At 2600 feet, the atmospheric pressure at the top is about 9 kPa less than at the bottom. This difference in air pressure also keeps the air moving upward. This is one of the primary reasons they want the chimney to be so tall. The initial speculative designs called for the chimney to be almost twice as tall as this project.
What wasn't mentioned in the post here is that slightly over 50% of the respondents said they would drop to a streaming-only or DVD-only plan. So, assuming everyone does as they say they will (dubious, I know), that's $2/month less from half their customers and $10/month less from one-third of their customers. That leaves 60% more from only one-sixth of their customers. I think they're going to have some 'splainin' to do come shareholder meeting time.
As for me, inertia has kept me paying for a 3-at-a-time plan for the last five years without using it at all. This price increase got me off my behind and motivated me to finally cancel. Thanks, Netflix.
I would add a couple things to this line of thought. First, the individuals I've worked with take product safety very seriously. Our fathers and sisters and children may well be in line to use the products we develop. This is not an issue that's taken lightly.
Second, the medical device companies I've worked for take FDA oversight VERY seriously. Aside from the moral considerations, the FDA has the power to literally padlock the doors and pull your products from store/hospital shelves. If you don't satisfy the FDA that you're doing a good job, you can be out of business overnight. No business person takes something like that lightly.
Open review of medical device software would be unlikely to increase safety, yet would be guaranteed to greatly increase the cost of developing these devices as people would have to be assigned to investigate code review issues from the public, regardless of whether they were well founded. The number of trash complaints about code formatting, naming conventions, etc. would be overwhelming.
What if they decide they want to start charging people a yearly fee for using their pacemakers (a situation that does not seem too far fetched, given what I have seen proprietary software companies do in the past)?
While possible, it's highly unlikely. These companies aren't proprietary software companies. They're medical device companies. They don't sell software, they sell medical devices. While the software is an integral part of the device, it's just one piece of many. These companies simply don't think of the software as a separate entity.
As to the source code dying with a bankrupt company, do you really care? The device implanted in your body does what it does. If it doesn't work, you have it replaced. Would you really want to chance bricking your pacemaker during a firmware upgrade?
8% of every DEPOSIT. You deposit $100 to gamble with, the feds take 8%, keep 2% for themselves and give the rest to your home state. You can now wager with the remaining $92 with only the house taking their vig out of each wager.
Online gambling is NOT totally unregulated. It just isn't regulated by the US government. I follow online gambling fairly closely and I'm aware of TWO online poker sites where individuals associated or formerly associated with the sites were involved in cheating. In both cases the individuals involved were caught, restitution was made to the players who were cheated, and the sites were penalized by the regulating body for not having sufficient security in place.
There have been cases of poker sites that were inadequately funded running into financial trouble and leaving players with deposits that were unrecoverable. Even these are relatively few since the major regulating bodies insist that player funds be put in escrow with a third party and kept completely separate from the funds the sites use for business expenses.
Saying that online poker sites cheat their customers is like saying airlines steal valuables from their customers' luggage. You can certainly argue that both the poker sites and the airlines should do a better job of policing their own employees, but that's a far cry from either group engaging in theft or encouraging their employees to do so.
At the risk of pointing out the dark lining in your silver cloud, it was a Senator from Arizona who was responsible for the huge downturn in online gambling in the first place. Kyl had the UIGEA tacked on to the Ports Bill at the last second when there was no way anyone was going to vote against it. If not for that, it's possible regulation and taxing of the online gambling industry would have already happened and the money would have already been flowing into the tax coffers.
Multiple decks have an impact on the counters, but not remotely as much as you might think. There are still swings in the favorability of the deck, they just aren't as large as they would be with one or two decks. It narrows the margin, but doesn't eliminate it.
As for why they don't do this --
A) Many do. B) Have you ever timed how long it takes to shuffle eight decks and get them shoved back in the shoe? A lot of players will leave the table rather than wait. Plus, it's effectively down time for the table. They aren't making money while they're shuffling.
