First. I applaud this guy for making such a neat device. Listening to the story break on NPR this morning was rather captivating. The reporter made the device sound relatively small - something able to fit easily within a single cave-bag after disassembly. After seeing the antenna array, though, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. There is no *way* a group of cavers are going to carry this contraption around *as it is*. It is certainly a prototype and the device certainly has merit but, for the sake of the device and the caver(s) carrying it, it is hoped (at least by me) that it becomes a lot smaller and still able to transmit/receive with the surface counterpart.
You see, a device as large as the one in the pictures on the webpage would be unwieldy in many, if not most, caves in the US as most US caves are not walking passage. In its current form it would suffer a lot of abuse and probably become submerged in water, covered in cave mud, bumped, sat on, kinked, bent, folded, dropped, hoisted, scraped and buffeted from a normal days wear and tear. If the antenna wire itself became broken trouble would certainly ensue. So, I don't see the current form of cave rescue going away any time soon. (The cave-trip leader has a designated person that did NOT go on the cave trip to call by a certain time. If the trip leader has not called that person by that time a cave rescue is supposed to be carried out.)
Don't get me wrong - this is a very cave-worthy pursuit and many a caver would feel better about having this technology along for the trip - as long as the equipment could withstand the journey. Otherwise, it's just more dead weight.
Second. For the story itself - caving is not 'relatively safe.' It's more along the lines of relatively dangerous. Why? Anyone entering a cave with the attitude of 'relatively safe' is bound to get hurt. Very recently there have been people who went out for a day of caving and came back sans one member. See this story
I didn't know this guy but it seems arrogance killed him. Hate me for it if you have to but he went into a passage where 2 other people had to be rescued from years earlier. It's shameful that the cave owners/grotto overseeing the cave didn't have the foresight or fortitude to prevent future tragedies by closing that passage or making the cavers sign a form detailing that particular passage as off-limits. He died a slow death as hypothermia set in while he was upside down in a passage. He was supposed to be experienced. I heard about his story while he was still alive and I prayed that he could hold on long enough for a solution to extricate him could be found. I'm heartbroken and angry for his needless death.
Thirdly. One part of the radio broadcast that this story didn't relay is a story of the famous (or is it infamous) rescue of Emily Davis Mobley from Lechuguilla Cave very near Carlsbad, New Mexico. I think the broadcast mentioned that this (the Lechuguilla cave rescue) was the reason why he invented this device. (I remind you to see the above paragraph on caving being relatively safe. Still think so?)
Finally: If you still don't believe me that caving is dangerous just you try cave diving. Near 100% fatality rate where 'accidents' have occurred. The rule of thumb is is something goes wrong while cave diving - you have two minutes to live.
Wow! This blows me away. Google not only wants to know how you shop or do research online they now want to know how you collaborate. Spooky. Combine this technology (ie:Google Wave) with their Chrome OS on hardware they approve and they'll be able to capture your business sense and/or organizational skills, too.
Don't be surprised when Google investors dump their stocks from company "X" when they detect a company making foolish decisions. Of course, the first foolish decision is to use Google Wave in a professional environ where your data - collaborative data, at least; hard data, at most - can be peeked-at via Google Wave.
Caveat emptor.
So, yeah, take the OSS version, package it up, install it on your *own* server farm and enjoy.
If we had been scared we would still be in our tree screaming "the ground is lava!"
What a narrow viewpoint. What makes you think the Earth isn't this proverbial "tree?" There are so many people and world leaders that are not concerned with space travel that it sickens me. Sure, local leaders are concerned with ways of stimulating growth in more modern cultures and others simply content to find enough able-bodied men to find food for their tribesmen - and this is a good thing.
Someone will have to step up and get us off this tiny little rock of ours. Sadly, there are too many ignorant, influential people in the world that are more concerned with turning a profit than truly helping their fellow man; let alone help the human race.
At some point we're going to have to broaden our horizons past our narrow viewpoint of our own microcosm and expand it to view the entire human population, as a whole, and understand that all this in-fighting is either killing us or dooming us to our collective demise.
At some point in our lifetime humans are going to have step out of their own selfish needs and self-consciousness to attend to the continuance of the human race as a whole.
