I'm actually a bit torn on this issue. I understand the problems with squatters and would be frustrated if I were the coffee shop, but I love having the free wi-fi at our local coffee shops. I like the idea many are proposing with timed tickets and the like.
Coffee shops are in a delicate predicament when it comes to users. My fiance was once asked to leave a coffee shop for playing a board game there. They had chess boards at the shop, and my fiance and his friends had each bought more than $10 worth of food and drinks. Unfortunately, they were there at the time the coffee shop was trying to transition to a wine bar for the evening, and they would have harmed the "atmosphere."
Personally, I think what should really have us up in arms is the state of wifi at airports. They want something like $7/hour for their services! I know they can get it from business people, so it's a wise business decision (in a sense), but aren't airports bad enough these days? Give me a break.:-P
Two of the three computers I use don't have a floppy drive. If I wanted to read a floppy disk with them, I would need a rather large device. If I want to read information from my flash drive on the computer that only has USB ports in the back, I can buy a handy extension cable.
I have a 128MB San Disk Cruzer Micro that cost me $25. It's half the size of my friends' flash drives and works just as well.
While standards are nice, floppy drives are not standard anymore. The disks are too big and too easy to ruin. While USB ports may not always be easy to access, they are practically ubiquitous.
I don't think dollar coins will be successful until the dollar bills are removed from circulation. I remember reading about this somewhere, and it seems that in other countries, widespread use of larger coins didn't pick up until the corresponding notes were taken off the market.
We have a change machine near our vending machines that returns dollar coins. All of the vending machines accept them, so I frequently have a few dollar coins. I've never had trouble with cashiers accepting them, but they do generally give them a second look. I think the Sacagawea coins are fine--a completely different color.
What does it mean if you DO perform well on high-pressure tests such as the GRE?
And for me, I would say that I do well on that sort of thing because I look at it as a game.
Recently, I have actually felt pressured (first-year in grad school), and my tests have suffered as a result. I am making mistakes that I normally wouldn't make. Part of the problem for me is that we have to use these tiny test booklets that only let you do about 1/3 of a problem on a page. I find myself obsessing about whether I copied everything from one page to the next correctly. Ugh.
Asimov (maybe I Robot would be a good choice with the crappy movie out), Stephenson, Gibson, Nevin, etc.
I just started reading Ringworld, and I absolutely love it.
For the physicist/chemist/engineer in your life, I'd recommend the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. It's a great reference, and a book we would rarely buy for ourselves...
I didn't go into all the article details, but the thing did claim that you would still be able to conduct fair use copying.
I think the movie companies are delusional. There are so many uses they don't consider. For example, I only use copies of my CDs in my car. The car CD player tends to scratch the disc when I am blindly shoving them toward the slot, and this way, if they're stolen, I don't have to replace them.
I think the problem here was that you were hoping for an Oscars-type awards show, when the previews clearly indicated it would be more on the level of Grammies/People's Choice. I like the idea of a games award show, too, but realistically, anything the televise (especially on the so-called "television for men" channel) is going to go after the teeny-boppers and dolts. They have money, and it's easy to entertain and please them.
More and more, I am seeing that my elementary school must have been an oddity in the US. We were a public school in a small town in TN, of all places, but it was extremely progressive. There was a mix of rote- and practical learning taught at each level. In second grade, we learned the multiplication tables up to 12s, had regular 4M (100 questions in less than 4 minutes) tests, and spent a large amount of time on accounting. We even learned some (very) basic algebra. Throughout elementary school, we had these math projects that involved physical objects, and our tests were generally in word-problem form. Then, in fifth grade, all the kids who were good at math were sent to learn pre-algebra and algebra 1 through interactive computer programs while the other kids got more hands-on help with their math woes. And at some point, we had fraction-based space-invaders computer games to play in between learning segments...
Someday, maybe I'll tell you all about our phys. ed., art, and music programs. =)
I am a woman in mechanical engineering, and last I checked, there are fewer women in my field than in EE. Still, I am tired of hearing about how women don't go into tech fields because of oppression or a lack of role models. Why the heck should we need a role model to encourage us to do something that we naturally enjoy?! Oppression may have played a role in the past, but my boyfriend's GREAT grandmother was a successful surgeon, so even in the early 1900s, women could succeed with determination. I think what limits women is their desire to fit in, to look pretty, and to avoid being seen as too brainy in school. Or maybe we just don't generally like tech jobs. But from the moment I decided to go into engineering, I've had an advantage over all the guys.
