... to start heating your house with your computers;)
I actually installed boinc with seti on several of my machines last night and it worked quite well to heat part of the house (us Canadians need to turn the heater on earlier). Took a bit of time to get started, but it was nice and toasty in the morning.
Does anyone know if this method is less efficient in generating heat than using a apace heater? Slower perhaps...
If you're going to use energy by turning on the wall heater anyways, why not use it to crunch some numbers?
I'm in the Central NY region, and it's the same here. I own a PC shop, and we used to have old CRT's in the back when we first opened 3 years ago. We basically had whatever we could scavenge. During the winter, we almost never had to turn on the heat in our backroom. The heat generated from the CRTs and the computers being serviced was more than enough to keep us toasty warm. Three years and some success later we have LCDs, and the effect just isn't the same.
I understand that. However, absolutely none of these people can report how to reproduce the problem, so no one can see what it is and it cannot be fixed. Additionally, as is said even in the famous InternetWeek article about Firefox 1.5 problems, it is clearly only a "on a small percentage of Windows, Mac, and Linux computers" that this problem occurs. The people who are not using those computers don't see any problem.
I have to agree about the small number of machines. On/. you see people constantly complaining about the memory leaks, yet I never experience these problems on any of the machines I use on a daily basis. That would include my MacBook, desktop running SuSE 10.1, desktop running Windows XP SP2, and a laptop running XP also. I've never experienced the problem, actually. Firefox is shutdown on my MacBook whenever there is an update requiring me to restart the system and that's about it, too. It'll stay up for weeks at a time, without a single problem, including memory leaks. Actually, it tends to stay up for weeks on end on the SuSE desktop, also, as it's my home machine and I tend to just walk away from it and leave for work or whatnot.
If Opera works so much better for someone, just run Opera. I have Opera installed on a few of my machines also, and use it sometimes. But I still prefer Firefox.
I currently have FiOS 30/5 in my apartment. This happens to be in a very rich section of my area, where I couldn't afford to live normally. I just lucked out on this apartment. I pay $55 a month, which isn't too bad considering I paid $45 for Road Runner which was a fraction of the speed.
The problem is we just bought a house in an area we could afford. Not the ghetto, but not an area where I compete with cars in morning rush hour that cost more than my new house, either. I probably won't have FiOS available for another year. And I am bitching, but Verizon's answer every time is that they're laying the lines down as fast as they can. *sigh*
It actually wasn't the gaming aspect that caused me to switch back. It was the KDE environment, which over time, became quite a bit more flaky. Windows XP on the other hand, has gotten more and more stable.
I always have the latest and greatest KDE on my desktop without any issues. On my laptop, on the other hand, I stick mostly to xfce just because KDE didn't perform that well. I can't say I've experienced KDE being flaky anytime recently, but I really have fallen in love with xfce.
I will agree that Windows XP has shown a huge improvement in stability, but I support it on a daily basis and also see all the downsides. Advanced users can run Windows without any problems, but just the massive amount of nasties out there really hurt the "average" user. But then, I mostly support home users that wandered into these nasty little things.
Someone above used the example of their mother as an average PC user and having non-preinstalled software on the machine. I'm going to use the same basic example, except that my mother would not be considered an average user. She's running Windows XP Pro, and doesn't have a single problem that I see the average user have. But she uses Firefox (and before that Opera, which she found on her own.) She runs a spyware and virus scan every so often, without prompting. She probably couldn't install Windows on her machine by herself, or Linux, or any OS for that matter. While above the average user in her ability to maintain the machine she isn't much higher in overall knowledge of how it works. She's perfect proof that Windows has really improved when paired with the right user.
The problem, and a lot of this does fall on the OS, but just as much on the user, is the amount of crap out there like spyware that is aimed at these Windows boxes. If the OS wasn't as vulnerable, it would still be a problem, but hopefully not nearly as bad. But with cheap PCs becoming "throw away" technology it becomes very difficult to educate the average user on even basic safety.
I'll stick with Linux on my PCs, and if I want to really game, I'll play my X-Box 360 from the comfort of my couch. The few games I'm interested with on PC come in a Linux flavor, anyways (UT and Quake.)
I was just using rural areas as an example because thats where im spending my vacation, but you're right, alot of people have long commutes too. Could you afford 4 dollars a gallon?
