Before lowering the standard how about seriously enforcing what we have. It seems like when I read about a car into a house, through a storefront or killing a kid the story also mentions how many prior arrests and convictions the person has.
The local papers have run several articles about people having their licenses suspended or revoked and then walking out of court, hopping in their cars and driving away.
I occasionally listen to the police scanner and an astonishing number of people they pull over and run come back "suspended or revoked" yet I almost never hear that followed by "send the tow truck."
Moving the numbers around is meaningless if someone is driving with 10 prior convictions.
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop," -Herbert Stein
The absurd comment about...with an annual energy growth rate of only 2.3%... reminds me of the population growth people a couple decades back who claimed that if the population keeps growing at this rate, by blah-blah-blah date the population of earth will be expanding at the speed of light.
Conclusion, population will not continue to grow at that rate, energy growth will not continue perpetually at 2.3%.
Of course we may want to influence *how* things stop. Stopping a car by applying the breaks is generally preferred over accelerating full-speed into a cliff.
My daughter first played with Scratch a year or so ago. She is now eight and enjoyed the book when I got it for her a few months back.
It should be a good companion for a Raspberry Pi as Scratch is one of the front-and-center educational apps on the default Raspberri Ubuntu distro (though running it definitely shows the speed limitations of the Pi).
One advantage of a non-Internet-connected Pi, however, is that Sratch doesn't have to compete with the myriad distractions from Cool-math-games-for-kids to Barbie.
I'm tired of hearing that "everyone uses..." No, they don't. MySQL is pretty popular with the open-source web-crowd but this is the same crowd that respects the engineering behind PHP. I've encountered plenty of people in that arena who would rather roll their own data-checks and treat the database as barely more than a key-value store than use the capabilities of the database and have to deal with handling exceptions. Bring up transactions, ACID compliance, data-integrity and the like at a PHP users group and you get blank-stares. The get-rich-quick-with-a-cute-kitten-website crowd cares not for such things (as an overgeneralization - there are plenty of high-traffic sites such as Instagram, hi5, Etsy and MyYearbook that run on PostgreSQL).
So where do you find PostgreSQL? Salesforce, National Weather Service, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Federal Aviation Administration, Sony Online Entertainment, TD Ameritrade, State of Wisconsin Courts, Afilias, BASF, Flightaware, Skype (a contributor of many PG utilities), Fujitsu, Launchpad (Ubuntu)...
And PostGIS is *the* go-to open-source geospatial database.
I've found the PostgreSQL community to be wonderful with opportunities to contribute at all levels. Answer questions on the mailing-lists, contribute to documentation, help at users-groups, give a talk at a conference. One always welcome contribution is doing testing and submitting results/patches during commitfests - and this gets you more involved with the code.
As to employment, it sounds like you prefer PostgreSQL. As such, PostgreSQL is by definition the most popular database among places you are interested in working. Do what you love.
My daughter loved tux paint and still occasionally uses it to make a card, poster or board for a game she is making up. I mentioned it to a friend and his son now loves it. Definitely worth a try.
I have an antenna. I get better quality than many people I know with dish or cable. I spend more than adequate time in front of the idiot box as is - why tempt myself with more.
There are a few premium shows I want to watch - Mad Men and Sopranos for example. But I've watched entire series on DVD for less than the cost of a month of cable.
Savings depends on your plan but compared to many of my friends and neighbors I am saving over a thousand dollars a year in subscription fees alone not counting the cost of the box and the power to run it (many DVRs are power vampires on standby). That pays for a week or more camping at a national park. Or a weekend at Disneyland.
I enjoy the Kamado [komodokamado.com] type of cooker.
It's low-tech in that you don't need any fancy apps to keep the temperature just where you want and you can make some really great food. If basic air-control is too low-tech you can buy one of these [rocksbarbque.com]. And yes, it is hackable.
But the KomadoKamado is high-tech in the dual-layer isulation and CNC machined parts. (And there are *plenty* of geeks on the forum).
