And it's exactly the same thing that happens in modern science today. If you say something unpopular then people try to shut you up, no matter how correct you are.
But that's okay, no amount of modding will prevent me from saying it.
In the middle ages it was easy to justify the absurd by using religion. Now it's science. The reason for this is because there is so much money tied up in science these days that you can find a scientist willing to misrepresent anything you want if you have enough money.
For example, too much exposure to the sun causes skin cancer, right? So you should cover up and only use 10000 spf suntan lotion to prevent skin cancer. Never mind the fact that you NEED some ionizing radiation in order to get vitamin D.
CFC's destroy the ozone layer, right? Never mind the fact that an absurd amount of chlorine blows off of the oceans each year. Never mind the fact that in the late 50's the ozone hole was gigantic. Never mind the fact that a volcanic eruption will spew tons and tons of this shit into the air, far more that we have in the entire history of industry. It's clearly due to us. Sure, because that's what greenpeace says.
You can always find someone that will say what you want them to say. The trick is to pay them enough and give them enough of the spotlight, while claiming that the other side is being partisan. I
What guarantee, as a company, do you have that the product that you paid for wasn't authored with the intent of gathering malign information about you?
None whatsoever.
Remember those old ATI drivers that ran special "optimizations" when used with the quake3a binary? They were closed source and geared to misrepresent the performance of their card to the community. I suspect that if those drivers were open source that little trick wouldn't have gone unnoticed for long.
I'm not advocating open source as the end all and be all of things, because it isn't. However, you're an idiot if you think that paying for something means that it's safe.
That's not an alternative. There's no immediate money to be had in the space industry, everything takes a gigantic initial investment. How many companies do you know of that are willing to dump untold billions into something that may or may not pay off 20 years down the line?
The original decision to kill hubble wasn't made by a group but by one person, Sean O' Keefe. The official reasoning is that it's too risky to keep sending people up to do trivial things like maintenance because the shuttles are old and dangerous. The real reasoning is more likely along the lines of "if we lose another shuttle people will get fired over it."
If NASA was so concerned about safety then they would have learned from the original shuttle disaster.
The truth of the matter is that when you strap your ass to several kilotons of explosives with the intent of blasting yourself into orbit there is always the chance of fatality. Sure, the shuttles are old and rickety. We knew this 10 years ago. So, NASA. What have you been doing in the last 10 years about it? Answer: nothing.
The cost per shuttle in maintenance is amazing, but if you get rid of the shuttles in favor of something more efficient then you lose money and jobs. It's the same way any other monolithic government organization works - the more crap you put between yourself and the project = more money and jobs are created.
So, people. Are you willing to put people out of work to make a more efficient space program? Are you willing to get rid of the head of NASA because he likes his job and doesn't want to lose it? Would you do the same thing if you were in his position? Can you think of a way that you can maintain the job number and the influx of money while actually getting things done?
I'm not defending NASA, believe me. I work with people that work for NASA. They work 30 minutes a day and take 3 hour lunch breaks, just like the.com people did before the bottom of the market fell out. And we all know how much work got done then, don't we? Zilch. There's a reason why the running joke is that NASA is welfare for scientists. But then again, can you think of any alternatives?
It's the internet, Mr. Internet toughguy. What are you gonna do about it? Cry?
Re:Linux apps too hard to configure?
on
Build Your Own PVR
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
If you don't have the time, pay someone that does. In a day it did everything that it said it could. In a few days it did exactly everything I wanted it to.
In any event, you might want to remove that sand from your vagina.
I haven't played with mythweb, but in mythtv I can think of 2 things I would like to see. One is the ability to add svcd's and vcd's to the dvd player section, and the other is a less clunky game interface.
I might stoop to learning c++ to hack these.
Linux apps too hard to configure?
on
Build Your Own PVR
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I have a linux based PVR.
It wasn't difficult to configure at all. But then, I'm a seasoned unix user and I've used linux and freebsd for awhile.
The thing that concerns me is that for some reason there's a mode of thought throughout most slashdot articles as of late (2-3 years) that linux should be as easy to use as windows. Do you really want this to be the case?
