This one is quite artfully done. But comeon, there are a couple of bits that are obviously spoofs:
"because Bhopal is a recurrent problem that's clogging our value chain and ultimately keeping the share price from expressing its full potential."
"We are unable to set this precedent for ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue resolved in a humane and satisfying way."
"well-known products like Styrofoam, DDT, and Agent Orange"
"Although legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to publicly deny these findings."
I assert that a careful reader would know this was a parody. Granted, a junior production assistant at the BBC might not get it, and some slashdotters may have been trolled. But we all know we hardly read the comments (much less the articles).
Sadly, there are very few careful readers. I also concede that both of these articles should have the word parody on them. Since they did not, I think Dow has a case.
Interestingly enough, the stunt may have worked. I've been involved with the environment, hazardous chemicals, and public safety for my entire career, and I've learned more about Bhopal in the last day than I have in the last 10 years.
I just saw a new 'old style iMac' (no LED Screen) for sale for $699 new. Frankly, if I were buying a new mac, I'd buy one of those. IIRC, it had okay specs.
BTW, OS X 10.2 runs fine on my older iMac (DV Graphite SE purchased Jan 2000).
And eBay Macs are even cheaper. If you want a machine that runs Jagwire, there really isn't any reason why you can't afford one. Granted, it won't be top of the line, but it will work, and work nicely...
I feel sorry for anyone who fell for the parody site (after reading the whole thing), but I don't think it was out of line. If someone was misled by the parody site, then they're not careful readers. They have been trolled. They have lost. Have a nice day.
I thought it was very very funny. In a doubleunplusgood funny sorta way. I've got to give credit to the writer. S/he has pegged the corporate doubletalk that makes up so much corporate communication.
I do think the site should have a 'parody' tag down at the bottom.
Sort of stuck with the gas station, but there is always www.gasbuddy.com for the lowest price.
Ever hear of the bus? Or maybe a more fuel-efficient car? Or a bike?
The car is probably people's second biggest expense after rent/mortgage. Think about these blue sky estimates: $250/month payment + $75/month insurance + $75/month gas + $50/month parking or tolls = $450/month. And some families have two cars!
That's a lot of bread. That's 10 movie outings or dinners for me and the missus. That's an iPod a month. A desktop every 2 months. That's a pretty fancy vacation every 6 months. That's over $5,000 a year. If I started saving car money when my child was born, e would have over $90,000 for college (plus interest).
Don't get me wrong. Cars are useful, but don't think you can't do anything about the cost.
I was just in a Holiday Inn and they had FREE high speed internet access for computers with an ethernet card. It was frankly amazing. No extra fees.
The only other computer access I've seen in hotel rooms are those cruddy TV-based web browsers. Frankly, they are worse than useless. And they usually charge $10/day.
WiFi would be nice, especially if I could check my e-mail while I was in a boring conference seminar, but I don't see the benefit for most hotels. Except for resorts and conference centers, I don't need WiFi in the hotel bar, or in most crummy lobbies.
But whatever a hotel decides, they should make it free for hotel users. Making it an extra profit center will stop many from using it, making it a freebie means I will never stay anywhere else.
The reason they were acquitted is because the Jury felt that Elcomsoft didn't do anything wrong.
Despite what the DMCA says, the average joe thinks it's reasonable that you should be able to back up your stuff. You should be able to copy your CDs to MP3 and play them on your iPods, that you should be able to TiVo Buffy and, while you're at it, remove all the ads.
No matter what Valenti and Rosen say, and no matter how much they pay off the Senator from Disney, Joe and Jane Juror aren't going to convict someone for cracking copy-protection when it's a fair use issue. It isn't going to happen because it doesn't make sense to the average person. The average person will ask "I bought this DVD, why can't I use it on a Linux DVD player?"
You can make all the laws you want, but until you convince the average american juror that taking a potty break during a commercial is 'theft', you are not gonna win a single case.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is manufactured in the pituitary and is the primary hormone responsible for growth.
Giantism and Dwarfism are two conditions that can be caused from too much or too little HGH production. The most common reason for over production of HGH is a tumor on or near the pituitary.
