I've been there, done that, and here's the problem as I see it: the quantum effect.
Just so you know, I had such a small business that started out at 1 person, moved up to 2, then 4, then down to 2, then up to 4, and then died.
We had a top-notch product, produced for our customers more than 300k worth of increased value, and more than $1M worth of net value a year. We were good, very good, so we moved in the middle of all that to Lithuania to decrease our expenses by a factor of 3. Well, it turned out to be decreasing by a factor of 2, because of the corruption problem... but anyhow when we did that our customers started demanding more discount and more work, tripling the amount of work in the process.
When you hit this point, you can't expand.
Essentially, you cannot reliably advertise for more sales, because you're already working as hard as you can. You can't hire more workers, because you don't have the money to do so. You can't charge a higher price, because your current customers will revolt on principle (even killing their own golden goose to do so), in order to keep you down, probably because your improvement might eventually mean competition for them.
So because of granularity, you *can't* expand. Because of the VCs, you *can't* expand. Because of the fallen angel investors, you *can't* expand. You also can't even stay where you are, and you can't shrink, because of the hiccups that happen and will eventually take you down.
So often these small businesses, though inspired by a great idea, are doomed.
You know, when injustice and greed and evil increase and especially increase in power, there comes a time when failure is the only honorable thing you can do, and you really have to think twice before investing any more of your skills with evil people.
Of course, as people recognize that, productive business stops. (I mean the real business, that produces wealth -- not the "wealth transfer" businesses.) Of course, when that happens the nation will fall, often with its evil people destroying themselves and others as it does so.
In other words, there comes a time for every business, and for every country, to die.
I honestly think we have reached that time. I don't want it to be that way, but I think it's happening.
Today's computer usage is a very passive experience. There was a huge difference between the old command line computers, one at a time, and the multimedia computers.
With the old command line computers, you had to be in control of everything the computer did (games excepted, to a limit; but my statement was even somewhat true for the games of the time).
As a result, computers didn't hurt academic performance all that much. But even for those households with computers, back then, I found that students who had a computer usually did well in math, but lousy in the English/history/languages department.
Our school, Harrisonburg High School, really had the ideal computer situation when we came there: one Apple ][+, with priorities being (1) teacher (2) students programming for teacher/entering grades into the homemade grade program (3) 10 minutes at a time for students doing programming (4) students doing other work (5) games. We had a "warn/ then turn off" policy, as well.
What this did, was make us do our programming on paper, so that we could type during the 10 minutes we had. It made us think.
With this setup, HHS went to take 3rd in the national American Computer Science League contest. Then we got 2 more computers, and though we were invited to the national tournament [we were good], we didn't place. Then we got a room full of computers, and that was the end of that.
So I really do think that the key is "too much computers is a bad thing." Hand in hand with that, if you have too much computers, you will also start doing the wrong thing. Supply does create demand.
So what do we do? Our kids' TV policy and computer policy are the same: ~0 hrs per week, ~1 hr every 3 months, to be more exact.
You know, I have 5 moderator points, and I just couldn't find a single good post to mod up, here. So I'll say what I think needs saying.
How do you know that the Lycos spam-DDoS screen saver *isn't* what is taking out bittorrent?
I can think of a number of possibilities, any of which might be worth investigation.
(1) - As was mentioned elsewhere, it *could* be that lycos is leasing its services out to the RIAA.
(2) - It could be that the spammers are using Bittorrent servers
(3) - It could be that the spammers have hijacked the bittorrent servers (as I understand, a lot of bittorrent hijacking has come from China. Perhaps not coincidentally, a lot of spammers use servers in China to host their activities.)
(4) - It could be that the spammers have somehow masked their servers' real identities to look like bittorrent servers.
There are a few possibilities that might be worth checking out. Anyhow, I'll hold onto my 5 points, I guess. Shoot, I might just deposit them in the bank and wait till inflation takes em out.
Slashdot just ain't what it used to be (as you can tell by looking at my low slashdot ID number).
if you're stopping there the last digit should be a seven.
I'm aware of that. However, I tend to remember that fact by remembering an additional 535.
The useful thing about that trick is that it got me the first seven decimal places, which goes a long way towards filling up a calculator screen.
Since most problems only require 3-4 digits of accuracy, tops, and pi is sometimes awkward on the calculators I've had, it's been a great convenience to me.
That said, I enjoy the Quantum Mechanics version a lot more.
My company, one of the major local employers, is slowly abandoning engineering and manufacturing for a strategy of purchased products and service offerings. The number of engineering openings in the company these days is roughly about 1/10 of the total. The rest are sales and marketing, particularly for acquired products.
Okay, you want to make art: icons, and such. First, let me point out that I have found no graphics program to be as good or as quick as Deskpaint for the old,old macintoshes, by ZedCor. I think there also used to be a PC version of that program.
