I thought school was for learning things rather than getting a fancy piece of paper.
It was back when it was possible to get a decent paying job without a degree. There are plenty of ways to learn something without going to college, but employers generally don't care if you have no way to prove that you did master it without them having to spend money to test your new education. None of them want to invest in finding qualified candidates based on what you've done. They'd rather sit back and make you prove it to them somehow.
So now going to college is about getting the fancy piece of paper to prove you spent thousands of dollars to increase your skills. Just ask people who went to VoTec schools for something they had learned in their father's garage growing up.
Can't employers simply choose to reject someone who graduates from an institution that makes no effort to verify who is taking their students' tests?
That would require employers to spend time and money keeping track of universities' efforts to prevent cheating. Having your leased politician pass a law pushing the responsibility back onto the college is much easier.
Mine are brand new, major-brand (Toshiba, Panasonic), and they are dim as hell when I turn them on. Whenever these things come up on Slashdot, tons of people talk about how "CFLs don't [insert complaint here] anymore." But I have begun suspecting that they do, but some people just don't notice or care.
Try a different brand. I had some globe style CFLs by Philips, and they were horrible. Long warm up and the incandescents I had been meaning to replace still outlived them. Tried the same product by GE, made a world of difference.
However, for most people in the world a burned-out tail light bulb is a minor safety issue and a minor expense.
I'm rather happy to see the change to LED back-lighting on cars. I can't count the number of times I've found myself driving behind someone with NO rear lights, because the vehicle relies on a single pair of double filament bulbs for tail light, break light, and turn signal functionality all at once. These same vehicles (which are generally American-made) don't feature a bulb monitoring systems like imports have for twenty years now that tell you when a light has gone out.
It may sound like a luxury feature, but people are generally too lazy to check the simple things on their cars, if tire inflation studies are any indication. Small things that affect safety of other drivers on the road. Automatic headlights weren't added just for consumer convenience. They mean fewer drunken idiots driving with no lights, and people not getting stranded because they forgot to turn off their lights and drained their battery.
I bought mine at Wal-Mart. They're GE brand and were right next to their older, longer GE bretheren on the display. The package said "Smaller Size" right on it in big letters. They came in a two pack instead of a three, and they are more expensive than the older ones. But they also put out a few lumens more (not much, but still slightly higher) than the longer ones, even though they were both rated for the same "incandescent watt" equivalent. They are rated for longer life though, 10,000 hours verses 8,000 for the older ones.
I just attempted to measure, and the bulb is almost an entire inch back from the edge of the lamp shade (this is with a 60w equiv. bulb).
GE only offers two color temperatures in its bulbs (faux incandescent color, and cool blue). Home Depot sells a brand called n:vision that comes in three temperatures. They also seem to be ultra-compact, but not quite as small as the GEs, they are cheaper though. I picked up these to replace the CFLs in my ceiling fixture when I moved into my place (I found the ones already there too yellow). I couldn't fit the old bulbs into the package for storage easily because they were longer than the n:visions brand.
The G25 bulbs were also GE brand, but I can only find them at Target and Ace Hardware, Wal-Mart sells a Philips brand I tried that is really lousy (like three bulbs have burnt out in one year bad, the old incandescent beat them in life). The GE G25 CFL bulbs are slightly smaller in globe diameter than the incandescent, but it's not that noticeable. They are also rated at 10,000 hrs.
Well, they won't flicker, they won't contain mercury, and they won't be too big to fit in many light fixtures.
2003 called, it wants it's CFL stereotypes back.
CFLs don't flicker like old ballast-type fluorescent tubes of decades ago. And the newer ultra-compact ones are actually smaller than the incandescent bulbs they replace. I have one in the swing-arm desk lamp in front of me right now, and the tip of the bulb no longer protrudes past the end of the shade like the old bulbs I used in it long ago. In my bathroom I have CFL bulbs made to look identical to G25 globe lights, in the same fixture with the actual incandescent bulb I am slowly replacing. They appear the same except the CFLs are brighter and their light isn't as yellow.
interesting article revealing the many places that Microsoft products reside, and what they're used for, ranging from elevators to ticket scanners.
1) Are elevators really that complicated they need an entire opertaing system? 2) Elevators???? That gives 'Blue Screen of Death' a terrifyingly true meaning.
