Having to swtich phones (other than logistics of doing it all at once) would even be an advantage for you. Phone break, batterys slowly wear out. People just plain want something "new" or "different" for no reason. By changing every year you can stop those problems.
I change phones far more often than I change carriers. T-Mobile just works and is easy enough. I don't think about it, and I don't want to think about it. Sure there are 4 other companies in my area that for the same price would provide all the service I need, but why/how are they better? No answer, so why bother to switch?
Phones break. I'm on my 4th already, since starting with them. (sometimes I want one of the NexTel hardened phones, last time my buddy broke his I beat it with a hammer until it started working again. Not worth switching though)
T-Mobile will let you switch your phones if you pay for them (if you 1 year is up). Often there is noplace to switch to, but that isn't their fault. If I went to someone else though, I'd want a new phone. I have a Sony Ericsson now, and I'm not happy with it - I used to love my Nokias, but the new ones are interested in style over interface. I may or may not get a new phone once my 1 year contract is up again. (so I could get the phone free. Worth it since I don't plan to switch anyway)
I think the orgional poster showed himself perfectly capable of learning all he needs to know. He wrote the program, and it works. He is running into problems with project management that he didn't expect, and isn't sure how to deal with, so he is asking questions. Asking questions is a valuable tool for learning. I'd say he is doing a good job, of learning what he needs to know.
California did not have power deregulation. They had it some places, but not in others. A unregulated market functions differently from a regulated market. A mixture takes the worst of both worlds. No wonder it failed in California.
yeah there were a lot of factors. Don't for a moment think that becuse it was called de-regulated that it wasn't regulated. The regulations were screwy enough that you could get away with screwing everyone else for your own gain. If you were smart enough (and unethical enough) to do so.
Why don't they need WiFi? I think they do. Not for classrooms, but for teachers. Most teachers have a comptuer near their desk that they use after school hours to enter student's grades. Those comptuers need WiFi, becauser running cables everywhere is expensive.
Now if you had said that they don't need WiFi in every classroom so students can play with comptuers in class I would agree. However don't assume that just because most uses for computers are bad that all are. I'm against comptuer in every classroom because it always implys it is for purposes of educating students, but I'm not against comptuer in every classroom if it is for teachers to use. (Entering grades, or usenet type chat with other teachers of the same grade sharing ideas) If someone demonstrates a use for young studnets using computers every day that is better than spending that time on traditional classwork I'll support all students getting a computer.
Have you ever learned anything in your life? I know how to build a boiler that is safe. I know because I'm interested in that, so I learned something about it. I know you either build it for 1000 PSI, and then never run at 5 PSI (which is still a lot of energy) while encased in a strong building that you don't enter while it is on. If you don't want to do that you test it by filling with water, and then measuring how much more water you put in to get to 3 times (at least) the presure you want to operate. Do that test monthly, and using formulas that are easy to find you quit using the boiler when it no longer passes. I also know that no matter what pressure you run your boiler at you need a license in my state which verifys that you know this.
Mind you, the above is over simple, but close enough for purposes of discussion. I learned all that. I'm a CS major, and I'm an expert programer, but I can build a boiler because I'm smart enough to learn all the details I need to know. I wasn't born with a CS degree, I had to learn that too. I have no doupt that a ME with expirence in boiler design can design a boiler that will be cheaper to build, and operate longer with less tests required, and can perdict when the boiler will fail. However I know my limits in compensate. I'm also well aware that I could learn strenght of materials if I wanted to spend the time to get a ME degree and design a boiler right.
The origional questioner gave evidence that he learned something about programing, and did a good enough job. He never claimed to be better than anyone else. He would likely agree that I could re-write his program and it would be better. However he has knowledge that about how the forumlas work that I would have to learn in order to make it right. My first try at a program like this wouldn't be as good as his because he knows something about ME, and you need to know something about ME to write it right.
If you do something without learning anything about it, and compensating for your limitations, then you will do bad. Smart enginners do not have to limit themselves to one area because they can think, learn, and are smart enough to find out where to compensate for their weaknesses. I don't build boilers not because I can't, but because they are dangerious enough to require more testing than I'm willing to give.
