Yes, I admit it. I have a compulsive collecting habit for huge drives. But when we moved it was too much work to bring the 8 inchers (in big empty cabinets the size of 20 inchers so people would take them seriously) along so now the biggest ones I have are 5-1/4 full heights. The 5 megger is in a box the size of an 8 inch drive so people would take it seriously.
The only way you lost thousands of dollars is if, in fact, every single individual who obtained your material would have, under other circumstances paid for it, which is a simplistic assumption. When the record company makes such claims sales figures suggest they know they are lying. Can you demonstrate, for example, that an author loses money when a book is checked out of the library?
What the RIAA is doing thru these lawsuits is attempting to maintain an obsolete business model and an obsolete star system. If they had been less stupid, they would have seen this coming and built a new business model years ago instead.
As for residual royalties, you might consider the example of science fiction - fantasy author Mercedes Lackey. A couple of years ago, she agreed to let her publisher make a couple of her works available for free download. Her very next royalty check, from her other publisher, for the oldest series in her backlist, was three times what it had been consistantly for the previous ten years. We're not talking bar tab here, unless you are buying rounds for the house. She used the check to buy a nail gun, an air compressor to power it, and high grade lumber to build a wall of bookshelves - mid to high three figures.
Re:This is where a tablet pc would be nice
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War of Honor
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I've found I love reading on a laptop. I'm working a contract where I ride around all day in the back seat of a rental car with a laptop collecting cellular network data from a scanner, a GPS, and two phones. I've got the data collection software screen laid out so I can see everything I need but the GPS crumbtrail with a book open in an HTML browser window, and I've gone thru close to half the CD. I've even read 1632 again for the 17th time.
Best of all is coming back at the end of a day's run, in the dark. A backlit screen is far easier on the eyes than a well lit book.
I have read Eric Flint's "1632" more times than I can count (and am to be killed in the first sequel); a lot of people get that atteched to it. Never made it thru his "Mother of Demons" and haven't gotten around to the rest of his works.
As for other Baen authors, John Ringo's "When the Devil Dances" is inching onto the NY Times best seller list this weekend, so certainly some people are finding stuff worth reading there.
[quote] It would be harder to argue with if the experiment was repeatable. There are more authors than Flint published in his free library. I would like to see some of them either affirm or deny his results. [/quote]
As I reported above, another Baen author, Misty Lackey, reported that sales of her ARROW trilogy (from another publishing house) tripled after she joined the Free Library, after having held steady for ten years. She's convinced.
The sample size of the control group is nearly infinite; most books, by most authors. Unless stimulated by some outside force, sales will taper off and then stabilize.
Another Baen author, Mercedes Lackey, is absolutely convinced that participation in the Free Library has been good for her sales. Her very first series, published by DAW rather than Baen, has been producing consistant royalties for the last ten years. She just got her first check for this series since releasing one of her Baen books in the Free Library, and it was _triple_ the usual amount.
Some of this could be the Harry Potter effect, as Misty's work is classified as fantasy, but if sales across that genre had tripled the publishing industry would be sending out press releases. She is satisfied that she has generated plenty of name recognition for herself.
Ultimately, tho, Eric Flint doesn't need to prove that the Free Library is profitable. He has proved that it does not cause loss of profit, and thus that at least for books, encryption of downloadable material is not needed to protect the writers and publishers.
Well, yes and no. The issue is that as you are older, it is more difficult to change industries. Not because older people are slower, more set in their ways or anything, but because you will be starting from scratch with little or no experience. And you will have financial commitments (mortgage, school fees for the kids, whatever) that a fresh graduate won't. Which leaves you with two options, attempt to persuade and employer to pay you enough to cover your commitments, which may be more than a junior sysadmin is worth to the organization, or cut back and reorganize your own lifestyle while you get up to speed.
Well,like you say,yes and no. What I have isn't experience; it's background. I built my first computer with a soldering iron, and did much of the computer support at a company where my job title was "Buyer, Product Developer, Salesman but not System Admin" for 15 of my 22 years there. I'm also old enough that the house is paid for and the kid has one foot on the second rung of the career ladder.
When I decided to relocate I thought I'd stay with sales or purchasing, but the computer background proved to be my most saleable asset.
Follow up with everyone you send the resume to. "Just calling to make sure it reached you, did you need any more information, I'm really interested in the position..."
The most basic qualifications for getting any position are luck and job-hunting skills.
No surprise.
These are the same members of the press who never told voters what the Wall Street Journal really said about Social Security (From memory: "Bush's plan doesn't add up. It only delays the collapse by a few years compared to Gore's" citing the projected years of failure).
These are the same memmbers of the press who never told Black voters that although the NAACP is going outside the campaign finance process to imply that Bush opposed punishment in the pickup truck dragging murder those responsible in fact received the death penalty.
