Actually the solution you propose is a good one. The Toyota Prius gets 72 miles per gallon in city driving. This is over 3x better than what most SUV's in California get. Further more if the population of just California switched over to cars like the Prius then oil concumption would be greatly reduced and gas prices would drop.
This is just for the short term mind you. Oil production is going to drop and the fit is going to hit the sham and probably pretty soon. If I were the proud owner of a recent model SUV I'd be selling it about as quickley as I could.
Oh I just love it. Trash the gas and substitute coal fired electricity and that in a state which does not have enough generating capacity and hense imports over very long distances with the attendant loss of energy during transmission.
If you guys want to build some nukes near SF and LA then I'm all for it!
The sad thing is that while those from LaLa land are addicted to their cars, they have one of the nicest climates in the world for biking.
(or were you planning on Natural Gas fired electricty? If so check out CPNLQ.pk - they use to trade over $$5 bux and I was asking them at the time where they were planning on getting their gas from!)
Of course I am all for solar, but I wonder how many have really figured out how much its going to cost in panels/collectors to operate an SUV?
In 20 years they'll be resorting, like Sesame Street, to asking for patents on the letter "M". If they can't get a blanket patent then they'll be asking for a patent on the novel approach of using "M" to spell "M"other! Of course there will be a lot of litigation already about the use of the letter "S" as in "S"ue.
But who cares, with the new "Digital Rights Managment" that "M"$ will create by then, it will probably be illegal for anyone other than a certified "M"$ programmer to write programs because "w"e might infringe on some special interest groups' rights.
Read this as the "R"IAA's desire to ensure that only musicians who sign with the big labels have any hope of selling a recording... and of those who do? The small independant musicians?
Well, just like here in "C"anada, they'll be paying a royalty when they buy the CD blanks and these roylaties will be collected for the musical community... "E"xcept, of course, none of the money collected will go to any independant musicians.
Sesame Street is not be prior art because they didn't think of using the letter "M" as part of computer software. Long before then of course, "C" will no longer be in use.
If you bought a fridge 10 years ago it is unlikely it will last another 5 years let alone 10.
If you bought a fridge 25 years ago it is highly likely it will last another 15 years.
My washer and dryer are over 25 years old. I'll probably get 40 years service from them. My old fridge has a pink steel shell in it and has to date to the 60's. I'll probably get another 25 years from it. But the last fridge I bought which is in the kitchen has broken 3 times in the last 4 years.
Turning them on and off reduces life. I leave mine on 24x7 and since 1992 have only needed to replace about 3x. The last set was purchased in 2001. I remember because I hired the same guy to install a ceiling fan in my office that year as wired my garage the year before. I have not replaced the blubs yet. So that is 5 years on a set of three (3) bulbs which draw 13 watts each.
I happen to recall I got close to 10 years from at least one of the previous bulbs. I had to replace both (I was using 2 back then) adn it was about 2-3 years before I replaced the fixture.
Keeping track of things that last almost a decade is hard.
Oz can sign a free trade agreement with Canada. To HELL with the USA and their stupid and self serving DMCA type legislation and software patents.
The world ignored their stupidity on the non-reprocessing of nuclear fuels which has created a backlog of spent fuel (Europe and Japan reprocess and have been for decades).
This spent fuel contains literally 100's of years of energy which will sorely be needed in a few years. Note that spent fuel contains about 1% Pu and 1% U235 which is 2% fissle. Contrast this to natural U which contains 0.7% U235 = fissle. A Candu can burn natural U so it certainly can be configured to burn spent U after the nuclear poisons have been removed. Since there are over 100 (enriched) reactors in the USA and they have been running for about 50 years it follows that the spend fuel can be used in a fleet of about 100 Candu style reactors for several decades. Note that spent fuel is less than about 2% nuclear poisons. The remaining 98% can be stuffed right back into reactors after processing. The reason the USA didn't want reprocessing in part is because Texas oil would not have been worth much if there were a viable nuclear industry. Another reason is that anti-nuclear folks wanted a big pile of waste to point fingers at and what better way to get a big pile of waste than to prevent its use.
As oil prices soar above $70** bux per barrel it would do people well to look into nuclear energy and especially the Integral Fast Reactor (see Wikipedia, and check the IFR talk pages too). There is enough fuel already mined for 1000's of years of power production and there are no long term wastes. IE. We've all been lied to by self serving USA pollies.
**Note: Matt Simmons suggests oil may be over $350 per barrel before long - Translate that into the cost of filling your tank!
The point is these short sighted self serving liars are continuing and now we hear them in the area of Digital Rights Managment and Software Patents. So just tell the Yanks to stay home.
BTW - the Vietnam war is another example of when the Yanks should have been told to stay home. I sure hope the growing strife in the middle east which clearly is over access to their oil will not turn into another Vietnam.
I had a client suggest this on a $4000 drive a few years back. Their data was more improtant than $8000 (cost of two (2) drives to experiment with)
Drives keep track of bad sectors and remapped bad sectors. This might not be kept on the hard drive - IE - it could be kept on the controller board in ECC memory. I was never able to find out.
Next - the positioning might be via servo information on the platters themselves and if so then the swapped controller should be fine. But if the manufacturer used some sort of dead reconing system such as timming the track to track seaks then head positioning _might_ be a problem.
I don't know but I can see that there might be problems.
IBM had dual heads on some of their drives. This was done years ago.
I expect we'll see an array of r/w heads instead. If we read and write 8 bits at a time then the drive looks like it spins about 8x faster. The thing is the rotational delay is the same but you read or write 8x the data per rotation.
