Yeah I'd like to know what this is about too. I don't see anything less functional about the Win8 sound interface compared to previous versions.
It's funny though, I used to *hate* pulseaudio on 'nix. It still gives me grey hairs sometimes with certain software (e.g. Minecraft which won't remap output to an alternate device) but the ability to send particular applications to a specific output/input is awesome. Newer windows at least add the stream/app specific volume control, but I *really* wish that windows had the ability to send output from specific streams to specific devices.
Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just make it very time-consuming and difficult to do so
Not. If. There. Is. Cause.
Again. 3 unions. With cause, people did get fired but it. still. took. a. long. f*cking. time.
But for those uppity proles who don't know their place, it just makes sense Don't see where I said that. I'm not management myself, more of a prole than such. I just prefer to see people actually do their damn job.
I used to work at shop that made Wal-Mart look pro-union
I didn't say non-union shops didn't have issues, I've seen plenty of them in private as well (lazy or poorly trained management, nepotism, etc). As per the codger, a harassment suit would probably have been useful if one had a witness to such behavior.
What I *would* like to see is for unions to get back to the days of "Proudly made in a union shop" where unions and management both don't fight like spoiled children over stupid shit, and deal more with important issues *LIKE* harassment, discrimination, unsafe conditions, and fair wages (including fair wage increases) etc. I'm not anti-union, but I do believe that unions have lost "the power of the people" because of the crap like what I've described. We all still need to put in a real work effect (not to the bone, just good, decent, hard work), but we also need to deal with when some people - management and employees - aren't contributing to a positive workplace. Unfortunately, in many places unions have become just another layer of middle-management. They do work for good things in a broad sense, but they've become large, unwieldy, and have their own layers of fat/pork just like businesses do.
Just randomly picking a few of the larger US cities:
There's a written test at age 17 for NYPD, and they require a rather unspecific "60 credits" (apparently in anything?) at a low-bar 2.0 GPA. Yeah, they went to college, but they're not exactly high-end students. No college needed for ex-military. Also, - an odd nugget - you can't take the exam if you're over 35 (unless: ex-military), which seems somewhat in the realm of age-discrimination to me.
At least LAPD wants to you to have passed high school, but no college.
Almost every crime is "solved" by the suspect confessing.
What's the statistic on that? This isn't late-night TV where the suspect suddenly crumbles and confesses the whole thing after some elaborate ruse is staged. It also tends to fall short of the "innocence until found guilty" and more towards the "assume guilt, try and trick them into admitting it in case they're dumb and guilty". I'd say rather that if criminals are so dumb, there is probably some *REAL* evidence to confront them with in order to get an admission of guilt. No reason to lie and screw up the lives of innocents.
Also, is your average criminal an idiot, or is that just the ones that get caught. If 50% of people are below average intelligence, what percentage of those are on your local PD? In my case the cop was either an idiot, or lazy. There was NO CRIMINAL because he didn't even bother to call and CONFIRM THE DAMN CRIME. Actually, scratch that, but I doubt they went back and put in the effort catch the REAL CRIMINAL who called in a FALSE POLICE REPORT.
Well sorry if my experience with 3 DIFFERENT UNIONS and THE SAME SHIT isn't good enough for you. Sorry if my experience being a SHOP STEWARD as well as a member of the UNION COUNCIL wasn't good enough for you.
1. For the record, no, being in a union DOESN'T prevent one from being fired for cause. It does however, tend to prevent one from being fired in a reasonable time, as they have to give a bunch of warnings (because, hey, not coming to work is apparently not a known problem) and then log multiple concurrences before "Bob" can really be fired. Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just make it very time-consuming and difficult to do so, even oft-times when there is cause. Hell, "Bob" even managed to accuse a few co-workers of various things before it was finally found to be him at fault.
2. Bob is management's problem. However the union filing motions to keep him from being fired is also a problem.
3. Yes, that one happened as well. The problem is that it's pretty hard to get somebody for being a lazy turd, and some people are particularly good at making it look like they're trying when doing absolutely minimum and little more than warming a chair.
Wells Fargo ripping off homeowners means that all for profit banks are bad and should be banned immediatel
No, banks aren't necessarily bad. Stripping regulation from industry, having it fail, then bailing them out is bad. If banks were like a Union, then if 90% of banks are doing good and the rest were going down the road of Wells Fargo, then you'd give them all a 3% pay increase regardless of how screwed up or piss poor that other 10% were. Unions aren't bad, but they share a common issue: it's difficult to hold members accountable when they go bad. I certainly don't want to go back to the days when there weren't unions and *employers* had no accountability, I just suggest we move the pendulum more back towards the middle. Let people be judged on merit, but treated fairly overall.
