My mother went to school and used a tape recorder
for all classes. Then she would transcribe those
later to handwritten notes (this was in the 80's).
Oh, bring a notebook to class to copy down the blackboard as well.
I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work today - except its now possible to take a cheap laptop and rip those recordings to ogg/mp3s and type them up as well.
As the parent poster said, you effectively hear the same lecture twice. Excellent study method.
If you stick to pen & paper, the cost of this setup is well under $100, even considering the cost of rechargable batteries and a few extra tapes. When you graduate from college in 4 years, the tape recorder probably won't be horribly obsolete. And, if worse comes to worse, and the tape recorder is damaged, a replacement is easily purchased.
Personally, I wouldn't go beyond a 500mhz or so laptop for most college courses. For writing papers and typing up notes, any more is a waste of money.
I would suggest taking a close look at Tavis Ormandy's Desktop
which has translucency (due to a patch to the 2.5 source) and thumbnails for icons.
Also: Google is your friend. Try 'linux desktop screenshot' or '$WINDOWMANAGER screenshot', where $WINDOWMANAGER = 'kde', 'gnome', 'fvwm', 'openbox', 'xfce', 'sawfish', 'twm', 'ratpoison', 'ion', 'windowmaker', etc.
Tomsrtbt - I forget if Knoppix has badblocks or not. If it doesn't, Tomsrtbt does.
memtest86 - Memory tester.
Spare HDD - good for having a clean install of windows to check things on.
Spare low-density memory.
Spare older computer for testing daughtercards.
That's about it.
Of course, sooner or later you *will* get the machine from hell with an intermediate fault that ends up locking windows for no damn good reason every so often. Then life will suck. But that's why they call it work.
Re:$50K gets you cryonics & possible future re
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 1
The odds are probably pretty slim for cryonics to actually work.
OTOH, any odds are good odds for the dead, right?
Not like you can take the $50k with you anyways...
And hey, it does fund some research into preserving body tissue.
Re:Only so much carbon...
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 1
Still, maybe launching yourself into space could prevent you from being brought back to life someday. Then again, maybe you'd be brought back to life to fight some losing battle against aliens...;)
There is an older SF short (title and author forgotten) about a man whose frozen and thawed out later so he can be used to fight wars across the galaxy. As time marches on, it gets to the point where they no longer freeze him, but instead send the information out and use that to recreate him.
In the end, he gets shot by himself. Turned out that both sides got access to that information.
So, in the future, you can get involved in petty wars with pirated versions of yourself.
Can anyone think of alot of uses for this that would beat out knoppix? Cause I can't.
Knoppix is Linux. Linux writing to NTFS is a VERY BAD IDEA. Windows tends to use NTFS now. Windows gets viruses which REALLY SCREWS UP THE SYSTEM. Windows needs to have viruses removed, but the installation cannot be trusted, or else there isn't a licenced copy to put on it.
Congratulations, BartsPE as a A/V plugin.
That's only one use, but its a damn common task for Microsoft Windows.
The Apple Cube had heat related problems with the power switch, and I believe there was also problems with the case cracking.
As for the cursor disappearing, I usually do plenty of reading or writing on a computer. Minor tasks (switching mp3s, hiding/growing windows, etc) are hotkeyed in.
I purchased a Mac because I was sick and tired of "tinkering" with my computer, constantly tweaking settings, ensuring everything worked properly. I set my PowerBook up 4 months ago, and guess what... It just works.
Just because MacOS X 'just works' for you, doesn't mean that it will 'just work' for me.
If I'm not using the cursor, I'd like it to disappear. Does MacOS X 'just work' for me in that way? Is it easy to find a graphical configuration utility and make the cursor disappear after 5 seconds of inactivity?
Oh, and I like hotkeys. Will MacOS X allow me to easily set up the combination of ctrl-j + l to switch to my web browser, and if that web browser doesn't exist, launch it?
There's just two trivial examples I found off the top of my head. I could easily add more.
Don't think everyone who uses the Unix-like OSes are a bunch of twiddling geeks who are content to fiddle with the OS while Mac users end up getting real work done. I'm not sure about the rest of the crowd, but the reason I use unix-like OSes is because its more efficient for me to get my work done.
