Having dealt with selling a government some hardware and services, I can understand charging way more. They don't just call up and order what's on the shelf like your other customers. They want studies and paperwork and certifications and documents and reviews and more paperwork and certificates and contracts and guarantees and the whole process takes a year for what takes your other customers a week.
Seriously, I'm all for accountability in government, but this is the kind of stuff you get for it.
After all the spam I've gotten in the past ~15 years? If I found out there was a spammer in my own city, I'd be willing to spend at least a couple of evenings trying to shut them down.
I enjoy watching my brother play some of his games, and that SMG feature is hilarious. I'd like to see multi-player expand game types; I almost never played COD4 multiplayer, but I almost always like playing puzzle/adventure games (like Monkey Island or Space Quest or what have you) with someone else. Perhaps it's because they were my game of choice in the early 90s (when it was 1 PC per house, not per person), but they don't seem like anywhere near as much fun when played by myself. I'd like to be able to share a screen and controls, and have those arguments about where to go or what to click, and get called an idiot for killing Roger Wilco.:-)
People who are putting their life into "the cloud" perhaps should be looking at online backup solutions specifically aimed at Google.
I just bought an Android phone, and some of the more advanced features (search suggestion is the only one I can find right now) won't work unless I have an actual "@gmail.com" account. (My work email is accessed through Google, but apparently that's not enough).
The thought of my phone being crippled by Google on a whim certainly leaves me uneasy.
A common theme I hear is that credit card companies don't care enough about fraud to do any investigation whatsoever. I'm loath to pay any fees at all on my credit card, but I'd probably pay, say, 50$/year to get a card where, in the event of my card being used fraudulently, the criminals are hunted down and prosecuted / persecuted to the fullest extent available in the country in which they're found. (Rather than it just being written off as a cost-of-business expense and raising everyone's interest rates)
Your electrical energy provider might already have a program that lets you pay a few cents more for 'green' electricity.
In Alberta and Ontario, you can sign up with Bullfrog Power (I did just last week). For an extra 2c/kWh (less than $6/mo for me) they put 'green' electricity on the grid to match what I used.
In Alberta they use wind power, in Ontario a mix of wind and 'low impact' water generation. I imagine if more people sign up and solar power price drops as TFA says, that they'll be adding solar to the mix shortly.
I agree; I use Torrentflux myself to remotely administer my torrents, but almost always I'm adding torrents during lunch so I have a TV show to watch when I get home. Managing upload rates doesn't interest me at all.
I can see this being somewhat useful if you have a long bus ride and want to add some torrents, but none of the torrent sites I use seem to have a cut-down mobile interface, so I don't see where you'd get them in the first place.
This was my top concern when evaluating for a new PC. My current PC (an old dual 2Ghz Xeon workstation) draws more power than a standard 300Va UPS can provide, and heats up my small living room almost unbearably.
I calculated that one watt year (using a single watt constantly for an year) costs about $0.90 at current prices (~10 cents/KWh). I figure my PC costs me at least $150 a year (it's on 24/7 for remote access, etc).
My planned replacement components include a power supply with PFC, one of AMDs new 45W CPUs available in a few weeks, and Nvidia's 8600GT which is reported to use only 42 watts at peak. None of these components are specialty items, in fact they're all fairly inexpensive.
My Chevy Malibu has a one-note chime that tells me if my fuel is low, my ABS broken, my door not shut, etc. When I get to work, I usually open the door, grab my keys, then get out and shut the door. This means I get the "You left your keys in the car!" bing while I get out almost every day.
Except for the day when "bing" didn't mean "You left your keys in the car!", but "You left your lights on!", which I was dismayed to find out when I left the office late to a dead battery on a -40 degree evening after everyone with jumper cables had gone home. Thanks GM!
Not to say it's exactly the same thing, but IBM did this with OS/2 about 10 years ago. It didn't really do a whole lot for them back then, and my CD seems to have been shipped to the same place as my Guinness bar towel.
The name of it escapes me right now, but I did take a class where we reviewed certain classic software failures. (A good class for me since I'd already read about them:).
