As long as it's a CDMA phone, you can have it activated on either network regardless of whose phone it started life as, but you need to watch to make sure it's E911 compatible. Most of the classic, bombproof old phones aren't. I got burned on that with my old Motorola v60, and the StarTAC I had before that - those two were the greatest phones ever, got great battery life and made calls from anywhere, but the Verizon tech told me (incorrectly, as it turns out) that I would be forced to get a new phone because my old one wasn't E911 compliant. Are you sure about that? (Not the E991 part, but the first part?) Generally there is no problem activating a phone on wither network if the network carries that model (regardless of the branding). However, I've heard that the companies can recognize if the ESN comes from a phone model the do not offer, and may refuse to activate it. (More specifically, they would refuse to enter the ESN. The rest of the provisioning can be done by a consumer with enough technical knowledge.)
Twips may not be arbitrary per se, but the number 20 might be. Further though the relationship between twips and pixels depends on the DPI. Not the actual screen DPI, but the DPI the operating system is using. It comes back to an important decision.
Lets say I am a screen manufacturer. I currently create a screen of QVGA resolution (320×240). It is correctly sized for 96DPI having a diagonal of 4.16666667 inches. (If I calculated correctly). Now I decide to make a new screen of the same size, but using VGA resolution. (640X480). Now what do I tell the OS? If I claim 96 DPI (technically incorrect) the user has 4 times the usable screen space, although all objects are 1/4 the physical size. That may be what some users would prefer. Otherwise I can claim 192 DPI. Then everything on the screen would take the same amount of physical space, but would be sharper. Thus a 72 point tall font would appear exactly one inch tall on both displays, but would be much clearer on the VGA screen. So which choice do I make? Also complicating the decision is the fact that many programs are interested in sizes in terms of pixels. This does not mess well with measurement in therms of real-world units.
Only somewhat recently have the mainstream OS's gained decent support for multiple DPI's.
WAAS is a base station system that could work. However the NAVSTAR system has base stations explicitly for the purpose of making sure the satellites are where they claim they are in the sky, etc. These stations may also be WAAS stations (They might as well be), but are run by the 50th Space Wing of the USAF or other Entities under the control of the DOD.
But basically the main important detail of my post is that the newest NAVSTAR GPS satellites (GPS III) will include new civilian signals that can significantly increase precision and accuracy, and with these new signals is a new set of data (new data protocol). It does include information on NAVSTAR-Galileo time skew information. I believe even NAVSTAR-GLOSNASS time-skew information is included.
Compatibility as in signal compatibility will not happen, but as long as a system can determine the timing information and locations of all satellites it can obviously use them as though they were one cohesive system. Since at least GPS III will include live time skew information, there seems to be minimal barriers to this.
Yeah, it's odd that web can be "compiled" with both tangle and weave, and then generate different stuff. And using pascal is a pain, I'd much rather have it be C. But it's still one of the pieces of software with the least amounts of bugs in the history of computing. And it's thoroughly (you might even say annoyingly) commented. I will certainly grant it both of those.
Of course you can combine them; It's just a question of how much additional information you can get. Worst case is that you have to treat them separately until the position is calculated, and you then combine the two independent readings, which should about halve the variance. That's nothing to sneeze at, and wouldn't require any information at all about relative clock skew. In the best case however, a device could track the long-term clock skew between the two systems (which should stay nearly fixed) by filtering on the time skew that brings separate readings into most agreement. The skew would take a long time to estimate, but once you have it, you should be able to mix and match satellites. Very true. Further, fixed ground stations are the ideal location for gathering such info. And guess what: as you probably know, there are a bunch of fixed ground stations in the NAVSTAR GPS system. They provide critical feedback about unexpected changes in the satellites orbits, or unexpected slew in the clocks. This information is then used to correct the problems (such as in the case of clock slew) or to update the ephemeris data of the satellite. (If the shift in orbit is large enough the almanac data of the constellation would be updated.) If there were to be full co-operation, then each GNSS system would check and calculate the clock slew of the other systems. Each system could provide data about the slew, The receivers (or the uses) could decide whose set of slew data will be used.
