IF - The buyer is industry-related, but can keep the site unbiased. i.e. If it's a manufacturer, it would be fairly difficult to keep things neutral, but a *reseller* could remain neutral. To the right company, this could be worth a lot of money - There are a lot of eyeballs coming through every day, and it *is* kind of a niche. It would never be Yahoo!(tm), but you're not asking 10 figures either.
/. is actually a pretty good analogy to use. If VA Linux, Red Hat, or whoever had purchased/., it probably would have killed (or at least injured) the site. With Andover being somewhat related, but not having a direct vested interest, the site remains what made it valuable in the first place.
If you want to try to sell the site, point out the number of eyes going through daily. Check some of your competition and try to see what they are receiving by way of hits. If you're #1 or #3, that would be a good thing to point out to your buyer.
Finally, as long as the buyer is neutral(ish), I think there is a lot of room there for more banner income at any rate. And for a reseller, having buy/sell/trade on there would be mighty nice:)
Actually, last time I checked into it, it was illegal (except for certain very special circumstances) for a private individual to own anything larger than a 50 caliber weapon, except for muzzle loading historic arms... Which is why you never see a gun store with artillery for sale.
LOL - I had never thought of it that way... and it would've worked, 50 years ago, but with suitcase nukes, we need to be a bit more selective now:)
Re:No shortage up top - what about the ground floo
on
The IT Labor Shortage
·
· Score: 1
Tech Support and Help desk are not likely to improve unless employers recognize the importance of those positions. I have seen several listings around St. Louis by companies looking for help desk and/or tech support help, and wanting to pay $6-$8 per hour. Hmm...starting salary at friggin *Taco Bell* is $6+, more if you're not a dumbass. I know St. Louis is not the valley , but it is a major metro area, and with the current economy, you're lucky to find a warm body with 42 chromosomes for $6 an hour. *That's* why staffing involves pulse and being able to say 'computer'. Anyone with even half a brain will find an MCSE program or something similar & come out far ahead. Which takes us back to underqualified uppper positions - hmm, I'm starting to ramble.
Okay - you touched on my favorite thing about the job market. I love to see help wanted ads that list something like "5 years DHTML and XML experience blah, blah, blah" the ad is perfectly buzzword compliant, but no-one has bothered to mention to the idiot writing the ad that XML (or whatever) hasn't been around that long.
As far as I can tell, a lot of these ads are looking for either: a. The person who developed the whatever b. A time-traveller
And they wonder why they have trouble finding someone...Hey, they're offering 25-30k per year!
Just wanted to point out - The Beal engine they were discussing was for the *second* stage... The first stage engine is supposed to be 5 times as powerful. That would be ~4 million lbs of thrust. Very large indeed, and that would probably allow a first stage with 3-5 engines with some pretty hellish lifting capacity.
And while I agree in part about funding Energia restart, they weren't exactly known for reliability.
However, I do have to concede the point that the scalability is unproven, but I *hope* the first stage tests go well - it would be nice to get beyond the shuttle's lift capacity for a lot of things.
They don't review hundreds...but pretty good reviews IMHO on the ones they have done. Some of those cases are sold by http://www.thechipmerchant.com (Seems to be a pretty decent company to do business with)
.4 lbs ~ 160gm. (off the top of my head...it's not completely accurate, I know...)
And for the record, I thought the 7-up commercials took this one... The "Show Us Your Can" commercial was a riot, and watching a soda machine get hit by a semi was *too* funny. (Wish there had been instant-replay slow motion on that one!)
Willie Re:Fav Simpsons' moments (contribute!)
on
The Simpsons Turn 10
·
· Score: 1
My Favorite: The entire scene in the school with Santa's Little Helper in the air ducts:
Willie:"Lunchlady Doris, have ya' got any grease?" Lunchlady:Yep Willie:"Well, grease me up, woman" Lunchlady:"Okay-dokey" ...
Willie:"There's nary an animal that can outrun a greased scotsman!"
The odds are improving all the time with laser eye treatments, and there are some new things on the horizon to keep an eye out for.
I can't remember what program it was on, but I *think* it was one of the network nightly newscasts that did a feature on an engineering firm in Silicon Vally that is about to start trials on a new system. It appears to be some insanely precise machinery to control the laser more accurately. Their goal (and it looks good so far) is *not* 20/20 vision - they aim for 20/10...and in fact plan on marketing it to people with normal eyesight who would like legendary eyesight...
