Many others have pointed out, but it was absolutely part of his job to step up and do what he needed to. He was hired and trained to be a "hero". That is the big point. It was his job and he had the training to lead in an emergency.
I recently became a volunteer Industrial firefighter and my fire chief said, the bravest thing you did was sign up, now everything else is in the line of duty. When there is a fire at the plant I am called to, I am expected to step up with my fellow firefighters and do our job.
Chief reiterated several times, if you don't think you can do this, get out now. This Captain was trained in what he was supposed to do and made the choice to abandon what he was trained to do. It was his responibility to stay put. He abandoned his post, period. He does not have what it takes to do what he was expected and trained to do.
This may have been the first time he found himself in this situation and found out he doens't have what it takes to be in charge in this situation. This should be the last time he is given the chance. He paniced and ran. Not only did he initally run, but when others were responding, he didn't snap to and return. When told to get back, he made excuses and then finally had to be ordered to get back, i.e. drug kicking and screamin to do his job.
This man failed to do what he was supposed to in a large way and it should be the end of his career.
I can't remember where the study was (sorry, can't post it), but they did a study once and it is like 65-75% of people who get the better offer and renegotiate leave within a year afterwards anyway.
If you were leaving because you didn't like the place, you still don't like it and just look for another new job.
If you like it and are happy, like mentioned, they look at you differerntly, your next raise sucks, etc and then either they want you to leave, or you get upset later anyway.
The only real way to get your wages to where they should be is at review time and have them realize it and give you the bump as part of that process. Then everyone feels good and you can progress. That is hard because you don't have the job offer to hit them in the head with, but as I mentioned, if you have to hit them in the head, it usually doesn't end up working in the end anyway. There are excepetions, but odds are you will end up leaving soon anyway.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I work in industrial controls and our controls computers are completely (by air gap) seperated from the outside world and internet for VERY specific reasons. We use windows machines now, but if the mentioned patent is they must get to the internet on boot up to phone home or won't work, then we will have to replace every windows box with something else, or just stay on earlier version of windows forever.
We are not alone in this concern and I can't imagine that the number of people that will have similiar set ups is small, so Microsoft has to think about this and solve it. If not, they are idiots and are going to force secure sectors to go to a differnent OS. They can't be that stupid...can they?
I have one big fear with this kind of thing. If the cars do start driving themselves and taking directions from the other vehicles and lights around them, how do they design it so that it is not hackable. We have had many articles talking about industrial controls systems that are getting viruses and make things vulnerable, what about a car.
How do they secure someone from hacking into a vehicle, or from just injecting false inputs by broadcasting them, and causing accidents? Have they considered that? Are the car computers going to take the signals as inputs and then have it's own sensors to independently verify the information it is seeing and that make decisions? Are the cars just going to use information to know when they need to override control and stop the vehicle? If we ever get to cars driving themselves, is there a risk that the car will just be told to accelerate and then turn into a brick wall?
It is a bit scary to think of all the possible exploits for this sort of thing and how they are going to keep people safe.
No offense taken, was just matter of fact speaking. Maybe I should have added an emoticon so you could see the "body language" that was missed when writing!;)
Not sure how you missed all of the press releases, but the shuttles are being decommissioned and sent to various locations to be part of museum exhibits. Was a bit thing when they were trying to decide where. A bunch of cities put in bids for them and showed what they would do. The final decision was, one would go to NY, one to DC, one to Kennedy Space Center in Florida and one to just outside of Los Angelos.
They made the decision and announcement back in April You can google and find where they are dissecting the shuttles and removing many components that contain hazardous chemicals prior to sending them to their final museum homes.
We have an air gap. When I say penetrate our perimeter security, I meant actual physical perimeter security, i.e. barbed wire fence, etc and gain physical access to our equipment.
You are right about IT and Controls having different skill sets and quite often not getting what should be done when ti comes to controls. At our plant, IT and controls are completely separate. We have enough IT expertise to set up and maintain our system in the control group. The controls group has set the policies that are in place regarding the controls system and we set it that we will make the drive in to do support from inside the perimeter rather then open ourself up to the risk.
It is a constant battle between Controls and IT at most places making many controls systems not nearly as secure as they could/should be.
As I posted, if the attacker has physical access, we have lost. It doesn't matter what HMI software you use, if an outsider can gain physical access to your system, the battle has already been lost.
The point about the benefit of solving problems from home at 2:00 am. We have made the decision that we will just make the drive in because we do not want to risk the lives of the people on site. If we have a physical connection we can use, then someone else can possibly break through from the outside world, so we left the break.
