There's no accountability for posting trolls of flaimbait either, so it makes little sense to put accountability into the moderation system.
There is metamoderation, however, that if you actually care will provide you with both feedback and the opportunity to "right the wrongs" in a sense. All while being anonymous (which is good).
As someone posting as an AC, cearly accountability is not something you're interested in. That's hypocrisy! =Smidge=
Sorry, but this reminds me of the hauntings of my college... though I've never heard of any students being helped by them...
I think the problem here is they are not passive enough, at least that I can tell. The last thing anybody wants is an emotional, talking version of Clippy talking to you as you're walkingdown the hallway...
"Hi! You look like you're lost! Do you want directions?"
"No. Go away."
"I'm sorry, I don't know where that is."
Man, Douglas Adams must be spinning in his grave... =Smidge=
Isn't that the other way 'round? As demand increases, price will increase to profit as much as possible.
As for programming what you feel, that's great in principle. But hoe many CD Rippers, MP3 Players, and IRC Clients are really going to get you noticed? How many network monitor tools really stand head and sholders above the rest of the development community?
I can't see these kinds of projects really attracting the attention of someone willing to pay good, make-a-living-from-it money for your skills. And I'm sure for every MP3 player out there there's two dozen ID3 tag managers and a hundred playlist editors! If you get 'discovered' from writing one of those, you should buy a lotto ticket - maybe you can retire early too! =Smidge=
Chances are the submitter meant he got a US$200 electric bill for that month. Not that year!
Under LIPA we pay about 12 cents per kWh. That's after a rate cut from a few years ago, too. It's estimates that the 19% decreas in electric cost saves the average homeowner US$240 per year... which means the average cost is still over a US$1000 a year.
Note: 1 EUR ~= US$1.24 =Smidge=
Re:Swamp cooler? Surely you jest.
on
DIY HVAC
·
· Score: 1
This is true, but if the outdoor humidity is near 0% (Like Arizona, for example), then the added humidity will probably help the comfort level quite a bit.
That being said, since swamp coolers work by evaporating water, they tend to do *nothing* in humid climates... except grow mold and mildew! =Smidge=
Re:Open Source Energy Initiatives
on
DIY HVAC
·
· Score: 1
That is definately messed up.
So let me get this straight... I can be taken to court by the town for putting a 30-gallon trash can under the downspout on my house?
Does it occur to anyone that this saves the municipality water in the long run?
They'd be better off making laws against watering your lawn and washing your car, which I'm sure they already do. If you're going to use X gallons of water to keep a garden in the back yard, it makes much more sense to collect rainwater for it than to let it soak into the ground wasted, only to pump it out again miles away and pipe it all the way back.
I can't even see how the other reply to your post applies here...it's not like you're pumping it out of a stream, it's falling on your property! By that logic is would be illegal to have a well period, because that water would otherwise be pumped out elsewhere!
Bizarre indeed! =Smidge=
Re:Here's some solutions to help lower the bill:
on
DIY HVAC
·
· Score: 1
If you live in an apartment, you have little or no control over the HVAC anyway, and probably pay a flat fee for heating (or it's built into your rent). So yeah, little you can do 'bout it... might be able to convince the landlord to take a look, since it'll save him some cash and make the tenants more comfy! =Smidge=
Actually, if it was a regular CRT and not a flat panel display, the convex mirror WOULD make you look fatter!
=Smidge=
Re:Open Source Energy Initiatives
on
DIY HVAC
·
· Score: 1
Depends on where you live.
If you live in a "wet" climate, I'm sure there's little stopping you from collecting your own rainwater, which wold be suitable for just about everything short of drinking. (A distiller or neutralizer/filter might be adequate for potble water, though... I wouldn't trust it for drinking myself without some kind of treatment!)
And around where I live, we don't give out sewage to anyone - the whole area is private cesspools. Not necessarily better or worse than municipal sewers, though. Just a different way to handle it. =Smidge=
Re:Here's some solutions to help lower the bill:
on
DIY HVAC
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
That's all fine and good. In fact, it's excellent.
But a good HVAC system will save you electricity AND fuel, being better able to meet the heating/cooling demands better. That translates to lower costs all around - AND more comfort!
A good HVAC system doesn't even need to be all that complicated, either. Chances are it's already possible to have your home re-evaluated and do a minor tweak to save a few bucks.
If you've got baseboard heat (hot water), and ever had or will soon have your boiler replaced, it's worth doing a detailed heat load calculation. Chances are the guy installing the new boiler will probably size it up to handle what the radiation is designed to put out - and typically it's quite a bit more than you actually need to keep the house comfy warm!
