They left out GOMER: Get Out of My Emergency Room.
Perhaps this is more of a US term. It refers to people who show up to the ER for relatively trivial stuff because they can't be bothered to actually make an appointment. Most are on public assistance and aren't going to pay for it anyway so they don't give a s*** about abusing the system.
Someone who likes really good flashlights. I bought the L7 (rechargable but larger) and use it all the time for everything from general-purpose to bike headlamp. I can light up things well over 100 feet away - and I'm not talking some wimpy barely-visible light, either. And it's not just the brightness. The beam doesn't have all the bright and dim areas common in lots of lights.
Bought a couple of L2 models for presents last year and they were hits. My sister, who is far from a geek and initially wondered what possessed me to buy her a little flashlight for Christmas, loves hers. Turns out a flashlight that is small enough to leave in a purse but far brighter than a multi-D-cell monster is rather handy. And when you don't need blinding light, just use the low setting and you have 18 hours of runtime.
This year my wife is getting a L2 in her stocking. (Well, an IOU, anyway. I tried to order replacement rechargables, a beam-diffuser and the L2 from Surefire and all were backordered - the military is sucking up their production.)
I actually don't care for the Kroma so I can get away for $175-200/light. But the sky is the limit. They had a limited-edition (hundered or so) model for sale a while back that drained 20 lithium batteries in under an hour. It was bright enough to use for open-water and open-field long-range illumination. But it cost a couple grand to buy and about $25/hour in batteries.
Pricey? Yes. But fabulous lifetime-guaranteed lights.
I only fly small planes and gliders but I have several friends who are airline pilots/captains and read a lot on the subject. Many think that the simulator is actually better than the real thing for several reasons:
1. Better emergency training. The simulator operator can throw all sorts of things at you that you would never risk in a real airplane like, say, critical engine flameout with full load, gusty crosswinds and high density-altitude. And even if you were willing to take such risks on a real plane, you would have to wait for the right circumstances and would still spend most of your time flying to get ready for the next exercise. In a sim, a push of the button and you're back at the end of the runway waiting for the next disaster to be hurled at you by the torturer, er, instructor.
2. Emphasis on critical phases of flight. You can repeatedly train for tough instrument approaches, difficult holding patterns, etc. without wasting time boring holes in the sky.
3. Fly anywhere. Flying international? How about training for the hellish approach to the Hong Kong airport (well, the old one anyway, should be better now) in the sim?
I remember reading a story about a 747 crew grumbling about the treatment they received in the sim when the instructor threw a series of near-impossible scenarios at them. Shortly thereafter they had something similar to the above happen. Full load, hot day, hill off the departure end of the runway and the gusty crosswinds flamed an engine at rotation. Instantly training kicked in and the engineer threw the dump switches, pilot configured for the situation. They disappeared over the hill and the tower alerted rescue but then they reappeared as they came back for the emergency landing. They missed crashing on the hill by a few feet.
While I think that training in a real aircraft should still be in the curriculum, I would personally step on a plane piloted by a crew with 1500 hours of rigorous sim time before I would get on one piloted by a crew who got the required hours teaching kids in a 152 and then took a type-rating course. I'm not suggesting that the latter are not competant - but the former will be better trained for airline operations.
This is a fairly cool app but I wonder, given the amount of money involved in collecting all that data, why they didn't use gyrostabiliized cameras for the side views. It's weird seing buildings tipping sideways. Obviously another cost-cutting method was using front and rear cameras. But this leaves you "driving" toward oncoming traffic half the time. Still, once it becomes advanced enough and the speed-issues are solved, this could be a useful app.
Imagine, say, a zillow-hybrid. A homebuyer could select the items to put on the dash and then drive around neighborhoods while the "instruments" show the average property values, crime rates, tax rates, income levels, school performance, etc.
I bet this brilliant f**ing "event company" just saw that they needed to clear a bunch of "weeds". Apparently they didn't bother to find out how long desert plants take to regrow. Scars in the desert can take decades to heal.
I was born and raised in the Mojave Desert. It's a beautiful place and it makes me sick to see a bunch of out-of-town yahoos clearcut a bunch of it for their little stunt. 'Course environmental awareness isn't the first thing that KFC brings to mind so it's par for the course.
1) Galileo invented the thermometer in 1593.
I don't trust any temperature data for dates prior to 1593.
Point #1 makes about as much sense as saying "the camera was invented in the 1800's so I don't believe in dinosaurs. The global temperature data over time comes from a multitude of different proxies of temperature that have been preserved in geologic records just like ancient critters have been preserved as fossils.
