Yeah, but if you care enough to get the truly best, you build your own. And then you don't suck
Unless of course you are doing 'real work' and happen to like the Mac as Unix software development environment - in which case having run another OS (such as Windows, even Linux or a hacked up version of Mac OS X for x86) will take a huge chunk out of your productivity.
Personally I have an GTX SLI / AMD FX PC exlusively for gaming, and a couple of G4 systems (one a PowerBook) for development, which I find the most practical arrangement. However, if/when Apple come out with a system with SLI / Crossfire and the next generation of Intel CPU's are released there is an excellent chance I will migrate soley to Macintosh hardware rather than maintain my existing gaming system (when the next upgrade cycle comes around).
So far as I can tell Mac has mothing to compare with what you can do when you roll your own.
Pfft I've seen homebrew laptops, nothing doing!
More seriously, the point is the OS. The hardware isn't as great for gaming at the high end (specifically, the hardware doesn't support SLI or CrossFire which is the only real issue), but for everything else I find it's better in every other respect than using Windows or Linux/BSD/HURD/etc. due to the OS.
That's ok, because Netscape 3.0 didn't support Flash, JavaScript, or graphical ads either. Netscape 2.0 supported Flash (Shockwave Director at the time), JavaScript and animated banner adverts, as indeed did 3.0.
It always has been a web site,in the real world, maintained by real people who cost real money to employ to run the site and to clean up after this sort of thing, it has real advertisers and real owners too. It exists to generate money for people, it's a business.
In what way does it not exist in "the real world"?
Why don't they put in jail everyone who creates real viruses in the labs, but do put those away that create computer viruses (and do not even use them out of a controlled enviroment (lab))?? (a) I don't know of anyone who's ever been 'put away' for developing a computer virus in a lab. (b) Kamkar used this exploit in the real world, effecting one million accounts (and even he isn't being 'put away').
The writeup is misleading when it says:
The source and technical explanation for the "attack" was not even released until after MySpace had patched the vulnerability.
The author used the script it to add over one million 'friends' to his profile, MySpace then addressed the issue. Obviously the source was released *before* it was patched (that's fundamental to how the exploit worked). All he did after the event was post a more detailed explanation of how he developed the exploit.
Note, he didn't circulate that that to anyone before hand or tell MySpace about what he had found - he just decided to go right ahead exploit the vulnerability.
I don't believe for a minute MySpace - as much as I dislike the site and most of it's users - would go after someone who, on discovering the issue, actually went to them first and told them about what they had found (or even if they'd just published notice of a theoretical vulnerability via something like a known and respected security mailing list).
Kamkar did none of those things, he just decided to go right ahead and exploit the hole and play at being a haxor. Given he was 19 and so clearly old enough to have known better, three months of community service and being forced to pay restitution to MySpace sounds about right to me.
One less guy like that on the Internet for a while is something I'd welcome too.
(**) UK law (IIRC) states that small-value coins are only legal tender (i.e. that which must be accepted in settlement of a debt) up to a certain value; i.e. the trick of getting back at a bank by "forcing" them to accept settlement of your £30,000 debt in 1p coins isn't legal Just to add to that (which is true) there is the further interesting curiosity of Scottish law, where although Scotland also uses the British Pound, banks are uniquely allowed to print their own 'Promisary Notes' - i.e. they are essencially just regular notes in practice, but technically no one is obliged to accept them as payment as they are technically more like cheques (underwritten by the private banks, not the state, or the Bank of England).
Someone last year IIRC, tried to pay a council tax / fine (in Scotland) in some odd form. English 5 Pound notes possibly (maybe even coins), but the council refused to accept the payment in that form. The court ruled - based on established Scottish Law - that they must accept whatever was deemed as common currency must be accepted by the council as payment.
Must be totally confusing for tourists, not least as the coins are all the same (certainly confuses shop assisstants in England, especially if they are not from the UK).
So you're complaining that things aren't working properly because you don't use a 'stable' version of a distribution The stable tree is so old as to be impractical for anything but the most mundane uses, as I pointed out, which you'd know if you'd tried to use it in a production environment (especially for software development - lack of up to date libraries can be maddening).
It's a very old and tired argument, everyone knows the deal with Debian's Stable. It's largely why we have Unbuntu now (with it's ~6 month cycles). Of course, dispite the name, 'Stable' has the same problems too (leading to complete borkage). It just happens more often in the other trees.
Red Hat is commercial. Red Hat Enterprise is, Red Hat (RIP) wasn't (it was put together by a company, but originally came in one flavor that was free as in beer, and not the same product that RHE is today).
Did you even investigate exactly how your free systems broke? No, dispite having been around long enough to have a 5 digit UID, I've just kept with the tried and true method of re-installing every time it breaks - it's worked fine for the last 10 years!
Real answer: Yes, always. Bad or broken packages for the most part. I already explained why in the previous post too.
To be honest, I have only used Redhat for about fifteen minutes my entire life, so I can't really help you with that. I'm also not going to go out and buy a copy of Redhat Linux just to verify this. I'll save you the bother, I've been using it for over 10 years (through not through choice in the last 8) - it's not like I need help! 'i r not r newb 8)'
NB: Red Hat Linux is free (but discontinued) - only Red Hat Enterprise costs money! Not to nitpick, but to continue the differentiation from earlier.
Have to say patches behave the same way on Linux. I admit, I have had problems though when upgrading things (SP2, IE7 [yes, it did break things], glibc (v3 to v4), QuickTime etc.) with all OSes I call BS. How many times have you had vendor supplied Windows, Mac OS or Solaris patches render your system non-functioning and non-bootable? vs. How many times have you had that happen on various Linux distributions or BSD variants do the same?
As I've said, nobody likes to QA regular software. Not even paid testers! For the most part, it's really dull and unrewarding. Slip ups happen when bad data get's pushed out to mirrors, it's not like people's jobs are on the line when they do either, so mistakes happen. Hell, we've struggled to get good testers when we've paid people here.
The BluRay drive is not something that gives no benefit to gaming. Xbox360 and PS3 games are going to slowly diverge in texture detail and/or game length as bigger and better HD games are developed.
