Keep your data sets separate from one another.
Create one for EACH sort of report you'll need to generate, and have it hold ONLY the necessary kinds of info sufficient for the report as defined.
Create one more data set to track individual patrons by whatever information is necessary to manage memberships and temporarily hold source data that will be used used to synthesize data for the reporting.
Move and append the patron's *historical* data to the secondary sets as frequently as practical; lose as much granularity as you can while still meeting the report requirements. Synthesize your aggregate data (Census Block Group, etc.) in the secondary sets. Be sure and *remove* that used historical data from the patron data set once it is captured in the proper secondary data sets.
This way, you will generate the trend info you need, while still insulating individuals from too strong an association to it. And you should still leave just enough historical info in the patron data set to manage memberships/access rights/whatever.
The trick is to move the behavior analysis info away from the identification info regularly and make sure the association is one-way only.
And if that's too confusing, I blame it on the late (GMT -500) hour.
Any (BRM) card larger than those dimensions is charged the applicable First-Class Mail letter rated.
I guess the response to this is to hit the local Kinkos. Reproduce the BRM on card stock, enlarging it so that it is *just barely* over the (C100) limit for size. Then mail those copies back from various boxes around the city.
Just make sure you remove any personally identifying information. Tear your name/address off the top of any credit card applications or service request forms. The sprites at the receiving end may decide that your creativity deserves some creativity in return, and treat it as a completed application. Then you can say hello to MORE junk mail, and headaches involved in cancelling services.
Instead of trying to make it too heavy, try to make it too thick. Fold the stuff up a bunch before you put it in the envelope. You probably need to anyways, because reply-return envelopes are often smaller than the accompanying documentation. Get everything in there, including the envelope they sent it to you in. If you can make it puffy like a pillow you'll almost guarantee that it will take special handling and cost the recipient more postage. It's easier than trying to find scrap iron to fit in the envelope.
I think flat scrap iron would be the thing. That way it will fit *inside* the envelope. See this article for more info about what you might be likely to get away with mailing. And be sure to give your postal servant a small box of chocolates as a thanks.
Generally, bulbs seem to go for about $1 per hour of rated lifetime, with a slight break at the higher end of the scale. (This is probably a psychological hump in the market, kind of like how , back in the early/mid 90's, hard drive space stayed at $1/meg for a long time before it dropped quickly after finally breaking through)
Cheap bulbs (like for transparency-style overhead projectors) that are used in the bottom-of-the-line video projectors go for about $50 and last about 50 hours.
More expensive bulbs for 1000+ lumens projectors will cost $250 - $350 and last 250 - 500 hours of use.
There are certainly more expensive bulbs for more expensive systems, and they probably have a better $/hour ratio, but they've been outside of the range I usually spec for, so I'm not as familiar with them.
You can buy projectors that just do video or ones that just do SVGA. But most these days will do both. The electronics to accept S-Video and/or video & audio line-in isn't that big an extra effort for the equipment. Spend more than about $3k on a "computer" projector and you'd have to try to get one that doesn't take at least some form of video input.
Make sure to get one that has good ratings for Lumens/Brightness and Contrast Ratio. The higher ratings will ensure that you don't have to shut too many curtains to be able to see the image.
You'll pay for that, though. Both in the projector's cost (at least $2k) and the cost of replacement bulbs ($200-$400). Sure, you can buy lower-line projectors for under $1k, with their bulbs being standard halogen bulbs (like for transparency overhead projectors) that are only about $50. But the bulb-life is low enough that you'll probably spend as much in replacements over the long run. And then you really will have to darken the room to see anything.
You can improve the situation by getting reflective white paint, like the kind used in fire-plugs. Paint your primary viewing surface with it. It'll work just like a projector screen and probably be cheaper and more convenient.
Also, get one that can be used for both video and SVGA (at least 800x600 native). You'll be the hit of any LAN party!
"M-Class" describes more than just size. You need atmosphere, abundant water, and an ecosystem of some sort, to name a few other charactersitics.
How is a planet-sized object going to keep a reasonable temperature range, to support all those conditions, when it is orbiting around a NON-fusioning, almost-sun-sized body? Sure, there is that other sun in the system, but the view of it would be occluded by the brown dwarf for probably too great a percentage of a time. Gonna get pretty cold then. Kinda hard to support complex plant life when all the water is frozen.
On the other side, there's perihelion, where the moon/planet is between the dwarf and the sun, and a whole lot closer. Now all the water is steam.
Then there's the tidal forces. You know, the cause of IO's molten sulphur volcanoes...
