>I know this has been mentioned in another post, but apropros of this article, the Waterloo Wireless [waterloowireless.org] group is (or was, I haven't heard from them in some time) trying for complete world domination at 11Mbit/sec.
Any info on how to "join"? I'm relatively interested now I see there's some meaty content there, and my area could _seriously_ use an ISP of some sort (past 21.6k dialup).
>I know the Prius has a longer range than a gas-only car.
Basically, a hybrid car is only half a solution. If it's going to use gas, it's a little pointless -- I already own an economy car, and when I looked at the prius it's only going "save" the environment (ok, my pocket book) about another 20% - 30% (and most of that only during the city part of the drive). It's something, but in the end it's just nothing, even if everyone saved 20% the effect isn't going to be that spectacular.
And I know enough about batteries to know they'll be at about 50% of capacity (at best) when the electrolyte nears freezing temperatures. And I've read enough about 100% electric cars to know that a 2-hour run without a recharge isn't bad. And since my round trip is already an hour, a completely electric vehicle just doesn't cut the mustard.
Now, when I can actually get my hands on a Hydrogen powered vehicle, then I'll be a lot more interested.
>I don't know enough about your local situation to comment intelligently about it. For example, I don't know if trains are feasable or desirable.
Trains aren't much of a problem, except since they were never well integrated into the city, it's too late to add them now. The majority of the train tracks run through the city, with one or two stops. There's probably a Kitchener-Waterloo map on mapquest, if it matters.
>Yup, and without all that shit life just ain't worth living is it?
So, just a minute, you're telling me I should live an undereducated and sub-par lifestyle because my desire to become more educated in satellite receiving technology is harming the environment in a roundabout way?
That seems mighty unfair. I think I would ask everyone to stop buying/making/working on computers too, since these encourage factories to use all those horrible chemicals that do far more damage to the environment than my car's tailpipe, not to mention the electricity required to power today's mean machines. Everyone should be using a C64. Now there's a machine you could power with a battery.
>Now fucks like you have decided to move up there year-round, mostly fucking yuppies who can't handle the 'din' of the city so they want to fuck up the mountains with Wal-marts and strip malls.
Fucks like me, eh? You don't seem to get it. That pisses people like me off and we just don't end up on your side, even if you do stop talking trash. I've seen it so many times. I've seen people who once support greenpeace (etc) quit when they finally become the enemy-du-jour.
Two, I really don't care about noise. I already explained my reasons for being here, and it actually has nothing to do with wal-marts or strip malls.
Three, I actually don't care if you enjoy time away from civilization. In fact, in contrast to you suggesting we suburbanites have "fucked up" your wal-mart free atmosphere, I would say we've improved it. Nothing like a convenient convenience store, IMHO.
>I'm just irritated with people like you who want to blame everyone else but yourself and still bitch about the pollution and the traffic.
I bitch and blame about the pollution and traffic because there _are_ ways to easily solve these problems _and_ keep everyone happy. In fact, I bitch the most because so few people seem to understand all it takes is to properly co-ordinate a public transport system, and it'll be used. Instead I hear unhelpful whines like "Destroy the economy by selling all your suburban homes and live in Arcologies in the city", or "Don't make another road, you'll squash some frogs." Now, if frogs were in any danger of becoming rare, I might agree. But they just aren't! And that road is required to increase the efficiency of traffic, and therefore the efficiency of public transport.
Can I do something about it? No. I don't live in the city, and therefore don't get a lot of say in how it operates, even if it is just a hop, skip and a jump from my door.
>Wake up, your lifestyle is part of the problem.
No, people implementing poorly thought out solutions, and listening to people who would rather us all walk to work from inside some kind of inhuman arcology, is the problem, since that just isn't going to happen. People will die of smog before you can force them to be jailed up like that. [And force/jail are the right words, since few people would willingly live there.]
Give me a bus and I'll take it. Just make sure it gets me there within 2x the time it takes to drive to the destination. It isn't hard, and many other cities have done a beautiful job of it (even Toronto, which still has a poor transport system, at least has one that can do this).
>If you don't want to change anything in YOUR life stop whining and suck up the smog.
Why change my lifestyle when there's better solutions which will ultimately save everyone money?
I am not your enemy. I am willing to co-operate. I simply think there's solutions out there that leave everyone relatively satisfied, rather than a few extremely happy, and the rest of us miserable.
And, if I may also use the words, wake up and smell the burgers. America will either drown in it's love for simple and fast, or someone will figure out a compromise that lets us keep it all. Option number two seems best, especially since it's not too hard to do.
>ECS has so far proven to be quite good. I've had their k7s5a for quite a while and it works excellently.
I'm happy about that, but you'll have no trouble proving that ECS is PcChips, and that PcChips changes their name occasionally (ok, very often) because it gets tarnished faster than iron by the sea. Basically, here's what PcChips does (very easy to verify, if you like):
- Pirates BIOS code.
- Manufactures and uses fake cache chips (ie: Plastic blobs with metal bits sticking out -- nothing inside).
- Fakes chipsets (they often make their own in-house chipsets, which are famous for being buggy and slow, and are known to brand/name them according to OEMs wishes)
- Uses misleading names on their in-house chipsets (eg: TXPro, VXPro, etc, etc)
- Fakes processor speeds (they used a batch of slower than expected chipsets and simply re-programmed the BIOS to always multiply the speed by 100, no matter what you set the FSB speed to)
- Uses low quality/grade parts whenever possible
- Makes chipsets that silently corrupt hard drives (my personal experience on another PcChips mobo about 3 years ago).
