Yes, they are native to Puerto Rico... but Puerto Rico has natural predators.
I don't mind a couple, but when you start to get thousands per acre in what is basically a very very quite place, it is hard to take. Keep in mind that there are no native predators here so nothing keeps them from multiplying.
It's even worse for hotel owners - my significant owns a hotel and even if one frog chirps the guests complain.
The problem is, like them or not, they are destructive and should be removed before the situation is completely out of control.
Hawai'i is home to some of the most unique species of plants and animal/insect/fish/etc life than can be found anywhere else on the planet.
Unfortunatly we are also home to some invasive alien species that threaten to kill and choke our natural life. One excellant example is the recent appearance of Coqui Frogs (read more) which came in on plants being imported for sales (go figure).
These little frogs (about the size of a nickel) are the loudest thing you have ever heard. At over 110 decibles per chirp there are no predators in Hawai'i for this creature and communities can grow as high as 20,000 to 40,000 per acre. You can imagine the din.
Furthermore, the coqui are eating insects that are normally eaten by our native creatures - which can upset the balance.
Hence my neighbor... coqui are moving into our neighborhood and the neighborhood association asked $44 from each person from which they would hire specialists to come and destroy the coqui (there are two effective methods, one a caffeine spray and the other a citric acid sollution spray - we have used the citric acid spray with great success).
My neighbor, a devout vegean is steadfast against it. Will not treat her coqui... "they have a right to live". Whereas, my response is... hey, man brought them in, man can bring them back out - to which she is very upset. (in the same token, she won't treat for termites, cockroaches, or rats either). Completely misses the point, as far as I can tell, that they are damaging OTHER species - nopers, THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE.
Ah well... I always maintained that eating vegetables was worse because they can't run and hide - and killing an entire field is akin to localized genocide.
We have the opposite policy to a NDA at one of my companies... we have a Total Disclosure Agreement which means that anything anyone knows about ANYTHING WHATSOEVER they must disclose to everyone else. It works out fairly well, and is fairly humorous to everyone - people go out of their way to make sure they disclose everything they can.
Conversations generally go like this "well, this is under NDA but since I have to conform to our TDA, here's the info..."
We did this because of all the utterly stupid NDA's we've had to sign over the years.
We provide email for a number of our clients and we used to always configure the accounts to include catch-alls. However, in the last year more and more customers asked if there was anything we could do to help lower the spam they were getting. The largest thing we did - which every appreciated (and we have never once had a complaint) was to remove the catchalls.
If is much easier to have people tell us names and have us turn them on. It is just as easy for people to create a name "spam@whatever" and retire it when it gets nasty and start a new one "spam2@whatever"... which allows them to easily use email addresses at sites where they are required and discard them as they see fit.
We configure all our catchalls to issue NO SUCH USE reponses as well.
Having done both LSD and hydergine in my lifetime, I can say that yes, he will be remembered at least by me for both. Both are wonderful drugs though certainly, LSD has a more vivid impact (but hydergine is certainly a brain opener too... no arguements there).
And yes about the US and it's drug policy, but what did you expect from a country so stupid as to vote Bush into office.
You might be pleased to know that those of us who honor him have indeed worked around the stupidity of american politics... our own contribution can be found at tranquility - which most people say makes them very happy / stoned / better.
...Scientific American, National Geographic, 2600, Mens Health, Instinct, Gourmet, Wired, Time (latest 3 weeks), and a myrid of catalogs on a variety of topics.
One rule of living in Hawai'i is that you don't move here if you are looking for a job - mainly because this is one of the most remote places on the planet and it tends to cater to locals first (I have a business on the mainland). Oahu has the most technical jobs, but of course also has the least of 'hawai'i (at least in my view - though I'm biased, I'm on the big island). You might try:
http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii?Jobs
That URL has jobs mostly on the big island, though some of the links cover all the islands as well as oahu.
Just to clear it up, we had nothing to do with the Targa+ drivers. We did a special paint package for the targa that was never released due to the fact that it upset the truevision clients who had their own software paint package solutions (and no, it wasn't TIPS).
