When I moved to Pennsylvania last year, I applied for new insurance on my new car and house in that state. My insurance company explicity stated that they will use my credit history as a basis for insurance premiums. To be more specific, they calculate a risk score based on information from your credit history. This is not your credit score. Some states do not permit insurers from doing this, but PA obviously does.
It's not based on credit, but risk, which is part of what an actuary deals with to set your insurance rates.
I've tried Drupal 5 and I can't see how anyone thinks it's intuitive. It's a mess. Particularly, the menu system is completely broken. It's non-dynamic, requiring a page load for each submenu to open. There are many (broken) plugins to fix this, but none I tried work. Joomla has a very, very nice menu and tab system.
For administration, Drupal 5 is another disaster. Nothing is organized logically, where as it is in Joomla and PostNuke. Granted, there are more modules for Drupal (which is what originally got me interested in it), but they seem to be of a lower quality than other CMS I've tried.
For my sites, I want to post family birthdays and photos. Drupal just can't handle this. There is a repeating event plugin, but it's has issues (read doesn't work reliably.) The categorization in Drupal is too primitive, granted there is a plugin, but it's buggy too. There are plugins for Coppermine (my photo album of choise) for Joomla, Xoops but not Drupal. While I did write one myself, that says something about the community.
The default Drupal template is pretty poor. PostNuke, Joomla and even Xoops are far nicer to look at. Heck, even my pet peeve phpBB is better to look at.
I haven't tried Drupal 5.1 yet, and may just to see what's new. I hope it got way better.
Basically, I've not found a CMS that can meet my needs for a family web portal thats FOSS and decent.
And the number one breakout hit of the season is Heroes, which was written exactly the way Jericho SHOULD have been written -- taking an exciting premise and actually exploring it.
Heroes is, IMHO, going the same way of Jericho. (Creating plot by making characters stupid.) For the last half of the season, we've been hunting Sylar. Sure, it was fun for a while, but it's ANNOYING now. Despite numerous ready-made opportunities to do away with him, inluding Dr. Dumb (that being Mohinder), who tried to kill him, failed, and then left Sylar unconcious on the floor! And in the season finale, we see Hero do a lame job at killing him (after all that talk of family honor and saving the world) and, Sylar escapes again (granted, he's wounded.)
Despite a near infinite amount of very cool things they could do, season 2 will likely be a reash of the last half of season 1: kill big bad Sylar. Bo-ring! I've about had it with Heroes, and I don't really care if it ever returns for season two.
Now, granted, Jericho had a worse case of writer errosion than Heroes, but it's spreading.
One has to wonder, with all the uproar about hacking from China into US Gov't computers, why don't they just block all the IP blocks in China? Download the list from APNIC, use something like Perl's Net::CIDR to merge the blocks and add to your firewall. It's rather easy...
Satellite phones also don't work when too many people have them and try to use them in an emergency. This was learned in LA during the fire storms. They aren't designed for a massive influx of calls. Sample applies to cell phones, but more so. (Around where I live, they can't handle rush hour!)
In the event of an emergency, all the fancy digital tunk systems tank, cell phones become overloaded, and folks revert to good old ham radio. The reason being, lots of hams maintain a good set of ready-to-go equipment. Plus many repeaters are emergency power capable, and even without repeaters, long distance communication can be achieved with humans repeating messages (e.g. on HF.)
Most of the major disasters end up using ham radio heavily: 9/11, the recent tsunami, the Space Shuttle explosion cleanup (not even the sheriff's radios worked in the back country of Texas), hurricanes, the list goes on. It allows people in the area to communicate, as well as communication OUTSIDE the disaster area. This latter point is sometimes the most essential component, since aid can be sent when requested. No request means no aid sometimes, or at least delayed aid.
I use my radios to talk to friends while vacationing in the middle of no where. With repeaters up on very large mountains, we can use the same repeater while being 200 miles apart. (And this us just VHF/UHF!) While hiking in the wilderness, I can generally get help if needed (no cell phones, and good luck with FRS!) In an emergency, my car can even be drafted into an emergency repeater parked up high on a peak.
With internet linking (IRLP, EchoLink) one can be driving along and talk with people from all over using an inexpensive hand held radio, or listen in on major events in other parts of the country.
