When I bought my new house, I had everything rewired including Networking and Phone (CAT5). Since I had already been using asterisk in the previous house, I installed it at the new house and have IP phones exclusively around the house (except for the wife's portable).
I wanted to make sure that the phones stayed up at all times, so I bout a decent UPS for the wiring/server rack, installed netgear POE switches ($119 for 4port POE, 4port non-POE) and connected up all of the IP phones (polycom IP-500 and sipura 841). Since the cost of the POE switch was so low, I decided to do it this way for the comfort of being able to dial 911 at any time in any room.
Yes, it is overkill for the home, but I like it and my phones have stayed up all of the time. Several of the offices I work for use centrex and there phones are plugged into normal power. They have had several outages since the installations 3-4 months ago.
If you are making strategic decisions about software at your corporation, you had better take into account that the software may no longer be supported in the future. This applies to closed source and open source projects.
The benefit of open source is that if the original corporation writing the code stops supporting it there may be a community behind the software that will continue to support it as you transition. Also, another company may spring up with the same codebase.
The fiirst year I used an accountant, he asked me some intelligent questions and found a $10k (yes, thousand) deduction that I would have never found. A section 179 deduction that allowed for complete deduction of the truck I had bought earlier in the year. That was worth it.
Also, your accountant is not there to plug in the numbers for you. He is there to gauge your level of risk on your business deductions. They are also their to recommend how to lower your tax bill during the year. Maybe you should lease a car. Maybe you should buy things in a certain way.
Remember, an accountant is not just the guy who fills out the forms for the government, he is a resource to help you during the year also. This can be important when you have your own business.
Why not have students get a University sponsored cell-phone with a few special features:
1. push-to-talk capability within Univ phones
2. free instant messaging within Univ phones.
3. Bluetooth and/or cable for internet access using the cell phone.
4. Free calling to/from a student's home town.(this would need a DID in student's home area code)
I'm sure there are more features that student's would love to have and be willing to pay for. Also, a cell phone company would love the contract to be the sole supplier to a college campus.
--Keith
The underlying premise is that where microsoft enters a market and increases competition prices will fall. This is basic economics and has nothing to do with Microsoft's monopoly in the operating system market.
Microsoft does not have a monopoly in some markets, but they have a huge war chest and don't need to recover their investment in the same short term as other competitors. With this kind of money behind them (from their monopoly), they can compete very successfully and this competition naturally drives down prices.
This will often lead to less competition in the future as others drop out of the market and prices can be adjusted (usually up) to meet the new supply/demand conditions.
From the non-audiofile swimmer perspective, I just want something to listen to and don't care about the difference in sound quality as long as it sound decent.
I just received my waterproof MP3 player from swimman and it is a nice little unit that can clip to your goggle strap. I haven't had a chance to try it in the pool because of the rain, but I am looking forward to it.
My only complaint is that I would like to listen to audiobooks from iTunes, but they are in the wrong format for the device and hymn doesn't handle large audiobook files well.
Actually, the Mexico City warning system is not a quake prediction system. The Earthquakes that affect Mexico City occur offshore some distance away and shake Mexico City since it is built in an historic lakebed. Since the seismic waves through the ground propogate relatively slowly, offshore seismic sensors can send warnings at the speed of light (cable or radio) after the earthquake occurs which arrive 30-60 seconds before the shaking.
The faults in SoCal are much closer to population centers and the warnings would not be fast enough to arrive much before the shaking.
McBride basis the entire argument under the assumption that 'profit' eq 'money'
I looked up several definitions of profit and all of them reference getting value, but none explicitly mention money. Increased stature in the community is a profit. Getting source code back because it is under the GPL is a profit.
The closest definition is:
Profit
\Pro"fit\ n. 1. Acquisition beyond expenditure; excess of value received for producing, keeping, or selling, over cost; hence, pecuniary gain in any transaction or occupation; emolument;
Getting back more source code than you produced is certainly acquisition exceeding expenditure.
The more apt one for GPL is:
profit
n. 2. Accession of good; valuable results; useful consequences; benefit; avail; gain;
I can wrap up my introversion a lot simpler than blaming it on a physiological make up. I have to force myself to take an interest in the people around me.
It has taken me years to realize that other people are actually interesting and may actually be fun to talk to. I have finally learned to rememer their names and activities in their lives. I want to know how things turn out and what is going on. I stopped limiting my personal interest to characters in a novel even though I can interact with book based personalities on my own time.
