A friend of mine does engineering for the huge syrup processing machines for Coca-Cola in California where they produce the flavors for dozens of different brands owned by Coca-Cola. The numbers are pretty amazing. They store the syrup in a number of 20,000 gallon tanks and sell the syrup in plastic bag-like containers, which costs them something like 78 cents in raw materials to produce. They sell them for $25 if I remember correctly. The syrup is then diluted with water (20 to one?) and carbonated at the fountain. You do the numbers... the places that don't let you have refills are ripping you a new one. Someone correct me if my numbers are off, it's been a couple years since he told me.
An interesting aside... he said that the syrup for every single flavor they produce (including Coke Classic, the easiest to produce) comes out totally clear... they add color to all of them. I expected that with some of the drinks, but the fact that all of were dyed surprised me.
Doing the math, it looks like he was given about 150K shares. Had he sold all shares as soon as the SEC allowed, he would have made about $6 million at $40-50/share. If he were to sell them all today, it would be worth less than $140K.
According to Yahoo Finance, it appears that he didn't exercise any of his options.
At least he put his money where his mouth was... but was it worth it?
I have purchased three rack-mount UPS units this way and I have been very happy with them. Now that everyone on slashdot knows, the prices will probably skyrocket. Oh well, it was good while it lasted!:)
I dealt with this for many years in the public schools. The simple answer to dealing with the supervisors is... don't. They don't understand the technology, they don't have time for it, and they often use their egos to make the decisions anyways. Use good reason and implement the necessary things as you and your staff see fit, then apologize later. Chances are you won't need to apologize, they will be too busy thanking you. Use your state technology plan as a guideline and refer to the one for your particular district if they have one.
I know it's cruel, but reality is sometimes that way. I tried doing it the 'right way' for three years, but things remained in disarray and nothing ever got done. In fact, that's probably why things are as bad as they are where you are now - people went about things the 'right way'.
If you haven't worked for a public K-12 school district you have no room to argue what I'm saying - you haven't been there. I've seen trivial topics go into meetings and get held up for six months to a year in the system, and that is when the money is already appropriated.
School districts need to learn to let competent people do their jobs. They hire them, underpay them, then micromanage them until they get burned out or quit.
Feel free to e-mail me if you want to talk specifics. My address is spamme at socal.rr.com
Good luck --SONET
The right idea for the wrong place
on
Hawaii Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
This guy has a neat idea, but he sure didn't pick a very good place to implement it.
I spent a few months out of every year on the Big Island when I was growing up (my dad lives there) and still visit once or twice a year. For those of you that haven't been there, the terrain is not by any means well-suited for wireless communications. There are hills and valleys everywhere. Cell phone companies have a hell of a time providing decent service there (try being in a car and riding down the road a few miles while on the phone, you often get disconnected). My brother provided the land for a big AT&T tower on his ranch, and the tower more or less covers the northern part of the island. It seems about the only place to get decent reception on the nothern part of the island is on the ranch itself. Taking this into consideration, I would guess this guy is going to need lots of people participating to get this working very well.
I have to point out the that the reporter made an incorrect statement about broadband availability on the island. My dad has had a cable modem for years (so have his friends all over the island), and it seems to work better than mine does in California. And DSL was available to him even before it was at my house or office in Orange County. The only problem is, as others have mentioned, the island chain isn't connected up very well with the rest of the world. But the pipes don't seem to be saturated just yet... he gets good ping times to the mainland and he usually has more bandwidth to different sites around the world than I do (yes I realize there are other variables heh). Whatever the case, I wish reporters could get their facts straight. I guess it sounded better for him to say that nothing else was available there. It may be an island, but it is no longer the boonies (unfortunately) - it is pretty developed there and the place is growing at a very fast rate.
Anyway, still a cool idea... I look forward to checking it out on my next trip over there. Maybe I missed it (I'm in need of some sleep!), but where is he getting the Internet connection to share with everyone? If each base station was contributing... wouldn't that mean that some of these people had broadband in their homes to begin with in order for them to contribute?
--SONET
This seems more like a poll question to me
on
Do You Like Your Job?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Google also came up with a cool 'appliance' recently. It's an intranet document searching server that searches through over 200 file types in addition to HTML - including PDF and MS Office files. According to them the setup procedure is trivial.
Imagine how useful that would be in an office environment (or even in certain school situations) with a few dozen file servers full of stuff to be indexed. It could really minimize duplication of efforts.