In fact, as government rely more on commerical communication vendors and the Internet, I suspect ham radio is now more important than ever. Many local police and fire responders cannot talk with one another due to incompatible radios, so they end up drafting hams to bridge the two.
Ah, those were the days. I remember being excited to find a place in Nashua, NH that sold floppies for ONLY $1 each. Well, that was in the//e era. Back when you could disassemble the entire OS and actually understand it all in a few weeks.
Would require an entirely new protocol, to do bidirectional data.
X10 can do bidirectional traffic. I have several X10 devices that will confirm their status back to the controller so it knows when things are really on. Check SmartHome.com for all kinds of X10 devices to do both control and monitoring.
However, X10 is very unreliable and prone to data loss. It's a major pain to get it working for anything larger than a few units. Signals get lost and garbled regularly by all kinds of things. The bidirectional capability helps somewhat, but can only do so much.
But some brain-damaged people can't comprehend sarcasm...
We call them mods
But I'll bet none of the folks who modded your post up thought it included them.
Microsoft first announces a future major update to their Digitial Image suite, then ponder making it part of the OS. At the same time, they introduce their new Flash-competitor or do a marketing deal with Apple to include parts of QuickTime with Windows. Then watch Adobe's stock fall. Then buy the crumbs for $2/share.
I think people mean: this is a great example a post by someone who doesn't read the article.:-)
Personally, I'm all for adding cool new features to Mac OS. They will likely document them at some point.
Indeed, they are a generalization of Mac OS's resource fork, et al. However, they are all useless. Even Mac OS has largely abandoned resource forks for new applications. Instead, put it in a directory and call it a bundle. There really isn't any effective difference, except that programs like "tar" and the like know how to deal with directories and will properly manage bundles.
One of the worst april fools story was someone asking slashdot what kind of programing language turns them on sexually and sets the mood with their spouses.
Actually, have you seen the latest Acrobat Pro? For $450 (US) you get a buggy application with a horrible interface. The application barely lets you edit PDF files. I created a form earlier, when loaded into v7, it forced me to use their new Designer application that completely changed the format, screwed up all the fonts and doubled the size of the PDF (neither were compressed.) Now document conversion fails with a crypic and uninformative error message about the printer getting an error (i.e. their PDF driver). Fun from Adobe! They need competition.
Here in the US, depending on the frequency, a HAM can run 1500 W. However, there are rules as to how close the antenna can be to people (i.e your neighbours), which is also frequency dependent. (Dealing with the Specific Absorption Rate.)
However, it doesn't take much to get unlicensed thinkgs picking up stuff, particularly from HR, where the 1500 W limit does apply (and you can use a directional antenna.) Most equipment says on the back that use is subject to it receiving interference, even if it is harmful to the device. And cheap PC speakers would likely fit the bill.
Most HAMs follow the legal limits and RF exposure very, very well. (Or they can, and do, lose their license.)
I know that while driving and I use my mobile VHF rig while my wife is listening to her (cheap) CD player, she can here me talk, and the antenna is on the roof of the car.
The second is down, and mirror dot stubbornly refuses to mirror anything but the first page, which in this case is most of the interesting parts. Oh well...
Me too! I was an eWorld beta tester (still have an old t-shirt somewhere!) It was VERY empty, but I found a few friends there. I stopped as soon as my beta ran out, but by then the writing was on the wall. It was well executed from a software and GUI perspective, though, and I think about it on occassion.
Tip for budding entrepreneurs: don't try to crack the market by offering less for more.
All the more reason to get a ReplayTV! I love mine, which I've had for a few years after upgrading the hard drive to a 250 GB model. And DVArchive rocks: download shows and save them for later! Store a whole seasons worth on your PC and access them over the network from your ReplayTV unit.
And my favorite, FBTB.net for all the Star Wars LEGO fans.
I've been involved there for a few years. Good discussions and custom ships from the Star Wars universe. (Plus, a good way to keep up on the LEGO sales!)
What about the technology used in welding masks? Have some type of detector, and then very rapidly dim the window on the cockpit. 99.9999% of the time, it's transparent.
Slashdot Mirror
When I moved to Pennsylvania last year, I applied for new insurance on my new car and house in that state. My insurance company explicity stated that they will use my credit history as a basis for insurance premiums. To be more specific, they calculate a risk score based on information from your credit history. This is not your credit score. Some states do not permit insurers from doing this, but PA obviously does.
i tscoring/
It's not based on credit, but risk, which is part of what an actuary deals with to set your insurance rates.