If you remember something that happened in a person's life, call them and ask them how things went! You like when people take an interest in your life and they will also. Develop an interest in the world around you and not one specific subject. Learn how to engage in conversation and not small talk. Small talk is HARD!!! Conversation is natural and free flowing.
Have fun with people and your life will be more interesting.
If you are leaving an existing job, look at a COBRA plan to extend your existing insurance for 18 months. You will pay slightly more than the group rate, but it will guarantee you coverage. Do NOT let your coverage lapse!!!
The following is my personal experience and should not be taken as complete truth since I am still working through the process. Since my father-in-law is an accountant, I have been getting good advice to guide me through this process.
Until recently, I was able to keep insurance for my family through my wife's insurance. Since my wife no longer works we are looking for insurance for the four of us.
Surprise! my son's bout with pneumonia (sp?) more than 1 year ago has caused all sorts of problems with acquiring individual insurance. Not only will they not cover my 4 year old son, they want to increase the rates on the rest of us by 50%. This amounts to quite a sum of money.
We stopped the process of trying to get insurance online and contacted an agent. We still couldn't get reasonable insurance and no company wanted to cover my son. However, we have been informed that we cannot be refused insurance if we sign up as a group. This will also keep our rates lower than the quotes we had been getting.
How do you qualify as a group?
You need to have two people involved in your company. I formed a single member Limited Liability Company (LLC) in California about two years ago. I have since added my wife as a member of the LLC and we suddenly qualify as a group and can apply for group medical insurance. We are doing this now, so I don't have estimates on costs. However, I would like to mention some other steps I have taken because of this.
Normally, an LLC does not require you to be a W-2 employee of the LLC since the money passes through the LLC to you as an individual. This means that you don't have to file a corporate tax return or employer tax statements. I did not want the burden of managing all of the paperwork that comes with hiring employees and printing paychecks. Surprisingly, the payroll companies (ADP in this case) are very cheap and handle the paperwork for you. I will pay a total of $50/month for all of my payroll and tax reporting requirements.
Why would I spend $50/month on this?
When you have employees, you can set up an employee medical reimbursement plan on a pre-tax basis. Without an employee medical reimbursement plans, you can only deduct medical expenses in excess of 7% of your income (I think this number is changing). With a medical reimbursement plan, you can deduct 100% of your employees medical expenses (vision, dental, prescriptions, copays). However, you need to have employees for this. Since my wife is already doing the books and my billing, I hired her and gave her a salary (less than my salary of course).
What does all of this mean?
It means that you should consult an accountant. There are a number of ways to reduce your tax burden and get better insurance. Some of the things that seem expensive and a pain in the ass might not be. Learning the ins and outs of business practice can be time consuming and may not seem that important when deadlines loom. This is why you pay an accountant and follow their advice. If you are earning $100k/year and wasting $10k on insurance,taxes or other business expenses, you can afford to take some time to fix your expense structure or pay someone to fix it for you.
I thought I would include some links to similar projects:
SCIGN -- Southern California Integrated GPS Network http://www.scign.org/ This GPS array has 250 active stations throughout SoCal continuously monitoring crustal deformation. SCIGN was started after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and has helped the determination of the velocity field in Southern California produced by SCEC.
An interactive map of station locations can be found at: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/scign/Analysis/ SCEC -- Southern California Earthquake Center http://www.scec.org This is the umbrella organization for EQ research in Southern California and is the parent organization of SCIGN.
PBO/Earthscope -- Plate Boundary Observatory http://www.unavco.org One of the most exciting new developments in GPS. Recently the US Congress approved the Earthscope initiative which includes 3 separate parts. The GPS portion is the PBO which will include 875 new stations from the Mexican border through Washington and Alaska. This massive array will be built over the next 5 years.
There are also several other regional deformation arrays include the Basin Range network, The Bary Area network, and a cluster of sites around Parkfield, CA.
Equipment:
The GPS equipment used at these sites are commercially available dual frequency geodetic quality receivers which can recover the military code without needing the military keys. The receivers are capable of good precision when operated alone and are capable of sub-millimeter precision when used in a continuously operating network.
This type of processing requires extremely accurate satellite orbits provided by the International GPS Service (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/).
These large GPS arrays have been deployed throughout the world where there is a seismic hazard. Japan is one of the predominant countries with large GPS networks in place.
We encourage you to look at the various websites and learn about these projects and the science that they produce.
The worst part of the numbers is the aggregration of the different countries piracy rates into a single number. The North America rate of 24% doesn't really sound that high when you consider the possible margin of error for this study.
Does the BSA have the same clout in other countries? Are they using the 39% number to convince local lawmakers about the severity of the problem to give themselves more power?
