This reminds me of splash screens in applications. Their only purpose is to distract the user while lengthy operations are in progress behind the scene. The work has to get done, whether or not the user has pretty pictures to look at, so why not?
After all, there's going to be wind drag against the fuselage (even if they made it out of Teflon), which will require additional energy input to keep the plane/dirigible/submarine in the air. Their wind-turbine will also have some losses in the system (presumably it charges up some batteries for later use).
"Youse guys is in here %^&*-ing off, when you is supposed to be filling @#$%&^&*^ potholes! What the ^&%$ do you think you're doing? The city ain't paying you to drink on the ^%&$^$&^%ing job! Get back to work, or you're all fired!"
Look at it this way. Would you consider a smart, healthy, fertile child that happens to be susceptible to a certain strain of pneumonia as less fit than a slack-jaw yokel that's one step from monkey that just barely manages to survive that particular infection?
Me personally? No.
From the phage's point of view? If it kills the child in 5-10 days, then it's successful (because it then has a good chance of passing itself onto another host). One of the reasons why Ebola is a failure (albeit a spectaularly successful failure) as a phage; is that it's *too* successful -- it tends to kill it's victims before they've had a chance to spread it to others.
There was a similar discussion here on slashdot (can't find it now, even with Google's help) about how in the 1940's + 50's, when a member of a household was diagnosed with smallpox, the entire house was quarantined for 17+ days (A person is contagious until all the scabs fall off). This caused a food-supply problem for the household (even I don't have that much food on hand, and I have a supply of MREs for the occasional hurricane).
Neighbors & relatives would place food deliveries on the front steps and leave it for the occupants to get later. No contact was allowed until everyone living in the house had a clean bill of health, or had died. (Meaning that: if someone became ill on day 15, the countdown started all over again).
If you tried to add some sort of reader device to the front of the ATM, covering the original slot and plate, it would be fairly obvious it didn't belong there. I'm sure it might fool *some* clueless people
In a city like London, there are a large number of tourists and foreigners who aren't frequent users of any one ATM. So if the machine has some odd protusions on it, chances are they wouldn't recognize it, especially if the paint was a close match (or even a contrasting color) to the face of the ATM.
I know that when I go to the UK, I have a tough enough time with the money itself, never mind dealing with an unfamiliar ATM design. Although, I will say that now that ATMs are widespread, they have put a serious dent in Thomas Cook's business (and I'm glad of it -- having to locate a Change Bureau is annoying).
The x86 world is so heterogeneous that if an OSX for x86 was released, it would have so many compatibility problems that Windows XP would look elegant by comparison.
In theory, if you only buy hardware that is on the WHDC list, you shouldn't have any compatability problems. Is that $12 IDE controller card that's on sale this week on the list? Probably not!
I admit, though, the Apple total enviromental control method is more robust. I saw the same thing in the AS/400 world -- IBM supplied the hardware & software, plus the development tools. The machine just never crashed, even with a dozen developers pounding on it!
Chip H.
Re:Old news - they handled my brother
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 1
I'm with you on the scam that is the funeral business. I'm not too worried about the money -- I'll be under the $625,000 death tax exemption for a long long time, thanks to the dot-bust. But I find it intriguing in that very few people have ever done it (gone into space). I'll never climb Everest or K2, but I might have the ability to be the first in the family to go to the moon.
Thanks for the reply.
Chip H.
Re:Old news - they handled my brother
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 1
I've been to their site before (after reading an article in Wired Magazine a few years ago). I'm willing to consider it when my time comes, but I was curious about your take on it.
What is your opinion of: - The whole idea of burial in space - The way the ceremony, etc. were handled? - Would you consider it yourself? - Did scheduling difficulties cause any problems?
The transfer regs were put in place to allow one person to change their provider and keep their original number. AFAIK, they say nothing about selling your number to another person and then keeping the same provider (presumably with a new number).
What if the phone company has a waiting list for a particular number (or has their own bidding process)? The winner of the eBay auction could find themselves in line behind 17 other people, even after paying thousands of dollars for Jenny's number.
