A couple of years ago I spent 6 rather pleasant months in Edmonton as an IT contractor for EPCOR -the local power company working on their main power consumption and billing system.
Great City, Great People -long commute (1200 miles one way every other week)
Between the smattering of French speakers and the large # of other European cultures it was almost like being in Europe without the language issues.
There are a lot of IT opportunities in Alberta now thanks to the Energy Boom, but you have to have a job there before they will give you a work permit and if you have priors they may refuse you entry
there is also a higher-level api, but it requires a pretty large setup fee and if you are redistributing the data you have to become a vendor of record with the exchanges.
eSignal is a cheaper source of data than Bloomberg/Thompson/Reuters and is targetted at individuals as well as institutions
Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled to see the 3-day event dressage tests at 2 am friday night, and I'm certain that the television coverage gave a much better view of what the horses and riders were actually doing vs being in the stadium. But even so, only a minute fraction of the Olympics audience will be able to watch and appreciate this -I guess that's why it was on at 2am.....
Even with half a lifetime of watching horses, judging ways of going and collection and changing of gaits, much of dressage is very subtle even to me -ie. you only notice major mistakes and a lot has to do with the particular horses temperament and way of going.
But just because it lacks the spectacle and commonality of other Olympic events does not mean it's not worthy of inclusion -just look at the air pistol events for instance.
I just wish I could see horse events on the telly besides racing, rodeo and America's horse. when living in the UK in the early 70s I remember seeing show jumping events in PRIMETIME. Thank God for OLN at least.
I know that this was posted humorously, so don't peg this as being bloody minded (even though I am)
Although I don't want to knock the roughstock events that are the main draw for rodeo, I'm not sure that the man vs bull or bronco events really encapsulate the olympic spirit of cooperation and teamwork.
The main reason the equestrian events are still included at all, aside from the throwback to the cavalry days of the 19th century and the birth of the modern olympics is because they represent a high level of cooperation between man and animal.
In fact, AFAIK these are the only Olympic events to involve other living beings -unless the Guide Dogs get involved, or tiger taunting becomes a sport or something.
As a someone who was a horseman for 15 years (show and racehorses) I can say that the only people who do not think dressage is boring is the dressage people.
It is the equivalent of the technical section of an ice skating competition -exacting but boring -how perfect can you make a circle?
In the context of a three day event it is a little more interesting because you then have the cross country and stadium jumping events to see which horse and rider had the precision to do well in the dressage, the guts for the stadium jumping and the ballsout of the cross country course with the hills and water jumps, etc
I personally think that some of the cowhorse events like cutting and reining would be a lot more interesting to people, but they are too US-centric.
Well, Dell are the only ones selling their products, and they are still the #2 WinPC maker I believe.
Also, you can buy Macs from Frys, so that is at least one non-Apple outlet for Macs.
And if you look at their #s vs any single PC vendor (I don't believe that any except maybe HP have more than 33% of the WinPC market) I think that you will see that they are a lot closer than the numbers cited above to having a pretty good market share compared to any other single vendor
based on yet another PKD short story -good atmosphere and good plot twists and a lot more faithful (I imagine) to the PKD style -Hopefully more PKD fans will see it and mod it up (hint) as one of the few movies that retain the spirit of his work.
I also liked 'scanner' in all its bleakness, although the scramble suit wasn't quite how I had visualized it.
somewhat timely that it is now revealed that the reason the Titanic went down so fast was due to substandard fasteners (ie. too much filler not enough iron) http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1037540.html
1. the GPS trackers are probably "always on" whereas phones in the box are turned off -this allows tracking of things like a case or pallet of cellphones that go missing from a truck or warehouse.....and end up in a flea market somewhere.
2. cellphone 'gps-like location service' is done by tower triangulation and won't work where there is no reception -this is why GPS on cell is still more useful -if you are lost in the backwoods cell triangulation will probably do you no good whereas GPS could save your life.
