Installing from floppies makes everything worse
on
10 Computer Mishaps
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· Score: 1
Working at a gov't contractor, we're forced to use Windows 3.1, only one Netware fileserver, nothing fancy anywhere.
Windows 95 comes out and looks GREAT (especially compared with 3.1) and somehow we get a couple of boxes with floppies (no CDs on the 486s we had). Of course, 3.1 is the only "approved" OS, no matter how much anyone hated it. We only used the machines for email, Word docs, spreadsheets, etc. And the occasional Doom game on the network. (really cool at the time when we had telephone headsets and could talk trash to each other on a conference call as we played)
We want to use 95, but the manager is terrified of us being caught using it. He finally comes up with the following ridiculous scheme: Install the boot manager from OS/2. Create two partitions. Make one partition bootable with the boot mgr. Format, install 95. Reboot and repeat with the other partition and 3.1. He fully intended both partitions to be equal in size, but we gave 3.1 just enough room to install with a few apps. If anyone official was coming through, a reboot would make sure the proper screen were showing. Big Pain in the Ass.
Of course I found a way to greatly magnify the pain. Format (around an hour just for that), then install Win 95 from the 25!! floppy disks. Reboot, switch to other partition. Start formatting again. "Why is it taking so long? The 3.1 partition should go pretty quick. Auugghhhh!!!!!" Of course I picked the wrong partition.
I think it's an error. Adding silver to clothing will give it anti-microbial properties, which is very desirable. I have never heard that it reduces or prevents sweating, which would be a bad thing in any climate, let alone a desert. All of the commercial high-end undergarments advertised for this sort of thing claim to wick moisture away from the skin, increasing the efficiency of sweating, they do not stop it.
I mentioned this a few months or so ago in the "Hollywood Walk of Fame" thread, but it bears repeating:
Quite a few years back, I attended a convention with a couple of friends, all of us in college at the time. I have no other Star Trek convention experience to compare it to, but I found him to be a great speaker, funny, intelligent, and not in the least condescending as a celebrity all too often can be in public. He was also very straightforward, as a Shatner comment or two demonstrated.
After the speech and the Q&A session, he went outside to sit at a table and sign autographs. The line was HUGE. I can't remember why, but my friends and I ended up at the very end of the line. I don't go in for autographs, so maybe I held them up. Anyway, I wait with them, passing quite a bit of time, as Doohan signs autographs, makes small talk, answers questions, hears the same lines and jokes over and over again, etc. Finally, the last people in line (us) make it to the table. I would have expected any celebrity making an appearance to be happy it was over with, sign something for us and break for the door. Hell, _I_ would have. Mr. Doohan instead greets us VERY warmly, makes a big deal about how much of a pain it must have been to stand in line all that time. Maybe I'm jaded, but I honestly never really expected a tv and movie star to sincerely appreciate his fans. He then tells my friend with the camera to not be silly standing there taking pictures, has us come around the table with him and has someone else take our cameras and take pictures of us with him.
Far too rare of a man. If I remember correctly, his star on the Walk of Fame wasn't bought by himself or his agent as a matter of self-promotion, but by his friends and colleagues of many years who wanted him to get the recognition he deserved. I can't judge anyone's acting talent (ok, maybe SOME people), but acting is what you do, not what you are. And James Doohan was a great human being.
the company stopped giving it away. In fact, the ice water cooler was likewise turned off. The breakrooms were stripped of their free coffee and tea (and hot chocolate, *sigh*). And their water coolers were removed. And then the styrofoam cups (and their subsequent paper brethern faced a similar fate). Then they got rid of the plates and plastic forks and spoons. Finally, when the free sugar sachets left, so did I.
When they came for the soda, I did nothing because I wasn't a soda. When they came for the coffee, I did nothing because I wasn't a coffee. When they came for the water cups, I did nothing because I wasn't a water cup. And when they came for me, there was no one to help me because they were all down at the local 7-11 getting something to drink.
