I've broken hundreds (I used to work in a hardware store, and we'd break old ones to get them in the dumpster).
They break like any other glass. They're actually quite a bit stronger than people realize - customers would bring them up to the counter and set them down like they were fine crystal, then we'd slap 'em together and wrap them with plastic, flip them around, and do the other end with little concern for breaking (and I've never seen one break that way).
The trick with these bulbs that once in a while they will shatter with no apparent provocation - we had that happen once with one of the tubes lighting the store. Companies sell clear plastic covers that go over them to contain the glass if it happens (and presumably to provide some protection from something hitting it).
And, despite their strength, they tend to break at the most unfortunate moments. One time we were replacing every bulb lighting the store, and the only one we broke doing it was one right over the register where customers were standing.
Last Saturday, I went to lunch at Panera specifically because I knew they had free wifi access, and I needed to look some things up on the web (and couldn't wait until I got home; it's a long story). That's a meal that Panera probably wouldn't have sold otherwise. Surely I'm not the only one.
The other day, my cubicle neighbor's phone rang while he was out of the office. 30 seconds after it stopped ringing, it rang again. Then, 30 seconds after it stopped ringing the second time, a woman from another office came in looking for him. I asked her if she was the one that called and she said, "Yes." I was barely able to contain my laughter.
Like someone else said, it's the people, and sometimes people won't get the hint. Suppose he was there but had just tried to ignore her because he was working on something - it wouldn't have worked; and he would have ended up being distracted for even longer than he would've had he just answered the phone the first time.
(It wasn't a complete loss - I got some amusement out of it, and she's pretty cute, so I feel like I came out ahead in the deal.)
SUV owners have a great rationale for being able to tailgate: "We can see over you, so it's safe."
I'll smack anyone that says that to my face. What if I blow out a tire (and don't think it doesn't happen; I've seen tires blow with no warning and no debris in the road at fault)? I'll lose some speed suddenly, maybe swerve a bit, even without hitting the brakes, and a minor incident could suddenly become a big one because the tailgater thought he/she was safe because he/she could see over me.
One of my coworkers was telling me he took the Washington, DC Metro to a conference Thursday. He was carrying (actually rolling behind him) a fairly large, heavy suitcase, which had a laptop and a rather large projector in it. He said that people were looking at him nervously, and they'd get especially jumpy when he tried to get something out of it...
"Disney officials said the finger scans do not take an actual fingerprint. The scan recognizes certain points and outlines visitor's fingers, officials said."
We had something similar at the University of Georgia years ago - you'd scan your card then put your hand on a scanner that would verify you were who your card said. It didn't actually take a finger or palm print, just the geometry of your hand. It's hard to imagine how that could be used against you - not even CSI has figured out a way to work them into a criminal case.
Believe it or not, the USB ports on the front of my work PC are even worse: Dell chose to angle them. They're beneath a plastic cover, but they aren't perpendicular to the front of the PC - the ports actually face down at an angle and are difficult to use unless I lay on the floor and look up. (Optiplex GX270.)
I learned Dvorak and used it for several years. Don't bother. It's not any faster, and it just causes too many problems, especially if you aren't the admin for your PC. Windows in particular has a frustrating keyboard layout switching scheme, such that you have to reboot to get your screen saver passwords to go back to the other layout.
It was too much headache for me, so I switched back to QWERTY at the beginning of this year and have been happy with it.
I have a good one that sounds similar to the Wired situation. I used to use a dial up internet access provider when I was on the road (I have a cable modem at home). $60/year for 5 hours a month, which was plenty for what I wanted. Well, last year around this time I started getting notices to renew. The email messages they sent me clearly state that they do not auto-renew accounts, but if I wanted to cancel I should log into their site and do so.
I went into the site and spent hours (on several different occasions) looking for the cancel account option. Finally I gave up, and figured that since they didn't auto-renew, it would just expire and I'd be good.
