Install good caching proxy software, and your own DNS server, and the system will perform spectacularly for nearly any normal use. As I said in my huge post way up towards the top of the topic, Quake, Telephony apps, and probably character mode telnets are out of the question. Most other applications work very well.
Hallelujah, another one of us.
I've taken several preorders for the system, when people start playing with it, I tell them, look. If you want to play online games such as Quake, the computer will work with a modem, no problem. The latency on the satellite will not let you play Quake like games. For most other applications, it's incredible.
The cards will most likely be available as upgrades, later. Or you'll be able to get satellite receivers as we have in the stores, though they are extremely expensive satellite receivers. (a large receiver box with an ethernet port and a coax port to hook up to the satellite)
For the nay-sayers, the system would be very practical for a lot of people. But, just like any other product out there, some people won't be able to use it to solve their problems. I'm a die hard Quake fan, I'd die if I couldn't play Q3 over my link.
I've pre-ordered my system already. What I'm going to do is hook up all my computers to this particular Compaq model and use the Compaq as the net server. When I want to play Q3 online, open up a dialup connection, disconnect from the LAN, and off I go.
Alright, I typed nearly a 4K response to this question earlier, and accidently clicked the wrong close button. I hate Microsoft's decision that CLOSE should be next to RESTORE. Dammit.
Anyway: Here's the reason
TECH SUPPORT.
THis is a brand new system. BRAND new. Very little has been done like this before, except for the few people who've talked about DirecPC, which isn't in the same category, and the person who mentioned that they had a very very pricey two way satellite a couple years back.
When StarBand sells you this computer and the satellite hardware, they are going to KNOW that there are not going to be any hardware issues with this computer. The system is tested at the manufacturer, that it -WILL- work with the cards and the preconfigured software. THis way, StarBand can very quickly, easily, painlessly tell if you are having a hardware problem, a cabling problem, or a software problem. Then they can fix it very easily. When you start packing in the 238645579 different PCI and ISA and VLB and EISA and whatever cards from the history of PC's, then you don't know what the hell is going on insided the machine when something breaks down.
--YOU-- as a technically savvy person who knows the ins and outs of every single transistor and capacitor inside their computer may understand fully what the problem is, but technical support doesn't have the ability to try these PCI cards with every single hardware combination that ever could come up.
First: A higher end computer will be available, hopefully by the end of the year, or early next. Second: I'm -sure- the transmit/receive cards will be availalbe individually in the future. Just NOT RIGHT NOW. This is a NEW product, a NEW service, and they want to make sure it DOES what it's SUPPOSED to do.
Recomendation: you don't want to use the computer that comes with it? Load up some good proxy caching and DNS software on it, throw it in a closet, and ignore it. Hook up your other computer(s) and let them surf off it.
Absolutely correct, sir!
From what I understand the downstream isn't quite that fast, either since the synchronization (ACK/NAK, or whatever it's equivalent in this scenario is) is coming over the telephone lines, via 56K modem.
For what it's worth, DirecPC is talking about dong 2-way sometime in late 2001 or early 2002.
Having been using this system at work for the last 2 months, I can tell you a few things about it from personal experience. But, FIRST, let me mention that the system that i'm using is not exactly the system that is being released to customers. The StarBand satellite that I have at work is basically attached to a server that interconnects all 300 or thereabouts of the stores that are on this same network. Our server is vastly overloaded at some points, and my times are claimed to be quite a bit slower than what real customers are experiencing from the beta test, and apparently now we have real paying customers getting into the service right now.
Ping times: Ping times are rotten. I see anywhere from 850ms return time to >2000ms return time, depending on time of day and weather conditions. This makes it virtually useless for gaming. However, my experience with chat programs (I use PIRCH on it on a regular basis) with IRC and Yahoo! and such is that it's really not all that noticeable. I haven't tried ICQ, since ICQ operates a little bit differently than Yahoo Messenger does, I imagine it would show more of an annoyance factor with ICQ than with Yahoo or MSN Messenger.
The other thing that's totally out is telephone applications.
