Other people have said it and I agree with it... those attempted extortion, excuse me, licensing letters they sent out are should be pursued as federal mail fraud, and the SEC should take a long hard look at Mr. McBride and his lawyers, and how they're playing their own company's stock.
It's good that you agree, but have you written your congressional representatives? It sometimes seems pointless, but they need to hear from constituents that this is unacceptable. And they're not reading/.
I fail to see how adding some obscure OS option on one line of PCs is "distancing itself" when the most prominent boldface headline on its Browse Products page is Dell recommends Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP.
...has led me to believe that spending a great deal of time on each application/resume/cover letter I send out for Yet Another Job Opening would consume an amount of time equivelent to a full-time job?
If you've sent out 6000 resumes, I have to assume you're unemployed and trying to find a job. Let me give you a clue -- yes, being unemployed and looking for work the right way is the equivalent of a full-time job.
Remember that expenses for education to get yourself re-employed (books, classes, certification testing, etc.) are all tax deductible.
Slashdot isn't where I'd normally go for tax advice but in case anyone read this comment and is changing their tax return this very minute, I think I'll clarify. IANAL (tax or otherwise), so refer to the appropriate tax publications or consult your tax preparer. The specifics of everything I mention here can be found in Pub 970 and the instructions for the 1040 and schedules.
There are currently credits and deductions related to education. Credits are better -- credits count as tax paid, reducing how much you owe dollar for dollar. Deductions mean that you can subtract them from your income, lowering the amount on which you will figure your tax.
The main credits are the Hope and Lifetime education credits. Hope is per student and can only be used for the first two years of post-secondary school. Lifetime can be used forever, but only up to $2000 per return, not per student. These are for tuition and fees -- room and board, books that are not billed to you by the university, and other expenses are out.
These credits generally apply to college/university/vocational schools, and aren't going to include IT type training & certification. There are some other credits and deductions, and you can raid your IRA without the penalty for some expenses (although you'll still owe tax on a standard IRA).
But the training discussed here is probably going to qualify as business-related training, which is far less deductible. First, it's a itemized deduction, so if you claim the standard deduction (like the vast majority of filers) then it's worthless to you. Second, you can only deduct the amount of those expenses that exceeds 2% of your adjusted gross income. There are also a number of limitations, the most significant being that if the training qualifies you for a new line of work then it is not deductible.
Sorry to ramble on about such a boring topic, but if you do this incorrectly it's liable to cost you. Also keep in mind that in many areas there are free tax services available to help with your return, like these nice folks in Chicago.
Not exactly on topic, but any pointers to do it at home (I am willing to shell out upto $1000, if I need to buy a kit or something) will be *most* welcome.
Pointer #1: Don't do it at home.
It's already been pointed out that your film has excellent resolution and is worth keeping. But I'd disagree that it isn't "fragile", as someone else said. If something has to be stored very carefully in controlled temperature and humidity, that is fragile.
There are many reasons to do a film to tape transfer. It's hard to find projectors in 8 mm format, difficult to get them serviced if they break (as mine did -- no one could find the parts necessary), and they require a lot of care to make sure they don't damage your film. Also, with today's computers, it's much easier to edit your footage into a nice, watchable set of family memories rather than 200 reels of disorganized family history.
Here's what I'd suggest:
1. Stop getting them out and watching them every year. Dust and dirt in the film gate can scratch your film. If your plan is to transfer them, stop running them through a motorized feed.
2. Get a hand cranked editing station off eBay. Use it to go through your film and organize it for transfer. The transfer house will likely splice together reels and you should try to group them to maintain some timeline.
3. As someone else said, locate a good super-8 telecine shop. I plan on trying these guys in the near future. Send them one reel and see how they do. There are plenty of other places you can try; I happened to have that one bookmarked.
If you'd like to edit this stuff down, consider standard or mini-DV which you can then load into a NLE program. Choose the best quality format you can use, and dub from that if you want other copies. Don't have it dumped to mpeg2 on DVD; get some kind of master tape made in DV, Digibeta, BetaSP, whatever you can run. This may require you to do some research into how video formats compare to one another. I'm sure google can help.
