I've had several DLink products over the years, both personally and professionally, and don't recommend them. From switches dying prematurely with cheap, noisy fans to consumer routers turning into doorstops. And this is just the hardware, let alone the firmware that has a nice interface but turns out to be buggy.
Their only claim to fame was the venerable WRT54G, which was one of the first (if not the first) router that wonderful people created custom firmware for that brought some great features to a consumer grade product. I still have one kicking around somewhere....but I'm sure that everyone here knows what I'm talking about.
I recall when Wolfenstein came out and all of the angst that caused in the Amiga community. Everyone was so used to being THE gaming computer platform, and all of a sudden the Amiga couldn't do this style of game without it being super slow. I can't recall the details, but something about the 80386 handled the bitplanes made it fast vs. the Amiga's Motorola and custom chipset. It has been quite a while now.
The Amiga was an awesome machine and far ahead of the competition, IMO. I didn't need a spreadsheet, thankfully. Otherwise, everything else was amazing. Dpaint, tracker, the amazing demo scene and the games, so easy to hack on and do silly things with the copper. I can't remember what I used for a word processor, but it did everything I needed.
It was pathetic to look at the competition in comparison. Looking back, the only real problem was the inflexibility of the hardware; the custom chips pretty much locked you into that version of the platform. You could upgrade the CPU (sometimes), and add more RAM and a HD, but that was mostly it unless you were adding further custom hardware like the video toaster (which was a massive leap over what was possible at the time).
Easy peasy. I had had a 500 and there were a few options that just extended off of the side slot and had the same profile as the machine. Before that, you pretty much had to use an external disk drive for the OS, and then one for whatever you were working on. Couple that with a ramdisk and you were golden.
The 2000 was the machine to have and that had a built in HD controller, I believe. Back then, HDs were cutting edge and expensive!
So says someone who doesn't sound like they don't know what they're talking about.
If you've actually dropped some serious acid, or ate a good dose of shrooms, I don't think that you'd be saying the same thing.
I agree with the firing of synapses, but I think that what is going on, is that you're bypassing a bunch of stuff that has built up over time and going back to a more simple approach to everything in the brain. You are removing the filters that you have built up through life experiences. All your senses are reporting the same stuff but you are interpreting them differently, without those preconceived expectations. You experience things differently, or so I've been told.
From what I've I've heard, a different perspective on life can be a good thing. Or a bad thing. Take your pick, but don't talk about it unless you've properly done the research.
I wonder how many people that circumvent the geoblocking are doing so because they want their content in a different language? My wife is from Brazil and we are trying to raise our kids to be bilingual. My daughter complains occasionally, but she only gets Netflix from Brazil in portuguese. It is great for her comprehension and cultural appreciation, being exposed to mostly that for her (limited) screentime. It would be great if they offered all possible languages for their programming. I would pay extra for that option, rather than paying extra for a dns spoofing service. This also applies to subtitles!
Great. Now I'll get to root my TV. (and not that kind of root, you dirty brits)
This makes me both happy and sad. Happy since the challenge is there and sad since it is almost necessary to do so with every locked down, buggy, and poorly updated device. If it wasn't for the fanatical control over content, we would all be using amazing devices that have an open architecture where the best firmware for your usage pattern can shine. This is what drives me to rip all of my content to the format of my choice from DVD and CD, rather than purchasing the approved, vertically integrated formats (hello, Apple, Microsoft).
Great to hear that they'll have their own dedicated remote - a necessary tool for a media PC, IMO. The tactile feel of the buttons is important and a dedicated remote should make setup a breeze. What I love is the flexibility: I setup lircd from scratch, using my stereo receiver's remote. It took a few hours to configure since I had to teach it my remote's buttons, but the results are fantastic. One remote for the stereo, TV, and XBMC. That's all that's needed.