...either M$ will give patches to the govt. before they are fully tested and finished, or they will delay finished patches to the rest of the world despite a known vulnerability
So which is it, Bill? And will you offer the same treatment to other governments worldwide? or will you tell them that you are deliberatly leaving them twisting in the wind with the rest of us, while the US Govt gets preferential treatment?
Red dye causes cancer in white rats... red meat causes cancer in white rats... smoking causes cancer in white rats... CRTs cause cancer in white rats... and now cell phones may cause cancer in white rats.
Has anyone considered that cancer may be hereditary in white rats?
Champaign Telephone http://www.ctcn.net/tv.htm/ has been doing this for a while now. The way it was explained to me, each TV channel is an ATM network. Changing channels on the remote issues commands to drop the current network, and join the new one. Yes, there is a lag when changing channels, but not huge. If you hit the "channel up" button 25 times, it doesn't join then drop 25 channels in a row, it goes directly to the final one selected.
They're just trying to prove that the private sector can do what NASA does for less money. This was just proof-of-concept. For the full demo they'll slam another one into a planet.
If your "shot" of espresso is big enough, yes the real thing does this quite nicely. Just make sure your dentist doesn't try to get you to quit while he's replacing the teeth you've ground to a pulp.
Does nobody see this as a potential problem, as Microsoft will now have a vested interest in NOT fixing their O/S so that spyware can't get in?
Are you implying that MS would now NOT fix bugs and security holes, and maybe only even report them to those with the most money? I am SHOCKED by such an accusation!
I am also saddened to think that that really isn't a change from the current status quo.
There are TWO bans on using cellphones on an airplane. The FCC ban was instituted to prevent interference with ground users caused by being almost equidistant to several cells at once. The FAA ban was instituted to prevent interference with aircraft systems. The FAA is looking into it, right now no one has scientifically established said interference.
So don't hold your breath. When/if it does happen, you won't be using the cell phone you own now anyway.
You're right. We need a global, truly international and cooperative body addressing this on a worldwide level. An organization with global reach, full participation by all nations, and a proven track record of efficiency. This sounds like a job for a U.N. commission! </sarcasm>
Seriously, it has to start somewhere. Increasing the size or scope of the committee is not an improvement.
Hear me out on this. I'm as appalled as anyone by governments overstepping their bounds and spying on its own citizens (and anyone who thinks THEIR government is innocent of this is deluding themselves)
I firmly believe that the "slippery slope" we keep worrying about is inevitable. How do we safeguard ourselves? Simple: overload the system. Anyone who works in intelligence-related activities will tell you that the volume of information gathered is not the problem, but analyzing, filtering, and properly dessiminating(sp?) it is. RFID chips, GPS tracking, shopping membership cards, etc. as well as many other forms of gathering information on members of the general public already exist, and more are being developed every day. The ability to make use of that information effectively is not keeping pace however.
Extrapolating to a logical conclusion, I believe that the time will come (in the not so distant future) where agencies both public and private will have so much information on every single individual that any item of information as well as the individual associated with it will become meaningless. It's only a matter of time before everyone has been to a meeting, read a book, posted a message, etc. that the only effective way of managing such minutiae will be to discard them.
Those in the data-mining industry may argue that they will find practical ways to deal with such massive amounts of information, and they may be right. But I hope not.
What they're NOT reporting is that the Buran was found along with an ENTIRE SQUADRON of Grumman Avengers that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle over 50 years ago.
Why do established journalists always wait until they retire to say this? Does that mean we should think he has more of a backbone that those that ignore the problem now?
The only large item i know of being retrieved was a whole russian sub retrieved using a very special ship the US built for the purpose during the cold war.
That would have been the Glomar Explorer, built and financed by Howard Hughes as a front for the CIA. It was designed for only one mission, to recover a Soviet Golf-class(?) early ballistic missile submarine. The sub had sank in water deep enough that it was considered unrecoverable. The Soviets felt that it was reliably in deep enough water that they could forget about it, it could never fall in US hands any more than they could recover it.
