It depends on whether you want to become a cadaveric organ donor or not... It is very easy to crush your head in a motorcycle accident and become a brain-dead body up for salvage. Cynical or not, you could save the lives of six or seven people that way.
Guess you don't walk either - could get hit by a bus. Or bicycle - same thing. Or even take a bath - you could slip and fall. And, by the way, I'm specifically *not* an organ donor, so my death in a motorcycle crash will be useful to no one (among other reasons, I had chronic Lyme disease for a few years, so I'm not sure if it would be safe for the recipients). Ha!
200hp, thats a good start. 80hp sucks, might as well walk.
Raw HP numbers are only important in context (vs weight). Give me a 2000 lb car with 100 hp over one of the 3500 lb overweight safety pigs that they're selling now. At least the 2000 lb car will handle well enough to get out of it's own way. The most fun car that I've had was actually the least powerful - a Fiat Spider with somewhat less than 90hp - but the thing handled as if on rails.
To put it differently, would you rather ride a motorcycle with 80 hp or drive a 3000 lb sedan with 300 hp?
Personally ill stick with my 1980 datsun stanza.. sure it might use a little extra fuel but i know when i press the brake, the car is going to stop.
Actually, new cars (not even counting SUVs) are less efficient than cars built in the 80s, on average. We can thank the auto companies for putting in ridiculously powerful engines (who needs > 200 hp in a freakin' Camry?) and overly restrictive gov't safety regulations. I think that there should be a legal class of vehicles called "quadricycles" - under 1000 lb, no more than 3 seats, and over 70 mpg - which would be treated similarly to motorcycles under the law and would be exempt from some of the more onerous safety regs. Maybe even encourage the creation of barriered "cars only" lanes on some of the major highways to reduce car-truck accidents at speed (this is already done on some roads like the NJ turnpike).
MS has been active in the Automotive sector for quite some time now, and is one of the biggest players in the market. They have a full fledged Automotive Division, and some of their systems based on CE go into Fiat, Volvo and others I dont know.
The problem is that cars have too much stupid tech. and gadgetry in them these days, not too little. I'm all for modern drivetrains, and the Toyota hybrid system is actually pretty cool since it's a CVT with no clutches or belts to wear out. Same with ABS brakes, brake force distribution, and such.
But I draw the line at things like cars that lock themselves above 5 mph and then don't unlock when stopped (think of the kids that might fall out), climate control systems with 12.8 buttons that decide *for you* when the A/C compressor is supposed to be turned on, and integrated entertainment systems that make upgrading them without either major electronics hacking or buying a new car virtually impossible.
Low pollution, safety, and economy are all good (within reason), but some of the automotive engineering going on today is no more than technological masturbation.
Contrary to assertions an F1 car does need an O/S. It is not like a street car. The engine itself is not the issue, it is the wireless link, the telemetry, the fuel management and so on that is critical.
Partially correct.
The main ECU is much better off running a hard-coded looping program programmed to a set of default behaviours. Datalogging, fuel management, and possibly modifying those default behaviours within limits is best left to another processor. Basically, compartmentalize essential and non-essential functions, and make the absolutely essential functions as failsafe as possible.
(for most any CS major, it is essential to be able to develop for Windows -- other operating systems are a huge plus).
I graduated with an engineering degree in 2002, but took a few CS courses. All of the work was done on the CS lab UNIX boxes (Suns at the time, upgraded to commodity BSD machines right about the time I finished). Remember that CS is about teaching *concepts* rather than putting out functional code-monkeys - that's what "IT" programs are for.
$300. Apple really should just get over themselves and release a system that's in line with today's computer prices.
I agree, but only about their desktops. With their laptops, where are you going to get a laptop that's as light, functional, and sturdy as a MacBook at the same price? Before you say "VAIO", Vaios aren't cheap either and have plasticky shite construction quality. Maybe Averatec...
Whoa there, if a $899 computer is what a student strives on, then what about student loans, rent, utilities, and groceries?
