• (cs)
    Everything is fool-proof until they invent a better fool.
    They just keep inventing better fools. To paraphrase a certain song:
    They say these fools are a dime a dozen....I'm looking for the guy who's supplying the dimes!
  • (cs) in reply to jay
    jay:
    I always get a chuckle out of the people who say "I built my own computer!" and say it as a proud boast, like the fact that you were able to do this makes you a genius on a par with Charles Babbage.

    Umm ... you bought half a dozen pre-built components, all carefully designed by the manufacturer to snap together, and you snapped them together. Okay, there is some level of intelligence involved, as I guess this article proves. But you didn't invent it, you just assembled it from a kit. The hardest part is probably making sure you buy compatible components.

    I built a tic-tac-toe computer out of matchboxes and coloured costume beads when I was 10, having been inspired by a Martin Gardner article describing one such in Scientific American. Haven't actually built one since, although I did have a career-path where I serviced electronics hardware. It was the experience of being in a QA dept for 1987-vintage PCs that inspired me to change career to software.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to OldMacGuy
    OldMacGuy:
    Norman Diamond:
    Martin:
    pcfan:
    Actually PCs use extended ASCII, not regular ASCII...
    Windows-1252.

    Because ISO-8859-1 is too standardized.

    Shift-JIS for text files (usually including VC++ source files). UTF-16 for internal operations.

    I bet Macs use UTF-8, in which case Macs and PCs really do use different encodings. But I bet older Macs used to use Shift-JIS.

    Classic MacOS (formerly Mac System) used Mac Roman (also called Mac OS Roman) by default.
    Did Mac Roman include Roman, Kanji, hiragana, and katakana? If not, then Classic MacOS used something more extensive than Mac Roman. I'm still betting Shift-JIS.

    OldMacGuy:
    OSX (formerly Mac OS X) uses UTF-8 like a good little unix.
    I thought so. Thank you.
  • someone (unregistered)

    i love happy ends

  • (cs) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    The only way out I can see is if Alexander said something like this: "Listen...
    Alexander would be screwed right from this first word.
  • Alastair (unregistered) in reply to the beholder

    Jeff had alreasy been apointed by the idiot owner. I think that already implies a lack of logic right there. I once worked for a family firm and trust me, nepotism beats logic/common sense/sound business any day

    ( CAPTCHA decet, ---no its true and im not a robot honest)

  • Trident (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic

    You are right in air bubbles, but wrong in insulator. It is not good as steel itself, i admit, but its not an insulator. It have still very good ability to conduct thermal energy. But thermal paste have actually very low heat capacity. This is the reason why we have to keep paste layer as thin as possible. It also deteriorates through heat cycles and thermal conductance decreases. In this case depends on paste additives. And do not forget that materials which conducts heat also moves on paste layer because cpu sink and fan heat sink have both different thermal expansivity. So mechanical movement also deteriorates paste layer.

  • Shabadoo (unregistered) in reply to fjf
    fjf:
    urza9814:
    Reminds me of a friend of mine who, when building his first computer, couldn't figure out what those little riser screws with the motherboard were for, so he just screwed the thing directly to the steel case...shorting out EVERYTHING and frying his motherboard.

    Not that I was totally absent of stupid mistakes when I started building PCs...like when I discovered that, when shutting it down for a quick repair, if you get impatient and pull the CD drive power connector out too early the blue sparks look quite pretty inside the molex connector... unfortunately it also fried one of the IDE controllers...no big loss though, the motherboard was some cheap Chinese garbage, no more than $50...

    Oh, it's PC assembly story time ...

    In the 1990s I assembled a machine together with a friend. There were two ways the power supply plugs (AT) would fit and two ways the CPU would fit. We didn't have any manuals, but fortunately he was quite sure which way to put the power and I how to place the CPU. Needless to say, we got it right on our 4th attempt, but to our surprise, it still worked.

    Fourth attempt? That means one of you was right and one was wrong.

    Power: Wrong, CPU: Right Power: Wrong, CPU: Wrong Power: Right, CPU: Wrong Power: Right, CPU: Right

  • The Gray Code Knight (unregistered) in reply to Shabadoo
    Shabadoo:
    fjf:
    In the 1990s I assembled a machine together with a friend. There were two ways the power supply plugs (AT) would fit and two ways the CPU would fit. We didn't have any manuals, but fortunately he was quite sure which way to put the power and I how to place the CPU. Needless to say, we got it right on our 4th attempt, but to our surprise, it still worked.
    Fourth attempt? That means one of you was right and one was wrong.

    Power: Wrong, CPU: Right Power: Wrong, CPU: Wrong Power: Right, CPU: Wrong Power: Right, CPU: Right

    That's one of the optimal orders all right, but I resent the implication that I had something to do with it.

