This is where I confirm that my career path is not computers...
I like to hack audio equipment. Most of the stuff I own (quite a bit by now) I've at least pried open to see the insides, a lot of I've fixed, and some of it I deliberately bought "broken" or "as-is" and had a grand time fixing. And I also do occasional sound at a local folk club, where I've put a fair amount of work into fixing things, coming up with new "standard" settings, and there's still a password-protected box back in the amp rack I need to take off the protective panel, break security, and see if I can tweak anything better there.
Yup, that's definitely "hacker" behavior. I was a better than average software developer, but it was never quite the obsession that audio is...
OK, we've got various high-tech frame materials, clipless pedals, gel-cushion seats, and digital computers.
But most of us are still using century-old drive chain and derailleur shifting technology. Because it's still the most reliable and effective system, I suppose.
"the spammers must have taken a gamble that enough people would read the subject and deem it worth looking at"
A lot of spam works that way. I get stuff headed "Re: your account", "Credit Card Overdue", etc. Spammers accept incredibly low response rates, because sending is so cheap. So the chances are that they're going to have some header you really don't want to filter.
The odds are almost good enough that perhaps someday they'll randomly send me (and many other people) a header with my own credit card number, just by blind chance.
Looks like the $250 model will do live analog recording... perfect!
The whole reason I bought an MD recorder back in 1999 was so I could record things... rehearsals, shows, etc. And compared to MP3 the ATRAC compression is pretty clean; I've made a few CDs from MD-recorded things and not been bothered by any artifacts or loss of quality (yes there's probably a loss, but nothing I really noticed).
A pocket-sized device which does the same thing with even higher quality would be pretty cool. I'm not interested in hauling my laptop around to random shows.
You all are missing the point of this new Segway-based robot.
If you don't already look suffiently dorky riding around on a Segway, now you can have a matching robot servant to open doors so you don't have to EVER dismount.;););)
I'm a big fan of the Fingerworks products. It's a little weird to type on, but the mousing and gesturing is wonderful.
And it supports Linux, even to the point of having a set of desktop-switch gestures and Emacs shortcut gestures. The customization software runs under Linux, too.
I get nice fresh Earl Grey from my local food coop, loose of course.
And the best, the only, the ONE TRUE WAY to brew tea is with a coffee press. The local Chinese bakery & tea shop does it this way, and it makes much better tea than anything else I've ever used.
(Bodum's website is at http://www.bodum.com, if you're interested in seeing a most heinously Microsoft-centric mess)
McD's has been looking to change image anyway
on
McDonalds to go Wireless?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Over the past few years McDonald's has tried one failed product/campaign after another, trying to lure adults back.
WiFi seems like a good attempt along those lines, although paying per-hour seems overly complicated. They don't sell the playland per hour, do they?
A lot of people here bitching about cell phones are probably those who have fairly regular locations (normal office hours, then home).
I do stagehand work, among other things. Most stagehands around here carry cellphones, and that's the primary contact for the union business agent (BA). In this case it's important to be reachable, and the BA rarely wastes one's time on the phone anyway.
I'd much rather be able to be anywhere - home, at another gig, downtown in a tea shop, etc. than have to be constantly checking my messages at home. I suppose they had methods before telephones became common, but I have better things to do than drop by the union hall every morning to see if there's work.
OK, it's not especially geeky, although I could cite a recent Simpsons reference if necessary.
Leo Fender probably didn't 100% invent the bass guitar, but probably is close enough in so many essential details. The first Fender "Precision" bass guitars were meant to make road gigs easier, and were also designed to be played by a guitarist doubling as a "bass" player. The earlier models (before mid 60's) had a "finger rest" so that the fingerpicking guitarist could play a bass line with his thumb - the finger rest eventually migrated to a new position and became the "thumb rest".
Fender also didn't really invent guitar amps, but the various Fender models are still a standard. Basically they just took standard designs out of the RCA applications books, put them in a really heavy duty box, and rock music as we know it today evolved around those amplifiers.
Back a long time ago when those little b&w screens were state-of-the-art there was a company which built portable Macintoshes. The only problem was that they couldn't get a license to make their own ROMs with the BIOS, so if you wanted one of these portables you had to pry the ROMs out of your genuiwine Mac and have them installed in the portable.
I've no idea if the same issues apply today, but it's an interesting possibility.
I've got a Newton 100, back from the dark old days* before even the 120.
