Is anyone else afraid of their pandora?

[darfgarf]

i'm terrified of my pandora, half expect it to strangle me in the middle of the night


...good thing i add this to my code:


#define SKYNET_COST 9999999999999999

 

[j6cubic]

Linux is nothing to be afraid of, but Android also uses Java, which is worth being afraid of, [...]

Only if you have to write it.


Linux is great for tossing around newbie-scaring jargon. Then again, so is Windows, once you start getting under the hood. (Pop quiz, how many Windows users even know what HKLM and HKCU are or what WSH is for?) With Linux the hood is just that much bigger, more prominent and more user-serviceable so even normal users will sooner or later get at least a basic understanding of what a shell is and how you can use it to interact with the system. And once you have that and text file editing you already know pretty much everything important that isn't program-specific.


The downside is that people will casually talk about things that seem rather foreign to outsiders. Everything involving the shell looks positively confusing to someone who has no experience with it. It's fairly easy to pick up, though, and the fact that you're using text to interact with the computer means that tutorials become "cut and paste", not "guess which button they meant because your version of the program doesn't quite look like those tiny screenshots".


Plus, the Pandora was designed to be unbrickable, if I remember correctly. The two worst things you can do to yours during normal operation are wearing out the NAND by writing to it too much (which requires quite some work and even then you can still boot from SD) and running down the battery until it's completely dead (in which case you can just order a replacement). Everything else you can do without inflicting physical violence on it should be recoverable. So playing aroud with it any trying out stuff should be mostly safe.

 

[mahousaru]

All I need is the interweb and google and I fear nothing... Well apart from googling in any medical symptoms...

 

[Caine]

Everything involving the shell looks positively confusing to someone who has no experience with it.

For the general public, yes. I wonder how that holds up for the average Pandora user.


Many of us are somewhat older retro-gamers who basically grew up with a command-line interface (e.g. DOS) as it was the only thing available at that time.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Not me.


Unknown command "used joke"

 

[stustaff]

Caine - I'm not so sure... I would class myself as typical user I'm 30+ and have had computers since my dads acorn electron but I have never really fiddled under the hood... Mainly playing with settings via GUI's and following the odd tutorial that uses other stuff.


I am happy enough to follow tutorials and to give feedback on stuff too, I'm confident it will all be fine.


Craig- if you read this then well done mate I think what you guys have achieved is pretty amazing. Am glad I kept the faith as there were times when a refun looked the best option.

 

[Asmo Z]

Since the Commodore PET 2001 was the frist computer I learned my way around and I have kept up with developments ever since and have done low level programming on the Amiga, Apollo OS and UNIX/Linux I really can say, no I'm not afraid

 

[stustaff]

I'm home, I opened it i am safe so far. it's charging.


I'm having a bath then starting to play

 

[Neelix]

For the general public, yes. I wonder how that holds up for the average Pandora user.


Many of us are somewhat older retro-gamers who basically grew up with a command-line interface (e.g. DOS) as it was the only thing available at that time.

Not me.


Unknown command "used joke"

Speaking of which... am I the only one who was disappointed not to see the old standby "Bad Command or File Name" the first time they mistyped a command in DOSBOX? (In my case I keep typing ls instead of dir)


I must say that having access to a friendly community made my transition to linux based systems quite painless. I my case it was the eeeuser forums which I found shortly after purchasing my EEEPC 701. between the forums and the wiki there I was quickly customising my netbook to do what I wanted it to do.


I have never looked back, and while I am by no means an expert I am now quite comfortable running a linux based system. My current netbook actually came with Windows XP pre-installed. Its still there, but I so rarely boot into it that every time I do, I have to install several security patches and update the AV definitions because they are several weeks out of date. Of course by the time this has completed I've usually finished whatever it was that I wanted it for and am ready to reboot back to Ubuntu.


That being said, as Caine noted, I grew up with DOS, so was no stranger to the command line and found some aspects of linux quite familiar really which probably also eased my transition.

 

[Sitwon]

Android on most phones don't allow root access without voiding the warranty, which is also not fun. Only the absolute power over your system is fun.

I think this has less to do with the manufacturers trying to lock it down and more to do with the fact that the security of the cell networks is very broken. As better protocols are developed I think we'll see manufacturers and networks become a little more willing to open up the client-side software stack.