It's not even that *most* cops are dishonest (there are some), it's that even good cops make honest mistakes. What you don't want to do is give them anything to make such a mistake with. An, IMHO, it's human nature - especially for those in authority - to not want to admit to mistakes. So if they screw up and arrest you for something that turns out to be nothing, they often *WILL* want to find *something* in order to make you look like the bad guy, and not them.
Seriously, cops make me nervous. I was once accused of shoplifting from a store in the next city. Apparently somebody called in my plates. The cop said they had me on video. I volunteered to come in so they could see if the dude on video was really me, or I can identify if it was somebody I was with (hey, if buddy is visibly shoplifting on my ride, sorry but I'm not covering for him). The answer: "oh, sorry but I don't have the video on me, it's with officer so-and-so. However this is a serious crime. If you come in and 'fess up you'll likely just get a fine, service, and no record".
I tried to talk to the cop in the next city who supposedly had the "evidence" but he was never available, however I kept getting told to return the item and confess.
Eventually, I talked to the store owner. Nothing was stolen on the day in question. In fact, the store didn't even carry the product that was supposedly taken. The owner managed both stores in the city and nothing was take from (or existed at) either. However, the cops were damn convinced I'd stolen something. So I explained to the owner/manager what was up, and asked if *she* could contact officer X with case file Y. She apologized for the inconvenience and said she'd get it dealt with, even gave me some store credit for the hassle.
After that, the cops just stopped calling me. No apology. No "hey we f**ked up and didn't vet that there was an actual theft and not a false-accusation/prank-call". Weeks of stress and hell, and then nothing because *THEY* screwed up and didn't do their job, then couldn't drop it fast enough when it became apparent.
So yeah. Honestly, for the stress I probably should have just said "am I being charged with a crime. Should I discuss this with a lawyer." and let them either charge me or drop it. Certainly it was a *huge* amount of stress in my life, and I'm sure it was on my "police record" (which records police interactions) though obviously since it was fake there was no "criminal record"
Cops screw up. The problem is they generally won't admit to it. The less opportunity to screw up you give them, the better.
So yeah, the papers-please guard? Sorry, but if he's insistent on getting your phone without cause, then HE IS THE CRIMINAL. This papers please crap is along the same vein. It's not being a dick to exercise your rights, and it may save you a lot of hassle.
Contributing factor yes, but how about the reason behind drinking. What causes people to turn to alcohol?
Some people are easily addicted, but for others it's often a mental trauma or stress of some sort. So, what about the effects of stress? What about the effects of over-working? Didn't a previous article just mention how much overtime Americans put in?
Alcohol is a factor, but frankly, that's on top of all the stupid shit that drives people to drink. It's also part culturally because it's considered an "adult" way to unwind. Personally for me the drinks are an addendum to gaming or various other activities I do to burn off stress.
I personally enjoy a couple (yes, that's two) rum and cokes after dinner on weekends. The only time I drink more would be if I have guests. However, I know lots of people that burn through that 50-60+hr work week - they've got nothing to do at home - and they hit the clubs or bar to get out and unwind. Those venues of course are primarily drinking establishments, so many of those people end up drinking as well.
I'm certainly not saying that drinking is good. I'm saying that people drink because of a variety of reasons that already contribute to bodily degeneration and ill health effects. It's more than likely the alcohol is a contributing factor, but often these stats are like MADD where they consider alcohol to be a contributing factor in a crash even when somebody drank at 9am and drove at 10pm, or if the driver is transporting drunk *passengers*.
Per the article: "Those causes of death also included falls; homicides; poisoning that involved pills or other substances along with alcohol; and suicides." Drunk driving or motor impairment is probably easily tracable back to alcohol. But you've also got poisoning from multiple sources that just happen to include alcohol, and suicides which are probably spawned from the same reason that people drink, but not necessarily because of it...
If they're a private corporate then they're not part of the government/police. If that's the case they don't have legal jurisdiction in police matters. Ergo, any time they bust into somebody's place, they're violating the law and not subject to any of the protections offered to a member of legal law enforcement.
No, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too.
