It is difficult to determine, from the sample pages at Amazon, how advanced this book gets. I'm looking for a book that covers SQL 92 joins. Particularly the nuances of outer joins, exists statements and the like. We need a good SQL reference in the office that will show newbies the SQL92 way.
I have a CS degree and 10 years of experience; as do most of my peers. This downturn, in addition to the structural interference with the market by the government (H1B) is definitely having a non-trivial impact on the job market; people are unemployed longer than they would be and they are getting less money when employed.
The snarky kids at slashdot are in for a rude awakening one of these days. Believe me; I know a lot of ex-"only bad programmers can't find work" believers.
I, as another 10 year vet of the IT boom & bust, will continue to whore myself out for programmer money; that is, until the pay scale falls to that of other, more appealing industries. Or until I hit the friggin lottery.
The boom times may be over, but they're more 'over' for the folks that entered technology for the money. The kids that switched majors or took a couple courses at a tech school in order to get a lucrative programming job are in trouble. But the folks that can actually think for themselves & communicate ideas effectively are not going to have as much trouble staying employed.
In the late 90's, anybody that claimed to have passed a VB, HTML or Java class (ha!) could find work without having to proove anything. As the job market tightens, the incompetent folks are getting laid off. Go figure. But the folks that know what they're doing & actually add value to a business continue to work.
Where I work, now and for other employers over the past 10 years, we've been doing custom software devlopment in a fast paced, dynamic environment. I've worked on multi-national teams that have had minor communication issues when we're all in the same office. No way did we have the time to write detailed specs that we could send off to another part of the world & expect to get perfect code back that just 'plugs in'. Our developers have needed the ability to communicate with one another on an ad hoc basis. This at all phases of the project - design, unit test, integration, production support. Some folks call it XP, some bad planning / project management. But the fact is that this kind of development is going to continue & the people hiring for these positions are going to have their pick of the cream of the crop. For those of us working in the field we're going to have to get used to the fact that most folks' salaries don't jump 10 to 20% a year.
Considering people scan the net for vulnerable FTP servers, I wouldn't be surprised if many of those boxes are rooted right now. Probably running an IRC bot or running attacks on other hosts.
Dude, you can live your life in fear, or you can educate yourself about the actual risks and live your life accordingly. Did your Guamanian friend witness one swimmer after another getting chomped by the black shadow? Despite the fears that movies like Jaws create in people (me included), the reality of the situation is you're more likely to get killed driving / walking / biking to the beach than you are of getting consumed by some mysterious denizen of the deep.
Fears taken to the logical conclusion would result in nobody leaving home. Or possibly moving to the most lightning / storm / earthquake / flood / tsunami free piece of land we could find, building a big brick shithouse & never moving. Not even into the bathtub for a shower, because we all know how dangerous those can be. I looked briefly for a clever link illustrating this point, but don't have the time to follow through right now. Just take my word for it. Lock yourself in, its a dangerous world out there!
IANARS, but just look at the problem: to keep a solar-powered airplane flying for 4 days. Given this, I can see why the engineers would have tried to pare this thing down to the bone. Each extra gram (or ounce, pick your units) matters. You are at the absolute edge of the performance figures for each of the components. The slightest flaw can break things (as it obviously did).
You are exactly correct. Back when they were working on Daedalus, the mantra was, "If its never broken, its not light enough; if it breaks too often its too light." Basic background available here.
I think that US states like California and Florida need to investigate energy strategies like this as soon as possible. With all these recent improvements with Solar, Wind, and now Tidal energy sources, I'm amazed that the US isn't doing more to utilize them.
As other posts have noted, the NIMBY is one problem. If you ask me, the real problem is the assumption that power needs to come from large, centralized facilities run by big companies. So we end up with huge, multi-million to billion dollar projects like building new nuke plants, giant wind farms, immense dams, etc. This results in more eyesores in the form of transmission lines.
