Politicians don't listen to the average person. I have tried writing them in the past on many different issues and always receive a nice form letter reply. Politicians are ALL bought in some way, by someone with more money and power than me.
You may be right that a boycott can't/won't work (hence my comment about "sheep"), but I contend that trying to get politician's to listen is just as hopeless.
For the same reason that you say a boycott will fail, so will attempt's to vote people (not POLITICIANS!) into office that will actually listen to the common people. Sheep would rather be lead to the answer, not actually try and make a real/good/informed choice. Sadly most people don't care or don't realize that this sort of stuff is happening and will continue to vote polticians into office. I argue that even people in the "technorati" make poor choices for their representation.
If it utimately happens that all devices will only play DRM enabled content, than I just will stop buying all produced content. I will not support an industry that doesn't listen to what their consumer's are telling them and ultimately sues their own customers! It won't be the first time I stopped using a business's product because I didn't like the way they did business.
One thing you forgot to mention is that you still have a choice, you can choose to not buy products that have DRM in them. Don't support the RIAA's efforts to make this happen. Either don't by CD/MP3's at all or buy them from Indie band/label's, who don't use DRM.
DRM currently is not a "requirement", that must be on the CD/MP3 to make it play correctly, there will always be band/label's that will produce DRM free music. Ultimately money rules and only by consumers "speaking" with their money will big corporations listen. In reality this may fail as well because enough sheep may continue to purchase their product that the message won't be received. Hopefully bands will also get the "message" and not sign with RIAA members and the only thing for them to produce is the "blond haired" flavor of the month, which ironically isn't too far from all they produce now.
I haven't purchased an RIAA member produced CD in over 4 years, at first because the price was way out of line for the value received, but now because I don't agree with their tatic's. I do continue to buy CD's from non-RIAA member's.
You can either complain about it or do what you can to defeat it, and that means don't buy their products!
I have installed two Cisco CallManager solutions, and they are great. During the first one I was skeptical (the client really wanted VOIP and I wasn't too sure), but I have never heard any echo problems or delays that others have talked about.
The phone's are more expensive, but they act as a switch at the end user's desk, so only one drop is typically needed, since the user's PC plugs into the phone. So you avoid the extra cost of running a second drop to everyone's desk. Another nice feature is that since the phone number is assigned to the MAC address of the phone, moving is easier, just take the phone and plug into the network in the new location.
I have also had the misfortune of having to install/manage three Bell Labs/Lucent systems (two Merlins and a G3 Definity), and easily the CallManager system is the better solution. The SW for the Lucent system is simplistic, and unless you have being doing telephony since the 1960's, will not be intutive at all. But the SW for CallManager, while far from perfect, is much more intuitive, and easier for a Unix Admin type to understand.
The quality of your network infrastructure needs to be taken into account though. You need to make sure that you have at least Cat5e cable and you may need to upgrade your switches to support inline power.
See if your current employer has any opportunites. The advantage is that they already know your a good worker (assumption;) and you may already know some of the managers in the development area and can convince them to take a chance on you. If you have to, offer to keep doing your current system administration duties. This could mean extra work for you, but if you can gain the programming experience you need it will be a win in the end.
My other advice is to keep your system admin skills fresh. I have been doing both sys admin and programming for my entire career (15+ years) and when times are tough, like now, being able to take jobs in either area is a nice advantage to have.
Re:Please be respectful on this topic
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 1
As a parent of an ADD sufferer I wanted to express my concern over using Aderall. The drug does work if used correctly.
Unfortunately our son also suffers from an addictive personality, and is a fairly heavy drug user, not a good combination. No matter what my wife and I did to hide the Aderall he would tear the house apart looking for it and then scream at us that we were not giving him enough of it. He was prescribed two 40mg tablets a day (the maximum allowed in this state), and still wanted more! He would also tell his doctor that he didn't think the dose was high enough, because it didn't seem to be working, when in reality he has using it (in combination with pot) to get high. There were times he stole a whole two month supply and used it all in a week!
If you choose Aderall, be very careful with. When our son used it correctly it worked great, but when he abused it, he would stay up for days at a time a become extremely violent.
We finally convinced the doctor to switch him to the new non-amphetamine version (the name escapes me as well), and he is doing much better on it.
