Just curious... did you have the same opinion of Twin Peaks, or was that before your time?
Peaks was one of those shows you either loved or hated. The whole yuppies eating donuts fad at Peaks Parties was pretty damned lame, but I thought the show had some real depth for its time. It strung people along to solve the mystery, and pioneered the concept of an episode representing a discrete increment of time (1 episode = 1 day in Twin Peaks), like 24 did years later. If only Season 2 would make it to DVD...
However, having never seen Lost yet (I'm gonna rent Season 1 on Netflix soon), I'm getting the same vibe now as I did when Twin Peaks was running -- some of the most passionate praise/flaming of a series I've witnessed in a long time.
No, but his frustration stems from the short-sightedness exhibited by Dell when it comes to AMD.
I worked at a large university for 5 years at a high performance computing department. It's a public school, and price/performance was king. Thus we were primarily an AMD shop. Often it wasn't about just price -- AMD would often spank the equivalent Intel CPU at the time in real-world scientific computing benchmarks.
Every year or so when we invited Dell back to bid and tell us what they had, it was always Intel. We'd always ask when they planned to offer AMD, and they'd always respond that they weren't planning to provide AMD.
So the last year I worked there, we were having vendors bid on a huge cluster approaching 1000 CPUs. Of course Dell came, touting Intel, and we sent them away because the wouldn't give us AMD.
You think they would have learned over the years. But they don't. I don't know if Dell is tied to Intel by some contract, but they're losing a lot of business in the academic HPC world.
What, you mean Dennis Miller style obscure references aren't intellectual?:)
Still, they crack me up. And they go much further back than the 80's. I saw a rerun a few months ago (the one where the son goes to NYC to become a painter), and when Peter and the daughter were walking down the street to the background music similiar to the Flintstones (soon followed by an actual background like that of the Flintstones -- killed the subtlety, IMO), I just cracked up.
No, he's right. I took a course on metaphysics, and it's covered in the "problem" of arguing the case for a "classical Christian-type god" (i.e., omnipotent, infinitely good, etc.). I believe it's called the "watchmaker argument" or something to that effect.
Bascially, you're walking along a beach and find a watch. It's design is unlike anything else seen in the natural world, so complex and beautiful -- surely it must have had a creator, not sprung up by chance?
(I'm sure I'm butchering this horribly...)
While probability of a watch being created by chance is *very* low indeed, it's not mathematically zero. So there goes that argument. Even if we *could* establish that there was a creator of the watch (or the universe, for that matter), it does not logically follow that the creator is either omnipotent or an infinitely-good being.
So intelligent design, even if *were* a logically sound argument, does not support the existence of a Christian God.
I rented -- forgive me -- Stealth this past weekend via Redbox. As with all rentals, they are played via Xine on my FreeBSD home entertainment PC. First, I rip them w/ vobcopy, then I watch them.
Lately, I've been having trouble with a good percentage of DVDs from them. At first I thought it was due to the rotten local kids trashing the DVDs. But this DVD was *perfect* -- no scratches or anything. But vobcopy just barfs on it.
So I googled and found that Sony uses something called "ARccOS" as protection scheme -- intentionlally using defective sectors (a la the old DOS floppy days). I guess the new Windows-based copy programs get around it, but it seems I'm stuck.
Sure enough, Stealth is a Sony DVD. So back it went. If I gave a shit, I'd pitch a fit and try to get my money back (all $1.07 of it). Maybe I'll just quit renting from Redbox, or maybe I'll check to try and avoid titles by Sony now.
Anyone using a non-Windows platform able to get around ARccOS?
Regarding cheap cabling... I've used standard CAT-5 for the very unprofessional speaker runs I've had in my home at times. I'd twist the 4 solid-colored wires together for one condutcor and the 4 open wires as my second conductor (the logic being that four 26-guage wires would have better properties than one 26-guage wire). Seemed to be less noisey than the crap I bought at Rat Shack (you can tell I'm no audiphile).
I don't know how this would hold up to high-end gear. This was for my $200 chain-store 6-speaker, surround, entertainment center, hooked up to my $50 DVD player, playing my 256kbps MP3 collection. Sounded good enough for my ears.
CAT-5 (which I always have a spool of lying around) is cheap at $50/1000ft. I assume one could go high-end and go with shielded CAT-5, which goes for about four times as much.
I know you're being sarcastic, but *please* don't use the now-tired line of equating XYZ with terrorists. When driving home last night, I heard some asshat (I think it was some representative of MADD -- Mothers Against Druke Drivers) equating drunk drivers with terrorists. What an ass.
