Slashdot Mirror


User: jrmcferren

jrmcferren's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
285
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 285

  1. Re:how come on Smart Trash Carts Tell If You Haven't Been Recycling · · Score: 1

    The chip IDs whether it is a recycle bin or a regular trash can. This allows the automated trucks to automatically sort where it goes and tell them if you haven't put the recycle bin out in a while.

  2. Re:It must be my age.. on NAB, RIAA May Seek Mandate For FM Radios In Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    AM radio, that's what I was thinking, but the engineering would be difficult and make the phone large (bar antenna anyone).

  3. Re:Sounds like 1984 again on NAB, RIAA May Seek Mandate For FM Radios In Mobile Devices · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually I think it is a good idea, but NOT for what they want it for. A way for your cell phone to allow you to get Emergency Alert System notifications is a good idea. But for broadcast reception, they can't put what I want in a cell phone without making it large (ferrite bar antenna) and without a hell of a lot of RFI suppression. I would love to have AM, FM of course would be added on for those who don't have wonderful AM stations or who are a wuss.

  4. Re:Queue the jokes on Volkswagen Creates Sewage-Powered Beetle · · Score: 1

    I know how shitty the mileage is in fact, I would have to have a 600 gallon gas tank to get me to the gas station (with a safety margin of course) to fill the thing up.

  5. Re:Queue the jokes on Volkswagen Creates Sewage-Powered Beetle · · Score: 1

    I get forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!

  6. Re:Suspicion of Arbitrary Conduct? on Man Sick of Waiting In ER Sews His Own Gashed Leg · · Score: 1

    Doctors, afraid by a lawsuit by man who lost patience, hope police action can help them save their ass.

    FTFY

  7. Re:Blurry text on A $20 8-Bit Wikipedia Reader For Your TV · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The answers are simple, if the country uses SECAM that isn't a problem usually, if they use NTSC or PAL, simply turn off the chroma signal or use 40 columns.

  8. Re:Darn Newfangled on Do Home Computers Help Or Hinder Education? · · Score: 1

    When I was in school, my parents made sure I put my school work as a priority. But that being said technology has always caused problems with students, especially children and teens. The problem is that this distracting technology is now making it into the schools themselves. Here is what technology is doing to our students from earliest to latest:

    Radio:
    Radio brought the first non-reading type of entertainment into the home electronically. No longer did anybody even students have to leave their homes to get stories told to them either. Amateur radio on the other hand was an educational hobby. Radio actually comes up multiple times in this pseudo timeline.

    Private Line Telephones:
    While private lines existed before radio, and didn't become common until after television, in the 40's and later they started to become common. With the Private Line (non party-line) telephone, people including students could use the telephone for hours on end only limited to by what they had to do (eat, sleep, and go to school) or by the people who actually paid for the line (parents). Private Line Telephones started early electronic social networking.

    Television:
    Television was the holy grail of distractions for students. Not only did you have radio bringing entertainment into the home you had television and this time with actual pictures. Television also makes another appearance in this pseudo timeline.

    Transistor radio:
    Radio again rears its head. This time with the portable transistor radios that made car radios very common and portable radios common. With the transistor radio a student of virtually any age could bring entertainment with them wherever they went.

    Rock and Roll Music:
    Rock and roll was the first type of music truly aimed at the teenage generation. This brought students namely teenagers out to socialize quite a bit, rock and roll also combined with the transistor radio brought a whole new distraction to our student population.

    Citizens Band Radio:
    Radio yet again, this time it comes to us as a social networking tool. Citizens band radio became cheap and allowed people of all age groups to communicate with each other over the air. Independent of the telephone network, CB radio allowed social networking on a whole new scale and even allowed you to meet new people.

    Cable/Satellite Television:
    Television gets an upgrade with public cable transmission systems becoming available to the masses and with satellite transmission of new channels. Of these channels MTV grabs the teenage generation with rock and roll, just like rock and roll grabbed them before.

    Personal Computers and Game Consoles:
    Personal computers and games consoles were a major step in electronic entertainment. While computers did have educational uses, games were and still are common. In the early days programming skills were learned on computers.

