In other news, Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Whatever. (Hell, the only machine I have that's equipped for USB 2 right now is a crusty old beige Power Mac G3. I wanted to put in a USB/FireWire combo card, but the only ones out now are USB2/FireWire. The keyboard and mouse ports on my KVM switch connect to a USB port through a PS/2-to-USB converter. It's cheaper than a PS/2-to-ADB converter. FireWire is for the DVD burner that's shared with some other machines...for devices that need consistent high-speed throughput, FireWire's where it's at.)
Cool...looks like the only thing it doesn't do is convert files from one format to another (like mplayer (on Linux) does), but it looks like there's other stuff (like video capture) in there that could be useful.
He's victim to a common fallacy -- that there's a finite amount of stuff in the world
Um, I hate to break it to you, but that's not a fallacy.
There really is a finite amount of stuff in the world. Raw materials, land area, energy, and labor are all limited quantities.
In a strict sense, you are correct...the Earth is of finite size, there is an upper limit on farmable land (theoretically, it's the entire land area, but in practice it's a fair bit less ATM), etc. What the OP is challenging is the notion of the zero-sum game--the notion that for me to be well off, somebody else must be in the poorhouse. It discounts the idea that we might use what we know to make things better for everybody. To paraphrase a talk-show host who shall remain nameless, a fair number of the problems the world faces are not the result of an unequal distribution of wealth, but are the result of an unequal distribution of capitalism.
Prevent media player from sending anything to M$ to get around that snooping/IP police force nonsense they add.
Better yet, use Windows Media Player 6.4. Even after you "upgrade" to later versions, it's still there...even on this WinXP SP1 box I'm using right now. It plays all of the same stuff that the later versions play (at least I haven't found anything that wouldn't play), the interface is much less obnoxious, and it doesn't "phone home" every time you start it up. You should be able to find it as c:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe. Use right-click and "Open With..." to associate media files with it instead of wmplayer.exe.
280,000 feet? I don't think it flew that high... that's even higher than the blackbird.
Discovery Wings has been running some stuff on the X-planes lately...IIRC, the X-15 topped 300k feet on some of its flights. Several pilots got their astronaut wings while flying the X-15...it generally flew much higher than the SR-71 (which normally went to somewhere around 80-100k feet).
I would guess the much higher number of start/stop cycles on the engine would account for more wear than the higher percentage of max power. Depending on how long the engine is off (at a stoplight, say), the engine oil will drain back down into the pan, causing slightly more wear when the engine is restarted.
One solution to that problem would be an electric oil pump that keeps oil circulating whenever the ignition is on. (The oil pump is usually driven by a shaft extending down from the distributor, which is driven by the camshaft.) Do any of the current hybrids do this?
You know, flame all you want but we all know everyone started in this programming language.
Speak for yourself. There were a bunch of different BASICs I ran across back in the day (Color and Extended Color BASIC, TI BASIC, Atari BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, Integer BASIC), but QBASIC wasn't one of them. First time I ran across that would've been in the mid-to-late 90s, where it was buried on the Win9x install CDs.
the whole scenario seems strikingly Pythonesque. SCO (Stupid Crappy Operation) seems to have become the DPRK of tech
If you were going to call the situation "Pythonesque," I figured you would've compared $CO to the Black Knight or something similar.
(Prediction: Big Blue will 0wn their dumb asses, at which point Darl what's-his-face will call it a "draw." (What the hell kind of name is "Darl" anyway? Did they mean to type in "Carl", but slip up?))
I'm wondering, shouldn't it be possible to set up your own GSM antenna in a heavily populated area and send a spam SMS to every GSM number that's in the neighbourhood
I wouldn't have any problem with that...my phone uses TDMA, so it'd be immune to such an attack.:-)
(As for GSM, though, I suspect that there's some authentication that goes back and forth between the phone and the cell tower. The worst that a third party should be able to do is jam the connection to keep it from working, maybe by spewing forth lots of noise at the appropriate frequencies.)
Yes, but they are also driving down the price of unskilled labor
There's a reason why unskilled labor is cheap. Are you suggesting that someone who stocks shelves and mops floors deserves the same pay as someone who busted his ass to gain the skills to not have to take that kind of job?
and expect employees to work unpaid overtime.