However, many improvements have been made in the service that I am seeing over the last several weeks. I've noticed that although in the beginning web pages with lots of small data files included initially were painfully slow, but over the last several weeks, the speed has increased dramatically. I don't know if they are using some sort of caching software that will take all of those requests, then respond to them with the burst download speed, or what.
I do think that software caching certainly becomes a very important aspect of this, and that if you were using this 2-way satellite connection, that it would be a very good idea to have your own on-network caching and DNS service. On the computer at work that it is hooked up to, I have Internet Explorer set to not expire the cache at all, and use the Refresh button when necessary, since I don't have the privlege of installing decent caching or DNS software.
I haven't tried much telneting with it, but I imagine that a Character mode telnet would be absolutely intolerable, though I have used MUDs that use Line mode telnet without any annoyance factor. (I should develop a scale for that.. the XO Annoyance Factor scale.. *laugh*)
To the bright side of things: My system which, as I said, is supposed to be quite a bit slower than the consumer system, does return (using the MSN speed test page, I don't know the URL right off hand) speeds around 350k/sec download and around 100k/sec upload. It may take some time to get the data streams started, but once they are started, they are _FAST!_
I can pull up NASA TV after a second or two delay in incredible audio/visual clarity, most real audio/real video things come down at maximum speed (I notice that a -lot- of RA content out there is optimized for 21k/sec, which leaves a SERIOUS amount of quality to be desired!), my customers who play with the system are on a regular basis amazed by it's speed, particularly if they are stuck with dialup or with a low-grade (ie 144k/max) DSL connect, etc.
The only downside of this whole thing is, since it's very new, they are only offering it with one particular computer setup - though this is not necessarily a bad thing. The computer that you get pre-tested and ready to rock on this system is a Compaq system, I don't have the specs, it's around 600MHz with 64MB RAM, etc. Would make a fabulous network gateway for those of you with more powerful machines already, or a great upgrade computer if your main machine is an older one (like mine's a very nice 400MHz with 96MB.. when I get the satellite setup, I'll be hooking up about 6 other machines to it, all inferior computers) . The other thing that my system has is that my system is running Windows, and has to use CyberPatrol, with full blocking on. So although I imagine that it could very easily be configured for use with Linux, and such, the software isn't immediatly available.
The hardware to actually operate the satellite dish is in the form of 2 (two) PCI cards, one dedicated for transmit, and one dedicated for receive. (You may notice that they are currently being sued by another company who holds a patent on something like "receiving and transmitting data into/out of a computer using two seperate interface cards" - a BS patent if I've ever seen one) I would very much love to see OpenSource software to handle these cards, and although I haven't been a Linux user for quite some time (Windows gets me by just fine for email and reading slashdot which is all I ever have time for anymore), I would seriously love to provide any information that I can. Which isn't going to be a lot, since I'm not privvy to the internal workings of it, but.....
If you guys have any questions, drop me a line, ericblade@freeatlast.com, I'll try to do what I can. Recognize that although my store will be selling these systems, I'm not here for sales, I just want to help keep everyone informed. It's definitely against company policy to go and sell things away from the location of business.
Media motivated or not, it's a good move. He's basically recognizing the fact that although unfortunatly some things that really shouldn't get leaked do, that it's very important that some things that shouldn't be classified and are don't stay that way. I don't know that I've ever praised the decision of any politician I've ever seen in any office, but this one seems good, and there's actually a press statement explaining. And that he explains that he recognizes that additional protections may be necessary to protect orders of national security, whatever those might be, that things that do not affect national security even -should- be leaked. That's cool.
It sounded to me like he was basically saying, in response to several questions that if elected president, he would promote things that would attempt to increase the intelligence of the average united states citizen. Now, that's what I'm all about. I'm sick of stupid people! hehe
This sounds like a good idea. They should put some financing into one of the 2-way satellite internet companies though. Granted, satellite service has a rather high latency issue, but we don't necessarily want people at hospitals, governmental institutions, etc playing Q3 all day do we????:)
First:
Could someone translate Hagelin's last comment into English? If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds like his whole purpose of being President would be to try to make the United States citizens smarter. I guess I'm all for that, having worked in -retail- all my life, and the whole fscking world is full of dumbasses!
