Posts by ArmanX

Conversely...

Just because something is cheap, doesn't mean it's not important.

A few years ago, a utility vehicle damaged a telephone line. I was a little upset that I couldn't get to the Internet, but my neighbors were very worried - one was an elderly man who had a 'life alert' monitor which would call 911 if it detected a heart problem, and the other neighbor has just invested in a security system which relied on the phone line to dial out in case of a break-in.

Both relied on a very cheap solution - a $15/mo phone line. However, the line was repaired almost immediately, partially due to pressure from my neighbors; had the phone line not been replaced, the phone company would have been held responsible for any injury or damages that resulted from either device not being able to call out.

Actually, that's a good point; during the last warming period, it was possible to grow wheat and other crops in places it would never survive today. Plants love heat; rising temperatures would mean a huge surge in available cropland. Managed correctly, that would mean an accompanying surge in grains and other produce.

50% of the revenue? Sounds pretty fair to me, frankly. I'd take that deal over what the record companies are offering these days.

Re: SoCs are the future

Desktops will never truly die; businesses love desktops. They are much cheaper than laptops, and as long as your employees are chained to a desk, might as well chain the computer, too. Oh, sure, some employees need laptops, but for basic office work, a PC does just fine. Then again... those desktops might as well have laptop motherboards inside; most of them will never have the case opened, let alone anything added to them.

Re: Popcorn in the microwave??

That's what I was wondering... any cooking could and should be done with gas, as should any heating; a gas water heater is almost always cheaper than electric.

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong...

@amanfrommars1:

I never said the law was fair, or even just; I am firmly against several laws held by several governments, my own government included. I even break some of those laws. If I am charged with breaking one of those laws, I am fully willing to face the court, and accept and serve out any punishment the court decides upon, including fines or jail time.

Aaron Swartz broke laws, but decided he couldn't handle the repercussions and committed suicide. I'm sorry that was his decision, I truly am; his death is a great loss. Nonetheless, it was not the death of a martyr, as many sources seem to indicate.

@Ian Johnston:

That's pretty much what I meant. If the prosecutor walked into a cell and said, "All we have on you is breaking and entering, but if you sign this it'll all be official", the chance of getting a signature is basically nil. Instead, prosecution says, "We've got you on theft, terrorism, impersonating a clown, and fifteen other charges, but if you sign this, we'll take all that down to petty theft." It's not perfect, but it's a good way to get a confession without a year-long court case.

@Chris Fox:

There's a saying: don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Yes, he would have been branded a convicted criminal and settled with a hefty debt. It wasn't for things he hadn't done, however; he really did break the law. This isn't just about downloading a bunch of free files - it's about getting access to a secure server, accessing documents that he was not allowed to access, and knowingly disrupting service.

Is it illegal to listen to the radio? No. Is it illegal to break into your neighbors house every night just to listen to his radio? Yes, yes it is.

Re: Old shool website design

@Goat Jam - I didn't mean the header tag - I meant the horrific, rippling gif used as a page header. Yes, simpler is better, but does it really have to be so UGLY? I drive a smaller car for better fuel efficiency, but I don't paint it fuchsia...

Re: Wrong I am

Just maths, eh? Well, technically, a gearbox is just that, too. So are computer programs. In fact, when you come right down to it, everything but art is dictated by mathematics. And even then, some art - music, for instance - is bast on equations.

Saying "Applied Maths shouldn't be patentable" is roughly equivalent to "Nothing should be patentable."

Re: Is it just me?

It looks like a potato to me... bomb it with some oil, pass it close to the sun, and BAM, lunch!

Re: "Anybody who is against this bill"

It is blatantly obvious that this bill will not help stop "serious crime, terrorism and child sex offences". Laws are already in place (there, and here in the US) to allow the police to 'snoop' with the proper warrant. All this does is remove basic freedom. Anyone who believes that this bill really will stop crime is being mislead by the flimsiest of excuses.

That being said, yes, it's true. We've lost the argument long ago. Our countries are being run by people who have either no regard for Internet privacy and personal security, or no understanding of the way the Internet works. The first group is malicious, willing to undermine personal freedom to make their jobs easier; the second group is willing to go along with anything because they don't understand what's going on - I could use nicer, bigger words like "prone to making unintelligent, uninformed decisions" or "acting in an unintelligent or careless manner" - but those are definitions of the word "stupid," so I went ahead and used the word "stupid" to describe them.

