I've got to get my hands on one of these things. I used to do work with some real barcode scanners, and those ones (which were much more expensive, obviously) could be programmed by scanning the correct sequence of barcodes. If these scanners use the same chips as the commercial ones, it is possible that this one could be programmed as well. If so, you might be able to tell the thing to turn its encryption off.
Though I suppose that would be too easy, but who knows, maybe they screwed up?
Barcodes hold very little information. Depending on the code, you get a single digit for every three lines or so. Usually each line is 2 bits. Missing, Thin, Medium, Fat, or somesuch.
I suspect what is really going on is the barcodes represent some sort of key into a file that comes with the software they give you, and that the file is what contains all the information. I'd be absolutely amazed if you could even get a basic URL in the average barcode. (Though I've not yet seen the codes in question.)
Hey, once that happened to me. Someone marked a post of minue redundant for no reason I could figure. So being something of a snot, I posted the identical post again, on the theory that I'd damn well make it redundant. The second post got moderated up to +4, insightful.
He uses the browser, word processor, spreadsheet, a database manager (and several DBs) and SMB file and print sharing. All of which can be done at least as well (and less expensively) on a GNU/Linux system.
SMB, hell yeah. Not just as well, but better. But browsing? Better than IE on Windows? Is there some other Linux browser that I'm unaware of?
I'm suspecting the problem is this: and tried to upgrade some of the boxes. Despite its reputation for ease of install, Windows really isn't, and I've found it to be particularly bad at upgrading. Every time I've upgraded, both in the Win95 and WinNT lines, I've regretted it. I've always found that I got a more stable system by installing from scratch and then reinstalling all apps.
I have two boxes. Both are K6-II's with 128 Mb RAM. One runs Win98. One runs Mandrake 7.1. With this, I feel I've got a good base to compare the two.
Both have their advantages.
Both have their disadvantages.
The advantages of Windows are exactly in some of those areas that "home" users are most interested in. It has a better web browser. Sorry, but it just does. Browsing on Netscape is a pain. It just plain sucks. Windows is also better for games. Windows also plays video media better. Windows also runs certain applications like Quicken that don't yet have equivalents under Linux. And, in general, the desktop is quicker than any Linux desktop I've tried.
Those are the sorts of things home users care about.
Yes, Linux takes the prize for customability. It is also a far better dev box. It is also more stable. More flexible. Less frustrating. It has more of the sort of software I'm interested in.
That's good for me. That's why I've got it.
But frankly, home users don't care about those things as much as they do about browsing the net and playing games.
When people say that Linux is "not ready for the desktop", they are talking about for the average user. They are not saying that it isn't ready for everyone. They aren't saying that it won't work for anyone. They are talking about the average user. That are saying that the average user, who doesn't give a good goddamn who makes the software, but just wants something that does what they want to do, who tends to do things like write letters to grandma, sell things on e-bay, and play Myst, find Windows an OS that better meets their needs.
And they are right about that. If you want to overtake Windows as a desktop OS, you need to admit that, then start working on changing that.
I get so sick of this assumption that just because you code under certain OSes to make a living, you must be some sort of bad person.
Sorry, but an OS is a tool, and while we can all certainly bitch about the tools we have to work with, does it really make sense to take a lower salary to work at a place with better tools? I mean, what would we say about a construction guy who refuses to work at a site because the hammers suck?
Personally, I think the worst thing you can do is only ever use one OS. That makes you a one dimensional coder. A good coder is someone who can make quality software in any environment. And your never going to get there unless you've had some experience with crappy environemnts.
When I'm at work, I work with one set of tools, chosen by my employers for business reasons. They are not the tools I'd choose, but then, the tools I'd choose won't work for their app and their business model. It is pretty hard to develop Windows GUI software under Linux. When I go home, I develop on a Linux box because that has the tools I enjoy the most. Am I a whore? Should I instead refuse to work with anything but the best, mortgage be damned? That, to me, is a fairly idiotic idea.