There are laws against that. I'm sure that Labor would be interested in hearing about instances such as that (they busted Best Buy a couple of years ago for overtime violations).
No, they pay their employees what the work is actually worth.
You could also mention that their employees are willing to work for the pay that Wal-Mart offers them. If they don't like what they're getting, they can no doubt get better-paying jobs elsewhere. Working at Wal-Mart (or at any other retailer, I'd imagine...speaking from my own experience at Best Buy, anyway) is like working at McDonald's...it'll put some coin in your wallet and it's a job you can land without much experience (a good thing if you're in high school or college), but it's not something most people will want to do forever.
Also, all non-Walmart stores that sell DVD players (Circuit City, Best Buy, CostCo etc.) are motivated to push NetFlix on their customers
There's already some sort of cross-promotional deal in place between Netflix and Best Buy. (This press release identifies it as a co-branding arrangement, in which Best Buy offers Netflix's service under its own name.)
I think phone spamming will never get to the height of e-mail spamming. The reason is simple: sending out bulk e-mail costs almost nothing, sending out bulk phone messages is way more expensive.
That doesn't cost you anything more than any other kind of spam, yet you've just sent a message to all of the phones in a particular exchange. Some more tweaking would loop through other exchanges, other area codes, and different service providers.
start with command line batch programming, then download ActiveState Perl or Python, then learn some Java, then you can decide whether you want to sell your soul to MS and do VBA and VC++
You forgot Cygwin...you can write in C or C++ and build stuff either against the Cygwin DLL or you can write directly to the Win32 API. The environment's not as fully featured WRT writing Windows apps as VC++ (there's no MFC for Cygwin AFAIK, and the editor and debugger that come with VC++ are nicer), but the upside is that the code you write under Cygwin stands a better chance of being portable code.
Sure, I can fire up an Apple II emulator and give those games to my kids today, but can blocky graphics and minimal sounds really sustain their interest in this day and age?
Those games kept your interest, didn't they? Maybe I'm being ridiculously idealistic, but I'd like to think that superior gameplay would trump mere eye candy. (Then again, my preferences lean more toward Tetris and mah jongg (sp?) than toward mindless FPSes and "Mortal Fighter"-type games.)
"Windows cannot find 'qbasic'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search."
(As an added bonus, the error sound on my computer is of the Soup Nazi saying, "No soup for you!")
The Win95 & Win98 CDs had QBASIC buried somewhere, but it wasn't installed by default. I don't think it was even included on the NT 4, Win2K, or WinXP CDs.
DEBUG is still included with WinXP, but I think the only time I've ever used it was to access the setup utility on the MFM hard-drive controller in an IBM PC/XT. (Come to think of it, DR DOS 6.0 is installed on that machine, so it would've been SID (?) instead of DEBUG.)
I got my first TI-99/4A when I was 11...but then that was back in 1983.:-) I ended up leaving it behind in Germany in 1988 (we had gotten an Apple IIe three years earlier and that was getting the most use), but I picked up another one a year or two ago...and got a bunch of stuff for it I never had back in the day. My first system had just 16K and a tape recorder...the system I have now has 48K, Extended BASIC, a floppy drive, and some other goodies that used to cost a fortune. I think I have no more than $100 in it now, which is what parents today would spend on a couple of mind-numbing video games for their kids. (Games are OK as an occasional diversion, but every time I walk by a demo machine in a store, there's some slack-jawed zombie of a kid staring into it, mashing buttons in a pseudo-random pattern.)
As for show sharing, with HMO (yes, an additional cost) you can share between any TiVos that are on the same TiVo account and subnet. It's considerably more restrictive than Replay's offering, but it's also going to keep TiVo from being sued into bankruptcy. Twice.
Better yet, with older (Series 1) TiVos, you can rip the video and do whatever you want with it...send it to someone over the Internet (as the original MPEG-2 or as something more space-efficient like XviD), burn it to SVCD or DVD, etc. The software to do this is getting better all the time...now it rips straight to an MPEG-2 program stream. With the right settings, you could burn directly to DVD or SVCD.
