Sunday, December 31, 2006

Grave guest-book

EN: Different religions have similar custom of leaving something on the gravestone as a sign of respect while visiting the grave. It can be a flowers, stone or piece of food. Taking into account the power of today's information technologies why not to have a terminal , installed beside the grave so visitors can post a message online right on the spot.

RU: Разные религии имеют сходный обычай оставлять что-либо на могиле в знак почтения при посещении могилы. Это могут быть йветы, камень или кусочек пищи. Учитывая высокий уровень развития информайионных технологий почему бы не иметь коммуникационное устройство, смонтированное на могиле, чтобы посетители могли публиковать свои сообщения online.

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Friday, December 22, 2006

How to choose a biorhythm program

It is well known (but still arguable) fact that human’s abilities are subject to periodic fluctuations. Ancient sociologist having no complicated analytical models of universe except probably historical data, piece of mind and good grasp to smoke had figured out which abilities change and how frequently. Those base human abilities are Physical, Emotional and Mental also referred Intellectual. At the day of birth they start to roll up and down forming periodic waves with the period of 23, 28 and 33 days respectfully. Simple?

Yes. Without getting deep into mechanics, the results of the ancient researches are simple. There is lot of information you can Google out on Internet about how each basic ability affects one’s life and how to interpret biorhythmic charts. Therefore let us focus on practical application of the ancient knowledge in our everyday life.

Considering today’s busy schedules and affordability of computing equipment no one would probably dare to calculate biorhythms manually. There is a bunch of software freely available on the Internet that will calculate your personal biorhythms based on your date of birth. It is not a problem to get one; it is a problem to choose one. I will not recommend you any specific applications here, not even as examples mainly because software market changes rather explosively and your personal preferences will differ from mine (if you feel that the are not, just let me know ;-)

1. How to choose

Biorhythm applications being merely sine-wave calculators will differ dramatically in features that will affect their practical application. First and major difference is platform. As any other software it can run either on your PC, PDA or even a web site. It is up to your lifestyle what to choose.

The second important feature is ability to analyze biorhythms of multiple people on the same screen. Most of the existing programs will do it with in the simplest form by presenting six curves on the same screen together with three percentile compatibility values. More advanced calculators will analyze more than two people and will calculate average curves for the entire group. This feature may be found useful while analyzing team performance and team success.

Last but not least important feature in today’s super busy times is ability to send you a daily report or notification about dangerous combination of curves. To understand why it is important please recall the week before the recent failure. Life either kept you incredibly busy for the days or you were in such a stupor that checking biorhythms on a daily basis was not even a question. That is why so important for your calculator to notify you in advance about dangerous moments in your live. It is like having antiradar in your car or having a light popping up on your dashboard 200 feet before the intersection with the red-light camera ;-)

For nerds

Depending on the actual level of your curiosity you may discover that the same sine-wave biorhythm curve may be calculated with the different period and phase. There different “types” of biorhythms known that may be referred as “standard”, “advanced” and “precise” for example. Also different applications may allow you to set your birth date with the different precision. While adepts are arguing about “the right” way of calculation it is up to you which one to prefer because each one is different and affected by different environmental factors. So only you (or your personal adviser) can fine-tune scientific calculator based on the careful analysis of your personal history.

2. Practical applications

As was mentioned before it is very important to have your biorhythm application deeply integrated in your life because it can warn you about upcoming dangerous state that every human being entering on a regular basis. It can save you a life, a hospital stay or at least save a good relationship with the important people.

Depending on your lifestyle and personal preferences you may find convenient to be notified by SMS, email or have your PDA/Smart Phone ring the bell. Whatever you will choose the main point is to be notified via communication channel/devices that you use on a regular basis and there are nothing in the civil world that can prevent you from those channels. Like for example reacting on the cell phone ring or checking your email or visiting your favorite online portal.

For managers

Those who are in charge of other people should not underestimate the value of knowing each subordinate’s state at every moment as well as general compatibility of different team members and overall team performance. Such knowledge allows building teams with any given performance and stability not to mention about making realistic real-time expectation about your subordinates’ abilities. While there is no application known for me that take biorhythm to such a high and professional level you can always look for it on the Internet or ask your software vendor/in-house developer to made such a tool for your company/department.


PS:

Besides the biorhythms there are a lot of objectionable or even illegal value-assessment techniques that can be deployed on the corporate level to boost the performance and create positive psychological environment. The same approach can be applied to choosing your soul mate or true love (sounds weird?) because it is all about matching people with each other.

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Придуман новый способ поиска пластиковых мин под землёй

Monday, December 18, 2006

Meat grinder sizes

size #diameter (cutting disk)Center Hole
#1??
#3??
#52.1"?
#8

2.44"

?
#10 & #122 3/4" (2.74")?
#223.27"?
#323-1/2" (3.94")9/16" x 9/16"


sources:
www.ebay.com
http://www.fantes.com/grinders.htm#porkertspecs http://cutlerymania.com/blades/grinder.htm
size 12 (2-7/16“), 22 (2- 7/8“), 32 (3-9/16”)
size 12 (2-3/8“), 22 (2- 7/8“), 32 (3-1/2”), 52 (4-11/16”), 56

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Tuesday, December 05, 2006

su for Windows 2000

There is a way in Windows 2000 to run process from under the account different from the account currently logged on. Windows utility called runas and it is very similar to the su UNIX utility. Very brief description of runas utility is available at http://www.ss64.com/nt/runas.html and more detailed usage scenario available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/howto/seclogon.mspx

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Command-line network utility in Windows 2000

There is command line utility AKA shell built in Windows 2000 named netsh. It allows automation of network configuration process by exporting configuration in textual ASCII script files that can be run later on to apply saved configuration. Script syntax is open so administrator is able to compose own scripts. For the brief overview of configuration model, command line options and major script commands see http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg1101.mspx

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