Yeah, what's amazing to me is those two drives are running off my original 200W power supply circa 1995. I swear, this is the best power supply I've ever owned... it's survived lightning strikes, hot swaps, short circuits, you name it!
To this day I'm still using the original 540M Maxtor hard drive in my original Aptiva (486dx2/66) with a 3c509 NIC, the original floppy and 2x CDROM -- all from 1994. It's running RH 5.1 and is a mysql server. That machine also has my sister's old 180M Maxtor dating back to 1992 or so.
I also have a Sparc2 with a 480M SCSI drive in it running RH 6.2 for DNS and a mud I've fiddled around with.
Another box of mine has an Adaptec 1540 SCSI card (ISA) hooked up to a couple 1G 5.25", full-height drives (sounds like a jet engine when it winds up).
At work it's mostly new hardware, though I did recently overclock an old 233mmx to 290MHz so it could run our custom DOS POS and inventory application better. This DOS applications is around 14 years old, uses btrieve, and we're running it under 2k and XP. That program in itself is kind of funky running under a modern OS, but I'm not payed enough to rewrite it:)
http://www.memtest86.com/
It's helped me any number of times when I was beating my head against the wall over a weird problem. It's just a diagnostic tool, though.
Stranger things have been done. Once my brother-in-law and I were SOL on finding a serial-to-rj45 cable for the management port of a router. All we could find was a cd audio cable and a cat 5 patch cable, so we stripped one end of the cat 5 and plugged it into the pinholes of the audio cable, then pulled the wires out of the plastic on the other end of the audio cable and just shoved them onto the serial port pins. Worked like a charm!
'Course, it probably helped that the total length was only like 2 feet, but still.
But check out the dojos in your area... a lot of them seem to be contract dojos where you basically pay for whatever belt you want to get. Try to find something intense and focused on self-defense/personal development, rather than one focused on merely attaining some color of belt.
Personally, I study kyokushinkai karate (and highly recommend it, though I'm biased) which is fairly hard-core, but I know that there are other styles that are similar in their intent. The nice thing about such a dojo is that you can practice in your living room and the only real expense you've got is your gi and possibly a fee for the instructor.
I was about to respond with a flame about poor spending and a diatribe on how money is frequently allocated solely based on a pervasive technology fetish in the US school system, but then I actually stopped and thought about what access to computers has meant in the last several years. See, like many of you, the schools I attended purchased their computers primarily because they were somehow supposed to magically transform the classroom and "make learning fun" or whatever. Largely that was a failure, however the hidden benefit of such wanton tech spending is increased familiarity with technology. In the long run, this is beneficial to students.
To give you an example, when I began working at the computer lab in college in '95, a majority of the problems I dealt with involved the students being unfamiliar with PCs in general, rather than an issue of the computer being broken. "How do I turn it on?", "How do I type a paper?", "What's the 'any' key?", and so forth were the main problems. Gradually, however, as more students entered college having used computers in high school to type papers and do research, my job has become less of "How do I use this infernal contraption?" to "Is the network broken?"
My point is that use of computer technology in grade and high schools is beneficial less for the overt "Kids will have new ways to learn" and more for the side effect of increased familiarity and comfort with technology in general. It's been years since I had to assist a student who was so afraid of breaking the computer that he or she wouldn't even touch the mouse.
So, while practically the PDA thing seems kind of like throwing technology at (what appears to be) a non-existent problem, the side benefit is wonderful. Kids become familiar with tech in general and lose some of their fear for it, which in my humble opinion is a good thing.
Purchase extra sensitive components such as motherboards and RAM from a mom&pop store. I've seen motherboards shipped in tiny cardboard boxes with no padding whatsoever. I've also seen motherboards shipped in gigantic boxes with only one or two of those air pillows for padding.
Other things such as hard drives and video cards are typically padded well, so they're pretty safe for shipping.
Unless you're buying in bulk or a number of things from one supplier, buy the cheap things like floppy drives and keyboards locally. The shipping charges frequently aren't worth it.
