Well, it would work, but you'd always lose in the overall equation. By putting something in line to capture the "speed energy", you are forced to put more power out to make the speed.
blah, blah, blah, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change states, blah, blah, blah.
To expand on the idea, you could put a giant windmill on top of a car that could produce enough electricity to drive with. Unfortunately, it would take more electricity than you produce to make it move, because of the added resistance of the windmill.
Now, having a deployable windmill that could charge the battery while you're parked is a completely different idea, and almost practical.:) Just like solar, it depends on where you are, and what the environment dictates. Alaska in mid winter isn't exactly good for solar. Most cities don't have a good sustained wind at ground level. Florida along the coast should be great for either, but you'll run out of sun and get extra wind when a hurricane blows through.:)
It sounds like there's a good bit of work to be done.
The first would be to address the problems with the internal network. There's no excuse to have problems on a LAN. Upgrade away from hubs and consumer grade "switches". This is an easy and affordable fix. There are plenty of old Cisco switches available on eBay for very little money.
I upgraded an office with 6 Cisco Catalyst 2924-M-XL-EN and 6 WS-X2924-XL-V 100baseFX fiber modules cost $300 from eBay. I used fiber to connect all the suites, which cost about $150. $450 got rid of all their problems that the entire staff had been complaining about for years.
I'd also recommend having a look at the radio link. Why isn't it working properly? Is it a line of sight problem (a tree grew in the way, maybe?), a signal or interference problem that could be resolved with a better antenna or reconfiguration?
For a reliable protocol, you can use rsync and rsyncd. I use this between Windows clients and Linux backup server. rsync provides a very reliable protocol, ensuring the data was received correctly or retrying. FTP isn't a good protocol for mission critical data.
Myself, depending on the link, what's on each end, etc, you may consider putting a Linux machine at each site, and doing a PPP over SSH link. It's easy, free, and very reliable.:) It doesn't take reinventing the wheel, nor playing with VPN servers and clients. rsync over this connection will work very well, and due to compression and encryption by both rsync and ssh, you'll find that it ends up being faster. That may seem counter-intuitive, but I've found it to be true in reality.
For a while, I was on an unreliable home connection, which apparently did a good bit of traffic shaping and some port blocking (ahh, gotta love residential providers). I frequently saw packet loss. Once setting up a PPP over SSH connection, I routed every machine on my home LAN through it, and all of our traffic left through one of my datacenters. Despite adding this extra route and hops, all Internet traffic from home was faster. Because of the magic of SSH, it actually got rid of all my packet loss.:) It was still there, but SSH retried to keep the tunnel working with no losses. Since the provider couldn't see anything that was going over the line other than encrypted data, they couldn't do any sort of traffic shaping. I used an non-standard port number, so they couldn't even be sure of what the encrypted data was. I had already planned on changing ports, if they should start slowing down my traffic, but they never did. It was unidentifiable, so they left it alone. For several things, I enjoyed 10x the normal speed, just because of the PPP over SSH tunnel. Doing the same transfers via HTTP or FTP over the same route (but not over the SSH connection) resulted in very slow speeds.
Sometimes we don't have choices, and sometimes we go with the best deals at the time.
When I went to Europe, I was using Nextel. Since it was a 1 week trip, it was silly to need to cover the expense of their world roaming phone, and even with that, if I remember right, you had to get their SIM, which would have been outrageously priced.
I gave up my private cell a couple years ago, when my pay dropped dramatically (involuntarily changed jobs) and my expenses didn't. I stayed with whatever work gave me, and had Vonage forward to it.
I had already been looking for what providers give the best deals on prepaid phones, with the idea of tethering one to a tablet in my car. All I really wanted to do was send GPS data back up to my own server, so I could do this with minimal bandwidth. I would have liked enough bandwidth to send video (1 frame every 4 seconds would be great). Prepaid didn't have much for that, that would be reasonable.
When I was laid off about a month ago, I handed over my cell phone on the way out the door. I know I needed a cell to be able to answer potential job prospects while away from my desk. I picked the Boost Mobile phone. For $50, it gives me unlimited voice, data, and text. The data is ungodly slow, but since I'm using it as a phone, that doesn't matter. I tethered it to my laptop for giggles, and ya, it was about half the speed of a noisy dialup connection.
My credit is already shot, and since I was freshly unemployed, going to any provider and saying "I'd like a plan, but I have no way to ensure future payments" was unreasonable. I've actually gone through the drill before helping other people. The answer is usually "Sure you can have a phone. We'll require a $400 deposit."
AT&T's "GoPhone" prepaid is $3/day, so about $90/mo, which doesn't appear to include data.
T-Mobile's prepaid is $1/day + $0.10/min between 7am and 7pm.
My old average usage was about 3000 minutes. So if half of that was in the free period (7pm to 7am), I'd be looking at $180/mo.
I would have preferred a GSM phone, but I can't reasonably think that it's the better choice. As it is, I'm using up the last of my savings, and will have to ask friends and family to chip in to pay the few bills I have left (like, the phone), until I find new work. Since they like to be able to get me any time, it's an expense they can help pay for.
I was up in Canada for a coupe months, a while back (like, a few years ago). We learned quickly that the calls were expensive. Luckily, I got my first bill at home shortly after my arrival, so it was very obvious, and only several hundred dollars high. My work reimbursed my phone expense, and my cell calls suddenly became "state your emergency" and "I'll call you back from my land line", which was actually my Vonage phone plugged into a wireless bridge in the hotel.:) They still got me for international roaming, which was still a bastard.
That's actually one of the nice things with the Vonage phone. If I'm out of town for more than a couple days, I bring a spare handset and the box, and plug it in when I settle in. I've gotten some strange looks wandering the halls of a hotel on my cordless phone, but the calls didn't cost me any extra.:)
American cell phone providers are generally terrible. Our phones, for the most part, won't roam to Europe or Asia, but I've had people from Europe come here without any substantial problems. Ya, ya, I know the technical reasons. I don't like them, nor the contractual reasons. Cell phones are for portability, why can't I get on a plane in New York, and hop off in Hong Kong, and call home? For a 1 week job in Amsterdam, I picked up a cheap prepaid just so I had a number people could call.
Would you mind contacting me offline. I'd like to talk more about this (and other aircraft things) without filling up Slashdot with lots of off-topic chatter. My contact info is in my profile.
I've seen 61-7972 at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center, Dullas Airport, Virginia and 61-7958 at Warner-Robbins AFB, Georgia. Apparently I've been near a few others, but didn't know they were there (Like California, Arizona, Texas, Louisana, and Florida). When I get a chance to start traveling again, I'm going to make a serious effort to see the rest of them.
I have a sneaky suspicion that they may end up un-mothballed again. The two I've seen, I noticed were in perfect condition with fresh tires and all. Looking in the intake and exhaust they still had their engines. Lots of decommissioned aircraft have the engines removed. Lots of times, you'll see the hollow space inside where an engine should be, or a well repainted (or overpainted) things that shouldn't have paint if they need to fly again. I didn't notice any of that on these. They didn't look like they were decommissioned to live out life in a museum. They look like they were being stored in a nice climate controlled environment for future use. I asked at one of them, and was told "It wouldn't be the first time they were pulled out of the museums for active duty".
Ya, I guess I failed to mention the "fast acting" part of that.:) There are lots of details that can be gotten into. Most people glaze over at thrust, drag, lift, and control surfaces. I found talk about directed thrust with piston driven ducted fans doesn't get me anywhere with the ladies either. At least not the ones I've tried it with.:)
I'd be pretty sure that any roll they'd use them with would be a collision avoidance roll, or a real nasty weather aborted landing. Hopefully none of us ever have to see.
