I guess I phrased it wrong.. I come in fast on the outside of the turn, stand on the brakes until the last second.. When I start actually turning the wheel, I'm off the brakes and starting back on the gas..:)
At the speeds we were going, if you tried to power slide it, you'd either end up spun off into the infield somewhere, or quite likely flipping your car.. While it would have been fun to watch, you'd have to listen to him cry as he contemplated how to get his car home..
You trust NASA? The same people who have computer related incidents rather frequently. How many launches were delayed due to computer problems?
But, that's not the point. Their programmers have gotten much better (or less problems are reported).
Your car is already coontrolled by computer. Everything from the climate control and door locks, to every function of the engine. Not many cars even have distributors any more.. The ECM runs everything.. Quite a few cars don't even have throttle cables any more.. The computer reads the input of your foot, and adjusts the throttle accordingly. Makes it easier to work your ABS and Traction Control functions.
I wouldn't trust WinCE in my car though. I'd trust the guys that GM has putting together those little assembly programs that run my car now, to build an OS first.:) The only error I've seen in a GM since say the 1985 model year, was when the stupid resistor in my key stopped making proper contact with the ignition lock..
I took my 2000 TransAm WS/6 racing on a road track a month or so ago, and have renewed faith in their abilities.. I'd go absolutely flying (over 100mph) into a turn, to stand on the brakes at the last second. Not just hard braking.. I was pushing as hard as I could.. I'd feel the ABS push back just enough, and while it was, I'd be downshifting. Never lost control. I was driving hard enough to stay faster than the all Porsches and some Corvettes on the track. The Z06 Corvettes though, *THAT* is some performance.:)
I won't even consider how many computers I was abusing at the time.. Sure as hell the engine's computers didn't give up on me once.. Faster than I could get my foot from the brakes to the gas, it was ready to shove me back in the seat, and pull away from everyone.
I have yet to find a Microsoft logo on my car..:) I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find out that the guys programming those things are Linux hackers in their spare time.
Just imagine if we *WERE* given an open OS with access to good information.
I'd have voice warnings for engine warnings. ("Engine 20 degrees above norm for 5 minutes"). What about the radar that some cars are including now (backup alarms). Script that all together..
if ($time > $emergency_trehold){ voice("$direction impact in $time"); if ($direction = "Front"){ &emergency_brake(); }; }elsif($time > $warn_threshold){ voice("Warn $direction impact in $time") }; }; ---
A simple hack like that would save lives. In an open-source community, you'd have thousands of good developers giving them improvements to their code..
Car people have been serious hackers, without the computers.. They've been doing it for years.. Go to a race track, and ask some of the serious ol' timers how to get 500hp out of a good car and still keep it streetable.. Now just put someone who can code with them, and you'd be amazed..
The same guys that you see sitting around in a garage all covered with grease, talkin' shit, who you wouldn't think had the IQ of a rock are really brilliant in what they know.. They can tell you subtle pressure changes in parts you didn't even know existed, to improve performance.. Given the opprotunity, those same people would be working magic with simple scripts like this..
Of course, freaks like us would be putting on extra sensors to watch for traffic lights, street markings, and hook it all to a GPS.. With an accurate GPS and sensors to watch for obsticals, you could honestly script driving to a gas station.
I need to hijack a friend's Win2k machine one of these days, so I can play with it. It still doesn't work under Linux.:(
--- From their FAQ: ---
1.1.2 What OSes are supported/not supported? The largest OS requirement for Terrarium is that the OS properly supports the.NET Framework. Please review the.NET Framework documentation and make sure your OS is supported by at least the redistributable package. The second OS requirement for Terrarium is that DirectX 7 is supported. The Terrarium graphics make use of DirectX 7 in order to achieve complex scenes with a minimum of CPU and Graphics processing time. Given the above requirements the following OSes are recommended by the Terrarium team for both running a client and for doing creature development.
* Windows 2000, Any Flavor.
* Windows XP, Home/Pro.
The following OSes are not capable of running the Terrarium due to software constraints.
* Windows NT 4.0
The following OSes have not been heavily tested and may be used, but may have unknown issues or complications.
I still haven't figured it out either. In one of our offices, we went on a quest to try to figure the thing out.. We contacted a few MCSE's..
The most concise answer we found was ".NET is a framework." A framework for what, we don't know. I saw references to letting servers communicate, so is it a protocol? How about the.NET language variants? Is it a programming language? I read that.NET would let password databases be shared. So it's an authentication scheme?.NET will let you run applications on any platform, even non-Microsoft. But it was only Microsoft products tagged with the.NET name. Can I use 'vi' to write in the.NET?
The most productive thing I ever heard about in.NET was a game that would let you play with players on other systems, using programming to tell your pieces how to move.. But even that didn't make too much sense.. I wanted to try it out, but at the time, it wouldn't run on Win98, and definately not on my Linux machines.. I'm not going to invest in a new machine, or sacrifice a server, just to install 2000 or XP to play a game.. The boss probably would frown upon that. Well, and people may be a bit upset.:)
Imagine that. If you're using say an OS called Microsoft Server 0.1 for your servers, and Microsoft Workstation 0.1 for your workstations.. Then if you saw that MS Server 0.2 was available, you'd know it was the next logical step in the upgrade path..
I'm still a wee-bit confused by the currently available OS's..
Windows 2000 (Professional|Server|Advanced Server|DataCenter Server)
Windows ME
Windows CE (CE||.NET)
Windows XP (Professional|Home Edition|Media Center|Tablet|Embedded)
Imagine if they just had workstation and server, with nice numbers. I'm still not sure what I'd be running all my servers on, if I went to MS.. Luckly, I don't have to decide. I put the same version of Slackware on everything, and just install the parts I need.. Funny, it all fits on one CD, and I don't even have to pay outragous licensing fees for each version, or packages I add on.:)
I'm just sad that Slackware hasn't released a distribution for handhelds.. But lucky, "familiar" works on my iPaq.