Although the effects on growing animals are well documented, the effects on grown animals are less understood.
If I recall my college Endocrinology classes correctly, in children HGH has the most profound effects in long bones in the legs and arms. Long bones grow from the middle of the bones, in regions called growth planes (IIRC). HGH stimulates these growth zones.
The problem with using it on children is principally the dose. If a child is small and you give it HGH, you will increase it's growth, but you may also end up fusing the growth planes early. Thus the 4'6" boy may grow a whole foot, but finish growing early at 5'6". Once the growth planes fuse, HGH isn't going to do much that is visible.
Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) is used to stimulate milk production in dairy cows. However, the public concern about this practice caused Ben & Jerry's to ban the hormone in cows that provide milk to them.
I would be highly suspect of any HGH preparation you could buy from a spammer over the internet. HGH is a protein, and proteins can degrade during extraction. I recall using hormones in laboratory research and refrigeration was necessary for all our hormones at almost every step. Since the structure of the hormone is the reason it's biologically active, anything that can degrade the structure is a bad thing. A previous writer is also correct. Injection is preferrable to ingestion. Stomach acid does awful things to protein.
Yes, Office is the better productivity suite to the average business user. And that's largely due to four programs: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. Access tends to be used by a much smaller crowd of business users.
Word processing standardized file formats are out there. RTF and PDF are all supported virtually everywhere. I do my part by sending things out as RTF when I can.
Of course, MS Office and OpenOffice file formats are going to be XML, which means XSLT stylesheets could be used by any word processor to convert to-from any format. I expect sourceforge projects to write these stylesheets real soon now (if they don't already exist).
As for MS Word's voice annotation, I don't know a single person who has ever used it. Most of the bells and whistles in Word aren't used by the majority of users. That's why I think Word's dominance as the default word processor might be coming to an end. When AbiWord supports tables, or when OpenOffice gets faster and/or runs reliably on the Big 3 (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X), then you will see a lot more interest in free word processors.
Yes, PowerPoint is better than the other presentation software I've seen. But, a free presentation module, done right, could reduce the need for some companies to buy Office. Why? PowerPoint presentations aren't shared as widely, and if they are, they're more likely shared within the same company. Less dependence on interoperability.
I've used many different spreadsheets and I've never felt that one was significantly better than the other. But IANAA(ccountant).
Outlook is quite handy, but IMHO it is a substandard mail client to Apple's Mail.app. I do like it as a calendar and address book, there is other software out there that can make do (Palm desktop doesn't suck).
I guess I'm just rambling off-topic, so I'll try to get around to a point...
If Gobe Productive were to be released under the GPL, it wouldn't be a bad thing. MS Office seems to have a lock on office productivity suites, but I think the lock is primarily due to the dominace of Word. The more quality choices there are, the more likely that MS's market share will erode.
But AppleWorks is a very good product. In fact, it's good enough for most Apple users. That's Apple and MS are having a "MS Office for $200" special. It's a ploy to increase the number of iMac MS Office users.
At our house, we didn't buy MS Office because we couldn't justify the price when AppleWorks does virtually everything we need (and it came with our Macs).
The only reason we broke down and bought MS Word is because my wife needs it for her work. If Word wasn't the de facto Word Processor, or if AppleWorks2Word file conversions were more robust, she could tell her Windows-using clients to deal with RTF files.
Frankly, we both prefer AppleWorks word processing module to Word. However, I think AppleWorks presentation module is quite sucky, especially compared to PowerPoint on Windows. Thankfully, I don't need to do presentations on my Mac. In my opinion, AppleWorks is more 'mac-like' than Office, which still feels like a well-done port of Word for Windows.
That being said, I wish that Gobe, Abiword, and OpenOffice all succeed. The more choices, especially free choices, the less likely that any one will dominate the landscape.
Sorry, that abandoned station is above the diagonal. According to the Hamwich Convention of 1954, moves from abandoned stations to Mornington Crescent have to transit the Central line.
so there...
Biodiesel and fleets
on
239 MPG Car
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Biodiesel probably won't show up at 'consumer' pumps any time soon. After all, when was the last time (outside of a truck stop) have you seen a diesel pump?
