In our office, we've had two monitors burn - one just with smoke pouring out of it, and one with nice flames coming out the top. They were both old, and it looks like dust inside was the culprit. Unplugging the monitors in both cases pretty much stopped the fire. I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often.
POTS doesn't guarantee anything. I have a house in a good-sized city. During two power outages that were longer than four hours, I've lost phone service because a local phone box had it's batteries fail. Not all POTS lines are CO powered. This was also the reason why I couldn't get DSL there. Not to mention that this is an older neighborhood with lots of overhead lines and trees, which themselves have caused me to lose phone and power more times than I can count.
The only thing that's worked consistently in these situations was my net connection (dual-fuel generator FTW!) and my cell phone.
With any real disaster (like Katrina) you really can't rely on anything working, POTS, cell, 'net, or grid power. Of course, you hams are some of the few people concerned about disaster preparedness and actually have the gear necessary to remain useful.
At a new job, my first assignment was to find and fix a "minor" uninstall bug on an older product. It was triggered when building a path to recursively delete the install directory. It started with a string c:\ and then looked at an included.ini file to get the path of the product, which it would append to the mentioned prefix.
If it didn't find the.ini file it would - well, you can guess the rest.
Re:Should have waited for the bargain bin
on
BioShock Review
·
· Score: 1
I forgot one thing from the review:... clocking in probably around 20-25 hours for most players.
Ahhh... no. I ran through in normal mode in less than half that. I found myself wishing the fucking cut scenes could be skipped. I wanted it over. Again, it's painful.
Should have waited for the bargain bin
on
BioShock Review
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This thing is WAY over-hyped. The best thing it has going for it is the scenery and overall atmosphere, which are simply awesome. Beyond that, it's just a first person slog-fest. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no choice in the game. There is a fixed path you have to follow, invisible walls, locked doors, the whole cliched bit. You can't even choose to not interact with the little sisters - you're FORCED to make a choice between letting them go and harvesting them.
Creating your own ammo and gadgets from parts found in the game? - boring and only semi-useful. Hacking? - Let's just say I'll never do this again if I ever replay it. Way, way repetitive. Auto-hack tool FTW. Hell, you only need aiming skill until you get telekinesis - then you're pretty much set. You hardly even need ammo after this point - just toss bodies around (which is admittedly, fun to do.)
There is little replay value, the big boss fight is laughably easy, the "ending" painful to watch, and everything from beginning to end so damn predictable and trivial to master it.... well, it's fucking pathetic, let's leave it at that.
Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don
on
The Trouble With TiVo
·
· Score: 1
Heh - you sound like my GF's father. He refused to get Tivo because Consumer Reports gave some Panasonic (IIRC) POS a buy rating because of all the features (DVD recording, no subscription, low purchase price, etc.) that weren't in (and I quote) "the feature poor and overly expensive Tivo." So he got one. The interface SUCKED SO FUCKING BAD. I can't stress how bad. Not Plan-9 From Outer Space Bad, we're talking Gigli or Catwoman bad. He suffered for a week, then gave it up and returned it.
One thing I learned a while ago - usability for the primary purpose trumps loads of crap features that cause brain hemorrhages when used. For examples of the former, see the iPod, Tivo, and the default Google search page; For the latter, see nearly any recent portable DAP or media players, any cable-company set top box (DVR or no), and any number of dead search "portal" sites.
If the cable companies really want to kill Tivo, they really need to improve their product. Or just buy Tivo and bury them.
They are not loosing the will to code. They just have too much other work, like reviewing others code. So they do not have enough time left to code. RTFA. The headline is not reflected in the article itself at all.
Training my ass. I spend some of my free time racing cars, doing autocross, and have been through driving courses that a I dare-say makes the average cops' driving training pale by comparison. Should I be allowed to speed? Heck, we an institutionalize it - take some courses, and speed all you want!
What you (and these cops apparently) fail to understand is that no matter how good you are, there are 10,000 other assholes out there that can't drive worth a shit, not to mention kids, unforeseen road problems, etc. Some of these cannot be avoided, and the only way to mitigate damage is to slow the fuck down.
