Slashdot Mirror

Recently, during a home improvement trip to Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, I noted that the terminals their employees use are running some version of Linux with WindowMaker as the X11 interface. They of course mainly use an IBM TN3270 application to access inventory and supply data, but I'll bet that their version of Linux is not a full-blown distro.

In any case, they definitely subscribe to the less is more principle... Have you seen the crappy PCs they have there?

A word to the wise, DO NOT use any old saw dust/chips as mulch. In fact almost all will cause damage to trees and buildings. "Why" ,you ask? "Wood chips are wood chips, right?" Wrong! The vast majority of wood chips attract termites, among other things. Mulching the flower beds around your home with maple or pine chips is like lathering your ass in honey and jumping into the grizzly bear pit at your local zoo. Not a good thing to do. Using the wrong wood chips around trees will also lead to termite infestation in your living tree. Sawdust can cause nitrogen depletion in the soil as well as fungal contamination in some plant. That's not a good thing either. You want to use very specific types of wood chips. You should use Cedar, Cypress, Eucalyptus wood chips as these will deter most bugs. Also note that bark chunks are not the same as wood chips. They have different bug deterring properties, not to mention visual appearance and most importantly price. A quick Google search will give you lots of information including this Lowes page. I was a landscaper in a former life.

amen... a buddy of mine and I were in Lowes the other day and their machines in the customer service area were running some random *nix variant... am I supposed to believe those are tech savy people? Hell... if they even realized that X11 was different I'd be surprised

That's not true. I submitted a story about Lowe's migrating their Point Of Purchase machines to Linux and it was rejected.

Put a rug over it :)

Seriously, though, your local home supply store, which sells hardwood flooring, will have wood putty and similar products to fill such scratches.

If you don't want the easiest way, you can always sand down the entire floor and re-finish it with polyurethane. Ugh.

Put a rug over it :)

Seriously, though, your local home supply store, which sells hardwood flooring, will have wood putty and similar products to fill such scratches.

If you don't want the easiest way, you can always sand down the entire floor and re-finish it with polyurethane. Ugh.

Well for a budget anyway.

Work Bench (put in your zip for the price and details... 98022 works if yours doesnt)

Just hang power strips and cables and tools on the peg board. 15" crt on the top on either side and a couple cheap KVMs and you can service 4 towers on this thing at once.

I have used these in my business and other companies I have worked at before for years.

A lot of it depends on location. In San Fran & the East Bay most houses don't have A/C because it only gets hot enough to use it about 2 weeks of the year.

If you're really dedicated and have done all the things the grandparent of this post mentioned, it might be time to go to Lowes/HomeDepot and buy $70 worth of blow-in insulation (read: big bales of pocket-lint). Such a purchase allows you to borrow their insulation blower. You install the insulation it in your attic. If you have balls you can charge your landlord $1000 for the installation. (Professionals charge even more).

picture

Couldn't a garage door be opened using a counter circuit driving a transmitter?
Seems like it could.

Perhaps the IDIOTS running the United States should outlaw the Books Malvino, Grob, and every tech manual from Radio Shack, TI, Motorola, Analog Devices, Transmeta, etc.
All in the name of the DMCA!

Couldn't someone just go buy electronic parts and solder them together?
Seems like they can.
Are the chips available to anyone who wants to buy them?
Can someone copy a circuit of say a TV set, and make their own?
So when is electronics going to be outlawed?

Anyone know what a freq counter is?

I suggest that folks make their OWN garage door locking system, for example, the idea of using time is cool, but I would take it one step further, would control the electricity to the door itself.
e.g. sure you can find the frequency to actually open the door, but do you ALSO have the frequency to apply power to the actual door?

My garage door opener would be two garage door openers taped together.
and it might just have some FAKE frequencies thrown in to screw with freq counters. You start pushing buttons and you have so many frequencies going nobody is gonna know what's happening. I would have bogus freq's rolling from hell, I would tune this bastard so that it spews spurious harmonics as far as the eye can see, a cracker even with a spectrum analyzer is going to have a hard time.

How come in ham radio, spread spectrum, they don't allow too many freq's or too many patterns.
There is the reason. The FCC is moronic! And Corrupt.
The only thing that should matter (to the Moronic FCC) is if you understand and can visualize Frequency and power. If so you should have license to do anything. The DMCA is a waste of everything this country stands for. We are NO longer the land of the free! We are SLAVES to our corrupted MASTERS! We are stupid, and stupidity is DANGEROUS to lives, and we are LAZY ass Hamburger Eating pieces of Protoplasm! I sure hope we do not loose the right to have weapons that are not registered in the MASTERS database or we are nothing more than DEAD CORPSES.

We need to teach electronics to our children in this country, we need to quit with all the crap in our education system that serves no use in the real world. We need to buy our children ham radio KITS they build themselves, and don't kick CB out either. How about a spread spectrum CB radio. Now that would rock, and slap that puppy on funnys - woo-hoo!

As far as this DMCA crap goes, I hope it doesn't mean that when I go to Home Depot (btw - notice since they got rid of linux you need to have IE for their website?) for my Martin that it's going to cost twice as much now because of these mother-fscking lawyers and greedy bastards! I hope when I go to Lowes, that my Amarr isn't going to cost twice as much. The DMCA, Lawyers, and Greedy Bastards are our enemy. Never forget that!!

NEVER!

This is an interesting case, but it wouldn't be difficult to recreate it. Start off with an industrial strength work table. Add some high quality casters so you can move it around. Glass table tops can be obtained from a craft store like Michael's or a place that sells custom cut glass. Plexiglass would also work, and has the advantage of being lighter. The keyboard tray is also easy; Home Depot/Lowe's/your hometown hardware sells the mechanisms for that. PC Mod sites can get you the fans, motherboard offsets, and suchlike (or simply buy a cheap case and raid it for parts). This goes for drive bays and such as well; many cases these days come with a cage for several drives. Et voila! Fit, assemble, and you've got it. You get the joy of construction, and save money too.