Last time I got a ticket I pleaded guilty, but had an explination for the judge, and I got the fine reduced. I still had to pay, but it was half the amount. In this case a headly was out, I replaced the headlight, but forgot to return the ticket saying I did.
Seems these places are most busy after work (perhaps all night on weekends), and maybe lunch hour. Since you rent space for 24 hours a day (less if in a mall that closes) can you keep busy?
I think you can. Put some good printers behind the counter (you need them anyway for your own use, get a nice color one too), and programs like MsWord on the comptuers, let people print on a quality printer. Kinkos and the like make money renting comptuers. (but not a lot)
Others have suggested that big gaming screen. Great idea put one in a seperate room that can be converted form a theator for watching a really good guy play, to a meeting room for someone who needs that screen. Best part is buisness people have money to spend, so you can charge a lot for this use. Make sure they get service though, you best cook will be doing their meals, and you will be there as soon as each break starts (and not a moment before) with fresh coffee.
Just remember your target market. Gamers want different soroundings from buisness people. As I write this idea I'm well aware that you might be better off without buisness people just because of this. You don't have to open until 5 if that is when the people really come in.
I still recomend the printers though. They allow kids to make good on their promise to the parents they will do their homework not game. (If you can come up with a fair way of enforcing homework gets done first do it, but I can't think of anything) They allow you to get a different class of people in.
Nintendo can say that. However courts have still held for fair use. I'm not sure if you are allowed legally to obtain a copy of a game you own the ROM for from someone else (but likely not) however the courts have not held that you need to destroy the origional when you make a copy, and copyright law generally allows for one (and only one) backup copy of anything.
You are allowed to time or space shift something you have legal rights to, so long as it is for personal use.
Obviously IANAL, see a lawyer if you really need to know what your rights are.
Not sloppy code, but hard to maintain. ASM does not allow for a lot of nice things that structured langauges allow for. You end up with a lot of lines that move from one seemingly random memory location to a different one, change bits seemingly randomly, and place the result in a different location. It is very hard to see what is going on for all the irrelavant things that happen.
What makes it harder is nobody in their right mind would write in assembly unless performance is critical and no better algorythm is known, so assembly programers activly prefer hard to understand code that is fast over easier to understand code. That bit manipulation code above may silently depend on a side effect of an operation several instructions ago.
Read the story of Mel. While no assembly programer intentionally writes code that hard to understand without documentation, they all look for tricks like Mel would use because they should never be called unless the C compiler can't optimise good enough. No matter how much they document things (and correctly documenting your code is hard) it is by nature hard to understand.
Modern processors often have weird things going on too that you need to remeber. Delay slots, multipul pipelins to fill, and so on. A good programer (or more likely compiler) tune to take advantage of all this, but by nature is creates code that isn't liner.
Now the VU units can't be programed in C (appearently?), so they don't nessicarly have to use all the tricks in assembly to make it go fast. However even still by nature assembly is hard to understand.
In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.
In traditional/. fashion I didn't read the artical. Still it seems to me that either this is very limited in what it can research, or it can't work. If it is limited, there isn't much news about a robot programed to do something either too repeatative for a human to finish, or too dangerious for a human to do. If it can't work, well I still welcome the limited expiriments it can do which can enhance knowledge, if we don't treat it like the end of all science when this machine does all it can do.
I know people who live in Alaska who have delt with those tempatures. Not often, and no doupt average implys that it gets much lower. OTOH, I would assume mars has areas that are warmer than others, just like most areas on earth never get that cold. So we need to choose a landing site that we can deal with.
For that matter, Mars IIRC doesn't have a protective magnetic field so astronaughts won't be out in "shorts" with just a "scuba" tank for air supply, even on the hot sunny days. They will need protective clothing, which should keep them warm.
Not an easy problem mind you, but much easier than most of the other problems.