Even if you're not going to buy from the local stores, talk with the builders there. Ask them their opinion on various hardware; pros and cons, issues to watch out for, that sort of thing. Get several viewpoints if you can. While they'll try to pump their products, the people who work there are less corporate drones than the Best Buy type people, so they'll be more willing to let you know of caveats, and they'll probably be more knowledgable.
Don't skimp on the power supply, no matter how tempting the price difference between, say, a 250W and 350W PS. You'd be amazed the kind of difference in stability you can see between even a 250W and a 300W, in certain situations.
Always check out the return policy and RMA procedures. Local shops will often have decent warranties on their stock, even if they don't build your system for you. Also, some manufacturers have excellent return policies. Western Digital typically has a 3yr warranty, All Components has a lifetime warranty on their RAM, and it's ridiculously easy to get a defective 3Com card replaced. I've replaced stuff free and clear from each of those three vendors after a poor PS blew a computer. Few questions asked.
Last, don't skimp on the case. There are a lot of $7 cases out there, but do you really want to coat the inside of yours with your blood after cutting an artery on a sharp edge? Once you build a machine yourself, you'd be surprised how often you end up going back inside that case... just to look around, or to add stuff.
If you're looking to mod your box, you'll probably have to purchase online. I haven't seen a lot of local shops supplying light and window kits. That could just be my area, though.
Finally, though it goes without saying I'm going to say it, be very conscientious about whether or not you're really getting a good deal by buying online as opposed to locally. If you can get that pimpin' mobo for $3 online, it's still not worth it if it arrives damaged with no return policy after paying $25 shipping and handling.
Speaking of which, you might want to check out various resources like Tom's Hardware Guide to see the reliability of the products you want to purchase. Several years ago I purchased an ABit IT5H motherboard and had to send it back twice. I found out much later that this board in particular had a 50% dead on arrival rate! Had I known that at the outset, I would've selected a different one, or purchased from a local shop so I could get an immediate return.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope this helps.
Having said that, if my desk has papers, pens, phones, and knicknacks scattered across it, it seems to quarter the chances of me getting into the right frame of mind. Not that I'm a super organized person by any stretch of the imagination, but if I have a ream of printouts scattered across the desk in a disorganized fashion, I begin to feel anxious and claustrophobic. I don't know why, maybe it's visually distracting or something.
At one point I had one of those L-shaped desks where the monitor sits in the corner with a bookshelf on one side. One night I had to actually stop what I was doing and remove all the books from the shelf cause it felt so confining.
Sort of off the subject, but I just wanted to say that I think Jerry Sanders is the first man I've seen who I could describe as "burly" with a straight face. Amazing.
Kind of a Jack Palance look, but more rugged looking.
Maybe it's because I just woke up, maybe it's cause I missed something in the article, but it seems a simple thing for him to say, "Oh, we didn't include the source due to x y z." But instead of giving a straight answer, or even an answer that hedges a bit, he starts blathering on about how the company has done so much for the community.
That's what makes me suspicious, and that's what the FSF is probably responding to -- companies historically have a tendency to support any given "community" only when it serves the company's best interests (which I can't fault); however, they also historically tend to retain the willingness to arbitrarily pull that support, no matter the cost to that community, if it will better their standing.
So, when some business says it's helping the Open Source community, doesn't follow through on part of the obligation, then doesn't give a straight answer when asked "why not", it sort of seems duplicitous in a way. Note that most of the article is Robertson pleading that he's done so much for Open Source, as if to say, "But look at everything else we've done!" Yes, those things are commendable. It doesn't free you from your other obligations, though.
I hope it was just bad reporting on the part of Newsforge. If not, the FSF seems pretty justified in asking what the deal is.
Is it the stress? Is it the interpersonal conflicts? Is it the impotent feeling when you're halted at every turn? Is it perhaps that you don't feel you are contributing or even allowed to contribute to the Good of Humanity?
Now that you've identified exactly what your main beef is, and what specific event is causing you unhappiness, you decide your course appropriately... Since life's never perfect, with every relationship you get into (business, personal, etc) you have to decide what you're willing to put up with for what you get out of it. Then, how you deal with any given situation is entirely up to your limits.
