I was going to do some modding here today but I'll forego that for some good advice:
don't do this.
Years ago I got a cel phone at the same time as a friend of mine. Back in those days, the codes came with the phones if you read all the literature. I found my way into the programming area and, among other things, managed to permanently screw up my low battery shutdown point. I was able to change my number to a friend's number, and answer his phone calls.
When I mentioned this to my service provider, they said "you must not have done it very many times..." The reason was, when they get five (5) incorrect ESN/Phone Number match-ups, they deactivate your phone by it's ESN, and then you have to take it back to them to get it turned back on. So just don't. (and no, you can't change your ESN... at least not unless you own a specific model of Motorola phone for which Motorola got fined heavily by the FCC for producing it in that modifyable way)
Does anyone remember "rescompare" for the older macs? Same idea, you'd give it two apps and turn it loose, and it would isolate the differences for you to browse, and had the option to gennerate a self-contained executable patch file that would turn one of the images into the other. VERY handy tool for generating updates, and overall a very smart app to be able to find inserted and removed blocks of code cleanly without biting more than needed to be chewed, so to speak.
Version 2.6 was (c) 1989-1996, so it's been around quite a long time too.
They seem to all be made poorly lately. My wallstreet powerbook's adapter was recalled. The first run of ibook adapters (frequently referred to as "UFOs") had issues with their AC cord and were quickly replaced with the new white bricks, and now this recall from IBM? You'd think they'd put a little more effort into safety testing for something like this.
They make these packs as small and light as possible, yet they have to be able to pump up the laptop's battery very rapidly, usually while the laptop is also drawing power from the pack. Without careful safety testing, some ppl are gonna get their houses burnt down if this recklessness keeps up.
A friend of mine almost managed to burn down his house yesterday by way of a laptop pack setting the electrical outlet on fire while he was at work. While that was likely more caused by a site wiring fault than by the pack or computer, it really underscores just how much juice some of these packs draw, and how easy it is for a minor design flaw to prove disastrous.
That's been going on for several years now. It seemed to start somewhere around "windows 95 - it's mac os 7.5" MS just tends to lag a few years behind. When did Apple intro their Pro Mouse? Couple years ago, so MS is right on schedule I suppose.
MS really needs to come up with a truly original idea that is at least marginally successful. This is getting pathetic.
I've been using an older iPod (5gb) for over a year now to transport data between home and work, and although I initially didn't plan on using the iPod much for music, I now have an iTrip (fm transmitter) on it and listen to it almost every day on the way to/from work. It's a fast data transfer, has no power brick to haul around, and fits neatly in my shirt pocket. For my uses, the ~3.7gb I have free for disk space is just right.
While I'm AT work, I use a usb flash/thumb drive to help transfer information to machines I'm working on. I started out with a pair of cheap 64mb drives, which quickly got changed to a 512mb drive. Later that updated to a 1gb drive, and so far that's holding out well. Read and write speeds are slower than the iPod, but for convenience, the flash drive beats all. I keep all my service and update files/apps on the flash drive and still have a good 250mb to spare. If I have to go on-site to say... install printer drivers, I can just stash them on the flash and go. That way, no nasty surprises when I get there like "what cd? no, this machine doesn't have an internet connnection, why, is that important?" Note that while USB 2.0 is touted as up to 10x faster, in reality it's only about 2-3 times the speed, and requires in most cases to be plugged directly into the computer. USB 2.0 drives will trigger a "insufficient USB power" warning if plugged into a keyboard or other unpowered USB hub, which does prove inconvenient at times. Still, all the larger USB drives are 2.0 now. I personally recommend the SanDisk Cruzer mini 1gb for it's large storage and very small size. They can be had for $150 anytime on ebay, or about $135 if you are patient. Beware of physically large (wide) flash drives, some do NOT fit into recessed USB ports. (my 512 was that way)
From what I've seen, DVD players are already fairly entrenched into the consumers' living rooms. Even if the dual layer formats were to roll out in mass today, I don't think it would make much difference. Odds are that the - and + formats will both be very slowly accepted because when it boils down to it, not a whole lot of people make their own DVD movies > 4gb. With only a limited market (and the "gee whiz" factor) there won't be much reason for them to adopt the new formats.
