It isn't so much *what* they did (although to some extent, it is), but more *how* they did it. Completely beneath the radar, no notification. Changes made to your hard drive without informing you. Messed up a lot of users with something other than just Windows loaded.
Plus, they claim it's to protect their IP, but it's been repeatedly shown that DRM doesn't work for that purpose. Pirates *will* break DRM.
I mean hey, those guys were off their rockers, all of 'em! Have you seen that Silly Walks bit? And the one where the Society puts things on top of other things? Nuts!
What? Programming language? Um...
Nevermind!
Re:This brings a few questions to mind...
on
SAUNAAB
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· Score: 1
Aside from the fact that this involves CERN, why is this on/. ?
To answer your last question: It's a case mod, stupid!:-)
This has to be one of the dumbest questions I've seen in a long time. If you're ambitious enough to attempt to scan '100lbs of dead trees' you'd think you'd manage to do some research on your own.
And this has got to be one of the dumbest answers I've seen. One of the ways you research is to ask people who may have encountered your situation previously, that you might learn from their experiences. Gee, that's exactly what this guy is doing... I'd be willing to bet this person has also done plenty of Google time as well.
Re:aerodynamic/gyroscopic solution?
on
How to Film a Tornado
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· Score: 3, Informative
There's a problem with this. A hurricane and a tornado are two entirely different animals. You're not going to be able to make a plane that will handle that kind of abuse. Especially not a small RC model.
Hurricanes may be large and deadly, but their force is spread out, and the winds are relatively straight-line and slow (average what, 100MPH?).
A tornado is an extremely chaotic beast, with a small vortex and much higher wind velocities (some approaching 300+MPH).
A $1000 laptop doesn't have enough horsepower or features (in my experience) to be worth the purchase for a business or educational setting. For a home user with specific needs that are met, sure, but when you get scads of these for differing programs, you need to get a model that is adequate for all involved. Also, it should have enough horsepower that it is not a pain in the ass to use after year or two. In my experience, again, that $1000 laptop will be basically junk after one or two years, let alone the 4 years originally proposed here.
The only reason I talked about the residual value after 4 years was because the original post used it as a plus point. It's not a plus, because the machine will be so obsolete.
As for cushy IT people, have you looked at any salary surveys? IT positions in Education are virtually always the lowest sector for pay. Cushy. Bah!
I'm not saying laptops shouldn't be looked at. What I'm saying is the original post showed an almost total cluelessness as to what is actually involved, and realistic costs and viability esitmates.
You're sure, are you? Obviously you know nothing about it. Since I work (IT staff) in a Technical College that now has several programs using exclusively laptop computers, I think I have a clue here.
First problem with your 'idea' is $800. Any laptop you're gonna get for $800 is not worth the effort currently. Second problem: Even if you get that $800 laptop now, it'll be well obsolete long before the end of that 4 years. Realistic laptop costs are still over $2000 for something worthwhile that will last long enough to be worth the trouble. Don't forget, you'll need to add infrastructure to support those laptops, either wireless or wired jacks somewhere, preferably many somewheres. Oh, and staff? Add at least one or two IT staff members to support those folks.
Now, if you're talking a public sector institution, you're likely going to also have to deal with a public bid situation for who gets to sell you the laptops. Better cut your specifications pretty tight, or you might end up with some fly-by-night vendor that can't support you. Even for major vendors, arrange spares on-hand, because overnight shipping frequently isn't, and students paying that kind of money for a laptop will get pissed in a hurry if they don't get to use it. Oh, and are you leasing, or purchasing? If leasing, is it a buyout lease, or Fair Market Value? We did a FMV, and found out that if we still wanted to buy them it would be $1000 per unit after two years. I don't think those units are still worth $1000. This issue only gets worse after 4 years.
I could come up with more, but that should at least give some idea of the problems faced when we went through this.
On the contrary, I received an e-mail from Qwest yesterday which claims they are no longer pushing hard for the Jan 21st deadline, so you have more time to switch.
When they started this, they said Mac users could wait longer, ostensibly because they needed more time to get their proprietary programming set up. I asked about Linux and basically got no answer.
Now they say they're not pushing for the deadline. But boy, they must have got most everyone switched over in a hurry because of the tone of their campaign.
Well, look at it this way: Would you rather they keep doing whatever they feel like with your personal data, or would you rather they actually used it for what it was useful for, and not sell it to everyone else?
