In the city - if there are no marked places - it's legal to park as closely to another car as you want. I once parked my car and couldn't reach the sidewalk because there was not enough space left in front or in the back to pass.
If only. I frequently travel around Europe, and having to type on different keyboards (French and Belgian azerty, UK, US, Spanish and Dutch qwerty, German and Swiss qwertz) is a PITA, even though I've become reasonably accustomed to them.
Germans, and german speaking Swiss, still DO use qwertz. What the Germans have done right, however, is to provide an alternate spelling to deal with the Umlauts (e.g. ö -> oe). While accepted practice, given the choice Germans still prefer the Umlauts, and so stick to their qwertz layout.
Personally I use qwerty (EN) as it is the only reasonable layout for programming. Some alternate mappings (International/NL and Greek/EL) are handily toggled using Alt+Shift.
C/C++/Java/PHP on a french azerty really sucks unbelievably hard. I hate shifted digits, and Altgr tricks.
I'm doing the same thing at home. I have three identical drives. One, the primary, is sitting in the server, the secondary is unmounted in a removeable tray in the server, and the third is also in a tray but at a distant location.
Initially I've dd'ed the primary to the other two disks.
Every morning the primary is 'cp -fpRu'ed to the second one. No files are deleted on the secondary, unless I'm running out of diskspace there, at which time I do an 'rsync -aH --delete' after some verifications.
Each few weeks I bring the third, down the server swap it with the secondary, and return the swapped third.
I feel pragmatically protected. In the case of a crash I won't lose more than a day of work. In the case of burglary, fire or Gotterdammerung, a few weeks.
Next time I'll rebuild the file server I'll make the 2nd and 3rd an external Firewire or USB2 High Speed.
You're right; I've had to cleanup tens of family PC's recently.
- Making people switch is a PITA. They just don't want to hear about it. I guess their social reflexes are telling them that if they'd switch they would run into the same problems later on. It's the same reason as why 90% of the population is on the former-monopoly ISP who offers less for more $, the former-monopoly GSM provider who charges 10% more for the same service, and the former-monopoly utility that charges 5% more for the same power. So don't make them switch. Keep the good stuff to yourself.
- Tell them their problems are due to visiting improper web sites, but that you don't want to go into the details, and neither want they.
- Charge them. 50-100$/PC is about right. You know what a dishwasher repairman charges, don't you ?
I want one in the front of my car with a mirror image of the text.
For a while I have used a notebook to display an animated gif with the mirror image of the traffic signs for 'End of speed limit 70km/h' and 'Speed limit 90km/h' to slow drivers in front of me who stubbornly insist on driving 60km/h where 90km/h is allowed (and 100km/h is tolerated).
Another worthwhile text is 'Slower traffic keep right'.
PBDE's were first used in the 1970. All related patents are expired by now, and the revenue stream is tanking due to increased competition. Time to 'leak' some info to the greens who will happily lobby to have these 'dangerous' chemicals outlawed.
Actually even very modern and recent diesels still spew out black soot, and lots of it, when you step on the accelerator. I've seen a shiny top of the line Mercedes (S class) spewing out that telling black cloud. Not a pretty sight, and if I were the supposedly well-off driver, I would not want to see people around me turn their disgust-showing-face in my direction.
- cooking rice, pasta or potatoes in an uncovered recipient while the water is boiling feverishly and huge quantities of steam are generated; - adding enormous amounts of water to a preparation, only to boil it off later on; - baking meat in overheated and burnt oil that splatters all around; - continuously shifting pans on and off the heat source instead of it adjusting to a proper power level; - not turning down a slowly reacting heat source (like an electric plate) when the wanted temperature is nearly reached; - dumping french^H^H^H^edom fries from the freezer straight into the oil, generating explosions of steam and oil (hint: thaw and warm the fries in a microwave first).
Instead of one person or company employed to dispose of the oil, there are now several entities involved in transporting, processing, and redistributing the oil. This creates jobs that did not exist five years ago.
With the ever increasing energy prices and power consumption of CPUs it might make sense to develop a electric heating apparatus (a radiator) that, instead of resistors, contains 32 *iums or *ons inside for a 'cool' 3KW of heating power.
Link them to a fast internet connection, pay a fraction of the heatees' power bills and you're in business for CPU intensive, network extensive grid applications.
My first experiments with self-made stuff (rolled cardboard for body AND engine, KClO3 + powdered sugar fuel) on a outdoor basketball field made spectators dance. I still don't know why that rocket zoomed a few inches above the ground on an erratic trajectory while staying inside the fields' painted boundaries without hitting anything or anyone.
Not by a long shot. You can buy as much proprietary software as you want, you are not going to exhaust the supply. And prices would not rise due to increasing demand - they probably would fall instead.
So there is no scarcity. Then why does proprietary software have a price, which, in traditional economic theories, is a proxy for scarcity ?
New economic theories are needed for music, movies, and to all stuff with perceived value but zero marginal cost. I think we haven't seen the full ramifications of the digital era yet.
Slashdot Mirror
when they come to pry it out of my cold, dead hands, and win the fight with my raging teenage daughter.
Ah, you beat me by a few seconds with the 'Sony never ever learns' line. Do great minds think alike ?
- other formats are converted to that mode when they're transferred over to the player.
When will Sony ever learn ?
Well, well, you're right. Another great and henceforth unused occasion to collect monies by and for our suffocating government.
1MM each ? Much more successful than I dared to think.
In the city - if there are no marked places - it's legal to park as closely to another car as you want. I once parked my car and couldn't reach the sidewalk because there was not enough space left in front or in the back to pass.
