Actually, seeing as Navigator 2.0 was released in February, 1996, and the patents have invention dates of May, 1996 at the earliest, Netscape seems to be prior art.
It's the information. Have you actually listened to some of the things that they're demanding you not use? The last few lists I have heard rattled off before takeoff have included GPS devices. What? GPS devices are passive, they are receive-only. So what does the airline care if I have one connected during the flight?
Plain and simple, they want an information blackout, not a lack of RF signals. They do not want you to be able to talk to an outside party, receive outside news, or receive any outside communications, including the location of the plane, unless they have absolute control over it. That's why you can still have airphones and live DirecTV. The flight crew can cut off those if neccessary.
Now I'm not saying that it's impossible that a phone, handheld device, or laptop has no chance of interfering with the electronics aboard an aircraft. I don't know the systems well enough to claim that. But I'm fairly sure that planes fly in the path of much more powerful sources of interference. For example, why worry about the RF from a milliwatt source, when you're flying by or near cellular towers (and other ground-based RF sources) transmitting at much higher power levels? You can say that the metal skin of the aircraft reduces outside interference, and it probably does. But it's not a solid metal skin, and I still don't buy it. We've got airlines that are now sanctioning using 802.11b devices on the aircraft, let's not forget, by setting up for-pay APs.
I'd be more worried about the security goons confiscating your GPS receiver at the airport security checkpoint than the airlines banning all laptops and handhelds in the cabin. Business passengers would pitch a fit, and I don't think they're going to risk it.
No, RedHat never said they want to create a certification comparable to the MCSE. They know that MCSE is a useless certification that really only means that someone paid for a set of books for you, or someone paid for you to go to the week training.
In fact, RedHat likens their certification more to Cisco's CCIE cert. A good chunk of the RedHat test for RHCE is practical. Meaning they sit you down in front of some computers and have you make them work. Or make them work in a particular configuration.
I'm not big on most certifications, but I'm interested to see what RedHat has actually put together, based on what I've heard from them.
Microsoft has to put everything they could possibly think of that might conceivably cause the stock to go down even slightly in there, otherwise they could be held liable by their stockholders.
So while it's certainly nice that they finally have to publically announce this as a possibility, it really doesn't mean anything. I've seen some wild things in quarterly and annual reports.
Verizon, and possibly the other baby bells, provides a service (for a nominal fee, of course) called Call Intercept. It's quite simple, and I'm loving it.
Normally, if someone calls me, their caller ID shows up on the display, and I can choose whether or not to take the call based on that information. Most telemarketers have caller ID blocked in one way or another, so it shows up as "Out of Area" or "Private Call" or some such. Call Intercept catches these calls that have no caller ID and redirects them to a recorded message. The message asks them to please record their name at the beep. At this point, priority callers to whom we've given a 4 digit code can punch it in and skip right through. We get a special ring and "Priority Call" on our caller ID.
If they don't record anything (we get a lot of broken machine calls), the call gets dropped. If they do record their name, our phone then rings with a special ring and "Call Intercept" on the caller ID display. When we pick up, we will hear the recorded name and be given an option as to what to do with the call. We can either accept it, drop it with a message that we're not available, drop it with a message that we don't accept sales calls, or send it to voice mail.
For the $5 a month it costs, it's certainly worth my money. I'm looking forward to the national, mandatory DNC list, and maybe that will solve my problems. But with call intercept I can get rid of callers who have a legal right to call me (such as companies that I've done business with in one way or another, or their subsidiaries). So I think I'll keep it.
RedHat is handing out 8.0 CDs. That's about it as far as I've seen. GenToo is there, as is SuSE, but neither of them are handing out CDs. SuSE's touting their new OpenDesktop software that just came out today or yesterday (for $129 a pop) which actually looks pretty slick. They've integrated CodeWeaver, along with a number of other things. It looks like it could actually be one of the first viable Windows replacements for an office (mostly because it provides for a smooth transition).
I even tried to finagle an eval of OpenDesktop, but they don't even have copies yet. So I need to call next week.
2. very poor swag. about all you're likely to get is a pen. hardly any t-shirts.