Not true! Not even high end PC games (some of which have textures designed for cards with 512 MB VRAM and 8/16x Anisotropic Filtering - i.e. far more detailed than either the PS3 or the 360 can handled) need much more than ~2 GB of space uncompressed - let alone the 17+ GB avalible on a DVD!
The amount of space actually used by textures is not that big, and is limited by video hardware in both consoles (which are not going to be using insanely detailed textures any time soon - as they just don't have the VRAM).
It's almost exlusively a benifit to HD video (great if you like FMV games...). Over the next few years you might see a handful (i.e. fewer than 5) games that make use of the expanded space, probably because they have large losses encoded audio tracks or something (or they repeat data on the disc to try and improve loading times - not really necessary given all PS3's have an HD which is a meaningful benifit and one MS really dropped the ball on the second time around).
Of course as games arn't even touching 8 GB (and, short of one with a load of HD FMV, won't any time soon), you can do the same trick on a DVD (encoding the data twice on the disk for faster load times).
If you simply take a big last generation game like GTA:SD and replace all the textures with HD textures, it will no longer fit on a single DVD that the XBox360 can read.
I don't know why you think that, it's just not true. You could replace them all with the highest possible resolution textures that could be used in game by a PS3 or 360 and you wouldn't even get close to filling up the disk.
It's not like the textures are going to be 2048x2048 RAW images on the disc (nor indeed could either system use high resolution textures like that for the myriad of world objects in a sprawling game like GTA - it would forever swapping in and out textures as you walk down the street or turn in the camera).
If you look at say Saints Row (which is a GTA clone for the 360), although it's certainly HD it exemplifies this well. There are area's where it would be nice if it had additionaly texture effects or even higher resolution textures (and as ever a bit more could be squeezed out of it when additional development time), but they'd be struggling to juggle additional textures in memory - especially as people tear down the streets going from zone to zone at high speed.
The space avalible on a DVD honestly isn't even close to being an issue.
Bunny-Hopping is a VERY specific thing, related to the HL engine, having to do with gaining speed due to the funky way airspeed works.
No, it's not - and it's been around a lot longer than 'Half Life'.
Sadly, In most games bunny hopping doesn't make it much harder for people to fire back, which is the problem (e.g. as in the BF series - though Dice did eventually add measures to BF2 to this effect to try and discourage it).
One reason it's particularly annoying is it can screw up hit detection (in large multiplayer games there is usually some element of CoF/client side hit detection to fudge things so you don't notice the combined delay between you and the server, and the other players and the server).
GoW's approach (also seen in single player CoD) is the correct way to tackle the problem. The only reason developers leave the unrealistically high jumping mechanics in games is because it doesn't need as complicated map/engine development to handle it[1] and it's easier to animate.
Allowing players to jump unrealistically also let's to you a be a bit more free and easy with your map design (as players are less likely to get stuck in certain areas of the map - e.g. wedged between an object such as a tree, rock or vehicle and a hill). If you don't let them bounce around you have to otherwise make sure they can always get out of whatever situation they get themselves into on a map (e.g. by climing up or around an object that's keeping them pinned in), which is quite a bit more work.
The BF2 patched approach of forcing players to 'lower their weapon' and drain 'sprint' while jumping is not a bad compromise, it sadly isn't a complete deterrant though, particularly as it has instant recovery (they can fire immediately on landing).
[1] You don't *need* to embed hints in a map to indicate what's sumountable by a player, but it can make things a lot easier to handle in the engine.
No, updates don't always work right, but they don't always work right from Microsoft either. From updates that don't fix the problem to updates that break other things, I've experienced them on Windows, Linux and OS X. However -- this isn't a common scenario I have at all in any of them. No commercial OS that springs to mind (not Mac OS 6 through 10.4, nor Solaris 2.x-10, nor Windows 3.1 through XP) has given me as many problems upgrading the OS as Debian's APT+DPKG's (bar perhaps 'stable', which is obviously too out of date to be usable on it's own due to the time required for the QA process), Red Hat's RPM's or FreeBSD's Ports.
Free software is by a wide margin has been the most likely to give problems when upgrading the OS. Unsurprising really, few people like doing methodical testing in their spare time - it's a pretty dull aspect of software development and it's not particularly rewarding - all you'll usually get is 20 questions from developer or the package maintainer, who will almost certainly be defensive about the issue and won't even consider your report unless you jump through a bunch of hoops to report it (a stereotype perhaps, but one that I've encountered frequently).
The closest that springs to mind with regard to an OS update from a vendor that's annoyed me is the the last Windows XP service pack - though while that change the functionality of the system (with a built in firewall), it didn't actually hose the system in a way that meant I had to burn a bootable CD to go fix it, which is exactly what apt ('someone uploaded a broken basic package and now nothing works'), RH's up2date ('breaks when running for no reason and hoses the system in the process') and ports ('doesn't really track if a new package may conflict with what you have installed already') have done.
It's not that it doesn't happen in commercial OS's, it's just that it happens an awful lot less frequently than it does with software that isn't commercially supported, which makes having a proper build and lab environment all the more important if you are deploying mission critical systems on free (as in beer) OS's.
While a huge amount of OS patches are released by Microsoft (and a not too shabby amount from Sun for Solaris) it's very rare indeed they cause actual harm to the OS install.
Eve Online has the skill element in so far as you need to know your load outs, it's also got a strong element of being group based, which I think is great.
However, it's still screwed up like WoW PvP in so far as who has the most developed character wins - with WoW it's level based, but with EVE it's basically money based (though they've done well to side step the traditional levelling system in favour of a better system).
Within maybe 2-4 levels in WoW it's variable, but after that skill is out the window (unless the person is a complete fool, which hapens), especially if you are wearing anything but plate/chain and are hit by a Rogue - which account for 60%+ of the PvP Server population.
In WoW the 'world' is so much smaller than in EVE, it makes the endless ganking of lower level players by 60 Rogues a total nightmare - it's not like you can actually fight back until you are 60 too, the maths mean they will win every time (even if they go AFK / fall asleep). It wouldn't be so bad if they actually bothered to impliment dishonour instead of making excuses as to why they "can't".
