Two years ago I was 51 and my PSA was elevated. An uncertain result--agreed. The next level of test wasn't uncertain or ambiguous, tissue samples from my prostate showed cancer. Finding the problem early (and removing my prostate) makes recurrence very unlikely.
I think the doctor in this case made a poor decision. PSA isn't sufficient by itself, but is a guide. The error lies in looking at PSA as an isolated test.
On the other hand, I'm firmly in favor of picking a treatment based on evidence. There are way too many cases where the evidence is ignored.
You would be very well positioned to be offered 10% when a company is first created. I have a hard time understanding how there is 10% available to be given out after at least 6 years in business, assuming I follow you. Find out what the problem is. I'm thinking the company is going under. Ask to see their financial info.
"I know nothing about this sort of thing.." I strongly advise having someone who does do the installation. You *must* have a switch that disconnects your house from your service drop. This is not a small switch--typical would be a 100A disconnect. If you don't, your generator will feed the service and present a huge danger to the people trying to restore your power. Ours allows the house to be powered off of either the generator or the utility, with no way for the utility and generator to be connected.
We bought an 8kW generator when we moved to Maine five years ago. My first thought was to buy a larger unit, but there's a problem with this idea. Compare fuel consumption fully loaded and at half load. IIRC, half load still consumes about 3/4 of the full load fuel. Generators become much less efficient at low loads--this means that you want to size it right, not oversize it. Running a generator isn't cheap.
I added up what we would typically have running and I think I came up with 4 or 5 kW. Bumping it up to 8kW seemed reasonable. Everything runs fine except the microwave (which acts browned out), and I don't use my plasma cutter or arc welder when we're on generator.
I think more detail would help recommendations. I don't have a copy of H&H, but a good number of folk I know like it. I have a copy of Gray and Meyer, which I use a lot (but my copy is 30 years old, I imagine it has had a lot added to it). I'm very fond of Operational Amplifiers by J.K. Roberge. It is not in print, but there are used copies out there. I'm not aware of any really excellent books on discrete transistor level analog design.
You didn't mention this, but there is a really good (i.e. practical) book on grounding and shielding: Grounding and Shielding Techniques in Instrumentation by Ralph Morrison
I strongly recommend spending as much time at the bench as you can, building and measuring your circuits. If you want to get good at it, hands-on experience is crucial.
Clever signal processing plus a whole new set of electronics. What these coils do now is detect a resonance change due to the presence of metal, a binary sort of decision. If you want an analog recording, at speed, you need a serious upgrade to the electronics.
I agree. A couple of suggestions that a quick glance didn't show (@143 comments): Charles Sheffield has a handful of juvenile fiction (which is pretty good if you're adult, too): The Billion Dollar Boy The Godspeed Drive Putting Up Roots The Cyborg from Earth Higher Education
Anything by James Schmitz (which has *all* recently been re-issued in compilations--buy them all).
The Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Heydron (5-6 books, the first is The Steel of Raithskar). Giant (ride-able) telepathic cats.
Anything Heinlein. Don't be your parents--be the people your parents warned you against.
I don't see this as an issue for domestic use. Plain old incandescents have a filament temperature of about half that. Remember, the temperature is within a small bulb.
Read what Citizenre has to say. They are doing what you want.
They charge you what your current power bill runs for electricity, flat rate for 25 years if that is the term you sign up for. You still have to pay for the connection, since they sell excess power to the utility (and the utility is your backup power--no batteries).
They will also move your installation to a new house once, for free.
Now whether this business plan is going to work for them, I don't know, but the risk on your part is small ($500 for 5kW).
The last time I shopped in a Best Buy was about 10 years ago, I think. I was buying a 1GHz Athlon machine. The salesperson told me they strongly recommended a UPS with that machine. Fine, this is not an unreasonable idea. Then she went on to say (with a very serious expression on her face) "If you don't have one of these protecting the machine, you could LOSE MEGAHERTZ!".
To my credit, I did not stomp on her and grind her into dust. I did try to tell her she was wrong (except maybe for the extreme case...). She offered to get one of the guys in tech support as they were the source of this information.
I bought the computer anyway, even bought the battery backup, but that was the last time.
