I think you're absolutely right, about the value of manned space exploration, but I also think that right now NASA is dithering; they're not spending enough time and money on either the things that already work (e.g., Hubble) or on things that will only work if we put a ton of effort into them (e.g., a human return to the Moon, and then on to Mars.)
Imagine where things would be right now if they put even a miniscule portion of the money for the war on Iraq (currently almost $300 billion US) into NASA.
Not sure if there are any finance type folks here or people who deal with finance types, but because of Sarbanes-Oxley, it's important to have anything to do with financial transactions in some kind of auditable trail.
My job is at the management level and for reasons such as lawsuits, government checkups, Sarbanes Oxley, having the email trail is important (vs. "Yeah, I had a chat with Bob the Lawyer a few months ago and he said this..." - doesn't hold up very well in court or in a meeting with the executive team).
But back to my main reason for liking email: accountability. A number of decisions I make for the two departments I manage, I get guidance from my legal counsel so if anything goes wrong and I get asked by the executive team what happened and whether I did my due diligence, I can go back to my email trail and show them that I consulted legal, brought up certain issues with executives. My having this has covered my rear end time and time again. To the point where if I am being asked to make a decision on an issue, I want it in email so that everthing is laid out and if anything goes wrong, I am 100% covered.
That is just ridiculous. You are obviously not involved in the production of music at all. Do you know how much it costs to record? And I'm not talking about half-baked home demos on prosumer gear (even that's not as cheap as one would think). I'm talking about using vintage Neumann microphones, Neve preamps, Urei compressors, high end (ie. Apogee, Lavry) converters etc etc etc?
Contrary to popular belief, making a decent sounding recording still is expensive, not just in price but also in time. To expect someone to give it away for free is ridiculous.
Belanna Torres was also an engineer's engineer. All she wanted to do was take care of "MY engine room", engage in dangerous holodeck programs and snuggle with Tom Paris.
What you haven't realized is your hostility towards your sisters is a form of transferance. You are transferring your need to show your mother that you are a competent adult (and thus worthy of regard) onto your sisters, and projecting your own infantile dependency onto them. It is worth noting that while you must constantly demonstrate your expertise and competence in computers to them, they have no compulsion to retern the favor by offering you help in their area of expertise.
Give the guy a break. He's a computer whiz, his sisters are biologists. What practical use does he have for biologists? Maybe he should ask them to massage his prostate?? Sheesh.
What everyone is forgetting is the artist. In the case of a direct sale record house deal (ie. Columbia House, Sony-BMG direct), the artist gets reduced and in many cases, no royalties from these sales. I know there will be people that will say, "Well if the artist doesn't like that then don't sign." but: 1. Sounds good in theory to do that but when it hits the real world, this is not a workable solution 2. Recording companies are banking on the fact that if you don't sign, some other goofball more desperate and/or stupid will, which does not make for a true value for value exchange.
As a kid, it was indoctrinated into me that "pure math" is somehow superior to "applied math", as if abstractions were somehow superior to real life examples. And when it came to showing how math can be applied, it was reduced to the most boring examples imaginable. I can't remember how many times I had to do damn simultaneous equations involving trains or other vehicles, for example.
All it takes is a hip and creative teacher (probably as common as rocking horse sh-t) to make it relevant to today's youth.
ie. Two gangstas in a bling Escalade pick up your ho and are driving away from you at 85 mph. If you take 5 minutes to finish your last glass of Kristal and another 5 on a quick heroin deal before hoping into your even more bling Aston Martin at 120 mph to pop a cap in the n-ggas' and get your ho back, how long will it take before you've got your homies getting medival on the gangstas' asses while b-tchslapping the ho?
Microsoft charm is like a creepy nerdy guy (aka average Slashdotter) trying to charm a beautiful girl. The more he tries to put on the charm, he creepier he comes across.
Great stuff. From what I have read (more knowledgeable folks can chime in if I'm wrong), the biggest bottleneck these days in a personal computer is the hard drive. We have much faster processors, faster graphics cards, faster system bus, faster memory and the slowest part of a personal computer is the hard drive which compared to the other components of the system, might as well be a turtle racing a Ferrari. I noticed when I boot my Powerbook off the same OS image on my laptop (4200 rpm drive) compared to on my external Firewire 800 7200 RPM 8 MB cache drive, there's a massive difference in speed and responsiveness. Same computer, same OS image, only difference is the hard drive. Faster hard drives imo will relieve the greatest bottleneck.
