If you see a politician pushing something, just follow the money trail and you'll find their backers.
There is a website which is devoted to following the money. It is interesting to see who Comcast supports, Johnson & Johnson, etc. I don't think the parent was that far offtopic. After all, the DST issue was a political move that had to be sold to the public. When you actualy analize it, you wonder on what the decisions was actualy based on. I think follow the money is a data point any time politicians are involved. This was not based on a peer reviewed white paper and a large sample controlled experiment.
Skip DST entirely. No clock changes at all. You want more daylight? Get up earlier. Need more time to work? Work summer hours.
Who cares about local time? Aren't you running on GMT, UCT, Zulu -8 or something? I schedule a call time with suppliers in Japan, I simply schedule a GMT time, and I don't worry about DST. Now if I can find an atomic radio clock that lets you choose something other than EST, PST, or something inbetween, then I would know what time it is.
"Please do not crack software and publish the crack on the net. It hurts my employer's feelings.
It hurts his feelings much less than recommending Ubuntu. It's free, works, and is faster. It's also legal unlike a crack.
Tell your employer that force feeding WGA on my old Windows 98 system wasn't appreciated. I had to go elsewhere to find Direct X 8.1 the capture device requires. I kept Win 98 because it doesn't require WGA, and yes, it's legal, an OEM install that came with the new machine.
A direct X update is nice. An unwanted hitchiker pest isn't.
Why not? In the future when the populations are back and they are farm raised much like black angus, they are not an endangered species. If they were harvested in times of low population, I could see the issue, but not when they are plentiful again.
McDees has no problem finding farm raised beef. Time travelers have no problems finding whale oil in season. It's too sooty to use in vehicles, so about all it is sold for is time travel for vikings so demand is low. Carrying flashlights and spare batteries will get you burned at the stake.
So, if the power fails *and* the fire alarms fail (for whatever reason, perhaps because it got burnt), you're locked in.
Quit being paranoid. Check the code and test the alarm. That should have been covered in the design phase. This is why many security doors are held closed with a big magnetic latch. On power fail, they release, not remain locked. If they don't release, contact the building inspector. It may be time for a required upgrade. The old buzz them through door releases are for entrance use only for entering. Exiting should still be by a crash bar or inside operable doorknob.
The solution is to have the power plant measure the phase of the lines they're on, and generate with a matching phase.
ROLFLAMO Power into and out of the electrical grid is not by the phase of the generator. Power into and out of the grid is by the prime mover, eg throttle and nothing else. Once a plant is online, the throttle doesn't change the phase, just the power. (infinate grid calcultions) Matching phase while connected is not monitored as the electrical locks it to the grid. Power factor is controlled by the voltage regulator. Over voltage produces a leading power factor and under excited generators produce a lagging power pactor. Excitation is used for correcting power factor with some voltage regulation/correction.
Matching phase is only something you do just before closing the breaker and it is almost always closed slightly out of phase by about 5-10 degrees leading while advancing (running slightly fast) so it can connect with little bounce. After that, it's in phase, even if the prime mover is shut down. (reverse power protection should relay it out at this point to allow it to stop rotating)
Disclaimer, I am not a powerhouse operator, but I am the son of a retired one.
All of the doors were locked from the inside. What the hell would happen if there's a fire?
Many doors are connected to the fire alarm system. In an alarm condition, the doors are supposed to be released and if held open, released to close, If locked, unlocked for exit. Alarmed crash bars are required in many places per code. Many exits from secure locations are held closed with a magnetic lock. On alarm operation, this should release. Check with your building manager and see who does the fire system testing. Part of the testing should include fire door operations. If they don't work, contact the city building inspector. Your city building code requirements may vary.
If the power is out and the door is locked, trip the fire alarm and try again.
What I find interesting is the contrast between your linux story and the rest of the "OMG, linux doesn't work on the desktop!" posts here. You're using linux for a pretty specialized task, that 99% of linux users will never use it for, and it works.
My laptop an ex-Windows 2K machine and my Win 98SE dual boot machines are traditional desktop configured. For the most part, they are plug and play. When I built the Core 2 Duo tm machine, I could have simply used it to replace the older machine, but for web surfing, typing documents and playing the extensive list of included games (vs the short MS included list of cards and minesweeper) the older hardware is just fine. Hardware compatibility was almost non-existant. I have an HP scanner that SANE didn't recognise, but a trip to Goodwill replaced it with a nice Cannon LED model for about $10. I knew to avoid Winmodems and multi-function printers, so these were never an issue. The flatbed scanner and my HP inkjet and laserjet worked out of the box. They are on stand alone printservers and do a fantastic job for my entire network. Only the Vista laptop had trouble connecting to the printers. The new network authentication standard as default in Vista is problematic in existing home LAN's. The MS solution is of course to upgrade your entire lan and toss the working hardware.
I wanted to get into hard disk recording, so I decided to try the free offerings. If they didn't work, I could drop a half grand or more in software. Fortunately, the free stuff works quite well. Ubuntu Studio using a low latency kernal and the AISO interface makes it easy to do multi-track recording in real time. Putting down a drum track and playing it back to add the lead and bass guitar is easy. (play and record at the same time with little delay) Then the 4 tracks can be again played back and the lead and backup vocals can be laid down. In post production a little reverb can be added to the backup vocal track as a new track, so if you don't like it, you can redo, adjust tweak, eq and such till it is just right. Normally this ability is a several grand expense. I use a small under $300 mixer with some good mics, the under $50 A/D Behringer U-Control for the hardware and free software. Other than the price of a good PC which can be dual booted if desired, the studio solution including the mixer, mics, and A/D converter for cutting demo CD's was under $500. Home recording doesn't have to be expensive even when the result sounds like it. The plug it in and it works is more the norm than the exception. The stuff that is hard to make work gets lots of attention and is often a well known issue.
