[snip]MINC, GIGI, Rainbow, DEBmate, MicroVAX, MicroPDP, the whole VAXstation line[...]
I was about to point out that the GIGI was a graphics terminal when I decided to google it. Wow, it was a half-assed micro-computer/terminal crossbreed. We just used the ones at uni (connected to a Vax 11/780) for our CS graphics classes so I never realized that they could do more.:)
Oh, it is DE_C_mate. DEBmate is DEXXX's version of the vMac.;-)
Owner of a DEC Rainbow 100A: Dual 8086/Z80 CPUs, 896K, 10 Meg Hard drive, 12" *green* monochrome VT220,:-D
The question is why ID did not give their soldier some duct-tape after he learned of the changed situation. Then again how many FPS have you seen where the hero tapes clips together for faster reload, tapes two guns together for extra fire power? We seen it in the movies, gotta be sound tactics or they wouldn't use it.
Taping two magazine together is a stupid idea. Bend those feeder lips or get something in the magazine and you've just jammed your weapon.
I could see taping two guns together for an improvised hard point you planned on abandoning quickly, but carrying and effectively using two guns taped together will slow you down and most likely get you killed. It is just too damned awkward.
Also, remember movies do things because they look good on film, not because they are accurate in any shape or form.:)
The first sequel that came out pissed me off. I installed it and the first chapter quest involved recovering 4 items, which immidately felt like a rehash of chapter one in the first game. I felt so angered that they'd charge me $40 for a rehash of the first part of the original game that I returned it and refused to buy the second expansion (which I hear is better).
I stopped playing Shadows of Undrentide in the first chapter, too. After playing Hordes of the Underdark I decided to go back and slog my way through SoU. I'm glad I did. It got much better after that stock D&D scenario first chapter.
A PC 5.25" drive won't read hard-sectored RX50 (DEC VAX) floppies.
Have you tried the solutions mentioned on this page http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/vax/rx50.html ? I remember using something similar for my DEC Rainbow 100.
Come on folks, saying that making the common cases easy is a dumb thing to do is like saying the Win32 API is better than a clean API because of the cruft. A chunk of you sound like you measure you manhood by the complexity you can handle. That's being counterproductive and wasting your own time.
If you think that all cases are edge (tough) cases then you haven't done enough analysis or you don't understand who you are targeting your app to. A common case made easy for iPhoto won't be the same common case for a Photoshop or power Gimp-user. Let the computer do the simple shit for you so that you can focus your brain power on the tougher cases.
No, it isn't easy to build simplicity into an app to make the common cases easy. It requires the ruthlessness of someone willing to toss out good code/interfaces that almost, but doesn't quite work. It also requires placing your end-user (of whatever skill level you've targeted) ahead of your own desires for the app. Tough to do, but well worth it in the end.
You just have to ask yourself do you really want to take 27 steps (hypothetically) to configure a printer *every* time? Wouldn't you prefer to just have to do 3 steps 98% of the time and save the brain power for that difficult 2%?
"Elder Scrolls3: Morrowind made a shot at a humongous world. They did manage to get that right. But they went astray. There was no Garriot. No Lord British. There was no atmosphere. It was just an endless [beautiful] world of immensely over-recycled content, unbalanced gameplay, flat-as-a-plank characters and utterly boring [and endless] fed-ex quests that required spending too much of the game time on travel. The company who made it just wasn't Origin, it lacked a guide. And the game was a flop."
I take it you didn't play the release version of Ultima IX.;-) Even Richard Garriott and Origin could churn out a buggy piece of shit.
Those that claim Morrowind was unplayably buggy never played U9. Even the final official patch (1.18) left game killing bugs. At least Bethesda kept fixing the bugs instead of dropping support unexpected like a bad date. Also, and I know the fanatics will hate this comment, but Morrowind was successful enough to spawn two expansions. That's a successful product by today's market standards. Whether you like that fact or not, economics matter when it comes to making games.
At least Bethesda has stayed the course with the Elder Scrolls series and taken chances. Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard, and Morrowind have all tried to push the envelope. They've had some ugly failures (Battlespire) and even buggier games ('Buggerfall'), but they didn't play it say or did another 'me too' clone. Give 'em a chance. Everyone can screw up a franchise, but some can do it justice. Let's see how Bethesda does.
