First of all, the asteroid probably didn't contriubute a substantial amount of material to the Earth. While I'm no physicist, a crater that size could be made by an object roughly the size of the Empire State Building or the Pentagon (or/.'s favorite metric measure: the LOC). In the large scale of things, this adds up to nothing. Correct me if i'm wrong.
It is largely agreed upon that most of the life on earth at the time of the collision was destroyed. But you're forgetting the biggest law of thermodynamics: CONSERVATION OF MASS. Just because the dinosaurs died, doesn't mean that the carbon atoms which composed their bodies disappeared... they were disintergrated into smaller carbon atoms collectively weighing the same as the original dinosaur.
Finally, I don't believe this helped the mammals very much. It's arguable that mammals didn't emerge until after the impact (think of it, a 50 foot reptile is more likely to survive ANYTHING than a badger.) In addition, the smaller reptiles and fish are argued to be some of the only remaining life left.
The earth was formed LONG before life emerged. I'm not sure where the 'race to be the biggest object orbiting the sun' thing came from....
The Dell C/Ports and C/Docks are notorious for other things as well. Generally speaking, they were the last "true" docking stations ever made (correct me if i'm wrong), and with good reason.
Dell wanted to keep compatibility within their Latitude CP line, and did a pretty good job of it. The docks worked on all of the CP machines from the original P-200 upto the P3 mahines. All had compatible batteries, drives, and docking ports, and were built on the same chasis. But the similarities ended there.
Unfortunately, as the hardware evolved, it became increasingly difficult to build new machines around the existing hardware. Dell never bothered to add additional USB ports, intergrated modems, LAN, etc. to any of the models. They eventually made the chasis slightly wider for the PII models (for bigger 1024x768 screes), and thicker for the PIII models (more on that later)
The chasis eventually expanded to the maximum size which would physically fit into the C/Dock. Then they went thicker. The original P-200 models were light and relatively thin for their time (~4 pounds). By the time the PIIIs came around, they were big, thick, and weighed 8+ pounds.
I am currently typing this on a Latitude CPx. I can tell you that it has its share of problems due to bad design. With the new heat requirments of the PIII, they had to add a humungous heatsink to the design to properly cool the chip without having to modify the chasis, and break compatibility. Unfortunately, Dell put the fan on the back of the machine, smack up against the Dock. One night, I left my PC on in the dock. By the morning, the keys were gooey from the heat output. Even in it's undocked state, it's impossible to use "on your lap". To this day, the keys don't work properly due to the exessive heat the pressure-switches had to absorb.
Twoards the end of the line, the Docks became increasingly flaky with new hardware, and occasionally refuse to power up, or assigns phony IRQs to devices which don't exist (P3 chipsets were obviously quite different than P1 chipsets). The docks got hot, overheated, etc. The computers apparently also had a speed-control mechanism for the fans and speed-throttling (NOT speedstep, that came out later), it apparently works in both the bios and OS. Either way, it doesn't work in windows, and often does the opposite of what it should. Audio is a whole mess by itself. The win32 drivers cause the audio chipset to produe a 1:1 signal to noise ratio (an AM radio inside a power plant would sound better)
Switching to Linux has suprisingly helped. Even without installing the i8k packages (which aren't even compatible to my knowledge), thermal performance is much better, the fans work when the should, the keys still require a massive amount of force to work (but that's a hardware problem), and best of all, sound works properly. Finally, a computer (a laptop at that!) with better hardware support under linux than in windows. Unfortunately, the c-docks still have the same issues.
This is weird.... They talk of Disney as being cutting-edge.
While I know that disney is renowned for it's use of technology at their theme parks, I can't say that I've heard of any of it being cutting-edge. From what I've heard (and seen), Disney is still using 8-track tapes for the audio tracks of many of their (older) rides, as well as the for the control of animatronics, using the age old argument: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Pneumatic tubes are still used for transporting paperwork (and garbage, but that's another story).
Of course, on the newer stuff they build, they're using, they've turned to using CDs, DAT, and of course, computers. But I certainly think their views on outdated technology (from what I have heard in the bast) make a lot of sense.
Do animatronic robots really need to be controlled by 2ghz computers over a secure fiber-optic TCP/IP link? No. Disney still uses their old system which has worked for several decades, and uses the old technology on some of the new stuff they build.
Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad.
I suppose this is where a lot of the conflict in the company originates from. They used to be a really great company, but as of late, I've taken to strongly disliking their marketing strategies and overall business model - WE DICTATE YOUR CULTURE, BUY OUR PRODUCTS.
I'm sad to say that my school downright hates linux with a passion.
I'd even dare to say that they hate any form of technology.
We have ONE CS class (new this year so our school could be certified by the IB). We also have a few uninteresting windows apps/typing classes.
Thers's also a 'technology' class, which I take, and have found to be quite interesting. First off, in any other school, it would be called a shop class... anyhow, they've started to do a very limited amount stuff with technology and robotics... using apple ][s.
Don't get me wrong, the district is one of the most well funded in the state. They have MORE than enough money to do whatever they want. But the problem is... they don't, and they don't give a damn about it.
Each computer in the school is connected to a domain through Windows 98 and an outdated version of netware, and is locked down to a ridiculous level of security (previously not thought possible on '98 machines (although I once managed to disable the DHCP server on the LAN by accident).
The school doesn't believe in learning by doing. Students can't change a thing on the computers, let alone fix them. When they had the problem of the cheap windows machines breaking, they hired a full-time computer-repairman (on TOP of the part-time system admin. Unfortunately they never let him have the admin passwords.... ). Students are never involved in the process, and it makes me sad.
I once proposed forming a student organization to regularly update the school website (I coded a PHP site in advance to show them). They were impressed, but the administration refused the proposition, because they didn't want students actively involved in such an importatnt position.
Sigh.... I could go on like this for pages and pages, but I'll save that for a rainy day.
1. Get in shape - I started lifting weights too late in life and ended up hurting myself.
So true. So true. Contrary to popular beleif, most students do BETTER academically when participating in sports. You'll be healthier later in life, and feel good about yourself. Remember, The Race is long, yet in the end it's only with yourself. So what if you're the slowest on the track team... if you can improve yourself, you have still won.
2. Invest in Intel, Microsoft, Apple and Cisco - 100 bucks in each company
Small-time investment never hurts.
3. Learn spanish
Learning a foreign language will always end up helping you in the end. Thankfully, most US schools mandate students to learn a foreign language nowindays.
4. When you have that desire to drive 120 mph out on Highway 212 - don't, there might be a South Dakota Highway Patrolman there in the dark
Not only that, it will probably get you killed. 'Nuff said.
5. Take more math classes
No matter what your job is, a good math background can always make it easier. Of course, looking at Slashdot, a good English background is probably a good idea.
6. Take more automotive, welding and shop classes
It's astounding how often these classes are ignored. These skills can be applied elsewhere, and gives you additional talents which most people lack. These skills are highly undervalued in toda's world. They will end up helping you in the long run (change your OWN oil, install the new toilet YOURSELF, etc), not to mention saving you money.
7. Work to get out of high school in 3 years. I don't think this is possible anymore. At least not in my school. They now encourage students to get an IB diploma (FYI, IB is an alternative to the AP program. I don't like it, and find that it teaches skills with little or no practical application, but I can do the work, and supposedly it helps for college...). Just remember. DO THE BEST YOU CAN.
8. Girls come and go, don't get to wound up in a 17 year old chick
If you're reading this, you can safely ignore #8, as it probably doesn't apply to you.
9. Don't buy a bunch of tapes or CDs now, Napster will come along someday
Here's something I disagree on. Try to support the arts in every way you can, and go out and be artistic on your own. You never know where you'll end up.
From a rec.humor.funny posting (slightly edited) by dated 19 March 1996.
What you did not know about Windows NT
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit.
As we were talking I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows NT on my PC. I told him how happy I was with this operating system, and showed him the Windows NT CD. To my surprise he threw it into my microwave oven and turned the oven on. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.' After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to hold and it seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw a inscription, an inscription finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:
'No, but I can,' he said. 'The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:'
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them, One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...
Doesn't the house propose laws, then vote on weather or not they should be sent to the senate, where they are voted upon to become law? Isn't this how it's been done for over 200 years in the US?
Granted, it's really hard to pass a law if either the house OR the senate are in disagreement. Of course, it can be voted in if there's an overwhelming majority in the other direction. Of course, given the state of American political parties, that would be highly unlikely.
