Further, if a TV show was extremely quiet, the commercial would be forced to be quiet...
And this is bad because...
Anyway, if the TV show was quiet, then it means that the viewer has turned up the volume on his TV so that he can hear the dialog. If the commercial has the same volume as the TV show, it's alright, since the viewer has turned the volume up already. Conversely, if the TV show was loud (explosions, gunfights), then the viewer would have turned the volume down, and if the commercial is the same volume as the TV show, the viewer can understand what is being said during the commercial.
The problem is that right now, the show is quiet, so you turn up the volume and then the commercial is 10dB louder than the show, so you have to either mute or turn down the volume.
The point is that there are some current limited high voltage sources that won't kill you. A taser is one example - it has enough voltage to make a spark across a few cm gap (usually 1cm gap needs 10kV to spark), but it won't kill because the current is so low. A flyback transformer of a CRT TV or a spark plug cable in a car can be another example.
Now, if you want to nitpick,"high voltage, low current" means that the device has a very high internal resistance. So it may be 25kV on the output of the flyback transformer as soon as you touch it the transformer starts behaving like a current source, keeping the current at ~1mA, whatever voltage that would mean. A spark plug cable in a car probably can deliver higher currents, but it does so in very short pulses, so again, it is not lethal, but very painful (since human nerves are sensitive to electricity).
No seriously, I don't understand why the fuck people watch TV so much.
They do it usually because one or more of these reasons: 1. They don't have an internet connection fast enough to torrent the TV shows. 2. They want to watch the TV shows on a bigger screen, but cannot figure out how to connect their PC to their TV. 3. What they want to watch is not available for download.
If you think that copying a song is stealing then consider this: 1. I sneak in to a studio, go where they keep the master tapes, find a tape with the song(s) I want, take it, leave a reel of brand new blank tape in its place, leave. 2. I download the song from the internet (or borrow and copy it).
Is the "loss" the same in both scenarios? In the first, you won't be able to say that I stole the tape - I left a new one, so I just stole the contents. But I stole them - you don't have them anymore. In the second scenario, the studio still has the master tape and its contents.
The biggest delay I have seen was about 2 hours. I sent the message on January 1st 00:00 and the recipient received it around 02:00 the same night. Though sometimes the messages are lost on the same day, but during the rest 364 days of the year they arrive almost instantly.
Usually SMS arrives within a few seconds and I can also choose to receive a confirmation that the SMS was delivered.
Well, having a nuke can tell others "don't send your nukes my way or I'll respond in kind, and we will both lose". It also deters conventional war because you wouldn't want to go to war with an enemy who has nukes and may use them if the war goes badly.
Not having nukes can invite an attack from an enemy who does have them ("I'll drop my nuke on you, and what you'll do about it?"), also conventional war becomes more possible.
But be careful that your new price is not higher than what would be if someone used a diesel powered generator. I know that if my country increased the price of electricity to more than what it would cost me to run a generator, I'd buy such a generator in an instant.
Good tube amps can reproduce a bigger frequency range than 50-10k. Of course there are bad/cheaply made tube amps that can't (bad output transformer), just like there are transistor amps that have a lot of distortion and so on.
How about the website owners make the URLs shorter. It would be really fun if I wanted to, say, send that link to someone in SMS or post on a website from my cellphone 83322244177775552777744366681666777411111111111111177778666777999....... (if you can't tell, my example is "tech.slashdot.org/story"
Instead of going to tinyurl or a similar site and getting a shorter url. A similar problem is when you need to print the url (for example in a magazine). Printing it isn;t difficult, but when someone wants to go to that site, they need to enter it. Bonus points if the url is case sensitive.