Oh, as far as Troika goes, everyone mentions Arcanum, but is ignoring Temple of Elemental Evil. So even Troika has mixed track record. (I hope they do better with the Vampire:Masquerade game based on the Half-Life 2 engine.)
What really baffled me was the line This is a nice boon for those that have to deal with cross-platform compatibility
I was mainly thinking of the situation where using multiple compilers on your code is a Good Thing. That is, you are more likely to more errors with different compilers than if you only used a single compiler. Obviously using Visual C++ only extensions aren't going to get you anywhere beyond Windows.;-)
I have to say that for all the problems and accusations about pay-pal, it is a hallmark of an honest seller.
Unfortunately, PayPal is the first resort of the deadbeat buyer.:-/ PayPal only gives seller protection in the US and only if you use something like signature-on-delivery to show the item did arrive safely. Outside the US there is *no* seller protection. In fact, if you sell to a country outside PayPal's authorized list you can get your account cancelled.
Even requiring the buyer to use funds from a bank account won't protect you. The buyer can do a 'charge back' or equivalent at any time and you, the seller, have to prove you sent the item and it was received. When PayPal protects the buyer and the seller equally and fairly I'll start using the service.
If this is a violation of EA's IP, Ultima IV is the exception, since it has been officially released into the public domain.
No, Ultima IV is not public domain. It is freely re-distributable by members of the Ultima fan club, UDIC (http://www.udic.org/). Putting it in the public domain would mean the EA had surrendered all rights to Ultima IV. They have not.
The Macintosh version of Ultima III is distributed as shareware, with a paid registration requred to unlock the full version.
U3 for the Mac required Leon McNeill to sign a contract with EA and the intercession of Richard Garriott back when RG was still at Origin.
My understanding is that you get hammered with the first cup of your caffeine-delivery-system. The rest have modest effect. (Assuming you drink the rest within 3 to 4 hours of the first cup.)
I started drinking coffee _after_ being diagnosed as a type II diabetic.
Seriously, caffeine is my only vice. I watch what I eat, exercise regularly, and see all the appropriate medical folks as appropriate. Diabetes is a progressive disease so fighting the long defeat is worthwhile. Then again, I had a good example of why you need to live right with diabetes. My first wife's father was a type one diabetic (needed insulin shots) and at 60 couldn't feel anything below the waist...
This is a lovely update. SvenCoop and TFC are my favorite HL mods. There's just something simple, something _fun_ about hopping into a game with a few friends and having it be you & them vs everything else. (I wish all multiplayer capable games would include a coop mode.)
I played most of the day yesterday (the 24th) on both Steam and the regular servers. I found the Steam servers more robust and things like voice comm much clearer on Steam than the regular servers. There were some glitches (to be expected on the first day of a x.0 release) in the single player maps, but I tend to think fixing some of those might be something only Valve can do.
All in all it is well worth donating some money to support this mod. The electric crowbar and gilded uzi *will* get you noticed.;-)
I'm really excited to see what Sven and Co will do with HL2...
Wasn't it Sherlock *then* Watson then Sherlock 3?
on
Don't Be a Sharecropper
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I seem to remember that Apple came out with Sherlock, then Karelia decided to do Sherlock one better (thus the name Watson -- Sherlock Holmes sidekick). Gee, guess what? Apple did the _obvious_ enhancement of Sherlock that looks a lot like Watson. Then the Karelia folks whined about Apple doing to Karelia what Karelia tried to do to Apple. Pot = Kettle = Black it seems to me.
Yeah, it isn't any fun when the big guys move into your niche, but you can survive. It does require you to be at the top of your game, however, and to meet the needs of your customers better than the big guys. That isn't easy, but it can be done. Not whining about the situation and focusing on your products would be a better idea to me.
That works just fine for an iPod, it only holds music, nothing else. So what do you do for a general purpose computer? Show how many songs/movies/pictures/copies of OfficeXP it can hold? Which reference do you use? Do you just show all of them? Maybe the industry could just come up with some generic term that describes how much space a digital device has, oh wait, they already did. . ..
Oh, that's simple. You just show them how it improves their sex life.;-)
Seriously, a lot of how you describe things depends on ubiquitous the item is. An automobile is easy to describe because most people know what one is (if they don't own one or more of them). With newer tech stuff you have to use analogies at first to give the average consumer something to relate to. X number of songs is much easier to conceptualize for the consumer than so many MP3 sampled at y bitrate with z encoder.
