If you're coming directly to console administration, Vim or Emacs is just added cruelty.
Vim is sheer elegance once you get to learn it. Back when I first learned it, I printed a list of commands and I had mastered the basics in only a few hours.
The real cost is that many old vehicles aren't safe to drive. Steering, brakes, crash test ratings, restraints, airbags, etc are all much better today than they were 10, 15, 20 years ago.
I'll take someone in an old car who actually knows how to drive any day over one of these idiots you see running red lights and swerving in and out of lanes in a new "safe" car. People like that tend to cause accidents, not their vehicles. Vehicle quality is always secondary to driver competence.
Honestly, I wish all States had mandatory checks, the State I'm currently in does not require any vehicle to pass any checks in order to register.
However, such tests needlessly cost people money when their car runs fine and doesn't pollute more than any other. I don't live in CA anymore, and I don't miss the smog check AT ALL.
Windows would definitely benefit from package management of some sort. Now that I'm used to sudo apt-get install $package, the act of downloading a setup.exe and manually installing software (and sometimes installing other dependencies with setup.exe's of their own) seems downright archaic. If Windows had a trusted repository full of software (kind of like Steam or something like that) life would be so much easier. Linux environments stay clean because most software comes from trusted places instead of being acquired from pretty much everywhere. The only problem is that Microsoft would probably want to control the repository and use that leverage to keep out competing products, (like FOSS) so I doubt it would work.
Not so fast. The "Liquidation Sale" for comp usa was not good at all. It looked more like a "Here's all the shit we found when we moved the fixtures and decided to sell at full retail" sale.
Definitely. When my local Comp-USA went down a few years ago, I found a beat-up laser printer (parallel only, no USB) that looked like it had been used in the back room for 10 years. Since it didn't have a price tag on it, I told them I would give $5 for it, (I was a student back then, and I wanted a cheap & expendable laser printer because I was on a shoestring budget) but they wanted $50 for it. (I could have bought one on newegg for $80) I probably could have gotten it out of the dumpster the next day for free.
Radio Shack used to be a chain of small stores where everything was overpriced and the employees knew nothing about what they were stocking.
These days, they don't even stock the basics.
About a month ago, I needed a SATA cable and a Molex-to-SATA power converter. I thought that Radio Shack would surely have these things, but they didn't. (I remember when they sold case fans, PC speakers, and anything else I needed back in the day) I should have known better. Now, they mostly stock A/V cables and toys.
At least they still have a bin full of LEDs, capacitors, and other things like that, but its almost like an afterthought. I ended up buying the things on Newegg (no where else to go) and paid more in shipping than for the actual items.
Another thing about Starbucks shops is the 30-minute shelf life on brewed coffee. Several times, I've gone in for a cup, and they wanted me to pay full price for 30-minute old coffee that they were about to dump. (25 cents or less would be worth it, but not $1.50) If they're going to dump the coffee, they may as well give it away for free.
Might also depend on the coffee. The instant stuff that my brother drinks generally isn't as strong as the stuff I get from the coffee shop on the way to work for example.
This was a bag of Starbucks French Roast from my local supermarket. (I don't have a grinder, so I buy pre-ground) I generally brew it really strong.
Also, is it just me, or does their coffee generally have a burned flavor to it? It's as if they overdid it on roasting.
That reminds me about something I read a while back about biochar.
Amazonian soil is notoriously bad, but there are areas filled with what the locals call terra preta; soil with an unusually high carbon content. ( >= 20% ) This soil is jet black and is extremely fertile. (remaining so with repeated growing seasons) The areas where this soil is located is filled with pottery fragments, so the soil was obviously manmade either deliberately or as a byproduct of human habitation over a long period of time by pre-colombian cultures. Biochar is a modern attempt to recreate terra preta.
Biochar works by converting organic material into pure carbon, and then by storing that carbon in the soil. Carbon can persist in the soil harmlessly for centuries (if not millennia) so once carbon gets deposited, it would never be released again. Meanwhile, it would absorb nutrients (think activated carbon) and gradually release them to plants when aided by certain types of bacteria existing in symbiosis with plant life. If biochar could be mass-produced without releasing too much carbon dioxide, carbon could be stored in the soil indefinitely and we could possibly have a negative carbon footprint.
I used to buy a lot of DVDs from Amazon, but I ran into a few that were scratched and unplayable.