Nobody who knows anything about computers shops at Best Buy.
No, they go there they just don't ask for advice from any of the employees there and generally use Best Buy as a place to see the product in person if possible before they go buy it someplace else for 30% less.
Coincidence: the CAPTCHA for my login for this post is "shopped"
EBay is a way of profiting from a sale without actually selling anything.
But they do sell something. They sell the hosting of your sale in a location lots of people go to to look for items. It's like when people rent out space at a flea market. Or sign on to a franchise agreement for a restaurant. The owners of the flea market and the corporate overlords of McDonald's aren't selling knick-knacks or the actual burgers, they're selling the place for you to sell you knick-knacks, and the marketing and brand recognition your burgers benefit from by being affiliated with that chain.
They're selling an image and an enabler to reach the audience.
That doesn't work when the only option presented to users is paypal, the eBay system wont let you finalise auctions until PayPal processing has occurred and eBay start removing listings that don't conform.
And do you think sellers would put up with a website telling them what methods of payment they're allowed to accept? They don't need eBay to artificially limit their customer base.
And no, you didn't get first post you idiot.
There were no replies when I started typing mine, and the story was not on the front page yet (saw it in the Firehose). It was worth a try. At least I actually formulate a response relevant to the article, instead of posting "frosty piss" or some other type of one line nonsense. I would have gotten first post if I had done that.
More chillingly, if eBay had launched the scheme in America would they have got away with it?"
EBay is a medium to connect buyers and sellers, nothing more. They can't regulate the actual terms of a transaction. All the parties have to do is accept "cash/check" as the method of payment and then go to Google/Western Union/whathaveyou and send the payment that way. Seller gets money via "unapproved" method. What's eBay going to do? Stop him from shipping the item?
In addition, it seems to me that AOL is tricking people into accepting this $2 increase. Let me explain:
My wife's grandma uses AOL and she told me that she got an e-mail that said that her bill will go up by $2 every month unless you click this link and answer some account security questions.
Either that of they're tricking people into giving up their right to unlimited technical support. I bet if you do keep the old rate and give up the support they start charging you a $19.95 "per incident" fee or something like that much like Symantec, Microsoft, ect.
Defend that the engineers continue to work at Apple despite lower than average salaries? Nobody's making them stay, and with Apple on their resume they could get work other places quite easily. This isn't like Wal-Mart dragging down the wages of an entire town.
If anything, Yahoo should question why they're paying their engineers so much.
This lock obviously wasn't designed for high security use since anyone in the same room would be able to see you and your amazing technicolor dream lock's pattern;
Thank God! Now my dog wont be able to get in.
Why do I feel like this summary was written just for the "amazing technicolor dream lock" pun.
You can get one credit report from each reporting firm per year, and they generally mirror each other. Since there are three firms what you do is get a report from a different firm every four months.
Nice reply, thanks. AVI seems to be a weird choice across the board. Its ancient, so maybe the excuse is its compatible with the majority of installed platforms...
That is the gist of it. Wikipedia's article actually answers most of your questions on AVI.
But, again, I'm not aware of any platform that can't handle mp4 wrappers.
Not platform, but player. And what's the media player with the largest installed base (for better or for worse)? Without an extended codec pack installed, WMP will just look at you funny if you give it a.MKV, same with a.MP4 container file. AVI also can only display square pixels, and in today's day and age pixel aspect ratio actually means something.
And I suppose the avi files I'm whining about are mostly XviD or DivX, these can't be incompatible with mp4 wrappers, can they?
No, they aren't as far as I know, but I don't have many.MP4 files, so I have yet to find one with XviD video streams in it. I have a series that is XviD video in an MKV container, hard subbed, with an Ogg audio stream though.
I thought XviD was an mp4 standard, capable of 264 and other compression schema.
You have it slightly backwards. The name "MP4" now refers to container format in general usage. The MPEG-4 "standard" is of course made up of many different "parts", so it's actually a collection of audio and video compression methods. Mpeg-4 also collects lots of stuff that was in the old Mpeg-2 standard.
DivX and XviD are in MPEG-4, Part 2 (they use the "MPEG-4 ASP" compression method in their respective codecs).
AAC Audio is Part 3 (it's also Part 7 of MPEG-2).