You didn't say how many feet of film you're dealing with. Assuming your 200 odd reels are the 50' cassettes many consumer 8/s8 cameras used, you've got about 10,000 ft, roughly 14 hours or so. That's going to be $1000-$2000 to transfer. Based on a quick google search, transfers look to be $90-$185 per hour -- that's 680' of 8mm and 856' of Super 8mm.
Bottom line -- this isn't worth doing yourself. The quality won't be as good and if your equipment isn't professionally maintained you're likely to damage the film. My old equipment has already eaten some of my film -- don't risk your footage. Start now and maybe you can edit it all down to a nice family DVD by your Dad's birthday.
Does this mean the party that controls the senate gets to hire the technician who manages the servers? Am i the only one who sees a problem with that?
It was a Judiciary Committee server. I'd assume that the committee has its own tech; that staff member would be hired by the chairman. The chair of each committee is the ranking majority party member. It's not a particularly sinister arrangement.
I don't know anyone who does get regular bluescreens on the NT kernel based windows.
You do now. My primary machine (provided by work, using a mostly standard image) runs Windows XP. It has had 3 or 4 blue screens just since I got it last July.
Worse, Microsoft's claims of increased "reliability" are, I believe, based strictly on the OS performance. Now, instead of the OS going belly up, I get an average of one crash a day at the application level. Normally, I'd say fine -- it's an app that doesn't behavior properly under Windows. But it's Outlook! Maybe I don't get it, but whether it's Microsoft Windows that crashes, or Microsoft Outlook, I still lose a lot of work.
These things get bigger and bigger. I guess they make sense for commercial uses, where money may be less important than fitting into the available space. If you have a very specific need -- I bought my plasma because my living room was very narrow -- then consider a plasma. But if you have the space, why would you pay $10,000 when you could pay $4,000 and get a better picture?
Then again, why not go DLP front projector and get a 10 foot picture for a fraction of the giant plasma price?
But when you look at the specifications they are never True 1080P ready. I want a widescreen display that can do 1920x1080 at 30". The closet thing is the samsung 240T (24" 1920x1200)
Why 30"? What's wrong with this (although it supports HDCP) or this.
[In iPhoto,] like iTunes, you apparently can't modify descriptions and titles through sharing, but unlike iTunes, there are no copyright restrictions.
What?! You mean that Apple and digital camera manufacturers, under pressure from the MPAA, RIAA,
DHS (I'm mean, we're ORANGE people, ORANGE!) and SCO, hasn't started DRMing my own photographs? I'm stunned.
While working we usually chat back and forth constantly about current events, what that nights plans are, etc. But I've found over the last several years that when we both arrive home together that evening, there's nothing left to talk about.
It hasn't really damaged our relationship at all...
...but has stolen hundreds of hours of productivity from both of your employers.
My spouse and I share an office. We sit across from each other....
We still IM each other, every day. Why?
.... Or when a family member IMs one of us, it's easy to just copy the Jabber log out of gaim and paste it into the other's message window and share a conversation.
This is not sharing a conversation. This is forwarding a message. Hopefully you'll understand this at some point, then you and your family can really share a conversation. Good luck.
The question presents two examples as if they're the same thing. They're not.
Of the two, Enron and the future SCO, only SCO is an organization that is publicly using lies and deception as its primary business model. Anyone still at SCO should know this and should be avoided like the plague by any employer in the industry. At the end of the day, you've got to stand for something; working for someone you know is unethical is just as bad as actively participating.
Enron and AA aren't in the same category. Enron masterminded a huge deception with the complicity of a lot of people, including their auditors and investment bankers. Fortune did a great story awhile back, but it's not available on the web for free.
At the same time, Enron was a massive company that employed many, many people who had no clue what was going on. They were people who went to work every day and did a job that they thought was valuable. This included a number of acquired start-ups that were trying to build new technologies and business models. Unless someone was working in Enron's finance department or in some of their shady energy trading operations, it shouldn't matter. (And yes, I realize that there were many who deliberately avoided the truth because they were making a lot of money.)
If you have friends defending themselves based on the behavior of Fastow and Ken Lay, then your friends need to come up with a new answer. It should be a very simple, direct answer -- I was one of thousands of employees at Enron and I wasn't privy to any of the financial decisions. And that's the end of the story.
