Having driven a heavily-loaded big rig over the Grapevine, I can attest that slow cars are worse than anything short of a rockslide. When you're climbing a steep grade, every bit of the 1800 foot lbs of torque that Cummins engine is putting out is being used to get that big ass up the hill - and down it. If you have to slow down because granny can't find the gas, you have to downshift. Shifting gears in a truck isn't like shifting in a car - you either have to double-clutch, or you have to match your RPMs to your transmission speed _exactly_, or it won't go into gear - and double-clutching only works within a band of RPMs. If you're over- or under-revved, it's not going into gear, and that big dog will flat out stop and start rolling backwards if you don't recover quickly enough when you're going uphill - if you're going down, granny just started a new career as a hood ornament.
Yes, trucks have brakes. Brakes on trucks are not designed to hold a load on a hill, they're designed to stop the truck, fully loaded, on dry, flat pavement. If the truck or pavement does not match those conditions, it will take longer to stop the truck. Yes, a truck-trailer combination weighing 40,000 lbs can take longer to stop than a truck-trailer combination weighing 80,000 lbs.
Trucks are designed to be slowed on a grade by the engine brake - that thing that makes the loud brp-brp-brp-brp-brp-brpbrpbrpbrpBRPBRPBRPBRP! noise when he's rolling through town. If it's not in gear, and it's on a grade, it's not stopping. Period.
Off the subject a bit, but still related: Consider, when you see a sign in your town that says "engine brakes not permitted" or some similar ordinance, that trucks cannot safely brake in anything other than perfect conditions without using an engine brake. Also consider that semi-tractors do not have DOT crash safety requirements, and that only in the last 3 years have any trucks ever been manufactured (Freightliner Cascadia and International ProStar) that come close to meeting the crash-safety requirements for passenger vehicles - including rollover and crush tests. Consider that the ordinance in question may very well be ignored by a seasoned driver - and may very well kill the inexperienced driver who is scared he'll lose his CDL when the local yokels haul him in because his truck was too noisy for your manicured lawns. My first week driving a truck solo I almost set my trailer on fire coming into Salt Lake City from the east - because I didn't want to break the no engine brake ordinance. I expect the sirens and commotion did as much to shatter the peace and quiet of suburban SLC than my engine brakes would have done, if not more, and I'm sure it cost the local taxpayers - the ones who voted for that ordinance - quite a bit more than my loud passing would have. I got lucky, and I learned from the experience - but the next guy might not.
Screw that, we'll be UltraEnvironCapitalists and build the datacenter _on the surface of the Sun itself_. Then there's no need to pipe solar gases anywhere, they'll be massively abundant! As an added bonus, we'll put solar panels on all sides of the building and run a 100% off-the-grid cooling solution. This will be the most eco-friendly datacenter on the plan... er, in the worl... er. Ever conceived!
Besides, if we can't get oil pipelines working right, can you imagine the disaster if a solar gas pipeline burst?! There'd be hydrogen and helium and such all over the place! What a nightmare!
As the President of a Non-Major consulting firm (and underpaid Systems Engineer for an IT shop), I think you're full of shit. After reading your journal, it's obvious you have very few, if any, employees; those you do have are already underpaid; and you can't hack your way out of a paper bag - and don't even know how to google ("derp, how do I set up a LAMP server? Ask Slashdot! derp!". Seriously, I've worked for guys like you before, but not for long - I leave as soon as I see what scumbags they are. Enjoy your massive turnover, and look in the mirror next time you wonder why Linux Admin #24 just no-call, no-showed on you.
I hadn't heard of lemonparty until this reply... thank you for helping me to scour what few optical receptors I have left from my eyeballs. No, really, thank you - if I can't see, I'm no longer chained to this desk...
With my luck, they'll have me dictate bash scripts to the hot chick who sits 15 feet in front of my office, knowing I won't be able to make lewd comments about her bra and panties not matching anymore...
Agreed - half of the reason I still hit/. on a daily basis is the comments. Some are truly informative, and some are simply comedy gold.:) Besides, clevernickname still comments from time to time, does he not?
I nuked a monitor once by transposing the horizontal and vertical modelines... man, it was crisp for about half a second, then *pop*! A learning experience, that one was...
