I looked at that forum once. Most every post was someone asking a question or starting a discussion and then 10 board regulars jumping on him saying "We already talked about that a year ago!" and "Use the search feature, jackass!"
At my school, I help out with all the computer stuff.
We get so much crap dumped on us as "donations." I get to deal with a lot of it.
If I'm lucky, it will power on and boot up. (If I'm unlucky, it will be missing the CPU or the motherboard will be cracked in half.) Then, usually, the OS is fucked up enough that it needs a reinstall, so I get to search for drivers for random Dell crap from 1996.
Usually I just scavenge mice, keyboards, any 168-pin memory, and CD-ROM drives if they are IDE.
My favorite donation is when some asshole gave in a monitor.
Upon being powered up, a huge 1" arc was visible inside the back. I am told that 1" through air means about 20,000 volts. If you looked at the screen, random points of energy seemed to be sparkling from deep inside. I figured it probably was about to give me face cancer, and something inside popped and started smoking, so I turned it off.
"Creationists always try to use the second law, to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw. The second law is quite precise about where it applies, only in a closed system must the entropy count rise. The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun, so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!"
To the computer, every bit on the hard drive is either one or zero.
However, that is not true in terms of magnetism. To make it easy, let's say that the first time a '1' bit is written to a specific spot on the disk, the strength of the magnetic field is exactly equal to 1 in some imaginary measure of magnetism. (This isn't really true...) If that bit is later set to '0', the strength of the magnetic field for that bit will actually be 0.00001 since it was a '1' before. The hard drive considers that to be '0', but if you want to recover erased data it is possible to look at that 0.00001 and see that the '0' used to be '1'.
A very determined enemy can open up the hard drive, take out the platters, and subject them to an electron microscope of some sort. They can, with a bit of work, read everything that's ever been on the drive no matter how it has been overwritten. Doesn't work on melted platters though.
So far they have entirely been "search engine / cache" whether you are searching (or viewing cached versions of) websites, images, newsgroups, news sites, or catalogues.
When I was looking for broadband some providers made you pay extra for the privilege of connecting more than one computer, with fines if you used a NAT and got caught.
I think currently most providers take the sensible option of allowing it but not supporting it.
I am told that similarly, phone companies made you pay when you hooked up another telephone to your existing line, but this was challenged in court and declared illegal.
News exists to get attention, and stories that can be played up for more ratings are more likely to be shown, whether it's the poor or the rich that suffer. It's not some vast right-wing conspiracy to not show preventable accidents that require money to be spent fixing on them (are you describing the "working poor" or the "space shuttle"?), it's just the way the news works to try and get ratings.
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I looked at that forum once. Most every post was someone asking a question or starting a discussion and then 10 board regulars jumping on him saying "We already talked about that a year ago!" and "Use the search feature, jackass!"
Tim
The only reason I have ever made my PC emulate a Mac.
Tim
Calling Indymedia unbiased is the height of telling lies.
Tim
At my school, I help out with all the computer stuff.
We get so much crap dumped on us as "donations." I get to deal with a lot of it.
If I'm lucky, it will power on and boot up. (If I'm unlucky, it will be missing the CPU or the motherboard will be cracked in half.) Then, usually, the OS is fucked up enough that it needs a reinstall, so I get to search for drivers for random Dell crap from 1996.
Usually I just scavenge mice, keyboards, any 168-pin memory, and CD-ROM drives if they are IDE.
My favorite donation is when some asshole gave in a monitor.
Upon being powered up, a huge 1" arc was visible inside the back. I am told that 1" through air means about 20,000 volts. If you looked at the screen, random points of energy seemed to be sparkling from deep inside. I figured it probably was about to give me face cancer, and something inside popped and started smoking, so I turned it off.
Tim
If aging somehow helps the species survive, then natural selection will select for it.
Tim
To the observer on the ground next to the conveyor belt the car is moving at 6000 mph.
Tim
Well. You don't have to deal with installation, but you have to make sure the game NEVER EVER CRASHES NO MATTER WHAT.
Tim
My reply was intended to anthony dipierro... Sorry...
Tim
You may find your misconceptions destroyed!
Tim
The fucking potheads could design a website better. It doesn't take 7 KB of HTML for a background image and a paragraph of centered blue text.
Great background image too - I guess the flag now stands for censorship; making sure you don't see pictures of bongs.
Tim
They can still reconstruct the drive's past. It gets a bit harder but it is still possible.
Tim
"Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!"
Tim
To the computer, every bit on the hard drive is either one or zero.
However, that is not true in terms of magnetism. To make it easy, let's say that the first time a '1' bit is written to a specific spot on the disk, the strength of the magnetic field is exactly equal to 1 in some imaginary measure of magnetism. (This isn't really true...) If that bit is later set to '0', the strength of the magnetic field for that bit will actually be 0.00001 since it was a '1' before. The hard drive considers that to be '0', but if you want to recover erased data it is possible to look at that 0.00001 and see that the '0' used to be '1'.
Tim
A very determined enemy can open up the hard drive, take out the platters, and subject them to an electron microscope of some sort. They can, with a bit of work, read everything that's ever been on the drive no matter how it has been overwritten. Doesn't work on melted platters though.
Tim
Why on earth write 0 and 1 - I don't see any need when you are going to melt the drive immediately after?
Tim
So far they have entirely been "search engine / cache" whether you are searching (or viewing cached versions of) websites, images, newsgroups, news sites, or catalogues.
I don't know what they will do with blogs though.
Tim
He was on a long voyage of exploration - he didn't see a woman for months, and the men were all ugly smelly sailors... A man gets desparate.
Tim
When I was looking for broadband some providers made you pay extra for the privilege of connecting more than one computer, with fines if you used a NAT and got caught.
I think currently most providers take the sensible option of allowing it but not supporting it.
I am told that similarly, phone companies made you pay when you hooked up another telephone to your existing line, but this was challenged in court and declared illegal.
Tim
They should all be kicked in the crotch and sent back in time to Soviet Russia - they'd fit in just great there.
Tim
Like it's 1856 or something? We don't live in the past anymore.
Tim
Is that little k or big K?
Tim
You trust your EXISTENCE to phenomena that are not completely understood.
Tim
News exists to get attention, and stories that can be played up for more ratings are more likely to be shown, whether it's the poor or the rich that suffer. It's not some vast right-wing conspiracy to not show preventable accidents that require money to be spent fixing on them (are you describing the "working poor" or the "space shuttle"?), it's just the way the news works to try and get ratings.
Tim
...when there was a bunch of guys who got trapped in a coal mine and almost died? It was the biggest news story for a while.
Tim
So perhaps he helped to prevent Iraq from having a nuclear bomb in the first Gulf War or by now. Yes, a very nice guy.
Tim