I once repaired a critical UPS that was attached to a critical database server actively recording data in the middle of a test shot with jumper cables and the battery from my truck. All that just to replace a fan that kept sending the UPS in to panic mode for an overheating battery and trying to start a shutdown sequence on the database server.It was a 12v power source for the UPS (old, old equipment) coming out of the AC to DC power supply. The UPS was part of a suite of equipment that included the database server, the array, a backup device, a network switch and the UPS hardwired to each of them in it's own rack. Don't ask me who made it. All I know is it was an Informix based DB and the maker was some esoteric, specific solution company I never heard of and before my time anyway. All I knew was the replacement parts had a 2 week lead time and I have no idea why this company chose to hold up such critical data with such arcane and unsupportable equipment. But, I had to shutdown the UPS to do the work but the battery didn't have enough juice to support the 30 minutes it was going to take to do the work. The battery power would have been killed once the unit was off anyway.
So I attached my jumper cables and the 600 amp battery from my truck to the output rails on the UPS, after the control switches. From there it was just juice to the rails and then to the server and it's data array. The car battery had about 45-55 minutes of juice for the suite to run on full-tilt. So I shut the UPS down and the servers, thankfully, stayed up! Had a box fan blowing on the battery and jumper cables. I disassembled the UPS case, cut the bad fan out and spliced the old connector on to the new fan I got at a local surplus store for $3. Plugged it all in, reassembled and turned the UPS on. It went through diagnostics and everything went green. Then the overload light started blinking and the warning chime came on. I pulled the jumper cables off and the overload warning went away and things stayed stable. The fan stayed on and nothing went down.
I probably should have gotten an award for it because it was a test shot for a multi-billion dollar contract but I was more afraid of disciplinary action over the risk than getting any praise for it. As far as I know, to this day, only two other people at that company know what happened
No, I don't make it seem that way. You have a different solution in place and take exception to my comments and are projecting your thoughts on me. I said it makes it easier to not have to deal with it. I am happy with my level of protection on my network with the method I employ. What makes it easier is not only that I don't have to deal with any errors or connectivity problems between network resources over conflicting firewalls but I also do not have to deal with updating and maintaining every single soft device I have.
See, I do network and system security for a living. I deal with threat mitigation all day, every day. Sometimes all night and on weekends as well. I really don't want to do it on my home network as well. So my solution works for me and affords me the ease of use that something as simple as a refrigerator or a coffee marker does. It does what I need it to do, it does it automatically, has a fair amount of safety built in, I don't have to think about it and if it has an issue, it tells me it needs my help.
If your complex solution affords you a piece of mind that you feel you cannot get any other way then good for you. My post is not a detraction of your configuration but rather a voicing of support for the OP's configuration because mine is similar. Don't make it more than it is.
...two companies that are becoming increasingly dependent on downloaded data as a profit vehicle deem a media format dead doesn't mean it is.
There are other uses for Blu-Ray. A major one comes to mind in backup solutions and data warehousing. I know a couple companies as well as military programs that keep extremely out-dated media formats in business (*cough* 9-track *cough*)just because they are still using technology in a production environment that is dependent upon that media.
Besides that, look at history for an idea on how accurate market and technology predictions from the likes of Microsoft and Apple have been. I mean, if Jobs honestly had a lockdown on what technology REALLY mattered instead of what the next toy people wanted was, I'd be posting from a iPhone right now instead of a Windows Mobile device. If Bill Gates was any kind of oracle, the laptop on my desk wouldn't need more than 64K of RAM and there would be no significant bugs in my OS that any significant number of users would want fixed.
...that you have uninterrupted flow of shared network resources on your network. Unless, of course, permissions are set up to prevent that.
I run a hard firewall and gateway at home as well as MAC address access so I can keep others off of my wired and wireless networks without having to compromise the ease of use a home network should allow. It's nice being able to have a media center with data files, and attached carousel drives so I can actually watch any movie or listen to any music from any spot in my house. To do that easily and with little hassle, I got rid of all of my soft firewalls. It also means that I have a remote or two laying around instead of stacks and stacks of DVD cases, CD cases or MP3 players and rats nests worth of dongles, audio/video input cables and such laying around and cluttering up the place. Less junk for the pets and kids to chew on, yank on or destroy as well.
I mean now, to steal a movie, you have to go to a torrent tracker or other share site or drive to a rental place and rent the DVD you are going to rip. unless you use Netflix of course. But, thanks to Paramount, your new hard drive already comes with a digital copy of the movie, ripe for sharing!
Yes, I know that DRM is involved but we've all seen how well that has worked out in the past. Why don't they just cut to the chase and load the drive with 20 different trojans instead? Just make the icons nudey pictures and most guys won't have a problem shelling out cash to "see more". that is if the track record of all the people who complain to me about how "slow" their systems are is anything to go by.
