How much cheaper was the yearly operating costs? 5x install sounds like it could pay off in just 5-10 years.
Not enough to make up the difference. We put in a 96% eff. furnace instead. We figured that compared to its operating cost, even if the geothermal system took it down to 0 it would have been more than 15 years to pay off. Which coincidentally was the length of the warranty on the piping.
Recently we installed a new furnace (Ontario, Canada). My wife and I had it priced out.
Turns out that although there were several grants we could receive, totalling $7000 approximately, it was still not worth it.
By the time all was said and done, it would have cost $30k to install. They would have torn up our lawn, which would have necessitated new landscaping. They also couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't crush our water and sewage lines with the drilling trucks.
All in all, it wasn't 50% more expensive. After rebates, it would have been about 4 or 5 times what a 96% efficiency natural gas furnace cost us.
The main thing I was always worried about was heat. Enough to keep from freezing, bursting pipes, etc. We have a finished basement, so my wife and I had a high-efficiency, sealed natural gas fireplace insert installed.
The pilot stays on, but we got a model that can ignite without power (it uses 4xAA batteries in its control unit). It also has a blower that doesn't seem to take much power - aka low enough that it can run off an inverter if I run an extension cord to the car outside.
We tested this briefly when the furnace went out briefly while I diagnosed what the issue was, albeit the power was still on (turned out the air intake was blocked by snow). It's adequate to keep the basement quite comfortable, and the rest of the house just above freezing (candles can help add a little extra heat too).
I know it seems quaint but my main worry is staying warm enough to survive in such an emergency, and keep the pipes from freezing. We have a barbeque that could serve as our cooking appliance in the meantime. I use it year-round regardless, so it's always in working condition and ready to go.
A generator would be nice in the future, but at the moment when money's a bit tight, seems like a bit of overkill.
All the data is shown in a real-time interactive map using Virtual Earth, but the key is how Eagle 1 pulls data from many different sources (such as from both Oracle and SAP databases)
Nobody thought of MS-SQL I guess. Or maybe they did.
Not really. Most of the cities that sponsored the Olympics are still deep in debt. There are a few exceptions like Atlanta which was mostly paid by corporations, but then there are others like Toronto who, even thirty years later, are still in debt. Tourism does not make-up for the huge expense of throwing this "huge sports party" known as the Olympics.
Toronto might be in debt, but when did we have the Olympics here and how did I manage to miss it?
I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings?
I do. But then again, my wife and I do this neat thing called "communication" before we make any major changes/withdrawals. You should try it sometime.
We don't distribute software per se, but our online application does generate reports in Excel format using a fairly popular OSS package as the export library.
It's a whole lot of fun when we get emails from users complaining that their emails are having their report attachment stripped, because it has a "virus" called "CorruptedCompressedFile" in it (some AV scanners apparently bork because they detect the file wasn't created in Excel, and thus assume it's contaminated).
If I may... the only thing that offended me (because I DO like the paper ballots) is that Elections Canada, in their infinite wisdom, provided us with PENCILS this year.
I have a sneaky feeling I know why Bev Oda was re-elected.
Option 1 won't work. Lots of organizations (mine included) have non-standard ports firewalled. Most users won't have the smarts to run an external proxy, leading them to believe that the site just doesn't work.
I second the subjectAltName solution. It works very well for what you are hoping to accomplish.
For my part, I wrote to my MP as well. Unfortunately my MP happens to be Bev right now (yes, the infamous Ms Oda herself). All I got back was a form letter telling me how the bill is 'fair and balanced', and the fines are 'relatively low' if you copy for personal use unless you break digital locks.
F*** you, Bev. You're not getting my vote. And I'll do what I can to get my neighbours to not vote for you too.
and while we're at it, can we toss out and redesign HTML/JavaScript/CSS/etc? Even the whole stateless HTTP protocol.
Web apps make me sick. Poor debugging tools, haphazard implementations and markup languages that have been over-extended make web development feel like we've gone back 20 years in terms of capabilities for software.
AJAX is a hack built upon other hacks. Framework libraries are a dime a dozen and none seem to be flexible enough to do what you need to do. QA'ing a complex web app is a mess. As an aside, does anyone know of any good QA scripting packages (that test the UI? JUnit doesn't count...)? Selenium isn't bad but misses the mark in several areas.