Well -they were afraid when they detonated the first above ground nuke as well -thought they might torch the atmosphere, but they did it anyway -better dead than.......?
If Toshiba decides to go with Blu-Ray there are good strategic reasons for them to make sure that HD-DVD will NOT stick around.
They will start gearing up to product and profit from consumer Blu-ray players (and presumably burners) and allowing others to make and sell HD-DVD players and recorders could cut into or slow that market.
-think apple and the clones, or think why MS is getting ready to dump on one of the few halfway decent OS products (XP) it has ever made
Competing existing products cannibalize sales future and next-gen products. So it would not be in their interest to license HD-DVD to 3rd parties unless there were pretty high royalties or license fees attached.
Actually that may be more insightfull than you realize.
From what I remember from US history:
One of the main beefs between Britain and the US shortly after the Revolutionary war (besides impressment of US seamen) was that in order to industrialize quickly the US chose to ignore most if not all British patents and copyrights.
And in fact, pre-Revolution america had been denied many manufacturing technologies such as textiles because Britain wanted to be able to make money off of us from their imported goods and didn't want local competition.
Stealing of ideas and copyrighted materials lasted to some degree through most of the 19th century -I remember reading that Charles Dickens came to the US to unsuccessfully sue for royalties on some of his work that had been published in the US without giving him any compensation.
On the other hand, I think that Britain also ignored US copyright in this case since I recall both Ben Franklin and Samuel Clemens complaining about their works being pirated abroad.
Well....He will have less Gravitas -at least less than Doohan had in later years -and less gravity too......
I'm just hoping that he will actually speak with a Welsh accent (cf. Futurama)
After Shaun I wouldn't have been so sure about this, but Simon did a great job of character acting in Hot Fuzz and hopefully he can bring a little of the twinkle-in-the-eye humour that Doohan evinced in the TV series.
His daughter Was slated for becoming divine He taught her, He taught her how to split and define But if you study the logistics And heuristics of the mystics You will find that their minds rarely move in a line So it's much more realistic To abandon such ballistics And resign to be trapped on a leaf in the vine.
And let's not forget the fat lady of limbourgh
Now we checked out this duck quack Who laid a big egg, oh so black It shone just like gold. And the kids from the city, Finding it pretty, took it home, And there it was sold. It was changing hands for weeks till someone left it by their fire And it melted to a puddle on the floor: For it was only a candle, a Roman scandal oh oh oh, Now it's a pool.
it was an idea that was slightly ahead of its time, plus they were a victim of the rise in broadband and the.com crash
so maybe this new implementation will succeed if it is able to gain critical mass -the idea of the handsets extending the mesh by acting as repeaters is cool...Ricochet never got faster than 128kbps, but that is all the fast that my ATT EDGE connection will go.....
Considering that not even congress can get Bush, Rumsfield, Cheny et al to respond to subpoenas -or even off the record chats ire the Plame affair, the attorney firings etc (maybe they can get Gonzales now that he has stepped down) I don't think he's got a prayer.
And when he loses his license he can blame Bush -just like everyone else
Actually there were 'scientific' slightly futuristic (for the story time frame) elements in Return to OZ -the primitive electrochock machine they were going to hook Dorothy up to in the asylum for instance. -and the Wheelers looked like some sort of skatepunks........
Having read all the Oz books as a kid I was thrilled to see a more accurate, darker picture of the land of Oz after the more saccharine MGM version. I guess I should check out 'Wicked' for the same reason
Also, Fairuza Balk, young Dorothy, went on to become quite the bad girl in movies such as 'the Craft', the disastrous remake of 'the island of Doctor Moreau and other uneven fare such as 'No FishFood in Heaven' which was notable for having stolen its plot from the Velevet Underground song 'The Gift' which was narrated by John Cale (It was now mid August and Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit....)
..."Vista seems to cause more problems than it solves."