Any binary-capable protocol should be capable of transferring compressed ZIP (or SIT, or TAR, or GZIP, or BZIP, etc) files, or any type of binary data for that matter.
Granted, the authors may have implemented a HTTPD daemon into their server to server... but the post doesn't make that clear. Why be redirected to another server? Why would a webserver be faster than the game server? I'd tend to think that most game servers have more than enough bandwidth. Once a file is compressed into a ZIP, no further compression is possible, no matter what protocol you use (unless the UT protocol REALLY sucks) - it's futile... you won't get more than a few extra bytes out of it.
The hydrogen peroxide fuel that Rocket Guy is going to use needs to be 90 percent pure. It can only be purchased at 50 percent purity. Rocket Guy is going to distill the hydrogen peroxide in this building to increase it to 90 percent purity. The steel building is a precaution due to the dangerous nature of high purity hydrogen peroxide.
Uh.... Yeah. Why does this sound like something that's going to end up on the darwin awards...isn't steel reactive with peroxide?
Most of the posts on this thread seem confused, or are downright wrong. I hope this clears up some confusion.
Many are complaining about BIOS flashing, diagnostic drivers, etc. I hope the slashdot crowd realizes that the floppy drives are being pulled from NEW computers. Most new PCs can do a BIOS flash from within Windows, or through a bootable CD (which acts just like a floppy)if you are using another OS. Obviously, the drivers for the other hardware won't be on floppies, but as it is, Windows XP has exccellent hardware support, and requires few or no driver disks/CDs. Dell's target audience doesn't use exotic hardware, or install hardware from their older PCs.
Most new motherboards support booting from USB and Firewire devices, and all motherboards support booting from CDs (including CD-Rs and CD-RWs). Debian can be installed off of a CD, though it is admittedly not as efficent as it cuold be. Gentoo has a more ideal configuration in a 100mb CD image which includes all the device drivers and utilities you are likely to need in order to download the distribution. All the other major distros are only supported by installing from a CD.
CD-R and RW drives are cheap. 48x models can be found for under $75. At the higher speeds, it takes under 3 minutes to burn a CDR, and about 5 minutes to burn a CDRW (when you think about it, it would take about 6 hours to copy 650 megs of data to floppies). CDRWs can be erased, making them ideal for smaller files. There are no instances in which Floppies are faster (execpt for savnig a small (>1mb) document, in which case CDRWs are still adequately fast). I only hope that Mount Reiner is finalized by the time these PCs ship.
New PCs have front USB ports. You don't have to reach around into the back to plug in a "Pen Drive".
Users with exotic hardware requirments (serial or Parallel ports for terminals, barcode scanners, recepit printers, etc) can either purchase a PCI card or USB adapter to satisfy this requirment. These can be found VERY cheaply.
Finally, Dell's not the first company to drop floppy drives. IBM has begun dropping them, sony has dropped them, and Apple dropped them 5 years ago.
While for the most part, I absolutely despise Dell, I applaud them for this decision. They don't use AMD, use cheap hardware, their cases have RAZOR SHARP edges on them (bad for hardware geeks), don't adhere to ATX standards, use proprietary hardware, and they agressively marketed WinME (a nightmare for people like me who don't want to fork over the cash for XP, but want their PC to be stable)
Sure, it it has remote desktop capabilities to boot, but they're virtually impossible to configure and use.
To prove that a good, easy unix remote desktop is possible, look at VNC. You can have the same functionality with practically NO configuration (start the daemon, launch the client on the remote end, enter the IP address or domain name, and you're done.)
X11 has a lot of great concepts behind it. They're just implemented in a manner which makes them hard to use.
Either way, these problems should have been corrected 10 years ago. It would be easier to define a new protocol than fix X.
Why can't we develop a codec which is "almost lossless" and works well at higher bitrates? Ogg and MP3 do okay at 320kbps, but the quality increase isn't 3 times a 128kbps mp3.
A good test for encoding quality is to encode new age (enya, enigma) or classical music as they tend to have many subtle, yet distinct instrumental sounds (bells, small symbols, synthesized effects) in the background. Listen to them using a pair of good quality headphones (seinheisser or bose) - you're not listening for artifacts (at high bitrates, you should't find any) - instead listen for the subtle background sounds. THEN, make the decision if lossless really is better. Personally, I prefer 192kbps OGG for my encoding, as it provides reasonably good quality without sucking up my entire drive.