The above is already planned in the case of NAVSTAR GPS. The CNAV navigation message format (used with the L2C signal) includes a packet with exactly this information.
The L2C system should be partially operational in 2008, and fully by 2013 (or earlier). It will also provide some great improvements to the precision and accuracy of civilian GPS recovers (assuming the receiver includes support for it). A system that combines this with other GNSS systems like Galileo will add even more precision.
Well, the thing is that TeX is written in WEB. WEB is an unusual mixture of Pascal and documentation (writen in Plain TeX of course). The source must be preprocessed (It uses a complicated preprocessing system) before it is valid Pascal, and IIRC the form of pascal used is non-standard, so some changes need to be made to to it. Then it must be compiled.
So very few people actually do that. Web2C is a tool to convert the mess into C code. That is what most TeX distros use. However, one may one to take into account the special patching formats used by WEB. I find it all a mess. But that's just me.
What it really means is that it has been updated for the Beta of the next Visual Studio.NET [next as of the time that was updated] (Was this in an MSDN released with a Visual Studio? If so then it was for the beta version of that version of Visual Studio). (I'm guessing you got it with Visual Studio.NET 2003, and the document had not been updated since the beta.)
Most curriculum's I have seen require you to know the so called 30-60-90 triangle and 45-45-90 triangle. One need not memorize anything in the case of the 45-45-90 triangle, as you can just decide that the 2 legs are '1', and from Pythagorean theorem to determine that the hypotenuse is sqrt(2). From that one has no problem with the trig values for 45 degrees and 90 degrees. However, a bit more memorization is required for 30-60-90 triangle. But I think you can see that knowing a really quick method to determine the value of the trig functions at those angles is basically equivalent to memorizing the values. Many students do memorize the values, but all I have memorized are the size relations of the 30-60-90 triangle, and just quickly picture a triangle when needed. (Although a few values have become memorized due to heavy use. I definitely never used rote memorization.)
For the record, I have spent perhaps 2 hours tops using an Apple Computer. So I'm no expert. However I have been quite impressed by what I have seen of OSX.
It is important to remember the target markets of Apple: New or fairly inexperienced computer users, and certain specialist markets (like video editing).
1. interfaces are oversimplified and prevent real work from being done in many cases pertinent to me.
The interfaces are simplified, but often the powerful features are there, you just need to look harder (not in all cases of course). Hiding certain powerful tools helps new users immensely as it prevents them from accidentally Messing things up. The more powerful stuff is more hidden. For example the calculator has a very nice scientific mode, and apparently even has an RPN mode. Yes, the stock calculator program supports RPN! That is surprising. Often power stuff can be used by holding down one of the keyboard modifying keys (shift, option, etc.) while clicking. Other times there are keyboard shortcuts. It may not be easy to discover some of these, but they are often there. After all, open the terminal app, and you have a full BSD system (unless you chose not to install it). I will admit the not being able to discover some of the advanced things easily is not great.
Oversimplified interfaces ensure that people never learn about computers, and is analagous to using a calculator in a third grade arithmetic class. the interfaces should rather focus on being well-designed, capable, and efficient with a good balance of learning curve and power, not entirely focus on being "simple". this way, work will get done efficiently, the population will know a little about computers instead of none, and so on.
The target market has generally has little computer knowledge, and often little to no interest in learning very much. Lets face it, most people who use the computer to browse the web (go to very specific sites and/or watch YouTube videos), email, and basic word processing don't have much need to understand RAM, File systems, etc. Understanding that there is a limit to the storage space of the computer is useful, but that is about it. Also note that simple is often efficient (although of course not optimally efficient, and not always efficient).