I remind you of your quote above and close with this: At some point, yes, we looked down at the ground from our trees and say the ground is good. And onward we traveled upon two legs. Now is the time to look back up and find our wings.
I agree with the sentiment of your post; however, you and other Linux-distro users are fairly savvy when it come to the installation of software devoid of malicious intent. However, as soon as Linux is "ready-for-the-desktop" and being used regularly and widespread by female teenagers and grandmas alike, things will steadily go down hill from that point forward for Linux' rather clean history of being malware free.
Do I really need to point out that great adoption of any one OS will yield malware targeting that OS?
People's needs (either professionally or personally) vary greatly. Some day, someone will create an entertaining cute dancing-bunnies app that will wind up infecting grandma's or sweet-sixteen-Mary's Linux box. And they'll tell two friends; and they'll tell two friends; and,....
Recovery from such an infection is a different discussion. Most people do not realize they are infected.
I clicked through here specifically to post that. Whether or not it's "myth", it would make for a pretty cool Mythbusters episode. They could travel to CERN and tour the LHC, interview some scientists about the cool stuff going on there and then blow up a pig or two!
The very idea of dumbing down science by blowing up pigs is just hogwash!
The good gents at IBM didn't see the value in the "Operating System" Microsoft was selling them.
The good gents at Microsoft didn't see the value in monitoring what their users' daily activity on their respective OS was.
I wonder what the good gents at Google are ignoring today that will be a gold mine tomorrow.
---
On another note: I'm very surprised that people are all that interested in what is, essentially, a SpyOS. Forget tracking cookies - this OS is going to be tracking people's behavior 24 hours a day.
Not to provide any ideas into advanced Spywware under the guise of "free useful PC" but imagine if there is a GPS in the netbook that is able to track the users' movements. Traffic patterns, of the individual, could be analyzed and combined with other users and applicable advertising will show up for 'popular' products both in on-line advertising and roadside billboards.
I don't want to get too far off topic so I'll ask this question: When did we turn the corner of being Anti-Spyware to being Pro-Spyware?
What amazes me is that smokers believe that their right to smoke trumps everybody else's right to breath fresh, clean air.
I am, clearly, a non-smoker and I personally take offense to cigarette smoke. If a computer came into my possession that reeked of cigarette smoke, I'd refuse to work on it, too. Give it to a smoker to fix...in a separate building.
Let's get serious here. Whose upset that these computers, besides their owners, are not being fixed? Cigarette smokers. If smokers want to fix computers that were in smoker's houses, let the smokers fix them. I mean, God Damn, people! Listen to yourselves! Smokers are actually offended that non-smokers do not want to fix their smelly, second-hand hazardous smoke-filled PCs. What a misdirected sense of entitlement smokers have.
There isn't a compelling reason for non-smokers to place their health at risk because of a group of people who will not heed medical advice to stop smoking.
Does this mean we have to endure another round of shitty movies in 2217?
Of course!
However, on 2012 12 18 - when the scientists discover that 2012 *is* the real date - Micheal Moore will hastily put together another annoying movie trumpeting our reluctance to take our Mayan overlords seriously. It'll feature Al Gore.
If the someone feels to compelled to "give" or "give back" to the open source community - in whatever manner - count the community fortunate. Expecting anything is counter to the ideals of "The Gift Culture."
Gad! How did I miss that in my 4th preview!?
CORRECTION: If someone feels compelled to "give" or "give back" to the open source community - in whatever manner - count the community fortunate. Expecting anything in return is counter to the ideals of "The Gift Culture.
Where eln failed is in how his post turned into nothing more than a personal attack against the parent story poster. In the open source world there are users, documenters, developers and visionaries. And guess what - a majority of those are users and most users will never contribute to your project.
Simply attacking the guy with crass, harsh statements is not in the vein of "The Gift Culture."
So, yes, eln's comment is a troll comment.
As for a "moral obligation?" That's laughable. If you give someone something for free don't expect them to do anything for you. Maybe that person doesn't have the time to invest in giving back at the moment. Making inflammatory comments will certainly push them away from your base of constituents. And that means less users. So attacking people who don't know is counter-productive and does not serve the OSS causes or beliefs.
