Root Access

Bob

16:00

@ThatBrazilianGuy Search engine*

somequixotic

and if it starts to fail to an appreciable level, then Samsung, Apple, Google, Verizon, AT&T, Microsoft, et al. will jump down their throats to fix it

Bob

And Baidu != BeiDou

somequixotic

that's a lot of fairly powerful enemies to make

Bob

@somequixotic It's primarily a military system.

That Brazilian Guy

@Bob Actually, romanized names != original names. There are many possible variantes for the same original name. In truth, even between same-alphabet languages. I can call New York "Nova Iorque" and still be correct.

That's why I assumed both were the same

But Chinese is werid, you can write an entire tale using only the sillable "shi".

Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den () is a 92-character modern poem written in Classical Chinese by Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), in which every syllable has the sound shi (in different tones) when read in modern Mandarin Chinese. It is a famous example of constrained writing. The sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is an example of this type of writing in English. The text, although written in Classical Chinese, can be easily comprehended by most educated readers. However, changes in pronunciation over 2,500 years resulted in a large degree of ho...

Bob

16:02

@ThatBrazilianGuy "shi" can be pronounced many ways depending on the accents

somequixotic

@Bob wouldn't it be the height of irony if U.S. Citizens started depending on GLONASS for navigation because their own country can't afford to keep a running system :)

Bob

And then there's homophones.

@ThatBrazilianGuy Pinyin is standardised.

Běidǒu is 北斗

Bǎidù is 百度

Did I mention I can't read Chinese? :P

somequixotic

@Bob a little more research tells me that my phone simultaneously pings U.S. GPS and GLONASS at the same time, and (I guess?) uses sampled averages to get the results

heh I wonder how many of those 9-13 satellites are from GLONASS

Bob

I'd say at least 2-3.

somequixotic

my mom's phone doesn't support GLONASS, and it takes her phone around a minute to get a GPS fix

mine is almost instantaneous. now granted that could be due to better firmware or whatever, but still

Bob

16:09

I've always had instantaneous fixes from Nokia phones (N8, Lumia 520).

My S2, on the other hand, might get a fix in ten minutes. If at all.

somequixotic

sometime during this week I'm going to buy a new Verizon Droid Maxx, a close cousin to the Moto X

Psycogeek

@Bob I had instant fix from nokee, then i went out into the wilderness where there was no Agps and only gps, and it failed completly in 3-4 days.

Bob

@Psycogeek Well, without A-GPS fix time is normally advertised as 10-12 mins.

I'm comparing A-GPS to A-GPS, though.

Psycogeek

These GPs things are supposed to be able to aquire empheris data from the satts themselves. and SOME implementations of Agps+GPS relied on Agps to the point of fail. Because everyone is "connected" and rarely leaves tower coverage areas, i still do not know what i will get into, when there is zero coverage for days.

Bob

@Psycogeek It's still possible to turn A-GPS off on most phones.

Or just turn off the data connection.

Most of my tests show that they do eventually work.

My N8 took 5-10 mins to get a fix, at times.

Psycogeek

16:19

Ask somone to test it, and they shut off thier web for a few hours, and say "see still works great" untill all the data runs out.

Bob

My S2 still takes 10-∞ mins, no matter if A-GPS is on or off.

Canadian Luke

@ThatBrazilianGuy It was, but I"m guessing it's a Canadian thing :/

Bob

@Psycogeek There are apps to flush A-GPS data. Great for testing.

Also, my original tests were on the go without a data connection. That's a week with guaranteed no A-GPS.

Psycogeek

@Bob the nokia thing i had, would only grab 2 1/2 sats when there was no A-parts to the gps.

Bob

Could it be that you were just in a bad location?

I dunno.

I can only speak from personal experience with two specific phones.

Psycogeek

16:22

@Bob bad location for getting anything But real sattalites GPS data , yes.

Bob

I will say, however, that I have no complaints about the Nokia GPS on those phones.