Out in the middle of nowhere with no one to kill but yourself, sure speed. In town with other traffic or in a residential area - you better have a damn good reason to be hauling ass. And one of those reasons isn't that you're an off-duty cop. There's a reason that cop cars and emergency vehicles have lights and sirens. It's to help ensure that people get out of the way. Speeding without those running is especially reckless. Again - you better have a damn good reason.
Serious question: What explanation from GoDaddy would satisfy you (or other/.ers), such that you continue giving them your business and would trust them? I would have thought the facts speak for themselves.
The only way I would consider it would be one of two things:
A. The entire thing was a miscommunication and/or didn't happen like it has been reported. (Fat Chance.)
B. They (meaning the CEO) publicly apologize for the incident and deliver new written policy concerning their removal of sites upon request. This new policy would have to be in line with common practices (contact the administrator first, standard DMCA requests, etc.)
I'm willing to give them a chance to make it right, but don't hold out much hope, especially considering the statements already made by their PR flack.
I've sent email to GoDaddy's customer relations department asking for clarification of this, stating that I'm going to be pulling my personal sites (hosted there) and all domains (and my company's 350+ domains (no, we're not squatters..)). If this turns out to be true, and can't clarify their position on when they might arbitrarily pull sites based on nothing but a request other than "when we feel like it" EVERYONE should get the hell out of Dodge, as they obviously are responsible business partners.
Waiting for my rely, which will probably never come.
Somehow every other coffee place I've been to charges 50-75% less than Starbucks and tastes just as good if not better
Not sure where you live - every place I've ever been coffee prices are remarkably consistent between coffee shops. Keep in mind that buying coffee at 7-11 or the gas station down the street doesn't count.
And you can bet the farm that those mythical cheaper shops aren't paying for health insurance for their employees.
This is reporting the physical age of the participants only. The key demographic of MySpace is actually based on mental age. This is still being actively maintained at between seven and eight years old.
(Die in a fire all you hotlinking mo-fo's!)
I would certainly argue that anyone who's belief in a big sky daddy (against all evidence to the contrary) directly justifies killing thousands of people is mad. Representative of a large group of people, perhaps. But mad nonetheless.
... I believe I've had contact with these jerks - I got a call from someone at MS stating that "They would like to help me ensure that we have the software we need for an organization our size." which quickly devolved into "send us copies of all your license certificates, then we'll send someone out to help check these against all your machines." (apparently they've got some tools for this?)
When nicely told to stick it, the final word from this ass was (and I quote) "How confident are you that you have everything in order?"
I'd really hate for something to happen to your nice store there, Mister. You sure you don't want to hire us to make sure nothing gets broken?
I can tell you, this technology definitely works. I've seen them compress random data streams to 1/25th (even 1/30th!!) their size. This works *TODAY*. Coming out real soon now is the software that allows you to decompress your data. This is still in development.
I find it funny that most of the die hard Mac users I know are some of the most computer illiterate people I have ever met...
Funny. I was going to say the same thing of most die hard Windows users. That being said, most "computer illiterate" people would be better off running a Mac because they don't have some local Windows Wunderkind like yourself to keep their half-baked OS running.
A.) I can let a 6 year old install software on a Windows system... But I have to train someone who has 20 years of computer experience on how to find their files on a Mac.
Well, troll, you obviously suck huge balls as a trainer. I mailed my computer-idiot parents a Mac for Christmas. They had the whole thing running, connected to the net, and editing pictures before I woke up on the 25th. They gave their Windows machine away to my brother when he went home a couple of days later.
When I need to write Windows software, I use a Windows XP box. When I actually need to get something done, I use what works and never have to worry about - my Mac(s). I, too, spend hundreds of hours - with both systems. I can tell you frankly that I spend far, far more of those hundreds of hours on maintaining and rebooting my XP system than all my Macs combined. Heck, right now XP has decided all my buttons should be drawn as black boxes. Time for another reboot, I guess.
Two browsers, the latest Firefox and IE running side by side. The IE window loads, Firefox doesn't. Just get the endless Loading... animation. Running any browser on my Mac, it never gets past the loading phase.