This is an issue of semantics. The problem is comparing copyleft, which is a specific license, with copyright, which is a more general abstract legal principle.
There are multiple laws and precedents that frame what copyright (currently) is. There are two specifically worded licenses that make up copyleft (GPL & LGPL).
A better comparison would be between copyleft/GPL and any other specific license for software use. Like, say, the MS click-wrap license for VisualBasic. Or the license that MS agreed to with Spyglass for the Mosaic code. Those licenses have *plenty* of restrictions in them. You could easily describe the huge chunk of change that MS has had to pay Spyglass for even the *free* copies of IE as being a symptom of that license's "viral" nature.
If I want to take a piece of GPL'd code [...] I have to license under...
And if you use some other piece of code that is under a different license, you have to follow the rules and restrictions of THAT license.
Using GPL code (that may possibly have it's copyright assigned to the FSF) does not necessitate that you assign your copyright to the FSF.
The interplay here is that copylefted items are *still copyrighted*. Copyleft (the GPL) just inverts the usual restrictions that licenses typically place on copyrighted work.
A more precise, but clunkier title would have been:
copyleft no more viral than other license restrictions built on copyrights
In fact, it WAS worrying them. That's one of the reasons why they are merging with Time/Warner.
That's the cable half of your question. As far as DSL goes... DSL still necessitates having a network provider on the other end of the line. AOL is in for that as well.
The pipe is only *part* of the equation. AOL is as successful as they are primarily because of the easy-to-handle, no-rough-edges-or-sharp-corners, all-in-one-easy-to-use-package *content*. Content which is just delivered *faster* when Harry Homeowner decides to sign up for a fatter pipe, which WILL be available to AOL (so he doesn't have to change his email addresses).
What about the huge campus they have out near Dulles?
The one that got them in so much trouble because it obviously cost so much more than they could afford in their "official" budget? Nothing like a little ostentation for a secret agency.
almost every US mass transit system was in public recievership by the early 1970s anyway.
That's because most politicans have looked at transit companies as being the same as any other kind of business. This sort of thing is happening to Amtrak right now. Congress wants Amtrak to lose their subsidies and become "self sufficient" by 2004. Like they are going to be able to do that without cutting back service even further.
Imagine if some senator said the same thing about the interstate highway system, or tried to remove the programs that keep gasoline so cheap. Every road funded only by it's own tolls and gas at the world average of $4.50 per gallon would certainly make transit look like a bargain!
Oh no! Paying taxes into transit is an evil, anti-free-market socialist subsidy. Propping up cheap gas and paving evermore countryside, why that's good for EVERYONE!
You can get "1-meter" images through a fairly intuitive navigation interface at The Terraserver (a Micro$oft-owned property).
MS got copies of US Geological Survey maps and "1-meter" satellite photos and has scanned them and wrapped them in a slightly over-complicated website. Coverage is pretty good for most of the US, and even for other parts of the world (don't know if USGS is the data-source outside of the US). The survey maps are mostly circa 1981-1992, and the "1-meter" photos are ~ 1988-1996.
I put "1-meter" in quotes because the resolution of many of the shots seems to be worse than that. If you compare the above referenced image against the terraserver photo of the Washington Monument, it is obvious that terraserver's isn't as good. Though, judging by the scaffolding apparent on the monument, the image at NCSU is about 3 or so years more recent, and may benefit from superior "1-meter" technology.
Terraserver recently got "SPIN-2" satellite images, though I've never used them, because the interface seems to demand JavaScript and an image-viewing plugin (CleverContent) that I haven't bothered with getting/checking for security issues.
There are some holes in the satellite coverage for the US, and the places where USGS maps overlap don't always get the best treatment. Twice I've wanted to look at places that were covered up by the key from one map, when they could obviously have been displayed from an adjacent map. Still, for a free (beer) service it isn't so bad.
it's probably too much hassle to go after everyone individually in their own state or country.
Country, maybe. State, definitely not.
Legal proceedings like this are as much about "sending a message" (which sounds so much more defensible than "trying to create a chilling effect") as they are about punishing specific offenders. How deeply will that message resound if it seems to have an unspoken "only if you live in California" appended to it?
While it would be an additional effort for [MPAA, RIAA, LMNOP] to file against multiple defendents in multiple states, it would be worth it to them because it proves that they are serious and even suggests that they are indefatigable. Other countries maybe be a bit of a reach. The difference in legal systems is larger in that case, so lawsuits-as-an-offensive-weapon may not be as feasible a strategy. They may still repeat their attempts to get foreign law enforcement to do some dirty work for them.
