It doesnt seem that ANYONE has even considered certain implications of doing such complicated things... image scaling, automatic detection, scaleable SVG's, along with Java, flash, animated gifs, and larger images... the internet runs slowly enough on most peoples computers already, thank you very much.
As of now, my web browser is using 50MB of ram, and quite a bit of CPU power to render 10 simple-ish webpages. Now imagine if those webpages were all trying to automatically go at high resolution, automatically, scaling images and loading SVG's, and Java, mayby even Flash Ads, all at the same time. My computer would be under more load than when playing games! It would be unuseable! And just think - my computer is reasonably fast - what about my dad, or all those other non-computer-savvy people out there, who are using high-resolution displays with the text size increased (people with bad vision like big displays), on low speed computers? And then theres the dialup users.
One things for certain, rather than automatically applying high resolution, it should either ask the user and warn of the implications, or it should have a button on the page to make it high rez (thus making low-rez the default), similar to the "compact" button on the top right hand side of digg.com. It should NOT automatically assume that high resolution/high dpi settings implies the user has high speed internet and a fast computer.
for those of us who are going to be using out computers between now and whenever, i have interpolated my own patch for the NVIDIA drivers registry entry changes, based off the stated changes for that weird hp-network thing (i dont even know why anyone has that installed anyway, it sounds like bloatware).
in the registry location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Shell Extensions\Cached
I got the idea from looking here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin /ms06-015.mspx and here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918165 Dunno if it works yet.
Wait, whats all this about it being nvidia driver version 61.94? I most definitely dont have that installed. In fact I havent even installed those old drivers on this windows install - Im using version 84.43
I know! It did the same thing a few days ago to me, so i researched recent changes, and that patch stuck out like a sore thumb. Except for the fact that microsofts information and anywhere else, did not list the NVIDIA drivers as a problem! I uninstalled the patch and reinstalled several video apps, and they sometimes work.
Why did microsoft test and list a 3-year old firewall program as a problem, but not one of the most widely used video card drivers on the market? How the hell does this constitute "a tiny fraction of the 120 million installations" ???!! And now they release a "smart patch" to fix it? Is this a joke, or is microsoft really this stupid. FIX ALL THE SYSTEMS! What if someone (god forbid) upgrades their video card?
If you follow that link for "plogs" they go on to describe RSS feeds, as currently used in ALL BLOGGING SITES/PROGRAMS to allow inter-blog connectivity, and management therein (LiveJournal calls it syndication/etc.). Yet again idiots are attempting to patent something that was already in wide use when they "thought it up".
I used to have quite harsh persistent back-pain as well, and also something known as restless legs syndrome (basically my thighs have this dull aching when im sitting). I found that regular excersize has helped a LOT for both problems - i think for those of us who can get up and move about, excersize, or organized sports, might in fact be a lot better than video games. Although, video games are more convenient - so i guess one could use both.
Or you could get the best of both worlds, with a game like DDR (dance dance revolution) - DDR has strengthened my legs so much... i can sleep much more soundly now.
BWAHAHA! Dude, have you compiled a kernel recently? It does have support for this - only the kernel states it as a module that can be used in conjunction with the chip, to store "key data" seperate from the system, to increase security, or something. Mayby it will allow Linux to selectively use the TPM chip where required for authentication (i do my banking etc across 3 computers, identifying anything on a per-computer basis can be stupid). The TPM chip is far from just an identifier, its got memory and can be used for other general things.
Its more that, in Linux, the TPM chip will be used for security (good), and in winblows it will be used for ease-of-use/profit (evil). So, im guessing in Linux you'll be able to spoof ID's
Yeah exactly - windows has been tweaking Direct X for games, and video cards have been tweaking for directx for so long, theres no question.
NWN on Linux had no Antialiasing or anything advanced that current cards use - it basically supports what directx 7 or mayby 8 support. Either that or its the video card drivers... which also need improvement. Also all the programming teams are quite experienced in doing what they do now, programming for Windows.