Seriously, though, I've met this guy before, and the definition of "space" might be a little loose, but crazy wins over reality, every time.
Even more of a reality check is the loose definition of "orbit". Doing a rocket shot to the edge of space and reaching orbital velocity are energy orders of magnitude apart. A vomit rocket edge of space flight is possible, but hitting orbital velocity is entirely another. He may want to go to orbit, but I can't think of any plastic or carbon fibre material that would work for the nozzle velocities required. Packing enough energy is another problem entirely.
There is a reason we use rocket fuel in our space program.
Hardware: Linux is pretty good at working with MOST of the hardware, but there are wireless cards and scanners and of course other devices that don't work out of the box with Linux
If you haven't noticed, this is rapidly vanishing with Linux, just as it vanished with Windows. Take for example, thumb drives. plug a few of them into a new Windows 98SE or Windows 2K install. You do have drivers on a disk somewhere don't you?
I needed fewer drivers for Ubuntu Studio when I built a brand new Core 2 Duo tm box. The sound, video, printers, Cannon LED flatbed scanner, everything just worked out of the box. Even the external audio capture (Behringer U-control) was truly plug and play. I plugged it in and it was in the menu of input devices in Audacity.
You may find some stuff that doesn't work. My M-Audio Quatro interface doesn't work out of the box. It doesn't work on my Windows 98 machine without an upgrade to Direct X 8.(it took a while to find without being forced into a WGA download tie-in)
16 bit 2 track 44.1 or 48 KHZ recording works out of the box on Ubuntu. I got the 4 track 44.1 or 48 KHZ recording working on Windows 98SE in Audacity, but it wasn't painless.
You have to buy a computer, and it "comes with" the OS - why would you even waste your time farking around with something else?
There is also the mentality of Breaking the Warranty on a new machine and why throw away a working OS that is expensive? Linux mainly gets installed on older machines that fail the upgrade path and thus are religated to the used car with a new paintjob status. I am very guilty of this. I dual boot a Windows 98 machine with linux. My Windows 2K laptop got a full upgrade into Ubuntu. I broke the barrier with my latest machine, a home built Core 2 Duo tm box which is prowdly running Ubuntu Studio as a Digital Audio Workstation. As a hard drive recorder for cutting band demo CD's, it rocks for multi-track recording.
Newbies simply want their new machine to plug and play. They don't want to throw away a several hundred dollar software install, especialy if they find they don't like the replacement or are stuck on the learning curve (it doesn't play MP3's, it's broken!). If they have to reinstall Windows, they have to do the remove the crapware, re-prove it's genuine, load all the patches and updates, etc.... It's better for them to never break a new machine in the first place.
After you run Linux you learn some things are much better and some things are much worse. It's a case of known bugs and a new set of unknown bugs.
I promote open standards. I send documents with the ODT extension. It's a chance to educate and promote open standards. People ask why I use Open Office. I flat tell them that there are too many versions of Microsoft in my house so I needed to upgrade. Office 97 on one machine, Office 2K on another, Office 2003 on another and the brand new version on the new Vista laptop is simply a mess. We buy Office and it comes with a License for only one machine. I install Open Office and it comes with a License to install on every machine I own, and will even directly install on Linux. I could spend a grand to upgrade the Microsoft product or I could do it for free legaly.
Then I inform them that I could send the document in a Word Perfect, Abi-word, plain ASCII text, or a Microsoft DOC file instead of the open document format if they would like. What version would they prefer? I let them know that I think MS has a plug-in for the open document format if you have the right Office version. You may need to pay again for an upgrade to get it from Microsoft.
Later I can let them know that my OS is also based on open standards.
But if I were looking for a developer or anyone whose job involves creative solutions to unusual problems, I'd be looking for more than technical knowledge.
Be careful and take note that many techs understand systems better than some factory trained engineers. I can give the following first hand as I was the tech.
My boss at my old job lived on a houseboat. He had a new heat pump installed. Many of you IT guys may have picked up some refrigeration knowledge. My stint in the Navy was in cryptology, so we didn't let in any contractor to fix stuff. I learned refrigeration inside and out. (The most difficult one is continuous cycle absorption cycle. Grasping building a fire under it to get cold isn't an easy concept) Because the heat pump was on a house boat, they didn't use the factory outside unit, but instead installed a custom heat exchanger. The first month's operation used more power in mild (about 45 degree) weather than plain electric heat by about 3 X while the compressor ran almost constantly. The trained rep that charged the system was certain the reversing valve was defective. I asked if I could look at it before they tore it down. I was given permission.
I found the system was charged by the gauges. The factory engineer should have known that system temperatures directly impact system pressure. He charged it and ignored the fact the unit had river water coupling. In a nutshell, it was charged for a nigh side pressure in heat mode and completely flooded the high side to get the pressures up to what he expected. The low side frosted a short section of pipe to the heat exchanger. It was also flooded. I explained my finding and suggested removing refrigerant so the entire length of the heat exchangers was used instead of just the first few feet and use the sight glass for charging. We bled it till bubbles appeared and topped it till they just disappeared. This took 3 hours as we recovered most of the refrigerant out of the system. It was grossly overcharged. I verified proper operation of the reversing valve and left. I explained to the engineer that with a water warmed heat exchanger using 40 degree river water as a heat source, the high side pressure is going to be a little lower than normal. This is because the water warmed evaporator is running at a lower temperature and pressure. This delivers less liquid through the expansion valve reducing system capacity. To operate it with the reduced differential and get full capacity, an over sized expansion valve is required. For the 5 ton unit, I recommended an 8 ton valve due to the lower volume of delivered refrigerant due to the lower pressure differential on the valve.
