Apple going through the trouble of abandoning their old proprietary connector and MAKING A NEW PROPRIETARY ONE instead of going to a standard one like every other phone has had for years sounds at least a bit nefarious to me.
Is it possible that a standard micro or mini USB cable didn't do everything they wanted?
Also, hardware developers sign an NDA and an agreement with Apple to be able to use Apple's logos and "Made for iPod/iPhone" marketing phrases. As part of that agreement you agree to acquire the hardware (connectors, shells, and authentication chips) only through Apple's authorized channels and that you will submit to certification tests. By doing this, they can accurately know how many products you are shipping to be sure you're not stiffing them on royalties and guarantee that your products meet a certain level of quality.
Hypothetically it also allows Apple to see your products before they ship so they can deny you certification and then quash it as it might duplicate functionality with hardware they are interested in licensing themselves or to steal your product idea to later ship as their own. Hypothetically, of course. I've never seen this happen at a previous employer where I designed hardware to interface with iPods, as far as you know.
The DVD's is what's holding Netflix back, and the reason why no one else wants to touch them. Netflix needs to ditch those DVD's and let RedBox handle them.
Even better, let's have Netflix and Redbox merge so that I can return my Netflix movie at a Redbox and exchange it on the spot for a new one. Plus, with my new NetRedFlixBox membership card I will be able to get unlimited, one-at-a-time rentals from the Redbox near my office.
Two possible outcomes: 1. As soon as she turns the ship around and brings Yahoo! above water, Google sues or acquires them as settlement for using her knowledge of Google's trade secrets.
2. Yahoo! continues to circle the drain and she rides to the bottom, bravely staying with the ship and is barely able to console herself with the Yahoo trademarked Obscenely Huge Golden Parachute of Doom.
She was more interested in working hard than in her productivity. Since she was paid the same whether she fixed 1 or 6, she didn't have to blame herself. The answer is a piece-rate wage.
There would also need to be a check and balance system; some way to figure out why after moving to piece-rate every customer return is now solved by automatically sending a new part.
...Meanwhile, the Q required an Android device running Jelly Bean in order to activate the Q. The Android device was also the only way to control the Q.
Wow, seriously? I not only have to have an Android device, but an Android device running a version of the OS that was only released last week? So, apparently the only people who can use the Q are the people who attended I/O and received both as gifts?
Google has been throwing these set-top/streaming boxes at the wall for each of the last 3 I/Os, and they've yet to make one stick.
Local streaming is not an option. The only method of consumption is from the "Google Cloud".
Personally I do not care about the Q's hackable potential. I have better things to do with my time. Plus, I don't do "TheCloud". Networks can and do go down. And, I prefer to control my own content.
Now to find some sucker to take the Q off my hands.
So let me see if I can sum it up: No local storage, no way to stream local content, requires another (as yet mythical) Android device to operate, costs at least 3x what every other comparable device costs.
Should be flying off the shelves. Brace yourselves, Google! I hope you anticipated the demand and made hundreds of them!
But if I did have a million or two under the mattress, I would be just as likely to purchase health insurance as I now do, simply because I don't want to put that million or two at risk if I were to have a catastrophic illness or accident. Sheltering assets from risk is the correct reason for insurance.
Insurance only buys you predictable, periodic expenses in exchange for unpredictable, larger expenses. However it is a net loss if you can tolerate an occasional larger expense. Insurance companies work for profit. Where does that profit come from? Right, it comes out of your pocket.
The middleman wants his cut, surely. No insurance company that I know of is in business as a public charity.
As you could guess, I do not use health insurance. I pay with cash. I never hear that "this treatment is disallowed" - everything is allowed to me, as long as I pay.
This will be the end result of our socialized medicine; as has been seen in many other countries. Sure, you're guaranteed coverage, but if you've got any sense (and money) you'll be going to one of the private providers that accepts cash and doesn't want to bother with the paperwork of the insured. It's already seen now: how many doctors offer a "cash patient" rate lower than what is charged to the insured?
do you have health insurance? if no, then you are a freeloader
Imagine that I am Bill Gates. I can buy a hospital - or ten. Why would I need insurance?