I have a carabiner with a canvas loop and a threaded chain link on the loop. To that, I have one ring that is work keys (main door, side door, my office, colo, cabs, and VPN RSA fob), one ring that is personal keys (house, gate, mom's house, friend's house, Blizzard RSA fob), and one ring each for our two cars and the associated alarm fobs.
This enables me to remove one set of keys from the set when I need to pack light or loan out a set, and the carabiner - loop - link adds just enough link that I can put the whole mess in my pants pocket and still have it attached to a belt loop, if the jingle is a problem. I generally leave them out, because I don't get nearly as many complaints from people who think I'm sneaking up on them at work that way. *shrug*
Additionally, it makes a nice flail for self-defense.:)
The kit is the displays and plans for the in-wall frames, if I read the page correctly.
You provide your own MacOS X (10.5 or better) based computer. No one is forcing you to use his software, or buy a new Mac. You could Hackintosh it, or buy an older Mac off Craigslist (I have a G4 running 10.5 I got for $100.) You could write your own software for Linux, or Windows, or OS/2, or Haiku, then come back and submit your cool software to/. and crow about how much more open and free-er your software is than the guy trying to make a whopping $10 off software he wrote for his cool project using his own desktop computer, which happened to be a Mac, when people started asking him "hey, you gonna sell those? I'd buy one!".
While you're at it, add Natal and webcam tracking support to your free software. And 3d output support. Hell, add blowjobs and coke to the damn thing - you obviously don't have a problem with shooting this guy down, so instead of being a scum-sucking drag on society (aka middle management), go produce your own works, so we may assess you fairly and deem you his superior. Otherwise, you're just being a dick with a big mouth who puts down a guy for creating a totally badass way to experience the world outside his immediate surroundings because he did it on his Mac.
Where can I look at or buy one? I've heard a little about them (iPad killers, mainly, but not why), but I haven't seen them at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or (obviously) the nearby Apple Store. Do I need to drive to Dallas and check at Fry's? I'm sure if it's on the market, Fry's will have it...
Sounds like something AffordableColo / DTI would do when I worked for them (by them I mean him, the one guy who ran it and would _unplug_ servers just to reap fees for "rebooting crashed servers".) I quit after less than two months working for Mr. Charles Baker, and I've offered to testify in the class-action, should it come to fruition. Search webhostingtalk.com for cbaker17 if you really want to see how many customers he abused this way before the company folded.
Always research your hosting company before you do business with them. Always.
That being said, I'm hosting on Slicehost and have loved it since day one.
Funny, none of my iTunes music is in a DRM format. Are you stuck in 2005 or something? Not only that, but I took the 10 seconds to right click and choose "convert to MP3" whenever I purchased something that was DRM-locked, back in the stone age. Apple's iTMS servers can go down right this instant, and my iPhone will happily play whatever I've uploaded to it from my iTunes library, which includes several thousand non-iTunes obtained tracks, audiobooks, and video clips (suitably converted, of course). Connectivity isn't even required for me to add new items to iTunes, or to sync them to my phone - in fact, there's nothing other than the restriction that I use iTunes in the first place keeping me from putting any music or video I want on my iPhone.
Apps will also work if the DRM servers are down - and I can even reinstall them if I downloaded them to iTunes. Even if they don't exist anymore.
Which means that if Apple's DRM servers go down, all I'll be left with is a smartphone that can play any media I have already uploaded to it and run any app that I have already installed to it.
Oh. Noes.
If it's an automated system, yes. When you have a $10 check, the IRS assumes automatically that the server received a $1.50 tip - regardless of whether they got a $2 tip or a $.50 tip. At the end of their shift, they are given the opportunity to declare their tips - it's common practice to accept the 15% default as your declaration unless you're a horrible server; but declaring your true 5% will also flag the management system that you're not getting tipped correctly, so they'll usually pull you in for retraining or dismissal. It's a double-edged sword - lose your wages to the IRS or lose your job... At any rate, the tips are taxed and the taxes are deducted from the server's check at the end of the week, so it's in their best interest to declare the 15% and "forget" any discrepancy.
