I miss Usenet. Yes, the many of the groups got overrun with spam, and I'm not talking the binaries, but I really like the decentralized nature of it. But really, with a good reader, of your own choosing, you could just rip through discussions or participate. How it looked to you was your own doing. Some of the web forums these days are just painfull if you're trying to skim lots of messages. I really like slrn. Oh well.
Yes, this inclusion into the Dash has gone a bit to far.
I upgraded a machine over the weekend to 12.10, and after a couple of installs of my various packages I like, I went to Unity Dash to search for "Eclipse" to see if I'd already installed the Java IDE or not.
Instead of simply saying "no", it instead gave me returns for all sorts of Twilight movies and books. Amazon probably has it on my wish list already.
I'll search Amazon when I want to search Amazon. When Dash is now the way to launch programs on my box instead of menus, I want it to launch programs.
I'm getting very disappointed with Slashdot this past few years, and they seem to be pandering to the sensationalist. I used to come here for some real news.
It's all over the wire about the jury deliberations, mistrial, infringements. I come to Slashdot thinking I'd get the real scoop. Nope, more of same sensational stuff.
So, Groklaw has the real story, and it turns out, it's not much of a story at all.
There's all sorts of sensational web sites out there. I used to come to Slashdot for the comments, which have always been rational. Now, I'm not sure why I stop by from time to time.
Funny, I've been thinking the same thing lately. And I've been dependent on Google and Android for a while now.
Why. Google plus was the last subtle thing to set it off.
I've used Google Apps for all of my email on my domain since it came out. Works great. I've had my domain for 15 years, and it's me. I depend on Android and my Google interconnects. I use Chrome on all my boxes. Everything works well.
Plus doesn't like Google Apps for your Domain. You've got to create a new gmail account for that. Something that's not me. Something that nobody knows me as. And Chrome/Google account switching will force that to be the default account.
Multiple account switching has also changed around, and it makes this gmail account your primary account, and I've got to keep using my password to get to my regular Google Apps email in Chrome. Now, the email I've depended on for 10 years multiple times a day requires me to keep switching back to my (now) non-default domain account, if I check Google plus also.
It sound petty, but it's made me stand back and say, "Wow, I'm _really_ dependent on Google, and this can get ugly". Being an open-source kind-of-guy, that makes me nervous.
To me it wasn't so much the printed font, but the lack of all quotation marks which gave the physical text a stark feeling. I have both a printed copy of "The Road" and a Kindle copy, and that starkness came through in both.
My other two cents: The Kindle sucks for any reference type work. I don't like reading newspapers or reference non-fiction because jumping around is awful. This has potential of being solved soon, but now now. The K2 came with a free cookbook that's just painful to use.
However, if you have a straight-though type text which includes most fiction where formatting isn't an issue, then it's a wonderful device. Non-fiction that's mostly text and no graphs that you read through like a plain book is also not bad.
I like having several texts available to read from, and it's in my bag. I think many people have also gotten into reading classic fiction that's out of copyright and freely available. There are lots of good books out there, and I like having them all easily available to read.
Nope, I don't work for Amazon or anybody else related. I just think they have something cool.
I don't understand why Amazon doesn't push the fact that this works well with any text or html file is beyond me. Once I realized that fact, I was sold.
That, and it's the built in data cell phone (Whispernet), which makes it that much better than its competitors. The built in web browser is almost unusable, but the store works and is fun for finding a beach read, and each kindle is assigned its own email address. There are lots of times I've put a file in an email (or just hooked up via USB), and was able to read it later somewhere.
People get hung up on the DRM and the lackluster support for PDFs, but I think there are many posters in this topic who are starting to realize that there are other reasons this is a good reader, and that hasn't always been evident in previous Kindle discussions on Slashdot.
Pro: It plays nicely with Linux. It shows up as a hard drive, and I can make sure I've backed up all of the files onto my desktop. The DRM files are keyed to the device, so copying them for backup is not a problem.
Con: Can look geeky. Sometimes I just want to read a book and not stand out.
Pro: Anonymousness. However, I can read a book without anybody questioning my choices. Also, it's easy to read while having lunch -- put it on the table and tap the button to turn the page. It doesn't have to be held open with the second hand.
Pro: Format. It can read lots of formats, either natively or with translations from Mobireader. Except...
Con: PDF. PDFs define a page layout, and don't take well to reflowing the text in a small screen. Other formats which don't require page layout work just fine. It's a shame that many documents are in PDF format, when the layout is not particularly important.