I've heard some casinos use auto-shuffling shoes. They play eight decks and all discards are immediately and automatically reshuffled back into the shoe at the end of the hand. They play an effectively infinite deck composed of eight of each suit/denomination of card. I don't believe there's any way to count these shoes, but I haven't been closely following developments in blackjack play in many years.
I'm not sure exactly how loud hell is, but my 15k RPM SCSI drive makes very little noise. The CPU fans make considerably more noise than the SCSI drive and the ATA drives put together.
Promise (and I'm sure others as well) makes a couple enclosures that take ATA/SATA drives. One of them will hold up to 15 drives and connects to the computer via two SCSI interfaces. Interesting to see a true SCSI interface to ATA devices.
I've been using a HP15C for about 20 years now and live in terror of the day it dies, because I can't replace it.
Check ebay. Old HP calculators come up all the time. Granted, you'll probably pay today more than they cost when brand new, but you can get them. I've been waiting for a good deal on a HP16C to appear.
I'm pretty sure the "average" Morse code user today is actually typing into a computer using a keyboard. It's much like internet chat, only using a radio rather than the internet.
Doing it the old-fashioned way, I believe highly competent operators can do about 30WPM. The average would probably be closer to 15WPM.
I think you might be on to something here. Why complicate the human/computer interface with that silly keyboard thing? Let's simplify things by going back to that Apple mouse with one big button. You can indicate to the computer what you want it to do by tapping out various patterns with that one key! Working on a document? Just tap out the patterns for the letters you want. (short-click)(short-click)(short-click) S (long-click)(long-click)(long-click) O (short-click)(short-click)(short-click) S (Sorry, only Morse code I remember.)
It is unfortunate that using the device for at least one of its intended purposes increases the likelihood of someone taking it from you. The choice is obivously up to the individual. If you're concerned about getting mugged, then it would seem prudent to not wear earbuds while walking around the city.
And, I should point out, not listening to the Ipod while walking hardly negates the benefits of its portability. You can still listen to it on the bus, the train, the subway, the library, etc., all places where the portability is a plus.
How about not using your Ipod when you're walking around? You have to be less aware of your surroundings if you're drowning out the city noise with music, and any experienced mugger is going to know it. Crank the music up and anyone can easily sneak up behind you.
The other obvious thing is to not be obvious. Don't wear your PDA and Ipod and cell phone where it's obvious you have them. Buy a non-descript bag and carry all your stuff in that. And be sure the bag is securely attached to your person. Don't make it easy for someone to snatch and run.
Not that the equipment is crap, but that the encryption and other features of the military comm gear take up a lot of the bandwith that civ gear uses for fidelity/quality.
This is the first plausible explanation I've seen of the poor comms. It was like that right from the start, before the Cylons attacked, so jamming wouldn't seem to be an issue. It's been a long time since I used encrypted comms. I'd forgotten about the alteration of sounds. I'll give you credit for a good rationalization after the fact, though I strongly suspect it was just someone's idea of a "realistic" effect that was added post-production.
Three letters: ECM. Why would the Cylons let the humans communicate with each other and coordinate their actions in the clear?
If memory serves, and I'm pretty sure it does in this case because I recall thinking how it didn't make sense even as it was happening, the garbled radio transmissions were occurring right from the very start, before the Cylons started their attack. It was like they had the universe's worst microphones and speakers. And everyone acted as though nothing was wrong, so I assume that was pretty normal communication quality. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was one of the early scenes where the new pilot was complaining about having to make a manual landing. The comms were garbled even then, and I think that was the day before the attack started.
I thought the bridge scene where she reached for Baltar's "*ahem*", while seeming a bit out of place (the scene, not his "*ahem*"), made very plain her "hold" on him. Even after knowing what she was, what she had made him a part of, he STILL quickly responded to her touch. That's some pretty powerful mojo she's got there.
I'd also disagree about the baby-killing scene. Sure, it was sick, but I thought it spoke volumes about the Cylons. To them, humans are little more than pests to be experimented with and destroyed. She was curious about the strength of the baby's neck and tried to determine exactly how much force it could withstand. As unpleasant as it was, it definitely added to the story.