Second:
I think Bush's responses are neither pandering to us, nor customized for us - they are the same crap that's going out on national TV every day. I'm so damn sick of election ads, and I don't even -OWN- a TV.
Oops, third:
Electoral system is fscking stupid. 100% of the population could vote for Browne or Hagelin or Nadder or Perot, or whomever the hell they wanted. But would the people who cast those elecoral votes? You bet your ass not. They get ->PAID
How do they test something like this? just put a bunch of penguins in fly zones, and fly a bunch of planes over them? And what exactly is the point? Why would a penguin fall over when an aircraft goes over anyway? Would it be because they are basically not the most manueverable creatures on earth, and they wanted to see it??? Why wouldn't this apply to penguins watching birds fly over?
Why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Because if they flew over the bay, they would be bay-gulls.
bay-gulls... bagels... get it?? ahhahahha oh, sorry. I really am sorry.
THis seems like a waste of science dept. money. lol
Sounds like he should have a Metallica theme song.
(thinking I'll be reduced to absolute flame bait here for mentioning the unholy Metallica on/..... i wish you guys would understand that whole thing...)
All I can say is that this chica must've rolled really low on her INT or WIS rolls when she was created.
Roll saving throws versus DEX to avoid air turbulence. Fail, a hole is ripped in your spacesuit at 165,000 feet up, bam, you're dead. Succeed, and roll save vs CON to avoid passing out.
Can you imagine what the GROUND must look like coming at you at Mach 1 though?!??!?
I guess I forgot the most depressing part of the whole story. As Columbine was heavy in the media spotlight, a day after I sent my email to Katz (that I never saw online, which is fine, though I'd love to have a copy of it, if he might have it on archive somewhere), one of the people that I talked to on a semi-regular (couple times a week) basis in high school, searched me out, all the way from Europe, to send me an email:
Just what the hell is everyone's problem about Katz? I have finally after over a year and a half of reading slashdot totally anonymously, signed in, and actually am trying to get a handle on how the real system here works, since mostly i just read the headlines, and click links.
I remember when I first read the Hellmouth (I remember somewhere in the postings the origin of the name was explained, for those curious, but I don't remember what it was), I was inspired to also share my experiences.. the problem was, I didn't remember most of them, having pushed High School, a scant 5 years ago then, completely out of my memory. I did, however, click on his name, and just fire off an email. After a half an hour, I had probably close to a 10K text email message that I really don't remember writing.. I just let the fingers and subconscious do it all.. and when I was done, I re-read everything that I had written, and had jarred myself into tears from it.
Yes, I agree with a lot of the posts that a lot of the people probably really don't have it as bad as they say they do, but then there are others that are downplaying it, too.
I was brutally beaten by large groups of large people throughout middle and high schools.. rarely ever actually injured, but seriously bruised. I was a pacifist, however. I never fought back. I so dislike real violence (yet I love Quake/Doom/etc, and heavy metal)...
Even the other geeks used to torment me.. though there really weren't any other computer geeks coming from a class that graduated 60 out of an original 98 people student base. Perhaps the other "outcasts" as it were, I mean.
Maybe it was because it was a school full of farmers children for the most part, and my parents were factory workers, that were generally better off financially than most of the community, I don't know what the whole root of it was.
One of the more painful experiences I remember was in 8th grade, lunch spent hanging out with a couple of other heavy metal fans (who only marginally got along with me, only because we had the music going between us, they were really non-intelligent for the most part), a very very large classmate decided that he was particularly offended by the pimple on my forehead, jumped me from behind, and smashed my head into the wall at least 3 or 4 times, and he was then applauded by all of his friends.