So keep your thousands of noogies and swirlies for the owners of truevision - the ones who really screwed it up:)
years ago I was hired by Truevision (an older graphic card manufacturer) and was allowed to hire my own team. We were given our own office space (all of us software programmers) in a new building and were allowed to specify what we wanted. Our requests were completely opposite of what the rest of the building had, but we were given all our requests which were as follows:
An interior room with no windows.
Incandescent lighting WITH DIMMER SWITCH (which we kept at a barely visible level
A stereo system
NO CARPETING and good rolling chairs - making it very quick to scoot to someones desk to check out their work
A door with a lock
It was wonderful.
However, now I live in Hawai'i and my lab here is kinda the opposite -- here I have an office which is completely surrounded with glass - but overlooks a beautiful landscaped garden - so it's worth it. Still have the rolling chair, no carpeting and incandescentlighting and locked door.
BTW, unlike the url in the implies you can indeed unburn a monitor if it has not been exposed too long (e.g., years). Make a solid full intensity white full screen image, crank up the brightness and contrast of the monitor, and let it sit there. Basically your burning over the old burn and bringing everything back up (or down if you prefer). It works most of the time if the burn isn't too severe (e.g., i don't think it would work on a 12 year old ATM monitor).
Well, we both seem to be experts and each overlaping our own fields... so i submit this to you... perhaps humanity has enough diversity that there is room for many platforms for many types of people. Those of us who like unix, and understand linux, and like OS X... and those of us who like unix, and understand linux, and don't like OS X. I can live with that. Thank god for choice.
Aloha nui
Shut the hell up about your damn shiny buttons and get yourself a real OS.
Well... looking around my home lab there is an SGI Indigo, a NEXT Box, a Solaris box, a Windows PC, a PS2 Linux Developers system and yes, an OS X Mac.
Given that 5 of the 6 of those are flavors of UNIX - why don't you shut the fuck up. Yes, I wanted an OS X box - why? Because I'm a software designer and have to make sure my code works on MOST UNIX PLATFORMS (note, I didn't say WINDOWS). I have plenty of unix boxes and quite frankly, I prefer to do 99% of my editing and work on the Mac. Try one someday - perhaps you'll get your head out of the penguins asshole.
The REAL point I was trying to make to the ORIGINAL poster was that you DO sometimes replace old things with better things if the old things stop working properly (or, as in Windows case, has NEVER worked properly).
The problem you are referring to is fashion. I have no problem using a 5 year old walkman. I have no problem wearing non-faggy rollerblades from 1997. But most people just buy things based on look. They don't even know how to use them.
*cough* Apple *cough*
go'head kill me
Well... for starters... if your 5 year old walkman constantly skipped tracks, or your rollerblades wheels tended to fall off from time to time, you would probably replace them.
Kinda like my old Windows PC... When OS X came out... I got rid of the broken shit and replaced it with something that worked. The fact that it looks nice to is an added benefit but not the reason for the purchase. (Though I will agree that nobody does pretty plastic better than Apple).
I have two words to say.... "infrared laser". Now... who on this planet living in a house with electricity these days (ok, who in the modern world living in a house with electricity these days) doesn't have a IR laser diode handy.
Last time I checked, it will put a nice hole in the field of vision in the goggles. And guess what - IR lasers are not illegal to own or carry into a movie theater.
Sorry sir.... I was trying to read my watch without disturbing those around me.
Others have mentioned but...
on
Open Maps?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I know other posts here have mentioned the NATIONAL MAP VIEWER but I thought I'd give my two cents on it and some more details.
I too, was looking for a public domain mapping system to assist in a site we are doing about the Big Island of Hawai'i (www.instanthawaii.com). After scouring for sources the National Map Viewer was the best bet. All their data is in the public domain and can be used in a variety of ways.
Once you go to the site you will receive a very nice GUI interface with selections on the left and right and in the middle a map of the US including Hawai'i.
Using your cursor, click and drag a rectangle around the area you are interested in and it will zoom in on your screen. You can continue to zoom in using the same technique (or just clicking in the center of where you want to zoom) but don't zoom past the SCALE=1 graph on the upper right corner (scales below 1 pixelate). At a scale of one the map shows very detailed information - roads are visible, etc.