To the list of complaints above I would also add that it seems unlikely that people capable of building faster-than-light spacecraft wouldn't know how to make radios that transmitted a clear signal. The amount of break-up and interference in those radio transmissions was ridiculous. And it didn't seem to make it difficult for the characters to understand each other, it just made it tougher for the viewer to hear what they were saying.
The one character they absolutely should have left behind was "Boxey". Everyone I've talked with about it has said the same thing -- when Boxey introduced himself, my first thought was, "If there's a mechanical dog in the next scene I'm going to puke."
I thought the story was a very uneven mix of almost brilliant plot twists with pedestrian cliches. For every "Is he a Cylon? Is there a chip in his brain? Is it just his subconcious?" there was an equally mundane, stereotypical cliche. Overall, it came out on the plus side, but I was worried there for a while.
I had two domains with Namesecure several years ago. When I first transferred to them they were offering email forwarding to multiple addresses. It took several days for changes to take effect, but it worked and it was included in the basic price. Then they decided to completely drop that service in favor of offering POP email at something like $25/year per address. That would have cost me about five times what I was paying at the time and really made the whole thing unworkable. My email protests were answered, but had no effect.
I switched both domains to enom which, until the last couple months, has been offering good service. They've been making changes to their email forwarding (in an attempt to stop all those nasty email worms) and it has royally screwed things up. I've had lots of bounces and during the last Blaster attack email was taking up to 48 hours to be forwarded. They've also decided to block email with executable attachments. The last time I tested it they simply dropped any such messages -- no bounce, no forwarding with attachment stripped. Until all this started happening I would have recommended enom, now I'm afraid I can't do so with a clear conscience.
The biggest problem with using an expensive fountain pen is when someone asks to borrow it. Essentially no one knows how to use a fountain pen these days. Everyone was brought up using ball points that either require or will readily withstand the kind of pressure that will destroy some fountain pen nibs. I was looking at some fountain pens at a big office supply chain and the manager came over to help me. He pulls one of the pens out of the case, a pen which had been sitting there uncapped probably for weeks, and starts trying to write with it. Of course the ink had completely dried out weeks ago, but he didn't have a clue. He kept pressing harder and harder on the nib and wondering alound why the thing wouldn't write. By the time he gave up the tines were at least 3mm apart. I decided not to buy that particular pen.
As to the borrowing issue, most fountain pen afficianados carry a "throw-away" pen in case anyone asks to borrow a pen. I have a whole cup full of cheap pens on my desk for exactly that reason.
I was thinking the same thing when I read through it. In fact, several of the findings, such as posing a severe security and privacy threat, would seem to apply to Windows much more than to any p2p software I've seen. At least with the p2p stuff, if you aren't brain dead it should be fairly obvious if you're sharing your tax returns and check register. With Windows even the ubergeeks are largely dependent on the manufacturer. Oh, wait, I forgot, ubergeeks don't use Windows. But I digress...
This reminds me of the efforts to outlaw use of cell phones in cars. The problem isn't the cell phone; the problem is distracted driving, a situation for which most states already have ample laws on the books. If someone's driving unsafely, ticket them, get them off the road. Who cares if the unsafe situation was created by cell phone use, infants in the back seat, a dropped cigarette, makeup application, whatever?
Same thing here. If somebody's distributing child pornography, hunt 'em down and shoot 'em. Who cares if they're distributing it via p2p, news groups, IM, or fly-by-night web sites?
If you don't want your kids installing p2p software on your system, get an OS that allows you to restrict user access. There's lots of software kids probably shouldn't be using. It's ridiculous to spotlight one particular type and put all sorts of draconian restrictions on it.
Chargers that monitor deltaV seem to mostly fall in the $30 and up range. I'd guess the GE/Sanyo charger would fall in that category, particularly since it does rapid charge. You couldn't put 920mA into a NiMH battery without danger of it exploding unless you monitor deltaV.
Since NiCads self-discharge much slower than NiMH (at least in my experience), I prefer them for low draw devices that are used infrequently. I use them in a couple radios. For the most part I stick with NiMH though.
You can get AA NiMH batteries for less than $1 each in quantity. Check my journal for online sources. (I'm hoping the need to pull up a journal entry will reduce the/. effect.)