You obviously haven't been looking. As far as decent swag goes, I have:
1) From HP's VIP day (free registration was required), I got a decent laptop backpack, several pens/pads of paper combo, a nice badgeholder with paper, pen, and compartments, lunch, and an offsite cocktail reception (with cast members from The Sopranos).
2) From IBM's Customer Day (again, free reg, don't have to be a customer): A heavy canvas bag, poster, crystal penguin paperweight, poster, and lunch.
3) SuSE is giving away stuffed lizards
4) RedHat is giving away red baseball caps (have to catch them during the 3 times a day they do it, posted times). And if you wear it around, they've been picking 9 people a day to get a copy of AS 2.1, or a choice of books.
5) SCO is giving away DVDs
6) HP has t-shirts, DVDs, and small penguins.
7) Mainline has foam penguin things
There are a number of other people using tshirts as prizes (one per session type of thing). And you have your normal assortment of pins, pens, and CDs. This is just a quick survey of what I have so far.
And if you work with a vendor a little, or even if you talk with them and engage them in a decent conversation, rather than just walking up and expecting them to hand you their best stuff so you can walk away and never speak to them again, you can get some decent stuff. I have a gyroscope, as well as a few other things.
Anyone who's seriously concerned about the level of swag is going to the conference for the wrong reasons. Same type of people who want Flash and Java over real content on a website. There are a lot of good vendors here to talk with. The conferences are actually on topics that you want information about. LPI's giving free certification tests (half of what's required for the certs). There's a number of smaller ".org" booths, that were sponsored by the conference sponsors, with good stuff like JBoss, LTSP, and LUGs.
If you want to pay to go get swag, save your money.
What's interesting about it is that the rulling either implicitly or explicitly rules that at least that clause of the EULA is unenforcable. If we're lucky, it also implies that the entire click-through license is unenforcable.
While yes, it pretty much explicitly rules that that clause is unenforceable, the latter does not follow. Almost every contract/license/agreement nowadays has a severability clause. What this says is that if any part of the agreement is determined to be unlawful or unenforceable, it doesn't mean the whole agreement is. Just that that clause is "severed" from the rest of the agreement.
OK, so let's see. DirecTV costs approximately $30 a month for a package that will get you the 36 (or so) audio channels that they have. Not counting any hardware costs. XM costs $10 a month for 101 audio channels, with a much better variety than DirecTV or Dish's package, as far as I've seen.
XM has numerous pieces of hardware out on the market, both headunits and addon receivers. XM's hardware is already included in many vehicles from the factory. DirecTV has nothing in the way of dedicated audio hardware for vehicles, and very little in the way of selection or integration for their video hardware.
XM has land based repeaters, so that you can get a signal when your LOS to the satellite is blocked (for instance, within most cities). DirecTV has nothing of the sort.
And most importantly, GM owns Hughes, which owns DirecTV, and has a huge stake in XM. I really don't think DirecTV is going to go after XM's business.
While I was working at AOL, I was constantly frustrated by the amount of misinformation that flew around about the company and things that were going on. And we're not even talking about company confidential things. Just stuff that the corporate communications group didn't have the time or inclination to work on. And it was only made worse by the fact that noone at AOL responded to correct or clear up the incorrect information. It was clearly a lack of communication between the industry and the company, and something that could easily be helped by just a little effort on the part of employees who participated in forums like Slashdot and wanted to help.
I tried to propose an internal volunteer group of people who wanted to do this. They'd be held to standards as to the correctness and appropriateness of the information they were providing to outside sources. And there would be peer review and recourse for people doing the wrong things. The idea was that AOL could significantly improve their image within the community by participating in it. Noone wanted to hear it. I wrote a formal proposal and passed it up the line. I don't think it even got past the director.
Corporations sit here and ask for your loyalty as employees. They offer bonuses, options, perks, and tons of other things to try to secure it. But they can't imagine that employees might actually want to do things to help the company in their spare time. And more than that, they don't want to release their tight grip on corporate communications and allow employees to help out with the forums they participated in. Until they realize that these things are harming them and find a better way to deal with employees than by saying "Don't talk to anyone unless we approve it first," they'll have the same old image problems.
