You can use a sharpie to draw in the lines, too. It will be immune to the eraser, but will also come off later by drawing over the sharpie lines with a dry erase pen, then erasing.
I went through a dry erase board phase - I used three. One for the master list and two to schedule out 10 weeks ahead. It lasted nearly a year before being too cumbersome for the tasks at hand. I run about 300 major projects a year, maybe four times that for individual items to track - the boards lost their utility at about 1/3 of that volume.
I would love something better, but the setup for each task usually kills the deal - 10 minutes to properly track an item which will take less than an hour to complete is not efficient. I now use an excel sheet for a running task list and two steno pads (one as a phone log, one as a task list). Franklin is nice, but with some tasks stretching over weeks, and (when I gave it up) no good solution on the PC, the steno books just seem to have the least overhead.
Ahhh, but these patent trolls don't actually produce anything. They can't be violating anyone else's patents, unless a business method patent for patent trolling has been granted by the USPTO. They have nothing to lose but the time of their (presumably on-staff) lawyers. It's a speculative cash generation business for lawyers, and nothing more. They buy a few patents (or as many as they can for the capitol they raise from their investors), then turn around and sue everyone they can find. The payouts are so large that they need only hit once every few years to make a profit. There is no down side, except to come up completely empty and lose the investor's money. That's fairly unlikely when you take a shotgun approach, especially if you can hit small companies first with enough to pay back your initial investment.
That's alright, A friend and I had a way cool idea about 27-28 years ago about a map you could carry around and the "you are here" spot would mark your location as you moved around. Cool but impossible. Just a couple of years before, we openly mocked a fellow classmate who wanted to write a program to automatically turn on the computer. What a fool, he was. I'll say it here: Amrit (Paul) Rishi - I apologize for thinking your idea was idiotic - several of my computers now use wake-on-lan, and scheduling that brings them out of sleep to run backups.
I just wish we'd thought about going further with that damned map idea...
I usually go with the 5%/3 year rule - if it costs less than 5% per year to insure and I'll keep it more than 3 years, it's probably worth it. Some things break, some don't. Anything more than $1000 is a fairly major purchase for me, and I'm pretty likely to consider insuring it beyond the original warranty period. It also depends on the cost of service. If something breaks in my car, I'm not out $20,000 - nor will it cost a significant fraction of $20,000 to fix. On the other hand, if my TV dies, it's a paperweight that will likely cost nearly it's entire current value to fix. Anything that's less than $200 is almost certain to be a waste of warranty extension simply because of the cost of initiating the transaction.
Now, I will say that I bought an extended warranty with my last TV. It was a floor model, in good shape, and it was a good deal. I spent about 12%/yr of the value of the TV for the warranty - way too much, and above my threshold. However, the terms of the warranty stated we would get warranty work done through the provider network, and it would be "in home" service. Also, I could cancel - for a full refund - any time before the manufacturer's warranty ran out. Well, I put the 360 mark (of the 1 year mfr warranty) in my planner. It turns out it did need service after about 3 months. TV cost - $800, Repair cost (2 visits - one to diagnose, one to install a new board) $750 with parts and labor at "rack" rates. I paid nothing, then canceled the service after 360 days, and a clean 9 months of operation. I lost the use of $229 for a year, but the few percent I might have made in that time was very cheap insurance for in-home service.
If I can, I'll likely buy an extended warranty on the camera I just got off ebay. It should run me $125 or so, and I don't have any other warranty (it's not new, so no automatic CC extension), and it would likely cost me upwards of $3k to replace with another used one. I could replace it from cash reserves, but for $40/year I won't have to care.
Well, I either need to wear a dorky thing on my head, or have it sticking out of my ears, or I need to have it installed in a room with the proper spatial qualities and locations for the performance. Video is higher bandwidth, making the investment far greater. Thing is, from the existing spatial information in a 2D image I can discern most of the 3D information that existed in the original print. Somewhat more to the point, since a movie is a 1 dimensional plot through a storyline, and the director is giving me the "proper" perspective, why would I want to wander around the room for a diferent one. Or worse, like in audio - only have one "sweet spot" in the room where I can see what the director intended. There's a reason the seats in the middle of a live performance hall are more expensive than those on the edge. Remember - this is for blu-ray, not things like games or live sports.