Most colleges in the US will not let you in unless you either speak a second language (2 years high school). They will make exceptions easially enough, but you cannot graduate unless you take a second language in college. To be more accureate, you need either 2 years in high school, or 1 in college. If you speak two languages but didn't take any classes to get it, that doesn't count.
Most americans at one time spoke two languages. Most have forgotten the second because there is no call for it. Those who do speak two generally speak the other one at home as their first language, generally Spanish. In fact there are more americans who speak Spanish as a first language than in Spain. (In Spain there are a large number of people who speak something like Catalin that isn't standard spanish) The total size of the US, combined with the number of people, and the number of different languages, means that those who don't speak english are are tiny minority.
Languages change, which is also significant to a nation of imigrants. My Grandparents are fluent in German, and my dad grew up in a church were everything was in German (some members never learned english, so until they died in the '70s german was the only language common to the congergation). They can't talk to anyone in Germany though, because German has changed in Germany, but not in the US, thus when in Germany they appear to only speak one language. (When Germans want to read the diary of ancesters they have to send it to the US and get it translated to English)
If the origional slip cannot be found, it is your word against theirs, which is in your favor. They have to prove there is an agreement. I get enough pre-filled out forms in the mail to know that all the personal data needed to get me a credit card is out there. And her claim is stronger "Yes I filled out the form, I in good faith intended to sign it and get the card until I noticed some fine print I did not agree with, so I didn't sign it." They now have to prove she signed it, or there is no agreement.
Sorry, but you are wrong. True few slashdotters are lawyers, and those that are have to be very careful about responding (if they do). However the advice is still valuable. Some will be wrong tracks, but all should be understoon and considered. You can pay a lawyer to do the work, or you can do some yourself and ask leading questions that can bring a better result for you. Laywers do not know and understand all of the law - nobody can do that. They can argue in court, and understand some specific areas of the law. If there is something that might apply from an area of the law they don't deal with very often, they will not use it, to your hurt. It is much more likely that 1 of 1000 slashdotters will know about that area, and be able to help.
It isn't worth a lawyers time to presue all the dead ends. It can be worth yours, if only for the education you get doing it. Of course you need to be careful not to waste your time.
If she spends money with the card, courts see that as accepting the terms of the agreement. Quite rightly too I might ad, she spent money with the card. If someone else got the card and spent money with it, that is fraud.
So somehow you need to figgure out how to get them to send a card in her name to someone else without you knowing about it who will spend money.
By spending money and then challenging it in court you will accrue interest charges, typically at a very high rate that you will also owe. And likely lawyer fees and maybe even some jail time for attempted fraud. You spent, the money, you have to pay it back.
Well yes, but it is still valuable to do that testing. Much better to find and fix a bug in the cleanroom than in production. Eventually someone will want to move this to full production, and I'd hate for them to encounter a bug that could have been fixed if someone did that testing. Just because not all bugs are caught doesn't mean it is worthless.
I do my taxes by hand. It isn't hard. It is a pain, you have to get a lot of forms, and enter a lot of numbers into your calculator (twice!). However only yourself by hand do you really know how it works. I know a lot of people who think they are deducting their tools and uniforms, but I don't even need to see their forms to know that while they can deduct them, they are not because standard deductions or limits on when you can deduct make it either not worth it, or they are inelligable to do so. I also know (well I've forgotten now, but I knew then) exactly how much tax I paid last year. Not how much I got back, but how much I paid.
If you are the typical apatheic person just hire someone to do your taxes. If you have a buieness they might be complex enough that you don't have time to do them. Otherwise, the typical slashdotter should be intelligent enough to do them by hand, and will learn a lot by doing so.
P.S. remember that the hard part is getting all the paperwork togather, but it doesn't matter if you pay someone, do it yourself, or enter it into a computer, you need all that paperwork first. Forget about one 1099 form and your taxes will be wrong no matter who does them.
