They *could* just do the third-rail trick as per NYC, Chicago, etc. subway systems, and that would eliminate the overhead catenary lines.
Yes, except that would be incompatible with most railway designs whereas the fuel-cell models are drop-in replacements for diesels. Also you'd still be stuck with the huge cost of electrifying the line.
Then there's the problem of many railway lines not being secured along their length like the systems you're referring to. It'd be rather ugly the first time some person or other large animal crossed a 3rd rail, at a grade crossing or otherwise...
The linked story is pretty short on details, Google has a lot more articles.
Summarized this is a test vehicle being used on a non-electrified line in a mountainous region. The advantages are less local pollution (which can be a significant issue in mountainous regions where diesel exhaust can linger or even concentrate in valleys) and no large capitol investment in line electrification & maintenance. A side benefit is the advantages of an electrical train without power lines intruding into the landscape.
As a regular user of urban commuter rail service this sounds like an interesting development. The cost of electrifying a rail line is prohibitive yet the all-electric engines are quieter and less polluting, a big sell in expanding service in urban & ex-urban areas. Technology like this could certainly quiet the complaints of many neighbors as well as improve the air quality near central stations.
My problem arises when I take my old Powerbook in there and realize I need to use the restroom.
Because actually making social contact with someone and saying "Would you keep an eye on this while I use the restroom?" is too scary?
Seriously, why are you IN the coffeeshop? A coffee you can't make at home? At $3 a cup? If coffee were the real reason then buying some brew-gadget would pay itself off quickly and you could stay in your jammies.
No, you're likely in the coffee shop for the social aspect. The people watching. The camaraderie. So you're NOT alone typing away in an empty room.
So participate. Stop being the random geek in the corner pecking away at the old Mac and take this opportunity to make some minimal social contact. Heck, if you're clever about it make this the opening gambit at getting to know someone else of interest (romantically, intellectually, style-wise, whatever.)
Yeah, I know, talking to someone at the next table is far harder then installing another bit of software, but it's far more rewarding in the long run.
ps to the whiner "They're taking up seats!" Guess what? The shop installed the free WiFi for a reason. They installed the extra electrical outlets for a reason. Many of the customers are regulars specifically for those reasons. Apparently it is paying off for the shop. Yes some overstay, but if they're discomfitting a random like you it's not really a loss to the shop is it?
Before the whiners all start going "I didn't understand that, acronyms are haaard!" guess what: It wasn't written for you.
Seriously.
This is a geek website. Discussions here can be expected to be reasonably technical. Nothing in the original post is particularly esoteric, most IT professionals will understand most of the post and guess the rest.
Those who don't follow are welcome to read along. But acting like spoiled children and complaining this isn't all "babytalk" is not acceptable. If you really want to learn then look up the acronyms and post an explanation for all other the other lost folks.
About 10 years ago my mother and her sister bought a summer house in Nova Scotia, Canada. Both are from there, though nowhere near where they bought the house and they now live in Boston, Mass. & Vancouver, B.C. respectively. However it was a pretty place, along a river, 100 acres, two barns, woods, orchard, fantastic year-round neighbors, good deal, etc.
However my aunt is a real estate agent and after a few years of flying cross-country for vacations wondered if her investment money wouldn't be more productive elsewhere. So almost on a lark she listed on an online auction site, no commitment to sell. And the bidding went insane!
So she called up Mom, confessed what she had done, then agreed that if the silly numbers were true they'd sell. They ended up having a prospective buyer fly up from Texas and stay in the house for a few days. The buyer loved the place, made an offer that was jaw-dropping by local real estate values, and the place was sold.
However, the buyer was from Texas, i.e. a US citizen. This hadn't been an issue for my mother, after 40-some years in the US she has always remained Canadian, but they did warn the buyer they'd have to look into local laws, particularly as they were dog-breeders and planning to use the barns for kennels, etc.
(By the way, Nova Scotia is cheap and trying hard to make itself attractive to retirees; if you're looking for a vacation place or to retire it's a great place to consider!)
Anyway, within a few years the new buyer had to sell. They'd not done their homework and had instead simply moved and started selling dogs. Apparently when informed they'd have to leave the country and immigrate the legal way they didn't find a peer online to sell the house to and instead sold at a rate far more in keeping with the local norms, and thus took a complete bath on the whole process.
So my family had a GREAT experience, others might not do so well...
Oh, and there's my buddy Richard, who buys a new eMachine PC on sale every year, images it's drive, pulls out and replaces the parts he doesn't care for, then a year later sets it back up the way he got it and sells it online, every time for more then he'd bought it for a year earlier! There really is another sucker online every minute!
Jeez. Some people really need to wash the sand out of their vaginas.
Yeah, you got corrected, publicly. BFD.
So learn from it. And those other who read it, learn from it.
It was a question you could have trivially answered for yourself. And should have. Instead you wasted folks time posting it. Then, when publicly remonstrated, get snippy.
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life."
"Give a man an answer, and you teach him for a day. Teach a man to look it up for himself, and you teach him to learn for life."
Now you're perpetuating your mistake, acknowledging it but not learning from it. Howzabout "Gee, that was boneheaded, sorry, won't do that again", and then contributing positively in the future?