Every 3D demo I've seen has been limited by the act that you have to look at a monitor with a very limited angle of view. If I turn my head, I get nothing. To get a different perspective I have to move my body and turn my head back to the screen, or just sit and wait for whatever the director wants to throw at me.
Besides, I don't think you're getting much more actual information. Your eyes (well, brain) process a 3D image to create a 2 dimensional representation with depth perception information which cannot be determined from placement/obscuration. It's a fairly minor effect, and you can get most of the cues from a single eye. Depth matters in areas where you need to dermine fine spacial relationships, such as driving, or hunting, but it has very little effect otherwise. Live performances have practically no useful depth information, and yet they are the original 3D. They are just as enjoyable in 2 dimensions on a screen.
Personally, I think multi-channel sound and good LFE adds a great deal more to a movie than the visual dimension of depth.
Is there some wicked cool technology that's going to work on my existing (brand new) TV without glasses? Will the directors stop putting in just-for-the-effect, in-your-face scenes meant only to remind you the film is "in 3d!" I've watched a couple of modern 3D films at home and - honestly - they're pretty annoying. Then again, maybe I'm just too old.
Have you seen the prices for Sony Reader books? My wife wants a reader for Christmas, so she looked up some of the books she bought over the last year, and the ones she plans to buy in the next months or so. Amazon came in at about 2/3 the cost of Sony, and B&N doesn't have an ereader store (or an ereader that will ship before the biggest consumer day in the western world - nice job, guys). Since the readers are comparable in price and features, the Kindle - for all its flaws - wins out for someone who just wants to buy and read books.
Adobe better figure out a way to make the books on their platform, and the platform itself, cheaper. A lot cheaper. Otherwise they're going to be paired with also-rans to the market/mindshare leader, which is Kindle. Yeah, I'd say Apple is the right comparison. What's worse (for adobe) is that there really are no mainstream competitors for the iPod in the end-to-end usability pile. That's hard for me to say, since I'm not a fan of iPods, but it is still the truth.
Adobe generally has the biggest, bloated software of all of them. And they have a phoney upgrade cycle that adds the least value added in the new feature dept compared to everyone.
You've clearly never used AutoCAD or dealt with AutoDesk. Adobe can't hold a candle to that racket.
Don't play the family card. Very, very few employers take kindly to that. If your work is valued and you trust your boss (you've worked with him or her for several years now, right?), tell them the truth. You really enjoy the technical parts of the job, feel it's your forte, and that - quite honestly - 4 tens is a big benefit for you personally. This may get them to tip their hand as to why they want you in management. Do they need a good tencnical lead, or are they just short handed. Do they feel you'd be better in a manag. position - i.e. your technical work isn't in line with their expectations but you're a good employee?
Making the move is more about why they're moving you than anything else. If you really like the tech support say so. Know that your financial advancement may slow or stop in the company, and that in a year or two you'll be looking for an advanced position somewhere else. Consulting isn't really a viable option if your allergic to management and 5x8 with a pager the other times - it's a combination of both of those. Then again, if they really need a tech guy in management, it might be your opportunity to keep climbing and make sure things run smoothly in the board room instead of the server closet.
Go to Burger King, the money is better, and you will at least have some hope of persuading a future employer that...
a/ you have some self respect.
b/ you will work hard for money, you will not eat shit for money.
As someone who hires professional people, seeing Burger King (or practically any fast food experience) on a resume gets put in the circular file for anything but the most special cases. Working as an intern for a recognizable name in business is far more valuable. I don't know about you, but I rarely see salaries/wages listed on resumes, and any summer job before you graduate is going to be some kind of internship. People who look at resumes know this, whether it's listed as "intern" or not. I sure as hell am not going to hire somebody who chose an $11/hr fast food position over an $8 internship in his or her field. The last thing I need is somebody asking me for a raise every six months. Make my company money, and I'll reward your efforts. Wait for people to wander by and ask you to make them a double Whopper, and you'll be sorely disappointed in your financial and responsibility advancement. My junior engineer will make about 20% on top of his base salary for work he's brought in this year. I let a senior engineer go last year because - after six months on the job - he'd brought in a grand total of $2000 in new business.
This guy needs to learn his desired craft, not understand the proportions of mayo to ketchup. In this economy, he should be willing to work for free and consider it an investment. It's sure as hell cheaper than when he's in school, and he may (I say may) learn more per hour if he's a good study. I'm NOT saying he's not valuable, just that experience has its own value. Learning how the working world runs - the ins and outs of a field - early is one of the best ways to get a jump start on a career.