Think of it.
A kernel that configures itself but leaves very few tuning options.
Ls, instead of being a few tens to a hundred k in size, is instead 100 meg in size and has a security patch released for it every week or so.
You install linux and do a cd/etc. Then type ls. You see nothing, because you have to configure ls to allow you to see/etc.
Then we can integrate DMCA stuff into gcc to make sure that you aren't compiling and running anything you shouldn't be.
Getting the point? Why should it be as easy as windows? Are you guys that desperate to kiss linus' ass and drive the linux 'market share' up that you need to kowtow to the needs of every retard that it hopelessly lost unless they have the newest KDE installed?
For fuck's sake.
Anyway, back on PVR's.
I use mythtv. I have a pinnacle pctv pro and a DVD player in my box. I splurged and bought a $45 sb live! card. It took me a day of compiling and configuring on gentoo, and things were running fine. A few more days of tinkering and I have a n64/snes console/pvr/dvd player/mp3 player that shares my windows mp3 collection.
Out of that 5 million, only about 500 thousand is really needed. The rest goes to politics and pork.
If you want to fix it, get a group of volunteers that are willing to fix it themselves and then offer to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
And it's exactly the same thing that happens in modern science today. If you say something unpopular then people try to shut you up, no matter how correct you are.
But that's okay, no amount of modding will prevent me from saying it.
In the middle ages it was easy to justify the absurd by using religion. Now it's science. The reason for this is because there is so much money tied up in science these days that you can find a scientist willing to misrepresent anything you want if you have enough money.
For example, too much exposure to the sun causes skin cancer, right? So you should cover up and only use 10000 spf suntan lotion to prevent skin cancer. Never mind the fact that you NEED some ionizing radiation in order to get vitamin D.
CFC's destroy the ozone layer, right? Never mind the fact that an absurd amount of chlorine blows off of the oceans each year. Never mind the fact that in the late 50's the ozone hole was gigantic. Never mind the fact that a volcanic eruption will spew tons and tons of this shit into the air, far more that we have in the entire history of industry. It's clearly due to us. Sure, because that's what greenpeace says.
You can always find someone that will say what you want them to say. The trick is to pay them enough and give them enough of the spotlight, while claiming that the other side is being partisan. I
That's nice.
How's that ATI support working for you?
That may be true, but if X forks to handle this issue then which branch does nvidia take? For that matter, what happens as new hardware is released?
Is redhat going to stay with 4.3 5 years from now?
What about people that use nvidia cards? This makes things problematic for those of us that use their proprietary drivers because the open ones suck.
"Bonneville"
"Mimi"
What is this, a car show?
Need I say more?
What guarantee, as a company, do you have that the product that you paid for wasn't authored with the intent of gathering malign information about you?
None whatsoever.
Remember those old ATI drivers that ran special "optimizations" when used with the quake3a binary? They were closed source and geared to misrepresent the performance of their card to the community. I suspect that if those drivers were open source that little trick wouldn't have gone unnoticed for long.
I'm not advocating open source as the end all and be all of things, because it isn't. However, you're an idiot if you think that paying for something means that it's safe.
For gods sake, look at IE.
I can just imagine outsourcing ground control to india.
"Houston, this is Enterprise. Can you give us an ETA on the next window for landing?"
*shshSHHSHhs* "AM NOT UNDERSTANDING CALL BACK PLEASE " *click*
"Houston, this is Enterprise. We need an ETA on the next window for landing."
*SSHshsshHSSH* "PLEASE REBOOT AM NOT KNOWING" *click*
"Houston, we need an ETA on the next window for landing."
*SHshshS* "WE ARE AWARE OF YOUR PROBLEM THANKING YOU PLEASE CALL EA GAMES AGAIN" *click*
That's not an alternative. There's no immediate money to be had in the space industry, everything takes a gigantic initial investment. How many companies do you know of that are willing to dump untold billions into something that may or may not pay off 20 years down the line?
