On Slashdot they said that MSNBC said that Linux was dead. Which was far from the trith of the article. Which was unbiased and actually said that Linux was alive and well and making significant inroads into several markets. Example was server market share.
The article said that Linux was having a hard time on the desktop of Joe User. Which is true. Read the article. No where is the word 'dead' used.
I beleive in Linux, use Linux, and promote Linux. But with facts and figures, not misquotes and allegations. Until we all stop fingerpointing without proper cause we are going to have a hard time getting a proper foothold with our beloved Penguin.
Linux now has the same sort of spin doctoring that we accuse MS of. Come on people.
And once again I want to see the Slashdot log files on the browsers that roll in here. And to make it fair since most browse at work and are forced to use windows boxen. We will take a samlimg from 6 pm to 5-am.
I have not seen it yet but it is on my wish list. Dick was a great author, very visionary.
I would also say that he greatly influenced William Gibson in the realm of cyberpunk. If you want to know why check out A Scanner Darkly, a book about an undercover narc in the future who uses technology to his advantage, but also has a habit that is killing him slowly.
Dick was a heavy addict at one time and this book reflects his experiences. It is actually a darkly beautiful book and the forward is dedicated to all of his friends who fell into the world of heroin abuse.
Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) was a very good book although the movie was only 'vaguely' based on it. BUT the movie kicked ass. Rutger Haur as the phliosopher replicant was great. He adlibbed most of his scenes and they kept em. One of my fav's still.
So if they keep it on the real with the book it should be good.
Heard a rumor once that Lucas wanted to adapt Dick books. God save us all.
Puto
WOW! As a long time computer nerd professiionally and personally I have realized one thing.
AFTER LOOKING AT THOSE GUYS IN THE PICTURE I AM ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!
And WTF? there is only girl there? Jeez... Even ROB married a cutie.
Puto
The larger companies have the abilities to buy in bulk and get the BEST prices on things and bundle a lotta stuff that you would have to pay mom and pop for and are much better on the warranty(usually).
I am not talking about the Dells and Gateways. But companies like Systemax and others. There used to be plenty of companies like this in the early to mid 90's. Micron, Quantex, Cybermax, sold great bundles at great prices.
I mean you can look at the Home Shopping channels and get a great rig for a grand.
My father bought one. I almost choked him after he called me to see his new box then I saw what he got for 1100 bux.
Athlon 1800 512 DDR Radeon 64 TV Out Printer Scanner(works great) USB Logitech optical mouse and Internet Keyboard 19 Inch Samsung monitor Gravis Gamepad DVD 16x CDR 32/10/40 Nic(generic but works with his dsl and home network) Sound(Ac 97 fine for just about anything) XP Home(like he is gonna join a domain) A little Digital camera Works( good for mom) 2 year warranty and a shitload of software from gretting cards to photoediting... subwoofer and speakers that look and sound good
Honestly it is a nice box, their second one in 3 years, and the first one is still kicking(in kitchen with new flatscreen for mom, installed tv card, connected coax and now she watches MArtha Stewart and downloads recipes at the same time, I 802 the DSL and they have 4 pcs in various rooms.
Screwdriver shops can;t do this for the price. I have worked in a few, and also been the buyer for several. I used Tech Data, Merisel, you name em, for parts, as a high tier provider and a comparable system built with all hardware and goodies bundled would be about 1600.
PLUS POPS HAS A SUPPORT LINE BESIDES ME.
So look at this place
http://www.cyberpowersystem.com i am not associated with these guys.
I am actually getting my new box from them. CHEAP AND GOOD, and all quality parts. My kinda screwdriver shop.
There is one called Swish http://www.swishzone.com
It is like 50 bucks and you can do really good things with it. Great movies, make your text effects. And it exports to swf format. You can also import flash.....
Check out the animations there.
Hope those guys got bandwidth over there. But then again the thought of having been the cause of the/. effect is making me feel 'naughty'.
Puto
You know I used to be in the game of having the latest and greatest, and now you can get a good box for about 600 bucks. with an audigy and geforce 3 128....
But my box is a celery 533, 392 megs of ram, a 64 megabyte radeon 7000, and onboard sound.