Oh yeah, and it runs on Linux. Google is the greatest.:)
I realize that this is a little off-topic, but I hope the moderators will let others read about Google's cool new product. I recently submitted this as a story, but obvoiusly the slashdot powers that be are losing their good taste.;)
I connect to the Internet from my laptop using the infrared port on my Nokia 8290 phone. The phone acts as a modem. With Voicestream, you can use your plan minutes with this feature. Unfortunately I'm with Cingular, so I pay $5 extra per month and $.15/minute when I use the service (it also comes with a fax number). Thats for a blazing 9600 baud. Other networks offer similar functionality, some with more bandwidth (AT&T offers 19Kb and SprintPCS offers 14Kb if i remember correctly).
That may seem expensive, but when you're trapped somewhere with no Internet connection and need to SSH to a box NOW, the price becomes worth it. It has allowed me to go camping and the like when normally I wouldn't have been able to.
I could see where it could get complicated with billing issues for the product Intel is going to offer, unless they have service agreements with all the cellular service providers and you pay Intel for the service. I wish Intel luck on this one, as data services range such a great deal in price from one cellular provider to another.
I guess it will be nice for some people to have it integrated into their laptops (and it will make for a nice opportunity for laptop makers to have another area to profit), but again I don't see it as a huge leap like they seem to be making it out to be - I'm essentially doing the same thing right now.
I find it ironic that you 'would like to see' an open-source map, implying that you are expecting someone else to create it for you. Has the thought ever occured to you that you could do a little research and put together such a map as a contribution to 'education' and to 'boost morale'? Although ideas are nice, the open source world relies on actual contributions.
To conclude, I find your mindset disturbing and hope you decide to act on your ideas in the future instead of expecting others to act on them for you.
I know this is a little off-topic, but here's an unsolved trivia question I've had for a few years that nobody has been able to answer...
If you have ever been to Disneyland (Calif, USA) and been to the Star Tours attraction, when you get about half-way through the line inside the building, as you go around this right-turn, there is this special glass on the right that has parts of it that change rapidly from clear to translucent. I think C3PO is working behind it. This is one of the details they added to the attraction in the past few years.
Anyway, I always wondered how they did that. The entire piece of glass doesn't change at once, only a few squares of it at a time. The piece of glass appears to be one single solid piece (maybe 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide or so if I remember correctly) with no wire leads going to the squares visable (some of the squares are in the middle). The squares don't change to black, but to white translucent, looking much like frosted glass.
I have asked several imagineers about it, but as usual the answer was simply 'it's just magic' followed by 'I can't disclose any of our secrets'.
Has anyone else noticed this piece of glass, and better yet does anyone know how they did it?!
If what the media shows me is even mildly correct however, it is no country for me.
Well, let's see... in the US, 85% of the members of the media consider themselves liberal by US standards, 7% conservative, and the rest don't care to disclose their personal views. I have spent time in other parts of the world, and the media there seems to be about the same when reporting about the US. And the majority of the time, news organizations get their news from organizations in the US (refer back to statistics above)
So... I wonder what kind of spin the news is going to have on it?
I recommend that you spend some time in the US and see things first-hand before you go commenting on them as if you are some sort of expert. Seeing something on TV does not qualify you as any sort of expert.
Although you have every right to post whatever you want here, perhaps you could take slashdot readers into consideration in the future and only post about things in your area of understanding or expertise.
'Political Correctness' is embraced by liberals (as defined in the US) you moron. You are responding to a post that is blatently conservative. FYI the 'average' conservative dispises liberals who constantly insist on politically correct thought, speech, and behavior.
In the future perhaps you could be so kind as to 1) log on to take credit for your posts, and 2) limit your slashdot contributions to your area(s) of understanding or expertise.
should read "...outside of which life as we know it cannot exist."
It really bothers me when people leave that part out. Though we haven't found any evidence yet, living organisms in other solar systems may very well have adapted to a completely different kind of environment than we have here on Earth. Just because we don't know about it or understand it yet doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist.:)
Have you seen the gas prices lately? They're cheaper than they were during the Clinton administration.
93 cents a gallon for the cheap stuff right on the corner across the street from my business. And a substantial part of that is taxes imposed by the EPA (especially here in California).
Of course this will be modded down because FACTS don't get points here.
If the fatcats on wallstreet think that Microsoft isn't protecting their revenue stream, MSFT's stock price *will* reflect this. Now that these raids have taken place, investers can 'rest assured' that their money will be safe.
