The ballast in a CFL can't handle the dimmer.

Its not that you replace the dimmer,but that you need to use "cold cathode" florescent bulbs with them--andin the smaller sizes (candelabra mount), you can't get these (or LED) that are very strong.

My house has been almost completely devoid of incandescent for about ten years--more initially for heat (broken AC in the Vegas desert!) than power.

The only place they're left are in the refrigerator (don't want mercury there if it breaks . . .) and oven (heat). But the socket is bad in the refrigerator, and the oven is dead an needs replacing, leaving only the halogens in the stove hood. Inadequate LEDs in the ceiling fans family & dining room (3 25 watt equiv, all I can find), and just about everythign ese is CFL (and will slowly swap out to LED as they fail)

hawk

And even you are understating the matter.

I once represented the general manager of the biggest one of those in town on another matter.

Breakeven is on sale: the down payment is set to what they paid at auction. They sell, collect a few payments, repo, sell again . . .

Their idea of a good car is one they get to sell 3 or 4 times.

hawk, esq.

>Relatively few people pick up a masters on their way to a doctorate.

Highly dependent upon field. In mine (economics), the masters is a sidestep. In others, its the norm.

And at some schools, there is a payment to the school for each master's awarded, so they're handed out along the way . . /

hawk

read the archives of alt.folklore.computers for great examples of some of these.

Swapping registers (in a two register + ALU architecture ) used to be a common one; you'll find an answer that was a step faster than the "correct" answer by using XOR in there.

My favorite, though, was handing the candidate a piece of convoluted code and asking what it did.

"Hopefully, it got the author fired." :)

hawk

As a first year college student hired after high school in a startup, I had a real eye opener when the person they brought in after me--with a MS in CS--couldn't, well, do much (they'd called me back after I left).

I finally had to take a stack of cards to manually demonstrate a bubble sort. No, I'm not defending or advocating bubble sorts. With an MS, he just plain didn't understand the concept.

His output roughly quadrupled once I was around (he wasn't around much longer).

And I've seen it in other areas. I have a Ph.D. in Economics and and statistics as well as a law degree, and I've met people in both who can function their way through the classes and dissertation, but just plain can't do anything useful in the fields.

hawk, j.d., ph.d., esq.

I always ask something completely and utterly off the wall or irrelevant when interviewing someone, just to see how he reacts to the unexpected. I'm not concerned with the answer; I just want to see how the person reacts to the unexpected.

I also instruct, "call before sending resume" in the ad, just to screen for ability to follow basic instructions (at least 75% fail at this rate).

hawk

Your argument is identical to that about poor young crack dealers, or mafia soldiers, or . . .

I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, and try to get it on the internet, you need a shrink far more than a lawyer . . .

anyway, the clean hands doctrine is a rule from "equity," not "law". It only applies to equitable relief, such as injunctions, not to suits for money

hawk, esq.

toggling the speaker by poking a memory address was good enough for the Apple ][, and it should be good enough for, uhh, . . . :)

hawk

They probably missed the parts about "only" and "tasks" because they're not there.

Marbury v. Madison found that the power is there, but it's not in the text. (And as a practical matter, a judge that takes an oath to defend a constitution must necessarily have the ability to determine if a law he's asked to apply complies with that constitution; issuing an order applying an unconstitutional law would both violate the oath and be beyond his authority derived from the constitution . . .)

Furthermore, in US practice, all courts, state and federal, make such reviews. The USC is simply the final, not sole, arbiter for the federal constitution.

And this is all irrelevant anyway: federal income taxation is authorized by the US Constitution itself, not a statute (it's implemented by statute under that authority), while the federal constitution has nothing to do with state income taxation . . .

hawk, esq.

you'll want a more accurate simulator!

Quick! Load Kerbal Space Program!

Because your average consumer doesn't know and doesn't care that Home Depot or Target runs an IBM or NCR system. They know that Home Depot and Target screwed up forcing them to watch their statements even more closely than normal and maybe get a new card issued requiring an update of all the auto-payment stuff and made things a pain in the ass.

Its up to Home Depot and Target to then apply leverage to IBM and NCR or jump ship to another vendor. Each vendor responds to their direct customer.

Or discourage the abuse from occurring in the first place, which is even better.

If the officer has to think "OK, I'm going to have to find a way to deal with the video camera" then maybe they don't do whatever it is that would require dealing with the camera.

That would suit me fine.

Does this mean it's time to give up what you kids call "First Edition"?

Nah. I'm still not convinced there's a reason to use those new-fangled books instead of the three books, supplements, and a touch (but not too much!) of Arduin & Spellcaster's Bible.

damn newbies

hawk, off to nuke his dandelions

Gee, Apple has been dying *far* longer than that . . . :)

hawk