... a decent sized slip in the stock price could really snowball on them.
Would that be the 25% slip ($80 -> $60) in the past 4 months, or the the 50% slip ($120 -> $60) in the past year?
While it is true that M$ does play the stock buyback game pretty well to keep optioned coders happy, that isn't their only trick. I'm sure they do the same thing AOL did for a handful of important new hires while I was there. Re-nice the strike price after the stock suffered a bit of a downturn. Suddenly your options' start price is today's new low instead of last month's high peak. The company takes a bit of a hit on it, but it does keep people from walking.
Plus, the climb on the other side of the MSFT Jan '00 peak was just as fast as the fall has been, so most options are still up from their strike. Don't blame M$ if you didn't have the foresight to unload as much as BillG did back then.
Spam reminds me of someone breaking into my house to write commercial messaages on my sticky-notes and paste them to the middle of my monitor, and then yelling at me because my pen's running out of ink. "How dare you let your pen run out of ink? I need to use that pen to save trees and exercise my right of free speech!":P
Reminds you? This has actually happened to you before?
This is the sort of analysis that industries typically do on themselves, and occasionally that trade publications turn into a USA Today-style chart to fill out an issue, or to illustrate an Op-Ed piece. Thus far, the raw data is not publicly available. At least not electronically. You can always go through Computer Shopper with a scanner/OCR.:)
Your big difficulties will come from decisions as to how specific you get and how long you track prices. How many variations on the Pentium processor are there? MMX, Pro, II, III, various Celerons... all the different clock speeds. I can still get my hands on a P200MMX, but the prices vary depending on the cluefulness of the folks at each "remarketer". In the secondhand market, local supply demand curves play a stronger role because prices are so low that it doesn't pay to ship too far.
Do you want to track components as individual commodities, or include integrated systems? What about the incomplete systems that you can pick up at the monthly blowout at the fairgrounds? You know, the white boxer run by the recent Eastern European immigrant. No hard drive means no Micro$soft tax. How do you compare those against complete Gateways? What about MSN/AOL rebates?
Sure, it is do-able. But you'll need to do a lot of thinking about data acquisition / organization / cleaning.
Re:politicians' email addresses
on
Spambot Poisoner
·
· Score: 1
However, it might be worthwhile to set up a bunch of forwarding addresses that don't end in.gov that you could supply to the spammers that would forward all the spam to everyone in congress.
500 Quatloos to the first person who bigfoots every email on Capitol Hill!
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Keep your data sets separate from one another. Create one for EACH sort of report you'll need to generate, and have it hold ONLY the necessary kinds of info sufficient for the report as defined. Create one more data set to track individual patrons by whatever information is necessary to manage memberships and temporarily hold source data that will be used used to synthesize data for the reporting.
Move and append the patron's *historical* data to the secondary sets as frequently as practical; lose as much granularity as you can while still meeting the report requirements. Synthesize your aggregate data (Census Block Group, etc.) in the secondary sets. Be sure and *remove* that used historical data from the patron data set once it is captured in the proper secondary data sets.
This way, you will generate the trend info you need, while still insulating individuals from too strong an association to it. And you should still leave just enough historical info in the patron data set to manage memberships/access rights/whatever.
The trick is to move the behavior analysis info away from the identification info regularly and make sure the association is one-way only.
And if that's too confusing, I blame it on the late (GMT -500) hour.
I guess the response to this is to hit the local Kinkos. Reproduce the BRM on card stock, enlarging it so that it is *just barely* over the (C100) limit for size. Then mail those copies back from various boxes around the city.
Be sure to use gloves. (-:
Let's see ... View Source:
Yup, he's wacked out on FrontPage.
Just make sure you remove any personally identifying information. Tear your name/address off the top of any credit card applications or service request forms. The sprites at the receiving end may decide that your creativity deserves some creativity in return, and treat it as a completed application. Then you can say hello to MORE junk mail, and headaches involved in cancelling services.
Instead of trying to make it too heavy, try to make it too thick. Fold the stuff up a bunch before you put it in the envelope. You probably need to anyways, because reply-return envelopes are often smaller than the accompanying documentation. Get everything in there, including the envelope they sent it to you in. If you can make it puffy like a pillow you'll almost guarantee that it will take special handling and cost the recipient more postage. It's easier than trying to find scrap iron to fit in the envelope.
I think flat scrap iron would be the thing. That way it will fit *inside* the envelope. See this article for more info about what you might be likely to get away with mailing. And be sure to give your postal servant a small box of chocolates as a thanks.