I suspect they'd be used if someone did something like this. I wouldn't want this to happen on a commercial flight, but if I knew it was going to happen, it'd be fun.:) You can see he lost a good bit of altitude doing it. Usually a maneuver like that doesn't turn out so well, like this B-52 accident (Note, keep your lift going away from gravity, or bad things happen.). At least the capability is there to get the passengers on the ground in one piece. Well, unless you happen to be in an Air France plane over the South Atlantic a few weeks ago.
It was my understanding that because of the loads handled by commercial aircraft, they were all technically rated for acrobatics, but it was not listed in their service specs, so a high G maneuver would ground it and require a full airframe inspection after.
Ya, the Grand Canyon is a pretty cool hole in the ground. Been there, stood on the edge with my toes hanging off. Got yelled at by my girlfriend for it.:)
By fully deploying both sides, it slows it down. By partially deploying one side, it yaws. I've seen photos with the top and bottom deployed seperately on the most outboard portion, so I suspect it can be used for pitch and roll also, but all the design diagrams I've seen have the outboard portion noted for yaw and spoiler.
For the most part, pilots aren't turning their aircraft with the rudder. Turns are a banking maneuver, unless you have all day to do it in.:) Typically, turns are using all three motions (roll, pitch, and yaw) simultaneously to effect a smooth transition, so you can keep your cup of coffee from spilling, and so you don't cause unnecessary stress on the airframe.
I was flying a full motion simulator with a retired fighter pilot, and of course I had lots of questions to ask him. He said the rudder is barely ever used. I don't imagine they do a lot of flight altering with changing thrust, since their engines are so close to center line. Outboard engines would do a lot better for turning an aircraft, although slowly.
I'm sure it was more than that. If I remember right, the skin temp could get close to 1000 degrees F. That's one hell of a heat signature. How exactly do you lock onto a mach 3 fireball at 80,000 feet?:) You can't get an aircraft in front of it (too high). You can't shoot it from behind. You can't engage it from the ground unless you have amazing predictive aiming capability. You're looking at 40 seconds from launch at ground level just to get up to it's altitude, and in that 40 seconds, he's not going to be something like 30 miles from where he was.
They have the cool planes, they deserve it.:) I'm jealous though, I've always wanted to take a ride in one (and I know it'll never happen).
I've read another account of that situation from a different perspective. I believe it was from one of the ATC guys. Towards the end, they mysteriously got the call from Aspen 20, and after they got off the mic, they were laughing.
The linked story was published in the book "Sled Driver : Flying the World's Fastest Jet."
Something like the B-2 uses a pair of thin spoilers close to the wingtips. They create drag, making the aircraft yaw. No rudder required.
Some commercial aircraft (Boeing is a big one) use them to augment the ailerons.
Spoilers as control surfaces are designed as such. Attempting to use spoilers that were designed purely to stop an aircraft will probably make you stall.
From what I understand, elevon and spoiler configurations aren't bad to operate. The elevon is a combined input of the stick, and the spoilers operate as the rudder. Now, the prone position that the Horton Ho's were designed to be flown in looks either incredible uncomfortable, or a good way to fall asleep flying.:)
Sure, modern spiffy keen state of the art aircraft are all computer controlled. That doesn't mean it's a requirement to fly. Oddly enough, people manually controlled aircraft for many years.:)
And to add a car analogy (just for grins, I assure you), car engines ran before they were computer operated. A mechanic would (oh my gosh) set the timing advance, mixture, and idle speed by (deep breath) HAND. But bah, we have computers for that now, so mechanics aren't necessary, unless any of the hundreds of sensors and controls don't operate properly.:)
That sounds like the SR-71 plan. Fly really high and really fast, and nothing will get you.:) I've read reports of missiles being fired at SR-71's. The SR-71 can simply outrun them without trying too hard. Of course, at over Mach 3, your travel time to anywhere is substantially reduced.:) I would imagine something like that even if it showed up on radar would look like an error. "We have a blip here. No, we have a blip there. No, it's gone, it was nothing.":)
It just took quite a few years for us to make a plane that looked like a Horton.:) Actually, there were quite a few developed and some manufactured. They simply weren't as popular as "conventional" aircraft. I would suspect part would be due to the difference in manufacturing cost, and some to do with customer faith. "I know an airplane with wings and a tail can fly. Why should I believe something like that can?". Maybe the long gap in development of flying wing aircraft wasn't. It was just classified. What do you think they do at Area 51 (among other secret facilities), store alien bodies and reverse engineer wormhole technology?:)
I love aviation, and have been amazed with Horton's aircraft. There were several similar aircraft. I saw one in person at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles. There's a Horton Ho IIIf on display (hanging from the roof), part of a Horton Ho IIIh, and I found reference to a Horton Ho 229 being restored for display there. If I remember correctly, you'd go straight in the front door, and to the left behind the SR-71, but before the room with the Space Shuttle Enterprise. They have some beautiful aircraft there. It's worth the visit if you like aviation.
One of my hobbies is designing airplanes. Nope, not real airplanes. Just the idea of airplanes, I don't have the money to build even the first one.
One of the ideas for a 2 seat plane (forward and back, like a fighter) had been to reduce the cockpit profile to nothing removing the need for a canopy. Inside, there would be displays showing 180 degrees vertically, 270 degrees horizontally, with an extra section showing the rear 90 degrees horizontally and the 180 degrees vertically. This would reduce the radar profile, parasitic drag, and give perfect visibility in all directions.
Fighters have a blind spot low to the rear, as low to the rear behind the wings, and the runway is obscured on landing by the nose of the aircraft. This would reduce the blind area to absolutely nothing. Total visibility, and completely remove the "Where did he go" feeling.
A single fighter, or a pair with a tired wingman can have a ghost aircraft follow them low and to the rear, and remain invisible. If the "ghost" has his IFF off, and is close enough, he won't show an extra radar signature to ground control/ATC, so an enemy aircraft can follow a returning flight right back to base.
In commercial aircraft, they have good visibility about 120 degrees vertically and 180 degrees horizontally. They don't have good visibility above, below, or to the rear, which dictates the need to have good ATC and everyone having properly working equipment (IFF or Transponder). A mistake by ATC can have an aircraft descend on another aircraft, and they'd never know until they hit. TCAS is very dependent on the transponders working.
The question came up, "what happens if the electronics stop working?" You're now inside a cockpit with no good visibility (because it doesn't have a bubble for the pilot to look out, but small ports may be available). The "Blue Screen of Death" would suddenly become a very much literal. Even with the assumption of redundant systems, there would always be a chance that a major electrical fault would leave the aircraft falling like a rock. Computer controlled controls along with high resolution video in all directions would mean you wouldn't be able to see, and you wouldn't be able to control the aircraft.
Any aircraft still has the potential for a major system fault which could render it useless during flight. If they lose their radio, they can't get input from the tower on where to go. If ILS goes out, they can't get landing information in low visibility circumstances. Many newer aircraft are completely computerized for their avionics, so the pilot would suddenly have no attitude nor airspeed information. "Fly by wire" aircraft would lose their controls. An engine failure is still (and always will be) an engine failure. Redundant systems solve it, but an EMP (nuke, direct lightning strike, etc) would render it useless.
That was one of the considerations for my ideas (which I'll likely never get to build). Provide a way to hopefully land with no other electronics. A VTOL aircraft could land wherever it may be, and hopefully not be over a house or trees. Rotate the thrust ports to vertical, wait for the forward airspeed to bleed off, and set for a gradual descent. A water landing would be survivable, but the aircraft may not make it. As they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.:) Directed thrust is a wonderful thing, unless you don't have an attitude indicator at which point you may be pointed nose down rather than sitting horizontal. An aircraft parachute (one that can float the whole plane down) would be your only legitimate option, assuming you can figure out how to bleed off all the airspeed first. NASA had considered a space parachute as an emergency system for astronauts, but it was apparently decided against because the astronaut could be trapped in a bag with no v
As for teaching your daughter to not report pain -- careful there. Pain and our responses to it both mentally and physically are a complex subject.