If you'd like to read a few, check out: Therac-25 (Race conditions, software lockouts in lieu of hardware) London Ambulance Service (Poor software design and design process) Ariane 5 (Cutbacks on testing procedures, inappropriate software re-use, variable overflows, flight hardware allowed to generate error output)
then there's the Denver airport baggage system, the Mars Climate Orbiter, etc.
In general, you may want to read the Risks Digest, where stuff like this happens every month!
Sorry, but (seriously!) your Windows install really did get a worm, 'cause you have to unplug your NIC before installing. On Windows XP, the firewall comes up at ~55 minutes in to the install. Unfortunately, the network systems come up 5 minutes before that, leaving a small (but experimentally viable) window for infection.
I did OS tech support a few years back, and of the hundreds of calls personally had at least one person doing a clean install get hit with Sasser before the OS was even fully on the disk.
I say go hard. My house contains three incandescent bulbs: one 100W in a fixture that's too small for currently available 100W equivalent CFLs (but needs the lumens), and two spotlight-style bulbs that will be replaced shortly, as I've just discovered that Sylvania's brand of spot-light CFL has a small enough base to fit. (Globe brand was close, but not quite). I gave away a few dozen of of my old bulbs to a friend who was having a house built and needed something for the builders to use until he got CFLs of his own.
Colour temperature, bulb styling, and (to a great extent) start delays aren't problems with the bulbs I can buy (Luminus, IKEA, Globe, and Sylvania).
My electricity bill is so low that my histogram of useage by month has a big spike in the winter months, apparently due to the blower motor on my gas furnace. In fact, let me double check... yeah, with my PC and all my lights on, my electricity meter spun once every 40 seconds. When the furnace kicked in too, it took only 20 seconds. When my furnace blower is the outstanding draw on current, and the administration charge on my power bill (~8$) is often more than the cost of the power itself, it makes CFLs the best ROI since I told my dad that RedHat might be a good buy.
I've never used them myself, but my local hardware store has had Globe brand dimmable CFLs for almost a year now. They are about twice as expensive, but given that they use 1/4 the power and last 10 times as long as incandescents, it's probably still worth getting a few.
Yeah... my Globe brand bulbs have a 1/2 to 1 second delay before lighting first thing in the morning, and all my flood or spotlight style CFLs (spiral inside, with a glass casing) warm up slowly over about 20 seconds, regardless of brand.
If you're looking for instant-on light, try Luminus brand spiral bulbs (The local CostCo carries them here in Edmonton). My parents had those everywhere, and I didn't even notice until I started trying to push them to buy CFLs and was surprised to find they already had a whole bunch of them.
Make sure you're buying 'soft white' bulbs, not 'cool white' or 'daylight'. The former have a colour temperature of 2700 - 3000K, the latter are more like 4200K. I find my Globe and Luminus brand bulbs match incandescents quite well; Sylvania and perhaps IKEA seem a bit cooler. Globe also make a 150W equivalent bulb that you could try (though it's quite large and wouldn't fit in many enclosed fixtures).
I specifically have some 'cool white' bulbs in my reading lamp and the bathroom, where I prefer a whiter light.
Don't have mod points, so I'll just second your post. CCCP is actually a bunch of separate packages, including ffdshow and others. Lots of work goes in to making sure all the codecs work together, and that it's installable / uninstallable / upgradeable with minimum hassle.
I haven't seen a file yet they won't work on, and they're efficient enough to allow my underpowered laptop to have full-screen video.
I swapped out all the incandescent bulbs in my new (to me) house with fluorescents and am installing more insulation in the attic; My parents just bought a new duplex unit that has an insane R value rating to meet code.
I'd have thought new technology would mean these centers would be using at most the same amount of electricity as before.
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BRB, going to short myself and be lazy. I'm going to make so much money! Er... wait. :-/
Someone is going to have to hold down the button on the side for 10 seconds though.
Having dealt with selling a government some hardware and services, I can understand charging way more. They don't just call up and order what's on the shelf like your other customers. They want studies and paperwork and certifications and documents and reviews and more paperwork and certificates and contracts and guarantees and the whole process takes a year for what takes your other customers a week.