DOnt get me wrong, ive been wanting linux games for years, but the best way to do so at this point is to either emulate windows+directx, or to advance drivers and SDL in linux to do the same tasks as direct X so that the APIs can either be easily converted over to or remapped efficiently (straightforward emulation). I dont know much about wine, but whenever ive tried it, it feels like its trying to remap apples to oranges then back to apples (DirectX -> SDL -> DirectX videocard).
Fluxbox is so wonderfully lightweight, and rox-filer file manager is just so functional, i can get by just great - and it goes blazing fast.
The thing i like best about flux+rox-filer though, is if it crashes, its easy as heck to recover from - not that it crashes a lot. Theres not much TO crash... kde and gnome were always crashing once every few days for unexplained reasons (but i think it had a lot to do with background services). Fluxbox has gone fine for weeks, and it does "what i need" (i use my computer utilitarianistically).
ubuntu doesnt support my laptops keyboard! its a fujitsu N3010, and it detects it as German or something. i checked their message boards, and quite a few others had the same problem, but no solutions were posted. also, google searches brought up no solutions. thats why im posting this.
does anyone know a way to turn off automatic keyboard detection in ubuntu?
exactly! now when companies question the viewpoints of anyone pro-filesharing, we can say "see: for details"; and since he has some credibility, his word has power.
the thing is, the record companies are basing their whole argument on the idea that they should stay on with their current scheme of "hit-record"-ing. if they werent too lazy to find a better scheme and adapt their plan, then mayby they'd be riding filesharing to greater ritches; like iTunes. its funny when agile companies stomp all over the stale old ones. its ecenomic evolution, baby!
Seriously though, i've been reading and thinking about this for some time now (on my blog anways)... and, well, I dont think ANYBODY can afford this! The way things get massively over-priced when the government gets involved, and the sort of price for massive projects like this, the database for such info itself would dry up the allocated spending!
Really - and no, they cant pass this onto consumers, because internet is a price sensitive market. People will switch to small carriers who dont have to comply yet... and thus, the other companies wil bitch and wine, and use their corperate power. And we all know that once a strong corperate interest wants something, they really push for it!
The big telecoms will probably stop this out of competitive unfairness, and i doubt theyd just change it to be "fair" and force massive costs onto the small providers.
Apart from that, the conservatives are bloodthirsty, and the NDP is relentless in their principles - this bill will be the end of the Liberals and the beginning of an election.
WHY!!! Why advance your time-scale and leave your core units system the same for so long when everywhere else has already upgraded theirs? The imperial system is silly - dividing by 778ft-lb for Btus, 32.2 lf-ft/s2... i dont even remember how many feet there are in a mile... so many didiculous arbitrary units its just.. AUGGH!
And yet they want to improve their time-scale to help scientists. Why? Because it helps some people and doesnt cost industry much? I guess the US is all for improvements as long as it doesnt cost companies money.
I think we should just say "screw-em" and make a scientific time-scale, with its own keeper-machines and clocks, etc. Then we can just use that with the Metric system, and convert over for final values. We have enough to worry about without messy unit conversions.
why, why did i get a laptop for gaming? my computer can barely render the Sims 2 - yet guild wars runs fantastically... im not getting my hopes up about running Civilization 4... and its only a year and a half old. the sad part is, my card is better than half the laptops cards out there (which have shared memory and wide-screens!).
i remember years ago, i could still play the games fine if i just turned the graphics down - but that doesnt work anymore! my GeForce 2 lasted more than 2 years, but this one barely lasted over a year!
one things for sure, i think these games need to allow more user control so I can set it at a reasonably low level, and support for widescreen. we need more flexible graphics engines before we add more insane quality/lighting effects!
Sounds like me during Exams!
on
Slacker or Sick
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Damn, do those Rats go to University too?
Repetitive strain injury is one thing, but if you combine that with ultra-stress, depression, insane workloads, and extremely difficult work... THEN you're fucked. The common term for this phenomenon is "University".