The initial alienation breeds more. As it happened more and more, as I began to grow different from my classmates, even as early as Kindergarten (I was already writing stupid programs on my TRS-80 and VIC-20, hoping I would one day get a stupid little game published in one of the type-in-program magazines.. *laugh*).. I became more withdrawn.. as I discovered the more I tried to defend myself, the worse it became.. and I remember in 1st grade, is when it degenerated from stupid taunts and not wanting to be associated, to the beating.. so I went through 11 years of it.
The more withdrawn I became, the more I was teased, and beaten, and the more withdrawn I became, etc.. vicious cycle.
And people wondered why I liked my computer more than the people around me. People wondered what happened to the once straight A student, who never really did anything wrong, except when he was trying to fit in with the other kids.. when entering high school, his grades hit rock bottom..
Suddenly I spent all of my time in school from 9th grade through most of 11th no longer caring one bit about anyone or anything around me.. My parents were completely oblivious, the teachers were completely oblivious, as everyone always knows.. Hell, we had a guy who was on some SERIOUS drugs totally thrash an entire classroom.. and he got a 3 day suspension. I got 7 days for smoking on school property -after school hours-.
Strangely enough, as my performance in school degenerated right into the toilet, and my immersion in heavy metal music, playing bass guitar, and programming grew, I actually became somewhat more interesting to the people around me. They paid a little bit of attention to me finally, but at this point, I'd had so much from them, that I never cared one bit about them anymore. Then, I cracked. I was wandering the halls of the school in the middle of classes, just attempting to see if I could avoid getting busted out of class, with my walkman on, blaring some tune i was really into at the time.. and the school hockey player walked around the corner. He told me to turn the music off. I finally stood up, and started defying these people, after many years. He picked me up and flung me across the hallway as if I were nothing. I stood, noting that he'd basically destroyed my cassette player, headphones, and cassette all in the same blast, and in an insane burst of adrenalin, beat the heck out of him.
I got suspended for 7 more days.
After that, though, no one ever took their hands towards me again.
It's not the solution, and it will never be the solution. Violence will never solve the problem correctly.
My grades briefly rose back from the grave, though I still paid no attention to anyone around me.. and as I suddenly became the head of class again, in line for top 10 in the class, even though I'd spent the last 3 years screwing around.. people started with the incessant teasing and such again.. and I had finally had enough.
As I was saying, people wondered for a long time, whatever happened to me, when three days before the end of the first semester of my senior year, I disappeared.
A week later, I showed up at the house of the twins who were destined to be valedictorian and salutatorian of the class. They weren't friends of mine, and weren't particularly friendly or unfriendly, but I thought perhaps they might understand. I knocked on the door, and one of them answered (after spending almost 13 years in the same class, I could never tell the two apart), and I told her "I've got something I need to say. I want you both to hear this, because most likely none of you will ever hear from me again." I think at this point they were thinking I was suicidal, but I wasn't. I had carefully chosen my words, and to make a long story even longer, I told them that I was dropping out of school, and going to head in whatever direction life took me. And that I never wanted to see the Hell-hole known as Galesburg, Michigan ever again in my life. I told them who I wanted to know that I was alive, and other than that to just let the rumors spread.
Boy did they spread.
I moved to Mt. Pleasant, MI, about 2.5 hours north, and was receiving email from my one friend in the school that also had an email account nearly every day, with what new and bizarre rumors. Some said that I had killed someone and was in hiding.. others say that I ha dkilled someone and was caught, and was in prison... Others say that I picked a fight with someone and they killed me.. still others said that I killed myself in a fit of drunken rage.. there were hundreds of them. And somehow, that made me happy.
I'm probably reaching the post size limit, if there is such a thing. Good night.
1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran
Your answer:
Keep doing them, we'll keep fighting you.
2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst
Your answer:
That which is not Christian is not a religion!
3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman
Your answer:
So that when I'm done being president, I can have more of the money I've earned taking bribes and doing other less than legit activities to retire in style on my ranch in Texas.
4) electoral reform
by carleton
Your answer:
The electoral voting system allows the best man to win - the one who's got the most money backing him. Obviously people wouldn't give them so much money if they didn't want them to win!
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory
Your answer:
Your mind is your own. Your thoughts, however, are ours.
6) Encryption....
