The significant thing isn't a reduction in the amount of oil that can be produced, it's the reduction in cheap oil that can be produced. Only the cheap oil has to run out for the US to be in a severe world of economic hurt.
Yes, I thought that too, when I took up electronics as a hobby (not designing chips, but making various devices). I'm just a hobbyist in electronics, and not an engineer by a long shot, and all my circuits are relatively low speed (the highest frequency I've had on one of my designs is the 31.25 MHz signalling speed of 100baseTX ethernet).
In software, you live in this lovely mostly ideal digital world, nicely fenced off from the real world.
But in hardware, even in low speed circuits where the real engineers have done all the hard work and packaged up nice ICs for you, you run into the real world all the time. Things from parasitic inductance/capacitance issues. Amplifiers that look right on paper working as oscillators, and oscillators that look right on paper working as amplifiers (usually because of some real world constraint you didn't think about). Glitches, overshoots, noise in ADC, ground bounce - you name it, all these real world things are waiting to get you in circuits that otherwise look like they should work perfectly. It's not merely enough to wire up stuff in the right order - for instance, if you're making a switch mode power supply, you can have all the right components connected in the right order but the damned thing won't work, or runs 20% less efficient than it should, or regulates badly, or inteferes with every AM radio within 20 feet - because you borked the PCB layout.
Or that CPLD design or FPGA design that works perfectly in simulation, but falls over and dies randomly in the real world because of PCB layout issues.
This is just some of the things I've encountered in _hobby_ electronics, i.e. stuff engineers find straightforward. There is a _lot_ to know. A software engineer can learn hardware, but they have to do all the hard work that the hardware engineer did to learn it; knowing software already is no short cut to being even a hardware hobbyist let alone an engineer!
On a point of pedantry, I don't think you mean what quantum means - if it had gone up a quantum level, that would mean materials technology had gone up only the tiniest level possible.
The lighter vehicle is less likely to be in the accident in the first place, though. Overall, occupants are twice as safe in a VW Jetta than in a Ford Explorer.
Re:completely missing the point with SUV's.
on
The SUV Is Dethroned
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· Score: 1
Actually, SUVs aren't the safest. For the occupants, a Ford Explorer is twice as dangerous as the little Volkswagen Jetta.
The Subaru station wagons seem to manage it, up in the mountains of Utah, when you're at 10,000 ft above sea level. They don't have to lug all the unnecessary weight an SUV has, yet they wouldn't even struggle with a dog and 5 people.
Where I live now, fortunately, most SUVs aren't really SUVs, merely UVs. Most are blue, and most have mud all over them, and most have "Land Rover Defender" somewhere on them (or just "Land Rover" if they are old enough) and belong to farmers not soccer moms.
It's funny, in Utah where there's real snow and real mountains, it ain't the SUV that's popular but 4WD Subaru station wagons.
Last time I was driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon in heavy snow, I was driving my friend's ancient Honda Civic. I was getting better traction than the SUVs - snow tires and a lack of useless bulk. Never underestimate a decent Japanese front wheel drive with snow tires.
My Dad's 7.5 tonne truck broke down recently. It was towed by his little munchkin car. It was very funny watching a Vauxhall Vectra (compact hatchback) towing an enormous truck... but it actually got the 7.5 tonner back home:-)
Did you get a reply to your letter, and how did they justify it? I can't even see how they can call the subject "Physics" any more given your complaint; none of that stuff is actually physics. It's a far cry from what we were taught at phyiscs GCSE level in the late 1980s.
In the late 1980s, Clive Sinclair brought out a new computer, the Cambridge Z88. It can run for 20 hours on its AA batteries, and has a suite of useful productivity software. The LCD is also quite a bit larger, and it has a built in BASIC interpreter (BBC BASIC) and a built in Z80 assembler!
The datacentre involved *is* a colocation site (i.e. somewhere you can rent a rack, or at least it was when it was EV1Servers).