The main 'problems' that vista solves are ones that most users could care less about:
1. PlaysferSure DRM everywhere to ensure that RIAA/Hollywood makes MS the media platform of choice 2. Flat OS sales as the XP upgrade cycle has mostly completed (plus you have to throw the 'subscription customers a bone) 3. Boost to next gen hardware sales as many PCs that work fine for XP do not perform well enough for Vista.
reasons 2 and 3 have pretty much existed for every OS lifecycle -However, this is their first attempt to fully implement DRM -hopefully by the time they get it right DRM will have been abandoned -not likely, but one can always hope since some media entities are now realizing that DRM is mostly an inconvenience to legitimate customers rather than pirates -at least in the current implementation.
-This should supply the missing vector needed for cellphone virii disguised as ringtones and wallpapers and pr0n dialers which access premium rate overseas #s
now our phones can be as fsck'd as our PCs -esp the ones running Windows Mobile....
Slashdot Mirror
HaHa nope, August - Dec 5 months actually
2005 was a very mild dry winter -it only snowed 2 or 3 times before xmas and didn't get below about -10c
One of the first weeks I was there they had the Fringe Festival which was awesome and even featured 3 dead trolls in a baggie
A couple of years ago I spent 6 rather pleasant months in Edmonton as an IT contractor for EPCOR -the local power company working on their main power consumption and billing system.
Great City, Great People -long commute (1200 miles one way every other week)
Between the smattering of French speakers and the large # of other European cultures it was almost like being in Europe without the language issues.
There are a lot of IT opportunities in Alberta now thanks to the Energy Boom, but you have to have a job there before they will give you a work permit and if you have priors they may refuse you entry
The company I work for -eSignal supports third party apps and can deliver realtime data if you subscribe to it
the main low end api is based on ActiveX
http://www.esignal.com/esignal/features/activex/default.aspx
but people have written java and other wrappers around it.
there is also a higher-level api, but it requires a pretty large setup fee and if you are redistributing the data you have to become a vendor of record with the exchanges.
eSignal is a cheaper source of data than Bloomberg/Thompson/Reuters and is targetted at individuals as well as institutions
Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled to see the 3-day event dressage tests at 2 am friday night, and I'm certain that the television coverage gave a much better view of what the horses and riders were actually doing vs being in the stadium. But even so, only a minute fraction of the Olympics audience will be able to watch and appreciate this -I guess that's why it was on at 2am.....
Even with half a lifetime of watching horses, judging ways of going and collection and changing of gaits, much of dressage is very subtle even to me -ie. you only notice major mistakes and a lot has to do with the particular horses temperament and way of going.
But just because it lacks the spectacle and commonality of other Olympic events does not mean it's not worthy of inclusion -just look at the air pistol events for instance.
I just wish I could see horse events on the telly besides racing, rodeo and America's horse. when living in the UK in the early 70s I remember seeing show jumping events in PRIMETIME. Thank God for OLN at least.
I'm just sayin'
I know that this was posted humorously, so don't peg this as being bloody minded (even though I am)
Although I don't want to knock the roughstock events that are the main draw for rodeo, I'm not sure that the man vs bull or bronco events really encapsulate the olympic spirit of cooperation and teamwork.
The main reason the equestrian events are still included at all, aside from the throwback to the cavalry days of the 19th century and the birth of the modern olympics is because they represent a high level of cooperation between man and animal.
In fact, AFAIK these are the only Olympic events to involve other living beings -unless the Guide Dogs get involved, or tiger taunting becomes a sport or something.
I'm just sayin'
As a someone who was a horseman for 15 years (show and racehorses) I can say that the only people who do not think dressage is boring is the dressage people.
It is the equivalent of the technical section of an ice skating competition -exacting but boring -how perfect can you make a circle?