I'd also expect the - / + format fight to land the same way as it has in the past. iirc, -R is supported by the Macs, +R by the PCs, and from what I can see of the posts here, dual format by the linux users.;-) This will probably just carry over with the new format, though it would induce much chaos if the macs went + and the pcs went - for this next step. (maybe it's not technologically sensible to zigzag like that?)
Actually, I never happened to run across anything that describes the differences (and any specific strengths/weaknesses) of the two formats. Anyone care to cliff-note it?
I don't know a lot about how the Olympic Games work, but is there anyone that makes money off the event (besides the sponsors I mean) or is it a non-proffit event where all the sponsor cash is funnelled into the game?
If it's non-proffit, I think I'd be OK with the (admittedly agressive) tactics to pacify the sponsors, but only to a point. There needs to be some reasonable "ground rules" of just how far the IOC can go to make their sponsors happy. Telling me I can't bring a can of pepsi onto the grounds because their sponsor doesn't want that is, as everyone knows, just plain silly.
Same here, though I don't think anyone's using it besides me. I set my SSID to "call (my phone number)" to see if anyone was using it. After about two months, I checked the wap's logs and only found my MAC address in the connect list.
I was thinking of getting someone to make me a "warchalk" sign to hang on my house, so people could see there was internet access here. Then it occurred to me that the idea might be sellable to enough people to turn a buck or two. Anyone feel like a little entrepenurship?
Smelliest computer I know of is a certain run of older ibooks... something about the chemical they laquer the motherboard with, if you run the computer hot for very long it permeates the keyboard with this nasty smell that, as near as I can tell, cannot be gotten rid of short of replacing the keyboard. Fortunately, it only seems to have affected a small run of the G3 ibooks.
I don't know about laptops or these "explode/ignite if disassembled" tricks, but they DO use C4 in some instances. Take for instance the electronic warfare planes that receive and decode enemy communications - they have quite an exciting action plan if they are hit and are going down. Step 1 is a big red button that triggers a (time delayed) charge in all hard drives in the plane. Step 2 involves dumping all the equipment overboard if above water. This plan has been put to action at least once, when that US spy plane was forced to land in what was it... china? several years ago.
As for the lithium boobytraps, I doubt that would be very effective. Anyone that's prepared to open hard drives already has atmosphere-control covered, and could easily fill the recovery box with dry nitrogen instead of filtered standard atmosphere, rendering any Lithium in the drive inert when the case was removed. Straight up mechanically triggered explosives would probably be far more effective. It's not like you're going to x-ray a hard drive to get a look at the boobytrap.;-)
That's what A+, CNE, etc are for. Pay money, pass a test that actually represents your level of expertise in the field, and get a time-limited certification showing competance. What we have here though is just an obvious money grab.
Though that being said, I seriously doubt any more than 2% of the customers that come into our shop think to look for (or ask about) our technicians' certifications. Though I seriously wonder if any of the remaining 98% would know the difference between a "I paid $200 and passed a test any computer user could pass" cert and a "this took me three attempts at $150 each and six weeks of study to pass" cert.
I'd also be willing to bet 50% of the techs working at computer service shops have zero certifications. The only reason I have certs is because we can't order service parts from the manufacturers without them.
Ya I know, a 5/8 groundplane is not a very practical idea in the ghz range, though it's certainly possible. Critical tolerances at that point are well down to the 1mm and below range though, that would not be a fun project to undertake.
I want to play with http://www.rangeextender.com/224pagransy.html if I get the time someday. 24 DBI gain. I've recommended it to some of our customers, several of whom have bought one, and so far, everybody is quite pleased with them. One of these on one end (and a regular omni on the other end) will blast through building after building to get to the other base station. It's also fully weather-proof and built sturdy, unlike those pringles can jokes.