$4.00 a gallon would be a little hard, but I'm already paying close to $3.00, and it was even higher at one point. I'd be able to afford it, I would just drive less on weekends. The house we just bought is also in an area that has things to do and actually has community events. I'd get a bike for weekends (I planned on buying a new one, anyways. Last one was stolen when I let a buddy borrow it that didn't have a car at the time.) While $4.00 a gallon is quite a bit, it's not not impossible to afford (at least for my family.) But then, there are just two of us and no children yet, so we don't have the fun of soccer practice or whatever the kids get involved in.
I think the largest problem where I live with public transportation is that my farthest client is a bit under a 30 minutes drive. My shop is about 15 minutes away (this is my current location. My new place will be about 10 minutes closer to both.) By bus my shop is a 2 hour bus ride (counting waiting for a transfer) and the client only has 2 buses that go out there all day (and they're at odd times, like 10:12a and 3:12p.) With buses around here you have to go to the downtown area and transfer normally, even if you're just going back in the same direction to a slightly different part of the same side of town. The wait can be bad, too, especially if you need to bus out to the "suburbs." A two hour wait for a bus isn't really realistic when you have someplace to be.
Sorry if the reply seems a little disjointed, I was in the middle of it and had to run out for some errands and just sort of picked up where I left off.
Surcharge = bad. With gas prices already rising its hard for alot of people to get back and forth to work daily. I know in the city we have bus lines, taxis, trains, ect, but out in rural areas people have to be able to drive in to work. Their pay isnt rising and the rising gas prices are making them poorer than they already are. I have an idea, how about we dont give out massive tax cuts during a war. That seems like it'll help
It's not just small rural communities that don't have access to decent public transportation. I live in Syracuse, NY, which may not be NYC, but we aren't a small rural community. And without a car I wouldn't be able to get to work on many days, or would have a 4 hour commute, most of it spent waiting for a transfer. Yes, we have buses, but the cost of gas has made them cut back on routes. This in turn generates less money, because now about the only place to get easily on the bus is from our main shopping mail to our downtown area and back (and now even that has a few hour wait during much of the day.) So they cut back more, less routes, you get the picture.
I've done my best to get a car that is affordable for me that gets decent gas mileage. You won't see me driving some gas guzzling SUV, I'd rather stick with my 95 Accord and it's 4 banger engine. And before some raises the hybrid / bio-diesel argument, I can't currently afford one. I'm a small business owner and we're still pretty new (3 years in October) and I just bought my first house. 27 MPG on average with a car that I can maintain myself isn't too shabby (now if it didn't decide to start rusting, but that's Central NY for you.)
I object to PS3 and XBox 360 being termed "next generation". They're exactly the same as what we have now, just at higher resolutions. Resolutions hardly anybody has. Most people I know think they have HDTVs, and then I point out that they have merely EDTV, or a HD-Ready TV. I tell them to truly experience the XBox 360, they have to drop some serious $$$ for something that does 720P and a DTS system. Then they can go spend another $$$$ on a BluRay or HD-DVD player, and basically gamble whether they're getting another BetaMax.
I have to agree with you there, and I own an XBox 360 and a few HD TVs. My grandmother was looking at TVs, and kept picking out ones in the paper and saying things like "Oh, isn't this like your big screen? But it costs $500-$1000 less!." Everytime it was HD Ready, and the upgrade would have made it cost more than any of my TVs. This makes it difficult for the average consumer, especially when the sales staff at many of the large chain stores have no clue themselves (I had some questions about an HD unit in Best Buy, and received answers that didn't even make sense in regards to the question.)
In regards to BluRay and HD-DVD? I can wait. I have a Toshiba DVD player that up-scales, and yes, I understand it's not true HD. But it still looks great.
For some odd reason last time I moved I found an unopened copy of Spear of Destiny. Original packaging, 3.5 floppies. It was in a box of old cables and other misc. crap. I don't even remember ever having a boxed copy of it is the strange thing. I've never even played that version, just the originals and Wolf 3D.
When did they start teaching math like that!? That seems counter productive to actually learning. My brother in law teaches grade school in Florida, I'll have to ask him if they're using that method next time we talk. It's not like simple division is really that hard.
Well, 20 * 20 = 400... yes! I did good math! I got it write! It looks like they're using the same method for English, too! (Not really a grammar nazi, just seemed to fit.)