Back in another life when I worked in law-enforcement the correct term to use was "traffic collision." This is how you will see it reported on the California Highway Patrol incident page: http://cad.chp.ca.gov/
A commenter on NPR today made an interesting point. There is a lot of talk about "first private..." but NASA has relied heavily on private industry since the beginning. Lockheed Martin, Morton Thaikol, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, Rockwell Colllins, Teledyne, Honeywell, Kodak, Perkin-Elmer.........
And Falcon launched from a government built/owned/maintained launch-site.
What *is* different is the accounting. Instead of a bevy of cost-plus contracts there is now a single-point fixed-cost provider which, surprise surprise, seems to be able to deliver at a much lower cost/kg.
And no, this does not detract from their accomplishment. Getting to space is still difficult and risky. Congratulations to everyone involved regardless of who writes their paychecks.
It really depends on your style. It's hard to beat a pen and paper. A friend had a professor who swore that mental stimulation required special rubbing of a couple wrist bones that could only be achieved by sitting down and writing.
For keeping the essence of certain types of meetings, as well as for individual brainstoriming, I've found mindmaps useful. Freemind is open-source and quite intuitive so I can keep track of the thread of the meeting and go back and edit it later.
There is an old joke about campers hearing a bear outside a tent. One starts to put on his shoes and the other says, "don't be stupid, you can't outrun a bear." whereupon he replies, "I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun *you*."
Security is much the same. A friend bought a house. Upgraded the locks and alarm after a minor burglary. Next time, the burglars backed a pickup across the front lawn and smashed through the French doors, threw in the CD collection, stereo and other valuables and took off. They were probably long gone before any police dispatch would have gone out. You can't do a lot about that but you can make your house less inviting than those around you.
Trail cameras are relatively easy to set up but you do need to remember to change batteries, clear memory cards and such. Reconyx has some security models that will automatically overwrite the oldest photos but you still have to supply power. And no trail camera will be of use if it is stolen so get a security case as well. Reconyx is pretty pricey. I've left a cheaper Bushnell out front to at least see who is on my porch when away. Over the holidays there was a spate of thefts of packages left on the porch by UPSEx so I figured it couldn't hurt.
You can use a motion detecting camera like one of the many Axis models and set it up to automatically send pictures off-site.
Unless you spend $$$$, you are likely to be fairly unhappy with the quality of the photos - especially in low-light - but they are better than none at all.
Much better, however, to close the barn door rather than just having photos of the cows leaving. Your local PD is usually happy to offer a security assessment. Avoid some of the rookie-mistakes. I complained a few times to my wife about leaving purse-like things or keys in sight in the car. She wasn't worried since they weren't important keys and the purse didn't have valuables. She changed her practices when I pointed out that the thief will only discover that fact *after* smashing the window. Another rookie mistake is leaving garage-door openers in outside-parked cars. That's usually an easy way into the house. Once in the house, are your car-keys in plain sight or an obvious place? Then how nice of you to provide transport for your goods.
Make sure your doors close well, have decent deadbolts, your windows latch securely, your landscaping doesn't offer easy places to hide. Even fake security or video signs can be enough to send a burglar to another house.
Some people worry about getting the best pick-resistant locks. While you don't want one that is trivial to open with a bump-key, much more than that is overkill. Few burglars know anything about picking locks - they are looking for some quick cash to feed their addiction so they are more likely to go through the open window or unlocked door.
Finally, at the risk of making you more paranoid, some burglars like to return a couple months after the original crime. By then, your insurance has paid off and you have lots of shiny new stuff for them to steal.
While I'm at it, here are a couple interesting additional parts of perjury:
119. The term "oath," as used in the last two sections, includes an affirmation and every other mode authorized by law of attesting the truth of that which is stated.
123. It is no defense to a prosecution for perjury that the accused did not know the materiality of the false statement made by him; or that it did not, in fact, affect the proceeding in or for which it was made. It is sufficient that it was material, and might have been used to affect such proceeding.
