>Yea, cause usually a fan is shown spinning in a STILL photograph. Think about it.
I have thought about it and I know powered fans continue moving between separate still photographs.
Notice how the blades are in _identical_ positions in the close ups. Stats class tells me there's almost no chance that you could "accidentally" do this.
>Customs agent Allan Doody said each computer has between one to two terabytes of stolen software.
Wow! If each software came on a CD-ROM, holding an average of 600 MB, that means each computer was surrounded by 3333 1/3 shoplifted products.
Now, if each box is about 10" x 7" x 2", and your average room has a ceiling height of 8 ft. (96") then the room would have to be 83.3" x 58.3" (7' x 5').
I guess that's why they busted universities. University dorm rooms are just about that size.
Now, if each software was new when it was shoplifted, and if the average software costs $100, that's $333,333.33 of stealing each!
What I don't get is why these stores were stupid enough not to notice 3333 software titles missing from the shelves.
>I was paying for a support contract, and it cost me a lot more than the amount you are talking about to get the fix. I'm unsympathetic.
Which all goes to show why paying for commercial software is almost theft in itself.
Imagine buying a computer, brining it back to the store the next day, explaining (and proving) to them it crashes after 4 hours. Imagine if this was a common defect in all the computers they sold.
Now imagine that the store told you "We can sell you a repair for the problem for $10, or you can drive to our repair depot 500 miles away and get it for free". I'd be angry as hell. Sounds a little like you'd be apathetic towards the whole situation, but I feel pretty sure that's unusual.
MS should send out patches for free, by mail. Their mistakes should be fixed in the same way any decent company would fix them. Just because it's commercial software doesn't let them (or WordPerfect) off the hook.
Send all your mail (and I mean all: cheques, kiss-ass late notice replies, love letters, porn orders, everything) in clear ziploc sandwich baggies for a while (at least 3 or 4 months).
If, after all that, you come back and say "It made no difference. I had nothing to hide" then I'll believe you. No cheating by self-censorship allowed.
'Till then I bet you're just like everyone else -- you have at least one skeleton in the closet.
Remember, the FBI are people too. What interests the mailman that's in those baggies interests an FBI agent just as much. The only difference is that the mailman is under special orders not to read your mail.
>Yes you had to own a modem, and pay for the call, but there are limits to how far I'm willing to argue this point...
Not for me.:)
I'm Canadian and phoning US BBSes for an hour is just not gonna happen (at that point 14.4k was pretty fast and IIRC the download was like 1 or 2 MB). At the long distance rates charged here at that time it would have cost me about $15 to get that patch (likely more).
Feh. I guess for Americans, the BBS was a reasonable answer. And there's only 30 million Canucks, so who cares?;)
Well, all that being said, unlike normal companies who create shoddy products (imagine if your computer monitor melted down after 4 hours!), Microsoft didn't usually send out papers to people detailing major defects in their software and how to repair them.
>Yes you would have to pay for the internet connection to download WinSock2, but that is no different than today. I don't see your point.
Today NetZero exists, and getting internet access can be as simple asking your next door neighbour. Internet is now effectively free.
Back then expecting people to have internet access was like expecting someone to have a colour TV in the 50's. Not at all freely availiable, unless you were quite lucky.
>A fair number of comercial products shipped with the WS2 installer as well, so many users were upgraded as a part of that.
And you (normally) buy commercial products. Still the patch isn't free.
>Yes and you could download and install WinSock2 from the MS site, which fixed that problem.
And, back then, that would have cost $$$. When the consumer has to pay, then it isn't a free fix.
Now, if MS took the initiative and sent product updates to me via the mail, for free, then I'd say the fix is free. Otherwise, I'm having to pay, again, for their broken software.
>"We're sorry, sir. But we don't replace CDs just because customers can't take proper care of the product they bought."
You should have picked up on that one.:) When they said that they just forfeited all rights to the game.
They said the CD is the product you bought. They didn't say you purchased the license. This means the data on the CD is free. This could mean you can give it to others without breaking the law.
