Aaaaaaaaah, now I get it.
OK, there is a way to set this up under Windows XP, I haven't found anything in Vista yet, although I've been activaly looking for it for 8 months, ans I can't speak for Linux etc. (chances are you're not running this Aspect thingamajig on Linux, am I right?)
Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices>Hardware tab>Properties>Properties tab(redundant but true)>Mixer Devices>Select sub-branch>Click on Properties(trust me)>Select "Do not use mixer features on this device".
This will cause the foreground application to monopolize your hardware and cut off whatever else is generating sound on the PC. I think we've got it now. Pls test and confirm that it works for ye.
Also, depending on what you get from your company for hardware/software, and also what you can expense, there may be other whatnots to choose from. May I suggest, if you want a true-to-Slashdot solution, that you install VMWare, build two identical virtual machines and run your queues through one of them? Or also, if you have another machine than your desktop(a laptop perhaps) that you RDP into your desktop and simply switch away from the TS window when you get a call? That would be cleaner and neater and you would be able to separate work and play.
Finally, from an ethical point of view, may I just say how happy I am that you don't work for my company...I would be fracking insulted if the new guy/girl was already looking for a way to amuse themselves before they even got to start work. I sometimes have days when the phone won't stop ringing and I don't even have time to say hello to the family during that time(my SO also works from home - we make dinner plans over email). And yet, I feel grateful and privileged every day of my life.
Sorry my friend, this is theoretically very accurate, but in practice(and I do remote support as well as music *in practice*) ducking will act only when there is signal on the control line. This will cause whatever background sound(movie, mp3) to be brought back up whenever TheJerbear pauses to catch his/her breath.
In principle, an application with an ASIO driver that monopolizes the audio card would do exactly what TheJerbear wants, meaning completely cut off other sound sources when a call is coming in. Is it practical? Hardly - it takes up valuable resources to do what the "Mute" button does.
Anyways, who am I to criticize those who want to have entertainment crap running on their business machines during business hours? Here's a software ducking app that should do quite nicely.
Sorry for not being serious, but I just about read your last phrase as "to beat someone to death with a baseball hat" which seems if not impossible, at least thoroughly laborious.
On a more serious note...The label can do little harm to the so-called "society", and will mostly touch the producer company's bottom line if they end up selling less product. However: what another set of labels/ratings/controls/official-looking markings on boxes really achieves is, a) a whole new layer of bureaucracy on top of an industry that is already over-regulated; - this is to say, it will create a few extra jobs for whomever will be responsible to come up with the rating for each game(and you do know how they do that, right? In order to cover all the bases? They have someone play the game all the way through:D) and b) it will provide another mental crutch for a majority that already has multiple excuses for failing at parenting. If common sense was commonplace, instead of a rare exception, none of these ratings would be necessary. I'll give you two examples outside of the U.S.: Norway and Romania. From what I know of both these societies, game- and movie-rating systems are superfluous. In Norway, a country among the four best places on the planet to live in, parenting is a laid-back thing where children have wide liberties, and parents hand-censor their kids' entertainment material on a case-by-case basis. No need for sweeping governmental censorship there. In Romania, a post-Communist traditionalist society, parenting varies a lot between over-protectiveness and laissez-faire. Predominantly, parenting is a very involved activity where parents pay attention to what area their kids' school is located in, what music the kids listen to, or whether their friends are inclined to criminal activity. Here also, videogame ratings are superfluous as there are many more primary concerns having to do with factors external to the child - street gangs, human traffickers, muggers. I might be wrong because I am relying on what I witnessed six years ago when I was in each of these countries, but to date I haven't heard news of either country implementing regulations and ratings onto entertainment content. How has this affected teenage crime rates? I have no official figures. AFAIK, Norway's crime rate is down there with the zeroes. It's probably comparable with Canada. In Romania it's another story, but here also, gun crimes are extremely rare, due to the scarcity of guns on the streets, and violent crimes are either perpetrated by mentally-ill adults, or related to extreme poverty. There are no reports of Romanian teenagers going on a shooting rampage, yet.
And these estimates are not taking into account the amount of laptops retained for security purposes. Like here and here. That's one thing that hasn't been thoroughly investigated yet.
I think the main point of failure was on the creative side of things. How do you knowingly continue to claim individuality after you've become a trend-follower instead of a trend-setter?? Even the managed services thing comes about a year after IBM already deployed a similar solution.
So far, Microsoft put the "sucks" in "success".
(Oh wow! Best.sig.ev4r.)
Good point about computing requirements. However, what end-users *buy* does not necessarily reflect what they *need*.
Example 1: PC-refresh programs. Why should these even exist in a three-tier architecture? The apps and databases run on dedicated servers. Desktop needs at the staff level have been the same for years. What is this, fashion?
