I have full cable, which I think tops off at around 5000Kbps but usually does betwen 1000-3000. My mom has 'Lite Speed' cable, which I think is 256Kbps, and it seems agonizingly slow to me. Both are considered broadband however.
For my mom the Lite Speed is fine because she doesn't download many big files and mostly uses it for web and email. For me I'd die if I had to go that slow 'cause I do games and pictures and stuff.
Lastly, I seem to remember similar questions asked in the past: 9600bps vs. 2400, 28800 vs. 14400, etc. Same question, and same answer.
Can it possibly be that Java -- once the hippest of hip software -- has become a legacy technology, as old and out of style as IBM's (IBM) mainframe computers and SAP's corporate applications?
I work for a company that uses IBM mainframes and SAP. I guess that means I should start brushing up on my Java so I'll be ready for its adoption here in about 5 years...
We of course have the "First Post" lamewats here on Slashdot, but is there an equivalent for addresses under new TLDs? Do goofs come out clamouring to file quick registrations so they can try to claim they got the first one?
I guess I just don't see how the store would lose by filing the rebate itself and giving the customer the discount at the register.
Simple: They lose the names and addresses of their buyers. Once you know who your buyers are you can begin to learn what prices they'll pay for things. Once you know what prices people will pay for things you stand a better chance of achieving perfect pricing (i.e. monopoly pricing, where everyone pays the maximum price they are willing to pay and no less).
I'm not being cynical, this is just economics talking. I had an econ prof who had us do a neat little in-class experiment that dramatically illustrated this phenomenon. It is why companies pay so much for market research.
Still, I do rebates whenever I am offered them and am planning to buy the item anyhow. Never been screwed on 'em - big or small. Perhaps here in Canada they are done more honestly.
Though I do worry since Future Shop here was one of the decent ones, but not long ago they got bought by Best Buy. Right now we have both stores here, sometimes even in the same mall. Until unification occurs I'll still buy from them, but once all stores become BBs then I'll stop. Let's call it "legacy goodwill". (Yeah I know it doesn't make a lot of sense.)
BTW it's the same with the loyalty cards. You pay for those points you earn, even if it's not with money.
So anyhow, I didn't RTFA but if they're talking about using this device on a long-term basis to keep teens away from somewhere, this is tantamount to torture.
Then maybe you should RTFA and UYFB (use your effing brain). The teens in question won't be standing around hearing the noise - that's the bloody idea of the device. They hear it, and they go away from a place they don't really have any business hanging about in the first place. The situation is entirely different from yours.
I read the article and I stand by my comment. You think shop owners will post warning signs? Or take steps to ensure it can't be heard outside the shop (e.g. in a mall)? Or only turn it on when there's trouble?
No, they'll turn it on and leave it on. And the laugahable thing is that they still expect and want teens to patronize their shops! SO we're not even talking about keeping teens away, we're talking about letting them in and annoying the hell out of them so they don't stay long! That seems like a funny way to get business. And if you're a small convenience store owner with whose primary customers come from the nearby school, you'll miss that business a lot more than you think. May as well close up shop now and save your money while you have it.
But the thing that bothers me the most however is that the use of such a device is vehemently prejudicial. You don't want teens in your store or to stay for very long, that's your right - so post a sign saying "NO ADMITTANCE TO THOSE UNDER xx YEARS OF AGE" or "MAXIMUM TIME IN STORE x MINUTES" and then have the decency to turn people away face-to-face. Don't torture everybody capable of hearing the noise. Like I said, you'll lose a lot of business that way.
If teens give you trouble at that point then maybe you can use the protection version that the article mentioned. Like I said before, at least that's a legitimate use of the thing.
If it were confined to stores that'd be one thing, but I just know this thing is gonna end up in some public place sooner or later. If they tried this kind of device in a public place, I'd be the first in line to file a lawsuit. I have the right to be in a public place for legitimate reasons and not have my senses fucked with.
