.....when you were never anything but a wholly owned, pre-fab boy-band to begin with?
Re:has the targeted demographic really changed?
on
Attack of the Clones
·
· Score: 2, Funny
"I *made* a light saber when I was 9 (well, OK, it wasn't a light saber, it was a fluourescent light tube, and I didn't make it so much as "got it from the garage")."
Bah! I made a REAL light saber!
Of course I was a hopeless clod with it.
But my life is now much more sedate since I chopped off an arm and both legs with it.
At least I didn't bleed out. Instant light saber cauterization's good stuff!
And if only I'd remembered to turn if off before I put it away.
Ah well. Who wants to have the ability to sire kids anyhow?
It irks me that people try to pass off something whose costs they've hidden (in rent, etc) as "free".
Like my apartment. The only utilities I pay for are electricity and telephone.
I don't pay for separate heat (but the HVAC is electric and hooked to my meter).
I don't pay for hot water (but the cost for the water is folded into my bill, and heated electrically).
I don't pay for gas (electric stove).
Basements DO have drawbacks though.
on
Home Server Rooms?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
One thing to find out BEFORE you begin mounting expensive electronic equipment down in your nice, cool basement is:
HOW PRONE ARE YOU TO FLOODING?
My parents place was in a well developed subdivision with one decent power drop and one shitty one. Guess which one they were on?
So every time they'd get a bit of rain, BOOM. Out would go the power in their place, and every place down the right-hand side of the block. While our next door neighbors off to the left (and down the left side of the block (we were at the end of a cul-de-sac) had power.
Consequently, if this happened in the middle of the night, they'd take on 3-4 feet of water.
If you're in an area that has no flooding problems, you're set. You can drop your setup down in the basement.
If you live in an area that's flood prone, then take the extra time and money to rig the server room on the main floor.
Have a cold-air return in the floor (or low on the wall) blowing directly into the equipment bay. Then (assuming you're in a one story home), have a ceiling ventilation fan above the rack.
You can find a lot of HVAC supplies to improve your climate control here. Look particularly closely at the duct fans.
"What I'm trying to say is that even knowing the exact file format you won't be able to write an application that opens/renders correctly 99.99% of the office documents, because of the horribly complex dependancy to a lot of "operating system" functions/calls/features."
It'll still allow for better interoperability than what exists now in most cases.
Does Linux NEED another office suite? We already have a plethora of them.
Why force Microsoft to build a product they don't want? You KNOW they're not going to put the effort into making it a quality product.
Lord knows that even when they DO invest some effort that the products can rarely be referred to as "quality"
Rather, have them open up the specs on the file formats they use. This way we insure cross-platform interoperability without forcing Microsoft to develop on (and probably screw up on) another platform.
Microsoft is relieved of the onus of development.
Competitors benefit by being able to handle ALL Microsoft filetypes AND offer this on non-MS platforms.
Everything interoperates
Why they don't specify opening of various file formats (like MS Office documents) for cross-platform compatibility.
This would be much more beneficial to competition and probably more desireable to all involved than MS Office for Linux.
This way, MS could go their own way and do whatever the hell they like with their OS, and other platforms would be able to interoperate with fewer problems.
I personally have had many transactions thru PAYPAL as both a buyer & seller.
I have had 1 bad transaction.
The situation was resolved to their satisfaction but not to mine. I still accept PAYPAL payments but I would not recommend it.
On March 22 I sent a person in Canada $190 payment for battletech items. This is someone I had dealt with a few times previously & had no problems with. Payment was never sent via PAYPAL before tho.
Well he received the payment & tried to withdraw it from his paypal account. He was charged a $20 currency transfer fee (by PAYPAL). & the money never made it to his canadian bank account & was bounced back to his PAYPAL account 7 days later less the transfer fee. $170 remain.
Paypal was contacted & all the necessary info was verified. He then tried to withdraw the money again to his bank account. He was again charged a $20 currency transfer fee & again it bounced back to his PAYPAL account less the $20.