Cheap bulbs (like for transparency-style overhead projectors) that are used in the bottom-of-the-line video projectors go for about $50 and last about 50 hours.
More expensive bulbs for 1000+ lumens projectors will cost $250 - $350 and last 250 - 500 hours of use.
There are certainly more expensive bulbs for more expensive systems, and they probably have a better $/hour ratio, but they've been outside of the range I usually spec for, so I'm not as familiar with them.
Make sure to get one that has good ratings for Lumens/Brightness and Contrast Ratio. The higher ratings will ensure that you don't have to shut too many curtains to be able to see the image.
You'll pay for that, though. Both in the projector's cost (at least $2k) and the cost of replacement bulbs ($200-$400). Sure, you can buy lower-line projectors for under $1k, with their bulbs being standard halogen bulbs (like for transparency overhead projectors) that are only about $50. But the bulb-life is low enough that you'll probably spend as much in replacements over the long run. And then you really will have to darken the room to see anything.
You can improve the situation by getting reflective white paint, like the kind used in fire-plugs. Paint your primary viewing surface with it. It'll work just like a projector screen and probably be cheaper and more convenient.
Also, get one that can be used for both video and SVGA (at least 800x600 native). You'll be the hit of any LAN party!
"M-Class" describes more than just size. You need atmosphere, abundant water, and an ecosystem of some sort, to name a few other charactersitics.
How is a planet-sized object going to keep a reasonable temperature range, to support all those conditions, when it is orbiting around a NON-fusioning, almost-sun-sized body? Sure, there is that other sun in the system, but the view of it would be occluded by the brown dwarf for probably too great a percentage of a time. Gonna get pretty cold then. Kinda hard to support complex plant life when all the water is frozen.
On the other side, there's perihelion, where the moon/planet is between the dwarf and the sun, and a whole lot closer. Now all the water is steam.
Then there's the tidal forces. You know, the cause of IO's molten sulphur volcanoes...
This is an issue of semantics. The problem is comparing copyleft, which is a specific license, with copyright, which is a more general abstract legal principle.
There are multiple laws and precedents that frame what copyright (currently) is. There are two specifically worded licenses that make up copyleft (GPL & LGPL).
A better comparison would be between copyleft/GPL and any other specific license for software use. Like, say, the MS click-wrap license for VisualBasic. Or the license that MS agreed to with Spyglass for the Mosaic code. Those licenses have *plenty* of restrictions in them. You could easily describe the huge chunk of change that MS has had to pay Spyglass for even the *free* copies of IE as being a symptom of that license's "viral" nature.
And if you use some other piece of code that is under a different license, you have to follow the rules and restrictions of THAT license.Using GPL code (that may possibly have it's copyright assigned to the FSF) does not necessitate that you assign your copyright to the FSF.
The interplay here is that copylefted items are *still copyrighted*. Copyleft (the GPL) just inverts the usual restrictions that licenses typically place on copyrighted work.
A more precise, but clunkier title would have been:
copyleft no more viral than other license restrictions built on copyrights
Does anybody know if dsl/cable is worrying AOL?
In fact, it WAS worrying them. That's one of the reasons why they are merging with Time/Warner.
That's the cable half of your question. As far as DSL goes... DSL still necessitates having a network provider on the other end of the line. AOL is in for that as well.
The pipe is only *part* of the equation. AOL is as successful as they are primarily because of the easy-to-handle, no-rough-edges-or-sharp-corners, all-in-one-easy-to-use-package *content*. Content which is just delivered *faster* when Harry Homeowner decides to sign up for a fatter pipe, which WILL be available to AOL (so he doesn't have to change his email addresses).
What about the huge campus they have out near Dulles?
The one that got them in so much trouble because it obviously cost so much more than they could afford in their "official" budget? Nothing like a little ostentation for a secret agency.
No, wait. I'm thinking of the NRO.
They're the folks who didn't officially exist until a few years back, when someone FOIA'd em out of hiding.
Silly, don't you remember, she was the kicky marxist MTV newsbot who asked Bill Clinton whether he wore "boxers or briefs?"
A better question would be, who the fuck is the loneliest monk?
almost every US mass transit system was in public recievership by the early 1970s anyway.
That's because most politicans have looked at transit companies as being the same as any other kind of business. This sort of thing is happening to Amtrak right now. Congress wants Amtrak to lose their subsidies and become "self sufficient" by 2004. Like they are going to be able to do that without cutting back service even further.
Imagine if some senator said the same thing about the interstate highway system, or tried to remove the programs that keep gasoline so cheap. Every road funded only by it's own tolls and gas at the world average of $4.50 per gallon would certainly make transit look like a bargain!
