Ah, so you are one of those "Put a price on life" types, eh? Sorry, don't buy it.
Bryan R.
Slashdot and the double standard
on
D&D Trailer
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· Score: 1
Anyone else find it interesting that when Slashdot posts a link to Microsoft documents, they fight the resulting lawsuit. When they get a request to remove a link to a really cool movie, they comply without a problem. Not a troll, just curious as to the difference.
It is very sad to see a console launch like this so badly manipulated and screwed with. Couple of facts that you have not read about:
Sony is still expecting to hit their 1.3 million number by the first of the year in total PS2s sold.
They are going to do this by sending 100,000 units each and every week up until Christmas
Now, that is not to say that there was not a shortage at launch, but that 1.3 million number is not that far from the 1.5 million they had originally forecast. So much for all those auctions on eBay that stated no more units till next March. I guess some are paying a premium for scouts obtaining systems.
From a gamer enthusiast standpoint, it makes me sick to see the launch go this way. Again, thousands of teenagers and young adults, indirectly thanks to eBay, are scalping their systems for a huge margin. Most likely not needed if that many systems are coming out each week from now till X-Mas. In fact, I do part time work at a local Best Buy, and at least four of the employees were scalping their systems they had purchased at that store over eBay. That only angers me, as I was sadly screwed out of a system for myself by someone wanting to make a quick buck. To see a gaming machine purchased for such a reason makes a hobbyist like myself rather upset. I will now likely wait and purchase a system when Metal Gear Solid 2 comes out, as this has left a bad taste in my mouth.
I am surprised that there is still that misconception about the Dreamcast:
any more than the average Dreamcast user cares that that box runs on Windows
For the last time, the Dreamcast itself does not run on Windows, or any other OS. There is a simple bootup system that gets things going. It is up to the game developer to decide which OS to go with; most games run the Sega OS, but some, like Dino Crisis from Capcom, run WinCE.
To be honest, the answer sounds like a jab to try and get the Linux zealots to knock one product for the other. "They run Windows, we run Linux. If you are a real Linux user, you know what you must do." Bah. A poor attempt at marketing.
If I were bringing my vision to life, I would not want to have it ruined by some unauthorized sites on the web. This is his baby, he can run the show any way he wants it....
This CO2 causing energy from sun to enter Earth but leave at less of a rate.
Caught energy causes system to heat up.
My point was that when you have a theory like Global Warming, and no bones about it, my simple example above is what Global Warming is defined as, it applies to the entire system. The Earth is a closed system, surprise surprise, so when you put energy into a closed system, all aspects of that closed system are affected. Simple physics. So, ergo, we should be seeing an increase across the board. You can average anything you want, play with the numbers, do what you like. Now, if we were to re-define things, to say that we are going through a climate change, then I would be more inclined to listen.
Plus, while we are on the subject, last time I checked, Climates was defined as weather over a period of hundreds of years. Since when have the last ten years dictated we were experiencing a climate change?
You were right, as is indicated by Climate Page at the NYC NWS Office Stand corrected, but it is interesting to note the they have had the 4th coolest July on record.
To the same extent, the rate that the water is leaving is slowing enough, due to the plate movement that it is showing up as a significant rise in water in the last 50 to 60 years (you must remember, there are water level measurements that date back to well before subs. They were coastal, but still.) Take a tub for example. Put the water at a slow trickle and do not modify the water entering the tub. Now, put a piece of metal partially over the drain. Attached to the piece of metal is a slowly moving snail that is pushing it. As the snail pushes the piece of metal over the drain, the amount of water that builds up in the tub will rise, and the speed that it rises will increase as that hole closes. Put it in the global scale. Here, you have a snale that is pushing Greenland towards North America. It has been doing this for millions of years, as has that circular flow that is in the ocean been there. As Greenland approaches the US, the same 'tub' effect will take place.