Your hand is so sore you can barely write with it; your fingers seem permanently dented where your pencil resides.. in fact, every muscle in your body aches. Theyve been aching for so long you cant remember.. painkillers do nothing now. Youve had 8 strong coffees, your mind is numb and throbbs... Your neck is so stiff and sore... not a wink of sleep in days, yet you just couldnt fully fall asleep if you tried. Social interaction is futile - you can barely manage to utter coherent language, and most of such encounters are awkward and embarassing. All you can do is calculation, logic - the world around you seems etherally mechanical, filled with logical/mathematical portent. Youve been sitting on your bed for 12 hours straight, listening to the same song over and over, its 4AM, and nothing makes any sense anymore. Possible failure looms, watches you like a hawk - it forces you onward, mercilissly. Theres over 20 hours more material to study. The exam starts in 4 hours.
My town is in the same situation. I have developed the equation for political drag on wifi:
Dp[wifi] = n/(1/2pU^2A*Re)t^S
where S stands for stupidity factor, and n is the number of telecoms, p ~ politicians, U ~ potential userbase factor, A ~ land area/size, Re ~ Retardation number, and t ~ reasonable time expectation
Most of you people already know this, but... Ill explain a little further. Air can only hold so much heat easily, so if it produces too much heat with respect to time, you'll need a fancy system to carry away all the excess heat. You cant just speed it up, or the air wont absorb enough heat in the time allowed before it gets jetted out the back. You might just need something with a better heat capacity, thats compressible, to create a normal compression cooling cycle. Or you could get "water cooling" but water-cooling isnt nessecarily the way to go for such high heat dissipation (per unit time) requirements.
Wait - they were seperate companies in the first place? My school uses a crazy combination of Blackboard and WebCT, which it just switched to. It doesnt work AT ALL... the interface is ridiculous, tedious, buggy, slow, completely backwards, and theres no help options. It took me 4 hours to figure out how to sign up for courses, and even then i "made a mistake" that required days worth of administrative stuff, and then had to wait 3 weeks to "gain access" enough to fix the problem.
It seems as though the registrars have lost too much control over "registering" because of this program. Also, this thing seems to be imposing other unfair restrictions on students, such as insanely restricted registration periods, enorcing max class sizes (previously you could sign a form to get in anyway but this web system doesnt allow that), enforcing NO tolerance on overlapping classes (again, the previously used forms which required Prof signatures dont work), not allowing you to switch sections on core courses, not allowing "probationary" students to sign up for anything at all... etc. Blackboard and WebCT havent allowed enough control for ANYONE to do ANYTHING, and everything is STILL royally messed up after a month of classes. Those at the bottom of the administration scheme (who actually do the work) dont have access enough to make the system fit with our schools policies.
Apart from that, none of the teachers even use the programs "advanced" features, such as mail, test dates, assignment categories, etc. They all have their own websites, which they like because they can actually format them however they like.
I seriously hope theyre working hard on improving it.
The thing that really bothers me, is no matter how much tinkering i do in windows, i cant ever seem to properly turn off the "sound enhancing" features apart from just NOT INSTALLING the extra creative stuff. AND THEY DONT ENHANCE THE SOUND!! They make everything sound wrong - unless your speakers are bad to begin with, in which case they slightly enhance the otherwise abysmal sound quality. Its like "Loudness" only its a pain in the ass to get it to STAY TURNED OFF (Loudness is for making tiny speakers sound "loud" as far as I know).
Anyways, when you actually have a GOOD sound system, it isnt susposed to require sound alteration apart from normal band-equilizer modification. All the sound-modifying effects Creative uses are based on the inherent concept of buying tiny, shitty, speakers. Which is a stupid idea.
Also, as far as I can tell, even the wizard doesnt even shut everything off, and Windows seems to like mysteriously turning 3D mode back on for no reason - then you have to go back and turn all the damn modes off again! I've "fixed" the sound on my brothers computer six times now!
