A porcelain dutch oven *is* cast iron - cast iron that has been coated with porcelain. It's not the sort of thing you'd want to shove into a campfire, but they are fantastic for cooking on or in the stove with no need for seasoning.
Come on! You know it was fun! I'm just glad that my friend and I were doing the same process at the same time, just slightly out of sync so that neither of our machines was broken in quite the same way at the same time so we could use each other's box to get to the files we needed to fix ours. It all worked in the end and was amazing training for Gentoo later on.
I'd forgotten about Caldera. I had a copy of the original 1.0 Caldera Network Desktop that Lyle Ball gave me at a conference. I still have the t-shirt somewhere, not sure about the box & software. I never used it much beyond a test install, but I remember thinking it was cool that it came with a legit WP, even though I really didn't have any use for it.
I, like many in the thread, started with Slack back in the "box full of floppies" era. We generally would have install parties at the offices of the ISP my buddies owned so real internet could be used instead of interminable disk swapping or (even worse) dial-up. Fun times were had.
Upgrading that system, by hand, from a.out to ELF without completely hosing it was a great adventure!
Currently I'm running Mint 12 on my desktop, Mint 13 on my laptop, and Debian Squeeze on my home file/DHCP/etc. server.
Linix Mint 12 has a new DE they're developing called Cinnamon that is making rapid progress and creates an environment similar to Gnome 2 but built on Gnome 3. I installed it and am very happy with it so far. More information can be had at http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
Shenanigans like this are only among the worst, but hardly unique. Because of these types of schemes, I no longer buy PC games. I have pirated games in the past, but I don't even bother with that any more since most PC games are just bad Xbox ports any more. The upside is that giving up PC games has liberated me of the one reason I have kept (my paid for - licensed and legit copy of) Windows on my PC, now I can run Linux on my desktop 100% of the time instead of dual-booting.
So, from my perspective the game companies aren't just slitting their own throats, but Microsoft's as well. Well done.
I too support Ron Paul. He's the only candidate out there who truly believes in Liberty instead of demagoguery. See him in action for yourself on You Tube.
I have to agree with Signs as the worst ever. It's largely because of its pretensions toward being a good movie. It actually was tolerable and marginally enjoyable for most of the movie, but the ending was such a betrayal that it drove it at extreme velocity into a bottomless pile of shit.
Movies like those most have mentioned don't really count in my book because they are just bad movies that aren't trying to be good. The real failures are the ones that try and miss spectacularly.
If my hatred for Signs wasn't so extreme, then my choice would be "The Truman Show", which is the worst possible kind of cynical rip-off of someone else's work. Read Philip K. Dick's novel "Time Out Of Joint", then watch Truman show again (don't buy it or rent it, it's undeserving of your monetary support. Borrow or steal it as needed.) There are parts of the movie that are practically lifted word-for-word from Dick's brilliant story of cold war paranoia masquerading as alien invasion - entirely uncredited. The Dick estate should have sued the makers of Truman for everything they had. It almost made me physically ill to watch that outrage unfold.
I think the best mouse ever is actually a trackball also - the Logitech TrackMan Marble FX. Mine is several years old and still all I use. I miss not having a wheel, but I can live without it.
I'm not happy with Logitech these days however, they discontinued the FX and didn't replace it with an equivalent model. In addition if you have any interest in online privacy their website is of no use whatsoever. Nothing there works without having cookies turned on. You can't even get to the page that explains their privacy policy without accepting their cookies. That's simply unacceptable and they've lost my business.
I'll probably look into Kensington when I need a new trackball. Their products seem to be much more cheaply and flimsily made than they once were so I'm not thrilled there either, but at least I can look at their products on their web site without them infecting my machine with garbage.
For those of us living in "the land of the free", it should be noted that Budvar is unavailable by that name in the U.S. due to a mostly unsuccessful longstanding attempt to crush the Czech brewery.
It's difficult to find at all, and when you can it is marketed here under the name "Czechvar".
Sorry to differ with Mr. Adams, but I wouldn't call Earl Grey the answer.
Now a nice cup of PG Tips for everyday satisfaction or a good estate darjeeling then we're talking enlightenment!
David Brin or Philip K. Dick
on
A Good Summer Read?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I've become a big fan of David Brin fairly recently. For a standalone book, I'd recommend "Earth" which has some pretty interesting insights into ecology, privacy and the impact of technology on human culture.
If you're willing to risk getting sucked into a big series, then I'd start out the "Uplift" series of books with "Sundiver". It also works well on its own, but you'll probably be compelled to read the rest if you like it.