In contrast, EVE, while it tries to encourage differnt load outs, mostly in reality he who has the biggest ship wins. I've been ganked on several occations in a lower sec area which is not contested, and killed in *two to three shots* (i.e. about 5 seconds) while in a very well defended Thorax (which is, or was a pretty decent ship - at least pre-insane nerfing the like of which as not been seen in an MMO since the SWG combat change fisaco) by in a Megathon (a much bigger ship). Even if I could have hit him with all 5 mounted guns and drones (which I couldn't, because he outranged me), it would have done sqat damage to him.
So in EVE, regular PvP comes down to 'you have to buy ISK from vendors to complete' so you can have ships that can complete with the other guys who are all twinked out. I've never done it, but I know plenty who do. It's become the norm for PvP'ers in EVE - it's something like 50 Million ISK for 5 UKP, which is insanly cheap given the time / effort to make that from scratch - and CCP don't seem to be bothered about it. They could easily track volume transfers by account / IP and workout when something fishy is going on and kick the offenders. They say they do it every now and again, but it doesn't look like they are putting much effort into it.
ObMoan: Apart from Honor/Dishonor and Ranking systems, developers would do well to note the folly of having combat classes that can go completely invisible! Never, *EVER*! How did they imagine that would not be insanely account-canciling annoying in PVP?!
If you don't really buy games in the first place (which in your case appears to apply to MMO's, console games or any new 3D titles for the PC[1]) it's not really going to be 'voting with your dollars', it's just you continuing to not buy games.
It could be argued that in doing so you are sending a single to publishers to make cheaper / simpler games, but I'm not sure that is a message that's going to be paid any heed when there are so many gamers who can and are willing to spend a significant amount of money on games they like.
[1] DM can be pretty taxing for a highend PC at higher detail levels, but if you really can't run it at decent speeds at say roughly medium quality detail you're not going to be able to run other new titles at a decent quality level either.
And then there's that douchebag who plays anakin in episodes I & II I'll assume you mean in II & III.:-)
I found the kid in EP:I quite good, especially for someone his age. I really didn't like the guy they picked to play Anakin in II and III, he put me off II & III. He was a poor choice as he didn't fit the role physically, IMO. He looked and acted liked an extra in Surf Nazis Must Die - most soap actors I've seen outshine him.
Next to Ewan McGregor (an example of really good casting - and good acting on his part) and Samuel L. Jackson, he stood out all the more. I'm not sure I think much of Natalie Portman in SW though, though I've liked her in other things so I'm prepared to put that down to the direction and script.
Christopher Lee was of course hammy, basically, exactly what I'd expect from him (and so seemed another odd choice) - though in contrast he was very good in LoTR.
Ian McDiarmid was, once again, excellent - no matter what odd ball stuff was being thrown at him (makeup or potentially dubious dialog) he carried it off very well IMO.
What was the reason money was missing? Was it a sale you made, a purchase you didn't? a purchase gone bad? It wasn't a result of a purchase I'd made (I'd only used it once and the vendor sent me the item with no issues) or a sale (I've never sold anything via PP or tried to collect any money via PP for any reason). They just choose to take money out of my account without authorisation (and credit themselves with it).
They said they would not refund it, but they did say they would subtract the amount they'd taken from my *next* Pay Pal purchase. Once bitten twice shy however - I have no desire to do business with any company that act's like that (not least as it's downright illegal - and they know that it seems, given their cookie cutter email reply had a whole paragraph on 'Don't complain to your Credit Card vendor.' and all the bad things they will do (e.g. freeze your account and funds- if you have one) if you do so).
I don't much like being bullied, and I had nothing to lose, why is why I 'dared' and ratted them out for breaching MasterCard's T&C's.
They took money out of my account they shouldn't have, due to a screw up entirely of their own making (it wasn't an error on my part, or another user trying to scam me and I certainly wasn't trying to scam anyone or up to anything remotely unusual or nefarious).
They wouldn't refund it and told me not to contact my credit card company (Mastercard) and sent me a cookie cutter response saying they would ban me from using Pay Pal if I reported the problem to Mastercard (as Mastercard policy explicitly said I should, given the nature of the transaction). Which is an 'interesting' way of doing business to say the least. As the only way to actually get a refund, I did tell Mastercard, I told them about everything Pay Pal had sent me, and told Pay Pal of this and instructed them to close my PP account.
Even after I had closed my account I kept getting junkmail from them (which I couldn't unsubscribe from, as I'd closed my account - which in turn prevented me from unsubscribing). Slick.
This has, to my surprise as much as anyone, been the sort of story (along with mysteriosly delayed releases of funds) that I've heard more of from people that success stories. I've met quite a few people who no longer use Pay Pal for their business because it's been such a hassle to deal with. It's ridiculous that they are not subject to stricter regulation.
I believe the practice of re-classing POW's as 'Enemy Combatants' and declaring they are no longer subject to the Geneva Convention or US law while held at Guantanamo Bay (and other US government run facilities overseas) is an affront to justice and to civil society.
I presently hesitate to call it an atrocity on the grounds of insufficient evidence (evidence, the presumption of innocence, remember those?). The prima facie case being unproven allegations by a small number of released detainees, who had gone to Afghanistan and were caught in highly inauspicious circumstances (typically captured in combat, or in possession of bombs, arms and/or bomb making equipment). That their experiences run contrary to the reports by other detainees further undermines their case.
Interestingly, your post reminds me of position GWB took when declaring that 'you were either with him, or against him' when assuming that considering the GTMO detention facility is either 'affront' or 'atrocity', as if they are mutually exclusive.
Just one quick question. Which ones are the bad guys again? Notwithstanding the affront that is Guantanamo Bay and the small number of American and British troops who have behaved appallingly in Iraq:
That would primarily be the religious extremists - mostly Iranian backed minority Shia's in the case of Iraq, though obviously Sunni's are retaliating and fighting for power too. The sort of people that are content to kill other people because they belong to a different branch of the same religion, or who they deem are not pious enough or simply because they want their faction to gain complete control of a region.
And it's teachers like me who help make the students who become a part of your work force. They're not just born smart, stupid. That's completely wrong, people are 'born smart'. There is overwhelming evidence to support that nature and environmental factors (that have nothing to do with formal education) are overwhelmingly responsible for cognitive development.
Furthermore, people do well by their own efforts, and that typically has very little to do with teachers in modern western society (though it is unfair to blame teachers for this predicament). Once you can read and write, you are basically on your own - those who want to learn and have the ability to do so will rise (or not) largely as a result of the effort they put in.