Your answer:
The whole Internet should be encrypted and the key thrown away, all it's doing is turning children into killers and promoting pr0no and quake games.
7) Rising Political Protests
Your answer:
People would have no reason to protest under my government.
8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed
Your answer:
Great movie.
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223
The future of the country under me is a blissful heaven. Imagine the hell the others would put you through!
Slashdot Mirror
Install good caching proxy software, and your own DNS server, and the system will perform spectacularly for nearly any normal use. As I said in my huge post way up towards the top of the topic, Quake, Telephony apps, and probably character mode telnets are out of the question. Most other applications work very well.
Hallelujah, another one of us.
I've taken several preorders for the system, when people start playing with it, I tell them, look. If you want to play online games such as Quake, the computer will work with a modem, no problem. The latency on the satellite will not let you play Quake like games. For most other applications, it's incredible.
The cards will most likely be available as upgrades, later. Or you'll be able to get satellite receivers as we have in the stores, though they are extremely expensive satellite receivers. (a large receiver box with an ethernet port and a coax port to hook up to the satellite)
For the nay-sayers, the system would be very practical for a lot of people. But, just like any other product out there, some people won't be able to use it to solve their problems. I'm a die hard Quake fan, I'd die if I couldn't play Q3 over my link.
I've pre-ordered my system already. What I'm going to do is hook up all my computers to this particular Compaq model and use the Compaq as the net server. When I want to play Q3 online, open up a dialup connection, disconnect from the LAN, and off I go.
Alright, I typed nearly a 4K response to this question earlier, and accidently clicked the wrong close button. I hate Microsoft's decision that CLOSE should be next to RESTORE. Dammit.
Anyway: Here's the reason
TECH SUPPORT.
THis is a brand new system. BRAND new. Very little has been done like this before, except for the few people who've talked about DirecPC, which isn't in the same category, and the person who mentioned that they had a very very pricey two way satellite a couple years back.
When StarBand sells you this computer and the satellite hardware, they are going to KNOW that there are not going to be any hardware issues with this computer. The system is tested at the manufacturer, that it -WILL- work with the cards and the preconfigured software. THis way, StarBand can very quickly, easily, painlessly tell if you are having a hardware problem, a cabling problem, or a software problem. Then they can fix it very easily. When you start packing in the 238645579 different PCI and ISA and VLB and EISA and whatever cards from the history of PC's, then you don't know what the hell is going on insided the machine when something breaks down.
--YOU-- as a technically savvy person who knows the ins and outs of every single transistor and capacitor inside their computer may understand fully what the problem is, but technical support doesn't have the ability to try these PCI cards with every single hardware combination that ever could come up.
First: A higher end computer will be available, hopefully by the end of the year, or early next.
Second: I'm -sure- the transmit/receive cards will be availalbe individually in the future. Just NOT RIGHT NOW. This is a NEW product, a NEW service, and they want to make sure it DOES what it's SUPPOSED to do.
Recomendation: you don't want to use the computer that comes with it? Load up some good proxy caching and DNS software on it, throw it in a closet, and ignore it. Hook up your other computer(s) and let them surf off it.
Absolutely correct, sir!
From what I understand the downstream isn't quite that fast, either since the synchronization (ACK/NAK, or whatever it's equivalent in this scenario is) is coming over the telephone lines, via 56K modem.
For what it's worth, DirecPC is talking about dong 2-way sometime in late 2001 or early 2002.
Having been using this system at work for the last 2 months, I can tell you a few things about it from personal experience. But, FIRST, let me mention that the system that i'm using is not exactly the system that is being released to customers. The StarBand satellite that I have at work is basically attached to a server that interconnects all 300 or thereabouts of the stores that are on this same network. Our server is vastly overloaded at some points, and my times are claimed to be quite a bit slower than what real customers are experiencing from the beta test, and apparently now we have real paying customers getting into the service right now.
Ping times: Ping times are rotten. I see anywhere from 850ms return time to >2000ms return time, depending on time of day and weather conditions.
This makes it virtually useless for gaming.