Every software I've seen uses logical version numbers, except Microsoft.. And they used to even do it.. Well, kinda..
Win3.0
Win3.1
Win3.11
Win95
Win98
Win2000
The jumps in numbers are just too big.. Forget the subrevisions. Build numbers. SP numbers.. I feel sorry for the Microsoft techs who have to take tech calls from people who only know "I use Windows." When friends of friends call me and tell me that, it's like pulling teeth to find out if it's Win98 or XP.. "It came on the computer, how am I suppose to know?"
This has so many obvious problems, it isn't funny...
First off, I've worked in PC repair for years. So many machines power supply fan is so weak, it can barely make a breeze behind the machine. The restriction of that pipe would pretty much kill off the flow. Make a straight smooth walled pipe would do better, but not that flex hose.
Next, the 4"x16"x8' space is going to be very small, and heat up quickly.. My office is roughtly 8'x12'x8'. You're dumping out the heat into roughly 3 cubic feet of space, with minimal ventalation. My 768 cubic foot, with a 24 square foot hole in it (doorway), with 4 PC's and 2 monitors running gets rather warm rather quickly, even with forced cooling (A/C ducts).
So, besides ruining the insulation in the wall, if it's an outside wall (interior walls are usually uninsulated), he's going to build up lots of heat and moisture (the heat won't be enough to really dry out the air).
I don't think the heating of the wall will be much of a factor, since the PC will overheat rather quickly and die.. I'd give it a few months, before the user wonders why it crashes several times daily, and then finally won't boot.
Well, from what I understand, there are a lot of factors.. Bandwidth itself doesn't cost anything. You're paying for the right to use it.:) Kind of like driving down a toll road. The road is there. It's going to be there. If you use it or not, it's still there. But when you use it, you pay $0.50.
The ISP already owns (or leases) a bunch of fiber going wherever. They already own a bunch of routing hardware. Those were initial costs, which may not come again, unless business is good.
There are a bunch of costs that they continue to have.
Staff. Everyone from the salesman trying to sell you a line, to the support staff answering the phones at 3am when you can't remember what your netmask is suppose to be.
Building costs. Like, those lines run somewhere, right?
Fees. Everything else.:) It costs money to run your fiber into someone elses equipment (peerings), or to share fiber across an ocean, or a satellite link.
So, they can't directly make money back for all those costs. They just turn around and say, "We'll charge you for the bandwidth usage", and voila, they do.
From what I understand, the actual cost of running a DS3 (45Mb) or a OC3 (155Mb) isn't too far apart.. But they'll sure charge you a lot more for it.:) That's how they make money..
Like with dialup providers, they expect to need so many customers to cover expenses, then they turn a profit. If they can support 200 customers, and need 20 to make a profit, they don't start charging all the customers less as the number of customers increase.. The ISP owners just start driving nicer cars.:)
If you don't want to be treated as a conspiracy nut, maybe you shouldn't sound like one..
I fully believe the feds are up to all kinds of bad things.
I like your tire-tag link. But I haven't seen any of those on tires yet. Most shops will let you see the tires before the put them on. I just had a new set of tires put on, and those weren't on there. I would have noticed anything like that.
The feds would have to be really bored to ping every cellphone in the LA area at rush hour.. Besides swamping the phone system by getting an active response back from a few million phones, that's a lot of data to analyze.. But, they're probably watching yours specifically. People screaming conspiracy theories are the ones the closest watched.:)
Give away your cell phone. Stop driving your car. And hide in a basement of an abandon warehouse with aluminum foil over your head.. Tee-hee.
Let the feds track me. I can disappear as fast as they find me.
But in the Ford situation, it wouldn't have.. Even if they were recording engine/transmission RPM's, ground speed, pitch, roll, yaw (yes, you get all those in a car too), seat belts, and airbags.. A blown front tire would result in the same results as emergency steering.. The general results would be the same. They blamed bad drivers who couldn't control their cars..
I'm not comfortable with anyone making an analysis of my driving, especially based on historical data (the way you were driving before).
If I come off an Interstate doing say 90mph (6 empty lanes), and I stop at the red light. Then I pass through the traffic lights that are at the bottom of the ramp, and get broadsided.
The recorded testamony says that I was doing 90mph in a 70mph zone. It wouldn't have the state of the traffic light, so I obviously ran the light, right?
For the record, I speed. I don't run traffic lights or stop signs. Long roads with no intersections (say a long bridge) and no traffic, I may be going rather quickly to shorten my travel time. Me doing 160mph on a bridge doesn't equal me running a traffic light...
I've been doing a lot of that lately. Most of my friends have flown home to family and friends. They're still wishing "Merry Christmas" when parental ears are listening, and wishing me happy holidays when they aren't.. Funny how a bunch of 30 year olds still are afraid to be open with their elders.:)
I'm trying to be more informative with my responses lately on here.. Too many people just posting stupid messages.:)
In this case, virtually every religion has a celebration at or around the winter solstice.. So Christanity sees that people celebrate it. If you wish to assimiliate them, you have to keep their celebations. It makes things easier to get people to convert, if they don't believe they're loosing anything..
Say you were Mr. Pagan, and you had a great party every year.. The Christians want you to convert. But every winter your Pagan buddies are partying their asses off, wouldn't you want to be with them? It may even be enough to make you say "I don't really believe in your god any more..." yada, yada, yada..