$150 remained So now quite upset he contacted PAYPAL a 3rd time. All the information necessary to withdraw the money was verified with PAYPAL a 3rd time. He then tried to withdraw the money again to his bank account. He was again charged a $20 currency transfer fee & again it bounced back to his PAYPAL account less the $20. $130 remained.
After the 2nd attempt I was also contacting PAYPAL to find out what was going on. The standard reply via email was given. Or the "he needs to contact us to straighten this out" via phone. We were both trying to get the situation resolved via phone & emails. It was our conclusion that nothing had changed since day 1.
He still was unable to get the money out of PAYPAL. We also found out he was unable to do anything else with the funds. He could not transfer them or return them to me. He was not about to try & withdraw them again. So after more than 1 months time I filed a claim to try & recover the funds. Which again took more than a month. In short on May 30th I received the email below.
Subject: Resolution of Buyer Complaint Case #53104 (KMM10989963C0KM)
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 14:24:04 -0700 From: "complaint-response@paypal.com"
To: Ed Karl
Dear PayPal User, PayPal has concluded the investigation of your Buyer Complaint. As our policy states, we conducted this investigation on a best effort basis and made no guarantee of funds recovery.
Our investigation has revealed that the seller is at fault. We are pleased to inform you that we were able to recover funds from the sellers account. Your account has been credited $128.35. Please allow up to 5 days to see the adjustment on your account. This amount is the maximum we were able to recover. We value your business and regret that you have had this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, we recommend that you read our Security Tips on our website located at:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/f ra ud-prevention-outside
Sincerely, Craig
Complaint Resolution Department
So out of $190 sent I received $128.15 back. The problem? The person I sent it to did not get the other $61.85. PAYPAL has it & is refusing to part with it.
Basically they are telling me someone who could not do anything with the money is resposible for the remaining amount. The only funds not recovered are for Currency transfres Fees where the currency transfers never occurred.
Why I can't get the rest of the funds back?
Because the funds were not in the account of the person I sent them to. But they were withdrawn for services that were never performed. & not only that but PAYPAL was contacted to verify the necessary info on the 2nd & 3rd try. PAYPAL funds were sent to a PAYPAL account which means the funds are subject to PAYPAL restrictions.
Read the first paragraph of the copied email.
What should I have done differently?
If I had sent the funds I sent to be withdrawn from a credit card (or check card) I would have had the recourse to have the CC co reverse the charge in full.
Other info I have learned. NEVER LEAVE ANY MONEY IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT! Just 1 complaint locks up the account & you do not get to do anything until they decide you can. In the meantime any funds sent to your account will be returned with a notice that the account is frozen. This may take MONTHS!
Why have I decided on PROPAY?
http://www.propay.com
PROPAY is a credit card processing company, not a money transfer company like PAYPAL. Only the seller needs to be a PROPAY member. PROPAY can be used to for face to face personal transactions. (garage sales, conventions, etc) PROPAY can be used with PALM & other forms of PDAs PROPAY will very shortly have a setup similar to PAYPAL's Web accept feature.
In summary; PAYPAL has $61.85 for services that were not performed. PAYPAL refuses resposibility for the $61.85 PAYPAL acknowledges that he was not signed up properly to withdraw or do anything with the funds in his account but he was signed up enough for them to Charge him 3 times & deduct $20 each time. PAYPAL refuses to do anything further to recover the funds
Other info. PAYPAL is unable to get a BBB seal of approval do to the amount of complaints against them.
My story is minor compaired to some. Do a web search under "PAYPAL COMPLAINTS" You will be surprised at how much you find. I used http://www.dogpile.com for this search. (dogpile searches thru 40 search engines including all the big ones.)
Also interesting to note, a few days after this page went up, PayPal yanked service on the W3 storefront they'd been providing for this individual.
And now he will no longer accept PayPal transactions.
