I live in the city of Fullerton, CA. Like most municipalites in the U.S., it has faced a severe funding crunch over the past few years. In response, they have established a Paramedic Subscription Program. Basically, if you call a paramedic, you get billed by the city $200 for Basic Life Support and $300 for Advanced Life Support. If, on the other hand, you sign up for the service and pay an annual fee of $30, you do not pay. Ambulance costs (as they are pretty much everywhere in the U.S.) are not covered. Regardless of your payment status, though, they will come if you call.
While I have issues with calling paramedics and being charged in the first place (and, yes, I understand why they're doing it - to make ends meet and reduce frivilous calls), I can see where this fee makes a lot of sense to a business owner, who might see numerous 911 calls over a year (especially restaraunts, with choking/heart attack calls).
...flashback to how early 'subscription-only' fire departments worked?
I guess I've been doing without enough sleep, but a bit of trivia popped into my head about the concept of a subscription fire department.
As I recall, buildings in the U.S. in the 19th century were marked with a designation near the address that indicated what insurance company the owner used. Since fire departments were privately run by various insurance companies, the crews used these to determine if who should respond to a fire (no, I don't know if they just let a building burn down if it was susbcribed to a rival company nor do I know if they even bothered to call the other company's crew if there was a mixup).
Again, I do not recall what the designation is (a sign? some address variant?), but supposedly the buildings in Disneyland's New Orleans Square all have these same designations to make them more accurate to the period.
Bamboo is prone to splitting and fracturing when under lateral strain. I would really hate to have one of those collapse under me due to lateral stress fractures. All those sharp slivers of bamboo right under my crotch?
One of the primary reasons (even beyond weight and durability) why the SCA uses rattan instead of bamboo for weapon shafts in its mock "heavy" combat is that it does not splinter but instead kind of "pulps" when it breaks. The concern on the battle field is that splinters could easily be driven through helm eyeslots. There's enough risk in taking a blow or falling in armor during normal fighting that extreme hazzards like that are hardly welcome.
After all, we can't have anyone getting hurt during a war, can we?
Thanks for the info. Would you have the name/number of the bill, whether in its current incarnation or in the defeated one. I feel a P.S. to my letter to my Congressman coming on...
In a move mirroring MIT and Boston University's refusal to the names of students accused of file swapping, the University of Texas has declined to provide the RIAA with the staff list for its Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The RIAA is investigating the alleged copying and distribution of the Center's Gutenburg Bible over the Internet.
UT claims that it performed the copying in good faith, assuming that the 15th century work had lapsed into the public domain. Counsel for the RIAA, however, claims that a clause in the Sonny Bono Copyright Act written in invisible ink reestablishes the copyright.
In a joint press release, the RIAA and the agent for the work's author, one Johannes Gutenberg, have declared "This is a gross violation of intellectual ownership rights. Although the RIAA is traditionally concerned with the trading of music files, this development transves a slipery slope. Unless this latest instance of file sharing is halted in its tracks, we will see a wholesale distribution of the Word of God. Without immediate action, we will see copies this holy scripture in every church, library, and hotel room nightstand throughout this great land."
God, the author of the work, nor Mr. Harry Ransom were unavailable for comment.
Actually, it's only morally repugnant, not treasonous. This is because the jobs being shipped overseas are not for military/government work (they're for in flight entertainment systems).
Had they shipped work overseas with citizenship or clearance requirements, the management would have violated the contract (at a minimum) or enjoyed a stay in a Federal pennitentary (at a maximum).
Today, my employer that all future software development on our project is being moved to India. 75 jobs down the toilet. Not as bad as IBM, but I'm obviously very put out (what's the old joke? "A Recession is when your neighbor looses his job. A Depression is when you loose yours"). No dates yet, but we'd be foolish to assume less than a few months. I'm already working on many leads (including an offer I turned down two months ago) and expect to be giving my notice soon (and, no, it's not cockeyed optimism - all the leads are in defense work and the various places are hiring like nuts).
