Oh god... no...why? Crap, the only thing that has kept me from trying that game was the lack of a linux port. And Tuesday? Lets see 3 weeks before finals.... Well it's official, I'm switching to business.
Aye, some companies either do it proactively (as a way of getting honest feedback) or sometimes bored employees may google their company name to see what turns up (and if it's negative they may bring it to someone's attention). Those two reasons I see as a positive use of an employees spare time since not all irate customers will call in. Also it's a way to catch those that slipped through the customer service cracks (150% - 200% turnover = bad apples in even the best organizations).
I had a dental insurance provider respond to a blog posting I made. The post was about my experience with particular dentist (who was overcharging me and the insurance). I had mentioned the insurance company by name and a few months later I got an email asking about the situation.
hard to say what a recording "should sound like" This is true. I was fortunate enough to have seen this particular artist (Lisa Loeb) in concert, so I was able to figure out which speakers made her voice and guitar sound the most realistic (I ended up with midrange Polks Bookshelves). But most artists' recordings are not comparable to how they sound in concert. This is why I had recommended the use of recordings with natural instruments as they are more likely to know what the instrument should sound like, and obviously make it a song you like.
As a side note, some Bjork songs are excellent (though to some people annoying) source materials when comparing subwoofers. I was using "Hyper Ballad" from her album Post in case you were wondering. As a side benefit it may help clear the demo room so you can have some privacy. Based on this and other comparisons I ended up w/ a Velodyne subwoofer.
Note that speaker manufacturers tend to change their designs every other year so even though these to me were the best choices at the time, I'd still listen to a variety of speakers if I was in the market again today.
He was talking about cases that accommodated half height cards. Even some of the cases that accommodate full height cards may inhibit the use of a card with a slightly overisized cooling mechanism. This is the reason I mentioned my experience.
Nah don't bother, they could put MILLIONS of these radios per square foot of tinfoil and you wouldn't even notice. Heck they could put these in your food, water, etc... Sorry, didn't mean to add to the paranoia.
Just a heads up. A moderately small case can also limit your video card choices. I didn't really think about it till I tried to fit a video card with a passive cooling system (just a large heatsink). On one of my small cases the power supply was right over where the video card went, so it could only fit a card that was right about the height of the pcb board. On another one the case wouldn't close with the video card in it.
comment on their speaker recommendations. This is what gets me, speaker recommendations. They say you should get the ones you like but they really should go into detail as to the proper way to get speakers.
The way you do it is you take a CD with a couple of songs you typically listen to (also maybe a sample from a movie soundtrack). Important is that it should be something you're familiar with and preferably uses natural instruments (not synthesizers).
Then, compare speakers in your budget two at a time, make notes on which sounds closest to what the recording should sound like. When doing this make sure of two things: 1) the receiver base and treble settings are set flat 2) No other speakers (or subs are on).
Listen for how clear each instrument (and voice) comes out on each speaker.
When you get your two main speakers you need to get a matching center, you can switch between dolby pro-logic and stereo to compare the sound of your mains vs your central, or better, if they'll let you, hook up one the center channel in place of one of the main speakers and use the L/R fade on the reciever to compare the sound between the two (your music should be pretty even on both channels for this to work well). If you got bookshelf speakers you may want to really consider getting a 3rd identical speaker as your main (you probably will have to buy a 2nd pair since they won't sell them solo but in some cases it's worth it and you have a spare if something goes wrong in the future).
Don't assume the center channel provided by the manufacturer is the best matching center for your mains either. Get the best matching speaker period. When sounds pan across the front you don't want the quality of the sound to change too.
Rear speakers should be reasonably close matches to your fronts. When they're in your room they'll sound different anyway (since the quality of sound we hear is different when the source is in front of us vs the rear). You can also get dedicated surrounds (with drivers facing in different directions) vs traditional speakers for the rear. Always audition the rear speakers as you did your mains. Make sure they're good quality as well.
Last but not least, higher model number, more expensive *does not* mean better sounding. Louder.. maybe. But there are alot of considerations that go into balancing the sound from a speaker and some manufacturers get it right with their mid range models but lose it as they stray from that design.
Oh and if you're gonna listen to a Bose offering (typically not the best value for the price), really listen to the alternatives, you'll be surprised.
Do you know the details of the deal? I don't. And this is part of the problem. The government didn't specify the reason why they changed their minds. No "Thanks but we re-evaluated our options and our people decided that X was better than your product." Such a turn about does deserve an explanation. When there is no explanation given then yes, people will suspect there is a reason but because it's not an ethically valid one the government doesn't want to go into details about it.
But really, we just have to wait for another source to pop up. All we have atm is one side of the story.
