Thats great if you want to turn the library into a bookstore. Dropping $15 (or whatever) for a book is no big deal for some people and they will feel no obligation to return the book.
Charge a "processing fee" or the like as part of the deposit. The book costs twenty-five dollars, but the processing fee adds another fifteen or twenty; both would be refunded when the book is returned. The processing fee would cover the library's costs to purchase a replacement book, add it into the collection, all the other overhead, and maybe a few bucks for a "collection expansion fund".
Make the replacement fee substantially higher for books out of print or otherwise difficult to replace or valuable to the collection. As long as the borrower is informed of the deposit amount up front, there shouldn't be anything wrong with this technique.
My understanding is that many libraries already charge a "handling fee" of some kind when you lose a book; why wouldn't they do that under this system too? It covers the library's costs, but it also makes using the library as a bookstore economically unpalatable.
I wish that google would pay the students on a bi-weekly basis though. When I was a student I would have leaped at this opportunity, but the lack of a stream of cash would have made it extremely difficult to take.
Couldn't you wring a loan out of your bank? I thought that most lenders were thrilled to give students credit. Especially if you have a letter of offer from Google in hand, saying that you will receive X dollars on Y date.
Think of it as your first work assignment: Using Google products and services, locate a lender who will prevent you from starving over the course of your internship.:-)
Of course, I knew what the writer really meant. But the Bable Fish translation into French produces exactly the meaning which I first parsed when reading that headline.
I still don't know which interpretation is correct.;-)
CANDU heavy water reactors can use lower enrichment.
CANDU reactors actually use unenriched natural uranium. It was one of the big benefits when Canada started building them--they didn't need to build uranium enrichment facilities. (And the Canadian millitary wasn't prepared to subsidize the R&D and operational costs of uranium enrichment, since Canada didn't (and still doesn't) want nukes.)
For example, a bone marrow recipient has the old defective marrow killed off by radiation over a couple of days; the same dosage would be fatal if given over a short time period.
Strictly speaking, the dose used to kill off the old bone marrow in preparation for a transplant would be fatal. The idea is to wipe out all of the marrow, so that it can be replaced by transplanted non-malignant cells. In the absence of a transplanted population of cells, the patient would die due to anemia (shortage of red cells), massive infection (shortage of white cells), or exsanguination (loss of clotting ability).
For what it's worth, some places that do bone marrow transplants do use a single shot of whole-body irradiation to wipe out the bone marrow cell population. Ideally you deliver the radiation over a relatively short period of time so that they're out of the treatment room before the nausea sets in.
Er, actually that's ten curies, not ten millicuries. I'm sure that makes you feel better.
It's actually not all that bad. If the sign is broken, the tritium gas just goes straight up. Even if you're indoors, it sits at the ceiling where you're not going to inhale it, and the tiny molecules easily escape from just about any building. Tritium outside the body is pretty much harmless--the low-energy beta rays won't penetrate skin. Even when inhaled very little of it will partition into the body.
Remember, they used to use radium for self-illuminating signs and whatnot. I'm much happier with tritium.
Okay I'm adding geiger counter to the birthday list.
Tritium isn't detected by Geiger counters, because its beta emissions are too wimpy to get through the counter's window. Sorry.:)
Funny, I work with tritium all the time in a biology lab. No weekly medical exams needed. Maybe you should do more research on the subject before spouting all that stuff.
Yes, but how much do you use in your lab? Most biochemistry protocols I know of use amounts measured in microcuries or even less. The University of New Hampshire requires routine urinalysis for tritium exposure for workers who handle more than 100 microcuries.
An emergency exit sign with six-inch lettering contains about 10 curies. In order to handle those quantities (or the substantially greater amount required to make a bright light saber) I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were fairly strict licensing and medical monitoring requirements.
If so that's an easy one to solve.. 20 screws, 10 other components, 66% "American Made". What if the hard drive has American transitors in it, does that count?
This sounds kind of familiar...
When transistor radios were first introduced, there was a sort of 'arms race' among manufacturers. If one transistor was good, two were better (usually true.) If two were better, then three were best...and four...and five...and six....
There were boxes that advertised nine transistor radio. They had a couple of transistors doing something useful, and seven more soldered to the corner of the board.
So, solder a couple of hundred five-cent resistors to the inside of the case or the corner of a board, and ta-da! You now have a computer with two hundred American parts!
Um, What's been at the bottom of Excel for over a decade? Oh, excuse me, those are "worksheets", not "tabs". How could I be so insensitive?
And dammit, those are badly managed, too. If I want to work with a larger number of worksheets, it's a pain in the neck to scroll back and forth through the list of tabs--particularly if they have even moderately descriptive names.
Why isn't it possible to have a vertical list of tabs?
(Or did they fix this in XP, making me look like an idiot....)
Play the angles just right, and you will have women refusing to consider accepting flawed, irregular, "natrual" stones (which were probably dug up using child labor) as a gift, insisting on the "real" lab-made diamonds, which are perfect.