Drugs are very useful for a short time. However be careful with them, because no drug is specific to just one part of the body. Just some are more sensitive to it and we can use that sensitivity to control things. There are always side effects, sometimes not noticable, but they are there. (depending on the drug they may not be a problem because the body can deal with a lot) Doctors are avoding anti-biodics somewhat now because the body can deal with minor illness, while it turns out drugs just breed deadly illness that can't be treated. (there are several thousand pages of footnotes and exceptions to that statement)
I have no problem with drugs that serve a purpose that cannot be achived any other way. Pain can get in the way of healing, so it must be managed. Rejection after transplant surgery is real and must be managed. Some illness can kill, and that needs to be managed. Drugs are an excellent tool. Likewise I know people who cannot function without thier medication, but that doesn't mean we should put everyone with mental problems on medication.
Drugs are a necessary part of medical treatment. However many in socity belive in a "magic pill" that will solve all problems and bring world peace, and that just doesn't exist. Nor will that "magic pill" ever exist. I've also known doctors to perscribe pill after pill, when without the drugs someone would have a better quality of life by their standards. I know I'd rather deal with a small amount of pain than live in a drug induced fog, and those who were forced in that fog and brought out latter agree. (at least the ones I know)
Sure. I also eat vegitables fertalized by human waste (not that I can tell), which grosses out most people, even though it has been a valuable technique for years in Asia.
I know acids and bases make a salt when combined. Like I said, there are difficulties there. However they are not insurmountable if careful attention is paid to the details.
The point is two fold: first, if you can deal with CS, learning a language isn't a big deal. Most of what you do will be covered in C, Java/C++/C# (depending on your school), a LISP (likely scheme, which was covered in the first class you took, and the prof gave you time to learn it), or a scripting language (again it doesn't matter which, I used TCL, others perl, python, or ruby. Even visual basic would work)
Learn those in the early years, and if you are a transfer student learn the ones you need over summer. Although if you can't get by in a completely new language within 2 days you should switch majors. (mastery takes years, but within 2 days you know the important syntax, have an idea of what the librarys contain, and know where to look to find the details)
Don't forget that the 12 languages in 10 weeks class will cover most of the languages you need too, so if you are concerned about not knowing something you need take that class.
It occurs to me that I gnerally want to be several levels deep in finger, plus one or two more. So I'd like all windows more than 2 levels deep to automaticly close. I dont care about/usr/usr/home, or/usr/home/bluGill, but instead/usr/home/bluGill/jobs and subfolders/usr/home/bluGill/jobs/resumes/usr/home/bluGill/jobs/coverleaders, and/usr/home/bluGill/jobs/leads.
YMMV, but I think I normally work like that: I care about a lot of folders close to each other, and not about others. (In school it was ~/cs4601 or some such) Once in a while I need to move things between far apart folders, but not often, and normally then there are so many folders opened that I can't find them when I want to. (of course I often use the command line for that, but that is a different story)
How does 6 differ from 3? Seems like much the same: better theoretical understanding. That one is in what the data should show, and one is in the data stream itself doesn't nessicarly mean much. Indeed you often can't get one without the other. (Dl Peg should show iron lines, but one of the critical iron lines was recorded. The existance of iron could be extrapulated from other lines - obvisouly in the case of iron lines you would expect them to be recorded, but there are some things not tested for that we can extrapulate from how it would effect the tests we did run)
Anyone taking a CS course program should not be allowed credit for taking classes in C, C++, Cobal, Fortran, Scheme, Lisp, Assembly, Smalltalk, Java, or any other single language. Those courses are offered, but your grade will not effect your GPA, and will not count towards graduation. CS students should be able to pick up any language they need in their own time.