I know a couple programmers working for MSFT, and they are betting their [early] retirement on their MSFT stock. So... I would have to say that they care whether or not the software is stolen... and even moreso if the general public is concious of it.
Was there really any revenue lost to begin with? Surely not as much as they claim. People steal software typically wouldn't pay money for it anyway. Will the people that got caught and all their friends/relatives etc. think twice before they use unlicensed copies of MSFT software again? Probably. Better yet, maybe they'll move away from MSFT products altogether.
A book that I had to read for an interesting class I took listed as 'Science and Society' was "Cantor's Dilemma". It wasn't the best book I've ever read by any stretch, but it did give a great deal of insight on research teams at schools and their motives. Your comment really pertains to the content of the book.
Have a read, you might like it.:)
After reading the book, I would guess something about Hagelstein not wanting anyone else to do research in this area because they might beat him to the punch. With a big school like MIT discounting it entirely and even refusing funding for it, other schools would have a difficult time receiving funding and thus could no longer act as competition. Just a thought.
This just gives me one more reason to be glad that I stopped buying Sony products.
I used to buy their products religiously, everything the top of the line. My first fun experience was when I brought my $800 (at the time) Sony VCR to their repair center, which happens to be located near me. They wanted $240 just to look at it. Then they were charging $80/hr. plus parts to fix it. The person I talked to at the service center said he thought he knew the problem from the symptoms, and it was about $500 to repair it after the diagnosis, parts, and labor. It really rubbed me wrong when he reached over to a pile of Sony catalogs and handed me one and recommended a replacement model that I could order right then and there. Was this a regular occurance for them? All this when my VCR had about 8 hours of use, and it was just over a month outside of their warranty period.
I also had a similar experience with a camcorder I had spent over a grand on. That's when I decided to stop buying their products. They consider everything disposable, even after just a year of use (or no use for that matter). When I pay a premium for a product, I don't do it just to show other people the brand name. I do it because the company behind the name makes a good quality product and stands behind it. Sony used to make a good product, but they have never stood behind it for me.
Not that they care with their sales volume, but until their service practices change and their product quality returns to what it used to be, they lost me as a customer.
I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but there are places offering the Fuji Finepix 6900 for just over $500. It shoots at up to 2832 x 2128, which comes out to a little better than 6 Megapixels. Pretty amazing for the price (I paid about $800 for my 640X480 digicam three or so years ago - being an early adopter is lame). I wonder how much it compresses the image, and more practically how long it takes it to stuff an image that size into it's memory. It probably shoots at something like.01 fps at that resolution heh.
The McMaster motor is a unique, two-cycle, rotary power plant with the same displacement volume as a 200 horsepower engine. It is equivalent to the six-cylinder engines found in many U.S. luxury cars, yet with only one-tenth the weight.
The motor's two-cycle version is powered by a previously unused fuel system comprised of ammonia and nitrous oxide. Both chemicals are safe to handle, but mix them together at the right temperature and pressure and explosive power erupts.
In order to produce ammonia and nitrous oxide in the quantities needed, an efficient and inexpensive approach to generating electrical power from solar energy has been developed. http://www.firstsolar.com
I, too, have become addicted. I literally hadn't watched TV since 1995 until this happened, now I can't stop watching it. I am impressed (perhaps 'blown away' would better describe it) that most cable television news networks have dropped advertising altogether in this great opportunity for ad revenue. Come to think of it, on the web side even x10.com changed and in some cases removed their annoying ads, though I still wouldn't buy anything from them after all the ads I have had to close.
I must admit that I probably still wouldn't be watching TV if it hadn't been for the fact that I have been disappointed with the news coverage on the web. Even web sites such as cnn.com have nowhere near the detail of their television broadcasting counterparts. And the worst part by far is that it takes quite some time for information to make it to their site, and when it does, it really is lacking depth and detail that TV coverage offers. I have found this to be true with all news-related web sites. I realize that data entry and formatting takes time, but it seems to me that there is much room for improvement.
The web has proven to be an excellent source for discussion, as always (both slashdot and Kuro5hin have had some excellent threads over the past few days). And finding background information on different subjects is and probably always will be unparalled. I've probably been to Google a hundred times since Tuesday.
