I have to agree; I work at Spit Brook Road for Dell EqualLogic, and can see the resignation written on the faces of many of the people still there on the HP side of the complex. Those who are still there will be either working from home or commuting 50 miles or more to Marlboro, Mass.
I know many of them from my times at DEC/Compaq/HP, and it's sad to watch.
On the other hand, on our side of the complex, we're doing rather well, with Dell EqualLogic arrays selling like hotcakes. And much of the development team is ex-Digital, so it's fun to be a part of building really good products inside the old ZKO complex.
As a former user of VMS in various incarnations for many years, I can say quite confidently that it would happily copy 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, or 100,000 files, even files with funky ACLs and data formats, without error and without ever running out of memory. Now, while NT and successors re-implemented many of the same IDEAS as VMS, it's not the exact same code.
VMS was, is, and will likely always be, one of the most bullet-proof general-purpose OSes in existence.
Unfortunately, there is no way the same thing can be said of anything with the name "Microsoft Windows" on it.
Your comment on 40,000 e-mails and multiple gigs in one's inbox can't go unchalleneged. While I know it's de facto that people are using their mail as a database, a filing system, and a document storage medium, it wasn't designed for doing any of those things well. The company I worked at before the current one would simply not allow people to have e-mail older than 2 weeks on their Exchange server. Period. If you didn't save it off to a local mailbox, or print it out, or delete it, within two weeks it would be gone.
This was done partly in response to Sarbanes-Oxley (i.e., if you have an enforced policy of not retaining e-mail, you can't be slammed by the Feds for not having it available if the SEC investigates you), but also because of the absolute pain in the ass it is to manage the monolithic database files that Exchange uses. Go ask the poor IT folks that have to manage your company's mail databases. Ask them how long it takes to recover e-mails from backups when someone inadvertently deletes something.
I'm sorry, but no one -- NO ONE -- working for a large corporation should be allowed to have that kind of e-mail back store. The information that's trapped in that e-mail belongs elsewhere -- CRM databases, inventory systems, corporate content-management systems that can do full-document indexing and keyword matching (including that execrable festering mass that is MS SharePoint), ERP -- anywhere but E-mail. It's inefficient in several dimensions--disk space, employee time, IT management time, and, ultimately, dollars.
And you, sir, and the rest of your group, should be fired: tossed right out on your little boys' club asses. And the story of your misogyny should be spread far and wide to all potential hiring companies in your particular area.
Right. It's the forgiveness in the underlying filesystem (by being case-preserving yet case-insensitive) that makes it friendlier for normal people who don't appreciate the "elegance" of case-sensitive file systems, and wouldn't know a character set semantic if they tripped over it.
I must say I agree with you in every particular about the institutional myopia that affects Boston, especially concerning the western part of the commonwealth.
Because of this I decided, as a lot of others like me have, that I will not stay in such a state. So I moved up to New Hampshire.
All I use is MP3 format (192kbps) on the Sandisk, but I know that WMA works and from experience I know that M4a doesn't (iTunes ripping for the nano)
iTunes can happily rip in MP3 format as well, with bit rates up to 320kbps +VBR (Variable Bit Rate). To do so, go to Preferences->Advanced->Importing, and select Import using MP3 Encoder. You can then go to the Setting popup, and select Custom..., and adust parameters like the bit rate (I use 256 Kbps), Enable or Disable VBR (and then set the VBR Quality level, etc.
I've been using iTunes for several years to burn MP3 CDs for my car stereo, and only recently bought an iPod. Everything's deliberately in MP3 so that I'm not using a proprietary format (AAC). Yes, I know that AAC -- now M4A -- is supposedly a standard, but I don't want to take a chance. MP3s play everywhere, while AAC doesn't.
So what are they doing? Increasing or maintaining or stabilizing the price? Make up your minds.
You carefully sailed past the actual phrase that matters of the sentence: "above competitive levels".