I would like to add that the warranties differ between Retail Boxed Hard drives and other versions. But don't trust me, go to your favorite manufacturer's website and check for your self. This is why I always purchase the 3-5 year warranty HDD's online (OEM packaged) vs picking up a boxed drive (with the typical 1 year warranty).
AC3 encoding Woo, that would be nice. Essentially this is the same feature that some of the higher end (Dolby Digital Live(TM)) cards have where they can take the multi-speaker output from a game, pipe it out the coax or SPDI/F out as a Dolby Digital encoded signal - which in turn you connect to a Dolby Digital receiver (practically any modern receiver) and viola! 5.1 discreet channels of sound from linux applications (not just movies).
Yes, I have so desired this for so long. Question is though would this fall into their domain? Alsa is a separate project but I know the alsa code is included in the Kernel... Anybody know for sure if this would be a valid suggestion for the Linux device driver project (and is it patent encumbered)?
Just a heads up, if you're upgrading from an earlier version... well I've been using Mandriva since 10.1, I have not had a fully successful upgrade yet (usually end up wiping my //usr partitions and starting anew). So get ready for an evening of fun, backup your fstab (you may need it later) and your xorg.conf (if your current one is making you happy).
Presently I've completed the upgrade to 2008, sadly now I have only one monitor working (out of a dual head setup), no applications under KDE (woo, lets play name that app in the Konsole window ^_^), and approximately half the glxgears performance I had prior to the upgrade.
No luck installing a repository either. Why... Why oh why didn't I wait till the *weekend* to do this!!!
So any progress in porting the DrakTools to Kubuntu? Pretty much only thing keeping me with Mandriva atm.
regenerating mice
all the mice traps I can see it now... you hear a snap! You run and discover a mouse severed in two, then the soundtrack from the terminator starts playing as the mouse slowly starts to melt together back into one cohesive and pissed off mouse.
I think it would be much more benefit to the community just maintaining an HCL Thank you, that is what I was actually hinting at. For example, I recently wanted to purchase a new scanner, I spent hours upon hours looking for a scanner that was still available in stores and that was fully supported under Linux. I found lots with great support, but were discontinued a few years ago, some that were current but with some support (limited to lower res scanning), some were recent models, but with proprietary support (which would have been great, *except* it wasn't full support), then some with great support that were way out of my price range (Like 3x more expensive than the $150-180 I was looking to spend).
A HCL would do good to list the suggested retail of the product and the date it was brought to market (in addition to the obvious level of support and type (Proprietary vs open drivers). Heck, I wouldn't see anything wrong with the site providing a buy it now link for the item (thus providing some revenue). That would have saved me countless hours (and I still dont' have a scanner...)
Just curious, but where is the list touting the manufacturers that stepped forward and provided documentation (and consequently which new hardware is supported). Be nice to see what progress this campaign has made and is continuing to make.
Also it would be nice to get a list going of which hardware I should look forward to.
I use calc for lab calculations for my engineering classes involving complex equations (as in imaginary numbers), lots of plots and all the fun equations that we get to play with, I haven't run into anything yet that I wasn't able to do in calc that I could previously do in Excel.
I also use it for scheduling (calendar type functions with conditional statements, conditional formatting, strewn throughout) to automatically generate events if certain criteria are made. I know, I need to find something better than a spreadsheet for that... But yeah, I find it nice and robust.
There were some minor adjustments as far as entering equations, but it's been so long since I transitioned that I don't even remember what syntax differences I had to adjust to.
Funny you mention that, I still remember DIVX... When I was shopping for a DVD player and saw they were supporting Divx I thought I had stepped into 1998 again (till I realized it was the MPG 4 format no the crappy Circuit City dvd *rental* thing).
programs which allow users to copy music OFF their iPods. For a better ipod experience we had to turn away from itunes.
I use Amarok for my ipod (and encourage my Wife to use her Linux Box instead of her MacBook w/ itunes) to sync up her ipod. Twice already we ran into the situation where her itunes database was empty (one time was a fresh re-install of OS-X the other she had a new machine). Syncing a ipod to itunes when it has 0 to a few songs will cause it to ERASE every *other* song on the ipod (purchased or not). It does not warn you ahead of time that it's about to wipe your ipod and in fact it makes it easy for the novice user to commit this mistake.
Coincidentally this is the reason we stopped buying music from itunes, they didn't want to make it easy to re-download the purchased music / audio books. When they did allow it, they stated it was the last time they would *permit* us to re-obtain our purchased music. So as it is I consider itunes DRM'd music "risky".
Plus Amarok's backup feature is worth more to me than any dynamic (or whatever) playlist would be.
Is the information from all these various probes being shared God! Korea, we already said NO! You can't borrow our notes, God!
But seriously, I was wondering the same thing, how are there experiments gonna vary from ours (if at all) considering the near half century technology gap between automated experiment equipment then and now.
