From a younger perspective, older is better
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
At my last employer, the management decided to cut costs by laying off everyone in our team that had been in the company for ten years. They also eliminated anyone who had created the system I worked on for fear that they would hold up converting to a new system in five years.
This proved disasterous. This was my first job out of college and I was a fish out of water. I was trained in object-oriented programming for Windows and UNIX and web applications development. When all the experienced people were laid off, I now had to test mainframe applications and run batch jobs. I had no idea how to do this, so the ONE person they kept on had to train ALL of us on how to do it. Pending projects were delayed, IS and Production teams had to wait on us, and the whole system plan was FUBAR.
Younger people thinking faster is BS. You have to learn how to walk before you can run.
Notice how they said a paralegal found the amendment to the contract. Paralegals do most of the grunt work in a law office, but something as sweet as this should have an attorney trying to bask in the glory of the discovery. If an attorney had brought the amendment forward and it turns out to be a forgery, they would have sanctions and probably be disbarred.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was fake. Especially if Novell isn't able to find their copy of it.
The problem with Europeans is that they've got some kind of mindset that American sacrifices don't matter. Over the last 60 years Western Europe has been spoon-fed by the Marshall Plan to rebuild their countries after they either fell to Hitler or came pretty damned close. Europeans resent the assistance and aid that we gave them and are now plotting the economic destruction of the United States through the European Union.
Sure, the Soviets did a great job of luring the Germans onto their homeland, cutting off their oil and food, and then conveniently freezing them to death in the harsh winter. Quite honestly, the Soviets lucked out. Everyone's also pretty much saying that it didn't matter if the US came into the fight because Europe would have overcome Hitler anyway.
I wonder, though, what would have happened if the Soviets hadn't sided with Hitler in the first place? How many lives, Soviet and others, would have been saved if they hadn't sided with him? In my humble opinion, I don't really give a damn what the Soviets did later on in the war, it's what they did at the beginning that caused the greatest damage. The appeasement of Hitler by the Europeans also allowed him to gain more land and even greater power.
The Soviets may have defeated Hitler years later, provided he hadn't developed nuclear weapons and jet bomber/fighter technology. The French Resistance may have driven the German Army out of France by 1960 provided they all hadn't been loaded into boxcars bound for Auchwitz. The British may have been able to keep Germany from invading England, but they probably would have starved to death in the process.
About this talk of spending the money instead on development of countries that have grievances with the US, I refuse to give my tax dollars to people who cheer and parade in the streets of Gaza when the trade center went down. I refuse to be held hostage to the whim of religious radicals who choose war in the name of God or Allah to build up their own power. The US government is not perfect and US citizens are not perfect either. But neither is any other human being or government on this planet. Regardless of training, background, or intelligience, we all make mistakes. If I had to choose between living in Europe or living in the US, I'd choose the US any day. The people here are willing to stand up for what they believe in, regardless of whether it's popular or not. In Europe, as long as you're against the US, it's all good.
F6 is not inconceivable. The May 3, 1999 tornado in Moore/Midwest City, Oklahoma was only 1-2 MPH slower than what they would consider an F6. But seeing as how that storm picked up Ford F-150 trucks and turned them into giant wadded masses of steel hurled 10 miles, that's a lot of power.
Funny thing, they designed my old high school to withstand at least an F3 force tornado. When the big F5 rolled over it, only the windows were blown out and the gym and auditorium roofs partially collapsed. But everyone inside (at an assembly) was able to walk out unscathed and look at their destroyed cars in the parking lot.
When I started law school this past year, I decided to buy a laptop. I bought a Dell i8200, loaded out, with a docking station for home use. May have been overkill, but I worked for a year before starting school again so money wasn't a problem. The ability to use WiFi access in class to get cases from Lexis and Westlaw has been very helpful. My class notes and outlines are much more organized and readable compared to my old undergrad notes. I can't help but think about how helpful it would have been in my undergrad business, marketing, and comp sci courses during group work or study sessions.
Now, it all depends on what you're going to be studying and which operating system you're comfortable with. I had a roommate and some friends in undergrad that had to use Macs because they were art/music majors. They mostly had either iMacs or G4s. They just didn't need a laptop, I guess. But everything in my business courses was DOS/Windows only. Sometimes we had to use software bundled with our books for assignments, and unless you wanted to wait two months and pay $50 for a Mac version, it was DOS/Windows.