Seriously, I'm all for accountability in government, but this is the kind of stuff you get for it.
After all the spam I've gotten in the past ~15 years? If I found out there was a spammer in my own city, I'd be willing to spend at least a couple of evenings trying to shut them down.
I enjoy watching my brother play some of his games, and that SMG feature is hilarious. I'd like to see multi-player expand game types; I almost never played COD4 multiplayer, but I almost always like playing puzzle/adventure games (like Monkey Island or Space Quest or what have you) with someone else. Perhaps it's because they were my game of choice in the early 90s (when it was 1 PC per house, not per person), but they don't seem like anywhere near as much fun when played by myself. I'd like to be able to share a screen and controls, and have those arguments about where to go or what to click, and get called an idiot for killing Roger Wilco. :-)
I just bought an Android phone, and some of the more advanced features (search suggestion is the only one I can find right now) won't work unless I have an actual "@gmail.com" account. (My work email is accessed through Google, but apparently that's not enough).
The thought of my phone being crippled by Google on a whim certainly leaves me uneasy.
A common theme I hear is that credit card companies don't care enough about fraud to do any investigation whatsoever. I'm loath to pay any fees at all on my credit card, but I'd probably pay, say, 50$/year to get a card where, in the event of my card being used fraudulently, the criminals are hunted down and prosecuted / persecuted to the fullest extent available in the country in which they're found. (Rather than it just being written off as a cost-of-business expense and raising everyone's interest rates)
and that "Muslim" crack doesn't remind me of Obi-Wan much. Perhaps he's just a hoodie using his (unemployed) spare time to jerk everyone around?
Your electrical energy provider might already have a program that lets you pay a few cents more for 'green' electricity.
In Alberta and Ontario, you can sign up with Bullfrog Power (I did just last week). For an extra 2c/kWh (less than $6/mo for me) they put 'green' electricity on the grid to match what I used.
In Alberta they use wind power, in Ontario a mix of wind and 'low impact' water generation. I imagine if more people sign up and solar power price drops as TFA says, that they'll be adding solar to the mix shortly.
I know in Canada, I can get the BBB or CRTC to investigate a shady business... but AFAIK they don't do anything without a complaint.
It's your country and your ISP; get things started!
FTC complain form
FCC complaint form
BBB complaint form
Looks to me to be fast, easy, and free. Step up!
I agree; I use Torrentflux myself to remotely administer my torrents, but almost always I'm adding torrents during lunch so I have a TV show to watch when I get home. Managing upload rates doesn't interest me at all.
I can see this being somewhat useful if you have a long bus ride and want to add some torrents, but none of the torrent sites I use seem to have a cut-down mobile interface, so I don't see where you'd get them in the first place.
This was my top concern when evaluating for a new PC. My current PC (an old dual 2Ghz Xeon workstation) draws more power than a standard 300Va UPS can provide, and heats up my small living room almost unbearably.
My planned replacement components include a power supply with PFC, one of AMDs new 45W CPUs available in a few weeks, and Nvidia's 8600GT which is reported to use only 42 watts at peak. None of these components are specialty items, in fact they're all fairly inexpensive.I calculated that one watt year (using a single watt constantly for an year) costs about $0.90 at current prices (~10 cents/KWh). I figure my PC costs me at least $150 a year (it's on 24/7 for remote access, etc).
My Chevy Malibu has a one-note chime that tells me if my fuel is low, my ABS broken, my door not shut, etc.
When I get to work, I usually open the door, grab my keys, then get out and shut the door. This means I get the "You left your keys in the car!" bing while I get out almost every day.
Except for the day when "bing" didn't mean "You left your keys in the car!", but "You left your lights on!", which I was dismayed to find out when I left the office late to a dead battery on a -40 degree evening after everyone with jumper cables had gone home. Thanks GM!
We have those... they're blue, they're bright, and they're focused like a laser if the intense blue spots opposite our server rack are any indication.
Just this morning I leant down to pull out the KVM tray and caught one right in my eye. Thought I was going to go blind.
Not to say it's exactly the same thing, but IBM did this with OS/2 about 10 years ago. It didn't really do a whole lot for them back then, and my CD seems to have been shipped to the same place as my Guinness bar towel.