However, you probably can't get a copy of that program any more. So the next best bet is to get a copy of FuturePaint (freeware--do a web search) for Macs. But if you can't do that, get something that is reasonably quick, that can import and export different file types, that can scale graphics and change the number of colors gracefully, and that has some basic drawing tools.
(Sorry, Linux folks, GIMP just doesn't cut it. Nor do the K apps, which are slow and crash too much.)
Also, save your work using different file names at every step of the way. It isn't worth the time if you mess something up. Indeed, when I'm doing outlining, I like to save my work several times during that process... just in case. Don't throw those files away, later, either, or the standardization notes. Archive 'em. You'll perhaps want them later.
Okay... now, step by step:
(1) find the dot size (like, 150 dots by 150 dots) of your desired icon. Quadruple that (600 x 600). Note that you'll have to do this whole process 4 times or so, if you have 4 different resolutions for a single icon. Don't skimp, or some of these will look lousy.
(2) Scan in a picture (a good hand drawing, or something from a magazine) of what you want. If what you want is not available, you can actually arrange picture pieces in a collage, and scan that in. I've done this to avoid copyright problems -- I can be sure that my work doesn't even look like the originals I used, because I cut a leg and turned it, cut an arm and turned that... you get the idea. Anyhow, scan it in so that it appropriately fills your quadruple-size area (600x600, above).
(3) Lighten the whole picture so that it uses only the 5/16 lightest colors. Now this will be your background.
(4) Select 2-3 standardized line sizes: for example, 5 pixels wide for outlines, 2 pixels wide for internal detail lines. Don't forget to multiply by 4, because we're working at 4 times the resolution (20, and 8).
(5) Now, using the line tool on black, draw all those lines with your sketch tool. Outline what you see, and make detail appropriately.
(6). Now print out what you have, then convert all light grays to white. Do that either by changing the color curves, or by using flood fill judiciously (which I prefer).
(6) Now, pick your colors. Again, standardize. (when I say standardize, I mean write the standards down on paper, and stick to them). Using lines of the selected colors, isolate patches and then flood fill them.
(7) You should now have an icon that is 4 times the size/resolution of what you want. Select it, and shrink it down to a quarter size. Your program should be able to handle merging (averaging) colors. If it can't, then save as a 256 color.bmp file, and let your own homebuilt program average sets of 4 colors. At this point, details that looked "not so good" will look better, even great.
(8) If appropriate, convert to 256 colors, 16 grays, or whatever.
(8) Retouch as necessary (probably won't be necessary).
Just as a note, I have found that I like my flood fill colors to always be in the lightest 16th of the palatte, whereas I like my lines to always be black. This makes the icon easy to see and identify.
Now... all that said... you seem to be having trouble making ends meet. Let me suggest a business website for you:
No, they know about it. Actually, it will work on those sites -- it just refuses to work without internet explorer.
We had mozilla, and I called our bank about it. They said, yes, they knew, and had a bunch of Mozilla control codes that I had to type into the URL to make the web browser fool their own site, by reporting that it was IE. At that point, the site worked perfectly.
However, at that point all other sites (such as yahoo mail) were broken, since they use special control codes.
So at that point I turned around and installed a dual system: mozilla for banking, and firefox for everything else.
But FYI, the banking industry does know about it. I asked them why they wouldn't just allow mozilla in, and they said no, they couldn't do that.
No kidding.
Just part of the cost of the evil in the human heart, I guess (everybody wants to rule the world).
It's not quite that way. God is perfect, yes. However, God is always in the presence of His creation -- indeed, He holds it in existance. So you can't say that he can't allow imperfection or sin into His presence.
But *we* can't look at him, lest we burn up (essentially, with shame). Our sin creates a blockage there.
Now, why did God create / allow sin? Well, God is Love, and He wanted to create a creature that could love. But love requires free will, and a limited creature with free will is going to offend. Offense will break love, and one of the effects of broken love is that you then can't look at other people.
Suppose you live forever in such a state. Over millenia, you'll therefore find that every relationship you have is going to break in an unfixable way. That's going to cause people (who by nature were designed to love) a huge case of depression. That huge case of depression is called the "second death", or a living death.
The moment Adam disobeyed, he opened himself up to a living death -- and the first one he couldn't look at, was God. Notice that he hid himself. The second one he couldn't look at, was his own wife. Notice that he started blaming God and Eve for his own sin. Reconciliation ("re- back, again; con- together; cilia- eyelash; meaning able to look eye to eye, again) becomes impossible.
To prevent the second death, God introduced the First Death. That is, Adam dies, and doesn't suffer eternal torment. But God loves his creation, and even God can't love what doesn't exist.