Also, a former PcChips employee informed me that PcChips executives were once sued for being involved in remarking processor speeds (can't verify this one, but it sure goes along with the other fraud PcChips commits).
There's more, read about PcChips here if you like. That site is the only place you're going to get help should you lose the box/manual to your mobo (since the majority don't have a model number marked), so keep it bookmarked! Deja can sometimes be some help if you want to check if your board is a PcChips board or not.
Some other PcChips brand names (ie: My short shitlist): Ability, Alton, Amptron, Aristo, Asia Gate, Asiatech, Assa, Atrend, Elpina, Eurone, EuroCom, Fugu, Fugutech, Hi Sing, Houston Tech, Hsing Tech, H Tech, Matsonic, Minstaple, PCWare, Pine, Protac, Warpspeed.
And, just to let you know, you'll find if you ever take the machine into a shop, they'll probably charge you double when they see a PcChips mobo inside. I know I do, because I know it's going to take twice as long to fix (if possible).
But hey, best of luck with the board! I've got one PcChips machine in the house, and other than having to disconnect the video before powering up, it's been fine for a couple of years.
>Maybe if so many script kiddies/ warez'ers/ napsterites hadn't gone so fscking overboard downloading/spamming/sharing, the legislations wouldn't have any backing. It would be too much bother for so little.
But I say this:
Without so many people going "overboard" using napster, etc. we wouldn't have the multitudes of people who hate the DMCA, et al. And the more people on our side, the easier these laws are to strike down.
Right now I can strike the fear of God into any teenager who's getting close to voting age by telling them that because of the current government you could be Hacked, Investigated, and sent to jail without due process in the USA because music companies suspect you of being a pirate when you use KaZaa.
Fortunately, myself being in Canada, this simply puts them off living in the USA. But, if I were in the USA, I can imagine this would be more serious.
Any other topic to do with government and laws, though, and I'd be shrugged off.
IMHO, going public with all this technology was the best idea yet.
Would you propose that a shoplifter go to a federal prison for 12 months for stealing a turkey on Thanksgiving?
Crime is far more than black and white. FBI should deal with people who are destined for federal prisons. Local police should deal with people who end up in their jails.
A "crime" like this probably won't even carry any jail time (maybe a $500 fine or similar), but should it do so, they'll be a surprise to the local police who won't have a clue why the FBI is booking them into their jail for a week or two.
>They're trying to nip this in the bud before it gets out of control like cable descramblers did.
Really, whose fault is that in the end? Not many (although some) people go out "stealing" (in quotes because I'll save that discussion for another day) TV just for the fun of it.
In Canada, for the longest time pirating American TV was completely legal (isn't today) and Canadian cable companies and satellite companies got along just fine by simply not raping the pocketbooks of consumers. What a concept! Loyalty through reasonable prices...
Only (approx.) 10% of Canada's population had grey market TV equipment even during the height of this. Considering how cheap it is/was to do that, the number should have been much higher. But Canadians stayed loyal to their Cable Co. and Satellite Co. because, overall, they didn't screw things up (too much).
American TV companies should have tried that. I can't believe anyone would pay $75 CDN + $7 CDN per movie for that schlock. Our prices are about half that, and even in an area like mine not serviced by cable TV, _every_ house has a DBS dish.
Of course, that being said, if it's illegal where you are, you can expect to be "punished", and you won't get a lot of sympathy from me.
>BTW, what on earth is a FlashROM? Flashable memory that can only be read, never written???
Give or take. You can't call FlashROM (well, EEPROM to be specific) RAM because the writing cycle isn't Random Access. The write cycle has to be done sequentially, or sometimes in blocks, so it can't (easily) be used like normal RAM for the writing bit.
For being morons and giving a totally pathetic reason to block building a road, yes -- yes, I am blaming them for that.
>The traffic is caused by a lack of public transportation
Yup.
>or more precisely, a lack of people like you using it.
You try to convince a township (let me repeat: TOWN, not city) to get a metropolis to drive busses into a hamlet (yes, HAMLET) to pick up one or two people a week.
You aren't going to be successful.
>Do you commute by car?
Yup.
>If so, you're part of the fucking problem.
No, you're part of the fucking problem because people like you never come up with solutions that work with people like me.
>And talk to Toyota, GM, etc. about the smog. They are the ones deliberately exploiting a loophole in CAFE emission standards so the can sell gas-guzzling, and smog-producing, SUVs and trucks.
Neither of which I own.
>However, you CAN buy a hybtid or electric car now. Do you own and use one?
No. You see, there's this little problem:
This is FUCKING CANADA. It gets below FUCKING 0. My car has to start. And it has to be able to drive FUCKING 60 MINUTES without a recharge because I don't live right inside that FUCKING CITY.
>If not, you're part of the fucking problem.
Again, people like YOU are the FUCKING PROBLEM because people like you only come up with solutions that work for big fucking cities.
Note: Not everyone wants to, or can live in a big fucking city. Some of us have hobbies that prevent us living in a big fucking city. You try building potato cannons, putting up 3 DSS dishes, a 10 ft. C-Band dish, a 40 ft. TV tower and a microwave antenna and just see how fucking quick the city tells you to move.