The problem with that sort of marketing is that it is very easy to manipulate. I prefer hard, very specific numbers when I'm shopping for something.
For example: "This hard drive will hold 100 songs from your CD collection!" MP3 or raw cd audio? 192 kHz sampling or 32 kHz sampling? Are these 60 second "songs" or something more realistic? Tell me how big it is, and don't assume you know what I want to do with it. (OK, for an iPod, it's a reasonable assumption that I'm going to record music, but you get my point.)
I agree that being knowledgeable about products is good. I also agree that some folks will manipulate the figures dubiously or even dishonestly (just look at how AMD's Athlon rating system has gone from somewhat conservative to somewhat, umm, optimistic.:-/).
I was making an assumption that the 'jargon free' statement was basically honest or relevant. If the company is pulling a fast one or out and out lying, well, you have a whole 'nother problem there.
Anyway, it still doesn't take away from my point that there _can_ be better ways to communicate the usefulness of tech items to the average *consumer* than tech specs. From your example I wouldn't call your interest one of an average consumer, but one of a knowledgeable specialist or hobbyist. Marketing to you is best done by technical specs.:-D
I like how Apple does their iPod advertising. They say how many *songs* you can have on it. That makes it easy for people to understand what the iPod can hold. (Yeah, I know how you sample your music will change that number, but that's irrelevant to my point.) Instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of the tech, Apple focuses on the end result.
For example, if people want to push Linux onto the consumer desktop then this type of word of mouth advertising will be crucial. Consumers done care which technology is *best* technically (subjective many times), but how it is better for them from a practical standpoint. 'Generally virus proof/free (as in cost)/can install on all of your computers (no activation)/etc.' versus 'can scale up to 8-processors via SMP' or some such.
e/IE/Opera/KHTML browsers were often integrated with your Winsock communications stack... damn I am trying to remember the earliest and I can't... it started with a "D" or "Q" and was developed by the folks who made a very popular BBS terminal program... humbug, sorry, I usually like to have my facts in line but the memory is fading) so while it is VERY nice, it's not truly new.
in the most favorable light (for Apple). What is the world coming to?
Better go tell your nearest open source or free software advocate that they had better change their tactics. After all, using the words (in all their senses) open and/or free is a form of marketing...;-)
Seriously, whether you agree with the benchmarks or not, hate or love Apple, at least Apple has included some transparency in the process. That's more than most companies are willing do to these days. We don't want more cases of Benchmarks In, Gospel Out.
Tell me, can you run "Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (7.0.9466) or Intel C++ and Fortran Compiler 6.0 (020613Z)" on the G5? No? Then just which cross-platform compiler would you suggest using that eliminates the *compiler* as a variable in the Spec tests? Bonus points for having a compiler that has its source code available for anyone to inspect. After all, writing special cases in the compile for good benchmark results is a _very_ old trick (Sieve OF Erasthones)...
So until you can come up with a compiler that gives us apples to apples;-) comparison I'd suggest you be more careful about shouting that Apple is lying. It sounds too much like sour grapes.
"And, actually, if you don't have a job in 6 months then you also need to figure out what to do for health insurance - COBRA runs out at that point."
One small clarification, COBRA lasts up to *18* months. After that period you _may_ have the option to convert it to a individual policy. I know because I've been there.
That said, COBRA is damned expensive because you are now paying your side AND the company's side of the insurance premium. If you have family coverage your COBRA payment could be upwards to a $1,000 a month. So budget accordlingly if you are someone like me that has to have insurance (I'm a type 2 diabetic).
Also, if your company decides to change insurance companies in the middle of your COBRA you'll be changed with them. You'll automatically get the insurance, but you'll have no choice in staying with the prior plan (if you like it better). You're treated like an employee which is good and bad. My wife and I went from a great plan to a crappy one because of this.:-/ Luckily we were able to pick up insurance through where she worked to get to a better plan.
COBRA can be a life saver, but few people realize just how expansive it can be to fund your own health insurance.
Slashdot Mirror
KMSN is "Madison, Wisconsin (KMSN) Air Traffic Control" according to a Google search.
[snip]MINC, GIGI, Rainbow, DEBmate, MicroVAX, MicroPDP, the whole VAXstation line[...]
:)
;-)
:-D
I was about to point out that the GIGI was a graphics terminal when I decided to google it. Wow, it was a half-assed micro-computer/terminal crossbreed. We just used the ones at uni (connected to a Vax 11/780) for our CS graphics classes so I never realized that they could do more.