    Data Communication:
    While data communication has been around since the 60s, the personal computer, combined with modems and deregulation of the telephone system allowed the proliferation of online services and bulletin boards. This was yet another way to socially network with each other and send electronic messages.

    Cellular Telephones:
    While expensive at first like all of the other mentioned technologies, the cellular telephone moved the private line telephone from the house to the car and then to the pocket. By the early to mid 2000s cellular phones started becoming the primary lines for many younger people, especially students.

    Internet:
    The internet took data communication to a new level, combined with the world wide web and electronic mail, social communication took another revolutionary turn. Combine this with social networking that became very common in the mid to late 2000s.

    Smartphones:
    Combining the internet with the cellular telephone created the smartphone. The mid to late 2000s and the early 2010s look promising for smartphones which bring all of the above mentioned technologies (except CB radio) to the pocket and hands of our students of all levels distractions will only get worse.

    The whole point is, computers are not the only distractions, but they are notable.

  9. Re:Demographics on Drifting Satellite Could Knock Out Cable TV · · Score: 1

    You mean a 10 percent drop, it takes out both the History Channel and the Discovery Channel!

  10. Re:How many ways are there to do simple things? on Why Computer Science Students Cheat · · Score: 1

    Firstly in his example he does not need quotes as the values to be printed are numbers. If he had:

    10 PRINT ONE
    20 PRINT TWO
    30 PRINT THREE
    40 PRINT FOUR
    50 PRINT FIVE
    60 PRINT SIX
    70 PRINT SEVEN
    80 PRINT EIGHT
    90 PRINT NINE
    100 PRINT TEN

    Then you would have an issue as the numbers are not in quotes and would be interpreted as variables. While I'm not a programmer here is how I would do the GP's example:

    10 FOR C = 1 TO 10
    20 PRINT C
    30 NEXT C

    Or if I were to comment it out it would be:

    5 REM Loop to count to ten
    10 FOR C = 1 TO 10
    20 PRINT C
    30 NEXT C

    When I mess around with BASIC (again not a real programmer here), Comments are few and far between as they are a waste of memory (every character uses a byte of RAM and is not executed).

  11. Re:Really? on YouTube, Now In Text Mode! · · Score: 1

    I have to wait 10 minutes or more between posts

    I’ve found that this seems to be a side effect of using the separate posting page rather than the fancy-dancy Web 2.0 comment editor.

    Internet Explorer apparently doesn’t support the Web 2.0 fanciness, so you’re stuck with the other page... and the posting limit...

    Thanks for the tip, I'll see if that helps.

  12. Re:Hmm....... on AMD Readies "Lottery-Core" CPUs · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I've been tracking some of the April Fool's stuff on my blog at http://www.kb3pxr.net/.

  13. Re:Really? on YouTube, Now In Text Mode! · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh Please don't remind me of that, not the OMG Ponies! thing, but the fact that I was stupid on that day. For a while first posts were getting modded up, I decided to start the first post stuff as myself. Later the mods started modding the trolls as trolls and my Karma hit rock bottom. In fact I think I'm still paying for it as I have to wait 10 minutes or more between posts, then again there may have been trolls on using an open WiFi I once had.

  14. Re:Really? on YouTube, Now In Text Mode! · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope, this one isn't a Slashdot April Fool's joke, this one is Youtube's joke. For more info on Jokes I've found so far please visit: http://www.kb3pxr.net/2010/04/april-fools-jokes-abound.html and please don't flame me for the ads.

  15. Re:I would be on Slashdot more often... on Ballmer Admits "We Screwed Up Windows Mobile" · · Score: 1

    While I have to switch to optimized mode in Blazer to reduce horizontal scrolling on my Centro, I don't have any problems with slashdot on my Centro. I don't know why everyone is bashing Palm nor why Palm Os devices are being discontinued. BTW I am posting this from my Centro.

