Slashdot Mirror


User: LeiraHoward

LeiraHoward's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
30
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 30

  1. I personally saw this on Google Testing Instant Search Feature · · Score: 5, Interesting
    My google page did this sometime this past week. I wasn't logged in, it just randomly started doing it as part of the test... Personally, I hate it.

    You know how when you normally type in things, Google "suggests" what you might be looking for? And how, sometimes, those searches are, shall we say, "interesting" to say the least, or "NSFW" or just plain old weird? (For instance, try typing in "How do I" or "how do you" and see the odd results that occur... the ones I currently see are "get pregnant" and "start selling weed").

    Now, imagine having the results of those show up as you're trying to search for something else entirely.

    Frustrating, to say the least, and embarrassing or potentially job-threatening on some of those more risque searches.

  2. Re:Card Games on Game To Play During Lunch? · · Score: 1

    Euchre is the best card game EVER... I don't know anyone around my area now who plays, but I sure miss playing... also it is available online at games.yahoo.com , so you can play there from around the world. Though it does seem to be a mainly midwestern US game.

    I think your problem may be that Euchre is a Thinking Person's game. It requires a lot of brain skill to play properly.

  3. Recursiveness... Easy to fix on Which VNC Software Is Best? · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've done that before, just to see what would happen... and yes, it managed to lock both machines up solid. HOWEVER.... easy to fix. Simply remove the network cable, after a bit both machines will realize the connection dropped and act as though they disconnected normally. Hook up the cable again, and tada! All better!

    (Alt-F4 was not working, due to the machines both being locked.)

  4. Designer Clothing & Cake Decorations on Making Stuff Out Of Broken Computer Equipment? · · Score: 1

    Took a couple of surface mount ICs and pushed the ends of the chip through the lapel of the jacket from my business suit. Bent the pins over on the back so it laid flat.. presto! Geeky lapel pin!

    Did the same with my camera strap- adjusted it to just where I wanted, then poked a couple surface mount ICs through the strap and bent the pins over flat on the back, and it keeps the strap from sliding, plus adds instant ID for my camera... (once was able to positively ID it as mine based solely on the chips... too many other models similar to mine to ID it else. :-P)

    Took keycaps from a few old keyboards and used them along with some computer candles for designer cake decorating for some geek friends of mine: spelled out "Happy Birthday " for each of them using the keycaps.

    Had a friend take one of my old 386-to-486 upgrade chips (had a cool metallic green heatsink) and poke it through the pocket on a sport jacket- looked really cool.

    Also used the IC chips as decorations for backpacks while at school. And zipper pulls, etc.

    RAM chips (SIMMs) made good keychain pulls, but only if you didn't want to put the keys in your pocket afterwards.. kinda uncomfortable.

    I'm also seriously contemplating taking some resistors and capacitors and making myself some drop earrings, and possibly a necklace as well.

    And I tore apart an old hard drive, magnets work extremely well on the fridge.. (bwaa haa haa) and the rest of it makes a good wall decoration. Or take the platters and use 'em as Christmas tree decorations... or as frisbees. :-P

  5. I just hope... on Lucas to Make Sequels to Star Wars After All? · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ...that *if* they get made, they don't degrade my fun memories of what Star Wars *should be* any further.... :-(

  6. Re:Real Geeks Don't Use Bookmarks.. on What Will It Take For eBook Adoption? · · Score: 1

    (A "DT" book? I'm unfamiliar with this abbreviation, but will assume you mean "real book")

    It is easier because of the spatial connections. I remember that the spot I was looking for was on, for instance- the left hand side of a page about 3/4 through the book- (I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers things this way, since a random sampling of acquaintances yields a high number of people who do the same). With ebooks, this isn't the same.

    And with a search, you have to know the wording you're searching for. You're likely to have some difficulties narrowing down your hits, especially if what you're searching for doesn't contain any unique words. You'd have to know the exact phrase, or portions of it. How easy is it to search for the phrase "He entered the tall building"? If you happen to remember it wrong, and the wording really was "He stepped inside the tall building" or a million other variants, you'll be spending WAY too much time searching.