Oh, it is DE_C_mate. DEBmate is DEXXX's version of the vMac.
Owner of a DEC Rainbow 100A: Dual 8086/Z80 CPUs, 896K, 10 Meg Hard drive, 12" *green* monochrome VT220,
The question is why ID did not give their soldier some duct-tape after he learned of the changed situation. Then again how many FPS have you seen where the hero tapes clips together for faster reload, tapes two guns together for extra fire power? We seen it in the movies, gotta be sound tactics or they wouldn't use it.
:)
Taping two magazine together is a stupid idea. Bend those feeder lips or get something in the magazine and you've just jammed your weapon.
I could see taping two guns together for an improvised hard point you planned on abandoning quickly, but carrying and effectively using two guns taped together will slow you down and most likely get you killed. It is just too damned awkward.
Also, remember movies do things because they look good on film, not because they are accurate in any shape or form.
The first sequel that came out pissed me off. I installed it and the first chapter quest involved recovering 4 items, which immidately felt like a rehash of chapter one in the first game. I felt so angered that they'd charge me $40 for a rehash of the first part of the original game that I returned it and refused to buy the second expansion (which I hear is better).
I stopped playing Shadows of Undrentide in the first chapter, too. After playing Hordes of the Underdark I decided to go back and slog my way through SoU. I'm glad I did. It got much better after that stock D&D scenario first chapter.
A PC 5.25" drive won't read hard-sectored RX50 (DEC VAX) floppies.
Have you tried the solutions mentioned on this page http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/vax/rx50.html ? I remember using something similar for my DEC Rainbow 100.
Come on folks, saying that making the common cases easy is a dumb thing to do is like saying the Win32 API is better than a clean API because of the cruft. A chunk of you sound like you measure you manhood by the complexity you can handle. That's being counterproductive and wasting your own time.
If you think that all cases are edge (tough) cases then you haven't done enough analysis or you don't understand who you are targeting your app to. A common case made easy for iPhoto won't be the same common case for a Photoshop or power Gimp-user. Let the computer do the simple shit for you so that you can focus your brain power on the tougher cases.
No, it isn't easy to build simplicity into an app to make the common cases easy. It requires the ruthlessness of someone willing to toss out good code/interfaces that almost, but doesn't quite work. It also requires placing your end-user (of whatever skill level you've targeted) ahead of your own desires for the app. Tough to do, but well worth it in the end.
You just have to ask yourself do you really want to take 27 steps (hypothetically) to configure a printer *every* time? Wouldn't you prefer to just have to do 3 steps 98% of the time and save the brain power for that difficult 2%?
"Elder Scrolls3: Morrowind made a shot at a humongous world. They did manage to get that right. But they went astray. There was no Garriot. No Lord British. There was no atmosphere. It was just an endless [beautiful] world of immensely over-recycled content, unbalanced gameplay, flat-as-a-plank characters and utterly boring [and endless] fed-ex quests that required spending too much of the game time on travel. The company who made it just wasn't Origin, it lacked a guide. And the game was a flop."
;-) Even Richard Garriott and Origin could churn out a buggy piece of shit.
I take it you didn't play the release version of Ultima IX.
Those that claim Morrowind was unplayably buggy never played U9. Even the final official patch (1.18) left game killing bugs. At least Bethesda kept fixing the bugs instead of dropping support unexpected like a bad date. Also, and I know the fanatics will hate this comment, but Morrowind was successful enough to spawn two expansions. That's a successful product by today's market standards. Whether you like that fact or not, economics matter when it comes to making games.
At least Bethesda has stayed the course with the Elder Scrolls series and taken chances. Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard, and Morrowind have all tried to push the envelope. They've had some ugly failures (Battlespire) and even buggier games ('Buggerfall'), but they didn't play it say or did another 'me too' clone. Give 'em a chance. Everyone can screw up a franchise, but some can do it justice. Let's see how Bethesda does.
Oh, as far as Troika goes, everyone mentions Arcanum, but is ignoring Temple of Elemental Evil. So even Troika has mixed track record. (I hope they do better with the Vampire:Masquerade game based on the Half-Life 2 engine.)
This is easily explained. All of the witnesses of who saw the Romulans were wearing read shirts.
;-)
What did it say on the the shirts, 'Kill me now, I'm an expendable plot device"?
