Result: Dishonourable discharge, i.e. fired + bad reference.
Almost no companies anymore give a referal beyond "Yes, he worked here from date x to date y as an (engineer/manager/whatever)". They're advised by their lawyers to avoid disparagement or praise of former employees in order to avoid lawsuits from unemployed ex-employees or unsatisified employers.
I don't know about the first few issues cited, but after reading your link to "McCain's little plagiarism issue", it does not appear to be close to plagiarism.
What exactly does buying locally help? My local economy?
If you've lived in a neighborhood or town where a new mall opened some distance away, and, like others from your town, you started shopping there, ignoring the cost of gas to get a little discount, and your neighborhood stores began to lose business and close down, which vacant stores affected the property value of your house, you might begin to appreciate that there can be a benefit to you to shop locally.
Puzzle games are fun, (even though a lot of times the puzzles were way too aribitrary.)
I thoroughly enjoyed one of my first PC games, Fool's Errand. That is the puzzle gamers puzzle game, as it requires you to solve a series of puzzles in order to get puzzle pieces that you have to arrange to solve the main puzzle.
I also liked Hero's Quest and Zak McKracken, despite the bad graphics (even for a 286 game, Zak looked bad, and implemented a clumsy mouse interface -yes the game had the mouse, not the OS).
I no longer have the time for any game longer than a game of chess, though, so most of my gaming nowadays is relegated to card games and board games, preferably with real cards and boards and real people. As a bonus, I don't have to upgrade my computer and graphics card every 18 months just to play a mindless first person shooter, like my son seems to think are fun. (personally, I think he's bored but addicted)
Now that computers have evolved to the level of today, we simply expect less out of the experience than thinking about the storyline.
That said, many of the puzzles in games have been poorly implemented and way too arbitrary. Still, when done well, they at least hold my interest, unlike boring FPS's
How many times do you really need to get an email six months old?
I regularly work on projects that last more than a year, and often work on projects that last as long as seven or more years. The longer ones often start and stop or even go on hold for months at a time (or longer). Having the old emails that I can read through often helps me manage the job. Also, if issues come up, being able to definitively say, e.g., "I sent you such-and-such on this date" can settle things quickly, and even allows me to resend if the other party has deleted it.
Of course, I don't just keep everything in the inbox, I save to particular job folders.
He might have been joking, but when we first got e-mail, and especially when the server started to fill up, our company actually had a policy that we should print out all e-mails and delete them as soon as we got them.
Currently we have a loosely enforced policy of moving all e-mails to job folders set up on another server, so the e-mail server won't clog up.
a US corporation has to put their shareholders interests above all else mandated by law.
A corporation has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. That is not equal to putting "their shareholders interests above all else".
And it is generally civil suits, not criminal law that governs the situation.
Don't bet on it.
Seriously, you could easily lose that fair use argument in a courtroom (YMMV, IANAL, etc.), assuming that you did anything that brought attention to the fact that you made those copies.
You are forgetting one thing about a Swamp Cooler. It just uses water as part of a heat exchanger system, and ALSO pumps the heat outside of the house.
No, that is not a swamp cooler. A swamp cooler does not pump heat outside, it just uses the energy of the air temperature to evaporate water, and delivers lower temperature air with higher humidity, without removing energy from the air stream. A swamp cooler works OK in a dry place like Arizona or Utah. Maybe you are confusing a swamp cooler with an A/C unit with an evaporative condenser, which still uses a compressor but increases efficiency by evaporating water to reduce the temperature of heat rejection. That works well even in a relatively humid climate.
There's an old unit of measurement for heat transfer called 'tons'. You don't see it around much anymore . .
Uh, in the US, anyway, the "Ton" is commonly used, and you will see that unit used more often than btuh for the capacity of larger A/C and refrigeration equipment. You almost never see the SI units for heat. The origination of the term, I believe, is that one of the first uses of mechanical refrigeration was to make ice, which ice was delivered to ice boxes for keeping food cool and to commercial A/C systems for thaters and the like, which really were cooled at one time by blowing fresh air over melting ice.
Your typical car air-conditioner, or big-ish room A/C, has a cooling capacity of about 2.5 tons.