Next time this happens, point this little fact out to them. If they say that you actually bought a license to the data instead of a CD, then tell them you don't want the data shipped on a CD. They can email it to you at no cost.
>The problem with this argument is that kids save up their money for baseball cards and pokemon.
Yep, that's why they're about $2.50 a pack.
Now, if they were $250 a pack, do you really not think kid would start photocopying them and "pretend" trade?
Would kids even bother trading them if they were that price?
Warez software is traded because its cheap. And, besides, from what I recall from warez kiddies, some would spend $10 a month for an "elite" BBS account. Which is what I spent on baseball cards.
>Sorry dude - Either you're a great troll, or a bit thick in the head: The download is FREE.
So are other patches to the OS. IE 6 isn't availiable in any other way (at least for windows).
IE is the operating system, MS has said so themselves.
If you need IE to run windows, then IE patches are about as free as Firestone tires on SUVs.
Sure, they don't cost anything to make them safe, but, free???
You paid for the car, with the tires, which are an integral part of the car.
You (probably) paid for Windows, with IE, which MS has told us is integral to windows.
You have one very strange idea of free. But if that's free to you, I think I'll put ads in the paper that say "free tires" and when you talk to me I'll tell you that you have to buy the car to get the free tires.
Lets compare The Bible (a resource handed out to many, many children even below the age described as too young to play the games on that page) to these "Dangerous Toys":
"Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival"
- "My fists will have your blood on them"
Pontious Pilate: The Bible
- Washes his hands of blood
Doom
"Annihilate hell spawned demons with plasma rifles, chain guns and rocket launchers. Team up with a friend... for the ultimate deathmatch."
Revelations: The Bible
- Just read any part of it
Rock Em Sock Em Robots: Head Case Robot
- This neck wrenching head collector says winning is as easy as taking candy from a baby's intestines
King Solomon: The Bible
- Commanded that a baby be cut in half
Now, if you want to ban those games, you'd better ban the bible from being read by those under 18.
Lots of mis-information about plenum cabling here.
Plenum cabling doesn't necesarialy burn less all the time.
Plenum cabling is desgined to burn less in certain directions.
IIRC, plenum means it won't burn sideways as well as upwards. If you want the other cable, I think you need "riser" cable (or something like that). If you plan to do this in an office building, this is a good time to find out. Otherwise they may make another crappy OJ Simpson movie.
Where I live, if your house is made with wood, you can put in any comm. cable you like (as long as it doesn't give off toxic fumes without burning!;-). Why? Because if there's a fire in a wood house you have a lot more to worry about than some lame-ass cabling.
The only exception (again, for where I live) is that you have to use special cabling for running cable through air-ducts.
But, once you move into offices, you _really_ need to watch those laws. The fire inspector will bust your ass if you run the wrong FT-rating cable. (IIRC, FT-5 for plenum spaces, FT-4 for anywhere else in offices).
BTW: This may be incorrect for your area, and I refuse to claim responsibility if you use the wrong cable and cause harm to anything with your use of it.
Note: Plenum is availiable for almost any cable. UTP, STP, coax, power, you name it.
Careful grounding your STP -- over very long distances (like many floors in an office building) a ground differential can cause HUGE current loops through your ground. I've heard stories about ground jackets setting on fire in runs from the top floor to the basement in office buildings.
>Two wires twisted together picks up virtually nothing
No, they pick up twice as much as a single untwisted wire.
The reason why they seem immune to noise is because the receiver doesn't look directly at the voltage on the cable (such as a TV does), but instead it looks at the difference between the voltages on the pair. This means that if a 60V spike is induced near the pair, both wires go up 60V but when you subtract (for example) 72V from 60V you end up with 12V, thereby removing the interference.
The twist ensures the interference is equal. Without the twist, the level of interference on one line could be greater than the other, thereby degrading the signal.
I expect that the ground cable is providing a minimal amount of sheilding because the twists case it to "wrap" around the signal wire, thereby ensuring you get some kind of picture.