Ecconomicly it costs nothing. (the bills would be printed and distributed anyway, and the plates for printing wear out and have to be repalced once in a while anyway, so the only cost is the origional design, and that isn't much). As a good will gesture it is really great. Countries get the benifits of a trusted stable currency (US dollar), and benifits of a local currency (mostly pride, but it can have some text in the local language). Don't think of ecconomic benifits, they don't exist. Think of the good will diplomatic benifits and it makes more sense.
There is no diluting of the US dollar supply, all I'm proposing doing is taking some of the bills and coins that we [the US] would print anyway, and putting a local design on them (much like we do state quarters today, except a different distribution scheme). Whichever country isn't printing these, the US is (at great profit, it costs less than face value to make a coin). This is still legal US currency. You could walk into a McDonalds in North Dakota with only the "other" currency, and buy a hamburger. Distribution is only done to whichever country, but once you have it, it is good anywhere a US dollar is because it is a US dollar, with a different design.
Actually there is one ecconomic benifit. If we want to retire any paper currency we can refuse a deisgn paper currency, and encourage coins. National pride may be enough to make the paper currency less wanted there. Bills are much more expensive to deal with in the long run.
Only two terminals? Back when I was a lad... I remember sitting in front of 5 Macs, reading a book while waiting for any one of them to finish the operation and quit showing that hourglass. Ahh the joys of a speedy 33Mhz (or was it 25 or even 16? likely a mixture but I don't remember) computer. Pagemaker did a lot of cool things, but an expert had no problem using all the capicty it had.
Back in high school it was better to just stay late, school was out at 3, bu 4 you could have as many computers as you could deal with. (I suspect any of them would be faster than the PDP you remember sharing with others too)
Every try to cut and paste between two comptuers? I have two comptuers on my desk now, and it is a pain. Sure the other comptuer can do a full compile in 4 minutes while this machine takes 7, but my changes are only on one of the two. I still find it handy to pull up some definition from MSDN on this machine while coding on the other, but sometimes I wish I didn't have to re-type something that is sitting on my screen here. (There are work arounds, but saving a file and loading are a bit of a pain)
Truthfully, my CPU isn't maxed out most of the time, nor is RAM. Disk might max out, but more than half of the disk on both computers is unpartitioned (for a future freeBSD/linux install when we start supporting other OSes). If your system is maxed out though, by all means get a better system (perhaps to replace your current one, perhaps to sit beside it - depending on your needs). If your like most people though, your computer is not maxed out, and hasn't been a bottleneck for several years. However you can still improve productivity with a second (perhaps a third or forth, though you get into diminishing returns at some point) monitor, given enough physically space for it.
I'm starting to tell people that you don't upgrade whole comptuers unless they are broken. You are better off using your computer budget for other things. Get a laptop for those who will use them. Let people choose their keybaord and mouse (cheap, but everyone is different so forcing a one size fits all keyboard is silly and potentially costly if you consider RSI injurys). Give those who want it more monitors. Computers are only replaced when they break (though I might repalce hardrives every 5 years or so just to stay ahead of the MTBF - replacing the whole computer then might make sense) Otherwise you keep your computer until it breaks, but break your computer to get an upgrade will result in you getting a toughbook which likely isn't what you wanted when you broke the origional.
MSwindows applications are generally designed to use more screen space than X windows applications. Thus MSwindows programs don't play as nice with other programs. This is in general of course, there are MSwindows programs that don't use a lot of space, and plnety of Xwindows programs that waste a lot of space.
With windows the window on top is on top. Imangine (this often happens to me, so it shouldn't be too hard) you need to consult some online documentation to aid your work. With alt-tab you look at the documentation, and have to memorize it before you alt-tab back to your work to apply it. With two monitors you open the documentation on one, and your work on the other, so you can read the manual while you work. Cut-and-paste isn't very useful when you are looking up API docs. foo() takes three arguments, I've prepared each in a variable, but is it foo(argdata, flags, size), or foo(flags, &argdata, &size), or some other combonation. Having that documentation open on a different monitor also means I'm more likely to notice the fine print "foo returns a file handle that must be closed", which isn't always obvious.
