Let me tell you about the machine I ordered from Dell FIVE years ago:
Computer arrives 1 week after order, wow fast. Hook up computer, double-check connections, turn it on. Beeps and nothing displays on the monitor. Turn it off. Look up beep codes in manual, find them. Turn computer on, count beeps: 4-4-2-4. Not in manual.
Call Dell tech support, 25 minute wait...
Tech support guy#1: sorry we're not trained on these, let me transfer you to someone who is.
Transfer, 5 minute wait: "hi you've reached special tech support our normal hours are 7am to 7pm CST m-f, please call during our business hours. goodbye. CLICK"
Crap. Call Dell tech support, 35 minute wait...
Tech support guy#2: sorry we're not trained on these, let me transf... Me: hold on there cowboy, someone did that to me before, and no one was there.
Tech support guy#2: that's impossible
Me: no, really, I heard it with my own ears
Tech support guy#2: okay, let me check (5 minutes later) they are there, I talked to them
Me: okay, thanks, put me through
1 hour and 10 minutes later,
tech support guy#3: hi how can I help you
me: first off, let me get one of those express service codes
tsg#3: okay, hold on (couple of minutes)
tsg#3: how can I help you?
me: um, first, I need that express service code
tsg#3: right, it is: (gives me the express service code) how can I help you?
me: I'm getting a beep code when I turn the computer on: 4-4-2-4
tsg#3: 4-4-2-4, let me look that up (couple of minutes) okay that's a missing jumper on the motherboard, that's bad. could you open your machine?
me: yes, hold on (I open up the machine)
tsg#3: it should be next to the clock battery, J8A1
me: nope, no jumper
tsg#3: okay there should be one there
me: nope, how did it ship without a jumper?
tsg#3: it may have come off during shipping
me: okay, well could you send me a new one
tsg#3: well the postage would be more than the cost of the jumper
me: o-kay
(what I should have said: WELL I JUST PAID $2534 FOR THIS F****ING MACHINE HOW ABOUT SPENDING THE EXTRA 29 CENTS AND DELIVERING A NEW JUMPER?)
later, I found part of the jumper in the computer. I shook it out of the power supply cage.
4 hours later and I have one non-functioning Dell XPS R400 purchased for $2534.
but I got it in only one week!
MESSAGE TO DELL: buy the fancy jumpers, the ones that don't shake off. or else provide Radio Shack coupons with your machines. that's where I'm going tomorrow.
Mod parent up...this from the Washington Post:
On launch day, a piece of insulating foam on the external fuel tank came off during liftoff and was believed to have struck the left wing of the shuttle.
Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, had assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.
Okay, yes, 1600x1200 is unrealistic to benchmark this bargain basement chip. But, DX9 is nothing to sneeze at. It's Renderman in realtime people. Sure this chip may do great on games already released, but what about DX9 games coming down the pike in the next 90 days? Personally, I wouldn't buy it if it can't cut it for at least 180 days. (Extreme for Slashdot readership, yes, but hey, my Nissan's got 110,000 miles on it).
Me thinks this Trident chip is DX9 compatible in name only.
Is it also censored in China? That would be a way to circumvent it. What about other web archives?
http://www.waybackmachine.org/
Ultimately, China will have to cut off a lot of useful web tools in the name of censorship.
Anyone else hear more about this?
CNN has a story about an unidentified contrail being investigated by NORAD. Didn't know they tracked these things -and how does one tell one is special? Was it glowing green or something?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned so far is that many times (all the time?) writing software is like discovering the one best way to solve a problem. There are thousands of ways to solve a problem in software, but the solutions are either slow, bloated, or hard to maintain (the latter I see a lot).
Many times in my programming experience, I feel like I've simply settled on a solution which was there all along for me to arrive at. Certainly I put in the work and effort to arrive at that solution, but it's as if I discovered it, and so how can it be patented?