Biodiesel will have great success in a fleet situations. Where all the busses or delivery trucks at a central garage fuel up at the same place. Later, when it becomes more affordable and/or more popular, you'll see it at truck stops.
85% Ethanol Gasoline is appearing in large cities. Not a lot, but I've seen one or two in Chicago (and I haven't been looking). Look for more pumps, particularly in the Midwest Corn belt, where the states are pushing Ethanol as a market for excess corn.
Of course, the Hybrids are the most immediate 'wave of the future'. They use gas, the reduce gas emissions, and they get better gas mileage. Sure they're more expensive, but I think I read somewhere that the big three are planning on reducing that cost through mass production. I'm guessing by 2008 we'll have more hybrids on the road than you might think.
Hybrid vehicles, using gasoline, are safer than fuel cell vehicles using Hydrogen. I've seen those vehicles, and the precautions needed for hydrogen fueling are crazy: Hydrogen burns almost invisibly in daylight, so if you're not careful, you can walk right into merry little hydrogen fire.
Martin Fowler is quite pragmatic when he's talking about refactoring. First of all, he doesn't think you should refactor for refactorings sake.
The best piece of advice I've read of his is "Three strikes and you refactor". In other words, if you duplicate some code, you hold your nose and live with it. But if you're putting in similar code three times, then you're better off refactoring out the duplication.
The other piece of advice I keep with me when I code is (I'm paraphrasing here) "If you need to add feature A, and your code makes it difficult to add feature A, refactor the code until feature A is trivial to add". A well-factored program makes it easier to add new requirements and often prevents a total rewrite.
I don't think much of the "code for a month, refactor for a month" and I don't think Fowler does either. Most everything I've read is "code for 5 minutes, refactor for 5 minutes".
Yep, jEdit is a total pig. It's slow, takes forever to load, and is quite simply the best free XML editor I've ever used. I know it's not magic, but it does the following really well:
When I start a tag, it opens a contextural menu that displays all the valid tags.
As I type the name of the tag, the list changes until I get the unique tag I want.
When I type a close-tag, it fills in the close-tag information.
It's XML validator does a pretty good job and has the sensible trait of stopping after listing 100 errors.
Poorly-formed and invalid XML is redlined, like a spelling mistake.
I don't think it's productive to get into a match about XML/WYSIWIG. I like structured XML editors (like XML Spy). They definitely have their place, I especially like the table format. But for 60% of my XML-editing needs I'll be quite happy with a text editor with syntax coloring (ahh, BBEdit).
I guess it's all about the tools. The right tool in the right place. And for me, when I'm writing a DocBook, it's jEdit. It's not perfect, but it's the best tool I got.
Get a temp job that starts to pay the bills. Let the firm know that you would prefer tech-area jobs. Temp work is the great back door through which the inept Human Resource director is circumvented.
If you like the place, and they like you, you will eventually get an offer for a 'real' job. Meanwhile, you will get to see all the different types of jobs there are: specifically, which places you really don't want to work.
While you're slumming in the mail room, you should contribute to some open source projects at home. Temp jobs almost never make you sign oppressive IP contracts. It will keep your skills up, and you will earn a reputation with your peers. Non-paid work is _always_ impressive on your resume. If a shop says "Hey, why are you doing OSS stuff?" you can say it was to keep your skills sharp while you found a 'real' job.
But don't write off the 'real' world. There's a far bigger, and hidden, market for people who know how to program. I started in environmental consulting, and one of our best consultants was a database guru. I recently automated table generation in a large report. Saved us a week of formatting time. Programmer is not in my job description. These types of jobs generally have a specific problem domain, which gives you a leg up when you want to move to a 'real' tech shop.
Bill Wyman the rock critic has been using his name for almost 10 years. I recall he was a rock critic in Chicago for years before he moved to Atlanta. Even then he was careful to tell anyone that he wasn't the Stones Bill Wyman.
At no time does he pretend to be the former Stone, and he still sounds like an American teenager, not a decrepit burnout British rocker.
Bill Wyman the rocker should just relax. I mean he's set up for life. He's retired from the band. Perhaps this lawsuit is based more on his perception of irrelevancy than any sort of financial loss. Perhaps since he wasn't invited on the Simpsons, he thinks he's gotta show someone who's the boss.
