That short animation you saw when you conquered the galaxy was awesome. Simple, VGA graphics but effective reward after playing through a gruelling galactic war.
Anyone else remember STARLORD? It was this feudal type strategy game set in an immense galaxy where you had to gather a number of vassals, advance in rank and eventually challenge the emperor. It was great, except that for some strange reason it was basically impossible to lose (!) Now, this was a warez thing (I was a teenager at the time) so I don't know if there was something wrong with it, but the actual game mechanics were brilliant.
Damn it, I hate to agree with one of those sanctimonious, scary, right wing Libertarimericans but he does actually have a point. We don't have free speech in Canada due to that hideous "notwithstanding clause". The Quebec government has been limiting reasonable speech for years with it's language laws.
The notion that any government, federal or provincial can pass unconstitutional laws simply by invoking the notwithstanding clause is horrible. A government can run rampant until it's mandate ends, which is too long.
Lots of things about the USA don't appeal to me: fetishism of money & the market, intolerance, ignorance. Unfortunately, there are an equal number of things about Canada that I don't like: our celebration of mediocrity, our provincial attitude (ie; we're always somebody's bitch, whether it be Uncle Sam or Mother England), and most especially our willingness to sacrifice our principles (ie the Charter) for political expediency (ie the notwithstanding clause).
Just because Upton Sinclair was right doesn't mean Solzhynitzen wasn't also right.
Hey, thanks for doing the Google search for me!:)
I think Lemonade Stand would be great for my children.
Now if I could just find an up-to-date version of "lawnmower":)
... in Southwestern Ontario, so I'd have to agree that there do seem to be some signs of intelligent life in there. They were very knowledgable and helpful when I called. The young lady I spoke to even asked me if I had the cable modem Howto. Of course, your mileage may (and apparently does) vary...
The church was a great binding force after the Fall. I'm familiar with Gibbon's position on the Church ; he has a lot of deliciously sarcastic things to say about it. However, I think attributing the Fall of Rome to Christianity is a bit of putting the cart before the horse. Certainly the rise of Christianity didn't help prevent Rome's fall, and probably helped accelerated. I would argue, though, that the conditions that allowed the early Christian Church to flourish were the very same conditions that made Rome's fall inevitable.
The Church has played many different parts in the development of our modern world. Makes sense that an organization that big and complex would have complex effects on the world around it. I think of Galileo, the Jesuits (being Canadian I can tell you all about THEM - the Jesuits practically owned Quebec until the latter half of this century), and other examples. But whatever the motivations and complexities, there's no doubt that without the Catholic Church a lot of literature would have fallen away. The fact that they preserved a literate class in an illiterate, barbarian civilization is reason enough to thank them.
Of course, someone is sure to point out that the fall of Constantinople and the consequent dispersal of so many intellectuals fleeing the Turks in the 15th century had a lot to do with the Renaissance, which it did. But without the work of countless monks in the Middle Ages there would have been no fertile ground for those seeds to fall on.
I feel very ambivalent about this, as I do about most things regarding the Catholic Church.
On the one hand, I get all humanistic and indignant about the Catholic Church offering this service censored by default, and making moral decisions for their customers.
On the other hand, helping people make moral decisions is the Church's stated mission (I am sure many will argue, not incorrectly, that accumulating wealth and influence has always been part of the Church's mission too) , whether you agree with it or not. Lots of people and organizations (The Free Software Foundation, NOW, Jello Biafra, etc.) that we secular humanists don't usually object to also try to help people make moral decisions.
This is analogous to my feelings about the Chuch in general. On the one hand, it's history (Papal schism, prosecution of "heretics", sale of indulgences, etc) has some pretty horrifying aspects, and it makes an easy target for those of us with different beliefs.
On the other hand, the Catholic Church spent the entire Middle Ages preserving a wealth of literature (secular and religious). People spent whole lives copying to make sure that books which are the foundation of our present society (I'm thinking Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Tacitus) didn't disappear. No Church = no classical literature = no Renaissance.
Also I wonder if the content is filtered for the ISPs who are buying bandwidth from the Catholic Church?
I hadn't tried eBay, I was more concerned with what I could pick up in relative volume locally. Also, it's not only the cost of the machine as much as the hard drive (need a large, relatively new one) and sound card (can't skimp too much there).
The dollars and cents of it are that you need to have your selling price come in under $300 (CDN) for it to make economic sense to this particular market.