I got a fair amount of use of the the 100, despite its slow, slow, slow speed. I tried to use the handwriting recognition and eventually obtained Graffiti, which was cool but also slow (I'd take notes as secretary at a board meeting and have to wait for my pen strokes to be interpreted and appear on the screen). Originally I was hoping to use the Newton as a handheld (lying in the backyard hammock) way to access a local community system, but these days it just gets used to occasionally reprogram the modems on said system.
Now I'm keeping the Newt in "long term storage" mode, with even the backup battery out and a backup living on a flash card for when I actually need to use it. As a youngster I remember being fascinated by an old mechanical adder in my Dad's top dresser drawer; I want the Newt to someday take that duty in my currently-hypothetical family.
*A year ago, when I was looking for a good laptop on which to run Linux, I happened to get a catalog from the very same MacMall where I'd bought my Newton many years ago. I ended up buying an iBook, a decision I've never regretted.
OK, so at the moment it's claimed that Cat5 is cheaper than 1/4" plug guitar cords.
But hey, how long will it take Monster Cable to come out with an expensive "audiophile" and/or "guitar optimized"/"jazz optimized"/"bass optimized"/etc Cat5 cable to sell in the music stores? And how much longer before the guitar store zombies start adding "oh yeah dude my solos sound *so* much better with this cable yeah" to their spiel?
I actually spotted a Monster modem cable in the store - a 6-foot telephone cable which promised to improve my dial-up connections! Sheesh.
What I see here is pretty much everybody is still working on some clever new way of combining a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen, so as to attract the Great Unwashed.
Bleah.
The reason the bulk of the public aren't that into computers is that the interface is still locked up in that one box, behind that one keyboard. Sort of like those universal all-in-one wonder tools, which take forever to reconfigure from saw mode to drill press mode. Those tools can be nice, but most people would rather just get a few discrete tools which do a better job in their limited functions.
Further, most people work in the world of physical objects, not in the virtual world of computers.
What I'd like to see is some extra hardware (especially input hardware) which can be mounted and used anywhere. So instead of a "kitchen PC" with a space-saving screen and a somewhat spill-proof keyboard, maybe a button-board mounted on the cabinet doors tied to content which could be displayed on a TV (which can be seamlessly used to watch the morning infotainment as well). Same deal in other parts of the house. I'm probably not going to sit down to write a letter to my Senator on the workshop display, so instead I want more durability coupled with simpler access and controls. In other words, most of the time I want to just whack a switch with my elbow because my hands are dirty.
If I had to use a mouse to turn the bathroom light on I'd probably end up killing myself. Or just making a mess late every night, and having somebody else kill me.
I didn't like the ending of Evangelian much either. But hey, most great anime series (Escaflowne, Key the Metal Idol) have rather difficult endings. Possibly it's a cultural difference, like how Americans always want happy endings.
Still, aside from the ending Evangelian is a VERY cool series, with some incredible plot twists.
When I saw one of these a couple months ago about repainting the inside to simulate a tiBook, I was disappointed at the lack of imagination.
What I'd like to do (yes, I do have an iBook!) is remove the white paint, then get an artist to paint some lurid, pinball-backglass-style cartoon art to replace the white. Maybe Bill Gates getting his ass kicked by Linux Lass (yes, I do run Linux!)
Yeah, the Macintosh issue. Still no support for OS X, and last time I checked they were asking for people to help complete the partial port to X.
Which sucks, because I recently got an iBook and love OS X (this is my first Mac and so I don't have a bunch of OS 9 apps to worry about) but really really really want StarOffice/Openoffice file compatibility. I've installed Linux, but it's not quite as polished as OS X on that hardware.
There are a lot of good reasons to not use Word files. Trouble is, you have to explain all that to every person you get attachments from, and you're probably the only person making such an argument.
I say hit MS where they're tender: Security. Word files are an easy conduit for viruses. Make that the point, and the only point: "I'm sorry, but due to the large number of Windows macro based viruses we discourage the use of '.doc' files. If at all possible, please use a different format when you save (Rich Text Format is an excellent choice) documents for emailing. If you just use the default Word format you risk sending viruses. Thank you!"
Bear in mind that in a couple of years a lot of us will (hopefully) switching to flat-panel screens and ditching those gargantuan high-voltage space-heating CRT monitors. I'm suprised they don't have bakelite knife switches on the sides!