Don't even get me started on opensource (I know, sacrilidge on slashdot, but guess what, most companies won't acquire anything built in opensource due to the license problems)..
I'm confused. What is the problem with using a GPL'd binary? If I'm looking for an alternative to Word, I can use AbiWord or OpenOffice.org Writer. I don't to worry about licensing issues because I don't intend to modify the source.
The real strength in these products is when you can use the product WITHOUT needing the source. You get the 'free as in beer' part and you don't need to worry about the 'viral nature of the license' because you're not writing any code for it.
"It's illegal," she said, "and they're going to get a lot of publicity for it."
That may have been the point. "It's a tremendous opportunity," Ms. Lacter said, "for us to build brand awareness."
So they intend to make Microsoft synonymous with breaking the law? Sorry, it's been done. Anyone ever hear of their illegal monopoly?
I think they've succeeded. Dilbert says Microsoft is the weasleiest [sp?] company, so Ms. Lacter's strategy must be working!
At a $50 fine per ad, if there is one ad per every man woman and child in NYC (say 10 million), it will be $500,000,000. I think Bill Gates made that before breakfast...
The US EPA (and NOAA) have produced several "Free as In Beer" programs. They have been made available to emergency planners and responders to plan for chemical emergencies. Three of these programs interoperate and are referred to as "The CAMEO Suite". I'll describe them here:
CAMEO
This is a database application (based on FileMaker Pro) that runs on Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Out of the box it contains a Chemical Library for over 6000 different hazardous chemicals. Many chemicals listed have a complete "Response Information Data Sheet" which summarizes Fire Fighting, First Aid, and accidental spill information. Since it is free, it has been widely adopted by Hazardous Materials teams as an information resource.
In addition to the Chemical Library, the program has modules for:
Facilities: In addition to the facilities address, you can store phone numbers, emergency contacts, and a description of Hazardous Chemicals on-site.
Contacts: Which is essentially an address book module.
Special Locations: Which allows you to store address and contact data for Hospitals, Schools, Nursing Homes, Prisons. Basically any place without chemicals.
Screenings and Scenarios: Emergency planners can anticipate certain chemical releases and model their effects. This allows facilities and emergency responders to develop plans that mitigate the release effects, or decrease the liklihood of release.
CAMEO is rather easy to use. The biggest problem is data entry. Most Fire Departments don't have the resources to enter and maintain the data in the program.
MARPLOT
Marplot is a free GIS program. You can download maps for your area from US EPA website. It has pan and zoom controls, which makes it an offline alternative to MAPQUEST. It also has a pretty good search interface so you can find the street address, or intersection you're looking for.
It also has the ability to map CAMEO locations. That means you can plot each chemical facility's location and see the area that would be effected by a chemical accident. The screening and scenarios "threat zones" can be plotted so you can preplan evacuation zones and identify special locations at risk from a chemical accident.
ALOHA
This program is a chemical release modeler. You provide it with the parameters: Location of spill, Time, Weather conditions, Type of Chemical, Quantity and rate of release -- and ALOHA will generate a 'footprint' of the expected release.
It is a gaussian dispersion model and is only considered accurate to a factor of 2. However, unlike other models, you don't need a Atmospheric Meterologist, a Chemical Engineer, or a Beowulf cluster (obligatory/. reference) to collect data and run the model.
ALOHA integrates with CAMEO, so you can use the facilities and chemicals in the database as inputs to the program. It also integrates with MARPLOT, so the release plume can be plotted. This allows emergency responders to anticipate (based on actual conditions) in what direction a chemical release will disperse. This can facilitate emergency response and evacuation.
US EPA and NOAA (who developed these programs) have really done a service to the Emergency Response community by making these programs free. Similar programs cost can cost hundreds of dollars.
None of these programs are open source, but the import/export data formats are well-documented.
The main cost to communities in the adoption of these programs is (a) training and (b) data entry and maintenance. Chemical hazard planning is not a trivial skill and most communities don't have enough facilities to hire someone full-time.