These are the plans that government & traditional power companies are accustomed to. There are no incentives to change their business model, so we don't see new ideas like smaller, local power generation. There was an article a couple months ago (sorry, too lazy to search) about a farmer that generates his own power by capturing the gasses emitted by his animals. What a brilliant thought! Methane emissions from feed lots are a huge issue in some communities. Here's a guy who's solving all sorts of problems by capturing the stuff: generates his own power, which means he's not buying 'dirty' power from someone else; eliminates the feedlot smell; stops emitting a greenhouse gas. But somehow thats not enough of an incentive for a company to pick up the idea & sell it. They can't figure out how to make money. The new business model in our increasingly service-based economy is generate revenue through subscriptions - you need repeat customers, not one-time customers. So if you sell a guy a system that will help him generate his own power, you've eliminated him as a customer. But when you make the power & sell it to him every month, you have a long-term revenue stream. Pretty simple, actually. Do I really have to use the MS example?
So, to get better ideas, we need better incentives. The politicians aren't going to provide them, because they're already disincented by the existing big companies to keep the status quo. So its unlikely to happen until enough people get pissed off at the status quo to change the politicians, and get them to do something before they're sucked into the lobbying / fundraising / status quo lifestyle.
Not that I'm cynical or anything.
Re:This may be true for some, but it's not for me
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Robots Without a Cause
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· Score: 0
Just because the author seems to believe all robots fall under the classification of useless gadgets doesn't mean the rest of us see them that way. This articles strikes of the typical attitude that non-technically-inclined people get when they see us geeks fiddling with robots.
The truth is, with the generation of people in their late teens and twenties, robots will be not only commonplace, but expected. We've grown up with the first wave of robot companions (Furby!) and it will be far from out of the ordinary for us to expect our vaccuuming to be done by AI.
Not everyone is ignorant enough to excuse robots as mere toys, their application will grow infinitely in the coming years and they will be all the more transparent in our day-to-day lives. Right now we're afflicted with a overflow of gimmick bots that give people the impression all they're only good for entertainment, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Just wait 10 years and see.
Interesting. I read the title as implying that WE are the Robots without a Cause. And could not agree more. All these gadgets are doing what, exactly, to improve our lives? I can buy robot vacuums, lawn mowers & pool cleaners. Which give me more time to do what, watch all the crap I've had Tevo save for me?
My cynical opinion - apparently not far from the author's - is that folks in the West in general (I'd say the US in particular) tend to be nothing more than consumers. How many of us are adding value to the world?
The culture of consumerism is feeding the invention of more useless crap. It is the exception, rather than the rule, that anyone go out and truly innovate. Some might argue that a guy like Carmack (sp?) is doing so with armadillo aerospace, but such folks are few & far between.
Meanwhile, we're coming up on the 100th anniversary of 2 brothers who, obsessed with their crackpot scheme to fly a heavier than air vehicle, finally succeeded. Trial & error, truly innovative thinking, obsession for knowledge & the discipline to not give up. Truly amazing. Who's next?
The traveller needs to decide what his/her priorities are. Personally, in my experience, which includes 6 months of backpacking the Appalachian Trail in the US in 1999 and 5 months travelling overseas in 2000 (Asia, OZ, NZ), film is the way to go. The way I travel, the less shite I carry, the happier I am. With an SLR with one 50mm lens I didn't have to worry about batteries, or power adapters or even the value of the camera. When you start humping around a new digital camera, plus battery chargers, cd burners, laptops and the like, you're spending more time guarding, packing and unpacking that crap than you do enjoying the trip.
Internet cafes are shockingly ubiquitous in other parts of the world (easily more prevalent than in the US). But I wouldn't want to rely on them to upload my photos to home; how much time do you want to spend waiting on a 28k shared connection while it tries to send a couple megs of photos home? Yeah, there's a risk to sending film home. But I didn't lose any, whether shipped home from Podunk, Tennessee or Northern Thailand. When overseas, I usually developed the film locally & shipped the prints home. Negatives are pretty small & light & easy to carry in a backpack.
The camera itself is one I bought used for a girlfriend about 10 years ago for something like $200. She later bought a better one for herself & left this one behind when moving out. Takes great pics & for a reasonable price can be replaced on the road if it gets lost or broken. I can't imagine taking a brand new $1400 digicam as one poster recommended. a) thats a huge portion of most folks travel budgets and b) if you lose it, you're potentially in a hard spot; obliged to buy another unit that works with the storage media you've invested so much money in. Or start over with another media family. 35mm film is available everywhere, doesn't require much for a battery and takes a pretty decent picture. So thats what I'll keep using.