It would be so easy for someplace like Best Buy or Circuit City to crush them. All they'd have to do is convert one aisle into a larger/better version of the back of a Radio Shack and suddenly the Shack would have no niche at all.
Nope.
RS's are generally small. That's how they get one so close to everyone (95% of US pop. within 10 miles of a RS, about the same numbers for Canada's RS licensee). Big box stores are, well, big. Their economics don't put them into half the strip malls on the continent. Furthermore folks are often buying at RS precisely because they don't want to deal with looking on aisle 44, mile 2, past the dryers; they want a local friendly place, or at least one that feels that way.
Who RS does have to worry about is the office supply stores. I was out last night driving through the suburbs of Boston, Mass., I musta passed a half dozen "Staples" (their HQ isn't far away.) It's they, and Office Max/Bureau En Gros, who are RS's growing competition. Their margins are better then the big boxes and they fit into a sweet spot between big box and small storefront, plus they have multiple draws with their copier centers, shipping services, and of course office supplies.
But out-to-crush-RS? That's probably in nobody's business plan - RS owns their corner of the market and their biggest danger is erosion, not direct competition.
Nostalgia is lovely honey, but when was the last time you bought a Zener diode?
I miss my grandfather's horse whip business, but when times changed he got a filling station (all true, and the station went bust in the Depression.) Ratshack couldn't make it on the radios covered in fake fur so they looked like poodles, and the "Battery Club" never brought in THAT many folks, so they had to move on.
Radio Shack is everywhere. Something like 95% of US households are within 10 miles of a Radio Shack. 99% of all US household members wander through a Radio Shack every few years. That makes them closer then the big box stores, just the place to drop into for the odd watch battery, TV cable, or gadget gift.
Radio Shack has that to their advantage. So they went with it. No huge inventory of electronics parts taking up room that turned over every few years. Instead they can make more per square foot with bogus air ionizers, RC cars, and over-over-priced A/V & computer stuff. And now TiVo.
But ya know what? They sell! $45 for a keyboard, the same one as Best Buy for $30 and $10 online, it pays the bills. S-Video cable, hit the local RS for double the cost or go wandering the bowels of Circuit City, past the washing machines, with chirpy kids insisting to 'help' when they wouldn't know an S-Video cable if you flogged 'em with it (yes, thank you, I'm literate, I can read the labels on the store shelves for myself, no need to annoy me with your non-assistance.)
So RS stays in business. Heck, with cellphones they've even prospered. Sure I laughed out loud the day I read on the bottom of an email "Radio Shack: You've got questions - we've got blank stares. And cell phones!" but truth be told they're more convenient then a carrier's store and the staff is better then the kiosk monkeys.
This will be a smart partnership for TiVo. They'll get huge visibility, their products won't be lost in the bowels of BigCo. in the dark areas behind the giant flat panel TVs, instead front & center in every mall & burg in the US. That's what TiVo needs, now they just need to give every RS employee a TiVo for 2 months, then let 'em loose to sell away!
Wow - Hemos posted this & not ScuttleMonkey? Usually SM is the one who falls for the "I read it on the Intarweb so it must be true!" psuedo-science...
Look, that there's lots of stuff from off-planet in rain is well known and trivially documented; a couple of tons a day comes down. Heck, run a magnet over the gunk in a rainwater drain and a fair proportion of what gets pulled up will be extra-terrestrial in origin. This is one of those classic easy Science Fair projects.
There's even a popular theory of raindrop formation that requires these high altitude extra-terrestrial fines as the nucleus for starting droplet cascades.
However, 2 months of material entering the Earth's atmosphere over a limited geographical area - there's no mechanism that would permit this. The Earth rotates every 24 hours as it revolves around our Sun: What could be impacting our planet on a schedule that has it ingressing at distinct 24 hour intervals over 2 months/a series of 60, to a non-equatorial location?
Someone really needs to get this guy a globe, or better yet an orrery.
Sure it's possible that the rain contaminant isn't upwind mineralogical fines - sure it could be biological fines. Pollen is the obvious source, they had a huge bloom of something odd upwind that year. I know my house gets covered in yellow 'dust' every spring from all the nearby trees, red is just as possible.
But "it's alien life from ooouter spaaace!..." - no. Not saying that couldn't happen, hasn't happened, isn't happening, but this wouldn't be the pattern and there are too many much more prosaic explanations than these extraordinary claims.
I used to work for a large Boston Mass. teaching hospital complex, which had a shared translators department. Getting to know a few of them their requirements were quite impressive. They had to be familiar with anatomy, diagnostic procedures, hospital procedures, & pharmaceuticals in both English and their supported language(s).
I've also been an Anglophone living in rural Quebec using local medical facilities, where the medical staff was not at all comfortable working in English (and please not the old canard they were doing it for effect, I never ran into that in eight years. Jerks screeching "English!" get ignored, not the rest of us.)
Point is that there is a huge need for medical translation, not just in major urban hospitals but also in rural clinics. And not just from English to Ubbadubba but also in reverse.
I can't imagine technology being able to replace the nuances of a trained translator and caregivers working together, in person, with a patient and families, picking up nuances and culturally idiomatic body language. However this is better then requiring care and being unable to communicate at all, or trying to pantomime medical issues.
For timers & places where there isn't a translator avialable something like this is fantastic. Indeed I'd love to see it extended with graphics, offering short animated video clips describing common issues & procedures for patients unfamilier with local medical practices.