The federal government has created "Local Emergency Planning Committees", or LEPC, to do this planning, but it is an unfunded mandate and is usually staffed by volunteers.
So the tools are nice, but their use is predicated on a community's perceived need. A large city with a lot of industry definitely benefits from these programs, but a small rural community can decide they don't need to bother.
Slashdot Mirror
The usual way...
His Mom or Dad saw a nifty program, downloaded it and blindly clicked through the install screens which added the nasty spyware.
Thank god my mom got a macintosh. None of that crap was ever written for OS9, and now, thanks to OSX, it never will be.
Last Christmas I installed her printer. Talk about a breeze...
This one is quite artfully done. But comeon, there are a couple of bits that are obviously spoofs:
"because Bhopal is a recurrent problem that's clogging our value chain and ultimately keeping the share price from expressing its full potential."
"We are unable to set this precedent for ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue resolved in a humane and satisfying way."
"well-known products like Styrofoam, DDT, and Agent Orange"
"Although legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to publicly deny these findings."
I assert that a careful reader would know this was a parody. Granted, a junior production assistant at the BBC might not get it, and some slashdotters may have been trolled. But we all know we hardly read the comments (much less the articles).
Sadly, there are very few careful readers. I also concede that both of these articles should have the word parody on them. Since they did not, I think Dow has a case.
Interestingly enough, the stunt may have worked. I've been involved with the environment, hazardous chemicals, and public safety for my entire career, and I've learned more about Bhopal in the last day than I have in the last 10 years.
I just saw a new 'old style iMac' (no LED Screen) for sale for $699 new. Frankly, if I were buying a new mac, I'd buy one of those. IIRC, it had okay specs.
BTW, OS X 10.2 runs fine on my older iMac (DV Graphite SE purchased Jan 2000).
And eBay Macs are even cheaper. If you want a machine that runs Jagwire, there really isn't any reason why you can't afford one. Granted, it won't be top of the line, but it will work, and work nicely...
I feel sorry for anyone who fell for the parody site (after reading the whole thing), but I don't think it was out of line. If someone was misled by the parody site, then they're not careful readers. They have been trolled. They have lost. Have a nice day.
I thought it was very very funny. In a doubleunplusgood funny sorta way. I've got to give credit to the writer. S/he has pegged the corporate doubletalk that makes up so much corporate communication.
I do think the site should have a 'parody' tag down at the bottom.
Ever hear of the bus? Or maybe a more fuel-efficient car? Or a bike?
The car is probably people's second biggest expense after rent/mortgage. Think about these blue sky estimates: $250/month payment + $75/month insurance + $75/month gas + $50/month parking or tolls = $450/month. And some families have two cars!
That's a lot of bread. That's 10 movie outings or dinners for me and the missus. That's an iPod a month. A desktop every 2 months. That's a pretty fancy vacation every 6 months. That's over $5,000 a year. If I started saving car money when my child was born, e would have over $90,000 for college (plus interest).
Don't get me wrong. Cars are useful, but don't think you can't do anything about the cost.
I was just in a Holiday Inn and they had FREE high speed internet access for computers with an ethernet card. It was frankly amazing. No extra fees.
The only other computer access I've seen in hotel rooms are those cruddy TV-based web browsers. Frankly, they are worse than useless. And they usually charge $10/day.
WiFi would be nice, especially if I could check my e-mail while I was in a boring conference seminar, but I don't see the benefit for most hotels. Except for resorts and conference centers, I don't need WiFi in the hotel bar, or in most crummy lobbies.
But whatever a hotel decides, they should make it free for hotel users. Making it an extra profit center will stop many from using it, making it a freebie means I will never stay anywhere else.
Haha...
Silly ekrout! You got a girlfriend that takes you to chick-flicks.
You should have done what I did: waited for a woman who drags me to Spiderman and The Two Towers, and then marry her.
Granted, it took me 20 years to find her.
The reason they were acquitted is because the Jury felt that Elcomsoft didn't do anything wrong.
Despite what the DMCA says, the average joe thinks it's reasonable that you should be able to back up your stuff. You should be able to copy your CDs to MP3 and play them on your iPods, that you should be able to TiVo Buffy and, while you're at it, remove all the ads.
