fleener, you are talking about legal responsibility. Yes a journalist can print any old crap as long as they are not knowingly libelling someone. There are plenty of tabloids that print nonsense, such as "World War II bomber found on the Moon" and "Wife turns hubbie into coffee table", with amusing faked photos. mshomphe is talking about a moral responsibility where if a news source presents itself as having integrity then the journalists should investigate their stories thoroughly and only print what they think is accurate and the truth. I can't remember who, but some prominent US tv personality stated that if Watergate happened today then it would never come to light unless presented as a soundbite to a news conference that provided free drinks.
If you look about the "About us" page for hydrogen.co.uk you'll see it's based in London. Since I'm heavily into the area and have never heard of such a trust the chances are it is a private venture run from his own home. The fact he is an h2net attendee shows him to be serious about hydrogen as an energy source. I suspect this one is a red herring.
A bit like progressively converting foreign text to English and vice versa through Google/Babelfish to see how good the translator is by measuring the rate of deterioration, you could couple a generator and fuel cell together and measure how long they last. Current electrolysis is around 70% efficient so this would quickly become biased towards generators that can still operate efficiently under low power, which is *not* the same as being the most efficient generator. Still an amusing idea though.
The $100 within 2 days anywhere in US is a premium service. There is nothing to stop you buying an electrolysis kit, some solar panels, and generating your own. Or find a local supplier that will provide cheap bottles of hydrogen. After all, any local business can buy ahydrogengenerator. Alternatively you can buy an all-in-one solution the regenerative fuel cell.
Interesting items from the DOE hydrogen faq:
How much energy is required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis of water?
"The energy required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis (assuming 1.23 V) is about 32.9 kW-hr/kg. [...] For commercial electrolysis systems that operate at about 1 A/cm2, a voltage of 1.75 V is required. This translates into about 46.8 kW-hr/kg, which corresponds to an energy efficiency of 70%.
"Most of the hydrogen produced today is consumed on site, such as at an oil refinery, and is not sold on the market. From large-scale production, hydrogen costs $0.32/lb if it is consumed on site. When hydrogen is sold on the market, the cost of liquefying the hydrogen and transporting it to the user must be added to the production cost. This can increase the selling price to $1.00-1.40/lb for delivered liquid hydrogen. Some users who require relatively small amounts of very pure hydrogen (such as the electronics industry) may use electrolyzers to produce high-purity hydrogen at their facilities. The cost of this hydrogen, which depends on the cost of the electricity used to split the water, is typically $1.00-$2.00/lb."
My fuel cell Segway will leave your old battery model at the lights.
Just as well you aren't in charge of anything important. It doesn't matter how many people there are in a country, it matters how many people have computers and how many of those can afford to pay the required price for the software (and are prepared to do so). Hmmm, easy to see how 'brilliant' you are...
It means the in Europe we can register silly patents in the US (eg BT holds the patent on the 'hyperlink') but EU industry remains unhindered by such absurdities. The UK government considered the US system and rejected it, has the US government any published studies that recommend/reject the UK system?
I agree with those that say the new Napster has been designed to fail. But it's not just the fact you can get more tracks and a better service for free from the many alternatives, the 'laziness' factor will also play a large part. The reason Napster became so popular was because it was so easy to use. No more hunting through FTP and web sites, just click and download. This is why it was worth the effort of downloading, installing, and learning how to use. And this is why rivals had a hard time gaining any market share... Napster worked so why try anything else?
So Napster went down and people *had* to use alternatives. These are now very good and people are comfortable with using their new software (be it AudioGalaxy, Bearshare, DirectConnect, etc). Even if Napster had all its original content and didn't use the doomed proprietry format it would still need something extra to make people move from the software they are now comfortable with (eg the promise of X TB of cached music with low hit count so numerous tracks do not become invisible when one person switches off their machine). Certainly its glory days are over.
Looking at my DNS config files, it looks like each domain can set it's own TTL (Time To Live) duration for its current settings before it needs refreshing. The default setting is 3 hours, which is what I presume everyone normally leaves it at.
