You can make hundreds of dollars by selling credit card numbers and other information, and plenty of folks do just that. It's extra money. You didn't really think the waitress was getting by on just tips, did you?
What kind of sick city do you live in that this is commonplace? Please tell me, because I really want to avoid it if at all possible. In more than 30 years of traveling all over the U.S. with occasional jaunts to Mexico, Oceania, and Europe, I've never seen a false charge on my accounts that could be tied back to a waiter or waitress.
It's garbage to include these kinds of tools in a game that is primarily played as multiplayer? Gaming has become a very social activity over the past few years, in case you haven't noticed.
You youngsters don't know what you missed during id software's heyday. Gaming "has become" a very social activity??? You never played a player mod for Doom ][ or Quake, then, I take it. You never got to play with Homer Simpson as your avatar. Never played Quess, or Weapons Factory, or the original Team Fortress, or QRally, or Loki's Minions, or the original Threewave CTF, or any number of other lesser known player created mods. You never played the original Counter-Strike betas on the HL engine, either.
You never played on team ladders like those hosted by OGL. You never listened in on Tapper's live netcasts on Radio Evil.
You never found a handful of servers that you played on regularly. Never got to know the regulars as friends. Never participated on a hosting clan's forums.
Online gaming has always been a very social activity. The only real change is that many gaming companies, Valve among them, are making it tougher and tougher to create player created and managed communities. I see this as a HUGE step in the wrong direction.:-(
Am I the only geek on the planet who checks for multiple inputs before buying a TV? While I realize that video- and audio- philes will probably disagree with me, I'd say that the TV is the best device to act as the central hub for 99% of consumers out there. It's simple and straightforward for them to figure out where to keep plugging stuff into. Why would anyone ever buy a TV with only one (type of) input?
For example, I recently replaced my 10 year old Sony WEGA with a 55" Samsung LCD (half price off a Best Buy floor display). My old Sony had S-video, 3 or 4 sets of composite inputs, and a cable ready jack. I ended up with DVI, VGA, composite, component, S-Video, USB, Ethernet, cable in, OTA, and HDMI options on the back of my set. I've got a MythTV box, a DVD player, DishTV, an OTA antenna, and a WII plugged into this thing. I still have 4 or 5 ports open in case I really want to go hog wild.:)
Doesn't even Ubuntu try to mimic this in some respects with its downloader?
Oh? You mean the GUI front end that lets you add any repository that you want? You mean the package management system that was invented by the Debian team that borrowed concepts from the BSDs about 15 years ago? Yeah, Ubuntu is really trying to mimic the Apple store there. Not.
I'm not opposed to seeing the plug-in architecture extended to support generic video codecs. However, does that automatically meant that Mozilla has to write the plug-in as well? My guess is that as soon as they did, they'd have lawyers knocking at their door, discovery request in hand, asking to see all of their records concerning downloads inside the U.S. Failure to answer the discovery request adequately would immediately be followed up for a bill for the entire download list. NOT a pleasant place for Mozilla to be.
I know how GPS works. I've carried an old Garmin for years. It's kept me from spending an unwanted night out in the woods more than once.:)
However, about half the articles that I've read talking about phone based GPS systems implied that they took their geolocation information from cell towers and the rest never specified. If they really use the GPS satellites instead, great!
That said, though, I still think a dedicated GPS makes more sense for anyone who spends much time outdoors. I just can't see the sense in relying on one battery for both phone and GPS service. Why limit your overall power availability?
Yeah? Does that GPS navigator built into your phone work in the back country? How about just off major freeways a hundred plus miles away from the nearest major metropolitan area? How about after 3 days at the bottom of a backpack? Or how about sailing on the Gulf of Mexico?
No? I thought not.
I'll concede that a phone GPS will work fine for you if you never bother to venture outside the beltways surrounding major U.S. cities. That's not the only place where GPSes are truly useful, though.
Last time I checked, though, iPods still didn't support FLAC. Since my entire music library is in this format (hey, disk space is cheap!), this means that the iPod is a non-starter for me unless I choose to transcode it to MP3.
Since I prefer lossless data formats that are also open standards based, this ain't gonna happen any time soon.
And yes, I know I'm the exception, not the rule.:)
You're clearly assuming a Windows centric view of system administration that spends more time re-inventing the wheel badly than it does in getting the job done. There are lots of other ways to accomplish the same task that are cross platform. Cross platform apps tend to prefer such methodologies.:)
For example, since we are talking about text config files: Simply parse and insert the correct verbiage in a template file once. Package it with your favorite distribution tool and you're done.