As for my x86 hardware, its performing fine, thank you very much. Unfortunately, there is cheap x86 hardware, just as there is cheap hardware for Macintosh. If you don't do your research when making a major investment, you will get burned. (Or did we already forget the Apple Cube fiasco?)
A system from one manufacturer is not a guarentee of quality, nor is the inverse true. There are plenty of cheap automobiles that have problems even though they were designed by one organization. Inversely, I'm pretty sure that kitchen sink makers aren't allied with the lumber mills, and yet the roof overhead doesn't leak and my sink runs water without a problem.
Eventually, we will hit the "sweet spot" where alternative fuel is cheaper than oil, everybody will switch, and Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" will once again prevail in providing the ideal solution.
Argh! Pet Peave!
While capitalism is more efficient then some economic systems, its not the most efficient system.
For example, assume we have two lumber businesses.
Lumber business #1 clear cuts old growth timber and leaves the land clear. Downriver, silt hinders fishing, affects bridges, hinders water travel, encourages floods, and causes climatic changes.
Lumber business #2 manages the lands it cuts, replanting and reusing the land, turning it into a renewable resource. While places downstream still feel the effects of the logging (since no system is perfect), the effects are greatly decreased.
Now, guess what business sells lumber at a more competitive price?
Which business ends up causing more cost to the rest of the population?
Capitalism has several major problems. Capitalism does not consider the long run. Capitalism also does not consider the true cost of some items.
The cost of gasoline at the pump does not include the cost of pollution, global warming, international dependency, or the political and security issues of money flowing to several rather unstable countries. The rest of the population ends up subsidizing the cost of gasoline.
PS: To prevent a few replies: [1] Yes, I know that ethanol is heavily subsidized. [2] No, I'm not advocating communism.
Sacrificing the deity's high priest at his own astral altar: Very Evil
Actually, now that I think about it, my deity is more interested in what is wrong then what is right...
...And yet I am willing to risk life and limb to get him the damn amulet.
[0] I don't care what the spoilers say -- chaotic characters summoning demon lords is a VERY BAD THING, and is a sign that the chaotic gods still think its evil, but want to give you just enough rope to punish yourself.
Is a ball of 100 human embryo cells a human being? One woman on the program was claiming - yes, this is so. I personally think that this is a bit extreme, almost "every sperm is sacred" extreme.
Although you may think that its extreme, the only argument you offer is slippery slope. Its about as valid of an argument that abortion should be illegal because it will lead to infanticide.
People want to choose different sides in the abortion debate. Some choose brain activity. Some choose heartbeat. Some choose when the baby is viable outside of the womb. Some choose the moment of conception[0].
On an unrelated note, I find it ironic that the same people who claim that abortion at day 3 is criminal are often pro-death penalty.
Disclaimer: I'm anti-death penalty, pro-life, and a vegan to boot! However, the pro-life/pro-death penalty people are not hypocrits - Most simply believe that all babies (having committed no crime) deserve to be born, and that there are simply some crimes where the punishment will be loss of life. Even though I disagree with it, the
reasoning is sound.
[0] And yes, I know the body tends to spontaniously abort a large number of fertilized eggs.
Don't confuse the FreeBSD ports with a packaging system. FreeBSD has its own nice packaging system.
OpenBSD also has a very similiar package system (using pkg_add, and modified tarballs). According to the OpenBSD FAQ, the goal is not ports, but binary packages.
Unfortunately, updates to the core OpenBSD OS is by source.:(
<spammer> Crap, this warrenty plan for email has destroyed my spamming.
<spammer> **thinks**
<spammer> **Writes email virus that causes the infected computer to send email to a dummy account in.ru. Spammer then invokes warrenty, quickly withdraws money, and continues the cycle with a new virus.**
Price is not a good reason to build an HTPC unless you're willing to make a whole bunch of compromises and don't care about aesthetics.
I started to read this article not because I wanted to build a full-blown HTPC, but because I have a tv tuner/capture card in a machine, and am willing to add software to make a TV->SVCD converter. (I'm not an audiophile, so I'd rather burn to CD if I want to watch a TV show -- In my case, I'm building a glorified digital VCR.) Building a full-blown HTPC sounds impressive, and is more article worthy then what I'll eventually do, which is probably why we see articles about building an HTPC, instead of how to build a simple digital VCR.
