I have yet to see a stray dog in my neighbourhood, however there are at least 4 different stray cats that regularly haunt my yard and confuse my flower bed with a litter box.
the difference? dog owners realize they are supposed to keep tabs on their pets, cat owners assume the cat will take care of itself... I don't want any pets in my yard, that's why I don't have any pets... one of these days those cats will find themselves in a trap and animal control can deal with it...
ps... why is it that dog owners have to pay a license fee, yet cat owners don't?
I have an RCA Lyra A/V jukebox that does this quite well, it allows you to record from or output to your TV/Stereo/VCR/DVD player very easilly, I paid less for it than I would have for a regular iPod (don't know the price point of the video one, but I suspect it's higher) has USB as well as a CF card reader, comes with a 20gig hard drive (and is easilly upgradeable to a larger hardrive (many people have gone 80-100gig)) does not require any special software on the computer and as such is completely platform independant, and I find the user interface more intuitive (take someone who has never read any instructions or been told anything about an iPod and see how long it takes to figure out the "intuitive" scroll wheel (there's nothing on the device to say it even exists...)
Don't look at the unencrypted network next door as a problem, it actually INCREASES your security, now there's another, much easier target right nearby for anyone who just casually wants on the net.
All that being said, the real "solution" to all this is to get the manufacturers to configure their install programs to make you set up security (or at least make "secure" the default)
I work for a large Canadian ISP, one of the products we now sell is our "home networking" package, this is basically an ADSL modem with built in 4 port router and built in wireless router. The install wizard for this device automatically sets up encryption and forces the user to change the default password on the device it then gives the user a page to print out with all those settings so they can give them to the wizard when it runs on the other computers to set them up, all in all a pretty slick system for people who don't know what they are doing with technology. As a result of this setup we have the same "clueless users" that would normally have an unsecured network with the SSID of "linksys" or "default", no encryption, and a password of "admin" but OURS have a different SSID, an encrypted network, and a password that they chose.
I find this is proof that the problem doesn't have to be the user, transfer some of that responsibility to the manufacturer who doesn't make security a priority, if "secure" is the default, people WILL use it. (and yes, if you know what you're doing, and really do, for whatever reason, want an unsecured network, you can simply log in to the router and configure it that way...)
this is factually correct... however misleading... to be perfectly honest... both sides in this dispute are completely unreasonable...
the company refuses to negotiate in any way with the union, and has been doing so for 5 years. they sit at the table. present their proposed contract and wait for it to be accepted. no negotiation at all, they say take it or leave it nothing is changing. they now have decided to implement it of their own accord without union or employee ratifictaion.
the union on the other hand is refusing to even look at the new contract to decide if it is a good deal because it wasn't "negotiated" with them. they refuse to put it to a vote of their membership for the same reason. and because the membership is officially "locked out" by telus (the only way they can legally impose the new contract) a strike vote was not taken before employees walked off the job...
so effectively both the company and the union are proving they don't care about the employees who are stuck in the middle...
Now in all honesty, if the contract were put to a vote I don't know if it would pass or not... most of Alberta would vote for it... but I suspect most of BC would vote against... and BC has about 58% of the membership (I think)
btw... your study session bit, while close, isn't quite accurate... the first study session was 1 hour long, followed by a 3 hour lockout, the next one was 1 hour long followed by a lockout for the rest of the day, the next one was 1 hour long followed by a 4 day lockout. (not saying what should have happened, only that it wasn't a 1 for 1 sort of thing)
this one is a mess... officially TELUS locked out the union back at the start of april, however it was a "soft" lockout, meaning that employees were still allowed to come to work, however managment can change or disregard any provisions of the old contrat that they wish... slowly over the past few months the company has changed the provisions of the old (now 5 years expired) contract one clause at a time (this time we'll stop deducting union dues, this time we'll stop paying for meals for people working out of town, this time we'll disband this union/managment committee, etc) up until when the company decided that on July 22nd it would implement it's vision of a new collective agreement. This new agreement was not negotiated in any way with the union. The union got really pissed off and told all the employees to walk off the job...
so in this case it is both a lockout and a strike... the company is allowing the employees to go to work, but under their terms... and officially "locked out" while the union decided not to accept those arbitrary terms... however due to the fact that the company already has officially declared a lockout, the union didn't need to go through the motions of a strike vote or provide the company with any notice before the strike...
either way it's a mess... and it's going to be a long one...
