom I removed because it ran around the outside of the house (normal for a cable TV installer) and the splitter was bad. The one in the living room is on the wrong wall, so I ran a new one. The pre-existing one in the living room I used until I ran a new one, but I'll pull it down into the basement. BTW, it cost nothing to have the new drops run or repaired during the cable/broadband install. Knowing that, I doubt I would see pre-installed coax as a plus, unless it was just where I was sure I'd want it. And too many splitters in the system can cause problems.
And for all we know, a few years down the road we may all be using IPTV and set top boxes. If you don't need it, don't run it. I honestly doubt the prospective buyer will even notice.
A couple years ago I would have agreed with this, but....
A central media server is awesome (that's what I have). Having video/music on demand to any room is really unexplainably nice. I use chip'd Xboxes as front-ends.
These days I'd just run 1-2 CAT 6 cables in conduit to each room. RG6 is a single tasker. It's for people who haven't bought into set top boxes. Having recently found the Buffalo LinkTheater, I don't think I would bother with coax to anything but my primary TV(s) for the cable box. And I can envision a day when the only thing connected to my cable is my Tivo.
What changed is the developers felt that players exploited the system. Back in Asheron's Call pretty much everyone had specialized characters for crafting. Create a new character, run it through a few of the easy low levels to build up stats, then take crafting skills and use your regular character to get supplies. Before long you had a level 5 or 10 character that was maxed out in a particular crafting ability. I liked it because it enhanced my ability to solo.
On the other hand, his article got mentioned on Slashdot and now everyone knows where to go for $1 books if they happen to live in his area. So it might be a brilliant publicity stunt that's worth about $20,000 ($1 x 20,000 books) to him.
If it is, it backfired here. As far as I'm concerned he can burn every book in his inventory. I won't be buying from him. Burning books is offensive, next time he should quietly put them in the dumpster if he needs to get rid of them.
BTW, a couple years ago Barnes & Noble had a sale to clean out their warehouse. I paid in the range of $1-2 each for a whole pile of books. New books, from authors like Robert Ludlum and John le Carre.
Charging a different price isn't the problem, they just have to tell their customers that the stores do not honor the web site prices. That is not what they did. They built a complete internal web site that looked identical to their other one. When a customer said "It was advertised at $xx on the web site", Best Buy employees would look it up on the internal web site, that might or might not match.
The accusation is that the internal website had higher prices, and when a customer quoted the external website, Best Buy employees would show them the internal site and say "no, this is the advertised price on the site". They're saying that the internal site was designed to intentionally mislead and overcharge customers.
You're assuming that resources applied to projects like OLPC would be efficiently applied to projects like text books and food programs. I seriously doubt it would be the case. Many of the contributions are coming from technology companies, and while they probably donate to the other types of programs, they are donating more than money to OLPC.
As far as oval versus street. The big problem with street racing, is that while it's ok on tv because of multiple cameras... if you go to the race it's pretty boring. Every minute or two they come by and you see the positions are different, or a car is missing and you wonder what happened.
Have you been to an oval track? They're pretty boring too unless you're one of those guys with the portable TV and radio for driver chatter. After a while your neck starts wondering whether you're at a race or a tennis match. I went to one IRL race at Kansas Speedway, and decided if I wanted to see a race, I'd enjoy it a whole lot more on TV.
Computers are mysterious, sealed boxes to most people; when you pull all the indicator lights off of the front, you run the risk of making that perception worse.
Computer equipment has LEDs because we've become so accustomed to it NOT working that we want reassurance that it is actually doing something. It is a hardware hourglass cursor.
My annoying devices: Why does a trackball need external LEDs? (Logitech Trackman) Why does a USB hub need one, particularly a super bright LED? And the power light on my old APEX DVD player is so bright I either tape it, or turn it the other way. Nothing like a red super bright LED in your line of sight when you're trying to watch a movie.
Retailers use wireless for things like the portable scanners they use for inventory functions. In the past I have noticed Walmart, Target, and KMart all using Symbol PDT 6800s. As to why they only use WEP, that's all the scanners support. Early models only supported 40-bit WEP. Later releases supported 128-bit WEP and Symbol's proprietary KeyGuard, which requires using (expensive) Symbol access points. Although the PDT6800s have been end-of-lifed, you aren't going to rush out and replace them with newer tech if they are getting the job done. Not at $3k a piece. And even with the replacement, MC9000s, you have to ask yourself why their Windows Mobile OS is running a web server.
Of course a network engineer would wonder why the cash register network wasn't a secure, separate network. But rarely are networks designed by network engineers. They simply grow out of necessity.