For my comp sci courses, it really didn't matter as long as your instructor could compile your source code on his computer. We either used HP/UX servers via Telnet or Code Warrior, so any OS could work. But for any of the MS Visual courses, if you wanted to use your own machine, it better be a PC. Some schools also give you crap if you want to use their network and you have a Mac. It's not that it won't work, but their underpaid IT staff may not know how to make it work right. If you buy a Mac, make sure you know how to network it and set up file and print sharing. Most teachers are starting to make students turn in assignments via network folders, so if you can't figure out how to make that work, you're screwed.
Anyway, if I had undergrad to do over again as a business/comp sci major, I'd get a good Dell or Toshiba laptop with Windows XP Professional and MS Office Pro. Don't buy Office from anyone but your school's bookstore because you'll get the Pro version for $199 versus $399. I like my Dell because even after a year of cycling the battery, I still get the same 3 hours of runtime I got when it was new. My friends' Compaqs, Toshibas, and HPs run down in an hour. Get a spare battery too if you're concerned about runtime.
Oh, and just for fun, throw Linux on an old PC and use it to code and compile under gcc when the school's UNIX machines get clogged with your fellow students compiling at the same time.
I like how this story has become a US v. The World (or the EU) debate, just like every story on/. since 9/11.
People, get a clue. The European version of GPS won't make a damn bit of difference. It'll be just one more thing the manufacturers of aircraft avionics have to build into their equipment. Hell, I bet Garmin and Magellan will even build "dual-band" receivers to use both GPS and the EU system. I don't know how many satellites are in the American GPS system, but if the EU can get the same quality out of 30 satellites, I'll be impressed.
If the rest of the world is supposed to be saying "f--- you" to America by building another GPS system, that's pretty sad. As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that most Americans, including myself, really don't care how you spend your money. If you want to throw more redundant junk into space on your dime, fine! Spend your tax dollars on a redundant system!
I'll be more impressed if the real reason is that the EU wants their own system that they can control whenever it suits their interests. If the Brits have a little Falklands skirmish again, or the French decide to occupy Vietnam again, they should have the right to fade the signal to throw their enemies off. Of course, if one country within the EU decides to have its own little war, I wonder how the rest of the countries would handle letting them fade the signal.
This is not US v. The World (or the EU), people. This is the EU finally showing some gutsy, good old-fashioned, me-too innovation, just like Soviet Russia. I wonder if this means Nokia will sell crappy Euro-GPS units like their crappy GSM phones here in the states, competing with Garmin and Magellan.
In reality, he didn't really start the "John Wayne" style of diplomacy until we were really attacked. Remember that spy-plane incident with China where their pilot clipped our surveillance plane in international airspace? The Chinese refused to release the plane or crew until we apologized. Bush apologized and we got the crew and eventually, the aircraft, back.
We could have dealt with 9/11 and Iraq with nice diplomacy and all the other BS. Unlike the rest of the world, though, we don't negotiate with terrorists. You know why they used suicide attackers on 9/11 and Gulf War 2? Because they know we will never negotiate with them. We will not release terrorists from prison and let them terrorize the world again. We will not negotiate with despots who haven't had a legitimate, sovereign government in 12 years.
Quite honestly, I don't think Bush expects to make many friends with "cowboy" diplomacy. I really don't care if he does, either. The way I see it, the rest of the world has been sh*tting on America for a long time. Especially the EU. If you mess with America, you're going to die. If you get in the way, that's your own damn fault, we warned you too.
Hey, if you don't like Ashcroft, you better be thanking whatever God you believe in that he's The Man and not Frank Keating from Oklahoma. He was the next guy on the short list, and he makes John Ashcroft look like Michael Moore. Believe me, it could be a lot worse.
BTW, Ashcroft was brought in to do whatever was needed for the Justice Department. Congress doesn't have to pass the legislation he helps design. If you don't like the Patriot Act, blame your own Congressperson for passing it. It's almost like your boss bringing you in to design a security system for the new store. Sure, you may want to put in cameras in the bathroom because that's where 99% of shoplifters hide their loot, but your boss is probably going to nix the idea.
There's no exception to being a greedy Democrat. They're all greedy. That's why they (and the Republicans too) tax us all to death so they and their constituents don't have to get real jobs.
Well, my parents shelled out $3000 at Dillards back in Christmas of 1985 for a complete//e system. Apple Composite RGB Monitor, DuoDisk Drive,//e, and 80 column/128k extension card.