H264 is Part 10 (and also known as "MPEG-4 AVC")
The MP4 container format (MP4) is Part 14.
MKV is not part of the MPEG-4 standard, which is probably one reason it isn't supported more commercially. But it is an open standard and free, so lots of FOSS video editing/encoding software supports it. Fansubbers like it because it support chapter breaks like a DVD would, and more audio formats than an AVI as well I imagine.;) Plus it handles things like subtitle streams better. Combined with an advanced subtitle file format like Sub-Station Alpha, you can have a fansub that lets the viewer jump easily over the opening/ending or between the A and B parts, and display fansubs that look like they were hard coded, but can be removed with the push of a keyboard shortcut. Before MKV, fansubbers would use a container format like OGM to do the same kind of stuff. But OGM is really just a hack version of the OGG container format so it wasn't a real solution to the shortcomings of AVI.
Last night I was watching an R2 DVD rip of a series, and I had to toggle the fansub titles off for a moment to see if the English text on a strip of police barricade tape was there originally or not. [pic] (you can't do screen captures of soft subs, so I had to photograph my monitor).
Would not surpirse me if iphone were now exclusively for Verizon.
Then you must be a moron, since the exclusivity agreement between Apple and AT&T was for five years, to say nothing of the fact the iPhone is a GSM phone. It would have to be redesigned to work on Verizon/Alltel/Sprint.
Slashdot Mirror
It was back when it was possible to get a decent paying job without a degree. There are plenty of ways to learn something without going to college, but employers generally don't care if you have no way to prove that you did master it without them having to spend money to test your new education. None of them want to invest in finding qualified candidates based on what you've done. They'd rather sit back and make you prove it to them somehow.
So now going to college is about getting the fancy piece of paper to prove you spent thousands of dollars to increase your skills. Just ask people who went to VoTec schools for something they had learned in their father's garage growing up.
That would require employers to spend time and money keeping track of universities' efforts to prevent cheating. Having your leased politician pass a law pushing the responsibility back onto the college is much easier.
Try a different brand. I had some globe style CFLs by Philips, and they were horrible. Long warm up and the incandescents I had been meaning to replace still outlived them. Tried the same product by GE, made a world of difference.
I'm rather happy to see the change to LED back-lighting on cars. I can't count the number of times I've found myself driving behind someone with NO rear lights, because the vehicle relies on a single pair of double filament bulbs for tail light, break light, and turn signal functionality all at once. These same vehicles (which are generally American-made) don't feature a bulb monitoring systems like imports have for twenty years now that tell you when a light has gone out.
It may sound like a luxury feature, but people are generally too lazy to check the simple things on their cars, if tire inflation studies are any indication. Small things that affect safety of other drivers on the road. Automatic headlights weren't added just for consumer convenience. They mean fewer drunken idiots driving with no lights, and people not getting stranded because they forgot to turn off their lights and drained their battery.
I bought mine at Wal-Mart. They're GE brand and were right next to their older, longer GE bretheren on the display. The package said "Smaller Size" right on it in big letters. They came in a two pack instead of a three, and they are more expensive than the older ones. But they also put out a few lumens more (not much, but still slightly higher) than the longer ones, even though they were both rated for the same "incandescent watt" equivalent. They are rated for longer life though, 10,000 hours verses 8,000 for the older ones.
I just attempted to measure, and the bulb is almost an entire inch back from the edge of the lamp shade (this is with a 60w equiv. bulb).
GE only offers two color temperatures in its bulbs (faux incandescent color, and cool blue). Home Depot sells a brand called n:vision that comes in three temperatures. They also seem to be ultra-compact, but not quite as small as the GEs, they are cheaper though. I picked up these to replace the CFLs in my ceiling fixture when I moved into my place (I found the ones already there too yellow). I couldn't fit the old bulbs into the package for storage easily because they were longer than the n:visions brand.
The G25 bulbs were also GE brand, but I can only find them at Target and Ace Hardware, Wal-Mart sells a Philips brand I tried that is really lousy (like three bulbs have burnt out in one year bad, the old incandescent beat them in life). The GE G25 CFL bulbs are slightly smaller in globe diameter than the incandescent, but it's not that noticeable. They are also rated at 10,000 hrs.
2003 called, it wants it's CFL stereotypes back.
