I was a senior in high school when it happened. I was the first person in my high school to know.
Because I snuck out of shop class and went next door to the laundromat to play Pac Man. I was bored and I wanted a Coke and a game. And a TV was on. I remember thinking "Oh cool - a shuttle launch. That'll be fun to watch, should kill some time".
I went back to school, told my shop teacher what I saw. And oddly enough didn't get in any trouble over it.
I too always wind up in prime spots to watch disasters. I was writing software for a consumer IrDA controller (think universal remote) when 9/11 happened. I was the only person in the building with a TV, which I had for test purposes. We rigged it up with a coathanger and watched local broadcasts. I had to sit there and watch the whole ugly thing, all damn day long. Talk about lousy luck. I'm the only guy in the building with a TV on that day.
I'm hoping that this is the death blow for the RIAA.
I'd really like it if it was, but I don't see how this could have that result.
It's not like they could have gotten the two million from this poor person anyways. About 50k is probably the limit they would have gotten from her anyways. She'll be in debt to the RIAA until she dies from old age, most likely. My college loan was less than that (about half actually) and I'm *still* paying on the bastard.
And a precedent in that court was set. Payoff is: $750 * 3 * [number of songs]. Wait until they catch some poor schmuck sharing his whole boot drive. It'll be back up in the millions pretty quick. 50k is what you get for sharing only 24 songs.
Nope, this doesn't go down in the win column for us I'm thinking.
The report urged NASA to stick with its current government-run manned space ventures, and said that switching to private alternatives now would be "unwise and probably not cost-effective.
Because we all know a government run monopoly is the most cost effective means of doing something.
Well if it's a feature and not a bug, then that's one you don't fix. Or maybe you do anyways and break compatibility with that one program that copes with the bug, and fix compatibility with the dozens that don't.
In either case the choice would be up to the user, which is something Windows is currently missing.
Look, I can guarantee you that ReactOS will never make it. It really has no meaningful audience
It does though. What if I want to run a Windows machine, but have the full source code to it? One of the primary charms of Linux (to me, anyways) is that there is no such thing as an unanswerable question - you have all the source. Having that kind of insight into a Windows system would be *fantastic*.
Second point. Given the above, the dev community will be able to solve their own issues and create their own bugfixes rather than wait for Redmond. ReactOS has the potential to be a flavor of windows that is actually more stable than the original it is copying! It could potentially wind up being better than the original.
This isn't Flamebait. We're talking about why media is failing these days, and this is absolutely relevant.
Currently Fox news is #1 and this is what they're serving up for the public. It's unethical, misleading, and just plain flat-out wrong. And currently (if the numbers mean anything) this is what the public actually wants.
And it's good Subgenius rant. But I have to point out something.
I've worked at large companies as well as small ones. There *is* slack to be had at larger companies as well. Think Wally from Dilbert. Sometimes you can land a position where your job is to warm a chair. I had a job like that for 3 1/2 years. I was a chair warmer. Sure they gave me work. And I did the work. But. None of it went anywhere. I knew that about 3 months in - a co-worker told me how 99% of the things they make get buried, and my project would definitely be one of them. At hire there were lots of big promises about the new product line and spearheading a new effort and taking the company in new directions and territories. But it became obvious that my job really was to justify the amount of management the company had. A sickly symbiotic relationship began.
And once I had learned that, I had some pretty serious slack.
I used to sneak out to the parking lot and nap in my van, or work on projects from home. I had a laptop pc. I'd run the AC in the big van and just hang out. I even soldered an electronics project in my van. Mostly to see if I could do it. Yes, I could.
Now I'm not saying that every corporate cube has that much ease. But. You shouldn't discount larger companies out of hand. Some of them are so large you simply "get lost" and people just leave you alone. When that happens you are on your own. Just show up at 8:30, make sure the boss sees you...then sneak out and go to the park or take a 3 hour lunch. When you're lost in a large company, it's almost fun to see how much you can get away with. Bring in a portable HD and play games with Portableapps DOSBox, or WinUAE (nothing that installs files on the work PC is the rule). I taught myself Java from downloaded PDF books. And snuck out to take the exam.
Yes, I've actually done all of those things. Not every day, not all the time...but I have had some absolutely excellent slack at big company jobs.
How did it end? I got bored and ran out of stuff to do, the economy turned around...so I found a real job. I actually do prefer to work and I do like what I do. But it was an excellent place to lay low and ride out the dotcom bubble. A lovely paid vacation, I like to think of it.
I think you'll find with a little research that is not the case.
This is some text about the first atomic device at the Trinity site. (Link here)
Only six months before the test, according to General Groves Joseph Hirschfelder, a Los Alamos physicist, had first brought up the possibility that fallout might be a real problem. For this reason it was considered essential that wind direction be such that the radioactive cloud would not pass over inhabited areas that might have to be evacuated, and there should be no rain immediately after the shot which would bring concentrated amounts of fallout down on a small area.
The physicists who originally designed these things were no dummies. They knew what they were building. They knew that they weren't simply big bombs. They were something other, and everyone knew that.
The US let loose 2 nukes on Japan, and the world didn't end. Any nuclear conflicts involving Israel or Iran or Pakistan or India and possibly China, would be local.
You do realize that at the time we dropped those two nukes on Japan, they were the only ones on the planet. Right? It's not like anybody could nuke us back.
