Folks can work from home 2 days per week. Here are the rules laid out by the corporate office:
You must have an office at home (desk,phone,computer). Your bed and the couch are not offices.
You must have broadband.
You should be ready at any time for your boss or the CEO to 'drop by' for an office inspection (as if they have the time..).
The company will not pay for office supplies or communications (broadband and phone).
And why should they? You make plenty of money right? Just write every expense off and get a big tax return. If your company is making WAY too much money, they could pay for it and write it off, but usually that's not worth it to them. After all, how much time online is spent working, and how much is spent playing UT2004?
I'm questioning their figures, and wondering if they have done any launches to see if 70000 feet is attainable, given the current airship altitude record:
Airship World Records
I'm not a fan of blimps over rigids, both have their merits and uses.
Sanswire folks are trying to get an airship to reach a desired altitude of 65000 feet. The navy has been working with blimps lately which top out at about 20,000 feet, which I would consider pretty good. 65000 on a rigid frame ship is pretty unlikely.
However, the unlikelyness of their statements does not make any dent in my plans to steal one and go airship-piratin'. Yeeaaar, matey. I'd like to be the first airship bucaneer, if I may.
Most supercomputer and mainframe parts could be designated as weapons components. Systems and components made by Siemens have had this designation for a long time, since have been used in many weapons systems for years. Intel has been making a big dent in that market as well, so it's components can fall under the same designation. I've heard that Kraftwerk was using machines with Siemens components (this was a long time ago). They had trouble touring internationally because the same components they were using to make music were also components of many weapons systems. There was also concern that powerful computers could be brought into the country and used to hack the defense network (not likely, but hey, why not?).
Chiming in: Or linux users for that matter. Apps like this are probably best written in Java, or it should be entirely web based and work in at least IE, Mozilla and Opera.
I saw nothing about Open Source on the SimIndiana site, but this app should definately be open source software. Given taxpayers can benefit from it's use, but they should also have some say in the design aspects (like supported platforms) seeing as how they are intended client. Nothing like ignoring your intended client's needs/desires/whims to turn them off from your software. I guess the folks in charge assume that Everybody in Indiana uses Windows, or they don't matter. It's also probable that all of the publicly accessible computers (at libraries, etc) are running Windows, maybe users of these machines are the intended clients.
Someone is always freaking out about potential abuses. If your boss wants to see what you do in private, there is nothing stopping him but the ethics committee at your company. He could already have a camera hidden behind a vent cover, aimed at your little cubicle. This technology has nothing to do with your privacy or paranoia. There are plenty of technologies around that can potentially be abused by people who wish to do you harm. Take the high power rifle for example. I can see much potential for abuse there.
I knew I should have applied for that patent. At the time I was thinking patents are bad/wrong, but then again, so is working all day and still being broke..
It's possible to render extremely life-like human forms and motion well enough that nobody could tell the difference. It's definately an imperfect science, but it's doable IMO. More advanced physics models and improvements in modelling and motion capture technologies are needed, but it's very much an art and will depend on a few really talented people to pull off. There will always be crappy examples of artificial life, just as there will always be crappy art.
Especially with all the radar equipped AK-47s, IEDs, and RPGs that have been killing MOST of our troops since the Vietnam war. I'm sure a carbon-fiber-hulled-radar-invisible gunship is also completely impervious to attacks from small inflatable crafts full of explosives piloted by crazed muslim extremist suicide bombers.
And the swedes were brilliant to put their faith in Windows NT, it performs so well in mission critical maritime applications:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,13987, 00.html
Except for it's ugly, cryptic configuration. It's so ugly and cryptic that bindconf (GUI config tool) creates it's own config files and overwrite's BIND's files, instead of trying to locate and parse the main config and zone files. This is a big problem if you make changes to BIND's files using vi (or whatever you prefer). Next time you make a change with the GUI your earlier changes get blown away. Hey bindconf folks: bad idea!
Final Fantasy. Which brilliant, creative and original marketing talent came up with the name 'True Fantasy'? Were they looking for a name that said 'cheap knockoff'? Maybe they think the word 'Fantasy' is obligitory?
I think they have achieved that pretty well. China is a world of it's own, isolating it's population is national policy. The idea that they are tired of paying licence fees doesn't make much sense until you consider that China has many ways of making R&D cheaper: Skimp on wages, safety, quality...