I don't care what some obscure standards body tries to impose. Megabytes and Gigabytes have always been to the power of two, and to programmers always will be. Benjamin LaHaise states in the thread exactly what everyone knows: the power of ten measure is only used by hard drive manufacturers to con the public into thinking their hard drives are bigger than they really are. Bit like the old console manufacturers boasting "8Mb" cartridges knowing full well most of the public would think they meant "8MB".
I have just carried out a similar project, and one thing I learned to beware of is don't suggest any timelines until you know *all* the functionality. You may think you've explored the site but there may be a lot of hidden functionality you don't know about, eg xml exports to affiliates.
I disagree with the "code doesn't get rusty" comment. Often there is a lot of pressure to get a project out the door and the initial launch version contains many compromises the designers didn't want to make. I don't think there is any project I could look back on and think "hey, the next time I would do it *this* way". People learn from other people's (or their own) mistakes, it's how we move forwards.
In response to the person that said don't rewrite as you will have to rediscover all the little quirks that the old site fixed: by doing a rewrite and documenting the little quirks as you find them means you will have a record of them rather than staring blankly at a screen of code wondering why on *earth* the previous coder did *that*. By rewriting from scratch you won't miss any quirks, which then come back and bite you inevitably at the least convenient time.
As for the Perl vs Java vs PHP debate, I'd say use the one you all know best. No language is any better or worse than any other. Some have libraries to make life more convenient, others have cleaner OO support, but in the end if you all stick to the accepted coding standards then half decent programmers can write maintainable code in any of the languages. Just bear in mind that your replacement will need to to know the same language so don't pick something obscure or dying where there will be no pool of available talent.
A number of sites I visit won't work under Konq, but work perfectly under Galeon. That plus the fact when I've got 1/2 dozen browser windows open and the software dies with Galeon it retrieves them upon next boot but with Konq I lose them all and have to start hunting for them all over again. Hence my switch. These two factors oughtweigh by a wide margin any slight increase in speed.
In fact I now prefer Galeon to IE. The first reason is the tabbed browsing option. Secondly, my IE locks up the parent page until its pop-up window has loaded. This makes browsing very frustrating under Windows. Now if only plugins installed automatically...
Sorry, this only gets 3/10 as a troll. I appreciate the attempt at humour but you contradict yourself all over the place, and are a bit *obvious* with some attempted analogies and factual inaccuracies. Plz make the satire a bit more subtle next time.
The point you make about upgrading a centralised source to renewable making thousands of cars Green at once instead of having to upgrade every car is a good one. In addition, energy can be extracted in ways and from areas not practical within the car itself. You may put a solar cell on a car, but you can't take advantage of offshore wind or tidal power.
We all agree that only an idiot would think up a system where the plaintif can pick which 'arbitrator' they want, that not only encourages judge-shopping but blantently declares it open-season. Let's assume (in our fantasy world) they decide to switch to, for simplicity, a round-robin allocation system. I think it would be nice that if the plaintif appeals to change arbitrator and fails to make a strong enough case, then they get fined a couple of hundred dollars that gets donated to those running free secondary DNS servers. There's a kind of symmetry in justice there that amuses me.
Putting my personal preferences aside, I think Evolution 1.0 + Exchange plugin is excellent news for pushing Linux on the corporate desktop. I've just installed Mandrake and it's just as easy to install as XP (which I did same day on another machine). The two can also be made to look identical. With an Outlook clone the jigsaw is more complete ($69 is nothing compared to OS and Exchange licenses). Add a decent Word import/export filter to Abiword, which appears identical to Word in use to me, and you then have a drop-in replacement for M$ in the workplace.
Also, I think a lot of techies will be able to swing the $69 by claiming they often do work from home on their Linux box.
