I have an XR250, on top of that it is a Brazilian assembly (with Japanese parts, except a few), and I am really happy about it reliability wise.
It saw the shop once (first revision), then I never took it there and did my brake pad/filter/oil changes and other maintenance.
When riding it home after they "maintaained it" I realized that they screwed my with my brakes (expicitly asked them not to touch it), and the whole bike was moving around.
When I noticed that they forgot to put a seat bolt/nut back into place, I decided that I would not risk them forgetting putting break liquid or forgetting tightening the front wheel, and never went back to that place.
Hmm... just wish I had the space here to do all the work on my cars, so no one would have to touch them ever again:(
Re:I was just thinking about it, and services too
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Haha, yep, when you find a shop like that in Costa Rica, please let me know.
Actually with BMWs and VWs I hear the same horrorstories from all around the world (except Europe).
I am really thinking about just getting something that is dirt simple, rip all the electronics, rebuild it from scratch, then I know what cable opens the windows. That was my original plan with my car, but I do not have the hart to turn it in a project car, especially because it is my daily driver:).
But thanks for the tip.:)
Re:I was just thinking about it, and services too
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Dear ignorant ass,
I have a knee injury as of yesterday, and I am typing in a rather messed up position, because I cannot get close to the table, as I cannot bend my knee. I am medicated too, how fun, eh?
On the other hand my first language is not English, it is just one of the 4 I speak, so instead of noticing a typo and trying to pick a fight, you could make an intelligent comment instead of trolling me.
ps: I am not rich at all, but the richest people I know spell their own language the worst, and have the least amount of education, while the other bunch of people I know (teachers, engineers, architects and biologists) struggle to make ends meet.
Hmm, you obviously never owned a Honda motorbike. Or maybe I never owned any other motorbike.....
The (lack of) manintenance my bike needs is amazing, it was a daily commuter and weekend offroad toy for 3 years, and until now it started every morning with just oil/filter changes at recommended intervals.... after 3 years I had to change the battery - a battery that usualy lasts for 1 year - or so I was told at the shop:o, maybe it is just Honda.....
Not praising Honda, the only Honda car we have in the family is trash, the angency is a bunch of lying jerks who cannot fix anything...
I was just thinking about it, and services too
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I was looking around this thrashpile house of mine, while trying to figure out why my wireless Logitech Trackman trackball does not work 15cm from my receiver, and saw my digital camera, with a dead pixel (sony dsc-whatever) after a2 months of use, next to it my nikon, 1 bad pixel after 6 years.... next to it, JVC miniDV, just returned from the states after a CCD change, came with a dirty head, so bad it could not record... hey my free service did not include a head cleaning or checking if the crap was working...
on the left, my Sony Vaio in pieces, plugged in, went black, no one figured what has happened... on top of my toshiba laptop (that has 10 minutes tops battery time) my brand new HP laptop, 2 dead pixels.....
next to these MY UWATEC dive computer.. uhm, its empty socket.. since the unit died during an infrared transfer and despite the "you get a new one in a week", for 4 weeks - no news... my Swatch dive watch, that starts timing dives on the surface, and the AOC widescreen display that is not the nicest quality, but hey, the second exchange does not have dead pixels at least..... over me, hanging an epson projector - its went is soooo loud i hd to mount it on the roof so I can watch a movie, it's projected black is at best mild grey, but hey I should not complain... Ohh, behind the desk the ipod's headphone that broke after 1 week of gym use, and next to it the great ITRIP from griffin, that sucks batteries like nothing else... oh they sound like shit too.... my ipaq's broken external battery, ductaped on, the second exchange of wifi adapter rottening in it unused for months, even when it was brand new, battery died way too fast for even a short wardriving.. next to it my dead t68i showing it's dead face through the transparent drawer.....
Let me not continue, but I think I STOP buying junk. I really have to think if I need all the problems associated with these devices, and maybe just look into an other source of entertainment and forget about electronics, keep it for the workspace.... stay with mechanics, or sports..... but wait
I am waiting for my car at home, this is the 2nd day they spend installing an alarm, but since BMWs are sooo complicated, they cannot make the central lock work... In fact I had to pick it up yesterday, to notice that some service lights are on (airbag light).... remote starter, window rollup, central lock did not work, and they did not connect the brand new pioneer radio to the antenna - > they did not have the right connector (WTF ???)
OK, if BMWs ar really complicated (hey it is a 95 model), then let's see my VW (gol, simplest after polo). 2 days in the shop and they could not start it, 3 mechanics ($600 in parts), and the belts still make a sound.....
so here is my advice: stay with stuff / only buy stuff
1.that was made in the last century, 2. whereever you live it is a local product 3 has as little electronics as possible (get a car with a Carb, injection is waaay too complicated) for fun: play in the sandbox, go for a bike ride, walk your dogs.....
OK but more seriously : lately I am so annoyed about the quality of products (ANYTHING) that I am really considering changing profession and dumping my current hobbies, and start something completely away from gadgets and computers.....
One more thing I figured : no matter how much you make, and what price range of products you buy, you will have the same problems with you $50 memory stick, your $200 mp3 player, your $1500 projector or $4000 plasma TV, and even your $10k, $20k, $60k car.... because today's manufacturers do not give a shit, they have better lawyesr, and for most of the people problems like a dead pixel, short battery life, or a squeeeking sound or slightly burnt smell DOES NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE....