It runs window 2000 server, proxies 2 machines, and I can run Max Payne at 800x600 with great framerates. all this with AD, Information Server, all kicking in the background.
DIVX stuff runs just fine.
I do support from home so I need em in front of me to walk people through stuff.
The other two boxes are P// 350, one with Linux and one with XP. Developemental boxen.
So in my mind this card is worthless, I mean even my old celery plays divx fine.
I am quite proud of myself of not having done anything to it but add ram, change the graphic card and add a burner. Total of 200 bux in three years.
You know when I read your comment the old noggin started buzzing.
I think Microsoft did intend the thing to be heavily hackable for the general public.
M$ probably realized the majority of the gaming community and *nix people would look on the X_box EULA and the actual XBOX itself as a severe challenge. LEts all hack the box to how M$ fucked up this time and make it do all sorts of crap M$ never designed it do.
Ye olde reverse psychology. Now you got an article every couple a three days on the xbox and most of the comments are positive. Well, we ain't admitting that M$ did something decent for a change(which they kinda did considering it is their first console).
So i think we played into Bill's hands. He is getting all the air time here. I am actually thinking about buying one and so are you.
And what better "indie/residential developer, hacker, challenge" is there than the X-box and it's dislaimer.
When I worked at Verio I asked what the name meant. I was actually referred to a guy in the company who has the job title as "Verio Evangelist"(is the truth) his job was to go around making us feel good about the company. Though he didnt know a server from his elbow.
Anyway, he told me that the name really didn't mean anything but I should tell customers that Verio was an empty vessel that could be 'filled' with anything the customer chose.
What a crock of corporate bullshit.
So much with the whats in a name. Shakespeare was allowed poetic license. Corporate flunkies not...
Gives new meaning to hacing the (ice)box. Some script kiddie gets changes the date on all the barcoded food, you get food poisoining... The fridge gets a virus and thinks all the food is brussel sprouts.
Then your wife won't let anyone open the fridge cuz her favorite show is on and you can't get a beer until its over....
You come home and find out that your kid has hacked up apache to run in the freezer and then posted his M0d on Slashdot with the url www.icebboxen.com and your new 5 grand appliance gets the/. effect and shuts down while voiding your warranty.
Christ save me from the internet....
Puto
Re:Trouble? Trouble at the Gentlemans Club
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I know what you mean. But the worst part of it is that now your average near-sighted stripper will be able to tell who the cheap skates are from across the stage. Us poor guys who wave the singles will be screwed!!!
As someone who drives a high riding truck I can tell you over the years I have seen some strange stuff. Specially dudes on the high way with the crucise locked jerking the old chicken at 80 miles an hour. I guess you gotta do someone on those long trips.
The Walmart marketing staff undoublty saw the huge Linux user base and are marketing to it. But the reality is we all like to build our boxes are convert an old one when we build the 'master of all boxen(every 4 months). So at least their choice generates much talk on/.
Well the good thing is this:
When a lower income person has an intelligent child and they wish to purchase the system, they can get one with Linux. The box will have sortsa games and goodies for them to play with. They will be intrigued, and since mom cant fork out for new games (and the lack of games in linux) they will start writing their own, learn gimp, learn the OS in and out) And they will be kept out of the windows world because they will not be able to run burned games from their friends.
All of my frinds who are coders I respect started in this manner. They had a Vic 20, C-64, TRS 80, something low end instead of an Apple// which had tons of wares and did everything for you. If you look at your friends(I mean people who are now in their 30's, people who remember the real Wolfenstein, not the PC 3d crap) you will find this true.
I see this could lead to a new generation of great coders and admins cuz they were not polluted with other OS's from the get go.
When you don't got much, you make what you got do wonders.
Puto
Well,
i usually do not defend myself, but I hate AC's, ball-less cowards.
I never mentioned what versions of the browsers in question. You assumed what versions.
And when I test I take into account general user experience. Not for us technically inclined. I don't care if my browser pops and fizzles but the users of the sites I sell do. So while I make sure the sites look good in IE I also make sure they do in other browsers, I just notice that bending over backwards to make something work in Mozilla and the Scape can screw the pooch for the others. Standards anyone? Or crappy products?