Well over two-thirds of my DVD collection came from Amazon, mostly used copies. From my experience, used copies have been of very good quality, (considering what they are) with only a few minor scratches, none of which really inhibit playback. I've gotten burned only twice (Two discs had blocky playback or were unplayable altogether) but a resurfacing fixed them.
To me, the price break is definitely worth the gamble. Even at cheap places like Target or Wal-mart, I see discs for $9-12 that would cost me $2 or less (without shipping, and even with shipping its still worth it) on Amazon. Unlike some things, used CD/DVDs are just as good as new for the most part.
I like the idea of having a keyboard whose operational life is likely to exceed mine by a significant margin. Those things are practically indestructible.
And we could use more CaO to burn more rock and then we could cook anything for free!...
I know you're trolling, but it doesn't work like that.
Limestone is a very common mineral, so CaO is relatively easy to acquire. The limestone must be prepped in a kiln. Limestone turns into CaO and CO2 at about 800 degrees F, which is not too difficult since that isn't very hot. The Calcium oxide must then be stored in an airtight container until it is used or it will deteriorate over time. I've seen active CaO ignite wood all by itself, so at least 451 degrees F is being generated by the reaction. If people placed CaO into an enclosed space to contain the heat generated by the reaction (even a little temporary oven made out of brick or rock would probably work) they could cook with it.
What reason do you have to hate the rest of the world so much? If theres someone that can do your job better or cheaper, shouldn't he get it, regardless of what shithole country he is forced to live in?
NO.
There are not enough good jobs to go around. That's why globalization is bad for everyone except the rich. It's a race to the bottom for everyone else, and if people in the USA have to compete for jobs with people living in the third world who would do the same job for peanuts, everyone ends up living in squalor and no one gets ahead. I'll go as far to say that I would rather see a job go unfilled forever than see it outsourced.
For me, Virtualbox often caused kernel panics on boot (host machines run Ubuntu 8.04 LTS). Basically, the system would crash and the caps lock and scroll lock keys would start flashing. At first, it was limited to only one machine, so I suspected that something was wrong with that machine's hardware support. The same thing also happened on one machine that has had perfect hardware support in the past. (logs on both machines indicated a kernel panic caused by something going wrong with the Virtualbox kernel process)
This is something I've been wondering about for awhile. LEDs (especially the white ones) are really bright for being so small, and they don't have that yellow tint that incandescent bulbs do. Compact florescent bulbs are nice, but they aren't perfect for every situation. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I've always wondered why they don't make giant LEDs that can replace ordinary light bulbs. It seems like 220 AC would be more than enough to power them.
or does anyone else think that universities are treating students more and more like cattle these days? It's as if the concept of helping students goes flying out the window after the university takes their money.
Stings like Buccaneer and Fastlink certainly put some strain on "cracker groups", but whether or not they continue is no longer of pressing importance for the copying of games.
The thing that bothers me the most is how much tax money went to fund those two operations. (anything that involves law enforcement also involves public funds) Why should the taxpayer have to pay to protect the bottom line of companies? If the release groups and game companies want to fight it out, that's fine with me, (since I'm involved in neither party) but the industry should have to pay for it if they want to get law enforcement involved.
GTA:SA was one of the more stable Rockstar games I've played, and GTAIV seemed to be a step backwards due to being next gen, some of the old GTA3 bugs came back.
I've had quite a few problems with GTA:SA's PC port. Back when I was using an ATI card, the textures were very glitchy (not all polys would render on the people you would see on the street) and the controls were acceptable at best or outright terrible. I never got past the "Learning to Fly" mission because the plane controls were so bad; it may be okay on a console but after 30-40 attempts at doing it with a keyboard/mouse I just gave up.
In contrast, I loved the PC ports for GTA3 and GTA:VC. The controls were decent and it was actually fun to play.
I live further up in Birmingham, and I have lots of partial acorns (only the caps, for some reason) in my backyard, and there are little oak trees sprouting all over the place.
I'm 25, and I have a neurological condition called Dyspraxia which causes short-term memory problems, among other things. (My long term memory works fine, and you wouldn't notice anything unusual just by looking at me) On any given day, I can usually remember only one or two pieces of information at a time in my short term memory, and I used to constantly forget about assignments, appointments, things I was told to do five minutes ago, etc. Over the years, I've had to adapt to this problem by devising workarounds.
