Another one of my big computer mistakes involved an attempt to install Redhat (6 or 7.3 I think, it was Nov 1999). I managed to fatfinger Disk Druid and reformat hda1. Good thing most partition tools only reformat the partition destined for "/" by default now. I lost a few files of sentimental value because of it.
Two years later, I managed to do the same thing with Windows XP (chose a quick convert to NTFS instead of looking into which option would keep my files)
This was before I had any means of making money to get my own computer.
My family's computer was extremely slow, and was a Packard Bell, which makes it even worse (it was a Pentium 133 in 1999). Ok, my brother's new computer parts he had finally ordered in the mail had finally arrived. After many years of using a computer way out of date, I finally got my brother's slightly out of date, but playable Pentium 200. I could finally play Half-Life, Unreal, and Quake 2 (at greater than 13 fps).
This thing was in a 386 AT case that housed two generations of motherboards before it (486-133 and 386DX-40) and had a power supply that was equally old.
After fiddling around the open case to fix a RAM issue, I powered it on and SPARK! One of the yellow wires on a 12V plug coming from the power supply had come loose and shorted right on the motherboard and burned a big hole through a chip.
Not much humility like having to move all your crap back to the old piece of crap computer (3dfx card, RAM, hard drive) after getting your hopes up to finally play those newfangled games you have been waiting to play for months/years.
Rock music requires a lot of detail in the high frequencies and in stereo separation, both mainly due to heavy cymbals and other percussive instruments. At lower bitrates, these are usually the first to go.
As for bass, it should be able to reproduce that with no problems, since it's low frequency and has no intention of stereo separation during the mastering process.
In my experience, LAME applies a lowpass towards the ceiling of the frequency spectrum the MP3 is able to produce. If a casual listener doesn't notice, it's probably because they can't hear the swishy crap that occurs in those very high frequencies that another encoder, such as Xing, might produce if encoded at 128kbps. Even I have to compare the 128 and 192kbps MP3s to see if the 128kbps one has lost quality if it's encoded with LAME.
Although, I've heard plenty of shitty KaZaA burned CDs where the person who burned it can't tell the difference.
Yeah, and I'm going to patent the butthole so everyone has to pay me if they a) want to take a crap, or b) pull out another lame joke to post for the nth time on slashdot.
I actually tracked up an S3M format rendition of an ice cream truck playing "Do Your Ears Hang Low?", recorded it on a casette, and blasted it in my friend's car while we were driving through a suburban neighborhood. We got some weird looks.
Either that or practice good writing and use the verbal form of numbers below 100 when writing in a nontechnical context or describing something such as a person's age. (i.e. Three D-cell Maglite)
I tell you, when I get disturbed by idiots at 3am with their damn stereos blasting, I wish I had a device that could zap them.
One of my friends did get someone who listened to music really loud on headphones real good. He managed to "borrow" the tape casette, took a magnet to it, and crumple the film some and put it back into the guy's belongings.
The guy pulls it out later, starts listening to the casette really loudly....dum dumdum dum dumdumCRRHSHSHSSHHHRTHMMBTHMT!!! "AAHHH!!!"
I don't think this is in the same episode, but just some more fun with Homer over a loudspeaker.
Bart: "That's not just any microphone, Dad. It's the Rapmaster 5000!"
(Homer ignoring Bart while patrolling the street, starts ordering kids around on the Rapmaster 5000 megaphone with the freestyle beat in the background)
Kids on street: "It's Hammer!" (start dancing around the car)
I am sure every app ever written for a MS OS still runs fine under WinXP. All those old DOS programs have no problem running in XP.
Let's see....Doom. Don't bother trying the vanilla DOS version in XP, it runs really slow with sound on. I really like jDoom now anyway, but still bugs me that the once popular violence scapegoat doesn't run well in XP.
That also eliminates other Doom engine games: Heretic Hexen and Strife, which doesn't have a source port.
Can you name a Win32 app that doesnt work on Windows XP?
Digital Orchestator Pro, a MIDI editor application. The installer messes up majorly. You have to install it in Windows 98 and then copy libraries over by hand and then it might run if you're lucky
All the ASCII porn on gopher really screwed me up back in 1994.
It's much easier to not use the Internet when it's as inaccessible as it was ten years ago. I think the only access in 1994 we had was when my oldest brother used his college account which dialed into a remote unix terminal, which you then connected to the internet from. Downloading was a pain. For instance, ftp went from the remote server to the unix terminal's home directory. That was pretty fast (probably T1), but you had to download again from the home directory over the terminal connection to the local machine. That was at 14.4kbps.