I'm no theology expert, so I can't go too far into it, but it's well documented. Just go hunting for information...
I'm not asking anyone to just drop their beliefs, but blind faith is just asking for trouble. This great "Christian" holiday is a great example of how the Christian church has put a spin on their religion to wash over others.. Only a few people now will wish you a happy Winter Solstice (I'm one of them)..
Go searching the net on the topic. There's a whole lot that they've stolen to make Christmas as we know it.. I spent a couple slow days researching it to answer the question of "Do you believe in Christmas" to my friends and coworkers..
The most basic root of Christmas is the Winter Solstice (roughly Dec 21), which almost any culture would assign a celebration. It's the shortest day of the year, and the beginning of days starting to grow longer.
Christanity stole lots of holidays, simply to help conversion. It wasn't necessarly to hide from being noticed, but to basically show they could celebrate, so you're loosing nothing by becoming Christian and believing in their "one true God".
From what I've read, Saturnalia is the celebration of the death and rebirth of Saturn. He was slowly dying through the winter, but this is his resurrection, and the days become longer.
Of course, I'm not 1000+ years old, so I don't know all the roots. I simply wasn't there (and I doubt any other/. readers were either).
But, even the Jehovias Witnesses acknowledge that Christmas is a stolen holiday from Pagan roots.. I can't say they have a lot right, but they got that one right.:)
I'm not Christian, and I can't categorically say "Pagan", but generally Pagan beliefs have a stronger basis in reality than Christian. Shall we go into a deep religious discussion? I think it'd be us vs. the Christians..
Why didn't the Romans do a better job, and feed them all to the lions? hehe
BTW, I "celebrate" Christmas.. Well, I celebrate the Winter Solstice. But since everyone else is giving away free booze, food, and gifts, I'll show up to their parties.:)
They'd probably regulate the sale.. Like for firearms, the frame is the part with the serial number, and that's the part you pay big bucks for.. Like with a pistol, you pay the most money for the frame (grip, and lower part of the slide), and can get the slide and barrel relatively cheaply.. That is, of course, if you were building one yourself.:)
Occasionally, barrels and moving parts need to be replaced due to wear, and you can get those anywhere. I'd suspect they'd required only licensed gunsmiths sell the ID parts..
Of course, I'm sure in a few weeks after they hit the mainstream market, someone will have a hack for it, where it'll take 5 minutes and some duct tape.:)
This seems like a great idea. I've seen law enforcement holsters, that require the officer's fingerprint to pull the weapon. It works in a fraction of a second, and the batteries last years. The idea of operation is, when the office draws the weapon, before he even starts pulling on it, it's already released to his fingerprint.. But no one else could steal his weapon and use it against him..
The question is, how soon can gun manufacturers implement this? 3 years? The unit I saw was kind of bulky, and wouldn't fit inside a weapon.. How secure would it be? Dealers have to be able to re-issue weapons, which means the technology and means will be in many stores in every city.. All you need is one guy to reassign guns, or one ex-gunsmith with a box to reassigning any gun any time.
I'm not sure, but it really does sound like New Jersey is passing the law, so they can just say "We're not banning guns, you just can't have any they're selling."
The law is forcing a change which may, not reinforcing an existing technology. If gun manufaturers do start implementing this change in all new sold weapons, I'd imagine the rate of stolen weapons would dramatically drop over the next 25+ years..
I don't know that it would make people any safer though. People commit crimes with their own weapons frequently.
I'd love to see the technology come around. I'd be very happy knowing my gun can only be shot by me, or someone I assign to it (girlfriend/wife/friends/non-minor children)
Of course, knowing how many people can't program their VCR's, how many will be able to figure out how to work their new "secure" handgun? How many instances will we be hearing about where someone was killed with their "secure" weapon in their hand that wouldn't fire?
This reminds me of a book I saw at Borders once. Someone had printed one of the kernels (2.4.x). It was a monster. It just had occasional commentary in it. Like after a few hundred pages of code, and then one page that says stuff like "That section was for filesystems. It's used to store data on media." Sad thing is, he suckered some publishing company into actually printing it!
I don't believe I wasted the time even reading the article.
I might as well post about my server monitoring software that talks too. Some days he just doesn't shut up, but at least he's more entertaining, where he'll randomly insult people.. Who would listen to spoken code all day? Maybe if they just did the funny comments, but not all the code..
I can think of better things to do for two years with my computers..:)
Windows 95 was released on 7/11/1995, but wasn't really publically accepted for months afterwards.. Either it wouldn't work on people's existing hardware (286, low 386, etc), or they just didn't see a need to change. Well, not til their games and apps required Win95..
OS/2 4 came out about the same time. I can't find a release date online, but references I've found on dejanews say between Feb 1995 and Aug 1995..
So pretty much it was released when people were still predominantly using Win 3.1
I've seriously thought about it, but I'm new to California, and I have no clue of which ones would be good or not. I don't suppose anyone could recommend one in the Los Angeles area? Preferably somewhere from Pasadena to Burbank..
Not really. It's just hard to start as a nobody and do well.. There are a lot of big companies that do very well, and lots of small companies that do pretty good. Well, if you consider a few million/year take-home satisfactory.
If you're really interested, there's a convention twice a year, where most of the big providers have booths, and lots of people, ranging from talent (read, lots of hot girls), to webmasters (anyone with a site) show up and talk business.
The convention is InterNext The last one was in Miami a few months ago. The next one is at the "Sans Expo Center", in Las Vegas. Jan 6 - 8 . Admission for 3 days is $275 . It's well worth it if you want to try this as a business, even if you aren't producing your own content.. It's a good way to get familiar with content providers and billing companies.. Or, if you have your own girls and make your own content, bring them, and meet the people that will pay you for your content.