CFLs don't flicker like old ballast-type fluorescent tubes of decades ago. And the newer ultra-compact ones are actually smaller than the incandescent bulbs they replace. I have one in the swing-arm desk lamp in front of me right now, and the tip of the bulb no longer protrudes past the end of the shade like the old bulbs I used in it long ago. In my bathroom I have CFL bulbs made to look identical to G25 globe lights, in the same fixture with the actual incandescent bulb I am slowly replacing. They appear the same except the CFLs are brighter and their light isn't as yellow.
I will give you the mercury, though.
1) Are elevators really that complicated they need an entire opertaing system?
2) Elevators???? That gives 'Blue Screen of Death' a terrifyingly true meaning.
No, they go there they just don't ask for advice from any of the employees there and generally use Best Buy as a place to see the product in person if possible before they go buy it someplace else for 30% less.
Coincidence: the CAPTCHA for my login for this post is "shopped"
Thank you. I know you wont get modded up, but thanks for that.
But they do sell something. They sell the hosting of your sale in a location lots of people go to to look for items. It's like when people rent out space at a flea market. Or sign on to a franchise agreement for a restaurant. The owners of the flea market and the corporate overlords of McDonald's aren't selling knick-knacks or the actual burgers, they're selling the place for you to sell you knick-knacks, and the marketing and brand recognition your burgers benefit from by being affiliated with that chain.
They're selling an image and an enabler to reach the audience.
Apparently you do, otherwise you wouldn't have replied.
And do you think sellers would put up with a website telling them what methods of payment they're allowed to accept? They don't need eBay to artificially limit their customer base.
There were no replies when I started typing mine, and the story was not on the front page yet (saw it in the Firehose). It was worth a try. At least I actually formulate a response relevant to the article, instead of posting "frosty piss" or some other type of one line nonsense. I would have gotten first post if I had done that.
EBay is a medium to connect buyers and sellers, nothing more. They can't regulate the actual terms of a transaction. All the parties have to do is accept "cash/check" as the method of payment and then go to Google/Western Union/whathaveyou and send the payment that way. Seller gets money via "unapproved" method. What's eBay going to do? Stop him from shipping the item?
This was a non-issue from the start.
fp?
You could just browse at 4 and apply an extra -2 modifier to all Funny comments.
Either that of they're tricking people into giving up their right to unlimited technical support. I bet if you do keep the old rate and give up the support they start charging you a $19.95 "per incident" fee or something like that much like Symantec, Microsoft, ect.
Shutters have most of the problems I gave in my original post. [rolleyes]
Is that enough?
And hail, errant footballs, vandals...
They still let in plenty of light than can be used for generating solar power according to my calculator.
In paranoid America, the government watches EU!
Taxes?
Defend that the engineers continue to work at Apple despite lower than average salaries? Nobody's making them stay, and with Apple on their resume they could get work other places quite easily. This isn't like Wal-Mart dragging down the wages of an entire town.
If anything, Yahoo should question why they're paying their engineers so much.
Thank God! Now my dog wont be able to get in.
Why do I feel like this summary was written just for the "amazing technicolor dream lock" pun.
You can get one credit report from each reporting firm per year, and they generally mirror each other. Since there are three firms what you do is get a report from a different firm every four months.
A dying beast, you mean a division of Deutsche Telecom? Yeah, the largest phone company in the E.U. must be on their last breath over this.
The MPEG-4 "standard" is of course made up of many different "parts", so it's actually a collection of audio and video compression methods. Mpeg-4 also collects lots of stuff that was in the old Mpeg-2 standard.
MKV is not part of the MPEG-4 standard, which is probably one reason it isn't supported more commercially. But it is an open standard and free, so lots of FOSS video editing/encoding software supports it. Fansubbers like it because it support chapter breaks like a DVD would, and more audio formats than an AVI as well I imagine.
Last night I was watching an R2 DVD rip of a series, and I had to toggle the fansub titles off for a moment to see if the English text on a strip of police barricade tape was there originally or not. [pic] (you can't do screen captures of soft subs, so I had to photograph my monitor).
Then you must be a moron, since the exclusivity agreement between Apple and AT&T was for five years , to say nothing of the fact the iPhone is a GSM phone. It would have to be redesigned to work on Verizon/Alltel/Sprint.