I guess this is just another one of those things that make you go hmmmmm.
Anyway, you can at least snag a 500 Seagate for about 30% off. Just needs to be formatted.
I did read the report and I don't care about cost. I find it amusing that all the other bashers of Twitter, which is a waste of time, completely, get bashed and dismissed for their views. Yet a 15 year old kid says it's not such a great idea and all of a sudden it's like Jesus moved the rock.
So take your knee-jerk reaction and shove up your rear 'cause it's obvious you didn't even read my post. If you did, then you didn't understand it because you missed the point entirely.
Strong passwords are meant to foil would-be "guessers" and encryption crackers. Phishing schemes and Keyloggers require some sort of duping of the user as well as unknowingly willful compromising of the user's system to gain access.
A strong password scheme is quite effective at keeping a password cracker busy for an inordinate amount of time and a randomly generated password will keep the likes of Snidely Whiplash from acquiring access to the system by correctly guessing "Passw0rd" as the password. Both methods would require enough time to crack the password that it would be hopeful that your security systems would be able to pick up the unwanted behavior, stop it and notify the proper people that an attempt to compromise the system was logged.
That is or course, if you are not using an OS "secure" enough to use hash tables to store "encrypted" keys and the passwords those keys encrypt. I mean, we don't know of any OS that would do that, do we? (I'm rolling my eyes right now, just so you know).
...there have been numerous articles written on the lameness of waste of bandwidth that twitter is and they get shot down as anti-pop babble. Yet a 15 year old kid writes a dismissive and somewhat rambling "analytical" report saying that twitter is lame and a waste of time and all of a sudden he's a genius with social insight in to media tools?
Tools meaning things people use to communicate, like telephones (yes, they still have those). Not tools meaning the talking heads like the ones the reported on the 15 year old's report.
Lets see, the worst names are a tie between types of sharks and Star Trek characters. The sharks were ok but not so easy to spell and didn't lend to any coherence of a theme. I mean, ones like Thresher, Mako and Reef were all obviously sharks but when you got in to Blue, White, Sand, Nurse and so on, it got pretty bad and confusing. These were all SGI systems too and due to an unfortunate circumstance, Blue was an Indigo 2. I thought I was pretty creative when I set up a file server as a depository for returning suites that had been in the field. It never left my lab but it was part of the "shark suite" so I called it Land. Nobody except my manager got the joke.
The Star Trek one was awful because nobody could ever remember how to spell Uhura or Chekov. Hell, I can't even remember how to spell them and one particularly socially maladjusted user pointed out with great exuberance that Chekov was actually spelled wrong and proceeded to harp on the issue for 3 straight years. That is until I had the opportunity to land the Chekov machine on said user's desk. He complained at the irony to his management and asked that we change the name. So I did. To "kirksucks". That caused further outrage. So we had to change it yet again. So it became skywalker and so it was written and so it was done. Stayed that way until that O2 tanked and I used it as a door stop.
The best naming scheme we had was the Muppets! Everybody knew the muppets, even if they weren't a geek and it took us 3 years to run out of names but then we just moved in to other Jim Henson creations like Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street and Dinosaurs.
Took 5 years for management to deem them unprofessional and we had to make a new naming scheme. It ended up being a string of letters and numbers based on the project the user was working on, building they were in and system number. That was by far the worst naming scheme ever and of course management thought of it. Most users were upset at having to type something like "telnet mob137ocs6785" for a client name. It was eventually shortened to mob13785 which was even more confusing because less info was available and it was an inventory taking nightmare.
Yeah, machine naming is a tricky thing.
You spelled Snuffleupagus wrong
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Sesame Slayer
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· Score: 1
I'm thinking you did not really watch Sesame Street a bunch when you were young as evidence of your spelling skills. Or maybe you are just a product of the public education system? Either way, a simple Google search on Sesame Street characters would have yielded multiple results containing the proper spelling of the beloved character's name.
Or are you one of those people that writes and says "bumber" instead of bumper and puts an "e" in Camaro? I know, you are one of those that "wonders" down the road of life instead of wandering like a normal person would, aren't you?
This has been a message from your friendly, local grammar police. Please go back to grade school, preferably one run by nuns, for your corporal punishment in regards to your offenses against the English language and American pop culture and literature.
some nosy broad that can't leave well enough alone. Big deal, a piano, in the woods. Lie it really matters? I mean look out! Those ravenous pianos can attack at any moment and krike mate, he'll bite your face off!
*Sigh* Only on Slashdot
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American Nerd
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Will you get nerds and geeks trying to not only define themselves as nerds and geeks but also argue about what it means to be a nerd or geek and which one is more legitimate.