I'm a field technician for a large Canadian telco... our equipment does the following:
Ringing voltage: 90VAC @ 20Hz Talk battery (mostly irrelevant as to on-hook/off hook): 52VDC (drops to 48VDC when the exchange is running on battery backup) current: minimum 20mA, maximum aprox 50mA resistances: loop resistance (the resistance of the wire from the line equipment in the exchange all the way out to the customer and back, measured by shorting out the phone jack) is anywhere from 100 ohms or so if you're next door, to around 2000 ohms for very long loops (maximum 1100 ohms if you have ADSL) resistance of a set on hook: >30Mohm (ideal, some get down as low as about 5Mohm) resistance of a set off hook: aprox 600ohm
now in the grand scheme of things some of those numbers are largely irrelevant, a 9v battery will operate a telephone (except the ringer) and the switch in the CO will go "off hook" for any resistance from zero up to a couple of k ohms (probably not more than about 3 or 4 k, I know that by the time you get up to about 10 kohm the circuit "mostly" behaves (though it will probably have a "ring trip" (the phone has problems when it rings and goes off hook briefly, enough to "trip" the line)))
My personal opinion recently has been that the only thing the theatres still have going for them is the fact that movies get to them first... if you can't wait, you have to see it in the theatre.... though I'll have to give you points for "it's an event" and somewhat for "concentration" (I can't remember the last time I watched anything at home without the phone ringning several times) however frequently the distractions are in the theatre too... and you can't pause the movie while you go strangle the kid with the laser pointer or the pair behind you that are loudly discussing each scene.
I do however have to disagree with you on "Screen size and sound" home theatres are comming way down in price and keep in mind, due to distance from the screen a 54" or whatever TV 6-8 feet away apears every bit as large as a movie screen from the back row. as for sound, I have already been to several movies where I've thought "this would sound so much better on my home stereo" Theatre chains still market based on "big screen, big sound" but the truth is, their primary attraction these days is "early release"
(there is however one other demographic that has a different reason for going to the movies... (and this seems to be the largest demographic seen in theatres around here anyway) the teenagers where one of the biggest draws is "no parents")
"does not implicate unbootable machines or unusable software"
well... maybe it is unrelated to this article, but my upgrade had exactly that, many packages went missing (apache, sendmail, etc etc) and lilo became unusable preventing the machine from booting... I would call that "severe breakage"... it's mostly fixed now... but what a pain....
well... I'm not sure where I went wrong then... I read the release notes, and I followed them step by step... and something BROKE... big time... after the "upgrade" the machine wouldn't boot, lilo was corrupt, and once I got that fixed I discovered that a few programs were missing that had previously been there (little things like sendmail, apache, shorewall, my pop3 daemon, my imap daemon... etc, etc) once I got those programs back I discovered that some of them choked on the old config files and wouldn't start up... this was a royal pain!
I now have MOST of my server back to "normal" (still have a few cron tasks that are failing for one reason or other that I haven't had time to troubleshoot yet), but I must say I will be a little more carefull with "upgrades" in the future (though how to be more carefull I'm really not sure...)
that said... the idea of being able to do this upgrade from apt is really quite nice... really simplifies things, if it works...
do you want to be the one to take the 400kg battery pack the poseter quoted out of the car? on top of that the way electric vehicles tend to be designed involve many batteries (or may cells) scattered throughout the car to even out wheight distribution and to fill every possible nook and cranny, the "charge" problem is non-trivial...
If automobile manufacturers would actually build some pure electric vehicles (as far as I know, none of the big auto manufacturers are currently producing electric vehicles) the technology would improve faster. And in the mean time, being that you can easilly recharge your electric car every night in your garage, a range of 100km or so is actually quite reasonable for most people (especially as a second vehicle in a familly) for most people you only need more than that range for highway trips. the reason you want much more range in a gas engine is the requirment to go to a gas station every time you need to fill, you don't want to have to do that EVERY night. but in your garage, why not? (better yet would be if they can design an inductive coupling system or something so that you don't even have to "plug it in" simply driving in to the right place in the garage would be enough.)
> I have never seen a program that asks if you are sure > if you want to hibernate or tries to stop the process
I'm not sure if it's the VPN client, or the 1X wireless driver, but one of the 2 blocks any attempt to enter sleep or hibernation modes on my new work laptop... usually while those are running (they are set to always run together) it will simply ignore any sleep or hibernation request, on rare occasions it will present a dialog telling you that it is blocking this.
I drive a 1983 Mercedes 300SD turbo diesel, full size luxury car that seats 5 with all the toys (err... all the toys they had in 1983 that is... but that still includes ac power everything, heated seats, etc, etc, etc...)
