Astroturfing today
on
The FragBook
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The last two articles...
First "TheTechLounge" writes about an article on... thetechlounge.com! Not that I'm complaining about the content, it's a good article, but why couldn't you have just posted it on Slashdot directly?
Then this article, does anyone else think that this was written by the guy that makes these laptops? I suppose it still has some interest to nerds (and people who care about what matters), but it doesn't seem right to allow free advertising like this...
Note to the developers of "The GIMP":
You may as well call it "The Cripple", or "The Retard". I realize it's supposed to stand for GNU Image Manipulation Program or something, but bloody hell, you can't be taken seriously with a name like that.
Now as for the furry overtones of the Firefox name, that's another story, but at least they aren't named after another word for "crippled"!
When will you people stop with this tired excuse? Sure, P2P can be used for legal things. But it's not "P2P" that is running on the Internet2. The i2Hub (which I have been able to connect to from the Internet1, although they noticed after a few hours and kicked me off) is Direct Connect server, which is entirely used for piracy.
Don't give me any excuses about "well it could be used for such and such..." - I'm a university student in Canada, and we (like every other university) have a DC hub on our ResNet. Its purpose is piracy, 99 - 100%. I say 99 because every now and then someone might share a Windows Update that you can't get off MS website easily or something. Possibly the occasional Linux ISO. But the vast majority of its use is for sharing copyrighted content.
With that point made - sometimes when the legal use of an item is extremely small compared to the illegal uses, we as a society choose not to allow it. Even the USA, gun-crazy as they are, do not allow automatic weapons. Why? Because while they may have safe, legal uses, those uses are very small in number compared to the things that can go wrong with allowing every person to have an AK-47.
I'm obviously not saying leting people use P2P for piracy is as bad as letting people have automatic weapons, but the idea is the same. You can't say that "they have legitimate uses!" when those legitimate uses are really only there as an excuse to keep P2P around. Nobody in the universities actually uses P2P for legal things.
When, you know, someone has finally started to get a foothold in making this new distribution system work. You know, the great world of legal online music that all the online pundits keep talking about?
I was just thinking it's about time that we need more ways to steal music and convince the record companies that we're all thieves. I don't use iTunes so I can't really speak for myself, but if you wanted to steal music, couldn't you just use BitTorrent / Shareaza / Direct Connect like everyone else?
For those who, like me, aren't astrophysicists and had to look up an RTG, it's a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. Basically a nuclear power source for the rover.
I know a number of people who could care less about pirating console games (mostly since they pirate every game on their PCs anyway, but that's beside the point.)
What they do use the XBOXes for is cheap standalone DIVX / XVID players -- it's cheaper than building a standalone HTPC, and easier for their parents to use as well!
You mean bacteria? If we make self-replicating nanomachines, they'll just have to compete with already existing microorganisms, which have had a long, long time to perfect what they do.
It's not so much the difference in price for the high-end stuff that matters. Apple equipment has a price vs. performance curve that starts high and is relatively shallow. Dell and others have one that starts very low but increases exponentially.
Yes, we know that the Apple curve is below the Dell curve for that fucking supercomputer you've spec'd out. But do the same comparison on equipment that would be okay for most home users, and it's a bit of a different story.
I would maintain that at this point, Mozilla is better-known (or at least has a better reputation) than Netscape. My dad wants me to install Mozilla on his computer (to finally replace Netscape 4.79). I asked him why, he said he wants a popup blocker and spam filter (in Messenger).
Okay, let's work this out. He uses a 50kV at 4 milli-amp power supply. That's 200 W power supply. With that he creates approximately a pound of upward thrust.
You want to create 1500 lbs upward thrust. You'll need 300 kilowatts of power. Let's say you want to run it for one hour. You've used 300 kilowatt-hours (1.08 gigajoules) of energy.
According to here, you've actually used 8.19 gallons of automotive gasoline to power your device.
On the other hand, if your truck now weighs only 1000 lbs... you might be on to something!!
A lot of film-makers like the 24fps... they call it the 'veil of disbelief' or something. The human mind is tricked into believeing special effects at 24fps more easily, I think.
I've noticed this for myself... look at a comparable explosion sequence on TV (60 Hz interlaced) vs. film or DVD (approx 24 fps progressive). The film/DVD just looks... more... like a movie. It's hard to describe.
