Generally speaking, you should always try to have a written contract of employment so you know where you stand with regards your employment. Just because you didn't sign anything doesn't mean there are no terms under which you are employed - it is just that they have not been reduced to a written form.
As movie producer Sam Goldwyn (and many others) said: "An oral contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on."
Does anyone know if LEDs will work with dimmer switches?
I read a white paper from Enlux lighting about that. They suggest that you either use a full-wave dimmer or use the LED lamp in parallel with an incandescent (i.e. a multi-lamp fixture). Unfortunately, unless you live in a theater, your dimmers are probably not "full-wave".
Unfortunately, most CFLs contain mercury so disposal becomes an issue.
Depending on what they burn in your area to generate electricity, the mercury in the extra fuel needed to produce the extra juice needed to run an incandescent over a fluorescent's lifetime could exceed the mercury in a CFL.
Take street lights for example, they use Metal halide or sodium bulbs which are in some cases considerably more efficient than fluorescents.
Since those are gas-discharge lamps like fluorescents, I don't think you would ban them when outlawing incandescents.
I've replaced most of my bulbs with CFLs now, but finding a good replacement for a 40 watt incandescent chandelier type bulb is damn near impossible.
If you ever find anything, please let me know. I've tried the existing options, and they are very disappointing.
Perhaps mandating a public service notice stuffed in (or printed on) each electric bill would be a better choice than an outright ban.
In any case, incandescent bulbs are not really inefficient if you think about it.
You can use incandescent lamps to heat your home, but it's not cost-effective. Where I live -- not California -- the primary fuel for central heat is natural gas. I was comparing electric and gas on-demand water heaters recently. The electric ones are a little more efficient in a per-unit-of-heat sense, since there is no exhaust wasting warm air out the vent. However, even with the local utility's "heating rate" for electricity, gas is about 1/2 the cost for a unit of energy.
If you live in a warmer climate than me and have only electric service in your home, then a heat pump would be a better choice for providing heat than a resistive heater, either in the form of a furnace or a bunch of light bulbs. In moderately cool weather, it can move heat more efficiently than creating it.
Last but not least -- I've finally seen dimmable fluorescent lamps in stores. I only found warm and cool white, I hope I can find my favorite -- daylight -- sometime soon.
"Some contest sponsors provide a check to cover taxes, but that income is also taxable."
If a company tries to award a tax-paid prize, it can never do so, because each time it pays off the tax this leads to extra tax being owed.
Therefore, Zeno might say, the swiftest accountant can never overtake the tax man. Thus, while common sense and common experience would hold that a company can pay its taxes, according to the above argument, it cannot; this is the paradox.
So the gym teacher has all the boys line up on one side of the gym, and all the girls line up on the other. Every 60 seconds he has them walk half the distance from their current position towards the center of the gym. His buddy the math teacher points out that they will never actually reach each other, it's an infinite series. To which the coach replies: "ya, but in about 5 minutes they'll be close enough for all practical purposes."
Anyway, in the US, the tax rate is less than 100% in all cases (usually much less), And you only need to figure taxes to the nearest dollar anyway, so solving that infinite series "close enough for all practical purposes" can even be done the hard way if you have to.
2. bills are the same color (the salmon pink $10 bill is a recent relief from that) and size so they are hard to tell apart easily, and impossible to tell apart for the blind... who in fact recently sued and won the us govt over this fact
I got one of those orangey-buff Tens, and I thought: "Tens are yellow, hundreds are supposed to be buff, this monopoly money is counterfeit!"
OK, OK, Jeez. I'm worried, OK? If I promise to worry, will you quit yelling at me?
Actually, you're referring to the dollar/pound exchange rate, not necessarily inflation in the US. Since most goods and services purchased in the US are denominated in dollars, not pounds, the relative strength of the pound has little to do with prices in the US. In fact, consumer and manufacturer price inflation is pretty low.
British products may be more expensive in America, but this only really affects the price of my cheesy comestibles. That's not trivial, but I can make do with less. In the meantime, you should take advantage of the situation and purchase cheaper US goods. I wish I could recommend a visit here to you, but ever since the "Department of Homeland Security" was created this country has had all the charm of a prison camp.
Exchange rates are rather volatile. When I was visiting Canada on vacation in Fall 2000, the USD:CAD exchange was 0.65 USD per CAD. Canadians I talked to were concerned about two things: that their currency was going to become worthless and that it looked like a bloodthirsty Texas redneck might get elected US president. At least their currency rebounded.
