"More of the heat from my AMD64 is from the power supply vs. the CPU and Gfx."
Then you have a *really* crappy power supply. A good PSU, like the Seasonic S12-430, is about 83% efficent at 150W.
On a 150W system, that means that the PSU is producing 26W of heat.
For your power supply to be producing more heat than your CPU + GPU, it would have to be *less* than 50% efficent. Today, not even the crappiest of computer PSUs is below 50%, even throughout the entire power range.
"The adapter for my iBook puts out more heat then the iBook."
Not true. Your iBook draws 45W max, and I can assure you that your power brick is producing *much* less than 45W of heat. If it were, it would be nearly as hot as a lightbulb (similar surface area) - which would probably melt the plastic.
"Last year at WWDC Apple had huge posters that said things like "Mac OS X, introducing longhorn" and "Redmond start your photocopiers".
I thought it was cute, now I know it was prophetic."
Beacuse, as we know, Apple invented fast searching.
Oh, you mean the BeOS had it? And that Microsoft announced the feature for Longhorn in 2003? And that Google already shipped a product that does it for Windows?
But this is Slashdot. Microsoft *must* be copying Apple.
Damn, this is getting annoying. Broadband penetration is lower in the US - WE GET IT. It's been discussed EXTENSIVELY on Slashdot.
There's no need for 500 articles about slow XP-SP2 adoption or an article every Black Tuesday about new Microsoft patches.
Report the story, then SHUT UP unless you have relevant new details. The linked article didn't say anything that anyone who has read Slashdot in the last year wouldn't already know.
It's like a dupe, but more annoying. You've beat the subject into the ground. Give it up.
Most users probably won't use it. It's not like Mac OS didn't have AppleScript before.
"What about Core Image/Core Data?"
Users won't see these features. Particularly Core Image, which offers few advantages for users with iBooks, eMacs, Mac Minis, or most older Apple products. Core Data is developer focused.
"What about VoiceOver?"
Nice, but it will have limited appeal to most users.
Compare Tiger to Panther:
Panther: - Expose - Massively improved finder - Safari - iChat AV - Fast user switching - FileVault - Inkwell - Preview
All of these are *major* new features from a user standpoint.
Panther has Automator, VoiceOver, Dashboard, and Spotlight. Dashboard is kind of a lame duck (will *you* really use it?), VoiceOver doesn't appeal to most users (it certainly helps the visually impared, though), and Automator is really just a nice UI for AppleScript.
Look, there are definate improvements in Tiger, but it's not as big of a release as Panther, and it's certainly not as significant as Jaguar. There's only so much crap - good or bad - that Apple can add to their OS.
It's like KDE. After a point, those new features just become excessive. Apple is approaching that point with their OS.
"I'd like to highlight some of the features that I feel set MSN Search apart from its competitors, chiefly Google [...]
What happened to Apple?"
Apple doesn't provide web search. MSN does. Thurrott isn't comparing desktop searching in the quoted article.
There is no "about face". Thurrott's earlier comments agree 100% with his comments today - Microsoft did announce "Fast Search" functionality in 2003, but the numerous delays that have plagued Longhorn have allowed other comapanies (Google, Apple) to ship their versions first.
Neither Apple nor Google were the first to feature a search technology of this kind. BeOS, for example, had file and email search using the pseudo-database BeFS from the very start.
Microsoft planned to ship Fast Search with Longhorn, Apple decided to include it in their next version of Mac OS.
"Caps Lock: Please include a way to easily disable this useless key. Nothing like accidently going into caps lock mode when you're working in Vi.. "
Ummm. System > Preferences > Keyboard Choose "Layout Options" Choose "Control Key Position" Choose "Make CapsLock an additional Control"
Not exactly easy, but at least it's GUI based.
"Gnome "Save Session": Please fix it or lose it. This feature is broken since forever, and even once it's disabled it still tries to restore the session from the "last save."
"they launch a surprise attack and shipped the cores early, even before AMD's announced launch date"
Not really. AMD has been shiping production dual-core products for over a month. On April 21st, AMD dual-core servers will be shipping in quantity. Intel dual-core servers won't.
"the more I realise just how slow devopment on the Windows platform is"
It's not slow. Longhorn is going to be the most substantial new Windows release since Windows 2000. It will be as different from Windows XP as Windows XP was from Windows NT 4.0.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft isn't set on a 1.5-year release cycle.