Aside from what the writer intended, that being "parish" is a subdivision of Louisiana, as a "county" is a subdivision of Texas or Tennessee - while federal sponsorship of religion is barred from the Constitution, that hasn't prevented it from happening. See HHS.gov for an example.
The fact it's a Celeron isn't the issue - the rest of the machine is substandard, commodity parts, shoved in consumer cases and crammed onto a breadrack. I knew before I worked at The Planet that this wasn't industry standard, and it's still not - the standard is to use full size server racks with 1U or greater servers, 1U switches, 1U networked power supplies (instead of a serial port hack that flips the power jumper on the motherboard - which, albeit a cool hack, is a Bad Idea), and hot & cold aisles. I'm not talking about zip tying cables in place - I'm talking about zip tying a 24 port switch and a series of $7 Wal-Mart power strips to the underside of a bread rack so you can literally fit as much CPU per square foot as possible - reliability be damned.
Either way, the relevance to the conversation was that we were told to root a customer's box if they had a hardware complaint and wouldn't give us the root password to make sure it wasn't the software, which resulted in quite a few customers getting emails from Frank Castle and forfeiting their fees and server lease. It's just bad business, in my opinion, and it's why I left The Planet after 6 months.
This is SOP at The Planet - which hosts on the cheapest commodity hardware they can hack together. MiniATX with Celeron procs, all stacked together on a bread rack. The switches are zip-tied to the racks, as are the power strips.
My NDA has long since expired - I'm open to answering questions via email if anyone has them.
BadAsstronomer seems to have picked up on a TV station's assertion that it was a russian ICBM test launch - it's certainly pretty, but unfortunately, not the black hole the LHC was supposed to bring us. Bastards.
....not if the neighbor is somehow still able to instantly take over the car, take care of his business, and then leave the car in your care until he needs it again.
Slashdot Mirror
Having driven a heavily-loaded big rig over the Grapevine, I can attest that slow cars are worse than anything short of a rockslide. When you're climbing a steep grade, every bit of the 1800 foot lbs of torque that Cummins engine is putting out is being used to get that big ass up the hill - and down it. If you have to slow down because granny can't find the gas, you have to downshift. Shifting gears in a truck isn't like shifting in a car - you either have to double-clutch, or you have to match your RPMs to your transmission speed _exactly_, or it won't go into gear - and double-clutching only works within a band of RPMs. If you're over- or under-revved, it's not going into gear, and that big dog will flat out stop and start rolling backwards if you don't recover quickly enough when you're going uphill - if you're going down, granny just started a new career as a hood ornament.
Yes, trucks have brakes. Brakes on trucks are not designed to hold a load on a hill, they're designed to stop the truck, fully loaded, on dry, flat pavement. If the truck or pavement does not match those conditions, it will take longer to stop the truck. Yes, a truck-trailer combination weighing 40,000 lbs can take longer to stop than a truck-trailer combination weighing 80,000 lbs.
Trucks are designed to be slowed on a grade by the engine brake - that thing that makes the loud brp-brp-brp-brp-brp-brpbrpbrpbrpBRPBRPBRPBRP! noise when he's rolling through town. If it's not in gear, and it's on a grade, it's not stopping. Period.
Off the subject a bit, but still related: Consider, when you see a sign in your town that says "engine brakes not permitted" or some similar ordinance, that trucks cannot safely brake in anything other than perfect conditions without using an engine brake. Also consider that semi-tractors do not have DOT crash safety requirements, and that only in the last 3 years have any trucks ever been manufactured (Freightliner Cascadia and International ProStar) that come close to meeting the crash-safety requirements for passenger vehicles - including rollover and crush tests. Consider that the ordinance in question may very well be ignored by a seasoned driver - and may very well kill the inexperienced driver who is scared he'll lose his CDL when the local yokels haul him in because his truck was too noisy for your manicured lawns. My first week driving a truck solo I almost set my trailer on fire coming into Salt Lake City from the east - because I didn't want to break the no engine brake ordinance. I expect the sirens and commotion did as much to shatter the peace and quiet of suburban SLC than my engine brakes would have done, if not more, and I'm sure it cost the local taxpayers - the ones who voted for that ordinance - quite a bit more than my loud passing would have. I got lucky, and I learned from the experience - but the next guy might not.