The irony is that our company (in other divisions) makes most of its money on defense work (non of those jobs are leaving, as that's a requirement of those contracts). If you want to outsource jobs to India, so be it. But I can't help but feel my stomach turn that they're also getting what's basically a subsidy from the government.
If you ship U.S. jobs overseas, should you still be granted government contracts?
...embedded devices, a market where Opera doesn't have any competition from... IE
Not so. Please check out WIndows XP Embedded (which supports IE) and Windows CE (which supports IE and pocket IE). In fact, my employer selected CE for use by the passengers on airlines in our next generation IFE system primarilly because IE is available and is the dominant browser. When your users spend only 8 hours using your product (long haul flights), you can't spend any time teaching them how to use it. They have to know before they even sit down.
Now, I don't wish to start an argument about Microsoft's commitment to CE, or its likelyhood of dominating other embedded RTOS'es, or the wisodom of tying ourselves to IE (if, indeed, it's days are numbered as you suggest). I merely wanted to point out that Opera does have competition in embedded market. I'd also be surprised (actually, stunned) if other browsers are not being considered for the embedded market.
Again, just a nit. You've still written a very informative post.
O.K. I admit it. I had to look. I'm a big fan of The Smoking Gun and was hoping to find something similar. Instead, after peeking around, I have to face the obvious - this is a guy with an axe to grind. As such, I've decided against linking any of the specific pages back to my comment. Am I afraid of legal action? No. I would just feel, well, dirty. You want to see the pages firsthand? Go poking around it yourself. No one will stop you.
First, I'm not talking about SSNs and court records. I'll let a judge tackle those issues. I'm refering to the comentary the webmaster has added to the various pages, specifically the Kirkland PD (the only force I looked at in depth). Vicious stuff, although apparently just this side of actionable (or so the judgement would imply). I can see why Kirkland spent $200K spent trying to shut the site down (per the website). Free speech or not, it's an employer's duty to try to stand up for its people (just as its the judge's to protect the Constitution). Heck, I'd probably quit my job if my boss didn't take some action against a fullisade like this against his employees.
Three targets of note:
Prosecutor Margita Dornay-Noe - Mostly links to stories and commentaries from Seattle newspapers about scandals around her. She appears to be facing disbarment and other stuff over (multiple?) sex scandals, but the big thing that creeps me out is the little piece of grafitti at the bottom of the page. It depicts (what appears to be) a nude woman's privates, a keyhole, and what look like prison bars in the background. Man, Freud would have a field day with that one.
Phillip Goguen - No commentary, but some court filings, a map to the house, and a photo of his house (perhaps a real estate listing?). The photo also shows two vehicles and partial licence plates. Creepy.
Gene M. Markle - The crown gem of the site. Not much in the public record. Just a bankruptcy (the webmaster appears suprised that can happen to someone making $60K/year - naive or just grasping at straws?). But then the webmaster puts up a map to the guy's house and starts on a rant: "He's as corrupt as any officer in the city of Kirkland. This [the website's] author will have no problem saying that Gene Markle is a filthy liar that just loves abusing others with his badge to serve his own purposes sociopathic purposes... I have suffered directly at the hands of this maggots [sic] criminal actions, which is certain he takes great pleasure for [sic]. The sad truth is that there is a woman (his wife Roberta) that will actually let him have sex with her and bare [sic] children. Just typing these words makes me want to spray my computer screen with Lysol. Clearly his wife is of questionable reputation."
I've gotta wonder about that last bit about his wife and kids with all the gramatical errors. If you read it fast, you can get the verbs messed up ("bare" or "bear"?) it seems to imply the officer is an incestous pedophile. Then again, I was expecting him to be hurling dirt from his tone, so I was primed for that sort of thing. Or perhaps it's my own filthy mind.
The fact is, this webmaster's got an axe to grind. His site is hateful and bitter, even if it is protected as free speech. I'd be curious what is out in the public records about this guy (did Markle write him a ticket? Bust him for something heavy?), but if such a suggestion ever registered on his radar I'm sure he'd throw it back at me (that's "Embedded Geek," by the way - two D's when you start skulking around after me, Chuckles).