Older/lower-end ones may not fare as well.

Psycogeek

@Bob now i remember it was a 5800 , the music thing, had awesome stereo speakers.

Bob

Ah. Older model.

Not sure how good the GPS was on those.

Psycogeek

@Bob well the biggest problem was nobody had gone out to the wilderness for a whole week :-) so they were all saying it works fine .

It was not till one person who went overseas, and did not have data roaming, before 1 other person in the whole nokia phone forum knew. Well its a phone first, i guess there is no expectation of being away from the almighty tower.

Bob

@Psycogeek I'd guess it was more to do with the location.

As in, not just the lack of A-GPS but you may have been in a particularly bad spot for reception.

Psycogeek

16:27

@Bob 8-12 sats exist in most of the wilderness locations i go to.

Bob

Yes, it is a phone, and it won't have as powerful a GPS module as some dedicated devices (not car navigators, those aren't that much good either).

Psycogeek

@Bob Yea real GPSes have things like "sirfstar 3"+ chips in them. but i am still looking for a phone that not only has a gps, but can function the same as a gps. I am having to bring 2 things, because the phone doesnt work out there, i left the phone in the car, and it got stolen.

dragging more crap for 50+ miles is not an option .

Psycogeek

16:47

the Nokia Lumia 1020 is interesting because it can take a picture , without a optical zoom lens, thanks to overdoing the capture sencor. (40+ rediculous megapixels)

somequixotic

17:03

people who leave their phones on their desk to ring loudly (and repeatedly, because the people who call them don't give up easily) while they are away from their desk, should be subjected to the same amount of time of the song "Bananaphone" playing as their phone rings, times the number of people who were in earshot of the phone-ringing

so if their phone rings for 2 minutes and 10 people hear it, they have to listen to bananaphone for 20 minutes

Boris_yo

18:37

@Psycogeek Makes sense much doesn't it? But regardless the guy in the movie manages to stay without food and water for days and still live. Dafuq?

Canadian Luke

clientsfromhell.net/post/58710435889/…

Canadian Luke

18:53

Anyone up for a hangman game, not using a bot?

Boris_yo

@CanadianLuke No words.

Canadian Luke

Hmmm... OK, GO! [_ _ _]

Boris_yo

@CanadianLuke Are there clients from heaven?

Canadian Luke

Oh, thought you were playing... No, there aren't. The good ones though are the ones that just leave you to do your own thing

Boris_yo

@CanadianLuke You watched "Ghost in the shell"?

Canadian Luke

18:56

Nope

Canadian Luke

20:26

0

A: What is the best way to disable all internet abilities on a laptop?

Pour hot glue into the LAN port, and remove the Wifi card. If you are truly paranoid and worried that they would bring their own USB to Ethernet adapter, hot glue in the USB ports as well. (NOTE: The OP did not ask for a reversible way of disabling Internet access)

Tom Wijsman

20:38

@CanadianLuke L

Einsteins Grandson

KAY: The key to being successful in any new endeavor is going into it knowing you cannot fail. Your mindset is crucial. From experience I know this to be true. I was once told I would be successful because I was not afraid to ask questions. Remember, there are no stupid questions. I am 78 years old and still happily working everyday in a successful printing business . . . and still asking questions.

--

Don't ever want to crucify me for asking STUPID QUESTIONS!

Boris_yo

21:35

@EinsteinsGrandson Not really. Failure is a part of success.

Canadian Luke

21:52

@TomWijsman [_ _ _] L

John Cavil

22:27

@Kyle Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help.

Kyle

Anyone know of an easy way to mount a fat32 filesystem image stored in a file without being root?

mount -t vfat ./path/to/fat.img /mnt/test

Mount needs root :(

And without modifying fstab

Boris_yo

23:46

People are zombies:

►

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson naw, we prefer mellification or the iron maiden ;p

also, there are no stupid questions. There are questions we have a perfectly good reason to close.

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