Guess what: No need for big signs, alternate numbers, passing out pagers, etc.
Every cellphone has a "Service Indicator". When it's out of touch - it knows.
Your phone knows, it can be trivially set to signal to you when it looses contact so you know.
Therefore, if you're really on such a short leash you can't be out of touch for 90 minutes or whatever, then it is your responsibility to see to it your cellphone is receiving a signal.
Not a theater's.
Not a restaurant's.
Not your service provider's
YOUR'S
So no tunnels fo you, no going deep inside big buildings, shadows of hills, large cellphone-calling crowds, or places with faraday cages.
And, and before we hear for the 10,000th time some asinine variation of "Doctors must be in touch":
No, they often don't need to be. Every competent medical facility has plans in place for when a specific member of the staff can't be reached.
If someone is required to be reachable then guess what: They don't do things that would put them out of touch. If they lose contact they change locations, call in with an alternate number, etc.
Finally, if it is so absolutely vital that YOU be instantly reachable at all times then those around you, whomever it is depending on you, had really reconsider the position they're putting you, and themselves, in. If the proverbial bus hits you tomorrow are they really that screwed?
If so, who allowed this situation to develop? If this is business then that person needs to be fired, now. If it's social, then this really isn't healthy. Parenting: If you can't be out of touch then what kind of child/childcare is happening?
Finally, on behalf of all of us with enough sense to turn off our cellphones, go out for a dinner without interrupting the person we're with for folks we're not with, having confidence in the good sense of the person we've left our child with, the rationiality to arrange to have 90 minutes 'off-hook' so we can enjoy the show: We'll be happy to tell you how it was.
Leave a message and we'll call you back, when convenient.
For all of those crowing "I told you so!" the files are all where they should be, still under an open license. There was apparently a hiccup which Apple fixed as soon as they found out about the oversight.
You may now move on to other pumped-up / days-old non-dramas.
Yes yes yes, Ratshack isn't what it was years ago.
Neither is the world.
It used to be when something broke you repaired it. In ye olde days you whittled a new part, as technology moved forward you went to the village smythee, then in the industrial era went to the parts shop and got a new one. That's what RS was - a parts shop for the early electronics age.
But now all of our electronics are black boxes of surface mount components from far-away places. The days of replacing a tube, or even a 555, are past. Sure there's the odd capacitor that knowledgeable folks can replace but faced with a board of illegibly marked ASICS, no way.
So Radio Shack had to change.
They're everywhere. Something like 95% of US households are within 10 miles of a Radio Shack. 99% of all US household members wander through a Radio Shack every few years. That makes them closer then most big box stores, just the place to drop into for the odd watch battery, TV cable, or gadget gift.
Radio Shack has that to their advantage. So they went with it. No huge inventory of electronics parts taking up room that turned over every few years. Instead they can make more per square foot with bogus air ionizers, RC cars, and over-over-priced A/V & computer stuff.
But ya know what? They sell! $45 for a keyboard, the same one as Best Buy for $30 and $10 online, it pays the bills. S-Video cable, hit the local RS for 2x$ or go wandering the bowels of Circuit City, past the washing machines, with chirpy kids insisting to 'help' when they wouldn't know an S-Video cable if you flogged 'em with it (yes, thank you, I'm literate, I can read the labels on the store shelves for myself, no need to annoy me with your non-assistance.)
So RS stays in business. Heck, with cellphones they've even prospered. Sure I laughed out loud the day I read on the bottom of an email "Radio Shack: You've got questions - we've got blank stares. And cell phones!" but truth be told they're more convenient then a carrier's store and the staff is better then the kiosk monkeys.
Long term, I think they'll make it. Their stock is a bit better then the electronics section at the mega "grocery" store, closer then a real electronics supplier, and with smaller stores at least they know where things are more often then past-the-microwaves-and-ask-in-car-radios.
I do miss buying parts, and kits, there. And the battery club, and the fuzzy purple cat radios, and even getting the two pieces of leather, some cord, and an embossing tool for making a nifty decorative leather comb holster for a gift (what every stylin' teen needed no doubt.) But I also like $20 electronics from China.
Why buy Blockbuster when you can duplicate it in inside of a vending machine?
Seriously, who needs a coupla thousand square feet of overlit retail space and some glassy-eyed clerks when a vending machine can do the exact same thing, 24/7, in 12 square feet, installable in any mini-mall, public transit station, school or grocery store? If Apple were really interested in direct loads to iPods one of these and a network connection is all they need.
Figure a box the size of your typical soda machine (mostly for security & visibility), fill the bottom foot with concrete for stability and theft-discouragement, then a rack with an Xserve & some reasonably high-speed communications gear. Have it download material on a regular basis, video & audio, in whatever formats and quality required. Put some smarts into the system so local demographics are respected and demand is anticipated (Espaniol in Spanish neighborhoods, kiddie material when installed in schools, etc.) On the front stick a few TV screens showing previews and specials.
For security double encrypt all of the media content, partially decrypt as it's being iPod-loaded, then have it played back using a public key system. Then step back and see what sells. Sure music, videos, ringtones and movies can be the first products but what about software, indeed any sort of large or valuable file. Leave room in the top of the box for wireless distribution - walk nearby and your electronics can auto-discover streaming audio and video advertising in WiFi & Bluetooth, access to websites that pay Apple for the privilege, etc.