Now the real fun begins... using the options on the RIGHT SIDE, click each one and look at what they offer. The offerings will change depending on the scale (at a scale of 1, all offerings that are available will be allowed) - some offerings disappear at higher resolutions). THese options act like overlays - you can get street maps, water usage, historical maps, topographical maps, etc. Some of the layers will overwrite other layers so if you want a more complex map you might have to take a number of snapshots.
The selections on the left side are rarely used - except to rezoom the map and scroll the map side to side.
Using this system I was able to generate at a scale of 1, the entire Big Island as a series of over 80 screen shots that I remerged in photoshop to create on HUGE (over 200 megabytes) map that includes all topographical information, roads and rivers and streams. Since this is a volcanic island the map shows most of the craters (anything deeper than about 250 to 300 feet) and quite a few craters I didn't know existed.
This is one of the best tools out there - is a bit tedious to use but once you get the hang of it - it is invaluable.
It is difficult to respond to your question. You don't give us any ideas as to how big your site is in comparison to the 'competitive' site.
For example, you state they only have 4 pages of content - how many do you have, etc.
There are a number of things about your post that strikes me as a bit odd. For example... when we bid projects we give a firm one-time price and a firm one-time delivery date. These are always adhered to - come hell or high water. Of course, changes to the specification can cause changes to the price and timeline, and our clients are aware of that - but as long as no changes are added to the original requirements document we ALWAYS meet our deadlines. Your post tends to leave that kinda open ended (I've given two months of my life - well, didn't you SPEC THAT OUT?).
Secondly, a MAJOR part of our client relationship is TEACHING THE CLIENT what a good website is, etc. Since almost 100% of the sites we do are heavy cgi-bin coded sites (C) with database handling, image processing, etc... there are many factors in such sites that require us to teach the client why one approach is better than another approach. THIS SHOULD BE DONE UP FRONT - NOT AT THE END. You have committed to an approach, but it doesn't strike me that you have educated your client as to the pros and cons of your approach.
Step 1: Discuss the clients needs with the client and show them examples of a number of solutions and outline to the client why each solution is better/worse than the others.
Step 2: Have your client give you feedback on which approach they wish to take, and why. Keep in mind how the site might progress in the future.
Step 3: Deliver to your client a detailed specification that outlines the site, the engines, how they work, how navigation works, how the site graphics look and feel, firm FIXED price and timeframe to delivery. Include periodic goals to show the client (we actually allow the client to critique the design while it is in progress)
Step 4: Create said site, in said timeframe and for said price.
At this point, it doesn't matter what the competitor does or did - the CLIENT was offered all the solutions and all the pros and cons and was properly educated as to why each was good / bad. OBVIOUSLY the competitor also selected one of those solutions - if they didn't, you left one out of your explaination. But assuming that you did your work correctly - than the client will ALREADY know the competitors site sucks (or cost a boatload more) and they will know why.
Most likely the call you will get from your client is *hahahahaha, check out the crap that the competitor did - man are we glad we went with you*.
I can certainly feel for this particular issue. I've often wondered what the impact of CAPPS would be on places like Alaska, or where I live - the Big Island of Hawai'i.
Since the Big Island is not the main island (Oahu) about the only way to get between the islands is airplane (sure, I could book a cruise ship, but that is neither fast nor cost effective).
To top it off, I'm also arab - so what happens if, for whatever reason, I end up on this list. It would probably mean I would not be allowed to leave this island for any reason whatsoever - or if I did manage to leave the island - a good possibility that I would not be able to return home.
That, of course, could have major impacts on jobs (many people leave the islands to look for work) - or healthcare (specialists are often on other islands or the mainland).
What would the impact be if someone were refused flight who had a medical emergency and ended up dieing one wonders.
God is all powerful and there is nothing that He can not do.
Really? If god is ALL POWERFUL... can he/she/it make a ROCK so BIG that he/she/it CAN NOT LIFT IT?
