Even though package is the default, declare it anyway - Good practice.
Other rules of thumb for any programming language
Use the strictest compiler setting you can, and clean up any errors it finds
Don't do automatic type casting - heck, things like variants and auto type casting is what helped give VB a bad name in some circles - folks were screaming for strict casting back in VB4, and finally started to get in in VB.NET
Actually, I was hoping to see the mass confusion - remember, the reason for a Bicameral Legislature, and a 3 branch Government is that it was _SUPPOSED_ to be VERY hard to get them to all agree on what to do! This is what would limit the Governments power (That and the Bill of Rights, and in particular the 10th Amendment, which has been totally trompled since FDR)
The default state of the Government is supposed to be Gridlock, and I'd like to do as much as possible to return it there
So I'll add another Provisio - 1 Rep/30k people, and NO committees allowed
For years I thought We'd be better off with smaller Government, but I really think the cure for our ills is a LARGER House of Reps! Right now, we have a bit over 622k people per Rep (271M/435) - Let's face it, your rep probably has never heard of you, and if you can afford $100, it's a drop in the bucket
Now, the number of Reps has not changes since 1913, when they filled the room in the Capitol - No you really want to run a country based upon the size of a room?
In 1776 the ratio was 1 Rep per 30k people - that means we would have 9033 Reps! I think this is a GOOD idea - It would be VERY hard for a company to BUY 4517 Reps, but your $100 bucks would start to be REAL money.
In 2002, the House and Senate raised $604 Million in Campaign contributions, or $1.29 Million Per candidate (435 Reps, 33 Senate (Senate count an estimate - 1/3))
Now, let's say we have 9033 Reps and 33 Senators up for election -for a total of 9066. Now if they only get the same amount of contributions, they average 66k each, so lets say they get more - $100k. Your $100 bucks speaks a LOT louder, and it starts to become possible for an individual to run their own campaign, particulary when you realize the big money goes to the 33 Senators - in fact, the average Incumbent Rep spent 500K and the Challenger about 100k - if you figure 1/20th, we talking 25K for an incumbent, and 5K for a challenger. That $100 starts to look like REAL cash
Yeah, you can record it, but as one of the posters said, the keys change daily. That was the BIG deal about one of the mid 80s spy cases - the guy was stealing the keys!
I find translucent windows handy for SOME things - for instance, one editor I use on Win2k allows me to have the search/replace dialog stay on top and be translucent. Instead of opening and closing the window all the time, you just keep it there
You are right, often they won't deal, but the point is, you are entitled to what is in your contract, and only what is in your contract, no more, no less
Yes, things are harder if you are going through a body shop, which can make things suck, or make things good (depends on the body shop, and you)
I've been in this field a LONG LONG time (Let's put it this way, longer than the median/. reader has been alive). In that time, I've been a regular employee, an employee of a consulting house (both large and small), owned my own business doing contract programming, retailed hardware, etc
Each has it's own advantages and disadvantages. I hated the salesmanship and the overhead stuff of owning my own business. Consulting was cool, but I saw the bubble 5 years ago, had a young child, and said "It's time to get out"
So now I'm an employee, but I treat my job like a consultant would - I spend a lot of time keeping up with the latest, but I don't have to chase the next contract
Maybe - you don't have a right to anything that is not in your CONTRACT. Your are a contract employee -when they offer a contract, you can negotiate terms - they may or may not agree to YOUR terms
It all depends what kind of contract employee you are. There are the grunt type, and there are the type that are brought in for their specialized skills/knowledge. If your are of the second type, you can put all sorts of things in your contracts. I know folks who have gotten the usual crappy contractor chairs, no gargmage can, etc. The next time they went for a contract, there was a clause there about chairs, desks etc.
You can have swag clauses, heck, you could even have a clause that the manager has to deliver your check in person, naked, on Friday. It depends on what they are willing to sign, and what you are willing to sign
So if you change your statement to
"Have they met the terms of the contract? Good. You do not have a right to anything beyond that."
RE Swag: One Gent I used to work for (who is here on/.) has a novel paragraph in his "standard" contract. If the company gives out things like posters/ad materials (aka swag) the MUST offer him the sawg, or else they are in breach. BTW He has also carefully worded his contract that his work is "work for hire" - they don't hold up their end of the bargin, copyright remains HIS
Remember, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate for
Who says my son would get a pat on the back - He'd get a kick in the pats, just like I would have?