Another post mentioned playing classical music. That was tried here, in the public transit system. (Where I am, public transit is still owned and run by the city.) They no longer do it, though. Not sure why, but probably they realized (via many complaints) that any music played loudly through third-rate PA speakers will annoy anybody that can hear it. Not to mention, it violates the local noise bylaw. I can only hope something similar will happen with this blasted device.
I belong to a club that's made up of mostly seniors, so I'm one of just a few people there under 40. A few years ago (I was 25 or 26 then) I was playing with one of our long-time members when I began hearing this really high-pitched whining noise, right on the high edge of my auditory range. Wasn't super loud, but definitely loud enough to notice if you could indeed hear it. After determining to my satisfaction that I wasn't crazy, I deduced the noise was coming from some definite source. I asked my opponent if she could hear it, and she said no but wondered if it was her hearing aid. She turned it down and sure enough, the noise went away! Apparently I was the only one who could hear it.
Two more occasions I heard the noise and immediately asked her to turn it down and it went away, so that pretty much confirmed the first time wasn't a fluke. I dunno exactly what was happening, but I figure the hearing aid was generating feedback when turned up too loud. After all they are just compact microphones and speakers.
I tell you, when I heard this noise and I couldn't figure out what it was, I started to get really agitated. The agitation was to the point that where if someone heard it for a sustained long time they could seriously go insane or even try to kill themselves. It was bad. The sense of relief I felt when the noise was turned off was quite profound.
So anyhow, I didn't RTFA but if they're talking about using this device on a long-term basis to keep teens away from somewhere, this is tantamount to torture. I think anybody considering using this for anything other than security in imminent danger (e.g. teens harassing you) deserves to lose the rest of their hearing too.
Consider Alberta as a place to look for work. Our two major cities (Edmonton and Calgary) are the fastest growing in Canada. There's lots of IT employment available if you have the skills, heck there's lots of most kinds of employment. We currently have a shortage of skilled workers, and a jobless rate of less than 5%. It's not quite as beautiful or warm as BC, but it's still nice. I'm a Calgarian myself. When I compare the quality of life in Calgary to most other places, the results are enough to motivate me to tough out the weather. Course, sometimes I've got to take holidays to somewhere warm.
Agreed, it's quite nice here overall. Though it is admittedly difficult for those of us with more liberal (more Slashdot-style) beliefs, as conservatism rules here. Nevertheless the people are usually much more tolerant than our elected officials make it seem, and yeah overall there's enough that's great about the place to make you stay.
Warm holidays are good of course but here (in Calgary especially) we do at least get spared the full brunt of a long cold winter thanks to the Chinook winds. Example: Earlier this week it was 20 degrees (~70F) because of one. Now it's gone, and tomorrow it will be -11 (~15F). (The tradeoff for the periodic warmth is the massive fluctuation, which causes people all sorts of health problems.)
I did a road trip through the western US earlier this year and got to experience a lot of the country. Yes there are a lot of similarities, but a lot of definite differences too. I just could never see myself moving to the US of my own accord, though I certainly could if I had to (due to job, love, invasi...err...wait scratch that one).
I work in a fairly big IT department (400+ people). I've been fortunate to have fairly good managers, but I've also experienced some bad stuff.
Good
Keep geek employees as isolated as possible from all the processes, administrative stuff, and politics. Most don't care, we just want to code or whatever and not worry about how many hoops we have to jump through to get it into Production, or who we'll piss off in the process.
Someone said this in another post - keep meetings to a minimum. Most geeks don't like them, they'd rather be working. (I actually like meetings as long as they're productive ones with active discussions, and not informational distribution sessions, but I'm in the minority.)
Be fair and flexible. Let us do stuff we need to do on company time (appointments, errands, etc.) and we'll work as long as we need to when stuff needs to be finished or when emergencies crop up. If we do have to work long overtime, pay it or at least let us take a day off later in trade.