On the note of installing Linux, why do none of them offer an automatic basic install? I normally want to install my OS and get that the way I want it before I start installing any applications I need. So why force me to choose packages when installing? Can we please have an option: do you want to install applications now? And if the answer is no just get on and install the basic desktop (plus browser). This goes for all distro; Mandrake, Red Hat, etc.
I don't buy CDs until they come down to the price I am prepared to pay for it. When an album gets released for 14ukp it makes me sick (I'll never understand why the cost of production plummeted between the switch from tape to CD but prices actually increased), but when I see one I want for under 10ukp I buy it immediately. When going to see a film I refuse to pay 9ukp for a seat but will watch in North London for 3.50ukp. Renting a DVD in the library costs me 2ukp instead of 3.50ukp in a video store AND I know the money is going back into an institution that is vital for a healthy society. Plus I make sure I get a chipped DVD player. If I buy a legitimate copy of a DVD in the USA why am I banned from playing my legitimate bought copy of a film? If I am going to live in a capitalist society then I am going to try and work the rules to my advantage. This an attempt to check an abuse of power, and is a financial issue not a moral issue (unlike for instance Esso trying to destroy the planet). The moral blame lies with corrupt politicians passing such a law. And, as you say, apathetic people rolling over and accept being treated like doormats. You don't have to retreat into being a Tibetan monk, just don't let people walk all over you. The advantage of a capitalist society is that if people exercise a bit of patience... most companies can't afford to and will drop prices to that which people are prepared to pay.
I agree. I have come across this many times, including a rather extreme example of where I reduced a stock import time for a book retailer from 12hrs to under 30 seconds by (a) re-doing the tables and throwing away useless joins and (b) rewriting the Perl in C using better algorithms eg pre-buildng and doing one insert instead of doing a two pass insert then update. Another example when displaying results about 20 books, instead of doing for (i=1...20) select and doing 20 queries, do select where in (list) which gets the same results in one query. Designing web applications requires more than just the ability to code, you really need to know the architecture of the whole system and how they interact.
It's not just the size of the dictionary, but with a data stream the dictionary has to be dynamically built and adapted. With a static file the whole of the data can be analysed at once for the optimum dictionary, which can then be appended to the compressed data.
So what happens when you spill some liquid hydrogen into your expensive laptop?
It will run better:-) We've had umpteen Slashdot articles about the most effective way of cooling your PC, this tops the lot.
I think the fuel itself could pose some problems
Only if you manage to flood your laptop with liquid hydrogen, get your finger wedged in the case for a few seconds, then upon dislodging accidentally knock it against a wall.
I think it's worth expanding here your succinct summary.
They dragged their feet over unmetered internet access via dial-up,
They've always dragged their feet over any innovation that has potential to stop them screwing over customers. They kept ISDN at exhorbitant prices ($640 installation, $42/month rental plus call charges on top). Ran trial after trial of DSL even though they had it working, fearing cheap unmetered access would cut into their lucrative ISDN scam. Even now my friend using BT DSL tells me that the contention ratio is so high his old 56k used to be often faster.
I'm very happy with my NTL cable modem, which is faster (BT caps at 512kbps as does NTL but I get faster downloads and better pings in Counterstrike than my ADSL friends) at half the price.
their network fell over [theregister.co.uk] earlier in the week and they are very reluctant to unbundle the local loop.
In case those abroad know little of BT's history: it used to be a national monopoly and the entire country's telecommunication infrastructure was laid at taxpayers expense. Hence in opening the telecoms market to competition it is felt that rival companies should have the same benefits the ex-monopoly has to level the playing field*. Naturally BT are pulling every legal and obstructive trick in the book to frustrate this process.
Phillip.
* playing fields are of course not level, otherwise the rain wouldn't run off them and you would get lakes in the middle
Why not use butane instead of ethanol for your mobile fuel cell? Then you can pop down your newsagents or gas station and buy a cigarette lighter refiller to charge your phone, more convienient than trying to find ethanol late at night on a Sunday.
Anyway, you are taking a very narrow view: you take an invention of mass consumption and say it will only work if it can power Bluetooth??? I think rather it will only work if production is cheap enough to power musical/flashing Christmas cards (let's get realistic here).