It is also important to note that the Greenland/Iceland areas of the world have seen much more recent tectonic activity (as far as recent, this is on the scale of millions of years) and its plates relative to that part of the world are much more active and moving at a slightly greater rate.
Then call it what it is, climate change, global warming is the belief that the entire Earth is heating. Not so. Certain places have seen dramatic drops in temperature. I firmly believe that there is a climate change of some sort going on, but do not call it a world wide, global change. Sheesh. You even correct yourself. How can you have sites where there are dramaticaly cooler temps when the entire globe is warming?
The Global mean temperature for 1999 was the 5th warmest on record since 1880. The warmest and second warmest years were 1998 and 1997. The top 6 warmest years have been in the 1990's. Each year of this decade has been one of the top 15 warmest of the century.
Hmm, and now we have Omaha, NE 1 degree below normal for the month of July, and on the same track for August. Chicago, IL didn't reach the above 80 degree mark until August, and New York City, NY hasn't gotten above 80 all summer. These are all well below normal, and covers a good part of the US, I wonder what the rest of the world is reporting. Makes one wonder what that will do to the stats.....
Ok, here is the deal. The oceans are much like the atmosphere in that there are currents, and eddies, and large scale patterns. The north pole has an interesting phenom that there is this huge rotation from south to north at the ocean floor and then from north to south at the surface. So, you have all this water pouring into the North Pole between Canada and Greenland, and pouring out again. BUT, what is happening due to plate movement and such is that more water is going in then coming out, so all this water is now building at the north pole, all being accomplished NATURALLY, unless humans are the cause of Greenland slowing moving towards North America. Sorry, but there is no greenhouse phenom here, or increased methane emissions from cattle, or what ever. Nature. It does its own thing once in a while.
Why is it that this is such a huge issue? Microsoft has already shown IE for MacOS X, and will also have Office. They have effectively been ported to BSD (with the Carbon/Aqua stuff on top, of course), but one must wonder how hard it would be to go from that to Linux binaries. Why the huff and puff?
The reasons are simple - you don't want a mission critical server to crash because of a broken kernel.
I guess, then that this would lead to two comments.
1) It has been observed that with each major kernel release, a relatively major reconfig was required of certain packages to get optimal performance. Since this is a beta package, why not include the beta kernel with a product not expected to ship for another few months? Why rush 7.0, when it can be the equal of upgrading from 1.2 to 2.0, in every way? So, when things are final (KDE, Kernel 2.4, etc), RedHat 7.0 will be optimized for 2.4 and all its wonderful improvments.
2) I do not see how an argument about running a mission critcal server could apply to a distro marked beta. Not many would run beta in a mission critcal situation.
We'll start doing that as soon as they release the source. If anyone at nVidia is reading this, please cause the right consequences.;)
One of the things you have to respect about Redhat, they remain committed to standing behind open source software only. Just look at MySQL. That is something that has to be admired.
XFree86 4.0.1 Latest Beta KDE (3!) MySQL Now Included Latest Postgres
Looks like some fun stuff. Intesting that they wouldn't include a beta of the kernel but of KDE. Guess RedHat knows what will and will not be done by the time 7 ships.
The contest of being to first to announce a distro has a beta out. Pissing contest for geeks. Have to love it. I do wonder, though, how much wasted bandwidth goes to ftp lurkers waiting to pounce at the first sign of something beta.
Why do I say this? Well, my main beef (and it is something I can live with, as from what I understand, it is extremely difficult to do) is that the drivers do not support 3d accel. when in Dual Head mode. To have to pop out, reset the config file and pop back in, those are a few steps more then my lazy behind will do. This is something that works in the W2K platform out of box, so dual booting is in my future for a little while longer.
I would have to say no. At least not hastily. The idea the government turning its system over to an electrical one, one that is designed by a bidder who put in the lowest bid most likely, puts some fear into me. That fear is made worse by the idea that it would possibly be run by an OS which is not ready for that kind of task. Namely, Microsoft, of course, but to some extent even Linux.* I can hear the moans and anger from consumers as their social security number is lost or their DMV information is corrupt due to an error in Microsoft SQL tables.