Since you're asking about writing a business plan, I'll make the assumption that you are a geek like the rest of us, and probably are a little short in negotiating skills.
Stay far away from VC's. They are professional negotiators. They will own your underwear before you get your second dollar out of them. It will all sound very reasonable--if they're going to give you $5,000, why wouldn't they get 50% of the company in return? You don't have any products after all. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
On the other hand, I strongly disagree with the mortgage your house line of argument. There are three very important letters to focus on: OPM (Other Peoples' Money). You have a terrifically valuable item--a business plan and the smarts to execute. They have something *less* valuable, but still very important--MONEY. You will need a bunch, then you will need to go back and get more. You will probably need to hit them a third time. Each time you do so, you sell off part of the company. Be sure you sell it slowly enough that you have some left in the end. The first negotiation determines the rate of the following ones--don't sell yourself short.
So where do you get money? Relatives are a possibility, but only if they have a lot of it. My folks were touchingly naive when we started a company--"Don't forget your mom and dad, let us invest..". A very high risk investment and they aren't dripping with it. A source that is a good compromise between pissing off your relatives and getting eaten alive by VC's is called an angel investor. These are people with a good sized bundle of money looking for somewhere to make use of it. The good ones have additional motives, like seeing others succeed, being part of starting something that lasts, etc. You could certainly find a bad one too (devil investor?). They might be successful people in your community, like dentists or doctors. They might be people that are on top of a successful startup (i.e. has been in business for 5-10 years) and want to help start another one. The really tricky part here is finding them. Unlike VC's, they don't run advertisements.
The words exit strategy are ugly to a founder, but crucial to your investors. So is a business plan. The better your plan is, the more likely you are to attract money at favorable rates. The purpose of a plan is not to exactly predict the future--it is to make sure you think carefully about all the details.
I've worked at small companies twice. The first time, I joined a small, year old company run by the technical folks. We did a lot of stuff, and made some fine products, but in the end we ran aground and were bought by a larger company at a fair but bargain price. This took 12 years all told (note that I do analog semiconductor chips, not software).
The second time around, a group of us started from scratch. We had a wheeler-dealer (but trustworthy) business type at the top. The difference was like night and day. Our business was very similar to the first company, but succeeded. We sold our souls to a larger company after only two years, on pretty favorable terms. Almost entirely using OPM.
First, I'm not in IT, I'm an EE for the past 25 years. I have worked for small companies and large ones; I haven't seen large ones pull this kind of stuff, but they exist. I've seen small companies that have a strong respect for your time outside of working hours and ones that don't. Maybe IT is different--if so, it isn't a sustainable difference.
I hear you describing a classic trap. If management is (first) inclined to give you more than you can handle during working hours and (second) you cave and do the work, they've got you. If you point the issue out and they continue to give you more than you can do during working hours, then they have demonstrated that they can't be trusted. You have demonstrated that you will do what it takes to get the job done. Guess what you get as a reward--more work.
Maybe this is an oversight on their part. Let them know there is a problem; continue to demonstrate that you will get the job done. If they don't fix it, look for other work. The situation will continue to get worse as long as you stay.
I have a 45dB loss in a similar frequency range to yours. I have worn a hearing aid in one ear for about ten years. My experience is quite different from yours. My aid is fairly effective in a room full of people, I never have oscillation problems (admittedly, my loss is not as sharp as yours).
Over time I have tried several different aids, going from "advanced analog" to a couple of different digital aids. Clearly you and I need an aid with multiple frequency bands, such as a digital one. What I have found makes the single largest difference, however, is who fits your aid. For some time I went to a guy who, it turns out, just doesn't know what he's doing. Finding someone who does is the trick. I don't know how to do it except word of mouth.
Charles Sheffield has an excellent description of building a space elevator in his book "Web Between the Worlds". Building it is a major difficulty as it is a structure in tension; you can't just pile stuff on the top until you are high enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Two years ago I was 51 and my PSA was elevated. An uncertain result--agreed. The next level of test wasn't uncertain or ambiguous, tissue samples from my prostate showed cancer. Finding the problem early (and removing my prostate) makes recurrence very unlikely.