124. The making of a deposition, affidavit or certificate is deemed to be complete, within the provisions of this chapter, from the time when it is delivered by the accused to any other person, with the intent that it be uttered or published as true.
Instead of fuzzy and non-attributed "laws", how about the specifics?
Gascon's comment that there was "no malicious intent" is simply ludicrous coming from the mouth of the official in charge of prosecuting criminal actions. It's not like someone said, "whoops, got the radar from the un-calibrated shelf by mistake - better make the appropriate report and nullify the incorrectly issued citations." This is a case people tasked with an important duty that rests at the core of investigating and prosecuting drunk driving instead wilfully and intentionally falsified reports for over half a decade. If Gascon were a competent prosecutor he would be familiar with California Penal Code section 118.1. Since he apparently is not, I quote:
"118.1. Every peace officer who files any report with the agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, whether or not the statement is certified or otherwise expressly reported as true, is guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for one, two, or three years. This section shall not apply to the contents of any statement which the peace officer attributes in the report to any other person."
Any questions other than how many counts they are guilty of or how the "miracle never-emptying bottle of calibration gas" went unnoticed by supervisors?
Marketing, at any rate. Scott sure knows how to market. Got banned from Delta in-flight mag (IIRC) for an ad telling you that the Evest could help you avoid baggage fees (see Streisand Effect) and reviews/ads/articles/endorsements run the gamut from Leo Laporte to Steve Wozniak to Amy Tan and Slashdot to the Wall Street Journal. There is a Youtube subculture of videos showing what is in your Evest. Agent Casey wore one on "Chuck".
As to the vest...
I've worn the Evest nearly every day for the past few years. My netbook (well, until my daughter tripped on the cord and sent it to the floor) would fit into the inner pocket. I generally have my phone, a music-player, a camera and extra batteries, a handful of USB sticks, incidentals (floss, tweezers, earplugs,...), business cards, and a pen or two, sometimes a can of mace. It's easy to toss in a small tripod, VHF rig or scanner when I want to have those with me.
I started pulling stuff out for one of the officers I chat with at the local coffee joint and all he could say was, "wow, imagine having to pat down someone wearing one of those."
My first Evest wore out after a year and a half - in part because I wore a hole where the seatbelt hits my shoulder. I'm currently wearing the lightweight vest which was on sale when I needed the replacement. It is OK but I don't like it as much as the standard travel vest. I haven't personally found much use for the back pocket on the vests and would rather do away with that zipper. You do have to be *very* careful to go through all the pockets before washing it.
It's handy when travelling through airport security. There is a pocket sized for tickets, cash and such. My phone, camera and miscellany are already in it so while in line I just stuff my wallet, Surefire, keys, belt and other metal-containing items into the pockets and throw the thing into a bin for the x-ray checks.
I tried the shorts but am lukewarm at best. The belt tends to curl a bit and several of the pockets are restricted in what can be put in them otherwise any time you kneel you jam the items in the lower back pocket between the back of your thigh and your calf. I've pretty much relegated them to use for workouts at the gym where the pockets are fine for holding my music player, phone and locker key. I probably won't replace them when they wear out.
Partially true. Generally obtaining the data is one of the biggest efforts - at least if you have to start from scratch or pay for it. But you may find open or free sources as well. Openstreetmap has data exports that can be imported into PostgreSQL/PostGIS. Some government entities,like my county, provide GIS data for their areas as well (http://www.ccmap.us/).
The "easy" part isn't as trivial as you aledge. Provided your data includes the necessary information, geospatial queries can allow you to write a single query to answer questions like "how many miles of federal highway are in this city?", "how many acres of watershead are in Senator Smallberry's district?" or "list all lakes with a shoreline within 5km of the nearest edge of this superfund site". A geospatial database has the required data- and index-types to enable efficient storage and retrieval of data to answer those questions.
But there's more. The output should integrate with a mapping program to present the results graphically so when someone asks for a map highlighting all roads within 1000 yards of a school boundary, you are ready.