It just goes how little it takes to get the domain "justicefiles.org"
Its just how they think. If the technology isn't proven, and then aged a bit, the Navy simply won't adopt it.
Good point and you can't blame them. If I lived on a ship whose sole purpose is to go into situations where civilians have been evacuated, where you face the possibility of getting nailed by torpedoes, missles, small arms fire, chemical weapons, and/or rubber boats filled with suicide bombers, I would think the same way. You only add a new piece of technology if it proves to give you a decisive tactical edge (e.g. fly by wire aircraft, Phalanx antimissle defense) over the old techniques.
There's a reason why ships still carry good old artillery in addition to missles.
After all, no one else in the past has ever seen this as a credible threat. Not previous U.S. administrations, not the British Empire, not the Romans, not the Dinosaurs...
Er, then again, maybe we should have a contingency plan.
(Probably redundant now that this comment has attracted so much flame, but...)
Now that English is used for Mass...
It would just figure. Some guy starts a flamewar by comparing MCSE with Vatican II and everyone misses the most important point - Martin Luther beat Vatican II to Mass in the vernacular by about 400 years.
Sorry to nit, but I didn't spend five years as a Lutheran kid at a Catholic school just to let that one pass.
After reading your post, I took a peek at some of the brochures at qnx.com and wasn't able to find any actual footprint numbers. Maybe there's something in the developer's community, but I couldn't see anything leap out at me. As I said, this is just curiosity. I didn't want to spend time digging (and I don't want anyone else to waste their time digging either - I just wanted ballpark, top of the head estimates).
Looking over the stuff (as I was not familiar with QNX), it appears that QNX is Posix compliant but isn't Linux. Is that correct?
Many folks have pointed out, the "CE" here stands for "Consumer Electronics," not "Comaact Edition" as in Windows CE (or, at least, that's what I've been told it means - can't seem to find it on their site). Despite that, this article got me thinking again about Embedded Linux again.
I've been using WinCE on several projects for about two years and haven't seen any footprint information on the latest flavors of embedded Linux. If anyone can spare a moment, could they let me know a ballpark estimate of the RAM and flash footprints of each of these configurations:
A minimal, headless Linux embedded configuration.
A headless configuration with basic TCP/IP functionality (FTP, telnet, ping, etc).
Headless configuration with basic TCP/IP and a simple web server (so I might post config or maintenence data about the target that way).
TCP/IP configuration with a minimal VGA/SVGA video dislay.
Same config but with web browsing capability.
Again, no need for exact numbers - just ballpark estimates or a pointer to a site that might have this info. I have no immediate needs for this - we're actually very happy with WinCE. I'm just curious for any future needs. Thanks.
I took so long to type this that it's probably redundant by now, but...
It's been pointed out that identity theives could simply use a forged letterhead to get private information, but I'm concerned about other possible misuses:
Abusive spouses - Someone running from a batterer would likely change bank accounts, etc. but I doubt they'd wipe an eBay account. Likely just change the old one to match those new accounts. Viloa - the S.O.B has an address.
Scammers might use personal info and a little human engineering ("No, I just forgot my password. Here's my some info as proof of ID...") to hijack an account, then run their scams through it.
A seller who feels he's being undercut by another might somehow trash their rival (although, I admit, you'd have to be disturbingly obsessed about eBay to even think to pull this one off).
Stalkers, stalkers, stalkers!
The list goes on and on. I think I'll stick with garage sales, thanks.
Anyone out there know Latin? I'm thinking of having that translated and placed on my Coat of Arms. Come to think of it, it probably wouldn't look that bad as my epitath, either.
Previous to the latest influx of SCO stories, I really had no familiarity with their red & blue globe Logo. In fact, the first time I saw it on slashdot, I was a little confused...
Is it just me, or does the blue space on the globe look like a partial outline of that other corporate mascot, Mickey Mouse? If you look at it symbolically, it's as if the old boy is casting his shadow over an otherwise unsuspecting world.
