Very true, especially in corporate markets where software cost vs. support cost is more of an issue.
I put together a machine at home, recently, and I didn't have a copy of MS Office available, so I downloaded OpenOffice. It doesn't quite have the same integration or finished look that Office XP has, but, it does quite adequately for the basic letter-writing and simple spreadsheets that I generally work on.
In any case, my point was simply that this sounds more like something that would best be solved by the parties involved, perhaps with a friendly phone call. The headline ".. Busted for using wi-fi" seems a bit excessive for the circumstances.
I gotta go with the cop on this one. Ya, the wi-fi leeching is probably not illegal, but it is using a free public service in a way that was not intended.
But the idea of a priest hanging around a parking lot with all those kids coming and going...
Seriously though, he wasn't "busted". He has not been whisked away by a black van filled with ski-masked villians to a classified prison. He wasn't even arrested. Hell, he didn't get a freaking parking ticket. A lone cop allegedly asked him to stop doing something which may or may not have been illegal, perhaps as an excuse just to engage him in conversation and make sure he was on the up-and-up.
Someone re-file this under "Whining About Trivial Annoyances", and leave YRO for the occasional legitimate problem.
It is simply amazing how unresponsive big corporations are to the needs of their customers. In fact, on any average day, many of them *arrest* their most loyal and frequent customers, simply for engaging in a "try before you buy" program with all kinds of products.
How can they not realize that these so-called "shoplifters", are just a vast pool of new customers??
I have a confirmed allergy to dust (or actually to the dust-mite-whatever-it-is).. but luckily Zyrtec seems to help a LOT, especially if I have the foresight to take it in advance.
In many cases they do. Keep in mind that a lot of voip traffic is not two people using voip, but two regular POTS subscribers, and one of the intermediary carriers is using voip to get better rates. Lots of international traffic gets handled like this.
Many pre-paid calling cards, too - the company selling them might not have any equipment of their own, they just lease time on a switch somewhere.
Aw heck why even pretend. I'm gonna buy one the day it comes out.
Best part is, I have a son who loves his gameboy, so I don't even have to admit it's for me when I buy it.
I have no idea what ninetendo's overall financial situation is like, but it's sure easy to picture them placing an order for a printing press to mint their own greenbacks, just to cut out the middleman./me slobbers.
I installed my last creative card into a machine close to two years ago, and remembering the absolute HELL of installing their driver set, I vowed never to even insert another CD with the "creative" logo on it in a computer.
After installing a reasonably good Asus motherboard in my latest gaming rig, I figured I'd live with the on-board audio (which I assumed to be a piece of crap) because the extra $150 or so for an ub3r SB card would have stretched my toy budget.
Ya know what? The onboard 5.1 sound (by some quasi-generic manufacturer) works quite well, rendering the positional audio of games without killing the CPU, and it handles both stereo and surround sound nicely. I've got both digital and analog in/outs, headphone jack (without the trademark Creative crappy-ground-whining-noise)..
So I can live with a perfectly useable solution and spend the $150 on new clothes for the kids - or something *really* important - like a new Dremel.
Or, I can shell out $150 for a sound card that doesn't really give me anything new, plays havoc with my hardware, and installs 80 varieries of spamware on my PC before crashing it.. Gee, let me think.... I'll skip the SCO.. I mean, Creative, hardware.
with the kind of intersection that would justify this kind of investment, it would likely be above or below grade, giving a good chance to offer pedestrians or bikers their own, separated andd safe, passage.
I don't know how well this would mix with a downtown environment, but something like one of the super-busy intersections near an airport or freeway... I think its a good starting point...
According to the spec sheet, it's got almost the same features as the ATI All-in-wonder, without having to crack open the case. In reality... it doesn't even come close, despite costing $99 even at a discount.
Left three phone messages over a two-week period for the support group. None of them was returned. Sending them email, you don't even get an autoresponder.
After wasting a lot of time on it, I threw it in the garbage.
ATI's all-in-wonder is great, but I don't think they make a USB version. The Hauppage is pricey, but, it's well-supported and there's even third-party applications available for it.
Many Pioneer head units include an input for a minidisc player. They don't often mention it and you need to dig out the manual (they have PDF's online) to activate the input. But once you do, pressing the "source" button will give you another option.