When the customer came by the credit was given to an older tech. When I approached my boss about it later he said, "We can't have them thinking our important projects are being completed by teenagers." I thought IT would be the ONE field where age discrimination would not abound, but alas, that is not the case.
If other techies came into the building and your boss credited an older techie to them then I would understand your ire. But the moment your boss starts interacting with the customer you move from the IT world to the business world where the rules are not the same. If your boss promised your customer he had put his most experienced staff on their case (which he probably does to *every* customer) then much as it may seem unfair I can see why he did it. I've been publishing software since 15 yrs old and have never worried about credit, to me the satisfaction of solving the problem is enough without need for external validation.
Now I run a small software house I can see how important your external image is. The trust of your customers is critical, and no matter what is happening internally the customer must see a slick professional company that delivers timely solutions. Look on the bright side, your company probably billed out at twice the rate for the senior techie and that paid for your xmas bonus:-)
Sorry but oil companies are not the people pushing fuel cell technology. Try DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, amongst others. You will find most of the oil companies 'fuel cell research' are actually 'joint ventures' with other large companies where they encourage the use of gasoline as a fuel cell source instead of alternatives such as hydrogen. And though some of the oil companies do some solar research, a lot of their technology is based on buying up small independant solar firms. Oil companies have nothing *against* alternative energy but their motivation is profit at any price. Thanks to independant work being done all over the world, and plenty of governments subsidy, green energy is now being eyed by oil companies as a new cost-effective area in which they can become a monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
fleener, you are talking about legal responsibility. Yes a journalist can print any old crap as long as they are not knowingly libelling someone. There are plenty of tabloids that print nonsense, such as "World War II bomber found on the Moon" and "Wife turns hubbie into coffee table", with amusing faked photos. mshomphe is talking about a moral responsibility where if a news source presents itself as having integrity then the journalists should investigate their stories thoroughly and only print what they think is accurate and the truth. I can't remember who, but some prominent US tv personality stated that if Watergate happened today then it would never come to light unless presented as a soundbite to a news conference that provided free drinks.
Phillip.
If you look about the "About us" page for hydrogen.co.uk you'll see it's based in London. Since I'm heavily into the area and have never heard of such a trust the chances are it is a private venture run from his own home. The fact he is an h2net attendee shows him to be serious about hydrogen as an energy source. I suspect this one is a red herring.
Phillip.
A bit like progressively converting foreign text to English and vice versa through Google/Babelfish to see how good the translator is by measuring the rate of deterioration, you could couple a generator and fuel cell together and measure how long they last. Current electrolysis is around 70% efficient so this would quickly become biased towards generators that can still operate efficiently under low power, which is *not* the same as being the most efficient generator. Still an amusing idea though.
Phillip.
The $100 within 2 days anywhere in US is a premium service. There is nothing to stop you buying an electrolysis kit, some solar panels, and generating your own. Or find a local supplier that will provide cheap bottles of hydrogen. After all, any local business can buy a hydrogen generator. Alternatively you can buy an all-in-one solution the regenerative fuel cell.
Interesting items from the DOE hydrogen faq:
How much energy is required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis of water?
"The energy required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis (assuming 1.23 V) is about 32.9 kW-hr/kg. [...] For commercial electrolysis systems that operate at about 1 A/cm2, a voltage of 1.75 V is required. This translates into about 46.8 kW-hr/kg, which corresponds to an energy efficiency of 70%.
"Most of the hydrogen produced today is consumed on site, such as at an oil refinery, and is not sold on the market. From large-scale production, hydrogen costs $0.32/lb if it is consumed on site. When hydrogen is sold on the market, the cost of liquefying the hydrogen and transporting it to the user must be added to the production cost. This can increase the selling price to $1.00-1.40/lb for delivered liquid hydrogen. Some users who require relatively small amounts of very pure hydrogen (such as the electronics industry) may use electrolyzers to produce high-purity hydrogen at their facilities. The cost of this hydrogen, which depends on the cost of the electricity used to split the water, is typically $1.00-$2.00/lb."