Another problem with Aderall is it made him super concentrated and very single tasked. This new drug doesn't seem to have that same effect. Plus since it's a non-amphetamine, he doesn't crave it like the Aderall, which makes for a much quieter home life.
I wish more people would consider what they are going to use them for as well.
Living in the snow belt one of the biggest excuses I hate to hear from SUV owners is that they need them "to get going" in the winter. What they don't realize, until they have their accident, is that more mass means harder to stop! Fortunately most of the people, I know, that have said this and then had thier accident have moved on to something other than an SUV. Sadly it took an accident for them to realize they really didn't need an SUV.
Having driven SUV/truck's for over 20 years I understand the weight/stopping problem (pickup trucks are even more of a challenge to stop, heavy but mostly in the front) and have never had a vehicle to vehicle accident (had two deer encounters, which is one accident advantage of an SUV/truck, deers typically bounce off or go under).
" Ah, you see, SUV's (atleast the blazer and suburban) are both classified as stationwagons per registration. My guess is that it does put the cars into the car catagory. I'm not sure what you mean here then."
This is for license plate registration. For US Govt safety tests they are both classified as trucks and therefore meet much lower requirements for crash tests.
Ohio actually has a similarly stupid law for registration, if a van doesn't have a back seat, it has to be registered as a commerical truck, which in Ohio means you pay twice as much for plates, plus all the other regulations, like technically you have to stop at weigh stations.;)
Banning any sort of vehicle would never work. American's are a funny bunch, you can take all sorts of freedom's away (and they barely notice), but don't touch their freedom to drive what they wish.;)
The other reason it would never work is that I just listed the "fun" stuff I get to do with my SUV (truck). The work part is when my wife calls and asks me to pick up some more dirt or mulch on my way home (some being 2 or 3 cubic yards). Or when we decide the yard needs a few more bushes or trees. Have you seen the delivery charges on this stuff? Or taking muddy, wet dogs to the river to have some fun.
I really like a lot of the small cars, I particularly like the Cooper (and the Honda S2000), and I am envious it fits into your lifestyle, unfortunately with a wife, three kids and three dogs a Cooper, currently (someday hopefully), doesn't fit in mine.
"Sure, large families might need an SUV for seating, but do they actually NEED something the size of an Expedition or a Suburban?"
Some do. We will use our large SUV (and large pickup) to pull our 35' camper several times this year. We will also use them to tow our boat. In the winter we use them to haul snowmobiles.
I agree that 90% of the people on the road don't need to be driving large SUV's (or SUV's of any size), and that many of them feel safer in them, which can be argued both ways. My point is that a fair number of us need our SUV's (and pickup trucks), because we actually do use them for one thing they were intended, to haul a ton(s) of stuff.
So the next time you see an SUV, check to see if it has a hitch, and if so it should be pretty easy to tell if that hitch is used often, and maybe you can cut that person some slack, for owning an SUV.
I would love a vehicle that got better gas mileage, but for me it has to have the same ability to tow and haul as what I currently own.
I used an old Tecra 500 laptop as my original FW, it worked well for about almost two years. The biggest problem with laptops is heat. As the original poster mentioned, laptops are not meant for continous use. I fried four PCMCIA network cards, and finally the MB died.
"A gun can *only* be used to shoot (people)"
And don't be a typical anti-gun nut. I own several guns, not one of them has ever shot a person. Guns can be used to shoot many things, not just people.
That is so untrue, but I hear it over and over again, like people believe it to be true.
If someone has been programming in C/C++ for 15 years, picking up Java (can't speak to C#) in two weeks would be very easy. I know because I did it. Now I switch back and forth, almost on a daily basis.
The differences are mostly either stuff you don't have to worry about anymore (i.e. memory management) or stuff that now comes with the language (i.e. class libraries), and Javadoc is great to learn this functionality. The standard class libraries are the best, since Java comes with everything that C++ should have, no more bending over for RogueWave, or N number of different implementations of he STL!
The best way to start out with Java (from a C++ bent), IMHO, is take existing C++ programs and port them to Java. If your C++ is good OO (spare me the oxymoron comments, I've heard them all;), not just "better C" code, this will be easy and get you started in Java very quickly.