I am a nerd, I know I am. But I'm not ashamed of it because my nerdom allows me make a living doing things that are far from mundane. I don't dread going to work everyday, just dealing with the commute full of those non-nerds that make up rest of the workforce that I have to support in one way or another in my IT endeavors. Just because I'm a nerd doesn't mean I have to fit some pre-described mold. I don't have to be a skinny, socially maladjusted, pasty white kid. I can be physically fit, well groomed and active outdoors with friends that don't cower in the dark fearful of the world either.
There are nerds and geeks everywhere. I have friends who are nurses and paramedics and they live and breathe their medical fields constantly. They know everything about it, inside and out. I can ask them about anything medical and they have some insight for me. But ask them to build a push-pull amplifier using pentode vacuum tubes and adjustable gain control and they wouldn't have clue one. They also wouldn't know anything about the aforementioned TCP/IP stack. Then again, I have friends that are auto mechanics and they can talk at length about the mechanical workings of car but when you start discussing the machine code and C programs used to program and operate the fuel injection computer and they get out of their element quick.
Everybody has a little nerd in them. Just like everybody has a little redneck in them. Just because nerd and geek are seen as derogatory terms in most cases doesn't mean that people who have the nerd or geek mentality about their chosen topic means that they should strive to fit some stereotype. Breaking out of the stereotype invalidates the stereotype and eventually removes that stereotype from common knowledge.
Don't be proud to call yourself a geek or nerd and relish in the uniqueness of the social ineptitude just to say you are different and find your pride there. Be proud to be a geek or nerd because you are different. You are a computer expert or an electronics expert. Be proud that you have skills and abilities that most of the non-nerds don't have. View yourself as an asset to society, as a professional in your profession and present yourself that way. Then people have no choice but to see you as a professional systems admin or engineer rather than one of those "IT Geeks" or an "Engineering nerd".
...it's not just musical scores and sound effects that make the game.
You also have sound quality and the type of encoding that is used.
Specifically, multi-channel sound. While most people are content with stereo, some of the new games shine with a 5.1 or greater sound system. To illustrate my point, Tetris sounds the same in mono as it does in surround sound. Music, while it is a major thing everybody remembers, is not vital to that game. The reason being is that the music quality was awful due to the limited space on the game cartridge. Game play was more important and too much audio would mean less room for game play. Hence the less than MIDI quality of the sine wave based beeps.
However, play Halo 3 on a regular old TV and use the TV speakers, whether they be mono or stereo. Then go find yourself a good stereo receiver or separates and play Halo 3. Night and day difference. Then play Halo 3 on a surround sound system and good Lord! The difference that makes! All of a sudden sniper fire from behind you sounds like it is coming from behind you. The wind on most of the boards moves across the screen. There are all kinds of visual and game play aspect fully enhanced by immersive sound.
I first noticed this difference in LucasArts games. Specifically Full Throttle and Dark Forces. Dark Forces and the moving blaster fire made it easier to pinpoint who was firing at you and from where when blaster fire was flying everywhere. It actually improved game play. Full Throttle became a game I wanted to play because the music was good, the dialogue sounded good, not washed out and things like tumbleweeds bouncing across the screen actually sounded like they were doing that. Otherwise, Full Throttle was a silly puzzle game like Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego coupled with a few bits of Road Rash.
The thing about those two LucasArts games is that they were not multi-channel audio. They were stereo but LucasArts made full use of that stereo stage to help enhance the immersion in the gaming environment by enhancing movement with sound. They also had high quality (for the time) sounds and effects. It made otherwise dull games exciting and fun. They still do it now with all the new Force games and even the Battlefront games where you can actually hear Luke Skywalker's light saber chopping off your head from behind.
Yeah, it's not just the emotional reaction a musical score evokes or the shock and awe of realistic sounding effects but how those two things are presented and how they enhance your interaction with the virtual environment that is the game.
The question is not about a political slant concerning a broken education system. More money or less money is not going to solve the problem.
I don't see the problem with parents getting involved in schooling nor do I see the problem with course material. There is an issue with involved teachers and getting schools adequately staffed and class sizes more manageable. However, overall, I see the problem for sciences and maths and physics being application.
Students do not have the opportunities available to them to apply skills. We rarely hear of schooling problems in trade schools and uninvolved parents or lack of money for slow students,not picking up the material quickly enough. Why? Apprenticeships. The students often get jobs before they are even out of school and even then they are on a tiered level where they start out with little responsibility and are tied to a senior person. That senior person is a guide and mentor and helps the apprentice hone his/her skills and apply knowledge to form wisdom for the job they are doing.