3. oversimplified and unintuitive hardware. cd-rom drives that don't have an eject button at the OBVIOUS location, where you put the freaking cd in. cases without power buttons.
I will agree with this point completely. The CD-drive thing especially. I know the Macbooks have obvious power buttons, as does Mac Pro. The Mac mini has a clearly marked power button on the back. However, I have never been able to find a power button on the iMac.
4. badly-designed hardware. slot-loading cd drives that scratch disks, don't eject disks, and have no easy way to manually take them out in emergency. batteries that cannot be replaced by the user, on iphone and many ipods.
I have little to no experience with the hardware being bad. I will say that the batteries not being removable appears to have everything to do with Steve Jobs sense of aesthetics. A battery cover would look terrible in his opinion, and besides it could get lost.
5. badly-designed hardware as a marketing tactic to get people to spend more on tech support (batteries, being the biggest culprit).
I'm strongly doubting this.
Originally Apple did not have a battery replacement program. This appeared to be because Steve Jobs honestly believed most users would choose to buy a new iPod model for its new features, etc. before the battery wore out. Further I think they already were selling OEM batteries to third party repair shops, who could then replace the battery. Apple appears to be fully co-operative with third party repair shops, but of course, makes no guarantees on behalf of those shops. Also remember that for the cost of replacing the battery
The second one is obviously the better one. I think this is basically what the CFS does. (the following is my understanding. It may be wrong) For processes it figures out what amount of time each process should have (based on the the number of processes. It tracks how much time each process is owed (in the case of 5 processes each deserves 1/5 of the total processor time). It subtracts the time used on each scheduler event (clock tick or voluntary yield.) Each clock tick the scheduler transfers control to the process owed the most time (but there is a minimum number of clock ticks before mandatory switching to prevent cache thrashing.) I presume voluntary yielding has some form of impact on the time owed amount, or else idling processes would always stay at the top of the list. Obviously there is more complications, such as nice levels, and everything.
The big thing is that is (AFAIK) tracking the exact amount of time used by each process. The only proper way to do that is to do it at both each clock tick, and each volentary yield.
One other rant I have is the naming of the so called O(1) scheduler. That scheduler was apparently O(1) but only because there is a limit to the maximum number of processes. In nearly every case it is possible to construct on O(1) algorithm if the maximum number of possibilities is known in advance. Technically the algorithm's timing was some function of the maximum number of processes. Since the maximum number of processes is a compile time constant, the algorithm is constant-time.
I'm thinking what is going on is that programs are often returning part of their timeslice (perhaps because they are waiting for something, so each cycle consists of a breif check of that, followed by returning the rest of the timeslice) will be able to get a larger percentage of the CPU time later, such that the average amount of time the program gets is the same. Basically the idea is to ensure that if there are 'n' processes running, overall they will each average '1/n' of the total CPU time (assuming all have the same nice levels etc.). But I may be totally wrong here too.
The most simple (but terribly naive) scheduler would be one that gives each process a slice of time, in some order, perhaps by the process number, repeating at the beginning when it reaches the end. Obviously that does not allow for many complications, such as processing having different nice levels (priority levels), and processes that give back part (most) of their timeslice some of the time would end up having much less total CPU time over (for example) a 5 minute period than one that always used all of its timeslice.
Interesting article, although it is important to note that they did not list all components, and those can really add up. it has no case, keyboard, mouse, monitor, or operating system. That can be significantly over $100.
Pocket PC runs a CE based OS, but saying that it is running the same OS as your laptop is probably stretching it. (It should be possible to run a CE-based OS on an i386 laptop, although more drivers would probably need to be written). However, WM5 and WM6 are not very crippled. You have full access to the filesystem, and can run arbitrary code on it. MS provides multiple SDKs for it.
Of course it can be used to power 220 volt devices, although obviously there are two live wires in that case. Wikipedia recommends the system be called "3-wire, single-phase, mid-point neutral" or at the very least "split phase". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_phase for the main page.
