something like 4 times what their best people on the ground earn.
I totally agree. CEO's make RECOCKULOUS salaries and benefits, even if they accomplish NOTHING. They always have a golden parachute to fall back on. If a CEO does a great job then sure, give then a REASONABLE bonus. If the company does shitty than I really believe they should get some kind of fine. Nothing serious, but its crazy how some CEO's make millions when the company is bankrupt and employees who have been at the company their WHOLE life get screwed. I am only in my 20s but I could not imagine the feeling of working at a company for my whole life and then losing ALL of my retirement b/c the company goes south while the CEO still makes millions.
My bad. You are entirely correct. The universities I have attended usually had the first floor of the library reserved for this stuff. The main library at Ohio State also did have the cafe, although I rarely used it.
Read the article. UT has multiple libraries and this one is just the undergrad library. The books are just being moved to another library. This makes sense to me because when I was an undergrad a few years ago I usually went to the library to do homework/group work or read out of books I already had for my classes. Most undergrad work that I encountered did not require extensive research so having it at a separate library does not sound so horrible to me. If you do need to do research then go to the appropriate library.
Another benefit I see is when you do need to do research you don't have to be surrounded by a bunch of noisy undergrads. Also, if you are smart you would probably not go to this new undergrad library if you had to get some hardcore studying done. I know at one of the universities I attened if I REALLY wanted to get some studying done I would head to the engineering library because that place was always dead silent.
If you are a student you can purchase the Teacher and Student version of Office for around $149. Another thing you might want to look into is if your school has any dealings with Microsoft so you as a student can receive software for free. I know when I was a student at The Ohio State University that I was able to get a free copy of Windows XP Pro with a license just for being a CS major. I do not recall if there was something similar for MS Office since I did not look into that. I truly understand the budget concerns while being a student. There was definately no way I could have afforded to purchase MS Software at that point in my life but luckily I was able to get it for free.
Ok, I agree that not being fully backwards compatible is a very bad thing that can be annoying. I have not run into that problem too often, but yes when I have it really pissed me off. You also have a good point about possibly not having a system it can run on. I have multiple OS systems running on various computers around my home and all of my contacts have at least one computer with windows on it so that was another issue I have not encountered too often.
As far as the price being to high, yes it is not dirt cheap but as long as you have a previous version of Office to upgrade from then I do not believe the price is horrible. You can get the Small Business Edition Upgrade for $279 (less probably if you look around) which is ~$55 per program. That does not seem too bad to pay every couple of years. I would say I upgrade my copy of office every 3 years so at the price I stated that would be about 25 cents per day. If you really can not afford that you can still communicate with people who use a newer version of MS Word than you have (If you have any version) by downloading the free document viewer.
Another way that has worked for me without any problems so far is to NOT save the files as Word documents. Use Rich Text Format instead. In my experience this results in much smaller file sizes (I am guessing by not using the OLE standard. Which YUCK if you have ever read up on how that works internally its ugly) as well as being very compatible. Using RTF is a few extra clicks and then the compatibility issue is gone.
I prefer to do most of my software development and getting paid (in money) for it. I do not mind paying money for a product that I know will be compatible with everyone I interact with (such as MS Word). I also do not mind paying money for software that I just enjoy using and do not have the time or skills to produce such as games (WoW). The open source movement is great, and I submit bug fixes occasionally but I do not like the mindset that a lot of its followers have that "all software should be free". If I put a lot of my time and effort into a project (not a side project) then I want to and believe I deserve to get paid for it... and I do get paid for my work. Why does almost EVERY open source project ask for donations? Because it's pretty damn hard to live without some kind of income.
I am not a Microsoft fan in the least, but the reason that MS Office is so popular is b/c it is the standard. Open Office is pretty good, but the quality of MS Office is greater both speed wise and compatibility wise. So I will spend the few hundred dollars and get a product that I know will work with anything I throw at it (which is not too much) instead of trying to re-invent the wheel and make an alternative. I would rather spend my spare time going fishing, hanging out with my friends/family, or enjoying some other hobbies of mine... like posting on Slashdot.