Omnidirectional coverage is a bit harder to expand. You can't really beat a 5/8 wavelength groundplane, and they're easy to make. (at lower frequencies anyway, not sure about ghz)
Not counting the ability to use amplifiers, you could think of wifi coverage as light... put a 100w lightbulb in a field at night and how far away can you be and stil read a book? Not very far probably... 30 feet maybe. Now, take that bulb and put it in a parabolic lens. Now you've got a 100w flashlight. If the flashlight is pointed your way, you'll get hundreds of feet. The better the lens and the sharper the focus, the greater your range. Come up with a more fundamental improvement (like a 100w laser?) and your range increases to a radical distance that could easily be miles. But it still doesn't help the guy standing 5 feet off to the side of the light though, he's in the dark.
Directional and omnidirectional coverage are for totally different purposes, and really can't be compared or mixed. There's no use in complaining about your omni coverage when people are making improvements in directional coverage - it's apples and oranges.
I download movies. Quite a lot actually. Most of it I glance at, or if it's a series, watch the first ep or two and chuck it because it's not anything I like. A few though I watch and really enjoy. Those are the ones I go out and buy, so I can see them at full res on my bigscreen. As it is I have four stacks of DVDs about 3ft high each, and a good chunk of that is due to my being able to "preview", or if you prefer, "try before you buy".
As for software, I don't download as much, and I have to say that the majority of things out there fall squarely into the "crap" category. (the free software often has better odds of being decent) But when I find a good app or game that I want to see more of, I support the authors and buy it. If it's shareware, I register it. If it's freeware, I send a paypal to the author. (have you paypal'd Brahm Cohen yet? I hear he's running low on pizza) I patiently await the day the RIAA/MPAA drop their BS and they (and the govt) acknowledge the right to try before you buy.
that lists all the ppl that didn't download, went out and bought, and got PISSED OFF because they found out it was CRAP and couldn't return it like they could have with most other products?
I had a//c years and years ago, 128kb RAM and a 1mhz CPU. I later replaced the socketed CPU with a "zip chip 8" 8mhz - it looked like a little black brick with pins on it, at least 2x as tall as the 65c02 processor was. Then later I went to add a 1mb memory card - which fit between the motherboard and the CPU/MMU chips. This was right under the keyboard mind you, and the height of the processor + memory card meant the keyboard no longer fit in the case.
So, take the 2" ribbon cable off, buy a 5ft ribbon cable from radio shack, move the connector blocks to the new cable, and instant detached keyboard. (possibly a first?)
That came to a sudden stop one day when I was sitting with the keyboard on my lap, with the exposed metal frame of the keyboard touching my right hand, as I brushed the dust off that was accumulating on my new color monitor with my left hand. *snap* Hmm, what was that, static on my right hand? Looked at the screen, ooo, look at all the random characters. Reboot.
To my surprise it booted up fine. Unfortunately, for every key I typed, I got that character plus three or four bonus characters. Keyboard intercept chip: $29. Only chip on the motherboard that was soldered down, too. 28 pins and CMOS (static sensitive), that was not fun to replace. But it worked fine after it got the new chip.
That, and how many of us old Apple owners can recall attaching a three position switch to their hard drive to override the write-protect notch on the 5.25" discs? I had two... one on the external floppy and one for the internal floppy.
Tried to boot it up a few years ago, but sadly, all my ~250 discs images had degraded over time and were worthless, so I donated it to the landfill. Sad...
Same here first try. Though I would say some of those are really borderline. First easy rule is anyone that says something like "it's come to our attention that your info is out of date" can be cleanly stamped "fraud". After that, I tend to think anything with grammer errors is fraud, just because if you're a business that's about to send a message to all your customers, you're gonna triple check it to make sure you don't come across as an idiot to all of them in one fell swoop. And last, I think I've actually received several of those frauds - the paypal and ebay ones in particular. The one bank fraud that said they're requiring monthly account verifications really made my laugh.
But sadly, I can really see how people could fall for these. If you're not thinking about the possibility of fraud, you might merely raise an eyebrow to some of them and click the link, thinking you're just a little confused or mis-read or mis-understood what they said.
I've also followed some of those phishing links I've been mailed, and that's actually where things usually get "unreasonable" - one ebay phish page was like a US Census Survey - there must have been 100 fields to fill in, asking for everything from driver's license number to mother's maiden name. Anyone that filled out THAT survey is about deserving of whatever grief it brings them.
Server's finally dead. Took awhile too. Impressive.
