Of course, there was a price to this knowledge, I did not get laid nearly enough at college.
That you would leap out of your bunk, leaving your naked, nubile freshman girlfriend behind, the moment said box shouted "BUTTHEAD! BUTTHEAD! COME HERE QUICK!" in response to an IRC/msg, is entirely your fault.
I live in this district. Nobody's getting unnecessary perks anymore. We're cut to the bone right now. Maintenance can't buy enough toilet paper and cleansers. They're understaffed so many teachers clean their own classrooms, otherwise they'd be lucky to see a vacuum twice a week. We laid off all the aides and half the secretaries five years ago, so the teachers do all their own copying and filing. The high schools have one IT tech each, and ours is run so ragged that clued teachers (or their spouses) handle anything that doesn't require server access. (The elementary and junior highs share one tech per two or three campuses.) Most high school classes exceed 30 students. (The PE sections may have 60. Yes, sixty.) This year, the district completely quit paying for bus transportation for all extra-curriculars.
I'm not fond of our school board. They play games with the calendar because they don't have the balls to stand up to their buddies who will pull their kids out of school (depriving them of state money) before Thanksgiving and in February to go skiing. But financially, I can't see how they could do better than where we are now. Clearly, we can get creative in making up supply budgets. A similar effort would not make up if they had cut the budget for teaching salaries instead.
Is there a lot of money tied up in other, horribly-managed government programs? Absolutely. Sixth largest economy in the world, and California can't fund its schools? It's as big a joke as you think it is. That won't stop until we stop electing clowns to our legislature. These endless crises aren't knocking any sense into people here. They're too laid back with too strong a sense of entitlement. You'll see California go bankrupt before you see any change.
(We *do* pay our damned taxes. The threshold for the 6% state income tax bracket is $26,800 this year. The 9.3% threshold is $47K.)
My first PowerBook was a G3/233. A year after the warranty expired, it developed audio and battery charging problems that cost me several trips to CompUSA for repairs, four weeks of total downtime, and about $900. More than I wanted to spend, but not near as much as the cost of a new iBook, and most notably, a lot more than the AppleCare extended warranty.
Absolutely, positively, buy the AppleCare policy. Given the expense of Apple notebook parts, it more than pays for itself the first time you might have to use it.
A friend used to work in the DSL department of a local ISP. He'd often bitch about business they were losing because PacBell would drag its heels delivering the physical lines. Customers would tire of waiting after a month or two of missed appointments (often by PacBell, but occasionally Covad,) and cancel their order. Apparently, a cancellation at that stage still requires some payment to Covad from the ISP. The ISP likely doesn't have the funds since the cancelled customer refused to pay. (Go figure, it's not like they received any services, just inconvenience.)
So why is Covad still demanding payment in this situation? Are they being greedy? Are the ILECs demanding payment from Covad for canceled physical lines they never delivered in the first place? I could believe both, but I'd be curious to learn where the truth lies...
"The article also talks about how detailed and precise NASA engineers are now"
How detailed and precise they are now?! They have always been that detailed and precise. There's a reason we have an expression comparing difficult things to "rocket science". Throwing several hundred tons of metal into orbit (or beyond) without enough gas to recover from a gross error, in situations where you get it right the first time, or else (at best) lose years of research an planning, or (at worst) lose the lives of the crew of a manned flight, is amongst the most difficult feats of engineering imagineable.
What NASA has now is management too scared of being raked over the coals again for being criminally stupid. Go reread accounts of the Challenger investigation... the engineering was fine. That was a political and managerial fuckup of biblical proportions--"screw the freezing temperatures and the unknowns, we want that ship up there when Gipper gives his State of the Union address."
The novel's author is Todd Strasser... I would imagine this is an adaptation of the made-for-TV movie.
I saw the headline for this article, and was thinking "wouldn't it be weird if this were the same as that book we read in 5th grade?" Naturally, "weird" doesn't begin to cover it...
Thank God I'm not still in school, andGod willing, Poway Unified doesn't pick up on this nightmare in the making...
Is there anything hindering cable modem subscribers from using other ISPs for mail/news/web service right now? Is it common for ISPs to firewall their servers from everywhere except their own dialups? I didn't think it was.
I don't see why this MOU or AOL/Time-Warner's plans make any difference. Is there something I'm missing?
Or is this just another scam like California's "competitive" electricity market, where the service is the same, and you just have a choice who you send a check to once a month?
This is old news. Making multipath interference work for you instead of against you has been done in digital communications for quite a while now. In consumer electronics, it's an integral feature of the CDMA cellular/pcs technology.
smartin: Be warned though that the firecracker controller is nothing more than a simple remote for X10 devices, it does not include most of the features of the more complex controllers, including builtin macros, being able to query devices, etc.
Quite true, but it looks perfect for hanging off a Pilot, pdQ, or PowerBook to tweak the lights while sitting out in the back yard.
(Okay, so I don't have a back yard yet. Damned townhouses...)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, there was a price to this knowledge, I did not get laid nearly enough at college.