I haven't seen much (actually I haven't seen any) argument that the historical temperature records are unreliable.
The real issues are the extent to which humans are responsible for climate change, the likely effects of such change, and whether climate change is a self-limiting/correcting or unstable-runaway process.
1. Do more research. There is much more to the law than the OP mentions including....wait for it....exemptions for political calls. Imagine that. And for pre-existing relationships, research surveys (provided they are real surveys, not disguised sales calls), etc. There is also a mishmash of state laws to consider - many of which have not been well tested in the courts.
2. If you have the time and inclination and are willing to do the additional research, go for it. You are doing the rest of us a favor.
In the United States the, Congress has the authority to create patents and copyrights under Section 8 of the Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
(emphasis mine)
Allowing one to profit from his effort is certainly a method of promoting progress. But absurdly long copyright or patent terms promote coasting, not progress - a fact that our legislators seem to have ignored.
Back in the dot-com days the company I worked for contracted with an expensive full-service managed hosting company. At the time the servers were running NT and there were stability problems. When one of the bank of servers crashed, someone at the NOC had to go reboot the system (simple press of the reset button - 0.1 hours tops). Then we got a monthly bill with huge charges for going over the alloted remote-hands time.
Turns out we were getting billed for 1-2 hours of time for every reboot. When a server died, all the alarms went off (web down, can't ping, smtp down, unable to get disk-status, unable to get cpu-status, unable to get memory-status, etc. etc. - a dozen or two alarms). The NOC guy would push the reset button and clear all the alarms with 0.1 hours spent then they would bill us for 0.1 times the dozen+ alarms.
We contested the bill and they told us that we needed to go through the bill and tell them which items were wrong when it was clearly a fubar bill that was their responsibility to fix. We finally had to withhold payment to force them to produce corrected bills.
Of course this was the same company that didn't put their name on the building for "security reasons"...a fact noted on their contact-us web page - the same page that provided detailed maps/instructions right to the entrance of the facility. And the same company that would quickly "schedule" some downtime to fix a live problem so they wouldn't have to pay for unscheduled downtime. And the same company that spectacularly crashed in "double-Bud" fashion from a reverse-split-adjusted high of >$2500/share to the current $3 and change. And don't get me started on their load-balancer and router issues.
So I guess the billing problems shouldn't have been a surprise.
Methinks that Skystream is being a bit less than upfront about the cost/benefit.
According to the Skystream data-sheet, the unit can produce 400kWh/month assuming 12 mph average wind speed and needs a minimum average wind-speed of 10mph (emphasis mine). According to the national average wind-speed archives there are very few places in the country that meet the required 10mph minimum average and fewer still that meet the recommended minimum of 12mph. And many of the places that can meet these requirements only do so for part of the year.
They say the unit can pay for itself "in as quickly as 5 years". WOW! That must be some set of optimal circumstances. Without even including the time value of money and assuming the lowest end of the $9,000-12,000 installed cost and no maintenance costs you would have to generate $1800 worth of electricity every year.
If your electricity costs $.20/kWh (well over the highest regional residential average rate) you still need to generate 9,000kWh/year or 750kWh/month. According to the specsheet this will require an average wind-speed of approximately 20mph (the full rated speed of the windmill). And the noise produced will be in the 50-60dB range or about the equivalent of my 2kW Honda eu2000i generator.
So perhaps if you are located in Mt. Washington, NH (the only place on the chart with average wind-speed > 20) and the unit isn't destroyed by the January average wind-speeds exceeding 46mph or by the occasional wind-speeds exceeding the 140mph "survival speed" or, of-course, by the ice-storms then you might see a 5-year payback. Otherwise, forget-it.
They probably would have to pay Microsoft for product placement
Umm. Generally it's the other way around - companies pay big bucks to have their products placed in shows and movies. If anything the conversation would go like:
Studio: "We can feature a Vista screenshot for $100,000 per episode."
M$: "Sounds a bit steep - we'll have to think about it."
Studio: "You do that." (turning to door and shouting) "Hey Bob, we're going with the Linux shots."
I think "3" is a good possibility. Or perhaps whomever was tasked with setting up that scenery happens to like Linux. Then again, given the extensive use/availability of Linux in studio animation facilities and rendering farms, it might have just been convenient.
Not entirely true true. The main point is to have your database contain known-good data. And not lose it. (Yes, you can boost PostgreSQL's performance by turning off fsync but most people are bright enough not to do this.)