If the someone feels to compelled to "give" or "give back" to the open source community - in whatever manner - count the community fortunate. Expecting anything is counter to the ideals of "The Gift Culture."
You're never given a second chance at a first impression.
Your headhunter has placed you and your prospective employer in a difficult situation and you are the canon-fodder. If you can't trust your headhunter to honestly represent you then you need not work with them.
I, too, am a contract programmer currently between gigs. If some headhunter calls you and says you're Mr. Wonderful but refuses to pay travel expenses for your interviews then don't even entertain them. Find out before you are submitted to the client because if you are submitted first and then refuse to pay an $800.00 air fair for a Face-to-Face then you are screwed and will never get a F2F with the client. One, you are not guaranteed the position so you'd be out $800.00 based on conjecture. Very hollow, indeed. And, two; being doubly-submitted is very taboo. Depending on whether you signed a right-to-represent from the headhunter they could take you to court which makes you a risk to the prospective employer. Which leads me to my next topic.
NEVER sign a right-to-represent without fully reading the entire document. If you must sign, then ENSURE that the right-to-represent is ONLY with the single client position for which you are being submitted. Some headhunter houses are *very* shady. These hunters will, and have, sued people for not using them to get positions at locations in or around cities in which the headhunter-house operates. It has happened. Sure, it's a scam; but, desperate contractors do fall for the scam and lose out on large amounts of money. (Mostly, it's small claims court; so, usually $5000.00. No need to bring in those meddlesome attorneys.)
NDAs. Don't sign NDAs with companies simply for an interview. I did this. Epic fail on my part. Basically, I was creating similar systems on my own that a company in Missouri was creating. I, arrogantly, thought I was a shoe-in. I didn't get the job and for a period of two years I am contractually restricted from creating like-devices for that industry. Recently, the company began looking for more people. When I inquired to one of my trustworthy Head Hunters he told me who it was. He informed me that they're not looking for anyone they've already interviewed. Honest and OK enough. I asked him if they hired anyone the first time around and he said, "No, they didn't." Imagine my surprise.
Save your NDA signing for when you have already been given an offer of employment and it has been accepted.
Last and certainly not least: Never discuss your offered positions with other Head Hunters. If they find out what position you are being represented for by another head hunter they will attempt to undercut you and you will never get the job. Need an example: Here. I know a guy who was traveling to his next assignment. One of his head hunters called and began talking to him about his situation. He informed the HH that he was going to start work in 1 week at company X, 600 miles away for $X.00. They spoke for about 10 minutes. The next day the contractor that got him the job called and told him not to come as the client found somebody else cheaper.
Moral of all this: Don't slit your own throat. Lose lips sink ships.
Will you idiots please stop prefixing stuff with "cyber"? I know you're trying to make yourselves sound all cool and tech-savvy, but all you're really doing is sounding like someone from a bad 80s sci-fi movie.
Couldn't be much happier. When I'm in the office or home I hook up my USB keyboard/Mouse, my large monitor and 500G backup drive (for nightly backups of my subversion DB.).
When I'm out and about the long extension cord comes in handy. So does the two hour battery life. Sure, there are times when I really need to plug in and I can't so the trick is to keep your battery full (charge overnight) and when I hit the cafes I wait for the tables near the power plugs to empty out and jump on those tables. I've not had any problems. YMMV depending on location.
The small size really does mean portable. I've got 160G HD, 1.6G Hz ATOM CPU. Unless your compiling multi-million line projects, I find mine rather comfy. I built the entire boost library in ~1.5 hours.
Now for the killer: less than $300.00!! My last LT cost me almost $3,000.00 but was a PITA to lug around. It's still a fantastic machine but it's been relegated to the special projects heap. If this LT goes, who gives a crap. remove the HD, copy the data from the it (if it didn't make the nightly backups), buy another cheap-ass LT and move on with life.
It runs linux fine. I've been playing with SLAX lately (still a little flaky from a USB key, though) and it's exceeded my needs there, too. The Atheros WIFI card works great. (My HP never got the WIFI working.)
The only draw back I have with the device is its small screen resolution: 1024x600. Yes, that's six hundred.