Why are other disciplines any different? OK, we have a money problem. You know what? Start incentive programs with corporations looking for such people in their workforce. Give the company students on the cheap in return for sizable donations to keep the program afloat. Not only does the school get the needed money but the students get to apply the knowledge they spent hours, sometimes day, memorizing in class. When they apply it, they show much more retention than just reading a book, taking notes and memorizing vocabulary.
The biggest problem is uninterested students. Mainly because you get a guy with the personality of a wet pillow standing in front of class droning on and on about polynomials and complex circuit designs and they never even turn around from the chalkboard to see half the class walked out 15 minutes in to the lecture! Give a student a reason to bee interested. Show the student how what they are learning applies and how they will use it every day if they stick with it and go for a job in the market when they graduate. Best yet, give them a paycheck for it. Show them the value that good work has and give them the resources and opportunity to make a difference.
Don't tell me that politicians like it broken. Don't tell me that parents aren't involved. Don't tell me that the school is short on money. If anything those problems are caused by lazy people not willing to go the extra mile to make the needed difference. None of that controls what a kid lets sink into his/her head. Sure those things help with the program to better interest students and such but, if the student is fundamentally uninterested and is holding on to pie-in-the-sky ideals for their future in engineering then give them a glimpse of what their hard work will get them.
And before any old fart gets on here and spouts off about how they never worried about being interested, they just buckled down and did the work they knew they had to do, no matter how bored they were. Honestly, ask yourself a question. Did that REALLY benefit you learning like that? Did you REALLY get everything you needed or wanted to get out of lessons like that? Just because it was broken then doesn't mean it should stay broken now. If we can do better, damn it, we should be doing everything we can to make it better! The only way life gets better is if everybody works positive change instead of saying things like "My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the ways I likes it!".
...if an add-on tuner has a universal output to connect to standard stereo or even multi-channel amplifier then there is an output capable of being recorded from. If it is that much of a problem to hook a pre-amp up and pipe the channel to say a Tape2 output and dub signal to a recording device of some sort then maybe the OP should be looking for another way to grab the coveted radio programming.
If there are line voltage sensors that let the Vista software know that an external recording source has been hooked up, a fairly simple work around is a equalizer. You can find many on the used market from companies like BSR, Soundcraftsman and even AudioSource. They will all take a line level input and most of the models available from them will have dubbing modes that split the signal internally and won't present a line voltage change to the output of the computer system.
This is not a difficult issue to overcome from my point of view but like I said, maybe I am missing something. I'm not that up on HD Radio technology but if it's like the HD Television signals at home, I can record those in a similar fashion. Of course the media is different because of the required bandwidth but once the signal passes through the encrypted circuits and is interpreted, there aren't many stops in place that one can't get around with some creative positioning of hardware.
I'd also like to add that while companies like BitTorrent are hashing out distribution deals, that does not absolve them from scrutiny. The RIAA and MPAA have been known to cut off their own nose to spite their face by suing and then subsequently alienating the customers and artists they seek to "protect".
BitTorrent only offers a software package the enables user to share data with an ease rivaling that of an open share on a network but without all of the hassles of completely insecure connections. That doesn't seem to stop the RIAA and the MPAA from trying to shut down even the idea that people should be able to use the Internet for what it was intended for, a free exchange of information. The software package was and is quite novel in the way it handles traffic and allows it to be shared across multiple connections and multiple computers. This is load distribution at a level higher than "enterprise class data systems". This is a huge productivity tool that can be used for sharing information over any kind of distributed network. It allows freedom and power.
What's going to stop it? The RIAA, MPAA and giant ISP's like Comcast and Verizon that throttle back torrent traffic. They will make cases for costs in bandwidth and network maintenance. The fact that many people use these types of peer-to-peer networks successfully and almost untraceably to share copyrighted information only adds to the arguments that the RIAA and MPAA will make to get it shut down. Since there entire websites like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, IsoHunt and even the BitTorrent website that link users to a large number of seeds for the torrent swarms of information copyrighted and non-copyrighted and such, it doesn't bode well for the tool either.
The RIAA and MPAA will use strong arm tactics and cite currently pending investigations in other parts of the world against such sites that employ the use of such software to cut the problem off at the head. It will likely lead to sweeping legislation that will outlaw many forms of file sharing. For references, look at what the RIAA and MPAA have managed to successfully do against those users with home media center looking to place digital copies of their license media on to online storage. Sure, selling the means to do the illegal act isn't illegal but that doesn't mean someone won't try to make it illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like somebody doesn't want email access today, huh? (End BOFH mode)
I once repaired a critical UPS that was attached to a critical database server actively recording data in the middle of a test shot with jumper cables and the battery from my truck. All that just to replace a fan that kept sending the UPS in to panic mode for an overheating battery and trying to start a shutdown sequence on the database server.It was a 12v power source for the UPS (old, old equipment) coming out of the AC to DC power supply. The UPS was part of a suite of equipment that included the database server, the array, a backup device, a network switch and the UPS hardwired to each of them in it's own rack. Don't ask me who made it. All I know is it was an Informix based DB and the maker was some esoteric, specific solution company I never heard of and before my time anyway. All I knew was the replacement parts had a 2 week lead time and I have no idea why this company chose to hold up such critical data with such arcane and unsupportable equipment. But, I had to shutdown the UPS to do the work but the battery didn't have enough juice to support the 30 minutes it was going to take to do the work. The battery power would have been killed once the unit was off anyway.
