Have a Nano factory in your garage(call it a replicator for you Star Trek fans) where you can download the latest gadget and it is produced before your eyes.
RepRap. It's not nano, but you just described it fairly well. Better still, it's open source. http://www.reprap.org
either rural folks have to suffer for the sake of urban folks, or urban folks have to suffer for the sake of rural folks. there are a lot more urban folks, and more and more every day. therefore, rural folks need to suffer for the sake of urban folks.
So much for your "Low Budget HDV Filipino Horror Movie". The majority of us don't want to see it, so stop production. Immediately. You Filipinos will just have to suffer for the sake of the rest of us, so that we don't have to suffer through your crappy movie.
Oh, touched a nerve, did I? Good. Tyranny of the majority is never a good thing. Learn to live with, nay, even *love* your freedom.
In short, being *more free* is worth a little bloodshed. If the truth be told, I'd spill a little myself, to keep my freedoms, and the freedoms of my loved ones. Would you?
... And you make me ashamed to be in the same industry. You have no spelling, grammar, or punctuation skills, nor can you effectively communicate your own ideas, and yet you will cheerfully spew your opinion of how the education system that so obviously failed you should be the standard everyone should hold themselves to.
I'm not saying you're stupid, but the comment you left on the internet certainly makes it appear that way. Come back when you can spell, or at least finish a sentence properly - maybe then I'll consider something you have to say about the education system with more than disgusted contempt... at the moment, all I want to do is find out who you are so I can get you fired. Your position as part of our school system appears to me to be part of the problem, not the solution. Your apparent lack of education makes you appear more suited to be "the janitor" than "the IT guy".
If people are graduating high school with a 6th grade level education, all the broadband in the world won't help them.
Hell, I'd love to see some of these yokels graduating high school with a 6th grade education... unfortunately, the school system just doesn't seem to be up to the task. Perhaps we should try lowering the bar again, so no children get left behind?
Or, we could, you know, like, educate. I know a 12-year-old who doesn't know her multiplication tables. Ask her what 6 times 7 is and she starts counting on her fingers. I wish this were a rare occurence, but to be honest, I think the education system in this country is fucked, pardon my language. No, on second thought, my language is justified. We need to scrap the current curriculum, stop paying administrators absurd amounts of money to play MMO's in their gold-gilded offices instead of doing their jobs, pay teachers a decent salary for doing a job that most parents wouldn't have half a clue how to even begin, much less carry out successfully, and start concentrating on teaching the kids.
Having lived in Vermont, I see what you're saying... and having lurked on slashdot for quite some time, I can see the analogy. This is all fine and good, but... I seem to have missed the point, unless it was simply to show off your racist tendencies and ignorance of the subject matter.
I am absolutely amazed at the number of posts that suggest that public education does not need improvement. Or rather, I am in awe of the nerve required to stand up and categorically state "Of course edumacation is importance! We all need to lern stuff! I went to [public|private] school, and I'm more smarter than most poeple! Spellering is irreverent to the subjex at hand!"
If you're going to argue that you don't need to be more intelligent than you already are, please try not to provide proof to the contrary in the same diatribe. I am not specifically attacking you, scientus, your post just happens to be the most recent one I've read that pushed the "I don't need no skoolin - I'm are to smarting already!" button, forcing me to finally say something about the trend I'm seeing.
Again, please don't take this as a personal attack. I am simply boggled by an entire subset of posts on this subject that categorically disprove themselves by simply existing.
Your lack of trust or your run of bad luck is not up to debate. Point is you can currently purchase 1 terabyte drives for 8.7 cents a gigabyte.
True, what I was debating is whether you can actually recieve your "8.7 cents per gig" drives, or whether you might be shipped a box of bricks, or just have your credit card smacked for $2800 by a company that isn't there tomorrow... and let's not even go into the "absurdly priced hardware, only $7 for a pair of terabyte drives!" that turn out to require $380 shipping...
What's funny is, I wasn't even arguing with you on whether a DVD or HDD should be used for backups, I was merely pointing out that pricewatch seems to have attracted a huge number of fly-by-nights that won't actually ship you your drives (or other items) when you've ordered them. I'd rather spend the extra 5 cents per gig at a reputable vendor, and be sure my shiny new terabyte drive is actually going to show up.
Maybe you should have checked to see whether I disagreed with you before jumping down my throat.
So you have 144 minutes vs 66 minutes, and don't forget 100gb on DVDs means swapping discs every 5 minutes for over 2 hours. Sounds like a fun way to waste 2 hours to save $4.38 cents ($8.70 for 100gb on a 1tb drive vs $4.32 for 24 DVD-Rs).