I believe that NBC is starting ER early because the show has been consistently losing to Without a Trace this season, but the Apprentice has been a big success. Recently, it seems that not only does ER start earlier, but they go longer before the first break, meaning that it might be 10 minutes before a commercial. At that point, you would no longer be able to follow Without a Trace, so the incentive to keep with ER is higher.
Either you've told your friends about Linux, and they're excited, or this will be coming out of the blue.
If it's the former, then a CD seems like a good bet, but be sure to include directions about how to change the boot order. Several of my computers have needed slight BIOS changes. I thought FC3 was really easy to install and to set up.
If it's the latter, why not just send a glossy brochure to introduce them Linux, stressing all the fun things? Offer to help install it on site.
Generally speaking, you could always vote absentee to avoid using the computer system. Then there would be a paper trail. The problem is that the absentee ballots often go uncounted unless the election is otherwise too close to call. I imagine that if they implemented the ability to choose between paper/pen and computers on election day, the results would be similar. With our desire for instant results, only the computer results would be counted automatically, with all the paper ballots reserved for close races.
We actually had that policy at Michelin too. I don't have any qualms about businesses banning all photographic equipment. After all, trade secret legislation is not easy. Michelin was nice in that it had regular training sessions explaining what a trade secret is and why it's important to follow their draconian confidentiality policy (every thing you do there, including emails asking your coworkers where they want to go to lunch, is supposed to include a confidentiality code)...
The Supreme Court has acknowledged that minors have their First Amendment rights several times (First Amendment and Public Schools), though in dealing with school-sponsered activities, high school teachers have more authority, and high schools can choose to censor school newspapers. from my understanding of the law, if high school students chose to launch an independent newspaper and distribute it in school, the paper would no longer be part of a "supervised learning experience" and would therefore be protected by the First Amendment.
Furthermore, the Court has protected minors' right to privacy in dealing with abortion. It is constitutional to pass laws requiring all minors to obtain parental consent before receiving an abortion if and only if the young woman may bypass the requirement through a judicial review.
As I recall from my high school days, we were told that when schools conduct drug searches using dogs, etc, they are only allowed to open lockers if the dogs have indicated there are drugs present or if they have a reasonable suspicion based on other evidence. I believe I did some research at the time and found this to be the same for adults in the workplace.
So to conclude, I think it's unreasonable and ill-informed to continue this stigma that students have no real rights. Even if their rights are limited in some situations, our children need to be taught the importance of the Constitution and their rights.
My concern was that it could pick up a cell phone that was turned off, as mine would be, with my brain thinking similarly to the poster who said he had the impression the light would bounce off a lens. I suppose it would probably need to be out for that, but I don't think that it would be hard to justify that. I know a lot of guys who keep their phones in their pockets... Not a comfortable thing if you're sitting for two hours...
Well, first, there's no need to interrupt all the innocent movie goers' enjoyment of the movie, and second, the article pointed out that the cameras can detect cell phones with cameras. It would be possible to be identified as a bootlegger without recording anything. I'd like to think they would check to make sure you weren't just coming from Disney with the kids. But then, maybe the technology only works when the camera is recording. I didn't really understand the subtleties from the article.
If you had taken/seen the computer-based GRE, you would know ETS went out of its way to make a platform-independent test environment. The word processor, for example, had some functions common to MS Word, but not all of them were. It did not superficially resemble Word, Emacs, or any other text editor I'm familiar with.
Back in my hometown (Rock Hill, SC), a local music shop (Woody's) has a used record bin up front. The records in the bin are $1 each. Granted, you won't find any new stuff out there, but if you have a record player and like the poppinp and crackling of vinyl, you can really make out. Even better, I've discovered jazz and rock artists this way--a whole album for the cost of a soda!
