I've been buying ebooks almost exclusively for some time now and reading them on my Treo. Works great, though I can't wait for Sony's new Reader to come out...
I'm no expert in the field, but it seems to me that "intelligence" is best quantified as the ability to adapt to new circumstances by thinking up solutions to new problems. While that would be composed of a number of factors, it doesn't matter if you're coping with an earthquake (or just job stress) in LA, or your old fishing hole dried up in Africa, people with higher intelligence would be expected to be more creative and successful in dealing with the crisis.
3G VSIZE for firefox? (at the moment, with only 14 windows open [I hate tabs, as I often look at one thing while doing something in another window]...) Sheesh. I did want them to stop reloading pages when I use the back button, but I'd be happy if they just used a disk cache rather than a ram cache... Of course, only 113M is resident, so I suppose they *are* using a disk cache, in effect...
Popularity breeds popularity because it's easy: someone else has done the work for you. If someone else likes something, there's a much better chance that it's good than a random sample of all the music (or whatever you're rating), because 90% of everything really is crap. It takes someone determined to find the jewels to wade through it all to find the new stuff that really is both original and good. If you think something is crap because it's popular, aside from the arrogance and elitist attitude that implies, the same principle still applies, because it scales down to the people who like the same type of that you do: when one of your subgroup finds something, you'll probably like it too (and the multitudes will probably think it's crap in return). And popularity will breed popularity in your subgroup.
I use fictionwise mostly myself (I prefer pdf as at least a more portable proprietary format), and while there is a fair amount priced reasonably, there's a lot that's priced like hardback instead of paperback. I consider that inexcusable and refuse to buy them. I'm hoping the Sony Reader will bring prices into reality...
I have to wonder about this survey or the pcworld one --- 33% failure in two years is abyssmal. I've had a half dozen toshiba laptops over the last 15 years and the only one with any problem is one I bought used on ebay that came with it (a docking station latch issue, fairly minor). Since I'm using a mac as my primary desktop now, i've been thinking about a mac laptop, but maybe i'll wait until I can get the intel version of osx...
If you're leaving amicably, that's highly unprofessional behavior on *their* part. Last summer, I got the opportunity to apply for a job in Maui with one of my best friends, and initially I turned it down because I like where I'm at, and they *really* needed me. It didn't take me too long to decide that it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so I applied. When I did, I told my employer so that they would have plenty of time to prepare in case I left. As it happens, I didn't because the company there couldn't figure out what it wanted. I'm not sure if I would tell them again, because instead of just me dangling, it was the entire small company I work for. If I were to do it again, I'd wait until I got the job, but stretch the start date out as far as I possibly could. And we've managed to get into a position where it wouldn't be quite the blow if I left as well (yeah, a mixed blessing;-) ), so it wouldn't be the issue it was then.
On the other hand, if you're not on good terms with your employer, then, well, by the time you give notice, if you're of a destructive mindset, anything they do will too late anyway. Acting like that is just incentive to conform to their expectations.
What people seem to forget is that a free market doesn't mean anarchy: if you have anarchy, you don't get competition, you get power struggles doing their best to avoid competition. It's not "regulation" to ensure a fair playing field any more than it's "regulation" to say you can steal from your neighbor. It should also be pointed out that the reason wireless in particular took off in Europe is because of the government monopoly on the land lines. "We're the phone company, we don't have to care" Wireless wasn't subject to the regulation and offered services cheaper and faster. The cost and restrictions on telcom also held up deployment of the internet there, and I'm pretty sure is why you find internet cafes everywhere --- it was the only practical way to get it.
Good point about the amortization time, though I will probably not keep the Escape for as long as I usually keep cars (the Explorer makes the third one in the 200K mile vicinity, the other two were a little over 200K). The Toyota hybrid works better than the Ford version does (it uses the electric motor as much as it can, where as the Ford uses it when it absolutely has to), so I'm planning on upgrading to Highlander, though I'll give up the 4wd for the Prius if it's the only way I can get a griddable hybrid.
The environmental cost of grid power has been well worked out, and I believe even the worst coal power ends up being better than your typical car. Even if that's not the case, every time an old power plant is upgraded to be more efficient and environmentally friendly, every EV powered by it is automatically upgraded accordingly. You also have the option of going off grid with solar, though the cost effectiveness of that is even worse than for the current crop of hybrids. Economically, EV's use about 500Whr/mile (if I remember right, typical report from the EV list I'm on), which here in Oregon works out to about $.05/mile. At 27mpg and $2.30/gallon, my Escape works out to $.09/mile for fuel costs. At the 19mpg the V6 Escape gets, that's $.12/mile, so an EV would save quite a bit.