All three of these actions -- (a) increasing the price beyond competitive levels, (b) maintaining the price above competitive levels, and (c) stabilizing the price (i.e., performing actions that undermine the market's ability to gain a lower price) above competitive levels -- are forbidden by Sherman. The lawyer is most likely using the language of the law itself in filing the complaint.
umm.. MS is a software company, and all its software runs on windows, why should it care about its products running on Linux? Its like saying GM is not providing enough tech info so that I can make my car inter operate with Toyota
Because it is a convicted monopolist, and therefore it is legally required to do exactly this under the terms of its settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice?
Neither GM nor Toyota hold monopoly power in the automobile industry, and therefore are under no legal requirement to provide interoperability.
To reiterate what another poster wrote, a convicted monopolist is a different beast in the eyes of the law than the garden-variety corporation. It must abide by much tighter rules of behavior; if it doesn't, it will get hauled into court, again, and again, and again, and again, and again ad nauseum until it complies or is forcibly broken up.
Also, just because the US DOJ's settlement was relatively toothless (because the incoming Bush administration deliberately toned it down), other administrations won't be so business-cozy, and more suits by the government will eventually follow. It may take another couple of decades, but the Microsoft monopoly will fall.
I just hope I'm alive long enough to see it and and to go dance on the corporate grave.
Continuing the off-topic comparison between US & UK domestic wiring standards and practices...
Every socket outlet in the UK can supply up to 13 amperes at 230V, giving a nominal 3kW. All the socket outlets on each floor of a house are connected together in what is called a "ring main" -- parallel connection with two connections to the consumer unit {fuse box}, one from each end of the daisy chain -- and served by a 30 amp fuse or trip switch. There are two parallel pathways to each socket outlet, so the permanent cable can be a lighter grade {2.5mm2 as opposed to 4.0mm2} since it is effectively doubled-up.
That's definitely an interesting arrangement. Does this imply that the fuse/breaker box for a two-floor house would only have two 30A/240V breakers to serve the general-purpose power sockets on each floor?
In the US, in modern construction each room (as opposed to each floor) will have at least one (and possibly more) 15A/120V circuits. (Maximum draw is therefore 1875W per circuit.) Power outlets are duplex, and there must be one for (at minimum) every 6' of wall space. Rooms where additional load is expected (such as kitchens) will be served by multiple 20A/120V circuits. As in the UK, all outlets are 3-prong, with the longest being ground (earth); however, we don't have the half-non-conductive prongs the way the UK does. We also don't do the double-path wiring. In-wall cable for a 15A/120V circuit is solid #14 AWG (2.08mm2); for a 20A/120V circuit solid #12 AWG (3.31mm2) is used.
I guess this would also mean that there are many more circuit breakers in modern American construction. Current entrance service in new construction is often 200A/240V split-phase, and the typical 'load center' has room for upwards of 40 circuit breakers. High-current devices such as electric ovens or ranges (cooktops, hobs), dryers, air-conditioners, and water heaters will get dedicated 240V circuits; everything else is either 15A/120V or 20A/120V. The wiring is done in a 'star' pattern radiating out from the breaker panel to the rooms or devices protected by each breaker. While I'm sure that 'dual-rail' wiring would be very useful, it's just not done here, probably because of the costs for the additional wiring for every circuit.
Bathrooms in the US are required to be equipped with GFCI (Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupting) outlets (or a GFCI breaker for the dedicated bathroom circuit). I guess full-power is used in bathrooms because people here use their hair-dryers far more in the bathroom than in the bedroom. (The hair dryers sold here also have GFCIs built into their cords or plugs.)
Bedroom circuits are now required (since 2002) to be equipped with an AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter) circuit breaker instead of an ordinary overcurrent breaker.
As to the UK ring main system -- what happens if one of the two hot paths should open? You wouldn't necessarily know it, because all the outlets would still be getting power from the other path. Since the wire gauge is thinner than would be needed in a star-pattern, wouldn't an overheat and fire be more likely? Or is there some device in the breaker to detect this out-of-balance condition?
While the UK has power switches on every single power socket, this is most definitely not the case in the USA (and probably many other places in the world). I always wondered why the UK electrical code requires that switch at every power point (outlet in the US). Seems like overkill.