The most we can do is continue to attempt to raise consciousness within the corporations we work for. Write proposals for new communications policies for employees. Leave copies of The Cluetrain Mainfesto on the VP's desk. Not much else we can do.
I used to work at LANL for a short period of time, back in TA 35 (at the time, working on the SSC detectors). They're somewhat strict about their rules on radiation, and who can go in what areas. The building I was working in was T-shaped, and one of the top pieces of the T (the opposite one from my office) fell within the specified distance from an old tritium dump site. It was well posted that NOONE was to be in that wing without the proper training and badging. When my work required that I go down into that wing for a bit, I had to go to a different radiation safety class and get new radiation badges so that they could measure exposure. And that part of the building was only barely hot.
Having family that lived in Los Alamos for many years, and an uncle who worked at the labs as well, LANL was always very good about keeping people apprised of any possible issues. Los Alamos started off as a company town, and it still very much operates that way. If you don't work at the labs, you work for a business that supports the people who work for the labs. Everyone knows plenty of people who work there, and the town and the labs are very much dependant on each other.
It's worth noting that if you turn off Javascript and go to that page, absolutely nothing happens. Yet another reason not to have it running in your browser by default.
Renting is a business. And just like any business, you can be good at it or bad at it. And you have have good luck and bad luck. And you can evaluate your customers and market well, or not.
My parents are renting out a house they own as well. And they got stuck with some really lousy people when it comes to the money. They seem to be taking care of the house, but they're often late with the rent, and they started off the lease by arguing about the agreed on rent.
Why did they end up with a tenant like this? Because they didn't listen to advice that was given about how to look at applications and what kind of information to check on. They didn't get their tenant's SSN and run a credit check. And why do they continue to put up with this tenant, rather than going after them for late fees and legal costs? Because they don't want to do the work to get another tenant, so they'd rather let themselves be walked over.
An intelligent investment expert will tell you that a house is not an investment unless you are renting it out to someone else and taking in more money that you're paying for it.
If you're living in it (which is, after all, what we're talking about here) a house is a liability. Plain and simple. It does not put money in your pocket, it takes money out of your pocket. It doesn't matter that it covers a basic need (shelter), or that you're paying less than you would be if you were renting. Rent is a liability too. Even if your mortgage is paid off, a house is probably a liability because you have to pay taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
Your house might have "value", but until you sell it, it's a liability. So what if your house goes up $100k in value over a year. Is someone going to give you that money? Not unless you sell it. And a loan against the property doesn't count, because that's another liability. See how this game works?
I'm actually in the middle of load/performance testing WebLogic and JBoss right now, and I'm suddenly realizing how pointless this is.
Say our server hardware costs $6k. To use that box with WebLogic, it costs $40k total (hardware + 2 licenses because it's dual-CPU). To use that box with JBoss, it costs $6k (just hardware).
It doesn't matter what the performance is. JBoss would have to perform incredibly poorly for it to be worth using WebLogic instead, because I can deploy 6 JBoss servers plus load balancing hardware for the cost of a single WebLogic server. So where WebLogic does 400 ops/sec for a particular load configuration, JBoss would have to do about 65 ops/sec to "break even". As it is, JBoss does about 300 ops/sec for the same load config.
Now if I can just convince the developers that no, they do not *have* to have WebLogic...
They may very well work together. I really don't know. But it doesn't matter in this case. Even if they have a business arrangement, it doesn't make the patent any more valid.
As has been pointed out in the article, the perl modules for connecting to AIM were around long before this patent was filed, and included a simple bot.
While I was working at AOL, someone (employee) had an IM bot running. It performed such tasks as giving out stock quotes when asked, and doing translations between a few languages. Seeing as this patent of ActiveBuddy's was filed *after* I left AOL, I'm fairly certain that they're shit outta luck.
Yeah, there weren't many IM bots out there, but there were a few. And one is all it takes.
IEEE has an Intellectual Property Committee that researches and investigates IP laws and agreements and such. They often propose policy to the government (US, specifically).