I used to write things down in a planner book and keep it with me, but I kept losing it or forgetting to bring it with me. To solve this problem once and for all, I began using a tool called Taskfreak after a former co-worker told me about it. I have Taskfreak running on my server, and since it's a web app, I can check it from pretty much any location and at any time, unlike other software planners I tried in the past. Plus, its impossible to "lose" Taskfreak since it's never really in my possession to begin with. This tool has practically replaced my short-term memory, since the only thing I have to remember is to check it often. (The browser start pages on all my computers point to my taskfreak installation, so I see it every time I start Firefox or any other browser)
Slashdot Mirror
Vim is sheer elegance once you get to learn it. Back when I first learned it, I printed a list of commands and I had mastered the basics in only a few hours.
I'll take someone in an old car who actually knows how to drive any day over one of these idiots you see running red lights and swerving in and out of lanes in a new "safe" car. People like that tend to cause accidents, not their vehicles. Vehicle quality is always secondary to driver competence.
However, such tests needlessly cost people money when their car runs fine and doesn't pollute more than any other. I don't live in CA anymore, and I don't miss the smog check AT ALL.
Windows would definitely benefit from package management of some sort. Now that I'm used to sudo apt-get install $package, the act of downloading a setup.exe and manually installing software (and sometimes installing other dependencies with setup.exe's of their own) seems downright archaic. If Windows had a trusted repository full of software (kind of like Steam or something like that) life would be so much easier. Linux environments stay clean because most software comes from trusted places instead of being acquired from pretty much everywhere. The only problem is that Microsoft would probably want to control the repository and use that leverage to keep out competing products, (like FOSS) so I doubt it would work.
Definitely. When my local Comp-USA went down a few years ago, I found a beat-up laser printer (parallel only, no USB) that looked like it had been used in the back room for 10 years. Since it didn't have a price tag on it, I told them I would give $5 for it, (I was a student back then, and I wanted a cheap & expendable laser printer because I was on a shoestring budget) but they wanted $50 for it. (I could have bought one on newegg for $80) I probably could have gotten it out of the dumpster the next day for free.
These days, they don't even stock the basics.
About a month ago, I needed a SATA cable and a Molex-to-SATA power converter. I thought that Radio Shack would surely have these things, but they didn't. (I remember when they sold case fans, PC speakers, and anything else I needed back in the day) I should have known better. Now, they mostly stock A/V cables and toys. At least they still have a bin full of LEDs, capacitors, and other things like that, but its almost like an afterthought. I ended up buying the things on Newegg (no where else to go) and paid more in shipping than for the actual items.
Another thing about Starbucks shops is the 30-minute shelf life on brewed coffee. Several times, I've gone in for a cup, and they wanted me to pay full price for 30-minute old coffee that they were about to dump. (25 cents or less would be worth it, but not $1.50) If they're going to dump the coffee, they may as well give it away for free.
This was a bag of Starbucks French Roast from my local supermarket. (I don't have a grinder, so I buy pre-ground) I generally brew it really strong.
Also, is it just me, or does their coffee generally have a burned flavor to it? It's as if they overdid it on roasting.
I've had 4 cups this morning, and I feel fine. Maybe I have a high caffeine tolerance.
That reminds me about something I read a while back about biochar.
Amazonian soil is notoriously bad, but there are areas filled with what the locals call terra preta; soil with an unusually high carbon content. ( >= 20% ) This soil is jet black and is extremely fertile. (remaining so with repeated growing seasons) The areas where this soil is located is filled with pottery fragments, so the soil was obviously manmade either deliberately or as a byproduct of human habitation over a long period of time by pre-colombian cultures. Biochar is a modern attempt to recreate terra preta.
Biochar works by converting organic material into pure carbon, and then by storing that carbon in the soil. Carbon can persist in the soil harmlessly for centuries (if not millennia) so once carbon gets deposited, it would never be released again. Meanwhile, it would absorb nutrients (think activated carbon) and gradually release them to plants when aided by certain types of bacteria existing in symbiosis with plant life. If biochar could be mass-produced without releasing too much carbon dioxide, carbon could be stored in the soil indefinitely and we could possibly have a negative carbon footprint.
For me, it's the opposite. I find it easier to be productive at work, since there are fewer distractions.
Well over two-thirds of my DVD collection came from Amazon, mostly used copies. From my experience, used copies have been of very good quality, (considering what they are) with only a few minor scratches, none of which really inhibit playback. I've gotten burned only twice (Two discs had blocky playback or were unplayable altogether) but a resurfacing fixed them.
