Yes, the parent was modded as funny (rightfully), but...
People who talk like this can only relate to two things: other people who talk like this
Welcome to the real world. The real world does not consist of coders who ignore everyone else in their insular little universes and think that everyone should be as smart as they are. There's a reason that there's more MBA's than engineering degrees out there -- more people think in a management/marketing perspective than an engineering one.
Is Mr. Love spewing a lot of horseshit? Sure. But it's horseshit that other horses will sniff, recognize and find comfort in rather than the bullshit that a lot of the Linux community spouts. Bullshit is just confusing to horses - it smells kinda similar, but the nuances are missing and it makes the horses nervous.
Insert sheep or lemmings for horse if that makes you feel better.
It still doesn't change the reality that Linux is still far, far away from serious corporate acceptance. IBM, Redhat, and other companies are making headway here (hooray), but it's largely through the same kind of crap that Mr. Love is talking. It's not based off some ethical superiority, and it sure as hell isn't because businesses think OSS is a good model for their core logic.
We'd love to move our systems over to Linux here... but upper management starts looking nervous every time it's mentioned. So instead we're on AIX (gack) and horribly overpriced PPC boxes. Maybe once Linux gets some more positive press from companies like Redhat, IBM, Caldera, etc. we'll finally be able to move to something better than AIX.
I'd argue that it's better to use logic to dissuade those who believe inane things like this, but, frankly, if you look at the UFO sightings distribution you'll note that most of them come from poorly educated areas of highly educated countries.
The point being that, yes, you can try to use logic against UFO nuts. Most of them wouldn't be able to follow you. The educated UFO nut is a rare breed, and they tend to educate their own way out of the hole.
That said, it's fun to read sites like that in much the same way it's fun to read the Darwin awards.
So, if you offer them a large customer base, 80,000 people, then that's a big enough market you start to drop your prices signifigantely
Yup. Admittedly, not all of the people eligible will opt for this insurance -- either they have their own insurance already and eBay's offering isn't better, or they apply and the insurer turns them down due to liability issues (this is why it's critical to always have health insurance in the US -- once you are uninsured for 6 months you can be declined for just about any reason... or you can be insured and "preexisting conditions" will simply be declined coverage).
This will be an interesting precident to set in the marketplace of health insurance
Yup... to call a seller an employee of eBay is something of a stretch, but apparantly they have found an insurer who is willing to try. Kudos. And they're willing to test some very murky legal waters here -- once you offer health insurance for these pseudo-employees, you may discover that the federal government is going to start expecting more from you -- even if it's just forms stating that these people are contractors and that you aren't responible for their FICA and Federal taxes. What about FMLA? What about disability? There's a lot more here than meets the eye in my opinion.
Whose going to manage these benefits? Will eBay have a new department for assisting their people with benefit claims?
In theory, HR does this. If eBay has any clue, however, they'll be using a 3rd party administration service to provide these benefits. They're the ones that actually handle the interface between employees and the health plan -- all your HR does is forward them whatever you hand HR. These are popular nowadays because they significantly reduce the paperwork that HR has to deal with.
Anyone else think there's a web-organization that can claim more members?
What I quoted was from a single source, no specials, no deals. I don't go on PriceWatch looking for the lowest deal on 18 different components because, as you say, it's not worth it.
In the Puget Sound in particular, a lot of the brick and mortar stores are price gouging
This is true everywhere -- you're paying a higher price for the convienence of being able to have it right then. Local stores have lower competition than internet stores do. About your best bet is to find a local store that also sells on the Internet... assuming they have a good reputation that is.
Like I said, I'm sure you did the best you could at the time... but for most people buying parts off the net will result in far better value for the money.
Biostar PC133 Intel MB (the only FIC on Newegg is DDR): $50
P4 1.5 GHz (retail, w/ HSF): $129
Maxtor 60 GB 7200 rpm HD: $89
Optowrite 32-12-40 CD-RW (this is the cheapest and slowest NewEgg has - the one LG model carried is the same speed for far more money): $49
Samsung 16x DVD (again, the slowest available - cheapest was also 16x and only $7 less): $42
256 MB PC133 (Kingston 2x128MB): $38
Asus GF2 MX 200: $40
Antec black MicroATX case: $39
Total: $476
Shipping to Washington via FedEx Express Saver: $36.14
Total: $512.14
Not much of a price difference, but higher speed components in several places. And that extra $40 can upgrade most of the components to higher quality. The first thing I'd do is change out the MB/CPU/RAM -- pairing a P4 with PC133 memory is useless. A Celeron, Athlon, or Duron would perform equally for less money. I'd also spend another $10 to get a better case and power supply.