I'll be there. I'll be hard to spot though. I'll be the well dressed guy with a couple hot girls hanging on me the whole time..:)
Oh, porn is a tough industry..:) People make good money. If they didn't, people wouldn't be coming to the convention like they do. It costs a few bucks to bring a bunch of employees to Vegas, put them up in the good hotels for a few days, and all..
The people that Don't do well are the ones that put up really lame sites with a few pictures stolen from newsgroups, and expect to make a bundle.. You have to have something people want to spend money on. If you don't, they won't buy..
Exactly. Would such large lines be running all over the world if we didn't have lots of data to transmit? If it was just Email, and light web usage, T1's would still be the norm.. But adult content has always been a strong driving point. In the next couple weeks, we'll be putting our composite bandwidth graph up on our front page. We peak at between 800Mb/s and 1Gb/s daily.. The only other sites that do anything like that are warez and mp3 sites.. Of course, there are the isolated exception..
But, porn has completely pushed the Internet to what it is now. Just like getting VCR's and DVD players into the home.. DVD's were first seriously released for home viewing porn. Then places like Blockbuster started carrying movies on DVD..
People don't like talking about it, but it's the truth. And yes, you're absolutely right about PPV.. They were doing PPV movies for long before they started doing regular movies.. And still any cable provider's service includes adult movies.. They don't even have to advertise it, and people still spend lots of money on it..
I love this business. Meet hot women, work with the best technology.. I don't think working anywhere else I'd be ordering 1Gb/s fiber into cabinets all over the country. I wouldn't just say "Ok, 10 more servers for that site", and have them en-route in a couple days.. Voyeurweb.com is retiring some of our old servers, and putting new ones up this week. Yippie.
I made a few small transactions over the next month, and large cash deposits weekly.
After 1 month of having an account, I bought a plane ticket for my girlfriend's daughter, two weeks in advance of the flight.
I moved recently across the country. I personally flew the same route a couple times, and my girlfriend and her daughter about 6 round trips. All those trips were with another account at a different bank. On most of the previous transactions, the airlines called the bank to verify information. My bank volunteered the information to me, as they had it all on record..
This particular trip, the airline called the new bank. The new bank thought because it was a large purchase ($250).
Instead of contacting me, my account was marked as suspect/fraud and suspended, my bank card (ATM/Mastercard) was flagged as stolen.
We got to the airport to let her fly. We went to the ticket counter to check her in. Security was called over to keep an eye on us. They asked to see the credit card, and held onto it behind the counter. Then they asked to see my ID.. Luckly, I carry several forms of ID around with me. That was enough to get my credit card back.
They then told me that the card was used fraudently to purchase the ticket. I told them *I* made the purchase, and I am the card holder.
They then told me the card had been stolen. I opened my wallet back up, looked inside. Oh look, card is still there. I told them it had not been stolen.
The airline was being cooperative with me. They weren't dicks about it, just trying to be safe.
I stepped out of line to call the bank.. Standing in the middle of LAX, waiting to get a little girl on a flight. I had roughly 10 minutes to get this fixed...
The bank calmly told me that the card had been reported stolen at 6am that morning. Well, the card was in my wallet, locked in my house, with me at 6am. It wasn't stolen (we left for the airport at 7am). I asked them who reported it. They don't record information like that. Only that someone called and said it was stolen. So I asked, "Can I call the bank, and say that your card has been stolen?". That made her very nervous.. Yes. Anyone can call and say anything they'd like, and they will respond to it.. You can call and say you've found a credit card belonging to one of their customers, and that card is now useless.. (Evil thoughts to do to bad customers, huh?)
Through about 8 hours of me interviewing everyone I could get on the phone, I came to understand what happened. The bank messed up. They took the fact that I had only made small purchases (up to $100) at local stores, and the fact that it was a plane ticket, and decided I couldn't have possibly bought the ticket, and froze everything..
8 hours of talking on the phone to come to that realization, and get them to unfreeze my bank account. It was another three weeks before they'd send me a working ATM/Mastercard.
Needless to say, she missed her flight.
The only advice the bank had, was not to make large purchases {sigh}, and that my girlfriend's daughter should have bought the ticket with her credit card. I don't know how the rest of the world sees it, but a 12 year old girl probably shouldn't be running around with her own credit card. Well, not until she has a job to support it.:) Generally, we don't let her go out by herself in the bigger cities, so very rarely would she have a need for a credit card of her own..
Now when I make purchases, I wonder if the bank will suddenly decide to reverse the charges on them.. I love banks, honestly.
Since I got to California, I've had some problem with two different banks, that has required me to be in the bank at least once per week to straighten out. I spent almost two hours at "Bank Of America" a couple weeks ago, just to get a check cashed. Not waiting in line, waiting for someone to make the executive decision that my check was ok to cash. Not just any handwritten check, it was my payroll check. The vice president happened to walk by and say "Have you been helped." I told him the story as quickly and concisely as possible, and told them just to take care of me..
It's sad when the secret to getting any simple task done in a bank requires you making an ass of yourself in front of other customers til it gets taken care of. They're growing to know me when I walk in now.. I'm the customer that *WILL* make an ass of himself til they do what I need done. It's not like I ask for extraordenary things. I bring in a payroll check to the bank it's drawn on, and I have proper ID (several forms), I want it cashed. I still don't get how they have the nerve to ask me if I want to open an account with them, when I know it's this much of a pain to work with them normally.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I phrased it wrong.. I come in fast on the outside of the turn, stand on the brakes until the last second.. When I start actually turning the wheel, I'm off the brakes and starting back on the gas..