Piece. Of. Junk.
Only Microsoft could create something that displays text search results in a browser fail to function.
Evolutionists? Is this like a gravitationist? Carbon dating show to be inaccurate? The theory of evolution includes the big bang? What are you babbling about? Your examples and made-up word choice betrays your bias and lack of knowledge about anything regarding this subject.
Yes, I'm a senior in a university studying engineering. I guess that makes me somewhat educated, doesn't it?
Well, no, it doesn't. I've always had problems with you engineering structualists anyhow - there's no way something as complicated as a bridge remains standing without some form of divine intervention, despite your structuralist insistences to the contrary.
(My apologies if you're really studying to run a train! Woo-Woo!)
I know DVD DLs have hit the mainstream. The grocery store down the street sells them. Expensive (3 for $11) but they're there. They're right next to the crayons.
I love Linux and have run it for years. Official Slashdot disclaimer over.
Linux will be easy for the average user when I don't have to download a source package, compile it and install it, extract Windows drivers for ndiswrapper using another tool I had to compile from source, and then fiddle around with rc files to make sure my SSID got set on boot all so I could get on the local network.
Yeah, sing me the song of vendors not releasing drivers. I hear and understand, brother... But the average user doesn't give a shit. All they know is it doesn't work, and the learning curve is so steep it's more a learning cliff.
Give a user a pre-configured Linux box with everything working, fine - for most uses people will get along fine. Anyone trying to tell me that an average user can install Linux on their home box and walk away happy most of the time is living in a dream world.
You'll never figure out Dell's pricing policies for any given piece of hardware. It will change randomly from moment to moment. Just when you think you know how to get the best deal, they'll completely change on you. Hell, we effectively resell Dell PCs, and even *WE* can't get a straight price from our rep. Fuck, their corporate customers who buy thousands of units a year don't know how much a PC will cost until they actually get charged for it.
Personally, I use their pricing changes as a source of entropy to help generate cryptographic keys.
Slashdot Mirror
"...There are no roadblocks for either of these."
So quit with the jibber-jabber and make with the 50 hour laptop battery.
In our office, we've had two monitors burn - one just with smoke pouring out of it, and one with nice flames coming out the top. They were both old, and it looks like dust inside was the culprit. Unplugging the monitors in both cases pretty much stopped the fire. I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often.
POTS doesn't guarantee anything. I have a house in a good-sized city. During two power outages that were longer than four hours, I've lost phone service because a local phone box had it's batteries fail. Not all POTS lines are CO powered. This was also the reason why I couldn't get DSL there. Not to mention that this is an older neighborhood with lots of overhead lines and trees, which themselves have caused me to lose phone and power more times than I can count.
The only thing that's worked consistently in these situations was my net connection (dual-fuel generator FTW!) and my cell phone.
With any real disaster (like Katrina) you really can't rely on anything working, POTS, cell, 'net, or grid power. Of course, you hams are some of the few people concerned about disaster preparedness and actually have the gear necessary to remain useful.
At a new job, my first assignment was to find and fix a "minor" uninstall bug on an older product. It was triggered when building a path to recursively delete the install directory. It started with a string c:\ and then looked at an included .ini file to get the path of the product, which it would append to the mentioned prefix.
If it didn't find the .ini file it would - well, you can guess the rest.
I forgot one thing from the review: ... clocking in probably around 20-25 hours for most players.
Ahhh... no. I ran through in normal mode in less than half that. I found myself wishing the fucking cut scenes could be skipped. I wanted it over. Again, it's painful.
This thing is WAY over-hyped. The best thing it has going for it is the scenery and overall atmosphere, which are simply awesome. Beyond that, it's just a first person slog-fest. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no choice in the game. There is a fixed path you have to follow, invisible walls, locked doors, the whole cliched bit. You can't even choose to not interact with the little sisters - you're FORCED to make a choice between letting them go and harvesting them. Creating your own ammo and gadgets from parts found in the game? - boring and only semi-useful. Hacking? - Let's just say I'll never do this again if I ever replay it. Way, way repetitive. Auto-hack tool FTW. Hell, you only need aiming skill until you get telekinesis - then you're pretty much set. You hardly even need ammo after this point - just toss bodies around (which is admittedly, fun to do.) There is little replay value, the big boss fight is laughably easy, the "ending" painful to watch, and everything from beginning to end so damn predictable and trivial to master it .... well, it's fucking pathetic, let's leave it at that.
