Ask a simple question, get a reference to a few hundred irrelevant comments in a Slashdot discussion.
It's like asking a specific question about birds, and being told to just go and figure it out, while being handed a disorganized, unbound stack of papers several inches thick describing warm blooded animals. The utility of the gesture is rather absent.
"gas-fired generator with automatic transfer switch" is close, but only four characters shorter than "household fuel-powered emergency backup power supplies".
Better general-purpose contact cleaner is Deoxit, from CAIG Labs. You can find it at nearly any electronics supplier, like MCM, Mouser, or Digikey. Radio Shack usually stocks it, too, but at a hefty premium.
But general-purpose contact cleaner will very neatly remove all of the lubricating oil from the control, which causes it to feel rough afterward. (Even the Radio Shack product mentioned above suffers from this: It contains mineral oil, which helps, but is nowhere near viscous enough to be very effective.) Worse, the solvents in some contact cleaners will actually dissolve the resistive material in the pot, ruining it. (Deoxit is OK in this regard, but it still doesn't replace the lubricant.)
For specifically cleaning potentiometers, the same folks make another (related) product called Faderlube. It's almost like Deoxit, but includes a healthy dose of purpose-designed synthetic grease. I've used this stuff to restore impossible-to-replace Alps pots in 30-year-old preamps, and rescued nicotine-covered guitar amps with it.
I've even used Faderlube to clean pots in electronics which had been under flood water for two days, and which were so full of river silt that turning the knob felt terrifyingly like sandpaper. After liberal application (and I do mean liberal), the pots all worked and sounded perfectly fine, and felt better than new.
Both products are expensive, but they've paid for themselves many times over. And I know I'm beginning to sound like a shill, but it can't be helped. Between Deoxit (for contacts and connectors), Faderlube (switches and pots), and Scrubbing Bubbles (to clean PCBs), the total count of solid-state electronics ruined by a monumental flood in my computer room is precisely zero[1], which has easily saved me thousands of dollars.
[1]: Power bricks and wall warts which couldn't be disassembled for cleaning suffered about 50% mortality, but that's not Deoxit's fault.
The problem is that the ISPs in question have a profit motive in not being fair about it.
There's currently nothing to restrict Comcast (used as an example, as they're the current whipping boy) from throttling, say, all media downloads, except for those originating at their own premium servers.
Or, more pointedly, there's nothing to prevent them from throttling (or QoSing into the backwater) everything from every source except those who have paid to not> be throttled, in a way reminiscent only of old-school mafia operations.
This would, of course, end up with a situation as follows: Downloading from iTunes and playing WOW would work fine as long as Apple and Blizzard have their protection money--er, I mean, Bandwidth Improvement Subsidy paid up, whereas downloading an Ubuntu ISO or Netflix movie or something from some other non-contracted source would be QoS'd into the void.
I run QoS on my own connection and prioritize stuff on certain criteria that make sense to me, but my own preferences probably have very little in common with those of a publicly-traded, for-profit entity.
If they were factory-randomized, you and I (being clued at such mojo) would never have a chance at finding a clear channel. And while it would improve the greater good, it would also eliminate a competitive advantage that we currently have.
That said, in regards to OP's reference to frequency bands, I've actually had far better luck with 2.4GHz gear than 5.7GHz, at least for medium-to-long distance links (up to 16 miles).
5.7 seems to bounce around/get absorbed almost like light, and a single minor obstruction will mean the difference between a good, solid connection and nothing at all. At $day_job, I've "fixed" a number of scenarios where our sales guy has specified 5.7GHz stuff that didn't work at all by using 2.4GHz equivalents instead.
There's a shitload of interference, sure, but a noisy signal is way more usable than none at all. 2.4GHz penetrates things like trees far, far better.
It's simple. You stated that Trend did not invent the category. I asked who did. You waved your hands around. I responded by explaining that hand-waving does not help your argument.
And still, I see you there, waving your hands around.
I find your ability to back up your assertion with fact to be very lacking. I do understand that you're under no particular obligation to substantiate your claim, but you must realize that by not doing so you are really not helping to further your argument.