I'm teaching her to not misreport it for attention. I listen every time they say "ouch", but I've seen so many kids say "Ouch" and hold out their finger (elbow, or whatever) and get huge amounts of attention for nothing, they're going to keep doing it.
I was doing some work this week, and complaining a little. My right index finger and thumb hurt. Well, not enough to stop me from typing.:) I've been doing some household construction for a friend. The knuckle is swollen, and my thumb has a spot where I obviously developed a blister and kept working. Now it's scabbed over.:) Still, when I was done working, I did the sarcastic "ouch", and my friends thought I was joking since I went on with what I was doing before. One of them noticed the torn blister. I didn't really pay any attention to it, other than washing it off. I've been trying to milk that though, but since I'm obviously fine (like, I kept doing things normally), no one fell for it. The only thing I couldn't do was open a soda bottle with my right hand, even though I kept trying.:)
She had a UTI recently, and she had to go to the hospital to be catheterized. It's hard to get a 2 year old to pee in a cup, so that's the other option. She really really didn't like it. She screamed. I held her hands and upper body so she couldn't go anywhere. I'm sure it hurt, but I kept telling her it would be ok. When they were done, I just cradled her until the sting went away. That's all I could do. There's no way I could say "that doesn't hurt, be quiet", because I knew it did. She's only about 2 1/2, so when she screams or cries, it's usually for a good reason, not because she wants attention. She knows she can just be cute and playful and get attention from me. If I'm doing something, she also respects that (as much as a 2 year old can), so I can get what I'm doing done until I can play. She knows I will, so she'll wait politely.
I have a tendency of going to bad places, and doing bad things, which put me at a huge risk of getting something malicious. Avast has been a real champ about catching them, even some that I didn't think were a threat (like a friend's compromised MySpace page). AVG, I can't say the same. It may have worked well for you, but what I've observed in the real world, it doesn't keep up very well.
In one office I was in, we were licensed for all the machines to have Avast. The customer service machines weren't well locked down (and I really didn't care). Someone on some shift would uninstall it and reinstall AVG. Within a week, I'd get a call saying a particular workstation was slow, and a nice fresh virus was always the cause. Off with AVG, back on with Avast, and let it do a boot time scan to clean up, and all was well.:)
There are millions of viruses out there. I see a handful floating around at any given time (unless I'm going into real dangerous territory and seeking virus source code to review). At least AVG isn't hard to uninstall. Some can be downright difficult to get rid of, almost as bad as the virus I'm trying to get rid of.
It may as well have been, but no, it was in America.
I saw a guy on the loading dock once. He broke one of his fingers while unloading a truck. He couldn't afford the time to go and see a doctor, and was told that leaving to see a doctor would result in no pay for the day. He didn't get paid enough to argue, he had $20 in his bank account and rent was due.
Instead of getting any real treatment, he taped that finger to the adjoining finger with packing tape, and kept working as hard as he could. He was actually threatened by his supervisor that he would be fired if he couldn't keep up with his quota for the day.
Once, I accidentally cut myself on my left hand. It was a pretty deep cut. I was reprimanded for not meeting my quota. I wasn't a loader/unloader, but I still had to roam the whole warehouse and handle inventory. Every other day, I exceeded quote, but I spent an hour with the "nurse", who couldn't even figure out how to clean and dress a simple cut. I ended up doing it myself with her watching in amazement "Oh, that's how you do that." It took 45 minutes of her fumbling around until my hand was wrapped like a boxing glove, and 15 more minutes for me to get her to take it off and I gave her very simple instructions on how to do it right. I was just under 10% below my quota for the day. They made a big deal out of the blood on the floor too, that ran from where I cut myself to the front desk. The general idea was "How dare you bleed on our floor!"
Ok so they can't beat you for failing to work, and minimum wage doesn't buy a lot for a married man and wife, and new baby, but they don't have to be nice about it, and will work you until you drop, and fire you if you don't keep working. Being jobless with no income is a bigger threat that physical harm.
I wish I could remember the details of what I had been told (by folks that worked there, not by anyone official) when I was considering moving there for work.
Ahhhh. Let me guess. You're a single guy?
Well, kinda but no. Married twice, 3 kids, divorced once, separated once. I don't have an "girlfriend" right now, but for right now I'm probably better off just doing what I do, and saving the romance for later.:)
You are doing something for society. It's called paying taxes. Think of it as an insurance policy for a civilization.
Well, kinda.:) I don't agree with lots of the taxation. Heck, look at what the US Gov't has been doing with my tax money. Waging an ongoing war, and bailing out the same people who were raping people with their outrageous costs and interest fees.
I just look at one thing about the auto company bailouts. The last car I bought was a used car. It cost was $26,000. The final cost after all the payments was over $48,000. You'd be hard pressed to buy a new car for $10,000 or less, and unless you happened to have that much cash on hand, you'd finance and end up paying $20,000 for it.
I'd love to go to a company to do some systems or development work and come in with auto loan style terms:
The job will be $10,000. Oh, don't worry about paying me right now, we'll put you on the JWSmythe EZ-Finance Program.
* Pay $100 now, and for the next 60 months you'll be obliged to make monthly payments.
* If you pay the contract off early, you'll have to pay an extra $5,000.
* If you are late, we will assess a $500 fee plus interest at 29.995% daily.
* If you are not late, we will assess interest at 15% monthly.
* 48 hours after failing to make a payment will result in our "collections" department calling you several times a day to "encourage" you to pay.
* If you do not make a payment within 7 days, we will contact your staff, partner companies, and customers in an attempt to collect this debt.
* Failure to make payments for 3 consecutive months will mean all code (including 3rd party customizations) and any contained data will be seized and sold to the highest bidder at auction. You will be responsible for the difference in what is owed versus the selling price.
* Although we will have the project done in the next 7 to 14 days, you will receive no assistance in any form with the project, but you will still be obliged to make the payments. We will be more than happy to work with you, but any additional work will cost you 3x to 10x as much as going to any other competent provider. In doing so, you have made unauthorized changes, which will lower the potential sale price at the above noted clause.
Nope, if I, a sysadmin or developer, were to lay these terms on someone, it's extortion. The government would be happy to watch me rot in jail. But, if you're a big business with deep pockets, you can get a really fat check from the government to help with the current economic slump.
I hear and find the same thing true with AVG.:) People bring me malware infested machines, so I uninstall AVG and install Avast Home (Free), which takes care of the problems, and protects them in the future.
From what I've seen, Class A diesel pusher RV's use Caterpillar or Detroit Diesel engines, commonly noted as Cat or DD, respectively, so you're looking at the same equipment, and any truck repair shop can work on it. Mine is the older DD engine engines, so it is not computerized. The newer ones have significant advantages, but from what I've seen there can be some drawbacks to the computerized DD motors, such as needing the diagnostic tools and possible limitations set in the computer. For example, a metro transit bus may have a max speed of 45mph set, if there are no roads that it would operating on that they would expect the driver to go over 45mph. Some people have reported trouble removing this programming. That's more of a social engineering exercise than an actual problem. You have to ask nice, and prove it's yours, and DD or Cat will do it for you.
From what I've read, the gas engines are significantly inferior, which makes a lot of sense. Diesel motors are workhorses, great for lots of torque and low RPM's. Gas engines do better at higher RPM's and don't provide the same kind of torque. Gas motors also leave you with more parts (and more parts to break).