Contracting isn't for everyone, thankfully. I am fortunate to have a wife that maintains a stable FTE position and so for me benefits are not an issue. Hence contracting makes a great fit for me, since I also tend to get bored with technologies fairly quickly, and "need" to move on to something new.
Obviously industry type is the biggest factor, telecommunications sucks, but banking, and medical are doing fairly well.
Another factor is area of the country, the bay area is pretty bad (probably a huge understatement), but here in the midwest, it isn't too bad. I have recently talked to a few recuiters in the RTP area and they say they are seeing a strong turn around as well, in contracting.
I think if you are looking for an FTE position, that is going to be a lot tougher. Most of my friends tell me that they are having no problems getting contract work (in fact a few of them are doing two contracts), and my next contract only took me two weeks to find. They aren't long contracts, all less than a year, but the money is decent (not like three years ago, but I suspect those days are gone for quite some time;)
Sure, Nov. 2000, you must missed it, it was in all the papers.
Unless of course you are one of those people that still believes the president of the United States is actually elected by the general population, you might have missed that little thing called the electorial college.
And please don't try to tell me that a majority of the US population wanted Gore as the president, that is flatly wrong, since a majority of the US, voting age, population DOESN'T EVEN VOTE!!! So the best you can claim is that Gore got a majority of a minority.
Because the majority of the people in this country didn't care, realize it's futile, or are just generally apathetic about the whole process!
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be suggesting that we (United States citizens) should have the right to throw anybody we wish out of office, at anytime, and as often as we see fit?
I'm sorry but that isn't closer to a Democracy, that is mobs rules, or Anarchy, and I for one don't desire that!
I will be the first one to say that our current goverenmental situation (which IMHO opinion has been in this state for at least 30 years), where elected officals seem to have no responsibility (or even seem to care what they think) to those that elected them, has to change, but Anarchy isn't the solution.
Actually the move to IA64 helps HP quite a bit on the OS side.
From a cost justification standpoint it makes no sense to port Tru64 or VMS to IA64, therefore they have brought their supported OS's down to Windows, Linux and HP-UX. HP-UX has already been ported and the other two HP doesn't have to pay for.
Certainly with Linux (and to a lesser extent, Windows) they may contribute to the effort (since they are co-designers of the architecture), but that really amounts to "lessons" learned from the HP-UX port, no "real" cost to them.
Totally agree! I wouldn't say the government sucks at protecting their citizens from corporations, the problem is they don't even try. Every politician, regardless of party, is bought and paid for by these corporate types, to do exactly what they are doing, nothing!
The original article mentioned that these workstations would be used by chip designers, which I assume means they will be using a CAD program of some sort. This means a video card along the lines of a ATI Fire GL X1, which is ~$600.00 (which is the cheap one). Of course since Linux will be run on it, you can subtract the $140 for XP, that helps some....
I have been experimenting (wasting money, making coasters. I just wish the damn things did soak up water) for the last year and half.
I have three standalone players: a Pioneer DVL-909 (fairly old LD/DVD combo player), a Sony PS2 (early US generation, first day purchase), and a Sony NS-300 (fairly inexpensive). I also have several DVD-ROMS, a couple plexwriter's, and a Dell laptop DVD (not sure who makes it).
Other than the DVD-ROM's, the Pioneer is the best, even though it is the oldest, the only thing I have found that it won't play are SVCD's. It will even play, supposeded 1x Ritek's, that have been burned at 2x. The Sony's suck, with the PS2 being the worst (I mostly chalk that up to it being an early edition).
Media wise I have found that the lighter the purple back on the media, the less my chances are that it is going to work in the Sony's. I bought some VERY cheap (0.60/per), no names, that the purple was very faint, even the Pioneer had problems with these. I have gone to Ritek's, which are ~0.80-0.90/per (in stacks of 100) and have had good luck with them (I get about 1 coaster in 50).
I recently burned some stuff for a friend that has an Apple TiBook and one of those standalone players that also plays MP3, CD's (it's a clone of the one's that Circuit City sells). He could play the media in his TiBook, but the standalone, no way.
My advice would be, pick a DVD player for the features you want, looks at the compatibility list (that other posters have referenced), make sure it will play the types of DVD/CD's you want to make, and buy it. You will still have to run through a couple of types of media to figure out which works for you.