In X window managers often have the concept that the window I'm typing in doesn't have to be on top which mitigates this problem, but Windows never really got that idea. In addition most X programs are designed to not need to full screen, while Windows applications tend to assume they are the only thing you will run so they take the whole screen. A philsophy difference that really annoys anyone used to the other. (And note that this is a tendancy, there are plenty of exceptions both ways)
Many big companies have labs for this purpose. Some machine that is similear to production, but used only for testing. Normally they have the ability to simulate real load. These labs are perfect places to try freebsd4.9rc2. Note that some are very strict about what gets into the labs when, but in general if you run FreeBSD on your production machines, you should be testing this release someplace. If you find a bug in a release canidate it can be fixed before release, wait until there is a full release to test only to find a bug that affects you, and you can't run the released. If you want something in 4.9, you have to run -stable, which means you may get one bug fixed only to find someone else introduced a different one. (Not likely, but it happens)
An Idea I've had for an while: let Chille, and other countries that use the US dollar as the national currency design their own bills, for circulation in their country only. They would be legal US currency, and you could spend them in any US store, but the only way to get them in the US is to physically go to that country (where they would be common).
Better yet, we can put some limits that would help in the long run. Let them do a $1 coin, but not $1 bill. National pride should then get people to prefer the $1 coin, and that would go a long ways to saving the US more money that implimenting the system would cost.
Not exactly ontopic, but an interesting idea that goes along with the topic. Tell your friends and congressmen to do it as a goodwill gesture to those countires that are not maintaining a currency.
Not exactly. They can detect they age of the bill through chemical (and I presume things like carbon dating which isn't chemical) means. You can get by for a short time, but I presume (again...) they will be watching for this. Everytime a bill comes back to the fed, they will check it. When they see a bunch of bills that appear in every way identical to one made in 2001 (ie a perfect countrfit because you have the special press needed to make them), but evidence is it was made in 2005 (where the bills are different) they know to start looking for a counterfitter.
Everyone can tell a new bill from a used one, if you get a brand new bill in a style that hasn't been printed in several years you will be suspicious.
I'm not sure why this will help them find counterfitters though. Maybe they just hope to make counterfitting less profitable by making the counterfitters change their process all the time.
The Death pentilty is always more expensive than life in prison. Those that use it do so because they want to set an example for others. "You too could die if you were really really bad." The cost of a mistake is high, so lawyers (some of whom hate the death penilty enough to work for free!) will appeal every point, (there is some gaurentee that the courts will look at them, but I'm not sure exactly what) at great cost to the state. In a clear cut most evil person with no shread of remorse case, the death penitly can barely happen 10 years after the origional trial. We don't want to accidently get the wrong person. (Not that we succede, but we give it a good effort)
Life in prision is much easier to deal with. Lawyers don't care about you (other than for money), so it is harder to get one to take your appeal seriously. Just take the criminal, lock them up, feed them a few times a day, and make sure they have minimal living standards. Sure you have to pay gaurds, and heat the building and the like, but those costs are cheap compared to the cost of lawyers defending appeals.
Try shooting 71 people, and seeing what your maximun prison time is (Hint it will be much longer).
Maximun sentinces are rarely given. They are intended for scare value, and to give prossicution some room to get a easy case. Better to testify against yourself in exchange for 4 years than to not help against yourself, taking the chance they will get you anyway and put you in for life. Once in a while some really bad person gets maximun sentinces (And I don't doupt that once in a while someone just annoys the judge so much they get it...), overall not many though.
Hmmm... For your little 12 mile cummute you are using as much gas as I use for my 55 mile cumute (to some margin of error). My suggestion: forget the train, it obviously is encouraging wasteful thinking, get a Geo Metro (no longer made)/ VW TDI car, and drive the entire distance yourself. It won't save anything, but you will be more conscience of how much time you are wasting doing it.