Maybe you could do it with a big pipe between your backup location and your servers. But I bet that would cost a bundle in bandwidth.
Maybe not: they could get a 1000-baseFX (or faster) line just between the remote and the main site, and as it doesn't connect to the Internet at large, it doesn't cost a penny in bandwidth, only operating costs to keep the fiber running. In addition, it would be more secure anyway (duh, since it's not connected to the Net at large...)
In addition, the British and French governments, the Concorde's parents, have also taken away the Concorde's access to the Buick for making too much noise over populated areas.
And they've cut off its access from its girlfriend, the Airbus A380 (that's okay, she's huuuuge anyway). In response, the Concorde was quoted as saying "Screw them. Freakin nazi parents run this aviation industry. That's okay, I have a PS2 in my room anyway."
Qupe? Like 'qubit'? A quantum dupe?? OMG!!! Does this mean, like, millions of dupes being posted in parallel??? CowboyNeal and CmdrTaco entangled? --shudders...--
Heh, on an off-topic note (but then again, WHO CARES!! GO WILD!! APRIL 1ST, BABY!!), an item similar to that screwed up when I went to Florida about 9 years ago. My family and I (I was in grade 4 at the time) went down in a rented minivan... and we borrowed a combination heater / cooler from some friends of the family. We kept all our easter chocolate in it. Unfortunately, the thing had broken and they had fixed it themselves, and put the heat/cool switch in backwards. We knew about the problem.
Of course, we go into the Magic Kingdom(or whatever) the one day, and turn the thing on backwards (meaning the switch was set correctly)... we forgot. All that easter candy melted into one steaming puddle in the bottom.
The best part is, that it was me (or my brother who was in Grade 2 then, I can't remember which one of us it was) that had turned it on. When we got back, we realized what had happened, and switched the cooler back to 'hot' mode, which would cool it down. We didn't bother looking inside. Of course, a few hours later, my dad goes in looking for a little foil-wrapped chocolate egg, and what does he find? The entire bottom of the cooler is a solid block of chocolate, with brightly coloured foil sticking out of it where it had been floating when the chocolate solidified. He pulled the stuff out and just gave it to us in the back seat. I think he knew what had happened.
Exactly. That's how MS got everyone to switch over from WordPerfrect back in the day. They realized that WP had all the market share, and they made it easy to switch over. (According to Joel on Software, you should also make it easy to switch back as well, but I don't agree...).
Seriously, what Red Hat or someone should do is launch an extremely focused, strategic ad campaign geared at getitng people on NT 4.0 to switch. Of course, this might not work, as the very people still using NT 4 today are probably the ones least liekly to make a large switch like an entire OS family...
I was planning on waiting anyhow, this just seems to confirm my original instincts.
What does not kill me just postpones the inevitable.
.
People, people, people. You have to start checking for conflicts between your sig and your message. I mean, using Serial ATA might shorten the life of your data or something, but it won't kill you!
Slashdot Mirror
First "TheTechLounge" writes about an article on... thetechlounge.com! Not that I'm complaining about the content, it's a good article, but why couldn't you have just posted it on Slashdot directly?
Then this article, does anyone else think that this was written by the guy that makes these laptops? I suppose it still has some interest to nerds (and people who care about what matters), but it doesn't seem right to allow free advertising like this...
Now as for the furry overtones of the Firefox name, that's another story, but at least they aren't named after another word for "crippled"!
Don't give me any excuses about "well it could be used for such and such..." - I'm a university student in Canada, and we (like every other university) have a DC hub on our ResNet. Its purpose is piracy, 99 - 100%. I say 99 because every now and then someone might share a Windows Update that you can't get off MS website easily or something. Possibly the occasional Linux ISO. But the vast majority of its use is for sharing copyrighted content.
With that point made - sometimes when the legal use of an item is extremely small compared to the illegal uses, we as a society choose not to allow it. Even the USA, gun-crazy as they are, do not allow automatic weapons. Why? Because while they may have safe, legal uses, those uses are very small in number compared to the things that can go wrong with allowing every person to have an AK-47.
I'm obviously not saying leting people use P2P for piracy is as bad as letting people have automatic weapons, but the idea is the same. You can't say that "they have legitimate uses!" when those legitimate uses are really only there as an excuse to keep P2P around. Nobody in the universities actually uses P2P for legal things.