I get just over 30mpg on the highway... and thats in a 1983 full size luxury car... if that's all a hybrid can get I'm certainly not impressed... I really think my next car will be another (though hopefully newer) diesel... my father drives a 1996 volkswagon passat TDI that gets over 50mpg, and the new smart cars are rated at 70mpg... so tell me again what's so special about a hybrid?
I recently bought an RCA Lyra 2780 (refurbished) for about the same price as (or a little cheaper than) a new 20gig iPod, following your first 6 tips:
1) it has a 20gig harddrive (which according to most sources can EASILY be swapped for 80-100gig), my mp3 collection is up to 9gig now, so I'm still ok here... 2) plays all my mp3s (my whole collection is mp3, so I don't care all that much about other formats) and plays movies, and images too. 3) can record both mp3 and video straight from line in. and will play any mp3 file with simple drag and drop, no special software required as it shows up as a hardrive on my computer. these 2 features make ripping straight on to the device a snap. 4) battery life is enough for my bus ride to and from school, when at home it's always plugged in to the wall, and when in the car it's plugged in to 12v DC (the player comes with adapters for both power sources) so I honestly have never "tested" the battery life 5) finding a song is easy as it profiles songs by genre, artist, title, etc, etc, and can deal with any playlist you might decide to make 6) has only the features I use, it doesn't have a "stopwatch" or "fm tuner" etc... plays music, plays video, records music, records video, displays images. (and with a CF card slot I can pull the card straight from my digital camera and load pictures directly to the device, witch will play them on the internal screen or any TV with RCA composite inputs)
as for the 5 additional tips: 1) comes with 2 sets of rca composite video and stereo audio cables, one set is permanantly hooked to my home stereo, the other to my car stereo allowing me to play my music in whichever location with ease. 2) with the cable mentioned above I can connect the device directly to line out on my cd player, press play, press record, voila. 3) Comes with cords for audio and power for the car, also comes with a cassette adapter if you don't have a line in jack on your car stereo. 4) this is not a complaint for a player, but one for the online store, cheap and usefull and "license free" are unfortunatly not "features" that the recording industry wants us to have in downloadable songs... 5) I quite like my headphones to be wired, I have enough wireless stuff around that I don't need anything else to be interfered with, wireless is a great solution for places where you can't run wires, but if I can't figure out how to get a wire from my pocket to my ears... well there are other issues there.
Now I should caution that although I am extremely happy with this player (and very glad that I chose it over the ipod I was comparing it to) it is not for everyone, the device is physically larger than an ipod and RCA released it well before the software for it was really ready (on the bright side, they have been offering lots of firmware updates, and I haven't had any problems with mine yet) but the big moral I think is to shop around, find the player that is right for you, and not to just buy a specific player "Because ____ has one and says I should too"
(first a disclaimer, this is in no way a dig at the parent post, their post just reminded me of a pet-peeve of mine)
The parent mentions that he's tired of people trashing products that don't fit their personal needs, on the flip side of this, I'm tired of people telling me that products that fit THEIR needs MUST be the best product for EVERYONE... and the ipod is a big example of this.
I know a few people with ipods who absolutely love them, and I'll admit they're a nice player, but I'm tired of people telling me that I want an ipod, or bragging that their ipod is so much better than anything I might get. I don't want one, and I don't like them, I find the scroll wheel annoying, the user interface counter-intuitive, and I hate the need for special software to put music on it.
I just bought an mp3 player that for MY particular needs is much superior to an ipod... so please, all you ipod users, enjoy your ipod, I'm sure it's the right player for you. but PLEASE quit trying to make me jealous, it's not going to happen and you just make yourselves look silly trying, there's a fine line between fan and zealot, and I'm not sure why a pair of white earbuds seems to push otherwise sane people to the wrong side of it...
it's a good theory... but my signature has worn off the back of my visa card 4 times now, and I have re-signed it every time... I don't think this makes me feel too secure...
on a side note, the only reason I have re-signed it was when a cashier has asked me to and asked for photo ID due to the unsigned card, so there are actually some that check...
on an un-related note, it seems that the mag-stripe is starting to wear off too (I can see the white plastic behind it in a couple places and no store has been able to properly swipe it in months) so I guess it's time to get VISA to send me a new one... (maybe 4 years is too long a life expectancy for a card in my wallet?)
some banks are even worse than that... I found one bank that protects your account with a single password that must be less than 6 digits long and purely numeric. I find this ridiculously insecure to the point of bordering on criminal. to make things even funnier, the bank's newsletter a couple months back had a section in it dealing with how to pick a secure password for online use, only problem is that their own system will not LET you follow any of the rules in their article! I sent them an email asking about it and got no reply...
this is a constant gripe of mine... it won't give a single second of longer battery life, instead it will give a battery that is a fraction the size... someone seems to have decided that just under 1 DVD length of time is the "optimum" life for battery on a laptop, I have an old laptop with a nicd battery that takes up the front half of the laptop and a new laptop with a liion battery that takes up less than half the space, they both have the same run-time, the newer laptop with newer battery has newer technology allowing a smaller battery to perform the same, but why didn't they keep the battery the same size and let it run longer????