Seriously, this is just sliding into some cyberpunk fantasy where the corporations own and run everything. IBM has a special school; these kids will be exploited as little codemonsters until they grow up and decide whether to move on or accept their predetermined lot in life. New grads are cheap, but you usually have to teach them how to acceptably code and work with your tools. Well, now IBM has that angle covered. Instant productivity!
I don't like it, but if that's your bag, I won't hold it against you. Another evolution of the big business model. I bet that it will do pretty well for them until all of the other big corporations jump on board.
I've run a MythTV media center solution for the past 5 years and recently rebuilt it. I found that the backend was great, but all of my issues were with the frontend and getting that to work to my satisfaction.
My rebuild is based on Gentoo again, but this time with XBMC as the frontend, and it is fantastic - full HiDef (1080p), surround sound setup. Installation was a snap and I had a fully working frontend solution including remote (on Gentoo!) within a day. I'm going to install a MythTV backend on the same box for recording over the air signals, but I'm not in a hurry to do so. My media center is now more focused on DVD viewing/storage and less TV these days. I'm done with cable....now if only Linux could easily read BluRay...
Sure, they can obtain my phone number. But can they obtain all the numbers (and thus people) that I've called? THAT is what this is analogous to.
I'd be fine with it if all they wanted was my IP without being able to grab logs from any website that I could visit to compare them.
Linking your IP to your browsing habits is akin to recording who you called on the phone. It provides even more detail because they can derive what you were calling about based on the site's content. It is just one step from sniffing all your traffic once they link this data together.
Agreed w.r.t. JFS. Especially if you are running a media center.
My mythtv box running on a simple athlon doesn't give a hiccup while playing back video while it is copying large files across the network or deleting files. Meanwhile, my ubuntu desktop running ext3 almost locks up while working with large files with similar hardware. I tried XFS several years ago before switching to JFS because it just wasn't very stable (gentoo based system).
It seems to me that companies think that marketing their products as "open source" absolves them from actually sticking to the spirit of the concept. I would trade their open source concept for "open use".
I want to buy a phone that lets me actually use the technology as it was intended - not some crippled, locked-in subset of features. I don't care if it is running open source software or some proprietary stuff - I just want open access to all of the features that the technology should provide. This means full bluetooth support, being able to plug the phone into my computer if I want to sync or up/download data, or switch to a different provider if I find that my current one does not provide the coverage I need or is too expensive. The list is endless.
In other words, I am really tired of this vertical integration of services and hardware. It is all designed to lock in and control the user. Personally, I refuse to purchase anything that attempts to do this to me, within reason. So I'm still using my 8 year old motorola cellphone, but I'd love to upgrade to a more smartphone-like product that I can use freely. I wonder how many other people would jump at the chance to purchase a product and choose a service if this was the case? I live in Canada, and I have no wireless freedoms.
Indeed, this is just another step towards having our OS doing the heavy lifting of I/O to the user. Only the core information is passed to the main network and it's coordinating computer - leading to more centralization of information. We're heading into a new stage of the information age, where our data is more centralized and open to access.
This step in providing more robustness in the information delivery platform paves the way for individual apps to run in one browser, and possibly gaining more process, interaction, and/or display control over the browser (for example, what John Carmack has been talking about with Quake Live - it is browser based). You'll have custom applications such as: security interfaces, calendaring, productivity (google apps?), and games (of course). Possibly it will start to be used for important things such as the delivery of medical information, for example the remote control over MRI scans on patients. We can already do our taxes on it. Standardizing the content delivery platform while providing maximum control over the interface is the epitome of a cheap, easy-to-use-and-develop-for information delivery interface. Next step, miniaturize it and improve the interface hardware. Improve on the currently most efficient desk/keyboard/mouse interface.