"Snowball Fight Goes Too Far - man killed when sno-cone stand owner drop largest sno-cone ever made on passerby"
Screw that, we'll be UltraEnvironCapitalists and build the datacenter _on the surface of the Sun itself_. Then there's no need to pipe solar gases anywhere, they'll be massively abundant! As an added bonus, we'll put solar panels on all sides of the building and run a 100% off-the-grid cooling solution. This will be the most eco-friendly datacenter on the plan... er, in the worl... er. Ever conceived!
Besides, if we can't get oil pipelines working right, can you imagine the disaster if a solar gas pipeline burst?! There'd be hydrogen and helium and such all over the place! What a nightmare!
He drafted the comment in MS Word, which spellchecked and autocorrected "linux" as "Windows". Nothing to see here, move along...
As the President of a Non-Major consulting firm (and underpaid Systems Engineer for an IT shop), I think you're full of shit. After reading your journal, it's obvious you have very few, if any, employees; those you do have are already underpaid; and you can't hack your way out of a paper bag - and don't even know how to google ("derp, how do I set up a LAMP server? Ask Slashdot! derp!". Seriously, I've worked for guys like you before, but not for long - I leave as soon as I see what scumbags they are. Enjoy your massive turnover, and look in the mirror next time you wonder why Linux Admin #24 just no-call, no-showed on you.
I hadn't heard of lemonparty until this reply... thank you for helping me to scour what few optical receptors I have left from my eyeballs. No, really, thank you - if I can't see, I'm no longer chained to this desk...
With my luck, they'll have me dictate bash scripts to the hot chick who sits 15 feet in front of my office, knowing I won't be able to make lewd comments about her bra and panties not matching anymore...
Agreed - half of the reason I still hit /. on a daily basis is the comments. Some are truly informative, and some are simply comedy gold. :) Besides, clevernickname still comments from time to time, does he not?
Let government dictate a few large things (dismantling of itself) and leave everything else up to the states.
FTFY.
I nuked a monitor once by transposing the horizontal and vertical modelines... man, it was crisp for about half a second, then *pop*! A learning experience, that one was...
At least I don't have to find 40 floppies to do the install...
I have a sort of dual approach:
:)
I have a carabiner with a canvas loop and a threaded chain link on the loop. To that, I have one ring that is work keys (main door, side door, my office, colo, cabs, and VPN RSA fob), one ring that is personal keys (house, gate, mom's house, friend's house, Blizzard RSA fob), and one ring each for our two cars and the associated alarm fobs.
This enables me to remove one set of keys from the set when I need to pack light or loan out a set, and the carabiner - loop - link adds just enough link that I can put the whole mess in my pants pocket and still have it attached to a belt loop, if the jingle is a problem. I generally leave them out, because I don't get nearly as many complaints from people who think I'm sneaking up on them at work that way. *shrug*
Additionally, it makes a nice flail for self-defense.
The kit is the displays and plans for the in-wall frames, if I read the page correctly.
You provide your own MacOS X (10.5 or better) based computer. No one is forcing you to use his software, or buy a new Mac. You could Hackintosh it, or buy an older Mac off Craigslist (I have a G4 running 10.5 I got for $100.) You could write your own software for Linux, or Windows, or OS/2, or Haiku, then come back and submit your cool software to /. and crow about how much more open and free-er your software is than the guy trying to make a whopping $10 off software he wrote for his cool project using his own desktop computer, which happened to be a Mac, when people started asking him "hey, you gonna sell those? I'd buy one!".
While you're at it, add Natal and webcam tracking support to your free software. And 3d output support. Hell, add blowjobs and coke to the damn thing - you obviously don't have a problem with shooting this guy down, so instead of being a scum-sucking drag on society (aka middle management), go produce your own works, so we may assess you fairly and deem you his superior. Otherwise, you're just being a dick with a big mouth who puts down a guy for creating a totally badass way to experience the world outside his immediate surroundings because he did it on his Mac.
Where can I look at or buy one? I've heard a little about them (iPad killers, mainly, but not why), but I haven't seen them at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or (obviously) the nearby Apple Store. Do I need to drive to Dallas and check at Fry's? I'm sure if it's on the market, Fry's will have it...