Too bad all the ones in my state are already visited. The "aerial visits disqualified" is going to make this more challenging for places that have to be visited by sea.
That's a highly effective method of driving in some cases... such as ice storms on hilly roads with lots of lights. I recall one year there being a nasty ice storm, and I was taking the main drag home. I was driving 25 in a 45 in some places, but then I got to watch the cars that passed me try to stop before sliding into the intersection at the red light, and then about the time I arrived, it was turning green and I didn't have to slow down.
I thought I was so clever... but then later I thought more about it - if a car on a cross street had ran into problems stopping, I'd have gotten some extra excitement for the day...
Only software bought by the poor consumer comes with such "we wash our hands clean" disclaimers. No halfway-intelligent business is going to contract the design of major production software that offers no guarantee of it being able to operate. Large projects may even be insured against downtime etc. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there wasn't some insurance coverage on the downtime the Times took in this incident. Being a software developer, you'd be insane not to insure something like this, and risk the lawsuit that would follow a failure.
A previous poster was saying how you take the cost of failure times the percent chance of failure, and compare that to the cost of implementing a failsafe, and if the cost is less, you skip the failsafe. That's nice, but it assumes you have unlimited cash and resources. In reality, you also have to ask yourself "if we fail, are we RUINED?" If the answer is YES, and the percent chance of failure is anything but zero, then you have to implement the failsafe, unless you can't afford that either, in which case you should not accept the contract.
Business is about survival. Managers that make stupid mistakes have the potential to destroy their business, no matter how low on the pole they are.
Well, the FCC makes it illegal to jam OTHERS radio signals. Last I checked, RFID uses somewhat low power RF transmitted by a "receiver" (gate at a store usually) to excite a resonant antenna in the RFID tag, which provides it power to momentarily transmit back to the gate. If one were to interfere with the signal being sent back to the gate, that'd be interfering with your own transmision, and although IANAL either, I'd surmise that's not illegal anymore than assulting yourself is illegal.
A bit off-topic, cel phone jammers are illegal, but are cordless phone jammers? I think when you get into the very-low-power, unregulated bands, there aren't the same stringent rules that there are for the licensed bands.
Someone needs to make an RFID jammer. A little keychain size device that jams any RFID traffic within one's personal space, rendering any RFID tags you're carrying to be effectively inert. Surely something like this should not be hard to make.
We had quite the arms-race going among our laser tag group some oh... ten or more years ago. The main fray was between me and another electronics-savvy kid named Dave. I made decoys (flashing lights, to mimic the hats, for night time play) and also took the three broad emitters from my (useless) starbase and implanted them in my pistol. (a la "the grenade") The pistol was then a fearful object... anything within 20 feet in a generouls 150 degree cone would take a hit. Excellent for when being chased - just point behind you and pull trigger while running. Of course anything beyond 20 feet was safe from the effects. Had to be careful around walls though - it was quite possible to hit onesself (via reflection) when shooting at a target that was standing by a wall. I called that a "ricochet".
Dave's weapon of choice was a true grenade.. a small ball with about ten IR leds on it, and a long run of wire to a jack that plugged into his rifle. He'd chuck the grenade (like up onto a building roof where I was standing...) and fire the rifle. The grenade would then most likely start delivering hits to anyone nearby. Thank god for helmets - those babies were hard to hit from below, though they rendered you basically deaf when you were wearing one.
All of our tech was based on the guns, since at the time we weren't capable of reproducing the low frequency pulsing that the LT targets required. (it was right about 2khz iirc) The frequency was very high tolerance at least for us back then, I'd guess now at about +/- 10 Hz. Oh, I also added a "reset" button to my rifle. It cut power to the batteries when pressed. Useful in theory for if the gun "locked up" which they sometimes did when running around with them, but in practice more useful to avoid that nasty "cool down delay" after firing for ~20 sec straight. Just tap the reset after it went into cool down, and it was ready to fire another 20 seconds.:-)
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I was going to do some modding here today but I'll forego that for some good advice:
don't do this.
Years ago I got a cel phone at the same time as a friend of mine. Back in those days, the codes came with the phones if you read all the literature. I found my way into the programming area and, among other things, managed to permanently screw up my low battery shutdown point. I was able to change my number to a friend's number, and answer his phone calls.