I buy my media at www.supermediastore.com, they have good prices, and they also sell sampler packs, so that you can do expermentation (wish they had sold those a year ago;)
To be fair to the Chevy, that was the first year, of their first new body style, and they had some problems (lots of rust! and electrical problems). Although, a body style change, doesn't explain why the 350 (a "old" v8) blew the rear mains and locked up at 49K, on an engine that had the oil changed every 3K. Or why the transmission "burned up" (completely chared inside) at 80K, after the fluid had been changed at 49K (during the engine rebuild).
Now the Ford 460 I truly love! That is the engine in my current truck, and have one from a 75 PU in the garage, which I am rebuilding (not sure of the target vehicle though;)
While in HS I had a Boss 429 (a direct relation to the 460) that I used to drag, talk about a fun car. Helps to have a father that collects old cars and encourages his sons in his hobby.;)
I agree on Honda's (I have owned two in the past), but I have to say it isn't as black and white as Japan vs. US. I used to own an 81 Mustang, when I traded it in it had 350K+, and it never let me down (as long as I remembered to change the timing belt every 50K-60K). In fact I sometimes wish I still had that car....
The vehicle I traded it in on was an 88 Chevy full size PU, which quickly convinced me to NEVER buy a GM product again.;).
Currently I have a 95 Ford F-350, with 150K+ on it, and it has proven to be even more reliable than the Mustang (partly because it has a timing chain, not a belt;)
I have never owned anything Japanese besides Honda's, but friends and family have had Toyota's and Nissan's and had mixed results.
So I think the issue has gone from US vs. Japanese (which used to be legit) to a manufacturer issue.
Worst was probably too strong a term. Your list certainly contains better canidates (I certainly don't agree with all of the entires on your list;) for that honor.
I had to laugh though at Grant, because my wife is a decendant of Grant, so in order to keep the peace I have had to tuck away all of my Grant comments. He is one of the finest examples of why high ranking military officers should be barred from running for elected office.
Slashdot Mirror
Politicians don't listen to the average person. I have tried writing them in the past on many different issues and always receive a nice form letter reply. Politicians are ALL bought in some way, by someone with more money and power than me.
You may be right that a boycott can't/won't work (hence my comment about "sheep"), but I contend that trying to get politician's to listen is just as hopeless.
For the same reason that you say a boycott will fail, so will attempt's to vote people (not POLITICIANS!) into office that will actually listen to the common people. Sheep would rather be lead to the answer, not actually try and make a real/good/informed choice. Sadly most people don't care or don't realize that this sort of stuff is happening and will continue to vote polticians into office. I argue that even people in the "technorati" make poor choices for their representation.
If it utimately happens that all devices will only play DRM enabled content, than I just will stop buying all produced content. I will not support an industry that doesn't listen to what their consumer's are telling them and ultimately sues their own customers! It won't be the first time I stopped using a business's product because I didn't like the way they did business.
I agree with most everything in your post...
One thing you forgot to mention is that you still have a choice, you can choose to not buy products that have DRM in them. Don't support the RIAA's efforts to make this happen. Either don't by CD/MP3's at all or buy them from Indie band/label's, who don't use DRM.
DRM currently is not a "requirement", that must be on the CD/MP3 to make it play correctly, there will always be band/label's that will produce DRM free music. Ultimately money rules and only by consumers "speaking" with their money will big corporations listen. In reality this may fail as well because enough sheep may continue to purchase their product that the message won't be received. Hopefully bands will also get the "message" and not sign with RIAA members and the only thing for them to produce is the "blond haired" flavor of the month, which ironically isn't too far from all they produce now.
I haven't purchased an RIAA member produced CD in over 4 years, at first because the price was way out of line for the value received, but now because I don't agree with their tatic's. I do continue to buy CD's from non-RIAA member's.
You can either complain about it or do what you can to defeat it, and that means don't buy their products!
I agree completely with this comment.
I have installed two Cisco CallManager solutions, and they are great. During the first one I was skeptical (the client really wanted VOIP and I wasn't too sure), but I have never heard any echo problems or delays that others have talked about.
The phone's are more expensive, but they act as a switch at the end user's desk, so only one drop is typically needed, since the user's PC plugs into the phone. So you avoid the extra cost of running a second drop to everyone's desk. Another nice feature is that since the phone number is assigned to the MAC address of the phone, moving is easier, just take the phone and plug into the network in the new location.