Puto
I agree that they should take off the protection in case we want to make back ups or the ability for the cd rom to read it in my box.
But then again, lotsa people burn em and give em away to friends. Even my parents...(i trained em well, the never question why my 2400 baud apple modem burned out every 3 months or my collection of 500 f 1/4 floppies with software).
I have been looking around alot and with all my computerphile colleagues and friends in and out of the industry(and it is a broad spectrun indeed) is one common scenario.
phone rings" Dude, wazzzup?"
"Wazzup?"
"You got the new(insert music or
software"
"No man, been meaning to check it out."
"Dont sweat it, I'll burn it bro"
Happens all the time, and more frequently with everyone I know in our beloved industry.
We all do it. We all vehemently deny it. Cuz I know after this post there will be ten posts vehemently denying it.
What can we do?
Flame me, kill my dog, curse my unborn children but...
I use Linux, I use Windows, and I develop site every now and again. Noting to fancy shcmancy but just for pocket change. So I keep all browsers on my system so I can see that whatever I am developing remains uniform. And usually it does. I do not develop for any one but so all can see it in pretty much the same way.
Netscape sucks the big one, while I can make anything run like a charm on IE and Opera. And stability issues(Java applets working and not crashing browser, win again with the IE and Opera).
So what do we do? For one lets stop turning this into a MS bitch and moan session. Tired of it, it is worn out. We are talking about browsers and ya'll are whining about all Microsoft products. Show me the slashdot logs and see how much traffic is IE. And do not come back the the fricken answer"I gotta use IE cause it is a work box" BULLSHIT. If we are all the hotshot admins we claim to be we can run a nix on a box at work, or at least another browser of choice on Windows to show we are fighting the good fight.
I imagine that the/. logs show heavy IE saturation.
Hell, I use IE, no skin off my nose. I have one box just for browsing and I use opera on it and it works fine. Ilove opera. But IE ain't bad in many ways. Show me the logs TACO
And MS might be the monster that ate the world but some of there products are not too bad. Office works and people like it. Star Office eats it, open office eats it less but still bites. I would rather use wordstar.
You know what the next killer app would be? Us coming off the high horse that linux is the be all end all salve for anything that ails a computer. It is good stuff, but UNIX is UNIX, and a new Nix is just an old nix.
Christ, I love/. but sometimes I wonder.
Puto
Wopr Revisited(MR. Potatohead, MR POTATOHEAD)
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I think it is a pretty neat thing. Almost like the life size X-wings Neiman Marcus used to sell for 14 grand in their christmas catalog.
Wargames was a pivotal moment in computer geek history. He got the girl changed, changed his grade, busted into SAC. Gave all of us geeks hope.
There was a time where us computer geeks had to play down our careers and hobbies if you wanted to get girls. Now it is cool, chicks did it, and Wargames had a fellow nerd who did it all.
Yeah I would buy one and put an ATX board in it. I think that would be much cooler than a wateer cooled case, mounting a motherboard in a fridge, and some of the other riduclous shit we see on/.
I went to the first Atari Computer camp in the early 80s. Yep, 400, 800, and early 1200 xls. We learned assembly by day and were regualr kids by night. But the best thing was the actor who played Doctor Falken in the movie visited the camp and signed autographs. It was an awesome experience for a 12 year old. Still got my 5/4 sleeve with the sig.
Ok, I am a fan of CGI,computers, cyberspave, hell it is what I do and a great love of my life. But shut down a city for Keaanu Reeves. Come all this from the guy that did Pointbreak. And a 50 other bad flicks.
Does Hollywood think he is the representative UBERGEEK of our generation? Come on they picked the guy from Bill and Ted to represent us?
If they are potraying us give me Tim Roth or Malcovich for the brains part. Hell I would settle for Pitt. But not Reeves....
Well, my city scape would be the free beer truck pulling up to my driveway, the girls gone wild partying in my front yard, and the cops hauling off the asshole neighbor I have who always wants to tell me about his work for the 'cia' investigating Intel amd their link to the former USSR(This ain't no lie, his day job is locksmith). <p> Oh yeah, and before I forget 50 foot Penguin scaring the shit outta all the Windows users I have to support on a daily basis. Life would then be good. <p>
Hotmail is a free service, you get what you pay for. Free email with some spam attached. And probably cuz we all use the hotmail address for those product registrations we dont want filling our box or for porn sites.