The original decision to kill hubble wasn't made by a group but by one person, Sean O' Keefe. The official reasoning is that it's too risky to keep sending people up to do trivial things like maintenance because the shuttles are old and dangerous. The real reasoning is more likely along the lines of "if we lose another shuttle people will get fired over it."
.com people did before the bottom of the market fell out. And we all know how much work got done then, don't we? Zilch. There's a reason why the running joke is that NASA is welfare for scientists. But then again, can you think of any alternatives?
If NASA was so concerned about safety then they would have learned from the original shuttle disaster.
The truth of the matter is that when you strap your ass to several kilotons of explosives with the intent of blasting yourself into orbit there is always the chance of fatality. Sure, the shuttles are old and rickety. We knew this 10 years ago. So, NASA. What have you been doing in the last 10 years about it? Answer: nothing.
The cost per shuttle in maintenance is amazing, but if you get rid of the shuttles in favor of something more efficient then you lose money and jobs. It's the same way any other monolithic government organization works - the more crap you put between yourself and the project = more money and jobs are created.
So, people. Are you willing to put people out of work to make a more efficient space program? Are you willing to get rid of the head of NASA because he likes his job and doesn't want to lose it? Would you do the same thing if you were in his position? Can you think of a way that you can maintain the job number and the influx of money while actually getting things done?
I'm not defending NASA, believe me. I work with people that work for NASA. They work 30 minutes a day and take 3 hour lunch breaks, just like the
1. Release OS for years filled with security holes
2. Stop releasing OS for free
3. Sell security based OS
4. ?????
5. Profit!
I see 6 linux distributions and 3 BSDs.
You do realize that there are OTHER operating systems out there, right?
You would think that the difference between the linux distros would be trivial at best, with the exception of gentoo. Why 6?
Isn't there a free beos out there now?
How about they get a reviewer that understands the ports tree?
More like "keep him from fostering an interest in law" am I rite?
It's the internet, Mr. Internet toughguy. What are you gonna do about it? Cry?
If you don't have the time, pay someone that does. In a day it did everything that it said it could. In a few days it did exactly everything I wanted it to.
In any event, you might want to remove that sand from your vagina.
I haven't played with mythweb, but in mythtv I can think of 2 things I would like to see. One is the ability to add svcd's and vcd's to the dvd player section, and the other is a less clunky game interface.
I might stoop to learning c++ to hack these.
I have a linux based PVR.
/etc. Then type ls. You see nothing, because you have to configure ls to allow you to see /etc.
It wasn't difficult to configure at all. But then, I'm a seasoned unix user and I've used linux and freebsd for awhile.
The thing that concerns me is that for some reason there's a mode of thought throughout most slashdot articles as of late (2-3 years) that linux should be as easy to use as windows. Do you really want this to be the case?
Think of it.
A kernel that configures itself but leaves very few tuning options.
Ls, instead of being a few tens to a hundred k in size, is instead 100 meg in size and has a security patch released for it every week or so.
You install linux and do a cd
Then we can integrate DMCA stuff into gcc to make sure that you aren't compiling and running anything you shouldn't be.
Getting the point? Why should it be as easy as windows? Are you guys that desperate to kiss linus' ass and drive the linux 'market share' up that you need to kowtow to the needs of every retard that it hopelessly lost unless they have the newest KDE installed?
For fuck's sake.
Anyway, back on PVR's.
I use mythtv. I have a pinnacle pctv pro and a DVD player in my box. I splurged and bought a $45 sb live! card. It took me a day of compiling and configuring on gentoo, and things were running fine. A few more days of tinkering and I have a n64/snes console/pvr/dvd player/mp3 player that shares my windows mp3 collection.
Not hard, but then I'm not an idiot.
Do *you* have to be?
mainstream desktop linux is only 10 years away.
"As a recent graduate of the social sciences, I find that practice appalling."
Anything that calls itself a science in practice isn't.
Out of that 5 million, only about 500 thousand is really needed. The rest goes to politics and pork.
If you want to fix it, get a group of volunteers that are willing to fix it themselves and then offer to do it.
of course, this post will be modded down because I'm not a consumer whore.
It is after 10:00 CST.