So God's plan is to introduce God the Son into the world, so as to show both the path to redemption, and a means to redemption. The path to redemption, therefore, is a combination of justice and forgiveness. How complete is the forgiveness? "This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No man has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." The means to redemption is Jesus, the Christ (annointed). The Christ shows that he can forgive, and still love even to the point of His own death. In that way, He shows the path to reconciliation with God, and in the process shows the path to forgiveness. Thus, for those who will follow Him, He heals the Second Death.
Healing the first death, then, is easy for God who created all in the first place.
How you get from that to creationism, though, I'm not completely sure. I think it comes out of simply having a more literal interpretation of one or another part of the Bible. Those same people will look surprised if you point out that Christ's statement "unless you eat of my body and drink of my blood, you have no life within you" was literal. But then they'll accept it as literal. So they're not being hypocrites, but it just never occurred to them that part of the Bible they were taking figuratively.
However, if they believe in creationism, I don't find that terribly important. So I don't criticize people in their theories, any more than I expect my physicist father to criticize me (an engineer by training, concrete worker by trade) on my ideas about time and space. If I needed to know more, I'd get more right. To my way of thinking, more considered theories is better, and if you criticize people when they offer them, you're going to stifle the theories.
Yes, but there doesn't have to be just one group that controls the media. That only happens in unfree countries where the government (in USA, FCC) controls who has access to the mediums of media (airwaves).
If the government renounced control of the airwaves, then you would have a lot more cacaphony, which is what the grandparent posting pointed out -- but you would have freedom of the press.
Hear, hear! Just as a case in point, this election
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
without Slashdot and the internet, how many of you would have known that...the Libertarian and Green candidates were arrested?...that the "debates" are not debates at all, but carefully scripted political advertisements?...that both Presidential candidates and the previous two presidents, belong to the same small power club of Yale?
The major media in America is owned by about 5 corporations, and they are *actively* censoring the news. Considering that the tactics involve controlling the political regime, I'd have to say that this person is right. But the internet does help, even for those countries that are not free (China, for example).
(1) CPU - get the cheapest fast CPU you can. Recompile Linux to run on it. Since chips like the 8051XA microcontrollers are only $5, and the SHARC DSP is only $10, I'm guessing that you could get a decent CPU well within $20. Of course, this wouldn't be Pentium, probably -- but it would work for Linux nonetheless.
(2) RAM. Skip the RAM. Go with a couple Compact Flash sockets, plus the cheapest of those available. Sockets, $5.00. Cheap CF (16 Meg) $15 wholesale. The advantages here are multiple: You can swap programs and data with all kinds of devices (including other such computers), and the RAM is easily replacable with a standardized component.
(3) Ethernet: These are commonly available for under $20, with profit built in. I'd guess this could be put onboard for $10.
(4) SVGA: Go with a cheap 600x800. Good enough for XWindows, I'd guess. $10.
Covering the major expenses that I recognize, I've got it within $60, leaving $40 for other essentials. So I'd guess it could be done.
There have been times when the Democrats controlled all three powers (Senate, House, Pres), and there have been times when the Republicans controlled all three powers. On any of those issues you mentioned, neither one actually did anything profound.
I've kept track of the abortion issue, being pro-life, myself, and whenever the Republicans had a chance, enough Republicans were always found to suddenly change their position to keep the laws from passing.
The same has happened for the other issues, with the Democrats. Ultimately, for example, Kerry will continue the war. He says so.
No, I really must disagree. There is no functional difference between the two parties.
Ummm.... couldn't someone do the same with the "United States Treasury Fund" dba UST? That said, trying to rob the government of money that they have legitimately stolen is an effective way to get dead, fast.
Of all the stupidities of criminal behavior, targeting a host that is huge, and able and happy to swat you, seems to me to be near the top.
No, you're right that fraud is not theft, but wrong on another account.
When the criminal's fraud is exposed, and the banks hold you accountable for his crime and the banks' weaknesses, and bill you for the criminal's purchases,... that is theft.
Let's not also forget the big W word... terrorism.
Not that W invented it, but if you have just one space elevator, you're going to have to try to protect it against the wealthy crazies.
However, all of your reasons are reasons why I think it would be better to start by building a nanotube launch tower, rather than a nanotube space elevator.
Then, you don't have to launch your materials into space; it pays off before it's done; you work the problems out step by step; and when you *do* want to build a space elevator, it doesn't reach all the way to the ground. It only has to reach to the launch tower. That makes your space elevator 2/3 the size, and that much cheaper.
That said, I too don't think it'll be done in our lifetime.