A polyphase system must provide a defined direction of phase rotation, so mirror image voltages do not count towards the phase order. A 3-wire system with two phase conductors 180 degrees apart is still only single phase. Such systems are sometimes described as split phase.
Actually to me more correct, 3 phases are likely found on the power lines. (Power lines usually have 3 main wires, plus often a fourth wire containing ground potential and grounded every couple of poles. I'm not sure what connection is found on the pole side of the transformer, but I'm guessing that side is two tap, with one live phase and ground. On Home side of the transformer is 3 tap. The center tap is grounded at the pole. It is also grounded at the house (safety in case the neutral wire breaks between the house and the pole). The two other taps have a voltage differential of 220 volt, and only a differential of 120 volts to the neutral line(the grounded line). The 2 live lines could be described as 180 degrees out of phase with each other, however that is not considered a different phase, but just the inverse of the same phase. So calling the system in homes "2-phase" is misleading.
Can the president pardon himself? Probably. The constitution is silent on that. However, the President has to power to pardon impeachment, so if the legislature impeaches him and succeeds in removing him from office, the justice department can file charges. However, remember that the justice department is part of the executive branch, and as such may be unwilling to press charges against a president. Further the president could probably write himself a pardon for any applicable criminal charges prior to being removed from office (impeachment can take a while).
Can the president issue a "blank check" kind of pardon? I don't know. The courts could rule if that type of pardon was constitutional. I'm guessing they would not find it constitutional, but I could be wrong. Its also possible this has already been tested in court, but if so, I'm not aware of it.
Can Congress or the Supreme Court overturn a presidential pardon or sentence conmutation? The constitution does not seem to delegate this power. The courts could overturn an unconstitutional pardon (pardon of impeachment, or pardon of state-level offenses), but otherwise the pardon power appears to be unchecked. One mechanism that could potentially be used to to check the pardon power is to impeach a president who abuses it (although the abuses would have to be very serious before that would happen).
On my computer, Microsoft has 2 valid root certificates. The only requirement for being a CA is a valid root certificate capable of signing other certificates.
The two certificates "Microsoft Root Authority" and "Microsoft Root Certificate Authority" are both set by default to be considered valid for all purposes. So Microsoft can issue certificates if they want to.
Actually you can! The anti-tivoization clause only applies to "consumer products". The definition of "consumer products" does not include voting machines.
What was left out of that story was that the original occupants have since retaken the island, and are still in control. Also it was more than one person who invaded, although only one was detained and charged with treason.
Windows is also fundamentally incompatible with the posix systems they were originally written to target Actually it is the Win32 API that is fundementally incompatible. The native NT interface was designed to support a superset of POSIX.
It internally has the "everything is a file" concept, and more importantly Everything can be associated with a Full Access control list.
There are other things too. Like the fact that NTFS was explicitly designed to be able to handle POSIX. There is more.
It is because of all of this that
Services for Unix (Interix) exists. So NT is definately *NOT* fundamentally incompatible with POSIX. Rather the Win32 API/subsystem is the thing that is incompatible.
The explanations of a construction platform that i have heard were based on the combination of Canadarm2 and the cupola. That provides a solid platform for assembly of many things, and not just assembly of ISS components.
The two concepts are basically thew same. The company (often at corporate level) hires people (more often hires a separate company that hires people) to purchase a product from the store and report back on the service, etc. The "secret shopper" is reimbursed, and may even be paid. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_shopping
What?!? Radio delays between the ISS and Mars vs. the ground and Mars are not significantly different, nor even consistenly positive. On the scale of going to Mars, the ISS is at Earth. Heck the ISS would be behind the earth half the time, unable to broadcast to Mars at all. No I was talking about a 2-part spacecraft system. ISS would only enter into the equation as a method of constructing one of the 2 parts. Specifically, a main craft that is not suitable for planetary entry/exit, but remains in orbit around the planet while they entry/exit craft is on the planet.