At the speeds we were going, if you tried to power slide it, you'd either end up spun off into the infield somewhere, or quite likely flipping your car.. While it would have been fun to watch, you'd have to listen to him cry as he contemplated how to get his car home..
That's what you get for running alpha test code in your car.. Oh wait, that'd qualify for a Microsoft final release..
It's the end of the day, on pseudo-code.. I don't have to be right.
You trust NASA? The same people who have computer related incidents rather frequently. How many launches were delayed due to computer problems?
:) The only error I've seen in a GM since say the 1985 model year, was when the stupid resistor in my key stopped making proper contact with the ignition lock..
:)
:) I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find out that the guys programming those things are Linux hackers in their spare time.
But, that's not the point. Their programmers have gotten much better (or less problems are reported).
Your car is already coontrolled by computer. Everything from the climate control and door locks, to every function of the engine. Not many cars even have distributors any more.. The ECM runs everything.. Quite a few cars don't even have throttle cables any more.. The computer reads the input of your foot, and adjusts the throttle accordingly. Makes it easier to work your ABS and Traction Control functions.
I wouldn't trust WinCE in my car though. I'd trust the guys that GM has putting together those little assembly programs that run my car now, to build an OS first.
I took my 2000 TransAm WS/6 racing on a road track a month or so ago, and have renewed faith in their abilities.. I'd go absolutely flying (over 100mph) into a turn, to stand on the brakes at the last second. Not just hard braking.. I was pushing as hard as I could.. I'd feel the ABS push back just enough, and while it was, I'd be downshifting. Never lost control. I was driving hard enough to stay faster than the all Porsches and some Corvettes on the track. The Z06 Corvettes though, *THAT* is some performance.
I won't even consider how many computers I was abusing at the time.. Sure as hell the engine's computers didn't give up on me once.. Faster than I could get my foot from the brakes to the gas, it was ready to shove me back in the seat, and pull away from everyone.
I have yet to find a Microsoft logo on my car..
Just imagine if we *WERE* given an open OS with access to good information.
I'd have voice warnings for engine warnings. ("Engine 20 degrees above norm for 5 minutes"). What about the radar that some cars are including now (backup alarms). Script that all together..
--- pseudocode
@directions = ("Lside", "Rside", "Front", "Rear");
# Look for impact potential
foreach $direction(@directions){
$time = $speed * $distance
if ($time > $emergency_trehold){
voice("$direction impact in $time");
if ($direction = "Front"){
&emergency_brake();
};
}elsif($time > $warn_threshold){
voice("Warn $direction impact in $time")
};
};
---
A simple hack like that would save lives. In an open-source community, you'd have thousands of good developers giving them improvements to their code..
Car people have been serious hackers, without the computers.. They've been doing it for years.. Go to a race track, and ask some of the serious ol' timers how to get 500hp out of a good car and still keep it streetable.. Now just put someone who can code with them, and you'd be amazed..
The same guys that you see sitting around in a garage all covered with grease, talkin' shit, who you wouldn't think had the IQ of a rock are really brilliant in what they know.. They can tell you subtle pressure changes in parts you didn't even know existed, to improve performance.. Given the opprotunity, those same people would be working magic with simple scripts like this..
Of course, freaks like us would be putting on extra sensors to watch for traffic lights, street markings, and hook it all to a GPS.. With an accurate GPS and sensors to watch for obsticals, you could honestly script driving to a gas station.
I need to hijack a friend's Win2k machine one of these days, so I can play with it. It still doesn't work under Linux. :(
.NET Framework. Please review the .NET Framework documentation and make sure your OS is supported by at least the redistributable package. The second OS requirement for Terrarium is that DirectX 7 is supported. The Terrarium graphics make use of DirectX 7 in order to achieve complex scenes with a minimum of CPU and Graphics processing time. Given the above requirements the following OSes are recommended by the Terrarium team for both running a client and for doing creature development.
.NET Server
---
From their FAQ:
---
1.1.2 What OSes are supported/not supported?
The largest OS requirement for Terrarium is that the OS properly supports the
* Windows 2000, Any Flavor.
* Windows XP, Home/Pro.
The following OSes are not capable of running the Terrarium due to software constraints.
* Windows NT 4.0
The following OSes have not been heavily tested and may be used, but may have unknown issues or complications.
* Windows 98
* Windows ME
* Windows
---
I still haven't figured it out either. In one of our offices, we went on a quest to try to figure the thing out.. We contacted a few MCSE's..
.NET language variants? Is it a programming language? I read that .NET would let password databases be shared. So it's an authentication scheme? .NET will let you run applications on any platform, even non-Microsoft. But it was only Microsoft products tagged with the .NET name. Can I use 'vi' to write in the .NET?
.NET was a game that would let you play with players on other systems, using programming to tell your pieces how to move.. But even that didn't make too much sense.. I wanted to try it out, but at the time, it wouldn't run on Win98, and definately not on my Linux machines.. I'm not going to invest in a new machine, or sacrifice a server, just to install 2000 or XP to play a game.. The boss probably would frown upon that. Well, and people may be a bit upset. :)
The most concise answer we found was ".NET is a framework." A framework for what, we don't know. I saw references to letting servers communicate, so is it a protocol? How about the
The most productive thing I ever heard about in
Imagine that. If you're using say an OS called Microsoft Server 0.1 for your servers, and Microsoft Workstation 0.1 for your workstations.. Then if you saw that MS Server 0.2 was available, you'd know it was the next logical step in the upgrade path..
:)
I'm still a wee-bit confused by the currently available OS's..