From your posted link, I take it she builds Amtraks. BTW, your link was broken, but perhaps you meant this --
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?page na me=Amtrak/am2Route/Vertical_Route_Page&cid=1080772 074490&c=am2Route&ssid=134
Anyhow, you kindof answered my question, because I have an idea for a new train design / service plan that might be able to make Amtrak not only profitable, but popular.
Essentially, it is a plan that will make every trip nonstop from point to point, at about 60+ mph.
As with most of my ideas, I tend to like to public-domain them, so that they aren't patentable.
http://slashdot.org/~MickLinux/journal/67543
Aside from that, I'd note that to make it cheap, you can take a page out of Vanderbilts book, in what he did with serving meals aboard the trains. Since you have one engineer per car, but only 3-4 on active duty, the rest can assist customers in getting to their cars, serve meals, etc. Since meals will be a high-profit item, then the tickets can be cheap. With cheaper tickets, you get more customers, and more frequent trips. That makes the trains more convenient.
Well, it began pre-world-war-II, about the same time as it became popular to classify gene types, and classify some people as superior, others as inferior.
In a way, it began with the slaver attitude, way back in the 16th century.
In a way, it began before history began. Fascism is simply one way of saying "I justify myself using force to take what I want, and destroy whom I want." That tendency exists in us all.
Nonetheless, outright fascism in America began when we saw the part our factories played in the successful WWII war effort.
Note that we had a fairly strong economy, because most people were just in their business dealings. In turn, if you asked them why they were just, it would probably have come back to the fact that they were more interested in following their understanding of Christianity (under the Great Awakening, partly), than they were in succeeding at business.
Following Christianity made them want to do a good job in all things; thus it gave them a well-balanced work ethic.
However, our Congress, in making a false god out of a strong economy, then turned around and set up a false god of consumerism for the people.
Likewise, they set up the work ethic as a false god for workers, in the hopes of getting an even better economic performance out of them.
That drove the "American Dream", in which each person feels that they have an inherent right to more luxury than their neighbors and their parents. Therefore, if they don't have that luxury, they are justified in begging, borrowing, stealing, ignoring resposibilities, or destroying others to get what they want.
That in turn is fostering a violent business attitude which will in turn destroy the economy.
Meanwhile, the workers who ignore their familial responsibilities are raising disaffected, violent children who will have a greater tendency to war.
That, in turn, likely will cause us to go to war with murderous intent and without the economy or the will to win, resulting in us losing catastrophically.
Very good. I like your analysis. As an aside, I might note that I thrive under *some* kinds of stress (deadlines, important stuff), but absolutely hate and wither, and even rebel against other kinds of stress (urgent unimportant stuff, and abuse).
From what I've seen, those who misclassify their urgent as important also tend to be abusive: swearing at you, yelling, and often even physically abusive.
Such people do create tons of stress for me.
On the other hand, if you give me an assignment and an impossible deadline, I'll classify that as important, and get right on it. Often, I'll meet the deadline, even.
You might call me a workaholic who thrives under stress, but that kind of thing just isn't stressful to me. Abuse is stressful.
You really ought to use a geek language, not a pseudo geek language. Aside from that, I have to admit that in true geek style you left the stove on and burned down the house.
PLEASE IGNORE THE XYs at the beginning of the line; I had to get past the "too few characters" filter.
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY ; GO TO STORE
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY JMP STOR
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY; PUT 12 EGGS in CART (must be a market, no egg carton here!)
Slashdot Mirror
I've been there, done that, and here's the problem as I see it: the quantum effect.
Just so you know, I had such a small business that started out at 1 person, moved up to 2, then 4, then down to 2, then up to 4, and then died.
We had a top-notch product, produced for our customers more than 300k worth of increased value, and more than $1M worth of net value a year. We were good, very good, so we moved in the middle of all that to Lithuania to decrease our expenses by a factor of 3. Well, it turned out to be decreasing by a factor of 2, because of the corruption problem... but anyhow when we did that our customers started demanding more discount and more work, tripling the amount of work in the process.
When you hit this point, you can't expand.
Essentially, you cannot reliably advertise for more sales, because you're already working as hard as you can. You can't hire more workers, because you don't have the money to do so. You can't charge a higher price, because your current customers will revolt on principle (even killing their own golden goose to do so), in order to keep you down, probably because your improvement might eventually mean competition for them.
So because of granularity, you *can't* expand. Because of the VCs, you *can't* expand. Because of the fallen angel investors, you *can't* expand.
You also can't even stay where you are, and you can't shrink, because of the hiccups that happen and will eventually take you down.
So often these small businesses, though inspired by a great idea, are doomed.
You know, when injustice and greed and evil increase and especially increase in power, there comes a time when failure is the only honorable thing you can do, and you really have to think twice before investing any more of your skills with evil people.
