Clippy: It looks like you are trying to hang a new shower curtain. May I help you?
SimChurch - SimCity Style
on
SimChurch
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· Score: 1
I saw the title and thought it was about a video game where you have to make a successful church. Add a fund raiser, lose some parishoners who don't want to dish out more cash. Add an activity, lose some of your budget. Take out a loan for a building expansion and see if your parishoners can flit the bill. Make a dogmatic decision/statement and see if the people stay or go. Hours spent praying, visiting the sick, cleaning the church, preparing the sermon. Pay a choir director instead of relying on volunteers. Weekly cost of publishing the bulletins. Sunday school supplies!
It seems to me that keeping a church going has a lot variables and could be every bit as engrossing as SimCity and its ilk.
So I have this very nice high end box, running, oh let's say one of those Linux type OS's, with VMware.
In theory, I ought to be able to store all these ISOs on one of the rather large disk drives, then mount the file as a drive, and boot the live CD in VMware.
It follows that I ought to be able to make a pick list of all the live cds and run several side-by-side as a demo to friends of what's available without all that booting/rebooting that's hard on the hardware.
At the end of the demo, I could give them a CD of the OS they liked best.
I have 2 myself for home and work (purchased myself, not by the company) and have used them at least 3 years. I love my keyboards, but there are some down sides. I'll list my positives and then the negatives.
Positive:
Program macros
The click noise was volume adjustable.
Remap keys (particularly useful for the oddly located ctrl/alt and arrow keys).
Adjustable repeat rates to make it easier for faster/slower typists and people who might normally slip and hit 2 keys very fast.
The Enter/Backspace/Delete/Space are on the thumbs, not the weaker pinkie. This is awesome when you get used to it.
The foot switch for the embedded number pad is nice (as well as an interesting conversation point).
Cleaning keyboards is awesome! The Professional came with a keycap remover for easy keyboard cleanup. The main components are protected from pizza crumbs and cat hair by a "catch all" plastic layer. You remove the keys, throw them in the sink for a bath, vacuum and wash the protective layer, and snap the keys back on. The key caps are designed a bit like a mushroom so the cup covers the entrance to the keyboard circuitry.
Tech support was good. When my shift key was sticking, I got a prompt reply about how to pop the keys and what lubricant to use. They were even prompt with a "Not enough user demand." when I suggested an embedded trackball conveniently located above the ctrl/alt/pgup/pgdn/enter/space set on the right and requested it be split into two parts like their other product.
The better the typist you are, the longer it will take you to adjust to the aligned keys/different locations. It'll drop you from 90 wpm to 10 wpm for a half a day, but after a week you'll be at about +5 wpm from your norm.
Negatives:
The function keys are too small and too close together and have a funny feel to them. They feel a bit rubbery and wobble a little. Not bad particularly, just weird.
The "silk screen" key labels wear off (You can purchase more (or could), and it's only after quite a bit of steady use). This can be considered a benefit because looking at the dual-labelled querty/dvorak keyboard makes my brain hurt. There are keys on the right that have 5 labels on them for various modes, including the number pad numbers printed on the front side of the keys.
The nice wrist rest sponge stick-ons (replaceable) very quickly turn brownish from palm acid/sweat (even if you do wash your hands obsessively like me). It makes your keyboard look grimy even if it's not, and I've chosen to live without that at work.
The keys, while separate, still feel a bit too close together for me with my broad shoulders, but normal ergonomic keyboards do too.
The "special software" for configuring your keyboard was (and may still be) Microsoft Windows proprietary and seemed clunky to me. A simple configuration file would have been better with a load/unload.
Some of the keys switch from left side to right side or vice versa and wreak havoc on the advanced typing exercises I created. Advanced Typing Challenges. (Ok, having a rough time coming up with more negatives...)
I love my keyboards. They are worth the steep price for end of day wrist comfort (I notice when I am forced to work on a different keyboard for any length of time, my hands/wrists ache). I truly feel they are responsible for my lack of carpal tunnel after way too many hours each day typing and I'm thankful for that.
The concept of an upgrade is dying. We all know we can switch out operating systems just like we can change what pair of shoes we are wearing. Each OS has good and bad points and I'm in favor of anything that makes it easy to shuffle between them. We should be bright enough not to destroy our production machines anyway. Isn't the ability to play with different things key to the evolution of open source software?
Put cables with robots in every forest! They'll get in the way of people trying to cut down trees. Wait. How much will the forest be impacted by installation, maintenance, and resulting debris?
Imagine what fun we could have with all this collected data which will be secured from everyone but those savvy enough to get around the security and those who are supposed to be doing data entry and those family and friends of these.
We could build armies of people genetically gifted with violence. We could run true scientific tests on the effects of environment vs. genes. We could analyze diseases and DNA with a much larger sample. We could set up a huge distributed computer project to run simulations of society and as a bonus, you could see where your DNA was used. We could clone California governors and recreate movies! With Electronic Arts, the SIMS, and the DNA database, you could find out if you are really compatible with your future spouse.
Endless fun. As privacy goes, cloning would be beneficial too. It wasn't me, Officer, it was my clone!!!
What if we've had the mark of the beast all along and it was called DNA?
So... does anyone know what countries are willing to take American refugees looking for freedom?
Re:Question for answering machine fans
on
Linux Toys
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· Score: 2, Insightful
When I played with speech recognition software (YEARS ago), configuration to a specific person's voice pattern took quite a while. Is the current technology good enough to pick up and translate speech by a random person calling? Better still, is it good enough to recognize a telemarketer and hang up?
