Take a gander here at the mp3 version. Don't be fooled by the photography, these babies are BULBOUS! I think they're going for the cyborg look.
All I know for sure is that when I say them in compusa I just couldn't stop laughing.
I can't imagine using those things snowboarding. They look like they'd fly off with one quick turn of the head. I like lightweight and simple glasses for boarding. They WILL come off your face, unless of course, you are much better than me and NEVER find yourself yardsailing down the slope. Did I mention that they look like shit.
Well, it's nice that you're reading and responding to this.
The incredibles DID make me smile, but that's ONE of the reasons to go see a movie. Perhaps it's a reason to buy entertainment software like games, but a database. Sorry, your response just sounds constructed.
Now, if your software could use amazon.com to search JUST my books, in particular, JUST the indexes of MY books, then that would be useful.
Ok, I'll bite. Are you trying to be funny? Or do you think you're being witty? Or do you really not get it?
Well, I'll just assume you have best intentions.
My first computer was not a kit. I'm pretty sure the kim 1 was sold assembled only, but don't quote me on that. I did build its power supply and 4k memory epansion (not from a kit). But the computer was purchased used from someone in the local computer club.
My second computer was built on perfboard from an 8080 chip set that I purchased on clearance sale from radio shack. To the best of my knowledge radio shack has never sold a (microprocessor based) computer kit.
However, that's not really the point. Again I'll presume that you AREN'T just trolling.
Building an electronics kit, particularly one which only contains digital circuity, requires only an ability to solder. Presuming, of course, that the builder posesses at least average motor and reading comprehension skills.
Building, or even just modifying an existing machine at the component level, at least when you come up with the idea yourself, requires an understanding of what the components are doing.
But stuffing computer peripherals into a case is just "consuming". You don't need soldering skill, you need only minimal mechanical skill, and what you need to know about which things go where can be learned in an afternoon.
My point was not really intended to come off sounding like "if you can't do what I can do you aren't shit", but rather, "stop calling what you do something that's more than it is".
Building a PC today is EASY. It might be a "simple" skill, but it doesn't represent any depth of ability by itself.
1) NEVER press a button, the system may have a default and connect you to an operator. This doesn't always work.
2) Press zero over and over again. This option frequently gets you the operator. But not always.
3) Press the first number quickly and repeatly. I don't listen to the menus as soon as I hear one start I just press a button. This will frequently get me to an operator. Of course it's the wrong operator, that doesn't matter. Act VERY angry and tell them that you have been navigating their blankety blank system for hours. Insist that they transfer you to a person who can help you and that you don't want to deal with any more menus. This doesn't ALWAYS work, they sometimes transfer you into another menu. But, this time at least it's the right menu...just repeat the process.
4) One of the best tactics I've found for the speech recognition menus is to say something in perfect english that is COMPLETE NONSENSE.
for example, when calling an ISP
Them : "Please state your problem clearly."
Me : "I need to onion my sister on the lampshade which perturbs my colon"
you will almost always here
Them : "one moment and I will connect you to an operator"
I have found that once you have someone on the phone the best way to get customer service is to combine politeness, anger, and a condescending attitude into a VERY VERY VERY long explanation. Each question from them yields a VERY VERY VERY long answer from you. The goal for them is to get you off of the phone quickly and you need to give them NO reason to hang up on you and EVERY reason for them to pass you off onto someone else.
Repeat this process until you are getting the kind of help you think you need.
I have had GREAT success telling them long winded stories about GREAT customer service I have received from other companies and why what they are doing is NOT GREAT but simply mediocre because great companies do what company XYZ does.
Now, in general, this is TRUE. That is, those stories are true stories. Companies like Mackie in woodinville, WA, Electrovoice, and Chaco (they make shoes) have given me AWESOME customer service in the past. I mean the kind of service that goes above and beyond the call of duty. I would NEVER hesitate to do business with those companies because of it. But, if you don't have any great stories like I do, just make them up. Why? Because it works that's why.
When you call it is like a sales call, you need to take control of the conversation. Until you are talking with someone who is serious about helping you there is no point in giving them any advantage.
You know when you've found that person because they are talking to you like you are a human being. Don't settle for less.