>I wish I could, but people like you are ruining the forests too.
I have news for ya... I'm out in the country which means I'm surrounded by the damn forest! There's enough that nobody here cares!
Argh! Freakin' city slickers go on that hippies list too now... damn. I have city slicker friends. Oh well.
Anyways, I just added you to my foes list too, because, just like you, I don't want to talk to people who won't ever come up with a solution that works for me. And running busses isn't going to since it'll just cause the same amount of pollution, and electric cars just don't drive far enough to work. Think of something else... something better...
Goodbye, and hopefully, goodbye forever, unless you come up with an idea that works for me.
One more thing: Christ, you have a bad attitude. And then you probably wonder why greenies get such a bad name from people like me. It's because people like you are such ASSHOLES.
Re:Make that "old skool BSD license"
on
Ghost for Unix
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· Score: 1
>WTF is this "discuss" thing.
It's a MeFicarryover. Beats me how it started, but I guess you could do a search...:-)
>The cost for Ghost (and my major beef with it) is $20 or so **PER GHOSTED CLIENT PC**.
Bummer. I wanted to use it at a store I'm going to open to make building up PCs faster. But there's no way I can eat $20 per PC.
I suppose this explains why all the other brand name PCs (Dell, Compaq, etc...) don't use ghost and instead some other similar utility.
Who knows -- maybe there'll be a good enough OS solution in the future -- unfortunately g4u isn't it (it _must_ handle resizing _very_ well -- I can't tell customers they can only have 40 GB HDDs). Partition Image might not be bad, but the last time I used it, it ate my ext2 partition.:-(
>You forget: precedent merely means that a case touches on the same subject and can be followed because it is convincing. BINDING precedent is of the type that must be followed because it comes down from a superior court.
Makes sense.
>Well duh. The limitation on remote damages rule from Hadley is from the law of CONTRACTS. The law of TORTS is totally different. But this is not a tort!
Ahhh... that's the word I was searching for. Maybe I shouldn't have dropped out of that criminology elective after all.:-)
>As I said, Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Ex. 341 (1854) is basically the seminal holding on the subject.
Sorry man, I doubt British rulings still apply to Canada, even if they happened before the BNA.
However, you are right, likely the ISP will have to repay the entire cost of the service. But, there's a catch: I think they'll also end up having to pay both sides lawyer's fees. Which will be enough that they may just settle out of court.
Not to mention she's still going to end up with a good job now, because newspapers _love_ reporters that can grab this much attention over such a little tiny thing.:-)
>It's unfair to punish them for something that's unforeseen.
Cases involving loss of limb or life would likely fall under different rules and that's why someone in a car that gets smashed up due to mistakes at the shop can sue for mega-bucks, even though that would be unforseen. Now, if she could somehow prove this missing email caused her some emotional trauma, she might have a case...
IMHO, it's perfectly all right to punish someone for unforseen circumstances, when those unforseen circumstances lead to physical harm on the other person. However, cases like the one in England where a lady has a seizure and is sued for a few thousand pounds due to stressing-out someone who saw her contorted face are plain wrong (but, unfortunately, tend to fall under the same legislation).
This shows the entire problem that has existed in the ISP industry from day one.
The industry is immature and lacks a cohesive standard. [Don't take that personally... I'm not saying you're immature by any means]
For example, everyone knows when you are dealing with utilities, that after one or two months of unpaid bills they can cut off any non-essential service. Since I'm in Canada, hydro and gas cannot be shut off during the winter since you'd probably die, but I bet the phone company could reduce your phone down to "outgoing 911" only.
Standards would suggest that when you cancel/suspend an ISP account, the mail bounces, or gets lost. This isn't all that much different from the postal service, where non-bulk packages and mail are returned "No such address -- return to sender" or "DECEASED" when the person formerly at that address no longer exists.
Few of these industries go into collection of accounts until they are over an amount that makes it worth their time (likely over $250). But at least they all do the same things, pretty much worldwide (or at least nation- or state/province-wide).
I'd hate to see more regulation on ISPs because they can't get together and agree on basic things. Some of the basic things that (amazingly) ISPs refuse to agree on reactions for are: "Unlimited" accounts, Payment problems and ISP screwups (lack of service and broken accounts).
IMHO, unlimited means unlimited, not "30 GB xfer per month", or "600 hours per month". Payment problems should be dealth with just like a telco (1-month warning, 2 or 3 months termination). And ISP screwups should have similar repercussions to major telco screwups on residential lines (1-day refund per 1-day out of service).
But that's just me. I just don't want to see a suit like this add even more regulation on one of the few relatively free industries.
>The only thing I'd complain about ghost is that it's still dos based.
Ghost works best in DOS, but I have had luck (at least in win 98) hot-imaging drives inside windows.
Try it -- as long as your not dealing with the main partition, it should work for you.
BTW: I'm soon opening a computer store and was wondering -- exactly how much is the license for a couple of copies of ghost?
Re:Make that "old skool BSD license"
on
Ghost for Unix
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
You're so right.
If it weren't for that advertising clause I would never have had a reason not to run BSD software.
But after finding the BSD advertising clause in several Windows 9x programs, most of which run so poorly it's almost as if I had written them, I was happy to have a reason why not to use BSD: Because BSD == Windows. (in a small way).