Very. It's comparing apples and oranges most of the time. There is one point to be made though: the current crop of hybrids are far from the best that could be done. The Prius+ and calcars.org people are working making hybrids into what they should be: electric for the 90% of travel that you do that is conveniently electric, and hybrid for the rest. Those will be somewhat more expensive, but I suspect when you take into account the reduced maintenance on the gas engine, those will pass even his unbalanced comparison. But I can say that I'm coming out ahead with my Escape Hybrid, given that my Explorer got 14mpg, it was time to replace it after 180K miles, and I paid $3K (IIRC) for the hybrid option, and I'm getting 25-30mpg. It's lower in town because of the stupid crap about running the engine to bring the catalytic converter to operating temperature --- which it gets to about the time I get to work. *That's* why we need the pluggable version: I would use no gas at all for 90% of my travelling.
But I'm still coming out ahead: I drive about 21K miles/year, or 1750 miles/month. At an average of about 27mpg, my Escape uses about 65 gal/mo. A regular V6 Escape would get about 19mpg, using about 92 gal/mo, and my Explorer would use about 125 gal/mo.
At the rate I'm financing the Escape at, I'm paying about $60/month for that $3K. At the current price of gas I'm paying ($2.30/gal), that works out to 65 fewer gallons/month ($138/mo) than my Explorer, and 27 fewer gallons per month ($62/mo) than a comparable Escape. OK, essentially break-even, but definitely not a loss, and then you add the environmental benefit on top of that...
I feel for students of the Kansas school system when they try to enter the job market. If I were hiring and saw they were from Kansas, I would immediately be concerned that they wouldn't have the rational thinking skills necessary to function in the real world. Actually, for that same reason, I think the Kansas school system should lose its accreditation.
We just recently passed our two year mark and while the original site has like 30,000 members and millions of forum posts, we only have about 3,000 members and a quarter million posts
If the original site has 10 times the users and traffic 2 years later, it doesn't sound as broke as it's being made out to be. Still, the point is valid: with open source, if you don't like the way something's being done, you're free to do it your own way...
...they finally got a real OS. Also, the mini-me --- I got one at work at the end of last year and so could use the environment both at home and at work. Though I still need a windoze box in both places. For fewer and fewer reasons fortunately...
It's definitely not the ipod though, for me: I thought the thing was horribly unintuitive the one time I played with one and like my Rio Cali much better, save for it not looking like a USB flash drive when you plug it in. It requires some proprietary linkage software, probably related to supporting Digital noRights Management. That's a minor nuisance, since I refuse to buy anything that has restrictions on what I can do with it anyhow, but if I'd known it ahead of time, I probably would have gotten something else. The Oregon Scientific MP120 I have for use while swimming looks like a flash drive, but its UI leaves something to be desired too. Oh well, I've probably digressed too far by now...
As far as I'm concerned, they haven't made it available. I have a high speed dsl connection (1.5Mbps), and I have never seen streaming video work with anything like watchable quality (though part of that is because I have a high resolution screen, and the embedded viewers won't let you resize it up to more than a postage stamp). If I can't download something of reasonable quality and then watch it for real, then there's no point in wasting the bandwidth trying.
I have an Escape Hybrid, with a 2 mile commute. The V6 version is rated 18/22mpg, the hybrid 33/29. I get 30mpg on the freeway when I keep it at the speed limit in Oregon (65). With the $1500 tax credit, it's only $1500 extra. I think it's well worth it, and the Escape isn't a particularly good version of hybrid (it only uses electric when it has to, as opposed to the Prius, which uses it when it can, and which has a chance of being converted to a pluggable hybrid).
The 2-mile commute is why I'm looking at getting a pure electric and wish the escape was a pluggable hybrid. Because of the idiotic nonsense about forcing the engine on enough to keep the catalytic converter at operating temperature, in the winter the engine runs all the way to work, typically shutting off just as I pull into the parking lot. My worst mileage was 19mpg when that commute was all I was doing and it was cold out. I probably get 24-25 typical on the commute. Note that the *worst* I got, 19, matches the *rating* for the V6, so I'm coming out ahead even with that poor performance. And it way beats the 14mpg I was getting with my Explorer.
Basically, it's far from what it could be, but it's still pretty good...
I use SplashID on my Treo, combined with using one password for each of several classes of applications to cut down on the number of them. FWIW, I saw this weekend that Microsoft has a $50 fingerprint reader at Fry's, but with a big warning "Not to be used for financial or sensitive data". At least they're letting people know you can't trust it...
...I think that whenever a device includes broadcast flag support, there should be the option to block any program that includes it. If they don't want me to watch their show, then I don't want to watch it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been buying ebooks almost exclusively for some time now and reading them on my Treo. Works great, though I can't wait for Sony's new Reader to come out...