I guess it's the same reason why (nearly) every plug has a fuse in it, which is another quirk of UK code I don't understand. Both contribute to making the plugs so big and clunky compared to their counterparts elsewhere. Aren't there fuse boxes/load centers (circuit-breaker panels) in UK buildings that provide the first line of protection? Why the fuses in the plugs?
The only plugs that are required to have some sort of fail-safe switch (fuse or GFCI) in the US are hair dryers and Christmas light strings, both items that have a substantial chance of falling into water (hair dryers) or having too many strings connected together (Christmas lights), which makes at-the-device protection worthwhile.
I've been to many a Macworld since those heady days in the early 90s, and haven't seen porn purveyors on the show floor in several years. I guess when IDG bought it from Mitch Hall Associates (or bought MHA themselves, I can't remember which), they tossed out all the porn vendors.
The {DEC, Compaq, HP} VMS operating system displays, out of the box, the text
Welcome to OpenVMS $ARCH on node $NODE
(where $ARCH was VAX, Alpha, or [now] Itanium) when someone successfully logs in. (I think it even used to display something like that before prompting for the username as well.) Inside DEC, we had to change these so that the "announce" message (pre-login) had the legend "Unauthorized access is Prohibited" in it, and the "welcome" message (post-login) had "Property of Digital Equipment Corporation" somewhere in it.
But Mac OS X does this EXACT thing! If you run an application that has never been run before on that computer (or has been updated, even by one of Apple's security updates), the OS asks you if you really want to do it, and also says why it's asking you.
I tend to agree with the original author that all the bloated blacklists and enumerated badness in the world won't help in the long run. Think about this in your personal life. If you're out and about and someone comes up to you and asks you a question on the street, do you mentally run through a list of "Known Criminals" before you decide whether to give this person the time of day? No. You make an instant evaluation based on a number of factors -- some likely stereotypical, some not -- and come to a speak/no speak/walk away quickly/RUN decision.
At least that's what I end up doing -- usually without conscious thought.
Putting aside all the stereotyping, cultural inferences, and other emotional baggage that people attach to particular vehicle shapes, it comes down to a simple point. A minivan is a very efficient way to carry four to seven people and a boatload of their stuff around in car-like comfort, without overly guzzling gas and without requiring 3 tons of metal and plastic to do it.
They're easy to drive, have lots of electronic/electrical geegaws, and are a supremely appropriate solution to the problem.
My wife and I have zero kids. We don't fit the typical demographic of the minivan buyer. Nevertheless, we bought a Dodge Grand Caravan AWD in 2001 because it was the best solution for the needs we had. I get together with friends often after work. This usually involves most of us coming from different directions, meeting at someone's house, and then going off to dinner. The ability to take the whole bunch in one vehicle had a huge appeal.
I didn't (and don't) give a rat's ass about automotive stereotypes. I had a problem, and the minivan solved it. My friends called it the "Maytag" or the "appliance" because it was big and white, but they sure didn't mind riding in it.
(Full disclosure: I ended up having to sell it in 2003 because I was laid off, ended up in a job paying half of my prior one, and could no longer afford the payments. Once I get my income back up to something respectable again, I will buy another minivan. They're just too bloody useful.)
The reason those brake lights have an afterimage is that they're flickering. Instead of simply lowering the voltage through the LED array (which I would think would cause the lights to be dimmer when the brakes aren't applied, they instead multiplex them -- run each LED for only a fraction of a second. While this allows them to appear dimmer, it creates a nasty flicker, complete with afterimage problems.
There are, in fact, several reasons we have such patchy service, even in reasonably well-covered areas like greater Boston, Mass.
First and foremost is our decentralized government. In order to put up cell towers, permission of the local government authority is required. In New England, this is at the town level. There are 351 of these in Massachusetts alone. In some cases, like the towns of Lexington, Weston, or Wellesley, cell coverage is very spotty for all vendors because the towns won't let the carriers put up enough cell sites to blanket the area. The excuses given are varied, but tend to revolve around not wanting to "spoil the view", or earth-and-crunchy concerns around "not wanting to bathe the neighborhood in "radiation" that Could Cause Cancer or other fine diseases.