Cheaper per gallon, or efficient enough in terms of mileage/torque. Diesel is generally more expensive than refined fuel (odd as that is), but it's still fairly popular. LPG is also quite popular. It is generally cheaper than gasoline/diesel, but the trade-off is that it's less available, often not self-service, and is somewhat less efficient than gasoline.
So per your point, we just need a tipping point of * power (accelerate curve, torque) * efficiency (MPG, L/km, etc) * price *availability
It doesn't have to accel on all four, but winning on two of the first three (and coming close on another) is usually enough that you start to see an increase in availability.
If you breathe the vapors it can cause permanent damage to your lungs. If you get it on your skin, you can easilly get a nasty chemical burn. The vapor is flamable and forms explosive mixtures with air. It reacts violently with a variety of compounds.
Well, we'd never want to put something in vehicles that is dangerous to inhale in vaporous form, or is volatile/explosive. Oh wait...
Mind you, gasoline is nicer on the skin than a relatively pure ammonia... but it's probably still not something you want to have prolonged contact with (especially given the flammability).
Defendant: My router runs a free wifi hot spot to provide internet access for people. Prosecutor: Your router, you're liable for all the traffic Defendant: But my ISP is the one that turned on the hot-spot. I don't even want it! Prosecutor: Doesn't matter, it's in your house. You're responsible.
"Hey [music company], I'd like to use [song] in my campaign. I'm sure a nice company like you would be happy to support me in this manner"
The only time the music company might go after a politician for it is if he/she is using said material and is pro copyright-reform (a.k.a not in their pockets)
I've already got a Pebble. There are many things I like about it but things I would love to see:
* Inductive charging/w a decent charging base * Ability to "answer" a call (rather than only suppress ring). This is doable with Pebble but for some reason requires a ton of extra software on the phone * BT Microphone on the watch (this will likely kill batteries unless new battery tech comes out) * Better battery life (I get about a week). * Works with multiple languages (Pebble only seems to support English)
* Acceptable aesthetics : Pebble * Ability to use normal wrist straps : Pebble * MINIMUM 36-hour battery life: Pebble (I charge mine approx weekly and it has never run down) * Rootable & reflashable as I see fit: I've read about people re-flashing a Pebble with modified firmware, but I'm not sure how customizable it actually is. * At least two tactile hard buttons that can be easily pinched independently of one another and used as a modifier key with the other: Pebble (for tactile buttons, usage depends on programming) * Real, honest-to-god e-ink (not LCD-based "e-paper"): Not aware of any "smartwatch" that does this
If I recall, in was in some mailing-list or forum discussion I picked out from a Google search (and by far not the first result of the search) whilst pulling my hair out about similar issues:-)
OK, the problem with this: Once you charge somebody, you need enough to get a conviction. Maybe you're still gathering evidence, whatever. Maybe you're collecting enough to round up a whole group at once (because once you nail person A, then B and C are going into hiding).
You still don't want this guy blowing up planes, but you haven't got enough paperwork done to ensure you can lock him up. People knew that Elliot Roger had issues. Police even checked him out. They didn't arrest him. They didn't take his guns.
Bob isn't able to do the new work. Management needs to send him to training. Frank can take care of it in the meantime
Bob is still having issues with this new system, more training. Frank can take care of it in the meantime
3 years down the road, Bob still doesn't know how to stop/start a Unix service or manage the backup system. Well, actually he might if he tried, but Frank is still the one that gets poked to handle it all. Really, Bob is just somewhat lazy and is milking the system. Bob *could* be fired, but it would take another several years of fighting between the union and management, and that's expensive. So install Bob manages a few servers in the old system, and Frank gets 1.5x the work.
And yes, this *does* happen in unions. I worked in one shop where the guy wasn't coming to work, was mis-using company resources, and basically did it all with a smirk. It took them *years* to get him out, and years again of fighting to keep him from being brought back.
I've also been in union management. Even if you know Bob is being a useless turd, you still need to defend his lazy ass. Meanwhile, Frank is being overworked, and Sally is being screwed over but you're too busy dealing with the Bob's of the world to help out the honest employees to the extent that's needed.
Oh, but *everyone* gets a 3% raise this year based on negotiated contracts. That includes Frank - who more than earned it - and also Bob, who definitely did not.