No matter what Valenti and Rosen say, and no matter how much they pay off the Senator from Disney, Joe and Jane Juror aren't going to convict someone for cracking copy-protection when it's a fair use issue. It isn't going to happen because it doesn't make sense to the average person. The average person will ask "I bought this DVD, why can't I use it on a Linux DVD player?"
You can make all the laws you want, but until you convince the average american juror that taking a potty break during a commercial is 'theft', you are not gonna win a single case.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is manufactured in the pituitary and is the primary hormone responsible for growth.
Giantism and Dwarfism are two conditions that can be caused from too much or too little HGH production. The most common reason for over production of HGH is a tumor on or near the pituitary.
Although the effects on growing animals are well documented, the effects on grown animals are less understood.
If I recall my college Endocrinology classes correctly, in children HGH has the most profound effects in long bones in the legs and arms. Long bones grow from the middle of the bones, in regions called growth planes (IIRC). HGH stimulates these growth zones.
The problem with using it on children is principally the dose. If a child is small and you give it HGH, you will increase it's growth, but you may also end up fusing the growth planes early. Thus the 4'6" boy may grow a whole foot, but finish growing early at 5'6". Once the growth planes fuse, HGH isn't going to do much that is visible.
Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) is used to stimulate milk production in dairy cows. However, the public concern about this practice caused Ben & Jerry's to ban the hormone in cows that provide milk to them.
I would be highly suspect of any HGH preparation you could buy from a spammer over the internet. HGH is a protein, and proteins can degrade during extraction. I recall using hormones in laboratory research and refrigeration was necessary for all our hormones at almost every step. Since the structure of the hormone is the reason it's biologically active, anything that can degrade the structure is a bad thing. A previous writer is also correct. Injection is preferrable to ingestion. Stomach acid does awful things to protein.
Yes, Office is the better productivity suite to the average business user. And that's largely due to four programs: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. Access tends to be used by a much smaller crowd of business users.
Word processing standardized file formats are out there. RTF and PDF are all supported virtually everywhere. I do my part by sending things out as RTF when I can.
Of course, MS Office and OpenOffice file formats are going to be XML, which means XSLT stylesheets could be used by any word processor to convert to-from any format. I expect sourceforge projects to write these stylesheets real soon now (if they don't already exist).
As for MS Word's voice annotation, I don't know a single person who has ever used it. Most of the bells and whistles in Word aren't used by the majority of users. That's why I think Word's dominance as the default word processor might be coming to an end. When AbiWord supports tables, or when OpenOffice gets faster and/or runs reliably on the Big 3 (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X), then you will see a lot more interest in free word processors.
Yes, PowerPoint is better than the other presentation software I've seen. But, a free presentation module, done right, could reduce the need for some companies to buy Office. Why? PowerPoint presentations aren't shared as widely, and if they are, they're more likely shared within the same company. Less dependence on interoperability.
I've used many different spreadsheets and I've never felt that one was significantly better than the other. But IANAA(ccountant).
Outlook is quite handy, but IMHO it is a substandard mail client to Apple's Mail.app. I do like it as a calendar and address book, there is other software out there that can make do (Palm desktop doesn't suck).
I guess I'm just rambling off-topic, so I'll try to get around to a point...
If Gobe Productive were to be released under the GPL, it wouldn't be a bad thing. MS Office seems to have a lock on office productivity suites, but I think the lock is primarily due to the dominace of Word. The more quality choices there are, the more likely that MS's market share will erode.
But AppleWorks is a very good product. In fact, it's good enough for most Apple users. That's Apple and MS are having a "MS Office for $200" special. It's a ploy to increase the number of iMac MS Office users.
At our house, we didn't buy MS Office because we couldn't justify the price when AppleWorks does virtually everything we need (and it came with our Macs).
The only reason we broke down and bought MS Word is because my wife needs it for her work. If Word wasn't the de facto Word Processor, or if AppleWorks2Word file conversions were more robust, she could tell her Windows-using clients to deal with RTF files.
Frankly, we both prefer AppleWorks word processing module to Word. However, I think AppleWorks presentation module is quite sucky, especially compared to PowerPoint on Windows. Thankfully, I don't need to do presentations on my Mac. In my opinion, AppleWorks is more 'mac-like' than Office, which still feels like a well-done port of Word for Windows.