Note that the threshold of self-sufficiency is much lower than BG's wealth. If you have a million or two under the mattress you are all set.
Insurance is only needed when you cannot afford the loss. In all other cases you are better off self-insuring. That's what most large businesses do. They have the money; they don't need to beg someone else to pay for their loss.
But if I did have a million or two under the mattress, I would be just as likely to purchase health insurance as I now do, simply because I don't want to put that million or two at risk if I were to have a catastrophic illness or accident. Sheltering assets from risk is the correct reason for insurance.
Unfortunately, our health system is very insurance oriented and we don't treat our health the same way. Going to the doctor is so different from any other transaction that it is bizarre. What other service do you purchase in a year that you don't have any idea what it will cost, and not even the service provider has any clue or reason to find out?
Since this is Slashdot, let's do a car analogy:
Imagine that I had to file a claim with my auto insurance company every time my car needed an oil change, new brakes, or a tank of gas. When I went for one of these services, the people who provide the service were not only unable to give me an up-front price, but I had to sign a binding agreement that whatever the price ends up being, I agree to pay even if my insurance company doesn't.
30-60 days later, after my claim was processed by the insurance company were I able to know how much the service cost. Since I can't know the price beforehand, there is no way for me to comparison shop.
Now imagine that to improve this system, there is a layer of government between myself and my insurance company, and another layer between the insurance company and the service station.
You don't have to buy health insurance either. You will simply pay 2.5% more in income tax up to an extra $2,085 per year. But nobody is forcing you to purchase health insurance.
This is the part that I don't understand. If I choose to not purchase health insurance it may cost me 2.5% surcharge on my taxes, but those numbers don't seem to provide any incentive to someone who doesn't have insurance coverage now.
If I make $25k, 2.5% is $675, but I probably don't pay any income tax.
If I make $50k, my 2.5% is $1250, which is still cheaper to pay than any insurance might buy.
If I make $100k, 2.5% is $2500, but the surcharge is capped at $2,085, and is still less than what actually buying health insurance would cost me.
I understand why the mandate is of concern due to the inter-state commerce clause, but this is the point that caused such a flap with conservatives. Focusing on the numbers themselves, it seems like such a non-issue.
The proper response then to GO TO ANOTHER RESTAURANT. I've done similar things MANY times. If going through flash is the only option, I will not purchase from that site/supplier. In the old days I used to mail them a "FYI" so they could improve, but I don't do that any more. If they're still cluesless in 2012, nothing anyone can say will change them.
Life is too short to make up jihads over things like this. You would limit your choice of restaurants by how the menu is presented online? Wow.
But I digress. Imagine that you are on the other side of your conversation:
You are a restaurant owner, who just spent $1000-$5000 on some design firm to lay out a slick-looking website for your business. The demo looked great, and the designers told you that they did the work in something called Flash, and it will look the same way on everybody's computer.
Two weeks later, you get an e-mail from some random guy who seems to have a stick up his ass about something called Open Standards and promises that he will walk barefoot across broken glass to eat at your competitor's place and that you have earned a place on his List of Places I Won't Go. The only way to remove yourself from The List is to go back to your design firm and spend more money catering to random guy's demands.
Over the next six months, you receive no further complaints from anyone about your choice of Flash, but you continue to receive a trickle of complaints about the new waitress.
Guess which problem you'll spend your time worrying about?
From TFA, Eason paid 850K, which is the same as the LLC paid, I think.
So, if the doctor bought it for the same amount that Jobs had paid for it, where is the impropriety? If the surgeon could have paid the exact same amount two weeks before, I don't see how there was any favoritism or sweetheart deals involved.
Just as likely: visiting and treating Mr. Jobs at the home was what made him aware of the existence of the home and the possibility to purchase it.
[Force US companies to]... pay what the market will bear.
Um, I think that's what they are doing.
If the labor market bears $3.00/hour, that's what employers will pay. Expecting them to pay more than that is not realistic. If some company springs up paying $15.00/hour because it's the "right thing to do", but has to compete with every other company paying $3.00, they will quickly find themselves out of business.
But, if none of these companies are able to find workers unless they offer $15.00, then that's the new definition of what the market will bear.