(That said, if he can find an internship for more money - go for it. $8/hr sucks.)
Prior to 1/1/2002, what percentage of people who flew were killed by terrorists. Tell you what, let's add in everyone killed on the ground as a result of the plane crashes on 9/11/01. Now what's the percentage. What percentage of people who drive cars are killed every year prior to mandatory seatbelts? And after?
Now compare the percentage reduction in each to the total annual cost of each. I think you'll find the TSA screening to be horribly cost ineffective.
Besides, how many passenger groups are likely to be passive during a hijacking post-9/11? You saw the reaction of the passengers of the third plane; TSA is actually doing very little.
That's why my wife will get one from me for the holidays. She's a voracious reader, and has been dropping $15-25 per book for her book club books, and $10-15 for general reading. She tends to pick up "hyped" books, which means hardcovers (and they're higher prices). Many books she wanted were at Amazon for $5-6, vs. $8-10 at the Sony store, and $10-30 for the dead tree version. About half she turns around and donates to the Y after she's done reading them, since it's not worth the time to try and resell them. Even if she did, the net cost would be more than the $5 for an e-version. Plus, the convenience is big.
Quite honestly, she might have gotten a Nook, but I plan on having her unwrap something other than a picture of a gift. I chafe at Amazons treatment of 1984, but honestly this reader fits her buying and reading habits the best - plus I deal with copyright daily so I have a small measure of sympathy for the position Amazon was put in during that fiasco (not much, but enough).
Yeah, we can close this thread at this point - logmein takes it easily. I've been using it for several years. The free version does practically everything you need for remote. Heck I even use it from PC to PC in the house since MS decided to hobble vista home premium by not including remote terminal. An, no, I can't hack in the version from pro - these are "production" machines that my wife and daughter rely on for entertainment. The ugliest, angriest CEO in the world has nothing on my wife if The Mentalist doesn't record properly.
I'm trying to figure out Hamachi for VPN so I can access my home server when I'm on the road. I haven't had time to figure it out - it's not quite as straight forward as logmein, which takes effectively zero learning curve.
Perhaps. I don't use a full spectrum lamp - a 100W incandescent is sufficient (blackbody and all that). Yes, they're about $140 for a little piece of electronics. They tell time, have both dawn and dusk curves pre-programmed, and an "alarm" which automatically turns the light off an hour past the "wake" time. Actual cost of components is probably less than $25.
Remember, the light doesn't "turn on," it brings the light up along the same intensity curve as a sunrise. Certainly programmable. If I knew C# (which I don't), and were willing to fool around with grabbing the X10 command info and libraries off the net (which I'm not), it might take me two hours to code and debug it myself. Actually, since sunrise occurs over a 40 minute period, it would likely take longer, but argue the time in your favor. So assuming I don't have to buy anything else to program the firecracker (I have a serial port on my computer) I'm out $50 including the dimming module, plus two hours of my time. So I can't take it with me on business trips/vacation easily (and expect it to work, since it has to be plugged into a computer that's on 24/7), I can't shift the wake up time by 20-30 minutes when I get into bed a little later than usual, and now I've got three things which can cause it to fail (computer, firecracker, x10 module) instead of one. All of a sudden and extra $90 doesn't sound so expensive.
Just don't get lost out of cell range. It's one of the few shortcomings that keeps me from an iPhone.
That said, I do use my phone as my GPS, but I have a stand-alone package which does not require an active net connection. The maps are probably 3-4 years old now, but where I need it there is no cell service (prob 10% coverage at best), and the roads change very, very infrequently.
Man, I wish. I know you're not supposed to complain about being busy in a down economy, but damn I can't wait until my current push is over and I can get back to my life. I've been waiting for it to end for about 6 months now. I'm lucky to get 2-3 hours in before I sneak off to surf for half an hour and let my brain decompress - I used to be able to hit it hard for 4-5, take a break, and do another 4-5.
...which is probably sooner than I'd prefer, but still a couple of decades away at least.