Now, I've not done it but a friend of mine tells me his son runs WOW on his. I wouldn't run games as there isn't much in the way of cooling for the LT - no bottom fans. Just a large intake vent on the front and a exhaust port on the LHS.
I feel that your recruit a friend program is also quite negative to existing players as I have coworkers who can mill out two level sixties in two or three weekends if they can borrow another person's account.
I know two guys who churned out two level 60 toons in less than three days. We were all quite impressed. They played non-stop for 36 hours straight, took an 8-hour ESS (Eat, Sleep, S***) break then were back at it till they reached 60. It was on the Sin'Jin server (Guild: KEK) Bridezilla was the toon (I think that was the name - little fuzzy 7 months on).
Don't worry about Sony Vaios. I've owned 2; however, I've only purchased 1. The second is a warranty-replacement after the first died (after 1 year of gentle use). The second died (like clockwork) every six months after and only lasted for two years (when the video board died - software rendering only (even MS-Word (aside from the normal pain) was painful!). It has since been replaced by another LT.
So, bottom line - I don't imagine people owning Vaios long enough for them to be too problematic. They'll be in the shop being repaired every six months!
Any kind of memory can be become fragmented after some time in use. Defragging in the traditional sense may not be as necessary (as before) as the memory addressing scheme is much faster than before and, therefore, read operations for address spaces far apart are not going to be a problem. I mean, what's the difference if the next segment of code/data is FFFFFFFF away from the last address? Nothing! There are no heads to move from location 'X' to location 'Y' therefore, the throughput is sustained. Traditional HDs need time to seek to the position and are thus slowed.
I would think, though, with just about any machine that had power interrupted during some kind of disk access would cause some fragmentation from time to time - among other things.
Necessary? No. Reasonable to perform? On sparse occasions, sure. Why not?
(emphasis mine) [[snip]] Steve: MacBreak Weekly, just as we were getting ready to do this. And he made a comment about - you were talking about ripping DVDs. And he said, yeah, you know, you can get a terabyte drive now for 90 bucks.
Leo: Exactly.
Steve: And I'm thinking, yeah, and that's what SpinRite costs. And he said so, you know, there's really no need to burn all those. Just rip them all onto that terabyte drive. And I'm thinking, yes, please do. Because, please.
Leo: Why is that, Steve?
Steve: Good. Put your whole movie collection on there because I will have your money. When that $89 terabyte drive craps out on you...
Leo: We're buying - are you saying people should buy fancier drives, or just this is inevitable?
Steve: Put all the crown jewels, put everything you have on hard disk.
Leo: Well, don't throw away the DVDs. Keep them. But it really is true that, if there's data on there, it's worth more than 89 bucks. It's not a question of buying another drive, it's a question of getting that data back.
Steve: Yes. I mean, people, for a while people were saying, well, gee, Steve, $89, that's pretty steep. And I'd say, yes, I understand. And then they'd say, well, we can buy a new drive for that. Yes, but it doesn't - it's not all of the data that you've got. It's not everything that's been installed in your system before. It's not, I mean, what's your time worth to, like, recreate everything from scratch? And in some cases these are irreplaceable. These are people's entire photo libraries that have never been backed up, never put somewhere else. [[snip]]
The point is, Terabyte drives fail, too. Keep that in mind for your data retention policy. One might even be so inclined to purchase SpinRite ahead of time to validate the drive's integrity before being placed into use and occasionally validating the drive's integrity from time to time.
You know, I agree with you 100%. However, this whole affair reminds me the movie "Stripes".
When Sargent Hulka was allowing the men to introduce themselves to everyone else one of the men, Francis, told everyone how he'd kill them if they touched him, his belongings or called him Francis. Call him 'Psycho.'
Sargent Hulka reminded Francis that one of these days one of the assembled men might save his life.
Bill Murray quipped, "Then again...maybe one of us wont."
Think about it. No matter what...EVERYONE that is party to this lawsuit, on *either* side, loses.
