This is going to make some sweet audiophile grade speaker cables though. Now I just have to figure out the cash-value of my soul so I can cut a check to MonsterCable.
A way to weed out conflict of interest is needed for wikipedia.
You know what I like a lot about slashdot (and message boards/forums in general)? No one can delete content, they can only add. That way, I can go through and read the differing opinions and decide for _myself_ which one is correct.
I'm not saying this would be a workable solution for a wikipedia type project. However, it is much nicer knowing I am hearing the differing sides of a story, rather than just being fed the "correct" version, which of course is determined by some small group of people. Makes me nervious (even when the content is printed on paper.)
Please excuse any spelling errors, I am feeling particularly lazy tonight.
Yikes, a lot of replies. I like yours best though:) I've never tried ferrite, I might have to try picking up a large core and see what happens. As for the ground loop isolator, I've heard a little of these but I'll probably need to spend a little more than 16 bucks to get one with a good transformer (or to build one myself), as lower end ones end up rolling off some frequencies and distorting some as per here While a nice card might solve the problem, I did try several others (my roommate collects older/useful PC components) and they all had the same problem. Also, I did try and plug the computer into the same outlet as the amp, to no avail.
While an optical connection would be fun, I like to build my own audio equipment (well, amplifiers at this point) but I'm not quite to the point of building in optical inputs:-D However, thanks for the link, it is nice to know of some good hardware that supports linux (and I'm sure FreeBSD) in case I can ever afford to build a NEW computer. Got any more?
I bought a box at a garage sale for 10 bucks to put FreeBSD and musicpd on for playing my ogg collection. The only problem was there was annoying 60hz hum on the output of the crappy soundblaster 16 card that I was using. I tried a number of things, including building my own shielded interconnects and trying to shield the powersupply.
Then I thought: this may be a ground loop. So I disconnected the powersupply ground (at the plug) and the hum went away, leaving a very clean sound.
Dangerous? Yes. Effective? Yes. YMMV. Great way to spend 10 dollars, but don't blame me if you burn your house down. (Yeah, I'm still trying to scrape up another 100 bucks for a new HD to hold more music.)
I've thought of this quite a bit myself, as I come from a school which furnishes laptops to all students and faculty and has complete wireless coverage. Also, I hope to be a professor someday myself (hopefully, grad school here I come!)
Personally, I wouldn't mind if students waste their time in my class, but as you say, if they start wasting others' time (more often than not against their will, I've been sucked in by someone playing Quake 3 across the room) I'd be royally pissed off. There are plenty of reasons to allow unrestricted access, but no reason to disrupt class.
I think the method I'll have to use at some point is just to be vigilant for abuse like that, and ask troublemakers to leave class for the period. I guess I will have to make sure I can wield power like that before doing so however, I don't know what the policy usually is for asking students to leave classes at the university. (Though I do know that at my school, my fiancee is asked to leave quite often for coughing because the professor is a germaphobe. Heh.)
It may be anecdotal, but I spent $100 bucks on an old Imac with a G3 333mhz proc. and 160 megs of RAM, no accelerated video, put OS X on it and it runs remarkably well. It was my fiancee's main computer for a while in fact, now I mostly use it to plug various devices into, because doing so on the laptop (linux) is such a pain in the ass. Which is exaclty why I think they SHOULD have gone with OS X.
There are a number of different title-bar styles that come default in XFCE, including some darker colored ones. Of course, you could always make your own:-D Also, by default XFCE uses GTK2 (I believe) for everything else so there are a plethora of application styles available. Gtk-chtheme is fun for playing with that.
Anyway, I'm not sure XFCE is really better than *box, but it is a bit easier to maintain and setup. Also, I really like GTK2, and XFCE is nice and speedy too...
Don't forget XFCE, which if you kill the taskbar and pager bar at the bottom can look and feel quite a bit like flux, while still having pretty and easy to use xfce-ness.
Sorry for the off topic, but I just like a good desktop discussion:-)
I played around with the word processor one, and one of the cool features it has is that you can download the file as a Word document (didn't try this) or "publish" to an html file, or print (and save as a postscript file using firefox.) Actually, I thought it was pretty cool, and would use it if it just had a few more features (margin size control, wysiwyg for printing, ability to edit header/footer). Also, it was sort of flaky and kept reporting an error.