You can get 1800mAh AA NiMH batteries for about $1 each if you're willing to buy a couple dozen at a time. NiMH batteries have really closed the capacity and price gap with alkalines in the last year or two.
Slashdot Mirror
At 2600 feet, the atmospheric pressure at the top is about 9 kPa less than at the bottom. This difference in air pressure also keeps the air moving upward. This is one of the primary reasons they want the chimney to be so tall. The initial speculative designs called for the chimney to be almost twice as tall as this project.
What wasn't mentioned in the post here is that slightly over 50% of the respondents said they would drop to a streaming-only or DVD-only plan. So, assuming everyone does as they say they will (dubious, I know), that's $2/month less from half their customers and $10/month less from one-third of their customers. That leaves 60% more from only one-sixth of their customers. I think they're going to have some 'splainin' to do come shareholder meeting time.
As for me, inertia has kept me paying for a 3-at-a-time plan for the last five years without using it at all. This price increase got me off my behind and motivated me to finally cancel. Thanks, Netflix.
I would add a couple things to this line of thought. First, the individuals I've worked with take product safety very seriously. Our fathers and sisters and children may well be in line to use the products we develop. This is not an issue that's taken lightly.
Second, the medical device companies I've worked for take FDA oversight VERY seriously. Aside from the moral considerations, the FDA has the power to literally padlock the doors and pull your products from store/hospital shelves. If you don't satisfy the FDA that you're doing a good job, you can be out of business overnight. No business person takes something like that lightly.
Open review of medical device software would be unlikely to increase safety, yet would be guaranteed to greatly increase the cost of developing these devices as people would have to be assigned to investigate code review issues from the public, regardless of whether they were well founded. The number of trash complaints about code formatting, naming conventions, etc. would be overwhelming.
.
What if they decide they want to start charging people a yearly fee for using their pacemakers (a situation that does not seem too far fetched, given what I have seen proprietary software companies do in the past)?
While possible, it's highly unlikely. These companies aren't proprietary software companies. They're medical device companies. They don't sell software, they sell medical devices. While the software is an integral part of the device, it's just one piece of many. These companies simply don't think of the software as a separate entity.
As to the source code dying with a bankrupt company, do you really care? The device implanted in your body does what it does. If it doesn't work, you have it replaced. Would you really want to chance bricking your pacemaker during a firmware upgrade?
8% of every DEPOSIT. You deposit $100 to gamble with, the feds take 8%, keep 2% for themselves and give the rest to your home state. You can now wager with the remaining $92 with only the house taking their vig out of each wager.
Online gambling is NOT totally unregulated. It just isn't regulated by the US government. I follow online gambling fairly closely and I'm aware of TWO online poker sites where individuals associated or formerly associated with the sites were involved in cheating. In both cases the individuals involved were caught, restitution was made to the players who were cheated, and the sites were penalized by the regulating body for not having sufficient security in place.
There have been cases of poker sites that were inadequately funded running into financial trouble and leaving players with deposits that were unrecoverable. Even these are relatively few since the major regulating bodies insist that player funds be put in escrow with a third party and kept completely separate from the funds the sites use for business expenses.
Saying that online poker sites cheat their customers is like saying airlines steal valuables from their customers' luggage. You can certainly argue that both the poker sites and the airlines should do a better job of policing their own employees, but that's a far cry from either group engaging in theft or encouraging their employees to do so.
At the risk of pointing out the dark lining in your silver cloud, it was a Senator from Arizona who was responsible for the huge downturn in online gambling in the first place. Kyl had the UIGEA tacked on to the Ports Bill at the last second when there was no way anyone was going to vote against it. If not for that, it's possible regulation and taxing of the online gambling industry would have already happened and the money would have already been flowing into the tax coffers.
Multiple decks have an impact on the counters, but not remotely as much as you might think. There are still swings in the favorability of the deck, they just aren't as large as they would be with one or two decks. It narrows the margin, but doesn't eliminate it.
As for why they don't do this --
A) Many do.
B) Have you ever timed how long it takes to shuffle eight decks and get them shoved back in the shoe? A lot of players will leave the table rather than wait. Plus, it's effectively down time for the table. They aren't making money while they're shuffling.