But a whole Blockbuster? Naw, a mini Lockerbuster!
The issue is...one turbine generates 10% of the power for an island...and then it gets rusty. He he he....maintenance is a b!tch, then she gets PMS. Imagine loosing 10% of your generation capacity instantly.
Wow - power plants require maintenance have downtime....
That is modded as "Interesting"? To who?!
Most waves only travel along the surface...I wonder what a good, strong underwater (tsunami-type) wave would do to it?
Nothing.
Seriously, absolutely no effect.
It's not "most waves only travel along the surface" - ALL waves travel through their medium. Waves aren't currents, they're transmitted motion. Use this page's Java applet to see the effect in the water for yourself, keeping in mind Tsunami are long period waves (figure 30 minutes), typically under a meter high, and the turbines are 75-200 meters deep.
Apparently someone skipped gradeschool science. Or has never been to a beach, noticed the lack of devastation on the sand as a non-breaking waves passes over...
Now, about your publicly calling other folks "moron"...
A crumb on your living room floor is a great way to put Bermuda in context of the Atlantic.
However it doesn't work so great in context of the Gulf Stream.
The Gulf Stream is not some huge tide-like current hundreds of kilometers wide, instead it's typically only a kilometer or two wide. Indeed if you fly over it (I have a number of times) it appears as a clearly defined 'river', of a much different color then it's surrounding waters, with large swirls & eddies sometimes breaking off of it, cutting through the otherwise featureless ocean.
So while Bermuda may be a crumb the Gulf Stream is a spider strand.
That said I don't think putting a few turbines, or even 'a lot' will have significant effect on it. The total energy in it is incredible and it's an ongoing process, there's not some hose at one end that can be cut off stopping it all, but rather a push & pull process that keeps the whole thing going. Even if Bermuda were able to pull out 1% of the energy in it that would be less then the effect of a slightly windier or cloudier day in the Gulf on it, completely lost in the noise level.
By the way, if you're ever on the East Coast of the US & have some friends who fly ask them to take a gander next time they're over the seashore for any eddies off of the Gulf Stream that are close to the shore. They're much lighter colored then the usual cold dark blue Atlantic waters, easy to spot. If there are any by a beach then take the opportunity to go swimming in it - it's amazing. Cold cold cold Atlantic waters then suddenly bathwater warm, often with tropical fish trapped inside the thermocline. I've enjoyed a few off of Provincetown, Mass. (tip of Cape Cod) and they're times I treasure , and friends who were along retell of the experience over & over.
Apple has ALWAYS made it clear their move to Intel would be in stages.
Apple has ALWAYS said it would be done from their lower-end products to their upper-end.
The iMac is Apple's entry-level product.
Therefore the iMac being iNtelicized first is in line with Apple's announced plans.
With the iMac being Apple's entry-level consumer product it doesn't have a large professional user base.
Therefore professionals, who have large investments in hardware and software, are unlikely to be affected by the Intel transition until it reaches the products they use: The Professional-level Macs like the G5 line.
So Adobe not shipping Universal Binary products for their professional level until the professional grade hardware is ready is surprising to who?
Seriously, if you're appalled that Adobe et al aren't shipping Universal Binaries right away only means you haven't been paying attention. If you really are a professional photographer or someone who honestly depends on these type products you'd have to have been comatose the past year not to be well aware of all of this.
Instead what I hear are a buncha wannebe-geeks who went out 'n bought the newest and shiniest and are now whining because they chose to ignore what anyone with half a clue woulda and most likely did tell 'em. You shelled out over a grand for a new product and couldn't be bothered to find out if the software you want to run on it actually would anytime soon.
Get the hell off/., I'm sure there's some support chat group out there for you on AOL somewhere. Try keyword "12:00-Flasher"
Frankly I just hope there is someone out there clubbing you monkeys over the head with instructions on how to use a contraceptive.
The best comment I've heard about Bush's "Science Advisor" comes via Bob Park's weekly "What's New" email from Friday, September 2, 2005:
THE SCIENCE ADVISOR: IS THERE A WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE ADVISOR?
Actually, no. The President didn't consult his science advisor
about intelligent design because he doesn't have one. George W.
Bush eliminated the job when he named John Marburger Director of
the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previous OSTP
directors held both titles, and WN always referred to Marburger
as "Science Advisor." We were wrong, but not alone. We Googled
"science advisor" and got 597,000 hits on a nonexistent job.
As they used to say at Stony Brook when he was president, "this
would never have happened if Jack Marburger was alive."
There's a good investigation of the Apple/Cray stories online
The way I understood it back then was Apple used a Cray for modeling heat flow in Mac cases and then for designing those case's injection molds. The result was Apple was able to quickly test out various case designs and layouts, keep their Macs fanless for a significant cost, reliability, and noise advantage, and then expedite construction of those cases. Considering Apple then had up to 48 Mac variations out on the market at once back then they probably made good use of the Cray(s).
I remember my Mac IIci made thusly quite fondly - two easy clips on the case and a single screw held everything together, it lifted apart in neat layers. That was fantastic compared to the NEC, Zenith, Honeywell-Bull & Compaq PCs that I was working with that required prying them apart with a screwdriver inserted in just the right obscure spot, then another on the other side, pulling open the case open with a third, and invariably the sacrifice of knuckle-skin to some insanely located screw on some internal component or other.