While your professor friend was being a fool Richard Feynman was writing "THere is plenty of room on the bottom". See if you can find his paper. He predicited densities much higher.
Hmm - as I wrote those last few comments I was thinking that the horney jerks might be able to sue under fraud legislation because he certainly seems to have fraudulantly presented himself. But he didn't do it for money.
The problem with claiming fraud is that on dating sites, it is normal for people to use psuedonyms and there is no requirement that anything posted in a profile be factual. In fact many who replied used pseudonyms and probably posted false information as well such as the breadth and length of their members. Certainly some lied about their marital status or intended too.
Its much like TV entertainment. In the 60's a game show was sued because the contestants were slipped the answers. The producers won on the basis that its only entertainment. There is no suggestion that anything on TV actually be factual. Tricking the public is part of the game - the "War of the Worlds" broadcast falls into this area.
I think it can be successfully argued that profiles on dating sites might also be considered little more than entertainment since we all know that so many are false in one way or another.
Legal Definition of publish : v. to make public to at least one other person by any means.
This means wearing a new dress design such that it can be seen by at least one other person is considered "publish"ing.
As this applies to a patent - if you show it to anyone then you have published it. You have to get them to agree to non-disclosure first.
In the case of the jokers who posted their pics - they clearly did publish it under law and as such the guy who posted this published information is allowed to do so under fair use interpretations which allow critisism of published works.
While people might not like it - I think a law suit against the guy goes nowhere.
They can't sue him for defamation because he just made known what they published. A solid defence in a defamation suit is that he spoke the truth.
Its a legal term. You'll have to ask a lawyer why this is the case.
Copyright and patent law has different meanings to words that the rest of us who speak the English language. For instance if you design a dress and wear it to a party then you have "published" the design.
I think this would be the case in any public disclosure. As for a private disclosure - I'll have to check that. I think if one were to invite guests to a private party then this would still be considered "publishing". However if one were to answer the door because a delivery person rang the doorbell while wearing said dress - then this might not be publishing - I don't know.
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Funny - the reply gets modded up as the main post gets modded "Troll". Seems the moderation around here is about as bad as normal. Ugghhh!
I find this funny. Personally I think there ought to be more accountability and while these jerks were baited there is no doubt that had this been a real "oppotunity" many of them would be out cheating on their spouses and possibly bringing home a serious infection such as AIDS.
As for the copyright violations - that is a tough one. The copyright to an email and a jpeg rests with the author. However this was published and in such a fashion that it might actually be public domain. In the USA one must register the copyright prior to publishing and if this is not done the copyright becomes imperfect and as such enters limbo. (IANAL but I have researched this).
The thing is that if one of these jerks wishes to challenge him then it will be via a civil suit. Any evidence submitted will become public (by default) and I am sure the press will cover the story. The identity of the plaintiff and the defendant will become public knowledge.
Unless the guy wishes to become a porn star he may not want the exposure so to speak.
The way I see it is that its THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT and I suspect a court will see it this way.
I want the popcorn stand. This should be fun to watch.
One thing this does actually expose is that on many dating sites the female profiles are bogus - over 90% in some cases. Most women would die of embarassment before posting anything and certainly before posting anything their mother or daughter might see.
Being single and finding a partner can be very tough. A lot of dating sites have been defrauding the public in an attempt to exploit this. Then we have of course a lot of married preditory men poising as singles so they can cheat on their wives. Pretty sad - but if these jerks at least are exposed then I say good.
This having been said - one site that seems legit is www.plentyoffish.com
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I sometimes wonder if our society will change so that a score sheet from prior spouses and girl friends / boy friends will become available. In "The sociopath next door" it is suggested that more than 20% of the population simply doesn't give a S**T about anyone other than themselves.
I wonder how many women would like to know if the guy they are dating abused his previous GF?
There are a lot of nice honest guys out there - but there seems to be a preference on the part of many women to pick the dangerous types. Then they look to find a nice guy to raise their brood. Giving a heads up might level the playing feild a bit.
Photoshop was free with HP and other scanners a few years back. I haven't checked recently. There is no way that the vast majority of people even paid for Photoshop.
Fact is that if people actually had to pay for products like Windows they would try to find freeware. THE ONLY REASON WINDOWS MADE ITS MARKET PENETRATION IS BECAUSE IT WAS PRE_LOADED
People like me were expected to pay for windows as a bundled product then reformat the disk and install another OS we paid for like OS/2. Microsoft owes me quite a lot of money. Of course they have no intention of paying. No worries. I have no intention of supporting Microsoft.
What these shysters fail to realise is that short term gain does little more than gain them an enemy and I for one have a very long memory.
Linux WILL replace microsoft.
It will do so through large institutions, businsess and schools. Large organisations have the resources to be able to support an alternative and over the last few years we have begun to see many reports of the cost savings involved with switching to Linux. This will expose more and more people to the benefits, and as has been happening, through this process a critical mass will form.
Most people use a computer like a phone. They would never consider swapping an operating system any more than they would consider swapping the motor on their car. It has to be done for them. Like a phone - the computer is only worth what it can do for them at the moment. Most people do not back up their work because ususally they have no real work worthy of being backed up. This is in stark contrast to the graduate students who routinely fail to back up their Thesis!!!
For people like this - there is close to ZERO vendor loyalty. The minute something better comes along they will switch. In fact, its worse... Our field is very subject to fashion trends. Often those who adopt a new fashion do so without any logical reasoning why the new custom might be better than the old. They just switch because they want to try something new for a while.
The thing is this switch will take place and it will do so likely at the speed a large herd of buffalo changes direction.