I can agree with you on most of everything you've said up there, but would like to add something else.
Linux has become easy to install, but is still a pain to configure. There is no good equivilant to the control panel. Linuxconf isn't nearly thorough enough, and can be confusing. SuSE has YaST, which I hear to be good.... unfortunately, SuSE isn't intended as a desktop OS. We need to appeal to the quasi-power-user crowd. Believe it or not, most windows users aren't idiots.
Package managment as it stands now is pitiful. On windows and MacOS, I can download a binary, double click it, install it, and run it (all in under a minute).
Linux, on the other hand is a pain. I have to download a package, pray that it works on my distro (if i'm lucky, I can find an RPM or DEB). Then I have to satisfy dependencies (which might not be an official part of my distro). More hunting. When it's finally installed, it doesn't even bother to put an icon in my menu or desktop, or tell me how to configure it (or even provide an easy means of configuring it).
It's the simple things that make linux fall down. We've conquered all the hard stuff. Why is it so hard to get the small stuff worked out?
Re:This list is why I keep a Windows box around.
on
25 Best Linux Games
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Not necessarily. Just take a look at the windows gaming community.
Pretty much the entire Windows gaming community also agree that Quake 3 and CounterStrike are the best multiplayer FPS games (UT 2003 may have taken the lead recently, but it runs on linux as well, so...). They're both 3 years ago (if you count the fact that CS was built on Half-Life, it's over 3 years).
Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad. Movies such as 'Gone with the Wind' and 'The Sound of Music' have been around for decades, and are still regarded as some of the best movies ever made. LOTR and The Hobbit were written well over 50 years ago, and are still loved today.
The Deskjet 600 series has been around for something along the line of 8 years (I had a 660Cse with my state-of-the-art 486). If the problem is just beginning to happen now, I'd recon that the printer will already be failing due to other reasons (the 600 series has a blotting sponge, and a few other parts which are designed to fail after a few years). Finally, after 1997(?), the 600 series was demoted HP's super-cheap product line - simply put, they were horrible printers to begin with. If you want a quality printer, you're going to have to spend more than $50.
In addition, all of the Deskjet 800/900 series took power from standard two or three prong AC plugs, NOT DC transformers. The recall was due to a manufacturing defect in the plug, not the circuitry.
Finally, I'd also like to note that the power bricks for all the 600 series were interchangable, but HP changed to a significantly different design for the 700 series, and eliminated them entirely with the 800/900 series. Working in an institutino which owns 150+ Deskjet 600s, I can report that I've seen a bunch of the power bricks to fail, but the printers typically fail of other reasons long before that (very fuzzy output, excesive noise, bad paper feeders, and other mechanical failures). They typically break within 2 years of purchase for mechanical reasons.
Ah.... finally someone that understands that Macs end up being CHEAPER than pcs in the long run.
I have a 450mhz G4 tower running OS 10.2, and I couldn't dream of better performance (there is nothing about the machine besides which appears "slow"). On the other hand, the windows PC which I purchased after the mac, and paid significantly more for is beginning to feel slow even after numerous hardware upgrades. (Gentoo is the only system which runs faster than my mac at twice the clock speed).
It's not uncommon for a mac to last 7-8 years (being used actively). About a year ago, I was called to fix a person's Mac, to find out that they were still using an Apple ][e as one of their main computers!!
The latest version of Mac OSX runs like a dream even on 4 year old hardware. Try XP on that old 500mhz PC, and see how it holds up.
Buy one mac, or buy two PCS. (Macs also seem to hold their resell value quite well)
I would have posted this sooner.....
on
KDE 3.1 Released
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· Score: -1, Offtopic
but a flying pig crashed into the side of my monitor
Slashdot Mirror
You've got to be kidding.
/.'s favorite metric measure: the LOC). In the large scale of things, this adds up to nothing. Correct me if i'm wrong.
There's a tons of stuff wrong with this.
First of all, the asteroid probably didn't contriubute a substantial amount of material to the Earth. While I'm no physicist, a crater that size could be made by an object roughly the size of the Empire State Building or the Pentagon (or
It is largely agreed upon that most of the life on earth at the time of the collision was destroyed. But you're forgetting the biggest law of thermodynamics: CONSERVATION OF MASS. Just because the dinosaurs died, doesn't mean that the carbon atoms which composed their bodies disappeared... they were disintergrated into smaller carbon atoms collectively weighing the same as the original dinosaur.