My fuel cell Segway will leave your old battery model at the lights.
Phillip.
http://www.FutureEnergies.com/
Just as well you aren't in charge of anything important. It doesn't matter how many people there are in a country, it matters how many people have computers and how many of those can afford to pay the required price for the software (and are prepared to do so). Hmmm, easy to see how 'brilliant' you are...
Phillip.
It means the in Europe we can register silly patents in the US (eg BT holds the patent on the 'hyperlink') but EU industry remains unhindered by such absurdities. The UK government considered the US system and rejected it, has the US government any published studies that recommend/reject the UK system?
Phillip.
I agree with those that say the new Napster has been designed to fail. But it's not just the fact you can get more tracks and a better service for free from the many alternatives, the 'laziness' factor will also play a large part. The reason Napster became so popular was because it was so easy to use. No more hunting through FTP and web sites, just click and download. This is why it was worth the effort of downloading, installing, and learning how to use. And this is why rivals had a hard time gaining any market share... Napster worked so why try anything else?
So Napster went down and people *had* to use alternatives. These are now very good and people are comfortable with using their new software (be it AudioGalaxy, Bearshare, DirectConnect, etc). Even if Napster had all its original content and didn't use the doomed proprietry format it would still need something extra to make people move from the software they are now comfortable with (eg the promise of X TB of cached music with low hit count so numerous tracks do not become invisible when one person switches off their machine). Certainly its glory days are over.
Phillip.
Looking at my DNS config files, it looks like each domain can set it's own TTL (Time To Live) duration for its current settings before it needs refreshing. The default setting is 3 hours, which is what I presume everyone normally leaves it at.
Phillip.
and waives most of his constitutional rights in exchange for a promise
And this is the argument *for* the former democracy USA? If I was scared sh*tless in a foreign country I would sign anything.
Phillip.
An operating system where I can't cut from my text editor (KWrite) and paste into my web browser (Galeon) is definately not ready for the big time.
Phillip.
I don't care what some obscure standards body tries to impose. Megabytes and Gigabytes have always been to the power of two, and to programmers always will be. Benjamin LaHaise states in the thread exactly what everyone knows: the power of ten measure is only used by hard drive manufacturers to con the public into thinking their hard drives are bigger than they really are. Bit like the old console manufacturers boasting "8Mb" cartridges knowing full well most of the public would think they meant "8MB".
Phillip.
I have just carried out a similar project, and one thing I learned to beware of is don't suggest any timelines until you know *all* the functionality. You may think you've explored the site but there may be a lot of hidden functionality you don't know about, eg xml exports to affiliates.
I disagree with the "code doesn't get rusty" comment. Often there is a lot of pressure to get a project out the door and the initial launch version contains many compromises the designers didn't want to make. I don't think there is any project I could look back on and think "hey, the next time I would do it *this* way". People learn from other people's (or their own) mistakes, it's how we move forwards.
In response to the person that said don't rewrite as you will have to rediscover all the little quirks that the old site fixed: by doing a rewrite and documenting the little quirks as you find them means you will have a record of them rather than staring blankly at a screen of code wondering why on *earth* the previous coder did *that*. By rewriting from scratch you won't miss any quirks, which then come back and bite you inevitably at the least convenient time.
As for the Perl vs Java vs PHP debate, I'd say use the one you all know best. No language is any better or worse than any other. Some have libraries to make life more convenient, others have cleaner OO support, but in the end if you all stick to the accepted coding standards then half decent programmers can write maintainable code in any of the languages. Just bear in mind that your replacement will need to to know the same language so don't pick something obscure or dying where there will be no pool of available talent.
Phillip.