The next week my boss mentioned the system only runs for short times instead of constantly. I got a healthy bonus for that one. It's not even my field. Knowledge of how things work is important. A few months later they changed the expansion valve and it ran even more efficiently.
This was a huge improvement in the summer with the water cooled the high side. Instead of condensing at pressures for 125 degrees on the high side, it was condensing for 80 degrees on the high side. The electrical load was much lighter even using an 8 ton valve in place of the 5 ton valve.
Don't knock an engineering tech. Anybody in systems cooling care to comment? A good tech knows more than just his core field and is constantly learning.
copyright holders can either charge a copyright levy or sue copyright violators
In Canada they decided to charge the levy. In Canada, it's not a copyright violation. It's prepaid use. The violation is only if US and/or other non Canadian artists works are shared with Canada failing to forward the collected funds to the proper copyright holders.
Hmm, now that I think about it the article is partly right. The Canadian people are not in violation. They paid. The government in failing to distribute the funds to the copyright owners is in violation.
If you met him, you wouldn't have thought he was a day older than 70. I'd say if someone is shocked at your passing at age 94, then you probably were doing it right.
I can relate to that. My dad is in the mid 70's and longevity runs in the family.
He was already 33 years old when ENIAC was unveiled.
All other things being equal, do you think a Bachelor's degree would be worth it when I already have military experience and a CCNA certification?
Many employers look at military as at least a Bachelor's degree and are able to start you at a late apprentice level. I went right to Journeyman when I got my ISCET Journeyman certification. Many places have HR departments that understand Military is compressed specialty training. This is valuable in the technical fields as you didn't spend half your time in liberal arts classes. I still have no college sheepskin, but I am working as an engineering technician in R&D. If I went for the sheepskin, I could easly gone on to a full engineer. So yes, depending on your goals, the degree is worth it. Challange as many classes as possible so you don't waste your time.
At the time I got out of the service, my goals were to be stable in unstable times. (1981) Engineers were often hired to fix a problem or complete a project and spent the rest of the time looking for work. (remember the 1980's where engineering degrees would get you a job flipping burgers? I never worked in fast food ever.) I liked the hands on tech stuff, so instead of persuing money, I picked a field where I could play and get paid for it. I never had the 9-5 blues. For steady work, I worked repair in high end audio/video. It was cutting edge, new and ever changing. Later I worked a contract to do 2 way Motorolla trunked system repair/programming and service. On the side we had a contract to keep a local radio station on-air. I got to fix the transmitter after it took a lighting hit. It was a little spooky working with the 5KV 10KW power supply. It was interesting and varied work for someone without a degree. There is a lot of work for someone with proper military training. Any extra certifications you get is a bonus. For me it is low voltage and broadcast. I finaly got an offer to move into R&D and I have been here since.
It always pays to keep on learning. You can easly pick up side stuff. I am building a home recording studio (On Linux). On another front, I'm using much of my tech training to move into theatratical lighting. I have a current project on the side designing the lighting system for a new church. I have convinced them to ditch the set of light switches by the door and go with a proper dimmer pack that talks both wall stations (so the janitor can come in any door and turn on the lights) and talk DMX-512 so the lighting director can run all the specialty luminares along with the house lights from the lighting desk/soundboard workstation. Part of the job it to establish the load requirements. The pastor had no idea why I wanted at least 2 20 amp circuits minimum to each truss. Part of the job is customer education. People skills are a must. Instead of $20 wall dimmers, the advantages of a $3,000 dimmer pack and $250 wall stations needs to be explained. It comes as a shock when they learn 2 20 circuits isn't going to run a dozen Par 64 fixtures and the 12 house light fixtures take 8 100 watt bulbs each. (500 to 1,000 watts each fixture) It's fun work. If you get the right training, you can get paid for playing, but you gotta have a skill someone will pay you for. The more you know, the more you are worth.
I can name 5 different 12 channel 2400 watt/channel wall mount dimmer packs by 5 manufactures that will do wall stations and mix with DMX-512 and the advantages of each and which need an option board to enable it at additional cost. I know on single phase power they require a 120 amp 240 volt circuit for each pack. Know your stuff and you will be valuable. Keep learning. DMX-512 didn't exist when I started. Now it is part of what I do.
Leave my dad out of it. He's the one with the "Older than dirt" ballcap. He's far from petrified. He does video editing. He has an Ubuntu machine, an Apple laptop, and a Windows box. I try to keep up with him, but I haven't picked up the Apple laptop yet. Maybe it'll be my next laptop if I get tired of Ubuntu.
But don't they realize that people smart enough to do their hacking are also smart enough to see through their sorry attempts to recruit them?
Count me in that group. Before you laugh, It wasn't the Air Force, but Navy. I went through the Advanced Electronics program. In six years, I got training (ISCET Certified) experiance, and no student loan. It gave me a head start in the recession in the 1980's when nobody was hired without experiance. I passed plenty of college grads into the field due to the education and experiance. I basicaly had a Geek job while in the service. I never carried a pack, seldom used dress blues, etc. Most times it was work attire and keep your haircut and shoes in shape. In the late 1970's I was working with a PDP11. Not too many schools in the 1970's had one you could learn. I qualified on a sidearm, but never was assigned one.
That said, you raise an interesting point about where Intel/AMD make their money.
I think they make their money by having an effecient high volume plan including very high quality control. If 2 companies make a product, the high volume can do a lower cost per unit. If the defect rate makes 1/3 of one companies product hit the trash while the other company is shipping at 90% yield and is ahead on the performance curve, they can underprice the competition with volume, effeciency and scale. I think AMD had a yield issue, production volume problem and late with high performance. Their policy of under pricing the competion has run them in the red as the average selling price has come down with manufacturing effeciency. Either Intel has to have a major production screw-up, or AMD needs a magic bullet to rocket their yield and production rates to cut production costs and improve performance. It's a tall order if Intel doesn't screw-up.