I listened to the tech support calls that were posted here http://suso.suso.org/mediafiles/Apple-techsup/ by someone else in this thread. Brushing aside the fact that I doubt the owner of the site had permission to publish the calls from the caller, it was clear to me that some of them demonstrated that the customer wasn't technically knowledgeable, and a few of the customers were clearly threatening, but all of them demonstrated the following key point.
The techdroid on the phone is a bottom rung drone who has no power to do anything and is being successful in getting rid of the customer. He wins when you abuse him.
The customers mistake in most of these calls was getting angry and abusive. You have to wear the moron who answers the phone out in order to get past him. NEVER let him believe he is anywhere close to solving your problem UNLESS, of course, he ACTUALLY has solved your problem. ALWAYS have a SLEW of BS problems to waste his time with if he is not addressing your REAL problem.
Those calls were from Apple, and I can tell you for a fact that Apple DOES make exceptions on their warranty service and that these techniques DO work
It seems some of you seem to miss the point. My point was NOT that one is less of a person because they haven't built a computer from parts. My point was that changing cables is so far from ANY reasonable defintion of hardware hacking that it does NOT need to be news on a tech site.
There are plenty of people still "hacking" today but they are not building PCs. Embedded micros still allow plenty of opportunity for genuine hardware hacking.
I don't disagree you have to start somewhere, but I don't see anyone reporting on slashdot that little billy has just built a morse code practice oscilator with his fifty in one radio shack electronics kit. Take offense if you like, but ricing a pc isn't even as difficult as little billy's task. He at LEAST had to follow a wiring diagram, even if it is JUST a picture which indicates which spring to connect the yellow and blue wires to. Christ, computer cables are all keyed these days.
And certainly parallel ports and usb ports are useful for interfacing to other projects, and frankly, when those projects are reported they are certainly interesting, but that doesn't change the appliance nature of the PC. Whatever you are interfacing it with might not be an appliance, but the PC certainly is.
Before PCI it was still pretty easy to build cards to plug into your pc. You could wirewrap boards that ran at five or eight megahertz, it's not quite so practical with current pc busses.
As I said in the original message, I don't lament that it's not practical to build your own PC, it's not important. If you like "hardware hacking" then there are plenty of things that you can build. But plugging things into a PC ISN'T hacking and it ISN'T tech news.
I remember a boss I had once who was so proud that he built his own pc. He had soldered all the sockets on the board and pressed the chips into the sockets.
I also remember thinking "That's not building a pc", that's building a kit, so what. I built my second computer (first computer was a kim 1) with wirewrap and and handful of parts on clearance from radio shack (8080 et al).
PCs are just not truly "hackable" by the average hobbiest anymore. I'm not lamenting the loss, it isn't important. What I'm saying is that calling people who stuff crap into their computer case a "hacker" is about the same as calling someone who puts rim covers on their car a "mechanic".
PCs are appliances and talking about how people are "modding" them is about as interesting as talking about how people are "modding" their toasters.
You really like talking about modeling and stuff, huh? Have your thought about an exciting career in the fashion industy? Oh, and don't be ashamed of it. You know, rosie greer did needlepoint. Come out from behind that AC door.
While off topic, I have often thought that when applying this rule to the pronunciation of letters one bases the rule on the spelling of the letter.
That is, F is a consonant, but if one were to spell the letter it as it sounds it would be something like eff which begins with a vowel. Hence, the more natural sounding "An FM transm....."
Hams do risk losing their ham ticket. As far as the general public is concerned, setting up community radio is, imnsho, a good thing, BUT, people using higher than legal power transmitters for convenience is not exactly a "community" radio station.
If people are going to transmit in the broadcast bands they ought to read up on the subject, in particular, learning how to select a frequency and making sure they aren't causing interference that will attract attention to themselves.
It would be nice if the FCC were to set aside some portion of the FM spectrum for either unlicensed, or "easy to get" licensed transmission. It wouldn't have to be 200khz wide channels either.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that, however, and in the meantime if you don't want to be bothered by the FCC it's probably better to do your homework and minimize your impact on commercial interests.
In other words, don't just buy a transmitter off of ebay, switch it on, and get all excited about how you are covering your entire block.
Part 15 devices DO NOT have to be FCC approved. That is, if you are going to use them for unlicensed part 15 operation, as the original author thinks that he is, then no FCC approval is required.
