If your ceiling's not open to cabling (i.e. you have a standard office drop ceiling), then forget overhead lighting. It will eventually make you crazy. Instead, go for lighting that sits atop your workstation frame and points upwards. The light will bounce off the ceiling tiles and diffuse to a much more even and less harsh illumination level. Here's something to look at for ideas:
Cut all the crap that passes for "music" these days and switch all radio formats nationwide to talk radio for a month. The RIAA and the record companies crumble at the sudden downturn in sales revenue. There -- problem solved.
Think about it. This guy is using his GPS data to contest a ticket. Next up, the government subpoena's your car's GPS and/or engine computer info to prove (or snoop on) your whereabouts last Friday night, or to send you tickets based on the readout of your computer (once the wireless interrogation system gets worked out). Do you really want to be under observation at all times and everywhere, regardless of what you may or, most likely, may not have done? I do not.
Uhh -- we keep repeating this meme because, until informed by those such as yourself with more up-to-date information, we don't know that the meme is no longer operative. I was a small investor in DHB, a body armor company a while back, and last I heard, shortages were widespread.
Yes, there are newer and better things out there. And many troops are wearing them already--or were when I was in Afghanistan last year.
Would you care to elaborate on what the newer/better stuff is? For instance -- I've done some reading about fabrics soaked in shear thickening fluids that stiffen on impact and have the potential to dispense with the SAPIs altogether, but last I heard, these were not approved for field use. Also, a product using overlapping ceramic plates (Dragonskin, I think?) was tested, but did not fare well. Anything else out on the horizon or in use now? I'd be interesed in knowing. Thanks!
I use the native Open Office formats. If I have to send something to someone else, I usually dump a PDF. I've not saved a file in a.doc or.xls format for quite some time now. I'll save to a.doc file if and only if the receiver has an explicit requirement for that.
All they do is implement someone else's desires -- I love this. i am no longer a programmer, bit pusher, or code grunt! I am an implementer of someone else's desires.
Hmmm -- You say that if I'm salaried I'm expected to stay until the work is complete. Let's go with that for now.
So -- assume that in week one, I have to put in 60 hours to accomplish the assigned task. Now assume that in week two, I only need to put in 16 hours to achieve that week's assigned task. That means I can just not work the next three days and still collect my "salary", right? What do you mean I have to put in for leave for the three days that I needn't work? It seems that "salary" only works one way....
And that one happened before ubiquitous air travel between continents. We now have vastly more dense population centers, and arguably a much more fragile "just-in-time" style economy. Pretending this isn't a risk is foolish. Pretending that it's only hype from your political opponents is childish.
No air travel, but as the article below points out, we did have rail travel, and we had WWI -- which helped incubate a far more serious strain of influenza than we might other wise have had:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/10/15/AR2005101500102.html/. Quarantine turns out to be pretty useless for flu outbreaks for the reasons cited in the article, and antivirals don't exist in sufficient quantity, nor have they been tested in large scale use.
Bacteria and viruses evolve, very very quickly in some cases. There is a reason the immune system can't stop all infections despite it's rather interesting complexity. The worst effect is of course false positives, losing all your neurons to a confused nanobot is not a fun thing.
Isn't reading/. pretty much equivalent? Neuron-wise, I mean?
Because it shows that it is indeed possible for a geek to find love with a person of (presumably) the opposite sex. There may yet be hope that some of us will not spend our waking lives tying...err... typing one-handed. Then again, maybe she's a geek too, and is as desparate as he is.
But aside from all that, if schools start using, say, OpenOffice, you might start to see corporations do the same.
This is not the way to go about it. The schools, like it or not, are at the bottom of the political food chain (except when it's convenient to use them as a part of whatever "New Paradigm" your local Pol is pushing today). What is necessary is for the government to make a determination that open formats are a vital national interest - both from the preservation/archival point of view as well as the point of view of open and equal public access. A few states are trying to go this route already, and MS is in hysterics because of it.