Enter the CIA. (Motto: nothing is impossible if you throw enough money at it) Enter Howard Hughes (Motto: nothing too crazy to throw money at) They had all the time in the world to locate the sub, design and build the Glomar Explorer. The Explorer looked innocent enough, but it had a giant claw that could be lowered from the keel of the ship to grasp a very large object very deep. Beyond Top Secret stuff, even now it sounds like something out of a James Bond movie (inspiration for The Spy Who Loved Me?). Once word finally leaked out, as it always does, the US admitted trying but said they couldn't get the sub. It is now pretty much universally accepted AFAIK, that they did get it.
The Golf sub is incredibly crude by todays standards. It carried very large, equally crude ballistic missiles so tall that they stood upright all the way to the top of the rather large sail. Still, for it's time it was quite an acheivement, and I'm sure quite a bit was learned from it.
We've been told for years that IPv6 is coming and the floppy is dead. Told right here on Slashdot. Which one is common now? Want to bet on which one will be more common in 3 years?
I normally have no interest in celebrities in general, but my one meeting with James Doohan showed me that he was a class act.
A couple of friends of mine dragged me to a Star Trek convention in the early 90s. Doohan was the featured star. After the obligatory question and answer session, which he handled with more humor and patience than I would have, he went out into the hall to sign autographs. I probably slowed my friends down a bit as I have no interest in autographs, but I didn't want to be left alone in the middle of the convention, so I joined them at the very end of the line. After an eternity (much longer for Doohan, who I'm sure was getting writer's cramp and a migraine after hearing the same joke and quotes from everybody in line) he made a big deal about us being the very last people in line. He seemed genuinely flattered that we waited so long to meet him, and had us come around behind the table to have multiple pictures taken with him.
How many TV and movie stars would have simply been happy to get it over with? How few would have shown that kind of humor and good nature to just a few more of many, many fans?
Scotty, if you read this, you greatly impressed me, restored my faith in celebrity, and made a fan for life. A sincere "Live long and prosper."
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Working at a gov't contractor, we're forced to use Windows 3.1, only one Netware fileserver, nothing fancy anywhere.
Windows 95 comes out and looks GREAT (especially compared with 3.1) and somehow we get a couple of boxes with floppies (no CDs on the 486s we had). Of course, 3.1 is the only "approved" OS, no matter how much anyone hated it. We only used the machines for email, Word docs, spreadsheets, etc. And the occasional Doom game on the network. (really cool at the time when we had telephone headsets and could talk trash to each other on a conference call as we played)
We want to use 95, but the manager is terrified of us being caught using it. He finally comes up with the following ridiculous scheme: Install the boot manager from OS/2. Create two partitions. Make one partition bootable with the boot mgr. Format, install 95. Reboot and repeat with the other partition and 3.1. He fully intended both partitions to be equal in size, but we gave 3.1 just enough room to install with a few apps. If anyone official was coming through, a reboot would make sure the proper screen were showing. Big Pain in the Ass.
Of course I found a way to greatly magnify the pain. Format (around an hour just for that), then install Win 95 from the 25!! floppy disks. Reboot, switch to other partition. Start formatting again. "Why is it taking so long? The 3.1 partition should go pretty quick. Auugghhhh!!!!!" Of course I picked the wrong partition.
I hated installing from floppies.
I think it's an error. Adding silver to clothing will give it anti-microbial properties, which is very desirable. I have never heard that it reduces or prevents sweating, which would be a bad thing in any climate, let alone a desert. All of the commercial high-end undergarments advertised for this sort of thing claim to wick moisture away from the skin, increasing the efficiency of sweating, they do not stop it.
I mentioned this a few months or so ago in the "Hollywood Walk of Fame" thread, but it bears repeating:
Quite a few years back, I attended a convention with a couple of friends, all of us in college at the time. I have no other Star Trek convention experience to compare it to, but I found him to be a great speaker, funny, intelligent, and not in the least condescending as a celebrity all too often can be in public. He was also very straightforward, as a Shatner comment or two demonstrated.
