I haven't read the article, but if the summary correctly reflects the situation, the traffic lights are all working - they're just working independently, so rather than being in sync so the main flow of traffic never has to stop (or stops less) they're all just doing their own thing.
Really it's social engineering for the forces of good.
Just like a guy in a telco uniform with a tool box and a clipboard can probably get into the wiring closet at a lot of companies.
I work for a large retailer. I'm pretty confident (based on past experience) that I could walk into one with a toolbox and a piece of paper with our logo on it and be allowed to do almost anything I want to the POS system.
I'd be glad to have my deceased relative out there still.
None of them had Facebook - heck, they all died before it even existed - but it'd be nice to have somewhere to go to see pics of dad or my grandparents from when they were still alive without having to dig around in the basement.
I wouldn't want it the first few months, maybe, but it would be nice now.
Do you really think there was no shame and intimidation involved in getting the signatures? Variations on this probably played out all over the state to get some of those signatures:
"Hey Bob, isn't it awful how the gays are going to have marriage rights? Turns my stomach."
"Um, yeah Joe, sure, that's a shame."
"Well Bob if you agree then why don't you sign this petition? We'll stop them before they ruin our state."
Bob thinks to himself, "well, it'll probably get enough anyway, and I don't need Joe mad at me, I'll just signs the damn thing" and signs.
Bob needs to grow a spine if he doesn't really agree, but maybe Joe is his pastor, or his boss, or the neighbor who always loans him tools. Don't want to piss off the guy who lets him use the saw.
If people are shamed by having signed the petition then they shouldn't have signed it. The people who are shamed aren't listening to their little voice.
If they are not ashamed to have signed it then what's the problem?
I don't know about you, the only petition I've signed as an adult was for a local politician to get on the ballot. Go ahead, put my name on the front page of the newspaper - all I did was agree that this nice guy on my front porch should get his name on the ballot if he wants. I guess it implies I support him, but really, I don't even know what he thinks, just that he seems OK enough to be on the ballot.
All these people did, when you get down to it, was agree that the question of gay marriage should be on the ballot. Same thing.
There's the implication that you're in favor of the measure passing, of course - but you shouldn't put your name on a piece of paper if you don't understand what could happen with that list of names.
An assault on civil rights, an assault on marriage, or an assault on sunshine laws and freedom of information?
It's all about gay marriage. Neither group involved cares about any of the rest of that stuff.
Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me marry a person of the same gender against my will, why do I care what you do? Don't pretend there aren't same-sex families already; according to one of the links, 18% of same-sex couples in Washington state are raising a child under 18.
I do have a tiny little bit of sympathy for the signers of the petition; I don't think people really understand the legal details behind the signing of a petition, and many of them many have assumed that it was as anonymous and protected as voting.
One shouldn't take a stand that involves limiting someone else's rights but only be willing to do it anonymously. That's just chicken shit.
And if you just shrugged and signed because your neighbor, coworker or fellow church goer asked you too without actually believing it, that's chicken shit too.
Yes, that's my complaint. I was able to enlarge the entire Notes interface with one setting in a config file.
On a 1600x1040 (something like that) laptop screen, a 8-point font that I can't change without impacting the entire operating system is not acceptable.
I have no idea how correct the report I linked is.
If I'd thought about it, it would have occurred to me that people who do know about the issue would respond, and that's really one of the great things about Slashdot.
I do, however, still think the report is interesting, even taking into account its issues and perhaps bias.
Entitled "Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?" it reviews the accuracy of the current US surface temperature measurement network and finds it woefully lacking for the sort of analysis that results in things like 0.7 degree changes over decades.
As a quick summary, there are the following issues with the temperature measurement methodology:
1. The measuring statements are often either surrounded by asphalt or in the air path of air conditioning exhaust or other hot air. 2. Data points are often not collected, and the missing points are created by interpolation. 3. Exterior finish specification changed from whitewash to latex paint, and that change has a significant impact on measurement results.
I've worked on systems like I describe, so I'm not sure why you believe such a thing doesn't exist.
There are computers that have no usable serial or network port for external communication but do have a diskette drive. Many of them are running MS-DOS.
You seem to believe you can write to a diskette image, then use that on a different virtual machine. But not everything can or should be virtualized - you ultimately have to test on and deploy to the actual hardware in the actual world.