Wristwatches - I know people who use their phone. My watch is faster, convenient for me. It's a fashion accessory for many (in addition to their fashion phones)
Bedside alarm clocks - I can see this, but until shows the time without me having to touch it (and without it lighting the whole room with the back light), wakes me up with NPR, and increased the light in my room to simulate a sunrise, I'll stick with my beside box. (Okay, two boxes...it's a SunRizr that does the lights)
MP3 players - I'm sure all the iPhone guys are saying "hell yes." I've got a WM phone, and while it does great things the iPhone can't, it sucks donkey balls as a music player. The average phone is going to have to get a lot better - and a lot bigger storage (which will happen "soon") - to take over as my portable player. I'll still keep my SwimP# for the pool though...I don't think many phones would thrive in a aquatic environment.
Landline home phones - Okay, just call me an old fart; I'll probably always have one. The uptime is much better than cell.
Compact digital cameras - they're going to have to get massively better. I'm talking several orders of magnitude. Maybe before I die. Maybe.
Netbooks - keyboards and screens that don't require massive scrolling or a magnifying glass. 'Nuff said.
Handheld games consoles - Hmmmm...not much use for one, so... *shrug*
Paper - sorry, I still print directions and confirmations. This may change. Someday. But I'm awfully attached to dead trees. Probably has to do with my note taking desires, and the aforementioned need for a magnifying glass or scrolling for all but the simplest of things on a phone.
Thinking - The 'net has already made that obsolete. Now get off my lawn...
Werner von Braun, and much of the WWII rocketry from Germany, was based on the designs of Robert Goddard - and von Braun eas clear about the origins of his work after the war. In fact, Dr. Goddard approached the US military before WWII and they dismissed his work as not being useful. The Germans saw the "value" which the US did not recognize in the early work.
Actually, they shouldn't team up - unless I get a cut of the funds raised. Those two seem to have pulled off one of the greatest money making schemes of all time. Together, they might approach Wall Street levels of shysterism.
Yes, but now there's a white paper from a recognized university (one which has a name associated with greeness) that you can point them to. Let them know that the Tata they have been reading about in Popular Science won't really get 1000 mile on a tank of air* like the marketing information would have them believe.
The CO2 stays in the air until they're absorbed by the trees which his children will burn for firewood. Not really ideal from an immediate perspective, but better than the coal cycle (which requires quite a few generations to become coal again).:-)
Slashdot Mirror
and the original, and the big one really doesn't look any sharper on my laptop screen.
You've just described most professional jobs.
You can use a sharpie to draw in the lines, too. It will be immune to the eraser, but will also come off later by drawing over the sharpie lines with a dry erase pen, then erasing.
I went through a dry erase board phase - I used three. One for the master list and two to schedule out 10 weeks ahead. It lasted nearly a year before being too cumbersome for the tasks at hand. I run about 300 major projects a year, maybe four times that for individual items to track - the boards lost their utility at about 1/3 of that volume.
I would love something better, but the setup for each task usually kills the deal - 10 minutes to properly track an item which will take less than an hour to complete is not efficient. I now use an excel sheet for a running task list and two steno pads (one as a phone log, one as a task list). Franklin is nice, but with some tasks stretching over weeks, and (when I gave it up) no good solution on the PC, the steno books just seem to have the least overhead.
Ahhh, but these patent trolls don't actually produce anything. They can't be violating anyone else's patents, unless a business method patent for patent trolling has been granted by the USPTO. They have nothing to lose but the time of their (presumably on-staff) lawyers. It's a speculative cash generation business for lawyers, and nothing more. They buy a few patents (or as many as they can for the capitol they raise from their investors), then turn around and sue everyone they can find. The payouts are so large that they need only hit once every few years to make a profit. There is no down side, except to come up completely empty and lose the investor's money. That's fairly unlikely when you take a shotgun approach, especially if you can hit small companies first with enough to pay back your initial investment.
That's alright, A friend and I had a way cool idea about 27-28 years ago about a map you could carry around and the "you are here" spot would mark your location as you moved around. Cool but impossible. Just a couple of years before, we openly mocked a fellow classmate who wanted to write a program to automatically turn on the computer. What a fool, he was. I'll say it here: Amrit (Paul) Rishi - I apologize for thinking your idea was idiotic - several of my computers now use wake-on-lan, and scheduling that brings them out of sleep to run backups.
I just wish we'd thought about going further with that damned map idea...