Very few programmers (outside of the army of cookie cutter Java enterprise developers who don't have an innovative bone in their bodies and who tend to develop the least elegant and barely 'serviceable' software) are taught the relevent skills or knowledge they rely on in formal education - they are predominantly self taught - something that's almost synonymous with being a good developer in the first place.
Most of us have a great passion for it, as well as for helping other students learn to love it as well. Another Brick in the Wall springs immediately to mind.
And I've tried tech support before, but to be quite honest, I don't like living an OfficeSpace-kinda life. I actually enjoy being around other people and talking with them, teaching them, interacting with them, and even watching them grow and being a part of it You can find all that plus a far larger pay cheque, and the ability to work on some cutting edge stuff in the commercial world. Of course to get the most exciting work, having the appropriate skills is important (or you will be one of the people who get stuck writing some tedious J2EE billing module and maintaining it for 4 years).
The highschool education system specifically (particularly in the UK and in the US, and I'd wager much of Europe) is so broken I'm am amazed that the small number of very good teachers in each school (and larger number of potentially good teachers) even bother to remain. Bullying, distrutive pupils, bad teachers, bad management, inequitable treatment of pupils, and a poor curriculum are the norms! Outside of the very best schools, neither teachers nor board of governers at schools are willing to tackle these issues.
I am not susprised teachers in the UK might see censoring the internet as a solution, but the problem is with society in the UK, the way we treat offenders and the way schools themselves are run. We ought to tackle the parents about their child's behaviour and teach those who can't or won't behave in seperate faclilites that are appropriately equipped - and there needs to be a process by which parents can escalate concerns and school's be punished for failing to act with due dilligance in dealing with concerns raised by pupils or parents.
I live in the UK, and I'm strongly opposed to the level of camera surveillance we have. Yes, they do potentially help cut crime, but at what cost? I'd rather have a slightly higher level of crime than live in our current Big Brother culture. Most others would probably agree with me, were the facts presented in an unbiased manner. I also live in the UK and personally I disagree with you.
I don't agree that most people would rather have a higher level of crime than we live in now - especially with regard to violent street crime (a major concern of most people here in urban areas, from London to Inverness). I for one would rather have more street cameras and feel safer (having been mugged / assault several times - including by youths with weapons - *just* out of range of existing cameras), though I would also like greater transparency and the ability to 'watch the watchers'.
We have one of the highest criminal populations in Europe, but at the same time one of the lowest conviction rates (so that when people do commit serious offenses, it's rarely followed up properly or even gets as far as prosecution). Personally I'm sick of the petty and violent street crime in this country (harrasment by groups - of typically violent - youths, assaults and mobile phone theft - not to mention aggressive drunks). I am all for GPS tagging all of them for even small infractions, placing curfews on them and tracking their movements and placing them in custody if they do not behave.
You say:
Yes, they do potentially help cut crime, but at what cost?
Indeed, what cost? The financial cost is marginal (compared with normal police force operating budgets). What are the more serious problems you envisage, and do you think the overall effect is likely to be worse than not having cameras around?
I am willing to put up with some inevitable unseemly abuse that might be commited by lowly paid camera-watchers (as is human nature) if it means a reduction in far more violent street crime (which is far more prevolent).
"Herbivore" is a human classification No, it's not a human distinction as you so clearly imply ("if cows are"... indeed), it's an observation some animals are equipped specifically and exclusively to deal with eating and digesting plant matter.
Unlike a carnivore, if you were to attempt to feed a herbivore only meat it would become very ill (typically weak, and blind) and soon after die from malnutrition. Of course, even by feeding them some meat (which they are not biologically equipped to deal with), it also makes them prone to diseases they wouldn't otherwise be at risk of - which can then be passed on to anything that in turn eats them.
If cows are such herbivores, then why do they favor meat over grass when offered meat? They don't. Given a choice between a dead sheep or another dead cow and some grass, they will pick grass every time - like other sheep, they will stay well away from a dead sheep carcass in a field. They won't so much as nibble at the corpse. I'm guessing your not that familiar with cattle (I grew up in a house in the country and have seen enough dead sheep savaged by dogs).
Just as many cats will fight over chicken flavoured Quorn, they will only do so when tricked into thinking what they are eating is really something else (try getting a cat to eat a mushroom). Hardly surprising, as you can of course fool people that way too.
Again, it's a dumb thing to do, and because we now know of the risks to human health it should be prohibited, but you seem to be taking this farther than that.. To those unable to innately grasp why feeding meat to a herbivore is 'bad and wrong', it is impossible to explain and I suspect that to them, the understanding of it will forever remain an undiscovered country.
I think the lesson from vCJD and nvCJD is "Try not to fuck too much with the natural order of things." (which might make a good slogan for our times). Again this something some people immediately understand and something some people never come to understand (and dismiss as superstitious clap trap - which is it, but that doesn't mean it's not sound advice).
Whacked out hippies have of course been saying this sort of thing for decades, it's interesting how the general public seems to have grown increasingly receptive to that sort of message.
Contrary to what you suggest (or indeed, what radical some radical vegan's might suggest), just because people eat meat, doesn't mean they don't care about animals full stop, or that they don't value the life of non-human animals.
It's not as if vegan's are the only ones who - if they see a spider in the bath - would trap it an throw it out a window rather than just kill it and flush it down the plug hole. Empathy for other creatures is a near universal human trait (think of the story of Androcles and the Lion), though there is research to show that others have brain chemistry that doesn't predispose them to it.
We (people as a whole) all know that even by living, we are causing death to others, that doesn't invalidate the benefit of some making some choices that are ultimately less destructive.
In the same way:
Just because people don't send almost all the money they have to staving orphans in much poorer parts of the world (but do spend money on jelly doughnuts for themselves), doesn't mean they don't care about people dying of starvation.
I just don't break down crying and thinking it's barbaric to harvest them as resources (food, skins, jello, etc) Or, to even to torture them, deliberately, just to get food that tastes and looks a certain way.
Just because it happens in 3rd world countries doesn't mean that it isn't happening, and the creatures exposed to acidic rivers, cyanide, and heavy metals enjoy a rather torturous death. Do you think not interacting with 3rd world countries (and not trading with them, encouraging them to have higher standards and helping them develop socially and economicaly) is ultimately more or less benifical?