Save equating terrorists with terrorists. Doing otherwise dilutes the term and makes the world a worse place for everyone.
Five million wouldn't be enough for me to quit my job.
Then you're living a lifestyle that invites all those "fat, lazy American" comments from foreigners.
The "fat and lany" is figurative, of course.
If your statement was in context of "I love what I do so much, you couldn't pay me to quit" then I apologize.
But if you don't know how to have a decent standard of living with a million in the bank, then you are a symptom of society's larger consumer culture problems, and you have my pity.
Hell, if someone dropped just $100k in my lap, I'd never have to work again. And I have a wife and two kids. Hint #1: there are many livable houses out there for well under $100k. Hint #2: There are many fine cars out there for under $1000. Hint #3: Never pay for TV -- ever. Hint #4: Your house should be your only debt -- ever -- and only for as short a time as possible.
I sooo hope the parent poster was being sarcastic.
lol! Reminds me of that scene from Millennium
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 1
Season 2, Episode 9, "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense"
FRANK BLACK: No, no, it's not about us: in fact, he's working on a case that could be of great interest to the group. This Selfosophist was found --
PETER WATTS (alarmed): Whoa, Selfosophy? No, no...
FRANK: What is going on, Peter? We've never backed away from anything. We've even faced evil incarnate.
PETER: Evil incarnate can't sue. All I'm saying is be careful about what you say around your writer friend.
Fans will remember that this show was poking fun at the Church of Scientology, but the point is well taken: well-monied, lawsuit-happy interest groups are very evil indeed.
1. Walk to post office and pick up batch of NetFlix movies. 10:00am
2. Pop into Linux media PC.
3. "mount/dvd ; vobcopy -m ; eject"
4. while (( i++ -lt $NUM_MOVIES )) goto #2
5. Walk to post office to return batch of movies, well before the day's last pickup.
6. Watch movies at leisure, delete/keep what you see fit.
Keeping the rental pipeline full at all times allows for more bang for your rental buck. Err... theoretically.
With the current best GB per dollar ratio being a 320GB drive (being about $100), that's 320/9=35 full DVD rips. Worst case scenario, a full get/return netflix cycle is 7 days, so at the $50/month plan for 8-DVDs-at-once, that's 32 DVDs for $150, or $4.68/dvd. Smaller than theoretical maximum DVDs and faster Netflix turnaround times can lower this even more.
Aside from the $1 DVDs of Alfred Hitchcock movies and Dragnet episodes I see at the local dollar store, that's not a bad price, delivered to your door.
Strategic use of Redbox DVD machines can yeild even better price, if you disregard cost of gas to the nearest McD's and the lack of selection.
DVD copying is pitifully easy. Mostly. If only vobcopy could handle those new intentionally-corrupted DVDs...
Ditto for smokers. Every time I see the driver of a car smoking with a load of kids, I fight the urge to make a scene. If you want to die early, that's cool by me. But at least give your kids a choice.
I can't decide whether this is flame bait or simply a short-sighted comment. Status (for some of us, at least) has nothing to do with property ownership.
Janis Joplin once sang, "'Freedom' is just another word for 'nothing left to lose'". While this is true to some extent, I think that more aptly applies to not being a slave to consumer culture.
In any event, 'freedom' for my family and I means owning our home and reducing our monetary needs to the bare minimum.
That means getting out of debt and staying out of debt. I'm only 33, and have dealt with debt. I cannot stress to you younger folks enough how evil debt is. The only thing you should have debt on is a house and maybe a vehicle.
Own your assets outright, or aim for that as aggressively as possible.
Home owenership has been the best thing for our family. We bought our first home for $85k, and sold it for $115k. Sure, we probably paid $50k in interest during the 5 years we owned it, but that is deductible. Only some states allow rent deductions, and the Fed does not. When we sold, we paid off a number of debts. We then bought a home for $45k (we put $10k down) and are getting ready to sell for $60k. So we'll take that $20k or so in equity and roll that into our next house, which will be in the $50k-to-$75k range. The plan is to pay that down quickly and own it outright in 5 years -- then rent it and move into another similarly-priced home, or perhaps a duplex, then pay that off. Given the rental market, I could "retire" at the ripe age of 43, never having to lift a finger while bringing in at least $2k/month. My family of 4 can easily live very comfortably on that.
Going against conventional wisdom, when I quit my last job, I liquidated my retirement fund (403b, I think, with all proceeds being contributed by my employer). I got dinged on the taxes, but I used that pay off our "retirement" property. If the shit ever hits the fan, my family has a place to go. I also bought and sold a parcel that's paying for itself in a rapidly growing market. While I still owe on it, my buyer is essentially making the payments for me. I netted a few grand (more on potential interest), and the current market is such that if he flakes I'll own a prime piece of development property in an area that's expanding by leaps and bounds.