However, my experience with chat programs (I use PIRCH on it on a regular basis) with IRC and Yahoo! and such is that it's really not all that noticeable. I haven't tried ICQ, since ICQ operates a little bit differently than Yahoo Messenger does, I imagine it would show more of an annoyance factor with ICQ than with Yahoo or MSN Messenger.
The other thing that's totally out is telephone applications.
However, many improvements have been made in the service that I am seeing over the last several weeks. I've noticed that although in the beginning web pages with lots of small data files included initially were painfully slow, but over the last several weeks, the speed has increased dramatically. I don't know if they are using some sort of caching software that will take all of those requests, then respond to them with the burst download speed, or what.
I do think that software caching certainly becomes a very important aspect of this, and that if you were using this 2-way satellite connection, that it would be a very good idea to have your own on-network caching and DNS service. On the computer at work that it is hooked up to, I have Internet Explorer set to not expire the cache at all, and use the Refresh button when necessary, since I don't have the privlege of installing decent caching or DNS software.
I haven't tried much telneting with it, but I imagine that a Character mode telnet would be absolutely intolerable, though I have used MUDs that use Line mode telnet without any annoyance factor. (I should develop a scale for that.. the XO Annoyance Factor scale.. *laugh*)
To the bright side of things: My system which, as I said, is supposed to be quite a bit slower than the consumer system, does return (using the MSN speed test page, I don't know the URL right off hand) speeds around 350k/sec download and around 100k/sec upload. It may take some time to get the data streams started, but once they are started, they are _FAST!_
I can pull up NASA TV after a second or two delay in incredible audio/visual clarity, most real audio/real video things come down at maximum speed (I notice that a -lot- of RA content out there is optimized for 21k/sec, which leaves a SERIOUS amount of quality to be desired!), my customers who play with the system are on a regular basis amazed by it's speed, particularly if they are stuck with dialup or with a low-grade (ie 144k/max) DSL connect, etc.
The only downside of this whole thing is, since it's very new, they are only offering it with one particular computer setup - though this is not necessarily a bad thing. The computer that you get pre-tested and ready to rock on this system is a Compaq system, I don't have the specs, it's around 600MHz with 64MB RAM, etc. Would make a fabulous network gateway for those of you with more powerful machines already, or a great upgrade computer if your main machine is an older one (like mine's a very nice 400MHz with 96MB.. when I get the satellite setup, I'll be hooking up about 6 other machines to it, all inferior computers)
. The other thing that my system has is that my system is running Windows, and has to use CyberPatrol, with full blocking on. So although I imagine that it could very easily be configured for use with Linux, and such, the software isn't immediatly available.
The hardware to actually operate the satellite dish is in the form of 2 (two) PCI cards, one dedicated for transmit, and one dedicated for receive. (You may notice that they are currently being sued by another company who holds a patent on something like "receiving and transmitting data into/out of a computer using two seperate interface cards" - a BS patent if I've ever seen one) I would very much love to see OpenSource software to handle these cards, and although I haven't been a Linux user for quite some time (Windows gets me by just fine for email and reading slashdot which is all I ever have time for anymore), I would seriously love to provide any information that I can. Which isn't going to be a lot, since I'm not privvy to the internal workings of it, but.....
If you guys have any questions, drop me a line, ericblade@freeatlast.com, I'll try to do what I can. Recognize that although my store will be selling these systems, I'm not here for sales, I just want to help keep everyone informed. It's definitely against company policy to go and sell things away from the location of business.
Media motivated or not, it's a good move. He's basically recognizing the fact that although unfortunatly some things that really shouldn't get leaked do, that it's very important that some things that shouldn't be classified and are don't stay that way. I don't know that I've ever praised the decision of any politician I've ever seen in any office, but this one seems good, and there's actually a press statement explaining. And that he explains that he recognizes that additional protections may be necessary to protect orders of national security, whatever those might be, that things that do not affect national security even -should- be leaked. That's cool.