There's a law in the states that citizens are not required to carry identification. Thus all a foreigner has to do is state that they are a resident and there's not much an officer can do about it.
Except then you've just committed the offense of lying to a police officer, which you can be charged and arrested on.
For years now, I've been building my own PCs. I expect most people on this board do the same.
Why? So I don't have a crap power supply. So the motherboard has a few features beyond "power on". For decent air cooling. The hardware reasons go on and on. For years, anything that you couldn't easily put in a 20-word blurb about a PC has been shaved down and sacrificed beyond bone-deep cuts to create truly craptastic hardware setups.
You know, I used to build my own computers, and built a couple of special-purpose boxes last year. But these days when anyone asks me the best way to go about getting the most bang for the buck on a new computer, I just tell them to take a trip to Best Buy, Staples, and Sam's Club, (because those are local here) then go to dell.com, and pick out a box from what's available. PCs have become such commodity hardware, it's not worth the effort to piece anything together.
Last year I bought an HP box for household web, e-mail, etc. It's a crap box, but has a reasonably good Athlon processor, 640GB disk, 3 GB ram, DVD burner, and a Windows 7 license. I spent $350, which I decided was cheaper that I could buy the parts, plus it came with a warranty. Good enough for consumer needs.
Dell's business lines are top notch, but all of the consumer stuff I've seen anywhere is utter crap. Cheap plastic, cheap keyboards, poor batteries.
Then again, maybe I just grew tired of fielding support calls from people who tried to save $50 by bargain shopping and putting it together themselves. Much nicer to be able to point them to the store.:)
Well, I saw the Surface with the keyboard and went, "Hmm?" Then I saw that it was ARM and went, "Harumph!" Then I saw that it would come with an i5 and I went, "Oh!" If it's fast and can do video out, there's a good chance I'll buy one.
Just curious; why is video out important to you on a tablet? For home theater use or something else? Where this product would shine for me is if it finally is a "real" computer that happens to be useful as a tablet. Being able to put it in a dock next to a full-size screen and keyboard would be the win for me.
And yet Microsoft still hasn't learned the important lessons: 1) when you announce your breakthrough product(s), it's available TODAY (or next week), and here's the PRICE. 2) You can go outside and play with it for 10 or 20 minutes right after this announcement.
What did we get from MS? "Here are two things we made, they won't be able to run the same programs, we're not going to really demo any of it, we won't tell you the price, we won't tell you when it's shipping, and none of you here get to play with it." It was a fucking amateur production from start to finish.
Which begs the question: is this really a product or a trial balloon? I worked in R&D long enough to recognize a dog and pony show. Cobbling something together that looks like a product to show potential customers is standard practice before investing the resources needed to actually design a product that can be built and sold.
Apple has taught them well. First locking down the software supply chain (Metro marketplace), now secrecy for new products.
Exactly. Microsoft finally manages to have a launch event without leaks, but it took some extreme steps: they didn't even announce the venue until what, 5 hours before the event? If they wanted to keep a tight lid on the announcement, why would they go blabbing all the details to non-involved partners?
Pick your favorite three episodes of TOS. Doesn't matter which; you can go back and fill the the rest if and when the interest is there. TOS should immediately be followed by a viewing of Galaxy Quest.
Next watch Encounter at Farpoint, only because it is the first episode and outlines a lot of the universe. The tour of TNG should include The Inner Light, The Chain of Command, and your favorite two episodes. Also include a Dixon Hill episode. Finish with All Good Things.
Watch ST:Generations and ST:First Contact
Pick your favorite two episodes of DS9.
Watch the first episode of Voyager that sets the stage for the rest of the series, and pick two others that you like.
Pick an episode of Enterprise from the middle to later seasons. Apologize, and watch several episodes of Quantum Leap instead.
Between series, explain how the universe is changed and the basic identities of the crews. Remember that you're picking episodes that you like. If your friends are interested in fleshing it out after the abridged version, you can go back and rediscover other episodes together. Look over Wikipedia and Memory Alpha to find episodes that seem intriguing.
Above all, don't want them to like it so badly that you force your tastes on your friends. Think of the stupidest, mind-numbing show that you can and then imagine how you would react if your friends wanted you to go back and watch each episode with them. Hopefully that's not their opinion of Trek, but just gauge their reaction and don't force anything that isn't enjoyable. It's just a TV show, after all.