I have also had the misfortune of having to install/manage three Bell Labs/Lucent systems (two Merlins and a G3 Definity), and easily the CallManager system is the better solution. The SW for the Lucent system is simplistic, and unless you have being doing telephony since the 1960's, will not be intutive at all. But the SW for CallManager, while far from perfect, is much more intuitive, and easier for a Unix Admin type to understand.
The quality of your network infrastructure needs to be taken into account though. You need to make sure that you have at least Cat5e cable and you may need to upgrade your switches to support inline power.
See if your current employer has any opportunites. The advantage is that they already know your a good worker (assumption ;) and you may already know some of the managers in the development area and can convince them to take a chance on you. If you have to, offer to keep doing your current system administration duties. This could mean extra work for you, but if you can gain the programming experience you need it will be a win in the end.
My other advice is to keep your system admin skills fresh. I have been doing both sys admin and programming for my entire career (15+ years) and when times are tough, like now, being able to take jobs in either area is a nice advantage to have.
As a parent of an ADD sufferer I wanted to express my concern over using Aderall. The drug does work if used correctly.
Unfortunately our son also suffers from an addictive personality, and is a fairly heavy drug user, not a good combination. No matter what my wife and I did to hide the Aderall he would tear the house apart looking for it and then scream at us that we were not giving him enough of it. He was prescribed two 40mg tablets a day (the maximum allowed in this state), and still wanted more! He would also tell his doctor that he didn't think the dose was high enough, because it didn't seem to be working, when in reality he has using it (in combination with pot) to get high. There were times he stole a whole two month supply and used it all in a week!
If you choose Aderall, be very careful with. When our son used it correctly it worked great, but when he abused it, he would stay up for days at a time a become extremely violent.
We finally convinced the doctor to switch him to the new non-amphetamine version (the name escapes me as well), and he is doing much better on it.
Another problem with Aderall is it made him super concentrated and very single tasked. This new drug doesn't seem to have that same effect. Plus since it's a non-amphetamine, he doesn't crave it like the Aderall, which makes for a much quieter home life.
I wish more people would consider what they are going to use them for as well.
Living in the snow belt one of the biggest excuses I hate to hear from SUV owners is that they need them "to get going" in the winter. What they don't realize, until they have their accident, is that more mass means harder to stop! Fortunately most of the people, I know, that have said this and then had thier accident have moved on to something other than an SUV. Sadly it took an accident for them to realize they really didn't need an SUV.
Having driven SUV/truck's for over 20 years I understand the weight/stopping problem (pickup trucks are even more of a challenge to stop, heavy but mostly in the front) and have never had a vehicle to vehicle accident (had two deer encounters, which is one accident advantage of an SUV/truck, deers typically bounce off or go under).
" Ah, you see, SUV's (atleast the blazer and suburban) are both classified as stationwagons per registration. My guess is that it does put the cars into the car catagory. I'm not sure what you mean here then."
;)
This is for license plate registration. For US Govt safety tests they are both classified as trucks and therefore meet much lower requirements for crash tests.
Ohio actually has a similarly stupid law for registration, if a van doesn't have a back seat, it has to be registered as a commerical truck, which in Ohio means you pay twice as much for plates, plus all the other regulations, like technically you have to stop at weigh stations.
Banning any sort of vehicle would never work. American's are a funny bunch, you can take all sorts of freedom's away (and they barely notice), but don't touch their freedom to drive what they wish. ;)
The other reason it would never work is that I just listed the "fun" stuff I get to do with my SUV (truck). The work part is when my wife calls and asks me to pick up some more dirt or mulch on my way home (some being 2 or 3 cubic yards). Or when we decide the yard needs a few more bushes or trees. Have you seen the delivery charges on this stuff? Or taking muddy, wet dogs to the river to have some fun.
I really like a lot of the small cars, I particularly like the Cooper (and the Honda S2000), and I am envious it fits into your lifestyle, unfortunately with a wife, three kids and three dogs a Cooper, currently (someday hopefully), doesn't fit in mine.
"Sure, large families might need an SUV for seating, but do they actually NEED something the size of an Expedition or a Suburban?"
