This guy could just be a violent sociopath with an assault record a mile long
I would think that this would give the customer a pretty good reason to sue verizon. If the guy just snapped out of nowhere, it is a little bit less of verizon's fault (their liability insurance or something should cover the damages) but if they hired a guy to go by himself to customers homes without pulling up his criminal record...its lawyer time!
Actually the reason they don't do diesels now is that they don't like stopping and starting so frequently. Gas engines are perfectly happy shutting down and picking up right where they left off but with a diesel you are going to run into problems (and maybe emissions issues)...if it was a good solution, the toyota engineers would have figured out how to throw a diesel in your prius.
If we ever get a shift towards series hybrids (think train engines), then diesel is a perfect match.
Now...I know this is slashdot...but you realize that the guy in the article is talking about replacing the engine in his hybrid and the nearest comparisons would be the small economy diesels made by VW and the such not some 6.6L behemoth truck engine.
The truck engines are a perfect example though of the torque a diesel can produce for towing and hauling...if you have a 6 speed, I'd bet you probably don't even start it in first (I don't know what an automatic would do).
Sure it is something your customers have to be able to find but just print it on every document. Whenever I have to talk to Comcast, they ask for an account number (and maybe the phone number on the account). It is pretty trivial to grab an old bill and read the account number. Actually...why not phone number? How many of your customers have the same name and phone number?
You can even require the extra info ONLY in the case of a conflict so John Doe might have to remember what phone number he signed up with or produce an accuont number but Alan Sheedamanhandlerfi will probably be ok by name.
I learned to program on my TI-83+...mostly from the TI-Basic examples in the back of the manual and then playing around with it for a few years.
It wasn't the fastest way to learn to program but hand-copying the Sierpinski triangle example (the one that sticks in my memory...there were more I am sure) did a good job of teaching me where in the menus the different commands were. From there, it would be the occasional little program to automate a math process for class or a little fun widget that basically got me to the point where I knew what I was doing the first time I had to make a real program. What was nice for the TI calculators was that the operators were all in menus instead of being typed in...having a list to scroll through (divided by category) made it easy to remember commands and find new things to play with...
IIRC, there are plenty of online gambling (esp. poker) sites that do something like this. Often it is difficult to even take money from the US...paypal and the such wont allow gambling transactions.
Why do you think you cant call up any of the swiss banks and open an account? I'm not talking about only the movie-magic anonymous numbered accounts...if you call up UBS and start talking in what sounds like american english, they are going to ask if you are from the USA and then inform you that they no longer deal with new customers from the states.
You would *think* that the US government wouldn't have anything to do with swiss banking laws or have any authority over banks that do not have a single US branch but that is not the case.
It is very hard to accept money from US customers if the government doesn't want you to be able to accept it.
Sorry to reply to my self...but the GP mentioned checking out other parts of hyde park and the university campus.
Don't miss the Henry Moore atomic energy sculpture on the site of the first sustained nuclear reaction. It isn't science but while there you could also take a look the first Heisman Trophy in the modern athletics center across the street.
Another piece of advice outside of museums....Try to get in on a tour of a power plant. I toured both Crawford Coal and Dresden Nuclear and they were by far the best "field trips" I have ever been on (and I would imagine many other plants give decent tours but these two were amazing). It may be hard to schedule but you could see if they are giving a community or school group tour and tag along.
While I was a student, I went to the MSI (museum of science and industry) exactly 5 times.
First 4 were on the last day of orientation week for new students. The university pays them to open up the exhibits after hours and has snacks and non-alcoholic drinks (it is an event for the 1st years...).
The 5th was the reception the night before graduation which was a similar event except there was oodles of free champagne and a pay (boo) bar.
The museum is nothing like what I remember it being as a kid. There are a lot of old, half-broken exhibits but there are a few that are worth it.
The submarine is quite incredible in its new underground location. The coal mine is very cool for all ages. Some of the newer stuff that hasn't fallen into disrepair is quite nice (last time I was there, they had a full cycle manufacturing plant set up where you could even buy a custom item and watch it go through the machines).