20/20 vision is *not* perfect vision - it's just the standard on the old eye chart from 1840's or 1850's (I think). BTW - apparently they have done some operations during research, and average about 20/12 vision...
To summarize, something like this sounds like a real advance - even if the surgery doesn't go quite right, you would still probably wind up with 20/20 or so - but, as with anything medical, there's always that chance...
According to http://www.iti.com/cgi-bin/iti-cgi-bin/mfs/01/Curr ent/Groups/Opposing/pri.html the "Population Research Institute" 'is a bogus organization set up by the Catholic Church to provide population mis-information.'
And http://205.177.10.11/agm/main/news/pri.htm says: 'In the past few days, opponents of the upcoming international family planning vote in Congress have been rallying around something called "Population Research Institute." Quotes from this organization have appeared in wire stories, newspapers and on television without mentioning just what "Population Research Institute" is. According to papers filed with the IRS, "Population Research Institute" is simply an arm of the infamous Human Life International (HLI) -- the venal ultra-right group that claims as its founder and board chairman the venomously anti-Semitic Paul Marx.'
Keep in mind that this organization is a moderately-radical "Pro-Life" organization. If you look around the site a bit, you find a *lot* of propaganda-type writing. Frankly, it reads a lot like some of the Catholic Church items on pro-life. They barely mention that they are using the *low* estimate for population.
Also: Check out the following statement (From http://www.pop.org/reports/facts.htm )
the population of the world will begin to plummet in a little over four decades. Between 2040 and 2050, the world's population will decrease by about 85 million.
Despite the alarmist tone, a reduction of 85 million out of a total of (estimated) 9-12 billion can hardly be called a plummet. Hmm...less than one percent. For most things, that is statistically insignificant.
I wonder how the U.N. likes their study being twisted in this fashion.
Not that anyone has to worry...a bunch of baby seals is more dangerous than the U.N.
Okay, that's enough...Just wanted to point out the bias there...
Should've looked closer at the preview. I have 2 finallys there. Sorry, I was taking phone calls at the same time. That came out less coherent than I thought, too.
I work for a group of DaimlerChrysler dealerships, and I find this development *potentially* interesting. For years, Chrysler has had a SCO based server in every dealership. Apart from some application bugginess on their side, the servers are reliable and stable.
However - They went with NT Workstation clients for the MDSII diagnostic system. I suspect a lack of beta testing and a few other items have contributed to continual problems with the things. They went web-based (using Java), and the stability just is not there. The clients crash as a matter of routine, and it took 6 months (here at least) to even get the machines to run the training software without crashing on lesson 3. I would *really* like to see someone give this a try for several reasons:
Longer hardware cycles - without NT crippling the machine, a *nix based client could last longer between upgrade/replacement.
Of course, Linux (*nix in general) has the advantage of being a lot more robust typically. We use a Linux proxy (squid) for web connect and other things, and it basically only gets rebooted with power outages. It's more or less the same with the other Non windows/*nix boxes around here (Irix, SCO, Solaris)
Yes, there are a lot of relatively computer illiterate people out in the dealerships, but I see this as *more* of a reason to go with Linux. If the OS is rock solid, support primarily consists of application issues. That throws a lot of tech support calls out right there.
Finally, to those saying "buy more hard drives" and calculating $250 savings on Windows licenses, don't forget that it takes a lot less server (IMHO) to do the work with Linux. Add to that that Linux is better at multiple tasks, and you may very well wind up saving the cost of extra servers too. Where you might need 3 $10k Win servers to run web, database, e-mail, proxy, blah blah blah...one solid $5k Linux machine will probably do.
Finally, I expect dealerships to become *very* interested in systems that are more open than traditional proprietary solutions. Getting information between the in-house system, the manufacturers system, and the dealership's internal network should be easier...and it can be. Oops...sorry - that got a bit long winded.
Propulsion: I would think a stationary, counter-rotating dual blade ducted fan (to solve torque problem) with tubes would be a good way to propel it. Basically, have all the tubes open or closed all the time, but have a tiny wastegate in each to alter the airflow. I would think it could be made lighter than using separate fans for everything.