It sounded to me like he was basically saying, in response to several questions that if elected president, he would promote things that would attempt to increase the intelligence of the average united states citizen. Now, that's what I'm all about. I'm sick of stupid people! hehe
This sounds like a good idea. They should put some financing into one of the 2-way satellite internet companies though. Granted, satellite service has a rather high latency issue, but we don't necessarily want people at hospitals, governmental institutions, etc playing Q3 all day do we???? :)
First:
Could someone translate Hagelin's last comment into English? If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds like his whole purpose of being President would be to try to make the United States citizens smarter. I guess I'm all for that, having worked in -retail- all my life, and the whole fscking world is full of dumbasses!
Second:
I think Bush's responses are neither pandering to us, nor customized for us - they are the same crap that's going out on national TV every day. I'm so damn sick of election ads, and I don't even -OWN- a TV.
Oops, third:
Electoral system is fscking stupid. 100% of the population could vote for Browne or Hagelin or Nadder or Perot, or whomever the hell they wanted. But would the people who cast those elecoral votes? You bet your ass not. They get ->PAID
How do they test something like this? just put a bunch of penguins in fly zones, and fly a bunch of planes over them? And what exactly is the point? Why would a penguin fall over when an aircraft goes over anyway? Would it be because they are basically not the most manueverable creatures on earth, and they wanted to see it??? Why wouldn't this apply to penguins watching birds fly over?
Why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Because if they flew over the bay, they would be bay-gulls.
bay-gulls... bagels... get it?? ahhahahha oh, sorry. I really am sorry.
THis seems like a waste of science dept. money. lol
Sounds like he should have a Metallica theme song. (thinking I'll be reduced to absolute flame bait here for mentioning the unholy Metallica on /..... i wish you guys would understand that whole thing...)
All I can say is that this chica must've rolled really low on her INT or WIS rolls when she was created.
Roll saving throws versus DEX to avoid air turbulence. Fail, a hole is ripped in your spacesuit at 165,000 feet up, bam, you're dead. Succeed, and roll save vs CON to avoid passing out.
Can you imagine what the GROUND must look like coming at you at Mach 1 though?!??!?
Sex with aliens. That's the only thing I could possibly think of.
I guess I forgot the most depressing part of the whole story. As Columbine was heavy in the media spotlight, a day after I sent my email to Katz (that I never saw online, which is fine, though I'd love to have a copy of it, if he might have it on archive somewhere), one of the people that I talked to on a semi-regular (couple times a week) basis in high school, searched me out, all the way from Europe, to send me an email:
Thank you for not killing us all.
Just what the hell is everyone's problem about Katz? I have finally after over a year and a half of reading slashdot totally anonymously, signed in, and actually am trying to get a handle on how the real system here works, since mostly i just read the headlines, and click links.
...
.. I became more withdrawn.. as I discovered the more I tried to defend myself, the worse it became.. and I remember in 1st grade, is when it degenerated from stupid taunts and not wanting to be associated, to the beating.. so I went through 11 years of it.
.. when entering high school, his grades hit rock bottom..
.. there were hundreds of them. And somehow, that made me happy.
I remember when I first read the Hellmouth (I remember somewhere in the postings the origin of the name was explained, for those curious, but I don't remember what it was), I was inspired to also share my experiences.. the problem was, I didn't remember most of them, having pushed High School, a scant 5 years ago then, completely out of my memory. I did, however, click on his name, and just fire off an email. After a half an hour, I had probably close to a 10K text email message that I really don't remember writing.. I just let the fingers and subconscious do it all.. and when I was done, I re-read everything that I had written, and had jarred myself into tears from it.
Yes, I agree with a lot of the posts that a lot of the people probably really don't have it as bad as they say they do, but then there are others that are downplaying it, too.
I was brutally beaten by large groups of large people throughout middle and high schools.. rarely ever actually injured, but seriously bruised. I was a pacifist, however. I never fought back. I so dislike real violence (yet I love Quake/Doom/etc, and heavy metal)
Even the other geeks used to torment me.. though there really weren't any other computer geeks coming from a class that graduated 60 out of an original 98 people student base. Perhaps the other "outcasts" as it were, I mean.
