Because, like my school, the network admins are widely viewed as incompetant because the resnet connections are so sloooow. What's really going on is that they are throttling everyone's upload speed and giving it to the faculty and *cough*computing services*cough* department.
By the way, they also ban the use of wireless APs, and the campus doesn't even have wireless access of its own. They like it this way because they can keep very close tabs on the network activity of a few particular students.
NOTE TO COMPUTING SERVICES: Hi guys! Shouldn't you be playing Warcraft 3 or something?
I'm aware of the rule. I bought the phone because the rep told me I could connect through vision with my laptop. I called Sprint when I read about users getting in trouble for it, and chewed them out royally for not telling their reps to lay off. I told them that I'd renewed my contract and bought the phone based on that info. This got me escalated all the way to the manager (who was on his way out of the office).
He explained the situation... that they can't let people willy-nilly use it, because the networks can't support it yet. However, they'd advertised connectivity as a selling point, and the service *is* supposed to be unlimited. He said that they pretty much look the other way if the use is light. He said 30 megs a month, but others online tell me that nobody noticed until they started getting close to the 1GB per month range.
Me? I use it three days a week, for slashdot, mail, and IM, and probably stay under 40 megs a week. No problems so far.
There's a kid at my University whose parents have more dollars than sense, and pay all his bills. His car, his food, his books... all paid for, and all the best.
Every semester, my roommates and I set up a vigil at our kitchen window facing his front door. When he inevitably carries five or six barely-used textbooks out to the dumpster, we intercept him, and sell the books on half. We've made about $600 in two semesters, split three ways.
Except that a software exploit can be fixed pretty close to instantly, whereas the mechanisms for this lock will have to be re-worked in order to remove the vulnerability.
Even if Kensington issued a global recall (they won't), it would take weeks to get the first fixed locks to consumers.
I've been a heavy user of MS products since 3.1, and have toyed with Linux on home server and desktop setups.
Mandrake 10 was the first distro that had no trouble with the hardware on my laptop. After changing one boot option to enable ACPI and get sound working, it was flawless.
I now dual-boot XP and Mandrake on my laptop, and it's great. I'm learning quickly as I use Linux, and at this point I only keep XP around for games and work -- My Samsung VI660 USB phone doesn't seem to like Linux, and I can't seem to find drivers for it.
Instead of being like cops, admins are like security guards. If I hire a guy to sit and watch my front gate, only let certain kinds of trafic through, etc, of *course* I'm going to be holding him responsible when someone gets through.
Not to say that he is the criminal. He just wasn't doing his job. And for that, he should be replaced.
I think the urine thing is over-emphasized by the press. The idea with such packages is that you can scoop up swamp water if you want. Urine could be used in an absolutely dire emergency, and if I was stranded somewhere and the only fluids I have are the last few ounces in my canteen and my urine... heck yeah, *zip.*
Then again, if the water situation is really that desperate, wouldn't eating hinder your chances of survival, not help them?
How much damage would there be, anyway? Any more than, say, regularly drinking whiskey?
But the whole thing brings to mind a guy I know who sold water filters in the early 90's. He'd demonstrate their effectiveness by pouring coffee through them. Not that anyone would *want to*, but they could. Same deal here.
The ones he's suggesting are, but my college friends and I got in for cheap by buying the spring-loaded ones. They're not semi-automatic, so you have to pull the slide before each shot. The upside is that they cost about $25 for a gun and clip, and usually under $10 for extra clips. Ammo is cheap when purchased in bulk and shared.
Not to mention that they don't have nearly the potential for injury as gas and electric weapons at close range.
The airsoft games in the forrest were absolutely fantastic. The problem came when a few of the students with scholarships started buying the gas pistols and electric rifles. Then one of them went on a rampage in the dorm parking lot, and the school cracked down. No more airsoft for us...
The problem with your argument is that while geeks like you or I may enjoy working with more complicated-but more powerful-tools, The average user has no desire to be bothered with it.