Get into something constructive that doesn't require the fine motor skills or dexterity that he is losing, but allows him to be creative. I was going to suggest pottery, forging, or knife making, but maybe those things require too much strength as well.
I've met a college graduate who took on $160K in student debt to walk into the 2010 job market with a degree in Theater Management. I met him when, with tears in his eyes, he applied for a substitute teaching position that was paying $85/day. The best he could home for was 7-10 days work a month (because once you go above 10 days a month the district has to pay you $15/day more, so they limit each sub to under 10 days a month if they can)...
Every month, for the next 20 years, this kid was going to be paying over a thousand dollars a month BEFORE he paid for food, clothes, housing, transportation etc.
What did he think he was going to get paid as a theater manager once he graduated?
I've also met graduates with similar (though not as extreme) stories as this man. While my wife and I were in college, many of our peers were building similar piles of student debt with no clear plan for how they would be paying for them in the future.
$60k of debt while earning a History degree, $80k of debt earning a liberal arts degree, etc. Part of it has to do with the lack of perspective that an 18-20 year old has; to tell them that repayment will take 30 years means nothing. The other part of it is a false sense of entitlement; they've been told all their life that to get a "good" job will require a college degree, which many people somehow take to mean that if they do get a college degree the job market will take care of them with no further effort.
Similarly, your daughter wants to be a geologist. But the best geology program is (I'm making this up) North Dakota State. You don't have the option of moving your family to North Dakota to score in-state tuition. You can't tell her that her best option financially is to study to become a nurse instead. Education is not a commodity that you buy by the pound or by the linear foot.
Your daughter's an adult when she goes to college, right? No reason she can't move to North Dakota for a year to be eligible for in-state tuition before beginning her studies. Maybe in your family this is less than ideal, so it's time to make a grown-up choice: does she want to be a geologist, or are other things (like living close to mom and dad) more important to her?
The rest of your post is spot on. Supply and demand; if money is being held out for universities, only the stupid universities aren't going to figure out how to maximize their share of the pie, and stupid universities will be corrected or bankrupted.
"it can be burdonsome around the start of the year when that high deductible kicks back in. "
Only if you are silly and spend your HSA down every year. I've got $8600 in my HSA right now. that $2000 deductible is nothing. MAybe you need to raise your contribution out of each paycheck and stop buying everything on the HSA card.
My wife and I love our HSA, but over the last 3 years have pretty much managed to spend every nickel that has gone into it. We've kept up with expenses, but never have built much of a balance, even with contributing as close to the maximum as possible each year.
One question about your post; why would I not want to "buy everything on the HSA card"? Every dollar I spend out of the HSA is tax-advantaged. No, I don't recommend spending money unnecessarily, but if you've got to spend the money why not do it through the HSA?
You don't even need differential GPS. You don't need the exact coordinates of the mine, you just need to get to its real location. Take the GPS location from the rat, then move until your own GPS location (almost) matches that location.
GPS error isn't like that; the error in the location of the receiver isn't a constant off-by-this-many-meters-in-this-direction error, but rather an amount of uncertainty. If the rat's GPS receiver is accurate to 10 meters, that means that the coordinates shown by the receiver are at the center of a circle with a radius of 10 meters. The actual position is somewhere within the area inclosed by that circle.
Taking a second GPS receiver with the same accuracy means that now you have two circles that you can move until they overlap, but you cannot pinpoint anything to closer than the combined error of the two receivers; nothing finer than 20 meters.
But, even with that level of accuracy, useful information can still be obtained. If there is a square field 500 m on a side, having the rats indicate that there's one or more mines somewhere inside that field would be enough to justify breaking out the more accurate DGPS receivers for a second run.
humidity will be high in your collection apperatus. You can pee in a sand pit in the desert, put a receptical in the middle and cover with a black plastic bag and get fresh water. as long as you have decent coverage it should work 100% of the time.