My chair is not too comfortable, I have a surrounds system and a 90" projected screen, but unless they define "comfortable chair" I refuse to do anything...
of course I am not in the US anyway, but I mean what a PILE OF BULLSHIT is this ?
I paid my system, my room, my chair, my screen, the rental or the DVD, now I have to register for $50 ????????????????
this goes over anything...
it reminds me of when I lived in hungary, and I had to pay a TV fee, even though I never connected an aerial antenna to my tv and/or watched local television. Of course, I registered myself as "i do not own a television" since technically my TV was used as a monitor for the satellite/dvd syste, not as a TV tuner.
I think when your boss is a tech, ou get more respect if you know things, and that goes for the boss as well.
Besides that, as a technical person, I like when my boss knows what 1080i is, or builds his own project car, or built his own media center, and does not get scared in front of a unix shell.
But hey, just a general technical interest can go a long way.
Flim-flam? Yep, I have seen a lot-of guys doing that, in fact once 4 people got fired when I got hired, because it turned out, that on the first week i did more stuff, they did in the last 10 months (4 altogether).... Sounds bad, but I did not feel sorry for them, as they were bullshitting the non-tech management, simulating hard work.... But yep, you can BS non-tech bosses, but you can get screwed when you do it in excess...
but before you give up, I would recommend trying other genres, that require different controls : flight sims, driving games can be used with wheels and joys, and are not as bad as the vibrating tiny controls, especially when they are paired with button-smashers....
Also keyboard + mouse games, like FPS games (slower, tactical games) are not that bad for your hands...
in fact I play sometimes with a group (beerdrinking assassins) on their Ghost Recon (AW) server, where they have a seventy-something old guy playing as a regular.... and he is good:) and never complains of hand pains:)
Middleware: we use the term for anything that runs services on it: e.g. tomcat is middleware, it runs on the OS, and apps run on it. Or MQ is middleware too: as you said it connect components and apps together. I do not thing we disagree on that.
I am technically part of a hosting team, and the official name of the group is Middleware....
- Sorry, I react badly to "I'm experienced and know so much more then my young colleagues". -
Yes you react badly. When you are in IT production for 10+ years, you have a lot more experience than others who come out of school. There is nothing bad about saying that. That does not mean that you are superior, it only means that you have a much better understanding of different fields, and when problems occur you do a routine task and it is solved while the others are still searching runbooks and trying to find what could have caused the server to give a specific error, one that you saw 9999 times, but one that is completely new for them.
Business classes: yep, those whould have been good, but the amount of additional crap we had to learn sometimes got on my nerves. Don't get me wrong, I am talking about an european school when additional crap was outrageous thru colleges and highschools in the name of growing "generally highly educated" kids as opposed to professionals in one field.... does not matter, at the end it is useful... maybe...
You have programming class, you have unix class, you have database class (sql)... so you know all these....
But you most likely do not have MIDDLEWARE class -> apache administration, tomcat administration, Websphere, Sendmail, etc etc... (hmm sendmail is not middleware technically)....
My point is: people come out of school, and they do not know what ports are, how your code is deployed on a server, and have no ITIL (or some kind of IT management training at all). In other words, they might see the big picture, but have no clue what the code is running on, and how middleware components are interacting with each other, and the application.
I am new at a big company, and have a lot of experience, both dev, network, and admin. I see my colleagues, young kids with 1-2 years of experience, and it shows that even tough they are "software engineers" (just like me), they have no clue of these things, and they will need a few years to pick all that up....
just my 2c....
in short: yes, planning, developing, management, and MIDDLEWARE (admin stuff) + network is all useful and important. And yes, it is more important than an overload of math, or a bunch of other useless crap (no, math is important, but e.g. economy could have been less at my college.
"doesn't make any sense to me why so many supposed gamers have not even glanced at what Wii can do."
don't take it as flame, but in my eyes, the WII is an underpowered game machine with a controller that leaves me uninterested....
Honestly, I am missing buttons from all the game controllers. I would like a sony-style controller with 4x2 shoulder buttons, and pedals, so you can control everything and anything.... instead:
the controller of the wii looks like a mac mouse for me, with few buttons and an awkward control idea....
I am sure it is cool for the jumpandrun, and swordfighting games, but all i play is FPS, and racing sim...... sooooo for me the WII is underpowered, and i do not beleive that it will support any complex games that you can run on a decent PC nowadays...
I think there might be some others who are not interested in the WII for that reason..
ps: for this same reason I did not get a 360, and for the same reason I sold my ps2 and my xbox 3 months ago. PS3? Maybe, but most likely NOT. Power is on the PC, and fps/sim is on PC, and I have no interest in dance-dance revolution, or mario type games either.
A steel tube will make my car not move (or some cars??) , a 5 point is not good because (other) people are lazy to put it on, and people are so stupid that they do not realize that safety devices make them survive accidents. Almost forgot: it is better to walk away with internal/neck/spine problems and go to the doctor, than dying in a crushed steel ball, surrounded with airbags.
As I said, you do not have to agree, but IMO a rollcage protects you against a lot, a 5 point is better than a 3 point (it is padded too usually), a racing seat holds you better into place (sideways too), and a RWD will most likely stay on the road while an FWD will fly OFF.
And yes, you do not need all this if you drive 50km/h in your city, but you are better off with these if you drive 200+ kilometers on mountain roads on the weekends......