$5.95/yr? that's actually pretty cheap... I work for a telco, and was suprised to find out that we still charge our telephone rental customers $3.00/month (or $36.00/yr) to rent old hardwired ROTARY phones... I honestly thought those phones had been writen off years ago, until someone showed me their bill with the rental charge clearly itemized, apparently I was wrong... I don't think we still rent new phones, this is all legacy stuff left over from a time when telephones were prohibitively expensive, and when the phone company actually repaired the telephones and not just the lines, but with every walmart selling cheap phones for under $10.00 you start to wonder why anyone still has one of the old rental sets... (I did the fellow a favour and took the phone off his hands and had our customer service department remove the charge from his bill...)
my password gripes... for work I have the following passwords to deal with:
first the "normal" ones: - 4-8 characters, only letters and numbers, never need to change - 7 character only numbers, changes every 2 months, remembers 4 or 5 - 4-8 characters letters and/or numbers changes every 4 months
then the annoying: - 4-8 characters, alpha-numeric changes monthly, remembers your last 12(maybe more) (I use this system less than once a month, as a result I have to reset the password every time I log in, and I NEVER remember it)
the bizzare: - 6-7 characters, the first 4-5 must be letters, the last 2 must be numbers, changes never (this is supposed to be secure... or something...)
the simple, user friendly and reasonably secure ones: - a secure-id (with 4 digit pin) - a voice print login (ok, in truth I have no idea how secure this is, but so far I've never managed to authenticate as someone else... (of course I can only authenticate as myself half the time...)
these systems are all related, and all similar, with similar access levels, most of them encompass a few systems, but I suppose it would be too convenient if they got it all under one authentication (I'd even be willing to change the password monthly, or maybe weekly if it meant only one to remember...)
and while we're on the subject, one other one to complain about... I managed to find a bank who's online banking website password must be entirely numeric and exactly 4 digits long (they've now upped it to allow up to 6 for increased security) this makes me a little nervous...
around here (Alberta, Canada) the people who process the tickets are with the police force (I blieve they are "special constables" or some such designation), and while some will argue that the police do have something financial to gain from these tickets, I still believe that in the case of the cameras around here they are responsibly administered
don't know about DC, but the cameras around here take 2 pictures, one of you entering the intersection and one a moment later, both pictures include the date, time, and your speed as text on the picture and show not only your car but the light as well, so you can clearly see your car running the red light, if the light in the picture were green they'd have a pretty tough case... I talked with one of the people who process these tickets at one point, and he said that he'll tend to cut people slack if the road conditions were lousy and the car slid into the intersection, however if your speed shows as 50kph in both pictures on the red light you'd have a pretty tough case yourself.
luckilly my Dell laptop belongs to the company I work for and not to me... I'm on my 3rd screen (the previous 2 each started getting wonky lines through them and then they got out of synch so they would "roll"... I'm on my second power supply, and (although i can't get to the site to verify this as it is/.ed) I beleive I now need to replace this one too as it seems to be the right part number and I know it runs EXTREMELY hot, and I have my second motherboard on order, expected to arrive... yesterday... (current one has the problem of loose connection in the power connector causing the machine to jump back and forth from battery to AC)
I'm also on my 2nd air-card wireless adapter... but that's not a Dell component...
Disclaimer, I'm pretty hard on this thing, I'm a field tech for a telco, this machine is constantly open and on in a moving vehicle, it comes in to customers houses with me, and is subject to more abuse than i'd like to admit. so all in all, it's actually doing pretty well, though nothing like the old IBM armoured laptops we used to have... those things could be used under the tires if you got the truck stuck and would probably be undamaged... (ok... never tried it... but they were pretty heavilly armoured) those ones never seemed to cause anyone any trouble, they just worked. I'd say we really need "armoured" laptops... but higher ups don't want to pay for 'em... (never mind that in calgary alone we have a person who's full time job it is to repair the current laptops (and I'm not talking software, this guy's only job is to swap out hardware in these dell laptops...) I'd think that his sallary might help offset the cost of more durable machines...