Neither worked out and I ended up being given the runaround by hospital workers who either didn't speak English or all gave me conflicting answers. But to this day I haven't started smoking again (and I'm presuming my willpower is a bit stronger than others).
In regards to smoking, that's great! I quit for a few years, but then I stupidly started back up (I won't try to justify why, either, because there is no good reason, really.) Quitting this second time is proving to be a lot harder than the first, too. I'm going to do it, though, because I don't want to live my entire live with a smelly cig hanging out of my mouth and all the health "benefits" that come along with it.
I own a PC shop and 99% of the machines that come in are running some variation of Windows, mostly XP. So this gives me a nice head start in getting to know the software, even if it is beta. The only Linux machine in the shop right now is the one I'm typing this on, actually. I service Windows machines and manage Windows based networks for a living. I run Linux on all my personal machines. Both have their ups and downs. I'm always very helpful with a customer wants to try out this new "Linucks" thing, though.
to use an iPod, or whatever your particular mp3 poison may be.
An AUX plug in your car radio or a connection kit makes the sound quality far better than either of those. And there's no commercials. No bad music. No repeats for hours and hours and... well, you get the idea.
Before I had my iPod and a tape adapter for my current car, I had a CD player that supported MP3 discs. It was destroyed in a car accident, but was great while it lasted. Supported CD-RW, too. I normally kept 2 CDs in the car, one for my own listening and one for when I had someone else in the car. Every so often I recycled one of these with new music.
Now that I have the iPod, I have my talk radio back in the form of Podcasts. And if I want music, I normally just hit shuffle. Currently have almost 4000 songs on it, and it's all stuff I like, because I purchased it! (And 99% of it isn't RIAA. Being into punk and hardcore has some benifits with that. When I stopped purchased RIAA albums, I didn't even have to change my buying habits!)
I saw those pictures. The man has no wife/girlfriend.
Even before I met my better half my place didn't look like that. I did have a lot of extra crap laying around, and quite a few useless computers sitting around. But it still didn't look like that, I wanted to bring people over and not have them die behind my TV hooking up the N64.
Now, my extra equipment ends up in a closet every time. The "cleaning closet" currently has a Mac G3, Mac Classic, IBM Thinkpad 386sx/16, old Antec case (big gray windowed monster, looks more like a server case,) and a C-64 plus all the accessories in it *sigh* And the living room table has flowers (but no PCs.) The doilies on the speakers make me laugh every time, though.
Unless you do something pretty extreme, nice "adult workplace" clothing will cover up most things. Right now I look like the nice business man, with a shirt and tie. Later I will probably throw on some jeans and a t-shirt, and look like a young punk (I guess age has been good to me) because of my visable ink. Unless it's something very extreme, like facial piercings stretched large enough to not close / shrink much naturally or ink on your hands, most people will never know. Actually, most people are quite surprised that I have any ink if they find out. I don't hide the fact, but I don't scream it out either at work. Actually, the only thing visable on me right now is that I did have my ears done, and they used to be stretched a bit (to a 00 gauge at their largest.) But I never took them far enough that they didn't shrink most of the way, and it just looks like I had my ears pierced at one point. And hell, if I do ever decide to put anything in them again, they'll never close up all the way:) I haven't actually worn anything in them for about 8 years now. We'll leave hidden body piercings out of this conversation, though.
I would also have to say that if anything body modification seems to be on a down trend. 10 years ago it seemed everyone around me had at least their ears stretched. Now all I seem to see are upturned polos or pants down to the knees.
There are services available (at least in some areas) that are what they claim to be. I have a 30/5 Verizon FiOS account, pay $55 a month for it, and get the speeds promised all the time.
I own a PC shop and we get a machine once in awhile that just "shuts down" for no reason. Besides the normal spyware crap we see, we do get machines with a heatsink that fell off (seems to be mostly Dells this happens to, though.) Intel or AMD, none of the machines have been damaged by this, even slightly older ones.
I've never had a heatsink fall off or a fan fail (I tend to replace them pretty often, I can't stand it if they start to make extra noise) one of my machines, but my old roomie had the heatsink fall off an old Althon 600 (OC'd to 800) and the machine kept going for quite some time before even showing issues. He told me he heard a "clunk" about a week before, and now the machine shut off randomly at night (he never shut it down.) Ended up just getting a new heatsink and fan for it (the clips broke) and it was fine again. This happened about 2 years ago, and the machine is still working great for him.
