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Slashback: Courseware, Warranties, Subscraption
But will they distribute diploma blanks as PDF files? perlmunger writes "Linux Journal highlighted this in the 'up front' section of the June 2001 issue (I knew I keep these old issues around for a reason). Apparently, MIT will (finally) be opening their Open Course Ware initiative on September 30th to the public. Looks like a great start from many departments."
Answer: it's a strong possibility. skinfitz writes "Following on from Google returning to China, New Scientist is reporting in this article that Chinese surfers searching Google are finding their Internet connection dropped for five minutes if they enter "politically sensitive" keywords, such as the Chinese president's name! Will this new technology find uses elsewhere? Is this the future of the web?"
My human transporter is still a station wagon. An anonymous reader writes with the text which by now many people have seen regarding the status of the world's most famous unavailable scooter; apparently it's not necessarily as far from available as an automated message from Amazon implied.
"Greetings from Amazon.com.You recently received an e-mail from us regarding the Segway Human Transporter (also known as "Ginger" or "IT"). This e-mail was sent accidentally by an automated system and the information in it is incorrect.
In fact, there is no new information on Segway's availability. Consumer versions of Segway Human Transporters are currently being piloted in various communities throughout the U.S. The Segway HT is expected to be released to the general consumer market in 2003.
We apologize for the confusion. We will keep your e-mail address on our list of customers who wish to be notified about this item.
Sincerely,
Amazon.com Customer Service
Strong Opinions softsign writes "Apparently, Tim O'Reilly's recent article addressing the topic of Switchers was so popular and generated so much response that he felt compelled to respond to reader comments in his MacDevCenter column this week. It reads almost like the Apple Switch website, but there are some really insightful emails peppered with Tim's comments. Worth a read."
The moon's been asking for this for years. cscx writes "The mysterious space junk, or apparent "other moon" reported a few weeks ago, now is more likely to be an old Saturn V (from the Apollo program) rocket booster. Bad thing is, there is a 20% chance it could strike the moon sometime next year. More details at MSNBC."
We'll let you you borrow it for a while, sign here. An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has scrapped plans for subscription-based licensing of consumer products following the end of a 12-month trial in several countries including New Zealand. The Story says people were getting confused as to why they had to pay after the 12 months had gone by."
I find your lack of confidence disturbing. Longinus writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Western Digital is going to follow Maxtor's recent decision to cut their warranty of future drives from three years to one, with an extended warranty being offered at an additional price. The article goes on to mention that Seagate is rumored to also be considering such a cut, but nothing official has been confirmed. One can only wonder if this increase in price is to due to corporate cost saving measures or the fact that hard drives are becoming less stable magnetically as they increase in storage space."
In a year or so if my hard drive goes up i'd rather get a newer, bigger one... besides the only hard drive i've ever have die on me was 4 years old and that was a 1GB hard drive, by then they had 20+GB out and refined... I think that a price break to go along with the warrenty cut would be a good option.
-=Errors always defy logic.=-
I just lost a western dig drive earlier this year. Thank GOD I managed to save most of the data off of it before it went. But still, aren't they legally responsible if they put out a shoddy product? What if you are a cooperation and lose data because of harddrive failure. (Generally, midrange buisness that can't afford regular backups will be hit hardest by this) - do you have a case?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I'm impressed that these guys are still in business. With a complete lack of quality control, no one uses their components in serious applications, I had assumed they were living off deals with OEMs. If that's the case, then the OEM will keep up its usual 3 year warranty at a cost to themselves and it won't affect most consumers who are buying their own components (and not foolish enough to use WD). On a related note, I have a closet full of WD drives of various sizes that have been RMAed multiple times and I'm sure as hell not going to use them, feel free to pay shipping for them. =)
Is your browser retarded?
READ THIS ONE, I ACCIDENTLY REPLIED TO A EXISTING THREAD, THANK YOU.
In a year or so if my hard drive goes up i'd rather get a newer, bigger one... besides the only hard drive i've ever have die on me was 4 years old and that was a 1GB hard drive, by then they had 20+GB out and refined... I think that a price break to go along with the warrenty cut would be a good option.
-=Errors always defy logic.=-
its space junk!
"there is a 20% chance it could strike the moon sometime next year. "
oh no, what could happen if it strikes the moon!
it might be knocked out of orbit. I'm pretty sure the moon has never been struck before...
ahhh.
heh
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Ars Technica is reporting that Western Digital is going to follow Maxtor's recent decision to cut their warranty of future drives from three years to one, with an extended warranty being offered at an additional price."
First, I almost never even bother worrying about warranties for things like disk drives. Use 'em, back stuff, and hope they don't die in the middle of something important.
Second, when I do read about a warranty one company offers, I don't compare that against the warranties offered by other companies.
Third, when a company cuts back on a warranty offering, it sends a strong signal that it thinks that its products suck the arse. And, that it is greedy.
The day they go quiet is when you should start to worry.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
One can only wonder if this increase in price is to due to corporate cost saving measures or the fact that hard drives are becoming less stable magnetically as they increase in storage space.
Makes me wonder if the manufacturers are comprimising quality for both the extra space, and the speed at which they're getting churned out. I noticed the same thing with 3.5" floppy drives in their later years, prices went right down, as did the quality. In the end they were treated almost as a "disposable" part. Are hard drives going this way?