Re: RTFM

The reason young people today know nothing (and I place myself squarely in that category) is actually pretty simple; it boils down to documentation.

First, documentation today is generally terrible. It used to be that you'd get a giant manual with everything from a bag of case screws to the newest software; these days, you're lucky if it comes with a web address printed on the box. Or a box, for that matter. And good luck finding something that wasn't translated by someone using Google Translate.

Second, in the 'old days', there were hobbyists that held on to documentation (or wrote it themselves); these days, there are so many versions of things, not to mention off-brands and knockoffs, finding complete documentation is almost impossible. Even the manufacturers don't know how their own products work. (1)

And third, we have the Internet. What used to take hours searching stacks of books and dialing obscure BBS's now takes a two-second Google search - and that's what The Boss expects. Need eight hours to find the documentation to turn off an annoying beep? Ha! Live with it or reboot it!

(1) In trying to debug some ancient, arcane hardware, I was given the private home number of a septuagenarian hobbyist - the only person in the world who knows how their hardware worked. Turns out he actually worked for their competition 20 years ago...

Re: @h4m0ny

Of course I didn't buy the same parts; that's part of the point. Instead of a huge, fancy, $1000 monitor, I have two smaller, cheaper, 1080p ASUS monitors ($140 each). Instead of a super-awesome $100 slot-loading DVD drive, I have a $18 Lite-On drive. Instead of a who-knows-how-expensive plastic-and-steel case, I have a basic off-brand case I got for free. Instead of a quad-core Xeon processors, I have a $150 8-core AMD FX-8120 (admittedly, the Xeon outperforms the FX; there wasn't a decent comparison between the two, so I chose Apple's cheapest). Instead of the $150 1TB Apple-branded drive, I have a $100 Western Digital Black 1TB drive. Instead of the $300 RAM Apple uses, I have 16 GB of "Team Xtreem Dark Series" that I got for $40 (8GB came free with my motherboard - which cost $95). I have no idea what PSU they use, but mine is a $70 OCZ ModXStream Pro (600W). I also have a GeForce 8400 GS that I got ages ago, and could probably pick up at a garage sale for $5.

If I bought everything new, it would probably be about $1000; Alienware hits around $1200, which sounds about right. I expect a 20% difference between my choice of hardware and that of decent quality retail. Counting Windows and other software (that I don't have), the prices are about even. Which is why I added the comparison of Alienware; you can choose the parts yourself, and make the closest computer you can. go ahead - both Alienware and Apple have product customizers.

Re: Spot on

>When the phone rings and the amoeboid life-form on the other end begins the conversation with "Hi, just a quick question." I know immediately that the rest of my day is fucked....

Not terribly long ago, our phones got updated, from standard wired phones to IP phones. The test phones we got had a very special fault... the phones have a multicolored LED, to show messages, incoming calls, whatever. However, the engineering phones were missing those LEDs - and furthermore, had a small metal plate covering the hole. Get a call from that annoying guy in marketing? No problem! Just call his phone from another line, and he'll be signaled that he has an incoming line - by pulsing the "LED" - aka, his head.

To the disappointment of IT, the phones we ended up with had an LED on the base, rather than the handset...

Re: @Trygve

I've had a similar experience, upgrading a PC - but the difference is cost, flat out. I upgraded motherboard, RAM, CPU, heatsink, and power supply for just under $400 - kept the case, hard drive, optical drive, and graphics card (I'd upgraded it fairly recently). In fact, the last few upgrades I've done have come out right around $400 - about one upgrade every three or four years.

The equivalent fruit-based computer (a Mac Pro) would cost $3573, according to the selection guide. That means I saved more than $3000 just by not owning a Mac. I could have gotten a computer and a car, instead of just a computer.

For added fun, take a look at the Mac Pro "Configure" page - $100 for a CD/DVD drive (normally $20)? $1000 for a 512GB SSD instead of $400? At those prices, I'm sticking with my PC...