And no, maybe "americans" (??) think that the big SUV will be more safe, and then they flip over in 2 seconds, but then again, get into a Mini or a Mazda Miata, and have a crash from a Grand Cherokee, and your head will fly away, while the Jeep owner's wouldn't realize that they just had a crash....
Rollcage weight: a meter of standard material is around 0.5K/meter. How many meters do you want to put into the car? Seriously, I've read that a completed rollcage for an AE86 (needs serious stiffening) is around 60LBS/30Kg. That is barely the weight of a child passenger, and any car rated for 5/4 passengers with 2 persons+rollcage weight would not exceed half the capacity. Assuming no one is sitting in the back, but in my car no one sits in the back ever, except my dogs (40kg/piece average)...
but then again, I do not have a roll bar nor a racing car, but if it was easier with authorities, I would seriously consider putting one.
About false sense or fear of safety devices: I believe in safety devices, do not get me wrong, it is just a selection, based on experience (mine or others), that tell me that I trust a 5-point better than any bubble that explodes in front of my face.
I trust a strong harness, bolted to the floor better, than some fancy electronics, that ignite in front of my eyes, because harnesses do not fail, electronics do.
I do not think the airbags kill people, but they burn people, and they pose a risk when you are wearing glasses (here you wear sunglasses almost every day, year round, otherwise you do not see anything)...
I have been in 2 totalled cars, one that bursted into flames, one that had the engine sitting inside the passanger compartment, while the wheels were up in front of the windshield, both I survived, both without airbags, one without a seatbelt (at that time we did not have seatbelts on the back seats).
Being foolish for a rollcage or RWD?
You are right, racing conditions are different, but as soon as you take it to the highway, and as soon as you take it to the curvy mountain roads, it immediately becomes similar. On these, a rollcage, and a body tensioning (partly by the rollcage, partly by the strut bars and braces) WILL make your car more rigid, more controllable, and less likely to loose a wheel or a roof when you accidentally fly off the road, or in case you flip your car.
RWD: you can argue on that all you want, here is what I think: an RWD vehicle oversteers if you apply too much power. If you can control it, you make a drift, and you are still on the road. On a FWD vehicle, applying too much power, you lose traction to the steering wheel and it is a lot more dangerous, as you go OFF the road, instead of going to the inner line. Yes, when starting, you have a momentum of advantage on an FWD, bc the weight and the driven wheel is on the front, but as you speed up, the weight shifts to the back and your advantage is gone. I have 2 1.8 engine vehicles, one FWD one RWD, more or less the same power and weight, and I can tell you, that when accelerating, the FWD loses traction way easyer.
Quality wehicles (in my perspective) are sticking to RWD (e.g. BMW, Mercedes), or use 4wd, while most of the others shifted to FWD, not because it is good for you, but because they can save on assembly time and complexity. You also save parts, oh well, they also save parts, while the wehicle costs the same with your "added driveability".
Skull, airbag:
Yep I agree on that, that stopping your body poses danger (I saw a women with 4 broken ribs in one of the accidents, caused by the seatbelt and it did not look nice.....
I also agree that it is nice to see your car panels sliding into each other and taking away the force of the crash, slowing down, but you never see a comparison between the effects on a bus hitting your street car, and a rollcaged car from the side with 70KM/h.... I am sure the force would knock you unconcious, but I bet you have a 80% + higher survival rate in a caged car, than in your airbagged Hyunday...
but explain this to me than (not picking a fight, really want your opinion): how comes, that racedrivers walk away from 120Km/h + crashes, with their rollcage and 5point, while people die in 80km/h - crashes in street vehicles, sometimes with airbags....
But then again, this is an opinion based on driving and crash experiences and I am not forcing anything on you. You dislike it, go ahead and put 6 airbags in your FWD car and enjoy it. Here where I drive on the weekends is more like a racetrack with mountain roads and crazy drivers, and there is no snow at all, so I stick with my FWD, and keep wishing that putting a cage was simpler to deal with local regulations. And yes after driving an FWD for 4 years I am back on a RWD and I am just lowing it and feel safer.
ps: if you still do not believe me that I am safety aware: I always use motocross boots, helmet, gloves and goggles,
sorry to say, I never had an airbag, and just bought a used car with an airbag and here is what I am going to do:
REMOVE it ASAP, and put a 3 or 4 or 5 point safety belt into the car with a decent (perhaps racing) seat.....
I think airbags cause more injuries than necessary...
what cars need is a rugged interior and a rollcage, racing seats and a decent padded safety belt (racing style)...
not airbags that burn you and break your arm, not monitors that take your concentration from the road, not bass pumping stereo that make you unable to hear your engine...
in other words: don't pimp my ride with MTV crap and safety looking crap: put in a rollcage, a decent seat, good brakes and a fire extinguisher... ohh.. and a safety belt cutting device....
ps: instead of governments making rollcages illegal (not streat legal)l, they should lower your insurance if you have one...
ohh. and that is what I think: instead of promoting front wheel drive as a safety feature, companyes should start putting out RWD wehicles and stop saving on their customers and brainwashing them.... than maybe less people would fly off the road....
just my idea of a car.... and before you ask: i drive a motorbike, and when not, I drive a RWD, AIRBAG to be removed aso soon as my racing seat is installed...
Hahaha. yep i agree, I moved to Costa Rica from Hungary (chaos to chaos) and had to complete a driving test (for my bike) her, and now I understand why I see that an accident every single day on a 15km road to my job.....
I had weeks of training, and medical, mechanical, highway, city and parking exams.... here: follow me, do the cones, do the exam....