I usually go with the 5%/3 year rule - if it costs less than 5% per year to insure and I'll keep it more than 3 years, it's probably worth it. Some things break, some don't. Anything more than $1000 is a fairly major purchase for me, and I'm pretty likely to consider insuring it beyond the original warranty period. It also depends on the cost of service. If something breaks in my car, I'm not out $20,000 - nor will it cost a significant fraction of $20,000 to fix. On the other hand, if my TV dies, it's a paperweight that will likely cost nearly it's entire current value to fix. Anything that's less than $200 is almost certain to be a waste of warranty extension simply because of the cost of initiating the transaction.
Now, I will say that I bought an extended warranty with my last TV. It was a floor model, in good shape, and it was a good deal. I spent about 12%/yr of the value of the TV for the warranty - way too much, and above my threshold. However, the terms of the warranty stated we would get warranty work done through the provider network, and it would be "in home" service. Also, I could cancel - for a full refund - any time before the manufacturer's warranty ran out. Well, I put the 360 mark (of the 1 year mfr warranty) in my planner. It turns out it did need service after about 3 months. TV cost - $800, Repair cost (2 visits - one to diagnose, one to install a new board) $750 with parts and labor at "rack" rates. I paid nothing, then canceled the service after 360 days, and a clean 9 months of operation. I lost the use of $229 for a year, but the few percent I might have made in that time was very cheap insurance for in-home service.
If I can, I'll likely buy an extended warranty on the camera I just got off ebay. It should run me $125 or so, and I don't have any other warranty (it's not new, so no automatic CC extension), and it would likely cost me upwards of $3k to replace with another used one. I could replace it from cash reserves, but for $40/year I won't have to care.
Well, I either need to wear a dorky thing on my head, or have it sticking out of my ears, or I need to have it installed in a room with the proper spatial qualities and locations for the performance. Video is higher bandwidth, making the investment far greater. Thing is, from the existing spatial information in a 2D image I can discern most of the 3D information that existed in the original print. Somewhat more to the point, since a movie is a 1 dimensional plot through a storyline, and the director is giving me the "proper" perspective, why would I want to wander around the room for a diferent one. Or worse, like in audio - only have one "sweet spot" in the room where I can see what the director intended. There's a reason the seats in the middle of a live performance hall are more expensive than those on the edge. Remember - this is for blu-ray, not things like games or live sports.
Every 3D demo I've seen has been limited by the act that you have to look at a monitor with a very limited angle of view. If I turn my head, I get nothing. To get a different perspective I have to move my body and turn my head back to the screen, or just sit and wait for whatever the director wants to throw at me.
Besides, I don't think you're getting much more actual information. Your eyes (well, brain) process a 3D image to create a 2 dimensional representation with depth perception information which cannot be determined from placement/obscuration. It's a fairly minor effect, and you can get most of the cues from a single eye. Depth matters in areas where you need to dermine fine spacial relationships, such as driving, or hunting, but it has very little effect otherwise. Live performances have practically no useful depth information, and yet they are the original 3D. They are just as enjoyable in 2 dimensions on a screen.
Personally, I think multi-channel sound and good LFE adds a great deal more to a movie than the visual dimension of depth.
Is there some wicked cool technology that's going to work on my existing (brand new) TV without glasses? Will the directors stop putting in just-for-the-effect, in-your-face scenes meant only to remind you the film is "in 3d!" I've watched a couple of modern 3D films at home and - honestly - they're pretty annoying. Then again, maybe I'm just too old.
Have you seen the prices for Sony Reader books? My wife wants a reader for Christmas, so she looked up some of the books she bought over the last year, and the ones she plans to buy in the next months or so. Amazon came in at about 2/3 the cost of Sony, and B&N doesn't have an ereader store (or an ereader that will ship before the biggest consumer day in the western world - nice job, guys). Since the readers are comparable in price and features, the Kindle - for all its flaws - wins out for someone who just wants to buy and read books.
Adobe better figure out a way to make the books on their platform, and the platform itself, cheaper. A lot cheaper. Otherwise they're going to be paired with also-rans to the market/mindshare leader, which is Kindle. Yeah, I'd say Apple is the right comparison. What's worse (for adobe) is that there really are no mainstream competitors for the iPod in the end-to-end usability pile. That's hard for me to say, since I'm not a fan of iPods, but it is still the truth.
Adobe generally has the biggest, bloated software of all of them. And they have a phoney upgrade cycle that adds the least value added in the new feature dept compared to everyone.
You've clearly never used AutoCAD or dealt with AutoDesk. Adobe can't hold a candle to that racket.
samzenpus's geek card, if you ask me.