It is not the best museum (on a side note, try the childrens museum in St. Paul, MN)but if you are making a tour of sciency museums and end up in chicago, there is no excuse for skipping it.
This is not completely true. Sure you can program in conversions and stuff like 12 inches per foot comes out cleanly
But what happens when you start mixing units? I recently did a project involving electricty and steam generation and it meant getting raw data in all sorts of incompatible units. Natural gas would come in cu.ft. or therms but sometimes be represented in BTUs (also both of these are inconsistant measurements that vary based on who is giving them to you). Electricity consumption came in sort of metric units, kWh, which sound metric since they use watts but end up funny in the joule conversion. Electricity generation came in real metric units of MW but even then you might get it mixed with bits of horsepower or silly things like watts/therm measures of efficiency.
All of these calculations are doable (mostly go straight to joules or watts and then work from there) but they introduce a lot of room for mistakes. Even if your calculations are mathmatically perfect, you end up with isssues like using therms the british way (105,505,585.257J) when the measurement was actually given the US way (105,480,400J) or the way that US engineers measure it (105,506,000J).
I'd love to see a standard measurement get used there...and honestly, not ONE of those measurements has any spacial familiarity in the US that people would need to get used to (people may know a foot when they see it, but they do not know a therm). The only one I am really OK with is the kWh because it is a sensible unit (and really only a time scale of joules=watt-seconds)
I only have imperial wrenches and I hate going through all of the sizes on a bolt until I finally have to reach for an adjustable wrench because the bolt is metric...
Selling something at a price less than it costs to produce it is a risky competition tactic to try and gain a market advantage.
It seems unreasonable to me for someone to ask a company to sell their wares at less than it costs to produce it. Amazon could make that choice if there was reasonable competition and they wanted to take the hit to compete (assuming they couldnt be competitive at production cost) but suggesting that amazon take a loss when clearly the market is willing to support production price is just stupid. If you don't want to pay it, feel free not to but dont expect them to cater to you.
The first quarter course is mostly avaialble online though (the scheme one). My teacher seems to have moved on to northwestern but here is a recent course website http://www.ece.northwestern.edu/~robby/uc-courses/15100-2008-fall/. and the textbook is available for free at http://www.htdp.org/. Somewhere out there should be a link to a current version of DrScheme...the homework assignments on that course website look like exactly what I used
They've essentially turned off public television, and sold the profits to the highest bidder.
I dont buy your argument. They changed the standard, they didnt turn off public access to OTA TV. Yes, there is a period where everything has to get sorted out but in 5 years, the signal strength issues will be sorted out, everyone will have a digital tuner, and the young teenagers who are being roped into fixing grandma's TV won't even remember a time when it was analog.
Out of curiosity, why would you suggest something like lisp? The first course of my schools CS sequence was done in scheme and I found it intersting to learn a functional language since all my previous coding had been in more typical languages but I was never quite sure why they chose a functional language for what was an introduction to programming for about a third of the class.
The university of chicago's CS program is pretty heavy on open source.
I didnt major in CS but all of the classes I took, except for the first intro sequence class (which was Dr. Scheme on OSX because the lab was larger) were run from the standpoint of linux (the lab machines ran debian but a lot of people went for their own installs or made OSX work for some stuff).
The classes I took started in Scheme (Common Lisp would have worked but DrScheme was a good teaching environment). They then pushed into C with some bash stuff thrown in occasionally. The systems class was (obviously) done in C. Other sequences threw in Python at some point and my understanding was that the later classes were open to language choice for the most part (your group has to agree on something, and the professor may provide code samples in Java but as long as you could do the projects, you should be fine).
As to art...I just finished an art class where most of my final project was conducted through an ssh terminal on one of those aforementioned linux maxhines (I had need for both the dual xeons and the gigabit academic connection vs my eeepc and cable modem). Project ended up involving a bunch of coding in Python on the data end and Processing (a java extension for artists) on the display/rendering side.