But Microsoft is trying so hard to kill XP. Making it free would mean that it will stay even longer. Vista failed to replace XP. 7 may replace Vista and may even replace XP on new(er) computers, but a lot of people will be using old hardware and XP well past the "no more patches" day. We will just have to figure out some workarounds for the unpatched vulnerabilities, but I don't think I'll be replacing my OS (or my PC) just because XP won't be updated anymore. I survived with Windows XP with no SP well into the SP2 time just by being careful (know the sites I am visiting, have a properly configured firewall etc). I installed SP2 only when after 4 or so years my installation crashed (4 years may not be a lot, but installing/uninstalling software and hardware leaves its mark on the system) and I had to reinstall Windows, so I installed SP2 that time. I even had copied USB2 drivers from my laptop with SP1 (since I installed Windows to my laptop later, I installed SP1) so I could use USB2 devices at full speed.
I'd love to see the Linux gaming community take over from Windows' dominance in PC games.
I don't think it will happen any time soon, here's why: 1. Since there are no good Linux games, gamers use Windows. 2. Since there are only a small number of Linux gamers, the game makers make games for Windows only.
I have installed XP SP3 and WGA wasn't part of it. I think. No, it probably wasn't since windows update still tried to push it to me until I unselected it and chose to not be reminded about that update again. Anyway, my install passes WGA, that is, I can download the files that are "for genuine only". It all comes down to the quality of the crack.
Also, Windows 2003 does not have WGA so no crack was needed.
For $100 I could get enough electricity to run the 300W machine for 111days 24/7. If I turned it off when I didn't use it I could stretch that to a year.
So, a year without a PC and then I buy a 5W one for $100.
I used 486DX 50MHz 16MB RAM laptop with Windows 98 (had to modify the setup so it would install on a 66MHz CPU) to browse the web using Opera ~4 years ago. I could only have up to 5 tabs open, but it was enough. And his PC has more RAM than my laptop.
After weeks of hard, dedicated work and search to find a broken valve, you manage to get the TV up and running but still you can't syntonize to watch the network you wanted to see. Too bad analogue TV signals are gone: you missed nothing anyway, but had a lot of "fun" in the process...??
Then you find a way to connect your VCR or a digital tuner to that TV and can watch it. As an added bonus you can now watch old TV shows on a TV that they were made for.
And people ask me why I am archiving stuff I find on the 'net. That it's on the internet does not mean that it will be there in 5, 10... years. If it's recorded to a LTO tape or a MO disk then there is higher probability that one usable copy (either on the media or on the internet) will survive. You now, it's like backup.
Launch a MITM attack on the encryption. Sure, if they are using certificates for authentication then the program will warn about insecure connection, but, what are you going to do?
1) Not use the program - the State wins, they just blocked the program 2) Use the program anyway - the State wins, they can monitor your connection.
Or, I could buy the cheaper version and put the rest of the money in a bank, so that in the years to come I get the money back with interest.
I think I remember this from a economics lesson, that money "in the future" has less value than money "now" because of the inflation and the fact that you can invest the money or put it in a bank to get more money when the time comes.
Also, if you take out a loan and buy something, then you will have to pay back more money and so the "all money up front" device becomes more expensive than the "cheaper now, but uses more energy" one.
As for the enforced efficiency, I want to be able to make an informed decision and choose if I want to buy a more efficient or less efficient device. The letters in Europe are good (I live in Europe btw), the ban on inefficient devices is bad.
And yes, I will be stocking up on 40W incandescent light bulbs before they are banned. Unused bulbs last for a long time, it's just that I'll be paying all the money up front instead of distributing it over the decades.
Buy or build a PC with Atom processor, I heard they don't use much power. I was considering to build such a PC to use as a router (with a big case and 12-24V power supply and some batteries as a on-line UPS for it), but I use an old PC now (which I already had and did not need to buy).
I am all for more efficient software though. Games can use a lot of resources, but regular software, like text editors and Operating Systems should use as little resources as possible, not like Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
Further, if a TV show was extremely quiet, the commercial would be forced to be quiet...
And this is bad because...
Anyway, if the TV show was quiet, then it means that the viewer has turned up the volume on his TV so that he can hear the dialog. If the commercial has the same volume as the TV show, it's alright, since the viewer has turned the volume up already.