Heh - you sound like my GF's father. He refused to get Tivo because Consumer Reports gave some Panasonic (IIRC) POS a buy rating because of all the features (DVD recording, no subscription, low purchase price, etc.) that weren't in (and I quote) "the feature poor and overly expensive Tivo." So he got one. The interface SUCKED SO FUCKING BAD. I can't stress how bad. Not Plan-9 From Outer Space Bad, we're talking Gigli or Catwoman bad. He suffered for a week, then gave it up and returned it.
One thing I learned a while ago - usability for the primary purpose trumps loads of crap features that cause brain hemorrhages when used. For examples of the former, see the iPod, Tivo, and the default Google search page; For the latter, see nearly any recent portable DAP or media players, any cable-company set top box (DVR or no), and any number of dead search "portal" sites.
If the cable companies really want to kill Tivo, they really need to improve their product. Or just buy Tivo and bury them.
They are not loosing the will to code. They just have too much other work, like reviewing others code. So they do not have enough time left to code. RTFA. The headline is not reflected in the article itself at all.
I'm loosing the will to spell.
Training my ass. I spend some of my free time racing cars, doing autocross, and have been through driving courses that a I dare-say makes the average cops' driving training pale by comparison. Should I be allowed to speed? Heck, we an institutionalize it - take some courses, and speed all you want!
What you (and these cops apparently) fail to understand is that no matter how good you are, there are 10,000 other assholes out there that can't drive worth a shit, not to mention kids, unforeseen road problems, etc. Some of these cannot be avoided, and the only way to mitigate damage is to slow the fuck down.
Out in the middle of nowhere with no one to kill but yourself, sure speed. In town with other traffic or in a residential area - you better have a damn good reason to be hauling ass. And one of those reasons isn't that you're an off-duty cop. There's a reason that cop cars and emergency vehicles have lights and sirens. It's to help ensure that people get out of the way. Speeding without those running is especially reckless. Again - you better have a damn good reason.
Just because it's cartoony doesn't mean it should be taken less seriously.
So let me get this straight - you're afraid of what amounts to a fucking Lite Brite stuck on a wall. You're a damned terrorist's wet dream.
Serious question: What explanation from GoDaddy would satisfy you (or other /.ers), such that you continue giving them your business and would trust them? I would have thought the facts speak for themselves.
The only way I would consider it would be one of two things:
A. The entire thing was a miscommunication and/or didn't happen like it has been reported. (Fat Chance.)
B. They (meaning the CEO) publicly apologize for the incident and deliver new written policy concerning their removal of sites upon request. This new policy would have to be in line with common practices (contact the administrator first, standard DMCA requests, etc.)
I'm willing to give them a chance to make it right, but don't hold out much hope, especially considering the statements already made by their PR flack.
I've sent email to GoDaddy's customer relations department asking for clarification of this, stating that I'm going to be pulling my personal sites (hosted there) and all domains (and my company's 350+ domains (no, we're not squatters..)). If this turns out to be true, and can't clarify their position on when they might arbitrarily pull sites based on nothing but a request other than "when we feel like it" EVERYONE should get the hell out of Dodge, as they obviously are responsible business partners. Waiting for my rely, which will probably never come.
Somehow every other coffee place I've been to charges 50-75% less than Starbucks and tastes just as good if not better
Not sure where you live - every place I've ever been coffee prices are remarkably consistent between coffee shops. Keep in mind that buying coffee at 7-11 or the gas station down the street doesn't count.
And you can bet the farm that those mythical cheaper shops aren't paying for health insurance for their employees.
This is reporting the physical age of the participants only. The key demographic of MySpace is actually based on mental age. This is still being actively maintained at between seven and eight years old. (Die in a fire all you hotlinking mo-fo's!)