It is probably in software companies best interest to have rampant piracy in poor countries so that they can get a lock on the market. After gaining control, they convince the gov't to enact new legislation and enforcement ensuring large profits.
An excellent read for anyone with a grasp of mathematics, it is also an easy read for people who don't quite get it. The writing is entertaining and gives the mathematically challenged a better handle on basic statistics and how to handle really large numbers correctly.
It was required reading in our quantitative analysis class during my MBA and I have loaned it out to a number of people to enlighten them.
namtog wrote: >I have one word for to respond to your circular >reasoning.
>Sophistry. [m-w.com]
From the same site:
FORECAST adds the implication of anticipating eventualities and differs from PREDICT in being usually concerned with probabilities rather than certainties
Forecasting long term seismic activity is valuable for strategic plans including placement of emergency responders and updating of building codes. It _will_ happen, we just don't know exactly when. The best we can say is that the odds are higher here than there in the (relatively) near future.
There is a major difference between attending college and getting a degree. When I went to college after High School, I went to meet people, drink, and attend enough classes to get a degree. I changed my major several times and had no interest in any of the General Education (GE) classes the first 2 years.
The last 4 (yes, four) years is where I started to enjoy myself and have an interest in the subject matter. I attended classes because I wanted to learn.
I went back for my MBA because I was interested in the subject and I didn't have mindless GE classes to take. I did not go back for the piece of paper. I went back for the learning experience. The day I started the program, I found out that my wife was pregnant. I continued on through the birth of my son (conveniently timed during a semester break) because of my interest and the support of my family. I also left an easy job to start my own consulting firm which I have grown over the years. I continued with school because the courses interested me and were relevant to my life.
If interest is the problem, find a way to exempt out of the boring GE classes and work on the ones that interest you. Do not load up your schedule with an entire semester of crap. If you must take that lower division math course, find another course that helps you retain your interest during that semester. If you find yourself avoiding the material, find a way to make it interesting. Relate it to something in your life. Have fun with it. The degree is not the goal, learning is the goal. The degree will follow from that.
IF YOU ARE NOT LEARNING, YOU ARE NOT GROWING. You are only growing older.
We have been using freewave radios (www.freewave.com) that are basically radio serial links. The nice thing about them is that they can be used as repeaters that allow multiple hops up to 100+km (a little overkill for your need). They can be used in a point to point mode and in a TDMA mode where the signals are timesliced (up to 16 connections) into the data stream and can be pulled out on the other end. Throughput is up to 115200 without repeaters and 57600 with 1 or two repeaters. We use them extensively in the SCIGN (Southern California GPS Network) to transmit GPS data back to our hub (www-socal.wr.usgs.gov/scign).
Unfortunately they are a little expensive at about $1200 per radio.
Slashdot Mirror
Use the D-Link PoE adaptor (DWL-P50). It works great with the 841.
I wanted to make sure that the phones stayed up at all times, so I bout a decent UPS for the wiring/server rack, installed netgear POE switches ($119 for 4port POE, 4port non-POE) and connected up all of the IP phones (polycom IP-500 and sipura 841). Since the cost of the POE switch was so low, I decided to do it this way for the comfort of being able to dial 911 at any time in any room.
Yes, it is overkill for the home, but I like it and my phones have stayed up all of the time. Several of the offices I work for use centrex and there phones are plugged into normal power. They have had several outages since the installations 3-4 months ago.
--Keith
3.2 km drilling for seismic research.
They have finished phase one at 10,000 ft.
They have been posting news regularly from phase 1
--keith
The benefit of open source is that if the original corporation writing the code stops supporting it there may be a community behind the software that will continue to support it as you transition. Also, another company may spring up with the same codebase.
--Keith
Also, your accountant is not there to plug in the numbers for you. He is there to gauge your level of risk on your business deductions. They are also their to recommend how to lower your tax bill during the year. Maybe you should lease a car. Maybe you should buy things in a certain way.
Remember, an accountant is not just the guy who fills out the forms for the government, he is a resource to help you during the year also. This can be important when you have your own business.
--Keith
Why not have students get a University sponsored cell-phone with a few special features:
1. push-to-talk capability within Univ phones
2. free instant messaging within Univ phones.
3. Bluetooth and/or cable for internet access using the cell phone.
4. Free calling to/from a student's home town.(this would need a DID in student's home area code)
I'm sure there are more features that student's would love to have and be willing to pay for. Also, a cell phone company would love the contract to be the sole supplier to a college campus.
--Keith
The underlying premise is that where microsoft enters a market and increases competition prices will fall. This is basic economics and has nothing to do with Microsoft's monopoly in the operating system market.