CS should require that everyone take a "programing to hardware" class where assembly is used (doesn't matter which, though I recomend an older RISC one where you don't have to worry about delay slots and the like that complicate modern architectures, yet have simple instructions)
CS should start everyone off with something they have never done. The first class I took in CS requried Scheme, and the professors made it clear that the primary motivation was odds are none of us had seen it. Secondary motivations were: is Lisp is cool, and there is an excellent introduction to programing book from MIT that uses scheme. This class is the first introduction to data structres and algorythms that most CS students should get. There should also be one required programing language course, it should cover at least 12 languages in 10 weeks, and require some algorythm be implimented in all of them. (better yet several so you can see the advantages and disadvantages of each)
CS should concentrate on on algorythms and data structures. (perhaps design patters should be added in? there weren't written when I graduated but they seem useful and teachable)
There isn't time to cover everything, so there should be a graphics line that eventially gets into games. There should be a real-time line, for those interested in time critical things there should be high performance line for those interested in parrell and super computers. There should be a historical line for those interested in that, complete with runing on that old punch card machine in the basement of the physics building and programing it (if it works...) And several others that I can't think of right now. Not all of the above will be long enough for a degree, but the total should be more than a student has time to take in 4 years.
I'm aware of no case where the railroad just took legaly held land without compensation. In the western US they were given a lot of land that was legally unheld (expect by indians, but there were treaties even if not in good faith, lets ignor that issue though) to build the railroad. They sold this land, and if you happened to be living on it, well the US government never recognised your right to live on that land.
Just lost my job this week, and I've already had two serious responses. Unfortunatly both were in California. (I'm not a fan of the politics that rule in CA, I happen to like winter, and my family isn't there. I'd live there though if it paid the bills) Still last time I lost my job it was a few recruiters here and there looking at me, now it feels more serious. So things are still hard, but at least there is some movement towards hiring. I just hope I don't fall for a pay raise that after higher cost of living turns out to be a cut just because I don't know what I'm worth in CA.
Unbfortunatly I know a lot of people who are still out of work after a couple years.
Why does any company have a mailroom? Or a copy shop. I know how to run a copy machine, and I can put a stamp on an envelope. In truth though, there is a lot of work involved in copies and stamps that isn't visiable from the outside.
I've seen presidents drop 50 pages in a document feeder on the copier, if he can handle it why does the company have a copy room? Answer: because the company sometimes publishes manuals more than a copy or two. The president would make 2 copies of that 50 page document, but more than that and he is better off letting someone else do it. The president could in theory learn to bind those copies, but if he wants a nice presentation better letting someone with expirence do it. (I can bind a book, but expirecnced people can do it nicely)
I can put one letter in the mail. When I need to mail one letter it is faster to do it myself. When I need 100 letters it is better to have the mailroom do it.
Fertilizer. Once it is harmless, neutralize the base, and compost it. In a few months spread it on a field and improve the soil.
Note, what and how to neutralize a base needs to be carefull understood. The technology is easy enough (just pour in some acid), but doing it safely (for workers), and safely (so the byproducts don't render the soil unable to grow plants) is something that needs to be planed for in advance.
Cronic Wasting Diese has been known about in Elk for 40 years, and so far no infections in humans have been reported. There is some evidence that Wolfs cannot get it, though I don't know if it is proven or just appears that way. Mad cow has existed for a while, and very few humans have been infected. Also very few animals have been infected in total. This is a very rare thing, unfortunatly we know almost nothing about how it works (Prions reproduce but don't otherwise fit even the limited definition of life that a virus does)
I suspect this has been around for years. OTOH, considering how rare it is I wouldn't be surprized if many people are somewhat imune to it. For that matter if it was very contagious I would expect more cows to have it.
So don't worry about it yet. Let researchers do their job of figguring out what is really going on and what the danger is. OTOH, Don't be stupid about it, that is don't go eating the brains of infected cows, for that matter, don't eat infected meat all togather.
Remember WordPerfect? Actually when I was a kid it was WordStar, but I never used it, since we had Apple 2s in school, and Atari (400) at home. Whatever word processer those systems used is what I used, when I wasn't useing pen and paper.