If someone persists and wants to go down the Enron road and you have to be more aggressive, then tell them you'll be happy to answer whatever questions they've got if they can tell you what their CEO worked on before lunch today and what their CFO discussed with their investment bankers the last time they talked.
At the end of the day, this shouldn't be an issue based on paranoid fantasies like, "Ex-SCO employees might plant code." It's a simple matter of the employee's ethics -- and an employee who is willing to cross the line, legally or morally, is a time-bomb. Sooner or later, he or she is going to screw you or your customer, because life is full of little temptations and opportunities to do the right or wrong thing.
I'm all for hacking OnStar to see what happens. But to tout this as a brilliant move because it saves you a few hundred bucks a year is ridiculous.
For $420 a year, you're also getting a call to emergency vehicles instantly when your air bag deploys, a Lojack-like tracking system, remote door unlocking when you lock your keys in the car, and more. That seems like a pretty good deal.
It seems to me that if you've bought OnStar with your car, it's not for driving directions. Or at least, not just for driving directions.
Be wary of mishandling by TSA staff in general. I was carrying a fairly expensive fountain pen I'd received as a gift in my laptop bag. TSA fumbled while examining it and dropped it on the nib. It's now a $250 paperweight until I can send it off to be repaired.
Try to be aware of anything that doesn't open or operate in the way that a tired, bored TSA person expects it to. (The fountain pen cap screwed on, rather than pulled on and off.) It only takes a second of inattention for something to get broken.
Re:Screw weird, this is the *COOL* present thread!
on
Weird Presents Anyone?
·
· Score: 1
In the cool gift category, my girlfriend got me a Bubba Ho-Tep movie poster.
Sure, I'd like an iPod and a G5 with Final Cut Pro, but when it comes to remotes let's go with the heavy hitter. The iPronto is really the only way I'm going to be able to dim the lights, turn on the fireplace, and read Slashdot all from the recliner.
The Harmony Remote is cute but it's infrared only. I'd rather not be stuck with that line of sight requirement when the TV is in the front of the room, the A/V system is in the closet and the dimmer switch is behind me by the door. With that arrangement and my current IR remote, I look like I'm practicing my gun kata.
Why silly? This is what bluetooth is designed for; short range, low bandwidth, data transmission.
Yes, of course that's what Bluetooth is for. But back to what this thread was actually about -- speedo data.
You think it's great, I think it's crap. Let's work through the logic here. If we agree that I think the data is inaccurate (I do, honest), can we agree that it would seem silly, to me, to use a sophisticated short-range wireless technology to transmit said inaccurate data to my helmet?
BMW's with their shaft drive should have more accurate speedos than any other brand of bike... if they chose to.
That's probably true. But in case you don't ride BMWs, I let you in on a secret -- they've made their choice, and it is NOT in favor of speedometer accuracy. I think they've gotten a little better (my '95 required three speedo replacements), but I couldn't say for sure.
Slashdot Mirror
But based on Darl's interview from earlier today, they must only have $2,097 so far, right?
It's good that you agree, but have you written your congressional representatives? It sometimes seems pointless, but they need to hear from constituents that this is unacceptable. And they're not reading /.
That was my favorite part. Remember folks, when the actual number is ridiculously small, use large percentages as a substitute.
Maybe because everyone seems to use monopoly when they should be saying monopolistic.
Microsoft's practices were ruled monopolistic in the U.S. They used their market dominance to restrain trade and limit competition.
Once upon a time, that's what an education was for. Grammar checkers suck.
I fail to see how adding some obscure OS option on one line of PCs is "distancing itself" when the most prominent boldface headline on its Browse Products page is Dell recommends Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP.
Too bad you didn't include the atrociously out of proportion graphic.
And remember that spell checkers won't catch misspellings that spell another word.
I hat it when that happens.
If you've sent out 6000 resumes, I have to assume you're unemployed and trying to find a job. Let me give you a clue -- yes, being unemployed and looking for work the right way is the equivalent of a full-time job.
Slashdot isn't where I'd normally go for tax advice but in case anyone read this comment and is changing their tax return this very minute, I think I'll clarify. IANAL (tax or otherwise), so refer to the appropriate tax publications or consult your tax preparer. The specifics of everything I mention here can be found in Pub 970 and the instructions for the 1040 and schedules.