Be honest and open. If something's going on, let us know ASAP. I think most geeks in particular would rather know something bad might happen instead of being kept in the dark until it does. Some employees don't like to know about what could happen until it actually happens, but I think geeks are on the whole more able to tolerate these kinds of stresses because our geek training/instincts lets us look at them more analytically, i.e. reasonably.
Give us recognition when we deserve it. My previous manager was very good at this. Whenever someone does something special he gets the team together and give a little tribute speech and some coffeehouse gift certificates. I was really touched when I got this in recognition of my completing a bit of work that needed to be done but nobody else had time for. I just thought I was doing my job, but it was a real shot in the arm to get recognized for it.
Treat screw ups seriously but not as the end of the world. I did some really bad shit while I was learning but because it was handled well, I learned what not to do and didn't feel like a useless blob. I think most geeks (the good ones anyhow) have a tendency to beat themselves up far more than anybody else could over mistakes.
Bad
Playing the blame game. Too often I see teams blaming each other for stuff but never getting together to actually figure things out.
Pressure & manipulation. I was presented with an "opportunity" to change teams, which I didn't want to do because I liked my team and my work. I'd just bought a house and had lots of expenses, and was in fear of losing my job, so I tentatively accepted with some conditions. When I had second thoughts and tried to assert these conditions, I was pulled in by my manager's manager and told point blank that I was moving teams, even though it was presented to me as my choice. It was handled horribly and left me bitter and disillusioned for a long time. Ironically, after all my earlier fears of losing my job, I seriously considered quitting.
Processes from hell. Processes are fine when they work, but horrible when they don't. Good managers can, as I mentioned, isolate their employees from bad processes, but only to a point, and they wouldn't have to if the bad stuff wasn't there in the first place.
Exposing us to all that stuff managers get all wet about that makes most geeks scream. After we survive through that in college/University, we shouldn't have to hear about it again until and unless we're actually going to have to manage people. I just about went mad when I ran into Constructive Cost Modelling after only 6 months on the job.
Pressure geeks to manage. Most geeks are either bad managers or simply don't want to manage. Some do and are good at it and they should have the opportunity, but don't force us if we don't want to.
The scary thing is I haven't even been in the industry for 2 years yet...
Re:beware of the "understanding friend" method.
on
Best Way to Manage Geeks?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
We have names for employees like you - hourly wage earners. Someone who comes in at 7:30, punches the clock, does exactly as they're told, and goes home after they have 8 hours in, and is never expected to give anything more.
If only it were that black and white. You must work in a small organization. I work for a fairly big one (IT alone is 400+ people, not including the outsourced hardware/network support), and have been in many situations where showing initiative would lead to a lot of trouble. You can't always just willy nilly start to experiment on your own, or you screw other teams up. To do it right you have to coordinate with everybody and by the time you do it's 3 weeks later.
That kind of environment sucks a lot of life out of you, especially if you're new to it and just learning. I'm not saying that it's a good way to be doing things, just that it is that way in a lot of places. Turnover is not unsurprisingly quite high.
You are right that anybody doing only what they're asked and no more isn't a valuable employee. All I'm saying is that in a large organization you aren't always able to take the initiative even when you spot a chance to.
I work with a damn talented bunch of people who will do whatever it takes to fix a problem, and who are always looking for (and finding) ways to improve our systems. But if we tried to actually do anything without first checking with our manager and making sure all the affected groups are informed, we'd cause chaos.
Can't we work together? If we would work together, we (well, they) would have found that planet twice as fast. If the world could unite together, we could probably send a man to Mars soon. Sometimes competition isn't a good thing.
Okay, everybody now:
The more we get together Together, together The more we get together The happier we'll be
A lot of other cities have public transportation running on propane, etc. Many international cities have seen a lot of cut back in pollution just by switching the public transportation to a more environment friendly energy source.
Calgary cabs did a mass conversion to propane over two decades ago. At the time, petrol was $0.40/L and propane was about $0.08/L, so it was easy to recoup the conversion cost even with the 20-40% efficiency hit of propane.