From what I've read from some 1st person accounts, with the upgraded gearing in mine (to allow it to go over 60mph), I should expect 10 mpg from it. A friend of mine bought a very nice 40' Class A with a Cat engine in it, and traveling Florida to Alaska and back he said the best mileage he got was only about 7mpg, with the trip average closer to 5mpg.
A lot of it has to do with the overall weight, aerodynamics (they're bricks, but how much front surface area are you pushing with?), etc. If you build one out, and are sparing with heavy features, you can still do a very nice job and get good mileage. Towing a hummer, and setting up to carry 1000 gallons of water will hurt your performance.:) Building your own, you get to take your needs into account, rather than just going with what the manufacturer thinks you may want. I can go light on the interior features, because I don't require 4 TV's. Some have that (bedroom, two in the living room, and one in an underneath storage for viewing from the outside). I'd rather have one nice large TV in the living room area, and save the weight (and space) for other things. I'd actually opt to have capacity for extra water and fuel, so I can travel for longer without stopping for either. Mine has a 190 gallon fuel tank, so at 10 mpg, I should be able to cross most of the way across the country, with one fuel stop somewhere towards the end. I also considered a gasoline storage tank, so if someone is following me (like, a friend, not a stalker), we can pick up fuel in the cheapest state, and I can keep fueling them up as we go. Just because I'd want it equipped with it doesn't mean the tanks have to be full all the time. Dumping the waste water, only carrying 20 gallons of fresh water, and not filling the auxiliary fuel tanks could save a lot of weight.
I'd love to see someone like you pursue that. "I'm suing you because you came into work sick and got me sick." ha!
You know, many carriers aren't even aware that the are.
Say an employee takes a cab from the airport. He tosses his sport coat on the seat because it's a warm day (but a company requirement to wear one to meetings). When he gets to the office, he puts on the coat, dusts it off (like any self respecting business man would), buttons it, and rubs out the new wrinkles. His old secretary gives him a hug on the way in. He does the whole round of shaking hands with the rest of the members of the meeting.
When his part of the presentation comes up, he opens his briefcase and takes out a stack of pre-printed documents to hand around. The meeting comes to an end, and he does another round of handshakes, and calls a cab to get a ride back to the airport.
He gets home, hugs and kisses his wife and kids, and proceeds to toss his briefcase in his office, and hangs his sport jacket in the closet.
Little did he know, the person in the cab was being taken to the hospital because they were really sick. They were coughing and sneezing the whole time, and running a high fever. Every inch of the back of the cab was contaminated. His hands, his jacket, the outside of his briefcase, all of which contacted the contaminated seat and door handle.
Now he's potentially contaminated every person he made contact with, as well as the meeting room, and finally the mens room. Sure, he washed his hands after he did his business, but that didn't stop him from contaminating the door handles and the sink he used.
3 days later, he's sick. 4 days later, his wife, kids, and everyone he met at the meeting come down with the same cold.
Who are you going to sue?
Now, a bit more on your topic, a coworker comes in. He has sniffles. Oh my. Allergies, or a cold? He isn't feeling too bad (yet). So some litigious bastard in the next cube catches his cold too. Turns out it wasn't allergies, nor the common cold, but swine flu. You're going to rape him and the company for everything they're worth, just because.
Sorry, the potential of infection is a fact of life. I've traveled a lot, and it's very very likely I've come in contact with things that have made me sick. I joke about "airplane sick", because it's almost guaranteed a few days after I fly, I'll be sick from something. The more I've flown, the less frequently I've gotten sick, probably because I've built up an immunity to a whole variety of illnesses. While I was flying a lot, and had the luxury, I worked from home until I was better. Sometimes I'd come into work the next day, and 3 to 4 days later, other people in the office started getting sick. That's me showered, wearing fresh clean clothes (no contamination on my person), but I may be bringing my laptop in with me, and it's bag. I have yet to see someone wash their laptop and bag. I never knowingly did it. It may have been a coincidence. Who knows. Maybe I touched a bathroom door in the airport that the previously mentioned business man did, and it carried through on my laptop bag. Maybe we just took the same cab, or used the same self-service check-in kiosk.
I was once (a long time ago) working in a warehouse for the largest big-box store in the world. I got sick. Really sick. I wasn't paid well, and had no insurance. I couldn't opt for the company funded insurance because my pay was so low that it barely covered rent in my crappy apartment, food, and gas to get to/from work.
I had a 105 fever. I was barely coherent most of the time, and hallucinating at other times. In my periods of lucidity, I recorded my temperature, which was floating from about 104.9 to 105.9. I did apparently manage to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but all I really remember is vivid colors, people who didn't exist, and finding myself wandering around the apparent reason. I wasn't coherent enough to drive anywhere (or to even realize that I should), and freezing cold in the apartment that was at 85 degrees. I was taking OTC cold medicine, because that's all that we had, and we had no money to pay for a doctor visit and pay for prescriptions.
I was like that for 3 days. When I went back to work, I was written up because I had didn't have a doctor's note. I reminded them that I wasn't paid enough to afford a doctor, but that didn't help matters either. All I had was my temperature log, which they didn't believe. The cold wasn't over, I continued with a low grade fever for several more days, dragging myself in to work every day because my body ached, my head was pounding, and I was still switching from chills to sweats about every 30 minutes. If I hadn't, I would have been fired (they were kind enough to tell me so too).
No, not everyone has the luxury to say "no", stay home, and be sick in the comfort of their own homes. Really if you're out of town for work, most people can't afford a hotel on their own dime for several days until they're better, and their bosses won't appreciate that they extended their "trip". Maybe it'll come out of sick leave, or maybe it'll come out of vacation time, or maybe they'll just consider that you didn't show up to work and fire you for that.
Sometimes even in the luxury of high paid corporate America, you can't take the luxury either. When you have staff world wide, and representatives from the various divisions are coming into town for a meeting that your important to, saying "no, I'm sick, reschedule it" doesn't fly. For many places, saying "I'll call in, put me on speaker phone" doesn't work either. They flew in for face time, and you, the good employee, will provide that face time no matter what. Unless you're in the hospital in a coma, you'll be there.
Nice work places will say "oh, you're sick, no problem, call in for the meeting", or "we'll reschedule for a few days from now, they'll enjoy the time to work with our staff". Not every place is so good about that. It would be nice if they were.
From what I understand, in some countries you can take indefinite "sick" leave, without doctor's note nor explanation. After your regular leave is up, you then earn 50%. After a period, the gov't pays it. When you're "better", you can just show back up to work, and they're obliged to give you either your original position back, or a comparable one. I knew someone like that. He suffered from depression, didn't leave the house for 2 years, and was still getting paid. He went back to work for a few months, and then the "depression" started up again. I think it was more that he was abusing the system, but there are plenty of people who do that. I prefer to work for pay. I don't feel society owes me anything, unless I do something for them in return.
A few folks have told me that. Without any admission of previous occurrences, we'll suffice it to say that I considered the path of medical marijuana, but within 15 minutes, I'll be asleep for 3 hours. So, for stoners I've known, I was usually the designated driver.:) I have no problem with it, it just doesn't have the safe effect on me as it does for them. Doctor prescribed carisoprodol and OTC ibuprofen handle my daily aches and pains pretty well. At least as much as I don't need to constantly stretch to attempt to relieve my pains. We don't have to go into my medical history, but suffice it to say I've damaged myself well enough over the years that there are plenty of pains (2 to 6 on a 1-10 scale, depending on the day, without treatment). I'd still take these pains over some of the real pain that I've experienced over the years.
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Won't work.
Well, it would work, but you'd always lose in the overall equation. By putting something in line to capture the "speed energy", you are forced to put more power out to make the speed.
blah, blah, blah, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change states, blah, blah, blah.