OMG:) people learn to drive in their parents' car with no extra pedals. In eureope the instructors have to have 3 pedals and you have to have certain hours of practice just to go to the exam...
OK, I did not mean that boycotting means pirating it. I meant that people will refuse to upgrade with these stupid terms while others will just pirate it.
Think about it like this: I was forced to buy winxp with my laptop, and they refused the rebate, I installed my legal win2000 on it and linux, and since my LEGALLY purchased copy of WINXP does not tun on anything BUT the laptop, I am forced to use a pirated copy....
Now you might say that it was an OEM, and a deal with the laptop, I refuse it, the same way I would refuse to buy an other copy of Vista when I get a new machine, and put Linux on the old one...
The license might tell you otherwise, but at the end I bought it, I own it so I should be able to run a copy whereever I want.
I might even add this: even on multiple machines, but only one at a time. (e.g. one on my laptop, and one at home, assuming I never use the 2 together...)
but hey, I am not a lawyer, and today they changed the licensing:) so this post is irrelevant anyway:)
they gave a boost to OS/2 as well and that wonderful OS was gone.
I think we are lucky, that NOVELL != Linux, otherwise I would be installing BSD (solaris/whatever else) on my desktop, if not right now, in the near future for sure.
You get $0-5 for an application, and $10-$60 for an approved client.
Even though many banks and programs (almost all of them) prohibit using trademark domains and even keywords (on bidding services like Google ads), many people get domains like that and promote through type-ins...
so it is not just phishers, but fishy advertisers that want those domains....
ps: yes I used to promote credit cards, and student loans, No I never used domains like that and never spammed.
In the last few years, since there is XP, I went thru more or less 5-6 machines. And YES I refuse to buy 5-6 copies of VISTA for each machine I get/upgrade, especialle because the "decommissioned" machines turn into linux/bsd/solaris boxes, and the shiny new machine gets the Windows for gaming/multimedia...
I think it is unacceptable, If I buy the product I should be able to run it on whatever machine and whereever....
I think it will cause people to simply boycott Vista and pirate it from the beginning.... for me: I stick to XP as long as possible, I did the same with Win2000, and upgraded when I was able to get a vopy for $25 on ebay:)
I agree, however it is also the users' faultm and admin's fault:
1. SPF records are around and should be enforced. If people finally decided to only accept mail from valid (enabled) senders, spammers would have to rely on their own domains. That would cut SPAM into fractions.
2. certificates, such as PGP (GPG) are around and can be used to accept mail. Only signed mail. I would go as far as paying a small fee for a sender address cert if everyone else did. Of course not to encrypt, just to sign.
If not completely eliminate, some required minimum encryption grade would at least slow down signing/encryption process, and would require more effort to send a mail : e.g. other than an address, you would need the persons public key.
But then again, I tell my supposedly tech friends to sign their mails, and they are so lazy asses, no one goes as far as downloading PGP..... so do I care then if I lose their mail in the wind ? NO.
Oh well, it is nice to see that over rules and regulations sometimes common sense and the people behind it does not get punished.
All i have to say about it after seeing 568 messages today in my mailbox. Yes, 2 is a valid mail, the rest is buy viagra and get a college degree scam.
let's turn them totally uncapable of doing anything other than driving to the mall and eating a double fry&burger....
I admit I am on the other hand, and did bmx racing, mountainbiking, skating, diving, klimbing etcetcetc..... and i did hurt myself several times, and i took guys to the hospital and popped their knees back into place after nastier crashes....
and when the time comes to escape the burning building, and when your reflexes count to avoid a car crash, or when you run for your life or just after a bus..... well then all those parents who "feel safer now" will damn sorry because their children will be totally unable to anythin with their bodies other than burn/fall/die...
even when you do not prepare to be a parachuter, rockclimber or a race driver, a little "near collision" or kick in the head might give you some balls and teach you things....
"Could you try mozilla.com's official Firefox (tm) builds and see if they also crash? If they don't, could you please file a bug report? You can do this by running 'reportbug mozilla-firefox'."
Huhh, no I can't:(... can't mess that machine up right now:( I know it sucks but I just cannot do that now, too little time -> I am on a training 9hrs a day and I do not even want to look at computers other than reading my mail and checking a few sites:)
People seem to drool over wooden monitors, keyboards and cases while for me it is just a mismatch somehow.
Same with cars. I was car shopping on the weekend, and sat into a wooden steering wheel BMW with some parts of the dash also being wooden and I just felt it did not belong there. Oh well, I am the one who would ask for the bigger engine without the leather seats, nicer rims without the wooden dash, sport wheel instead of the wooden crap...
but hey, some people like it. Even in furniture I choose whatever else, and in my new house I have an overall plan to eliminate wood totally:)
Quite honestly, I am experiencing the most problems on debian with firefox.
Under Windoze it is pretty stable, under solaris it seemed pretty OK, under readhat it is OK, and under debian it seems to crash on me once-three times in a day minimum.
It is just an experience though and i am not saying that the debian package is screwed, i am also using that version the most, and statistically that might mean more problems at all...
so what do I think ?
Well, I understand if mozilla/debian wants to approve patches to ensure quality, and I think it is a stupid stunt from debian. My favourte distro and all that, but I really do not care about the logo and it is not worth the fight or the conflict at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an XR250, on top of that it is a Brazilian assembly (with Japanese parts, except a few), and I am really happy about it reliability wise.