One can look at the herd while it is stampeding and think this herd has a large areal extent and hense it cannot change direction quickely. Yet it can. Suddenly the individuals decide to switch and they do. Stampedes are not lead by leaders. When they change direction it can be totally non-obvious and just as unpredictable.
Vehical buying patterns can switch suddenly as well and for the same reasons. The actual "investment" people have in a vehical is not very large. They can be driving one model one day and another the next day. In fact the automobile industry takes advantage of this through the sale of so many different models.
Taken in this light, Linux offers far more flexibility than M$ ever has. We have several choices of shells and desktops for instance, it is actually a very rich environment.
What the USA auto manufacturers discovered in the early 70's and now again in the 2005-present time frame is that there is little in the way of vendor loyalty. Once there is a perception to change something a large part fo the population will hop on the new bandwagon whatever direction it is going.
The stockmarket also shows this. The "investment" one typically has in a share is the amount of time and the commisions to sell out. Of course some folks form an emotional attachment to the stocks they own. I rather think day traders make their living off these emotions.
Most market crashes have not been predicted very well. We might have a general feeling of unease that a crash may be forming now. We can surely find some pundits who are predicting this. We can also find some who are not. Thus whatever happens - some folks will be right and we can search them out for interviews by the talking heads and ask them how they were so smart.
You are probably correct that the judge will allow this witch hunt to proceed.
What this illustrates is that a law suit can be used to expose someone's trade secrets and confidential work. Suppose Paul Wilke is a programmer and he is working on a secret project that he intends to flog as a product in the not too distant future.
If the RIAA is allowed to go trapsing through his hard drives, then they will find the source code he is working on even if they do not find the copyrighted music they claim might be present. Thus they are breaching the defendant's rights by exposing his copyrights which he has every right to keep confidential.
Once the genie is out of the bottle its out and even though I personally greatly disagree with patents, what this can do is compromise Paul Wilke's ability to patent things in the future.
While the legal system is suppose to honour confidentiality it often does not do so. Lawyers offices are very leaky and generally very insecure.
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I had one lawyer send me his enitre client list. I could have contacted each and every one of them.
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Another lawyer received a confidential tape containing source code for a rather large project which was involved in a litigation. This lawyer agreed to keep the tape confidential. This was an "undertaking".
The next thing the lawyer did was to call up a third party company that does software development in exactly the same area as the project in question - IE - a competitor and a strong one at that. This company was given the tape and asked to read it. They were not told what was on the tape and thought it was data and not source code.
After the company received the tape they handed it to one of their employees who happened to have worked for me on a project a couple years before and she tossed the tape in her napsack and peddled her bike across town and delivered it to me - and I _ALSO_ do software development in this area and thus ALSO am a competitor.
I had the correct operating system which her employer did not have running.
I was also not told what was on the tape.
Over the course of a week I was able to read the tape and lo and behold what came up was all of these copyright notices.
Thus - I was put in the position of seeing unwanted source code which could expose me to a law suit if I were to do anything that happened to fall even remotely in the same area as the source code on the tape. The short of it is that if a programmer even sees someone else's source code they can be sued for copyright infringement just as George Harrison was found guilty of plagerism and copyright infringment on the basis that he might have heard the song "He's So Fine" playing on the radio before he wrote "My Sweet Lord".
Leaky law office! You bet. The answer here is that if you are a programmer then don't let anyone hire you to read a tape and if you are a song writer then you better not listen to the radio or buy any CD's. The world we live in is just aweful in some ways.
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The next example of leaky law offices is that most use windows systems which are not secured and most are too damn cheap to hire a sysadmin let alone a security consultant much less put in a fire wall. Generally they cannot understand why there might be black hat crackers out there, yet most of them take on clientel which would be overjoyed to hire a black hat and certainly do have the motivation to do so.
This is like connecting every keyboard in the world to their computers with no attempt at security. This is like taking their file cabinates full of confidential documentation on the cases undergoing litigation and putting these file cabinates in an open parking lot without so much as using a key to lock them or anyone to guard them. Clearly if the files are accessed they have no idea who might have done it. Of course we all know that in a lot of litigation there is a complete disrespect of the law.
So are they gonna pipe in mid-eastern music, garlic smells, and strange bead thingies dangling from the mirrors to give it the real cabbie ambiance?
Probably not. If you listen to "Time" by ELO, they'll probably make the driver a red head, blonde or brunette depending on your taste and probably track your preference. She'll have a sweet voice and will not be inclined to argue. Next she will be just the right blend of demanding but nice. You can paraphrase this to mean "Stimulating".
Alas, as the say in the song - She might be perfect "But she isn't IBM".
Since I use an IBM PC 101 KB I know the tactile feel of something from IBM. There is nothing more pleasant on the planet. Now if IBM would slip the VM technology of the MainFrames into my little 'puter so I have full virtualization and can run several Linux and OpenBSD operating systems along with the winders (ugg) stuff - then I would fall in love.
I had to put up with a very nicely engineered and very expensive NEC special order KB for a number of years until I managed to lay my pinkies on the IBM KB. I use to love the song by ELO and now I know why.
IMHO the technology of yester-year will not be able to match the joys that await us. Hense I always tell anyone not too familiar with a computer or new thechnology that "Great Joy's await you!"
A pneumatic tube transport might work. These are used in Factories but if tubes are built large enought to hold your average grocery bag and large enought to hold a case of wine or a case of beer - then one could simply order it up and its dropped in the tube and a computer delivers it to your abode.
A well desgined system could move the product fast enough that the beer would still be cold by the time your domestic robot receives it and puts it in the fridge for you.
This would give a whole new meaning to the idea of ordering some beer and a Pizza.