I agree completely. I can't tell you the number of times I have had to go through MS's code to find out why something was failing. Also, you are correct that the quality level of most of the code not too high. Take a look at the afx ODBC or DAO database classes for some examples.
you could try PC Power and Cooling, as they offer power supply upgrades that are compatible with Dell systems.
I am confused. As long as it is ATX standard wouldn't ANY companies power supply work? Or is there something I am missing that is really special about Dell computers? I need to upgrade my power supply soon though since I got a NVidia 6800. I have a 350 watt (I think) Sparkle PS, and it does alright, but I do have 3 HD's, 2 DVD writers, and all of my PCI slots filled too.
Well I didn't state the sites for fear of people screaming I am advertising for them but since you specifically asked I will mention them. I have tried a few sites and my favorites currently are partypoker.net and pokerroom.com. Pokerroom seems to have the bigger tournaments more often and I like the user interface better too. Most of my bankroll is at partypoker though so I spend most of my time there. I also forgot to mention that the times I won and cashed part of the winnings out I did actually receive valid checks. So you don't have to worry about that either. Good luck, it's a fun, cheap way to play although in the low money games there is a way higher amount of chasers who will call you to the river no matter what and it's definately annoying when they win.
All very good, informative points you made. I would definately recommend staying away from the 100/200 dollar ring games since there is a higher chance for collusion at that level. As far as the reason I stay away from online ring games in general is I like to pay a set amount for a tournament and get a couple hours of entertainment instead of possibly losing more money at the ring games. I can say I will spend X amount of dollars a night and once it is gone I am done. At a ring game I could be out in one hand where in the tournaments it is less likely since you start with 1000 chips or so. I play purely for recreational purposes, although winning is nice too:-)
The OP was making the point that card counting is not cheating, not so much that it is not against the law. Like he/she said, the law actually has its own definition of cheating which shows card counting to not be a cheat.
Your comment is meaningless when you look at this qoute from the OP: "While I will agree with the casinos' rights as a business to ask ANYONE to leave their casino for whatever reason"
Please make a relevant response next time, thank you.
I have never seen anyone cheat or get caught cheating at any online poker sites (although I am sure it has happened). However, I do play online poker a few nights a week and I believe as long as you stick to the tournaments you should be ok. I usually play in 30+ people tournaments and even if there were people working together it would be pretty difficult to do. Everyone is randomly placed at tables of 10, so you do not know if you will even be at the same table as the people you are working with. Now, I guess a large group could have an advantage, but I don't think the reward would be worth the effort.
I also know that a lot of the website operators look for playing habits, such as if you ALWAYS play with the same group of people. Now I guess there would be ways around that, such as always using new accounts, but I do not believe that occurs very often.
Stay away from the small 10 person money games and you should be alright as well as have a great time. It can be really cheap and fun entertainment. There is a tournament every friday on one site I play at which costs US$5 to join and between 1500-2000+ people sign up. So you get a few hours of poker and if you are decent usually at least get your buy in back. I have won a couple times and 1st place has been between $250-800, not bad for 5 dollar buy in. Hope that helps.
I thought about that too but I think there would have to be some kind of barrier with the outter barrier to prevent the elephants from trampling the cars. This barrier obviously could not be concrete since you would not be able to see through it. Plus, that would be A LOT of concrete which is not free. Thats just my guess though.
Stories like yours are exactly what I was talking about. I could be the most cautious biker (motorized or not) and if I were to spend a significant amount of time on the public roads I would just not feel safe. Do I blame the other drivers for being reckless? Somewhat. But the fact of the matter is in a car/truck vs. bike wreck, the car/truck always will come out with the least amount of damage. Some people say "wear a helmet". Well almost all of the paramedics I know basically call those "brain buckets". If you are in a severe accident they MIGHT keep you alive, but you still will most likely have a broken neck. Do I want to be a vegetable the rest of my life? Hell no. So I will keep the majority of my biking offroad even though I would LOVE to own a street bike.
