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I've been searching for a new project to do for this season's holiday lights. I typically have four or five ideas floating around my head, and this year is no different.
Lots of choices, so I've had to come up with a "rule" about new projects. The rule is that the project has to be in the neighborhood of effort-neutral. It already takes too long to put up (and worse, take down) the displays we already have, and I don't want to add anything that makes that worse. Oh, and they can't take too much power, because I'm already on a power budget.
Unless, it's, like, especially cool.
I had an idea that met all my criteria. It was small - small enough to be battery powered, if I did my power calculations properly, and was going to be pretty cool.
It was, unfortunately, going to be a fair pain-in-the-butt to build - the fabrication was a bit complex, and the plan was to build a number of identical pieces. Oh, and it required me to choose the perfect LEDs from the 15 thousand that Mouser carries.
So, I hadn't made much progress.
Then, one day I was waiting for some paint to be tinted at my local home store, and I came across these.
They're holiday lights. Jumbo-sized holiday lights. The bulb part is made of colored plastic, and measures about 7" high. At the bottom there is a large fake lamp socket. Inside of all of it is a genuine C7 bulb of the appropriate color.
I bought 3 sets, 15 in all.
To be different, I wanted to build these as self-contained devices, with a separate microcontroller in each of the light bases. The microcontrollers I'm using cost about $1 each, so there isn't too much cost there, but the big challenge is a power supply. Generally, I build a linear power supply, which is simple and performs well, but you need an expensive and bulky transformer.
There is a way around that, with the reasonably named "transformerless power supply". Realistically, a better name would be the "high-voltage shock-o-matic", because it involves hooking things directly to the AC line, can only supply a small amount of current, is inefficient, and is hard to troubleshoot. Oh, and if one component fails you get 150 volts instead of the 5 volts you were expecting.
I decided to build one of these, so I ordered up some parts, wired it up, plugged it in, and immediately lost the magic smoke from one of the resistors. Turns out I miscalculated, and I needed a much-more-expensive power resister.
Thinking about it some more, I decided that since I still needed power to each bulb - and therefore a wire to each bulb - it was simpler to just build a simple system with one microcontroller.
Last Saturday, we were invited to a Halloween party at a friend of a friend. I only decided to go Friday night, so I'd put essentially zero effort into thinking about a costume.
The wife was going as a vampire (we had a long discussion on what the feminine form of "vampire" was. I tended towards "vampress", mostly because of how silly it sounded), and I thought of doing something that fit together with that thematically. A lame costume that fits together thematically with another one is much better than a lame one that sits by itself.
After a while, something suggested itself, and things came together pretty well. You can see the results here:
(Like pilot in the 1950s who had eyepatches to preserve eyesight in their dominant eye in case of a nuclear explosion, I suggest covering one eye before clicking on the following link).
I'm hoping that it's obvious who I am.
The party itself was pretty good. The hosts hired a magician who walked around and did close magic to entertain the crowd. He was talented, though frankly given the sobriety of the majority of the guests it could have been me doing the tricks.
While we were there a few of the ladies took it on themselves to vandalize me.
I want to buy a couple of wireless LCD photo frames for my relatives. It needs to have a decent display, speak wireless, and hook up to a smugmug gallery.
Any recommendations?
Download the sample code from MSDN Code Gallery.
[Note that EncounterOld has been renamed to EncounterV1 in newer versions of the SDK]
"Versioning" is an interesting feature of the HealthVault platform that allows us to evolve our data types (aka "thing types") without forcing applications to be rewritten. Consider the following scenario:
An application is written using a specific version of the Encounter type. To retrieve instances of this type, you write the following:
HealthRecordSearcher searcher = PersonInfo.SelectedRecord.CreateSearcher();
HealthRecordFilter filter = new HealthRecordFilter(Encounter.TypeId); searcher.Filters.Add(filter);
HealthRecordItemCollection items = searcher.GetMatchingItems()[0];
foreach (Encounter encounter in items) {
That returns all instances of the type with the Encounter.TypeId type id. When the XML data comes back into the .NET SDK, it creates instances of the Encounter wrapper type from them, and that's what's in the items array.
Time passes, cheese and wine age, clothes go in and out of style. The HealthVault data type team decides to revise the Encounter type, and the change is a breaking one in which the new schema is incompatible with the existing schema. We want to deploy that new version out so that people can use it, but because it's a breaking change, it will (surprise surprise) break existing applications if we release it.
Looking at our options, we come up with 3:
#3 looks like a nice option, were it not for the fact that some instances are digitally signed and we have no way to re-sign the updated items.
#1 is an obvious non-starter.
Which leaves us with #2. We ask ouselves, "selves, is there a way to make the existence of two versions of a type easier for applications to deal with?"
And the answer to that question is "yes, and let's call it versioning"…
Very simply, the platform knows that the old and new versions of a type are related to each other, and how to do the best possible conversion between the versions (more on "best possible" in a minute…). It uses this information to let applications pretend that there aren't multiple versions of a type.
Down Versioning
The first scenario is existing applications that were written using the original version of the Encounter type (which we'll call EncounterV1 for clarity), and what happens when the come across a health record that also has EncounterV2 instances in it. Here's a graphical indication of what is going on:
This application is doing queries with the EncounterV1 type id. When a query is executed, the platform knows that the encounter type has multiple versions, and converts the query for the V1 type to a query for all encounter types (both EncounterV1 and EncounterV2).
The platform finds all the instances of those two types, and looks at each one. If it's an EncounterV1 instance, it just ships it off to the application.
But, if it's an EncounterV2 instance, the platform knows (by looking at the application configuration) that this application doesn't know what to do with an EncounterV2. It therefore takes the EncounterV2 instance, runs a transform on the EncounterV2 xml to convert it into EncounterV1 xml, and ships that across to the application. The data is "down versioned" to the earlier version.
The application is therefore insulated from the updated version – it sees the instances using the type that the application was coded against.
Down version conversions are typically lossy – there are often fields in the V2 version that are missing in the V1 version. The platform therefore prevents updating instances that are down versioned, and will throw an exception if you try. You can look at the IsDownVersioned property on an instance to check whether updating is possible to avoid the exception.
Up Versioning
The second scenario is an application written to use the new EncounterV2 type:
This time, the V1 data is transformed to the V2 version. An application can check the aptly-named IsUpVersioned property to tell whether an instance is up versioned.
Higher versions typically contain a superset of the data in the old version, and the platform therefore allows the instance to be "upgraded" (ie updated to the new version).
However, doing so will prevent an application using the V1 version from being able to update that instance, which may break some scenarios. The application should therefore ask the user for confirmation before upgrading any instances.
This would be a good time to download the sample applications and run the EncounterV1 and EncounterV2 projects. Because this behavior is controlled by the application configuration, each application has its own certificate, which will need to be imported before the application can be run.
Add some instances from both V1 and V2, and see how they are displayed in each application. Note that EncounterV1 displays both the instances it created and the down-versioned instances of the EncounterV2 type, and that EncounterV2 displays the instances it created and up-versioned instances of the EncounterV1 type.
In the previous scenarios, the application was configured to only use a single version of a type.
In some cases, an application may want to deal with both versions of a data type simultaneously, and this is known as a "version-aware" application.
We expect such applications to be relatively uncommon, but there are some cases where versioning doesn't do everything you want.
One such case is our upcoming redesign to the aerobic session type. The AerobicSession type contains both summary information and sample information (such as the current heart rate collected every 5 seconds). In the redesign, this information will be split between the new Exercise and ExerciseSamples type. AerobicSession and Exercise will be versioned, but there will be no way to see the samples on AerobicSession through Exercise, nor will you be able to see ExerciseSamples through AerobicSession (there are a number of technical reasons why this is very difficult – let me know if you want more details). Therefore, applications that care about sample data will need to be version-aware.
Writing a version-aware application adds one level of complexity to querying for data. Revisiting our original code, this time for an application that is configured to access both EncounterV1 and EncounterV2:
When we execute this, items contains a series of Encounter items. The version of those items is constrained to the versions that the application is configured (in the Application Configuration Center) to access. If the version in the health record is a version that the application is configured to access, no conversion is performed, *even if* the version is not the version specified by the filter.
That means that the items collection may contain instances of different versions of the type – in this case, either Encounter or EncounterOld instances. Any code that assume that instances are only of the Encounter type won't work correctly in this situation. You may have run into this if you are using the HelloWorld, as it has access to all versions of all types.
Instead, the code needs to look at the instances and determine their types:
foreach (HealthRecordItem item in items) { Encounter encounter = item as Encounter; if (encounter != null) { } EncounterOld encounterOld = item as EncounterOld; if (encounterOld != null) { } }
This is a good reason to create your own application configuration rather than just writing code against HelloWorld.