Yes, you probably did the best you could in your circumstances. But using bad numbers to justify a decision irks me.
Oh, and before you ask... overnight shipping would've placed it at $554.15. And you forgot to add sales tax to your figures.
I doubt it. And I bet the parts that Dell did put in the box were of lower quality than those you chose yourself.
Another advantage to buying from a big commercial vendor, when I move out of state, my relative won't have to call me long distance or wait for me to visit in order to get technical support
This, however, is HUGE. I will never, ever build a box for a relative or friend again. Only myself, my wife, and my eventual child(ren). I am not tech support and I hate it when family calls me up expecting to be as much.
Hell, I finally got my sister to buy a TiVo. And now apparantly I'm tech support for her -- despite it having been purchased brand new from Best Buy.
Of course, New Egg sells both Mushkin and Crucial memory -- sometimes for cheaper than what they sell it for. So we're back to recommendation number 1.
It's not about "Microsoft wins" or "OpenSource wins" it's about doing your work in the most effective and cost effective way possible.
Hopefully the OP's company will be able to convert their spreadsheets over to OOo -- but if they have too many spreadsheets that are heavily macro'd it may not be cost effective to do so -- regardless of the price structure of the suites themselves.
People need to get their head out of their ass when it comes to things like this. The computer is a tool, not a political statement. And people simply want to get their job done, not fight with the computer over how they should do it. OOo is great (I use it at home), but if it doesn't do what you need then get something that does.
One of the nice things that came out of the 1996 Olympics was a traffic management center (which is staffed 9a-4p M-F, but that's another boondoggle). As part of it they put up a network of cameras and radars to monitor traffic on the major highways and some of the major intersections. You can see the results here.
It's really nifty - you can click on any camera to see the current conditions, click on digital signs to see what they're displaying, see the current speeds being reported by the radar guns (and click on them too), and so forth.
This is particularly useful for a city with some of the worst traffic in the US.
We have airplanes with low radar profiles, (stealth) so what will it take for low visible / infrared / UV profiles?
For the record, stealth planes like the B1, the F-117A, and the F-22 have low radar, IR, and sound profiles. It's not of much use to be near invisible on radar if you show up like a torch on IR, or if the guy in the AAA can track where you're going to be by sound. All of the stealth planes disperse their output through large areas, generally directed upwards (I'd guess that the F-22 does the worst job of this, but that's just a WAG). The sound is similarly baffled, with efforts made toward minimizing disruptive air flow and contrails.
If you want a low IR profile, just cover yourself in a heat reflective blanket. They've been on the market for years. If it's warm out then you'll need to figure out some way of dumping heat elsewhere though, or else you'll suffocate in your own reflected heat.
If you want a true camo suit with chameleon like abilities, well, the US Army is researching those. There have been several stories on here about them and powered armor.
You're missing the point. We don't have anywhere even vaguely close to the level of AI that would be needed to implement the Laws of Robotics. We'll have the hardware decades before we have the software (hint - we have the hardware already, it's just not as automotive as Asimov's robots were).
The rules are nifty, made for great fiction, and have some good ethics behind them. But that doesn't mean they're realistic.
For one thing, I can damn well assure you that the military has no interest in them.
I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "copied an entire Model Building Code into their law."
I've been doing a lot of DIY projects around my house and I'm starting to get fidgity... because I don't have a copy of the NEC. According to my city's ordinances:
a) The following technical and building codes, the latest edition of each as adopted and amended by the state department of community affairs, are adopted by reference and shall be enforced in the City of Roswell: [...] (2) National Electrical Code as published by the National Fire Protection Association.
So by your wording (and my city's), I'd assume that the NEC doesn't become a public document (assuming that it was published as "City of Roswell Building Codes" and not as "NEC as referenced by...").