Other than that, the rest of the reasons probably devolve down to logistics: can the phone companies get power (redundant if possible), equipment, and fiber-optic cable (to carry the calls) run out to where the cell site is without incurring drastic costs? Even in built-up New England there are still plenty of places where the answer to that appears to be "No", or perhaps "Not Yet".
At least this is what it seems when I drive along U.S. highways and some Interstates and see "No Service", "Digital Roam" or "Analog Roam" on my cell phone.
The landline phone companies operate under the requirement to provide Universal Service. I wonder if it's time for the cell phone companies to be put under the same requirement in order to keep their chunk of spectrum?
I think rebates are an utter abomination, and it's well nigh about time that they disappear from the American shopping landscape.
Rebates are a useless, costly, and pathetic replacement for a good old-fashioned SALE. Remember what those were? An unconditional discounted price for a limited period of time. It wasn't an "instant rebate". It was a sale price. Until the 1990s, this was the standard way retail stores ran promotions. It was simple and straightforward. You'd go to the store, buy the items on sale, and that was it. No forms to fill out. No hassles. No "forgotten" submissions. No crap.
And no need to pay sales tax on the pre-rebate cost of the product, either. Since the retail price was discounted, the sales tax levied was less. Yes, you don't get distortions in the system like the people who end up paying negative cost for an item (because all the rebates add up to more than the purchase price), but you get a fairer system. Instead of a few people getting ludicrously large (eventual) discounts because they buy an item and jump through all the rebate hoops, everyone who buys the item gets a smaller (but immediate and more equitably distributed) discount.
While I understand that the people in the rebate call centers will likely lose their jobs, they'll more likely than not find others. The needs of the many millions of consumers who shouldn't have to put up with rebates vastly outweighs the needs of the few who will be temporarily displaced when the (un-needed) call centers close. The same thing happened when the buggy-whip manufacturers all went out of business due to the increasing popularity of the automobile back in the early 20th century.
And as for those supermarket shopping clubs -- the way THEY work is very simple. The supermarket raises the average margin on all their goods by an extra percent or two, and then deeply discounts a (small) number of items to attract people to the store. Frankly, it's a way for the market to increase its margins at the expense of people who think they're getting a deal. It's all about increasing repeat business.
I know this was modded "Funny", but there are definite cultural factors that influence these three things...
Usually the people who aren't saying "goodbye" are in business situations, where once the important info is communicated, there's no point in pleasantries. (Actually, as a minor gripe, I really dislike people--usually co-workers--who say "Hi! How are you?" as they walk past you at full speed. Don't ask unless you want to know the answer! I also dislike it on call-in talk shows. Skip the time-wasting pleasantries and get right to the point.)
Repeating what the other person is saying is simply a means of getting the audience to know what the heck's going on. More recent films actually do this better -- they actually assume that the audience will figure out what the other side is saying through the context. What a concept.
Tapping the switchhook is a hangover from the days when doing that would cause an Operator to come on the line, whom you could ask to re-connect you. Admittedly, this hasn't worked since Direct-Distance-Dialing became universal in the late 60s, but the cultural reference has hung on for quite some time.
They shattered because modern disk platters are made of glass. Why? Because a glass surface can be made to higher tolerances than aluminum (the material of choice in older drives) or other non-ferrous metals that have been used for platter substrates. Glass is also more dimensionally stable in changing temperatures than aluminum as well.
The older drives used 14" platters. I can still remember the Digital RP06 drives, which were OEMed from Memorex. The drives looked like black washing machines. (Wiggled around like they were on "spin dry" too when lots of seeking was going on.)
The point here, though, is that trying to cut a modern disk platter is likely to result in shards of glass all over the place...
Why a 22.5 volt battery? Because they were readily available as "A" batteries for portable vacuum-tube products, and the 9-volt "transistor radio" battery hadn't been created yet...
I could certainly ask similar questions about the AM section. In my area (southern NH, USA), I care very much for the sports talk programming on Boston's WEEI-AM 850. I'd probably record everything from 10 AM to 6, and then play it back while doing stuff around the house in the evening.