And then there are other details with which to contend. Like datums/projections. NAD27? NAD83? WGS84? Numerous local datums.
That's a lot more than I want to reinvent when I can download free and open-source programs that will do it efficiently for me.
Hmmm. A friend's daughter in the Bay Area is named Moxie. Wonder if that's the one or if there's (at least) three Moxies in the region. Till now, I'd never heard of Moxie soda - the only usage of moxie I'd heard was meaning courage/determination/energy. As of 2010, Moxie was a rare but not unknown name (1 in 40,000 for girls). A Google search will turn up plenty of companies and products with moxie in the name.
I've only heard from people on one side of this but the story that I hear is that in the past, many departments had their own IT, mail servers, web, etc. When the campus built its centralized computing services facility, there was great pressure on departments to move to the central system. There was some griping about the costs for central services often exceeding the internal costs the departments formerly had but there was, I'm told, much need to justify the expense of and to pay for the new center. I've heard that some departments have been able to resurrect their internal systems to get through the outage.
Perhaps someone with more inside knowledge than I have can fill in and/or correct information from both sides of the story.
That slideshow is pure management-spin right from the opening "look how complicated and difficult this is..." I love how the "solution" to a system that is soon to outstrip its capacity is to stop expanding (and, it appears, properly maintaining) said system and hope it doesn't implode before you can toss the potato to an external party (who can then take the blame). Guess I was never learned at that school of capacity "planning".
The Atomic Testing Museum is quite well done. And if you are in Vegas, a side-trip to Hoover Dam is worthwhile. And if you have any inside contacts, get a tour of Switch Communications SuperNAP: http://switchlv.com/
I agree - the Bay Model is a fascinating look not only at the workings of the bay but also at the way we had to do simulations before we had the computing power we enjoy today.
I enjoy listening to the local police/fire but have always wondered whether HIPPA does/should cover fire-department dispatches.
Given the encryption and privacy requirements for your doctor/hospital/pharmacist, it's a bit odd to hear the constant stream of "Engine 71 respond to a medical. 1233 Main apartment 12. Attempted suicide. 23 year old female took a bottle of pills. Stage for PD.", "Engine 65, respond to 4321 Center. 34 year-old female having a miscarriage.", "Engine 72 respond for a 76 year old male non-breather. 8765 Harbor Place.", etc.
No name, but age, sex and address which pretty much uniquely identifies the person and which is combined with potentially embarrassing information (drug overdose, drunk, family disturbances, sexual assualts, and the like).
Other info that I'd prefer stay off the air: "Use gate-code 5564 to get in.", "Person is disabled, key is in the fake rock by the chimney"...
We don't make anything anymore? Popular rhetoric, I suppose, but I thought/. readers dug down to the numbers.
Let's look at some facts: The US is still the largest economy in the world. The US is still the largest manufacturer in the world - 1/5 of the entire world's output. China will probably pass the US soon but they have a billion more people - over 4 times as many - as the US. The US is the largest trading country in the world. Sure, the US economy is in the tank with nearly 10% unemployment. But where would one go? Greece (18%)? Spain (>21%)? Ireland (14%)?
There are some bright spots like Germany and Brazil but they are currently the exceptions.
NORAD has a network of satellites and radar stations dedicated to finding incoming threats.
But somehow, despite all this capability and despite tracking the descent of a 5,900 kilogram multi-meter by multi-meter satellite, they don't know where it hit.
I'm fortunate to be an early customer - it's only 1/5 mile round-trip to use the restroom. Parking and the loading-dock are farther. I've walked as much as 60-miles in a week traveling to Vegas. Much is due to schleps in the airports and taking walks after work but I'd estimate that back and forth between the cabinets, car, restroom, break-room and loading-dock accounts for 25-30% of my walking.
Slashdot Mirror
Before lowering the standard how about seriously enforcing what we have. It seems like when I read about a car into a house, through a storefront or killing a kid the story also mentions how many prior arrests and convictions the person has.
The local papers have run several articles about people having their licenses suspended or revoked and then walking out of court, hopping in their cars and driving away.