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Having to swtich phones (other than logistics of doing it all at once) would even be an advantage for you. Phone break, batterys slowly wear out. People just plain want something "new" or "different" for no reason. By changing every year you can stop those problems.
I change phones far more often than I change carriers. T-Mobile just works and is easy enough. I don't think about it, and I don't want to think about it. Sure there are 4 other companies in my area that for the same price would provide all the service I need, but why/how are they better? No answer, so why bother to switch?
Phones break. I'm on my 4th already, since starting with them. (sometimes I want one of the NexTel hardened phones, last time my buddy broke his I beat it with a hammer until it started working again. Not worth switching though)
T-Mobile will let you switch your phones if you pay for them (if you 1 year is up). Often there is noplace to switch to, but that isn't their fault. If I went to someone else though, I'd want a new phone. I have a Sony Ericsson now, and I'm not happy with it - I used to love my Nokias, but the new ones are interested in style over interface. I may or may not get a new phone once my 1 year contract is up again. (so I could get the phone free. Worth it since I don't plan to switch anyway)
I think the orgional poster showed himself perfectly capable of learning all he needs to know. He wrote the program, and it works. He is running into problems with project management that he didn't expect, and isn't sure how to deal with, so he is asking questions. Asking questions is a valuable tool for learning. I'd say he is doing a good job, of learning what he needs to know.
California did not have power deregulation. They had it some places, but not in others. A unregulated market functions differently from a regulated market. A mixture takes the worst of both worlds. No wonder it failed in California.
yeah there were a lot of factors. Don't for a moment think that becuse it was called de-regulated that it wasn't regulated. The regulations were screwy enough that you could get away with screwing everyone else for your own gain. If you were smart enough (and unethical enough) to do so.
Why don't they need WiFi? I think they do. Not for classrooms, but for teachers. Most teachers have a comptuer near their desk that they use after school hours to enter student's grades. Those comptuers need WiFi, becauser running cables everywhere is expensive.
Now if you had said that they don't need WiFi in every classroom so students can play with comptuers in class I would agree. However don't assume that just because most uses for computers are bad that all are. I'm against comptuer in every classroom because it always implys it is for purposes of educating students, but I'm not against comptuer in every classroom if it is for teachers to use. (Entering grades, or usenet type chat with other teachers of the same grade sharing ideas) If someone demonstrates a use for young studnets using computers every day that is better than spending that time on traditional classwork I'll support all students getting a computer.
Have you ever learned anything in your life? I know how to build a boiler that is safe. I know because I'm interested in that, so I learned something about it. I know you either build it for 1000 PSI, and then never run at 5 PSI (which is still a lot of energy) while encased in a strong building that you don't enter while it is on. If you don't want to do that you test it by filling with water, and then measuring how much more water you put in to get to 3 times (at least) the presure you want to operate. Do that test monthly, and using formulas that are easy to find you quit using the boiler when it no longer passes. I also know that no matter what pressure you run your boiler at you need a license in my state which verifys that you know this.
Mind you, the above is over simple, but close enough for purposes of discussion. I learned all that. I'm a CS major, and I'm an expert programer, but I can build a boiler because I'm smart enough to learn all the details I need to know. I wasn't born with a CS degree, I had to learn that too. I have no doupt that a ME with expirence in boiler design can design a boiler that will be cheaper to build, and operate longer with less tests required, and can perdict when the boiler will fail. However I know my limits in compensate. I'm also well aware that I could learn strenght of materials if I wanted to spend the time to get a ME degree and design a boiler right.
The origional questioner gave evidence that he learned something about programing, and did a good enough job. He never claimed to be better than anyone else. He would likely agree that I could re-write his program and it would be better. However he has knowledge that about how the forumlas work that I would have to learn in order to make it right. My first try at a program like this wouldn't be as good as his because he knows something about ME, and you need to know something about ME to write it right.
If you do something without learning anything about it, and compensating for your limitations, then you will do bad. Smart enginners do not have to limit themselves to one area because they can think, learn, and are smart enough to find out where to compensate for their weaknesses. I don't build boilers not because I can't, but because they are dangerious enough to require more testing than I'm willing to give.