I've been meaning to try a DX4/100 to see if they were fast enough -- unfortunately I have to buy one as a proof-of-concept and I've been sluggish to fork over the dough.
I tried something similar recently w/ mpg123 and a '486. I couldn't get the 486 to decode the MP3s fast enough -- even with mpg123 niced to the max. There is a market for these MP3 players in restauraunts &c but the cost factor for even a first generation pentium makes it not worth the effort. A 486-based solution would make it economically viable.
Anyone have any luck decoding MP3s on prehistoric hardware??
I don't know about USA, but from what I remember about Canada's SOCAN fee structure for radio stations it is fairly reasonable. This is going back a few years but I think SOCAN wanted 1-2% of the radio station's operating budget for licensing.
Working at a community radio station with an annual budget of about $120,000 we were able to get away with throwing a few thousand bucks SOCAN's way and playing whatever we wanted.
Do web sites w/streaming audio work like this? If so, is there a lower limit on what is to be paid? It seems to me a non-profit organization could run pretty cheap and keep fees to a minimum.
Or was it only OK because we were broadcasting analog signal?
For my money Mozilla 0.6 is a much more stable and usable snapshot than M18 was. The milestone release really had me wondering about how well it was ever going to work.
0.6 is pretty stable and works pretty well. It's got some annoying rough spots (links not changing colour is the most glaring) and it occasionally has a crash, but it's my everyday browser now. That's something that previous milestones couldn't claim because the bugs were too glaring and constant.
I have a bunch of ARCNet hardware, but I'm lacking a hub. IIRC ARCNet requires RG-62 with standard CATV-type threaded ends. I think it's possible to use standard TV coax for ARCNet with a slight loss of bandwidth (not 100% sure). I don't think it will work with thinnet though.
I wonder if you could use the coax in your walls for ARCNet? I seem to remember it using coax. You might have to change some connectors or something, though.
On second thought it probably can't be that easy, and ARCNet is only 1.5 Mbps anyway. Those weird phone-line ethernet cards get that kind of bandwidth.
Strange that @Home doesn't enforce a more rigid system - this must be a nightmare for them.
In my area IP addresses are meant to be permanent (reserved from the DHCP server) but as I've said above I think the reservations are very suspect. It's pretty much irrelevant anyway since lease times are 7 days so the IP is pretty much permanent.
I wonder if bandwidths are different in different areas too?
Yeah, I've seen that stuff about hostnames before. It's not being used in these parts. My hostname is in English and it's one that I chose. Nobody from Cogeco touched my box. The box connected to the 'net is Windows 2000 and it's workgroup name is definitely not "@HOME".
Also, additional IPs are free in these parts. They actually make you PAY for extra IPs??
Additionally Cogeco@Home has a couple of IP numbers reserved for me (according to my user info at the web site) which do not relate at all to the IP that I am using.
It sounds to me like Cogeco in SW Ontario is a little off-spec. I don't think their DHCP servers are doing the same things that yours are. When I hooked up a few months back I had read the Cable-Modem-HOWTO and I called tech support to ask about the hostname thing. The young lady on the phone was less cluefully-challenged than usual and told me not to worry about it, as their DHCP servers were not validating host names and likely would not in the forseeable future.
Interesting. How does that work? Does the router recognize a MAC address on the modem which it then checks against a database of authorized numbers?
My information comes from a field employee (he opens boxes and installs filters) and, from experiences with employees of other public utilities (some of them the ones that move scary, dangerous things to your house like gas and electricity), I totally believe that there is a high level of misinformation and foolishness at that level.
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That short animation you saw when you conquered the galaxy was awesome. Simple, VGA graphics but effective reward after playing through a gruelling galactic war.
Anyone else remember STARLORD? It was this feudal type strategy game set in an immense galaxy where you had to gather a number of vassals, advance in rank and eventually challenge the emperor. It was great, except that for some strange reason it was basically impossible to lose (!) Now, this was a warez thing (I was a teenager at the time) so I don't know if there was something wrong with it, but the actual game mechanics were brilliant.
Real men use a zeroless numerical system on an abacu... oh, fuck it.
This Linuxgruven thing is one hell of a great opportunity!
Judging from how much time everyone seems to have on their hands, there must be thousands of unemployed people surfing slashdot every day.
This is your big chance!! Just sell that kidney and sign up for Linuxgruven's wonderful training course.