It's just that you worry about daughters more (as a Dad), I think Mom worries more about the Son. It's natural - remember, I remember what I was like as a teenager, so I worry. I'm sure my wife remembers what she was like, so she worries
A quote I once heard "Dad, why are you worrying about my boyfreind, he's just like you?" And the response "That's what I'm worrying about!"
RE: Realize you'll never look at life the same way again
As my ex boss (who is a/. reader) said to me just before my first was born "The second they put your child in your arms, the whole world changes"
You rapidly understand about the "Lioness defending her cubs" - Oh yeah, you'll feel that way too, and if you have a girl, you will REALLY understand those jokes about "rules for dating my daughter"
If this wasn't already modded up, I'd say mod this up
One other thing about both parents (I'll say Mom for short) working. Sometimes the "Mom" has a career of her own, and wants to work so not to loose that. It's a BIG decision. I'll disagree that good child care costs 700-1000/month - I WISH it cost that, try $1600-$2000/month/child! It really doesn't pay, but it can save your sanity
My wife took the first 3-4 months off, and after that went back to work, but not for the cash, but because she is the type to get seriously depressed if she is "stuck in"
For years, everyone seems to have thought that flexible means how late can I come in, and how late can I stay
My wife and I went the other way, she goes in "later" (she gets to work at 9:00), and I go in early, and leave early - I'm in at work before 7:30am, so I get home first. We did it this way because I'm the cook in the family
Years ago (Back in the days of drum memory), I was taken on a tour of a data center (first computer I ever saw)
They guy told me something about their disaster preps (it was financial data)
The first thing he pointed out was that there was 2 complete mainframes, side by side. Each was capabile of doing the whole job, but....
The next was pointing out that they had redundant power, plus a generator, and a lesson they learned the hard way - the generator had the ability to power the Air Conditioner as well as the computers - if your server room gets too hot...
Then he said, "we have a second Identical data center about 5 miles across town"
Each data center could handle all the customers from that region - yes there would be a perfomance hit, but...
Then he said, there are 7 more cities around the world, each with 2 data centers like this one - all transactions go to all 8 cities.
And then last, he said there was one more data center, in the Outback of Australia. They figured that it was the least likely place to get nuked, and they even planned for that
Yep, paranoid enough that they wanted their data to survive even if all the major financial centers in the world ALL went "kaboom"
Gee, I still carry a Startac 7760, and don't buy the inbound SMS
It's a nice plain phone. It sits in my pocket, and has for oh, 4 or 5 years now. It rings when it's supposed to, and gets my calls out. It could use a new antenna. Other than that, I have NO problems with it
Sometimes old is good
Re:As a programmer 20 some years ago...
on
Eleventy What?
·
· Score: 1
The "able Baker" phonetic alphabet was the OLD US and British Phonetic alpahabet (circa 1942). Post WWII it was changed, as some non native english speakers had serious problems with hearing/saying some of the words "Queen" vs "Quebec" is one of them
Currently, in the US, there are 2 main forms of the Phonetic alphabet being used "Police" and International/Military. The Police version has some regional variations, but as almost all theri comms are intra department it does not matter (btw the 10 codes vary somewhat too)
Police Military A Adam Alpha B Boy Bravo C Charles Charlie D David Delta E Edward Echo F Frank Foxtrot G George Golf H Henry Hotel I Ida India J John Juliet K King Kilo L Lincoln Lima M Mary Mike N Nora November O Ocean Oscar P Paul Papa Q Queen Quebec R Robert Romeo S Sam Sierra T Tom Tango U Union Uniform V Victor Victor W William Whiskey X Xray Xray Y Young Yankee Z Zebra Zulu
Guess what, don't stop at a military checkpoint, you deserve to get your ass waxed.
Dad (WWII) vet and I were laughing about this on Saturday - I asked him if he was ever told that he had to fire a warning shot is someone didn't follow instructions at a checkpoint. He said "No, you just shot them" After a couple of weeks folks learn not to disobay at checkpoints
The Motorola i58 and i88 (both available via Nextel) and be set to output NEMA data, then you just have to use that - a lot of programs read NEMA. Here is and article on how to feed that data to a TNC
I really don't know when they started using the TDRS for this. It's a case of reading everything I could on this, and being surprised back right after the loss that they don't have a blackout. So I researched why. All I know is whoever thought of it had a good idea - the type of thing the folks at NASA never seem to get credit for
And your right, the whole stack is the STS, and I should have used OV
I can still remember going to see Columbia (I think...) launch, oh, 10 years ago or so. My only disapointment was the launch was from 39B (which should date the launch). Being that it's further from the causeway than 39a, I was told it was no where near as impressive. It was impressive enough (Dawn launch)
There IS a way to do it without "ungodly thick cable"
Power supplies CAN be built with what is called "remote sense", and in fact most lab grade or TRUE high power power supples use it.