Of course, as people recognize that, productive business stops. (I mean the real business, that produces wealth -- not the "wealth transfer" businesses.) Of course, when that happens the nation will fall, often with its evil people destroying themselves and others as it does so.
In other words, there comes a time for every business, and for every country, to die.
I honestly think we have reached that time. I don't want it to be that way, but I think it's happening.
Today's computer usage is a very passive experience. There was a huge difference between the old command line computers, one at a time, and the multimedia computers.
With the old command line computers, you had to be in control of everything the computer did (games excepted, to a limit; but my statement was even somewhat true for the games of the time).
As a result, computers didn't hurt academic performance all that much. But even for those households with computers, back then, I found that students who had a computer usually did well in math, but lousy in the English/history/languages department.
Our school, Harrisonburg High School, really had the ideal computer situation when we came there: one Apple ][+, with priorities being (1) teacher (2) students programming for teacher/entering grades into the homemade grade program (3) 10 minutes at a time for students doing programming (4) students doing other work (5) games. We had a "warn/ then turn off" policy, as well.
What this did, was make us do our programming on paper, so that we could type during the 10 minutes we had. It made us think.
With this setup, HHS went to take 3rd in the national American Computer Science League contest. Then we got 2 more computers, and though we were invited to the national tournament [we were good], we didn't place. Then we got a room full of computers, and that was the end of that.
So I really do think that the key is "too much computers is a bad thing." Hand in hand with that, if you have too much computers, you will also start doing the wrong thing. Supply does create demand.
So what do we do? Our kids' TV policy and computer policy are the same: ~0 hrs per week, ~1 hr every 3 months, to be more exact.
You know, I have 5 moderator points, and I just couldn't find a single good post to mod up, here. So I'll say what I think needs saying.
How do you know that the Lycos spam-DDoS screen saver *isn't* what is taking out bittorrent?
I can think of a number of possibilities, any of which might be worth investigation.
(1) - As was mentioned elsewhere, it *could* be that lycos is leasing its services out to the RIAA.
(2) - It could be that the spammers are using Bittorrent servers
(3) - It could be that the spammers have hijacked the bittorrent servers (as I understand, a lot of bittorrent hijacking has come from China. Perhaps not coincidentally, a lot of spammers use servers in China to host their activities.)
(4) - It could be that the spammers have somehow masked their servers' real identities to look like bittorrent servers.
There are a few possibilities that might be worth checking out. Anyhow, I'll hold onto my 5 points, I guess. Shoot, I might just deposit them in the bank and wait till inflation takes em out.
Slashdot just ain't what it used to be (as you can tell by looking at my low slashdot ID number).
No, it starts with an 8.
2^63 = 8 000 000 000 000 000 (base 16).
It's a lot easier to do most math in base 16, I think.
if you're stopping there the last digit should be a seven.
I'm aware of that. However, I tend to remember that fact by remembering an additional 535.
The useful thing about that trick is that it got me the first seven decimal places, which goes a long way towards filling up a calculator screen.
Since most problems only require 3-4 digits of accuracy, tops, and pi is sometimes awkward on the calculators I've had, it's been a great convenience to me.
That said, I enjoy the Quantum Mechanics version a lot more.
No power supply, but you can use a standard $10-$35 power supply, I'm sure, depending on what the requirements are.
However, this looks like an excellent opportunity to use Spheral Solar's latest products, which
!!! Are out now, and for sale !!!
www.spheralsolar.com
I'm hyped about it.
Pi? yes, I want a piece; blueberry is superb.
Pi = 3 . 1 4 1 5 9 2 6
That's the one I always used. Of course, yours is better.
My company, one of the major local employers, is slowly abandoning engineering and manufacturing for a strategy of purchased products and service offerings. The number of engineering openings in the company these days is roughly about 1/10 of the total. The rest are sales and marketing, particularly for acquired products.
Aaaah. Kodak.
http://slashdot.org/~MickLinux/journal/67543
Essentially, this is not 3-person cars, but mass rail transit that is always nonstop.
Okay, you want to make art: icons, and such. First, let me point out that I have found no graphics program to be as good or as quick as Deskpaint for the old,old macintoshes, by ZedCor. I think there also used to be a PC version of that program.
... just in case. Don't throw those files away, later, either, or the standardization notes. Archive 'em. You'll perhaps want them later.
.bmp file, and let your own homebuilt program average sets of 4 colors. At this point, details that looked "not so good" will look better, even great.
However, you probably can't get a copy of that program any more. So the next best bet is to get a copy of FuturePaint (freeware--do a web search) for Macs. But if you can't do that, get something that is reasonably quick, that can import and export different file types, that can scale graphics and change the number of colors gracefully, and that has some basic drawing tools.