But yeah, a lot of it has to do with economic conditions. Countries in Europe are fairly equivalent in power and affluence, so the languages meet as equals. On the US-Mexican border, the power is lopsided. You can do pretty much anything you want speaking English in Tijuana because of that power disparity.
Swiss roots, actually. Pascal was created by Niklaus Wirth of the University of Zurich. (He also created Module II, a language that unfortunately got trampled in the stampede towards OOP.
Well, I don't take offense, but I wouldn't have moderated it funny, mostly because I've heard it about 50,000 times.
But what people fail to do is to examine why most Americans rarely speak more than one language. It is one thing for a Belgian to be multilingual. There are likely five native languages spoken within 200 miles. Me, I live over 800 miles from the nearest place a foreign language might actually be useful. So obviously the need just isn't as high.
When you look at it, a dairy farmer in Iowa has no need to speak French. Speaking French is as useful to him as knowing perl. Sure, it might be edifying, but is there really any point to calling him ignorant for not knowing something that is mostly useless to him.
I, like a lot of Americans, took a foreign language in high school. But my German has dropped away, mostly because there just isn't much use for German in the San Francisco Bay Area. Had I grown up in, say, France, it is a pretty good bet that I'd speak German well with the exact same education in the language.
Slashdot Mirror
If we're going to talk about ultra-sci-fi here, why not just make retinas that are transparent to visible light and see using ultraviolet light?
The key word is "voluntarily".
What people died trying to escape was the lack of voluntarity, not the ink.
(Is that a word?)
I've got to get my hands on one of these things. I used to do work with some real barcode scanners, and those ones (which were much more expensive, obviously) could be programmed by scanning the correct sequence of barcodes. If these scanners use the same chips as the commercial ones, it is possible that this one could be programmed as well. If so, you might be able to tell the thing to turn its encryption off.
Though I suppose that would be too easy, but who knows, maybe they screwed up?
Barcodes hold very little information. Depending on the code, you get a single digit for every three lines or so. Usually each line is 2 bits. Missing, Thin, Medium, Fat, or somesuch.
I suspect what is really going on is the barcodes represent some sort of key into a file that comes with the software they give you, and that the file is what contains all the information. I'd be absolutely amazed if you could even get a basic URL in the average barcode. (Though I've not yet seen the codes in question.)
Hey, once that happened to me. Someone marked a post of minue redundant for no reason I could figure. So being something of a snot, I posted the identical post again, on the theory that I'd damn well make it redundant. The second post got moderated up to +4, insightful.
Yeah, moderation works...
"Creative Consultant" == "Some guy we hire to make it look like we have 'street cred', but who we will ignore completely".
That actually happened once, though damned if I could remember who it was.
If they were "for the ignorant", yeah, I'll freely admit to being ignorant about many things. But being stupid?
Err....58Gb
Old habits die hard.
It is in two machines, so you're still king. The largest box only has 58Mb.
600 CDs at 75 Megabytes/CD = 45 Gb. Oops, half gone already.
But wait, mp3s suck, so:
600 CDs at 640 Megabytes/CD = 390 Gb. Damn 75s are too small!
(And we haven't even started with movies yet...)
I've got an aggregate of 98 Gb at my house, and have already filled up more than half...
Yes, we've gone through three powers since I've been computing. I still remember when a 75 Meg would have been huge.
Kinda scary to consider that there are device drivers out there that take more memory than my first computer.
It is slashdotted now.
He uses the browser, word processor, spreadsheet, a database manager (and several DBs) and SMB file and print sharing. All of which can be done at least as well (and less expensively) on a GNU/Linux system.
SMB, hell yeah. Not just as well, but better. But browsing? Better than IE on Windows? Is there some other Linux browser that I'm unaware of?
I'm suspecting the problem is this: and tried to upgrade some of the boxes. Despite its reputation for ease of install, Windows really isn't, and I've found it to be particularly bad at upgrading. Every time I've upgraded, both in the Win95 and WinNT lines, I've regretted it. I've always found that I got a more stable system by installing from scratch and then reinstalling all apps.
I have two boxes. Both are K6-II's with 128 Mb RAM. One runs Win98. One runs Mandrake 7.1. With this, I feel I've got a good base to compare the two.