Are you really attempting to suggest that Facebook's own DNS guffaw will bankrupt Microsoft, or was there some other meaning to your long-winded analogy that I just totally missed?
But, whatever. If I put garbage addresses into DNS, things will break -- no matter what the OS. It's not so much a question of RFCs as it is about trusting and following whatever the DNS server says. DNS is not hard to get right, and it's not hard to test. Facebook didn't get it right, and didn't test it, and so broke things for IPv6 clients, like Vista.
Tell me again: How might this be the fault of the operating system?
But what if you have long directory names or deeply nested directories, just like how the author said?
Are you incapable of looking yourself? I just browsed to the following: C:\ATI\SUPPORT\7-5_vista32_dd_ccc_enu_46757\Driver\Packages\Apps\VC8RTx86\vcredist_x86
In the address bar, I see the following clickable text: Computer > Local Disk (C:) > ATI > SUPPORT > 7-5_vista32_dd_ccc_enu_46757 > Driver > Packages > Apps > VC8RTx86 > vcredist_x86 > vcredis1.cab
Just as I described.
Your retorts to 4, 5, are meaningless, and I've already covered 6 elsewhere, but:
4. How can you lambast a company for improving their product?
5. They can license whatever they own however you want. Hate them if you care to. (I sure do.)
So, if Facebook hadn't fucked up, things would have worked fine. The operating system does not exist to protect against the stupidity and carelessness of others on the network.
That said: You've never configured a DNS server, or zone before, have you? If one understands what one is doing, and actually tests it, it's pretty bloody difficult to make a lasting mistake. Facebook apparently didn't do either of those things, and their shit broke. This level of error-prone ineptitude happens just as easily with the IPv4 addresses that everyone uses as it did with IPv6 addresses that few can use.
And while I'm sure it had an effect on Joe Blogs, I'd think that it's Facebook's error, and their responsibility to fix.
I mean: If I botch an A record for my domain, I don't blame Microsoft for my typo. That's insane.
You, sir, are obviously sufficiently clued to find and install the Vista telnet client, and gain clearance past the idiot filter. You are thus largely unaffected.
Now let it rest. It is not my purpose here to enter a lengthy debate over, of all goddamn things, Windows telnet.
But that's not what telnet is for. It's intended primary use is as a means of interactively logging in to a remote UNIX-ish host, not connecting to random TCP ports as a diagnostic tool.
The first case is anything but secure. The second is perfectly OK.
And those who are sufficiently clued as to need it as a diagnostic tool shouldn't have any trouble finding and installing it if that's what they're really after. (Although, honestly, putty or even Cygwin's telnet are far, far better.)
Well, history has shown that Sony will be shrinking the PS3 at every opportunity, just like the previous two Playstations.
The only question (at least in terms of hardware and physical compatibility) is not if, but when such a PS2-compatible, low-powered PS3 console will be available. It will probably take years.:-/
1. Who gives a fuck about Facebook's DNS problems? Vista is doing the right thing, here, by doing exactly as the DNS server instructs, with a preference toward IPV6 addresses. Any other behavior (including a preference toward IPV4) would be decried as horrifically broken and against progress.
2. News flash: Internet Explorer blows chunks. It's just as atrocious, in somewhat different ways, as any previous version of IE. And it behaves just as badly on XP (which tried mighty hard to get the user updated to version 7). This is is therefore not Vista issue. (Ok, ok. It's deliberately hard to install IE 6 on Vista. But Firefox and Opera seem to work Just Fucking Fine on any modern OS as well as his beloved Facebook, so what's the problem?)
3. News flash: The new Windows Explorer works different from old; lacks "Up" button. Just click on the directory name in the address bar, and you'll go there. For instance, if you're in C:\Windows, the address bar will show "Computer > Local Disc (C:) > Windows". Simply clicking on any portion of this will go up one or more levels in exactly one step. This is different from XP, sure, but it's no worse, and I personally prefer it.
4. Cleartype. I can't imagine how this dude managed to get lost turning off Cleartype. I just opened IE 7, pressed F1 for help, typed Cleartype into the box, and pressed enter. The very first link goes to a help section detailing what Cleartype is, and how to turn it on and off system-wide. (It's been my experience that Vista's help system is actually capable of being useful, in start contrast to previous versions of Windows.)