Controlling versioning
The platform provides a way for the application to override that application configuration and specify the exact version (or versions) that the application can support. For example, if my application wants to deal with the new type of Encounter all the time, it can do the following:
which will always return all versions of encounter instances as the Encounter type.
EncounterBoth is a version-aware application in the sample code that handles the Encounter and EncounterV1 types. It will also let you set the TypeVersionFormat.
Asking the platform about versioned types…
If you ask nicely, the platform will be happy to tell you about the relationship between types. If you get fetch the HealthRecordItemTypeDefinition for a type, you can check the Versions property to see if there are other versions of the type.
The VersionedTypeList project in the sample code shows how to do this.
There are a couple of different naming patterns in use. The types that were modified before we had versioning use the "Old" suffix (MedicationOld and EncounterOld) to denote the original types. For future types, we will be adopting version suffix on the previous type (so, if we versioned HeartRate, the new type would be named HeartRate, and the old one HeartRateV1). We are also planning to rename MedicationOld and EncounterOld to follow this convention.
We will also be modifying the tools (application configuration center and the type schema browser) to show the version information. Until we get around to that, the best way is to ask the platform as outlined in the previous section.
Popular Mechanics has a list of "100 skills every one should know". How many have you have?
(I'll give my count later...)
A few years, ago, I bought one of the last high-end rear-projection TVs based on CRTs - a Pioneer Elite 620HD. I did some basic calibration with the Avia disc and did some other minor adjustments, but never got around to getting a real calibration done.
Calibration is the process of getting the TV to be as close as possible to NTSC settings - the same settings that were used when the program was created. That means getting colors and gray levels as close as possible to what they should be.
But, if it's a high-end TV, why isn't it set from the factory to meet NTSC settings? Well, the simple fact is that TV manufacturers play games to make their TVs stand out in showroom settings. That generally means pictures that are far brighter than they should be (with corresponding poor black levels), colors are off, and the picture is over-sharpened.
Some newer TVs let you choose a setting that's close to NTSC, but in most cases, calibration can make a big difference. If you have a LDC or Plasma set, start with a disc like Avia and see what you get out of it (Avia also has calibration for surround sound, which may also be useful).
In my case, my set needed cleaning, focus adjustments (because it's a rear-projection set), convergence (because it has 3 CRTs in it, one for red, blue, and green), and geometry (because it uses CRTs). You can find local techs in my area who can do calibration, but because my set is fairly rare these days, I wanted an expert, and hooked with David Abrams from Avical, working out of LA, when he was on a trip in the Seattle area.
David is a really nice guy and did a wonderful job. He spent 90 minutes on the geometry of the set (making sure straight lines are straight in all 3 colors), and about 60 minutes on the convergence (aligning all three colors). I only have about 5% of the patience he has when he's doing those kinds of things.
So, after cleaning the set, setting the focus, setting the geometry and convergence, he was on to setting the gray levels and colors. With his test pattern generator (running through the TV's component inputs, which is all I use...) and his $18K color analyzer, that part went pretty quickly. He then worked through all my sources (Tivo HD, DVD, XBox 360) and verified that everything was set right. Finally, we looked at some source and he did some final tuning.
The results were pretty impressive.
The downside is that the differences between HD feeds is now really obvious - some look great, but others really fall short.
I am a box of toys and notions. Among other things, I contain a hard box full of legos and a gross of superballs. On my outside I have a series of labels that tell me where I have lived.
As a proud corrugated-American, I'd like to share my story.
My location for the last 24 hours. My owner has moved to this office to be closer to the rest of the HealthVault partner team, which he has joined due to a recent organizational optimization. I like this location because lots of people stop by, but I'm worried it will be loud because of the standby diesel generator right outside.
I moved back to main campus to this office. It faces east and has a decent view of a parking lot. My owner works on the HealthVault partner team.
I love this office, which is big and has a nice view to the south. I do worry about degradation of my structure because the sunlight makes it hot and sometimes the A/C fails. My owner works on the HealthVault partner team, and enjoys the "small team" atmosphere.
This office is on west campus. It's okay, but the building isn't great. My owner works on the Windows Live pictures and video team.
I moved from one end of the hall to the other, and my corners are getting banged up. My owner is on a newly-reorganized team and isn't sure what he works on right now.
I moved two offices down to this one - I can look out through the window and watch my owner when he sits outside at lunch, though he does complain about the cafeteria now and then. My owner is on the Windows Movie Maker team working on the DVD Maker user interface.
Welcome to the Movie Maker team, and to a new area of campus. Building 50 stands alone by itself and is a bit inconvenient to get to, but it seems nice enough, and there are lots of boxes next door that I can spend time with.
A new office in the same building, this time looking at a wall of plants. My owner is a PM on the C# team, and is doing language design.
Despair. My owner is happy with his assignment as the test lead on the C# compiler, but this office faces south, gets very hot, and has a lovely view of the top of a cafeteria.
A pretty good office in a really nice building. I face north towards a set of vegetation. My owner co-owned office assignments on this move and got to choose his one before other people, so he got a nice one. He's a test lead for the C++ compiler front end, though there are rumors that there's something new coming along.
My first window office, with a beautiful view of a forest. My owner is very happy to get such a nice window office, but he finds it hard not to get lost in the 1-4 building complex. He's a test lead for the C++ compiler.
I was never in building 25, but my owner often tells me stories about it late at night. He says he had two different offices there, both of them pretty good.
It is sometimes useful to be able to display data in an application without having to understand the details of that data.
To make this easier, HealthVault provides a couple of features: transforms, and the HealthRecordItemDataGrid class.
To find out what transforms are defined for a specific type, we just ask the platform:
HealthRecordItemTypeDefinition definition = ItemTypeManager.GetHealthRecordItemTypeDefinition(Height.TypeId, ApplicationConnection);
In this case, we get back the definition of the Height thing type. In the returned HealthRecordItemTypeDefinition (which I'll just call "type definition" for simplicity), you can find the schema for the type (in the XmlSchemaDefinition property), and two properties related to transforms.
SupportedTransformNames lists the names of the transforms. In this case, the list is "form", "mtt", and "stt" (more on what these do later).
TransformSource contains the XSL transforms themselves, keyed with the name of the transform.
If you want to apply the transform, there are two ways to do it.
The first way is to do it on the client side:
string transformedXml = definition.TransformItem("mtt", heightInstance);
That's pretty straightforward, though you do need to fetch the type definition for the type first. You could also apply the transform using the .NET XML classes, if you wanted to do more work.
The second option is to ask the platform to do the transform for you. You do this by specifying the transform name as part of the filter definition:
HealthRecordFilter filter = new HealthRecordFilter(Height.TypeId); filter.View = new HealthRecordView(); filter.View.TransformsToApply.Add("mtt"); filter.View.Sections = HealthRecordItemSections.Core;
and then the item will already have the transformed text inside of it:
XmlDocument mttDocument = heightInstance.TransformedXmlData["mtt"];
Each type defines a set of transforms that let you look at a data instance in a more general way. The are named "mtt", "stt", and "form".
The mtt (which stands for "multi type transform") generates the most condensed view of data – it returns values for properties that are present on all data types, and a single summary string.
For example, asking for the mtt transform of a Height instance returns the following:
<row wc-id="8608696a-94b3-41a8-b9a6-219ecbbc87d1" wc-version="1e715849-43d7-4a72-9c65-8163649c0f84" wc-note="" wc-tags="" wc-date="2008-01-22 11:12:42" wc-type="Height Measurement" wc-typeid="40750a6a-89b2-455c-bd8d-b420a4cb500b" wc-source="" wc-brands="" wc-issigned="False" wc-flags="" wc-ispersonal="false" wc-relatedthings="" summary="1.9405521428867 m" />
The "wc-" attributes are the common data items across all instances. The most interesting piece of data is the summary attribute, which gives you the (surprise!) summary string for the instance.
The stt ("single type transform") is similar to the mtt, but instead of a single summary attribute there are a series of attributes that correspond to the properties on the data type. It will generally contain a attribute for every important property, but if the property is a less important detail and/or the type is very complex, this may not be true.
For our Height instance, we get this for the mtt transform
<row wc-id="8608696a-94b3-41a8-b9a6-219ecbbc87d1" wc-version="1e715849-43d7-4a72-9c65-8163649c0f84" wc-note="" wc-tags="" wc-date="2008-01-22 11:12:42" wc-type="Height Measurement" wc-typeid="40750a6a-89b2-455c-bd8d-b420a4cb500b" wc-source="" wc-brands="" wc-issigned="False" wc-flags="" wc-ispersonal="false" wc-relatedthings="" when="2008-01-22 11:12:42" display="1.9405521428867 m" height-in-m="1.9405521428867" />
How do we know what attributes are here and what to do with them?