I occasionally listen to the police scanner and an astonishing number of people they pull over and run come back "suspended or revoked" yet I almost never hear that followed by "send the tow truck."
Moving the numbers around is meaningless if someone is driving with 10 prior convictions.
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop," -Herbert Stein
The absurd comment about ...with an annual energy growth rate of only 2.3%... reminds me of the population growth people a couple decades back who claimed that if the population keeps growing at this rate, by blah-blah-blah date the population of earth will be expanding at the speed of light.
Conclusion, population will not continue to grow at that rate, energy growth will not continue perpetually at 2.3%.
Of course we may want to influence *how* things stop. Stopping a car by applying the breaks is generally preferred over accelerating full-speed into a cliff.
My daughter first played with Scratch a year or so ago. She is now eight and enjoyed the book when I got it for her a few months back.
It should be a good companion for a Raspberry Pi as Scratch is one of the front-and-center educational apps on the default Raspberri Ubuntu distro (though running it definitely shows the speed limitations of the Pi).
One advantage of a non-Internet-connected Pi, however, is that Sratch doesn't have to compete with the myriad distractions from Cool-math-games-for-kids to Barbie.
What do you mean by "most popular."
I'm tired of hearing that "everyone uses..." No, they don't. MySQL is pretty popular with the open-source web-crowd but this is the same crowd that respects the engineering behind PHP. I've encountered plenty of people in that arena who would rather roll their own data-checks and treat the database as barely more than a key-value store than use the capabilities of the database and have to deal with handling exceptions. Bring up transactions, ACID compliance, data-integrity and the like at a PHP users group and you get blank-stares. The get-rich-quick-with-a-cute-kitten-website crowd cares not for such things (as an overgeneralization - there are plenty of high-traffic sites such as Instagram, hi5, Etsy and MyYearbook that run on PostgreSQL).
So where do you find PostgreSQL? Salesforce, National Weather Service, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Federal Aviation Administration, Sony Online Entertainment, TD Ameritrade, State of Wisconsin Courts, Afilias, BASF, Flightaware, Skype (a contributor of many PG utilities), Fujitsu, Launchpad (Ubuntu)...
And PostGIS is *the* go-to open-source geospatial database.
I've found the PostgreSQL community to be wonderful with opportunities to contribute at all levels. Answer questions on the mailing-lists, contribute to documentation, help at users-groups, give a talk at a conference. One always welcome contribution is doing testing and submitting results/patches during commitfests - and this gets you more involved with the code.
As to employment, it sounds like you prefer PostgreSQL. As such, PostgreSQL is by definition the most popular database among places you are interested in working. Do what you love.
My daughter loved tux paint and still occasionally uses it to make a card, poster or board for a game she is making up. I mentioned it to a friend and his son now loves it. Definitely worth a try.
Well, that's one way to build up a DNA database. Didn't the spooks recruit a doctor to get Bin Laden DNA under the guise of vaccinations?
I have an antenna. I get better quality than many people I know with dish or cable. I spend more than adequate time in front of the idiot box as is - why tempt myself with more.
There are a few premium shows I want to watch - Mad Men and Sopranos for example. But I've watched entire series on DVD for less than the cost of a month of cable.
Savings depends on your plan but compared to many of my friends and neighbors I am saving over a thousand dollars a year in subscription fees alone not counting the cost of the box and the power to run it (many DVRs are power vampires on standby). That pays for a week or more camping at a national park. Or a weekend at Disneyland.
When I first got a laptop with wifi I loaded Kismet and took the laptop with me on some errands. My favorite: HoneyPot_comeGetSnarf.
I enjoy the Kamado [komodokamado.com] type of cooker.
It's low-tech in that you don't need any fancy apps to keep the temperature just where you want and you can make some really great food. If basic air-control is too low-tech you can buy one of these [rocksbarbque.com]. And yes, it is hackable.
But the KomadoKamado is high-tech in the dual-layer isulation and CNC machined parts. (And there are *plenty* of geeks on the forum).