I graduated from U of Illinois (Urbana) in 1990 having satisfied some of my humanities electives with literature of science fiction and literature of fantasy. It appears these courses, English 119 and English 120, still exist. They're hundred-level courses, so the difficulty should be OK for college-bound high school students.
These aren't the books I remember having read for that course, but it was almost 20 years ago. Things change.
I would recommend contacting the University of Illinois English department and getting their list, then reviewing it for suitability both in the context of high school in general and the nature of the community in which you live.
(For example, if a conservative community, "Stranger in a Strange Land" or "Handmaiden's Tale" might not work out well for you.)
There are probably similar courses at other universities, and most instructors would probably be willing to share their material.
I don't think you're going to find an internal floppy drive. Just not going to happen.
The Thinkpad optical drive bay used to support floppy drives, but that doesn't seem to be the case on modern products. It does support a wide variety of optical drives or an additional battery. No memory card reader, but my T500 has an SD slot built in. (I think it's SD, I've never used it.)
There are models that can have dual hard drives but I think they're the expensive ones. I'm not sure what the benefit of that is anyhow.
As a business-oriented laptop it supports a docking station.
With the accessories you want, you might get a mid-range one for $1,200. I'm really not sure. I didn't see the bill for my T500.
But I'd challenge that anyhow. If you're replacing a current work laptop, you should have a budget similar to what that one cost. (I'm assuming this is being paid for by your company, not you.) I doubt the one you have now, with accessories, was less than $1,200, and that doesn't account for inflation.
But all I can really suggest is spending a lot of time shopping. Look at HP, Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, Toshiba and see what product lines they have match your needs. I'm pretty sure some of the Dell line can do dual hard drives and batteries in the optical drive port, but I don't know about the rest.
And don't expect Windows 98 to run at all. You're going to need some sort of virtualization for that. I use VMware, but that's because it's the product I know. You may find that the performance of Linux and Windows 98 virtualized on the new laptop is as good as native on the old one, and for all the grief we give Windows here, you're going to have an easier time with drivers for Windows for brand new hardware than with Linux.
His list includes the fact that he has a Windows 98 image on his laptop for using older embedded compilers. This implies he works with older technology.
The one thing not on his list specifically, which it sounds like should be, is "has drivers for Windows 98." That's going to be well nigh impossible to find, but he can use VMware or whatever to run Windows 98 instead.
Our next-gen standard system at work is a quad-core Intel something with 8G of memory.
It costs about the same as the prior generation, which was dual-core, 2G.
Despite the 8G we're using Windows 2003 on it and only using 4G of that. It's just that the 8G is cheap enough that it's worth future-proofing our systems a little. (The systems are deployed all over the country; upgrading any hardware is extremely painful.)
We have an elderly Laserjet 4M Plus at work. I think it was manufactured in 1996. It prints a good number of pages every day with no glitches.
OK, that's not true. It had a paper jam last Friday. Took us a while to figure out how to get the little scraps of paper out.
That's the first time I can remember that it's given any problems since we upped the memory with memory we scrounged from old desktops so it could print large graphics successfully.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to reply to myself.... but why am I modded funny?
That wouldn't make it any better.
I haven't read the article, but if the summary correctly reflects the situation, the traffic lights are all working - they're just working independently, so rather than being in sync so the main flow of traffic never has to stop (or stops less) they're all just doing their own thing.
In part because the "pure techies" are "pure techies" because that's what they wanted to be.
I've been shoved a few feet down the management path and I hate it. Every last little bit of it.
Unfortunately I'm smart and competent so after a few years with a company they do it to me. This is the second or third time it's happened.
Auto mechanics in the lower-skilled places at least (muffler shops, quick lubes) work like this too.
It isn't formal apprenticeship by any means but there are similarities.
Really it's social engineering for the forces of good.
Just like a guy in a telco uniform with a tool box and a clipboard can probably get into the wiring closet at a lot of companies.
I work for a large retailer. I'm pretty confident (based on past experience) that I could walk into one with a toolbox and a piece of paper with our logo on it and be allowed to do almost anything I want to the POS system.
I'd be glad to have my deceased relative out there still.
None of them had Facebook - heck, they all died before it even existed - but it'd be nice to have somewhere to go to see pics of dad or my grandparents from when they were still alive without having to dig around in the basement.