So while there is a business benefit to having that connection, for our site, we did the cost benefit analysis and we decided it was not worth the risk or the extra time we would have to take maintaining and securing the connection.
You are right about me being lucky. When we laid out network several years back, we had the luxury of being allowed to do it the way we needed it. We were given the budget and were not told to merge it with ITs network. We ran our own cables, put in our own hardware and got it all set up.
The funny thing about the finances of it, our insurance company does and audit of the site every year. Every year they ask us 2 questions, one of which is if we still have the air gap between the controls network and the outside work. The other is if we have installed WIFI on our controls network, which of course we will not do. Because we can keep answering how they like, it keeps our insurance rates low. The insurance company realizes the risk and because we are not willing to take that risk, our insurance rates get a nice discount.
So there are financial reasons aside from keeping production running, but most places don't see it.
Yup, like I said, "They would have to penetrate our security perimeter first in order to gain access to our controls system. If they do that, then it doesn't really matter which HMI software we are using, we are owned anyway."
You can not make something 100% full proof because if they can gain physical access they always win. You can get close though by making physical access be the only way they can get access. Best way to protect and then it also helps with these, they found an exploitable bug scenarios. Unless they are targeting us specifically and break the air gap, they will be looking to see who is connected and own them to exploit them for money and never come to our site and breach our perimeter.
I am a Controls Engineer and work with HMI interfaces everyday.
We keep seeing more and more things like this in the controls world. Every few months, we hear, this HMI or this controls software has these vulnerabilities and can be owned this way or that. Properly designed controls systems do not touch the internet or extend beyond the controls world.
Place I work at, we have completely separate hardware then IT. Our own switches, our own computers, etc. We keep everything separate specifically to guard against someone hacking into our system and taking it over. Someone can't sit across the world and hack into our system because it doesn't connect. They would have to penetrate our security perimeter first in order to gain access to our controls system. If they do that, then it doesn't really matter which HMI software we are using, we are owned anyway.
It does scare me when I think about some of the other plants and industries make connections to the intranet for reasons from their controls system and trust that their securities will hold.
That is part of the cycle of things. I work at a place that makes Bio-diesel among other things. When gas hit $4.00 a gallon a few year back, we had tons of people ready to invest money in our plant to expand our ability to make Bio-diesel and places ready to sign multi-year contracts to buy what we could make.. Then the cost of gas started to drop and no one wanted to invest money to expand our capabilities and we stopped making Bio-diesel. Gas prices back up, we can't make it fast enough and are considering expanding production and contracts are back on the table. Part of it is government subsidies as well as outside investors.
The tech people do the same. Last time gas got up to $4.00, there were all kinds of new techs being looked at, gas prices drop and all the tech is set aside and forgotten about. Some of it gets picked back up, some of it is sitting on a shelf and the person who did the initial R&D is no longer at the company so it is forgotten about. Or the company hired people to develop the tech and then prices drop, their money ran out, they laid everyone off and are now trying to get it going again, but don't have the resources.
If gas prices would get high and stay high, then new techs would emerge to draw us away from foreign oil. Hate to sound conspiracy nut, but all the oil people know this and gas prices can't stay high for long extended periods without people feeling the pain too much and new tech getting developed. OPEC has the ability to manipulate the market by controlling production and releasing more barrels.
Eventually we will really run out and then prices will go up and stay up and then the techs won't get put away and actually be developed. So while this idea may not pan out, some day an idea will pan out that is huge and will shift things away from foreign oil, but as long as the prices come back down in time to stop them from finishing the R&D on the cool new energy saver stuff and get it to market, people will keep falling back to oil as it is cheaper and what we are used to.
This AC is proof of the fact the Apple is primarily a Marketing company. It is what they do best and they do it so well, that people blindly believe they are the best at everything despite any actual evidence.
Doesn't matter what the quality is of what you make if the marketing is so good that everyone believes it is the best and they must have it. That is marketing, not product engineering.
I have a Droid on Verizon and the Droid is "unlimited".
Verizon's current definition of unlimited on the Droid is 5 gig per month. Verizon requires a smart phone to have a $30/month data plan to be on their network. The $30 a phone is for an unlimited data plan. The $30 a month is required per phone, not per account. I have a family plan and my wife has a Droid Eris and we are paying $60 a month for 2 unlimited data plans.
When I bought the phone, I asked what the limit was, got the, the plan is unlimited data response. Told the sales rep, I know that when they say unlimited there is a cap and I want to know the cap. He responded, it is 5 gig a month, but to hit 5 gig a month is next to impossible.
Friend of mine had the same experience and when you dig through Verizon's stuff, you find the unlimited for normal usage, which is defined as 5 gig.
