Yet another IM feature patent for something that MIT's Zephyr implemented long before. I started using Zephyr at CMU in 1992, and it could (and still can) notify you of a user beginning to type a message. It could even do that in the "public" chat areas. And I'm pretty sure those features date back to even earlier versions. Possibly as early as 1987, but someone would have to do some RCS digging to verify that.
If you need reliable messaging, you really want a paging service anyway.
I've seen text messages sent to a phone take over an hour to be delivered. On multiple carriers.
And according to this
article from January, in some places as much as 7.5% of SMS messages fail to be delivered.
We use SkyTel 2-Way service for our critical paging. They provide delivery status tracking, and since the paging is 2-way, can actually verify that the page was delivered.
We do use phone messaging as a backup notification method for our staff who happen to live in SkyTel coverage holes, so the AT&T change is still biting us. We haven't found a solution yet.
Pennsylvania has established guidelines for placing geocaches inside State Parks and State Forests. They have rules for where to put them, how to label them (including "Official Geocache" stickers!), how to register them with the park directors, etc.
They require a site maintainer to exist, who will be responsible for upkeep of the site. Sites may exist for no more then 3 years before they must move.
All very reasonable rules, and I applaud PA for endorsing this.
Four years ago I was having significant amounts of eye strain. I went to see an opthamologist who was highly recommended to me by someone who had previously experienced the same thing.
I told the opthamologist what I do for a living, and the problems I had been having. She gave me a very thorough exam, including some types of tests I'd never been given before.
She determined that I needed a little bit more power in my mid-range vision, i.e. the range at which a typical computer monitor will be from your eyes. She recommended a prescription with progressive lenses. (Thats the prescription terminology for lenses with invisible tri-focal features. The brand name for most such lenses is 'Varilux'). She prescribed lenses with a very slight amount of additional power in the mid-range focal area.
She also highly recommended anti-reflective coating on the lenses. (The brand name for the AR coating they use is 'Crizal', from the same company)
The bad news: It was the most expensive pair of glasses I had ever purchased. $400+ lenses (hefty prescription, "thin" progressive lenses, anti-reflective coating), plus $200 for Titanium frames that lasted four years.
The good news: No eye strain for the last four years. Despite the price, I was so happy with those glasses, that when they finally broke a few weeks ago, I went back to the same place and spent roughly the same amount for a new pair. But since the new glasses take about a week to arrive and my existing pair was dead, I also went to LensCrafters and got a "cheap" pair that same day. ($150) In the one week I wore those I had such bad headaches at work that I felt like I couldn't get much work done. (Plus, being LensCrafters frames & lenses, they basically feel like toy glasses. But at least I've got a spare pair to wear while playing racquetball.)
Years ago there was a vaguly amusing mac virus/toy floating around that involved installing a small piece of software on a bunch of macs, which were all networked via Appletalk, and then on one machine running a separate application to trigger it. When you did, each machine on the network which had the software installed would have the Energizer Bunny run across its screen, one at a time, with the sound of a beating drum of course.
The professors who taught courses in Mac clusters at CMU used to get real annoyed when the bunny interrupted class.
That wasn't a continuity error, it was just confusing story telling. All of the segments where he's writing his message (to put in the bottles) take place the night before he is rescued, but refer back to the previous days. Thus early in the episode we see the inflatable toy in the background, but later he recalls finding the toy.
I missed part of the show the first time, and seeing it again I understood the timeline better. *any* show which time jumps around should do a better job of making the jumps clear, unless the confusion is supposed to be part of the mystery.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet another IM feature patent for something that MIT's Zephyr implemented long before. I started using Zephyr at CMU in 1992, and it could (and still can) notify you of a user beginning to type a message. It could even do that in the "public" chat areas. And I'm pretty sure those features date back to even earlier versions. Possibly as early as 1987, but someone would have to do some RCS digging to verify that.
I've seen text messages sent to a phone take over an hour to be delivered. On multiple carriers.
And according to this article from January, in some places as much as 7.5% of SMS messages fail to be delivered.
We use SkyTel 2-Way service for our critical paging. They provide delivery status tracking, and since the paging is 2-way, can actually verify that the page was delivered.
We do use phone messaging as a backup notification method for our staff who happen to live in SkyTel coverage holes, so the AT&T change is still biting us. We haven't found a solution yet.
The right answer is 8 d2's, and simple binary arithmetic.
Or a perl one-liner.
Take your pick.
They require a site maintainer to exist, who will be responsible for upkeep of the site. Sites may exist for no more then 3 years before they must move.
All very reasonable rules, and I applaud PA for endorsing this.
I told the opthamologist what I do for a living, and the problems I had been having. She gave me a very thorough exam, including some types of tests I'd never been given before.
She determined that I needed a little bit more power in my mid-range vision, i.e. the range at which a typical computer monitor will be from your eyes. She recommended a prescription with progressive lenses. (Thats the prescription terminology for lenses with invisible tri-focal features. The brand name for most such lenses is 'Varilux'). She prescribed lenses with a very slight amount of additional power in the mid-range focal area.
She also highly recommended anti-reflective coating on the lenses. (The brand name for the AR coating they use is 'Crizal', from the same company)
The bad news: It was the most expensive pair of glasses I had ever purchased. $400+ lenses (hefty prescription, "thin" progressive lenses, anti-reflective coating), plus $200 for Titanium frames that lasted four years.
The good news: No eye strain for the last four years. Despite the price, I was so happy with those glasses, that when they finally broke a few weeks ago, I went back to the same place and spent roughly the same amount for a new pair. But since the new glasses take about a week to arrive and my existing pair was dead, I also went to LensCrafters and got a "cheap" pair that same day. ($150) In the one week I wore those I had such bad headaches at work that I felt like I couldn't get much work done. (Plus, being LensCrafters frames & lenses, they basically feel like toy glasses. But at least I've got a spare pair to wear while playing racquetball.)
The professors who taught courses in Mac clusters at CMU used to get real annoyed when the bunny interrupted class.
That wasn't a continuity error, it was just confusing story telling. All of the segments where he's writing his message (to put in the bottles) take place the night before he is rescued, but refer back to the previous days. Thus early in the episode we see the inflatable toy in the background, but later he recalls finding the toy.
I missed part of the show the first time, and seeing it again I understood the timeline better. *any* show which time jumps around should do a better job of making the jumps clear, unless the confusion is supposed to be part of the mystery.