I've never made an exceptional salary, the peak being $53k and currently at $45k, in a modest employment market. So that should tell you that most anyone can prepare their future on a modest salary if they desire to do so.
While compound interest is a great tool for many people's retirement plans, ownership of land and houses is more secure in my opinion. At the least, you'll have a roof over your head for nothing (excepting taxes), and at best you'll have a passive income. Plus you'll have an assett that you can sell for a large (possibly tax-free) chunk of change, if you need a large wad of cash.
No, it's not about status or knowing who I am. I've never owned a home newer than 90 years, or a car newer than 5 years. I currently own a beat-up '91 sedan, that gets decent fuel economy and results in the smallest tax liability (12 years or older in my state). It's about having assetts at my disposal, and having them work for me.
When the White House bans a good portion of the indie press, ones that like to ask tough questions, from the Press Corp (or whatever it's called), in favor of major networks that tow the party line, we all howl bloody murder about the injustice of it all.
Now, is the fact that CNet is supposedly small fry justification for people not caring about a much larger, much more influencial company shutting them out?
Seems we have our own double standard here on/. to discuss.
Sheesh -- the Exchange juggernaut always rears its head in these threads, doesn't it?
Why a 5-person shop requires the behemoth combo of Windows 2000 (or is it 2003?) Server and Exchange 2003 is beyond my grasp.
Yeah, I know of all the whiz-bang "groupware" features Exchange has. Sure, they're kinda useful, but is that much expense for 5 people necessary?
Scheduling automation bugs the hell out of me. Maybe that's just me. I didn't buy into the Exchange way of life when I worked at a 200-person shop who lived and died by Exchange and sent Office attachments rather then simple emails. I'd laugh if a 5-person shop tried to wrangle me into that.
Personal preferences aside, isn't that just overkill? No, really -- what's the big draw? I may have been an intentional ass with my comment until this point. I *genuinely* want to know why there's such an Exchange fettish in the corporate world (which, until the parent post, I had always assumed was confined to mid-to-large organizations).
Sure, running three 21-inch monitors per workstation would probably increase productivity for most office workers. But would any sane company really buy into that?
Exchange, to me, seems to be a prime example of technology for technology's sake. Seems the gadget-happy "cosumner culture" is no stranger to business spending habits.
Maybe the publishers will lobby Congress to force scanner and copier makers to lock their hardware products if they detect the scanning of anything with text or illustrations? They did it for currency, why not books?:)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget the "chemtrails" The Man is using to poison the population.
Peaks was one of those shows you either loved or hated. The whole yuppies eating donuts fad at Peaks Parties was pretty damned lame, but I thought the show had some real depth for its time. It strung people along to solve the mystery, and pioneered the concept of an episode representing a discrete increment of time (1 episode = 1 day in Twin Peaks), like 24 did years later. If only Season 2 would make it to DVD...
However, having never seen Lost yet (I'm gonna rent Season 1 on Netflix soon), I'm getting the same vibe now as I did when Twin Peaks was running -- some of the most passionate praise/flaming of a series I've witnessed in a long time.
I worked at a large university for 5 years at a high performance computing department. It's a public school, and price/performance was king. Thus we were primarily an AMD shop. Often it wasn't about just price -- AMD would often spank the equivalent Intel CPU at the time in real-world scientific computing benchmarks.
Every year or so when we invited Dell back to bid and tell us what they had, it was always Intel. We'd always ask when they planned to offer AMD, and they'd always respond that they weren't planning to provide AMD.
So the last year I worked there, we were having vendors bid on a huge cluster approaching 1000 CPUs. Of course Dell came, touting Intel, and we sent them away because the wouldn't give us AMD.
You think they would have learned over the years. But they don't. I don't know if Dell is tied to Intel by some contract, but they're losing a lot of business in the academic HPC world.
You *can* print only one of those 30 labels at a time. I do it all the time.
Still, they crack me up. And they go much further back than the 80's. I saw a rerun a few months ago (the one where the son goes to NYC to become a painter), and when Peter and the daughter were walking down the street to the background music similiar to the Flintstones (soon followed by an actual background like that of the Flintstones -- killed the subtlety, IMO), I just cracked up.
"That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah."
Bascially, you're walking along a beach and find a watch. It's design is unlike anything else seen in the natural world, so complex and beautiful -- surely it must have had a creator, not sprung up by chance?