Think about it though -- let's say that first thing Monday morning the OMB in conjunction with the National Archives and Records Service make an announcement that, henceforth, the Government will use only an ISO standardized open format to exchange documents. Assume also that they have the balls to make it stick. From the get-go, all 50 states and all government contractors have to switch to software supporting this open standard. From that point forward, it's a done deal as the rest of the economic food chain adopts the new software so that they can continue to communicate with the various federal state and local governments, contractors, subcontractors, etc.
It won't happen, but that's the only way to force the issue -- not up from the school level.
And surely rockets would be more useful than they say, otherwise, there's no way to get back off the planet.
If I understand the article correctly, it's not that rockets are not useful, per-se, but that, Mars, having an atmosphere, would cause the rocket plume to blow back into the spacecraft's track as it descends, destabilizing the vehicle; possibly to such a degree that it became uncontrollable. Taking off, on the other hand, you wouldn't be traveling backwards against the exhaust plume, so get off the planet would be far less of an issue than setting down intact in a powered-descent scenario. Any rocket scientists out there want to correct my (mis) understanding?
Slashdot Mirror
If your ceiling's not open to cabling (i.e. you have a standard office drop ceiling), then forget overhead lighting. It will eventually make you crazy. Instead, go for lighting that sits atop your workstation frame and points upwards. The light will bounce off the ceiling tiles and diffuse to a much more even and less harsh illumination level. Here's something to look at for ideas:
http://www.ergoindemand.com/energy-saving-lamp-office.htm
Cut all the crap that passes for "music" these days and switch all radio formats nationwide to talk radio for a month. The RIAA and the record companies crumble at the sudden downturn in sales revenue. There -- problem solved.
The RIAA has been busted a few times now for "payola" - i.e paying radio stations to play certain songs. They just want their money back.
If the Government cannot edit Wikipedia as it sees fit, then the terrorists have already won!!!
It'll make a really cool farm combine -- much better looking than the ugly monstrosities they have now...
Would you care to elaborate on what the newer/better stuff is? For instance -- I've done some reading about fabrics soaked in shear thickening fluids that stiffen on impact and have the potential to dispense with the SAPIs altogether, but last I heard, these were not approved for field use. Also, a product using overlapping ceramic plates (Dragonskin, I think?) was tested, but did not fare well. Anything else out on the horizon or in use now? I'd be interesed in knowing. Thanks!
I use the native Open Office formats. If I have to send something to someone else, I usually dump a PDF. I've not saved a file in a .doc or .xls format for quite some time now. I'll save to a .doc file if and only if the receiver has an explicit requirement for that.
Made it through chem 1, chem 2, and physics back in the day. I keep it around in case there's an extended power failure...
Hmmm -- You say that if I'm salaried I'm expected to stay until the work is complete. Let's go with that for now.
So -- assume that in week one, I have to put in 60 hours to accomplish the assigned task. Now assume that in week two, I only need to put in 16 hours to achieve that week's assigned task. That means I can just not work the next three days and still collect my "salary", right? What do you mean I have to put in for leave for the three days that I needn't work? It seems that "salary" only works one way....
What's wrong with this picture?
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/dat
Ok -- why, exactly, does the Mozilla Foundation have to dilute its resources to support another e-mail program? Anyone want to help me out here?
Because it shows that it is indeed possible for a geek to find love with a person of (presumably) the opposite sex. There may yet be hope that some of us will not spend our waking lives tying ...err... typing one-handed. Then again, maybe she's a geek too, and is as desparate as he is.
How long before I can have my flying car?
Seems like now his career is "down the tubes", as they say... [ducks]
Think about it though -- let's say that first thing Monday morning the OMB in conjunction with the National Archives and Records Service make an announcement that, henceforth, the Government will use only an ISO standardized open format to exchange documents. Assume also that they have the balls to make it stick. From the get-go, all 50 states and all government contractors have to switch to software supporting this open standard. From that point forward, it's a done deal as the rest of the economic food chain adopts the new software so that they can continue to communicate with the various federal state and local governments, contractors, subcontractors, etc.
It won't happen, but that's the only way to force the issue -- not up from the school level.