I've had people accidentally install Windows 7 over Windows 7 and lose all their documents due to re-partitioning.
Have you ever installed Ubuntu? It's dead simple, even my grandma can create a dual boot system, which it does by default. There's a slider for how much drive space you want Windows to keep and how much you want to give Ubuntu.
You put in the CD, turn it on, and wait for the desktop to appear. Then you can use GNU/Linux to look at your documents and files, and use Firefox to browse the web (it's a Live CD), see if there will be glitch driver support or not (everyone should have a GNU/Linux or BSD live CD, just in case whatever OS files become corrupt you can still get at your files and use the web). If it's all good, you double click the desktop icon to install it, pick a keyboard and language and timezone, move a slider and soon you've got a dual boot system -- which means you can use Ubuntu and if for some reason you need to run your windows programs you can just reboot into windows (though wine can run a lot of windows programs -- it is a bit retarding for newbs to get programs into, needs a "here's my old windows partition" option, IMO).
It's actually very simple. Win7 installer is a bit more complex, but still easy. Try creating a dual boot Windows setup to try Win8 out. Clicking a few wrong buttons in any software will produce results you didn't want...
So yeah, saying random citizens are qualified to make a full switch over to Linux themselves is ridiculous.
You are a fool. It's too fucking easy. The average person isn't THAT dumb. It's about as difficult as installing any windows software [ next, next, next, install ].
Windows 8 is hell on Earth in UI form but at least it functions properly.
Correction: You are a troll or maybe a shill? Win8 doesn't fucking work for upgrades. It works SOMETIMES, most times it doesn't work. I installed W8 on a Toshiba laptop that came with Win7... USB drivers and Ethernet and WIFI don't work... So, put in a GNU/Linux live CD, booted up, wifi works, USB works, ethernet works, get on the web, go to the hardware vendor's site, download drivers and put them in the windows's user directory. Then reboot. THEN I could get windows 8 to work -- Except the USB drivers. So, I can't use any USB devices. The hardware vendors made the correct driver I'm told (after hours of support phone tag, saying W8 isn't supported, BTW, whatever cop-out they can give), however, the folks uploading the drivers to their support system copied the same Win7 USB driver where the W8 driver is.
I've had similar problem with downgrading from W8 to W7, but with an ethernet driver. Plop in a Linux CD, and it actually works. Point being: For every issue you can point out with Linux not working, there are AT LEAST as many instances of Windows8 shitting the bed. Ethernet?! USB?! WTF, it's a small number of chipsets that are widely supported, why create a different driver for each different vendor if they have the same cards under the plastic? The windows devs are idiots.
The fact that the DoD has done some planning for such a scenario is not scary. What would be scary is if they did NOT do any planning.
No, that's not what would be scary. What would be scary is if what they were doing was using retro-virus vaccines to tag your for identification purposes, and also so that someone could selectively infect targeted geographical regions keyed to the prior "vaccine" batches they developed.
Suspected Spy? Take a blood sample, check the H1B1 -- er, I mean H1N1 batch number... Out of resources and economy in a slump? Population control is no problem! Selectively eliminate the people you want, no Vietnam needed!
Not saying that's what was done, just that doing nothing could be a hell of a lot less scary than doing certain kinds of planning.
Am I the only one who thinks that these idiots are creating 3D printed guns solely to provoke TPTB into regulating 3D printers?
Are there regulations on plumbing materials? Hop your ass down to the hardwares store. When all the shit there that can make better weapons faster and cheaper is provoking folks into regulating them, then perhaps I'll consider 3D printer output the same.
I think you're really missing the damn point here bub. One key thing this shows is not that everything must be regulated or it'll be turned into weapons, but that the 2nd amendment should be "The Right to Bear Technology", because that's what arms are. Think about cryptography. Now think about munitions, Now back to Cryptography, now think about toaster ovens, get a rolling pin in your head for a good long minute, and now to automobiles... That last one is the most dangerous... Second only to poor diet.
I can't believe they're building meals in factories and pumping them full of preservatives! This is giving Food a bad name! No one will be able to cook without government oversight now! My Zero Bitcoins...
By your argument the Smithsonian shouldn't have the Wright Flyer on display and should be telling people to fuck off to the airport if they want to see planes.