When I mentioned this to my service provider, they said "you must not have done it very many times..." The reason was, when they get five (5) incorrect ESN/Phone Number match-ups, they deactivate your phone by it's ESN, and then you have to take it back to them to get it turned back on. So just don't. (and no, you can't change your ESN... at least not unless you own a specific model of Motorola phone for which Motorola got fined heavily by the FCC for producing it in that modifyable way)
Does anyone remember "rescompare" for the older macs? Same idea, you'd give it two apps and turn it loose, and it would isolate the differences for you to browse, and had the option to gennerate a self-contained executable patch file that would turn one of the images into the other. VERY handy tool for generating updates, and overall a very smart app to be able to find inserted and removed blocks of code cleanly without biting more than needed to be chewed, so to speak.
Version 2.6 was (c) 1989-1996, so it's been around quite a long time too.
They seem to all be made poorly lately. My wallstreet powerbook's adapter was recalled. The first run of ibook adapters (frequently referred to as "UFOs") had issues with their AC cord and were quickly replaced with the new white bricks, and now this recall from IBM? You'd think they'd put a little more effort into safety testing for something like this.
They make these packs as small and light as possible, yet they have to be able to pump up the laptop's battery very rapidly, usually while the laptop is also drawing power from the pack. Without careful safety testing, some ppl are gonna get their houses burnt down if this recklessness keeps up.
A friend of mine almost managed to burn down his house yesterday by way of a laptop pack setting the electrical outlet on fire while he was at work. While that was likely more caused by a site wiring fault than by the pack or computer, it really underscores just how much juice some of these packs draw, and how easy it is for a minor design flaw to prove disastrous.
That's been going on for several years now. It seemed to start somewhere around "windows 95 - it's mac os 7.5" MS just tends to lag a few years behind. When did Apple intro their Pro Mouse? Couple years ago, so MS is right on schedule I suppose.
MS really needs to come up with a truly original idea that is at least marginally successful. This is getting pathetic.
I've been using an older iPod (5gb) for over a year now to transport data between home and work, and although I initially didn't plan on using the iPod much for music, I now have an iTrip (fm transmitter) on it and listen to it almost every day on the way to/from work. It's a fast data transfer, has no power brick to haul around, and fits neatly in my shirt pocket. For my uses, the ~3.7gb I have free for disk space is just right.
While I'm AT work, I use a usb flash/thumb drive to help transfer information to machines I'm working on. I started out with a pair of cheap 64mb drives, which quickly got changed to a 512mb drive. Later that updated to a 1gb drive, and so far that's holding out well. Read and write speeds are slower than the iPod, but for convenience, the flash drive beats all. I keep all my service and update files/apps on the flash drive and still have a good 250mb to spare. If I have to go on-site to say... install printer drivers, I can just stash them on the flash and go. That way, no nasty surprises when I get there like "what cd? no, this machine doesn't have an internet connnection, why, is that important?" Note that while USB 2.0 is touted as up to 10x faster, in reality it's only about 2-3 times the speed, and requires in most cases to be plugged directly into the computer. USB 2.0 drives will trigger a "insufficient USB power" warning if plugged into a keyboard or other unpowered USB hub, which does prove inconvenient at times. Still, all the larger USB drives are 2.0 now. I personally recommend the SanDisk Cruzer mini 1gb for it's large storage and very small size. They can be had for $150 anytime on ebay, or about $135 if you are patient. Beware of physically large (wide) flash drives, some do NOT fit into recessed USB ports. (my 512 was that way)
From what I've seen, DVD players are already fairly entrenched into the consumers' living rooms. Even if the dual layer formats were to roll out in mass today, I don't think it would make much difference. Odds are that the - and + formats will both be very slowly accepted because when it boils down to it, not a whole lot of people make their own DVD movies > 4gb. With only a limited market (and the "gee whiz" factor) there won't be much reason for them to adopt the new formats.
;-) This will probably just carry over with the new format, though it would induce much chaos if the macs went + and the pcs went - for this next step. (maybe it's not technologically sensible to zigzag like that?)