There are currently credits and deductions related to education. Credits are better -- credits count as tax paid, reducing how much you owe dollar for dollar. Deductions mean that you can subtract them from your income, lowering the amount on which you will figure your tax.
The main credits are the Hope and Lifetime education credits. Hope is per student and can only be used for the first two years of post-secondary school. Lifetime can be used forever, but only up to $2000 per return, not per student. These are for tuition and fees -- room and board, books that are not billed to you by the university, and other expenses are out.
These credits generally apply to college/university/vocational schools, and aren't going to include IT type training & certification. There are some other credits and deductions, and you can raid your IRA without the penalty for some expenses (although you'll still owe tax on a standard IRA).
But the training discussed here is probably going to qualify as business-related training, which is far less deductible. First, it's a itemized deduction, so if you claim the standard deduction (like the vast majority of filers) then it's worthless to you. Second, you can only deduct the amount of those expenses that exceeds 2% of your adjusted gross income. There are also a number of limitations, the most significant being that if the training qualifies you for a new line of work then it is not deductible.
Sorry to ramble on about such a boring topic, but if you do this incorrectly it's liable to cost you. Also keep in mind that in many areas there are free tax services available to help with your return, like these nice folks in Chicago.
Pointer #1: Don't do it at home.
It's already been pointed out that your film has excellent resolution and is worth keeping. But I'd disagree that it isn't "fragile", as someone else said. If something has to be stored very carefully in controlled temperature and humidity, that is fragile.
There are many reasons to do a film to tape transfer. It's hard to find projectors in 8 mm format, difficult to get them serviced if they break (as mine did -- no one could find the parts necessary), and they require a lot of care to make sure they don't damage your film. Also, with today's computers, it's much easier to edit your footage into a nice, watchable set of family memories rather than 200 reels of disorganized family history.
Here's what I'd suggest:
1. Stop getting them out and watching them every year. Dust and dirt in the film gate can scratch your film. If your plan is to transfer them, stop running them through a motorized feed.
2. Get a hand cranked editing station off eBay. Use it to go through your film and organize it for transfer. The transfer house will likely splice together reels and you should try to group them to maintain some timeline.
3. As someone else said, locate a good super-8 telecine shop. I plan on trying these guys in the near future. Send them one reel and see how they do. There are plenty of other places you can try; I happened to have that one bookmarked.
If you'd like to edit this stuff down, consider standard or mini-DV which you can then load into a NLE program. Choose the best quality format you can use, and dub from that if you want other copies. Don't have it dumped to mpeg2 on DVD; get some kind of master tape made in DV, Digibeta, BetaSP, whatever you can run. This may require you to do some research into how video formats compare to one another. I'm sure google can help.
You didn't say how many feet of film you're dealing with. Assuming your 200 odd reels are the 50' cassettes many consumer 8/s8 cameras used, you've got about 10,000 ft, roughly 14 hours or so. That's going to be $1000-$2000 to transfer. Based on a quick google search, transfers look to be $90-$185 per hour -- that's 680' of 8mm and 856' of Super 8mm.
Bottom line -- this isn't worth doing yourself. The quality won't be as good and if your equipment isn't professionally maintained you're likely to damage the film. My old equipment has already eaten some of my film -- don't risk your footage. Start now and maybe you can edit it all down to a nice family DVD by your Dad's birthday.
tp
It was a Judiciary Committee server. I'd assume that the committee has its own tech; that staff member would be hired by the chairman. The chair of each committee is the ranking majority party member. It's not a particularly sinister arrangement.
You do now. My primary machine (provided by work, using a mostly standard image) runs Windows XP. It has had 3 or 4 blue screens just since I got it last July.
Worse, Microsoft's claims of increased "reliability" are, I believe, based strictly on the OS performance. Now, instead of the OS going belly up, I get an average of one crash a day at the application level. Normally, I'd say fine -- it's an app that doesn't behavior properly under Windows. But it's Outlook! Maybe I don't get it, but whether it's Microsoft Windows that crashes, or Microsoft Outlook, I still lose a lot of work.