I remember reading about some projects that attempted to create fuel from processed sewage/bacteria. IIRC they planned to have some test plants in eastern Canada (Ontario?). Anyone know about those
Garbage-in-gas-out seems like a good plan. If we could also get "human waste in, gas out" then we're doing even better in terms of managing the nasty side-products of "civilization"
Yeah... based on the previous comments it basically seems that they're able to get away with it because the province of Alberta has less whiners (NIMBY's) who block any useful large project that doesn't "look pretty". As an "oil province" they're pretty used to fairly large non-pretty industry.
We have similar issues getting stuff implemented in my province.
Much as I hate VBCode, the old VB IDE was actually fairly nice for designing simple interfaces. If I could find something similar to make useful applications in a cross-platform manner, I'd be happy to use it. I think the closest might be the Netbeans IDE, but that's still somewhat of a PITA compared to the old VB'ish interface.
Animatronics seemed to do really well at facial expressions and general body movement. What they sucked at was walking or things that involved moving across a room. I believe this was mainly because the walking was done "on stilts"
For example, see movies like the original "Alien" (/Aliens) Was Alien pretty scary, you bet. While the Gremlins were not so scary (more of a kids movie than Alien), the animatronic creatures with real oozing fluids etc were quite realistic. Better yet, you didn't have to do "computer generated" light effects (realism is hard even nowadays!), since you got to use real light.
What sucked was movement. The chest-burster running across the table: decent but still missing on the realism. Gremlins toddling across the snowy streets... stilty and not so believable. But facial expressions? That Alien with its inner mouth sliding out inches from Ripley's face, with slimy drool and everything. Awesome, and more believable than any CG I've seen.
if someone gave you a working 20-year-old TV, would you want it?
No, nor would I likely want a 10-year-old TV. However, if somebody sold it to a person in a rather poor country that same TV for an affordable price (when said person is not likely able to afford the newer model, or at least the price difference makes it a reasonable buy), that seems OK to me.
Better that the heads somewhere it can get a little bit more use, rather than being dumped in the ground somewhere or even separated into various bits in a rather environmentally unfriendly way.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I'd like to know what this is about too. I don't see anything less functional about the Win8 sound interface compared to previous versions.
It's funny though, I used to *hate* pulseaudio on 'nix. It still gives me grey hairs sometimes with certain software (e.g. Minecraft which won't remap output to an alternate device) but the ability to send particular applications to a specific output/input is awesome. Newer windows at least add the stream/app specific volume control, but I *really* wish that windows had the ability to send output from specific streams to specific devices.
They could use a grammar check though:
If you're not worried about this new law, you haven't been adequately information
Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just make it very time-consuming and difficult to do so
Not. If. There. Is. Cause.
Again. 3 unions. With cause, people did get fired but it. still. took. a. long. f*cking. time.
But for those uppity proles who don't know their place, it just makes sense
Don't see where I said that. I'm not management myself, more of a prole than such. I just prefer to see people actually do their damn job.
I used to work at shop that made Wal-Mart look pro-union
I didn't say non-union shops didn't have issues, I've seen plenty of them in private as well (lazy or poorly trained management, nepotism, etc). As per the codger, a harassment suit would probably have been useful if one had a witness to such behavior.
What I *would* like to see is for unions to get back to the days of "Proudly made in a union shop" where unions and management both don't fight like spoiled children over stupid shit, and deal more with important issues *LIKE* harassment, discrimination, unsafe conditions, and fair wages (including fair wage increases) etc.
I'm not anti-union, but I do believe that unions have lost "the power of the people" because of the crap like what I've described. We all still need to put in a real work effect (not to the bone, just good, decent, hard work), but we also need to deal with when some people - management and employees - aren't contributing to a positive workplace.
Unfortunately, in many places unions have become just another layer of middle-management. They do work for good things in a broad sense, but they've become large, unwieldy, and have their own layers of fat/pork just like businesses do.
Just randomly picking a few of the larger US cities:
There's a written test at age 17 for NYPD, and they require a rather unspecific "60 credits" (apparently in anything?) at a low-bar 2.0 GPA. Yeah, they went to college, but they're not exactly high-end students. No college needed for ex-military.
Also, - an odd nugget - you can't take the exam if you're over 35 (unless: ex-military), which seems somewhat in the realm of age-discrimination to me.
At least LAPD wants to you to have passed high school, but no college.
Almost every crime is "solved" by the suspect confessing.
What's the statistic on that? This isn't late-night TV where the suspect suddenly crumbles and confesses the whole thing after some elaborate ruse is staged.
