It was better than the origional idea...

Which was a ballistic based approach to beer delivery, accurate but people complained about the beer being shook up.

oh and dying when hit by a beer can at speed.

Windows 8.1

Windows for workgroups?

bet you can get

more power to that dog house than the other place you posted about...

my kid

I think eats headphones or something, she will go through a couple of pairs a month sometimes, I have long since given up thinking about expensive brands or even half decent ones... this last time she blamed her ipod for breaking them (it was the ear bud that broke - again because she not only wears them constantly, but uses the cord like a bungee for the ipod!) She was begging to use some of my headphones, and I point blank refused I still have some earbuds going back to the mid 90's when I was wearing them all the time.. needless to say child-o-destroyer-of-headphones can deal without the music for a day or so... then again all she listens to is endless new country and ICP/screamo/wtfisthatactuallymusicthesedays? so there is no real loss in quality, since there never was any to begin with!

my home system although getting old - ish (8 or so years) is dependable, I replaced the large bookshelf jbls with a set built from linkwitz-lab, more of a project then for pure enjoyment, but they do sound nice and they are generally a good talking point... given my living room has the acoustics of an empty concrete box, I am not to concerned, I use a usb dac just because it is a darn sight easier to plug/unplug stuff at the desktop then it is behind the tower... and I can also give any machine a soundcard.

outside I have fairly small gainclone that I use with the jbls, and a laptop, most of the time it is internet radio.

having listened to way too loud volumes as a teen, and later working in a blues club in Chicago where the amps were all stuck on eleventyone (seriously 120+dba at the sound desk in a packed club for 9 hours straight!) and having the odd feedback screech happen a foot from your head, I have pretty bad tinnitus (which thanks to experiments I realised was about 17khz ) and moderate hearing loss in one ear :( I have tried to warn the kid that if she listens to the type of screamymetal she dies which honestly sounds like a mess of whitenoise with earbuds all the way in her ears she WILL get hearing loss... she of course ignores this because she is a teenager...

if she was responsible I would giver a pair of my sennheisers (though I am pretty sure she had already taken a set and either sold lost or broken them since I could no longer find them even when we moved).

I miss dynamic range in music, it is so much more enjoyable then just loud (though I will say my guilty pleasure is dance music - not for the quality or musician skill...just because....and not on the expensive speakers, though I have found that, with a decent set of cans or coffins you do not need to listen to it as loud.

after going to a few concerts too they seem to tailor that to the sound of the mp3 or cd these days, all loud and no range, but I guess if it sounded too different then people would not like it.

dr.dre beats, yeah well if you are making crap sound then it does not matter if you mix on crap headphones what exactly is he a doctor in anyway?

a lot of todays yoof are going to be the sound engineers of tomorrow and, hopefully by then, I will be stone deaf.

zero tolerance

Americans understand guns, they love guns, guns are safe... a lot of them do not understand science, it is scary and contradicts their bibles.

*speaking as an American and a Floridian (sadly I chose to become an American but hey guns are pretty darn cool, science is also cool, and so are bowties, and fez)

The zero tolerance thing is stupid, and down there they do like the throw the book at certain people because I think they are bored, yet others get away with heinous things.

Daniel tosh said it best about Florida - "it is hot flat and dumb"

here in yankeeland

GM already has an app for their onstar vehicles that allows you to remote open/lock start and horn and lights your car, ok it cannot exactly 'locate' it but it has a greater range than the keyfob, I have used it a couple of times in a car park to access horns and lights and followed the sound...

the downside is it will not work where there is no signal for onstar but saying that if it has no signal neither does your phone unless the car park has a mobile repeater on it

I used the remote start in cold Midwestern winters to warm the car up, and now in the deep south summers to cool the car off before I get there.... wasteful hell yeah!

so when are apple going to try and patent converting oxygen into co2 or vice versa

Whats the I/o?

I thought one of the issues with a "generic" way of doing things is bottlenecking I/O, which the very hot and fast cards can interface with the system well, there is a lot of bandwidth needed to get the same data in and out of the system.