By the time I reached high school they were braging about the computer labs which taught WordPerfect 5.1, which was exactly what industry was using.
Then came college and MSWord was on all the non-unix systems. I used that when I had to. More often I used Emacs, or when I needed something more complex FrameMaker was on the Unix systems, and I generally spent most of my time writing programs for Unix so I was on them anyway.
Then I got into the real world and I only had an X terminal on my desk so it was FrameMaker. Eventially they switched us to Outlook for email, but it was done via Citrix, and Word was avaiable there. There I mostly used either whatever was built into the tools we used (a code generation package) or ed. (yes ed, when you telnet to a system without curses you use ed)
At the next job it was gvim on windows. I had MSWord though, and sometimes had to use it. Standard was to export everything to rtf before distribution, though I'm the onlyone who actually did that. Likely as close to the real world as I've ever been.
Today I'm unemployed (though I might be called back to the last job if they find more money). I don't have MSWord, and see no reason to buy it. I have kWord and it works great. I have vi, and it works fine. I also have emacs, though I haven't touched it in a long time, and OpenOffice which I just installed cause some potential employer sent me a word document.
In short, they will make you learn something. Learn it because that is what you have to work with. In the real world exactly what you use will change, so be ready to learn new things.
I have a different reason for not using the requested application: I can't affod Word. Okay, I could if I really wanted it, but $2000 isn't worth it. Word doesn't run on my FreeBSD system, and is so bloated (from what I hear, I've not tried it) that I don't think I'd want to try a current version so Wine is out. That means a new computer, running Windows. $1500 (If I'm buying a computer I'm getting a nice LCD monitor, lots of RAM, and a bunch of options like firewire), plus whatever MSOffice costs, $500? All for a few documents that I can create just as easially with kword (I've only used openoffice once) on my system and they work just fine.
In theory MSword has a lot of abilities that kword doesn't have, but kword is designed so it can eventially have more, and in any case if I need that ability everyone tells me I should learn TeX, which while complex is far more powerful. In reality kword does everything I need, which is mostly spell check plus some simple formatting. Save-as RTF, and rename it to.doc, and nobody even realizes I don't have MSWord.
Film can be manipulated by a good artist. From airbrushing things out to various other things. You can even cut a few negatives up, and carefully combine them and print results. Digital is easier, but most of the truth in film comes because there is an [unspoken] honor system amoung film types to not do this much.
My high school senior pictures were manipulated to make me look better than I do. Both before the shot by an excellent photographer, and afterwards by painting out blemishes. (everyone in my school who went to him looked beautiful in the pictures, those who went with someone else looked like anouther person) Nothing critical was changed, but he could have.
You forgot to account for printing costs. Film has to be developed. Digital doesn't, but then you have the question on if you include the viewer? If you only use your computer for looking at pictures you better. Of course many cameras have LCDs (which may or may not be good enough) or TV interfaces (again may or may not suck)
Want to save your digital pictures? print them, which ins't free, or buy more memory cards. Again not free. Of course film has the developing costs.
My point: your example is far too simplfied to be useful. Anyone wanting to compare costs must look at all the costs before deciding.
Granted if the cost is the same I'll go for better quality. However when the cost isn't the same I'll examine if quality is worth it. Todays $200 digital cameras are good enough. Not as good as a $200 35mm, but still good enough. They are likely better than the 110 camera I had as a kid (though 110 was a lot cheaper than $200) Now factor in the convience of digital: I can see the photo right away, and choose which ones to print. That makes the prints cheaper on a per picture taken basis, and likely on a per printed picture basis too.
No the quality isn't the same, but it turns out that digital has now reached the point where most people don't need more.
Slashdot Mirror
Last time I got a ticket I pleaded guilty, but had an explination for the judge, and I got the fine reduced. I still had to pay, but it was half the amount. In this case a headly was out, I replaced the headlight, but forgot to return the ticket saying I did.