Ladies, form queue here -->
I can't say that it's a huge deal for them to cut the warrenty from 3 to 1 years. I've noticed by about 1 year, it's time to upgrade to a new drive because of all the code bloat. Having 2 OS's at once and a bunch of mp3's doesn't help either.
As if any uppity suburbanite kids actually /paid/ for a Rage Against the Machine CD to /get/ the liner notes.
Reminds me of that plan /. had on making money. Actually, do they still? I haven't noticed although I do click on the links to support them.
Live web cams
(Generally, midrange buisness that can't afford regular backups will be hit hardest by this)
Backups are a necessity, not an option.
In the most primitive case, you just mirror to one or more remote sets of drives. Cost is not that monumental.
If you can afford to staff a company, you can also afford a tape drive, if you want a better long-term solution.
You _will_ have drive failure or some other data-destroying event happen once every few years. A wise business must plan accordingly (or plan to recover from having all of their data eaten).
Chinese surfers searching Google are finding their Internet connection dropped for five minutes if they enter "politically sensitive" keywords, such as the Chinese president's name!
Information wants to be tied up and spanked.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Hard drives are now a comodity part with razor thin margins (that's why IBM bailed from the consumer market, remember), and waranties cost money. It should be no surprise that all the remaining manufacturers are cutting their warranty period. I very much doubt that it is a reflection on actual drive performance, but rather simply a cost cutting measure.
Honestly, when I can buy a 40G Seagate for $64, so what if it only has a one year warranty. You made backups, right? Toss it and get a new one.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I believe that all electronic devices sold in the USA automatically carry a one-year manufacturer's warranty, no exceptions. (Is this law BTW?)
Given this one-year manufacturer's warranty, I am actually surprised that some hard drive manufacturers were still offering longer warranties. I am surprised they didn't convert warranties to one-year ones a long time ago, or simply have one-year ones from the start.
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
Can anyone please tell me why China does this? Doesn't the Chinese government retain power with popular soverignty? If so, why do they need to censor things? If not, why are they still in power? Something needs to be done about this. The people there are not free. If we're so damn worried about the Iraqi regime, why aren't we equally worried about China's current regime? Man, American politics boggles me.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Thank you so much, MIT!!!
I should have picked out the nickname Demosthenes!Tecumseh.
Chinese surfers searching Google are finding their Internet connection dropped for five minutes if they enter "politically sensitive" keywords
Wondering if that's the future?
Here's what it could be like:
M.Anderson types in a "politically sensitive" keyword in his search engine...
Agent Smith receives a warning from HQ of this attempt.
(*loud electro-hissing sound*)
Agent Smith:"Hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your connection being dropped."
Everyman dies, not everyman really lives. -W.W
Which land is that? I can't even legally watch my region 2 dvds on any player I buy in a store.
I agree, I love anger. It's easily one of the most pure feelings once can experience. This isn't anger though, it's idiotic paranoia sprinkled with just enough sensationalism to make it fit to print.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
And please, no replies from Uppity suburban kids quoting the travesties our government committed from your Rage Against the Machine CD linear notes.
Fuck you, I wont do what you tell me!
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
I've been told, though I don't have an official source, that as of recently companies are no longer allowed to declare a sale as income until the warranty has expired. I imagine this is why maxtor and wd are reducing their warranties. In fact, I noticed in the last Dell catalog that found its way into my house that they're doing the same sort of thing.
... need to make use of a hd-warranty, then I won't buy that brand of drive anymore. I've been fortunate in that I've never needed to discover what the warranty terms are.
I haveta admit, though, it does make pre-built systems a little more enticing. You can get 4-year warranties on the entire machine, not just the hard-drive. I suppose that's a plus, particularly if you need to have your computer up all the time.
Sucks when the propopaganda machine is working against you for a change isn't it? ;)
Now take IBM. Please. My new mac's (1st Quicksilver) HD crapped out after 2 Months!!!
I'll stick with WD, thanks.
Those of us who have been around a while are thrilled by the tremendous increase in capacity and decrease in price for hard drives (having once paid over $400 for a 400 MEG drive).
However, the decrease in price isn't entirely due to technological advances. Using cheap components, shoddy manufacturing and slave labor helps.
On average, the Maxtor drives I've purchased over the last few years have lasted less than 2 years before dying and having to be returned for replacement under warranty.
A one year warranty will really suck.
This propaganda machine works only against itself.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Tim manages at the same time to only reproduce emails that do not go for the jugular against his Apple eulogy, and to ignore the strikingly good contestation published at freshmeat.
It is like his other blunders, creating proprietary documentation for free software and starting the whole open source useful innocents propaganda that confused so much the free software message: he puts his foot in his mouth, and then ignores criticism, or put only rehashing of old arguments as a counterpoint, perhaps hoping critics will go away...
It is all right for the likes of you and me to ignore some criticism, but for him, a publisher to do that so openly and so often, and having the advantage of being, well, a publisher... he should know, and behave, better.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
These are cool toys, but the 40-60 pound weight means that they're not something you want to carry around.
However, as a longtime cyclist commuter, the 10-15 mile range is easily done on a bicycle. Better for you and the environment than a scooter. Yes, hills suck, but not as much as fighting with cars in traffic.
There are some collapsable bicycles, but I've never found these to be worthy of riding more than 1-2 miles at a stretch.
If your local transit company is forward thinking and has bike racks on the bus, then you're set. (Santa Barbara, I recall, had one bus per hour that dragged a trailer meant for bicycles, and I'd usually see it with 10 bikes on board.)
