like, you want phone navigation? that requires location services.
You can enable the GPS without using Google's location services. I used Google maps today. Location services off.
Don't know which version of Maps or Android you used, but the "latest" on 4.3 explicitly asks you to enable location services if you need your location or navigation. Which is, what you need Maps or Navigation for about 99% of the time.
Side note: Looks like we all are a victim of "bait and switch". Back then when Google needed market share, they were throwing the juicy bits in, and now that they've got it, they're taking them out, one by one. The boiling frog syndrome.
That's not an isolated case. In those times of real estate bubble expansion the volume was the king, and nobody gave a damn about quality - there was abundance of customers, individual ones didn't matter. Don't know if this changed yet.
That sucks. It's worth getting to know your neighbors and asking if they've got any recommendations for people to employ (or who to avoid!) so as to get someone who actually knows what they're doing.
That doesn't help either - people giving recommendations may be too stupid to give them (oh, and the less they know about the subject matter, the more prone they are to fall victim to smooth operators, and recommend them). Case in point, my neighbor recommended me "an excellent roofer" who, as I later found out, just slapped a lump of concrete onto my roof - which promptly cracked, leaked again and caused even more extensive water damage than original leak. That was the last straw for me. Well, maybe not - maybe it was the "luxury" car dealership that, while replacing the radiator, damaged the fan clutch (failed 4 days later), put a dent in the door, and, while repairing that, broke the center console (someone stepped on it with their knee). Or, maybe it was the body shop which put the swirl pattern on the whole car after fixing the bumper, and somehow managed to kill the transponder key. Or, maybe the bathroom guys that laid the tile with 50mm deviation from vertical on 1.5m of height and tried to convince me that it looked just fine. Which also managed to cut my driveway along with the backerboard.
The best case is if you can get someone who knows what they're doing and takes pride in doing a good job: they might not have the cheapest quote, but they usually do the job right the first time and that's worth a lot.
It's just the same in software development. You get what you (don't) pay for.
Here's a counterargument: yes, it'll take you 2 to 10 times as long as "real" contractor would take. However, the quality of the work is defined by *you*, and you *can* afford to take time and utilize a proper process that takes time, instead of a shortcut (just one example: use correct glue instead of "5 minutes curing"). A contractor won't be coming back a day after to finish the job - it'll mean two trips for them, lost time, lost income. You are, however, right there.
I did the same mistake. By the time I was ready to upgrade, the card was out of production. So, either you buy two right away (and use the other in a different computer, then combine them in SLI/Crossfire), or don't even plan to buy the second.
I've bought an HDTV ready TV back in times when there was no HDTV content to speak of - 2001. Guess what, I'm screwed now because the only interface it has (the component video) will be screwed up^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdownsampled by HDCP enabled players of today.
Along the same lines, I've just bought an LCD monitor with DVI/HDCP - I've paid for the R&D, manufacturing, parts, lawsuits out of my own pocket. I don't need HDCP - I don't watch movies on my computer. I work. Nobody asked me, and there's no choice.
So guess what? I'm pissed and I'm voting with my dollars whenever I can. Guess where they go.
I did this to my house about 3 years ago. Compact fluorescents are prone to sudden failures (had to replace more than one already), and when they age, they become much dimmer at startup (about a quarter of full brightness) and take longer to get to the full brightness (3 to 5 minutes). Absolutely unusable for a kitchen, laundry room and closets.
For those with aesthetic aspirations - the light spectrum is significantly different (colder), colors optimized for incandescent lighting might not look good at all.
I think I got the current job because of my involvement with OSS. Funny, though, the OSS stuff I do (some of it was featured on Slashdot) has nothing to do with what I'm doing on a day job.
Development teams fall victims to fads... Take a look at Need For Speed.
It was getting better and better until it finally reached its pinnacle in Porsche Unleashed - I guess the hours spent with its physics engine saved my life on the road a few times. From there, it was all downhill - first, they dumbed down the physics in Hot Pursuit II (for no reason I can think of), and then succumbed completely to "console compatibility" and "teenage appeal"... HPII was the last NFS I bought.