I think the doctor in this case made a poor decision. PSA isn't sufficient by itself, but is a guide. The error lies in looking at PSA as an isolated test.
On the other hand, I'm firmly in favor of picking a treatment based on evidence. There are way too many cases where the evidence is ignored.
Steve
You would be very well positioned to be offered 10% when a company is first created. I have a hard time understanding how there is 10% available to be given out after at least 6 years in business, assuming I follow you. Find out what the problem is. I'm thinking the company is going under. Ask to see their financial info.
"I know nothing about this sort of thing.."
I strongly advise having someone who does do the installation.
You *must* have a switch that disconnects your house from your service drop. This is not a small switch--typical would be a 100A disconnect. If you don't, your generator will feed the service and present a huge danger to the people trying to restore your power. Ours allows the house to be powered off of either the generator or the utility, with no way for the utility and generator to be connected.
We bought an 8kW generator when we moved to Maine five years ago. My first thought was to buy a larger unit, but there's a problem with this idea. Compare fuel consumption fully loaded and at half load. IIRC, half load still consumes about 3/4 of the full load fuel. Generators become much less efficient at low loads--this means that you want to size it right, not oversize it. Running a generator isn't cheap.
I added up what we would typically have running and I think I came up with 4 or 5 kW. Bumping it up to 8kW seemed reasonable. Everything runs fine except the microwave (which acts browned out), and I don't use my plasma cutter or arc welder when we're on generator.
Steve
Well, that *is* what the article says. Me thinks the article loses.
The article talks about a 25 square meter area producing 1400 kW per day.
This sounds highly unlikely.
Steve
I think more detail would help recommendations. I don't have a copy of H&H, but a good number of folk I know like it. I have a copy of Gray and Meyer, which I use a lot (but my copy is 30 years old, I imagine it has had a lot added to it). I'm very fond of Operational Amplifiers by J.K. Roberge. It is not in print, but there are used copies out there. I'm not aware of any really excellent books on discrete transistor level analog design.
You didn't mention this, but there is a really good (i.e. practical) book on grounding and shielding:
Grounding and Shielding Techniques in Instrumentation by Ralph Morrison
I strongly recommend spending as much time at the bench as you can, building and measuring your circuits. If you want to get good at it, hands-on experience is crucial.
Steve
Clever signal processing plus a whole new set of electronics. What these coils do now is detect a resonance change due to the presence of metal, a binary sort of decision. If you want an analog recording, at speed, you need a serious upgrade to the electronics.
Steve
Absolutely ask the users. There is no better way of evaluating your UI.
Have your programmers watch users try the UI. Don't lead the witness--let them make mistakes (and fix that part of the UI).
You will be surprised what you learn.
Steve
I agree. A couple of suggestions that a quick glance didn't show (@143 comments):
Charles Sheffield has a handful of juvenile fiction (which is pretty good if you're adult, too):
The Billion Dollar Boy
The Godspeed Drive
Putting Up Roots
The Cyborg from Earth
Higher Education
Anything by James Schmitz (which has *all* recently been re-issued in compilations--buy them all).
The Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Heydron (5-6 books, the first is The Steel of Raithskar). Giant (ride-able) telepathic cats.
Anything Heinlein. Don't be your parents--be the people your parents warned you against.
Steve
I don't see this as an issue for domestic use. Plain old incandescents have a filament temperature of about half that.
Remember, the temperature is within a small bulb.
Read what Citizenre has to say. They are doing what you want.
They charge you what your current power bill runs for electricity, flat rate for 25 years if that is the term you sign up for. You still have to pay for the connection, since they sell excess power to the utility (and the utility is your backup power--no batteries).
They will also move your installation to a new house once, for free.
Now whether this business plan is going to work for them, I don't know, but the risk on your part is small ($500 for 5kW).
Steve
Do you always give such even tempered, well thought out replies?
The last time I shopped in a Best Buy was about 10 years ago, I think. I was buying a 1GHz Athlon machine. The salesperson told me they strongly recommended a UPS with that machine. Fine, this is not an unreasonable idea. Then she went on to say (with a very serious expression on her face) "If you don't have one of these protecting the machine, you could LOSE MEGAHERTZ!".