I would expect the IPhone would be handled the same way with the 5 Gig cap.
FYI, Verizon doesn't allow Droids to tether. Their release of Android has it locked out. Jail Break it and you can, but it is a TOS violation to tether.
My information was accurate from the date I purchased my Droid, which was January last year. With the new droids and new packages, these may have changed.
The initial post was a bit off handed joking, but if anyone is really wondering, I have heard a number of discussions with Avian experts. The prevailing opinion is the birds ran into each other and objects when they were scared by fireworks. The areas that have had the birds die are some that have species of birds that congregate in large groups in winter months. Normally they are spread out and the population density is very low. During winter, these birds group into groups of hundreds of thousands of birds and will hang out in the tree tops or wherever is convenient.
New year happens, many people set off fireworks, hundred of thousands of birds take flight at the same time, slam into each other, get stunned, and then drop to the group and die from impact. Also, when you look at the numbers of birds dieing, it is so tiny compared to the total population of the birds, the impact on the species is non-existant.
The parent knows what he is talking about. I am a Controls Engineer and I work at a facility that has all kinds of alarms and interlocks that are in place to keep things safe. There are very strict procedures (Management of Chance, Process Safety Management, etc.) that are meant to review and ensure that all of the systems in place are still in place and working properly.
Anytime, EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME, anyone asks me or one of the other Controls Engineers to make a change to these systems or interlocks, there is a MOC process where they have to submit what they want to change to their boss, someone in safety, head of engineering at a minimum. Each person has to take the time to look at what is being changed and then ask questions/raise concerns. When everyone is satisfied, then they approve it and eventually they come to me with an approved change and then and ONLY THEN will I make a change.
All of these things keep the operations working in proper order and are checked at least once a year to make sure they are in place per the design specifications, and those specs include the MOC changes, which is part of the whole process.
These are the interlocks that are in place that keep people in the place alive. These types of procedures are mandated things and if we didn't follow them, we would be fined out of existence or shut down entirely for not having a procedure and following it.
The break down in these cases are as follows:
1) Inspectors not checking and keeping the pressure on. Although, inspectors are stretched thin and can only check so many things, so ultimately, if people are cutting corners, most of the time inspectors will not catch them. 2) Operations taking short cuts to be able to meet demand that are figuring out ways to bypass something they shouldn't bypass to run anyway and they they are no longer protected. 3) People not following the procedures listed above and then things break and don't get repaired, changes made that are not documented, safety critical interlocks being modified so they no longer offer the protection that should.
If the procedures are followed properly and things documented, then the properly designed safety systems stay in place and these kinds of things can't happen. Yes there are problems with excess alarms in place and alarms getting ignored, but nuisance alarms are not the things that really matter for safety. What really matters are the interlocks where systems realize there is an issue and shut themselves down to protect the equipment and personnel. Alarms inform operators that something is not in the right range and they should look at it before it affects production. Interlocks (which have alarms with them as well) are the things that are the final protection level and the system reacts on it's own, equipment goes to fail safe mode and you are not running anymore.
I have heard in news sources of the BP spill and many other industrial accidents (check www.csb.org if interested in find out about chemical plant issues that have been investigated) and in most cases where there are issues with systems that were designed properly to begin with, like what omglolbah was stating, that the system is safe and these kind of things can't happen. It is when proper procedures are not followed and improper changes are made that we get BP and accidents happening.
So proper enforcement and inspections will only do some much, but have to be in place to make sure everyone is doing their do dilagence to stop these kinds of things from happening.
Don't mess around with that DiHydrogen Monooxide (DHMO) stuff. It is nasty stuff and if they are finding that in these schools water supply, then they need to be going after that instead of WiFi, because we know that stuff is nasty. I can't even believe these Canadians would let their kids go to school that has Dihydrogren Monoxide in it. Apparently, the WiFi is the red herring to draw attention away from the real problems. If any of you doubt, check this out:
Did you know that inhaling a small amount of this stuff can lead to death! If you are exposed to solid DHMO it can cause significant skin damage that can even cause you to loose the exposed part of your body! They even found that almost even crazy dog attack that resulted in harm to a human or death was followed shortly after these dogs ingested DMHO! All of these facts about the affect of DMHO are absolutely and completely 100% true and the government is doing nothing about it and now these schools are going after WiFi while continuing to ignore the risks of DMHO!!!
This can't end well. Two of the scientists transmitting the message were obviously the extra, you could tell by the red shirts. So we know that the Klingons will arrive, probably to hear the opera, be upset by the poor quality and terrible pronunciation and begin the slaughter, with these two scientists.