>The MS/DOJ lawsuit is about illegally *maintaining* a monopoly, and concerns events in the mid-late 1990s, after Gates was already a multi-billionaire. Also, the accusations involve unfair tactics towards a competitor by giving software away, not 'stealing' anything from consumers/the public.
You only know about the near-term past? Read a little and there are many more Antitrust lawsuits that you don't know about. They are there. Ask Caldera.
>Mind you, I doubt a rational comments will have any impact on what is clearly an emotional issue to you.
Your comment is the irrational one, mate. You make no effort to look into the history of a company. Why don't you put some effort in and turn up the dirt? Or are you so lazy I have to link it for you?
This happened _before_ (according to you) Bill Gates had his pile of cash.
>I really pity people like you, who are so filled with hatred (and probably jealousy) for something or someone who doesn't even know (or care) they exist.
Damn, you're so vapid, aren't you? Seriously, you need an education. And, since you're clearly under the age of 15, read some history before you comment. You clearly don't know the first thing about Microsoft's past.
>Sure you do, mate. Honestly, you Slashdotters are like a joke to normal people, in the same vein as the 'black helicopter' brigade who are convinced the UN are secretly running everyting.
Uhuh. Let's see... you're so paranoid you won't set up a User ID and you're calling me a "Black Helicoper" believer.
>I didn't mean "why do u deserve the money more" but rather "What do you need more money than everyone else for?"
Okay. Well, here is my (simple) explanation: The extra money serves as a reason to further yourself and (indirectly) society. It's a need and not a want because it's been my experience that people respond in the best way to a problem when they're confronted with a big wad of green.
>You don't gain intelligence - you are born with it.
>I can't stand shepd. He just posts a bunch of shit in the message boards trying to up his post tally.
You know, if you had an account like most people, you could simply put me on your foes list.
Instead you choose to take the defeatist method and do nothing. Who exactly is the stupid one here?
Another one for my Stalking thread. You really are busy tonite, aren't you? Interesting how all these posts happen at the same time... lose the proxies and anonymous status and post like a man, why don't you?
>But how did MS destroy Wordperfect? From what I remember, Wordperfect didn't come out in a win version until word already had a quite large following - thus they missed the boat. Novell went and screwed themselves up fairly good, MS FUD did pretty much the rest (mind you Novell is getting better again).
With wordperfect and lotus there's strong arguments that they killed themselves and that MS were simply the vultures that fed off their dead carcass, so to speak. These two are a thorny issue that is difficult to debate since I don't think either company predsient has really spoken about the truth of their companies being bought up by M$.
However, with Novell, I've seen the ex-CEO (or is it president? I forget) explain that Microsoft basically told them that they were going to put them out of the Netware business in some way (windows XP has pretty much sealed that deal). This might not be bad when you first look at it, but normal business strategy isn't to focus on putting others out of business -- it's usually to focus on offering something good enough that you get the maximum business. Other companies going out of business should simply be a side effect of that, not a goal.
>No, I don't think BillG is an evil man (think hussein, stalin, hitler, etc, etc), but I do think power corrupts and skews your vision.
I guess the whole basis of my argument is there's many shades of evil. Someone who steals from the penny jar of a homeless man, for example, in my book is evil, even if they give 10x that money to a homeless shelter.
It's all shades of grey, and all of us are evil to some point (at least according to Freud & Jung). The difference is there's a line in between evil and good. Microsoft + Bill Gates are on the evil side in their corporate dealings, but unlike Stalin et al. Microsoft + Bill Gates can still redeem themselves to the world, since they aren't particularly horrible people, just not particularly nice much of the time. Sort of like how I'd no longer consider the man stealing from the homeless person evil if he'd just give back the money he took without whining.
>Given equal pay for all cases, would you rather flip burgers, dig ditches, or sit in a nice comfy chair and write programs?
After working in an office, I'd rather dig ditches for sure. Burger flipping has idiots annoying you as well, but with ditch digging you get well paid, and to a certain degree, you get to do the job you want.
Didn't expect that, did you?
Neither did Karl Marx.
Some jobs just _suck_ but require an education. I'm thinking nuclear power plant technician/technologist here. There's thousands more (being a manager of a dying company, photocopier technician, etc, etc).
Money is the best compensation that we've found, since it equally motivates people. What motivates one person to program can be dimished by simply forcing them to wear a straight-jacket while programming, which is what most companies (and, very largely, communist nations) do.
In the end, freedom and money are the most equal drivers for people to do things, and a communist system usually lacks both.
>I guess the idea is that the two 60hz flickers will be slightly different... "out of tune"... causing pronounced beat patterns. >a larger difference between frequency (60hz vs 70hz) wouldn't beat as much.
While this is correct, the human eye cannot perceive this interference. If it were able to, the difference would appear as a bright line scrolling up and down your monitor, similar to the black line that scrolls on TVs taped without a genlock.
Slashdot Mirror
>I know this has been mentioned in another post, but apropros of this article, the Waterloo Wireless [waterloowireless.org] group is (or was, I haven't heard from them in some time) trying for complete world domination at 11Mbit/sec.
Any info on how to "join"? I'm relatively interested now I see there's some meaty content there, and my area could _seriously_ use an ISP of some sort (past 21.6k dialup).
Very interesting project.
>I know the Prius has a longer range than a gas-only car.