That information is stored in the ColumnDefinitions property of the type definition. Each of these (an ItemTypeDataColumn instance) corresponds to one of the attributes on the row created by the STT transform.
The following code can be used to pull out the values:
XmlNode rowNode = item.TransformedXmlData["stt"].SelectSingleNode("data-xml/row");
foreach (ItemTypeDataColumn columnDefinition in definition.ColumnDefinitions) { XmlAttribute columnValue = rowNode.Attributes[columnDefinition.ColumnName]; }
This is the mechanism that the HealthVault shell uses to display detailed information about an instance. There is additional information in the ItemTypeDataColumn that it uses:
The Caption property stores a textual name for the column.
The ColumnTypeName property stores the type of the column.
The ColumnWidth contains a suggested width to use to display this information.
The VisibleByDefault property defines whether the column is visible in the shell view by default (the wc-<x> ones typically are not, with the exception of wc-date).
If you don't want to decode all the column information yourself, you can use the HealthRecordItemDataGrid in your project.
Put the following after the page directive in your .aspx file:
<%@ Register TagPrefix="HV" Namespace="Microsoft.Health.Web" Assembly="Microsoft.Health.Web" %>
and then put an instance of the grid in the appropriate place:
<HV:HealthRecordItemDataGrid ID="c_itemDataGrid" runat="server" />
You then create a filter that defines the data to show in the grid in the page load handler:
c_itemDataGrid.FilterOverride = new HealthRecordFilter(); c_itemDataGrid.FilterOverride.TypeIds.Add(AerobicSession.TypeId);
and the grid will be rendered using the STT transform view. If you want it to use the MTT transform view, you can set the TableView property on the grid to MultipleTypeTable, and it will show a summary view. You will also see this view if the filter returns more than one thing type.
The final transform is the form transform. This transform exists on most, though not all types (we're working to add form transforms where they're absent). It provides an HTML view of the type.
For our Height instance, we get the following from the form transform:
<div class="xslThingTitle" id="genThingTitle">Height</div> <div class="xslThingValue">1.9405521428867 m</div> <table class="xslThingTable"> <tr> <td class="xslTitleColumn">Date</td> <td class="xslValueColumn">2008-01-22 11:12:42</td> </tr> </table>
which, when rendered, looks something like this:
Some thing types will return a list that contain other transforms with names like "wpd-F5E5C661-26F5-46C7-9C6C-7C4E99797E53" or "hvcc-display". These transforms are used by HealthVault Connection Center, for things like transforming WPD data into the proper xml format for a HealthVault instance.
I apologize ahead of time
Fantastic Contraption...
Raymond wrote an interesting post about the erosion of the car trip experience.
Along with the desired to shield our kids from any discomfort, I think there's a big desire to shield them from boredom.
Boredom is part of being an adult, and I think learning to deal with it is an important part of growing up.
Back when I was a kid, every year or so we took a long trip from Seattle to Boise to visit my grandparents. Though we usually made the trip over in the night (to avoid the heat (no AC, of course)), there were lots of hours of watching the "scenery" roll by (as an adult, I find the area around along the Columbia river to be striking, but as it kid it's a whole lot a nothin'), and then similar hours while we were there.
That meant we have to learn how to amuse ourselves and not annoy each other too much.
But if you have video every time your in the car, you don't learn how to deal with being bored, and (as a parent) you miss some great opportunities for conversation, not to mention the chance to inflict your musical tastes on your offspring.
Last night I fixed the quicktime player on my somewhat aging home machine by turning of DirectX acceleration, and the family sat down to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which I had purchased through iTunes for the princely sum of $3.99.
Dr. Horrible, if you aren't "in the know", was created by Joss Whedon, of Firefly fame. Firefly was a sci-fi western, and Dr. Horrible is a internet comic book superhero musical. It stars Felicia Day as the love interest, Nathan Fillion (aka Mal) as Captain Hammer, and Neil Patrick Harris (who will always be "Doogie" to me...) as the title character.
Both the writing and the music are top-notch, as are the performances by the main characters. I'm hoping there will be more than the initial 3 episodes.
From the "perhaps this might be interesting" file...
Since the end of the HealthVault Solution Providers confererence in early June - and the subsequent required recharging - I've been spending the bulk of my time working on HealthVault data types, along with one of the PMs on the partner team. It interesting work - there's a little bit of schema design (all our data types are stored in XML on the server), a little bit of data architecture (is this one data type, or four?), a fair amount of domain-specific learning (how many ways are there to measure body fat percentage?), a bit of working directly with partners (exactly what is this type for?), a lot of word-smithing (should this element be "category", "type", or "area"?), and other things thrown in now and then (utility writing, class design, etc.).
It's a lot like the time I spent on the C# design team - we do all the design work sitting in my office (using whiteboard/web/XMLSpy), and we often end up with fairly large designs before we scope them back to cover the scenarios that we care about. Our flow is somewhat different in that we have external touch points where we block - the most important of which is an external review where we talk about our design and ask for feedback.
Since I'm more a generalist by preference, this suits me pretty well - I get to do a variety of different things and learn a variety of useful items (did you know that you can get the body fat percentage of your left arm measured?).
Plus, I learn cool terms like "air displacement plethysmography"
Back when I first started listening to music - in the days before there were CDs - if you were cool you bought your music on records, and then taped them onto 90-minute cassettes. You did this because it was hard to flip a record while you were driving, records wore out, and pre-recorded cassettes sounded a bit like a 48kbs MP3 stream, when they worked. Sometimes they didn't, and you had a $8 cassette afro.
Oh, and you had to worry about azimuth (an adjustment that, when wrong, could kill all your high end), Dolby B, and, if you were really cool, Dolby C (twice the Dolby!).
And you listened to what was called "album rock" in my area, otherwise known as "progressive rock". Those who wish to debate the differences between those two labels are welcome.
Then, I went off to college, and CDs were released, but the cost $900, so nobody had one (actually one guy in my dorm had one, connected to his $10K high-end system). So, we kept buying albums.
Then prices came down, we got jobs, and we bought CDs of the groups we had listened to, and reveled in the CD experience. The sound was so much clearer than cassettes, that we didn't realize that a lot of the early transfers were awful.
Over time, many of our albums got remastered - first by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (who had made some pretty killer vinyl recordings), and then by the labels as they realized there was some money in it.
By this point, you're wondering if there is a point, or if it's just an onion belt.
Anyway, I have a fair number of CDs that are early transfers, and I'd like to replace them, but it can be a bit of a pain to find out what specific albums have been remastered, when they came out, etc.
Enter Progrography, which has a bunch of information about progressive rock, including re-releases. So, if I want to know what remaster to get for Who's Next, there's a page that gives me all the info. Well, some of the info - some of the pages are a bit out of date - but what's there seems to be pretty good.
And if not, I can remember listening to AC/DC, which was the style at the time...
(editors note: Eric gave me several different options to use instead of sliced worms, but they were all less palatable. So to speak.)
Jeff Atwood wrote an interesting post on the use of #regions in code.
So, I thought I'd share my opinion. As somebody who's was involved with C# development for a long time – and development in general for longer – it should be pretty easy to guess my opinion.
There will be a short intermission for you to write your answer down on a piece of paper. While you're waiting, here are some kittens dancing…
Wasn't that great. No relation, btw.
So, for the most part, I agree with Jeff.
The problem that I have with regions is that people seem to be enamored with their use. I was recently reviewing some code that I hadn't seen before, and it had the exact sort of region use that Jeff describes in the Log4Net project. Before I can read through the class, I have to open them all up and look at them. In that case, regions make it significantly harder for me to understand the code.
I'm reminded of a nice post written by C# compiler dev Peter Hallam, where he talks about how much time developers spend looking at existing code. I don't like things that make that harder.
One other reason I don't like regions is that they give you a misleading impression about how simple and well structured your code is. The pain of navigating through a large code file is a good reason to force you to do some refactoring.
When do I like them? Well, I think that if you have some generated code in part of a class, it's okay to put it in a region. Or, if you have a large static table, you can put it in a region. Though in both cases I'd vote to put it in a separate file.
But, of course, I'm an old dog. Do you think regions are a new trick?
A recent discussion on how to deal with dependencies when you're an agile team got me thinking...