Ensuring data integrity requires a well thought-out design of table structures, primary/foreign keys, rules, triggers, etc. It also requires a database server that actually provides the tools required to implement your plan.
Maybe Mr. PHP hasn't heard of Perl, Python, C, Java, Ruby and so on and thinks that databases are only accessed via PHP code written by careful talented programmers eager to reinvent database features. Maybe he doesn't think that people use ad-hoc tools like psql or PgAdmin. Sure, it's possible to re-implement some of the safeguards inherent in a good database design running on good database software. But only for that one piece of code.
It's kind of like a homeowner who carefully installs one new energy efficient window, leaves all the others open, and then wonders why the heating bill is so high.
When I started my current job the company had minimal bandwidth requirements, a dedicated T1 and only 7 people using the connection. And they all complained about the "slow" connection. Problem was latency. 250ms to the ISP's gateway was typical and often worse. Given that displaying a typical web page involves several DNS lookups and many connections those quarter-seconds added up quick.
We switched to a new provider (actually had to, the old one was in bankruptcy) and people were stunned by the improved speed. Of course the "speed" was the same - they were both T1s. Only the latency had changed.
Using the appropriate transfer method, bulk data transfers may not be significantly impacted by bad latency. But anything involving lots of small transfers and/or short connections can be killed by bad latency.
Read the article. "The concept was offered by Roman Catholic bishops as an alternative to opening a one-time window for the filing of civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse that occurred as long as 35 years ago." I find it infuriating that while the Catholic church talks a good line about doing what's right, caring for people, attonement for sins, etc., when it comes down to it, what they really try to do is protect their hoard of cash.
They have already been hit for hundreds of millions of dollars in judgements due to priests who couldn't keep their peckers in their pants. Now when it looks like they may be on the hook for more judgements in Ohio they manage to get the legislators to fall for this "alternative". Civil rights be damned.
Seems to me that a truly pious organization would own up to its issues and care for those who have been harmed. And quit covering up for the priests who have been buggering our kids.
You are getting some good tips here. Also, talk to lots of vendors. With enough conversations you can put together an even more comprehensive list of possibilities and potential problems.
But the most important thing to start with is your requirements. Start with why do you want to replace mechanical keys? Save rekeying costs when employees leave or lose a key? That will frequently pay off by itself. Do you want to avoid people propping doors open because keys are inconvenient? Electronic can help with that, too. Just put the readers in a convenient place (ie. hip-level if you are using cards in wallets/purses - higher if the keys are embedded in picture ids that must be worn in the facility) and buy a system that sounds alarms when doors are open too long. Most businesses don't need to go overboard on security but can still benefit from electronic access.
On the other hand, you may have specific requirements imposed by your type of business or your vendor relationships. If you are handling, for instance, banking records, IRS info, medical data, etc. you may have some very specific security requirements and the key you use will be only a small part. Read the specs specific to your industry or your customers' industries and go from there.
And be sure that you have a tested disaster-recovery procedure. Others have told stories so I'll tell one, too. A friend worked on a NASA funded project. The satellite they were controlling cost 500 million dollars. They had fancy keylocks, backed up by redundant power and a operational plan that involved immediately shutting down non-essential systems and if the power outage looked long-term, having the university physical-plant connect in the emergency generators. When the big all-California whole-day power outage hit the plan fell apart. The on-duty controller headed down the hall, punched in his code and had it accepted but....nothing happened. Turns out that while the security system was backed up, the solenoid that actually retracts the lock was not. Neither was the phone system. Or the pager company transmitter sites. Fortunately the controller found a pay-phone and eventually a manager with a plain-old-telephone at home so they were able to get physical keys to the server rooms. (Note: disaster recovery is rife with this sort of tale. We found that while we can theoretically access our systems, getting to our office when the elevators are out and the fire stairs are locked due to silly post-911 security "enhancements", we can't actually get to our office in a major power outage.)
I recently got some telecom equipment (DS3 Mux, patch panels, etc.). It arrived in several medium to large sized boxes. I opened one. Under a large wad of paper padding was....one patch cable for the mux. No, not a big cable but a thin 18" cable. In another box was...the other patch cable. I kept opening similar boxes till there was a very small pile of equipment and a huge pile of boxes and paper in the middle of the room.
They are talking to an executive who joins a growing list of other executives who have raked in millions upon millions and are now scurrying like cockroaches when the light is shined on them. Meanwhile they tell the rank-and-file to keep their heads down 'cause their jobs just might go to India and market company stock to the public as though it were just another product.
I work for a small company and I can say that if I hid stuff from the owner the way these guys do I'd be out the door in no time.
