• (cs) in reply to Nibh
    Nibh:
    I love hard-wired wifi. It's capable of gigabit transfer rates, is harder to eavesdrop on, works better in densely populated areas, and is less susceptible to electromagnetic interference. Where's the WTF?
    That is all true. But someone invariably trips over the cable when I try to take my laptop into another room!!
  • (cs) in reply to Outtascope
    Outtascope:
    What a stereotype. I'll bet you would be hard pressed to find more than 4 Tim Horton's in a two mile radius of that hotel.
    There are only four Timmies' in Pembroke as a whole, only two of which are within a two-mile radius of each other. None of which are within two miles of the hotel as the crow flies (the other two and the hotel are right on the 2mi border).

    'Sides, why do us Canadians always get prodded for Timmies? You guys have waaay more Starbucks locations. You're just jealous.

  • FuBar (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    I assume the grill is Windows compatible, which is fine for beef, chicken, fish, even corn on the cob.

    But if you want to grill penguin, you need a *nix grill.

    And permission.

    sudo grill <tux |plate >mouth I'm stopping there

  • Anonymoose (unregistered) in reply to sd
    sd:
    That picture of Pembroke is clearly doctored, because there's no Tim Hortons in the background.

    Haha, Have you ever been to Pembroke??? I don't think it's doctorted at all.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    Reminds me of a gag gift box that claims to have a USB-powered toaster in it.

    I once bought a toaster that proudly proclaimed on the instruction sheet that it was "computer-controlled!" with an "embedded microchip". Not a gag, an actual product. I'm not exactly sure what a computer in a toaster was supposed to do. Some gadgets are just not improved by the addition of electronics. On a toaster, I want to set the little knob to select how dark I want my toast. Then I want it to make it that dark. Why do we need a computer to do this? PS: This was the worst toaster I ever bought. The same setting on the knob would give wildly different results.

    Likewise, the furnace in my house has a circuit board with a bunch of IC chips on it. What do these do? The thermostat sends a signal telling it when to shut on and off. (I can see why I'd want a computer-controlled thermostat, but I'm talking about a circuit board in the furnace quite separate from the thermostat.) I don't see why it needs any electronics beyond a relay to allow the 20 volt thermostat to control a 120 V fan.

    Coming soon: Hammer with 2 USB ports!

  • (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Dan:
    Reminds me of a gag gift box that claims to have a USB-powered toaster in it.

    I once bought a toaster that proudly proclaimed on the instruction sheet that it was "computer-controlled!" with an "embedded microchip". Not a gag, an actual product. I'm not exactly sure what a computer in a toaster was supposed to do. Some gadgets are just not improved by the addition of electronics. On a toaster, I want to set the little knob to select how dark I want my toast. Then I want it to make it that dark. Why do we need a computer to do this? PS: This was the worst toaster I ever bought. The same setting on the knob would give wildly different results.

    Likewise, the furnace in my house has a circuit board with a bunch of IC chips on it. What do these do? The thermostat sends a signal telling it when to shut on and off. (I can see why I'd want a computer-controlled thermostat, but I'm talking about a circuit board in the furnace quite separate from the thermostat.) I don't see why it needs any electronics beyond a relay to allow the 20 volt thermostat to control a 120 V fan.

    Coming soon: Hammer with 2 USB ports!

    In the case of the toaster you bought (and, I suspect, most "computer controlled" toasters) there was no point. I can imagine, however, a toaster that took a read of the color of the bread when it is started and periodically throughout the cooking process so that it could stop toasting once it had darkened by some specified amount. That could be pretty nice. Of course such a toaster would probably cost a lot.

  • (cs) in reply to re:me
    re:me:
    Swiping your card at one Point of Sale and having the receipt print at another simply isn't a good thing. In fact, i'd wonder if it meets PCI standards.

    Most gas stations I've been to, you have to swipe your card a second time to get your receipt, because otherwise most people forget they asked for one and leave before it's printed. If that pump's printer is out of paper (or ink, but they're usually thermal), the LCD panel will instruct you to go to another pump to get your receipt.

    Then again, I live in an industrialized country, not in the US.

  • Loren Pechtel (unregistered) in reply to StDoodle
    StDoodle:
    The plotter WTF is fairly common; a lot of large-format printers (especially older models) have hard-coded margins in them, which can't be exceeded in any software-only way. Trust me, I've been forced to print my share of 1:0.99 scale drawings. :(

    Agreed. I've programmed routines to print & plot drawings to various devices. EVERY device I've ever tried to support (this was all back in the days when you supported devices instead of letting Windows do it all) had a minimum margin requirement imposed by the hardware. Some devices might not have such a limit on both axes but I never hit one that didn't impose it on at least one.

    I've seen a few photo printers specifically advertising about not having such margins, that certainly means the issue still exists today.

    I've never printed a 1:0.99 scale drawing but the internal page size limits never matched the loaded paper.

  • Loren Pechtel (unregistered) in reply to Worf
    Worf:
    I've seen the open box one a lot. It happens because the item goes on sale, so the tag is updated (it's changed weekly), but naturally, they don't ever reprint the open-box tags.

    That being said, you can either pay the sale price, or if you ask the guy nicely, he'll take the discount for open box and apply it on the sale price. So if they took 20% off the first time, he'll take 20% off the lower sale price.

    Requires asking nicely though. A skill most people don't have.

    Yes. It's not a WTF, it's just the result of price changes. The big computer store around here is Fry's and you'll find all sorts of mistagged items. The shelf tags will almost always be right but tags on the items will never be redone when the price changes. So long as you realize what's up it's not a big deal.

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