Apple's cycle is good for consumers, but as an IT profesional, it's easy to see that it's terrible for businesses. With Apple's cycle, we would have to upgrade our entire deployment to an entirely new OS every 1.5 years - or accept the fact that many new apps won't run on our older Mac OS.
With Windows, the only significant upgrade in four years has been XP-SP2. Even that was largely transparent for the end user.
Anything that changes on the desktop results in a slew of calls to my desk. With Windows XP, you can essentially configure the desktop so that it looks - and works - almost exactly like Windows 2000. That's a huge savings in time and labor.
"Momentum" isn't the only reason that Windows is popular in the enterprise. Microsoft understands how to create a new OS that integrates with our existing infastructure and applications. Apple's getting there, but each new OS X release is still a drastic departure from the previous release.
Re:There isn't any provider that meets my needs.
on
Voom No More
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· Score: 1
"DirecTV can't give me my locals in highdef because, they say, I live in the city and need that precious waiver that I'll never get."
Waivers are hard to give because of FCC regs. You need to have essentially no picture before you can even think about getting waivers.
"Sadly, I'm stuck in bed with Cox once again until somebody gets me what I need."
DIRECTV is launching 4 new satellites which broadcast in the Ka band. With a new dish, new multiswitches, and new recievers, you will be able to get HD locals from DIRECTV.
They have the capacity to carry 1500 HD channels with the new satellites. That's enough for every local channel in the US.
"Why should the above listings start with some minor distros"
On the desktop, Ubuntu isn't exactly "minor". It's certainly not a SuSE or a RedHat, but it's bigger than a lot of distros.
Remember, Debian isn't exactly focused on producing a stable, up-to-date desktop. Debian stable is the kind of thing you'd want to run a server on (rock solid and supported for a *long* time). It's not the kind of thing you'd want to run on a desktop.
I run IT at my corporation. One of our employees loves to play music through the dinky little speaker in his PC (it's actually in the case). So, naturally, I opened the case and unplugged the speaker.
He still hasn't figured it out. Now he uses headphones.
That may be the case, but you are hardly a representative sample. Here in my town, I personally know at least 20 people who have Comcast HSI, and the only outage *any* of us have had since the transition from @home was the DNS quasi-outage a few days ago.
"As I said, I am running Linux. May I please talk to Tier 3"
You don't get it, do you?
According to a friend who works at the call center of a local ISP (FRII), there are three types of callers:
A: Pepole who don't know what they are doing - and are aware of this.
B: People who know what they are doing.
C: People who don't know what they are doing - but think they do.
Type-A people are easy to deal with. The script catches the most common problems. Rebooting the system, rebooting the modem, checking the link lights - simple stuff that can catch bad cables, OS SNAFUs, bad DHCP leases, and stuff like that.
Type-B people (like you) are harder to deal with. They have probably already done everything that the script checks for. It would be best to elevate you directly to Tier 2 or Tier 3, but it can't be done because of type-C people.
Type-C people are the reason you can't be elevated immediately. To the Tier 1 CSRs (who don't have a lot of experience), they sound just like Type-B people. Type-C people probably haven't done simple stuff like renewing their DHCP lease, pinging their gateway, or resetting their modem. Yet, they are sure of their knowledge and of the fact that the problem is with the ISP.
If you elevate Type-C people, bad things happen. You waste the time of the Tier-3 people, and often issues are missed (the Tier-3 people assume that basic troubleshooting has been done already).
Here's how to deal with CSRs:
- Ensure that the problem isn't on your end. Reboot your modem, get a new DHCP lease, ping the gateway. Do the basic stuff. Don't waste their time. - Play dumb. You don't have a network, you aren't running Linux, and you don't know crap about networking. - Let them run you through the script. If they ask you to reboot your system, wait 30 seconds and tell them that you did. Fake it. - Be polite.
After about 3-minutes, you'll finish the script, and with the problem unsolved, you'll be transferred to Tier 2.
Once you reach a Tier 2 CSR, you can explain the problem. "I can't ping the DNS server", "The modem can't acquire a downstream signal", "I can't get DHCP".
Some ISPs are better. Speakeasy, for example, has knowledgable people. Remember, though, that ISPs like Speakeasy generally have a more knowledgable customer base.
It doesn't make sense to hire experts when most problems can be solved by a script.
