I humbly submit that shoes are man's greatest invention. Just ask Tom Hanks' character in Castaway. If you were isolated and could only have one "invention", what else would it be? A house you can never leave? A fire you can not bring food to? Shoes allowed us to gather more food and all our other great ideas came from the leisure time that afforded us. I could get by without a car, or without fire, but I would be utterly miserable without shoes. I wouldn't last one day in the winter. Sure, I enjoy a good barefoot walk on the beach, but without shoes you can't even go into a store to buy groceries.
They have been building new access roads like crazy in anticipation of this new fab plant, which they didn't know was coming for sure until today. On the one hand, I'm glad that all the construction wasn't for nothing. And local homeowners are excited that their unsellable homes may soon be in demand. But it is still going to suck big time for the local environment, not to mention how the traffic will make life there miserable. And I have a strong suspicion that all those new corporate tax dollars won't reduce property taxes or the sales tax in Saratoga County by a cent.
The IP6 problem will break your wireless too
on
Hostile ta Vista, Baby
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Whenever someone gets a new Vista laptop for home, they bring it to me the next day complaining that it can't connect to their home wireless. I disable IP6 and send them home. Now, they can at least access the web at home, and hopefully they can download drivers to upgrade to XP.
I agree and I call shenanigans on the cops. Try and point a laser pointer at a stationary object that far away. You can't hold it still enough. Even if a helicopter was hovering in place, I'll bet that the victim pilot couldn't hold a beam on something as small as a helmet visor inside a cockpit from a quarter-mile away for anything longer than a fraction of a second. Wahhhhhhhh.....
Seriously, these databases are pure fascism. They create a second (lower) class of citizenship. Who goes on the list next? Rapists? Cop killers? Jews? Liberals?
I have two young kids and I'd rather accept responsibility myself for protecting them from predators. Unfortunately, my government would prefer that I cower, not think.
On a daily basis, I curse Adobe only a little less often than I curse Microsoft.
I made a network PDF printer here that drops your PDF into an open share folder. That works fine for about half of our group. The other half insist that they need to be able to edit PDFs. We have v.7 licenses, so I have to install Acrobat 7.0, then apply FOUR UPDATES THAT EACH REQUIRE A RESTART to get to 7.0.9. It takes a freakin' hour to install, because Adobe won't release a rolled-up installer. Obviously, Adobe wants v.7 to be a pain in the ass to use so I'll buy v.8. But I refuse, because we get nothing out of it. It's an upgrade in name only. Why the hell should we have to pay again for the same functionality?
When staff here budget for a new PC, they don't think about having to buy a new Acrobat license. Make sure you add that in when working up the cost of "upgrading" to Vista, as if you need any more reason to avoid it.
Adobe has always produced bloated, resource-hungry crap that is frequently the cause of instability issues. Why does it take longer to launch Photoshop CS3 on a dual-core machine than it did to open Photoshop 4.0 on a Pentium 1? Even though Adobe has three processes running at all time just in case you want to launch their bloatware?
In the Star Wars Universe, even though a lightsaber blade has no weight, there is a strong gyroscopic effect created by the mechanism that produces the blade. Just as the gyroscopic motion of a bicycle wheel prevents it from changing orientation quickly (thereby helping you stay upright once you are moving), a lightsaber exhibits resistance when you swing it around. This gyroscopic resistance simulates the momentum that must be overcome when swinging a heavy blade.
If you'd ever handled a real lightsaber, you'd know. Duh.
Researchers here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently came up with a super non-reflective coating -- it basically has nano-spikes that help absorb light from all angles and at all frequencies. Seems like it would be good to use for the dark pixel. http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1956
You exceeded the speed limit on your way to work today. I guarantee it. Did you get a ticket? No, because law enforcement is arbitrary and subject to the whims of the enforcers. They could track your GPS cell phone or EasyPass and know every time you were speeding. But if they actually gave out a ticket every time someone broke their stupid laws, the laws would quickly get repealed and then they'd have no traffic fine revenue. So they'll keep selectively shaking us down.