Now, however, propane costs 60-80% of the cost of petrol, and not surprisingly as cabbies replace their vehicles they haven't been converting. Although you still will get a net savings, it now takes too long to recover the up-front cost of the conversion. Especially when your car now gets 20-30 MPG instead of just 10.
Without significant financial incentives, nobody's going to convert. Sadly, we are still a long way from fuel prices hitting the point that converting off of petrol is a significant incentive in and of itself.
Off-topic a bit, my previous car was an ex-cab that ran on propane. It was sweet to see fuel prices going up and still be filling my car for around $20CDN. Finally fell apart beyond my means, but that was right around the time propane went sharply up in price so I guess it was as good a time as any.
There is reportedly one cracking good scene with a massive fight and a heroic rescue by Archer of one of the commemorative pens used to sign the charter.
Swap "of" and "by" in the above sentence and that might be worth watching...
This is the latest bad gimmick in a tragic series. Enterprise got more and more gimmicky every month, until they had nothing left.
The first season was quite good, though it had the usual Trek first-season weaknesses: plots kind of random, characters not fleshed out, tech not developed, etc. Unfortunately that probably turned off a lot of the viewers who were expecting more, and the reduced ratings may have started the whole spiral...
I rolled my eyes when they brought in the time-travel gimmick with people from the future, but at least it was all new material and helped the storylines develop, so that was okay.
Then they did this future-9/11 thing which was obviously a big huge gimmick to try to tie the show to current affairs. It was too obvious, but it did help the stories (some were actually quite riveting) -- for about half the season.
Towards season's end they started dropping more and more references to past Trek series (i.e. to the future), like Archer hinting about the Federation and "explainations" of some of the history from TOS/TNG/DS9. That was the point they crossed the line from "good" gimmickry to "bad". These did nothing for the series, and just seemed to be there to try to keep old Trek fans hooked.
Then Archer starts making alliances with the fuckin' "hated" Xindi and I knew I wouldn't be watching for much longer. I know Trek is repetitive, but it's usually in a good way. Heck, they've used the "enemy-turn-friend" theme to produce some great Trek episodes in all series up until Enterprise. There it just killed the story lines and took the drama with it.
I stopped watching at the end of last season, and when I saw the preview for the first episode with Spiner in it, I knew I'd done the right thing.
I wondered how much lower they might sink, and with this Troi/Riker thing, now we know.
It's time to kill this Trek and file it off in the "bad mistake" pile along with ST:V and most of Voyager. (Though at least Voyager didn't make a mockery of Trek. It just wasn't well-written most of the time.)
Hopefully we'll still get to see a "Birth of the Federation" series at some point, which is what Enterprise originally (d?)evolved from. There's so much potential there. Just as long as they don't give it to the Enterprise producers...
and the BC provincial PIPA (Personal Information Privacy Act) came into effect January 1, 2004.
Hmm, Alberta also has a PIPA which came into effect on January 1st, 2004. Coincidence, or is this one of those "ratified Federally, enacted Provincially" Acts? (This is one of those annoying Canadian political jurisdiction issues.)
Our PIPA is quite far reaching. It's the only Act of its kind I could find that applies even to unincorporated organizations. Makes it a little more frustrating for a club I help run to collect membership info in that we have to have disclaimers and consent now, but it's only a minor inconvenience.
Maybe in BC it's different. but here in Calgary, Alberta Shaw is very reliable. Like a previous poster I often get 3-4Mbps or more even in peak periods, whenever the opposite end is fast enough of course.
Shaw had a very rough time keeping up when the broadband explosion hit, and I admit there were some slow times here. Of course it didn't help that the guy who originally installed my cable botched the job either. He put something in backwards or something like that, then it got zapped by lightening and made it flaky. No problems after it was repaired, though, and also none here at my new place. They're quite stable now..
Now I get 70+ channels of cable TV (non-digital) and cable Internet for $80CDN/month. I think it's a pretty good deal.