Whether you are doing agile or waterfall (and whether the team you are dependent on is doing agile or waterfall), you should assume that what the other group delivers will be late, broken, and lacking important functionality.
Does that sound too pessimistic? Perhaps, but my experience is that the vast majority of teams assume the exact opposite perspective - that the other group will be on time, everything will be there, and everything will do what you need it to do. And then they have to modify their plan based upon the "new information" that they got (it's late/somethings been cut/whatever).
I think groups that plan that way are deluding themselves about the realities of software development. Planning for things to go bad up front not only makes things smoother, you tend to be happily surprised as things are often better than you feared.
A few recommendations:
First, if at all possible, don't take a dependency on anything until it's in a form that you can evaluate for utility and quality. Taking an incremental approach can be helpful here - if you are coming up with your 18-month development schedule, your management will wonder why you don't list anything about using the work that group <x> is doing. If, on the other hand, you are doing your scheduling on a monthly (or other periodic) basis, it's reasonable to put off the work integrating the other groups work until it's ready to integrate (based on an agreement of "done" you have with the other group).
That helps the lateness problem, but may put you in a worse position on the quality/utility perspective. Ideally, the other team is already writing code that will use the component exactly the way you want to use it. If they aren't, you may need to devote some resources towards specifying what it does, writing tests that the team can use, and monitoring the component's process in intermediate drops. In other words, you are "scouting" the component to determine when you can adopt it.
I was responding in comments, but it doesn't allow me to use links, so here's the long version:
Yes, marking everything as virtual would have little performance impact. It would, however, be a Bad Thing. It's #3 on my list of deadly sins...
cmp [exc], exc is the solution to the problem. It's there because that's what the JIT generates to do the null test.
Yes, you are missing something. Methods need to be marked as virtual for them to be virtual methods - this is separate from emitting the callvirt instruction.
I'm not sure I understand your example (why are you calling ToString() on b when b is already a string?). It seems to me that what you want can be handled through a method that tests for null and returns either the result of ToString() or the appropriate default value (String.Empty seems to be the logical one in this case).
This question came up on an internal C# alias, and I thought the answer would be of general interest. That's assuming that the answer is correct - it's been quite a while.
The .NET IL language provides both a call and callvirt instruction, with the callvirt being used to call virtual functions. But if you look through the code that C# generates, you will see that it generates a "callvirt" even in cases where there is no virtual function involved. Why does it do that?
I went back through the language design notes that I have, and they state quite clearly that we decided to use callvirt on 12/13/1999. Unfortunately, they don't capture our rationale for doing that, so I'm going to have to go from my memory.
We had gotten a report from somebody (likely one of the .NET groups using C# (thought it wasn't yet named C# at that time)) who had written code that called a method on a null pointer, but they didn't get an exception because the method didn't access any fields (ie "this" was null, but nothing in the method used it). That method then called another method which did use the this point and threw an exception, and a bit of head-scratching ensued. After they figured it out, they sent us a note about it.
We thought that being able to call a method on a null instance was a bit weird. Peter Golde did some testing to see what the perf impact was of always using callvirt, and it was small enough that we decided to make the change.
As many of you know, we have lived with a Roomba for a few years. He's been a faithful servent, though our cleaning people sometimes unplug the charger and don't plug it back in.
A while back I got an email that said "Looj on Woot!". Woot!, as many of you know, is a website that specializes in selling something different every day. And Looj is a gutter-cleaning robot from iRobot, the maker of the Roomba. A week or so later, the Looj showed up at my door, but I only got around to reviewing it today.
Unlike the Roomba, the Luje is not authonomous. So, strictly speaking, it's a radio-controlled gutter cleaner rather than a robotic one, but I'm willing to cut them so slack on this. It has two parts - there's the main body of the robot, which is about 12" long, 2" wide, and perhaps an inch and a half tall. On the front is the cleaning part, which has rubber flaps and some strong brushes.
Attached to the top is the handle/remote control.
I got up on my roof today to try it out. I have a few leaves, a few needles, a bit of moss, and a whole lot of maple tree seeds (aka "helicopters"). It's all fairly dry because of the time of the year.
To use it, you set it in the gutter, turn it on, and detach the handle. Turn on the auger, and then you just drive it forwards and backwards like an RC car. In most cases, it will clear all the debris in the first pass, but sometimes there's enough that it climbs on top a bit, and you have to reverse and then move forward to clean it all out. Or, you can drive forwards in spurts when you hit a lot of debris.
It works really well. I only ran into two problems. In one of my gutters, the Looj rolled over on its back, but since the tread design is symmetrical, it works fine on the back as well. The second problem I had was when I drove it over a short maple tree which got tangled in the auger and the auger clutch released (this doesn't damage the Looj). I untangled it, pulled out the tree, and finished that section of the gutter (the Looj manual tells you not to try to remove trees...)
So, I did all the gutters - perhaps 120' - in about 15 minutes. Now, I did it from the roof, so I didn't have to move the ladder, but it was still remarkably painless. And it's pretty cheap for what it does - about $100 for the basic model.
I was really just trying to get people to smile when they read about it.
Last Sunday night (the 9th), I played another game of indoor. I felt pretty good, and though I got run into fairly hard at one point, I thought that the guy who ran into me came away worse than I did. At the end of the game my right ankle was sore, but everything else was fine.
Tuesday morning, I woke up, and my side hurt. I tried to deny it, but by Thursday morning, it was clear. The guy who hit me must have run into me with a knee, because I have another hurt rib (on the lower-left quadrant - one of the short ribs, another new spot for me). I'm not sure whether it's bruised or cracked, but I do know that it's pretty painful. The 30 miles I did on the bike on Sunday were about as pleasant as 7 hills was (ie not much), and I skipped this Sunday's soccer game (it's better to spread the injuries out rather than enjoy them all at once). So, it's another 2-3 weeks of pain, though the only really bad time is when I first get up in the morning and stretch.
The only upside for this is that I've been looking for a good excuse to skip RAMROD this year, and I figure the double-rib qualifies.
After a bit of time to recover from my back-to-back conferences (TechEd 2008 in Orlando and the 2008 HealthVault Solutions Conference in Bellevue), I have a few thoughts to share.
I haven't been to TechEd for a few years, but TechEd is still TechEd. The developer division, however, has seen a lot of turnover, and I was surprised to find how few Microsoft people that I knew were in attendence. I did two "lunch talks", which is code for "we don't know what track to put you in...". You only get 45 minutes for your talk (after which they come in and tell you to get off the stage), but on the plus side, you don't have to go through any slide review process. I did a HealthVault introduction that went relatively well, and a "write lots of code" talk that went well except for some demo slowness (more on that later). There were about 50 attendees in each session, which is pretty good for a lunch session because of the hassle of attending them.
I'm disappointed that TechEd no longer devotes a night to "ask the experts". Instead, the MS people have to do "booth duty", which means you stand at your designated section for hours and hope that somebody will come by to talk to you. From watching and talking with a few MS people, that meant a lot of hours where you just stand around, and even when people come by to talk, the MS person who is best equipped to answer the question may not be there.
I talked with developers at all the meals, and had some good conversations. I ran into 3 developers who worked in the Health area but had never heard of HealthVault. It means we have some work to do to find out why those developers don't know about us, but it also means that we have some nice opportunities to reach a new audience.
Splitting the conference into two sections (dev for 4 days, IT for 4 days) was a positive move for the people I talked to, and made it a bit more intimate (if you can properly apply that term in a conference that big).
Two things I suggest not doing at a conference:
First, don't try to write a presentation for a second conference while you are at a conference. It's really hard to do well.
Second, don't check your bag at the conference center, unless you want to spend 35 minutes to do what will take you 5 minutes at the airport. The shuttles to the airport were nice, however.
After the week at TechEd, I headed back for the
HealthVault Solutions Conference
Which was held Mon/Tue of the next week in picturesque downtown Bellevue (come see our construction) at the Hyatt Hotel. This was a great conference - everybody was uniformly friendly, and because of the partner approach the conference is as much about partner <-> partner interaction as it is about Microsoft <-> partner interaction. Monday featured a keynote and then a very complex demo involving live code from lots of different partners working together, put on by my team (but with very little effort on my part). The demo was nearly flawless, and if anything, they made it look a little too effortless. It was very compelling.
Tuesday started with a keynote by Dr. Oz, a cardiac surgeon and gifted speaker. After a product roadmap talk (that I skipped to get set up for our technical track), we had the following talks:
The talks all went well, with the exception of Eric's. Apparently he forgot to modify his proxy settings to be used outside the firewall, so everytime he made a request it had to time out finding the proxy server before it completed. He is disappointed that he didn't figure this out before the talk, and apologizes to all those who put up with the slowness.