If the answer is yes, then god can not lift the rock and thus is not all powerful. If the answer is no, than god is not all powerful. If the answer is 'quit playing word games, god is beyond words" then WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA get a frig'n life and stop believing in the *words* in the bible.
Way back when, in junior high school (and I'm currently 46 - so Wayyyyyy back when) - my math teacher, a jovial, portly, good natured woman, always had us do assignments that were strangly non-math related.
Among the projects were memorial things like sticking colored beads to styrofoam spheres with pins (very attractive), drawing, and other things that struck me more as being "arts and craft" than math.
About two years after I was out of junior high, she was arrested on the basis that her teaching degrees were completely fictious. She was sent to jail for a few years.
The irony was, that after she got out of jail the city hired her as an accountant. Go figure. And I suck at math and blame it on her (but you should see my beaded styrofoam sphere collection:).
I don't know about the rest of the nation, but here on the Big Island of Hawai'i the iTunes Pepsi's did not show up until the 1st week in April. There were only on bottles in the cooler - none on the shelves had the yellow caps or deals.
So MOST of the pepsi sold here didn't have the deal. They ONLY gave us less than 3 weeks... and then to top it off, a week ago all the remaining ones were pulled and replaced with non-iTunes bottles.
Basically, you had to know - go out of your way to find them - and then hope there would be some next week.
I was able to cash in about 12 tops though - got alot of nice Hawaiian music for it. Thanks Apple:) No thanks Pepsi - you coulda done better considering there's a frig'n bottling plant right in town.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't mind a couple, but when you start to get thousands per acre in what is basically a very very quite place, it is hard to take. Keep in mind that there are no native predators here so nothing keeps them from multiplying.
It's even worse for hotel owners - my significant owns a hotel and even if one frog chirps the guests complain.
The problem is, like them or not, they are destructive and should be removed before the situation is completely out of control.
Unfortunatly we are also home to some invasive alien species that threaten to kill and choke our natural life. One excellant example is the recent appearance of Coqui Frogs (read more) which came in on plants being imported for sales (go figure).
These little frogs (about the size of a nickel) are the loudest thing you have ever heard. At over 110 decibles per chirp there are no predators in Hawai'i for this creature and communities can grow as high as 20,000 to 40,000 per acre. You can imagine the din.
Furthermore, the coqui are eating insects that are normally eaten by our native creatures - which can upset the balance.
Hence my neighbor... coqui are moving into our neighborhood and the neighborhood association asked $44 from each person from which they would hire specialists to come and destroy the coqui (there are two effective methods, one a caffeine spray and the other a citric acid sollution spray - we have used the citric acid spray with great success).
My neighbor, a devout vegean is steadfast against it. Will not treat her coqui... "they have a right to live". Whereas, my response is... hey, man brought them in, man can bring them back out - to which she is very upset. (in the same token, she won't treat for termites, cockroaches, or rats either). Completely misses the point, as far as I can tell, that they are damaging OTHER species - nopers, THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE.
Ah well... I always maintained that eating vegetables was worse because they can't run and hide - and killing an entire field is akin to localized genocide.
Aloha nui loa
Conversations generally go like this "well, this is under NDA but since I have to conform to our TDA, here's the info..."
We did this because of all the utterly stupid NDA's we've had to sign over the years.
If is much easier to have people tell us names and have us turn them on. It is just as easy for people to create a name "spam@whatever" and retire it when it gets nasty and start a new one "spam2@whatever"... which allows them to easily use email addresses at sites where they are required and discard them as they see fit.
We configure all our catchalls to issue NO SUCH USE reponses as well.
And yes about the US and it's drug policy, but what did you expect from a country so stupid as to vote Bush into office.
You might be pleased to know that those of us who honor him have indeed worked around the stupidity of american politics... our own contribution can be found at tranquility - which most people say makes them very happy / stoned / better.
No, i read fast... wait, brb, gotta go gotta go...
...Scientific American, National Geographic, 2600, Mens Health, Instinct, Gourmet, Wired, Time (latest 3 weeks), and a myrid of catalogs on a variety of topics.
http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii?Jobs
That URL has jobs mostly on the big island, though some of the links cover all the islands as well as oahu.