 

[lulzfish]

I think this has less to do with the manufacturers trying to lock it down and more to do with the fact that the security of the cell networks is very broken. As better protocols are developed I think we'll see manufacturers and networks become a little more willing to open up the client-side software stack.

Hopefully, but I don't see cell manufacturers / networks as the kind of companies to go out of their way to provide a better product until the whole market is demanding it.

 

[Poem58]

I am not afraid of the Pandora. I'm more afraid I'll be dead before I ever get to play it. What with my meds giving me fits and my wildly fluctuating blood pressure and generally worsening overall physical condition. Not to fear, I'm not terminal or anything (that I know of, aside from life itself being terminal) Just hoping my body holds up enough to enjoy mine when it does arrive. (a couple of years ago, I never would have suspected I could feel this bad) Sorry to sound so down, as really I am excited that things are rolling again and someday soon I'll have mine. But anymore the days have become so difficult it feels like a week of waiting for every day I wait. Been having a bit of trouble with my hands, probably a med side effect which makes it hard to hold things at times. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble playing it by then. I do promise when mine arrives that I will use mine so much that either it or I will be totally worn out by the other. LOL


Cheers to the team, and here's a metaphorical glass raised to you in hopes of a speedy finish to batch one and a busy and non stop steam roll through batches 2+.


NewsFlash: Getting old sucks, I'll be over the hill soon...still in my head I'm not even 18 yet. It's weird.

 

[gadgetoid]

I must admit, I'm a little bit afraid that I'll spend more time trying to set the Pandora up than I will spend actually playing with it. But on the flip side... I find relentless hackery and frustration just as, if not more, entertaining than actually re-playing classic games.


I seek geeky entertainment from the Pandora, in whatever form it may take. Alternate OS experimentation, linux hackery, probably a spot of programming and running a web server for luls.

 

[wardred]

I'll be afraid of it when I hook it up to control that menacing mechanical arm. Did I remember to unplug it? Is the Pandora learning to move it about when I'm not there to oversee it? :-b Don't know that she'd kill me a purpose, but the pneumatics on that thing are pretty stout. What would happen should she miscalculate the pressure while I'm sleeping...


In the year 2011 the Pandorator was born. Two usb cameras modded to either side of the display, base clamped to a robotic arm, having to rely on stealth rather than pure brute strength and speed, she lurks in the shadows, breaking into wifi hotspots to track her intended prey. That pesky unsecured GPS gives her a trail to follow, and she's not afraid to search the web for cracking methods should the phone's vendor give a third thought to security. When her LED lights flare back and forth, and the screen displays a randomly generated expression map, it's too late. Your throat is already caught in her vice's grip!


Or something. :-b

 

[wardred]

Poem58, sorry to hear about your health. A meds regime always seems to have side effects. Hope you receive your unit soon and that they find a course of medicine that allows you to fully enjoy it.

 

[Prometheus]

@wardred - Planning on writing a Pandora-themed novel? That sounds like a synopsis to me!

 

[wardred]

@wardred - Planning on writing a Pandora-themed novel? That sounds like a synopsis to me!

Lots of plans, it's spending the requisite time on them to bring them to fruition that's my downfall! The above was just a silly something to go with this thread. A short story might be fun though.


Heck, had I the chops and aforementioned time, it'd make a heck of a game. Control your Pandora and mod it to take over the world. The extra battery slapped onto the device gives you almost double the room to roam, but it slows your movement by 40%. Explore your master's room for items to mod yourself with, fighting Game and Watch and its early brethren while you level up. Anybody remember those mini-arcade handheld things that had the old-style illuminated LEDs for graphics rather than the black and white static LEDs? I think they took D-cell batteries to run.


Your escape would set you down one of a couple paths. Kill your owner and go down the "dark side" to killing or enslaving all humans. Simply escape during the night unnoticed to start a Utopian world where computers and humans live both side by side or largely in their own countries more or less in harmony...


Gotta work on the game that my avatar is supposed to star in first, and that in between bouts of school. Time. I want to be a millionaire so I can do all my neat side projects and hobbies without having to worry about pesky little things like paying off the blue mobile.