Basically, a hybrid car is only half a solution. If it's going to use gas, it's a little pointless -- I already own an economy car, and when I looked at the prius it's only going "save" the environment (ok, my pocket book) about another 20% - 30% (and most of that only during the city part of the drive). It's something, but in the end it's just nothing, even if everyone saved 20% the effect isn't going to be that spectacular.
And I know enough about batteries to know they'll be at about 50% of capacity (at best) when the electrolyte nears freezing temperatures. And I've read enough about 100% electric cars to know that a 2-hour run without a recharge isn't bad. And since my round trip is already an hour, a completely electric vehicle just doesn't cut the mustard.
Now, when I can actually get my hands on a Hydrogen powered vehicle, then I'll be a lot more interested.
>I don't know enough about your local situation to comment intelligently about it. For example, I don't know if trains are feasable or desirable.
Trains aren't much of a problem, except since they were never well integrated into the city, it's too late to add them now. The majority of the train tracks run through the city, with one or two stops. There's probably a Kitchener-Waterloo map on mapquest, if it matters.
>Yup, and without all that shit life just ain't worth living is it?
So, just a minute, you're telling me I should live an undereducated and sub-par lifestyle because my desire to become more educated in satellite receiving technology is harming the environment in a roundabout way?
That seems mighty unfair. I think I would ask everyone to stop buying/making/working on computers too, since these encourage factories to use all those horrible chemicals that do far more damage to the environment than my car's tailpipe, not to mention the electricity required to power today's mean machines. Everyone should be using a C64. Now there's a machine you could power with a battery.
>Now fucks like you have decided to move up there year-round, mostly fucking yuppies who can't handle the 'din' of the city so they want to fuck up the mountains with Wal-marts and strip malls.
Fucks like me, eh? You don't seem to get it. That pisses people like me off and we just don't end up on your side, even if you do stop talking trash. I've seen it so many times. I've seen people who once support greenpeace (etc) quit when they finally become the enemy-du-jour.
Two, I really don't care about noise. I already explained my reasons for being here, and it actually has nothing to do with wal-marts or strip malls.
Three, I actually don't care if you enjoy time away from civilization. In fact, in contrast to you suggesting we suburbanites have "fucked up" your wal-mart free atmosphere, I would say we've improved it. Nothing like a convenient convenience store, IMHO.
>I'm just irritated with people like you who want to blame everyone else but yourself and still bitch about the pollution and the traffic.
I bitch and blame about the pollution and traffic because there _are_ ways to easily solve these problems _and_ keep everyone happy. In fact, I bitch the most because so few people seem to understand all it takes is to properly co-ordinate a public transport system, and it'll be used. Instead I hear unhelpful whines like "Destroy the economy by selling all your suburban homes and live in Arcologies in the city", or "Don't make another road, you'll squash some frogs." Now, if frogs were in any danger of becoming rare, I might agree. But they just aren't! And that road is required to increase the efficiency of traffic, and therefore the efficiency of public transport.
Can I do something about it? No. I don't live in the city, and therefore don't get a lot of say in how it operates, even if it is just a hop, skip and a jump from my door.
>Wake up, your lifestyle is part of the problem.
No, people implementing poorly thought out solutions, and listening to people who would rather us all walk to work from inside some kind of inhuman arcology, is the problem, since that just isn't going to happen. People will die of smog before you can force them to be jailed up like that. [And force/jail are the right words, since few people would willingly live there.]
Give me a bus and I'll take it. Just make sure it gets me there within 2x the time it takes to drive to the destination. It isn't hard, and many other cities have done a beautiful job of it (even Toronto, which still has a poor transport system, at least has one that can do this).
>If you don't want to change anything in YOUR life stop whining and suck up the smog.
Why change my lifestyle when there's better solutions which will ultimately save everyone money?
I am not your enemy. I am willing to co-operate. I simply think there's solutions out there that leave everyone relatively satisfied, rather than a few extremely happy, and the rest of us miserable.
And, if I may also use the words, wake up and smell the burgers. America will either drown in it's love for simple and fast, or someone will figure out a compromise that lets us keep it all. Option number two seems best, especially since it's not too hard to do.
Just my two cents.
>ECS has so far proven to be quite good. I've had their k7s5a for quite a while and it works excellently.
I'm happy about that, but you'll have no trouble proving that ECS is PcChips, and that PcChips changes their name occasionally (ok, very often) because it gets tarnished faster than iron by the sea. Basically, here's what PcChips does (very easy to verify, if you like):
- Pirates BIOS code.
- Manufactures and uses fake cache chips (ie: Plastic blobs with metal bits sticking out -- nothing inside).
- Fakes chipsets (they often make their own in-house chipsets, which are famous for being buggy and slow, and are known to brand/name them according to OEMs wishes)
- Uses misleading names on their in-house chipsets (eg: TXPro, VXPro, etc, etc)
- Fakes processor speeds (they used a batch of slower than expected chipsets and simply re-programmed the BIOS to always multiply the speed by 100, no matter what you set the FSB speed to)
- Uses low quality/grade parts whenever possible
- Makes chipsets that silently corrupt hard drives (my personal experience on another PcChips mobo about 3 years ago).
Also, a former PcChips employee informed me that PcChips executives were once sued for being involved in remarking processor speeds (can't verify this one, but it sure goes along with the other fraud PcChips commits).
There's more, read about PcChips here if you like. That site is the only place you're going to get help should you lose the box/manual to your mobo (since the majority don't have a model number marked), so keep it bookmarked! Deja can sometimes be some help if you want to check if your board is a PcChips board or not.