"The Tv has outages as well, but we will not discuss that area."
Generally, if your TV is out, your internet will be out. If that's the case, you need to have a tech come out and inspect the wiring / box. It's not normal for cable service to go out - back when we had TCI, we had periodic outages. Eventually, it was traced back to a faulty distribution amplifier.
I don't hate Comcast. They provide a decent service at a decent price. Here, we have Qwest providing competition through DSL, which keeps Comcast sharp.
In my experience, Comcast HSI has good latency, good reliability, and decent oversubscrption ratios. It sure beats Qwest DSL.
I've been an AMD user ever since the release of Athlon XP.
I have never built a computer that didn't have an NVDIA chipset in it. I've owned NForce, NForce2, and NForce3 250GB systems, and I've built NForce4 systems.
NForce, NForce2, and NForce3 250GB rock. No compatibility or stability issues, great drivers, and good performance. Excellent all-around.
NForce4 blows. I've had compatibility problems with all four systems (two with ASUS boards, one with an MSI board, and one with a DFI board), and the drivers are immature. Not to mention the fact that NF4 runs *freaking hot*.
The Via K8T890 chipset doesn't interest me a whole lot, but the ATI Radeon Xpress chipset looks good.
AMD users are *not* less interested in stability. I won't build a system that doesn't pass 48-hours of Prime95 and 48-hours of Memtest86+. If a system fails, the parts go back - and I get parts that work.
My current DFI NForce3 system has 110 days of straight uptime under its belt (it's a media PC). I'd call that stable.
"Since a terrabyte (5x250GB in RAID 5) is only around $500"
Whoa. The cheapest 250GB drive I can find on Pricewatch is around $120.
Also, you need 6 250GB drives to get a real terabyte RAID5 array.
Double also, you need a RAID controller that can handle RAID5. Most motherboard controllers don't, and those that do generally only have 4 SATA connectors.
With the 6 drives ($720) and a decent 8-drive RAID controller ($250), you're talking almost $1000. Almost double what you quoted.
They like the Accord / Corolla for a reason: they are solid vehicles that keep their resale value.
The Corolla, for example, sets 30 city / 38 highway MPG, is an IIHS "Best Pick" for safety, and is overall a very nice basic car. It's also around $14,000 decently equipped.
CU cares about what *I* care about in a vehicle - reliablity, fuel economy, safety, and price.
Oh, and they are also quite keen on the Ford Focus.
I'm also in Fort Collins, and here's the scoop on wireless:
- At least 3 major wireless ISPs already exist (Digis, Colorado Wireless Exchange Coop, Skybeam.net)
- Many business have free Wi-Fi. Mugs (2 locations), Moxie, Wired Bean, Bean Cycle, Alleycat, Bear Rock, Silver Grill, and many more.
- The wireless spectrum is *way* over-crowded. There are over 7,000 APs in town, most on channel 6. In some locations, my built-in wireless can pick up as many as fifteen different access points.
- Cingular already offers EDGE here, and Verizon/Sprint will probably offer EVDO in the near future.
And wired:
- Comcast provides cable internet to the public. It's fast (4.0/384), has good latency, and is pretty reliable. It's a bit pricey, but overall not a bad value.
- Qwest provides some decent competition with DSL. 1.5/1.0 for $28 a month (+ $6 for their basic ISP) isn't too shabby.
So, right now, there's quite a bit of competition.
Government-sponsored WiFi isn't attractive, at least in Fort Collins, for several reasons:
1: It adds to spectrum pollution. Try running an AP when the public network has already sucked up 1 and 11 and everyone else is stuck on 6.
2: It's not necessry. We already have a major university with over 500 publically accessible computers, plus two libraries and countless free hotspots. There are already three WISPs operating in town. Wired broadband is available, and there is competition.
3: It forces out WISPs. Digis and Skybeam aren't "evil corporations", nor is CWX. They spent a lot of money on network buildout. Regardless of whether Digis and Skybeam could compete on features or price, there simply isn't enough spectrum for them to continue operating. CWX is in better shape (they don't use 802.11), but how can they compete against "free" wireless?
Look, there are some services that the government should provide - particularly when those services are life-critical (ambulance, fire, police) or can't be provided by private companies (roads). Internet, however, doesn't fall into that category. Particularly not when there is already a healthy market.