Elswhere in the world, new R&D normally costs much more/takes longer than licencing. Also, if you can't afford the R&D time or cost, a few well planted spies can always steal the research without too much trouble. Countries that isolate themselves technologically must be well prepared for technology cold wars, or they will find themselves seriously behind the rest of the world.
Re:In the land of empty tanks
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, but for the 1000s of miles I will get out of my bike, how much fossil fuels were used? For all the fuel used in processing and shipping my car, I should be able to build a hundred bikes.
Thanks, those numbers are very informative. One thing is certain, more studies need to be done. Beyond replacing fossil fuels with sustainable alternatives, power consumption needs to be reduced by making engines more efficient. There really is no plan in place AFAIK for transitioning away from fossil fuels, even though the oil industry knows that we have already consumed 1/3 of the available petroleum. The industry seems to be more concerned with finding ways to extract petroleum that is currently unavailable.
Some numbers from various sources:
Gallons of oil per acre:
Corn: 18
Hemp: 39
Soy: 48
Rapeseed: 127 (115 gal.biodiesel)
Oil Palm: 635 (258 gal. biodiesel)
Diesel usage (US, per year): 40 billon gallons
Current biodiesel production: 20 million gallons
100% biodiesel yields 3.2 units of fuel product energy for every unit of fossil energy consumed in its life cycle, petrodiesel yeilds 0.83.
It would take more than a billion acres of hemp to make around 40 billion gallons of biodiesel. So um, not sure where they are getting the 6%. That 40 billion is just diesel consumption, which includes boats,trucks,rvs,trains,generators.. Maybe we need to cut our energy consumption in general.. Diesel truck drag racing seems pretty unnecessary.
In Canada you can get a permit to grow hemp, there are a few bigger commercial hemp farms and some smaller experimental farms (20 acres or so) where the owners are testing different harvesting and growning techinques.
In the US it's only _barely_ legal to import hemp products, and the govt. does not permit farmers to grow hemp in the US at all. There are small hemp fields in some parts of the US, but they are govt. owned and I have no idea what they do with them. You can't import raw hemp material (seeds, stalks, leaves, etc..) without a lot of trouble from the DEA, if at all. The DEA has adopted a policy of harassment towards legitimate businesses that make health food and hemp oil products. This is obviously a huge waste of taxpayer's money. The US govt. is slow to see the importance of hemp as a renewable resource. Canada is much more progressive on this, they are seeing possiblity of a lucrative and sustainable hemp economy.
Not sure about the UK or EU, but I think there are parts of europe where hemp is grown legally.
Biodiesel would be much much cheaper than petroleum based fuels if the ban on hemp farming is lifted. By some estimates, (www.biodiesel.org) 6% of land in the US could produce enough hemp based biodiesel to satisfy our energy needs. This would be completely sustainable farming, without chemical fertilizers, pesticides or the need for genetic modification. If 6% sound like a lot, consider that 35% or more of the land in North America is used for farming cattle for beef, which is certainly not sustainable by current practices.
Corn and Soy are probably not the best candidates for biodiesel production. Hemp, sunflower and other oilseed products are easier to manage.
You would not have to bulldoze any forests,plains, or marshes,just transition existing non sustainable farms to sustainable biodiesel production.
Hybrids that use gasoline are __still using gasoline__. They don't even claim as good mileage as the Volkswagen diesels get. A small car running on biodiesel is a huge improvement over any of the gasoline hybrids currently available, in terms of dollars spent and environmental impact. Volkswagen claims their TDI engines can run any blend of biodiesel (b20-b100) without modification, and petroleum based diesel where biodiesel is not available. The Smart Car CDI engines should be able to run biodiesel, but I have not seen any mention of this. Smart Cars are not available in the US until 2006, but Canada and Mexico both import certain models. Smart cars are inexpensive and very fun to drive, and get probably the best mileage of any production car.
Most diesels can run biodiesel without modification, it actually has better lubrication properties when compared to petroleum based diesels, without the need for added lubricants.
see http://www.biodiesel.org/
Let's not forget 'zoom' and 'enhance': every photograph or video capture, no matter how low res, pixelated or fuzzy, can be zoomed and enhanced to infinite detail.
Computer hackers can bring up detailed 3d maps of any building on the planet.
Complex security systems can be disabled by the brute force computation power of a palm device with a few blinking numeric LCDs and a RS232 port.