If we're rebooting the Internet, can we scrap the whole thing and rethink it all while we're at it? (yes, I know www != the internet, but the way things are going it might as well be)
Do you guys have any idea how amazing Windows 3.11 was? With a 386, you could run multiple DOS applications - at the same time! What did you have to do before that?
I'd like the opportunity to thank all of you who have been working hard on Wine all these years.
Recently Wine has saved my butt at work when my Windows machine auto-upgraded me to IE 7 (even though I have auto updates turned off). I was hard-pressed, then, to be able to reproduce a JavaScript bug that apparently was only present on IE 6 (and not 7, nor FF or Opera).
Being able to install IE 6 on my Ubuntu box was a godsend, and it worked well enough that I was able to reproduce the bug and fix it.
Kudos to you guys for your fabulous work, and thank you!
Look, I'm a Linux fan too, but this isn't a problem necessarily with Windows alone. I have certainly dealt with my fair share of Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora distros that cacked up the big one after an upgrade. Sometimes a reinstall is just easier than trying to figure out what broke, especially on a non-critical machine.
I'm not sure why this is such a big problem. Being in Canada, I'm already used to being taxed for everything I purchase online. Either it gets collected at the vendor side (especially if it's in the country), or it gets collected at customs.
I recently had a weird experience when I purchased a Verisign SSL cert. Being a US company, they did not have an option for me to pay in Canadian dollars (fine). What threw me off, and my company's Finance department, is that said US company charging me in US dollars charged GST (Canada's Federal Goods & Services tax, recently reduced from 7% to 5%) on the transaction.
Our internal forms and processes ended going into a weird tailspin as people scrambled to find out how to calculate what should be charged on which ledger.
We have forms for USD transactions but never before had anyone seen one where I needed to separate out GST.
Anyway - I'm already used to paying taxes on all of my online purchases from pretty much anywhere except eBay.
As the author tried to explain, programmers need a solid foundation in data structures and algorithms before they should even begin looking at Java. The specific problem he calls out (which I actually feel only scratches the surface) is that Java offers such a featureful API that the programmer isn't forced to learn the basics. He is able to simply use a Hashtable, a Sort, a LinkedList, or whatever he needs without understanding why it works. Which is a very dangerous thing for someone training to be a Computer Scientist.
There's a simple solution for that. When I went to University of Toronto for CS, the prerequisite intro to Java programming course had us implement those structures using a simplified version of the API as an interface. First few assignments? We implemented Vector, LinkedList (single and doubly-linked), Hashtables, etc. And the TA would give you a 0 if you tried to shortcut around it - you had to understand the structures to get a pass.
There's no reason why you can't learn all of that stuff using high-level languages in Java if the curriculum is committed to it.
The 'tipping point', IMO, is if you could get 300-400 miles out of it (enough for a 2-way commute or a very decent drive), and recharge it quickly (10 minutes or less) for longer road trips.
That's the harder part, I would think. As a commuter vehicle, I would LOVE to be able to trickle-charge a car in my garage at night and never have to visit a fuel station except on longer road trips, though.
Personally, I'd like to see some sort of inductive charger for batteries like this that I can use for a laptop. Rather than cabling everything up, you just rest your laptop on the mat within range for 10 minutes, and you're good to go.
Now things are getting interesting, with that suggestion. Take it a step further - why not embed these inductive chargers (in cities) right into traffic intersections? Give yourself a boost while you're waiting on the red. If anything, it could be used for everything from cars to buses, I would suppose.
Hear hear. I'd particularly like the regressions addressed - the latest upgrade broke my installation of Eclipse so I can't run Ant inside it
Yes, the workaround is to either download/install Eclipse manually or run Ant from the command-line, but it is annoying to see a basic feature still broken for weeks when it worked perfectly fine before.
Slashdot Mirror
The literature we received at the time (2003) indicated that the blood could be saved for no more than 10 years.
Interesting. What's the use, then? Couldn't you get stem cells out of the kid's baby teeth?
How much cheaper was the yearly operating costs? 5x install sounds like it could pay off in just 5-10 years.
Not enough to make up the difference. We put in a 96% eff. furnace instead. We figured that compared to its operating cost, even if the geothermal system took it down to 0 it would have been more than 15 years to pay off. Which coincidentally was the length of the warranty on the piping.