I'm figuring that in a year or two when my current CRT dies I'll get a similar-sized flat panel, and then I'll be able to use my nice little antique oak letter desk as my computer station.
Anyway, I'm currently using a $50 8-foot table from Office Max, with a cheapo shelf up on a couple of blocks to hold the monitor and another cheapo shelf attached to the front edge for a lowered keyboard tray. At home I've got a kickass height-adjustable computer table, which instead is the electronics bench. The computer sits in a roll-around stand from Office Max, and I keep drilling more holes to move the shelves around as equipment changes.
Damn. I really do like the Caldera distro, mainly on the more broad implementation of keyboard shortcuts. This may seem like a dumb thing to most of you, but I *hate* it when I have to reach for the mouse (usually a trackpad on my PCs, in case you hadn't yet figured out what a weirdo I am) to get a menu item. Of course this is probably why the Caldera version of the kernel is a bit nonstandard, but getting the keyboard shortcuts is worth it for me.
Granted the Caldera KDE implementation is rather Win95 like... which I don't consider a bad thing since the MS Win9x/NT4+ user interface is extremely consistent and pretty well thought out. The irony of buying Caldera for Windows-like user interface and getting MS-like licensing isn't lost on me, however.
The best office space I can recall having was in some old management space in a local condo complex. We were a bit smaller company then, so it fit. Sure, it's a bit unprofessional to have to walk into a condo clubhouse, up the stairs, and sometimes through a party in the party room to reach the office. On the plus side, we had access to indoor pool, weight room, raquetball court, and sauna (and the locker room with showers was nice for bicycle commuting, too).
These days we're in a regular small office building, with the same loose "where it will fit" arrangement of cubicle walls. It's still not fancy, but I like it.
In general I think programmers need more interaction than with private offices. Reasonable cube layouts allow enough privacy for concentration, while making it easy to poke your head over the divider to ask a question. We made a deliberate effort to carry this over from our old offices, after looking into office spaces that had enough offices for everybody.
I've actually got my own office, though. I share it with the server rack, and I only bother to close the door when I'm changing back into by cycling clothes at the end of the day.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the sorry state of physical fitness in the US, I'd think some excuse to wave one's arm wildly would be at least slightly beneficial.
>2. Turn the device with the LED off.
>3. Drill the shit out of the LED*
4. Turn the device back on, and find out if the LED was actually part of an important circuit as well as being an indicator.
Alternate step 3: Use black electrical tape to cover the LED. Peel it back off when you're taking the eBay photos a couple years from now.
The next "Underworld" movie, silly.
Time to start making up funny nicknames like "Hawkeye" and "Trapper John" for each other.
This is where I confirm that my career path is not computers...
I like to hack audio equipment. Most of the stuff I own (quite a bit by now) I've at least pried open to see the insides, a lot of I've fixed, and some of it I deliberately bought "broken" or "as-is" and had a grand time fixing. And I also do occasional sound at a local folk club, where I've put a fair amount of work into fixing things, coming up with new "standard" settings, and there's still a password-protected box back in the amp rack I need to take off the protective panel, break security, and see if I can tweak anything better there.
Yup, that's definitely "hacker" behavior. I was a better than average software developer, but it was never quite the obsession that audio is...
OK, we've got various high-tech frame materials, clipless pedals, gel-cushion seats, and digital computers.
But most of us are still using century-old drive chain and derailleur shifting technology. Because it's still the most reliable and effective system, I suppose.
"the spammers must have taken a gamble that enough people would read the subject and deem it worth looking at"
A lot of spam works that way. I get stuff headed "Re: your account", "Credit Card Overdue", etc. Spammers accept incredibly low response rates, because sending is so cheap. So the chances are that they're going to have some header you really don't want to filter.
The odds are almost good enough that perhaps someday they'll randomly send me (and many other people) a header with my own credit card number, just by blind chance.
Looks like the $250 model will do live analog recording... perfect!
The whole reason I bought an MD recorder back in 1999 was so I could record things... rehearsals, shows, etc. And compared to MP3 the ATRAC compression is pretty clean; I've made a few CDs from MD-recorded things and not been bothered by any artifacts or loss of quality (yes there's probably a loss, but nothing I really noticed).
A pocket-sized device which does the same thing with even higher quality would be pretty cool. I'm not interested in hauling my laptop around to random shows.
You all are missing the point of this new Segway-based robot.