So I attached my jumper cables and the 600 amp battery from my truck to the output rails on the UPS, after the control switches. From there it was just juice to the rails and then to the server and it's data array. The car battery had about 45-55 minutes of juice for the suite to run on full-tilt. So I shut the UPS down and the servers, thankfully, stayed up! Had a box fan blowing on the battery and jumper cables. I disassembled the UPS case, cut the bad fan out and spliced the old connector on to the new fan I got at a local surplus store for $3. Plugged it all in, reassembled and turned the UPS on. It went through diagnostics and everything went green. Then the overload light started blinking and the warning chime came on. I pulled the jumper cables off and the overload warning went away and things stayed stable. The fan stayed on and nothing went down.
I probably should have gotten an award for it because it was a test shot for a multi-billion dollar contract but I was more afraid of disciplinary action over the risk than getting any praise for it. As far as I know, to this day, only two other people at that company know what happened
No, I don't make it seem that way. You have a different solution in place and take exception to my comments and are projecting your thoughts on me. I said it makes it easier to not have to deal with it. I am happy with my level of protection on my network with the method I employ. What makes it easier is not only that I don't have to deal with any errors or connectivity problems between network resources over conflicting firewalls but I also do not have to deal with updating and maintaining every single soft device I have.
See, I do network and system security for a living. I deal with threat mitigation all day, every day. Sometimes all night and on weekends as well. I really don't want to do it on my home network as well. So my solution works for me and affords me the ease of use that something as simple as a refrigerator or a coffee marker does. It does what I need it to do, it does it automatically, has a fair amount of safety built in, I don't have to think about it and if it has an issue, it tells me it needs my help.
If your complex solution affords you a piece of mind that you feel you cannot get any other way then good for you. My post is not a detraction of your configuration but rather a voicing of support for the OP's configuration because mine is similar. Don't make it more than it is.
...two companies that are becoming increasingly dependent on downloaded data as a profit vehicle deem a media format dead doesn't mean it is.
There are other uses for Blu-Ray. A major one comes to mind in backup solutions and data warehousing. I know a couple companies as well as military programs that keep extremely out-dated media formats in business (*cough* 9-track *cough*)just because they are still using technology in a production environment that is dependent upon that media.
Besides that, look at history for an idea on how accurate market and technology predictions from the likes of Microsoft and Apple have been. I mean, if Jobs honestly had a lockdown on what technology REALLY mattered instead of what the next toy people wanted was, I'd be posting from a iPhone right now instead of a Windows Mobile device. If Bill Gates was any kind of oracle, the laptop on my desk wouldn't need more than 64K of RAM and there would be no significant bugs in my OS that any significant number of users would want fixed.
...that you have uninterrupted flow of shared network resources on your network. Unless, of course, permissions are set up to prevent that.
I run a hard firewall and gateway at home as well as MAC address access so I can keep others off of my wired and wireless networks without having to compromise the ease of use a home network should allow. It's nice being able to have a media center with data files, and attached carousel drives so I can actually watch any movie or listen to any music from any spot in my house. To do that easily and with little hassle, I got rid of all of my soft firewalls. It also means that I have a remote or two laying around instead of stacks and stacks of DVD cases, CD cases or MP3 players and rats nests worth of dongles, audio/video input cables and such laying around and cluttering up the place. Less junk for the pets and kids to chew on, yank on or destroy as well.
Specifically how many of the sites are pr0n or gambling sites.
I mean now, to steal a movie, you have to go to a torrent tracker or other share site or drive to a rental place and rent the DVD you are going to rip. unless you use Netflix of course. But, thanks to Paramount, your new hard drive already comes with a digital copy of the movie, ripe for sharing!
Yes, I know that DRM is involved but we've all seen how well that has worked out in the past. Why don't they just cut to the chase and load the drive with 20 different trojans instead? Just make the icons nudey pictures and most guys won't have a problem shelling out cash to "see more". that is if the track record of all the people who complain to me about how "slow" their systems are is anything to go by.
I guess this is just another one of those things that make you go hmmmmm.