I would certainly argue that anyone who's belief in a big sky daddy (against all evidence to the contrary) directly justifies killing thousands of people is mad. Representative of a large group of people, perhaps. But mad nonetheless.
... I believe I've had contact with these jerks - I got a call from someone at MS stating that "They would like to help me ensure that we have the software we need for an organization our size." which quickly devolved into "send us copies of all your license certificates, then we'll send someone out to help check these against all your machines." (apparently they've got some tools for this?)
When nicely told to stick it, the final word from this ass was (and I quote) "How confident are you that you have everything in order?"
I'd really hate for something to happen to your nice store there, Mister. You sure you don't want to hire us to make sure nothing gets broken?
Because it's batteries only last for 660 feet.
I can tell you, this technology definitely works. I've seen them compress random data streams to 1/25th (even 1/30th!!) their size. This works *TODAY*. Coming out real soon now is the software that allows you to decompress your data. This is still in development.
I find it funny that most of the die hard Mac users I know are some of the most computer illiterate people I have ever met...
Funny. I was going to say the same thing of most die hard Windows users. That being said, most "computer illiterate" people would be better off running a Mac because they don't have some local Windows Wunderkind like yourself to keep their half-baked OS running.
A.) I can let a 6 year old install software on a Windows system... But I have to train someone who has 20 years of computer experience on how to find their files on a Mac.
Well, troll, you obviously suck huge balls as a trainer. I mailed my computer-idiot parents a Mac for Christmas. They had the whole thing running, connected to the net, and editing pictures before I woke up on the 25th. They gave their Windows machine away to my brother when he went home a couple of days later.
When I need to write Windows software, I use a Windows XP box. When I actually need to get something done, I use what works and never have to worry about - my Mac(s). I, too, spend hundreds of hours - with both systems. I can tell you frankly that I spend far, far more of those hundreds of hours on maintaining and rebooting my XP system than all my Macs combined. Heck, right now XP has decided all my buttons should be drawn as black boxes. Time for another reboot, I guess.
Two browsers, the latest Firefox and IE running side by side. The IE window loads, Firefox doesn't. Just get the endless Loading... animation. Running any browser on my Mac, it never gets past the loading phase.
Piece. Of. Junk. Only Microsoft could create something that displays text search results in a browser fail to function.
But I'm username@example.net you insensitive clod!
Evolutionists? Is this like a gravitationist? Carbon dating show to be inaccurate? The theory of evolution includes the big bang? What are you babbling about? Your examples and made-up word choice betrays your bias and lack of knowledge about anything regarding this subject.
Yes, I'm a senior in a university studying engineering. I guess that makes me somewhat educated, doesn't it?
Well, no, it doesn't. I've always had problems with you engineering structualists anyhow - there's no way something as complicated as a bridge remains standing without some form of divine intervention, despite your structuralist insistences to the contrary.
(My apologies if you're really studying to run a train! Woo-Woo!)
I know DVD DLs have hit the mainstream. The grocery store down the street sells them. Expensive (3 for $11) but they're there. They're right next to the crayons.
I love Linux and have run it for years. Official Slashdot disclaimer over.
... But the average user doesn't give a shit. All they know is it doesn't work, and the learning curve is so steep it's more a learning cliff.
Linux will be easy for the average user when I don't have to download a source package, compile it and install it, extract Windows drivers for ndiswrapper using another tool I had to compile from source, and then fiddle around with rc files to make sure my SSID got set on boot all so I could get on the local network.
Yeah, sing me the song of vendors not releasing drivers. I hear and understand, brother
Give a user a pre-configured Linux box with everything working, fine - for most uses people will get along fine. Anyone trying to tell me that an average user can install Linux on their home box and walk away happy most of the time is living in a dream world.
You'll never figure out Dell's pricing policies for any given piece of hardware. It will change randomly from moment to moment. Just when you think you know how to get the best deal, they'll completely change on you. Hell, we effectively resell Dell PCs, and even *WE* can't get a straight price from our rep. Fuck, their corporate customers who buy thousands of units a year don't know how much a PC will cost until they actually get charged for it.
Personally, I use their pricing changes as a source of entropy to help generate cryptographic keys.