I also have an issue with refering to copyrighted works as law... it prevents citizens from accessing large parts of the law that they are supposed to comply with. Lack of knowledge of the law is not a defense -- but that presumes that the knowledge was freely available in the first place.
By the way, if Congressman Joe Blowhard reads the latest Stephen King novel into the Congressional Record, does it thereby become non-copyrighted? (Of course, you would have to title it "Joe Blowhard reading Stephen King's..." when you republished it.)
Yup, especially since Representatives and Senators cannot be prosecuted for anything while on record in the House/Senate - including libel and slander. There have been numerous efforts to get someone to read the DeCSS code into the Congressional record, thus making it public domain and impossible to prosecute (assuming, of course, that you got the source from the Congressional record).
Been to? Hell, I used to work at one. Lovely fab safety classes -- "If you ignore the gas leak alarm, please try to die within 6 feet of the door. That's how long the pole hook is to drag your body out."
Not to mention the horror stories about HF (watch your bones melt!), phosphine and other gasses which can kill you before you smell them (but the MSDS lists them as smelling like lemon... go figure), liquid scrubbers like Pirhana that meant no contacts (if the system backblasts the Pirhana would melt the contacts to your eyes), etc.
That said, this process will only eliminate Photolithography... which is the process that uses the fewest of these amazingly nasty chemicals from what I recall. But I worked mostly with PVD/CVD and etchers, so I could be wrong about Photo's chemical usage.
No, no, no... the anti-trust investigation has nothing to do with RDRAM.
It has everything to do with SDRAM and DDR.
Rambus was part of the JEDEC back when SDRAM standards were being developed. They withdrew shortly after the standards were being seriously discussed, but (allegedly) not before suggesting certain methods of doing things... which as it turns out they have patents on.
Part of being involved in JEDEC, as with most standards bodies, is playing fair. You don't recommend that a standard adopt a method that you own the patent on unless you have fully disclosed that patent and have agreed to reasonable licensing terms. Rambus didn't do this. That's the crux of the lawsuit. And they're pretty well screwed here - Dell tried this many years ago and got toasted - their patents were ruled invalid because of exactly the same thing.
RDRAM doesn't come into play. DDR does because DDR uses a lot of the same technologies that SDRAM does, which is where Rambus has its patent claims. Rambus allowed the standard(s) to be set, manufacturing to occur for a few years, and then served papers to every memory maker out there - telling them to either pay a royalty on these undisclosed patents or go to court for infringement. What amazes me is how many of the memory makers rolled over and played dead - only Micron, Infineon, and Hynix refused and counter-sued Rambus.
Rambus probably would still exist even without these patents, simply because of the inane deal that Intel upper management signed a few years ago. They're finally working their way out of that boondoggle... of course, in the meantime AMD has gained market presence largely due to that mistake.
How do you know he had a higher quality house? Everyone keeps saying this, but nobody has proven it
Well, the converse hasn't been proven true either. And while I bet that most people can point at DIY projects gone wrong, I'd also bet that they can point at new home construction gone wrong. I have a friend with a $300k house with $40-50k in rework that he'll have to have done - from the roof to the foundation. Because the builder/GC were scum and are using corporate veils to hide from prosecution. I can also point at my basement (prior to my moving in) and be in utter awe that the house didn't burn down from the "electrical" system they had done themselves.
This is not something you can just research. You have to have some skill. You have to know something about construction.
In house building in the US we don't train people. They learn on the job.
Those are two semi-contradictory statements. Clearly the workers didn't need to know anything to do the job, other than how to swing a hammer, use a saw, or whatever. Certainly in order to spot where the work is shoddy you need to know something about construction, and doing DIY projects is the best way to learn. I wouldn't recommend trying to be a GC on a first home - may as well try and write an entire OS from scratch as your first programming project.
That said, a good bit of what you need to know can be researched. It's called the local building code. Sure, you'll need some first hand knowledge to know what the hell the difference between hot and neutral is, but it still goes a long ways toward being a GC/inspector yourself.
A good inspector knows this and can save your ass too
If you mean the county inspectors, I assume you're joking... most of them just rubber stamp homes, particularly large developments. If you're talking about one you hire, they generally do a good job unless you make it clear that you don't really want to hear about any problems.
