I don't think you need to worry about being modded down. I think the reason that a lot of Pro-Apple comments get modded down is many simply say "Apple rulez and Micro$oft is evil" or something to that extent. While I'm personally not fond of the Apple platform and marketing I have no problem with its users so long as they don't proclaim that their platform is the zenith of all computing. What I've never understood though is why much of the Apple community puts up with the price gouging on its hardware, and still cheers on Steve at every conference.
I have a buddy that was in this field during the cold war and even worked for "No Such Agency" for a while as well as working on the telemetry systems for the Mercury space program, and he says that a PCM decommutator basicly samples output from various devices and combines it into one output stream for telemetry. According to him your legend of it coming out of an ICBM is quite possible. You might get a good amount for it on ebay for it's historical value if you can tell people what it is. I hope this has helped you out.
I have gone very far very fast in this agency and will go farther.
I can only laugh at your statement. I too am an I.T. worker in a very large state agency and it is common knowledge that going "far" in a state agency is easy because of the typical caliber of people involved. I mean where else would a 19 year old be given a management position simply because he was the only one that applied for it. Now I'm not saying that gov. work is bad, quite the opposite. I get paid a decent wage to do a really easy job and have a nice office, but advancing in a state agency is nothing to brag about. Finally, would you mind explaining to me why keeping up with current trends and being heavily involved in technology will cause me to be obsoleted by computers, new technology & cheap foreign labor in another 10 years?
I would love to hear your rational behind this statement. In a day when a 75GB 7200rpm drive can be had for a little more then $200, I can't imagine someone saying that hard drives arn't cheap. Also, I hope you realize that the PVR makers don't pay retail for the HDD's. Also, Tivo has nothing to do with the hardware end of things. The only thing Tivo provides is the service. All hardware is provided and sold buy Sony and Panasonic. I don't think they'd be selling these units if they wern't making money on them. Of course that's just my opinion. (:
I thought the same thing until I bought mine. Now, I can't imagine tv without it. It allows you to watch whatever you want whenever you want. Besides, show me a vcr that can record 30 hours, in digital quality, without having to change tapes. That's not to mention the fact that with a HDD upgrade you can get up 100+ hours. Especialy with the DirecTivo units, you'd be amazed the programs that you'd like that you don't even know come on. When watching a show on a regular tv, I still try to fast forward through the commercials. (: Anyway, while I'm sure they're not for everyone, a Tivo is just one of those things that you have to have to understand it's value. (and besides, it runs linux. (: hehehe)
Having worked in a Computer store once I can tell you the reason you can't get a great monochrome lcd. Simply put, 99% of the demographic that wants to buy one of these is an older person that is wanting to "get on that internet thing." Unfourtunatly, while I'd have one of these bought for every LAN room I manage now (dozens), techs are rarely the target audience for technical devices anymore. Sure, we have a good amount of buying power, but when compared with the AOLers we're not much in the eyes of a marketing dept. I could only imagine an engineer at company X trying to sell the idea of a monochrome LCD to the higher ups. The conversation would sound something to the effect of {engineer} "There are many uses for these devices and they can be built cheaply." {Marketing guy} "Yea, but why would anyone want a screen that was only black and white. Windows would look terrible."
So as you all can see, while it's a great idea it proabaly won't come about. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Does anyone remember the good old days in which you could call up the sysadmin at your isp, xyz.net, and actually talk to him. Luckily I still have one of those great isp's, but it's also just a matter of time before they're bought out as well. I'm getting an ISDN line installed later this month (I live directly in the middle of nowhere) and have been shopping around for good rates on the isp end of things. Of 10 ISPs I've contacted (including the large ones) the only one that knew what a shell account was is the one I'm currently using. One insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about and wanted to know why I wanted this "shell thing" anyway. About half of those called couldn't tell me how much a normal 128k ISDN account would cost without putting me on hold to ask someone else first. Of course all this is still not quite as bad as me contacting my local sprint office to inquire about the ISDN line at which point the rep asked me what it was.
It's about damn time somebody stood up for the american way! This country is where it is today (which is a good thing, in case you forgot) because of capitalism. The idea of punishing a company for trying to make the most money they can is adsurd. Sure, they could be more touchy-feely, but then they'd be where Apple is today. Microsoft's programs are buggy, and they do have cutthroat tactics, but the PC market (and alot of our jobs) exist as it does today because of them. Let's try not to forget that. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. (:
I think we're all to quick to simply say that having cameras on the streets is a bad idea because the government could watch us, but in today's world of huge companys that like to invade our privacy, what's to say the government wouldn't sell access to the cameras to do everything from tracking the movement of certian demographics for advertisement placement purposes to just plain watching our habits to see what we drink, eat, wear, ect. This IMHO is just putting us one step closer to a world with a real Big Brother.
Personally it sounds to me like the marines are just trying to cover-up the larger problems with this aircraft. As I'm sure all of you know, this aircraft has been under attack my many prominent people in the aviation industry as being unsafe and not suitable to fly. The marines have, of course, vehemently denied all these charges to conceal the fact that they have wasted millions of taxpayer's dollars to develop an unsafe aircraft. The problem is, while I support the armed services and their funding of projects like this, I do not support blaming some poor programmer for a crash of what is a know to be unsafe aircraft. It's like building a boat with holes in the bottom and then blaming the engine manufacturer when in sinks.