Someone whose speculations head off in entirely different realms is my personal favorite: Philip K. Dick. A lot of his stuff kind of requires that you have a basic understanding of how his writing operates but some that are accessable to a first-timer, assuming you are one, include "Time Out of Joint", "Ubik", and "A Scanner Darkly". Set and written in the 50's, 60's, and 70's respectively, each provides a good insight into his style as it evolved. An added bonus of TOOJ is that it is the book that exposes "The Truman Show" as the blatant second-rate rip-off that it is, not that I'm holding a grudge over it.;)
I don't recommend "Valis" for a beginner as it really requires too much background knowledge of Dick's life to make a lot of sense out of it. But if you're willing to be confused, it's a book that can be plumbed over and over again for insight.
"wait for a political figure to emerge from the Net generation and define corporatism as the major problem its become."
There's no need to wait. While not of the "Net generation" there is a political candidate who "gets it" and has been fighting the forces of corporatism for more than thirty years. Supporting Ralph Nader should be seriously considered by anyone for whom this is an issue.
Voting for third parties is ofted dismissed as wasting a vote. But what's more of a waste, throwing your vote away toward the major parties (which will never change anything) or making your vote heard, even if that candidate doesn't win?
Look at the web site, read his platform and issues, get involved.
You might consider trying Debian. It cuts package dependencies a lot finer than your average RPM based system so you end up with almost no fat beyond what you explicitly chose to install.
Alpha Centauri was at the top of my list, but since it's been announced, I'm very happy. Baldur's Gate (+Tales of the Sword Coast) would be very cool too. Ultima Ascension would really float my boat as well. How about Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2?
If I had those I could pretty much ditch Windoze for good.
Now that Quake 1&2 exist "officially" for Linux, and given the open-source nature of Linux, have you ever thought about doing any specific OS tuning for gaming?
I think it would be really cool to have a Quake Linux distribution (QuakeUX? GibUX? FragUX?) with nothing but finely forged code to make you the baddest LPB on the net!
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly the outcome that Diane Feinstein and others of her ilk would visit upon the U.S., given her way.
...Cast iron or nothing.
A porcelain dutch oven *is* cast iron - cast iron that has been coated with porcelain. It's not the sort of thing you'd want to shove into a campfire, but they are fantastic for cooking on or in the stove with no need for seasoning.
Come on! You know it was fun! I'm just glad that my friend and I were doing the same process at the same time, just slightly out of sync so that neither of our machines was broken in quite the same way at the same time so we could use each other's box to get to the files we needed to fix ours. It all worked in the end and was amazing training for Gentoo later on.
I'd forgotten about Caldera. I had a copy of the original 1.0 Caldera Network Desktop that Lyle Ball gave me at a conference. I still have the t-shirt somewhere, not sure about the box & software. I never used it much beyond a test install, but I remember thinking it was cool that it came with a legit WP, even though I really didn't have any use for it.
Counting only my primary desktop distro and skipping personal/work servers or experimental installs my history is like this:
Slackware -> RedHat -> SuSE -> Debian -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> Mint
I, like many in the thread, started with Slack back in the "box full of floppies" era. We generally would have install parties at the offices of
the ISP my buddies owned so real internet could be used instead of interminable disk swapping or (even worse) dial-up. Fun times were had.
Upgrading that system, by hand, from a.out to ELF without completely hosing it was a great adventure!
Currently I'm running Mint 12 on my desktop, Mint 13 on my laptop, and Debian Squeeze on my home file/DHCP/etc. server.
Linix Mint 12 has a new DE they're developing called Cinnamon that is making rapid progress and creates an environment similar to Gnome 2 but built on Gnome 3.
I installed it and am very happy with it so far. More information can be had at http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
Shenanigans like this are only among the worst, but hardly unique. Because of these types of schemes, I no longer buy PC games.
I have pirated games in the past, but I don't even bother with that any more since most PC games are just bad Xbox ports any more. The upside is that giving up PC games has liberated me of the one reason I have kept (my paid for - licensed and legit copy of) Windows on my PC, now I can run Linux on my desktop 100% of the time instead of dual-booting.
So, from my perspective the game companies aren't just slitting their own throats, but Microsoft's as well. Well done.
I too support Ron Paul. He's the only candidate out there who truly believes in Liberty instead of demagoguery. See him in action for yourself on You Tube.
I have to agree with Signs as the worst ever. It's largely because of its pretensions toward being a good movie. It actually was tolerable and marginally enjoyable for most of the movie, but the ending was such a betrayal that it drove it at extreme velocity into a bottomless pile of shit.