You might want to follow these tips outlined by electoral-vote:
Find out today where your polling place is by calling your county clerk or checking mypollingplace.com
Alternatively, call 1-866-MYVOTE1 to find your polling place.
Check the hours the polls are open with your city or county clerk.
Print the League of Women Voters' card in English or Spanish and put it in your wallet or purse.
Bring a government-issued picture ID like a driver's license or passport when you vote. Some states require it but if there are problems, you will certainly need it. If you have a cell phone, take it to call for help if need be.
As you enter the polls, note if there is an Election Protection person outside the polling place.
If you are not listed as a registered voter, try to register on the spot. Some states allow that. Otherwise, talk to the Election Protection person if there is one or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE for instructions. If neither of these helps, ask for a provisional ballot, but you will need a picture ID to get one.
According to Democracy Now, voting tricks abound in states like Florida and Ohio, so try to arm yourself (against both sides) if you live in one of these states.
I would not consider myself "hooked" on background noise, but I do find that I am a much more productive worker when I have some instrumental music (generally jazz or classical) in the background. It definitely helps me concentrate. Why? Because when there is a little noise, you don't notice things like creaky floors, people walking through the halls, cars on the streets, and all the other intermittent noises we are subjected to and can't avoid every day. A little music not only filters out this noise, but it helps me set a rhythm. So while I do generally find anything with voices distracting, I think it's awfully unfair to accuse the rest of us of never "fully" concentrating.
Did you miss the comment about identifying protestors? I'll quote it for you: "RFID tags inside driver's licenses will make it easy for government agents with readers to sweep large areas and identify protestors participating in a march, for example." As long as you have the permits (if it's a large march), and you're doing it peacefully, you aren't doing anything wrong when you're protesting. But if the police can now get a full list of the protestors' names and addresses at a large protest (RNC comes to mind), it'll be all the easier for them to charge you with something like disturbing the peace, simply for asserting your first amendment rights.
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I'm actually a bit torn on this issue. I understand the problems with squatters and would be frustrated if I were the coffee shop, but I love having the free wi-fi at our local coffee shops. I like the idea many are proposing with timed tickets and the like.
:-P
Coffee shops are in a delicate predicament when it comes to users. My fiance was once asked to leave a coffee shop for playing a board game there. They had chess boards at the shop, and my fiance and his friends had each bought more than $10 worth of food and drinks. Unfortunately, they were there at the time the coffee shop was trying to transition to a wine bar for the evening, and they would have harmed the "atmosphere."
Personally, I think what should really have us up in arms is the state of wifi at airports. They want something like $7/hour for their services! I know they can get it from business people, so it's a wise business decision (in a sense), but aren't airports bad enough these days? Give me a break.
Two of the three computers I use don't have a floppy drive. If I wanted to read a floppy disk with them, I would need a rather large device. If I want to read information from my flash drive on the computer that only has USB ports in the back, I can buy a handy extension cable.
I have a 128MB San Disk Cruzer Micro that cost me $25. It's half the size of my friends' flash drives and works just as well.
While standards are nice, floppy drives are not standard anymore. The disks are too big and too easy to ruin. While USB ports may not always be easy to access, they are practically ubiquitous.
I don't think dollar coins will be successful until the dollar bills are removed from circulation. I remember reading about this somewhere, and it seems that in other countries, widespread use of larger coins didn't pick up until the corresponding notes were taken off the market.
We have a change machine near our vending machines that returns dollar coins. All of the vending machines accept them, so I frequently have a few dollar coins. I've never had trouble with cashiers accepting them, but they do generally give them a second look. I think the Sacagawea coins are fine--a completely different color.
What does it mean if you DO perform well on high-pressure tests such as the GRE?
;-)
And for me, I would say that I do well on that sort of thing because I look at it as a game.
Recently, I have actually felt pressured (first-year in grad school), and my tests have suffered as a result. I am making mistakes that I normally wouldn't make. Part of the problem for me is that we have to use these tiny test booklets that only let you do about 1/3 of a problem on a page. I find myself obsessing about whether I copied everything from one page to the next correctly. Ugh.
But then maybe I'm just crazy.
Asimov (maybe I Robot would be a good choice with the crappy movie out), Stephenson, Gibson, Nevin, etc.