That being said, I wish that Gobe, Abiword, and OpenOffice all succeed. The more choices, especially free choices, the less likely that any one will dominate the landscape.
Sorry, that abandoned station is above the diagonal. According to the Hamwich Convention of 1954, moves from abandoned stations to Mornington Crescent have to transit the Central line.
so there...
Biodiesel probably won't show up at 'consumer' pumps any time soon. After all, when was the last time (outside of a truck stop) have you seen a diesel pump?
Biodiesel will have great success in a fleet situations. Where all the busses or delivery trucks at a central garage fuel up at the same place. Later, when it becomes more affordable and/or more popular, you'll see it at truck stops.
85% Ethanol Gasoline is appearing in large cities. Not a lot, but I've seen one or two in Chicago (and I haven't been looking). Look for more pumps, particularly in the Midwest Corn belt, where the states are pushing Ethanol as a market for excess corn.
Of course, the Hybrids are the most immediate 'wave of the future'. They use gas, the reduce gas emissions, and they get better gas mileage. Sure they're more expensive, but I think I read somewhere that the big three are planning on reducing that cost through mass production. I'm guessing by 2008 we'll have more hybrids on the road than you might think.
Hybrid vehicles, using gasoline, are safer than fuel cell vehicles using Hydrogen. I've seen those vehicles, and the precautions needed for hydrogen fueling are crazy: Hydrogen burns almost invisibly in daylight, so if you're not careful, you can walk right into merry little hydrogen fire.
Martin Fowler is quite pragmatic when he's talking about refactoring. First of all, he doesn't think you should refactor for refactorings sake.
The best piece of advice I've read of his is "Three strikes and you refactor". In other words, if you duplicate some code, you hold your nose and live with it. But if you're putting in similar code three times, then you're better off refactoring out the duplication.
The other piece of advice I keep with me when I code is (I'm paraphrasing here) "If you need to add feature A, and your code makes it difficult to add feature A, refactor the code until feature A is trivial to add". A well-factored program makes it easier to add new requirements and often prevents a total rewrite.
I don't think much of the "code for a month, refactor for a month" and I don't think Fowler does either. Most everything I've read is "code for 5 minutes, refactor for 5 minutes".
So, with a Human-Mouse Hybrid, does that mean I have a laser in my finger, or a trackball in my palm?
And where do I plug the "Universal Serial Bus"? Please don't tell me it's the same place I stick my "FireWire"...
Does that also mean that Deaf people can type without a keyboard?
I don't think it's productive to get into a match about XML/WYSIWIG. I like structured XML editors (like XML Spy). They definitely have their place, I especially like the table format. But for 60% of my XML-editing needs I'll be quite happy with a text editor with syntax coloring (ahh, BBEdit).
I guess it's all about the tools. The right tool in the right place. And for me, when I'm writing a DocBook, it's jEdit. It's not perfect, but it's the best tool I got.
Get a temp job that starts to pay the bills. Let the firm know that you would prefer tech-area jobs. Temp work is the great back door through which the inept Human Resource director is circumvented.
If you like the place, and they like you, you will eventually get an offer for a 'real' job. Meanwhile, you will get to see all the different types of jobs there are: specifically, which places you really don't want to work.
While you're slumming in the mail room, you should contribute to some open source projects at home. Temp jobs almost never make you sign oppressive IP contracts. It will keep your skills up, and you will earn a reputation with your peers. Non-paid work is _always_ impressive on your resume. If a shop says "Hey, why are you doing OSS stuff?" you can say it was to keep your skills sharp while you found a 'real' job.
But don't write off the 'real' world. There's a far bigger, and hidden, market for people who know how to program. I started in environmental consulting, and one of our best consultants was a database guru. I recently automated table generation in a large report. Saved us a week of formatting time. Programmer is not in my job description. These types of jobs generally have a specific problem domain, which gives you a leg up when you want to move to a 'real' tech shop.