There's a reason that the IRS doesn't make tax software: whatever they could create would suck compared to TurboTax or TaxCut. Why should the government spend tax money to do what is already being done - and done well - by the private sector?
" And you were dumb enough to click the link giving the admin of that web server permenant logs of your computers ram contents? Now we just have to hope that the"
And you were dumb enough to assume that I didn't check the source code before clicking the button. No data is transmitted with this example.
Of course, other websites may not be so forgiving.
Ka band - It's a higher-frequency band that's currently far more open than the lower-frequency Ku band. It allows for higher-bandwidth satellite transmissions.
8PSK - A new modulation system that allows 3 bits to be represented instead of 2 with each sample. PSK uses the phase of the signal to encode data. QPSK uses 4 different "levels", 8PSK allows 8. This also translates into higher-bandwidth.
MPEG-4 - A new encoding system that provides better picture quality with less bandwidth.
So, what does this mean?
SPACEWAY, DIRECTV's new satellite family (there are 2 in-space satellites plus a third to be launched later), combined with the new band, new encoding, and new modulation will allow the holy-grail of satellite broadcasting: HD Local-Into-Local.
By FCC law, DIRECTV can't transmit local stations to subscribers who live in a different designated market area (DMA). A person in Denver can't get channels from New York, for example.
Currently, DRIECTV transmits local channels in pretty-lame-quality SD. There are almost 1500 high-power broadcasters in the US, so it's a tough job to cover them all.
SPACEWAY has a lot more bandwidth. That means that DIRECTV will be able to carry *all* of the local channels in the US in HD.
It's a long road, as DIRECTV has 13 million customers. Replacing all of those boxes will take a long time. It's probably reasonable to assume that DIRECTV's Ku-band services will continue at least until 2010, if not longer.
So, what does this mean for the HD-Tivo user?
- You will continue to get what you get now for a good long time
- You can still recieve and record HD locals off the air
- You will need a new dish, new multiswitch, and new recievers for HD locals off the satellite
Also interesting is Echostar's ("Dish Network") response to SPACEWAY. E* is purchasing Rainbow DBS ("VOOM"), which will give them plenty of room for national HD channels. Even with VOOM and their current satellite arsenal, though, E* has nothing to really compete with SPACEWAY. E* will have to launch one or more new Ka-band satellites in the next few years if they want to stay competitive with DIRECTV.
This is a *huge* hole. In three clicks, it disclosed previous URLs that I had visited, POSTDATA (including my Slashdot password) and a bunch of other stuff.
If this could be automated (and it easily could be with something like XML-RPC), imagine the possibilities for phishing. Visit a page, have your credit card number disclosed.
"You're exagerating, I think that XP take at least 20s on a computer 10* more performant."
No. My P-M 1.7GHz *notebook* running XP Media Center (which takes longer to boot) takes 15 seconds from power-on to logon prompt.
Getting to the desktop in a usable state takes about 5 more seconds.
That's on a slower notebook HDD and with XP-MCE. XP pro should have no problem booting in 10 seconds with a decent HDD and a clean install.
Now, XP does get notably slower in booting if you add certain 3rd-party software (virus scanners are a usual culprit). Actual time to desktop usability also increases substantially if you have spyware or other startup programs.
BeOS is still faster, but, remember, it's not nearly as complete of an OS as Windows is.
"in fact, there would have to be one on every block to support the kind of transfer of power source you are talking about. so much for switching the emissions to NIMBY."
Not quite. Current world power usage of fossil fuels is in the 2.5-3TW range. The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor is just above 1GW, so it would take 2500-3000 reactors to produce enough energy to replace all fossil fuels.
Now, 3000 reactors in the world is a lot. But it's certainly not "every block".
Slashdot Mirror
"More of the heat from my AMD64 is from the power supply vs. the CPU and Gfx."
Then you have a *really* crappy power supply. A good PSU, like the Seasonic S12-430, is about 83% efficent at 150W.
On a 150W system, that means that the PSU is producing 26W of heat.
For your power supply to be producing more heat than your CPU + GPU, it would have to be *less* than 50% efficent. Today, not even the crappiest of computer PSUs is below 50%, even throughout the entire power range.
"The adapter for my iBook puts out more heat then the iBook."
Not true. Your iBook draws 45W max, and I can assure you that your power brick is producing *much* less than 45W of heat. If it were, it would be nearly as hot as a lightbulb (similar surface area) - which would probably melt the plastic.