Even then, it was followed by buggy TCP/IP tools and a crappy, unstable version of 16-bit Netscape if you were in Windows 3.1.
Long story short, I bet you didn't use the Internet until 1994 because your parents said you weren't old enough - but rather because it wasn't feasible to use it until then. That and parents saying, "there's porn on the internet?" Assuming they knew what the Internet was at the time.
Yes, this the parent is somewhat remotely on topic. i.e. you'd rather have your kid visit homestarrunner.com than penny-arcade.com. That, and at the risk of being modded down, I just love Penny Arcade's Internet Fuckwad Theory and had to share it.
Even though it costs less in the short run, it seems to still cost less in the long run compared to $140.
It's not that bad. I'm on my third keyboard in three years. Plus my new one is black - to match my new monitor. The texture on the keys tend to wear off if you have one for a long time and that bugs me for some reason.
I also, for some reason, have a thing against wireless mice (keyboards are fine). In my experience, they're heavy, need batteries, even the nice ones cut out sometimes, and have low sample rates.
I'm still old fashioned in the sense that I stick with PS/2 mice. So much nicer to be able to adjust the sample rate to most closely match your refresh rate (i.e 80Hz for a 75Hz screen).
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of congressman...
It would be the only cluster in the world to slow down as you add nodes.
There's a very useful saying I heard while troubleshooting Unix workstations in a class: Too many chefs spoil the broth.
I'm not a developer, but I imagine that's what happens when too many people get access to the CVS tree, as well as getting too many people in a RenderCongress farm.
Slashdot Mirror
Another one of my big computer mistakes involved an attempt to install Redhat (6 or 7.3 I think, it was Nov 1999). I managed to fatfinger Disk Druid and reformat hda1. Good thing most partition tools only reformat the partition destined for "/" by default now. I lost a few files of sentimental value because of it.
Two years later, I managed to do the same thing with Windows XP (chose a quick convert to NTFS instead of looking into which option would keep my files)
This was before I had any means of making money to get my own computer.
My family's computer was extremely slow, and was a Packard Bell, which makes it even worse (it was a Pentium 133 in 1999). Ok, my brother's new computer parts he had finally ordered in the mail had finally arrived. After many years of using a computer way out of date, I finally got my brother's slightly out of date, but playable Pentium 200. I could finally play Half-Life, Unreal, and Quake 2 (at greater than 13 fps).
This thing was in a 386 AT case that housed two generations of motherboards before it (486-133 and 386DX-40) and had a power supply that was equally old.
After fiddling around the open case to fix a RAM issue, I powered it on and SPARK! One of the yellow wires on a 12V plug coming from the power supply had come loose and shorted right on the motherboard and burned a big hole through a chip.
Not much humility like having to move all your crap back to the old piece of crap computer (3dfx card, RAM, hard drive) after getting your hopes up to finally play those newfangled games you have been waiting to play for months/years.
I'd have to say one of the worst computer accidents I had was ruining my Slashdot ID by attempting a first post.
Rock music requires a lot of detail in the high frequencies and in stereo separation, both mainly due to heavy cymbals and other percussive instruments. At lower bitrates, these are usually the first to go.
As for bass, it should be able to reproduce that with no problems, since it's low frequency and has no intention of stereo separation during the mastering process.
In my experience, LAME applies a lowpass towards the ceiling of the frequency spectrum the MP3 is able to produce. If a casual listener doesn't notice, it's probably because they can't hear the swishy crap that occurs in those very high frequencies that another encoder, such as Xing, might produce if encoded at 128kbps. Even I have to compare the 128 and 192kbps MP3s to see if the 128kbps one has lost quality if it's encoded with LAME.
Although, I've heard plenty of shitty KaZaA burned CDs where the person who burned it can't tell the difference.
username: "testing"
password: "testing"
Done.
Ooo yes! Project it on the bathroom stall door and ....
Damn. I was hoping bathroom teleconferencing would predate portable holograms...although President Scroob probably thinks differently about that.
Prior Art (and Ob. South Park movie reference)
General: "Fucking Windows 98! Get Bill Gates in here!"
(MPs bring Bill Gates in)
General: "You said this was supposed to be faster!"
Bill Gates: "It is faster. It's exactly one million times-"
*BLAM*
Great. This only increases the potential of being able to have PowerPoint presentations shoved down your throat, now anytime, anywhere.
PHBs beware, do not approve a purchase of one of these projectors for use by Debbie from Sales.
Wait, I thought people get Darwin awards after their life has ended, not during it?