5. News flash: Virtual PC doesn't run on Vista Home. It also doesn't run on home editions of any other Microsoft OS, including XP Home.
6. Telnet is gone by default. Good. The security folks have been trying to get rid of it for years. Those who need it still have it available, and those who don't know better won't stumble onto it by accident.
I'll ignore the rest of the inane (i-NEYN) diatribe about Facebook, and the irrelevant OS-independent part about watching videos on TV, and just say this: Geez, man. You sure picked some insignificant things to hate. Vista's got some real issues and you've skillfully noticed absolutely none of them.
Otherwise, I'm wondering how on Earth LCDs seem to survive just fine being transported in unheated trucks by parcel carriers all manner of climate, or in the unpressurized hold of a cargo plane at 40k feet.
Er, uh. I hear you, soul brother, but I don't feel you.
My own PS3, a new 40GB 65nm model, expels some heat. But the fan (it only has one) has never, at all, been akin to anything reminiscent of Boing. In fact, the fan has never made a noise which has been audible in my living room. It also produces substantially less heat when idle than when playing games or folding proteins, which does indicate that it is regulating the amount of processor power needed.
So, I suppose: If you tested these late last year, you probably tested the older generation (20, 60 or 80GB), which used a bigger die and used more energy/created more heat. Please retest with a current incarnation of the console and report back.
It should be noted, at this point, that Vista dropped support for networking over Firewire.
Bloody shame, really. I've only used it a couple of times under XP, but both times it was so fast it felt like I was working with local disks instead of network shares.
It was simple, too: Plug in, automatically get assigned an addresses in the 169.254.x.x range for both ends of the connection, type the name of the remote machine into Windows Explorer, and go.
If such an article were ever posted, I'd first complain that having boxes drawn around comments is silly, that it detracts from the content, and that it is without positive merit.
I'd then complain that the big Slashdot-green box within which is contained the article text is annoying. It doesn't flow for shit, and is furthermore hideous.
And I'd also complain that the box surrounding the text on the submission page is too small. I want it bigger. And it was bigger prior to this change. Last time this portion of Slashdot was fucked with, years and years ago, it was only to add an option to make this size user-selectable. I, a user, had selected a bigger box.
Now, that setting seems to have been reset to 80 columns. And, sure, I can just go ahead and change it back, but WTF?
How many other preferences were needlessly trashed?
Obvious to whom? It sure wasn't obvious to me, although it sure seemed like it ought to have been after I'd read the first rumblings of what was to have become TiVo.
But suppose it really was obvious by whatever the standard for obviousness is at the USPTO, and they allowed the patent anyway. What then? If it's not actionable, then should it be?
Personally, I've had a couple of my ideas patented by someone else. They were novel and unusual and obvious to me (as a parallel inventor), but I doubt that any such obviousness was common. I'd never published, developed, or even discussed them; they just sat around languishing in the corner of my head until I found them posted to Slashdot several years later. Nobody stole anything from me, so I don't care much about it. And I feel that they deserved their patents, just as much as I would have if I'd bothered to develop the concepts at all, because the obviousness of the idea was not common.
TiVO came up with a deadly obvious invention and managed to design, prototype, manufacture, market, and rightly patent it first.
There. Fixed that for you.
I had the concept behind TiVO years ago when digital video first started becoming available. It's an obvious idea that anyone who's worked with UNIX pipes could have thought of. TiVO is just more for video.
Good for you. Sue their fucking socks off and let us know how it works out. (Unfortunately, since you neither produced nor patented anything, your concept is worth squat, so I'm not sure how you might be able to claim any damages.)
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah - I believe I saw that, too.
Ask a simple question, get a reference to a few hundred irrelevant comments in a Slashdot discussion.
It's like asking a specific question about birds, and being told to just go and figure it out, while being handed a disorganized, unbound stack of papers several inches thick describing warm blooded animals. The utility of the gesture is rather absent.
Thanks, though, for the link.
But "generator" doesn't tell the whole story.
"gas-fired generator with automatic transfer switch" is close, but only four characters shorter than "household fuel-powered emergency backup power supplies".