Recently we installed a new furnace (Ontario, Canada). My wife and I had it priced out.
Turns out that although there were several grants we could receive, totalling $7000 approximately, it was still not worth it.
By the time all was said and done, it would have cost $30k to install. They would have torn up our lawn, which would have necessitated new landscaping. They also couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't crush our water and sewage lines with the drilling trucks.
All in all, it wasn't 50% more expensive. After rebates, it would have been about 4 or 5 times what a 96% efficiency natural gas furnace cost us.
Cautious note - not been adequately tested yet...
The main thing I was always worried about was heat. Enough to keep from freezing, bursting pipes, etc. We have a finished basement, so my wife and I had a high-efficiency, sealed natural gas fireplace insert installed.
The pilot stays on, but we got a model that can ignite without power (it uses 4xAA batteries in its control unit). It also has a blower that doesn't seem to take much power - aka low enough that it can run off an inverter if I run an extension cord to the car outside.
We tested this briefly when the furnace went out briefly while I diagnosed what the issue was, albeit the power was still on (turned out the air intake was blocked by snow). It's adequate to keep the basement quite comfortable, and the rest of the house just above freezing (candles can help add a little extra heat too).
I know it seems quaint but my main worry is staying warm enough to survive in such an emergency, and keep the pipes from freezing. We have a barbeque that could serve as our cooking appliance in the meantime. I use it year-round regardless, so it's always in working condition and ready to go.
A generator would be nice in the future, but at the moment when money's a bit tight, seems like a bit of overkill.
All the data is shown in a real-time interactive map using Virtual Earth, but the key is how Eagle 1 pulls data from many different sources (such as from both Oracle and SAP databases)
Nobody thought of MS-SQL I guess. Or maybe they did.
Not really. Most of the cities that sponsored the Olympics are still deep in debt. There are a few exceptions like Atlanta which was mostly paid by corporations, but then there are others like Toronto who, even thirty years later, are still in debt. Tourism does not make-up for the huge expense of throwing this "huge sports party" known as the Olympics.
Toronto might be in debt, but when did we have the Olympics here and how did I manage to miss it?
I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings?
I do. But then again, my wife and I do this neat thing called "communication" before we make any major changes/withdrawals. You should try it sometime.
Hear hear.
We don't distribute software per se, but our online application does generate reports in Excel format using a fairly popular OSS package as the export library.
It's a whole lot of fun when we get emails from users complaining that their emails are having their report attachment stripped, because it has a "virus" called "CorruptedCompressedFile" in it (some AV scanners apparently bork because they detect the file wasn't created in Excel, and thus assume it's contaminated).
If I may... the only thing that offended me (because I DO like the paper ballots) is that Elections Canada, in their infinite wisdom, provided us with PENCILS this year.
I have a sneaky feeling I know why Bev Oda was re-elected.
Option 1 won't work. Lots of organizations (mine included) have non-standard ports firewalled. Most users won't have the smarts to run an external proxy, leading them to believe that the site just doesn't work.
I second the subjectAltName solution. It works very well for what you are hoping to accomplish.
Good for you!
For my part, I wrote to my MP as well. Unfortunately my MP happens to be Bev right now (yes, the infamous Ms Oda herself). All I got back was a form letter telling me how the bill is 'fair and balanced', and the fines are 'relatively low' if you copy for personal use unless you break digital locks.
F*** you, Bev. You're not getting my vote. And I'll do what I can to get my neighbours to not vote for you too.
and while we're at it, can we toss out and redesign HTML/JavaScript/CSS/etc? Even the whole stateless HTTP protocol.
Web apps make me sick. Poor debugging tools, haphazard implementations and markup languages that have been over-extended make web development feel like we've gone back 20 years in terms of capabilities for software.
AJAX is a hack built upon other hacks. Framework libraries are a dime a dozen and none seem to be flexible enough to do what you need to do. QA'ing a complex web app is a mess. As an aside, does anyone know of any good QA scripting packages (that test the UI? JUnit doesn't count...)? Selenium isn't bad but misses the mark in several areas.
If we're rebooting the Internet, can we scrap the whole thing and rethink it all while we're at it? (yes, I know www != the internet, but the way things are going it might as well be)
Do you guys have any idea how amazing Windows 3.11 was? With a 386, you could run multiple DOS applications - at the same time! What did you have to do before that?