The actual input is a line-level (i.e. RCA jacks) accessible on the back of the unit. You can leave the "tail" tucked away inside the glove compartment or anyplace where the IPOD might be.
I'm not a big fan of people taking their eyes off the road long enough to change songs on an MP3 player, though.
re the cassette player input gizmo: I have one that I use when I put my XM receiver in my wife's car. Noticeably clearer than the FM modulator. Only downside is that the wire looks a bit un-tidy. Works well with the Ipod, just remember to set the output level on the Ipod to about 75% to avoid the tape player getting confused.
While I have never really taken a turbo intake apart, doesn't the wastegate allow the exhaust to bypass the turbine?
I have a boost gauge in my car, and you're right about the pressures - at idle or just driving "gently", the pressure in the intake manifold is actually negative, and goes to actual boost only when the engine is heading towards 3,000rpm.
Once it gets to peak boost (about 13psi), it levels off, and I note that the boost pressure drops off at higher RPM's as well - I assume to avoid detonation.
I understood turbo lag a lot better once I thought about the power that's required just to spin a rotor weighing a pound or so from an idle of 10,000 RPM to perhaps 80,000 RPM in maybe three seconds.
Some smart guy figured it out before me and figured out sequential turbos, where you get a low-mass turbo to give you boost quick at low RPM's, then a big honkin' turbo that keeps it going once the engine needs lots of air.
(back on topic, I've found that the same vehicle can go from getting 17mpg in local driving with the AC on, to getting 24mpg on long drives, to 27mpg on long drives with the AC off.)
Maybe I'm overlooking something pretty basic. I've tried a couple of different games - UT (original) and Quake3. Once on redhat (8.0 I think) and once on Fedora 1.
First time, I followed the steps to download and compile the loadable modules for a Geforce4. Something went haywire in the new kernel, and it killed X to the point where I wiped and reloaded the machine from scratch.
Is there supposed to be native 3d acceleration in the OS? Screensavers meant for OpenGL run slowly enough that I don't think they're using any hardware acceleration.
The OS (at least since I've been looking) has always been good at detecting both the graphics card and even the display attached, but 3d never works for me.
The biggest application incompatibility problem for me personally is games. I am a sucker for new FPS games, and I also have acloset addiction for on-line games like Planetside.
Yah, some are available for Linux - but the couple that I've looked at, I get to the part in the instructions where it mentions a few kernel hacks that might be required, and then I stick the CD into the windows box next to the linux box.
In a work environment, the applications are mostly MS office. Open office is nice, but it does not have 100% compatibility with MS formats. We all know Outlook is a security nightmare, but, everybody knows it, knows how to use the calendar, knows how to make it work with their blackberry, etc. If they can't open a spreadsheet sent by a co-worker, the perception is that it's broken.
Active Directory is the other element. Yes, I know it's a hack of LDAP, Radius and so on, but it looks the same and works the same on every system.
Why do we have to pick just one? Linux is a hands-down winner in some areas, Windows does better at others. If I'm buying 100 laptops for sales guys who need to run Siebel and Outlook, gimme Win2k. If I'm building a group of machines as the back-end of a big network, gimme a handful of generic rackmount machines and the latest solid release of Fedora.
And the reason IBM doesn't get bashed here is they don't sell much to twenty-something computer enthusiasts. You must have missed out on the wild cries of outrage when IBM shoved the evil MCA (micro channel architecture) down the throats of the helpless proletariat.
Way Back When, I worked for a guy who had been in IBM since the early 60's, by which time the company had been around for decades already. IBM is an amazing phenomenon - it's always interesting to contrast a successful transition (IBM's recovery from the PC woes of the 90's) to a failed recovery (AT&T would be the first that comes to mind).
I haven't been an IBM customer in recent years, used to work in a big IBM mainframe shop, but I had to admire them for keeping a focus on the big picture rather than getting lost in the minutae (Compaq) or trying to play me-too (K-Mart), or being #1 in a dead market (Lanier, NCR).
That may not be entirely practical if you're blanketing the HR department of every company, but if you're applying for a specific job opening, spend 15 minutes tailoring your resume to it.
I had the good luck to see my own resume after a couple of professional headhunters edited it and forwarded it to a client. Learned a lot from reading their version of my document.
1. Make it readable. Hand it to a friend or family member, ask them to determine whether you've got some qualification (one which you've listed). If they can't find it in 10 seconds, prune, prune, prune.