The vast majority can afford basic health care on their own. And the poor in America who seem to not be able to or just don't want to, Get a government card that they abuse by running to the emergency room for the slightest little thing. Sniffles, $125.00 visit to the emergency room to get a prescription of over the counter cold medicine. And yes, It is this ridiculous.
Not that I entirely disagree with your point, but here are a couple things to consider.
A relative of mine wanted to retire a couple years ago, being just short of 65. The problem was that COBRA insurance was $800 a month until Medicare kicked in. That's not what I would consider affordable, and there are a lot of people in that age range in America.
Poor people going to the emergency room may not have a choice. If you woke up this morning and found that your child had a 102 temperature, you could call your physician and schedule an appointment today. Private physicians keep 'emergency' slots available for things like this. OTOH, if you don't have insurance and try to go to a low income clinic, you are mostly likely going to be told that they are booked for 3 weeks and you should go to the emergency room if you need immediate care. It's hardly fair to make it the only option, then blast people for using it.
I have to replace my modem every 1-2 years. As far as KC is concerned, the service is great as long as you never have to deal with their tech support. They still do the 'tell me something so I can deny support' thing. My last dealing with them, tech support on Sunday listened until he heard that my router wasn't supplied by RR. As it turns out, all he needed to do was log into my modem and he would have seen that it was logging errors. Or listen when I told him the modem was supplying a private IP to my router. At least that's what the tech on Monday told me. Swapped for a new modem at the TWC store and I should be good for another year or so.
Now if they could just figure out how to make their new digital guide software work. On-Demand rarely works any more.
In the first Wizardry game you had an option that allowed you to move characters to a save disk. (you were only allowed to have 6 active and in your party. When you 'moved' them from a write protected save disk, you got a character that was in your party and still on the disk. Rename the active one, you can move another copy. Simple character cloning.
Slashdot Mirror
U.S. diesel is high sulfur diesel.
As someone else pointed out, with the switch to ULSD there is no longer a significant difference between North American and European diesel. We have gone from 500ppm sulfur to 15ppm sulfur.
When it burns it gives off thick black smoke that makes a coal burning locomotive look clean.
That isn't related to sulfur, that is either unburnt fuel or soot. Too often it's because some jerk has chipped their truck because they think it looks cool. They're still looking for horse power bragging rights and completely misunderstanding that with diesel trucks you are looking at torque. With the ULSD and new clean diesel regulations for 2007 it will mostly be a thing of the past. My 1994 F350 has the injector pump tuned correctly for the turbo, and it is rare that you will see any black smoke from it.
Because we don't have the infrastructure to make biodiesel in quantity, in order to switch over to biodiesel, first you need to get people to switch to diesel.
We don't have the infrastructure for ethanol either. From the crop feedstock perspective it comes down to whether you grow corn or canola (or soybean). Biodiesel has plenty of non-food sources as well. As far as switching people to diesel, American's tend to trade off their cars every 3-5 years. You have to sell them new cars for flex fuel cars as well. And while the diesel is more expensive up front, with it's better fuel economy it should even out fairly quickly. Particularly if they understand that they will get lower fuel economy from E85 than regular gasoline because it has a lower energy content. I don't believe that is the case with diesel vs biodiesel.
Of course regular gasoline will still be available for decades, simply because of classic cars and people who won't get rid of their old cars until they absolutely have to. It took a long time to get rid of leaded gasoline too.
Oh, almost forgot. You are more likely to get fuel with ethanol in the summer because it burns cleaner. Any city having trouble meeting EPA air quality guidelines is required to switch to cleaner blends during the summer. Those cleaner blends are generally made by replacing MTBE with ethanol.
The US isn't going to grow crops for biodiesel then export them to the rest of the world.
We would if we had the capacity to produce a significant amount of crops/biodiesel to the point that it would be economical to export it. But we are decades away from being able to produce enough to meet our own needs. If we had a scientific break through that allowed us to economically produce huge quantities of biodiesel without starving our population, we'd be more than happy to compete with OPEC.
I have ethanol in my car's tank right now.
My little truck (S10) has run 10% ethanol since it was new. And my big truck (F350) runs B2, soon to be increased to B10 once the fuel system is clean. The difference in the two, the little truck will never run more than E10, while the big truck is perfectly capable of running B100 once the fuel system is clean of dino-diesel dirt. To use increasing percentages of ethanol requires engine modifications. Last time I checked, GMs 4.3 engine wasn't even certified for E85. But any diesel engine can run biodiesel with minor modifications. (removing natural rubber hoses and gaskets, cleaning the debris from dino-diesel from the fuel system)
FWIW, I'd prefer to trade my little truck for another diesel, something along the lines of a Toyota HiLux, if it was available in the US. I wonder how many other Americans would buy diesel cars if they were just simply available.
