what I've always done is take the following javascript expression and save it as a bookmark:
javascript:dRE=/(\.google\.(com?(\...)|..|com))$/; if(!dRE.test(location.host))alert('Sorry, you need to click while viewing a Google page');else{anon='0000000000000000';nowanon='00000 00000000000';C=document.cookie.split('; ');for(i=0;c=C[i];++i)if(/^PREF=/.test(c)){r=c.ind exOf(nowanon)==-1?nowanon:anon;document.cookie=c.r eplace(/ID=\w+:/,'ID='+r+':')+'; domain='+dRE.exec(location.host)[1]+'; path=/;expires=Mon, 01 Jan 2038 00:00:00 GMT';location.reload();}}
Then, whenever I use Google, I click on the javascript bookmark before using the search engine. It's really helped me clear my tracks from the Google server.
I've seen examples of the outsourcing cycle up close and personal. You see, I live in a very economically depressed state in the U.S. (S. Carolina), and the wages here have always sucked. In fact, our state government made use of that dubious distinction: when competing with other states for that billion-dollar manufacturing plant, two of their main selling points was that the wages were lower than what they'd pay in other parts of the U.S., and there was little-to-no union representation here (sound familiar, India?). And you know something? It worked. BMW, Michelin, and several other decided to make our state home to some of their manufacturing facilities - and loved every minute of it.
Everything was going great for years, but something nasty happened along the way: they called it Globalization. Suddenly there were people in other countries who could provide the same labor force for pennies on the dollar, much cheaper than we could. One by one, the manufacturing companies started to abandon ship to Mexico, then China. Literally thousands of people were out of work, and the satellite businesses which sprung up around the industrial giants suddenly dried up and withered away. To make a long story short, it seemed that nobody in their wildest dreams ever thought that there would be a cheaper labor force than South Carolinians. The state STILL hasn't recovered from this ecomnomic K.O. and, as of this post, it's previously sterling AAA credit rating is in serious jeopardy; unemployment is also above the national average, and what jobs still exist are mostly low-paying, service-sector type industries. This state has dug itself into one hell of a deep hole.
Just consider this a cautionary (and very true) real-life story about what happens when a government uses low wages and a docile workforce as a selling point. You can always be undercut by another entity promising yet cheaper wages, and industry doesn't care one whit about your welfare - they will not hesitate to pull the rug from under you if it means saving an extra buck.
Actually it's surprisingly good. I used it on my WinXP box, and it's amazingly accurate. I don't know what use I could make of it (other than annoying the hell out of the cubicle next to mine) but it does a pretty good job.
This is a B.S. case in my opinion. It's as if someone asked you how to manufacture cocaine: simply answering the question is not the same as actually enabling that person to do it. The difference is that while the latter is indeed a crime, the former is protected under the 1st Amendment and therefore doesn't mean squat.
I'm no engineer, but I am a technician. I mention that fact because, as a technician, I'm often left "holding the bag" when it comes to dealing with the "aftermath" of an engineer's creations - both good and bad. One problem I've often seen in technical manuals, specs, and writeups is that the engineers and/or tech writers will sometimes write "over a person's head" by introducing a lot of technical jargon or high-level concepts while forgetting just who their audience happens to be. You have to remember that sometimes you're not writing for another engineer; your audience may be a CEO or maybe even "Joe Six-Pack" the consumer. Sometimes your audience may be a technician charged with fixing or otherwise dealing with your design if/when it breaks. I can't tell you how many times I've been completely frustrated by having to follow a poorly-written set of schematics (the things I've vowed to do to some of those engineers if I ever met then in a dark alley would put me in prison for life).
I guess all I'm really saying is, try to remember who's going to be reading what you're trying to put out there.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Fallout #1 and #2. Those have got to be two of the best single-player RPG's ever made (R.I.P. Interplay/Black Isle Studios), maybe that's why I still have my original CD's. Now if I could only get them completely working under Wine....
I see one possibile application, if they ever iron out the bugs, for DLP television sets. My shop gets a lot of warranty repair calls because a lamp which was rated for a 1 to 1.5 year lifespan (under normal usage) will oftentimes shatter after only a few months. That can happen for any number of reasons, but sometimes it's related to the customer not allowing the fan to cool off the lamp after powering down the unit, and these lamps get extremely f-ing hot. I imagine that, by using something like an OLED light source, the manufacturers may be able to cut down on warranty costs.