Anybody know Intel/AMD volumes, yield, and unit cost? It costs the same to make one for the trash as it does to make a working one to sell. Low defect counts is critical.
Don't you dare click that link in support of Slashdot, that's Click Fraud(tm) and you'll be sent away to prison as a felon if you happen to live in an area where Click Fraud is considered illegal (see the other posts of mine in a different subthread of this article which respond to that threat). Otherwise, you're just lowering their click through percentage. Granted, it is a noble gesture.
FYI, I didn't click on the Dell ad. I have no need for their server. On the other hand, I have clicked through to the Think Geek site a couple times. I didn't buy anything as it seemed a little expensive for me. I would love to get one of the cool random appearing LED clocks. It's the count the number of LED's on in each positon ones. They are cool, though a little pricey. I'm not too much of an impulse buyer and the price kept it from being an impulse buy.
Never mind the click through rate, if I were an advertiser, I'd be concerned about the likely high percentage of AdBlock users who never see the ads at all.
Just for Slashdot, I keep a partition with no ad block enabled. For those with ad blocking, and want to supprt Slashdot, read on... The banner ad at the top of this page is for a Dell Storage server. They are touting Storage the IBM DS3300 can't beat.;-). Many advertisers know that IT people generaly don't impulse buy, but research the products. Getting noticed for consideration is why advertisers are here. Would you have even considered Dell for a storage server?
Please don't start a flame war because I picked on Dell for this example. They just happened to have the banner at the top of the page. My Wife has a Dell PC.. and it has been fine except for the included OS. Other than a Hard disk repacement at 3 years, it hasen't needed attention.
The impulsiveness of purchases is highest in low income categories. The middle class actually counts pennies much more and the rich have someone counting for them.
The rich tend to have product requirements to meet. They tend to be more technical and have better knowledge of the product they are looking for. Here is an example;
I am involved in a new building (a church) and in the design stages they are laying out the wiring, including the low voltage stuff. An impulse buyer will simply check the price on a box of CAT5 cable and make a decision. I too checked prices. I also checked my requirements. Do I need riser rated cable, plenum cable, shielded cable? We need cable for the alarm, low voltage lighting controls, networking, AV, and intercom.
The lighting if you do the popular DMX-512 stuff, by popular price, 3 pin microphone cable is often used. Advertisements are all over the place for very cheap "DMX" Cables. The spec for DMX clearly defines why mic cable is not to be used including the wrong impedance, and no UL aproval for fire code. Side note, it works for short runs as long as the connector shell is not connected unlike a true mic cable. Keep your 3 pin XLR mic cable away from your 3 pin DMX cable. On the legal side, these cables are not UL approved for in wall installation. RS-485 120 ohm cable is specified by the standard. Riser rated or even Plenum rated RS-485 cable is very expensive and can easly cost more than a lighting control board. The urge to go with something cheaper is very strong at this point.
Using the wrong cable is what fills up the forums on lighting. Just before the production my desk died is a common complaint. The frequent cause is the noise filters in dimmers put noise current into the lighting ground. A borrowed Mic cable with grounded connector shells, connects the frame ground of the dimmer pack to the isolated ground of the signal. Often the spike noise blows out the comm chips and the show goes dark and a piece of **** console is blamed, when the root cause was a cable with grounded connector shells and a poorly grounded dimmer pack. Check the forums. The gremlins that eat the show just befor opening is common. Follow the spec. It's there for a reason.
The CAT5 cable has been tested as a suitable replacement for RS-485 cable and exceeds the original performance ratings. As a bonus it is about 1/5 the cost in a FR4 fire rated classification. CMG is the most common. As a bonus, we don't have to buy 2 kinds of cable as one will now work in both applications for networking and lighting control. Further studies show the UTP cable both radiates and is subject to noise pick-up. STP cable is the next logical step. It is also easly located in riser and plenum ratings. It is much easer to source than plenum or riser rated RS-485 cable. As a bonus, it's a fraction of the cost while performing better.
In my research including checking prices and cable ratings, how many manufactures counted my clicks as a non-sale? The manufacture that got my sale didn't get it from a banner ad. They got it by having full spec sheets online. I found my riser rated shielded CAT5 cable in pretty colors for $108/box of 1,000 feet. Banner ads for cheap cable don't deliver enough information to qualify a product for considration of purchase.
I am now in the research stages of picking a wall mount dimmer system. Again, we have system requirements to meet. They are.. Multi-station. The janitor can enter and turn on the lights without turning on a lighting desk. Multi-system integration.. The house light system needs to accept a DMX-512 signal when present, so the lighting console can include the house lights in the lighting program. High power.. enough said. A dozen hanging fixtures with 6-8 100 watt bulbs will require a serious dimmer pack. Another set of PAR64 cans at 500-675 Watts each is a design consideration. Another 2 dozen recessed fixtures for stage, balcony and under the balcony will dictate the number of channels
Slashdot Mirror
If you see a politician pushing something, just follow the money trail and you'll find their backers.
There is a website which is devoted to following the money. It is interesting to see who Comcast supports, Johnson & Johnson, etc. I don't think the parent was that far offtopic. After all, the DST issue was a political move that had to be sold to the public. When you actualy analize it, you wonder on what the decisions was actualy based on. I think follow the money is a data point any time politicians are involved. This was not based on a peer reviewed white paper and a large sample controlled experiment.
Skip DST entirely. No clock changes at all. You want more daylight? Get up earlier. Need more time to work? Work summer hours.
Who cares about local time? Aren't you running on GMT, UCT, Zulu -8 or something? I schedule a call time with suppliers in Japan, I simply schedule a GMT time, and I don't worry about DST. Now if I can find an atomic radio clock that lets you choose something other than EST, PST, or something inbetween, then I would know what time it is.