It also tends to fall short of the "innocence until found guilty" and more towards the "assume guilt, try and trick them into admitting it in case they're dumb and guilty". I'd say rather that if criminals are so dumb, there is probably some *REAL* evidence to confront them with in order to get an admission of guilt. No reason to lie and screw up the lives of innocents.
Also, is your average criminal an idiot, or is that just the ones that get caught. If 50% of people are below average intelligence, what percentage of those are on your local PD?
In my case the cop was either an idiot, or lazy. There was NO CRIMINAL because he didn't even bother to call and CONFIRM THE DAMN CRIME. Actually, scratch that, but I doubt they went back and put in the effort catch the REAL CRIMINAL who called in a FALSE POLICE REPORT.
Well sorry if my experience with 3 DIFFERENT UNIONS and THE SAME SHIT isn't good enough for you.
Sorry if my experience being a SHOP STEWARD as well as a member of the UNION COUNCIL wasn't good enough for you.
1.
For the record, no, being in a union DOESN'T prevent one from being fired for cause. It does however, tend to prevent one from being fired in a reasonable time, as they have to give a bunch of warnings (because, hey, not coming to work is apparently not a known problem) and then log multiple concurrences before "Bob" can really be fired. Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just make it very time-consuming and difficult to do so, even oft-times when there is cause. Hell, "Bob" even managed to accuse a few co-workers of various things before it was finally found to be him at fault.
2. Bob is management's problem. However the union filing motions to keep him from being fired is also a problem.
3. Yes, that one happened as well. The problem is that it's pretty hard to get somebody for being a lazy turd, and some people are particularly good at making it look like they're trying when doing absolutely minimum and little more than warming a chair.
Wells Fargo ripping off homeowners means that all for profit banks are bad and should be banned immediatel
No, banks aren't necessarily bad. Stripping regulation from industry, having it fail, then bailing them out is bad. If banks were like a Union, then if 90% of banks are doing good and the rest were going down the road of Wells Fargo, then you'd give them all a 3% pay increase regardless of how screwed up or piss poor that other 10% were.
Unions aren't bad, but they share a common issue: it's difficult to hold members accountable when they go bad. I certainly don't want to go back to the days when there weren't unions and *employers* had no accountability, I just suggest we move the pendulum more back towards the middle. Let people be judged on merit, but treated fairly overall.
It's not even that *most* cops are dishonest (there are some), it's that even good cops make honest mistakes. What you don't want to do is give them anything to make such a mistake with. An, IMHO, it's human nature - especially for those in authority - to not want to admit to mistakes. So if they screw up and arrest you for something that turns out to be nothing, they often *WILL* want to find *something* in order to make you look like the bad guy, and not them.
Seriously, cops make me nervous. I was once accused of shoplifting from a store in the next city. Apparently somebody called in my plates. The cop said they had me on video. I volunteered to come in so they could see if the dude on video was really me, or I can identify if it was somebody I was with (hey, if buddy is visibly shoplifting on my ride, sorry but I'm not covering for him). The answer: "oh, sorry but I don't have the video on me, it's with officer so-and-so. However this is a serious crime. If you come in and 'fess up you'll likely just get a fine, service, and no record".
I tried to talk to the cop in the next city who supposedly had the "evidence" but he was never available, however I kept getting told to return the item and confess.
Eventually, I talked to the store owner. Nothing was stolen on the day in question. In fact, the store didn't even carry the product that was supposedly taken. The owner managed both stores in the city and nothing was take from (or existed at) either. However, the cops were damn convinced I'd stolen something. So I explained to the owner/manager what was up, and asked if *she* could contact officer X with case file Y. She apologized for the inconvenience and said she'd get it dealt with, even gave me some store credit for the hassle.
After that, the cops just stopped calling me. No apology. No "hey we f**ked up and didn't vet that there was an actual theft and not a false-accusation/prank-call". Weeks of stress and hell, and then nothing because *THEY* screwed up and didn't do their job, then couldn't drop it fast enough when it became apparent.
So yeah. Honestly, for the stress I probably should have just said "am I being charged with a crime. Should I discuss this with a lawyer." and let them either charge me or drop it. Certainly it was a *huge* amount of stress in my life, and I'm sure it was on my "police record" (which records police interactions) though obviously since it was fake there was no "criminal record"
Cops screw up. The problem is they generally won't admit to it. The less opportunity to screw up you give them, the better.