I mean, when you get right down to it, you really only have three options:
Deal with the situation
Try to change the situation
Leave the situation
So, for example, say that you make a perfectly valid and technically sound solution to an old problem at work. Management tells you that they don't want to expend the effort, so they tell you to just concentrate on maintaining the old, buggy, solution. You realize this effective dissing is your main problem with work because it makes you feel underappreciated. Whether management is right or not is not the issue... they could be dead wrong, or there could be external circumstances which make them 'right' -- it doesn't matter. All that matters is if you are willing to put up with this on a consistent basis. Like I said, it all comes down to what you are willing to put up with.
The really nice thing about this sort of introspection is that it can often illuminate flaws in your thinking, and flaws in how you emotionally react to events in your life. You might think you're miserable at your job for one reason, when it turns out it's an entirely different thing that's causing your unhappiness.
If this sort of thinking lifestyle appeals to you, check out Feeling Good, by Dr. David Burns. It's kind of a handbook for cognitive behavioral therapy which is based on these types of concepts. Really interesting stuff.
Say they dig down, find a lot of bugs, fix them, then release patches. Will they release all of the fixes, or just incorporate them into future products?
I'm just thinking, what if they actually do end up fixing an assload of bugs in a bunch of existing software, then make patches and whatnot available for download or what have you... think about what Windows Update will look like: 50 pages of critical downloads. That's not really such a great PR move in the end, is it?
I guess I'm just wondering what the end result would be if this is actually effective to any extent.
And you're right. There isn't much else to do there... you can only cruise the 0.5 mile strip so many times, you know. After that it's basically drinking or watching television.
As far as Cedar Falls goes, I hadn't heard that it was sucking. I ran into a friend last year who had it and he was really enjoying it. That's sad that things are sort of goin' downhill.
My mom and brother are still using NetINS for their dialup. They are so ready for dsl, it isn't funny. Small town CO distances rock!
and Iowa in particular, but I am consistently amazed by the technology that one can find in various parts of that state. You think (or at least I tend to think) of that region as being relatively podunk and booney-ish, but you get stuff like this and it really strikes me as incongruous with the image of the midwest as being "just farms and stuff."
For example, Cedar Falls did something along the lines of running fiber around the entire city, installing various access points, and providing dsl (or maybe it was cable) as a municipal service. Then there was that old slashdot story about using grain silos as wireless repeaters and such. Furthermore, I just discovered that my home town of Readlyn, Iowa (population ~900 (yes, nine hundred)) now seems to have 640k/640k dsl for $50/month!
Personally, I think it's fantastic that this state seems to have this very forward-thinking attitude to technology, in general.
You know, I never really thought about it before, but I bet that's how Piers Anthony writes the Xanth novels. I bet he starts off with an approximation of the above sentences, then just keeps hitting macros until he's got a book.
Having worked tech support as well, I agree wholeheartedly with your post -- with one quibble; I don't think that everyone is capable of actually moving to another level of thinking when explaining something to a user. It's a lot of work to translate your depth of knowledge into something surface so that the user in question can understand it. Furthermore, it takes the ability to accurately assess the user's skill level, familiarity with the thing in question, and mental/emotional state (which can alter how readily they accept what you're saying.)
The tech support I had the priviledge/curse to experience was dialup support for Windows users, so I'll give an example from there. The following are all equivalent:
"Go to the start menu..."
"Click on the start menu..."
"Take your mouse and move it to where it says 'Start', then click on it..."
"Do you have a grey bar on the bottom of your screen? Do you see all the way at the left of this bar where it says 'Start'? I'd like you to move your mouse so that the pointer is all the way at the bottom left of the screen and over where it says 'Start', then click the left mouse button..."
I've had to use approximations of the above many, many times. I think I'm probably a bit above average at tech support because I'm able to get by with visualizing the user's computer screen, and describe it back to them so that they understand; but the point I'm making is that not a lot of people seem to be able to do this.
It seems that the difficult part is being able to empathize with whomever you are attempting to help. In my experience, the ability to truly visualize things from another person's mindset is rather rare.
As an aside, I wonder if that's the reason why the really good techs eventually leave -- there are only so many times one can empathize with complete idiots before beginning to hate humanity:)
Anyway, I guess this is just an echo of the article. Just wanted to throw in my two cents.