I haven't once seen.Net in use and I am still not entirely sure how one properly writes a program for windows since c:\gcc gets an unrecognized command
I would go tiger on hardware that started out with 10.2. Leopard probably takes a bit too much system resources and most of the stuff that requires leopard also requires an intel chip (or even G4...wouldnt a 10.2 machine have been G3?)
I think you are confusing apple's willingness to push the envelope on new features (at the cost of backwards compatability) with a design flaw.
Backwards compatability is nice but apple has proven that they are willing to make MAJOR shifts in favor of modern tech (68k to ppc, os9 to osx, ppc to intel). They maintain basic compatability which is great but software that wants to push limits is going to start making function calls to the new features and quickly lose compatibility. A lot of linux software would also fail to function on a 10 year old (or 5 year old) linux release--you update those for free though so there is probably no complaint. I feel like you are just being cheap, the hardware could run a newer OSX but you dont want to pay to upgrade (which is a modest cost every few years compared to new hardware). If this is the case, maybe macs arent for you and you should go the linux route where your updates are free.
Oh yeah, it is certainly fine to keep something old around if it does what you need. The guys sig was complaining that new apps didnt work on 10.2.
I have an older ibook that I use quite often (because the battery lasts for so long still) and sure...it cant run the newest photoshop (not sure if that is an intel thing or a 10.5 thing) and there is other stuff it cant run but for the most part it works great with older apps.
Your sig is wrong. I like machines that last for 10 years too but if I had a 10 year old PC (until last year, my parents used one regularily) and refused to update my OS, I would be running windows 98SE. Try running a lot of current windows apps on windows 98...it does not work as it is no longer a problem to require XP and drop 98/ME support. The point of a computer lasting 10 years is that it is still updatable to stay reasonably current. Either stick with your old OS and only use old apps or switch to new one for new apps (or buy a new computer)
I would guess that you both get all of the packets since wireless signals are sent out like a hub (everybody can see every packet).
I'm not sure how this would be handled but my limited understanding would suggest that the router cant tell you apart so it passes along all of your outgoing packets while your computer just ignores the incoming packets that it didn't request.
It still decreases the chance that the cracker will get to your password. Before the cracker started, 100% of the keyspace was at risk of being cracked. Once he clears 10% of the keyspace without getting it right, your password change has a 1/10 chance of ending up in the "safe zone". Sure there is always the chance that you could change it to the next password he is going to guess but statistically, the pool of "safe" passwords is increasing while the pool of still vulnerable passwords is decreasing.
Of course, this is not the purpose of mandatory password changes. I see them more as combating other issues like people accidentally letting their password slip or blocking out someone who a hold of it and is using it to access the companies systems (not all people interested in getting on your corporate network have the expertise to install a rootkit...they may just want to read your email for news of the XX merger or specs of the YY device)
How many "serious businessmen" these days don't have some sort of remote connection? If they aren't giving you a blackberry that can tether or an aircard, you must not be all that serious.
Sure wifi is usually faster (though you never know with public access points) but 3g should be enough to do serious work. It's probably not enough for serious entertainment though...
Slashdot Mirror
I would think that this would give the customer a pretty good reason to sue verizon. If the guy just snapped out of nowhere, it is a little bit less of verizon's fault (their liability insurance or something should cover the damages) but if they hired a guy to go by himself to customers homes without pulling up his criminal record...its lawyer time!
If we ever get a shift towards series hybrids (think train engines), then diesel is a perfect match.
The truck engines are a perfect example though of the torque a diesel can produce for towing and hauling...if you have a 6 speed, I'd bet you probably don't even start it in first (I don't know what an automatic would do).
Diesels have a ton of torque--they have the low end grunt needed to jam you into your seat, you just have to get used to not shifting at 6k rpm
Sure it is something your customers have to be able to find but just print it on every document. Whenever I have to talk to Comcast, they ask for an account number (and maybe the phone number on the account). It is pretty trivial to grab an old bill and read the account number. Actually...why not phone number? How many of your customers have the same name and phone number?
You can even require the extra info ONLY in the case of a conflict so John Doe might have to remember what phone number he signed up with or produce an accuont number but Alan Sheedamanhandlerfi will probably be ok by name.