One of the things they're working on right now is collecting information and opinions on pre-assignment agreements (these are the agreements that you're asked to sign at the start of employment, or a contract, which assign all rights to the company you're working for. I highly suggest that everyone who has a strong view go to http://ieeeusa.org/committees/IPC/ and read the information they have and make comments using the form on that page.
Wow, it's amazing how you know so much about my ex-fiancee and our situation that you can make assumptions and generalizations based on that. Perhaps your relationships have been with people so shallow that the type of jewlery you buy has a great bearing on the status of your relationships. Mine have not.
For your information, she didn't like diamonds at all. Something which she expressed very clearly, on several occassions, when the discussion wasn't about rings or anything else that I would be getting her.
When I proposed to my fiancee a couple months ago, I didn't have a ring at all. We joked that she was getting a $300,000 ring, the house we were in the process of contracting to be built. And she was just fine with this. However, a ring is expected by a lot of people. And she did want one to show off. Plus we had the perfect idea. She had her grandmother's ring, which had 3 diamonds in a rather ugly setting (everyone agrees on this, even her mother). We had it reset in a platinum and gold setting for a relatively reasonable cost. And it's better than any ring I could have bought her.
You can always get another stone as well. There is no rule that says it has to be a diamond. The first engagement ring I bought, several years ago, was a created sapphire. There are many semi-precious stones out there that are quite beautiful. Depending on your girlfriend's preferences, you may have a lot of options.
Having said that, if she wants a diamond, then it's worth it to get it. Just keep in mind that you don't need an internally flawless diamond. A VVS1 or 2 will do just fine, and a VS1 or 2 is going to be OK too. As you have noted, diamonds really don't have a resale value, and how many people are going to be looking at it through a scppe after you purchase it? Same goes for color. Get a G-H, or F. And as for the carats, you'll pay a bit less if you stay just under the round numbers, so.95 instead of 1.
The one thing you really want to make sure is excellent is the cut. This is something you want to be as close to ideal as possible. A friend of mine recently got married, and her well-off husband got her a rather large diamond for her engagement ring. When I looked at it, I was horribly underwhelmed. It was a poor cut, and reflected very little light. It looked flat. And this is not a man that I would have expected to miss the details.
I know you know the 4 Cs, but it's always worth repeating, and elaborating on how to get a better deal using what you know.
Well, as far as the validity of the data, the toll authorities do know what percentage of drivers have transponders, at least the percentage of drivers on their roads. They know how many vehicles travel through the tollbooths, and they know whether those vehicles are trucks, cars, motorcycles, cars with trailers, etc.
It doesn't really need to be even distribution if their primary purpose is to provide updated traffic information to other drivers. All they need to know is "Hey, it looks like a bunch of cars are stopped here. There must be a problem." Boston's actually installing thousands of sensors of varying types in the new Big Dig roads for this very purpose.
If they want to do more in-depth trending of traffic patterns, I don't think that even distribution is neccessary to be able to use the data (please, some statistics major correct me if I'm wrong here). If they know the percentage of cars that have transponders versus those that don't, they should have a large enough sample set that they can make reasonable assumptions about the distribution of cars.
As far as using the transponders versus other sensors like pressure sensors, I do agree with you in the theoretical sense. And if CA were building roads from scratch, I would question their motives if they didn't choose something like pressure sensors in the roads. However, in a retrofit, it's a lot easier to install transponder sensors above the road than it is to install pressure sensors in the road.
1) How are they going to do that with out of state drivers and the like? Unless there is a single ETC system for the country and you don't need a credit card to get a transponder, that's not going to happen.
2) Yes, but that requires a toll system that uses tickets. Most toll systems don't (at least in my experience). A ticket system like that requires greater overhead, because you need both entrance and exit tolls.
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Actually, seeing as Navigator 2.0 was released in February, 1996, and the patents have invention dates of May, 1996 at the earliest, Netscape seems to be prior art.
-Todd
It's the information. Have you actually listened to some of the things that they're demanding you not use? The last few lists I have heard rattled off before takeoff have included GPS devices. What? GPS devices are passive, they are receive-only. So what does the airline care if I have one connected during the flight?