I just started reading Ringworld, and I absolutely love it.
For the physicist/chemist/engineer in your life, I'd recommend the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. It's a great reference, and a book we would rarely buy for ourselves...
I didn't go into all the article details, but the thing did claim that you would still be able to conduct fair use copying.
I think the movie companies are delusional. There are so many uses they don't consider. For example, I only use copies of my CDs in my car. The car CD player tends to scratch the disc when I am blindly shoving them toward the slot, and this way, if they're stolen, I don't have to replace them.
They just need a better business plan.
Storeys is an acceptable variant of "story."
You see, the idea is to make robots better drivers than we are. Then, when you buy your new Accord, for a "small" upgrade, you'll get a chauffeur!
I think the problem here was that you were hoping for an Oscars-type awards show, when the previews clearly indicated it would be more on the level of Grammies/People's Choice. I like the idea of a games award show, too, but realistically, anything the televise (especially on the so-called "television for men" channel) is going to go after the teeny-boppers and dolts. They have money, and it's easy to entertain and please them.
Well, our tests started with the times (and division tables) all the way up to 12. We also had 3M, 2M, and 1M markers (and some sort of reward).
More and more, I am seeing that my elementary school must have been an oddity in the US. We were a public school in a small town in TN, of all places, but it was extremely progressive. There was a mix of rote- and practical learning taught at each level. In second grade, we learned the multiplication tables up to 12s, had regular 4M (100 questions in less than 4 minutes) tests, and spent a large amount of time on accounting. We even learned some (very) basic algebra. Throughout elementary school, we had these math projects that involved physical objects, and our tests were generally in word-problem form. Then, in fifth grade, all the kids who were good at math were sent to learn pre-algebra and algebra 1 through interactive computer programs while the other kids got more hands-on help with their math woes. And at some point, we had fraction-based space-invaders computer games to play in between learning segments...
Someday, maybe I'll tell you all about our phys. ed., art, and music programs. =)
I am a woman in mechanical engineering, and last I checked, there are fewer women in my field than in EE. Still, I am tired of hearing about how women don't go into tech fields because of oppression or a lack of role models. Why the heck should we need a role model to encourage us to do something that we naturally enjoy?! Oppression may have played a role in the past, but my boyfriend's GREAT grandmother was a successful surgeon, so even in the early 1900s, women could succeed with determination. I think what limits women is their desire to fit in, to look pretty, and to avoid being seen as too brainy in school. Or maybe we just don't generally like tech jobs. But from the moment I decided to go into engineering, I've had an advantage over all the guys.
Neil Stephenson has. It's called Snow Crash.
I believe that NBC is starting ER early because the show has been consistently losing to Without a Trace this season, but the Apprentice has been a big success. Recently, it seems that not only does ER start earlier, but they go longer before the first break, meaning that it might be 10 minutes before a commercial. At that point, you would no longer be able to follow Without a Trace, so the incentive to keep with ER is higher.
Either you've told your friends about Linux, and they're excited, or this will be coming out of the blue.
If it's the former, then a CD seems like a good bet, but be sure to include directions about how to change the boot order. Several of my computers have needed slight BIOS changes. I thought FC3 was really easy to install and to set up.
If it's the latter, why not just send a glossy brochure to introduce them Linux, stressing all the fun things? Offer to help install it on site.
Generally speaking, you could always vote absentee to avoid using the computer system. Then there would be a paper trail. The problem is that the absentee ballots often go uncounted unless the election is otherwise too close to call. I imagine that if they implemented the ability to choose between paper/pen and computers on election day, the results would be similar. With our desire for instant results, only the computer results would be counted automatically, with all the paper ballots reserved for close races.
We actually had that policy at Michelin too. I don't have any qualms about businesses banning all photographic equipment. After all, trade secret legislation is not easy. Michelin was nice in that it had regular training sessions explaining what a trade secret is and why it's important to follow their draconian confidentiality policy (every thing you do there, including emails asking your coworkers where they want to go to lunch, is supposed to include a confidentiality code)...