Example 2: designed-for-Windows hardware. Is it really cost-effective to upgrade to 2.4G dual-core proc, 2-3G of RAM for Vista? How much cheaper would it be to build around a 3G single-core proc from 3 years ago and run XP instead? No, wait. Some businesses still run Windows 2K on upgraded hardware. I wonder why.
If the IT sales channel didn't exist, and every enterprise client dealt directly with the engineering team at HP/IBM/wutev, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But that level of honesty and openness is just bad for business. Gear capacity is routinely oversold under pretext of scalability. In reality, by the time you need that capacity, that device will be obsolete. As for sacrificing the nines, that's why they have testing environments.
What is software? A lot of ones and zeroes, according to Neal Stephenson. What does it take to deploy it? A brain, an input device, a compiler, a basic hardware infrastructure to run it. If well-written, it can outlast the hardware it was installed on. Example: Delrina WinFax.
OTOH, hardware is *designed* to fail. If HP servers built and sold 5 years ago were infallible, why would one need to replace them? It would take away sources of revenue like warranty, parts, service. Warranty money is free money. Duh. Parts are less profitable, but unavoidably necessary and "big iron" is aware of it. They rely on a constant cycle of upgrades to existing hardware, and continue their business by replacing flawed machines they themselves built.
I'm talking nationwide VoIP blocking at the IX-es. That includes business/corporate users. If my ISP corked the respective ports, I would SO go ninja on them - my current TOS specify "no closed ports".
The best things in life always come with TDMA access isn't it?
Otherwise, I for one welcome our newly-instated Supernet overlords!! If Wi-Fi extends to at least full North-American and Western European coverage, say goodbye to all that POTS/cellphone junk. It's VoIP-ing all the way baby!, unless it gets banned on a massive scale due to lost telco profits. It's been known to happen in Guyana and Ethiopia...and Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Oman...and China. Oh, and Brazil.
How long will it take to recover after returning to gravity? According to the official website of the project they are counting two weeks of recovery time.
I am now beginning to smell a PR stunt. In fact, just staring at the picture of two women makes me wonder how the scientists managing this study intend to counteract the gravity pull while eating/drinking. I don't know about you guys, but as a kid, I was never curious enough to try to swallow my food with my head upside down...but of course, I wouldn't feel bad seeing someone else try it.
I think in fact the test subjects will be required to work - granted, from bed, but studying a guy rest for three months is not really relevant research for NASA, who is trying to send people to work with maximum productivity under stress conditions.
It can be pretty darn difficult to be productive in a rest position where your body has a tendency to relax, unwind and switch off. Case in point:D - I am posting this from bed:)
Am I really the only one who instantly thought of the military sprouting a batallion of thought-controlled robotic troops? They are more resilient, stronger than human troops, and their speed can be enhanced over time. This not only prevents, it can effectively eliminate war casualties. Whoever can build both sides of the technology faster will end up with a strategic advantage and all you need(provided that the control interface is perfected to accept input from the human cortex) is a bunch of FPS enthusiasts.
Working as tech-monkey for IT salespeople I learned that the key to someone buying something is that person's belief that the product has some value. Giving something away for free automatically brings down its market value regardless of its intrinsic value. The problem here is what the masses think, and that is exactly like Neal Stephenson wrote in his essay, and I quote:
Imagine a crossroads where four competing auto dealerships are situated. One of them (Microsoft) is much, much bigger than the others. It started out years ago selling three-speed bicycles (MS-DOS); these were not perfect, but they worked, and when they broke you could easily fix them.
There was a competing bicycle dealership next door (Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive but attractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, so that how they worked was something of a mystery.
The big dealership responded by rushing a moped upgrade kit (the original Windows) onto the market. This was a Rube Goldberg contraption that, when bolted onto a three-speed bicycle, enabled it to keep up, just barely, with Apple-cars. The users had to wear goggles and were always picking bugs out of their teeth while Apple owners sped along in hermetically sealed comfort, sneering out the windows. But the Micro-mopeds were cheap, and easy to fix compared with the Apple-cars, and their market share waxed.
Eventually the big dealership came out with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). It had all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, it leaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A little later, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended for industrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than the station wagon, and only a little more reliable.
Since then there has been a lot of noise and shouting, but little has changed. The smaller dealership continues to sell sleek Euro-styled sedans and to spend a lot of money on advertising campaigns. They have had GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! signs taped up in their windows for so long that they have gotten all yellow and curly. The big one keeps making bigger and bigger station wagons and ORVs.
On the other side of the road are two competitors that have come along more recently.
One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the others.
With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free.
Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships.
Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy t
In fact, an IT investment might actually provide a *dis*advantage, in which case the advantage is to those who don't make the investment - or perhaps it's not an investment if it doesn't provide an advantage?
