Actually, the default file formats starting in Office 2007 will be the Open XML formats (docx, xlsx and pptx). They're simply zip files containing several XML files for the representation of the document. The old binary formats will officially be legacy with the upcoming release.
Obviously, you're not from the Seattle area. The traffic sucks and guess what--some people here actually enjoy getting some daily exercise with their commute.
Microsoft, on the other hand, was handed their monopoly position on a silver platter, and has never really had to cope with a competitive market. They have no previous experience to fall back on.
That's simply not true. For example, Excel didn't just drop out of the sky one day and instantly become the leading spreadsheet program. Over time it gained market share from Lotus because it had more features that customers wanted. Back in those days, it was a race at both companies to get more and better features into the product.
Seattle bridge traffic can be truly horrendous. We've all heard the horror stories of 2 hours to go 10 miles on 520 during rush hour. Fortunately, I have a flexible work schedule and can make it from Seattle (Capitol Hill) to Redmond in about 20 minutes when I time it right. Does it really take 45 minutes for you? Are you coming from somewhere further away like West Seattle?
The whole thing is a red herring. GPU manufacturers like NVidia and ATI will continue to release their own OpenGL implementations, which will not suffer from these same performance hits.
Office usually doesn't ship exactly on time either. See this article about 2003. Even 2007 is behind schedule. However, we're usually talking weeks or months with Office and often years with Windows.
The first case involved somebody who was soliciting solutions to assignments for the current semester as well as previous ones. I'm not sure if the person was just confused or was trying to stockpile solutions for another semester. Still, he had put up one of my assignments. After I contacted rentacoder about having it taken down, they essentially told me that they had no proof the poster was involved in cheating. In the end, I filed a DMCA request (came in handy here) to have my copyrighted material (the handout) removed from the site at rentacoder's suggestion.
Unfortunately, I never found out how the person soliciting the solutions was connected to my course. I did find out his name and some posts on craigslist for "homework help" through the help of Google. My department looked the guy's name up in their records and while he had taken some courses in the past, he had actually never graduated from the department (appeared to have dropped out after 1 or 2 courses). Still, he was claiming in his ads to be a graduate of the department.
Interestingly enough, the whole thing was brought to my attention by some random guy who was browsing for real work on rentacoder. He claimed to hate cheaters and how they get by while everybody else had to work. I would never have even known about it if that random guy hadn't tipped me off.
There was another case though that was MUCH more interesting. A student who was not doing well in the class had posted a request for somebody to complete one of the projects. I don't want to give too many revealing details, but in the end the guy who actually did the work (and took the student's money for it) tipped him off to me! He claimed to hate cheaters a lot too and laughed all the way to the bank I'm sure.
The moral of these stories I suppose is that you really can't trust the shady people who are trafficking in homework solutions.
Considering past incidents with electronic voting machines in North Carolina such as the one last year in Carteret County, I'd just as soon see Diebold stay far, far away. Here in Orange County, NC we still use optical scan and it's a fairly straightforward and painless process in my experience.
Yes, but the problem with such an approach is that the price an employer pays for a policy per employee is significantly less than what that employee would pay for individual coverage through that same insurance company. Because many companies have many employees they buy group policies that cover all their workers. Some workers use more services than others, but since it's bought for a diverse group, it all balances out.
Now, if you look at the group of people who buy their own insurance, it looks fairly different. Many healthy people whose employers do not provide health insurance simply go without. That means a great deal of the people out there buying their own insurance have a good reason for buying it (i.e., health problems). Those customers are going to be more expensive for the insurance company to provide for. Hence, the group that buys their own policies is riskier than say the group of employees a specific large corporation is buying a policy for.
We don't necessarily need single payer system, but frankly the health insurance industry will never let the gov't put them out of business (they're too huge of a lobby) to create such a system. However, we need some way to ensure that everybody is insured. In Germany, they have a system where (at least as far as I understand) everybody is required by law to have health insurance. That insurance is provided by many private companies, which gives you some choice. However, the government regulates the premiums, co-pays, what has to be covered, etc. for a certain minimum health insurance policy. Everybody is required to have that minimum level of coverage, but you can buy fancier coverage if you (or maybe your employer) want to shell out the extra cash. For people who make less money, there are government subsidies that pay part of their premiums.
You'd think that would be the rules they follow. However, a number of schools (public and private) have honor codes where they can punish you for things you do outside of school. For example, students at my university (UNC Chapel Hill) are regularly punished by the university when convincted of DUI, even if it's nowhere near campus.
Personally, I don't think it's any of the university's business what crimes you commit off campus, but that's the way things are.
I wouldn't romanticize things too much. If there was sex between cromagnon man and neanderthals, it seems likely that much (most probably even considering the circumstances) of it would have come in the form of rape.
The scariest part about that map is that all the blue areas (below sea level) are also the most densely populated. Thankfully the Dutch know what they're doing after thousands of years of dealing with it.