I for one welcome our new Klingon Overlords and am just glad the shirt I am wearing is blue!
Hold on, so are you saying that they have cable and high speed internet in the area around Chernobyl now!!! I think I might have to consider moving. Maybe my boss will let me tele-commute!
I generally really like to play the multi-player of games and endure through the issues you mentioned, which are all very good issues and at times will make me lot out of a server and look for another one. It is unfortunate, but I like playing the multi-player enough, and many of the games I play lend themselves to multi-player competition, so I endure it. There are nights I just am not mentally up to it and just play a solo game on my PC.
I felt like telling a story about this and it related to A), so bear with me. I was playing Mechwarrior mercenaries and logged into a server that was active. It had the last spot open up and there was only 30 seconds left in the game, but I wanted in the next one. I logged into the server and 20 seconds later (before I even got into battle), the game ended and we all ended up out in the chat room while the server reset.
As soon as we ended up in the chat room, someone started cussing me out for gimping him and being dishonorable. In mechwarrior, you could rip a mechs arms off and then destroy one leg and he was left with almost no weapons and could barely move, but was still alive. Many people got into being an "honorable pilot" and this was just disgraceful that you would do this and not finish them off. Pilots could self destruct, but that was a negative points for the battle. I didn't gimp people because I liked to get the kill, so I would just center torso them as much as I could until they were dead.
I explained I just got in the last 20 seconds of the battle and he had the wrong person. He just kept cussing me out saying I was lying. Finally when it was time to jump on teams, I went opposite him intentionally. As soon as it started, in team chat I told them, the guy was nuts and I didn't do it and I was go after him for being such a jerk. Many laughed and said he deserved it and to get him.
I was VERY good at that game and so found him on radar, I went radar silent, came up behind him and ripped off both arms and a leg and then turned on my radar and sat there behind him. Gimped you can't turn fast so he would try and turn and I would move so he never got a shot off. He would self destruct and then I waited for him to spawn, saw where he was and then go radar quiet, sneak in again on him and do the same thing. Did it to him about 4 times and he proceeded to go nuts in chat and then finally logged off!
I was dying and my team was cheering me on because he was an total idiot! Just something you have to endure at times and if you can and still enjoy the game, ot be better then the idiots and go after them, the game can be fun.
A reason not to use salt is what happens to it when it solidifies. We use reactors at the place I work that have liquid salt beds for heat exchange. They work great as long as we keep them hot and uniform temperature. If you get cold spots or if the overall temperature drops, the salt solidifies and you end up with a rock of salt in the reactor. To restart from the vessel cooling off takes days. With the salt so hot, if our heat source goes away, the salt cools fast so for a short upset (some as little as 15 minutes) can result in a 3 day outage.
So salt has some great properties for heat exchange, but has some fun problems. I am sure they will have thought of this and have designed that with this in mind though.
Many good points. In my last job, my first raise was so low as to be insulting, and I told my boss at the evaluation. A few months later, I was ready to quit and told my boss, correct my wage or I am gone. He gave me a bump and promise of a larger bump at raise time. the larger bump was not what he promised so 3 months later, I had a job offer and was ready to quit, and I got an even larger bump with a promotion and new bonus structure to stay on. 8 months later, the new bonus plan turned out to be bogus and my $10K-12K promised bonus turned out to be $96. 4 months later, I was gone to a new job.
Lessons learned: If you are going to try and negotiate a new wage/bump, you have to have a job offer in hand because it is a go for broke type scenario. If you do not have an alternative (which I did everytime I spoke to them) you will not really be able to negotiated it properly because most places will "call your bluff". Some places will fire you afterwards or you will become unhappy and get yourself fired. Also, if you are unhappy for some reason and not being valued by your company, chance are you never will be. After 4 years with the company and arguing and being promoted, sunshine blown up my dark nether regions repeatedly, in the end they never really appreciated the work I did and compensated me appropriately for it.
Finally, there have been studies (sorry, been too long since I read them and can't find them) that show that a large percentage (70%+) of people who get into this negotiating war with a company end up leaving in a year anyway after they get the higher wage. If your company is not valuing you, be prepared to leave when you ask the question. If you are bluffing, you will probably loose and because you have to ask the question, you will more then likely ultimately leave shortly after given the raise or not.
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Many others have pointed out, but it was absolutely part of his job to step up and do what he needed to. He was hired and trained to be a "hero". That is the big point. It was his job and he had the training to lead in an emergency.