Seems these places are most busy after work (perhaps all night on weekends), and maybe lunch hour. Since you rent space for 24 hours a day (less if in a mall that closes) can you keep busy?
I think you can. Put some good printers behind the counter (you need them anyway for your own use, get a nice color one too), and programs like MsWord on the comptuers, let people print on a quality printer. Kinkos and the like make money renting comptuers. (but not a lot)
Others have suggested that big gaming screen. Great idea put one in a seperate room that can be converted form a theator for watching a really good guy play, to a meeting room for someone who needs that screen. Best part is buisness people have money to spend, so you can charge a lot for this use. Make sure they get service though, you best cook will be doing their meals, and you will be there as soon as each break starts (and not a moment before) with fresh coffee.
Just remember your target market. Gamers want different soroundings from buisness people. As I write this idea I'm well aware that you might be better off without buisness people just because of this. You don't have to open until 5 if that is when the people really come in.
I still recomend the printers though. They allow kids to make good on their promise to the parents they will do their homework not game. (If you can come up with a fair way of enforcing homework gets done first do it, but I can't think of anything) They allow you to get a different class of people in.
I think I started that tradition for posters. Though clearly it is only following in the footsteps of CmdrTaco and other big wigs in /.
Nintendo can say that. However courts have still held for fair use. I'm not sure if you are allowed legally to obtain a copy of a game you own the ROM for from someone else (but likely not) however the courts have not held that you need to destroy the origional when you make a copy, and copyright law generally allows for one (and only one) backup copy of anything.
You are allowed to time or space shift something you have legal rights to, so long as it is for personal use.
Obviously IANAL, see a lawyer if you really need to know what your rights are.
It is legal iff (not a mispelling, math speak that means if and only if) you own the origional cartrage. Fair use comes into play.
Not sloppy code, but hard to maintain. ASM does not allow for a lot of nice things that structured langauges allow for. You end up with a lot of lines that move from one seemingly random memory location to a different one, change bits seemingly randomly, and place the result in a different location. It is very hard to see what is going on for all the irrelavant things that happen.
What makes it harder is nobody in their right mind would write in assembly unless performance is critical and no better algorythm is known, so assembly programers activly prefer hard to understand code that is fast over easier to understand code. That bit manipulation code above may silently depend on a side effect of an operation several instructions ago.
Read the story of Mel. While no assembly programer intentionally writes code that hard to understand without documentation, they all look for tricks like Mel would use because they should never be called unless the C compiler can't optimise good enough. No matter how much they document things (and correctly documenting your code is hard) it is by nature hard to understand.
Modern processors often have weird things going on too that you need to remeber. Delay slots, multipul pipelins to fill, and so on. A good programer (or more likely compiler) tune to take advantage of all this, but by nature is creates code that isn't liner.
Now the VU units can't be programed in C (appearently?), so they don't nessicarly have to use all the tricks in assembly to make it go fast. However even still by nature assembly is hard to understand.
In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.
In traditional /. fashion I didn't read the artical. Still it seems to me that either this is very limited in what it can research, or it can't work. If it is limited, there isn't much news about a robot programed to do something either too repeatative for a human to finish, or too dangerious for a human to do. If it can't work, well I still welcome the limited expiriments it can do which can enhance knowledge, if we don't treat it like the end of all science when this machine does all it can do.
I know people who live in Alaska who have delt with those tempatures. Not often, and no doupt average implys that it gets much lower. OTOH, I would assume mars has areas that are warmer than others, just like most areas on earth never get that cold. So we need to choose a landing site that we can deal with.
For that matter, Mars IIRC doesn't have a protective magnetic field so astronaughts won't be out in "shorts" with just a "scuba" tank for air supply, even on the hot sunny days. They will need protective clothing, which should keep them warm.
Not an easy problem mind you, but much easier than most of the other problems.