Buy yourself something theft-proof, like a Schwinn, which is still great quality. My Schwinn mountain bike is my city commuter, outfitted with street slicks, fenders, a rack, and hasn't been touched or mauled once in 12 years. I've ridden it through snow, rain, below-zero weather, and it saved me a bundle and kept my weight down.
Everyone comments that riding a bike in cold weather is cold, but it isn't as cold as you think I frequently had to ride slowly so as to not break a sweat. Your legs are very big muscles, and they generate a lot of heat once you get going. I'd be cold at the start of my 3 mile commute, then I'd be warm after 4 blocks, and perspiring for the last mile.
Snow was no problem with street slicks, but ice is. Fresh, untracked snow is easy to ride in, but once the cars start packing it, your tire wants to follow the random crossing tire tracks, and it gets squirrely.
If you're going to commute, get a good, reflective vest, a strong headlight, two tail lights (and clip a third one on you), and get another headlight for your helmet. Shining that head-mounted light into left-turning drivers, who are looking for a break in traffic and not anything else, are stopped cold by a bright light hitting them in the face.
Finally, always carry a cell phone. It depends upon the area, but some areas have motorists that enjoy scaring cyclists. I've had cars cross four lanes of traffic, coming toward me, just to try to scare me. Or they'll speed up past me, dynamite the brakes, and cut me off in a right-hand turn. Ride defensively, live to be old.
Above all, skip recumbant bicycles. Neato, but when you're sitting down that low, you can't see as well, and that little orange flag on a stick isn't going to protect you from motorists. Quite frankly, it is better to be thrown over the hood of the car that cuts you off, than to be whacked in the chest by the grill because you were riding a recumbant.
I live in a giant bucket.
Now that the pilot is over Microsoft is offering anyone who took part a free copy of the full licence version of the software.
;-)
Hunter says Microsoft doesn't have records of all those who took part, and they should call 0800 676 334.
Sure I don't actually live in New Zealand but I'm sure they won't know the difference will they
I stole this Sig
Why is this a bad thing? It's not like there's any lunar ecology to disturb, or lunar inhabitants to threaten. And if it hits Luna, that's one less piece of dangerous unguided space debris for future space travellers to keep track of.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Is that like, say, a subscription to People?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
And just as well. If Apple is primarily drawing new users from the under 1% desktop market share of Linux, they're doing something very seriously wrong.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
There are a number of reasons to be worried about HD reliability:
1. As the fly height gets lower (generally a requisite of higher data density), the chances of a head crash increase (or if there is any dust or other particulate matter, the chances of the head turning into a record needle).
2. Higher data density = less area consumed for a bit = easier for data to be lost.
3. Higher track density = more probability that the head can go off track and write too close to (or over) adjacent tracks (yes, this can happen, and I guarantee it does on at least a yearly basis to someone you know).
Combine this with thin margins (and corresponding decreases in funding to QA and good suppliers/mfg), and you have a recipe for disaster.
For the last time: Back up your friggin' data.
Quoth the msnbc story on the thing hitting the moon:
These nuclear-powered [Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages] included a passive seismometer.
Which caused me to do a bit of a double take, but no, they didn't launch entire nuke plants into space.
Quoth this other article:
A 70-watt power module converted heat from a radioisotope fuel capsule into electricity by means of thermocouples.
That is..... so cool! I WANT ONE!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
never paid attention in American History class
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or buy two up front and mirror 'em.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I find it odd people are surprised at these warranty changes. How many components in a PC have moving parts? How many other components in a PC have a warranty over 1 year? Not many.
I was always amazed that the HD companies did 3 and 5 year warranties on consumer drives. Overpriced SCSI drives are one thing, but these consumer drives are getting so CHEAP these days that it isn't cost effective to offer these warranties.
I worked for a good-sized computer repair center back in 1998, during which time I saw an amazing number of defects in Western Digital drives--specifically, their WDC33200 and WDC36400 models. The two-platter drives were reliable enough, but the three-platter drives were lucky to last a year before they started either subtly glitching or dying altogether.
I think sometimes it's just luck of the draw. I've owned a Quantum Bigfoot 2.4GB hard drive since 1997, and it still works like a champ five years later. Same with the IBM 12GB drive I run now, though it's not quite as old yet.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I gotta admit, hearing all the exhuberant stories of people who switched to OS X and found that computers were fun again and that everything really Just Works, really got to me. I can't remember the last time I plugged something in and it just worked. Now I want one, but I can't figure out what it could do that I can't already do with my trusty old desktop that would be worth $2k investment in hardware and software.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
How can an Apollo moon rocket booster reach the moon if they were fired off very early and in the opposite direction? Sounds very strange to me...
As I understand it, one of the ways to get a higher rating with Google is to have lots of links to your site. If the Chinese population get busy producing their own websites, the amount of cross-linkage they could do would ensure their entries coming at the top of every search. Eventually, the Chinese government wouldn't have to worry about their people finding western sites, because they'll be so far down the list that the users will get bored of going through them.
I live in a giant bucket.
I just recently bought maxtor. Four of them in fact, the 160GB ones. Had I completely lost my mind? No, I was assembling a RAID. I think that's where these drives belong - where failure does not cause catastrophy. By the time these fail, (and I'm very sure they will) they will quite possibly be out of warranty, but at that point I won't really care. I'll just buy another one and slap it in and toss the old one in the can. Anything worth keeping that can't be RAIDed is stored on a Seagate or one of the pre-maxtor-buyout Quantums.