I'm already in the fringe area for WEEI, and I'd be curious to know what the AM sensitivity is for the RadioShark, as well as its ability to reject the "hash" that I'd imagine its digital sections produce -- not to mention what can come out of computers, CRTs running at 640x480, or TV sets. (The horizontal scanning frequency of NTSC TV is such that there's a nice little harmonic at 850 KHz that lets me know whenever anyone in the vicinity has their TV set on.)
At any rate, since AM reception of Boston stations is already an adventure, I use a collection of GE SuperRadios and older restored vacuum-tube sets (because of superior AM sections as compared to current junk) to receive WEEI. The RadioShark would have to match the reception of what I have now to make it worth my while.
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>no dual CPU option.
Not true. You have to pick a single-processor or dual-processor system at the top of the tree on the "Configure" page at http://www.dell.com/content/topics/reftopic.aspx/pub/products/precn_kat?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz&~section=T7500.
There are 6 different choices: 32 & 64 bit single processor, 32 & 64 bit dual processor, and single & dual processor w/Linux.
No, it won't.
AdvFS was ported to HP-UX, but was never released on that platform.
I have to agree; I work at Spit Brook Road for Dell EqualLogic, and can see the resignation written on the faces of many of the people still there on the HP side of the complex. Those who are still there will be either working from home or commuting 50 miles or more to Marlboro, Mass.
I know many of them from my times at DEC/Compaq/HP, and it's sad to watch.
On the other hand, on our side of the complex, we're doing rather well, with Dell EqualLogic arrays selling like hotcakes. And much of the development team is ex-Digital, so it's fun to be a part of building really good products inside the old ZKO complex.
As a former user of VMS in various incarnations for many years, I can say quite confidently that it would happily copy 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, or 100,000 files, even files with funky ACLs and data formats, without error and without ever running out of memory. Now, while NT and successors re-implemented many of the same IDEAS as VMS, it's not the exact same code.
VMS was, is, and will likely always be, one of the most bullet-proof general-purpose OSes in existence.
Unfortunately, there is no way the same thing can be said of anything with the name "Microsoft Windows" on it.
This was done partly in response to Sarbanes-Oxley (i.e., if you have an enforced policy of not retaining e-mail, you can't be slammed by the Feds for not having it available if the SEC investigates you), but also because of the absolute pain in the ass it is to manage the monolithic database files that Exchange uses. Go ask the poor IT folks that have to manage your company's mail databases. Ask them how long it takes to recover e-mails from backups when someone inadvertently deletes something.
I'm sorry, but no one -- NO ONE -- working for a large corporation should be allowed to have that kind of e-mail back store. The information that's trapped in that e-mail belongs elsewhere -- CRM databases, inventory systems, corporate content-management systems that can do full-document indexing and keyword matching (including that execrable festering mass that is MS SharePoint), ERP -- anywhere but E-mail. It's inefficient in several dimensions--disk space, employee time, IT management time, and, ultimately, dollars.
And you, sir, and the rest of your group, should be fired: tossed right out on your little boys' club asses. And the story of your misogyny should be spread far and wide to all potential hiring companies in your particular area.
Right. It's the forgiveness in the underlying filesystem (by being case-preserving yet case-insensitive) that makes it friendlier for normal people who don't appreciate the "elegance" of case-sensitive file systems, and wouldn't know a character set semantic if they tripped over it.
This means that, from the shell, if you do:
touch foo
touch Foo
you will get a single file named "foo".
However, if you want to, you can format a volume to have a truly case-sensitve filesystem, using the Disk Utility app.
I must say I agree with you in every particular about the institutional myopia that affects Boston, especially concerning the western part of the commonwealth.
Because of this I decided, as a lot of others like me have, that I will not stay in such a state. So I moved up to New Hampshire.
Might this be a way out of your predicament?
iTunes can happily rip in MP3 format as well, with bit rates up to 320kbps +VBR (Variable Bit Rate). To do so, go to Preferences->Advanced->Importing, and select Import using MP3 Encoder. You can then go to the Setting popup, and select Custom..., and adust parameters like the bit rate (I use 256 Kbps), Enable or Disable VBR (and then set the VBR Quality level, etc.