Finally, I don't believe this helped the mammals very much. It's arguable that mammals didn't emerge until after the impact (think of it, a 50 foot reptile is more likely to survive ANYTHING than a badger.) In addition, the smaller reptiles and fish are argued to be some of the only remaining life left.
The earth was formed LONG before life emerged. I'm not sure where the 'race to be the biggest object orbiting the sun' thing came from....
What about the D&D fantasy geeks which are aiming to get -1 troll?
(shudders....female trolls.....)
The Dell C/Ports and C/Docks are notorious for other things as well. Generally speaking, they were the last "true" docking stations ever made (correct me if i'm wrong), and with good reason.
Dell wanted to keep compatibility within their Latitude CP line, and did a pretty good job of it. The docks worked on all of the CP machines from the original P-200 upto the P3 mahines. All had compatible batteries, drives, and docking ports, and were built on the same chasis. But the similarities ended there.
Unfortunately, as the hardware evolved, it became increasingly difficult to build new machines around the existing hardware. Dell never bothered to add additional USB ports, intergrated modems, LAN, etc. to any of the models. They eventually made the chasis slightly wider for the PII models (for bigger 1024x768 screes), and thicker for the PIII models (more on that later)
The chasis eventually expanded to the maximum size which would physically fit into the C/Dock. Then they went thicker. The original P-200 models were light and relatively thin for their time (~4 pounds). By the time the PIIIs came around, they were big, thick, and weighed 8+ pounds.
I am currently typing this on a Latitude CPx. I can tell you that it has its share of problems due to bad design. With the new heat requirments of the PIII, they had to add a humungous heatsink to the design to properly cool the chip without having to modify the chasis, and break compatibility. Unfortunately, Dell put the fan on the back of the machine, smack up against the Dock. One night, I left my PC on in the dock. By the morning, the keys were gooey from the heat output. Even in it's undocked state, it's impossible to use "on your lap". To this day, the keys don't work properly due to the exessive heat the pressure-switches had to absorb.
Twoards the end of the line, the Docks became increasingly flaky with new hardware, and occasionally refuse to power up, or assigns phony IRQs to devices which don't exist (P3 chipsets were obviously quite different than P1 chipsets). The docks got hot, overheated, etc. The computers apparently also had a speed-control mechanism for the fans and speed-throttling (NOT speedstep, that came out later), it apparently works in both the bios and OS. Either way, it doesn't work in windows, and often does the opposite of what it should. Audio is a whole mess by itself. The win32 drivers cause the audio chipset to produe a 1:1 signal to noise ratio (an AM radio inside a power plant would sound better)
Switching to Linux has suprisingly helped. Even without installing the i8k packages (which aren't even compatible to my knowledge), thermal performance is much better, the fans work when the should, the keys still require a massive amount of force to work (but that's a hardware problem), and best of all, sound works properly. Finally, a computer (a laptop at that!) with better hardware support under linux than in windows. Unfortunately, the c-docks still have the same issues.
This is weird.... They talk of Disney as being cutting-edge.
While I know that disney is renowned for it's use of technology at their theme parks, I can't say that I've heard of any of it being cutting-edge. From what I've heard (and seen), Disney is still using 8-track tapes for the audio tracks of many of their (older) rides, as well as the for the control of animatronics, using the age old argument: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Pneumatic tubes are still used for transporting paperwork (and garbage, but that's another story).
Of course, on the newer stuff they build, they're using, they've turned to using CDs, DAT, and of course, computers. But I certainly think their views on outdated technology (from what I have heard in the bast) make a lot of sense.
Do animatronic robots really need to be controlled by 2ghz computers over a secure fiber-optic TCP/IP link? No. Disney still uses their old system which has worked for several decades, and uses the old technology on some of the new stuff they build.
Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad.
I suppose this is where a lot of the conflict in the company originates from. They used to be a really great company, but as of late, I've taken to strongly disliking their marketing strategies and overall business model - WE DICTATE YOUR CULTURE, BUY OUR PRODUCTS.
This is similar to what Microsoft did with the last versions of Windows shipped on floppies (Windows 95 was the last I believe... all 22 floppies)
in other news, Microsoft uses DMCA against the use of BSOD as a verb...