Nothing says even with a contractor you shouldn't be out there checking up on the work
Actually, everything says that you should be out there checking up on the work. But, frankly, if you have the time and organization skills then you probably can do the same job as the GC. But you have to be damn sure that you'll have the time and really know that you have the organizational skills. This isn't an area where you can afford to let the little things slide.
Yes, you can get mortgages for unbuilt structures. They have higher interest rates, but it's generally not a huge issue. They're pretty common. Go searching on some mortgage info sites if you really want details.
If your house isn't in a nice area, why did you buy that house in the first place?
The real estate mantra is "location, location, location" -- not "space, space, space". If you buy a nice home in a $100k neighborhood you can get just as much (if not more) ROI as if you buy a nice home in a $400k neighborhood.
Frankly, the OP was correct. Evaluate how much space you need, not how much house you can afford. Yes, they drive each other, but there's always flexibility. Too many people wind up in homes that have far more space than they need or can upkeep -- and then complain that they have no free time, money, etc. -- because all the money is being sucked down by their mortgage payment and all their time by the too-big house.
We need to do a code review in my shop, since we're approaching release on our project, but there's a slight issue... there are two coders on the project (myself and the senior coder), and we're the only ones in house that know C++ very well.
What do you do in that case? Self-reviewing the code is of questionable value -- since you tend to skim over the parts you wrote "because you know it works!".
Re:It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one
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The State of PC Audio
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· Score: 2
Go over to AVS, read the HTPC forum, and read about the SB Live digital output. Yes, it works fine for a lot of people. Yes, it conforms to no standard known to man. And it causes weird problems with some pre-amps/receivers. There are some indications that it may even damage them with long term use.
Yes, I refused to set foot in CC for a couple years thanks to the DivX crap. But they paid for it in the long run - $110M writeoff. That seriously impacted their bottom line for awhile.
Re:It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one
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The State of PC Audio
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· Score: 2
Depends on your definition of "mainstream".
The M-Audio products do rival high end home theater systems -- maybe not Meridian, Lexicon, and their ilk, but a $1500 PC can easily replace a $1000 DVD player, a $1000 pre-amp, and a $2000 deinterlacer (actually it comes really close to replacing a $30k Farajouda or Snell and Wilcox).
You lose a good bit of ease-of-use still, and although some HTPC systems are available out-of-the-box, the best are still hand built, which takes a desire to putter with the computer.
7) Never bother getting a rain check at a Best Buy, you probably won't get a call back (unless you already have shown interest in a PSP).
Heh.
Tell me about it... I did finally get a TV I put on raincheck, but I had to just about grab the section manager by the balls and force it out of him. After a couple weeks I called daily and visited the store at least once a week.
After about 6 weeks they managed to "lose" my raincheck and claimed that there were now about 5 people ahead of me for the same TV. I convinced them otherwise, got the TV that day, and an additional 10% or so off an already low price.
Was it worth it? Hell no. Sadly, Circuit City and the other big box electronics stores suck just as badly.
Initially the debit card liability limit was the banking industry's attempt as you describe. I don't know that it's Federal Law yet either, although I suspect so since Clark Howard stopped campaigning against them on air.
Even so, you still have a lot more to lose with a debit card. Someone steals your credit card? Report it stolen, pay $50, fini. Your credit report isn't impacted, you get a new card, life moves on.
Someone steals your debit card? Now you're screwed. Sure, you can report it stolen and only be liable for $50, but that money is gone from your account and the bank has up to 10 business days (M-F) to restore it. Hope you don't need any cash for those 10 days. Or to write a check. Or have any bills already in the mail. Because there's nothing you can do - except maybe borrow cash from a credit card and pay those exorbitant finance rates. If a check bounces then you get hit on your credit report, along with getting hit with additional fees. Get them reimbursed? Maybe. Depends on your bank - they aren't under any requirement to reimburse you those fees. And how much more paperwork is that going to be?
Fact of the matter is, no matter what your bank says, credit cards are still safer than debit cards. If you can't handle a credit card and keep spending yourself into debt, fine, use a debit. But otherwise avoid them like the plague -- they're only good for the bank. Not for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the parent was modded as funny (rightfully), but...
