You're such a geek. I am too, but I have a family of non-geeks - techincally savvy, but non-geeks nonetheless. Do you have a power button on your mouse for the amplifier and TV? To switch sources (say, to a DirecTV box)? Is your volume button labeled for your guests (grandma, the babysitter?). IS the scroll button ALWAYS the volume, or does it change when your program focus changes? If it does, is there an indication how to get volume focus back?
And because I'm using a PC, I can play any format the world gives me and not have to pray and wait for some firmware update.
That's my favorite. Really? I've never had a PC that can play any format without my manually finding and installing a the new codec. And some of them don't always work quite right. Or they break something else. Or they have an unusual dependency you have to go find. Sure, it CAN be done, but each time I think this is a good idea, it usually means 4-8 hours of screwing around to get it right. I've found it better to just recode the offending file if I need it.
Not even close for 99.99% of the population. Hell, I'm a tinkerer and have been for 30 years and I can't get a box to play everything that is also stable enough for my wife and daughter to use for more than a month or two without having to update or reset something.
Setup linux without ever having used the OS? Good fucking luck - you'll end up buying $200 extra in compatible components because you're almost guaranteed to get a device that isn't compiled into the standard kernel on the first try out. Especially if you want to use an old or wireless network card. Played many encrypted bluray discs recently (i.e. stick in your 6 year old's new BR from WalMart and have it play seamlessly?)
WMC can't play shit out of the box. Mkv? nope. FLAC? nope. Anything apple? nope. Sure, you can go get codec packs, but most cause as many problems as they solve. Shark mostly "just works," but you'd better strip out all the subtitles and extra audio streams from them, 'cause WMC can't choose either on the fly.
Apple? Right - you'd better just start recoding now.
And yet, amazingly, none of the other first world countries seem to be attracting new business like the US does. Oh, sure, Ireland was a nice place, but then the tax-free-ride started to slip and everybody shifted. Eastern Europe was great, until jobs were being created, and then the price of labor started to go up and the quality - it turned out - really wasn't all that great.
America has a fairly well educated labor force (not great, but passible), moderate tax structure - and corporations can hide much of their taxable profits legally - and the government is just corrupt enough to be swayed (via lobbying), but not corrupt enough to require payments at all levels to get anything done.
No, America is still a great place to be in business. It has it's limits. Labor isn't cheap and most of the US cares when you dump a whole lot of toxic shit out the back door. Interestingly, if you're a very small start up - it's great. The paperwork is very low, the tax burden is almost negligible, and there is free help in a lot of areas. I run a small business, and it's really not that bad. Now, as you grow, the regulations get tighter. If you start with 1000 employees, you're going to need professional help to get your paperwork in order. But, then again, if your operation is large enough to support 1000 people, you should have the spare capital to hire 1-2 extras to "get it right."
Now, the lawyer comment isn't too far off the mark. There will always be scavengers in any society. Most companies, however, fail due to poor planning and lack of business acumen. Very few are actually brought down by lawsuits (anecdotal evidence doesn't count) and even fewer by actual, frivolous ones. Nonetheless, they get all the press. And something should be done about them - though I'm not sure how to separate them without barring real lawsuits from proceeding against the truly corrupt companies (which do exist as well).
Ahhh, that's what I used to say. That is, until I got busy at work and found a life outside of tinkering (yes, really...and in the 'burg no less). Anyway, if you could do all that without having to install XMBC and keep it updated, buy a separate dongle, remote, keep windows updated, load coreAVC (and keep it updated), and have to deal with a browser from the couch, that would be great.
As it is, I loathe even the minimal maintenance it takes to keep my MCE running - mainly because any time ANYTHING goes wrong, I have to go find out what failed and then fix it. Usually at an inopportune time, while the wife or daughter is giving me the evil eye becuase they WERE watching some movie until it stopped working, or were about to watch one and it wouldn't start. And don't even suggest Linux - at least I can usually fix Windows, if Linux has a hiccup I'm hours on poorly moderated forums (been there done that with TiVo).
Sell me a $300-$400 box that comes with a purpose built remote and only two cables - power and HDMI. Make it pretty, and make it work. Now that I own an iPod, I'm even willing to convert all my files to whatever proprietary format your cute box uses - I had to do it for all my music for Apple. The extra $200 is well worth the hours I wouldn't spend screwing with the system, and I wouldn't be the one in trouble when it doesn't work.
