>I don't agree. Doing everything in your own back garden is extremely inefficient.
What you say is true in principle. But you say "allowing for the cost of transport" as though this cost were trivial, when it is actually enormous.
What's the best location for wind power? You should turn North Dakota into one big wind farm. Since the local demand is basically zero (compared to CA), you ought to build a transmission line to take the power to where it's needed.
Setting aside the losses from long distance transmission (which are not trivial, but let's keep it simple), what's involved in building a transmission line from North Dakota to California? You have to get zoning permits and purchase right of ways over hundreds of miles. Some people will refuse to sell you the land, so you have to take them to court and take the land by eminent domain. People hate the way high voltage lines look, so they are going to fight having them built nearby. It's a political and social nightmare, as well as being expensive in materials and labor. And assuming you plan to get paid for your transmission line, by the time the power gets to California, it's going to cost 3-4 times what power generated from fossil fuel costs. Like it or not, people aren't going to want to quadruple their power bills just to "go green".
I use Cobian backup. It has an option to backup to an FTP location. It also supports strong encryption and password protected ZIP files. It has options to do full/incremental/differential backups so on a daily basis you're only backing up changed files.
It's windows only, but version 8 (Blackmoon) is open source, so you could probably tweak it for linux. Or virtualize it. Whatever. Heck if you wanted to do a Linux port, he might even release the code for the latest version to you.
J
I see a lot of negative comments about these self check systems, but I have come to enjoy them. Up here in PA, we have a grocery chain called Giant Eagle, and their systems are by far the best that I have ever used. In addition to the self-check stands with the small bagging areas, they have full-size self check stands with a conveyor belt. The only trouble I've ever had was when I tried to ring up a soda that I had already begun drinking (thus changing the weight), I shop there twice a week and always use the self check lanes if I can.
I prefer self check because then I don't have a surley cashier *throwing* my produce into bags, putting raw meat in with vegetables, setting cans on my bread and chips, etc.
If you're by yourself, it can be a little slow with lots of groceries because you have to bag everything after you've scanned it all. The baggers will usually come bag for you if they see that you're alone. In contrast to the cashiers, they usually know how to bag properly, and they don't abuse your stuff as much because they don't have to keep up their scan times (this is how cashier's performance is generally "graded").
When I first found the self-check lanes (at Walmart, 3-4 years ago), they were very buggy as many people describe in the comments. But lately I have used Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Giant Eagle, and even Ikea, and found them all to be satisfactory. I think a lot of this is people who had a bad experience a long time ago and now refuse to give self check another chance, even though the technology has improved.
Anyone who is interested in an exploration of this idea should check out *The Light of Other Days* by Stephen Baxter and A. C. Clarke. Based on the style, I'd say it's more Baxter than Clark, but Baxter is a good writer in his own right. Wormholes, time travel (of a sort), it's all there.
JR
Yeah, the ***creepy*** thing about Houston's system is the way they calculate the speed of traffic flow. The toll system has a little gadget called EZ-TAG that lets you zip through the toll plazas without even slowing down. It has a little radio transmitter that talks to a reciever in the plaza. The traffic monitoring system has checkpoints that monitor these, and since it can uniquely identify you, it knows your average speed for that segment. They ***say*** that they won't ever use it against you (ie to write speeding tickets) but if they ever start, if will be back to coins for me. Or at the very least, a special RF blocking case to protect me from the eye in the sky...
the parent post was probably right, given that the link is: http://traffic.tamu.edu/incmap/incmap.aspx
Having read through the posts, I haven't seen much said about Canon printers. I've been using the "low end" canon bubble jets for about 7 years now and been pretty happy with them overall.
My last two were the Canon BJC-6000 and the Canon S400 (essentially an updated version of the 6000, with smaller box and USB support). The only problems I have had with them were the result of things I caused to happen, like when I tried to cheat the sheet feeder and sneak another stack of paper in behind the last sheet, as it was being fed. This resulted in the feeder picking up 100 sheets of paper. It was never the same after that, hence the move to the newer s400).
One nice thing about these two printers is separate ink cartridges for black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. You can also buy special "photo" colors (supposed to represent skin tones and other photo things better, but I have always used the standard colors with no problems, even for photo). So if one of the colors runs out, you can replace it without having to scrap the remining ink in the other cartridges. The usage on the colors seems to run pretty even (ie I go through a complete set within a month or so of each other, and don't end up with 5 extra yellow cartridges). You can buy the cartridges separately for roughly 10 dollars each or as a set (for about 40).
The printers seems to do well with photo, graphics. They handle thick and thin paper, envelopes, labels, without trouble. As for speed, I've never tried to quantify it, but I can say that it's "fast enough" in the sense that if I need to run out a 12 page black-only document a few minutes before class, I've never been sitting there waiting anxiously on the printer.
Just to give some perspective, my usage is personal (not business), and I'm a student so there's black only and color printing. I probably print 700-1000 sheets a semester (3 montsh) and replace the cartridges about that often.