Re: Sad, and a huge loss of resources

Perhaps a better way to state that would be, "If you are familiar with Windows, KDE will seem more natural, while if you are familiar with Mac OS, Gnome will seem more familiar."

Re: IR Countermeasures

It wouldn't need to overwhelm the IR filter by much to ruin the recording - just saturate the screen, and it will 'white out' the picture, while also being completely safe to view. It's not all that difficult, actually, especially with the cheaper cameras... then again, that only stops people who record from the screen. The best pirated films are copied straight from a master disk or the projector itself.

Re: Helicopters (one) can have eject systems!

What's the worst part about helicopter ejection seats?

Having to wear parachutes for both halves.

Re: Er-

"Hey, we found a wifi hotspot - I'm sure FREE_WIFI_ISS is perfectly safe!"

Re: Speech?

Actually, it sounds like someone yelling through a megaphone; he's really just trying to tell everyone that this is the line for prepurchased tickets, and that the line for swim-ins is on the other side of the reef, but if you want to get an autograph from Flipper, you'll need to get in the line over there...

Re: Spinning disks

I've wondered why there hasn't been much work on spinning disks as well... if RAID improves reliability so much, why not build a RAID-in-a-disk? Effectively two (or more) independent disks and heads, with some software to set it up as either striped or mirrored. It would be half the space of a 'normal' disk, but it would either be faster due to striping, or more reliable due to mirroring. It wouldn't be difficult to fit all that in a 8.89 cm(*) drive; even a 6.35 cm(**) drive might be able to squeeze in another platter, though that would be a lot harder...

(*) 3.5 in.

(**) 2.5 in.

Re: ubuntu rip

While I can understand some of your problems, I think a few of them aren't actually Ubuntu's fault. PlayOnLinux has had some problems recently; use the latest version from their own PPA to get around that. Spotify may have the same problem; I've never used it. Installing KDE shouldn't be hard - "apt-get install kubuntu" and you're done. And Java... well, java crashes. It's pretty good at that. For video and sound problems, make sure you're using the right drivers; for video, nVidia proprietary drivers work better than the open source ones. ATI and Intel cards may or may not work, depending.

My suggestion? Debian. Ubuntu came from Debian roots, and if you're used to that, then Debian is the way to go. If you really want to stick with Ubuntu, then use the latest LTS. In my experience, LTS tends to be the most stable. The release after the LTS is usually the most buggy - all the projects that didn't finish in time for the LTS are thrown in there.

Actually, I think $100 would be about right

More than that, and it starts hurting the little guys - but automated systems will just bleed money. There were nearly 1,000 requests in that, and quite a few were fakes.

On the other hand, there could be a "cost of scale" associated; for a single request, if it's wrong, it's $10. If you submit 100 requests (over the period of, say, a month), it's $100; over 1000, you pay $1000 per bad request, and so on.

Re: notebooks have the same power as the majority of desktops

That's not entirely true - a laptop in a dock with dual screens, a keyboard, and a mouse is exactly as ergonomic as a desktop. In fact, it's exactly like a desktop in every way, apart from the fact that you've just bought an expensive dock and a laptop for twice what a desktop costs...

Re: How?

Sure, let's take that argument. There's a big sign in the all-you-can-eat restaurant that says, "One person per plate." It's cheap enough, so most people pay for themselves, their kid, etc. However, occasionally, a family comes in and orders two meals for four people; the kids just eat off mom and dad's plates. The restaurant has a decent margin, but after enough families start feeding their kids for free, that margin evaporates.

Or, a man comes in as soon as the restaurant opens, orders a meal, and starts eating. He eats lunch, then continues sitting at his table, working at a computer (and snacking and continually refilling his drink), until supper, where he goes back to the buffet. He's technically within the rules laid out, but he's eating way more than the average person.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't complain about people who download a lot of stuff. I complain about people who download a lot of stuff just because they can. The most I've used in a month is about 2 gigs; and yet, there are people who use a hundred gigs a month. I can't fathom how someone using a smart phone could manage to download that much data legally - constantly streaming Netflix? Streaming music 24/7? Long daily video chats on Skype? Continuous video stream of your life? Synchronizing your entire DVD collection over the air - monthly? The mind boggles...