This book tries to get companies to be responsible with our data. Flogging them for it will only cause them to ignore our concerns and spam us into oblivion.
It sounds to me as if you have some sort of a circulation issue in your hand/arm. How's the ergonomic setup of your workstation? Have you talked to a physician about it? Poor ergonomics might cause poor circulation, which would be a possible reason why your hand gts cold while using the mouse.
Does that suit you better than my 'weak-ass attempt at humor'?
Now my problem was never sweaty hands but cold ones. I spend a few hours on a computer and my hands get so cold I'd swear they were blocks of ice.
Hey, now you can make a neat hack of your own and solve that problem! Plus, you can double the processor power of your PC! Instead of that fan in the mouse, just install an Athlon 1900+ processor, and voila! No more frozen fingers!
This article is basically countering an old axiom, that water, and therefore life (as we know it) are rare and exist in only certain conditions.
Scientists (and probably the media covering them) have had a habit of making such absolute statements as these for centuries. Recall the common theories of the universe around the time of Gallileo and Copernicus?
Isn't it about time scientists and those who report their findings wake up to the fact that what we know today is only what we know today, and that things might be diferent tomorrow? Report the findings, sure, but make sure your language shows that we are still looking for more information, still finding new things every day...
I certainly wouldn't try to deny that a great many/. readers are of that demographic. Just reading/. proves it.
However, I would also not want to deny that a great many/. readers are not of that demographic, and perhaps there are others who also look in despair at the changes in the usage of the english language. *shrug* YMMV. All I was doing was pointing out that the original poster's assumption that all/.'ers habits mirrored theirs was not necessarily correct.
And now I suppose I'll be modded down because I've drifted off-topic.
I'm sorry to be anti-anti here, but seriously, the #1 factor in business is Marketing!!!! Marketing! I mean, admit it, when ThinkGeek has something phat on the banner ad above the news, don't tell me you don't click on it...
Phat? Sorry. Not everyone who reads Slashdot is a 12-17 year old kiddie. Not everyone shares your habit of clicking on 'phat' ads. I have yet to click on a banner ad on Slashdot, so yes, I can tell you that.
Yes, marketing is a major portion of business trying to sell us products. But there's still a point where it becomes less of an information source (which is marketing's purported goal, to inform us of a product or service), and more of an unwelcome intrusion.
I work at a Technical College. We have a small number of *nix courses here. They used to be taught using UnixWare, but they are switching to Linux.
The biggest similarity I have seen in *nix textbooks is that they are still teaching almost exclusively command line interface, old school obscure *nix commands and editors. Without fail, the first thing they teach beyond logging in is the vi editor. Now *there's* a way to scare off a newbie! After vi, for those brave souls who still remain, they teach emacs.
While those things are good to know, they are hardly the only offerings these days. KDE and Gnome are both loaded with GUI alternatives, and most command line tasks can be performed in the GUI. Why not look at teaching some of these alternatives first, so as not to scare off people with the obscure stuff? Once they are comfortable with that and some basic machine management, you can show them how they can improve their performance by using appropriate command line alternatives. At least mix it up a bit, show students both methods.
To bad i still have to use Windoze at school. The administration doesnt know a good OS when they see it. Thats why they run mostly Win95 on a Novell network.
Speaking as an IT Staffer at a Technical College, I can share a little insight into why the school may still be using Win95/98/etc and Novell.
Colleges (at least the ones here) have an Advisory Committee made up of people from the community in various industry areas. That committee makes recommendations as to what to use and teach based on what they are using and would like to see graduates have as knowledge when they start working. Since those represented companies will be supplying jobs for graduates, the colleges tend to take their recommendations very highly.
Corporate usage in this region is very largely Windows on the desktop and Windows on the server. That we still use Novell as a primary network OS is testament to the strength and security of the OS, plus some nice licensing deals that Novell cut with this state.
They don't push Windows because they want to make your life miserable; they push Windows because that's what the job providers tell them they want to see in graduates, plain and simple.
Did you actually look at the thing? Sure, some of the gadgets are interesting, but the way they've put it together isn't what I'd call sweet.
Expandability? None, internally, to speak of. So that means loads of things hanging out on FireWire or USB cables. Wanna upgrade? Better call HP, as I'm sure this thing screams 'proprietary case design' for the thermal management they mention, let alone that's generally how HP works. Add that DVD-ROM? External, please. CD-RW? Same thing. Hard drive? Replace the existing, while juggling your data, because there isn't space for a second one.