I wouldn't want it the first few months, maybe, but it would be nice now.
Did you know about "Launch Control" when you passed over the DSG?
1. Turn off traction control
2. Shift from D to S
3. Hold the brake with one foot
4. Rev up to somewhere around 2500 rpm
5. Release the brake
You have to do 1 and 2 in that order. It's some sort of "tell the computer you mean it" thing.
I prefer to define the family in terms of people who love each other.
I am married (and not gay) but our family definitely has some non-traditional aspects to it. Doesn't make it less of a family.
Sorry, double reply.This just occurred to me.
Do you really think there was no shame and intimidation involved in getting the signatures? Variations on this probably played out all over the state to get some of those signatures:
"Hey Bob, isn't it awful how the gays are going to have marriage rights? Turns my stomach."
"Um, yeah Joe, sure, that's a shame."
"Well Bob if you agree then why don't you sign this petition? We'll stop them before they ruin our state."
Bob thinks to himself, "well, it'll probably get enough anyway, and I don't need Joe mad at me, I'll just signs the damn thing" and signs.
Bob needs to grow a spine if he doesn't really agree, but maybe Joe is his pastor, or his boss, or the neighbor who always loans him tools. Don't want to piss off the guy who lets him use the saw.
If people are shamed by having signed the petition then they shouldn't have signed it. The people who are shamed aren't listening to their little voice.
If they are not ashamed to have signed it then what's the problem?
I don't know about you, the only petition I've signed as an adult was for a local politician to get on the ballot. Go ahead, put my name on the front page of the newspaper - all I did was agree that this nice guy on my front porch should get his name on the ballot if he wants. I guess it implies I support him, but really, I don't even know what he thinks, just that he seems OK enough to be on the ballot.
All these people did, when you get down to it, was agree that the question of gay marriage should be on the ballot. Same thing.
There's the implication that you're in favor of the measure passing, of course - but you shouldn't put your name on a piece of paper if you don't understand what could happen with that list of names.
I have no sympathy for any of the signers.
It's all about gay marriage. Neither group involved cares about any of the rest of that stuff.
Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me marry a person of the same gender against my will, why do I care what you do? Don't pretend there aren't same-sex families already; according to one of the links, 18% of same-sex couples in Washington state are raising a child under 18.
I do have a tiny little bit of sympathy for the signers of the petition; I don't think people really understand the legal details behind the signing of a petition, and many of them many have assumed that it was as anonymous and protected as voting.
One shouldn't take a stand that involves limiting someone else's rights but only be willing to do it anonymously. That's just chicken shit.
And if you just shrugged and signed because your neighbor, coworker or fellow church goer asked you too without actually believing it, that's chicken shit too.
Yes, that's my complaint. I was able to enlarge the entire Notes interface with one setting in a config file.
On a 1600x1040 (something like that) laptop screen, a 8-point font that I can't change without impacting the entire operating system is not acceptable.
To hell with cars, could I just get one for my laptop?
It'd be nice to make it through a day of meetings without having to drag the power cord around with me.
Oh, and one for my cell phone so the battery doesn't go dead just when I want it?
I promise to dispose of it properly. Honest.
That's funny, because we're in the process of being switched from Notes to Outlook and I miss Notes terribly.
Come on, I can't even make the folder name font bigger without increasing the drop-down menu size for all of the programs?
Well, maybe it is Microsoft.
I'm not a gamer. I don't own any of the consoles. (My stepson has a Wii and PS3 but I don't touch them.)
My understanding, largely from Slashdot, is that Microsoft has really stepped up and taken responsibility for their problems. Did I misunderstand?
I have no idea how correct the report I linked is.
If I'd thought about it, it would have occurred to me that people who do know about the issue would respond, and that's really one of the great things about Slashdot.
I do, however, still think the report is interesting, even taking into account its issues and perhaps bias.
I hit a reference to this in the Analog magazine I'm currently reading:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
Entitled "Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?" it reviews the accuracy of the current US surface temperature measurement network and finds it woefully lacking for the sort of analysis that results in things like 0.7 degree changes over decades.
As a quick summary, there are the following issues with the temperature measurement methodology:
1. The measuring statements are often either surrounded by asphalt or in the air path of air conditioning exhaust or other hot air.
2. Data points are often not collected, and the missing points are created by interpolation.
3. Exterior finish specification changed from whitewash to latex paint, and that change has a significant impact on measurement results.