FYI: Veal crates are illegal in some of the US, all of the UK and, as of 2007, all of the European Union (even France and Italy). You might want to think about what that is. Any ideas?
What about the (old-world) eskimos, who survived for months on end on a diet that is almost exclusively meat (seafood)? Good point, maybe fish is different in respect of being rich in essential amino acids (though to contradict myself, I don't think that's particularly so, not compared to meat that is). I don't really understand why fish is supposed to be so healthy for us (though clearly there is much advise that it is).
I don't know what the side effects of a seafood (seal/fish/etc) diet might be, maybe it's fine (though I am inclined to think they would be lacking some essencial amino acids in their diet and that seems likely to manifest it self somehow - but, maybe not).
I do know you can get serious liver problems from say eating lots of red meat, which is what I was thinking of - one of the reasons why medical practitioners often caution against things like the atkins diet (even though it has a really high success rate, it can also cause other problems and isn't sustainable, especially if you drink a fair bit, for example, as it puts huge strain on the liver). Apparently (I hear from family in the medical profession) liver problems in younger people (30-40) are a big problem these days, especially related to drinking.
I've sumbled across this article on what it calls the 'Inuit Paradox' (how they stay healthy without vegetables). It seems to say it's mostly as a result of eating 'healthy fat' from wild animals, which it says are quite different to the fat from 'farmed' animals, and that 50% of their diet is (/was) fat. I can't seem to find any info on health issues that might related to that (things like life expectancy, etc).
Also stumbled across this which is short and intersting, and quite gross (worth a quick read).
I don't particularly care what happens to animals, that does not translate into me not caring about people. I didn't say it did. Your apparent lack of empathy for animals is still a sociopathic trait and is really creepy IMO.
You are the one who passes judgement about people being failures because of what they do for a living. Unless you are willing to say you think it's random chance that - given broad equal opportunities - some people do far better than others then you've got to accept that grown adults hold chief responsibility for the way they turn out.
Why would anybody choose (a) over the equal (and in many ways better) alternatives? Because it's what they get more enjoyment from. Yes, indeed. That's not even remotely the thing as torturing an animal purely to make food 'tastier', however.
Interesting, I wrote 'some dogs' because I know what you mean about those pointy molars (and I've seen how some dogs find it much easier than others to chew things), I didn't actually realise they were omnivores too though.
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Yeah, but if you care enough to get the truly best, you build your own. And then you don't suck
Unless of course you are doing 'real work' and happen to like the Mac as Unix software development environment - in which case having run another OS (such as Windows, even Linux or a hacked up version of Mac OS X for x86) will take a huge chunk out of your productivity.
Personally I have an GTX SLI / AMD FX PC exlusively for gaming, and a couple of G4 systems (one a PowerBook) for development, which I find the most practical arrangement. However, if/when Apple come out with a system with SLI / Crossfire and the next generation of Intel CPU's are released there is an excellent chance I will migrate soley to Macintosh hardware rather than maintain my existing gaming system (when the next upgrade cycle comes around).
So far as I can tell Mac has mothing to compare with what you can do when you roll your own.
Pfft I've seen homebrew laptops, nothing doing!
More seriously, the point is the OS. The hardware isn't as great for gaming at the high end (specifically, the hardware doesn't support SLI or CrossFire which is the only real issue), but for everything else I find it's better in every other respect than using Windows or Linux/BSD/HURD/etc. due to the OS.
Since when is MySpace "the real world"?
It always has been a web site,in the real world, maintained by real people who cost real money to employ to run the site and to clean up after this sort of thing, it has real advertisers and real owners too. It exists to generate money for people, it's a business.
In what way does it not exist in "the real world"?
(b) Kamkar used this exploit in the real world, effecting one million accounts (and even he isn't being 'put away').
The writeup is misleading when it says:
The source and technical explanation for the "attack" was not even released until after MySpace had patched the vulnerability.
The author used the script it to add over one million 'friends' to his profile, MySpace then addressed the issue. Obviously the source was released *before* it was patched (that's fundamental to how the exploit worked). All he did after the event was post a more detailed explanation of how he developed the exploit.
Note, he didn't circulate that that to anyone before hand or tell MySpace about what he had found - he just decided to go right ahead exploit the vulnerability.
I don't believe for a minute MySpace - as much as I dislike the site and most of it's users - would go after someone who, on discovering the issue, actually went to them first and told them about what they had found (or even if they'd just published notice of a theoretical vulnerability via something like a known and respected security mailing list).
Kamkar did none of those things, he just decided to go right ahead and exploit the hole and play at being a haxor. Given he was 19 and so clearly old enough to have known better, three months of community service and being forced to pay restitution to MySpace sounds about right to me.
One less guy like that on the Internet for a while is something I'd welcome too.
Someone last year IIRC, tried to pay a council tax / fine (in Scotland) in some odd form. English 5 Pound notes possibly (maybe even coins), but the council refused to accept the payment in that form. The court ruled - based on established Scottish Law - that they must accept whatever was deemed as common currency must be accepted by the council as payment.
Must be totally confusing for tourists, not least as the coins are all the same (certainly confuses shop assisstants in England, especially if they are not from the UK).
It's a very old and tired argument, everyone knows the deal with Debian's Stable. It's largely why we have Unbuntu now (with it's ~6 month cycles). Of course, dispite the name, 'Stable' has the same problems too (leading to complete borkage). It just happens more often in the other trees. Red Hat is commercial. Red Hat Enterprise is, Red Hat (RIP) wasn't (it was put together by a company, but originally came in one flavor that was free as in beer, and not the same product that RHE is today). Did you even investigate exactly how your free systems broke? No, dispite having been around long enough to have a 5 digit UID, I've just kept with the tried and true method of re-installing every time it breaks - it's worked fine for the last 10 years!