Thank you for the link. I've been thinking about reviving the Whigs... glad someone beat me to it.
Sounds like something AffordableColo / DTI would do when I worked for them (by them I mean him, the one guy who ran it and would _unplug_ servers just to reap fees for "rebooting crashed servers".) I quit after less than two months working for Mr. Charles Baker, and I've offered to testify in the class-action, should it come to fruition. Search webhostingtalk.com for cbaker17 if you really want to see how many customers he abused this way before the company folded.
Always research your hosting company before you do business with them. Always.
That being said, I'm hosting on Slicehost and have loved it since day one.
Funny, none of my iTunes music is in a DRM format. Are you stuck in 2005 or something? Not only that, but I took the 10 seconds to right click and choose "convert to MP3" whenever I purchased something that was DRM-locked, back in the stone age. Apple's iTMS servers can go down right this instant, and my iPhone will happily play whatever I've uploaded to it from my iTunes library, which includes several thousand non-iTunes obtained tracks, audiobooks, and video clips (suitably converted, of course). Connectivity isn't even required for me to add new items to iTunes, or to sync them to my phone - in fact, there's nothing other than the restriction that I use iTunes in the first place keeping me from putting any music or video I want on my iPhone. Apps will also work if the DRM servers are down - and I can even reinstall them if I downloaded them to iTunes. Even if they don't exist anymore. Which means that if Apple's DRM servers go down, all I'll be left with is a smartphone that can play any media I have already uploaded to it and run any app that I have already installed to it. Oh. Noes.
Where else? Applebee's. You also got docked for not having enough "flair".
Seriously.
If it's an automated system, yes. When you have a $10 check, the IRS assumes automatically that the server received a $1.50 tip - regardless of whether they got a $2 tip or a $.50 tip. At the end of their shift, they are given the opportunity to declare their tips - it's common practice to accept the 15% default as your declaration unless you're a horrible server; but declaring your true 5% will also flag the management system that you're not getting tipped correctly, so they'll usually pull you in for retraining or dismissal. It's a double-edged sword - lose your wages to the IRS or lose your job... At any rate, the tips are taxed and the taxes are deducted from the server's check at the end of the week, so it's in their best interest to declare the 15% and "forget" any discrepancy.
Aside from what the writer intended, that being "parish" is a subdivision of Louisiana, as a "county" is a subdivision of Texas or Tennessee - while federal sponsorship of religion is barred from the Constitution, that hasn't prevented it from happening. See HHS.gov for an example.
The fact it's a Celeron isn't the issue - the rest of the machine is substandard, commodity parts, shoved in consumer cases and crammed onto a breadrack. I knew before I worked at The Planet that this wasn't industry standard, and it's still not - the standard is to use full size server racks with 1U or greater servers, 1U switches, 1U networked power supplies (instead of a serial port hack that flips the power jumper on the motherboard - which, albeit a cool hack, is a Bad Idea), and hot & cold aisles. I'm not talking about zip tying cables in place - I'm talking about zip tying a 24 port switch and a series of $7 Wal-Mart power strips to the underside of a bread rack so you can literally fit as much CPU per square foot as possible - reliability be damned.
Either way, the relevance to the conversation was that we were told to root a customer's box if they had a hardware complaint and wouldn't give us the root password to make sure it wasn't the software, which resulted in quite a few customers getting emails from Frank Castle and forfeiting their fees and server lease. It's just bad business, in my opinion, and it's why I left The Planet after 6 months.
This is SOP at The Planet - which hosts on the cheapest commodity hardware they can hack together. MiniATX with Celeron procs, all stacked together on a bread rack. The switches are zip-tied to the racks, as are the power strips.
My NDA has long since expired - I'm open to answering questions via email if anyone has them.
Shoot the pilot and the driver of the beer truck, then push the button labeled "autopilot". Those things will land themselves these days.
You forgot the obligatory goatse link...
BadAsstronomer seems to have picked up on a TV station's assertion that it was a russian ICBM test launch - it's certainly pretty, but unfortunately, not the black hole the LHC was supposed to bring us. Bastards.
....not if the neighbor is somehow still able to instantly take over the car, take care of his business, and then leave the car in your care until he needs it again.
Where are my teleporters, dammit!?