For what its worth, I do have a digital, that cost me over twice as much as my SLR, plus batteries & charger & storage media. It works great as a point-and-shoot camera. But for travelling, I don't trust its reliability or durability. If I scratch the SLR lens, I can replace it for as little as $30, though I'd prolly spend more like $60 for something at least half way decent. On a digital camera, what's it going to cost to fix that? They're certainly cool & serve a purpose, I just think a person talking about such an extended trip ought to consider all the ramifications of their decision.
To summarize:
value - how worried are you about losing/ breaking?
reliability - is it robust? easy to fix in other parts of the world?
There're other factors worth considering too, posted by other folks. This isn't an issue where one solution is perfect for everyone; do what you want. I know what works for me.
Maybe its not the greatest thing ever (I don't know, never seen one in person), but for a brand new product that is not a ripoff I think its doing pretty well. How great was MacOs 1.0 compared to OSX? Not very good at all, but its a starting point, the initial idea is out there, and basically it works. Now its time to expand and make it better.
What I'm wondering, is what its a segway to. From merriam webster:
Main Entry: 2segue
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): seÂgued; seÂgueÂing
Date: circa 1913
1 : to proceed without pause from one musical number or theme to another
2 : to make a transition without interruption from one activity, topic, scene, or part to another
Ok, its at the end when cringley changes topics to AOL, but I love this quote:
"AOL's increasingly shabby treatment of people like me is one of the reasons their results are in a tailspin," said my friend.ï½ "And as they auger in, I'll be rooting for the ground."
I'm right there with you man. Where do I get the T-shirt?
Solving the privacy issue / trust with government is possibly the largest hurdle. Certainly the cynical side of me is rather leery of a gov't installed GPS in my vehicle(s). However the cheapskate in me kindof likes the idea too. For instance, when I take my Jeep offroad, I shouldn't be paying a road tax on the fuel that I burn, as I'm not using the roads. Or if they want to dedicate those funds to the Dept of Natural Resources, thats cool too.
One key point, to me anyway, that the article - and possibly the task force - missed is the importance of taxing the gross abusers more. By gross abusers I mean the folks that do the most damage to the roads. So the tax algorithm should consider gross vehicle weight when calculating the tax due. For instance, my motorcycle consumes just about nothing of a roads lifespan. But an 80,000 pound big rig does tons of damage.
All of which brings up other points. If I fill up a can of gas, how do they tax me? It might go in the lawnmower, a motorcycle or the charcoal grill. If I drive the pickup to the gas station, do they tax me at the pickup rate? What about if I walk?
Certainly not insurmountable problems, and the whole scheme seems to move towards a user fee schedule rather than a blanket tax independant of actual road use. It'll be interesting to see how far the idea gets.
I have always wondered whether aero or car designers would mimic the effects of the golf ball pock marks to get some extra efficiency. It seems that having random dips in the skin of the ball gives the drive substantial extra yards. If that were the case, would it not make sense for cars and planes to have them too? What about boats? Would it prove too costly to have this done to the skin (though I can't think why (unless it was truly random;)). In the case of the plane flying through the storm, I would have thought the marks would have been truly random. Did the plane exhibit any increased efficiency upon leaving the storm?
Not sure if you're looking for a laugh with that one or not... But, the important difference between golf balls & cars/airplanes is that golf balls are rotating. I am not exactly certain of the effect the dimples have on a golf ball, but such surface imperfections typically add to drag on objects moving through the air.
Having said that, engineers do play aerodynamic games with add-ons like vortex generators. Next time you're sitting over the wing, take a look out there, you'll likely see a bunch of little sails or winglets in one or more rows, angled in alternating directions a few degrees out of line of the slipstream. These generate little vortexes (something akin to a horizontal tornado) that help the effectiveness of the flight controls.
Suffice it to say; if dimples would help, they'd be out there.
Having had the pleasure of seeing Mr Rutan speak on several occasions, it is my opinion that his primary motivation is not profit. The man has a passion for areonautical / aerospace engineering that goes beyond making a buck. Sometime in the mid-90's he presented the idea of the X-Prize, based on the Orteig prize that inspired Lindberg. I paraphrase, but the idea is something like this: people will spend ten times the value of the prize solely in order to win the prize. Orteig demonstrated this in the 1920's, and the X-Prize is doing it again now. People with the resources to do this aren't worried about the 10 mil. And even if they were, the value of the prize is nearly inconsequential compared to the value of being the first non-government entity to put a reusable vehicle into space.