Drugs are very useful for a short time. However be careful with them, because no drug is specific to just one part of the body. Just some are more sensitive to it and we can use that sensitivity to control things. There are always side effects, sometimes not noticable, but they are there. (depending on the drug they may not be a problem because the body can deal with a lot) Doctors are avoding anti-biodics somewhat now because the body can deal with minor illness, while it turns out drugs just breed deadly illness that can't be treated. (there are several thousand pages of footnotes and exceptions to that statement)
I have no problem with drugs that serve a purpose that cannot be achived any other way. Pain can get in the way of healing, so it must be managed. Rejection after transplant surgery is real and must be managed. Some illness can kill, and that needs to be managed. Drugs are an excellent tool. Likewise I know people who cannot function without thier medication, but that doesn't mean we should put everyone with mental problems on medication.
Drugs are a necessary part of medical treatment. However many in socity belive in a "magic pill" that will solve all problems and bring world peace, and that just doesn't exist. Nor will that "magic pill" ever exist. I've also known doctors to perscribe pill after pill, when without the drugs someone would have a better quality of life by their standards. I know I'd rather deal with a small amount of pain than live in a drug induced fog, and those who were forced in that fog and brought out latter agree. (at least the ones I know)
Sure. I also eat vegitables fertalized by human waste (not that I can tell), which grosses out most people, even though it has been a valuable technique for years in Asia.
I know acids and bases make a salt when combined. Like I said, there are difficulties there. However they are not insurmountable if careful attention is paid to the details.
The point is two fold: first, if you can deal with CS, learning a language isn't a big deal. Most of what you do will be covered in C, Java/C++/C# (depending on your school), a LISP (likely scheme, which was covered in the first class you took, and the prof gave you time to learn it), or a scripting language (again it doesn't matter which, I used TCL, others perl, python, or ruby. Even visual basic would work)
Learn those in the early years, and if you are a transfer student learn the ones you need over summer. Although if you can't get by in a completely new language within 2 days you should switch majors. (mastery takes years, but within 2 days you know the important syntax, have an idea of what the librarys contain, and know where to look to find the details)
Don't forget that the 12 languages in 10 weeks class will cover most of the languages you need too, so if you are concerned about not knowing something you need take that class.
It occurs to me that I gnerally want to be several levels deep in finger, plus one or two more. So I'd like all windows more than 2 levels deep to automaticly close. I dont care about /usr /usr/home, or /usr/home/bluGill, but instead /usr/home/bluGill/jobs and subfolders /usr/home/bluGill/jobs/resumes /usr/home/bluGill/jobs/coverleaders, and /usr/home/bluGill/jobs/leads.
YMMV, but I think I normally work like that: I care about a lot of folders close to each other, and not about others. (In school it was ~/cs4601 or some such) Once in a while I need to move things between far apart folders, but not often, and normally then there are so many folders opened that I can't find them when I want to. (of course I often use the command line for that, but that is a different story)
How does 6 differ from 3? Seems like much the same: better theoretical understanding. That one is in what the data should show, and one is in the data stream itself doesn't nessicarly mean much. Indeed you often can't get one without the other. (Dl Peg should show iron lines, but one of the critical iron lines was recorded. The existance of iron could be extrapulated from other lines - obvisouly in the case of iron lines you would expect them to be recorded, but there are some things not tested for that we can extrapulate from how it would effect the tests we did run)
Anyone taking a CS course program should not be allowed credit for taking classes in C, C++, Cobal, Fortran, Scheme, Lisp, Assembly, Smalltalk, Java, or any other single language. Those courses are offered, but your grade will not effect your GPA, and will not count towards graduation. CS students should be able to pick up any language they need in their own time.