I priced out what it would take me to build a minimally-decent HTPC system, accounting for the specialized case (quiet, small, looks like it's an HT component), motherboard (because full-size ATX wouldn't fit in that case), processor, memory, decent TV capture cards, hard drive, DVD burner, etc. Hint: It wasn't $200. More like $700.
An Antec Sonata case runs about $100 new, with PS, and isn't that ugly. TV capture can be picked up for 50. Decent video out cards run about $50, used, if you don't have one lying around. The rest of the components a geek has laying around the house.
As you say, RAM does matter (I have 262Mb on the home machine) but memory is cheap. What's the big deal?
Memory is not cheap! Take an old pentium-era computer (without 168pin SDR DIMMS) and try to buy enough memory to bump it up to 256M.
Ne'ermind that in some areas, there is shipping costs, and tariffs on that memory.
Finally, if you are doing things the *right* way, the $20 pricewatch special isn't the way to go - you want quality memory chips from a quality manufacturer.
At one point during my visit with the Badirs, I pull out my cell phone and make a call. Before it even connects, Shadde, who is sitting across the room, recites all 12 digits perfectly.
This is something normal people usually can't do, but i've known blind people that can do that kind of "tricks"(they can also tell you if you're standing or sitting while talking on the phone, for example).
Perhaps most "normal" people can do it, but don't train themselves. I remember a story by Richard Feynman where he realized that it was relatively easy to find out which book was recently touched in a bookshelf through sense of smell alone.
The rest of us may simply be using our eyes instead of other senses, and may not have ever put forth the effort to train our other senses.
My wife's American Indians Study Class textbook (This Land was Theirs) is still about $50 for the edition her class uses - offline, at the college bookstore, its $58.
If a professor wants to use the latest edition of an obscure enough book, the price will be high.
Tangent: On the cover of the book, there is an undated map of the main Indian groups of North America. The East Coast Indians are listed, and so are the Indians of the Midwest and Western America. However, there is a huge swarth of land from southern Ohio through Tennessee and down to Georgia that's marked "Unoccupied." Luckily, the European settlers arrived to take advantage of the Ohio river valley, since the textbook thinks that Indians didn't live there. For a $60 textbook, someone didn't do his research.
Anyways, for your last engine comment. That is definitely true, since my car runs without A/C, I'm assuming A/C is added to the engine and requires engine to run thus changing the engine... since you pay to mod the engine at the very beginning (for quite some money I might add), I can see that you can't just remove the AC.
A/C is its own seperate subsystem in most automobiles, but is powered by the engine. The A/C subsystem includes its own compressor, which is connected via a belt to the engine. In older vehicles there would be a seperate belt for the compressor. In newer vehicles, there is one large serpentine belt, which is slightly longer on A/C models so that it can extend to the compressor.
Non-A/C models would typically include the motor mounts for the compressor, but have no other components for A/C. A/C models would have the compressor, the tubing, and the mini-radiator-thingie-whose-name-I-forgot, plus the black-canistor-thingie-whose-name-I-also-forgot (and yes, these _are_ the technical terms).
Since A/C is powered by the motor, non-A/C vehicles get slightly better gas milage, on average. However, if you are driving around your windows rolled down because of the heat, the wind drag might reduce your MPG average to such a degree that you'd be better off with A/C.
Slashdot Mirror
My mother went to school and used a tape recorder for all classes. Then she would transcribe those later to handwritten notes (this was in the 80's). Oh, bring a notebook to class to copy down the blackboard as well.
I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work today - except its now possible to take a cheap laptop and rip those recordings to ogg/mp3s and type them up as well.
As the parent poster said, you effectively hear the same lecture twice. Excellent study method.
If you stick to pen & paper, the cost of this setup is well under $100, even considering the cost of rechargable batteries and a few extra tapes. When you graduate from college in 4 years, the tape recorder probably won't be horribly obsolete. And, if worse comes to worse, and the tape recorder is damaged, a replacement is easily purchased.
Personally, I wouldn't go beyond a 500mhz or so laptop for most college courses. For writing papers and typing up notes, any more is a waste of money.
But hey, its your student loans...
