I've never heard of the English C5, either. Anybody got a link?
It was a failed electric scooter thingy by the same company that made the little Sinclair computer. Here's a fan site for the Sinclair C5. You can google "Sinclair C5" for more.
In case of collision, the Segway "backs up gently when it bumps an object"
But it doesn't hit you gently now does it?
"...and has low pressure tires that soften the force on anything it rides over."
Heh. Soft tires or not, it's still the equivalent of having your foot stepped on by a 250 pound man. It's gonna hurt whether he's wearing soft-soled sneakers or combat boots. Don't you just hate marketroids? If he was selling highpowered air rifles for toddlers and someone asked "what if a kid shoots me in the head", the equivalent answer would be "we make the air guns silent, so when a kid accidentally kills you, you'll never have to worry about hearing it coming." Gee, thanks.
While you would probably normally take your car, a cab or the subway to travel a long distance in NYC, you can now use the Segway
But that's the real problem, isn't it? Cities have already adapted systems to move people the distances the Segway is supposed to "open up". There is no "unreachable" distance in, say, Manhattan that's too far to walk but too short to hop the subway. Steve Jobs made a very fools-prophet comment when he saw the Segway: "Cities will be built around [the Segway] in the future". The Segway will fail because existing cities will have to be redesigned to truly take advantage of the Segway, and that just ain't gonna happen.
How much will it cost you to learn not to split infinitives?
Actually, according to the Chicago Manual of Style (the traditional keeper of such rules in the editing trade), splitting infinitives is now permitted. The prohibition originated with stuffy linguistic purists who valued syntactic ideals over clarity. Since clear communication is the real purpose of language, as of the 14th edition of the CMS the prohibition has been expunged.
(you think you know grammar nazis? I'm married to an editor!)
I'm working on a project destined for the general public (in a specific industry not known for its computer saavy), and that means "Windows". Not only does it mean Windows as in XP, 2000, and ME; but it also means 98, 95 and (the latest request from On High), the Great Satan Win 3.1 itself. My boss knows of two customers running 3.1, so we're building a damn front end for 3.1. (shudder)
Also, I'm cowriting a script with a friend using Movie Magic Screenwriter, which is the only decent product in that niche that has a Windows and a Mac version. Trapped again!
...President Bush also cut about 75,000 people from the military...
Huh? Don't you mean "President Clinton"? He was the one promising the "re-invention of government" and the reduction of "75,000" positions, most of which turned out to be the military. In the end, he left the army with 400,000 troops, when during the Gulf War we had 900,000.
Maybe a few years ago that was true, but LV has brought a lot of new hotel rooms online. I made reservations last Saturday and got the Riviera for $68. I should have waited, I just checked and now you can get plenty of hotels for less than $50 a night all during Comdex! Stardust $29, Riviera $35, Stratosphere $39, Circus Circus $39, Harrah's $49, Excalibur $49.
Heh heh. You do have a point. I keep forgetting how long it's been since I lived there (6 years now). They have indeed put up a lot since then. I understand the "turnaway" number is still the gauge for New Year's Eve and many weekends, if not so much the weekday convention times anymore.
Nice points, I just don't trust insurances. They are always finding ways to weasle out of paying. Never noticed how many legal actions there are ove insurances not paying?
Frankly, I've never heard of such legal actions, except in the case of cheaper HMO-type insurance with experimental procedures.
That's why I prefer governemnt managed healthcare. Every system has it's advantages. It just means I pay for the healthcare of prostitutes too, and honestly, I don't mind. As long as I get my teatment when I'll be sick/have an accident.
Even if you are indigent and have no insurance, you get treated in the US. We have emergency centers that treat anyone who walks in. They will send you a bill when you're done, but if you don't have the money, they can't (and won't) make you pay. Do you get the absolute best medical care available for free? No, but it's about as good as you'll get from socialized medicine in, say, Canada-- and it doesn't "run out of funding" every year either.