If it were to happen, I would hope that the lowest bidder doing the job would put the specs of what they propose online for the general (and geek) public to see and recieve feedback based on those specs. That way, I would feel more comfortable with putting valuable personal data in the hands of 1's and 0's instead of paper.
*As for my comments about the OS', please understand that I am not slamming Linux. I use it in a productive environment, and I have had no problems. The scale of what is proposed here, though, would make me think twice even about the mighty Penguin.
Bryan R.
HERE HERE! Not an Intellectual Movie! Still FUN!
on
Review: 'Titan A.E.'
·
· Score: 2
Is this day and age of the thought provoking, Hall Mark Hall of Fame Edition movie, this was a refreshing breeze of mindless fun. I can concur the storyline was not well developed, but served its purpose none the less. These types of movies are meant to be enjoyed on the 'gee whize' effect with the story serving to get us there, and no more. The first Star Wars, the second best in the trilogy, following Empire and beating the crap out of RotJ, wasn't perfect literature, but it got the viewer where we wanted to go.
I am surprised that Katz put this much thought into a movie that was clearly meant to be appreciated for the action and glitz. I would almost feel sorry for Mr. Katz as it appears he has lost a bit of his inner child for the chance to rip a movie apart on its writing. What a shame.
As a whole, I greatly recommend this movie. Sit back, open your eyes, and be wowed. I sure was.
I am truly shocked that people are giving this whole Microsoft breakup as much thought as they are! The best hope for the DoJ is to fast track it to the Supreme Court to get the appeals out of the way, and then, maybe, we could see some action. Not too surprisingly, it will not make it that far. With an election just around the corner, the powers very well might shift and this whole Microsoft thing will dwindle down to a fine and time served. Bah, brain power better spent else where...
To those who say it is just a browser. Come on. When was the last time you used Microsoft Money, or Frontpage, or even the Microsoft Windows Help. All fine examples of integrated IE (well, except for Frontpage, but it comes as a default). When the OS's help system is based on their browser, yes, you have one integrated product!
As for Jimmy boy giving his own two cents about the matter, come on. Just as the states have something to gain from their suit against the big MS, Clark as well. The prizes, in this case, are money and a little press time, respectively. Please, Mr. Clark, sir, find a better outlet for your talents then on some subject that was DOA the moment the verdict was handed down.
Meanwhile, you have the politcal machine finally shaking the ranks at Microsoft. If one was to look back at the political contributions performed by Microsoft compared to the last year, I think many would be shocked. I firmly believe that if those contributions would have started earlier, this whole mess wouldn't be as far as it is. On the same vein, you have one William H. Clinton staying with one Steve Jobs once in California. Interesting....
There are two things that I left BF:E feeling relatively good about. Number 1 was ther scenery. For what there was of the Rocky Mountain high country, it was beautifully shown in the movie. I especially enjoyed the intro with the rolling, snow covered hills.
The second would have to be faithfulness. It is rare that someone making a movie tries to remain faithful about the underlining book, but this movie did an admirable job. There were things, like the fact the aliens did NOT keep humans around for manual labor as indicated in the book, but all in all, it was pretty good. That's not to say it was done well, as the first 100 pages of the book flew by in 30 sec, but still it was mostly there. I can't help but think of Jurassic Park and the who issue of multiple T-Rex's and the Pteridactal aviary. Whole segments of the book that were removed. Bah.
These still did not save it from bonafied stink-o-roo, IMHO, but still have to be given credit for.
P.S. Waterworld was not that bad. It wasn't worth the money it was made with, but it was as bad as, say, Ishtar! Come on!
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, so you are one of those "Put a price on life" types, eh? Sorry, don't buy it.
Bryan R.