As for the speed of your backup/data transfer operations being an issue, can I recommend you check into something a little speedier? You might look into this dual 2.5" hot-swap SATA hard drive bay that fits into a 3.5" external drive bay, for instance - no, it's not USB, it's SATA. Yeah, it'll be over $50 just for the cage, but then you can speed up those data transfer rates you were talking about by practically an order of magnitude.
actually i'm wrong, it's 8.7 cents a gigabyte, with 1 terabyte drives selling for $87 (...on pricewatch)
I haven't trusted any vendor on pricewatch to deliver a product remotely resembling what I ordered, at the same price as on the website, in anything less than 2-3 weeks... for over 5 years. Used to use pricewatch religiously, until I started hitting something like a 20% failure rate on receiving my products, the products I received being identical to what I ordered, and having the vendor still be there when I called to complain. "Hi, I ordered a hard drive about a wek ago, and was wondering when I should expect it... what do you mean, this is a hair stylist? I called this number last Tuesday and ordered a hard drive!"
Reputable vendors (newegg, for this particular instance) start at around 115-120 USD for a 1TB HDD, not counting shipping. Yes, it's $30 more... but I'll actually receive the drive, it will arrive in a timely fashion, and the vendor will still be there after my payment clears.
Oh, and to top this off, these numbers jive nicely with the previous poster's 13 cents per GB, once you factor in shipping.
I also find it quite apropos that you're posting as AC.
It came from nothing to something in a very short period of time.
I wouldn't call Debian "nothing".
... unless you ask Joe Sixpack what he thinks about Debian... and then when he's done explaining that he hasn't a clue what Debian is, ask him his thoughts on Ubuntu. What are the chances he'll have at least heard the name, and may have even seen it in use?
"Coming from nothing" was an indication of publicity, in this instance - or at least, that's how I read it.
That's okay. Trying to avoid death seems stupid. Even if government paid ALL your expenses (food, housing, doctoring), you're still not going to live forever. Eventually you will succumb to the pain of death. Not even a 100% socialist state can stop it.
You should seek immediate psychiatric assistance for your apparently fatalistic, suicidal, and/or defeatist ideations.
>>>Religion is evil, as far as I can tell, and it should be abolished.
A religion based-around Socialism or Communism is not better. It's still a few elitists trying to impose their morality on everybody. Why can't we just let people follow their OWN morals without interference from government? As Thomas Jefferson said, "Nobody has a right to harm another, but that is all that a government should restrain him." i.e. Live and let live. Follow your own moral code (or lack thereof).
Ok, first off... What?
Secondly, I was never arguing *for* socialism (not that I think it's a bad idea, mind you)... I was arguing *against* religion. Not just whatever religion you're saying I was arguing against, but religion in general. Any of them. All of them. Socialism is not a religion, nor is Communism. Both of those social structures are best served by having everyone agree to them beforehand. Using them as a large-scale political system is absurd; they are best suited for small groups - as are most forms of self-government.
It seems to me that you are arguing for anarchy - which, as anyone who has studied it can tell you, is an idealism that has no basis in reality. Anarchy as an ideal is excellent; in practice, it rapidly devolves into something that makes the current legislative nightmare look like a pleasant daydream.
"Follow your own moral code (or lack thereof)." - yeah, sounds good on paper. What if my moral code is to go around lopping limbs off of people I disagree with? Sounds not so great now, eh? What if my complete lack of moral code allows me to feel no remorse when I go out setting churches on fire... preferably with the parishioners inside? Still sound like "live and let live"?
I'm sorry, but your brain appears to be defective. Please return it to the vendor and apply for a new one at your earliest convenience. If need be, a hammer can be acquired at any hardware supplier to assist in its removal, or a large rock will do in a pinch.
I find it morally objectionable (and counterproductive) to pay taxes to put your kids through school, just to have you bring them home and teach them falsehoods as if it were (pardon the pun) gospel. I find it morally objectionable that you are allowed to continue to "teach" people by shouting that it's either obey an invisible man in the sky and "his" 2,000 year old rulebook, or burn.
Yes, this is an oversimplification, and exaggeration for effect. Religion is evil, as far as I can tell, and it should be abolished.
As for paying for smokers' healthcare... is it the cigarettes' fault if someone falls down and breaks their leg? Perhaps the cigarettes caused them to get hit by that car on the interstate... Denying all healthcare on the basis of someone's habitual (ab)use of a legal substance seems a bit far-fetched. I can see not paying for lung cancer for a smoker, or even forcing the manufacturer of their preferred brand of cigarettes to pay for treatments of that condition, but where do you pull the plug? If they are attacked by a hammer-weilding maniac while they're pumping gas into their car, do you deny them life-saving neurosurgery for having made a poor choice as a teen?
Abortion is a touchy subject, as I said before, and I don't think any sort of broad-spectrum yes-or-no will be the answer. Is it a woman's burden to bear the child of a rapist? What if it could kill her to bring the child to term, or even just to get halfway there? I fail to see a reason why it would be murder to kill an unborn child, a zygote, a barely conceived speck... but it's not murder to cause the death of an adult woman.
Back up and regroup, fruitcake. Yes, I object to religion, but at what point did I shove my morality down anyone's throat? I merely objected (albeit vehemently) to your threats of hellfire and damnation. Come to think of it, this thread is now so far off topic, I'm wasting my bandwidth to continue it... but I'm more than happy to correct some of your confusion.