The main objection socialized-medicine proponents seem to have against the system here is that you can't get the best treatment for free, as if that's a violation of some basic human right. Medical care is no more a basic human right than clothing, food, or shelter. True, all these things are important to survival, but none of them are things that any living creature gets for free. They are things that must be worked for-- either produced by ones own labor, or bartered from the labor of another. People have the right to life liberty and property, but not the right to free stuff, because free things always come at the cost of another's labor.
Interesting side note regarding Las Vegas hotels. For years now they've measured the level of business by how many people they have to turn away. In other words, when they have a "bad month" in Vegas, all that means is that (citywide) they turned away only 30,000 people looking for accomodations, rather than the usual average of 45,000 (numbers are for illustration purposes only, but order of magnitude is close).
I reckon if COMDEX goes feet up it'll hardly be noticed.
There is flaw in your logic. Consider a prostitute that contratcs a STD. You claim she will pay for her own healthcare, but while she is recovering from the said STD she cannot work and will not have an income and hence will not be able to pay for treatment.
For a case of syphilys (a few weeks/months antibiotica) she might get over it, but once she gets one of the nicer things like HIV, she is out of a job and has no alternatives.
There's no flaw in my argument. You assume that legal prostitutes have no health insurance and must pay cash on the barrelhead for medical care. First of all, as a matter of state law, legal brothels in Nevada must carry medical insurance for their employees specifically to address the STD issue. Second, even if this weren't the case, there's nothing stopping anyone from insuring themselves or even just setting aside some cash for necessary medical expenses. Your scenario is a bit contrived because it assumes an unemployed, uninsured, indigent sex worker with an STD, which in the case of Nevada's legalized prostitution is unheard of. Then, it assumes that such a case would somehow become an extra burden on the system, which it wouldn't. There are already numerous free clinics providing basic treatment for STDs that already deal with illegal prostitution/drug addicts-- problems which can't be solved by levying a "health fee" upon legal brothel employees, because street-whores and junkies aren't legal brothel employees.
Then what is a democracy all about? Should only unanimous votes be made into law? That sounds suspiciously like anarchy.
Democratic decisions aren't automatically right. Pure democracy leads to Tyranny of the Majority. Hitler was democratically elected, as was Saddam Hussein. If such things were decided by voting majority, here in the US all pants would be Levi's. all food would be pizza, and (since >50% of the population is female) we'd all be married to Russel Crowe.
No, that is why we don't actually decide everything democratically. When was the last time you voted "yes/no" on a national-level law in your country? Uhu huh. Thought so. In most countries in the free world we have representative governments, which theoretically adds some degree of "rationality" to government decision making. It's not flawless, but it keeps us from tossing the rights of man out the window for the latest "but what about the children" inspired scheme. Too many people have been brainwashed into thinking that "democracy" is some sort of golden ideal that makes everything OK. Get some education, people.
I was in Las Vegas this past summer. Whoever designed that monorail was completely incompetent! The doors and cars were too small, so when a handicapped person (and there's a lot of those in Las Vegas) got on, attendants had to go in and move seats around. This took about 20 minutes, which is ridiculous. And then the thing starts moving, and I keep waiting for it to speed up, but it keeps plodding along at snail pace. I could have walked to the one destination stop in less time. Thanks for wasting my time, monorail designers.
The Disney World monorail is so much better.
Hmmm...then you weren't on the actual monorail, but the crappy shuttle. The current monorail uses Bombardier Mark IV monorail cars that were actually acquired from Disney World.
That brings up an interesting question for a Canadian.... Do they have to pay extra money to the state for the extra health problems they cause? (STDs etc.)
The simple answer to that is no, because we don't have a state-run medical system like y'all. They pay for their own medical care, so the state doesn't have jack shit to say about the "cost" of STDs. It works quite well, as you may have noticed. Our system doesn't run out of money in october, forcing heart patients to go out of the country for surgery.
But the fires would not have started if the climate was not F'd up enough to produce the huge drought that dried the plants.
Incorrect. The drought was precipitated by an el nino condition, which is a naturally occuring phenomenon. Your example is, however, a fine illustration of the simplistic worldview many environmentalists have.