I'll see if I cn dig up that bulletin tonight but, in a word, not really. The repair involves parts only available from Philips (I spelled it right this time), and I don't think they're going to help you void your own warranty. Besides, most TVs (even plasmas) involve some very, very high-voltage circuits; if you don't know where they are (or what you're doing) then there's an even chance that you will no longer be among the living.
I'm surprised this has just *now* made the news, because my electronics repair shop received the bulletin a few months ago (we're a Phillips-authorized electronics repair facility). There's also another issue not many people know about: it seems that when Ambilight is engaged the unit will sometimes shut down intermittently. My shop's been swamped with fixing these Phillips recalls lately, but fortunately none of our customers have experienced "Phillips flameout" as of yet.
I work in a consumer electronics repair shop, and I can tell you from experience that there is another side to buying those smaller, cheaper brands (especially if we're talking about big-ticket items). That lesser-brand plasma TV you just got from Wal-Mart might seem to perform as well as a major brand name, and for less money; but what happens when this thing has to make it's first trip to the repair shop? With the major brands me and my fellow technicians get plenty of support from the manufacturers (schematic diagrams, tech bulletins, timely repair parts orders, excellent higher-level tech assistance, etc.). With a lesser-brand manufacturer this type of technician support may be wanting (or even lacking), and this lack of support will always increase turnaround time. These factors may not mean much to the consumer until they call our shop wanting to know why their DLP has been in the shop for two months and counting (or why it has to go to the shop again after already having been fixed two weeks ago). All this may not seem like such a big deal at the time of purchase, but that warranty is going to expire sooner or later - and that repair bill will then come out of your pocket. Believe me, this is something many consumers just do not consider when deciding on a purchase; and when they get upset later down the line (usually for the aforementioned reasons) it is myself and the other techs who get left with the task of explaining these issues to an often irate customer.
The choice is yours: you can pay for quality support now, or you can save on a cheaper brand and still end up taking it in the shorts anyways later on.
This really bugs the hell out of me, and I've seen it coming for a while. The phrase "in the interest of homeland security" is pretty annoying, because some damned agency or other entity out there will use that as a convenient cover to force their agenda onto others (even if that agenda has squat to do with security in the first place). It looks like we're seeing the old "bait and switch" on a grander scale.
Slashdot Mirror
what I've always done is take the following javascript expression and save it as a bookmark: javascript:dRE=/(\.google\.(com?(\...)|..|com))$/; if(!dRE.test(location.host))alert('Sorry, you need to click while viewing a Google page');else{anon='0000000000000000';nowanon='00000 00000000000';C=document.cookie.split('; ');for(i=0;c=C[i];++i)if(/^PREF=/.test(c)){r=c.ind exOf(nowanon)==-1?nowanon:anon;document.cookie=c.r eplace(/ID=\w+:/,'ID='+r+':')+'; domain='+dRE.exec(location.host)[1]+'; path=/;expires=Mon, 01 Jan 2038 00:00:00 GMT';location.reload();}}
Then, whenever I use Google, I click on the javascript bookmark before using the search engine. It's really helped me clear my tracks from the Google server.
I've seen examples of the outsourcing cycle up close and personal. You see, I live in a very economically depressed state in the U.S. (S. Carolina), and the wages here have always sucked. In fact, our state government made use of that dubious distinction: when competing with other states for that billion-dollar manufacturing plant, two of their main selling points was that the wages were lower than what they'd pay in other parts of the U.S., and there was little-to-no union representation here (sound familiar, India?). And you know something? It worked. BMW, Michelin, and several other decided to make our state home to some of their manufacturing facilities - and loved every minute of it. Everything was going great for years, but something nasty happened along the way: they called it Globalization. Suddenly there were people in other countries who could provide the same labor force for pennies on the dollar, much cheaper than we could. One by one, the manufacturing companies started to abandon ship to Mexico, then China. Literally thousands of people were out of work, and the satellite businesses which sprung up around the industrial giants suddenly dried up and withered away. To make a long story short, it seemed that nobody in their wildest dreams ever thought that there would be a cheaper labor force than South Carolinians. The state STILL hasn't recovered from this ecomnomic K.O. and, as of this post, it's previously sterling AAA credit rating is in serious jeopardy; unemployment is also above the national average, and what jobs still exist are mostly low-paying, service-sector type industries. This state has dug itself into one hell of a deep hole. Just consider this a cautionary (and very true) real-life story about what happens when a government uses low wages and a docile workforce as a selling point. You can always be undercut by another entity promising yet cheaper wages, and industry doesn't care one whit about your welfare - they will not hesitate to pull the rug from under you if it means saving an extra buck.