Slashdot Mirror
First. I applaud this guy for making such a neat device. Listening to the story break on NPR this morning was rather captivating. The reporter made the device sound relatively small - something able to fit easily within a single cave-bag after disassembly. After seeing the antenna array, though, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. There is no *way* a group of cavers are going to carry this contraption around *as it is*. It is certainly a prototype and the device certainly has merit but, for the sake of the device and the caver(s) carrying it, it is hoped (at least by me) that it becomes a lot smaller and still able to transmit/receive with the surface counterpart.
You see, a device as large as the one in the pictures on the webpage would be unwieldy in many, if not most, caves in the US as most US caves are not walking passage. In its current form it would suffer a lot of abuse and probably become submerged in water, covered in cave mud, bumped, sat on, kinked, bent, folded, dropped, hoisted, scraped and buffeted from a normal days wear and tear. If the antenna wire itself became broken trouble would certainly ensue. So, I don't see the current form of cave rescue going away any time soon. (The cave-trip leader has a designated person that did NOT go on the cave trip to call by a certain time. If the trip leader has not called that person by that time a cave rescue is supposed to be carried out.)
Don't get me wrong - this is a very cave-worthy pursuit and many a caver would feel better about having this technology along for the trip - as long as the equipment could withstand the journey. Otherwise, it's just more dead weight.
Second. For the story itself - caving is not 'relatively safe.' It's more along the lines of relatively dangerous. Why? Anyone entering a cave with the attitude of 'relatively safe' is bound to get hurt. Very recently there have been people who went out for a day of caving and came back sans one member. See this story
I didn't know this guy but it seems arrogance killed him. Hate me for it if you have to but he went into a passage where 2 other people had to be rescued from years earlier. It's shameful that the cave owners/grotto overseeing the cave didn't have the foresight or fortitude to prevent future tragedies by closing that passage or making the cavers sign a form detailing that particular passage as off-limits. He died a slow death as hypothermia set in while he was upside down in a passage. He was supposed to be experienced. I heard about his story while he was still alive and I prayed that he could hold on long enough for a solution to extricate him could be found. I'm heartbroken and angry for his needless death.
Thirdly. One part of the radio broadcast that this story didn't relay is a story of the famous (or is it infamous) rescue of Emily Davis Mobley from Lechuguilla Cave very near Carlsbad, New Mexico. I think the broadcast mentioned that this (the Lechuguilla cave rescue) was the reason why he invented this device. (I remind you to see the above paragraph on caving being relatively safe. Still think so?)
You Tube of the rescue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7I7bXcSWK8
Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_rescue
Fourth. If you want to know more about caving visit Emily's website: http://www.speleobooks.com/
Finally: If you still don't believe me that caving is dangerous just you try cave diving. Near 100% fatality rate where 'accidents' have occurred. The rule of thumb is is something goes wrong while cave diving - you have two minutes to live.
Here's the official website for caving accidents in the Americas - http://www.caves.org/pub/aca/
FYI, There's NO FN WAY you'd get me to cave dive.
Shutup, Beavis!!
Wow! This blows me away. Google not only wants to know how you shop or do research online they now want to know how you collaborate. Spooky. Combine this technology (ie:Google Wave) with their Chrome OS on hardware they approve and they'll be able to capture your business sense and/or organizational skills, too.
Don't be surprised when Google investors dump their stocks from company "X" when they detect a company making foolish decisions. Of course, the first foolish decision is to use Google Wave in a professional environ where your data - collaborative data, at least; hard data, at most - can be peeked-at via Google Wave.
Caveat emptor.
So, yeah, take the OSS version, package it up, install it on your *own* server farm and enjoy.
What a narrow viewpoint. What makes you think the Earth isn't this proverbial "tree?" There are so many people and world leaders that are not concerned with space travel that it sickens me. Sure, local leaders are concerned with ways of stimulating growth in more modern cultures and others simply content to find enough able-bodied men to find food for their tribesmen - and this is a good thing.
Someone will have to step up and get us off this tiny little rock of ours. Sadly, there are too many ignorant, influential people in the world that are more concerned with turning a profit than truly helping their fellow man; let alone help the human race.
At some point we're going to have to broaden our horizons past our narrow viewpoint of our own microcosm and expand it to view the entire human population, as a whole, and understand that all this in-fighting is either killing us or dooming us to our collective demise.