I believe that the implications of this emerging freedom and centralization of information are important. It's widely open to abuse. Witness China's women's gymnastics team, as a pretty benign example. There is greater access to this information, but it is centrally controlled - and manipulated. Many countries oppress portions of their citizens through controlling the flow of information, and this technology is key to that control. China's great firewall, Burma's, er, Mayanmar's government, Cuba, and the USA's AT%T wiretapping are all different examples of the abuse of the evolution of our information age. But we like our entertainment! The content delivery platform will continue to evolve beyond movies and the current video games. Please keep distracting us.:)
The upside is that we do have these great ways to communicate now - it has changed how we live. Being able to call almost anyone at any reasonable time can radically change how you live. Being able to pay all your bills in five minutes from your own armchair at home is great. Elderly people living normal lives by themselves at home with remote monitoring of their health is great. Anyways, my thoughts on the topic.
Great, yet another hype video that shows the "engine" - whatever that means. Let's see some gameplay! Given the lovely engine that they have, I guess that we won't have the isometric view as per Fallout 1 & 2 - or will we?
Fallout had some nice graphics for its time, but it was the gameplay, story, and amazing art direction that made it a standout. This preview shows nothing, other than a 3D engine that could be swapped out for ID's or Epic's - hell, it could be Duke Nukem reborn for all we know. Yeah, it looks cool, but there is really nothing here.
Really, if the Bad People (TM) want to make modern society grind to a halt, all they have to do now is start to leave shopping bags and other, random containers lying around in public places. It would be pretty effective in making this kind of technology useless, and quite a drain on the system, if you get enough volume of bags being left behind in random public places.
Sometimes the most simple things can bring to a halt the most complex of systems. No need for anything dangerous, society will bankrupt itself trying to oversee and purify itself.
I'm sure that most people have noticed that they don't seem to do as well when they're feeling down. I would try to cheer up by playing a game, but my gameplay would suck, which would further reinforce my annoyed, crappy feeling. A vicious circle.
And the opposite works for me as well - if I'm feeling positive and happy, my perception is that I'm doing better than usual. It's been a while now since I don't play games that often anymore, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't just my perception, and that I really would do better. Better reaction times, faster decisions, and better outcomes.
You assume that the qualities of phi are embedded in the pyramids. If you're really interested in a detailed history and understanding of phi, I'd recommend this book .
The author does a thorough review of popular citations for phi and it is very well researched. I think that you'll be surprised at where you can find phi, and where you can't.
it is just more pressure for Canada to enact the stupid copyright stance that the States are pushing every other country to take via free trade agreements and other means (i.e. Australia). Unfortunately, they're not having much traction in Canada who already have good trade agreements in place with the States.
For me, it can be summarized that once I buy something, it should be mine to do as I please with it within the law. It is unnacceptable that someone can control what I can do with something that I own.
If I buy a shovel, I can use it any way I want - even to hammer nails with it. Of course, I don't bash people over the head with it. I don't need someone to stop me from hitting others with a shovel and there are obvious repercussions if I ever did so. This is called responsibility, and when you give it to people, they feel empowered and generally respect it.
The exact same prinicples apply to software, media, and any electronic devices that use various "lock-in" schemes (Sony, Apple, Microsoft, etc). When you respect me as a customer, I'll respect you as a company.
Like you said, that is your *personal* experience.
Whereas I grew up just as you did, playing outside, lots of different animals, hay, etc. Not a Lysol environment at all. And then around 10 years old, while making tunnels and forts in a big pile of haybales with friends I got hit with the hayfever. Around the same time I developed an allergy to cats. My father is exactly like this and his father is as well (allergic to cat dander and have hayfever).
Oh, and you can be born with allergies. I'm allergic to penicillin - given some as a newborn and developed a rash (apparently a common allergic reaction to it).
I'm sure that there are others that can refute your hypothesis.
But I still believe that it is good to not grow up in a sterile environment. I'm not thinking about allergies, but just about having an immune system that gets some exercise and building up a catalog of antibodies that can respond to similar threats. (in fact, isn't the allergic reaction your immune system's response to that allergen?)
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And I just realized that I screwed up and that linksys made the WRT54G. oops
I've had several DLink products over the years, both personally and professionally, and don't recommend them. From switches dying prematurely with cheap, noisy fans to consumer routers turning into doorstops. And this is just the hardware, let alone the firmware that has a nice interface but turns out to be buggy.