Meanwhile, My linux box sounds fantastic - i could literally hear a difference in the sound quality after i upgraded from a SB. Live to an Audigy 2. In any case, once you get all the crap turned off in Windows it sounds the same as Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesnt seem that ANYONE has even considered certain implications of doing such complicated things... image scaling, automatic detection, scaleable SVG's, along with Java, flash, animated gifs, and larger images... the internet runs slowly enough on most peoples computers already, thank you very much. As of now, my web browser is using 50MB of ram, and quite a bit of CPU power to render 10 simple-ish webpages. Now imagine if those webpages were all trying to automatically go at high resolution, automatically, scaling images and loading SVG's, and Java, mayby even Flash Ads, all at the same time. My computer would be under more load than when playing games! It would be unuseable! And just think - my computer is reasonably fast - what about my dad, or all those other non-computer-savvy people out there, who are using high-resolution displays with the text size increased (people with bad vision like big displays), on low speed computers? And then theres the dialup users. One things for certain, rather than automatically applying high resolution, it should either ask the user and warn of the implications, or it should have a button on the page to make it high rez (thus making low-rez the default), similar to the "compact" button on the top right hand side of digg.com. It should NOT automatically assume that high resolution/high dpi settings implies the user has high speed internet and a fast computer.
for those of us who are going to be using out computers between now and whenever, i have interpolated my own patch for the NVIDIA drivers registry entry changes, based off the stated changes for that weird hp-network thing (i dont even know why anyone has that installed anyway, it sounds like bloatware).
r entVersion\Shell Extensions\Cached
n /ms06-015.mspx
in the registry location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur
add:
{1E9B04FB-F9E5-4718-997B-B8DA88302A47} {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} 0x401
{1E9B04FB-F9E5-4718-997B-B8DA88302A48} {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} 0x401
{1CDB2949-8F65-4355-8456-263E7C208A5D} {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} 0x401
I got the idea from looking here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulleti
and here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918165
Dunno if it works yet.
Wait, whats all this about it being nvidia driver version 61.94? I most definitely dont have that installed. In fact I havent even installed those old drivers on this windows install - Im using version 84.43
I know! It did the same thing a few days ago to me, so i researched recent changes, and that patch stuck out like a sore thumb. Except for the fact that microsofts information and anywhere else, did not list the NVIDIA drivers as a problem! I uninstalled the patch and reinstalled several video apps, and they sometimes work.
Why did microsoft test and list a 3-year old firewall program as a problem, but not one of the most widely used video card drivers on the market? How the hell does this constitute "a tiny fraction of the 120 million installations" ???!! And now they release a "smart patch" to fix it? Is this a joke, or is microsoft really this stupid. FIX ALL THE SYSTEMS! What if someone (god forbid) upgrades their video card?
If you follow that link for "plogs" they go on to describe RSS feeds, as currently used in ALL BLOGGING SITES/PROGRAMS to allow inter-blog connectivity, and management therein (LiveJournal calls it syndication/etc.). Yet again idiots are attempting to patent something that was already in wide use when they "thought it up".
I used to have quite harsh persistent back-pain as well, and also something known as restless legs syndrome (basically my thighs have this dull aching when im sitting). I found that regular excersize has helped a LOT for both problems - i think for those of us who can get up and move about, excersize, or organized sports, might in fact be a lot better than video games. Although, video games are more convenient - so i guess one could use both.
Or you could get the best of both worlds, with a game like DDR (dance dance revolution) - DDR has strengthened my legs so much... i can sleep much more soundly now.
BWAHAHA! Dude, have you compiled a kernel recently? It does have support for this - only the kernel states it as a module that can be used in conjunction with the chip, to store "key data" seperate from the system, to increase security, or something. Mayby it will allow Linux to selectively use the TPM chip where required for authentication (i do my banking etc across 3 computers, identifying anything on a per-computer basis can be stupid). The TPM chip is far from just an identifier, its got memory and can be used for other general things.
Its more that, in Linux, the TPM chip will be used for security (good), and in winblows it will be used for ease-of-use/profit (evil). So, im guessing in Linux you'll be able to spoof ID's
Yeah exactly - windows has been tweaking Direct X for games, and video cards have been tweaking for directx for so long, theres no question.
NWN on Linux had no Antialiasing or anything advanced that current cards use - it basically supports what directx 7 or mayby 8 support. Either that or its the video card drivers... which also need improvement. Also all the programming teams are quite experienced in doing what they do now, programming for Windows.
DOnt get me wrong, ive been wanting linux games for years, but the best way to do so at this point is to either emulate windows+directx, or to advance drivers and SDL in linux to do the same tasks as direct X so that the APIs can either be easily converted over to or remapped efficiently (straightforward emulation). I dont know much about wine, but whenever ive tried it, it feels like its trying to remap apples to oranges then back to apples (DirectX -> SDL -> DirectX videocard).