It could even be done over the web, if Diebold and other worthless companies were not the ones building the systems. This is a company that can't build a good ATM, its no suprise they cant pull off electronic voting. I would be just as qualified (or more) as far as engineering goes (I have exp. with programming for touch screens, security, networks, common sense...), and they have money and a team of engineers to throw at the problem. I use an ATM near work every once in a while that misbehaves frequently. It's very strange, after I select the language and transaction I desire, there is a blue screen containing only yes/no option buttons and no other text or graphics. If I click 'yes', the next screen asks me if I agree to a service fee of $2. I got suspicious and sure enough there is a big bold 'DIEBOLD' logo next to the screen. Where did this extra screen come from? Lack of testing, that's where.
boring, stupid IT code often does not require much math, although it comes up occasionally. I have run into a few instances where I actually had to think for a minute or two about an equation or solve a problem mathematically. This mostly occured in graphics and statistics (graphing, etc) code. But then, I have been writing mostly boring Java high performance server type stuff (parallel programming, J2ee, network stuff) and complex java clients in swing and Java2D. More useful in this area is good OO design and knowledge of design patterns, along with a good dose of experience. I would say this is the more mundane, common side of computer 'science'. Real science comes into play in Natural Language Processing (NLP), robotics, artificial intelligence and not suprisingly games and graphics. Graphics can be an extremely interesting and wide-reaching field, good math skills are definately required there. AI is getting much more prominent as we develop new techniques and find more applications for it. To make a long answer short, Yes, concentrate on math as much as you can handle, unless you want to write boring IT code for ever and ever (you don't). I have a feeling that IT coders are soon to become the burger flippers of the developed world. I'd like to do something more interesting, but I'm not too strong in the math department.
This is just an unclever ploy by some bleach manufacturer to get you to spray more bleach all over your bathroom, which will ultimately end up giving you cancer. Of course there are germs in your bathroom, thats why you don't ever read 'Lovely Eat in Bathrooms' in real estate listings. Take your shower curtain and throw it in the washing machine every once in a while. If your immune system is working at all, and you refrain from licking the shower curtain, you have nothing to worry about.
Slashdot Mirror
Folks can work from home 2 days per week. Here are the rules laid out by the corporate office:
You must have an office at home (desk,phone,computer). Your bed and the couch are not offices.
You must have broadband.
You should be ready at any time for your boss or the CEO to 'drop by' for an office inspection (as if they have the time..).
The company will not pay for office supplies or communications (broadband and phone).
And why should they? You make plenty of money right? Just write every expense off and get a big tax return. If your company is making WAY too much money, they could pay for it and write it off, but usually that's not worth it to them. After all, how much time online is spent working, and how much is spent playing UT2004?
I'm questioning their figures, and wondering if they have done any launches to see if 70000 feet is attainable, given the current airship altitude record: Airship World Records
I'm not a fan of blimps over rigids, both have their merits and uses.
Yep, I have a very nice famous print of the Graf Zeppelin mating with the Empire State Building. It can be yours for a mere....
Sanswire folks are trying to get an airship to reach a desired altitude of 65000 feet. The navy has been working with blimps lately which top out at about 20,000 feet, which I would consider pretty good. 65000 on a rigid frame ship is pretty unlikely. However, the unlikelyness of their statements does not make any dent in my plans to steal one and go airship-piratin'. Yeeaaar, matey. I'd like to be the first airship bucaneer, if I may.
Most supercomputer and mainframe parts could be designated as weapons components. Systems and components made by Siemens have had this designation for a long time, since have been used in many weapons systems for years. Intel has been making a big dent in that market as well, so it's components can fall under the same designation. I've heard that Kraftwerk was using machines with Siemens components (this was a long time ago). They had trouble touring internationally because the same components they were using to make music were also components of many weapons systems. There was also concern that powerful computers could be brought into the country and used to hack the defense network (not likely, but hey, why not?).
Chiming in: Or linux users for that matter. Apps like this are probably best written in Java, or it should be entirely web based and work in at least IE, Mozilla and Opera.
I saw nothing about Open Source on the SimIndiana site, but this app should definately be open source software. Given taxpayers can benefit from it's use, but they should also have some say in the design aspects (like supported platforms) seeing as how they are intended client. Nothing like ignoring your intended client's needs/desires/whims to turn them off from your software. I guess the folks in charge assume that Everybody in Indiana uses Windows, or they don't matter. It's also probable that all of the publicly accessible computers (at libraries, etc) are running Windows, maybe users of these machines are the intended clients.