Re:Being fat versus getting jacked at gunpoint...
on
Does Sprawl Make Us Fat?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Maybe the original idea was to escape factories, but now the US has far less manufacturing capacity, so that isn't it anymore... what is it? Low gas prices (compared to the rest of the world) keep suburbs cheap, and black people tend to live in cities so it's undesirable to whites?
Sort of . . . School integration in the cities forced* white folks to relocate to the suburbs, taking their money with them. Now the good public schools are in the suburbs. Live in the city, and you send your kids to private schools, which cost extra. So now, if you have kids, it may be cheaper to buy a pricier house in the suburbs and not have to pay twice for schools (once in taxes, once in private tuition).
*In places where they "beat" integration, whites built entirely new, politicaly independent school districts in the suburbs.
Why is this just happening now after several years of use (and possible misuse)? Note to readers: this is a rhetorical question. I work for the cable industry which spends lots of money and time for years, certifying devices that get attached to the cable networks.
The certification of voting machines is not new. There have been federal requirements that electronic voting machines' software be "third party certified" for some time now. The new phenomenon is certifying the certifiers. Previously you could hire a code auditor to examine your voting machine's source code who would certify to the feds that your system was clean. There was a lot of room for abuse, since there was no guarantee that the code you gave the auditor was the code compiled and running in your hardware. Since there were very specific requirements for code-readabiliity, the company would need to spend considerable time and effort preparing a "clean" version of the code for review.
Since the equipment manufacturer is required to hire the 3rd party auditor, then the manufacturer also decides when to send in the audit results. Naturally, you would send those in after your auditor gave you a passing grade. Presumably, you would also then put this "clean" code into production. I was involved in this process as a contractor for ES&S's engineering consultants. I never did see the "clean" code merged back into the production code.
The cable company, on the other hand, stands to lose subscribers if the hardware doesn't work.
I hate to say it, but yes. When reviewing a resume, I look for things like growth & ambition. At 12 years experience, I've seen very good architects. If one wasn't even Senior, I'd wonder why that is. Lack of ability? Lack of desire? Clock puncher?
I guess it's a win-win situation for you, AC, and Mr. Ask Slashdot. You get someone with the word "Senior" on the resume, and he doesn't get stuck in management where he doesn't want to be.
So we're back to the original question, in a fashion: how to find a job where the path to advancement is not exclusively through management? To an HR guy, ambition is, by definition, the desire to become a more powerful manager. So to ask them that question is tantamount to making a big thumb-and-finger "L" on your forehead. I'd like to think that HR guys are becoming more enlightened, but I don't think so. My girlfriend just took an HR course in an MBA program and doesn't look like things are improving there. So if you can't work through them, you'll have to work around them.
>I am also 50 years old and have never held a job where I had any kind of management responsibilities.
You started programming in 1982? Programming was alot more of a magical/black-box back then. Its a different world out there now. People believe that they can outsource cheaply programming now. People can get a secretary to use Microsoft Office to do what you were programming in 1982, with the help of an animated paper-clip.
Wow. I think I'd take the word of the 50-year-old who was there over the kid who uses the "word" "alot" and thinks a secretary can write sophisticated software.
Its (sic) a different world out there now.
Right, cause someone who's lived through the changes needs to be told how s/w is different now. And "magical/black-box" programming? Have you even looked at some programming texts from the 70s (and earlier)? How about "The Mythical Man-Month" by Brooks? Read that and ask again if programming was a magical art in 1975 (the year of publication).
Well basically the problem with any ethics or campaign finance reform is that there is no "clean" way to control the influence of the American Enterprise Institute and other various well-financed corporate think tanks without also regulating mymothersbasement.blogspot.com. Otherwise it wouldn't be "fair" and has no hope of passing.
We really went wrong when we (or the SCOTUS, really) decided that corporations had "rights" just as if they were real people. Really big, rich, immortal people. Most of our campaign finance problems could be curbed if we overturned that finding. Make the government accountable to natural persons only. Sure, the rich would still have an advantage over the poor, but at least we'd control the inhuman sociopaths that we call corporations.
Translation: If you want to be a lobbyist, you must follow the rules for being a lobbyist. If you're lobbying 500 or more people, you fit the description of a lobbyist no matter how you're do it.
A lobbyist "lobbies" an official -- someone elected or appointed to a government position. It's not lobbying to talk politics with friends and neighbors or fellow web readers ("members of the public"). Not the same by a long shot. If it is, then you're "lobbying" us right now. Good luck with that -- I'm a nobody and I can't steer any Federal, State, or Local pork your way.
So, it's going to be going really fast (definitely faster than 2933fps).