What is done is that you have a pair of leads that carry the current, and a pair of leads that feed back the measured voltage at the load to the regulator. The regulator raises it's output to get the "correct" voltage at the point where the sense leads are connected
This is really about the only way you can do it with high power supplies. I worked on one supply that used to put out 5 volts, 100 amps +- 20 millivolts from no load to full load. The ONLY way to do that is have remote sense because the output leads have significant resistance when you talk about those tolerances
I've always been surprised that PC power supplies have not done this
Actually, on a NORMAL STS re-entry there is no longer a radio blackout! That is part of what the TDRS system is for. You see, the ionization of the air around a re entering spacecraft usually blocks the radio, BUT there is a BIG hole in the ionized layer - right behind the shuttle - you can transmit to space FINE, so they transmit to the TDRS, and it transmits to the ground.
The problem is that at 32 seconds before the final breakup (estimated), the signal to the TDRS was lost. This seems to be when the STS yawed enough that the tail antennas could no longer point up the non ionized track. You'll not that they got some partial data a few seconds (off the top of my head, it was 7 seconds of data 14 seconds later) after the first contact loss - this is estimated to be the time when the STS had yawed FULLY through 360 degs - aka, the shuttle actually spun fully at least ONCE. During this spin is when the shuttle lost the engine pod, and you can see the fragments coming off in the videos
Slashdot Mirror
Even though package is the default, declare it anyway - Good practice.
Other rules of thumb for any programming language
Use the strictest compiler setting you can, and clean up any errors it finds
Don't do automatic type casting - heck, things like variants and auto type casting is what helped give VB a bad name in some circles - folks were screaming for strict casting back in VB4, and finally started to get in in VB.NET
Actually, I was hoping to see the mass confusion - remember, the reason for a Bicameral Legislature, and a 3 branch Government is that it was _SUPPOSED_ to be VERY hard to get them to all agree on what to do! This is what would limit the Governments power (That and the Bill of Rights, and in particular the 10th Amendment, which has been totally trompled since FDR)
The default state of the Government is supposed to be Gridlock, and I'd like to do as much as possible to return it there
So I'll add another Provisio - 1 Rep/30k people, and NO committees allowed
For years I thought We'd be better off with smaller Government, but I really think the cure for our ills is a LARGER House of Reps! Right now, we have a bit over 622k people per Rep (271M /435) - Let's face it, your rep probably has never heard of you, and if you can afford $100, it's a drop in the bucket
Now, the number of Reps has not changes since 1913, when they filled the room in the Capitol - No you really want to run a country based upon the size of a room?
In 1776 the ratio was 1 Rep per 30k people - that means we would have 9033 Reps! I think this is a GOOD idea - It would be VERY hard for a company to BUY 4517 Reps, but your $100 bucks would start to be REAL money.
In 2002, the House and Senate raised $604 Million in Campaign contributions, or $1.29 Million Per candidate (435 Reps, 33 Senate (Senate count an estimate - 1/3))
Now, let's say we have 9033 Reps and 33 Senators up for election -for a total of 9066. Now if they only get the same amount of contributions, they average 66k each, so lets say they get more - $100k. Your $100 bucks speaks a LOT louder, and it starts to become possible for an individual to run their own campaign, particulary when you realize the big money goes to the 33 Senators - in fact, the average Incumbent Rep spent 500K and the Challenger about 100k - if you figure 1/20th, we talking 25K for an incumbent, and 5K for a challenger. That $100 starts to look like REAL cash
Yeah, you can record it, but as one of the posters said, the keys change daily. That was the BIG deal about one of the mid 80s spy cases - the guy was stealing the keys!
APRS is "Fun" for Day to day, and as another poster has said, day to day is when you test your gear
Now for events and ARES/RACES work, APRS is great. Of course, around here, the events are worked mostly by ARES so....