Excellent point - early adopters would be highly susceptible to such risks, because the fresher and less tested a particular technology is, the higher the gamble becomes for investors. The company aiming for that strategic advantage will become the world's guinea pig - and should they fail, the initial investment is then better qualified as a liability.
You must be new here. Everybody knows that Bennett Haselton is the valiant robinhoodian avenger fighting for the rights of the poor, down-trodden and opressed net admins every day, desperately trying to tame the abominable deluge of unwanted spam feculence on their respectable networks through an incessant, albeit slovenly, attack on the colossal, repugnant, utterly putridacious vermin that are spammers and the reprehensible, obnoxious, execrable, wretched body of judges who, out of a lack of erudition, critical thinking, expertise, discernment, principle or comprehension fail to prosecute said vermin.
Disclaimer: I knew all of these words prior to posting - and made some up on my own:D
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Dr. Blight - probably the one female role-model I ever had. W00t!
Aaaaaaaaah, now I get it.
OK, there is a way to set this up under Windows XP, I haven't found anything in Vista yet, although I've been activaly looking for it for 8 months, ans I can't speak for Linux etc. (chances are you're not running this Aspect thingamajig on Linux, am I right?)
Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices>Hardware tab>Properties>Properties tab(redundant but true)>Mixer Devices>Select sub-branch>Click on Properties(trust me)>Select "Do not use mixer features on this device".
This will cause the foreground application to monopolize your hardware and cut off whatever else is generating sound on the PC. I think we've got it now. Pls test and confirm that it works for ye.
HEY MAN!!!! I've got the solution!!!!!!!...Dial-up.
www.gvst.co.uk
Also, depending on what you get from your company for hardware/software, and also what you can expense, there may be other whatnots to choose from. May I suggest, if you want a true-to-Slashdot solution, that you install VMWare, build two identical virtual machines and run your queues through one of them? Or also, if you have another machine than your desktop(a laptop perhaps) that you RDP into your desktop and simply switch away from the TS window when you get a call? That would be cleaner and neater and you would be able to separate work and play.
Finally, from an ethical point of view, may I just say how happy I am that you don't work for my company...I would be fracking insulted if the new guy/girl was already looking for a way to amuse themselves before they even got to start work. I sometimes have days when the phone won't stop ringing and I don't even have time to say hello to the family during that time(my SO also works from home - we make dinner plans over email). And yet, I feel grateful and privileged every day of my life.
Do that at your own peril, but I strongly suggest you have your towel on hand.
Sorry my friend, this is theoretically very accurate, but in practice(and I do remote support as well as music *in practice*) ducking will act only when there is signal on the control line. This will cause whatever background sound(movie, mp3) to be brought back up whenever TheJerbear pauses to catch his/her breath.
In principle, an application with an ASIO driver that monopolizes the audio card would do exactly what TheJerbear wants, meaning completely cut off other sound sources when a call is coming in. Is it practical? Hardly - it takes up valuable resources to do what the "Mute" button does.
Anyways, who am I to criticize those who want to have entertainment crap running on their business machines during business hours? Here's a software ducking app that should do quite nicely.
Sorry for not being serious, but I just about read your last phrase as "to beat someone to death with a baseball hat" which seems if not impossible, at least thoroughly laborious.
On a more serious note...The label can do little harm to the so-called "society", and will mostly touch the producer company's bottom line if they end up selling less product. However: what another set of labels/ratings/controls/official-looking markings on boxes really achieves is, a) a whole new layer of bureaucracy on top of an industry that is already over-regulated; - this is to say, it will create a few extra jobs for whomever will be responsible to come up with the rating for each game(and you do know how they do that, right? In order to cover all the bases? They have someone play the game all the way through:D) and b) it will provide another mental crutch for a majority that already has multiple excuses for failing at parenting. If common sense was commonplace, instead of a rare exception, none of these ratings would be necessary.
I'll give you two examples outside of the U.S.: Norway and Romania. From what I know of both these societies, game- and movie-rating systems are superfluous. In Norway, a country among the four best places on the planet to live in, parenting is a laid-back thing where children have wide liberties, and parents hand-censor their kids' entertainment material on a case-by-case basis. No need for sweeping governmental censorship there.
In Romania, a post-Communist traditionalist society, parenting varies a lot between over-protectiveness and laissez-faire. Predominantly, parenting is a very involved activity where parents pay attention to what area their kids' school is located in, what music the kids listen to, or whether their friends are inclined to criminal activity. Here also, videogame ratings are superfluous as there are many more primary concerns having to do with factors external to the child - street gangs, human traffickers, muggers. I might be wrong because I am relying on what I witnessed six years ago when I was in each of these countries, but to date I haven't heard news of either country implementing regulations and ratings onto entertainment content.
How has this affected teenage crime rates? I have no official figures. AFAIK, Norway's crime rate is down there with the zeroes. It's probably comparable with Canada. In Romania it's another story, but here also, gun crimes are extremely rare, due to the scarcity of guns on the streets, and violent crimes are either perpetrated by mentally-ill adults, or related to extreme poverty. There are no reports of Romanian teenagers going on a shooting rampage, yet.
