Most sound cards are almost useless except for using your computer as a dictaphone, because almost all sound cards are mono only and the s/n ratio is totally unacceptable.
I have a fairly decent condenser microphone and would very much like to be able to make digital recordings which are of similar quality to that which the microphone is able to create.
As a further protection take away their posting
rights to the SCM system you use, and be sure to keep offline
backups because poisonous people can get very nasty.
The 'Content Providers' really need to rethink their sales options immediately.
Looks to me as it they should be considering selling:-
'All you can eat' user licenses.
Content licenced for reproduction by the licencee, and consumption by folks licenced as per 1.
Selling licences for file sharers
What they seem to be doing at the moment is hurling themselves into disrepute by, in essence, running a barratry racket. This will, without a shadow of doubt, cause them to go broke and out of business. Whether or not that is a benefit to society as a whole would be an interesting subject for debate.
If you are really serious about making it sound "professional", then you'll have to be "professional". This means (ideally) a dedicated link between the hosts.
Not necessarily so. I past decades - It's a looonng time since I worked in broadcasting - it was possible to hire both a 'music' circuit from the remote location to the studio, and a 'voice' circuit, which could be a switched POTS call, to the remote location for the required duration. It's then the responsibility of the telco to give you a decent quality circuit, and yours to feed the audio to it. you will then be free of distortion and dropout problems caused by them those Intarwebs. You'll only need a microphone, a microphone to line amplifier, and a fader at the remote end.
The choice of distribution should be decided by comparing the various methods the distributors use to update their distributions and picking the one which works best. Not the ease of the initial install, because Mr. Dell and his minions have done that for you already.
I can't comment about which one should be chosen because I have little experience apart from the single source code distribution I have been using for the last few years. However I'd like to point out that they have all had disasters of one kind or another.
They should also look at FreeBSD or a derivative thereof. PC-BSD worked very well indeed for me when I installed it. Is Darwin still offered under the BSD licence?
The choice of the underlying o/s, BSD or Linux, is imho technically irrelevant, it's governed by more by licencing considerations and whether the emotional preference is for "Intelligent Design" or for "Evolution".
I'm sure many potential users would prefer to have a very basic install which can be customised and built on by installing applications off a DVD, or by download from a server. FreeBSD does this superbly, as do most Linux distributions.
Finally, the one thing which we all need is a video card which is properly supported by an Open driver. If you do not need the high-speed 3D required by gamers, then the Matrox cards satisfy this requirement admirably.
Owners of Nvidia listening? No, I didn't think so. Miss out on a superb commercial opportunity then. So sorry shareholders.
The Chinese have demonstrated beyond all doubt that they could locate a satellite and knock it out of the sky. Remembering this fact, exactly how long would it take for any enemy to locate these pingers and blow them up? Pork-barrel project of the first water! Why is the American public so apathetic that it allows hard-earned tax dollars to be splurged on this sort of crap?
Summertime was introduced as a war-time economy measure in 1916 by Herbert Henry Asquith's war government.
Now-a-days it's simply no longer needed. Let's kill off this overbearing monstrosity from a thankfully bygone era. The disadvantages are legion: Kids can't get to sleep, and create mayhem until their poor demented parents drop into bed at dusk, totally exhausted and fit for nothing but sleep; Said parents, now deprived of sleep for an hour or more, cease to be productive in any way until they have been at work for an hour or more; The Dairy sector of the Farming Community always has to get up in the dark; It takes a week or more at each time change for the community as a whole to become fully functional again.
To the best of my knowledge this never been put to the test of a referendum anywhere in the World. Why on earth, in these democratic times, do we put up with this impost? That's what it is, an impost on the general population by a war-time autocracy.
If populations of whatever size actively want to start their working day an hour or two earlier during the Summer, well that's their right as Free Peoples, but for governments to impose it by a fiat and subterfuge, well that's just an abomination!
The current bunch of moderators must have a horribly attenuated sense of humour.