It wasn't the fastest way to learn to program but hand-copying the Sierpinski triangle example (the one that sticks in my memory...there were more I am sure) did a good job of teaching me where in the menus the different commands were. From there, it would be the occasional little program to automate a math process for class or a little fun widget that basically got me to the point where I knew what I was doing the first time I had to make a real program. What was nice for the TI calculators was that the operators were all in menus instead of being typed in...having a list to scroll through (divided by category) made it easy to remember commands and find new things to play with...
Why do you think you cant call up any of the swiss banks and open an account? I'm not talking about only the movie-magic anonymous numbered accounts...if you call up UBS and start talking in what sounds like american english, they are going to ask if you are from the USA and then inform you that they no longer deal with new customers from the states.
You would *think* that the US government wouldn't have anything to do with swiss banking laws or have any authority over banks that do not have a single US branch but that is not the case.
It is very hard to accept money from US customers if the government doesn't want you to be able to accept it.
Don't miss the Henry Moore atomic energy sculpture on the site of the first sustained nuclear reaction. It isn't science but while there you could also take a look the first Heisman Trophy in the modern athletics center across the street.
Another piece of advice outside of museums....Try to get in on a tour of a power plant. I toured both Crawford Coal and Dresden Nuclear and they were by far the best "field trips" I have ever been on (and I would imagine many other plants give decent tours but these two were amazing). It may be hard to schedule but you could see if they are giving a community or school group tour and tag along.
First 4 were on the last day of orientation week for new students. The university pays them to open up the exhibits after hours and has snacks and non-alcoholic drinks (it is an event for the 1st years...).
The 5th was the reception the night before graduation which was a similar event except there was oodles of free champagne and a pay (boo) bar.
The museum is nothing like what I remember it being as a kid. There are a lot of old, half-broken exhibits but there are a few that are worth it.
The submarine is quite incredible in its new underground location. The coal mine is very cool for all ages. Some of the newer stuff that hasn't fallen into disrepair is quite nice (last time I was there, they had a full cycle manufacturing plant set up where you could even buy a custom item and watch it go through the machines).
It is not the best museum (on a side note, try the childrens museum in St. Paul, MN)but if you are making a tour of sciency museums and end up in chicago, there is no excuse for skipping it.
I suppose that is similar to a woodworker using decimal feet/inches instead of fractions though...so it is a problem that exists in any unit system.
But what happens when you start mixing units? I recently did a project involving electricty and steam generation and it meant getting raw data in all sorts of incompatible units. Natural gas would come in cu.ft. or therms but sometimes be represented in BTUs (also both of these are inconsistant measurements that vary based on who is giving them to you). Electricity consumption came in sort of metric units, kWh, which sound metric since they use watts but end up funny in the joule conversion. Electricity generation came in real metric units of MW but even then you might get it mixed with bits of horsepower or silly things like watts/therm measures of efficiency.
All of these calculations are doable (mostly go straight to joules or watts and then work from there) but they introduce a lot of room for mistakes. Even if your calculations are mathmatically perfect, you end up with isssues like using therms the british way (105,505,585.257J) when the measurement was actually given the US way (105,480,400J) or the way that US engineers measure it (105,506,000J).
I'd love to see a standard measurement get used there...and honestly, not ONE of those measurements has any spacial familiarity in the US that people would need to get used to (people may know a foot when they see it, but they do not know a therm). The only one I am really OK with is the kWh because it is a sensible unit (and really only a time scale of joules=watt-seconds)
I only have imperial wrenches and I hate going through all of the sizes on a bolt until I finally have to reach for an adjustable wrench because the bolt is metric...
That's about what white castle would run you
It seems unreasonable to me for someone to ask a company to sell their wares at less than it costs to produce it. Amazon could make that choice if there was reasonable competition and they wanted to take the hit to compete (assuming they couldnt be competitive at production cost) but suggesting that amazon take a loss when clearly the market is willing to support production price is just stupid. If you don't want to pay it, feel free not to but dont expect them to cater to you.