(Sorry, Linux folks, GIMP just doesn't cut it. Nor do the K apps, which are slow and crash too much.)
Also, save your work using different file names at every step of the way. It isn't worth the time if you mess something up. Indeed, when I'm doing outlining, I like to save my work several times during that process
Okay... now, step by step:
(1) find the dot size (like, 150 dots by 150 dots) of your desired icon. Quadruple that (600 x 600). Note that you'll have to do this whole process 4 times or so, if you have 4 different resolutions for a single icon. Don't skimp, or some of these will look lousy.
(2) Scan in a picture (a good hand drawing, or something from a magazine) of what you want. If what you want is not available, you can actually arrange picture pieces in a collage, and scan that in. I've done this to avoid copyright problems -- I can be sure that my work doesn't even look like the originals I used, because I cut a leg and turned it, cut an arm and turned that... you get the idea. Anyhow, scan it in so that it appropriately fills your quadruple-size area (600x600, above).
(3) Lighten the whole picture so that it uses only the 5/16 lightest colors. Now this will be your background.
(4) Select 2-3 standardized line sizes: for example, 5 pixels wide for outlines, 2 pixels wide for internal detail lines. Don't forget to multiply by 4, because we're working at 4 times the resolution (20, and 8).
(5) Now, using the line tool on black, draw all those lines with your sketch tool. Outline what you see, and make detail appropriately.
(6). Now print out what you have, then convert all light grays to white. Do that either by changing the color curves, or by using flood fill judiciously (which I prefer).
(6) Now, pick your colors. Again, standardize. (when I say standardize, I mean write the standards down on paper, and stick to them). Using lines of the selected colors, isolate patches and then flood fill them.
(7) You should now have an icon that is 4 times the size/resolution of what you want. Select it, and shrink it down to a quarter size. Your program should be able to handle merging (averaging) colors. If it can't, then save as a 256 color
(8) If appropriate, convert to 256 colors, 16 grays, or whatever.
(8) Retouch as necessary (probably won't be necessary).
Just as a note, I have found that I like my flood fill colors to always be in the lightest 16th of the palatte, whereas I like my lines to always be black. This makes the icon easy to see and identify.
Now... all that said... you seem to be having trouble making ends meet. Let me suggest a business website for you:
http://www.tinaja.com/
The guy also has an $8 book which is invaluable:
___The incredible secret money machine II____
To the extent which I was able to follow his advice, it created a good business for me (~17000-$30000 a year).
That said, the level of justice in our country is crashing
No, they know about it. Actually, it will work on those sites -- it just refuses to work without internet explorer.
We had mozilla, and I called our bank about it. They said, yes, they knew, and had a bunch of Mozilla control codes that I had to type into the URL to make the web browser fool their own site, by reporting that it was IE. At that point, the site worked perfectly.
However, at that point all other sites (such as yahoo mail) were broken, since they use special control codes.
So at that point I turned around and installed a dual system: mozilla for banking, and firefox for everything else.
But FYI, the banking industry does know about it. I asked them why they wouldn't just allow mozilla in, and they said no, they couldn't do that.
No kidding.
Just part of the cost of the evil in the human heart, I guess (everybody wants to rule the world).
It's not quite that way. God is perfect, yes. However, God is always in the presence of His creation -- indeed, He holds it in existance. So you can't say that he can't allow imperfection or sin into His presence.
But *we* can't look at him, lest we burn up (essentially, with shame). Our sin creates a blockage there.
Now, why did God create / allow sin? Well, God is Love, and He wanted to create a creature that could love. But love requires free will, and a limited creature with free will is going to offend. Offense will break love, and one of the effects of broken love is that you then can't look at other people.
Suppose you live forever in such a state. Over millenia, you'll therefore find that every relationship you have is going to break in an unfixable way. That's going to cause people (who by nature were designed to love) a huge case of depression. That huge case of depression is called the "second death", or a living death.
The moment Adam disobeyed, he opened himself up to a living death -- and the first one he couldn't look at, was God. Notice that he hid himself. The second one he couldn't look at, was his own wife. Notice that he started blaming God and Eve for his own sin. Reconciliation ("re- back, again; con- together; cilia- eyelash; meaning able to look eye to eye, again) becomes impossible.
To prevent the second death, God introduced the First Death. That is, Adam dies, and doesn't suffer eternal torment. But God loves his creation, and even God can't love what doesn't exist.
So God's plan is to introduce God the Son into the world, so as to show both the path to redemption, and a means to redemption. The path to redemption, therefore, is a combination of justice and forgiveness. How complete is the forgiveness? "This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No man has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." The means to redemption is Jesus, the Christ (annointed). The Christ shows that he can forgive, and still love even to the point of His own death. In that way, He shows the path to reconciliation with God, and in the process shows the path to forgiveness. Thus, for those who will follow Him, He heals the Second Death.