In the end, it's almost as if people are patenting the truth, or the The Right Thing To Do, as Carmack says.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me tell you about the machine I ordered from Dell FIVE years ago:
Computer arrives 1 week after order, wow fast. Hook up computer, double-check connections, turn it on. Beeps and nothing displays on the monitor. Turn it off. Look up beep codes in manual, find them. Turn computer on, count beeps: 4-4-2-4. Not in manual.
Call Dell tech support, 25 minute wait...
Tech support guy#1: sorry we're not trained on these, let me transfer you to someone who is.
Transfer, 5 minute wait: "hi you've reached special tech support our normal hours are 7am to 7pm CST m-f, please call during our business hours. goodbye. CLICK"
Crap. Call Dell tech support, 35 minute wait...
Tech support guy#2: sorry we're not trained on these, let me transf...
Me: hold on there cowboy, someone did that to me before, and no one was there.
Tech support guy#2: that's impossible
Me: no, really, I heard it with my own ears
Tech support guy#2: okay, let me check (5 minutes later) they are there, I talked to them
Me: okay, thanks, put me through
1 hour and 10 minutes later,
tech support guy#3: hi how can I help you
me: first off, let me get one of those express service codes
tsg#3: okay, hold on (couple of minutes)
tsg#3: how can I help you?
me: um, first, I need that express service code
tsg#3: right, it is: (gives me the express service code) how can I help you?
me: I'm getting a beep code when I turn the computer on: 4-4-2-4
tsg#3: 4-4-2-4, let me look that up (couple of minutes) okay that's a missing jumper on the motherboard, that's bad. could you open your machine?
me: yes, hold on (I open up the machine)
tsg#3: it should be next to the clock battery, J8A1
me: nope, no jumper
tsg#3: okay there should be one there
me: nope, how did it ship without a jumper?
tsg#3: it may have come off during shipping
me: okay, well could you send me a new one
tsg#3: well the postage would be more than the cost of the jumper
me: o-kay
(what I should have said: WELL I JUST PAID $2534 FOR THIS F****ING MACHINE HOW ABOUT SPENDING THE EXTRA 29 CENTS AND DELIVERING A NEW JUMPER?)
later, I found part of the jumper in the computer. I shook it out of the power supply cage.
4 hours later and I have one non-functioning Dell XPS R400 purchased for $2534.
but I got it in only one week!
MESSAGE TO DELL: buy the fancy jumpers, the ones that don't shake off. or else provide Radio Shack coupons with your machines. that's where I'm going tomorrow.
How about Moore's Prophecy?
Kind of catchy in this day and age.
Mod parent up...this from the Washington Post: On launch day, a piece of insulating foam on the external fuel tank came off during liftoff and was believed to have struck the left wing of the shuttle. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, had assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.
http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdripping
That "technology" exists today: Esc Ctrl-C Alt+F4
Okay, yes, 1600x1200 is unrealistic to benchmark this bargain basement chip. But, DX9 is nothing to sneeze at. It's Renderman in realtime people. Sure this chip may do great on games already released, but what about DX9 games coming down the pike in the next 90 days? Personally, I wouldn't buy it if it can't cut it for at least 180 days. (Extreme for Slashdot readership, yes, but hey, my Nissan's got 110,000 miles on it). Me thinks this Trident chip is DX9 compatible in name only.
Is it also censored in China? That would be a way to circumvent it. What about other web archives? http://www.waybackmachine.org/ Ultimately, China will have to cut off a lot of useful web tools in the name of censorship.
Anyone else hear more about this? CNN has a story about an unidentified contrail being investigated by NORAD. Didn't know they tracked these things -and how does one tell one is special? Was it glowing green or something?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned so far is that many times (all the time?) writing software is like discovering the one best way to solve a problem. There are thousands of ways to solve a problem in software, but the solutions are either slow, bloated, or hard to maintain (the latter I see a lot).
Many times in my programming experience, I feel like I've simply settled on a solution which was there all along for me to arrive at. Certainly I put in the work and effort to arrive at that solution, but it's as if I discovered it, and so how can it be patented?
In the end, it's almost as if people are patenting the truth, or the The Right Thing To Do, as Carmack says.
Mip