I'm sad to say that my school downright hates linux with a passion.
I'd even dare to say that they hate any form of technology.
We have ONE CS class (new this year so our school could be certified by the IB). We also have a few uninteresting windows apps/typing classes.
Thers's also a 'technology' class, which I take, and have found to be quite interesting. First off, in any other school, it would be called a shop class... anyhow, they've started to do a very limited amount stuff with technology and robotics... using apple ][s.
Don't get me wrong, the district is one of the most well funded in the state. They have MORE than enough money to do whatever they want. But the problem is... they don't, and they don't give a damn about it.
Each computer in the school is connected to a domain through Windows 98 and an outdated version of netware, and is locked down to a ridiculous level of security (previously not thought possible on '98 machines (although I once managed to disable the DHCP server on the LAN by accident).
The school doesn't believe in learning by doing. Students can't change a thing on the computers, let alone fix them. When they had the problem of the cheap windows machines breaking, they hired a full-time computer-repairman (on TOP of the part-time system admin. Unfortunately they never let him have the admin passwords.... ). Students are never involved in the process, and it makes me sad.
I once proposed forming a student organization to regularly update the school website (I coded a PHP site in advance to show them). They were impressed, but the administration refused the proposition, because they didn't want students actively involved in such an importatnt position.
Sigh.... I could go on like this for pages and pages, but I'll save that for a rainy day.
Doing some simple math, there's no way this makes sense.
80 million owed divided by 50,000 new subscribers = $1600 per subscriber which would be needed to make them break even. That doesn't make any sense
1. Get in shape - I started lifting weights too late in life and ended up hurting myself.
So true. So true. Contrary to popular beleif, most students do BETTER academically when participating in sports. You'll be healthier later in life, and feel good about yourself. Remember, The Race is long, yet in the end it's only with yourself. So what if you're the slowest on the track team... if you can improve yourself, you have still won.
2. Invest in Intel, Microsoft, Apple and Cisco - 100 bucks in each company
Small-time investment never hurts.
3. Learn spanish
Learning a foreign language will always end up helping you in the end. Thankfully, most US schools mandate students to learn a foreign language nowindays.
4. When you have that desire to drive 120 mph out on Highway 212 - don't, there might be a South Dakota Highway Patrolman there in the dark
Not only that, it will probably get you killed. 'Nuff said.
5. Take more math classes
No matter what your job is, a good math background can always make it easier. Of course, looking at Slashdot, a good English background is probably a good idea.
6. Take more automotive, welding and shop classes
It's astounding how often these classes are ignored. These skills can be applied elsewhere, and gives you additional talents which most people lack. These skills are highly undervalued in toda's world. They will end up helping you in the long run (change your OWN oil, install the new toilet YOURSELF, etc), not to mention saving you money.
7. Work to get out of high school in 3 years.
I don't think this is possible anymore. At least not in my school. They now encourage students to get an IB diploma (FYI, IB is an alternative to the AP program. I don't like it, and find that it teaches skills with little or no practical application, but I can do the work, and supposedly it helps for college...). Just remember. DO THE BEST YOU CAN.
8. Girls come and go, don't get to wound up in a 17 year old chick
If you're reading this, you can safely ignore #8, as it probably doesn't apply to you.
9. Don't buy a bunch of tapes or CDs now, Napster will come along someday
Here's something I disagree on. Try to support the arts in every way you can, and go out and be artistic on your own. You never know where you'll end up.
From a rec.humor.funny posting (slightly edited) by dated 19 March 1996.
E 10 E510CC98D444AA08E1324
What you did not know about Windows NT
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit.
As we were talking I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows NT on my PC. I told him how happy I was with this operating system, and showed him the Windows NT CD. To my surprise he threw it into my microwave oven and turned the oven on. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.' After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to hold and it seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw a inscription, an inscription finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:
12413AEB2ED4FA5E6F7D78E78BEDE8209450920F923A40E
'I cannot understand the fiery letters,' I said.
'No, but I can,' he said. 'The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:'
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...
The article seems a bit weird.
Doesn't the house propose laws, then vote on weather or not they should be sent to the senate, where they are voted upon to become law? Isn't this how it's been done for over 200 years in the US?