A robocab can be 1 passenger and if so they need only be about 3 feet wide. Since a robocab can be counted on to move in a predictable fashion I see no reason why three (3) of these little cars might occupy one of our current lanes. Then we have the issue that the Robocab's might not need to be parked. This still will leave room for another lanes with two, four and 6 ++ passenger models.
There is just so much that can be done if we have a small efficient car that moves in a predictable fashion and doesn't need to be parked for hours on end.
At the international airport in Kualua Lumpur they have a robot train to pick up passengers and take them to another terminal. Here in Canada I felt like I was in a cattle corral with customs cowboys standing behind two way mirrors with prods ready.
This train of course runs on a set track but it does illustrate the idea.
I think this is a good development. I share the optimism of many experts who suggest we are already at or near peak oil. Currently we produce about 85 million barrels per day and at this point Saudi Aramco has admitted Ghawar is in decline up to 8% and the country as a whole is declining 2%. They join Kuwait which announced last November that Bergan is in decline. The next largest fields are Canatarrel and DaQing and these are in about a 14% decline along with Bergan.
These top four 4 feilds collectivly produce about 12-15% of the worlds conventional oils and they just illustrate the problem. Most countries and most oil fields are presently in decline.
The Jack#2 well announced by Cheveron last week may hearld in a new field potentially with 3-15 billion barrels. If so then this feild may be able to produce 750,000 barrels per day by the 2010-2015 time frame.
By 2015 if we subscribe to the idea that we're going to lose 5% production per year from the current 85 million barrels produced per day, then by 2015 we'll be short well over 15 million barrels of Oil per day (BOPD) of production compared to today. Tar Sands may add 2.2 million BOPD or even more. The Cheveron/Devon discovery may add almost another 1 million. But 85-85*(0.95^10) is a loss of 31 million BOPD and thus with this rough rough calculation I've already factored in everything we are likely going to be able to do and still some.
The bottom line is we need to cut consumption in a big way and the sooner the better. A HUGE percentage of the liquid fuels consummed, especially in the USA, is totally wasted. SUV"s sit six (6) abreast in grid lock traffic with their stereos cranked up and their air conditioners blasting. If we were to factor in the waste of people's lives - spending hours commuting to a job that may amount to little more than beauracratic paper shuffling, this alone might be considered the crime of the century.
But what we are doing to our planet and our future is even worse. All of that fuel wasted while commuting (often 1 person to a truck) is not available for useful purposes like industrial, chemical feedstocks, or by farmers to produce food.
Robocabs, if they are fuel efficient and small and sized for the job are an obvious answer.
Currently the USA burns over 20 million barrels of oil per day. If we get the SUV's off the road and replace them with a "Jonny cab" (from Total Recall - its a RoboCab) then we save lives because we get stupid drivers away from behind the wheel, we cut commuting time because the commute can be organised in a far more efficient manner than just plain old grid lock, and we might save enough fuel to save our precious butts in the process.
The thing is this fuel crisis is likely to be fully recognised as the beginning of a fundamental change to the human condition by 2010. Its still a few months to a few years off. Oil prices in the $70 range are the harbinger of things to come. We're ok for a short while. Next year we might not be so lucky.
Typically if the site requires flash I skip it. I find it unbeleiveable that Macromedia didn't put in an option to kill unwanted flash. But I guess this says something about the company. So - one day I'll just neuter flash in this browser when I get pissed off enough to do it.
I had to laugh at poking fun at a real estate agent. He has an awful website. I told him if he wants to sell to me then his website isn't doing its job.
One has to hit them where it counts - right in the ole' pocket book. If you're going to do some business then check the website and if it pisses you off then tell them and don't do business with them. Do business with people who you like and who are professional and who hopefully put up websites that reflect their business practices.
Use the same rule with TV advertising. If you hate the company's ad - tell them to stuff it and find another vendor. Even if it costs a few sheckles more, you'll be ahead.
On this basis: FORD, GM, Microsoft, Sears, Black and Decker, and Canadian Tire have lost my business for EVER because of shoddy products and bad service. If after buying the product I find that I feel like going to the effort of suing them for selling me such a peice of junk - then this is a good enough reason to never deal with the vendor ever again.
I have alternatives. Who knows if they will notice. The market place speaks for itself. The way I look at it is that when a vendor ends up on enough people's permanent blacklists, then their business will suffer and eventually they will go away and die.
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Hmm - check FORD and GM's stocks! I drive an Audi now. Its nicely engineered and I don't get calls from the service station advising me they will have to pull the motor to change the spark plugs. No kidding... a service station actually did this after they broke plugs on the firewall side of a Chev Eurosport. I managed to change the plugs w/o pulling the motor. It took 2 hours and I found the previous CHEV DEALER'S MECHANIC cross-threaded the plugs because of the bad design. Had they made the car 2" longer there would not have been a problem. They could have made the engine compartment 2" longer and set the bumpers back 2" and the car would have been the same overall length.
So in this case for want of 2" in the engine compartment I had cross threaded plugs and bleeding hands and was threatened with a $1000 ++ spark plug bill. Why would I or anyone else ever want to deal with the company ever again? Not me. Once burned - screw you!
Now look at the GM stocks. See - it works. Vote with your feet!
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Actually the solution you propose is a good one. The Toyota Prius gets 72 miles per gallon in city driving. This is over 3x better than what most SUV's in California get. Further more if the population of just California switched over to cars like the Prius then oil concumption would be greatly reduced and gas prices would drop.
This is just for the short term mind you. Oil production is going to drop and the fit is going to hit the sham and probably pretty soon. If I were the proud owner of a recent model SUV I'd be selling it about as quickley as I could.