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I have yet to see a stray dog in my neighbourhood, however there are at least 4 different stray cats that regularly haunt my yard and confuse my flower bed with a litter box.
the difference? dog owners realize they are supposed to keep tabs on their pets, cat owners assume the cat will take care of itself... I don't want any pets in my yard, that's why I don't have any pets... one of these days those cats will find themselves in a trap and animal control can deal with it...
ps... why is it that dog owners have to pay a license fee, yet cat owners don't?
I have an RCA Lyra A/V jukebox that does this quite well, it allows you to record from or output to your TV/Stereo/VCR/DVD player very easilly, I paid less for it than I would have for a regular iPod (don't know the price point of the video one, but I suspect it's higher) has USB as well as a CF card reader, comes with a 20gig hard drive (and is easilly upgradeable to a larger hardrive (many people have gone 80-100gig)) does not require any special software on the computer and as such is completely platform independant, and I find the user interface more intuitive (take someone who has never read any instructions or been told anything about an iPod and see how long it takes to figure out the "intuitive" scroll wheel (there's nothing on the device to say it even exists...)
Don't look at the unencrypted network next door as a problem, it actually INCREASES your security, now there's another, much easier target right nearby for anyone who just casually wants on the net.
All that being said, the real "solution" to all this is to get the manufacturers to configure their install programs to make you set up security (or at least make "secure" the default)
I work for a large Canadian ISP, one of the products we now sell is our "home networking" package, this is basically an ADSL modem with built in 4 port router and built in wireless router. The install wizard for this device automatically sets up encryption and forces the user to change the default password on the device it then gives the user a page to print out with all those settings so they can give them to the wizard when it runs on the other computers to set them up, all in all a pretty slick system for people who don't know what they are doing with technology. As a result of this setup we have the same "clueless users" that would normally have an unsecured network with the SSID of "linksys" or "default", no encryption, and a password of "admin" but OURS have a different SSID, an encrypted network, and a password that they chose.
I find this is proof that the problem doesn't have to be the user, transfer some of that responsibility to the manufacturer who doesn't make security a priority, if "secure" is the default, people WILL use it. (and yes, if you know what you're doing, and really do, for whatever reason, want an unsecured network, you can simply log in to the router and configure it that way...)
this is factually correct... however misleading... to be perfectly honest... both sides in this dispute are completely unreasonable...
the company refuses to negotiate in any way with the union, and has been doing so for 5 years. they sit at the table. present their proposed contract and wait for it to be accepted. no negotiation at all, they say take it or leave it nothing is changing. they now have decided to implement it of their own accord without union or employee ratifictaion.
the union on the other hand is refusing to even look at the new contract to decide if it is a good deal because it wasn't "negotiated" with them. they refuse to put it to a vote of their membership for the same reason. and because the membership is officially "locked out" by telus (the only way they can legally impose the new contract) a strike vote was not taken before employees walked off the job...
so effectively both the company and the union are proving they don't care about the employees who are stuck in the middle...
Now in all honesty, if the contract were put to a vote I don't know if it would pass or not... most of Alberta would vote for it... but I suspect most of BC would vote against... and BC has about 58% of the membership (I think)
btw... your study session bit, while close, isn't quite accurate... the first study session was 1 hour long, followed by a 3 hour lockout, the next one was 1 hour long followed by a lockout for the rest of the day, the next one was 1 hour long followed by a 4 day lockout. (not saying what should have happened, only that it wasn't a 1 for 1 sort of thing)
insider speaking here...
this one is a mess... officially TELUS locked out the union back at the start of april, however it was a "soft" lockout, meaning that employees were still allowed to come to work, however managment can change or disregard any provisions of the old contrat that they wish... slowly over the past few months the company has changed the provisions of the old (now 5 years expired) contract one clause at a time (this time we'll stop deducting union dues, this time we'll stop paying for meals for people working out of town, this time we'll disband this union/managment committee, etc) up until when the company decided that on July 22nd it would implement it's vision of a new collective agreement. This new agreement was not negotiated in any way with the union. The union got really pissed off and told all the employees to walk off the job...
so in this case it is both a lockout and a strike... the company is allowing the employees to go to work, but under their terms... and officially "locked out" while the union decided not to accept those arbitrary terms... however due to the fact that the company already has officially declared a lockout, the union didn't need to go through the motions of a strike vote or provide the company with any notice before the strike...
either way it's a mess... and it's going to be a long one...