- The Sedition Act of 1798
- The Espionage Act of 1917
- Executive Order 9066
Trampling on the 1st Ammendment in times of war is long-honored American tradition. Of course, just because censoring the internet is no worse than things done in the past by the U.S. government, that does not mean that the U.S. government will do it. It may be paranoid to think that the U.S. government will do it, but it would be delusional to think that the U.S. government is above doing such things.Someone think of the DVDs! Oh the humanity of it all!
You lose. You so lose.
I'm sorry but the quick dismissal of recumbent bikes by the wedgy-cycling community in general is disturbing and unwarranted.
If anyone is looking into commuting, I would definitely recommend looking at a recumbent bicycle. Your backside will definitely thank you. As will your wrists and neck.
I think motorists are more likely to notice a recumbent cyclist because they look so different. A fellow worker commutes on a greenspeed recumbent trike whose seat is 6 inches above the ground and people notice him (you should see the looks they give him).
As far as any speed argument, that just depends on the engine. I've passed by people in matching spandex and multi-thousand dollar italian road bikes, and I've been passed by people on mountain bikes. But I can guarantee that I arrive at work in comfort, which claim I can't make for wedgy (recumbent term for upright bicyclist) riders.
"Our country is going to do this" is an example of being paranoid.
"Our country would never do this" is an example of being delusional.
Just for clarity's sake.
The enemies of Democracy are
This is all total bollocks, wake up tossers. News for nerds? Complete bullshit. Put as much controversial crap as you can in one posting and you'll get loads of.....
No scrap that the trolls have won haven't they? Their posts are more informative.
Long live The Register.
Density is king.
Never mind that modern hard disks are unreliable pieces of crap, or that IBM moved to a glass substrate that they never got to work quite right, so they sold off their entire hard disk division to Hitachi to scrape the mess off their shoe...
You can store more on them! Yea! Whoopie!
And then you can't back them up. But don't worry, you can back them up by buying another hard drive, which you can't bck up!
And figure out some way to store it off site, the way you used to store tapes off site. Except you pretty much have to buy some seriously expensive glue hardware, because IDE cables can't be more than a foot or so long before they start trashing your data, even without the help of a substandard hard drive.
In related news, I hear that for what it costs for a house on 1/8th of an acre in the rich part of towm, you can buy 100,000 acres of land bordering Love Canal or Three Mile Island. Yeah, the land is crap, but look how much you get!
-- Terry
In Australia, Under the trade practices act, a product has to be fit for purpose. If all our tax laws for depreciation etc are based around a 3 year time frame for computer parts, then the Australian Consumer watchdog may well argue that the product must be designed to meet that purpose.... this argument has already started, with the ACCC looking into mandating certain products having certain length warranties....
Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
lounge around on the blue couch
I do all the above. Spring, summer, fall, AND winter (people think I'm crazy). However I've noticed that as I get older, going 15-20 miles (one-way) every day, all season, day or night, get's more and more un-desirable. That's one of the reasons I invested in a scooter. Besides it's a bit easier to carry things like groceries home. Being healthy is important, but there's a reason motorized vehicles are important too.
I own soo many computers now i lost track of the drives... so far my maxtors have been least reliable. I own 2 ibm 60gxps as well, one of which has been returned and keeps deleting the boot sector for no reason, then working fine again after a format (odd, odd). I always liked quantum but they dont matter too much anymore and i think their drives were always damaged easily. I still have 20 meg seagate drives that work fine and since seagate is the only remaining manufacterer of hdds that has been in the industry from the start i guess ill have to be going with them because i really havent had to many problems with their drives. Maxtor i despise now because ive actually seen a few 4gb maxtor drives that were barely ever used grind down the entire disk surface (fun!). I also have a bunch with bad sectors and a few that dont spin at all. Ive also had a 2.5 gb drive that i bought new for like $150 die on me for no reason at all. I know not too many people mentioned seagate before so any other coments on seagate reliability vs the others? i want to know what other people think before i buy my next drive and have to repeat the whole IBM thing over again. IBM tech support still denys that the drives have any problems....
In unrelated news, the CIA recently admitted to spying on FBI agents who were thought to be terrorists. The CIA agents realized their mistake after noticed a bright-yellow acronym written across the back of one of their targets.
Meanwhile, FBI agents were embarrassed to admit they had been investigating two cases win which the crimes were actually a result of NSA and CIA missions, though none of the organizations were able to agree that there had been a miscommunication. It is believed that at least one of them might have blamed Homeland Securities.
In an unprecidented incident, the NSA has also become the first governemnt organization anywhere in the world to sit on its own ass.
Oh, and George W. Bush was swallowed by a fifty-foot whale, later revealed to be Saddam Hussein.
Any questions?
They have super-paranoids in sweden?
I know you don't mean the US, it hasn't been the land of the free for at least a year and 6 days...
Okay, 70 watts is enough juice to power a soft white lightbulb. I don't think it was that much material - grams, on the order of what would be on hand in radiology in a well equipped hospital. I can't be bothered to do the math, though. Certainly, even if every mission we'd ever launched had exploded like the Challenger, the rads released into the upper atmosphere wouldn't even register against the increase from Bikini Atoll.