Windows 2000 (Professional|Server|Advanced Server|DataCenter Server)
Windows ME
Windows CE (CE||.NET)
Windows XP (Professional|Home Edition|Media Center|Tablet|Embedded)
Imagine if they just had workstation and server, with nice numbers. I'm still not sure what I'd be running all my servers on, if I went to MS.. Luckly, I don't have to decide. I put the same version of Slackware on everything, and just install the parts I need.. Funny, it all fits on one CD, and I don't even have to pay outragous licensing fees for each version, or packages I add on.
I'm just sad that Slackware hasn't released a distribution for handhelds.. But lucky, "familiar" works on my iPaq.
Every software I've seen uses logical version numbers, except Microsoft.. And they used to even do it.. Well, kinda..
Win3.0
Win3.1
Win3.11
Win95
Win98
Win2000
The jumps in numbers are just too big.. Forget the subrevisions. Build numbers. SP numbers.. I feel sorry for the Microsoft techs who have to take tech calls from people who only know "I use Windows." When friends of friends call me and tell me that, it's like pulling teeth to find out if it's Win98 or XP.. "It came on the computer, how am I suppose to know?"
250,000 readers, and we're the only two with a sense of humor.. Oh well..
She's a 46 year old homebound man in North Dakota. But congratulations none the less.
This has so many obvious problems, it isn't funny...
First off, I've worked in PC repair for years. So many machines power supply fan is so weak, it can barely make a breeze behind the machine. The restriction of that pipe would pretty much kill off the flow. Make a straight smooth walled pipe would do better, but not that flex hose.
Next, the 4"x16"x8' space is going to be very small, and heat up quickly.. My office is roughtly 8'x12'x8'. You're dumping out the heat into roughly 3 cubic feet of space, with minimal ventalation. My 768 cubic foot, with a 24 square foot hole in it (doorway), with 4 PC's and 2 monitors running gets rather warm rather quickly, even with forced cooling (A/C ducts).
So, besides ruining the insulation in the wall, if it's an outside wall (interior walls are usually uninsulated), he's going to build up lots of heat and moisture (the heat won't be enough to really dry out the air).
I don't think the heating of the wall will be much of a factor, since the PC will overheat rather quickly and die.. I'd give it a few months, before the user wonders why it crashes several times daily, and then finally won't boot.
The ISP already owns (or leases) a bunch of fiber going wherever. They already own a bunch of routing hardware. Those were initial costs, which may not come again, unless business is good.
There are a bunch of costs that they continue to have.
Staff. Everyone from the salesman trying to sell you a line, to the support staff answering the phones at 3am when you can't remember what your netmask is suppose to be.
Building costs. Like, those lines run somewhere, right?
Fees. Everything else. :) It costs money to run your fiber into someone elses equipment (peerings), or to share fiber across an ocean, or a satellite link.
:) That's how they make money..
:)
So, they can't directly make money back for all those costs. They just turn around and say, "We'll charge you for the bandwidth usage", and voila, they do.
From what I understand, the actual cost of running a DS3 (45Mb) or a OC3 (155Mb) isn't too far apart.. But they'll sure charge you a lot more for it.
Like with dialup providers, they expect to need so many customers to cover expenses, then they turn a profit. If they can support 200 customers, and need 20 to make a profit, they don't start charging all the customers less as the number of customers increase.. The ISP owners just start driving nicer cars.
If you don't want to be treated as a conspiracy nut, maybe you shouldn't sound like one..
:)
I fully believe the feds are up to all kinds of bad things.
I like your tire-tag link. But I haven't seen any of those on tires yet. Most shops will let you see the tires before the put them on. I just had a new set of tires put on, and those weren't on there. I would have noticed anything like that.
The feds would have to be really bored to ping every cellphone in the LA area at rush hour.. Besides swamping the phone system by getting an active response back from a few million phones, that's a lot of data to analyze.. But, they're probably watching yours specifically. People screaming conspiracy theories are the ones the closest watched.
Give away your cell phone. Stop driving your car. And hide in a basement of an abandon warehouse with aluminum foil over your head.. Tee-hee.
Let the feds track me. I can disappear as fast as they find me.
But in the Ford situation, it wouldn't have.. Even if they were recording engine/transmission RPM's, ground speed, pitch, roll, yaw (yes, you get all those in a car too), seat belts, and airbags.. A blown front tire would result in the same results as emergency steering.. The general results would be the same. They blamed bad drivers who couldn't control their cars..
I'm not comfortable with anyone making an analysis of my driving, especially based on historical data (the way you were driving before).
If I come off an Interstate doing say 90mph (6 empty lanes), and I stop at the red light. Then I pass through the traffic lights that are at the bottom of the ramp, and get broadsided.
The recorded testamony says that I was doing 90mph in a 70mph zone. It wouldn't have the state of the traffic light, so I obviously ran the light, right?
For the record, I speed. I don't run traffic lights or stop signs. Long roads with no intersections (say a long bridge) and no traffic, I may be going rather quickly to shorten my travel time. Me doing 160mph on a bridge doesn't equal me running a traffic light...
I've been doing a lot of that lately. Most of my friends have flown home to family and friends. They're still wishing "Merry Christmas" when parental ears are listening, and wishing me happy holidays when they aren't.. Funny how a bunch of 30 year olds still are afraid to be open with their elders. :)
:)
I'm trying to be more informative with my responses lately on here.. Too many people just posting stupid messages.
In this case, virtually every religion has a celebration at or around the winter solstice.. So Christanity sees that people celebrate it. If you wish to assimiliate them, you have to keep their celebations. It makes things easier to get people to convert, if they don't believe they're loosing anything..
Say you were Mr. Pagan, and you had a great party every year.. The Christians want you to convert. But every winter your Pagan buddies are partying their asses off, wouldn't you want to be with them? It may even be enough to make you say "I don't really believe in your god any more..." yada, yada, yada..