Another nifty device to have onboard would be a laser pointer: (remote): Dave, there is a serious oxygen leak over here! (Dave): Where? (remote): Right there! etc... some of those conversations would be much easier if the remote had a means of pointing to exactly what it was talking about.
As far as the voice recognition and control... since it costs about $10k per pound to get those astronauts up there in the first place, I think a ground controller could be paid to sit there & do nothing but watch the feedback from the remotes - if the remote is less than 90% certain what it's doing, he could clarify by keyboard...
I was thinking a compressed gas propulsion system might work, but it would need to be something that can be done with small, lower pressure cartridges (CO2 and Nitrous Oxide come to mind...but I'm not sure I'd want a half-dozen remotes hovering around me farting Carbon Dioxide or Laughing gas...)
A new project for Rob & Hemos...
on
BOFHcam
·
· Score: 2
The site is, of course, pretty thoroughly/.'ed - How about creating a 1-week time-lagged version of/. (slashdotted.org is available!)
That way, I could catch news off of/., but if it wasn't a link to a *major* site (NY Times, ABCNews, etc.), I could visit slashdotted.org daily to catch the links that are starting to come back from the/. airstrike...
Just an idea - would be easier than prowling through the archives...
Shooting a doctor who performs abortions, however, is.
Those are the laws in the U.S. - don't know where you're from, but thats the way it is here. Work to change the laws if you disagree, but it currently is not defined as murder.
Instead of changing the recognized power-of-two nomenclature, simply introduce a couple new units *for use with hard drives*
1 Kilobyte would still be 1024 bytes, etc.
The new units: Weaselbyte (WB) - 1,000,000,000 bytes (The HD industry Gig) Slimybyte (SB) - 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (When drives get that big)
Who knows - the HD manufacturers might get sick enough of having to say "The new standard in storage - the RonCo Flame Muffin 7200 RPM Hard Drive - Features Capacity up to 100 Weaselbytes!" that they would start reporting sizes like normal people.
I like the distributed movie rendering... but the distributed spider concept...wow.
That's something that could be *used* by anyone, every day. The big problem, of course, is the load on the on the host end. Unless someone had a boatload of cash to spork over, it would almost have to be done by someone established...
The primary alternative to Gore (G.W.Somethingorother) has absolutely no respect for the bill of rights either. Haven't heard that much about it lately, but his campaign has been Lawyer-nastygramming a lot of sites simply for the mention of his name...They even shut down a supporters site. Seems he has never heard of (or doesn't acknowledge) the first amendment. Of course, if it went to court, the site-owner would win, as it's valid commentary/satire/some form of protected speech...but I wouldn't be surprised if a few visits from the Secret Service occurred anyway.
Okay...the point (If you've read this far)
CONGRESS is the root of the problem - for some reason, they seem to feel a need to pass laws on everything. Repeatedly. Even when it is something that regulates itself quite well, they just can't keep their fingers out of it.
My suggestion: Voter rebellion - Don't *ever* vote for an incumbent - always vote for a challenger. If enough turnover is generated, we might start seeing normal people running, hopefully eliminating the professional politician class. If people with a job went to DC, did the job for 2, 4, or 6 years, they would probably at least be closer to the cluetrain than the existing taxpayer-supported leeches.
Wow..guess I'm getting a bit hostile towards our elected officials:)
Never shown onscreen...but in the text version of "Operation: Annihilate", the Enterprise (No bloody 'A') fired two "Planetbuster"(tm) Missiles and hosed a planet...and it was implied that these were pretty much standard issue...
Oh, and there's also the Genesis torpedo...
I suspect in Trek, there is more of a cold-war type standoff..everyone has planet-destroying weapons, but doesn't dare use them, whereas the Empire has diddle for enemies.
Slashdot Mirror
I think $250k is not unreasonable
/., it probably would have killed (or at least injured) the site. With Andover being somewhat related, but not having a direct vested interest, the site remains what made it valuable in the first place.
:)
IF - The buyer is industry-related, but can keep the site unbiased. i.e. If it's a manufacturer, it would be fairly difficult to keep things neutral, but a *reseller* could remain neutral. To the right company, this could be worth a lot of money - There are a lot of eyeballs coming through every day, and it *is* kind of a niche. It would never be Yahoo!(tm), but you're not asking 10 figures either.