And both non-existing cars were ma/parked in the fourth dimension.
Germans, and german speaking Swiss, still DO use qwertz. What the Germans have done right, however, is to provide an alternate spelling to deal with the Umlauts (e.g. ö -> oe). While accepted practice, given the choice Germans still prefer the Umlauts, and so stick to their qwertz layout.
Personally I use qwerty (EN) as it is the only reasonable layout for programming. Some alternate mappings (International/NL and Greek/EL) are handily toggled using Alt+Shift.
C/C++/Java/PHP on a french azerty really sucks unbelievably hard. I hate shifted digits, and Altgr tricks.
I wouldn't be surprised if, instead of
French programmers writejust to save on the braces.I'm doing the same thing at home. I have three identical drives. One, the primary, is sitting in the server, the secondary is unmounted in a removeable tray in the server, and the third is also in a tray but at a distant location.
Initially I've dd'ed the primary to the other two disks.
Every morning the primary is 'cp -fpRu'ed to the second one. No files are deleted on the secondary, unless I'm running out of diskspace there, at which time I do an 'rsync -aH --delete' after some verifications.
Each few weeks I bring the third, down the server swap it with the secondary, and return the swapped third.
I feel pragmatically protected. In the case of a crash I won't lose more than a day of work. In the case of burglary, fire or Gotterdammerung, a few weeks.
Next time I'll rebuild the file server I'll make the 2nd and 3rd an external Firewire or USB2 High Speed.
Fingers crossed.
Saarbrücken uni is doing impressive stuff indeed.
of the day when complex POV scenes can be rendered by hardware at 1920x1080 @ 60 fps.
Will that day come in the next 40 years, or even ever ?
You're right; I've had to cleanup tens of family PC's recently.
- Making people switch is a PITA. They just don't want to hear about it. I guess their social reflexes are telling them that if they'd switch they would run into the same problems later on. It's the same reason as why 90% of the population is on the former-monopoly ISP who offers less for more $, the former-monopoly GSM provider who charges 10% more for the same service, and the former-monopoly utility that charges 5% more for the same power. So don't make them switch. Keep the good stuff to yourself.
- Tell them their problems are due to visiting improper web sites, but that you don't want to go into the details, and neither want they.
- Charge them. 50-100$/PC is about right. You know what a dishwasher repairman charges, don't you ?
I want one in the front of my car with a mirror image of the text.
For a while I have used a notebook to display an animated gif with the mirror image of the traffic signs for 'End of speed limit 70km/h' and 'Speed limit 90km/h' to slow drivers in front of me who stubbornly insist on driving 60km/h where 90km/h is allowed (and 100km/h is tolerated).
Another worthwhile text is 'Slower traffic keep right'.
PBDE's were first used in the 1970. All related patents are expired by now, and the revenue stream is tanking due to increased competition. Time to 'leak' some info to the greens who will happily lobby to have these 'dangerous' chemicals outlawed.
Too cynical ?
Actually even very modern and recent diesels still spew out black soot, and lots of it, when you step on the accelerator. I've seen a shiny top of the line Mercedes (S class) spewing out that telling black cloud. Not a pretty sight, and if I were the supposedly well-off driver, I would not want to see people around me turn their disgust-showing-face in my direction.
a thermodynamically challenged cook
- cooking rice, pasta or potatoes in an uncovered recipient while the water is boiling feverishly and huge quantities of steam are generated;
- adding enormous amounts of water to a preparation, only to boil it off later on;
- baking meat in overheated and burnt oil that splatters all around;
- continuously shifting pans on and off the heat source instead of it adjusting to a proper power level;
- not turning down a slowly reacting heat source (like an electric plate) when the wanted temperature is nearly reached;
- dumping french^H^H^H^edom fries from the freezer straight into the oil, generating explosions of steam and oil (hint: thaw and warm the fries in a microwave first).
All of them ?
First time I was in Bergen I joked about the big gutters (that aren't really _that_ big anyway). But it didn't rain during the 3 days I was there...
Ah, the broken window fallacy at it again.
With the ever increasing energy prices and power consumption of CPUs it might make sense to develop a electric heating apparatus (a radiator) that, instead of resistors, contains 32 *iums or *ons inside for a 'cool' 3KW of heating power.
Link them to a fast internet connection, pay a fraction of the heatees' power bills and you're in business for CPU intensive, network extensive grid applications.
What animal uses an innate object to cut off the head of another animal ?
The people "you" are facing, _are_ humans. Bad ones for sure.
Indeed !
My first experiments with self-made stuff (rolled cardboard for body AND engine, KClO3 + powdered sugar fuel) on a outdoor basketball field made spectators dance. I still don't know why that rocket zoomed a few inches above the ground on an erratic trajectory while staying inside the fields' painted boundaries without hitting anything or anyone.
A great sensation.
we suddenly have to make it artificially scarce!
Not by a long shot. You can buy as much proprietary software as you want, you are not going to exhaust the supply. And prices would not rise due to increasing demand - they probably would fall instead.
So there is no scarcity. Then why does proprietary software have a price, which, in traditional economic theories, is a proxy for scarcity ?
New economic theories are needed for music, movies, and to all stuff with perceived value but zero marginal cost. I think we haven't seen the full ramifications of the digital era yet.
Is this really an "US and them" issue ?
After all, we're only ordinary men.
Who can decode the ancient Greek message ?
Or is it Russian ?
You've been reading - or worse, writing - too much patents lately. The word "said" is a dead giveaway.