"Please do not crack software and publish the crack on the net. It hurts my employer's feelings.
It hurts his feelings much less than recommending Ubuntu. It's free, works, and is faster. It's also legal unlike a crack.
Tell your employer that force feeding WGA on my old Windows 98 system wasn't appreciated. I had to go elsewhere to find Direct X 8.1 the capture device requires. I kept Win 98 because it doesn't require WGA, and yes, it's legal, an OEM install that came with the new machine.
A direct X update is nice. An unwanted hitchiker pest isn't.
This simply cannot be allowed!
Why not? In the future when the populations are back and they are farm raised much like black angus, they are not an endangered species. If they were harvested in times of low population, I could see the issue, but not when they are plentiful again.
McDees has no problem finding farm raised beef. Time travelers have no problems finding whale oil in season. It's too sooty to use in vehicles, so about all it is sold for is time travel for vikings so demand is low. Carrying flashlights and spare batteries will get you burned at the stake.
So, if the power fails *and* the fire alarms fail (for whatever reason, perhaps because it got burnt), you're locked in.
Quit being paranoid. Check the code and test the alarm. That should have been covered in the design phase. This is why many security doors are held closed with a big magnetic latch. On power fail, they release, not remain locked. If they don't release, contact the building inspector. It may be time for a required upgrade. The old buzz them through door releases are for entrance use only for entering. Exiting should still be by a crash bar or inside operable doorknob.
The solution is to have the power plant measure the phase of the lines they're on, and generate with a matching phase.
ROLFLAMO Power into and out of the electrical grid is not by the phase of the generator. Power into and out of the grid is by the prime mover, eg throttle and nothing else. Once a plant is online, the throttle doesn't change the phase, just the power. (infinate grid calcultions) Matching phase while connected is not monitored as the electrical locks it to the grid. Power factor is controlled by the voltage regulator. Over voltage produces a leading power factor and under excited generators produce a lagging power pactor. Excitation is used for correcting power factor with some voltage regulation/correction.
Matching phase is only something you do just before closing the breaker and it is almost always closed slightly out of phase by about 5-10 degrees leading while advancing (running slightly fast) so it can connect with little bounce. After that, it's in phase, even if the prime mover is shut down. (reverse power protection should relay it out at this point to allow it to stop rotating)
Disclaimer, I am not a powerhouse operator, but I am the son of a retired one.
All of the doors were locked from the inside. What the hell would happen if there's a fire?
Many doors are connected to the fire alarm system. In an alarm condition, the doors are supposed to be released and if held open, released to close, If locked, unlocked for exit. Alarmed crash bars are required in many places per code.
Many exits from secure locations are held closed with a magnetic lock. On alarm operation, this should release. Check with your building manager and see who does the fire system testing. Part of the testing should include fire door operations. If they don't work, contact the city building inspector. Your city building code requirements may vary.
If the power is out and the door is locked, trip the fire alarm and try again.
I would say understanding and using the manual octal grouped switches on the front of a PDP11/35 is high on the list. Using the halt/run switch is a lost art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pdp-11-40.jpg
Running a shmoo curve on magnetic core memory is an obsolete skill.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/20/22897/01066073.pdf?arnumber=1066073
What I find interesting is the contrast between your linux story and the rest of the "OMG, linux doesn't work on the desktop!" posts here. You're using linux for a pretty specialized task, that 99% of linux users will never use it for, and it works.
My laptop an ex-Windows 2K machine and my Win 98SE dual boot machines are traditional desktop configured. For the most part, they are plug and play. When I built the Core 2 Duo tm machine, I could have simply used it to replace the older machine, but for web surfing, typing documents and playing the extensive list of included games (vs the short MS included list of cards and minesweeper) the older hardware is just fine. Hardware compatibility was almost non-existant. I have an HP scanner that SANE didn't recognise, but a trip to Goodwill replaced it with a nice Cannon LED model for about $10. I knew to avoid Winmodems and multi-function printers, so these were never an issue. The flatbed scanner and my HP inkjet and laserjet worked out of the box. They are on stand alone printservers and do a fantastic job for my entire network. Only the Vista laptop had trouble connecting to the printers. The new network authentication standard as default in Vista is problematic in existing home LAN's. The MS solution is of course to upgrade your entire lan and toss the working hardware.
I wanted to get into hard disk recording, so I decided to try the free offerings. If they didn't work, I could drop a half grand or more in software. Fortunately, the free stuff works quite well. Ubuntu Studio using a low latency kernal and the AISO interface makes it easy to do multi-track recording in real time. Putting down a drum track and playing it back to add the lead and bass guitar is easy. (play and record at the same time with little delay) Then the 4 tracks can be again played back and the lead and backup vocals can be laid down. In post production a little reverb can be added to the backup vocal track as a new track, so if you don't like it, you can redo, adjust tweak, eq and such till it is just right. Normally this ability is a several grand expense. I use a small under $300 mixer with some good mics, the under $50 A/D Behringer U-Control for the hardware and free software. Other than the price of a good PC which can be dual booted if desired, the studio solution including the mixer, mics, and A/D converter for cutting demo CD's was under $500. Home recording doesn't have to be expensive even when the result sounds like it. The plug it in and it works is more the norm than the exception. The stuff that is hard to make work gets lots of attention and is often a well known issue.
Example hardware is here.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-UCONTROL-UCA202-USBAudio-Interface?sku=702540
http://www.americanmusical.com/item.aspx?i=YAM%20MG124C&src=D0407FG0HAMS0000YAM%20MG124C&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=feed&
http://www.zzounds.com/item--SHUPG48
Seriously, though, I've met this guy before, and the definition of "space" might be a little loose, but crazy wins over reality, every time.