I tried calling the 888 number listed on attbroadband.com to see when Indiana customers will be back online (I've seen no mention of my state in any press release or any help doc) and encountered the following: In addition to adding a 5 minute message to the phone system, they also seem to have turned off access to tech support. Each time I hit the final option to be connected with tech support, I would hear a tone then get cut off. So either they're overwhelmed with calls, or they techs got tired of irate customers calling them.
In any event, I was able to get a different phone number that actually does connect with a tech (by calling sales who transferred me) -- that number is 866-447-7333. This might just be the number for my region, though. In any event, you can talk to an actual person if you have questions.
Lastly, the guy I talked with told me it could be 14 days from day of disconnection, at the latest, before service is restored. Even though I'm pretty impressed with how quickly AT&T has been able to effect the transition to their own network, I'm still expecting I'll have to wait the full 14 days, given that they don't even bother to list my state in their releases.
Oh well. As good a time as any to rebuild the server, I guess.
My understanding is that one of the main strengths of Sun hardware is bandwidth, so why not put that to use and make the Ultra be a file server, providing supporting files/clips/etc. for client installs of Maya, or whatever. Or make it the render box (as someone else proposed) as that too will enjoy the high bandwidth of the Ultra 60.
Check out Sun newsgroups and web boards to see what strengths your machine in particular has, and use it geared to those strengths. I mean, if the idea is to just find a use for the machine, you either want to add functionality or capabilities to your existing way-of-doing-things, or simplifiy and make more effective current way of doing things. It doesn't make sense to duplicate functionality or move functionality to a box that's less suited to the task than some other existing machine.
I am by no means an expert on Sun products and have no experience with Maya whatsoever, so take this howevever you like.
Given that mp3 and ogg are each lossy (there will be erasure of sound elements) to a certain extent, this question is almost sort of disingenuous. Ultimately the answer reduces to "What sounds good to you?" As the question is stated, it kind of sounds like you want to be sort of an audiophile, but not go all out (which I can relate to, trust me.)
What I mean by this is, are you trying to be as true to the original recording as possible, or do you just want decent sound? If the former, you're trying to approach hardcore high-end audio and you don't want ogg or mp3. If the latter, then just go by what your ears tell you -- from everything I've experienced, the two formats are virtually indistinguishable on a standard speaker setup.
Second, you're playing said file from a computer or some kind of mp3 player. How good are your speakers/headphones? Do they have the range, presence, crispness, etc. that you want? How good is your player's line out and D/A converter? How noisy is your sound card? Hell, how much RF interference does your computer produce or induce in the sound card? If you want to be really anal, what kind of cables are you using to run to the speakers (or stereo)?
Ultimately, since you know that you're going with something that's not going to be totally true to the original, you just have to go with what you think sounds good. You have to remember, not all ears are created equal. Go by what's good for you.
Having said all that (and at the risk of contradicting myself), with -specific- songs I've noticed a difference between encoding at 128k and, say, 192k. This is especially true when listening with quality headphones. Classical music in general or music like Orbital in specific seem to sound better to me at 192k. After 192, I personally can't tell a difference. Your mileage may vary. I've listened to two identical classical pieces, one compressed at 128k and one at 192k, over a friend's hifi stereo and there was a difference in hearable elements and sense of presence. Over my lofi stereo there's no discernable difference.
So, of course make sure you take this with however much salt you desire. It all comes down to what sounds good to you, and what kind of sound setup you're using. As the question was stated, it's difficult to give an accurate answer -- and of course, even a "correct" answer may not necessarily apply to you.
The way the CS program at Indiana University, South Bend has it set up (for the most part) is as follows:
For small projects, if you talk with anyone or get ideas from websites, etc, you have to cite your sources/collaborators. This doesn't mean wholesale copying of code from sourceforge or friends (as more than one student has discovered), but it at least lets the prof know if you had outside input.
For the team projects I've been on, there were a few methods used to get around some of the problems like slackers and code accountability:
You pick your team members. If you know that someone is a slacker, you can try to avoid being on the same team.
Projects involve numerous separate tasks. This helps in terms of delegating code to ALL the team members, so one or two people aren't stuck with all the programming.