Conversely, if the TV show was loud (explosions, gunfights), then the viewer would have turned the volume down, and if the commercial is the same volume as the TV show, the viewer can understand what is being said during the commercial.
The problem is that right now, the show is quiet, so you turn up the volume and then the commercial is 10dB louder than the show, so you have to either mute or turn down the volume.
The point is that there are some current limited high voltage sources that won't kill you. A taser is one example - it has enough voltage to make a spark across a few cm gap (usually 1cm gap needs 10kV to spark), but it won't kill because the current is so low. A flyback transformer of a CRT TV or a spark plug cable in a car can be another example.
Now, if you want to nitpick,"high voltage, low current" means that the device has a very high internal resistance. So it may be 25kV on the output of the flyback transformer as soon as you touch it the transformer starts behaving like a current source, keeping the current at ~1mA, whatever voltage that would mean. A spark plug cable in a car probably can deliver higher currents, but it does so in very short pulses, so again, it is not lethal, but very painful (since human nerves are sensitive to electricity).
No seriously, I don't understand why the fuck people watch TV so much.
They do it usually because one or more of these reasons:
1. They don't have an internet connection fast enough to torrent the TV shows.
2. They want to watch the TV shows on a bigger screen, but cannot figure out how to connect their PC to their TV.
3. What they want to watch is not available for download.
Somehow looking at bing gives me the same feeling as looking at a typical domain-squatting site.
The only thing that's missing is:
What you need, when you need it
If you think that copying a song is stealing then consider this:
1. I sneak in to a studio, go where they keep the master tapes, find a tape with the song(s) I want, take it, leave a reel of brand new blank tape in its place, leave.
2. I download the song from the internet (or borrow and copy it).
Is the "loss" the same in both scenarios? In the first, you won't be able to say that I stole the tape - I left a new one, so I just stole the contents. But I stole them - you don't have them anymore. In the second scenario, the studio still has the master tape and its contents.
The biggest delay I have seen was about 2 hours. I sent the message on January 1st 00:00 and the recipient received it around 02:00 the same night. Though sometimes the messages are lost on the same day, but during the rest 364 days of the year they arrive almost instantly.
Usually SMS arrives within a few seconds and I can also choose to receive a confirmation that the SMS was delivered.
Well, having a nuke can tell others "don't send your nukes my way or I'll respond in kind, and we will both lose". It also deters conventional war because you wouldn't want to go to war with an enemy who has nukes and may use them if the war goes badly.
Not having nukes can invite an attack from an enemy who does have them ("I'll drop my nuke on you, and what you'll do about it?"), also conventional war becomes more possible.
But be careful that your new price is not higher than what would be if someone used a diesel powered generator. I know that if my country increased the price of electricity to more than what it would cost me to run a generator, I'd buy such a generator in an instant.
TrueCrypt ( www.truecrypt.org )
Rubberhose ( http://iq.org/~proff/marutukku.org/ )
Some others, but these come to mind first...
Good tube amps can reproduce a bigger frequency range than 50-10k. Of course there are bad/cheaply made tube amps that can't (bad output transformer), just like there are transistor amps that have a lot of distortion and so on.
How about the website owners make the URLs shorter. It would be really fun if I wanted to, say, send that link to someone in SMS or post on a website from my cellphone .......
83322244177775552777744366681666777411111111111111177778666777999
(if you can't tell, my example is "tech.slashdot.org/story"
Instead of going to tinyurl or a similar site and getting a shorter url. A similar problem is when you need to print the url (for example in a magazine). Printing it isn;t difficult, but when someone wants to go to that site, they need to enter it. Bonus points if the url is case sensitive.