Surfin' Safari
He makes the excellent point that Dashboard/Konfabulator-type of widgets have been done in browsers, too.
My comment about Watson/Sherlock stills seems applicable: don't whine, give us a better product.
Has /. been taken over by pod people? What happend to you guys? Where would we be today without beowulf cluster jokes and Soviet Russia jokes?
;-)
No, this story has been taken over by iPod people.
What really baffled me was the line This is a nice boon for those that have to deal with cross-platform compatibility
;-)
I was mainly thinking of the situation where using multiple compilers on your code is a Good Thing. That is, you are more likely to more errors with different compilers than if you only used a single compiler. Obviously using Visual C++ only extensions aren't going to get you anywhere beyond Windows.
I have to say that for all the problems and accusations about pay-pal, it is a hallmark of an honest seller.
:-/ PayPal only gives seller protection in the US and only if you use something like signature-on-delivery to show the item did arrive safely. Outside the US there is *no* seller protection. In fact, if you sell to a country outside PayPal's authorized list you can get your account cancelled.
Unfortunately, PayPal is the first resort of the deadbeat buyer.
Even requiring the buyer to use funds from a bank account won't protect you. The buyer can do a 'charge back' or equivalent at any time and you, the seller, have to prove you sent the item and it was received. When PayPal protects the buyer and the seller equally and fairly I'll start using the service.
If this is a violation of EA's IP, Ultima IV is the exception, since it has been officially released into the public domain.
No, Ultima IV is not public domain. It is freely re-distributable by members of the Ultima fan club, UDIC (http://www.udic.org/). Putting it in the public domain would mean the EA had surrendered all rights to Ultima IV. They have not.
The Macintosh version of Ultima III is distributed as shareware, with a paid registration requred to unlock the full version.
U3 for the Mac required Leon McNeill to sign a contract with EA and the intercession of Richard Garriott back when RG was still at Origin.
My understanding is that you get hammered with the first cup of your caffeine-delivery-system. The rest have modest effect. (Assuming you drink the rest within 3 to 4 hours of the first cup.)
I started drinking coffee _after_ being diagnosed as a type II diabetic.
Seriously, caffeine is my only vice. I watch what I eat, exercise regularly, and see all the appropriate medical folks as appropriate. Diabetes is a progressive disease so fighting the long defeat is worthwhile. Then again, I had a good example of why you need to live right with diabetes. My first wife's father was a type one diabetic (needed insulin shots) and at 60 couldn't feel anything below the waist...
This is a lovely update. SvenCoop and TFC are my favorite HL mods. There's just something simple, something _fun_ about hopping into a game with a few friends and having it be you & them vs everything else. (I wish all multiplayer capable games would include a coop mode.)
;-)
I played most of the day yesterday (the 24th) on both Steam and the regular servers. I found the Steam servers more robust and things like voice comm much clearer on Steam than the regular servers. There were some glitches (to be expected on the first day of a x.0 release) in the single player maps, but I tend to think fixing some of those might be something only Valve can do.
All in all it is well worth donating some money to support this mod. The electric crowbar and gilded uzi *will* get you noticed.
I'm really excited to see what Sven and Co will do with HL2...
I seem to remember that Apple came out with Sherlock, then Karelia decided to do Sherlock one better (thus the name Watson -- Sherlock Holmes sidekick). Gee, guess what? Apple did the _obvious_ enhancement of Sherlock that looks a lot like Watson. Then the Karelia folks whined about Apple doing to Karelia what Karelia tried to do to Apple. Pot = Kettle = Black it seems to me.
Yeah, it isn't any fun when the big guys move into your niche, but you can survive. It does require you to be at the top of your game, however, and to meet the needs of your customers better than the big guys. That isn't easy, but it can be done. Not whining about the situation and focusing on your products would be a better idea to me.
That works just fine for an iPod, it only holds music, nothing else. So what do you do for a general purpose computer? Show how many songs/movies/pictures/copies of OfficeXP it can hold? Which reference do you use? Do you just show all of them? Maybe the industry could just come up with some generic term that describes how much space a digital device has, oh wait, they already did. . . .
;-)
Oh, that's simple. You just show them how it improves their sex life.
Seriously, a lot of how you describe things depends on ubiquitous the item is. An automobile is easy to describe because most people know what one is (if they don't own one or more of them). With newer tech stuff you have to use analogies at first to give the average consumer something to relate to. X number of songs is much easier to conceptualize for the consumer than so many MP3 sampled at y bitrate with z encoder.