... just wish I had the space here to do all the work on my cars, so no one would have to touch them ever again :(
It saw the shop once (first revision), then I never took it there and did my brake pad/filter/oil changes and other maintenance.
When riding it home after they "maintaained it" I realized that they screwed my with my brakes (expicitly asked them not to touch it), and the whole bike was moving around.
When I noticed that they forgot to put a seat bolt/nut back into place, I decided that I would not risk them forgetting putting break liquid or forgetting tightening the front wheel, and never went back to that place.
Hmm
Haha, yep, when you find a shop like that in Costa Rica, please let me know.
:)
Actually with BMWs and VWs I hear the same horrorstories from all around the world (except Europe).
I am really thinking about just getting something that is dirt simple, rip all the electronics, rebuild it from scratch, then I know what cable opens the windows. That was my original plan with my car, but I do not have the hart to turn it in a project car, especially because it is my daily driver:).
But thanks for the tip.
Dear ignorant ass,
I have a knee injury as of yesterday, and I am typing in a rather messed up position, because I cannot get close to the table, as I cannot bend my knee. I am medicated too, how fun, eh?
On the other hand my first language is not English, it is just one of the 4 I speak, so instead of noticing a typo and trying to pick a fight, you could make an intelligent comment instead of trolling me.
ps: I am not rich at all, but the richest people I know spell their own language the worst, and have the least amount of education, while the other bunch of people I know (teachers, engineers, architects and biologists) struggle to make ends meet.
"drive them one hour, work on them two hours"
:o, maybe it is just Honda .....
...
Motorcycle rule ?
Hmm, you obviously never owned a Honda motorbike. Or maybe I never owned any other motorbike.....
The (lack of) manintenance my bike needs is amazing, it was a daily commuter and weekend offroad toy for 3 years, and until now it started every morning with just oil/filter changes at recommended intervals.... after 3 years I had to change the battery - a battery that usualy lasts for 1 year - or so I was told at the shop
Not praising Honda, the only Honda car we have in the family is trash, the angency is a bunch of lying jerks who cannot fix anything
I was looking around this thrashpile house of mine, while trying to figure out why my wireless Logitech Trackman trackball does not work 15cm from my receiver, and saw my digital camera, with a dead pixel (sony dsc-whatever) after a2 months of use, next to it my nikon, 1 bad pixel after 6 years .... next to it, JVC miniDV, just returned from the states after a CCD change, came with a dirty head, so bad it could not record ... hey my free service did not include a head cleaning or checking if the crap was working ...
... on top of my toshiba laptop (that has 10 minutes tops battery time) my brand new HP laptop, 2 dead pixels.....
.. uhm, its empty socket .. since the unit died during an infrared transfer and despite the "you get a new one in a week", for 4 weeks - no news ... my Swatch dive watch, that starts timing dives on the surface, and the AOC widescreen display that is not the nicest quality, but hey, the second exchange does not have dead pixels at least ..... over me, hanging an epson projector - its went is soooo loud i hd to mount it on the roof so I can watch a movie, it's projected black is at best mild grey, but hey I should not complain ... Ohh, behind the desk the ipod's headphone that broke after 1 week of gym use, and next to it the great ITRIP from griffin, that sucks batteries like nothing else ... oh they sound like shit too .... my ipaq's broken external battery, ductaped on, the second exchange of wifi adapter rottening in it unused for months, even when it was brand new, battery died way too fast for even a short wardriving .. next to it my dead t68i showing it's dead face through the transparent drawer .....
.... stay with mechanics, or sports ..... but wait
.....
.....
.... because today's manufacturers do not give a shit, they have better lawyesr, and for most of the people problems like a dead pixel, short battery life, or a squeeeking sound or slightly burnt smell DOES NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE ....
on the left, my Sony Vaio in pieces, plugged in, went black, no one figured what has happened
next to these MY UWATEC dive computer
Let me not continue, but I think I STOP buying junk. I really have to think if I need all the problems associated with these devices, and maybe just look into an other source of entertainment and forget about electronics, keep it for the workspace
I am waiting for my car at home, this is the 2nd day they spend installing an alarm, but since BMWs are sooo complicated, they cannot make the central lock work...
In fact I had to pick it up yesterday, to notice that some service lights are on (airbag light).... remote starter, window rollup, central lock did not work, and they did not connect the brand new pioneer radio to the antenna - > they did not have the right connector (WTF ???)
OK, if BMWs ar really complicated (hey it is a 95 model), then let's see my VW (gol, simplest after polo). 2 days in the shop and they could not start it, 3 mechanics ($600 in parts), and the belts still make a sound.....
so here is my advice: stay with stuff / only buy stuff
1.that was made in the last century,
2. whereever you live it is a local product
3 has as little electronics as possible (get a car with a Carb, injection is waaay too complicated)
for fun:
play in the sandbox, go for a bike ride, walk your dogs
OK but more seriously : lately I am so annoyed about the quality of products (ANYTHING) that I am really considering changing profession and dumping my current hobbies, and start something completely away from gadgets and computers
One more thing I figured : no matter how much you make, and what price range of products you buy, you will have the same problems with you $50 memory stick, your $200 mp3 player, your $1500 projector or $4000 plasma TV, and even your $10k, $20k, $60k car
My chair is not too comfortable, I have a surrounds system and a 90" projected screen, but unless they define "comfortable chair" I refuse to do anything ...