(I'm sure I'm butchering this horribly...)
While probability of a watch being created by chance is *very* low indeed, it's not mathematically zero. So there goes that argument. Even if we *could* establish that there was a creator of the watch (or the universe, for that matter), it does not logically follow that the creator is either omnipotent or an infinitely-good being.
So intelligent design, even if *were* a logically sound argument, does not support the existence of a Christian God.
Lately, I've been having trouble with a good percentage of DVDs from them. At first I thought it was due to the rotten local kids trashing the DVDs. But this DVD was *perfect* -- no scratches or anything. But vobcopy just barfs on it.
So I googled and found that Sony uses something called "ARccOS" as protection scheme -- intentionlally using defective sectors (a la the old DOS floppy days). I guess the new Windows-based copy programs get around it, but it seems I'm stuck.
Sure enough, Stealth is a Sony DVD. So back it went. If I gave a shit, I'd pitch a fit and try to get my money back (all $1.07 of it). Maybe I'll just quit renting from Redbox, or maybe I'll check to try and avoid titles by Sony now.
Anyone using a non-Windows platform able to get around ARccOS?
Regarding cheap cabling... I've used standard CAT-5 for the very unprofessional speaker runs I've had in my home at times. I'd twist the 4 solid-colored wires together for one condutcor and the 4 open wires as my second conductor (the logic being that four 26-guage wires would have better properties than one 26-guage wire). Seemed to be less noisey than the crap I bought at Rat Shack (you can tell I'm no audiphile).
I don't know how this would hold up to high-end gear. This was for my $200 chain-store 6-speaker, surround, entertainment center, hooked up to my $50 DVD player, playing my 256kbps MP3 collection. Sounded good enough for my ears.
CAT-5 (which I always have a spool of lying around) is cheap at $50/1000ft. I assume one could go high-end and go with shielded CAT-5, which goes for about four times as much.
Save equating terrorists with terrorists. Doing otherwise dilutes the term and makes the world a worse place for everyone.
Volvo -- they're boxy but good.
Then you're living a lifestyle that invites all those "fat, lazy American" comments from foreigners.
The "fat and lany" is figurative, of course.
If your statement was in context of "I love what I do so much, you couldn't pay me to quit" then I apologize.
But if you don't know how to have a decent standard of living with a million in the bank, then you are a symptom of society's larger consumer culture problems, and you have my pity.
Hell, if someone dropped just $100k in my lap, I'd never have to work again. And I have a wife and two kids. Hint #1: there are many livable houses out there for well under $100k. Hint #2: There are many fine cars out there for under $1000. Hint #3: Never pay for TV -- ever. Hint #4: Your house should be your only debt -- ever -- and only for as short a time as possible.
I sooo hope the parent poster was being sarcastic.
FRANK BLACK: No, no, it's not about us: in fact, he's working on a case that could be of great interest to the group. This Selfosophist was found --
PETER WATTS (alarmed): Whoa, Selfosophy? No, no ...
FRANK: What is going on, Peter? We've never backed away from anything. We've even faced evil incarnate.
PETER: Evil incarnate can't sue. All I'm saying is be careful about what you say around your writer friend.
Fans will remember that this show was poking fun at the Church of Scientology, but the point is well taken: well-monied, lawsuit-happy interest groups are very evil indeed.
1. Walk to post office and pick up batch of NetFlix movies. 10:00am /dvd ; vobcopy -m ; eject"
2. Pop into Linux media PC.
3. "mount
4. while (( i++ -lt $NUM_MOVIES )) goto #2
5. Walk to post office to return batch of movies, well before the day's last pickup.
6. Watch movies at leisure, delete/keep what you see fit.
Keeping the rental pipeline full at all times allows for more bang for your rental buck. Err... theoretically.
With the current best GB per dollar ratio being a 320GB drive (being about $100), that's 320/9=35 full DVD rips. Worst case scenario, a full get/return netflix cycle is 7 days, so at the $50/month plan for 8-DVDs-at-once, that's 32 DVDs for $150, or $4.68/dvd. Smaller than theoretical maximum DVDs and faster Netflix turnaround times can lower this even more.
Aside from the $1 DVDs of Alfred Hitchcock movies and Dragnet episodes I see at the local dollar store, that's not a bad price, delivered to your door.
Strategic use of Redbox DVD machines can yeild even better price, if you disregard cost of gas to the nearest McD's and the lack of selection.
DVD copying is pitifully easy. Mostly. If only vobcopy could handle those new intentionally-corrupted DVDs...