The problem with that sort of marketing is that it is very easy to manipulate. I prefer hard, very specific numbers when I'm shopping for something.
:-/).
:-D
For example: "This hard drive will hold 100 songs from your CD collection!" MP3 or raw cd audio? 192 kHz sampling or 32 kHz sampling? Are these 60 second "songs" or something more realistic? Tell me how big it is, and don't assume you know what I want to do with it. (OK, for an iPod, it's a reasonable assumption that I'm going to record music, but you get my point.)
I agree that being knowledgeable about products is good. I also agree that some folks will manipulate the figures dubiously or even dishonestly (just look at how AMD's Athlon rating system has gone from somewhat conservative to somewhat, umm, optimistic.
I was making an assumption that the 'jargon free' statement was basically honest or relevant. If the company is pulling a fast one or out and out lying, well, you have a whole 'nother problem there.
Anyway, it still doesn't take away from my point that there _can_ be better ways to communicate the usefulness of tech items to the average *consumer* than tech specs. From your example I wouldn't call your interest one of an average consumer, but one of a knowledgeable specialist or hobbyist. Marketing to you is best done by technical specs.
I like how Apple does their iPod advertising. They say how many *songs* you can have on it. That makes it easy for people to understand what the iPod can hold. (Yeah, I know how you sample your music will change that number, but that's irrelevant to my point.) Instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of the tech, Apple focuses on the end result.
For example, if people want to push Linux onto the consumer desktop then this type of word of mouth advertising will be crucial. Consumers done care which technology is *best* technically (subjective many times), but how it is better for them from a practical standpoint. 'Generally virus proof/free (as in cost)/can install on all of your computers (no activation)/etc.' versus 'can scale up to 8-processors via SMP' or some such.
e/IE/Opera/KHTML browsers were often integrated with your Winsock communications stack ... damn I am trying to remember the earliest and I can't ... it started with a "D" or "Q" and was developed by the folks who made a very popular BBS terminal program ... humbug, sorry, I usually like to have my facts in line but the memory is fading) so while it is VERY nice, it's not truly new.
DataStorm's ProcommPlus?
in the most favorable light (for Apple). What is the world coming to?
;-)
Better go tell your nearest open source or free software advocate that they had better change their tactics. After all, using the words (in all their senses) open and/or free is a form of marketing...
Seriously, whether you agree with the benchmarks or not, hate or love Apple, at least Apple has included some transparency in the process. That's more than most companies are willing do to these days. We don't want more cases of Benchmarks In, Gospel Out.
Not to nit-pick too much, but it's the Sieve of Eratosthenes. :-) Or, "One of them Greek guys."
;-)
Crap-a-poo-poo. I forget Google Lesson #487: Never use Google as a spell-checker. You're apt to find a bunch of like-minded bad spellers.
Tell me, can you run "Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (7.0.9466) or Intel C++ and Fortran Compiler 6.0 (020613Z)" on the G5? No? Then just which cross-platform compiler would you suggest using that eliminates the *compiler* as a variable in the Spec tests? Bonus points for having a compiler that has its source code available for anyone to inspect. After all, writing special cases in the compile for good benchmark results is a _very_ old trick (Sieve OF Erasthones)...
;-) comparison I'd suggest you be more careful about shouting that Apple is lying. It sounds too much like sour grapes.
So until you can come up with a compiler that gives us apples to apples
"And, actually, if you don't have a job in 6 months then you also need to figure out what to do for health insurance - COBRA runs out at that point."
:-/ Luckily we were able to pick up insurance through where she worked to get to a better plan.
One small clarification, COBRA lasts up to *18* months. After that period you _may_ have the option to convert it to a individual policy. I know because I've been there.
That said, COBRA is damned expensive because you are now paying your side AND the company's side of the insurance premium. If you have family coverage your COBRA payment could be upwards to a $1,000 a month. So budget accordlingly if you are someone like me that has to have insurance (I'm a type 2 diabetic).
Also, if your company decides to change insurance companies in the middle of your COBRA you'll be changed with them. You'll automatically get the insurance, but you'll have no choice in staying with the prior plan (if you like it better). You're treated like an employee which is good and bad. My wife and I went from a great plan to a crappy one because of this.
COBRA can be a life saver, but few people realize just how expansive it can be to fund your own health insurance.