Volcanoes release huge amounts aerosols, but do not release large amounts of long-term, climate-altering gases. Nor does the shit falling from space. Though the vastness of the planet is humbling, the amount of CO2 released by human activity actually IS substantial, even on a planetary scale. (CO2 is a trace gas, so it is easier to meaningfully alter its concentration in the atmosphere than to do so for, say, nitrogen.) While global temperatures bounce around, CO2 levels are sweeping up in a near-perfect curve. One can argue whether humans are altering the climate, but there's no question we're increasing CO2 levels markedly.
Tropical forest fires release incredible amounts of CO2. 40% of the CO2 emmissions into the atmosphere in 1997 came from wildfires in Indonesia. Until recently, no one had even considered forest fires as a possible source of atmospheric CO2 increase. How many other things are there we haven't considered? I'm not saying we don't contribute to atmospheric CO2; we just aren't going to solve the problem by buying hybrid cars and windmills. The assumption that humans are the cause of CO2 increase seems to me very arrogant.
The problem with all these stupid "environmentally friendly" power sources is that the wild-eyed dreamers pushing them aren't being mindful of scale. Wind, solar, and tidal power are all "dilute" energy sources, as compared to hydro, coal, gas, oil, and nuclear which are "concentrated". Windmills seem like a great idea for "free and clean" power until you do the math and realize that you have to litter the countryside with the hideous things in order to generate any decent quantity of power. Solar? Litter the countryside with lovely photovoltaic cells. Tidal? Clog up every bay, fjord, and inlet with turbines. Even then, the grid would need hefty supplements from more reliable (concentrated) generating methods in order to meet demand. So you could have that, or you could spend the money on a nice, clean burning natural gas generating plant right off the bat.
Well yeah, thanks for pointing out the obvious sparky. The problem isn't that we have to flip trough 170 channels, it's that we have to pay for 170 channels to get the 5 channels we really watch.
there have been several studies that show significant damage at the cellular level from even something as basic as a cell phone on standby. Do some Googling.
I've looked into this before, and none of those studies have been particularly conclusive. There are also studies that show that RF radiation doesn't do SQUAT. If a cell phone on standby can cause "significant damage", why is there no evidence of massive damage to ham radio operators(100W, 10' away)? Or people working at AM radio stations(25,000W, 50' away)? Or Signal intelligence guys like me who worked next to TLQ-17 jammers (5000W, 10 inches from my head)? The "cell phones cause brain cancer" thing is about as rational as the "power lines cause leukemia" fantasy/theory. Correlation, even STRONG corelation, proves nothing about cause.
Nah, car's fine-- it's the traffic. I live in beautiful Los Angeles, where driving anywhere during the day takes twice as long as it should (on a GOOD day).
First of all, if the problem stem from radiations coming from the screen, the farther you are from it, the less radiation you take. Since they must follow an inverse square law, even a few centimeters can make quite a difference.
What?!? Ionizing (bad, what you'd probably call "nukular") radiation from CRTs is so infinitessimal that you are right now receiving a higher dose of ionizing radiation from the radioactive trace elements in the masonry of the building in which you sit. Eyestrain, yes. Harmful radiation? NO!Here's a nice summary of the actual scientific truth about CRTs and harmful radiation. Get a little education, willya?
I'm sure another study would easily find that people who are generally dissatisfied with their jobs feel exactly the same way regardless of what they actually do.
You said it, man. I install telecom/data wiring and equipment (no desk, no chair, no CRT) and I have all those symptoms.
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I've never heard of the English C5, either. Anybody got a link?
It was a failed electric scooter thingy by the same company that made the little Sinclair computer. Here's a fan site for the Sinclair C5. You can google "Sinclair C5" for more.
In case of collision, the Segway "backs up gently when it bumps an object"
But it doesn't hit you gently now does it?
"...and has low pressure tires that soften the force on anything it rides over."