Not hard, okay, yeah, I grant. Now, give me however much hot nuclear mass I need to build it. I can get carbon-14 and deuterium (although I'd have a hard time explaining this one to my PI) but I don't think that would do it.
The point is - I want to stamp a big nuclear symbol and the cool, physically inaccurate atom with the electrons depicted as billiard balls, on my laptop and I want it to MEAN something.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
That MS article is worth it for the picture alone!
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
Nasa officials reportedly hope that it will impact the moon.
Why? so they can use the seismec event of the impact to chart the interior of the moon. During the Apollo missions, NASA left three or so sensor suites on the moon- AES I think they were called- to monitor "moonquakes" and other things of scientific interest. They were turned off in the late 70's, but there's some hope that they can be reactivated for this event.
If they are unable to reactivate the AES's, they can still do some measurements from here.
Sorry, I'd offer a link if I could, but I stumbled across the article somewhere on the internet.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
From the article:
"People think of software as a CD in their computer which they can use forever and a day. They're not used to having to reactivate the product after 12 months."
"I think we've learned that the market isn't ready for this type of service. There's value in it but we need to do some thinking around how we market and position it."
Translation:
We tried and failed. Once we manipulate people into believing information can be rented, we'll try again.
Slashdotters, this is not a victory.
....consumer goods are warrantied for the "useful life of the product" irrespective of what the manufacturer claims. I took back a monitor after 18 months when it failed and had it fixed free of charge, even though the monitor warranty was in theory only 1 year.
But still, aren't they legally responsible if they put out a shoddy product?
Let's compare this to cars. But first, I need to clarify your question.
Do you mean that if you buy it and it just breaks, are they responisble for the data? I hope you don't mean that. If a company buys a delivery truck and it just breaks down, the seller doesn't owe what the company is losing while it's getting repaired. The warranty(if within the period) will cover the cost of the labor and/or parts, but it will certainly not cover loss of time.
If you mean that if the HD company produces a bad product, are they liable for it? Let's compare to vehicles again. In the auto business, they're called lemons(among other things). Without getting into the specifics of recalls, etc., the broken vehicle would get repaired like it was under warranty(probably still is), but you still wouldn't expect to receive any compensation for loss of time. The only way to get a possible compensation would be to take legal action, hopefully with other people in the same position.
So basically, sure if they produce a shoddy product, you can surely take legal action to get compensation for the loss of data. To get anything in return, though, you'd better have other people on your side.
Oh yea, you might also want to provide a good reason why it's more cost effective to persue legal action rather than to back up properly in the first place.
China is not a democracy. The Chinese government exists by virtue of the Chinese Communist Party's military victory in 1949, not by any sense of popular electoral will or sovereignty. As a one-party state buttressed by military power, they cannot risk the free flow of information among the Chinese people. Hence, their attempts to control access to internet sites. This is completely in keeping with the Chinese government's and the Chinese Communist Party's traditional control of media and information.
Governments seldom engage in rash acts to improve the lot of people in other countries. They commonly act in what they believe is in the interests of their country and themselves. That is what governments do; it is naive to imagine otherwise. The oppression of human rights in China is wrong, but that fact does not pose an immediate threat to the U.S. In any case, what would be gained for the U.S. to threaten military action against China?
The Bush administration believes Iraq does pose a threat to the U.S., citing Saddam Hussein's behavior pattern with considerable justification. This includes invading Kuwait, gassing his own countrymen, launching a war on Iran that cost more than one million lives, creating and using a vicious internal secret police, etc. In particular, there's little convincing evidence that Saddam would not use nuclear weapons if he had them. China has had nuclear weapons for decades and has acted responsibly vis-a-vis those weapons. You will find very few people -- inside and outside the U.S. Government -- who believe Saddam would behave equally responsibly.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Considering that the moon is what creates the tides, I would think that not having the moon around would be very bad for a lot of sea life.
And assuming it does happen, what's the big deal? It's a system under which MIT profs can voluntarily put their course materials online. Gazillions of schools have servers and let their profs put their course materials online voluntarily. And the word "open" would seem to imply information that's free as in speech, but what they're doing is only free as in beer. There's nothing wrong with making information free as in beer, but there's nothing special about it either --- the whole World-Wide Web is free as in beer.
Find free books.
Umm..it's about 54 feet long, and hollow. The moon is about 2100 miles in diameter and pretty solid. I think it can take the jolt.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
MP3's, OGG's, JPG's, and MPEG's...funny how those missing sectors escape my notice ;)
"Eat here, get gas!" - Local filling station
Passive as opposed to what? An active seismometer with giant hammers: "Wakey wakey Moon! Hello, this is your alarm-call!"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Trampling on the 1st Ammendment in times of war is long-honored American tradition.
And now that Bush has chosen a war that can neither be won nor lost, the US is closer than ever to the concept of "constant warfare" as practiced by Ingsoc's Oceania.
In Australian, not sure about the rest of the world, you can not sell a product without a warrenty. We have consumer protection here that assures that if anyone sells a product and is found to be faulty within a time frame a reasonable person would expect the product to work, the manufacturer must provide a replacment or refund within a reasonable time.
The ACCC (Australian Competition and consumer commision) has details of the laws and guidlines.
http://www.accc.gov.au
I was planning on buying a TiBook for a while, but after a lot of reflection and consideration of job security, (I work in telcom) I decided that the iBook was a better choice. The cost saving over the TiBook is substantial and the performance is more than adequate as long as you don't plan on playing a lot of graphic-intensive FPSs or doing a lot of video encoding on a daily basis. Just make sure you buy one of the latest iBook models with the Radeon chipset; the earlier ones don't take advantage of 'Quatz extreme', which gives a substantial boost to percieved speed in everyday use.