73
KC2IXE
Whitehat your Mom's email address, block all others with the "hello"
I find translucent windows handy for SOME things - for instance, one editor I use on Win2k allows me to have the search/replace dialog stay on top and be translucent. Instead of opening and closing the window all the time, you just keep it there
You are right, often they won't deal, but the point is, you are entitled to what is in your contract, and only what is in your contract, no more, no less
/. reader has been alive). In that time, I've been a regular employee, an employee of a consulting house (both large and small), owned my own business doing contract programming, retailed hardware, etc
Yes, things are harder if you are going through a body shop, which can make things suck, or make things good (depends on the body shop, and you)
I've been in this field a LONG LONG time (Let's put it this way, longer than the median
Each has it's own advantages and disadvantages. I hated the salesmanship and the overhead stuff of owning my own business. Consulting was cool, but I saw the bubble 5 years ago, had a young child, and said "It's time to get out"
So now I'm an employee, but I treat my job like a consultant would - I spend a lot of time keeping up with the latest, but I don't have to chase the next contract
SLIGHT disagreement
.
You say
You do not have a right to anything beyond that.
Maybe - you don't have a right to anything that is not in your CONTRACT. Your are a contract employee -when they offer a contract, you can negotiate terms - they may or may not agree to YOUR terms
It all depends what kind of contract employee you are. There are the grunt type, and there are the type that are brought in for their specialized skills/knowledge. If your are of the second type, you can put all sorts of things in your contracts. I know folks who have gotten the usual crappy contractor chairs, no gargmage can, etc. The next time they went for a contract, there was a clause there about chairs, desks etc
You can have swag clauses, heck, you could even have a clause that the manager has to deliver your check in person, naked, on Friday. It depends on what they are willing to sign, and what you are willing to sign
So if you change your statement to
"Have they met the terms of the contract? Good. You do not have a right to anything beyond that."
RE Swag: /.) has a novel paragraph in his "standard" contract. If the company gives out things like posters/ad materials (aka swag) the MUST offer him the sawg, or else they are in breach. BTW He has also carefully worded his contract that his work is "work for hire" - they don't hold up their end of the bargin, copyright remains HIS
One Gent I used to work for (who is here on
Remember, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate for
Who says my son would get a pat on the back - He'd get a kick in the pats, just like I would have?
It's just that you worry about daughters more (as a Dad), I think Mom worries more about the Son. It's natural - remember, I remember what I was like as a teenager, so I worry. I'm sure my wife remembers what she was like, so she worries
A quote I once heard "Dad, why are you worrying about my boyfreind, he's just like you?" And the response "That's what I'm worrying about!"
RE:
/. reader) said to me just before my first was born "The second they put your child in your arms, the whole world changes"
Realize you'll never look at life the same way again
As my ex boss (who is a
You rapidly understand about the "Lioness defending her cubs" - Oh yeah, you'll feel that way too, and if you have a girl, you will REALLY understand those jokes about "rules for dating my daughter"
If this wasn't already modded up, I'd say mod this up
One other thing about both parents (I'll say Mom for short) working. Sometimes the "Mom" has a career of her own, and wants to work so not to loose that. It's a BIG decision. I'll disagree that good child care costs 700-1000/month - I WISH it cost that, try $1600-$2000/month/child! It really doesn't pay, but it can save your sanity
My wife took the first 3-4 months off, and after that went back to work, but not for the cash, but because she is the type to get seriously depressed if she is "stuck in"
For years, everyone seems to have thought that flexible means how late can I come in, and how late can I stay
My wife and I went the other way, she goes in "later" (she gets to work at 9:00), and I go in early, and leave early - I'm in at work before 7:30am, so I get home first. We did it this way because I'm the cook in the family
BTW Congrats - it's a trip
Years ago (Back in the days of drum memory), I was taken on a tour of a data center (first computer I ever saw)
They guy told me something about their disaster preps (it was financial data)
The first thing he pointed out was that there was 2 complete mainframes, side by side. Each was capabile of doing the whole job, but....
The next was pointing out that they had redundant power, plus a generator, and a lesson they learned the hard way - the generator had the ability to power the Air Conditioner as well as the computers - if your server room gets too hot...
Then he said, "we have a second Identical data center about 5 miles across town"
Each data center could handle all the customers from that region - yes there would be a perfomance hit, but...
Then he said, there are 7 more cities around the world, each with 2 data centers like this one - all transactions go to all 8 cities.