I think he did OK with that description.
Better general-purpose contact cleaner is Deoxit, from CAIG Labs. You can find it at nearly any electronics supplier, like MCM, Mouser, or Digikey. Radio Shack usually stocks it, too, but at a hefty premium.
But general-purpose contact cleaner will very neatly remove all of the lubricating oil from the control, which causes it to feel rough afterward. (Even the Radio Shack product mentioned above suffers from this: It contains mineral oil, which helps, but is nowhere near viscous enough to be very effective.) Worse, the solvents in some contact cleaners will actually dissolve the resistive material in the pot, ruining it. (Deoxit is OK in this regard, but it still doesn't replace the lubricant.)
For specifically cleaning potentiometers, the same folks make another (related) product called Faderlube. It's almost like Deoxit, but includes a healthy dose of purpose-designed synthetic grease. I've used this stuff to restore impossible-to-replace Alps pots in 30-year-old preamps, and rescued nicotine-covered guitar amps with it.
I've even used Faderlube to clean pots in electronics which had been under flood water for two days, and which were so full of river silt that turning the knob felt terrifyingly like sandpaper. After liberal application (and I do mean liberal), the pots all worked and sounded perfectly fine, and felt better than new.
Both products are expensive, but they've paid for themselves many times over. And I know I'm beginning to sound like a shill, but it can't be helped. Between Deoxit (for contacts and connectors), Faderlube (switches and pots), and Scrubbing Bubbles (to clean PCBs), the total count of solid-state electronics ruined by a monumental flood in my computer room is precisely zero[1], which has easily saved me thousands of dollars.
[1]: Power bricks and wall warts which couldn't be disassembled for cleaning suffered about 50% mortality, but that's not Deoxit's fault.
The problem is that the ISPs in question have a profit motive in not being fair about it.
There's currently nothing to restrict Comcast (used as an example, as they're the current whipping boy) from throttling, say, all media downloads, except for those originating at their own premium servers.
Or, more pointedly, there's nothing to prevent them from throttling (or QoSing into the backwater) everything from every source except those who have paid to not> be throttled, in a way reminiscent only of old-school mafia operations.
This would, of course, end up with a situation as follows: Downloading from iTunes and playing WOW would work fine as long as Apple and Blizzard have their protection money--er, I mean, Bandwidth Improvement Subsidy paid up, whereas downloading an Ubuntu ISO or Netflix movie or something from some other non-contracted source would be QoS'd into the void.
I run QoS on my own connection and prioritize stuff on certain criteria that make sense to me, but my own preferences probably have very little in common with those of a publicly-traded, for-profit entity.
If they were factory-randomized, you and I (being clued at such mojo) would never have a chance at finding a clear channel. And while it would improve the greater good, it would also eliminate a competitive advantage that we currently have.
That said, in regards to OP's reference to frequency bands, I've actually had far better luck with 2.4GHz gear than 5.7GHz, at least for medium-to-long distance links (up to 16 miles).
5.7 seems to bounce around/get absorbed almost like light, and a single minor obstruction will mean the difference between a good, solid connection and nothing at all. At $day_job, I've "fixed" a number of scenarios where our sales guy has specified 5.7GHz stuff that didn't work at all by using 2.4GHz equivalents instead.
There's a shitload of interference, sure, but a noisy signal is way more usable than none at all. 2.4GHz penetrates things like trees far, far better.
It's simple. You stated that Trend did not invent the category. I asked who did. You waved your hands around. I responded by explaining that hand-waving does not help your argument.
And still, I see you there, waving your hands around.
Brilliance.
That doesn't do any good for cables which are both already tangled, and already terminated.
I find your ability to back up your assertion with fact to be very lacking. I do understand that you're under no particular obligation to substantiate your claim, but you must realize that by not doing so you are really not helping to further your argument.
At all.
Stupid question:
Who did invent the category?
Are you really attempting to suggest that Facebook's own DNS guffaw will bankrupt Microsoft, or was there some other meaning to your long-winded analogy that I just totally missed?