The summary is actually out of date on its listing of restrictions for blood donation concerning international travel, at least for people wanting to donate in the US.
It used to be limited to 6 months in Europe, but now it's actually 5 years (still 3 months for the UK though). I know this because for a while I wasn't allowed to donate blood having lived in Germany for 2 years, but I recently noticed a change in policy on the Red Cross website. The questionaires and everything are even changed and I had no problem donating blood a couple weeks ago.
Who says a whole lot of people need to read your blog? Only a small handful of friends read mine, mostly people I live far away from. It's a weirdly indirect way of keeping in touch with those people (I read theirs, they read mine). Still, I find my blog to be more of a diary to keep track of things that happen in my life for my own personal purposes more than anything else.
and unless you come from a rich family, it's going to cost a lot of money.
Well, this is not entirely true. Most decent departments will fund students by paying their tuition and giving them a small stipend. Of course, there's the money you lose in terms of life time earnings by not working those years you're in grad school, but you certainly don't need rich parents to survive that.
I second this, but would also like to add that some schools make the distinction between "required", "recommended" and "optional". Unless you're (and by you I mean the top poster) coming from an unknown or not particularly respected program, don't submit a GRE subject score unless a program requires it. If none of the programs require it, don't take it. A good score will not get you into any decent program, but a bad score may get you taken out of the running. In almost all cases, taking the exam can only hurt you.
The one exception would be if you're coming from somewhere unknown or less reputable, where it may be difficult for the admissions committees to determine if you have mastered undergraduate material. For example, an A from Podunk State might not say much about what you know, but that combined with a high subject GRE score may set the committee at ease about your preparation. The same is true for international students who may be coming from countries with grading systems that are significantly different from those used here.
I took the subject GRE back in 2002, because a couple schools I was looking at required or recommended it. However, by the time I actually applied in 2003/4, none of the 8 US schools (all top 50) actually required it. Looking back, it was a big waste of the $135 + hotel + train (I had to travel 3 hours and spend the night since the exam was at 8am).
This is an interesting idea. It reminds me a lot of the way the German healthcare system works. Basically, everybody is required by law to have health insurance. All doctors take all insurance (I believe, although there are probably exceptions). Moreover, insurance companies are regulated to provide certain basic kinds of coverage at a certain price. Those making below a certain amount of income, get their premiums subsidized through the government.
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Why am I reminded of those articles that seem to come up every year in the Netherlands about somebody who got trampled by bargain hunting shoppers?
You're right, laser tweezers are nothing new. My understanding is they're a standard tool used now days in nanoscale research.
It's not vaporware. It's in the Beta 2 of Office 2007 which has already been downloaded by something like 2.5 million people.
Actually, the default file formats starting in Office 2007 will be the Open XML formats (docx, xlsx and pptx). They're simply zip files containing several XML files for the representation of the document. The old binary formats will officially be legacy with the upcoming release.
Well Excel 2007 will have much higher column and row limits. Maybe OO will copy yet again.
Obviously, you're not from the Seattle area. The traffic sucks and guess what--some people here actually enjoy getting some daily exercise with their commute.
That's simply not true. For example, Excel didn't just drop out of the sky one day and instantly become the leading spreadsheet program. Over time it gained market share from Lotus because it had more features that customers wanted. Back in those days, it was a race at both companies to get more and better features into the product.
Seattle bridge traffic can be truly horrendous. We've all heard the horror stories of 2 hours to go 10 miles on 520 during rush hour. Fortunately, I have a flexible work schedule and can make it from Seattle (Capitol Hill) to Redmond in about 20 minutes when I time it right. Does it really take 45 minutes for you? Are you coming from somewhere further away like West Seattle?
The whole thing is a red herring. GPU manufacturers like NVidia and ATI will continue to release their own OpenGL implementations, which will not suffer from these same performance hits.
Office usually doesn't ship exactly on time either. See this article about 2003. Even 2007 is behind schedule. However, we're usually talking weeks or months with Office and often years with Windows.
The first case involved somebody who was soliciting solutions to assignments for the current semester as well as previous ones. I'm not sure if the person was just confused or was trying to stockpile solutions for another semester. Still, he had put up one of my assignments. After I contacted rentacoder about having it taken down, they essentially told me that they had no proof the poster was involved in cheating. In the end, I filed a DMCA request (came in handy here) to have my copyrighted material (the handout) removed from the site at rentacoder's suggestion.
Unfortunately, I never found out how the person soliciting the solutions was connected to my course. I did find out his name and some posts on craigslist for "homework help" through the help of Google. My department looked the guy's name up in their records and while he had taken some courses in the past, he had actually never graduated from the department (appeared to have dropped out after 1 or 2 courses). Still, he was claiming in his ads to be a graduate of the department.
Interestingly enough, the whole thing was brought to my attention by some random guy who was browsing for real work on rentacoder. He claimed to hate cheaters and how they get by while everybody else had to work. I would never have even known about it if that random guy hadn't tipped me off.