It's like saying that I should build my own car and tune it myself to go 150 MPH. While it would be nice for me to learn about the mechanics of the internal combustion engine, and to get the power that comes with learning how to painstakingly tune it myself, I have no desire to put forth the effort. I know how to check, fill, and change fluids, check my tire pressure, keep an eye on the idiot lights. I just want to get into the car and have the bloomin thing work. It gets extra points if it's a comfortable ride, and I wouldn't complain if there was some extra power behind it, but I basically have the minimum information needed to use the car to get to places where I will do more enjoyable things.
Joe User is the same way with his computer. Make it work without much effort, make it look nice, and let it be fun once in a while. He probably only uses it until he's done what he needed to do today, and then he moves on to what he *really* wants to do.
Also ends the problem of ringing cell phones in class...
If you actually call it a problem. I had a professor who used to get so flustered at a cell ring that he would rant for 5-10 minutes. Effectively giving me room to ignore him and play games on my Palm...
I second that. I replaced notepad completely with Metapad. It's small, it's fast, and it has loads of features which you can choose to ignore - One need only scratch just under the surface to find a lot of handy things, like formatting and line number display.
What was handy for me was switching from the horrible black-on-white to a nice green-on-black which is much easier on the eyes.
That's what I was thinking. Is there no way to flip the screen around to protect it?
This would be a really great thing for those of us who don't do super-intensive tasks like gaming on our PCs... Since plugging it into the right peripherals would make it a full desktop PC. Then again, with the $1500 price tag, most people are just going to get a sub-notebook.
Slashdot Mirror
Because, like my school, the network admins are widely viewed as incompetant because the resnet connections are so sloooow. What's really going on is that they are throttling everyone's upload speed and giving it to the faculty and *cough*computing services*cough* department.
By the way, they also ban the use of wireless APs, and the campus doesn't even have wireless access of its own. They like it this way because they can keep very close tabs on the network activity of a few particular students.
NOTE TO COMPUTING SERVICES: Hi guys! Shouldn't you be playing Warcraft 3 or something?
Alas, I did not. I read it somewhere. It's obscure, though, so I make sure to use it often. You can too.
Ah, the Internet...
Where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents... and they're MEN!
Wait a minute! Suppose two robots carried it together?
No, they'd have to have it on a line.
Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!
What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
Well, why not?
Thanks for the info!
I'm aware of the rule. I bought the phone because the rep told me I could connect through vision with my laptop. I called Sprint when I read about users getting in trouble for it, and chewed them out royally for not telling their reps to lay off. I told them that I'd renewed my contract and bought the phone based on that info. This got me escalated all the way to the manager (who was on his way out of the office).
He explained the situation... that they can't let people willy-nilly use it, because the networks can't support it yet. However, they'd advertised connectivity as a selling point, and the service *is* supposed to be unlimited. He said that they pretty much look the other way if the use is light. He said 30 megs a month, but others online tell me that nobody noticed until they started getting close to the 1GB per month range.
Me? I use it three days a week, for slashdot, mail, and IM, and probably stay under 40 megs a week. No problems so far.
You could always BitTorrent it.
With auto-resume, you could get it in, say...
40 hours? So downloading a chunk a day will conservatively get it to you in a month.
There's a kid at my University whose parents have more dollars than sense, and pay all his bills. His car, his food, his books... all paid for, and all the best.
Every semester, my roommates and I set up a vigil at our kitchen window facing his front door. When he inevitably carries five or six barely-used textbooks out to the dumpster, we intercept him, and sell the books on half. We've made about $600 in two semesters, split three ways.
I weep for his future.
Except that a software exploit can be fixed pretty close to instantly, whereas the mechanisms for this lock will have to be re-worked in order to remove the vulnerability.
Even if Kensington issued a global recall (they won't), it would take weeks to get the first fixed locks to consumers.
But three lefts do!
Agreed.
I've been a heavy user of MS products since 3.1, and have toyed with Linux on home server and desktop setups.
Mandrake 10 was the first distro that had no trouble with the hardware on my laptop. After changing one boot option to enable ACPI and get sound working, it was flawless.
I now dual-boot XP and Mandrake on my laptop, and it's great. I'm learning quickly as I use Linux, and at this point I only keep XP around for games and work -- My Samsung VI660 USB phone doesn't seem to like Linux, and I can't seem to find drivers for it.