Our goal is to re-use the slides and get them on MSDN in some form. I'm probably going to take the development talk about make a tutorial out of it.
I'm on a break between sessions at TechEd, downstairs in one of the cavernous halls. Something like 400 yards from from to back (yes, I paced it off). I was looking for a comfortable place to sit for a few minutes, and found that the MSDN Zone has a big space with about 20 bean-bag chairs in it. I walk around the side, and am surprised to find that there are a few empty ones. I gracefully lower myself - as gracefully as my middle-aged body will let me right now - and settle in.
Apparently, somebody thought it was important to answer the question "what if I made something that looked like a bean-bag chair but stuffed it with cheap fiberfill instead?", and somebody else thought it was a good idea to answer the question "will people like these better than bean-bag chairs?"
Questions that nobody had every really asked before, but for good reason. The whole point of a bean-bag chair is that the user gets to modify the chair to their own personal support requirements. If you want to flop out, you mush it out flat. If you want to sit up - and perhaps use your laptop - you smush it so that it provides good support.
This "chair" is okay for flopping on, but despite a bit of swelling at one end, provides little in the way of support. After trying a few positions, I'm writing this while I'm in "street luge" position - my legs stretched out in front of me and my head just slightly raised up - which manages to look fairly relaxing without being relaxing at all.


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Originally Posted by
I just don't believe in abortion as a means of birth control or something that should be done outside of the situations I mentioned. I think most people can agree that a woman who is raped, a victim of incest or when her life is in danger should have the option to get rid of the fetus.
However, I don't see the point in Little Annette getting to have an abortion because she was 18, fooled around at a frat party and got pregnant. Just like I don't think the government should be in the business of giving people tax credit for having children. Make the responsible ****ing choice.
This country is overrun by people who shouldn't be parents. (Though I don't think abortion should be used to rid people of that burden.) I see it every day I go out in public. They not only are hurting themselves and children, but the rest of society too. I'm for social programs for people who need it, but when I see 20 year old women with three kids who don't work (and their boyfriends/husbands have piss jobs) and they get more in benefits than most hard working people take in a month. . . I have a problem with that. And it is happening a lot. I live in a town of ~ 13,000 and the preponderance of people who are crapfaces taking the government for all it's worth is unfathomable.
You do realize, though, that while you may think they're "rakin' in the cash", most times it's still not enough to get by, right?
Let's also not downplay the effect of poor sex education, poor education in general, and social mores. As I said in the other thread, unwanted pregnancy isn't just an inner-city problem. Go to Appalachia sometime. And much of that is good God-fearin' white folks.
People like to pretend that most people get abortions because they can. It's a far, far more complex situation than that.
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text: WWMT - wwmt.com - Search Results The following is an archived video story. The text content of that video story is available below for reference. The original video has been deleted and is no longer available. Billy Joel, 4 others receive Kennedy Center HonorsWASHINGTON (AP) - Five artists are being honored with this year's Kennedy Center Honors in Washington.Billy Joel, Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock and opera star Martina Arroyo are being awarded the nation's highest honors for influencing American culture through music, while Shirley MacLaine is being honored for her impact on stage and screen.President Barack Obama saluted the honorees at the White House today, and top entertainers will offer tribute performances tonight at the Kennedy Center. The show will be broadcast Dec. 29 on CBS.On Saturday night, Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the honorees for a black-tie dinner at the State Department. Kerry said the honorees have blazed trails, redefining the arts and American culture along the way.


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This is a good proposal. If it isn't there already, we need an entry in the glossary to clarify that "automatic refresh" is not confined to the non-standard but ubiquitous HTTP-equiv refresh header. If no one objects to Adam's latest proposal before or during the next teleconference, I propose that it be adopted for purposes of the next draft (with status "new").Received on Saturday, 26 May 2001 23:13:53 GMT
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Just made these to send cross country for xmas.He is a fan of fig bars so thats why I tried these. I cut down on amount of o.j.concentrate and thesae were still very moist. I love orange but I found the concentrate overpowering. Next time, I might use half apple concentrater. I added a little brandy to spirit them up but definitely need more.Also increased the spices.


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Adding extra server IP's
When I add extra server IP's do I have to add them anywhere else? It's working as far as it's writing to the apache files. I checked, and it's adding the correct IP to the virtual server. The problem is I'm not able to get to the site if I type the local IP directly, or from the URL; I'm on the server locally. If I check ifconfig, the new IP isn't there.
I've added it manually to /etc/network/interfaces, but it keeps giving errors when I do a network restart. I've added one IP already, and I didn't do anything outside of ISPConfig with that one, and it's working. It also shows up in ifconfig.
This is what I added to /etc/network/interfaces:
auto eth0:0
* Reconfiguring network interfaces... SIOCSIFADDR: File exists
You will have to assign the IP addresses in /etc/network/interfaces as you did already. Please check that these IP addresses are not in use by any other computer in your network. Here is a more complete for a working interfaces file from debian:
auto eth0
I actually made a mistype there. One of those .203 is really .204. Is there a way to see if the addresses are assigned somewhere else? I've used ifconfig, and looked everywhere else I can see. I only have eth0 and eth1.
You can e.g try to ping them before you assign them to your server.
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"Richard's writing will be wonderfully fitting for an inaugural that will celebrate the strength of the American people and our nation's great diversity," Obama said.
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Nov. 24
All Signs: This week a dance between Mercury and Saturn will make many feel broke, worried, concerned about debt, deadlines, obligations and the criticism of others. ("Woe is me.") But how fickle the stars are because three days later, another dance with Mercury and Jupiter changes everything and makes us feel richer, hopeful, confident and happy. Go figure. At the end of the week, a dance with the Sun and Uranus will be liberating and full of surprises. S. A. Kierkegaard said, "Life is understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." My thoughts about that are — as a little boy, how old was Kierkegaard before he could spell his name?
Aries (March 21-April 19)
At the beginning of this week, you might feel discouraged about bills, debt, taxes and shared property, inheritances and insurance matters. No matter how hard you work, there's not enough money to cover everything. Keep the faith because by the end of the week, good news concerning these same areas will make you feel much better. In fact, gifts of money or assistance from others might bail you out of something. Perhaps this is why surprising news about travel, chances for further training or education and sweet opportunities concerning publishing, the media, medicine and the law might drop in your lap. You win some, you lose some.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Conversations with partners and close friends are tough at the beginning of the week because others are critical and uncooperative. Your best recourse is to pull back. If you jump into the fray things, will get worse. By midweek, however, the wind is at your back and your fortune has changed. Now conversations with others are mutually generous and bighearted. (Surprise.) In fact, as the tide turns your way, by the end of the week unexpected gifts, goodies and favors from others suddenly fall in your lap. Could even be money. Take note: If favors, cash and chances to benefit from the wealth and resources of others come your way, act quickly because this window of opportunity is brief. "Vite!"
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
At the beginning of the week, work is a grind. However, although it might be tedious and routine, your discriminating faculties are sharp. You have mental endurance and focus. Ignore criticisms from others, especially those who are older and more experienced. Ironically, by midweek everyone is singing your praises, and work-related travel will delight. This will also be a good time to make plans as well as study law, philosophy, religion and publishing. By the weekend, partners and close friends might say or do something that surprises you and gives you more freedom. In fact, you'll feel exhilarated about something and want to make changes for the better.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
As this week begins, children might be a burden or at least you feel this way. (Join the club. We number millions. But hey, it goes with the territory.) You might say goodbye to a romantic partner or an older child. But Venus will help you be diplomatic and tactful. By midweek, vacation opportunities as well as chances to explore the arts, the entertainment world and the hospitality industry will boost your spirits. In fact, this could be your opening to explore self-employment or ways to break out on your own. This is what you want to do, which is why you might explore technology and chances to be your own boss. Others will have a surprise chance to check out a new job. Stay light on your feet and be decisive.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
On Monday, responsibilities at home seem overwhelming. Conversations with others, especially older relatives, might discourage you. Fortunately, this is short-lived. By mid-week you're making big plans! You see ways to broaden your horizons and possibly live somewhere that is bigger and richer. The exciting thing is, it will expand your world. Family gatherings or any group at your home will benefit you. Listen to advice. By the end of the week, you feel thrilled and liberated. This could be because of a new romance, a surprise with your kids or a sudden vacation opportunity. Whatever it is, you're pleased because it makes you feel younger and more hopeful about your future.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
On Monday you might be worried. But ya know? Worry is actually a habit. If you can change something — start changing it; if you can't — let it go. (Yeah, easier said than done. I admit I'm a worrier.) Fortunately by midweek, you're suddenly full of positive thoughts that are empowering. This is wonderful. These big ideas make you enthusiastic and, furthermore, they could trigger travel or improved relations with siblings and neighbors. Then, to make things even better, by the end of the week, something surprising occurs at home or within your family that lifts your spirits and expands your world. Wow, an about-change this week, for sure.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
You love beautiful things, hence, you buy beautiful things. You love good times, hence, you spend money on pleasure. This could be why you feel broke and concerned about finances and possessions at the beginning of the week. (Ya think?) Fear not because in a few days, fresh news makes you feel financially rich. Perhaps you can reduce your debt? Perhaps you get a better job or a raise? You might buy something that makes you feel richer. Whatever the case, your gloomy financial state of mind becomes positive. And this positive belief in yourself and your future in turn attracts opportunities to travel and meet new, fascinating people. It's a domino effect. Click, click, click, click.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
On Sunday/Monday, you feel cautious and tentative. You might say goodbye to someone. You might be worried. Nevertheless, your focus is sharp. By contrast, on Wednesday, you're making plans with confidence and enthusiasm. This is also a good time for business and commercial activity. Work-related travel is likely as well. Enjoy exploring new ideas about the law, philosophy and other cultures. Some ideas will lead to sudden changes at work that make you feel freer, younger and like you are headed in a new, exciting direction. This is a great week for those of you who are self-employed or want to be self-employed. "I'm on my own!"