However the fact things are so powerful now, is very interesting and a slight unnerving, that said no matter how underpowered a cray II is I want one because they look really COOL!

now a 3U based system so you could potentially cram 14 in one rack... one very hot, and power hungry rack...

and maybe 5 racks per row, 5 rows in a reasonable office datacenter... hmmm

oh and the powerstation next door to make it work...

you could probably reuse the heat generated to heat the building/water/small community.

We need another war

We always seem to invent cool stuff when we actually want to use it to kill our fellow human beings... and by war I mean WAR not an invasion of some barely capable nation with no means to fight back (although amazingly managed to drain our collective coffers considerably, although I suspect that was little to do with the actual "fighting of natives" and more to do with those who were in charge of declaring the actual thing a war)

my favourite game

If I did not have 10 lives by the time I hit the labyrinth zone "finale" I was doing something wrong.

playing it on the psp because I still enjoy it, though the American version is/was faster than the uk one.

I salute

The vinyl people who admit that CD's (when mastered and mixed correctly) are generally better, however I also respect that fact there is something about vinyl that is nice, that said, in this day and age, I get a fuzzy feeling over fondling a new CD ( or any CD) more so than looking at my computer screen with thousands of songs ( albeit it some in glorious 24/96 and 192 uncompressed) I get even less fuzzy when looking at the display of said I-device or equivalent, although for shear I WANT IT NOW-ness the I-Hell store is pretty good especially for the boppy fun pop tracks and for knocking up a good party mix without having to resort to wires cases discs equipment etc.

I still have the first CD I ever bought (and LP, though the bulk of them were not shipped across when I moved to the ex colonies) I still have my first good quality personal stereo and one of many minidisc players/recorders

I am looking for a decent affordable LP player to move some of the ageing discs to digital.

I think it is something we get used to how we grew up, my kid(s) do not care for physical media and tend to treat it horribly, they are happy with their loud obnoxious low quality music (that said my 2nd gen ipod is about 5 times louder then the current gen ipod at full blast and no avc, my kid still going deaf though, won't listen to the Ageing P when I say that those bloody earbuds will do damage at full volume for hours...)

I think...

Her and her cabinet really did study the American system very well, She did great things for women and women in power generally, but at the same time made people very cautious about electing strong women to office.

Deregulating was a good thing, within reason, unfortunately we never actually got the "within reason" part, so instead of massive state run monopolies we now have massive privately owned monopolies, yay! We paid for the whole infrastructure to be built, and then, we pay even more to a company to make profits and not maintain it, additionally when they want to or more accurately, need to, improve their creaking unstable mess, which has not been touched in years they get to raise their prices to pay for it, all while still making nice profits.

How's our manufacturing now? about the same state as many parts of the US... cheaper to import from another country and have them deal with the bad working conditions and pollution, that way we have deniability.. You have got to keep that bottom line looking good for shareholders, something we were also promised by that gov at the time, also I believe also something about having really cheap petrol and gas like in the middle east.

The one I can't help thinking about though, is her and Reagan potentially hooking up, they were very chummy...

Same thing happens to me...

Then the user always feels very dumb and incompetent when it works and usually says "I feel so stupid now" and I wait just that couple of seconds longer than I should, just about the uncomfortable silence pause amount of time to say (in my best motivational post, as if praising a young child or good dog) "NO! You are not stupid, sometimes it just needs a few attempts for it to work!"

I always try to make them drive too because it sucks having to grab someone else' greasy mouse...

The other good time is when they are trying to get to a server or machine and they are spelling it wrong, and they think the system is down, after I have trudged over to the cube where they are tell them what to type they feel really bad, I could have done it via IM, but why bother, it is more fun making them squirm, I would not mind but I am not even helldesk we deal with the backend we have techs for all of this... But when it all works it make you look awesome and that is a good position to be in.

Comparisons are not always fair

Amazon is a service provider that does not have to deal with endless red tape and regulation like a bank does, amazon does not need to interface with other banks and systems ( they have an intermediate system in place for that to do all the conversion between digital dollars and real money/goods, amazon did not have to build the backbone they rely on to work, other than procuring the datacenters and staff to ensure that the cloud still floats.

and sometimes it does not as we know when the amazon cloud rained on a lot of peoples parades.