I _also_ have an iMac G5 17" 256MB machine, and it has quickly developed some kind of problem that makes it VERY slow for browsing, connecting to iTunes, etc. I found and followed instructions on setting up BIND, but that didn't help. Apple's OS updater didn't magically fix it, so basically I have a gimped Mac that I use only for basic browsing while I'm playing games fullscreen on my fast PC. But hey, it sure looks good on the outside!
256 MB of RAM? OS X needs at least 512 MB to run minimally. If you go to the Terminal and do a "top", I'll bet you have tons of page in's and page out's as you're most likely running on virtual memory. Up your RAM to 1 GB and you'll notice a massive difference in speed.
8) Be realistic. Let's face it - at *least* 20% of my time is spent on shit like reading/. and other such stuff - let me do it without having to fear that I'm going to lose my job because I need a mental floss break. I'm going to do it anyway, so why not let me do it without stress? Even better - FAR BETTER - let me work on something that is blue-sky stuff for 20% of my time. One place I worked at actually bought me animation/3D design software to use and encouraged me to take up to a day a week to work on it - on their dime. It wound up coming back to them 10-fold: when they were updating their website, and needed a bunch of wireframes of various products to be created and converted to Flash, they had me on staff to do it, and saved a boatload of money not hiring an outside agency. I got to have fun and learn something new, and they made some money. Yay for everyone!
This one is especially important. I'm in research (ok, so it's not rocket science, it's market research, but on a management level) and I find that I need a LOT of time doing things that seem and most likely are completely unrelated (ie. surfing web sites, answering my emails, chatting) to the task at hand, to get me "there". However, you average my productivity out and by the end of the day I'm way ahead of someone else. I used to feel guilty about it, especially since North America is very "Protestant Work Ethic", but where I really learned that it was OK was in the music industry. I worked in the music industry and a lot of platinum selling songwriters, producers, artists, musicians, spend a good 80%+ of their time "goofing off". But when push comes to shove, they deliver. I remember a producer that currently has two records in the Billboard Top 10 told me that he can't play guitar or function until after 6 PM when he's had a good meal and he's feeling relaxed. Then he'll work until 6 AM like a madman. He tried forcing himself to work 9 to 5 (that's even less hours) but all he ended up with was two weeks of getting literally nothing done. We all have our natural rhythms and cycles of when we're most productive and for most of us, it's not 9 to 5.
People pin way too much on 9/11. Indeed, all of these trends were in place before the attack.
No they weren't. As said, I was offered a job in the US but I was already doing some work via telecommuting on contract for a US company. In order to be on the payroll I had to get an ITIN US tax number. Recently I spoke with someone who was having trouble because he couldn't get an ITIN number. To which I replied, that's easy, just go to the US Embassy, fill out a quick form and they'll rubber stamp it. To which he replied that they had to go through a massive number of data and checks and that it would take many months (if he's lucky) whereas I got mine same day in less than an hour. Also I qualified for a work visa as part of the NAFTA agreeement that I could get at the border. I got mine in advance. All I did was drive to Buffalo, answered a few questions and done, I was issued my work visa. I have recently discovered that this is no longer the case. When did all this that I spoke above change? Right after 9/11.
Another reason not to visit America.
When I was a kid I wanted nothing more than to emigrate to the US of A. At the moment, I don't even want to visit it as a tourist.
How things can change in less than a decade...
Right before 9/11, I was offered a job in the US, but it fell through (guess for what reason) and at the time, it was really difficult because I wanted to leave Canada for the US. Looking back now, the job not coming through is the best thing that could have happened to me because I definitely would be making a quick exit out of the US of A.
As well, I used to love driving to Buffalo, NY to spend money shopping, and took yearly vacations to places like Florida and Alaska, but since 9/11, I have not even come close to American soil. The last thing I need is to be body cavity searched or interrogated. Sure, I have nothing to hide, it doesn't mean I want to submit myself to a complete loss of my personal freedoms. America, it's been a slice, I hope one day you'll become a place of freedom again, when it does, I'll be the first in line to come over to celebrate.
Such is the cost of buisness in taking credit cards, your disagreement is with the credit card company that allowed him to reverse the charges. But if paypal had done what you wanted they would have had to shell out the money themselves, something they arn't going to do.