In the context of a three day event it is a little more interesting because you then have the cross country and stadium jumping events to see which horse and rider had the precision to do well in the dressage, the guts for the stadium jumping and the ballsout of the cross country course with the hills and water jumps, etc
I personally think that some of the cowhorse events like cutting and reining would be a lot more interesting to people, but they are too US-centric.
I'm just saying....
Well, Dell are the only ones selling their products, and they are still the #2 WinPC maker I believe.
Also, you can buy Macs from Frys, so that is at least one non-Apple outlet for Macs.
And if you look at their #s vs any single PC vendor (I don't believe that any except maybe HP have more than 33% of the WinPC market) I think that you will see that they are a lot closer than the numbers cited above to having a pretty good market share compared to any other single vendor
I'm just sayin'
this will further erode citizen respect for the rule of law
Not to mention respect for the courts and gubmint
-which I imagine is already pretty low given the current slide towards a fascist corporate oligarchy (I know that's a little redundant)
-I'm just sayin'
Although a little low budget I was pretty impressed with Impostor:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160399/
based on yet another PKD short story -good atmosphere and good plot twists and a lot more faithful (I imagine) to the PKD style -Hopefully more PKD fans will see it and mod it up (hint) as one of the few movies that retain the spirit of his work.
I also liked 'scanner' in all its bleakness, although the scramble suit wasn't quite how I had visualized it.
I'm just sayin'
somewhat timely that it is now revealed that the reason the Titanic went down so fast was due to substandard fasteners (ie. too much filler not enough iron)
http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1037540.html
just like the heparin that was 'stretched' with something that would pass the chemical QA tests
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/22/healthscience/22fda.php
or electronic components that will fry in a matter of weeks or months instead of years......
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6450781.html
2 things:
1. the GPS trackers are probably "always on" whereas phones in the box are turned off -this allows tracking of things like a case or pallet of cellphones that go missing from a truck or warehouse.....and end up in a flea market somewhere.
2. cellphone 'gps-like location service' is done by tower triangulation and won't work where there is no reception -this is why GPS on cell is still more useful -if you are lost in the backwoods cell triangulation will probably do you no good whereas GPS could save your life.
I'm just sayin'
Well -they were afraid when they detonated the first above ground nuke as well -thought they might torch the atmosphere, but they did it anyway -better dead than.......?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-nine
I'm just sayin'
If Toshiba decides to go with Blu-Ray there are good strategic reasons for them to make sure that HD-DVD will NOT stick around.
They will start gearing up to product and profit from consumer Blu-ray players (and presumably burners) and allowing others to make and sell HD-DVD players and recorders could cut into or slow that market.
-think apple and the clones, or think why MS is getting ready to dump on one of the few halfway decent OS products (XP) it has ever made
Competing existing products cannibalize sales future and next-gen products. So it would not be in their interest to license HD-DVD to 3rd parties unless there were pretty high royalties or license fees attached.
-I'm just sayin'
The ADA 'ring' security model which microsoft implemented poorly in NT (by bringing GUI and other userland functions into ring 0)
still makes ADA one of the best platforms for secure realtime systems (think military coms and EW and CCC)
http://www.cotsjournalonline.com/home/article.php?id=100687
-I'm just sayin'
Actually that may be more insightfull than you realize.
From what I remember from US history:
One of the main beefs between Britain and the US shortly after the Revolutionary war (besides impressment of US seamen) was that in order to industrialize quickly the US chose to ignore most if not all British patents and copyrights.
And in fact, pre-Revolution america had been denied many manufacturing technologies such as textiles because Britain wanted to be able to make money off of us from their imported goods and didn't want local competition.
Stealing of ideas and copyrighted materials lasted to some degree through most of the 19th century -I remember reading that Charles Dickens came to the US to unsuccessfully sue for royalties on some of his work that had been published in the US without giving him any compensation.
On the other hand, I think that Britain also ignored US copyright in this case since I recall both Ben Franklin and Samuel Clemens complaining about their works being pirated abroad.