Computer science is difficult. Mathematics are difficult. But we can't keep hiding math from computer science students. Math is inherent and necessary and sufficient for good application programs. Removing math from the computer science curriculum is akin to removing the seatbelts from one's car. The car may still appear to work, but deep down, it's inherently flawed.
Let's save the field of computer science for generations to come. Stop affirmative action. Hire the best man for the job. And for God's sake, make mathematics and security a top priority.
The ironic thing about his post is that people from the subcontinent of India seem to have better 'math minds' than most white men.
I will say, if you remove "Stop affirmative action" and view 'man' as a gender-neutral pronoun (which it is), he makes some good points.
Cars represent individualism. I can hop in my car and drive pretty much wherever I want, whenever I want. It offers me great individual mobility. Much moreso than the ever-so-overhyped Segway(tm).
Leftists hate individualism. They think people should be represented by their group, not by their own selves. They think people should be dependent on the government, not dependent on themselves. Individualism stands in the way of their big truth that all humans must embrace (or go to the gulag, as it always turns out in practice).
Hence, Leftists hate cars.
You define yourself and your individualism by the car you drive? Or is it just the act of owning one that does it?
Personally, my image of myself & my place on the world is pretty unrelated to the vehicles I drive.
The vehicles I own are not very fuel efficient, but each one serves a purpose for me, so I keep them. Does that mean that I shouldn't have the option to ride mass transit to work? Am I a leftist because I'd rather ride the bus & read than drive my own vehicle and pay for parking? At least thats what I'd do if the bus ran on a schedule more convenient for me. I didn't realize that my distaste for traffic jams meant that I was such a socialist.
And if you think internal combustion engines are not harmful to the environment, would you be willing to start one up in a small garage & sit in there with it? My guess is that you would not.
Me? I'll come right out and admit where I am. I am a Big R Republican. I was a little l libertarian, and was actually about to make the leap into big L Libertarian party politics. Then, I decided that Big R is closer to "l" than Big D. A vote for a big "L" was a vote for a big "D". Just as a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. I decided, I have to choose a side.
The problem with the US electorate is that the majority thinks that way. By 'that way' I mean the thought that there are only 2 options on the ballot. Oddly enough, the folks that have the most influence over that opinion are the Clear Channels of the world. As long as the Big Ds and Big Rs are in power, the system isn't going to change. So the media conglomerates downplay the chances that 3rd party candidates have and describe those votes as 'wasted votes' or effectively as a vote for the opposition.
If the electorate would instead bother to educate themselves a little bit about the wide variety of options available and then vote their conscience, there would be a chance to unseat some of these morons that are in office now (by 'now' I mean most folks at the federal level for the past 2 decades or more).
People that continue to believe that it can't happen should refer back to the 1998 election of the Minnesota governor. Most people thought a 3rd party candidate couldn't win the office, but Ventura did. It doesn't happen more often because the people in control now don't want to see any drastic change in the system. New ideas aren't welcome. The so-called liberal media - controlled by multinational conglomerates - doesn't want to see it change either.
MoveOn has a page [moveon.org] where you can send a letter to your members of Congress and add your name to a petition to stop the June 2nd decision.
No doubt. Keep in mind that picking up the phone is a much more effective way to communicate to your elected representatives. Congrespeople get hundreds to thousands of emails and electronic petitions on a wide variety of subjects. Picking up the phone requires a little more effort. Less people do it so they give more weight to the people that bother. Writing an actual letter (gasp!) is even more effective - so few people bother these days that it really stands out when they're trying to figure out what their constituents want. And yes, if enough people do bother to call or write they do begin to give a damn about what their constituents want.
A couple letter / phone tips: keep it short and sweet. Stick to one issue per communication. Tell them your name & where you live (living in their district adds weight to your opinion). If you voted for them, tell them.
I didn't see any mention in the article regarding the replacement of jet / turbofan engines with fuel cells. Certainly not in the near term; keep in mind that jet technology has been under development for over 60 years. Fuel cells may eventually replace currently conventional petroleum powered engines, but the article referred more to replacing battery systems and APU (alt power units) with fuel cell technology. The new technology is simpler to operate (important for reliability's sake), and often lighter than battery or APU systems.