People who talk like this can only relate to two things: other people who talk like this
Welcome to the real world. The real world does not consist of coders who ignore everyone else in their insular little universes and think that everyone should be as smart as they are. There's a reason that there's more MBA's than engineering degrees out there -- more people think in a management/marketing perspective than an engineering one.
Is Mr. Love spewing a lot of horseshit? Sure. But it's horseshit that other horses will sniff, recognize and find comfort in rather than the bullshit that a lot of the Linux community spouts. Bullshit is just confusing to horses - it smells kinda similar, but the nuances are missing and it makes the horses nervous.
Insert sheep or lemmings for horse if that makes you feel better.
It still doesn't change the reality that Linux is still far, far away from serious corporate acceptance. IBM, Redhat, and other companies are making headway here (hooray), but it's largely through the same kind of crap that Mr. Love is talking. It's not based off some ethical superiority, and it sure as hell isn't because businesses think OSS is a good model for their core logic.
We'd love to move our systems over to Linux here... but upper management starts looking nervous every time it's mentioned. So instead we're on AIX (gack) and horribly overpriced PPC boxes. Maybe once Linux gets some more positive press from companies like Redhat, IBM, Caldera, etc. we'll finally be able to move to something better than AIX.
I'd argue that it's better to use logic to dissuade those who believe inane things like this, but, frankly, if you look at the UFO sightings distribution you'll note that most of them come from poorly educated areas of highly educated countries.
The point being that, yes, you can try to use logic against UFO nuts. Most of them wouldn't be able to follow you. The educated UFO nut is a rare breed, and they tend to educate their own way out of the hole.
That said, it's fun to read sites like that in much the same way it's fun to read the Darwin awards.
So, if you offer them a large customer base, 80,000 people, then that's a big enough market you start to drop your prices signifigantely
Yup. Admittedly, not all of the people eligible will opt for this insurance -- either they have their own insurance already and eBay's offering isn't better, or they apply and the insurer turns them down due to liability issues (this is why it's critical to always have health insurance in the US -- once you are uninsured for 6 months you can be declined for just about any reason... or you can be insured and "preexisting conditions" will simply be declined coverage).
This will be an interesting precident to set in the marketplace of health insurance
Yup... to call a seller an employee of eBay is something of a stretch, but apparantly they have found an insurer who is willing to try. Kudos. And they're willing to test some very murky legal waters here -- once you offer health insurance for these pseudo-employees, you may discover that the federal government is going to start expecting more from you -- even if it's just forms stating that these people are contractors and that you aren't responible for their FICA and Federal taxes. What about FMLA? What about disability? There's a lot more here than meets the eye in my opinion.
Whose going to manage these benefits? Will eBay have a new department for assisting their people with benefit claims?
In theory, HR does this. If eBay has any clue, however, they'll be using a 3rd party administration service to provide these benefits. They're the ones that actually handle the interface between employees and the health plan -- all your HR does is forward them whatever you hand HR. These are popular nowadays because they significantly reduce the paperwork that HR has to deal with.
Anyone else think there's a web-organization that can claim more members?
That's easy. AOL.
What I quoted was from a single source, no specials, no deals. I don't go on PriceWatch looking for the lowest deal on 18 different components because, as you say, it's not worth it.
In the Puget Sound in particular, a lot of the brick and mortar stores are price gouging
This is true everywhere -- you're paying a higher price for the convienence of being able to have it right then. Local stores have lower competition than internet stores do. About your best bet is to find a local store that also sells on the Internet... assuming they have a good reputation that is.
Like I said, I'm sure you did the best you could at the time... but for most people buying parts off the net will result in far better value for the money.
Prices from New Egg.
Biostar PC133 Intel MB (the only FIC on Newegg is DDR): $50
P4 1.5 GHz (retail, w/ HSF): $129
Maxtor 60 GB 7200 rpm HD: $89
Optowrite 32-12-40 CD-RW (this is the cheapest and slowest NewEgg has - the one LG model carried is the same speed for far more money): $49
Samsung 16x DVD (again, the slowest available - cheapest was also 16x and only $7 less): $42
256 MB PC133 (Kingston 2x128MB): $38
Asus GF2 MX 200: $40
Antec black MicroATX case: $39
Total: $476
Shipping to Washington via FedEx Express Saver: $36.14
Total: $512.14
Not much of a price difference, but higher speed components in several places. And that extra $40 can upgrade most of the components to higher quality. The first thing I'd do is change out the MB/CPU/RAM -- pairing a P4 with PC133 memory is useless. A Celeron, Athlon, or Duron would perform equally for less money. I'd also spend another $10 to get a better case and power supply.