In addition to what the sibling post said, maximum range and maximum duration aloft generally are not the same flight profile in traditional aircraft, with a maximum duration resulting in significantly less (10-20%, iirc) than the maximum range. It's been a long time since my undergrad aero classes, but that odd fact stayed with me.
So what you want is an Evo 4G, terminate your contract, pay the penalty, then root it, flash it, & boot it without a cell plan. You're out what - $500-600 - to get everything you want.
Under federal law (or more specifically, the law is tacit on the subject that) ANYONE may ask that you provide a social security number - and use it as an identification number for you - except the government. Now, that comes with some caveats. You are not required to give them your SSN, but in that case they are allowed to deny you their services based on your refusal.
Your state laws may have other provisions, but normally the alternative is that you must give them enough personal identification to uniquely identify you and your entire financial history...which is really the only reason not to give out your SSN. With the information they have, just about anyone can get your SSN for $10.
A trick (you may already know) is that you can press the "shutter" button, and it will capture on release. That helps a _lot_ with steady focus. Of course practice helps too. Then again, I cut my teeth developing my own b&w film and making prints in a real darkroom.
I agree - I've been very pleasantly surprised by the new camera - it's head and shoulders above any other phone camera, and as good (for it's limited zoom range) as many of the small-sensor cameras on the market.
Yes, but the range of explosive air-fuel ratios for hydrogen is much, much wider than gasoline. It's why gas station attendants of the pat often smoked but rarely blew themselves up.
Hydrogen has it's advantages - for example, it doesn't hand around long. Then again, you can't smell it unless they add oderant to it like LPG (do they?). I'm not sure which is really "better" though.
Yes, it's hard to make someone with less than an 8th grade understanding of science realize that hydrogen is a storage medium, not an energy source. That, sadly, leaves out a good bit of the US - and I suspect a large fraction of the rest of the world's population as well.
We do in America, too. By the time kids are eight (well, six, actually) they are grouped by ability. Now, they will mix abilities in classes (i.e. groups of smarts with groups of dumbs sot he teacher can work with one group while the other is doing independent work) until their ten. Once they hit ten or eleven, they get segregated by ability in most subjects, and by the time they are thirteen they are almost completely segregated with the smartest never even seeing the dumbest in a school as small as 200-250 pupils per age.
May daughter is one of the youngest in her class, and we had to request the "smart" class last year because she came along a little slower in math when she was six, and she was on the "borderline" of being placed in the middle class. She reads at a level four years ahead of "average," but is only a year ahead of "average" in math. The class she's in this year is filled almost exclusively with smart, well behaved kids - and that's no accident.
Don't believe the "all mixed together," except in the socioeconomic sense.
IIRC, the trip length was specified in the movie as they came out of sleep/stasis.
The "transported to a new world" I can generally forgive - it's just a setup to get you to the fantasy. I was bothered more by the local plot problems and (aside from unobtanium, which grates like Kevin Costner's botched accent in Robin Hood) the fact that every human remaining on the planet who "won" ended up with a death sentence by being completely stuck on a world without breathable air, and no ability to repair anything that breaks down over their lifetime.
I like watching the first hour for the cool effects, then I shut it off before I have to try and follow the fucked up storyline.
Hold on there, colonial cowboy. This isn't a taxation without representation - you pay the tax ONLY if you make your blog in the city. They're not charging Texans this fee for providing access to Philidelphians.
Many things are taxed multiple times. And where did this "net profits" bullshit come from. If I make no money, does that mean I didn't use any city services? "net profit" based taxation is a way for businesses to avoid paying their fair share of the costs associated with running all the bits and pieces that keep cities from being absolute hellholes. Okay, we're talking Philly, so maybe that was a bad example.
Get back to me when you're ready to scrap all this stuff for a flat, gross receipts tax. Then I'll be all ears. Of course, I'll presume that you're okay with each entity that provides services getting their own cut (fed, state, local).
Creation takes nothing but time, and time - for those without other marketable skills - has very little value. Short of a small amount of engineering, studio rental, and maybe a short session with instrumentalists, there are very few costs. Compared to the marketing side, that is a miniscule fraction of dollars spent on producing an audio track. We seem to be equating marketing with product cost.