It's high-time that shareholders were treated like the owners they are. If he "doesn't know who the injured party is" then he should talk to the shareholders of the companies that are having to restate earnings to account for their misdeeds.
While on travel in Chicago a couple years ago I caught a "oh, isn't this dreadful" hand-wringing pieces of journalism where they had "discovered" that even the transit card would open the door to the ATM. They trotted out stories of people who had been mugged after getting their money. So when back home I tried my BART card and it worked fine as well.
Could they improve the ATM vestibule access? Sure. But would it do any good? I doubt it. Almost everyone has some sort of card that could reasonably be used in an ATM and a mugger can just get you when you walk out or force you in when you get out your card. Or they could use a stolen card.
Given the default security-settings and install options present on so much software, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but I am still surprised that a system whose sole purpose is security would make it so easy to allow this sort of misconfiguration. That seems like an option you should be forced to request.
My father was a scientist/engineer at a top military R&D facility for his entire career. In the early 80's, he was put in charge of procuring thousands of desktop computers for the base. He used to tell me about the dumb looks he got when asking the vendors' sales-flacks if their machines had a sleep or low-power mode. They hadn't even though about the possibility.
My dad died last year and in going through his paperwork I found one of his memos on the subject. He recommended that the contracts specify that 5-year energy cost be included in the overall cost of any proposal. He acknowledged in the memo that it was unlikely to affect the outcome of current round of bidding but it would serve as notice to the vendors that energy efficiency would influence future contract awards.
Nice to see efficiency being given some thought at the top.
Of course I'm jaded enough to have very little hope that they will craft something sensible...
Wow! I feel like I'm feeding the trolls here but just in case...
JUST collecting call records? Like the ones the government was using to locate reporters' sources to chill media access to information? Like government attempts to expand easier-to-obtain pen-register warrants to cover not only the traditional who dialed whom info but also any touch-tone data within the call (PIN numbers, etc.). Who calls me, whom I call, when we call and how long we talk is absolutely nobody's business but mine and the phone company and the phone company has no business using it for anything but billing.
Full public disclosure of all call data, indeed. I can see it now. "Your resume looks perfect for the position, Joan. Unfortunately when we ran your call-records we saw numerous calls to a shrink and a drug-rehab center. And with your husband apparently having an affair, we can't risk the possibility of family stress interfering with your work..."
Even if EFF completely fails in the AT&T lawsuit, it has brought the issue into the public's awareness and that alone is worthwhile.
Add to that their work on DRM, Internet governance issues, etc. and I'm more happy than ever to send them several hundred dollars every year.
Ahhhh! I get it, you're one of those! "I hear the jury's still out on this Science thing."
Absolutely, unequivocally not.
I'm one of those people that understands that conforming to the principles of the scientific method is a very different thing than being called a scientist.
And fortunately over time the scientific method works quite well. A hypothesis is formed, gets tested, revised, and is peer-reviewed. Predictions can be correctly based on the hypothesis. It becomes a theory, etc.
People who claim to be or are tagged with the description "scientist" are still people. Some are brilliant. Most, I hope, are careful and honest. Ideally they are without ego. Unfortunately, the traits required to survive the scramble and pressure to get from student to grad-student to post-doc to.....tenure doesn't always mesh perfectly with the ideal traits of a scientist. In fact, some universities expect you to prove your hypothesis in order to get your advanced degree which imparts exactly the wrong sort of pressure and attitude. At others, if your hypothesis is approriate for doctoral research then they expect good work and a result. If the result is that the original hypotheses is false, that is OK and one of the possible expected outcomes of rigorous scientific investigation.
I revere the scientific method and the advances it has brought to human civilization. If something proves true I don't care if it was discovered at a university, a corporation or by the local dog catcher. I admire the work of the many people required to test, retest, refine and prove the idea.
However I don't think that the mere fact that the researcher, in this case, works at a university is any reason to raise my expectation level of technological success.
The fact that this is coming out of a university gives me hope that this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor.
Like Pons & Fleishman's cold fusion? Like the recent Korean cloning fiasco? Like the forestry research papers that were pulled because of political and corporate pressure? Like so many others that have been in the recent news?
Problem is that scientists and researchers can be corrupted by fame, fortune or pressure just like other humans.
I'm not saying that this technology is bogus - I know nothing about the technology or the people involved. But the fact that it comes from a university doesn't offer any special guarantees in my book.
Slashdot Mirror
They left out GOMER: Get Out of My Emergency Room.