To expand on the idea, you could put a giant windmill on top of a car that could produce enough electricity to drive with. Unfortunately, it would take more electricity than you produce to make it move, because of the added resistance of the windmill.
Now, having a deployable windmill that could charge the battery while you're parked is a completely different idea, and almost practical. :) Just like solar, it depends on where you are, and what the environment dictates. Alaska in mid winter isn't exactly good for solar. Most cities don't have a good sustained wind at ground level. Florida along the coast should be great for either, but you'll run out of sun and get extra wind when a hurricane blows through. :)
It sounds like there's a good bit of work to be done.
The first would be to address the problems with the internal network. There's no excuse to have problems on a LAN. Upgrade away from hubs and consumer grade "switches". This is an easy and affordable fix. There are plenty of old Cisco switches available on eBay for very little money.
I upgraded an office with 6 Cisco Catalyst 2924-M-XL-EN and 6 WS-X2924-XL-V 100baseFX fiber modules cost $300 from eBay. I used fiber to connect all the suites, which cost about $150. $450 got rid of all their problems that the entire staff had been complaining about for years.
I'd also recommend having a look at the radio link. Why isn't it working properly? Is it a line of sight problem (a tree grew in the way, maybe?), a signal or interference problem that could be resolved with a better antenna or reconfiguration?
For a reliable protocol, you can use rsync and rsyncd. I use this between Windows clients and Linux backup server. rsync provides a very reliable protocol, ensuring the data was received correctly or retrying. FTP isn't a good protocol for mission critical data.
Myself, depending on the link, what's on each end, etc, you may consider putting a Linux machine at each site, and doing a PPP over SSH link. It's easy, free, and very reliable. :) It doesn't take reinventing the wheel, nor playing with VPN servers and clients. rsync over this connection will work very well, and due to compression and encryption by both rsync and ssh, you'll find that it ends up being faster. That may seem counter-intuitive, but I've found it to be true in reality.
For a while, I was on an unreliable home connection, which apparently did a good bit of traffic shaping and some port blocking (ahh, gotta love residential providers). I frequently saw packet loss. Once setting up a PPP over SSH connection, I routed every machine on my home LAN through it, and all of our traffic left through one of my datacenters. Despite adding this extra route and hops, all Internet traffic from home was faster. Because of the magic of SSH, it actually got rid of all my packet loss. :) It was still there, but SSH retried to keep the tunnel working with no losses. Since the provider couldn't see anything that was going over the line other than encrypted data, they couldn't do any sort of traffic shaping. I used an non-standard port number, so they couldn't even be sure of what the encrypted data was. I had already planned on changing ports, if they should start slowing down my traffic, but they never did. It was unidentifiable, so they left it alone. For several things, I enjoyed 10x the normal speed, just because of the PPP over SSH tunnel. Doing the same transfers via HTTP or FTP over the same route (but not over the SSH connection) resulted in very slow speeds.
Sometimes we don't have choices, and sometimes we go with the best deals at the time.
When I went to Europe, I was using Nextel. Since it was a 1 week trip, it was silly to need to cover the expense of their world roaming phone, and even with that, if I remember right, you had to get their SIM, which would have been outrageously priced.
I gave up my private cell a couple years ago, when my pay dropped dramatically (involuntarily changed jobs) and my expenses didn't. I stayed with whatever work gave me, and had Vonage forward to it.
I had already been looking for what providers give the best deals on prepaid phones, with the idea of tethering one to a tablet in my car. All I really wanted to do was send GPS data back up to my own server, so I could do this with minimal bandwidth. I would have liked enough bandwidth to send video (1 frame every 4 seconds would be great). Prepaid didn't have much for that, that would be reasonable.
When I was laid off about a month ago, I handed over my cell phone on the way out the door. I know I needed a cell to be able to answer potential job prospects while away from my desk. I picked the Boost Mobile phone. For $50, it gives me unlimited voice, data, and text. The data is ungodly slow, but since I'm using it as a phone, that doesn't matter. I tethered it to my laptop for giggles, and ya, it was about half the speed of a noisy dialup connection.
My credit is already shot, and since I was freshly unemployed, going to any provider and saying "I'd like a plan, but I have no way to ensure future payments" was unreasonable. I've actually gone through the drill before helping other people. The answer is usually "Sure you can have a phone. We'll require a $400 deposit."
AT&T's "GoPhone" prepaid is $3/day, so about $90/mo, which doesn't appear to include data.
T-Mobile's prepaid is $1/day + $0.10/min between 7am and 7pm.
My old average usage was about 3000 minutes. So if half of that was in the free period (7pm to 7am), I'd be looking at $180/mo.
I would have preferred a GSM phone, but I can't reasonably think that it's the better choice. As it is, I'm using up the last of my savings, and will have to ask friends and family to chip in to pay the few bills I have left (like, the phone), until I find new work. Since they like to be able to get me any time, it's an expense they can help pay for.
I was up in Canada for a coupe months, a while back (like, a few years ago). We learned quickly that the calls were expensive. Luckily, I got my first bill at home shortly after my arrival, so it was very obvious, and only several hundred dollars high. My work reimbursed my phone expense, and my cell calls suddenly became "state your emergency" and "I'll call you back from my land line", which was actually my Vonage phone plugged into a wireless bridge in the hotel. :) They still got me for international roaming, which was still a bastard.
That's actually one of the nice things with the Vonage phone. If I'm out of town for more than a couple days, I bring a spare handset and the box, and plug it in when I settle in. I've gotten some strange looks wandering the halls of a hotel on my cordless phone, but the calls didn't cost me any extra. :)
American cell phone providers are generally terrible. Our phones, for the most part, won't roam to Europe or Asia, but I've had people from Europe come here without any substantial problems. Ya, ya, I know the technical reasons. I don't like them, nor the contractual reasons. Cell phones are for portability, why can't I get on a plane in New York, and hop off in Hong Kong, and call home? For a 1 week job in Amsterdam, I picked up a cheap prepaid just so I had a number people could call.
Would you mind contacting me offline. I'd like to talk more about this (and other aircraft things) without filling up Slashdot with lots of off-topic chatter. My contact info is in my profile.
I've seen 61-7972 at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center, Dullas Airport, Virginia and 61-7958 at Warner-Robbins AFB, Georgia. Apparently I've been near a few others, but didn't know they were there (Like California, Arizona, Texas, Louisana, and Florida). When I get a chance to start traveling again, I'm going to make a serious effort to see the rest of them.
I have a sneaky suspicion that they may end up un-mothballed again. The two I've seen, I noticed were in perfect condition with fresh tires and all. Looking in the intake and exhaust they still had their engines. Lots of decommissioned aircraft have the engines removed. Lots of times, you'll see the hollow space inside where an engine should be, or a well repainted (or overpainted) things that shouldn't have paint if they need to fly again. I didn't notice any of that on these. They didn't look like they were decommissioned to live out life in a museum. They look like they were being stored in a nice climate controlled environment for future use. I asked at one of them, and was told "It wouldn't be the first time they were pulled out of the museums for active duty".
Ya, I guess I failed to mention the "fast acting" part of that. :) There are lots of details that can be gotten into. Most people glaze over at thrust, drag, lift, and control surfaces. I found talk about directed thrust with piston driven ducted fans doesn't get me anywhere with the ladies either. At least not the ones I've tried it with. :)
I'd be pretty sure that any roll they'd use them with would be a collision avoidance roll, or a real nasty weather aborted landing. Hopefully none of us ever have to see.
I suspect they'd be used if someone did something like this. I wouldn't want this to happen on a commercial flight, but if I knew it was going to happen, it'd be fun. :) You can see he lost a good bit of altitude doing it. Usually a maneuver like that doesn't turn out so well, like this B-52 accident (Note, keep your lift going away from gravity, or bad things happen.). At least the capability is there to get the passengers on the ground in one piece. Well, unless you happen to be in an Air France plane over the South Atlantic a few weeks ago.