But Microsoft is trying so hard to kill XP. Making it free would mean that it will stay even longer. Vista failed to replace XP. 7 may replace Vista and may even replace XP on new(er) computers, but a lot of people will be using old hardware and XP well past the "no more patches" day. We will just have to figure out some workarounds for the unpatched vulnerabilities, but I don't think I'll be replacing my OS (or my PC) just because XP won't be updated anymore. I survived with Windows XP with no SP well into the SP2 time just by being careful (know the sites I am visiting, have a properly configured firewall etc). I installed SP2 only when after 4 or so years my installation crashed (4 years may not be a lot, but installing/uninstalling software and hardware leaves its mark on the system) and I had to reinstall Windows, so I installed SP2 that time. I even had copied USB2 drivers from my laptop with SP1 (since I installed Windows to my laptop later, I installed SP1) so I could use USB2 devices at full speed.
I'd love to see the Linux gaming community take over from Windows' dominance in PC games.
I don't think it will happen any time soon, here's why:
1. Since there are no good Linux games, gamers use Windows.
2. Since there are only a small number of Linux gamers, the game makers make games for Windows only.
I have installed XP SP3 and WGA wasn't part of it. I think. No, it probably wasn't since windows update still tried to push it to me until I unselected it and chose to not be reminded about that update again. Anyway, my install passes WGA, that is, I can download the files that are "for genuine only". It all comes down to the quality of the crack.
Also, Windows 2003 does not have WGA so no crack was needed.
For $100 I could get enough electricity to run the 300W machine for 111days 24/7. If I turned it off when I didn't use it I could stretch that to a year.
So, a year without a PC and then I buy a 5W one for $100.
I haven't seen a PC that uses 5W though.
And who will give those 20-30 bucks + shipping?
He has that computer right now, it does not cost anything.
I used 486DX 50MHz 16MB RAM laptop with Windows 98 (had to modify the setup so it would install on a 66MHz CPU) to browse the web using Opera ~4 years ago. I could only have up to 5 tabs open, but it was enough. And his PC has more RAM than my laptop.
After weeks of hard, dedicated work and search to find a broken valve, you manage to get the TV up and running but still you can't syntonize to watch the network you wanted to see. Too bad analogue TV signals are gone: you missed nothing anyway, but had a lot of "fun" in the process...??
Then you find a way to connect your VCR or a digital tuner to that TV and can watch it. As an added bonus you can now watch old TV shows on a TV that they were made for.
And how do I get that $100?
Also, using old hardware is fun.
Unless he uses a firewall or properly configured NAT router.
And people ask me why I am archiving stuff I find on the 'net. That it's on the internet does not mean that it will be there in 5, 10... years. If it's recorded to a LTO tape or a MO disk then there is higher probability that one usable copy (either on the media or on the internet) will survive. You now, it's like backup.
Launch a MITM attack on the encryption. Sure, if they are using certificates for authentication then the program will warn about insecure connection, but, what are you going to do?
1) Not use the program - the State wins, they just blocked the program
2) Use the program anyway - the State wins, they can monitor your connection.
Just like the people who bought legit DVDs with movies would become pirates if there were no unskippable anti-piracy ads in the DVDs.
Or, I could buy the cheaper version and put the rest of the money in a bank, so that in the years to come I get the money back with interest.
I think I remember this from a economics lesson, that money "in the future" has less value than money "now" because of the inflation and the fact that you can invest the money or put it in a bank to get more money when the time comes.
Also, if you take out a loan and buy something, then you will have to pay back more money and so the "all money up front" device becomes more expensive than the "cheaper now, but uses more energy" one.
As for the enforced efficiency, I want to be able to make an informed decision and choose if I want to buy a more efficient or less efficient device. The letters in Europe are good (I live in Europe btw), the ban on inefficient devices is bad.
And yes, I will be stocking up on 40W incandescent light bulbs before they are banned. Unused bulbs last for a long time, it's just that I'll be paying all the money up front instead of distributing it over the decades.
Buy or build a PC with Atom processor, I heard they don't use much power. I was considering to build such a PC to use as a router (with a big case and 12-24V power supply and some batteries as a on-line UPS for it), but I use an old PC now (which I already had and did not need to buy).
I am all for more efficient software though. Games can use a lot of resources, but regular software, like text editors and Operating Systems should use as little resources as possible, not like Vista.