Black plastic bags were in short supply in the 1930s. Another poster who suggested building a still from parts of the plane would have had more luck, assuming fuel was available to boil water.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple going through the trouble of abandoning their old proprietary connector and MAKING A NEW PROPRIETARY ONE instead of going to a standard one like every other phone has had for years sounds at least a bit nefarious to me.
Is it possible that a standard micro or mini USB cable didn't do everything they wanted?
Also, hardware developers sign an NDA and an agreement with Apple to be able to use Apple's logos and "Made for iPod/iPhone" marketing phrases. As part of that agreement you agree to acquire the hardware (connectors, shells, and authentication chips) only through Apple's authorized channels and that you will submit to certification tests. By doing this, they can accurately know how many products you are shipping to be sure you're not stiffing them on royalties and guarantee that your products meet a certain level of quality.
Hypothetically it also allows Apple to see your products before they ship so they can deny you certification and then quash it as it might duplicate functionality with hardware they are interested in licensing themselves or to steal your product idea to later ship as their own. Hypothetically, of course. I've never seen this happen at a previous employer where I designed hardware to interface with iPods, as far as you know.
The DVD's is what's holding Netflix back, and the reason why no one else wants to touch them. Netflix needs to ditch those DVD's and let RedBox handle them.
Even better, let's have Netflix and Redbox merge so that I can return my Netflix movie at a Redbox and exchange it on the spot for a new one. Plus, with my new NetRedFlixBox membership card I will be able to get unlimited, one-at-a-time rentals from the Redbox near my office.
Two possible outcomes:
1. As soon as she turns the ship around and brings Yahoo! above water, Google sues or acquires them as settlement for using her knowledge of Google's trade secrets.
2. Yahoo! continues to circle the drain and she rides to the bottom, bravely staying with the ship and is barely able to console herself with the Yahoo trademarked Obscenely Huge Golden Parachute of Doom.
She was more interested in working hard than in her productivity. Since she was paid the same whether she fixed 1 or 6, she didn't have to blame herself. The answer is a piece-rate wage.
There would also need to be a check and balance system; some way to figure out why after moving to piece-rate every customer return is now solved by automatically sending a new part.
...Meanwhile, the Q required an Android device running Jelly Bean in order to activate the Q. The Android device was also the only way to control the Q.
Wow, seriously? I not only have to have an Android device, but an Android device running a version of the OS that was only released last week? So, apparently the only people who can use the Q are the people who attended I/O and received both as gifts?
Google has been throwing these set-top/streaming boxes at the wall for each of the last 3 I/Os, and they've yet to make one stick.
Local streaming is not an option. The only method of consumption is from the "Google Cloud".
Personally I do not care about the Q's hackable potential. I have better things to do with my time. Plus, I don't do "TheCloud". Networks can and do go down. And, I prefer to control my own content.
Now to find some sucker to take the Q off my hands.
So let me see if I can sum it up: No local storage, no way to stream local content, requires another (as yet mythical) Android device to operate, costs at least 3x what every other comparable device costs.
Should be flying off the shelves. Brace yourselves, Google! I hope you anticipated the demand and made hundreds of them!
But if I did have a million or two under the mattress, I would be just as likely to purchase health insurance as I now do, simply because I don't want to put that million or two at risk if I were to have a catastrophic illness or accident. Sheltering assets from risk is the correct reason for insurance.
Insurance only buys you predictable, periodic expenses in exchange for unpredictable, larger expenses. However it is a net loss if you can tolerate an occasional larger expense. Insurance companies work for profit. Where does that profit come from? Right, it comes out of your pocket.
The middleman wants his cut, surely. No insurance company that I know of is in business as a public charity.
As you could guess, I do not use health insurance. I pay with cash. I never hear that "this treatment is disallowed" - everything is allowed to me, as long as I pay.
This will be the end result of our socialized medicine; as has been seen in many other countries. Sure, you're guaranteed coverage, but if you've got any sense (and money) you'll be going to one of the private providers that accepts cash and doesn't want to bother with the paperwork of the insured. It's already seen now: how many doctors offer a "cash patient" rate lower than what is charged to the insured?
do you have health insurance? if no, then you are a freeloader
Imagine that I am Bill Gates. I can buy a hospital - or ten. Why would I need insurance?
Note that the threshold of self-sufficiency is much lower than BG's wealth. If you have a million or two under the mattress you are all set.