A good quality thermostatic valve (up to $500) also requires a device called a "valve rough" (couple of hundred), plumber's services (couple of hundred), provided you have the tile or whatever is there stripped off to solder/braze the water pipes, plus tile installation (can be bloody, up to three-five hundred).
Ask me how I know...
Though must say that it works perfectly. The only downside is that the hot water ends really abruptly when the hot water tank goes empty:D
Using webservices for something like this seems like an enormous bandwidth waste to me. Whatever happened to optimization?
Well... It's obsolete...
Let me put it this way: back in about 1990, my computer had whopping 1MB memory and whopping 40MB hard drive. Today, my *video card* has 256MB memory, the computer itself has a gig, with 180GB hard drive.
Sure, SNMP will still have its place in embedded devices. However, even embedded devices today are much more powerful than they used to be. As for workstations and servers, even though XML is a *huge* overhead, it's just a cost of doing business today - just about the way HTTP was considered bloated and redundant when it was introduced.
A removable face plate on the car stereo. Don't leave anything of value visible in the car.
Doesn't work either. I've had my car (with not just absence of visible stuff, but no stuff at all) broken into, and the CD player with detached faceplate was ripped out of the dashboard.
A detail that never ceases to annoy the hell out of me: the idiots took a $30 subwoofer from the trunk, but didn't take a $200 amp that was right next to it...
A colleague of mine bought a car specifically for this purpose - so it would never get broken into.
It was a plainest Honda Civic possible - no options, no tint (almost a suicide in Arizona), not even radio - just a plastic panel where it's supposed to be.
Once, just once, he forgets a $30 worth box of tools on his back seat. Lo and behold, an hour later the window is shattered (in a very nasty way, lots of damage to the bodywork as well) and the box is stolen.
All time high: 29.7 MPG (if I remember right, about 6.7L/100km) on a highway trip from Phoenix to Grand Canyon and back;
Aggressive city driving: about 20MPG;
Economy city/highway driving: or on above 24MPG.
Funny thing about this car - the faster it goes (up to 100mph), the less fuel it consumes.
Re:We should all discourage Primus listening
on
Soundproofing a Cubicle?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Even better, get the headphones that are "acoustically transparent" - meaning that not only you hear what's playing, but also the sounds in the room. The sound from the headphones doesn't get out, though.
I've been using AKG Acoustics K-240 Monitor for many years - superb sound quality, durable, comfortable.
There's also K-240 Studio and K-240 DF, but I haven't had a chance to try those out.
Sure they do. I believe my life was saved quite a few times by hundreds, if not thousands of hours I spent playing Need For Speed series. My reaction to the situations was, every time, reflexive... How many times did you put your car into a controlled skid in real life? How many times did you manage to do a 180 degree turn and bring the car to a complete stop without losing control? Do you know what is lift-off oversteer? Can you make your front wheel drive car oversteer? And so on and so forth.
Make sure you don't have a pretty rare condition that is called a convergence insufficiency (or the opposite, "divergence insufficiency"). Usually, it is specific for children, and the eye doctors tend to miss it altogether (it took me three doctors and three years to have it identified).
Unusual symptoms include:
A feeling that one of your eyes shuts off or fades into a haze;
A feeling that your eyes are under a different kind of strain - left is not the same as right (this often gets mistaken for different prescription for left and right eye);
Changing prescription doesn't help, and the optometrists swear that "it is as good as it gets".
The cause of it is that you're staring at the monitor at a fixed distance for extended periods of time, without invoking your accomodation muscles.
It is fixable, though. It'll cost ya (and usually it is not covered by insurance), and you'll have to go through quite painful physical excercises, but they do indeed help, so don't lose the hope if you get diagnosed with it. And keep in mind that surgical measures are pretty much useless when dealing with it, it's your willpower that is getting you back in shape.
Re:That project doesn't conform to the industry sp
on
DIY HVAC
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· Score: 1
Dude, are you sure you don't want to join the project?:)
A lot of people use cheap mice as rotational sensors because they are around $3
This basically doubles the cost of a sensor, which is by itself the same $3. Multiply by number of registers, and you have a sizable figure already, in comparison to the price of the rest of the equipment.