I wish we had speed cameras EVERYWHERE. Cops would not have to do dangerous patrols, we'd just mail people their tickets. AND EVERYBODY THAT EXCEEDED THE POSTED LIMIT BY 1 MPH WOULD GET A TICKET. EVEN COPS. EVEN JUDGES. And it would take about one week of this for everyone to realize that the posted speed limit is STUPIDLY LOW. If there was 100% enforcement of traffic laws, we'd quickly weed out the ones that are unnecessary.
If we can't fully monitor cops to ensure their compliance with the law, then we need Robocop. A cop who doesn't let his ego get in the way of justice. A cop who arrests everybody that breaks the law, even my hot blonde girlfriend, or the chief's brother.
I'd happily pay my traffic ticket fine if i knew that everyone else who had done the same violation had to pay, too. But right now, I look "too ethnic" to be let go with just a warning that other "special" people get.
People who know, know that Vista is not worth the money. I tell everyone who asks exactly what kind of experience I've had with it, and that I'd only pay money to keep it OFF my computer. I tell them if they really want their computer to act completely differently from the way it always has, they should buy a Mac or use Linux. That scares them into keeping WinXP. If we keep keeping it real, we can break the stupid cycle of bloating OSs just to sell more hardware.
The dangerous stroboscopic effect only occurs if the fluorescent light source is using a magnetic ballast, which drives the light output to oscillate at the same frequency as the alternating current (60Hz here in the USA). Electronic ballasts increase the oscillation frequency to something above 20000Hz, eliminating flicker and increasing energy-efficiency at the same time. Magnetic ballasts have been outlawed here in commercial and residential applications, but are still allowed in some cheap "shop light" fixtures meant for garages and such, so watch out there.
Be aware that LEDs operated on AC exhibit worse flicker than the cheapest fluorescent. At least with a fluorescent, there is some light from the phosphors between cycles -- an LED goes completely dark between cycles. I recently examined dozens of brands of LED holiday lights -- every single one flickered like crazy. That's OK for decoration, but not illumination. You can add electronics to counter this, but you sacrifice energy efficiency and drive up the cost.
I'm frankly amazed to see that people care at all about this proposed ban. In the USA, they already banned halophosphor T12 fluorescent lamps and those magnetic ballasts by raising the efficiency requirement(EPACT 1992). And guess what, lots of energy was saved, lighting quality was improved, and nobody died! In fact, nobody even noticed.
Look no further than the Survivor teams split by gender for (anecdotal) evidence that an all-female crew exhibits more infighting and is, as a result, generally less productive than an all-male crew. Or go to a university and visit an all-female and an all-male suite. See how well the roommates are getting along at the end of the school year. From what I've observed, after a (school) year together, the boys may have developed minor resentments toward each other, but at least some of the girls will have stopped speaking to each other at all.
Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT). It made magnetic ballasts and T12 fluorescent lamps illegal in most lighting applications. THE GOVERNMENT TOOK AWAY YOUR T12 LAMPS! And they made you buy the newer, more efficient T8 lamps, damn them!
We used to have a little demo at work: 3 table lamps, two with CFLs, one with an incandescent bulb. Rarely could any visitor pick out the incandescent. The few that did usually admitted they were guessing. Our aversion to fluorescent lighting is all in our prejudices. Everything from "Joe Versus the Volcano" to R.E.M.'s "Daysleeper" tells you that fluorescent light is ugly and bad. Well, yes, 40 years ago it was. The technology evolved, but our myths didn't.
The opposite is happening now with LEDs. People LOVE the idea of lighting their house with LEDs. They're so COOL! But guess what, they actually suck at lighting a room, and they flicker worse than any fluorescent lamp in history. But it isn't personal experience that guides our taste: it's hype.
Consumer Reports gave Lights of America's CFLs the extremely rare "Not Recommended" rating, because they did not perform as advertised. Stick to light bulb companies you've heard of; GE, Sylvania and Philips all were recommended in the same issue (January 1999).
If I buy a pair of headphones at the dollar store, I'm not surprised when they sound crappy. Same goes for CFLs, people.