Unfortunate, but very necessary to protect himself and his customers.
Tom's tests showed the CPU melting in just a few seconds, so your monitoring software would do nothing to help you in that case.
But Tom was testing on a system that DID NOT SUPPORT PowerNow. Yes. It had support for reading the thermal diode. But, IIRC, simple support for reading the diode doesn't equate to PowerNow support.
So yeah. If you run on an older system without PowerNow, it's the same as running an Athlon without a thermistor.
On a setup that actually supports the thermistor, the system will shut down in time.
Question: Is this just a benchmark-boosting hack or does it actually improve the frame rate while playing the game?
Answer: It's a benchmark boosting hack. The hooks in the drivers result in lower overall image quality. So the ATI card isn't performing the same tasks and manufacturing the same image as an nVidia, 3dfx, PowerVR, etc card.
It DOES boost framerate in-game. However, it's achieved through the aforementioned reduction in image quality. Not through actual optimization of the API or the a particular rendering engine.
It's akin to the difference running two identical systems, one on High Quality, and the other on Standard Quality.
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I like the purist idea of everything being open, a lot of money HAS been sunk into development of this code. And not just by the public.
I'd say give the university a couple years to shop the discovery around to try and recoup some of the money that went into the project.
Then, when the grace period expires, the original source code would be BSD'ed or GPL'ed or both, and released.
.....when you were never anything but a wholly owned, pre-fab boy-band to begin with?
"I *made* a light saber when I was 9 (well, OK, it wasn't a light saber, it was a fluourescent light tube, and I didn't make it so much as "got it from the garage")."
Bah! I made a REAL light saber!
Of course I was a hopeless clod with it.
But my life is now much more sedate since I chopped off an arm and both legs with it.
At least I didn't bleed out. Instant light saber cauterization's good stuff!
And if only I'd remembered to turn if off before I put it away.
Ah well. Who wants to have the ability to sire kids anyhow?
There's two days of the year my entire family gets together.
Thanksgiving.
Christmas Eve.
I specifically request those days off.
I'm more than happy to work on Christmas Day, New Years Eve, etc. Especially since I collect time and a half for it!
I don't drink, and don't do the bar/party scene. So I have lots of free time.
No offense but TANSTAAFL.
It irks me that people try to pass off something whose costs they've hidden (in rent, etc) as "free".
Like my apartment. The only utilities I pay for are electricity and telephone.
I don't pay for separate heat (but the HVAC is electric and hooked to my meter).
I don't pay for hot water (but the cost for the water is folded into my bill, and heated electrically).
I don't pay for gas (electric stove).
One thing to find out BEFORE you begin mounting expensive electronic equipment down in your nice, cool basement is:
HOW PRONE ARE YOU TO FLOODING?
My parents place was in a well developed subdivision with one decent power drop and one shitty one. Guess which one they were on?
So every time they'd get a bit of rain, BOOM. Out would go the power in their place, and every place down the right-hand side of the block. While our next door neighbors off to the left (and down the left side of the block (we were at the end of a cul-de-sac) had power.
Consequently, if this happened in the middle of the night, they'd take on 3-4 feet of water.
If you're in an area that has no flooding problems, you're set. You can drop your setup down in the basement.
If you live in an area that's flood prone, then take the extra time and money to rig the server room on the main floor.
Have a cold-air return in the floor (or low on the wall) blowing directly into the equipment bay. Then (assuming you're in a one story home), have a ceiling ventilation fan above the rack.
You can find a lot of HVAC supplies to improve your climate control here. Look particularly closely at the duct fans.
"What I'm trying to say is that even knowing the exact file format you won't be able to write an application that opens/renders correctly 99.99% of the office documents, because of the horribly complex dependancy to a lot of "operating system" functions/calls/features."
It'll still allow for better interoperability than what exists now in most cases.
And that is? NONE.
Does Linux NEED another office suite? We already have a plethora of them.