So what you're saying is, Paypal simply doesn't work. Your proposal that I am responsible for someone else's credit card is ridiculous. I'm as Libertarian and believe as much in self-responsibilty as the next person but your suggestion is preposterous and takes the concept to a ridiclous extreme. What's next? You're going to tell me that I should have started my own payment company and forced the buyer to sign a contract stating no chargebacks before I accept his payment? Let me BidPay or Western Union you five cents so you can buy a clue.:rolleyes:
You do realize most of the anti-paypal stuff out there is just people bitching and complaining because they were attempting some sort of fraud and paypal caught them on it. There are a few valid complaints yes, but I've never heard of anyone without an account paying through them having any problems. They havn't had any breaches in security that would cause your CC data to be worrysome.
Uhhh.... no. My PayPal account was frozen when I sold something on eBay and there was a dispute between myself and the buyer. Both PayPal and eBay ruled in my favor (this was before eBay bought PayPal) but then in sour grapes that the arbitration didn't go his way, the buyer did a reverse charge on his credit card, PayPal told me to pay up or they freeze my account. And this is despite the fact that they ruled in my favor. I told them which layer of Dante's Infero to go and will NEVER use PayPal ever again.
Here in Toronto, our transit system exists only because of huge amounts of government funding. And guess where the government gets their money? From us (the taxpayers). It's called "public trasit" because the public pays for it. If this is the cause in NY, then what they're basically doing is suing a member of the public for use of publc property.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine where things would be right now if they put even a miniscule portion of the money for the war on Iraq (currently almost $300 billion US) into NASA.
But back to my main reason for liking email: accountability. A number of decisions I make for the two departments I manage, I get guidance from my legal counsel so if anything goes wrong and I get asked by the executive team what happened and whether I did my due diligence, I can go back to my email trail and show them that I consulted legal, brought up certain issues with executives. My having this has covered my rear end time and time again. To the point where if I am being asked to make a decision on an issue, I want it in email so that everthing is laid out and if anything goes wrong, I am 100% covered.
Contrary to popular belief, making a decent sounding recording still is expensive, not just in price but also in time. To expect someone to give it away for free is ridiculous.
Belanna Torres was also an engineer's engineer. All she wanted to do was take care of "MY engine room", engage in dangerous holodeck programs and snuggle with Tom Paris.
What you haven't realized is your hostility towards your sisters is a form of transferance. You are transferring your need to show your mother that you are a competent adult (and thus worthy of regard) onto your sisters, and projecting your own infantile dependency onto them. It is worth noting that while you must constantly demonstrate your expertise and competence in computers to them, they have no compulsion to retern the favor by offering you help in their area of expertise.
Give the guy a break. He's a computer whiz, his sisters are biologists. What practical use does he have for biologists? Maybe he should ask them to massage his prostate?? Sheesh.
And if you're super-super-incompetent, you get to be President of the United States.
What everyone is forgetting is the artist. In the case of a direct sale record house deal (ie. Columbia House, Sony-BMG direct), the artist gets reduced and in many cases, no royalties from these sales. I know there will be people that will say, "Well if the artist doesn't like that then don't sign." but: 1. Sounds good in theory to do that but when it hits the real world, this is not a workable solution 2. Recording companies are banking on the fact that if you don't sign, some other goofball more desperate and/or stupid will, which does not make for a true value for value exchange.
Why build a budget box for $525.46 when you can buy a brand new Mac mini for $499?
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
All it takes is a hip and creative teacher (probably as common as rocking horse sh-t) to make it relevant to today's youth.
ie. Two gangstas in a bling Escalade pick up your ho and are driving away from you at 85 mph. If you take 5 minutes to finish your last glass of Kristal and another 5 on a quick heroin deal before hoping into your even more bling Aston Martin at 120 mph to pop a cap in the n-ggas' and get your ho back, how long will it take before you've got your homies getting medival on the gangstas' asses while b-tchslapping the ho?
It figures that it'd be the Koreans who would successfully clone a dog. They want to secure their food source for centuries to come.
Microsoft charm is like a creepy nerdy guy (aka average Slashdotter) trying to charm a beautiful girl. The more he tries to put on the charm, he creepier he comes across.
Whichever format the pornographers adopt will win.
Great stuff. From what I have read (more knowledgeable folks can chime in if I'm wrong), the biggest bottleneck these days in a personal computer is the hard drive. We have much faster processors, faster graphics cards, faster system bus, faster memory and the slowest part of a personal computer is the hard drive which compared to the other components of the system, might as well be a turtle racing a Ferrari. I noticed when I boot my Powerbook off the same OS image on my laptop (4200 rpm drive) compared to on my external Firewire 800 7200 RPM 8 MB cache drive, there's a massive difference in speed and responsiveness. Same computer, same OS image, only difference is the hard drive. Faster hard drives imo will relieve the greatest bottleneck.