DesqView?
I'd like the opportunity to thank all of you who have been working hard on Wine all these years.
Recently Wine has saved my butt at work when my Windows machine auto-upgraded me to IE 7 (even though I have auto updates turned off). I was hard-pressed, then, to be able to reproduce a JavaScript bug that apparently was only present on IE 6 (and not 7, nor FF or Opera).
Being able to install IE 6 on my Ubuntu box was a godsend, and it worked well enough that I was able to reproduce the bug and fix it.
Kudos to you guys for your fabulous work, and thank you!
Look, I'm a Linux fan too, but this isn't a problem necessarily with Windows alone. I have certainly dealt with my fair share of Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora distros that cacked up the big one after an upgrade. Sometimes a reinstall is just easier than trying to figure out what broke, especially on a non-critical machine.
I'm not sure why this is such a big problem. Being in Canada, I'm already used to being taxed for everything I purchase online. Either it gets collected at the vendor side (especially if it's in the country), or it gets collected at customs.
I recently had a weird experience when I purchased a Verisign SSL cert. Being a US company, they did not have an option for me to pay in Canadian dollars (fine). What threw me off, and my company's Finance department, is that said US company charging me in US dollars charged GST (Canada's Federal Goods & Services tax, recently reduced from 7% to 5%) on the transaction.
Our internal forms and processes ended going into a weird tailspin as people scrambled to find out how to calculate what should be charged on which ledger.
We have forms for USD transactions but never before had anyone seen one where I needed to separate out GST.
Anyway - I'm already used to paying taxes on all of my online purchases from pretty much anywhere except eBay.
Because Informix is going to take it all.
As the author tried to explain, programmers need a solid foundation in data structures and algorithms before they should even begin looking at Java. The specific problem he calls out (which I actually feel only scratches the surface) is that Java offers such a featureful API that the programmer isn't forced to learn the basics. He is able to simply use a Hashtable, a Sort, a LinkedList, or whatever he needs without understanding why it works. Which is a very dangerous thing for someone training to be a Computer Scientist.
There's a simple solution for that. When I went to University of Toronto for CS, the prerequisite intro to Java programming course had us implement those structures using a simplified version of the API as an interface. First few assignments? We implemented Vector, LinkedList (single and doubly-linked), Hashtables, etc. And the TA would give you a 0 if you tried to shortcut around it - you had to understand the structures to get a pass.
There's no reason why you can't learn all of that stuff using high-level languages in Java if the curriculum is committed to it.
Are you telling me Firefox isn't a major browser? I just tried Acid2 on my FF 2.0.0.1.1 on Windows and it still looks like crap. How far behind is it?
The 'tipping point', IMO, is if you could get 300-400 miles out of it (enough for a 2-way commute or a very decent drive), and recharge it quickly (10 minutes or less) for longer road trips.
That's the harder part, I would think. As a commuter vehicle, I would LOVE to be able to trickle-charge a car in my garage at night and never have to visit a fuel station except on longer road trips, though.
Personally, I'd like to see some sort of inductive charger for batteries like this that I can use for a laptop. Rather than cabling everything up, you just rest your laptop on the mat within range for 10 minutes, and you're good to go.
Now things are getting interesting, with that suggestion. Take it a step further - why not embed these inductive chargers (in cities) right into traffic intersections? Give yourself a boost while you're waiting on the red. If anything, it could be used for everything from cars to buses, I would suppose.
We should all still be slaving along as British Empire colonies.
Your friends to the north of you seem to have come out reasonably ok.
Hear hear. I'd particularly like the regressions addressed - the latest upgrade broke my installation of Eclipse so I can't run Ant inside it
Yes, the workaround is to either download/install Eclipse manually or run Ant from the command-line, but it is annoying to see a basic feature still broken for weeks when it worked perfectly fine before.
Sigh. That reminds me of the time that my dad and uncle came up with the brilliant idea of cutting frozen salmon on our table saw.
In the basement.
The finished basement.
After all was said and done, walls and ceiling were covered in fine salmon shavings. Gross. Mom was less than thrilled.
This would be why anytime I need an access point I use SSH to connect to my home machine and use my own proxy. The added encryption is a plus.
Funny technique though.