Perhaps this is more of a US term. It refers to people who show up to the ER for relatively trivial stuff because they can't be bothered to actually make an appointment. Most are on public assistance and aren't going to pay for it anyway so they don't give a s*** about abusing the system.
Someone who likes really good flashlights. I bought the L7 (rechargable but larger) and use it all the time for everything from general-purpose to bike headlamp. I can light up things well over 100 feet away - and I'm not talking some wimpy barely-visible light, either. And it's not just the brightness. The beam doesn't have all the bright and dim areas common in lots of lights.
Bought a couple of L2 models for presents last year and they were hits. My sister, who is far from a geek and initially wondered what possessed me to buy her a little flashlight for Christmas, loves hers. Turns out a flashlight that is small enough to leave in a purse but far brighter than a multi-D-cell monster is rather handy. And when you don't need blinding light, just use the low setting and you have 18 hours of runtime.
This year my wife is getting a L2 in her stocking. (Well, an IOU, anyway. I tried to order replacement rechargables, a beam-diffuser and the L2 from Surefire and all were backordered - the military is sucking up their production.)
I actually don't care for the Kroma so I can get away for $175-200/light. But the sky is the limit. They had a limited-edition (hundered or so) model for sale a while back that drained 20 lithium batteries in under an hour. It was bright enough to use for open-water and open-field long-range illumination. But it cost a couple grand to buy and about $25/hour in batteries.
Pricey? Yes. But fabulous lifetime-guaranteed lights.
I only fly small planes and gliders but I have several friends who are airline pilots/captains and read a lot on the subject. Many think that the simulator is actually better than the real thing for several reasons:
1. Better emergency training. The simulator operator can throw all sorts of things at you that you would never risk in a real airplane like, say, critical engine flameout with full load, gusty crosswinds and high density-altitude. And even if you were willing to take such risks on a real plane, you would have to wait for the right circumstances and would still spend most of your time flying to get ready for the next exercise. In a sim, a push of the button and you're back at the end of the runway waiting for the next disaster to be hurled at you by the torturer, er, instructor.
2. Emphasis on critical phases of flight. You can repeatedly train for tough instrument approaches, difficult holding patterns, etc. without wasting time boring holes in the sky.
3. Fly anywhere. Flying international? How about training for the hellish approach to the Hong Kong airport (well, the old one anyway, should be better now) in the sim?
I remember reading a story about a 747 crew grumbling about the treatment they received in the sim when the instructor threw a series of near-impossible scenarios at them. Shortly thereafter they had something similar to the above happen. Full load, hot day, hill off the departure end of the runway and the gusty crosswinds flamed an engine at rotation. Instantly training kicked in and the engineer threw the dump switches, pilot configured for the situation. They disappeared over the hill and the tower alerted rescue but then they reappeared as they came back for the emergency landing. They missed crashing on the hill by a few feet.
While I think that training in a real aircraft should still be in the curriculum, I would personally step on a plane piloted by a crew with 1500 hours of rigorous sim time before I would get on one piloted by a crew who got the required hours teaching kids in a 152 and then took a type-rating course. I'm not suggesting that the latter are not competant - but the former will be better trained for airline operations.
This is a fairly cool app but I wonder, given the amount of money involved in collecting all that data, why they didn't use gyrostabiliized cameras for the side views. It's weird seing buildings tipping sideways. Obviously another cost-cutting method was using front and rear cameras. But this leaves you "driving" toward oncoming traffic half the time. Still, once it becomes advanced enough and the speed-issues are solved, this could be a useful app.
Imagine, say, a zillow-hybrid. A homebuyer could select the items to put on the dash and then drive around neighborhoods while the "instruments" show the average property values, crime rates, tax rates, income levels, school performance, etc.
I bet this brilliant f**ing "event company" just saw that they needed to clear a bunch of "weeds". Apparently they didn't bother to find out how long desert plants take to regrow. Scars in the desert can take decades to heal.
I was born and raised in the Mojave Desert. It's a beautiful place and it makes me sick to see a bunch of out-of-town yahoos clearcut a bunch of it for their little stunt. 'Course environmental awareness isn't the first thing that KFC brings to mind so it's par for the course.
Point #1 makes about as much sense as saying "the camera was invented in the 1800's so I don't believe in dinosaurs. The global temperature data over time comes from a multitude of different proxies of temperature that have been preserved in geologic records just like ancient critters have been preserved as fossils.
I haven't seen much (actually I haven't seen any) argument that the historical temperature records are unreliable.