I've been using iTunes for several years to burn MP3 CDs for my car stereo, and only recently bought an iPod. Everything's deliberately in MP3 so that I'm not using a proprietary format (AAC). Yes, I know that AAC -- now M4A -- is supposedly a standard, but I don't want to take a chance. MP3s play everywhere, while AAC doesn't.
You carefully sailed past the actual phrase that matters of the sentence: "above competitive levels".
All three of these actions -- (a) increasing the price beyond competitive levels, (b) maintaining the price above competitive levels, and (c) stabilizing the price (i.e., performing actions that undermine the market's ability to gain a lower price) above competitive levels -- are forbidden by Sherman. The lawyer is most likely using the language of the law itself in filing the complaint.
umm.. MS is a software company, and all its software runs on windows, why should it care about its products running on Linux? Its like saying GM is not providing enough tech info so that I can make my car inter operate with Toyota
Because it is a convicted monopolist, and therefore it is legally required to do exactly this under the terms of its settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice?
Neither GM nor Toyota hold monopoly power in the automobile industry, and therefore are under no legal requirement to provide interoperability.
To reiterate what another poster wrote, a convicted monopolist is a different beast in the eyes of the law than the garden-variety corporation. It must abide by much tighter rules of behavior; if it doesn't, it will get hauled into court, again, and again, and again, and again, and again ad nauseum until it complies or is forcibly broken up.
Also, just because the US DOJ's settlement was relatively toothless (because the incoming Bush administration deliberately toned it down), other administrations won't be so business-cozy, and more suits by the government will eventually follow. It may take another couple of decades, but the Microsoft monopoly will fall.
I just hope I'm alive long enough to see it and and to go dance on the corporate grave.
Every socket outlet in the UK can supply up to 13 amperes at 230V, giving a nominal 3kW. All the socket outlets on each floor of a house are connected together in what is called a "ring main" -- parallel connection with two connections to the consumer unit {fuse box}, one from each end of the daisy chain -- and served by a 30 amp fuse or trip switch. There are two parallel pathways to each socket outlet, so the permanent cable can be a lighter grade {2.5mm2 as opposed to 4.0mm2} since it is effectively doubled-up.
That's definitely an interesting arrangement. Does this imply that the fuse/breaker box for a two-floor house would only have two 30A/240V breakers to serve the general-purpose power sockets on each floor?
In the US, in modern construction each room (as opposed to each floor) will have at least one (and possibly more) 15A/120V circuits. (Maximum draw is therefore 1875W per circuit.) Power outlets are duplex, and there must be one for (at minimum) every 6' of wall space. Rooms where additional load is expected (such as kitchens) will be served by multiple 20A/120V circuits. As in the UK, all outlets are 3-prong, with the longest being ground (earth); however, we don't have the half-non-conductive prongs the way the UK does. We also don't do the double-path wiring. In-wall cable for a 15A/120V circuit is solid #14 AWG (2.08mm2); for a 20A/120V circuit solid #12 AWG (3.31mm2) is used.
I guess this would also mean that there are many more circuit breakers in modern American construction. Current entrance service in new construction is often 200A/240V split-phase, and the typical 'load center' has room for upwards of 40 circuit breakers. High-current devices such as electric ovens or ranges (cooktops, hobs), dryers, air-conditioners, and water heaters will get dedicated 240V circuits; everything else is either 15A/120V or 20A/120V. The wiring is done in a 'star' pattern radiating out from the breaker panel to the rooms or devices protected by each breaker. While I'm sure that 'dual-rail' wiring would be very useful, it's just not done here, probably because of the costs for the additional wiring for every circuit.
Bathrooms in the US are required to be equipped with GFCI (Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupting) outlets (or a GFCI breaker for the dedicated bathroom circuit). I guess full-power is used in bathrooms because people here use their hair-dryers far more in the bathroom than in the bedroom. (The hair dryers sold here also have GFCIs built into their cords or plugs.)