For starters, let's discuss free health care for smokers. I never said anything about that in my post, and to the best of my knowledge, have never posted anything even remotely related. Better try reading my post again, this time with a little something called reading comprehension. If it matters, I think that smokers, once educated about the risks, are their own masters, and can deal with the bits of unpleasantness that come along with the habit. If it matters, I am currently a smoker.
Abortion is a touchy subject, and another one I didn't touch upon in my post (or any of my posts, if I recall correctly - on the other hand, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm pro-choice, especially in a health risk or unwilling zygote recipient situation (rape victims would fall into this latter category, in case you are unable to utilize a dictionary to look up these big words).
Spoiler alert! This is an ad hominem attack, but it has a basis in fact (as it it refers to things that were actually in your post)! I'm not sure where you're getting your ideas from, but I think you might want to see a shrink about your apparent psychosis. You appear to have some serious reality distortion going on, and I'd love to chat about your paranoid delusions, but I have more important things to do than play in your fantasy world.
This could be a wonderful opportunity for loca governments to provide a service to the community at little to no increase over any existing cost. Using open source hardware & software there could be a whole network of intra-town communications systems. I'd certainly donate my time and some equipment to get this going.
Do a little more research. The towns and cities that have tried to deploy any kind of networking infrastructure as a public service have gotten smacked in the face with cease and desist letters, lawsuits, and in some cases, criminal charges. There's too much money in it for the "Big Players" (aka service providers) to let a municipality into the field.
... and I think everyone else assumed you'd understand how signal transmission works, and that you only need a transmitter powerful enough to reach a repeater... which, using mesh networking technology, could be as close as the nearest cell phone or other WSD.
But if I steal money from my neighbor, and force them to pay my doctor's bill, well, that could have dramatic consequences. Like eternal damnation.
Get your religion's nose out of my wallet, out of my bedroom, and out of my government. I do not share your beliefs, and I resent the ethical implications and moral allegations you are attempting to lay at my feet. The moment you try to convince me of your argument by pointing out the invisible man in the sky who loves me so much that he's willing to send me to a magical place full of hellfire and brimstone to be tortured forever for my misdeeds... well, you lose. Oh, and another thing. That communion thing you take part in? It's ritualized cannibalism. Look it up, you're the one with a Bible. "Take this, my body, and eat it..." - and you have the nerve to point your holier-than-thou finger at me?!?
Sorry for coming across as a rabid atheist, but I couldn't care less about eternal damnation from some mythology system that I don't subscribe to. Explain to me again why it matters that it's Sunday, when I want to buy a bottle of rum? Keep your religious bigotry in your own religion, and out of my lawbooks.
And now for some actual rebuttal...
No one is saying that we should steal from our neighbors. I think the intent here is to stop the medical monopolists and insurance fraudsters from stealing from everyone else. Socialized medicine may not be the (pardon the pun) miracle cure for this issue, but it's quite a bit better than our current system, wherein a second mortgage is required if you have something more serious than a head cold.
Tell me why an ambulance ride, totalling 6 blocks, during which nothing more than a bandaid and an aspirin are administered, should cost in excess of $3,600.00 before you expect me to listen to you whine about how you never get sick, so you shouldn't have to pay taxes for other people to obtain healthcare. I don't have kids, but my taxes pay for schools.
In short, wake up to the fact that the world does not revolve around you, and get over it.
(And I'm sure you knew perfectly well that's what I meant, even if I didn't run my language past a lawyer prior to posting.)
I used to get mad at people who picked at my semantics. Now I understand that anyone who is not psychic has a chance of misunderstanding any communication, even if it is couched in the correct terminology. If you want to use your Free Speech to its fullest potential, learn to speak the language properly, to reduce the chance of a recipient misinterpreting your meaning. This entire thread, based on your initial post, could have been avoided if you had made yourself clear from the beginning.
I'm not attacking you, by the way. I'm just trying to give you a better understanding of why choosing your words carefully is more important than you apparently think, and show some support for someone who evidently understands very well the point I'm attempting to make.
I cheerfully await my off-topic mods, while hoping that I have helped someone to increase their knowledge through my efforts.
-- "It's not enough to merely question authority. You have to speak with it, too." - Taylor Mali
Except for one pertinent instance of "fuck", all others removed and the grammar slightly altered to make up for it. Otherwise this is the exact same post as above.
The government isn't trying to own the white space networks. Google and a few other companies are trying to do something good for society. People like you are trying to ruin everything because you can't understand common sense. They will probably make some money for their efforts, but for fucks sake, they deserve to make some cash for all that work. You, on the other hand, probably think that you alone are worthy of getting something for free while everybody else needs to pay. Perhaps next time you can read something about the issue before shooting off your mouth about shit you have no clue about?
Wish I had some mod points for this AC post. Thank you for making it easier to understand wtf he was trying to say.
I have a large monitor and I would like to continue to use the double height, non grouping start menu I'm currently using.