Fluxbox is so wonderfully lightweight, and rox-filer file manager is just so functional, i can get by just great - and it goes blazing fast.
The thing i like best about flux+rox-filer though, is if it crashes, its easy as heck to recover from - not that it crashes a lot. Theres not much TO crash... kde and gnome were always crashing once every few days for unexplained reasons (but i think it had a lot to do with background services). Fluxbox has gone fine for weeks, and it does "what i need" (i use my computer utilitarianistically).
sweet, a sport that lets you move in 3d space ... now you can do even more crazy stuff!
this would be one intense sport.. fast-paced, zany multi-directional nonsensical movement and stuff; it'd be like football on crack
ubuntu doesnt support my laptops keyboard! its a fujitsu N3010, and it detects it as German or something. i checked their message boards, and quite a few others had the same problem, but no solutions were posted. also, google searches brought up no solutions. thats why im posting this. does anyone know a way to turn off automatic keyboard detection in ubuntu?
exactly! now when companies question the viewpoints of anyone pro-filesharing, we can say "see: for details"; and since he has some credibility, his word has power.
the thing is, the record companies are basing their whole argument on the idea that they should stay on with their current scheme of "hit-record"-ing. if they werent too lazy to find a better scheme and adapt their plan, then mayby they'd be riding filesharing to greater ritches; like iTunes. its funny when agile companies stomp all over the stale old ones. its ecenomic evolution, baby!
so now we post this link on slashdot, so that the blaming and troll-accusations may continus onward!
oh... um... *searches for tinfoil hat*
Seriously though, i've been reading and thinking about this for some time now (on my blog anways)... and, well, I dont think ANYBODY can afford this! The way things get massively over-priced when the government gets involved, and the sort of price for massive projects like this, the database for such info itself would dry up the allocated spending! Really - and no, they cant pass this onto consumers, because internet is a price sensitive market. People will switch to small carriers who dont have to comply yet... and thus, the other companies wil bitch and wine, and use their corperate power. And we all know that once a strong corperate interest wants something, they really push for it! The big telecoms will probably stop this out of competitive unfairness, and i doubt theyd just change it to be "fair" and force massive costs onto the small providers. Apart from that, the conservatives are bloodthirsty, and the NDP is relentless in their principles - this bill will be the end of the Liberals and the beginning of an election.
why is it all the nasty canadian bills end in the number "4"?
C64... evil copyright stuff
C74... insane spying stuff
WHY!!! Why advance your time-scale and leave your core units system the same for so long when everywhere else has already upgraded theirs? The imperial system is silly - dividing by 778ft-lb for Btus, 32.2 lf-ft/s2... i dont even remember how many feet there are in a mile... so many didiculous arbitrary units its just.. AUGGH!
And yet they want to improve their time-scale to help scientists. Why? Because it helps some people and doesnt cost industry much? I guess the US is all for improvements as long as it doesnt cost companies money.
I think we should just say "screw-em" and make a scientific time-scale, with its own keeper-machines and clocks, etc. Then we can just use that with the Metric system, and convert over for final values. We have enough to worry about without messy unit conversions.
why, why did i get a laptop for gaming? my computer can barely render the Sims 2 - yet guild wars runs fantastically... im not getting my hopes up about running Civilization 4... and its only a year and a half old. the sad part is, my card is better than half the laptops cards out there (which have shared memory and wide-screens!).
i remember years ago, i could still play the games fine if i just turned the graphics down - but that doesnt work anymore! my GeForce 2 lasted more than 2 years, but this one barely lasted over a year!
one things for sure, i think these games need to allow more user control so I can set it at a reasonably low level, and support for widescreen. we need more flexible graphics engines before we add more insane quality/lighting effects!
Damn, do those Rats go to University too?
Repetitive strain injury is one thing, but if you combine that with ultra-stress, depression, insane workloads, and extremely difficult work... THEN you're fucked. The common term for this phenomenon is "University".