I've heard some casinos use auto-shuffling shoes. They play eight decks and all discards are immediately and automatically reshuffled back into the shoe at the end of the hand. They play an effectively infinite deck composed of eight of each suit/denomination of card. I don't believe there's any way to count these shoes, but I haven't been closely following developments in blackjack play in many years.
I'm not sure exactly how loud hell is, but my 15k RPM SCSI drive makes very little noise. The CPU fans make considerably more noise than the SCSI drive and the ATA drives put together.
Promise (and I'm sure others as well) makes a couple enclosures that take ATA/SATA drives. One of them will hold up to 15 drives and connects to the computer via two SCSI interfaces. Interesting to see a true SCSI interface to ATA devices.
I'm pretty sure the "average" Morse code user today is actually typing into a computer using a keyboard. It's much like internet chat, only using a radio rather than the internet.
Doing it the old-fashioned way, I believe highly competent operators can do about 30WPM. The average would probably be closer to 15WPM.
Hmmm... Maybe we should put two buttons on the mouse.
I think you might be on to something here. Why complicate the human/computer interface with that silly keyboard thing? Let's simplify things by going back to that Apple mouse with one big button. You can indicate to the computer what you want it to do by tapping out various patterns with that one key! Working on a document? Just tap out the patterns for the letters you want. (short-click)(short-click)(short-click) S (long-click)(long-click)(long-click) O (short-click)(short-click)(short-click) S (Sorry, only Morse code I remember.)
It is unfortunate that using the device for at least one of its intended purposes increases the likelihood of someone taking it from you. The choice is obivously up to the individual. If you're concerned about getting mugged, then it would seem prudent to not wear earbuds while walking around the city.
And, I should point out, not listening to the Ipod while walking hardly negates the benefits of its portability. You can still listen to it on the bus, the train, the subway, the library, etc., all places where the portability is a plus.
How about not using your Ipod when you're walking around? You have to be less aware of your surroundings if you're drowning out the city noise with music, and any experienced mugger is going to know it. Crank the music up and anyone can easily sneak up behind you.
The other obvious thing is to not be obvious. Don't wear your PDA and Ipod and cell phone where it's obvious you have them. Buy a non-descript bag and carry all your stuff in that. And be sure the bag is securely attached to your person. Don't make it easy for someone to snatch and run.
Not that the equipment is crap, but that the encryption and other features of the military comm gear take up a lot of the bandwith that civ gear uses for fidelity/quality.
This is the first plausible explanation I've seen of the poor comms. It was like that right from the start, before the Cylons attacked, so jamming wouldn't seem to be an issue. It's been a long time since I used encrypted comms. I'd forgotten about the alteration of sounds. I'll give you credit for a good rationalization after the fact, though I strongly suspect it was just someone's idea of a "realistic" effect that was added post-production.
Three letters: ECM. Why would the Cylons let the humans communicate with each other and coordinate their actions in the clear?
If memory serves, and I'm pretty sure it does in this case because I recall thinking how it didn't make sense even as it was happening, the garbled radio transmissions were occurring right from the very start, before the Cylons started their attack. It was like they had the universe's worst microphones and speakers. And everyone acted as though nothing was wrong, so I assume that was pretty normal communication quality. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was one of the early scenes where the new pilot was complaining about having to make a manual landing. The comms were garbled even then, and I think that was the day before the attack started.
I thought the bridge scene where she reached for Baltar's "*ahem*", while seeming a bit out of place (the scene, not his "*ahem*"), made very plain her "hold" on him. Even after knowing what she was, what she had made him a part of, he STILL quickly responded to her touch. That's some pretty powerful mojo she's got there.
I'd also disagree about the baby-killing scene. Sure, it was sick, but I thought it spoke volumes about the Cylons. To them, humans are little more than pests to be experimented with and destroyed. She was curious about the strength of the baby's neck and tried to determine exactly how much force it could withstand. As unpleasant as it was, it definitely added to the story.