Good, you'll be happy know know that you can also operate Opera with voice commands - all you need is an external microphone.
Actually it's surprisingly good. I used it on my WinXP box, and it's amazingly accurate. I don't know what use I could make of it (other than annoying the hell out of the cubicle next to mine) but it does a pretty good job.
This is a B.S. case in my opinion. It's as if someone asked you how to manufacture cocaine: simply answering the question is not the same as actually enabling that person to do it. The difference is that while the latter is indeed a crime, the former is protected under the 1st Amendment and therefore doesn't mean squat.
I'm no engineer, but I am a technician. I mention that fact because, as a technician, I'm often left "holding the bag" when it comes to dealing with the "aftermath" of an engineer's creations - both good and bad. One problem I've often seen in technical manuals, specs, and writeups is that the engineers and/or tech writers will sometimes write "over a person's head" by introducing a lot of technical jargon or high-level concepts while forgetting just who their audience happens to be. You have to remember that sometimes you're not writing for another engineer; your audience may be a CEO or maybe even "Joe Six-Pack" the consumer. Sometimes your audience may be a technician charged with fixing or otherwise dealing with your design if/when it breaks. I can't tell you how many times I've been completely frustrated by having to follow a poorly-written set of schematics (the things I've vowed to do to some of those engineers if I ever met then in a dark alley would put me in prison for life). I guess all I'm really saying is, try to remember who's going to be reading what you're trying to put out there.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Fallout #1 and #2. Those have got to be two of the best single-player RPG's ever made (R.I.P. Interplay/Black Isle Studios), maybe that's why I still have my original CD's. Now if I could only get them completely working under Wine....
I see one possibile application, if they ever iron out the bugs, for DLP television sets. My shop gets a lot of warranty repair calls because a lamp which was rated for a 1 to 1.5 year lifespan (under normal usage) will oftentimes shatter after only a few months. That can happen for any number of reasons, but sometimes it's related to the customer not allowing the fan to cool off the lamp after powering down the unit, and these lamps get extremely f-ing hot. I imagine that, by using something like an OLED light source, the manufacturers may be able to cut down on warranty costs.
I'll see if I cn dig up that bulletin tonight but, in a word, not really. The repair involves parts only available from Philips (I spelled it right this time), and I don't think they're going to help you void your own warranty. Besides, most TVs (even plasmas) involve some very, very high-voltage circuits; if you don't know where they are (or what you're doing) then there's an even chance that you will no longer be among the living.
I'm surprised this has just *now* made the news, because my electronics repair shop received the bulletin a few months ago (we're a Phillips-authorized electronics repair facility). There's also another issue not many people know about: it seems that when Ambilight is engaged the unit will sometimes shut down intermittently. My shop's been swamped with fixing these Phillips recalls lately, but fortunately none of our customers have experienced "Phillips flameout" as of yet.
I work in a consumer electronics repair shop, and I can tell you from experience that there is another side to buying those smaller, cheaper brands (especially if we're talking about big-ticket items). That lesser-brand plasma TV you just got from Wal-Mart might seem to perform as well as a major brand name, and for less money; but what happens when this thing has to make it's first trip to the repair shop? With the major brands me and my fellow technicians get plenty of support from the manufacturers (schematic diagrams, tech bulletins, timely repair parts orders, excellent higher-level tech assistance, etc.). With a lesser-brand manufacturer this type of technician support may be wanting (or even lacking), and this lack of support will always increase turnaround time. These factors may not mean much to the consumer until they call our shop wanting to know why their DLP has been in the shop for two months and counting (or why it has to go to the shop again after already having been fixed two weeks ago). All this may not seem like such a big deal at the time of purchase, but that warranty is going to expire sooner or later - and that repair bill will then come out of your pocket. Believe me, this is something many consumers just do not consider when deciding on a purchase; and when they get upset later down the line (usually for the aforementioned reasons) it is myself and the other techs who get left with the task of explaining these issues to an often irate customer. The choice is yours: you can pay for quality support now, or you can save on a cheaper brand and still end up taking it in the shorts anyways later on.
This really bugs the hell out of me, and I've seen it coming for a while. The phrase "in the interest of homeland security" is pretty annoying, because some damned agency or other entity out there will use that as a convenient cover to force their agenda onto others (even if that agenda has squat to do with security in the first place). It looks like we're seeing the old "bait and switch" on a grander scale.