/. is actually a pretty good analogy to use. If VA Linux, Red Hat, or whoever had purchased
If you want to try to sell the site, point out the number of eyes going through daily. Check some of your competition and try to see what they are receiving by way of hits. If you're #1 or #3, that would be a good thing to point out to your buyer.
Finally, as long as the buyer is neutral(ish), I think there is a lot of room there for more banner income at any rate. And for a reseller, having buy/sell/trade on there would be mighty nice
Actually, last time I checked into it, it was illegal (except for certain very special circumstances) for a private individual to own anything larger than a 50 caliber weapon, except for muzzle loading historic arms... Which is why you never see a gun store with artillery for sale.
LOL - I had never thought of it that way... and it would've worked, 50 years ago, but with suitcase nukes, we need to be a bit more selective now :)
Tech Support and Help desk are not likely to improve unless employers recognize the importance of those positions. I have seen several listings around St. Louis by companies looking for help desk and/or tech support help, and wanting to pay $6-$8 per hour. Hmm...starting salary at friggin *Taco Bell* is $6+, more if you're not a dumbass. I know St. Louis is not the valley , but it is a major metro area, and with the current economy, you're lucky to find a warm body with 42 chromosomes for $6 an hour. *That's* why staffing involves pulse and being able to say 'computer'. Anyone with even half a brain will find an MCSE program or something similar & come out far ahead. Which takes us back to underqualified uppper positions - hmm, I'm starting to ramble.
Okay - you touched on my favorite thing about the job market. I love to see help wanted ads that list something like "5 years DHTML and XML experience blah, blah, blah" the ad is perfectly buzzword compliant, but no-one has bothered to mention to the idiot writing the ad that XML (or whatever) hasn't been around that long.
As far as I can tell, a lot of these ads are looking for either:
a. The person who developed the whatever
b. A time-traveller
And they wonder why they have trouble finding someone...Hey, they're offering 25-30k per year!
Just wanted to point out - The Beal engine they were discussing was for the *second* stage... The first stage engine is supposed to be 5 times as powerful. That would be ~4 million lbs of thrust. Very large indeed, and that would probably allow a first stage with 3-5 engines with some pretty hellish lifting capacity.
And while I agree in part about funding Energia restart, they weren't exactly known for reliability.
However, I do have to concede the point that the scalability is unproven, but I *hope* the first stage tests go well - it would be nice to get beyond the shuttle's lift capacity for a lot of things.
Good reviews of cases: http://www.arstechnica.com
They don't review hundreds...but pretty good reviews IMHO on the ones they have done. Some of those cases are sold by http://www.thechipmerchant.com (Seems to be a pretty decent company to do business with)
20,000 tons = 40,000,000 lbs. = .4 lbs/person
.4 lbs ~ 160gm. (off the top of my head...it's not completely accurate, I know...)
And for the record, I thought the 7-up commercials took this one... The "Show Us Your Can" commercial was a riot, and watching a soda machine get hit by a semi was *too* funny. (Wish there had been instant-replay slow motion on that one!)
My Favorite: The entire scene in the school with Santa's Little Helper in the air ducts:
Willie:"Lunchlady Doris, have ya' got any grease?"
Lunchlady:Yep
Willie:"Well, grease me up, woman"
Lunchlady:"Okay-dokey"
...
Willie:"There's nary an animal that can outrun a greased scotsman!"
Team Delta Site:
j an&content=eventitem.asp&month=jan&shortna me=BATBOTS
http://www.teamdelta.com/robots.htm
Delta's Link list has some good info too:
http://www.teamdelta.com/misccomm.htm#flinks
Pay Per View information:
http://www.ppv.com/frames.asp?page=events&item=
Apparently stands for
"Partially Altruistic Research Center"
"Give it all away...Oh, except that Unistroke thing"
(Insert obvious Unistroke joke here)
The odds are improving all the time with laser eye treatments, and there are some new things on the horizon to keep an eye out for.
I can't remember what program it was on, but I *think* it was one of the network nightly newscasts that did a feature on an engineering firm in Silicon Vally that is about to start trials on a new system. It appears to be some insanely precise machinery to control the laser more accurately. Their goal (and it looks good so far) is *not* 20/20 vision - they aim for 20/10...and in fact plan on marketing it to people with normal eyesight who would like legendary eyesight...
