You must not be from California. We have a very powerful, very self-interested public prison guard union here that has successfully pressed the government into giving them significant raises, despite the fact that the already have the highest pay in the nation by far, the state is in an ongoing fiscal crisis, teetering on bankruptcy. And they are also, as has been hinted at by others about privat firms, pressing for laws that will put more people in prison for longer (three strikes law).
I've got a Linksys 802.11g base station, and a Sony 2.4 GHz phone setup. I live in an apartment, where the arm of my couch is my desk, so the phone is often just inches from the computer I'm using.
Every time we used the phone, I'd lose my wireless network. So I fiddled around with my base station, and set it to broadcast on channel 11, which apparently nudged it just far enough away from the phone's noise band that I haven't lost signal since.
This kind of relabeling was happening before there were barcodes or scanners of any kind in common use. When I was in high school, and working in a grocery, some unscrupulous customer had pilfered one of the pricing sticker guns while the stock clerk wasn't looking. They apparently used it to reprice some stuff cheaper, but when the cashier noticed that some expensive stuff rang up way too cheap...busted!
There was also the case of a cashier who rang up expensive meats for her friends at a fraction of the stickered price. She, too was busted.
In both of these cases, an expert human witness was required to determine that 'something wasn't right', which the machine couldn't do on its own.
This boils down to a question of trust and costs. Which costs more: to employ the humans who can correlate correct pricing and to eat the losses caused by insider corruption, or to eat the losses associated with automation failures and exploits?
Complaining about the Patriot Act on/. is about as useful in raising awareness as praising the benefits of Open Source. It's preaching to the choir. What is needed is a grass-roots evangelical revival.
That may be a poor example of slaves, but there are plenty of reasons to dislike Walmart and their sort. Consider this: a typical wal-mart employee will still probably not have medical insurance, and will qualify for state assistance, which we all end up paying for anyway.
Effectively, our tax dollars are subsidizing Walmart, everywhere around the country. We get cheaper crap, but we pay higher taxes, and local/state governments go broke so that Walmart and their kin can have tidy profits.
If this is happening to their regular employees, you can bet that worse is happening to their contractors, and worse for those in countries where they have arms-length dealing with businesses who are not legally obligated to any humane treatment of their employees.
Induhviduals are not the only borrowers. companies borrow lots and lots of money to finance their operations. Most small businesses would not exist if it were not for being able to borrow money against their future.
And for MS to give the money away, they have to, as you put it 'call their liquid assets in', which you say would be an ugly day.
One of the people who hired me long ago once said something that I hold true to this day. "The job of QA is not to find bugs. The job of QA is to verify that there are no bugs."
It's in cash, in a series of banks somewhere. Although Microsoft isn't spending it themselves, it is creating the capital backing that allows others to borrow and spend.
IANAB, but since asset reserves on loans are tpyically in the single digit percentages, their $40bil in cash is could actually be $500bil in loans. (the banks don't loan out the actual deposits, they use them as 'buffer' and borrow from the fed to loan to customers)
University curriculum is a joke for the majority of the departments and doesn't get even remotely rigorous until you've entered a graduate program.
My personal experience is that after finishing my undergrad degree at a not-too-highly-respected public university, I then applied and got accepted into graduate school at a 'prestigous' private university. I quit after one semester because I found that the material we were covering was farly obviously remedial (even using the same books I'd used in lower-level undergrad classes), yet over half the students in each class were getting flushed because it was 'too hard'.
So perhaps some undergrad programs are weak, and the result is that even the graduate programs that cater to those weak graduates are as well. Trouble is...how do you tell which is which?
Merely having RFID is not any guarantee that luggage will be lost with a lower frequency...
I actually had a piece of *gate-checked* luggage lost once. At the door of the airplane, I handed it to the baggage handler who took it downstairs to deposit it in the cargo area. When we arrived at the airport, it was missing. It didn't show up at the gate, it didn't come out at the baggage claim, the airline denied that it was their fault, and then had the gall to say that the would forward it to my destination once it was found *only as a favor*, since they were only obligated to get it to the Airport it was checked to.
The original poster may have blamed the wrong technology, but the fact is that JAWS and Window Eyes (the big Windows Screen Readers), although they are undoubtedly fantastic advances over lack of access, are also somewhat flaky and fragile, and have a very complex user interface for navigating the computer. Combine this with the fact that software needs to be written thinking about working with screen readers to actually work properly/well and most software isn't, and the overall experience can be quite frustrating.