I use the same setup, and enjoy it quite a bit. I don't have monster monitors, but I do have several monitors attached to each pc I use. It's bothered me for quite some time that I'm only allowed to have a start menu / taskbar on a single screen... it has caused me to have to move the mouse from where I'm currently working to a monitor 2 or more screens away, at times. Frustrating. It's not a deal-breaker, mind you... but it does make me look harder at linux every time I find some new quirk in Vista.
Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft-certified technician in a Microsoft-based software development shop. None of the views expressed have anything to do with my employer.
2.5gb shouldn't take 10 minutes to copy over a 100mbit network, nevermind four times that long to get it from point A to point B on the same physical disk.
I don't have these problems. I max out throughput in both cases. There was at one time an issue with sending thousands of files, however, afaik that is now fixed.
Apparently not. If it were fixed, I wouldn't be experiencing it. I am completely up to date on my updates, so don't even try to tell me it's my fault that the OS is broken. Be a Vista apologist if you want, but don't waste your breath on me.
Ok, so let's disregard the performance issues for a moment... they also moved stuff all over the place in the UI, and most of the changes make me think they only did it to jerk the mom and pop techs around.
this is change aversion. I hated it at first too but with time I very much prefer vista.
Change aversion?!? No, this is not wanting to be jerked around by a new operating system.
I've been working with Windows for 2 decades. Yes, things change, and yes, I have to move with the times... but if it has a steep enough learning curve that it may as well not even be Windows, and backwards compatibility is blown, I may as well purchase a mac, or install some flavor of linux, instead of learning how to bend over *this* particular barrel for another round of Microsoft shafting. Maybe it won't cost as much for my next upgrade, and the timing of my next hardware upgrade will be up to *me*, not some corporation's software upgrade path. While I'm on the subject, what was so wrong with XP that they needed to completely do away with it in the first place? (Hint: If you think it's anything other than someone's wallet, you're wrong.)
The funniest part of all of this is that wine for linux and parallels for mac seem to have very few backwards compatibility issues... why can't Microsoft keep from breaking their own products, when everyone else seems to be able to handle it just fine? When your competition is more compatible with your own products than you are, you're not doing well. I stopped buying ASUS products for several years, when I bought one of their video cards and installed it on one of their motherboards, and it didn't work. Both items worked fine in conjunction with other manufacturers' parts, just not with each other. Same issue here. I don't know about you, but I have better things to spend my money on than lining Redmond's pockets.
The sorting, folder, and control panel issues you bring up are valid points, and that's all fine and good. However, they broke Windows Explorer, and that is unforgiveable. All of the nifty tricks I used to use to navigate the system are either nonfunctional, or do completely different things. And while you're apologizing for Microsoft, try explaining to me how a green bar on a perpetual loop displays anything remotely useful in determining how long a specific procedure is going to take. This is a step *forward*?!? They may as well have left the "flying folders" animation, since that was at least displayed *with* an actual progress bar.
Take your apologies and your Microsoft paycheck, and go home.
Allow me to join you on the "modded straight to hell" bandwagon... I happen to like Vista's start menu, as well. The Windows logo on a shiny black spheroid looks very polished, and helps give a great first impression for an otherwise very poorly implemented UI.
The automagical program finder is pretty neat, too... much less digging in the menu tree, just type a few letters. It's one of the few UI improvements that was actually useful and functional, so of course you won't be seeing it in "7".
Yeah guys, let's double our development time so we can support 0.5% more users!
... until people figure out that $600 in hardware and a free download can work just as well as that $1400 "gaming rig" running the latest in bloatware. Sounds like $800 in gaming funds, to me...
Sorry to break it to you like this, but Vista is a steaming pile, and everyone knows it. Anyone who says "I don't understand all these whiners, they obviously have hardware issues" has obviously not tried to actually *do* anything with their shiny little Vista toy.
Yet more (admittedly anecdotal, but it's what I've got) evidence supporting my above statement: I installed my development environment on a machine that came fresh from Dell with Vista Business installed, so I would be *forced* to use Vista instead of XP for a few weeks. At the end of my "trial period", I shut it down for 6 weeks, breathed a sigh of relief, and went back to XP. Come time to tweak my code, I learned again how much I hated Vista. Copying 2.5gb from C:\MyBackedUpStuff to C:\MyWorkingCopy took over 40 minutes. Yes, I'm running SP1. No, there's nothing wrong with the hardware. 2.5gb shouldn't take 10 minutes to copy over a 100mbit network, nevermind four times that long to get it from point A to point B on the same physical disk.
Ok, so let's disregard the performance issues for a moment... they also moved stuff all over the place in the UI, and most of the changes make me think they only did it to jerk the mom and pop techs around.
You can take your Vista and shove it so far up your excreter that it's never seen again, and I wouldn't be any less cheerful about it.
Oh, and before you dismiss me as some Linux fanboi, you should know that I'm Microsoft certified, and I *still* think Vista is a steaming pile.
Slashdot Mirror
Have a Nano factory in your garage(call it a replicator for you Star Trek fans) where you can download the latest gadget and it is produced before your eyes.
RepRap.