Their only claim to fame was the venerable WRT54G, which was one of the first (if not the first) router that wonderful people created custom firmware for that brought some great features to a consumer grade product. I still have one kicking around somewhere. ...but I'm sure that everyone here knows what I'm talking about.
I recall when Wolfenstein came out and all of the angst that caused in the Amiga community. Everyone was so used to being THE gaming computer platform, and all of a sudden the Amiga couldn't do this style of game without it being super slow. I can't recall the details, but something about the 80386 handled the bitplanes made it fast vs. the Amiga's Motorola and custom chipset. It has been quite a while now.
The Amiga was an awesome machine and far ahead of the competition, IMO. I didn't need a spreadsheet, thankfully. Otherwise, everything else was amazing. Dpaint, tracker, the amazing demo scene and the games, so easy to hack on and do silly things with the copper. I can't remember what I used for a word processor, but it did everything I needed.
It was pathetic to look at the competition in comparison. Looking back, the only real problem was the inflexibility of the hardware; the custom chips pretty much locked you into that version of the platform. You could upgrade the CPU (sometimes), and add more RAM and a HD, but that was mostly it unless you were adding further custom hardware like the video toaster (which was a massive leap over what was possible at the time).
Those were great times!
Easy peasy. I had had a 500 and there were a few options that just extended off of the side slot and had the same profile as the machine. Before that, you pretty much had to use an external disk drive for the OS, and then one for whatever you were working on. Couple that with a ramdisk and you were golden.
The 2000 was the machine to have and that had a built in HD controller, I believe. Back then, HDs were cutting edge and expensive!
So says someone who doesn't sound like they don't know what they're talking about.
If you've actually dropped some serious acid, or ate a good dose of shrooms, I don't think that you'd be saying the same thing.
I agree with the firing of synapses, but I think that what is going on, is that you're bypassing a bunch of stuff that has built up over time and going back to a more simple approach to everything in the brain. You are removing the filters that you have built up through life experiences. All your senses are reporting the same stuff but you are interpreting them differently, without those preconceived expectations. You experience things differently, or so I've been told.
From what I've I've heard, a different perspective on life can be a good thing. Or a bad thing. Take your pick, but don't talk about it unless you've properly done the research.
I wonder how many people that circumvent the geoblocking are doing so because they want their content in a different language? My wife is from Brazil and we are trying to raise our kids to be bilingual. My daughter complains occasionally, but she only gets Netflix from Brazil in portuguese. It is great for her comprehension and cultural appreciation, being exposed to mostly that for her (limited) screentime. It would be great if they offered all possible languages for their programming. I would pay extra for that option, rather than paying extra for a dns spoofing service. This also applies to subtitles!
Great. Now I'll get to root my TV. (and not that kind of root, you dirty brits)
This makes me both happy and sad. Happy since the challenge is there and sad since it is almost necessary to do so with every locked down, buggy, and poorly updated device. If it wasn't for the fanatical control over content, we would all be using amazing devices that have an open architecture where the best firmware for your usage pattern can shine. This is what drives me to rip all of my content to the format of my choice from DVD and CD, rather than purchasing the approved, vertically integrated formats (hello, Apple, Microsoft).
Damn, I AM a computer scientist and I love my android phone!
Great to hear that they'll have their own dedicated remote - a necessary tool for a media PC, IMO. The tactile feel of the buttons is important and a dedicated remote should make setup a breeze.
What I love is the flexibility: I setup lircd from scratch, using my stereo receiver's remote. It took a few hours to configure since I had to teach it my remote's buttons, but the results are fantastic. One remote for the stereo, TV, and XBMC. That's all that's needed.
Seriously, this is just sliding into some cyberpunk fantasy where the corporations own and run everything. IBM has a special school; these kids will be exploited as little codemonsters until they grow up and decide whether to move on or accept their predetermined lot in life. New grads are cheap, but you usually have to teach them how to acceptably code and work with your tools. Well, now IBM has that angle covered. Instant productivity!