By the way, good luck with your pursuit of a degree and it is amazing to me that you are a TBI survivor and are accomplishing your goals you have mentioned. I wish you the best of luck.
That seems like a decent option if you live somewhere that has a moderate climate. However, I still don't like the zero protection if hit by another vehicle factor too much. I just don't trust other people on the road enough to have my primary mode of transportation not have me surrounded by steel. I know quite a few people killed on cycles by the "other guy", either backing out without looking or blowing stop signs etc. Too dangerous for it to be an option for me. I prefer having the added protection that just can't be provided from a cycle.
There most certainly are encryptions that can't be decoded in reasonable time. One way is to encrypt using LONG passwords like 60+ characters. Make sure it is pretty random as well. How do you remember such a long password? I have considered a combination of old phone numbers, home addresses, peoples birthdays, pets names, and instead of using symbols for numbers just spell them out randomly. I would think that would generate a pretty damn secure password for the encryption.
I agree it is fun to do these kind of things, I have 6 extra computers that I use on projects such as this but I really don't know if money is saved. Sure I don't have to put out money initially since I am either re-using parts from my old computers or from computers I got for free, but in this situation it is being compared to a pre-built router. A router does not have near the number of parts a whole computer has, and I am pretty sure it uses a lot less power. So yes, I believe it is fun to reuse old parts, but I am not so sure money is saved when you consider the time it takes to configure everything properly and also the extra power usage.
Slashdot Mirror
something like 4 times what their best people on the ground earn.
I totally agree. CEO's make RECOCKULOUS salaries and benefits, even if they accomplish NOTHING. They always have a golden parachute to fall back on. If a CEO does a great job then sure, give then a REASONABLE bonus. If the company does shitty than I really believe they should get some kind of fine. Nothing serious, but its crazy how some CEO's make millions when the company is bankrupt and employees who have been at the company their WHOLE life get screwed. I am only in my 20s but I could not imagine the feeling of working at a company for my whole life and then losing ALL of my retirement b/c the company goes south while the CEO still makes millions.
My bad. You are entirely correct. The universities I have attended usually had the first floor of the library reserved for this stuff. The main library at Ohio State also did have the cafe, although I rarely used it.
Read the article. UT has multiple libraries and this one is just the undergrad library. The books are just being moved to another library. This makes sense to me because when I was an undergrad a few years ago I usually went to the library to do homework/group work or read out of books I already had for my classes. Most undergrad work that I encountered did not require extensive research so having it at a separate library does not sound so horrible to me. If you do need to do research then go to the appropriate library.
Another benefit I see is when you do need to do research you don't have to be surrounded by a bunch of noisy undergrads. Also, if you are smart you would probably not go to this new undergrad library if you had to get some hardcore studying done. I know at one of the universities I attened if I REALLY wanted to get some studying done I would head to the engineering library because that place was always dead silent.
Northern Illinois University actually has 3 emphasis's for CS majors: General, Applied, and Theoretical. Follow the link to find out more:
m l
http://www.cs.niu.edu/undergrad/chooseemphasis.ht
If you are a student you can purchase the Teacher and Student version of Office for around $149. Another thing you might want to look into is if your school has any dealings with Microsoft so you as a student can receive software for free. I know when I was a student at The Ohio State University that I was able to get a free copy of Windows XP Pro with a license just for being a CS major. I do not recall if there was something similar for MS Office since I did not look into that. I truly understand the budget concerns while being a student. There was definately no way I could have afforded to purchase MS Software at that point in my life but luckily I was able to get it for free.
Ok, I agree that not being fully backwards compatible is a very bad thing that can be annoying. I have not run into that problem too often, but yes when I have it really pissed me off. You also have a good point about possibly not having a system it can run on. I have multiple OS systems running on various computers around my home and all of my contacts have at least one computer with windows on it so that was another issue I have not encountered too often.