Team member evaluations. At the end of the project each team mate gives a grade to every other team mate (anonymously) for their code quality and project involvement. Each individual's grade is then composited from the Project Grade and each member grade. The assignment can get an A, but if you slack off, you can get a D or even F because your team mates graded you poorly.
Additionally, big projects are broken up into different stages, so you end up having a grade for each stage of the assignment, which is coupled with number 3 (above) to give an accurate reflection of the student's abilities.
All in all, the system seems to work pretty well. The nice thing is, if it's a REALLY big project and your team has no hope of completing all the functionality, the prof can still evaluate your abilities based on what has been done.
A friend and I were working on a project for a networking class -- the project was to code a simple client/server application. We talked a bit about how we would implement the assignment, then sat down at separate terminals to code.
He finished 5 minutes before me. His code ran perfectly, mine didn't. When we compared our two source files to figure out what was wrong with my code, we were amazed to see that they were identical in every way, except I had misplaced a curly brace.
I mean, even the variables were named the same.
In short, yes it is possible. Hard to say what the case is here, though.
I think that what @Home did (in some areas at least) was do some sort of automated scan to selectively block vulnerable webservers. I don't really have any proof, just speculation based on the following:
1) I'm running Apache.
2) I've not been blocked at all on my @Home connection.
3) There have been a number of HEAD requests to my server from IPs that resolve to something like "authorized-scan.home.com"
So, that may be what's happened to me, and maybe what's happened to you. It's anybody's guess what those wacky corporates will do, though:)
And incidentally, I've gone through my service agreement numerous times and have been totally unable to find a provision specifically restricting servers. Mine indicates that they're "not supported", but that's it. Perhaps contracts are different by region?
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Yeah, what's amazing to me is those two drives are running off my original 200W power supply circa 1995. I swear, this is the best power supply I've ever owned... it's survived lightning strikes, hot swaps, short circuits, you name it!
To this day I'm still using the original 540M Maxtor hard drive in my original Aptiva (486dx2/66) with a 3c509 NIC, the original floppy and 2x CDROM -- all from 1994. It's running RH 5.1 and is a mysql server. That machine also has my sister's old 180M Maxtor dating back to 1992 or so. I also have a Sparc2 with a 480M SCSI drive in it running RH 6.2 for DNS and a mud I've fiddled around with. Another box of mine has an Adaptec 1540 SCSI card (ISA) hooked up to a couple 1G 5.25", full-height drives (sounds like a jet engine when it winds up). At work it's mostly new hardware, though I did recently overclock an old 233mmx to 290MHz so it could run our custom DOS POS and inventory application better. This DOS applications is around 14 years old, uses btrieve, and we're running it under 2k and XP. That program in itself is kind of funky running under a modern OS, but I'm not payed enough to rewrite it :)
http://www.memtest86.com/ It's helped me any number of times when I was beating my head against the wall over a weird problem. It's just a diagnostic tool, though.
'Course, it probably helped that the total length was only like 2 feet, but still.
Personally, I study kyokushinkai karate (and highly recommend it, though I'm biased) which is fairly hard-core, but I know that there are other styles that are similar in their intent. The nice thing about such a dojo is that you can practice in your living room and the only real expense you've got is your gi and possibly a fee for the instructor.
What does it mean if you load the program, hit play, then experience the sudden urge to run away?
To give you an example, when I began working at the computer lab in college in '95, a majority of the problems I dealt with involved the students being unfamiliar with PCs in general, rather than an issue of the computer being broken. "How do I turn it on?", "How do I type a paper?", "What's the 'any' key?", and so forth were the main problems. Gradually, however, as more students entered college having used computers in high school to type papers and do research, my job has become less of "How do I use this infernal contraption?" to "Is the network broken?"
My point is that use of computer technology in grade and high schools is beneficial less for the overt "Kids will have new ways to learn" and more for the side effect of increased familiarity and comfort with technology in general. It's been years since I had to assist a student who was so afraid of breaking the computer that he or she wouldn't even touch the mouse.
So, while practically the PDA thing seems kind of like throwing technology at (what appears to be) a non-existent problem, the side benefit is wonderful. Kids become familiar with tech in general and lose some of their fear for it, which in my humble opinion is a good thing.