The first quarter course is mostly avaialble online though (the scheme one). My teacher seems to have moved on to northwestern but here is a recent course website http://www.ece.northwestern.edu/~robby/uc-courses/15100-2008-fall/. and the textbook is available for free at http://www.htdp.org/. Somewhere out there should be a link to a current version of DrScheme...the homework assignments on that course website look like exactly what I used
I dont buy your argument. They changed the standard, they didnt turn off public access to OTA TV. Yes, there is a period where everything has to get sorted out but in 5 years, the signal strength issues will be sorted out, everyone will have a digital tuner, and the young teenagers who are being roped into fixing grandma's TV won't even remember a time when it was analog.
Out of curiosity, why would you suggest something like lisp? The first course of my schools CS sequence was done in scheme and I found it intersting to learn a functional language since all my previous coding had been in more typical languages but I was never quite sure why they chose a functional language for what was an introduction to programming for about a third of the class.
I didnt major in CS but all of the classes I took, except for the first intro sequence class (which was Dr. Scheme on OSX because the lab was larger) were run from the standpoint of linux (the lab machines ran debian but a lot of people went for their own installs or made OSX work for some stuff).
The classes I took started in Scheme (Common Lisp would have worked but DrScheme was a good teaching environment). They then pushed into C with some bash stuff thrown in occasionally. The systems class was (obviously) done in C. Other sequences threw in Python at some point and my understanding was that the later classes were open to language choice for the most part (your group has to agree on something, and the professor may provide code samples in Java but as long as you could do the projects, you should be fine).
As to art...I just finished an art class where most of my final project was conducted through an ssh terminal on one of those aforementioned linux maxhines (I had need for both the dual xeons and the gigabit academic connection vs my eeepc and cable modem). Project ended up involving a bunch of coding in Python on the data end and Processing (a java extension for artists) on the display/rendering side.
I haven't once seen .Net in use and I am still not entirely sure how one properly writes a program for windows since c:\gcc gets an unrecognized command
I would go tiger on hardware that started out with 10.2. Leopard probably takes a bit too much system resources and most of the stuff that requires leopard also requires an intel chip (or even G4...wouldnt a 10.2 machine have been G3?)
Backwards compatability is nice but apple has proven that they are willing to make MAJOR shifts in favor of modern tech (68k to ppc, os9 to osx, ppc to intel). They maintain basic compatability which is great but software that wants to push limits is going to start making function calls to the new features and quickly lose compatibility. A lot of linux software would also fail to function on a 10 year old (or 5 year old) linux release--you update those for free though so there is probably no complaint. I feel like you are just being cheap, the hardware could run a newer OSX but you dont want to pay to upgrade (which is a modest cost every few years compared to new hardware). If this is the case, maybe macs arent for you and you should go the linux route where your updates are free.
I have an older ibook that I use quite often (because the battery lasts for so long still) and sure...it cant run the newest photoshop (not sure if that is an intel thing or a 10.5 thing) and there is other stuff it cant run but for the most part it works great with older apps.
Your sig is wrong. I like machines that last for 10 years too but if I had a 10 year old PC (until last year, my parents used one regularily) and refused to update my OS, I would be running windows 98SE. Try running a lot of current windows apps on windows 98...it does not work as it is no longer a problem to require XP and drop 98/ME support. The point of a computer lasting 10 years is that it is still updatable to stay reasonably current. Either stick with your old OS and only use old apps or switch to new one for new apps (or buy a new computer)
I'm not sure how this would be handled but my limited understanding would suggest that the router cant tell you apart so it passes along all of your outgoing packets while your computer just ignores the incoming packets that it didn't request.
Of course, this is not the purpose of mandatory password changes. I see them more as combating other issues like people accidentally letting their password slip or blocking out someone who a hold of it and is using it to access the companies systems (not all people interested in getting on your corporate network have the expertise to install a rootkit...they may just want to read your email for news of the XX merger or specs of the YY device)
Sure wifi is usually faster (though you never know with public access points) but 3g should be enough to do serious work. It's probably not enough for serious entertainment though...