I use my hotmail on the road to check my POP accounts. Sure it aint the best service. And recently I got off my lazy ass and installed some cgi on my mail server so I now have my own 'webmail'
But I dont have to dick with hotmail, admin it, config it. IT works, yeah I get spam, SFW?
Seriously, it amazes me how many people are up in arms over this flick. Now I am 32 and remember seeing star wars at age six. It wasn't the effects that got me, they were not that good anyway. It was the whole farm boy makes good story, a cute girl, the bad ass ride(the Falcon and the famous Kessel beer run story).
So it might not be the best. But I am going see it because it brings back memories of plastic lightsabers leaving welts and heated discussions on why Han Solo(reference to onanism?) was cooler than Luke Skywalker(latent homo?) and I enjoy the series(not the ewoks, animated hairballs).
Who hasn't tried the old Jedi Mind Trick on their parents?
So as much as we all bitch and whine about it we are all going to see it. And many will download it, though the theater with dolby will be the choice for most of us, no immersion at home, I dont care how big your screen is.
I am bringing a date in case it gets boring... But she was born after star wars was released. So, I am gonna have to tone down the geekiness and supress my knowledge of the Jedi. And if I can't use the force on her there is always the old hole in the popcorn tub and unzipped pants trick"This isn't the jolly time kernels your looking for"
Lighten up people. I think we all need to get out more often.
I am part Colombian and the rest from New Orleans(go figure). And although I live and grew up in the states I have lived three of my 32 years in South America. AND DRIVEN THROUGH EVERY COUNTRY!
No one uses stoplights. They are a like pretty christmas decorations. If it is read you do
1.the "rolling Stop", 2.haul ass and hope you don't die 3.slow down but go through(most popular)
However, the funniest thing with all the hurrah is. All latin American countries have huge police forces. Chile is no exception. But it makes you wonder if the theives can rob a government building, what about the quality of protection for the regular guy?
I think there needs to be a clearer distinction between sci-fi and fantasy. I think both genres are ok but dragon slaying and hairy footed shoeless midgets aint science fiction.
I was and am on the odd occasion a heavy sci fi fan. From Henlein to Gibson, and in the past few Neal Stepehnson.
I miss hard sci fi. Where the text was actually beleivable in a not to distant future but the social commentary was dead on.
Heinlein accomplished this because he did not focus too much on technological explanations. And he wrote about strange sex like no one since, with no four letter words.
Gibson does the same thing. He is a very non technical person who writes so well that his stories are only improved by the sparse details on the technology his characters use. I think no other computer description is better than "it was next years ONO-Sendai, matte blacke, he slipped on the trodes, hit the stud and waited" You have to add the details. Great stuff.
And for good cyberpunk stuff. Walter Jon Williams write a good book called Hardwired. I think it might be outta print but it is amazing.
my 2 cents Stephenson is great sc fi too. He is Unix geek and a mathemetician. And his knowledge shows in his books. But he tempers it with a great sense of humor. And you can tell tech aint his while life. The geeks in his books all eat pizza and hang out on the net.
Well it doesn't look any fancier than the WOPR in Wargames. I mean come on. Mathew Broderick had an account on the really big iron. He could play chess, talk to it, and even nuke the world.
I will be really impressed when our real life computers can do what the ones in our fave movies can do.
Wargames - Talking Box with Nukes
2001 - HAL was good and Evil and was a great alarm clock. (possibly a code branch of Windows)
Hacker - When do I get a chick who looks like Angelina Jolie in spandex and who punches code? OK, ex girlfriend was one but dont want my site slash dotted.
And my all time favorite who is not a computer. Bender from Futurama. A fully aware intelligence that will drink beer, steal your money, and tell you to bite his shiny metal ass?
Call me when our boxen can do any of things. I would like to know. Make all of our time in front of the CRT more enjoyable.
Tripping the Rift sounds like a rip off of the brit classic Red Dwarf. We tried to steal the original with an American Cast and it did not work. A white rimmer.