In warehouses, people typically use handheld devices, today. They're much, much, much more reliable than wi-fi.
Nearly all of the wireless handheld devices used in warehouses have moved to 802.11. And it made life a whole lot easier when they did, no more proprietary protocols like we had in the 900 band.
If they seem more reliable, it's because they tend to be low data rate devices. At least I've never seen a forklift driver browsing multimedia web sites on their 3"x4" screens. The lower data rate allows them to fall back to slower speeds to overcome a poor signal without annoying the user.
BTW, if connectivity is important in a warehouse? With leaner inventories and management's desire for real-time information, I don't see how a modern warehouse could function without wireless devices.
I ended up getting a Buffalo LinkTheater. To use it with MythTV all you would need to do is run a DLNA daemon to serve the video directory.
Personally, and I say this as a person who is not normally all that risk-averse, I've been interested in getting a motorcycle for a while, but I'm just not sure that I trust the drivers around me enough to want to ride one in the traffic where I live (DC Metro area).
I bought my first motorcycle 27 years ago. My current bike I bought new in 2003, and it has less than 500 miles on it because I just got tired of being tailgated by Explorers. On one occasion, I had a guy driving 10 feet behind me at 55, then passed me straddling the center line, forcing me to move toward the shoulder, then slammed on his brakes in front of me. I used to ride to relax, but I started to feel that I needed to carry a gun to ride so I haven't ridden in 2 years. Obviously I wasn't finding it very relaxing. I'll probably go look at a Cabrio when they are available. Too bad they won't be offered with a diesel.
I know several people who have 1st generation Smarts and they love them. The 1st gen are popular with RVers because they can be loaded sideways (less than 102" long) on the truck pulling their 5th wheel.
This will stop most credit card companies from mailing offers, but not all. I get offers from Discover, Citibank and Bank of America fairly regularly.
Another problem that is just as bad won't be addressed; banks sending checks that apply to your credit card. It used to be just balance transfer checks to entice you to move your debt from another credit card, but now they send checks to use at 'places that don't accept credit cards.'
Personal property taxes generally are not applied to roads. The biggest component of most personal property tax is the levy for your local school district. There are also levies for rural fire departments, ambulance services, mental health facilities, and occasionally a special road district. If you aren't paying for these with personal property tax, you are probably paying them with real estate taxes or sales tax.
Sales tax also rarely goes to roads. Indirectly it might be allocated from the general budget. The only common tax that is truly for roads are the fuel taxes.
BTW, Missouri also went to a 6 year license a few years back. And while technically you are supposed to change your license when you move, I wonder how many people actually do. And if you buy two year tags for your car, you only need an inspection every two years. Frankly, I've seen what passes for cars in some states that don't have required inspections, and I'm happy Missouri still does. Even if I do have to take vacation time to get my motorcycle inspected.
Missouri doesn't have toll roads, with the exception of a few local bridges and expressways. While tolls are a direct use tax, it's much more convenient to pay fuel tax than it is to fish for change on a toll road.
Sim City is easy. You just hack the saved game. Never had the patience to wait for taxes.
The appropriate retaliation is to improve their own defensive capability.
Not if they are still honoring their commitment to the 1972 ABM treaty. By building more effective ICBMs they can offset missile defense systems and maintain MAD. And if they replace old ICBMs with new ones, they stay in compliance with START I and START II. And since they are testing missiles and not nuclear warheads, they stay in compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Sadly, I've learned more about these treaties in the last few weeks that I ever wished to know. When it comes to nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction, defensive weapons can be viewed as offensive threats.
A couple things you might want to think about on your design. If you only run off of batteries when the grid is down you will reduce the life of your batteries and have a very low ROI on your PV and wind turbine. Overall efficiency wise, you'd be better to drop those and just install the right size generator. Assuming the power grid is reasonably reliable.
If you want to have all those components in your system, investigate dedicating critical circuits to your batteries/inverter. Use the PV, wind, and grid to maintain the charge. This way you would use your own generated power first, all the time, and make up for shortfalls from the grid. You can then back up the grid with a small generator.
And rather than trying to capture heat from the exhaust of the generator, consider passive solar to heat water for radiant heat. You could also tie into the same system with a pellet boiler as a backup heat source. If you try to pull heat from the exhaust (or the generator's cooling system), you will have to custom build equipment and it will need to monitor head temperature and EGTs to make sure you aren't pulling too much heat. Diesel engines depend on head temp to run efficiently.