That you would leap out of your bunk, leaving your naked, nubile freshman girlfriend behind, the moment said box shouted "BUTTHEAD! BUTTHEAD! COME HERE QUICK!" in response to an IRC /msg, is entirely your fault.
I live in this district. Nobody's getting unnecessary perks anymore. We're cut to the bone right now. Maintenance can't buy enough toilet paper and cleansers. They're understaffed so many teachers clean their own classrooms, otherwise they'd be lucky to see a vacuum twice a week. We laid off all the aides and half the secretaries five years ago, so the teachers do all their own copying and filing. The high schools have one IT tech each, and ours is run so ragged that clued teachers (or their spouses) handle anything that doesn't require server access. (The elementary and junior highs share one tech per two or three campuses.) Most high school classes exceed 30 students. (The PE sections may have 60. Yes, sixty.) This year, the district completely quit paying for bus transportation for all extra-curriculars.
I'm not fond of our school board. They play games with the calendar because they don't have the balls to stand up to their buddies who will pull their kids out of school (depriving them of state money) before Thanksgiving and in February to go skiing. But financially, I can't see how they could do better than where we are now. Clearly, we can get creative in making up supply budgets. A similar effort would not make up if they had cut the budget for teaching salaries instead.
Is there a lot of money tied up in other, horribly-managed government programs? Absolutely. Sixth largest economy in the world, and California can't fund its schools? It's as big a joke as you think it is. That won't stop until we stop electing clowns to our legislature. These endless crises aren't knocking any sense into people here. They're too laid back with too strong a sense of entitlement. You'll see California go bankrupt before you see any change.
(We *do* pay our damned taxes. The threshold for the 6% state income tax bracket is $26,800 this year. The 9.3% threshold is $47K.)
The ghost of Stringer Bell is moderately impressed.
My first PowerBook was a G3/233. A year after the warranty expired, it developed audio and battery charging problems that cost me several trips to CompUSA for repairs, four weeks of total downtime, and about $900. More than I wanted to spend, but not near as much as the cost of a new iBook, and most notably, a lot more than the AppleCare extended warranty.
Absolutely, positively, buy the AppleCare policy. Given the expense of Apple notebook parts, it more than pays for itself the first time you might have to use it.
A friend used to work in the DSL department of a local ISP. He'd often bitch about business they were losing because PacBell would drag its heels delivering the physical lines. Customers would tire of waiting after a month or two of missed appointments (often by PacBell, but occasionally Covad,) and cancel their order. Apparently, a cancellation at that stage still requires some payment to Covad from the ISP. The ISP likely doesn't have the funds since the cancelled customer refused to pay. (Go figure, it's not like they received any services, just inconvenience.)
So why is Covad still demanding payment in this situation? Are they being greedy? Are the ILECs demanding payment from Covad for canceled physical lines they never delivered in the first place? I could believe both, but I'd be curious to learn where the truth lies...
--
How detailed and precise they are now?! They have always been that detailed and precise. There's a reason we have an expression comparing difficult things to "rocket science". Throwing several hundred tons of metal into orbit (or beyond) without enough gas to recover from a gross error, in situations where you get it right the first time, or else (at best) lose years of research an planning, or (at worst) lose the lives of the crew of a manned flight, is amongst the most difficult feats of engineering imagineable.
What NASA has now is management too scared of being raked over the coals again for being criminally stupid. Go reread accounts of the Challenger investigation... the engineering was fine. That was a political and managerial fuckup of biblical proportions--"screw the freezing temperatures and the unknowns, we want that ship up there when Gipper gives his State of the Union address."
--
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A SIN/0440993717
The novel's author is Todd Strasser... I would imagine this is an adaptation of the made-for-TV movie.
I saw the headline for this article, and was thinking "wouldn't it be weird if this were the same as that book we read in 5th grade?" Naturally, "weird" doesn't begin to cover it...
Thank God I'm not still in school, andGod willing, Poway Unified doesn't pick up on this nightmare in the making...
--
Is there anything hindering cable modem subscribers from using other ISPs for mail/news/web service right now? Is it common for ISPs to firewall their servers from everywhere except their own dialups? I didn't think it was.
I don't see why this MOU or AOL/Time-Warner's plans make any difference. Is there something I'm missing?
Or is this just another scam like California's "competitive" electricity market, where the service is the same, and you just have a choice who you send a check to once a month?
--
This is old news. Making multipath interference work for you instead of against you has been done in digital communications for quite a while now. In consumer electronics, it's an integral feature of the CDMA cellular/pcs technology.
(Insert blatant Qualcomm plug here.)
--
Quite true, but it looks perfect for hanging off a Pilot, pdQ, or PowerBook to tweak the lights while sitting out in the back yard.
(Okay, so I don't have a back yard yet. Damned townhouses...)
Yes, but he's only one-eighth your size.
my-mug.com does a bunch of stuff, but does any place like that exist that will do those adhesiveless vinyl static-cling "stickers"?
Company facilities people and townhouse association weenies get pissy about things permanently stuck to windows, see...