256 MB of RAM? OS X needs at least 512 MB to run minimally. If you go to the Terminal and do a "top", I'll bet you have tons of page in's and page out's as you're most likely running on virtual memory. Up your RAM to 1 GB and you'll notice a massive difference in speed.
This one is especially important. I'm in research (ok, so it's not rocket science, it's market research, but on a management level) and I find that I need a LOT of time doing things that seem and most likely are completely unrelated (ie. surfing web sites, answering my emails, chatting) to the task at hand, to get me "there". However, you average my productivity out and by the end of the day I'm way ahead of someone else. I used to feel guilty about it, especially since North America is very "Protestant Work Ethic", but where I really learned that it was OK was in the music industry. I worked in the music industry and a lot of platinum selling songwriters, producers, artists, musicians, spend a good 80%+ of their time "goofing off". But when push comes to shove, they deliver. I remember a producer that currently has two records in the Billboard Top 10 told me that he can't play guitar or function until after 6 PM when he's had a good meal and he's feeling relaxed. Then he'll work until 6 AM like a madman. He tried forcing himself to work 9 to 5 (that's even less hours) but all he ended up with was two weeks of getting literally nothing done. We all have our natural rhythms and cycles of when we're most productive and for most of us, it's not 9 to 5.
No they weren't. As said, I was offered a job in the US but I was already doing some work via telecommuting on contract for a US company. In order to be on the payroll I had to get an ITIN US tax number. Recently I spoke with someone who was having trouble because he couldn't get an ITIN number. To which I replied, that's easy, just go to the US Embassy, fill out a quick form and they'll rubber stamp it. To which he replied that they had to go through a massive number of data and checks and that it would take many months (if he's lucky) whereas I got mine same day in less than an hour. Also I qualified for a work visa as part of the NAFTA agreeement that I could get at the border. I got mine in advance. All I did was drive to Buffalo, answered a few questions and done, I was issued my work visa. I have recently discovered that this is no longer the case. When did all this that I spoke above change? Right after 9/11.
Right before 9/11, I was offered a job in the US, but it fell through (guess for what reason) and at the time, it was really difficult because I wanted to leave Canada for the US. Looking back now, the job not coming through is the best thing that could have happened to me because I definitely would be making a quick exit out of the US of A.
As well, I used to love driving to Buffalo, NY to spend money shopping, and took yearly vacations to places like Florida and Alaska, but since 9/11, I have not even come close to American soil. The last thing I need is to be body cavity searched or interrogated. Sure, I have nothing to hide, it doesn't mean I want to submit myself to a complete loss of my personal freedoms. America, it's been a slice, I hope one day you'll become a place of freedom again, when it does, I'll be the first in line to come over to celebrate.
...is more government spending and/or intervention.
So give us the dirt on Safra, why wasn't it pleasant? I Googled for her picture. She looks cute.
Hope you didn't have any kids. Knowingly passing on this many tendancies towards disease is unfair to a child.
Translation: we now know how big the galactic toilet is. Bawooooosh.
So what you're saying is, Paypal simply doesn't work. Your proposal that I am responsible for someone else's credit card is ridiculous. I'm as Libertarian and believe as much in self-responsibilty as the next person but your suggestion is preposterous and takes the concept to a ridiclous extreme. What's next? You're going to tell me that I should have started my own payment company and forced the buyer to sign a contract stating no chargebacks before I accept his payment? Let me BidPay or Western Union you five cents so you can buy a clue. :rolleyes:
Uhhh.... no. My PayPal account was frozen when I sold something on eBay and there was a dispute between myself and the buyer. Both PayPal and eBay ruled in my favor (this was before eBay bought PayPal) but then in sour grapes that the arbitration didn't go his way, the buyer did a reverse charge on his credit card, PayPal told me to pay up or they freeze my account. And this is despite the fact that they ruled in my favor. I told them which layer of Dante's Infero to go and will NEVER use PayPal ever again.
Here in Toronto, our transit system exists only because of huge amounts of government funding. And guess where the government gets their money? From us (the taxpayers). It's called "public trasit" because the public pays for it. If this is the cause in NY, then what they're basically doing is suing a member of the public for use of publc property.
CONFIRMED!!
(By that I'm referring to Steve Jobs' "greedy" comment about the music industry)