Having multiple sites isn't called colocation by the way, colocation is the act of putting your kit in a commercial datacentre rather than self-hosting. Colocation only means if your building burns down, your server is OK. However, if the colo burns down... well, what you actaully need is two sets of servers at two, geographically distant sites.
But then again, there have been many false takedowns by copyright holders who just saw a filename that looked like it might be one of theirs. The Feds don't seem to be going after them at all.
I'm surprised a UDP based filesharing protocol hasn't emerged because of this, allied with an automatic system that signs each UDP packet. That way, if the ISP got "smart" and injected fake UDP packets containing the command to end the transfer, it could easily be determined as fake since its signature would be incorrect.
They aren't actually more efficient than compact flourescents (yet!) - solid state lighting only beats CF efficiency at the moment if it's red or green. However, I bet it won't be too long.
The other difficulty with white LEDs is that the common type you get aren't white, they are very pale violet. My front bike light, with a big Luxeon power illuminator is a fantastic bike light (and only beaten by extremely expensive HID lights), however, it is not white, it's very obviously pale violet - so much so that once I've been riding a few minutes in the countryside, whenever I see a car headlight it looks as orange as a sodium light once I've got used to the pale violet "white" light.
The job seems to attract the Little Hitler type. Now, not all border personnel are like this, but there's a significant minority who are.
This extends to things like the embassies of $COUNTRY. My Albanian next door neighbour described the process of getting a British visa as "kafkaesque". Her experience seemed incredibly familiar - I had a similar experience with the US Embassy when getting an L1 visa a few years ago.
I moved away to the USA and stayed there for nearly 7 years, but I came back to the British Isles, I just prefer it here. However, one thing I notice - something that living away for a while shows you - is the negativity and 'can't do' attitude of the average British person exemplified by your posting.
The supermarkets in other countries in Europe and the Americas seem to have the same stuff as British ones. Ready meals are hardly a British thing. My local supermarket, incidentally, does contain basics such as flour, vegetables, meats, fruit and other raw ingredients for cooking. In fact, large swathes of the supermarket are dedicated to basic ingredients that doesn't come in a can. I have a real butcher's shop within walking distance (an incredible rarity in the USA at least). I have a real wet fishmonger's within walking distance (another huge rarity in the USA).
I would agree about overpopulation, certainly in the southern half of Britain, and too many cars - it's always striking if I ever go to the south (which isn't very often). The price of oil should see off many of the cars with a bit of luck. It really wouldn't hurt if a lot of people rediscovered their legs.
It's funny you complain about 'all service industry' yet Australia where you moved to is all "service industry" too (the UK and Australian economies are very similar in proportion of service industry to manufacturing).
I think Britain is a hugely underrated country, and living away for 7 years made me appreciate it so much more, and the Aussies are right - whining poms!
Additionally, if I were the customer, and the supplier was cagey about giving us read only access to the database, I would be suspecting that the schema was something that should be featuring on The Daily WTF website. People generally want to hide code or databases they are embarrassed of.
Depends on how the discs were stored, as well as the quality of the actual discs. The Amstrad CF2 discs weren't bad. Older 5.25in discs are usually better still. Probably helps that the density is low (either single or double density only).
Nearly all of the 20+ year old 5.25in discs for my BBC Micro still work, and the two that didn't, only one was truly dead - the other one usable after a format.
The trouble is even 10 years ago, the quality of 3.5in discs had taken a real dive.
Slashdot Mirror
The significant thing isn't a reduction in the amount of oil that can be produced, it's the reduction in cheap oil that can be produced. Only the cheap oil has to run out for the US to be in a severe world of economic hurt.
Isolated? The US penal system is famous for its tolerance of prison rape.
Yes, I thought that too, when I took up electronics as a hobby (not designing chips, but making various devices). I'm just a hobbyist in electronics, and not an engineer by a long shot, and all my circuits are relatively low speed (the highest frequency I've had on one of my designs is the 31.25 MHz signalling speed of 100baseTX ethernet).