A second of googling would reveal many sites talking about this, including: http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/cred
I've tried Drupal 5 and I can't see how anyone thinks it's intuitive. It's a mess. Particularly, the menu system is completely broken. It's non-dynamic, requiring a page load for each submenu to open. There are many (broken) plugins to fix this, but none I tried work. Joomla has a very, very nice menu and tab system.
For administration, Drupal 5 is another disaster. Nothing is organized logically, where as it is in Joomla and PostNuke. Granted, there are more modules for Drupal (which is what originally got me interested in it), but they seem to be of a lower quality than other CMS I've tried.
For my sites, I want to post family birthdays and photos. Drupal just can't handle this. There is a repeating event plugin, but it's has issues (read doesn't work reliably.) The categorization in Drupal is too primitive, granted there is a plugin, but it's buggy too. There are plugins for Coppermine (my photo album of choise) for Joomla, Xoops but not Drupal. While I did write one myself, that says something about the community.
The default Drupal template is pretty poor. PostNuke, Joomla and even Xoops are far nicer to look at. Heck, even my pet peeve phpBB is better to look at.
I haven't tried Drupal 5.1 yet, and may just to see what's new. I hope it got way better.
Basically, I've not found a CMS that can meet my needs for a family web portal thats FOSS and decent.
Heroes is, IMHO, going the same way of Jericho. (Creating plot by making characters stupid.) For the last half of the season, we've been hunting Sylar. Sure, it was fun for a while, but it's ANNOYING now. Despite numerous ready-made opportunities to do away with him, inluding Dr. Dumb (that being Mohinder), who tried to kill him, failed, and then left Sylar unconcious on the floor! And in the season finale, we see Hero do a lame job at killing him (after all that talk of family honor and saving the world) and, Sylar escapes again (granted, he's wounded.)
Despite a near infinite amount of very cool things they could do, season 2 will likely be a reash of the last half of season 1: kill big bad Sylar. Bo-ring! I've about had it with Heroes, and I don't really care if it ever returns for season two.
Now, granted, Jericho had a worse case of writer errosion than Heroes, but it's spreading.
One has to wonder, with all the uproar about hacking from China into US Gov't computers, why don't they just block all the IP blocks in China? Download the list from APNIC, use something like Perl's Net::CIDR to merge the blocks and add to your firewall. It's rather easy...
Probably about as well as Windows Media Player on the desktop.
Well, I work for a national laboratory, and we DO give our IT people their own private office with locking door.
Satellite phones also don't work when too many people have them and try to use them in an emergency. This was learned in LA during the fire storms. They aren't designed for a massive influx of calls. Sample applies to cell phones, but more so. (Around where I live, they can't handle rush hour!)
Indeed, the same holds true in the US.
In the event of an emergency, all the fancy digital tunk systems tank, cell phones become overloaded, and folks revert to good old ham radio. The reason being, lots of hams maintain a good set of ready-to-go equipment. Plus many repeaters are emergency power capable, and even without repeaters, long distance communication can be achieved with humans repeating messages (e.g. on HF.)
Most of the major disasters end up using ham radio heavily: 9/11, the recent tsunami, the Space Shuttle explosion cleanup (not even the sheriff's radios worked in the back country of Texas), hurricanes, the list goes on. It allows people in the area to communicate, as well as communication OUTSIDE the disaster area. This latter point is sometimes the most essential component, since aid can be sent when requested. No request means no aid sometimes, or at least delayed aid.
I use my radios to talk to friends while vacationing in the middle of no where. With repeaters up on very large mountains, we can use the same repeater while being 200 miles apart. (And this us just VHF/UHF!) While hiking in the wilderness, I can generally get help if needed (no cell phones, and good luck with FRS!) In an emergency, my car can even be drafted into an emergency repeater parked up high on a peak.
With internet linking (IRLP, EchoLink) one can be driving along and talk with people from all over using an inexpensive hand held radio, or listen in on major events in other parts of the country.
In fact, as government rely more on commerical communication vendors and the Internet, I suspect ham radio is now more important than ever. Many local police and fire responders cannot talk with one another due to incompatible radios, so they end up drafting hams to bridge the two.