Anyway, you can at least snag a 500 Seagate for about 30% off. Just needs to be formatted.
I did read the report and I don't care about cost. I find it amusing that all the other bashers of Twitter, which is a waste of time, completely, get bashed and dismissed for their views. Yet a 15 year old kid says it's not such a great idea and all of a sudden it's like Jesus moved the rock.
So take your knee-jerk reaction and shove up your rear 'cause it's obvious you didn't even read my post. If you did, then you didn't understand it because you missed the point entirely.
Thanks for playing.
Strong passwords are meant to foil would-be "guessers" and encryption crackers. Phishing schemes and Keyloggers require some sort of duping of the user as well as unknowingly willful compromising of the user's system to gain access.
A strong password scheme is quite effective at keeping a password cracker busy for an inordinate amount of time and a randomly generated password will keep the likes of Snidely Whiplash from acquiring access to the system by correctly guessing "Passw0rd" as the password. Both methods would require enough time to crack the password that it would be hopeful that your security systems would be able to pick up the unwanted behavior, stop it and notify the proper people that an attempt to compromise the system was logged.
That is or course, if you are not using an OS "secure" enough to use hash tables to store "encrypted" keys and the passwords those keys encrypt. I mean, we don't know of any OS that would do that, do we? (I'm rolling my eyes right now, just so you know).
...there have been numerous articles written on the lameness of waste of bandwidth that twitter is and they get shot down as anti-pop babble. Yet a 15 year old kid writes a dismissive and somewhat rambling "analytical" report saying that twitter is lame and a waste of time and all of a sudden he's a genius with social insight in to media tools?
Tools meaning things people use to communicate, like telephones (yes, they still have those). Not tools meaning the talking heads like the ones the reported on the 15 year old's report.
Is anyone else tired of these stupid jokes?
Kia released one yesterday with a half assed photoshop of a new Soul with "wind catchers" for the Soul "Wind powered hybrid".
Well, probably only about...5...4...3...2...
Looks more like a rebadged Panasonic Toughbook than a Dell.
Sooo many jokes to make!
Don't know where to start!
WWAKD (What Would A Klingon Do?)
Lets see, the worst names are a tie between types of sharks and Star Trek characters. The sharks were ok but not so easy to spell and didn't lend to any coherence of a theme. I mean, ones like Thresher, Mako and Reef were all obviously sharks but when you got in to Blue, White, Sand, Nurse and so on, it got pretty bad and confusing. These were all SGI systems too and due to an unfortunate circumstance, Blue was an Indigo 2. I thought I was pretty creative when I set up a file server as a depository for returning suites that had been in the field. It never left my lab but it was part of the "shark suite" so I called it Land. Nobody except my manager got the joke.
The Star Trek one was awful because nobody could ever remember how to spell Uhura or Chekov. Hell, I can't even remember how to spell them and one particularly socially maladjusted user pointed out with great exuberance that Chekov was actually spelled wrong and proceeded to harp on the issue for 3 straight years. That is until I had the opportunity to land the Chekov machine on said user's desk. He complained at the irony to his management and asked that we change the name. So I did. To "kirksucks". That caused further outrage. So we had to change it yet again. So it became skywalker and so it was written and so it was done. Stayed that way until that O2 tanked and I used it as a door stop.
The best naming scheme we had was the Muppets! Everybody knew the muppets, even if they weren't a geek and it took us 3 years to run out of names but then we just moved in to other Jim Henson creations like Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street and Dinosaurs.
Took 5 years for management to deem them unprofessional and we had to make a new naming scheme. It ended up being a string of letters and numbers based on the project the user was working on, building they were in and system number. That was by far the worst naming scheme ever and of course management thought of it. Most users were upset at having to type something like "telnet mob137ocs6785" for a client name. It was eventually shortened to mob13785 which was even more confusing because less info was available and it was an inventory taking nightmare.
Yeah, machine naming is a tricky thing.
I'm thinking you did not really watch Sesame Street a bunch when you were young as evidence of your spelling skills. Or maybe you are just a product of the public education system? Either way, a simple Google search on Sesame Street characters would have yielded multiple results containing the proper spelling of the beloved character's name.
Or are you one of those people that writes and says "bumber" instead of bumper and puts an "e" in Camaro? I know, you are one of those that "wonders" down the road of life instead of wandering like a normal person would, aren't you?
This has been a message from your friendly, local grammar police. Please go back to grade school, preferably one run by nuns, for your corporal punishment in regards to your offenses against the English language and American pop culture and literature.
Thank you!
some nosy broad that can't leave well enough alone. Big deal, a piano, in the woods. Lie it really matters? I mean look out! Those ravenous pianos can attack at any moment and krike mate, he'll bite your face off!