So yeah, the papers-please guard? Sorry, but if he's insistent on getting your phone without cause, then HE IS THE CRIMINAL. This papers please crap is along the same vein. It's not being a dick to exercise your rights, and it may save you a lot of hassle.
Contributing factor yes, but how about the reason behind drinking. What causes people to turn to alcohol?
Some people are easily addicted, but for others it's often a mental trauma or stress of some sort. So, what about the effects of stress? What about the effects of over-working? Didn't a previous article just mention how much overtime Americans put in?
Alcohol is a factor, but frankly, that's on top of all the stupid shit that drives people to drink. It's also part culturally because it's considered an "adult" way to unwind. Personally for me the drinks are an addendum to gaming or various other activities I do to burn off stress.
I personally enjoy a couple (yes, that's two) rum and cokes after dinner on weekends. The only time I drink more would be if I have guests. However, I know lots of people that burn through that 50-60+hr work week - they've got nothing to do at home - and they hit the clubs or bar to get out and unwind. Those venues of course are primarily drinking establishments, so many of those people end up drinking as well.
I'm certainly not saying that drinking is good. I'm saying that people drink because of a variety of reasons that already contribute to bodily degeneration and ill health effects. It's more than likely the alcohol is a contributing factor, but often these stats are like MADD where they consider alcohol to be a contributing factor in a crash even when somebody drank at 9am and drove at 10pm, or if the driver is transporting drunk *passengers*.
Per the article: "Those causes of death also included falls; homicides; poisoning that involved pills or other substances along with alcohol; and suicides."
Drunk driving or motor impairment is probably easily tracable back to alcohol. But you've also got poisoning from multiple sources that just happen to include alcohol, and suicides which are probably spawned from the same reason that people drink, but not necessarily because of it...
If they're a private corporate then they're not part of the government/police. If that's the case they don't have legal jurisdiction in police matters. Ergo, any time they bust into somebody's place, they're violating the law and not subject to any of the protections offered to a member of legal law enforcement.
No, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too.
Cheaper per gallon, or efficient enough in terms of mileage/torque. Diesel is generally more expensive than refined fuel (odd as that is), but it's still fairly popular.
LPG is also quite popular. It is generally cheaper than gasoline/diesel, but the trade-off is that it's less available, often not self-service, and is somewhat less efficient than gasoline.
So per your point, we just need a tipping point of
* power (accelerate curve, torque)
* efficiency (MPG, L/km, etc)
* price
*availability
It doesn't have to accel on all four, but winning on two of the first three (and coming close on another) is usually enough that you start to see an increase in availability.
If you breathe the vapors it can cause permanent damage to your lungs. If you get it on your skin, you can easilly get a nasty chemical burn. The vapor is flamable and forms explosive mixtures with air. It reacts violently with a variety of compounds.
Well, we'd never want to put something in vehicles that is dangerous to inhale in vaporous form, or is volatile/explosive. Oh wait...
Mind you, gasoline is nicer on the skin than a relatively pure ammonia... but it's probably still not something you want to have prolonged contact with (especially given the flammability).
These days it's more:
Defendant: My router runs a free wifi hot spot to provide internet access for people.
Prosecutor: Your router, you're liable for all the traffic
Defendant: But my ISP is the one that turned on the hot-spot. I don't even want it!
Prosecutor: Doesn't matter, it's in your house. You're responsible.
"Hey [music company], I'd like to use [song] in my campaign. I'm sure a nice company like you would be happy to support me in this manner"
The only time the music company might go after a politician for it is if he/she is using said material and is pro copyright-reform (a.k.a not in their pockets)
I've already got a Pebble. There are many things I like about it but things I would love to see:
* Inductive charging /w a decent charging base
* Ability to "answer" a call (rather than only suppress ring). This is doable with Pebble but for some reason requires a ton of extra software on the phone
* BT Microphone on the watch (this will likely kill batteries unless new battery tech comes out)
* Better battery life (I get about a week).
* Works with multiple languages (Pebble only seems to support English)
Most of these the Pebble seems to meet.
* Acceptable aesthetics : Pebble
* Ability to use normal wrist straps : Pebble
* MINIMUM 36-hour battery life: Pebble (I charge mine approx weekly and it has never run down)
* Rootable & reflashable as I see fit: I've read about people re-flashing a Pebble with modified firmware, but I'm not sure how customizable it actually is.