Your hand is so sore you can barely write with it; your fingers seem permanently dented where your pencil resides.. in fact, every muscle in your body aches. Theyve been aching for so long you cant remember.. painkillers do nothing now. Youve had 8 strong coffees, your mind is numb and throbbs... Your neck is so stiff and sore... not a wink of sleep in days, yet you just couldnt fully fall asleep if you tried. Social interaction is futile - you can barely manage to utter coherent language, and most of such encounters are awkward and embarassing. All you can do is calculation, logic - the world around you seems etherally mechanical, filled with logical/mathematical portent. Youve been sitting on your bed for 12 hours straight, listening to the same song over and over, its 4AM, and nothing makes any sense anymore. Possible failure looms, watches you like a hawk - it forces you onward, mercilissly. Theres over 20 hours more material to study. The exam starts in 4 hours.
oh the irony... this must be true since it follows murpheys law perfectly.
My town is in the same situation. I have developed the equation for political drag on wifi:
Dp[wifi] = n/(1/2pU^2A*Re)t^S
where S stands for stupidity factor, and n is the number of telecoms, p ~ politicians, U ~ potential userbase factor, A ~ land area/size, Re ~ Retardation number, and t ~ reasonable time expectation
Most of you people already know this, but... Ill explain a little further. Air can only hold so much heat easily, so if it produces too much heat with respect to time, you'll need a fancy system to carry away all the excess heat. You cant just speed it up, or the air wont absorb enough heat in the time allowed before it gets jetted out the back. You might just need something with a better heat capacity, thats compressible, to create a normal compression cooling cycle. Or you could get "water cooling" but water-cooling isnt nessecarily the way to go for such high heat dissipation (per unit time) requirements.
Does it have twice the fans and heatsinks? How could you get it to stay cool with twice the card in one spot?
Wait - they were seperate companies in the first place? My school uses a crazy combination of Blackboard and WebCT, which it just switched to. It doesnt work AT ALL... the interface is ridiculous, tedious, buggy, slow, completely backwards, and theres no help options. It took me 4 hours to figure out how to sign up for courses, and even then i "made a mistake" that required days worth of administrative stuff, and then had to wait 3 weeks to "gain access" enough to fix the problem.
It seems as though the registrars have lost too much control over "registering" because of this program. Also, this thing seems to be imposing other unfair restrictions on students, such as insanely restricted registration periods, enorcing max class sizes (previously you could sign a form to get in anyway but this web system doesnt allow that), enforcing NO tolerance on overlapping classes (again, the previously used forms which required Prof signatures dont work), not allowing you to switch sections on core courses, not allowing "probationary" students to sign up for anything at all... etc. Blackboard and WebCT havent allowed enough control for ANYONE to do ANYTHING, and everything is STILL royally messed up after a month of classes. Those at the bottom of the administration scheme (who actually do the work) dont have access enough to make the system fit with our schools policies.
Apart from that, none of the teachers even use the programs "advanced" features, such as mail, test dates, assignment categories, etc. They all have their own websites, which they like because they can actually format them however they like.
I seriously hope theyre working hard on improving it.
The thing that really bothers me, is no matter how much tinkering i do in windows, i cant ever seem to properly turn off the "sound enhancing" features apart from just NOT INSTALLING the extra creative stuff. AND THEY DONT ENHANCE THE SOUND!! They make everything sound wrong - unless your speakers are bad to begin with, in which case they slightly enhance the otherwise abysmal sound quality. Its like "Loudness" only its a pain in the ass to get it to STAY TURNED OFF (Loudness is for making tiny speakers sound "loud" as far as I know).
Anyways, when you actually have a GOOD sound system, it isnt susposed to require sound alteration apart from normal band-equilizer modification. All the sound-modifying effects Creative uses are based on the inherent concept of buying tiny, shitty, speakers. Which is a stupid idea.
Also, as far as I can tell, even the wizard doesnt even shut everything off, and Windows seems to like mysteriously turning 3D mode back on for no reason - then you have to go back and turn all the damn modes off again! I've "fixed" the sound on my brothers computer six times now!
Meanwhile, My linux box sounds fantastic - i could literally hear a difference in the sound quality after i upgraded from a SB. Live to an Audigy 2. In any case, once you get all the crap turned off in Windows it sounds the same as Linux.