It was my understanding that because of the loads handled by commercial aircraft, they were all technically rated for acrobatics, but it was not listed in their service specs, so a high G maneuver would ground it and require a full airframe inspection after.
Ya, the Grand Canyon is a pretty cool hole in the ground. Been there, stood on the edge with my toes hanging off. Got yelled at by my girlfriend for it. :)
You really need to read up on the control surfaces.
Here's a site with a decent diagram.
By fully deploying both sides, it slows it down. By partially deploying one side, it yaws. I've seen photos with the top and bottom deployed seperately on the most outboard portion, so I suspect it can be used for pitch and roll also, but all the design diagrams I've seen have the outboard portion noted for yaw and spoiler.
For the most part, pilots aren't turning their aircraft with the rudder. Turns are a banking maneuver, unless you have all day to do it in. :) Typically, turns are using all three motions (roll, pitch, and yaw) simultaneously to effect a smooth transition, so you can keep your cup of coffee from spilling, and so you don't cause unnecessary stress on the airframe.
I was flying a full motion simulator with a retired fighter pilot, and of course I had lots of questions to ask him. He said the rudder is barely ever used. I don't imagine they do a lot of flight altering with changing thrust, since their engines are so close to center line. Outboard engines would do a lot better for turning an aircraft, although slowly.
I'm sure it was more than that. If I remember right, the skin temp could get close to 1000 degrees F. That's one hell of a heat signature. How exactly do you lock onto a mach 3 fireball at 80,000 feet? :) You can't get an aircraft in front of it (too high). You can't shoot it from behind. You can't engage it from the ground unless you have amazing predictive aiming capability. You're looking at 40 seconds from launch at ground level just to get up to it's altitude, and in that 40 seconds, he's not going to be something like 30 miles from where he was.
They have the cool planes, they deserve it. :) I'm jealous though, I've always wanted to take a ride in one (and I know it'll never happen).
I've read another account of that situation from a different perspective. I believe it was from one of the ATC guys. Towards the end, they mysteriously got the call from Aspen 20, and after they got off the mic, they were laughing.
The linked story was published in the book "Sled Driver : Flying the World's Fastest Jet."
Well, yes, but no.
Yes, they disturb the air, and create extra drag.
Something like the B-2 uses a pair of thin spoilers close to the wingtips. They create drag, making the aircraft yaw. No rudder required.
Some commercial aircraft (Boeing is a big one) use them to augment the ailerons.
Spoilers as control surfaces are designed as such. Attempting to use spoilers that were designed purely to stop an aircraft will probably make you stall.
From what I understand, elevon and spoiler configurations aren't bad to operate. The elevon is a combined input of the stick, and the spoilers operate as the rudder. Now, the prone position that the Horton Ho's were designed to be flown in looks either incredible uncomfortable, or a good way to fall asleep flying. :)
Sure, modern spiffy keen state of the art aircraft are all computer controlled. That doesn't mean it's a requirement to fly. Oddly enough, people manually controlled aircraft for many years. :)
And to add a car analogy (just for grins, I assure you), car engines ran before they were computer operated. A mechanic would (oh my gosh) set the timing advance, mixture, and idle speed by (deep breath) HAND. But bah, we have computers for that now, so mechanics aren't necessary, unless any of the hundreds of sensors and controls don't operate properly. :)
That sounds like the SR-71 plan. Fly really high and really fast, and nothing will get you. :) I've read reports of missiles being fired at SR-71's. The SR-71 can simply outrun them without trying too hard. Of course, at over Mach 3, your travel time to anywhere is substantially reduced. :) I would imagine something like that even if it showed up on radar would look like an error. "We have a blip here. No, we have a blip there. No, it's gone, it was nothing." :)
It just took quite a few years for us to make a plane that looked like a Horton. :) Actually, there were quite a few developed and some manufactured. They simply weren't as popular as "conventional" aircraft. I would suspect part would be due to the difference in manufacturing cost, and some to do with customer faith. "I know an airplane with wings and a tail can fly. Why should I believe something like that can?". Maybe the long gap in development of flying wing aircraft wasn't. It was just classified. What do you think they do at Area 51 (among other secret facilities), store alien bodies and reverse engineer wormhole technology? :)
I love aviation, and have been amazed with Horton's aircraft. There were several similar aircraft. I saw one in person at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles. There's a Horton Ho IIIf on display (hanging from the roof), part of a Horton Ho IIIh, and I found reference to a Horton Ho 229 being restored for display there. If I remember correctly, you'd go straight in the front door, and to the left behind the SR-71, but before the room with the Space Shuttle Enterprise. They have some beautiful aircraft there. It's worth the visit if you like aviation.
This is funny, but....
One of my hobbies is designing airplanes. Nope, not real airplanes. Just the idea of airplanes, I don't have the money to build even the first one.
One of the ideas for a 2 seat plane (forward and back, like a fighter) had been to reduce the cockpit profile to nothing removing the need for a canopy. Inside, there would be displays showing 180 degrees vertically, 270 degrees horizontally, with an extra section showing the rear 90 degrees horizontally and the 180 degrees vertically. This would reduce the radar profile, parasitic drag, and give perfect visibility in all directions.
Fighters have a blind spot low to the rear, as low to the rear behind the wings, and the runway is obscured on landing by the nose of the aircraft. This would reduce the blind area to absolutely nothing. Total visibility, and completely remove the "Where did he go" feeling.
A single fighter, or a pair with a tired wingman can have a ghost aircraft follow them low and to the rear, and remain invisible. If the "ghost" has his IFF off, and is close enough, he won't show an extra radar signature to ground control/ATC, so an enemy aircraft can follow a returning flight right back to base.
In commercial aircraft, they have good visibility about 120 degrees vertically and 180 degrees horizontally. They don't have good visibility above, below, or to the rear, which dictates the need to have good ATC and everyone having properly working equipment (IFF or Transponder). A mistake by ATC can have an aircraft descend on another aircraft, and they'd never know until they hit. TCAS is very dependent on the transponders working.
The question came up, "what happens if the electronics stop working?" You're now inside a cockpit with no good visibility (because it doesn't have a bubble for the pilot to look out, but small ports may be available). The "Blue Screen of Death" would suddenly become a very much literal. Even with the assumption of redundant systems, there would always be a chance that a major electrical fault would leave the aircraft falling like a rock. Computer controlled controls along with high resolution video in all directions would mean you wouldn't be able to see, and you wouldn't be able to control the aircraft.
Any aircraft still has the potential for a major system fault which could render it useless during flight. If they lose their radio, they can't get input from the tower on where to go. If ILS goes out, they can't get landing information in low visibility circumstances. Many newer aircraft are completely computerized for their avionics, so the pilot would suddenly have no attitude nor airspeed information. "Fly by wire" aircraft would lose their controls. An engine failure is still (and always will be) an engine failure. Redundant systems solve it, but an EMP (nuke, direct lightning strike, etc) would render it useless.
That was one of the considerations for my ideas (which I'll likely never get to build). Provide a way to hopefully land with no other electronics. A VTOL aircraft could land wherever it may be, and hopefully not be over a house or trees. Rotate the thrust ports to vertical, wait for the forward airspeed to bleed off, and set for a gradual descent. A water landing would be survivable, but the aircraft may not make it. As they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good one. :) Directed thrust is a wonderful thing, unless you don't have an attitude indicator at which point you may be pointed nose down rather than sitting horizontal. An aircraft parachute (one that can float the whole plane down) would be your only legitimate option, assuming you can figure out how to bleed off all the airspeed first. NASA had considered a space parachute as an emergency system for astronauts, but it was apparently decided against because the astronaut could be trapped in a bag with no v
As for teaching your daughter to not report pain -- careful there. Pain and our responses to it both mentally and physically are a complex subject.