You can even do one better. Sell "designer" stones. Play up the name of the scientist or lab that produced them, or attach other premium brand names. "My diamond is a Carnegie-style Calvin Klein. Your diamond came from a hole in the ground. Loser."
Note that the link helpfully tells how to handle a typing-related repetitive stress/strain injury. Apparently, it's all in your head, and as soon as you clear out the negative emotions, you're all set. You just need to buy the book to learn how:
Don't go home and just try to start typing. If it starts to hurt, you might get scared and start doubting yourself. Read Dr. Sarno's books and then decide if this is right for you. You will find more instructions there on how to proceed and get better.
Many people can eliminate their symptoms simply by reading one of Dr. Sarno's books. Some people need a little more help. If reading his book doesn't "cure" you, there are a few other options:
I didn't add the emphasis to the document; it was already present. The parent poster is at best well-meaning but poorly informed; at worst an astroturfing shill. Note that his user name ("nilesh tms") even includes the acronym for Sarno's proposed disease: "Tension Myositis Syndrome". His only posts on Slashdot have been to promote Sarno's work.
However I guess they couldn't be accurate because wouldn't the frequency would shift to far above the ultraviolet quite quickly?
Yep--although that could be pretty cool, too. If we set aside the rapid blinding due to exposure to intense ultraviolet (and x-rays, and gammas, as you get to higher velocities) the view would be very interesting. The visible light portion of the spectrum would still be just fine off to the sides. There would be a ring of "normal" view perpendicular to the direction of your motion, shading to the blue in front and to the red behind.
Note that this is a worst case scenario. Most Alpha Emitters are far too heavy to float in the air, and far too strong to be easily pulverized into pieces small enough to float.
Of course, stabbing a chunk with a screwdriver might be one way to generate a small amount of airborne particulate matter....
Note that evidence suggests that the other concern, indigestion, is a non-issue. In all documented cases where Plutonium (a common alpha emitter) was accidently ingested, it was found to pass through the digestive tract without issue. Radiation was not an issue due to the general thickness of the digestive system.
Well and good for plutonium, but there exist other alpha emitters...some of which are more readily solubilized and absorbed by the body.
Not that I'm trying to jump on the rampant paranoia bandwagon, but it is worth noting that alpha emitters should not all be treated as equivalent.
As far as I'm concerned, if warcrimes committed by US soldiers cannot be tried in the international court, then warcrimes committed against US shouldn't be tried there either.
Um...the U.S. doesn't seem to want to try war criminals in the International Criminal Court. They're much happier to try war criminals using domestic military tribunals. Cuts down on the inconveniences of public oversight and accountability.
Its hard to assess "damages" against a GPL project where the code is given away, copied, shared, downloaded, etc. for free.
On the other hand, since Maui X-Stream is actually selling the software for real money (thousands of dollars, in some cases) it gets a lot easier to assign a cash value. That price--real money paid to MXS--would seem to be an excellent starting point for calculating punitive damages.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but it seems there should have been the suspicion that someone who can discover, investigate and report on a newsworthy phenomenon every 2.5 days for 5 years straight might be cutting corners somewhere.
It depends on the writing. If you need three column inches of obituary, you can bash that out in two phone calls and five minutes of writing, and most of the text can be hacked together out of stock phrases. If you're unveiling the Watergate scandal, it takes a little longer.
Your local daily paper probably has writers who appear in nearly every edition.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you watched pros play golf? They have caddies.
Golf is a good cardio workout if you're seventy. Fresh air, a brisk walking pace, and carrying your clubs.
Pro golfers don't carry their own clubs, and they're not rushing about. They're sweating because they're in the hot sun, and because they're nervous.
My understanding is it took fewer than that to create it in the first place...and they seem to indicate that this guy actually has some skills.....
Neat! FedEx can track UPS packages now. What a cool feature. ;)
Charge a "processing fee" or the like as part of the deposit. The book costs twenty-five dollars, but the processing fee adds another fifteen or twenty; both would be refunded when the book is returned. The processing fee would cover the library's costs to purchase a replacement book, add it into the collection, all the other overhead, and maybe a few bucks for a "collection expansion fund".
Make the replacement fee substantially higher for books out of print or otherwise difficult to replace or valuable to the collection. As long as the borrower is informed of the deposit amount up front, there shouldn't be anything wrong with this technique.
My understanding is that many libraries already charge a "handling fee" of some kind when you lose a book; why wouldn't they do that under this system too? It covers the library's costs, but it also makes using the library as a bookstore economically unpalatable.
Couldn't you wring a loan out of your bank? I thought that most lenders were thrilled to give students credit. Especially if you have a letter of offer from Google in hand, saying that you will receive X dollars on Y date.
Think of it as your first work assignment: Using Google products and services, locate a lender who will prevent you from starving over the course of your internship. :-)
Of course, I knew what the writer really meant. But the Bable Fish translation into French produces exactly the meaning which I first parsed when reading that headline.