What I don't understand is that when the government wants to collect data on gun owners, conservatives unite & claim constitutional rights to arms, infringement of privacy and the like and shut the measures down. But when the government wants to collect unspecified data on potentially anybody in the US, conservatives jump on the patriotism bandwagon.
If a group were interested in stopping this legislation, a step in the right direction might be getting the conservative movement to understand that citizens' rights, including those to keep and bear arms, are at risk.
Re:This answered a lot of questions for me...
on
Microsoft Caste System
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· Score: 2, Funny
I've been in software development for 10 years, 5 of those as a consultant / contractor. I can't remember one client that treated contractors like regular employees. On assignment at IBM, I had a different colored badge than employees, a non-employee email & had to share an office. But nobody's writing articles about what bastards they are over at Big Blue treating contractors like 2nd class citizens. Nobody's questioning the impact of this behavior on their business success. Though, gee, maybe thats why they're not on top anymore. It must then be inevitable that the mighty Microsoft will fall for the same reason right? Give me a phucking break. I don't much care for their software or business practices either, but the gratuitous Microsoft bashing does get old. If the contractors don't like their little orange badges, trade 'em in & get a job at Starbucks. Maybe green will be a better color for them.
It has to do with using technical tools to solve real world problems. I found that Mr Ball had some interesting comments on how they analyze the data they collect. Yes, a little light on the details, but enough to give a person some ideas.
The name of the EZ rocket was likely borrowed from the name of the aircraft in which the motor was installed. Long EZ. Big brother to the Vari EZ. Both designed by a man named Burt Rutan, also known for designing a little plane called the Voyager. Flew the longest closed circuit un-refueled flight a few years back (that'd be Edwards AFB -> Edwards AFB, the Long way around).
In other news, I was able to see a test-firing of the alcohol version of the rocket a couple years ago. Very cool stuff. The demonstrated the hot restart, which I believe is one of the more innovative aspects of the Xcor design. That thing is friggin loud though, even with the ears plugged. While it was only a small version, there's nothing quite like standing 10 feet away from a rocket during a test firing.
Slashdot Mirror
It is difficult to determine, from the sample pages at Amazon, how advanced this book gets. I'm looking for a book that covers SQL 92 joins. Particularly the nuances of outer joins, exists statements and the like. We need a good SQL reference in the office that will show newbies the SQL92 way.
Anyone know of such a text?
Thats just Oracle, baby. Not ANSI standard SQL.
I, as another 10 year vet of the IT boom & bust, will continue to whore myself out for programmer money; that is, until the pay scale falls to that of other, more appealing industries. Or until I hit the friggin lottery.
The boom times may be over, but they're more 'over' for the folks that entered technology for the money. The kids that switched majors or took a couple courses at a tech school in order to get a lucrative programming job are in trouble. But the folks that can actually think for themselves & communicate ideas effectively are not going to have as much trouble staying employed.
In the late 90's, anybody that claimed to have passed a VB, HTML or Java class (ha!) could find work without having to proove anything. As the job market tightens, the incompetent folks are getting laid off. Go figure. But the folks that know what they're doing & actually add value to a business continue to work.
Where I work, now and for other employers over the past 10 years, we've been doing custom software devlopment in a fast paced, dynamic environment. I've worked on multi-national teams that have had minor communication issues when we're all in the same office. No way did we have the time to write detailed specs that we could send off to another part of the world & expect to get perfect code back that just 'plugs in'. Our developers have needed the ability to communicate with one another on an ad hoc basis. This at all phases of the project - design, unit test, integration, production support. Some folks call it XP, some bad planning / project management. But the fact is that this kind of development is going to continue & the people hiring for these positions are going to have their pick of the cream of the crop. For those of us working in the field we're going to have to get used to the fact that most folks' salaries don't jump 10 to 20% a year.
No doubt. In all likelihood, they're being used to send pr0n spam.
Dude, you can live your life in fear, or you can educate yourself about the actual risks and live your life accordingly. Did your Guamanian friend witness one swimmer after another getting chomped by the black shadow? Despite the fears that movies like Jaws create in people (me included), the reality of the situation is you're more likely to get killed driving / walking / biking to the beach than you are of getting consumed by some mysterious denizen of the deep.