Heh. Soft tires or not, it's still the equivalent of having your foot stepped on by a 250 pound man. It's gonna hurt whether he's wearing soft-soled sneakers or combat boots. Don't you just hate marketroids? If he was selling highpowered air rifles for toddlers and someone asked "what if a kid shoots me in the head", the equivalent answer would be "we make the air guns silent, so when a kid accidentally kills you, you'll never have to worry about hearing it coming." Gee, thanks.
While you would probably normally take your car, a cab or the subway to travel a long distance in NYC, you can now use the Segway
But that's the real problem, isn't it? Cities have already adapted systems to move people the distances the Segway is supposed to "open up". There is no "unreachable" distance in, say, Manhattan that's too far to walk but too short to hop the subway. Steve Jobs made a very fools-prophet comment when he saw the Segway: "Cities will be built around [the Segway] in the future". The Segway will fail because existing cities will have to be redesigned to truly take advantage of the Segway, and that just ain't gonna happen.
How much will it cost you to learn not to split infinitives?
Actually, according to the Chicago Manual of Style (the traditional keeper of such rules in the editing trade), splitting infinitives is now permitted. The prohibition originated with stuffy linguistic purists who valued syntactic ideals over clarity. Since clear communication is the real purpose of language, as of the 14th edition of the CMS the prohibition has been expunged.
(you think you know grammar nazis? I'm married to an editor!)
I'm working on a project destined for the general public (in a specific industry not known for its computer saavy), and that means "Windows". Not only does it mean Windows as in XP, 2000, and ME; but it also means 98, 95 and (the latest request from On High), the Great Satan Win 3.1 itself. My boss knows of two customers running 3.1, so we're building a damn front end for 3.1. (shudder)
Also, I'm cowriting a script with a friend using Movie Magic Screenwriter, which is the only decent product in that niche that has a Windows and a Mac version. Trapped again!
"XP is ROCK SOLID."
Cool. Maybe you can tell me how ActiveX remains broken even after a complete off-the-CD re-installation of XP on my machine?
Heh heh. "It must be user error, because it Works For Me".
Honestly, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that...
Seriously though, what's ActupX doing to you?
...President Bush also cut about 75,000 people from the military...
Huh? Don't you mean "President Clinton"? He was the one promising the "re-invention of government" and the reduction of "75,000" positions, most of which turned out to be the military. In the end, he left the army with 400,000 troops, when during the Gulf War we had 900,000.
Maybe a few years ago that was true, but LV has brought a lot of new hotel rooms online. I made reservations last Saturday and got the Riviera for $68. I should have waited, I just checked and now you can get plenty of hotels for less than $50 a night all during Comdex! Stardust $29, Riviera $35, Stratosphere $39, Circus Circus $39, Harrah's $49, Excalibur $49.
Heh heh. You do have a point. I keep forgetting how long it's been since I lived there (6 years now). They have indeed put up a lot since then. I understand the "turnaway" number is still the gauge for New Year's Eve and many weekends, if not so much the weekday convention times anymore.
Nice points, I just don't trust insurances. They are always finding ways to weasle out of paying. Never noticed how many legal actions there are ove insurances not paying?
Frankly, I've never heard of such legal actions, except in the case of cheaper HMO-type insurance with experimental procedures.
That's why I prefer governemnt managed healthcare. Every system has it's advantages. It just means I pay for the healthcare of prostitutes too, and honestly, I don't mind. As long as I get my teatment when I'll be sick/have an accident.
Even if you are indigent and have no insurance, you get treated in the US. We have emergency centers that treat anyone who walks in. They will send you a bill when you're done, but if you don't have the money, they can't (and won't) make you pay. Do you get the absolute best medical care available for free? No, but it's about as good as you'll get from socialized medicine in, say, Canada-- and it doesn't "run out of funding" every year either.
The main objection socialized-medicine proponents seem to have against the system here is that you can't get the best treatment for free, as if that's a violation of some basic human right. Medical care is no more a basic human right than clothing, food, or shelter. True, all these things are important to survival, but none of them are things that any living creature gets for free. They are things that must be worked for-- either produced by ones own labor, or bartered from the labor of another. People have the right to life liberty and property, but not the right to free stuff, because free things always come at the cost of another's labor.