Hehe. No. They renewed my account anyway. I was annoyed, and I sent a message to them asking them to close the account. They said, "Sure, but per our agreement, it'll close at the end of this account period," which meant that I'd already paid for the year and they weren't going to refund it. I said, "Okay, fine, it's possible I could need it this year, and it'll automatically expire at the end of that, so I'll let it go." This was almost a year ago. (And, for what it's worth, I haven't used it at all.)
The other day I got an email from them: "Your account is about to expire. We do not auto-renew accounts, so please log in and..."
I have half a mind to let it go, wait for it to auto-renew again, then dispute the charge with my credit card company, including copies of the emails that indicate that they don't auto-renew but did anyway, and a copy of the email indicating they'd close the account, and ask that they look into this company for fraud.
I have a question about the 1xRTT service - do they charge extra for that, or does it just use the plan's monthly minutes? (I can't find this answer on their site, and I don't trust the help desk to provide useful answers - they've given me bad information both times I called them.)
There it is, in a nutshell. Who else exists to run them? We don't want to turn it over to some organization that isn't ready to do it, or we could end up with a disaster.
If someone feels that Commerce shouldn't have control, they should start a group that can do the job (and we can agree on...well, at least most of us) and eventually control can be shifted from Commerce to this new group. But that won't happen, of course, since it's more fun to complain than do anything, and because Commerce has been doing an okay job (so getting support will be difficult).
That site requires registration, so here's an excerpt:
"...Nassau County residents are vigorously voicing concerns about the proposed construction of a third track along the Main Line of the MTA Long Island Rail Road."
"But in a series of public meetings this month in Mineola, Floral Park, and Hicksville, hundreds of residents raised objections, citing the possibility that the railroad would have to acquire land through eminent domain and that local businesses would be disrupted. In response, several state senators threatened late last week to withhold support for the capital program..."
And this is just adding a third track to a place that already has two! NIMBYs will be a problem no matter what we try to do.
That doesn't mean they can't tilt elsewhere. The parent post claimed that they can't tilt at all. Wikipedia indicates that they were initially designed to be several inches too wide but that problem was apparently fixed. And, several articles I came across talking about the Acela mentioned that they could feel the effects of the tilting inside the train.
While generally I agree with you, I have one acronym for you: NIMBY. "Not in my backyard."
Almost everyone anywhere near a right-of-way will fight it tooth and nail on any grounds they can think of - noise, pollution, scenery, the children, etc. (I know some of those are idiotic complaints, but they'd come up.)
Also, as others have pointed out, I don't think the rail lines will ever replace flying for long distances - the NY to LA run will always be faster in the air, for example. But we should have the OPTION of taking the train and getting there in a reasonable amount of time, too.
What the USA needs is this: a coherent national transportation policy that takes airlines, intercity rail, interurban rail, busses and whatever else into account. Come up with a unified strategy - for example, on short runs (DC to NY, for example), high-speed trains make a LOT of sense, a lot more than airliners. Longer runs are going to call for planes. (Not that I think we should eliminate the possibility of getting from NY to LA by rail, either.)
The Northeast Corridor is pretty much all Amtrak owns. I think they may have a few other pieces here and there, but the NEC is the only major section.
It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the situation. If you don't already read it, consider picking up a copy of Trains magazine. Although I'm not in the rail industry, just a railfan, I find the articles very easy to understand yet very informative. Nearly every month there's some news brief about Amtrak's troubles, and many of them aren't Amtrak's fault.
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I've broken hundreds (I used to work in a hardware store, and we'd break old ones to get them in the dumpster).
They break like any other glass. They're actually quite a bit stronger than people realize - customers would bring them up to the counter and set them down like they were fine crystal, then we'd slap 'em together and wrap them with plastic, flip them around, and do the other end with little concern for breaking (and I've never seen one break that way).
The trick with these bulbs that once in a while they will shatter with no apparent provocation - we had that happen once with one of the tubes lighting the store. Companies sell clear plastic covers that go over them to contain the glass if it happens (and presumably to provide some protection from something hitting it).