Healing the first death, then, is easy for God who created all in the first place.
How you get from that to creationism, though, I'm not completely sure. I think it comes out of simply having a more literal interpretation of one or another part of the Bible. Those same people will look surprised if you point out that Christ's statement "unless you eat of my body and drink of my blood, you have no life within you" was literal. But then they'll accept it as literal. So they're not being hypocrites, but it just never occurred to them that part of the Bible they were taking figuratively.
However, if they believe in creationism, I don't find that terribly important. So I don't criticize people in their theories, any more than I expect my physicist father to criticize me (an engineer by training, concrete worker by trade) on my ideas about time and space. If I needed to know more, I'd get more right. To my way of thinking, more considered theories is better, and if you criticize people when they offer them, you're going to stifle the theories.
Yes, but there doesn't have to be just one group that controls the media. That only happens in unfree countries where the government (in USA, FCC) controls who has access to the mediums of media (airwaves).
If the government renounced control of the airwaves, then you would have a lot more cacaphony, which is what the grandparent posting pointed out -- but you would have freedom of the press.
without Slashdot and the internet, how many of you would have known that ...the Libertarian and Green candidates were arrested? ...that the "debates" are not debates at all, but carefully scripted political advertisements? ...that both Presidential candidates and the previous two presidents, belong to the same small power club of Yale?
The major media in America is owned by about 5 corporations, and they are *actively* censoring the news. Considering that the tactics involve controlling the political regime, I'd have to say that this person is right. But the internet does help, even for those countries that are not free (China, for example).
Hmm... Well, that's good to know. I hadn't been aware of that.
Thanks for the info. It just goes to show that you can't read slashdot without learning something new, no matter how hard you try.
I wouldn't do it like that. Here's how I'd do it:
(1) CPU - get the cheapest fast CPU you can. Recompile Linux to run on it. Since chips like the 8051XA microcontrollers are only $5, and the SHARC DSP is only $10, I'm guessing that you could get a decent CPU well within $20. Of course, this wouldn't be Pentium, probably -- but it would work for Linux nonetheless.
(2) RAM. Skip the RAM. Go with a couple Compact Flash sockets, plus the cheapest of those available. Sockets, $5.00. Cheap CF (16 Meg) $15 wholesale. The advantages here are multiple: You can swap programs and data with all kinds of devices (including other such computers), and the RAM is easily replacable with a standardized component.
(3) Ethernet: These are commonly available for under $20, with profit built in. I'd guess this could be put onboard for $10.
(4) SVGA: Go with a cheap 600x800. Good enough for XWindows, I'd guess. $10.
Covering the major expenses that I recognize, I've got it within $60, leaving $40 for other essentials. So I'd guess it could be done.
There have been times when the Democrats controlled all three powers (Senate, House, Pres), and there have been times when the Republicans controlled all three powers. On any of those issues you mentioned, neither one actually did anything profound.
I've kept track of the abortion issue, being pro-life, myself, and whenever the Republicans had a chance, enough Republicans were always found to suddenly change their position to keep the laws from passing.
The same has happened for the other issues, with the Democrats. Ultimately, for example, Kerry will continue the war. He says so.
No, I really must disagree. There is no functional difference between the two parties.
You know, I think that competing technologies often drive each other to improvement.
Aside from that, what they are doing looks kindof similar to a different idea I posted (read public-domained) *here*.
That idea is neither fuel cell nor battery, but heat engine. However, it uses technology similar to what they describe. Maybe it'd work... I dunno.
Ummm.... couldn't someone do the same with the "United States Treasury Fund" dba UST? That said, trying to rob the government of money that they have legitimately stolen is an effective way to get dead, fast.
Of all the stupidities of criminal behavior, targeting a host that is huge, and able and happy to swat you, seems to me to be near the top.
No, you're right that fraud is not theft, but wrong on another account.
... that is theft.
When the criminal's fraud is exposed, and the banks hold you accountable for his crime and the banks' weaknesses, and bill you for the criminal's purchases,
Let's not also forget the big W word... terrorism.
Not that W invented it, but if you have just one space elevator, you're going to have to try to protect it against the wealthy crazies.
However, all of your reasons are reasons why I think it would be better to start by building a nanotube launch tower, rather than a nanotube space elevator.
Then, you don't have to launch your materials into space; it pays off before it's done; you work the problems out step by step; and when you *do* want to build a space elevator, it doesn't reach all the way to the ground. It only has to reach to the launch tower. That makes your space elevator 2/3 the size, and that much cheaper.
That said, I too don't think it'll be done in our lifetime.
