Aside from killing the market (if every vendor had done so), I just think you haven't really considered the possibilities.
No, I HAVE considered the possibilites. That sounds great for you but not everybody wants or needs to watch TV on their phone. Some of us really honestly truly would place a higher value on the simple ability to place calls and be as unobtrusive as possible the rest of the time. I am waiting for something smaller than the RAZR...I don't need a PDA, I don't need an mp3 player, I don't need a camera or widescreen video, I just need a bluetooth connection for a headset, backlit mono screen, a decent (simple) phonebook, and something that I can carry comfortably in my pocket. I'm not sure why something that simple these days couldn't be made about the size of a Zippo lighter... Couple that with data services so my laptop could connect to the internet via bluetooth to the phone, and it'd be absolutely perfect for me (and I suspect others).
If everybody was bitching about it, then you'd think somebody would make one, but apparently not.
I think you're confusing Google Print with something else (you're not the only one...lots of people don't seem to get this). You can't read or download the whole book via Google. It's a search engine that searches the full text of books, and the results are EXCERPTS of the books found, with links to buy them, and perhaps libraries that have them. This is NOT an online library. It's an online full-text search of a library.
I agree with you on the comment about kids these days, and how fascinating it really is.
But I think it's worth mentioning that Viking 1 (the original Mars lander) landed on Mars almost 30 years ago, so this kind of thing wasn't totally unthinkable 20 years ago.
But this is something that is teaching us loads about our universe and I am also suprised about how little most people (even a lot of so-called geeks) seem to give a rip.
We only had the Satellite models...the earlier ones seemed more durable than the later ones. IIRC, the biggest complaint I had with them was loose screen hinges after some use (same with Dell). Probably been 2 years since we took the last one out of service, so things may be better (or worse) these days....take it for what it's worth.
I've had lots of both (and Toshiba and Dell etc) in a corporate environment. I'd be willing to put money on a Thinkpad out-living a functionally similar Gateway laptop any day of the week.
Not that I wish you any bad luck, mind you...the Gateways were fine machines, but none have ever been as good as the Thinkpads. IMHO of course...
I remember reading something about something called "thermal calibration" that most (all?) modern HDs do...as they heat/cool, the platters expand/contract, and by checking the location of a few known patterns on the disk, it can esitmate head position better, making seeks faster...
That's what I've always thought those noises were...
You're mistaken. For some people they're not needed. True enough there are now a number of free places you can go to fill out your tax forms and sumbit them online, which is a big step. And useful. But it still misses the real value that TurboTax and the like provide: they walk you through which forms to fill out. Just sorting through that task is daunting for non-accountants if you need anything beyond the simplest 1040 forms. Sure there are instructions, but they are tedious and sometimes unclear.
I don't think that online form submissions (while good) can supplant the need for products like these. The only way around that is simpler tax code.
You sound like you want them to install MS Exchange! *ducks*
Actually I hate to admit it, but it really does do a lot of those things you mentioned if you use Outlook with it...it would actually be nice if there was a little more quality competition out there for this kind of thing...
You do not have to activate a new machine from a major OEM, however if you reinstall from media (if you're lucky enough to get it with the machine), YOU MUST ACTIVATE. The reason is that the copy of XP on the machine checks some BIOS code and will not ever register, as it's already securely tied to the hardware. In that state, it is activated with a special OEM key (which is different from the sticker on the side of your box). Nobody but the OEM has access to that version of XP. If you have OEM media from the manufacturer, it's slightly different from the one that came preloaded. The OEM (or other) media that you reinstall from has the regular activation code, which prompts for a key to be entered from the sticker, and then must be activated in the usual way from MS. I'm not certain about reinstalling from a "rescue partition" that OEMs are so fond of these days.
The grandparent is mistaken about not needing to re-activate after reinstall...the fact that the key that comes prelaoded in the machine is different than the one on the sticker on the machine, and the preloaded version of XP is different from the media is the whole problem here. It's what makes you NEED to register after reinstall from media, and it's what created the whole drive to inconvenience customers with phone activation (which takes much more than 2 minutes like a lot of people are saying)...the problem is that the sticker contains a legitimate virgin key that anybody can steal and use to activate a different box.