Then they bought an AE parallel card and a Star NX-1020 color dot-matrix printer in Christmas of 1990 so I could use it as a word processor for school. That had to have been another $200-300 at least. But I used the computer through high school until 1997, when I got a settlement from a car accident and built my first PC-compatible. My parents got an Aptiva for $2000 at the same time, the//e went back into the ORIGINAL boxes, now sitting in the basement.
Apple computers have gotten cheaper, my friend. Maybe not as cheap as PCs, but when they're the only ones making the custom hardware and assembling most of their iron in America, it's not that bad.
Re:you've gotta be kidding...
on
Hamvention
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· Score: 1
Oh, I'm not hostile towards the ARRL, but it's just that they don't seem to be embracing the new technologies as much in the training manuals.
To tell you the truth, I don't have a junk box full of SMT parts. Yeah, they're harder to work with, to an extent, but I don't think that the use of SMT makes devices 'unrepairable'.
But, if you have the right equipment and the right touch, SMT is fun to work with. I'm terrible with making perfect solder joints with thru-hole parts, but solder paste and heat jets make it so much cleaner and easier. Also, I have pretty bad vision so I need a magnifying glass to read the codes on most thru-hole components and the color bands on resistors.
Re:Oh, simpler times...
on
Hamvention
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There's nothing in a VX-1R that can't be replaced with the proper equipment and skills. You can purchase a PACE soldering system and work with SMT technology fairly easily. All it takes is a little more education and practice to work with the new technology.
Quite honestly, I blame the ARRL for not including information on SMT technology in the training manuals. It really isn't that much more complicated than older thru-hole components and isn't that difficult to work with.
Just go ahead and put out the plans for a rudementary cruise missle. Your country is in no danger of getting attacked. Oh wait, al Qaeda hates Australia and New Zealand now, too! Damn, that's going to be ironic indeed when you get smoked by your own design.
By the way, it doesn't matter if the missle has a guidance system or not. Just as long as any civilians are killed, Osama and his minions are happy. Very much like the Nazis with the V-1/V-2. Didn't matter if it hit anything important, just as long as it killed a few people in London.
Karma dictates that if you don't buy the WorstBuy service plan, the "insert drop-kicked off the truck electronic device purchased at WorstBuy here" will turn to dust in at least 3 days.
1992: Sony CD Boombox, dead in three days
1998: Symphonic VCR, dead in three months
2001: Handspring Visor, D.O.A.
2001: A gift, A Sony PS2, I went back and bought the extended warranty, no problems since
2002: A Kenwood Home Theater receiver, almost bought the extended warranty, but the factory warranty was the same length, so I had to argue with the 16 year old "product specialist" and explain exactly why buying the warranty didn't make sense. I would have walked out without purchasing anything just because of the hassle, but they were throwing in a set of surround and center speakers. Being a student again on a tight budget, it was worth the five minutes of hassle to get the little leech off my neck.
BTW, receiver still works, as does the PS2. I'm 2 for 5 with four different WorstBuys in four different states. But the CDs and other non-mechanical devices I purchase there always seem to work flawlessly. Go figure.
That makes a lot of since, considering the show went on the air about two or three years before the GNX existed, at least in steel form on four wheels...
It was a Firebird Trans Am (a bunch of 'em, actually) with a new front facia, dashboard, and a driver's seat with the back cut out so the stunt driver couldn't be seen by the camera. Sorry.
I can't believe I got sucked into a Night Rider trap at 1:00 AM.
I'm going to back you up here. My experience with GSM/GPRS v. CDMA has been like night and day. Most of the people in America who buy GSM/GPRS phones "just in case" they go to Europe are like people who buy shitty, car based SUVs like RAV4s, Highlanders, and Escapes "just in case" they need to go off-roading. If you really need a mobile phone in Europe, unless you're really hopping a jet over there every week, it's cheaper to buy a disposable one over there.
First of all, my old GSM provider, T-Mobile, sucked. My phone was always charged all sorts of roaming fees and had lousy reception. Traveling across country, I could hardly ever get a signal, except for out east.
So I changed to Sprint last summer. My calls aren't dropped nearly as often, the calls are clearer, and the battery life is actually better. The phone's also reliable as hell. It's the Touchpoint 2200, they don't make it anymore, but it's survived a lot of abuse. I know it's just my experience and it doesn't really count, but that's all that matters to me.