These are the same members of the press that never mentioned after the election that the controversial ballot cards had been in use for over 20 years in the home town of Gore's campaign manager, and that election judges there had always been told that any ballot on which the chad was not clearly punched out was to be discarded as spoiled.
Just think what they might have done if there really was a liberal media bias in this country.
But yesterday I read a report stating that it was shot down by USAF planes.
There was certainly speculation to this effect; one report was that a high level committee was trying to make the decision when the plane in fact crashed. I recall that this option was considered when Payne Stewart's plane went astray. If you review all the coverage you will find several issues on which there were conflicting reports. Remember when they were talking about 5 planes?
Even if it turned out that Flight 93 was shot down (my own first guess) or that the pilot still had control and took the Phantom 309 option (my second guess) Glick and Barrett are still heroes. Why? Partly because our collective psyche needs heroes right now, and partly because a decision to take positive action in the face of overwhelming odds is the essence of heroism.
Further report on gas prices in the Milwaukee and Chicago area. No problem filling up at $1.75 this morning. Some random stations in the area ran their prices up to as high as $4.00 to #5.00. The sherriff in Dodge County outer coller of Milwaukee has written citations (with fine possibly $50,000.00) for price gouging, and in the Chicago area (according to AM news stations reaching up here) the State attorney general is going after gougers. An industry spokesman says supply is unhindered and anything over $1.89 (plus local tax around Chicago) is a ripoff.
I dont know how much the prices will go up, but they havent changed here yet. In near by Milwaukee prices are supposedly over $3/gal(up only a few cents norm is $2.50 - $2.80)according to local tv news
I'm in Milwaukee. As of 8:00 PM prices were unchanged ($1.75 a gallon) but every station was jammed. The jump will come with the next tanker truck, and I just hope I can find gas tomorrow as at the place where I waited on line I was unable to use the fleet credit card.
You had an early one then, with 2114s (1k x 4bit) instead of a single static ram chip. The custom chip, which could probably be done now with an off the shelf programmable array (some would even include the ram) simply replicated the circuitry of the earlier model and added an interrupt timer for the video refresh.
GeoWorks: An operating shell, not an OS. Just like Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 95, 98 and ME. At one time GeoWorks was preinstalled on a few computers. And it was better than Windows. But there was no SDK.
It would run on a 286; it was smaller and faster than Windows. I have long pointed out that the lack of an SDK did them in. They wound up with 100% of nothing. Same sort of a mistake was a factor in the death of Beta, the TI 99/4 and many other products.
In fact there have been two other companies called Digital Research. Back in the CP/M era, Digital Research Computers (aka DR of Texas) sold hardware, including the "Big Board" CP/M machine, to hobbiests. Apparantly Xerox licensed or purchased this board to run in systems they marketed.
More recently, there is another company by the same name marketing LS120 drives (another great standard hurt by installed base).
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 - which was that little black computer about the size of a small textbook with 1k of ram (had a 15k upgrade cartridge) and no floppy drive (used audio tapes - I don't think disk drives were even an option with this thing). I still have this thing somewhere. As I recall it had command completion (by hitting like function and a hotkey), a basic prompt with a cursor that was always at the very bottom of the screen, a membrane like keyboard (was the pits to type on) and a black and white video mode.
They called it a 16k cartridge, but it mapped over the existing ram, so on my MicroAce (Sinclair clone) it was a 14k upgrade. It was a nice machine for keying in Basic code; easy to edit on, but the tape save was flaky (it used the same shift register as the video!-)and the keyboard was atrocious. Mine was heavily modified, with a 4k/8k (ZX81) basic selector, a 2 transistor amp to run composite video to an old surveillance monitor and a switch to invert video (black text on white background) and a full size keyboard.
That keyboard actually spoiled the computer for me. It had come off an old keypunch machine, and had these wonderful clicky mechanisms to debounce the keyswitches. The membrane keyboard was so bad that the software scanned repeatedly, and mine was too fast for it to see. I sure learned a lot about hardware from that machine. The edge connector was simply the Z80 processor pinout, so once I learned to buffer it peripheral projects were easy to come up with, and with the help of Don Lancaster's Cheap Video Cookbook I understood what every chip (there were maybe 24) in the thing did.
There were other 8088 based machines about at the same time, most of them better in all respects.
In fact, many of the other Intel-based machines did not run the 8bit-bottlenecked 8088 processor. My machine at the time was the Tandy 2000, which ran an 80186 at 8 mHz. Its 720k (80 track) 5-1/4 floppies were faster than the 10 meg hard drive in the XT clone at work. Most of the major software of the time was available in a version to run on it.
Be careful, man, next thing ya know, you'll be listening to bluegrass music and not caring who knows it! Myself, I started growing my hair out in earnest about six years ago -- it's now kept just above my waist, and I am entertained by the looks I get from people.