  • fjf (unregistered) in reply to The Gray Code Knight
    The Gray Code Knight:
    Shabadoo:
    fjf:
    In the 1990s I assembled a machine together with a friend. There were two ways the power supply plugs (AT) would fit and two ways the CPU would fit. We didn't have any manuals, but fortunately he was quite sure which way to put the power and I how to place the CPU. Needless to say, we got it right on our 4th attempt, but to our surprise, it still worked.
    Fourth attempt? That means one of you was right and one was wrong.

    Power: Wrong, CPU: Right Power: Wrong, CPU: Wrong Power: Right, CPU: Wrong Power: Right, CPU: Right

    That's one of the optimal orders all right, but I resent the implication that I had something to do with it.
    In fact, you didn't. We went with the binary order on the "reasonable" assumption that 1 Right, 1 Wrong was more likely than 2 Wrong.

  • Mozzis (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic

    False. Ignorance revealed again.

  • Jules (unregistered)

    I would have punched his fucking lights out if he'd blamed me for that mess....

  • Alexander Javoronkov (unregistered)

    Gentlemen, can someone give me a clue on what's happening? Alexander is me, actually. That's my story. I have translated it to Englsh and submitted to WTF, the story is more than a year old. Only now it had appeared on the site, perverted to the maximum possible extent. Is it a common practice?

    http://nmi-ru.livejournal.com/17609.html Here's the automatic translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?twu=1?sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A//nmi-ru.livejournal.com/17609.html Didn't save the original English text (submitted via web form).

  • (cs) in reply to Alexander Javoronkov
    Alexander Javoronkov:
    Gentlemen, can someone give me a clue on what's happening? Alexander is me, actually. That's my story. I have translated it to Englsh and submitted to WTF, the story is more than a year old. Only now it had appeared on the site, perverted to the maximum possible extent. Is it a common practice?
    Well, that is the common practice, but actually from reading the (somewhat broken) automatic translation it sounds like it wasn't modified too heavily. The context seems to have been entirely made up, but the technical details are pretty much correct. We've had WTFs where the technical part has been completely mucked around with as well and the submitter has had to post an explanation of what the WTF actually was, because the story didn't make sense.
  • The Crunger (unregistered) in reply to Alexander Javoronkov
    Alexander Javoronkov:
    Gentlemen, can someone give me a clue on what's happening? Alexander is me, actually. That's my story. I have translated it to Englsh and submitted to WTF, the story is more than a year old. Only now it had appeared on the site, perverted to the maximum possible extent. Is it a common practice?

    Alexandr

    I cannot say why it took a year -- perhaps difficult to understand the nature of the actual WTF mistakes.

    Sometimes names and details are changed, to protect submitters from revenge from managers, sysadmins, who make silly mistakes.

    Back story is common for this web site. Readers really like stories where:

    (1) Competent Technician (or programmer) saves enterprise, but loses job

    (2) Idiotka gets Promotion, Salary Raise, Girlfriend

  • VeeTwo (unregistered) in reply to The Crunger
    The Crunger:
    Alexander Javoronkov:
    Gentlemen, can someone give me a clue on what's happening? Alexander is me, actually. That's my story. I have translated it to Englsh and submitted to WTF, the story is more than a year old. Only now it had appeared on the site, perverted to the maximum possible extent. Is it a common practice?

    Alexandr

    I cannot say why it took a year -- perhaps difficult to understand the nature of the actual WTF mistakes.

    Sometimes names and details are changed, to protect submitters from revenge from managers, sysadmins, who make silly mistakes.

    Back story is common for this web site. Readers really like stories where:

    (1) Competent Technician (or programmer) saves enterprise, but loses job

    (2) Idiotka gets Promotion, Salary Raise, Girlfriend

    I find it amusing that he tried to drench the CPU in alcohol over the weekend. If this happened to me, I am sure something would be drenched in alcohol, just maybe not the CPU.

  • Alexander Javoronkov (unregistered) in reply to VeeTwo

    he tried to drench the CPU in alcohol Well, yes, I was very surprised to hear that he has managed to get this thing working, somehow (I didn't see it with my own eyes, though).

    I'm not sure that the alcohol is the right word to describe the liquid used for cleaning. Don't know the right English word for this, in Russia we call it the "technical spirit". Wikipedia link leads here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol

    As for the alcohol intake - well, yes, seems like it's the common solution in case you dont't want to bang your head against the wall :)

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    reminds me of an old story i read: an even stupider guy tried to force a chip onto a motherboard slot too small to handle it by SOLDERING THE WIRES TOGETHER! and another guy didn't understand how to work the clips on the memory cards and ripped the entire SLOT out of the computer while trying to remove the old memory...

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