So anyway, I think these web apps could be very useful, not as a replacement for desktop editing, but to augment it.
Re:Why is Linux so hard to use, compared to apples
on
From TR-1 to iPod mini
·
· Score: 0
I'm thinking the fact that they _don't_ proofread it and keep getting replies about it (this is the second of the nature I've seen) _is_ the troll. I have to admit, 'tis pretty clever.
The probable cause of your problem is that you don't use your printer very much and it dries out/gets full of dust/gets dropped.
I've wondered about this, and now I've got reason to ask as I just bought a new (ahem) printer.
I just picked up a HP Photosmart P1000 at Goodwill for about 8 bucks, and after some minor mechanical/cosmetic fixes (seems it had been dropped), it appears the printer is going to work fine. I've never had much luck with inkjets in the past, but this looks like a solid unit and I'd like to keep it working well. Should I run a test page through it once in a while, and if so, how often? Any other tricks you would suggest?
I like the other replies, but I think the answer is less "the user doesn't care" and more "it trains the user not to care." The operating system crying wolf every 10 minutes for things that aren't problems (yes, Windows, anti-virus is updated) only serves to mask real security concerns.
I guess, as always, if you want it done right don't leave it to Windows.
That is a neat idea, but I think it could be done even easier with a regular camera lense. You'd just have to attach one of those fancy stepper motors to the ring focus on the lense, when the object is in focus (this would be the hard ai-ish part) just note how many clicks the motor had to turn to determine distance (within some error of judgement, of course you'd stop the lense all the way open to reduce depth of field).
Also, projecting a couple of parallel laser lines and bringing them together until they form one should work too, and probably be easier on the AI side.
Would such a thing (automated distance judgement) really be PhD worthy?
For starters, I usually try not to step into these discussions (for some reason, the audiophile/anti-audiophile debate is one of the most viscious on slashdot).
While I generally believe that digital audio is equal to and in many ways superior to vinyl, I still have and use a turntable, and a collection of records which I am slowly growing as I get some extra money to buy one or two. Not because it sounds better, but because as I like to say 'it's more fun.'
The point being, you doesn't have to be an audiophile to enjoy listening to music on a turntable. For many, it isn't about (admittedly probably delusional) views of audio quality, but about active music listening. You have to get up, put the record on, clean it, drop the needle, and listen. For some, this process includes warming up the tubes on the amp. When the side is done, you have to flip it over. For all of this work, people tend to sit and actually listen to and appreciate the sounds the system is making.
This is quite different from the other form of music listening which has become quite popular - one button click listening. Both have their place, when I just want some background music for other activities I log onto the music server and click a button for the musicpd installation.
You sir, deserve a slashdotting. That is wicked cool.
When I was in high school, one of my teachers described a design he had for turning a satallite dish into a heliostat, using refridgerator parts of all things. Unfortunately I don't remember how it was supposed to work. Of course, the dish would be fully reflective:-) He said he never did it because he worried of leaves etc. flying past and causing fires...
'Sugar' by System of a Down was one of the first, if not the first one I got off of Napster. Yeah yeah, I was a relatively late comer. These days I rip my albums Ogg Vorbis quality 6 to a nicely organized collection, complete with album cover images.
Please, very informative, though a little off. It was a fear of Chinese that lead to banning of smoked opium. The 'Drug crazed negroes' would lead to the banning of cocaine. Also:
1937 saw the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act. Harry J. Anslinger (Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner) testified in hearings on the subject that the hemp plant needed to be banned because it had a violent "effect on the degenerate races," notably Mexican immigrants.
Interesting, I like your answer better than mine:-) I never considered checking negative answers before - are there any NP problems for which a negative is verifiable quickly?
NP defines a set of decision problems, problems with 1 bit of output (yes/no). dictionary.com So the TSP decision version would be "Is there a path visiting all nodes with total length less than X," for some number X. Given a path, to check if it solves the problem you just calculate the length of the path and see if it is less than X.
Slashdot Mirror
This is going to make some sweet audiophile grade speaker cables though. Now I just have to figure out the cash-value of my soul so I can cut a check to MonsterCable.
A way to weed out conflict of interest is needed for wikipedia.