Fears taken to the logical conclusion would result in nobody leaving home. Or possibly moving to the most lightning / storm / earthquake / flood / tsunami free piece of land we could find, building a big brick shithouse & never moving. Not even into the bathtub for a shower, because we all know how dangerous those can be. I looked briefly for a clever link illustrating this point, but don't have the time to follow through right now. Just take my word for it. Lock yourself in, its a dangerous world out there!
So, anyone know if this has been resolved yet? After all, the letters are dated February and April of 2002.
You are exactly correct. Back when they were working on Daedalus, the mantra was, "If its never broken, its not light enough; if it breaks too often its too light." Basic background available here.
As other posts have noted, the NIMBY is one problem. If you ask me, the real problem is the assumption that power needs to come from large, centralized facilities run by big companies. So we end up with huge, multi-million to billion dollar projects like building new nuke plants, giant wind farms, immense dams, etc. This results in more eyesores in the form of transmission lines.
These are the plans that government & traditional power companies are accustomed to. There are no incentives to change their business model, so we don't see new ideas like smaller, local power generation. There was an article a couple months ago (sorry, too lazy to search) about a farmer that generates his own power by capturing the gasses emitted by his animals. What a brilliant thought! Methane emissions from feed lots are a huge issue in some communities. Here's a guy who's solving all sorts of problems by capturing the stuff: generates his own power, which means he's not buying 'dirty' power from someone else; eliminates the feedlot smell; stops emitting a greenhouse gas. But somehow thats not enough of an incentive for a company to pick up the idea & sell it. They can't figure out how to make money. The new business model in our increasingly service-based economy is generate revenue through subscriptions - you need repeat customers, not one-time customers. So if you sell a guy a system that will help him generate his own power, you've eliminated him as a customer. But when you make the power & sell it to him every month, you have a long-term revenue stream. Pretty simple, actually. Do I really have to use the MS example?
So, to get better ideas, we need better incentives. The politicians aren't going to provide them, because they're already disincented by the existing big companies to keep the status quo. So its unlikely to happen until enough people get pissed off at the status quo to change the politicians, and get them to do something before they're sucked into the lobbying / fundraising / status quo lifestyle.
Not that I'm cynical or anything.
Interesting. I read the title as implying that WE are the Robots without a Cause. And could not agree more. All these gadgets are doing what, exactly, to improve our lives? I can buy robot vacuums, lawn mowers & pool cleaners. Which give me more time to do what, watch all the crap I've had Tevo save for me?
My cynical opinion - apparently not far from the author's - is that folks in the West in general (I'd say the US in particular) tend to be nothing more than consumers. How many of us are adding value to the world?
The culture of consumerism is feeding the invention of more useless crap. It is the exception, rather than the rule, that anyone go out and truly innovate. Some might argue that a guy like Carmack (sp?) is doing so with armadillo aerospace, but such folks are few & far between.
Meanwhile, we're coming up on the 100th anniversary of 2 brothers who, obsessed with their crackpot scheme to fly a heavier than air vehicle, finally succeeded. Trial & error, truly innovative thinking, obsession for knowledge & the discipline to not give up. Truly amazing. Who's next?
The traveller needs to decide what his/her priorities are. Personally, in my experience, which includes 6 months of backpacking the Appalachian Trail in the US in 1999 and 5 months travelling overseas in 2000 (Asia, OZ, NZ), film is the way to go. The way I travel, the less shite I carry, the happier I am. With an SLR with one 50mm lens I didn't have to worry about batteries, or power adapters or even the value of the camera. When you start humping around a new digital camera, plus battery chargers, cd burners, laptops and the like, you're spending more time guarding, packing and unpacking that crap than you do enjoying the trip.
Internet cafes are shockingly ubiquitous in other parts of the world (easily more prevalent than in the US). But I wouldn't want to rely on them to upload my photos to home; how much time do you want to spend waiting on a 28k shared connection while it tries to send a couple megs of photos home? Yeah, there's a risk to sending film home. But I didn't lose any, whether shipped home from Podunk, Tennessee or Northern Thailand. When overseas, I usually developed the film locally & shipped the prints home. Negatives are pretty small & light & easy to carry in a backpack.
The camera itself is one I bought used for a girlfriend about 10 years ago for something like $200. She later bought a better one for herself & left this one behind when moving out. Takes great pics & for a reasonable price can be replaced on the road if it gets lost or broken. I can't imagine taking a brand new $1400 digicam as one poster recommended. a) thats a huge portion of most folks travel budgets and b) if you lose it, you're potentially in a hard spot; obliged to buy another unit that works with the storage media you've invested so much money in. Or start over with another media family. 35mm film is available everywhere, doesn't require much for a battery and takes a pretty decent picture. So thats what I'll keep using.