The FBI was working under the supposition that people were in fairly immediate danger and that they needed to move to get the information ASAP. They determined that previous case law allowed for this
The FBI is quite able to get a search warrant quickly when it needs to. There is always a judge on call expressly for such emergency situations.
Furthermore this wasn't a panicked run to the library, there was a call made a half hour prior to their arrival informing the library. In that time the agents would have had no difficulty obtaining the required warrant and confirming it with the library upon their arrival.
Instead the FBI agents involved (incorrectly) assumed they could walk in, seize, and then search anything they wished. That they assumed so points to a grave deficiency in their training and understanding of the legal requirements they operate under.
Mitt Romney has said lots of things before, then recanted them as soon as the polls or the cash said differently. Look up his record on abortion rights, he's flipped and flopped and spun around like a carnival ride. That's the way he is on most things, determined to say whatever it takes to get to higher office, aiming for those four years of freedom where he can finally be his wingnut self, followed by a VERY comfy retirement of corporate boards and super-premium speaking engagements.
He's such a great Businessman he couldn't pay his taxes to the right state.
He's such a great Salesman he regularly trashes the state he governs when out on the campaign trail.
He's such a great Leader he's accomplished almost nothing of note during his time as Governor (sadly didn't read the Employee Handbook before running and discover that he couldn't issue fiats & edicts, that he might actually have to work with the rest of the state's political apparatus.)
Romney wouldn't know ODF if it stole his magic underwear; he's just upped his bidding price.
Slashdot Mirror
Then there's the problem of many railway lines not being secured along their length like the systems you're referring to. It'd be rather ugly the first time some person or other large animal crossed a 3rd rail, at a grade crossing or otherwise...
Summarized this is a test vehicle being used on a non-electrified line in a mountainous region. The advantages are less local pollution (which can be a significant issue in mountainous regions where diesel exhaust can linger or even concentrate in valleys) and no large capitol investment in line electrification & maintenance. A side benefit is the advantages of an electrical train without power lines intruding into the landscape.
As a regular user of urban commuter rail service this sounds like an interesting development. The cost of electrifying a rail line is prohibitive yet the all-electric engines are quieter and less polluting, a big sell in expanding service in urban & ex-urban areas. Technology like this could certainly quiet the complaints of many neighbors as well as improve the air quality near central stations.
Random blogger issues challenge to PBS columnist / NYT editorialist!
ASCII animation at 11pm...
Seriously, why are you IN the coffeeshop? A coffee you can't make at home? At $3 a cup? If coffee were the real reason then buying some brew-gadget would pay itself off quickly and you could stay in your jammies.
No, you're likely in the coffee shop for the social aspect. The people watching. The camaraderie. So you're NOT alone typing away in an empty room.
So participate. Stop being the random geek in the corner pecking away at the old Mac and take this opportunity to make some minimal social contact. Heck, if you're clever about it make this the opening gambit at getting to know someone else of interest (romantically, intellectually, style-wise, whatever.)
Yeah, I know, talking to someone at the next table is far harder then installing another bit of software, but it's far more rewarding in the long run.
ps to the whiner "They're taking up seats!" Guess what? The shop installed the free WiFi for a reason. They installed the extra electrical outlets for a reason. Many of the customers are regulars specifically for those reasons. Apparently it is paying off for the shop. Yes some overstay, but if they're discomfitting a random like you it's not really a loss to the shop is it?
Seriously.
This is a geek website. Discussions here can be expected to be reasonably technical. Nothing in the original post is particularly esoteric, most IT professionals will understand most of the post and guess the rest.
Those who don't follow are welcome to read along. But acting like spoiled children and complaining this isn't all "babytalk" is not acceptable. If you really want to learn then look up the acronyms and post an explanation for all other the other lost folks.
However my aunt is a real estate agent and after a few years of flying cross-country for vacations wondered if her investment money wouldn't be more productive elsewhere. So almost on a lark she listed on an online auction site, no commitment to sell. And the bidding went insane!
So she called up Mom, confessed what she had done, then agreed that if the silly numbers were true they'd sell. They ended up having a prospective buyer fly up from Texas and stay in the house for a few days. The buyer loved the place, made an offer that was jaw-dropping by local real estate values, and the place was sold.
However, the buyer was from Texas, i.e. a US citizen. This hadn't been an issue for my mother, after 40-some years in the US she has always remained Canadian, but they did warn the buyer they'd have to look into local laws, particularly as they were dog-breeders and planning to use the barns for kennels, etc.
(By the way, Nova Scotia is cheap and trying hard to make itself attractive to retirees; if you're looking for a vacation place or to retire it's a great place to consider!)
Anyway, within a few years the new buyer had to sell. They'd not done their homework and had instead simply moved and started selling dogs. Apparently when informed they'd have to leave the country and immigrate the legal way they didn't find a peer online to sell the house to and instead sold at a rate far more in keeping with the local norms, and thus took a complete bath on the whole process.
So my family had a GREAT experience, others might not do so well...
Oh, and there's my buddy Richard, who buys a new eMachine PC on sale every year, images it's drive, pulls out and replaces the parts he doesn't care for, then a year later sets it back up the way he got it and sells it online, every time for more then he'd bought it for a year earlier! There really is another sucker online every minute!