There is a collection of desktop screenshots at fvwm.org.
I would suggest taking a close look at Tavis Ormandy's Desktop which has translucency (due to a patch to the 2.5 source) and thumbnails for icons.
Also: Google is your friend. Try 'linux desktop screenshot' or '$WINDOWMANAGER screenshot', where $WINDOWMANAGER = 'kde', 'gnome', 'fvwm', 'openbox', 'xfce', 'sawfish', 'twm', 'ratpoison', 'ion', 'windowmaker', etc.
Knoppix - verify the part under another OS.
Tomsrtbt - I forget if Knoppix has badblocks or not. If it doesn't, Tomsrtbt does.
memtest86 - Memory tester.
Spare HDD - good for having a clean install of windows to check things on.
Spare low-density memory.
Spare older computer for testing daughtercards.
That's about it.
Of course, sooner or later you *will* get the machine from hell with an intermediate fault that ends up locking windows for no damn good reason every so often. Then life will suck. But that's why they call it work.
The odds are probably pretty slim for cryonics to actually work.
OTOH, any odds are good odds for the dead, right?
Not like you can take the $50k with you anyways...
And hey, it does fund some research into preserving body tissue.
Still, maybe launching yourself into space could prevent you from being brought back to life someday. Then again, maybe you'd be brought back to life to fight some losing battle against aliens... ;)
There is an older SF short (title and author forgotten) about a man whose frozen and thawed out later so he can be used to fight wars across the galaxy. As time marches on, it gets to the point where they no longer freeze him, but instead send the information out and use that to recreate him.
In the end, he gets shot by himself. Turned out that both sides got access to that information.
So, in the future, you can get involved in petty wars with pirated versions of yourself.
So where does the license for the bootable cd come from?
You need 1 license for windows (say, about $100), and one for the A/V software (say, about $50).
Since it stays on disk, there is no worry about having to uninstall the software when it is done.
Sure, you can just keep a spare computer around to plug NTFS drives into, but isn't it easier to carry a CD with you?
Just my $.02
Only on Slashdot would a comment about Alyson Hannigan be modded as "Insightful." We're all such geeks...
On Fark, Alyson's wedding was marked with a 'sad' tag.
We still have a way to go in our devolution.
Can anyone think of alot of uses for this that would beat out knoppix? Cause I can't.
Knoppix is Linux. Linux writing to NTFS is a VERY BAD IDEA. Windows tends to use NTFS now. Windows gets viruses which REALLY SCREWS UP THE SYSTEM. Windows needs to have viruses removed, but the installation cannot be trusted, or else there isn't a licenced copy to put on it.
Congratulations, BartsPE as a A/V plugin.
That's only one use, but its a damn common task for Microsoft Windows.
BartsPE > Knoppix for virus removal.
The Apple Cube had heat related problems with the power switch, and I believe there was also problems with the case cracking.
As for the cursor disappearing, I usually do plenty of reading or writing on a computer. Minor tasks (switching mp3s, hiding/growing windows, etc) are hotkeyed in.
BTW, if focus-follows-mouse is enabled in a GUI, having the pointer disappear is pretty annoying.
Er, the pointer reappears when the mouse moves.
I purchased a Mac because I was sick and tired of "tinkering" with my computer, constantly tweaking settings, ensuring everything worked properly. I set my PowerBook up 4 months ago, and guess what... It just works.
Just because MacOS X 'just works' for you, doesn't mean that it will 'just work' for me.
If I'm not using the cursor, I'd like it to disappear. Does MacOS X 'just work' for me in that way? Is it easy to find a graphical configuration utility and make the cursor disappear after 5 seconds of inactivity?
Oh, and I like hotkeys. Will MacOS X allow me to easily set up the combination of ctrl-j + l to switch to my web browser, and if that web browser doesn't exist, launch it?
There's just two trivial examples I found off the top of my head. I could easily add more.
Don't think everyone who uses the Unix-like OSes are a bunch of twiddling geeks who are content to fiddle with the OS while Mac users end up getting real work done. I'm not sure about the rest of the crowd, but the reason I use unix-like OSes is because its more efficient for me to get my work done.