Oh I just love it. Trash the gas and substitute coal fired electricity and that in a state which does not have enough generating capacity and hense imports over very long distances with the attendant loss of energy during transmission.
If you guys want to build some nukes near SF and LA then I'm all for it!
The sad thing is that while those from LaLa land are addicted to their cars, they have one of the nicest climates in the world for biking.
(or were you planning on Natural Gas fired electricty? If so check out CPNLQ.pk - they use to trade over $$5 bux and I was asking them at the time where they were planning on getting their gas from!)
Of course I am all for solar, but I wonder how many have really figured out how much its going to cost in panels/collectors to operate an SUV?
In 20 years they'll be resorting, like Sesame Street, to asking for patents on the letter "M". If they can't get a blanket patent then they'll be asking for a patent on the novel approach of using "M" to spell "M"other! Of course there will be a lot of litigation already about the use of the letter "S" as in "S"ue.
But who cares, with the new "Digital Rights Managment" that "M"$ will create by then, it will probably be illegal for anyone other than a certified "M"$ programmer to write programs because "w"e might infringe on some special interest groups' rights.
Read this as the "R"IAA's desire to ensure that only musicians who sign with the big labels have any hope of selling a recording... and of those who do? The small independant musicians?
Well, just like here in "C"anada, they'll be paying a royalty when they buy the CD blanks and these roylaties will be collected for the musical community... "E"xcept, of course, none of the money collected will go to any independant musicians.
Sesame Street is not be prior art because they didn't think of using the letter "M" as part
of computer software. Long before then of course, "C" will no longer be in use.
Missing attribution. Does this mean copyright infringment? Sheesh... at least he could have said Tennyson wrote it!
If you bought a fridge 10 years ago it is unlikely it will last another 5 years let alone 10.
If you bought a fridge 25 years ago it is highly likely it will last another 15 years.
My washer and dryer are over 25 years old. I'll probably get 40 years service from them. My old fridge has a pink steel shell in it and has to date to the 60's. I'll probably get another 25 years from it. But the last fridge I bought which is in the kitchen has broken 3 times in the last 4 years.
Modern appliances suk.
Turning them on and off reduces life. I leave mine on 24x7 and since 1992 have only needed to replace about 3x. The last set was purchased in 2001. I remember because I hired the same guy to install a ceiling fan in my office that year as wired my garage the year before. I have not replaced the blubs yet. So that is 5 years on a set of three (3) bulbs which draw 13 watts each.
I happen to recall I got close to 10 years from at least one of the previous bulbs. I had to replace both (I was using 2 back then) adn it was about 2-3 years before I replaced the fixture.
Keeping track of things that last almost a decade is hard.
Those were not backs you were scratching. You were lied to by USA pollies again.
Oz can sign a free trade agreement with Canada. To HELL with the USA and their stupid and self serving DMCA type legislation and software patents.
The world ignored their stupidity on the non-reprocessing of nuclear fuels which has created a backlog of spent fuel (Europe and Japan reprocess and have been for decades).
This spent fuel contains literally 100's of years of energy which will sorely be needed in a few years. Note that spent fuel contains about 1% Pu and 1% U235 which is 2% fissle. Contrast this to natural U which contains 0.7% U235 = fissle. A Candu can burn natural U so it certainly can be configured to burn spent U after the nuclear poisons have been removed. Since there are over 100 (enriched) reactors in the USA and they have been running for about 50 years it follows that the spend fuel can be used in a fleet of about 100 Candu style reactors for several decades. Note that spent fuel is less than about 2% nuclear poisons. The remaining 98% can be stuffed right back into reactors after processing. The reason the USA didn't want reprocessing in part is because Texas oil would not have been worth much if there were a viable nuclear industry. Another reason is that anti-nuclear folks wanted a big pile of waste to point fingers at and what better way to get a big pile of waste than to prevent its use.
As oil prices soar above $70** bux per barrel it would do people well to look into nuclear energy and especially the Integral Fast Reactor (see Wikipedia, and check the IFR talk pages too). There is enough fuel already mined for 1000's of years of power production and there are no long term wastes. IE. We've all been lied to by self serving USA pollies.
**Note: Matt Simmons suggests oil may be over $350 per barrel before long - Translate that into the cost of filling your tank!
The point is these short sighted self serving liars are continuing and now we hear them in the area of Digital Rights Managment and Software Patents. So just tell the Yanks to stay home.
BTW - the Vietnam war is another example of when the Yanks should have been told to stay home. I sure hope the growing strife in the middle east which clearly is over access to their oil will not turn into another Vietnam.
I had a client suggest this on a $4000 drive a few years back. Their data was more improtant than $8000 (cost of two (2) drives to experiment with)
Drives keep track of bad sectors and remapped bad sectors. This might not be kept on the hard drive - IE - it could be kept on the controller board in ECC memory. I was never able to find out.
Next - the positioning might be via servo information on the platters themselves and if so then the swapped controller should be fine. But if the manufacturer used some sort of dead reconing system such as timming the track to track seaks then head positioning _might_ be a problem.
I don't know but I can see that there might be problems.
IBM had dual heads on some of their drives. This was done years ago.
I expect we'll see an array of r/w heads instead. If we read and write 8 bits at a time then the drive looks like it spins about 8x faster. The thing is the rotational delay is the same but you read or write 8x the data per rotation.
Please note the stupid post got modded +5
While your professor friend was being a fool Richard Feynman was writing "THere is plenty of room on the bottom". See if you can find his paper. He predicited densities much higher.