It's not nano, but you just described it fairly well. Better still, it's open source.
http://www.reprap.org
Whoosh.
either rural folks have to suffer for the sake of urban folks, or urban folks have to suffer for the sake of rural folks. there are a lot more urban folks, and more and more every day. therefore, rural folks need to suffer for the sake of urban folks.
So, what you're saying, then, is that you support the tyranny of the majority?
So much for your "Low Budget HDV Filipino Horror Movie". The majority of us don't want to see it, so stop production. Immediately. You Filipinos will just have to suffer for the sake of the rest of us, so that we don't have to suffer through your crappy movie.
Oh, touched a nerve, did I? Good. Tyranny of the majority is never a good thing. Learn to live with, nay, even *love* your freedom.
In short, being *more free* is worth a little bloodshed. If the truth be told, I'd spill a little myself, to keep my freedoms, and the freedoms of my loved ones. Would you?
I work as a computer tech in a School District
... And you make me ashamed to be in the same industry. You have no spelling, grammar, or punctuation skills, nor can you effectively communicate your own ideas, and yet you will cheerfully spew your opinion of how the education system that so obviously failed you should be the standard everyone should hold themselves to.
I'm not saying you're stupid, but the comment you left on the internet certainly makes it appear that way. Come back when you can spell, or at least finish a sentence properly - maybe then I'll consider something you have to say about the education system with more than disgusted contempt... at the moment, all I want to do is find out who you are so I can get you fired. Your position as part of our school system appears to me to be part of the problem, not the solution. Your apparent lack of education makes you appear more suited to be "the janitor" than "the IT guy".
If people are graduating high school with a 6th grade level education, all the broadband in the world won't help them.
Hell, I'd love to see some of these yokels graduating high school with a 6th grade education... unfortunately, the school system just doesn't seem to be up to the task. Perhaps we should try lowering the bar again, so no children get left behind?
Or, we could, you know, like, educate. I know a 12-year-old who doesn't know her multiplication tables. Ask her what 6 times 7 is and she starts counting on her fingers. I wish this were a rare occurence, but to be honest, I think the education system in this country is fucked, pardon my language. No, on second thought, my language is justified. We need to scrap the current curriculum, stop paying administrators absurd amounts of money to play MMO's in their gold-gilded offices instead of doing their jobs, pay teachers a decent salary for doing a job that most parents wouldn't have half a clue how to even begin, much less carry out successfully, and start concentrating on teaching the kids.
Duh.
Not to be dense, but... did you have a point?
Having lived in Vermont, I see what you're saying... and having lurked on slashdot for quite some time, I can see the analogy. This is all fine and good, but... I seem to have missed the point, unless it was simply to show off your racist tendencies and ignorance of the subject matter.
I am absolutely amazed at the number of posts that suggest that public education does not need improvement. Or rather, I am in awe of the nerve required to stand up and categorically state "Of course edumacation is importance! We all need to lern stuff! I went to [public|private] school, and I'm more smarter than most poeple! Spellering is irreverent to the subjex at hand!"
If you're going to argue that you don't need to be more intelligent than you already are, please try not to provide proof to the contrary in the same diatribe. I am not specifically attacking you, scientus, your post just happens to be the most recent one I've read that pushed the "I don't need no skoolin - I'm are to smarting already!" button, forcing me to finally say something about the trend I'm seeing.
Again, please don't take this as a personal attack. I am simply boggled by an entire subset of posts on this subject that categorically disprove themselves by simply existing.
Signed.
Your lack of trust or your run of bad luck is not up to debate. Point is you can currently purchase 1 terabyte drives for 8.7 cents a gigabyte.
True, what I was debating is whether you can actually recieve your "8.7 cents per gig" drives, or whether you might be shipped a box of bricks, or just have your credit card smacked for $2800 by a company that isn't there tomorrow... and let's not even go into the "absurdly priced hardware, only $7 for a pair of terabyte drives!" that turn out to require $380 shipping...
What's funny is, I wasn't even arguing with you on whether a DVD or HDD should be used for backups, I was merely pointing out that pricewatch seems to have attracted a huge number of fly-by-nights that won't actually ship you your drives (or other items) when you've ordered them. I'd rather spend the extra 5 cents per gig at a reputable vendor, and be sure my shiny new terabyte drive is actually going to show up.
Maybe you should have checked to see whether I disagreed with you before jumping down my throat.
So you have 144 minutes vs 66 minutes, and don't forget 100gb on DVDs means swapping discs every 5 minutes for over 2 hours. Sounds like a fun way to waste 2 hours to save $4.38 cents ($8.70 for 100gb on a 1tb drive vs $4.32 for 24 DVD-Rs).