I don't like it, but if that's your bag, I won't hold it against you. Another evolution of the big business model. I bet that it will do pretty well for them until all of the other big corporations jump on board.
Brings a whole new concept to feeling the good vibes down there.
I've always thought that it is an effective way to increase the size of his fan base... assuming the new ones get indoctrinated.
I've run a MythTV media center solution for the past 5 years and recently rebuilt it. I found that the backend was great, but all of my issues were with the frontend and getting that to work to my satisfaction.
My rebuild is based on Gentoo again, but this time with XBMC as the frontend, and it is fantastic - full HiDef (1080p), surround sound setup. Installation was a snap and I had a fully working frontend solution including remote (on Gentoo!) within a day. I'm going to install a MythTV backend on the same box for recording over the air signals, but I'm not in a hurry to do so. My media center is now more focused on DVD viewing/storage and less TV these days. I'm done with cable. ...now if only Linux could easily read BluRay...
Some of us call that creativity, or "art".
Great job!
Sure, they can obtain my phone number. But can they obtain all the numbers (and thus people) that I've called? THAT is what this is analogous to.
I'd be fine with it if all they wanted was my IP without being able to grab logs from any website that I could visit to compare them.
Linking your IP to your browsing habits is akin to recording who you called on the phone. It provides even more detail because they can derive what you were calling about based on the site's content. It is just one step from sniffing all your traffic once they link this data together.
Agreed w.r.t. JFS. Especially if you are running a media center.
My mythtv box running on a simple athlon doesn't give a hiccup while playing back video while it is copying large files across the network or deleting files. Meanwhile, my ubuntu desktop running ext3 almost locks up while working with large files with similar hardware. I tried XFS several years ago before switching to JFS because it just wasn't very stable (gentoo based system).
It seems to me that companies think that marketing their products as "open source" absolves them from actually sticking to the spirit of the concept. I would trade their open source concept for "open use".
I want to buy a phone that lets me actually use the technology as it was intended - not some crippled, locked-in subset of features. I don't care if it is running open source software or some proprietary stuff - I just want open access to all of the features that the technology should provide. This means full bluetooth support, being able to plug the phone into my computer if I want to sync or up/download data, or switch to a different provider if I find that my current one does not provide the coverage I need or is too expensive. The list is endless.
In other words, I am really tired of this vertical integration of services and hardware. It is all designed to lock in and control the user. Personally, I refuse to purchase anything that attempts to do this to me, within reason. So I'm still using my 8 year old motorola cellphone, but I'd love to upgrade to a more smartphone-like product that I can use freely. I wonder how many other people would jump at the chance to purchase a product and choose a service if this was the case? I live in Canada, and I have no wireless freedoms.
Indeed, this is just another step towards having our OS doing the heavy lifting of I/O to the user. Only the core information is passed to the main network and it's coordinating computer - leading to more centralization of information. We're heading into a new stage of the information age, where our data is more centralized and open to access.
This step in providing more robustness in the information delivery platform paves the way for individual apps to run in one browser, and possibly gaining more process, interaction, and/or display control over the browser (for example, what John Carmack has been talking about with Quake Live - it is browser based). You'll have custom applications such as: security interfaces, calendaring, productivity (google apps?), and games (of course). Possibly it will start to be used for important things such as the delivery of medical information, for example the remote control over MRI scans on patients. We can already do our taxes on it. Standardizing the content delivery platform while providing maximum control over the interface is the epitome of a cheap, easy-to-use-and-develop-for information delivery interface. Next step, miniaturize it and improve the interface hardware. Improve on the currently most efficient desk/keyboard/mouse interface.