He could have transitioned to a for-pay model. With 3000 blogs, he could have charged a dollar per month each and probably turned a little profit.
Someone is always freaking out about potential abuses. If your boss wants to see what you do in private, there is nothing stopping him but the ethics committee at your company. He could already have a camera hidden behind a vent cover, aimed at your little cubicle. This technology has nothing to do with your privacy or paranoia. There are plenty of technologies around that can potentially be abused by people who wish to do you harm. Take the high power rifle for example. I can see much potential for abuse there.
I knew I should have applied for that patent. At the time I was thinking patents are bad/wrong, but then again, so is working all day and still being broke..
It's possible to render extremely life-like human forms and motion well enough that nobody could tell the difference. It's definately an imperfect science, but it's doable IMO. More advanced physics models and improvements in modelling and motion capture technologies are needed, but it's very much an art and will depend on a few really talented people to pull off. There will always be crappy examples of artificial life, just as there will always be crappy art.
Especially with all the radar equipped AK-47s, IEDs, and RPGs that have been killing MOST of our troops since the Vietnam war. I'm sure a carbon-fiber-hulled-radar-invisible gunship is also completely impervious to attacks from small inflatable crafts full of explosives piloted by crazed muslim extremist suicide bombers. And the swedes were brilliant to put their faith in Windows NT, it performs so well in mission critical maritime applications: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,13987, 00.html
Except for it's ugly, cryptic configuration. It's so ugly and cryptic that bindconf (GUI config tool) creates it's own config files and overwrite's BIND's files, instead of trying to locate and parse the main config and zone files. This is a big problem if you make changes to BIND's files using vi (or whatever you prefer). Next time you make a change with the GUI your earlier changes get blown away. Hey bindconf folks: bad idea!
Final Fantasy. Which brilliant, creative and original marketing talent came up with the name 'True Fantasy'? Were they looking for a name that said 'cheap knockoff'? Maybe they think the word 'Fantasy' is obligitory?
I think they have achieved that pretty well. China is a world of it's own, isolating it's population is national policy. The idea that they are tired of paying licence fees doesn't make much sense until you consider that China has many ways of making R&D cheaper: Skimp on wages, safety, quality... Elswhere in the world, new R&D normally costs much more/takes longer than licencing. Also, if you can't afford the R&D time or cost, a few well planted spies can always steal the research without too much trouble. Countries that isolate themselves technologically must be well prepared for technology cold wars, or they will find themselves seriously behind the rest of the world.
Yeah, but for the 1000s of miles I will get out of my bike, how much fossil fuels were used? For all the fuel used in processing and shipping my car, I should be able to build a hundred bikes.
I Doubt anyone will Fear them much longer, their future is Uncertain.
Thanks, those numbers are very informative. One thing is certain, more studies need to be done. Beyond replacing fossil fuels with sustainable alternatives, power consumption needs to be reduced by making engines more efficient. There really is no plan in place AFAIK for transitioning away from fossil fuels, even though the oil industry knows that we have already consumed 1/3 of the available petroleum. The industry seems to be more concerned with finding ways to extract petroleum that is currently unavailable.
Some numbers from various sources: Gallons of oil per acre: Corn: 18
Hemp: 39
Soy: 48
Rapeseed: 127 (115 gal.biodiesel)
Oil Palm: 635 (258 gal. biodiesel)
Diesel usage (US, per year): 40 billon gallons Current biodiesel production: 20 million gallons 100% biodiesel yields 3.2 units of fuel product energy for every unit of fossil energy consumed in its life cycle, petrodiesel yeilds 0.83. It would take more than a billion acres of hemp to make around 40 billion gallons of biodiesel. So um, not sure where they are getting the 6%. That 40 billion is just diesel consumption, which includes boats,trucks,rvs,trains,generators.. Maybe we need to cut our energy consumption in general.. Diesel truck drag racing seems pretty unnecessary.
In Canada you can get a permit to grow hemp, there are a few bigger commercial hemp farms and some smaller experimental farms (20 acres or so) where the owners are testing different harvesting and growning techinques.