I agree, this would be a good solution for a 100% bulletproof installation, but the thing is, in reality - it's overkill. I've had servos work for about 3 years without a single failure. Servos are designed to be abused, and they stand that pretty well. And again, there are other fault detection measures that don't require additional hardware.
It's true that you don't strictly need a sensor though. A friend of mine built a system like this for a geek house in Santa Cruz (Darkwater) something like a decade ago. I dunno what he used to control the servos, but since it was when he was learning PIC assembly for a wide range of other projects, I can only assume he used PIC chips. Instead of a serial interface, however, the chips did only one thing; open the damper when the thermostat in the room itself requested heat, and turn it off. The thermostats would also be fed into an OR tree at the furnace, which would turn on if any thermostat demanded heat. This was in Santa Cruz as I stated, where no one (almost) has AC, so it was heat-only. If you're doing heating and cooling through the same vents, to do it right is much more complicated. For example, room A wants to be colder, room B is fine, and room C wants to be hotter. Now you really want to know how far out of their desired temperature range the rooms are, so you can decide whether to apply heat or cold, and for how long.
In order to really do this right (or what I consider right) you need a temperature sensor in the room
Done
and optimally you should have a sensor on each door and window so that you can tell if your efforts to change the room's temperature will bear fruit.
No hardware is required here - watching temperature change trends gives the same result. Trane CM-Zone (at least) does that.
You also want to know the temperature inside the vent,
Done
and the ambient (outside) temperature.
Done
Personally I envision each sensor having a list of features, each feature having a set of capabilities. For example your ambient temperature sensor, assuming it is in a single device, has the feature TEMPERATURE and the capability READ. A register might have TEMPERATURE READ (for the temperature of the air just before it leaves the register), VENT READ (to read the vent's position, optional) and VENT SET to set the vent to some percentage open. So you could query the register controller with "CAPABILITIES?^M" and it would send back "TEMPERATURE READ^MVENT READ SET^M".
Some of the information is not quite necessary - for example, temperature of the air leaving the vent is practically useless. "VENT SET" is a must:)
This is, of course, by way of example, I happen to like human-readable protocols.
Same here
Incidentally in my hypothetical system devices communicate via RS-422 serial and the same protocol is used by device and host, and you need some way to specify which device you're talking to.
Herein lies the problem. Sure, RS-422, RS-232 and 1-Wire are nice protocols, but out of them just one (I *know* RS-232 doesn't, and I *suspect* RS-422 doesn't) protocol, 1-Wire, supports the facilities for autoprobing for *any* hardware that is connected to it. Sure, there are some devices on serial ports that act intelligently when asked to, but *one* bad device will spoil things for the rest of them.
Slashdot Mirror
like, you want phone navigation? that requires location services.
You can enable the GPS without using Google's location services. I used Google maps today. Location services off.
Don't know which version of Maps or Android you used, but the "latest" on 4.3 explicitly asks you to enable location services if you need your location or navigation. Which is, what you need Maps or Navigation for about 99% of the time.
Side note: Looks like we all are a victim of "bait and switch". Back then when Google needed market share, they were throwing the juicy bits in, and now that they've got it, they're taking them out, one by one. The boiling frog syndrome.
Get this thing for a thermostat. It's kinda awesome.
Careful with that axe, Eugene: http://diy-zoning.blogspot.com/search/label/Nest
It's not quite what it's cracked up to be.
DISCLAIMER: I'm running the open source project that is a direct competition to Nest. Well, 'xcept the profit, of course :)
Sounds like you picked a poor contractor.
That's not an isolated case. In those times of real estate bubble expansion the volume was the king, and nobody gave a damn about quality - there was abundance of customers, individual ones didn't matter. Don't know if this changed yet.
That sucks. It's worth getting to know your neighbors and asking if they've got any recommendations for people to employ (or who to avoid!) so as to get someone who actually knows what they're doing.