With all this free time I have found myself with, I have been visiting web sites of different companies to see how they have responded to the tragedy. Many sites (apple.com comes to mind) have messages displayed prominately on their sites. Others, particularly companies based in Asia for some reason (honda2001.com comes to mind), have no mention whatsoever. I also found it disappointing that some companies seem (in my opinion) to be using their philanthropy, though generous, with the alterior motive of boosting their company image and earning brownie points. In my eyes this is evident on some web sites immediately. Whatever the case, be sure to visit some of your favorite and not-so-favorite company web sites and see how they are handling things. Whether you're planning to invest in a company or just buy a candybar from them, I think it's always good to have an idea who you're giving your money to, and in some cases this might be a good indicator.
As another aside, I am sitting here in southern California, USA at 11:40pm PST listening to people sounding their car horns like there is no tomorrow. People are on the street corners and islands in major intersections all up and down the streets, waving American flags and holding candles. There are hundreds of people - some corners must have 50-100 people each. There were what looked like thousands of candles that people had brought set up at the pier here. I found it interesting that, from talking with my grandparents, this patriotic attitude is similar to the level experienced during WWII.
I just realized how tiring watching TV can be... 'nite.
--SONET
First and third post... is it just me or is there something not right here?
I've been reading slashdot since.... well... since Rob owned it and 20 comments was considered 'a lot', yet this is the first time I have been able to claim first post.
I picked up a new 400MHz Pismo (Apple PowerBook) back in November in anticipation of OSX. It is my first Apple machine, and it definately won't be my last. It takes abuse daily but it still looks and runs like it's brand-new, and people regularly remark how beautiful the display is.
The only thing that stinks is that sometimes compatibility issues present themselves at the worst times. I can't just create a *BSD boot floppy any 'ol time when I'm out and about... that sort of thing (okay so I could buy an external floppy drive, but you get the point). But OSX is fantastic, and being able to drop into a shell with Photoshop running at the same time is hard to beat. Can't wait till 10.1 arrives!
In retrospect, I would have gone without the AppleCare warranty, but as an educator I got it for almost nothing anyways. And, as it probably goes without saying I would have waited for the G4 (at the time I had heard the G4 was going to look like the old iBooks! yikes!). Oh well. Ohh yeah, and I would have picked up an extra battery while it was still cheap. They are twice as expensive now as they were when I bought it.
My last piece of advice... pay cash. Don't go into debt over it; a new model will come out and you'll still be paying for the old one. There's nothing quite like paying every month for old computer hardware. Okay, another piece of advice... look around at resale values on laptops (on ebay etc). Generally, the lower the resale value on a given model, the more problems that brand tends to have. And besides, someday you will want to sell the one you have and get a newer one, it may as well be worth something. Also look around for refurbs... if there is a whole slew of one particular brand or model available as refurbs, that should clue you into something.
As for PC's, my best luck has been with Dell. Sony has quality control problems, particularly with their displays on their laptops. This is a shame, because they really make a nice looking product with spiffy features. Compaq laptops tend to lose motherboards, but otherwise are decent. Toshiba makes nice ones, but the shell and buttons (on/off etc) tend to have a short life for some reason. HP makes nothing but crap, don't be lured by the cheap price. I can't think of any other brand to say anything good about.;)
Just my two cents, hope you find them valuable. I've been up for 26 hours, what the heck am I doing here heh
I work at an elementary school. There are 11-year-olds here. I tell them about the log. I print out a sample of the log and show it to them. I tell them the consequences outlined in the school's Internet policy if I log them going to an 'inappropriate' web site.
I haven't had a single incident in four years with a student trying to view a site that is deemed 'inappropriate' by the school. The result is a weird sort of trust relationship, and that I don't have to go around trying to filter the whole Internet or watching over their shoulders while they're on the 'net. The kids have access to real information and I don't go against my own values by having to filter the Internet.
So... I could be wrong but I'm guessing the whole logging business could have had something to do with that considering the track record for other schools in the area that don't handle the Internet in the same fashion. The sad truth is that many of them have Internet access but don't even let the kids use it in fear of 'something happening'.
I think this guy could have some success with logging if 1) he tells her he's doing it (must, it's only fair) and shows her what the logs look like, 2) he tells her (on paper? depends on the kid) what kinds of sites he doesn't think is acceptable, 3) he tells her the consequences that will result if she visits the 'inappropriate' sites (again, maybe on paper), and 4) he follows through when something happens that isn't supposed to. The fourth one is usually the hardest one.;) And lastly, if the kid has any clue he may want to use a transparent proxy configuration there so she can't get around it.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend of mine does engineering for the huge syrup processing machines for Coca-Cola in California where they produce the flavors for dozens of different brands owned by Coca-Cola. The numbers are pretty amazing. They store the syrup in a number of 20,000 gallon tanks and sell the syrup in plastic bag-like containers, which costs them something like 78 cents in raw materials to produce. They sell them for $25 if I remember correctly. The syrup is then diluted with water (20 to one?) and carbonated at the fountain. You do the numbers... the places that don't let you have refills are ripping you a new one. Someone correct me if my numbers are off, it's been a couple years since he told me.