My big question is what kind of documentation are they going to expect me to have when I call?
You sure you didn't sign up for their regular cable phone service? I've had it for 2+ years here in MN...it works just like regular phone service, except you connect to the PSTN via Comcast's cable connection instead of the LEC's copper. It's pretty much regular phone service.
Cool then....yeah I get it but the scary part is the there are people who would ask a question like that seriously. Sad really when you can't enjoy a little geek humor because you're worried some idiot might just think you're serious:(
Are you trolling, or are you serious? If you're serious (and I can't believe you are) then the answer is yes...in fact with a simple substitution cipher like that, it wouldn't matter how many times you did it, it would take the same (simple) analyasis to break it.
Re:I guess I'll have to read the book to be sure,
on
Emergence
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
but isn't this terrain Douglas Hofstadter covered about twenty-five years ago in Gödel, Escher, Bach?
Exactly what I was thinking. I may have to read this book just for that comparison alone. For those who have not read it, I highly recommend it...it's not a weekend browser, but has some fascinating insight and thought experimentation. One of the most interesting books I've ever read. And the kind of books I usually like have more pictures than words:)
It would tighten their lock on their iTunes business. I can't really afford a real iPod, but I could probably afford one of these. If it worked with iTunes, it could be enough to pull sales from other cheaper players. I'd like to buy a cheaper player, but I really like iTunes and have a lot of music purchased through them, so ideally it'd be something that would work with the music I already have without having to burn and re-rip, or use tool with dubious legal status like HYMN to remove their protection. It would be useful for Apple to have an inexpensive alternative that is compatible.
Yeah it was called Rubik's Magic Puzzle....it was a flat puzzle, with a handful of tiles connected with a funny grid of monofilament line. I had one many years ago. Not only was it an awesome puzzle, but it was also really cool to see how it was constructed so you could flip the tiles over.
Hard to describe if you've never played with one I guess. That was a great toy, thanks for reminding me of it.
most don't work on research which the general public would find remotely interesting... like studying abrasion and powder formation on Cheerios.
Oh the Crunch enhancer? Yeah it's a non-nutritive cereal varnish. It's semi-permiable. It's not osmotic. What it does is it coats and seals the flake, prevents the milk from penetrating it.
Are you sure? Everything I remember reading said Audi was vindicated and it was driver error. I had an 84 4kQ for some years (did all my own work on it) and am not sure which lines you mean. The throttle plate in that car is sprung pretty heavily, especially as it also plays the role of airflow meter IIRC (Bosch L-Jetronic right?). I am not sure which vacuum line could possibly suck open that plate, considering regular engine vacuum directly through the throttle body doesn't do it.
On a side note, that was by far my favorite car ever. Cheap, 4 doors, awesome in snow, good handling for a sedan of the period, and 210,000 mostly trouble free miles when I sold her...except for the crap door handles.
Audi had a problem years ago that was supposedly due to a programming error. At low RPM the computer would increase power but fail to sense it under some circumstances.
I am pretty sure this was investigated and attributed to driver error...most of the drivers were older people who had previously driven American cars. Apparently they'd push on the gas pedal instead of the brake on accident upon shifting into gear, wreaking havoc on farmer's markets all over the USA. Once Audi installed a brake-pedal interlock that didn't allow the trans to shift out of park without the brake depressed, the claims pretty much stopped, and that's why all cars now have that feature.
At least, that's what I heard about it. Nearly put Audi out of business.
Slashdot Mirror
Aside from killing the market (if every vendor had done so), I just think you haven't really considered the possibilities.
No, I HAVE considered the possibilites. That sounds great for you but not everybody wants or needs to watch TV on their phone. Some of us really honestly truly would place a higher value on the simple ability to place calls and be as unobtrusive as possible the rest of the time. I am waiting for something smaller than the RAZR...I don't need a PDA, I don't need an mp3 player, I don't need a camera or widescreen video, I just need a bluetooth connection for a headset, backlit mono screen, a decent (simple) phonebook, and something that I can carry comfortably in my pocket. I'm not sure why something that simple these days couldn't be made about the size of a Zippo lighter... Couple that with data services so my laptop could connect to the internet via bluetooth to the phone, and it'd be absolutely perfect for me (and I suspect others).