Duud. You can start and stop your sprinklers remotely. Thanks a lot; now I'm gonna be modded -1 Stating teh Obvious:)
And these estimates are not taking into account the amount of laptops retained for security purposes. Like here and here.
That's one thing that hasn't been thoroughly investigated yet.
Don't you mean nine fives?
Phonetical joke, seven-digiter.
I think the main point of failure was on the creative side of things. How do you knowingly continue to claim individuality after you've become a trend-follower instead of a trend-setter?? Even the managed services thing comes about a year after IBM already deployed a similar solution.
So far, Microsoft put the "sucks" in "success".
(Oh wow! Best.sig.ev4r.)
Good point about computing requirements. However, what end-users *buy* does not necessarily reflect what they *need*.
Example 1: PC-refresh programs. Why should these even exist in a three-tier architecture? The apps and databases run on dedicated servers. Desktop needs at the staff level have been the same for years. What is this, fashion?
Example 2: designed-for-Windows hardware. Is it really cost-effective to upgrade to 2.4G dual-core proc, 2-3G of RAM for Vista? How much cheaper would it be to build around a 3G single-core proc from 3 years ago and run XP instead? No, wait. Some businesses still run Windows 2K on upgraded hardware. I wonder why.
If the IT sales channel didn't exist, and every enterprise client dealt directly with the engineering team at HP/IBM/wutev, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But that level of honesty and openness is just bad for business. Gear capacity is routinely oversold under pretext of scalability. In reality, by the time you need that capacity, that device will be obsolete.
As for sacrificing the nines, that's why they have testing environments.
What is software? A lot of ones and zeroes, according to Neal Stephenson. What does it take to deploy it? A brain, an input device, a compiler, a basic hardware infrastructure to run it. If well-written, it can outlast the hardware it was installed on. Example: Delrina WinFax.
OTOH, hardware is *designed* to fail. If HP servers built and sold 5 years ago were infallible, why would one need to replace them? It would take away sources of revenue like warranty, parts, service.
Warranty money is free money. Duh.
Parts are less profitable, but unavoidably necessary and "big iron" is aware of it. They rely on a constant cycle of upgrades to existing hardware, and continue their business by replacing flawed machines they themselves built.
I'm talking nationwide VoIP blocking at the IX-es. That includes business/corporate users.
If my ISP corked the respective ports, I would SO go ninja on them - my current TOS specify "no closed ports".
The best things in life always come with TDMA access isn't it?
Otherwise, I for one welcome our newly-instated Supernet overlords!! If Wi-Fi extends to at least full North-American and Western European coverage, say goodbye to all that POTS/cellphone junk. It's VoIP-ing all the way baby!, unless it gets banned on a massive scale due to lost telco profits. It's been known to happen in Guyana and Ethiopia...and Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Oman...and China. Oh, and Brazil.
According to the official website of the project they are counting two weeks of recovery time.
I am now beginning to smell a PR stunt.
In fact, just staring at the picture of two women makes me wonder how the scientists managing this study intend to counteract the gravity pull while eating/drinking.
I don't know about you guys, but as a kid, I was never curious enough to try to swallow my food with my head upside down...but of course, I wouldn't feel bad seeing someone else try it.
I think in fact the test subjects will be required to work - granted, from bed, but studying a guy rest for three months is not really relevant research for NASA, who is trying to send people to work with maximum productivity under stress conditions.
It can be pretty darn difficult to be productive in a rest position where your body has a tendency to relax, unwind and switch off. Case in point:D - I am posting this from bed:)
I sympathize. I didn't make it past SQL gal and I want to poke my eyes out with a gardening trowel...
RFC 1149 FTW!!!!
Am I really the only one who instantly thought of the military sprouting a batallion of thought-controlled robotic troops? They are more resilient, stronger than human troops, and their speed can be enhanced over time. This not only prevents, it can effectively eliminate war casualties. Whoever can build both sides of the technology faster will end up with a strategic advantage and all you need(provided that the control interface is perfected to accept input from the human cortex) is a bunch of FPS enthusiasts.
You must be new here. Everybody knows that Bennett Haselton is the valiant robinhoodian avenger fighting for the rights of the poor, down-trodden and opressed net admins every day, desperately trying to tame the abominable deluge of unwanted spam feculence on their respectable networks through an incessant, albeit slovenly, attack on the colossal, repugnant, utterly putridacious vermin that are spammers and the reprehensible, obnoxious, execrable, wretched body of judges who, out of a lack of erudition, critical thinking, expertise, discernment, principle or comprehension fail to prosecute said vermin.
Disclaimer: I knew all of these words prior to posting - and made some up on my own:D