- Purchase extra sensitive components such as motherboards and RAM from a mom&pop store. I've seen motherboards shipped in tiny cardboard boxes with no padding whatsoever. I've also seen motherboards shipped in gigantic boxes with only one or two of those air pillows for padding.
- Other things such as hard drives and video cards are typically padded well, so they're pretty safe for shipping.
- Unless you're buying in bulk or a number of things from one supplier, buy the cheap things like floppy drives and keyboards locally. The shipping charges frequently aren't worth it.
- Even if you're not going to buy from the local stores, talk with the builders there. Ask them their opinion on various hardware; pros and cons, issues to watch out for, that sort of thing. Get several viewpoints if you can. While they'll try to pump their products, the people who work there are less corporate drones than the Best Buy type people, so they'll be more willing to let you know of caveats, and they'll probably be more knowledgable.
- Don't skimp on the power supply, no matter how tempting the price difference between, say, a 250W and 350W PS. You'd be amazed the kind of difference in stability you can see between even a 250W and a 300W, in certain situations.
- Always check out the return policy and RMA procedures. Local shops will often have decent warranties on their stock, even if they don't build your system for you. Also, some manufacturers have excellent return policies. Western Digital typically has a 3yr warranty, All Components has a lifetime warranty on their RAM, and it's ridiculously easy to get a defective 3Com card replaced. I've replaced stuff free and clear from each of those three vendors after a poor PS blew a computer. Few questions asked.
- Last, don't skimp on the case. There are a lot of $7 cases out there, but do you really want to coat the inside of yours with your blood after cutting an artery on a sharp edge? Once you build a machine yourself, you'd be surprised how often you end up going back inside that case... just to look around, or to add stuff.
- If you're looking to mod your box, you'll probably have to purchase online. I haven't seen a lot of local shops supplying light and window kits. That could just be my area, though.
- Finally, though it goes without saying I'm going to say it, be very conscientious about whether or not you're really getting a good deal by buying online as opposed to locally. If you can get that pimpin' mobo for $3 online, it's still not worth it if it arrives damaged with no return policy after paying $25 shipping and handling.
- Speaking of which, you might want to check out various resources like Tom's Hardware Guide to see the reliability of the products you want to purchase. Several years ago I purchased an ABit IT5H motherboard and had to send it back twice. I found out much later that this board in particular had a 50% dead on arrival rate! Had I known that at the outset, I would've selected a different one, or purchased from a local shop so I could get an immediate return.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope this helps.Having said that, if my desk has papers, pens, phones, and knicknacks scattered across it, it seems to quarter the chances of me getting into the right frame of mind. Not that I'm a super organized person by any stretch of the imagination, but if I have a ream of printouts scattered across the desk in a disorganized fashion, I begin to feel anxious and claustrophobic. I don't know why, maybe it's visually distracting or something.
At one point I had one of those L-shaped desks where the monitor sits in the corner with a bookshelf on one side. One night I had to actually stop what I was doing and remove all the books from the shelf cause it felt so confining.
Coding with that anxiety feeling sucks.
Okay that's kind of wacky, but the idea suddenly struck me and I thought it'd be interesting to throw out there.
Kind of a Jack Palance look, but more rugged looking.
That's what makes me suspicious, and that's what the FSF is probably responding to -- companies historically have a tendency to support any given "community" only when it serves the company's best interests (which I can't fault); however, they also historically tend to retain the willingness to arbitrarily pull that support, no matter the cost to that community, if it will better their standing.
So, when some business says it's helping the Open Source community, doesn't follow through on part of the obligation, then doesn't give a straight answer when asked "why not", it sort of seems duplicitous in a way. Note that most of the article is Robertson pleading that he's done so much for Open Source, as if to say, "But look at everything else we've done!" Yes, those things are commendable. It doesn't free you from your other obligations, though.
I hope it was just bad reporting on the part of Newsforge. If not, the FSF seems pretty justified in asking what the deal is.
Is it the stress? Is it the interpersonal conflicts? Is it the impotent feeling when you're halted at every turn? Is it perhaps that you don't feel you are contributing or even allowed to contribute to the Good of Humanity?