Enterprise IT is like a swan... you hope to purvey on the surface a graceful and Nobel creature, yet underwater you are paddling like hell to get anywhere.

I still think magnets too

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?222630-Magnetic-charging-leads

not hard, and of course will allow the thing to still rock in the breeze the magents are small enough not to impede take off.

Throw it in the cloud...

After all that's what everyone is pushing these days? if it is in the cloud it will always be there, I know because there are websites on the internet that are still around after 10 years so it must be true...

If you have enough money to keep 100 years worth of data in pretty much any format there is enough room in the storage vault to keep a server and tape library to read it. We keep older EOL stuff around for the oldest data, then when we no longer need it (after paltry 7 years) we shred the lot and recycle the drive/server.

I am also trying to think...

About how large the area for attack could be for cloudy solutions, currently you host in house you have a nice server room with all the cool stuff, only access by a few special people who know what they are doing, or at least should know what they are doing... You sql talks to your web machines and other machines, over a nice secure internal wired network, you have total control over the gubbins of the stuff, and are not limited by latency or other fun stuff, as far as in practical anyway. So now we host all our stuff in the cloud, which by definition is basically a colo or lots of colos now do you attach to your app via the same interface as joe public do? what about any backend work you need to RDC or equivalent to the box in the colo(s) which you have no physical access too? so now you need RDC or other ports open to access the machine that you, before could have walked through nice secure door to, and opened up the kvm console... now it is up to someone else to do this, probably of the same generation who want to put everything in the cloud ( hell why don't they put the cloud in the cloud then the cloud is always available) so now potentially some twat who is probably posting pics of his work on facebook with his phone can potentially get access to your hardware and software though admittedly he is probably too dumb to do anything with it.... "err it has lights...they blink.... if they stop I hit this button... oooOOOOO" either way you have opened up a potential hive of MITM exploits. the more I think of it the more I think it is horrid.

the cloud is for your drunken spring break pictures not important stuff that anyone can grab hold of.

Some of it is true

"You can have my servers when you pry them from my cold dead hands!"

Like I am going to trust a 3rd party with my proprietary data/code/stats.

Oh the cloud is our raining data everywhere! waily! waily! waily!

I have no access to our production data!

we have been HACKED!

Our data is in WHAT COUNTRY!?

unless these companies can offer the same level of accountability that our internal IT department has for security/data access/SLA uptime/etc and offer the quick turn around and fix that an internal group who is dedicated to the functioning of the company (and not simply say Oh well not my fault it is our cloud supplier, which seems these days to be the classing newgen lack of personal responsibility thing they show an awful lot of these days. There is no way in H E Double-hockey sticks I will let anyone else fondle my data.

We recently had a problem that one of our competitors bought out the company that supplies us with a certain application we use for business and offered cloudy based services for the same app... erm no! we are not letting you anywhere near our data be it from our clients or our own.

and the next time someone is doing something illegal on their part of the cloud and the feds come in and shut the entire thing down so potentially thousands of clients will be locked out of their data..

the cloud is good for an (encrypted) backup solution to compliment a rigid and accountable internal infrastructure, it should never be used as a primary data source unless you are a small startup, I can see this is good for small business, but for the price of a typical cloud solution you could probably have your own small infrastructure and know exactly where your data is and who is looking at it.

just my opinion

I am going back to field stripping my servers while muttering something about hari Krishna now...

the sad thing is..

the 20 or so people who have electricity and a working TV will believe this..

(it was 21 but the last person apparently laughed at one point and was sent for some intense training in order to perform his job better...he was never heard from again)

Two minds

I generally like to think that I did not really pay for my IT knowledge, training was provided, I got to learn on the job, and I also (used to) do it as a hobby, so (back then) it was fun, so in return I do not mind helping people out, some even offer to pay, I often refuse, just because I feel guilty, there was one time I did it as a job and people were willing to pay, but I found that these days there are so many hard up college kids that it is less hassle for me to tell them to go find a spotty nephew or niece to sort them out, that usually works, and besides most of the kids now are boomerangers so they live at home anyway, for be it from me to turn down potential payment,(unless family, they don't pay apparently it is your duty to them!) but to be honest it is not worth the seething hatred I know hold for my career... though it is usually more fun after a few beers, less productive, but more fun.