Well while I agree something's gone terribly wrong with ask slashdot, I have to disagree with your comment about the Prez. Having met him on several occasions I've discovered that he is not an idiot as the media would have you believe IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
LMAO I really wish I had my mod hat on to give you a +1 funny.
Vote Libertarian!
I have a buddy that was in this field during the cold war and even worked for "No Such Agency" for a while as well as working on the telemetry systems for the Mercury space program, and he says that a PCM decommutator basicly samples output from various devices and combines it into one output stream for telemetry. According to him your legend of it coming out of an ICBM is quite possible. You might get a good amount for it on ebay for it's historical value if you can tell people what it is. I hope this has helped you out.
I can only laugh at your statement. I too am an I.T. worker in a very large state agency and it is common knowledge that going "far" in a state agency is easy because of the typical caliber of people involved. I mean where else would a 19 year old be given a management position simply because he was the only one that applied for it. Now I'm not saying that gov. work is bad, quite the opposite. I get paid a decent wage to do a really easy job and have a nice office, but advancing in a state agency is nothing to brag about. Finally, would you mind explaining to me why keeping up with current trends and being heavily involved in technology will cause me to be obsoleted by computers, new technology & cheap foreign labor in another 10 years?
The new car, available only in a German pilot program, comes only in blue.
I suppose when these crash we can say it was a Blue Jetta of Death. Sorry, but I just had to say it. (:
I would love to hear your rational behind this statement. In a day when a 75GB 7200rpm drive can be had for a little more then $200, I can't imagine someone saying that hard drives arn't cheap. Also, I hope you realize that the PVR makers don't pay retail for the HDD's. Also, Tivo has nothing to do with the hardware end of things. The only thing Tivo provides is the service. All hardware is provided and sold buy Sony and Panasonic. I don't think they'd be selling these units if they wern't making money on them. Of course that's just my opinion. (:
I thought the same thing until I bought mine. Now, I can't imagine tv without it. It allows you to watch whatever you want whenever you want. Besides, show me a vcr that can record 30 hours, in digital quality, without having to change tapes. That's not to mention the fact that with a HDD upgrade you can get up 100+ hours. Especialy with the DirecTivo units, you'd be amazed the programs that you'd like that you don't even know come on. When watching a show on a regular tv, I still try to fast forward through the commercials. (: Anyway, while I'm sure they're not for everyone, a Tivo is just one of those things that you have to have to understand it's value. (and besides, it runs linux. (: hehehe)
Having worked in a Computer store once I can tell you the reason you can't get a great monochrome lcd. Simply put, 99% of the demographic that wants to buy one of these is an older person that is wanting to "get on that internet thing." Unfourtunatly, while I'd have one of these bought for every LAN room I manage now (dozens), techs are rarely the target audience for technical devices anymore. Sure, we have a good amount of buying power, but when compared with the AOLers we're not much in the eyes of a marketing dept. I could only imagine an engineer at company X trying to sell the idea of a monochrome LCD to the higher ups. The conversation would sound something to the effect of {engineer} "There are many uses for these devices and they can be built cheaply." {Marketing guy} "Yea, but why would anyone want a screen that was only black and white. Windows would look terrible." So as you all can see, while it's a great idea it proabaly won't come about. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Does anyone remember the good old days in which you could call up the sysadmin at your isp, xyz.net, and actually talk to him. Luckily I still have one of those great isp's, but it's also just a matter of time before they're bought out as well. I'm getting an ISDN line installed later this month (I live directly in the middle of nowhere) and have been shopping around for good rates on the isp end of things. Of 10 ISPs I've contacted (including the large ones) the only one that knew what a shell account was is the one I'm currently using. One insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about and wanted to know why I wanted this "shell thing" anyway. About half of those called couldn't tell me how much a normal 128k ISDN account would cost without putting me on hold to ask someone else first. Of course all this is still not quite as bad as me contacting my local sprint office to inquire about the ISDN line at which point the rep asked me what it was.
It's about damn time somebody stood up for the american way! This country is where it is today (which is a good thing, in case you forgot) because of capitalism. The idea of punishing a company for trying to make the most money they can is adsurd. Sure, they could be more touchy-feely, but then they'd be where Apple is today. Microsoft's programs are buggy, and they do have cutthroat tactics, but the PC market (and alot of our jobs) exist as it does today because of them. Let's try not to forget that. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. (:
I think we're all to quick to simply say that having cameras on the streets is a bad idea because the government could watch us, but in today's world of huge companys that like to invade our privacy, what's to say the government wouldn't sell access to the cameras to do everything from tracking the movement of certian demographics for advertisement placement purposes to just plain watching our habits to see what we drink, eat, wear, ect. This IMHO is just putting us one step closer to a world with a real Big Brother.
Personally it sounds to me like the marines are just trying to cover-up the larger problems with this aircraft. As I'm sure all of you know, this aircraft has been under attack my many prominent people in the aviation industry as being unsafe and not suitable to fly. The marines have, of course, vehemently denied all these charges to conceal the fact that they have wasted millions of taxpayer's dollars to develop an unsafe aircraft. The problem is, while I support the armed services and their funding of projects like this, I do not support blaming some poor programmer for a crash of what is a know to be unsafe aircraft. It's like building a boat with holes in the bottom and then blaming the engine manufacturer when in sinks.
Well while I agree something's gone terribly wrong with ask slashdot, I have to disagree with your comment about the Prez. Having met him on several occasions I've discovered that he is not an idiot as the media would have you believe IMHO.