At some point in our lifetime humans are going to have step out of their own selfish needs and self-consciousness to attend to the continuance of the human race as a whole.
I remind you of your quote above and close with this: At some point, yes, we looked down at the ground from our trees and say the ground is good. And onward we traveled upon two legs. Now is the time to look back up and find our wings.
Baseless! BASELESS! That was a baseless comment!
I agree with the sentiment of your post; however, you and other Linux-distro users are fairly savvy when it come to the installation of software devoid of malicious intent. However, as soon as Linux is "ready-for-the-desktop" and being used regularly and widespread by female teenagers and grandmas alike, things will steadily go down hill from that point forward for Linux' rather clean history of being malware free.
Do I really need to point out that great adoption of any one OS will yield malware targeting that OS?
People's needs (either professionally or personally) vary greatly. Some day, someone will create an entertaining cute dancing-bunnies app that will wind up infecting grandma's or sweet-sixteen-Mary's Linux box. And they'll tell two friends; and they'll tell two friends; and, ....
Recovery from such an infection is a different discussion. Most people do not realize they are infected.
The very idea of dumbing down science by blowing up pigs is just hogwash!
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
The good gents at IBM didn't see the value in the "Operating System" Microsoft was selling them.
The good gents at Microsoft didn't see the value in monitoring what their users' daily activity on their respective OS was.
I wonder what the good gents at Google are ignoring today that will be a gold mine tomorrow.
---
On another note: I'm very surprised that people are all that interested in what is, essentially, a SpyOS. Forget tracking cookies - this OS is going to be tracking people's behavior 24 hours a day.
Not to provide any ideas into advanced Spywware under the guise of "free useful PC" but imagine if there is a GPS in the netbook that is able to track the users' movements. Traffic patterns, of the individual, could be analyzed and combined with other users and applicable advertising will show up for 'popular' products both in on-line advertising and roadside billboards.
I don't want to get too far off topic so I'll ask this question: When did we turn the corner of being Anti-Spyware to being Pro-Spyware?
I'm very much serious!
I'm not saying that Apple shouldn't fix them - I'm saying make other smokers fix them.
What amazes me is that smokers believe that their right to smoke trumps everybody else's right to breath fresh, clean air.
I am, clearly, a non-smoker and I personally take offense to cigarette smoke. If a computer came into my possession that reeked of cigarette smoke, I'd refuse to work on it, too. Give it to a smoker to fix...in a separate building.
Let's get serious here. Whose upset that these computers, besides their owners, are not being fixed? Cigarette smokers. If smokers want to fix computers that were in smoker's houses, let the smokers fix them. I mean, God Damn, people! Listen to yourselves! Smokers are actually offended that non-smokers do not want to fix their smelly, second-hand hazardous smoke-filled PCs. What a misdirected sense of entitlement smokers have.
There isn't a compelling reason for non-smokers to place their health at risk because of a group of people who will not heed medical advice to stop smoking.
Egad!! Don't you "Get-off-my-lawn"-types get it?
NOTHING IS WORSE THAN GETTING RICKROLL'D!!
Of course!
However, on 2012 12 18 - when the scientists discover that 2012 *is* the real date - Micheal Moore will hastily put together another annoying movie trumpeting our reluctance to take our Mayan overlords seriously. It'll feature Al Gore.
Spoiler Alert!
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We all die.
Gad! How did I miss that in my 4th preview!?
CORRECTION: If someone feels compelled to "give" or "give back" to the open source community - in whatever manner - count the community fortunate. Expecting anything in return is counter to the ideals of "The Gift Culture.
Where eln failed is in how his post turned into nothing more than a personal attack against the parent story poster. In the open source world there are users, documenters, developers and visionaries. And guess what - a majority of those are users and most users will never contribute to your project.
Simply attacking the guy with crass, harsh statements is not in the vein of "The Gift Culture."
So, yes, eln's comment is a troll comment.
As for a "moral obligation?" That's laughable. If you give someone something for free don't expect them to do anything for you. Maybe that person doesn't have the time to invest in giving back at the moment. Making inflammatory comments will certainly push them away from your base of constituents. And that means less users. So attacking people who don't know is counter-productive and does not serve the OSS causes or beliefs.