They mention XP pretty prominently, but I doubt seriously it will run Linux out of the box. They mention the Intel Pentium 4 a LOT. But I can get more bang for the buck with an Athlon. Option for that? Not that I could find...
All in all, the whole thing looked like a commercial for Intel, not a sweet concept PC.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't so much *what* they did (although to some extent, it is), but more *how* they did it. Completely beneath the radar, no notification. Changes made to your hard drive without informing you. Messed up a lot of users with something other than just Windows loaded. Plus, they claim it's to protect their IP, but it's been repeatedly shown that DRM doesn't work for that purpose. Pirates *will* break DRM.
Thanks for posting that! I immediately went and sent them a comment that the 'apology' isn't sufficient, and I'll be recommending other products.
Better yet, how about a *humanoid* robot like the Asimo riding a Segway?
I mean hey, those guys were off their rockers, all of 'em! Have you seen that Silly Walks bit? And the one where the Society puts things on top of other things? Nuts!
What? Programming language? Um...
Nevermind!
To answer your last question: It's a case mod, stupid! :-)
This has to be one of the dumbest questions I've seen in a long time. If you're ambitious enough to attempt to scan '100lbs of dead trees' you'd think you'd manage to do some research on your own.
And this has got to be one of the dumbest answers I've seen. One of the ways you research is to ask people who may have encountered your situation previously, that you might learn from their experiences. Gee, that's exactly what this guy is doing... I'd be willing to bet this person has also done plenty of Google time as well.
There's a problem with this. A hurricane and a tornado are two entirely different animals. You're not going to be able to make a plane that will handle that kind of abuse. Especially not a small RC model.
Hurricanes may be large and deadly, but their force is spread out, and the winds are relatively straight-line and slow (average what, 100MPH?).
A tornado is an extremely chaotic beast, with a small vortex and much higher wind velocities (some approaching 300+MPH).
The only reason I talked about the residual value after 4 years was because the original post used it as a plus point. It's not a plus, because the machine will be so obsolete.
As for cushy IT people, have you looked at any salary surveys? IT positions in Education are virtually always the lowest sector for pay. Cushy. Bah!
I'm not saying laptops shouldn't be looked at. What I'm saying is the original post showed an almost total cluelessness as to what is actually involved, and realistic costs and viability esitmates.
First problem with your 'idea' is $800. Any laptop you're gonna get for $800 is not worth the effort currently. Second problem: Even if you get that $800 laptop now, it'll be well obsolete long before the end of that 4 years. Realistic laptop costs are still over $2000 for something worthwhile that will last long enough to be worth the trouble. Don't forget, you'll need to add infrastructure to support those laptops, either wireless or wired jacks somewhere, preferably many somewheres. Oh, and staff? Add at least one or two IT staff members to support those folks.
Now, if you're talking a public sector institution, you're likely going to also have to deal with a public bid situation for who gets to sell you the laptops. Better cut your specifications pretty tight, or you might end up with some fly-by-night vendor that can't support you. Even for major vendors, arrange spares on-hand, because overnight shipping frequently isn't, and students paying that kind of money for a laptop will get pissed in a hurry if they don't get to use it. Oh, and are you leasing, or purchasing? If leasing, is it a buyout lease, or Fair Market Value? We did a FMV, and found out that if we still wanted to buy them it would be $1000 per unit after two years. I don't think those units are still worth $1000. This issue only gets worse after 4 years.
I could come up with more, but that should at least give some idea of the problems faced when we went through this.
On the contrary, I received an e-mail from Qwest yesterday which claims they are no longer pushing hard for the Jan 21st deadline, so you have more time to switch.
When they started this, they said Mac users could wait longer, ostensibly because they needed more time to get their proprietary programming set up. I asked about Linux and basically got no answer.
Now they say they're not pushing for the deadline. But boy, they must have got most everyone switched over in a hurry because of the tone of their campaign.
Um... As of 01/15/2002 1600 CST the guy's website comes up fine for me. It's quite sparse, but it's there.
Well, look at it this way: Would you rather they keep doing whatever they feel like with your personal data, or would you rather they actually used it for what it was useful for, and not sell it to everyone else?