As far as the price being to high, yes it is not dirt cheap but as long as you have a previous version of Office to upgrade from then I do not believe the price is horrible. You can get the Small Business Edition Upgrade for $279 (less probably if you look around) which is ~$55 per program. That does not seem too bad to pay every couple of years. I would say I upgrade my copy of office every 3 years so at the price I stated that would be about 25 cents per day. If you really can not afford that you can still communicate with people who use a newer version of MS Word than you have (If you have any version) by downloading the free document viewer.
Another way that has worked for me without any problems so far is to NOT save the files as Word documents. Use Rich Text Format instead. In my experience this results in much smaller file sizes (I am guessing by not using the OLE standard. Which YUCK if you have ever read up on how that works internally its ugly) as well as being very compatible. Using RTF is a few extra clicks and then the compatibility issue is gone.
send my white ass black to the futa.
futa should be FUBU.
I prefer to do most of my software development and getting paid (in money) for it. I do not mind paying money for a product that I know will be compatible with everyone I interact with (such as MS Word). I also do not mind paying money for software that I just enjoy using and do not have the time or skills to produce such as games (WoW). The open source movement is great, and I submit bug fixes occasionally but I do not like the mindset that a lot of its followers have that "all software should be free". If I put a lot of my time and effort into a project (not a side project) then I want to and believe I deserve to get paid for it... and I do get paid for my work. Why does almost EVERY open source project ask for donations? Because it's pretty damn hard to live without some kind of income.
I am not a Microsoft fan in the least, but the reason that MS Office is so popular is b/c it is the standard. Open Office is pretty good, but the quality of MS Office is greater both speed wise and compatibility wise. So I will spend the few hundred dollars and get a product that I know will work with anything I throw at it (which is not too much) instead of trying to re-invent the wheel and make an alternative. I would rather spend my spare time going fishing, hanging out with my friends/family, or enjoying some other hobbies of mine... like posting on Slashdot.
I agree completely. I can't tell you the number of times I have had to go through MS's code to find out why something was failing. Also, you are correct that the quality level of most of the code not too high. Take a look at the afx ODBC or DAO database classes for some examples.
Yes, there are alternatives, but for the mass market, they just aren't usable for the majority.
And whose fault is that?
That is very interesting and good to know. I wonder why they would use non standard power supplies. Very strange.
you could try PC Power and Cooling, as they offer power supply upgrades that are compatible with Dell systems.
I am confused. As long as it is ATX standard wouldn't ANY companies power supply work? Or is there something I am missing that is really special about Dell computers? I need to upgrade my power supply soon though since I got a NVidia 6800. I have a 350 watt (I think) Sparkle PS, and it does alright, but I do have 3 HD's, 2 DVD writers, and all of my PCI slots filled too.
Well I didn't state the sites for fear of people screaming I am advertising for them but since you specifically asked I will mention them. I have tried a few sites and my favorites currently are partypoker.net and pokerroom.com. Pokerroom seems to have the bigger tournaments more often and I like the user interface better too. Most of my bankroll is at partypoker though so I spend most of my time there. I also forgot to mention that the times I won and cashed part of the winnings out I did actually receive valid checks. So you don't have to worry about that either. Good luck, it's a fun, cheap way to play although in the low money games there is a way higher amount of chasers who will call you to the river no matter what and it's definately annoying when they win.
All very good, informative points you made. I would definately recommend staying away from the 100/200 dollar ring games since there is a higher chance for collusion at that level. As far as the reason I stay away from online ring games in general is I like to pay a set amount for a tournament and get a couple hours of entertainment instead of possibly losing more money at the ring games. I can say I will spend X amount of dollars a night and once it is gone I am done. At a ring game I could be out in one hand where in the tournaments it is less likely since you start with 1000 chips or so. I play purely for recreational purposes, although winning is nice too :-)
If a game is not a game of chance, but a game of skill, then the law does not allow casinos to host that game.
How can they host poker games then? Poker is most definately a game of skill and anyone who thinks otherwise does not know enough about it.