Real answer: Yes, always. Bad or broken packages for the most part. I already explained why in the previous post too. To be honest, I have only used Redhat for about fifteen minutes my entire life, so I can't really help you with that. I'm also not going to go out and buy a copy of Redhat Linux just to verify this. I'll save you the bother, I've been using it for over 10 years (through not through choice in the last 8) - it's not like I need help! 'i r not r newb 8)'
NB: Red Hat Linux is free (but discontinued) - only Red Hat Enterprise costs money! Not to nitpick, but to continue the differentiation from earlier. Have to say patches behave the same way on Linux. I admit, I have had problems though when upgrading things (SP2, IE7 [yes, it did break things], glibc (v3 to v4), QuickTime etc.) with all OSes I call BS. How many times have you had vendor supplied Windows, Mac OS or Solaris patches render your system non-functioning and non-bootable? vs. How many times have you had that happen on various Linux distributions or BSD variants do the same?
As I've said, nobody likes to QA regular software. Not even paid testers! For the most part, it's really dull and unrewarding. Slip ups happen when bad data get's pushed out to mirrors, it's not like people's jobs are on the line when they do either, so mistakes happen. Hell, we've struggled to get good testers when we've paid people here.
The BluRay drive is not something that gives no benefit to gaming. Xbox360 and PS3 games are going to slowly diverge in texture detail and/or game length as bigger and better HD games are developed.
Not true! Not even high end PC games (some of which have textures designed for cards with 512 MB VRAM and 8/16x Anisotropic Filtering - i.e. far more detailed than either the PS3 or the 360 can handled) need much more than ~2 GB of space uncompressed - let alone the 17+ GB avalible on a DVD!
The amount of space actually used by textures is not that big, and is limited by video hardware in both consoles (which are not going to be using insanely detailed textures any time soon - as they just don't have the VRAM).
It's almost exlusively a benifit to HD video (great if you like FMV games...). Over the next few years you might see a handful (i.e. fewer than 5) games that make use of the expanded space, probably because they have large losses encoded audio tracks or something (or they repeat data on the disc to try and improve loading times - not really necessary given all PS3's have an HD which is a meaningful benifit and one MS really dropped the ball on the second time around).
Of course as games arn't even touching 8 GB (and, short of one with a load of HD FMV, won't any time soon), you can do the same trick on a DVD (encoding the data twice on the disk for faster load times).
If you simply take a big last generation game like GTA:SD and replace all the textures with HD textures, it will no longer fit on a single DVD that the XBox360 can read.
I don't know why you think that, it's just not true. You could replace them all with the highest possible resolution textures that could be used in game by a PS3 or 360 and you wouldn't even get close to filling up the disk.
It's not like the textures are going to be 2048x2048 RAW images on the disc (nor indeed could either system use high resolution textures like that for the myriad of world objects in a sprawling game like GTA - it would forever swapping in and out textures as you walk down the street or turn in the camera).
If you look at say Saints Row (which is a GTA clone for the 360), although it's certainly HD it exemplifies this well. There are area's where it would be nice if it had additionaly texture effects or even higher resolution textures (and as ever a bit more could be squeezed out of it when additional development time), but they'd be struggling to juggle additional textures in memory - especially as people tear down the streets going from zone to zone at high speed.
The space avalible on a DVD honestly isn't even close to being an issue.
Bunny-Hopping is a VERY specific thing, related to the HL engine, having to do with gaining speed due to the funky way airspeed works.
No, it's not - and it's been around a lot longer than 'Half Life'.
Sadly, In most games bunny hopping doesn't make it much harder for people to fire back, which is the problem (e.g. as in the BF series - though Dice did eventually add measures to BF2 to this effect to try and discourage it).
One reason it's particularly annoying is it can screw up hit detection (in large multiplayer games there is usually some element of CoF/client side hit detection to fudge things so you don't notice the combined delay between you and the server, and the other players and the server).
GoW's approach (also seen in single player CoD) is the correct way to tackle the problem. The only reason developers leave the unrealistically high jumping mechanics in games is because it doesn't need as complicated map/engine development to handle it[1] and it's easier to animate.
Allowing players to jump unrealistically also let's to you a be a bit more free and easy with your map design (as players are less likely to get stuck in certain areas of the map - e.g. wedged between an object such as a tree, rock or vehicle and a hill). If you don't let them bounce around you have to otherwise make sure they can always get out of whatever situation they get themselves into on a map (e.g. by climing up or around an object that's keeping them pinned in), which is quite a bit more work.
The BF2 patched approach of forcing players to 'lower their weapon' and drain 'sprint' while jumping is not a bad compromise, it sadly isn't a complete deterrant though, particularly as it has instant recovery (they can fire immediately on landing).
[1] You don't *need* to embed hints in a map to indicate what's sumountable by a player, but it can make things a lot easier to handle in the engine.
Free software is by a wide margin has been the most likely to give problems when upgrading the OS. Unsurprising really, few people like doing methodical testing in their spare time - it's a pretty dull aspect of software development and it's not particularly rewarding - all you'll usually get is 20 questions from developer or the package maintainer, who will almost certainly be defensive about the issue and won't even consider your report unless you jump through a bunch of hoops to report it (a stereotype perhaps, but one that I've encountered frequently).
The closest that springs to mind with regard to an OS update from a vendor that's annoyed me is the the last Windows XP service pack - though while that change the functionality of the system (with a built in firewall), it didn't actually hose the system in a way that meant I had to burn a bootable CD to go fix it, which is exactly what apt ('someone uploaded a broken basic package and now nothing works'), RH's up2date ('breaks when running for no reason and hoses the system in the process') and ports ('doesn't really track if a new package may conflict with what you have installed already') have done.
It's not that it doesn't happen in commercial OS's, it's just that it happens an awful lot less frequently than it does with software that isn't commercially supported, which makes having a proper build and lab environment all the more important if you are deploying mission critical systems on free (as in beer) OS's.
While a huge amount of OS patches are released by Microsoft (and a not too shabby amount from Sun for Solaris) it's very rare indeed they cause actual harm to the OS install.
Eve Online has the skill element in so far as you need to know your load outs, it's also got a strong element of being group based, which I think is great.
However, it's still screwed up like WoW PvP in so far as who has the most developed character wins - with WoW it's level based, but with EVE it's basically money based (though they've done well to side step the traditional levelling system in favour of a better system).
Within maybe 2-4 levels in WoW it's variable, but after that skill is out the window (unless the person is a complete fool, which hapens), especially if you are wearing anything but plate/chain and are hit by a Rogue - which account for 60%+ of the PvP Server population.