In case you didn't know, Apollo has been developing a system to grow diamond wafers through CVD (Carbon Vapor Deposition) for you guessed it, semiconductor use.
Anyway SiC is used in jewelry too (obviously with the same properites), just never realized that it could be used to make microelectronic devices like this. Heh, my wife's engagement ring just got way cooler.
I'm not familiar with UK law, but since our laws were originally based on yours how bout this:
In the US automakers cannot invalidate your warranty because of aftermarket parts. The burden is on them to prove that the aftermarket part caused the problem.
Now I'm thinking there must be a similar law over there, if so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch equating the relationship between the broken hinge to the OS with a faulty auto frame and the music cd's you played in it. Sorry, about the car analogy but generally the laws regarding auto warranties are more cemented in than pc equivalents.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh god... no...why? Crap, the only thing that has kept me from trying that game was the lack of a linux port. And Tuesday? Lets see 3 weeks before finals.... Well it's official, I'm switching to business.
Aye, some companies either do it proactively (as a way of getting honest feedback) or sometimes bored employees may google their company name to see what turns up (and if it's negative they may bring it to someone's attention). Those two reasons I see as a positive use of an employees spare time since not all irate customers will call in. Also it's a way to catch those that slipped through the customer service cracks (150% - 200% turnover = bad apples in even the best organizations).
I had a dental insurance provider respond to a blog posting I made. The post was about my experience with particular dentist (who was overcharging me and the insurance). I had mentioned the insurance company by name and a few months later I got an email asking about the situation.
As a side note, some Bjork songs are excellent (though to some people annoying) source materials when comparing subwoofers. I was using "Hyper Ballad" from her album Post in case you were wondering. As a side benefit it may help clear the demo room so you can have some privacy. Based on this and other comparisons I ended up w/ a Velodyne subwoofer.
Note that speaker manufacturers tend to change their designs every other year so even though these to me were the best choices at the time, I'd still listen to a variety of speakers if I was in the market again today.
He was talking about cases that accommodated half height cards. Even some of the cases that accommodate full height cards may inhibit the use of a card with a slightly overisized cooling mechanism. This is the reason I mentioned my experience.
Nah don't bother, they could put MILLIONS of these radios per square foot of tinfoil and you wouldn't even notice. Heck they could put these in your food, water, etc... Sorry, didn't mean to add to the paranoia.
Just a heads up. A moderately small case can also limit your video card choices. I didn't really think about it till I tried to fit a video card with a passive cooling system (just a large heatsink). On one of my small cases the power supply was right over where the video card went, so it could only fit a card that was right about the height of the pcb board. On another one the case wouldn't close with the video card in it.
The way you do it is you take a CD with a couple of songs you typically listen to (also maybe a sample from a movie soundtrack). Important is that it should be something you're familiar with and preferably uses natural instruments (not synthesizers).
Then, compare speakers in your budget two at a time, make notes on which sounds closest to what the recording should sound like. When doing this make sure of two things:
1) the receiver base and treble settings are set flat
2) No other speakers (or subs are on).
Listen for how clear each instrument (and voice) comes out on each speaker.
When you get your two main speakers you need to get a matching center, you can switch between dolby pro-logic and stereo to compare the sound of your mains vs your central, or better, if they'll let you, hook up one the center channel in place of one of the main speakers and use the L/R fade on the reciever to compare the sound between the two (your music should be pretty even on both channels for this to work well). If you got bookshelf speakers you may want to really consider getting a 3rd identical speaker as your main (you probably will have to buy a 2nd pair since they won't sell them solo but in some cases it's worth it and you have a spare if something goes wrong in the future).
Don't assume the center channel provided by the manufacturer is the best matching center for your mains either. Get the best matching speaker period. When sounds pan across the front you don't want the quality of the sound to change too.
Rear speakers should be reasonably close matches to your fronts. When they're in your room they'll sound different anyway (since the quality of sound we hear is different when the source is in front of us vs the rear). You can also get dedicated surrounds (with drivers facing in different directions) vs traditional speakers for the rear. Always audition the rear speakers as you did your mains. Make sure they're good quality as well.
Last but not least, higher model number, more expensive *does not* mean better sounding. Louder.. maybe. But there are alot of considerations that go into balancing the sound from a speaker and some manufacturers get it right with their mid range models but lose it as they stray from that design.
Oh and if you're gonna listen to a Bose offering (typically not the best value for the price), really listen to the alternatives, you'll be surprised.
But really, we just have to wait for another source to pop up. All we have atm is one side of the story.
I would like to add that the warranties differ between Retail Boxed Hard drives and other versions. But don't trust me, go to your favorite manufacturer's website and check for your self. This is why I always purchase the 3-5 year warranty HDD's online (OEM packaged) vs picking up a boxed drive (with the typical 1 year warranty).