If everybody was bitching about it, then you'd think somebody would make one, but apparently not.
I think you're confusing Google Print with something else (you're not the only one...lots of people don't seem to get this). You can't read or download the whole book via Google. It's a search engine that searches the full text of books, and the results are EXCERPTS of the books found, with links to buy them, and perhaps libraries that have them. This is NOT an online library. It's an online full-text search of a library.
This sounds like a job for...
Bob The Angry Flower!
I agree with you on the comment about kids these days, and how fascinating it really is.
But I think it's worth mentioning that Viking 1 (the original Mars lander) landed on Mars almost 30 years ago, so this kind of thing wasn't totally unthinkable 20 years ago.
But this is something that is teaching us loads about our universe and I am also suprised about how little most people (even a lot of so-called geeks) seem to give a rip.
We only had the Satellite models...the earlier ones seemed more durable than the later ones. IIRC, the biggest complaint I had with them was loose screen hinges after some use (same with Dell). Probably been 2 years since we took the last one out of service, so things may be better (or worse) these days....take it for what it's worth.
I've had lots of both (and Toshiba and Dell etc) in a corporate environment. I'd be willing to put money on a Thinkpad out-living a functionally similar Gateway laptop any day of the week.
Not that I wish you any bad luck, mind you...the Gateways were fine machines, but none have ever been as good as the Thinkpads. IMHO of course...
Dunno dude, I just had a broken motherboard on an A30 and a tech was out here 2 days later and had all the parts on hand to repair it on the spot.
Things could be spotty these days, but my most recent personal experience has been good. YMMV of course.
Referring to 32-bit systems, Peter noted, "we learned that the Linux load average rolls over at 1024. And we actually found this out empirically."
Can you even get the server to TELL you what the load is when it's that high?? That's INSANE!
I just looked at the table of contents. This seems like just another average HTML/CSS/Javascript tutorial/primer.
/.ers don't read the linked stories, but when you don't even have to click a link....
But the guy that actually read the book says specifically:
This is not a primer, tutorial, or concept-bound book.
I know a lot of
ugh.
I remember reading something about something called "thermal calibration" that most (all?) modern HDs do...as they heat/cool, the platters expand/contract, and by checking the location of a few known patterns on the disk, it can esitmate head position better, making seeks faster...
That's what I've always thought those noises were...
They aren't needed.
You're mistaken. For some people they're not needed. True enough there are now a number of free places you can go to fill out your tax forms and sumbit them online, which is a big step. And useful. But it still misses the real value that TurboTax and the like provide: they walk you through which forms to fill out. Just sorting through that task is daunting for non-accountants if you need anything beyond the simplest 1040 forms. Sure there are instructions, but they are tedious and sometimes unclear.
I don't think that online form submissions (while good) can supplant the need for products like these. The only way around that is simpler tax code.
You sound like you want them to install MS Exchange! *ducks*
Actually I hate to admit it, but it really does do a lot of those things you mentioned if you use Outlook with it...it would actually be nice if there was a little more quality competition out there for this kind of thing...
You do not have to activate a new machine from a major OEM, however if you reinstall from media (if you're lucky enough to get it with the machine), YOU MUST ACTIVATE. The reason is that the copy of XP on the machine checks some BIOS code and will not ever register, as it's already securely tied to the hardware. In that state, it is activated with a special OEM key (which is different from the sticker on the side of your box). Nobody but the OEM has access to that version of XP. If you have OEM media from the manufacturer, it's slightly different from the one that came preloaded. The OEM (or other) media that you reinstall from has the regular activation code, which prompts for a key to be entered from the sticker, and then must be activated in the usual way from MS. I'm not certain about reinstalling from a "rescue partition" that OEMs are so fond of these days.
The grandparent is mistaken about not needing to re-activate after reinstall...the fact that the key that comes prelaoded in the machine is different than the one on the sticker on the machine, and the preloaded version of XP is different from the media is the whole problem here. It's what makes you NEED to register after reinstall from media, and it's what created the whole drive to inconvenience customers with phone activation (which takes much more than 2 minutes like a lot of people are saying)...the problem is that the sticker contains a legitimate virgin key that anybody can steal and use to activate a different box.