In the US it's only _barely_ legal to import hemp products, and the govt. does not permit farmers to grow hemp in the US at all. There are small hemp fields in some parts of the US, but they are govt. owned and I have no idea what they do with them. You can't import raw hemp material (seeds, stalks, leaves, etc..) without a lot of trouble from the DEA, if at all. The DEA has adopted a policy of harassment towards legitimate businesses that make health food and hemp oil products. This is obviously a huge waste of taxpayer's money. The US govt. is slow to see the importance of hemp as a renewable resource. Canada is much more progressive on this, they are seeing possiblity of a lucrative and sustainable hemp economy.
Not sure about the UK or EU, but I think there are parts of europe where hemp is grown legally.
Biodiesel would be much much cheaper than petroleum based fuels if the ban on hemp farming is lifted. By some estimates, (www.biodiesel.org) 6% of land in the US could produce enough hemp based biodiesel to satisfy our energy needs. This would be completely sustainable farming, without chemical fertilizers, pesticides or the need for genetic modification. If 6% sound like a lot, consider that 35% or more of the land in North America is used for farming cattle for beef, which is certainly not sustainable by current practices.
Corn and Soy are probably not the best candidates for biodiesel production. Hemp, sunflower and other oilseed products are easier to manage.
You would not have to bulldoze any forests,plains, or marshes,just transition existing non sustainable farms to sustainable biodiesel production.
Hybrids that use gasoline are __still using gasoline__. They don't even claim as good mileage as the Volkswagen diesels get. A small car running on biodiesel is a huge improvement over any of the gasoline hybrids currently available, in terms of dollars spent and environmental impact. Volkswagen claims their TDI engines can run any blend of biodiesel (b20-b100) without modification, and petroleum based diesel where biodiesel is not available. The Smart Car CDI engines should be able to run biodiesel, but I have not seen any mention of this. Smart Cars are not available in the US until 2006, but Canada and Mexico both import certain models. Smart cars are inexpensive and very fun to drive, and get probably the best mileage of any production car. Most diesels can run biodiesel without modification, it actually has better lubrication properties when compared to petroleum based diesels, without the need for added lubricants. see http://www.biodiesel.org/
Let's not forget 'zoom' and 'enhance': every photograph or video capture, no matter how low res, pixelated or fuzzy, can be zoomed and enhanced to infinite detail.
Computer hackers can bring up detailed 3d maps of any building on the planet.
Complex security systems can be disabled by the brute force computation power of a palm device with a few blinking numeric LCDs and a RS232 port.
It could even be done over the web, if Diebold and other worthless companies were not the ones building the systems. This is a company that can't build a good ATM, its no suprise they cant pull off electronic voting. I would be just as qualified (or more) as far as engineering goes (I have exp. with programming for touch screens, security, networks, common sense...), and they have money and a team of engineers to throw at the problem. I use an ATM near work every once in a while that misbehaves frequently. It's very strange, after I select the language and transaction I desire, there is a blue screen containing only yes/no option buttons and no other text or graphics. If I click 'yes', the next screen asks me if I agree to a service fee of $2. I got suspicious and sure enough there is a big bold 'DIEBOLD' logo next to the screen. Where did this extra screen come from? Lack of testing, that's where.
boring, stupid IT code often does not require much math, although it comes up occasionally. I have run into a few instances where I actually had to think for a minute or two about an equation or solve a problem mathematically. This mostly occured in graphics and statistics (graphing, etc) code. But then, I have been writing mostly boring Java high performance server type stuff (parallel programming, J2ee, network stuff) and complex java clients in swing and Java2D. More useful in this area is good OO design and knowledge of design patterns, along with a good dose of experience. I would say this is the more mundane, common side of computer 'science'. Real science comes into play in Natural Language Processing (NLP), robotics, artificial intelligence and not suprisingly games and graphics. Graphics can be an extremely interesting and wide-reaching field, good math skills are definately required there. AI is getting much more prominent as we develop new techniques and find more applications for it. To make a long answer short, Yes, concentrate on math as much as you can handle, unless you want to write boring IT code for ever and ever (you don't). I have a feeling that IT coders are soon to become the burger flippers of the developed world. I'd like to do something more interesting, but I'm not too strong in the math department.
This is just an unclever ploy by some bleach manufacturer to get you to spray more bleach all over your bathroom, which will ultimately end up giving you cancer. Of course there are germs in your bathroom, thats why you don't ever read 'Lovely Eat in Bathrooms' in real estate listings. Take your shower curtain and throw it in the washing machine every once in a while. If your immune system is working at all, and you refrain from licking the shower curtain, you have nothing to worry about.