Hmm - as I wrote those last few comments I was thinking that the horney jerks might be able to sue under fraud legislation because he certainly seems to have fraudulantly presented himself. But he didn't do it for money.
The problem with claiming fraud is that on dating sites, it is normal for people to use psuedonyms and there is no requirement that anything posted in a profile be factual. In fact many who replied used pseudonyms and probably posted false information as well such as the breadth and length of their members. Certainly some lied about their marital status or intended too.
Its much like TV entertainment. In the 60's a game show was sued because the contestants were slipped the answers. The producers won on the basis that its only entertainment. There is no suggestion that anything on TV actually be factual. Tricking the public is part of the game - the "War of the Worlds" broadcast falls into this area.
I think it can be successfully argued that profiles on dating sites might also be considered little more than entertainment since we all know that so many are false in one way or another.
http://www.rvats.com/Lawdetails-publish.asp
"Legal Definition of - publish
Legal Definition of publish : v. to make public to at least one other person by any means.
This means wearing a new dress design such that it can be seen by at least one other person is considered "publish"ing.
As this applies to a patent - if you show it to anyone then you have published it. You have to get them to agree to non-disclosure first.
In the case of the jokers who posted their pics - they clearly did publish it under law and as such the guy who posted this published information is allowed to do so under fair use interpretations which allow critisism of published works.
While people might not like it - I think a law suit against the guy goes nowhere.
They can't sue him for defamation because he just made known what they published. A solid defence in a defamation suit is that he spoke the truth.
Law only requires disclosure to one other person.
Also see here: http://www.answers.com/publish&r=67
You clearly have little knowledge of law.
Its a legal term. You'll have to ask a lawyer why this is the case.
Copyright and patent law has different meanings to words that the rest of us who speak the English language. For instance if you design a dress and wear it to a party then you have "published" the design.
I think this would be the case in any public disclosure. As for a private disclosure - I'll have to check that. I think if one were to invite guests to a private party then this would still be considered "publishing". However if one were to answer the door because a delivery person rang the doorbell while wearing said dress - then this might not be publishing - I don't know.
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Funny - the reply gets modded up as the main post gets modded "Troll". Seems the moderation around here is about as bad as normal. Ugghhh!
I find this funny. Personally I think there ought to be more accountability and while these jerks were baited there is no doubt that had this been a real "oppotunity" many of them would be out cheating on their spouses and possibly bringing home a serious infection such as AIDS.
As for the copyright violations - that is a tough one. The copyright to an email and a jpeg rests with the author. However this was published and in such a fashion that it might actually be public domain. In the USA one must register the copyright prior to publishing and if this is not done the copyright becomes imperfect and as such enters limbo. (IANAL but I have researched this).
The thing is that if one of these jerks wishes to challenge him then it will be via a civil suit. Any evidence submitted will become public (by default) and I am sure the press will cover the story. The identity of the plaintiff and the defendant will become public knowledge.
Unless the guy wishes to become a porn star he may not want the exposure so to speak.
The way I see it is that its THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT and I suspect a court will see it this way.
I want the popcorn stand. This should be fun to watch.
One thing this does actually expose is that on many dating sites the female profiles are bogus - over 90% in some cases. Most women would die of embarassment before posting anything and certainly before posting anything their mother or daughter might see.
Being single and finding a partner can be very tough. A lot of dating sites have been defrauding the public in an attempt to exploit this. Then we have of course a lot of married preditory men poising as singles so they can cheat on their wives. Pretty sad - but if these jerks at least are exposed then I say good.
This having been said - one site that seems legit is www.plentyoffish.com
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I sometimes wonder if our society will change so that a score sheet from prior spouses and girl friends / boy friends will become available. In "The sociopath next door" it is suggested that more than 20% of the population simply doesn't give a S**T about anyone other than themselves.
I wonder how many women would like to know if the guy they are dating abused his previous GF?
There are a lot of nice honest guys out there - but there seems to be a preference on the part of many women to pick the dangerous types. Then they look to find a nice guy to raise their brood. Giving a heads up might level the playing feild a bit.
Photoshop was free with HP and other scanners a few years back. I haven't checked recently. There is no way that the vast majority of people even paid for Photoshop.
Fact is that if people actually had to pay for products like Windows they would try to find freeware. THE ONLY REASON WINDOWS MADE ITS MARKET PENETRATION IS BECAUSE IT WAS PRE_LOADED
People like me were expected to pay for windows as a bundled product then reformat the disk and install another OS we paid for like OS/2. Microsoft owes me quite a lot of money. Of course they have no intention of paying. No worries. I have no intention of supporting Microsoft.
What these shysters fail to realise is that short term gain does little more than gain them an enemy and I for one have a very long memory.
Linux WILL replace microsoft.
It will do so through large institutions, businsess and schools. Large organisations have the resources to be able to support an alternative and over the last few years we have begun to see many reports of the cost savings involved with switching to Linux. This will expose more and more people to the benefits, and as has been happening, through this process a critical mass will form.
Most people use a computer like a phone. They would never consider swapping an operating system any more than they would consider swapping the motor on their car. It has to be done for them. Like a phone - the computer is only worth what it can do for them at the moment. Most people do not back up their work because ususally they have no real work worthy of being backed up. This is in stark contrast to the graduate students who routinely fail to back up their Thesis!!!
For people like this - there is close to ZERO vendor loyalty. The minute something better comes along they will switch. In fact, its worse... Our field is very subject to fashion trends. Often those who adopt a new fashion do so without any logical reasoning why the new custom might be better than the old. They just switch because they want to try something new for a while.