2. The list of apps/languages/protocols/hardware at the bottom is VERY handy, and is often more important than anything else listed. This is especially true in highly technical positions such as networking or coding. If your resume is going to an HR department rather than the actual hiring manager, make sure you've got what they're looking for listed.
3. The more experience you have, the less education matters. But even if you're getting started, keep it brief. If you've been in a field for several years, it becomes almost irrelevant.
4. Vagueness is deadly. If you improved productivity with some new process, quantify it in one sentence. If you solved some show-stopper bug, describe it clearly. Assume the reader has an attention span of five seconds, and is a jaded skeptic.
5. Personal stuff (hobbies, affiliations, family) is almost always a minefield. The only exceptions: If it's relevant to the field you're applying for (a concealed carry license won't earn you points - unless it signals to the reader that you can pass a detailed background check). The other exception is if you know the reader, and you find out he's an avid weekend racer - in which case your SCCA timekeeper post is likely to encourage friendly conversation.
Other than that... always understate on the resume, so you can wow 'em with your unexpectedly good qualifications at the interview.
I account for maybe about 10 of those complaints. One of my phone lines was getting a lot of junk calls, the one I give out to customers as my "I *always* answer this number" number.
So I always politely asked the caller to repeat the company name, asked them politely for their phone number, a little less politely for their business address, and then - last but most important "do not call this number again. Read me back my phone number and confirm that you understand this". Then simply hang up, go to www.donotcall.gov, and spend 30 seconds filing a complaint.
Problem I see is that it requires the sentence to be based on a speculation of what your intentions might be.
This is just one of those areas - much like *cough* "music sharing" - that is almost universally an act of theft, that a strong deterrent is required.
It would be invasive to search (actively or passively) audiences for recording equipment. Solutions such as watermarking help identify the most agressive thieves, and prevention measures such as IR blasters or even low-light surveillance cameras provoke a knee-jerk reaction. This seems to me to be a good compromise.
Yah, I suppose there will eventually be a case of a too-eager prosecutor going after someone who really doesn't deserve it... but that's true of *any* law, and hopefully a self-correcting situation.
The logic that the punishment should equal only the actual loss is impractical. While many people simply don't steal because it goes against their ethics or morals, many people *will*, and we need to deter them if we can, and punish them if we must.
One of the biggest issues with this, is there's simply no predictability in it. You go out and spend $200k on a new voice switch and wlan equipment. A week later, the company one floor up from you installs some cheap microwave ovens, which push your packet loss to 40%.
Plain old cat5 wiring is still fairly expensive, but for even home use, most people are simply not willing to tolerate the iffy behavior of 802.11 for voice service.
The other thing to consider is that all the cellphone companies read the news, and they don't stand by idly while the market moves elsewhere; we've already seen per-minute rates drop from 80 cents around 1990 to 6 cents now. At the same time, coverage has increased amazingly, and a congestion-blocked call is becoming more of an anomaly. As the number of phones (and other traffic sources) increases, they install more capacity, which tends to be more consistently maintained than most corporate or personal networks - plus, they have a (flawed but still usable) recourse in the event of interference.
Voice over WLAN will still be around, but I think it's a niche techology, unless someone comes up with a nifty store-and-forward technology.. but I don't see an interesting enough app for it yet.
The closest I've seen to this is in Nissan/Infinity cars, which has a "looking down from an angle" view of the map, instead of the traditional "view from directly overhead".
Still, one of the big annoyances with these things is updates. If you live in a mature city with rare changes in roadways, it's great, but if you live in an area which is still rapidly developing, there tend to be a lot of roads that pop up seemingly overnight (i.e. I noticed a shopping center on the way home last night which was an empty lot a week ago!)
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Very true, especially in corporate markets where software cost vs. support cost is more of an issue.
:-)
I put together a machine at home, recently, and I didn't have a copy of MS Office available, so I downloaded OpenOffice. It doesn't quite have the same integration or finished look that Office XP has, but, it does quite adequately for the basic letter-writing and simple spreadsheets that I generally work on.
And the price was right.
Dunno. Maybe trespassing, loitering, who knows.
In any case, my point was simply that this sounds more like something that would best be solved by the parties involved, perhaps with a friendly phone call. The headline ".. Busted for using wi-fi" seems a bit excessive for the circumstances.