Microsoft does not have a monopoly in some markets, but they have a huge war chest and don't need to recover their investment in the same short term as other competitors. With this kind of money behind them (from their monopoly), they can compete very successfully and this competition naturally drives down prices.
This will often lead to less competition in the future as others drop out of the market and prices can be adjusted (usually up) to meet the new supply/demand conditions.
--Keith
I just received my waterproof MP3 player from swimman and it is a nice little unit that can clip to your goggle strap. I haven't had a chance to try it in the pool because of the rain, but I am looking forward to it.
My only complaint is that I would like to listen to audiobooks from iTunes, but they are in the wrong format for the device and hymn doesn't handle large audiobook files well.
--Keith
The faults in SoCal are much closer to population centers and the warnings would not be fast enough to arrive much before the shaking.
--Keith
Oh well.
You mean I wasn't cool as a nerd when I graduated in 1987!?!?!?!?
Although, that would certainly explain a lot about high school...
I looked up several definitions of profit and all of them reference getting value, but none explicitly mention money. Increased stature in the community is a profit. Getting source code back because it is under the GPL is a profit.
The closest definition is:
Profit
\Pro"fit\ n. 1. Acquisition beyond expenditure; excess of value received for producing, keeping, or selling, over cost; hence, pecuniary gain in any transaction or occupation; emolument;
Getting back more source code than you produced is certainly acquisition exceeding expenditure.
The more apt one for GPL is:
profit
n. 2. Accession of good; valuable results; useful consequences; benefit; avail; gain;
--Keith
Physiology Smysiology.
I can wrap up my introversion a lot simpler than blaming it on a physiological make up. I have to force myself to take an interest in the people around me.
It has taken me years to realize that other people are actually interesting and may actually be fun to talk to. I have finally learned to rememer their names and activities in their lives. I want to know how things turn out and what is going on. I stopped limiting my personal interest to characters in a novel even though I can interact with book based personalities on my own time.
If you remember something that happened in a person's life, call them and ask them how things went! You like when people take an interest in your life and they will also. Develop an interest in the world around you and not one specific subject. Learn how to engage in conversation and not small talk. Small talk is HARD!!! Conversation is natural and free flowing.
Have fun with people and your life will be more interesting.
--Keith
If you are leaving an existing job, look at a COBRA plan to extend your existing insurance for 18 months. You will pay slightly more than the group rate, but it will guarantee you coverage. Do NOT let your coverage lapse!!!
The following is my personal experience and should not be taken as complete truth since I am still working through the process. Since my father-in-law is an accountant, I have been getting good advice to guide me through this process.
Until recently, I was able to keep insurance for my family through my wife's insurance. Since my wife no longer works we are looking for insurance for the four of us.
Surprise! my son's bout with pneumonia (sp?) more than 1 year ago has caused all sorts of problems with acquiring individual insurance. Not only will they not cover my 4 year old son, they want to increase the rates on the rest of us by 50%. This amounts to quite a sum of money.
We stopped the process of trying to get insurance online and contacted an agent. We still couldn't get reasonable insurance and no company wanted to cover my son. However, we have been informed that we cannot be refused insurance if we sign up as a group. This will also keep our rates lower than the quotes we had been getting.
How do you qualify as a group?
You need to have two people involved in your company. I formed a single member Limited Liability Company (LLC) in California about two years ago. I have since added my wife as a member of the LLC and we suddenly qualify as a group and can apply for group medical insurance. We are doing this now, so I don't have estimates on costs. However, I would like to mention some other steps I have taken because of this.
Normally, an LLC does not require you to be a W-2 employee of the LLC since the money passes through the LLC to you as an individual. This means that you don't have to file a corporate tax return or employer tax statements. I did not want the burden of managing all of the paperwork that comes with hiring employees and printing paychecks. Surprisingly, the payroll companies (ADP in this case) are very cheap and handle the paperwork for you. I will pay a total of $50/month for all of my payroll and tax reporting requirements.
Why would I spend $50/month on this?
When you have employees, you can set up an employee medical reimbursement plan on a pre-tax basis. Without an employee medical reimbursement plans, you can only deduct medical expenses in excess of 7% of your income (I think this number is changing). With a medical reimbursement plan, you can deduct 100% of your employees medical expenses (vision, dental, prescriptions, copays). However, you need to have employees for this. Since my wife is already doing the books and my billing, I hired her and gave her a salary (less than my salary of course).
What does all of this mean?