And then last, he said there was one more data center, in the Outback of Australia. They figured that it was the least likely place to get nuked, and they even planned for that
Yep, paranoid enough that they wanted their data to survive even if all the major financial centers in the world ALL went "kaboom"
Gee, I still carry a Startac 7760, and don't buy the inbound SMS
It's a nice plain phone. It sits in my pocket, and has for oh, 4 or 5 years now. It rings when it's supposed to, and gets my calls out. It could use a new antenna. Other than that, I have NO problems with it
Sometimes old is good
The "able Baker" phonetic alphabet was the OLD US and British Phonetic alpahabet (circa 1942). Post WWII it was changed, as some non native english speakers had serious problems with hearing/saying some of the words "Queen" vs "Quebec" is one of them
Currently, in the US, there are 2 main forms of the Phonetic alphabet being used "Police" and International/Military. The Police version has some regional variations, but as almost all theri comms are intra department it does not matter (btw the 10 codes vary somewhat too)
Police Military
A Adam Alpha
B Boy Bravo
C Charles Charlie
D David Delta
E Edward Echo
F Frank Foxtrot
G George Golf
H Henry Hotel
I Ida India
J John Juliet
K King Kilo
L Lincoln Lima
M Mary Mike
N Nora November
O Ocean Oscar
P Paul Papa
Q Queen Quebec
R Robert Romeo
S Sam Sierra
T Tom Tango
U Union Uniform
V Victor Victor
W William Whiskey
X Xray Xray
Y Young Yankee
Z Zebra Zulu
Front page on MSNBC
Guess what, don't stop at a military checkpoint, you deserve to get your ass waxed.
Dad (WWII) vet and I were laughing about this on Saturday - I asked him if he was ever told that he had to fire a warning shot is someone didn't follow instructions at a checkpoint. He said "No, you just shot them" After a couple of weeks folks learn not to disobay at checkpoints
The java app just reads the nema data - no big deal
Well, sort of
p
The Motorola i58 and i88 (both available via Nextel) and be set to output NEMA data, then you just have to use that - a lot of programs read NEMA. Here is and article on how to feed that data to a TNC
http://www.dididahdahdidit.com/nexteltracker.ph
I really don't know when they started using the TDRS for this. It's a case of reading everything I could on this, and being surprised back right after the loss that they don't have a blackout. So I researched why. All I know is whoever thought of it had a good idea - the type of thing the folks at NASA never seem to get credit for
And your right, the whole stack is the STS, and I should have used OV
I can still remember going to see Columbia (I think...) launch, oh, 10 years ago or so. My only disapointment was the launch was from 39B (which should date the launch). Being that it's further from the causeway than 39a, I was told it was no where near as impressive. It was impressive enough (Dawn launch)
There IS a way to do it without "ungodly thick cable"
Power supplies CAN be built with what is called "remote sense", and in fact most lab grade or TRUE high power power supples use it.
What is done is that you have a pair of leads that carry the current, and a pair of leads that feed back the measured voltage at the load to the regulator. The regulator raises it's output to get the "correct" voltage at the point where the sense leads are connected
This is really about the only way you can do it with high power supplies. I worked on one supply that used to put out 5 volts, 100 amps +- 20 millivolts from no load to full load. The ONLY way to do that is have remote sense because the output leads have significant resistance when you talk about those tolerances
I've always been surprised that PC power supplies have not done this
Actually, on a NORMAL STS re-entry there is no longer a radio blackout! That is part of what the TDRS system is for. You see, the ionization of the air around a re entering spacecraft usually blocks the radio, BUT there is a BIG hole in the ionized layer - right behind the shuttle - you can transmit to space FINE, so they transmit to the TDRS, and it transmits to the ground.
The problem is that at 32 seconds before the final breakup (estimated), the signal to the TDRS was lost. This seems to be when the STS yawed enough that the tail antennas could no longer point up the non ionized track. You'll not that they got some partial data a few seconds (off the top of my head, it was 7 seconds of data 14 seconds later) after the first contact loss - this is estimated to be the time when the STS had yawed FULLY through 360 degs - aka, the shuttle actually spun fully at least ONCE. During this spin is when the shuttle lost the engine pod, and you can see the fragments coming off in the videos
This has been discussed before.
Look at
http://www.igeb.gov/sa.shtml
They say it will NEVER be turned back on
also see
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/
There are a couple of almost useless shops left - all crap - and I'm not the only person of this opinion, check other articles