Movies like those most have mentioned don't really count in my book because they are just bad movies that aren't trying to be good. The real failures are the ones that try and miss spectacularly.
If my hatred for Signs wasn't so extreme, then my choice would be "The Truman Show", which is the worst possible kind of cynical rip-off of someone else's work. Read Philip K. Dick's novel "Time Out Of Joint", then watch Truman show again (don't buy it or rent it, it's undeserving of your monetary support. Borrow or steal it as needed.) There are parts of the movie that are practically lifted word-for-word from Dick's brilliant story of cold war paranoia masquerading as alien invasion - entirely uncredited. The Dick estate should have sued the makers of Truman for everything they had. It almost made me physically ill to watch that outrage unfold.
Just think how much faster the Roman empire would have fallen if they'd had this technology.
I think the best mouse ever is actually a trackball also - the Logitech TrackMan Marble FX. Mine is several years old and still all I use. I miss not having a wheel, but I can live without it.
I'm not happy with Logitech these days however, they discontinued the FX and didn't replace it with an equivalent model. In addition if you have any interest in online privacy their website is of no use whatsoever. Nothing there works without having cookies turned on. You can't even get to the page that explains their privacy policy without accepting their cookies. That's simply unacceptable and they've lost my business.
I'll probably look into Kensington when I need a new trackball. Their products seem to be much more cheaply and flimsily made than they once were so I'm not thrilled there either, but at least I can look at their products on their web site without them infecting my machine with garbage.
For those of us living in "the land of the free", it should be noted that Budvar is unavailable by that name in the U.S. due to a mostly unsuccessful longstanding attempt to crush the Czech brewery.
It's difficult to find at all, and when you can it is marketed here under the name "Czechvar".
Sorry to differ with Mr. Adams, but I wouldn't call Earl Grey the answer.
Now a nice cup of PG Tips for everyday satisfaction or a good estate darjeeling then we're talking enlightenment!
I've become a big fan of David Brin fairly recently. For a standalone book, I'd recommend "Earth" which has some pretty interesting insights into ecology, privacy and the impact of technology on human culture.
;)
If you're willing to risk getting sucked into a big series, then I'd start out the "Uplift" series of books with "Sundiver". It also works well on its own, but you'll probably be compelled to read the rest if you like it.
Someone whose speculations head off in entirely different realms is my personal favorite: Philip K. Dick. A lot of his stuff kind of requires that you have a basic understanding of how his writing operates but some that are accessable to a first-timer, assuming you are one, include "Time Out of Joint", "Ubik", and "A Scanner Darkly". Set and written in the 50's, 60's, and 70's respectively, each provides a good insight into his style as it evolved. An added bonus of TOOJ is that it is the book that exposes "The Truman Show" as the blatant second-rate rip-off that it is, not that I'm holding a grudge over it.
I don't recommend "Valis" for a beginner as it really requires too much background knowledge of Dick's life to make a lot of sense out of it. But if you're willing to be confused, it's a book that can be plumbed over and over again for insight.
<=$300Handspring Visor Deluxe
$301-$1500Olympus C-2500L Digital Camera
>=$1501A house in San Francisco (hah, fat chance of that!)
--
Duane H
"wait for a political figure to emerge from the Net generation and define corporatism as the major problem its become."
There's no need to wait. While not of the "Net generation" there is a political candidate who "gets it" and has been fighting the forces of corporatism for more than thirty years. Supporting Ralph Nader should be seriously considered by anyone for whom this is an issue.
Voting for third parties is ofted dismissed as wasting a vote. But what's more of a waste, throwing your vote away toward the major parties (which will never change anything) or making your vote heard, even if that candidate doesn't win?
Look at the web site, read his platform and issues, get involved.
You might consider trying Debian. It cuts package dependencies a lot finer than your average RPM based system so you end up with almost no fat beyond what you explicitly chose to install.
Alpha Centauri was at the top of my list, but since it's been announced, I'm very happy. Baldur's Gate (+Tales of the Sword Coast) would be very cool too. Ultima Ascension would really float my boat as well. How about Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2?
If I had those I could pretty much ditch Windoze for good.
Now that Quake 1&2 exist "officially" for Linux, and given the open-source nature of Linux, have you ever thought about doing any specific OS tuning for gaming?
I think it would be really cool to have a Quake Linux distribution (QuakeUX? GibUX? FragUX?) with nothing but finely forged code to make you the baddest LPB on the net!