2.5 Tons would be large for a "room" A/C unit. A typical house would have about 1 Ton per 500 sq ft (YMMV, greatly)
I know, I'm being pedantic above; the main point about how ineffective the system would be is valid. However, there is such a thing as spot cooling, where you live with a little overall inefficiency in order to blow cool air on the people or equipment that really need cooling. Also, nothing wrong with supplementing a fan with a little ice, even though you'd need a lot of ice if you want the effect to last.
AC is expensive because people design houses and offices with giant windows which both let the sunshine in and keep the heat from getting out. And then build them in Texas.
Boy, you got that right.
I worked on the HVAC design of a big modern house in the Dallas/Ft Worth suburbs (summer design temperature 105F/40C). It had a Great Room with a 12 ft high, 60 ft long glass window (the entire wall, floor to ceiling) facing West, overlooking a reflecting pool. (not much reflief from the hot afternoon sun in that layout) The building had lots of windows, skylights, glass elevator, glass stairs, even some glass floors. Interesting design, but about 3 times the A/C you would otherwise expect for a house that size. To be fair, it didn't inefficiently pump the heat to the hot outside air, but had a system of water-source heat pumps using ground-tempered water pumped in a closed loop through about sixteen 150 ft deep wells. (the architect refused to have visible condensing units for cooling or gas vents/chimneys for heating)
the problem with aluminum wiring was the corrosion problem as aluminum corrodes fast,
By itself, insulated aluminum wire will not corrode at an appreciably different rate than copper wire. The corrosion problem with aluminum is concentrated at the connections to terminations designed for copper. Dissimilar metals are subjected to galvanic corrosion where they meet. I'm not convinced that cladding with copper won't just move the problem to the length of the wire, though I'm guessing that the manufacturers may have thought of a way around that in the manufacturing process.
Regarding codes, most I know of allow aluminum wiring, but with restrictions on the qualities of the connections that make it impractical in many cases. Electric compmanies often use aluminum, but in that case the installer is the same as the maintainer, and if anyone could do it, they should know how. I have an aluminum feed from my main panel, running underground to the panel in my detached garage. The electrician who inspected the house before I bought it said that I only have to make sure the connection is tightened (it can come loose with cycles of heating and cooling) and that a certain conductive, corrosion resistant 'grease' is used at the lug.
. . . I'm not sure that plastic is a viable alternative yet.
Where allowed by codes, plastics are the economic choice in most cases. They have some desirable characteristics, but are not without their problems.
Commonly used plastics soften in high temperatures, requiring more supports or less cheap types of plastic. (PVC should not be used above 140F)
Plastics burn in a fire, giving off toxic smoke, and opening up holes in floors and partitions for fire and smokle to spread thru (hence the code problems)
Plastics are easier to damage (and easier to install)
Plastics are lighter weight, making them easier to handle, but much noisier in use.
Various plastics are preferred for acid, chemical, or corrosion resistance (much cheaper than glass piping in a chemistry lab). These properties are desirable for handling urine.
Copper is going high enough in price that the more labor extensive steel and galvanized (zinc!)steel are being used in many cases.
As you say, both copper and zinc are readily recycled, though I don't know about the rare earth elements used for doping silicon, etc.
what's wrong with wanting e-mail, IM, VoIP or other packets to be ranked as higher priority?
IM and, especially, e-mail don't need to be high priority.
VoIP is an interesting hack, but if you need a low latency voice connection, why not use an actual phone line? Probably because you're trying to save money.
I have no objection to paying for what I use, but throttling is just an excuse to charge me extra for not using their "preferred partners". That bothers me because it can change the entire nature of the internet and turn it into a private club.
Only state I've ever heard of that nonsense actually being enforced is Florida.
Codes are mostly enforced by municipalities, and to a lesser extent by states, counties, fire departments, and other agencies. And most places I've been involved with do enforce such restrictions, though not always effectively.
What, should we go crying to Mommy Government or her anointed and licensed representatives every time we need to change a light bulb?
Changing a light bulb is changing a bulb, not changing a fixture. Though I will say that most codes allow a homeowner to repair or replace 'in-kind' existing electrical work, most will not allow you to make significant changes without a permit. And usually they require a licensed engineer or licensed contractor for the permit. Of course, if the work is done inside your private home, the code officials will probably never find out about it, unless a neighbor complains, or mistake causes a fire.
Building codes are all about "do it the way it has always been done, that has been worked out to be safest over the years"
Only natural, since the purpose of the codes is to protect the health and welfare of the building occupants and the surrounding community.
hey may prevent injury, but they also completely kill any sort of innovation.