Whenever she was concerned about being overheard, my Grandam would caution us: The walls have ears.
Who knew - the old girl was right.
Mildly OT - the Public Domain is Languishing
on
Copyright Defeats?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I came across a postcard that demostrates how the public domain is languishing due to all the copyright extensions that are being legislated. Basically, there will be nearly no growth in the public domain between 1990 and 2030 due to current legislation, even though the copyrighted realm is growing exponentially. If the copyright acts of 1923 were still in effect (the first year to which the Sonny Bono act applies), the number of registered items in the public domain would grow from today's 9 million to 25 million. It's very powerful visual aid.
I came across a postcard that demostrates how the public domain is languishing due to all the copyright extensions that are being legislated. Basically, there will be nearly no growth in the public domain between 1990 and 2030 due to current legislation, even though the copyrighted realm is growing exponentially. If the copyright acts of 1923 were still in effect (the first year to which the Sonny Bono act applies), the number of registered items in the public domain would grow from today's 9 million to 25 million. It's very powerful visual aid.
A comment on this thread got me thinking about a Mafia based MMPORPG. On the surface, it might not seem like a good idea (in days of yore, TSR's Gangbusters RPG was always an also-ran), but if you gave it a twist it might just fly.
Specifically, I was thinking about the MMPORPG described in Todd McAulty's great story The Haunting of Cold Harbour. Basically, think of the Mafia with Ghouls, Vampires, and some cyborgs thrown in (and, no, it's not a straight Buffy rip off). I quit EQ last year to better cope with RL, but a game like this would definately suck me in.
Shameless plug: If you get a chance to pick up a copy of Black Gate, which printed "Haunting," do so. It really is a great collection of fantasy stories, book reviews, and RPG articles. And I'm not just saying that cause I've got a story coming out this Summer... really!
Slashdot Mirror
I live in the city of Fullerton, CA. Like most municipalites in the U.S., it has faced a severe funding crunch over the past few years. In response, they have established a Paramedic Subscription Program. Basically, if you call a paramedic, you get billed by the city $200 for Basic Life Support and $300 for Advanced Life Support. If, on the other hand, you sign up for the service and pay an annual fee of $30, you do not pay. Ambulance costs (as they are pretty much everywhere in the U.S.) are not covered. Regardless of your payment status, though, they will come if you call.
While I have issues with calling paramedics and being charged in the first place (and, yes, I understand why they're doing it - to make ends meet and reduce frivilous calls), I can see where this fee makes a lot of sense to a business owner, who might see numerous 911 calls over a year (especially restaraunts, with choking/heart attack calls).
I guess I've been doing without enough sleep, but a bit of trivia popped into my head about the concept of a subscription fire department.
As I recall, buildings in the U.S. in the 19th century were marked with a designation near the address that indicated what insurance company the owner used. Since fire departments were privately run by various insurance companies, the crews used these to determine if who should respond to a fire (no, I don't know if they just let a building burn down if it was susbcribed to a rival company nor do I know if they even bothered to call the other company's crew if there was a mixup).
Again, I do not recall what the designation is (a sign? some address variant?), but supposedly the buildings in Disneyland's New Orleans Square all have these same designations to make them more accurate to the period.
One of the primary reasons (even beyond weight and durability) why the SCA uses rattan instead of bamboo for weapon shafts in its mock "heavy" combat is that it does not splinter but instead kind of "pulps" when it breaks. The concern on the battle field is that splinters could easily be driven through helm eyeslots. There's enough risk in taking a blow or falling in armor during normal fighting that extreme hazzards like that are hardly welcome.
After all, we can't have anyone getting hurt during a war, can we?
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Thanks for the info. Would you have the name/number of the bill, whether in its current incarnation or in the defeated one. I feel a P.S. to my letter to my Congressman coming on...
UT claims that it performed the copying in good faith, assuming that the 15th century work had lapsed into the public domain. Counsel for the RIAA, however, claims that a clause in the Sonny Bono Copyright Act written in invisible ink reestablishes the copyright.