Pro: Upload documents. It's very nice to have a long text file or other document that I can email to the device. It's easier to put my feet up and read with this device instead of a laptop. Yes, that makes it a one-trick pony, but it's a pretty good trick.
I've had my Kindle since last December, and I like it overall, I have sometimes thought about putting it up on eBay -- the hype sometimes gets to be a bit much.
Pro: Non DRM files from Gutenberg, ManyBooks, and others. I've been able to read "The Wizard of Oz" and lots of other books I've always wanted to read. You can email them to the device or hook it up via USB, and it's much better to read this way than on my computer/laptop.
Con: Batteries must be charged. I've had the Kindle in my bag for a while, take it out at lunch, and the battery is dead. If the Whispernet/Cell phone is turned off, it will last over a week, but if it's left on, the battery will only last for a couple of days.
Pro: Online access. With "free" built in data cell service (Whispernet), it's really cool to be somewhere, get an urge to read something, and download either the fiction or non-fiction. Free stuff comes from Feedbooks, and the Amazon store is pretty cool too.
Con: DRM, although it's not as bad as it's made out to be. Most books I read only once, so I don't mind paying a few bucks to get instant access, read it, and move on. If I plan to keep anything for reference or permanance, I'll buy a real copy. Many pop books are quick reads, I get it now, I don't have to wait at the library, and I'm OK that I may not have access to it in a couple of years.
Pro: Ease of reading. The display is nice to read, and I can read it for hours. I can with a regular book to, so I guess this is a wash.
Con: Fragility. I already broke on screen, and Amazon replaced it. This, along with the battery issue, makes be think before I throw it in the bag. A regular book doesn't have these problems.
There, my quick review. I like it, am keeping it, and it's not the earth-changer. Books aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Something that's come from the top in our company is for email to become even more formal, much like a written letter. Most emails include a "Dear Joe," clause at the top, and a "sincerely," or similar at the bottom.
Having the formal opening does help to enforce a single person in the "To:" clause, which several CC's, which is the way it's suppose to be. We still have Outlook, so it's full top-quoting, it does work to show the sequence of letters. They're still quickly written letters, but the formalness does help with the triviality.
I've got a Thinkpad T42 with Ubuntu Gutsy on (and have had earlier versions), and although I haven't gotten to the article yet, Ubuntu seems to work very well on my laptop.
I was going to write this off as another offtopic political rant (which is largely is), until I saw this line:
Liberalism, in its truest (that is, pan political party sense), is based on ideas that are deeply contemplative, and, you can't stuff that into an angry blog post.
That's one of the more interesting ideas I've read in a while. So liberalism concerns deeper issues and representing them in our fast clip world is harder these days, but conservitive issues are easier to stuff in an "angry block post".
How is this an "interesting take" on bloggers vs press? Bloggers feel disrespected because they aren't treated as real members of the media, and the press feels like credentials shouldn't be handed out to anybody with a web site. What's new here?
Reinjecting isn't easy, as much as it seems to be glossed over. You've just stuck a pipe in the ground, and it's throwing up a good bit of steam under pressure, which you run through your turbine. When you've cooled it down, and you're ready to reinject it, how exactly do you get it down the hole. Gravity doesn't work because it wants to bounce right back up. So you've got to add pressure and force it down far enough where it be useful. This in itself takes energy which reduces the overall efficiency of the plant.
Most plants do do some sort of reinjection, if nothing else than to replenish the field they're working off of. You can't reinject everything, so it's not a perfect system.
(The following is all from memory. I worked at a geothermal plant long ago.)
Yep, there are several plants in California. The twenty-odd plants that make up the Gysers north of Santa Rosa in the Bay Area, and I understand another field in the Imperial Valley. The Gysers field has been drying up over the years, despite them trying to pump water back down into it, and I haven't really checked the status of it in years.
As much as this is an interesting technology, it's not perfect. The geothermal steam that goes through the plant is also loaded with sulfur and arsenic, which all has to be scrubbed out before the steam can be released through the air. The amount of solid sulfur removed per day was quite a bit.
Another thing to keep in mind, that this Reuters article covering the same thing mentions that there are 61 projects in the works for 5000+ megawatts. For comparison, Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has two reactors, and each can produce over 1100+ megawatts. There is way more bang for the buck in other technologies, but they all have their drawbacks.
If your timeline is only a year or two, low risk is usually what's recommended. If you're young and saving for retirement, then risker is fine, since if something goes wrong, you've got plenty of time for things to work out.