In software, you live in this lovely mostly ideal digital world, nicely fenced off from the real world.
But in hardware, even in low speed circuits where the real engineers have done all the hard work and packaged up nice ICs for you, you run into the real world all the time. Things from parasitic inductance/capacitance issues. Amplifiers that look right on paper working as oscillators, and oscillators that look right on paper working as amplifiers (usually because of some real world constraint you didn't think about). Glitches, overshoots, noise in ADC, ground bounce - you name it, all these real world things are waiting to get you in circuits that otherwise look like they should work perfectly. It's not merely enough to wire up stuff in the right order - for instance, if you're making a switch mode power supply, you can have all the right components connected in the right order but the damned thing won't work, or runs 20% less efficient than it should, or regulates badly, or inteferes with every AM radio within 20 feet - because you borked the PCB layout.
Or that CPLD design or FPGA design that works perfectly in simulation, but falls over and dies randomly in the real world because of PCB layout issues.
This is just some of the things I've encountered in _hobby_ electronics, i.e. stuff engineers find straightforward. There is a _lot_ to know. A software engineer can learn hardware, but they have to do all the hard work that the hardware engineer did to learn it; knowing software already is no short cut to being even a hardware hobbyist let alone an engineer!
On a point of pedantry, I don't think you mean what quantum means - if it had gone up a quantum level, that would mean materials technology had gone up only the tiniest level possible.
The lighter vehicle is less likely to be in the accident in the first place, though. Overall, occupants are twice as safe in a VW Jetta than in a Ford Explorer.
Actually, SUVs aren't the safest. For the occupants, a Ford Explorer is twice as dangerous as the little Volkswagen Jetta.
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html
The Subaru station wagons seem to manage it, up in the mountains of Utah, when you're at 10,000 ft above sea level. They don't have to lug all the unnecessary weight an SUV has, yet they wouldn't even struggle with a dog and 5 people.
Where I live now, fortunately, most SUVs aren't really SUVs, merely UVs. Most are blue, and most have mud all over them, and most have "Land Rover Defender" somewhere on them (or just "Land Rover" if they are old enough) and belong to farmers not soccer moms.
It's funny, in Utah where there's real snow and real mountains, it ain't the SUV that's popular but 4WD Subaru station wagons.
Last time I was driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon in heavy snow, I was driving my friend's ancient Honda Civic. I was getting better traction than the SUVs - snow tires and a lack of useless bulk. Never underestimate a decent Japanese front wheel drive with snow tires.
Sometimes, the roles are reversed.
:-)
My Dad's 7.5 tonne truck broke down recently. It was towed by his little munchkin car. It was very funny watching a Vauxhall Vectra (compact hatchback) towing an enormous truck... but it actually got the 7.5 tonner back home
It's a pity that this missed the deadline for the remix contest:
http://www.vimeo.com/1109226?pg=embed&sec=1109226
It's possibly one of the most awesome covers I've ever seen.
In Britain, most people didn't though - they bought the Spectrum instead which was about a third of the price of a C64.
Houston is an oil town (I used to live there) and is booming off high oil prices, that's why.
Did you get a reply to your letter, and how did they justify it? I can't even see how they can call the subject "Physics" any more given your complaint; none of that stuff is actually physics. It's a far cry from what we were taught at phyiscs GCSE level in the late 1980s.
Of course, the corollary is "Windows Server 2003 is only $3000 [0] if your time has no value".
[0] or whatever license fee is required for the edition you have.
In the late 1980s, Clive Sinclair brought out a new computer, the Cambridge Z88. It can run for 20 hours on its AA batteries, and has a suite of useful productivity software. The LCD is also quite a bit larger, and it has a built in BASIC interpreter (BBC BASIC) and a built in Z80 assembler!
The datacentre involved *is* a colocation site (i.e. somewhere you can rent a rack, or at least it was when it was EV1Servers).