Yes, you probably did the best you could in your circumstances. But using bad numbers to justify a decision irks me.
Oh, and before you ask... overnight shipping would've placed it at $554.15. And you forgot to add sales tax to your figures.
But was it the exact same parts?
I doubt it. And I bet the parts that Dell did put in the box were of lower quality than those you chose yourself.
Another advantage to buying from a big commercial vendor, when I move out of state, my relative won't have to call me long distance or wait for me to visit in order to get technical support
This, however, is HUGE. I will never, ever build a box for a relative or friend again. Only myself, my wife, and my eventual child(ren). I am not tech support and I hate it when family calls me up expecting to be as much.
Hell, I finally got my sister to buy a TiVo. And now apparantly I'm tech support for her -- despite it having been purchased brand new from Best Buy.
Argh.
New Egg [newegg.com] - parts (e.g. cases, cards, motherboards, etc...)
Crucial [crucial.com] - memory
Agreed, add Mushkin on the memory list though.
Of course, New Egg sells both Mushkin and Crucial memory -- sometimes for cheaper than what they sell it for. So we're back to recommendation number 1.
Welcome to the real world.
It's not about "Microsoft wins" or "OpenSource wins" it's about doing your work in the most effective and cost effective way possible.
Hopefully the OP's company will be able to convert their spreadsheets over to OOo -- but if they have too many spreadsheets that are heavily macro'd it may not be cost effective to do so -- regardless of the price structure of the suites themselves.
People need to get their head out of their ass when it comes to things like this. The computer is a tool, not a political statement. And people simply want to get their job done, not fight with the computer over how they should do it. OOo is great (I use it at home), but if it doesn't do what you need then get something that does.
One of the nice things that came out of the 1996 Olympics was a traffic management center (which is staffed 9a-4p M-F, but that's another boondoggle). As part of it they put up a network of cameras and radars to monitor traffic on the major highways and some of the major intersections. You can see the results here.
It's really nifty - you can click on any camera to see the current conditions, click on digital signs to see what they're displaying, see the current speeds being reported by the radar guns (and click on them too), and so forth.
This is particularly useful for a city with some of the worst traffic in the US.
We have airplanes with low radar profiles, (stealth) so what will it take for low visible / infrared / UV profiles?
For the record, stealth planes like the B1, the F-117A, and the F-22 have low radar, IR, and sound profiles. It's not of much use to be near invisible on radar if you show up like a torch on IR, or if the guy in the AAA can track where you're going to be by sound. All of the stealth planes disperse their output through large areas, generally directed upwards (I'd guess that the F-22 does the worst job of this, but that's just a WAG). The sound is similarly baffled, with efforts made toward minimizing disruptive air flow and contrails.
If you want a low IR profile, just cover yourself in a heat reflective blanket. They've been on the market for years. If it's warm out then you'll need to figure out some way of dumping heat elsewhere though, or else you'll suffocate in your own reflected heat.
If you want a true camo suit with chameleon like abilities, well, the US Army is researching those. There have been several stories on here about them and powered armor.
You're missing the point. We don't have anywhere even vaguely close to the level of AI that would be needed to implement the Laws of Robotics. We'll have the hardware decades before we have the software (hint - we have the hardware already, it's just not as automotive as Asimov's robots were).
The rules are nifty, made for great fiction, and have some good ethics behind them. But that doesn't mean they're realistic.
For one thing, I can damn well assure you that the military has no interest in them.
I've been doing a lot of DIY projects around my house and I'm starting to get fidgity... because I don't have a copy of the NEC. According to my city's ordinances:
So by your wording (and my city's), I'd assume that the NEC doesn't become a public document (assuming that it was published as "City of Roswell Building Codes" and not as "NEC as referenced by
I also have an issue with refering to copyrighted works as law... it prevents citizens from accessing large parts of the law that they are supposed to comply with. Lack of knowledge of the law is not a defense -- but that presumes that the knowledge was freely available in the first place.
