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>>> Individual components always have a warranty.
>>>
>> Yep. And, odds are, you will get better support on those, than what ever
>> run around you are likely to get with the whole machine (not to mention
>> stupid things they might do to it, or your data, in the process).
>
> It actually depends on the company. If it's a company which builds the
> computer for you (rather than selling you a preassembled-in-the-factory
> system), they often pass the warranties of the individual components
> directly to the user (so you get eg. a 5-year warranty for a Corsair PSU
> but only 2 years on the RAM chips, etc.)
For the love of God, just don't buy the PC from PC World! >_<
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 10/27/2010 2:14 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>> Individual components always have a warranty.
>>>>
>>> Yep. And, odds are, you will get better support on those, than what ever
>>> run around you are likely to get with the whole machine (not to mention
>>> stupid things they might do to it, or your data, in the process).
>>
>> It actually depends on the company. If it's a company which builds the
>> computer for you (rather than selling you a preassembled-in-the-factory
>> system), they often pass the warranties of the individual components
>> directly to the user (so you get eg. a 5-year warranty for a Corsair PSU
>> but only 2 years on the RAM chips, etc.)
>
> For the love of God, just don't buy the PC from PC World! >_<
>
But, but, they are glorious and wonderful experts on computers.. Oh,
wait.. For a moment I had an 80s flashback, you know, when that was
*kind of* true. lol
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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>> For the love of God, just don't buy the PC from PC World! >_<
>>
> But, but, they are glorious and wonderful experts on computers.. Oh,
> wait.. For a moment I had an 80s flashback, you know, when that was
> *kind of* true. lol
I'm just bitter that if my previous laptop had come from any other
retailer, it would have had a 3 year warranty backed by Sharp. But
because it came from PC World, same brand, same model, you get only 6
months warranty. And it's backed by PC World. (I.e., if it breaks, PC
World fix it themselves. Or rather, incompetently fail repeatedly to fix
it...)
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On 10/28/2010 1:08 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> For the love of God, just don't buy the PC from PC World! >_<
>>>
>> But, but, they are glorious and wonderful experts on computers.. Oh,
>> wait.. For a moment I had an 80s flashback, you know, when that was
>> *kind of* true. lol
>
> I'm just bitter that if my previous laptop had come from any other
> retailer, it would have had a 3 year warranty backed by Sharp. But
> because it came from PC World, same brand, same model, you get only 6
> months warranty. And it's backed by PC World. (I.e., if it breaks, PC
> World fix it themselves. Or rather, incompetently fail repeatedly to fix
> it...)
Well. My point is that PC World magazine now sucks, and has since the
90s. But, other than Dr. Dobbs, which specializes in programming, but
still often has too much in "Windows only", nearly **all** general
computer magazines, unless its like a Linux mag, (and yes, I am
including Mac mags in this statement), are pretty much articles that
function as advertisement for their advertisements, mixed in with a few
things that might actually be semi-useful, if you are a) a near total
incompetents, b) don't care how or why anything works, or c) don't care
if the information you are getting is incomplete, bad, or shilling for
the company that made the product being "reviewed".
I vaguely remember when I bought some of these because they had code in
them, or real information, and did real reviews. You know, sort of like
how Wired was once edgy, and willing to point out how stupid products
where, not just mass producing articles on how great everything sent
them to review is.
Bugs the hell out of me that you can't get anything "useful" any more.
Though, bugs be even more than, in the case of things like Dr. Dobbs,
the "assumption" is always now that you have OpenGL, or DirectX, or
*something* available to do all the dirty work for you, so no one has to
explain how to do certain things, you know.. like, if you wanted to use
Catmull-Rom for something *other* than a) graphics, or b) without the
damn DirectX library, which apparently has it in there. Its like, now
that we have 3D libraries, everyone has forgotten how to even *do* shit
without them...
Websites are not much better though. Took me several tries to find one
that both explained that this was what I was looking for *and* that you
apply the equation to each part of the vector, instead of having to do
something complicated to it (examples being invariably in a language
that was hard to parse, or, in 99% of cases, showing only "one
dimension")... How hard is it for people to add on sentence, explaining
how to apply it to vectors with N parts? Seriously? Turned out, for
where I needed it, I already have matrix support, so could apply it to
the whole vector, instead of each part. Man it would have been annoying
otherwise, but, not as frustrating as the, "Dude, since you are looking
for this, you must already understand everything I am telling you, even
though I really don't clearly describe what is going on.", mentality you
get from some articles. lol
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Its like, now
> that we have 3D libraries, everyone has forgotten how to even *do* shit
> without them...
Really?! You're on the povray new server complaining that nobody remembers
how to do graphics without a 3D card?!
> How hard is it for people to add on sentence, explaining
> how to apply it to vectors with N parts? Seriously?
About the same difficulty as writing documentation that explains how to use
their API instead of giving one example?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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>> How hard is it for people to add on sentence, explaining how to apply
>> it to vectors with N parts? Seriously?
>
> About the same difficulty as writing documentation that explains how to
> use their API instead of giving one example?
I think you're confusing "difficult" with "boring". ;-)
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On 10/28/2010 3:21 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Its like, now that we have 3D libraries, everyone has forgotten how to
>> even *do* shit without them...