...
of course I am not in the US anyway, but I mean what a PILE OF BULLSHIT is this ?
I paid my system, my room, my chair, my screen, the rental or the DVD, now I have to register for $50 ????????????????
this goes over anything
it reminds me of when I lived in hungary, and I had to pay a TV fee, even though I never connected an aerial antenna to my tv and/or watched local television. Of course, I registered myself as "i do not own a television" since technically my TV was used as a monitor for the satellite/dvd syste, not as a TV tuner.
MPAA sucks!
I think when your boss is a tech, ou get more respect if you know things, and that goes for the boss as well.
.... Sounds bad, but I did not feel sorry for them, as they were bullshitting the non-tech management, simulating hard work .... ...
Besides that, as a technical person, I like when my boss knows what 1080i is, or builds his own project car, or built his own media center, and does not get scared in front of a unix shell.
But hey, just a general technical interest can go a long way.
Flim-flam? Yep, I have seen a lot-of guys doing that, in fact once 4 people got fired when I got hired, because it turned out, that on the first week i did more stuff, they did in the last 10 months (4 altogether)
But yep, you can BS non-tech bosses, but you can get screwed when you do it in excess
but before you give up, I would recommend trying other genres, that require different controls : flight sims, driving games can be used with wheels and joys, and are not as bad as the vibrating tiny controls, especially when they are paired with button-smashers....
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.... and he is good :) and never complains of hand pains :)
Also keyboard + mouse games, like FPS games (slower, tactical games) are not that bad for your hands
in fact I play sometimes with a group (beerdrinking assassins) on their Ghost Recon (AW) server, where they have a seventy-something old guy playing as a regular
Middleware: we use the term for anything that runs services on it: e.g. tomcat is middleware, it runs on the OS, and apps run on it. Or MQ is middleware too: as you said it connect components and apps together. I do not thing we disagree on that.
... does not matter, at the end it is useful ... maybe ...
I am technically part of a hosting team, and the official name of the group is Middleware....
- Sorry, I react badly to "I'm experienced and know so much more then my young colleagues". -
Yes you react badly. When you are in IT production for 10+ years, you have a lot more experience than others who come out of school. There is nothing bad about saying that. That does not mean that you are superior, it only means that you have a much better understanding of different fields, and when problems occur you do a routine task and it is solved while the others are still searching runbooks and trying to find what could have caused the server to give a specific error, one that you saw 9999 times, but one that is completely new for them.
Business classes: yep, those whould have been good, but the amount of additional crap we had to learn sometimes got on my nerves. Don't get me wrong, I am talking about an european school when additional crap was outrageous thru colleges and highschools in the name of growing "generally highly educated" kids as opposed to professionals in one field.
You have programming class, you have unix class, you have database class (sql) ... so you know all these....
... (hmm sendmail is not middleware technically) ....
But you most likely do not have MIDDLEWARE class -> apache administration, tomcat administration, Websphere, Sendmail, etc etc
My point is: people come out of school, and they do not know what ports are, how your code is deployed on a server, and have no ITIL (or some kind of IT management training at all). In other words, they might see the big picture, but have no clue what the code is running on, and how middleware components are interacting with each other, and the application.
I am new at a big company, and have a lot of experience, both dev, network, and admin. I see my colleagues, young kids with 1-2 years of experience, and it shows that even tough they are "software engineers" (just like me), they have no clue of these things, and they will need a few years to pick all that up....
just my 2c....
in short: yes, planning, developing, management, and MIDDLEWARE (admin stuff) + network is all useful and important. And yes, it is more important than an overload of math, or a bunch of other useless crap (no, math is important, but e.g. economy could have been less at my college.
"doesn't make any sense to me why so many supposed gamers have not even glanced at what Wii can do."
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don't take it as flame, but in my eyes, the WII is an underpowered game machine with a controller that leaves me uninterested....
Honestly, I am missing buttons from all the game controllers. I would like a sony-style controller with 4x2 shoulder buttons, and pedals, so you can control everything and anything.... instead:
the controller of the wii looks like a mac mouse for me, with few buttons and an awkward control idea....
I am sure it is cool for the jumpandrun, and swordfighting games, but all i play is FPS, and racing sim...... sooooo
for me the WII is underpowered, and i do not beleive that it will support any complex games that you can run on a decent PC nowadays
I think there might be some others who are not interested in the WII for that reason
ps: for this same reason I did not get a 360, and for the same reason I sold my ps2 and my xbox 3 months ago. PS3? Maybe, but most likely NOT. Power is on the PC, and fps/sim is on PC, and I have no interest in dance-dance revolution, or mario type games either.
yep, you are right:
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A steel tube will make my car not move (or some cars??) , a 5 point is not good because (other) people are lazy to put it on, and people are so stupid that they do not realize that safety devices make them survive accidents. Almost forgot: it is better to walk away with internal/neck/spine problems and go to the doctor, than dying in a crushed steel ball, surrounded with airbags.
As I said, you do not have to agree, but IMO a rollcage protects you against a lot, a 5 point is better than a 3 point (it is padded too usually), a racing seat holds you better into place (sideways too), and a RWD will most likely stay on the road while an FWD will fly OFF.
And yes, you do not need all this if you drive 50km/h in your city, but you are better off with these if you drive 200+ kilometers on mountain roads on the weekends......