The issue ISN'T the fcc approval. The issue is the misundertanding of the part 15 emmisision requirements for the FM broadcast band. 300mw is not allowed, neither (in most cases) is 100mw.
The issue of fcc approval is ONLY an issue if you intend to obtain an fcc low power broadcast license which is not available to individuals to just listen to tunes around their house.
1) As I have ALREADY stated, it's 250uv/meter at three meters.
2) Licensed hams, like everybody else, can use part 15 rules to transmit if desired. Further, since there is no such thing as part 97 (ham radio) transmission in the FM broadcast band there is NO need to transmit one's license or restrict themselves from playing music.
Well yes, but to be clear, that's NOT what makes it legal, what makes it legal is that it is NOT radiating more than 250uv/meter at a distance of three meters from the antenna. That might be lower than 10mw in some cases.
Now, frankly, I don't think the fcc is going to get TOO uptight if you are using it in a responsible fashion and are reasonably close to the legal limit.
However, the larger point here is that people buying transmitters from ebay OUGHT to be doing some research before putting them on the air. They should certainly look things up before presenting their half baked ideas to salivating slashdotters.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah baby, that's Stylish with a BIG S.
Take a gander here at the mp3 version. Don't be fooled by the photography, these babies are BULBOUS! I think they're going for the cyborg look.
All I know for sure is that when I say them in compusa I just couldn't stop laughing.
I can't imagine using those things snowboarding. They look like they'd fly off with one quick turn of the head. I like lightweight and simple glasses for boarding. They WILL come off your face, unless of course, you are much better than me and NEVER find yourself yardsailing down the slope. Did I mention that they look like shit.
Well, it's nice that you're reading and responding to this.
The incredibles DID make me smile, but that's ONE of the reasons to go see a movie. Perhaps it's a reason to buy entertainment software like games, but a database. Sorry, your response just sounds constructed.
Now, if your software could use amazon.com to search JUST my books, in particular, JUST the indexes of MY books, then that would be useful.
It's not interesting, in fact, slashdot has been one big turd of a read over the last few weeks.
Who can suggest something better? I'm looking for more sci/tech, less tripe.
That site is CLEARLY satire....navigate your way to the jesus anti-fornication thong" to convince yourself.
I'd bet money it's the same people who do landover baptist church which, btw, is ALSO funny as hell.
Ok, I'll bite. Are you trying to be funny? Or do you think you're being witty? Or do you really not get it?
Well, I'll just assume you have best intentions.
My first computer was not a kit. I'm pretty sure the kim 1 was sold assembled only, but don't quote me on that. I did build its power supply and 4k memory epansion (not from a kit). But the computer was purchased used from someone in the local computer club.
My second computer was built on perfboard from an 8080 chip set that I purchased on clearance sale from radio shack. To the best of my knowledge radio shack has never sold a (microprocessor based) computer kit.
However, that's not really the point. Again I'll presume that you AREN'T just trolling.
Building an electronics kit, particularly one which only contains digital circuity, requires only an ability to solder. Presuming, of course, that the builder posesses at least average motor and reading comprehension skills.
Building, or even just modifying an existing machine at the component level, at least when you come up with the idea yourself, requires an understanding of what the components are doing.
But stuffing computer peripherals into a case is just "consuming". You don't need soldering skill, you need only minimal mechanical skill, and what you need to know about which things go where can be learned in an afternoon.
My point was not really intended to come off sounding like "if you can't do what I can do you aren't shit", but rather, "stop calling what you do something that's more than it is".
Building a PC today is EASY. It might be a "simple" skill, but it doesn't represent any depth of ability by itself.
I ALWAYS try to avoid the menus.
I have several tactics that seem to work well.
1) NEVER press a button, the system may have a default and connect you to an operator. This doesn't always work.
2) Press zero over and over again. This option frequently gets you the operator. But not always.
3) Press the first number quickly and repeatly. I don't listen to the menus as soon as I hear one start I just press a button. This will frequently get me to an operator. Of course it's the wrong operator, that doesn't matter. Act VERY angry and tell them that you have been navigating their blankety blank system for hours. Insist that they transfer you to a person who can help you and that you don't want to deal with any more menus. This doesn't ALWAYS work, they sometimes transfer you into another menu. But, this time at least it's the right menu...just repeat the process.