If I were in the (highly regulated) business of selling local dial-tone, I would set up a subsidiary that just did TCP/IP networking over all the dark fiber in the US, and then sell VOIP over it. My marketing point would be "higher-quality connections with fewer drop-outs". A friend has Vonage, and while it works great off-peak hours, during lunch hours (when everyone at work is surfing instead of working), or if a big news story breaks, you can't understand him.
I wonder what he, a Briton, would think of turning it over to the French? Will he object when the Academie Francaise demands that he write his articles only in French?
Like the subject says. If you've got 4 million surveilance cameras, who's doing the surveilling? Criminals know that it's not possible for someone to be watching all the time, so they go ahead and commit their crimes.
It would have been better if the UK police had been more selective in where they placed the cameras -- areas with known crime problems. Also, areas that because of their geography and arrangement, are prone to crime (think alleyways).
In a way, you don't want cameras in areas favored by suicide bombers, as the tapes eventually get on TV and give the terrorists publicity.
Chip H.
I cleared my cookies and tried again with just my home zip (as opposed to my earlier attempt with both home & work locations), and it let me in. A coworker put their home zip (same as our work zip), and it let them in. So I guess I didn't pass the "we want only home users" test the first time.
I put in my zip codes (yes - I live & work in Raleigh), and the form said they didn't have coverage in those areas. My guess is that they're starting off in Chapel Hill and will do North Raleigh and the downtown area sometime later.
That's too bad -- my 3G SprintPCS phone works, but I only get 115kbps out of it, so even checking Hotmail is slow.
Have you spoken to the building's owners? They may not care for your improvements.
Another point - should you move, do you intend to take the system with you? If you're OK with leaving it behind, again, you need to speak with the buildings owners to see if they want it.
The cracking windscreen (as I'm sure you know) is a common fault -- the designers specified too thin a piece of glass. When you get it replaced, make sure they mount the new piece high enough to hold the top black trim strip in. There have been instances where the glass was placed too low to hold that part in, so it had to be glued on.
I really enjoyed driving my MINI -- I waited 8 months to get it, and was one of the lucky ones to pay MSRP for it (The dealer did tack on a surcharge on accessories, though). The MINI is like a motorcycle, in that it goes where you look. No other car I've owned has handled as well.
The fun thing about the Trabant was that the gas tank was under the hood with the engine. If you were sloppy at the gas station, and spilled some on the hot exhaust pipe, you got to see how fast the cardboard body panels would burn.
Car & Driver did a road test on one shortly after the Berlin wall came down. The US DOT woudn't let them run it on the roads, so they performed the road test with the Trabant being towed on a trailer ("performance remarkably similar to our Chevy tow vehicle").
My 1999 Mercedes ML-320 had 20 warranty repairs in 39 months. Something broke on average every 8.5 weeks, from body noises & rattles, to transmission problems, to the electronics going berzerk. Some of the problems never got fixed because I gave up on them. Granted, the dealership took care of me. But they had to have lost their ledenhosen on the sale.
Followed closely by my 2003 MINI Cooper S. I only got to drive it 11 months out of the 12 I owned it. I spent 27 days in a rental car (and grew to hate Toyota Corollas) waiting for parts from the UK. The dealer was only OK, *and* each visit took a minimum of 5 hours, so I dumped it as soon as possible. Got a call a few months later from the new owner, and the same problem had visited itself on them. Best of luck, guys.
Now I'm in a nice sensible Honda. Not a lot of fun to drive, but at least it knows how to stay out of the service bay.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of splash screens in applications. Their only purpose is to distract the user while lengthy operations are in progress behind the scene. The work has to get done, whether or not the user has pretty pictures to look at, so why not?
Chip H.
Isn't this another perpetual-motion machine?
After all, there's going to be wind drag against the fuselage (even if they made it out of Teflon), which will require additional energy input to keep the plane/dirigible/submarine in the air. Their wind-turbine will also have some losses in the system (presumably it charges up some batteries for later use).
I say "scam".
Chip H.