And no, maybe "americans" (??) think that the big SUV will be more safe, and then they flip over in 2 seconds, but then again, get into a Mini or a Mazda Miata, and have a crash from a Grand Cherokee, and your head will fly away, while the Jeep owner's wouldn't realize that they just had a crash
Rollcage weight: a meter of standard material is around 0.5K/meter. How many meters do you want to put into the car? Seriously, I've read that a completed rollcage for an AE86 (needs serious stiffening) is around 60LBS/30Kg.
That is barely the weight of a child passenger, and any car rated for 5/4 passengers with 2 persons+rollcage weight would not exceed half the capacity. Assuming no one is sitting in the back, but in my car no one sits in the back ever, except my dogs (40kg/piece average)...
but then again, I do not have a roll bar nor a racing car, but if it was easier with authorities, I would seriously consider putting one.
About false sense or fear of safety devices: I believe in safety devices, do not get me wrong, it is just a selection, based on experience (mine or others), that tell me that I trust a 5-point better than any bubble that explodes in front of my face.
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.... I am sure the force would knock you unconcious, but I bet you have a 80% + higher survival rate in a caged car, than in your airbagged Hyunday...
I trust a strong harness, bolted to the floor better, than some fancy electronics, that ignite in front of my eyes, because harnesses do not fail, electronics do.
I do not think the airbags kill people, but they burn people, and they pose a risk when you are wearing glasses (here you wear sunglasses almost every day, year round, otherwise you do not see anything)
I have been in 2 totalled cars, one that bursted into flames, one that had the engine sitting inside the passanger compartment, while the wheels were up in front of the windshield, both I survived, both without airbags, one without a seatbelt (at that time we did not have seatbelts on the back seats).
Being foolish for a rollcage or RWD?
You are right, racing conditions are different, but as soon as you take it to the highway, and as soon as you take it to the curvy mountain roads, it immediately becomes similar. On these, a rollcage, and a body tensioning (partly by the rollcage, partly by the strut bars and braces) WILL make your car more rigid, more controllable, and less likely to loose a wheel or a roof when you accidentally fly off the road, or in case you flip your car.
RWD: you can argue on that all you want, here is what I think: an RWD vehicle oversteers if you apply too much power. If you can control it, you make a drift, and you are still on the road. On a FWD vehicle, applying too much power, you lose traction to the steering wheel and it is a lot more dangerous, as you go OFF the road, instead of going to the inner line. Yes, when starting, you have a momentum of advantage on an FWD, bc the weight and the driven wheel is on the front, but as you speed up, the weight shifts to the back and your advantage is gone. I have 2 1.8 engine vehicles, one FWD one RWD, more or less the same power and weight, and I can tell you, that when accelerating, the FWD loses traction way easyer.
Quality wehicles (in my perspective) are sticking to RWD (e.g. BMW, Mercedes), or use 4wd, while most of the others shifted to FWD, not because it is good for you, but because they can save on assembly time and complexity. You also save parts, oh well, they also save parts, while the wehicle costs the same with your "added driveability".
Skull, airbag:
Yep I agree on that, that stopping your body poses danger (I saw a women with 4 broken ribs in one of the accidents, caused by the seatbelt and it did not look nice.....
I also agree that it is nice to see your car panels sliding into each other and taking away the force of the crash, slowing down, but you never see a comparison between the effects on a bus hitting your street car, and a rollcaged car from the side with 70KM/h
but explain this to me than (not picking a fight, really want your opinion):
how comes, that racedrivers walk away from 120Km/h + crashes, with their rollcage and 5point, while people die in 80km/h - crashes in street vehicles, sometimes with airbags....
But then again, this is an opinion based on driving and crash experiences and I am not forcing anything on you. You dislike it, go ahead and put 6 airbags in your FWD car and enjoy it. Here where I drive on the weekends is more like a racetrack with mountain roads and crazy drivers, and there is no snow at all, so I stick with my FWD, and keep wishing that putting a cage was simpler to deal with local regulations. And yes after driving an FWD for 4 years I am back on a RWD and I am just lowing it and feel safer.
ps: if you still do not believe me that I am safety aware: I always use motocross boots, helmet, gloves and goggles,
Airbags my ass!
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... ohh.. and a safety belt cutting device ....
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.... than maybe less people would fly off the road ....
.... and before you ask: i drive a motorbike, and when not, I drive a RWD, AIRBAG to be removed aso soon as my racing seat is installed ...
sorry to say, I never had an airbag, and just bought a used car with an airbag and here is what I am going to do:
REMOVE it ASAP, and put a 3 or 4 or 5 point safety belt into the car with a decent (perhaps racing) seat
I think airbags cause more injuries than necessary...
what cars need is a rugged interior and a rollcage, racing seats and a decent padded safety belt (racing style)
not airbags that burn you and break your arm, not monitors that take your concentration from the road, not bass pumping stereo that make you unable to hear your engine
in other words: don't pimp my ride with MTV crap and safety looking crap: put in a rollcage, a decent seat, good brakes and a fire extinguisher
ps: instead of governments making rollcages illegal (not streat legal)l, they should lower your insurance if you have one
ohh. and that is what I think: instead of promoting front wheel drive as a safety feature, companyes should start putting out RWD wehicles and stop saving on their customers and brainwashing them
just my idea of a car
Hahaha. yep i agree, I moved to Costa Rica from Hungary (chaos to chaos) and had to complete a driving test (for my bike) her, and now I understand why I see that an accident every single day on a 15km road to my job .....
.... here: follow me, do the cones, do the exam ....