However if they catch me at work and I tell them to bring in the machine I don't mind looking at it if I have a slow couple of minutes 5 to 10 minutes usually gives me time to fix or tell them they need to reinstall, if it is hardware I tell them what they need they go and buy it and I will install, for that I usually get my usual payment of biscuits (cookies) and tea ( living in the land of the free I do not mind payment id olde worlde currency especially since I tell them where to buy it... not quite got to the real bacon yet but I am working up to it) However it does get tedious that as soon as the mouse cursor jumps an inch to the left for no reason they think they have a virus or their machine is broken and they call on you, family members are the worst, but I also find that family members ( and especially the kid) will whole heartedly argue with me about something they just asked me about, if you know so darn much, fix it yourself!

That said the same issue arises with all aspects, "oh your handy?" "I need a sink/bathtub/window replaced/fixed"... "I did not know you can do mechanics... my car has this funny noise" ... can you just rewire my [insert something here]..

I agree, I wonder what it is like for someone to be generally useless or has a job that is generally not transferable to regular life and never asked to do anything, (but then I seem to think that they must leave very empty and boring lives.)

Recently my answer to questions of my job/career have been... " I dunno" though I am tempted to say I am a co2 factory.

in the words of dory

just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

it would be funny if it did the same as in asteroids and as soon as it leaves one side of the solar system it wraps around and comes in on the other.

other depts. do cause IT costs to go up, but since a database server comes out of an IT budget, or the storage for the database does, so do most other things, then it is IT that bears the brunt of the cost, also trying to explain what ifs to (most) bean counters is as futile as using a wet noodle to tow your car, They do not want to hear words like redundancy (unless it is an employees) they want to know what you need a 100k SAN array when newegg says you can get the same amount of disks for less and build it yourself... Backup generator? surely that large UPS you have in the building will cover all your needs...

DR? offsite? why the hell do you need to keep buying those tapes can't you reuse them?

We generally do not interface with the client ,so we cannot be seen as doing good, regardless if we do actually do good and prevent the world from falling down, we have a reputation of greasy socially inept cost centres who do nothing but play WoW all day and want more money for the elusive uptime beast

why all the change in IT

It generally has been and probably always will be seen as a cost or money pit alone. IT says we need this to inprove service to you execs look at it, do some beermat calculations of how this will affect bonus/bottom line/beer money and tell IT to do the same thing at a third of the cost or just not bother with it.

IT does not need to change, the perception that IT simply costs money and produces nothing needs to change. Yes IT stuff is expensive, but so is that Mercedes sl500 the CEO drives, he too could have bought a Toyota yaris or something.

IT is invisible when everything is working ( except t o the bean counters who use thick red permenet marker for IT related expenses (highlighted in yellow highlighter some more imaginitave ones use those little sticky arrows shaped like fingers that say EXPENSIVE COST too) however as soon as something goes remotely wrong/slow/ does not seem to give 250,000 worth of awesomesauce the eye of CEOron focuses on the IT dept yet again and asks why they spent all this money on something that clearly does not work, and at that point even the best greasy salesman IT manager cannot help but squirm in his nylon underpants.

shame on me

my home lap a couple of laptops one for storage and a newer one for a small esx server and a desktop as a router.. I would hate to see the power bills of some of these setups!

I tend to spend most of my lab time on the work machines since I am lucky enough to work in an underutilized office so can use the existing esx infrastructure to play with.

We Found Life!

Then we cooked it...

TERMINATOR

AWESOME! ROTM is near!

I don't want physical media

I got rid of most of my dvd library moving across country, I am sure the local goodwill store was very happy to receive them when I dumped the ones I did not give to family/friends. I had ripped them all and took the digital copies, which is illegal.

I pay for slacker radio premium, which is ok, I buy most all my music on iTunes, not because I really want to because it is convenient, it does not have all the songs I want, and certainly not any of the older stuff I used to listen too or more geographic centric indy or smaller bands I fondly remember from my youth, I still do not want physical media! I have in the past gone to a secondhand music store to buy cd's to rip then get rid of the cd, either sell it back to the store or give it away or play Frisbee with it, at one point the music was bought, after that, the record company or artists gets nothing from the second hand market.