For what its worth, I do have a digital, that cost me over twice as much as my SLR, plus batteries & charger & storage media. It works great as a point-and-shoot camera. But for travelling, I don't trust its reliability or durability. If I scratch the SLR lens, I can replace it for as little as $30, though I'd prolly spend more like $60 for something at least half way decent. On a digital camera, what's it going to cost to fix that? They're certainly cool & serve a purpose, I just think a person talking about such an extended trip ought to consider all the ramifications of their decision.
To summarize:
There're other factors worth considering too, posted by other folks. This isn't an issue where one solution is perfect for everyone; do what you want. I know what works for me.
What I'm wondering, is what its a segway to. From merriam webster:
Main Entry: 2segue
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): seÂgued; seÂgueÂing
Date: circa 1913
1 : to proceed without pause from one musical number or theme to another
2 : to make a transition without interruption from one activity, topic, scene, or part to another
Ok, its at the end when cringley changes topics to AOL, but I love this quote:
I'm right there with you man. Where do I get the T-shirt?
Solving the privacy issue / trust with government is possibly the largest hurdle. Certainly the cynical side of me is rather leery of a gov't installed GPS in my vehicle(s). However the cheapskate in me kindof likes the idea too. For instance, when I take my Jeep offroad, I shouldn't be paying a road tax on the fuel that I burn, as I'm not using the roads. Or if they want to dedicate those funds to the Dept of Natural Resources, thats cool too.
One key point, to me anyway, that the article - and possibly the task force - missed is the importance of taxing the gross abusers more. By gross abusers I mean the folks that do the most damage to the roads. So the tax algorithm should consider gross vehicle weight when calculating the tax due. For instance, my motorcycle consumes just about nothing of a roads lifespan. But an 80,000 pound big rig does tons of damage.
All of which brings up other points. If I fill up a can of gas, how do they tax me? It might go in the lawnmower, a motorcycle or the charcoal grill. If I drive the pickup to the gas station, do they tax me at the pickup rate? What about if I walk?
Certainly not insurmountable problems, and the whole scheme seems to move towards a user fee schedule rather than a blanket tax independant of actual road use. It'll be interesting to see how far the idea gets.
Not sure if you're looking for a laugh with that one or not... But, the important difference between golf balls & cars/airplanes is that golf balls are rotating. I am not exactly certain of the effect the dimples have on a golf ball, but such surface imperfections typically add to drag on objects moving through the air.
Having said that, engineers do play aerodynamic games with add-ons like vortex generators. Next time you're sitting over the wing, take a look out there, you'll likely see a bunch of little sails or winglets in one or more rows, angled in alternating directions a few degrees out of line of the slipstream. These generate little vortexes (something akin to a horizontal tornado) that help the effectiveness of the flight controls.
Suffice it to say; if dimples would help, they'd be out there.
Having had the pleasure of seeing Mr Rutan speak on several occasions, it is my opinion that his primary motivation is not profit. The man has a passion for areonautical / aerospace engineering that goes beyond making a buck. Sometime in the mid-90's he presented the idea of the X-Prize, based on the Orteig prize that inspired Lindberg. I paraphrase, but the idea is something like this: people will spend ten times the value of the prize solely in order to win the prize. Orteig demonstrated this in the 1920's, and the X-Prize is doing it again now. People with the resources to do this aren't worried about the 10 mil. And even if they were, the value of the prize is nearly inconsequential compared to the value of being the first non-government entity to put a reusable vehicle into space.
The ironic thing about his post is that people from the subcontinent of India seem to have better 'math minds' than most white men.
I will say, if you remove "Stop affirmative action" and view 'man' as a gender-neutral pronoun (which it is), he makes some good points.
You define yourself and your individualism by the car you drive? Or is it just the act of owning one that does it?
Personally, my image of myself & my place on the world is pretty unrelated to the vehicles I drive.