Nope Sc-Fi can pull it off. Hell Lexx is just plain nasty.
Slashdot Mirror
On Slashdot they said that MSNBC said that Linux was dead. Which was far from the trith of the article. Which was unbiased and actually said that Linux was alive and well and making significant inroads into several markets. Example was server market share.
The article said that Linux was having a hard time on the desktop of Joe User. Which is true. Read the article. No where is the word 'dead' used.
I beleive in Linux, use Linux, and promote Linux. But with facts and figures, not misquotes and allegations. Until we all stop fingerpointing without proper cause we are going to have a hard time getting a proper foothold with our beloved Penguin.
Linux now has the same sort of spin doctoring that we accuse MS of. Come on people.
And once again I want to see the Slashdot log files on the browsers that roll in here. And to make it fair since most browse at work and are forced to use windows boxen. We will take a samlimg from 6 pm to 5-am.
Puto
I have not seen it yet but it is on my wish list. Dick was a great author, very visionary. I would also say that he greatly influenced William Gibson in the realm of cyberpunk. If you want to know why check out A Scanner Darkly, a book about an undercover narc in the future who uses technology to his advantage, but also has a habit that is killing him slowly. Dick was a heavy addict at one time and this book reflects his experiences. It is actually a darkly beautiful book and the forward is dedicated to all of his friends who fell into the world of heroin abuse. Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) was a very good book although the movie was only 'vaguely' based on it. BUT the movie kicked ass. Rutger Haur as the phliosopher replicant was great. He adlibbed most of his scenes and they kept em. One of my fav's still. So if they keep it on the real with the book it should be good. Heard a rumor once that Lucas wanted to adapt Dick books. God save us all. Puto
WOW! As a long time computer nerd professiionally and personally I have realized one thing. AFTER LOOKING AT THOSE GUYS IN THE PICTURE I AM ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE! And WTF? there is only girl there? Jeez... Even ROB married a cutie. Puto
Oems are not cheaper, not the mom and pop shops.
The larger companies have the abilities to buy in bulk and get the BEST prices on things and bundle a lotta stuff that you would have to pay mom and pop for and are much better on the warranty(usually).
I am not talking about the Dells and Gateways. But companies like Systemax and others. There used to be plenty of companies like this in the early to mid 90's. Micron, Quantex, Cybermax, sold great bundles at great prices.
I mean you can look at the Home Shopping channels and get a great rig for a grand.
My father bought one. I almost choked him after he called me to see his new box then I saw what he got for 1100 bux.
Athlon 1800
512 DDR
Radeon 64 TV Out
Printer
Scanner(works great) USB
Logitech optical mouse and Internet Keyboard
19 Inch Samsung monitor
Gravis Gamepad
DVD 16x
CDR 32/10/40
Nic(generic but works with his dsl and home network)
Sound(Ac 97 fine for just about anything)
XP Home(like he is gonna join a domain)
A little Digital camera
Works( good for mom)
2 year warranty
and a shitload of software from gretting cards to photoediting...
subwoofer and speakers that look and sound good
Honestly it is a nice box, their second one in 3 years, and the first one is still kicking(in kitchen with new flatscreen for mom, installed tv card, connected coax and now she watches MArtha Stewart and downloads recipes at the same time, I 802 the DSL and they have 4 pcs in various rooms.
Screwdriver shops can;t do this for the price. I have worked in a few, and also been the buyer for several. I used Tech Data, Merisel, you name em, for parts, as a high tier provider and a comparable system built with all hardware and goodies bundled would be about 1600.
PLUS POPS HAS A SUPPORT LINE BESIDES ME.
So look at this place
http://www.cyberpowersystem.com i am not associated with these guys.
I am actually getting my new box from them. CHEAP AND GOOD, and all quality parts. My kinda screwdriver shop.
Puto
There is one called Swish http://www.swishzone.com It is like 50 bucks and you can do really good things with it. Great movies, make your text effects. And it exports to swf format. You can also import flash..... Check out the animations there. Hope those guys got bandwidth over there. But then again the thought of having been the cause of the /. effect is making me feel 'naughty'.