This is the first slashdot post for months and months that actually made made me fully appreciate the meaning of 'LOL', because I did! Yet it gets scored +5 'Interesting', while hordes of pathetic little jibes get +5 funny. I just don't get what makes you lot tick.
Do their jobs for a while to find out what is actually needed as opposed to what they think they want. Sales staff people usually have little idea about what's possible.
Mock-up a few screens and talk with your temporary coworkers to see if they think what you suggest would be useful.
Avoid the bosses, they usually have little idea about the finer details of what their staff actually do.
I know the posting is just a oneliner, but it is informative and if everybody used the software it would really increase the recovery rate of stolen Laptops no end. ( Unix based ones anyway )
Look at the 'photos of all the glaciers in the world. They are all in rapid retreat.
Here are some of
Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's scary. I live pretty close to sea level, but about 5 miles inland, and I hope I'll be moving house before the sea level rise makes it compulsory.
The whole patent farce has long since past its use-by date so let's just terminate it by repealling these unjust laws and treaties.
It was created to boost invention and innovation, by giving a defined monopoly for a set period in exchange for the publication of pretty precise specifications of the invention. It did what it was supposed to do for quite a few years, while the things patented were relatively simple manufactured objects. That was then, now the patent system gives the inventor an absolute monopoly for a set - imho excessively long - duration in return for the publication of totally obfuscated plans. Thus, in effect, depriving society as a whole from full exploitation of the ideas behind the patent for 20 years. Two items which come to mind immediately are the cavity magnetron, as used in microwave ovens, and xerographic copying. Neither of these really flourished until the original patents ran out. I'm sure there are 'hundreds', i.e. millions, of similar examples. I believe that commercial success from the implementation of ideas should stand on on its own. In my not so humble opinion it's morally wrong for the State to prevent improvement of manufactured things by competitors, but that is what is happening now-a-days. In practice patents make it impossible to make a better mousetrap. While that's merely wrong, using trade treaties to impose the whole crooked and corrupt mess on other societies, well that's just Satanic. But that's what is happening today and is the root reason why the US is seemingly loathed by the second and third tiers of the world's population. To put it simply, that's what caused 9/11. Now, USA: Please fix it and rejoin the Family of Nations.
Why do so many of the postings about the OLPC show that most of the, presumably American,/. posters have so little knowledge about the the rest of the world that one wants to weep for them?
Just as in the US, there is a huge range of material wealth everywhere in the world. There are a few pits of horrible moral and material deprivation, and there are a few globules of excessive wealth, but, just as in the US, most people live in the in-between.
The OLPC is intended to fit into this in-between. People and their children who have sufficient, but not an excess of, food, and a simple roof over their heads. The OLPC is NOT primarily intended to be used to teach children how to use computers. It is primarily to be used as an extra to, and to some extent a replacement for, good old fashioned printed books, which are, for the target communities, extremely expensive. Your 99 Euro machine is about the same price as the books needed for a child for only a year or two. After that you are saving money.
Exactly what is it about the above that is so difficult to understand?
And yes, I do think that the OLPC should be sold unsupported on ebay, with anything over the basic $130 being counted as a charitable donation. ebay ones should be any colour as long as they're black. Don't worry about support. That would grow organically as needed, and the network wireless mesh would fix the 'last kilometre' internet access problem.
So running Windows really is a matter of life or death now as opposed to a mere 5 year jail term. Forgive them $DEITY for they know not what they propose doing.
Vlad. Putin's just hit the nail smack on the head!
Pay OPEC to implement a secure system of energy rationing.
For those of you who do not know what a ration is, you get a given a book containing a limited number of coupons, usually by a government, but the current crop of Western Governments don't know the meaning of the word 'govern', so we have to look elsewhere for the coupon issuing authority. As well as parting with money you have to give the product vendor the number of coupons corresponding to the volume of product purchased.
Coupon book empty? So sorry, no more product!