After the speech and the Q&A session, he went outside to sit at a table and sign autographs. The line was HUGE. I can't remember why, but my friends and I ended up at the very end of the line. I don't go in for autographs, so maybe I held them up. Anyway, I wait with them, passing quite a bit of time, as Doohan signs autographs, makes small talk, answers questions, hears the same lines and jokes over and over again, etc. Finally, the last people in line (us) make it to the table. I would have expected any celebrity making an appearance to be happy it was over with, sign something for us and break for the door. Hell, _I_ would have. Mr. Doohan instead greets us VERY warmly, makes a big deal about how much of a pain it must have been to stand in line all that time. Maybe I'm jaded, but I honestly never really expected a tv and movie star to sincerely appreciate his fans. He then tells my friend with the camera to not be silly standing there taking pictures, has us come around the table with him and has someone else take our cameras and take pictures of us with him.
Far too rare of a man. If I remember correctly, his star on the Walk of Fame wasn't bought by himself or his agent as a matter of self-promotion, but by his friends and colleagues of many years who wanted him to get the recognition he deserved. I can't judge anyone's acting talent (ok, maybe SOME people), but acting is what you do, not what you are. And James Doohan was a great human being.
Drowning.
"Ok, ready?"
(click)
"There it was, what did you think? What? Nothing?"
"Ok, one more time, but PAY ATTENTION. This is expensive."
(click)
"Ok, NOW what did you think?"
"What do you mean, 'nothing'?"
When they came for the soda, I did nothing because I wasn't a soda. When they came for the coffee, I did nothing because I wasn't a coffee. When they came for the water cups, I did nothing because I wasn't a water cup. And when they came for me, there was no one to help me because they were all down at the local 7-11 getting something to drink.
...either M$ will give patches to the govt. before they are fully tested and finished, or they will delay finished patches to the rest of the world despite a known vulnerability
So which is it, Bill? And will you offer the same treatment to other governments worldwide? or will you tell them that you are deliberatly leaving them twisting in the wind with the rest of us, while the US Govt gets preferential treatment?
Red dye causes cancer in white rats...
red meat causes cancer in white rats...
smoking causes cancer in white rats...
CRTs cause cancer in white rats...
and now cell phones may cause cancer in white rats.
Has anyone considered that cancer may be hereditary in white rats?
Save your money, just put a fan and heatsink on it. No one who would buy it would know better anyway.
Forget making anything idiot proof. The REAL money is in marketing directly TO the idiots.
I can't even remember how much memory my first computer had for video. That MCGA greyscale must have been pushing a few KB at least.
Champaign Telephone http://www.ctcn.net/tv.htm/ has been doing this for a while now. The way it was explained to me, each TV channel is an ATM network. Changing channels on the remote issues commands to drop the current network, and join the new one. Yes, there is a lag when changing channels, but not huge. If you hit the "channel up" button 25 times, it doesn't join then drop 25 channels in a row, it goes directly to the final one selected.
How can we submit our programs? Punchcards are OK I guess, but do they have magnetic tape?
They're just trying to prove that the private sector can do what NASA does for less money. This was just proof-of-concept. For the full demo they'll slam another one into a planet.
If your "shot" of espresso is big enough, yes the real thing does this quite nicely. Just make sure your dentist doesn't try to get you to quit while he's replacing the teeth you've ground to a pulp.
Or so I hear.
Are you implying that MS would now NOT fix bugs and security holes, and maybe only even report them to those with the most money? I am SHOCKED by such an accusation!
I am also saddened to think that that really isn't a change from the current status quo.
There are TWO bans on using cellphones on an airplane. The FCC ban was instituted to prevent interference with ground users caused by being almost equidistant to several cells at once. The FAA ban was instituted to prevent interference with aircraft systems. The FAA is looking into it, right now no one has scientifically established said interference.
So don't hold your breath. When/if it does happen, you won't be using the cell phone you own now anyway.
"Trickle-down" is working quite well. But that's not cash you feel "trickling down" the back of your neck. And sadly, that's all you're likely to get.