The real issues are the extent to which humans are responsible for climate change, the likely effects of such change, and whether climate change is a self-limiting/correcting or unstable-runaway process.
1. Do more research. There is much more to the law than the OP mentions including....wait for it....exemptions for political calls. Imagine that. And for pre-existing relationships, research surveys (provided they are real surveys, not disguised sales calls), etc. There is also a mishmash of state laws to consider - many of which have not been well tested in the courts.
2. If you have the time and inclination and are willing to do the additional research, go for it. You are doing the rest of us a favor.
3. If you would rather have some fun instead (only for live person calls), use the anti-telemarketer script found here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html
Virtual desktop 1:
Thunderbird
J-Pilot
FireFox (3-50 tabs)
Virtual desktop 2:
6-8 terminal sessions (dev/admin - multiple machines)
Virtual desktop 4/5:
More terminal sessions constantly tailing logs for quick system checks
Virtual desktops 3/6:
Available for word-processing, image editing, or whatever misc task I need at the moment.
Allowing one to profit from his effort is certainly a method of promoting progress. But absurdly long copyright or patent terms promote coasting, not progress - a fact that our legislators seem to have ignored.
Back in the dot-com days the company I worked for contracted with an expensive full-service managed hosting company. At the time the servers were running NT and there were stability problems. When one of the bank of servers crashed, someone at the NOC had to go reboot the system (simple press of the reset button - 0.1 hours tops). Then we got a monthly bill with huge charges for going over the alloted remote-hands time.
Turns out we were getting billed for 1-2 hours of time for every reboot. When a server died, all the alarms went off (web down, can't ping, smtp down, unable to get disk-status, unable to get cpu-status, unable to get memory-status, etc. etc. - a dozen or two alarms). The NOC guy would push the reset button and clear all the alarms with 0.1 hours spent then they would bill us for 0.1 times the dozen+ alarms.
We contested the bill and they told us that we needed to go through the bill and tell them which items were wrong when it was clearly a fubar bill that was their responsibility to fix. We finally had to withhold payment to force them to produce corrected bills.
Of course this was the same company that didn't put their name on the building for "security reasons"...a fact noted on their contact-us web page - the same page that provided detailed maps/instructions right to the entrance of the facility. And the same company that would quickly "schedule" some downtime to fix a live problem so they wouldn't have to pay for unscheduled downtime. And the same company that spectacularly crashed in "double-Bud" fashion from a reverse-split-adjusted high of >$2500/share to the current $3 and change. And don't get me started on their load-balancer and router issues.
So I guess the billing problems shouldn't have been a surprise.
Methinks that Skystream is being a bit less than upfront about the cost/benefit.
According to the Skystream data-sheet, the unit can produce 400kWh/month assuming 12 mph average wind speed and needs a minimum average wind-speed of 10mph (emphasis mine). According to the national average wind-speed archives there are very few places in the country that meet the required 10mph minimum average and fewer still that meet the recommended minimum of 12mph. And many of the places that can meet these requirements only do so for part of the year.
They say the unit can pay for itself "in as quickly as 5 years". WOW! That must be some set of optimal circumstances. Without even including the time value of money and assuming the lowest end of the $9,000-12,000 installed cost and no maintenance costs you would have to generate $1800 worth of electricity every year.
If your electricity costs $.20/kWh (well over the highest regional residential average rate) you still need to generate 9,000kWh/year or 750kWh/month. According to the specsheet this will require an average wind-speed of approximately 20mph (the full rated speed of the windmill). And the noise produced will be in the 50-60dB range or about the equivalent of my 2kW Honda eu2000i generator.
So perhaps if you are located in Mt. Washington, NH (the only place on the chart with average wind-speed > 20) and the unit isn't destroyed by the January average wind-speeds exceeding 46mph or by the occasional wind-speeds exceeding the 140mph "survival speed" or, of-course, by the ice-storms then you might see a 5-year payback. Otherwise, forget-it.
Umm. Generally it's the other way around - companies pay big bucks to have their products placed in shows and movies. If anything the conversation would go like:
Studio: "We can feature a Vista screenshot for $100,000 per episode."
M$: "Sounds a bit steep - we'll have to think about it."
Studio: "You do that." (turning to door and shouting) "Hey Bob, we're going with the Linux shots."
I think "3" is a good possibility. Or perhaps whomever was tasked with setting up that scenery happens to like Linux. Then again, given the extensive use/availability of Linux in studio animation facilities and rendering farms, it might have just been convenient.