Oh no! Paying taxes into transit is an evil, anti-free-market socialist subsidy. Propping up cheap gas and paving evermore countryside, why that's good for EVERYONE!
Don't get me started on "Interstate" 99 (The Bud Shuster Porkway).
You can get "1-meter" images through a fairly intuitive navigation interface at The Terraserver (a Micro$oft-owned property).
MS got copies of US Geological Survey maps and "1-meter" satellite photos and has scanned them and wrapped them in a slightly over-complicated website. Coverage is pretty good for most of the US, and even for other parts of the world (don't know if USGS is the data-source outside of the US). The survey maps are mostly circa 1981-1992, and the "1-meter" photos are ~ 1988-1996.
I put "1-meter" in quotes because the resolution of many of the shots seems to be worse than that. If you compare the above referenced image against the terraserver photo of the Washington Monument, it is obvious that terraserver's isn't as good. Though, judging by the scaffolding apparent on the monument, the image at NCSU is about 3 or so years more recent, and may benefit from superior "1-meter" technology.
Terraserver recently got "SPIN-2" satellite images, though I've never used them, because the interface seems to demand JavaScript and an image-viewing plugin (CleverContent) that I haven't bothered with getting/checking for security issues.
There are some holes in the satellite coverage for the US, and the places where USGS maps overlap don't always get the best treatment. Twice I've wanted to look at places that were covered up by the key from one map, when they could obviously have been displayed from an adjacent map. Still, for a free (beer) service it isn't so bad.
it's probably too much hassle to go after everyone individually in their own state or country.
Country, maybe. State, definitely not.
Legal proceedings like this are as much about "sending a message" (which sounds so much more defensible than "trying to create a chilling effect") as they are about punishing specific offenders. How deeply will that message resound if it seems to have an unspoken "only if you live in California" appended to it?
While it would be an additional effort for [MPAA, RIAA, LMNOP] to file against multiple defendents in multiple states, it would be worth it to them because it proves that they are serious and even suggests that they are indefatigable. Other countries maybe be a bit of a reach. The difference in legal systems is larger in that case, so lawsuits-as-an-offensive-weapon may not be as feasible a strategy. They may still repeat their attempts to get foreign law enforcement to do some dirty work for them.
So much for the eBook version of the documentation for my program debugger.
Would that be the 25% slip ($80 -> $60) in the past 4 months, or the the 50% slip ($120 -> $60) in the past year?
While it is true that M$ does play the stock buyback game pretty well to keep optioned coders happy, that isn't their only trick. I'm sure they do the same thing AOL did for a handful of important new hires while I was there. Re-nice the strike price after the stock suffered a bit of a downturn. Suddenly your options' start price is today's new low instead of last month's high peak. The company takes a bit of a hit on it, but it does keep people from walking.
Plus, the climb on the other side of the MSFT Jan '00 peak was just as fast as the fall has been, so most options are still up from their strike. Don't blame M$ if you didn't have the foresight to unload as much as BillG did back then.
Are we ready for that kind of change in software development? In our learning models?
Mandatory certification?
Arresting folks for practicing software without a license? Will clients have to suffer through the development equivalent of HMOs?
Reminds you? This has actually happened to you before?
there is "Welcome to the Internet Help Desk" by Three dead Trolls in a Baggie.
Not for free. Not yet.
This is the sort of analysis that industries typically do on themselves, and occasionally that trade publications turn into a USA Today-style chart to fill out an issue, or to illustrate an Op-Ed piece. Thus far, the raw data is not publicly available. At least not electronically. You can always go through Computer Shopper with a scanner/OCR. :)
Your big difficulties will come from decisions as to how specific you get and how long you track prices. How many variations on the Pentium processor are there? MMX, Pro, II, III, various Celerons... all the different clock speeds. I can still get my hands on a P200MMX, but the prices vary depending on the cluefulness of the folks at each "remarketer". In the secondhand market, local supply demand curves play a stronger role because prices are so low that it doesn't pay to ship too far.
Do you want to track components as individual commodities, or include integrated systems? What about the incomplete systems that you can pick up at the monthly blowout at the fairgrounds? You know, the white boxer run by the recent Eastern European immigrant. No hard drive means no Micro$soft tax. How do you compare those against complete Gateways? What about MSN/AOL rebates?
Sure, it is do-able. But you'll need to do a lot of thinking about data acquisition / organization / cleaning.
500 Quatloos to the first person who bigfoots every email on Capitol Hill!