Most colleges in the US will not let you in unless you either speak a second language (2 years high school). They will make exceptions easially enough, but you cannot graduate unless you take a second language in college. To be more accureate, you need either 2 years in high school, or 1 in college. If you speak two languages but didn't take any classes to get it, that doesn't count.
Most americans at one time spoke two languages. Most have forgotten the second because there is no call for it. Those who do speak two generally speak the other one at home as their first language, generally Spanish. In fact there are more americans who speak Spanish as a first language than in Spain. (In Spain there are a large number of people who speak something like Catalin that isn't standard spanish) The total size of the US, combined with the number of people, and the number of different languages, means that those who don't speak english are are tiny minority.
Languages change, which is also significant to a nation of imigrants. My Grandparents are fluent in German, and my dad grew up in a church were everything was in German (some members never learned english, so until they died in the '70s german was the only language common to the congergation). They can't talk to anyone in Germany though, because German has changed in Germany, but not in the US, thus when in Germany they appear to only speak one language. (When Germans want to read the diary of ancesters they have to send it to the US and get it translated to English)
If the origional slip cannot be found, it is your word against theirs, which is in your favor. They have to prove there is an agreement. I get enough pre-filled out forms in the mail to know that all the personal data needed to get me a credit card is out there. And her claim is stronger "Yes I filled out the form, I in good faith intended to sign it and get the card until I noticed some fine print I did not agree with, so I didn't sign it." They now have to prove she signed it, or there is no agreement.
Sorry, but you are wrong. True few slashdotters are lawyers, and those that are have to be very careful about responding (if they do). However the advice is still valuable. Some will be wrong tracks, but all should be understoon and considered. You can pay a lawyer to do the work, or you can do some yourself and ask leading questions that can bring a better result for you. Laywers do not know and understand all of the law - nobody can do that. They can argue in court, and understand some specific areas of the law. If there is something that might apply from an area of the law they don't deal with very often, they will not use it, to your hurt. It is much more likely that 1 of 1000 slashdotters will know about that area, and be able to help.
It isn't worth a lawyers time to presue all the dead ends. It can be worth yours, if only for the education you get doing it. Of course you need to be careful not to waste your time.
If she spends money with the card, courts see that as accepting the terms of the agreement. Quite rightly too I might ad, she spent money with the card. If someone else got the card and spent money with it, that is fraud.
So somehow you need to figgure out how to get them to send a card in her name to someone else without you knowing about it who will spend money.
By spending money and then challenging it in court you will accrue interest charges, typically at a very high rate that you will also owe. And likely lawyer fees and maybe even some jail time for attempted fraud. You spent, the money, you have to pay it back.
Well yes, but it is still valuable to do that testing. Much better to find and fix a bug in the cleanroom than in production. Eventually someone will want to move this to full production, and I'd hate for them to encounter a bug that could have been fixed if someone did that testing. Just because not all bugs are caught doesn't mean it is worthless.
Likely, I'm going by memory. (too lazy to do a search). At least one south american country.
I do my taxes by hand. It isn't hard. It is a pain, you have to get a lot of forms, and enter a lot of numbers into your calculator (twice!). However only yourself by hand do you really know how it works. I know a lot of people who think they are deducting their tools and uniforms, but I don't even need to see their forms to know that while they can deduct them, they are not because standard deductions or limits on when you can deduct make it either not worth it, or they are inelligable to do so. I also know (well I've forgotten now, but I knew then) exactly how much tax I paid last year. Not how much I got back, but how much I paid.
If you are the typical apatheic person just hire someone to do your taxes. If you have a buieness they might be complex enough that you don't have time to do them. Otherwise, the typical slashdotter should be intelligent enough to do them by hand, and will learn a lot by doing so.
P.S. remember that the hard part is getting all the paperwork togather, but it doesn't matter if you pay someone, do it yourself, or enter it into a computer, you need all that paperwork first. Forget about one 1099 form and your taxes will be wrong no matter who does them.