No servers allowed on Shaw but they won't come after you unless your usage is unsually high. (This is in one of their FAQs.)
You have to see this at least once in your life -- it's the most amazing "Rube Goldberg" contraption you'll ever see.
Agreed. You see it once and then you'll notice something and think "Well how the fuck did they do that?" and then you'll have to go back and watch it again, and then again and again. I must have watched it at least a dozen times straight at first, and I was hypnotized each and every time.
I was surprised that Slashdot didn't run a story exclusively about the ad. (Or did they? If they did, I must have missed it, but I did look.) I can't think of anything more nerdy than a pointless expensive science experiment conducted (discounting the fact it helps sell cars of course) just because "they could".
Besides, few things at all are so truly brilliant, never mind a TV commercial!
I recall using Kermit a few times but it just didn't seem to be supported too well on MS-DOS. It worked but was very slow compared to ZModem. In those days, of course, we had to squeeze all the speed we could get out of our puny connections.
I'm not sure whether it was the fault of the Kermit protocol, the BBS software, my comms software, or some combination. Regardless, I don't have very fond memories of using Kermit!
An interesting retro technology application, however.
Yeah, self-taught and school programming experience. A few shareware and open source projects, and a volunteer webmastering job.
Even though some companies will give me credit for this it comes up short against people who have actually worked in the industry, and since so many of them are unemployed now.........
Slashdot Mirror
In Canada, Superstore/Loblaws/Extra Foods (same company, different store names) has recently started selling pay-as-you-go mobile service. They already offer banking and insurance services and have done so for several years.
Given this trend, I would not be at all surprised if they started selling VOIP service, amongst other things, in the near future.
You can definitely tell the difference.
I have full cable, which I think tops off at around 5000Kbps but usually does betwen 1000-3000. My mom has 'Lite Speed' cable, which I think is 256Kbps, and it seems agonizingly slow to me. Both are considered broadband however.
For my mom the Lite Speed is fine because she doesn't download many big files and mostly uses it for web and email. For me I'd die if I had to go that slow 'cause I do games and pictures and stuff.
Lastly, I seem to remember similar questions asked in the past: 9600bps vs. 2400, 28800 vs. 14400, etc. Same question, and same answer.
From the article summary:
Can it possibly be that Java -- once the hippest of hip software -- has become a legacy technology, as old and out of style as IBM's (IBM) mainframe computers and SAP's corporate applications?
I work for a company that uses IBM mainframes and SAP. I guess that means I should start brushing up on my Java so I'll be ready for its adoption here in about 5 years...
We of course have the "First Post" lamewats here on Slashdot, but is there an equivalent for addresses under new TLDs? Do goofs come out clamouring to file quick registrations so they can try to claim they got the first one?
"firstpost.eu" still seems to be available...
I guess I just don't see how the store would lose by filing the rebate itself and giving the customer the discount at the register.
Simple: They lose the names and addresses of their buyers. Once you know who your buyers are you can begin to learn what prices they'll pay for things. Once you know what prices people will pay for things you stand a better chance of achieving perfect pricing (i.e. monopoly pricing, where everyone pays the maximum price they are willing to pay and no less).
I'm not being cynical, this is just economics talking. I had an econ prof who had us do a neat little in-class experiment that dramatically illustrated this phenomenon. It is why companies pay so much for market research.
Still, I do rebates whenever I am offered them and am planning to buy the item anyhow. Never been screwed on 'em - big or small. Perhaps here in Canada they are done more honestly.
Though I do worry since Future Shop here was one of the decent ones, but not long ago they got bought by Best Buy. Right now we have both stores here, sometimes even in the same mall. Until unification occurs I'll still buy from them, but once all stores become BBs then I'll stop. Let's call it "legacy goodwill". (Yeah I know it doesn't make a lot of sense.)
BTW it's the same with the loyalty cards. You pay for those points you earn, even if it's not with money.
I have used my fucking brain and deduced that you are not interested in actually reading what I write but instead simply trying to insult me.