I recently became a volunteer Industrial firefighter and my fire chief said, the bravest thing you did was sign up, now everything else is in the line of duty. When there is a fire at the plant I am called to, I am expected to step up with my fellow firefighters and do our job.
Chief reiterated several times, if you don't think you can do this, get out now. This Captain was trained in what he was supposed to do and made the choice to abandon what he was trained to do. It was his responibility to stay put. He abandoned his post, period. He does not have what it takes to do what he was expected and trained to do.
This may have been the first time he found himself in this situation and found out he doens't have what it takes to be in charge in this situation. This should be the last time he is given the chance. He paniced and ran. Not only did he initally run, but when others were responding, he didn't snap to and return. When told to get back, he made excuses and then finally had to be ordered to get back, i.e. drug kicking and screamin to do his job.
This man failed to do what he was supposed to in a large way and it should be the end of his career.
I can't remember where the study was (sorry, can't post it), but they did a study once and it is like 65-75% of people who get the better offer and renegotiate leave within a year afterwards anyway.
If you were leaving because you didn't like the place, you still don't like it and just look for another new job.
If you like it and are happy, like mentioned, they look at you differerntly, your next raise sucks, etc and then either they want you to leave, or you get upset later anyway.
The only real way to get your wages to where they should be is at review time and have them realize it and give you the bump as part of that process. Then everyone feels good and you can progress. That is hard because you don't have the job offer to hit them in the head with, but as I mentioned, if you have to hit them in the head, it usually doesn't end up working in the end anyway. There are excepetions, but odds are you will end up leaving soon anyway.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I work in industrial controls and our controls computers are completely (by air gap) seperated from the outside world and internet for VERY specific reasons. We use windows machines now, but if the mentioned patent is they must get to the internet on boot up to phone home or won't work, then we will have to replace every windows box with something else, or just stay on earlier version of windows forever.
We are not alone in this concern and I can't imagine that the number of people that will have similiar set ups is small, so Microsoft has to think about this and solve it. If not, they are idiots and are going to force secure sectors to go to a differnent OS. They can't be that stupid...can they?
I have one big fear with this kind of thing. If the cars do start driving themselves and taking directions from the other vehicles and lights around them, how do they design it so that it is not hackable. We have had many articles talking about industrial controls systems that are getting viruses and make things vulnerable, what about a car.
How do they secure someone from hacking into a vehicle, or from just injecting false inputs by broadcasting them, and causing accidents? Have they considered that? Are the car computers going to take the signals as inputs and then have it's own sensors to independently verify the information it is seeing and that make decisions? Are the cars just going to use information to know when they need to override control and stop the vehicle? If we ever get to cars driving themselves, is there a risk that the car will just be told to accelerate and then turn into a brick wall?
It is a bit scary to think of all the possible exploits for this sort of thing and how they are going to keep people safe.
No offense taken, was just matter of fact speaking. Maybe I should have added an emoticon so you could see the "body language" that was missed when writing! ;)
From the article I linked to.
""Endeavour will be housed at the California Science Center, just outside of Los Angeles."
I just went with what it said. Been to LA once in my life, so very unfamiliar with it.
Not sure how you missed all of the press releases, but the shuttles are being decommissioned and sent to various locations to be part of museum exhibits. Was a bit thing when they were trying to decide where. A bunch of cities put in bids for them and showed what they would do. The final decision was, one would go to NY, one to DC, one to Kennedy Space Center in Florida and one to just outside of Los Angelos.
http://www.khou.com/news/Sources-Houston-will-not-get-one-of-the-retired-space-shuttles-119699914.html
They made the decision and announcement back in April You can google and find where they are dissecting the shuttles and removing many components that contain hazardous chemicals prior to sending them to their final museum homes.
We have an air gap. When I say penetrate our perimeter security, I meant actual physical perimeter security, i.e. barbed wire fence, etc and gain physical access to our equipment.
You are right about IT and Controls having different skill sets and quite often not getting what should be done when ti comes to controls. At our plant, IT and controls are completely separate. We have enough IT expertise to set up and maintain our system in the control group. The controls group has set the policies that are in place regarding the controls system and we set it that we will make the drive in to do support from inside the perimeter rather then open ourself up to the risk.
It is a constant battle between Controls and IT at most places making many controls systems not nearly as secure as they could/should be.
Responding to an AC, but oh well.
As I posted, if the attacker has physical access, we have lost. It doesn't matter what HMI software you use, if an outsider can gain physical access to your system, the battle has already been lost.
The point about the benefit of solving problems from home at 2:00 am. We have made the decision that we will just make the drive in because we do not want to risk the lives of the people on site. If we have a physical connection we can use, then someone else can possibly break through from the outside world, so we left the break.