Anyone else find it interesting that when Slashdot posts a link to Microsoft documents, they fight the resulting lawsuit. When they get a request to remove a link to a really cool movie, they comply without a problem. Not a troll, just curious as to the difference.
Bryan R.
Now, that is not to say that there was not a shortage at launch, but that 1.3 million number is not that far from the 1.5 million they had originally forecast. So much for all those auctions on eBay that stated no more units till next March. I guess some are paying a premium for scouts obtaining systems.
From a gamer enthusiast standpoint, it makes me sick to see the launch go this way. Again, thousands of teenagers and young adults, indirectly thanks to eBay, are scalping their systems for a huge margin. Most likely not needed if that many systems are coming out each week from now till X-Mas. In fact, I do part time work at a local Best Buy, and at least four of the employees were scalping their systems they had purchased at that store over eBay. That only angers me, as I was sadly screwed out of a system for myself by someone wanting to make a quick buck. To see a gaming machine purchased for such a reason makes a hobbyist like myself rather upset. I will now likely wait and purchase a system when Metal Gear Solid 2 comes out, as this has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Bryan R.
I am surprised that there is still that misconception about the Dreamcast:
any more than the average Dreamcast user cares that that box runs on Windows
For the last time, the Dreamcast itself does not run on Windows, or any other OS. There is a simple bootup system that gets things going. It is up to the game developer to decide which OS to go with; most games run the Sega OS, but some, like Dino Crisis from Capcom, run WinCE.
To be honest, the answer sounds like a jab to try and get the Linux zealots to knock one product for the other. "They run Windows, we run Linux. If you are a real Linux user, you know what you must do." Bah. A poor attempt at marketing.
Bryan R.
If I were bringing my vision to life, I would not want to have it ruined by some unauthorized sites on the web. This is his baby, he can run the show any way he wants it....
Bryan R.
Anyone have any information of performance and compliance of their Fortran compiler?
Bryan R.
Heh, funny. Now sonny, why not get off your dad's computer so he can look at some gay porn or something.
Bryan R.
Theory of Global Warming for Dummies:
Man bad, he put much CO2 into air.
This CO2 causing energy from sun to enter Earth but leave at less of a rate.
Caught energy causes system to heat up.
My point was that when you have a theory like Global Warming, and no bones about it, my simple example above is what Global Warming is defined as, it applies to the entire system. The Earth is a closed system, surprise surprise, so when you put energy into a closed system, all aspects of that closed system are affected. Simple physics. So, ergo, we should be seeing an increase across the board. You can average anything you want, play with the numbers, do what you like. Now, if we were to re-define things, to say that we are going through a climate change, then I would be more inclined to listen.
Plus, while we are on the subject, last time I checked, Climates was defined as weather over a period of hundreds of years. Since when have the last ten years dictated we were experiencing a climate change?
Bryan R.
You were right, as is indicated by Climate Page at the NYC NWS Office Stand corrected, but it is interesting to note the they have had the 4th coolest July on record.
Bryan R.
To the same extent, the rate that the water is leaving is slowing enough, due to the plate movement that it is showing up as a significant rise in water in the last 50 to 60 years (you must remember, there are water level measurements that date back to well before subs. They were coastal, but still.) Take a tub for example. Put the water at a slow trickle and do not modify the water entering the tub. Now, put a piece of metal partially over the drain. Attached to the piece of metal is a slowly moving snail that is pushing it. As the snail pushes the piece of metal over the drain, the amount of water that builds up in the tub will rise, and the speed that it rises will increase as that hole closes. Put it in the global scale. Here, you have a snale that is pushing Greenland towards North America. It has been doing this for millions of years, as has that circular flow that is in the ocean been there. As Greenland approaches the US, the same 'tub' effect will take place.
It is also important to note that the Greenland/Iceland areas of the world have seen much more recent tectonic activity (as far as recent, this is on the scale of millions of years) and its plates relative to that part of the world are much more active and moving at a slightly greater rate.