CS should require that everyone take a "programing to hardware" class where assembly is used (doesn't matter which, though I recomend an older RISC one where you don't have to worry about delay slots and the like that complicate modern architectures, yet have simple instructions)
CS should start everyone off with something they have never done. The first class I took in CS requried Scheme, and the professors made it clear that the primary motivation was odds are none of us had seen it. Secondary motivations were: is Lisp is cool, and there is an excellent introduction to programing book from MIT that uses scheme. This class is the first introduction to data structres and algorythms that most CS students should get. There should also be one required programing language course, it should cover at least 12 languages in 10 weeks, and require some algorythm be implimented in all of them. (better yet several so you can see the advantages and disadvantages of each)
CS should concentrate on on algorythms and data structures. (perhaps design patters should be added in? there weren't written when I graduated but they seem useful and teachable)
There isn't time to cover everything, so there should be a graphics line that eventially gets into games. There should be a real-time line, for those interested in time critical things there should be high performance line for those interested in parrell and super computers. There should be a historical line for those interested in that, complete with runing on that old punch card machine in the basement of the physics building and programing it (if it works...) And several others that I can't think of right now. Not all of the above will be long enough for a degree, but the total should be more than a student has time to take in 4 years.
I'm aware of no case where the railroad just took legaly held land without compensation. In the western US they were given a lot of land that was legally unheld (expect by indians, but there were treaties even if not in good faith, lets ignor that issue though) to build the railroad. They sold this land, and if you happened to be living on it, well the US government never recognised your right to live on that land.
Just lost my job this week, and I've already had two serious responses. Unfortunatly both were in California. (I'm not a fan of the politics that rule in CA, I happen to like winter, and my family isn't there. I'd live there though if it paid the bills) Still last time I lost my job it was a few recruiters here and there looking at me, now it feels more serious. So things are still hard, but at least there is some movement towards hiring. I just hope I don't fall for a pay raise that after higher cost of living turns out to be a cut just because I don't know what I'm worth in CA.
Unbfortunatly I know a lot of people who are still out of work after a couple years.
Why does any company have a mailroom? Or a copy shop. I know how to run a copy machine, and I can put a stamp on an envelope. In truth though, there is a lot of work involved in copies and stamps that isn't visiable from the outside.
I've seen presidents drop 50 pages in a document feeder on the copier, if he can handle it why does the company have a copy room? Answer: because the company sometimes publishes manuals more than a copy or two. The president would make 2 copies of that 50 page document, but more than that and he is better off letting someone else do it. The president could in theory learn to bind those copies, but if he wants a nice presentation better letting someone with expirence do it. (I can bind a book, but expirecnced people can do it nicely)
I can put one letter in the mail. When I need to mail one letter it is faster to do it myself. When I need 100 letters it is better to have the mailroom do it.
Fertilizer. Once it is harmless, neutralize the base, and compost it. In a few months spread it on a field and improve the soil.
Note, what and how to neutralize a base needs to be carefull understood. The technology is easy enough (just pour in some acid), but doing it safely (for workers), and safely (so the byproducts don't render the soil unable to grow plants) is something that needs to be planed for in advance.
Cronic Wasting Diese has been known about in Elk for 40 years, and so far no infections in humans have been reported. There is some evidence that Wolfs cannot get it, though I don't know if it is proven or just appears that way. Mad cow has existed for a while, and very few humans have been infected. Also very few animals have been infected in total. This is a very rare thing, unfortunatly we know almost nothing about how it works (Prions reproduce but don't otherwise fit even the limited definition of life that a virus does)
I suspect this has been around for years. OTOH, considering how rare it is I wouldn't be surprized if many people are somewhat imune to it. For that matter if it was very contagious I would expect more cows to have it.
So don't worry about it yet. Let researchers do their job of figguring out what is really going on and what the danger is. OTOH, Don't be stupid about it, that is don't go eating the brains of infected cows, for that matter, don't eat infected meat all togather.
Remember WordPerfect? Actually when I was a kid it was WordStar, but I never used it, since we had Apple 2s in school, and Atari (400) at home. Whatever word processer those systems used is what I used, when I wasn't useing pen and paper.