Not to forget the Casino owners...
Interesting side note regarding Las Vegas hotels. For years now they've measured the level of business by how many people they have to turn away. In other words, when they have a "bad month" in Vegas, all that means is that (citywide) they turned away only 30,000 people looking for accomodations, rather than the usual average of 45,000 (numbers are for illustration purposes only, but order of magnitude is close).
I reckon if COMDEX goes feet up it'll hardly be noticed.
There is flaw in your logic. Consider a prostitute that contratcs a STD. You claim she will pay for her own healthcare, but while she is recovering from the said STD she cannot work and will not have an income and hence will not be able to pay for treatment. For a case of syphilys (a few weeks/months antibiotica) she might get over it, but once she gets one of the nicer things like HIV, she is out of a job and has no alternatives.
There's no flaw in my argument. You assume that legal prostitutes have no health insurance and must pay cash on the barrelhead for medical care. First of all, as a matter of state law, legal brothels in Nevada must carry medical insurance for their employees specifically to address the STD issue. Second, even if this weren't the case, there's nothing stopping anyone from insuring themselves or even just setting aside some cash for necessary medical expenses. Your scenario is a bit contrived because it assumes an unemployed, uninsured, indigent sex worker with an STD, which in the case of Nevada's legalized prostitution is unheard of. Then, it assumes that such a case would somehow become an extra burden on the system, which it wouldn't. There are already numerous free clinics providing basic treatment for STDs that already deal with illegal prostitution/drug addicts-- problems which can't be solved by levying a "health fee" upon legal brothel employees, because street-whores and junkies aren't legal brothel employees.
Then what is a democracy all about? Should only unanimous votes be made into law? That sounds suspiciously like anarchy.
Democratic decisions aren't automatically right. Pure democracy leads to Tyranny of the Majority. Hitler was democratically elected, as was Saddam Hussein. If such things were decided by voting majority, here in the US all pants would be Levi's. all food would be pizza, and (since >50% of the population is female) we'd all be married to Russel Crowe.
No, that is why we don't actually decide everything democratically. When was the last time you voted "yes/no" on a national-level law in your country? Uhu huh. Thought so. In most countries in the free world we have representative governments, which theoretically adds some degree of "rationality" to government decision making. It's not flawless, but it keeps us from tossing the rights of man out the window for the latest "but what about the children" inspired scheme. Too many people have been brainwashed into thinking that "democracy" is some sort of golden ideal that makes everything OK. Get some education, people.
BTW weren't there bacteria discovered which ate PVC's ?
Not in real life. You're thinking of the movie "Andromeda Strain", and in that case it was a virus.
I think DVD's (and cda/cdrom's too) are made of the same material as common (uhhh old-fashioned) records, which is vinyl.
They're not.
I was in Las Vegas this past summer. Whoever designed that monorail was completely incompetent! The doors and cars were too small, so when a handicapped person (and there's a lot of those in Las Vegas) got on, attendants had to go in and move seats around. This took about 20 minutes, which is ridiculous. And then the thing starts moving, and I keep waiting for it to speed up, but it keeps plodding along at snail pace. I could have walked to the one destination stop in less time. Thanks for wasting my time, monorail designers.
The Disney World monorail is so much better.
Hmmm...then you weren't on the actual monorail, but the crappy shuttle. The current monorail uses Bombardier Mark IV monorail cars that were actually acquired from Disney World.
That brings up an interesting question for a Canadian. ... Do they have to pay extra money to the state for the extra health problems they cause? (STDs etc.)
The simple answer to that is no, because we don't have a state-run medical system like y'all. They pay for their own medical care, so the state doesn't have jack shit to say about the "cost" of STDs. It works quite well, as you may have noticed. Our system doesn't run out of money in october, forcing heart patients to go out of the country for surgery.
But the fires would not have started if the climate was not F'd up enough to produce the huge drought that dried the plants.