Yeah, you got corrected, publicly. BFD.
So learn from it. And those other who read it, learn from it.
It was a question you could have trivially answered for yourself. And should have. Instead you wasted folks time posting it. Then, when publicly remonstrated, get snippy.
Now you're perpetuating your mistake, acknowledging it but not learning from it. Howzabout "Gee, that was boneheaded, sorry, won't do that again", and then contributing positively in the future?Instead of bleating for help howzabout looking up your question for yourself?
"university wisconsin mac challenge" are some good key words.
If you think the topic is of general interest then post back your results.
RS's are generally small. That's how they get one so close to everyone (95% of US pop. within 10 miles of a RS, about the same numbers for Canada's RS licensee). Big box stores are, well, big. Their economics don't put them into half the strip malls on the continent. Furthermore folks are often buying at RS precisely because they don't want to deal with looking on aisle 44, mile 2, past the dryers; they want a local friendly place, or at least one that feels that way.
Who RS does have to worry about is the office supply stores. I was out last night driving through the suburbs of Boston, Mass., I musta passed a half dozen "Staples" (their HQ isn't far away.) It's they, and Office Max/Bureau En Gros, who are RS's growing competition. Their margins are better then the big boxes and they fit into a sweet spot between big box and small storefront, plus they have multiple draws with their copier centers, shipping services, and of course office supplies.
But out-to-crush-RS? That's probably in nobody's business plan - RS owns their corner of the market and their biggest danger is erosion, not direct competition.
I miss my grandfather's horse whip business, but when times changed he got a filling station (all true, and the station went bust in the Depression.) Ratshack couldn't make it on the radios covered in fake fur so they looked like poodles, and the "Battery Club" never brought in THAT many folks, so they had to move on.
Radio Shack is everywhere. Something like 95% of US households are within 10 miles of a Radio Shack. 99% of all US household members wander through a Radio Shack every few years. That makes them closer then the big box stores, just the place to drop into for the odd watch battery, TV cable, or gadget gift.
Radio Shack has that to their advantage. So they went with it. No huge inventory of electronics parts taking up room that turned over every few years. Instead they can make more per square foot with bogus air ionizers, RC cars, and over-over-priced A/V & computer stuff. And now TiVo.
But ya know what? They sell! $45 for a keyboard, the same one as Best Buy for $30 and $10 online, it pays the bills. S-Video cable, hit the local RS for double the cost or go wandering the bowels of Circuit City, past the washing machines, with chirpy kids insisting to 'help' when they wouldn't know an S-Video cable if you flogged 'em with it (yes, thank you, I'm literate, I can read the labels on the store shelves for myself, no need to annoy me with your non-assistance.)
So RS stays in business. Heck, with cellphones they've even prospered. Sure I laughed out loud the day I read on the bottom of an email "Radio Shack: You've got questions - we've got blank stares. And cell phones!" but truth be told they're more convenient then a carrier's store and the staff is better then the kiosk monkeys.
This will be a smart partnership for TiVo. They'll get huge visibility, their products won't be lost in the bowels of BigCo. in the dark areas behind the giant flat panel TVs, instead front & center in every mall & burg in the US. That's what TiVo needs, now they just need to give every RS employee a TiVo for 2 months, then let 'em loose to sell away!
Look, that there's lots of stuff from off-planet in rain is well known and trivially documented; a couple of tons a day comes down. Heck, run a magnet over the gunk in a rainwater drain and a fair proportion of what gets pulled up will be extra-terrestrial in origin. This is one of those classic easy Science Fair projects.
There's even a popular theory of raindrop formation that requires these high altitude extra-terrestrial fines as the nucleus for starting droplet cascades.
However, 2 months of material entering the Earth's atmosphere over a limited geographical area - there's no mechanism that would permit this. The Earth rotates every 24 hours as it revolves around our Sun: What could be impacting our planet on a schedule that has it ingressing at distinct 24 hour intervals over 2 months/a series of 60, to a non-equatorial location?
Someone really needs to get this guy a globe, or better yet an orrery.
Sure it's possible that the rain contaminant isn't upwind mineralogical fines - sure it could be biological fines. Pollen is the obvious source, they had a huge bloom of something odd upwind that year. I know my house gets covered in yellow 'dust' every spring from all the nearby trees, red is just as possible.
But "it's alien life from ooouter spaaace!..." - no. Not saying that couldn't happen, hasn't happened, isn't happening, but this wouldn't be the pattern and there are too many much more prosaic explanations than these extraordinary claims.
I've also been an Anglophone living in rural Quebec using local medical facilities, where the medical staff was not at all comfortable working in English (and please not the old canard they were doing it for effect, I never ran into that in eight years. Jerks screeching "English!" get ignored, not the rest of us.)
Point is that there is a huge need for medical translation, not just in major urban hospitals but also in rural clinics. And not just from English to Ubbadubba but also in reverse.
I can't imagine technology being able to replace the nuances of a trained translator and caregivers working together, in person, with a patient and families, picking up nuances and culturally idiomatic body language. However this is better then requiring care and being unable to communicate at all, or trying to pantomime medical issues.