Codes all have clauses in them that allow you to design any innovative system that works, if you're willing to go through the considerable trouble of getting it approved.
Not that I disagree with most of your points, but "a company cannot exploit its monopoly to become a monopoly" seems wrong. Standard Oil used its' oil monopoly to create monopolies in pipelines and other oil transportation, barrel making, refining, etc. MS used its' desktop operating system monopoly to create monopolies in office suites and web browsers and constantly tries to create other new monopolies.
the reason for the extra $50 is simple. You get both Vista AND XP.
Doubt it.
It's probably that Dell has to run an extra script or two to 'preinstall' XP on a cheap box that most likely laready has Vista installed;, and pay some worker in China to toss that extra CD into the package. They want to discourage interruptions to the assembly line process, at least on the cheaper items.
Slashdot Mirror
Almost no companies anymore give a referal beyond "Yes, he worked here from date x to date y as an (engineer/manager/whatever)". They're advised by their lawyers to avoid disparagement or praise of former employees in order to avoid lawsuits from unemployed ex-employees or unsatisified employers.
I don't know about the first few issues cited, but after reading your link to "McCain's little plagiarism issue", it does not appear to be close to plagiarism.
What exactly does buying locally help? My local economy?
If you've lived in a neighborhood or town where a new mall opened some distance away, and, like others from your town, you started shopping there, ignoring the cost of gas to get a little discount, and your neighborhood stores began to lose business and close down, which vacant stores affected the property value of your house, you might begin to appreciate that there can be a benefit to you to shop locally.
you young whippersnappers.
Puzzle games are fun, (even though a lot of times the puzzles were way too aribitrary.)
I thoroughly enjoyed one of my first PC games, Fool's Errand. That is the puzzle gamers puzzle game, as it requires you to solve a series of puzzles in order to get puzzle pieces that you have to arrange to solve the main puzzle.
I also liked Hero's Quest and Zak McKracken, despite the bad graphics (even for a 286 game, Zak looked bad, and implemented a clumsy mouse interface -yes the game had the mouse, not the OS).
I no longer have the time for any game longer than a game of chess, though, so most of my gaming nowadays is relegated to card games and board games, preferably with real cards and boards and real people. As a bonus, I don't have to upgrade my computer and graphics card every 18 months just to play a mindless first person shooter, like my son seems to think are fun. (personally, I think he's bored but addicted)
Now that computers have evolved to the level of today, we simply expect less out of the experience than thinking about the storyline .
That said, many of the puzzles in games have been poorly implemented and way too arbitrary. Still, when done well, they at least hold my interest, unlike boring FPS's
Written like a true "End User".
I regularly work on projects that last more than a year, and often work on projects that last as long as seven or more years. The longer ones often start and stop or even go on hold for months at a time (or longer). Having the old emails that I can read through often helps me manage the job. Also, if issues come up, being able to definitively say, e.g., "I sent you such-and-such on this date" can settle things quickly, and even allows me to resend if the other party has deleted it.
Of course, I don't just keep everything in the inbox, I save to particular job folders.
He might have been joking, but when we first got e-mail, and especially when the server started to fill up, our company actually had a policy that we should print out all e-mails and delete them as soon as we got them.
Currently we have a loosely enforced policy of moving all e-mails to job folders set up on another server, so the e-mail server won't clog up.
It applies to the government.
A corporation has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. That is not equal to putting "their shareholders interests above all else".
And it is generally civil suits, not criminal law that governs the situation.
Don't bet on it.
Seriously, you could easily lose that fair use argument in a courtroom (YMMV, IANAL, etc.), assuming that you did anything that brought attention to the fact that you made those copies.
No, that is not a swamp cooler. A swamp cooler does not pump heat outside, it just uses the energy of the air temperature to evaporate water, and delivers lower temperature air with higher humidity, without removing energy from the air stream. A swamp cooler works OK in a dry place like Arizona or Utah.
Maybe you are confusing a swamp cooler with an A/C unit with an evaporative condenser, which still uses a compressor but increases efficiency by evaporating water to reduce the temperature of heat rejection. That works well even in a relatively humid climate.
Uh, in the US, anyway, the "Ton" is commonly used, and you will see that unit used more often than btuh for the capacity of larger A/C and refrigeration equipment. You almost never see the SI units for heat. The origination of the term, I believe, is that one of the first uses of mechanical refrigeration was to make ice, which ice was delivered to ice boxes for keeping food cool and to commercial A/C systems for thaters and the like, which really were cooled at one time by blowing fresh air over melting ice.