I copy my entire iTunes library to my file server and allow anyone on my network to access the songs, which is usually my kid, luckily they are drm free now, so we do not have to buy the same songs twice or three times.

I also buy music from HD tracks.

we pay for Netflix, most of the content is crap, I do not stream through a console or roku I use a media pc, my home theatre amp does not support dolby digital plus, (but does support dolby didgital - all the blu rays and dvd's play fine in surround) Netflix is in stereo, I pay for a uk proxy to watch BBC shows that are not available in the US I would gladly pay the BBC directly to see their content (sans BBCA constant adverts on TV) so whatever we miss on the iplayer I download to watch at our leisure or to catch up on a series we may have got interested in half way through, we also use the uk Netflix to make the subscription slightly better then just plain old American vanilla. I am not upgrading my home theatre to stream in a newer version of dolby just because it is the new thing, I am sure there is a way to fix it I am just not faffing about with it anymore, I want to watch a movie without having to arse around with converters and filters and special settings or having to buy new equipment all the time.

Pretty much all of that is illegal at some point something is paid for, because I doubt the original content provider allowed some dud to stand their in the recording studio and record his own version to put up on torrent sites. (coincidentally I had a similar discussion with a bunch of blues musicians when I was a sound man in a night club and was recording the nights music for my own reference, they thought they were going to be poor forever because I could upload it to the internet and they would not be paid, they hated it when I told them no one wanted their crap anyway, later on I was approached by a musician in a wheelchair (he had been in a motorbike accident and been severely disabled and could no longer play) he asked if I still had any of the recordings from when I was working there, I laughed and told him that not only were the recordings deleted after I had reviewed them, but I stopped doing it because you and your buddies were all paranoid I was going to give your crap away, strangely he did not like that answer either.)

for me bringing 400 movies on a raid array is a lot easier then bringing 400 physical discs with me when I move or want to rearrange the house, not to mention the previous comments made by people about adverts warnings previews and such.

yes piracy hurts the industry to a certain extent, It can also, when used correctly benefit the industry by means of exposure, most of the artists who have been extensively vocal about piracy, have already made their money, the poor ones trying to break into the industry, need the backing of a major label or exposure, and, if they are not the right stuff they are not going to get anywhere anyway, I knew some local artists who would sell their songs in a digital version for a $1 or $2 or press their own cd's for sale, piracy was not hurting them because they were too small to be noticed outside their local market and the big companies did not want none mainstream acts to promote (where is the money in that? they want marketable commodities like beibers and cyruses.

does it justify pirating, not really, do I care? not really, I buy more than I have ever pirated, I know people who never buy stuff, I will say, if the industry as a whole is hurting that much, other than natural austerity for luxury goods in the current climate, we would see massive drops in all sales digital included, they would not be still posting profits, and the current generation of noise makers and actors would not be earning the 6 and 7 figure incomes they do.

We are also to blame for allowing the industry to churn out boilerplate crap for our 'entertainment,' then charge us a lot for it, they are focusing on pirates (rather like the governments focus on welfare recipients for ruining the economy) when as a whole we are the consumers demanding and allowing them to do this. We accept the crap then complain we have to pay for it.

The commercials made sense

when all he was saying was WEEEEEEEE! now they are just plain creepy

I think the joke is meant to be the fact nobody notices he is a pig..

The bloody gecko is just as annoying and gives ex pats a real bad reputation

if progressive and geico merge will we have lipstick on a pig? (there is not much discernible difference between flo and the pig anyway)

I always was too dumb...

To know I should have stayed in AV and not moved to IT exclusively.

Brings back fond memories of a job I loved, and loved to learn, with real tangible results at the end and a warm fuzzy feeling that is not just the beer in the pub after a long hard working gig.