I read the article and I stand by my comment. You think shop owners will post warning signs? Or take steps to ensure it can't be heard outside the shop (e.g. in a mall)? Or only turn it on when there's trouble?
No, they'll turn it on and leave it on. And the laugahable thing is that they still expect and want teens to patronize their shops! SO we're not even talking about keeping teens away, we're talking about letting them in and annoying the hell out of them so they don't stay long! That seems like a funny way to get business. And if you're a small convenience store owner with whose primary customers come from the nearby school, you'll miss that business a lot more than you think. May as well close up shop now and save your money while you have it.
But the thing that bothers me the most however is that the use of such a device is vehemently prejudicial. You don't want teens in your store or to stay for very long, that's your right - so post a sign saying "NO ADMITTANCE TO THOSE UNDER xx YEARS OF AGE" or "MAXIMUM TIME IN STORE x MINUTES" and then have the decency to turn people away face-to-face. Don't torture everybody capable of hearing the noise. Like I said, you'll lose a lot of business that way.
If teens give you trouble at that point then maybe you can use the protection version that the article mentioned. Like I said before, at least that's a legitimate use of the thing.
If it were confined to stores that'd be one thing, but I just know this thing is gonna end up in some public place sooner or later. If they tried this kind of device in a public place, I'd be the first in line to file a lawsuit. I have the right to be in a public place for legitimate reasons and not have my senses fucked with.
Another post mentioned playing classical music. That was tried here, in the public transit system. (Where I am, public transit is still owned and run by the city.) They no longer do it, though. Not sure why, but probably they realized (via many complaints) that any music played loudly through third-rate PA speakers will annoy anybody that can hear it. Not to mention, it violates the local noise bylaw. I can only hope something similar will happen with this blasted device.
I belong to a club that's made up of mostly seniors, so I'm one of just a few people there under 40. A few years ago (I was 25 or 26 then) I was playing with one of our long-time members when I began hearing this really high-pitched whining noise, right on the high edge of my auditory range. Wasn't super loud, but definitely loud enough to notice if you could indeed hear it. After determining to my satisfaction that I wasn't crazy, I deduced the noise was coming from some definite source. I asked my opponent if she could hear it, and she said no but wondered if it was her hearing aid. She turned it down and sure enough, the noise went away! Apparently I was the only one who could hear it.
Two more occasions I heard the noise and immediately asked her to turn it down and it went away, so that pretty much confirmed the first time wasn't a fluke. I dunno exactly what was happening, but I figure the hearing aid was generating feedback when turned up too loud. After all they are just compact microphones and speakers.
I tell you, when I heard this noise and I couldn't figure out what it was, I started to get really agitated. The agitation was to the point that where if someone heard it for a sustained long time they could seriously go insane or even try to kill themselves. It was bad. The sense of relief I felt when the noise was turned off was quite profound.
So anyhow, I didn't RTFA but if they're talking about using this device on a long-term basis to keep teens away from somewhere, this is tantamount to torture. I think anybody considering using this for anything other than security in imminent danger (e.g. teens harassing you) deserves to lose the rest of their hearing too.
Consider Alberta as a place to look for work. Our two major cities (Edmonton and Calgary) are the fastest growing in Canada. There's lots of IT employment available if you have the skills, heck there's lots of most kinds of employment. We currently have a shortage of skilled workers, and a jobless rate of less than 5%. It's not quite as beautiful or warm as BC, but it's still nice. I'm a Calgarian myself. When I compare the quality of life in Calgary to most other places, the results are enough to motivate me to tough out the weather. Course, sometimes I've got to take holidays to somewhere warm.
Agreed, it's quite nice here overall. Though it is admittedly difficult for those of us with more liberal (more Slashdot-style) beliefs, as conservatism rules here. Nevertheless the people are usually much more tolerant than our elected officials make it seem, and yeah overall there's enough that's great about the place to make you stay.