The dangerous stroboscopic effect only occurs if the fluorescent light source is using a magnetic ballast, which drives the light output to oscillate at the same frequency as the alternating current (60Hz in the USA). Electronic ballasts increase the oscillation frequency to something above 20000Hz, eliminating flicker and increasing energy-efficiency at the same time. Magnetic ballasts have been outlawed in commercial and residential applications, but are still allowed in some cheap "shop light" fixtures meant for garages and such, so watch out.
Be aware that LEDs operated on AC exhibit worse flicker than the cheapest fluorescent. At least with a fluorescent, there is some light from the phosphors between cycles -- an LED goes completely dark between cycles. I recently examined dozens of brands of LED holiday lights -- every single one flickered like crazy. At least they made some cool effects when you swung them around.
If I had a big pot of money and could either spend it on something that would make most people's lives a little easier, or spend it hunting terrorists, I'd easily pick the former. Unfortunately, I don't think eliminating spam would make MOST people's lives that much easier, just most Slashdotters'.
Delta Airlines delayed my flight out of San Jose, supposedly because it was foggy in Atlanta. It's 5 hours away, plenty of time for a fog to lift, but whatever. They made me miss my connecting flight. I had to spend the night in Atlanta ($274). They won't reimburse me, because the delay was "due to weather".
So don't fly if it's foggy somewhere in the country. Especially don't fly Delta.
I've wondered if any small companies have tried to use BF2 at the office to build teamwork skills. I think the kit you choose probably says a lot about the type of worker you are and the way you are most comfortable contributing.
BR>
For example, I do PC support at work and I find myself most often playing as an Engineer.
If a typical family lived in a 1200 square foot home, had one car, only the home phone, no cable/internet/cellphone, and didn't blow money on dining out and buying things they'd only need one income to do it.
The tricky part is convincing the stay-at-home spouse to refrain from buying all the things the TV tells them to. It takes a stout anti-capitalist mentality to ward off the constant brainwashing (in American society, at least).
Slashdot Mirror
I humbly submit that shoes are man's greatest invention. Just ask Tom Hanks' character in Castaway. If you were isolated and could only have one "invention", what else would it be? A house you can never leave? A fire you can not bring food to? Shoes allowed us to gather more food and all our other great ideas came from the leisure time that afforded us. I could get by without a car, or without fire, but I would be utterly miserable without shoes. I wouldn't last one day in the winter. Sure, I enjoy a good barefoot walk on the beach, but without shoes you can't even go into a store to buy groceries.
Once it is done, do not let Ben Linus go down to the basement.
They have been building new access roads like crazy in anticipation of this new fab plant, which they didn't know was coming for sure until today. On the one hand, I'm glad that all the construction wasn't for nothing. And local homeowners are excited that their unsellable homes may soon be in demand. But it is still going to suck big time for the local environment, not to mention how the traffic will make life there miserable. And I have a strong suspicion that all those new corporate tax dollars won't reduce property taxes or the sales tax in Saratoga County by a cent.
Whenever someone gets a new Vista laptop for home, they bring it to me the next day complaining that it can't connect to their home wireless. I disable IP6 and send them home. Now, they can at least access the web at home, and hopefully they can download drivers to upgrade to XP.
I agree and I call shenanigans on the cops. Try and point a laser pointer at a stationary object that far away. You can't hold it still enough. Even if a helicopter was hovering in place, I'll bet that the victim pilot couldn't hold a beam on something as small as a helmet visor inside a cockpit from a quarter-mile away for anything longer than a fraction of a second. Wahhhhhhhh.....
Seriously, these databases are pure fascism. They create a second (lower) class of citizenship. Who goes on the list next? Rapists? Cop killers? Jews? Liberals? I have two young kids and I'd rather accept responsibility myself for protecting them from predators. Unfortunately, my government would prefer that I cower, not think.
On a daily basis, I curse Adobe only a little less often than I curse Microsoft.
I made a network PDF printer here that drops your PDF into an open share folder. That works fine for about half of our group. The other half insist that they need to be able to edit PDFs. We have v.7 licenses, so I have to install Acrobat 7.0, then apply FOUR UPDATES THAT EACH REQUIRE A RESTART to get to 7.0.9. It takes a freakin' hour to install, because Adobe won't release a rolled-up installer. Obviously, Adobe wants v.7 to be a pain in the ass to use so I'll buy v.8. But I refuse, because we get nothing out of it. It's an upgrade in name only. Why the hell should we have to pay again for the same functionality?