...can you imagine pinging a site with a GUI? That would be retarded...
Never used OS X's Network Utility then, have you?
Can't say that I have...then again, one of the first things I looked up for Mac OS X was how to get a command prompt. Once you have that, "ping 192.168.100.1" is only a few keystrokes away.
I disagree on the basis "fast" is subjective. For example, Athlon XP processors kick the P4 at doing bignum math [something I'm active in]. My 1.53Ghz Athlon would routinely beat out a P4 2Ghz by 25% or more.
Another consideration is that you can't buy a dual-P4 system, but dual Athlon MPs are available and not that expensive. They kick ass at video encoding. (Dual Xeons might well be faster at this point, but I suspect that just one Xeon costs more than a pair of Athlon MPs.)
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Isn't this a contradiction? Black without is where it's at if you're really interested in the flavor of the coffee.
In other news, Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Whatever. (Hell, the only machine I have that's equipped for USB 2 right now is a crusty old beige Power Mac G3. I wanted to put in a USB/FireWire combo card, but the only ones out now are USB2/FireWire. The keyboard and mouse ports on my KVM switch connect to a USB port through a PS/2-to-USB converter. It's cheaper than a PS/2-to-ADB converter. FireWire is for the DVD burner that's shared with some other machines...for devices that need consistent high-speed throughput, FireWire's where it's at.)
Cool...looks like the only thing it doesn't do is convert files from one format to another (like mplayer (on Linux) does), but it looks like there's other stuff (like video capture) in there that could be useful.
In a strict sense, you are correct...the Earth is of finite size, there is an upper limit on farmable land (theoretically, it's the entire land area, but in practice it's a fair bit less ATM), etc. What the OP is challenging is the notion of the zero-sum game--the notion that for me to be well off, somebody else must be in the poorhouse. It discounts the idea that we might use what we know to make things better for everybody. To paraphrase a talk-show host who shall remain nameless, a fair number of the problems the world faces are not the result of an unequal distribution of wealth, but are the result of an unequal distribution of capitalism.
Better yet, use Windows Media Player 6.4. Even after you "upgrade" to later versions, it's still there...even on this WinXP SP1 box I'm using right now. It plays all of the same stuff that the later versions play (at least I haven't found anything that wouldn't play), the interface is much less obnoxious, and it doesn't "phone home" every time you start it up. You should be able to find it as c:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe. Use right-click and "Open With..." to associate media files with it instead of wmplayer.exe.
Discovery Wings has been running some stuff on the X-planes lately...IIRC, the X-15 topped 300k feet on some of its flights. Several pilots got their astronaut wings while flying the X-15...it generally flew much higher than the SR-71 (which normally went to somewhere around 80-100k feet).
One solution to that problem would be an electric oil pump that keeps oil circulating whenever the ignition is on. (The oil pump is usually driven by a shaft extending down from the distributor, which is driven by the camshaft.) Do any of the current hybrids do this?
Considering the state of public "education" today, I wouldn't be so quick to make that assumption.
Speak for yourself. There were a bunch of different BASICs I ran across back in the day (Color and Extended Color BASIC, TI BASIC, Atari BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, Integer BASIC), but QBASIC wasn't one of them. First time I ran across that would've been in the mid-to-late 90s, where it was buried on the Win9x install CDs.
When left-wing gun-grabbing senators start supporting something I believe in I always have to re-evaluate my belief.
Then again, it's been said that even a broken watch is right twice a day...
If you were going to call the situation "Pythonesque," I figured you would've compared $CO to the Black Knight or something similar.
(Prediction: Big Blue will 0wn their dumb asses, at which point Darl what's-his-face will call it a "draw." (What the hell kind of name is "Darl" anyway? Did they mean to type in "Carl", but slip up?))
I wouldn't have any problem with that...my phone uses TDMA, so it'd be immune to such an attack. :-)
(As for GSM, though, I suspect that there's some authentication that goes back and forth between the phone and the cell tower. The worst that a third party should be able to do is jam the connection to keep it from working, maybe by spewing forth lots of noise at the appropriate frequencies.)