That doesn't help either - people giving recommendations may be too stupid to give them (oh, and the less they know about the subject matter, the more prone they are to fall victim to smooth operators, and recommend them). Case in point, my neighbor recommended me "an excellent roofer" who, as I later found out, just slapped a lump of concrete onto my roof - which promptly cracked, leaked again and caused even more extensive water damage than original leak. That was the last straw for me. Well, maybe not - maybe it was the "luxury" car dealership that, while replacing the radiator, damaged the fan clutch (failed 4 days later), put a dent in the door, and, while repairing that, broke the center console (someone stepped on it with their knee). Or, maybe it was the body shop which put the swirl pattern on the whole car after fixing the bumper, and somehow managed to kill the transponder key. Or, maybe the bathroom guys that laid the tile with 50mm deviation from vertical on 1.5m of height and tried to convince me that it looked just fine. Which also managed to cut my driveway along with the backerboard.
The best case is if you can get someone who knows what they're doing and takes pride in doing a good job: they might not have the cheapest quote, but they usually do the job right the first time and that's worth a lot.
It's just the same in software development. You get what you (don't) pay for.
No, you get *up to* what you pay for.
Here's a counterargument: yes, it'll take you 2 to 10 times as long as "real" contractor would take. However, the quality of the work is defined by *you*, and you *can* afford to take time and utilize a proper process that takes time, instead of a shortcut (just one example: use correct glue instead of "5 minutes curing"). A contractor won't be coming back a day after to finish the job - it'll mean two trips for them, lost time, lost income. You are, however, right there.
One of my horror stories, with lots of pictures and links (use automated translator): http://xn--80ax0d.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post.html
I did the same mistake. By the time I was ready to upgrade, the card was out of production. So, either you buy two right away (and use the other in a different computer, then combine them in SLI/Crossfire), or don't even plan to buy the second.
Well, duh. That's what you get when you "favor ability over experience".
Publicly available game save server? Glutton for punishment. Vulnerable and breakable. Details: http://drums-of-peace.blogspot.com/2010/02/awful-anti-pirate-system-that-will.html
Correction, that's *MY* money he's wasting.
I've bought an HDTV ready TV back in times when there was no HDTV content to speak of - 2001. Guess what, I'm screwed now because the only interface it has (the component video) will be screwed up^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdownsampled by HDCP enabled players of today.
Along the same lines, I've just bought an LCD monitor with DVI/HDCP - I've paid for the R&D, manufacturing, parts, lawsuits out of my own pocket. I don't need HDCP - I don't watch movies on my computer. I work. Nobody asked me, and there's no choice.
So guess what? I'm pissed and I'm voting with my dollars whenever I can. Guess where they go.
Caveat emptor.
I did this to my house about 3 years ago. Compact fluorescents are prone to sudden failures (had to replace more than one already), and when they age, they become much dimmer at startup (about a quarter of full brightness) and take longer to get to the full brightness (3 to 5 minutes). Absolutely unusable for a kitchen, laundry room and closets.
For those with aesthetic aspirations - the light spectrum is significantly different (colder), colors optimized for incandescent lighting might not look good at all.
... which will cause the license for the driver manufacturer to be revoked, like, in less than 20 milliseconds...
There's a caveat: I'm on a UUCP feed. Nothing can be done until after the message is received - by which time it's too late.
Especially hilarious are mails from admin@mydomain telling me that my account has just been suspended..
Jeez, man, you'll definitely find a sympathetic soul here...
Count me in.
I think I got the current job because of my involvement with OSS. Funny, though, the OSS stuff I do (some of it was featured on Slashdot) has nothing to do with what I'm doing on a day job.
Development teams fall victims to fads... Take a look at Need For Speed.
It was getting better and better until it finally reached its pinnacle in Porsche Unleashed - I guess the hours spent with its physics engine saved my life on the road a few times. From there, it was all downhill - first, they dumbed down the physics in Hot Pursuit II (for no reason I can think of), and then succumbed completely to "console compatibility" and "teenage appeal"... HPII was the last NFS I bought.
Rest in peace.
Nah... One of possible reasons may have been that I was replacing a custom valve installed about 20 years ago.