  7. Real Geeks Don't Use Bookmarks.. on What Will It Take For eBook Adoption? · · Score: 1

    ...wasn't that a poll a while back? What kind of bookmark we use or something? ;-) The problem isn't when I want to go back to where I left off, that's easy enough to do. The problem is when I'm most of the way through the book, and I want to flip back and review the details of something that happened earlier, or if I just want to pick up the book and find some of my favorite parts. Why should I have to specially mark each spot I want to go back to, when with a RealBook(TM) ;-) I can just flip through and find it quickly?

  8. Why I use Real Books on What Will It Take For eBook Adoption? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I like RealBooks (you know the kind with PAPER, etc...) because...

    *Major Reason: Looking at a monitor screen (any screen, LCD, CRT, whatever) for too long tends to make my eyes red and sore. My eyes dry out easily, and I find that I blink much less when looking at a computer screen, so that is going to always be a problem for me.

    * I read VERY fast. (Approx 1,500 WPM). With a book, I can finish a page, switch to the next, turn the page, repeat, while ebooks generally need to be scrolled downwards, (or pageDown) which results in a slight delay while I find my place again.

    *Spacial recognition: Partly due to the fast reading, I don't read word-at-a-time, I read paragraphs at a time, and the screens on handheld readers don't show ENOUGH text- I generally finish the entire window in less time than it takes to tell it.

    *it's so much easier to just flip to where I was- I tend to remember that the bit I wanted to reread was "about halfway through, on the left hand side..." while ebooks make it hard to do the same... "my slider bar was about 2/3 down" can change depending on the size of the window you're reading it in...

    All very personal reasons. I have a few ebooks on my PC, but unless I cannot find the same book in tangible form, I won't sit down and read them.

  9. Should've changed the post title... on Latest MyDoom Variant Gives Google Problems · · Score: 1

    Hmm... "Don't Panic" seems to be a good response... either that, or 42. ;-)

    Do you know where your towel is?

  10. Re:Price too high? on Review: inMotion iPod Speakers (updated) · · Score: 1
    Actually, I've been taking some classes in my senior year of electrical engineering that speak to this issue. The benefits of those bulky power transformers are many. I'll list a couple of the most common.

    Disclaimer: (a) This doesn't mean that there is no room for improvement in the transformer design. (b) This is a SIMPLIFIED version of the facts, for those /.'ers who don't have an engineering degree. PLEASE don't nitpick terminology, its the general gist of things I'm trying to get across!

    Benefits:

    (1) The majority of power dissipation (i.e. HEAT) is used in the transformer. Moving it away from the device and putting it by the wall makes the device live longer.

    (2) Lower design time. Yes, I know, lame excuse, but seriously, it is much easier to use a pre-existing design than to create your own from scratch.

    (3) Standardization. Transformer boxes are cheap and easy to obtain, and easy to replace.

    (4) The components inside a transformer also produce enough inductance to mess up the delicate circuitry in many boards. Placing this closer to the device would result in a need for more shielding.

    (5) Basically, the power unit itself can mess up the device, is too big and bulky to fit in the device easily, and is just a pain in the neck to work with. The transformer has been the best solution so far.

    And for those of you with troubles plugging in devices, power strips are made (and sold at WalMart!) that are wider spaced, specifically for transformer plugs.

  11. Three Cheers for my school! on Universities Taken Offline to Fight Worms, Viruses · · Score: 1

    The University that I go to has over 3,000 students, and around 3,000 computers on campus. (One computer in every 2-person dorm room, and many more in labs around campus).

    We were hit by the worm the first day it came through. We were hit by the email virus as well. But we haven't stopped running. They immediately blocked many of the ports between dorms, including the port that Windows File Sharing uses, in order to minimize worm spreading, and updated the virsu definitions campus-wide.

    The worm patch was made available to all students, and the computer techs have been working full time, but our network is still up and running, without a major problem.

    Sure, there is a bit of a slowdown at times, but not much, and my school has still been operating... Which is more than you can say about many state governments....

  12. Planned obsolecence.. it happened to me! on Are Printers What They Used To Be? · · Score: 2, Informative
    My mother had a Brother printer.. one of those 3-in-1 jobs, with scanner, fax, printer, etc. The print quality started degrading tremendously, and she took it back to the company only to find out that the print head was going bad.

    Ok, we thought, it is still under warranty, no big deal... No such luck. The print head was "designed to wear out" and as such was a "disposable/renewable part," just like the printer cartridge. The company said we had to buy our own new one... which coincidentally cost more than the entire printer did in the first place. Grrr!