Don't play the family card. Very, very few employers take kindly to that. If your work is valued and you trust your boss (you've worked with him or her for several years now, right?), tell them the truth. You really enjoy the technical parts of the job, feel it's your forte, and that - quite honestly - 4 tens is a big benefit for you personally. This may get them to tip their hand as to why they want you in management. Do they need a good tencnical lead, or are they just short handed. Do they feel you'd be better in a manag. position - i.e. your technical work isn't in line with their expectations but you're a good employee?
Making the move is more about why they're moving you than anything else. If you really like the tech support say so. Know that your financial advancement may slow or stop in the company, and that in a year or two you'll be looking for an advanced position somewhere else. Consulting isn't really a viable option if your allergic to management and 5x8 with a pager the other times - it's a combination of both of those. Then again, if they really need a tech guy in management, it might be your opportunity to keep climbing and make sure things run smoothly in the board room instead of the server closet.
Go to Burger King, the money is better, and you will at least have some hope of persuading a future employer that...
a/ you have some self respect.
b/ you will work hard for money, you will not eat shit for money.
As someone who hires professional people, seeing Burger King (or practically any fast food experience) on a resume gets put in the circular file for anything but the most special cases. Working as an intern for a recognizable name in business is far more valuable. I don't know about you, but I rarely see salaries/wages listed on resumes, and any summer job before you graduate is going to be some kind of internship. People who look at resumes know this, whether it's listed as "intern" or not. I sure as hell am not going to hire somebody who chose an $11/hr fast food position over an $8 internship in his or her field. The last thing I need is somebody asking me for a raise every six months. Make my company money, and I'll reward your efforts. Wait for people to wander by and ask you to make them a double Whopper, and you'll be sorely disappointed in your financial and responsibility advancement. My junior engineer will make about 20% on top of his base salary for work he's brought in this year. I let a senior engineer go last year because - after six months on the job - he'd brought in a grand total of $2000 in new business.
This guy needs to learn his desired craft, not understand the proportions of mayo to ketchup. In this economy, he should be willing to work for free and consider it an investment. It's sure as hell cheaper than when he's in school, and he may (I say may) learn more per hour if he's a good study. I'm NOT saying he's not valuable, just that experience has its own value. Learning how the working world runs - the ins and outs of a field - early is one of the best ways to get a jump start on a career.
(That said, if he can find an internship for more money - go for it. $8/hr sucks.)
Prior to 1/1/2002, what percentage of people who flew were killed by terrorists. Tell you what, let's add in everyone killed on the ground as a result of the plane crashes on 9/11/01. Now what's the percentage. What percentage of people who drive cars are killed every year prior to mandatory seatbelts? And after?
Now compare the percentage reduction in each to the total annual cost of each. I think you'll find the TSA screening to be horribly cost ineffective.
Besides, how many passenger groups are likely to be passive during a hijacking post-9/11? You saw the reaction of the passengers of the third plane; TSA is actually doing very little.
That's why my wife will get one from me for the holidays. She's a voracious reader, and has been dropping $15-25 per book for her book club books, and $10-15 for general reading. She tends to pick up "hyped" books, which means hardcovers (and they're higher prices). Many books she wanted were at Amazon for $5-6, vs. $8-10 at the Sony store, and $10-30 for the dead tree version. About half she turns around and donates to the Y after she's done reading them, since it's not worth the time to try and resell them. Even if she did, the net cost would be more than the $5 for an e-version. Plus, the convenience is big.
Quite honestly, she might have gotten a Nook, but I plan on having her unwrap something other than a picture of a gift. I chafe at Amazons treatment of 1984, but honestly this reader fits her buying and reading habits the best - plus I deal with copyright daily so I have a small measure of sympathy for the position Amazon was put in during that fiasco (not much, but enough).
Because your target has any windows home version, which does not have it installed.
Yeah, we can close this thread at this point - logmein takes it easily. I've been using it for several years. The free version does practically everything you need for remote. Heck I even use it from PC to PC in the house since MS decided to hobble vista home premium by not including remote terminal. An, no, I can't hack in the version from pro - these are "production" machines that my wife and daughter rely on for entertainment. The ugliest, angriest CEO in the world has nothing on my wife if The Mentalist doesn't record properly.
I'm trying to figure out Hamachi for VPN so I can access my home server when I'm on the road. I haven't had time to figure it out - it's not quite as straight forward as logmein, which takes effectively zero learning curve.
