The collected works of guardian452 - Page 3

zackwatt wrote: This is pretty cheap, but there might be a reason.

The most likely reason is that it's only been on ebay for an hour and nobody has bid on it yet.

2371-GHU thinkpad x40, nothing to write home about. It has the 8 cell battery and cdr/dvd ultrabase, 1gb ram.
huge beast of a keyboard from ps/2 model 50 (the rest of the system was beyond repair)

well, good keyboards and mice ARE hard to find

no kidding, last may I paid $45 retail for a 2x 2gb kit of ddr2-800. The exact same kit is now $100 at the same place. Damn capitalism

I stopped using ubuntu on my thinkpad after version 7.10, it had gotten worse and worse after each upgrade. I tried the latest version 9.10 not too long ago, which doesn't even support ACPI docking, so I have to imagine they've lost most laptop users. Not to mention I couldn't adjust my backlight anymore, though it will change the brightness on it's own without any user input. I can do this even in dos with the FN-key combinations. It also wouldn't turn on the backlight after standby, there was a fix that involved hand-editing some file which broke several other things (of course)....

It also refuses to charge my battery unless I shut down the system first (it claims the battery is "damaged", it is 5 years old but still runs for a short while... 2 or 3 hours). I have never heard of ubuntu un-installing itself but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

They really tried to make it a nightmare so I gave up and went back to windows XP on that machine which is far more stable and reliable. OSx86 is fun too. If you need a linux, try arch or gentoo which might be harder to use, but actually work. Most of the time.

I dunno, some of the things ubuntu has made me do could drive one to some of the behavior in the videos so maybe this isn't so off-topic at all. although some of those machines destroyed are faster and newer than mine which is kind of sad but oh well. Scene 3 was pretty funny.

well... in honesty, you are not missing much, just old computers + fireworks.

hey now this thread has been bumped again and again and I've posted thrice but is it just me or is the modern wintel stuff getting worse and worse? I have a bit of a saga here and need to rant...

I spent... a long time... trying to figure out how to get windows 7 just to display filename extensions yesterday (why they would hide them in the first place is beyond me). Gave up, couldn't figure it out. used CMD to copy files the old fashioned way. Maybe this proves how computer illiterate I am.

I had recorded some .aiff files with the octane and copied them over to my PC to burn a CD. You see, the PC has a burner and the octane does not. Well, windows 7 (the media player) refused to burn because there was no 'file usage rights' or something like that (what's that? it's my recording, it's my hardware, and it's my blank CD... why can't I put it all together??! maybe the microsoft company trying to fool the silly viruses again!)

Actually the first time I tried to burn on windows 7 I selected the .aiff files, hit 'burn' in explorer and it opened the tray and told me to put in a blank disc. I did so, and a little dialog box popped up that said how much time was left... easy! too easy... there was one big track on the CD and no sound came out when I tried to play it!

Compare this to the octane... soon after this ordeal (which happened quite recently mind you) I picked up a scuzzy cdburner for the octane... "cdrecord -audio -pad track1 track2 track3 etc..." and out popped a nice shiny disc with beautiful sound that plays in all sorts of machines.

I just thought it was funny how I hit the burn button and had selected a bunch of audio files (uncompressed .aiffs that I had created exactly to CD audio specifications) and windows explorer proceeded to make a data-formatted CD.

First time I've ever been slapped in the face by DRM as well, even though I have all sorts of pirated stuffz around and also DRM 'technology' all around as well. I was assuming it was a file permission problem or something like that.

point being, irix makes things easy , windows makes things hard .

rscottdrysdale wrote: this one makes me want an onyx2...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXpJunABWA4

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16205&start=0

Because apparently it's better for everybody to have their own workstation than a bunch of multi-seat machines; they do have onyxes for the back end. Spared no expense

experienced people here that could enlighten me as to what the purpose of this system is

it's a PC... run windows, browse the internet, play solitare. all the typical PC stuff. Price is ridiculously high. this looks like a wintel 'server' which means it will suck a lot of power and have a junk video adapter as well... poor build quality by the looks of it (all no-name components, lots of unfinished metal on the inside). I've never heard of Quantel , would stay away from this one.

2x netburst 2.8ghz is probably comparable to a C2D 1.8ghz.

it's like watching the odometer roll over. the car doesn't vanish leaving you with a skidmark on your ass. it just turns into a brand new car with 0 miles

normally I use a Sony dsc-p72 camera which takes very nice still pictures but the video quality... leaves a bit to be desired. Plus, about a year ago something happened to the mic (got wet?) and now everything sounds garbled and muddy. So I borrowed my parent's trv70 (I am pretty sure that is the model... a dv "handycam" from 2003 or so) which has a working microphone. Anyways the problem isn't the mic, but my voice.