Back in another life when I worked in law-enforcement the correct term to use was "traffic collision." This is how you will see it reported on the California Highway Patrol incident page: http://cad.chp.ca.gov/
A commenter on NPR today made an interesting point. There is a lot of talk about "first private..." but NASA has relied heavily on private industry since the beginning. Lockheed Martin, Morton Thaikol, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, Rockwell Colllins, Teledyne, Honeywell, Kodak, Perkin-Elmer.........
And Falcon launched from a government built/owned/maintained launch-site.
What *is* different is the accounting. Instead of a bevy of cost-plus contracts there is now a single-point fixed-cost provider which, surprise surprise, seems to be able to deliver at a much lower cost/kg.
And no, this does not detract from their accomplishment. Getting to space is still difficult and risky. Congratulations to everyone involved regardless of who writes their paychecks.
It really depends on your style. It's hard to beat a pen and paper. A friend had a professor who swore that mental stimulation required special rubbing of a couple wrist bones that could only be achieved by sitting down and writing.
For keeping the essence of certain types of meetings, as well as for individual brainstoriming, I've found mindmaps useful. Freemind is open-source and quite intuitive so I can keep track of the thread of the meeting and go back and edit it later.
There is an old joke about campers hearing a bear outside a tent. One starts to put on his shoes and the other says, "don't be stupid, you can't outrun a bear." whereupon he replies, "I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun *you*."
Security is much the same. A friend bought a house. Upgraded the locks and alarm after a minor burglary. Next time, the burglars backed a pickup across the front lawn and smashed through the French doors, threw in the CD collection, stereo and other valuables and took off. They were probably long gone before any police dispatch would have gone out. You can't do a lot about that but you can make your house less inviting than those around you.
Trail cameras are relatively easy to set up but you do need to remember to change batteries, clear memory cards and such. Reconyx has some security models that will automatically overwrite the oldest photos but you still have to supply power. And no trail camera will be of use if it is stolen so get a security case as well. Reconyx is pretty pricey. I've left a cheaper Bushnell out front to at least see who is on my porch when away. Over the holidays there was a spate of thefts of packages left on the porch by UPSEx so I figured it couldn't hurt.
You can use a motion detecting camera like one of the many Axis models and set it up to automatically send pictures off-site.
Unless you spend $$$$, you are likely to be fairly unhappy with the quality of the photos - especially in low-light - but they are better than none at all.
Much better, however, to close the barn door rather than just having photos of the cows leaving. Your local PD is usually happy to offer a security assessment. Avoid some of the rookie-mistakes. I complained a few times to my wife about leaving purse-like things or keys in sight in the car. She wasn't worried since they weren't important keys and the purse didn't have valuables. She changed her practices when I pointed out that the thief will only discover that fact *after* smashing the window. Another rookie mistake is leaving garage-door openers in outside-parked cars. That's usually an easy way into the house. Once in the house, are your car-keys in plain sight or an obvious place? Then how nice of you to provide transport for your goods.
Make sure your doors close well, have decent deadbolts, your windows latch securely, your landscaping doesn't offer easy places to hide. Even fake security or video signs can be enough to send a burglar to another house.
Some people worry about getting the best pick-resistant locks. While you don't want one that is trivial to open with a bump-key, much more than that is overkill. Few burglars know anything about picking locks - they are looking for some quick cash to feed their addiction so they are more likely to go through the open window or unlocked door.
Finally, at the risk of making you more paranoid, some burglars like to return a couple months after the original crime. By then, your insurance has paid off and you have lots of shiny new stuff for them to steal.
While I'm at it, here are a couple interesting additional parts of perjury:
119. The term "oath," as used in the last two sections, includes an affirmation and every other mode authorized by law of attesting the truth of that which is stated.
123. It is no defense to a prosecution for perjury that the accused did not know the materiality of the false statement made by him; or that it did not, in fact, affect the proceeding in or for which it was made. It is sufficient that it was material, and might have been used to affect such proceeding.
