Interesting calculations but your assumptions weren't made for the Pacific. I suspect that you'd see 8-12' swells out there not counting the wind waves.
Also, catamarans are much lighter than you think. Based on Wharram designs, a 31' weighs 3k lbs without cargo and a 38' weights 6600. Either could cross the ocean, especially if this guy is into adventure.
Snipes was included in the early Novell LAN installs as a "performance testing tool". Used a shared file as the board and 5 or 6 users could run their pieces around the ascii board shooting at one another. Great fun at lunch in the office. Was deleted when we ticked off a VP who didn't like us shouting across the cubicles.
My first experience with a multi-player game. Also,due to the terrible keyboard interface, my first experience with hands crippled by typing.
About the same time, late '70s, we had a version of the mainframe Star Trek that was written in Basic. It would abend if you were winning by too much. I think I still have the box of cards out in the back room somewhere. Now, if I could only find a card reader...
Most fire departments have a maximum age of 28-35 for new recuits. With 20 years in IT the odds are that the OP is out of luck. Pity. I grew up around firefighters and they are some of the best people out there.
A previous employer's ops center did this. Stacked old mainframe-style reel tapes under a phone with a solenoid-driven bell. Phone rang, erased the tape. Took a couple of cycles to figure that they needed better tape storage than the Ops manager's desk.
Sometimes it's as simple as overly worried parents. Sometimes parents do need to be in touch. Maybe a little empathy lesson would be good for you. Like taking care of a child with autism for a couple of days. Or a couple of bad hours. Parents of kids like that - and there are a LOT of them out there - need a break too. And if the babysitter needs a hand, a couple of hours can be a very long time.
My fine son is 23 and living on his own now but there were a lot of years of no movies or take the pager, go to the theater around the corner and, with a bit of luck, see the whole movie.
Lots of solutions mentioned here would work but keep in mind that there is a real need for communication for people who aren't as lucky as you and your parents.
Somebody please mod up the parent. So true that the good people in management and in IT need to get their ideas translated to the other side. That translator is always worth his/her weight in gold.
Lots of good ideas here and they can be combined to meet your requirements. But, against/. standards, nobody's pushing Google..
In a Windows environment, Google Desktop does a good job indexing Word and Excel documents. In my world, these contain a significant part of our hard to find information. Get in the habit of using keywords in the text of your documents, combine it with some reasonable directory structure and you can keep track of things pretty well.
I've used this for years for my personal project and problem-tracking notes (not the formal company doc) and I can reach back and find things from years ago.
Oh yeah, and make sure you've got a regular backup
In small towns several hundred miles from urban centers it's often difficult to find stores that stock what you want and, when you do, the prices are often high because of the lack of competition. Online shopping can be very useful.
That said, if you do find the small shop with the guy that knowns his stuff and is into customer service, by all means pay the extra (which he deserves) and go local.
In the slang of the United Kingdom, boffins are scientists, engineers, and other people who are stereotypically seen as engaged in technical or scientific research. The word conjures up images of older men in thick spectacles and white lab coats working with complicated chemical apparatus.
I'm not sure about putting a label on yourself, but when my now-22 yr old son w/ autism was diagnosed at age 6, it was a tremendous help. His diagnosis did not cure him but it gave insight. Suddenly all the disconnected learning & living issues made much more sense. It was only a starting point and he will struggle with the world for his whole life but it made it easier for people to help him and, now, for him to understand himself in the world. That's all it is, not a label to harm but a starting point to understand and help.
I did my MA thesis on technology and writing, and guess what, writing suffers immeasurably when using a computer
I disagree. I'm an old geek who had to use a typewriter for papers in college. Since you could not correct or change a thought in mid-page, like you can on a computer, writing consisted of multiple hand-written drafts. This was very time consuming and resulted in optimizing for the mechanics of producing an "acceptable" paper rather than polishing the content and thought process.
Add idiot professors who would not accept papers with corrections and the process of creating a paper in the good old days was often conterproductive, assuming you were trying to promote creativity and insight rather than mechanical skills.
It got to the point that I actively avoided classes requiring papers which worked OK with my computer/business degree but left a hole where my liberal arts education should have been. My failing but I feel it would have been different if I had the technology to ease the process.
Of course, I only had the pub, girls, etc. to distract me and avoided the hours of computer games that the same technology would have brought me.
Also, as the father of a college student, I think it's a copout to blame the technology for students failing to read, write and connect. Most kids have *always* avoiding studying but get them connected with a good teacher and relevant, interesting (to them) content and watch them go. Bad teachers, uninteresting content and even the good ones drift off. And there are always lots of students who don't care and never will. The best teachers seem to both dispair over these and accept that they're just going to be that way.
.. if you want to remain in the tech industry you need to get used to basically relearning and retooling and regular layoffs.
Absolutely. As a operating systems guy in my 50s, I've been through mainframes, DECs, MACs, PCs, Unix, Linux, databases, ecommerce, etc., etc. many times changing in the same company.
It probably takes a bigger shop and you have to show flexibility, a willingness to learn and to get along with other people. It works best if you jump on new stuff that no one knows how to do. You can do this and make a decent wage without having to go into management (which a lot of us techs aren't cut out for).
BUT, it's important that you keep yourself marketable because the PHBs do like reorgs and outsourcing.
This is a ridiculous statement. Technologies change so much and new ones emerge so regularly that anyone who moves out of their niche or investigates a new area of the business is going to be a newbie over and over in their career.
Although the NW US has a lot of hydro, the two major utilities that serve Portland get around 70-75% of their power from coal.
PGE ref: http://www.portlandgeneral.com/about_pge/corporate _info/power_plants.asp
PPL from memory.
Slashdot Mirror
As in "the odds are good and the goods are odd"?