One of the best low-risk investments is directly in US Treasury Notes/Bills/Bonds, and it's really easy to do. Any US individual can go right to the Treasury Direct web site, set up an account linked to your checking account, and purchase 4-week notes to 30-year bonds. This site is run directly by the US Treasury, and does not involve third party brokers. Rates are running right about 5% right now depending on the term.
Anybody can participate in the weekly US Treasury auctions, and it's pretty simple. I'm surprised that more individuals don't use this.
I've also changed to a Hosted acount, and really couldn't be happier right now. It's a great interface that even works with keyboard shortcuts, good spam protection, and one other thing I don't have to maintain.
Privacy, of course, is the main concern of using this, however. But if they could be the first major interface to incorporate PGP or somesuch, then the messages would be encrypted, I wouldn't worry as much, and they'd be in better legal standing because they'd have nothing to turn over but encrypted messages of the DOJ comes knocking again. What's to lose?
I've been surprised that no major email program (MS, Yahoo, or even Thunderbird) has made security mainstream. It's one thing to have key-signing parties by first adopters, it's another to tell Grandma that this is standard mainstream practice now. (Any replies that claim that some other package really has had encryption, and that I don't know what I'm talking about can just go away. It may be true, but you should still undersand my point.)
Doesn't anybody else think it's odd that the picture of this rocket being fired (very cool, BTW) has a couple of tanks in the foreground. Not sure what's in the tanks (probably fuel), but I'm sure they don't want to be next to an firing rocket if the rocket has an unfortunate explosition.
It's hard to tell distances in the picture -- there could be a mile separating the two. But having these in the foreground just struck me a little bit odd.
I see several comments here about paying the $5/month and hosting the site yourself. Makes since to me, and I've been doing that for quite a while now. I've recently starting using blogging software from blogger.com for my personal site instead of writing my pages from scratch because it makes it really easy to put up new pictures of the kids. However, I'm not sure how I feel about committing to a particular site like Blogger, even if I do host the site myself, as the blogging community shifts and twists as it grows.
What software is out there that's easy to set up that's more of a homegrown solution? I know of Moveable Type, but is there something else that the Slashdot crowd uses?
BTW: Am I the only one who thinks the term "blog" grates on his nerves much like "information superhighway" does?
I'd like to use more and larger passwords on different accounts, and probably change them more often, but honestly, my head is too small to hold all of those passwords. In this day and age, do you _realize_ how many different logons I have?
What's a good console based password program to keep these different passwords? This way I should be able to get to them through SSH if I need to. Or, is doing this defeating the whole reason for having multiple passwords?
Given all of these security breaks, why do we still consider a persons SSN as "password" type data? Why don't we just assume that a SSN is know just like your name, and go from there. Find some other way to secure the call to you bank besides using the last four digits of your SSN.
I know the history here. SSNs are supposed to be used for tax purposes only, and early cards even said so. But it is a handy ID number in the computer age, and it's the only number that is unique to all US residents. Just because you know my ID number shouldn't mean you assume anything else about me. Nobody gives out senstive info just because they know my phone number.
I've spent the past 11 years of my professional life after my CSU, Chico Computer Engineering degree explaining to everybody that there really is a pretty good computer/engineering school there. Most of the engineering people spend too much time in the labs to really get out and party as much as some of the other people do.
I try to claim that they know computers -- but then they do this!:)
(It really is a very nice school, with an attractive campus and social life included).
People are making jokes about this, but this idea could change some of the methods of online/webbased stores. Just think, without having to worry about shipping charges _at all_, then I wouldn't have to worry about making a $5 order for a little kitchen gadget. I wouldn't have to run to the store for something, just go online, and it will be here in a couple of days.
This should really increase the sales of some of their smaller items. If I've got to get a couple new drill bits for this weekend's project, I can just click and get it and not have to run to Home Depot.
This is a cool idea if it makes the consumer think first about ordering online, and not as a second or third choice.
I read in some forums about the software Life Balance, which sounds like you're describing. You tell it what percentage of time you want to spend on certain things, and it will schedule it for you.
I've never used this, nor know much about it. I've been following the forums on the book Getting Things Done, and some people have liked it.
After years of PDAs, I still like the simplicity of a pen on pencil. Flexable, too!
Slashdot Mirror
I miss Usenet. Yes, the many of the groups got overrun with spam, and I'm not talking the binaries, but I really like the decentralized nature of it. But really, with a good reader, of your own choosing, you could just rip through discussions or participate. How it looked to you was your own doing. Some of the web forums these days are just painfull if you're trying to skim lots of messages. I really like slrn. Oh well.