"Youse guys is in here %^&*-ing off, when you is supposed to be filling @#$%&^&*^ potholes! What the ^&%$ do you think you're doing? The city ain't paying you to drink on the ^%&$^$&^%ing job! Get back to work, or you're all fired!"
Chip H.
Look at it this way. Would you consider a smart, healthy, fertile child that happens to be susceptible to a certain strain of pneumonia as less fit than a slack-jaw yokel that's one step from monkey that just barely manages to survive that particular infection?
Me personally? No.
From the phage's point of view? If it kills the child in 5-10 days, then it's successful (because it then has a good chance of passing itself onto another host). One of the reasons why Ebola is a failure (albeit a spectaularly successful failure) as a phage; is that it's *too* successful -- it tends to kill it's victims before they've had a chance to spread it to others.
There was a similar discussion here on slashdot (can't find it now, even with Google's help) about how in the 1940's + 50's, when a member of a household was diagnosed with smallpox, the entire house was quarantined for 17+ days (A person is contagious until all the scabs fall off). This caused a food-supply problem for the household (even I don't have that much food on hand, and I have a supply of MREs for the occasional hurricane).
Neighbors & relatives would place food deliveries on the front steps and leave it for the occupants to get later. No contact was allowed until everyone living in the house had a clean bill of health, or had died. (Meaning that: if someone became ill on day 15, the countdown started all over again).
Chip H.
Progress Energy is the BPL provider in the Wake County test.
Here's a press release about their partnership with Earthlink.
Chip H.
If you tried to add some sort of reader device to the front of the ATM, covering the original slot and plate, it would be fairly obvious it didn't belong there. I'm sure it might fool *some* clueless people
In a city like London, there are a large number of tourists and foreigners who aren't frequent users of any one ATM. So if the machine has some odd protusions on it, chances are they wouldn't recognize it, especially if the paint was a close match (or even a contrasting color) to the face of the ATM.
I know that when I go to the UK, I have a tough enough time with the money itself, never mind dealing with an unfamiliar ATM design. Although, I will say that now that ATMs are widespread, they have put a serious dent in Thomas Cook's business (and I'm glad of it -- having to locate a Change Bureau is annoying).
Chip H.
What if I'm dialing from the UK? (assuming a VOIP provider with international presence).
The emergency services number there is 999, not 911.
Chip H.
So, if he had just given his name: "Hi, my name is xxxxx", then he would have fulfilled his requirement under Nevada law?
Chip H.
The x86 world is so heterogeneous that if an OSX for x86 was released, it would have so many compatibility problems that Windows XP would look elegant by comparison.
In theory, if you only buy hardware that is on the WHDC list, you shouldn't have any compatability problems. Is that $12 IDE controller card that's on sale this week on the list? Probably not!
I admit, though, the Apple total enviromental control method is more robust. I saw the same thing in the AS/400 world -- IBM supplied the hardware & software, plus the development tools. The machine just never crashed, even with a dozen developers pounding on it!
Chip H.
I'm with you on the scam that is the funeral business. I'm not too worried about the money -- I'll be under the $625,000 death tax exemption for a long long time, thanks to the dot-bust. But I find it intriguing in that very few people have ever done it (gone into space). I'll never climb Everest or K2, but I might have the ability to be the first in the family to go to the moon.
Thanks for the reply.
Chip H.
I've been to their site before (after reading an article in Wired Magazine a few years ago). I'm willing to consider it when my time comes, but I was curious about your take on it.
What is your opinion of:
- The whole idea of burial in space
- The way the ceremony, etc. were handled?
- Would you consider it yourself?
- Did scheduling difficulties cause any problems?
Chip H.
How will the actual transfer take place?
The transfer regs were put in place to allow one person to change their provider and keep their original number. AFAIK, they say nothing about selling your number to another person and then keeping the same provider (presumably with a new number).
What if the phone company has a waiting list for a particular number (or has their own bidding process)? The winner of the eBay auction could find themselves in line behind 17 other people, even after paying thousands of dollars for Jenny's number.
Chip H.