>A friend of mine uses it for composite video.
I'm very surprised this works. Analog video signals don't do a difference voltage check; One wire is expected to be directly tied to earth, which would short out the transmitter if it were differential.
>And, by the way, add some good, strong cotton string with all your cables.
Agreed, but don't use cotton. As it is organic after a few years it will rot, and then you're SOL. Use something inorganic, like that "cheap" twine you see the phone company installers carry about with them.
>I believe that when the CD format was defined that they defined the acceptable transfer rate at approximately 2x that rate, or 172kbps.
It's still that.
There's much less error correction on Audio CDs. This allows a slightly higher data rate at the exact same rotational speed as a 150 kbps Data CD (which is full of error correction that must be read, and if not used, discarded).
>Just like the original DVD drives are now called "1x"
Yes and no... original DVD drives spun the disc just fast enough to read the maximum data rate a valid DVD could be encoded at (10 Mbps IIRC). This makes fast forwarding a painful process...
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I think back then if you didn't put a (c) in your work it was by default in the public domain.
Nowadays everything is copyrighted unless the author decrees otherwise.
Upon even closer inspection, there's no power cable connected to the fan!
Either these guys are really crappy computer builders, or it isn't on.
Your call.
>Yea, cause usually a fan is shown spinning in a STILL photograph. Think about it.
I have thought about it and I know powered fans continue moving between separate still photographs.
Notice how the blades are in _identical_ positions in the close ups. Stats class tells me there's almost no chance that you could "accidentally" do this.
>I will absolutely bail on DriveImage the first chance I get.
Click us now.
>Customs agent Allan Doody said each computer has between one to two terabytes of stolen software.
Wow! If each software came on a CD-ROM, holding an average of 600 MB, that means each computer was surrounded by 3333 1/3 shoplifted products.
Now, if each box is about 10" x 7" x 2", and your average room has a ceiling height of 8 ft. (96") then the room would have to be 83.3" x 58.3" (7' x 5').
I guess that's why they busted universities. University dorm rooms are just about that size.
Now, if each software was new when it was shoplifted, and if the average software costs $100, that's $333,333.33 of stealing each!
What I don't get is why these stores were stupid enough not to notice 3333 software titles missing from the shelves.
I guess we'll never know...
>I was paying for a support contract, and it cost me a lot more than the amount you are talking about to get the fix. I'm unsympathetic.
Which all goes to show why paying for commercial software is almost theft in itself.
Imagine buying a computer, brining it back to the store the next day, explaining (and proving) to them it crashes after 4 hours. Imagine if this was a common defect in all the computers they sold.
Now imagine that the store told you "We can sell you a repair for the problem for $10, or you can drive to our repair depot 500 miles away and get it for free". I'd be angry as hell. Sounds a little like you'd be apathetic towards the whole situation, but I feel pretty sure that's unusual.
MS should send out patches for free, by mail. Their mistakes should be fixed in the same way any decent company would fix them. Just because it's commercial software doesn't let them (or WordPerfect) off the hook.
Send all your mail (and I mean all: cheques, kiss-ass late notice replies, love letters, porn orders, everything) in clear ziploc sandwich baggies for a while (at least 3 or 4 months).
If, after all that, you come back and say "It made no difference. I had nothing to hide" then I'll believe you. No cheating by self-censorship allowed.
'Till then I bet you're just like everyone else -- you have at least one skeleton in the closet.
Remember, the FBI are people too. What interests the mailman that's in those baggies interests an FBI agent just as much. The only difference is that the mailman is under special orders not to read your mail.
>Yes you had to own a modem, and pay for the call, but there are limits to how far I'm willing to argue this point...
:)
;)
Not for me.
I'm Canadian and phoning US BBSes for an hour is just not gonna happen (at that point 14.4k was pretty fast and IIRC the download was like 1 or 2 MB). At the long distance rates charged here at that time it would have cost me about $15 to get that patch (likely more).
Feh. I guess for Americans, the BBS was a reasonable answer. And there's only 30 million Canucks, so who cares?