    We now have an HP, they seem to be much better quality, and last much longer.

  13. pF on OpenBSD 3.2 Readies For Release, pf Matures · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow.. you know you've been doing too much electronics homework when you look at "pF" and read it as "picoFarad" and wonder what that had to do with anything....

  14. Time... on Geek-Chic Power Houses · · Score: 2
    (To be honest, I'm less concerned with the legal issue than with the time it must have taken him to rip 1,000 CDs.)
    Hmm. Anyone care to do the math on this one?

    Assuming it took only 15 minutes to rip a CD, not counting time to switch CD's, set up the tracks, etc, it would take over 250 hours, or what amounts to a little over 10 days , non-stop, (Yeah... no eating, drinking, sleeping, whatever...) to rip those mp3 tracks...

    I'm frightened... do people seriously have that much time??? And where can I get some?

  15. More Mirrors on Getting Help Building Your Computer · · Score: 5, Informative
    http://www.best-marketing-tools.com/lego/lego.html

    http://www.nothlit.com/lego/lego.html

    http://lego.dave.dk/

    http://www.osuweb.net/~ahaning/lego.html

    http://home.attbi.com/~andy0058

    http://www.chaos.lu/lego.html


    Just a few more mirrors for when this site goes down...


    Oh.. and if I am not totally mistaken, at one time there was a "letter of protest" from the "lego workers union" or something similar actually posted on Andy's home page. It is not there now, don't bother checking, but if anyone happens to have a copy and wishes to post it, go for it!

  16. Poor Kid! on A High-School Hacker's Notebook · · Score: 2

    What kind of person are you, anyway? ;)
    Submitting a link to a kid's site on /. ! That's sort of like sending out a hit squad.. his poor 100Mhz server feels the pain...

    Here's from his site: "Thank god for my slow upload speed, or my poor little 100mhz linux server would be getting owned. I guess our site got posted in a slashdot comment, and now im getting quite a few hits (alot more then my 256k upload can handle). So, i guess if you are reading this, you are lucky to get through :D"

  17. Paranoia on AT&T Concerned About H2K2 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Just watch: after a note like that, I'll bet someone at the hacker conference takes that as a challenge, and some dumb worker forgets/disregards this warning, and gets made "guest of honor" at their conference, anyway.

    I just hope that whatever information they're looking at, it won't be mine.

    On another note, if this hacker convention is so well publicized, why aren't there hordes of policemen preparing to descend upon the unsuspecting hackers? Especially with all the cracking down that the FBI/police force have been doing lately on people who uncap their cable modems, or share wifi connections....

  18. One man's laziness is another man's ingenuity on Lazy Musicians Spawn Robot Ukulele · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Wow... For being "lazy," these guys sure put out a lot of effort for their automatic ukelele.

    Now if only someone would "be lazy" and come up with the cure to cancer...

    Seriously, though... I wonder how long til someone comes up with mods for any instrument out there... a piano wouldn't be that hard to do, you'd just need 88 fingers for your robot instead of 4...

  19. Re:Google Languages on Easter Eggs in Web Sites? · · Score: 1

    Yep, I know. Just thought it was really interesting that Google would include it. Wasn't meaning to imply it wasn't a real language... sorry!

  20. Google Languages on Easter Eggs in Web Sites? · · Score: 2, Informative
    I found the Klingon Google rather interesting, and checked out Google.According to Google's Language Tools page, there are Google interfaces in the following languages:

    Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Azerbaijani,
    Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bihari,Bork, bork, bork!,Bulgarian,
    Catalan, Chinese (Simplified),Chinese (Traditional),Croatian,Czech,
    Danish, Dutch
    Elmer Fudd,English, Esperanto, Estonian
    Faroese
    Finnish
    French
    Frisian
    Galician
    Georgian
    German
    Greek
    Gujarati
    Hacker
    Hebrew
    Hindi
    Hungarian
    Icelandic
    Indonesian
    Interlingua
    Irish
    Italian
    Japanese
    Javanese
    Kannada
    Klingon
    Korean
    Latin
    Latvian
    Lithuanian
    Macedonian
    Malay
    Malayalam
    Maltese
    Marathi
    Nepali
    Norwegian
    Occitan
    Pig Latin
    Polish
    Portuguese
    Punjabi
    Romanian
    Russian
    Scots Gaelic
    Serbian
    Slovak
    Slovenian
    Spanish
    Sundanese
    Swahili
    Swedish
    Tagalog
    Tamil
    Telugu
    Thai
    Tigrinya
    Turkish
    Ukrainian
    Urdu
    Uzbek
    Vietnamese
    Welsh

    What next? Romulan Google? Redneck Google? And just what sort of language is "bork, bork, bork," anyway? Although, a slashdot google would be
    a lot of fun!