Works wonderfully for food, gas, energy, and indeed products of all kinds. The result is healthy and self reliant communities, to say nothing of a World in which we can continue to live for many generations. Otherwise we face a Venusian future.
... having a built-like-a-battleship laptop if the software inside is a fall-over flake.
So: Do these machines run a Unix derivative out-of-the-box and perfectly?
Perhaps a precursor of H5N1 got them all.
I seriously wonder about the wisdom of excavating and opening tombs. Havn't people gotton seriously sick after going into the Pyramids?
That would fix the filtering problem simply and for ever.
Also the people should be informed that the numbers are just as good as, if not better than, names. Thus all the interesting numbers would get some intellectual value. Why have the General Electric Company not exploited the IP address 3.4.5.6 for example? Surely that's worth a bob or two?
Wake up shareholders of the corporations which hold class A domain numbers, you can sue your corporate directors for not maximising the return on your funds!
Taken to the obvious conclusion, a Class A IP number squatter should have all 16 million numbers taken off them and these numbers reserved for porn servers. How about the unused 51/8 network for a start? That would free up 4,294,967,296 numbers which could be especially reserved for porn servers. On the other hand the current user of those numbers could exploit them to provide a substantial income to the British DHSS, who are the current number squatters. Rent your porn server IP number by paying the pension of a poor Briton! Bags 51.52.53.54! The very ages when a flagging body actually needs perking up with a bit of visual stimulation. The mind boggles as to the value of that number.
Surely that would keep the even most debauched users of porn happy for a while?
As for a.xxx TLD! Well really!! That is just fraud pure and simple. To separate suposedly undesirable content from the rest of the HTTP traffic you just pass a worldwide law to put the all the porn servers on a port other than 80. It's a one digit change in the Apache web server config file. And creating a browser which won't work on that port so as to protect the children's parents from the embarrasment of having to explain to their little ones what the genital organs are for.
Slashdot Mirror
Getting decent audio into the computer.
Most sound cards are almost useless except for using your computer as a dictaphone, because almost all sound cards are mono only and the s/n ratio is totally unacceptable.
I have a fairly decent condenser microphone and would very much like to be able to make digital recordings which are of similar quality to that which the microphone is able to create.
Any ideas /.ers?
Let me say it again.
Do NOT Feed Trolls
Honest; it's a simple as that.
As a further protection take away their posting
rights to the SCM system you use, and be sure to keep offline
backups because poisonous people can get very nasty.
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/10955124820501667 00BhIQko
Who is the ignorant insensitive clod who designed this hideous offensive brick?
Do they not know that you just do not package anything coloured turquoise if you wish to sell it anywhere in the Islamic world?
Well they do now.
Looks to me as it they should be considering selling:-
- 'All you can eat' user licenses.
- Content licenced for reproduction by the licencee, and consumption by folks licenced as per 1.
- Selling licences for file sharers
What they seem to be doing at the moment is hurling themselves into disrepute by, in essence, running a barratry racket. This will, without a shadow of doubt, cause them to go broke and out of business. Whether or not that is a benefit to society as a whole would be an interesting subject for debate.Not necessarily so. I past decades - It's a looonng time since I worked in broadcasting - it was possible to hire both a 'music' circuit from the remote location to the studio, and a 'voice' circuit, which could be a switched POTS call, to the remote location for the required duration. It's then the responsibility of the telco to give you a decent quality circuit, and yours to feed the audio to it. you will then be free of distortion and dropout problems caused by them those Intarwebs. You'll only need a microphone, a microphone to line amplifier, and a fader at the remote end.
That's the professional solution.
The choice of distribution should be decided by comparing the various methods the distributors use to update their distributions and picking the one which works best. Not the ease of the initial install, because Mr. Dell and his minions have done that for you already.
I can't comment about which one should be chosen because I have little experience apart from the single source code distribution I have been using for the last few years. However I'd like to point out that they have all had disasters of one kind or another.