And, despite their strength, they tend to break at the most unfortunate moments. One time we were replacing every bulb lighting the store, and the only one we broke doing it was one right over the register where customers were standing.
--RJ
"What's Bond doing?"
"I think he's attempting reentry, sir."
Last Saturday, I went to lunch at Panera specifically because I knew they had free wifi access, and I needed to look some things up on the web (and couldn't wait until I got home; it's a long story). That's a meal that Panera probably wouldn't have sold otherwise. Surely I'm not the only one.
The other day, my cubicle neighbor's phone rang while he was out of the office. 30 seconds after it stopped ringing, it rang again. Then, 30 seconds after it stopped ringing the second time, a woman from another office came in looking for him. I asked her if she was the one that called and she said, "Yes." I was barely able to contain my laughter.
Like someone else said, it's the people, and sometimes people won't get the hint. Suppose he was there but had just tried to ignore her because he was working on something - it wouldn't have worked; and he would have ended up being distracted for even longer than he would've had he just answered the phone the first time.
(It wasn't a complete loss - I got some amusement out of it, and she's pretty cute, so I feel like I came out ahead in the deal.)
SUV owners have a great rationale for being able to tailgate: "We can see over you, so it's safe."
I'll smack anyone that says that to my face. What if I blow out a tire (and don't think it doesn't happen; I've seen tires blow with no warning and no debris in the road at fault)? I'll lose some speed suddenly, maybe swerve a bit, even without hitting the brakes, and a minor incident could suddenly become a big one because the tailgater thought he/she was safe because he/she could see over me.
--RJ
Only if Edward Tufte was around. :)
I saw the video years ago and didn't really think it was "sensation-worthy". But that's just me. :)
One of my coworkers was telling me he took the Washington, DC Metro to a conference Thursday. He was carrying (actually rolling behind him) a fairly large, heavy suitcase, which had a laptop and a rather large projector in it. He said that people were looking at him nervously, and they'd get especially jumpy when he tried to get something out of it...
"Disney officials said the finger scans do not take an actual fingerprint. The scan recognizes certain points and outlines visitor's fingers, officials said."
We had something similar at the University of Georgia years ago - you'd scan your card then put your hand on a scanner that would verify you were who your card said. It didn't actually take a finger or palm print, just the geometry of your hand. It's hard to imagine how that could be used against you - not even CSI has figured out a way to work them into a criminal case.
Believe it or not, the USB ports on the front of my work PC are even worse: Dell chose to angle them. They're beneath a plastic cover, but they aren't perpendicular to the front of the PC - the ports actually face down at an angle and are difficult to use unless I lay on the floor and look up. (Optiplex GX270.)
I learned Dvorak and used it for several years. Don't bother. It's not any faster, and it just causes too many problems, especially if you aren't the admin for your PC. Windows in particular has a frustrating keyboard layout switching scheme, such that you have to reboot to get your screen saver passwords to go back to the other layout.
It was too much headache for me, so I switched back to QWERTY at the beginning of this year and have been happy with it.
I have a good one that sounds similar to the Wired situation. I used to use a dial up internet access provider when I was on the road (I have a cable modem at home). $60/year for 5 hours a month, which was plenty for what I wanted. Well, last year around this time I started getting notices to renew. The email messages they sent me clearly state that they do not auto-renew accounts, but if I wanted to cancel I should log into their site and do so.
I went into the site and spent hours (on several different occasions) looking for the cancel account option. Finally I gave up, and figured that since they didn't auto-renew, it would just expire and I'd be good.
Hehe. No. They renewed my account anyway. I was annoyed, and I sent a message to them asking them to close the account. They said, "Sure, but per our agreement, it'll close at the end of this account period," which meant that I'd already paid for the year and they weren't going to refund it. I said, "Okay, fine, it's possible I could need it this year, and it'll automatically expire at the end of that, so I'll let it go." This was almost a year ago. (And, for what it's worth, I haven't used it at all.)
The other day I got an email from them: "Your account is about to expire. We do not auto-renew accounts, so please log in and..."