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)
Your research skills are excellent at the beginning of the week, which means this is a good time to dig deep. Your steady concentration and endurance will yield results. More than any other sign, you're an optimist and, indeed, optimism is necessary for your survival. It's what makes you tick. That's why good news on Wednesday/Thursday lifts your spirits and gets you excited about future possibilities. Something behind the scenes (could be a secret) is encouraging. It could be news about increased wealth through others or money back from the government. In turn, this could lead to independent decisions on your part to explore new romance, have a sudden vacation or encounter surprises with your kids. (Or about children.)
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)
Someone older or more experienced might be critical of you at the beginning of the week (at least from your point of view). You won't like this, especially if it's public criticism. (But who would?) Don't get your belly in a rash because by Wednesday you're feeling great. Others will endorse you and relations with partners will be upbeat and optimistic. You might meet younger people who expand your world or encourage you in the pursuit of your dreams. You might even make travel plans with someone. All this excitement turns your crank so that by Saturday, you feel secretly excited about different ways that you plan to expand your world. Frankly, this is such a turnaround week, you're stunned.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)
Monday is a poor day to ask for permission or approval from authority. The response will likely be, "Talk to the hand." Therefore, postpone these requests. Don't be discouraged by the criticism of those who are older, more experienced than you or in charge because by Wednesday, for whatever reason, things will look entirely different! Now there is hope! Work-related travel and chances to impress others with your wisdom and experience are at hand. People see you in positive terms and want your help. Do be aware of the Moon Alerts in my daily columns while making your big plans. (No point in rowing against the tide.) By Saturday, a new friend or someone in a group that you are part of will surprise you with unexpected opportunities that make you feel younger, freer and more excited about your future.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Although travel plans and matters related to publishing, the media, medicine and the law are discouraging at the beginning of the week, by midweek you're going places! In fact, now these same areas (higher education, publishing, the media, medicine and the law) seem promising. In particular, travel plans related to vacations and fun with children will please you. (Ha! Who is surprised? You have "
vacation" marked on every month of the calendar for the year ahead.) By the end of the week, you feel released from some kind of restriction. You feel free and, not only that, your life direction is an open book and you've got the pen in your hand.


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Re:i've been wanting... (26 comments)
Yep. Been done. Mr. Mosquito is actually very good.
Announcing: Slashdot Deals - Explore geek apps, games, gadgets and more. (what is this?)
We are sorry to see you leave - Beta is different and we value the time you took to try it out. Before you decide to go, please take a look at some value-adds for Beta and learn more about it. Thank you for reading Slashdot, and for making the site better!
Re:i've been wanting... (26 comments)
Yep. Been done. Mr. Mosquito is actually very good.
Time is not free (296 comments)
$800 is great for the machine that will be built from those parts, but $800 won't get you that machine. It will get you the parts with which you can construct that machine. The article mentions how much has changed in 15 months--that's about how much time it would take me to gather the minutes and hours to put together one of these homebuilt beauties. I want that computer and I want it for $800, not $800 + $1000 worth of my time.
Read Managing Humans (551 comments)
The best "Holy crap I need to manage nerds!" book I've seen is Managing Humans by Michael Lopp* of Rands in Repose fame. He's been on both sides of the equations and knows where the problems are.
Here's a good start, the Nerd Handbook.
*An associate's link! I stand to make hundreds of microcents if you use it!
The Wikipedia has an article on "First Post" here, but it doesn't really go to motivation. Is it just boredom? Is it a troll-by-any-other-name? Are these folks actually proud of the accomplishment? I have to admit, I "Foe" anyone dumb enough to FP with an actual UID--is that what they want?
I wonder what the first "First Post" entry was? The first entry at Slashdot to consist solely of "fp" and "first post" as its subject and body, or any combination thereof. I would search OSDN but I think the Internet would stop.
I think far more interesting would be "Last Posting". Somehow sneaking in and getting the last comment before the discussion becomes archived. Maybe that's trivial--do the stories all archive at a set time? What if posting meant the comments stayed open a a little longer? Then getting last post would be a real challenge.
What do you think?
Unfortunately, Blockbuster does not have Rififi. Or Waiting for Guffman. Or Stalag 17. Or Diva. They -do- have 400 copies of Catch Me If You Can. One more month of Netflix and it's back to picking out the gems in a store of sand.
The pay's for shit--at BEST. But it's a living, and we're doing okay on Hadar's salary.
There's more, but this gives you an idea. Also, we aren't very strict--some of our friends won't eat here over the holiday.
Chag Kasher v'Sameach!
I'm still out of work, things still look bleak on that front (I am avoiding the grocery bagging route), and I'm trying to keep my mind from frying. What I -should- be doing is waking up early, working out, going to minyan, and studying Talmud. Back at the house for 11 AM when I can bone up on Perl, hack my OS X box, make dinner and watch a movie with the wife.
Instead, I roll out around 8 AM, check Maddox and Homestar Runner for new material, play GTA3 all morning (though I finally beat the bastard, maybe its grip will lessen), and forget to eat. Hadar calls before she comes home, so I know I have 30 minutes to make it seem like I was busy all day. It's a little sad.
I'll shake it off soon, we're getting ready for Pesach here, which is going to be maaaadness! I gotta get out there and get some local friends too--man, I'm an introverted freak. Shake it off shake it off! I am making some Sherlock channels. Once I figure out my hosting, I'll put them up.
The weather in Thousand Oaks is a balmy 66. That's worth paying for. Hadar accepted a job at Amgen, or as I like to refer to them: Soylent Industries.
We're getting the royal treatment, moving is covered, career assistance for moi, signing bonus, etc. Smoov. An added bonus: even more rentals on my broken 10-Rental Blockbuster card (up to 22 so far).
I work at a company that makes web apps that have to spec back to v4 of IE and NS. Let me tell you: development is 50% NS4.x, 50% EVERY OTHER BROWSER. We're in the education game, so there's still about a berjillion NS 4.x installs out there, but DAMN. Spent all day acting as guinea pig for some bizarro-world NS timing issue. Apparently, the CSS Auth call is not completed by the time the next request comes in (this is an issue only at dial-up speed--not a problem broadband). This next request sees that we are not AUTH'd, so it kills the session--boots back to login. Grr!
There's all kinds of info the store is supposed to put on the back, and all kinds of supposed restrictions; but they never fill it out and they never look at the restrictions. We've rented more than one at a time (forbidden), we've rented from more than one store (forbidden), and we've rented on more than one account (forbidden with extra not-allowed-pants on). We're now up to movie #14 on our 10-rental card. I think it no longer works on my wife's account-store relation, but I think we'll prove successful with it at account-store#2.
UPDATE It's true. Account_store_rlt #2 resets the card. We are up to movie #16, with a ceiling of 40 rentals. There are at least three more stores in the area, making a potential rental tally of 100 rentals. Not too shabby.
My wife is now my doctor-wife. Not medical, but she has a PhD in Chemical Engineering and is being wooed by some heavyhitters in the industry.


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i just want to know only because when i took my car to a shop recently they told me after the fact that they have never worked on saturn's, so it was basically a waste of my money & time.