You could say it's simply supply and demand, but the system has an artificial scarcity built it - which is the root cause of the pricing.
The 2.5% number would pay this entire school off in a single year. Not that it isn't stupidly wasteful - it is. I despise projects like this. I'm currently begging my county to borrow $110M to building three schools, one of which just collapsed last year after a major snow storm and will cost about 40% of new school to repair. This same school was scheduled for replacement in the next 3-5 years as it was determined in 2006 to no longer meed student academic need.
I'd gladly pay double my taxes for two years (my current rate is 77c/$100 on real estate) and pay all three schools off with no bonding. Hell, I'll write the check for the extra right now. I know not everyone can do that, but all three schools will raise our taxes by 14c/$100 and will get half of the county high school students into new schools.
You read the words, and didn't understand the article.
The whole point was that there is no easy way to get a "green" house. There are numerous ways to do it, and around every corner is a huckster who will try and sell you on exactly what they stock. The engineers are not much better, since most of them don't deal with the high-efficiency stuff, half of those who do are just plain wrong, and the itty-bitty fraction who can get it right require a fully integrated team (architect, builder, engineers, site planners) to make their correct designs usable.
I deal with this shit all the time, being a structural engineer. I see people throwing gobs of cash to pretend to be green, when in reality most of them end up wasting their money and getting inefficient "green" buildings that lose all their energy savings through fancy architectural glass. The rest are in grave danger of winding up with a building right out of the 70s. The real go-getters drop 6 figures for a plaque they get to hang in the hall (and, of greatest importance, show in the Architect's next proposal) which "certifies" their building as "Silver" "Gold" or "Platinum."
Scott Adams actually "gets it," he just did so humorously. He even pointed out the biggest truth of all - the greenest building is the one you don't build.
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You're such a geek. I am too, but I have a family of non-geeks - techincally savvy, but non-geeks nonetheless. Do you have a power button on your mouse for the amplifier and TV? To switch sources (say, to a DirecTV box)? Is your volume button labeled for your guests (grandma, the babysitter?). IS the scroll button ALWAYS the volume, or does it change when your program focus changes? If it does, is there an indication how to get volume focus back?
And because I'm using a PC, I can play any format the world gives me and not have to pray and wait for some firmware update.
That's my favorite. Really? I've never had a PC that can play any format without my manually finding and installing a the new codec. And some of them don't always work quite right. Or they break something else. Or they have an unusual dependency you have to go find. Sure, it CAN be done, but each time I think this is a good idea, it usually means 4-8 hours of screwing around to get it right. I've found it better to just recode the offending file if I need it.
Not even close for 99.99% of the population. Hell, I'm a tinkerer and have been for 30 years and I can't get a box to play everything that is also stable enough for my wife and daughter to use for more than a month or two without having to update or reset something.
Setup linux without ever having used the OS? Good fucking luck - you'll end up buying $200 extra in compatible components because you're almost guaranteed to get a device that isn't compiled into the standard kernel on the first try out. Especially if you want to use an old or wireless network card. Played many encrypted bluray discs recently (i.e. stick in your 6 year old's new BR from WalMart and have it play seamlessly?)
WMC can't play shit out of the box. Mkv? nope. FLAC? nope. Anything apple? nope. Sure, you can go get codec packs, but most cause as many problems as they solve. Shark mostly "just works," but you'd better strip out all the subtitles and extra audio streams from them, 'cause WMC can't choose either on the fly.
Apple? Right - you'd better just start recoding now.
And yet, amazingly, none of the other first world countries seem to be attracting new business like the US does. Oh, sure, Ireland was a nice place, but then the tax-free-ride started to slip and everybody shifted. Eastern Europe was great, until jobs were being created, and then the price of labor started to go up and the quality - it turned out - really wasn't all that great.
America has a fairly well educated labor force (not great, but passible), moderate tax structure - and corporations can hide much of their taxable profits legally - and the government is just corrupt enough to be swayed (via lobbying), but not corrupt enough to require payments at all levels to get anything done.
