I'd never heard of Tripping the Rift, but it looks promising. Thanks for the recommendation.

I just use the new Emergency Services number: 0118 999 881 999 119 725! [short pause] 3!

It's so much better than just using 999.

Offtopic, there is a great parody to the FBI warnings on the intro of "Moss and the German" on season 2 of The IT Crowd. If you haven't already seen it then I'll say that it gave me a good laugh about it.

Don't get me wrong. We are primarily an Oracle shop, but we've got several instances on MySQL running (mostly LAMPs and WAMPs) and even an MSSQL Server (much to the chagrin of our "Oracle is great" boss.)

I believe that there is a good tool for a job and will use whatever is the most suitable within a given set of parameters.

My greatest hope would be to make MySQL and Oracle more interoperable so that we could reduce our adminsitrative overheard. At this point I've got MSSQL instances that replicate application data to our Oracle warehouse and it would be nice to have a consistent back-end for our wikis and other 'forward-facing' apps.

Along the same line as the high-end/low-end thing Oracle does have a 'low-end' Oracle database (Oracle XE) but it's never really gotten any kind of following or use that I have seen. So I could definitely understand their interest in providing an entry-level system with their name attached.

I've not understood the complaints about sharing the market space. Anyone running full-blown Oracle database systems will be well and truly beyond MySQL. Aside from that, try and get some PHB to understand that MySQL is in any way comparable to Oracle.

On the plus side- if Oracle can actually provide an easy to use path to migrate from MySQL to Oracle or to provide some kind of abstraction layer that would let you use MySQL-backed applications with Oracle I would cheer them to no end.

And as for the founder's (and the founder's buddy referenced in the article) concerns about the future of the product then he shouldn't have sold the damn thing. So sorry, you sold your rights to it. Fork it and start over if you really care that much.

I'd believe they are unable to find parts. I worked on phone systems and one of our clients had a nearly 30 year old Rolm CBX system that had gone from Rolm to IBM to Siemens. The model they had *ONLY* had parts for both it and its voicemail add-on available from some guy that literally bought up a bunch of units being replaced and sold the spare parts out of his garage.

And keep in mind that for quite some time ROLM systems were nearly as popular as the Nortel systems.

I suppose if I had to pick, I'd prefer to only get one leg humped...but really does it have to come to that? Send over some better (looking) 'ambassadors' and I'll be happy to make a more informed decision.

I started reading the series as a freshman in high school shortly after the third book came out. I was so impressed that I took the time to write Jordan and managed to carry on a good bit of letter writing back and forth for about a year.

Oddly enough (and I think it REALLY shows) at the time Jordan himself said he expected that he had enough 'story' for about seven books all told. I don't know what changed, or if he just lost his way, but I can say I was irritated that most of the books around 4 and later had at best half a book's worth of material in it.

I'll finish the series as I am usually running out of things to read anyhow but I didn't even realize that this latest book had come out.

We used the Sensatronics EM1 which is connected to the network and monitor it with several things. The EM1 interface is very simple and one of the monitors is just a cron job that scrapes the output from the web interface and will shutdown some of our more sensative equipment if it gets too hot.

They also have a bevy of interfaces from commercial products and the couple of monitoring/notification systems we tested were all able to communicate with the EM1 without any problems.

The total cost for the EM1 and several temp and temp+humidity probes was less than 700$ USD. If you don't care about multiple probes you could probably get it for under 500$ USD.

http://www.sensatronics.com/

I've worked a number of places over the years and none less than 4-5 years. In each of the places where my direct boss was a woman each of them were like that with only one exception.

After the last one asked me to deploy VOIP in 14 buildings across 7 counties in late 2000(!?!) within two weeks so it could be ready for a conference I swore I'd never work for a woman again. I also submitted my time for that week, erased my system, deleted all my accounts and walked out of the office that evening.

I can certainly agree with you, but from the other side of the equation. I much enjoy the sniping side of things in games; however, I believe some games can go too far in favor of one side or the other. I don't want to sit somewhere and pick off people infinitely, but at the same time other games limit game play types to people with jump macros and the only useful weapon for everyone is a damned rocket launcher.

I really enjoy it when I have to work to get set and still have to make excursions for resupply, etc.

It's also very fun when there are a plethora of legitimate options for weapons/play/power but in a balanced (haha, I know...wish in one hand) fashion.

From what I recall of genetics, the cellular aging is (partially) what leads to shorter life spans and increased age related problems in clones. If you are cloning an animal it is kind of like making a copy of a copy since the telomeres are actually a part of the chromosomes they are transferred into the new host.

This leads to the telomeres being extended far beyond their 'normal' lifespan and you end up with all kinds of abnormalities that usually wouldn't be present until the subject is much older even though they still look young.

If nothing else, this discovery should help in the research of cloned animals and livestock, etc. But take all this with a grain of salt...I've not been involved with genetics for the better part of 12 years.

If I'm paying for bytes, I'd like guaranteed rates to start with. I'd also like to speak with at least marginally competent staff when a problem occurs.

I would also assume that my lower bound on my bill is not going to be less than I'm paying right now since these are only going to be options if it will make them more money than any additional billing/administrative overhead will cost. Assuming I'm paying at least as much as I am now, then where is the added benefit for this 'service'?

That's much my point. And there are a number of fairly interesting shows on some of the science channels that at least introduce people to new concepts.

I thought this is why we've got 15 different CSI's on every week.

Are you saying we need more?