1996 Saturn SL2
Saturn Q&AAsk Your Question
1996 Saturn SL2 Question: do you guys frequently work on saturn's?
Answer #1cardocIII from Gillespie's Auto Service, December 23, 2013, 19:52Master
Some shops will be likely to work on them more often than others. I do quite a few but that's because we had a dealership I our area at one time and of course now they are gone. FWIW I have the heads off of a L300 right now.
Answer #2G. T. Service Center (4231 Answers) , Stephenville, TX - (254) 638-3236ProfessorG December 23, 2013, 20:16Master
We do several every year; Several years ago the dealership stopped repairing then and sent them to us for the warranty repairs. There's still plenty out there and need repairs, as long as we can still get parts.
Replypushrod, December 23, 2013, 20:46Master
I dont work on Saturn or Hyundai. I just work Monday through Friday!!! Every other week.
ReplyProfessorG, December 24, 2013, 05:38Master
U so funny.
Best Answer
pushrod December 24, 2013, 01:19Master
That statement by a repair shop owner or the mechanic is just an excuse, a poor one, and probably is used on other make automobiles they can't fix and their customers alike! I have worked on many Saturn (GM) vehicles and have found nothing so uniquely different about those than any other make! What sort of trouble are you having with your Saturn? We may be able to help. If we make a mistake then we could always say "well we have never worked on Saturns before" and try to get by with that.
Answer #4Greg's Orange Auto (14262 Answers) , Orange, CA - (714) 361-9386globalhelper December 24, 2013, 06:28Master
did they do something wrong.if so what is your problem
Answer #5Prestige Auto Works (193 Answers) , Sacramento, CA - (916) 550-9579Prestige Auto Works December 26, 2013, 09:10Journeyman
We work on all makes and models, including Saturn.
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|1 pushrod
|2 CharlesAutomotive
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|3 ziptie12
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|4 globalhelper
|9 wrayauto
|5 stevieray1
|10 Prestige Auto Works


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Comment on: Wealthy Heir Receives Only Probation for Rape of Three-Year-Old Daughter
Posted 04/01/2014 06:33:14 EDT
Another lesson for the 99% of voters in America.
"Justice" is not for everyone.
Comment on: Review: 'Monuments Men' a misstep for Clooney - Destinations - Boston.com
Posted 02/13/2014 07:49:46 EST
Movie not Oscar worthy, but is a fascinating story which will
prompt a lot of curious minds to hit the nearest search engine for
more info.
Comment on: Lawrence pet owner faces charges after tying ailing cat to wall next to radiator - News Local Massachusetts - Boston.com
Posted 02/06/2014 09:38:20 EST
Have you so soon forgotten what Mitt did to his dog?
Comment on: - Boston.com
Posted 11/06/2013 07:22:29 EST
Working class people may have an
advocate, how terrible.
Comment on: New MIT day-care center highlights shift toward supporting family - Boston.com
Posted 10/04/2013 07:35:22 EDT
We would hope lofty intellectuals could keep their ideas and ideals out of the political ideology of such donors. It is difficult not to question the Koch agenda.
Comment on: New Globe poll shows dead heat in Senate race - Metro - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/30/2012 08:35:28 EDT
You seem to have too much hate to be objective.
Posted 10/30/2012 08:33:09 EDT
Ladies, Brown will twist the truth to woo you into the voting booth. Claiming he "would have voted" for the Lily Leadbetter act seems dishonest as he voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act because is more »
Comment on: In Brown-Warren race, character or caricature? - Opinion - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/21/2012 07:03:49 EDT
Brown "exposed" with few but brilliantly chosen words and images. Elizabeth Warren will CONTINUE to stand for working people. Brown is owned by Wall St.& his Corporate Sponsors. Voters, cast your ball more »
Comment on: Debate pleases partisans, but minds still open - Politics - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/17/2012 07:04:15 EDT
Undecideds take your pick. War with Iran...Mitt MORE tax cuts for wealthy...Mitt More women in "binders" seeking pay equality, health care, and planned parenthood....Mitt More outsourced manufacturing more »
Comment on: A divide of donors in Senate contest - Business - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/15/2012 07:33:09 EDT
What has Mr. Brown done for you? more »
Posted 10/15/2012 07:28:38 EDT
Scott Brown supporters have all been duped by his phoney bipartisen position. Given the opportunity, he will vote with his Wall St.and corporate benefacors. He will not be advocating for women's right more »
Comment on: Warren tries to have it both ways - Opinion - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/11/2012 08:25:45 EDT
It would have been more credible for the author to mention Senator Brown as one portraying himself as bipartisen while he gives every major vote to the Republican/ Wall St. agenda. more »
Comment on: A fact check on Scott Brown, Elizabeth Warren - Metro - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/03/2012 08:32:25 EDT
If Elizabeth Warren votes with the Democrats to protect my wages, my families wages, and our rights to the contributions we have made to Social Security, well, that is fine with me. Mr. Brown will vot more »
Comment on: Brown and Warren tussle in second debate - Metro - The Boston Globe
Posted 10/02/2012 08:04:15 EDT
Scott Brown consistently reminds us that he is a candidate who studies both sides of every bill he signs. However, his consistent support of the Republican agenda of tax cuts for Corporations, removin more »
Comment on: Romney says an entitled 47% back Obama - Nation - The Boston Globe
Posted 09/18/2012 07:28:00 EDT
So, I suppose my family is a member of the "you people" Mrs.Romney referred to. Many more working Americans have probably been "victimized" by Mr.Romney than their desire to pull themselves out of the more »
Comment on: Scott Brown and the near-extinct GOP moderate - Opinion - The Boston Globe
Posted 08/28/2012 07:07:02 EDT
Are you familiar at all with the number of Republican filibusters in the past 2 years? Where are the Republican job bills? There has been no Republican railing against Mr. Boehner and his oversized ga more »
Comment on: Romney to feature personal side at convention - News - Boston.com
Posted 08/26/2012 08:48:39 EDT
Romney has no principles unless they are related to making money, hiding money, avoiding taxes, or protecting assets of the wealthy so called Americans who are financing his campaign. The Romney/ Repu more »
Comment on: 'Senator Scott Brown'
Posted 08/05/2012 08:36:51 EDT
Kudos to jeb37 This article is more pathetic than Mr.Brown's heroic redemption. Brown has apparently shed any empathy for families in crisis, in need of health care, or assistance. He only has eyes fo more »
Comment on: 'Senate approves financial overhaul'
Posted 06/04/2012 06:49:55 EDT
Scott Brown might as well have "For Sale" tattooed on his handsome forehead. He is a corporate man people,anything else is an election year illusion. Let the voter beware. more »
Comment on: 'Off course at golf club'
Posted 10/26/2011 08:56:28 EDT
Why would anyone defend this man's behavior? Mr.Fireman appears to be a wealthy man who is morally bankrupt, spiteful, and lacking in any sense of fairness. Too bad the other employees did not join th more »
Comment on: 'US Sen. Brown casts vote against Obama jobs bill'
Posted 10/12/2011 09:04:31 EDT
Wow,we certainly have our share of misinformed voters in Massachusettes. Real people need jobs, the Republicans don't care who is hurting as long as it will get Obama out of power and allow Corporate more »
Comment on: '9,200 in Bay State lose access to jobless benefits'
Posted 04/06/2010 07:53:13 EDT
Senator Coburn blocked the bill under his supposed concerns for the budget. Something he must have forgotten during Bush's administration. Again, the Republicans are hurting families to obstruct Congr more »
Comment on: 'As Limbaugh leaves, '
Posted 03/03/2010 08:26:47 EST
600 stations for talking trash.Sad commentary for America. more »
Comment on: 'Costs on rise, nurses protest staffing changes'
Posted 02/12/2010 09:48:44 EST
Even the best "technician" has a limited grasp of the patients medical history and NO accountability. They can be a tremendous asset working with an RN for the comfort and expediency of patient care n more »
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Tobacco already kills 5.4 million people a year, and the number of smokers is likely to skyrocket as the vice catches on in developing countries. So how to prevent a plague of cancer deaths? You could spend $500 million on an antismoking campaign, as Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg propose, or you could sign up everyone for cell-phone service. Two World Bank economists studied 2,400 households in the Philippines between 2003 and 2006, just as cell phones caught on (the percentage of households owning a mobile more than quadrupled). They found that in houses with at least one smoker, a mobile-phone purchase led to a 32.6 percent drop in tobacco consumption for each adult—the equivalent of an entire pack each month. They conclude that tobacco and mobile phones have a special relationship: cash-constrained households have to make a trade-off between the two luxuries, and the social status once signaled by burning up your money on smokes can now be conferred by yapping away on a flashy new phone.