But, whatever. If I put garbage addresses into DNS, things will break -- no matter what the OS. It's not so much a question of RFCs as it is about trusting and following whatever the DNS server says. DNS is not hard to get right, and it's not hard to test. Facebook didn't get it right, and didn't test it, and so broke things for IPv6 clients, like Vista.
Tell me again: How might this be the fault of the operating system?
You, again?
But what if you have long directory names or deeply nested directories, just like how the author said?
Are you incapable of looking yourself? I just browsed to the following: C:\ATI\SUPPORT\7-5_vista32_dd_ccc_enu_46757\Driver\Packages\Apps\VC8RTx86\vcredist_x86
In the address bar, I see the following clickable text:
Computer > Local Disk (C:) > ATI > SUPPORT > 7-5_vista32_dd_ccc_enu_46757 > Driver > Packages > Apps > VC8RTx86 > vcredist_x86 > vcredis1.cab
Just as I described.
Your retorts to 4, 5, are meaningless, and I've already covered 6 elsewhere, but:
4. How can you lambast a company for improving their product?
5. They can license whatever they own however you want. Hate them if you care to. (I sure do.)
Indeed.
So, if Facebook hadn't fucked up, things would have worked fine. The operating system does not exist to protect against the stupidity and carelessness of others on the network.
That said: You've never configured a DNS server, or zone before, have you? If one understands what one is doing, and actually tests it, it's pretty bloody difficult to make a lasting mistake. Facebook apparently didn't do either of those things, and their shit broke. This level of error-prone ineptitude happens just as easily with the IPv4 addresses that everyone uses as it did with IPv6 addresses that few can use.
And while I'm sure it had an effect on Joe Blogs, I'd think that it's Facebook's error, and their responsibility to fix.
I mean: If I botch an A record for my domain, I don't blame Microsoft for my typo. That's insane.
You, sir, are obviously sufficiently clued to find and install the Vista telnet client, and gain clearance past the idiot filter. You are thus largely unaffected.
Now let it rest. It is not my purpose here to enter a lengthy debate over, of all goddamn things, Windows telnet.
But that's not what telnet is for. It's intended primary use is as a means of interactively logging in to a remote UNIX-ish host, not connecting to random TCP ports as a diagnostic tool.
The first case is anything but secure. The second is perfectly OK.
And those who are sufficiently clued as to need it as a diagnostic tool shouldn't have any trouble finding and installing it if that's what they're really after. (Although, honestly, putty or even Cygwin's telnet are far, far better.)
Ah.
:-/
Well, history has shown that Sony will be shrinking the PS3 at every opportunity, just like the previous two Playstations.
The only question (at least in terms of hardware and physical compatibility) is not if, but when such a PS2-compatible, low-powered PS3 console will be available. It will probably take years.
Let's do this one point-by-point:
1. Who gives a fuck about Facebook's DNS problems? Vista is doing the right thing, here, by doing exactly as the DNS server instructs, with a preference toward IPV6 addresses. Any other behavior (including a preference toward IPV4) would be decried as horrifically broken and against progress.
2. News flash: Internet Explorer blows chunks. It's just as atrocious, in somewhat different ways, as any previous version of IE. And it behaves just as badly on XP (which tried mighty hard to get the user updated to version 7). This is is therefore not Vista issue. (Ok, ok. It's deliberately hard to install IE 6 on Vista. But Firefox and Opera seem to work Just Fucking Fine on any modern OS as well as his beloved Facebook, so what's the problem?)
3. News flash: The new Windows Explorer works different from old; lacks "Up" button. Just click on the directory name in the address bar, and you'll go there. For instance, if you're in C:\Windows, the address bar will show "Computer > Local Disc (C:) > Windows". Simply clicking on any portion of this will go up one or more levels in exactly one step. This is different from XP, sure, but it's no worse, and I personally prefer it.
4. Cleartype. I can't imagine how this dude managed to get lost turning off Cleartype. I just opened IE 7, pressed F1 for help, typed Cleartype into the box, and pressed enter. The very first link goes to a help section detailing what Cleartype is, and how to turn it on and off system-wide. (It's been my experience that Vista's help system is actually capable of being useful, in start contrast to previous versions of Windows.)