This next comment is going to turn me into Flamebait. If it's a Windows v. Linux style comparison between CDMA and GSM/GPRS, well, I have to admit that I've also been running Windows XP Pro for a year, and the only application that's been crashing is Mozilla.
Sprint's going back to using Nokia phones, though. If I ever buy another phone, I'd buy one of the LGs or Samsung first.
By the way, the camera lens cover on that new Nokia is going to get scratched up pretty quickly if they don't fashion a cover for it.
Gee, CDMA2000 seems to be able to offer the same performance as GSM, but the only wireless telecoms going out of business around the world are the ones using GSM. Maybe it's because GSM/GPRS is a much more expensive and complicated upgrade path. Maybe it's because the equipment is more expensive. Or maybe it's because the quality is lousy compared to CDMA.
Again, this is another example of European arrogance where they think that just because THEY use it and the Asians use it, it must be better.
At least CDMA is expanding faster around the world than GSM at this point.
I was all set to eBay my 9 month old Inspiron 8200, but there's no docking port on this new machine, the modem/network connectors have been moved to the back, only one PC card slot is available, and there's no difference in the video hardware, save for the wider screen.
Instead of calling it the 8500, they should have named it the 9200 or something because it's a completely different case and LCD design. Most of the parts in the 8000 class are interchangeable, save for the memory, processor, and motherboards.
Nope, I'm keeping my trusty i8200. A wide screen really isn't THAT important of an upgrade, and I really like the handy docking station for at-home usage. Nine months on Windows XP Pro with no blue screens, and it still dusts off ever other notebook, except for the other i8200's, in my law school class. Even the Macs:)
Lite-On rules! Hardware so damn cheap it's like Christmas when it blows away Sony and Plextor drives, but you don't cry when it burns up ten years down the road because you didn't pay anything for it.
It's simple. You don't like the monopoly? Boycott it, if you can. My local cable company offers both broadband internet and local phone service over their networks for less than the local Baby Bell, Qwest.
Boo-hoo, Qwest and SBC, I'm really going to feel sorry for you when you got your networks FOR FREE to begin with!
Hey, just because it's public info doesn't make it free. The reason why West and Lexis take this public information and bind it is to make money. They spend millions per year keeping two of the largest data warehouses in the world up and running 24/7 and completely up-to-date. They employ thousands of attorneys and librarians to write briefs on EVERY case posted in the system, cross-reference the cases for subject matter and context, and keep the warning symbols up-to-date. I'd really love to see the gummit do that effectively. Besides, the average unlimited user would have no idea what to look for, how to disseminate the information, and what the various warning symbols mean.
Now, if you want to see the goods for free, just run down to your local federal despository library or public law library and they'll have every thing you want. As a matter of fact, it's pretty easy for anyone to cross reference cases and law. Here's about $6,000 worth of free advice:
To look up a case, go to a legal encyclopedia and look up the subject matter you want. See the citations for cases that discuss it? Now, run over to the reporters, open that big leather and paper device call a BOOK, and flip to the page number.
To look up a law, go to the common name table or subject index and look up the statute. Bam! There it is.
Try FindLaw.com and thomas.loc.gov.
BTW, the flat-rate contracts for firms cost millions of dollars. Seriously, the largest firm here in Omaha paid about 8 million for theirs. That's per year and can go up or down from year to year. If a public library has that much money to throw away, it would be a lot smarter to employ one or two paralegals or legal librarians and purchase a set of reporter, annotated codes, and legal encyclopedias. Shoot, most large law firms will donate old encyclopedias that are easily updateable to libraries.
Oh yeah, Nebraska's web site has several areas that are play-to-pay. I think the idea is to charge user fees rather than jack up everyone's taxes. Why should I pay higher taxes for some schlub to slow down the Lexis and West systems on 50,000 document searches for DUI caselaw?
Doesn't it seem a little ironic for a card-carrying RIAA member to be embracing Open Source/GPL for their products? I wonder if they'll try to make some kind of modification or licensing deal to screw Panasonic and the rest of the world from using this embedded system.
Slashdot Mirror
This proved disasterous. This was my first job out of college and I was a fish out of water. I was trained in object-oriented programming for Windows and UNIX and web applications development. When all the experienced people were laid off, I now had to test mainframe applications and run batch jobs. I had no idea how to do this, so the ONE person they kept on had to train ALL of us on how to do it. Pending projects were delayed, IS and Production teams had to wait on us, and the whole system plan was FUBAR.