In a joint press release, the RIAA and the agent for the work's author, one Johannes Gutenberg, have declared "This is a gross violation of intellectual ownership rights. Although the RIAA is traditionally concerned with the trading of music files, this development transves a slipery slope. Unless this latest instance of file sharing is halted in its tracks, we will see a wholesale distribution of the Word of God. Without immediate action, we will see copies this holy scripture in every church, library, and hotel room nightstand throughout this great land."
God, the author of the work, nor Mr. Harry Ransom were unavailable for comment.
Had they shipped work overseas with citizenship or clearance requirements, the management would have violated the contract (at a minimum) or enjoyed a stay in a Federal pennitentary (at a maximum).
The irony is that our company (in other divisions) makes most of its money on defense work (non of those jobs are leaving, as that's a requirement of those contracts). If you want to outsource jobs to India, so be it. But I can't help but feel my stomach turn that they're also getting what's basically a subsidy from the government.
If you ship U.S. jobs overseas, should you still be granted government contracts?
I mean, no one ever does usually!
*GRIN*
someone develops robotic salt?
Not so. Please check out WIndows XP Embedded (which supports IE) and Windows CE (which supports IE and pocket IE). In fact, my employer selected CE for use by the passengers on airlines in our next generation IFE system primarilly because IE is available and is the dominant browser. When your users spend only 8 hours using your product (long haul flights), you can't spend any time teaching them how to use it. They have to know before they even sit down.
Now, I don't wish to start an argument about Microsoft's commitment to CE, or its likelyhood of dominating other embedded RTOS'es, or the wisodom of tying ourselves to IE (if, indeed, it's days are numbered as you suggest). I merely wanted to point out that Opera does have competition in embedded market. I'd also be surprised (actually, stunned) if other browsers are not being considered for the embedded market.
Again, just a nit. You've still written a very informative post.
First, I'm not talking about SSNs and court records. I'll let a judge tackle those issues. I'm refering to the comentary the webmaster has added to the various pages, specifically the Kirkland PD (the only force I looked at in depth). Vicious stuff, although apparently just this side of actionable (or so the judgement would imply). I can see why Kirkland spent $200K spent trying to shut the site down (per the website). Free speech or not, it's an employer's duty to try to stand up for its people (just as its the judge's to protect the Constitution). Heck, I'd probably quit my job if my boss didn't take some action against a fullisade like this against his employees.
Three targets of note:
- Prosecutor Margita Dornay-Noe - Mostly links to stories and commentaries from Seattle newspapers about scandals around her. She appears to be facing disbarment and other stuff over (multiple?) sex scandals, but the big thing that creeps me out is the little piece of grafitti at the bottom of the page. It depicts (what appears to be) a nude woman's privates, a keyhole, and what look like prison bars in the background. Man, Freud would have a field day with that one.
- Phillip Goguen - No commentary, but some court filings, a map to the house, and a photo of his house (perhaps a real estate listing?). The photo also shows two vehicles and partial licence plates. Creepy.
- Gene M. Markle - The crown gem of the site. Not much in the public record. Just a bankruptcy (the webmaster appears suprised that can happen to someone making $60K/year - naive or just grasping at straws?). But then the webmaster puts up a map to the guy's house and starts on a rant: "He's as corrupt as any officer in the city of Kirkland. This [the website's] author will have no problem saying that Gene Markle is a filthy liar that just loves abusing others with his badge to serve his own purposes sociopathic purposes... I have suffered directly at the hands of this maggots [sic] criminal actions, which is certain he takes great pleasure for [sic]. The sad truth is that there is a woman (his wife Roberta) that will actually let him have sex with her and bare [sic] children. Just typing these words makes me want to spray my computer screen with Lysol. Clearly his wife is of questionable reputation."