I'm no theology expert, so I can't go too far into it, but it's well documented. Just go hunting for information...
I'm not asking anyone to just drop their beliefs, but blind faith is just asking for trouble. This great "Christian" holiday is a great example of how the Christian church has put a spin on their religion to wash over others.. Only a few people now will wish you a happy Winter Solstice (I'm one of them)..
Go searching the net on the topic. There's a whole lot that they've stolen to make Christmas as we know it.. I spent a couple slow days researching it to answer the question of "Do you believe in Christmas" to my friends and coworkers..
/. readers were either).
:)
:)
The most basic root of Christmas is the Winter Solstice (roughly Dec 21), which almost any culture would assign a celebration. It's the shortest day of the year, and the beginning of days starting to grow longer.
Christanity stole lots of holidays, simply to help conversion. It wasn't necessarly to hide from being noticed, but to basically show they could celebrate, so you're loosing nothing by becoming Christian and believing in their "one true God".
From what I've read, Saturnalia is the celebration of the death and rebirth of Saturn. He was slowly dying through the winter, but this is his resurrection, and the days become longer.
Of course, I'm not 1000+ years old, so I don't know all the roots. I simply wasn't there (and I doubt any other
But, even the Jehovias Witnesses acknowledge that Christmas is a stolen holiday from Pagan roots.. I can't say they have a lot right, but they got that one right.
I'm not Christian, and I can't categorically say "Pagan", but generally Pagan beliefs have a stronger basis in reality than Christian. Shall we go into a deep religious discussion? I think it'd be us vs. the Christians..
Why didn't the Romans do a better job, and feed them all to the lions? hehe
BTW, I "celebrate" Christmas.. Well, I celebrate the Winter Solstice. But since everyone else is giving away free booze, food, and gifts, I'll show up to their parties.
They'd probably regulate the sale.. Like for firearms, the frame is the part with the serial number, and that's the part you pay big bucks for.. Like with a pistol, you pay the most money for the frame (grip, and lower part of the slide), and can get the slide and barrel relatively cheaply.. That is, of course, if you were building one yourself.
Occasionally, barrels and moving parts need to be replaced due to wear, and you can get those anywhere. I'd suspect they'd required only licensed gunsmiths sell the ID parts..
Of course, I'm sure in a few weeks after they hit the mainstream market, someone will have a hack for it, where it'll take 5 minutes and some duct tape.
This seems like a great idea. I've seen law enforcement holsters, that require the officer's fingerprint to pull the weapon. It works in a fraction of a second, and the batteries last years. The idea of operation is, when the office draws the weapon, before he even starts pulling on it, it's already released to his fingerprint.. But no one else could steal his weapon and use it against him..
The question is, how soon can gun manufacturers implement this? 3 years? The unit I saw was kind of bulky, and wouldn't fit inside a weapon.. How secure would it be? Dealers have to be able to re-issue weapons, which means the technology and means will be in many stores in every city.. All you need is one guy to reassign guns, or one ex-gunsmith with a box to reassigning any gun any time.
I'm not sure, but it really does sound like New Jersey is passing the law, so they can just say "We're not banning guns, you just can't have any they're selling."
The law is forcing a change which may, not reinforcing an existing technology. If gun manufaturers do start implementing this change in all new sold weapons, I'd imagine the rate of stolen weapons would dramatically drop over the next 25+ years..
I don't know that it would make people any safer though. People commit crimes with their own weapons frequently.
I'd love to see the technology come around. I'd be very happy knowing my gun can only be shot by me, or someone I assign to it (girlfriend/wife/friends/non-minor children)
Of course, knowing how many people can't program their VCR's, how many will be able to figure out how to work their new "secure" handgun? How many instances will we be hearing about where someone was killed with their "secure" weapon in their hand that wouldn't fire?
This reminds me of a book I saw at Borders once. Someone had printed one of the kernels (2.4.x). It was a monster. It just had occasional commentary in it. Like after a few hundred pages of code, and then one page that says stuff like "That section was for filesystems. It's used to store data on media." Sad thing is, he suckered some publishing company into actually printing it!
I don't believe I wasted the time even reading the article.
I might as well post about my server monitoring software that talks too. Some days he just doesn't shut up, but at least he's more entertaining, where he'll randomly insult people.. Who would listen to spoken code all day? Maybe if they just did the funny comments, but not all the code..
I can think of better things to do for two years with my computers..
Windows 3.1 and OS/2 were contemporaries..
Windows 95 was released on 7/11/1995, but wasn't really publically accepted for months afterwards.. Either it wouldn't work on people's existing hardware (286, low 386, etc), or they just didn't see a need to change. Well, not til their games and apps required Win95..
OS/2 4 came out about the same time. I can't find a release date online, but references I've found on dejanews say between Feb 1995 and Aug 1995..
So pretty much it was released when people were still predominantly using Win 3.1
I've seriously thought about it, but I'm new to California, and I have no clue of which ones would be good or not. I don't suppose anyone could recommend one in the Los Angeles area? Preferably somewhere from Pasadena to Burbank..
Not really. It's just hard to start as a nobody and do well.. There are a lot of big companies that do very well, and lots of small companies that do pretty good. Well, if you consider a few million/year take-home satisfactory.
:)
:) People make good money. If they didn't, people wouldn't be coming to the convention like they do. It costs a few bucks to bring a bunch of employees to Vegas, put them up in the good hotels for a few days, and all..
If you're really interested, there's a convention twice a year, where most of the big providers have booths, and lots of people, ranging from talent (read, lots of hot girls), to webmasters (anyone with a site) show up and talk business.