(ouch) - ya, you know, i kinda remember that... on the other hand there are rub-burns to worry about too :)
So keep your thousands of noogies and swirlies for the owners of truevision - the ones who really screwed it up :)
It was wonderful.
However, now I live in Hawai'i and my lab here is kinda the opposite -- here I have an office which is completely surrounded with glass - but overlooks a beautiful landscaped garden - so it's worth it. Still have the rolling chair, no carpeting and incandescentlighting and locked door.
BTW, unlike the url in the implies you can indeed unburn a monitor if it has not been exposed too long (e.g., years). Make a solid full intensity white full screen image, crank up the brightness and contrast of the monitor, and let it sit there. Basically your burning over the old burn and bringing everything back up (or down if you prefer). It works most of the time if the burn isn't too severe (e.g., i don't think it would work on a 12 year old ATM monitor).
Well, we both seem to be experts and each overlaping our own fields... so i submit this to you... perhaps humanity has enough diversity that there is room for many platforms for many types of people. Those of us who like unix, and understand linux, and like OS X... and those of us who like unix, and understand linux, and don't like OS X. I can live with that. Thank god for choice. Aloha nui
Well... looking around my home lab there is an SGI Indigo, a NEXT Box, a Solaris box, a Windows PC, a PS2 Linux Developers system and yes, an OS X Mac.
Given that 5 of the 6 of those are flavors of UNIX - why don't you shut the fuck up. Yes, I wanted an OS X box - why? Because I'm a software designer and have to make sure my code works on MOST UNIX PLATFORMS (note, I didn't say WINDOWS). I have plenty of unix boxes and quite frankly, I prefer to do 99% of my editing and work on the Mac. Try one someday - perhaps you'll get your head out of the penguins asshole.
The REAL point I was trying to make to the ORIGINAL poster was that you DO sometimes replace old things with better things if the old things stop working properly (or, as in Windows case, has NEVER worked properly).
Geeze.
*cough* Apple *cough*
go'head kill me
Well... for starters... if your 5 year old walkman constantly skipped tracks, or your rollerblades wheels tended to fall off from time to time, you would probably replace them.
Kinda like my old Windows PC... When OS X came out... I got rid of the broken shit and replaced it with something that worked. The fact that it looks nice to is an added benefit but not the reason for the purchase. (Though I will agree that nobody does pretty plastic better than Apple).
Last time I checked, it will put a nice hole in the field of vision in the goggles. And guess what - IR lasers are not illegal to own or carry into a movie theater.
Sorry sir.... I was trying to read my watch without disturbing those around me.
I too, was looking for a public domain mapping system to assist in a site we are doing about the Big Island of Hawai'i (www.instanthawaii.com). After scouring for sources the National Map Viewer was the best bet. All their data is in the public domain and can be used in a variety of ways.
Once you go to the site you will receive a very nice GUI interface with selections on the left and right and in the middle a map of the US including Hawai'i.
Using your cursor, click and drag a rectangle around the area you are interested in and it will zoom in on your screen. You can continue to zoom in using the same technique (or just clicking in the center of where you want to zoom) but don't zoom past the SCALE=1 graph on the upper right corner (scales below 1 pixelate). At a scale of one the map shows very detailed information - roads are visible, etc.
Now the real fun begins... using the options on the RIGHT SIDE, click each one and look at what they offer. The offerings will change depending on the scale (at a scale of 1, all offerings that are available will be allowed) - some offerings disappear at higher resolutions). THese options act like overlays - you can get street maps, water usage, historical maps, topographical maps, etc. Some of the layers will overwrite other layers so if you want a more complex map you might have to take a number of snapshots.
The selections on the left side are rarely used - except to rezoom the map and scroll the map side to side.
Using this system I was able to generate at a scale of 1, the entire Big Island as a series of over 80 screen shots that I remerged in photoshop to create on HUGE (over 200 megabytes) map that includes all topographical information, roads and rivers and streams. Since this is a volcanic island the map shows most of the craters (anything deeper than about 250 to 300 feet) and quite a few craters I didn't know existed.