Yikes. How many Linuxgruven employees have a new set of encyclopedias and a brand new electrolux vacuum at home?
REAL men use Minix on an 8088 PS/2 model 20
Damn it, I hate to agree with one of those sanctimonious, scary, right wing Libertarimericans but he does actually have a point. We don't have free speech in Canada due to that hideous "notwithstanding clause". The Quebec government has been limiting reasonable speech for years with it's language laws.
The notion that any government, federal or provincial can pass unconstitutional laws simply by invoking the notwithstanding clause is horrible. A government can run rampant until it's mandate ends, which is too long.
Lots of things about the USA don't appeal to me: fetishism of money & the market, intolerance, ignorance. Unfortunately, there are an equal number of things about Canada that I don't like: our celebration of mediocrity, our provincial attitude (ie; we're always somebody's bitch, whether it be Uncle Sam or Mother England), and most especially our willingness to sacrifice our principles (ie the Charter) for political expediency (ie the notwithstanding clause).
Just because Upton Sinclair was right doesn't mean Solzhynitzen wasn't also right.
"Goat"
or "Beowulf"
I'm sure it's been said before
Funny, I though lawyers ruled the world. That's how it worked last time I checked.
Hey, thanks for doing the Google search for me! :)
I think Lemonade Stand would be great for my children.
Now if I could just find an up-to-date version of "lawnmower" :)
Don't forget the Commodore PET classic LEMONADE STAND. I'm sure there's a modern version somewhere. :)
... A dude who has WRITTEN and PASSED the Microsoft Visual Basic "Desktop" exam needed help understanding the concept of an array.
I'm not kidding around - not only could he not effectively implement an array in BASIC, but he couldn't understand how it would be useful.
That's enough to make my skin crawl. Hopefully we can steer him away from a career developing hospital equipment control software.
Now, before you crack me for MCS* bashing, keep in mind that I am one. I think that's why I drink so much.
... in Southwestern Ontario, so I'd have to agree that there do seem to be some signs of intelligent life in there. They were very knowledgable and helpful when I called. The young lady I spoke to even asked me if I had the cable modem Howto. Of course, your mileage may (and apparently does) vary...
But will your real-world folks be skilled enough to provide management with brilliant ideas like the "brown ring of quality"?
The church was a great binding force after the Fall. I'm familiar with Gibbon's position on the Church ; he has a lot of deliciously sarcastic things to say about it. However, I think attributing the Fall of Rome to Christianity is a bit of putting the cart before the horse. Certainly the rise of Christianity didn't help prevent Rome's fall, and probably helped accelerated. I would argue, though, that the conditions that allowed the early Christian Church to flourish were the very same conditions that made Rome's fall inevitable.
The Church has played many different parts in the development of our modern world. Makes sense that an organization that big and complex would have complex effects on the world around it. I think of Galileo, the Jesuits (being Canadian I can tell you all about THEM - the Jesuits practically owned Quebec until the latter half of this century), and other examples. But whatever the motivations and complexities, there's no doubt that without the Catholic Church a lot of literature would have fallen away. The fact that they preserved a literate class in an illiterate, barbarian civilization is reason enough to thank them.
Of course, someone is sure to point out that the fall of Constantinople and the consequent dispersal of so many intellectuals fleeing the Turks in the 15th century had a lot to do with the Renaissance, which it did. But without the work of countless monks in the Middle Ages there would have been no fertile ground for those seeds to fall on.
I feel very ambivalent about this, as I do about most things regarding the Catholic Church.
On the one hand, I get all humanistic and indignant about the Catholic Church offering this service censored by default, and making moral decisions for their customers.
On the other hand, helping people make moral decisions is the Church's stated mission (I am sure many will argue, not incorrectly, that accumulating wealth and influence has always been part of the Church's mission too) , whether you agree with it or not. Lots of people and organizations (The Free Software Foundation, NOW, Jello Biafra, etc.) that we secular humanists don't usually object to also try to help people make moral decisions.
This is analogous to my feelings about the Chuch in general. On the one hand, it's history (Papal schism, prosecution of "heretics", sale of indulgences, etc) has some pretty horrifying aspects, and it makes an easy target for those of us with different beliefs.
On the other hand, the Catholic Church spent the entire Middle Ages preserving a wealth of literature (secular and religious). People spent whole lives copying to make sure that books which are the foundation of our present society (I'm thinking Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Tacitus) didn't disappear. No Church = no classical literature = no Renaissance.