This results in the boiler cranking out more hot water than is actually required, and with a single-zone system you'll end up with some rooms too hot and others too cool. The boiler will also short-cycle more often, resulting in poor efficiency.
There's several solutions you could use. Putting the right sized boiler is obviously the best way to go if you don't want to redo the whole house, but if you've got plenty of radiation (and a newer, non-cast-iron boiler!), why not run your system at a lower water temperature? The boiler won't have to work as hard to get up to temperature, and it'll stay off longer (feeding off the latent heat to keep the water warm). A simple tweak of the boiler's temperature shutoff and a 3-way mixing valve is usually all it takes.
While you're at it, clean that fintube. Maybe throw some insulation on those pipes in the basement. Little things like that are easy to do and certaintly can't hurt. =Smidge=
Honest question: Has anyone ever defeated a timelock?
Obviously not the perfect solution, because it still opens at predictable intervals, but since there is *no* access to the lock itself from outside the vault, it certaintly can't be picked... =Smidge=
1) aptitude install foomatic-db hpoj hpijs hotplug 2) foomatic-datafile -d hpijs -p HP-PSC_750 >/usr/share/cups/model/HP-PSC_750.ppd 2) plug printer in 3)/etc/init/hotplug restart 4) http://localhost:631, add printer, not hard
That's a lot of typing. Not only is the parent post absolutely correct, but lots of typing introduces the possibility for typos. Typos make things not work. When something you don't really understand doesn't work it's very frustrating because you have no idea why it didn't work, and thus no idea how to fix it.
For example, you have no step 3.
Think of it this way: Every time a person has to touch something, the chance of them screwing it up (either by accident, apathy or by their own lack of knowledge) increases. Microsoft has reduced installing a printer to four "touches" - Plug in power, plug in data, press power button, click "okay".
You method required about 164 "touches" to type all that in... and that's not counting all the "touching" you have to do looking for and reading various documentation just to figure out how to do it in the first place!
Also, I'd like to ask how you know where "http://localhost:631" came from. Nobody associates printing with the internet (And EVERYBODY associated http:// is "the internet"...) This step is especially confusing. It's completely non-obvious. You can not use "experience" as an answer, because the average user will not have any.
Why can't "hotplug" do that for you?
The fact that much of the Linux community is so condecending towards users who "don't get it" isn't exactly helping the cause, either. Unless you're already established a name for yourself in one of the social circles it's almost imposible to get any real, straightforward, one-on-one help.
You also mention cost. I don't know about you, but my time isn't always free. This point has been brought up by other posters already.
And considering the Linux Revolution has yet to happen, despite it being heralded for years now, maybe one is better... I'll give you a hint in case you misinterpret it: Microsoft. It may be crap but it's crap everyone can use, and when you get right down to it the job gets done. That's a pretty steep mountain to climb. =Smidge=
Okay, so let's play a game. You tell me what you have to do to install a printer on any flavor of Linux you want, and I'll tell you what you need to do to install the same printer on WinXP.
Let's use a HP Photosmartt 7350 (semi-random printer make and model I happen to be familiar with, since I just set one up for my mother. It's also USB, which is getting more and more common nowadays)
I'll go first:
1) Plug in printer power 2) Connect printer to computer 3) Turn printer on 4) Wait about 30 seconds for Windows to detect the printer 5) Click "Okay" a few times (about 4 times I think...)
Sure, you won't have the super-duper software (which you'ld have to install seperately), but you can hit "print" and it'll print. For fairness I'll exclude the software because there's no Linux version anyway.
Tht depends, really. If there's no coast guard in sight, you'll probably be better off shooting it up. But if there is, you'll attract their attention faster by shooting it at them... though that may not be too keen on saving you after that...
Yeah, you you're standing in the boat, and you throw the outboard motor or the oars out the back as hard as you can......then you get out your trusty flare gun and signal for help, because now you're stranded! =Smidge=
It is definately cheaper to print a book than create a virtual world to intereact with a virtual book. Especially at that time.
It might be cheaper to build a fake city and staff it with actors than to build a virtual world. But considering the state of the art right now in VR worlds, it likely won't be.
It's definately cheaper to build an artificial world to model the entire planet than it is to build a fake planet and staff it with actors. Not to mention where you're going to put it and what you're going to make it out of... (Chia-Earth, anyone?)