Yes, this inclusion into the Dash has gone a bit to far.
I upgraded a machine over the weekend to 12.10, and after a couple of installs of my various packages I like, I went to Unity Dash to search for "Eclipse" to see if I'd already installed the Java IDE or not.
Instead of simply saying "no", it instead gave me returns for all sorts of Twilight movies and books. Amazon probably has it on my wish list already.
I'll search Amazon when I want to search Amazon. When Dash is now the way to launch programs on my box instead of menus, I want it to launch programs.
--Lance
I'm getting very disappointed with Slashdot this past few years, and they seem to be pandering to the sensationalist. I used to come here for some real news.
It's all over the wire about the jury deliberations, mistrial, infringements. I come to Slashdot thinking I'd get the real scoop. Nope, more of same sensational stuff.
So, Groklaw has the real story, and it turns out, it's not much of a story at all.
There's all sorts of sensational web sites out there. I used to come to Slashdot for the comments, which have always been rational. Now, I'm not sure why I stop by from time to time.
Funny, I've been thinking the same thing lately. And I've been dependent on Google and Android for a while now.
Why. Google plus was the last subtle thing to set it off.
I've used Google Apps for all of my email on my domain since it came out. Works great. I've had my domain for 15 years, and it's me. I depend on Android and my Google interconnects. I use Chrome on all my boxes. Everything works well.
Plus doesn't like Google Apps for your Domain. You've got to create a new gmail account for that. Something that's not me. Something that nobody knows me as. And Chrome/Google account switching will force that to be the default account.
Multiple account switching has also changed around, and it makes this gmail account your primary account, and I've got to keep using my password to get to my regular Google Apps email in Chrome. Now, the email I've depended on for 10 years multiple times a day requires me to keep switching back to my (now) non-default domain account, if I check Google plus also.
It sound petty, but it's made me stand back and say, "Wow, I'm _really_ dependent on Google, and this can get ugly". Being an open-source kind-of-guy, that makes me nervous.
--Lance
To me it wasn't so much the printed font, but the lack of all quotation marks which gave the physical text a stark feeling. I have both a printed copy of "The Road" and a Kindle copy, and that starkness came through in both.
My other two cents: The Kindle sucks for any reference type work. I don't like reading newspapers or reference non-fiction because jumping around is awful. This has potential of being solved soon, but now now. The K2 came with a free cookbook that's just painful to use.
However, if you have a straight-though type text which includes most fiction where formatting isn't an issue, then it's a wonderful device. Non-fiction that's mostly text and no graphs that you read through like a plain book is also not bad.
I like having several texts available to read from, and it's in my bag. I think many people have also gotten into reading classic fiction that's out of copyright and freely available. There are lots of good books out there, and I like having them all easily available to read.
--Lance (Kindle 1 user for 2 years)
Nope, I don't work for Amazon or anybody else related. I just think they have something cool.
I don't understand why Amazon doesn't push the fact that this works well with any text or html file is beyond me. Once I realized that fact, I was sold.
That, and it's the built in data cell phone (Whispernet), which makes it that much better than its competitors. The built in web browser is almost unusable, but the store works and is fun for finding a beach read, and each kindle is assigned its own email address. There are lots of times I've put a file in an email (or just hooked up via USB), and was able to read it later somewhere.
People get hung up on the DRM and the lackluster support for PDFs, but I think there are many posters in this topic who are starting to realize that there are other reasons this is a good reader, and that hasn't always been evident in previous Kindle discussions on Slashdot.
--Lance
A couple more points to my review above:
Pro: It plays nicely with Linux. It shows up as a hard drive, and I can make sure I've backed up all of the files onto my desktop. The DRM files are keyed to the device, so copying them for backup is not a problem.
Con: Can look geeky. Sometimes I just want to read a book and not stand out.
Pro: Anonymousness. However, I can read a book without anybody questioning my choices. Also, it's easy to read while having lunch -- put it on the table and tap the button to turn the page. It doesn't have to be held open with the second hand.
Pro: Format. It can read lots of formats, either natively or with translations from Mobireader. Except...
Con: PDF. PDFs define a page layout, and don't take well to reflowing the text in a small screen. Other formats which don't require page layout work just fine. It's a shame that many documents are in PDF format, when the layout is not particularly important.