I still don't know which interpretation is correct. ;-)
CANDU reactors actually use unenriched natural uranium. It was one of the big benefits when Canada started building them--they didn't need to build uranium enrichment facilities. (And the Canadian millitary wasn't prepared to subsidize the R&D and operational costs of uranium enrichment, since Canada didn't (and still doesn't) want nukes.)
Strictly speaking, the dose used to kill off the old bone marrow in preparation for a transplant would be fatal. The idea is to wipe out all of the marrow, so that it can be replaced by transplanted non-malignant cells. In the absence of a transplanted population of cells, the patient would die due to anemia (shortage of red cells), massive infection (shortage of white cells), or exsanguination (loss of clotting ability).
For what it's worth, some places that do bone marrow transplants do use a single shot of whole-body irradiation to wipe out the bone marrow cell population. Ideally you deliver the radiation over a relatively short period of time so that they're out of the treatment room before the nausea sets in.
I think it may be a consequence of one-handed typing, actually....
Er, actually that's ten curies, not ten millicuries. I'm sure that makes you feel better.
It's actually not all that bad. If the sign is broken, the tritium gas just goes straight up. Even if you're indoors, it sits at the ceiling where you're not going to inhale it, and the tiny molecules easily escape from just about any building. Tritium outside the body is pretty much harmless--the low-energy beta rays won't penetrate skin. Even when inhaled very little of it will partition into the body.
Remember, they used to use radium for self-illuminating signs and whatnot. I'm much happier with tritium.
Okay I'm adding geiger counter to the birthday list.
Tritium isn't detected by Geiger counters, because its beta emissions are too wimpy to get through the counter's window. Sorry. :)
A popular misconception among doofi.
Yes, but how much do you use in your lab? Most biochemistry protocols I know of use amounts measured in microcuries or even less. The University of New Hampshire requires routine urinalysis for tritium exposure for workers who handle more than 100 microcuries.
An emergency exit sign with six-inch lettering contains about 10 curies. In order to handle those quantities (or the substantially greater amount required to make a bright light saber) I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were fairly strict licensing and medical monitoring requirements.
This sounds kind of familiar...
When transistor radios were first introduced, there was a sort of 'arms race' among manufacturers. If one transistor was good, two were better (usually true.) If two were better, then three were best...and four...and five...and six....
There were boxes that advertised nine transistor radio. They had a couple of transistors doing something useful, and seven more soldered to the corner of the board.
So, solder a couple of hundred five-cent resistors to the inside of the case or the corner of a board, and ta-da! You now have a computer with two hundred American parts!
And dammit, those are badly managed, too. If I want to work with a larger number of worksheets, it's a pain in the neck to scroll back and forth through the list of tabs--particularly if they have even moderately descriptive names.
Why isn't it possible to have a vertical list of tabs?
(Or did they fix this in XP, making me look like an idiot....)
You can even do one better. Sell "designer" stones. Play up the name of the scientist or lab that produced them, or attach other premium brand names. "My diamond is a Carnegie-style Calvin Klein. Your diamond came from a hole in the ground. Loser."
Yep--although that could be pretty cool, too. If we set aside the rapid blinding due to exposure to intense ultraviolet (and x-rays, and gammas, as you get to higher velocities) the view would be very interesting. The visible light portion of the spectrum would still be just fine off to the sides. There would be a ring of "normal" view perpendicular to the direction of your motion, shading to the blue in front and to the red behind.
Yeah, it's a good thing that diseases like the bubonic plague can't be transmitted through intermediate hosts....
Erm. Oh.
Gah! Not another continuity conflict with the rest of the Trek canon!
Of course, stabbing a chunk with a screwdriver might be one way to generate a small amount of airborne particulate matter....
Note that evidence suggests that the other concern, indigestion, is a non-issue. In all documented cases where Plutonium (a common alpha emitter) was accidently ingested, it was found to pass through the digestive tract without issue. Radiation was not an issue due to the general thickness of the digestive system.
Well and good for plutonium, but there exist other alpha emitters...some of which are more readily solubilized and absorbed by the body.
Not that I'm trying to jump on the rampant paranoia bandwagon, but it is worth noting that alpha emitters should not all be treated as equivalent.
Um...the U.S. doesn't seem to want to try war criminals in the International Criminal Court. They're much happier to try war criminals using domestic military tribunals. Cuts down on the inconveniences of public oversight and accountability.
On the other hand, since Maui X-Stream is actually selling the software for real money (thousands of dollars, in some cases) it gets a lot easier to assign a cash value. That price--real money paid to MXS--would seem to be an excellent starting point for calculating punitive damages.
It depends on the writing. If you need three column inches of obituary, you can bash that out in two phone calls and five minutes of writing, and most of the text can be hacked together out of stock phrases. If you're unveiling the Watergate scandal, it takes a little longer.
Your local daily paper probably has writers who appear in nearly every edition.