No, America is still a great place to be in business. It has it's limits. Labor isn't cheap and most of the US cares when you dump a whole lot of toxic shit out the back door. Interestingly, if you're a very small start up - it's great. The paperwork is very low, the tax burden is almost negligible, and there is free help in a lot of areas. I run a small business, and it's really not that bad. Now, as you grow, the regulations get tighter. If you start with 1000 employees, you're going to need professional help to get your paperwork in order. But, then again, if your operation is large enough to support 1000 people, you should have the spare capital to hire 1-2 extras to "get it right."
Now, the lawyer comment isn't too far off the mark. There will always be scavengers in any society. Most companies, however, fail due to poor planning and lack of business acumen. Very few are actually brought down by lawsuits (anecdotal evidence doesn't count) and even fewer by actual, frivolous ones. Nonetheless, they get all the press. And something should be done about them - though I'm not sure how to separate them without barring real lawsuits from proceeding against the truly corrupt companies (which do exist as well).
Oh, don't throw me into that briar patch!
Ahhh, that's what I used to say. That is, until I got busy at work and found a life outside of tinkering (yes, really...and in the 'burg no less). Anyway, if you could do all that without having to install XMBC and keep it updated, buy a separate dongle, remote, keep windows updated, load coreAVC (and keep it updated), and have to deal with a browser from the couch, that would be great.
As it is, I loathe even the minimal maintenance it takes to keep my MCE running - mainly because any time ANYTHING goes wrong, I have to go find out what failed and then fix it. Usually at an inopportune time, while the wife or daughter is giving me the evil eye becuase they WERE watching some movie until it stopped working, or were about to watch one and it wouldn't start. And don't even suggest Linux - at least I can usually fix Windows, if Linux has a hiccup I'm hours on poorly moderated forums (been there done that with TiVo).
Sell me a $300-$400 box that comes with a purpose built remote and only two cables - power and HDMI. Make it pretty, and make it work. Now that I own an iPod, I'm even willing to convert all my files to whatever proprietary format your cute box uses - I had to do it for all my music for Apple. The extra $200 is well worth the hours I wouldn't spend screwing with the system, and I wouldn't be the one in trouble when it doesn't work.
Yes, it's true...I'm getting old.
In addition to what the sibling post said, maximum range and maximum duration aloft generally are not the same flight profile in traditional aircraft, with a maximum duration resulting in significantly less (10-20%, iirc) than the maximum range. It's been a long time since my undergrad aero classes, but that odd fact stayed with me.
Well, naturally you'd do the full-tub part on the downhill leg of your journey. You'd empty it before going back up hill.
As always - it's not what you know, it's who you know.
So what you want is an Evo 4G, terminate your contract, pay the penalty, then root it, flash it, & boot it without a cell plan. You're out what - $500-600 - to get everything you want.
Yeah. Look what Roy Disney did with his swampland (well, and a pile of cash).
Milton Bradley would disagree with you.
Under federal law (or more specifically, the law is tacit on the subject that) ANYONE may ask that you provide a social security number - and use it as an identification number for you - except the government. Now, that comes with some caveats. You are not required to give them your SSN, but in that case they are allowed to deny you their services based on your refusal.
Your state laws may have other provisions, but normally the alternative is that you must give them enough personal identification to uniquely identify you and your entire financial history...which is really the only reason not to give out your SSN. With the information they have, just about anyone can get your SSN for $10.
A trick (you may already know) is that you can press the "shutter" button, and it will capture on release. That helps a _lot_ with steady focus. Of course practice helps too. Then again, I cut my teeth developing my own b&w film and making prints in a real darkroom.
I agree - I've been very pleasantly surprised by the new camera - it's head and shoulders above any other phone camera, and as good (for it's limited zoom range) as many of the small-sensor cameras on the market.
You're looking for a "cry wolf" flag that automatically gets set in your address book based on a certain threshold. I like it.
I only ask since you typed it as:
shutdown -s -f -t 0
and I would think the correct syntax should be:
shutdown -s -t -f -u ;-)
Yes, but the range of explosive air-fuel ratios for hydrogen is much, much wider than gasoline. It's why gas station attendants of the pat often smoked but rarely blew themselves up.
Hydrogen has it's advantages - for example, it doesn't hand around long. Then again, you can't smell it unless they add oderant to it like LPG (do they?). I'm not sure which is really "better" though.
Yes, it's hard to make someone with less than an 8th grade understanding of science realize that hydrogen is a storage medium, not an energy source. That, sadly, leaves out a good bit of the US - and I suspect a large fraction of the rest of the world's population as well.