Flawed analogy...
Instead of being like cops, admins are like security guards. If I hire a guy to sit and watch my front gate, only let certain kinds of trafic through, etc, of *course* I'm going to be holding him responsible when someone gets through.
Not to say that he is the criminal. He just wasn't doing his job. And for that, he should be replaced.
Maybe he's being super-geeky and posting via telnet?
I think the urine thing is over-emphasized by the press. The idea with such packages is that you can scoop up swamp water if you want. Urine could be used in an absolutely dire emergency, and if I was stranded somewhere and the only fluids I have are the last few ounces in my canteen and my urine... heck yeah, *zip.*
Then again, if the water situation is really that desperate, wouldn't eating hinder your chances of survival, not help them?
How much damage would there be, anyway? Any more than, say, regularly drinking whiskey?
But the whole thing brings to mind a guy I know who sold water filters in the early 90's. He'd demonstrate their effectiveness by pouring coffee through them. Not that anyone would *want to*, but they could. Same deal here.
I guess that makes sense, but what's with them "threatens"? I don't get it at all.
'Don't steal it, or we'll be forced to... uhm... push a money-making product out so it can be sold earlier.'
Wouldn't 'promises' be a better word? Or am I missing the point entirely?
The ones he's suggesting are, but my college friends and I got in for cheap by buying the spring-loaded ones. They're not semi-automatic, so you have to pull the slide before each shot. The upside is that they cost about $25 for a gun and clip, and usually under $10 for extra clips. Ammo is cheap when purchased in bulk and shared.
Not to mention that they don't have nearly the potential for injury as gas and electric weapons at close range.
The airsoft games in the forrest were absolutely fantastic. The problem came when a few of the students with scholarships started buying the gas pistols and electric rifles. Then one of them went on a rampage in the dorm parking lot, and the school cracked down. No more airsoft for us...
The problem with your argument is that while geeks like you or I may enjoy working with more complicated-but more powerful-tools, The average user has no desire to be bothered with it.
It's like saying that I should build my own car and tune it myself to go 150 MPH. While it would be nice for me to learn about the mechanics of the internal combustion engine, and to get the power that comes with learning how to painstakingly tune it myself, I have no desire to put forth the effort. I know how to check, fill, and change fluids, check my tire pressure, keep an eye on the idiot lights. I just want to get into the car and have the bloomin thing work. It gets extra points if it's a comfortable ride, and I wouldn't complain if there was some extra power behind it, but I basically have the minimum information needed to use the car to get to places where I will do more enjoyable things.
Joe User is the same way with his computer. Make it work without much effort, make it look nice, and let it be fun once in a while. He probably only uses it until he's done what he needed to do today, and then he moves on to what he *really* wants to do.
Hey, and since we're all here talking badly about this stupid company... ...this would be the perfect opportunity to put together a class-action suit!
What about "Casual Sex Fridays"?
What show is that from?
Also ends the problem of ringing cell phones in class...
If you actually call it a problem. I had a professor who used to get so flustered at a cell ring that he would rant for 5-10 minutes. Effectively giving me room to ignore him and play games on my Palm...
I second that. I replaced notepad completely with Metapad. It's small, it's fast, and it has loads of features which you can choose to ignore - One need only scratch just under the surface to find a lot of handy things, like formatting and line number display.
What was handy for me was switching from the horrible black-on-white to a nice green-on-black which is much easier on the eyes.
I don't care too much for having to "touch" the other person's screen. How about a system where I choose a file and make a throwing or tossing motion.
We could call it, I dunno, maybe "Pick and Flick."
Wouldn't a large EMP disable cars built *after* 1980, but not the ones before? Gizmos and all...
And these design differences, my friend, are what seperate the mind of man from the mind of God.
Burn, karma, burn!
That's what I was thinking. Is there no way to flip the screen around to protect it?
This would be a really great thing for those of us who don't do super-intensive tasks like gaming on our PCs... Since plugging it into the right peripherals would make it a full desktop PC. Then again, with the $1500 price tag, most people are just going to get a sub-notebook.
Since these don't even contain disks, per se, you could call it an AEFD - Array of Expensive Flash Drives.
Gosh.