An interesting aside... he said that the syrup for every single flavor they produce (including Coke Classic, the easiest to produce) comes out totally clear... they add color to all of them. I expected that with some of the drinks, but the fact that all of were dyed surprised me.
--SONET
Doing the math, it looks like he was given about 150K shares. Had he sold all shares as soon as the SEC allowed,
he would have made about $6 million at $40-50/share. If he were to sell them all today, it would be worth less than $140K.
According to Yahoo Finance, it appears that he didn't exercise any of his options.
At least he put his money where his mouth was... but was it worth it?
--SONET
I have purchased three rack-mount UPS units this way and I have been very happy with them. Now that everyone on slashdot knows, the prices will probably skyrocket. Oh well, it was good while it lasted! :)
--SONET
I dealt with this for many years in the public schools. The simple answer to dealing with the supervisors is... don't. They don't understand the technology, they don't have time for it, and they often use their egos to make the decisions anyways. Use good reason and implement the necessary things as you and your staff see fit, then apologize later. Chances are you won't need to apologize, they will be too busy thanking you. Use your state technology plan as a guideline and refer to the one for your particular district if they have one.
I know it's cruel, but reality is sometimes that way. I tried doing it the 'right way' for three years, but things remained in disarray and nothing ever got done. In fact, that's probably why things are as bad as they are where you are now - people went about things the 'right way'.
If you haven't worked for a public K-12 school district you have no room to argue what I'm saying - you haven't been there. I've seen trivial topics go into meetings and get held up for six months to a year in the system, and that is when the money is already appropriated.
School districts need to learn to let competent people do their jobs. They hire them, underpay them, then micromanage them until they get burned out or quit.
Feel free to e-mail me if you want to talk specifics. My address is spamme at socal.rr.com
Good luck
--SONET
This guy has a neat idea, but he sure didn't pick a very good place to implement it.
I spent a few months out of every year on the Big Island when I was growing up (my dad lives there) and still visit once or twice a year. For those of you that haven't been there, the terrain is not by any means well-suited for wireless communications. There are hills and valleys everywhere. Cell phone companies have a hell of a time providing decent service there (try being in a car and riding down the road a few miles while on the phone, you often get disconnected). My brother provided the land for a big AT&T tower on his ranch, and the tower more or less covers the northern part of the island. It seems about the only place to get decent reception on the nothern part of the island is on the ranch itself. Taking this into consideration, I would guess this guy is going to need lots of people participating to get this working very well.
I have to point out the that the reporter made an incorrect statement about broadband availability on the island. My dad has had a cable modem for years (so have his friends all over the island), and it seems to work better than mine does in California. And DSL was available to him even before it was at my house or office in Orange County. The only problem is, as others have mentioned, the island chain isn't connected up very well with the rest of the world. But the pipes don't seem to be saturated just yet... he gets good ping times to the mainland and he usually has more bandwidth to different sites around the world than I do (yes I realize there are other variables heh). Whatever the case, I wish reporters could get their facts straight. I guess it sounded better for him to say that nothing else was available there. It may be an island, but it is no longer the boonies (unfortunately) - it is pretty developed there and the place is growing at a very fast rate.
Anyway, still a cool idea... I look forward to checking it out on my next trip over there. Maybe I missed it (I'm in need of some sleep!), but where is he getting the Internet connection to share with everyone? If each base station was contributing... wouldn't that mean that some of these people had broadband in their homes to begin with in order for them to contribute?
--SONET
Its time for a new poll anyways...
Do you like your job?
-Yes!
-No!
-What job?
--SONET
Google also came up with a cool 'appliance' recently. It's an intranet document searching server that searches through over 200 file types in addition to HTML - including PDF and MS Office files. According to them the setup procedure is trivial.
:)
;)
Imagine how useful that would be in an office environment (or even in certain school situations) with a few dozen file servers full of stuff to be indexed. It could really minimize duplication of efforts.
Oh yeah, and it runs on Linux. Google is the greatest.
