I just found out that I'm across the other side of the country on business the day I'm supposed to be getting my pre-order.:( I'm tempted to buy a copy from a store and hook my xbox up to the hotel TV. Stupid, stupid job. Stupid clients too. Planned on taking a well earned couple of days off for this but no, customer just has to arrange a meeting for that date. * sigh *
I've been trying really, really hard to avoid the reviews (Don't want even slight spoilers) but they are everywhere I seem to look. I hope you all enjoy playing the game, but think of me stuck talking to a tractor company about their products database whilst you're having fun.:(
Hi, this is Britain. Leave us out of it! You're ok all the way over there in America, but we're connected to France and Europe by a big rail tunnel. The stench of garlic and wine is almost unbearable!
The Eastern European women are pleasing additions to our country though, and the containers bring new ones every day.;-)
...and that's exactly the reason I will be hiding in my cupboard for the next two weeks until my brain allows me to forget about never starting, never ending universes and gods that live in the ever-present eternity!:)
Again though, from my limited perspective. No matter how many universes there are, or how many Earth's, or how they were created - Everything starts somewhere, even God. That's the aspect I have problems with, not multiple universes or parallel dimensions but simply with the fact that it all hard to start somewhere (My missus argues time is all in a loop, but I then have to ask what started the loop, and how).
I think I may choose to lay down at this point and drool quietly to myself. For those that don't get what I'm going on about - Here's an image (My problem is with the first ???, I don't really care about the last ones;-)
??? ----> God Created ---> Big Bang / Creation (Depends on opinion) ---> Now ---> Future ---> ???
A good debate is like a game of chess. It is when it gets personal, AKA "outside the scope of the game", is when it turns messy. In a game of chess you never hear, "You made that move because the devil is controlling you and you have weak morals."
You've obviously never played my local priest...:)
The thing that has always baked my noodle in late night drunk or stoned conversations comes around point 1 in your list. If God created the universe or if it was the big bang, what came before? Did God just wink into existence from no-where? Was there suddenly a huge amount of mass that appeared in nothingness. What created the nothingness? Was there a start to all of this? Was God some higher being's design?
* shudder *
I hate thinking about things like this. We'll never understand it, and I get the feeling that even if there is a higher power after death, they wont be able to explain it to a level we could understand! I think it's basically down to an over reliance on time as a constant dimension.
If you want a good read that's similar to (but far better than) "Sum Of All Fears" then you should read Arc Light by Eric L Harry. Not sure if "SOAF" came first, but it felt like a rip off - When I saw the movie I initially thought I was watching an adaptation of Arc Light.
It's One of my favourite reads ever. Was recently given a first edition hardback as a present too.:)
You know. I've always wondered just how much server hardware is needed to survive a Slashdotting. I'd love to put one of my larger eCommerce sites to the test one day, but quite frankly I'm not that stupid.:)
Of course, this defence worked on the basis that the guy wouldn't have known the virus was on his machine. Had he been a sysadmin or employed in IT in any way, shape or form they would have nailed him , no doubt.
Ever since then I've been really, really careful about keeping an eye on my virus protection / firewall.
Look for a show on the BBC called monkeydust. It has a character called the "pedofinder general" that aptly (and humorously) agrees with your viewpoint.
Of course, given the fact that these machines were hacked in the first place it shouldn't be too difficult to run an automated vulnerability scanner against them all and take them out one by one (and for good).
Not so nice, but you'll find users learn their lessons when some asshole deletes their operating system / personal files.
...aren't there firewalls that can handle this yet? Ok, so you probably can't stop it initially but surely we have equipment capable of detecting which clients are hitting the site in an abnormal manner and ignoring their traffic - at least in the short term (Hours / Days).
That should realistically mean that whilst you might lose the site for half an hour you shouldn't be losing it for days at a time. Anything like this exist? I would have thought that the bigger gambling sites would be all over it by now.
Maybe it's all in the water.:) I think it has more to do with how well publicised that technique has been (I hadn't heard of it in the UK). As another poster said, it was mentioned in Lewinskygate which is fairly US centric.
Worth knowing though, thanks. (Runs off to buy an ultraviolet light...)