To me, the price break is definitely worth the gamble. Even at cheap places like Target or Wal-mart, I see discs for $9-12 that would cost me $2 or less (without shipping, and even with shipping its still worth it) on Amazon. Unlike some things, used CD/DVDs are just as good as new for the most part.
I like the idea of having a keyboard whose operational life is likely to exceed mine by a significant margin. Those things are practically indestructible.
That should be Celsius, not Fahrenheit. My mistake.
I know you're trolling, but it doesn't work like that.
Limestone is a very common mineral, so CaO is relatively easy to acquire. The limestone must be prepped in a kiln. Limestone turns into CaO and CO2 at about 800 degrees F, which is not too difficult since that isn't very hot. The Calcium oxide must then be stored in an airtight container until it is used or it will deteriorate over time. I've seen active CaO ignite wood all by itself, so at least 451 degrees F is being generated by the reaction. If people placed CaO into an enclosed space to contain the heat generated by the reaction (even a little temporary oven made out of brick or rock would probably work) they could cook with it.
What about Calcium Oxide (CaO), which yields quite a bit of heat when exposed to water?
All you have to do to get CaO is burn limestone, which people have been doing since antiquity.
Pretty much anything is valuable to some extent if you can find a buyer for it.
NO.
There are not enough good jobs to go around. That's why globalization is bad for everyone except the rich. It's a race to the bottom for everyone else, and if people in the USA have to compete for jobs with people living in the third world who would do the same job for peanuts, everyone ends up living in squalor and no one gets ahead. I'll go as far to say that I would rather see a job go unfilled forever than see it outsourced.
For me, Virtualbox often caused kernel panics on boot (host machines run Ubuntu 8.04 LTS). Basically, the system would crash and the caps lock and scroll lock keys would start flashing. At first, it was limited to only one machine, so I suspected that something was wrong with that machine's hardware support. The same thing also happened on one machine that has had perfect hardware support in the past. (logs on both machines indicated a kernel panic caused by something going wrong with the Virtualbox kernel process)
This is something I've been wondering about for awhile. LEDs (especially the white ones) are really bright for being so small, and they don't have that yellow tint that incandescent bulbs do. Compact florescent bulbs are nice, but they aren't perfect for every situation. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I've always wondered why they don't make giant LEDs that can replace ordinary light bulbs. It seems like 220 AC would be more than enough to power them.
or does anyone else think that universities are treating students more and more like cattle these days? It's as if the concept of helping students goes flying out the window after the university takes their money.
The thing that bothers me the most is how much tax money went to fund those two operations. (anything that involves law enforcement also involves public funds) Why should the taxpayer have to pay to protect the bottom line of companies? If the release groups and game companies want to fight it out, that's fine with me, (since I'm involved in neither party) but the industry should have to pay for it if they want to get law enforcement involved.
I've had quite a few problems with GTA:SA's PC port. Back when I was using an ATI card, the textures were very glitchy (not all polys would render on the people you would see on the street) and the controls were acceptable at best or outright terrible. I never got past the "Learning to Fly" mission because the plane controls were so bad; it may be okay on a console but after 30-40 attempts at doing it with a keyboard/mouse I just gave up.
In contrast, I loved the PC ports for GTA3 and GTA:VC. The controls were decent and it was actually fun to play.
I live further up in Birmingham, and I have lots of partial acorns (only the caps, for some reason) in my backyard, and there are little oak trees sprouting all over the place.
In my case, I simply use technology.
I'm 25, and I have a neurological condition called Dyspraxia which causes short-term memory problems, among other things. (My long term memory works fine, and you wouldn't notice anything unusual just by looking at me) On any given day, I can usually remember only one or two pieces of information at a time in my short term memory, and I used to constantly forget about assignments, appointments, things I was told to do five minutes ago, etc. Over the years, I've had to adapt to this problem by devising workarounds.
I used to write things down in a planner book and keep it with me, but I kept losing it or forgetting to bring it with me. To solve this problem once and for all, I began using a tool called Taskfreak after a former co-worker told me about it. I have Taskfreak running on my server, and since it's a web app, I can check it from pretty much any location and at any time, unlike other software planners I tried in the past. Plus, its impossible to "lose" Taskfreak since it's never really in my possession to begin with. This tool has practically replaced my short-term memory, since the only thing I have to remember is to check it often. (The browser start pages on all my computers point to my taskfreak installation, so I see it every time I start Firefox or any other browser)