Granted, it's really hard to pass a law if either the house OR the senate are in disagreement. Of course, it can be voted in if there's an overwhelming majority in the other direction. Of course, given the state of American political parties, that would be highly unlikely.
So... what about patft.uspto.gov... have THEY paid their licensing fees yet?
That made absolutely no sense.
Any binary-capable protocol should be capable of transferring compressed ZIP (or SIT, or TAR, or GZIP, or BZIP, etc) files, or any type of binary data for that matter.
Granted, the authors may have implemented a HTTPD daemon into their server to server... but the post doesn't make that clear. Why be redirected to another server? Why would a webserver be faster than the game server? I'd tend to think that most game servers have more than enough bandwidth. Once a file is compressed into a ZIP, no further compression is possible, no matter what protocol you use (unless the UT protocol REALLY sucks) - it's futile... you won't get more than a few extra bytes out of it.
The hydrogen peroxide fuel that Rocket Guy is going to use needs to be 90 percent pure. It can only be purchased at 50 percent purity. Rocket Guy is going to distill the hydrogen peroxide in this building to increase it to 90 percent purity. The steel building is a precaution due to the dangerous nature of high purity hydrogen peroxide.
Uh.... Yeah. Why does this sound like something that's going to end up on the darwin awards...isn't steel reactive with peroxide?
Just wait til he spills some on the floor!
Snags??? I suppose you mean the TOWN under the area they wanted to drop the balls on. Doh!
Most of the posts on this thread seem confused, or are downright wrong. I hope this clears up some confusion.
Many are complaining about BIOS flashing, diagnostic drivers, etc. I hope the slashdot crowd realizes that the floppy drives are being pulled from NEW computers. Most new PCs can do a BIOS flash from within Windows, or through a bootable CD (which acts just like a floppy)if you are using another OS. Obviously, the drivers for the other hardware won't be on floppies, but as it is, Windows XP has exccellent hardware support, and requires few or no driver disks/CDs. Dell's target audience doesn't use exotic hardware, or install hardware from their older PCs.
Most new motherboards support booting from USB and Firewire devices, and all motherboards support booting from CDs (including CD-Rs and CD-RWs). Debian can be installed off of a CD, though it is admittedly not as efficent as it cuold be. Gentoo has a more ideal configuration in a 100mb CD image which includes all the device drivers and utilities you are likely to need in order to download the distribution. All the other major distros are only supported by installing from a CD.
CD-R and RW drives are cheap. 48x models can be found for under $75. At the higher speeds, it takes under 3 minutes to burn a CDR, and about 5 minutes to burn a CDRW (when you think about it, it would take about 6 hours to copy 650 megs of data to floppies). CDRWs can be erased, making them ideal for smaller files. There are no instances in which Floppies are faster (execpt for savnig a small (>1mb) document, in which case CDRWs are still adequately fast). I only hope that Mount Reiner is finalized by the time these PCs ship.
New PCs have front USB ports. You don't have to reach around into the back to plug in a "Pen Drive".
Users with exotic hardware requirments (serial or Parallel ports for terminals, barcode scanners, recepit printers, etc) can either purchase a PCI card or USB adapter to satisfy this requirment. These can be found VERY cheaply.
Finally, Dell's not the first company to drop floppy drives. IBM has begun dropping them, sony has dropped them, and Apple dropped them 5 years ago.
While for the most part, I absolutely despise Dell, I applaud them for this decision. They don't use AMD, use cheap hardware, their cases have RAZOR SHARP edges on them (bad for hardware geeks), don't adhere to ATX standards, use proprietary hardware, and they agressively marketed WinME (a nightmare for people like me who don't want to fork over the cash for XP, but want their PC to be stable)
I suppose it was only a matter of time until somebody figured out how to fit networking hardware into eMacs.
What's next, a dishwasher?
X isn't bloated. It's unnecessarily complicated.
Sure, it it has remote desktop capabilities to boot, but they're virtually impossible to configure and use.
To prove that a good, easy unix remote desktop is possible, look at VNC. You can have the same functionality with practically NO configuration (start the daemon, launch the client on the remote end, enter the IP address or domain name, and you're done.)
X11 has a lot of great concepts behind it. They're just implemented in a manner which makes them hard to use.
Either way, these problems should have been corrected 10 years ago. It would be easier to define a new protocol than fix X.