As for the speed of your backup/data transfer operations being an issue, can I recommend you check into something a little speedier? You might look into this dual 2.5" hot-swap SATA hard drive bay that fits into a 3.5" external drive bay, for instance - no, it's not USB, it's SATA. Yeah, it'll be over $50 just for the cage, but then you can speed up those data transfer rates you were talking about by practically an order of magnitude.
actually i'm wrong, it's 8.7 cents a gigabyte, with 1 terabyte drives selling for $87 (...on pricewatch)
I haven't trusted any vendor on pricewatch to deliver a product remotely resembling what I ordered, at the same price as on the website, in anything less than 2-3 weeks... for over 5 years. Used to use pricewatch religiously, until I started hitting something like a 20% failure rate on receiving my products, the products I received being identical to what I ordered, and having the vendor still be there when I called to complain. "Hi, I ordered a hard drive about a wek ago, and was wondering when I should expect it... what do you mean, this is a hair stylist? I called this number last Tuesday and ordered a hard drive!"
Reputable vendors (newegg, for this particular instance) start at around 115-120 USD for a 1TB HDD, not counting shipping. Yes, it's $30 more... but I'll actually receive the drive, it will arrive in a timely fashion, and the vendor will still be there after my payment clears.
Oh, and to top this off, these numbers jive nicely with the previous poster's 13 cents per GB, once you factor in shipping.
I also find it quite apropos that you're posting as AC.
It came from nothing to something in a very short period of time.
I wouldn't call Debian "nothing".
... unless you ask Joe Sixpack what he thinks about Debian... and then when he's done explaining that he hasn't a clue what Debian is, ask him his thoughts on Ubuntu. What are the chances he'll have at least heard the name, and may have even seen it in use?
"Coming from nothing" was an indication of publicity, in this instance - or at least, that's how I read it.
That's okay. Trying to avoid death seems stupid. Even if government paid ALL your expenses (food, housing, doctoring), you're still not going to live forever. Eventually you will succumb to the pain of death. Not even a 100% socialist state can stop it.
You should seek immediate psychiatric assistance for your apparently fatalistic, suicidal, and/or defeatist ideations.
>>>Religion is evil, as far as I can tell, and it should be abolished.
A religion based-around Socialism or Communism is not better. It's still a few elitists trying to impose their morality on everybody. Why can't we just let people follow their OWN morals without interference from government? As Thomas Jefferson said, "Nobody has a right to harm another, but that is all that a government should restrain him." i.e. Live and let live. Follow your own moral code (or lack thereof).
Ok, first off... What?
Secondly, I was never arguing *for* socialism (not that I think it's a bad idea, mind you)... I was arguing *against* religion. Not just whatever religion you're saying I was arguing against, but religion in general. Any of them. All of them. Socialism is not a religion, nor is Communism. Both of those social structures are best served by having everyone agree to them beforehand. Using them as a large-scale political system is absurd; they are best suited for small groups - as are most forms of self-government.
It seems to me that you are arguing for anarchy - which, as anyone who has studied it can tell you, is an idealism that has no basis in reality. Anarchy as an ideal is excellent; in practice, it rapidly devolves into something that makes the current legislative nightmare look like a pleasant daydream.
"Follow your own moral code (or lack thereof)." - yeah, sounds good on paper. What if my moral code is to go around lopping limbs off of people I disagree with? Sounds not so great now, eh? What if my complete lack of moral code allows me to feel no remorse when I go out setting churches on fire... preferably with the parishioners inside? Still sound like "live and let live"?
I'm sorry, but your brain appears to be defective. Please return it to the vendor and apply for a new one at your earliest convenience. If need be, a hammer can be acquired at any hardware supplier to assist in its removal, or a large rock will do in a pinch.
I find it morally objectionable (and counterproductive) to pay taxes to put your kids through school, just to have you bring them home and teach them falsehoods as if it were (pardon the pun) gospel. I find it morally objectionable that you are allowed to continue to "teach" people by shouting that it's either obey an invisible man in the sky and "his" 2,000 year old rulebook, or burn.
Yes, this is an oversimplification, and exaggeration for effect. Religion is evil, as far as I can tell, and it should be abolished.
As for paying for smokers' healthcare... is it the cigarettes' fault if someone falls down and breaks their leg? Perhaps the cigarettes caused them to get hit by that car on the interstate... Denying all healthcare on the basis of someone's habitual (ab)use of a legal substance seems a bit far-fetched. I can see not paying for lung cancer for a smoker, or even forcing the manufacturer of their preferred brand of cigarettes to pay for treatments of that condition, but where do you pull the plug? If they are attacked by a hammer-weilding maniac while they're pumping gas into their car, do you deny them life-saving neurosurgery for having made a poor choice as a teen?
Abortion is a touchy subject, as I said before, and I don't think any sort of broad-spectrum yes-or-no will be the answer. Is it a woman's burden to bear the child of a rapist? What if it could kill her to bring the child to term, or even just to get halfway there? I fail to see a reason why it would be murder to kill an unborn child, a zygote, a barely conceived speck... but it's not murder to cause the death of an adult woman.
Back up and regroup, fruitcake. Yes, I object to religion, but at what point did I shove my morality down anyone's throat? I merely objected (albeit vehemently) to your threats of hellfire and damnation. Come to think of it, this thread is now so far off topic, I'm wasting my bandwidth to continue it... but I'm more than happy to correct some of your confusion.