Younger people thinking faster is BS. You have to learn how to walk before you can run.
Don't you mean, who's going to take on the Islamic terrorists and the EU that bankrolls them?
I wonder how long it would take to build a cool Beowulf cluster of these?
0.000000001 Teraflops here we come!
I wouldn't be surprised if it was fake. Especially if Novell isn't able to find their copy of it.
Sure, the Soviets did a great job of luring the Germans onto their homeland, cutting off their oil and food, and then conveniently freezing them to death in the harsh winter. Quite honestly, the Soviets lucked out. Everyone's also pretty much saying that it didn't matter if the US came into the fight because Europe would have overcome Hitler anyway.
I wonder, though, what would have happened if the Soviets hadn't sided with Hitler in the first place? How many lives, Soviet and others, would have been saved if they hadn't sided with him? In my humble opinion, I don't really give a damn what the Soviets did later on in the war, it's what they did at the beginning that caused the greatest damage. The appeasement of Hitler by the Europeans also allowed him to gain more land and even greater power.
The Soviets may have defeated Hitler years later, provided he hadn't developed nuclear weapons and jet bomber/fighter technology. The French Resistance may have driven the German Army out of France by 1960 provided they all hadn't been loaded into boxcars bound for Auchwitz. The British may have been able to keep Germany from invading England, but they probably would have starved to death in the process.
About this talk of spending the money instead on development of countries that have grievances with the US, I refuse to give my tax dollars to people who cheer and parade in the streets of Gaza when the trade center went down. I refuse to be held hostage to the whim of religious radicals who choose war in the name of God or Allah to build up their own power. The US government is not perfect and US citizens are not perfect either. But neither is any other human being or government on this planet. Regardless of training, background, or intelligience, we all make mistakes. If I had to choose between living in Europe or living in the US, I'd choose the US any day. The people here are willing to stand up for what they believe in, regardless of whether it's popular or not. In Europe, as long as you're against the US, it's all good.
Funny thing, they designed my old high school to withstand at least an F3 force tornado. When the big F5 rolled over it, only the windows were blown out and the gym and auditorium roofs partially collapsed. But everyone inside (at an assembly) was able to walk out unscathed and look at their destroyed cars in the parking lot.
Now, it all depends on what you're going to be studying and which operating system you're comfortable with. I had a roommate and some friends in undergrad that had to use Macs because they were art/music majors. They mostly had either iMacs or G4s. They just didn't need a laptop, I guess. But everything in my business courses was DOS/Windows only. Sometimes we had to use software bundled with our books for assignments, and unless you wanted to wait two months and pay $50 for a Mac version, it was DOS/Windows.
For my comp sci courses, it really didn't matter as long as your instructor could compile your source code on his computer. We either used HP/UX servers via Telnet or Code Warrior, so any OS could work. But for any of the MS Visual courses, if you wanted to use your own machine, it better be a PC. Some schools also give you crap if you want to use their network and you have a Mac. It's not that it won't work, but their underpaid IT staff may not know how to make it work right. If you buy a Mac, make sure you know how to network it and set up file and print sharing. Most teachers are starting to make students turn in assignments via network folders, so if you can't figure out how to make that work, you're screwed.
Anyway, if I had undergrad to do over again as a business/comp sci major, I'd get a good Dell or Toshiba laptop with Windows XP Professional and MS Office Pro. Don't buy Office from anyone but your school's bookstore because you'll get the Pro version for $199 versus $399. I like my Dell because even after a year of cycling the battery, I still get the same 3 hours of runtime I got when it was new. My friends' Compaqs, Toshibas, and HPs run down in an hour. Get a spare battery too if you're concerned about runtime.
Oh, and just for fun, throw Linux on an old PC and use it to code and compile under gcc when the school's UNIX machines get clogged with your fellow students compiling at the same time.
People, get a clue. The European version of GPS won't make a damn bit of difference. It'll be just one more thing the manufacturers of aircraft avionics have to build into their equipment. Hell, I bet Garmin and Magellan will even build "dual-band" receivers to use both GPS and the EU system. I don't know how many satellites are in the American GPS system, but if the EU can get the same quality out of 30 satellites, I'll be impressed.
If the rest of the world is supposed to be saying "f--- you" to America by building another GPS system, that's pretty sad. As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that most Americans, including myself, really don't care how you spend your money. If you want to throw more redundant junk into space on your dime, fine! Spend your tax dollars on a redundant system!