The thing is this switch will take place and it will do so likely at the speed a large herd of buffalo changes direction.
One can look at the herd while it is stampeding and think this herd has a large areal extent and hense it cannot change direction quickely. Yet it can. Suddenly the individuals decide to switch and they do. Stampedes are not lead by leaders. When they change direction it can be totally non-obvious and just as unpredictable.
Vehical buying patterns can switch suddenly as well and for the same reasons. The actual "investment" people have in a vehical is not very large. They can be driving one model one day and another the next day. In fact the automobile industry takes advantage of this through the sale of so many different models.
Taken in this light, Linux offers far more flexibility than M$ ever has. We have several choices of shells and desktops for instance, it is actually a very rich environment.
What the USA auto manufacturers discovered in the early 70's and now again in the 2005-present time frame is that there is little in the way of vendor loyalty. Once there is a perception to change something a large part fo the population will hop on the new bandwagon whatever direction it is going.
The stockmarket also shows this. The "investment" one typically has in a share is the amount of time and the commisions to sell out. Of course some folks form an emotional attachment to the stocks they own. I rather think day traders make their living off these emotions.
Most market crashes have not been predicted very well. We might have a general feeling of unease that a crash may be forming now. We can surely find some pundits who are predicting this. We can also find some who are not. Thus whatever happens - some folks will be right and we can search them out for interviews by the talking heads and ask them how they were so smart.
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The crit
You are probably correct that the judge will allow this witch hunt to proceed.
What this illustrates is that a law suit can be used to expose someone's trade secrets and confidential work. Suppose Paul Wilke is a programmer and he is working on a secret project that he intends to flog as a product in the not too distant future.
If the RIAA is allowed to go trapsing through his hard drives, then they will find the source code he is working on even if they do not find the copyrighted music they claim might be present. Thus they are breaching the defendant's rights by exposing his copyrights which he has every right to keep confidential.
Once the genie is out of the bottle its out and even though I personally greatly disagree with patents, what this can do is compromise Paul Wilke's ability to patent things in the future.
While the legal system is suppose to honour confidentiality it often does not do so. Lawyers offices are very leaky and generally very insecure.
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I had one lawyer send me his enitre client list. I could have contacted each and every one of them.
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Another lawyer received a confidential tape containing source code for a rather large project which was involved in a litigation. This lawyer agreed to keep the tape confidential. This was an "undertaking".
The next thing the lawyer did was to call up a third party company that does software development in exactly the same area as the project in question - IE - a competitor and a strong one at that. This company was given the tape and asked to read it. They were not told what was on the tape and thought it was data and not source code.
After the company received the tape they handed it to one of their employees who happened to have worked for me on a project a couple years before and she tossed the tape in her napsack and peddled her bike across town and delivered it to me - and I _ALSO_ do software development in this area and thus ALSO am a competitor.
I had the correct operating system which her employer did not have running.
I was also not told what was on the tape.
Over the course of a week I was able to read the tape and lo and behold what came up was all of these copyright notices.
Thus - I was put in the position of seeing unwanted source code which could expose me to a law suit if I were to do anything that happened to fall even remotely in the same area as the source code on the tape. The short of it is that if a programmer even sees someone else's source code they can be sued for copyright infringement just as George Harrison was found guilty of plagerism and copyright infringment on the basis that he might have heard the song "He's So Fine" playing on the radio before he wrote "My Sweet Lord".
Leaky law office! You bet. The answer here is that if you are a programmer then don't let anyone hire you to read a tape and if you are a song writer then you better not listen to the radio or buy any CD's. The world we live in is just aweful in some ways.
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The next example of leaky law offices is that most use windows systems which are not secured and most are too damn cheap to hire a sysadmin let alone a security consultant much less put in a fire wall. Generally they cannot understand why there might be black hat crackers out there, yet most of them take on clientel which would be overjoyed to hire a black hat and certainly do have the motivation to do so.
This is like connecting every keyboard in the world to their computers with no attempt at security. This is like taking their file cabinates full of confidential documentation on the cases undergoing litigation and putting these file cabinates in an open parking lot without so much as using a key to lock them or anyone to guard them. Clearly if the files are accessed they have no idea who might have done it. Of course we all know that in a lot of litigation there is a complete disrespect of the law.
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Th
So are they gonna pipe in mid-eastern music, garlic smells, and strange bead thingies dangling from the mirrors to give it the real cabbie ambiance?
Probably not. If you listen to "Time" by ELO, they'll probably make the driver a red head, blonde or brunette depending on your taste and probably track your preference. She'll have a sweet voice and will not be inclined to argue. Next she will be just the right blend of demanding but nice. You can paraphrase this to mean "Stimulating".
Alas, as the say in the song - She might be perfect "But she isn't IBM".
Since I use an IBM PC 101 KB I know the tactile feel of something from IBM. There is nothing more pleasant on the planet. Now if IBM would slip the VM technology of the MainFrames into my little 'puter so I have full virtualization and can run several Linux and OpenBSD operating systems along with the winders (ugg) stuff - then I would fall in love.
I had to put up with a very nicely engineered and very expensive NEC special order KB for a number of years until I managed to lay my pinkies on the IBM KB. I use to love the song by ELO and now I know why.
IMHO the technology of yester-year will not be able to match the joys that await us. Hense I always tell anyone not too familiar with a computer or new thechnology that "Great Joy's await you!"
Excellent IDEA.
A pneumatic tube transport might work. These are used in Factories but if tubes are built large enought to hold your average grocery bag and large enought to hold a case of wine or a case of beer - then one could simply order it up and its dropped in the tube and a computer delivers it to your abode.