As for my x86 hardware, its performing fine, thank you very much. Unfortunately, there is cheap x86 hardware, just as there is cheap hardware for Macintosh. If you don't do your research when making a major investment, you will get burned. (Or did we already forget the Apple Cube fiasco?) A system from one manufacturer is not a guarentee of quality, nor is the inverse true. There are plenty of cheap automobiles that have problems even though they were designed by one organization. Inversely, I'm pretty sure that kitchen sink makers aren't allied with the lumber mills, and yet the roof overhead doesn't leak and my sink runs water without a problem.
Eventually, we will hit the "sweet spot" where alternative fuel is cheaper than oil, everybody will switch, and Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" will once again prevail in providing the ideal solution.
Argh! Pet Peave!
While capitalism is more efficient then some economic systems, its not the most efficient system.
For example, assume we have two lumber businesses.
Lumber business #1 clear cuts old growth timber and leaves the land clear. Downriver, silt hinders fishing, affects bridges, hinders water travel, encourages floods, and causes climatic changes.
Lumber business #2 manages the lands it cuts, replanting and reusing the land, turning it into a renewable resource. While places downstream still feel the effects of the logging (since no system is perfect), the effects are greatly decreased.
Now, guess what business sells lumber at a more competitive price?
Which business ends up causing more cost to the rest of the population?
Capitalism has several major problems. Capitalism does not consider the long run. Capitalism also does not consider the true cost of some items.
The cost of gasoline at the pump does not include the cost of pollution, global warming, international dependency, or the political and security issues of money flowing to several rather unstable countries. The rest of the population ends up subsidizing the cost of gasoline.
PS: To prevent a few replies: [1] Yes, I know that ethanol is heavily subsidized. [2] No, I'm not advocating communism.
My deity tells me good from evil:
Actually, now that I think about it, my deity is more interested in what is wrong then what is right...
[0] I don't care what the spoilers say -- chaotic characters summoning demon lords is a VERY BAD THING, and is a sign that the chaotic gods still think its evil, but want to give you just enough rope to punish yourself.
Is a ball of 100 human embryo cells a human being? One woman on the program was claiming - yes, this is so. I personally think that this is a bit extreme, almost "every sperm is sacred" extreme.
Although you may think that its extreme, the only argument you offer is slippery slope. Its about as valid of an argument that abortion should be illegal because it will lead to infanticide.
People want to choose different sides in the abortion debate. Some choose brain activity. Some choose heartbeat. Some choose when the baby is viable outside of the womb. Some choose the moment of conception[0].
On an unrelated note, I find it ironic that the same people who claim that abortion at day 3 is criminal are often pro-death penalty.
Disclaimer: I'm anti-death penalty, pro-life, and a vegan to boot! However, the pro-life/pro-death penalty people are not hypocrits - Most simply believe that all babies (having committed no crime) deserve to be born, and that there are simply some crimes where the punishment will be loss of life. Even though I disagree with it, the reasoning is sound.
[0] And yes, I know the body tends to spontaniously abort a large number of fertilized eggs.
Now, at last a real charity!
Now I don't have to waste my money feeding starving kids in Africa.
Vim user, huh?
Don't confuse the FreeBSD ports with a packaging system. FreeBSD has its own nice packaging system.
OpenBSD also has a very similiar package system (using pkg_add, and modified tarballs). According to the OpenBSD FAQ, the goal is not ports, but binary packages.
Unfortunately, updates to the core OpenBSD OS is by source. :(
My TV is about 40ft away from the computer...
<spammer> Crap, this warrenty plan for email has destroyed my spamming. .ru. Spammer then invokes warrenty, quickly withdraws money, and continues the cycle with a new virus.**
<spammer> **thinks**
<spammer> **Writes email virus that causes the infected computer to send email to a dummy account in
Your idea is borked, methinks.
I'm recordding hour-long episodes from TV, and I don't have a DVD-burner.
Therefore, its either convert-to-SVCD and watch on the DVD player, or copy to VHS.
Price is not a good reason to build an HTPC unless you're willing to make a whole bunch of compromises and don't care about aesthetics.