You're seriously telling me that if I grossed $100k in the 50's I would only net $8k? Sounds a tad extreme.
Oh, wait....
Sometimes to fend off a fight started with a sucker punch, you have to resort to playing a little dirty, too.
Inconsiderate morons!
Janis Joplin once sang, "'Freedom' is just another word for 'nothing left to lose'". While this is true to some extent, I think that more aptly applies to not being a slave to consumer culture.
In any event, 'freedom' for my family and I means owning our home and reducing our monetary needs to the bare minimum.
That means getting out of debt and staying out of debt. I'm only 33, and have dealt with debt. I cannot stress to you younger folks enough how evil debt is. The only thing you should have debt on is a house and maybe a vehicle.
Own your assets outright, or aim for that as aggressively as possible.
Home owenership has been the best thing for our family. We bought our first home for $85k, and sold it for $115k. Sure, we probably paid $50k in interest during the 5 years we owned it, but that is deductible. Only some states allow rent deductions, and the Fed does not. When we sold, we paid off a number of debts. We then bought a home for $45k (we put $10k down) and are getting ready to sell for $60k. So we'll take that $20k or so in equity and roll that into our next house, which will be in the $50k-to-$75k range. The plan is to pay that down quickly and own it outright in 5 years -- then rent it and move into another similarly-priced home, or perhaps a duplex, then pay that off. Given the rental market, I could "retire" at the ripe age of 43, never having to lift a finger while bringing in at least $2k/month. My family of 4 can easily live very comfortably on that.
Going against conventional wisdom, when I quit my last job, I liquidated my retirement fund (403b, I think, with all proceeds being contributed by my employer). I got dinged on the taxes, but I used that pay off our "retirement" property. If the shit ever hits the fan, my family has a place to go. I also bought and sold a parcel that's paying for itself in a rapidly growing market. While I still owe on it, my buyer is essentially making the payments for me. I netted a few grand (more on potential interest), and the current market is such that if he flakes I'll own a prime piece of development property in an area that's expanding by leaps and bounds.
I've never made an exceptional salary, the peak being $53k and currently at $45k, in a modest employment market. So that should tell you that most anyone can prepare their future on a modest salary if they desire to do so.
While compound interest is a great tool for many people's retirement plans, ownership of land and houses is more secure in my opinion. At the least, you'll have a roof over your head for nothing (excepting taxes), and at best you'll have a passive income. Plus you'll have an assett that you can sell for a large (possibly tax-free) chunk of change, if you need a large wad of cash.
No, it's not about status or knowing who I am. I've never owned a home newer than 90 years, or a car newer than 5 years. I currently own a beat-up '91 sedan, that gets decent fuel economy and results in the smallest tax liability (12 years or older in my state). It's about having assetts at my disposal, and having them work for me.
"You, too, will learn the lesson of Ed Gruberman..."
Seriously, I just wish someone would make bochs easy to get running under Linux. I've tried and it's just not worth my time. So I keep using VMware.
Kudos to these guys, though.
Shouldn't that be "site:slashdot.org intitle:xbox intitle:boot"?
Now, is the fact that CNet is supposedly small fry justification for people not caring about a much larger, much more influencial company shutting them out?
Seems we have our own double standard here on /. to discuss.
I may not necessarily agree with your reasons, but they are your reasons, And hey, it's your company, so who am I to criticize?
IMO, the most convincing point was the value of your time for the install.
Why a 5-person shop requires the behemoth combo of Windows 2000 (or is it 2003?) Server and Exchange 2003 is beyond my grasp.
Yeah, I know of all the whiz-bang "groupware" features Exchange has. Sure, they're kinda useful, but is that much expense for 5 people necessary?
Scheduling automation bugs the hell out of me. Maybe that's just me. I didn't buy into the Exchange way of life when I worked at a 200-person shop who lived and died by Exchange and sent Office attachments rather then simple emails. I'd laugh if a 5-person shop tried to wrangle me into that.
Personal preferences aside, isn't that just overkill? No, really -- what's the big draw? I may have been an intentional ass with my comment until this point. I *genuinely* want to know why there's such an Exchange fettish in the corporate world (which, until the parent post, I had always assumed was confined to mid-to-large organizations).
Sure, running three 21-inch monitors per workstation would probably increase productivity for most office workers. But would any sane company really buy into that?
Exchange, to me, seems to be a prime example of technology for technology's sake. Seems the gadget-happy "cosumner culture" is no stranger to business spending habits.
Maybe the publishers will lobby Congress to force scanner and copier makers to lock their hardware products if they detect the scanning of anything with text or illustrations? They did it for currency, why not books? :)