I would fix my camera mic but last time I took it apart when the zoom lens jammed, it took like 4 hours to figure out how to put it back together.

And yes, emgee I have a box of (7 or 8?) shure 57 that I got for "free", and drum clips and stands and cables and an old yamaha mixer... The vast vast majority of mics I've ever used have XLR connection.

It seems a bit like a double standard to me.

well, of course it's two different standards: two different countries with two different cultures.

Just think what a terribly boring place this would be if all the world's people were identical.

here's where I would kindly like to point out the fact that aj probably spends a few days, or very long days, working on his videos where I took about half an hour (including looking for a blank tape) to do a 20 minute one. and then another hour monkeying around trying to get it to upload.

To do one of those things properly takes a lot of time. I would like to do one of my N8VEM, haven't touched the thing in over a year but I still get their daily mail list digest. But I need more time to do it properly.

Did you know he lives right up the road from me? I just have the SBC itself but when I got it the day after I ordered it and checked the return address I was blown away, was expecting it to come from the far east or someplace like that. To be honest I just wanted to build it, now that it's built it's useless. It worked right away too, so I didn't even get my money's worth of debugging

I should at least get a backplane and bus monitor going. Also, my prom burner was gifted away, so every time it is restarted it needs to have an exciting program loaded over the serial connection. A lot of work needs to be done before it's ready for prime time.

Do you have a laptop with an auxillary power jack? then you don't have to worry about other chargers, you can use the laptop to charge your phone and camera. sony used to make an AA charger that ran on 5V. Although the thought of needing a laptop while on vacation seems a little oxymoronic to me.

Or get a short (<1 M) line with an unpolarized C7 connector, they will fit into both polarized and unpolarized c8 and c2 connectors, which should take care of all your charging needs.

Or buy the latest in japanese gadgetry while on vacation, then you wouldn't have to worry about it working until you get home.

nekonoko wrote:

sybrfreq wrote: A lot of work needs to be done before it's ready for prime time.

Speaking of which, did you catch the video of the fully expanded/cased N8VEM posted on the list? Holy crap that thing is nice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9em-srdwcjo

I saw it but wasn't too excited about it... it's a good first attempt but IMO the finishing touches (labels, the plugs on the back, etc) could have been better. Much better than what I have, so who am I to say anything? With all those blinking lights though, hooo boy, I would be all over that machine. Maybe (big maybe) instead of the diamondplate or UV acrylic stuff I normally build... I'll try an enclosure made out of rock. maybe granite. Wood has been done, exotic metals have been done.

I have to get my hayabusa (halo 3) fiberglass helmet finished before I start another project... already got metalcast, white pearl, and an oakley G30 visor to finish, but the neckguard is still just roughed in (in fact, it is still game model polygons!) and it's not something I want to rush. but that is a topic of discussion for another thread...

Fifty bucks says humanity will not make it to the next century.

If we're going down, I'm going down drunk and swing dancing.

Frapazoid wrote: No delete button?

for the record, the delete button goes away once a new post is made. like this one. muahahaha!

No, we are 100% meat. Some are fat, some are lean, but in general, humans (like most active omnivores) aren't very tasty. You wouldn't want to eat a cheetah, either. Lamb, cow, pigs... herbivores that don't move very fast... are much better tasting.

http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

To call the space in between a nucleus and it's electrons "empty like a vacuum" is hardly fair!

Nothing. But it's not empty in the traditional sense; you probably wouldn't be able to stick your finger (or microsopic probe of suitable size) and wiggle it around in there. No other particles (none we know about) can get in, either.

I bet within the next 15-20 years scientists will be able to tell us more about this sort of stuff. I've been reading Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds , which attempts to explain quantum phenomena in layman's terms. Pretty cool.

I have a very special audience here: computer people, highly educated people, a few educators, and students. Food for thought

There is nothing more demoralizing to most children than being put through an educational program they know they can't fail at. Instead of teaching them self esteem, it teaches them that you expect so little of them that you have contrived special extra-stupid lessons for their benefit. Don't think for a minute they don't know what's going on.

If you start a lesson off by telling the students "This is going to be easy", you are simultaneously telling them "We had to make this easy because we don't think you're capable of doing anything hard". And when the lesson is over, the only sense of accomplishment they can feel is that they did something easy. So what?