Need to update a text file company wide? Just push it.
Need to automatically create a diff and only insert changes? That's a solved problem and has been since Unix was first deployed more than 30 years ago. All of it triggerable in a multitude of ways.
I used to run a series of game servers as a hobby back when I had a lot more free time to play. (Read: before kids.:) )
I still have a handful of L4D servers up, although I've seriously considered taking them down since my friends have largely moved on to L4D2. For me, the most enjoyable part of running those servers was being able to build up a community. We had a few really top notch players and a bunch of really good ones as regulars. I was pretty free about passing out kick/ban privileges to players who showed themselves to be capable of good judgment. That in turn led to full servers nearly 24/7 and a very active offline group, too. It was incredible fun.
Now EA, Activision, and the like (even Valve with L4D and L4D2!) have decided to make moves that eliminate any ability to do something similar. It is much, MUCH tougher to establish such a community than it has been in the past.
My kids are finally getting to the point that I can start thinking about getting back into some of my old hobbies. I would LOVE to run a gameserver or six and start building up a community again. When I look around at my options, what do I see? CounterStrike is still by far the most popular FPS out there. The top 20 are dominated by HL and HL2 engines with a sprinkling of older Unreal and Quake options. It's beginning to look as though by the time I'm ready to do this in 3 to 5 years, I'll still have the same choices because the big game vendors are doing their damnedest to eliminate independent player communities. That's a HUGE shame.:(
Google 'iFrag' and 'history' some time. iFrag allowed me to play Doom ][ over a 9600 dialup connection. Mind you, any time someone pulled out the Pulse Cannon my connection froze from the lag. Still, I have very fond memories of some very frantic 4 player DM maps.:)
Corporate IT departments don't want to deploy Firefox, Chrome, or Safari because they can't be centrally managed. There is no equivalent to the IEAK
Nonsense. We manage something like 2,800 apps centrally for 60,000+ desktops using a 3rd party tool. We have another 400 or so apps that we manage for our 11,000 servers. Total staff to package and update this environment? About a dozen.
You do know that the BSA was founded and initially by a consortium of software vendors that happened to be led by Microsoft, don't you? The BSA is doing exactly what Microsoft wants them to do.
Right. And if the FCC had simply cited that law, then the judges hearing the case in question would at least have to make a determination as to whether it applied or not. The complaint from the judge was that they failed to do so. If true, then the counsel for the FCC didn't do his job.
For some reason people assume the job extends to plumbing, locksmithing, carpentry and stealing work property for their home use. It's very tempting to just go home at 5 instead of doing the work that was put on hold because you were assembling office desks of moving boxes.
I worked 60-70 hour weeks a lot early in my career as a network geek. I worked at a company that was growing quickly, and I was given a great deal of freedom to do my job and a lot of money to spend doing it. I designed, budgeted, and (with the help of one other guy) installed from scratch a routed network covering 24 sites that replaced a bridged network covering just half our sites. It went from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada.
Not many 20 somethings get an opportunity like that, and I loved every stressful minute of it. When I left, it was because the opportunities for that kind of work had dried up and I didn't see an opportunity for getting into anything different there. The company I went to paid me 20% more than I had been making/and/ my hours went to 40-45 a week. (My new job was a lot less hands on, but I got to spend a lot more time on the design and budgeting side. I also got a chance to be much more of a coach and coordinator.)
OTHOH, some of the old timers who had been with my first company for a lot of years (one of whom was my boss) told me that in the early days, janitorial and carpentry work was part of the job description. They were OK with that, because their management was very up front when they were hired. They also knew that if the company succeeded, they'd reap the benefits (and they did).
In short, if you were told that you'd be the company gopher when you were hired and you're no longer satisfied with that, ask for a change in your job description. If that's not feasible for some reason, look elsewhere.
If you weren't told, I'd still talk to your manager about that change in job. Find out from him or her how they really view you and your position. If there doesn't look like such a change is possible, I would advise you to polish up your resume and start looking for another job. Even in an economy that's as bad as this one, there are always openings popping up that may fit you better.
Well, much of the international dateline is over the Pacific Ocean where land masses tend to be really small, few, and very far between. Depending upon where the jets were when the incident happened, I can see where a navigational systems crash may have meant attempting a water landing in an aircraft not exactly designed for it.
Amelia Earhart isn't the only one to end up in the drink, after all.