I started to read this article not because I wanted to build a full-blown HTPC, but because I have a tv tuner/capture card in a machine, and am willing to add software to make a TV->SVCD converter. (I'm not an audiophile, so I'd rather burn to CD if I want to watch a TV show -- In my case, I'm building a glorified digital VCR.) Building a full-blown HTPC sounds impressive, and is more article worthy then what I'll eventually do, which is probably why we see articles about building an HTPC, instead of how to build a simple digital VCR.
I priced out what it would take me to build a minimally-decent HTPC system, accounting for the specialized case (quiet, small, looks like it's an HT component), motherboard (because full-size ATX wouldn't fit in that case), processor, memory, decent TV capture cards, hard drive, DVD burner, etc. Hint: It wasn't $200. More like $700.
An Antec Sonata case runs about $100 new, with PS, and isn't that ugly. TV capture can be picked up for 50. Decent video out cards run about $50, used, if you don't have one lying around. The rest of the components a geek has laying around the house.
I can pretty much tell you who's going to be the fastest and slowest without a doubt. Gentoo fastest OpenBSD slowest (I don't even use Gentoo btw).
OpenBSD should be the slowest, since it adds security checks to the execution of code. OTOH, it 'feels' faster then 2.4.x Debian on low end hardware.
OTOH, I don't know if I'd reward Gentoo as 'the fastest'. FreeBSD is wicked fast and can easily be compiled from source.
If we are picking categories, can we include setup time as well? Say, time from a bare-metal machine to fully-optomized? I'd be curious.
As a footnote: I wish someone who really knew windows would set up a Windows 2k3 and Windows 2k Server/Desktop machines, just to see how they compare.
As you say, RAM does matter (I have 262Mb on the home machine) but memory is cheap. What's the big deal?
Memory is not cheap! Take an old pentium-era computer (without 168pin SDR DIMMS) and try to buy enough memory to bump it up to 256M.
Ne'ermind that in some areas, there is shipping costs, and tariffs on that memory.
Finally, if you are doing things the *right* way, the $20 pricewatch special isn't the way to go - you want quality memory chips from a quality manufacturer.
At one point during my visit with the Badirs, I pull out my cell phone and make a call. Before it even connects, Shadde, who is sitting across the room, recites all 12 digits perfectly.
This is something normal people usually can't do, but i've known blind people that can do that kind of "tricks"(they can also tell you if you're standing or sitting while talking on the phone, for example).
Perhaps most "normal" people can do it, but don't train themselves. I remember a story by Richard Feynman where he realized that it was relatively easy to find out which book was recently touched in a bookshelf through sense of smell alone.
The rest of us may simply be using our eyes instead of other senses, and may not have ever put forth the effort to train our other senses.
My wife's American Indians Study Class textbook (This Land was Theirs) is still about $50 for the edition her class uses - offline, at the college bookstore, its $58.
If a professor wants to use the latest edition of an obscure enough book, the price will be high.
Tangent: On the cover of the book, there is an undated map of the main Indian groups of North America. The East Coast Indians are listed, and so are the Indians of the Midwest and Western America. However, there is a huge swarth of land from southern Ohio through Tennessee and down to Georgia that's marked "Unoccupied." Luckily, the European settlers arrived to take advantage of the Ohio river valley, since the textbook thinks that Indians didn't live there. For a $60 textbook, someone didn't do his research.
Anyways, for your last engine comment. That is definitely true, since my car runs without A/C, I'm assuming A/C is added to the engine and requires engine to run thus changing the engine... since you pay to mod the engine at the very beginning (for quite some money I might add), I can see that you can't just remove the AC.
A/C is its own seperate subsystem in most automobiles, but is powered by the engine. The A/C subsystem includes its own compressor, which is connected via a belt to the engine. In older vehicles there would be a seperate belt for the compressor. In newer vehicles, there is one large serpentine belt, which is slightly longer on A/C models so that it can extend to the compressor.
Non-A/C models would typically include the motor mounts for the compressor, but have no other components for A/C. A/C models would have the compressor, the tubing, and the mini-radiator-thingie-whose-name-I-forgot, plus the black-canistor-thingie-whose-name-I-also-forgot (and yes, these _are_ the technical terms).
Since A/C is powered by the motor, non-A/C vehicles get slightly better gas milage, on average. However, if you are driving around your windows rolled down because of the heat, the wind drag might reduce your MPG average to such a degree that you'd be better off with A/C.