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User: AstroJetson

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Comments · 358

  1. Re:T-Mobile's the last frontier on Hacking the Motorola v265 · · Score: 1

    Out here it's pretty bad, even going by the coverage maps. I knew that going in but I expected it to work at least where they said it works. The phone works fine a half mile from my office....3-4 bars. So I don't think it's the phone, I think I just happen to work in a coverage hole. You could be right though...I should have them check it just to be sure.

  2. Re:T-Mobile's the last frontier on Hacking the Motorola v265 · · Score: 1

    I have Sprint and while their service is pretty bad, I can tell you that their coverage is the worst I know of. If you're in a major city or along an interstate you're usually ok but you don't have to venture far into the hinterland to drop off the net. I work in a pretty reasonably-sized city (Colorado Springs) on top of a mesa and I can barely get any signal. I'm well within their coverage map by their own admission. Yet no signal. The phone remains in analog roam mode most of the time when it has any signal at all, with predictable results on battery life. I've complained to them twice about it and they consult their maps and tell me that the signal I'm getting is just fine. WTF?

    I recommend avoiding Sprint unless you're never more than a couple of miles from a big city. Sorry to hear that T-Mobile is going tango uniform...I was actually thinking about switching over to them.

  3. Re:You insensitive clod! on New Model Solves Grandfather Paradox · · Score: 1

    One of my favorite books. Excellent recommendation.

  4. Re:Incorrect title. on Local Galaxy Cluster About to Go Boom · · Score: 1

    No, it should have read Local Galactic Cluster. A galactic cluster is a cluster of stars in a galaxy as opposed to a globular cluster, which is sort of extra-galactic. A galaxy cluster is a cluster of galaxies. Galactic clusters are usually called open clusters these days to avoid that confustion.

  5. Uh, yes it is on Spitzer Telescope Discovers Planets Via Infrared · · Score: 1

    I don't think that extrasolar planets are detected by occlusion of starlight. I think they are detected by the planet's gravity wobbling the star as the planet orbitx the star and exerts its gravitational pull.
    They actually use both techniques. This new one now constitutes a third technique.

  6. Re:Copying Apple again on The Diamond Age · · Score: 1

    They also invented the letter 'i'. But do you see them getting credit for that?

  7. Not necessary on The Little Coder's Predicament · · Score: 1

    Learning to program in the 80's was simpler because the machines were more limited, and generally came with BASIC. Now we have Windows, which typically comes with no built-in programming language. What can be done to improve the situation?"
    No programming language at all is already an improvement over BASIC.

  8. Re:Know the protocols on Getting Started in Network Security? · · Score: 1

    No one ever said it was the protocol itself that was the problem.

    You won't have to ever worry about working for me. Not for very long anyway. That should be a load off your mind.

  9. Re:Know the protocols on Getting Started in Network Security? · · Score: 1

    Um, I think that's what I said. I also never claimed to be a security expert.

    Tell you what...try reading the message enough times to comprehend what it says before you reply.

  10. Re:Why not USB-storage? on Neuros Gets (Beta) Linux Support · · Score: 1

    You just made me a very, very happy person.

  11. Know the protocols on Getting Started in Network Security? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Learn everything you can about IP, TCP and UDP. Read the RFCs. Then learn about application level protocols like ssh, telnet, HTTP, FTP and the various mail protocols. Almost all vulnerabilities are caused by a system mishandling a certain type of message.

  12. Re:Why not USB-storage? on Neuros Gets (Beta) Linux Support · · Score: 1

    I chose the Archos over the Nomad for the same reason you did. The Neuros nonwithstanding, the Archos is the best HD based unit out there. (Disclaimer: The iPod may be better. I don't have any personal experience with it.) The Archos has one major thing going for it. Since it's just a USB stroage device you can
    $ mount /mnt/usb
    and then rip directly to it from Grip or whatever your favorite ripping/encoding utility is.

    However, the Archos suffers from some incredibly flaky firmware. I've had all sorts of trouble with it. I've replaced the unit and still had the same problems. It refuses to play some playlists for no reason (xmms and Winamp will play those same playlists just fine), it will stop playing when loading a new mp3 file and drop back to the browser interface, it will turn itself off when loading a new mp3 file, etc. Lots of goofyness. To make it worse, tech support has given me ZERO help. At one point I did have one tech support guy trying to help me but now he doesn't even return my e-mails (and no, I wasn't rude to him). I'm hoping Neuros works out well because I'm looking to dump my Archos in the worst way. If you can mount a Neuros the same way you can the Archos, I'm there!

  13. Re:Not all terminal emulators were susceptible on Getting Hacked Through Your Terminal · · Score: 1

    That's good to know. Yours is the best terminal emulator I've tried. I would hate life if I had to use anything but Eterm.

  14. Re:I find both of them "lame" on Has GNOME Become LAME? · · Score: 1

    Sounds like enlightenment, which I prefer to both Gnome and KDE. Yeah, I know....apples & oranges since e is a window manager not a desktop. Still that's the e philosophy in a nutshell.

  15. Re:Or... on Funding Approved for Pluto/Kuiper Probe · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think ion propulsion may also be a good choice for a long-range mission such as this. I don't know if NASA has enough confidence in it yet to stake a mission of this magnidute on it, but the Deep Space 1 project was very successful despite some early glitches.