For starters, let's discuss free health care for smokers. I never said anything about that in my post, and to the best of my knowledge, have never posted anything even remotely related. Better try reading my post again, this time with a little something called reading comprehension. If it matters, I think that smokers, once educated about the risks, are their own masters, and can deal with the bits of unpleasantness that come along with the habit. If it matters, I am currently a smoker.
Abortion is a touchy subject, and another one I didn't touch upon in my post (or any of my posts, if I recall correctly - on the other hand, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm pro-choice, especially in a health risk or unwilling zygote recipient situation (rape victims would fall into this latter category, in case you are unable to utilize a dictionary to look up these big words).
Spoiler alert! This is an ad hominem attack, but it has a basis in fact (as it it refers to things that were actually in your post)!
I'm not sure where you're getting your ideas from, but I think you might want to see a shrink about your apparent psychosis. You appear to have some serious reality distortion going on, and I'd love to chat about your paranoid delusions, but I have more important things to do than play in your fantasy world.
This could be a wonderful opportunity for loca governments to provide a service to the community at little to no increase over any existing cost. Using open source hardware & software there could be a whole network of intra-town communications systems. I'd certainly donate my time and some equipment to get this going.
Do a little more research. The towns and cities that have tried to deploy any kind of networking infrastructure as a public service have gotten smacked in the face with cease and desist letters, lawsuits, and in some cases, criminal charges. There's too much money in it for the "Big Players" (aka service providers) to let a municipality into the field.
But nobody answered the first question.
I assume you meant this one:
How would folks upload on this 'third pipe'?
... and I think everyone else assumed you'd understand how signal transmission works, and that you only need a transmitter powerful enough to reach a repeater... which, using mesh networking technology, could be as close as the nearest cell phone or other WSD.
But if I steal money from my neighbor, and force them to pay my doctor's bill, well, that could have dramatic consequences. Like eternal damnation.
Get your religion's nose out of my wallet, out of my bedroom, and out of my government.
I do not share your beliefs, and I resent the ethical implications and moral allegations you are attempting to lay at my feet.
The moment you try to convince me of your argument by pointing out the invisible man in the sky who loves me so much that he's willing to send me to a magical place full of hellfire and brimstone to be tortured forever for my misdeeds... well, you lose.
Oh, and another thing. That communion thing you take part in? It's ritualized cannibalism. Look it up, you're the one with a Bible. "Take this, my body, and eat it..." - and you have the nerve to point your holier-than-thou finger at me?!?
Sorry for coming across as a rabid atheist, but I couldn't care less about eternal damnation from some mythology system that I don't subscribe to. Explain to me again why it matters that it's Sunday, when I want to buy a bottle of rum? Keep your religious bigotry in your own religion, and out of my lawbooks.
And now for some actual rebuttal...
No one is saying that we should steal from our neighbors. I think the intent here is to stop the medical monopolists and insurance fraudsters from stealing from everyone else. Socialized medicine may not be the (pardon the pun) miracle cure for this issue, but it's quite a bit better than our current system, wherein a second mortgage is required if you have something more serious than a head cold.
Tell me why an ambulance ride, totalling 6 blocks, during which nothing more than a bandaid and an aspirin are administered, should cost in excess of $3,600.00 before you expect me to listen to you whine about how you never get sick, so you shouldn't have to pay taxes for other people to obtain healthcare. I don't have kids, but my taxes pay for schools.
In short, wake up to the fact that the world does not revolve around you, and get over it.
Jeez. Picky-picky.
(And I'm sure you knew perfectly well that's what I meant, even if I didn't run my language past a lawyer prior to posting.)
I used to get mad at people who picked at my semantics. Now I understand that anyone who is not psychic has a chance of misunderstanding any communication, even if it is couched in the correct terminology. If you want to use your Free Speech to its fullest potential, learn to speak the language properly, to reduce the chance of a recipient misinterpreting your meaning. This entire thread, based on your initial post, could have been avoided if you had made yourself clear from the beginning.
I'm not attacking you, by the way. I'm just trying to give you a better understanding of why choosing your words carefully is more important than you apparently think, and show some support for someone who evidently understands very well the point I'm attempting to make.
I cheerfully await my off-topic mods, while hoping that I have helped someone to increase their knowledge through my efforts.
--
"It's not enough to merely question authority. You have to speak with it, too." - Taylor Mali
Except for one pertinent instance of "fuck", all others removed and the grammar slightly altered to make up for it. Otherwise this is the exact same post as above.
The government isn't trying to own the white space networks. Google and a few other companies are trying to do something good for society. People like you are trying to ruin everything because you can't understand common sense. They will probably make some money for their efforts, but for fucks sake, they deserve to make some cash for all that work. You, on the other hand, probably think that you alone are worthy of getting something for free while everybody else needs to pay. Perhaps next time you can read something about the issue before shooting off your mouth about shit you have no clue about?
Wish I had some mod points for this AC post. Thank you for making it easier to understand wtf he was trying to say.
I have a large monitor and I would like to continue to use the double height, non grouping start menu I'm currently using.