I don't really know why you want Gecko so much
A number of sites I visit won't work under Konq, but work perfectly under Galeon. That plus the fact when I've got 1/2 dozen browser windows open and the software dies with Galeon it retrieves them upon next boot but with Konq I lose them all and have to start hunting for them all over again. Hence my switch. These two factors oughtweigh by a wide margin any slight increase in speed.
In fact I now prefer Galeon to IE. The first reason is the tabbed browsing option. Secondly, my IE locks up the parent page until its pop-up window has loaded. This makes browsing very frustrating under Windows. Now if only plugins installed automatically...
Phillip.
Sorry, this only gets 3/10 as a troll. I appreciate the attempt at humour but you contradict yourself all over the place, and are a bit *obvious* with some attempted analogies and factual inaccuracies. Plz make the satire a bit more subtle next time.
Look forwards to next attempt,
Phillip.
The point you make about upgrading a centralised source to renewable making thousands of cars Green at once instead of having to upgrade every car is a good one. In addition, energy can be extracted in ways and from areas not practical within the car itself. You may put a solar cell on a car, but you can't take advantage of offshore wind or tidal power.
Phillip.
http://www.FutureEnergies.com/
We all agree that only an idiot would think up a system where the plaintif can pick which 'arbitrator' they want, that not only encourages judge-shopping but blantently declares it open-season. Let's assume (in our fantasy world) they decide to switch to, for simplicity, a round-robin allocation system. I think it would be nice that if the plaintif appeals to change arbitrator and fails to make a strong enough case, then they get fined a couple of hundred dollars that gets donated to those running free secondary DNS servers. There's a kind of symmetry in justice there that amuses me.
Phillip.
Putting my personal preferences aside, I think Evolution 1.0 + Exchange plugin is excellent news for pushing Linux on the corporate desktop. I've just installed Mandrake and it's just as easy to install as XP (which I did same day on another machine). The two can also be made to look identical. With an Outlook clone the jigsaw is more complete ($69 is nothing compared to OS and Exchange licenses). Add a decent Word import/export filter to Abiword, which appears identical to Word in use to me, and you then have a drop-in replacement for M$ in the workplace.
Also, I think a lot of techies will be able to swing the $69 by claiming they often do work from home on their Linux box.
On the note of installing Linux, why do none of them offer an automatic basic install? I normally want to install my OS and get that the way I want it before I start installing any applications I need. So why force me to choose packages when installing? Can we please have an option: do you want to install applications now? And if the answer is no just get on and install the basic desktop (plus browser). This goes for all distro; Mandrake, Red Hat, etc.
Phillip.
I don't buy CDs until they come down to the price I am prepared to pay for it. When an album gets released for 14ukp it makes me sick (I'll never understand why the cost of production plummeted between the switch from tape to CD but prices actually increased), but when I see one I want for under 10ukp I buy it immediately. When going to see a film I refuse to pay 9ukp for a seat but will watch in North London for 3.50ukp. Renting a DVD in the library costs me 2ukp instead of 3.50ukp in a video store AND I know the money is going back into an institution that is vital for a healthy society. Plus I make sure I get a chipped DVD player. If I buy a legitimate copy of a DVD in the USA why am I banned from playing my legitimate bought copy of a film? If I am going to live in a capitalist society then I am going to try and work the rules to my advantage. This an attempt to check an abuse of power, and is a financial issue not a moral issue (unlike for instance Esso trying to destroy the planet). The moral blame lies with corrupt politicians passing such a law. And, as you say, apathetic people rolling over and accept being treated like doormats. You don't have to retreat into being a Tibetan monk, just don't let people walk all over you. The advantage of a capitalist society is that if people exercise a bit of patience... most companies can't afford to and will drop prices to that which people are prepared to pay.
Phillip.
I agree. I have come across this many times, including a rather extreme example of where I reduced a stock import time for a book retailer from 12hrs to under 30 seconds by (a) re-doing the tables and throwing away useless joins and (b) rewriting the Perl in C using better algorithms eg pre-buildng and doing one insert instead of doing a two pass insert then update. Another example when displaying results about 20 books, instead of doing for (i=1...20) select and doing 20 queries, do select where in (list) which gets the same results in one query. Designing web applications requires more than just the ability to code, you really need to know the architecture of the whole system and how they interact.