Pro: Upload documents. It's very nice to have a long text file or other document that I can email to the device. It's easier to put my feet up and read with this device instead of a laptop. Yes, that makes it a one-trick pony, but it's a pretty good trick.
OK, I think I'm done now. :)
--Lance
I've had my Kindle since last December, and I like it overall, I have sometimes thought about putting it up on eBay -- the hype sometimes gets to be a bit much.
Pro: Non DRM files from Gutenberg, ManyBooks, and others. I've been able to read "The Wizard of Oz" and lots of other books I've always wanted to read. You can email them to the device or hook it up via USB, and it's much better to read this way than on my computer/laptop.
Con: Batteries must be charged. I've had the Kindle in my bag for a while, take it out at lunch, and the battery is dead. If the Whispernet/Cell phone is turned off, it will last over a week, but if it's left on, the battery will only last for a couple of days.
Pro: Online access. With "free" built in data cell service (Whispernet), it's really cool to be somewhere, get an urge to read something, and download either the fiction or non-fiction. Free stuff comes from Feedbooks, and the Amazon store is pretty cool too.
Con: DRM, although it's not as bad as it's made out to be. Most books I read only once, so I don't mind paying a few bucks to get instant access, read it, and move on. If I plan to keep anything for reference or permanance, I'll buy a real copy. Many pop books are quick reads, I get it now, I don't have to wait at the library, and I'm OK that I may not have access to it in a couple of years.
Pro: Ease of reading. The display is nice to read, and I can read it for hours. I can with a regular book to, so I guess this is a wash.
Con: Fragility. I already broke on screen, and Amazon replaced it. This, along with the battery issue, makes be think before I throw it in the bag. A regular book doesn't have these problems.
There, my quick review. I like it, am keeping it, and it's not the earth-changer. Books aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
--Lance
Something that's come from the top in our company is for email to become even more formal, much like a written letter. Most emails include a "Dear Joe," clause at the top, and a "sincerely," or similar at the bottom.
Having the formal opening does help to enforce a single person in the "To:" clause, which several CC's, which is the way it's suppose to be. We still have Outlook, so it's full top-quoting, it does work to show the sequence of letters. They're still quickly written letters, but the formalness does help with the triviality.
Sincerely,
Lance
I've got a Thinkpad T42 with Ubuntu Gutsy on (and have had earlier versions), and although I haven't gotten to the article yet, Ubuntu seems to work very well on my laptop.
That's one of the more interesting ideas I've read in a while. So liberalism concerns deeper issues and representing them in our fast clip world is harder these days, but conservitive issues are easier to stuff in an "angry block post".
How is this an "interesting take" on bloggers vs press? Bloggers feel
disrespected because they aren't treated as real members of the media,
and the press feels like credentials shouldn't be handed out to
anybody with a web site. What's new here?
I'm not an analyst, but I play one on Slashdot.
--Lance
Reinjecting isn't easy, as much as it seems to be glossed over. You've just stuck a pipe in the ground, and it's throwing up a good bit of steam under pressure, which you run through your turbine. When you've cooled it down, and you're ready to reinject it, how exactly do you get it down the hole. Gravity doesn't work because it wants to bounce right back up. So you've got to add pressure and force it down far enough where it be useful. This in itself takes energy which reduces the overall efficiency of the plant.
Most plants do do some sort of reinjection, if nothing else than to replenish the field they're working off of. You can't reinject everything, so it's not a perfect system.
Yep, there are several plants in California. The twenty-odd plants that make up the Gysers north of Santa Rosa in the Bay Area, and I understand another field in the Imperial Valley. The Gysers field has been drying up over the years, despite them trying to pump water back down into it, and I haven't really checked the status of it in years.
As much as this is an interesting technology, it's not perfect. The geothermal steam that goes through the plant is also loaded with sulfur and arsenic, which all has to be scrubbed out before the steam can be released through the air. The amount of solid sulfur removed per day was quite a bit.
Another thing to keep in mind, that this Reuters article covering the same thing mentions that there are 61 projects in the works for 5000+ megawatts. For comparison, Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has two reactors, and each can produce over 1100+ megawatts. There is way more bang for the buck in other technologies, but they all have their drawbacks.
If your timeline is only a year or two, low risk is usually what's recommended. If you're young and saving for retirement, then risker is fine, since if something goes wrong, you've got plenty of time for things to work out.