2.5 Tons would be large for a "room" A/C unit. A typical house would have about 1 Ton per 500 sq ft (YMMV, greatly)
I know, I'm being pedantic above; the main point about how ineffective the system would be is valid. However, there is such a thing as spot cooling, where you live with a little overall inefficiency in order to blow cool air on the people or equipment that really need cooling. Also, nothing wrong with supplementing a fan with a little ice, even though you'd need a lot of ice if you want the effect to last.
Boy, you got that right.
I worked on the HVAC design of a big modern house in the Dallas/Ft Worth suburbs (summer design temperature 105F/40C). It had a Great Room with a 12 ft high, 60 ft long glass window (the entire wall, floor to ceiling) facing West, overlooking a reflecting pool. (not much reflief from the hot afternoon sun in that layout) The building had lots of windows, skylights, glass elevator, glass stairs, even some glass floors. Interesting design, but about 3 times the A/C you would otherwise expect for a house that size.
To be fair, it didn't inefficiently pump the heat to the hot outside air, but had a system of water-source heat pumps using ground-tempered water pumped in a closed loop through about sixteen 150 ft deep wells. (the architect refused to have visible condensing units for cooling or gas vents/chimneys for heating)
That might help solve the copper problem (which isn't much of a problem anyway) but will require a lot more of the "-iums", like erbium or gallium.
By itself, insulated aluminum wire will not corrode at an appreciably different rate than copper wire. The corrosion problem with aluminum is concentrated at the connections to terminations designed for copper. Dissimilar metals are subjected to galvanic corrosion where they meet. I'm not convinced that cladding with copper won't just move the problem to the length of the wire, though I'm guessing that the manufacturers may have thought of a way around that in the manufacturing process.
Regarding codes, most I know of allow aluminum wiring, but with restrictions on the qualities of the connections that make it impractical in many cases. Electric compmanies often use aluminum, but in that case the installer is the same as the maintainer, and if anyone could do it, they should know how. I have an aluminum feed from my main panel, running underground to the panel in my detached garage. The electrician who inspected the house before I bought it said that I only have to make sure the connection is tightened (it can come loose with cycles of heating and cooling) and that a certain conductive, corrosion resistant 'grease' is used at the lug.
Where allowed by codes, plastics are the economic choice in most cases. They have some desirable characteristics, but are not without their problems.
Commonly used plastics soften in high temperatures, requiring more supports or less cheap types of plastic. (PVC should not be used above 140F)
Plastics burn in a fire, giving off toxic smoke, and opening up holes in floors and partitions for fire and smokle to spread thru (hence the code problems)
Plastics are easier to damage (and easier to install)
Plastics are lighter weight, making them easier to handle, but much noisier in use.
Various plastics are preferred for acid, chemical, or corrosion resistance (much cheaper than glass piping in a chemistry lab). These properties are desirable for handling urine.
Copper is going high enough in price that the more labor extensive steel and galvanized (zinc!)steel are being used in many cases.
As you say, both copper and zinc are readily recycled, though I don't know about the rare earth elements used for doping silicon, etc.
IM and, especially, e-mail don't need to be high priority.
VoIP is an interesting hack, but if you need a low latency voice connection, why not use an actual phone line? Probably because you're trying to save money.
I have no objection to paying for what I use, but throttling is just an excuse to charge me extra for not using their "preferred partners". That bothers me because it can change the entire nature of the internet and turn it into a private club.
Oh yeah?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512/
No.
RTFA again.
DC doesn't have to be low voltage.
And only $6,000 per Ton!
(That's at least 5 times the price of a cheap, reliable, efficient, off-the-shelf window A/C unit from your local store.)Not that I disagree with most of your points, but "a company cannot exploit its monopoly to become a monopoly" seems wrong. Standard Oil used its' oil monopoly to create monopolies in pipelines and other oil transportation, barrel making, refining, etc. MS used its' desktop operating system monopoly to create monopolies in office suites and web browsers and constantly tries to create other new monopolies.
It's probably that Dell has to run an extra script or two to 'preinstall' XP on a cheap box that most likely laready has Vista installed;, and pay some worker in China to toss that extra CD into the package. They want to discourage interruptions to the assembly line process, at least on the cheaper items.