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>I don't agree. Doing everything in your own back garden is extremely inefficient.
What you say is true in principle. But you say "allowing for the cost of transport" as though this cost were trivial, when it is actually enormous.
What's the best location for wind power? You should turn North Dakota into one big wind farm. Since the local demand is basically zero (compared to CA), you ought to build a transmission line to take the power to where it's needed.
Setting aside the losses from long distance transmission (which are not trivial, but let's keep it simple), what's involved in building a transmission line from North Dakota to California? You have to get zoning permits and purchase right of ways over hundreds of miles. Some people will refuse to sell you the land, so you have to take them to court and take the land by eminent domain. People hate the way high voltage lines look, so they are going to fight having them built nearby. It's a political and social nightmare, as well as being expensive in materials and labor. And assuming you plan to get paid for your transmission line, by the time the power gets to California, it's going to cost 3-4 times what power generated from fossil fuel costs. Like it or not, people aren't going to want to quadruple their power bills just to "go green".
Actually, they did that too.... http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_516110.html
I use Cobian backup. It has an option to backup to an FTP location. It also supports strong encryption and password protected ZIP files. It has options to do full/incremental/differential backups so on a daily basis you're only backing up changed files. It's windows only, but version 8 (Blackmoon) is open source, so you could probably tweak it for linux. Or virtualize it. Whatever. Heck if you wanted to do a Linux port, he might even release the code for the latest version to you. J
I see a lot of negative comments about these self check systems, but I have come to enjoy them. Up here in PA, we have a grocery chain called Giant Eagle, and their systems are by far the best that I have ever used. In addition to the self-check stands with the small bagging areas, they have full-size self check stands with a conveyor belt. The only trouble I've ever had was when I tried to ring up a soda that I had already begun drinking (thus changing the weight), I shop there twice a week and always use the self check lanes if I can.
I prefer self check because then I don't have a surley cashier *throwing* my produce into bags, putting raw meat in with vegetables, setting cans on my bread and chips, etc.
If you're by yourself, it can be a little slow with lots of groceries because you have to bag everything after you've scanned it all. The baggers will usually come bag for you if they see that you're alone. In contrast to the cashiers, they usually know how to bag properly, and they don't abuse your stuff as much because they don't have to keep up their scan times (this is how cashier's performance is generally "graded").
When I first found the self-check lanes (at Walmart, 3-4 years ago), they were very buggy as many people describe in the comments. But lately I have used Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Giant Eagle, and even Ikea, and found them all to be satisfactory. I think a lot of this is people who had a bad experience a long time ago and now refuse to give self check another chance, even though the technology has improved.
Anyone who is interested in an exploration of this idea should check out *The Light of Other Days* by Stephen Baxter and A. C. Clarke. Based on the style, I'd say it's more Baxter than Clark, but Baxter is a good writer in his own right. Wormholes, time travel (of a sort), it's all there. JR
Yeah, the ***creepy*** thing about Houston's system is the way they calculate the speed of traffic flow. The toll system has a little gadget called EZ-TAG that lets you zip through the toll plazas without even slowing down. It has a little radio transmitter that talks to a reciever in the plaza. The traffic monitoring system has checkpoints that monitor these, and since it can uniquely identify you, it knows your average speed for that segment. They ***say*** that they won't ever use it against you (ie to write speeding tickets) but if they ever start, if will be back to coins for me. Or at the very least, a special RF blocking case to protect me from the eye in the sky...
the parent post was probably right, given that the link is:
http://traffic.tamu.edu/incmap/incmap.aspx
JDR
My last two were the Canon BJC-6000 and the Canon S400 (essentially an updated version of the 6000, with smaller box and USB support). The only problems I have had with them were the result of things I caused to happen, like when I tried to cheat the sheet feeder and sneak another stack of paper in behind the last sheet, as it was being fed. This resulted in the feeder picking up 100 sheets of paper. It was never the same after that, hence the move to the newer s400).
One nice thing about these two printers is separate ink cartridges for black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. You can also buy special "photo" colors (supposed to represent skin tones and other photo things better, but I have always used the standard colors with no problems, even for photo). So if one of the colors runs out, you can replace it without having to scrap the remining ink in the other cartridges. The usage on the colors seems to run pretty even (ie I go through a complete set within a month or so of each other, and don't end up with 5 extra yellow cartridges). You can buy the cartridges separately for roughly 10 dollars each or as a set (for about 40).
The printers seems to do well with photo, graphics. They handle thick and thin paper, envelopes, labels, without trouble. As for speed, I've never tried to quantify it, but I can say that it's "fast enough" in the sense that if I need to run out a 12 page black-only document a few minutes before class, I've never been sitting there waiting anxiously on the printer.
Just to give some perspective, my usage is personal (not business), and I'm a student so there's black only and color printing. I probably print 700-1000 sheets a semester (3 montsh) and replace the cartridges about that often.