Now that you've identified exactly what your main beef is, and what specific event is causing you unhappiness, you decide your course appropriately... Since life's never perfect, with every relationship you get into (business, personal, etc) you have to decide what you're willing to put up with for what you get out of it. Then, how you deal with any given situation is entirely up to your limits.
I mean, when you get right down to it, you really only have three options:
So, for example, say that you make a perfectly valid and technically sound solution to an old problem at work. Management tells you that they don't want to expend the effort, so they tell you to just concentrate on maintaining the old, buggy, solution. You realize this effective dissing is your main problem with work because it makes you feel underappreciated. Whether management is right or not is not the issue... they could be dead wrong, or there could be external circumstances which make them 'right' -- it doesn't matter. All that matters is if you are willing to put up with this on a consistent basis. Like I said, it all comes down to what you are willing to put up with.
The really nice thing about this sort of introspection is that it can often illuminate flaws in your thinking, and flaws in how you emotionally react to events in your life. You might think you're miserable at your job for one reason, when it turns out it's an entirely different thing that's causing your unhappiness.
If this sort of thinking lifestyle appeals to you, check out Feeling Good , by Dr. David Burns. It's kind of a handbook for cognitive behavioral therapy which is based on these types of concepts. Really interesting stuff.
Anyway, hope this helps.
I'm just thinking, what if they actually do end up fixing an assload of bugs in a bunch of existing software, then make patches and whatnot available for download or what have you... think about what Windows Update will look like: 50 pages of critical downloads. That's not really such a great PR move in the end, is it?
I guess I'm just wondering what the end result would be if this is actually effective to any extent.
And you're right. There isn't much else to do there... you can only cruise the 0.5 mile strip so many times, you know. After that it's basically drinking or watching television.
As far as Cedar Falls goes, I hadn't heard that it was sucking. I ran into a friend last year who had it and he was really enjoying it. That's sad that things are sort of goin' downhill.
My mom and brother are still using NetINS for their dialup. They are so ready for dsl, it isn't funny. Small town CO distances rock!
For example, Cedar Falls did something along the lines of running fiber around the entire city, installing various access points, and providing dsl (or maybe it was cable) as a municipal service. Then there was that old slashdot story about using grain silos as wireless repeaters and such. Furthermore, I just discovered that my home town of Readlyn, Iowa (population ~900 (yes, nine hundred)) now seems to have 640k/640k dsl for $50/month!
Personally, I think it's fantastic that this state seems to have this very forward-thinking attitude to technology, in general.
Go Iowa!
The tech support I had the priviledge/curse to experience was dialup support for Windows users, so I'll give an example from there. The following are all equivalent:
- "Go to the start menu..."
- "Click on the start menu..."
- "Take your mouse and move it to where it says 'Start', then click on it..."
- "Do you have a grey bar on the bottom of your screen? Do you see all the way at the left of this bar where it says 'Start'? I'd like you to move your mouse so that the pointer is all the way at the bottom left of the screen and over where it says 'Start', then click the left mouse button..."
I've had to use approximations of the above many, many times. I think I'm probably a bit above average at tech support because I'm able to get by with visualizing the user's computer screen, and describe it back to them so that they understand; but the point I'm making is that not a lot of people seem to be able to do this.It seems that the difficult part is being able to empathize with whomever you are attempting to help. In my experience, the ability to truly visualize things from another person's mindset is rather rare.
As an aside, I wonder if that's the reason why the really good techs eventually leave -- there are only so many times one can empathize with complete idiots before beginning to hate humanity :)
Anyway, I guess this is just an echo of the article. Just wanted to throw in my two cents.
In any event, I was able to get a different phone number that actually does connect with a tech (by calling sales who transferred me) -- that number is 866-447-7333. This might just be the number for my region, though. In any event, you can talk to an actual person if you have questions.
Lastly, the guy I talked with told me it could be 14 days from day of disconnection, at the latest, before service is restored. Even though I'm pretty impressed with how quickly AT&T has been able to effect the transition to their own network, I'm still expecting I'll have to wait the full 14 days, given that they don't even bother to list my state in their releases.
Oh well. As good a time as any to rebuild the server, I guess.