By the way, if Congressman Joe Blowhard reads the latest Stephen King novel into the Congressional Record, does it thereby become non-copyrighted? (Of course, you would have to title it "Joe Blowhard reading Stephen King's..." when you republished it.)
Yup, especially since Representatives and Senators cannot be prosecuted for anything while on record in the House/Senate - including libel and slander. There have been numerous efforts to get someone to read the DeCSS code into the Congressional record, thus making it public domain and impossible to prosecute (assuming, of course, that you got the source from the Congressional record).
Been to? Hell, I used to work at one. Lovely fab safety classes -- "If you ignore the gas leak alarm, please try to die within 6 feet of the door. That's how long the pole hook is to drag your body out."
Not to mention the horror stories about HF (watch your bones melt!), phosphine and other gasses which can kill you before you smell them (but the MSDS lists them as smelling like lemon... go figure), liquid scrubbers like Pirhana that meant no contacts (if the system backblasts the Pirhana would melt the contacts to your eyes), etc.
That said, this process will only eliminate Photolithography... which is the process that uses the fewest of these amazingly nasty chemicals from what I recall. But I worked mostly with PVD/CVD and etchers, so I could be wrong about Photo's chemical usage.
Rambus's council simply says they complied with the JEDEC rules and regulations -- which from everything I've read they did not.
What do you expect them to say? "Yes, our client ignored those very rules that you are now prosecuting us for anti-trust violations."
Note the reference to the Dell case. It's very much the same situation.
No, no, no... the anti-trust investigation has nothing to do with RDRAM.
It has everything to do with SDRAM and DDR.
Rambus was part of the JEDEC back when SDRAM standards were being developed. They withdrew shortly after the standards were being seriously discussed, but (allegedly) not before suggesting certain methods of doing things... which as it turns out they have patents on.
Part of being involved in JEDEC, as with most standards bodies, is playing fair. You don't recommend that a standard adopt a method that you own the patent on unless you have fully disclosed that patent and have agreed to reasonable licensing terms. Rambus didn't do this. That's the crux of the lawsuit. And they're pretty well screwed here - Dell tried this many years ago and got toasted - their patents were ruled invalid because of exactly the same thing.
RDRAM doesn't come into play. DDR does because DDR uses a lot of the same technologies that SDRAM does, which is where Rambus has its patent claims. Rambus allowed the standard(s) to be set, manufacturing to occur for a few years, and then served papers to every memory maker out there - telling them to either pay a royalty on these undisclosed patents or go to court for infringement. What amazes me is how many of the memory makers rolled over and played dead - only Micron, Infineon, and Hynix refused and counter-sued Rambus.
Rambus probably would still exist even without these patents, simply because of the inane deal that Intel upper management signed a few years ago. They're finally working their way out of that boondoggle... of course, in the meantime AMD has gained market presence largely due to that mistake.
How do you know he had a higher quality house? Everyone keeps saying this, but nobody has proven it
Well, the converse hasn't been proven true either. And while I bet that most people can point at DIY projects gone wrong, I'd also bet that they can point at new home construction gone wrong. I have a friend with a $300k house with $40-50k in rework that he'll have to have done - from the roof to the foundation. Because the builder/GC were scum and are using corporate veils to hide from prosecution. I can also point at my basement (prior to my moving in) and be in utter awe that the house didn't burn down from the "electrical" system they had done themselves.
This is not something you can just research. You have to have some skill. You have to know something about construction.
In house building in the US we don't train people. They learn on the job.
Those are two semi-contradictory statements. Clearly the workers didn't need to know anything to do the job, other than how to swing a hammer, use a saw, or whatever. Certainly in order to spot where the work is shoddy you need to know something about construction, and doing DIY projects is the best way to learn. I wouldn't recommend trying to be a GC on a first home - may as well try and write an entire OS from scratch as your first programming project.
That said, a good bit of what you need to know can be researched. It's called the local building code. Sure, you'll need some first hand knowledge to know what the hell the difference between hot and neutral is, but it still goes a long ways toward being a GC/inspector yourself.
A good inspector knows this and can save your ass too
If you mean the county inspectors, I assume you're joking... most of them just rubber stamp homes, particularly large developments. If you're talking about one you hire, they generally do a good job unless you make it clear that you don't really want to hear about any problems.