I gotta go with the cop on this one. Ya, the wi-fi leeching is probably not illegal, but it is using a free public service in a way that was not intended.
But the idea of a priest hanging around a parking lot with all those kids coming and going...
Seriously though, he wasn't "busted". He has not been whisked away by a black van filled with ski-masked villians to a classified prison. He wasn't even arrested. Hell, he didn't get a freaking parking ticket. A lone cop allegedly asked him to stop doing something which may or may not have been illegal, perhaps as an excuse just to engage him in conversation and make sure he was on the up-and-up.
Someone re-file this under "Whining About Trivial Annoyances", and leave YRO for the occasional legitimate problem.
It is simply amazing how unresponsive big corporations are to the needs of their customers. In fact, on any average day, many of them *arrest* their most loyal and frequent customers, simply for engaging in a "try before you buy" program with all kinds of products.
How can they not realize that these so-called "shoplifters", are just a vast pool of new customers??
I have a confirmed allergy to dust (or actually to the dust-mite-whatever-it-is) .. but luckily Zyrtec seems to help a LOT, especially if I have the foresight to take it in advance.
Interesting story about Environmental Disease and related disorders.
I find that a plastic bag over the head can help a lot. And if the allergy is bad enough to cause a nosebleed, a tourniquet around the neck.
Anyone who has tried to find the single shelf of PC games hidden behind the aisles of Xbox/PS2/GC/GBA software has already figured out the ansswer.
Piracy isn't the only reason PC games are becoming more of an afterthought, but it certainly is a major consideration.
In many cases they do. Keep in mind that a lot of voip traffic is not two people using voip, but two regular POTS subscribers, and one of the intermediary carriers is using voip to get better rates. Lots of international traffic gets handled like this.
Many pre-paid calling cards, too - the company selling them might not have any equipment of their own, they just lease time on a switch somewhere.
.. from when the first ^%$# flame-spitting nasty guy jumped out of a dark corner... damn, haven't had a game get my pulse up like this in years.
Yeah, I know a lot of people stole it. As usual, the rest of us pick up the tab for them. In this case, it's well worth it.
Yes, I've used an HP/Compaq DLT auto-changer that will do the job.. Don't remember the price offhand, but I remember it was in the over-$100k range.
.. but might be useful: Linksys' NUSL2 box lets you hang two USB hard drives off a little network box, I use it to back up my systems at home.
Aw heck why even pretend. I'm gonna buy one the day it comes out.
Best part is, I have a son who loves his gameboy, so I don't even have to admit it's for me when I buy it.
I have no idea what ninetendo's overall financial situation is like, but it's sure easy to picture them placing an order for a printing press to mint their own greenbacks, just to cut out the middleman.
I installed my last creative card into a machine close to two years ago, and remembering the absolute HELL of installing their driver set, I vowed never to even insert another CD with the "creative" logo on it in a computer.
After installing a reasonably good Asus motherboard in my latest gaming rig, I figured I'd live with the on-board audio (which I assumed to be a piece of crap) because the extra $150 or so for an ub3r SB card would have stretched my toy budget.
Ya know what? The onboard 5.1 sound (by some quasi-generic manufacturer) works quite well, rendering the positional audio of games without killing the CPU, and it handles both stereo and surround sound nicely. I've got both digital and analog in/outs, headphone jack (without the trademark Creative crappy-ground-whining-noise)..
So I can live with a perfectly useable solution and spend the $150 on new clothes for the kids - or something *really* important - like a new Dremel.
Or, I can shell out $150 for a sound card that doesn't really give me anything new, plays havoc with my hardware, and installs 80 varieries of spamware on my PC before crashing it.. Gee, let me think.... I'll skip the SCO.. I mean, Creative, hardware.
with the kind of intersection that would justify this kind of investment, it would likely be above or below grade, giving a good chance to offer pedestrians or bikers their own, separated andd safe, passage.
I don't know how well this would mix with a downtown environment, but something like one of the super-busy intersections near an airport or freeway... I think its a good starting point...
According to the spec sheet, it's got almost the same features as the ATI All-in-wonder, without having to crack open the case. In reality... it doesn't even come close, despite costing $99 even at a discount.
Left three phone messages over a two-week period for the support group. None of them was returned. Sending them email, you don't even get an autoresponder.
After wasting a lot of time on it, I threw it in the garbage.