I'd check out the Linux Terminal Server Project
Not entirely true true. The main point is to have your database contain known-good data. And not lose it. (Yes, you can boost PostgreSQL's performance by turning off fsync but most people are bright enough not to do this.)
Ensuring data integrity requires a well thought-out design of table structures, primary/foreign keys, rules, triggers, etc. It also requires a database server that actually provides the tools required to implement your plan.
Maybe Mr. PHP hasn't heard of Perl, Python, C, Java, Ruby and so on and thinks that databases are only accessed via PHP code written by careful talented programmers eager to reinvent database features. Maybe he doesn't think that people use ad-hoc tools like psql or PgAdmin. Sure, it's possible to re-implement some of the safeguards inherent in a good database design running on good database software. But only for that one piece of code.
It's kind of like a homeowner who carefully installs one new energy efficient window, leaves all the others open, and then wonders why the heating bill is so high.
You mean Ted Stevens was right??
When I started my current job the company had minimal bandwidth requirements, a dedicated T1 and only 7 people using the connection. And they all complained about the "slow" connection. Problem was latency. 250ms to the ISP's gateway was typical and often worse. Given that displaying a typical web page involves several DNS lookups and many connections those quarter-seconds added up quick.
We switched to a new provider (actually had to, the old one was in bankruptcy) and people were stunned by the improved speed. Of course the "speed" was the same - they were both T1s. Only the latency had changed.
Using the appropriate transfer method, bulk data transfers may not be significantly impacted by bad latency. But anything involving lots of small transfers and/or short connections can be killed by bad latency.
Read the article. "The concept was offered by Roman Catholic bishops as an alternative to opening a one-time window for the filing of civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse that occurred as long as 35 years ago." I find it infuriating that while the Catholic church talks a good line about doing what's right, caring for people, attonement for sins, etc., when it comes down to it, what they really try to do is protect their hoard of cash.
They have already been hit for hundreds of millions of dollars in judgements due to priests who couldn't keep their peckers in their pants. Now when it looks like they may be on the hook for more judgements in Ohio they manage to get the legislators to fall for this "alternative". Civil rights be damned.
Seems to me that a truly pious organization would own up to its issues and care for those who have been harmed. And quit covering up for the priests who have been buggering our kids.
You are getting some good tips here. Also, talk to lots of vendors. With enough conversations you can put together an even more comprehensive list of possibilities and potential problems.
But the most important thing to start with is your requirements. Start with why do you want to replace mechanical keys? Save rekeying costs when employees leave or lose a key? That will frequently pay off by itself. Do you want to avoid people propping doors open because keys are inconvenient? Electronic can help with that, too. Just put the readers in a convenient place (ie. hip-level if you are using cards in wallets/purses - higher if the keys are embedded in picture ids that must be worn in the facility) and buy a system that sounds alarms when doors are open too long. Most businesses don't need to go overboard on security but can still benefit from electronic access.
On the other hand, you may have specific requirements imposed by your type of business or your vendor relationships. If you are handling, for instance, banking records, IRS info, medical data, etc. you may have some very specific security requirements and the key you use will be only a small part. Read the specs specific to your industry or your customers' industries and go from there.
And be sure that you have a tested disaster-recovery procedure. Others have told stories so I'll tell one, too. A friend worked on a NASA funded project. The satellite they were controlling cost 500 million dollars. They had fancy keylocks, backed up by redundant power and a operational plan that involved immediately shutting down non-essential systems and if the power outage looked long-term, having the university physical-plant connect in the emergency generators. When the big all-California whole-day power outage hit the plan fell apart. The on-duty controller headed down the hall, punched in his code and had it accepted but....nothing happened. Turns out that while the security system was backed up, the solenoid that actually retracts the lock was not. Neither was the phone system. Or the pager company transmitter sites. Fortunately the controller found a pay-phone and eventually a manager with a plain-old-telephone at home so they were able to get physical keys to the server rooms. (Note: disaster recovery is rife with this sort of tale. We found that while we can theoretically access our systems, getting to our office when the elevators are out and the fire stairs are locked due to silly post-911 security "enhancements", we can't actually get to our office in a major power outage.)
I recently got some telecom equipment (DS3 Mux, patch panels, etc.). It arrived in several medium to large sized boxes. I opened one. Under a large wad of paper padding was....one patch cable for the mux. No, not a big cable but a thin 18" cable. In another box was...the other patch cable. I kept opening similar boxes till there was a very small pile of equipment and a huge pile of boxes and paper in the middle of the room.