For timers & places where there isn't a translator avialable something like this is fantastic. Indeed I'd love to see it extended with graphics, offering short animated video clips describing common issues & procedures for patients unfamilier with local medical practices.
MY CELLPHONE MIGHT NOT WORK SOMEWHERE!
Must find reason why this is unacceptable.
Tough Luck!
Guess what: No need for big signs, alternate numbers, passing out pagers, etc.
Every cellphone has a "Service Indicator". When it's out of touch - it knows.
Your phone knows, it can be trivially set to signal to you when it looses contact so you know.
Therefore, if you're really on such a short leash you can't be out of touch for 90 minutes or whatever, then it is your responsibility to see to it your cellphone is receiving a signal.
Not a theater's.
Not a restaurant's.
Not your service provider's
YOUR'S
So no tunnels fo you, no going deep inside big buildings, shadows of hills, large cellphone-calling crowds, or places with faraday cages.
And, and before we hear for the 10,000th time some asinine variation of "Doctors must be in touch":
Finally, if it is so absolutely vital that YOU be instantly reachable at all times then those around you, whomever it is depending on you, had really reconsider the position they're putting you, and themselves, in. If the proverbial bus hits you tomorrow are they really that screwed?
If so, who allowed this situation to develop? If this is business then that person needs to be fired, now. If it's social, then this really isn't healthy. Parenting: If you can't be out of touch then what kind of child/childcare is happening?
Finally, on behalf of all of us with enough sense to turn off our cellphones, go out for a dinner without interrupting the person we're with for folks we're not with, having confidence in the good sense of the person we've left our child with, the rationiality to arrange to have 90 minutes 'off-hook' so we can enjoy the show: We'll be happy to tell you how it was.
Leave a message and we'll call you back, when convenient.
You may now move on to other pumped-up / days-old non-dramas.
Neither is the world.
It used to be when something broke you repaired it. In ye olde days you whittled a new part, as technology moved forward you went to the village smythee, then in the industrial era went to the parts shop and got a new one. That's what RS was - a parts shop for the early electronics age.
But now all of our electronics are black boxes of surface mount components from far-away places. The days of replacing a tube, or even a 555, are past. Sure there's the odd capacitor that knowledgeable folks can replace but faced with a board of illegibly marked ASICS, no way.
So Radio Shack had to change.
They're everywhere. Something like 95% of US households are within 10 miles of a Radio Shack. 99% of all US household members wander through a Radio Shack every few years. That makes them closer then most big box stores, just the place to drop into for the odd watch battery, TV cable, or gadget gift.
Radio Shack has that to their advantage. So they went with it. No huge inventory of electronics parts taking up room that turned over every few years. Instead they can make more per square foot with bogus air ionizers, RC cars, and over-over-priced A/V & computer stuff.
But ya know what? They sell! $45 for a keyboard, the same one as Best Buy for $30 and $10 online, it pays the bills. S-Video cable, hit the local RS for 2x$ or go wandering the bowels of Circuit City, past the washing machines, with chirpy kids insisting to 'help' when they wouldn't know an S-Video cable if you flogged 'em with it (yes, thank you, I'm literate, I can read the labels on the store shelves for myself, no need to annoy me with your non-assistance.)
So RS stays in business. Heck, with cellphones they've even prospered. Sure I laughed out loud the day I read on the bottom of an email "Radio Shack: You've got questions - we've got blank stares. And cell phones!" but truth be told they're more convenient then a carrier's store and the staff is better then the kiosk monkeys.
Long term, I think they'll make it. Their stock is a bit better then the electronics section at the mega "grocery" store, closer then a real electronics supplier, and with smaller stores at least they know where things are more often then past-the-microwaves-and-ask-in-car-radios.
I do miss buying parts, and kits, there. And the battery club, and the fuzzy purple cat radios, and even getting the two pieces of leather, some cord, and an embossing tool for making a nifty decorative leather comb holster for a gift (what every stylin' teen needed no doubt.) But I also like $20 electronics from China.
Seriously, who needs a coupla thousand square feet of overlit retail space and some glassy-eyed clerks when a vending machine can do the exact same thing, 24/7, in 12 square feet, installable in any mini-mall, public transit station, school or grocery store? If Apple were really interested in direct loads to iPods one of these and a network connection is all they need.
Figure a box the size of your typical soda machine (mostly for security & visibility), fill the bottom foot with concrete for stability and theft-discouragement, then a rack with an Xserve & some reasonably high-speed communications gear. Have it download material on a regular basis, video & audio, in whatever formats and quality required. Put some smarts into the system so local demographics are respected and demand is anticipated (Espaniol in Spanish neighborhoods, kiddie material when installed in schools, etc.) On the front stick a few TV screens showing previews and specials.
For security double encrypt all of the media content, partially decrypt as it's being iPod-loaded, then have it played back using a public key system. Then step back and see what sells. Sure music, videos, ringtones and movies can be the first products but what about software, indeed any sort of large or valuable file. Leave room in the top of the box for wireless distribution - walk nearby and your electronics can auto-discover streaming audio and video advertising in WiFi & Bluetooth, access to websites that pay Apple for the privilege, etc.
But a whole Blockbuster? Naw, a mini Lockerbuster!
That is modded as "Interesting"? To who?!
Nothing.Seriously, absolutely no effect.
