In other news, company announces the system will be used initially for Bitcoin mining. The Payback period is expected to range between three weeks an two hundred years, depending on market conditions....

Poker is not gambling. It's a game of skill as much as golf, bowling, or any other individual sport. Why this is not obvious to everyone I do not understand.

I would absolutely love to see well taught programming classes available in high school. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen until the schools get out of the ever-more-desperate race to meet the no child left behind standards.

I originally supported the NCLB ideas. I was wrong.

> No.

Elaborating on that very informative answer, I offer the following two observations.

1. The current rise in fuel prices are due to political issues driving fear and speculation in the oil market, not due to a lack of adequate supply.

2. Global food prices are elevated because of ethanol subsidies and increased fuel prices. If the ethanol blender credit withers and oil politics settle down, then commodity food prices will decline significantly.

To avert the inevitable [citation needed], I offer the following.
1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-saudi-oil-idUSTRE73G14020110417
2. http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/dbs/pdffiles/11pb5.pdf

-eag

Alternate suggestion: Go through the MIT open courseware physics trio. Also, watch any class with Walter Lewman (sp). The chap is a rock star.

-eag

Hi. Welcome to I.T. A lot of us get started in the exact position where you are.

Top 3 things:
1. Make sure you have a handle on what needs to be backed up.
2. Make sure it's backed up.
3. Make sure you can restore at least one file.

Backups run daily or weekly based on your preference, but run through this entire list at least once a month. People create new shares and it gets missed from the rotation and then... kaboom.

In addition to the above..
Can you share your printer(s) through the server? Sharing a laser printer is almost always cheaper than having a bunch of inkjets on desks.

Can you setup some sort of offsite backup rotation? Is taking a tape home once a month an acceptable solution?

Does your company have a website and branded email? You could very inexpensively purchase a domain and setup a template based site for them. Email @yourco.com is more professional looking than an address @yahoo or @gmail.

Filemaker is an excellent database system. Do you have forms that drive your business? If so then consider if there are benefits to translating them into filemaker.

For all of the above, you are at a disadvantage that you don't have test systems. Making untested changes on a production box is scary. Always have a backup. Try to setup a "test" environment wherever possible. Most importantly, understand what you do before you do it.

Best of luck,
Ellie

I do not support the eco-terrorist's approach to destroying this study. That said, their anger is understandable. In their eyes the the biotech industry is creating invasive and possibly harmful species and their government is ignoring or their concerns.

I don't support GM crops. I understand that people have been selecting the largest and best crops for thousands of years to create new plant varieties. The people on /. are smart enough to realize that this is radically different from inserting genes from different species into bacterial dna and randomly firing it into the nucleus of a target species. I do not believe we can adequately determine a risk profile for these crops with the studies that have been done.

Everything moves in cycles, and eventually we'll get back to the point where people realize that seed saving, cover crops, and legumes are cheaper than pesticides, herbicides, petro-fertilizers, and GMO seeds. Until then, the organic farmers will happily stumble along in inefficient and dated ways waiting for the world to catch back up.

Prison Trivia: It costs $1.50 per minute for a collect call from a Prison in East Tennessee to Nashville. (and no, 800 numbers don't work.)

Said differently, that weekly 15 minute call home from your pot smoking relative is going to set you back a hundred bucks a month.

Cut the rates and _some_ of this problem will go away.

It is just a little bitty Brain EMP. What could possibly go wrong?

How long before we have cartoon style helmets that radically increase cognitive abilities? Want!

I would suggest we develop a protocol to stimulate the pleasure centers and lower inhibitions, but ethanol seems to work okay for now.