The vehicles I own are not very fuel efficient, but each one serves a purpose for me, so I keep them. Does that mean that I shouldn't have the option to ride mass transit to work? Am I a leftist because I'd rather ride the bus & read than drive my own vehicle and pay for parking? At least thats what I'd do if the bus ran on a schedule more convenient for me. I didn't realize that my distaste for traffic jams meant that I was such a socialist.
And if you think internal combustion engines are not harmful to the environment, would you be willing to start one up in a small garage & sit in there with it? My guess is that you would not.
The problem with the US electorate is that the majority thinks that way. By 'that way' I mean the thought that there are only 2 options on the ballot. Oddly enough, the folks that have the most influence over that opinion are the Clear Channels of the world. As long as the Big Ds and Big Rs are in power, the system isn't going to change. So the media conglomerates downplay the chances that 3rd party candidates have and describe those votes as 'wasted votes' or effectively as a vote for the opposition.
If the electorate would instead bother to educate themselves a little bit about the wide variety of options available and then vote their conscience, there would be a chance to unseat some of these morons that are in office now (by 'now' I mean most folks at the federal level for the past 2 decades or more).
People that continue to believe that it can't happen should refer back to the 1998 election of the Minnesota governor. Most people thought a 3rd party candidate couldn't win the office, but Ventura did. It doesn't happen more often because the people in control now don't want to see any drastic change in the system. New ideas aren't welcome. The so-called liberal media - controlled by multinational conglomerates - doesn't want to see it change either.
No doubt. Keep in mind that picking up the phone is a much more effective way to communicate to your elected representatives. Congrespeople get hundreds to thousands of emails and electronic petitions on a wide variety of subjects. Picking up the phone requires a little more effort. Less people do it so they give more weight to the people that bother. Writing an actual letter (gasp!) is even more effective - so few people bother these days that it really stands out when they're trying to figure out what their constituents want. And yes, if enough people do bother to call or write they do begin to give a damn about what their constituents want.
A couple letter / phone tips: keep it short and sweet. Stick to one issue per communication. Tell them your name & where you live (living in their district adds weight to your opinion). If you voted for them, tell them.
I didn't see any mention in the article regarding the replacement of jet / turbofan engines with fuel cells. Certainly not in the near term; keep in mind that jet technology has been under development for over 60 years. Fuel cells may eventually replace currently conventional petroleum powered engines, but the article referred more to replacing battery systems and APU (alt power units) with fuel cell technology. The new technology is simpler to operate (important for reliability's sake), and often lighter than battery or APU systems.
What I don't understand is that when the government wants to collect data on gun owners, conservatives unite & claim constitutional rights to arms, infringement of privacy and the like and shut the measures down. But when the government wants to collect unspecified data on potentially anybody in the US, conservatives jump on the patriotism bandwagon.
If a group were interested in stopping this legislation, a step in the right direction might be getting the conservative movement to understand that citizens' rights, including those to keep and bear arms, are at risk.
I've been in software development for 10 years, 5 of those as a consultant / contractor. I can't remember one client that treated contractors like regular employees. On assignment at IBM, I had a different colored badge than employees, a non-employee email & had to share an office. But nobody's writing articles about what bastards they are over at Big Blue treating contractors like 2nd class citizens. Nobody's questioning the impact of this behavior on their business success. Though, gee, maybe thats why they're not on top anymore. It must then be inevitable that the mighty Microsoft will fall for the same reason right? Give me a phucking break. I don't much care for their software or business practices either, but the gratuitous Microsoft bashing does get old. If the contractors don't like their little orange badges, trade 'em in & get a job at Starbucks. Maybe green will be a better color for them.
It has to do with using technical tools to solve real world problems. I found that Mr Ball had some interesting comments on how they analyze the data they collect. Yes, a little light on the details, but enough to give a person some ideas.
The name of the EZ rocket was likely borrowed from the name of the aircraft in which the motor was installed. Long EZ. Big brother to the Vari EZ. Both designed by a man named Burt Rutan, also known for designing a little plane called the Voyager. Flew the longest closed circuit un-refueled flight a few years back (that'd be Edwards AFB -> Edwards AFB, the Long way around). In other news, I was able to see a test-firing of the alcohol version of the rocket a couple years ago. Very cool stuff. The demonstrated the hot restart, which I believe is one of the more innovative aspects of the Xcor design. That thing is friggin loud though, even with the ears plugged. While it was only a small version, there's nothing quite like standing 10 feet away from a rocket during a test firing.