There was another case though that was MUCH more interesting. A student who was not doing well in the class had posted a request for somebody to complete one of the projects. I don't want to give too many revealing details, but in the end the guy who actually did the work (and took the student's money for it) tipped him off to me! He claimed to hate cheaters a lot too and laughed all the way to the bank I'm sure.
The moral of these stories I suppose is that you really can't trust the shady people who are trafficking in homework solutions.
Well, Microsoft is creating new jobs in the US as well. Just a few months ago, they got approval to expand their facilites in Redmond in order to ultimately accomodate an additional 10,000 employees there.
Considering past incidents with electronic voting machines in North Carolina such as the one last year in Carteret County, I'd just as soon see Diebold stay far, far away. Here in Orange County, NC we still use optical scan and it's a fairly straightforward and painless process in my experience.
Yes, but the problem with such an approach is that the price an employer pays for a policy per employee is significantly less than what that employee would pay for individual coverage through that same insurance company. Because many companies have many employees they buy group policies that cover all their workers. Some workers use more services than others, but since it's bought for a diverse group, it all balances out.
Now, if you look at the group of people who buy their own insurance, it looks fairly different. Many healthy people whose employers do not provide health insurance simply go without. That means a great deal of the people out there buying their own insurance have a good reason for buying it (i.e., health problems). Those customers are going to be more expensive for the insurance company to provide for. Hence, the group that buys their own policies is riskier than say the group of employees a specific large corporation is buying a policy for.
We don't necessarily need single payer system, but frankly the health insurance industry will never let the gov't put them out of business (they're too huge of a lobby) to create such a system. However, we need some way to ensure that everybody is insured. In Germany, they have a system where (at least as far as I understand) everybody is required by law to have health insurance. That insurance is provided by many private companies, which gives you some choice. However, the government regulates the premiums, co-pays, what has to be covered, etc. for a certain minimum health insurance policy. Everybody is required to have that minimum level of coverage, but you can buy fancier coverage if you (or maybe your employer) want to shell out the extra cash. For people who make less money, there are government subsidies that pay part of their premiums.
You'd think that would be the rules they follow. However, a number of schools (public and private) have honor codes where they can punish you for things you do outside of school. For example, students at my university (UNC Chapel Hill) are regularly punished by the university when convincted of DUI, even if it's nowhere near campus.
Personally, I don't think it's any of the university's business what crimes you commit off campus, but that's the way things are.
The influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5% compared to the previous influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1%
Actually, point number two isn't true. A different measure of octane is used in the United States than in Europe (US 87 = EU 91, for example).
I wouldn't romanticize things too much. If there was sex between cromagnon man and neanderthals, it seems likely that much (most probably even considering the circumstances) of it would have come in the form of rape.
The scariest part about that map is that all the blue areas (below sea level) are also the most densely populated. Thankfully the Dutch know what they're doing after thousands of years of dealing with it.
It used to be limited to 6 months in Europe, but now it's actually 5 years (still 3 months for the UK though). I know this because for a while I wasn't allowed to donate blood having lived in Germany for 2 years, but I recently noticed a change in policy on the Red Cross website. The questionaires and everything are even changed and I had no problem donating blood a couple weeks ago.
More info at the Red Cross website on blood donation eligibility.
Actually, that's just in the Bay Area region. Prices are substantially higher in San Francisco proper.
Who says a whole lot of people need to read your blog? Only a small handful of friends read mine, mostly people I live far away from. It's a weirdly indirect way of keeping in touch with those people (I read theirs, they read mine). Still, I find my blog to be more of a diary to keep track of things that happen in my life for my own personal purposes more than anything else.
Well, this is not entirely true. Most decent departments will fund students by paying their tuition and giving them a small stipend. Of course, there's the money you lose in terms of life time earnings by not working those years you're in grad school, but you certainly don't need rich parents to survive that.
The one exception would be if you're coming from somewhere unknown or less reputable, where it may be difficult for the admissions committees to determine if you have mastered undergraduate material. For example, an A from Podunk State might not say much about what you know, but that combined with a high subject GRE score may set the committee at ease about your preparation. The same is true for international students who may be coming from countries with grading systems that are significantly different from those used here.
I took the subject GRE back in 2002, because a couple schools I was looking at required or recommended it. However, by the time I actually applied in 2003/4, none of the 8 US schools (all top 50) actually required it. Looking back, it was a big waste of the $135 + hotel + train (I had to travel 3 hours and spend the night since the exam was at 8am).
This is an interesting idea. It reminds me a lot of the way the German healthcare system works. Basically, everybody is required by law to have health insurance. All doctors take all insurance (I believe, although there are probably exceptions). Moreover, insurance companies are regulated to provide certain basic kinds of coverage at a certain price. Those making below a certain amount of income, get their premiums subsidized through the government.