Don't feel too bad. You've got Grayson? I'VE got Michelle Bachmann! How on earth that crazed mental defective got elected again by my neighbors just boggles my mind. Yay for gerrymandered districts!:(
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What kind of sick city do you live in that this is commonplace? Please tell me, because I really want to avoid it if at all possible. In more than 30 years of traveling all over the U.S. with occasional jaunts to Mexico, Oceania, and Europe, I've never seen a false charge on my accounts that could be tied back to a waiter or waitress.
You youngsters don't know what you missed during id software's heyday. Gaming "has become" a very social activity??? You never played a player mod for Doom ][ or Quake, then, I take it. You never got to play with Homer Simpson as your avatar. Never played Quess, or Weapons Factory, or the original Team Fortress, or QRally, or Loki's Minions, or the original Threewave CTF, or any number of other lesser known player created mods. You never played the original Counter-Strike betas on the HL engine, either.
You never played on team ladders like those hosted by OGL. You never listened in on Tapper's live netcasts on Radio Evil.
You never found a handful of servers that you played on regularly. Never got to know the regulars as friends. Never participated on a hosting clan's forums.
Going even further back, you never played Empire on PLATO.
Online gaming has always been a very social activity. The only real change is that many gaming companies, Valve among them, are making it tougher and tougher to create player created and managed communities. I see this as a HUGE step in the wrong direction. :-(
Am I the only geek on the planet who checks for multiple inputs before buying a TV? While I realize that video- and audio- philes will probably disagree with me, I'd say that the TV is the best device to act as the central hub for 99% of consumers out there. It's simple and straightforward for them to figure out where to keep plugging stuff into. Why would anyone ever buy a TV with only one (type of) input?
For example, I recently replaced my 10 year old Sony WEGA with a 55" Samsung LCD (half price off a Best Buy floor display). My old Sony had S-video, 3 or 4 sets of composite inputs, and a cable ready jack. I ended up with DVI, VGA, composite, component, S-Video, USB, Ethernet, cable in, OTA, and HDMI options on the back of my set. I've got a MythTV box, a DVD player, DishTV, an OTA antenna, and a WII plugged into this thing. I still have 4 or 5 ports open in case I really want to go hog wild. :)
MBNA'a (now owned by BofA) ShopSafe.
Oh? You mean the GUI front end that lets you add any repository that you want? You mean the package management system that was invented by the Debian team that borrowed concepts from the BSDs about 15 years ago? Yeah, Ubuntu is really trying to mimic the Apple store there. Not.
Kids these days... (/grumpy old man mode)
You've just identified one of the key problems with government. :)
I'm not opposed to seeing the plug-in architecture extended to support generic video codecs. However, does that automatically meant that Mozilla has to write the plug-in as well? My guess is that as soon as they did, they'd have lawyers knocking at their door, discovery request in hand, asking to see all of their records concerning downloads inside the U.S. Failure to answer the discovery request adequately would immediately be followed up for a bill for the entire download list. NOT a pleasant place for Mozilla to be.
I know how GPS works. I've carried an old Garmin for years. It's kept me from spending an unwanted night out in the woods more than once. :)
However, about half the articles that I've read talking about phone based GPS systems implied that they took their geolocation information from cell towers and the rest never specified. If they really use the GPS satellites instead, great!
That said, though, I still think a dedicated GPS makes more sense for anyone who spends much time outdoors. I just can't see the sense in relying on one battery for both phone and GPS service. Why limit your overall power availability?
So, do you have $5,000,000/year to give to Mozilla for the H.264 licensing fee?
Yeah? Does that GPS navigator built into your phone work in the back country? How about just off major freeways a hundred plus miles away from the nearest major metropolitan area? How about after 3 days at the bottom of a backpack? Or how about sailing on the Gulf of Mexico?
No? I thought not.
I'll concede that a phone GPS will work fine for you if you never bother to venture outside the beltways surrounding major U.S. cities. That's not the only place where GPSes are truly useful, though.
Last time I checked, though, iPods still didn't support FLAC. Since my entire music library is in this format (hey, disk space is cheap!), this means that the iPod is a non-starter for me unless I choose to transcode it to MP3.
Since I prefer lossless data formats that are also open standards based, this ain't gonna happen any time soon.
And yes, I know I'm the exception, not the rule. :)
You're clearly assuming a Windows centric view of system administration that spends more time re-inventing the wheel badly than it does in getting the job done. There are lots of other ways to accomplish the same task that are cross platform. Cross platform apps tend to prefer such methodologies. :)
For example, since we are talking about text config files: Simply parse and insert the correct verbiage in a template file once. Package it with your favorite distribution tool and you're done.
Need to update a text file company wide? Just push it.