Some other PcChips brand names (ie: My short shitlist): Ability, Alton, Amptron, Aristo, Asia Gate, Asiatech, Assa, Atrend, Elpina, Eurone, EuroCom, Fugu, Fugutech, Hi Sing, Houston Tech, Hsing Tech, H Tech, Matsonic, Minstaple, PCWare, Pine, Protac, Warpspeed.
And, just to let you know, you'll find if you ever take the machine into a shop, they'll probably charge you double when they see a PcChips mobo inside. I know I do, because I know it's going to take twice as long to fix (if possible).
But hey, best of luck with the board! I've got one PcChips machine in the house, and other than having to disconnect the video before powering up, it's been fine for a couple of years.
>Maybe if so many script kiddies/ warez'ers/ napsterites hadn't gone so fscking overboard downloading/spamming/sharing, the legislations wouldn't have any backing. It would be too much bother for so little.
But I say this:
Without so many people going "overboard" using napster, etc. we wouldn't have the multitudes of people who hate the DMCA, et al. And the more people on our side, the easier these laws are to strike down.
Right now I can strike the fear of God into any teenager who's getting close to voting age by telling them that because of the current government you could be Hacked, Investigated, and sent to jail without due process in the USA because music companies suspect you of being a pirate when you use KaZaa.
Fortunately, myself being in Canada, this simply puts them off living in the USA. But, if I were in the USA, I can imagine this would be more serious.
Any other topic to do with government and laws, though, and I'd be shrugged off.
IMHO, going public with all this technology was the best idea yet.
>I just bought a $50 replacement from ECS.
;-)
Woohoo! Nothing like PcChips replacement parts...
(yes, I'm being sarcastic)
If I were you I'd buy a spare.
>It's some wierd proprietary thing that lets you make a password and select boot priority and that's it.
I'll beat $5 (/.) that it's a Phoenix BIOS.
Ahh, the bane of the computer industry. Rates right up there with the C&T BIOS-on-a-disk.
>Why is the FBI involved?
Would you propose that a shoplifter go to a federal prison for 12 months for stealing a turkey on Thanksgiving?
Crime is far more than black and white. FBI should deal with people who are destined for federal prisons. Local police should deal with people who end up in their jails.
A "crime" like this probably won't even carry any jail time (maybe a $500 fine or similar), but should it do so, they'll be a surprise to the local police who won't have a clue why the FBI is booking them into their jail for a week or two.
>They're trying to nip this in the bud before it gets out of control like cable descramblers did.
Really, whose fault is that in the end? Not many (although some) people go out "stealing" (in quotes because I'll save that discussion for another day) TV just for the fun of it.
In Canada, for the longest time pirating American TV was completely legal (isn't today) and Canadian cable companies and satellite companies got along just fine by simply not raping the pocketbooks of consumers. What a concept! Loyalty through reasonable prices...
Only (approx.) 10% of Canada's population had grey market TV equipment even during the height of this. Considering how cheap it is/was to do that, the number should have been much higher. But Canadians stayed loyal to their Cable Co. and Satellite Co. because, overall, they didn't screw things up (too much).
American TV companies should have tried that. I can't believe anyone would pay $75 CDN + $7 CDN per movie for that schlock. Our prices are about half that, and even in an area like mine not serviced by cable TV, _every_ house has a DBS dish.
Of course, that being said, if it's illegal where you are, you can expect to be "punished", and you won't get a lot of sympathy from me.
>Just cause you can doesn't mean you should.
Well, that's true.
>BTW, what on earth is a FlashROM? Flashable memory that can only be read, never written???
Give or take. You can't call FlashROM (well, EEPROM to be specific) RAM because the writing cycle isn't Random Access. The write cycle has to be done sequentially, or sometimes in blocks, so it can't (easily) be used like normal RAM for the writing bit.
HTH!
>And you're blaming the environmental groups?
For being morons and giving a totally pathetic reason to block building a road, yes -- yes, I am blaming them for that.
>The traffic is caused by a lack of public transportation
Yup.
>or more precisely, a lack of people like you using it.
You try to convince a township (let me repeat: TOWN, not city) to get a metropolis to drive busses into a hamlet (yes, HAMLET) to pick up one or two people a week.
You aren't going to be successful.
>Do you commute by car?
Yup.
>If so, you're part of the fucking problem.
No, you're part of the fucking problem because people like you never come up with solutions that work with people like me.
>And talk to Toyota, GM, etc. about the smog. They are the ones deliberately exploiting a loophole in CAFE emission standards so the can sell gas-guzzling, and smog-producing, SUVs and trucks.
Neither of which I own.
>However, you CAN buy a hybtid or electric car now. Do you own and use one?
No. You see, there's this little problem:
This is FUCKING CANADA. It gets below FUCKING 0. My car has to start. And it has to be able to drive FUCKING 60 MINUTES without a recharge because I don't live right inside that FUCKING CITY.
>If not, you're part of the fucking problem.
Again, people like YOU are the FUCKING PROBLEM because people like you only come up with solutions that work for big fucking cities.
Note: Not everyone wants to, or can live in a big fucking city. Some of us have hobbies that prevent us living in a big fucking city. You try building potato cannons, putting up 3 DSS dishes, a 10 ft. C-Band dish, a 40 ft. TV tower and a microwave antenna and just see how fucking quick the city tells you to move.