Both have their advantages.
Both have their disadvantages.
The advantages of Windows are exactly in some of those areas that "home" users are most interested in. It has a better web browser. Sorry, but it just does. Browsing on Netscape is a pain. It just plain sucks. Windows is also better for games. Windows also plays video media better. Windows also runs certain applications like Quicken that don't yet have equivalents under Linux. And, in general, the desktop is quicker than any Linux desktop I've tried.
Those are the sorts of things home users care about.
Yes, Linux takes the prize for customability. It is also a far better dev box. It is also more stable. More flexible. Less frustrating. It has more of the sort of software I'm interested in.
That's good for me. That's why I've got it.
But frankly, home users don't care about those things as much as they do about browsing the net and playing games.
When people say that Linux is "not ready for the desktop", they are talking about for the average user. They are not saying that it isn't ready for everyone. They aren't saying that it won't work for anyone. They are talking about the average user. That are saying that the average user, who doesn't give a good goddamn who makes the software, but just wants something that does what they want to do, who tends to do things like write letters to grandma, sell things on e-bay, and play Myst, find Windows an OS that better meets their needs.
And they are right about that. If you want to overtake Windows as a desktop OS, you need to admit that, then start working on changing that.
Thank you!
I get so sick of this assumption that just because you code under certain OSes to make a living, you must be some sort of bad person.
Sorry, but an OS is a tool, and while we can all certainly bitch about the tools we have to work with, does it really make sense to take a lower salary to work at a place with better tools? I mean, what would we say about a construction guy who refuses to work at a site because the hammers suck?
Personally, I think the worst thing you can do is only ever use one OS. That makes you a one dimensional coder. A good coder is someone who can make quality software in any environment. And your never going to get there unless you've had some experience with crappy environemnts.
When I'm at work, I work with one set of tools, chosen by my employers for business reasons. They are not the tools I'd choose, but then, the tools I'd choose won't work for their app and their business model. It is pretty hard to develop Windows GUI software under Linux. When I go home, I develop on a Linux box because that has the tools I enjoy the most. Am I a whore? Should I instead refuse to work with anything but the best, mortgage be damned? That, to me, is a fairly idiotic idea.
Worst Movie Ever!
- "Springfield Comics Review"
Even in the center of Chinatown, everyone (or most everyone) speaks enough English to make knowing chinese unnecessary.
It isn't like a foreign country, where finding an english-speaker might be difficult.
Yeah, I was thinking of the hard stuff, not hip-hop. I think it is all the gutterals.
What about in the middle of Russia or China or Saudi Arabia?
In a word: TV.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that for good or ill, English speakers rule most media.
Hey, I grew up in San Diego, and took German...
But yeah, a lot of it has to do with economic conditions. Countries in Europe are fairly equivalent in power and affluence, so the languages meet as equals. On the US-Mexican border, the power is lopsided. You can do pretty much anything you want speaking English in Tijuana because of that power disparity.
Swiss roots, actually. Pascal was created by Niklaus Wirth of the University of Zurich. (He also created Module II, a language that unfortunately got trampled in the stampede towards OOP.
Yes, and ever notice how rock works in German and English but sounds really lame in any romance language?
Well, I don't take offense, but I wouldn't have moderated it funny, mostly because I've heard it about 50,000 times.
But what people fail to do is to examine why most Americans rarely speak more than one language. It is one thing for a Belgian to be multilingual. There are likely five native languages spoken within 200 miles. Me, I live over 800 miles from the nearest place a foreign language might actually be useful. So obviously the need just isn't as high.
When you look at it, a dairy farmer in Iowa has no need to speak French. Speaking French is as useful to him as knowing perl. Sure, it might be edifying, but is there really any point to calling him ignorant for not knowing something that is mostly useless to him.
I, like a lot of Americans, took a foreign language in high school. But my German has dropped away, mostly because there just isn't much use for German in the San Francisco Bay Area. Had I grown up in, say, France, it is a pretty good bet that I'd speak German well with the exact same education in the language.