Bill Wyman the rock critic has been using his name for almost 10 years. I recall he was a rock critic in Chicago for years before he moved to Atlanta. Even then he was careful to tell anyone that he wasn't the Stones Bill Wyman.
At no time does he pretend to be the former Stone, and he still sounds like an American teenager, not a decrepit burnout British rocker.
Bill Wyman the rocker should just relax. I mean he's set up for life. He's retired from the band. Perhaps this lawsuit is based more on his perception of irrelevancy than any sort of financial loss. Perhaps since he wasn't invited on the Simpsons, he thinks he's gotta show someone who's the boss.
I'm confused. What is the problem with using a GPL'd binary? If I'm looking for an alternative to Word, I can use AbiWord or OpenOffice.org Writer. I don't to worry about licensing issues because I don't intend to modify the source.
The real strength in these products is when you can use the product WITHOUT needing the source. You get the 'free as in beer' part and you don't need to worry about the 'viral nature of the license' because you're not writing any code for it.
So they intend to make Microsoft synonymous with breaking the law? Sorry, it's been done. Anyone ever hear of their illegal monopoly?
I think they've succeeded. Dilbert says Microsoft is the weasleiest [sp?] company, so Ms. Lacter's strategy must be working!
At a $50 fine per ad, if there is one ad per every man woman and child in NYC (say 10 million), it will be $500,000,000. I think Bill Gates made that before breakfast...
The pen probably doesn't work too well on the 7th Planet either.
You will be able to write apps in Python (or Perl) and be able to use the Cocoa framework to make stand-alone apps.
This is different than porting the Tk GUI to Aqua. I know this also is being done for Python.
I would eventually like both.
Not according to this.
Arthur C. Clarke popularized the Space Elevator and once said "The space elevator will be built about fifty years after everyone stops laughing".
p _1 .htm
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07se
CAMEO
This is a database application (based on FileMaker Pro) that runs on Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Out of the box it contains a Chemical Library for over 6000 different hazardous chemicals. Many chemicals listed have a complete "Response Information Data Sheet" which summarizes Fire Fighting, First Aid, and accidental spill information. Since it is free, it has been widely adopted by Hazardous Materials teams as an information resource.
In addition to the Chemical Library, the program has modules for:
CAMEO is rather easy to use. The biggest problem is data entry. Most Fire Departments don't have the resources to enter and maintain the data in the program.
MARPLOT
Marplot is a free GIS program. You can download maps for your area from US EPA website. It has pan and zoom controls, which makes it an offline alternative to MAPQUEST. It also has a pretty good search interface so you can find the street address, or intersection you're looking for.
It also has the ability to map CAMEO locations. That means you can plot each chemical facility's location and see the area that would be effected by a chemical accident. The screening and scenarios "threat zones" can be plotted so you can preplan evacuation zones and identify special locations at risk from a chemical accident.
ALOHA
This program is a chemical release modeler. You provide it with the parameters: Location of spill, Time, Weather conditions, Type of Chemical, Quantity and rate of release -- and ALOHA will generate a 'footprint' of the expected release.
It is a gaussian dispersion model and is only considered accurate to a factor of 2. However, unlike other models, you don't need a Atmospheric Meterologist, a Chemical Engineer, or a Beowulf cluster (obligatory
ALOHA integrates with CAMEO, so you can use the facilities and chemicals in the database as inputs to the program. It also integrates with MARPLOT, so the release plume can be plotted. This allows emergency responders to anticipate (based on actual conditions) in what direction a chemical release will disperse. This can facilitate emergency response and evacuation.
US EPA and NOAA (who developed these programs) have really done a service to the Emergency Response community by making these programs free. Similar programs cost can cost hundreds of dollars.
None of these programs are open source, but the import/export data formats are well-documented.
The main cost to communities in the adoption of these programs is (a) training and (b) data entry and maintenance. Chemical hazard planning is not a trivial skill and most communities don't have enough facilities to hire someone full-time.
The federal government has created "Local Emergency Planning Committees", or LEPC, to do this planning, but it is an unfunded mandate and is usually staffed by volunteers.
So the tools are nice, but their use is predicated on a community's perceived need. A large city with a lot of industry definitely benefits from these programs, but a small rural community can decide they don't need to bother.