Then again, why not go DLP front projector and get a 10 foot picture for a fraction of the giant plasma price?
Why 30"? What's wrong with this (although it supports HDCP) or this.
What?! You mean that Apple and digital camera manufacturers, under pressure from the MPAA, RIAA, DHS (I'm mean, we're ORANGE people, ORANGE!) and SCO, hasn't started DRMing my own photographs? I'm stunned.
No, really, I am.
Maybe I'm behind the times. I thought iTunes was still a U.S.-only service?
So how is Jon trying to play media on Linux that he's legally purchased when it can't be purchased in Norway? I'm just wondering.
It hasn't really damaged our relationship at all...
We still IM each other, every day. Why?
This is not sharing a conversation. This is forwarding a message. Hopefully you'll understand this at some point, then you and your family can really share a conversation. Good luck.
Of the two, Enron and the future SCO, only SCO is an organization that is publicly using lies and deception as its primary business model. Anyone still at SCO should know this and should be avoided like the plague by any employer in the industry. At the end of the day, you've got to stand for something; working for someone you know is unethical is just as bad as actively participating.
Enron and AA aren't in the same category. Enron masterminded a huge deception with the complicity of a lot of people, including their auditors and investment bankers. Fortune did a great story awhile back, but it's not available on the web for free.
At the same time, Enron was a massive company that employed many, many people who had no clue what was going on. They were people who went to work every day and did a job that they thought was valuable. This included a number of acquired start-ups that were trying to build new technologies and business models. Unless someone was working in Enron's finance department or in some of their shady energy trading operations, it shouldn't matter. (And yes, I realize that there were many who deliberately avoided the truth because they were making a lot of money.)
If you have friends defending themselves based on the behavior of Fastow and Ken Lay, then your friends need to come up with a new answer. It should be a very simple, direct answer -- I was one of thousands of employees at Enron and I wasn't privy to any of the financial decisions. And that's the end of the story.
If someone persists and wants to go down the Enron road and you have to be more aggressive, then tell them you'll be happy to answer whatever questions they've got if they can tell you what their CEO worked on before lunch today and what their CFO discussed with their investment bankers the last time they talked.
At the end of the day, this shouldn't be an issue based on paranoid fantasies like, "Ex-SCO employees might plant code." It's a simple matter of the employee's ethics -- and an employee who is willing to cross the line, legally or morally, is a time-bomb. Sooner or later, he or she is going to screw you or your customer, because life is full of little temptations and opportunities to do the right or wrong thing.
For $420 a year, you're also getting a call to emergency vehicles instantly when your air bag deploys, a Lojack-like tracking system, remote door unlocking when you lock your keys in the car, and more. That seems like a pretty good deal.
It seems to me that if you've bought OnStar with your car, it's not for driving directions. Or at least, not just for driving directions.
Be wary of mishandling by TSA staff in general. I was carrying a fairly expensive fountain pen I'd received as a gift in my laptop bag. TSA fumbled while examining it and dropped it on the nib. It's now a $250 paperweight until I can send it off to be repaired.
Try to be aware of anything that doesn't open or operate in the way that a tired, bored TSA person expects it to. (The fountain pen cap screwed on, rather than pulled on and off.) It only takes a second of inattention for something to get broken.
In the cool gift category, my girlfriend got me a Bubba Ho-Tep movie poster.
The Harmony Remote is cute but it's infrared only. I'd rather not be stuck with that line of sight requirement when the TV is in the front of the room, the A/V system is in the closet and the dimmer switch is behind me by the door. With that arrangement and my current IR remote, I look like I'm practicing my gun kata.
Yes, of course that's what Bluetooth is for. But back to what this thread was actually about -- speedo data.
You think it's great, I think it's crap. Let's work through the logic here. If we agree that I think the data is inaccurate (I do, honest), can we agree that it would seem silly, to me, to use a sophisticated short-range wireless technology to transmit said inaccurate data to my helmet?
BMW's with their shaft drive should have more accurate speedos than any other brand of bike... if they chose to.
That's probably true. But in case you don't ride BMWs, I let you in on a secret -- they've made their choice, and it is NOT in favor of speedometer accuracy. I think they've gotten a little better (my '95 required three speedo replacements), but I couldn't say for sure.
tp