Also I wonder if the content is filtered for the ISPs who are buying bandwidth from the Catholic Church?
Darn it, now you've gone and confused me again. :)
Where does the MP3 get decompressed then? On the client? That doesn't seem right, but what the hell do I know.
I hadn't tried eBay, I was more concerned with what I could pick up in relative volume locally. Also, it's not only the cost of the machine as much as the hard drive (need a large, relatively new one) and sound card (can't skimp too much there). The dollars and cents of it are that you need to have your selling price come in under $300 (CDN) for it to make economic sense to this particular market. I've been meaning to try a DX4/100 to see if they were fast enough -- unfortunately I have to buy one as a proof-of-concept and I've been sluggish to fork over the dough.
I tried something similar recently w/ mpg123 and a '486. I couldn't get the 486 to decode the MP3s fast enough -- even with mpg123 niced to the max. There is a market for these MP3 players in restauraunts &c but the cost factor for even a first generation pentium makes it not worth the effort. A 486-based solution would make it economically viable.
Anyone have any luck decoding MP3s on prehistoric hardware??
I don't know about USA, but from what I remember about Canada's SOCAN fee structure for radio stations it is fairly reasonable. This is going back a few years but I think SOCAN wanted 1-2% of the radio station's operating budget for licensing.
Working at a community radio station with an annual budget of about $120,000 we were able to get away with throwing a few thousand bucks SOCAN's way and playing whatever we wanted.
Do web sites w/streaming audio work like this? If so, is there a lower limit on what is to be paid? It seems to me a non-profit organization could run pretty cheap and keep fees to a minimum.
Or was it only OK because we were broadcasting analog signal?
For my money Mozilla 0.6 is a much more stable and usable snapshot than M18 was. The milestone release really had me wondering about how well it was ever going to work. 0.6 is pretty stable and works pretty well. It's got some annoying rough spots (links not changing colour is the most glaring) and it occasionally has a crash, but it's my everyday browser now. That's something that previous milestones couldn't claim because the bugs were too glaring and constant.
I have a bunch of ARCNet hardware, but I'm lacking a hub. IIRC ARCNet requires RG-62 with standard CATV-type threaded ends. I think it's possible to use standard TV coax for ARCNet with a slight loss of bandwidth (not 100% sure). I don't think it will work with thinnet though.
Negative on that one. The ATI drivers I'm specifically talking about are provided by M$ on the Win2000 CD and as far as I know they are not unsigned.
I wonder if you could use the coax in your walls for ARCNet? I seem to remember it using coax. You might have to change some connectors or something, though.
On second thought it probably can't be that easy, and ARCNet is only 1.5 Mbps anyway. Those weird phone-line ethernet cards get that kind of bandwidth.
This is all really interesting. (but probably ot)
Strange that @Home doesn't enforce a more rigid system - this must be a nightmare for them.
In my area IP addresses are meant to be permanent (reserved from the DHCP server) but as I've said above I think the reservations are very suspect. It's pretty much irrelevant anyway since lease times are 7 days so the IP is pretty much permanent.
I wonder if bandwidths are different in different areas too?
Yeah, I've seen that stuff about hostnames before. It's not being used in these parts. My hostname is in English and it's one that I chose. Nobody from Cogeco touched my box. The box connected to the 'net is Windows 2000 and it's workgroup name is definitely not "@HOME".
Also, additional IPs are free in these parts. They actually make you PAY for extra IPs??
Additionally Cogeco@Home has a couple of IP numbers reserved for me (according to my user info at the web site) which do not relate at all to the IP that I am using.
It sounds to me like Cogeco in SW Ontario is a little off-spec. I don't think their DHCP servers are doing the same things that yours are. When I hooked up a few months back I had read the Cable-Modem-HOWTO and I called tech support to ask about the hostname thing. The young lady on the phone was less cluefully-challenged than usual and told me not to worry about it, as their DHCP servers were not validating host names and likely would not in the forseeable future.
I don't think the Cogeco people are very smart.
Interesting. How does that work? Does the router recognize a MAC address on the modem which it then checks against a database of authorized numbers?
My information comes from a field employee (he opens boxes and installs filters) and, from experiences with employees of other public utilities (some of them the ones that move scary, dangerous things to your house like gas and electricity), I totally believe that there is a high level of misinformation and foolishness at that level.