You know what I like a lot about slashdot (and message boards/forums in general)? No one can delete content, they can only add. That way, I can go through and read the differing opinions and decide for _myself_ which one is correct.
I'm not saying this would be a workable solution for a wikipedia type project. However, it is much nicer knowing I am hearing the differing sides of a story, rather than just being fed the "correct" version, which of course is determined by some small group of people. Makes me nervious (even when the content is printed on paper.)
Please excuse any spelling errors, I am feeling particularly lazy tonight.
That's why I saved the first copy I made of my ass: now I just photocopy that.
Yikes, a lot of replies. I like yours best though :) I've never tried ferrite, I might have to try picking up a large core and see what happens. As for the ground loop isolator, I've heard a little of these but I'll probably need to spend a little more than 16 bucks to get one with a good transformer (or to build one myself), as lower end ones end up rolling off some frequencies and distorting some as per here While a nice card might solve the problem, I did try several others (my roommate collects older/useful PC components) and they all had the same problem. Also, I did try and plug the computer into the same outlet as the amp, to no avail.
:-D However, thanks for the link, it is nice to know of some good hardware that supports linux (and I'm sure FreeBSD) in case I can ever afford to build a NEW computer. Got any more?
While an optical connection would be fun, I like to build my own audio equipment (well, amplifiers at this point) but I'm not quite to the point of building in optical inputs
I bought a box at a garage sale for 10 bucks to put FreeBSD and musicpd on for playing my ogg collection. The only problem was there was annoying 60hz hum on the output of the crappy soundblaster 16 card that I was using. I tried a number of things, including building my own shielded interconnects and trying to shield the powersupply.
Then I thought: this may be a ground loop. So I disconnected the powersupply ground (at the plug) and the hum went away, leaving a very clean sound.
Dangerous? Yes. Effective? Yes. YMMV. Great way to spend 10 dollars, but don't blame me if you burn your house down. (Yeah, I'm still trying to scrape up another 100 bucks for a new HD to hold more music.)
I've thought of this quite a bit myself, as I come from a school which furnishes laptops to all students and faculty and has complete wireless coverage. Also, I hope to be a professor someday myself (hopefully, grad school here I come!)
Personally, I wouldn't mind if students waste their time in my class, but as you say, if they start wasting others' time (more often than not against their will, I've been sucked in by someone playing Quake 3 across the room) I'd be royally pissed off. There are plenty of reasons to allow unrestricted access, but no reason to disrupt class.
I think the method I'll have to use at some point is just to be vigilant for abuse like that, and ask troublemakers to leave class for the period. I guess I will have to make sure I can wield power like that before doing so however, I don't know what the policy usually is for asking students to leave classes at the university. (Though I do know that at my school, my fiancee is asked to leave quite often for coughing because the professor is a germaphobe. Heh.)
It may be anecdotal, but I spent $100 bucks on an old Imac with a G3 333mhz proc. and 160 megs of RAM, no accelerated video, put OS X on it and it runs remarkably well. It was my fiancee's main computer for a while in fact, now I mostly use it to plug various devices into, because doing so on the laptop (linux) is such a pain in the ass. Which is exaclty why I think they SHOULD have gone with OS X.
Are you familiar with the greater internet fuckwad theory?
There are a number of different title-bar styles that come default in XFCE, including some darker colored ones. Of course, you could always make your own :-D Also, by default XFCE uses GTK2 (I believe) for everything else so there are a plethora of application styles available. Gtk-chtheme is fun for playing with that.
Anyway, I'm not sure XFCE is really better than *box, but it is a bit easier to maintain and setup. Also, I really like GTK2, and XFCE is nice and speedy too...
"Us British just keep a 'stiff upper lip' under these conditions and try and work around them!"
:)
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way... -- Pink Floyd
Coincidence? Hmmm.
Don't forget XFCE, which if you kill the taskbar and pager bar at the bottom can look and feel quite a bit like flux, while still having pretty and easy to use xfce-ness.
:-)
Sorry for the off topic, but I just like a good desktop discussion
I played around with the word processor one, and one of the cool features it has is that you can download the file as a Word document (didn't try this) or "publish" to an html file, or print (and save as a postscript file using firefox.) Actually, I thought it was pretty cool, and would use it if it just had a few more features (margin size control, wysiwyg for printing, ability to edit header/footer). Also, it was sort of flaky and kept reporting an error.
