I live in a small town and the main local source for hardware is Office Max, of all places. Still, they have these weird great sales from time to time (160GB Maxtor HD for $50 last week, and back to $120+ this week). When I wanted to try out WiFi on my laptop with Debian, I bought a whole series of PCMCIA WLAN cards, but none of them worked (who knew that a Foo Industries WNIC 3000+ rev. 8 was a different chipset than a Foo Industries WNIC 3000+ rev. 7c - Linksys, I hate you!). I finally gave in and decided to try the combo box with a Microsoft MN-500 base station and MN-520 card for $49 on sale.
There's not much else to say - I plugged in the base station, inserted the card, and watched as Debian loaded the prism driver and connected to the little router.
I was more than a little amused that Microsoft made literally the only card for sale in my whole town that works with Free drivers under Linux. I never bothered setting up WEP (I run the router in bridged mode and would have to reset it every time I want to change the key, and my little laptop bogs down with WEP enabled), but firewall takes care of that job quite nicely. I do not use Microsoft software, period, but they made a great little piece of wireless gear. It's sad to see and end to the most Linux-compatible hardware I can find locally.
Once again, thanks to everyone who responded. Everything I'd previously learned about xenobiology came from sci-fi novels, so it's nice to hear a few scientific thoughts on the subject. I appreciate explanations, and am especially grateful for the complete lack of flaming. Nice job, everyone!
And I can cut a foot into inches but cutting in half, half and thirds.
Man, that is easy! So, how many ounces are in a fifth of whiskey? Oh, wait, (128%5)!=0, but 1000mL/5=200mL.
Moral: for every example of how the Imperial system is "better", there's a counterexample of how SI is better. Since "divides by 2 and 3!" is no more or less useful than "divides by 10!" (I disagree, but I'll drop the point), then you can fall back to "entire freakin' world outside the US uses it!". That's enough to make metric the clear winner in itself.
Note to non-USians: I'm an American and I love the metric system. Yes, some of us agree with you that this whole debate is silly and that you guys are right.
Thanks for the explanation; that's definitely why I asked here. One final question: is there any non-remote possibility that Titan could have enough radioactive material to generate significant quantities of heat? If so, would we be able to detect that from here?
BTW, can y'all tell that I majored in Comp. Sci. and not Astronomy?:) I don't know nearly as much about these things as I'd like.
Its easier to pace off feet, then meters, you can be much more accurate.
What crack do teachers smoke in Germany that would make math teachers say something that stupid? The length of a human foot, in shoe, will be approximately as close to 1/3 of a meter as to one "foot". How big is an ounce of water, volumewise? Oh, by that I meant "ounce of volume", not "ounce of weight", which will vary depending on where you are.
Would you rather estimate the liters in a body of water without a meter stick, or the pints in that body of water without a calculator? I can guess at what a kilometer might look like, but have no freakin' clue how big a gallon is.
OK, that makes sense. In other words, we haven't found anything on Titan (or other bodies) that couldn't be explained by the natural local conditions, right?
But it does have a thick atmosphere, which would seem to mean that it has at least enough energy to keep a large amount of matter in a gaseous state. Also, that hypothesized hydrocarbon sea should hold quite a bit of chemical energy, shouldn't it?
I know this is pretty off-topic, but given that we've never had a good look at the surface of some of these moons, is there any reason that they couldn't be inhabited be sentient creatures at the social equivalent of medieval Europe? Put another way, if there were a somewhat advanced society on Titan 1000 years ago, but one that hadn't ventured into space yet, how would they have been able to know that there was life on Earth at that time? We weren't broadcasting radio signals at that time, and hadn't made any large-scale modifications to the planet that would be visible from space (ie giant agricultural regions, cities at night).
I'm not a LGM kook - I have no expectation at all that we'd find any sort of life there. Still, is there any particular reason why we seem to be so sure of that?
Yeah, but Windows * 2.4 != Linux, and you can't take (foo.doc-32)/1.8) to get foo.rtf.