I'm no expert in the field, but it seems to me that "intelligence" is best quantified as the ability to adapt to new circumstances by thinking up solutions to new problems. While that would be composed of a number of factors, it doesn't matter if you're coping with an earthquake (or just job stress) in LA, or your old fishing hole dried up in Africa, people with higher intelligence would be expected to be more creative and successful in dealing with the crisis.
I thought they were long since a part of history...
3G VSIZE for firefox? (at the moment, with only 14 windows open [I hate tabs, as I often look at one thing while doing something in another window]...) Sheesh. I did want them to stop reloading pages when I use the back button, but I'd be happy if they just used a disk cache rather than a ram cache... Of course, only 113M is resident, so I suppose they *are* using a disk cache, in effect...
Popularity breeds popularity because it's easy: someone else has done the work for you. If someone else likes something, there's a much better chance that it's good than a random sample of all the music (or whatever you're rating), because 90% of everything really is crap. It takes someone determined to find the jewels to wade through it all to find the new stuff that really is both original and good. If you think something is crap because it's popular, aside from the arrogance and elitist attitude that implies, the same principle still applies, because it scales down to the people who like the same type of that you do: when one of your subgroup finds something, you'll probably like it too (and the multitudes will probably think it's crap in return). And popularity will breed popularity in your subgroup.
I use fictionwise mostly myself (I prefer pdf as at least a more portable proprietary format), and while there is a fair amount priced reasonably, there's a lot that's priced like hardback instead of paperback. I consider that inexcusable and refuse to buy them. I'm hoping the Sony Reader will bring prices into reality...
I have to wonder about this survey or the pcworld one --- 33% failure in two years is abyssmal. I've had a half dozen toshiba laptops over the last 15 years and the only one with any problem is one I bought used on ebay that came with it (a docking station latch issue, fairly minor). Since I'm using a mac as my primary desktop now, i've been thinking about a mac laptop, but maybe i'll wait until I can get the intel version of osx...
If you're leaving amicably, that's highly unprofessional behavior on *their* part. Last summer, I got the opportunity to apply for a job in Maui with one of my best friends, and initially I turned it down because I like where I'm at, and they *really* needed me. It didn't take me too long to decide that it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so I applied. When I did, I told my employer so that they would have plenty of time to prepare in case I left. As it happens, I didn't because the company there couldn't figure out what it wanted. I'm not sure if I would tell them again, because instead of just me dangling, it was the entire small company I work for. If I were to do it again, I'd wait until I got the job, but stretch the start date out as far as I possibly could. And we've managed to get into a position where it wouldn't be quite the blow if I left as well (yeah, a mixed blessing ;-) ), so it wouldn't be the issue it was then.
On the other hand, if you're not on good terms with your employer, then, well, by the time you give notice, if you're of a destructive mindset, anything they do will too late anyway. Acting like that is just incentive to conform to their expectations.
Sounds like they've been watching Numb3rs ;-)
Will the PetCell actually prove useful to dog owners or is it just another cheap gimmick?
Sounds like just another expensive gimmick to me...
What people seem to forget is that a free market doesn't mean anarchy: if you have anarchy, you don't get competition, you get power struggles doing their best to avoid competition. It's not "regulation" to ensure a fair playing field any more than it's "regulation" to say you can steal from your neighbor. It should also be pointed out that the reason wireless in particular took off in Europe is because of the government monopoly on the land lines. "We're the phone company, we don't have to care" Wireless wasn't subject to the regulation and offered services cheaper and faster. The cost and restrictions on telcom also held up deployment of the internet there, and I'm pretty sure is why you find internet cafes everywhere --- it was the only practical way to get it.
...I just don't buy products with rebates unless I don't have a good alternative.
Good point about the amortization time, though I will probably not keep the Escape for as long as I usually keep cars (the Explorer makes the third one in the 200K mile vicinity, the other two were a little over 200K). The Toyota hybrid works better than the Ford version does (it uses the electric motor as much as it can, where as the Ford uses it when it absolutely has to), so I'm planning on upgrading to Highlander, though I'll give up the 4wd for the Prius if it's the only way I can get a griddable hybrid.
The environmental cost of grid power has been well worked out, and I believe even the worst coal power ends up being better than your typical car. Even if that's not the case, every time an old power plant is upgraded to be more efficient and environmentally friendly, every EV powered by it is automatically upgraded accordingly. You also have the option of going off grid with solar, though the cost effectiveness of that is even worse than for the current crop of hybrids. Economically, EV's use about 500Whr/mile (if I remember right, typical report from the EV list I'm on), which here in Oregon works out to about $.05/mile. At 27mpg and $2.30/gallon, my Escape works out to $.09/mile for fuel costs. At the 19mpg the V6 Escape gets, that's $.12/mile, so an EV would save quite a bit.