Check out Sun newsgroups and web boards to see what strengths your machine in particular has, and use it geared to those strengths. I mean, if the idea is to just find a use for the machine, you either want to add functionality or capabilities to your existing way-of-doing-things, or simplifiy and make more effective current way of doing things. It doesn't make sense to duplicate functionality or move functionality to a box that's less suited to the task than some other existing machine.
I am by no means an expert on Sun products and have no experience with Maya whatsoever, so take this howevever you like.
What I mean by this is, are you trying to be as true to the original recording as possible, or do you just want decent sound? If the former, you're trying to approach hardcore high-end audio and you don't want ogg or mp3. If the latter, then just go by what your ears tell you -- from everything I've experienced, the two formats are virtually indistinguishable on a standard speaker setup.
Second, you're playing said file from a computer or some kind of mp3 player. How good are your speakers/headphones? Do they have the range, presence, crispness, etc. that you want? How good is your player's line out and D/A converter? How noisy is your sound card? Hell, how much RF interference does your computer produce or induce in the sound card? If you want to be really anal, what kind of cables are you using to run to the speakers (or stereo)?
Ultimately, since you know that you're going with something that's not going to be totally true to the original, you just have to go with what you think sounds good. You have to remember, not all ears are created equal. Go by what's good for you.
Having said all that (and at the risk of contradicting myself), with -specific- songs I've noticed a difference between encoding at 128k and, say, 192k. This is especially true when listening with quality headphones. Classical music in general or music like Orbital in specific seem to sound better to me at 192k. After 192, I personally can't tell a difference. Your mileage may vary. I've listened to two identical classical pieces, one compressed at 128k and one at 192k, over a friend's hifi stereo and there was a difference in hearable elements and sense of presence. Over my lofi stereo there's no discernable difference.
So, of course make sure you take this with however much salt you desire. It all comes down to what sounds good to you, and what kind of sound setup you're using. As the question was stated, it's difficult to give an accurate answer -- and of course, even a "correct" answer may not necessarily apply to you.
Including this one.
For small projects, if you talk with anyone or get ideas from websites, etc, you have to cite your sources/collaborators. This doesn't mean wholesale copying of code from sourceforge or friends (as more than one student has discovered), but it at least lets the prof know if you had outside input.
For the team projects I've been on, there were a few methods used to get around some of the problems like slackers and code accountability:
- You pick your team members. If you know that someone is a slacker, you can try to avoid being on the same team.
- Projects involve numerous separate tasks. This helps in terms of delegating code to ALL the team members, so one or two people aren't stuck with all the programming.
- Team member evaluations. At the end of the project each team mate gives a grade to every other team mate (anonymously) for their code quality and project involvement. Each individual's grade is then composited from the Project Grade and each member grade. The assignment can get an A, but if you slack off, you can get a D or even F because your team mates graded you poorly.
Additionally, big projects are broken up into different stages, so you end up having a grade for each stage of the assignment, which is coupled with number 3 (above) to give an accurate reflection of the student's abilities.All in all, the system seems to work pretty well. The nice thing is, if it's a REALLY big project and your team has no hope of completing all the functionality, the prof can still evaluate your abilities based on what has been done.
Maybe not the best, but it worked for me :)
A friend and I were working on a project for a networking class -- the project was to code a simple client/server application. We talked a bit about how we would implement the assignment, then sat down at separate terminals to code.
He finished 5 minutes before me. His code ran perfectly, mine didn't. When we compared our two source files to figure out what was wrong with my code, we were amazed to see that they were identical in every way, except I had misplaced a curly brace.
I mean, even the variables were named the same.
In short, yes it is possible. Hard to say what the case is here, though.
1) I'm running Apache.
2) I've not been blocked at all on my @Home connection.
3) There have been a number of HEAD requests to my server from IPs that resolve to something like "authorized-scan.home.com"
So, that may be what's happened to me, and maybe what's happened to you. It's anybody's guess what those wacky corporates will do, though :)
And incidentally, I've gone through my service agreement numerous times and have been totally unable to find a provision specifically restricting servers. Mine indicates that they're "not supported", but that's it. Perhaps contracts are different by region?