In other words, the rest of the world may be less tolerant when the conversion function comes on a CD and costs $199 instead of the traditional one-liners that handle Metric Imperial translation.
I *hate* working in traditional/avoirdupois/empire units.
My dad thought metric was horrible until I gave him a 5-minute explanation and then asked him how many grams of water are in a cubic meter, and he was able to answer. Then I asked him how many tablespoons are in a ton of water, and he decided that metric had something going for it after all.
My father-in-law thinks it's funny that I never remember how many cups are in a pint, or some other weird conversion. To him, it proves that people don't learn as much in college as they think they do.
It's probably an XFree86 configuration problem moreso than kernel.
Didn't anybody read his post where he said:
cat/dev/input/mouse0 or whatever produces nothing when I play with the wheel
Unless his XF86Config-4 file has a Load "psychic" line, then no XF86 driver in existence will be able to properly interpret the mouse events that the kernel isn't passing along.
Poster: do you have the usbmouse and mousedev modules loaded?
Monaghan's largesse has served an array of unpleasantness around the world: Latin American death squads, anti-abortion and anti-gay extremists, theocratic Christian nationalists, faith-based fascists and
covert CIA operations.
That's right! Your neighborhood pizza store used to help fund the CIA.
Yep. That's why I order from Pizza Hut - they have the NSA in their back pocket and are much cooler.
Honestly, I'm sure you could've picked a more believable source to cite.
User1 uses any Classic app, walks away, machine falls asleep.
Let's try the variation as I already explained it:
User1 doesn't use any Classic app because no such animal is installed on the machine at hand. End of situation.
You can contrive any horrible scenario you want ("User1 sets the machine on fire, but the key to the fire extinguisher is in his Apple Keyring and he's locked it."), but that only proves that you can contrive horrible scenarios.
Yeah, an iMac is technically smaller than the average PC
I'm beginning to thing that you've never seen one, because noone who has can possibly say it's only "technically smaller" but not "little".
Sucks to be you. I live in a small town in Nebraska and have DSL with 1536 down / 1024 up, completely unfiltered, with a/29 static netblock, no usage quotas, and reverse DNS to my liking, for a total of $45.00 per month (including telco and ISP charges).
BUT - because of your post I just called the band, got their answerine machine, and told them to hurry up and get us more.
You know, that is why I tell all of my friends to buy from you: your customer support is absolutely unreal. I've already signed up for the list, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm off to root around for something else to tide me over.
Maybe you can help me. I got one of your sampler CDs with an order, and loved a track by a band named "Click". However, the CD is out-of-stock, the band isn't answering email, and their only listed website is down.
I've written to you guys a couple of times but never received an answer: is there a way to find that album for sale in a digital format from one of the companies you distribute to?
...is a condescending phrase no matter how you intone it. The keyword is "little." Most Macs aren't smaller than typical PCs, even the iMacs.
Don't be an ass. An LCD iMac is a little machine.
Compare the G5 with your typical geekbox and chances are the G5's larger.
The typical geekbox owner won't be pestering me for tech support every time we meet, so your (albeit true) statement is essentially never applicable to my real life conversations.
The use of little, given that it doesn't correspond with size,
Since we ruled out the first part, we can safely reject the second.
Priced them recently? Oh yes they do. Most people would call a difference of a few hundred dollars for comparable hardware "much more."
People bring up this imaginary argument every single time. Spec a PC with a DVD burner, Firewire, a 17" LCD screen, Ethernet, and all of the other niceties that come stock on an iMac, then discard all of the beige-box machines that weren't engineered so much as assembled from parts on the shelf, then add in the software costs. That Mac isn't quite so expensive now. Rejected.
Is killing a stuck Classic mode session run by another user by dropping to the terminal, doing a ps xa, and sudoing to kill the process really easier than doing the three-fingered salute to get the task manager and clicking "end task"?
First, we own no programs that run in Classic mode, and neither will 99% of users who are buying their first Mac these days. Two, ever hear of the "Force quit" menu/keystroke that brings up an application manager and lets you choose the task to kill? Rejected.