Or, at least get some TSA goons at the exhibit to feel up grandma and a few toddlers so we know what we're standing for...
Hmm, if that's a USB condom, then I guess some of my devices came with a USB ePeen enlargement.
I can't remember which ones that came with the "changing only" cable, anyhow, I also remember some of them wanting to change more for a "data cable".
I'm pretty sure one was my Garmin GPS device. It will not charge without the cable it came with: The "charging" cable has a resistor from a voltage line to one of the data lines, and refuses to charge without it (even when connected to a PC and transferring data). When I hook that "charging" cable up to another powerpins-only extension cable it doesn't charge (no data pin resistor), so I'm guessing a USB condom wouldn't work on it either.
The point is: This may not work with all devices. BTW, I vowed not to buy Garmin products anymore thanks to the headache their cabling BS has caused.
The world's climate is such a huge, complex and fluid system that the best supercomputer in existence will only be able to model its future behavior "very approximately".
It is possible to accurately model the climate change, but it will require a quantum computer more expensive and massive than any prior Electronic Arithmetic machine ever. I'll call it the ultimate eArth, or simpl--- Wait a sec... deja vu?
It seems you are absolutely incorrect, the supercomputer IS in existence, and to precisely model the future behavior simply allow the mock-up to operate outside the orbit of your black hole... Since this star system doesn't orbit a black hole, I need to see a man about a mouse.
winmodems are especially crap though. Since they offload a lot of the modem's functionality into the driver / OS, and require expensive polling instead of CPU friendly hardware interrupt driven IO. That's why making open source drivers for them is so ridiculous. It's literally the shittiest corner cutting hardware you can buy. I'd rather wire an RJ11 to a COM port than use a winmodem...
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
No, its not. End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific.
So, what you're saying is: RMS was right. It's the userland that makes the Operating System... In that case it should be called GNU/Linux... or just GNU for short...not Linux.
Falling into a black hole you are stretched like strands of spaghetti.
The tendrils of a sun's magnetic fields are like great bands of spaghetti as well.
However, this is merely confirmation bias. Clearly, with all the roundness everywhere His meaty balls have the most influence.
With all the school shooting we've had in the United States, it's just not a very good game to be playing at this time." The boy is now facing criminal charges for terrorizing and interference of the operation of a school.
So, instead of just counseling the lad, and maybe talking to teachers and investigating the bullying, we're not going to fix the situation, but make an example out of the kid for doing the equivalent of making a "gun" with his finger and saying "bang". In fact, the over-reaction by the school will just ensure that the very kind of people who actually DO shoot up schools will not go to the grownups for help for fear of being jailed as a terrorist for their thoughtcrimes.
Will you scared little fuckers actually do anything I want if I drum up threats of your woman and children being harmed? Of course you will. School Bus Drivers kill more kids in accidents than school shootings do. You Fucking morons are so easy to control. Keep the environment, make more examples to make the environment worse and thus gain more control through fear. We've got you to acclimate children to not walking home without supervision, despite child predator numbers being at an all time low, and acclimated to wearing RFID tags and getting retinal scans for no good reason.
1984's big brother is OK so long as he's "protecting" kids from harm, not oppressing adults? Proitp: Your indoctrination starts when you're yet young. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Soon we'll have you implanting microchips in babies that ping a wireless network, so they don't get lost... And brining your kids up to be the model dystopian citizens. Fools.
They tried to kill XP. Repeatedly. They extended the deadline many times. They're going to do it again with Windows 7, because 8 is a steaming three coiled turd. Nobody asks when corporations are upgrading to Vista... because nobody is. How many corporations are looking at Windows 8? Next to none.
Some day, the anthropologists will look back at Microsoft's OS release strategy and at least credit them with their cunning. They've been using the "Facebook Model" of making changes for longer than Facebook's been around: Make a bunch of changes that you know everyone will hate, then apologize and back off a bit to something more acceptable, at least you get to keep a lot of the changes you made.