A good quality thermostatic valve (up to $500) also requires a device called a "valve rough" (couple of hundred), plumber's services (couple of hundred), provided you have the tile or whatever is there stripped off to solder/braze the water pipes, plus tile installation (can be bloody, up to three-five hundred).
Ask me how I know...
Though must say that it works perfectly. The only downside is that the hot water ends really abruptly when the hot water tank goes empty :D
Let me put it this way: back in about 1990, my computer had whopping 1MB memory and whopping 40MB hard drive. Today, my *video card* has 256MB memory, the computer itself has a gig, with 180GB hard drive.
Sure, SNMP will still have its place in embedded devices. However, even embedded devices today are much more powerful than they used to be. As for workstations and servers, even though XML is a *huge* overhead, it's just a cost of doing business today - just about the way HTTP was considered bloated and redundant when it was introduced.
Live, learn, die stupid...
A detail that never ceases to annoy the hell out of me: the idiots took a $30 subwoofer from the trunk, but didn't take a $200 amp that was right next to it...
A colleague of mine bought a car specifically for this purpose - so it would never get broken into. It was a plainest Honda Civic possible - no options, no tint (almost a suicide in Arizona), not even radio - just a plastic panel where it's supposed to be.
Once, just once, he forgets a $30 worth box of tools on his back seat. Lo and behold, an hour later the window is shattered (in a very nasty way, lots of damage to the bodywork as well) and the box is stolen.
So much for a Yugo...
- All time high: 29.7 MPG (if I remember right, about 6.7L/100km) on a highway trip from Phoenix to Grand Canyon and back;
- Aggressive city driving: about 20MPG;
- Economy city/highway driving: or on above 24MPG.
Funny thing about this car - the faster it goes (up to 100mph), the less fuel it consumes.I've been using AKG Acoustics K-240 Monitor for many years - superb sound quality, durable, comfortable.
There's also K-240 Studio and K-240 DF, but I haven't had a chance to try those out.
Sure they do. I believe my life was saved quite a few times by hundreds, if not thousands of hours I spent playing Need For Speed series. My reaction to the situations was, every time, reflexive... How many times did you put your car into a controlled skid in real life? How many times did you manage to do a 180 degree turn and bring the car to a complete stop without losing control? Do you know what is lift-off oversteer? Can you make your front wheel drive car oversteer? And so on and so forth.
Unusual symptoms include:
- A feeling that one of your eyes shuts off or fades into a haze;
- A feeling that your eyes are under a different kind of strain - left is not the same as right (this often gets mistaken for different prescription for left and right eye);
- Changing prescription doesn't help, and the optometrists swear that "it is as good as it gets".
The cause of it is that you're staring at the monitor at a fixed distance for extended periods of time, without invoking your accomodation muscles.It is fixable, though. It'll cost ya (and usually it is not covered by insurance), and you'll have to go through quite painful physical excercises, but they do indeed help, so don't lose the hope if you get diagnosed with it. And keep in mind that surgical measures are pretty much useless when dealing with it, it's your willpower that is getting you back in shape.
This basically doubles the cost of a sensor, which is by itself the same $3. Multiply by number of registers, and you have a sizable figure already, in comparison to the price of the rest of the equipment.
I agree, this would be a good solution for a 100% bulletproof installation, but the thing is, in reality - it's overkill. I've had servos work for about 3 years without a single failure. Servos are designed to be abused, and they stand that pretty well. And again, there are other fault detection measures that don't require additional hardware.
Done
No hardware is required here - watching temperature change trends gives the same result. Trane CM-Zone (at least) does that.
Done
Done
Some of the information is not quite necessary - for example, temperature of the air leaving the vent is practically useless. "VENT SET" is a must :)
Same here
Herein lies the problem. Sure, RS-422, RS-232 and 1-Wire are nice protocols, but out of them just one (I *know* RS-232 doesn't, and I *suspect* RS-422 doesn't) protocol, 1-Wire, supports the facilities for autoprobing for *any* hardware that is connected to it. Sure, there are some devices on serial ports that act intelligently when asked to, but *one* bad device will spoil things for the rest of them.