It's the old adage:
"good, fast, cheap - pick any two."
Any engineer will tell you that he can give you any tolerances you want, it's a matter of how much you want to spend. In this case, the issues are:
1. Bearings. You're going to spin that platter at 15,000 RPM 24 hrs. per day for years on end? At nearly 10 BILLION rotations per year, if you want reliability, those bearings had better be preeeeety good. And that means - more money.
2. Platter surface. Same as above. You want to spin that thing around thirty or fourty billion times with the heads nothing more than maybe a thousandth of an inch away? Better be awfully tough stuff, and it better be permanently bonded to the platter. Oh, wait - you're going to bump and kick your computer while it's on, aren't you? How good for the platter surface (or the heads) will those collisions be? Better coating, better heads: More money.
3. Electronics. Drives get HOT. You want your electronics to last a long time? They better be made for high-temp operation. That means.... yep, more money.
In the end, each company has had to ask itself this:
"Will we spend more money on quality drives, and hope that customer recognition pays off, or will we skimp a little here and there, and sell them by the boat-load?"
You can guess which one they've chosen. Why did they choose it? You guessed it... more money.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Back in the days of ferrite cores, we had stable memory. In fact, the memory was also non-volatile, which was great for debugging third-party apps ("It failed." "Okay, I'll be there at two o'clock to look at it.").
Does anyone know if someone's tried to tack on hardware ECC to HDs? Reduced capacity and speed in return for better reliability; it'd be interesting.
Jouster
When you think of so many gigabits per square inch on a platter and that the magnetic head is controlled by a mechanic actuator arm, slight wear could cause the head to shift. Are we starting to see recognition of this through the warranties?
Despite the excessive use of foul language, I have to say: Amen!
This problem is even more noticable on SCSI drives. Not only are you paying twice the price of IDE, you also are forced to purchase twice the (already excessive) storage capacity. Meanwhile, neither IDE or SCSI is worth a hoot nowadays, both die well ahead of their time.
What hard-disk manufacturers really should do is split their product lines (regardless of IDE or SCSI technology) in two: small 2 - 4Gb drives for workstations and gateways, then larger drives for servers. In both cases, there should be a clear goal to provide two quality tiers: cheap but not much guaranteed, versus slightly more expansive with 5-year warranty (same as it once was).
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
In earlier years mac users were ridiculed over investing in a "dying" platform, wasting money for licences that would cost us a fortune when we eventually were forced to switch.
Now it turns out that our investment was well worth it. Suddenly changing software licences is a problem for people wanting to switch from "the other side" to the platform that was once destined for doom.
Now O'reilly says Mac OS X is the most exciting thing happening in the industry and everyone and their dog's got mac envy. Funny how things work out indeed.
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
Internet connection dropped for five minutes if they enter "politically sensitive" keywords, such as the Chinese president's name
Based on a statisical anaylisis of the words most likely to appear in a politically sensitive document, these words also trigger a 5 minute blackout.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Any how think of the manufacturing process in relation with the speed technology progresses. They pump these hard drives out faster than Saddam Hussein can change his mind, so they already have a mucho load of these things sitting around. So they do some data mining on the info the got from the customers calling and complaining about their broken hard drives. It probably polled out to like %75 of all warranty work is done within the drives first birthday. So they drop the warranty to one year, make you pay for an optional three years. They have a butt load of spare drive and maybe parts, so when you actually do call in they can give you a new one right away.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Then buy 2 drives and a RAID controller. Do a hardware mirror and then you got your reliability out the wazoo.
Don't be such a showboating moron next time. Use your noggin.
I'm going to roll a reply to a previous comment about someone being afraid to ride. What anyone who commutes by bicycle has to do is simply understand natural law...not the crap that "the man" has beat us over the head with, or the things we've learned from Warner Bros. cartoons. Natural law implies that when a 1/4 hp., sub 300lb. vehicle is occupying the desired space of a semi-hairless primate(bored, anxious, distracted) behind the wheel of a 2+ton moving block of metal and plastic that the union of these two systems will result in some really nifty physics...often to the physical detriment of the previous occupant, and the slightly higher premiums of the second. Simply put, always consider yourself invisble to the vehicles unless you make eye-contact and recieve non-verbal acknowledgement from the motorist. Having done that, the cyclist has only to understand natural law and human stupidity to enjoy their commute.
And with that out of the way, onto the good stuff.
I have been commuting by bicycle since 1988, and I only have a car because my kids are still too young and stupid and my wife has a bad knee, otherwise the whole whining lot of them would be on bikes (everyone in the family has a bike).
Bravo to you sir for giving your previous nag a new home. My recommendation is a multi-vectored approach to getting a good bicycle. You have to consider the bike shops in your area, and look for a franchise, like Cycle Spectrum (but not necessarily them, because other bike-shop franchises exist, I just don't remember them now). There's a good chance that both regular shops and esp. franchises have what they consider a less stylish, less trendy bikes taking up space they would rather fill with faux shocks and bad alloys and other candy to attract the unwary. These bikes are usually going for about $300, which in sales terms is an impulse purchase for someone who wants something useful.If you can find a simple hybrid--a style that no longer sells like hotcakes--make sure it's nothing hard to maintain like shocks. Look for grip-shift,with quick-release hubs front and rear, and get yourself a blackburn mtn rack. Most of the time a shop-keeper will feel your love for the bike and in a synergistic desire to sweeten the deal will almost impulsively add it as a perk. That rack will hold two good u-locks (that's one of the best kept secrets in the business--enjoy), which are invaluable if you have to tether the beastie outside the workplace. However, if you really love your horse, you'll whine-bitch-plead and maybe even argue intelligently to bring it into the building with you. If you love it, bring it inside.