Maybe it was because it was a school full of farmers children for the most part, and my parents were factory workers, that were generally better off financially than most of the community, I don't know what the whole root of it was.
One of the more painful experiences I remember was in 8th grade, lunch spent hanging out with a couple of other heavy metal fans (who only marginally got along with me, only because we had the music going between us, they were really non-intelligent for the most part), a very very large classmate decided that he was particularly offended by the pimple on my forehead, jumped me from behind, and smashed my head into the wall at least 3 or 4 times, and he was then applauded by all of his friends.
The initial alienation breeds more. As it happened more and more, as I began to grow different from my classmates, even as early as Kindergarten (I was already writing stupid programs on my TRS-80 and VIC-20, hoping I would one day get a stupid little game published in one of the type-in-program magazines.. *laugh*)
The more withdrawn I became, the more I was teased, and beaten, and the more withdrawn I became, etc.. vicious cycle.
And people wondered why I liked my computer more than the people around me. People wondered what happened to the once straight A student, who never really did anything wrong, except when he was trying to fit in with the other kids
Suddenly I spent all of my time in school from 9th grade through most of 11th no longer caring one bit about anyone or anything around me.. My parents were completely oblivious, the teachers were completely oblivious, as everyone always knows.. Hell, we had a guy who was on some SERIOUS drugs totally thrash an entire classroom.. and he got a 3 day suspension. I got 7 days for smoking on school property -after school hours-.
Strangely enough, as my performance in school degenerated right into the toilet, and my immersion in heavy metal music, playing bass guitar, and programming grew, I actually became somewhat more interesting to the people around me. They paid a little bit of attention to me finally, but at this point, I'd had so much from them, that I never cared one bit about them anymore. Then, I cracked. I was wandering the halls of the school in the middle of classes, just attempting to see if I could avoid getting busted out of class, with my walkman on, blaring some tune i was really into at the time.. and the school hockey player walked around the corner. He told me to turn the music off. I finally stood up, and started defying these people, after many years. He picked me up and flung me across the hallway as if I were nothing. I stood, noting that he'd basically destroyed my cassette player, headphones, and cassette all in the same blast, and in an insane burst of adrenalin, beat the heck out of him.
I got suspended for 7 more days.
After that, though, no one ever took their hands towards me again. It's not the solution, and it will never be the solution. Violence will never solve the problem correctly.
My grades briefly rose back from the grave, though I still paid no attention to anyone around me.. and as I suddenly became the head of class again, in line for top 10 in the class, even though I'd spent the last 3 years screwing around.. people started with the incessant teasing and such again.. and I had finally had enough.
As I was saying, people wondered for a long time, whatever happened to me, when three days before the end of the first semester of my senior year, I disappeared.
A week later, I showed up at the house of the twins who were destined to be valedictorian and salutatorian of the class. They weren't friends of mine, and weren't particularly friendly or unfriendly, but I thought perhaps they might understand. I knocked on the door, and one of them answered (after spending almost 13 years in the same class, I could never tell the two apart), and I told her "I've got something I need to say. I want you both to hear this, because most likely none of you will ever hear from me again." I think at this point they were thinking I was suicidal, but I wasn't. I had carefully chosen my words, and to make a long story even longer, I told them that I was dropping out of school, and going to head in whatever direction life took me. And that I never wanted to see the Hell-hole known as Galesburg, Michigan ever again in my life. I told them who I wanted to know that I was alive, and other than that to just let the rumors spread.
Boy did they spread.
I moved to Mt. Pleasant, MI, about 2.5 hours north, and was receiving email from my one friend in the school that also had an email account nearly every day, with what new and bizarre rumors. Some said that I had killed someone and was in hiding.. others say that I ha dkilled someone and was caught, and was in prison... Others say that I picked a fight with someone and they killed me.. still others said that I killed myself in a fit of drunken rage
I'm probably reaching the post size limit, if there is such a thing. Good night.
i am so sorry about that, that was my first post, and i didn't realise we were using HTML format. heh
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