When Michael Jackson was cleared of child-molestation charges in 2005, hundreds of loyal fans cheered him on outside the courthouse, confetti littered the pavement, and one woman even released doves to celebrate. Such behavior might seem strange, but a study by three psychologists finds that celebrity devotion could be an ego boost—for celebrity and fan alike. Previous studies have shown that personal relationships with others can reinforce one's well-being and self-image. The authors investigated whether the same could be said of "parasocial" relationships—the one-sided bonds fans establish with celebrities in glossy magazines or on TV. They were especially interested in the effect on people with low self-esteem, who tend to be less comfortable in real relationships. The authors asked participants to write an essay about their favorite celebrity, and to fill out a questionnaire about how they perceived their "actual self" and "ideal self." They found that subjects with low self-esteem felt more like their ideal selves after writing about their favorite stars, and that they felt closest to celebrities who resembled their idealized self-image. The authors conclude that for people with poor self-esteem, quasi-relationships with celebrities can provide benefits similar to those of real relationships. But before you cancel your Match.com subscription in favor of Us Weekly, the authors warn that while parasocial relationships are better than no relationships at all, they're "best considered as complementary" to the real thing.
—"Parasocial Relationships and Self-Discrepancies: Faux Relationships Have Benefits for Low-Self-Esteem Individuals," Jaye L. Derrick, Shira Gabriel, and Brooke Tippin, Personal Relationships
When Barack Obama admitted that he had tried liquor, pot, and "a little blow" in his younger days, he was describing the experience of many mixed-race youths: a new study finds that children of black-white interracial unions are far more likely to engage in risky behavior than their peers of a single race. The authors analyzed a national survey that gathered data on children in grades 7–12 and asked them about risky behavior like drinking, fighting, stealing, and doing drugs. While mixed-race children scored between whites and blacks on levels of school achievement, the authors say they found "high rates of risky/anti-social behavior on the part of mixed race adolescents on virtually every dimension we are able to measure." Mixed-race kids scored worse than both blacks and whites in more than 70 percent of the measured behaviors, and they showed worse results whether the bad behavior was more common among whites (like drinking and smoking) or among blacks (like violence and riskier sexual practices). The authors suspect that such kids, burdened by dual loyalties to often-conflicting groups, go to extremes to demonstrate solidarity with their peers through "group-sanctioned misbehavior."
Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, has the highest winning percentage in NBA history. Jackson's players credit his success to a Zen-like calm under pressure, but a new study on leadership abilities suggests another factor: his years as an NBA player, even though much of his career was spent bench-warming. The authors calculated NBA coaches' winning percentages between 1996 and 2004 over 15,000 regular-season games. They found that coaches who had spent some time as a player got far better results out of their teams than those who hadn't. And, Jackson aside, the authors found that former all-stars tended to be better coaches than non-all-stars. On average, teams with former all-stars as coaches placed six spots higher in league rankings than teams with coaches who had never played in the NBA, a huge bump-up in a league with only 29 total teams during the years studied. The authors say these findings apply more broadly: leadership skills tend to derive from expert knowledge of a given trade, not from some mysterious alchemy of natural intelligence and interpersonal skills. They suspect that their findings will apply to other "high-performance workplaces where the employees are experts"—even if the "experts" aren't averaging $5 million a year.
Suppose you have crushing credit-card debt, a demanding tyrant for a boss, and disobedient children. According to a new study, you're probably also a sucker who'd be willing to pay more for luxury goods than someone who's on top of the world. The authors asked a group of college students to dwell on a situation in which someone had power over them. They found that this group was willing to pay much more for high-status items like a briefcase and a silk tie than another group that had just gleefully meditated on a situation in which they were in control. Both groups, however, were equally willing to pay for low-status items like a ballpoint pen, a clothes dryer, and a minivan. The researchers say that people who lack power tend to compensate by improving their status, and because one way to do so is by flaunting expensive goods, they suggest the powerless will shell out more cash than the empowered for the same gaudy products.
How do you like your booze: to stay or to go? Whether residents of a given neighborhood prefer patronizing bars or liquor stores to get smashed has a significant impact on patterns of violent crime and disorderly conduct, a study by the Urban Institute finds. The researchers mapped 1,473 alcohol-selling establishments in the District of Columbia, and then tracked the relationship between the type of outlet and "violence and disorder," using measures like arrests and 911 calls. Not surprisingly, the more establishments selling spirits in a neighborhood, the more general mayhem occurs. But neighborhoods with a lot of outlets offering liquor to go (like corner stores) tend to experience more domestic violence, while neighborhoods with a high number of sites that let customers drink on the premises (like bars and restaurants) tend to have many more reports of aggravated assault. Although pubs are "attractors of violence" generally, the study shows that bar districts see considerably fewer reports of domestic violence, suggesting that drinkers may be taking their anger out on the loudmouth on the next bar stool—rather than in the home.
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Georgia pecans and Kentucky bourbon are the keys to this delightful pancake mix, in which every ingredient is organic and GMO-free. Lightly-salted pecans and bourbon are natural partners with maple syrup—and a delightful twist on the classic pancake.
Here's what you get:
Three 8 oz containers of Bourbon Pecan Pancake Mix
Store at room temperature
Brand: Shortstacks


text:
Gossip Girl's Little J isn't so little anymore.
A gun-wielding Taylor Momsen sports platform stilettos, thigh-high stockings, and a barely-there top on the cover of the latest issue of Revolver magazine under a headline that reads "Inside the Pretty Reckless Firestarter's Appetite for Destruction."
See more photos of Taylor Momsen
Momsen, 17, who plays Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girl and is the lead singer of Pretty Reckless, is also the face of Material Girl, the clothing line Madonna designed with her daughter Lola.
What do you think of Momsen's cover?
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Aflac Incorporated To Webcast, Live, At RetailInvestorConferences.com On December 5, 2013
NEW YORK, Nov. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Aflac Incorporated (NYSE: AFL), announced today that Daniel A. Bellware, CPA, Senior Manager, Investor Relations, will present at RetailInvestorConferences.com.
DATE: December 5, 2013 TIME: 10:15 AM EST LINK: www.retailinvestorconferences.com > click the red "register / watch event now" button
This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time - both in the presentation hall as well as the company's "virtual trade booth." If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days.
It is recommended that investors pre-register to save time and receive event updates.About Aflac Incorporated: When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac (NYSE: AFL) pays cash benefits fast. For nearly six decades, Aflac insurance policies have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the United States, Aflac is the number one provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance. In Japan, Aflac is the number one life insurance company in terms of individual policies in force. Aflac individual and group insurance products provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. For seven consecutive years, Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere magazine as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. In 2013, FORTUNE magazine recognized Aflac as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for the 15th consecutive year. Also, in 2013, FORTUNE magazine included Aflac on its list of Most Admired Companies for the 12th time, ranking the company number one in the life and health insurance category. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac, visit aflac.com or espanol.aflac.com. About RetailInvestorConferences.com: Since 2010, RetailInvestorConferences.com has been the only monthly virtual investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for presenting companies to meet directly with retail investors using a graphically-enhanced online platform.
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I frequently encounter highly accomplished people who don't think of themselves that way. In fact, many clients of mine and participants in my Self-Promotion for Introverts® workshops say they spend more time thinking of their latest misstep—despite their robust résumés. Can you relate?
While many introverts—those of us who are more often energized during our quiet time than our social time—make significant contributions to our organizations and society, a bully that lurks between our ears sometimes get the best of us. Of course, introverts don't have the market cornered on negative self-talk; however, research has shown that we probably chatter more inside our heads. So what can we do about it? Here's a quick trick you can use, excerpted from my book, Self-Promotion for Introverts®: The Quiet Guide to Getting Ahead.


text:
low coolant is constant. I have plenty of coolant in tank. I replaced the recovery tank, but light is still on.
View questions for:All GMC
Sierra 2500 HD
2001 GMC Sierra 2500 HD
GMC Q&AAsk Your Question
2001 GMC Sierra 2500 HD Question: new recovery tank did not extinguish low coolant lite
saltypelican, 8.1L V8, Barnett, MO, May 12, 2011, 04:33
1 Answer
Answer #1dandd May 13, 2011, 12:51Master
ON many newer GM vehicles, the low coolant light is controlled by a module that is on the radiator. It has 3 wires and is usually below the radiator neck. Look for it.
Also, I would go to www.alldatadiy.com and get a subscription for your Truck, its very reasonable. That way you will have pictures and all the info that you need. Then you will know.
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