Politicians have been doing this for hundreds of years too. Windows 8 is the current pinnacle of this two steps forward, one step back approach. They even added advertising to the desktop search... It's almost if they've said: OK, Even version time, you guys do whatever the hell you want to the OS to experiment with and we'll mop up the damage with Windows 9... It's exactly like that; That's why MS isn't that worried over W8 sales, the re-skinned version users actually want is already in the works. Think about it: Over a decade of XP, then a few short years of Vista before Win7? And now W8's a flop... Oh noes! Of course, you can't tell your share-holders that lacking a control group you're actively planing to fail so you can test the direction you should take in the future.
IMO, it's not the best experience for end-users, causing far too many disturbances in the force, but you can at least admit how clever the dark side of the desktop is...
"I have modified the OS, pray I do not alter it further." -Darth Ballmer
It is not enough to merely sell what people want; In order to survive one must also sell enough of what people want to bring the cost of creating that which they want down enough to yield profit in so doing.
In that respect, given your small market share statement, then the headlines should be: Will iTunes Radio survive against the likes of Pandora and Spotify and and SkyDrive and Google Drive and streaming to your devices from your personal cloud at home... Not to mention the increasing popularity of copyright free music such as found on streaming services like Jamendo and Magnatune, or my favorite: Rainwave.cc video game music remixes. And then there's the elephant in the room that isn't classified as a radio station, but serves as one to some: Youtube.
iTunes Radio doesn't have ANY of my favorite bands, who all give me music for free (CC), and who I support directly with donations and cut out the publisher middle man.
I make games, and host gamedev jams where we crank out some fun little games over a few days... I'm making plans for the XY-mas Jam (2D Christmas themed gamejam) and need to get some music to play while hacking on games. Turns out, iTunes doesn't have an assortment of video-game themed Christmas music. Know who does? OCRemix, down loadable for free, streaming on Rainwave.cc, or posted on Youtube.
Honestly, I hope he can pull it off, because to me it sounds just like every ideas-man wanna be game designer who's never made a game before. Not trying to be harsh, but seriously, it does sound like the crap newbs spout about their first game when they haven't even completed a tetris or mario clone, let alone a branching world where everything has consequences. It's easier said than done, just ask Peter Molyneux. He's not really a liar, he wanted to do all the stuff he spouted off about, but it wasn't feasible given the technological limitations of this decade...
Game Engines Are Free. My advice is the same for everyone else: No prototype? No backing. If you can't scrape together even a simple prototype first, even with just colored boxes moving around, then I can't put any money down. I don't care if you're John Carmack. No prototype, no money. Ideas are a dime a dozen, really, they are. It's the execution that matters. Many game developers go through tens or hundreds of iterations trying out different stuff, finding a novel core mechanic that works, and is fun.
Here we're being asked to throw half a million dollars in on a project that no one even has an inkling as to if it'll be fun or not... Hell, maybe if there were concept art some battle scenarios and a few races, you don't have to go all in, just get something in an engine. Contracted out graphics, contracted out engine, contracted out game-play, ideas man who's got no experience in the driver's seat... $500,000.00 and we'll build a race car, we've never done it before, but how hard can it be? Maybe his status will attract some actual gamedev talent? I mean, face it, that's what he's asking for: "I'm an ideas man with a lot of reputation, and you're giving me money due to the reputation..."
Personally, I'd tell him to go work on one of the many 4x indie-games, he could lend his skills to a team who can at least make pixels move. I fear this will not end well.
They're called "Phasers". I like to think that they don't disintegration or vaporize people, they just phase them into another dimension, a dimension where all the other folks who got zapped are hanging out, bitching about the Federation in some kind of distributed cosmic basement...
...and that's why the A.C.s here are so maladjusted.
Slashdot Mirror
double +1 goodposting, friend.
Well, what do you expect from such unfortunate monstrosities? The average person has less than two eyes, only one boob and one testicle.
I've had people accidentally install Windows 7 over Windows 7 and lose all their documents due to re-partitioning.
Have you ever installed Ubuntu? It's dead simple, even my grandma can create a dual boot system, which it does by default. There's a slider for how much drive space you want Windows to keep and how much you want to give Ubuntu.