20/20 vision is *not* perfect vision - it's just the standard on the old eye chart from 1840's or 1850's (I think). BTW - apparently they have done some operations during research, and average about 20/12 vision...
To summarize, something like this sounds like a real advance - even if the surgery doesn't go quite right, you would still probably wind up with 20/20 or so - but, as with anything medical, there's always that chance...
Wish I had a URL, but can't find one right now
From: http://www.fieldingtravel.com/blackflagcafe/messag es/6559.html
r ent/Groups/Opposing/pri.html
According to
http://www.iti.com/cgi-bin/iti-cgi-bin/mfs/01/Cur
the "Population Research Institute" 'is a bogus organization set up by the Catholic Church to provide
population mis-information.'
And
http://205.177.10.11/agm/main/news/pri.htm
says:
'In the past few days, opponents of the upcoming international family planning vote in Congress have been
rallying around
something called "Population Research Institute." Quotes from this
organization have appeared in wire stories, newspapers and on
television without mentioning just what "Population Research
Institute" is.
According to papers filed with the IRS, "Population Research
Institute" is simply an arm of the infamous Human Life International
(HLI) -- the venal ultra-right group that claims as its founder and
board chairman the venomously anti-Semitic Paul Marx.'
Keep in mind that this organization is a moderately-radical "Pro-Life" organization. If you look around the site a bit, you find a *lot* of propaganda-type writing. Frankly, it reads a lot like some of the Catholic Church items on pro-life. They barely mention that they are using the *low* estimate for population.
Also: Check out the following statement (From http://www.pop.org/reports/facts.htm )
the population of the world will begin to plummet in a little
over four decades. Between 2040 and 2050, the world's population will
decrease by about 85 million.
Despite the alarmist tone, a reduction of 85 million out of a total of (estimated) 9-12 billion can hardly be called a plummet. Hmm...less than one percent. For most things, that is statistically insignificant.
I wonder how the U.N. likes their study being twisted in this fashion.
Not that anyone has to worry...a bunch of baby seals is more dangerous than the U.N.
Okay, that's enough...Just wanted to point out the bias there...
First: the emoticon for rocking
~ o--|=)
(I know it's not the best)
My question for Bill Gates:
Mr Gates, what do you prefer - Lemon Meringue or coconut cream? And do you like a flaky pastry crust or graham cracker?
Should've looked closer at the preview. I have 2 finallys there. Sorry, I was taking phone calls at the same time. That came out less coherent than I thought, too.
Oh well
I work for a group of DaimlerChrysler dealerships, and I find this development *potentially* interesting. For years, Chrysler has had a SCO based server in every dealership. Apart from some application bugginess on their side, the servers are reliable and stable.
However - They went with NT Workstation clients for the MDSII diagnostic system. I suspect a lack of beta testing and a few other items have contributed to continual problems with the things. They went web-based (using Java), and the stability just is not there. The clients crash as a matter of routine, and it took 6 months (here at least) to even get the machines to run the training software without crashing on lesson 3. I would *really* like to see someone give this a try for several reasons:
Longer hardware cycles - without NT crippling the machine, a *nix based client could last longer between upgrade/replacement.
Of course, Linux (*nix in general) has the advantage of being a lot more robust typically. We use a Linux proxy (squid) for web connect and other things, and it basically only gets rebooted with power outages. It's more or less the same with the other Non windows/*nix boxes around here (Irix, SCO, Solaris)
Yes, there are a lot of relatively computer illiterate people out in the dealerships, but I see this as *more* of a reason to go with Linux. If the OS is rock solid, support primarily consists of application issues. That throws a lot of tech support calls out right there.
Finally, to those saying "buy more hard drives" and calculating $250 savings on Windows licenses, don't forget that it takes a lot less server (IMHO) to do the work with Linux. Add to that that Linux is better at multiple tasks, and you may very well wind up saving the cost of extra servers too. Where you might need 3 $10k Win servers to run web, database, e-mail, proxy, blah blah blah...one solid $5k Linux machine will probably do.
Finally, I expect dealerships to become *very* interested in systems that are more open than traditional proprietary solutions. Getting information between the in-house system, the manufacturers system, and the dealership's internal network should be easier...and it can be.
Oops...sorry - that got a bit long winded.
Okay - this may get a bit disjointed.