If those 5000 jobs are worth 11 billion dollars annually , then perhaps we should be trying to emigrate to India. I'd take those wages for a couple years.
However, I know that my compnay has been laying people off over the past couple years, declining to hire locally, and now employs ~200 people in Bangalore, as well as a bunch in the Phillipines. And we're not a huge company...
The $2 bill isn't just something from back in the days of the silver note.
It was brought back into circulation in 1976, and has at least one other printing since then. They're even less popular/used than the $1 coin, so it's not surprising that you think that they're relics of the past instead of mundane, valid currency.
A 1/625 risk of destruction every 33 years is *far* safer than any other means to reach orbit in existence.
Hmmm...I hadn't thought of it in terms of comparison to our current unsafe systems. I was comparing it to the promise of the Space Elevator being the thing that will bring space travel to the masses, both public and corporate.
Space Jockeys, yes, they're the brave individuals going off on an adventure, and they're taking a risk for the glory of their species. If that's all an elevator is intended for, the great, but if all we're going to do with space travel is send brave people on adventures on the public dime, we've got the wrong goals.
1/625 is not the odds of the thing falling down overall...that's of the odds of it falling down because of the Leonids in 2031. To put it another way, there's a 1/625 chance that it will be destroyed if it is actually in the sky between 6-12 pm November the 17th 2031.
There's a 1/100,000 chance of being destroyed by the leonids in any one of the 'minor' leonid years. And this is ignoring all of the other mundane risks such as cumulative damage by oxidation and the like.
None of those mundane (or outlandish) things you mention have anywhere near that kind of risk profile.
Slashdot Mirror
You must not be from California. We have a very powerful, very self-interested public prison guard union here that has successfully pressed the government into giving them significant raises, despite the fact that the already have the highest pay in the nation by far, the state is in an ongoing fiscal crisis, teetering on bankruptcy. And they are also, as has been hinted at by others about privat firms, pressing for laws that will put more people in prison for longer (three strikes law).
I've got a Linksys 802.11g base station, and a Sony 2.4 GHz phone setup. I live in an apartment, where the arm of my couch is my desk, so the phone is often just inches from the computer I'm using.
Every time we used the phone, I'd lose my wireless network. So I fiddled around with my base station, and set it to broadcast on channel 11, which apparently nudged it just far enough away from the phone's noise band that I haven't lost signal since.
YMMV
Toothing is why you leave it on. I would have figured that /. of all places would be all over this one.
This kind of relabeling was happening before there were barcodes or scanners of any kind in common use. When I was in high school, and working in a grocery, some unscrupulous customer had pilfered one of the pricing sticker guns while the stock clerk wasn't looking. They apparently used it to reprice some stuff cheaper, but when the cashier noticed that some expensive stuff rang up way too cheap...busted!
There was also the case of a cashier who rang up expensive meats for her friends at a fraction of the stickered price. She, too was busted.
In both of these cases, an expert human witness was required to determine that 'something wasn't right', which the machine couldn't do on its own.
This boils down to a question of trust and costs. Which costs more: to employ the humans who can correlate correct pricing and to eat the losses caused by insider corruption, or to eat the losses associated with automation failures and exploits?
Complaining about the Patriot Act on /. is about as useful in raising awareness as praising the benefits of Open Source. It's preaching to the choir. What is needed is a grass-roots evangelical revival.
That may be a poor example of slaves, but there are plenty of reasons to dislike Walmart and their sort. Consider this: a typical wal-mart employee will still probably not have medical insurance, and will qualify for state assistance, which we all end up paying for anyway.
Atlanta Journal Constitution article
Effectively, our tax dollars are subsidizing Walmart, everywhere around the country. We get cheaper crap, but we pay higher taxes, and local/state governments go broke so that Walmart and their kin can have tidy profits.
If this is happening to their regular employees, you can bet that worse is happening to their contractors, and worse for those in countries where they have arms-length dealing with businesses who are not legally obligated to any humane treatment of their employees.
And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.
Induhviduals are not the only borrowers. companies borrow lots and lots of money to finance their operations. Most small businesses would not exist if it were not for being able to borrow money against their future.
And for MS to give the money away, they have to, as you put it 'call their liquid assets in', which you say would be an ugly day.
Just 50% larger?