By the time I reached high school they were braging about the computer labs which taught WordPerfect 5.1, which was exactly what industry was using.
Then came college and MSWord was on all the non-unix systems. I used that when I had to. More often I used Emacs, or when I needed something more complex FrameMaker was on the Unix systems, and I generally spent most of my time writing programs for Unix so I was on them anyway.
Then I got into the real world and I only had an X terminal on my desk so it was FrameMaker. Eventially they switched us to Outlook for email, but it was done via Citrix, and Word was avaiable there. There I mostly used either whatever was built into the tools we used (a code generation package) or ed. (yes ed, when you telnet to a system without curses you use ed)
At the next job it was gvim on windows. I had MSWord though, and sometimes had to use it. Standard was to export everything to rtf before distribution, though I'm the onlyone who actually did that. Likely as close to the real world as I've ever been.
Today I'm unemployed (though I might be called back to the last job if they find more money). I don't have MSWord, and see no reason to buy it. I have kWord and it works great. I have vi, and it works fine. I also have emacs, though I haven't touched it in a long time, and OpenOffice which I just installed cause some potential employer sent me a word document.
In short, they will make you learn something. Learn it because that is what you have to work with. In the real world exactly what you use will change, so be ready to learn new things.
I have a different reason for not using the requested application: I can't affod Word. Okay, I could if I really wanted it, but $2000 isn't worth it. Word doesn't run on my FreeBSD system, and is so bloated (from what I hear, I've not tried it) that I don't think I'd want to try a current version so Wine is out. That means a new computer, running Windows. $1500 (If I'm buying a computer I'm getting a nice LCD monitor, lots of RAM, and a bunch of options like firewire), plus whatever MSOffice costs, $500? All for a few documents that I can create just as easially with kword (I've only used openoffice once) on my system and they work just fine.
In theory MSword has a lot of abilities that kword doesn't have, but kword is designed so it can eventially have more, and in any case if I need that ability everyone tells me I should learn TeX, which while complex is far more powerful. In reality kword does everything I need, which is mostly spell check plus some simple formatting. Save-as RTF, and rename it to .doc, and nobody even realizes I don't have MSWord.
Film can be manipulated by a good artist. From airbrushing things out to various other things. You can even cut a few negatives up, and carefully combine them and print results. Digital is easier, but most of the truth in film comes because there is an [unspoken] honor system amoung film types to not do this much.
My high school senior pictures were manipulated to make me look better than I do. Both before the shot by an excellent photographer, and afterwards by painting out blemishes. (everyone in my school who went to him looked beautiful in the pictures, those who went with someone else looked like anouther person) Nothing critical was changed, but he could have.
You forgot to account for printing costs. Film has to be developed. Digital doesn't, but then you have the question on if you include the viewer? If you only use your computer for looking at pictures you better. Of course many cameras have LCDs (which may or may not be good enough) or TV interfaces (again may or may not suck)
Want to save your digital pictures? print them, which ins't free, or buy more memory cards. Again not free. Of course film has the developing costs.
My point: your example is far too simplfied to be useful. Anyone wanting to compare costs must look at all the costs before deciding.
Granted if the cost is the same I'll go for better quality. However when the cost isn't the same I'll examine if quality is worth it. Todays $200 digital cameras are good enough. Not as good as a $200 35mm, but still good enough. They are likely better than the 110 camera I had as a kid (though 110 was a lot cheaper than $200) Now factor in the convience of digital: I can see the photo right away, and choose which ones to print. That makes the prints cheaper on a per picture taken basis, and likely on a per printed picture basis too.
No the quality isn't the same, but it turns out that digital has now reached the point where most people don't need more.
Thats both good and bad. Most of those old cameras stored a bitmap of some sort. Jpeg is great for photos, but it isn't not a loss-less format.