We do in America, too. By the time kids are eight (well, six, actually) they are grouped by ability. Now, they will mix abilities in classes (i.e. groups of smarts with groups of dumbs sot he teacher can work with one group while the other is doing independent work) until their ten. Once they hit ten or eleven, they get segregated by ability in most subjects, and by the time they are thirteen they are almost completely segregated with the smartest never even seeing the dumbest in a school as small as 200-250 pupils per age.
May daughter is one of the youngest in her class, and we had to request the "smart" class last year because she came along a little slower in math when she was six, and she was on the "borderline" of being placed in the middle class. She reads at a level four years ahead of "average," but is only a year ahead of "average" in math. The class she's in this year is filled almost exclusively with smart, well behaved kids - and that's no accident.
Don't believe the "all mixed together," except in the socioeconomic sense.
Or bigger feet.
But the FDA does not regulate or promote the for-profit (or non-profit) hospital industry. They do regulate the medical devices industry.
IIRC, the trip length was specified in the movie as they came out of sleep/stasis.
The "transported to a new world" I can generally forgive - it's just a setup to get you to the fantasy. I was bothered more by the local plot problems and (aside from unobtanium, which grates like Kevin Costner's botched accent in Robin Hood) the fact that every human remaining on the planet who "won" ended up with a death sentence by being completely stuck on a world without breathable air, and no ability to repair anything that breaks down over their lifetime.
I like watching the first hour for the cool effects, then I shut it off before I have to try and follow the fucked up storyline.
Hold on there, colonial cowboy. This isn't a taxation without representation - you pay the tax ONLY if you make your blog in the city. They're not charging Texans this fee for providing access to Philidelphians.
Many things are taxed multiple times. And where did this "net profits" bullshit come from. If I make no money, does that mean I didn't use any city services? "net profit" based taxation is a way for businesses to avoid paying their fair share of the costs associated with running all the bits and pieces that keep cities from being absolute hellholes. Okay, we're talking Philly, so maybe that was a bad example.
Get back to me when you're ready to scrap all this stuff for a flat, gross receipts tax. Then I'll be all ears. Of course, I'll presume that you're okay with each entity that provides services getting their own cut (fed, state, local).
Creation takes nothing but time, and time - for those without other marketable skills - has very little value. Short of a small amount of engineering, studio rental, and maybe a short session with instrumentalists, there are very few costs. Compared to the marketing side, that is a miniscule fraction of dollars spent on producing an audio track. We seem to be equating marketing with product cost.
You could say it's simply supply and demand, but the system has an artificial scarcity built it - which is the root cause of the pricing.
You missed a spot:
The 2.5% number would pay this entire school off in a single year. Not that it isn't stupidly wasteful - it is. I despise projects like this. I'm currently begging my county to borrow $110M to building three schools, one of which just collapsed last year after a major snow storm and will cost about 40% of new school to repair. This same school was scheduled for replacement in the next 3-5 years as it was determined in 2006 to no longer meed student academic need.
I'd gladly pay double my taxes for two years (my current rate is 77c/$100 on real estate) and pay all three schools off with no bonding. Hell, I'll write the check for the extra right now. I know not everyone can do that, but all three schools will raise our taxes by 14c/$100 and will get half of the county high school students into new schools.
You read the words, and didn't understand the article.
The whole point was that there is no easy way to get a "green" house. There are numerous ways to do it, and around every corner is a huckster who will try and sell you on exactly what they stock. The engineers are not much better, since most of them don't deal with the high-efficiency stuff, half of those who do are just plain wrong, and the itty-bitty fraction who can get it right require a fully integrated team (architect, builder, engineers, site planners) to make their correct designs usable.
I deal with this shit all the time, being a structural engineer. I see people throwing gobs of cash to pretend to be green, when in reality most of them end up wasting their money and getting inefficient "green" buildings that lose all their energy savings through fancy architectural glass. The rest are in grave danger of winding up with a building right out of the 70s. The real go-getters drop 6 figures for a plaque they get to hang in the hall (and, of greatest importance, show in the Architect's next proposal) which "certifies" their building as "Silver" "Gold" or "Platinum."
Scott Adams actually "gets it," he just did so humorously. He even pointed out the biggest truth of all - the greenest building is the one you don't build.