When, you know, someone has finally started to get a foothold in making this new distribution system work. You know, the great world of legal online music that all the online pundits keep talking about? I was just thinking it's about time that we need more ways to steal music and convince the record companies that we're all thieves. I don't use iTunes so I can't really speak for myself, but if you wanted to steal music, couldn't you just use BitTorrent / Shareaza / Direct Connect like everyone else?
For those who, like me, aren't astrophysicists and had to look up an RTG, it's a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. Basically a nuclear power source for the rover.
What they do use the XBOXes for is cheap standalone DIVX / XVID players -- it's cheaper than building a standalone HTPC, and easier for their parents to use as well!
You mean bacteria? If we make self-replicating nanomachines, they'll just have to compete with already existing microorganisms, which have had a long, long time to perfect what they do.
It's not so much the difference in price for the high-end stuff that matters. Apple equipment has a price vs. performance curve that starts high and is relatively shallow. Dell and others have one that starts very low but increases exponentially.
Yes, we know that the Apple curve is below the Dell curve for that fucking supercomputer you've spec'd out. But do the same comparison on equipment that would be okay for most home users, and it's a bit of a different story.
What, like these ones? The ones that are like $1300 American each? Not exactly the most practical option, I'd say.
Sharing illegal music and movies isn't the way it was intended to be used? Let's not kid ourselves.
I would maintain that at this point, Mozilla is better-known (or at least has a better reputation) than Netscape. My dad wants me to install Mozilla on his computer (to finally replace Netscape 4.79). I asked him why, he said he wants a popup blocker and spam filter (in Messenger).
Okay, let's work this out. He uses a 50kV at 4 milli-amp power supply. That's 200 W power supply. With that he creates approximately a pound of upward thrust.
You want to create 1500 lbs upward thrust. You'll need 300 kilowatts of power. Let's say you want to run it for one hour. You've used 300 kilowatt-hours (1.08 gigajoules) of energy.
According to here, you've actually used 8.19 gallons of automotive gasoline to power your device.
On the other hand, if your truck now weighs only 1000 lbs... you might be on to something!!
A lot of film-makers like the 24fps... they call it the 'veil of disbelief' or something. The human mind is tricked into believeing special effects at 24fps more easily, I think. I've noticed this for myself... look at a comparable explosion sequence on TV (60 Hz interlaced) vs. film or DVD (approx 24 fps progressive). The film/DVD just looks ... more... like a movie. It's hard to describe.
Well, the experience, one would imagine, would be similar to this.
And they've cut off its access from its girlfriend, the Airbus A380 (that's okay, she's huuuuge anyway). In response, the Concorde was quoted as saying "Screw them. Freakin nazi parents run this aviation industry. That's okay, I have a PS2 in my room anyway."
.
Of course, we go into the Magic Kingdom(or whatever) the one day, and turn the thing on backwards (meaning the switch was set correctly)... we forgot. All that easter candy melted into one steaming puddle in the bottom.
The best part is, that it was me (or my brother who was in Grade 2 then, I can't remember which one of us it was) that had turned it on. When we got back, we realized what had happened, and switched the cooler back to 'hot' mode, which would cool it down. We didn't bother looking inside. Of course, a few hours later, my dad goes in looking for a little foil-wrapped chocolate egg, and what does he find? The entire bottom of the cooler is a solid block of chocolate, with brightly coloured foil sticking out of it where it had been floating when the chocolate solidified. He pulled the stuff out and just gave it to us in the back seat. I think he knew what had happened.
Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
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Umm, yeah. Hard to believe they could ever run out since there's more IPv6 addresses than there are atoms in the universe :)
Come on man, Microsoft is regularily discussed on this site, we'll need bigger units than that... megabugs, gigabugs, terabugs, I'm thinking... :)
Seriously, what Red Hat or someone should do is launch an extremely focused, strategic ad campaign geared at getitng people on NT 4.0 to switch. Of course, this might not work, as the very people still using NT 4 today are probably the ones least liekly to make a large switch like an entire OS family...
This is Slashdot. When are 'the Simpsons' ever off-topic? :)
Gollum, or Serkis?
Hey, I've got one! Previously Queued Redundant Internet-Transmitted Overclocked Network Files (PQRITONF). My acronym: PRON. Well, CalTech can do it, why can't I? :)