Bedroom circuits are now required (since 2002) to be equipped with an AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter) circuit breaker instead of an ordinary overcurrent breaker.
As to the UK ring main system -- what happens if one of the two hot paths should open? You wouldn't necessarily know it, because all the outlets would still be getting power from the other path. Since the wire gauge is thinner than would be needed in a star-pattern, wouldn't an overheat and fire be more likely? Or is there some device in the breaker to detect this out-of-balance condition?
John
I guess it's the same reason why (nearly) every plug has a fuse in it, which is another quirk of UK code I don't understand. Both contribute to making the plugs so big and clunky compared to their counterparts elsewhere. Aren't there fuse boxes/load centers (circuit-breaker panels) in UK buildings that provide the first line of protection? Why the fuses in the plugs?
The only plugs that are required to have some sort of fail-safe switch (fuse or GFCI) in the US are hair dryers and Christmas light strings, both items that have a substantial chance of falling into water (hair dryers) or having too many strings connected together (Christmas lights), which makes at-the-device protection worthwhile.
I've been to many a Macworld since those heady days in the early 90s, and haven't seen porn purveyors on the show floor in several years. I guess when IDG bought it from Mitch Hall Associates (or bought MHA themselves, I can't remember which), they tossed out all the porn vendors.
j
Welcome to OpenVMS $ARCH on node $NODE
(where $ARCH was VAX, Alpha, or [now] Itanium) when someone successfully logs in. (I think it even used to display something like that before prompting for the username as well.) Inside DEC, we had to change these so that the "announce" message (pre-login) had the legend "Unauthorized access is Prohibited" in it, and the "welcome" message (post-login) had "Property of Digital Equipment Corporation" somewhere in it.
I tend to agree with the original author that all the bloated blacklists and enumerated badness in the world won't help in the long run. Think about this in your personal life. If you're out and about and someone comes up to you and asks you a question on the street, do you mentally run through a list of "Known Criminals" before you decide whether to give this person the time of day? No. You make an instant evaluation based on a number of factors -- some likely stereotypical, some not -- and come to a speak/no speak/walk away quickly/RUN decision.
At least that's what I end up doing -- usually without conscious thought.
They're easy to drive, have lots of electronic/electrical geegaws, and are a supremely appropriate solution to the problem.
My wife and I have zero kids. We don't fit the typical demographic of the minivan buyer. Nevertheless, we bought a Dodge Grand Caravan AWD in 2001 because it was the best solution for the needs we had. I get together with friends often after work. This usually involves most of us coming from different directions, meeting at someone's house, and then going off to dinner. The ability to take the whole bunch in one vehicle had a huge appeal.
I didn't (and don't) give a rat's ass about automotive stereotypes. I had a problem, and the minivan solved it. My friends called it the "Maytag" or the "appliance" because it was big and white, but they sure didn't mind riding in it.
(Full disclosure: I ended up having to sell it in 2003 because I was laid off, ended up in a job paying half of my prior one, and could no longer afford the payments. Once I get my income back up to something respectable again, I will buy another minivan. They're just too bloody useful.)
John
The reason those brake lights have an afterimage is that they're flickering. Instead of simply lowering the voltage through the LED array (which I would think would cause the lights to be dimmer when the brakes aren't applied, they instead multiplex them -- run each LED for only a fraction of a second. While this allows them to appear dimmer, it creates a nasty flicker, complete with afterimage problems.
First and foremost is our decentralized government. In order to put up cell towers, permission of the local government authority is required. In New England, this is at the town level. There are 351 of these in Massachusetts alone. In some cases, like the towns of Lexington, Weston, or Wellesley, cell coverage is very spotty for all vendors because the towns won't let the carriers put up enough cell sites to blanket the area. The excuses given are varied, but tend to revolve around not wanting to "spoil the view", or earth-and-crunchy concerns around "not wanting to bathe the neighborhood in "radiation" that Could Cause Cancer or other fine diseases.