  16. Re:Stay classy on Snow Leopard Drops Palm OS Sync · · Score: 1

    If you are using 64-bit Windows you can forget syncing by USB. Some individual apps like pocket tunes (pTunes) will still sync since they identify as a different device altogether. If you sync by bluetooth, infrared, or serial (even through a USB converter) everything will work fine, but slowly. Palm is not updating their software and drivers to work on 64-bit Windows and the official solution is to use either Bluetooth or Infrared to sync. 32-bit Windows up to and including Windows 7 will work with the Palm Hotsync software, but with 64-bit there is simply no USB driver. I don't think Palm will discontinue the Centro anytime soon, nor any of their standalone PDAs that still use Palm OS. They need to re-write their software to support 64-bit Windows and Mac OSX on Intel in both 64-Bit (and if necessary 32-bit).

  17. Re:It isn't just a hobby on Mixed Conclusions About Powerline Networking vs. Ham Radio · · Score: 2, Informative

    Take up the hobby anyway. You are more likely to encounter interference from faulty power line hardware (insulators, etc) than from these devices at this time. Have fun I hope that you do get into this hobby.

  18. Re:Simple really, just like government accounting on Chevy Volt Rated At 230 mpg In the City · · Score: 1

    Diesel is very plentiful at least in my area of the USA. Most if not all Gas stations in my area carry diesel and the one station if you pull up to the diesel terminal they wouldn't even notice that you are filling up with diesel unless they see which nozzle you are using as that terminal is also a regular gasoline terminal that also has a diesel terminal integrated.

  19. Re:Take back the seconds on David Pogue Wants to Take Back the Beep · · Score: 2, Informative

    On at&t, and T-Mobile pressing the # key skips the greeting, on Verizon Wireless and Sprint you press the * key. It is usually the key opposite of the key you press to get the login prompts. For example you press * on at&t to get the login prompts, and # to skip the greeting.

    A Proud at&t User.

  20. Re:She was right on Time Warner Shutting Off Austin Accounts For Heavy Usage · · Score: 1

    Where in the hell do you get that number. I guess I didn't have the bandwidth when I was watching stuff on Hulu. I did have to pause to let it buffer after all. Ahh, this reminds me, I have to go set up my DVD recorder as I just got back home from technical school.

  21. Re:Good thing, too on $35 a Ticket Theater To Open Soon In Redmond · · Score: 1

    The local theater around here is $4 for Seniors, and children under 12, and $5 for adults, except for 1 PM matinees (Sat and Sun) and Thursday night (Bargin Night) where all seats are $3. This does not include drinks and popcorn which are reasonable compared to other theaters as well.

  22. Re:Physical access = carte blanche on Restaurant Owners Use Zapper To Cook the Books · · Score: 1

    Nope, I was wondering what an NES had to do with this.

  23. Re:Domestic jammers on Intentional GPS Jamming On the Increase · · Score: 3, Informative

    Fines from the FCC range from $7,000 to $10,000 dollars per offense for such illegal operations. There may be other laws on this due to the fact that people rely on these things heavily.

  24. Re:The FCC Should Be Abolished on FCC Dealt Setback In BPL Push · · Score: 1

    There are two errors in your post. One amateurs of all classes (except for novice which is not allowed in those bands) are only permitted 100 watts for Spread Spectrum technology. Two, Part 95 does not cover WiFi, it is covered under part 15. Also important to note, if you have a WiFi access point in the ham band and a ham asks you to turn it off (if you are causing interference to them), you must change the channel (if you are directly on the ham band, or turn it off (if you are on another ham band), remember that the ham has a right to use that frequency and under the law your access point, (bluetooth device, microwave oven, or any other unlicensed transmitter) may NOT cause harmful interference to ANY licensed service. Also if a ham interferes with your telephone (not even a radio device), or cordless telephone (unlicensed and only applies if it is not operating on the ham band the ham is using, you have very little to no legal recourse. A part 15 device may not cause harmful interference (to a licensed service), and MUST accept any interference received even if it results in undesired operation (from a licensed service). So if your printer screws up your neighbor's tv for example, you MUST fix the printer or stop using it, if you do decide to get it fixed, you must stop using it until it is fixed.

  25. Re:Web 2.0? on Homer Simpson Drawn With Web 2.0-Style ASCII Art · · Score: 1

    Don't forget Web 95, Web 98, Web 2000, Web ME, Web XP, and Web Vista.