If I were in the (highly regulated) business of selling local dial-tone, I would set up a subsidiary that just did TCP/IP networking over all the dark fiber in the US, and then sell VOIP over it. My marketing point would be "higher-quality connections with fewer drop-outs". A friend has Vonage, and while it works great off-peak hours, during lunch hours (when everyone at work is surfing instead of working), or if a big news story breaks, you can't understand him.
Chip H.
Energizer has the bunny. Duracell has the "Trusted Everywhere" slogan.
Chip H.
Haven't you heard?
Martians in pickup trucks drive around the surface of the planet, shooting at any Earth landers they see.
Where do you think we got the term "Redneck" from?
Chip H.
I wonder what he, a Briton, would think of turning it over to the French? Will he object when the Academie Francaise demands that he write his articles only in French?
Chip H.
Like the subject says. If you've got 4 million surveilance cameras, who's doing the surveilling? Criminals know that it's not possible for someone to be watching all the time, so they go ahead and commit their crimes. It would have been better if the UK police had been more selective in where they placed the cameras -- areas with known crime problems. Also, areas that because of their geography and arrangement, are prone to crime (think alleyways). In a way, you don't want cameras in areas favored by suicide bombers, as the tapes eventually get on TV and give the terrorists publicity. Chip H.
1 + 1 equals 2 in every language on earth (except New Age holistic 1 + 1 = 3 crap).
;-)
Works great, until you meet the aliens from planet Shirley MacLaine.
Chip H.
I cleared my cookies and tried again with just my home zip (as opposed to my earlier attempt with both home & work locations), and it let me in. A coworker put their home zip (same as our work zip), and it let them in. So I guess I didn't pass the "we want only home users" test the first time.
Chip H.
I put in my zip codes (yes - I live & work in Raleigh), and the form said they didn't have coverage in those areas. My guess is that they're starting off in Chapel Hill and will do North Raleigh and the downtown area sometime later.
That's too bad -- my 3G SprintPCS phone works, but I only get 115kbps out of it, so even checking Hotmail is slow.
Chip H.
Have you spoken to the building's owners? They may not care for your improvements.
Another point - should you move, do you intend to take the system with you? If you're OK with leaving it behind, again, you need to speak with the buildings owners to see if they want it.
Chip H.
because mydoom.b activates tomorrow and attacks Microsoft.
Chip H.
I'm glad you were able to get a good one.
The cracking windscreen (as I'm sure you know) is a common fault -- the designers specified too thin a piece of glass. When you get it replaced, make sure they mount the new piece high enough to hold the top black trim strip in. There have been instances where the glass was placed too low to hold that part in, so it had to be glued on.
I really enjoyed driving my MINI -- I waited 8 months to get it, and was one of the lucky ones to pay MSRP for it (The dealer did tack on a surcharge on accessories, though). The MINI is like a motorcycle, in that it goes where you look. No other car I've owned has handled as well.
Chip H.
The fun thing about the Trabant was that the gas tank was under the hood with the engine. If you were sloppy at the gas station, and spilled some on the hot exhaust pipe, you got to see how fast the cardboard body panels would burn.
Car & Driver did a road test on one shortly after the Berlin wall came down. The US DOT woudn't let them run it on the roads, so they performed the road test with the Trabant being towed on a trailer ("performance remarkably similar to our Chevy tow vehicle").
Chip H.
My 1999 Mercedes ML-320 had 20 warranty repairs in 39 months. Something broke on average every 8.5 weeks, from body noises & rattles, to transmission problems, to the electronics going berzerk. Some of the problems never got fixed because I gave up on them. Granted, the dealership took care of me. But they had to have lost their ledenhosen on the sale.
Followed closely by my 2003 MINI Cooper S. I only got to drive it 11 months out of the 12 I owned it. I spent 27 days in a rental car (and grew to hate Toyota Corollas) waiting for parts from the UK. The dealer was only OK, *and* each visit took a minimum of 5 hours, so I dumped it as soon as possible. Got a call a few months later from the new owner, and the same problem had visited itself on them. Best of luck, guys.
Now I'm in a nice sensible Honda. Not a lot of fun to drive, but at least it knows how to stay out of the service bay.
Chip H.