I actually have asked a few NASA engineers I know, and their (private) opinion is unanimous: drop the pointless money-suck into the ocean, ASAP. There are two choices really, abandon it, it actually use it. One of the intentions was allegedy for it to be used for construction in space.
Clearly there are advantages to being able to build spacecraft and such not intended for travel through atmosphere. Specifically, it could be larger than entry/exit ships and would not need complete the re-entry heat shielding. Ideally it could remain in orbit around the moon or mars (etc.) as needed. It would be able to reduce the weight of the entry/exit/landing vehicles, which would not need to carry certain equipment they otherwise would. For a mars mission especially, it would need to house what is basically a mission control center, as the radio delays to Houston would cause significant problems. So why has that space construction capability all but been scrapped? Without that it is little more than a really expensive version of a normal space station.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets say I am a screen manufacturer. I currently create a screen of QVGA resolution (320×240). It is correctly sized for 96DPI having a diagonal of 4.16666667 inches. (If I calculated correctly). Now I decide to make a new screen of the same size, but using VGA resolution. (640X480). Now what do I tell the OS? If I claim 96 DPI (technically incorrect) the user has 4 times the usable screen space, although all objects are 1/4 the physical size. That may be what some users would prefer. Otherwise I can claim 192 DPI. Then everything on the screen would take the same amount of physical space, but would be sharper. Thus a 72 point tall font would appear exactly one inch tall on both displays, but would be much clearer on the VGA screen. So which choice do I make? Also complicating the decision is the fact that many programs are interested in sizes in terms of pixels. This does not mess well with measurement in therms of real-world units.
Only somewhat recently have the mainstream OS's gained decent support for multiple DPI's.
But basically the main important detail of my post is that the newest NAVSTAR GPS satellites (GPS III) will include new civilian signals that can significantly increase precision and accuracy, and with these new signals is a new set of data (new data protocol). It does include information on NAVSTAR-Galileo time skew information. I believe even NAVSTAR-GLOSNASS time-skew information is included.
Compatibility as in signal compatibility will not happen, but as long as a system can determine the timing information and locations of all satellites it can obviously use them as though they were one cohesive system. Since at least GPS III will include live time skew information, there seems to be minimal barriers to this.
The above is already planned in the case of NAVSTAR GPS. The CNAV navigation message format (used with the L2C signal) includes a packet with exactly this information.
The L2C system should be partially operational in 2008, and fully by 2013 (or earlier). It will also provide some great improvements to the precision and accuracy of civilian GPS recovers (assuming the receiver includes support for it). A system that combines this with other GNSS systems like Galileo will add even more precision.
Well, the thing is that TeX is written in WEB. WEB is an unusual mixture of Pascal and documentation (writen in Plain TeX of course). The source must be preprocessed (It uses a complicated preprocessing system) before it is valid Pascal, and IIRC the form of pascal used is non-standard, so some changes need to be made to to it. Then it must be compiled. So very few people actually do that. Web2C is a tool to convert the mess into C code. That is what most TeX distros use. However, one may one to take into account the special patching formats used by WEB. I find it all a mess. But that's just me.
What it really means is that it has been updated for the Beta of the next Visual Studio .NET [next as of the time that was updated] (Was this in an MSDN released with a Visual Studio? If so then it was for the beta version of that version of Visual Studio). (I'm guessing you got it with Visual Studio .NET 2003, and the document had not been updated since the beta.)
Most curriculum's I have seen require you to know the so called 30-60-90 triangle and 45-45-90 triangle. One need not memorize anything in the case of the 45-45-90 triangle, as you can just decide that the 2 legs are '1', and from Pythagorean theorem to determine that the hypotenuse is sqrt(2). From that one has no problem with the trig values for 45 degrees and 90 degrees. However, a bit more memorization is required for 30-60-90 triangle. But I think you can see that knowing a really quick method to determine the value of the trig functions at those angles is basically equivalent to memorizing the values. Many students do memorize the values, but all I have memorized are the size relations of the 30-60-90 triangle, and just quickly picture a triangle when needed. (Although a few values have become memorized due to heavy use. I definitely never used rote memorization.)