I'm teaching her to not misreport it for attention. I listen every time they say "ouch", but I've seen so many kids say "Ouch" and hold out their finger (elbow, or whatever) and get huge amounts of attention for nothing, they're going to keep doing it.
I was doing some work this week, and complaining a little. My right index finger and thumb hurt. Well, not enough to stop me from typing. :) I've been doing some household construction for a friend. The knuckle is swollen, and my thumb has a spot where I obviously developed a blister and kept working. Now it's scabbed over. :) Still, when I was done working, I did the sarcastic "ouch", and my friends thought I was joking since I went on with what I was doing before. One of them noticed the torn blister. I didn't really pay any attention to it, other than washing it off. I've been trying to milk that though, but since I'm obviously fine (like, I kept doing things normally), no one fell for it. The only thing I couldn't do was open a soda bottle with my right hand, even though I kept trying. :)
She had a UTI recently, and she had to go to the hospital to be catheterized. It's hard to get a 2 year old to pee in a cup, so that's the other option. She really really didn't like it. She screamed. I held her hands and upper body so she couldn't go anywhere. I'm sure it hurt, but I kept telling her it would be ok. When they were done, I just cradled her until the sting went away. That's all I could do. There's no way I could say "that doesn't hurt, be quiet", because I knew it did. She's only about 2 1/2, so when she screams or cries, it's usually for a good reason, not because she wants attention. She knows she can just be cute and playful and get attention from me. If I'm doing something, she also respects that (as much as a 2 year old can), so I can get what I'm doing done until I can play. She knows I will, so she'll wait politely.
I have a tendency of going to bad places, and doing bad things, which put me at a huge risk of getting something malicious. Avast has been a real champ about catching them, even some that I didn't think were a threat (like a friend's compromised MySpace page). AVG, I can't say the same. It may have worked well for you, but what I've observed in the real world, it doesn't keep up very well.
In one office I was in, we were licensed for all the machines to have Avast. The customer service machines weren't well locked down (and I really didn't care). Someone on some shift would uninstall it and reinstall AVG. Within a week, I'd get a call saying a particular workstation was slow, and a nice fresh virus was always the cause. Off with AVG, back on with Avast, and let it do a boot time scan to clean up, and all was well. :)
There are millions of viruses out there. I see a handful floating around at any given time (unless I'm going into real dangerous territory and seeking virus source code to review). At least AVG isn't hard to uninstall. Some can be downright difficult to get rid of, almost as bad as the virus I'm trying to get rid of.
It may as well have been, but no, it was in America.
I saw a guy on the loading dock once. He broke one of his fingers while unloading a truck. He couldn't afford the time to go and see a doctor, and was told that leaving to see a doctor would result in no pay for the day. He didn't get paid enough to argue, he had $20 in his bank account and rent was due.
Instead of getting any real treatment, he taped that finger to the adjoining finger with packing tape, and kept working as hard as he could. He was actually threatened by his supervisor that he would be fired if he couldn't keep up with his quota for the day.
Once, I accidentally cut myself on my left hand. It was a pretty deep cut. I was reprimanded for not meeting my quota. I wasn't a loader/unloader, but I still had to roam the whole warehouse and handle inventory. Every other day, I exceeded quote, but I spent an hour with the "nurse", who couldn't even figure out how to clean and dress a simple cut. I ended up doing it myself with her watching in amazement "Oh, that's how you do that." It took 45 minutes of her fumbling around until my hand was wrapped like a boxing glove, and 15 more minutes for me to get her to take it off and I gave her very simple instructions on how to do it right. I was just under 10% below my quota for the day. They made a big deal out of the blood on the floor too, that ran from where I cut myself to the front desk. The general idea was "How dare you bleed on our floor!"
Ok so they can't beat you for failing to work, and minimum wage doesn't buy a lot for a married man and wife, and new baby, but they don't have to be nice about it, and will work you until you drop, and fire you if you don't keep working. Being jobless with no income is a bigger threat that physical harm.
I wish I could remember the details of what I had been told (by folks that worked there, not by anyone official) when I was considering moving there for work.
Ahhhh. Let me guess. You're a single guy?
Well, kinda but no. Married twice, 3 kids, divorced once, separated once. I don't have an "girlfriend" right now, but for right now I'm probably better off just doing what I do, and saving the romance for later. :)
You are doing something for society. It's called paying taxes. Think of it as an insurance policy for a civilization.
Well, kinda. :) I don't agree with lots of the taxation. Heck, look at what the US Gov't has been doing with my tax money. Waging an ongoing war, and bailing out the same people who were raping people with their outrageous costs and interest fees.
I just look at one thing about the auto company bailouts. The last car I bought was a used car. It cost was $26,000. The final cost after all the payments was over $48,000. You'd be hard pressed to buy a new car for $10,000 or less, and unless you happened to have that much cash on hand, you'd finance and end up paying $20,000 for it.
I'd love to go to a company to do some systems or development work and come in with auto loan style terms:
The job will be $10,000. Oh, don't worry about paying me right now, we'll put you on the JWSmythe EZ-Finance Program.
* Pay $100 now, and for the next 60 months you'll be obliged to make monthly payments.
* If you pay the contract off early, you'll have to pay an extra $5,000.
* If you are late, we will assess a $500 fee plus interest at 29.995% daily.
* If you are not late, we will assess interest at 15% monthly.
* 48 hours after failing to make a payment will result in our "collections" department calling you several times a day to "encourage" you to pay.
* If you do not make a payment within 7 days, we will contact your staff, partner companies, and customers in an attempt to collect this debt.
* Failure to make payments for 3 consecutive months will mean all code (including 3rd party customizations) and any contained data will be seized and sold to the highest bidder at auction. You will be responsible for the difference in what is owed versus the selling price.
* Although we will have the project done in the next 7 to 14 days, you will receive no assistance in any form with the project, but you will still be obliged to make the payments. We will be more than happy to work with you, but any additional work will cost you 3x to 10x as much as going to any other competent provider. In doing so, you have made unauthorized changes, which will lower the potential sale price at the above noted clause.
Nope, if I, a sysadmin or developer, were to lay these terms on someone, it's extortion. The government would be happy to watch me rot in jail. But, if you're a big business with deep pockets, you can get a really fat check from the government to help with the current economic slump.
I hear and find the same thing true with AVG. :) People bring me malware infested machines, so I uninstall AVG and install Avast Home (Free), which takes care of the problems, and protects them in the future.
I'd highly recommend Avast. It does have a management tool which is what the article is seeking (avast! Distributed Network Manager). The server is free, but it requires a paid version of their software to use with it. Bulk pricing information is here: http://www.avast.com/eng/pricelist-avast-professional.html
From what I've seen, Class A diesel pusher RV's use Caterpillar or Detroit Diesel engines, commonly noted as Cat or DD, respectively, so you're looking at the same equipment, and any truck repair shop can work on it. Mine is the older DD engine engines, so it is not computerized. The newer ones have significant advantages, but from what I've seen there can be some drawbacks to the computerized DD motors, such as needing the diagnostic tools and possible limitations set in the computer. For example, a metro transit bus may have a max speed of 45mph set, if there are no roads that it would operating on that they would expect the driver to go over 45mph. Some people have reported trouble removing this programming. That's more of a social engineering exercise than an actual problem. You have to ask nice, and prove it's yours, and DD or Cat will do it for you.