You forgot:
Eat some bad mushrooms, win a copy of Wario Land 4 (GBA)
Yeah, and I'm going to patent the butthole so everyone has to pay me if they a) want to take a crap, or b) pull out another lame joke to post for the nth time on slashdot.
I had chili for dinner. Patent this.
BRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
At least now I'll always know what f3789b3c1be47758203f9e8a4d8c6a2a means..
Processing....
(Three days later)
Processing Complete: Result is 42
"Hi, I'm Steve-O, and in Arizona, this is totally legal..."
(opens huge fucking spring loaded swiss army knife)
"Dude, it's, like, a sword!"
I actually tracked up an S3M format rendition of an ice cream truck playing "Do Your Ears Hang Low?", recorded it on a casette, and blasted it in my friend's car while we were driving through a suburban neighborhood. We got some weird looks.
Either that or practice good writing and use the verbal form of numbers below 100 when writing in a nontechnical context or describing something such as a person's age. (i.e. Three D-cell Maglite)
I tell you, when I get disturbed by idiots at 3am with their damn stereos blasting, I wish I had a device that could zap them.
One of my friends did get someone who listened to music really loud on headphones real good. He managed to "borrow" the tape casette, took a magnet to it, and crumple the film some and put it back into the guy's belongings.
The guy pulls it out later, starts listening to the casette really loudly....dum dumdum dum dumdumCRRHSHSHSSHHHRTHMMBTHMT!!! "AAHHH!!!"
Heheheh...fun.
I don't think this is in the same episode, but just some more fun with Homer over a loudspeaker.
Bart: "That's not just any microphone, Dad. It's the Rapmaster 5000!"
(Homer ignoring Bart while patrolling the street, starts ordering kids around on the Rapmaster 5000 megaphone with the freestyle beat in the background)
Kids on street: "It's Hammer!" (start dancing around the car)
I'd say. They actually let you bring your penis mightier to work?
They won't let me do that here. Thankfully, it's detachable
I am sure every app ever written for a MS OS still runs fine under WinXP. All those old DOS programs have no problem running in XP.
Let's see....Doom. Don't bother trying the vanilla DOS version in XP, it runs really slow with sound on. I really like jDoom now anyway, but still bugs me that the once popular violence scapegoat doesn't run well in XP.
That also eliminates other Doom engine games:
Heretic
Hexen
and Strife, which doesn't have a source port.
Can you name a Win32 app that doesnt work on Windows XP?
Digital Orchestator Pro, a MIDI editor application. The installer messes up majorly. You have to install it in Windows 98 and then copy libraries over by hand and then it might run if you're lucky
All the ASCII porn on gopher really screwed me up back in 1994.
It's much easier to not use the Internet when it's as inaccessible as it was ten years ago. I think the only access in 1994 we had was when my oldest brother used his college account which dialed into a remote unix terminal, which you then connected to the internet from. Downloading was a pain. For instance, ftp went from the remote server to the unix terminal's home directory. That was pretty fast (probably T1), but you had to download again from the home directory over the terminal connection to the local machine. That was at 14.4kbps.
Even then, it was followed by buggy TCP/IP tools and a crappy, unstable version of 16-bit Netscape if you were in Windows 3.1.
Long story short, I bet you didn't use the Internet until 1994 because your parents said you weren't old enough - but rather because it wasn't feasible to use it until then. That and parents saying, "there's porn on the internet?" Assuming they knew what the Internet was at the time.
SHITCOCK!!!
Penny Arcade 19 Mar 2004
Yes, this the parent is somewhat remotely on topic. i.e. you'd rather have your kid visit homestarrunner.com than penny-arcade.com. That, and at the risk of being modded down, I just love Penny Arcade's Internet Fuckwad Theory and had to share it.
Even though it costs less in the short run, it seems to still cost less in the long run compared to $140.
It's not that bad. I'm on my third keyboard in three years. Plus my new one is black - to match my new monitor. The texture on the keys tend to wear off if you have one for a long time and that bugs me for some reason.
I also, for some reason, have a thing against wireless mice (keyboards are fine). In my experience, they're heavy, need batteries, even the nice ones cut out sometimes, and have low sample rates.
I'm still old fashioned in the sense that I stick with PS/2 mice. So much nicer to be able to adjust the sample rate to most closely match your refresh rate (i.e 80Hz for a 75Hz screen).
Plus, I find breaking stuff so damn funny.
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of congressman...
It would be the only cluster in the world to slow down as you add nodes.
There's a very useful saying I heard while troubleshooting Unix workstations in a class:
Too many chefs spoil the broth.
I'm not a developer, but I imagine that's what happens when too many people get access to the CVS tree, as well as getting too many people in a RenderCongress farm.