For the record, I have spent perhaps 2 hours tops using an Apple Computer. So I'm no expert. However I have been quite impressed by what I have seen of OSX.
It is important to remember the target markets of Apple: New or fairly inexperienced computer users, and certain specialist markets (like video editing).
1. interfaces are oversimplified and prevent real work from being done in many cases pertinent to me.
The interfaces are simplified, but often the powerful features are there, you just need to look harder (not in all cases of course). Hiding certain powerful tools helps new users immensely as it prevents them from accidentally Messing things up. The more powerful stuff is more hidden. For example the calculator has a very nice scientific mode, and apparently even has an RPN mode. Yes, the stock calculator program supports RPN! That is surprising. Often power stuff can be used by holding down one of the keyboard modifying keys (shift, option, etc.) while clicking. Other times there are keyboard shortcuts. It may not be easy to discover some of these, but they are often there. After all, open the terminal app, and you have a full BSD system (unless you chose not to install it). I will admit the not being able to discover some of the advanced things easily is not great.
Oversimplified interfaces ensure that people never learn about computers, and is analagous to using a calculator in a third grade arithmetic class. the interfaces should rather focus on being well-designed, capable, and efficient with a good balance of learning curve and power, not entirely focus on being "simple". this way, work will get done efficiently, the population will know a little about computers instead of none, and so on.
The target market has generally has little computer knowledge, and often little to no interest in learning very much. Lets face it, most people who use the computer to browse the web (go to very specific sites and/or watch YouTube videos), email, and basic word processing don't have much need to understand RAM, File systems, etc. Understanding that there is a limit to the storage space of the computer is useful, but that is about it. Also note that simple is often efficient (although of course not optimally efficient, and not always efficient).
3. oversimplified and unintuitive hardware. cd-rom drives that don't have an eject button at the OBVIOUS location, where you put the freaking cd in. cases without power buttons.
I will agree with this point completely. The CD-drive thing especially. I know the Macbooks have obvious power buttons, as does Mac Pro. The Mac mini has a clearly marked power button on the back. However, I have never been able to find a power button on the iMac.
4. badly-designed hardware. slot-loading cd drives that scratch disks, don't eject disks, and have no easy way to manually take them out in emergency. batteries that cannot be replaced by the user, on iphone and many ipods.
I have little to no experience with the hardware being bad. I will say that the batteries not being removable appears to have everything to do with Steve Jobs sense of aesthetics. A battery cover would look terrible in his opinion, and besides it could get lost.
5. badly-designed hardware as a marketing tactic to get people to spend more on tech support (batteries, being the biggest culprit).
I'm strongly doubting this. Originally Apple did not have a battery replacement program. This appeared to be because Steve Jobs honestly believed most users would choose to buy a new iPod model for its new features, etc. before the battery wore out. Further I think they already were selling OEM batteries to third party repair shops, who could then replace the battery. Apple appears to be fully co-operative with third party repair shops, but of course, makes no guarantees on behalf of those shops. Also remember that for the cost of replacing the battery
The second one is obviously the better one. I think this is basically what the CFS does. (the following is my understanding. It may be wrong) For processes it figures out what amount of time each process should have (based on the the number of processes. It tracks how much time each process is owed (in the case of 5 processes each deserves 1/5 of the total processor time). It subtracts the time used on each scheduler event (clock tick or voluntary yield.) Each clock tick the scheduler transfers control to the process owed the most time (but there is a minimum number of clock ticks before mandatory switching to prevent cache thrashing.) I presume voluntary yielding has some form of impact on the time owed amount, or else idling processes would always stay at the top of the list. Obviously there is more complications, such as nice levels, and everything.