In WoW the 'world' is so much smaller than in EVE, it makes the endless ganking of lower level players by 60 Rogues a total nightmare - it's not like you can actually fight back until you are 60 too, the maths mean they will win every time (even if they go AFK / fall asleep). It wouldn't be so bad if they actually bothered to impliment dishonour instead of making excuses as to why they "can't".
In contrast, EVE, while it tries to encourage differnt load outs, mostly in reality he who has the biggest ship wins. I've been ganked on several occations in a lower sec area which is not contested, and killed in *two to three shots* (i.e. about 5 seconds) while in a very well defended Thorax (which is, or was a pretty decent ship - at least pre-insane nerfing the like of which as not been seen in an MMO since the SWG combat change fisaco) by in a Megathon (a much bigger ship). Even if I could have hit him with all 5 mounted guns and drones (which I couldn't, because he outranged me), it would have done sqat damage to him.
So in EVE, regular PvP comes down to 'you have to buy ISK from vendors to complete' so you can have ships that can complete with the other guys who are all twinked out. I've never done it, but I know plenty who do. It's become the norm for PvP'ers in EVE - it's something like 50 Million ISK for 5 UKP, which is insanly cheap given the time / effort to make that from scratch - and CCP don't seem to be bothered about it. They could easily track volume transfers by account / IP and workout when something fishy is going on and kick the offenders. They say they do it every now and again, but it doesn't look like they are putting much effort into it.
ObMoan: Apart from Honor/Dishonor and Ranking systems, developers would do well to note the folly of having combat classes that can go completely invisible! Never, *EVER*! How did they imagine that would not be insanely account-canciling annoying in PVP?!
Gamers can and do vote with their dollars.
If you don't really buy games in the first place (which in your case appears to apply to MMO's, console games or any new 3D titles for the PC[1]) it's not really going to be 'voting with your dollars', it's just you continuing to not buy games.
It could be argued that in doing so you are sending a single to publishers to make cheaper / simpler games, but I'm not sure that is a message that's going to be paid any heed when there are so many gamers who can and are willing to spend a significant amount of money on games they like.
[1] DM can be pretty taxing for a highend PC at higher detail levels, but if you really can't run it at decent speeds at say roughly medium quality detail you're not going to be able to run other new titles at a decent quality level either.
I found the kid in EP:I quite good, especially for someone his age. I really didn't like the guy they picked to play Anakin in II and III, he put me off II & III. He was a poor choice as he didn't fit the role physically, IMO. He looked and acted liked an extra in Surf Nazis Must Die - most soap actors I've seen outshine him.
Next to Ewan McGregor (an example of really good casting - and good acting on his part) and Samuel L. Jackson, he stood out all the more. I'm not sure I think much of Natalie Portman in SW though, though I've liked her in other things so I'm prepared to put that down to the direction and script.
Christopher Lee was of course hammy, basically, exactly what I'd expect from him (and so seemed another odd choice) - though in contrast he was very good in LoTR.
Ian McDiarmid was, once again, excellent - no matter what odd ball stuff was being thrown at him (makeup or potentially dubious dialog) he carried it off very well IMO.
They said they would not refund it, but they did say they would subtract the amount they'd taken from my *next* Pay Pal purchase. Once bitten twice shy however - I have no desire to do business with any company that act's like that (not least as it's downright illegal - and they know that it seems, given their cookie cutter email reply had a whole paragraph on 'Don't complain to your Credit Card vendor.' and all the bad things they will do (e.g. freeze your account and funds- if you have one) if you do so).
I don't much like being bullied, and I had nothing to lose, why is why I 'dared' and ratted them out for breaching MasterCard's T&C's.
They took money out of my account they shouldn't have, due to a screw up entirely of their own making (it wasn't an error on my part, or another user trying to scam me and I certainly wasn't trying to scam anyone or up to anything remotely unusual or nefarious).
They wouldn't refund it and told me not to contact my credit card company (Mastercard) and sent me a cookie cutter response saying they would ban me from using Pay Pal if I reported the problem to Mastercard (as Mastercard policy explicitly said I should, given the nature of the transaction). Which is an 'interesting' way of doing business to say the least. As the only way to actually get a refund, I did tell Mastercard, I told them about everything Pay Pal had sent me, and told Pay Pal of this and instructed them to close my PP account.
Even after I had closed my account I kept getting junkmail from them (which I couldn't unsubscribe from, as I'd closed my account - which in turn prevented me from unsubscribing). Slick.
This has, to my surprise as much as anyone, been the sort of story (along with mysteriosly delayed releases of funds) that I've heard more of from people that success stories. I've met quite a few people who no longer use Pay Pal for their business because it's been such a hassle to deal with. It's ridiculous that they are not subject to stricter regulation.
I believe the practice of re-classing POW's as 'Enemy Combatants' and declaring they are no longer subject to the Geneva Convention or US law while held at Guantanamo Bay (and other US government run facilities overseas) is an affront to justice and to civil society.
I presently hesitate to call it an atrocity on the grounds of insufficient evidence (evidence, the presumption of innocence, remember those?). The prima facie case being unproven allegations by a small number of released detainees, who had gone to Afghanistan and were caught in highly inauspicious circumstances (typically captured in combat, or in possession of bombs, arms and/or bomb making equipment). That their experiences run contrary to the reports by other detainees further undermines their case.
Interestingly, your post reminds me of position GWB took when declaring that 'you were either with him, or against him' when assuming that considering the GTMO detention facility is either 'affront' or 'atrocity', as if they are mutually exclusive.
That would primarily be the religious extremists - mostly Iranian backed minority Shia's in the case of Iraq, though obviously Sunni's are retaliating and fighting for power too. The sort of people that are content to kill other people because they belong to a different branch of the same religion, or who they deem are not pious enough or simply because they want their faction to gain complete control of a region.
Furthermore, people do well by their own efforts, and that typically has very little to do with teachers in modern western society (though it is unfair to blame teachers for this predicament). Once you can read and write, you are basically on your own - those who want to learn and have the ability to do so will rise (or not) largely as a result of the effort they put in.