I've worked on systems like I describe, so I'm not sure why you believe such a thing doesn't exist.
There are computers that have no usable serial or network port for external communication but do have a diskette drive. Many of them are running MS-DOS.
You seem to believe you can write to a diskette image, then use that on a different virtual machine. But not everything can or should be virtualized - you ultimately have to test on and deploy to the actual hardware in the actual world.
He does if he needs to put something on an actual diskette to transfer it to another system.
There are systems still out there that don't support USB or have networking. I swear.
You use a diskette to transfer files to and from it. If that sort of a system is one he does development for, believe me, he needs a diskette drive.
I graduated from U of Illinois (Urbana) in 1990 having satisfied some of my humanities electives with literature of science fiction and literature of fantasy. It appears these courses, English 119 and English 120, still exist. They're hundred-level courses, so the difficulty should be OK for college-bound high school students.
I found this reading list for English 119: http://www.amazon.com/ENGL-119-CWL-UIUC-Spring/lm/R2120TE9GGDDIM
These aren't the books I remember having read for that course, but it was almost 20 years ago. Things change.
I would recommend contacting the University of Illinois English department and getting their list, then reviewing it for suitability both in the context of high school in general and the nature of the community in which you live.
(For example, if a conservative community, "Stranger in a Strange Land" or "Handmaiden's Tale" might not work out well for you.)
There are probably similar courses at other universities, and most instructors would probably be willing to share their material.
I don't think you're going to find an internal floppy drive. Just not going to happen.
The Thinkpad optical drive bay used to support floppy drives, but that doesn't seem to be the case on modern products. It does support a wide variety of optical drives or an additional battery. No memory card reader, but my T500 has an SD slot built in. (I think it's SD, I've never used it.)
There are models that can have dual hard drives but I think they're the expensive ones. I'm not sure what the benefit of that is anyhow.
As a business-oriented laptop it supports a docking station.
With the accessories you want, you might get a mid-range one for $1,200. I'm really not sure. I didn't see the bill for my T500.
But I'd challenge that anyhow. If you're replacing a current work laptop, you should have a budget similar to what that one cost. (I'm assuming this is being paid for by your company, not you.) I doubt the one you have now, with accessories, was less than $1,200, and that doesn't account for inflation.
But all I can really suggest is spending a lot of time shopping. Look at HP, Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, Toshiba and see what product lines they have match your needs. I'm pretty sure some of the Dell line can do dual hard drives and batteries in the optical drive port, but I don't know about the rest.
And don't expect Windows 98 to run at all. You're going to need some sort of virtualization for that. I use VMware, but that's because it's the product I know. You may find that the performance of Linux and Windows 98 virtualized on the new laptop is as good as native on the old one, and for all the grief we give Windows here, you're going to have an easier time with drivers for Windows for brand new hardware than with Linux.
Floppy drives aren't obsolete for everyone.
His list includes the fact that he has a Windows 98 image on his laptop for using older embedded compilers. This implies he works with older technology.
The one thing not on his list specifically, which it sounds like should be, is "has drivers for Windows 98." That's going to be well nigh impossible to find, but he can use VMware or whatever to run Windows 98 instead.
Our next-gen standard system at work is a quad-core Intel something with 8G of memory.
It costs about the same as the prior generation, which was dual-core, 2G.
Despite the 8G we're using Windows 2003 on it and only using 4G of that. It's just that the 8G is cheap enough that it's worth future-proofing our systems a little. (The systems are deployed all over the country; upgrading any hardware is extremely painful.)
I just re-read the summary.
30,000 pages over 16 years? That's nothing for the business class workgroup printer the Silentwriter was.
My suggestion is go buy some cheap laser printer that meets the specs. Almost anything will handle that quantity.
Look at energy cost and per-page cost, not just printer cost, using the 2,000 pages per year figure as a basis for calculation.
Assume it'll last five years and you'll have to buy a new one.
Agreed.
We have an elderly Laserjet 4M Plus at work. I think it was manufactured in 1996. It prints a good number of pages every day with no glitches.
OK, that's not true. It had a paper jam last Friday. Took us a while to figure out how to get the little scraps of paper out.
That's the first time I can remember that it's given any problems since we upped the memory with memory we scrounged from old desktops so it could print large graphics successfully.