It's all about scope and purpose.
The biggest problem I can see is keeping the model up to date. Geography, cities and populations are always changing. If their intent is to have a virtual world that can be used to study the real world, they're going to have their work cut out for them. Frankly, I can think of better things to spend money on. =Smidge=
That's the problem, though. Does a digital copy of a song have any intrinsic value?
Money in a bank account does have a specific value attached to it, even though it is "only data", it represents something with real value. What does an MP3 represent? An idea really. At best it represents the artist's efforts to express an idea, which arguably has some intrinsic value... but how much?
The RIAA will have you believe a song is worth thousands of dollars. iTunes thinks they're worth $1. Some bands (legally) give away their music for free. So what's the intrinsic value?
You can also make an infinate amount of copies of a song virtually for free and it will not lose any of it's appeal (which is the only real "value" it has - people pay for music because they like it). Try to do that with the bits and bytes in your bank account and you'll be going to prison for a very long time. The fact that you can copy music without decreasing it's value should tell you something: it has no real value! Music isn't a commodity! (surprize!)
None of this would be happening if the RIAA would stop treating music as a commodity. It's a service and a luxury. If people don't think it's worth paying for then they lose nothing by not buying it. Businesses that offer services that nobody feels like paying for go under - that's the way the system works. Evolve or die... or, in the RIAA's case, try to scare and strongarm the public into forking over their cash. That's called extortion and is also illegal. =Smidge=
But in the ideal case, at least going to court gives you a chance to proove your innocence and set a precidence against the RIAA's case.
Then you can always sue them back for wrongful accusation, mental anguish, financial damages, defamation of character, etc...
I'm sure the last thing the RIAA really wants is to end up in front of a jury on these cases. Their new "business plan" seems to rely on people taking the quick way out and paying up for less than the (overstated!) claimed damages. =Smidge=
The premise of the grandparent post was that someone could nick the code without buying te bottle. However false that might be in reality, if that were the case then the method I described would put a pretty swift end to it.
Or did you not actually read the post you replied to? =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
But the DeLorean itself was still gasoline powered!
=Smidge=
There's no accountability for posting trolls of flaimbait either, so it makes little sense to put accountability into the moderation system.
There is metamoderation, however, that if you actually care will provide you with both feedback and the opportunity to "right the wrongs" in a sense. All while being anonymous (which is good).
As someone posting as an AC, cearly accountability is not something you're interested in. That's hypocrisy!
=Smidge=
"Makes for happy Moose"
Sorry, but this reminds me of the hauntings of my college... though I've never heard of any students being helped by them...
I think the problem here is they are not passive enough, at least that I can tell. The last thing anybody wants is an emotional, talking version of Clippy talking to you as you're walkingdown the hallway...
"Hi! You look like you're lost! Do you want directions?"
"No. Go away."
"I'm sorry, I don't know where that is."
Man, Douglas Adams must be spinning in his grave...
=Smidge=
Isn't that the other way 'round? As demand increases, price will increase to profit as much as possible.
As for programming what you feel, that's great in principle. But hoe many CD Rippers, MP3 Players, and IRC Clients are really going to get you noticed? How many network monitor tools really stand head and sholders above the rest of the development community?
I can't see these kinds of projects really attracting the attention of someone willing to pay good, make-a-living-from-it money for your skills. And I'm sure for every MP3 player out there there's two dozen ID3 tag managers and a hundred playlist editors! If you get 'discovered' from writing one of those, you should buy a lotto ticket - maybe you can retire early too!
=Smidge=
Each year?
Chances are the submitter meant he got a US$200 electric bill for that month. Not that year!
Under LIPA we pay about 12 cents per kWh. That's after a rate cut from a few years ago, too. It's estimates that the 19% decreas in electric cost saves the average homeowner US$240 per year... which means the average cost is still over a US$1000 a year.
Note: 1 EUR ~= US$1.24
=Smidge=
This is true, but if the outdoor humidity is near 0% (Like Arizona, for example), then the added humidity will probably help the comfort level quite a bit.
That being said, since swamp coolers work by evaporating water, they tend to do *nothing* in humid climates... except grow mold and mildew!
=Smidge=
That is definately messed up.
So let me get this straight... I can be taken to court by the town for putting a 30-gallon trash can under the downspout on my house?
Does it occur to anyone that this saves the municipality water in the long run?
They'd be better off making laws against watering your lawn and washing your car, which I'm sure they already do. If you're going to use X gallons of water to keep a garden in the back yard, it makes much more sense to collect rainwater for it than to let it soak into the ground wasted, only to pump it out again miles away and pipe it all the way back.