I never spent more than about $250 on *any* computer in college, considering that there were many people willing to throw away "last year's model" or sell it very cheaply. I got into Macs after I graduated and started to have money.
Add in MS Word - OSX can (usually) read.doc right out of the box - and you're getting up towards the Mac's price point.
So can XP after a fashion - WordPad...
That being said, if I got a Hel^W Dell, the first thing I'd do would either be to reinstall Windoze, making sure to keep the drivers and activation files from the old drive, or install Debian or Ubuntu. The crap that you get with a "stock" Dell is extremely annoying and can lead to boot times > 5 min on a new machine.
A company with a newly-built office in a building in NY has their network closet off of the room where their air conditioning unit is. I try to open the door to the A/C room, and it requires a huge amount of effort, combined with a whooshing suck once the door is opened a crack. Turns out that their "licensed A/C firm" had installed the A/C to pull air from the A/C room without any sort of return ductwork or even a grating in the door. I was honestly surprised that the thing worked at all without the motor overheating due to lack of air flow.
An intelligent mine could be told that the war is over and told to inactivate itself.
This would help, but unfortunately wouldn't be the whole answer. The explosives would still be there, and become dangerously unstable after 40-50 years. This isn't even mentioning chemical leakage and pollution if the case of the mine is breached by corrosion or otherwise. Far better to equip each landmine with an RFID chip that responds to a coded signal and allows the bloody thing to be located, removed, and destroyed.
In the company I work in (danish company) more than 10% of the employees are married to each other. And we are hundres of employees, so I think there's enough statistical data to toy with.
I think Americans are most apt to sue for small things, so having a policy against workplace romances in place protects the company from being a party to sexual harrassment lawsuits.
They shouldn't be working side by side in any case. Not many relationships can survive being together 24/7. And even if it does, it's probably still not healthy.
So you're saying that it isn't healthy for a couple (married or not) to start a business together and grow it? Let's face it: when the business is small at first, they'll probably end up working in the same office or room for quite a while. And who better to trust as a business partner than someone who you mutually love?
Had more people taken your advise, probably half of all businesses started as mom-and-pop concerns wouldn't have *been* started.
I once had wood for a nice woman at work. I told my father about this, and he gave me some advice. Son, never dip your dick in the company ink well.
Bleh. Depends what the woman is like and how desperate you are to keep the job at all costs. If you ask me, good, interesting women are harder to come by than good jobs. And remember that you spend 1/3 or more of your waking life at work, so the development of workplace romances isn't really sufficient. You have the added benefit of being able to see the prospective romance under conditions of stress, not at her best always liek on a date.
(This is coming from someone who ended up dating the boss's niece at a company that he was working for one summer in college and having a good time:-P)
In the Southeast United States fire ants are a big problem. The just love low- and medium-voltage electricity.
Could this be exploited to build something like a giant fireant-zapper? It would seem more environmentally friendly than spraying pesticide to exterminate the things...
I've read about people getting killed by manhole covers in NYC that were electrified for the same reason.
Definitely possible. After a big snowstorm in DC a couple years ago when everything was salted and melting, I was taking the dog for a walk. He lifts a leg towards a metal plate raised a few inches off to the side of the sidewalk... yelps... and jumps about 5 feet into the air. He didn't die, but *I* would hate to be shocked in that particular spot!
if electricity had been discovered at the beginning of the industrial revolution we wouldnt have ended up with a grid system, but a system based around villages and towns, with the generator being water/wind powered.
Uhm, the US *did* have such a system until the 1930s when the Depression-era projects like the Rural Electrification Admin (REA) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) started building mega-powerplants that needed a grid to distribute the power they produced. Before that, each town or farm that had electricity had their own powerhouse and/or wind generator. In the really early 20th century, even most of NYC's power was generated locally using at 220V DC - DC couldn't be transmitted long distances without cheap, efficient inverters and rectifiers that simple weren't available at the time. Believe it or not, the DC system remained functional in some parts of NY until the 70s or maybe even later - I read recently that some buildings are still buying DC power from Con Ed to run old elevators and stuff like that.