So while there is a business benefit to having that connection, for our site, we did the cost benefit analysis and we decided it was not worth the risk or the extra time we would have to take maintaining and securing the connection.
You are right about me being lucky. When we laid out network several years back, we had the luxury of being allowed to do it the way we needed it. We were given the budget and were not told to merge it with ITs network. We ran our own cables, put in our own hardware and got it all set up.
The funny thing about the finances of it, our insurance company does and audit of the site every year. Every year they ask us 2 questions, one of which is if we still have the air gap between the controls network and the outside work. The other is if we have installed WIFI on our controls network, which of course we will not do. Because we can keep answering how they like, it keeps our insurance rates low. The insurance company realizes the risk and because we are not willing to take that risk, our insurance rates get a nice discount.
So there are financial reasons aside from keeping production running, but most places don't see it.
And I echo your last statement as well.
Yup, like I said, "They would have to penetrate our security perimeter first in order to gain access to our controls system. If they do that, then it doesn't really matter which HMI software we are using, we are owned anyway."
You can not make something 100% full proof because if they can gain physical access they always win. You can get close though by making physical access be the only way they can get access. Best way to protect and then it also helps with these, they found an exploitable bug scenarios. Unless they are targeting us specifically and break the air gap, they will be looking to see who is connected and own them to exploit them for money and never come to our site and breach our perimeter.
I am a Controls Engineer and work with HMI interfaces everyday.
We keep seeing more and more things like this in the controls world. Every few months, we hear, this HMI or this controls software has these vulnerabilities and can be owned this way or that. Properly designed controls systems do not touch the internet or extend beyond the controls world.
Place I work at, we have completely separate hardware then IT. Our own switches, our own computers, etc. We keep everything separate specifically to guard against someone hacking into our system and taking it over. Someone can't sit across the world and hack into our system because it doesn't connect. They would have to penetrate our security perimeter first in order to gain access to our controls system. If they do that, then it doesn't really matter which HMI software we are using, we are owned anyway.
It does scare me when I think about some of the other plants and industries make connections to the intranet for reasons from their controls system and trust that their securities will hold.
That is part of the cycle of things. I work at a place that makes Bio-diesel among other things. When gas hit $4.00 a gallon a few year back, we had tons of people ready to invest money in our plant to expand our ability to make Bio-diesel and places ready to sign multi-year contracts to buy what we could make.. Then the cost of gas started to drop and no one wanted to invest money to expand our capabilities and we stopped making Bio-diesel. Gas prices back up, we can't make it fast enough and are considering expanding production and contracts are back on the table. Part of it is government subsidies as well as outside investors.
The tech people do the same. Last time gas got up to $4.00, there were all kinds of new techs being looked at, gas prices drop and all the tech is set aside and forgotten about. Some of it gets picked back up, some of it is sitting on a shelf and the person who did the initial R&D is no longer at the company so it is forgotten about. Or the company hired people to develop the tech and then prices drop, their money ran out, they laid everyone off and are now trying to get it going again, but don't have the resources.
If gas prices would get high and stay high, then new techs would emerge to draw us away from foreign oil. Hate to sound conspiracy nut, but all the oil people know this and gas prices can't stay high for long extended periods without people feeling the pain too much and new tech getting developed. OPEC has the ability to manipulate the market by controlling production and releasing more barrels.
Eventually we will really run out and then prices will go up and stay up and then the techs won't get put away and actually be developed. So while this idea may not pan out, some day an idea will pan out that is huge and will shift things away from foreign oil, but as long as the prices come back down in time to stop them from finishing the R&D on the cool new energy saver stuff and get it to market, people will keep falling back to oil as it is cheaper and what we are used to.
This AC is proof of the fact the Apple is primarily a Marketing company. It is what they do best and they do it so well, that people blindly believe they are the best at everything despite any actual evidence.
Doesn't matter what the quality is of what you make if the marketing is so good that everyone believes it is the best and they must have it. That is marketing, not product engineering.
I have a Droid on Verizon and the Droid is "unlimited".
Verizon's current definition of unlimited on the Droid is 5 gig per month. Verizon requires a smart phone to have a $30/month data plan to be on their network. The $30 a phone is for an unlimited data plan. The $30 a month is required per phone, not per account. I have a family plan and my wife has a Droid Eris and we are paying $60 a month for 2 unlimited data plans.
When I bought the phone, I asked what the limit was, got the, the plan is unlimited data response. Told the sales rep, I know that when they say unlimited there is a cap and I want to know the cap. He responded, it is 5 gig a month, but to hit 5 gig a month is next to impossible.