I might be missing something here... but what's all this about stains and violet lights? I've googled around for some info but I can't see anything useful. What did I miss, or is this mainly a US thing?
Maybe, but life doesn't tend to work that way - At least where finances are concerned. On a related note, what gets to me is the amount of duplicated effort going on in charity based medical research. I know of at least 12 cancer research charities (Those that actually do the work, not just collect money) in the UK alone that are all working on a cure / treatment for x and y cancer. Surely if they all got together (Ideally on a global basis) and created a single large entitity for cancer research we would stand a much better chance of winning the war. From a standpoint of economics alone a large singular cancer charity would stand a much better chance of raising money through public awareness and advertising alone, not to mention the obvious advantage of pooled admin and systems.
By the way, I am aware of the advantages of mirrored research, but my feeling is that it would be better to use the money to put together 10 streams of different, but overlapping R&D all looking into the same problem than having 1000 tiny streams duplicating the general donkey work that we know is part of the day to day grind of R&D. (By the way, I do have some experience of this from working in R&D for two of the top three pharma companies.).
Oh, and do you know what pisses me off most about charities? The chairmen / women who take absurd salaries paid for from donations (Just for being figureheads). They should be truly ashamed of themselves. Thankfully this isn't the norm, but you may find it interesting to look at the financial reports of some of the bigger charities out there.
This time you can't blame the MCSEs. That information is in quite a few of the MCSE training books. It's certainly in the Windows 2000 administration book that I'm looking at right now.
Slashdot Mirror
I just found out that I'm across the other side of the country on business the day I'm supposed to be getting my pre-order. :(
:(
I'm tempted to buy a copy from a store and hook my xbox up to the hotel TV. Stupid, stupid job. Stupid clients too. Planned on taking a well earned couple of days off for this but no, customer just has to arrange a meeting for that date. * sigh *
I've been trying really, really hard to avoid the reviews (Don't want even slight spoilers) but they are everywhere I seem to look. I hope you all enjoy playing the game, but think of me stuck talking to a tractor company about their products database whilst you're having fun.
As long as you just take out England. You make sure you leave Scotland, Wales and Ireland out of it!
Hi, this is Britain. Leave us out of it! You're ok all the way over there in America, but we're connected to France and Europe by a big rail tunnel. The stench of garlic and wine is almost unbearable!
;-)
The Eastern European women are pleasing additions to our country though, and the containers bring new ones every day.
...and that's exactly the reason I will be hiding in my cupboard for the next two weeks until my brain allows me to forget about never starting, never ending universes and gods that live in the ever-present eternity! :)
Again though, from my limited perspective. No matter how many universes there are, or how many Earth's, or how they were created - Everything starts somewhere, even God. That's the aspect I have problems with, not multiple universes or parallel dimensions but simply with the fact that it all hard to start somewhere (My missus argues time is all in a loop, but I then have to ask what started the loop, and how).
;-)
I think I may choose to lay down at this point and drool quietly to myself. For those that don't get what I'm going on about - Here's an image (My problem is with the first ???, I don't really care about the last ones
??? ----> God Created ---> Big Bang / Creation (Depends on opinion) ---> Now ---> Future ---> ???
A good debate is like a game of chess. It is when it gets personal, AKA "outside the scope of the game", is when it turns messy. In a game of chess you never hear, "You made that move because the devil is controlling you and you have weak morals."
:)
You've obviously never played my local priest...
The thing that has always baked my noodle in late night drunk or stoned conversations comes around point 1 in your list. If God created the universe or if it was the big bang, what came before? Did God just wink into existence from no-where? Was there suddenly a huge amount of mass that appeared in nothingness. What created the nothingness? Was there a start to all of this? Was God some higher being's design?
* shudder *
I hate thinking about things like this. We'll never understand it, and I get the feeling that even if there is a higher power after death, they wont be able to explain it to a level we could understand! I think it's basically down to an over reliance on time as a constant dimension.
Stupid limited brain!
If you want a good read that's similar to (but far better than) "Sum Of All Fears" then you should read Arc Light by Eric L Harry. Not sure if "SOAF" came first, but it felt like a rip off - When I saw the movie I initially thought I was watching an adaptation of Arc Light.