;) ;) ;)
If you don't already look suffiently dorky riding around on a Segway, now you can have a matching robot servant to open doors so you don't have to EVER dismount.
I'm a big fan of the Fingerworks products. It's a little weird to type on, but the mousing and gesturing is wonderful. And it supports Linux, even to the point of having a set of desktop-switch gestures and Emacs shortcut gestures. The customization software runs under Linux, too.
And the best, the only, the ONE TRUE WAY to brew tea is with a coffee press. The local Chinese bakery & tea shop does it this way, and it makes much better tea than anything else I've ever used.
(Bodum's website is at http://www.bodum.com, if you're interested in seeing a most heinously Microsoft-centric mess)
Over the past few years McDonald's has tried one failed product/campaign after another, trying to lure adults back.
WiFi seems like a good attempt along those lines, although paying per-hour seems overly complicated. They don't sell the playland per hour, do they?
A lot of people here bitching about cell phones are probably those who have fairly regular locations (normal office hours, then home).
I do stagehand work, among other things. Most stagehands around here carry cellphones, and that's the primary contact for the union business agent (BA). In this case it's important to be reachable, and the BA rarely wastes one's time on the phone anyway.
I'd much rather be able to be anywhere - home, at another gig, downtown in a tea shop, etc. than have to be constantly checking my messages at home. I suppose they had methods before telephones became common, but I have better things to do than drop by the union hall every morning to see if there's work.
OK, it's not especially geeky, although I could cite a recent Simpsons reference if necessary.
Leo Fender probably didn't 100% invent the bass guitar, but probably is close enough in so many essential details. The first Fender "Precision" bass guitars were meant to make road gigs easier, and were also designed to be played by a guitarist doubling as a "bass" player. The earlier models (before mid 60's) had a "finger rest" so that the fingerpicking guitarist could play a bass line with his thumb - the finger rest eventually migrated to a new position and became the "thumb rest".
Fender also didn't really invent guitar amps, but the various Fender models are still a standard. Basically they just took standard designs out of the RCA applications books, put them in a really heavy duty box, and rock music as we know it today evolved around those amplifiers.
Back a long time ago when those little b&w screens were state-of-the-art there was a company which built portable Macintoshes. The only problem was that they couldn't get a license to make their own ROMs with the BIOS, so if you wanted one of these portables you had to pry the ROMs out of your genuiwine Mac and have them installed in the portable.
I've no idea if the same issues apply today, but it's an interesting possibility.
I got a fair amount of use of the the 100, despite its slow, slow, slow speed. I tried to use the handwriting recognition and eventually obtained Graffiti, which was cool but also slow (I'd take notes as secretary at a board meeting and have to wait for my pen strokes to be interpreted and appear on the screen). Originally I was hoping to use the Newton as a handheld (lying in the backyard hammock) way to access a local community system, but these days it just gets used to occasionally reprogram the modems on said system.
Now I'm keeping the Newt in "long term storage" mode, with even the backup battery out and a backup living on a flash card for when I actually need to use it. As a youngster I remember being fascinated by an old mechanical adder in my Dad's top dresser drawer; I want the Newt to someday take that duty in my currently-hypothetical family.
*A year ago, when I was looking for a good laptop on which to run Linux, I happened to get a catalog from the very same MacMall where I'd bought my Newton many years ago. I ended up buying an iBook, a decision I've never regretted.
OK, so at the moment it's claimed that Cat5 is cheaper than 1/4" plug guitar cords.
But hey, how long will it take Monster Cable to come out with an expensive "audiophile" and/or "guitar optimized"/"jazz optimized"/"bass optimized"/etc Cat5 cable to sell in the music stores? And how much longer before the guitar store zombies start adding "oh yeah dude my solos sound *so* much better with this cable yeah" to their spiel?
I actually spotted a Monster modem cable in the store - a 6-foot telephone cable which promised to improve my dial-up connections! Sheesh.
What I see here is pretty much everybody is still working on some clever new way of combining a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen, so as to attract the Great Unwashed.
Bleah.
The reason the bulk of the public aren't that into computers is that the interface is still locked up in that one box, behind that one keyboard. Sort of like those universal all-in-one wonder tools, which take forever to reconfigure from saw mode to drill press mode. Those tools can be nice, but most people would rather just get a few discrete tools which do a better job in their limited functions.
Further, most people work in the world of physical objects, not in the virtual world of computers.