Friend of mine had the same experience and when you dig through Verizon's stuff, you find the unlimited for normal usage, which is defined as 5 gig.
I would expect the IPhone would be handled the same way with the 5 Gig cap.
FYI, Verizon doesn't allow Droids to tether. Their release of Android has it locked out. Jail Break it and you can, but it is a TOS violation to tether.
My information was accurate from the date I purchased my Droid, which was January last year. With the new droids and new packages, these may have changed.
The initial post was a bit off handed joking, but if anyone is really wondering, I have heard a number of discussions with Avian experts. The prevailing opinion is the birds ran into each other and objects when they were scared by fireworks. The areas that have had the birds die are some that have species of birds that congregate in large groups in winter months. Normally they are spread out and the population density is very low. During winter, these birds group into groups of hundreds of thousands of birds and will hang out in the tree tops or wherever is convenient.
New year happens, many people set off fireworks, hundred of thousands of birds take flight at the same time, slam into each other, get stunned, and then drop to the group and die from impact. Also, when you look at the numbers of birds dieing, it is so tiny compared to the total population of the birds, the impact on the species is non-existant.
The parent knows what he is talking about. I am a Controls Engineer and I work at a facility that has all kinds of alarms and interlocks that are in place to keep things safe. There are very strict procedures (Management of Chance, Process Safety Management, etc.) that are meant to review and ensure that all of the systems in place are still in place and working properly.
Anytime, EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME, anyone asks me or one of the other Controls Engineers to make a change to these systems or interlocks, there is a MOC process where they have to submit what they want to change to their boss, someone in safety, head of engineering at a minimum. Each person has to take the time to look at what is being changed and then ask questions/raise concerns. When everyone is satisfied, then they approve it and eventually they come to me with an approved change and then and ONLY THEN will I make a change.
All of these things keep the operations working in proper order and are checked at least once a year to make sure they are in place per the design specifications, and those specs include the MOC changes, which is part of the whole process.
These are the interlocks that are in place that keep people in the place alive. These types of procedures are mandated things and if we didn't follow them, we would be fined out of existence or shut down entirely for not having a procedure and following it.
The break down in these cases are as follows:
1) Inspectors not checking and keeping the pressure on. Although, inspectors are stretched thin and can only check so many things, so ultimately, if people are cutting corners, most of the time inspectors will not catch them.
2) Operations taking short cuts to be able to meet demand that are figuring out ways to bypass something they shouldn't bypass to run anyway and they they are no longer protected.
3) People not following the procedures listed above and then things break and don't get repaired, changes made that are not documented, safety critical interlocks being modified so they no longer offer the protection that should.
If the procedures are followed properly and things documented, then the properly designed safety systems stay in place and these kinds of things can't happen. Yes there are problems with excess alarms in place and alarms getting ignored, but nuisance alarms are not the things that really matter for safety. What really matters are the interlocks where systems realize there is an issue and shut themselves down to protect the equipment and personnel. Alarms inform operators that something is not in the right range and they should look at it before it affects production. Interlocks (which have alarms with them as well) are the things that are the final protection level and the system reacts on it's own, equipment goes to fail safe mode and you are not running anymore.
I have heard in news sources of the BP spill and many other industrial accidents (check www.csb.org if interested in find out about chemical plant issues that have been investigated) and in most cases where there are issues with systems that were designed properly to begin with, like what omglolbah was stating, that the system is safe and these kind of things can't happen. It is when proper procedures are not followed and improper changes are made that we get BP and accidents happening.
So proper enforcement and inspections will only do some much, but have to be in place to make sure everyone is doing their do dilagence to stop these kinds of things from happening.
Don't mess around with that DiHydrogen Monooxide (DHMO) stuff. It is nasty stuff and if they are finding that in these schools water supply, then they need to be going after that instead of WiFi, because we know that stuff is nasty. I can't even believe these Canadians would let their kids go to school that has Dihydrogren Monoxide in it. Apparently, the WiFi is the red herring to draw attention away from the real problems. If any of you doubt, check this out:
http://www.dhmo.org/
Did you know that inhaling a small amount of this stuff can lead to death! If you are exposed to solid DHMO it can cause significant skin damage that can even cause you to loose the exposed part of your body! They even found that almost even crazy dog attack that resulted in harm to a human or death was followed shortly after these dogs ingested DMHO! All of these facts about the affect of DMHO are absolutely and completely 100% true and the government is doing nothing about it and now these schools are going after WiFi while continuing to ignore the risks of DMHO!!!