When staff here budget for a new PC, they don't think about having to buy a new Acrobat license. Make sure you add that in when working up the cost of "upgrading" to Vista, as if you need any more reason to avoid it.
Adobe has always produced bloated, resource-hungry crap that is frequently the cause of instability issues. Why does it take longer to launch Photoshop CS3 on a dual-core machine than it did to open Photoshop 4.0 on a Pentium 1? Even though Adobe has three processes running at all time just in case you want to launch their bloatware?
In the Star Wars Universe, even though a lightsaber blade has no weight, there is a strong gyroscopic effect created by the mechanism that produces the blade. Just as the gyroscopic motion of a bicycle wheel prevents it from changing orientation quickly (thereby helping you stay upright once you are moving), a lightsaber exhibits resistance when you swing it around. This gyroscopic resistance simulates the momentum that must be overcome when swinging a heavy blade.
If you'd ever handled a real lightsaber, you'd know. Duh.
Researchers here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently came up with a super non-reflective coating -- it basically has nano-spikes that help absorb light from all angles and at all frequencies. Seems like it would be good to use for the dark pixel. http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1956
You exceeded the speed limit on your way to work today. I guarantee it. Did you get a ticket? No, because law enforcement is arbitrary and subject to the whims of the enforcers. They could track your GPS cell phone or EasyPass and know every time you were speeding. But if they actually gave out a ticket every time someone broke their stupid laws, the laws would quickly get repealed and then they'd have no traffic fine revenue. So they'll keep selectively shaking us down.
I wish we had speed cameras EVERYWHERE. Cops would not have to do dangerous patrols, we'd just mail people their tickets. AND EVERYBODY THAT EXCEEDED THE POSTED LIMIT BY 1 MPH WOULD GET A TICKET. EVEN COPS. EVEN JUDGES. And it would take about one week of this for everyone to realize that the posted speed limit is STUPIDLY LOW. If there was 100% enforcement of traffic laws, we'd quickly weed out the ones that are unnecessary.
If we can't fully monitor cops to ensure their compliance with the law, then we need Robocop. A cop who doesn't let his ego get in the way of justice. A cop who arrests everybody that breaks the law, even my hot blonde girlfriend, or the chief's brother.
I'd happily pay my traffic ticket fine if i knew that everyone else who had done the same violation had to pay, too. But right now, I look "too ethnic" to be let go with just a warning that other "special" people get.
People who know, know that Vista is not worth the money. I tell everyone who asks exactly what kind of experience I've had with it, and that I'd only pay money to keep it OFF my computer. I tell them if they really want their computer to act completely differently from the way it always has, they should buy a Mac or use Linux. That scares them into keeping WinXP. If we keep keeping it real, we can break the stupid cycle of bloating OSs just to sell more hardware.
The dangerous stroboscopic effect only occurs if the fluorescent light source is using a magnetic ballast, which drives the light output to oscillate at the same frequency as the alternating current (60Hz here in the USA). Electronic ballasts increase the oscillation frequency to something above 20000Hz, eliminating flicker and increasing energy-efficiency at the same time. Magnetic ballasts have been outlawed here in commercial and residential applications, but are still allowed in some cheap "shop light" fixtures meant for garages and such, so watch out there. Be aware that LEDs operated on AC exhibit worse flicker than the cheapest fluorescent. At least with a fluorescent, there is some light from the phosphors between cycles -- an LED goes completely dark between cycles. I recently examined dozens of brands of LED holiday lights -- every single one flickered like crazy. That's OK for decoration, but not illumination. You can add electronics to counter this, but you sacrifice energy efficiency and drive up the cost. I'm frankly amazed to see that people care at all about this proposed ban. In the USA, they already banned halophosphor T12 fluorescent lamps and those magnetic ballasts by raising the efficiency requirement(EPACT 1992). And guess what, lots of energy was saved, lighting quality was improved, and nobody died! In fact, nobody even noticed.
