test-drb November 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

247 participants
886 discussions

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On November 8, Richard Erlacher wrote: > McDonalds puts sugar in their french fries, I recently head on NPR. Apparently > their sales increased slightly when they started doing that. It's consistent > with their tendency to limit our diet to salt, fat, and sugar. In reality, I > guess we do it to ourselves, since we don't have to eat there. The only meal I > occasionally take at the Golden Arches, is breakfast, since they do, oddly > enough, have pretty passable coffee. Remember...fat means flavor! ;) I must admit...I do enjoy a McD's cheeseburger and some fries once in a while. And the [now discontinued] Jalapeno Poppers from Burger King were *really* tasty. Though I'm not supposed to have quite that much salt due to high blood pressure.. :-( -Dave -- Dave McGuire St. Petersburg, FL

23 years, 1 month

OT - Re: food

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On November 8, Iggy Drougge wrote: > It's such a mess, really. What I did find funny was how Americans define > what's foreign, though. Americans are traditionally immigrants, after all. My ancestors were immigrants. So far back that I don't even know their names. If all Americans are immigrants just because a lot of people immigrated to this country, then it seems to me that it should be correct to consider anyone else in the world an immigrant if anyone >from any other country ever settled in their country of origin. -Dave -- Dave McGuire St. Petersburg, FL

23 years, 1 month

Rubber Restorer...

by fmc＠reanimators.org

ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > No. No mains connectors at all (obviously). In the UK, the standard mains > socket has shutters over the live/neutral contacts which are openned when > the earth pin enters its contact. So you can't stick bits of wire into > mains sockets. Well, that's no fun. How else are kids supposed to learn that sticking a neon lamp's leads into a wall socket is a bad idea? -Frank McConnell "I don't want a kinder, gentler world. I want one full of traps for the unwary, whirling blades, spite and radios which bear in large red letters the Dave-Barryesque legend 'OK TO USE IN TUB.'" -D. Henke

23 years, 1 month

food

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> *Still* trying to get my uncle to send me some from Deutschland. I ask only > rarely (because I forget to "pester" him) and he forgets to bring some back > when he comes (he usually comes back to the states once or twice a > year...). :-( > > Find a way to get me a jar or two, and I'll forgive that > "indigenous" remark... I could swear I've seen Nutella at Wal-Mart... -dq

23 years, 1 month

Refilling Toner Carts (was RE: Rubber Restorer...)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 7, 14:08, Marvin Johnston wrote: > I've heard that a drop of 409 cleaner on the print head will disolve the > dried ink enough that it will again be workable. I haven't tried it but > I do trust the person who did try it and told me about it. That's interesting. I have a junk cartridge for my HP 1600CM that I'd be willing to try it on. Anyone know what's in 409 cleaner? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 1 month

KM11 and RK11-D

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 7, 16:58, Tom Uban wrote: > Yes, I have the overlay. I guess that it doesn't allow quite the level of > control that is provided for CPU debug. It looks like it just shows the > state of a number of signals and the switches don't do much of anything, > at least based on the labeling. I've been playing with my own RK11-D and a pair of RK05s this evening, so I had the RK05 Maintenance Manual and the RK11-D Manual handy. According to those, the KM11 switches don't do anything on an RK11-D. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 1 month

Zenith Data Systems Z-386 SX/20 Free in NJ

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Is it the same fancy connector as the one in my Zenith 486 Z-station? A brown >3?5 pin connector with latches on the side. Looks like a blown up version of >certain big-box Commodore supplies. It was just a plain square molex connector. Looked kind of like the Mac LC class power supply connectors. I think it was 4 pins (two rows of 2), but I am not sure as I have already reset it, closed it and stuck it on a shelf. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 1 month

8 inch floppy drives

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>This is a little on topic, since it concerns a "classic" technology. >I'm told that Macrovision is very VHS-centric, and as a consequence, it's >without consequence when dubbed onto ?etamax, VCR or Video 2000, to name a >few. >I wish I had salvaged that VCR machine now... Not for piracy, I just like old >video equipment. Since I don't live in California (who has recently ruled it to be ok to discuss how to bypass copy protection), I can technically be a heap of trouble for saying this... but f-em. Macrovision basically puts a signal in the vertical sync pulse that confuses a VCRs auto adujustment circuitry. Normal VCRs (almost any that you can buy today) will adjust for weak or strong signals to "normalize" a video. Macrovision writes artificially strong or weak signals in that pulse, so the "normalizing" distorts the image. This is transparent on most systems during playback, as the adjustment occurs at record time. But good high quality equipment, and many projection TVs adjust on playback as well... causing the Macrovision to kick in, preventing you from watching the video at all. It will effect any system that depends on signal adjustment based on the sync pulse. Basically VHS. They have also begun to macrovise DVD and Satallite (which is going to start pissing off more people, as Satallite owners are more apt to also own high end equipment that will be distorted on playback). Things like 8mm, Beta, UMatic, won't be effected, because they look elsewhere for adjustment (but if you dupe a macrovised movie to 8mm, and then back to VHS, it will still kick in, as the sync has been carried over, but the 8mm copy will be clean). To bypass it, you just need to either adjust the sync, or write a new one. External macrovision defeating boxes tend to flatten out the signal. Or you can use a TBC (time base corrector) to write a brand new pulse. Or, in the case of what I do, my computer does it as a side effect. When I dupe thru it, I am not actually copying the video, but rather recording an NTSC conversion of what my computer screen is displaying. So the original sync is never passed thru (so I get the same net result as a TBC, without the benefit of being able to do A/B roll without gen lock problems). Now... to go a bit more off topic... I can be fined/jailed for sharing this with you, because it is a violation of the DMCA. However, there is NOTHING that I discussed here that I had to learn from "pirate" sites. EVERYTHING I learned in collage during my assorted TV production classes (I majored in TV/Theater production, well, at least until I dropped out of school). If you have a half way decent understanding of TV production, how macrovision works becomes an almost obvious no brainer, and how to defeat it becomes an absolute joke.... but I can still go to jail... but the MPAA/RIAA want you to believe the DMCA is a fair, just, and "good for you" law! -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 1 month