Very few programmers (outside of the army of cookie cutter Java enterprise developers who don't have an innovative bone in their bodies and who tend to develop the least elegant and barely 'serviceable' software) are taught the relevent skills or knowledge they rely on in formal education - they are predominantly self taught - something that's almost synonymous with being a good developer in the first place. Most of us have a great passion for it, as well as for helping other students learn to love it as well. Another Brick in the Wall springs immediately to mind. And I've tried tech support before, but to be quite honest, I don't like living an OfficeSpace-kinda life. I actually enjoy being around other people and talking with them, teaching them, interacting with them, and even watching them grow and being a part of it You can find all that plus a far larger pay cheque, and the ability to work on some cutting edge stuff in the commercial world. Of course to get the most exciting work, having the appropriate skills is important (or you will be one of the people who get stuck writing some tedious J2EE billing module and maintaining it for 4 years).
The highschool education system specifically (particularly in the UK and in the US, and I'd wager much of Europe) is so broken I'm am amazed that the small number of very good teachers in each school (and larger number of potentially good teachers) even bother to remain. Bullying, distrutive pupils, bad teachers, bad management, inequitable treatment of pupils, and a poor curriculum are the norms! Outside of the very best schools, neither teachers nor board of governers at schools are willing to tackle these issues.
I am not susprised teachers in the UK might see censoring the internet as a solution, but the problem is with society in the UK, the way we treat offenders and the way schools themselves are run. We ought to tackle the parents about their child's behaviour and teach those who can't or won't behave in seperate faclilites that are appropriately equipped - and there needs to be a process by which parents can escalate concerns and school's be punished for failing to act with due dilligance in dealing with concerns raised by pupils or parents.
I don't agree that most people would rather have a higher level of crime than we live in now - especially with regard to violent street crime (a major concern of most people here in urban areas, from London to Inverness). I for one would rather have more street cameras and feel safer (having been mugged / assault several times - including by youths with weapons - *just* out of range of existing cameras), though I would also like greater transparency and the ability to 'watch the watchers'.
We have one of the highest criminal populations in Europe, but at the same time one of the lowest conviction rates (so that when people do commit serious offenses, it's rarely followed up properly or even gets as far as prosecution). Personally I'm sick of the petty and violent street crime in this country (harrasment by groups - of typically violent - youths, assaults and mobile phone theft - not to mention aggressive drunks). I am all for GPS tagging all of them for even small infractions, placing curfews on them and tracking their movements and placing them in custody if they do not behave.
You say:
Yes, they do potentially help cut crime, but at what cost?
Indeed, what cost? The financial cost is marginal (compared with normal police force operating budgets). What are the more serious problems you envisage, and do you think the overall effect is likely to be worse than not having cameras around?
I am willing to put up with some inevitable unseemly abuse that might be commited by lowly paid camera-watchers (as is human nature) if it means a reduction in far more violent street crime (which is far more prevolent).
Unlike a carnivore, if you were to attempt to feed a herbivore only meat it would become very ill (typically weak, and blind) and soon after die from malnutrition. Of course, even by feeding them some meat (which they are not biologically equipped to deal with), it also makes them prone to diseases they wouldn't otherwise be at risk of - which can then be passed on to anything that in turn eats them. If cows are such herbivores, then why do they favor meat over grass when offered meat? They don't. Given a choice between a dead sheep or another dead cow and some grass, they will pick grass every time - like other sheep, they will stay well away from a dead sheep carcass in a field. They won't so much as nibble at the corpse. I'm guessing your not that familiar with cattle (I grew up in a house in the country and have seen enough dead sheep savaged by dogs).
Just as many cats will fight over chicken flavoured Quorn, they will only do so when tricked into thinking what they are eating is really something else (try getting a cat to eat a mushroom). Hardly surprising, as you can of course fool people that way too.
I think the lesson from vCJD and nvCJD is "Try not to fuck too much with the natural order of things." (which might make a good slogan for our times). Again this something some people immediately understand and something some people never come to understand (and dismiss as superstitious clap trap - which is it, but that doesn't mean it's not sound advice).
Whacked out hippies have of course been saying this sort of thing for decades, it's interesting how the general public seems to have grown increasingly receptive to that sort of message.
Contrary to what you suggest (or indeed, what radical some radical vegan's might suggest), just because people eat meat, doesn't mean they don't care about animals full stop, or that they don't value the life of non-human animals.
It's not as if vegan's are the only ones who - if they see a spider in the bath - would trap it an throw it out a window rather than just kill it and flush it down the plug hole. Empathy for other creatures is a near universal human trait (think of the story of Androcles and the Lion), though there is research to show that others have brain chemistry that doesn't predispose them to it.
We (people as a whole) all know that even by living, we are causing death to others, that doesn't invalidate the benefit of some making some choices that are ultimately less destructive.
In the same way:
Just because people don't send almost all the money they have to staving orphans in much poorer parts of the world (but do spend money on jelly doughnuts for themselves), doesn't mean they don't care about people dying of starvation.
FYI: Veal crates are illegal in some of the US, all of the UK and, as of 2007, all of the European Union (even France and Italy). You might want to think about what that is. Any ideas?
I don't know what the side effects of a seafood (seal/fish/etc) diet might be, maybe it's fine (though I am inclined to think they would be lacking some essencial amino acids in their diet and that seems likely to manifest it self somehow - but, maybe not).
I do know you can get serious liver problems from say eating lots of red meat, which is what I was thinking of - one of the reasons why medical practitioners often caution against things like the atkins diet (even though it has a really high success rate, it can also cause other problems and isn't sustainable, especially if you drink a fair bit, for example, as it puts huge strain on the liver). Apparently (I hear from family in the medical profession) liver problems in younger people (30-40) are a big problem these days, especially related to drinking.
I've sumbled across this article on what it calls the 'Inuit Paradox' (how they stay healthy without vegetables). It seems to say it's mostly as a result of eating 'healthy fat' from wild animals, which it says are quite different to the fat from 'farmed' animals, and that 50% of their diet is (/was) fat. I can't seem to find any info on health issues that might related to that (things like life expectancy, etc).
Also stumbled across this which is short and intersting, and quite gross (worth a quick read).
Interesting, I wrote 'some dogs' because I know what you mean about those pointy molars (and I've seen how some dogs find it much easier than others to chew things), I didn't actually realise they were omnivores too though.