They should also look at FreeBSD or a derivative thereof. PC-BSD worked very well indeed for me when I installed it. Is Darwin still offered under the BSD licence?
The choice of the underlying o/s, BSD or Linux, is imho technically irrelevant, it's governed by more by licencing considerations and whether the emotional preference is for "Intelligent Design" or for "Evolution".
I'm sure many potential users would prefer to have a very basic install which can be customised and built on by installing applications off a DVD, or by download from a server. FreeBSD does this superbly, as do most Linux distributions.
Finally, the one thing which we all need is a video card which is properly supported by an Open driver. If you do not need the high-speed 3D required by gamers, then the Matrox cards satisfy this requirement admirably.
Owners of Nvidia listening? No, I didn't think so. Miss out on a superb commercial opportunity then. So sorry shareholders.
The Chinese have demonstrated beyond all doubt that they could locate a satellite and knock it out of the sky. Remembering this fact, exactly how long would it take for any enemy to locate these pingers and blow them up? Pork-barrel project of the first water! Why is the American public so apathetic that it allows hard-earned tax dollars to be splurged on this sort of crap?
Time for another Revolution?
Now-a-days it's simply no longer needed. Let's kill off this overbearing monstrosity from a thankfully bygone era. The disadvantages are legion: Kids can't get to sleep, and create mayhem until their poor demented parents drop into bed at dusk, totally exhausted and fit for nothing but sleep; Said parents, now deprived of sleep for an hour or more, cease to be productive in any way until they have been at work for an hour or more; The Dairy sector of the Farming Community always has to get up in the dark; It takes a week or more at each time change for the community as a whole to become fully functional again.
To the best of my knowledge this never been put to the test of a referendum anywhere in the World. Why on earth, in these democratic times, do we put up with this impost? That's what it is, an impost on the general population by a war-time autocracy.
If populations of whatever size actively want to start their working day an hour or two earlier during the Summer, well that's their right as Free Peoples, but for governments to impose it by a fiat and subterfuge, well that's just an abomination!
BUT I'll share it with you lot only after I see a few million dollars / pounds / euros / whatevers. Yup, it'll work absolutely guaranteed!
The current bunch of moderators must have a horribly attenuated sense of humour. This is the first slashdot post for months and months that actually made made me fully appreciate the meaning of 'LOL', because I did! Yet it gets scored +5 'Interesting', while hordes of pathetic little jibes get +5 funny. I just don't get what makes you lot tick.
Do their jobs for a while to find out what is actually needed as opposed to what they think they want. Sales staff people usually have little idea about what's possible.
Mock-up a few screens and talk with your temporary coworkers to see if they think what you suggest would be useful.
Avoid the bosses, they usually have little idea about the finer details of what their staff actually do.
See the Google cache of "Exactly what the Dr. Ordered"
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Ui0HtwBn6ZAJ:w ww.kyne.com.au/~mark/software/satellite.php+site:w ww.kyne.com.au+mark+satellite&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&i e=UTF-8
I know the posting is just a oneliner, but it is informative and if everybody used the software it would really increase the recovery rate of stolen Laptops no end. ( Unix based ones anyway )
Look at the 'photos of all the glaciers in the world. They are all in rapid retreat. Here are some of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's scary. I live pretty close to sea level, but about 5 miles inland, and I hope I'll be moving house before the sea level rise makes it compulsory.
The whole patent farce has long since past its use-by date so let's just terminate it by repealling these unjust laws and treaties.