The fact is, this webmaster's got an axe to grind. His site is hateful and bitter, even if it is protected as free speech. I'd be curious what is out in the public records about this guy (did Markle write him a ticket? Bust him for something heavy?), but if such a suggestion ever registered on his radar I'm sure he'd throw it back at me (that's "Embedded Geek," by the way - two D's when you start skulking around after me, Chuckles).I've gotta wonder about that last bit about his wife and kids with all the gramatical errors. If you read it fast, you can get the verbs messed up ("bare" or "bear"?) it seems to imply the officer is an incestous pedophile. Then again, I was expecting him to be hurling dirt from his tone, so I was primed for that sort of thing. Or perhaps it's my own filthy mind.
It just goes how little it takes to get the domain "justicefiles.org"
Good point and you can't blame them. If I lived on a ship whose sole purpose is to go into situations where civilians have been evacuated, where you face the possibility of getting nailed by torpedoes, missles, small arms fire, chemical weapons, and/or rubber boats filled with suicide bombers, I would think the same way. You only add a new piece of technology if it proves to give you a decisive tactical edge (e.g. fly by wire aircraft, Phalanx antimissle defense) over the old techniques.
There's a reason why ships still carry good old artillery in addition to missles.
Er, then again, maybe we should have a contingency plan.
Now that English is used for Mass...
It would just figure. Some guy starts a flamewar by comparing MCSE with Vatican II and everyone misses the most important point - Martin Luther beat Vatican II to Mass in the vernacular by about 400 years.
Sorry to nit, but I didn't spend five years as a Lutheran kid at a Catholic school just to let that one pass.
Thanks! I'll be checking it out.
Looking over the stuff (as I was not familiar with QNX), it appears that QNX is Posix compliant but isn't Linux. Is that correct?
I've been using WinCE on several projects for about two years and haven't seen any footprint information on the latest flavors of embedded Linux. If anyone can spare a moment, could they let me know a ballpark estimate of the RAM and flash footprints of each of these configurations:
- A minimal, headless Linux embedded configuration.
- A headless configuration with basic TCP/IP functionality (FTP, telnet, ping, etc).
- Headless configuration with basic TCP/IP and a simple web server (so I might post config or maintenence data about the target that way).
- TCP/IP configuration with a minimal VGA/SVGA video dislay.
- Same config but with web browsing capability.
Again, no need for exact numbers - just ballpark estimates or a pointer to a site that might have this info. I have no immediate needs for this - we're actually very happy with WinCE. I'm just curious for any future needs. Thanks.It's been pointed out that identity theives could simply use a forged letterhead to get private information, but I'm concerned about other possible misuses:
- Abusive spouses - Someone running from a batterer would likely change bank accounts, etc. but I doubt they'd wipe an eBay account. Likely just change the old one to match those new accounts. Viloa - the S.O.B has an address.
- Scammers might use personal info and a little human engineering ("No, I just forgot my password. Here's my some info as proof of ID...") to hijack an account, then run their scams through it.
- A seller who feels he's being undercut by another might somehow trash their rival (although, I admit, you'd have to be disturbingly obsessed about eBay to even think to pull this one off).
- Stalkers, stalkers, stalkers!
The list goes on and on. I think I'll stick with garage sales, thanks.Anyone out there know Latin? I'm thinking of having that translated and placed on my Coat of Arms. Come to think of it, it probably wouldn't look that bad as my epitath, either.
Is it just me, or does the blue space on the globe look like a partial outline of that other corporate mascot, Mickey Mouse? If you look at it symbolically, it's as if the old boy is casting his shadow over an otherwise unsuspecting world.
Who knew - the old girl was right.
And, to beat the reply posts:
And, to beat the reply posts:
Specifically, I was thinking about the MMPORPG described in Todd McAulty's great story The Haunting of Cold Harbour . Basically, think of the Mafia with Ghouls, Vampires, and some cyborgs thrown in (and, no, it's not a straight Buffy rip off). I quit EQ last year to better cope with RL, but a game like this would definately suck me in.
Shameless plug: If you get a chance to pick up a copy of Black Gate , which printed "Haunting," do so. It really is a great collection of fantasy stories, book reviews, and RPG articles. And I'm not just saying that cause I've got a story coming out this Summer... really!