If you are building your new house, use geothermal heating/cooling by installing a ground source heat pump. You could also avoid the CFL mercury issue by installing fiber optic lighting with a high efficiency light source.
she's openly advocated "taking" the profits of the US energy industry for her purposes
As opposed to taking the profits of average Americans and giving them to the US energy industry. We're talking about companies that are making record profits quarter after quarter by manipulating the system. Currently there are radio ads running trying to convince people to write their congressmen to REDUCE the regulations on the energy industry so they will be free to increase their profits. These ads sound a lot like the ones the cable/telecom industry were running a few months ago trashing net neutrality. Both industries say they need to be free to innovate. Telecom innovated by giving us ISDN, and then DSL once the cable companies gave us faster broadband. The tech was old by the time we got it, and had limited availability because the Bell monopolies previously had no incentive to upgrade their switches.The energy industry innovates by not building a single refinery in 30 years and shutting down refineries 'for maintenance' at the beginning of the summer season. When do you suppose they are going to 'innovate' emission controls and CO2 sequestration at coal powered power plants if the government doesn't threaten to beat them with a big stick?
BTW, the US government openly takes profits from businesses and individuals every day of the year. That's how we pay for our schools and our roads and our war against terrorism.
But I'm not worried about scaring you. Your used to that. Politics have been nothing but scare tactics since 9/11.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing abhorrent behavior, as long as you're willing to accept criticism yourself. The problem I had with the post I replied to was the idea that fear is a worthy response to disagreeing with the politics of another nation.
New missile tests - While here in the US we have been doing missile interceptor tests, yep, missiles of our own, that we intend to install in Poland. We have also been testing obscenely large conventional bombs and not 100 miles from where I live we have delivery systems capable of stealthily dropping them anywhere in the world. Keep in mind that we, the US, shortly after 9/11 withdrew from the ABM treaty after 30 years. It does concern me that they feel the need to test new ICBMs, but I see it as a diplomatic problem that is being complicated by rhetoric from the current administration in Washington.
alleged poisonings - Alleged. It was also alleged that Saddam had WMD.
building reactors for Iran - several countries export reactors. Iran just happens to be a country that we don't have diplomatic relations with and they say bad things about us. If we still had the relationship with them that we had 30 years ago, we'd be the ones building the reactors. I would rather someone built them reactors and supplied them with fuel than have them continue with their own nuclear processing programs.
suppression of political opposition - because our news isn't processed. But really, is it any of our business? I don't remember hearing anyone ask for our opinion of their political processes.
America are getting scarier and scarier recently. Invading sovereign nations, new missile installations, secret CIA prisons, human rights violations of 'enemy combatants', an administration that disregards world opinion. More than a little worrying, especially the pace it seems to be going at.
Well, you would think so. My house had 3 cable drops in it when I bought it. The only one that was where I needed it (office) had to be rerun to get the proper signal strength. The one in the bedroom I removed because it ran around the outside of the house (normal for a cable TV installer) and the splitter was bad. The one in the living room is on the wrong wall, so I ran a new one. The pre-existing one in the living room I used until I ran a new one, but I'll pull it down into the basement. BTW, it cost nothing to have the new drops run or repaired during the cable/broadband install. Knowing that, I doubt I would see pre-installed coax as a plus, unless it was just where I was sure I'd want it. And too many splitters in the system can cause problems.
And for all we know, a few years down the road we may all be using IPTV and set top boxes. If you don't need it, don't run it. I honestly doubt the prospective buyer will even notice.
one RG6 to each room from the central closet.
A couple years ago I would have agreed with this, but....
A central media server is awesome (that's what I have). Having video/music on demand to any room is really unexplainably nice. I use chip'd Xboxes as front-ends.
These days I'd just run 1-2 CAT 6 cables in conduit to each room. RG6 is a single tasker. It's for people who haven't bought into set top boxes. Having recently found the Buffalo LinkTheater, I don't think I would bother with coax to anything but my primary TV(s) for the cable box. And I can envision a day when the only thing connected to my cable is my Tivo.
What changed is the developers felt that players exploited the system. Back in Asheron's Call pretty much everyone had specialized characters for crafting. Create a new character, run it through a few of the easy low levels to build up stats, then take crafting skills and use your regular character to get supplies. Before long you had a level 5 or 10 character that was maxed out in a particular crafting ability. I liked it because it enhanced my ability to solo.
On the other hand, his article got mentioned on Slashdot and now everyone knows where to go for $1 books if they happen to live in his area. So it might be a brilliant publicity stunt that's worth about $20,000 ($1 x 20,000 books) to him.
If it is, it backfired here. As far as I'm concerned he can burn every book in his inventory. I won't be buying from him. Burning books is offensive, next time he should quietly put them in the dumpster if he needs to get rid of them.