Warm holidays are good of course but here (in Calgary especially) we do at least get spared the full brunt of a long cold winter thanks to the Chinook winds. Example: Earlier this week it was 20 degrees (~70F) because of one. Now it's gone, and tomorrow it will be -11 (~15F). (The tradeoff for the periodic warmth is the massive fluctuation, which causes people all sorts of health problems.)
I did a road trip through the western US earlier this year and got to experience a lot of the country. Yes there are a lot of similarities, but a lot of definite differences too. I just could never see myself moving to the US of my own accord, though I certainly could if I had to (due to job, love, invasi...err...wait scratch that one).
Good
Bad
The scary thing is I haven't even been in the industry for 2 years yet...
We have names for employees like you - hourly wage earners. Someone who comes in at 7:30, punches the clock, does exactly as they're told, and goes home after they have 8 hours in, and is never expected to give anything more.
If only it were that black and white. You must work in a small organization. I work for a fairly big one (IT alone is 400+ people, not including the outsourced hardware/network support), and have been in many situations where showing initiative would lead to a lot of trouble. You can't always just willy nilly start to experiment on your own, or you screw other teams up. To do it right you have to coordinate with everybody and by the time you do it's 3 weeks later.
That kind of environment sucks a lot of life out of you, especially if you're new to it and just learning. I'm not saying that it's a good way to be doing things, just that it is that way in a lot of places. Turnover is not unsurprisingly quite high.
You are right that anybody doing only what they're asked and no more isn't a valuable employee. All I'm saying is that in a large organization you aren't always able to take the initiative even when you spot a chance to.
I work with a damn talented bunch of people who will do whatever it takes to fix a problem, and who are always looking for (and finding) ways to improve our systems. But if we tried to actually do anything without first checking with our manager and making sure all the affected groups are informed, we'd cause chaos.
"...but it is a vision that we think is very exciting." This is a vision they are having.
Jeez, when most people have visions they get dismissed as crazy. These guys had a vision and made two big-city newspapers!
Okay, everybody now:
A lot of other cities have public transportation running on propane, etc. Many international cities have seen a lot of cut back in pollution just by switching the public transportation to a more environment friendly energy source.
Calgary cabs did a mass conversion to propane over two decades ago. At the time, petrol was $0.40/L and propane was about $0.08/L, so it was easy to recoup the conversion cost even with the 20-40% efficiency hit of propane.
Now, however, propane costs 60-80% of the cost of petrol, and not surprisingly as cabbies replace their vehicles they haven't been converting. Although you still will get a net savings, it now takes too long to recover the up-front cost of the conversion. Especially when your car now gets 20-30 MPG instead of just 10.
Without significant financial incentives, nobody's going to convert. Sadly, we are still a long way from fuel prices hitting the point that converting off of petrol is a significant incentive in and of itself.
Off-topic a bit, my previous car was an ex-cab that ran on propane. It was sweet to see fuel prices going up and still be filling my car for around $20CDN. Finally fell apart beyond my means, but that was right around the time propane went sharply up in price so I guess it was as good a time as any.
There is reportedly one cracking good scene with a massive fight and a heroic rescue by Archer of one of the commemorative pens used to sign the charter.
Swap "of" and "by" in the above sentence and that might be worth watching...
You didn't ask for open source.
Um, this is Slashdot, remember. That's implied!
This is the latest bad gimmick in a tragic series. Enterprise got more and more gimmicky every month, until they had nothing left.
The first season was quite good, though it had the usual Trek first-season weaknesses: plots kind of random, characters not fleshed out, tech not developed, etc. Unfortunately that probably turned off a lot of the viewers who were expecting more, and the reduced ratings may have started the whole spiral...
I rolled my eyes when they brought in the time-travel gimmick with people from the future, but at least it was all new material and helped the storylines develop, so that was okay.
Then they did this future-9/11 thing which was obviously a big huge gimmick to try to tie the show to current affairs. It was too obvious, but it did help the stories (some were actually quite riveting) -- for about half the season.