It means that you should consult an accountant. There are a number of ways to reduce your tax burden and get better insurance. Some of the things that seem expensive and a pain in the ass might not be. Learning the ins and outs of business practice can be time consuming and may not seem that important when deadlines loom. This is why you pay an accountant and follow their advice. If you are earning $100k/year and wasting $10k on insurance,taxes or other business expenses, you can afford to take some time to fix your expense structure or pay someone to fix it for you.
Good Luck,
--Keith
I thought I would include some links to similar projects:
SCIGN -- Southern California Integrated GPS Network
http://www.scign.org/
This GPS array has 250 active stations throughout SoCal continuously monitoring crustal deformation. SCIGN was started after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and has helped the determination of the velocity field in Southern California produced by SCEC.
An interactive map of station locations can be found at:
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/scign/Analysis/
SCEC -- Southern California Earthquake Center
http://www.scec.org
This is the umbrella organization for EQ research in Southern California and is the parent organization of SCIGN.
PBO/Earthscope -- Plate Boundary Observatory
http://www.unavco.org
One of the most exciting new developments in GPS. Recently the US Congress approved the Earthscope initiative which includes 3 separate parts. The GPS portion is the PBO which will include 875 new stations from the Mexican border through Washington and Alaska. This massive array will be built over the next 5 years.
There are also several other regional deformation arrays include the Basin Range network, The Bary Area network, and a cluster of sites around Parkfield, CA.
Equipment:
The GPS equipment used at these sites are commercially available dual frequency geodetic quality receivers which can recover the military code without needing the military keys. The receivers are capable of good precision when operated alone and are capable of sub-millimeter precision when used in a continuously operating network.
This type of processing requires extremely accurate satellite orbits provided by the International GPS Service (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/).
These large GPS arrays have been deployed throughout the world where there is a seismic hazard. Japan is one of the predominant countries with large GPS networks in place.
We encourage you to look at the various websites and learn about these projects and the science that they produce.
--Keith
SCIGN Network Coordinator
The worst part of the numbers is the aggregration of the different countries piracy rates into a single number. The North America rate of 24% doesn't really sound that high when you consider the possible margin of error for this study.
Does the BSA have the same clout in other countries? Are they using the 39% number to convince local lawmakers about the severity of the problem to give themselves more power?
It is probably in software companies best interest to have rampant piracy in poor countries so that they can get a lock on the market. After gaining control, they convince the gov't to enact new legislation and enforcement ensuring large profits.
An excellent read for anyone with a grasp of mathematics, it is also an easy read for people who don't quite get it. The writing is entertaining and gives the mathematically challenged a better handle on basic statistics and how to handle really large numbers correctly.
It was required reading in our quantitative analysis class during my MBA and I have loaned it out to a number of people to enlighten them.
--Keith
namtog wrote:
>I have one word for to respond to your circular >reasoning.
>Sophistry. [m-w.com]
From the same site:
FORECAST adds the implication of anticipating eventualities and differs from PREDICT in being usually concerned with probabilities rather than certainties
Remember:
forecasting != predicting
Forecasting long term seismic activity is valuable for strategic plans including placement of emergency responders and updating of building codes.
It _will_ happen, we just don't know exactly when. The best we can say is that the odds are higher here than there in the (relatively) near future.
There is a major difference between attending college and getting a degree. When I went to college after High School, I went to meet people, drink, and attend enough classes to get a degree. I changed my major several times and had no interest in any of the General Education (GE) classes the first 2 years.
The last 4 (yes, four) years is where I started to enjoy myself and have an interest in the subject matter. I attended classes because I wanted to learn.
I went back for my MBA because I was interested in the subject and I didn't have mindless GE classes to take. I did not go back for the piece of paper. I went back for the learning experience. The day I started the program, I found out that my wife was pregnant. I continued on through the birth of my son (conveniently timed during a semester break) because of my interest and the support of my family. I also left an easy job to start my own consulting firm which I have grown over the years. I continued with school because the courses interested me and were relevant to my life.
If interest is the problem, find a way to exempt out of the boring GE classes and work on the ones that interest you. Do not load up your schedule with an entire semester of crap. If you must take that lower division math course, find another course that helps you retain your interest during that semester. If you find yourself avoiding the material, find a way to make it interesting. Relate it to something in your life. Have fun with it. The degree is not the goal, learning is the goal. The degree will follow from that.
IF YOU ARE NOT LEARNING, YOU ARE NOT GROWING. You are only growing older.
Good Luck,
--Keith
No License is needed. We do use some 5 watt amps that recquire a license but the basic unit does not.
Unfortunately they are a little expensive at about $1200 per radio.