124. The making of a deposition, affidavit or certificate is deemed to be complete, within the provisions of this chapter, from the time when it is delivered by the accused to any other person, with the intent that it be uttered or published as true.
Just trying to help out the prosecutors...
Instead of fuzzy and non-attributed "laws", how about the specifics?
Gascon's comment that there was "no malicious intent" is simply ludicrous coming from the mouth of the official in charge of prosecuting criminal actions. It's not like someone said, "whoops, got the radar from the un-calibrated shelf by mistake - better make the appropriate report and nullify the incorrectly issued citations." This is a case people tasked with an important duty that rests at the core of investigating and prosecuting drunk driving instead wilfully and intentionally falsified reports for over half a decade. If Gascon were a competent prosecutor he would be familiar with California Penal Code section 118.1. Since he apparently is not, I quote:
"118.1. Every peace officer who files any report with the agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, whether or not the statement is certified or otherwise expressly reported as true, is guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for one, two, or three years. This section shall not apply to the contents of any statement which the peace officer attributes in the report to any other person."
Any questions other than how many counts they are guilty of or how the "miracle never-emptying bottle of calibration gas" went unnoticed by supervisors?
Marketing, at any rate. Scott sure knows how to market. Got banned from Delta in-flight mag (IIRC) for an ad telling you that the Evest could help you avoid baggage fees (see Streisand Effect) and reviews/ads/articles/endorsements run the gamut from Leo Laporte to Steve Wozniak to Amy Tan and Slashdot to the Wall Street Journal. There is a Youtube subculture of videos showing what is in your Evest. Agent Casey wore one on "Chuck".
As to the vest...
I've worn the Evest nearly every day for the past few years. My netbook (well, until my daughter tripped on the cord and sent it to the floor) would fit into the inner pocket. I generally have my phone, a music-player, a camera and extra batteries, a handful of USB sticks, incidentals (floss, tweezers, earplugs, ...), business cards, and a pen or two, sometimes a can of mace. It's easy to toss in a small tripod, VHF rig or scanner when I want to have those with me.
I started pulling stuff out for one of the officers I chat with at the local coffee joint and all he could say was, "wow, imagine having to pat down someone wearing one of those."
My first Evest wore out after a year and a half - in part because I wore a hole where the seatbelt hits my shoulder. I'm currently wearing the lightweight vest which was on sale when I needed the replacement. It is OK but I don't like it as much as the standard travel vest. I haven't personally found much use for the back pocket on the vests and would rather do away with that zipper. You do have to be *very* careful to go through all the pockets before washing it.
It's handy when travelling through airport security. There is a pocket sized for tickets, cash and such. My phone, camera and miscellany are already in it so while in line I just stuff my wallet, Surefire, keys, belt and other metal-containing items into the pockets and throw the thing into a bin for the x-ray checks.
I tried the shorts but am lukewarm at best. The belt tends to curl a bit and several of the pockets are restricted in what can be put in them otherwise any time you kneel you jam the items in the lower back pocket between the back of your thigh and your calf. I've pretty much relegated them to use for workouts at the gym where the pockets are fine for holding my music player, phone and locker key. I probably won't replace them when they wear out.
Partially true. Generally obtaining the data is one of the biggest efforts - at least if you have to start from scratch or pay for it. But you may find open or free sources as well. Openstreetmap has data exports that can be imported into PostgreSQL/PostGIS. Some government entities,like my county, provide GIS data for their areas as well (http://www.ccmap.us/).
The "easy" part isn't as trivial as you aledge. Provided your data includes the necessary information, geospatial queries can allow you to write a single query to answer questions like "how many miles of federal highway are in this city?", "how many acres of watershead are in Senator Smallberry's district?" or "list all lakes with a shoreline within 5km of the nearest edge of this superfund site". A geospatial database has the required data- and index-types to enable efficient storage and retrieval of data to answer those questions.