"Last year at WWDC Apple had huge posters that said things like "Mac OS X, introducing longhorn" and "Redmond start your photocopiers".
I thought it was cute, now I know it was prophetic."
Beacuse, as we know, Apple invented fast searching.
Oh, you mean the BeOS had it? And that Microsoft announced the feature for Longhorn in 2003? And that Google already shipped a product that does it for Windows?
But this is Slashdot. Microsoft *must* be copying Apple.
Damn, this is getting annoying. Broadband penetration is lower in the US - WE GET IT. It's been discussed EXTENSIVELY on Slashdot.
There's no need for 500 articles about slow XP-SP2 adoption or an article every Black Tuesday about new Microsoft patches.
Report the story, then SHUT UP unless you have relevant new details. The linked article didn't say anything that anyone who has read Slashdot in the last year wouldn't already know.
It's like a dupe, but more annoying. You've beat the subject into the ground. Give it up.
"Apparently not liking the competition from 1394b"
Since when did Microsoft compete with FireWire? The only real competition to 1394 is USB, and that's an Intel technolog.
That, and Microsoft has already released a patch.
"What about Automator?"
Most users probably won't use it. It's not like Mac OS didn't have AppleScript before.
"What about Core Image/Core Data?"
Users won't see these features. Particularly Core Image, which offers few advantages for users with iBooks, eMacs, Mac Minis, or most older Apple products. Core Data is developer focused.
"What about VoiceOver?"
Nice, but it will have limited appeal to most users.
Compare Tiger to Panther:
Panther:
- Expose
- Massively improved finder
- Safari
- iChat AV
- Fast user switching
- FileVault
- Inkwell
- Preview
All of these are *major* new features from a user standpoint.
Panther has Automator, VoiceOver, Dashboard, and Spotlight. Dashboard is kind of a lame duck (will *you* really use it?), VoiceOver doesn't appeal to most users (it certainly helps the visually impared, though), and Automator is really just a nice UI for AppleScript.
Look, there are definate improvements in Tiger, but it's not as big of a release as Panther, and it's certainly not as significant as Jaguar. There's only so much crap - good or bad - that Apple can add to their OS.
It's like KDE. After a point, those new features just become excessive. Apple is approaching that point with their OS.
"I'd like to highlight some of the features that I feel set MSN Search apart from its competitors, chiefly Google [...]
What happened to Apple?"
Apple doesn't provide web search. MSN does. Thurrott isn't comparing desktop searching in the quoted article.
There is no "about face". Thurrott's earlier comments agree 100% with his comments today - Microsoft did announce "Fast Search" functionality in 2003, but the numerous delays that have plagued Longhorn have allowed other comapanies (Google, Apple) to ship their versions first.
Neither Apple nor Google were the first to feature a search technology of this kind. BeOS, for example, had file and email search using the pseudo-database BeFS from the very start.
Microsoft planned to ship Fast Search with Longhorn, Apple decided to include it in their next version of Mac OS.
"Caps Lock: Please include a way to easily disable this useless key. Nothing like accidently going into caps lock mode when you're working in Vi.. "
Ummm.
System > Preferences > Keyboard
Choose "Layout Options"
Choose "Control Key Position"
Choose "Make CapsLock an additional Control"
Not exactly easy, but at least it's GUI based.
"Gnome "Save Session": Please fix it or lose it. This feature is broken since forever, and even once it's disabled it still tries to restore the session from the "last save."
Yeah. It's pretty useless.
"they launch a surprise attack and shipped the cores early, even before AMD's announced launch date"
Not really. AMD has been shiping production dual-core products for over a month. On April 21st, AMD dual-core servers will be shipping in quantity. Intel dual-core servers won't.
"the more I realise just how slow devopment on the Windows platform is"
It's not slow. Longhorn is going to be the most substantial new Windows release since Windows 2000. It will be as different from Windows XP as Windows XP was from Windows NT 4.0.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft isn't set on a 1.5-year release cycle.
Apple's cycle is good for consumers, but as an IT profesional, it's easy to see that it's terrible for businesses. With Apple's cycle, we would have to upgrade our entire deployment to an entirely new OS every 1.5 years - or accept the fact that many new apps won't run on our older Mac OS.