Will you get nerds and geeks trying to not only define themselves as nerds and geeks but also argue about what it means to be a nerd or geek and which one is more legitimate.
I am a nerd, I know I am. But I'm not ashamed of it because my nerdom allows me make a living doing things that are far from mundane. I don't dread going to work everyday, just dealing with the commute full of those non-nerds that make up rest of the workforce that I have to support in one way or another in my IT endeavors. Just because I'm a nerd doesn't mean I have to fit some pre-described mold. I don't have to be a skinny, socially maladjusted, pasty white kid. I can be physically fit, well groomed and active outdoors with friends that don't cower in the dark fearful of the world either.
There are nerds and geeks everywhere. I have friends who are nurses and paramedics and they live and breathe their medical fields constantly. They know everything about it, inside and out. I can ask them about anything medical and they have some insight for me. But ask them to build a push-pull amplifier using pentode vacuum tubes and adjustable gain control and they wouldn't have clue one. They also wouldn't know anything about the aforementioned TCP/IP stack. Then again, I have friends that are auto mechanics and they can talk at length about the mechanical workings of car but when you start discussing the machine code and C programs used to program and operate the fuel injection computer and they get out of their element quick.
Everybody has a little nerd in them. Just like everybody has a little redneck in them. Just because nerd and geek are seen as derogatory terms in most cases doesn't mean that people who have the nerd or geek mentality about their chosen topic means that they should strive to fit some stereotype. Breaking out of the stereotype invalidates the stereotype and eventually removes that stereotype from common knowledge.
Don't be proud to call yourself a geek or nerd and relish in the uniqueness of the social ineptitude just to say you are different and find your pride there. Be proud to be a geek or nerd because you are different. You are a computer expert or an electronics expert. Be proud that you have skills and abilities that most of the non-nerds don't have. View yourself as an asset to society, as a professional in your profession and present yourself that way. Then people have no choice but to see you as a professional systems admin or engineer rather than one of those "IT Geeks" or an "Engineering nerd".
I gotta ask.
What the hell is a "motuh" and why would anyone want it licking their ears?
...it's not just musical scores and sound effects that make the game.
You also have sound quality and the type of encoding that is used.
Specifically, multi-channel sound. While most people are content with stereo, some of the new games shine with a 5.1 or greater sound system. To illustrate my point, Tetris sounds the same in mono as it does in surround sound. Music, while it is a major thing everybody remembers, is not vital to that game. The reason being is that the music quality was awful due to the limited space on the game cartridge. Game play was more important and too much audio would mean less room for game play. Hence the less than MIDI quality of the sine wave based beeps.
However, play Halo 3 on a regular old TV and use the TV speakers, whether they be mono or stereo. Then go find yourself a good stereo receiver or separates and play Halo 3. Night and day difference. Then play Halo 3 on a surround sound system and good Lord! The difference that makes! All of a sudden sniper fire from behind you sounds like it is coming from behind you. The wind on most of the boards moves across the screen. There are all kinds of visual and game play aspect fully enhanced by immersive sound.
I first noticed this difference in LucasArts games. Specifically Full Throttle and Dark Forces. Dark Forces and the moving blaster fire made it easier to pinpoint who was firing at you and from where when blaster fire was flying everywhere. It actually improved game play. Full Throttle became a game I wanted to play because the music was good, the dialogue sounded good, not washed out and things like tumbleweeds bouncing across the screen actually sounded like they were doing that. Otherwise, Full Throttle was a silly puzzle game like Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego coupled with a few bits of Road Rash.
The thing about those two LucasArts games is that they were not multi-channel audio. They were stereo but LucasArts made full use of that stereo stage to help enhance the immersion in the gaming environment by enhancing movement with sound. They also had high quality (for the time) sounds and effects. It made otherwise dull games exciting and fun. They still do it now with all the new Force games and even the Battlefront games where you can actually hear Luke Skywalker's light saber chopping off your head from behind.
Yeah, it's not just the emotional reaction a musical score evokes or the shock and awe of realistic sounding effects but how those two things are presented and how they enhance your interaction with the virtual environment that is the game.
The question is not about a political slant concerning a broken education system. More money or less money is not going to solve the problem.
I don't see the problem with parents getting involved in schooling nor do I see the problem with course material. There is an issue with involved teachers and getting schools adequately staffed and class sizes more manageable. However, overall, I see the problem for sciences and maths and physics being application.
Students do not have the opportunities available to them to apply skills. We rarely hear of schooling problems in trade schools and uninvolved parents or lack of money for slow students,not picking up the material quickly enough. Why? Apprenticeships. The students often get jobs before they are even out of school and even then they are on a tiered level where they start out with little responsibility and are tied to a senior person. That senior person is a guide and mentor and helps the apprentice hone his/her skills and apply knowledge to form wisdom for the job they are doing.