Re:Crude (correct or incorrect?) Analogy
on
Global Dimming
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· Score: 1
If we completely "pull the shades" down on our atmospheric window, it might be a good thing. By then, we should have the technology to harvest energy from outside our atmosphere and pipe it in. We could then make our artificial lights go on and off at the same time, thus solving our perpetual problem of coordinating online meetings with people hanging out in multiple time zones.
One of the main reasons for moving my website from Geocities to a commercial account was to get rid of the ads. They clashed with my color schemes and content. To me, it is worth the hosting fee cost to have my page the way I want it.
Don't stop at using implanted chips just for cash. Make sure they provide a convenient storage for your favorite music. We need not fear the mark of the beast. The RIAA will put a stop to these.
There is so much information on the web right now that it is impossible to read it all. Some knowledge that is on the Internet is effectively not there because the sites are lost behind other references in the search engines. The same would happen to "Internet archives of everything".
It's the Theory of Evolution. The strongest web pages will survive! The archeologists of the future can still dig through mountains (of data) in the future to learn about us.
Slashdot Mirror
What an excellent advertising opportunity for Microsoft! All those great formative years have been wasted!!! Baby's First Words: Windows Good
JMS needs to finish Jeremiah. Do we want an unfinished Star Trek?
Wyrm by Mark Fabi Fictional self-mutating virus interlinked with computer gaming. Amazon.com has a much better review. It was an excellent read.
Clippy: It looks like you are trying to hang a new shower curtain. May I help you?
I saw the title and thought it was about a video game where you have to make a successful church. Add a fund raiser, lose some parishoners who don't want to dish out more cash. Add an activity, lose some of your budget. Take out a loan for a building expansion and see if your parishoners can flit the bill. Make a dogmatic decision/statement and see if the people stay or go. Hours spent praying, visiting the sick, cleaning the church, preparing the sermon. Pay a choir director instead of relying on volunteers. Weekly cost of publishing the bulletins. Sunday school supplies!
It seems to me that keeping a church going has a lot variables and could be every bit as engrossing as SimCity and its ilk.
I'm just sure he could!!!
That's Multi-User-Dungeon! Play a real text based adventure at: Ancient Anguish
Put the CPU in the base of a coffee cup so it at least keeps the coffee warm! Or maybe a coffee stirrer? Butter knife? Ice cream scoop?
Countless ways to use heat generated by a small cpu! They're really limiting themselves by putting it in a pen.
So I have this very nice high end box, running, oh let's say one of those Linux type OS's, with VMware.
In theory, I ought to be able to store all these ISOs on one of the rather large disk drives, then mount the file as a drive, and boot the live CD in VMware.
It follows that I ought to be able to make a pick list of all the live cds and run several side-by-side as a demo to friends of what's available without all that booting/rebooting that's hard on the hardware.
At the end of the demo, I could give them a CD of the OS they liked best.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
----------
I have 2 myself for home and work (purchased myself, not by the company) and have used them at least 3 years. I love my keyboards, but there are some down sides. I'll list my positives and then the negatives.
Positive:
Negatives:
I love my keyboards. They are worth the steep price for end of day wrist comfort (I notice when I am forced to work on a different keyboard for any length of time, my hands/wrists ache). I truly feel they are responsible for my lack of carpal tunnel after way too many hours each day typing and I'm thankful for that.
Is this just another step so managers don't actually have to talk to people or pay attention to what is going on in their shop?
Ancient Anguish
Ancient Anguish
Put cables with robots in every forest! They'll get in the way of people trying to cut down trees. Wait. How much will the forest be impacted by installation, maintenance, and resulting debris?
Imagine what fun we could have with all this collected data which will be secured from everyone but those savvy enough to get around the security and those who are supposed to be doing data entry and those family and friends of these.
We could build armies of people genetically gifted with violence. We could run true scientific tests on the effects of environment vs. genes. We could analyze diseases and DNA with a much larger sample. We could set up a huge distributed computer project to run simulations of society and as a bonus, you could see where your DNA was used. We could clone California governors and recreate movies! With Electronic Arts, the SIMS, and the DNA database, you could find out if you are really compatible with your future spouse.
Endless fun. As privacy goes, cloning would be beneficial too. It wasn't me, Officer, it was my clone!!!
What if we've had the mark of the beast all along and it was called DNA?
Doesn't SCO own the header lines used to create the search algorithm? SCO vs. NGS...
So... does anyone know what countries are willing to take American refugees looking for freedom?
When I played with speech recognition software (YEARS ago), configuration to a specific person's voice pattern took quite a while. Is the current technology good enough to pick up and translate speech by a random person calling? Better still, is it good enough to recognize a telemarketer and hang up?
If we completely "pull the shades" down on our atmospheric window, it might be a good thing. By then, we should have the technology to harvest energy from outside our atmosphere and pipe it in. We could then make our artificial lights go on and off at the same time, thus solving our perpetual problem of coordinating online meetings with people hanging out in multiple time zones.
And one time zone to rule them all!!!
One of the main reasons for moving my website from Geocities to a commercial account was to get rid of the ads. They clashed with my color schemes and content. To me, it is worth the hosting fee cost to have my page the way I want it.
Don't stop at using implanted chips just for cash. Make sure they provide a convenient storage for your favorite music. We need not fear the mark of the beast. The RIAA will put a stop to these.
It's the Theory of Evolution. The strongest web pages will survive! The archeologists of the future can still dig through mountains (of data) in the future to learn about us.