They are talking to an executive who joins a growing list of other executives who have raked in millions upon millions and are now scurrying like cockroaches when the light is shined on them. Meanwhile they tell the rank-and-file to keep their heads down 'cause their jobs just might go to India and market company stock to the public as though it were just another product.
I work for a small company and I can say that if I hid stuff from the owner the way these guys do I'd be out the door in no time.
It's high-time that shareholders were treated like the owners they are. If he "doesn't know who the injured party is" then he should talk to the shareholders of the companies that are having to restate earnings to account for their misdeeds.
While on travel in Chicago a couple years ago I caught a "oh, isn't this dreadful" hand-wringing pieces of journalism where they had "discovered" that even the transit card would open the door to the ATM. They trotted out stories of people who had been mugged after getting their money. So when back home I tried my BART card and it worked fine as well.
Could they improve the ATM vestibule access? Sure. But would it do any good? I doubt it. Almost everyone has some sort of card that could reasonably be used in an ATM and a mugger can just get you when you walk out or force you in when you get out your card. Or they could use a stolen card.
Given the default security-settings and install options present on so much software, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but I am still surprised that a system whose sole purpose is security would make it so easy to allow this sort of misconfiguration. That seems like an option you should be forced to request.
My father was a scientist/engineer at a top military R&D facility for his entire career. In the early 80's, he was put in charge of procuring thousands of desktop computers for the base. He used to tell me about the dumb looks he got when asking the vendors' sales-flacks if their machines had a sleep or low-power mode. They hadn't even though about the possibility.
My dad died last year and in going through his paperwork I found one of his memos on the subject. He recommended that the contracts specify that 5-year energy cost be included in the overall cost of any proposal. He acknowledged in the memo that it was unlikely to affect the outcome of current round of bidding but it would serve as notice to the vendors that energy efficiency would influence future contract awards.
Nice to see efficiency being given some thought at the top.
Of course I'm jaded enough to have very little hope that they will craft something sensible...
Wow! I feel like I'm feeding the trolls here but just in case...
JUST collecting call records? Like the ones the government was using to locate reporters' sources to chill media access to information? Like government attempts to expand easier-to-obtain pen-register warrants to cover not only the traditional who dialed whom info but also any touch-tone data within the call (PIN numbers, etc.). Who calls me, whom I call, when we call and how long we talk is absolutely nobody's business but mine and the phone company and the phone company has no business using it for anything but billing.
Full public disclosure of all call data, indeed. I can see it now. "Your resume looks perfect for the position, Joan. Unfortunately when we ran your call-records we saw numerous calls to a shrink and a drug-rehab center. And with your husband apparently having an affair, we can't risk the possibility of family stress interfering with your work..."
Even if EFF completely fails in the AT&T lawsuit, it has brought the issue into the public's awareness and that alone is worthwhile.
Add to that their work on DRM, Internet governance issues, etc. and I'm more happy than ever to send them several hundred dollars every year.
Absolutely, unequivocally not.
I'm one of those people that understands that conforming to the principles of the scientific method is a very different thing than being called a scientist.
And fortunately over time the scientific method works quite well. A hypothesis is formed, gets tested, revised, and is peer-reviewed. Predictions can be correctly based on the hypothesis. It becomes a theory, etc.
People who claim to be or are tagged with the description "scientist" are still people. Some are brilliant. Most, I hope, are careful and honest. Ideally they are without ego. Unfortunately, the traits required to survive the scramble and pressure to get from student to grad-student to post-doc to.....tenure doesn't always mesh perfectly with the ideal traits of a scientist. In fact, some universities expect you to prove your hypothesis in order to get your advanced degree which imparts exactly the wrong sort of pressure and attitude. At others, if your hypothesis is approriate for doctoral research then they expect good work and a result. If the result is that the original hypotheses is false, that is OK and one of the possible expected outcomes of rigorous scientific investigation.
I revere the scientific method and the advances it has brought to human civilization. If something proves true I don't care if it was discovered at a university, a corporation or by the local dog catcher. I admire the work of the many people required to test, retest, refine and prove the idea.
However I don't think that the mere fact that the researcher, in this case, works at a university is any reason to raise my expectation level of technological success.
Like Pons & Fleishman's cold fusion? Like the recent Korean cloning fiasco? Like the forestry research papers that were pulled because of political and corporate pressure? Like so many others that have been in the recent news?
Problem is that scientists and researchers can be corrupted by fame, fortune or pressure just like other humans.
I'm not saying that this technology is bogus - I know nothing about the technology or the people involved. But the fact that it comes from a university doesn't offer any special guarantees in my book.