I listen to bluegrass, western swing, classical, whatever strikes my fancy. Last CD I put on the office player was the Carl Stalling Project - music from Warner Brothers Looneytunes.
Last time I had short hair was 25 years ago, when I was 25. I decided the people who started treating me better after I cut it were the fools, not me, and grew it back out. I keep it about elbow length, as only scraggles grow past there, and have a trim full beard. I'd just as soon start turning gray, there's just a touch at the temples.
My wife worked in a word processing shop 25 years ago (Mag Tape Selectrics) and at one point they brought in an efficiency consultant. The employees were required to fill out time record cards like mentioned above, altho they did not define the time segments. Herself got in BIG trouble for including a line for the minute to fill out the card every time she switched tasks. They didn't want to know about that.
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It would have to, in order for us to imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things.
Adam and Eve and Pinchme went down to the river to bathe.
Adam and Eve were drownded. Who was saved?
Yes, I admit it. I have a compulsive collecting habit for huge drives. But when we moved it was too much work to bring the 8 inchers (in big empty cabinets the size of 20 inchers so people would take them seriously) along so now the biggest ones I have are 5-1/4 full heights. The 5 megger is in a box the size of an 8 inch drive so people would take it seriously.
The only way you lost thousands of dollars is if, in fact, every single individual who obtained your material would have, under other circumstances paid for it, which is a simplistic assumption. When the record company makes such claims sales figures suggest they know they are lying. Can you demonstrate, for example, that an author loses money when a book is checked out of the library?
What the RIAA is doing thru these lawsuits is attempting to maintain an obsolete business model and an obsolete star system. If they had been less stupid, they would have seen this coming and built a new business model years ago instead.
As for residual royalties, you might consider the example of science fiction - fantasy author Mercedes Lackey. A couple of years ago, she agreed to let her publisher make a couple of her works available for free download. Her very next royalty check, from her other publisher, for the oldest series in her backlist, was three times what it had been consistantly for the previous ten years. We're not talking bar tab here, unless you are buying rounds for the house. She used the check to buy a nail gun, an air compressor to power it, and high grade lumber to build a wall of bookshelves - mid to high three figures.
I've found I love reading on a laptop. I'm working a contract where I ride around all day in the back seat of a rental car with a laptop collecting cellular network data from a scanner, a GPS, and two phones. I've got the data collection software screen laid out so I can see everything I need but the GPS crumbtrail with a book open in an HTML browser window, and I've gone thru close to half the CD. I've even read 1632 again for the 17th time.
Best of all is coming back at the end of a day's run, in the dark. A backlit screen is far easier on the eyes than a well lit book.
I have read Eric Flint's "1632" more times than I can count (and am to be killed in the first sequel); a lot of people get that atteched to it. Never made it thru his "Mother of Demons" and haven't gotten around to the rest of his works.
As for other Baen authors, John Ringo's "When the Devil Dances" is inching onto the NY Times best seller list this weekend, so certainly some people are finding stuff worth reading there.
[quote] It would be harder to argue with if the experiment was repeatable. There are more authors than Flint published in his free library. I would like to see some of them either affirm or deny his results. [/quote]
As I reported above, another Baen author, Misty Lackey, reported that sales of her ARROW trilogy (from another publishing house) tripled after she joined the Free Library, after having held steady for ten years. She's convinced.
The sample size of the control group is nearly infinite; most books, by most authors. Unless stimulated by some outside force, sales will taper off and then stabilize.
Another Baen author, Mercedes Lackey, is absolutely convinced that participation in the Free Library has been good for her sales. Her very first series, published by DAW rather than Baen, has been producing consistant royalties for the last ten years. She just got her first check for this series since releasing one of her Baen books in the Free Library, and it was _triple_ the usual amount.
Some of this could be the Harry Potter effect, as Misty's work is classified as fantasy, but if sales across that genre had tripled the publishing industry would be sending out press releases. She is satisfied that she has generated plenty of name recognition for herself.
Ultimately, tho, Eric Flint doesn't need to prove that the Free Library is profitable. He has proved that it does not cause loss of profit, and thus that at least for books, encryption of downloadable material is not needed to protect the writers and publishers.
Well,like you say,yes and no. What I have isn't experience; it's background. I built my first computer with a soldering iron, and did much of the computer support at a company where my job title was "Buyer, Product Developer, Salesman but not System Admin" for 15 of my 22 years there. I'm also old enough that the house is paid for and the kid has one foot on the second rung of the career ladder.
When I decided to relocate I thought I'd stay with sales or purchasing, but the computer background proved to be my most saleable asset.
The most basic qualifications for getting any position are luck and job-hunting skills.
If one is as old as Sid and myself, it's either Charlie Parker or Bill Monroe.
All of mankind can be divided into two catagories - those who divide everybody into catagories and those who don't.