:) people learn to drive in their parents' car with no extra pedals. In eureope the instructors have to have 3 pedals and you have to have certain hours of practice just to go to the exam ...
I had weeks of training, and medical, mechanical, highway, city and parking exams
OMG
OK, I did not mean that boycotting means pirating it. I meant that people will refuse to upgrade with these stupid terms while others will just pirate it.
:) so this post is irrelevant anyway :)
Think about it like this: I was forced to buy winxp with my laptop, and they refused the rebate, I installed my legal win2000 on it and linux, and since my LEGALLY purchased copy of WINXP does not tun on anything BUT the laptop, I am forced to use a pirated copy....
Now you might say that it was an OEM, and a deal with the laptop, I refuse it, the same way I would refuse to buy an other copy of Vista when I get a new machine, and put Linux on the old one...
The license might tell you otherwise, but at the end I bought it, I own it so I should be able to run a copy whereever I want.
I might even add this: even on multiple machines, but only one at a time. (e.g. one on my laptop, and one at home, assuming I never use the 2 together...)
but hey, I am not a lawyer, and today they changed the licensing
they gave a boost to OS/2 as well and that wonderful OS was gone.
I think we are lucky, that NOVELL != Linux, otherwise I would be installing BSD (solaris/whatever else) on my desktop, if not right now, in the near future for sure.
You get $0-5 for an application, and $10-$60 for an approved client.
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Even though many banks and programs (almost all of them) prohibit using trademark domains and even keywords (on bidding services like Google ads), many people get domains like that and promote through type-ins
so it is not just phishers, but fishy advertisers that want those domains....
ps: yes I used to promote credit cards, and student loans, No I never used domains like that and never spammed.
In the last few years, since there is XP, I went thru more or less 5-6 machines. And YES I refuse to buy 5-6 copies of VISTA for each machine I get/upgrade, especialle because the "decommissioned" machines turn into linux/bsd/solaris boxes, and the shiny new machine gets the Windows for gaming/multimedia ...
.... for me: I stick to XP as long as possible, I did the same with Win2000, and upgraded when I was able to get a vopy for $25 on ebay :)
I think it is unacceptable, If I buy the product I should be able to run it on whatever machine and whereever....
I think it will cause people to simply boycott Vista and pirate it from the beginning
I agree, however it is also the users' faultm and admin's fault:
..... so do I care then if I lose their mail in the wind ? NO.
1. SPF records are around and should be enforced. If people finally decided to only accept mail from valid (enabled) senders, spammers would have to rely on their own domains. That would cut SPAM into fractions.
2. certificates, such as PGP (GPG) are around and can be used to accept mail. Only signed mail. I would go as far as paying a small fee for a sender address cert if everyone else did. Of course not to encrypt, just to sign.
If not completely eliminate, some required minimum encryption grade would at least slow down signing/encryption process, and would require more effort to send a mail : e.g. other than an address, you would need the persons public key.
But then again, I tell my supposedly tech friends to sign their mails, and they are so lazy asses, no one goes as far as downloading PGP
Oh well, it is nice to see that over rules and regulations sometimes common sense and the people behind it does not get punished.
All i have to say about it after seeing 568 messages today in my mailbox. Yes, 2 is a valid mail, the rest is buy viagra and get a college degree scam.
cheers
let's turn them totally uncapable of doing anything other than driving to the mall and eating a double fry&burger....
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I admit I am on the other hand, and did bmx racing, mountainbiking, skating, diving, klimbing etcetcetc..... and i did hurt myself several times, and i took guys to the hospital and popped their knees back into place after nastier crashes
and when the time comes to escape the burning building, and when your reflexes count to avoid a car crash, or when you run for your life or just after a bus..... well then all those parents who "feel safer now" will damn sorry because their children will be totally unable to anythin with their bodies other than burn/fall/die
even when you do not prepare to be a parachuter, rockclimber or a race driver, a little "near collision" or kick in the head might give you some balls and teach you things
just my 10c
"Could you try mozilla.com's official Firefox (tm) builds and see if they also crash? If they don't, could you please file a bug report? You can do this by running 'reportbug mozilla-firefox'."
:( ... can't mess that machine up right now :( I know it sucks but I just cannot do that now, too little time -> I am on a training 9hrs a day and I do not even want to look at computers other than reading my mail and checking a few sites :)
Huhh, no I can't
cheers
People seem to drool over wooden monitors, keyboards and cases while for me it is just a mismatch somehow.
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:)
Same with cars. I was car shopping on the weekend, and sat into a wooden steering wheel BMW with some parts of the dash also being wooden and I just felt it did not belong there. Oh well, I am the one who would ask for the bigger engine without the leather seats, nicer rims without the wooden dash, sport wheel instead of the wooden crap
but hey, some people like it. Even in furniture I choose whatever else, and in my new house I have an overall plan to eliminate wood totally
Quite honestly, I am experiencing the most problems on debian with firefox.
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Under Windoze it is pretty stable, under solaris it seemed pretty OK, under readhat it is OK, and under debian it seems to crash on me once-three times in a day minimum.
It is just an experience though and i am not saying that the debian package is screwed, i am also using that version the most, and statistically that might mean more problems at all
so what do I think ?
Well, I understand if mozilla/debian wants to approve patches to ensure quality, and I think it is a stupid stunt from debian. My favourte distro and all that, but I really do not care about the logo and it is not worth the fight or the conflict at all.