I've seen machines go through abuse (mostly ones brought into my shop) that should kill them, but they keep on going. A good example of a horribly abused machine that kept (mostly) going was one brought into my shop because it kept blue screening. It ended up being a bad hard drive. But what seems to have caused the failure is it was in the same room as a wood burning stove and a white long haired cat who like to sleep right behind the computer. The case was filled about 3/4 of the way up with brown stained cat hair. It was pretty disgusting, but after a good vacuuming and a new hard drive, the machine was fine. I believe it was an HP, running an Athlon XP chip (not sure of the speed, probably like a 2600 or 2800.) The cat hair was covering half the heat sink by the time they brought it in to us, and the fan was having trouble spinning (it was fine after being unblocked.) They were just lucky the cat hair didn't catch on fire, pretty sure that would have caused more than just a hard drive failure.
I've never tried it, but I'm pretty sure the Dell CD's only install on computers with a Dell BIOS in it...
I have quite a few Dell discs laying around, including copies of XP Home and Pro, from no SP up to SP2. They work on any machine, and work with any serial number (so the Dell disc will install Windows on an HP for example, using the legit serial number off of the HP.) The biggest difference with these discs is they install without first asking for the serial, and then it has to be changed before activating it online. Also, they make a directory in the root called Dell with a few files in it, such as a background image.
I haven't seen a Dell disc yet that checks the BIOS, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do exist. Just my experience with them so far is that they don't seem to really care.
While we are on the topic, is there a market for a slashdot style site that is more geared for computer professionals?
Slashdot has a very smart userbase, and I would not abandon slashdot, but I would like to get away from the highschool and undergrad "know it all" people. Articles like this one are way below anyone who does Linux or UNIX professionally, and when I mention things like this the/. moderators slap me with an overrated moderation.
I'm serious, would there be a target audience of professionals that would like a website geared for them? Does one already exist that I don't know about that has active readers and interactive discussions?
I don't know of one, either. I wouldn't stop reading/. but something a bit more professional away from the sophmoric attitude of many of the "younger"/. crowd would be great. And I don't mean just younger in age or ID. Sometimes it can be amusing, but you're right, the chances your comment, and now mine, will get slapped down as overrated or trolls.
It's really going to come down to someone creating it. But the problem is actually getting the users over there, while not allowing the same things to happen. It's a thin line to walk if you don't want to censor but at the same time want to keep the immaturity down. I know that's what the moderation system is for here, but maybe just having users with a different mind set and attitude would make all the difference.
I'm new to UNIX/Linux, I've only been using it since 1993....
Considering that half of the/. population wasn't even reading in 1993, I think that allows you to drop your "new" classification.
I consider myself pretty "new" to the UNIX/Linux world, too, and I've been using some variation since 1993. I'll stop considering myself new when I can remember every command;)
The Accord isn't the best for visibility I've ever been in, but it's not too bad. I had an a 95 Ford Escort for awhile, and that car had such excellent visibility. I've never had any problem with the Accord, but my better half does, and she's only a few inches shorter than me. I'm a touch under 6' and I have much better visibility out the back than she does (she has to strain to see, but she never really drives my car anyways, so it's not a problem.)
She's drive a Suzuki Grand Vitara right now, which is like a box on wheels jacked up off the ground. Super easy to park, because it's not very big but high enough that you can see everything around you. It's actually shorter in length than my Accord by about 2 inches (maybe a touch more even.) I think the US and UK Accords are pretty much the same, we just don't have the beautiful Type-R available.
Like I said, it's more about the driver than the car. I learned to drive in a mid-size pickup truck a friend owned. After learning how to do everything in that, with it's horrible blind spots and whatnot, driving the compact and mid-size cars I actually like was even easier. At least the Grand Marquis is a car (or is that boat a boat *g*,) though, and not an SUV. I've been pushed off the road way too many times by people in SUVs not checking around them and just changing lanes.
Slashdot Mirror
... to start heating your house with your computers ;)
I actually installed boinc with seti on several of my machines last night and it worked quite well to heat part of the house (us Canadians need to turn the heater on earlier). Took a bit of time to get started, but it was nice and toasty in the morning.