It was created to boost invention and innovation, by giving a defined monopoly for a set period in exchange for the publication of pretty precise specifications of the invention. It did what it was supposed to do for quite a few years, while the things patented were relatively simple manufactured objects. That was then, now the patent system gives the inventor an absolute monopoly for a set - imho excessively long - duration in return for the publication of totally obfuscated plans. Thus, in effect, depriving society as a whole from full exploitation of the ideas behind the patent for 20 years. Two items which come to mind immediately are the cavity magnetron, as used in microwave ovens, and xerographic copying. Neither of these really flourished until the original patents ran out. I'm sure there are 'hundreds', i.e. millions, of similar examples. I believe that commercial success from the implementation of ideas should stand on on its own. In my not so humble opinion it's morally wrong for the State to prevent improvement of manufactured things by competitors, but that is what is happening now-a-days. In practice patents make it impossible to make a better mousetrap. While that's merely wrong, using trade treaties to impose the whole crooked and corrupt mess on other societies, well that's just Satanic. But that's what is happening today and is the root reason why the US is seemingly loathed by the second and third tiers of the world's population. To put it simply, that's what caused 9/11. Now, USA: Please fix it and rejoin the Family of Nations.
Just as in the US, there is a huge range of material wealth everywhere in the world. There are a few pits of horrible moral and material deprivation, and there are a few globules of excessive wealth, but, just as in the US, most people live in the in-between.
The OLPC is intended to fit into this in-between. People and their children who have sufficient, but not an excess of, food, and a simple roof over their heads. The OLPC is NOT primarily intended to be used to teach children how to use computers. It is primarily to be used as an extra to, and to some extent a replacement for, good old fashioned printed books, which are, for the target communities, extremely expensive. Your 99 Euro machine is about the same price as the books needed for a child for only a year or two. After that you are saving money.
Exactly what is it about the above that is so difficult to understand?
And yes, I do think that the OLPC should be sold unsupported on ebay, with anything over the basic $130 being counted as a charitable donation. ebay ones should be any colour as long as they're black. Don't worry about support. That would grow organically as needed, and the network wireless mesh would fix the 'last kilometre' internet access problem.
Vlad. Putin's just hit the nail smack on the head!
For those of you who do not know what a ration is, you get a given a book containing a limited number of coupons, usually by a government, but the current crop of Western Governments don't know the meaning of the word 'govern', so we have to look elsewhere for the coupon issuing authority. As well as parting with money you have to give the product vendor the number of coupons corresponding to the volume of product purchased.
Coupon book empty? So sorry, no more product!
Works wonderfully for food, gas, energy, and indeed products of all kinds. The result is healthy and self reliant communities, to say nothing of a World in which we can continue to live for many generations. Otherwise we face a Venusian future.
... having a built-like-a-battleship laptop if the software inside is a fall-over flake.
So: Do these machines run a Unix derivative out-of-the-box and perfectly?
You have sent it in havn't you?
That would fix the filtering problem simply and for ever. Also the people should be informed that the numbers are just as good as, if not better than, names. Thus all the interesting numbers would get some intellectual value. Why have the General Electric Company not exploited the IP address 3.4.5.6 for example? Surely that's worth a bob or two? Wake up shareholders of the corporations which hold class A domain numbers, you can sue your corporate directors for not maximising the return on your funds! Taken to the obvious conclusion, a Class A IP number squatter should have all 16 million numbers taken off them and these numbers reserved for porn servers. How about the unused 51/8 network for a start? That would free up 4,294,967,296 numbers which could be especially reserved for porn servers. On the other hand the current user of those numbers could exploit them to provide a substantial income to the British DHSS, who are the current number squatters. Rent your porn server IP number by paying the pension of a poor Briton! Bags 51.52.53.54! The very ages when a flagging body actually needs perking up with a bit of visual stimulation. The mind boggles as to the value of that number. Surely that would keep the even most debauched users of porn happy for a while? As for a .xxx TLD! Well really!! That is just fraud pure and simple. To separate suposedly undesirable content from the rest of the HTTP traffic you just pass a worldwide law to put the all the porn servers on a port other than 80. It's a one digit change in the Apache web server config file. And creating a browser which won't work on that port so as to protect the children's parents from the embarrasment of having to explain to their little ones what the genital organs are for.
Ration Book.
Because I'd be very interested to know.