With Windows, the only significant upgrade in four years has been XP-SP2. Even that was largely transparent for the end user.
Anything that changes on the desktop results in a slew of calls to my desk. With Windows XP, you can essentially configure the desktop so that it looks - and works - almost exactly like Windows 2000. That's a huge savings in time and labor.
"Momentum" isn't the only reason that Windows is popular in the enterprise. Microsoft understands how to create a new OS that integrates with our existing infastructure and applications. Apple's getting there, but each new OS X release is still a drastic departure from the previous release.
"DirecTV can't give me my locals in highdef because, they say, I live in the city and need that precious waiver that I'll never get."
Waivers are hard to give because of FCC regs. You need to have essentially no picture before you can even think about getting waivers.
"Sadly, I'm stuck in bed with Cox once again until somebody gets me what I need."
DIRECTV is launching 4 new satellites which broadcast in the Ka band. With a new dish, new multiswitches, and new recievers, you will be able to get HD locals from DIRECTV.
They have the capacity to carry 1500 HD channels with the new satellites. That's enough for every local channel in the US.
"Why should the above listings start with some minor distros"
On the desktop, Ubuntu isn't exactly "minor". It's certainly not a SuSE or a RedHat, but it's bigger than a lot of distros.
Remember, Debian isn't exactly focused on producing a stable, up-to-date desktop. Debian stable is the kind of thing you'd want to run a server on (rock solid and supported for a *long* time). It's not the kind of thing you'd want to run on a desktop.
I run IT at my corporation. One of our employees loves to play music through the dinky little speaker in his PC (it's actually in the case). So, naturally, I opened the case and unplugged the speaker.
He still hasn't figured it out. Now he uses headphones.
"Now, It happens monthly (sometimes worse)."
That may be the case, but you are hardly a representative sample. Here in my town, I personally know at least 20 people who have Comcast HSI, and the only outage *any* of us have had since the transition from @home was the DNS quasi-outage a few days ago.
"As I said, I am running Linux. May I please talk to Tier 3"
You don't get it, do you?
According to a friend who works at the call center of a local ISP (FRII), there are three types of callers:
A: Pepole who don't know what they are doing - and are aware of this.
B: People who know what they are doing.
C: People who don't know what they are doing - but think they do.
Type-A people are easy to deal with. The script catches the most common problems. Rebooting the system, rebooting the modem, checking the link lights - simple stuff that can catch bad cables, OS SNAFUs, bad DHCP leases, and stuff like that.
Type-B people (like you) are harder to deal with. They have probably already done everything that the script checks for. It would be best to elevate you directly to Tier 2 or Tier 3, but it can't be done because of type-C people.
Type-C people are the reason you can't be elevated immediately. To the Tier 1 CSRs (who don't have a lot of experience), they sound just like Type-B people. Type-C people probably haven't done simple stuff like renewing their DHCP lease, pinging their gateway, or resetting their modem. Yet, they are sure of their knowledge and of the fact that the problem is with the ISP.
If you elevate Type-C people, bad things happen. You waste the time of the Tier-3 people, and often issues are missed (the Tier-3 people assume that basic troubleshooting has been done already).
Here's how to deal with CSRs:
- Ensure that the problem isn't on your end. Reboot your modem, get a new DHCP lease, ping the gateway. Do the basic stuff. Don't waste their time.
- Play dumb. You don't have a network, you aren't running Linux, and you don't know crap about networking.
- Let them run you through the script. If they ask you to reboot your system, wait 30 seconds and tell them that you did. Fake it.
- Be polite.
After about 3-minutes, you'll finish the script, and with the problem unsolved, you'll be transferred to Tier 2.
Once you reach a Tier 2 CSR, you can explain the problem. "I can't ping the DNS server", "The modem can't acquire a downstream signal", "I can't get DHCP".
Some ISPs are better. Speakeasy, for example, has knowledgable people. Remember, though, that ISPs like Speakeasy generally have a more knowledgable customer base.
It doesn't make sense to hire experts when most problems can be solved by a script.
"The Tv has outages as well, but we will not discuss that area."
Generally, if your TV is out, your internet will be out. If that's the case, you need to have a tech come out and inspect the wiring / box. It's not normal for cable service to go out - back when we had TCI, we had periodic outages. Eventually, it was traced back to a faulty distribution amplifier.