Puto
You know I used to be in the game of having the latest and greatest, and now you can get a good box for about 600 bucks. with an audigy and geforce 3 128....
But my box is a celery 533, 392 megs of ram, a 64 megabyte radeon 7000, and onboard sound.
It runs window 2000 server, proxies 2 machines, and I can run Max Payne at 800x600 with great framerates. all this with AD, Information Server, all kicking in the background.
DIVX stuff runs just fine.
I do support from home so I need em in front of me to walk people through stuff.
The other two boxes are P// 350, one with Linux and one with XP. Developemental boxen.
So in my mind this card is worthless, I mean even my old celery plays divx fine.
I am quite proud of myself of not having done anything to it but add ram, change the graphic card and add a burner. Total of 200 bux in three years.
Puto
You know when I read your comment the old noggin started buzzing.
I think Microsoft did intend the thing to be heavily hackable for the general public.
M$ probably realized the majority of the gaming community and *nix people would look on the X_box EULA and the actual XBOX itself as a severe challenge. LEts all hack the box to how M$ fucked up this time and make it do all sorts of crap M$ never designed it do.
Ye olde reverse psychology. Now you got an article every couple a three days on the xbox and most of the comments are positive. Well, we ain't admitting that M$ did something decent for a change(which they kinda did considering it is their first console).
So i think we played into Bill's hands. He is getting all the air time here. I am actually thinking about buying one and so are you.
And what better "indie/residential developer, hacker, challenge" is there than the X-box and it's dislaimer.
Puto
When I worked at Verio I asked what the name meant. I was actually referred to a guy in the company who has the job title as "Verio Evangelist"(is the truth) his job was to go around making us feel good about the company. Though he didnt know a server from his elbow.
Anyway, he told me that the name really didn't mean anything but I should tell customers that Verio was an empty vessel that could be 'filled' with anything the customer chose.
What a crock of corporate bullshit.
So much with the whats in a name. Shakespeare was allowed poetic license. Corporate flunkies not...
Puto
Gives new meaning to hacing the (ice)box. Some script kiddie gets changes the date on all the barcoded food, you get food poisoining... The fridge gets a virus and thinks all the food is brussel sprouts.
/. effect and shuts down while voiding your warranty.
Then your wife won't let anyone open the fridge cuz her favorite show is on and you can't get a beer until its over....
You come home and find out that your kid has hacked up apache to run in the freezer and then posted his M0d on Slashdot with the url www.icebboxen.com and your new 5 grand appliance gets the
Christ save me from the internet....
Puto
I know what you mean. But the worst part of it is that now your average near-sighted stripper will be able to tell who the cheap skates are from across the stage. Us poor guys who wave the singles will be screwed!!!
Puto
As someone who drives a high riding truck I can tell you over the years I have seen some strange stuff. Specially dudes on the high way with the crucise locked jerking the old chicken at 80 miles an hour. I guess you gotta do someone on those long trips.
But now with a camera, yech, suppose mom calls?
Puto
The Walmart marketing staff undoublty saw the huge Linux user base and are marketing to it. But the reality is we all like to build our boxes are convert an old one when we build the 'master of all boxen(every 4 months). So at least their choice generates much talk on /.
Well the good thing is this:
When a lower income person has an intelligent child and they wish to purchase the system, they can get one with Linux. The box will have sortsa games and goodies for them to play with. They will be intrigued, and since mom cant fork out for new games (and the lack of games in linux) they will start writing their own, learn gimp, learn the OS in and out) And they will be kept out of the windows world because they will not be able to run burned games from their friends.
All of my frinds who are coders I respect started in this manner. They had a Vic 20, C-64, TRS 80, something low end instead of an Apple // which had tons of wares and did everything for you. If you look at your friends(I mean people who are now in their 30's, people who remember the real Wolfenstein, not the PC 3d crap) you will find this true.
I see this could lead to a new generation of great coders and admins cuz they were not polluted with other OS's from the get go.
When you don't got much, you make what you got do wonders.