Even more of a reality check is the loose definition of "orbit". Doing a rocket shot to the edge of space and reaching orbital velocity are energy orders of magnitude apart. A vomit rocket edge of space flight is possible, but hitting orbital velocity is entirely another. He may want to go to orbit, but I can't think of any plastic or carbon fibre material that would work for the nozzle velocities required. Packing enough energy is another problem entirely.
There is a reason we use rocket fuel in our space program.
Hardware: Linux is pretty good at working with MOST of the hardware, but there are wireless cards and scanners and of course other devices that don't work out of the box with Linux
If you haven't noticed, this is rapidly vanishing with Linux, just as it vanished with Windows. Take for example, thumb drives. plug a few of them into a new Windows 98SE or Windows 2K install. You do have drivers on a disk somewhere don't you?
I needed fewer drivers for Ubuntu Studio when I built a brand new Core 2 Duo tm box. The sound, video, printers, Cannon LED flatbed scanner, everything just worked out of the box. Even the external audio capture (Behringer U-control) was truly plug and play. I plugged it in and it was in the menu of input devices in Audacity.
You may find some stuff that doesn't work. My M-Audio Quatro interface doesn't work out of the box. It doesn't work on my Windows 98 machine without an upgrade to Direct X 8.(it took a while to find without being forced into a WGA download tie-in)
16 bit 2 track 44.1 or 48 KHZ recording works out of the box on Ubuntu. I got the 4 track 44.1 or 48 KHZ recording working on Windows 98SE in Audacity, but it wasn't painless.
You have to buy a computer, and it "comes with" the OS - why would you even waste your time farking around with something else?
There is also the mentality of Breaking the Warranty on a new machine and why throw away a working OS that is expensive? Linux mainly gets installed on older machines that fail the upgrade path and thus are religated to the used car with a new paintjob status. I am very guilty of this. I dual boot a Windows 98 machine with linux. My Windows 2K laptop got a full upgrade into Ubuntu. I broke the barrier with my latest machine, a home built Core 2 Duo tm box which is prowdly running Ubuntu Studio as a Digital Audio Workstation. As a hard drive recorder for cutting band demo CD's, it rocks for multi-track recording.
Newbies simply want their new machine to plug and play. They don't want to throw away a several hundred dollar software install, especialy if they find they don't like the replacement or are stuck on the learning curve (it doesn't play MP3's, it's broken!). If they have to reinstall Windows, they have to do the remove the crapware, re-prove it's genuine, load all the patches and updates, etc.... It's better for them to never break a new machine in the first place.
After you run Linux you learn some things are much better and some things are much worse. It's a case of known bugs and a new set of unknown bugs.
I promote open standards. I send documents with the ODT extension. It's a chance to educate and promote open standards. People ask why I use Open Office. I flat tell them that there are too many versions of Microsoft in my house so I needed to upgrade. Office 97 on one machine, Office 2K on another, Office 2003 on another and the brand new version on the new Vista laptop is simply a mess. We buy Office and it comes with a License for only one machine. I install Open Office and it comes with a License to install on every machine I own, and will even directly install on Linux. I could spend a grand to upgrade the Microsoft product or I could do it for free legaly.
Then I inform them that I could send the document in a Word Perfect, Abi-word, plain ASCII text, or a Microsoft DOC file instead of the open document format if they would like. What version would they prefer? I let them know that I think MS has a plug-in for the open document format if you have the right Office version. You may need to pay again for an upgrade to get it from Microsoft.
Later I can let them know that my OS is also based on open standards.
But if I were looking for a developer or anyone whose job involves creative solutions to unusual problems, I'd be looking for more than technical knowledge.
Be careful and take note that many techs understand systems better than some factory trained engineers. I can give the following first hand as I was the tech.
My boss at my old job lived on a houseboat. He had a new heat pump installed. Many of you IT guys may have picked up some refrigeration knowledge. My stint in the Navy was in cryptology, so we didn't let in any contractor to fix stuff. I learned refrigeration inside and out. (The most difficult one is continuous cycle absorption cycle. Grasping building a fire under it to get cold isn't an easy concept) Because the heat pump was on a house boat, they didn't use the factory outside unit, but instead installed a custom heat exchanger. The first month's operation used more power in mild (about 45 degree) weather than plain electric heat by about 3 X while the compressor ran almost constantly. The trained rep that charged the system was certain the reversing valve was defective. I asked if I could look at it before they tore it down. I was given permission.
I found the system was charged by the gauges. The factory engineer should have known that system temperatures directly impact system pressure. He charged it and ignored the fact the unit had river water coupling. In a nutshell, it was charged for a nigh side pressure in heat mode and completely flooded the high side to get the pressures up to what he expected. The low side frosted a short section of pipe to the heat exchanger. It was also flooded. I explained my finding and suggested removing refrigerant so the entire length of the heat exchangers was used instead of just the first few feet and use the sight glass for charging. We bled it till bubbles appeared and topped it till they just disappeared. This took 3 hours as we recovered most of the refrigerant out of the system. It was grossly overcharged. I verified proper operation of the reversing valve and left. I explained to the engineer that with a water warmed heat exchanger using 40 degree river water as a heat source, the high side pressure is going to be a little lower than normal. This is because the water warmed evaporator is running at a lower temperature and pressure. This delivers less liquid through the expansion valve reducing system capacity. To operate it with the reduced differential and get full capacity, an over sized expansion valve is required. For the 5 ton unit, I recommended an 8 ton valve due to the lower volume of delivered refrigerant due to the lower pressure differential on the valve.
The next week my boss mentioned the system only runs for short times instead of constantly. I got a healthy bonus for that one. It's not even my field. Knowledge of how things work is important. A few months later they changed the expansion valve and it ran even more efficiently.