Part of the thing *not* discussed here is that there are huge amounts of the power distro system in DC which *is* underground.
AFAIK, all of it, except for substations and the electrification of the Northeast Corridor rail line coming in from Baltimore. There's some old law prohibiting basically any overhead wires, and it's strictly applied - even the new trolley line in DC will have to use third rail (AFAIK, electrified only when a tram is passing on a given section) because of it.
Plus they have those really neato cars. I see them on the freeway sometimes.
Bah, I'm a freelance tech (more to do with business networks, servers, custom programming) and I ride a motorcycle when I need to go out to client sites that aren't accessable by subway/walking. *Much* cooler than a poor imitation of a mediocre 30s car;-P
Wouldn't it be great if the parking meter could tell that you hadn't paid or moved the car and then issued the cell phone an instant meter violation charge? I believe that is $50 in Chicago. Plus a 30 cent convenience fee.
That'd probably be illegal, since the parking violation is a *fine* rather than a charge. The law guarantees due process to people accused of an offense, even if it is too small to merit a jury trial in most places.
Congrats, asshole. Way to ruin a guy's day while he was doing his job. We've all been pissed about parking tickets, but the onus is on the owner of the car to make sure the meter is paid, not the person in charge of writing tickets.
Personally, I wouldn't give a rat's ass if half of all the cops in the US *lost* their jobs and starved on the street. This country is overpoliced as it is, and the laws are becoming more and more rigid (mandatory life sentences, etc). Then, if I saw one begging, I'd throw a steel washer or one of those knockout plugs from an electrical box into his cup:)
If cops/meter maids get enough abuse, they may even quit their jobs voluntarily and find something more productive to do...
So, my question is: Has anyone out there unbricked anything recently?
This is one good thing about the Apple Airport base stations (though a lot of things about them suck, namely the price, stability, and featureset). You can get them into "hard reset mode", which wipes the Flash and allows the Airport utility to reload the firmware from scratch. IIRC, the software that allows loading the firmware is hard-coded into ROM, so it isn't subject to "bricking", short of doing something really stupid like putting 120VAC across the Ethernet port.
seeing as how tickets have become a major source of NYC's revenue, under billionaire Bloomberg's helm. Funny how NYC local politics are still just that -- local politics, even though we are bigger in size and tax revenue than many of the world's nations.
the city has become ridiculously dependent on parking tickets - at a $110 a pop, with $20 increases every three weeks for late payments, im suprised meter maids aren't murdered in the street by rioting mobs!
I don't think this is just a Bloomberg problem, much as I hate him and Giuliani. I remember my parents complaining about the same thing in the 80s when *they* worked in NYC. Simple solution for me: don't drive a car in NYC unless I really have to. If I need motorized transportation, take my motorcycle, remove the plate and chain it up in a convenient spot whilst parking. Fortunately the meter maids are lazy and stupid as well as greedy, so I don't think they'd spare the effort to tow it or trace the VIN unless it's parked somewhere for an unreasonable length of time.
And even if it is, it's trivial to come up with a way of altering images so that they look identical but where every bit is different to the original.
True, but this assumes that they'll directly scan the files, rather than processing the image data and looking for stuff like edge contours. Of course, all bets are still off if strong crypto is used. It's not that strong crypto can't be broken - it's just that breaking *each and every* piece of data transmitted will take an impractical amount of time and processing power.
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Guess you don't walk either - could get hit by a bus. Or bicycle - same thing. Or even take a bath - you could slip and fall. And, by the way, I'm specifically *not* an organ donor, so my death in a motorcycle crash will be useful to no one (among other reasons, I had chronic Lyme disease for a few years, so I'm not sure if it would be safe for the recipients). Ha!
-b.
Raw HP numbers are only important in context (vs weight). Give me a 2000 lb car with 100 hp over one of the 3500 lb overweight safety pigs that they're selling now. At least the 2000 lb car will handle well enough to get out of it's own way. The most fun car that I've had was actually the least powerful - a Fiat Spider with somewhat less than 90hp - but the thing handled as if on rails.