Look no further than the Survivor teams split by gender for (anecdotal) evidence that an all-female crew exhibits more infighting and is, as a result, generally less productive than an all-male crew. Or go to a university and visit an all-female and an all-male suite. See how well the roommates are getting along at the end of the school year. From what I've observed, after a (school) year together, the boys may have developed minor resentments toward each other, but at least some of the girls will have stopped speaking to each other at all.
Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT). It made magnetic ballasts and T12 fluorescent lamps illegal in most lighting applications. THE GOVERNMENT TOOK AWAY YOUR T12 LAMPS! And they made you buy the newer, more efficient T8 lamps, damn them!
And much energy was saved, and nobody died.
We used to have a little demo at work: 3 table lamps, two with CFLs, one with an incandescent bulb. Rarely could any visitor pick out the incandescent. The few that did usually admitted they were guessing. Our aversion to fluorescent lighting is all in our prejudices. Everything from "Joe Versus the Volcano" to R.E.M.'s "Daysleeper" tells you that fluorescent light is ugly and bad. Well, yes, 40 years ago it was. The technology evolved, but our myths didn't.
The opposite is happening now with LEDs. People LOVE the idea of lighting their house with LEDs. They're so COOL! But guess what, they actually suck at lighting a room, and they flicker worse than any fluorescent lamp in history. But it isn't personal experience that guides our taste: it's hype.
Consumer Reports gave Lights of America's CFLs the extremely rare "Not Recommended" rating, because they did not perform as advertised. Stick to light bulb companies you've heard of; GE, Sylvania and Philips all were recommended in the same issue (January 1999).
If I buy a pair of headphones at the dollar store, I'm not surprised when they sound crappy. Same goes for CFLs, people.
The dangerous stroboscopic effect only occurs if the fluorescent light source is using a magnetic ballast, which drives the light output to oscillate at the same frequency as the alternating current (60Hz in the USA). Electronic ballasts increase the oscillation frequency to something above 20000Hz, eliminating flicker and increasing energy-efficiency at the same time. Magnetic ballasts have been outlawed in commercial and residential applications, but are still allowed in some cheap "shop light" fixtures meant for garages and such, so watch out.
Be aware that LEDs operated on AC exhibit worse flicker than the cheapest fluorescent. At least with a fluorescent, there is some light from the phosphors between cycles -- an LED goes completely dark between cycles. I recently examined dozens of brands of LED holiday lights -- every single one flickered like crazy. At least they made some cool effects when you swung them around.
The irony is, we really should shoot the people who are stupid enough to pay to watch Gigli.
Would you mind linking to a good tutorial for this? I don't imagine SONY would let me just plug my external hard drive into the USB port and go.
If I had a big pot of money and could either spend it on something that would make most people's lives a little easier, or spend it hunting terrorists, I'd easily pick the former. Unfortunately, I don't think eliminating spam would make MOST people's lives that much easier, just most Slashdotters'.
Delta Airlines delayed my flight out of San Jose, supposedly because it was foggy in Atlanta. It's 5 hours away, plenty of time for a fog to lift, but whatever. They made me miss my connecting flight. I had to spend the night in Atlanta ($274). They won't reimburse me, because the delay was "due to weather".
So don't fly if it's foggy somewhere in the country. Especially don't fly Delta.
I've wondered if any small companies have tried to use BF2 at the office to build teamwork skills. I think the kit you choose probably says a lot about the type of worker you are and the way you are most comfortable contributing.
BR> For example, I do PC support at work and I find myself most often playing as an Engineer.
Looking at my son's xmas wish list. No Zune, but:
14. green iPod
17. glow in the dark skin for an iPod
18. remote control for an iPod
19. carry case for an iPod
Number 11 was a PS3. No Wii on the list. My kid must not read Slashdot.
If a typical family lived in a 1200 square foot home, had one car, only the home phone, no cable/internet/cellphone, and didn't blow money on dining out and buying things they'd only need one income to do it.
The tricky part is convincing the stay-at-home spouse to refrain from buying all the things the TV tells them to. It takes a stout anti-capitalist mentality to ward off the constant brainwashing (in American society, at least).