Plain and simple, they want an information blackout, not a lack of RF signals. They do not want you to be able to talk to an outside party, receive outside news, or receive any outside communications, including the location of the plane, unless they have absolute control over it. That's why you can still have airphones and live DirecTV. The flight crew can cut off those if neccessary.
Now I'm not saying that it's impossible that a phone, handheld device, or laptop has no chance of interfering with the electronics aboard an aircraft. I don't know the systems well enough to claim that. But I'm fairly sure that planes fly in the path of much more powerful sources of interference. For example, why worry about the RF from a milliwatt source, when you're flying by or near cellular towers (and other ground-based RF sources) transmitting at much higher power levels? You can say that the metal skin of the aircraft reduces outside interference, and it probably does. But it's not a solid metal skin, and I still don't buy it. We've got airlines that are now sanctioning using 802.11b devices on the aircraft, let's not forget, by setting up for-pay APs.
I'd be more worried about the security goons confiscating your GPS receiver at the airport security checkpoint than the airlines banning all laptops and handhelds in the cabin. Business passengers would pitch a fit, and I don't think they're going to risk it.
-Todd
I used to work down past that building. If I remember correctly, that's the plutonium facility.
-Todd
No, RedHat never said they want to create a certification comparable to the MCSE. They know that MCSE is a useless certification that really only means that someone paid for a set of books for you, or someone paid for you to go to the week training.
In fact, RedHat likens their certification more to Cisco's CCIE cert. A good chunk of the RedHat test for RHCE is practical. Meaning they sit you down in front of some computers and have you make them work. Or make them work in a particular configuration.
I'm not big on most certifications, but I'm interested to see what RedHat has actually put together, based on what I've heard from them.
-Todd
Microsoft has to put everything they could possibly think of that might conceivably cause the stock to go down even slightly in there, otherwise they could be held liable by their stockholders.
So while it's certainly nice that they finally have to publically announce this as a possibility, it really doesn't mean anything. I've seen some wild things in quarterly and annual reports.
-Todd
Verizon, and possibly the other baby bells, provides a service (for a nominal fee, of course) called Call Intercept. It's quite simple, and I'm loving it.
Normally, if someone calls me, their caller ID shows up on the display, and I can choose whether or not to take the call based on that information. Most telemarketers have caller ID blocked in one way or another, so it shows up as "Out of Area" or "Private Call" or some such. Call Intercept catches these calls that have no caller ID and redirects them to a recorded message. The message asks them to please record their name at the beep. At this point, priority callers to whom we've given a 4 digit code can punch it in and skip right through. We get a special ring and "Priority Call" on our caller ID.
If they don't record anything (we get a lot of broken machine calls), the call gets dropped. If they do record their name, our phone then rings with a special ring and "Call Intercept" on the caller ID display. When we pick up, we will hear the recorded name and be given an option as to what to do with the call. We can either accept it, drop it with a message that we're not available, drop it with a message that we don't accept sales calls, or send it to voice mail.
For the $5 a month it costs, it's certainly worth my money. I'm looking forward to the national, mandatory DNC list, and maybe that will solve my problems. But with call intercept I can get rid of callers who have a legal right to call me (such as companies that I've done business with in one way or another, or their subsidiaries). So I think I'll keep it.
-Todd
RedHat is handing out 8.0 CDs. That's about it as far as I've seen. GenToo is there, as is SuSE, but neither of them are handing out CDs. SuSE's touting their new OpenDesktop software that just came out today or yesterday (for $129 a pop) which actually looks pretty slick. They've integrated CodeWeaver, along with a number of other things. It looks like it could actually be one of the first viable Windows replacements for an office (mostly because it provides for a smooth transition).
I even tried to finagle an eval of OpenDesktop, but they don't even have copies yet. So I need to call next week.
-Todd
2. very poor swag. about all you're likely to get is a pen. hardly any t-shirts.