To put it differently, would you rather ride a motorcycle with 80 hp or drive a 3000 lb sedan with 300 hp?
-b.
Actually, new cars (not even counting SUVs) are less efficient than cars built in the 80s, on average. We can thank the auto companies for putting in ridiculously powerful engines (who needs > 200 hp in a freakin' Camry?) and overly restrictive gov't safety regulations. I think that there should be a legal class of vehicles called "quadricycles" - under 1000 lb, no more than 3 seats, and over 70 mpg - which would be treated similarly to motorcycles under the law and would be exempt from some of the more onerous safety regs. Maybe even encourage the creation of barriered "cars only" lanes on some of the major highways to reduce car-truck accidents at speed (this is already done on some roads like the NJ turnpike).
-b.
The problem is that cars have too much stupid tech. and gadgetry in them these days, not too little. I'm all for modern drivetrains, and the Toyota hybrid system is actually pretty cool since it's a CVT with no clutches or belts to wear out. Same with ABS brakes, brake force distribution, and such.
But I draw the line at things like cars that lock themselves above 5 mph and then don't unlock when stopped (think of the kids that might fall out), climate control systems with 12.8 buttons that decide *for you* when the A/C compressor is supposed to be turned on, and integrated entertainment systems that make upgrading them without either major electronics hacking or buying a new car virtually impossible.
Low pollution, safety, and economy are all good (within reason), but some of the automotive engineering going on today is no more than technological masturbation.
-b.
Partially correct.
The main ECU is much better off running a hard-coded looping program programmed to a set of default behaviours. Datalogging, fuel management, and possibly modifying those default behaviours within limits is best left to another processor. Basically, compartmentalize essential and non-essential functions, and make the absolutely essential functions as failsafe as possible.
-b.
I graduated with an engineering degree in 2002, but took a few CS courses. All of the work was done on the CS lab UNIX boxes (Suns at the time, upgraded to commodity BSD machines right about the time I finished). Remember that CS is about teaching *concepts* rather than putting out functional code-monkeys - that's what "IT" programs are for.
-b.
I agree, but only about their desktops. With their laptops, where are you going to get a laptop that's as light, functional, and sturdy as a MacBook at the same price? Before you say "VAIO", Vaios aren't cheap either and have plasticky shite construction quality. Maybe Averatec...
-b.
I never spent more than about $250 on *any* computer in college, considering that there were many people willing to throw away "last year's model" or sell it very cheaply. I got into Macs after I graduated and started to have money.
-b.
So can XP after a fashion - WordPad...
That being said, if I got a Hel^W Dell, the first thing I'd do would either be to reinstall Windoze, making sure to keep the drivers and activation files from the old drive, or install Debian or Ubuntu. The crap that you get with a "stock" Dell is extremely annoying and can lead to boot times > 5 min on a new machine.
-b.
-b.
This would help, but unfortunately wouldn't be the whole answer. The explosives would still be there, and become dangerously unstable after 40-50 years. This isn't even mentioning chemical leakage and pollution if the case of the mine is breached by corrosion or otherwise. Far better to equip each landmine with an RFID chip that responds to a coded signal and allows the bloody thing to be located, removed, and destroyed.
-b.
Sucks? Better that she'd quit than if she'd stay and spread annoying office gossip about you...
-b.
I think Americans are most apt to sue for small things, so having a policy against workplace romances in place protects the company from being a party to sexual harrassment lawsuits.
-b.
So you're saying that it isn't healthy for a couple (married or not) to start a business together and grow it? Let's face it: when the business is small at first, they'll probably end up working in the same office or room for quite a while. And who better to trust as a business partner than someone who you mutually love?
Had more people taken your advise, probably half of all businesses started as mom-and-pop concerns wouldn't have *been* started.
-b.