Ecconomicly it costs nothing. (the bills would be printed and distributed anyway, and the plates for printing wear out and have to be repalced once in a while anyway, so the only cost is the origional design, and that isn't much). As a good will gesture it is really great. Countries get the benifits of a trusted stable currency (US dollar), and benifits of a local currency (mostly pride, but it can have some text in the local language). Don't think of ecconomic benifits, they don't exist. Think of the good will diplomatic benifits and it makes more sense.
There is no diluting of the US dollar supply, all I'm proposing doing is taking some of the bills and coins that we [the US] would print anyway, and putting a local design on them (much like we do state quarters today, except a different distribution scheme). Whichever country isn't printing these, the US is (at great profit, it costs less than face value to make a coin). This is still legal US currency. You could walk into a McDonalds in North Dakota with only the "other" currency, and buy a hamburger. Distribution is only done to whichever country, but once you have it, it is good anywhere a US dollar is because it is a US dollar, with a different design.
Actually there is one ecconomic benifit. If we want to retire any paper currency we can refuse a deisgn paper currency, and encourage coins. National pride may be enough to make the paper currency less wanted there. Bills are much more expensive to deal with in the long run.
Thanks, I didn't know about them before. Got Synergy installed now (windows...) and it is cool. Not sure how well it works yet.
Only two terminals? Back when I was a lad... I remember sitting in front of 5 Macs, reading a book while waiting for any one of them to finish the operation and quit showing that hourglass. Ahh the joys of a speedy 33Mhz (or was it 25 or even 16? likely a mixture but I don't remember) computer. Pagemaker did a lot of cool things, but an expert had no problem using all the capicty it had.
Back in high school it was better to just stay late, school was out at 3, bu 4 you could have as many computers as you could deal with. (I suspect any of them would be faster than the PDP you remember sharing with others too)
Every try to cut and paste between two comptuers? I have two comptuers on my desk now, and it is a pain. Sure the other comptuer can do a full compile in 4 minutes while this machine takes 7, but my changes are only on one of the two. I still find it handy to pull up some definition from MSDN on this machine while coding on the other, but sometimes I wish I didn't have to re-type something that is sitting on my screen here. (There are work arounds, but saving a file and loading are a bit of a pain)
Truthfully, my CPU isn't maxed out most of the time, nor is RAM. Disk might max out, but more than half of the disk on both computers is unpartitioned (for a future freeBSD/linux install when we start supporting other OSes). If your system is maxed out though, by all means get a better system (perhaps to replace your current one, perhaps to sit beside it - depending on your needs). If your like most people though, your computer is not maxed out, and hasn't been a bottleneck for several years. However you can still improve productivity with a second (perhaps a third or forth, though you get into diminishing returns at some point) monitor, given enough physically space for it.
I'm starting to tell people that you don't upgrade whole comptuers unless they are broken. You are better off using your computer budget for other things. Get a laptop for those who will use them. Let people choose their keybaord and mouse (cheap, but everyone is different so forcing a one size fits all keyboard is silly and potentially costly if you consider RSI injurys). Give those who want it more monitors. Computers are only replaced when they break (though I might repalce hardrives every 5 years or so just to stay ahead of the MTBF - replacing the whole computer then might make sense) Otherwise you keep your computer until it breaks, but break your computer to get an upgrade will result in you getting a toughbook which likely isn't what you wanted when you broke the origional.
MSwindows applications are generally designed to use more screen space than X windows applications. Thus MSwindows programs don't play as nice with other programs. This is in general of course, there are MSwindows programs that don't use a lot of space, and plnety of Xwindows programs that waste a lot of space.
With windows the window on top is on top. Imangine (this often happens to me, so it shouldn't be too hard) you need to consult some online documentation to aid your work. With alt-tab you look at the documentation, and have to memorize it before you alt-tab back to your work to apply it. With two monitors you open the documentation on one, and your work on the other, so you can read the manual while you work. Cut-and-paste isn't very useful when you are looking up API docs. foo() takes three arguments, I've prepared each in a variable, but is it foo(argdata, flags, size), or foo(flags, &argdata, &size), or some other combonation. Having that documentation open on a different monitor also means I'm more likely to notice the fine print "foo returns a file handle that must be closed", which isn't always obvious.