>
> Really?! You're on the povray new server complaining that nobody
> remembers how to do graphics without a 3D card?!
>
Nope, sorry, doesn't count. Its one product in like umpteenth billion,
and still counts, to a degree, as a "black box" library, from the
standpoint of the end user.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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On 10/29/2010 1:55 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> How hard is it for people to add on sentence, explaining how to apply
>>> it to vectors with N parts? Seriously?
>>
>> About the same difficulty as writing documentation that explains how to
>> use their API instead of giving one example?
>
> I think you're confusing "difficult" with "boring". ;-)
Which explains why, all too often, their "explanations" are vague,
highly limited, only references a single test case, which doesn't cover
anything people might actually use it for, and the example was built
around that test case. You know, like some moron talking about arrays,
and using a "one element" array as an example (well, not quite that bad,
but the example I am thinking of involved an API interface to controls,
which **would have** used a list/array of controls, but the example, and
explanation, gave no indication how the bloody heck to populate such a
thing, or use it with the API, never mind that this step was a) kind of
the point of the API interface being described, and b) non-trivial for
the specific use of controls being looked at).
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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On 2010-10-28 15:43, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Man it would have been annoying
> otherwise, but, not as frustrating as the, "Dude, since you are looking
> for this, you must already understand everything I am telling you, even
> though I really don't clearly describe what is going on.", mentality you
> get from some articles. lol
It's because the articles don't go over stuff that was already in an
article back in the '80s. You're assumed to have had a subscription
since then and the ability to look up (if you haven't already memorised)
any arbitrary bit of information that's a prerequisite for a /current/
article.
That is to say, "you should have already learned the fundamentals of
this, here's the next step you can take".
Ditto all the 3D libraries and stuff. Either you already know all the
math behind it, or you don't, but either way, why should they waste
valuable magazine ad-space on material that's covered in your college
compsci course (I am supposing, here...I would have taken some
programming class or another when I went to NIU but they all had 50 math
prereqs...even for the BASIC 101 where the final exam code was 10 print
"hello world" 20 end. ugh)?
--
Tim Cook
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On 10/29/2010 11:12 AM, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2010-10-28 15:43, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Man it would have been annoying
>> otherwise, but, not as frustrating as the, "Dude, since you are looking
>> for this, you must already understand everything I am telling you, even
>> though I really don't clearly describe what is going on.", mentality you
>> get from some articles. lol
>
> It's because the articles don't go over stuff that was already in an
> article back in the '80s. You're assumed to have had a subscription
> since then and the ability to look up (if you haven't already memorised)
> any arbitrary bit of information that's a prerequisite for a /current/
> article.
>
> That is to say, "you should have already learned the fundamentals of
> this, here's the next step you can take".
>
> Ditto all the 3D libraries and stuff. Either you already know all the
> math behind it, or you don't, but either way, why should they waste
> valuable magazine ad-space on material that's covered in your college
> compsci course (I am supposing, here...I would have taken some
> programming class or another when I went to NIU but they all had 50 math
> prereqs...even for the BASIC 101 where the final exam code was 10 print
> "hello world" 20 end. ugh)?
>
Well, that is one way to look at it, sure. The problem, sadly, is that
not all compsci classes are the same. Mine spent 99% of its time on
business math and databases, and like 2 weeks on C++ (which was classed
as a "current concept", i.e., "we'll toss this at you a bit, so you know
the basics, but otherwise, we don't give a crap"). Still, its not just
magazines with these problems. The magazines often do a fair job of
explaining some stuff, when they are decent magazines.
Now.. the problem is often tech manuals. Back in the days of the Apple
IIgs, I have a book for C, which I couldn't run anyway, without a hard
drive, which wasn't too easy, or cheap, to get for the thing, which had
**different** flag values than those used in Pascal, for the *same* API.
If you used the wrong ones, you couldn't even get a standard mouse menu
to function properly. I ran into a similar issue with Windows APIs. Now,
its not as bad, but not long ago, the only way to get the headers, which
contained all the constant declarations in them, was to "buy" C++. To
use the API with "anything" else, like VB, you needed to know what those
where, they where no documented in the help, even when the help
specifically referenced the API, and not *one single book* out there on
the APIs included an index, or section, which showed what any of these
values where, so you could reference them. You where expected to
reference them *only* in C++, by name, *by* including the headers for
every single API, even if you only used one function from them.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I don't use something often, I may
not remember how to call it, I certainly won't know what the constants
where for those things, to do various stuff with them. Yet, the only
references you can find are for C++, and, again, only by "name", not
value... There was/is a third party API thing around, which tried to
provide examples, and values, for these things, cross referenced for
several languages, but.. I have kept wondering why tf MS never provided
anything remotely similar for their own bloody IDE? To me, as the guy
pulling my hair out trying to remember how many things I need to send to
a function, and what, so I can do something I *maybe* need once a year
for something, and, maybe not in the "approved" language, its a no
brainer. For MS, it seems to be not only meaningless, but so meaningless
that they can't even provide the original source for the applications
"in" their own books they sold on the subject, or a working example,
which does more than the equivalent of, "Here is how you insert a screw
in generic hole A, using a single generic screw S, from here, you should
be able to assemble the Empire State Building..." o.O
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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