So anyway, I think these web apps could be very useful, not as a replacement for desktop editing, but to augment it.
I'm thinking the fact that they _don't_ proofread it and keep getting replies about it (this is the second of the nature I've seen) _is_ the troll. I have to admit, 'tis pretty clever.
The probable cause of your problem is that you don't use your printer very much and it dries out/gets full of dust/gets dropped.
I've wondered about this, and now I've got reason to ask as I just bought a new (ahem) printer.
I just picked up a HP Photosmart P1000 at Goodwill for about 8 bucks, and after some minor mechanical/cosmetic fixes (seems it had been dropped), it appears the printer is going to work fine. I've never had much luck with inkjets in the past, but this looks like a solid unit and I'd like to keep it working well. Should I run a test page through it once in a while, and if so, how often? Any other tricks you would suggest?
Thanks!
I like the other replies, but I think the answer is less "the user doesn't care" and more "it trains the user not to care." The operating system crying wolf every 10 minutes for things that aren't problems (yes, Windows, anti-virus is updated) only serves to mask real security concerns.
I guess, as always, if you want it done right don't leave it to Windows.
But then since you can seemingly get branded a child-hating monster of a bad parent nowadays by even looking at your child in a disaproving manner...
Yeah, and plus it gives us real child-hating monsters a bad name!
That is a neat idea, but I think it could be done even easier with a regular camera lense. You'd just have to attach one of those fancy stepper motors to the ring focus on the lense, when the object is in focus (this would be the hard ai-ish part) just note how many clicks the motor had to turn to determine distance (within some error of judgement, of course you'd stop the lense all the way open to reduce depth of field).
Also, projecting a couple of parallel laser lines and bringing them together until they form one should work too, and probably be easier on the AI side.
Would such a thing (automated distance judgement) really be PhD worthy?
for slashdotting drunk at 2 am. Tsk tsk.
For starters, I usually try not to step into these discussions (for some reason, the audiophile/anti-audiophile debate is one of the most viscious on slashdot).
While I generally believe that digital audio is equal to and in many ways superior to vinyl, I still have and use a turntable, and a collection of records which I am slowly growing as I get some extra money to buy one or two. Not because it sounds better, but because as I like to say 'it's more fun.'
The point being, you doesn't have to be an audiophile to enjoy listening to music on a turntable. For many, it isn't about (admittedly probably delusional) views of audio quality, but about active music listening. You have to get up, put the record on, clean it, drop the needle, and listen. For some, this process includes warming up the tubes on the amp. When the side is done, you have to flip it over. For all of this work, people tend to sit and actually listen to and appreciate the sounds the system is making.
This is quite different from the other form of music listening which has become quite popular - one button click listening. Both have their place, when I just want some background music for other activities I log onto the music server and click a button for the musicpd installation.
You sir, deserve a slashdotting. That is wicked cool.
:-) He said he never did it because he worried of leaves etc. flying past and causing fires...
When I was in high school, one of my teachers described a design he had for turning a satallite dish into a heliostat, using refridgerator parts of all things. Unfortunately I don't remember how it was supposed to work. Of course, the dish would be fully reflective
Were they smoking pot? Seems like that might help...
'Sugar' by System of a Down was one of the first, if not the first one I got off of Napster. Yeah yeah, I was a relatively late comer. These days I rip my albums Ogg Vorbis quality 6 to a nicely organized collection, complete with album cover images.
Please, very informative, though a little off. It was a fear of Chinese that lead to banning of smoked opium. The 'Drug crazed negroes' would lead to the banning of cocaine. Also:
1937 saw the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act. Harry J. Anslinger (Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner) testified in hearings on the subject that the hemp plant needed to be banned because it had a violent "effect on the degenerate races," notably Mexican immigrants.
Here's a nice section of a wikipedia article: War On Drugs, 20th Century
Interesting, I like your answer better than mine :-) I never considered checking negative answers before - are there any NP problems for which a negative is verifiable quickly?
NP defines a set of decision problems, problems with 1 bit of output (yes/no). dictionary.com So the TSP decision version would be "Is there a path visiting all nodes with total length less than X," for some number X. Given a path, to check if it solves the problem you just calculate the length of the path and see if it is less than X.