Do you tell this to men you're recommending a computer to? Or are Macs only good for women?
Are you always a sexist ass, or just on Slashdot? If it's good enough for my wife, it's good enough for my neighbor.
Why not just say that *you* have a Mac at home, and that you and your wife love it?
Mainly becuase I don't have a Mac; my wife does. It's hers, it's on her desk, and I don't remember if I even have a login on it.
Next time, try: "Have you looked at a Macintosh? They may be more expensive, but they're as easy to use and tend to be more stable (or harder to break) than Windows boxes. We've got one at home, and the whole family loves it."
Since each of those details is completely wrong, I think I'll stick to my own wording, thanks.
They seem to act like I must be stupid if I have a career in technology, but can't tell them how to fix their particular glitch.
Ugh. I used to get that one all the time: "I don't understand. Don't you have a degree in Computer Science?"
It would be nice if people could comprehend that just because you can write code and support enterprise networks doesn't mean you know every obscure thing in the world.
An analogy that Joe Sixpack can understand without knowing a thing about computers: it's like the difference between a bulldozer and a Chevy. Even if you fix big hydraulic systems all day long, you may not be able to fix the cruise-control on a Cavalier. Unfortunately, I bet that mechanics get the same sorts of questions from their friends, so that may not be the best example.
And when I think of "big computer", I actually think of... say... an E15K and up.;)
I do to, but if you can figure out a way to explain "Xeon" and "SCSI" to my mom when she asks what I do all day, then feel free to share. For now, "I work on big computers on the Internet" is the most accurate description of my job that most people will accept without getting glazed eyes.:)
The problem is that if you have family or friends that don't know anything about computers and don't seem to care to learn, doing the above will help you out temporarily... and then cause you a huge amount of problems on Windows.
I have one (1) stock response to all non-business tech support requests. Say this verbatim, and without sounding condescending:
I work on computers all day, but they're the
big ones like banks use, and I don't know much about the smaller ones that people have at their desks.
I know that Apple makes a nice little Macintosh computer that doesn't cost much more than a good one like the Windows kind you've been looking at, but they're a lot easier to use by people who aren't one of us computer geeks. My own wife has one and she loves it. If you get one of those, I could probably help you with it, but like I said, I really don't know much about Windows. Sorry I can't be of more help.
It gives them a useful solution to the problem they're having, is honest (I really don't know a whole lot about Windows versions more recent than Win98), and has one of two outcomes:
They buy a Mac, love it, and think I'm a hero.
They stick with their PC, but finally believe me that "has a degree in computers" doesn't mean "can fix every computer made", and find someone else to pester.
PS: You and I know that "big computer" means "FreeBSD web server over in the machine closet", but who wants to get hung up on details?
I didn't think about it until later, but darned it that didn't sound like some of the cold fusion (ala Pons & Fleischman) and other pseudoscience claims. I mean, only a few select individuals are open-minded to accept the truth, and big financial interests (Podiatrists? There's an Orwellian group of control freaks, I tell ya) are out to suppress the real knowledge.
Never mind that shoe companies would make as much more from toe-impact shoes as from heel-impact models, they'd just be shaped differently. I just can't find a motivation for generations of shoe manufacturers, trainers, athletes, and foot doctors to conspire to lie about the correct way to run.
I used to practically live on IRC via AmIRC on my Amiga, but haven't been back in years. apt-cache search irc gives a list of IRC clients, but what are the good GUI ones? Which ones should be avoided at all costs? Which can I use without being 0wn3d in 5 minutes after my first connection?
Slashdot Mirror
There's not much else to say - I plugged in the base station, inserted the card, and watched as Debian loaded the prism driver and connected to the little router.
I was more than a little amused that Microsoft made literally the only card for sale in my whole town that works with Free drivers under Linux. I never bothered setting up WEP (I run the router in bridged mode and would have to reset it every time I want to change the key, and my little laptop bogs down with WEP enabled), but firewall takes care of that job quite nicely. I do not use Microsoft software, period, but they made a great little piece of wireless gear. It's sad to see and end to the most Linux-compatible hardware I can find locally.