Bryan R.
Then call it what it is, climate change, global warming is the belief that the entire Earth is heating. Not so. Certain places have seen dramatic drops in temperature. I firmly believe that there is a climate change of some sort going on, but do not call it a world wide, global change. Sheesh. You even correct yourself. How can you have sites where there are dramaticaly cooler temps when the entire globe is warming?
Bryan R.
The Global mean temperature for 1999 was the 5th warmest on record since 1880. The warmest and second warmest years were 1998 and 1997. The top 6 warmest years have been in the 1990's. Each year of this decade has been one of the top 15 warmest of the century.
Hmm, and now we have Omaha, NE 1 degree below normal for the month of July, and on the same track for August. Chicago, IL didn't reach the above 80 degree mark until August, and New York City, NY hasn't gotten above 80 all summer. These are all well below normal, and covers a good part of the US, I wonder what the rest of the world is reporting. Makes one wonder what that will do to the stats.....
Bryan R.
Ok, here is the deal. The oceans are much like the atmosphere in that there are currents, and eddies, and large scale patterns. The north pole has an interesting phenom that there is this huge rotation from south to north at the ocean floor and then from north to south at the surface. So, you have all this water pouring into the North Pole between Canada and Greenland, and pouring out again. BUT, what is happening due to plate movement and such is that more water is going in then coming out, so all this water is now building at the north pole, all being accomplished NATURALLY, unless humans are the cause of Greenland slowing moving towards North America. Sorry, but there is no greenhouse phenom here, or increased methane emissions from cattle, or what ever. Nature. It does its own thing once in a while.
Bryan R.
Why is it that this is such a huge issue? Microsoft has already shown IE for MacOS X, and will also have Office. They have effectively been ported to BSD (with the Carbon/Aqua stuff on top, of course), but one must wonder how hard it would be to go from that to Linux binaries. Why the huff and puff?
Bryan R.
Fair enough. Thank you for the clarification.
Bryan R.
The reasons are simple - you don't want a mission critical server to crash because of a broken kernel.
I guess, then that this would lead to two comments.
1) It has been observed that with each major kernel release, a relatively major reconfig was required of certain packages to get optimal performance. Since this is a beta package, why not include the beta kernel with a product not expected to ship for another few months? Why rush 7.0, when it can be the equal of upgrading from 1.2 to 2.0, in every way? So, when things are final (KDE, Kernel 2.4, etc), RedHat 7.0 will be optimized for 2.4 and all its wonderful improvments.
2) I do not see how an argument about running a mission critcal server could apply to a distro marked beta. Not many would run beta in a mission critcal situation.
Bryan R.
We'll start doing that as soon as they release the source. If anyone at nVidia is reading this, please cause the right consequences. ;)
One of the things you have to respect about Redhat, they remain committed to standing behind open source software only. Just look at MySQL. That is something that has to be admired.
Bryan R.
XFree86 4.0.1
Latest Beta KDE (3!)
MySQL Now Included
Latest Postgres
Looks like some fun stuff. Intesting that they wouldn't include a beta of the kernel but of KDE. Guess RedHat knows what will and will not be done by the time 7 ships.
Bryan R.
The contest of being to first to announce a distro has a beta out. Pissing contest for geeks. Have to love it. I do wonder, though, how much wasted bandwidth goes to ftp lurkers waiting to pounce at the first sign of something beta.
Bryan R.
Why do I say this? Well, my main beef (and it is something I can live with, as from what I understand, it is extremely difficult to do) is that the drivers do not support 3d accel. when in Dual Head mode. To have to pop out, reset the config file and pop back in, those are a few steps more then my lazy behind will do. This is something that works in the W2K platform out of box, so dual booting is in my future for a little while longer.
Bryan R.
Uhm, actually, it was a Don Bluth film, not Disney. Just FYI.
Bryan R.