If the someone feels to compelled to "give" or "give back" to the open source community - in whatever manner - count the community fortunate. Expecting anything is counter to the ideals of "The Gift Culture."
Please reread ESR's book.
You're never given a second chance at a first impression.
Your headhunter has placed you and your prospective employer in a difficult situation and you are the canon-fodder. If you can't trust your headhunter to honestly represent you then you need not work with them.
I, too, am a contract programmer currently between gigs. If some headhunter calls you and says you're Mr. Wonderful but refuses to pay travel expenses for your interviews then don't even entertain them. Find out before you are submitted to the client because if you are submitted first and then refuse to pay an $800.00 air fair for a Face-to-Face then you are screwed and will never get a F2F with the client. One, you are not guaranteed the position so you'd be out $800.00 based on conjecture. Very hollow, indeed. And, two; being doubly-submitted is very taboo. Depending on whether you signed a right-to-represent from the headhunter they could take you to court which makes you a risk to the prospective employer. Which leads me to my next topic.
NEVER sign a right-to-represent without fully reading the entire document. If you must sign, then ENSURE that the right-to-represent is ONLY with the single client position for which you are being submitted. Some headhunter houses are *very* shady. These hunters will, and have, sued people for not using them to get positions at locations in or around cities in which the headhunter-house operates. It has happened. Sure, it's a scam; but, desperate contractors do fall for the scam and lose out on large amounts of money. (Mostly, it's small claims court; so, usually $5000.00. No need to bring in those meddlesome attorneys.)
NDAs. Don't sign NDAs with companies simply for an interview. I did this. Epic fail on my part. Basically, I was creating similar systems on my own that a company in Missouri was creating. I, arrogantly, thought I was a shoe-in. I didn't get the job and for a period of two years I am contractually restricted from creating like-devices for that industry. Recently, the company began looking for more people. When I inquired to one of my trustworthy Head Hunters he told me who it was. He informed me that they're not looking for anyone they've already interviewed. Honest and OK enough. I asked him if they hired anyone the first time around and he said, "No, they didn't." Imagine my surprise.
Save your NDA signing for when you have already been given an offer of employment and it has been accepted.
Last and certainly not least: Never discuss your offered positions with other Head Hunters. If they find out what position you are being represented for by another head hunter they will attempt to undercut you and you will never get the job. Need an example: Here. I know a guy who was traveling to his next assignment. One of his head hunters called and began talking to him about his situation. He informed the HH that he was going to start work in 1 week at company X, 600 miles away for $X.00. They spoke for about 10 minutes. The next day the contractor that got him the job called and told him not to come as the client found somebody else cheaper.
Moral of all this: Don't slit your own throat. Lose lips sink ships.
Is was 1995. Oh, come on! You liked it. :P
8 Hrs battery life!? Nice!! Wish my Acer had that.
Couldn't be much happier. When I'm in the office or home I hook up my USB keyboard/Mouse, my large monitor and 500G backup drive (for nightly backups of my subversion DB.).
When I'm out and about the long extension cord comes in handy. So does the two hour battery life. Sure, there are times when I really need to plug in and I can't so the trick is to keep your battery full (charge overnight) and when I hit the cafes I wait for the tables near the power plugs to empty out and jump on those tables. I've not had any problems. YMMV depending on location.
The small size really does mean portable. I've got 160G HD, 1.6G Hz ATOM CPU. Unless your compiling multi-million line projects, I find mine rather comfy. I built the entire boost library in ~1.5 hours.
Now for the killer: less than $300.00!! My last LT cost me almost $3,000.00 but was a PITA to lug around. It's still a fantastic machine but it's been relegated to the special projects heap. If this LT goes, who gives a crap. remove the HD, copy the data from the it (if it didn't make the nightly backups), buy another cheap-ass LT and move on with life.
It runs linux fine. I've been playing with SLAX lately (still a little flaky from a USB key, though) and it's exceeded my needs there, too. The Atheros WIFI card works great. (My HP never got the WIFI working.)
The only draw back I have with the device is its small screen resolution: 1024x600. Yes, that's six hundred.