A well desgined system could move the product fast enough that the beer would still be cold by the time your domestic robot receives it and puts it in the fridge for you.
This would give a whole new meaning to the idea of ordering some beer and a Pizza.
Twice as wide?
Try 3-4 times as wide.
A robocab can be 1 passenger and if so they need only be about 3 feet wide. Since a robocab can be counted on to move in a predictable fashion I see no reason why three (3) of these little cars might occupy one of our current lanes. Then we have the issue that the Robocab's might not need to be parked. This still will leave room for another lanes with two, four and 6 ++ passenger models.
There is just so much that can be done if we have a small efficient car that moves in a predictable fashion and doesn't need to be parked for hours on end.
Huge improvemnts of efficency can be gained.
At the international airport in Kualua Lumpur they have a robot train to pick up passengers and take them to another terminal. Here in Canada I felt like I was in a cattle corral with customs cowboys standing behind two way mirrors with prods ready.
This train of course runs on a set track but it does illustrate the idea.
I think this is a good development. I share the optimism of many experts who suggest we are already at or near peak oil. Currently we produce about 85 million barrels per day and at this point Saudi Aramco has admitted Ghawar is in decline up to 8% and the country as a whole is declining 2%. They join Kuwait which announced last November that Bergan is in decline. The next largest fields are Canatarrel and DaQing and these are in about a 14% decline along with Bergan.
These top four 4 feilds collectivly produce about 12-15% of the worlds conventional oils and they just illustrate the problem. Most countries and most oil fields are presently in decline.
The Jack#2 well announced by Cheveron last week may hearld in a new field potentially with 3-15 billion barrels. If so then this feild may be able to produce 750,000 barrels per day by the 2010-2015 time frame.
By 2015 if we subscribe to the idea that we're going to lose 5% production per year from the current 85 million barrels produced per day, then by 2015 we'll be short well over 15 million barrels of Oil per day (BOPD) of production compared to today. Tar Sands may add 2.2 million BOPD or even more. The Cheveron/Devon discovery may add almost another 1 million. But 85-85*(0.95^10) is a loss of 31 million BOPD and thus with this rough rough calculation I've already factored in everything we are likely going to be able to do and still some.
The bottom line is we need to cut consumption in a big way and the sooner the better. A HUGE percentage of the liquid fuels consummed, especially in the USA, is totally wasted. SUV"s sit six (6) abreast in grid lock traffic with their stereos cranked up and their air conditioners blasting. If we were to factor in the waste of people's lives - spending hours commuting to a job that may amount to little more than beauracratic paper shuffling, this alone might be considered the crime of the century.
But what we are doing to our planet and our future is even worse. All of that fuel wasted while commuting (often 1 person to a truck) is not available for useful purposes like industrial, chemical feedstocks, or by farmers to produce food.
Robocabs, if they are fuel efficient and small and sized for the job are an obvious answer.
Currently the USA burns over 20 million barrels of oil per day. If we get the SUV's off the road and replace them with a "Jonny cab" (from Total Recall - its a RoboCab) then we save lives because we get stupid drivers away from behind the wheel, we cut commuting time because the commute can be organised in a far more efficient manner than just plain old grid lock, and we might save enough fuel to save our precious butts in the process.
The thing is this fuel crisis is likely to be fully recognised as the beginning of a fundamental change to the human condition by 2010. Its still a few months to a few years off. Oil prices in the $70 range are the harbinger of things to come. We're ok for a short while. Next year we might not be so lucky.
HP unfortunately is showing that it will become even more irrelevant. H & P must be turning in their graves now.
I just kill any flashing gifs.
Typically if the site requires flash I skip it. I find it unbeleiveable that Macromedia didn't put in an option to kill unwanted flash. But I guess this says something about the company. So - one day I'll just neuter flash in this browser when I get pissed off enough to do it.
I had to laugh at poking fun at a real estate agent. He has an awful website. I told him if he wants to sell to me then his website isn't doing its job.
One has to hit them where it counts - right in the ole' pocket book. If you're going to do some business then check the website and if it pisses you off then tell them and don't do business with them. Do business with people who you like and who are professional and who hopefully put up websites that reflect their business practices.
Use the same rule with TV advertising. If you hate the company's ad - tell them to stuff it and find another vendor. Even if it costs a few sheckles more, you'll be ahead.
On this basis: FORD, GM, Microsoft, Sears, Black and Decker, and Canadian Tire have lost my business for EVER because of shoddy products and bad service. If after buying the product I find that I feel like going to the effort of suing them for selling me such a peice of junk - then this is a good enough reason to never deal with the vendor ever again.
I have alternatives. Who knows if they will notice. The market place speaks for itself. The way I look at it is that when a vendor ends up on enough people's permanent blacklists, then their business will suffer and eventually they will go away and die.
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Hmm - check FORD and GM's stocks! I drive an Audi now. Its nicely engineered and I don't get calls from the service station advising me they will have to pull the motor to change the spark plugs. No kidding... a service station actually did this after they broke plugs on the firewall side of a Chev Eurosport. I managed to change the plugs w/o pulling the motor. It took 2 hours and I found the previous CHEV DEALER'S MECHANIC cross-threaded the plugs because of the bad design. Had they made the car 2" longer there would not have been a problem. They could have made the engine compartment 2" longer and set the bumpers back 2" and the car would have been the same overall length.
So in this case for want of 2" in the engine compartment I had cross threaded plugs and bleeding hands and was threatened with a $1000 ++ spark plug bill. Why would I or anyone else ever want to deal with the company ever again? Not me. Once burned - screw you!
Now look at the GM stocks. See - it works. Vote with your feet!