There's a reason why unskilled labor is cheap. Are you suggesting that someone who stocks shelves and mops floors deserves the same pay as someone who busted his ass to gain the skills to not have to take that kind of job?
There are laws against that. I'm sure that Labor would be interested in hearing about instances such as that (they busted Best Buy a couple of years ago for overtime violations).
You could also mention that their employees are willing to work for the pay that Wal-Mart offers them. If they don't like what they're getting, they can no doubt get better-paying jobs elsewhere. Working at Wal-Mart (or at any other retailer, I'd imagine...speaking from my own experience at Best Buy, anyway) is like working at McDonald's...it'll put some coin in your wallet and it's a job you can land without much experience (a good thing if you're in high school or college), but it's not something most people will want to do forever.
There's already some sort of cross-promotional deal in place between Netflix and Best Buy. (This press release identifies it as a co-branding arrangement, in which Best Buy offers Netflix's service under its own name.)
It isn't if you don't grok Perl. :-) I tend to stick with what I know.
That's no big loss for the average spammer, given that he doesn't have one to lose...
How do you figure that's the case?
#!/bin/sh
donei=0
while [ $i -lt 10000 ]
do
That doesn't cost you anything more than any other kind of spam, yet you've just sent a message to all of the phones in a particular exchange. Some more tweaking would loop through other exchanges, other area codes, and different service providers.
You forgot Cygwin...you can write in C or C++ and build stuff either against the Cygwin DLL or you can write directly to the Win32 API. The environment's not as fully featured WRT writing Windows apps as VC++ (there's no MFC for Cygwin AFAIK, and the editor and debugger that come with VC++ are nicer), but the upside is that the code you write under Cygwin stands a better chance of being portable code.
Those games kept your interest, didn't they? Maybe I'm being ridiculously idealistic, but I'd like to think that superior gameplay would trump mere eye candy. (Then again, my preferences lean more toward Tetris and mah jongg (sp?) than toward mindless FPSes and "Mortal Fighter"-type games.)
"Windows cannot find 'qbasic'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search."
(As an added bonus, the error sound on my computer is of the Soup Nazi saying, "No soup for you!")
The Win95 & Win98 CDs had QBASIC buried somewhere, but it wasn't installed by default. I don't think it was even included on the NT 4, Win2K, or WinXP CDs.
DEBUG is still included with WinXP, but I think the only time I've ever used it was to access the setup utility on the MFM hard-drive controller in an IBM PC/XT. (Come to think of it, DR DOS 6.0 is installed on that machine, so it would've been SID (?) instead of DEBUG.)
Ridiculously easy.
I got my first TI-99/4A when I was 11...but then that was back in 1983. :-) I ended up leaving it behind in Germany in 1988 (we had gotten an Apple IIe three years earlier and that was getting the most use), but I picked up another one a year or two ago...and got a bunch of stuff for it I never had back in the day. My first system had just 16K and a tape recorder...the system I have now has 48K, Extended BASIC, a floppy drive, and some other goodies that used to cost a fortune. I think I have no more than $100 in it now, which is what parents today would spend on a couple of mind-numbing video games for their kids. (Games are OK as an occasional diversion, but every time I walk by a demo machine in a store, there's some slack-jawed zombie of a kid staring into it, mashing buttons in a pseudo-random pattern.)
Better yet, with older (Series 1) TiVos, you can rip the video and do whatever you want with it...send it to someone over the Internet (as the original MPEG-2 or as something more space-efficient like XviD), burn it to SVCD or DVD, etc. The software to do this is getting better all the time...now it rips straight to an MPEG-2 program stream. With the right settings, you could burn directly to DVD or SVCD.
Can't say that I have...then again, one of the first things I looked up for Mac OS X was how to get a command prompt. Once you have that, "ping 192.168.100.1" is only a few keystrokes away.
Another consideration is that you can't buy a dual-P4 system, but dual Athlon MPs are available and not that expensive. They kick ass at video encoding. (Dual Xeons might well be faster at this point, but I suspect that just one Xeon costs more than a pair of Athlon MPs.)