Why are other disciplines any different? OK, we have a money problem. You know what? Start incentive programs with corporations looking for such people in their workforce. Give the company students on the cheap in return for sizable donations to keep the program afloat. Not only does the school get the needed money but the students get to apply the knowledge they spent hours, sometimes day, memorizing in class. When they apply it, they show much more retention than just reading a book, taking notes and memorizing vocabulary.
The biggest problem is uninterested students. Mainly because you get a guy with the personality of a wet pillow standing in front of class droning on and on about polynomials and complex circuit designs and they never even turn around from the chalkboard to see half the class walked out 15 minutes in to the lecture! Give a student a reason to bee interested. Show the student how what they are learning applies and how they will use it every day if they stick with it and go for a job in the market when they graduate. Best yet, give them a paycheck for it. Show them the value that good work has and give them the resources and opportunity to make a difference.
Don't tell me that politicians like it broken. Don't tell me that parents aren't involved. Don't tell me that the school is short on money. If anything those problems are caused by lazy people not willing to go the extra mile to make the needed difference. None of that controls what a kid lets sink into his/her head. Sure those things help with the program to better interest students and such but, if the student is fundamentally uninterested and is holding on to pie-in-the-sky ideals for their future in engineering then give them a glimpse of what their hard work will get them.
And before any old fart gets on here and spouts off about how they never worried about being interested, they just buckled down and did the work they knew they had to do, no matter how bored they were. Honestly, ask yourself a question. Did that REALLY benefit you learning like that? Did you REALLY get everything you needed or wanted to get out of lessons like that? Just because it was broken then doesn't mean it should stay broken now. If we can do better, damn it, we should be doing everything we can to make it better! The only way life gets better is if everybody works positive change instead of saying things like "My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the ways I likes it!".
...if an add-on tuner has a universal output to connect to standard stereo or even multi-channel amplifier then there is an output capable of being recorded from. If it is that much of a problem to hook a pre-amp up and pipe the channel to say a Tape2 output and dub signal to a recording device of some sort then maybe the OP should be looking for another way to grab the coveted radio programming.
If there are line voltage sensors that let the Vista software know that an external recording source has been hooked up, a fairly simple work around is a equalizer. You can find many on the used market from companies like BSR, Soundcraftsman and even AudioSource. They will all take a line level input and most of the models available from them will have dubbing modes that split the signal internally and won't present a line voltage change to the output of the computer system.
This is not a difficult issue to overcome from my point of view but like I said, maybe I am missing something. I'm not that up on HD Radio technology but if it's like the HD Television signals at home, I can record those in a similar fashion. Of course the media is different because of the required bandwidth but once the signal passes through the encrypted circuits and is interpreted, there aren't many stops in place that one can't get around with some creative positioning of hardware.
Ed Zachary!
I forgot to add my link.
http://www.bittorrent.com/
I'd also like to add that while companies like BitTorrent are hashing out distribution deals, that does not absolve them from scrutiny. The RIAA and MPAA have been known to cut off their own nose to spite their face by suing and then subsequently alienating the customers and artists they seek to "protect".
BitTorrent only offers a software package the enables user to share data with an ease rivaling that of an open share on a network but without all of the hassles of completely insecure connections. That doesn't seem to stop the RIAA and the MPAA from trying to shut down even the idea that people should be able to use the Internet for what it was intended for, a free exchange of information. The software package was and is quite novel in the way it handles traffic and allows it to be shared across multiple connections and multiple computers. This is load distribution at a level higher than "enterprise class data systems". This is a huge productivity tool that can be used for sharing information over any kind of distributed network. It allows freedom and power.
What's going to stop it? The RIAA, MPAA and giant ISP's like Comcast and Verizon that throttle back torrent traffic. They will make cases for costs in bandwidth and network maintenance. The fact that many people use these types of peer-to-peer networks successfully and almost untraceably to share copyrighted information only adds to the arguments that the RIAA and MPAA will make to get it shut down. Since there entire websites like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, IsoHunt and even the BitTorrent website that link users to a large number of seeds for the torrent swarms of information copyrighted and non-copyrighted and such, it doesn't bode well for the tool either.
The RIAA and MPAA will use strong arm tactics and cite currently pending investigations in other parts of the world against such sites that employ the use of such software to cut the problem off at the head. It will likely lead to sweeping legislation that will outlaw many forms of file sharing. For references, look at what the RIAA and MPAA have managed to successfully do against those users with home media center looking to place digital copies of their license media on to online storage. Sure, selling the means to do the illegal act isn't illegal but that doesn't mean someone won't try to make it illegal.