I can't even see how the other reply to your post applies here...it's not like you're pumping it out of a stream, it's falling on your property! By that logic is would be illegal to have a well period, because that water would otherwise be pumped out elsewhere!
Bizarre indeed!
=Smidge=
If you live in an apartment, you have little or no control over the HVAC anyway, and probably pay a flat fee for heating (or it's built into your rent). So yeah, little you can do 'bout it... might be able to convince the landlord to take a look, since it'll save him some cash and make the tenants more comfy!
=Smidge=
Actually, if it was a regular CRT and not a flat panel display, the convex mirror WOULD make you look fatter!
=Smidge=
Depends on where you live.
If you live in a "wet" climate, I'm sure there's little stopping you from collecting your own rainwater, which wold be suitable for just about everything short of drinking. (A distiller or neutralizer/filter might be adequate for potble water, though... I wouldn't trust it for drinking myself without some kind of treatment!)
And around where I live, we don't give out sewage to anyone - the whole area is private cesspools. Not necessarily better or worse than municipal sewers, though. Just a different way to handle it.
=Smidge=
That's all fine and good. In fact, it's excellent.
But a good HVAC system will save you electricity AND fuel, being better able to meet the heating/cooling demands better. That translates to lower costs all around - AND more comfort!
A good HVAC system doesn't even need to be all that complicated, either. Chances are it's already possible to have your home re-evaluated and do a minor tweak to save a few bucks.
If you've got baseboard heat (hot water), and ever had or will soon have your boiler replaced, it's worth doing a detailed heat load calculation. Chances are the guy installing the new boiler will probably size it up to handle what the radiation is designed to put out - and typically it's quite a bit more than you actually need to keep the house comfy warm!
This results in the boiler cranking out more hot water than is actually required, and with a single-zone system you'll end up with some rooms too hot and others too cool. The boiler will also short-cycle more often, resulting in poor efficiency.
There's several solutions you could use. Putting the right sized boiler is obviously the best way to go if you don't want to redo the whole house, but if you've got plenty of radiation (and a newer, non-cast-iron boiler!), why not run your system at a lower water temperature? The boiler won't have to work as hard to get up to temperature, and it'll stay off longer (feeding off the latent heat to keep the water warm). A simple tweak of the boiler's temperature shutoff and a 3-way mixing valve is usually all it takes.
While you're at it, clean that fintube. Maybe throw some insulation on those pipes in the basement. Little things like that are easy to do and certaintly can't hurt.
=Smidge=
I think a better (and more appropriate) name would be the Department of Homestar Security.
Do you have what it takes to join the Department of Homestar Security? Will you bring a sack lunch? Do you have the five bucks?!
=Smidge=
Honest question: Has anyone ever defeated a timelock?
Obviously not the perfect solution, because it still opens at predictable intervals, but since there is *no* access to the lock itself from outside the vault, it certaintly can't be picked...
=Smidge=
That's a lot of typing. Not only is the parent post absolutely correct, but lots of typing introduces the possibility for typos. Typos make things not work. When something you don't really understand doesn't work it's very frustrating because you have no idea why it didn't work, and thus no idea how to fix it.
For example, you have no step 3.
Think of it this way: Every time a person has to touch something, the chance of them screwing it up (either by accident, apathy or by their own lack of knowledge) increases. Microsoft has reduced installing a printer to four "touches" - Plug in power, plug in data, press power button, click "okay".
You method required about 164 "touches" to type all that in... and that's not counting all the "touching" you have to do looking for and reading various documentation just to figure out how to do it in the first place!
Also, I'd like to ask how you know where "http://localhost:631" came from. Nobody associates printing with the internet (And EVERYBODY associated http:// is "the internet"...) This step is especially confusing. It's completely non-obvious. You can not use "experience" as an answer, because the average user will not have any.
Why can't "hotplug" do that for you?
The fact that much of the Linux community is so condecending towards users who "don't get it" isn't exactly helping the cause, either. Unless you're already established a name for yourself in one of the social circles it's almost imposible to get any real, straightforward, one-on-one help.
You also mention cost. I don't know about you, but my time isn't always free. This point has been brought up by other posters already.
And considering the Linux Revolution has yet to happen, despite it being heralded for years now, maybe one is better... I'll give you a hint in case you misinterpret it: Microsoft. It may be crap but it's crap everyone can use, and when you get right down to it the job gets done. That's a pretty steep mountain to climb.