:)
It's One of my favourite reads ever. Was recently given a first edition hardback as a present too.
Gotta love it when the missus knows what I like!
You know. I've always wondered just how much server hardware is needed to survive a Slashdotting. I'd love to put one of my larger eCommerce sites to the test one day, but quite frankly I'm not that stupid. :)
Of course, this defence worked on the basis that the guy wouldn't have known the virus was on his machine. Had he been a sysadmin or employed in IT in any way, shape or form they would have nailed him , no doubt.
Ever since then I've been really, really careful about keeping an eye on my virus protection / firewall.
Look for a show on the BBC called monkeydust. It has a character called the "pedofinder general" that aptly (and humorously) agrees with your viewpoint.
Thankfully I live in a country that has the common sense to keep different grade criminals apart from each other. :)
Of course, given the fact that these machines were hacked in the first place it shouldn't be too difficult to run an automated vulnerability scanner against them all and take them out one by one (and for good).
Not so nice, but you'll find users learn their lessons when some asshole deletes their operating system / personal files.
Thankfully it's slightly easier to mass duplicate DVDs than it is hard plastic cases filled with circuitry!
Ok, thanks - Was unaware of that.
...aren't there firewalls that can handle this yet? Ok, so you probably can't stop it initially but surely we have equipment capable of detecting which clients are hitting the site in an abnormal manner and ignoring their traffic - at least in the short term (Hours / Days).
That should realistically mean that whilst you might lose the site for half an hour you shouldn't be losing it for days at a time. Anything like this exist? I would have thought that the bigger gambling sites would be all over it by now.
Ah, but I can take all your traffic with my godlike www.firegooglefox.com and just in case I'll take www.foxgooglefire.com too.
Though it wouldn't be so bad if most of these weren't gone already!
I'm off to register www.googlefox.com :)
Give me Apaches, stealths, bombers, M1 tanks and cruise missiles and I think I could take an AK47 toting Hell A! :)
Just don't expect to keep many civilians alive (and this is exactly the problem we have in Iraq).
I'd rather catch them in a bucket and drive them out and put them in the woods THEN break limbs in a more traditional trap.
:-)
You sick S.O.B.
That certainly was an interesting typo!
Maybe it's all in the water. :) I think it has more to do with how well publicised that technique has been (I hadn't heard of it in the UK). As another poster said, it was mentioned in Lewinskygate which is fairly US centric.
Worth knowing though, thanks. (Runs off to buy an ultraviolet light...)
I might be missing something here... but what's all this about stains and violet lights? I've googled around for some info but I can't see anything useful. What did I miss, or is this mainly a US thing?
Maybe, but life doesn't tend to work that way - At least where finances are concerned. On a related note, what gets to me is the amount of duplicated effort going on in charity based medical research. I know of at least 12 cancer research charities (Those that actually do the work, not just collect money) in the UK alone that are all working on a cure / treatment for x and y cancer. Surely if they all got together (Ideally on a global basis) and created a single large entitity for cancer research we would stand a much better chance of winning the war. From a standpoint of economics alone a large singular cancer charity would stand a much better chance of raising money through public awareness and advertising alone, not to mention the obvious advantage of pooled admin and systems.
By the way, I am aware of the advantages of mirrored research, but my feeling is that it would be better to use the money to put together 10 streams of different, but overlapping R&D all looking into the same problem than having 1000 tiny streams duplicating the general donkey work that we know is part of the day to day grind of R&D. (By the way, I do have some experience of this from working in R&D for two of the top three pharma companies.).
Oh, and do you know what pisses me off most about charities? The chairmen / women who take absurd salaries paid for from donations (Just for being figureheads). They should be truly ashamed of themselves. Thankfully this isn't the norm, but you may find it interesting to look at the financial reports of some of the bigger charities out there.
Ummm.... if the ring you're planning on buying is the cost of a sports car, can I marry you??!? ;)
This time you can't blame the MCSEs. That information is in quite a few of the MCSE training books. It's certainly in the Windows 2000 administration book that I'm looking at right now.