Do you have any proof to back this up? I find it very interesting.
The OP was making the point that card counting is not cheating, not so much that it is not against the law. Like he/she said, the law actually has its own definition of cheating which shows card counting to not be a cheat.
Your comment is meaningless when you look at this qoute from the OP: "While I will agree with the casinos' rights as a business to ask ANYONE to leave their casino for whatever reason"
Please make a relevant response next time, thank you.
I have never seen anyone cheat or get caught cheating at any online poker sites (although I am sure it has happened). However, I do play online poker a few nights a week and I believe as long as you stick to the tournaments you should be ok. I usually play in 30+ people tournaments and even if there were people working together it would be pretty difficult to do. Everyone is randomly placed at tables of 10, so you do not know if you will even be at the same table as the people you are working with. Now, I guess a large group could have an advantage, but I don't think the reward would be worth the effort.
I also know that a lot of the website operators look for playing habits, such as if you ALWAYS play with the same group of people. Now I guess there would be ways around that, such as always using new accounts, but I do not believe that occurs very often.
Stay away from the small 10 person money games and you should be alright as well as have a great time. It can be really cheap and fun entertainment. There is a tournament every friday on one site I play at which costs US$5 to join and between 1500-2000+ people sign up. So you get a few hours of poker and if you are decent usually at least get your buy in back. I have won a couple times and 1st place has been between $250-800, not bad for 5 dollar buy in. Hope that helps.
I thought about that too but I think there would have to be some kind of barrier with the outter barrier to prevent the elephants from trampling the cars. This barrier obviously could not be concrete since you would not be able to see through it. Plus, that would be A LOT of concrete which is not free. Thats just my guess though.
Stories like yours are exactly what I was talking about. I could be the most cautious biker (motorized or not) and if I were to spend a significant amount of time on the public roads I would just not feel safe. Do I blame the other drivers for being reckless? Somewhat. But the fact of the matter is in a car/truck vs. bike wreck, the car/truck always will come out with the least amount of damage. Some people say "wear a helmet". Well almost all of the paramedics I know basically call those "brain buckets". If you are in a severe accident they MIGHT keep you alive, but you still will most likely have a broken neck. Do I want to be a vegetable the rest of my life? Hell no. So I will keep the majority of my biking offroad even though I would LOVE to own a street bike.
By the way, good luck with your pursuit of a degree and it is amazing to me that you are a TBI survivor and are accomplishing your goals you have mentioned. I wish you the best of luck.
That seems like a decent option if you live somewhere that has a moderate climate. However, I still don't like the zero protection if hit by another vehicle factor too much. I just don't trust other people on the road enough to have my primary mode of transportation not have me surrounded by steel. I know quite a few people killed on cycles by the "other guy", either backing out without looking or blowing stop signs etc. Too dangerous for it to be an option for me. I prefer having the added protection that just can't be provided from a cycle.
All that stuff is typically written in VBA for applications.
It's VBA or VB for applications, come on now.
hmm the scroll wheel works fine in my copy of VS6. My mouse is a microsoft mouse, maybe that is why I don't know.
There most certainly are encryptions that can't be decoded in reasonable time. One way is to encrypt using LONG passwords like 60+ characters. Make sure it is pretty random as well. How do you remember such a long password? I have considered a combination of old phone numbers, home addresses, peoples birthdays, pets names, and instead of using symbols for numbers just spell them out randomly. I would think that would generate a pretty damn secure password for the encryption.
I agree it is fun to do these kind of things, I have 6 extra computers that I use on projects such as this but I really don't know if money is saved. Sure I don't have to put out money initially since I am either re-using parts from my old computers or from computers I got for free, but in this situation it is being compared to a pre-built router. A router does not have near the number of parts a whole computer has, and I am pretty sure it uses a lot less power. So yes, I believe it is fun to reuse old parts, but I am not so sure money is saved when you consider the time it takes to configure everything properly and also the extra power usage.