=Smidge=
Funny, 'cause when I did it last week I didn't have to use a wizard OR a driver disk. I only needed the CD to install the extra software.
=Smidge=
Okay, so let's play a game. You tell me what you have to do to install a printer on any flavor of Linux you want, and I'll tell you what you need to do to install the same printer on WinXP.
Let's use a HP Photosmartt 7350 (semi-random printer make and model I happen to be familiar with, since I just set one up for my mother. It's also USB, which is getting more and more common nowadays)
I'll go first:
1) Plug in printer power
2) Connect printer to computer
3) Turn printer on
4) Wait about 30 seconds for Windows to detect the printer
5) Click "Okay" a few times (about 4 times I think...)
Sure, you won't have the super-duper software (which you'ld have to install seperately), but you can hit "print" and it'll print. For fairness I'll exclude the software because there's no Linux version anyway.
Okay, your turn!
=Smidge=
Yes they do. I'm not about to spoil it, though. All I'll say is it comes together in the last episode of the first season.
=Smidge=
Tht depends, really. If there's no coast guard in sight, you'll probably be better off shooting it up. But if there is, you'll attract their attention faster by shooting it at them... though that may not be too keen on saving you after that...
=Smidge=
I did a similar project in 5th grade... Paul Zaloom (aka Beakman) was not the first. Though his show definately kicked ass.
=Smidge=
Yeah, you you're standing in the boat, and you throw the outboard motor or the oars out the back as hard as you can... ...then you get out your trusty flare gun and signal for help, because now you're stranded!
=Smidge=
The problem with the book analogy is scope.
It is definately cheaper to print a book than create a virtual world to intereact with a virtual book. Especially at that time.
It might be cheaper to build a fake city and staff it with actors than to build a virtual world. But considering the state of the art right now in VR worlds, it likely won't be.
It's definately cheaper to build an artificial world to model the entire planet than it is to build a fake planet and staff it with actors. Not to mention where you're going to put it and what you're going to make it out of... (Chia-Earth, anyone?)
It's all about scope and purpose.
The biggest problem I can see is keeping the model up to date. Geography, cities and populations are always changing. If their intent is to have a virtual world that can be used to study the real world, they're going to have their work cut out for them. Frankly, I can think of better things to spend money on.
=Smidge=
That's the problem, though. Does a digital copy of a song have any intrinsic value?
Money in a bank account does have a specific value attached to it, even though it is "only data", it represents something with real value. What does an MP3 represent? An idea really. At best it represents the artist's efforts to express an idea, which arguably has some intrinsic value... but how much?
The RIAA will have you believe a song is worth thousands of dollars. iTunes thinks they're worth $1. Some bands (legally) give away their music for free. So what's the intrinsic value?
You can also make an infinate amount of copies of a song virtually for free and it will not lose any of it's appeal (which is the only real "value" it has - people pay for music because they like it). Try to do that with the bits and bytes in your bank account and you'll be going to prison for a very long time. The fact that you can copy music without decreasing it's value should tell you something: it has no real value! Music isn't a commodity! (surprize!)
None of this would be happening if the RIAA would stop treating music as a commodity. It's a service and a luxury. If people don't think it's worth paying for then they lose nothing by not buying it. Businesses that offer services that nobody feels like paying for go under - that's the way the system works. Evolve or die... or, in the RIAA's case, try to scare and strongarm the public into forking over their cash. That's called extortion and is also illegal.
=Smidge=
But in the ideal case, at least going to court gives you a chance to proove your innocence and set a precidence against the RIAA's case.
Then you can always sue them back for wrongful accusation, mental anguish, financial damages, defamation of character, etc...
I'm sure the last thing the RIAA really wants is to end up in front of a jury on these cases. Their new "business plan" seems to rely on people taking the quick way out and paying up for less than the (overstated!) claimed damages.
=Smidge=
The premise of the grandparent post was that someone could nick the code without buying te bottle. However false that might be in reality, if that were the case then the method I described would put a pretty swift end to it.
Or did you not actually read the post you replied to?
=Smidge=
Simple:
...oops, that code has already been used.
Person A peeks into the bottle at the store and finds a valid code. Redeems code for music.
Person B, sometime later, actually buys bottle and discovers valid code. Redeems code...
Person B reports incident and/or Apple logs attempt to use code more than once.
Jailarity insues. (Hope fully Person B kept the bottlecap and/or receipt...)
=Smidge=