If your commute takes you through suburban areas filled with bored kids or goatheads, you need to invest in a bit of SLIME. It's green, it costs a bit, but unlike the wannabe competitors products(cough-mucous-cough), slime will not let you down unless the laws of physics require it to. You also need high thread-count nylon tires. Slicks or invert treads have less rubber and are reinforced with a lot of nylon threads. When shopping for tires, take one down and open it up and see how dense the threads are. You should also invest in 4.5mil thick thorn-proof tubes. Schwinn, and Bontrager and some other companies import and repackage/resell these. Combined with the slime and good tires there's a chance you will only have to walk a little before reinflating the tire. I've often pulled some really evil stuff (nails, glass, industrial staples, plant thorns) out, spun the wheel for a minute and still had enough pressure to make it home.
Another point to consider when buying a good bike is not so much the up-front cost of the bike (top-ramen is your friend), but the kind of service and warranty a shop will provide you. For a franchise, sometimes this is free tune-ups and labor for the life of the beastie. Granted, the shop you bought the bike from will change hands like a 30yr mortgage, you'll still have your bike taken care of. Usually what happens with the cheap kit is that within a week after you've purchased it, everyting flexes and stretches a bit...it's supposed to. However, Walmart, or whatever-mart isn't responsible for those changes. A bike shop is.
Another thing to consider is the way you approach the gearing. The more you move through your gears, the faster you wear your drive train. There's a simple way to look at wear-and-tear here: If you like to pedal like mad (and think you're a porsche) and go through your gears, making more than three or four gear changes until you're cruising, then don't expect to stay in tune. You're much better off being in the biggest chainring (front gear) during the warm months, and at least starting off in the middle chainring when it's colder, and then figuring out the best place to start with the cog. YMMV depending on the commute. I have my bike tuned only once every few years...I've had it five years and I put over 4500+ miles are year on it just commuting year round. I start out in 17th gear and go up to 19th, only to the highest gears two gears when I'm spinning fast to get in to work because I'm late (or because I'm chasing a pack of spandex goddesses for a quick double-wammy: endorphins and a pheromone fix-heheheh)
I wish you happy hunting--don't buy at the first shop you go into! (been there, done that)p
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
How do I check this? I bought my iBook G3 600Mhz with DVD/CD-RW combo last december and I don't even know what graphics card is in it. The thing is only slow when I load too much stuff at the same time... 384Meg RAM is full in notime :-((
when I purchased a 40G drive approx 1mo. ago I went with the Maxtor as it had a 3 yr. warranty. The other 2 drives available a whitebox(unknown mfg.) & WD already only had 1yr warranties.
Add to this that the last 2 recent harddrive failures that I have had were both western digital's so I was already sceptical of them, but the 1yr warranty was the deal breaker as all of the drives were priced identically.
Frankly dropping the base warranty length on drives means, to me at least, that the manufacturer's are no longer sure of their build quality. Modern drives SHOULD be able to easily support a 3yr warranty without financial burden to a manufacturer. Similarly most electronics should also be able to support >1yr warranties as most electronic component will, generally, fail within the first few hours of powering IF they are going to fail. That was one of the reasons why 24 or 48hr burn ins for new PCs were so popular at one time, along with the higher electronic component failure rate. Weed 'em out before they get to the customer. (I suppose that this mainly applies to:m a) people who built their own, or b) the local shop that built "white box" PCs.) I'd assume that major vendors still do some sort of testing, but I'd bet it's more of a statistical sampling on existing lines, and pre-production testing for those with new components.
Well recently, there has been more and more attention being given to things called Learning Objects and Learning Object Repositories.
Basically, what MIT is doing, is placing a bunch of Learning Objects online. (A learning object can be considered to be an entire course, among other things...I won't get into it here, but rest assured there's a huge initiative behind this whole Learning Object thing in the educative and private community/industry)
Now imagine for a minute if an individual were to take all the learning objects in the world (i.e. all the courses offered by all the universities and colleges and other schools, as well as some from private industry, who has also been researching and using Learning Objects for years) and store them in some massive database. Essentially what you've created is a Learning Object Repository.
The reason for such excitement is any of that material in the Repository can be extracted and repurposed elsewhere (i.e. in helping another new prof find new or different ways of teaching Biology for instance).
This is what I believe the future of online learing will get to, and MIT is aiding in getting there. I also think that's why they called their courseware OpenCourseWare - so that other users may come in and repurpose the material for others to use. It's kinda like open source software for education!!
Great. There aren't even people on the moon and we are already turning it into a garbage dump. Though I suppose, on a better note, there will be plenty of little piles of ready to go sheet metal laying around from these crashes if we ever want to start building a lunar base.