Now, I've not done it but a friend of mine tells me his son runs WOW on his. I wouldn't run games as there isn't much in the way of cooling for the LT - no bottom fans. Just a large intake vent on the front and a exhaust port on the LHS.
Anyone else picture this guy screaming, "Get in my belly!!"?
I know two guys who churned out two level 60 toons in less than three days. We were all quite impressed. They played non-stop for 36 hours straight, took an 8-hour ESS (Eat, Sleep, S***) break then were back at it till they reached 60. It was on the Sin'Jin server (Guild: KEK) Bridezilla was the toon (I think that was the name - little fuzzy 7 months on).
I just browsed IMDB's memorable quotes section for "Aliens" - It seems that most of the character's scripts are in there!
There must be close to 115 quotes in the section - that's got to be some sort of record.
(I lost count after ~100. I dont know Perl so could someone be so kind as to count the number of section breaks in the HTML?)
Don't worry about Sony Vaios. I've owned 2; however, I've only purchased 1. The second is a warranty-replacement after the first died (after 1 year of gentle use). The second died (like clockwork) every six months after and only lasted for two years (when the video board died - software rendering only (even MS-Word (aside from the normal pain) was painful!). It has since been replaced by another LT.
So, bottom line - I don't imagine people owning Vaios long enough for them to be too problematic. They'll be in the shop being repaired every six months!
Any kind of memory can be become fragmented after some time in use. Defragging in the traditional sense may not be as necessary (as before) as the memory addressing scheme is much faster than before and, therefore, read operations for address spaces far apart are not going to be a problem. I mean, what's the difference if the next segment of code/data is FFFFFFFF away from the last address? Nothing! There are no heads to move from location 'X' to location 'Y' therefore, the throughput is sustained. Traditional HDs need time to seek to the position and are thus slowed.
I would think, though, with just about any machine that had power interrupted during some kind of disk access would cause some fragmentation from time to time - among other things.
Necessary? No.
Reasonable to perform? On sparse occasions, sure. Why not?
Your post reminded me of this discussion on "Security Now!".
original transcript: http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-198.htm
(emphasis mine)
[[snip]]
Steve: MacBreak Weekly, just as we were getting ready to do this. And he made a comment about - you were talking about ripping DVDs. And he said, yeah, you know, you can get a terabyte drive now for 90 bucks.
Leo: Exactly.
Steve: And I'm thinking, yeah, and that's what SpinRite costs. And he said so, you know, there's really no need to burn all those. Just rip them all onto that terabyte drive. And I'm thinking, yes, please do. Because, please.
Leo: Why is that, Steve?
Steve: Good. Put your whole movie collection on there because I will have your money. When that $89 terabyte drive craps out on you...
Leo: We're buying - are you saying people should buy fancier drives, or just this is inevitable?
Steve: Put all the crown jewels, put everything you have on hard disk.
Leo: Well, don't throw away the DVDs. Keep them. But it really is true that, if there's data on there, it's worth more than 89 bucks. It's not a question of buying another drive, it's a question of getting that data back.
Steve: Yes. I mean, people, for a while people were saying, well, gee, Steve, $89, that's pretty steep. And I'd say, yes, I understand. And then they'd say, well, we can buy a new drive for that. Yes, but it doesn't - it's not all of the data that you've got. It's not everything that's been installed in your system before. It's not, I mean, what's your time worth to, like, recreate everything from scratch? And in some cases these are irreplaceable. These are people's entire photo libraries that have never been backed up, never put somewhere else.
[[snip]]
The point is, Terabyte drives fail, too. Keep that in mind for your data retention policy. One might even be so inclined to purchase SpinRite ahead of time to validate the drive's integrity before being placed into use and occasionally validating the drive's integrity from time to time.
You know, I agree with you 100%. However, this whole affair reminds me the movie "Stripes".
When Sargent Hulka was allowing the men to introduce themselves to everyone else one of the men, Francis, told everyone how he'd kill them if they touched him, his belongings or called him Francis. Call him 'Psycho.'
Sargent Hulka reminded Francis that one of these days one of the assembled men might save his life.
Bill Murray quipped, "Then again...maybe one of us wont."
Think about it. No matter what...EVERYONE that is party to this lawsuit, on *either* side, loses.