>I wish I could, but people like you are ruining the forests too.
I have news for ya... I'm out in the country which means I'm surrounded by the damn forest! There's enough that nobody here cares!
Argh! Freakin' city slickers go on that hippies list too now... damn. I have city slicker friends. Oh well.
Anyways, I just added you to my foes list too, because, just like you, I don't want to talk to people who won't ever come up with a solution that works for me. And running busses isn't going to since it'll just cause the same amount of pollution, and electric cars just don't drive far enough to work. Think of something else... something better...
Goodbye, and hopefully, goodbye forever, unless you come up with an idea that works for me.
One more thing: Christ, you have a bad attitude. And then you probably wonder why greenies get such a bad name from people like me. It's because people like you are such ASSHOLES.
>WTF is this "discuss" thing.
:-)
It's a MeFi carryover. Beats me how it started, but I guess you could do a search...
>The cost for Ghost (and my major beef with it) is $20 or so **PER GHOSTED CLIENT PC**.
:-(
Bummer. I wanted to use it at a store I'm going to open to make building up PCs faster. But there's no way I can eat $20 per PC.
I suppose this explains why all the other brand name PCs (Dell, Compaq, etc...) don't use ghost and instead some other similar utility.
Who knows -- maybe there'll be a good enough OS solution in the future -- unfortunately g4u isn't it (it _must_ handle resizing _very_ well -- I can't tell customers they can only have 40 GB HDDs). Partition Image might not be bad, but the last time I used it, it ate my ext2 partition.
>You forget: precedent merely means that a case touches on the same subject and can be followed because it is convincing. BINDING precedent is of the type that must be followed because it comes down from a superior court.
:-)
Makes sense.
>Well duh. The limitation on remote damages rule from Hadley is from the law of CONTRACTS. The law of TORTS is totally different. But this is not a tort!
Ahhh... that's the word I was searching for. Maybe I shouldn't have dropped out of that criminology elective after all.
>As I said, Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Ex. 341 (1854) is basically the seminal holding on the subject.
:-)
Sorry man, I doubt British rulings still apply to Canada, even if they happened before the BNA.
However, you are right, likely the ISP will have to repay the entire cost of the service. But, there's a catch: I think they'll also end up having to pay both sides lawyer's fees. Which will be enough that they may just settle out of court.
Not to mention she's still going to end up with a good job now, because newspapers _love_ reporters that can grab this much attention over such a little tiny thing.
>It's unfair to punish them for something that's unforeseen.
Cases involving loss of limb or life would likely fall under different rules and that's why someone in a car that gets smashed up due to mistakes at the shop can sue for mega-bucks, even though that would be unforseen. Now, if she could somehow prove this missing email caused her some emotional trauma, she might have a case...
IMHO, it's perfectly all right to punish someone for unforseen circumstances, when those unforseen circumstances lead to physical harm on the other person. However, cases like the one in England where a lady has a seizure and is sued for a few thousand pounds due to stressing-out someone who saw her contorted face are plain wrong (but, unfortunately, tend to fall under the same legislation).
This shows the entire problem that has existed in the ISP industry from day one.
The industry is immature and lacks a cohesive standard. [Don't take that personally... I'm not saying you're immature by any means]
For example, everyone knows when you are dealing with utilities, that after one or two months of unpaid bills they can cut off any non-essential service. Since I'm in Canada, hydro and gas cannot be shut off during the winter since you'd probably die, but I bet the phone company could reduce your phone down to "outgoing 911" only.
Standards would suggest that when you cancel/suspend an ISP account, the mail bounces, or gets lost. This isn't all that much different from the postal service, where non-bulk packages and mail are returned "No such address -- return to sender" or "DECEASED" when the person formerly at that address no longer exists.
Few of these industries go into collection of accounts until they are over an amount that makes it worth their time (likely over $250). But at least they all do the same things, pretty much worldwide (or at least nation- or state/province-wide).
I'd hate to see more regulation on ISPs because they can't get together and agree on basic things. Some of the basic things that (amazingly) ISPs refuse to agree on reactions for are: "Unlimited" accounts, Payment problems and ISP screwups (lack of service and broken accounts).
IMHO, unlimited means unlimited, not "30 GB xfer per month", or "600 hours per month". Payment problems should be dealth with just like a telco (1-month warning, 2 or 3 months termination). And ISP screwups should have similar repercussions to major telco screwups on residential lines (1-day refund per 1-day out of service).
But that's just me. I just don't want to see a suit like this add even more regulation on one of the few relatively free industries.
>The only thing I'd complain about ghost is that it's still dos based.
Ghost works best in DOS, but I have had luck (at least in win 98) hot-imaging drives inside windows.
Try it -- as long as your not dealing with the main partition, it should work for you.
BTW: I'm soon opening a computer store and was wondering -- exactly how much is the license for a couple of copies of ghost?
You're so right.
If it weren't for that advertising clause I would never have had a reason not to run BSD software.
But after finding the BSD advertising clause in several Windows 9x programs, most of which run so poorly it's almost as if I had written them, I was happy to have a reason why not to use BSD: Because BSD == Windows. (in a small way).
>I'm one of those guys who gave up on origami until I found an excellent HOWTO. Does it make newsworthy for Slashdot?
I don't know. Did making the origami involve a robot and/or 3D modelling software? If so, yes.
Otherwise it's just another origami boulder. Sorry.