Yes, I have so desired this for so long. Question is though would this fall into their domain? Alsa is a separate project but I know the alsa code is included in the Kernel... Anybody know for sure if this would be a valid suggestion for the Linux device driver project (and is it patent encumbered)?
Thank you, I had forgotten about this gem though I could have used this last semester!
Just a heads up, if you're upgrading from an earlier version... well I've been using Mandriva since 10.1, I have not had a fully successful upgrade yet (usually end up wiping my / /usr partitions and starting anew). So get ready for an evening of fun, backup your fstab (you may need it later) and your xorg.conf (if your current one is making you happy).
Presently I've completed the upgrade to 2008, sadly now I have only one monitor working (out of a dual head setup), no applications under KDE (woo, lets play name that app in the Konsole window ^_^), and approximately half the glxgears performance I had prior to the upgrade.
No luck installing a repository either. Why... Why oh why didn't I wait till the *weekend* to do this!!!
So any progress in porting the DrakTools to Kubuntu? Pretty much only thing keeping me with Mandriva atm.
You mean like HD Divx Players?
http://www.divx.com/products/hw/browse.php?c=7
A HCL would do good to list the suggested retail of the product and the date it was brought to market (in addition to the obvious level of support and type (Proprietary vs open drivers). Heck, I wouldn't see anything wrong with the site providing a buy it now link for the item (thus providing some revenue). That would have saved me countless hours (and I still dont' have a scanner...)
Just curious, but where is the list touting the manufacturers that stepped forward and provided documentation (and consequently which new hardware is supported). Be nice to see what progress this campaign has made and is continuing to make.
Also it would be nice to get a list going of which hardware I should look forward to.
I use calc for lab calculations for my engineering classes involving complex equations (as in imaginary numbers), lots of plots and all the fun equations that we get to play with, I haven't run into anything yet that I wasn't able to do in calc that I could previously do in Excel.
I also use it for scheduling (calendar type functions with conditional statements, conditional formatting, strewn throughout) to automatically generate events if certain criteria are made. I know, I need to find something better than a spreadsheet for that... But yeah, I find it nice and robust.
There were some minor adjustments as far as entering equations, but it's been so long since I transitioned that I don't even remember what syntax differences I had to adjust to.
Funny you mention that, I still remember DIVX... When I was shopping for a DVD player and saw they were supporting Divx I thought I had stepped into 1998 again (till I realized it was the MPG 4 format no the crappy Circuit City dvd *rental* thing).
I use Amarok for my ipod (and encourage my Wife to use her Linux Box instead of her MacBook w/ itunes) to sync up her ipod. Twice already we ran into the situation where her itunes database was empty (one time was a fresh re-install of OS-X the other she had a new machine). Syncing a ipod to itunes when it has 0 to a few songs will cause it to ERASE every *other* song on the ipod (purchased or not). It does not warn you ahead of time that it's about to wipe your ipod and in fact it makes it easy for the novice user to commit this mistake.
Coincidentally this is the reason we stopped buying music from itunes, they didn't want to make it easy to re-download the purchased music / audio books. When they did allow it, they stated it was the last time they would *permit* us to re-obtain our purchased music. So as it is I consider itunes DRM'd music "risky".
Plus Amarok's backup feature is worth more to me than any dynamic (or whatever) playlist would be.
But seriously, I was wondering the same thing, how are there experiments gonna vary from ours (if at all) considering the near half century technology gap between automated experiment equipment then and now.
Hmm... somehow lost my link to Apollo, well here it is.
In case you didn't know, Apollo has been developing a system to grow diamond wafers through CVD (Carbon Vapor Deposition) for you guessed it, semiconductor use.
Anyway SiC is used in jewelry too (obviously with the same properites), just never realized that it could be used to make microelectronic devices like this. Heh, my wife's engagement ring just got way cooler.
I'm not familiar with UK law, but since our laws were originally based on yours how bout this:
In the US automakers cannot invalidate your warranty because of aftermarket parts. The burden is on them to prove that the aftermarket part caused the problem.
Now I'm thinking there must be a similar law over there, if so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch equating the relationship between the broken hinge to the OS with a faulty auto frame and the music cd's you played in it. Sorry, about the car analogy but generally the laws regarding auto warranties are more cemented in than pc equivalents.
IANAL, YMMV and all that...
I wanted to see by comparison how many pages the ODF specification, but I can't find a consistent count.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/?p=1643 lists a quote by Miguel stating 4-10 depending on "how you count it".
this looks like over 600:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.1/OS/OpenDocument-v1.1-html/OpenDocument-v1.1.html#17.7.6.Key%20Derivation|outline
so which is it?