BTW, a couple years ago Barnes & Noble had a sale to clean out their warehouse. I paid in the range of $1-2 each for a whole pile of books. New books, from authors like Robert Ludlum and John le Carre.
Charging a different price isn't the problem, they just have to tell their customers that the stores do not honor the web site prices. That is not what they did. They built a complete internal web site that looked identical to their other one. When a customer said "It was advertised at $xx on the web site", Best Buy employees would look it up on the internal web site, that might or might not match.
The accusation is that the internal website had higher prices, and when a customer quoted the external website, Best Buy employees would show them the internal site and say "no, this is the advertised price on the site". They're saying that the internal site was designed to intentionally mislead and overcharge customers.
It's about the effective use of funds.
You're assuming that resources applied to projects like OLPC would be efficiently applied to projects like text books and food programs. I seriously doubt it would be the case. Many of the contributions are coming from technology companies, and while they probably donate to the other types of programs, they are donating more than money to OLPC.
As far as oval versus street. The big problem with street racing, is that while it's ok on tv because of multiple cameras... if you go to the race it's pretty boring. Every minute or two they come by and you see the positions are different, or a car is missing and you wonder what happened.
Have you been to an oval track? They're pretty boring too unless you're one of those guys with the portable TV and radio for driver chatter. After a while your neck starts wondering whether you're at a race or a tennis match. I went to one IRL race at Kansas Speedway, and decided if I wanted to see a race, I'd enjoy it a whole lot more on TV.
Computers are mysterious, sealed boxes to most people; when you pull all the indicator lights off of the front, you run the risk of making that perception worse.
Computer equipment has LEDs because we've become so accustomed to it NOT working that we want reassurance that it is actually doing something. It is a hardware hourglass cursor.
My annoying devices:
Why does a trackball need external LEDs? (Logitech Trackman)
Why does a USB hub need one, particularly a super bright LED?
And the power light on my old APEX DVD player is so bright I either tape it, or turn it the other way. Nothing like a red super bright LED in your line of sight when you're trying to watch a movie.
Retailers use wireless for things like the portable scanners they use for inventory functions. In the past I have noticed Walmart, Target, and KMart all using Symbol PDT 6800s. As to why they only use WEP, that's all the scanners support. Early models only supported 40-bit WEP. Later releases supported 128-bit WEP and Symbol's proprietary KeyGuard, which requires using (expensive) Symbol access points. Although the PDT6800s have been end-of-lifed, you aren't going to rush out and replace them with newer tech if they are getting the job done. Not at $3k a piece. And even with the replacement, MC9000s, you have to ask yourself why their Windows Mobile OS is running a web server.
Of course a network engineer would wonder why the cash register network wasn't a secure, separate network. But rarely are networks designed by network engineers. They simply grow out of necessity.
The vast majority can afford basic health care on their own. And the poor in America who seem to not be able to or just don't want to, Get a government card that they abuse by running to the emergency room for the slightest little thing. Sniffles, $125.00 visit to the emergency room to get a prescription of over the counter cold medicine. And yes, It is this ridiculous.
Not that I entirely disagree with your point, but here are a couple things to consider.
A relative of mine wanted to retire a couple years ago, being just short of 65. The problem was that COBRA insurance was $800 a month until Medicare kicked in. That's not what I would consider affordable, and there are a lot of people in that age range in America.
Poor people going to the emergency room may not have a choice. If you woke up this morning and found that your child had a 102 temperature, you could call your physician and schedule an appointment today. Private physicians keep 'emergency' slots available for things like this. OTOH, if you don't have insurance and try to go to a low income clinic, you are mostly likely going to be told that they are booked for 3 weeks and you should go to the emergency room if you need immediate care. It's hardly fair to make it the only option, then blast people for using it.
I have to replace my modem every 1-2 years. As far as KC is concerned, the service is great as long as you never have to deal with their tech support. They still do the 'tell me something so I can deny support' thing. My last dealing with them, tech support on Sunday listened until he heard that my router wasn't supplied by RR. As it turns out, all he needed to do was log into my modem and he would have seen that it was logging errors. Or listen when I told him the modem was supplying a private IP to my router. At least that's what the tech on Monday told me. Swapped for a new modem at the TWC store and I should be good for another year or so.
Now if they could just figure out how to make their new digital guide software work. On-Demand rarely works any more.
In the first Wizardry game you had an option that allowed you to move characters to a save disk. (you were only allowed to have 6 active and in your party. When you 'moved' them from a write protected save disk, you got a character that was in your party and still on the disk. Rename the active one, you can move another copy. Simple character cloning.