Why force Microsoft to build a product they don't want? You KNOW they're not going to put the effort into making it a quality product.
Lord knows that even when they DO invest some effort that the products can rarely be referred to as "quality"
Rather, have them open up the specs on the file formats they use. This way we insure cross-platform interoperability without forcing Microsoft to develop on (and probably screw up on) another platform.
Microsoft is relieved of the onus of development.
Competitors benefit by being able to handle ALL Microsoft filetypes AND offer this on non-MS platforms.
Everything interoperates
A win, win, win scenario.
Why they don't specify opening of various file formats (like MS Office documents) for cross-platform compatibility.
This would be much more beneficial to competition and probably more desireable to all involved than MS Office for Linux.
This way, MS could go their own way and do whatever the hell they like with their OS, and other platforms would be able to interoperate with fewer problems.
C'mon!
They've entrenched themselves in a monopoly.
Now the government's soloution is to further EXTEND that monopoly?
What do the THINK putting a bunch of Windows machines in school is GOING to do?
Yeah. MS takes a licensing loss.
BOO FRICKING HOO!
Like they don't lose at least that much to people who ALREADY install their products on multiple systems?
They still have primary imprint on kids at school.
Basically hooking them into the MS cycle of endless bugfixes re-dressed into expensive upgrades.
I say, stay in school.
You're about as likely to see this system in your time in, as you are to get struck by lightning AND win the lottery.
Look at the crap that passes for it on some of these "you must use BrowserXYZ" to view this site" sites.
;)
The guy didn't make the PayPal payment from a credit card though.
He had a cash reserve in his PayPal account.
Here's a nice outline of why PayPal's implementation is NOT very conducive to regular transactions.
http://www.gamers-union.com/paypal.html
Also interesting to note, a few days after this page went up, PayPal yanked service on the W3 storefront they'd been providing for this individual.
And now he will no longer accept PayPal transactions.
Unfortunate, but very necessary to protect himself and his customers.
How much plaintext is that?
Enough to store the Library of Congress in a single file?
I'm sending your agent the bill for the monitor I blew out after I spewed Coke reading that Adequacy article!
Too funny man.
Tom's shows what happens if you use any Athlon
with any currently available motherboard.
While it's correct, it's like griping about no RDRAM support on an Athlon board. The feature isn't supported by the motherboard yet. End of story.
The AMD video shows what happens when you use an Athlon with a thermistor in motherboard that has the Power Now thermistor support..
And while it's also correct, it's basically vaporware until such a board debuts.
But Tom was testing on a system that DID NOT SUPPORT PowerNow. Yes. It had support for reading the thermal diode. But, IIRC, simple support for reading the diode doesn't equate to PowerNow support.
So yeah. If you run on an older system without PowerNow, it's the same as running an Athlon without a thermistor.
On a setup that actually supports the thermistor, the system will shut down in time.
Actually, it's not a "better" experience.
Boosting framerates by lowering image quality is NOT a "better" experience.
And it remains to be seen wether or not their drivers DO fudge for 3dMark.
Question: Is this just a benchmark-boosting hack or does it actually improve the frame rate while playing the game?
Answer: It's a benchmark boosting hack. The hooks in the drivers result in lower overall image quality. So the ATI card isn't performing the same tasks and manufacturing the same image as an nVidia, 3dfx, PowerVR, etc card.
It DOES boost framerate in-game. However, it's achieved through the aforementioned reduction in image quality. Not through actual optimization of the API or the a particular rendering engine.
It's akin to the difference running two identical systems, one on High Quality, and the other on Standard Quality.
I used to suffer the same thing.
Basically I just kept playing for a really long time till I stopped throwing up.
Still can't watch other people play (and can't play with 3D glasses), but I can play FPS without any problems now.
No. They have a SPECIFIC choice.
They have neither MORE, nor BETTER choices.
This is the problem with WMA. It's platform specific.
It's nothing a few hundred megatons in the right places couldn't cure.....