Right. That would be just the horizontal speed, about 894 m/s. Vertical speed would be about 1732 m/s to get up to 95 miles in 180 seconds. So total magnitude of launch velocity would be about 1950 m/s (or 6400 ft/sec). I've ignored friction, so true value would need to be a little higher.
The guy probably spent 4+ hours/day on a project that now makes an interesting story. Meanwhile, the rest of us of spend 4+ hours/day screwing around on the web or watching TV. Who's the one with too much free time?
Amen to that, brother. I hate the phrase "Someone has too much time on their hands". It's a rather arrogant statement that translates as "I don't approve of how you spend your time." Who has the right to say that?
I'd buy him a beer, but something tells me he only drinks whatever they serve on Deep Space 9.
Something tells me a nice Romulan ale would be appropriate.
Being intelligent doesn't mean that you'll be rich. Becoming rich takes a certain amount of business acumen or just plain luck.
Ah, good ol' Ecclesiates 9:11.
This is no way means that I don't think that he did some great things or wasn't an interesting person. It just seems like the WSJ is trying to go for the easy, tear-jerker, story.
I guess in the thinking of the WSJ, a skilled and intelligent guy failing to become rich is a tear-jerker. Sure, money does offer a certain degree of freedom, but too much can be just as enslaving -- or so I've heard. If I find out I'll let you know.
Slashdot Mirror
As movie producer Sam Goldwyn (and many others) said: "An oral contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on."
I read a white paper from Enlux lighting about that. They suggest that you either use a full-wave dimmer or use the LED lamp in parallel with an incandescent (i.e. a multi-lamp fixture). Unfortunately, unless you live in a theater, your dimmers are probably not "full-wave".
Depending on what they burn in your area to generate electricity, the mercury in the extra fuel needed to produce the extra juice needed to run an incandescent over a fluorescent's lifetime could exceed the mercury in a CFL.
Since those are gas-discharge lamps like fluorescents, I don't think you would ban them when outlawing incandescents.
If you ever find anything, please let me know. I've tried the existing options, and they are very disappointing.
Perhaps mandating a public service notice stuffed in (or printed on) each electric bill would be a better choice than an outright ban.
You can use incandescent lamps to heat your home, but it's not cost-effective. Where I live -- not California -- the primary fuel for central heat is natural gas. I was comparing electric and gas on-demand water heaters recently. The electric ones are a little more efficient in a per-unit-of-heat sense, since there is no exhaust wasting warm air out the vent. However, even with the local utility's "heating rate" for electricity, gas is about 1/2 the cost for a unit of energy.
If you live in a warmer climate than me and have only electric service in your home, then a heat pump would be a better choice for providing heat than a resistive heater, either in the form of a furnace or a bunch of light bulbs. In moderately cool weather, it can move heat more efficiently than creating it.
Last but not least -- I've finally seen dimmable fluorescent lamps in stores. I only found warm and cool white, I hope I can find my favorite -- daylight -- sometime soon.
So the gym teacher has all the boys line up on one side of the gym, and all the girls line up on the other. Every 60 seconds he has them walk half the distance from their current position towards the center of the gym. His buddy the math teacher points out that they will never actually reach each other, it's an infinite series. To which the coach replies: "ya, but in about 5 minutes they'll be close enough for all practical purposes."
Anyway, in the US, the tax rate is less than 100% in all cases (usually much less), And you only need to figure taxes to the nearest dollar anyway, so solving that infinite series "close enough for all practical purposes" can even be done the hard way if you have to.
I got one of those orangey-buff Tens, and I thought: "Tens are yellow, hundreds are supposed to be buff, this monopoly money is counterfeit!"
OK, OK, Jeez. I'm worried, OK? If I promise to worry, will you quit yelling at me?
Actually, you're referring to the dollar/pound exchange rate, not necessarily inflation in the US. Since most goods and services purchased in the US are denominated in dollars, not pounds, the relative strength of the pound has little to do with prices in the US. In fact, consumer and manufacturer price inflation is pretty low.
British products may be more expensive in America, but this only really affects the price of my cheesy comestibles. That's not trivial, but I can make do with less. In the meantime, you should take advantage of the situation and purchase cheaper US goods. I wish I could recommend a visit here to you, but ever since the "Department of Homeland Security" was created this country has had all the charm of a prison camp.
Exchange rates are rather volatile. When I was visiting Canada on vacation in Fall 2000, the USD:CAD exchange was 0.65 USD per CAD. Canadians I talked to were concerned about two things: that their currency was going to become worthless and that it looked like a bloodthirsty Texas redneck might get elected US president. At least their currency rebounded.