You're right. We need a global, truly international and cooperative body addressing this on a worldwide level. An organization with global reach, full participation by all nations, and a proven track record of efficiency. This sounds like a job for a U.N. commission!
</sarcasm>
Seriously, it has to start somewhere. Increasing the size or scope of the committee is not an improvement.
Hear me out on this. I'm as appalled as anyone by governments overstepping their bounds and spying on its own citizens (and anyone who thinks THEIR government is innocent of this is deluding themselves)
I firmly believe that the "slippery slope" we keep worrying about is inevitable. How do we safeguard ourselves? Simple: overload the system. Anyone who works in intelligence-related activities will tell you that the volume of information gathered is not the problem, but analyzing, filtering, and properly dessiminating(sp?) it is. RFID chips, GPS tracking, shopping membership cards, etc. as well as many other forms of gathering information on members of the general public already exist, and more are being developed every day. The ability to make use of that information effectively is not keeping pace however.
Extrapolating to a logical conclusion, I believe that the time will come (in the not so distant future) where agencies both public and private will have so much information on every single individual that any item of information as well as the individual associated with it will become meaningless. It's only a matter of time before everyone has been to a meeting, read a book, posted a message, etc. that the only effective way of managing such minutiae will be to discard them.
Those in the data-mining industry may argue that they will find practical ways to deal with such massive amounts of information, and they may be right. But I hope not.
What they're NOT reporting is that the Buran was found along with an ENTIRE SQUADRON of Grumman Avengers that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle over 50 years ago.
Anyone up for a trip to Wyoming?
Why do established journalists always wait until they retire to say this? Does that mean we should think he has more of a backbone that those that ignore the problem now?
That would have been the Glomar Explorer, built and financed by Howard Hughes as a front for the CIA. It was designed for only one mission, to recover a Soviet Golf-class(?) early ballistic missile submarine. The sub had sank in water deep enough that it was considered unrecoverable. The Soviets felt that it was reliably in deep enough water that they could forget about it, it could never fall in US hands any more than they could recover it.
Enter the CIA. (Motto: nothing is impossible if you throw enough money at it) Enter Howard Hughes (Motto: nothing too crazy to throw money at) They had all the time in the world to locate the sub, design and build the Glomar Explorer. The Explorer looked innocent enough, but it had a giant claw that could be lowered from the keel of the ship to grasp a very large object very deep. Beyond Top Secret stuff, even now it sounds like something out of a James Bond movie (inspiration for The Spy Who Loved Me?). Once word finally leaked out, as it always does, the US admitted trying but said they couldn't get the sub. It is now pretty much universally accepted AFAIK, that they did get it.
The Golf sub is incredibly crude by todays standards. It carried very large, equally crude ballistic missiles so tall that they stood upright all the way to the top of the rather large sail. Still, for it's time it was quite an acheivement, and I'm sure quite a bit was learned from it.
Forget the link to B&N, try Amazon instead.
We've been told for years that IPv6 is coming and the floppy is dead. Told right here on Slashdot. Which one is common now? Want to bet on which one will be more common in 3 years?
I normally have no interest in celebrities in general, but my one meeting with James Doohan showed me that he was a class act.
A couple of friends of mine dragged me to a Star Trek convention in the early 90s. Doohan was the featured star. After the obligatory question and answer session, which he handled with more humor and patience than I would have, he went out into the hall to sign autographs. I probably slowed my friends down a bit as I have no interest in autographs, but I didn't want to be left alone in the middle of the convention, so I joined them at the very end of the line. After an eternity (much longer for Doohan, who I'm sure was getting writer's cramp and a migraine after hearing the same joke and quotes from everybody in line) he made a big deal about us being the very last people in line. He seemed genuinely flattered that we waited so long to meet him, and had us come around behind the table to have multiple pictures taken with him.
How many TV and movie stars would have simply been happy to get it over with? How few would have shown that kind of humor and good nature to just a few more of many, many fans?
Scotty, if you read this, you greatly impressed me, restored my faith in celebrity, and made a fan for life. A sincere "Live long and prosper."