ATI's all-in-wonder is great, but I don't think they make a USB version. The Hauppage is pricey, but, it's well-supported and there's even third-party applications available for it.
Many Pioneer head units include an input for a minidisc player. They don't often mention it and you need to dig out the manual (they have PDF's online) to activate the input. But once you do, pressing the "source" button will give you another option.
The actual input is a line-level (i.e. RCA jacks) accessible on the back of the unit. You can leave the "tail" tucked away inside the glove compartment or anyplace where the IPOD might be.
I'm not a big fan of people taking their eyes off the road long enough to change songs on an MP3 player, though.
re the cassette player input gizmo: I have one that I use when I put my XM receiver in my wife's car. Noticeably clearer than the FM modulator. Only downside is that the wire looks a bit un-tidy. Works well with the Ipod, just remember to set the output level on the Ipod to about 75% to avoid the tape player getting confused.
While I have never really taken a turbo intake apart, doesn't the wastegate allow the exhaust to bypass the turbine?
I have a boost gauge in my car, and you're right about the pressures - at idle or just driving "gently", the pressure in the intake manifold is actually negative, and goes to actual boost only when the engine is heading towards 3,000rpm.
Once it gets to peak boost (about 13psi), it levels off, and I note that the boost pressure drops off at higher RPM's as well - I assume to avoid detonation.
I understood turbo lag a lot better once I thought about the power that's required just to spin a rotor weighing a pound or so from an idle of 10,000 RPM to perhaps 80,000 RPM in maybe three seconds.
Some smart guy figured it out before me and figured out sequential turbos, where you get a low-mass turbo to give you boost quick at low RPM's, then a big honkin' turbo that keeps it going once the engine needs lots of air.
(back on topic, I've found that the same vehicle can go from getting 17mpg in local driving with the AC on, to getting 24mpg on long drives, to 27mpg on long drives with the AC off.)
Maybe I'm overlooking something pretty basic. I've tried a couple of different games - UT (original) and Quake3. Once on redhat (8.0 I think) and once on Fedora 1.
First time, I followed the steps to download and compile the loadable modules for a Geforce4. Something went haywire in the new kernel, and it killed X to the point where I wiped and reloaded the machine from scratch.
Is there supposed to be native 3d acceleration in the OS? Screensavers meant for OpenGL run slowly enough that I don't think they're using any hardware acceleration.
The OS (at least since I've been looking) has always been good at detecting both the graphics card and even the display attached, but 3d never works for me.
The biggest application incompatibility problem for me personally is games. I am a sucker for new FPS games, and I also have acloset addiction for on-line games like Planetside.
Yah, some are available for Linux - but the couple that I've looked at, I get to the part in the instructions where it mentions a few kernel hacks that might be required, and then I stick the CD into the windows box next to the linux box.
In a work environment, the applications are mostly MS office. Open office is nice, but it does not have 100% compatibility with MS formats. We all know Outlook is a security nightmare, but, everybody knows it, knows how to use the calendar, knows how to make it work with their blackberry, etc. If they can't open a spreadsheet sent by a co-worker, the perception is that it's broken.
Active Directory is the other element. Yes, I know it's a hack of LDAP, Radius and so on, but it looks the same and works the same on every system.
Why do we have to pick just one? Linux is a hands-down winner in some areas, Windows does better at others. If I'm buying 100 laptops for sales guys who need to run Siebel and Outlook, gimme Win2k. If I'm building a group of machines as the back-end of a big network, gimme a handful of generic rackmount machines and the latest solid release of Fedora.
And the reason IBM doesn't get bashed here is they don't sell much to twenty-something computer enthusiasts. You must have missed out on the wild cries of outrage when IBM shoved the evil MCA (micro channel architecture) down the throats of the helpless proletariat.
I predict:
* People will keep buying microsoft products because they like the products.
* Slashdotters will continue to rant about the evils of microsoft (or whatever company happens to be doing well at the time)
* Linux will continue being a useful and robust platform that's too complex for the average consumer and incompatible with popular applications.
Way Back When, I worked for a guy who had been in IBM since the early 60's, by which time the company had been around for decades already. IBM is an amazing phenomenon - it's always interesting to contrast a successful transition (IBM's recovery from the PC woes of the 90's) to a failed recovery (AT&T would be the first that comes to mind).