Nothing says even with a contractor you shouldn't be out there checking up on the work
Actually, everything says that you should be out there checking up on the work. But, frankly, if you have the time and organization skills then you probably can do the same job as the GC. But you have to be damn sure that you'll have the time and really know that you have the organizational skills. This isn't an area where you can afford to let the little things slide.
Yes, you can get mortgages for unbuilt structures. They have higher interest rates, but it's generally not a huge issue. They're pretty common. Go searching on some mortgage info sites if you really want details.
If your house isn't in a nice area, why did you buy that house in the first place?
The real estate mantra is "location, location, location" -- not "space, space, space". If you buy a nice home in a $100k neighborhood you can get just as much (if not more) ROI as if you buy a nice home in a $400k neighborhood.
Frankly, the OP was correct. Evaluate how much space you need, not how much house you can afford. Yes, they drive each other, but there's always flexibility. Too many people wind up in homes that have far more space than they need or can upkeep -- and then complain that they have no free time, money, etc. -- because all the money is being sucked down by their mortgage payment and all their time by the too-big house.
We need to do a code review in my shop, since we're approaching release on our project, but there's a slight issue... there are two coders on the project (myself and the senior coder), and we're the only ones in house that know C++ very well.
What do you do in that case? Self-reviewing the code is of questionable value -- since you tend to skim over the parts you wrote "because you know it works!".
Go over to AVS, read the HTPC forum, and read about the SB Live digital output. Yes, it works fine for a lot of people. Yes, it conforms to no standard known to man. And it causes weird problems with some pre-amps/receivers. There are some indications that it may even damage them with long term use.
Yes, I refused to set foot in CC for a couple years thanks to the DivX crap. But they paid for it in the long run - $110M writeoff. That seriously impacted their bottom line for awhile.
Depends on your definition of "mainstream".
The M-Audio products do rival high end home theater systems -- maybe not Meridian, Lexicon, and their ilk, but a $1500 PC can easily replace a $1000 DVD player, a $1000 pre-amp, and a $2000 deinterlacer (actually it comes really close to replacing a $30k Farajouda or Snell and Wilcox).
You lose a good bit of ease-of-use still, and although some HTPC systems are available out-of-the-box, the best are still hand built, which takes a desire to putter with the computer.
7) Never bother getting a rain check at a Best Buy, you probably won't get a call back (unless you already have shown interest in a PSP).
Heh.
Tell me about it... I did finally get a TV I put on raincheck, but I had to just about grab the section manager by the balls and force it out of him. After a couple weeks I called daily and visited the store at least once a week.
After about 6 weeks they managed to "lose" my raincheck and claimed that there were now about 5 people ahead of me for the same TV. I convinced them otherwise, got the TV that day, and an additional 10% or so off an already low price.
Was it worth it? Hell no. Sadly, Circuit City and the other big box electronics stores suck just as badly.
Initially the debit card liability limit was the banking industry's attempt as you describe. I don't know that it's Federal Law yet either, although I suspect so since Clark Howard stopped campaigning against them on air.
Even so, you still have a lot more to lose with a debit card. Someone steals your credit card? Report it stolen, pay $50, fini. Your credit report isn't impacted, you get a new card, life moves on.
Someone steals your debit card? Now you're screwed. Sure, you can report it stolen and only be liable for $50, but that money is gone from your account and the bank has up to 10 business days (M-F) to restore it. Hope you don't need any cash for those 10 days. Or to write a check. Or have any bills already in the mail. Because there's nothing you can do - except maybe borrow cash from a credit card and pay those exorbitant finance rates. If a check bounces then you get hit on your credit report, along with getting hit with additional fees. Get them reimbursed? Maybe. Depends on your bank - they aren't under any requirement to reimburse you those fees. And how much more paperwork is that going to be?
Fact of the matter is, no matter what your bank says, credit cards are still safer than debit cards. If you can't handle a credit card and keep spending yourself into debt, fine, use a debit. But otherwise avoid them like the plague -- they're only good for the bank. Not for you.
This is theoretically what QSound does. I remember hearing a demo several years ago at COMDEX, but haven't heard anything using it since.
The Philips card in the review did use QSound, and the reviewer liked it. Shrug.