Other than that, the rest of the reasons probably devolve down to logistics: can the phone companies get power (redundant if possible), equipment, and fiber-optic cable (to carry the calls) run out to where the cell site is without incurring drastic costs? Even in built-up New England there are still plenty of places where the answer to that appears to be "No", or perhaps "Not Yet".
At least this is what it seems when I drive along U.S. highways and some Interstates and see "No Service", "Digital Roam" or "Analog Roam" on my cell phone.
The landline phone companies operate under the requirement to provide Universal Service. I wonder if it's time for the cell phone companies to be put under the same requirement in order to keep their chunk of spectrum?
Rebates are a useless, costly, and pathetic replacement for a good old-fashioned SALE. Remember what those were? An unconditional discounted price for a limited period of time. It wasn't an "instant rebate". It was a sale price. Until the 1990s, this was the standard way retail stores ran promotions. It was simple and straightforward. You'd go to the store, buy the items on sale, and that was it. No forms to fill out. No hassles. No "forgotten" submissions. No crap.
And no need to pay sales tax on the pre-rebate cost of the product, either. Since the retail price was discounted, the sales tax levied was less. Yes, you don't get distortions in the system like the people who end up paying negative cost for an item (because all the rebates add up to more than the purchase price), but you get a fairer system. Instead of a few people getting ludicrously large (eventual) discounts because they buy an item and jump through all the rebate hoops, everyone who buys the item gets a smaller (but immediate and more equitably distributed) discount.
While I understand that the people in the rebate call centers will likely lose their jobs, they'll more likely than not find others. The needs of the many millions of consumers who shouldn't have to put up with rebates vastly outweighs the needs of the few who will be temporarily displaced when the (un-needed) call centers close. The same thing happened when the buggy-whip manufacturers all went out of business due to the increasing popularity of the automobile back in the early 20th century.
And as for those supermarket shopping clubs -- the way THEY work is very simple. The supermarket raises the average margin on all their goods by an extra percent or two, and then deeply discounts a (small) number of items to attract people to the store. Frankly, it's a way for the market to increase its margins at the expense of people who think they're getting a deal. It's all about increasing repeat business.
Usually the people who aren't saying "goodbye" are in business situations, where once the important info is communicated, there's no point in pleasantries. (Actually, as a minor gripe, I really dislike people--usually co-workers--who say "Hi! How are you?" as they walk past you at full speed. Don't ask unless you want to know the answer! I also dislike it on call-in talk shows. Skip the time-wasting pleasantries and get right to the point.)
Repeating what the other person is saying is simply a means of getting the audience to know what the heck's going on. More recent films actually do this better -- they actually assume that the audience will figure out what the other side is saying through the context. What a concept.
Tapping the switchhook is a hangover from the days when doing that would cause an Operator to come on the line, whom you could ask to re-connect you. Admittedly, this hasn't worked since Direct-Distance-Dialing became universal in the late 60s, but the cultural reference has hung on for quite some time.
Nope. Read the specs. The Mac mini comes with a DVI-to-VGA adapter in the box. So you don't need a DVI KVM; just a USB model.
The older drives used 14" platters. I can still remember the Digital RP06 drives, which were OEMed from Memorex. The drives looked like black washing machines. (Wiggled around like they were on "spin dry" too when lots of seeking was going on.)
The point here, though, is that trying to cut a modern disk platter is likely to result in shards of glass all over the place...
Why a 22.5 volt battery? Because they were readily available as "A" batteries for portable vacuum-tube products, and the 9-volt "transistor radio" battery hadn't been created yet...
I'm already in the fringe area for WEEI, and I'd be curious to know what the AM sensitivity is for the RadioShark, as well as its ability to reject the "hash" that I'd imagine its digital sections produce -- not to mention what can come out of computers, CRTs running at 640x480, or TV sets. (The horizontal scanning frequency of NTSC TV is such that there's a nice little harmonic at 850 KHz that lets me know whenever anyone in the vicinity has their TV set on.)
At any rate, since AM reception of Boston stations is already an adventure, I use a collection of GE SuperRadios and older restored vacuum-tube sets (because of superior AM sections as compared to current junk) to receive WEEI. The RadioShark would have to match the reception of what I have now to make it worth my while.