Insurance is only needed when you cannot afford the loss. In all other cases you are better off self-insuring. That's what most large businesses do. They have the money; they don't need to beg someone else to pay for their loss.
But if I did have a million or two under the mattress, I would be just as likely to purchase health insurance as I now do, simply because I don't want to put that million or two at risk if I were to have a catastrophic illness or accident. Sheltering assets from risk is the correct reason for insurance.
Unfortunately, our health system is very insurance oriented and we don't treat our health the same way. Going to the doctor is so different from any other transaction that it is bizarre. What other service do you purchase in a year that you don't have any idea what it will cost, and not even the service provider has any clue or reason to find out?
Since this is Slashdot, let's do a car analogy:
Imagine that I had to file a claim with my auto insurance company every time my car needed an oil change, new brakes, or a tank of gas. When I went for one of these services, the people who provide the service were not only unable to give me an up-front price, but I had to sign a binding agreement that whatever the price ends up being, I agree to pay even if my insurance company doesn't.
30-60 days later, after my claim was processed by the insurance company were I able to know how much the service cost. Since I can't know the price beforehand, there is no way for me to comparison shop.
Now imagine that to improve this system, there is a layer of government between myself and my insurance company, and another layer between the insurance company and the service station.
You don't have to buy health insurance either. You will simply pay 2.5% more in income tax up to an extra $2,085 per year. But nobody is forcing you to purchase health insurance.
This is the part that I don't understand. If I choose to not purchase health insurance it may cost me 2.5% surcharge on my taxes, but those numbers don't seem to provide any incentive to someone who doesn't have insurance coverage now.
I understand why the mandate is of concern due to the inter-state commerce clause, but this is the point that caused such a flap with conservatives. Focusing on the numbers themselves, it seems like such a non-issue.
The proper response then to GO TO ANOTHER RESTAURANT. I've done similar things MANY times. If going through flash is the only option, I will not purchase from that site/supplier. In the old days I used to mail them a "FYI" so they could improve, but I don't do that any more. If they're still cluesless in 2012, nothing anyone can say will change them.
Life is too short to make up jihads over things like this. You would limit your choice of restaurants by how the menu is presented online? Wow.
But I digress. Imagine that you are on the other side of your conversation:
You are a restaurant owner, who just spent $1000-$5000 on some design firm to lay out a slick-looking website for your business. The demo looked great, and the designers told you that they did the work in something called Flash, and it will look the same way on everybody's computer.
Two weeks later, you get an e-mail from some random guy who seems to have a stick up his ass about something called Open Standards and promises that he will walk barefoot across broken glass to eat at your competitor's place and that you have earned a place on his List of Places I Won't Go. The only way to remove yourself from The List is to go back to your design firm and spend more money catering to random guy's demands.
Over the next six months, you receive no further complaints from anyone about your choice of Flash, but you continue to receive a trickle of complaints about the new waitress.
Guess which problem you'll spend your time worrying about?
A driver's license isn't proof of citizenship; many people who are not citizens have them.
Jobs bought it for 850k.
[...]
From TFA, Eason paid 850K, which is the same as the LLC paid, I think.
So, if the doctor bought it for the same amount that Jobs had paid for it, where is the impropriety? If the surgeon could have paid the exact same amount two weeks before, I don't see how there was any favoritism or sweetheart deals involved.
Just as likely: visiting and treating Mr. Jobs at the home was what made him aware of the existence of the home and the possibility to purchase it.
[Force US companies to]... pay what the market will bear.
Um, I think that's what they are doing.
If the labor market bears $3.00/hour, that's what employers will pay. Expecting them to pay more than that is not realistic. If some company springs up paying $15.00/hour because it's the "right thing to do", but has to compete with every other company paying $3.00, they will quickly find themselves out of business.
But, if none of these companies are able to find workers unless they offer $15.00, then that's the new definition of what the market will bear.
There's a law in the states that citizens are not required to carry identification. Thus all a foreigner has to do is state that they are a resident and there's not much an officer can do about it.
Except then you've just committed the offense of lying to a police officer, which you can be charged and arrested on.
For years now, I've been building my own PCs. I expect most people on this board do the same.