Bleh. Depends what the woman is like and how desperate you are to keep the job at all costs. If you ask me, good, interesting women are harder to come by than good jobs. And remember that you spend 1/3 or more of your waking life at work, so the development of workplace romances isn't really sufficient. You have the added benefit of being able to see the prospective romance under conditions of stress, not at her best always liek on a date.
(This is coming from someone who ended up dating the boss's niece at a company that he was working for one summer in college and having a good time :-P)
-b.
Could this be exploited to build something like a giant fireant-zapper? It would seem more environmentally friendly than spraying pesticide to exterminate the things...
-b.
Definitely possible. After a big snowstorm in DC a couple years ago when everything was salted and melting, I was taking the dog for a walk. He lifts a leg towards a metal plate raised a few inches off to the side of the sidewalk ... yelps ... and jumps about 5 feet into the air. He didn't die, but *I* would hate to be shocked in that particular spot!
-b.
Uhm, the US *did* have such a system until the 1930s when the Depression-era projects like the Rural Electrification Admin (REA) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) started building mega-powerplants that needed a grid to distribute the power they produced. Before that, each town or farm that had electricity had their own powerhouse and/or wind generator. In the really early 20th century, even most of NYC's power was generated locally using at 220V DC - DC couldn't be transmitted long distances without cheap, efficient inverters and rectifiers that simple weren't available at the time. Believe it or not, the DC system remained functional in some parts of NY until the 70s or maybe even later - I read recently that some buildings are still buying DC power from Con Ed to run old elevators and stuff like that.
-b.
AFAIK, all of it, except for substations and the electrification of the Northeast Corridor rail line coming in from Baltimore. There's some old law prohibiting basically any overhead wires, and it's strictly applied - even the new trolley line in DC will have to use third rail (AFAIK, electrified only when a tram is passing on a given section) because of it.
-b.
Bah, I'm a freelance tech (more to do with business networks, servers, custom programming) and I ride a motorcycle when I need to go out to client sites that aren't accessable by subway/walking. *Much* cooler than a poor imitation of a mediocre 30s car ;-P
-b.
That'd probably be illegal, since the parking violation is a *fine* rather than a charge. The law guarantees due process to people accused of an offense, even if it is too small to merit a jury trial in most places.
-b.
Personally, I wouldn't give a rat's ass if half of all the cops in the US *lost* their jobs and starved on the street. This country is overpoliced as it is, and the laws are becoming more and more rigid (mandatory life sentences, etc). Then, if I saw one begging, I'd throw a steel washer or one of those knockout plugs from an electrical box into his cup :)
If cops/meter maids get enough abuse, they may even quit their jobs voluntarily and find something more productive to do...
-b.
This is one good thing about the Apple Airport base stations (though a lot of things about them suck, namely the price, stability, and featureset). You can get them into "hard reset mode", which wipes the Flash and allows the Airport utility to reload the firmware from scratch. IIRC, the software that allows loading the firmware is hard-coded into ROM, so it isn't subject to "bricking", short of doing something really stupid like putting 120VAC across the Ethernet port.
-b.
the city has become ridiculously dependent on parking tickets - at a $110 a pop, with $20 increases every three weeks for late payments, im suprised meter maids aren't murdered in the street by rioting mobs!
I don't think this is just a Bloomberg problem, much as I hate him and Giuliani. I remember my parents complaining about the same thing in the 80s when *they* worked in NYC. Simple solution for me: don't drive a car in NYC unless I really have to. If I need motorized transportation, take my motorcycle, remove the plate and chain it up in a convenient spot whilst parking. Fortunately the meter maids are lazy and stupid as well as greedy, so I don't think they'd spare the effort to tow it or trace the VIN unless it's parked somewhere for an unreasonable length of time.
-b.
True, but this assumes that they'll directly scan the files, rather than processing the image data and looking for stuff like edge contours. Of course, all bets are still off if strong crypto is used. It's not that strong crypto can't be broken - it's just that breaking *each and every* piece of data transmitted will take an impractical amount of time and processing power.
-b.