I'm a field technician for a large Canadian telco... our equipment does the following:
Ringing voltage: 90VAC @ 20Hz
Talk battery (mostly irrelevant as to on-hook/off hook): 52VDC (drops to 48VDC when the exchange is running on battery backup)
current: minimum 20mA, maximum aprox 50mA
resistances: loop resistance (the resistance of the wire from the line equipment in the exchange all the way out to the customer and back, measured by shorting out the phone jack) is anywhere from 100 ohms or so if you're next door, to around 2000 ohms for very long loops (maximum 1100 ohms if you have ADSL)
resistance of a set on hook: >30Mohm (ideal, some get down as low as about 5Mohm)
resistance of a set off hook: aprox 600ohm
now in the grand scheme of things some of those numbers are largely irrelevant, a 9v battery will operate a telephone (except the ringer) and the switch in the CO will go "off hook" for any resistance from zero up to a couple of k ohms (probably not more than about 3 or 4 k, I know that by the time you get up to about 10 kohm the circuit "mostly" behaves (though it will probably have a "ring trip" (the phone has problems when it rings and goes off hook briefly, enough to "trip" the line)))
My personal opinion recently has been that the only thing the theatres still have going for them is the fact that movies get to them first... if you can't wait, you have to see it in the theatre.... though I'll have to give you points for "it's an event" and somewhat for "concentration" (I can't remember the last time I watched anything at home without the phone ringning several times) however frequently the distractions are in the theatre too... and you can't pause the movie while you go strangle the kid with the laser pointer or the pair behind you that are loudly discussing each scene.
I do however have to disagree with you on "Screen size and sound" home theatres are comming way down in price and keep in mind, due to distance from the screen a 54" or whatever TV 6-8 feet away apears every bit as large as a movie screen from the back row. as for sound, I have already been to several movies where I've thought "this would sound so much better on my home stereo" Theatre chains still market based on "big screen, big sound" but the truth is, their primary attraction these days is "early release"
(there is however one other demographic that has a different reason for going to the movies... (and this seems to be the largest demographic seen in theatres around here anyway) the teenagers where one of the biggest draws is "no parents")
"does not implicate unbootable machines or unusable software"
well... maybe it is unrelated to this article, but my upgrade had exactly that, many packages went missing (apache, sendmail, etc etc) and lilo became unusable preventing the machine from booting... I would call that "severe breakage"... it's mostly fixed now... but what a pain....
well... I'm not sure where I went wrong then... I read the release notes, and I followed them step by step... and something BROKE... big time... after the "upgrade" the machine wouldn't boot, lilo was corrupt, and once I got that fixed I discovered that a few programs were missing that had previously been there (little things like sendmail, apache, shorewall, my pop3 daemon, my imap daemon... etc, etc) once I got those programs back I discovered that some of them choked on the old config files and wouldn't start up... this was a royal pain!
I now have MOST of my server back to "normal" (still have a few cron tasks that are failing for one reason or other that I haven't had time to troubleshoot yet), but I must say I will be a little more carefull with "upgrades" in the future (though how to be more carefull I'm really not sure...)
that said... the idea of being able to do this upgrade from apt is really quite nice... really simplifies things, if it works...
because people keep replying...
do you want to be the one to take the 400kg battery pack the poseter quoted out of the car? on top of that the way electric vehicles tend to be designed involve many batteries (or may cells) scattered throughout the car to even out wheight distribution and to fill every possible nook and cranny, the "charge" problem is non-trivial...
If automobile manufacturers would actually build some pure electric vehicles (as far as I know, none of the big auto manufacturers are currently producing electric vehicles) the technology would improve faster. And in the mean time, being that you can easilly recharge your electric car every night in your garage, a range of 100km or so is actually quite reasonable for most people (especially as a second vehicle in a familly) for most people you only need more than that range for highway trips. the reason you want much more range in a gas engine is the requirment to go to a gas station every time you need to fill, you don't want to have to do that EVERY night. but in your garage, why not? (better yet would be if they can design an inductive coupling system or something so that you don't even have to "plug it in" simply driving in to the right place in the garage would be enough.)
> I have never seen a program that asks if you are sure
> if you want to hibernate or tries to stop the process
I'm not sure if it's the VPN client, or the 1X wireless driver, but one of the 2 blocks any attempt to enter sleep or hibernation modes on my new work laptop... usually while those are running (they are set to always run together) it will simply ignore any sleep or hibernation request, on rare occasions it will present a dialog telling you that it is blocking this.
I drive a 1983 Mercedes 300SD turbo diesel, full size luxury car that seats 5 with all the toys (err... all the toys they had in 1983 that is... but that still includes ac power everything, heated seats, etc, etc, etc...)
I get just over 30mpg on the highway... and thats in a 1983 full size luxury car... if that's all a hybrid can get I'm certainly not impressed... I really think my next car will be another (though hopefully newer) diesel... my father drives a 1996 volkswagon passat TDI that gets over 50mpg, and the new smart cars are rated at 70mpg... so tell me again what's so special about a hybrid?