Towards season's end they started dropping more and more references to past Trek series (i.e. to the future), like Archer hinting about the Federation and "explainations" of some of the history from TOS/TNG/DS9. That was the point they crossed the line from "good" gimmickry to "bad". These did nothing for the series, and just seemed to be there to try to keep old Trek fans hooked.
Then Archer starts making alliances with the fuckin' "hated" Xindi and I knew I wouldn't be watching for much longer. I know Trek is repetitive, but it's usually in a good way. Heck, they've used the "enemy-turn-friend" theme to produce some great Trek episodes in all series up until Enterprise. There it just killed the story lines and took the drama with it.
I stopped watching at the end of last season, and when I saw the preview for the first episode with Spiner in it, I knew I'd done the right thing.
I wondered how much lower they might sink, and with this Troi/Riker thing, now we know.
It's time to kill this Trek and file it off in the "bad mistake" pile along with ST:V and most of Voyager. (Though at least Voyager didn't make a mockery of Trek. It just wasn't well-written most of the time.)
Hopefully we'll still get to see a "Birth of the Federation" series at some point, which is what Enterprise originally (d?)evolved from. There's so much potential there. Just as long as they don't give it to the Enterprise producers...
As soon as I read the headline I knew there were wing nuts involved...
and the BC provincial PIPA (Personal Information Privacy Act) came into effect January 1, 2004.
Hmm, Alberta also has a PIPA which came into effect on January 1st, 2004. Coincidence, or is this one of those "ratified Federally, enacted Provincially" Acts? (This is one of those annoying Canadian political jurisdiction issues.)
Our PIPA is quite far reaching. It's the only Act of its kind I could find that applies even to unincorporated organizations. Makes it a little more frustrating for a club I help run to collect membership info in that we have to have disclaimers and consent now, but it's only a minor inconvenience.
I'm just curious as to what the R-factor would be. The article does not specify this.
Maybe in BC it's different. but here in Calgary, Alberta Shaw is very reliable. Like a previous poster I often get 3-4Mbps or more even in peak periods, whenever the opposite end is fast enough of course.
Shaw had a very rough time keeping up when the broadband explosion hit, and I admit there were some slow times here. Of course it didn't help that the guy who originally installed my cable botched the job either. He put something in backwards or something like that, then it got zapped by lightening and made it flaky. No problems after it was repaired, though, and also none here at my new place. They're quite stable now..
Now I get 70+ channels of cable TV (non-digital) and cable Internet for $80CDN/month. I think it's a pretty good deal.
No servers allowed on Shaw but they won't come after you unless your usage is unsually high. (This is in one of their FAQs.)
You have to see this at least once in your life -- it's the most amazing "Rube Goldberg" contraption you'll ever see.
Agreed. You see it once and then you'll notice something and think "Well how the fuck did they do that?" and then you'll have to go back and watch it again, and then again and again. I must have watched it at least a dozen times straight at first, and I was hypnotized each and every time.
I was surprised that Slashdot didn't run a story exclusively about the ad. (Or did they? If they did, I must have missed it, but I did look.) I can't think of anything more nerdy than a pointless expensive science experiment conducted (discounting the fact it helps sell cars of course) just because "they could".
Besides, few things at all are so truly brilliant, never mind a TV commercial!
I recall using Kermit a few times but it just didn't seem to be supported too well on MS-DOS. It worked but was very slow compared to ZModem. In those days, of course, we had to squeeze all the speed we could get out of our puny connections.
I'm not sure whether it was the fault of the Kermit protocol, the BBS software, my comms software, or some combination. Regardless, I don't have very fond memories of using Kermit!
An interesting retro technology application, however.
XS4ALL is also the host of Python's official web site, so in a small way - probably a very very small way - this is also a victory for open source!
Yeah, self-taught and school programming experience. A few shareware and open source projects, and a volunteer webmastering job.
Even though some companies will give me credit for this it comes up short against people who have actually worked in the industry, and since so many of them are unemployed now.........