Very. It's comparing apples and oranges most of the time. There is one point to be made though: the current crop of hybrids are far from the best that could be done. The Prius+ and calcars.org people are working making hybrids into what they should be: electric for the 90% of travel that you do that is conveniently electric, and hybrid for the rest. Those will be somewhat more expensive, but I suspect when you take into account the reduced maintenance on the gas engine, those will pass even his unbalanced comparison. But I can say that I'm coming out ahead with my Escape Hybrid, given that my Explorer got 14mpg, it was time to replace it after 180K miles, and I paid $3K (IIRC) for the hybrid option, and I'm getting 25-30mpg. It's lower in town because of the stupid crap about running the engine to bring the catalytic converter to operating temperature --- which it gets to about the time I get to work. *That's* why we need the pluggable version: I would use no gas at all for 90% of my travelling.
But I'm still coming out ahead: I drive about 21K miles/year, or 1750 miles/month. At an average of about 27mpg, my Escape uses about 65 gal/mo. A regular V6 Escape would get about 19mpg, using about 92 gal/mo, and my Explorer would use about 125 gal/mo.
At the rate I'm financing the Escape at, I'm paying about $60/month for that $3K. At the current price of gas I'm paying ($2.30/gal), that works out to 65 fewer gallons/month ($138/mo) than my Explorer, and 27 fewer gallons per month ($62/mo) than a comparable Escape. OK, essentially break-even, but definitely not a loss, and then you add the environmental benefit on top of that...
Just to be clear, this was exactly my point...
I feel for students of the Kansas school system when they try to enter the job market. If I were hiring and saw they were from Kansas, I would immediately be concerned that they wouldn't have the rational thinking skills necessary to function in the real world. Actually, for that same reason, I think the Kansas school system should lose its accreditation.
We just recently passed our two year mark and while the original site has like 30,000 members and millions of forum posts, we only have about 3,000 members and a quarter million posts
If the original site has 10 times the users and traffic 2 years later, it doesn't sound as broke as it's being made out to be. Still, the point is valid: with open source, if you don't like the way something's being done, you're free to do it your own way...
...they finally got a real OS. Also, the mini-me --- I got one at work at the end of last year and so could use the environment both at home and at work. Though I still need a windoze box in both places. For fewer and fewer reasons fortunately...
It's definitely not the ipod though, for me: I thought the thing was horribly unintuitive the one time I played with one and like my Rio Cali much better, save for it not looking like a USB flash drive when you plug it in. It requires some proprietary linkage software, probably related to supporting Digital noRights Management. That's a minor nuisance, since I refuse to buy anything that has restrictions on what I can do with it anyhow, but if I'd known it ahead of time, I probably would have gotten something else. The Oregon Scientific MP120 I have for use while swimming looks like a flash drive, but its UI leaves something to be desired too. Oh well, I've probably digressed too far by now...
I would hope the FreeBSD team would be the last to cower before the insane religious virus infecting the US.
...Stonehenge has long since worn out. I wonder if there was an equivalent article when it was being thought up?
As far as I'm concerned, they haven't made it available. I have a high speed dsl connection (1.5Mbps), and I have never seen streaming video work with anything like watchable quality (though part of that is because I have a high resolution screen, and the embedded viewers won't let you resize it up to more than a postage stamp). If I can't download something of reasonable quality and then watch it for real, then there's no point in wasting the bandwidth trying.
I have an Escape Hybrid, with a 2 mile commute. The V6 version is rated 18/22mpg, the hybrid 33/29. I get 30mpg on the freeway when I keep it at the speed limit in Oregon (65). With the $1500 tax credit, it's only $1500 extra. I think it's well worth it, and the Escape isn't a particularly good version of hybrid (it only uses electric when it has to, as opposed to the Prius, which uses it when it can, and which has a chance of being converted to a pluggable hybrid).
The 2-mile commute is why I'm looking at getting a pure electric and wish the escape was a pluggable hybrid. Because of the idiotic nonsense about forcing the engine on enough to keep the catalytic converter at operating temperature, in the winter the engine runs all the way to work, typically shutting off just as I pull into the parking lot. My worst mileage was 19mpg when that commute was all I was doing and it was cold out. I probably get 24-25 typical on the commute. Note that the *worst* I got, 19, matches the *rating* for the V6, so I'm coming out ahead even with that poor performance. And it way beats the 14mpg I was getting with my Explorer.
Basically, it's far from what it could be, but it's still pretty good...
I use SplashID on my Treo, combined with using one password for each of several classes of applications to cut down on the number of them. FWIW, I saw this weekend that Microsoft has a $50 fingerprint reader at Fry's, but with a big warning "Not to be used for financial or sensitive data". At least they're letting people know you can't trust it...
Good. I watch too much as it is...and then they'll wonder where everyone went...
...I think that whenever a device includes broadcast flag support, there should be the option to block any program that includes it. If they don't want me to watch their show, then I don't want to watch it.