Does anyone know if this method is less efficient in generating heat than using a apace heater? Slower perhaps... If you're going to use energy by turning on the wall heater anyways, why not use it to crunch some numbers?
I'm in the Central NY region, and it's the same here. I own a PC shop, and we used to have old CRT's in the back when we first opened 3 years ago. We basically had whatever we could scavenge. During the winter, we almost never had to turn on the heat in our backroom. The heat generated from the CRTs and the computers being serviced was more than enough to keep us toasty warm. Three years and some success later we have LCDs, and the effect just isn't the same.
I understand that. However, absolutely none of these people can report how to reproduce the problem, so no one can see what it is and it cannot be fixed. Additionally, as is said even in the famous InternetWeek article about Firefox 1.5 problems, it is clearly only a "on a small percentage of Windows, Mac, and Linux computers" that this problem occurs. The people who are not using those computers don't see any problem.
/. you see people constantly complaining about the memory leaks, yet I never experience these problems on any of the machines I use on a daily basis. That would include my MacBook, desktop running SuSE 10.1, desktop running Windows XP SP2, and a laptop running XP also. I've never experienced the problem, actually. Firefox is shutdown on my MacBook whenever there is an update requiring me to restart the system and that's about it, too. It'll stay up for weeks at a time, without a single problem, including memory leaks. Actually, it tends to stay up for weeks on end on the SuSE desktop, also, as it's my home machine and I tend to just walk away from it and leave for work or whatnot.
I have to agree about the small number of machines. On
If Opera works so much better for someone, just run Opera. I have Opera installed on a few of my machines also, and use it sometimes. But I still prefer Firefox.
I currently have FiOS 30/5 in my apartment. This happens to be in a very rich section of my area, where I couldn't afford to live normally. I just lucked out on this apartment. I pay $55 a month, which isn't too bad considering I paid $45 for Road Runner which was a fraction of the speed.
The problem is we just bought a house in an area we could afford. Not the ghetto, but not an area where I compete with cars in morning rush hour that cost more than my new house, either. I probably won't have FiOS available for another year. And I am bitching, but Verizon's answer every time is that they're laying the lines down as fast as they can. *sigh*
It actually wasn't the gaming aspect that caused me to switch back. It was the KDE environment, which over time, became quite a bit more flaky. Windows XP on the other hand, has gotten more and more stable.
I always have the latest and greatest KDE on my desktop without any issues. On my laptop, on the other hand, I stick mostly to xfce just because KDE didn't perform that well. I can't say I've experienced KDE being flaky anytime recently, but I really have fallen in love with xfce.
I will agree that Windows XP has shown a huge improvement in stability, but I support it on a daily basis and also see all the downsides. Advanced users can run Windows without any problems, but just the massive amount of nasties out there really hurt the "average" user. But then, I mostly support home users that wandered into these nasty little things.
Someone above used the example of their mother as an average PC user and having non-preinstalled software on the machine. I'm going to use the same basic example, except that my mother would not be considered an average user. She's running Windows XP Pro, and doesn't have a single problem that I see the average user have. But she uses Firefox (and before that Opera, which she found on her own.) She runs a spyware and virus scan every so often, without prompting. She probably couldn't install Windows on her machine by herself, or Linux, or any OS for that matter. While above the average user in her ability to maintain the machine she isn't much higher in overall knowledge of how it works. She's perfect proof that Windows has really improved when paired with the right user.
The problem, and a lot of this does fall on the OS, but just as much on the user, is the amount of crap out there like spyware that is aimed at these Windows boxes. If the OS wasn't as vulnerable, it would still be a problem, but hopefully not nearly as bad. But with cheap PCs becoming "throw away" technology it becomes very difficult to educate the average user on even basic safety.
I'll stick with Linux on my PCs, and if I want to really game, I'll play my X-Box 360 from the comfort of my couch. The few games I'm interested with on PC come in a Linux flavor, anyways (UT and Quake.)
I was just using rural areas as an example because thats where im spending my vacation, but you're right, alot of people have long commutes too. Could you afford 4 dollars a gallon?