I'd also expect the - / + format fight to land the same way as it has in the past. iirc, -R is supported by the Macs, +R by the PCs, and from what I can see of the posts here, dual format by the linux users.
Actually, I never happened to run across anything that describes the differences (and any specific strengths/weaknesses) of the two formats. Anyone care to cliff-note it?
I don't know a lot about how the Olympic Games work, but is there anyone that makes money off the event (besides the sponsors I mean) or is it a non-proffit event where all the sponsor cash is funnelled into the game?
If it's non-proffit, I think I'd be OK with the (admittedly agressive) tactics to pacify the sponsors, but only to a point. There needs to be some reasonable "ground rules" of just how far the IOC can go to make their sponsors happy. Telling me I can't bring a can of pepsi onto the grounds because their sponsor doesn't want that is, as everyone knows, just plain silly.
Same here, though I don't think anyone's using it besides me. I set my SSID to "call (my phone number)" to see if anyone was using it. After about two months, I checked the wap's logs and only found my MAC address in the connect list.
I was thinking of getting someone to make me a "warchalk" sign to hang on my house, so people could see there was internet access here. Then it occurred to me that the idea might be sellable to enough people to turn a buck or two. Anyone feel like a little entrepenurship?
Smelliest computer I know of is a certain run of older ibooks... something about the chemical they laquer the motherboard with, if you run the computer hot for very long it permeates the keyboard with this nasty smell that, as near as I can tell, cannot be gotten rid of short of replacing the keyboard. Fortunately, it only seems to have affected a small run of the G3 ibooks.
We're pretty good at making twitching metal on the ground. There's actually a place that keeps track of the 'score' if you're interested.
t ml
http://www.bio.aps.anl.gov/~dgore/marsscorecard.h
So far we're on the losing team for the earth/mars games. Get used to it. They call this stuff "rocket science" because it's *difficult*.
I don't know about laptops or these "explode/ignite if disassembled" tricks, but they DO use C4 in some instances. Take for instance the electronic warfare planes that receive and decode enemy communications - they have quite an exciting action plan if they are hit and are going down. Step 1 is a big red button that triggers a (time delayed) charge in all hard drives in the plane. Step 2 involves dumping all the equipment overboard if above water. This plan has been put to action at least once, when that US spy plane was forced to land in what was it... china? several years ago.
;-)
As for the lithium boobytraps, I doubt that would be very effective. Anyone that's prepared to open hard drives already has atmosphere-control covered, and could easily fill the recovery box with dry nitrogen instead of filtered standard atmosphere, rendering any Lithium in the drive inert when the case was removed. Straight up mechanically triggered explosives would probably be far more effective. It's not like you're going to x-ray a hard drive to get a look at the boobytrap.
That's what A+, CNE, etc are for. Pay money, pass a test that actually represents your level of expertise in the field, and get a time-limited certification showing competance. What we have here though is just an obvious money grab.
Though that being said, I seriously doubt any more than 2% of the customers that come into our shop think to look for (or ask about) our technicians' certifications. Though I seriously wonder if any of the remaining 98% would know the difference between a "I paid $200 and passed a test any computer user could pass" cert and a "this took me three attempts at $150 each and six weeks of study to pass" cert.
I'd also be willing to bet 50% of the techs working at computer service shops have zero certifications. The only reason I have certs is because we can't order service parts from the manufacturers without them.
Ya I know, a 5/8 groundplane is not a very practical idea in the ghz range, though it's certainly possible. Critical tolerances at that point are well down to the 1mm and below range though, that would not be a fun project to undertake.
I want to play with http://www.rangeextender.com/224pagransy.html if I get the time someday. 24 DBI gain. I've recommended it to some of our customers, several of whom have bought one, and so far, everybody is quite pleased with them. One of these on one end (and a regular omni on the other end) will blast through building after building to get to the other base station. It's also fully weather-proof and built sturdy, unlike those pringles can jokes.