This book tries to get companies to be responsible with our data. Flogging them for it will only cause them to ignore our concerns and spam us into oblivion.
It IS stuff that matters to a great many people.
The target demographic of the Star Wars movies has NOT changed. Merely, those who were the target demographic have now aged out of that demographic.
So, have you filed yet? My wife spent many hours watching Trading Spaces Marathon, too.
Does that suit you better than my 'weak-ass attempt at humor'?
Hey, now you can make a neat hack of your own and solve that problem! Plus, you can double the processor power of your PC! Instead of that fan in the mouse, just install an Athlon 1900+ processor, and voila! No more frozen fingers!
The late, great Robert A. Heinlein said it, through Lazarus Long. Whether he originated it or stole it from someone else, I'm not sure.
Scientists (and probably the media covering them) have had a habit of making such absolute statements as these for centuries. Recall the common theories of the universe around the time of Gallileo and Copernicus?
Isn't it about time scientists and those who report their findings wake up to the fact that what we know today is only what we know today, and that things might be diferent tomorrow? Report the findings, sure, but make sure your language shows that we are still looking for more information, still finding new things every day...
However, I would also not want to deny that a great many /. readers are not of that demographic, and perhaps there are others who also look in despair at the changes in the usage of the english language. *shrug* YMMV. All I was doing was pointing out that the original poster's assumption that all /.'ers habits mirrored theirs was not necessarily correct.
And now I suppose I'll be modded down because I've drifted off-topic.
Phat? Sorry. Not everyone who reads Slashdot is a 12-17 year old kiddie. Not everyone shares your habit of clicking on 'phat' ads. I have yet to click on a banner ad on Slashdot, so yes, I can tell you that.
Yes, marketing is a major portion of business trying to sell us products. But there's still a point where it becomes less of an information source (which is marketing's purported goal, to inform us of a product or service), and more of an unwelcome intrusion.
I work at a Technical College. We have a small number of *nix courses here. They used to be taught using UnixWare, but they are switching to Linux.
The biggest similarity I have seen in *nix textbooks is that they are still teaching almost exclusively command line interface, old school obscure *nix commands and editors. Without fail, the first thing they teach beyond logging in is the vi editor. Now *there's* a way to scare off a newbie! After vi, for those brave souls who still remain, they teach emacs.
While those things are good to know, they are hardly the only offerings these days. KDE and Gnome are both loaded with GUI alternatives, and most command line tasks can be performed in the GUI. Why not look at teaching some of these alternatives first, so as not to scare off people with the obscure stuff? Once they are comfortable with that and some basic machine management, you can show them how they can improve their performance by using appropriate command line alternatives. At least mix it up a bit, show students both methods.
I want one mounted on the front of my car, with a computerized targeting system. Cut me off in traffic?! ZAP!
An armed society is a polite society. -- Lazarus Long
Speaking as an IT Staffer at a Technical College, I can share a little insight into why the school may still be using Win95/98/etc and Novell.
Colleges (at least the ones here) have an Advisory Committee made up of people from the community in various industry areas. That committee makes recommendations as to what to use and teach based on what they are using and would like to see graduates have as knowledge when they start working. Since those represented companies will be supplying jobs for graduates, the colleges tend to take their recommendations very highly. Corporate usage in this region is very largely Windows on the desktop and Windows on the server. That we still use Novell as a primary network OS is testament to the strength and security of the OS, plus some nice licensing deals that Novell cut with this state.
They don't push Windows because they want to make your life miserable; they push Windows because that's what the job providers tell them they want to see in graduates, plain and simple.
What do you need, written instructions?
How about some well-documented pseudocode?
Did you actually look at the thing? Sure, some of the gadgets are interesting, but the way they've put it together isn't what I'd call sweet.
Expandability? None, internally, to speak of. So that means loads of things hanging out on FireWire or USB cables. Wanna upgrade? Better call HP, as I'm sure this thing screams 'proprietary case design' for the thermal management they mention, let alone that's generally how HP works. Add that DVD-ROM? External, please. CD-RW? Same thing. Hard drive? Replace the existing, while juggling your data, because there isn't space for a second one.
They mention XP pretty prominently, but I doubt seriously it will run Linux out of the box. They mention the Intel Pentium 4 a LOT. But I can get more bang for the buck with an Athlon. Option for that? Not that I could find...
All in all, the whole thing looked like a commercial for Intel, not a sweet concept PC.