You put in the CD, turn it on, and wait for the desktop to appear. Then you can use GNU/Linux to look at your documents and files, and use Firefox to browse the web (it's a Live CD), see if there will be glitch driver support or not (everyone should have a GNU/Linux or BSD live CD, just in case whatever OS files become corrupt you can still get at your files and use the web). If it's all good, you double click the desktop icon to install it, pick a keyboard and language and timezone, move a slider and soon you've got a dual boot system -- which means you can use Ubuntu and if for some reason you need to run your windows programs you can just reboot into windows (though wine can run a lot of windows programs -- it is a bit retarding for newbs to get programs into, needs a "here's my old windows partition" option, IMO).
It's actually very simple. Win7 installer is a bit more complex, but still easy. Try creating a dual boot Windows setup to try Win8 out. Clicking a few wrong buttons in any software will produce results you didn't want...
So yeah, saying random citizens are qualified to make a full switch over to Linux themselves is ridiculous.
You are a fool. It's too fucking easy. The average person isn't THAT dumb. It's about as difficult as installing any windows software [ next, next, next, install ].
Windows 8 is hell on Earth in UI form but at least it functions properly.
Correction: You are a troll or maybe a shill? Win8 doesn't fucking work for upgrades. It works SOMETIMES, most times it doesn't work. I installed W8 on a Toshiba laptop that came with Win7... USB drivers and Ethernet and WIFI don't work... So, put in a GNU/Linux live CD, booted up, wifi works, USB works, ethernet works, get on the web, go to the hardware vendor's site, download drivers and put them in the windows's user directory. Then reboot. THEN I could get windows 8 to work -- Except the USB drivers. So, I can't use any USB devices. The hardware vendors made the correct driver I'm told (after hours of support phone tag, saying W8 isn't supported, BTW, whatever cop-out they can give), however, the folks uploading the drivers to their support system copied the same Win7 USB driver where the W8 driver is.
I've had similar problem with downgrading from W8 to W7, but with an ethernet driver. Plop in a Linux CD, and it actually works. Point being: For every issue you can point out with Linux not working, there are AT LEAST as many instances of Windows8 shitting the bed. Ethernet?! USB?! WTF, it's a small number of chipsets that are widely supported, why create a different driver for each different vendor if they have the same cards under the plastic? The windows devs are idiots.
"The OS I'm a rabid fanboy about can't do that,
Don't by shit hardware then moron. My Linux gaming rig works wonderfully. I didn't by shit hardware.
DDD - Data Display Debugger
YA, SO'S U.
There is no other person who has led as large and successful a software project for as long as Linus has with as much involvement as Linus has.
GNU > Linux
The fact that the DoD has done some planning for such a scenario is not scary. What would be scary is if they did NOT do any planning.
No, that's not what would be scary. What would be scary is if what they were doing was using retro-virus vaccines to tag your for identification purposes, and also so that someone could selectively infect targeted geographical regions keyed to the prior "vaccine" batches they developed.
Suspected Spy? Take a blood sample, check the H1B1 -- er, I mean H1N1 batch number... Out of resources and economy in a slump? Population control is no problem! Selectively eliminate the people you want, no Vietnam needed!
Not saying that's what was done, just that doing nothing could be a hell of a lot less scary than doing certain kinds of planning.
Imagine those symptoms in a kid. Now imagine that kid's parent...
Am I the only one who thinks that these idiots are creating 3D printed guns solely to provoke TPTB into regulating 3D printers?
Are there regulations on plumbing materials? Hop your ass down to the hardwares store. When all the shit there that can make better weapons faster and cheaper is provoking folks into regulating them, then perhaps I'll consider 3D printer output the same.
I think you're really missing the damn point here bub. One key thing this shows is not that everything must be regulated or it'll be turned into weapons, but that the 2nd amendment should be "The Right to Bear Technology", because that's what arms are. Think about cryptography. Now think about munitions, Now back to Cryptography, now think about toaster ovens, get a rolling pin in your head for a good long minute, and now to automobiles... That last one is the most dangerous... Second only to poor diet.
I can't believe they're building meals in factories and pumping them full of preservatives! This is giving Food a bad name! No one will be able to cook without government oversight now! My Zero Bitcoins...
By your argument the Smithsonian shouldn't have the Wright Flyer on display and should be telling people to fuck off to the airport if they want to see planes.
Or, at least get some TSA goons at the exhibit to feel up grandma and a few toddlers so we know what we're standing for...