The name of it escapes me right now, but I did take a class where we reviewed certain classic software failures. (A good class for me since I'd already read about them :).
If you'd like to read a few, check out:
Therac-25 (Race conditions, software lockouts in lieu of hardware)
London Ambulance Service (Poor software design and design process)
Ariane 5 (Cutbacks on testing procedures, inappropriate software re-use, variable overflows, flight hardware allowed to generate error output)
then there's the Denver airport baggage system, the Mars Climate Orbiter, etc.
In general, you may want to read the Risks Digest, where stuff like this happens every month!
Sorry, but (seriously!) your Windows install really did get a worm, 'cause you have to unplug your NIC before installing. On Windows XP, the firewall comes up at ~55 minutes in to the install. Unfortunately, the network systems come up 5 minutes before that, leaving a small (but experimentally viable) window for infection.
I did OS tech support a few years back, and of the hundreds of calls personally had at least one person doing a clean install get hit with Sasser before the OS was even fully on the disk.I say go hard. My house contains three incandescent bulbs: one 100W in a fixture that's too small for currently available 100W equivalent CFLs (but needs the lumens), and two spotlight-style bulbs that will be replaced shortly, as I've just discovered that Sylvania's brand of spot-light CFL has a small enough base to fit. (Globe brand was close, but not quite). I gave away a few dozen of of my old bulbs to a friend who was having a house built and needed something for the builders to use until he got CFLs of his own.
Colour temperature, bulb styling, and (to a great extent) start delays aren't problems with the bulbs I can buy (Luminus, IKEA, Globe, and Sylvania).
My electricity bill is so low that my histogram of useage by month has a big spike in the winter months, apparently due to the blower motor on my gas furnace. In fact, let me double check... yeah, with my PC and all my lights on, my electricity meter spun once every 40 seconds. When the furnace kicked in too, it took only 20 seconds. When my furnace blower is the outstanding draw on current, and the administration charge on my power bill (~8$) is often more than the cost of the power itself, it makes CFLs the best ROI since I told my dad that RedHat might be a good buy.I've never used them myself, but my local hardware store has had Globe brand dimmable CFLs for almost a year now. They are about twice as expensive, but given that they use 1/4 the power and last 10 times as long as incandescents, it's probably still worth getting a few.
Yeah... my Globe brand bulbs have a 1/2 to 1 second delay before lighting first thing in the morning, and all my flood or spotlight style CFLs (spiral inside, with a glass casing) warm up slowly over about 20 seconds, regardless of brand.
If you're looking for instant-on light, try Luminus brand spiral bulbs (The local CostCo carries them here in Edmonton). My parents had those everywhere, and I didn't even notice until I started trying to push them to buy CFLs and was surprised to find they already had a whole bunch of them.
Make sure you're buying 'soft white' bulbs, not 'cool white' or 'daylight'. The former have a colour temperature of 2700 - 3000K, the latter are more like 4200K. I find my Globe and Luminus brand bulbs match incandescents quite well; Sylvania and perhaps IKEA seem a bit cooler. Globe also make a 150W equivalent bulb that you could try (though it's quite large and wouldn't fit in many enclosed fixtures).
I specifically have some 'cool white' bulbs in my reading lamp and the bathroom, where I prefer a whiter light.
Hmm. Any of you yanks have change for $10,000?
Don't have mod points, so I'll just second your post. CCCP is actually a bunch of separate packages, including ffdshow and others. Lots of work goes in to making sure all the codecs work together, and that it's installable / uninstallable / upgradeable with minimum hassle.
I haven't seen a file yet they won't work on, and they're efficient enough to allow my underpowered laptop to have full-screen video.
Martial law, "signing statements", redefining the Geneva convention, Patriot Act...
I think you yanks need to patch your constitution. That's one heck of a privilege execution bug you've got going there.
I swapped out all the incandescent bulbs in my new (to me) house with fluorescents and am installing more insulation in the attic; My parents just bought a new duplex unit that has an insane R value rating to meet code.
I'd have thought new technology would mean these centers would be using at most the same amount of electricity as before.