Once again, thanks to everyone who responded. Everything I'd previously learned about xenobiology came from sci-fi novels, so it's nice to hear a few scientific thoughts on the subject. I appreciate explanations, and am especially grateful for the complete lack of flaming. Nice job, everyone!
Man, that is easy! So, how many ounces are in a fifth of whiskey? Oh, wait, (128%5)!=0, but 1000mL/5=200mL.
Moral: for every example of how the Imperial system is "better", there's a counterexample of how SI is better. Since "divides by 2 and 3!" is no more or less useful than "divides by 10!" (I disagree, but I'll drop the point), then you can fall back to "entire freakin' world outside the US uses it!". That's enough to make metric the clear winner in itself.
Note to non-USians: I'm an American and I love the metric system. Yes, some of us agree with you that this whole debate is silly and that you guys are right.
Thanks for the explanation; that's definitely why I asked here. One final question: is there any non-remote possibility that Titan could have enough radioactive material to generate significant quantities of heat? If so, would we be able to detect that from here? BTW, can y'all tell that I majored in Comp. Sci. and not Astronomy? :) I don't know nearly as much about these things as I'd like.
What crack do teachers smoke in Germany that would make math teachers say something that stupid? The length of a human foot, in shoe, will be approximately as close to 1/3 of a meter as to one "foot". How big is an ounce of water, volumewise? Oh, by that I meant "ounce of volume", not "ounce of weight", which will vary depending on where you are.
Would you rather estimate the liters in a body of water without a meter stick, or the pints in that body of water without a calculator? I can guess at what a kilometer might look like, but have no freakin' clue how big a gallon is.
OK, that makes sense. In other words, we haven't found anything on Titan (or other bodies) that couldn't be explained by the natural local conditions, right?
But it does have a thick atmosphere, which would seem to mean that it has at least enough energy to keep a large amount of matter in a gaseous state. Also, that hypothesized hydrocarbon sea should hold quite a bit of chemical energy, shouldn't it?
I'm not a LGM kook - I have no expectation at all that we'd find any sort of life there. Still, is there any particular reason why we seem to be so sure of that?
In other words, the rest of the world may be less tolerant when the conversion function comes on a CD and costs $199 instead of the traditional one-liners that handle Metric Imperial translation.
My dad thought metric was horrible until I gave him a 5-minute explanation and then asked him how many grams of water are in a cubic meter, and he was able to answer. Then I asked him how many tablespoons are in a ton of water, and he decided that metric had something going for it after all.
My father-in-law thinks it's funny that I never remember how many cups are in a pint, or some other weird conversion. To him, it proves that people don't learn as much in college as they think they do.
Seriously, do they still make those? It's fairly safe to assume that a mouse is USB these days.
Didn't anybody read his post where he said:
Unless his XF86Config-4 file has a Load "psychic" line, then no XF86 driver in existence will be able to properly interpret the mouse events that the kernel isn't passing along.Poster: do you have the usbmouse and mousedev modules loaded?
Claims from the article:
That's right! Your neighborhood pizza store used to help fund the CIA.
Yep. That's why I order from Pizza Hut - they have the NSA in their back pocket and are much cooler.
Honestly, I'm sure you could've picked a more believable source to cite.
User1 uses any Classic app, walks away, machine falls asleep.
Let's try the variation as I already explained it:
User1 doesn't use any Classic app because no such animal is installed on the machine at hand. End of situation.
You can contrive any horrible scenario you want ("User1 sets the machine on fire, but the key to the fire extinguisher is in his Apple Keyring and he's locked it."), but that only proves that you can contrive horrible scenarios.
Yeah, an iMac is technically smaller than the average PC
I'm beginning to thing that you've never seen one, because noone who has can possibly say it's only "technically smaller" but not "little".
Sounds like you're not quite as fully informed as you thought you were.