The big thing is that is (AFAIK) tracking the exact amount of time used by each process. The only proper way to do that is to do it at both each clock tick, and each volentary yield.
One other rant I have is the naming of the so called O(1) scheduler. That scheduler was apparently O(1) but only because there is a limit to the maximum number of processes. In nearly every case it is possible to construct on O(1) algorithm if the maximum number of possibilities is known in advance. Technically the algorithm's timing was some function of the maximum number of processes. Since the maximum number of processes is a compile time constant, the algorithm is constant-time.
I think nice levels have more to do with that.
I'm thinking what is going on is that programs are often returning part of their timeslice (perhaps because they are waiting for something, so each cycle consists of a breif check of that, followed by returning the rest of the timeslice) will be able to get a larger percentage of the CPU time later, such that the average amount of time the program gets is the same. Basically the idea is to ensure that if there are 'n' processes running, overall they will each average '1/n' of the total CPU time (assuming all have the same nice levels etc.). But I may be totally wrong here too.
The most simple (but terribly naive) scheduler would be one that gives each process a slice of time, in some order, perhaps by the process number, repeating at the beginning when it reaches the end. Obviously that does not allow for many complications, such as processing having different nice levels (priority levels), and processes that give back part (most) of their timeslice some of the time would end up having much less total CPU time over (for example) a 5 minute period than one that always used all of its timeslice.
Interesting article, although it is important to note that they did not list all components, and those can really add up. it has no case, keyboard, mouse, monitor, or operating system. That can be significantly over $100.
Pocket PC runs a CE based OS, but saying that it is running the same OS as your laptop is probably stretching it. (It should be possible to run a CE-based OS on an i386 laptop, although more drivers would probably need to be written). However, WM5 and WM6 are not very crippled. You have full access to the filesystem, and can run arbitrary code on it. MS provides multiple SDKs for it.
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphase_system which says:
A polyphase system must provide a defined direction of phase rotation, so mirror image voltages do not count towards the phase order. A 3-wire system with two phase conductors 180 degrees apart is still only single phase. Such systems are sometimes described as split phase.Actually to me more correct, 3 phases are likely found on the power lines. (Power lines usually have 3 main wires, plus often a fourth wire containing ground potential and grounded every couple of poles. I'm not sure what connection is found on the pole side of the transformer, but I'm guessing that side is two tap, with one live phase and ground. On Home side of the transformer is 3 tap. The center tap is grounded at the pole. It is also grounded at the house (safety in case the neutral wire breaks between the house and the pole). The two other taps have a voltage differential of 220 volt, and only a differential of 120 volts to the neutral line(the grounded line). The 2 live lines could be described as 180 degrees out of phase with each other, however that is not considered a different phase, but just the inverse of the same phase. So calling the system in homes "2-phase" is misleading.
On my computer, Microsoft has 2 valid root certificates. The only requirement for being a CA is a valid root certificate capable of signing other certificates. The two certificates "Microsoft Root Authority" and "Microsoft Root Certificate Authority" are both set by default to be considered valid for all purposes. So Microsoft can issue certificates if they want to.
Actually you can! The anti-tivoization clause only applies to "consumer products". The definition of "consumer products" does not include voting machines.
What was left out of that story was that the original occupants have since retaken the island, and are still in control. Also it was more than one person who invaded, although only one was detained and charged with treason.
It is because of all of this that Services for Unix (Interix) exists. So NT is definately *NOT* fundamentally incompatible with POSIX. Rather the Win32 API/subsystem is the thing that is incompatible.
The explanations of a construction platform that i have heard were based on the combination of Canadarm2 and the cupola. That provides a solid platform for assembly of many things, and not just assembly of ISS components.
The two concepts are basically thew same. The company (often at corporate level) hires people (more often hires a separate company that hires people) to purchase a product from the store and report back on the service, etc. The "secret shopper" is reimbursed, and may even be paid. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_shopping