$4.00 a gallon would be a little hard, but I'm already paying close to $3.00, and it was even higher at one point. I'd be able to afford it, I would just drive less on weekends. The house we just bought is also in an area that has things to do and actually has community events. I'd get a bike for weekends (I planned on buying a new one, anyways. Last one was stolen when I let a buddy borrow it that didn't have a car at the time.) While $4.00 a gallon is quite a bit, it's not not impossible to afford (at least for my family.) But then, there are just two of us and no children yet, so we don't have the fun of soccer practice or whatever the kids get involved in.
I think the largest problem where I live with public transportation is that my farthest client is a bit under a 30 minutes drive. My shop is about 15 minutes away (this is my current location. My new place will be about 10 minutes closer to both.) By bus my shop is a 2 hour bus ride (counting waiting for a transfer) and the client only has 2 buses that go out there all day (and they're at odd times, like 10:12a and 3:12p.) With buses around here you have to go to the downtown area and transfer normally, even if you're just going back in the same direction to a slightly different part of the same side of town. The wait can be bad, too, especially if you need to bus out to the "suburbs." A two hour wait for a bus isn't really realistic when you have someplace to be.
Sorry if the reply seems a little disjointed, I was in the middle of it and had to run out for some errands and just sort of picked up where I left off.
Surcharge = bad. With gas prices already rising its hard for alot of people to get back and forth to work daily. I know in the city we have bus lines, taxis, trains, ect, but out in rural areas people have to be able to drive in to work. Their pay isnt rising and the rising gas prices are making them poorer than they already are. I have an idea, how about we dont give out massive tax cuts during a war. That seems like it'll help
It's not just small rural communities that don't have access to decent public transportation. I live in Syracuse, NY, which may not be NYC, but we aren't a small rural community. And without a car I wouldn't be able to get to work on many days, or would have a 4 hour commute, most of it spent waiting for a transfer. Yes, we have buses, but the cost of gas has made them cut back on routes. This in turn generates less money, because now about the only place to get easily on the bus is from our main shopping mail to our downtown area and back (and now even that has a few hour wait during much of the day.) So they cut back more, less routes, you get the picture.
I've done my best to get a car that is affordable for me that gets decent gas mileage. You won't see me driving some gas guzzling SUV, I'd rather stick with my 95 Accord and it's 4 banger engine. And before some raises the hybrid / bio-diesel argument, I can't currently afford one. I'm a small business owner and we're still pretty new (3 years in October) and I just bought my first house. 27 MPG on average with a car that I can maintain myself isn't too shabby (now if it didn't decide to start rusting, but that's Central NY for you.)
I object to PS3 and XBox 360 being termed "next generation". They're exactly the same as what we have now, just at higher resolutions. Resolutions hardly anybody has. Most people I know think they have HDTVs, and then I point out that they have merely EDTV, or a HD-Ready TV. I tell them to truly experience the XBox 360, they have to drop some serious $$$ for something that does 720P and a DTS system. Then they can go spend another $$$$ on a BluRay or HD-DVD player, and basically gamble whether they're getting another BetaMax.
I have to agree with you there, and I own an XBox 360 and a few HD TVs. My grandmother was looking at TVs, and kept picking out ones in the paper and saying things like "Oh, isn't this like your big screen? But it costs $500-$1000 less!." Everytime it was HD Ready, and the upgrade would have made it cost more than any of my TVs. This makes it difficult for the average consumer, especially when the sales staff at many of the large chain stores have no clue themselves (I had some questions about an HD unit in Best Buy, and received answers that didn't even make sense in regards to the question.)
In regards to BluRay and HD-DVD? I can wait. I have a Toshiba DVD player that up-scales, and yes, I understand it's not true HD. But it still looks great.
For some odd reason last time I moved I found an unopened copy of Spear of Destiny. Original packaging, 3.5 floppies. It was in a box of old cables and other misc. crap. I don't even remember ever having a boxed copy of it is the strange thing. I've never even played that version, just the originals and Wolf 3D.
So you insult shoot em up retards, but than you whine that a first person shooter that you like doesn't make the list?
I think the post was referring to the original Castle Wolfenstein. It's a fun game, check it out if you ever have the chance.
When did they start teaching math like that!? That seems counter productive to actually learning. My brother in law teaches grade school in Florida, I'll have to ask him if they're using that method next time we talk. It's not like simple division is really that hard.
... yes! I did good math! I got it write!
Well, 20 * 20 = 400
It looks like they're using the same method for English, too! (Not really a grammar nazi, just seemed to fit.)