Well, all that being said, unlike normal companies who create shoddy products (imagine if your computer monitor melted down after 4 hours!), Microsoft didn't usually send out papers to people detailing major defects in their software and how to repair them.
Or maybe they did, and just never let me know.
>Yes you would have to pay for the internet connection to download WinSock2, but that is no different than today. I don't see your point.
Today NetZero exists, and getting internet access can be as simple asking your next door neighbour. Internet is now effectively free.
Back then expecting people to have internet access was like expecting someone to have a colour TV in the 50's. Not at all freely availiable, unless you were quite lucky.
>A fair number of comercial products shipped with the WS2 installer as well, so many users were upgraded as a part of that.
And you (normally) buy commercial products. Still the patch isn't free.
>Yes and you could download and install WinSock2 from the MS site, which fixed that problem.
And, back then, that would have cost $$$. When the consumer has to pay, then it isn't a free fix.
Now, if MS took the initiative and sent product updates to me via the mail, for free, then I'd say the fix is free. Otherwise, I'm having to pay, again, for their broken software.
Another American satellite communication that Canadians can hack legitimately!
Keep 'em coming America! We _love_ your kindness towards us!
>We don't HAVE to use a computer either
I had to to get my business license. No other choice but to do it on a computer. It was the only way to deal with the government.
So, now a computer is a NEED, not a WANT.
Of course, I don't HAVE to go into business, just as I don't HAVE to work. And if we were all on welfare we'd be a communist country. And so on.
>"We're sorry, sir. But we don't replace CDs just because customers can't take proper care of the product they bought."
:) When they said that they just forfeited all rights to the game.
You should have picked up on that one.
They said the CD is the product you bought. They didn't say you purchased the license. This means the data on the CD is free. This could mean you can give it to others without breaking the law.
Next time this happens, point this little fact out to them. If they say that you actually bought a license to the data instead of a CD, then tell them you don't want the data shipped on a CD. They can email it to you at no cost.
Now its their chicken and egg.
>The problem with this argument is that kids save up their money for baseball cards and pokemon.
Yep, that's why they're about $2.50 a pack.
Now, if they were $250 a pack, do you really not think kid would start photocopying them and "pretend" trade?
Would kids even bother trading them if they were that price?
Warez software is traded because its cheap. And, besides, from what I recall from warez kiddies, some would spend $10 a month for an "elite" BBS account. Which is what I spent on baseball cards.
>I am unaware of anything in Win95 that was flat out broken that was fixed in 98.
TCP/IP stack leaks are the first thing to come to mind.
The original Windows 95 would blow its stack after a few hours of TCP/IP operations.
If that isn't serious, hell, I don't know what is!
It's too bad that Microsoft has so invaded our culture they've been able to get their definitions added to the dictionary.
I have another definition I'd like to have added:
thief (thf)
One who sells software that is worthless.
Fortuantely, all my printed dictionaries are from the 80's, so they don't have this new-age BS in them.
They are why I won't do that. :)
>IE is free on both platforms it is offered on; you can get a free copy of IE without buying any MS products.
No, you can't. They only offer patches for IE 6 on windows.
If you can find a full version, show it to me. If it were a full version, it would be able to install on Windows 95.
>Sorry dude - Either you're a great troll, or a bit thick in the head: The download is FREE.
So are other patches to the OS. IE 6 isn't availiable in any other way (at least for windows).
IE is the operating system, MS has said so themselves.
If you need IE to run windows, then IE patches are about as free as Firestone tires on SUVs.
Sure, they don't cost anything to make them safe, but, free???
You paid for the car, with the tires, which are an integral part of the car.
You (probably) paid for Windows, with IE, which MS has told us is integral to windows.
You have one very strange idea of free. But if that's free to you, I think I'll put ads in the paper that say "free tires" and when you talk to me I'll tell you that you have to buy the car to get the free tires.
Here, there's a word for that, bait and switch.
>Please, if you are going to use the bible as an example, at least read the book first!
You are right, I should read it first.
