I'm beginning to feel like I want to take an axe to every computer

Bassam Abdul Baki

Ever since my two and a half year old son started playing DVDs on my laptop a year ago, he's been forcing them in on his own and getting them scratched. After a while, some of them started locking up the OS and freezing. Pushing the eject button does not do squat while it's choking on it. My only option is to click on stop or bring up Ctrl+Alt_Delete to kill the damn thing. Since the eject button is being ignored, stopping or killing the software isn't always an option. I've learned to just press the off button and waiting ten seconds. Our DVD player is in the basement and he sits with us upstairs to watch Nemo and Charlotte's Web. Although scratched DVDs are our fault, I would like the OS to be able to handle them more gracefully.

"I know which side I want to win regardless of how many wrongs they have to commit to achieve it." - Stan Shannon Web - Blog - RSS - Math - LinkedIn - BM

Patrick Etc

I always laugh at how advanced the computers are in Star Trek. We could NEVER build those kinds of systems, for the very simple reason that 99.999999999999999999999999999999% of our garbage is exactly that: garbage. Patched, hacked, fubar'd and kludged into working, but that's about the best it will EVER do.. just work. It'll never be as reliable and extensible as our imaginations tell us it should be. Oh, it COULD be, but so long as profit is our motive for creating it we'll never let ourselves design it well enough for that to be a reality. Good design is expensive; "just barely works" is cheap.

------------ Cheers, Patrick

Dario Solera

Very nice thing to do to the environment. :suss:

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Jorgen Sigvardsson

In the Star Trek universe, only the Ferengi use money. ;P I need a good ear stroke.

-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

DavidNohejl

Marc Clifton wrote:

I'm about a straw away from just saying F.I.A and taking a long walk into the woods and never coming back. After I axe every piece of computer hardware in my office.

Good idea. Except that axing part, and that never coming back part. Just take your hat on and have a nice trip to some awesome place. :cool:

"Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. " - Morpheus "Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe

Patrick Etc

Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:

In the Star Trek universe, only the Ferengi use money.

That's exactly my point! The Ferengi *bought* all of their technology - computers, warp drive, weapons - from the other advanced races, who had done it just cause it was worth doing. (Although I always wondered - what was the Klingons' motivation? Inventing a warp drive doesn't seem very "honor in battle"-like to me).

------------ Cheers, Patrick

Jorgen Sigvardsson

Warp drives are very useful if you are going to chase down your opponent (a must if you are going to slice him).

-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Patrick Etc

Now you're just pulling my leg. :-D

------------ Cheers, Patrick

Chris Maunder

I think someone needs some fresh kool-aid.

cheers, Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

Shog9 0

Marc Clifton wrote:

I'm about a straw away from just saying F.I.A and taking a long walk into the woods and never coming back.

You'll come back. An hour later, while staring at a squirrel, you'll suddenly have the irresistible urge to try just one more thing... and back to the nightmare black box you'll go. ;P

----

It appears that everybody is under the impression that I approve of the documentation. You probably also blame Ken Burns for supporting slavery.

--Raymond Chen on MSDN

Dan Neely

Patrick Sears wrote:

(Although I always wondered - what was the Klingons' motivation? Inventing a warp drive doesn't seem very "honor in battle"-like to me).

the motivation was the original klingon version of "Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer". FTL makes it so much easier to leave a star system and conquer the galaxy with it's millions of new worlds. PS does anyone know where hte original's from? I know I've seen it before but haven't been able to place it.

-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?

Jorgen Sigvardsson

No man! If you could see the wrinkles and ridges in my forehead, you'd trust me on this one! ;)

-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Marc Clifton

Chris Maunder wrote:

I think someone needs some fresh kool-aid.

Ah, all those kool-aid drinkers are long gone. Though I was living in San Diego when the Nike-comet thing happened. I was quite surprised my then-wife didn't try ascending to Haley's. Sometimes I feel like my life has been a series of wrong choices. And I keep making them! Marc

Thyme In The Country
Interacx

People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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Dan Neely

You mean hale-bop? That was the one the cult nuts fixated on as being a UFO.

-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?

Edw

Instead of trying to magically 'know' what state the DVD player is in, try using a Video Sync Sensor. A base unit will only detect if power is on or off (by detecting the presence or absence of a video sync signal), but a nicer unit will know if the output signal is 'moving' (e.g. not snow, or blue screen). Just a thought. -Ed

Jasmine2501

I didn't actually watch it. I'm sure everything was disposed of properly, for Kentucky anyway...

"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles.

Jasmine2501

http://www.kool-aiddays.com/[^] Just in case you wanted to know. Kool-ade is serious business :) My kids were on that site for a while but now there's just some washed-up folk singer...

"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles.

S Douglas

Marc Clifton wrote:

I'm beginning to feel like I want to take an axe to every computer

Thanks for posting this Marc, nice to know that I'm not the only one to have bad days. It's even more so interesting knowing how skilled you are. Nothing like a little mindless entertainment Channel 9[^] Actually it’s an interview with one of the guys on CE development team doing driver work.