Omnidirectional coverage is a bit harder to expand. You can't really beat a 5/8 wavelength groundplane, and they're easy to make. (at lower frequencies anyway, not sure about ghz)
Not counting the ability to use amplifiers, you could think of wifi coverage as light... put a 100w lightbulb in a field at night and how far away can you be and stil read a book? Not very far probably... 30 feet maybe. Now, take that bulb and put it in a parabolic lens. Now you've got a 100w flashlight. If the flashlight is pointed your way, you'll get hundreds of feet. The better the lens and the sharper the focus, the greater your range. Come up with a more fundamental improvement (like a 100w laser?) and your range increases to a radical distance that could easily be miles. But it still doesn't help the guy standing 5 feet off to the side of the light though, he's in the dark.
Directional and omnidirectional coverage are for totally different purposes, and really can't be compared or mixed. There's no use in complaining about your omni coverage when people are making improvements in directional coverage - it's apples and oranges.
I download movies. Quite a lot actually. Most of it I glance at, or if it's a series, watch the first ep or two and chuck it because it's not anything I like. A few though I watch and really enjoy. Those are the ones I go out and buy, so I can see them at full res on my bigscreen. As it is I have four stacks of DVDs about 3ft high each, and a good chunk of that is due to my being able to "preview", or if you prefer, "try before you buy".
As for software, I don't download as much, and I have to say that the majority of things out there fall squarely into the "crap" category. (the free software often has better odds of being decent) But when I find a good app or game that I want to see more of, I support the authors and buy it. If it's shareware, I register it. If it's freeware, I send a paypal to the author. (have you paypal'd Brahm Cohen yet? I hear he's running low on pizza) I patiently await the day the RIAA/MPAA drop their BS and they (and the govt) acknowledge the right to try before you buy.
that lists all the ppl that didn't download, went out and bought, and got PISSED OFF because they found out it was CRAP and couldn't return it like they could have with most other products?
I had a //c years and years ago, 128kb RAM and a 1mhz CPU. I later replaced the socketed CPU with a "zip chip 8" 8mhz - it looked like a little black brick with pins on it, at least 2x as tall as the 65c02 processor was. Then later I went to add a 1mb memory card - which fit between the motherboard and the CPU/MMU chips. This was right under the keyboard mind you, and the height of the processor + memory card meant the keyboard no longer fit in the case.
So, take the 2" ribbon cable off, buy a 5ft ribbon cable from radio shack, move the connector blocks to the new cable, and instant detached keyboard. (possibly a first?)
That came to a sudden stop one day when I was sitting with the keyboard on my lap, with the exposed metal frame of the keyboard touching my right hand, as I brushed the dust off that was accumulating on my new color monitor with my left hand. *snap* Hmm, what was that, static on my right hand? Looked at the screen, ooo, look at all the random characters. Reboot.
To my surprise it booted up fine. Unfortunately, for every key I typed, I got that character plus three or four bonus characters. Keyboard intercept chip: $29. Only chip on the motherboard that was soldered down, too. 28 pins and CMOS (static sensitive), that was not fun to replace. But it worked fine after it got the new chip.
That, and how many of us old Apple owners can recall attaching a three position switch to their hard drive to override the write-protect notch on the 5.25" discs? I had two... one on the external floppy and one for the internal floppy.
Tried to boot it up a few years ago, but sadly, all my ~250 discs images had degraded over time and were worthless, so I donated it to the landfill. Sad...
Same here first try. Though I would say some of those are really borderline. First easy rule is anyone that says something like "it's come to our attention that your info is out of date" can be cleanly stamped "fraud". After that, I tend to think anything with grammer errors is fraud, just because if you're a business that's about to send a message to all your customers, you're gonna triple check it to make sure you don't come across as an idiot to all of them in one fell swoop. And last, I think I've actually received several of those frauds - the paypal and ebay ones in particular. The one bank fraud that said they're requiring monthly account verifications really made my laugh.
But sadly, I can really see how people could fall for these. If you're not thinking about the possibility of fraud, you might merely raise an eyebrow to some of them and click the link, thinking you're just a little confused or mis-read or mis-understood what they said.
I've also followed some of those phishing links I've been mailed, and that's actually where things usually get "unreasonable" - one ebay phish page was like a US Census Survey - there must have been 100 fields to fill in, asking for everything from driver's license number to mother's maiden name. Anyone that filled out THAT survey is about deserving of whatever grief it brings them.
Server's finally dead. Took awhile too. Impressive.