Incorrect. The drought was precipitated by an el nino condition, which is a naturally occuring phenomenon. Your example is, however, a fine illustration of the simplistic worldview many environmentalists have.
Volcanoes release huge amounts aerosols, but do not release large amounts of long-term, climate-altering gases. Nor does the shit falling from space. Though the vastness of the planet is humbling, the amount of CO2 released by human activity actually IS substantial, even on a planetary scale. (CO2 is a trace gas, so it is easier to meaningfully alter its concentration in the atmosphere than to do so for, say, nitrogen.) While global temperatures bounce around, CO2 levels are sweeping up in a near-perfect curve. One can argue whether humans are altering the climate, but there's no question we're increasing CO2 levels markedly.
Tropical forest fires release incredible amounts of CO2. 40% of the CO2 emmissions into the atmosphere in 1997 came from wildfires in Indonesia. Until recently, no one had even considered forest fires as a possible source of atmospheric CO2 increase. How many other things are there we haven't considered? I'm not saying we don't contribute to atmospheric CO2; we just aren't going to solve the problem by buying hybrid cars and windmills. The assumption that humans are the cause of CO2 increase seems to me very arrogant.
All the green enegy sources are junk...
The problem with all these stupid "environmentally friendly" power sources is that the wild-eyed dreamers pushing them aren't being mindful of scale. Wind, solar, and tidal power are all "dilute" energy sources, as compared to hydro, coal, gas, oil, and nuclear which are "concentrated". Windmills seem like a great idea for "free and clean" power until you do the math and realize that you have to litter the countryside with the hideous things in order to generate any decent quantity of power. Solar? Litter the countryside with lovely photovoltaic cells. Tidal? Clog up every bay, fjord, and inlet with turbines. Even then, the grid would need hefty supplements from more reliable (concentrated) generating methods in order to meet demand. So you could have that, or you could spend the money on a nice, clean burning natural gas generating plant right off the bat.
most tv's will let you add and delete channels
Well yeah, thanks for pointing out the obvious sparky. The problem isn't that we have to flip trough 170 channels, it's that we have to pay for 170 channels to get the 5 channels we really watch.
there have been several studies that show significant damage at the cellular level from even something as basic as a cell phone on standby. Do some Googling.
I've looked into this before, and none of those studies have been particularly conclusive. There are also studies that show that RF radiation doesn't do SQUAT. If a cell phone on standby can cause "significant damage", why is there no evidence of massive damage to ham radio operators(100W, 10' away)? Or people working at AM radio stations(25,000W, 50' away)? Or Signal intelligence guys like me who worked next to TLQ-17 jammers (5000W, 10 inches from my head)? The "cell phones cause brain cancer" thing is about as rational as the "power lines cause leukemia" fantasy/theory. Correlation, even STRONG corelation, proves nothing about cause.
Man, that's one slow fucking car you've got!
Nah, car's fine-- it's the traffic. I live in beautiful Los Angeles, where driving anywhere during the day takes twice as long as it should (on a GOOD day).
Heh. You're right. My error. I shouldn't try to think this early in the morning.
First of all, if the problem stem from radiations coming from the screen, the farther you are from it, the less radiation you take. Since they must follow an inverse square law, even a few centimeters can make quite a difference.
What?!? Ionizing (bad, what you'd probably call "nukular") radiation from CRTs is so infinitessimal that you are right now receiving a higher dose of ionizing radiation from the radioactive trace elements in the masonry of the building in which you sit. Eyestrain, yes. Harmful radiation? NO! Here's a nice summary of the actual scientific truth about CRTs and harmful radiation. Get a little education, willya?
tr.v. expensed, expensing, expenses
To charge with expenses.
To write off as an expense.
Re-read the definition you posted. "expensed","expensing", and "expenses" are the verb forms. "expense" is a noun only.
I'm sure another study would easily find that people who are generally dissatisfied with their jobs feel exactly the same way regardless of what they actually do.
You said it, man. I install telecom/data wiring and equipment (no desk, no chair, no CRT) and I have all those symptoms.