This was a huge improvement in the summer with the water cooled the high side. Instead of condensing at pressures for 125 degrees on the high side, it was condensing for 80 degrees on the high side. The electrical load was much lighter even using an 8 ton valve in place of the 5 ton valve.
Don't knock an engineering tech. Anybody in systems cooling care to comment?
A good tech knows more than just his core field and is constantly learning.
copyright holders can either charge a copyright levy or sue copyright violators
In Canada they decided to charge the levy. In Canada, it's not a copyright violation. It's prepaid use. The violation is only if US and/or other non Canadian artists works are shared with Canada failing to forward the collected funds to the proper copyright holders.
Hmm, now that I think about it the article is partly right. The Canadian people are not in violation. They paid. The government in failing to distribute the funds to the copyright owners is in violation.
You mean he wears flared trousers and likes early disco music?
No, he was too old to get into the disco scene of the 70's. If I dig deep enough, I may find my polyester suit!
If you met him, you wouldn't have thought he was a day older than 70. I'd say if someone is shocked at your passing at age 94, then you probably were doing it right.
I can relate to that. My dad is in the mid 70's and longevity runs in the family.
He was already 33 years old when ENIAC was unveiled.
I was 26 when the IBM PC was unveiled.
All other things being equal, do you think a Bachelor's degree would be worth it when I already have military experience and a CCNA certification?
Many employers look at military as at least a Bachelor's degree and are able to start you at a late apprentice level. I went right to Journeyman when I got my ISCET Journeyman certification. Many places have HR departments that understand Military is compressed specialty training. This is valuable in the technical fields as you didn't spend half your time in liberal arts classes. I still have no college sheepskin, but I am working as an engineering technician in R&D. If I went for the sheepskin, I could easly gone on to a full engineer. So yes, depending on your goals, the degree is worth it. Challange as many classes as possible so you don't waste your time.
At the time I got out of the service, my goals were to be stable in unstable times. (1981) Engineers were often hired to fix a problem or complete a project and spent the rest of the time looking for work. (remember the 1980's where engineering degrees would get you a job flipping burgers? I never worked in fast food ever.) I liked the hands on tech stuff, so instead of persuing money, I picked a field where I could play and get paid for it. I never had the 9-5 blues. For steady work, I worked repair in high end audio/video. It was cutting edge, new and ever changing. Later I worked a contract to do 2 way Motorolla trunked system repair/programming and service. On the side we had a contract to keep a local radio station on-air. I got to fix the transmitter after it took a lighting hit. It was a little spooky working with the 5KV 10KW power supply. It was interesting and varied work for someone without a degree. There is a lot of work for someone with proper military training. Any extra certifications you get is a bonus. For me it is low voltage and broadcast. I finaly got an offer to move into R&D and I have been here since.
It always pays to keep on learning. You can easly pick up side stuff. I am building a home recording studio (On Linux). On another front, I'm using much of my tech training to move into theatratical lighting. I have a current project on the side designing the lighting system for a new church. I have convinced them to ditch the set of light switches by the door and go with a proper dimmer pack that talks both wall stations (so the janitor can come in any door and turn on the lights) and talk DMX-512 so the lighting director can run all the specialty luminares along with the house lights from the lighting desk/soundboard workstation. Part of the job it to establish the load requirements. The pastor had no idea why I wanted at least 2 20 amp circuits minimum to each truss. Part of the job is customer education. People skills are a must. Instead of $20 wall dimmers, the advantages of a $3,000 dimmer pack and $250 wall stations needs to be explained. It comes as a shock when they learn 2 20 circuits isn't going to run a dozen Par 64 fixtures and the 12 house light fixtures take 8 100 watt bulbs each. (500 to 1,000 watts each fixture) It's fun work. If you get the right training, you can get paid for playing, but you gotta have a skill someone will pay you for. The more you know, the more you are worth.
I can name 5 different 12 channel 2400 watt/channel wall mount dimmer packs by 5 manufactures that will do wall stations and mix with DMX-512 and the advantages of each and which need an option board to enable it at additional cost. I know on single phase power they require a 120 amp 240 volt circuit for each pack. Know your stuff and you will be valuable. Keep learning. DMX-512 didn't exist when I started. Now it is part of what I do.
He said "old-timers", not "petrified fossils".
Leave my dad out of it. He's the one with the "Older than dirt" ballcap. He's far from petrified. He does video editing. He has an Ubuntu machine, an Apple laptop, and a Windows box. I try to keep up with him, but I haven't picked up the Apple laptop yet. Maybe it'll be my next laptop if I get tired of Ubuntu.
Only the old-timers will remember the days when we used spooky coloured one-character-at-a-time terminals,
No, old timers remember ECL logic card computers driving a Mod 28.
http://railroad-signaling.com/tty/tty.html
Were were really impressed when our first dot matrix KSR showed up, the DEC KSR Keyboard Send Recieve unit arrived.
http://www.recycledgoods.com/item/15910.aspx
A few years later, we got our first screen display.
But don't they realize that people smart enough to do their hacking are also smart enough to see through their sorry attempts to recruit them?
Count me in that group. Before you laugh, It wasn't the Air Force, but Navy. I went through the Advanced Electronics program. In six years, I got training (ISCET Certified) experiance, and no student loan. It gave me a head start in the recession in the 1980's when nobody was hired without experiance. I passed plenty of college grads into the field due to the education and experiance. I basicaly had a Geek job while in the service. I never carried a pack, seldom used dress blues, etc. Most times it was work attire and keep your haircut and shoes in shape. In the late 1970's I was working with a PDP11. Not too many schools in the 1970's had one you could learn. I qualified on a sidearm, but never was assigned one.
Don't knock geek training without a student loan.