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
As a tourist, I was constantly approached by merchants selling their "Varrah goot [silk|trinkets|bootleg CDs]" and was completely unsupervised. Granted, I was with a tourist group, but we were frequently given several hours to wander about the town doing as we pleased. Considering that I was never questioned, never searched, not even looked at sideways, I could have very easily delivered any type of banned literature to Shanghai, Nanjing, Wu-Xi ("Mo-set" in Cantonese?).
A long way from Tianemen? Absolutely. From everything I saw, they seem to have a mostly command economy, a non-familial monarchy, and a willingness to bridge the gap with the rest of the world. I imagine an event like Tianemen would be practically impossible these days, with the Chinese government keeping a sharp eye on the outside world.
For what it's worth, I was treated like an old friend by China's customs, a guest by Hong Kong's customs, and a criminal by American customs in Seattle.
They would be forced to claim the sale as income.
When a hard drive comes back in, that is a loss. So what they might be trying to do is to limit their possible losses.
It makes sense that any mechanical device is more likely to fail over the first three years, rather than just the first 12 months when its the newest, so they are just trying to be less liable for a failure.
Good ol' capitalism, maximise profits by taking away from the consumers who have no power to stop you.
You got it. They _only_ mindset to have is "What happens _when_ the hard drive fails", not _if_ the hard drive fails.
Death, taxes, and lost data are the only sure things in life.
At least with data, you can restore from last night's backup.
Everyone definitely needs a warrantee. It's the only way you can get your money back if the product breaks within the warrantee period.
Really, what good is a warranty? When your data is gone, it is gone...no warranty will bring it back (ok ok, expensive data recovery techniques can be used, but it's not like the warrenty automatically raises the quality of the product).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
There's some pretty advanced technology inside, especially modern read heads (GMR, "spin valves" ,etc.).
Even the spindle bearings for the disks themselves are very likely to be of *extremely* high quality, with highly-engineered lifetime lubrication. I have little doubt that technology from inertial-guidance spinning gyro bearings has migrated into HDs.
The phenomenal data packing densities don't come casually; the magnetic film on the platter surfaces, and the protective overcoat, no doubt have required development by capable people. Of course, the heads have been the key, along wih phenomenally-tiny distances between the head and platter. (This is basically air bearing technology.)
Even the platters, themselves, are not casual; they just must have extremely-smooth surfaces on a submicroscopic scale. They might even be optically flat, although I don't see that as necessary.
The platter spin motors are not quite trivial, but not as advanced as the rest, I'd wager.
The signals coming from the read heads are so faint that the preamp IC has to be mounted on the swinging "comb" assembly that supports the heads.
Once the preamp gets the signals up to a usable level, some quite-sophisticated signal processing (PRML, for one) extracts the data reliably. I recently read a tech. description of my 40GB Maxtor, and was quite impressed with the sophistication in it. Of course, it has an embedded microprocessor; HDs have had them for some time.
Even positioning the heads onto the proper track in a hurry is no mean stunt. It involves some pretty-advanced, mostly digital servo technology. (Remember that the drive to the "voice coil" is analog, more than likely.)
( No, NOT "more then likely", dummy! That means first more, and later on, likely.)
The magnets in the positioner are wonderfully powerful, and a pity to toss. (Pinch hazard likely! Closer the magnets get to each other or to steel, etc, the stronger the squeeze!)
Finally, anyone who thinks the heads move ("fly") while the drive is simply spinning, with no track seeks (changes), is *seriously* stupid. Sorry. Fact.
Enby in Waltham, n bodley [at} world [dot} std [dot} com. HTH, a bit.
Being a very experienced electronic tech, I decided to ground myself to the computer frame, and carefully felt the various components on the electronics board, trying not to touch connections. Well, I'm conservative, from germanium transistor (even tube) days, remembering the idea that if you can't hold your finger on it, it's too hot (not true of tubes, themselves, nor power resistors).
That sucker ran *very* hot! I set up a fan to pass some air over the electronics, and it ran much cooler. I put a fan inside my box to cool the Maxtor 40 GB (runs much cooler, no fan), fwtw.
Enby in Waltham
OK, year is 1961 or so, I'm about 20 years old, and living in Colo. Springs, no close friends. A bunch of riders is cruising around city center, but faster than I'm accustomed to riding. I want to join them. I decide to pass a slowly-moving station wagon on the right (BAD!), but, worse, I look away for a short time. While I'm looking somewhere else, the driver heads right into a diagonal parking space. Crunch!
My faith increased considerably once the dust had settled. There I was, sprawled face down, the bike on top of me. Only damage was a snapped brake-handle attachment strap. Hardly a paint scratch, on the bike or the car.
I broke the ball off my humerus (iirc), at the shoulder. Lived inside a turtle shell all summer (and avoided becoming smelly, thanks to low humidity in C. S.!). Regained essentially total mobility.
Driver was a very decent fellow, a traveling musician. Backtracking in time, he almost took me home, but I simply *could not* raise my arm above shoulder level no matter what. Decided to go to the E.R., and it's a damned good thing I did. Had the opinion of a good city cop, too. No charges. Low speeds, but I still think I was so lucky that I think of divine intervention.
Enby in Waltham
as an ageing but committed cyclist I too found the daily grind wearing me down, until I sprung for an electric assist from CurrieTech http://www.currietech.com.au/products/uspd. (I think they distribute in the US too) - it was the best thing I ever did. I've clocked up 1,000km on it the last few months and still get a great buzz from letting it climb hills for me *and* I can pedal whenever I want - forget the Segway, build on known tech. I say.