Unbelievable! ;)
This can't end well. Two of the scientists transmitting the message were obviously the extra, you could tell by the red shirts. So we know that the Klingons will arrive, probably to hear the opera, be upset by the poor quality and terrible pronunciation and begin the slaughter, with these two scientists.
I for one welcome our new Klingon Overlords and am just glad the shirt I am wearing is blue!
Hold on, so are you saying that they have cable and high speed internet in the area around Chernobyl now!!! I think I might have to consider moving. Maybe my boss will let me tele-commute!
I generally really like to play the multi-player of games and endure through the issues you mentioned, which are all very good issues and at times will make me lot out of a server and look for another one. It is unfortunate, but I like playing the multi-player enough, and many of the games I play lend themselves to multi-player competition, so I endure it. There are nights I just am not mentally up to it and just play a solo game on my PC.
I felt like telling a story about this and it related to A), so bear with me. I was playing Mechwarrior mercenaries and logged into a server that was active. It had the last spot open up and there was only 30 seconds left in the game, but I wanted in the next one. I logged into the server and 20 seconds later (before I even got into battle), the game ended and we all ended up out in the chat room while the server reset.
As soon as we ended up in the chat room, someone started cussing me out for gimping him and being dishonorable. In mechwarrior, you could rip a mechs arms off and then destroy one leg and he was left with almost no weapons and could barely move, but was still alive. Many people got into being an "honorable pilot" and this was just disgraceful that you would do this and not finish them off. Pilots could self destruct, but that was a negative points for the battle. I didn't gimp people because I liked to get the kill, so I would just center torso them as much as I could until they were dead.
I explained I just got in the last 20 seconds of the battle and he had the wrong person. He just kept cussing me out saying I was lying. Finally when it was time to jump on teams, I went opposite him intentionally. As soon as it started, in team chat I told them, the guy was nuts and I didn't do it and I was go after him for being such a jerk. Many laughed and said he deserved it and to get him.
I was VERY good at that game and so found him on radar, I went radar silent, came up behind him and ripped off both arms and a leg and then turned on my radar and sat there behind him. Gimped you can't turn fast so he would try and turn and I would move so he never got a shot off. He would self destruct and then I waited for him to spawn, saw where he was and then go radar quiet, sneak in again on him and do the same thing. Did it to him about 4 times and he proceeded to go nuts in chat and then finally logged off!
I was dying and my team was cheering me on because he was an total idiot! Just something you have to endure at times and if you can and still enjoy the game, ot be better then the idiots and go after them, the game can be fun.
1. Create a Website with ads per view of the site
2. Post a slashdot article talking about website design and how it is different in some local/culture, etc. and link to your websites as references.
3. Profit!!!
A reason not to use salt is what happens to it when it solidifies. We use reactors at the place I work that have liquid salt beds for heat exchange. They work great as long as we keep them hot and uniform temperature. If you get cold spots or if the overall temperature drops, the salt solidifies and you end up with a rock of salt in the reactor. To restart from the vessel cooling off takes days. With the salt so hot, if our heat source goes away, the salt cools fast so for a short upset (some as little as 15 minutes) can result in a 3 day outage. So salt has some great properties for heat exchange, but has some fun problems. I am sure they will have thought of this and have designed that with this in mind though.
Many good points. In my last job, my first raise was so low as to be insulting, and I told my boss at the evaluation. A few months later, I was ready to quit and told my boss, correct my wage or I am gone. He gave me a bump and promise of a larger bump at raise time. the larger bump was not what he promised so 3 months later, I had a job offer and was ready to quit, and I got an even larger bump with a promotion and new bonus structure to stay on. 8 months later, the new bonus plan turned out to be bogus and my $10K-12K promised bonus turned out to be $96. 4 months later, I was gone to a new job. Lessons learned: If you are going to try and negotiate a new wage/bump, you have to have a job offer in hand because it is a go for broke type scenario. If you do not have an alternative (which I did everytime I spoke to them) you will not really be able to negotiated it properly because most places will "call your bluff". Some places will fire you afterwards or you will become unhappy and get yourself fired. Also, if you are unhappy for some reason and not being valued by your company, chance are you never will be. After 4 years with the company and arguing and being promoted, sunshine blown up my dark nether regions repeatedly, in the end they never really appreciated the work I did and compensated me appropriately for it. Finally, there have been studies (sorry, been too long since I read them and can't find them) that show that a large percentage (70%+) of people who get into this negotiating war with a company end up leaving in a year anyway after they get the higher wage. If your company is not valuing you, be prepared to leave when you ask the question. If you are bluffing, you will probably loose and because you have to ask the question, you will more then likely ultimately leave shortly after given the raise or not.