I use the same setup, and enjoy it quite a bit. I don't have monster monitors, but I do have several monitors attached to each pc I use. It's bothered me for quite some time that I'm only allowed to have a start menu / taskbar on a single screen... it has caused me to have to move the mouse from where I'm currently working to a monitor 2 or more screens away, at times. Frustrating. It's not a deal-breaker, mind you... but it does make me look harder at linux every time I find some new quirk in Vista.
Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft-certified technician in a Microsoft-based software development shop. None of the views expressed have anything to do with my employer.
2.5gb shouldn't take 10 minutes to copy over a 100mbit network, nevermind four times that long to get it from point A to point B on the same physical disk.
I don't have these problems. I max out throughput in both cases. There was at one time an issue with sending thousands of files, however, afaik that is now fixed.
Apparently not. If it were fixed, I wouldn't be experiencing it. I am completely up to date on my updates, so don't even try to tell me it's my fault that the OS is broken. Be a Vista apologist if you want, but don't waste your breath on me.
Ok, so let's disregard the performance issues for a moment... they also moved stuff all over the place in the UI, and most of the changes make me think they only did it to jerk the mom and pop techs around.
this is change aversion. I hated it at first too but with time I very much prefer vista.
Change aversion?!? No, this is not wanting to be jerked around by a new operating system.
I've been working with Windows for 2 decades. Yes, things change, and yes, I have to move with the times... but if it has a steep enough learning curve that it may as well not even be Windows, and backwards compatibility is blown, I may as well purchase a mac, or install some flavor of linux, instead of learning how to bend over *this* particular barrel for another round of Microsoft shafting. Maybe it won't cost as much for my next upgrade, and the timing of my next hardware upgrade will be up to *me*, not some corporation's software upgrade path. While I'm on the subject, what was so wrong with XP that they needed to completely do away with it in the first place? (Hint: If you think it's anything other than someone's wallet, you're wrong.)
The funniest part of all of this is that wine for linux and parallels for mac seem to have very few backwards compatibility issues... why can't Microsoft keep from breaking their own products, when everyone else seems to be able to handle it just fine? When your competition is more compatible with your own products than you are, you're not doing well. I stopped buying ASUS products for several years, when I bought one of their video cards and installed it on one of their motherboards, and it didn't work. Both items worked fine in conjunction with other manufacturers' parts, just not with each other. Same issue here. I don't know about you, but I have better things to spend my money on than lining Redmond's pockets.
The sorting, folder, and control panel issues you bring up are valid points, and that's all fine and good. However, they broke Windows Explorer, and that is unforgiveable. All of the nifty tricks I used to use to navigate the system are either nonfunctional, or do completely different things. And while you're apologizing for Microsoft, try explaining to me how a green bar on a perpetual loop displays anything remotely useful in determining how long a specific procedure is going to take. This is a step *forward*?!? They may as well have left the "flying folders" animation, since that was at least displayed *with* an actual progress bar.
Take your apologies and your Microsoft paycheck, and go home.
Allow me to join you on the "modded straight to hell" bandwagon... I happen to like Vista's start menu, as well. The Windows logo on a shiny black spheroid looks very polished, and helps give a great first impression for an otherwise very poorly implemented UI.
The automagical program finder is pretty neat, too... much less digging in the menu tree, just type a few letters. It's one of the few UI improvements that was actually useful and functional, so of course you won't be seeing it in "7".
Yeah guys, let's double our development time so we can support 0.5% more users!
... until people figure out that $600 in hardware and a free download can work just as well as that $1400 "gaming rig" running the latest in bloatware. Sounds like $800 in gaming funds, to me...
Sorry to break it to you like this, but Vista is a steaming pile, and everyone knows it. Anyone who says "I don't understand all these whiners, they obviously have hardware issues" has obviously not tried to actually *do* anything with their shiny little Vista toy.
Yet more (admittedly anecdotal, but it's what I've got) evidence supporting my above statement:
I installed my development environment on a machine that came fresh from Dell with Vista Business installed, so I would be *forced* to use Vista instead of XP for a few weeks. At the end of my "trial period", I shut it down for 6 weeks, breathed a sigh of relief, and went back to XP. Come time to tweak my code, I learned again how much I hated Vista. Copying 2.5gb from C:\MyBackedUpStuff to C:\MyWorkingCopy took over 40 minutes. Yes, I'm running SP1. No, there's nothing wrong with the hardware. 2.5gb shouldn't take 10 minutes to copy over a 100mbit network, nevermind four times that long to get it from point A to point B on the same physical disk.
Ok, so let's disregard the performance issues for a moment... they also moved stuff all over the place in the UI, and most of the changes make me think they only did it to jerk the mom and pop techs around.
You can take your Vista and shove it so far up your excreter that it's never seen again, and I wouldn't be any less cheerful about it.
Oh, and before you dismiss me as some Linux fanboi, you should know that I'm Microsoft certified, and I *still* think Vista is a steaming pile.
Gaming Performance: Windows Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3:
Yeah, I noticed that Vista didn't get any faster with SP1, but XP got a little bogged down with SP3...