From your posted link, I take it she builds Amtraks. BTW, your link was broken, but perhaps you meant this --
e na me=Amtrak/am2Route/Vertical_Route_Page&cid=1080772 074490&c=am2Route&ssid=134
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pag
Anyhow, you kindof answered my question, because I have an idea for a new train design / service plan that might be able to make Amtrak not only profitable, but popular.
Essentially, it is a plan that will make every trip nonstop from point to point, at about 60+ mph.
As with most of my ideas, I tend to like to public-domain them, so that they aren't patentable.
http://slashdot.org/~MickLinux/journal/67543
Aside from that, I'd note that to make it cheap, you can take a page out of Vanderbilts book, in what he did with serving meals aboard the trains. Since you have one engineer per car, but only 3-4 on active duty, the rest can assist customers in getting to their cars, serve meals, etc. Since meals will be a high-profit item, then the tickets can be cheap. With cheaper tickets, you get more customers, and more frequent trips. That makes the trains more convenient.
Well, it began pre-world-war-II, about the same time as it became popular to classify gene types, and classify some people as superior, others as inferior.
In a way, it began with the slaver attitude, way back in the 16th century.
In a way, it began before history began. Fascism is simply one way of saying "I justify myself using force to take what I want, and destroy whom I want." That tendency exists in us all.
Nonetheless, outright fascism in America began when we saw the part our factories played in the successful WWII war effort.
Note that we had a fairly strong economy, because most people were just in their business dealings. In turn, if you asked them why they were just, it would probably have come back to the fact that they were more interested in following their understanding of Christianity (under the Great Awakening, partly), than they were in succeeding at business.
Following Christianity made them want to do a good job in all things; thus it gave them a well-balanced work ethic.
However, our Congress, in making a false god out of a strong economy, then turned around and set up a false god of consumerism for the people.
Likewise, they set up the work ethic as a false god for workers, in the hopes of getting an even better economic performance out of them.
That drove the "American Dream", in which each person feels that they have an inherent right to more luxury than their neighbors and their parents. Therefore, if they don't have that luxury, they are justified in begging, borrowing, stealing, ignoring resposibilities, or destroying others to get what they want.
That in turn is fostering a violent business attitude which will in turn destroy the economy.
Meanwhile, the workers who ignore their familial responsibilities are raising disaffected, violent children who will have a greater tendency to war.
That, in turn, likely will cause us to go to war with murderous intent and without the economy or the will to win, resulting in us losing catastrophically.
Just the way the Nazis and Japanese did.
Very good. I like your analysis. As an aside, I might note that I thrive under *some* kinds of stress (deadlines, important stuff), but absolutely hate and wither, and even rebel against other kinds of stress (urgent unimportant stuff, and abuse).
From what I've seen, those who misclassify their urgent as important also tend to be abusive: swearing at you, yelling, and often even physically abusive.
Such people do create tons of stress for me.
On the other hand, if you give me an assignment and an impossible deadline, I'll classify that as important, and get right on it. Often, I'll meet the deadline, even.
You might call me a workaholic who thrives under stress, but that kind of thing just isn't stressful to me. Abuse is stressful.
You really ought to use a geek language, not a pseudo geek language. Aside from that, I have to admit that in true geek style you left the stove on and burned down the house.
PLEASE IGNORE THE XYs at the beginning of the line; I had to get past the "too few characters" filter.
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY ; GO TO STORE
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY JMP STOR
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY; PUT 12 EGGS in CART (must be a market, no egg carton here!)
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV CX,12
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [CART],[EGG_SHELF]
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY REPNE
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYX; Put butter in cart, and then pay
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV CX,1
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [CART],[BUTTER_SHELF]
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY REPNE ; for portability
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV CX,5
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [REG],[WALLET]
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY REPNE
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY JMP HOME
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYX; put pan on grill, turn on burner
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [GRILL],PAN_ADDR
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV BX,5
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY OUT [BURNER_LEV],BX
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY; put butter in pan
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV CX,1
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [PAN_ADDR],BUTTER
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY REPNE
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY; put 2 eggs in pan
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV CX,2
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [PAN_ADDR],EGG
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY REPNE
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY; Be sure to break eggs!
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY BRK
; we need a speed-independent clock update routine. Code later.
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV CX,[CLOCK]
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY ADD CX,300
XYXYXYXXYXYXYXYXY LP: CMP CX,[CLOCK]
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY JSR UPDATE_CLOCK
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY JNE LP
; TURN OFF BURNER! (you can take shortcuts,
; but be sure it's off at the end of your meal)
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY XOR BX,BX ; BX=0
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [BURNER_LEV],BX
; Put contents of pan into mouth,
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY MOV [MOUTH],[PAN]
; and now we can return to whatever we were doing.
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXY RET