4) One of the best tactics I've found for the speech recognition menus is to say something in perfect english that is COMPLETE NONSENSE.
for example, when calling an ISP
Them : "Please state your problem clearly."
Me : "I need to onion my sister on the lampshade which perturbs my colon"
you will almost always here
Them : "one moment and I will connect you to an operator"
I have found that once you have someone on the phone the best way to get customer service is to combine politeness, anger, and a condescending attitude into a VERY VERY VERY long explanation. Each question from them yields a VERY VERY VERY long answer from you. The goal for them is to get you off of the phone quickly and you need to give them NO reason to hang up on you and EVERY reason for them to pass you off onto someone else.
Repeat this process until you are getting the kind of help you think you need.
I have had GREAT success telling them long winded stories about GREAT customer service I have received from other companies and why what they are doing is NOT GREAT but simply mediocre because great companies do what company XYZ does.
Now, in general, this is TRUE. That is, those stories are true stories. Companies like Mackie in woodinville, WA, Electrovoice, and Chaco (they make shoes) have given me AWESOME customer service in the past. I mean the kind of service that goes above and beyond the call of duty. I would NEVER hesitate to do business with those companies because of it. But, if you don't have any great stories like I do, just make them up. Why? Because it works that's why.
When you call it is like a sales call, you need to take control of the conversation. Until you are talking with someone who is serious about helping you there is no point in giving them any advantage.
You know when you've found that person because they are talking to you like you are a human being. Don't settle for less.
I listened to the tech support calls that were posted here http://suso.suso.org/mediafiles/Apple-techsup/ by someone else in this thread. Brushing aside the fact that I doubt the owner of the site had permission to publish the calls from the caller, it was clear to me that some of them demonstrated that the customer wasn't technically knowledgeable, and a few of the customers were clearly threatening, but all of them demonstrated the following key point.
The techdroid on the phone is a bottom rung drone who has no power to do anything and is being successful in getting rid of the customer. He wins when you abuse him.
The customers mistake in most of these calls was getting angry and abusive. You have to wear the moron who answers the phone out in order to get past him. NEVER let him believe he is anywhere close to solving your problem UNLESS, of course, he ACTUALLY has solved your problem. ALWAYS have a SLEW of BS problems to waste his time with if he is not addressing your REAL problem.
Those calls were from Apple, and I can tell you for a fact that Apple DOES make exceptions on their warranty service and that these techniques DO work
What was that line from the incredibles..."We keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity", I think that's it anyway.
However, I'm not insulting any "person's" sense of pride in doing something for themselves. I'm talking about what is news and what isn't.
Now there is SOMEONE here who is INSULTING someone else in PARTICULAR. That person is YOU.
What you should be doing is encouraging other people's particiapation in the online forum, but instead, you stand there and shit on it.
ymmv.
Well,
It seems some of you seem to miss the point. My point was NOT that one is less of a person because they haven't built a computer from parts. My point was that changing cables is so far from ANY reasonable defintion of hardware hacking that it does NOT need to be news on a tech site.
There are plenty of people still "hacking" today but they are not building PCs. Embedded micros still allow plenty of opportunity for genuine hardware hacking.
I don't disagree you have to start somewhere, but I don't see anyone reporting on slashdot that little billy has just built a morse code practice oscilator with his fifty in one radio shack electronics kit. Take offense if you like, but ricing a pc isn't even as difficult as little billy's task. He at LEAST had to follow a wiring diagram, even if it is JUST a picture which indicates which spring to connect the yellow and blue wires to. Christ, computer cables are all keyed these days.
And certainly parallel ports and usb ports are useful for interfacing to other projects, and frankly, when those projects are reported they are certainly interesting, but that doesn't change the appliance nature of the PC. Whatever you are interfacing it with might not be an appliance, but the PC certainly is.
Before PCI it was still pretty easy to build cards to plug into your pc. You could wirewrap boards that ran at five or eight megahertz, it's not quite so practical with current pc busses.
As I said in the original message, I don't lament that it's not practical to build your own PC, it's not important. If you like "hardware hacking" then there are plenty of things that you can build. But plugging things into a PC ISN'T hacking and it ISN'T tech news.