I have half a mind to let it go, wait for it to auto-renew again, then dispute the charge with my credit card company, including copies of the emails that indicate that they don't auto-renew but did anyway, and a copy of the email indicating they'd close the account, and ask that they look into this company for fraud.
I have the mobile web (I call it the "Worthless Wireless Web") on my phone, so it sounds like I'm good to go.
I tried it once last month, and the next bill just registered the time for the call, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything.
I don't intend to use it a lot, just on trips for short-term net access, so I don't want to get an entire plan for it.
Thanks!
--RJ
I have a question about the 1xRTT service - do they charge extra for that, or does it just use the plan's monthly minutes? (I can't find this answer on their site, and I don't trust the help desk to provide useful answers - they've given me bad information both times I called them.)
Thanks!
There it is, in a nutshell. Who else exists to run them? We don't want to turn it over to some organization that isn't ready to do it, or we could end up with a disaster.
If someone feels that Commerce shouldn't have control, they should start a group that can do the job (and we can agree on...well, at least most of us) and eventually control can be shifted from Commerce to this new group. But that won't happen, of course, since it's more fun to complain than do anything, and because Commerce has been doing an okay job (so getting support will be difficult).
This is bizarre: I thought we hated ICANN? Surely the Dept of Commerce, which has been doing a passable job so far, is better than ICANN?
(Disclaimer: I work for the Census Bureau, which is part of Commerce, but I have absolutely nothing to do with any of this.)
Try explaining the URL of the US's Dept of Transportation sometime... "dot dot dot gov"
Are you using preshave? I didn't for years and had similar problems, but I found that a quick lather of preshave causes my razor to work MUCH better.
Well, here's an example (I read this after I posted that comment):
0 /000/006/002znhif.asp
http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/00
That site requires registration, so here's an excerpt:
"...Nassau County residents are vigorously voicing concerns about the proposed construction of a third track along the Main Line of the MTA Long Island Rail Road."
"But in a series of public meetings this month in Mineola, Floral Park, and Hicksville, hundreds of residents raised objections, citing the possibility that the railroad would have to acquire land through eminent domain and that local businesses would be disrupted. In response, several state senators threatened late last week to withhold support for the capital program..."
And this is just adding a third track to a place that already has two! NIMBYs will be a problem no matter what we try to do.
Actually, it is cool that it's still around. I use an electric razor so I've never looked closely at the shaving creams at the supermarket.
Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. When was the last time you saw a can of Burma Shave on the store shelf? :)
That doesn't mean they can't tilt elsewhere. The parent post claimed that they can't tilt at all. Wikipedia indicates that they were initially designed to be several inches too wide but that problem was apparently fixed. And, several articles I came across talking about the Acela mentioned that they could feel the effects of the tilting inside the train.
While generally I agree with you, I have one acronym for you: NIMBY. "Not in my backyard."
Almost everyone anywhere near a right-of-way will fight it tooth and nail on any grounds they can think of - noise, pollution, scenery, the children, etc. (I know some of those are idiotic complaints, but they'd come up.)
Also, as others have pointed out, I don't think the rail lines will ever replace flying for long distances - the NY to LA run will always be faster in the air, for example. But we should have the OPTION of taking the train and getting there in a reasonable amount of time, too.
What the USA needs is this: a coherent national transportation policy that takes airlines, intercity rail, interurban rail, busses and whatever else into account. Come up with a unified strategy - for example, on short runs (DC to NY, for example), high-speed trains make a LOT of sense, a lot more than airliners. Longer runs are going to call for planes. (Not that I think we should eliminate the possibility of getting from NY to LA by rail, either.)
Cite? I follow the rail industry and haven't heard that.
The Northeast Corridor is pretty much all Amtrak owns. I think they may have a few other pieces here and there, but the NEC is the only major section.
It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the situation. If you don't already read it, consider picking up a copy of Trains magazine. Although I'm not in the rail industry, just a railfan, I find the articles very easy to understand yet very informative. Nearly every month there's some news brief about Amtrak's troubles, and many of them aren't Amtrak's fault.