I'll be more impressed if the real reason is that the EU wants their own system that they can control whenever it suits their interests. If the Brits have a little Falklands skirmish again, or the French decide to occupy Vietnam again, they should have the right to fade the signal to throw their enemies off. Of course, if one country within the EU decides to have its own little war, I wonder how the rest of the countries would handle letting them fade the signal.
This is not US v. The World (or the EU), people. This is the EU finally showing some gutsy, good old-fashioned, me-too innovation, just like Soviet Russia. I wonder if this means Nokia will sell crappy Euro-GPS units like their crappy GSM phones here in the states, competing with Garmin and Magellan.
We could have dealt with 9/11 and Iraq with nice diplomacy and all the other BS. Unlike the rest of the world, though, we don't negotiate with terrorists. You know why they used suicide attackers on 9/11 and Gulf War 2? Because they know we will never negotiate with them. We will not release terrorists from prison and let them terrorize the world again. We will not negotiate with despots who haven't had a legitimate, sovereign government in 12 years.
Quite honestly, I don't think Bush expects to make many friends with "cowboy" diplomacy. I really don't care if he does, either. The way I see it, the rest of the world has been sh*tting on America for a long time. Especially the EU. If you mess with America, you're going to die. If you get in the way, that's your own damn fault, we warned you too.
BTW, Ashcroft was brought in to do whatever was needed for the Justice Department. Congress doesn't have to pass the legislation he helps design. If you don't like the Patriot Act, blame your own Congressperson for passing it. It's almost like your boss bringing you in to design a security system for the new store. Sure, you may want to put in cameras in the bathroom because that's where 99% of shoplifters hide their loot, but your boss is probably going to nix the idea.
There's no exception to being a greedy Democrat. They're all greedy. That's why they (and the Republicans too) tax us all to death so they and their constituents don't have to get real jobs.
Then they bought an AE parallel card and a Star NX-1020 color dot-matrix printer in Christmas of 1990 so I could use it as a word processor for school. That had to have been another $200-300 at least. But I used the computer through high school until 1997, when I got a settlement from a car accident and built my first PC-compatible. My parents got an Aptiva for $2000 at the same time, the //e went back into the ORIGINAL boxes, now sitting in the basement.
Apple computers have gotten cheaper, my friend. Maybe not as cheap as PCs, but when they're the only ones making the custom hardware and assembling most of their iron in America, it's not that bad.
To tell you the truth, I don't have a junk box full of SMT parts. Yeah, they're harder to work with, to an extent, but I don't think that the use of SMT makes devices 'unrepairable'.
But, if you have the right equipment and the right touch, SMT is fun to work with. I'm terrible with making perfect solder joints with thru-hole parts, but solder paste and heat jets make it so much cleaner and easier. Also, I have pretty bad vision so I need a magnifying glass to read the codes on most thru-hole components and the color bands on resistors.
Quite honestly, I blame the ARRL for not including information on SMT technology in the training manuals. It really isn't that much more complicated than older thru-hole components and isn't that difficult to work with.
73, KD5BFE
Just go ahead and put out the plans for a rudementary cruise missle. Your country is in no danger of getting attacked. Oh wait, al Qaeda hates Australia and New Zealand now, too! Damn, that's going to be ironic indeed when you get smoked by your own design.
By the way, it doesn't matter if the missle has a guidance system or not. Just as long as any civilians are killed, Osama and his minions are happy. Very much like the Nazis with the V-1/V-2. Didn't matter if it hit anything important, just as long as it killed a few people in London.
1992: Sony CD Boombox, dead in three days 1998: Symphonic VCR, dead in three months 2001: Handspring Visor, D.O.A.
2001: A gift, A Sony PS2, I went back and bought the extended warranty, no problems since
2002: A Kenwood Home Theater receiver, almost bought the extended warranty, but the factory warranty was the same length, so I had to argue with the 16 year old "product specialist" and explain exactly why buying the warranty didn't make sense. I would have walked out without purchasing anything just because of the hassle, but they were throwing in a set of surround and center speakers. Being a student again on a tight budget, it was worth the five minutes of hassle to get the little leech off my neck.
BTW, receiver still works, as does the PS2. I'm 2 for 5 with four different WorstBuys in four different states. But the CDs and other non-mechanical devices I purchase there always seem to work flawlessly. Go figure.