One of the best low-risk investments is directly in US Treasury Notes/Bills/Bonds, and it's really easy to do. Any US individual can go right to the Treasury Direct web site, set up an account linked to your checking account, and purchase 4-week notes to 30-year bonds. This site is run directly by the US Treasury, and does not involve third party brokers. Rates are running right about 5% right now depending on the term.
Anybody can participate in the weekly US Treasury auctions, and it's pretty simple. I'm surprised that more individuals don't use this.
I've also changed to a Hosted acount, and really couldn't be happier right now. It's a great interface that even works with keyboard shortcuts, good spam protection, and one other thing I don't have to maintain.
Privacy, of course, is the main concern of using this, however. But if they could be the first major interface to incorporate PGP or somesuch, then the messages would be encrypted, I wouldn't worry as much, and they'd be in better legal standing because they'd have nothing to turn over but encrypted messages of the DOJ comes knocking again. What's to lose?
I've been surprised that no major email program (MS, Yahoo, or even Thunderbird) has made security mainstream. It's one thing to have key-signing parties by first adopters, it's another to tell Grandma that this is standard mainstream practice now. (Any replies that claim that some other package really has had encryption, and that I don't know what I'm talking about can just go away. It may be true, but you should still undersand my point.)
--Lance
Doesn't anybody else think it's odd that the picture of this rocket being fired (very cool, BTW) has a couple of tanks in the foreground. Not sure what's in the tanks (probably fuel), but I'm sure they don't want to be next to an firing rocket if the rocket has an unfortunate explosition.
It's hard to tell distances in the picture -- there could be a mile separating the two. But having these in the foreground just struck me a little bit odd.
--Lance
DAR sounds like a cool utility. Do you know of something similar for my Windows boxes?
--Lance
See, that's why I post to Slashdot. Thanks for all of these interesting links to software I hadn't heard of before. Several of these look interesting.
Thanks!
--Lance
I see several comments here about paying the $5/month and hosting the site yourself. Makes since to me, and I've been doing that for quite a while now. I've recently starting using blogging software from blogger.com for my personal site instead of writing my pages from scratch because it makes it really easy to put up new pictures of the kids. However, I'm not sure how I feel about committing to a particular site like Blogger, even if I do host the site myself, as the blogging community shifts and twists as it grows.
What software is out there that's easy to set up that's more of a homegrown solution? I know of Moveable Type, but is there something else that the Slashdot crowd uses?
BTW: Am I the only one who thinks the term "blog" grates on his nerves much like "information superhighway" does?
--Lance
I'd like to use more and larger passwords on different accounts, and probably change them more often, but honestly, my head is too small to hold all of those passwords. In this day and age, do you _realize_ how many different logons I have?
What's a good console based password program to keep these different passwords? This way I should be able to get to them through SSH if I need to. Or, is doing this defeating the whole reason for having multiple passwords?
--Lance
Given all of these security breaks, why do we still consider a persons SSN as "password" type data? Why don't we just assume that a SSN is know just like your name, and go from there. Find some other way to secure the call to you bank besides using the last four digits of your SSN.
I know the history here. SSNs are supposed to be used for tax purposes only, and early cards even said so. But it is a handy ID number in the computer age, and it's the only number that is unique to all US residents. Just because you know my ID number shouldn't mean you assume anything else about me. Nobody gives out senstive info just because they know my phone number.
--Lance
I've spent the past 11 years of my professional life after my CSU, Chico Computer Engineering degree explaining to everybody that there really is a pretty good computer/engineering school there. Most of the engineering people spend too much time in the labs to really get out and party as much as some of the other people do.
:)
I try to claim that they know computers -- but then they do this!
(It really is a very nice school, with an attractive campus and social life included).
--Lance, CSUC Computer Engineering '93
People are making jokes about this, but this idea could change some of the methods of online/webbased stores. Just think, without having to worry about shipping charges _at all_, then I wouldn't have to worry about making a $5 order for a little kitchen gadget. I wouldn't have to run to the store for something, just go online, and it will be here in a couple of days.
This should really increase the sales of some of their smaller items. If I've got to get a couple new drill bits for this weekend's project, I can just click and get it and not have to run to Home Depot.
This is a cool idea if it makes the consumer think first about ordering online, and not as a second or third choice.
I read in some forums about the software Life Balance, which sounds like you're describing. You tell it what percentage of time you want to spend on certain things, and it will schedule it for you.
I've never used this, nor know much about it. I've been following the forums on the book Getting Things Done, and some people have liked it.
After years of PDAs, I still like the simplicity of a pen on pencil. Flexable, too!