What I'd like to see is some extra hardware (especially input hardware) which can be mounted and used anywhere. So instead of a "kitchen PC" with a space-saving screen and a somewhat spill-proof keyboard, maybe a button-board mounted on the cabinet doors tied to content which could be displayed on a TV (which can be seamlessly used to watch the morning infotainment as well). Same deal in other parts of the house. I'm probably not going to sit down to write a letter to my Senator on the workshop display, so instead I want more durability coupled with simpler access and controls. In other words, most of the time I want to just whack a switch with my elbow because my hands are dirty.
If I had to use a mouse to turn the bathroom light on I'd probably end up killing myself. Or just making a mess late every night, and having somebody else kill me.
I didn't like the ending of Evangelian much either. But hey, most great anime series (Escaflowne, Key the Metal Idol) have rather difficult endings. Possibly it's a cultural difference, like how Americans always want happy endings.
Still, aside from the ending Evangelian is a VERY cool series, with some incredible plot twists.
What I'd like to do (yes, I do have an iBook!) is remove the white paint, then get an artist to paint some lurid, pinball-backglass-style cartoon art to replace the white. Maybe Bill Gates getting his ass kicked by Linux Lass (yes, I do run Linux!)
Yeah, the Macintosh issue. Still no support for OS X, and last time I checked they were asking for people to help complete the partial port to X.
Which sucks, because I recently got an iBook and love OS X (this is my first Mac and so I don't have a bunch of OS 9 apps to worry about) but really really really want StarOffice/Openoffice file compatibility. I've installed Linux, but it's not quite as polished as OS X on that hardware.
There are a lot of good reasons to not use Word files. Trouble is, you have to explain all that to every person you get attachments from, and you're probably the only person making such an argument.
I say hit MS where they're tender: Security. Word files are an easy conduit for viruses. Make that the point, and the only point: "I'm sorry, but due to the large number of Windows macro based viruses we discourage the use of '.doc' files. If at all possible, please use a different format when you save (Rich Text Format is an excellent choice) documents for emailing. If you just use the default Word format you risk sending viruses. Thank you!"
Bear in mind that in a couple of years a lot of us will (hopefully) switching to flat-panel screens and ditching those gargantuan high-voltage space-heating CRT monitors. I'm suprised they don't have bakelite knife switches on the sides!
I'm figuring that in a year or two when my current CRT dies I'll get a similar-sized flat panel, and then I'll be able to use my nice little antique oak letter desk as my computer station.
Anyway, I'm currently using a $50 8-foot table from Office Max, with a cheapo shelf up on a couple of blocks to hold the monitor and another cheapo shelf attached to the front edge for a lowered keyboard tray. At home I've got a kickass height-adjustable computer table, which instead is the electronics bench. The computer sits in a roll-around stand from Office Max, and I keep drilling more holes to move the shelves around as equipment changes.
Damn. I really do like the Caldera distro, mainly on the more broad implementation of keyboard shortcuts. This may seem like a dumb thing to most of you, but I *hate* it when I have to reach for the mouse (usually a trackpad on my PCs, in case you hadn't yet figured out what a weirdo I am) to get a menu item. Of course this is probably why the Caldera version of the kernel is a bit nonstandard, but getting the keyboard shortcuts is worth it for me.
Granted the Caldera KDE implementation is rather Win95 like... which I don't consider a bad thing since the MS Win9x/NT4+ user interface is extremely consistent and pretty well thought out. The irony of buying Caldera for Windows-like user interface and getting MS-like licensing isn't lost on me, however.
The best office space I can recall having was in some old management space in a local condo complex. We were a bit smaller company then, so it fit. Sure, it's a bit unprofessional to have to walk into a condo clubhouse, up the stairs, and sometimes through a party in the party room to reach the office. On the plus side, we had access to indoor pool, weight room, raquetball court, and sauna (and the locker room with showers was nice for bicycle commuting, too).
These days we're in a regular small office building, with the same loose "where it will fit" arrangement of cubicle walls. It's still not fancy, but I like it.
In general I think programmers need more interaction than with private offices. Reasonable cube layouts allow enough privacy for concentration, while making it easy to poke your head over the divider to ask a question. We made a deliberate effort to carry this over from our old offices, after looking into office spaces that had enough offices for everybody.
I've actually got my own office, though. I share it with the server rack, and I only bother to close the door when I'm changing back into by cycling clothes at the end of the day.