Too bad all the ones in my state are already visited. The "aerial visits disqualified" is going to make this more challenging for places that have to be visited by sea.
That's a highly effective method of driving in some cases... such as ice storms on hilly roads with lots of lights. I recall one year there being a nasty ice storm, and I was taking the main drag home. I was driving 25 in a 45 in some places, but then I got to watch the cars that passed me try to stop before sliding into the intersection at the red light, and then about the time I arrived, it was turning green and I didn't have to slow down.
I thought I was so clever... but then later I thought more about it - if a car on a cross street had ran into problems stopping, I'd have gotten some extra excitement for the day...
Only software bought by the poor consumer comes with such "we wash our hands clean" disclaimers. No halfway-intelligent business is going to contract the design of major production software that offers no guarantee of it being able to operate. Large projects may even be insured against downtime etc. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there wasn't some insurance coverage on the downtime the Times took in this incident. Being a software developer, you'd be insane not to insure something like this, and risk the lawsuit that would follow a failure.
A previous poster was saying how you take the cost of failure times the percent chance of failure, and compare that to the cost of implementing a failsafe, and if the cost is less, you skip the failsafe. That's nice, but it assumes you have unlimited cash and resources. In reality, you also have to ask yourself "if we fail, are we RUINED?" If the answer is YES, and the percent chance of failure is anything but zero, then you have to implement the failsafe, unless you can't afford that either, in which case you should not accept the contract.
Business is about survival. Managers that make stupid mistakes have the potential to destroy their business, no matter how low on the pole they are.
jebus, can't MS have ONE ORIGINAL THOUGHT? Apple partners with BMW/Voltswagon and now MS has to find a car manufacturer to partner with.
Not bashing for bashing's sake, but man, can't they just come up with SOMETHING on their own once in a while?
Well, the FCC makes it illegal to jam OTHERS radio signals. Last I checked, RFID uses somewhat low power RF transmitted by a "receiver" (gate at a store usually) to excite a resonant antenna in the RFID tag, which provides it power to momentarily transmit back to the gate. If one were to interfere with the signal being sent back to the gate, that'd be interfering with your own transmision, and although IANAL either, I'd surmise that's not illegal anymore than assulting yourself is illegal.
A bit off-topic, cel phone jammers are illegal, but are cordless phone jammers? I think when you get into the very-low-power, unregulated bands, there aren't the same stringent rules that there are for the licensed bands.
Someone needs to make an RFID jammer. A little keychain size device that jams any RFID traffic within one's personal space, rendering any RFID tags you're carrying to be effectively inert. Surely something like this should not be hard to make.
I'd buy one.
We had quite the arms-race going among our laser tag group some oh... ten or more years ago. The main fray was between me and another electronics-savvy kid named Dave. I made decoys (flashing lights, to mimic the hats, for night time play) and also took the three broad emitters from my (useless) starbase and implanted them in my pistol. (a la "the grenade") The pistol was then a fearful object... anything within 20 feet in a generouls 150 degree cone would take a hit. Excellent for when being chased - just point behind you and pull trigger while running. Of course anything beyond 20 feet was safe from the effects. Had to be careful around walls though - it was quite possible to hit onesself (via reflection) when shooting at a target that was standing by a wall. I called that a "ricochet".
:-)
Dave's weapon of choice was a true grenade.. a small ball with about ten IR leds on it, and a long run of wire to a jack that plugged into his rifle. He'd chuck the grenade (like up onto a building roof where I was standing...) and fire the rifle. The grenade would then most likely start delivering hits to anyone nearby. Thank god for helmets - those babies were hard to hit from below, though they rendered you basically deaf when you were wearing one.
All of our tech was based on the guns, since at the time we weren't capable of reproducing the low frequency pulsing that the LT targets required. (it was right about 2khz iirc) The frequency was very high tolerance at least for us back then, I'd guess now at about +/- 10 Hz. Oh, I also added a "reset" button to my rifle. It cut power to the batteries when pressed. Useful in theory for if the gun "locked up" which they sometimes did when running around with them, but in practice more useful to avoid that nasty "cool down delay" after firing for ~20 sec straight. Just tap the reset after it went into cool down, and it was ready to fire another 20 seconds.