That said, you raise an interesting point about where Intel/AMD make their money.
I think they make their money by having an effecient high volume plan including very high quality control. If 2 companies make a product, the high volume can do a lower cost per unit. If the defect rate makes 1/3 of one companies product hit the trash while the other company is shipping at 90% yield and is ahead on the performance curve, they can underprice the competition with volume, effeciency and scale. I think AMD had a yield issue, production volume problem and late with high performance. Their policy of under pricing the competion has run them in the red as the average selling price has come down with manufacturing effeciency. Either Intel has to have a major production screw-up, or AMD needs a magic bullet to rocket their yield and production rates to cut production costs and improve performance. It's a tall order if Intel doesn't screw-up.
Anybody know Intel/AMD volumes, yield, and unit cost? It costs the same to make one for the trash as it does to make a working one to sell. Low defect counts is critical.
Don't you dare click that link in support of Slashdot, that's Click Fraud(tm) and you'll be sent away to prison as a felon if you happen to live in an area where Click Fraud is considered illegal (see the other posts of mine in a different subthread of this article which respond to that threat). Otherwise, you're just lowering their click through percentage. Granted, it is a noble gesture.
FYI, I didn't click on the Dell ad. I have no need for their server. On the other hand, I have clicked through to the Think Geek site a couple times. I didn't buy anything as it seemed a little expensive for me. I would love to get one of the cool random appearing LED clocks. It's the count the number of LED's on in each positon ones. They are cool, though a little pricey. I'm not too much of an impulse buyer and the price kept it from being an impulse buy.
Never mind the click through rate, if I were an advertiser, I'd be concerned about the likely high percentage of AdBlock users who never see the ads at all.
;-). Many advertisers know that IT people generaly don't impulse buy, but research the products. Getting noticed for consideration is why advertisers are here. Would you have even considered Dell for a storage server?
Just for Slashdot, I keep a partition with no ad block enabled. For those with ad blocking, and want to supprt Slashdot, read on... The banner ad at the top of this page is for a Dell Storage server. They are touting Storage the IBM DS3300 can't beat.
Please don't start a flame war because I picked on Dell for this example. They just happened to have the banner at the top of the page. My Wife has a Dell PC.. and it has been fine except for the included OS. Other than a Hard disk repacement at 3 years, it hasen't needed attention.
The impulsiveness of purchases is highest in low income categories. The middle class actually counts pennies much more and the rich have someone counting for them.
The rich tend to have product requirements to meet. They tend to be more technical and have better knowledge of the product they are looking for. Here is an example;
I am involved in a new building (a church) and in the design stages they are laying out the wiring, including the low voltage stuff. An impulse buyer will simply check the price on a box of CAT5 cable and make a decision. I too checked prices. I also checked my requirements. Do I need riser rated cable, plenum cable, shielded cable? We need cable for the alarm, low voltage lighting controls, networking, AV, and intercom.
The lighting if you do the popular DMX-512 stuff, by popular price, 3 pin microphone cable is often used. Advertisements are all over the place for very cheap "DMX" Cables. The spec for DMX clearly defines why mic cable is not to be used including the wrong impedance, and no UL aproval for fire code. Side note, it works for short runs as long as the connector shell is not connected unlike a true mic cable. Keep your 3 pin XLR mic cable away from your 3 pin DMX cable. On the legal side, these cables are not UL approved for in wall installation. RS-485 120 ohm cable is specified by the standard. Riser rated or even Plenum rated RS-485 cable is very expensive and can easly cost more than a lighting control board. The urge to go with something cheaper is very strong at this point.
Using the wrong cable is what fills up the forums on lighting. Just before the production my desk died is a common complaint. The frequent cause is the noise filters in dimmers put noise current into the lighting ground. A borrowed Mic cable with grounded connector shells, connects the frame ground of the dimmer pack to the isolated ground of the signal. Often the spike noise blows out the comm chips and the show goes dark and a piece of **** console is blamed, when the root cause was a cable with grounded connector shells and a poorly grounded dimmer pack. Check the forums. The gremlins that eat the show just befor opening is common. Follow the spec. It's there for a reason.
The CAT5 cable has been tested as a suitable replacement for RS-485 cable and exceeds the original performance ratings. As a bonus it is about 1/5 the cost in a FR4 fire rated classification. CMG is the most common. As a bonus, we don't have to buy 2 kinds of cable as one will now work in both applications for networking and lighting control. Further studies show the UTP cable both radiates and is subject to noise pick-up. STP cable is the next logical step. It is also easly located in riser and plenum ratings. It is much easer to source than plenum or riser rated RS-485 cable. As a bonus, it's a fraction of the cost while performing better.
In my research including checking prices and cable ratings, how many manufactures counted my clicks as a non-sale? The manufacture that got my sale didn't get it from a banner ad. They got it by having full spec sheets online. I found my riser rated shielded CAT5 cable in pretty colors for $108/box of 1,000 feet. Banner ads for cheap cable don't deliver enough information to qualify a product for considration of purchase.
I am now in the research stages of picking a wall mount dimmer system. Again, we have system requirements to meet. They are.. Multi-station. The janitor can enter and turn on the lights without turning on a lighting desk. Multi-system integration.. The house light system needs to accept a DMX-512 signal when present, so the lighting console can include the house lights in the lighting program. High power.. enough said. A dozen hanging fixtures with 6-8 100 watt bulbs will require a serious dimmer pack. Another set of PAR64 cans at 500-675 Watts each is a design consideration. Another 2 dozen recessed fixtures for stage, balcony and under the balcony will dictate the number of channels
All 4 major labels are involved, why didn't they include the part about getting sued?
The announcement if by the lables, not the RIAA. In other news, The RIAA to sue all four lables for making avaliable songs.