Neither worked out and I ended up being given the runaround by hospital workers who either didn't speak English or all gave me conflicting answers. But to this day I haven't started smoking again (and I'm presuming my willpower is a bit stronger than others).
In regards to smoking, that's great! I quit for a few years, but then I stupidly started back up (I won't try to justify why, either, because there is no good reason, really.) Quitting this second time is proving to be a lot harder than the first, too. I'm going to do it, though, because I don't want to live my entire live with a smelly cig hanging out of my mouth and all the health "benefits" that come along with it.
I own a PC shop and 99% of the machines that come in are running some variation of Windows, mostly XP. So this gives me a nice head start in getting to know the software, even if it is beta. The only Linux machine in the shop right now is the one I'm typing this on, actually. I service Windows machines and manage Windows based networks for a living. I run Linux on all my personal machines. Both have their ups and downs. I'm always very helpful with a customer wants to try out this new "Linucks" thing, though.
to use an iPod, or whatever your particular mp3 poison may be. An AUX plug in your car radio or a connection kit makes the sound quality far better than either of those. And there's no commercials. No bad music. No repeats for hours and hours and ... well, you get the idea.
Before I had my iPod and a tape adapter for my current car, I had a CD player that supported MP3 discs. It was destroyed in a car accident, but was great while it lasted. Supported CD-RW, too. I normally kept 2 CDs in the car, one for my own listening and one for when I had someone else in the car. Every so often I recycled one of these with new music.
Now that I have the iPod, I have my talk radio back in the form of Podcasts. And if I want music, I normally just hit shuffle. Currently have almost 4000 songs on it, and it's all stuff I like, because I purchased it! (And 99% of it isn't RIAA. Being into punk and hardcore has some benifits with that. When I stopped purchased RIAA albums, I didn't even have to change my buying habits!)
And I thought I needed a helmet for being klutzy!
I have a crappy Celeron 667 at home I use for a few things... I want to put it in one of those, but I think that case is worth more than the computer.
I saw those pictures. The man has no wife/girlfriend.
Even before I met my better half my place didn't look like that. I did have a lot of extra crap laying around, and quite a few useless computers sitting around. But it still didn't look like that, I wanted to bring people over and not have them die behind my TV hooking up the N64.
Now, my extra equipment ends up in a closet every time. The "cleaning closet" currently has a Mac G3, Mac Classic, IBM Thinkpad 386sx/16, old Antec case (big gray windowed monster, looks more like a server case,) and a C-64 plus all the accessories in it *sigh* And the living room table has flowers (but no PCs.) The doilies on the speakers make me laugh every time, though.
Unless you do something pretty extreme, nice "adult workplace" clothing will cover up most things. Right now I look like the nice business man, with a shirt and tie. Later I will probably throw on some jeans and a t-shirt, and look like a young punk (I guess age has been good to me) because of my visable ink. Unless it's something very extreme, like facial piercings stretched large enough to not close / shrink much naturally or ink on your hands, most people will never know. Actually, most people are quite surprised that I have any ink if they find out. I don't hide the fact, but I don't scream it out either at work. Actually, the only thing visable on me right now is that I did have my ears done, and they used to be stretched a bit (to a 00 gauge at their largest.) But I never took them far enough that they didn't shrink most of the way, and it just looks like I had my ears pierced at one point. And hell, if I do ever decide to put anything in them again, they'll never close up all the way :) I haven't actually worn anything in them for about 8 years now. We'll leave hidden body piercings out of this conversation, though.
I would also have to say that if anything body modification seems to be on a down trend. 10 years ago it seemed everyone around me had at least their ears stretched. Now all I seem to see are upturned polos or pants down to the knees.
There are services available (at least in some areas) that are what they claim to be. I have a 30/5 Verizon FiOS account, pay $55 a month for it, and get the speeds promised all the time.
I own a PC shop and we get a machine once in awhile that just "shuts down" for no reason. Besides the normal spyware crap we see, we do get machines with a heatsink that fell off (seems to be mostly Dells this happens to, though.) Intel or AMD, none of the machines have been damaged by this, even slightly older ones.