But there's more. The output should integrate with a mapping program to present the results graphically so when someone asks for a map highlighting all roads within 1000 yards of a school boundary, you are ready.
And then there are other details with which to contend. Like datums/projections. NAD27? NAD83? WGS84? Numerous local datums.
That's a lot more than I want to reinvent when I can download free and open-source programs that will do it efficiently for me.
Hmmm. A friend's daughter in the Bay Area is named Moxie. Wonder if that's the one or if there's (at least) three Moxies in the region. Till now, I'd never heard of Moxie soda - the only usage of moxie I'd heard was meaning courage/determination/energy. As of 2010, Moxie was a rare but not unknown name (1 in 40,000 for girls). A Google search will turn up plenty of companies and products with moxie in the name.
I've only heard from people on one side of this but the story that I hear is that in the past, many departments had their own IT, mail servers, web, etc. When the campus built its centralized computing services facility, there was great pressure on departments to move to the central system. There was some griping about the costs for central services often exceeding the internal costs the departments formerly had but there was, I'm told, much need to justify the expense of and to pay for the new center. I've heard that some departments have been able to resurrect their internal systems to get through the outage.
Perhaps someone with more inside knowledge than I have can fill in and/or correct information from both sides of the story.
That slideshow is pure management-spin right from the opening "look how complicated and difficult this is..." I love how the "solution" to a system that is soon to outstrip its capacity is to stop expanding (and, it appears, properly maintaining) said system and hope it doesn't implode before you can toss the potato to an external party (who can then take the blame). Guess I was never learned at that school of capacity "planning".
The Atomic Testing Museum is quite well done. And if you are in Vegas, a side-trip to Hoover Dam is worthwhile. And if you have any inside contacts, get a tour of Switch Communications SuperNAP: http://switchlv.com/
I agree - the Bay Model is a fascinating look not only at the workings of the bay but also at the way we had to do simulations before we had the computing power we enjoy today.
I enjoy listening to the local police/fire but have always wondered whether HIPPA does/should cover fire-department dispatches.
Given the encryption and privacy requirements for your doctor/hospital/pharmacist, it's a bit odd to hear the constant stream of "Engine 71 respond to a medical. 1233 Main apartment 12. Attempted suicide. 23 year old female took a bottle of pills. Stage for PD.", "Engine 65, respond to 4321 Center. 34 year-old female having a miscarriage.", "Engine 72 respond for a 76 year old male non-breather. 8765 Harbor Place.", etc.
No name, but age, sex and address which pretty much uniquely identifies the person and which is combined with potentially embarrassing information (drug overdose, drunk, family disturbances, sexual assualts, and the like).
Other info that I'd prefer stay off the air: "Use gate-code 5564 to get in.", "Person is disabled, key is in the fake rock by the chimney"...
We don't make anything anymore? Popular rhetoric, I suppose, but I thought /. readers dug down to the numbers.
Let's look at some facts: The US is still the largest economy in the world. The US is still the largest manufacturer in the world - 1/5 of the entire world's output. China will probably pass the US soon but they have a billion more people - over 4 times as many - as the US. The US is the largest trading country in the world. Sure, the US economy is in the tank with nearly 10% unemployment. But where would one go? Greece (18%)? Spain (>21%)? Ireland (14%)?
There are some bright spots like Germany and Brazil but they are currently the exceptions.
NASA has an entire program office dedicated to tracking tens of thousands of pieces of orbital debris as small as 1cm: http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/measure/radar.html
NORAD has a network of satellites and radar stations dedicated to finding incoming threats.
But somehow, despite all this capability and despite tracking the descent of a 5,900 kilogram multi-meter by multi-meter satellite, they don't know where it hit.
?!?
I'm fortunate to be an early customer - it's only 1/5 mile round-trip to use the restroom. Parking and the loading-dock are farther. I've walked as much as 60-miles in a week traveling to Vegas. Much is due to schleps in the airports and taking walks after work but I'd estimate that back and forth between the cabinets, car, restroom, break-room and loading-dock accounts for 25-30% of my walking.