Puto
Well, i usually do not defend myself, but I hate AC's, ball-less cowards. I never mentioned what versions of the browsers in question. You assumed what versions. And when I test I take into account general user experience. Not for us technically inclined. I don't care if my browser pops and fizzles but the users of the sites I sell do. So while I make sure the sites look good in IE I also make sure they do in other browsers, I just notice that bending over backwards to make something work in Mozilla and the Scape can screw the pooch for the others. Standards anyone? Or crappy products? Puto
I agree that they should take off the protection in case we want to make back ups or the ability for the cd rom to read it in my box. But then again, lotsa people burn em and give em away to friends. Even my parents...(i trained em well, the never question why my 2400 baud apple modem burned out every 3 months or my collection of 500 f 1/4 floppies with software). I have been looking around alot and with all my computerphile colleagues and friends in and out of the industry(and it is a broad spectrun indeed) is one common scenario. phone rings" Dude, wazzzup?" "Wazzup?" "You got the new(insert music or software" "No man, been meaning to check it out." "Dont sweat it, I'll burn it bro" Happens all the time, and more frequently with everyone I know in our beloved industry. We all do it. We all vehemently deny it. Cuz I know after this post there will be ten posts vehemently denying it. What can we do?
Flame me, kill my dog, curse my unborn children but...
/. logs show heavy IE saturation.
/. but sometimes I wonder.
I use Linux, I use Windows, and I develop site every now and again. Noting to fancy shcmancy but just for pocket change. So I keep all browsers on my system so I can see that whatever I am developing remains uniform. And usually it does. I do not develop for any one but so all can see it in pretty much the same way.
Netscape sucks the big one, while I can make anything run like a charm on IE and Opera. And stability issues(Java applets working and not crashing browser, win again with the IE and Opera).
So what do we do? For one lets stop turning this into a MS bitch and moan session. Tired of it, it is worn out. We are talking about browsers and ya'll are whining about all Microsoft products. Show me the slashdot logs and see how much traffic is IE. And do not come back the the fricken answer"I gotta use IE cause it is a work box" BULLSHIT. If we are all the hotshot admins we claim to be we can run a nix on a box at work, or at least another browser of choice on Windows to show we are fighting the good fight.
I imagine that the
Hell, I use IE, no skin off my nose. I have one box just for browsing and I use opera on it and it works fine. Ilove opera. But IE ain't bad in many ways. Show me the logs TACO
And MS might be the monster that ate the world but some of there products are not too bad. Office works and people like it. Star Office eats it, open office eats it less but still bites. I would rather use wordstar.
You know what the next killer app would be? Us coming off the high horse that linux is the be all end all salve for anything that ails a computer. It is good stuff, but UNIX is UNIX, and a new Nix is just an old nix.
Christ, I love
Puto
I think it is a pretty neat thing. Almost like the life size X-wings Neiman Marcus used to sell for 14 grand in their christmas catalog.
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Wargames was a pivotal moment in computer geek history. He got the girl changed, changed his grade, busted into SAC. Gave all of us geeks hope.
There was a time where us computer geeks had to play down our careers and hobbies if you wanted to get girls. Now it is cool, chicks did it, and Wargames had a fellow nerd who did it all.
Yeah I would buy one and put an ATX board in it. I think that would be much cooler than a wateer cooled case, mounting a motherboard in a fridge, and some of the other riduclous shit we see on
I went to the first Atari Computer camp in the early 80s. Yep, 400, 800, and early 1200 xls. We learned assembly by day and were regualr kids by night. But the best thing was the actor who played Doctor Falken in the movie visited the camp and signed autographs. It was an awesome experience for a 12 year old. Still got my 5/4 sleeve with the sig.
puto
Ok, I am a fan of CGI,computers, cyberspave, hell it is what I do and a great love of my life. But shut down a city for Keaanu Reeves. Come all this from the guy that did Pointbreak. And a 50 other bad flicks.
Does Hollywood think he is the representative UBERGEEK of our generation? Come on they picked the guy from Bill and Ted to represent us?
If they are potraying us give me Tim Roth or Malcovich for the brains part. Hell I would settle for Pitt. But not Reeves....
But then again it could have been Wil Wheaton.