I don't hate Comcast. They provide a decent service at a decent price. Here, we have Qwest providing competition through DSL, which keeps Comcast sharp.
In my experience, Comcast HSI has good latency, good reliability, and decent oversubscrption ratios. It sure beats Qwest DSL.
"Yes it does. Most countries aren't so silly as to make all of their bill denominations the same size and color. But that's another rant."
Wow. You know, they *do* print the value of the bill on the front.
Not to mention that the new-$20 *does* have a different color, as does the new-$50, as will the new-$10.
I've been an AMD user ever since the release of Athlon XP.
I have never built a computer that didn't have an NVDIA chipset in it. I've owned NForce, NForce2, and NForce3 250GB systems, and I've built NForce4 systems.
NForce, NForce2, and NForce3 250GB rock. No compatibility or stability issues, great drivers, and good performance. Excellent all-around.
NForce4 blows. I've had compatibility problems with all four systems (two with ASUS boards, one with an MSI board, and one with a DFI board), and the drivers are immature. Not to mention the fact that NF4 runs *freaking hot*.
The Via K8T890 chipset doesn't interest me a whole lot, but the ATI Radeon Xpress chipset looks good.
AMD users are *not* less interested in stability. I won't build a system that doesn't pass 48-hours of Prime95 and 48-hours of Memtest86+. If a system fails, the parts go back - and I get parts that work.
My current DFI NForce3 system has 110 days of straight uptime under its belt (it's a media PC). I'd call that stable.
"My 17" CRT does up to 1600x1200."
No, it can't. It may be able to *sync* and *scan* at 1600x1200, but it can't actually display that resolution.
The shadow mask (or aperture grill, as the case may be) on your monitor probably doesn't go anywhere near 1600x1200.
You're basically using an analog version of antialiasing.
"Since a terrabyte (5x250GB in RAID 5) is only around $500"
Whoa. The cheapest 250GB drive I can find on Pricewatch is around $120.
Also, you need 6 250GB drives to get a real terabyte RAID5 array.
Double also, you need a RAID controller that can handle RAID5. Most motherboard controllers don't, and those that do generally only have 4 SATA connectors.
With the 6 drives ($720) and a decent 8-drive RAID controller ($250), you're talking almost $1000. Almost double what you quoted.
"Honda Accord & Toyota Corolla"
They like the Accord / Corolla for a reason: they are solid vehicles that keep their resale value.
The Corolla, for example, sets 30 city / 38 highway MPG, is an IIHS "Best Pick" for safety, and is overall a very nice basic car. It's also around $14,000 decently equipped.
CU cares about what *I* care about in a vehicle - reliablity, fuel economy, safety, and price.
Oh, and they are also quite keen on the Ford Focus.
I'm also in Fort Collins, and here's the scoop on wireless:
- At least 3 major wireless ISPs already exist (Digis, Colorado Wireless Exchange Coop, Skybeam.net)
- Many business have free Wi-Fi. Mugs (2 locations), Moxie, Wired Bean, Bean Cycle, Alleycat, Bear Rock, Silver Grill, and many more.
- The wireless spectrum is *way* over-crowded. There are over 7,000 APs in town, most on channel 6. In some locations, my built-in wireless can pick up as many as fifteen different access points.
- Cingular already offers EDGE here, and Verizon/Sprint will probably offer EVDO in the near future.
And wired:
- Comcast provides cable internet to the public. It's fast (4.0/384), has good latency, and is pretty reliable. It's a bit pricey, but overall not a bad value.
- Qwest provides some decent competition with DSL. 1.5/1.0 for $28 a month (+ $6 for their basic ISP) isn't too shabby.
So, right now, there's quite a bit of competition.
Government-sponsored WiFi isn't attractive, at least in Fort Collins, for several reasons:
1: It adds to spectrum pollution. Try running an AP when the public network has already sucked up 1 and 11 and everyone else is stuck on 6.
2: It's not necessry. We already have a major university with over 500 publically accessible computers, plus two libraries and countless free hotspots. There are already three WISPs operating in town. Wired broadband is available, and there is competition.
3: It forces out WISPs. Digis and Skybeam aren't "evil corporations", nor is CWX. They spent a lot of money on network buildout. Regardless of whether Digis and Skybeam could compete on features or price, there simply isn't enough spectrum for them to continue operating. CWX is in better shape (they don't use 802.11), but how can they compete against "free" wireless?