Zenith Data Systems Z-386 SX/20 Free in NJ

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Time for LART stick to two companies's their tech staff, DD is ok >but hard to find now. Instruct the and demo that same program >doesn't care running on 1.44MB disks and log the stuff to another >1.44MB disk. Remember to substitute the DOS for 5.0 instead of 3.2 >for support of 1.44MB. > >You need to talk to them to make them understand that DD is not easy >to find now and 1.44MB doesn't break the security. > Well, unfortunatly, I understand, technology wise, where they are coming from. They used to require everyone to use 360k 5.25 disks. They only made the switch to 3.5s because the 360k disks became so hard to get, and they weren't very durable. Their software will actually run just fine off two 360k disks on an XT system. And in fact, the software has never changed (they could do the whole thing off one 720k disk now, but it would have involved changing proceedures at all their interviewing sub sites... you are talking about asking people that are lucky they know how to turn a computer on, to change how they do interviews). The company (they split into 2 after the 720k switch) opted to use a double 720k disk approach to keep proceedure the same. They also opted to use 720 because most PCs had that in them at the time they did the switch (1.44's were newer, and although widely available, not as likely at the time to be installed in the computers the interviewing sites already owned). Also, 720k drives were cheaper, so those that had to upgrade could do so cheaper. Now it has stayed that way, simply because outside of not being able to get DD disks, they have thousands of interviewing sites in the US all geared up to work with 720k disks. I personally think moving to HDs would be a non issue, as I suspect that most of the sites have already long since upgraded their computers (I have exactly one computer in the field with a try 720k drive, one out of about 30 used on these jobs), but the companies don't see it that way. They don't want to force the tens of thousands of interviewing computers to be upgraded. >They hate you because these people doesn't understand too well what >is going on, needs to address this issue and smooth over all ruffled >feathers. They hate me, because I have all 7 of our sites ripping shutters off their disks so they stop damaging my drives (which they refuse to pay for when they are damaged). This causes them to have to replace the hard to find disks (which also means fewer support calls to me when one of the well overused disks fails and generates errors and confuses/scares my interviewing staff). Add to that the fact that I know how to bypass ALL their software security (it really is a joke, their "security" consists of hiding files and directories, know the names, and you can bypass it... know of a little program called ATTRIB and the security disappears). I scare them more than anything else. > >I think both companies were advised by a dimwit who doesn't know what >stuff is talking about. Fire that guy and get one who knows their >stuff. They have a few interview script programmers who handle everything. The new jobs are sent via modem to a master machine at each site (running a pretty pick and choose front end to kermit and copy). They mail disk packs to the sites before each job, and the disk packs are nothing more than the same tired, beatup old boot disks, and reused, reformatted (using format /q I am sure) interview disks. They stick new lables on the interview disks that reflect the current job number. Old labels get peeled off when the pile gets high enough that the disk no longer fits in the drive!. When they do a job, an interview disk is inserted into the master computer, where the job files are copied to it, and a text file is tagged that the disk has been used. When the day is done, the disk is put back into the master computer, the data files copied to the hard drive, and the computer is set to wait for a phone call, so it can upload the day's interviews. I don't think anyone there knows enough about anything to risk change. It has been a case of, this was state of the art when it was designed... but years later, it is badly out of date, but no one is employed anymore that understands technology (at least not in the division that handles this stuff), so they are all just afraid to make changes, because they don't know WHAT they are doing, just how to do it. The could avoid all this with a simple proceedure change. That is, stop mailing out disks, and update their boot disks to support 1.44 drives. Then just tell each site to buy a pack of HD disks, and reuse as needed. The sending and forcing people to use provided disks, is useless (and a waste of money on their part). Again, it dates back to when floppies were actually expensive, and they didn't want each site to have to buy their own. I'm not sure when the last time was that I "paid" for disks, as I always buy them when I can get a rebate equal to or above the cost of the disk pack. I have of course recommended this to them a number of times... but they don't want anything to do with change. "I fear change, so I will keep my bush" -Quizzno's -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 1 month

Zenith Data Systems Z-386 SX/20 Free in NJ

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Oh, good to hear that. Can't this interview program copied to HD and >run from there? Could I, yes, will I, no. It isn't my interview software. It is sent by the client (actually, two different ones, but they were once the same company, so they both use the same software/setups). The problem is, they are SUPER security concious. So for me to move it to a hard drive, I would have to edit the way they have it configured. They currently use a boot disk with DOS 3.2, which boots, and loads the interview program, then asks for the 2nd disk which contains the interview script and saves the data. Making the changes to run the whole thing off a HD is trivial, and I have done it in the past. The problem is, they consider doing any changes to their configuration to be a security violation, and when you violate their security, you get suspended as a work site for 2 weeks. So can I do it, yes, I just won't, because it isn't worth the risk of being caught, nor worth the effort to do it, since every job they send new disks, so every job I would have to repeat the conversion. Lots of effort and risk for no increase in usability. Besides, they already don't like me. They keep reusing the same DD 3.5" disks over and over. As a result, the shutters get bent, and I have had countless drives ruined because a bent shutter ripped the drive head off when removing the disk. So I have instructed all my staff to remove any shutters that even look suspect. So now the two companies hate me because they have to keep replacing the DD disks (which are slowly getting harder to find). -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 1 month

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test-drb November 2001