I realize that this is a little off-topic, but I hope the moderators will let others read about Google's cool new product. I recently submitted this as a story, but obvoiusly the slashdot powers that be are losing their good taste.
--SONET
I connect to the Internet from my laptop using the infrared port on my Nokia 8290 phone. The phone acts as a modem. With Voicestream, you can use your plan minutes with this feature. Unfortunately I'm with Cingular, so I pay $5 extra per month and $.15/minute when I use the service (it also comes with a fax number). Thats for a blazing 9600 baud. Other networks offer similar functionality, some with more bandwidth (AT&T offers 19Kb and SprintPCS offers 14Kb if i remember correctly).
That may seem expensive, but when you're trapped somewhere with no Internet connection and need to SSH to a box NOW, the price becomes worth it. It has allowed me to go camping and the like when normally I wouldn't have been able to.
I could see where it could get complicated with billing issues for the product Intel is going to offer, unless they have service agreements with all the cellular service providers and you pay Intel for the service. I wish Intel luck on this one, as data services range such a great deal in price from one cellular provider to another.
I guess it will be nice for some people to have it integrated into their laptops (and it will make for a nice opportunity for laptop makers to have another area to profit), but again I don't see it as a huge leap like they seem to be making it out to be - I'm essentially doing the same thing right now.
--SONET
To conclude, I find your mindset disturbing and hope you decide to act on your ideas in the future instead of expecting others to act on them for you.
--SONET
I know this is a little off-topic, but here's an unsolved trivia question I've had for a few years that nobody has been able to answer...
If you have ever been to Disneyland (Calif, USA) and been to the Star Tours attraction, when you get about half-way through the line inside the building, as you go around this right-turn, there is this special glass on the right that has parts of it that change rapidly from clear to translucent. I think C3PO is working behind it. This is one of the details they added to the attraction in the past few years.
Anyway, I always wondered how they did that. The entire piece of glass doesn't change at once, only a few squares of it at a time. The piece of glass appears to be one single solid piece (maybe 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide or so if I remember correctly) with no wire leads going to the squares visable (some of the squares are in the middle). The squares don't change to black, but to white translucent, looking much like frosted glass.
I have asked several imagineers about it, but as usual the answer was simply 'it's just magic' followed by 'I can't disclose any of our secrets'.
Has anyone else noticed this piece of glass, and better yet does anyone know how they did it?!
--SONET
If what the media shows me is even mildly correct however, it is no country for me.
Well, let's see... in the US, 85% of the members of the media consider themselves liberal by US standards, 7% conservative, and the rest don't care to disclose their personal views. I have spent time in other parts of the world, and the media there seems to be about the same when reporting about the US. And the majority of the time, news organizations get their news from organizations in the US (refer back to statistics above)
So... I wonder what kind of spin the news is going to have on it?
I recommend that you spend some time in the US and see things first-hand before you go commenting on them as if you are some sort of expert. Seeing something on TV does not qualify you as any sort of expert.
Although you have every right to post whatever you want here, perhaps you could take slashdot readers into consideration in the future and only post about things in your area of understanding or expertise.
--SONET
Your post reveals your ignorance....
'Political Correctness' is embraced by liberals (as defined in the US) you moron. You are responding to a post that is blatently conservative. FYI the 'average' conservative dispises liberals who constantly insist on politically correct thought, speech, and behavior.
In the future perhaps you could be so kind as to 1) log on to take credit for your posts, and 2) limit your slashdot contributions to your area(s) of understanding or expertise.
Thanks,
--SONET
...outside of which life cannot exist.
:)
should read "...outside of which life as we know it cannot exist."
It really bothers me when people leave that part out. Though we haven't found any evidence yet, living organisms in other solar systems may very well have adapted to a completely different kind of environment than we have here on Earth. Just because we don't know about it or understand it yet doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist.
--SONET
Have you seen the gas prices lately? They're cheaper than they were during the Clinton administration.
93 cents a gallon for the cheap stuff right on the corner across the street from my business. And a substantial part of that is taxes imposed by the EPA (especially here in California).
Of course this will be modded down because FACTS don't get points here.
--SONET
Ever heard of stock options?
If the fatcats on wallstreet think that Microsoft isn't protecting their revenue stream, MSFT's stock price *will* reflect this. Now that these raids have taken place, investers can 'rest assured' that their money will be safe.
I know a couple programmers working for MSFT, and they are betting their [early] retirement on their MSFT stock. So... I would have to say that they care whether or not the software is stolen... and even moreso if the general public is concious of it.