Why? So I don't have a crap power supply. So the motherboard has a few features beyond "power on". For decent air cooling. The hardware reasons go on and on. For years, anything that you couldn't easily put in a 20-word blurb about a PC has been shaved down and sacrificed beyond bone-deep cuts to create truly craptastic hardware setups.
You know, I used to build my own computers, and built a couple of special-purpose boxes last year. But these days when anyone asks me the best way to go about getting the most bang for the buck on a new computer, I just tell them to take a trip to Best Buy, Staples, and Sam's Club, (because those are local here) then go to dell.com, and pick out a box from what's available. PCs have become such commodity hardware, it's not worth the effort to piece anything together.
Last year I bought an HP box for household web, e-mail, etc. It's a crap box, but has a reasonably good Athlon processor, 640GB disk, 3 GB ram, DVD burner, and a Windows 7 license. I spent $350, which I decided was cheaper that I could buy the parts, plus it came with a warranty. Good enough for consumer needs.
Dell's business lines are top notch, but all of the consumer stuff I've seen anywhere is utter crap. Cheap plastic, cheap keyboards, poor batteries.
Then again, maybe I just grew tired of fielding support calls from people who tried to save $50 by bargain shopping and putting it together themselves. Much nicer to be able to point them to the store. :)
Well, I saw the Surface with the keyboard and went, "Hmm?" Then I saw that it was ARM and went, "Harumph!" Then I saw that it would come with an i5 and I went, "Oh!" If it's fast and can do video out, there's a good chance I'll buy one.
Just curious; why is video out important to you on a tablet? For home theater use or something else? Where this product would shine for me is if it finally is a "real" computer that happens to be useful as a tablet. Being able to put it in a dock next to a full-size screen and keyboard would be the win for me.
And yet Microsoft still hasn't learned the important lessons: 1) when you announce your breakthrough product(s), it's available TODAY (or next week), and here's the PRICE. 2) You can go outside and play with it for 10 or 20 minutes right after this announcement.
What did we get from MS? "Here are two things we made, they won't be able to run the same programs, we're not going to really demo any of it, we won't tell you the price, we won't tell you when it's shipping, and none of you here get to play with it." It was a fucking amateur production from start to finish.
Which begs the question: is this really a product or a trial balloon? I worked in R&D long enough to recognize a dog and pony show. Cobbling something together that looks like a product to show potential customers is standard practice before investing the resources needed to actually design a product that can be built and sold.
Apple has taught them well. First locking down the software supply chain (Metro marketplace), now secrecy for new products.
Exactly. Microsoft finally manages to have a launch event without leaks, but it took some extreme steps: they didn't even announce the venue until what, 5 hours before the event? If they wanted to keep a tight lid on the announcement, why would they go blabbing all the details to non-involved partners?
Pick your favorite three episodes of TOS. Doesn't matter which; you can go back and fill the the rest if and when the interest is there.
TOS should immediately be followed by a viewing of Galaxy Quest.
Next watch Encounter at Farpoint, only because it is the first episode and outlines a lot of the universe. The tour of TNG should include The Inner Light, The Chain of Command, and your favorite two episodes. Also include a Dixon Hill episode. Finish with All Good Things.
Watch ST:Generations and ST:First Contact
Pick your favorite two episodes of DS9.
Watch the first episode of Voyager that sets the stage for the rest of the series, and pick two others that you like.
Pick an episode of Enterprise from the middle to later seasons. Apologize, and watch several episodes of Quantum Leap instead.
Between series, explain how the universe is changed and the basic identities of the crews. Remember that you're picking episodes that you like. If your friends are interested in fleshing it out after the abridged version, you can go back and rediscover other episodes together. Look over Wikipedia and Memory Alpha to find episodes that seem intriguing.
Above all, don't want them to like it so badly that you force your tastes on your friends. Think of the stupidest, mind-numbing show that you can and then imagine how you would react if your friends wanted you to go back and watch each episode with them. Hopefully that's not their opinion of Trek, but just gauge their reaction and don't force anything that isn't enjoyable. It's just a TV show, after all.