To the list of complaints above I would also add that it seems unlikely that people capable of building faster-than-light spacecraft wouldn't know how to make radios that transmitted a clear signal. The amount of break-up and interference in those radio transmissions was ridiculous. And it didn't seem to make it difficult for the characters to understand each other, it just made it tougher for the viewer to hear what they were saying.
The one character they absolutely should have left behind was "Boxey". Everyone I've talked with about it has said the same thing -- when Boxey introduced himself, my first thought was, "If there's a mechanical dog in the next scene I'm going to puke."
I thought the story was a very uneven mix of almost brilliant plot twists with pedestrian cliches. For every "Is he a Cylon? Is there a chip in his brain? Is it just his subconcious?" there was an equally mundane, stereotypical cliche. Overall, it came out on the plus side, but I was worried there for a while.
I had two domains with Namesecure several years ago. When I first transferred to them they were offering email forwarding to multiple addresses. It took several days for changes to take effect, but it worked and it was included in the basic price. Then they decided to completely drop that service in favor of offering POP email at something like $25/year per address. That would have cost me about five times what I was paying at the time and really made the whole thing unworkable. My email protests were answered, but had no effect.
I switched both domains to enom which, until the last couple months, has been offering good service. They've been making changes to their email forwarding (in an attempt to stop all those nasty email worms) and it has royally screwed things up. I've had lots of bounces and during the last Blaster attack email was taking up to 48 hours to be forwarded. They've also decided to block email with executable attachments. The last time I tested it they simply dropped any such messages -- no bounce, no forwarding with attachment stripped. Until all this started happening I would have recommended enom, now I'm afraid I can't do so with a clear conscience.
The biggest problem with using an expensive fountain pen is when someone asks to borrow it. Essentially no one knows how to use a fountain pen these days. Everyone was brought up using ball points that either require or will readily withstand the kind of pressure that will destroy some fountain pen nibs. I was looking at some fountain pens at a big office supply chain and the manager came over to help me. He pulls one of the pens out of the case, a pen which had been sitting there uncapped probably for weeks, and starts trying to write with it. Of course the ink had completely dried out weeks ago, but he didn't have a clue. He kept pressing harder and harder on the nib and wondering alound why the thing wouldn't write. By the time he gave up the tines were at least 3mm apart. I decided not to buy that particular pen.
As to the borrowing issue, most fountain pen afficianados carry a "throw-away" pen in case anyone asks to borrow a pen. I have a whole cup full of cheap pens on my desk for exactly that reason.
I was thinking the same thing when I read through it. In fact, several of the findings, such as posing a severe security and privacy threat, would seem to apply to Windows much more than to any p2p software I've seen. At least with the p2p stuff, if you aren't brain dead it should be fairly obvious if you're sharing your tax returns and check register. With Windows even the ubergeeks are largely dependent on the manufacturer. Oh, wait, I forgot, ubergeeks don't use Windows. But I digress...
This reminds me of the efforts to outlaw use of cell phones in cars. The problem isn't the cell phone; the problem is distracted driving, a situation for which most states already have ample laws on the books. If someone's driving unsafely, ticket them, get them off the road. Who cares if the unsafe situation was created by cell phone use, infants in the back seat, a dropped cigarette, makeup application, whatever?
Same thing here. If somebody's distributing child pornography, hunt 'em down and shoot 'em. Who cares if they're distributing it via p2p, news groups, IM, or fly-by-night web sites?
If you don't want your kids installing p2p software on your system, get an OS that allows you to restrict user access. There's lots of software kids probably shouldn't be using. It's ridiculous to spotlight one particular type and put all sorts of draconian restrictions on it.
Chargers that monitor deltaV seem to mostly fall in the $30 and up range. I'd guess the GE/Sanyo charger would fall in that category, particularly since it does rapid charge. You couldn't put 920mA into a NiMH battery without danger of it exploding unless you monitor deltaV.
/. effect.)
Since NiCads self-discharge much slower than NiMH (at least in my experience), I prefer them for low draw devices that are used infrequently. I use them in a couple radios. For the most part I stick with NiMH though.
You can get AA NiMH batteries for less than $1 each in quantity. Check my journal for online sources. (I'm hoping the need to pull up a journal entry will reduce the