Propulsion: I would think a stationary, counter-rotating dual blade ducted fan (to solve torque problem) with tubes would be a good way to propel it. Basically, have all the tubes open or closed all the time, but have a tiny wastegate in each to alter the airflow. I would think it could be made lighter than using separate fans for everything.
Another nifty device to have onboard would be a laser pointer:
(remote): Dave, there is a serious oxygen leak over here!
(Dave): Where?
(remote): Right there!
etc... some of those conversations would be much easier if the remote had a means of pointing to exactly what it was talking about.
As far as the voice recognition and control... since it costs about $10k per pound to get those astronauts up there in the first place, I think a ground controller could be paid to sit there & do nothing but watch the feedback from the remotes - if the remote is less than 90% certain what it's doing, he could clarify by keyboard...
I was thinking a compressed gas propulsion system might work, but it would need to be something that can be done with small, lower pressure cartridges (CO2 and Nitrous Oxide come to mind...but I'm not sure I'd want a half-dozen remotes hovering around me farting Carbon Dioxide or Laughing gas...)
The site is, of course, pretty thoroughly /.'ed - How about creating a 1-week time-lagged version of /. (slashdotted.org is available!)
/., but if it wasn't a link to a *major* site (NY Times, ABCNews, etc.), I could visit slashdotted.org daily to catch the links that are starting to come back from the /. airstrike...
That way, I could catch news off of
Just an idea - would be easier than prowling through the archives...
Ididn'tdoit Nobodysawmedoit Youcan'tproveanything
At least in the United States.
Shooting a doctor who performs abortions, however, is.
Those are the laws in the U.S. - don't know where you're from, but thats the way it is here. Work to change the laws if you disagree, but it currently is not defined as murder.
Instead of changing the recognized power-of-two nomenclature, simply introduce a couple new units *for use with hard drives*
1 Kilobyte would still be 1024 bytes, etc.
The new units:
Weaselbyte (WB) - 1,000,000,000 bytes (The HD industry Gig)
Slimybyte (SB) - 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (When drives get that big)
Who knows - the HD manufacturers might get sick enough of having to say "The new standard in storage - the RonCo Flame Muffin 7200 RPM Hard Drive - Features Capacity up to 100 Weaselbytes!" that they would start reporting sizes like normal people.
NASA wouldn't want to file the Environmental Impact Statement on that one...whole lotta' methane & bovine fecal coliform bacteria...
I like the distributed movie rendering... but the distributed spider concept...wow.
That's something that could be *used* by anyone, every day. The big problem, of course, is the load on the on the host end. Unless someone had a boatload of cash to spork over, it would almost have to be done by someone established...
(Anyone at AltaVista listening??)
I'd sign up for this one.
The only problem with this idea:
:)
The primary alternative to Gore (G.W.Somethingorother) has absolutely no respect for the bill of rights either. Haven't heard that much about it lately, but his campaign has been Lawyer-nastygramming a lot of sites simply for the mention of his name...They even shut down a supporters site. Seems he has never heard of (or doesn't acknowledge) the first amendment. Of course, if it went to court, the site-owner would win, as it's valid commentary/satire/some form of protected speech...but I wouldn't be surprised if a few visits from the Secret Service occurred anyway.
Okay...the point (If you've read this far)
CONGRESS is the root of the problem - for some reason, they seem to feel a need to pass laws on everything. Repeatedly. Even when it is something that regulates itself quite well, they just can't keep their fingers out of it.
My suggestion: Voter rebellion - Don't *ever* vote for an incumbent - always vote for a challenger. If enough turnover is generated, we might start seeing normal people running, hopefully eliminating the professional politician class. If people with a job went to DC, did the job for 2, 4, or 6 years, they would probably at least be closer to the cluetrain than the existing taxpayer-supported leeches.
Wow..guess I'm getting a bit hostile towards our elected officials
Never shown onscreen...but in the text version of "Operation: Annihilate", the Enterprise (No bloody 'A') fired two "Planetbuster"(tm) Missiles and hosed a planet...and it was implied that these were pretty much standard issue...
Oh, and there's also the Genesis torpedo...
I suspect in Trek, there is more of a cold-war type standoff..everyone has planet-destroying weapons, but doesn't dare use them, whereas the Empire has diddle for enemies.