You obviously haven't been looking. As far as decent swag goes, I have:
1) From HP's VIP day (free registration was required), I got a decent laptop backpack, several pens/pads of paper combo, a nice badgeholder with paper, pen, and compartments, lunch, and an offsite cocktail reception (with cast members from The Sopranos).
2) From IBM's Customer Day (again, free reg, don't have to be a customer): A heavy canvas bag, poster, crystal penguin paperweight, poster, and lunch.
3) SuSE is giving away stuffed lizards
4) RedHat is giving away red baseball caps (have to catch them during the 3 times a day they do it, posted times). And if you wear it around, they've been picking 9 people a day to get a copy of AS 2.1, or a choice of books.
5) SCO is giving away DVDs
6) HP has t-shirts, DVDs, and small penguins.
7) Mainline has foam penguin things
There are a number of other people using tshirts as prizes (one per session type of thing). And you have your normal assortment of pins, pens, and CDs. This is just a quick survey of what I have so far.
And if you work with a vendor a little, or even if you talk with them and engage them in a decent conversation, rather than just walking up and expecting them to hand you their best stuff so you can walk away and never speak to them again, you can get some decent stuff. I have a gyroscope, as well as a few other things.
Anyone who's seriously concerned about the level of swag is going to the conference for the wrong reasons. Same type of people who want Flash and Java over real content on a website. There are a lot of good vendors here to talk with. The conferences are actually on topics that you want information about. LPI's giving free certification tests (half of what's required for the certs). There's a number of smaller ".org" booths, that were sponsored by the conference sponsors, with good stuff like JBoss, LTSP, and LUGs.
If you want to pay to go get swag, save your money.
-Todd
What's interesting about it is that the rulling either implicitly or explicitly rules that at least that clause of the EULA is unenforcable. If we're lucky, it also implies that the entire click-through license is unenforcable.
While yes, it pretty much explicitly rules that that clause is unenforceable, the latter does not follow. Almost every contract/license/agreement nowadays has a severability clause. What this says is that if any part of the agreement is determined to be unlawful or unenforceable, it doesn't mean the whole agreement is. Just that that clause is "severed" from the rest of the agreement.
-Todd
OK, so let's see. DirecTV costs approximately $30 a month for a package that will get you the 36 (or so) audio channels that they have. Not counting any hardware costs. XM costs $10 a month for 101 audio channels, with a much better variety than DirecTV or Dish's package, as far as I've seen.
XM has numerous pieces of hardware out on the market, both headunits and addon receivers. XM's hardware is already included in many vehicles from the factory. DirecTV has nothing in the way of dedicated audio hardware for vehicles, and very little in the way of selection or integration for their video hardware.
XM has land based repeaters, so that you can get a signal when your LOS to the satellite is blocked (for instance, within most cities). DirecTV has nothing of the sort.
And most importantly, GM owns Hughes, which owns DirecTV, and has a huge stake in XM. I really don't think DirecTV is going to go after XM's business.
-Todd
While I was working at AOL, I was constantly frustrated by the amount of misinformation that flew around about the company and things that were going on. And we're not even talking about company confidential things. Just stuff that the corporate communications group didn't have the time or inclination to work on. And it was only made worse by the fact that noone at AOL responded to correct or clear up the incorrect information. It was clearly a lack of communication between the industry and the company, and something that could easily be helped by just a little effort on the part of employees who participated in forums like Slashdot and wanted to help.
I tried to propose an internal volunteer group of people who wanted to do this. They'd be held to standards as to the correctness and appropriateness of the information they were providing to outside sources. And there would be peer review and recourse for people doing the wrong things. The idea was that AOL could significantly improve their image within the community by participating in it. Noone wanted to hear it. I wrote a formal proposal and passed it up the line. I don't think it even got past the director.
Corporations sit here and ask for your loyalty as employees. They offer bonuses, options, perks, and tons of other things to try to secure it. But they can't imagine that employees might actually want to do things to help the company in their spare time. And more than that, they don't want to release their tight grip on corporate communications and allow employees to help out with the forums they participated in. Until they realize that these things are harming them and find a better way to deal with employees than by saying "Don't talk to anyone unless we approve it first," they'll have the same old image problems.