Some do. We will use our large SUV (and large pickup) to pull our 35' camper several times this year. We will also use them to tow our boat. In the winter we use them to haul snowmobiles.
I agree that 90% of the people on the road don't need to be driving large SUV's (or SUV's of any size), and that many of them feel safer in them, which can be argued both ways. My point is that a fair number of us need our SUV's (and pickup trucks), because we actually do use them for one thing they were intended, to haul a ton(s) of stuff.
So the next time you see an SUV, check to see if it has a hitch, and if so it should be pretty easy to tell if that hitch is used often, and maybe you can cut that person some slack, for owning an SUV.
I would love a vehicle that got better gas mileage, but for me it has to have the same ability to tow and haul as what I currently own.
I used an old Tecra 500 laptop as my original FW, it worked well for about almost two years. The biggest problem with laptops is heat. As the original poster mentioned, laptops are not meant for continous use. I fried four PCMCIA network cards, and finally the MB died.
"A gun can *only* be used to shoot (people)" And don't be a typical anti-gun nut. I own several guns, not one of them has ever shot a person. Guns can be used to shoot many things, not just people.
That is so untrue, but I hear it over and over again, like people believe it to be true.
;), not just "better C" code, this will be easy and get you started in Java very quickly.
If someone has been programming in C/C++ for 15 years, picking up Java (can't speak to C#) in two weeks would be very easy. I know because I did it. Now I switch back and forth, almost on a daily basis.
The differences are mostly either stuff you don't have to worry about anymore (i.e. memory management) or stuff that now comes with the language (i.e. class libraries), and Javadoc is great to learn this functionality. The standard class libraries are the best, since Java comes with everything that C++ should have, no more bending over for RogueWave, or N number of different implementations of he STL!
The best way to start out with Java (from a C++ bent), IMHO, is take existing C++ programs and port them to Java. If your C++ is good OO (spare me the oxymoron comments, I've heard them all
I agree on both points.
Contracting isn't for everyone, thankfully. I am fortunate to have a wife that maintains a stable FTE position and so for me benefits are not an issue. Hence contracting makes a great fit for me, since I also tend to get bored with technologies fairly quickly, and "need" to move on to something new.
I think it depends on a lot of factors.
;)
Obviously industry type is the biggest factor, telecommunications sucks, but banking, and medical are doing fairly well.
Another factor is area of the country, the bay area is pretty bad (probably a huge understatement), but here in the midwest, it isn't too bad. I have recently talked to a few recuiters in the RTP area and they say they are seeing a strong turn around as well, in contracting.
I think if you are looking for an FTE position, that is going to be a lot tougher. Most of my friends tell me that they are having no problems getting contract work (in fact a few of them are doing two contracts), and my next contract only took me two weeks to find. They aren't long contracts, all less than a year, but the money is decent (not like three years ago, but I suspect those days are gone for quite some time
Sure, Nov. 2000, you must missed it, it was in all the papers.
Unless of course you are one of those people that still believes the president of the United States is actually elected by the general population, you might have missed that little thing called the electorial college.
And please don't try to tell me that a majority of the US population wanted Gore as the president, that is flatly wrong, since a majority of the US, voting age, population DOESN'T EVEN VOTE!!! So the best you can claim is that Gore got a majority of a minority.
Because the majority of the people in this country didn't care, realize it's futile, or are just generally apathetic about the whole process!
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be suggesting that we (United States citizens) should have the right to throw anybody we wish out of office, at anytime, and as often as we see fit?
I'm sorry but that isn't closer to a Democracy, that is mobs rules, or Anarchy, and I for one don't desire that!
I will be the first one to say that our current goverenmental situation (which IMHO opinion has been in this state for at least 30 years), where elected officals seem to have no responsibility (or even seem to care what they think) to those that elected them, has to change, but Anarchy isn't the solution.
Actually the move to IA64 helps HP quite a bit on the OS side.
From a cost justification standpoint it makes no sense to port Tru64 or VMS to IA64, therefore they have brought their supported OS's down to Windows, Linux and HP-UX. HP-UX has already been ported and the other two HP doesn't have to pay for.
Certainly with Linux (and to a lesser extent, Windows) they may contribute to the effort (since they are co-designers of the architecture), but that really amounts to "lessons" learned from the HP-UX port, no "real" cost to them.