Well, my city scape would be the free beer truck pulling up to my driveway, the girls gone wild partying in my front yard, and the cops hauling off the asshole neighbor I have who always wants to tell me about his work for the 'cia' investigating Intel amd their link to the former USSR(This ain't no lie, his day job is locksmith).
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Oh yeah, and before I forget 50 foot Penguin scaring the shit outta all the Windows users I have to support on a daily basis. Life would then be good.
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I use my hotmail on the road to check my POP accounts. Sure it aint the best service. And recently I got off my lazy ass and installed some cgi on my mail server so I now have my own 'webmail'
But I dont have to dick with hotmail, admin it, config it. IT works, yeah I get spam, SFW?
FREE don't mean free for nothin
So it might not be the best. But I am going see it because it brings back memories of plastic lightsabers leaving welts and heated discussions on why Han Solo(reference to onanism?) was cooler than Luke Skywalker(latent homo?) and I enjoy the series(not the ewoks, animated hairballs).
Who hasn't tried the old Jedi Mind Trick on their parents?
So as much as we all bitch and whine about it we are all going to see it. And many will download it, though the theater with dolby will be the choice for most of us, no immersion at home, I dont care how big your screen is.
I am bringing a date in case it gets boring... But she was born after star wars was released. So, I am gonna have to tone down the geekiness and supress my knowledge of the Jedi. And if I can't use the force on her there is always the old hole in the popcorn tub and unzipped pants trick"This isn't the jolly time kernels your looking for"
Lighten up people. I think we all need to get out more often.
Had To Break My Cherry!
I do not see what the big deal is.
I am part Colombian and the rest from New Orleans(go figure). And although I live and grew up in the states I have lived three of my 32 years in South America. AND DRIVEN THROUGH EVERY COUNTRY!
No one uses stoplights. They are a like pretty christmas decorations. If it is read you do
1.the "rolling Stop",
2.haul ass and hope you don't die
3.slow down but go through(most popular)
However, the funniest thing with all the hurrah is. All latin American countries have huge police forces. Chile is no exception. But it makes you wonder if the theives can rob a government building, what about the quality of protection for the regular guy?
I think there needs to be a clearer distinction between sci-fi and fantasy. I think both genres are ok but dragon slaying and hairy footed shoeless midgets aint science fiction.
I was and am on the odd occasion a heavy sci fi fan. From Henlein to Gibson, and in the past few Neal Stepehnson.
I miss hard sci fi. Where the text was actually beleivable in a not to distant future but the social commentary was dead on.
Heinlein accomplished this because he did not focus too much on technological explanations.
And he wrote about strange sex like no one since, with no four letter words.
Gibson does the same thing. He is a very non technical person who writes so well that his stories are only improved by the sparse details on the technology his characters use. I think no other computer description is better than "it was next years ONO-Sendai, matte blacke, he slipped on the trodes, hit the stud and waited" You have to add the details. Great stuff.
And for good cyberpunk stuff. Walter Jon Williams write a good book called Hardwired. I think it might be outta print but it is amazing.
my 2 cents
Stephenson is great sc fi too. He is Unix geek and a mathemetician. And his knowledge shows in his books. But he tempers it with a great sense of humor. And you can tell tech aint his while life. The geeks in his books all eat pizza and hang out on the net.
I
Well it doesn't look any fancier than the WOPR in Wargames. I mean come on. Mathew Broderick had an account on the really big iron. He could play chess, talk to it, and even nuke the world.
I will be really impressed when our real life computers can do what the ones in our fave movies can do.
Wargames - Talking Box with Nukes
2001 - HAL was good and Evil and was a great alarm clock. (possibly a code branch of Windows)
Hacker - When do I get a chick who looks like Angelina Jolie in spandex and who punches code? OK, ex girlfriend was one but dont want my site slash dotted.
And my all time favorite who is not a computer. Bender from Futurama. A fully aware intelligence that will drink beer, steal your money, and tell you to bite his shiny metal ass?
Call me when our boxen can do any of things. I would like to know. Make all of our time in front of the CRT more enjoyable.
Tripping the Rift sounds like a rip off of the brit classic Red Dwarf. We tried to steal the original with an American Cast and it did not work. A white rimmer.
Nope Sc-Fi can pull it off. Hell Lexx is just plain nasty.