Ah, those were the days. I remember being excited to find a place in Nashua, NH that sold floppies for ONLY $1 each. Well, that was in the //e era. Back when you could disassemble the entire OS and actually understand it all in a few weeks.
X10 sucks. It can only turn on and off.
Would require an entirely new protocol, to do bidirectional data.
X10 can do bidirectional traffic. I have several X10 devices that will confirm their status back to the controller so it knows when things are really on. Check SmartHome.com for all kinds of X10 devices to do both control and monitoring.
However, X10 is very unreliable and prone to data loss. It's a major pain to get it working for anything larger than a few units. Signals get lost and garbled regularly by all kinds of things. The bidirectional capability helps somewhat, but can only do so much.
But some brain-damaged people can't comprehend sarcasm... We call them mods But I'll bet none of the folks who modded your post up thought it included them.
Just a shot in the dark, but I guess there server isn't bullet proof...
Microsoft first announces a future major update to their Digitial Image suite, then ponder making it part of the OS. At the same time, they introduce their new Flash-competitor or do a marketing deal with Apple to include parts of QuickTime with Windows. Then watch Adobe's stock fall. Then buy the crumbs for $2/share.
I think people mean: this is a great example a post by someone who doesn't read the article. :-)
Personally, I'm all for adding cool new features to Mac OS. They will likely document them at some point.
Indeed, they are a generalization of Mac OS's resource fork, et al. However, they are all useless. Even Mac OS has largely abandoned resource forks for new applications. Instead, put it in a directory and call it a bundle. There really isn't any effective difference, except that programs like "tar" and the like know how to deal with directories and will properly manage bundles.
if you want your news, why are you reading slashdot? ;)
Obviously, for the articulate commentary!
Many women like Pe[a]rl[s]... Nothing #, though.
Insert Python joke here...
Actually, have you seen the latest Acrobat Pro? For $450 (US) you get a buggy application with a horrible interface. The application barely lets you edit PDF files. I created a form earlier, when loaded into v7, it forced me to use their new Designer application that completely changed the format, screwed up all the fonts and doubled the size of the PDF (neither were compressed.) Now document conversion fails with a crypic and uninformative error message about the printer getting an error (i.e. their PDF driver). Fun from Adobe! They need competition.
Here in the US, depending on the frequency, a HAM can run 1500 W. However, there are rules as to how close the antenna can be to people (i.e your neighbours), which is also frequency dependent. (Dealing with the Specific Absorption Rate.)
However, it doesn't take much to get unlicensed thinkgs picking up stuff, particularly from HR, where the 1500 W limit does apply (and you can use a directional antenna.) Most equipment says on the back that use is subject to it receiving interference, even if it is harmful to the device. And cheap PC speakers would likely fit the bill.
Most HAMs follow the legal limits and RF exposure very, very well. (Or they can, and do, lose their license.)
I know that while driving and I use my mobile VHF rig while my wife is listening to her (cheap) CD player, she can here me talk, and the antenna is on the roof of the car.
KG6NWF (that other US call sign prefix, K.)
The second is down, and mirror dot stubbornly refuses to mirror anything but the first page, which in this case is most of the interesting parts. Oh well...
Me too! I was an eWorld beta tester (still have an old t-shirt somewhere!) It was VERY empty, but I found a few friends there. I stopped as soon as my beta ran out, but by then the writing was on the wall. It was well executed from a software and GUI perspective, though, and I think about it on occassion.
Tip for budding entrepreneurs: don't try to crack the market by offering less for more.
All the more reason to get a ReplayTV! I love mine, which I've had for a few years after upgrading the hard drive to a 250 GB model. And DVArchive rocks: download shows and save them for later! Store a whole seasons worth on your PC and access them over the network from your ReplayTV unit.
And my favorite, FBTB.net for all the Star Wars LEGO fans.
I've been involved there for a few years. Good discussions and custom ships from the Star Wars universe. (Plus, a good way to keep up on the LEGO sales!)
Ah, but the sun is broad spectrum. Lasers aren't, so one could differentiate between the two.
What about the technology used in welding masks? Have some type of detector, and then very rapidly dim the window on the cockpit. 99.9999% of the time, it's transparent.