I will go and cry on my keyboard for a while now

awesome article

The holodeck always confused me

As has been said earlier, 2 or 3 people, walking in opposite directions or, 1 person(s) entering the room and having to "search" for the other party always seemed a bit to much of a stretch, then I thought about how it could be done, since the "treadmill" effect allows you to walk indefinitely, after you take a few steps. the computer would then basically surround you in your own "holoworld" possibly only a couple of feet in diameter or even just your head/shoulders in order to keep the illusion in place, then it would feed you auditory/visual clues and keep you on the "treadmill" when you look behind you the other person you entered with is actually a computer generated recreation of them until they are within touching distance therefore no one really moves more than say 3 feet from one another ( the room was big and I assume had a limited capacity for people otherwise it would not work (they would all be touching while seeming far away which would be a major mindfreak) we will of course ignore the whole forcefield thing and the ability to actually project a localized image around a person without the use of some sort of screen or diffusing device, but it is seems quite more feasible, however I would imagine unless it projects an image to an outside person at the door it would look strange to see a few people standing around in a large room seemingly talking to themselves ( or other things) rather like an Ipod party or many of the mmorpgs you see a random character just standing there...

recently going to universal studios and seeing the new harry potter ride it was very well done, but after going on it a second time it was very easy to see the issues and tricks pulled, especially in the flying scenes, although that said I do not doubt we will at least be able to have some sort of individual immersion room in the not too distant future, matter replication, and multiple people in the same room however without some sort of AI to track eyes and head movements will bea bit further off then they are hinting at in my opinion

I will argue

That having to rely on a 3rd party interface for initial familiar functionality is not ideal, and you can argue somewhat that also relaying on these third party programmes may in some circumstances constitute an additional target for a security hole on the server ( I did say may)

after using 8 as the desktop operating system that we are rolling out and now are moving our servers to 2012 I am not a fan of the 2012/8 interface, but am getting used to it, I have learned that in RDC I make sure the windows key inputs are sent o the system then I can use the usual shortcuts I use on my desktop ( as long as the window is in focus!)

in vcenter console 2012 is more responsive the 08/08r2 but we rarely use that.

I look forward to taking (yet more) cert tests in 2012 because my head is not full enough of fluff from existing installations of 08.

I do not mind the challenges and the joys of living on the bleeding edge, it is the pot of lemon juice and salt used to heal the wounds I take exception to!

I live in america

They have that iced stuff usually sweet, or lipton for us ex-pats, both are gross and weak, the import stores charge a fortune, so I am stuck with the British blend Tetley compare to the local offerings ( still dredged up from boston habour I think) it is drinkable. I also live in Florida, all the water here tastes like alligator piss, so a decent RO filter is necessary, a water softener is good too, but they are expensive.

coffee on the other hand is common, and cheaper than the uk (was) instant is only used in emergencies, or in my wifes home made Irish cream.

most auto dispensers seem to be able to mix tea and coffee automatically so it tastes awful, I used to use my own kettle too thanks to some ridiculous fear of being sued for using water that is too hot tepid weak tea is horrible.

I am glad they saw the light out here and actually manage to make electric kettles... though it had a tendency to blow the breaker in our old place, took care of that in our new one, dedicated circuit labeled kettle, I get cranky if I cannot have my tea because of some coffee machine or waffle maker!

I never believe these stories

I think after the whole Toyota fiasco over here, consumer reports did a test to see whether stomping on the brake would stop the car, it did in all cases even at wide open throttle, it took longer but even worked on higher horsepower cars ( I even tried it on my older car to see how if it would work, not to mention a few rentals it has stopped the car every time)

if it was an auto, or even a manual they still normally let you drop them in neutral the laguna does have one of those annoying start button things, but it also has a regular looking gear selector I assume it is not locked in drive like the majority of other autos aren't.

I think the issue is that people panic, which is understandable and as was already mentioned we do not know his disability, maybe he had some special conversion so could not operate the vehicle like an able bodied person, maybe it was the customization that caused the issue, that's the only thing I can think of that would create situations like these.