I recently bought an RCA Lyra 2780 (refurbished) for about the same price as (or a little cheaper than) a new 20gig iPod, following your first 6 tips:
1) it has a 20gig harddrive (which according to most sources can EASILY be swapped for 80-100gig), my mp3 collection is up to 9gig now, so I'm still ok here...
2) plays all my mp3s (my whole collection is mp3, so I don't care all that much about other formats) and plays movies, and images too.
3) can record both mp3 and video straight from line in. and will play any mp3 file with simple drag and drop, no special software required as it shows up as a hardrive on my computer. these 2 features make ripping straight on to the device a snap.
4) battery life is enough for my bus ride to and from school, when at home it's always plugged in to the wall, and when in the car it's plugged in to 12v DC (the player comes with adapters for both power sources) so I honestly have never "tested" the battery life
5) finding a song is easy as it profiles songs by genre, artist, title, etc, etc, and can deal with any playlist you might decide to make
6) has only the features I use, it doesn't have a "stopwatch" or "fm tuner" etc... plays music, plays video, records music, records video, displays images. (and with a CF card slot I can pull the card straight from my digital camera and load pictures directly to the device, witch will play them on the internal screen or any TV with RCA composite inputs)
as for the 5 additional tips:
1) comes with 2 sets of rca composite video and stereo audio cables, one set is permanantly hooked to my home stereo, the other to my car stereo allowing me to play my music in whichever location with ease.
2) with the cable mentioned above I can connect the device directly to line out on my cd player, press play, press record, voila.
3) Comes with cords for audio and power for the car, also comes with a cassette adapter if you don't have a line in jack on your car stereo.
4) this is not a complaint for a player, but one for the online store, cheap and usefull and "license free" are unfortunatly not "features" that the recording industry wants us to have in downloadable songs...
5) I quite like my headphones to be wired, I have enough wireless stuff around that I don't need anything else to be interfered with, wireless is a great solution for places where you can't run wires, but if I can't figure out how to get a wire from my pocket to my ears... well there are other issues there.
Now I should caution that although I am extremely happy with this player (and very glad that I chose it over the ipod I was comparing it to) it is not for everyone, the device is physically larger than an ipod and RCA released it well before the software for it was really ready (on the bright side, they have been offering lots of firmware updates, and I haven't had any problems with mine yet) but the big moral I think is to shop around, find the player that is right for you, and not to just buy a specific player "Because ____ has one and says I should too"
(first a disclaimer, this is in no way a dig at the parent post, their post just reminded me of a pet-peeve of mine)
The parent mentions that he's tired of people trashing products that don't fit their personal needs, on the flip side of this, I'm tired of people telling me that products that fit THEIR needs MUST be the best product for EVERYONE... and the ipod is a big example of this.
I know a few people with ipods who absolutely love them, and I'll admit they're a nice player, but I'm tired of people telling me that I want an ipod, or bragging that their ipod is so much better than anything I might get. I don't want one, and I don't like them, I find the scroll wheel annoying, the user interface counter-intuitive, and I hate the need for special software to put music on it.
I just bought an mp3 player that for MY particular needs is much superior to an ipod... so please, all you ipod users, enjoy your ipod, I'm sure it's the right player for you. but PLEASE quit trying to make me jealous, it's not going to happen and you just make yourselves look silly trying, there's a fine line between fan and zealot, and I'm not sure why a pair of white earbuds seems to push otherwise sane people to the wrong side of it...
it's a good theory... but my signature has worn off the back of my visa card 4 times now, and I have re-signed it every time... I don't think this makes me feel too secure...
on a side note, the only reason I have re-signed it was when a cashier has asked me to and asked for photo ID due to the unsigned card, so there are actually some that check...
on an un-related note, it seems that the mag-stripe is starting to wear off too (I can see the white plastic behind it in a couple places and no store has been able to properly swipe it in months) so I guess it's time to get VISA to send me a new one... (maybe 4 years is too long a life expectancy for a card in my wallet?)
some banks are even worse than that... I found one bank that protects your account with a single password that must be less than 6 digits long and purely numeric. I find this ridiculously insecure to the point of bordering on criminal. to make things even funnier, the bank's newsletter a couple months back had a section in it dealing with how to pick a secure password for online use, only problem is that their own system will not LET you follow any of the rules in their article! I sent them an email asking about it and got no reply...
this is a constant gripe of mine... it won't give a single second of longer battery life, instead it will give a battery that is a fraction the size... someone seems to have decided that just under 1 DVD length of time is the "optimum" life for battery on a laptop, I have an old laptop with a nicd battery that takes up the front half of the laptop and a new laptop with a liion battery that takes up less than half the space, they both have the same run-time, the newer laptop with newer battery has newer technology allowing a smaller battery to perform the same, but why didn't they keep the battery the same size and let it run longer????
oh what I would give to see a company argue that it's own EULA is non-binding... what a wonderfull precedent that would set!