Learning is hard work. If you are not working hard, you are not learning. Period. Kids love hard work, as long as they see where it's going and why. Instead of killing that energy by giving them something easy, we should foster it by giving them something really hard. We should tell them it's hard. We should give them the chance to do something meaningful.

So, let's see how quickly this thread degrades into a conversation of "Steven Wolfram is an asshole, blah blah"...

I would recommend getting the biggest, nastiest, HP (xw9 or z800) you can afford and maxing out EVERYTHING. You get your workstation label, killer performance, and sweltering power consumption, but you can still run windows- and I've found windows 7 to be far more stable than osx SL or ubuntu intrepid.

quake 3

In my opinion studying is similar to bodybuilding, good results are achieved only with repetition. You will not get big muscles just by going to gym and sitting there watching women do their stuff.

and neither one is a 4-year (or 90-day) program: it's something you do every day. What's that saying, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey... I learn new things and get stronger every day.

It is only good that we are all not highly educated, as we need someone to do the cleaning or to drive the garbage truck.

I've had so-called "professional" jobs (or co-ops/interns, as I'm still a youngin') and I've had so-called "crap" minimum-wage jobs like digging up old natural gas lines and amusement ride operator. I find being stuck in an office boring, and would much rather be playing in the dirt or watching hot chicks scream their heads off while singing over the PA.

I would say I learned more working one summer in a machine shop than any quarter at university. Even stuff related to the EE major, for example I spent two weeks installing and testing 10HP motors into new assemblies vs. a 1-quarter long class on "rotating machinery"... learned all sorts of theory and different types of machines, but all we played with in the lab were DC machines and 1/3 HP SCIMs. All knowledge is valuable... I just feel most students are missing out on the "big picture".

For example: portable electronics are becoming a huge part of our lives, yet most EE programs don't yet have any good courses on batteries. This a big problem! I've been racing both electric and nitromethane R/C cars for years, and have a passing knowledge of NI-MH cells (at least, a few tricks on how to get as much voltage as possible while sometimes pulling a few hundred amps during a 4 or 5 minute race). But a lot of EE *professors* think a battery is just a magic metal box that produces electricity by it's own volition; bulky .8 a/h ni-cads were high tech the last time they looked! Or, should batteries be left as black magic known only to mad chemists at sanyo and panasonic?

And R.E. Mr. Wolfram, last time I mentioned Mathematica as a CAS that was exactly the response I got.

But where's their reasoning for discovery-based learning and simulation software? They point to an "innate desire to learn," and trash "hopeless" kids who are "video addicts," but they don't really provide any reasoning that would suggest that discovery-based learning via simulations will work any better for these kids than the dirty, evil rewards-based software did.

Keep in mind they are in the business of selling Mathematica . Why not answer the last question posed by the "skeptical bystander"... I don't think there is an answer to that one.

bri3d wrote:

ritchan wrote: Would you guys know enough about this to do it for yourselves? And shouldn't it be reinstall XLC, not reinstall AIX?
http://hardwarebug.org/2009/08/10/drm-the-big-blue-way/

This is an awesome blog - thanks for that link. I wonder why the author remarks that because IBM's DRM is bad, their compiler must be bad as well though - it's a foolish generalization and discards most real-world facts about software licensing. Why waste time making something cracker-proof for a compiler that's so expensive that only straight-laced corporate users are going to purchase it anyway? And how does this naive licensing approach reflect negatively on the merit of compiler developers?

IBM's problem is that they assume there are still honest people in this day and age. (har har)

That post read something like: "Wow! that house was easy to break into, Ionly had to cut two deadbolts. If these people don't bother putting a better lock on their door then I get to break in and do as I wish to their sleeping bodies."

It's all fun and games until you get an assfull of buckshot. I don't even want to think about how big the IBM legal department is... pirating software is one thing, posting a how-to on the internet is another.

Right, I've never heard about that website before but "the license was easy to crack and therefore the software is crap" means I won't bother with it again.

ritchan wrote:

sybrfreq wrote: Right, I've never heard about that website before but "the license was easy to crack and therefore the software is crap" means I won't bother with it again.

Huh? Do you realize you're doing the same thing as he did?

Yes I realize I am saying the same thing as bri3d. You might say I am agreeing with him.

correct.

Anyways, my point was pretty much moot anyways. A person buying the program or switching to an alternative when the trial is over? Crazy!