Is lossless really a good idea?
Why can't we develop a codec which is "almost lossless" and works well at higher bitrates? Ogg and MP3 do okay at 320kbps, but the quality increase isn't 3 times a 128kbps mp3.
A good test for encoding quality is to encode new age (enya, enigma) or classical music as they tend to have many subtle, yet distinct instrumental sounds (bells, small symbols, synthesized effects) in the background. Listen to them using a pair of good quality headphones (seinheisser or bose) - you're not listening for artifacts (at high bitrates, you should't find any) - instead listen for the subtle background sounds. THEN, make the decision if lossless really is better. Personally, I prefer 192kbps OGG for my encoding, as it provides reasonably good quality without sucking up my entire drive.
I can agree with you on most of everything you've said up there, but would like to add something else.
Linux has become easy to install, but is still a pain to configure. There is no good equivilant to the control panel. Linuxconf isn't nearly thorough enough, and can be confusing. SuSE has YaST, which I hear to be good.... unfortunately, SuSE isn't intended as a desktop OS. We need to appeal to the quasi-power-user crowd. Believe it or not, most windows users aren't idiots.
Package managment as it stands now is pitiful. On windows and MacOS, I can download a binary, double click it, install it, and run it (all in under a minute).
Linux, on the other hand is a pain. I have to download a package, pray that it works on my distro (if i'm lucky, I can find an RPM or DEB). Then I have to satisfy dependencies (which might not be an official part of my distro). More hunting. When it's finally installed, it doesn't even bother to put an icon in my menu or desktop, or tell me how to configure it (or even provide an easy means of configuring it).
It's the simple things that make linux fall down. We've conquered all the hard stuff. Why is it so hard to get the small stuff worked out?
Not necessarily. Just take a look at the windows gaming community.
Pretty much the entire Windows gaming community also agree that Quake 3 and CounterStrike are the best multiplayer FPS games (UT 2003 may have taken the lead recently, but it runs on linux as well, so...). They're both 3 years ago (if you count the fact that CS was built on Half-Life, it's over 3 years).
Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad. Movies such as 'Gone with the Wind' and 'The Sound of Music' have been around for decades, and are still regarded as some of the best movies ever made. LOTR and The Hobbit were written well over 50 years ago, and are still loved today.
There's a few problems with this article.
The Deskjet 600 series has been around for something along the line of 8 years (I had a 660Cse with my state-of-the-art 486). If the problem is just beginning to happen now, I'd recon that the printer will already be failing due to other reasons (the 600 series has a blotting sponge, and a few other parts which are designed to fail after a few years). Finally, after 1997(?), the 600 series was demoted HP's super-cheap product line - simply put, they were horrible printers to begin with. If you want a quality printer, you're going to have to spend more than $50.
In addition, all of the Deskjet 800/900 series took power from standard two or three prong AC plugs, NOT DC transformers. The recall was due to a manufacturing defect in the plug, not the circuitry.
Finally, I'd also like to note that the power bricks for all the 600 series were interchangable, but HP changed to a significantly different design for the 700 series, and eliminated them entirely with the 800/900 series. Working in an institutino which owns 150+ Deskjet 600s, I can report that I've seen a bunch of the power bricks to fail, but the printers typically fail of other reasons long before that (very fuzzy output, excesive noise, bad paper feeders, and other mechanical failures). They typically break within 2 years of purchase for mechanical reasons.
Ah.... finally someone that understands that Macs end up being CHEAPER than pcs in the long run.
I have a 450mhz G4 tower running OS 10.2, and I couldn't dream of better performance (there is nothing about the machine besides which appears "slow"). On the other hand, the windows PC which I purchased after the mac, and paid significantly more for is beginning to feel slow even after numerous hardware upgrades. (Gentoo is the only system which runs faster than my mac at twice the clock speed).
It's not uncommon for a mac to last 7-8 years (being used actively). About a year ago, I was called to fix a person's Mac, to find out that they were still using an Apple ][e as one of their main computers!!
The latest version of Mac OSX runs like a dream even on 4 year old hardware. Try XP on that old 500mhz PC, and see how it holds up.
Buy one mac, or buy two PCS. (Macs also seem to hold their resell value quite well)
but a flying pig crashed into the side of my monitor
less easier, eh?..... just like that sentence?