$5.95/yr? that's actually pretty cheap... I work for a telco, and was suprised to find out that we still charge our telephone rental customers $3.00/month (or $36.00/yr) to rent old hardwired ROTARY phones... I honestly thought those phones had been writen off years ago, until someone showed me their bill with the rental charge clearly itemized, apparently I was wrong... I don't think we still rent new phones, this is all legacy stuff left over from a time when telephones were prohibitively expensive, and when the phone company actually repaired the telephones and not just the lines, but with every walmart selling cheap phones for under $10.00 you start to wonder why anyone still has one of the old rental sets... (I did the fellow a favour and took the phone off his hands and had our customer service department remove the charge from his bill...)
my password gripes... for work I have the following passwords to deal with:
first the "normal" ones:
- 4-8 characters, only letters and numbers, never need to change
- 7 character only numbers, changes every 2 months, remembers 4 or 5
- 4-8 characters letters and/or numbers changes every 4 months
then the annoying:
- 4-8 characters, alpha-numeric changes monthly, remembers your last 12(maybe more) (I use this system less than once a month, as a result I have to reset the password every time I log in, and I NEVER remember it)
the bizzare:
- 6-7 characters, the first 4-5 must be letters, the last 2 must be numbers, changes never (this is supposed to be secure... or something...)
the simple, user friendly and reasonably secure ones:
- a secure-id (with 4 digit pin)
- a voice print login (ok, in truth I have no idea how secure this is, but so far I've never managed to authenticate as someone else... (of course I can only authenticate as myself half the time...)
these systems are all related, and all similar, with similar access levels, most of them encompass a few systems, but I suppose it would be too convenient if they got it all under one authentication (I'd even be willing to change the password monthly, or maybe weekly if it meant only one to remember...)
and while we're on the subject, one other one to complain about... I managed to find a bank who's online banking website password must be entirely numeric and exactly 4 digits long (they've now upped it to allow up to 6 for increased security) this makes me a little nervous...
around here (Alberta, Canada) the people who process the tickets are with the police force (I blieve they are "special constables" or some such designation), and while some will argue that the police do have something financial to gain from these tickets, I still believe that in the case of the cameras around here they are responsibly administered
don't know about DC, but the cameras around here take 2 pictures, one of you entering the intersection and one a moment later, both pictures include the date, time, and your speed as text on the picture and show not only your car but the light as well, so you can clearly see your car running the red light, if the light in the picture were green they'd have a pretty tough case... I talked with one of the people who process these tickets at one point, and he said that he'll tend to cut people slack if the road conditions were lousy and the car slid into the intersection, however if your speed shows as 50kph in both pictures on the red light you'd have a pretty tough case yourself.
You can't own every song ever recorded?? wow... someone should tell the that to the RIAA!
luckilly my Dell laptop belongs to the company I work for and not to me... I'm on my 3rd screen (the previous 2 each started getting wonky lines through them and then they got out of synch so they would "roll"... I'm on my second power supply, and (although i can't get to the site to verify this as it is /.ed) I beleive I now need to replace this one too as it seems to be the right part number and I know it runs EXTREMELY hot, and I have my second motherboard on order, expected to arrive... yesterday... (current one has the problem of loose connection in the power connector causing the machine to jump back and forth from battery to AC)
I'm also on my 2nd air-card wireless adapter... but that's not a Dell component...
Disclaimer, I'm pretty hard on this thing, I'm a field tech for a telco, this machine is constantly open and on in a moving vehicle, it comes in to customers houses with me, and is subject to more abuse than i'd like to admit. so all in all, it's actually doing pretty well, though nothing like the old IBM armoured laptops we used to have... those things could be used under the tires if you got the truck stuck and would probably be undamaged... (ok... never tried it... but they were pretty heavilly armoured) those ones never seemed to cause anyone any trouble, they just worked. I'd say we really need "armoured" laptops... but higher ups don't want to pay for 'em... (never mind that in calgary alone we have a person who's full time job it is to repair the current laptops (and I'm not talking software, this guy's only job is to swap out hardware in these dell laptops...) I'd think that his sallary might help offset the cost of more durable machines...