I believe that the implications of this emerging freedom and centralization of information are important. It's widely open to abuse. Witness China's women's gymnastics team, as a pretty benign example. There is greater access to this information, but it is centrally controlled - and manipulated. Many countries oppress portions of their citizens through controlling the flow of information, and this technology is key to that control. China's great firewall, Burma's, er, Mayanmar's government, Cuba, and the USA's AT%T wiretapping are all different examples of the abuse of the evolution of our information age. But we like our entertainment! The content delivery platform will continue to evolve beyond movies and the current video games. Please keep distracting us. :)
The upside is that we do have these great ways to communicate now - it has changed how we live. Being able to call almost anyone at any reasonable time can radically change how you live. Being able to pay all your bills in five minutes from your own armchair at home is great. Elderly people living normal lives by themselves at home with remote monitoring of their health is great. Anyways, my thoughts on the topic.
Great, yet another hype video that shows the "engine" - whatever that means. Let's see some gameplay! Given the lovely engine that they have, I guess that we won't have the isometric view as per Fallout 1 & 2 - or will we?
Fallout had some nice graphics for its time, but it was the gameplay, story, and amazing art direction that made it a standout. This preview shows nothing, other than a 3D engine that could be swapped out for ID's or Epic's - hell, it could be Duke Nukem reborn for all we know. Yeah, it looks cool, but there is really nothing here.
Yawn.
Really, if the Bad People (TM) want to make modern society grind to a halt, all they have to do now is start to leave shopping bags and other, random containers lying around in public places. It would be pretty effective in making this kind of technology useless, and quite a drain on the system, if you get enough volume of bags being left behind in random public places.
Sometimes the most simple things can bring to a halt the most complex of systems. No need for anything dangerous, society will bankrupt itself trying to oversee and purify itself.
I'm sure that most people have noticed that they don't seem to do as well when they're feeling down. I would try to cheer up by playing a game, but my gameplay would suck, which would further reinforce my annoyed, crappy feeling. A vicious circle.
And the opposite works for me as well - if I'm feeling positive and happy, my perception is that I'm doing better than usual. It's been a while now since I don't play games that often anymore, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't just my perception, and that I really would do better. Better reaction times, faster decisions, and better outcomes.
You assume that the qualities of phi are embedded in the pyramids. If you're really interested in a detailed history and understanding of phi, I'd recommend this book .
The author does a thorough review of popular citations for phi and it is very well researched. I think that you'll be surprised at where you can find phi, and where you can't.
it is just more pressure for Canada to enact the stupid copyright stance that the States are pushing every other country to take via free trade agreements and other means (i.e. Australia). Unfortunately, they're not having much traction in Canada who already have good trade agreements in place with the States.
For me, it can be summarized that once I buy something, it should be mine to do as I please with it within the law. It is unnacceptable that someone can control what I can do with something that I own.
If I buy a shovel, I can use it any way I want - even to hammer nails with it. Of course, I don't bash people over the head with it. I don't need someone to stop me from hitting others with a shovel and there are obvious repercussions if I ever did so. This is called responsibility, and when you give it to people, they feel empowered and generally respect it.
The exact same prinicples apply to software, media, and any electronic devices that use various "lock-in" schemes (Sony, Apple, Microsoft, etc). When you respect me as a customer, I'll respect you as a company.
Like you said, that is your *personal* experience.
Whereas I grew up just as you did, playing outside, lots of different animals, hay, etc. Not a Lysol environment at all. And then around 10 years old, while making tunnels and forts in a big pile of haybales with friends I got hit with the hayfever. Around the same time I developed an allergy to cats. My father is exactly like this and his father is as well (allergic to cat dander and have hayfever).
Oh, and you can be born with allergies. I'm allergic to penicillin - given some as a newborn and developed a rash (apparently a common allergic reaction to it).
I'm sure that there are others that can refute your hypothesis.
But I still believe that it is good to not grow up in a sterile environment. I'm not thinking about allergies, but just about having an immune system that gets some exercise and building up a catalog of antibodies that can respond to similar threats. (in fact, isn't the allergic reaction your immune system's response to that allergen?)