Interesting calculations but your assumptions weren't made for the Pacific. I suspect that you'd see 8-12' swells out there not counting the wind waves. Also, catamarans are much lighter than you think. Based on Wharram designs, a 31' weighs 3k lbs without cargo and a 38' weights 6600. Either could cross the ocean, especially if this guy is into adventure.
Snipes was included in the early Novell LAN installs as a "performance testing tool". Used a shared file as the board and 5 or 6 users could run their pieces around the ascii board shooting at one another. Great fun at lunch in the office. Was deleted when we ticked off a VP who didn't like us shouting across the cubicles. My first experience with a multi-player game. Also,due to the terrible keyboard interface, my first experience with hands crippled by typing.
About the same time, late '70s, we had a version of the mainframe Star Trek that was written in Basic. It would abend if you were winning by too much. I think I still have the box of cards out in the back room somewhere. Now, if I could only find a card reader ...
And may I say thank you for all of us grateful boomers out there. You better believe that we appreciate it. Have you priced micros lately?
Except that we're all too damn old.
Most fire departments have a maximum age of 28-35 for new recuits. With 20 years in IT the odds are that the OP is out of luck. Pity. I grew up around firefighters and they are some of the best people out there.
A previous employer's ops center did this. Stacked old mainframe-style reel tapes under a phone with a solenoid-driven bell. Phone rang, erased the tape. Took a couple of cycles to figure that they needed better tape storage than the Ops manager's desk.
Entered into Google:
the answer to life, the universe, and everything
And it responded, as it should:
the answer to life, the universe, and everything = 42
My fine son is 23 and living on his own now but there were a lot of years of no movies or take the pager, go to the theater around the corner and, with a bit of luck, see the whole movie.
Lots of solutions mentioned here would work but keep in mind that there is a real need for communication for people who aren't as lucky as you and your parents.
Google is having a hard time attracting the talent they need and the only pupose of this location is to tap the windsurfing PHD market.
Somebody please mod up the parent. So true that the good people in management and in IT need to get their ideas translated to the other side. That translator is always worth his/her weight in gold.
In a Windows environment, Google Desktop does a good job indexing Word and Excel documents. In my world, these contain a significant part of our hard to find information. Get in the habit of using keywords in the text of your documents, combine it with some reasonable directory structure and you can keep track of things pretty well.
I've used this for years for my personal project and problem-tracking notes (not the formal company doc) and I can reach back and find things from years ago.
Oh yeah, and make sure you've got a regular backup
In small towns several hundred miles from urban centers it's often difficult to find stores that stock what you want and, when you do, the prices are often high because of the lack of competition. Online shopping can be very useful. That said, if you do find the small shop with the guy that knowns his stuff and is into customer service, by all means pay the extra (which he deserves) and go local.
In the slang of the United Kingdom, boffins are scientists, engineers, and other people who are stereotypically seen as engaged in technical or scientific research. The word conjures up images of older men in thick spectacles and white lab coats working with complicated chemical apparatus.
I'm not sure about putting a label on yourself, but when my now-22 yr old son w/ autism was diagnosed at age 6, it was a tremendous help. His diagnosis did not cure him but it gave insight. Suddenly all the disconnected learning & living issues made much more sense. It was only a starting point and he will struggle with the world for his whole life but it made it easier for people to help him and, now, for him to understand himself in the world. That's all it is, not a label to harm but a starting point to understand and help.
Interesting. If a 600Ghz transistor != 600 Ghz CPU, what's the spec for the transistors in the current 3 Ghz P4?
Resistance is futile, etc, etc.
I disagree. I'm an old geek who had to use a typewriter for papers in college. Since you could not correct or change a thought in mid-page, like you can on a computer, writing consisted of multiple hand-written drafts. This was very time consuming and resulted in optimizing for the mechanics of producing an "acceptable" paper rather than polishing the content and thought process.
Add idiot professors who would not accept papers with corrections and the process of creating a paper in the good old days was often conterproductive, assuming you were trying to promote creativity and insight rather than mechanical skills.
It got to the point that I actively avoided classes requiring papers which worked OK with my computer/business degree but left a hole where my liberal arts education should have been. My failing but I feel it would have been different if I had the technology to ease the process.
Of course, I only had the pub, girls, etc. to distract me and avoided the hours of computer games that the same technology would have brought me.
Also, as the father of a college student, I think it's a copout to blame the technology for students failing to read, write and connect. Most kids have *always* avoiding studying but get them connected with a good teacher and relevant, interesting (to them) content and watch them go. Bad teachers, uninteresting content and even the good ones drift off. And there are always lots of students who don't care and never will. The best teachers seem to both dispair over these and accept that they're just going to be that way.
You mean Windows isn't supposed to creak when it's new?
Says someone named billybob.
Absolutely. Waiting for the bus in the rain keeps us well rinsed.
Absolutely. As a operating systems guy in my 50s, I've been through mainframes, DECs, MACs, PCs, Unix, Linux, databases, ecommerce, etc., etc. many times changing in the same company.
It probably takes a bigger shop and you have to show flexibility, a willingness to learn and to get along with other people. It works best if you jump on new stuff that no one knows how to do. You can do this and make a decent wage without having to go into management (which a lot of us techs aren't cut out for).
BUT, it's important that you keep yourself marketable because the PHBs do like reorgs and outsourcing.
I wonder what hardware they're using to run Tom's site?
This is a ridiculous statement. Technologies change so much and new ones emerge so regularly that anyone who moves out of their niche or investigates a new area of the business is going to be a newbie over and over in their career.
Although the NW US has a lot of hydro, the two major utilities that serve Portland get around 70-75% of their power from coal.e _info/power_plants.asp
PGE ref: http://www.portlandgeneral.com/about_pge/corporat
PPL from memory.