Phillip.
It's not just the size of the dictionary, but with a data stream the dictionary has to be dynamically built and adapted. With a static file the whole of the data can be analysed at once for the optimum dictionary, which can then be appended to the compressed data.
Phillip.
So what happens when you spill some liquid hydrogen into your expensive laptop?
It will run better :-) We've had umpteen Slashdot articles about the most effective way of cooling your PC, this tops the lot.
I think the fuel itself could pose some problems
Only if you manage to flood your laptop with liquid hydrogen, get your finger wedged in the case for a few seconds, then upon dislodging accidentally knock it against a wall.
Phillip.
I think it's worth expanding here your succinct summary.
They dragged their feet over unmetered internet access via dial-up,
They've always dragged their feet over any innovation that has potential to stop them screwing over customers. They kept ISDN at exhorbitant prices ($640 installation, $42/month rental plus call charges on top). Ran trial after trial of DSL even though they had it working, fearing cheap unmetered access would cut into their lucrative ISDN scam. Even now my friend using BT DSL tells me that the contention ratio is so high his old 56k used to be often faster.
I'm very happy with my NTL cable modem, which is faster (BT caps at 512kbps as does NTL but I get faster downloads and better pings in Counterstrike than my ADSL friends) at half the price.
their network fell over [theregister.co.uk] earlier in the week and they are very reluctant to unbundle the local loop.
In case those abroad know little of BT's history: it used to be a national monopoly and the entire country's telecommunication infrastructure was laid at taxpayers expense. Hence in opening the telecoms market to competition it is felt that rival companies should have the same benefits the ex-monopoly has to level the playing field*. Naturally BT are pulling every legal and obstructive trick in the book to frustrate this process.
Phillip.
* playing fields are of course not level, otherwise the rain wouldn't run off them and you would get lakes in the middle
Why not use butane instead of ethanol for your mobile fuel cell? Then you can pop down your newsagents or gas station and buy a cigarette lighter refiller to charge your phone, more convienient than trying to find ethanol late at night on a Sunday.
Anyway, you are taking a very narrow view: you take an invention of mass consumption and say it will only work if it can power Bluetooth??? I think rather it will only work if production is cheap enough to power musical/flashing Christmas cards (let's get realistic here).
Phillip.
http://www.FutureEnergies.com/
When the customer came by the credit was given to an older tech. When I approached my boss about it later he said, "We can't have them thinking our important projects are being completed by teenagers." I thought IT would be the ONE field where age discrimination would not abound, but alas, that is not the case.
If other techies came into the building and your boss credited an older techie to them then I would understand your ire. But the moment your boss starts interacting with the customer you move from the IT world to the business world where the rules are not the same. If your boss promised your customer he had put his most experienced staff on their case (which he probably does to *every* customer) then much as it may seem unfair I can see why he did it. I've been publishing software since 15 yrs old and have never worried about credit, to me the satisfaction of solving the problem is enough without need for external validation.
:-)
Now I run a small software house I can see how important your external image is. The trust of your customers is critical, and no matter what is happening internally the customer must see a slick professional company that delivers timely solutions. Look on the bright side, your company probably billed out at twice the rate for the senior techie and that paid for your xmas bonus
Phillip.
Sorry but oil companies are not the people pushing fuel cell technology. Try DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, amongst others. You will find most of the oil companies 'fuel cell research' are actually 'joint ventures' with other large companies where they encourage the use of gasoline as a fuel cell source instead of alternatives such as hydrogen. And though some of the oil companies do some solar research, a lot of their technology is based on buying up small independant solar firms. Oil companies have nothing *against* alternative energy but their motivation is profit at any price. Thanks to independant work being done all over the world, and plenty of governments subsidy, green energy is now being eyed by oil companies as a new cost-effective area in which they can become a monopoly.
Phillip.