Was there really any revenue lost to begin with? Surely not as much as they claim. People steal software typically wouldn't pay money for it anyway. Will the people that got caught and all their friends/relatives etc. think twice before they use unlicensed copies of MSFT software again? Probably. Better yet, maybe they'll move away from MSFT products altogether.
--SONET
A book that I had to read for an interesting class I took listed as 'Science and Society' was "Cantor's Dilemma". It wasn't the best book I've ever read by any stretch, but it did give a great deal of insight on research teams at schools and their motives. Your comment really pertains to the content of the book.
:)
Have a read, you might like it.
After reading the book, I would guess something about Hagelstein not wanting anyone else to do research in this area because they might beat him to the punch. With a big school like MIT discounting it entirely and even refusing funding for it, other schools would have a difficult time receiving funding and thus could no longer act as competition. Just a thought.
--SONET
This just gives me one more reason to be glad that I stopped buying Sony products.
I used to buy their products religiously, everything the top of the line. My first fun experience was when I brought my $800 (at the time) Sony VCR to their repair center, which happens to be located near me. They wanted $240 just to look at it. Then they were charging $80/hr. plus parts to fix it. The person I talked to at the service center said he thought he knew the problem from the symptoms, and it was about $500 to repair it after the diagnosis, parts, and labor. It really rubbed me wrong when he reached over to a pile of Sony catalogs and handed me one and recommended a replacement model that I could order right then and there. Was this a regular occurance for them? All this when my VCR had about 8 hours of use, and it was just over a month outside of their warranty period.
I also had a similar experience with a camcorder I had spent over a grand on. That's when I decided to stop buying their products. They consider everything disposable, even after just a year of use (or no use for that matter). When I pay a premium for a product, I don't do it just to show other people the brand name. I do it because the company behind the name makes a good quality product and stands behind it. Sony used to make a good product, but they have never stood behind it for me.
Not that they care with their sales volume, but until their service practices change and their product quality returns to what it used to be, they lost me as a customer.
--SONET
I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but there are places offering the Fuji Finepix 6900 for just over $500. It shoots at up to 2832 x 2128, which comes out to a little better than 6 Megapixels. Pretty amazing for the price (I paid about $800 for my 640X480 digicam three or so years ago - being an early adopter is lame). I wonder how much it compresses the image, and more practically how long it takes it to stuff an image that size into it's memory. It probably shoots at something like
--SONET
The McMaster motor is a unique, two-cycle, rotary power plant with the same displacement volume as a 200 horsepower engine. It is equivalent to the six-cylinder engines found in many U.S. luxury cars, yet with only one-tenth the weight.
The motor's two-cycle version is powered by a previously unused fuel system comprised of ammonia and nitrous oxide. Both chemicals are safe to handle, but mix them together at the right temperature and pressure and explosive power erupts. In order to produce ammonia and nitrous oxide in the quantities needed, an efficient and inexpensive approach to generating electrical power from solar energy has been developed. http://www.firstsolar.com
I, too, have become addicted. I literally hadn't watched TV since 1995 until this happened, now I can't stop watching it. I am impressed (perhaps 'blown away' would better describe it) that most cable television news networks have dropped advertising altogether in this great opportunity for ad revenue. Come to think of it, on the web side even x10.com changed and in some cases removed their annoying ads, though I still wouldn't buy anything from them after all the ads I have had to close.
I must admit that I probably still wouldn't be watching TV if it hadn't been for the fact that I have been disappointed with the news coverage on the web. Even web sites such as cnn.com have nowhere near the detail of their television broadcasting counterparts. And the worst part by far is that it takes quite some time for information to make it to their site, and when it does, it really is lacking depth and detail that TV coverage offers. I have found this to be true with all news-related web sites. I realize that data entry and formatting takes time, but it seems to me that there is much room for improvement.
The web has proven to be an excellent source for discussion, as always (both slashdot and Kuro5hin have had some excellent threads over the past few days). And finding background information on different subjects is and probably always will be unparalled. I've probably been to Google a hundred times since Tuesday.
With all this free time I have found myself with, I have been visiting web sites of different companies to see how they have responded to the tragedy. Many sites (apple.com comes to mind) have messages displayed prominately on their sites. Others, particularly companies based in Asia for some reason (honda2001.com comes to mind), have no mention whatsoever. I also found it disappointing that some companies seem (in my opinion) to be using their philanthropy, though generous, with the alterior motive of boosting their company image and earning brownie points. In my eyes this is evident on some web sites immediately. Whatever the case, be sure to visit some of your favorite and not-so-favorite company web sites and see how they are handling things. Whether you're planning to invest in a company or just buy a candybar from them, I think it's always good to have an idea who you're giving your money to, and in some cases this might be a good indicator.