One of the people who hired me long ago once said something that I hold true to this day. "The job of QA is not to find bugs. The job of QA is to verify that there are no bugs."
It's in cash, in a series of banks somewhere. Although Microsoft isn't spending it themselves, it is creating the capital backing that allows others to borrow and spend.
IANAB, but since asset reserves on loans are tpyically in the single digit percentages, their $40bil in cash is could actually be $500bil in loans. (the banks don't loan out the actual deposits, they use them as 'buffer' and borrow from the fed to loan to customers)
But then he'd be using gasoline to get from point a to point b, which he has said he does not do.
There is one difference between Starbucks in Japan and the US.
You see, Japanese Coffee Cup so small.
You Americans have such humungous burbous Coffee Cup
University curriculum is a joke for the majority of the departments and doesn't get even remotely rigorous until you've entered a graduate program.
My personal experience is that after finishing my undergrad degree at a not-too-highly-respected public university, I then applied and got accepted into graduate school at a 'prestigous' private university. I quit after one semester because I found that the material we were covering was farly obviously remedial (even using the same books I'd used in lower-level undergrad classes), yet over half the students in each class were getting flushed because it was 'too hard'.
So perhaps some undergrad programs are weak, and the result is that even the graduate programs that cater to those weak graduates are as well. Trouble is...how do you tell which is which?
Trigger locks are a bad example, even for a RandBot
The post actually said trigger guards, which keep the trigger from being accidentally set off. GIS Derringer for an example of guns without.
Geez, now all light is regarded as pollution.
Well, regardless of any eco-lefty leaning, what would you have the unnatural light that needlessly interferes with observing the night sky called?
Merely having RFID is not any guarantee that luggage will be lost with a lower frequency...
I actually had a piece of *gate-checked* luggage lost once. At the door of the airplane, I handed it to the baggage handler who took it downstairs to deposit it in the cargo area. When we arrived at the airport, it was missing. It didn't show up at the gate, it didn't come out at the baggage claim, the airline denied that it was their fault, and then had the gall to say that the would forward it to my destination once it was found *only as a favor*, since they were only obligated to get it to the Airport it was checked to.
$ means "dollars"
In Mexico, $ means Pesos...
In fact, it means Pesos pretty much everywhere, as well as Reals (Brazil)
The original poster may have blamed the wrong technology, but the fact is that JAWS and Window Eyes (the big Windows Screen Readers), although they are undoubtedly fantastic advances over lack of access, are also somewhat flaky and fragile, and have a very complex user interface for navigating the computer. Combine this with the fact that software needs to be written thinking about working with screen readers to actually work properly/well and most software isn't, and the overall experience can be quite frustrating.
From the EPA and CDC. Perhaps Outsourcing LCD production is a good thing, after all?
If those 5000 jobs are worth 11 billion dollars annually , then perhaps we should be trying to emigrate to India. I'd take those wages for a couple years.
However, I know that my compnay has been laying people off over the past couple years, declining to hire locally, and now employs ~200 people in Bangalore, as well as a bunch in the Phillipines. And we're not a huge company...
5000 my ass.
According to the US Treasury, it's not out of circulation
The $2 bill isn't just something from back in the days of the silver note.
It was brought back into circulation in 1976, and has at least one other printing since then. They're even less popular/used than the $1 coin, so it's not surprising that you think that they're relics of the past instead of mundane, valid currency.
A picture for your pleasure
A 1/625 risk of destruction every 33 years is *far* safer than any other means to reach orbit in existence.
Hmmm...I hadn't thought of it in terms of comparison to our current unsafe systems. I was comparing it to the promise of the Space Elevator being the thing that will bring space travel to the masses, both public and corporate.
Space Jockeys, yes, they're the brave individuals going off on an adventure, and they're taking a risk for the glory of their species. If that's all an elevator is intended for, the great, but if all we're going to do with space travel is send brave people on adventures on the public dime, we've got the wrong goals.
1/625 is not the odds of the thing falling down overall...that's of the odds of it falling down because of the Leonids in 2031. To put it another way, there's a 1/625 chance that it will be destroyed if it is actually in the sky between 6-12 pm November the 17th 2031.
There's a 1/100,000 chance of being destroyed by the leonids in any one of the 'minor' leonid years. And this is ignoring all of the other mundane risks such as cumulative damage by oxidation and the like.
None of those mundane (or outlandish) things you mention have anywhere near that kind of risk profile.