The most we can do is continue to attempt to raise consciousness within the corporations we work for. Write proposals for new communications policies for employees. Leave copies of The Cluetrain Mainfesto on the VP's desk. Not much else we can do.
-Todd
I used to work at LANL for a short period of time, back in TA 35 (at the time, working on the SSC detectors). They're somewhat strict about their rules on radiation, and who can go in what areas. The building I was working in was T-shaped, and one of the top pieces of the T (the opposite one from my office) fell within the specified distance from an old tritium dump site. It was well posted that NOONE was to be in that wing without the proper training and badging. When my work required that I go down into that wing for a bit, I had to go to a different radiation safety class and get new radiation badges so that they could measure exposure. And that part of the building was only barely hot.
Having family that lived in Los Alamos for many years, and an uncle who worked at the labs as well, LANL was always very good about keeping people apprised of any possible issues. Los Alamos started off as a company town, and it still very much operates that way. If you don't work at the labs, you work for a business that supports the people who work for the labs. Everyone knows plenty of people who work there, and the town and the labs are very much dependant on each other.
-Todd
It's worth noting that if you turn off Javascript and go to that page, absolutely nothing happens. Yet another reason not to have it running in your browser by default.
-Todd
Renting is a business. And just like any business, you can be good at it or bad at it. And you have have good luck and bad luck. And you can evaluate your customers and market well, or not.
My parents are renting out a house they own as well. And they got stuck with some really lousy people when it comes to the money. They seem to be taking care of the house, but they're often late with the rent, and they started off the lease by arguing about the agreed on rent.
Why did they end up with a tenant like this? Because they didn't listen to advice that was given about how to look at applications and what kind of information to check on. They didn't get their tenant's SSN and run a credit check. And why do they continue to put up with this tenant, rather than going after them for late fees and legal costs? Because they don't want to do the work to get another tenant, so they'd rather let themselves be walked over.
-Todd
An intelligent investment expert will tell you that a house is not an investment unless you are renting it out to someone else and taking in more money that you're paying for it.
If you're living in it (which is, after all, what we're talking about here) a house is a liability. Plain and simple. It does not put money in your pocket, it takes money out of your pocket. It doesn't matter that it covers a basic need (shelter), or that you're paying less than you would be if you were renting. Rent is a liability too. Even if your mortgage is paid off, a house is probably a liability because you have to pay taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
Your house might have "value", but until you sell it, it's a liability. So what if your house goes up $100k in value over a year. Is someone going to give you that money? Not unless you sell it. And a loan against the property doesn't count, because that's another liability. See how this game works?
-Todd
I'm actually in the middle of load/performance testing WebLogic and JBoss right now, and I'm suddenly realizing how pointless this is.
Say our server hardware costs $6k. To use that box with WebLogic, it costs $40k total (hardware + 2 licenses because it's dual-CPU). To use that box with JBoss, it costs $6k (just hardware).
It doesn't matter what the performance is. JBoss would have to perform incredibly poorly for it to be worth using WebLogic instead, because I can deploy 6 JBoss servers plus load balancing hardware for the cost of a single WebLogic server. So where WebLogic does 400 ops/sec for a particular load configuration, JBoss would have to do about 65 ops/sec to "break even". As it is, JBoss does about 300 ops/sec for the same load config.
Now if I can just convince the developers that no, they do not *have* to have WebLogic...
-Todd
Yep... we'll outsmart Open Source.
You see, we're going to order this rocket sled from Acme...
-Todd
They may very well work together. I really don't know. But it doesn't matter in this case. Even if they have a business arrangement, it doesn't make the patent any more valid.
As has been pointed out in the article, the perl modules for connecting to AIM were around long before this patent was filed, and included a simple bot.
-Todd
While I was working at AOL, someone (employee) had an IM bot running. It performed such tasks as giving out stock quotes when asked, and doing translations between a few languages. Seeing as this patent of ActiveBuddy's was filed *after* I left AOL, I'm fairly certain that they're shit outta luck.
Yeah, there weren't many IM bots out there, but there were a few. And one is all it takes.