Art? Craft maybe.
I remember a boss I had once who was so proud that he built his own pc. He had soldered all the sockets on the board and pressed the chips into the sockets.
I also remember thinking "That's not building a pc", that's building a kit, so what. I built my second computer (first computer was a kim 1) with wirewrap and and handful of parts on clearance from radio shack (8080 et al).
PCs are just not truly "hackable" by the average hobbiest anymore. I'm not lamenting the loss, it isn't important. What I'm saying is that calling people who stuff crap into their computer case a "hacker" is about the same as calling someone who puts rim covers on their car a "mechanic".
PCs are appliances and talking about how people are "modding" them is about as interesting as talking about how people are "modding" their toasters.
You really like talking about modeling and stuff, huh? Have your thought about an exciting career in the fashion industy? Oh, and don't be ashamed of it. You know, rosie greer did needlepoint. Come out from behind that AC door.
I don't know about the past, but with exciting new technology like the Rune Radionics leading the way I'm QUITE sure the bounceback will be here soon.
These guys are creative geniuses. Who'd of thought of that? MORE camera angles. What a clever way to fill up that extra space.
Oh believe me, I tried, it was involuntary. You don't seem to be helping matters any.
Oh, silly me, go on, have your fun talking about modeling and clothes and all that. I'm sure someone thinks it's important.
...will the yawning NEVER stop....
Well, you've been lucky, one of these days you are going to run afoul of one of the more dangerous internets.
So it finishes compiling just in time for you to "emerge --sync".
Oh, there's no need to be super paranoid about it. Just dial the thing down to 10 or 20 mw, attach it to a 1/4 vertical and relax.
...you can just use a simple FM transmitter kit like they sell on ebay to accomplish just about the same thing...
While off topic, I have often thought that when applying this rule to the pronunciation of letters one bases the rule on the spelling of the letter.
That is, F is a consonant, but if one were to spell the letter it as it sounds it would be something like eff which begins with a vowel. Hence, the more natural sounding "An FM transm....."
Yes, no, maybe?
anyone?
This is not true with FM. Several community radio stations have used this method with success. The biggest problem seems to be synhronizing the audio.
Hams do risk losing their ham ticket. As far as the general public is concerned, setting up community radio is, imnsho, a good thing, BUT, people using higher than legal power transmitters for convenience is not exactly a "community" radio station.
If people are going to transmit in the broadcast bands they ought to read up on the subject, in particular, learning how to select a frequency and making sure they aren't causing interference that will attract attention to themselves.
It would be nice if the FCC were to set aside some portion of the FM spectrum for either unlicensed, or "easy to get" licensed transmission. It wouldn't have to be 200khz wide channels either.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that, however, and in the meantime if you don't want to be bothered by the FCC it's probably better to do your homework and minimize your impact on commercial interests.
In other words, don't just buy a transmitter off of ebay, switch it on, and get all excited about how you are covering your entire block.
Part 15 devices DO NOT have to be FCC approved. That is, if you are going to use them for unlicensed part 15 operation, as the original author thinks that he is, then no FCC approval is required.
The issue ISN'T the fcc approval. The issue is the misundertanding of the part 15 emmisision requirements for the FM broadcast band. 300mw is not allowed, neither (in most cases) is 100mw.
The issue of fcc approval is ONLY an issue if you intend to obtain an fcc low power broadcast license which is not available to individuals to just listen to tunes around their house.
Well.
1) As I have ALREADY stated, it's 250uv/meter at three meters.
2) Licensed hams, like everybody else, can use part 15 rules to transmit if desired. Further, since there is no such thing as part 97 (ham radio) transmission in the FM broadcast band there is NO need to transmit one's license or restrict themselves from playing music.
Well yes, but to be clear, that's NOT what makes it legal, what makes it legal is that it is NOT radiating more than 250uv/meter at a distance of three meters from the antenna. That might be lower than 10mw in some cases.
Now, frankly, I don't think the fcc is going to get TOO uptight if you are using it in a responsible fashion and are reasonably close to the legal limit.
However, the larger point here is that people buying transmitters from ebay OUGHT to be doing some research before putting them on the air. They should certainly look things up before presenting their half baked ideas to salivating slashdotters.