I haven't been an IBM customer in recent years, used to work in a big IBM mainframe shop, but I had to admire them for keeping a focus on the big picture rather than getting lost in the minutae (Compaq) or trying to play me-too (K-Mart), or being #1 in a dead market (Lanier, NCR).
Ever onward IBM.....
That may not be entirely practical if you're blanketing the HR department of every company, but if you're applying for a specific job opening, spend 15 minutes tailoring your resume to it.
I had the good luck to see my own resume after a couple of professional headhunters edited it and forwarded it to a client. Learned a lot from reading their version of my document.
1. Make it readable. Hand it to a friend or family member, ask them to determine whether you've got some qualification (one which you've listed). If they can't find it in 10 seconds, prune, prune, prune.
2. The list of apps/languages/protocols/hardware at the bottom is VERY handy, and is often more important than anything else listed. This is especially true in highly technical positions such as networking or coding. If your resume is going to an HR department rather than the actual hiring manager, make sure you've got what they're looking for listed.
3. The more experience you have, the less education matters. But even if you're getting started, keep it brief. If you've been in a field for several years, it becomes almost irrelevant.
4. Vagueness is deadly. If you improved productivity with some new process, quantify it in one sentence. If you solved some show-stopper bug, describe it clearly. Assume the reader has an attention span of five seconds, and is a jaded skeptic.
5. Personal stuff (hobbies, affiliations, family) is almost always a minefield. The only exceptions: If it's relevant to the field you're applying for (a concealed carry license won't earn you points - unless it signals to the reader that you can pass a detailed background check). The other exception is if you know the reader, and you find out he's an avid weekend racer - in which case your SCCA timekeeper post is likely to encourage friendly conversation.
Other than that... always understate on the resume, so you can wow 'em with your unexpectedly good qualifications at the interview.
I account for maybe about 10 of those complaints. One of my phone lines was getting a lot of junk calls, the one I give out to customers as my "I *always* answer this number" number.
So I always politely asked the caller to repeat the company name, asked them politely for their phone number, a little less politely for their business address, and then - last but most important "do not call this number again. Read me back my phone number and confirm that you understand this". Then simply hang up, go to www.donotcall.gov, and spend 30 seconds filing a complaint.
Problem I see is that it requires the sentence to be based on a speculation of what your intentions might be.
This is just one of those areas - much like *cough* "music sharing" - that is almost universally an act of theft, that a strong deterrent is required.
It would be invasive to search (actively or passively) audiences for recording equipment. Solutions such as watermarking help identify the most agressive thieves, and prevention measures such as IR blasters or even low-light surveillance cameras provoke a knee-jerk reaction. This seems to me to be a good compromise.
Yah, I suppose there will eventually be a case of a too-eager prosecutor going after someone who really doesn't deserve it... but that's true of *any* law, and hopefully a self-correcting situation.
The logic that the punishment should equal only the actual loss is impractical. While many people simply don't steal because it goes against their ethics or morals, many people *will*, and we need to deter them if we can, and punish them if we must.
One of the biggest issues with this, is there's simply no predictability in it. You go out and spend $200k on a new voice switch and wlan equipment. A week later, the company one floor up from you installs some cheap microwave ovens, which push your packet loss to 40%.
Plain old cat5 wiring is still fairly expensive, but for even home use, most people are simply not willing to tolerate the iffy behavior of 802.11 for voice service.
The other thing to consider is that all the cellphone companies read the news, and they don't stand by idly while the market moves elsewhere; we've already seen per-minute rates drop from 80 cents around 1990 to 6 cents now. At the same time, coverage has increased amazingly, and a congestion-blocked call is becoming more of an anomaly. As the number of phones (and other traffic sources) increases, they install more capacity, which tends to be more consistently maintained than most corporate or personal networks - plus, they have a (flawed but still usable) recourse in the event of interference.
Voice over WLAN will still be around, but I think it's a niche techology, unless someone comes up with a nifty store-and-forward technology.. but I don't see an interesting enough app for it yet.
The closest I've seen to this is in Nissan/Infinity cars, which has a "looking down from an angle" view of the map, instead of the traditional "view from directly overhead".
Still, one of the big annoyances with these things is updates. If you live in a mature city with rare changes in roadways, it's great, but if you live in an area which is still rapidly developing, there tend to be a lot of roads that pop up seemingly overnight (i.e. I noticed a shopping center on the way home last night which was an empty lot a week ago!)