The convention is InterNext The last one was in Miami a few months ago. The next one is at the "Sans Expo Center", in Las Vegas. Jan 6 - 8 . Admission for 3 days is $275 . It's well worth it if you want to try this as a business, even if you aren't producing your own content.. It's a good way to get familiar with content providers and billing companies.. Or, if you have your own girls and make your own content, bring them, and meet the people that will pay you for your content.
I'll be there. I'll be hard to spot though. I'll be the well dressed guy with a couple hot girls hanging on me the whole time..
Oh, porn is a tough industry..
The people that Don't do well are the ones that put up really lame sites with a few pictures stolen from newsgroups, and expect to make a bundle.. You have to have something people want to spend money on. If you don't, they won't buy..
Exactly. Would such large lines be running all over the world if we didn't have lots of data to transmit? If it was just Email, and light web usage, T1's would still be the norm.. But adult content has always been a strong driving point. In the next couple weeks, we'll be putting our composite bandwidth graph up on our front page. We peak at between 800Mb/s and 1Gb/s daily.. The only other sites that do anything like that are warez and mp3 sites.. Of course, there are the isolated exception..
But, porn has completely pushed the Internet to what it is now. Just like getting VCR's and DVD players into the home.. DVD's were first seriously released for home viewing porn. Then places like Blockbuster started carrying movies on DVD..
People don't like talking about it, but it's the truth. And yes, you're absolutely right about PPV.. They were doing PPV movies for long before they started doing regular movies.. And still any cable provider's service includes adult movies.. They don't even have to advertise it, and people still spend lots of money on it..
I love this business. Meet hot women, work with the best technology.. I don't think working anywhere else I'd be ordering 1Gb/s fiber into cabinets all over the country. I wouldn't just say "Ok, 10 more servers for that site", and have them en-route in a couple days.. Voyeurweb.com is retiring some of our old servers, and putting new ones up this week. Yippie.
I opened a new bank account with $1000 cash.
.
:) Generally, we don't let her go out by herself in the bigger cities, so very rarely would she have a need for a credit card of her own..
I made a few small transactions over the next month, and large cash deposits weekly.
After 1 month of having an account, I bought a plane ticket for my girlfriend's daughter, two weeks in advance of the flight.
I moved recently across the country. I personally flew the same route a couple times, and my girlfriend and her daughter about 6 round trips. All those trips were with another account at a different bank. On most of the previous transactions, the airlines called the bank to verify information. My bank volunteered the information to me, as they had it all on record..
This particular trip, the airline called the new bank. The new bank thought because it was a large purchase ($250).
Instead of contacting me, my account was marked as suspect/fraud and suspended, my bank card (ATM/Mastercard) was flagged as stolen.
We got to the airport to let her fly. We went to the ticket counter to check her in. Security was called over to keep an eye on us. They asked to see the credit card, and held onto it behind the counter. Then they asked to see my ID.. Luckly, I carry several forms of ID around with me. That was enough to get my credit card back.
They then told me that the card was used fraudently to purchase the ticket. I told them *I* made the purchase, and I am the card holder.
They then told me the card had been stolen. I opened my wallet back up, looked inside. Oh look, card is still there. I told them it had not been stolen.
The airline was being cooperative with me. They weren't dicks about it, just trying to be safe.
I stepped out of line to call the bank.. Standing in the middle of LAX, waiting to get a little girl on a flight. I had roughly 10 minutes to get this fixed...
The bank calmly told me that the card had been reported stolen at 6am that morning. Well, the card was in my wallet, locked in my house, with me at 6am. It wasn't stolen (we left for the airport at 7am). I asked them who reported it. They don't record information like that. Only that someone called and said it was stolen. So I asked, "Can I call the bank, and say that your card has been stolen?". That made her very nervous.. Yes. Anyone can call and say anything they'd like, and they will respond to it.. You can call and say you've found a credit card belonging to one of their customers, and that card is now useless.. (Evil thoughts to do to bad customers, huh?)
Through about 8 hours of me interviewing everyone I could get on the phone, I came to understand what happened. The bank messed up. They took the fact that I had only made small purchases (up to $100) at local stores, and the fact that it was a plane ticket, and decided I couldn't have possibly bought the ticket, and froze everything..
8 hours of talking on the phone to come to that realization, and get them to unfreeze my bank account. It was another three weeks before they'd send me a working ATM/Mastercard
Needless to say, she missed her flight.
The only advice the bank had, was not to make large purchases {sigh}, and that my girlfriend's daughter should have bought the ticket with her credit card. I don't know how the rest of the world sees it, but a 12 year old girl probably shouldn't be running around with her own credit card. Well, not until she has a job to support it.
Now when I make purchases, I wonder if the bank will suddenly decide to reverse the charges on them.. I love banks, honestly.
Since I got to California, I've had some problem with two different banks, that has required me to be in the bank at least once per week to straighten out. I spent almost two hours at "Bank Of America" a couple weeks ago, just to get a check cashed. Not waiting in line, waiting for someone to make the executive decision that my check was ok to cash. Not just any handwritten check, it was my payroll check. The vice president happened to walk by and say "Have you been helped." I told him the story as quickly and concisely as possible, and told them just to take care of me..
It's sad when the secret to getting any simple task done in a bank requires you making an ass of yourself in front of other customers til it gets taken care of. They're growing to know me when I walk in now.. I'm the customer that *WILL* make an ass of himself til they do what I need done. It's not like I ask for extraordenary things. I bring in a payroll check to the bank it's drawn on, and I have proper ID (several forms), I want it cashed. I still don't get how they have the nerve to ask me if I want to open an account with them, when I know it's this much of a pain to work with them normally.
I could rant more, but.....