Get into something constructive that doesn't require the fine motor skills or dexterity that he is losing, but allows him to be creative. I was going to suggest pottery, forging, or knife making, but maybe those things require too much strength as well.
But it can't happen. You can't declare bankruptcy on those loans. Underwater/above water, doesn't matter. You pay them until they're fully paid off.
...unless the federal government changes their minds and forgives all or a portion of the loans. Universities are Too Big to Fail.
I've met a college graduate who took on $160K in student debt to walk into the 2010 job market with a degree in Theater Management. I met him when, with tears in his eyes, he applied for a substitute teaching position that was paying $85/day. The best he could home for was 7-10 days work a month (because once you go above 10 days a month the district has to pay you $15/day more, so they limit each sub to under 10 days a month if they can)...
Every month, for the next 20 years, this kid was going to be paying over a thousand dollars a month BEFORE he paid for food, clothes, housing, transportation etc.
What did he think he was going to get paid as a theater manager once he graduated?
I've also met graduates with similar (though not as extreme) stories as this man. While my wife and I were in college, many of our peers were building similar piles of student debt with no clear plan for how they would be paying for them in the future.
$60k of debt while earning a History degree, $80k of debt earning a liberal arts degree, etc. Part of it has to do with the lack of perspective that an 18-20 year old has; to tell them that repayment will take 30 years means nothing. The other part of it is a false sense of entitlement; they've been told all their life that to get a "good" job will require a college degree, which many people somehow take to mean that if they do get a college degree the job market will take care of them with no further effort.
Similarly, your daughter wants to be a geologist. But the best geology program is (I'm making this up) North Dakota State. You don't have the option of moving your family to North Dakota to score in-state tuition. You can't tell her that her best option financially is to study to become a nurse instead. Education is not a commodity that you buy by the pound or by the linear foot.
Your daughter's an adult when she goes to college, right? No reason she can't move to North Dakota for a year to be eligible for in-state tuition before beginning her studies. Maybe in your family this is less than ideal, so it's time to make a grown-up choice: does she want to be a geologist, or are other things (like living close to mom and dad) more important to her?
The rest of your post is spot on. Supply and demand; if money is being held out for universities, only the stupid universities aren't going to figure out how to maximize their share of the pie, and stupid universities will be corrected or bankrupted.
"it can be burdonsome around the start of the year when that high deductible kicks back in. "
Only if you are silly and spend your HSA down every year. I've got $8600 in my HSA right now. that $2000 deductible is nothing. MAybe you need to raise your contribution out of each paycheck and stop buying everything on the HSA card.
My wife and I love our HSA, but over the last 3 years have pretty much managed to spend every nickel that has gone into it. We've kept up with expenses, but never have built much of a balance, even with contributing as close to the maximum as possible each year.
One question about your post; why would I not want to "buy everything on the HSA card"? Every dollar I spend out of the HSA is tax-advantaged. No, I don't recommend spending money unnecessarily, but if you've got to spend the money why not do it through the HSA?
You don't even need differential GPS. You don't need the exact coordinates of the mine, you just need to get to its real location. Take the GPS location from the rat, then move until your own GPS location (almost) matches that location.
GPS error isn't like that; the error in the location of the receiver isn't a constant off-by-this-many-meters-in-this-direction error, but rather an amount of uncertainty. If the rat's GPS receiver is accurate to 10 meters, that means that the coordinates shown by the receiver are at the center of a circle with a radius of 10 meters. The actual position is somewhere within the area inclosed by that circle.
Taking a second GPS receiver with the same accuracy means that now you have two circles that you can move until they overlap, but you cannot pinpoint anything to closer than the combined error of the two receivers; nothing finer than 20 meters.
But, even with that level of accuracy, useful information can still be obtained. If there is a square field 500 m on a side, having the rats indicate that there's one or more mines somewhere inside that field would be enough to justify breaking out the more accurate DGPS receivers for a second run.
humidity will be high in your collection apperatus. You can pee in a sand pit in the desert, put a receptical in the middle and cover with a black plastic bag and get fresh water. as long as you have decent coverage it should work 100% of the time.
Black plastic bags were in short supply in the 1930s. Another poster who suggested building a still from parts of the plane would have had more luck, assuming fuel was available to boil water.