Need to automatically create a diff and only insert changes? That's a solved problem and has been since Unix was first deployed more than 30 years ago. All of it triggerable in a multitude of ways.
I used to run a series of game servers as a hobby back when I had a lot more free time to play. (Read: before kids. :) )
I still have a handful of L4D servers up, although I've seriously considered taking them down since my friends have largely moved on to L4D2. For me, the most enjoyable part of running those servers was being able to build up a community. We had a few really top notch players and a bunch of really good ones as regulars. I was pretty free about passing out kick/ban privileges to players who showed themselves to be capable of good judgment. That in turn led to full servers nearly 24/7 and a very active offline group, too. It was incredible fun.
Now EA, Activision, and the like (even Valve with L4D and L4D2!) have decided to make moves that eliminate any ability to do something similar. It is much, MUCH tougher to establish such a community than it has been in the past.
My kids are finally getting to the point that I can start thinking about getting back into some of my old hobbies. I would LOVE to run a gameserver or six and start building up a community again. When I look around at my options, what do I see? CounterStrike is still by far the most popular FPS out there. The top 20 are dominated by HL and HL2 engines with a sprinkling of older Unreal and Quake options. It's beginning to look as though by the time I'm ready to do this in 3 to 5 years, I'll still have the same choices because the big game vendors are doing their damnedest to eliminate independent player communities. That's a HUGE shame. :(
Google 'iFrag' and 'history' some time. iFrag allowed me to play Doom ][ over a 9600 dialup connection. Mind you, any time someone pulled out the Pulse Cannon my connection froze from the lag. Still, I have very fond memories of some very frantic 4 player DM maps. :)
No registry hacks are necessary to set configuration information in Firefox. It's all text files, the way God intended config files to be. :)
Nonsense. We manage something like 2,800 apps centrally for 60,000+ desktops using a 3rd party tool. We have another 400 or so apps that we manage for our 11,000 servers. Total staff to package and update this environment? About a dozen.
Firefox is just another app to us.
You do know that the BSA was founded and initially by a consortium of software vendors that happened to be led by Microsoft, don't you? The BSA is doing exactly what Microsoft wants them to do.
Man, I wish I hadn't already burned all my mod points today. Been there, done that, got the scars and war stories along with my BOFH T-shirt. :)
Right. And if the FCC had simply cited that law, then the judges hearing the case in question would at least have to make a determination as to whether it applied or not. The complaint from the judge was that they failed to do so. If true, then the counsel for the FCC didn't do his job.
I worked 60-70 hour weeks a lot early in my career as a network geek. I worked at a company that was growing quickly, and I was given a great deal of freedom to do my job and a lot of money to spend doing it. I designed, budgeted, and (with the help of one other guy) installed from scratch a routed network covering 24 sites that replaced a bridged network covering just half our sites. It went from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada.
Not many 20 somethings get an opportunity like that, and I loved every stressful minute of it. When I left, it was because the opportunities for that kind of work had dried up and I didn't see an opportunity for getting into anything different there. The company I went to paid me 20% more than I had been making /and/ my hours went to 40-45 a week. (My new job was a lot less hands on, but I got to spend a lot more time on the design and budgeting side. I also got a chance to be much more of a coach and coordinator.)
OTHOH, some of the old timers who had been with my first company for a lot of years (one of whom was my boss) told me that in the early days, janitorial and carpentry work was part of the job description. They were OK with that, because their management was very up front when they were hired. They also knew that if the company succeeded, they'd reap the benefits (and they did).
In short, if you were told that you'd be the company gopher when you were hired and you're no longer satisfied with that, ask for a change in your job description. If that's not feasible for some reason, look elsewhere.
If you weren't told, I'd still talk to your manager about that change in job. Find out from him or her how they really view you and your position. If there doesn't look like such a change is possible, I would advise you to polish up your resume and start looking for another job. Even in an economy that's as bad as this one, there are always openings popping up that may fit you better.
Well, much of the international dateline is over the Pacific Ocean where land masses tend to be really small, few, and very far between. Depending upon where the jets were when the incident happened, I can see where a navigational systems crash may have meant attempting a water landing in an aircraft not exactly designed for it.
Amelia Earhart isn't the only one to end up in the drink, after all.
Title says it all...
and the Baen Free Library.
'Nuff said.
Don't feel too bad. You've got Grayson? I'VE got Michelle Bachmann! How on earth that crazed mental defective got elected again by my neighbors just boggles my mind. Yay for gerrymandered districts! :(
I take it you missed the part where this Representative is a Democrat? lol