Perhaps. I don't use a full spectrum lamp - a 100W incandescent is sufficient (blackbody and all that). Yes, they're about $140 for a little piece of electronics. They tell time, have both dawn and dusk curves pre-programmed, and an "alarm" which automatically turns the light off an hour past the "wake" time. Actual cost of components is probably less than $25.
Remember, the light doesn't "turn on," it brings the light up along the same intensity curve as a sunrise. Certainly programmable. If I knew C# (which I don't), and were willing to fool around with grabbing the X10 command info and libraries off the net (which I'm not), it might take me two hours to code and debug it myself. Actually, since sunrise occurs over a 40 minute period, it would likely take longer, but argue the time in your favor. So assuming I don't have to buy anything else to program the firecracker (I have a serial port on my computer) I'm out $50 including the dimming module, plus two hours of my time. So I can't take it with me on business trips/vacation easily (and expect it to work, since it has to be plugged into a computer that's on 24/7), I can't shift the wake up time by 20-30 minutes when I get into bed a little later than usual, and now I've got three things which can cause it to fail (computer, firecracker, x10 module) instead of one. All of a sudden and extra $90 doesn't sound so expensive.
Just don't get lost out of cell range. It's one of the few shortcomings that keeps me from an iPhone.
That said, I do use my phone as my GPS, but I have a stand-alone package which does not require an active net connection. The maps are probably 3-4 years old now, but where I need it there is no cell service (prob 10% coverage at best), and the roads change very, very infrequently.
Man, I wish. I know you're not supposed to complain about being busy in a down economy, but damn I can't wait until my current push is over and I can get back to my life. I've been waiting for it to end for about 6 months now. I'm lucky to get 2-3 hours in before I sneak off to surf for half an hour and let my brain decompress - I used to be able to hit it hard for 4-5, take a break, and do another 4-5.
...which is probably sooner than I'd prefer, but still a couple of decades away at least.
Wristwatches - I know people who use their phone. My watch is faster, convenient for me. It's a fashion accessory for many (in addition to their fashion phones)
Bedside alarm clocks - I can see this, but until shows the time without me having to touch it (and without it lighting the whole room with the back light), wakes me up with NPR, and increased the light in my room to simulate a sunrise, I'll stick with my beside box. (Okay, two boxes...it's a SunRizr that does the lights)
MP3 players - I'm sure all the iPhone guys are saying "hell yes." I've got a WM phone, and while it does great things the iPhone can't, it sucks donkey balls as a music player. The average phone is going to have to get a lot better - and a lot bigger storage (which will happen "soon") - to take over as my portable player. I'll still keep my SwimP# for the pool though...I don't think many phones would thrive in a aquatic environment.
Landline home phones - Okay, just call me an old fart; I'll probably always have one. The uptime is much better than cell.
Compact digital cameras - they're going to have to get massively better. I'm talking several orders of magnitude. Maybe before I die. Maybe.
Netbooks - keyboards and screens that don't require massive scrolling or a magnifying glass. 'Nuff said.
Handheld games consoles - Hmmmm...not much use for one, so... *shrug*
Paper - sorry, I still print directions and confirmations. This may change. Someday. But I'm awfully attached to dead trees. Probably has to do with my note taking desires, and the aforementioned need for a magnifying glass or scrolling for all but the simplest of things on a phone.
Thinking - The 'net has already made that obsolete. Now get off my lawn...
Man, I need to get back to work.
Werner von Braun, and much of the WWII rocketry from Germany, was based on the designs of Robert Goddard - and von Braun eas clear about the origins of his work after the war. In fact, Dr. Goddard approached the US military before WWII and they dismissed his work as not being useful. The Germans saw the "value" which the US did not recognize in the early work.
Actually, they shouldn't team up - unless I get a cut of the funds raised. Those two seem to have pulled off one of the greatest money making schemes of all time. Together, they might approach Wall Street levels of shysterism.
Yes, but now there's a white paper from a recognized university (one which has a name associated with greeness) that you can point them to. Let them know that the Tata they have been reading about in Popular Science won't really get 1000 mile on a tank of air* like the marketing information would have them believe.
*and 8-10 gallons of gasoline
The CO2 stays in the air until they're absorbed by the trees which his children will burn for firewood. Not really ideal from an immediate perspective, but better than the coal cycle (which requires quite a few generations to become coal again). :-)