My big question is what kind of documentation are they going to expect me to have when I call?
It's strange to me that it's assumed that office workers are complete sheep who will be thrown into a panic by the slightest change in their desktop
;-)
Clearly, you've never worked with salespeople.
You sure you didn't sign up for their regular cable phone service? I've had it for 2+ years here in MN...it works just like regular phone service, except you connect to the PSTN via Comcast's cable connection instead of the LEC's copper. It's pretty much regular phone service.
Yeah but did you have an Amiga 1000 in a suitcase that you could use from in a car while dialing out via alligator clips to a neighborhood SAC point?
10 geek cool points to anybody who remembers QSD's Telenet NUI...now those were the days...
(Cause I never heard of any of those kinds of things).
Cool then....yeah I get it but the scary part is the there are people who would ask a question like that seriously. Sad really when you can't enjoy a little geek humor because you're worried some idiot might just think you're serious :(
Are you trolling, or are you serious? If you're serious (and I can't believe you are) then the answer is yes...in fact with a simple substitution cipher like that, it wouldn't matter how many times you did it, it would take the same (simple) analyasis to break it.
but isn't this terrain Douglas Hofstadter covered about twenty-five years ago in Gödel, Escher, Bach?
:)
Exactly what I was thinking. I may have to read this book just for that comparison alone. For those who have not read it, I highly recommend it...it's not a weekend browser, but has some fascinating insight and thought experimentation. One of the most interesting books I've ever read. And the kind of books I usually like have more pictures than words
It would tighten their lock on their iTunes business. I can't really afford a real iPod, but I could probably afford one of these. If it worked with iTunes, it could be enough to pull sales from other cheaper players. I'd like to buy a cheaper player, but I really like iTunes and have a lot of music purchased through them, so ideally it'd be something that would work with the music I already have without having to burn and re-rip, or use tool with dubious legal status like HYMN to remove their protection. It would be useful for Apple to have an inexpensive alternative that is compatible.
Just my $.02...
However, if the PC division made a $100,000,000 profit by spending $10,000,000,000, then that ain't good.
You keep using that word profit...I do not think it means what you think it means.
Yeah it was called Rubik's Magic Puzzle....it was a flat puzzle, with a handful of tiles connected with a funny grid of monofilament line. I had one many years ago. Not only was it an awesome puzzle, but it was also really cool to see how it was constructed so you could flip the tiles over.
Hard to describe if you've never played with one I guess. That was a great toy, thanks for reminding me of it.
most don't work on research which the general public would find remotely interesting... like studying abrasion and powder formation on Cheerios.
Oh the Crunch enhancer? Yeah it's a non-nutritive cereal varnish. It's semi-permiable. It's not osmotic. What it does is it coats and seals the flake, prevents the milk from penetrating it.
Are you sure? Everything I remember reading said Audi was vindicated and it was driver error. I had an 84 4kQ for some years (did all my own work on it) and am not sure which lines you mean. The throttle plate in that car is sprung pretty heavily, especially as it also plays the role of airflow meter IIRC (Bosch L-Jetronic right?). I am not sure which vacuum line could possibly suck open that plate, considering regular engine vacuum directly through the throttle body doesn't do it.
On a side note, that was by far my favorite car ever. Cheap, 4 doors, awesome in snow, good handling for a sedan of the period, and 210,000 mostly trouble free miles when I sold her...except for the crap door handles.
Audi had a problem years ago that was supposedly due to a programming error. At low RPM the computer would increase power but fail to sense it under some circumstances.
I am pretty sure this was investigated and attributed to driver error...most of the drivers were older people who had previously driven American cars. Apparently they'd push on the gas pedal instead of the brake on accident upon shifting into gear, wreaking havoc on farmer's markets all over the USA. Once Audi installed a brake-pedal interlock that didn't allow the trans to shift out of park without the brake depressed, the claims pretty much stopped, and that's why all cars now have that feature.
At least, that's what I heard about it. Nearly put Audi out of business.