Totally agree! I wouldn't say the government sucks at protecting their citizens from corporations, the problem is they don't even try. Every politician, regardless of party, is bought and paid for by these corporate types, to do exactly what they are doing, nothing!
The original article mentioned that these workstations would be used by chip designers, which I assume means they will be using a CAD program of some sort. This means a video card along the lines of a ATI Fire GL X1, which is ~$600.00 (which is the cheap one). Of course since Linux will be run on it, you can subtract the $140 for XP, that helps some....
I have been experimenting (wasting money, making coasters. I just wish the damn things did soak up water) for the last year and half.
;)
I have three standalone players: a Pioneer DVL-909 (fairly old LD/DVD combo player), a Sony PS2 (early US generation, first day purchase), and a Sony NS-300 (fairly inexpensive). I also have several DVD-ROMS, a couple plexwriter's, and a Dell laptop DVD (not sure who makes it).
Other than the DVD-ROM's, the Pioneer is the best, even though it is the oldest, the only thing I have found that it won't play are SVCD's. It will even play, supposeded 1x Ritek's, that have been burned at 2x. The Sony's suck, with the PS2 being the worst (I mostly chalk that up to it being an early edition).
Media wise I have found that the lighter the purple back on the media, the less my chances are that it is going to work in the Sony's. I bought some VERY cheap (0.60/per), no names, that the purple was very faint, even the Pioneer had problems with these. I have gone to Ritek's, which are ~0.80-0.90/per (in stacks of 100) and have had good luck with them (I get about 1 coaster in 50).
I recently burned some stuff for a friend that has an Apple TiBook and one of those standalone players that also plays MP3, CD's (it's a clone of the one's that Circuit City sells). He could play the media in his TiBook, but the standalone, no way.
My advice would be, pick a DVD player for the features you want, looks at the compatibility list (that other posters have referenced), make sure it will play the types of DVD/CD's you want to make, and buy it. You will still have to run through a couple of types of media to figure out which works for you.
I buy my media at www.supermediastore.com, they have good prices, and they also sell sampler packs, so that you can do expermentation (wish they had sold those a year ago
Hope this helps.
That would be cool, except I'm not sure how you would get any traction in the Ranchero. All that weight up front and nothing in the back.... ;)
One of my fathers friends, bought his son a 70 Torino 429CJ. With the right driver, his car was faster, but I always beat him, since he sucked! ;)
To be fair to the Chevy, that was the first year, of their first new body style, and they had some problems (lots of rust! and electrical problems). Although, a body style change, doesn't explain why the 350 (a "old" v8) blew the rear mains and locked up at 49K, on an engine that had the oil changed every 3K. Or why the transmission "burned up" (completely chared inside) at 80K, after the fluid had been changed at 49K (during the engine rebuild).
;)
;)
Now the Ford 460 I truly love! That is the engine in my current truck, and have one from a 75 PU in the garage, which I am rebuilding (not sure of the target vehicle though
While in HS I had a Boss 429 (a direct relation to the 460) that I used to drag, talk about a fun car. Helps to have a father that collects old cars and encourages his sons in his hobby.
I agree on Honda's (I have owned two in the past), but I have to say it isn't as black and white as Japan vs. US. I used to own an 81 Mustang, when I traded it in it had 350K+, and it never let me down (as long as I remembered to change the timing belt every 50K-60K). In fact I sometimes wish I still had that car....
;).
;)
The vehicle I traded it in on was an 88 Chevy full size PU, which quickly convinced me to NEVER buy a GM product again.
Currently I have a 95 Ford F-350, with 150K+ on it, and it has proven to be even more reliable than the Mustang (partly because it has a timing chain, not a belt
I have never owned anything Japanese besides Honda's, but friends and family have had Toyota's and Nissan's and had mixed results.
So I think the issue has gone from US vs. Japanese (which used to be legit) to a manufacturer issue.
Worst was probably too strong a term. Your list certainly contains better canidates (I certainly don't agree with all of the entires on your list ;) for that honor.
I had to laugh though at Grant, because my wife is a decendant of Grant, so in order to keep the peace I have had to tuck away all of my Grant comments. He is one of the finest examples of why high ranking military officers should be barred from running for elected office.