I have noted

That often government fund the building of an infrastructure then sell it off to private companies who do nothing with it and keep it barely functional with little improvement investment, then, demand price hikes to modernize the aforementioned pre built untouched system all the while making massive profits for shareholders and board members every year, certain things need to stay in the public domain and be damned with making a profit... healthcare and public transport.

that said, I would like to see better business practices in place for government run services, we all know a contract with the government is a literal blank cheque for the contract holder.

we pay for the development of x system (fighter jet new form of energy whatever) we subsidise the company and give them breaks to develop it and it invariably goes over budget and takes a lot longer than it was originally projected, then after all is said and done we have to also buy the finished product at market price (i.e a cost analysis of how much it actually cost to develop divided by the number scheduled to be built) from the people we just gave all the breaks and help to design it.

pure government services unless it is all the black hat stuff (which costs a fortune and we have no clue what they are doing) are hard to regulate because no matter where you are, there are many layers of people who apparently do not communicate (similar things are found in huge manufacturing companies the difference is there are many interesting rules regarding who can talk to who in the government so someone gets away with fleecing the system and there is great resistance to give any one person the full detail of what is going on in order to fix it.

we are damned both ways, a good example of entirely private research patents and sales is pharmaceuticals, and we know how much brand name drugs cost

my experience in the US

Is totally the opposite, the people here (or at least in my social and economic circles) whinge and whine all the time and never lift a finger to fix anything (unless it has a payout attached to it) and the people I used to deal with in the uk would make MacGyver look like a amateur lego builder.

I guess the whole broadband thing is all to do with money (and afore mentioned payouts) since it is not economically viable (read makes a metric crap-ton of profit) to run high speed out to even some areas in a city then they don't it has nothing to do with urban and suburban sprawl, however since the government do not lay the cables and infrastructure first the companies are not really willing to invest (most of them barely invest in the current infrastructure until they can up the price to cover the cost of an ageing and almost broken system, yet still insist on massive profit margins and tax breaks/subsidies from the government. investment is now an expense to be paid for by the consumer not to be paid for out of existing profits (or investors whine because well, they invested and want their money to work harder then they do)

there are too many local monopolies, but I guess that's the way it should be, they got there first or have the most money so can dictate who gets what. it does not help that many of the permits required to lay say a new fibre line get happily refused by local government because they are happy with the current status quo ( and probably had a visit from a nice man/woman from the current monopoly provider with financial "incentive" for them to remain in control.

that said, I can't really complain I do not have a public sewer but I can get broadband, and a few people I know do not even have public water and can get broadband so I do not think it is all that bad, the classic line is, if you do not like it, move!

why do I get the feeling, when they say that the uk is better prepared in theevent of a storm, they are blowing smoke out of their arse? half the time they cannot get the basic tv/mobile/cable/internet services to work without the space storm, imagine how blissfully quiet life would be for a while if mobiles and such did not work for a time, people might even drive a bit better with no distractions...

and we would not have to listen to all the politicians waffle on about what they are (not) doing during the time of crisis

thats funny

my particular sector in the HR industry has seen year on year growth we cap at 40% we even had growth during the recession it has exploded recently we cannot hire enough people to keep up... our clients are hiring too and we cover many industries in the small to medium business market...

I am sure it has been mentioned already

most Florida homes are block and stucco, not the average stick built wonderment that passes as a house in the nor east and Midwest.. I need an 8 inch masonry bit to get through my outside wall (ok and only a fist to punch interior walls I am no ballistics expert but I am doubting even a .38 would make it through the exterior walls, (windows not included)

FWIW the CCW course really gets blown up out of all proportion, rather like the driving tests and such, like you need to be an ex navy seal to pass it. It is not actually that hard, if it was many people who currently pass would actually fail (including police some of whom should have failed the psych test in the first place :-/ )

I noticed a comment about the water here, I have not been to a single place in Florida including ft myers where the water even tastes close to actual water, I rather associate it more with the sewage equivalent of tab clear, that great sewage taste yet clear(ish) and that is straight from the municipal supply, oh, ok, chlorinated sewage, I am confused how they blend the taste so well, but they manage it... blech! the only thing I like going back up north for is the water which, although still chlorinated, does not taste like something took a crap then died in it, or vice versa..

however these stories are incredibly funny, and it does seem to be a common occurrence down here, I do not think it is just the water.

this is china

therefore if the peoples government says that it is invisible or pink or anything else, then it must be true, and if it is not true then you must be a traitor or heretic and need reeducation.

Either that or they are publishing this to see how gullible the rest of the world are.