Having multiple sites isn't called colocation by the way, colocation is the act of putting your kit in a commercial datacentre rather than self-hosting. Colocation only means if your building burns down, your server is OK. However, if the colo burns down... well, what you actaully need is two sets of servers at two, geographically distant sites.
But then again, there have been many false takedowns by copyright holders who just saw a filename that looked like it might be one of theirs. The Feds don't seem to be going after them at all.
One rule for the RIAA, one rule for others?
I'm surprised a UDP based filesharing protocol hasn't emerged because of this, allied with an automatic system that signs each UDP packet. That way, if the ISP got "smart" and injected fake UDP packets containing the command to end the transfer, it could easily be determined as fake since its signature would be incorrect.
They aren't actually more efficient than compact flourescents (yet!) - solid state lighting only beats CF efficiency at the moment if it's red or green. However, I bet it won't be too long.
The other difficulty with white LEDs is that the common type you get aren't white, they are very pale violet. My front bike light, with a big Luxeon power illuminator is a fantastic bike light (and only beaten by extremely expensive HID lights), however, it is not white, it's very obviously pale violet - so much so that once I've been riding a few minutes in the countryside, whenever I see a car headlight it looks as orange as a sodium light once I've got used to the pale violet "white" light.
The job seems to attract the Little Hitler type. Now, not all border personnel are like this, but there's a significant minority who are.
This extends to things like the embassies of $COUNTRY. My Albanian next door neighbour described the process of getting a British visa as "kafkaesque". Her experience seemed incredibly familiar - I had a similar experience with the US Embassy when getting an L1 visa a few years ago.
They should have used the bollards that are used in Manchester on the bus lanes. They'll stop a truck, well, certainly an SUV and a large van -
When Bollards Attack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Cw0QJU8ro
How about just nicely explaining the problem to him, and requests he runs his P2P stuff overnight when no one is using the connection?
If that doesn't work, well, his port on the switch might mysteriously fail during waking hours.
Good grief, where did you live in Britain?
I moved away to the USA and stayed there for nearly 7 years, but I came back to the British Isles, I just prefer it here. However, one thing I notice - something that living away for a while shows you - is the negativity and 'can't do' attitude of the average British person exemplified by your posting.
The supermarkets in other countries in Europe and the Americas seem to have the same stuff as British ones. Ready meals are hardly a British thing. My local supermarket, incidentally, does contain basics such as flour, vegetables, meats, fruit and other raw ingredients for cooking. In fact, large swathes of the supermarket are dedicated to basic ingredients that doesn't come in a can. I have a real butcher's shop within walking distance (an incredible rarity in the USA at least). I have a real wet fishmonger's within walking distance (another huge rarity in the USA).
I would agree about overpopulation, certainly in the southern half of Britain, and too many cars - it's always striking if I ever go to the south (which isn't very often). The price of oil should see off many of the cars with a bit of luck. It really wouldn't hurt if a lot of people rediscovered their legs.
It's funny you complain about 'all service industry' yet Australia where you moved to is all "service industry" too (the UK and Australian economies are very similar in proportion of service industry to manufacturing).
I think Britain is a hugely underrated country, and living away for 7 years made me appreciate it so much more, and the Aussies are right - whining poms!
Additionally, if I were the customer, and the supplier was cagey about giving us read only access to the database, I would be suspecting that the schema was something that should be featuring on The Daily WTF website. People generally want to hide code or databases they are embarrassed of.
Depends on how the discs were stored, as well as the quality of the actual discs. The Amstrad CF2 discs weren't bad. Older 5.25in discs are usually better still. Probably helps that the density is low (either single or double density only).
Nearly all of the 20+ year old 5.25in discs for my BBC Micro still work, and the two that didn't, only one was truly dead - the other one usable after a format.
The trouble is even 10 years ago, the quality of 3.5in discs had taken a real dive.