To my credit, I did not stomp on her and grind her into dust. I did try to tell her she was wrong (except maybe for the extreme case...). She offered to get one of the guys in tech support as they were the source of this information.
I bought the computer anyway, even bought the battery backup, but that was the last time.
Steve
Since you're asking about writing a business plan, I'll make the assumption that you are a geek like the rest of us, and probably are a little short in negotiating skills.
Stay far away from VC's. They are professional negotiators. They will own your underwear before you get your second dollar out of them. It will all sound very reasonable--if they're going to give you $5,000, why wouldn't they get 50% of the company in return? You don't have any products after all. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
On the other hand, I strongly disagree with the mortgage your house line of argument. There are three very important letters to focus on: OPM (Other Peoples' Money). You have a terrifically valuable item--a business plan and the smarts to execute. They have something *less* valuable, but still very important--MONEY. You will need a bunch, then you will need to go back and get more. You will probably need to hit them a third time. Each time you do so, you sell off part of the company. Be sure you sell it slowly enough that you have some left in the end. The first negotiation determines the rate of the following ones--don't sell yourself short.
So where do you get money? Relatives are a possibility, but only if they have a lot of it. My folks were touchingly naive when we started a company--"Don't forget your mom and dad, let us invest..". A very high risk investment and they aren't dripping with it. A source that is a good compromise between pissing off your relatives and getting eaten alive by VC's is called an angel investor. These are people with a good sized bundle of money looking for somewhere to make use of it. The good ones have additional motives, like seeing others succeed, being part of starting something that lasts, etc. You could certainly find a bad one too (devil investor?). They might be successful people in your community, like dentists or doctors. They might be people that are on top of a successful startup (i.e. has been in business for 5-10 years) and want to help start another one. The really tricky part here is finding them. Unlike VC's, they don't run advertisements.
The words exit strategy are ugly to a founder, but crucial to your investors. So is a business plan. The better your plan is, the more likely you are to attract money at favorable rates. The purpose of a plan is not to exactly predict the future--it is to make sure you think carefully about all the details.
I've worked at small companies twice. The first time, I joined a small, year old company run by the technical folks. We did a lot of stuff, and made some fine products, but in the end we ran aground and were bought by a larger company at a fair but bargain price. This took 12 years all told (note that I do analog semiconductor chips, not software).
The second time around, a group of us started from scratch. We had a wheeler-dealer (but trustworthy) business type at the top. The difference was like night and day. Our business was very similar to the first company, but succeeded. We sold our souls to a larger company after only two years, on pretty favorable terms. Almost entirely using OPM.
Steve
First, I'm not in IT, I'm an EE for the past 25 years. I have worked for small companies and large ones; I haven't seen large ones pull this kind of stuff, but they exist. I've seen small companies that have a strong respect for your time outside of working hours and ones that don't. Maybe IT is different--if so, it isn't a sustainable difference.
I hear you describing a classic trap. If management is (first) inclined to give you more than you can handle during working hours and (second) you cave and do the work, they've got you. If you point the issue out and they continue to give you more than you can do during working hours, then they have demonstrated that they can't be trusted. You have demonstrated that you will do what it takes to get the job done. Guess what you get as a reward--more work.
Maybe this is an oversight on their part. Let them know there is a problem; continue to demonstrate that you will get the job done. If they don't fix it, look for other work. The situation will continue to get worse as long as you stay.
Steve
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.660/news_det ail.asp
I have a 45dB loss in a similar frequency range to yours. I have worn a hearing aid in one ear for about ten years. My experience is quite different from yours. My aid is fairly effective in a room full of people, I never have oscillation problems (admittedly, my loss is not as sharp as yours).
Over time I have tried several different aids, going from "advanced analog" to a couple of different digital aids. Clearly you and I need an aid with multiple frequency bands, such as a digital one. What I have found makes the single largest difference, however, is who fits your aid. For some time I went to a guy who, it turns out, just doesn't know what he's doing. Finding someone who does is the trick. I don't know how to do it except word of mouth.
Steve
Charles Sheffield has an excellent description of building a space elevator in his book "Web Between the Worlds". Building it is a major difficulty as it is a structure in tension; you can't just pile stuff on the top until you are high enough.