  21. Technology has come a long way. on Live Via Satellite · · Score: 1
    It's hard for me, a child of the 80's, to picture a world without satellite communications. So much of the world's communication system is dependant upon satellites!

    Technology has come a long way. Three hundred years ago, it took months, years even, to send a letter to loved ones across the nation. Missionaries and adventurers, people who moved to different countries, different states even, would likely never hear the voices of their extended family again. Now, even residents of the jungle can connect to the internet via satellite, use vidcams and microphones for a direct conversation with their families, or call them up via cell phone. Communication has come a long way with the advent of satellite communications, among other things.

    It makes me wonder, though. What would happen if a massive solar flare or some such space phenomena took out all of the satellites? Would earth communications still function?

    I'm sure the ingenuity of the human race would reinstate communications soon enough. After all, one of the most important things in life is talking with the ones you love.

  22. Compassion for the artists? on Janis Ian on the Internet Debacle · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I find it interesting that the artists are that badly mistreated (as far as low royalties, etc.) And this artist does have a point. I know I myself have bought CD's from artists that I had never heard of until a friend sent me an .mp3 of their song. I liked it so much, I wanted more, and went out and paid for it.

    I think that the RIAA is just frightened that they are losing control. If they were really worried about the artists, they would be paying them more, and not resorting to some of the more unethical practices that have become standard in the music industry.

    If they really wanted to help the consumer, they could lower CD prices everywhere, so that more people could purchase more songs.

    If they really wanted to help the artist, they would funnel more money to the artist, rather than their own pockets.

    The truth is, though, that they only want to help themselves, and as such, there isn't much we can do about it. We can let our voices be heard, and hope that one day, CD copying will be just as legal as taping something off the radio or television.

  23. Slashdot Effect on Two Towers Teaser Trailer · · Score: 1
    I'm in the middle of downloading the teaser + "bootleg" copy now. Anyone have any bets as to how long it will take for
    (1) the page to be slashdotted, or
    (2) for the page to have to get rid of the "bootleg" copy? (Or by some weird chance, might that "bootleg" copy be legal?)

    I'm just hoping the page stays up long enough for my downloads to finish. Knowing the notorious /. effect, I wouldn't be surprised if I got up to 97% complete and then had their server lock up....

  24. Illegal to contact dead satellites on Satellite Back From The Dead · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Well, according to the article,

    *Note: Due to changes in Amateur Service and Amateur Satellite Service there are questions as to legality of Amateurs transmitting to AO-7....

    Therefore uplinking to AO-7 is possibly illegal since the Amateur Satellite Service is not permitted at 432.1 MHz. Also, since the IARU bandplan has the 432.1 MHz range earmarked as "weak signal" in all three Regions, it would appear that all users trying to access the uplink are also outside the Amateur Satellite Service rules and regulations.


    So, basically what they are telling us is that it is illegal to do something that was legal when it originally came out, (which is what the government usually does). We can't use the satellite for it's original purpose.


    In other words, it's illegal to talk to previously dead satellites.

  25. Censorship vs. online rights on Russia Poised to Restrict Net Activities · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are such a lot of difficulties involved with the censorship of the internet. Letting the government find all sorts of nitty-gritty details about my life inflames my sense of paranoia, and receiving hundreds of spam letters a day makes me lose patience with my slow download speeds.

    I'd just as soon get rid of all the porn sites, but that would be censorship, now wouldn't it?
    What's the difference between censorship and online rights? What standards do you employ in determining how data online can be used?

    I don't want anyone out there spying on me, not even with one of those little wireless "x-cams."

    How can we prevent our rights from being trampled without trampling the rights of others? It's a hard line to find.