The Supreme Court has acknowledged that minors have their First Amendment rights several times (First Amendment and Public Schools), though in dealing with school-sponsered activities, high school teachers have more authority, and high schools can choose to censor school newspapers. from my understanding of the law, if high school students chose to launch an independent newspaper and distribute it in school, the paper would no longer be part of a "supervised learning experience" and would therefore be protected by the First Amendment.
Furthermore, the Court has protected minors' right to privacy in dealing with abortion. It is constitutional to pass laws requiring all minors to obtain parental consent before receiving an abortion if and only if the young woman may bypass the requirement through a judicial review.
As I recall from my high school days, we were told that when schools conduct drug searches using dogs, etc, they are only allowed to open lockers if the dogs have indicated there are drugs present or if they have a reasonable suspicion based on other evidence. I believe I did some research at the time and found this to be the same for adults in the workplace.
So to conclude, I think it's unreasonable and ill-informed to continue this stigma that students have no real rights. Even if their rights are limited in some situations, our children need to be taught the importance of the Constitution and their rights.
My concern was that it could pick up a cell phone that was turned off, as mine would be, with my brain thinking similarly to the poster who said he had the impression the light would bounce off a lens. I suppose it would probably need to be out for that, but I don't think that it would be hard to justify that. I know a lot of guys who keep their phones in their pockets... Not a comfortable thing if you're sitting for two hours...
Well, first, there's no need to interrupt all the innocent movie goers' enjoyment of the movie, and second, the article pointed out that the cameras can detect cell phones with cameras. It would be possible to be identified as a bootlegger without recording anything. I'd like to think they would check to make sure you weren't just coming from Disney with the kids. But then, maybe the technology only works when the camera is recording. I didn't really understand the subtleties from the article.
If you had taken/seen the computer-based GRE, you would know ETS went out of its way to make a platform-independent test environment. The word processor, for example, had some functions common to MS Word, but not all of them were. It did not superficially resemble Word, Emacs, or any other text editor I'm familiar with.
Back in my hometown (Rock Hill, SC), a local music shop (Woody's) has a used record bin up front. The records in the bin are $1 each. Granted, you won't find any new stuff out there, but if you have a record player and like the poppinp and crackling of vinyl, you can really make out. Even better, I've discovered jazz and rock artists this way--a whole album for the cost of a soda!
You might want to follow these tips outlined by electoral-vote:
Find out today where your polling place is by calling your county clerk or checking mypollingplace.com
Alternatively, call 1-866-MYVOTE1 to find your polling place.
Check the hours the polls are open with your city or county clerk.
Print the League of Women Voters' card in English or Spanish and put it in your wallet or purse.
Bring a government-issued picture ID like a driver's license or passport when you vote. Some states require it but if there are problems, you will certainly need it. If you have a cell phone, take it to call for help if need be.
As you enter the polls, note if there is an Election Protection person outside the polling place.
If you are not listed as a registered voter, try to register on the spot. Some states allow that. Otherwise, talk to the Election Protection person if there is one or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE for instructions. If neither of these helps, ask for a provisional ballot, but you will need a picture ID to get one.
According to Democracy Now, voting tricks abound in states like Florida and Ohio, so try to arm yourself (against both sides) if you live in one of these states.
I would not consider myself "hooked" on background noise, but I do find that I am a much more productive worker when I have some instrumental music (generally jazz or classical) in the background. It definitely helps me concentrate. Why? Because when there is a little noise, you don't notice things like creaky floors, people walking through the halls, cars on the streets, and all the other intermittent noises we are subjected to and can't avoid every day. A little music not only filters out this noise, but it helps me set a rhythm. So while I do generally find anything with voices distracting, I think it's awfully unfair to accuse the rest of us of never "fully" concentrating.
Did you miss the comment about identifying protestors? I'll quote it for you: "RFID tags inside driver's licenses will make it easy for government agents with readers to sweep large areas and identify protestors participating in a march, for example." As long as you have the permits (if it's a large march), and you're doing it peacefully, you aren't doing anything wrong when you're protesting. But if the police can now get a full list of the protestors' names and addresses at a large protest (RNC comes to mind), it'll be all the easier for them to charge you with something like disturbing the peace, simply for asserting your first amendment rights.