I don't fit either of these catagories. I find dividing everybody into catagories to be a useful reference but not an absolute
Are there no diabetics anywhere else in the world? That's not a Diet Coke, it's a Sugar-Free Coke.
These are the same members of the press who never told voters what the Wall Street Journal really said about Social Security (From memory: "Bush's plan doesn't add up. It only delays the collapse by a few years compared to Gore's" citing the projected years of failure).
These are the same memmbers of the press who never told Black voters that although the NAACP is going outside the campaign finance process to imply that Bush opposed punishment in the pickup truck dragging murder those responsible in fact received the death penalty.
These are the same members of the press that never mentioned after the election that the controversial ballot cards had been in use for over 20 years in the home town of Gore's campaign manager, and that election judges there had always been told that any ballot on which the chad was not clearly punched out was to be discarded as spoiled.
Just think what they might have done if there really was a liberal media bias in this country.
There was certainly speculation to this effect; one report was that a high level committee was trying to make the decision when the plane in fact crashed. I recall that this option was considered when Payne Stewart's plane went astray. If you review all the coverage you will find several issues on which there were conflicting reports. Remember when they were talking about 5 planes?
Even if it turned out that Flight 93 was shot down (my own first guess) or that the pilot still had control and took the Phantom 309 option (my second guess) Glick and Barrett are still heroes. Why? Partly because our collective psyche needs heroes right now, and partly because a decision to take positive action in the face of overwhelming odds is the essence of heroism.
Further report on gas prices in the Milwaukee and Chicago area. No problem filling up at $1.75 this morning. Some random stations in the area ran their prices up to as high as $4.00 to #5.00. The sherriff in Dodge County outer coller of Milwaukee has written citations (with fine possibly $50,000.00) for price gouging, and in the Chicago area (according to AM news stations reaching up here) the State attorney general is going after gougers. An industry spokesman says supply is unhindered and anything over $1.89 (plus local tax around Chicago) is a ripoff.
I'm in Milwaukee. As of 8:00 PM prices were unchanged ($1.75 a gallon) but every station was jammed. The jump will come with the next tanker truck, and I just hope I can find gas tomorrow as at the place where I waited on line I was unable to use the fleet credit card.
You had an early one then, with 2114s (1k x 4bit) instead of a single static ram chip. The custom chip, which could probably be done now with an off the shelf programmable array (some would even include the ram) simply replicated the circuitry of the earlier model and added an interrupt timer for the video refresh.
Pie eating?
Charades?
Snowboarding?
It would run on a 286; it was smaller and faster than Windows. I have long pointed out that the lack of an SDK did them in. They wound up with 100% of nothing. Same sort of a mistake was a factor in the death of Beta, the TI 99/4 and many other products.
More recently, there is another company by the same name marketing LS120 drives (another great standard hurt by installed base).
They called it a 16k cartridge, but it mapped over the existing ram, so on my MicroAce (Sinclair clone) it was a 14k upgrade. It was a nice machine for keying in Basic code; easy to edit on, but the tape save was flaky (it used the same shift register as the video!-)and the keyboard was atrocious. Mine was heavily modified, with a 4k/8k (ZX81) basic selector, a 2 transistor amp to run composite video to an old surveillance monitor and a switch to invert video (black text on white background) and a full size keyboard.
That keyboard actually spoiled the computer for me. It had come off an old keypunch machine, and had these wonderful clicky mechanisms to debounce the keyswitches. The membrane keyboard was so bad that the software scanned repeatedly, and mine was too fast for it to see. I sure learned a lot about hardware from that machine. The edge connector was simply the Z80 processor pinout, so once I learned to buffer it peripheral projects were easy to come up with, and with the help of Don Lancaster's Cheap Video Cookbook I understood what every chip (there were maybe 24) in the thing did.
In fact, many of the other Intel-based machines did not run the 8bit-bottlenecked 8088 processor. My machine at the time was the Tandy 2000, which ran an 80186 at 8 mHz. Its 720k (80 track) 5-1/4 floppies were faster than the 10 meg hard drive in the XT clone at work. Most of the major software of the time was available in a version to run on it.
I listen to bluegrass, western swing, classical, whatever strikes my fancy. Last CD I put on the office player was the Carl Stalling Project - music from Warner Brothers Looneytunes.
Last time I had short hair was 25 years ago, when I was 25. I decided the people who started treating me better after I cut it were the fools, not me, and grew it back out. I keep it about elbow length, as only scraggles grow past there, and have a trim full beard. I'd just as soon start turning gray, there's just a touch at the temples.
My wife worked in a word processing shop 25 years ago (Mag Tape Selectrics) and at one point they brought in an efficiency consultant. The employees were required to fill out time record cards like mentioned above, altho they did not define the time segments. Herself got in BIG trouble for including a line for the minute to fill out the card every time she switched tasks. They didn't want to know about that.