I've never had a heatsink fall off or a fan fail (I tend to replace them pretty often, I can't stand it if they start to make extra noise) one of my machines, but my old roomie had the heatsink fall off an old Althon 600 (OC'd to 800) and the machine kept going for quite some time before even showing issues. He told me he heard a "clunk" about a week before, and now the machine shut off randomly at night (he never shut it down.) Ended up just getting a new heatsink and fan for it (the clips broke) and it was fine again. This happened about 2 years ago, and the machine is still working great for him.
I've seen machines go through abuse (mostly ones brought into my shop) that should kill them, but they keep on going. A good example of a horribly abused machine that kept (mostly) going was one brought into my shop because it kept blue screening. It ended up being a bad hard drive. But what seems to have caused the failure is it was in the same room as a wood burning stove and a white long haired cat who like to sleep right behind the computer. The case was filled about 3/4 of the way up with brown stained cat hair. It was pretty disgusting, but after a good vacuuming and a new hard drive, the machine was fine. I believe it was an HP, running an Athlon XP chip (not sure of the speed, probably like a 2600 or 2800.) The cat hair was covering half the heat sink by the time they brought it in to us, and the fan was having trouble spinning (it was fine after being unblocked.) They were just lucky the cat hair didn't catch on fire, pretty sure that would have caused more than just a hard drive failure.
Must be the slashdor effect.
Thank you for that great link! I have been selected to win the hourly prize! And I normally never win anything.
I've never tried it, but I'm pretty sure the Dell CD's only install on computers with a Dell BIOS in it...
I have quite a few Dell discs laying around, including copies of XP Home and Pro, from no SP up to SP2. They work on any machine, and work with any serial number (so the Dell disc will install Windows on an HP for example, using the legit serial number off of the HP.) The biggest difference with these discs is they install without first asking for the serial, and then it has to be changed before activating it online. Also, they make a directory in the root called Dell with a few files in it, such as a background image.
I haven't seen a Dell disc yet that checks the BIOS, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do exist. Just my experience with them so far is that they don't seem to really care.
While we are on the topic, is there a market for a slashdot style site that is more geared for computer professionals?
/. moderators slap me with an overrated moderation.
/. but something a bit more professional away from the sophmoric attitude of many of the "younger" /. crowd would be great. And I don't mean just younger in age or ID. Sometimes it can be amusing, but you're right, the chances your comment, and now mine, will get slapped down as overrated or trolls.
Slashdot has a very smart userbase, and I would not abandon slashdot, but I would like to get away from the highschool and undergrad "know it all" people. Articles like this one are way below anyone who does Linux or UNIX professionally, and when I mention things like this the
I'm serious, would there be a target audience of professionals that would like a website geared for them? Does one already exist that I don't know about that has active readers and interactive discussions?
I don't know of one, either. I wouldn't stop reading
It's really going to come down to someone creating it. But the problem is actually getting the users over there, while not allowing the same things to happen. It's a thin line to walk if you don't want to censor but at the same time want to keep the immaturity down. I know that's what the moderation system is for here, but maybe just having users with a different mind set and attitude would make all the difference.
I'm new to UNIX/Linux, I've only been using it since 1993....
/. population wasn't even reading in 1993, I think that allows you to drop your "new" classification.
;)
Considering that half of the
I consider myself pretty "new" to the UNIX/Linux world, too, and I've been using some variation since 1993. I'll stop considering myself new when I can remember every command
The Accord isn't the best for visibility I've ever been in, but it's not too bad. I had an a 95 Ford Escort for awhile, and that car had such excellent visibility. I've never had any problem with the Accord, but my better half does, and she's only a few inches shorter than me. I'm a touch under 6' and I have much better visibility out the back than she does (she has to strain to see, but she never really drives my car anyways, so it's not a problem.)
She's drive a Suzuki Grand Vitara right now, which is like a box on wheels jacked up off the ground. Super easy to park, because it's not very big but high enough that you can see everything around you. It's actually shorter in length than my Accord by about 2 inches (maybe a touch more even.) I think the US and UK Accords are pretty much the same, we just don't have the beautiful Type-R available.
Like I said, it's more about the driver than the car. I learned to drive in a mid-size pickup truck a friend owned. After learning how to do everything in that, with it's horrible blind spots and whatnot, driving the compact and mid-size cars I actually like was even easier. At least the Grand Marquis is a car (or is that boat a boat *g* ,) though, and not an SUV. I've been pushed off the road way too many times by people in SUVs not checking around them and just changing lanes.