I would have to say no. At least not hastily. The idea the government turning its system over to an electrical one, one that is designed by a bidder who put in the lowest bid most likely, puts some fear into me. That fear is made worse by the idea that it would possibly be run by an OS which is not ready for that kind of task. Namely, Microsoft, of course, but to some extent even Linux.* I can hear the moans and anger from consumers as their social security number is lost or their DMV information is corrupt due to an error in Microsoft SQL tables.
If it were to happen, I would hope that the lowest bidder doing the job would put the specs of what they propose online for the general (and geek) public to see and recieve feedback based on those specs. That way, I would feel more comfortable with putting valuable personal data in the hands of 1's and 0's instead of paper.
*As for my comments about the OS', please understand that I am not slamming Linux. I use it in a productive environment, and I have had no problems. The scale of what is proposed here, though, would make me think twice even about the mighty Penguin.
Bryan R.
Is this day and age of the thought provoking, Hall Mark Hall of Fame Edition movie, this was a refreshing breeze of mindless fun. I can concur the storyline was not well developed, but served its purpose none the less. These types of movies are meant to be enjoyed on the 'gee whize' effect with the story serving to get us there, and no more. The first Star Wars, the second best in the trilogy, following Empire and beating the crap out of RotJ, wasn't perfect literature, but it got the viewer where we wanted to go.
I am surprised that Katz put this much thought into a movie that was clearly meant to be appreciated for the action and glitz. I would almost feel sorry for Mr. Katz as it appears he has lost a bit of his inner child for the chance to rip a movie apart on its writing. What a shame.
As a whole, I greatly recommend this movie. Sit back, open your eyes, and be wowed. I sure was.
Bryan R.
I am truly shocked that people are giving this whole Microsoft breakup as much thought as they are! The best hope for the DoJ is to fast track it to the Supreme Court to get the appeals out of the way, and then, maybe, we could see some action. Not too surprisingly, it will not make it that far. With an election just around the corner, the powers very well might shift and this whole Microsoft thing will dwindle down to a fine and time served. Bah, brain power better spent else where...
To those who say it is just a browser. Come on. When was the last time you used Microsoft Money, or Frontpage, or even the Microsoft Windows Help. All fine examples of integrated IE (well, except for Frontpage, but it comes as a default). When the OS's help system is based on their browser, yes, you have one integrated product!
As for Jimmy boy giving his own two cents about the matter, come on. Just as the states have something to gain from their suit against the big MS, Clark as well. The prizes, in this case, are money and a little press time, respectively. Please, Mr. Clark, sir, find a better outlet for your talents then on some subject that was DOA the moment the verdict was handed down.
Meanwhile, you have the politcal machine finally shaking the ranks at Microsoft. If one was to look back at the political contributions performed by Microsoft compared to the last year, I think many would be shocked. I firmly believe that if those contributions would have started earlier, this whole mess wouldn't be as far as it is. On the same vein, you have one William H. Clinton staying with one Steve Jobs once in California. Interesting....
Bryan R.
There are two things that I left BF:E feeling relatively good about. Number 1 was ther scenery. For what there was of the Rocky Mountain high country, it was beautifully shown in the movie. I especially enjoyed the intro with the rolling, snow covered hills.
The second would have to be faithfulness. It is rare that someone making a movie tries to remain faithful about the underlining book, but this movie did an admirable job. There were things, like the fact the aliens did NOT keep humans around for manual labor as indicated in the book, but all in all, it was pretty good. That's not to say it was done well, as the first 100 pages of the book flew by in 30 sec, but still it was mostly there. I can't help but think of Jurassic Park and the who issue of multiple T-Rex's and the Pteridactal aviary. Whole segments of the book that were removed. Bah.
These still did not save it from bonafied stink-o-roo, IMHO, but still have to be given credit for.
P.S. Waterworld was not that bad. It wasn't worth the money it was made with, but it was as bad as, say, Ishtar! Come on!
Bryan R.