* At least two tactile hard buttons that can be easily pinched independently of one another and used as a modifier key with the other: Pebble (for tactile buttons, usage depends on programming)
* Real, honest-to-god e-ink (not LCD-based "e-paper"): Not aware of any "smartwatch" that does this
If I recall, in was in some mailing-list or forum discussion I picked out from a Google search (and by far not the first result of the search) whilst pulling my hair out about similar issues :-)
You think I associate with terrorists? Charge me.
OK, the problem with this: Once you charge somebody, you need enough to get a conviction. Maybe you're still gathering evidence, whatever. Maybe you're collecting enough to round up a whole group at once (because once you nail person A, then B and C are going into hiding).
You still don't want this guy blowing up planes, but you haven't got enough paperwork done to ensure you can lock him up. People knew that Elliot Roger had issues. Police even checked him out. They didn't arrest him. They didn't take his guns.
I believe that the GP said "organize", not "unionize"
More specifically, he makes the statement "Don't let the union leaders become bosses", which is indeed part of the problem these days.
Bob isn't able to do the new work. Management needs to send him to training. Frank can take care of it in the meantime
Bob is still having issues with this new system, more training. Frank can take care of it in the meantime
3 years down the road, Bob still doesn't know how to stop/start a Unix service or manage the backup system. Well, actually he might if he tried, but Frank is still the one that gets poked to handle it all. Really, Bob is just somewhat lazy and is milking the system. Bob *could* be fired, but it would take another several years of fighting between the union and management, and that's expensive. So install Bob manages a few servers in the old system, and Frank gets 1.5x the work.
And yes, this *does* happen in unions. I worked in one shop where the guy wasn't coming to work, was mis-using company resources, and basically did it all with a smirk. It took them *years* to get him out, and years again of fighting to keep him from being brought back.
I've also been in union management. Even if you know Bob is being a useless turd, you still need to defend his lazy ass. Meanwhile, Frank is being overworked, and Sally is being screwed over but you're too busy dealing with the Bob's of the world to help out the honest employees to the extent that's needed.
Oh, but *everyone* gets a 3% raise this year based on negotiated contracts. That includes Frank - who more than earned it - and also Bob, who definitely did not.
I remember reading about some projects that attempted to create fuel from processed sewage/bacteria. IIRC they planned to have some test plants in eastern Canada (Ontario?). Anyone know about those
Garbage-in-gas-out seems like a good plan. If we could also get "human waste in, gas out" then we're doing even better in terms of managing the nasty side-products of "civilization"
Yeah... based on the previous comments it basically seems that they're able to get away with it because the province of Alberta has less whiners (NIMBY's) who block any useful large project that doesn't "look pretty". As an "oil province" they're pretty used to fairly large non-pretty industry.
We have similar issues getting stuff implemented in my province.
Much as I hate VBCode, the old VB IDE was actually fairly nice for designing simple interfaces. If I could find something similar to make useful applications in a cross-platform manner, I'd be happy to use it. I think the closest might be the Netbeans IDE, but that's still somewhat of a PITA compared to the old VB'ish interface.
"On one hand, I got a bounty for snapping a picture of some dude talking on his phone and driving"
"On the other hand I got fined for driving erratically while trying to take a picture of some guy with my phone..."
Animatronics seemed to do really well at facial expressions and general body movement. What they sucked at was walking or things that involved moving across a room. I believe this was mainly because the walking was done "on stilts"
For example, see movies like the original "Alien" (/Aliens) Was Alien pretty scary, you bet. While the Gremlins were not so scary (more of a kids movie than Alien), the animatronic creatures with real oozing fluids etc were quite realistic. Better yet, you didn't have to do "computer generated" light effects (realism is hard even nowadays!), since you got to use real light.
What sucked was movement. The chest-burster running across the table: decent but still missing on the realism. Gremlins toddling across the snowy streets... stilty and not so believable. But facial expressions? That Alien with its inner mouth sliding out inches from Ripley's face, with slimy drool and everything. Awesome, and more believable than any CG I've seen.
if someone gave you a working 20-year-old TV, would you want it?
No, nor would I likely want a 10-year-old TV. However, if somebody sold it to a person in a rather poor country that same TV for an affordable price (when said person is not likely able to afford the newer model, or at least the price difference makes it a reasonable buy), that seems OK to me.
Better that the heads somewhere it can get a little bit more use, rather than being dumped in the ground somewhere or even separated into various bits in a rather environmentally unfriendly way.