5. News flash: Virtual PC doesn't run on Vista Home. It also doesn't run on home editions of any other Microsoft OS, including XP Home.
6. Telnet is gone by default. Good. The security folks have been trying to get rid of it for years. Those who need it still have it available, and those who don't know better won't stumble onto it by accident.
I'll ignore the rest of the inane (i-NEYN) diatribe about Facebook, and the irrelevant OS-independent part about watching videos on TV, and just say this: Geez, man. You sure picked some insignificant things to hate. Vista's got some real issues and you've skillfully noticed absolutely none of them.
Can you cite a reference?
Otherwise, I'm wondering how on Earth LCDs seem to survive just fine being transported in unheated trucks by parcel carriers all manner of climate, or in the unpressurized hold of a cargo plane at 40k feet.
Please enlighten.
Er, uh. I hear you, soul brother, but I don't feel you.
My own PS3, a new 40GB 65nm model, expels some heat. But the fan (it only has one) has never, at all, been akin to anything reminiscent of Boing. In fact, the fan has never made a noise which has been audible in my living room. It also produces substantially less heat when idle than when playing games or folding proteins, which does indicate that it is regulating the amount of processor power needed.
So, I suppose: If you tested these late last year, you probably tested the older generation (20, 60 or 80GB), which used a bigger die and used more energy/created more heat. Please retest with a current incarnation of the console and report back.
Thanks.
It should be noted, at this point, that Vista dropped support for networking over Firewire.
Bloody shame, really. I've only used it a couple of times under XP, but both times it was so fast it felt like I was working with local disks instead of network shares.
It was simple, too: Plug in, automatically get assigned an addresses in the 169.254.x.x range for both ends of the connection, type the name of the remote machine into Windows Explorer, and go.
I guess it was too good of an idea.
All that video that you've downloaded from third parties simply detracts from Time Warner's Video On Demand and premium subscription revenue streams.
Honestly: Do you -really- think they want you renting movies with iTunes, when they have their own competing video-on-demand service?
If such an article were ever posted, I'd first complain that having boxes drawn around comments is silly, that it detracts from the content, and that it is without positive merit.
I'd then complain that the big Slashdot-green box within which is contained the article text is annoying. It doesn't flow for shit, and is furthermore hideous.
And I'd also complain that the box surrounding the text on the submission page is too small. I want it bigger. And it was bigger prior to this change. Last time this portion of Slashdot was fucked with, years and years ago, it was only to add an option to make this size user-selectable. I, a user, had selected a bigger box.
Now, that setting seems to have been reset to 80 columns. And, sure, I can just go ahead and change it back, but WTF?
How many other preferences were needlessly trashed?
Obvious to whom? It sure wasn't obvious to me, although it sure seemed like it ought to have been after I'd read the first rumblings of what was to have become TiVo.
But suppose it really was obvious by whatever the standard for obviousness is at the USPTO, and they allowed the patent anyway. What then? If it's not actionable, then should it be?
Personally, I've had a couple of my ideas patented by someone else. They were novel and unusual and obvious to me (as a parallel inventor), but I doubt that any such obviousness was common. I'd never published, developed, or even discussed them; they just sat around languishing in the corner of my head until I found them posted to Slashdot several years later. Nobody stole anything from me, so I don't care much about it. And I feel that they deserved their patents, just as much as I would have if I'd bothered to develop the concepts at all, because the obviousness of the idea was not common.
TiVO came up with a deadly obvious invention and managed to design, prototype, manufacture, market, and rightly patent it first.
There. Fixed that for you.
I had the concept behind TiVO years ago when digital video first started becoming available. It's an obvious idea that anyone who's worked with UNIX pipes could have thought of. TiVO is just more for video.
Good for you. Sue their fucking socks off and let us know how it works out. (Unfortunately, since you neither produced nor patented anything, your concept is worth squat, so I'm not sure how you might be able to claim any damages.)
Not to strawman myself, but it almost sounds as if you're saying that four people are able to do the work of 130,000 people.
If this is the case, then billions aren't needed after all.
Without some sort of abuse, such a revolution will never happen.
I'm all for reduced RAM requirements, don't take me wrong. But you must realize that without evil, there's no reason for good to exist.