It was a Firebird Trans Am (a bunch of 'em, actually) with a new front facia, dashboard, and a driver's seat with the back cut out so the stunt driver couldn't be seen by the camera. Sorry.
I can't believe I got sucked into a Night Rider trap at 1:00 AM.
If the X-Prize was an office pool, my money would be on Rutan.
First of all, my old GSM provider, T-Mobile, sucked. My phone was always charged all sorts of roaming fees and had lousy reception. Traveling across country, I could hardly ever get a signal, except for out east.
So I changed to Sprint last summer. My calls aren't dropped nearly as often, the calls are clearer, and the battery life is actually better. The phone's also reliable as hell. It's the Touchpoint 2200, they don't make it anymore, but it's survived a lot of abuse. I know it's just my experience and it doesn't really count, but that's all that matters to me.
This next comment is going to turn me into Flamebait. If it's a Windows v. Linux style comparison between CDMA and GSM/GPRS, well, I have to admit that I've also been running Windows XP Pro for a year, and the only application that's been crashing is Mozilla.
Sprint's going back to using Nokia phones, though. If I ever buy another phone, I'd buy one of the LGs or Samsung first.
By the way, the camera lens cover on that new Nokia is going to get scratched up pretty quickly if they don't fashion a cover for it.
Again, this is another example of European arrogance where they think that just because THEY use it and the Asians use it, it must be better.
At least CDMA is expanding faster around the world than GSM at this point.
I was all set to eBay my 9 month old Inspiron 8200, but there's no docking port on this new machine, the modem/network connectors have been moved to the back, only one PC card slot is available, and there's no difference in the video hardware, save for the wider screen.
Instead of calling it the 8500, they should have named it the 9200 or something because it's a completely different case and LCD design. Most of the parts in the 8000 class are interchangeable, save for the memory, processor, and motherboards.
Nope, I'm keeping my trusty i8200. A wide screen really isn't THAT important of an upgrade, and I really like the handy docking station for at-home usage. Nine months on Windows XP Pro with no blue screens, and it still dusts off ever other notebook, except for the other i8200's, in my law school class. Even the Macs :)
Lite-On rules! Hardware so damn cheap it's like Christmas when it blows away Sony and Plextor drives, but you don't cry when it burns up ten years down the road because you didn't pay anything for it.
Boo-hoo, Qwest and SBC, I'm really going to feel sorry for you when you got your networks FOR FREE to begin with!
Hey, just because it's public info doesn't make it free. The reason why West and Lexis take this public information and bind it is to make money. They spend millions per year keeping two of the largest data warehouses in the world up and running 24/7 and completely up-to-date. They employ thousands of attorneys and librarians to write briefs on EVERY case posted in the system, cross-reference the cases for subject matter and context, and keep the warning symbols up-to-date. I'd really love to see the gummit do that effectively. Besides, the average unlimited user would have no idea what to look for, how to disseminate the information, and what the various warning symbols mean. Now, if you want to see the goods for free, just run down to your local federal despository library or public law library and they'll have every thing you want. As a matter of fact, it's pretty easy for anyone to cross reference cases and law. Here's about $6,000 worth of free advice: To look up a case, go to a legal encyclopedia and look up the subject matter you want. See the citations for cases that discuss it? Now, run over to the reporters, open that big leather and paper device call a BOOK, and flip to the page number. To look up a law, go to the common name table or subject index and look up the statute. Bam! There it is. Try FindLaw.com and thomas.loc.gov. BTW, the flat-rate contracts for firms cost millions of dollars. Seriously, the largest firm here in Omaha paid about 8 million for theirs. That's per year and can go up or down from year to year. If a public library has that much money to throw away, it would be a lot smarter to employ one or two paralegals or legal librarians and purchase a set of reporter, annotated codes, and legal encyclopedias. Shoot, most large law firms will donate old encyclopedias that are easily updateable to libraries. Oh yeah, Nebraska's web site has several areas that are play-to-pay. I think the idea is to charge user fees rather than jack up everyone's taxes. Why should I pay higher taxes for some schlub to slow down the Lexis and West systems on 50,000 document searches for DUI caselaw?
Doesn't it seem a little ironic for a card-carrying RIAA member to be embracing Open Source/GPL for their products? I wonder if they'll try to make some kind of modification or licensing deal to screw Panasonic and the rest of the world from using this embedded system.