This is one of the best tools out there - is a bit tedious to use but once you get the hang of it - it is invaluable.
coat your house in mirrors
For example, you state they only have 4 pages of content - how many do you have, etc.
There are a number of things about your post that strikes me as a bit odd. For example... when we bid projects we give a firm one-time price and a firm one-time delivery date. These are always adhered to - come hell or high water. Of course, changes to the specification can cause changes to the price and timeline, and our clients are aware of that - but as long as no changes are added to the original requirements document we ALWAYS meet our deadlines. Your post tends to leave that kinda open ended (I've given two months of my life - well, didn't you SPEC THAT OUT?).
Secondly, a MAJOR part of our client relationship is TEACHING THE CLIENT what a good website is, etc. Since almost 100% of the sites we do are heavy cgi-bin coded sites (C) with database handling, image processing, etc... there are many factors in such sites that require us to teach the client why one approach is better than another approach. THIS SHOULD BE DONE UP FRONT - NOT AT THE END. You have committed to an approach, but it doesn't strike me that you have educated your client as to the pros and cons of your approach.
Step 1: Discuss the clients needs with the client and show them examples of a number of solutions and outline to the client why each solution is better/worse than the others.
Step 2: Have your client give you feedback on which approach they wish to take, and why. Keep in mind how the site might progress in the future.
Step 3: Deliver to your client a detailed specification that outlines the site, the engines, how they work, how navigation works, how the site graphics look and feel, firm FIXED price and timeframe to delivery. Include periodic goals to show the client (we actually allow the client to critique the design while it is in progress)
Step 4: Create said site, in said timeframe and for said price.
At this point, it doesn't matter what the competitor does or did - the CLIENT was offered all the solutions and all the pros and cons and was properly educated as to why each was good / bad. OBVIOUSLY the competitor also selected one of those solutions - if they didn't, you left one out of your explaination. But assuming that you did your work correctly - than the client will ALREADY know the competitors site sucks (or cost a boatload more) and they will know why.
Most likely the call you will get from your client is *hahahahaha, check out the crap that the competitor did - man are we glad we went with you*.
Since the Big Island is not the main island (Oahu) about the only way to get between the islands is airplane (sure, I could book a cruise ship, but that is neither fast nor cost effective).
To top it off, I'm also arab - so what happens if, for whatever reason, I end up on this list. It would probably mean I would not be allowed to leave this island for any reason whatsoever - or if I did manage to leave the island - a good possibility that I would not be able to return home.
That, of course, could have major impacts on jobs (many people leave the islands to look for work) - or healthcare (specialists are often on other islands or the mainland).
What would the impact be if someone were refused flight who had a medical emergency and ended up dieing one wonders.
Really? If god is ALL POWERFUL... can he/she/it make a ROCK so BIG that he/she/it CAN NOT LIFT IT?
If the answer is yes, then god can not lift the rock and thus is not all powerful. If the answer is no, than god is not all powerful. If the answer is 'quit playing word games, god is beyond words" then WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA get a frig'n life and stop believing in the *words* in the bible.
Among the projects were memorial things like sticking colored beads to styrofoam spheres with pins (very attractive), drawing, and other things that struck me more as being "arts and craft" than math.
About two years after I was out of junior high, she was arrested on the basis that her teaching degrees were completely fictious. She was sent to jail for a few years.
The irony was, that after she got out of jail the city hired her as an accountant. Go figure. And I suck at math and blame it on her (but you should see my beaded styrofoam sphere collection :).
So MOST of the pepsi sold here didn't have the deal. They ONLY gave us less than 3 weeks... and then to top it off, a week ago all the remaining ones were pulled and replaced with non-iTunes bottles.
Basically, you had to know - go out of your way to find them - and then hope there would be some next week.
I was able to cash in about 12 tops though - got alot of nice Hawaiian music for it. Thanks Apple :) No thanks Pepsi - you coulda done better considering there's a frig'n bottling plant right in town.
Ok, you can have Save be the portrait of Jesus if you have the Trash Can become a portrait of Bush.