I'm just sayin'
Well....He will have less Gravitas -at least less than Doohan had in later years -and less gravity too......
I'm just hoping that he will actually speak with a Welsh accent (cf. Futurama)
After Shaun I wouldn't have been so sure about this, but Simon did a great job of character acting in Hot Fuzz and hopefully he can bring a little of the twinkle-in-the-eye humour that Doohan evinced in the TV series.
-I'm just sayin'
His daughter
Was slated for becoming divine
He taught her,
He taught her how to split and define
But if you study the logistics
And heuristics of the mystics
You will find that their minds rarely move in a line
So it's much more realistic
To abandon such ballistics
And resign to be trapped on a leaf in the vine.
And let's not forget the fat lady of limbourgh
Now we checked out this duck quack
Who laid a big egg, oh so black
It shone just like gold.
And the kids from the city,
Finding it pretty, took it home,
And there it was sold.
It was changing hands for weeks till someone left it by their fire
And it melted to a puddle on the floor:
For it was only a candle, a Roman scandal oh oh oh,
Now it's a pool.
yep -ricochet did this in the late 90s:
.com crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(internet_service)
it was an idea that was slightly ahead of its time, plus they were a victim of the rise in broadband and the
so maybe this new implementation will succeed if it is able to gain critical mass -the idea of the handsets extending the mesh by acting as repeaters is cool...Ricochet never got faster than 128kbps, but that is all the fast that my ATT EDGE connection will go.....
-I'm just sayin'
is that IT works at all considering that the stakeholders and implementers have little common ground or understanding or sympathy for the other.
-I'm just sayin...
Considering that not even congress can get Bush, Rumsfield, Cheny et al to respond to subpoenas -or even off the record chats ire the Plame affair, the attorney firings etc (maybe they can get Gonzales now that he has stepped down) I don't think he's got a prayer.
And when he loses his license he can blame Bush -just like everyone else
-I'm just sayin'
Actually there were 'scientific' slightly futuristic (for the story time frame) elements in Return to OZ -the primitive electrochock machine they were going to hook Dorothy up to in the asylum for instance. -and the Wheelers looked like some sort of skatepunks........
Having read all the Oz books as a kid I was thrilled to see a more accurate, darker picture of the land of Oz after the more saccharine MGM version. I guess I should check out 'Wicked' for the same reason
Also, Fairuza Balk, young Dorothy, went on to become quite the bad girl in movies such as 'the Craft', the disastrous remake of 'the island of Doctor Moreau and other uneven fare such as 'No FishFood in Heaven' which was notable for having stolen its plot from the Velevet Underground song 'The Gift' which was narrated by John Cale (It was now mid August and Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit....)
I'm just sayin'.....
..."Vista seems to cause more problems than it solves."
The main 'problems' that vista solves are ones that most users could care less about:
1. PlaysferSure DRM everywhere to ensure that RIAA/Hollywood makes MS the media platform of choice
2. Flat OS sales as the XP upgrade cycle has mostly completed (plus you have to throw the 'subscription customers a bone)
3. Boost to next gen hardware sales as many PCs that work fine for XP do not perform well enough for Vista.
reasons 2 and 3 have pretty much existed for every OS lifecycle -However, this is their first attempt to fully implement DRM -hopefully by the time they get it right DRM will have been abandoned -not likely, but one can always hope since some media entities are now realizing that DRM is mostly an inconvenience to legitimate customers rather than pirates -at least in the current implementation.
-I'm just sayin'....
Because it just Works .... as an Adware platform better than it Works as a document application.....I can see the tagline now
-I'm just sayin'
sweet guinea pig of winnipeg
-OK they can't all be winners....
I'm just sayin'
-This should supply the missing vector needed for cellphone virii disguised as ringtones and wallpapers and pr0n dialers which access premium rate overseas #s
now our phones can be as fsck'd as our PCs -esp the ones running Windows Mobile....
I'm just sayin'