Sort of . . . School integration in the cities forced* white folks to relocate to the suburbs, taking their money with them. Now the good public schools are in the suburbs. Live in the city, and you send your kids to private schools, which cost extra. So now, if you have kids, it may be cheaper to buy a pricier house in the suburbs and not have to pay twice for schools (once in taxes, once in private tuition).
*In places where they "beat" integration, whites built entirely new, politicaly independent school districts in the suburbs.
So that would include 6 interested people + at least 2 guys who keep posting "Amiga is Dead" over and over?
The certification of voting machines is not new. There have been federal requirements that electronic voting machines' software be "third party certified" for some time now. The new phenomenon is certifying the certifiers. Previously you could hire a code auditor to examine your voting machine's source code who would certify to the feds that your system was clean. There was a lot of room for abuse, since there was no guarantee that the code you gave the auditor was the code compiled and running in your hardware. Since there were very specific requirements for code-readabiliity, the company would need to spend considerable time and effort preparing a "clean" version of the code for review.
Since the equipment manufacturer is required to hire the 3rd party auditor, then the manufacturer also decides when to send in the audit results. Naturally, you would send those in after your auditor gave you a passing grade. Presumably, you would also then put this "clean" code into production. I was involved in this process as a contractor for ES&S's engineering consultants. I never did see the "clean" code merged back into the production code.
The cable company, on the other hand, stands to lose subscribers if the hardware doesn't work.
And of course a big bowl of granola, the crunching of which will help to drown out the latest depressing Iraq news or Dubya quote on the NPR!
They're debating who counts as people.
Then I read the article and was disappointed and confused. Damn Xbox tapes.
I guess it's a win-win situation for you, AC, and Mr. Ask Slashdot. You get someone with the word "Senior" on the resume, and he doesn't get stuck in management where he doesn't want to be.
So we're back to the original question, in a fashion: how to find a job where the path to advancement is not exclusively through management? To an HR guy, ambition is, by definition, the desire to become a more powerful manager. So to ask them that question is tantamount to making a big thumb-and-finger "L" on your forehead. I'd like to think that HR guys are becoming more enlightened, but I don't think so. My girlfriend just took an HR course in an MBA program and doesn't look like things are improving there. So if you can't work through them, you'll have to work around them.
Wow. I think I'd take the word of the 50-year-old who was there over the kid who uses the "word" "alot" and thinks a secretary can write sophisticated software.
Right, cause someone who's lived through the changes needs to be told how s/w is different now. And "magical/black-box" programming? Have you even looked at some programming texts from the 70s (and earlier)? How about "The Mythical Man-Month" by Brooks? Read that and ask again if programming was a magical art in 1975 (the year of publication).
See SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO.,118 U.S. 394 (1886).
We really went wrong when we (or the SCOTUS, really) decided that corporations had "rights" just as if they were real people. Really big, rich, immortal people. Most of our campaign finance problems could be curbed if we overturned that finding. Make the government accountable to natural persons only. Sure, the rich would still have an advantage over the poor, but at least we'd control the inhuman sociopaths that we call corporations.
A lobbyist "lobbies" an official -- someone elected or appointed to a government position. It's not lobbying to talk politics with friends and neighbors or fellow web readers ("members of the public"). Not the same by a long shot. If it is, then you're "lobbying" us right now. Good luck with that -- I'm a nobody and I can't steer any Federal, State, or Local pork your way.
Right. That would be just the horizontal speed, about 894 m/s. Vertical speed would be about 1732 m/s to get up to 95 miles in 180 seconds. So total magnitude of launch velocity would be about 1950 m/s (or 6400 ft/sec). I've ignored friction, so true value would need to be a little higher.
I think they're planning on mounting them on ships, replacing guns and missiles.
Unless you're blind or you have an extra set of eyelids, of course.
Amen to that, brother. I hate the phrase "Someone has too much time on their hands". It's a rather arrogant statement that translates as "I don't approve of how you spend your time." Who has the right to say that?
Something tells me a nice Romulan ale would be appropriate.
Ah, good ol' Ecclesiates 9:11.
I guess in the thinking of the WSJ, a skilled and intelligent guy failing to become rich is a tear-jerker. Sure, money does offer a certain degree of freedom, but too much can be just as enslaving -- or so I've heard. If I find out I'll let you know.
Maybe you could if 90% of the locks in the world couldn't be reliably locked by about 75% of their owners.
Using the logic of these laws, we should charge any child who has seen him/herself naked with possesion of kiddie porn.