Hmm, if that's a USB condom, then I guess some of my devices came with a USB ePeen enlargement.
I can't remember which ones that came with the "changing only" cable, anyhow, I also remember some of them wanting to change more for a "data cable".
I'm pretty sure one was my Garmin GPS device. It will not charge without the cable it came with: The "charging" cable has a resistor from a voltage line to one of the data lines, and refuses to charge without it (even when connected to a PC and transferring data). When I hook that "charging" cable up to another powerpins-only extension cable it doesn't charge (no data pin resistor), so I'm guessing a USB condom wouldn't work on it either.
The point is: This may not work with all devices. BTW, I vowed not to buy Garmin products anymore thanks to the headache their cabling BS has caused.
The world's climate is such a huge, complex and fluid system that the best supercomputer in existence will only be able to model its future behavior "very approximately".
It is possible to accurately model the climate change, but it will require a quantum computer more expensive and massive than any prior Electronic Arithmetic machine ever. I'll call it the ultimate eArth, or simpl--- Wait a sec... deja vu?
It seems you are absolutely incorrect, the supercomputer IS in existence, and to precisely model the future behavior simply allow the mock-up to operate outside the orbit of your black hole... Since this star system doesn't orbit a black hole, I need to see a man about a mouse.
Except that they've already confirmed that they're not storing your actual fingerprint.
Bullshit. Haven't confirmed shit. Talk is cheap, show me the code.
winmodems are especially crap though. Since they offload a lot of the modem's functionality into the driver / OS, and require expensive polling instead of CPU friendly hardware interrupt driven IO. That's why making open source drivers for them is so ridiculous. It's literally the shittiest corner cutting hardware you can buy. I'd rather wire an RJ11 to a COM port than use a winmodem...
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
No, its not. End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific.
So, what you're saying is: RMS was right. It's the userland that makes the Operating System... In that case it should be called GNU/Linux... or just GNU for short...not Linux.
It of course always matter who's doing it.
Same goes for cyber warfare.
Well, certain kinds of "it" make it matter far less who is doing it, and more that it's simply done. For example, global thermonuclear war.
Same goes for cyber sex.
So instead of killing you because it is a nerve agent it will give you cancer and birth defects.
Man, that IS horrible, I was unaware they generated Tachyons.
Falling into a black hole you are stretched like strands of spaghetti.
The tendrils of a sun's magnetic fields are like great bands of spaghetti as well.
However, this is merely confirmation bias. Clearly, with all the roundness everywhere His meaty balls have the most influence.
With all the school shooting we've had in the United States, it's just not a very good game to be playing at this time." The boy is now facing criminal charges for terrorizing and interference of the operation of a school.
So, instead of just counseling the lad, and maybe talking to teachers and investigating the bullying, we're not going to fix the situation, but make an example out of the kid for doing the equivalent of making a "gun" with his finger and saying "bang". In fact, the over-reaction by the school will just ensure that the very kind of people who actually DO shoot up schools will not go to the grownups for help for fear of being jailed as a terrorist for their thoughtcrimes.
Will you scared little fuckers actually do anything I want if I drum up threats of your woman and children being harmed? Of course you will. School Bus Drivers kill more kids in accidents than school shootings do. You Fucking morons are so easy to control. Keep the environment, make more examples to make the environment worse and thus gain more control through fear. We've got you to acclimate children to not walking home without supervision, despite child predator numbers being at an all time low, and acclimated to wearing RFID tags and getting retinal scans for no good reason.
1984's big brother is OK so long as he's "protecting" kids from harm, not oppressing adults? Proitp: Your indoctrination starts when you're yet young. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Soon we'll have you implanting microchips in babies that ping a wireless network, so they don't get lost... And brining your kids up to be the model dystopian citizens. Fools.
They tried to kill XP. Repeatedly. They extended the deadline many times. They're going to do it again with Windows 7, because 8 is a steaming three coiled turd. Nobody asks when corporations are upgrading to Vista... because nobody is. How many corporations are looking at Windows 8? Next to none.
Some day, the anthropologists will look back at Microsoft's OS release strategy and at least credit them with their cunning. They've been using the "Facebook Model" of making changes for longer than Facebook's been around: Make a bunch of changes that you know everyone will hate, then apologize and back off a bit to something more acceptable, at least you get to keep a lot of the changes you made.