But then again, just like I didn't read much past the cover, did these reviewers bother looking past the packaging?
Taken out of context, a lot of life can be seen as violent.
How... LAME.
... for the ultimate deathmatch."
Lets compare The Bible (a resource handed out to many, many children even below the age described as too young to play the games on that page) to these "Dangerous Toys":
"Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival"
- "My fists will have your blood on them"
Pontious Pilate: The Bible
- Washes his hands of blood
Doom
"Annihilate hell spawned demons with plasma rifles, chain guns and rocket launchers. Team up with a friend
Revelations: The Bible
- Just read any part of it
Rock Em Sock Em Robots: Head Case Robot
- This neck wrenching head collector says winning is as easy as taking candy from a baby's intestines
King Solomon: The Bible
- Commanded that a baby be cut in half
Now, if you want to ban those games, you'd better ban the bible from being read by those under 18.
>Does anyone know if that affects quality though?
Yes, it improves it.
Really. Macrovision is a degradation to the signal. The video stabiliser removes the degradation, leaving you with a cleaner picture.
Lots of mis-information about plenum cabling here.
;-). Why? Because if there's a fire in a wood house you have a lot more to worry about than some lame-ass cabling.
Plenum cabling doesn't necesarialy burn less all the time.
Plenum cabling is desgined to burn less in certain directions.
IIRC, plenum means it won't burn sideways as well as upwards. If you want the other cable, I think you need "riser" cable (or something like that). If you plan to do this in an office building, this is a good time to find out. Otherwise they may make another crappy OJ Simpson movie.
Where I live, if your house is made with wood, you can put in any comm. cable you like (as long as it doesn't give off toxic fumes without burning!
The only exception (again, for where I live) is that you have to use special cabling for running cable through air-ducts.
But, once you move into offices, you _really_ need to watch those laws. The fire inspector will bust your ass if you run the wrong FT-rating cable. (IIRC, FT-5 for plenum spaces, FT-4 for anywhere else in offices).
BTW: This may be incorrect for your area, and I refuse to claim responsibility if you use the wrong cable and cause harm to anything with your use of it.
Note: Plenum is availiable for almost any cable. UTP, STP, coax, power, you name it.
Careful grounding your STP -- over very long distances (like many floors in an office building) a ground differential can cause HUGE current loops through your ground. I've heard stories about ground jackets setting on fire in runs from the top floor to the basement in office buildings.
>Two wires twisted together picks up virtually nothing
No, they pick up twice as much as a single untwisted wire.
The reason why they seem immune to noise is because the receiver doesn't look directly at the voltage on the cable (such as a TV does), but instead it looks at the difference between the voltages on the pair. This means that if a 60V spike is induced near the pair, both wires go up 60V but when you subtract (for example) 72V from 60V you end up with 12V, thereby removing the interference.
The twist ensures the interference is equal. Without the twist, the level of interference on one line could be greater than the other, thereby degrading the signal.
I expect that the ground cable is providing a minimal amount of sheilding because the twists case it to "wrap" around the signal wire, thereby ensuring you get some kind of picture.
>A friend of mine uses it for composite video.
I'm very surprised this works. Analog video signals don't do a difference voltage check; One wire is expected to be directly tied to earth, which would short out the transmitter if it were differential.
>And, by the way, add some good, strong cotton string with all your cables.
Agreed, but don't use cotton. As it is organic after a few years it will rot, and then you're SOL. Use something inorganic, like that "cheap" twine you see the phone company installers carry about with them.
>I believe that when the CD format was defined that they defined the acceptable transfer rate at approximately 2x that rate, or 172kbps.
It's still that.
There's much less error correction on Audio CDs. This allows a slightly higher data rate at the exact same rotational speed as a 150 kbps Data CD (which is full of error correction that must be read, and if not used, discarded).
>Just like the original DVD drives are now called "1x"
Yes and no... original DVD drives spun the disc just fast enough to read the maximum data rate a valid DVD could be encoded at (10 Mbps IIRC). This makes fast forwarding a painful process...