In X window managers often have the concept that the window I'm typing in doesn't have to be on top which mitigates this problem, but Windows never really got that idea. In addition most X programs are designed to not need to full screen, while Windows applications tend to assume they are the only thing you will run so they take the whole screen. A philsophy difference that really annoys anyone used to the other. (And note that this is a tendancy, there are plenty of exceptions both ways)
Many big companies have labs for this purpose. Some machine that is similear to production, but used only for testing. Normally they have the ability to simulate real load. These labs are perfect places to try freebsd4.9rc2. Note that some are very strict about what gets into the labs when, but in general if you run FreeBSD on your production machines, you should be testing this release someplace. If you find a bug in a release canidate it can be fixed before release, wait until there is a full release to test only to find a bug that affects you, and you can't run the released. If you want something in 4.9, you have to run -stable, which means you may get one bug fixed only to find someone else introduced a different one. (Not likely, but it happens)
An Idea I've had for an while: let Chille, and other countries that use the US dollar as the national currency design their own bills, for circulation in their country only. They would be legal US currency, and you could spend them in any US store, but the only way to get them in the US is to physically go to that country (where they would be common).
Better yet, we can put some limits that would help in the long run. Let them do a $1 coin, but not $1 bill. National pride should then get people to prefer the $1 coin, and that would go a long ways to saving the US more money that implimenting the system would cost.
Not exactly ontopic, but an interesting idea that goes along with the topic. Tell your friends and congressmen to do it as a goodwill gesture to those countires that are not maintaining a currency.
Not exactly. They can detect they age of the bill through chemical (and I presume things like carbon dating which isn't chemical) means. You can get by for a short time, but I presume (again...) they will be watching for this. Everytime a bill comes back to the fed, they will check it. When they see a bunch of bills that appear in every way identical to one made in 2001 (ie a perfect countrfit because you have the special press needed to make them), but evidence is it was made in 2005 (where the bills are different) they know to start looking for a counterfitter.
Everyone can tell a new bill from a used one, if you get a brand new bill in a style that hasn't been printed in several years you will be suspicious.
I'm not sure why this will help them find counterfitters though. Maybe they just hope to make counterfitting less profitable by making the counterfitters change their process all the time.
The Death pentilty is always more expensive than life in prison. Those that use it do so because they want to set an example for others. "You too could die if you were really really bad." The cost of a mistake is high, so lawyers (some of whom hate the death penilty enough to work for free!) will appeal every point, (there is some gaurentee that the courts will look at them, but I'm not sure exactly what) at great cost to the state. In a clear cut most evil person with no shread of remorse case, the death penitly can barely happen 10 years after the origional trial. We don't want to accidently get the wrong person. (Not that we succede, but we give it a good effort)
Life in prision is much easier to deal with. Lawyers don't care about you (other than for money), so it is harder to get one to take your appeal seriously. Just take the criminal, lock them up, feed them a few times a day, and make sure they have minimal living standards. Sure you have to pay gaurds, and heat the building and the like, but those costs are cheap compared to the cost of lawyers defending appeals.
Try shooting 71 people, and seeing what your maximun prison time is (Hint it will be much longer).
Maximun sentinces are rarely given. They are intended for scare value, and to give prossicution some room to get a easy case. Better to testify against yourself in exchange for 4 years than to not help against yourself, taking the chance they will get you anyway and put you in for life. Once in a while some really bad person gets maximun sentinces (And I don't doupt that once in a while someone just annoys the judge so much they get it...), overall not many though.
Hmmm... For your little 12 mile cummute you are using as much gas as I use for my 55 mile cumute (to some margin of error). My suggestion: forget the train, it obviously is encouraging wasteful thinking, get a Geo Metro (no longer made)/ VW TDI car, and drive the entire distance yourself. It won't save anything, but you will be more conscience of how much time you are wasting doing it.