As another aside, I am sitting here in southern California, USA at 11:40pm PST listening to people sounding their car horns like there is no tomorrow. People are on the street corners and islands in major intersections all up and down the streets, waving American flags and holding candles. There are hundreds of people - some corners must have 50-100 people each. There were what looked like thousands of candles that people had brought set up at the pier here. I found it interesting that, from talking with my grandparents, this patriotic attitude is similar to the level experienced during WWII.
I just realized how tiring watching TV can be... 'nite.
--SONET
Thanks a bunch for the translation. Two years of Japanese wasn't quite enough for me to figure out what it says. ;)
--SONET
First and third post... is it just me or is there something not right here?
:)
I've been reading slashdot since.... well... since Rob owned it and 20 comments was considered 'a lot', yet this is the first time I have been able to claim first post.
Something is definately wrong.
Umm can I post yet? :P
I picked up a new 400MHz Pismo (Apple PowerBook) back in November in anticipation of OSX. It is my first Apple machine, and it definately won't be my last. It takes abuse daily but it still looks and runs like it's brand-new, and people regularly remark how beautiful the display is.
;)
The only thing that stinks is that sometimes compatibility issues present themselves at the worst times. I can't just create a *BSD boot floppy any 'ol time when I'm out and about... that sort of thing (okay so I could buy an external floppy drive, but you get the point). But OSX is fantastic, and being able to drop into a shell with Photoshop running at the same time is hard to beat. Can't wait till 10.1 arrives!
In retrospect, I would have gone without the AppleCare warranty, but as an educator I got it for almost nothing anyways. And, as it probably goes without saying I would have waited for the G4 (at the time I had heard the G4 was going to look like the old iBooks! yikes!). Oh well. Ohh yeah, and I would have picked up an extra battery while it was still cheap. They are twice as expensive now as they were when I bought it.
My last piece of advice... pay cash. Don't go into debt over it; a new model will come out and you'll still be paying for the old one. There's nothing quite like paying every month for old computer hardware. Okay, another piece of advice... look around at resale values on laptops (on ebay etc). Generally, the lower the resale value on a given model, the more problems that brand tends to have. And besides, someday you will want to sell the one you have and get a newer one, it may as well be worth something. Also look around for refurbs... if there is a whole slew of one particular brand or model available as refurbs, that should clue you into something.
As for PC's, my best luck has been with Dell. Sony has quality control problems, particularly with their displays on their laptops. This is a shame, because they really make a nice looking product with spiffy features. Compaq laptops tend to lose motherboards, but otherwise are decent. Toshiba makes nice ones, but the shell and buttons (on/off etc) tend to have a short life for some reason. HP makes nothing but crap, don't be lured by the cheap price. I can't think of any other brand to say anything good about.
Just my two cents, hope you find them valuable. I've been up for 26 hours, what the heck am I doing here heh
--SONET
I work at an elementary school. There are 11-year-olds here. I tell them about the log. I print out a sample of the log and show it to them. I tell them the consequences outlined in the school's Internet policy if I log them going to an 'inappropriate' web site.
;) And lastly, if the kid has any clue he may want to use a transparent proxy configuration there so she can't get around it.
I haven't had a single incident in four years with a student trying to view a site that is deemed 'inappropriate' by the school. The result is a weird sort of trust relationship, and that I don't have to go around trying to filter the whole Internet or watching over their shoulders while they're on the 'net. The kids have access to real information and I don't go against my own values by having to filter the Internet.
So... I could be wrong but I'm guessing the whole logging business could have had something to do with that considering the track record for other schools in the area that don't handle the Internet in the same fashion. The sad truth is that many of them have Internet access but don't even let the kids use it in fear of 'something happening'.
I think this guy could have some success with logging if 1) he tells her he's doing it (must, it's only fair) and shows her what the logs look like, 2) he tells her (on paper? depends on the kid) what kinds of sites he doesn't think is acceptable, 3) he tells her the consequences that will result if she visits the 'inappropriate' sites (again, maybe on paper), and 4) he follows through when something happens that isn't supposed to. The fourth one is usually the hardest one.
Just my two cents...
--SONET