  16. Re:Anyone notice 2.4.18 is sticky? on Anticipatory Scheduler in Kernel 2.5+ Benchmarked · · Score: 1

    I'll take a look. I did some hdparm optimization some time ago, but it may have gotten undone by upgrades and such since then.

    Thanks for the tip!

  17. Re:It would be neat... on Anticipatory Scheduler in Kernel 2.5+ Benchmarked · · Score: 1

    It's been a while so I really don't remember the details. The shell didn't just automatically run the next command it thought you wanted to run. You had to hit TAB or something, sorta like filename completion. So scripting wasn't affected.

  18. Re:It would be neat... on Anticipatory Scheduler in Kernel 2.5+ Benchmarked · · Score: 1

    I vaguely remember some time ago reading about a modification to the shell that would do this...or something similar. For example if you're a programmer you might spend most of your time doing this:
    $ vi foo.c
    $ make
    $ gdb foo
    $ vi foo.c
    $ make
    $ gdb foo
    etc.

    This shell could pick up on the pattern and anticipate what you were about to do.

  19. Re:Anyone notice 2.4.18 is sticky? on Anticipatory Scheduler in Kernel 2.5+ Benchmarked · · Score: 1

    I'm using an old Celeron 300 OC'd to 450 as my main Linux desktop at home - this is not a speed demon. I recently allowed Red Hat Update to 'upgrade' me to 2.4.18. I immediately noticed xmms skipping during times of heavy load. For example if I'm ripping a CD with grip while listening to xmms, it skips quite a bit. I'm thinking of going back to the previous version (.9?) so I'd say yes, .18 has issues in the VM and/or scheduler.

  20. Re:has destroyed the usefulness of email though on Ask ISP Owner Barry Shein About the Spam Wars · · Score: 1

    Request return receipt from the person you're e-mailing.

  21. Re:only usb1.1 on Ogg Vorbis Portables On The Way · · Score: 1

    Exactly, or you can do what I do and rip directly to the thing. Encoding speed is less than transfer speed so even if it had USB2, I'd never notice.

  22. Re:Looks like what I've been waiting for on Ogg Vorbis Portables On The Way · · Score: 1

    I bought one and didn't like it. Returned it for an Archos. It had two problems:
    1) The form factor was too big for me. Didn't fit easily into a pocket and since I use mine at the gym a lot, that was a show stopper.
    2) Couldn't get it to work with Linux; an even bigger show stopper. I tried two different things. One was a GTK+ app that lets you drag and drop to the device a la File Manager; the other was a kernel module that mounts it like a disk drive. I wasn't able to get either to recognize the device. Maybe I could have if I'd futzed around with them some more, but I didn't feel I should have to. With the Archos I just $ mount /mnt/usb and it just works. The Archos has its own problems, mind you, but it's much better than the Nomad, imo.

  23. My Favorite D & D Story on A 1974 Review of D&D · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It wasn't actually D & D, but a similar game called Dragonquest. Me and my friend Dave played two brothers named Norbert and Ignacio Gleeps. We'd been playing these characters for a while and they were badasses. Mike (our DM) had been trying to kill one or both of us off for a while because we were getting too powerful. One day Norbert got captured by the good guys and was going to be hanged the next day. I don't recall what it was we did to deserve this, but I'm sure that it was a just punishment. Regardless, I had to find a way to spring my brother out of the pokey.

    I tried a few things that night, but it was just a few of us against an army. I could never get close to where they were keeping him. The next day dawned and Norbert was carried out to the gallows while I watched from behind a nearby hill. I was going crazy! I couldn't think of anything to do, but I couldn't let them hang my brother! In desperation, as they fitted Norbert's neck into the noose, I notched an arrow into my big composite bow. Mike asked me what I was aiming at and I said "the rope". He laughed and said if I rolled a 01 (out of 100) I would hit the rope. Sure enough I rolled the first number....0. Then the second number came....1!! The arrow pierced the rope just as the trapdoor opened and Norbert fell to the ground trying to figure out why he wasn't dead. I stood, notched another arrow, took aim at the leader of the troops and nonchalantly asked, "Ok, who's next?" Nobody even twitched as Norbert hauled ass up to the hill where we were. We got the hell out of there before they could get their shit back in their socks.

    Poor Mike....never did kill those characters off.

  24. Re:I have no D&D experience... on A 1974 Review of D&D · · Score: 1

    Exactly right. I tried being DM one time in the game Dragonquest (think second generation D&D) and it was hard. I didn't have a single one of the 3 requirements you list.

    The guy who usually DM'ed our games was excellent - only underscoring how lame I was. He played by the rules and took great satisfaction in killing off our characters. He would also force us to stay in character.

    The DM is the game.

  25. Re:Film VS CCD/CMOS ... on Digital Camera Quality Passing Film? · · Score: 2

    Film does *not* have infinite resolution. If it did, you'd be able to enlarge an image arbitrarily with no degradation. The "pixels" in film are small grains of silver nitrate (?). When digital pixels can be made smaller than the grains in film and a CCD the size of a negative, then it will be fair to say that digital imaging has overtaken film.