I guess it pays to live somewhere civilized. ^_~
Thanks for the compliment.
You know, that is why I tell all of my friends to buy from you: your customer support is absolutely unreal. I've already signed up for the list, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm off to root around for something else to tide me over.
I've written to you guys a couple of times but never received an answer: is there a way to find that album for sale in a digital format from one of the companies you distribute to?
Don't be an ass. An LCD iMac is a little machine.
Compare the G5 with your typical geekbox and chances are the G5's larger.
The typical geekbox owner won't be pestering me for tech support every time we meet, so your (albeit true) statement is essentially never applicable to my real life conversations.
The use of little, given that it doesn't correspond with size,
Since we ruled out the first part, we can safely reject the second.
Priced them recently? Oh yes they do. Most people would call a difference of a few hundred dollars for comparable hardware "much more."
People bring up this imaginary argument every single time. Spec a PC with a DVD burner, Firewire, a 17" LCD screen, Ethernet, and all of the other niceties that come stock on an iMac, then discard all of the beige-box machines that weren't engineered so much as assembled from parts on the shelf, then add in the software costs. That Mac isn't quite so expensive now. Rejected.
Is killing a stuck Classic mode session run by another user by dropping to the terminal, doing a ps xa, and sudoing to kill the process really easier than doing the three-fingered salute to get the task manager and clicking "end task"?
First, we own no programs that run in Classic mode, and neither will 99% of users who are buying their first Mac these days. Two, ever hear of the "Force quit" menu/keystroke that brings up an application manager and lets you choose the task to kill? Rejected.
Do you tell this to men you're recommending a computer to? Or are Macs only good for women?
Are you always a sexist ass, or just on Slashdot? If it's good enough for my wife, it's good enough for my neighbor.
Why not just say that *you* have a Mac at home, and that you and your wife love it?
Mainly becuase I don't have a Mac; my wife does. It's hers, it's on her desk, and I don't remember if I even have a login on it.
Next time, try: "Have you looked at a Macintosh? They may be more expensive, but they're as easy to use and tend to be more stable (or harder to break) than Windows boxes. We've got one at home, and the whole family loves it."
Since each of those details is completely wrong, I think I'll stick to my own wording, thanks.
Ugh. I used to get that one all the time: "I don't understand. Don't you have a degree in Computer Science?"
It would be nice if people could comprehend that just because you can write code and support enterprise networks doesn't mean you know every obscure thing in the world.
An analogy that Joe Sixpack can understand without knowing a thing about computers: it's like the difference between a bulldozer and a Chevy. Even if you fix big hydraulic systems all day long, you may not be able to fix the cruise-control on a Cavalier. Unfortunately, I bet that mechanics get the same sorts of questions from their friends, so that may not be the best example.
And when I think of "big computer", I actually think of... say... an E15K and up. ;)
I do to, but if you can figure out a way to explain "Xeon" and "SCSI" to my mom when she asks what I do all day, then feel free to share. For now, "I work on big computers on the Internet" is the most accurate description of my job that most people will accept without getting glazed eyes. :)
I have one (1) stock response to all non-business tech support requests. Say this verbatim, and without sounding condescending:
It gives them a useful solution to the problem they're having, is honest (I really don't know a whole lot about Windows versions more recent than Win98), and has one of two outcomes:
PS: You and I know that "big computer" means "FreeBSD web server over in the machine closet", but who wants to get hung up on details?
Never mind that shoe companies would make as much more from toe-impact shoes as from heel-impact models, they'd just be shaped differently. I just can't find a motivation for generations of shoe manufacturers, trainers, athletes, and foot doctors to conspire to lie about the correct way to run.
Sounds pretty goofy to me.
I used to practically live on IRC via AmIRC on my Amiga, but haven't been back in years. apt-cache search irc gives a list of IRC clients, but what are the good GUI ones? Which ones should be avoided at all costs? Which can I use without being 0wn3d in 5 minutes after my first connection?
It's still Veronica for me.