It's not "most waves only travel along the surface" - ALL waves travel through their medium. Waves aren't currents, they're transmitted motion. Use this page's Java applet to see the effect in the water for yourself, keeping in mind Tsunami are long period waves (figure 30 minutes), typically under a meter high, and the turbines are 75-200 meters deep.
Apparently someone skipped gradeschool science. Or has never been to a beach, noticed the lack of devastation on the sand as a non-breaking waves passes over...
Now, about your publicly calling other folks "moron"...
However it doesn't work so great in context of the Gulf Stream.
The Gulf Stream is not some huge tide-like current hundreds of kilometers wide, instead it's typically only a kilometer or two wide. Indeed if you fly over it (I have a number of times) it appears as a clearly defined 'river', of a much different color then it's surrounding waters, with large swirls & eddies sometimes breaking off of it, cutting through the otherwise featureless ocean.
So while Bermuda may be a crumb the Gulf Stream is a spider strand.
That said I don't think putting a few turbines, or even 'a lot' will have significant effect on it. The total energy in it is incredible and it's an ongoing process, there's not some hose at one end that can be cut off stopping it all, but rather a push & pull process that keeps the whole thing going. Even if Bermuda were able to pull out 1% of the energy in it that would be less then the effect of a slightly windier or cloudier day in the Gulf on it, completely lost in the noise level.
By the way, if you're ever on the East Coast of the US & have some friends who fly ask them to take a gander next time they're over the seashore for any eddies off of the Gulf Stream that are close to the shore. They're much lighter colored then the usual cold dark blue Atlantic waters, easy to spot. If there are any by a beach then take the opportunity to go swimming in it - it's amazing. Cold cold cold Atlantic waters then suddenly bathwater warm, often with tropical fish trapped inside the thermocline. I've enjoyed a few off of Provincetown, Mass. (tip of Cape Cod) and they're times I treasure , and friends who were along retell of the experience over & over.
How many did still get wrong?
- Apple has ALWAYS made it clear their move to Intel would be in stages.
- Apple has ALWAYS said it would be done from their lower-end products to their upper-end.
- The iMac is Apple's entry-level product.
- Therefore the iMac being iNtelicized first is in line with Apple's announced plans.
- With the iMac being Apple's entry-level consumer product it doesn't have a large professional user base.
- Therefore professionals, who have large investments in hardware and software, are unlikely to be affected by the Intel transition until it reaches the products they use: The Professional-level Macs like the G5 line.
- So Adobe not shipping Universal Binary products for their professional level until the professional grade hardware is ready is surprising to who?
Seriously, if you're appalled that Adobe et al aren't shipping Universal Binaries right away only means you haven't been paying attention. If you really are a professional photographer or someone who honestly depends on these type products you'd have to have been comatose the past year not to be well aware of all of this.Instead what I hear are a buncha wannebe-geeks who went out 'n bought the newest and shiniest and are now whining because they chose to ignore what anyone with half a clue woulda and most likely did tell 'em. You shelled out over a grand for a new product and couldn't be bothered to find out if the software you want to run on it actually would anytime soon.
Get the hell off /., I'm sure there's some support chat group out there for you on AOL somewhere. Try keyword "12:00-Flasher"
Frankly I just hope there is someone out there clubbing you monkeys over the head with instructions on how to use a contraceptive.
The way I understood it back then was Apple used a Cray for modeling heat flow in Mac cases and then for designing those case's injection molds. The result was Apple was able to quickly test out various case designs and layouts, keep their Macs fanless for a significant cost, reliability, and noise advantage, and then expedite construction of those cases. Considering Apple then had up to 48 Mac variations out on the market at once back then they probably made good use of the Cray(s).
I remember my Mac IIci made thusly quite fondly - two easy clips on the case and a single screw held everything together, it lifted apart in neat layers. That was fantastic compared to the NEC, Zenith, Honeywell-Bull & Compaq PCs that I was working with that required prying them apart with a screwdriver inserted in just the right obscure spot, then another on the other side, pulling open the case open with a third, and invariably the sacrifice of knuckle-skin to some insanely located screw on some internal component or other.
Furthermore this wasn't a panicked run to the library, there was a call made a half hour prior to their arrival informing the library. In that time the agents would have had no difficulty obtaining the required warrant and confirming it with the library upon their arrival.
Instead the FBI agents involved (incorrectly) assumed they could walk in, seize, and then search anything they wished. That they assumed so points to a grave deficiency in their training and understanding of the legal requirements they operate under.
Mitt Romney has said lots of things before, then recanted them as soon as the polls or the cash said differently. Look up his record on abortion rights, he's flipped and flopped and spun around like a carnival ride. That's the way he is on most things, determined to say whatever it takes to get to higher office, aiming for those four years of freedom where he can finally be his wingnut self, followed by a VERY comfy retirement of corporate boards and super-premium speaking engagements.
He's such a great Businessman he couldn't pay his taxes to the right state.
He's such a great Salesman he regularly trashes the state he governs when out on the campaign trail.
He's such a great Leader he's accomplished almost nothing of note during his time as Governor (sadly didn't read the Employee Handbook before running and discover that he couldn't issue fiats & edicts, that he might actually have to work with the rest of the state's political apparatus.)
Romney wouldn't know ODF if it stole his magic underwear; he's just upped his bidding price.