Look, there are some services that the government should provide - particularly when those services are life-critical (ambulance, fire, police) or can't be provided by private companies (roads). Internet, however, doesn't fall into that category. Particularly not when there is already a healthy market.
There's a reason that the IRS doesn't make tax software: whatever they could create would suck compared to TurboTax or TaxCut. Why should the government spend tax money to do what is already being done - and done well - by the private sector?
" And you were dumb enough to click the link giving the admin of that web server permenant logs of your computers ram contents? Now we just have to hope that the"
And you were dumb enough to assume that I didn't check the source code before clicking the button. No data is transmitted with this example.
Of course, other websites may not be so forgiving.
"Carl Sagan, dreamed long ago (through one of his characters) to find a "circle" pattern inside Pi (i.e another series of Pi inside)."
We will.
Assuming that pi is random (thought to be true), and that it never ends (known to be true), *any* fixed-length string of numbers can be found.
So, yes, a circle can be found in the digits of pi. As can my phone number.
Now, the longer the string you want to find, the further you have to go.
Ka band - It's a higher-frequency band that's currently far more open than the lower-frequency Ku band. It allows for higher-bandwidth satellite transmissions.
8PSK - A new modulation system that allows 3 bits to be represented instead of 2 with each sample. PSK uses the phase of the signal to encode data. QPSK uses 4 different "levels", 8PSK allows 8. This also translates into higher-bandwidth.
MPEG-4 - A new encoding system that provides better picture quality with less bandwidth.
So, what does this mean?
SPACEWAY, DIRECTV's new satellite family (there are 2 in-space satellites plus a third to be launched later), combined with the new band, new encoding, and new modulation will allow the holy-grail of satellite broadcasting: HD Local-Into-Local.
By FCC law, DIRECTV can't transmit local stations to subscribers who live in a different designated market area (DMA). A person in Denver can't get channels from New York, for example.
Currently, DRIECTV transmits local channels in pretty-lame-quality SD. There are almost 1500 high-power broadcasters in the US, so it's a tough job to cover them all.
SPACEWAY has a lot more bandwidth. That means that DIRECTV will be able to carry *all* of the local channels in the US in HD.
It's a long road, as DIRECTV has 13 million customers. Replacing all of those boxes will take a long time. It's probably reasonable to assume that DIRECTV's Ku-band services will continue at least until 2010, if not longer.
So, what does this mean for the HD-Tivo user?
- You will continue to get what you get now for a good long time
- You can still recieve and record HD locals off the air
- You will need a new dish, new multiswitch, and new recievers for HD locals off the satellite
Also interesting is Echostar's ("Dish Network") response to SPACEWAY. E* is purchasing Rainbow DBS ("VOOM"), which will give them plenty of room for national HD channels. Even with VOOM and their current satellite arsenal, though, E* has nothing to really compete with SPACEWAY. E* will have to launch one or more new Ka-band satellites in the next few years if they want to stay competitive with DIRECTV.
This is a *huge* hole. In three clicks, it disclosed previous URLs that I had visited, POSTDATA (including my Slashdot password) and a bunch of other stuff.
If this could be automated (and it easily could be with something like XML-RPC), imagine the possibilities for phishing. Visit a page, have your credit card number disclosed.
Time for Firefox 1.03.
"You're exagerating, I think that XP take at least 20s on a computer 10* more performant."
No. My P-M 1.7GHz *notebook* running XP Media Center (which takes longer to boot) takes 15 seconds from power-on to logon prompt.
Getting to the desktop in a usable state takes about 5 more seconds.
That's on a slower notebook HDD and with XP-MCE. XP pro should have no problem booting in 10 seconds with a decent HDD and a clean install.
Now, XP does get notably slower in booting if you add certain 3rd-party software (virus scanners are a usual culprit). Actual time to desktop usability also increases substantially if you have spyware or other startup programs.
BeOS is still faster, but, remember, it's not nearly as complete of an OS as Windows is.
"in fact, there would have to be one on every block to support the kind of transfer of power source you are talking about. so much for switching the emissions to NIMBY."
Not quite. Current world power usage of fossil fuels is in the 2.5-3TW range. The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor is just above 1GW, so it would take 2500-3000 reactors to produce enough energy to replace all fossil fuels.
Now, 3000 reactors in the world is a lot. But it's certainly not "every block".