-Todd
IEEE has an Intellectual Property Committee that researches and investigates IP laws and agreements and such. They often propose policy to the government (US, specifically).
One of the things they're working on right now is collecting information and opinions on pre-assignment agreements (these are the agreements that you're asked to sign at the start of employment, or a contract, which assign all rights to the company you're working for. I highly suggest that everyone who has a strong view go to http://ieeeusa.org/committees/IPC/ and read the information they have and make comments using the form on that page.
-Todd
You can read my response to nick for the rest of the message. But I'll repost the summary here for you as well.
Fuck you.
-Todd
Wow, it's amazing how you know so much about my ex-fiancee and our situation that you can make assumptions and generalizations based on that. Perhaps your relationships have been with people so shallow that the type of jewlery you buy has a great bearing on the status of your relationships. Mine have not.
For your information, she didn't like diamonds at all. Something which she expressed very clearly, on several occassions, when the discussion wasn't about rings or anything else that I would be getting her.
Fuck you.
-Todd
When I proposed to my fiancee a couple months ago, I didn't have a ring at all. We joked that she was getting a $300,000 ring, the house we were in the process of contracting to be built. And she was just fine with this. However, a ring is expected by a lot of people. And she did want one to show off. Plus we had the perfect idea. She had her grandmother's ring, which had 3 diamonds in a rather ugly setting (everyone agrees on this, even her mother). We had it reset in a platinum and gold setting for a relatively reasonable cost. And it's better than any ring I could have bought her.
.95 instead of 1.
You can always get another stone as well. There is no rule that says it has to be a diamond. The first engagement ring I bought, several years ago, was a created sapphire. There are many semi-precious stones out there that are quite beautiful. Depending on your girlfriend's preferences, you may have a lot of options.
Having said that, if she wants a diamond, then it's worth it to get it. Just keep in mind that you don't need an internally flawless diamond. A VVS1 or 2 will do just fine, and a VS1 or 2 is going to be OK too. As you have noted, diamonds really don't have a resale value, and how many people are going to be looking at it through a scppe after you purchase it? Same goes for color. Get a G-H, or F. And as for the carats, you'll pay a bit less if you stay just under the round numbers, so
The one thing you really want to make sure is excellent is the cut. This is something you want to be as close to ideal as possible. A friend of mine recently got married, and her well-off husband got her a rather large diamond for her engagement ring. When I looked at it, I was horribly underwhelmed. It was a poor cut, and reflected very little light. It looked flat. And this is not a man that I would have expected to miss the details.
I know you know the 4 Cs, but it's always worth repeating, and elaborating on how to get a better deal using what you know.
-Todd
Well, as far as the validity of the data, the toll authorities do know what percentage of drivers have transponders, at least the percentage of drivers on their roads. They know how many vehicles travel through the tollbooths, and they know whether those vehicles are trucks, cars, motorcycles, cars with trailers, etc.
It doesn't really need to be even distribution if their primary purpose is to provide updated traffic information to other drivers. All they need to know is "Hey, it looks like a bunch of cars are stopped here. There must be a problem." Boston's actually installing thousands of sensors of varying types in the new Big Dig roads for this very purpose.
If they want to do more in-depth trending of traffic patterns, I don't think that even distribution is neccessary to be able to use the data (please, some statistics major correct me if I'm wrong here). If they know the percentage of cars that have transponders versus those that don't, they should have a large enough sample set that they can make reasonable assumptions about the distribution of cars.
As far as using the transponders versus other sensors like pressure sensors, I do agree with you in the theoretical sense. And if CA were building roads from scratch, I would question their motives if they didn't choose something like pressure sensors in the roads. However, in a retrofit, it's a lot easier to install transponder sensors above the road than it is to install pressure sensors in the road.
-Todd
1) How are they going to do that with out of state drivers and the like? Unless there is a single ETC system for the country and you don't need a credit card to get a transponder, that's not going to happen.
2) Yes, but that requires a toll system that uses tickets. Most toll systems don't (at least in my experience). A ticket system like that requires greater overhead, because you need both entrance and exit tolls.
-Todd