>The MS/DOJ lawsuit is about illegally *maintaining* a monopoly, and concerns events in the mid-late 1990s, after Gates was already a multi-billionaire. Also, the accusations involve unfair tactics towards a competitor by giving software away, not 'stealing' anything from consumers/the public.
You only know about the near-term past? Read a little and there are many more Antitrust lawsuits that you don't know about. They are there. Ask Caldera.
>Mind you, I doubt a rational comments will have any impact on what is clearly an emotional issue to you.
Your comment is the irrational one, mate. You make no effort to look into the history of a company. Why don't you put some effort in and turn up the dirt? Or are you so lazy I have to link it for you?
This happened _before_ (according to you) Bill Gates had his pile of cash.
>I really pity people like you, who are so filled with hatred (and probably jealousy) for something or someone who doesn't even know (or care) they exist.
Damn, you're so vapid , aren't you? Seriously, you need an education. And, since you're clearly under the age of 15, read some history before you comment. You clearly don't know the first thing about Microsoft's past.
>all the profitable software companies went out of business?
.bomb
I don't know, did they?
>What are you on about again?
The
What you are on about that all the companies are out of business again? Huh? You've totally lost me!
>Are you trying to make a point or just spouting incoherent drivel for the sake of it?
Look at the Pot calling the Kettle black. You think all the profitable software companies are out of business and you're calling me incoherent?
You've lost it. Get a grip.
>Sure you do, mate. Honestly, you Slashdotters are like a joke to normal people, in the same vein as the 'black helicopter' brigade who are convinced the UN are secretly running everyting.
Uhuh. Let's see... you're so paranoid you won't set up a User ID and you're calling me a "Black Helicoper" believer.
Who's the nut now?
>I didn't mean "why do u deserve the money more" but rather "What do you need more money than everyone else for?"
Okay. Well, here is my (simple) explanation: The extra money serves as a reason to further yourself and (indirectly) society. It's a need and not a want because it's been my experience that people respond in the best way to a problem when they're confronted with a big wad of green.
>You don't gain intelligence - you are born with it.
I have to disagree with this one. Sorry.
>I can't stand shepd. He just posts a bunch of shit in the message boards trying to up his post tally.
You know, if you had an account like most people, you could simply put me on your foes list.
Instead you choose to take the defeatist method and do nothing. Who exactly is the stupid one here?
Another one for my Stalking thread. You really are busy tonite, aren't you? Interesting how all these posts happen at the same time... lose the proxies and anonymous status and post like a man, why don't you?
>But how did MS destroy Wordperfect? From what I remember, Wordperfect didn't come out in a win version until word already had a quite large following - thus they missed the boat. Novell went and screwed themselves up fairly good, MS FUD did pretty much the rest (mind you Novell is getting better again).
With wordperfect and lotus there's strong arguments that they killed themselves and that MS were simply the vultures that fed off their dead carcass, so to speak. These two are a thorny issue that is difficult to debate since I don't think either company predsient has really spoken about the truth of their companies being bought up by M$.
However, with Novell, I've seen the ex-CEO (or is it president? I forget) explain that Microsoft basically told them that they were going to put them out of the Netware business in some way (windows XP has pretty much sealed that deal). This might not be bad when you first look at it, but normal business strategy isn't to focus on putting others out of business -- it's usually to focus on offering something good enough that you get the maximum business. Other companies going out of business should simply be a side effect of that, not a goal.
>No, I don't think BillG is an evil man (think hussein, stalin, hitler, etc, etc), but I do think power corrupts and skews your vision.
I guess the whole basis of my argument is there's many shades of evil. Someone who steals from the penny jar of a homeless man, for example, in my book is evil, even if they give 10x that money to a homeless shelter.
It's all shades of grey, and all of us are evil to some point (at least according to Freud & Jung). The difference is there's a line in between evil and good. Microsoft + Bill Gates are on the evil side in their corporate dealings, but unlike Stalin et al. Microsoft + Bill Gates can still redeem themselves to the world, since they aren't particularly horrible people, just not particularly nice much of the time. Sort of like how I'd no longer consider the man stealing from the homeless person evil if he'd just give back the money he took without whining.
Just my 2 cents.
>Given equal pay for all cases, would you rather flip burgers, dig ditches, or sit in a nice comfy chair and write programs?
After working in an office, I'd rather dig ditches for sure. Burger flipping has idiots annoying you as well, but with ditch digging you get well paid, and to a certain degree, you get to do the job you want.
Didn't expect that, did you?
Neither did Karl Marx.
Some jobs just _suck_ but require an education. I'm thinking nuclear power plant technician/technologist here. There's thousands more (being a manager of a dying company, photocopier technician, etc, etc).
Money is the best compensation that we've found, since it equally motivates people. What motivates one person to program can be dimished by simply forcing them to wear a straight-jacket while programming, which is what most companies (and, very largely, communist nations) do.
In the end, freedom and money are the most equal drivers for people to do things, and a communist system usually lacks both.
>I guess the idea is that the two 60hz flickers will be slightly different... "out of tune" ... causing pronounced beat patterns.
>a larger difference between frequency (60hz vs 70hz) wouldn't beat as much.
While this is correct, the human eye cannot perceive this interference. If it were able to, the difference would appear as a bright line scrolling up and down your monitor, similar to the black line that scrolls on TVs taped without a genlock.