From what I've read, the gas engines are significantly inferior, which makes a lot of sense. Diesel motors are workhorses, great for lots of torque and low RPM's. Gas engines do better at higher RPM's and don't provide the same kind of torque. Gas motors also leave you with more parts (and more parts to break).
From what I've read from some 1st person accounts, with the upgraded gearing in mine (to allow it to go over 60mph), I should expect 10 mpg from it. A friend of mine bought a very nice 40' Class A with a Cat engine in it, and traveling Florida to Alaska and back he said the best mileage he got was only about 7mpg, with the trip average closer to 5mpg.
A lot of it has to do with the overall weight, aerodynamics (they're bricks, but how much front surface area are you pushing with?), etc. If you build one out, and are sparing with heavy features, you can still do a very nice job and get good mileage. Towing a hummer, and setting up to carry 1000 gallons of water will hurt your performance. :) Building your own, you get to take your needs into account, rather than just going with what the manufacturer thinks you may want. I can go light on the interior features, because I don't require 4 TV's. Some have that (bedroom, two in the living room, and one in an underneath storage for viewing from the outside). I'd rather have one nice large TV in the living room area, and save the weight (and space) for other things. I'd actually opt to have capacity for extra water and fuel, so I can travel for longer without stopping for either. Mine has a 190 gallon fuel tank, so at 10 mpg, I should be able to cross most of the way across the country, with one fuel stop somewhere towards the end. I also considered a gasoline storage tank, so if someone is following me (like, a friend, not a stalker), we can pick up fuel in the cheapest state, and I can keep fueling them up as we go. Just because I'd want it equipped with it doesn't mean the tanks have to be full all the time. Dumping the waste water, only carrying 20 gallons of fresh water, and not filling the auxiliary fuel tanks could save a lot of weight.
I'd love to see someone like you pursue that. "I'm suing you because you came into work sick and got me sick." ha!
You know, many carriers aren't even aware that the are.
Say an employee takes a cab from the airport. He tosses his sport coat on the seat because it's a warm day (but a company requirement to wear one to meetings). When he gets to the office, he puts on the coat, dusts it off (like any self respecting business man would), buttons it, and rubs out the new wrinkles. His old secretary gives him a hug on the way in. He does the whole round of shaking hands with the rest of the members of the meeting.
When his part of the presentation comes up, he opens his briefcase and takes out a stack of pre-printed documents to hand around. The meeting comes to an end, and he does another round of handshakes, and calls a cab to get a ride back to the airport.
He gets home, hugs and kisses his wife and kids, and proceeds to toss his briefcase in his office, and hangs his sport jacket in the closet.
Little did he know, the person in the cab was being taken to the hospital because they were really sick. They were coughing and sneezing the whole time, and running a high fever. Every inch of the back of the cab was contaminated. His hands, his jacket, the outside of his briefcase, all of which contacted the contaminated seat and door handle.
Now he's potentially contaminated every person he made contact with, as well as the meeting room, and finally the mens room. Sure, he washed his hands after he did his business, but that didn't stop him from contaminating the door handles and the sink he used.
3 days later, he's sick. 4 days later, his wife, kids, and everyone he met at the meeting come down with the same cold.
Who are you going to sue?
Now, a bit more on your topic, a coworker comes in. He has sniffles. Oh my. Allergies, or a cold? He isn't feeling too bad (yet). So some litigious bastard in the next cube catches his cold too. Turns out it wasn't allergies, nor the common cold, but swine flu. You're going to rape him and the company for everything they're worth, just because.
Sorry, the potential of infection is a fact of life. I've traveled a lot, and it's very very likely I've come in contact with things that have made me sick. I joke about "airplane sick", because it's almost guaranteed a few days after I fly, I'll be sick from something. The more I've flown, the less frequently I've gotten sick, probably because I've built up an immunity to a whole variety of illnesses. While I was flying a lot, and had the luxury, I worked from home until I was better. Sometimes I'd come into work the next day, and 3 to 4 days later, other people in the office started getting sick. That's me showered, wearing fresh clean clothes (no contamination on my person), but I may be bringing my laptop in with me, and it's bag. I have yet to see someone wash their laptop and bag. I never knowingly did it. It may have been a coincidence. Who knows. Maybe I touched a bathroom door in the airport that the previously mentioned business man did, and it carried through on my laptop bag. Maybe we just took the same cab, or used the same self-service check-in kiosk.
Ditto.
I was once (a long time ago) working in a warehouse for the largest big-box store in the world. I got sick. Really sick. I wasn't paid well, and had no insurance. I couldn't opt for the company funded insurance because my pay was so low that it barely covered rent in my crappy apartment, food, and gas to get to/from work.
I had a 105 fever. I was barely coherent most of the time, and hallucinating at other times. In my periods of lucidity, I recorded my temperature, which was floating from about 104.9 to 105.9. I did apparently manage to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but all I really remember is vivid colors, people who didn't exist, and finding myself wandering around the apparent reason. I wasn't coherent enough to drive anywhere (or to even realize that I should), and freezing cold in the apartment that was at 85 degrees. I was taking OTC cold medicine, because that's all that we had, and we had no money to pay for a doctor visit and pay for prescriptions.
I was like that for 3 days. When I went back to work, I was written up because I had didn't have a doctor's note. I reminded them that I wasn't paid enough to afford a doctor, but that didn't help matters either. All I had was my temperature log, which they didn't believe. The cold wasn't over, I continued with a low grade fever for several more days, dragging myself in to work every day because my body ached, my head was pounding, and I was still switching from chills to sweats about every 30 minutes. If I hadn't, I would have been fired (they were kind enough to tell me so too).
No, not everyone has the luxury to say "no", stay home, and be sick in the comfort of their own homes. Really if you're out of town for work, most people can't afford a hotel on their own dime for several days until they're better, and their bosses won't appreciate that they extended their "trip". Maybe it'll come out of sick leave, or maybe it'll come out of vacation time, or maybe they'll just consider that you didn't show up to work and fire you for that.
Sometimes even in the luxury of high paid corporate America, you can't take the luxury either. When you have staff world wide, and representatives from the various divisions are coming into town for a meeting that your important to, saying "no, I'm sick, reschedule it" doesn't fly. For many places, saying "I'll call in, put me on speaker phone" doesn't work either. They flew in for face time, and you, the good employee, will provide that face time no matter what. Unless you're in the hospital in a coma, you'll be there.
Nice work places will say "oh, you're sick, no problem, call in for the meeting", or "we'll reschedule for a few days from now, they'll enjoy the time to work with our staff". Not every place is so good about that. It would be nice if they were.
From what I understand, in some countries you can take indefinite "sick" leave, without doctor's note nor explanation. After your regular leave is up, you then earn 50%. After a period, the gov't pays it. When you're "better", you can just show back up to work, and they're obliged to give you either your original position back, or a comparable one. I knew someone like that. He suffered from depression, didn't leave the house for 2 years, and was still getting paid. He went back to work for a few months, and then the "depression" started up again. I think it was more that he was abusing the system, but there are plenty of people who do that. I prefer to work for pay. I don't feel society owes me anything, unless I do something for them in return.
A few folks have told me that. Without any admission of previous occurrences, we'll suffice it to say that I considered the path of medical marijuana, but within 15 minutes, I'll be asleep for 3 hours. So, for stoners I've known, I was usually the designated driver. :) I have no problem with it, it just doesn't have the safe effect on me as it does for them. Doctor prescribed carisoprodol and OTC ibuprofen handle my daily aches and pains pretty well. At least as much as I don't need to constantly stretch to attempt to relieve my pains. We don't have to go into my medical history, but suffice it to say I've damaged myself well enough over the years that there are plenty of pains (2 to 6 on a 1-10 scale, depending on the day, without treatment). I'd still take these pains over some of the real pain that I've experienced over the years.