Politicians have been doing this for hundreds of years too. Windows 8 is the current pinnacle of this two steps forward, one step back approach. They even added advertising to the desktop search... It's almost if they've said: OK, Even version time, you guys do whatever the hell you want to the OS to experiment with and we'll mop up the damage with Windows 9... It's exactly like that; That's why MS isn't that worried over W8 sales, the re-skinned version users actually want is already in the works. Think about it: Over a decade of XP, then a few short years of Vista before Win7? And now W8's a flop... Oh noes! Of course, you can't tell your share-holders that lacking a control group you're actively planing to fail so you can test the direction you should take in the future.
IMO, it's not the best experience for end-users, causing far too many disturbances in the force, but you can at least admit how clever the dark side of the desktop is...
"I have modified the OS, pray I do not alter it further."
-Darth Ballmer
In that respect, given your small market share statement, then the headlines should be: Will iTunes Radio survive against the likes of Pandora and Spotify and and SkyDrive and Google Drive and streaming to your devices from your personal cloud at home... Not to mention the increasing popularity of copyright free music such as found on streaming services like Jamendo and Magnatune, or my favorite: Rainwave.cc video game music remixes. And then there's the elephant in the room that isn't classified as a radio station, but serves as one to some: Youtube.
iTunes Radio doesn't have ANY of my favorite bands, who all give me music for free (CC), and who I support directly with donations and cut out the publisher middle man.
I make games, and host gamedev jams where we crank out some fun little games over a few days... I'm making plans for the XY-mas Jam (2D Christmas themed gamejam) and need to get some music to play while hacking on games. Turns out, iTunes doesn't have an assortment of video-game themed Christmas music. Know who does? OCRemix, down loadable for free, streaming on Rainwave.cc, or posted on Youtube.
Youtube's the thing to watch here. They've got the OCRemix of that Mario Sleighbell Jazz Christmas Music, and the London Phil Harmonic playing an Orchestral Ode to Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as just about every other song you want to listen to, and you can put them in play-lists and share them with friends... Ask a teen what "streaming" music service they listen to. I've found a surprising number just use Youtube.
Honestly, I hope he can pull it off, because to me it sounds just like every ideas-man wanna be game designer who's never made a game before. Not trying to be harsh, but seriously, it does sound like the crap newbs spout about their first game when they haven't even completed a tetris or mario clone, let alone a branching world where everything has consequences. It's easier said than done, just ask Peter Molyneux. He's not really a liar, he wanted to do all the stuff he spouted off about, but it wasn't feasible given the technological limitations of this decade...
Game Engines Are Free. My advice is the same for everyone else: No prototype? No backing. If you can't scrape together even a simple prototype first, even with just colored boxes moving around, then I can't put any money down. I don't care if you're John Carmack. No prototype, no money. Ideas are a dime a dozen, really, they are. It's the execution that matters. Many game developers go through tens or hundreds of iterations trying out different stuff, finding a novel core mechanic that works, and is fun.
Here we're being asked to throw half a million dollars in on a project that no one even has an inkling as to if it'll be fun or not... Hell, maybe if there were concept art some battle scenarios and a few races, you don't have to go all in, just get something in an engine. Contracted out graphics, contracted out engine, contracted out game-play, ideas man who's got no experience in the driver's seat... $500,000.00 and we'll build a race car, we've never done it before, but how hard can it be? Maybe his status will attract some actual gamedev talent? I mean, face it, that's what he's asking for: "I'm an ideas man with a lot of reputation, and you're giving me money due to the reputation..."
Personally, I'd tell him to go work on one of the many 4x indie-games, he could lend his skills to a team who can at least make pixels move. I fear this will not end well.
> 2013
> Not vaporizing your water with electrolysis.
> Not enjoying the rich flavor of combustion brewed tea.
At least ditch that wet drip coffee and try Fuel-Air-Coffee -- It's the bomb.
They're called "Phasers". I like to think that they don't disintegration or vaporize people, they just phase them into another dimension, a dimension where all the other folks who got zapped are hanging out, bitching about the Federation in some kind of distributed cosmic basement...