Mechanized soldiers can be dangerous, too.
Consider the following scenario.
In the early morning of December 7, 2041, one million mechanized soldiers arise from the receding tide and onto the shores of China. The robots march relentlessly westward, killing all Chinese soldiers in their path. The final destination is Tibet.
OFFICIAL: Stop! Stop, will you?! Stop that! Stop it! Now, look! No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say 'Jehovah'.
There isn't. No place for him to go where he could find relief, unless he builds himself a Faraday cage to live in. Doesn't matter what his neighbor does or not.
I would really like to see the definitive version of the Dune saga done right
Hell yeah. I'll make your wish come true too if I ever win the lottery. I'm serious.
The Dune saga really deserves better treatment than it has received at the hands of previous studios and directors.
Again, hell yeah and amen.
IMHO, either James Cameron or Steve Jackson would be good choices to direct, but others may have different opinions.
Here is where we differ. Steve Jackson? No fscking way. Don't get me wrong - I liked his LOTR. It looked right, and had scenes that were 100% canon. But he made too many "my story ideas are better" changes to the storyline. It's why nobody has gotten Dune right.
These stories (LOTR, Dune) are finely tuned masterpieces. You can't simply swap out part of it with your own ideas and have them work. Here's an example:
Elrond showing up and giving Aragorn the sword halfway through the journey. "Hey thanks you bastard if you were committed to walking all this way we sure could have used your @%@%# help with the Balrog. Thanks for the sword though. I've really been needing a good sword these last six freaking months."
You just can't drop in your own ideas into the story and have them work. So in the spirit of that I would do NO SUCH THING to my hypothetical treatment of Dune. If it's not in the book, it doesn't make it to the screen. So I'd say that Peter Jackson is probably the exact wrong person to make Dune. YMMV of course.
My home system? Windows XP. And I use VMware Player to access the internet. And nothing else. That's the trick. Towards that end here's what I've done:
Step 1. I got a USB 2.0 10 Base T network doohickey. Then I plugged it in to my Windows box. It has never heard of the thing and wanted a driver. Cool! Step one - passed. There is no way my main machine can use this thing to get on the net. FWIW, if it had known how to connect to this thing I would have went and found the INF file that describes it and erase that. For part one the main thing is to have a USB gizmo that can connect you to the internet, and make sure your machine cannot use it. So for all purposes my main machine is not on the net.
Step 2. I load up a VMware Player machine (also XP) and disconnect the virtual network adapter, so there is no network link between it and the host machine. Just in case the VM gets owned. Then I have VMware transfer the USB device to the VM. And I install the USB driver there. And there *only*.
Viola! My main machine is 100% off the net, and not able to be owned. But I can still get on the net. I'm *sandboxed*. Zip up a copy of your VM and restore it every so often and Bob's your uncle. Be sure to save off your bookmarks and email to a shared folder. And if anything icky happens to your network VM, a full restore is just a file copy away.
The only thing this doesn't work well for is online gaming. You won't be able to WoW with this setup. Well, you won't be able to do it very well. I'd imagine the game would suck in a VM. But since I don't play I don't worry about it much.
Slashdot Mirror
They even have a fucking picture.
The 2.5 caddy is for your SSD. Mount your 3.5 wherever you like.
This is why we need business method patents!
The Mafia would have prior art claims over the RIAA and MPAA.
And the government would have prior art claims over the Mafia!
I think the prostitutes are eventually going to win this argument.
If I ever get attacked by Michael Bay.
I was a senior in high school when it happened. I was the first person in my high school to know.
Because I snuck out of shop class and went next door to the laundromat to play Pac Man. I was bored and I wanted a Coke and a game. And a TV was on. I remember thinking "Oh cool - a shuttle launch. That'll be fun to watch, should kill some time".
I went back to school, told my shop teacher what I saw. And oddly enough didn't get in any trouble over it.
I too always wind up in prime spots to watch disasters. I was writing software for a consumer IrDA controller (think universal remote) when 9/11 happened. I was the only person in the building with a TV, which I had for test purposes. We rigged it up with a coathanger and watched local broadcasts. I had to sit there and watch the whole ugly thing, all damn day long. Talk about lousy luck. I'm the only guy in the building with a TV on that day.
Let's write some nVidia drivers in Java!
I'm hoping that this is the death blow for the RIAA.
I'd really like it if it was, but I don't see how this could have that result.
It's not like they could have gotten the two million from this poor person anyways. About 50k is probably the limit they would have gotten from her anyways. She'll be in debt to the RIAA until she dies from old age, most likely. My college loan was less than that (about half actually) and I'm *still* paying on the bastard.
And a precedent in that court was set. Payoff is: $750 * 3 * [number of songs]. Wait until they catch some poor schmuck sharing his whole boot drive. It'll be back up in the millions pretty quick. 50k is what you get for sharing only 24 songs.
Nope, this doesn't go down in the win column for us I'm thinking.
The report urged NASA to stick with its current government-run manned space ventures, and said that switching to private alternatives now would be "unwise and probably not cost-effective.
Because we all know a government run monopoly is the most cost effective means of doing something.
Well if it's a feature and not a bug, then that's one you don't fix. Or maybe you do anyways and break compatibility with that one program that copes with the bug, and fix compatibility with the dozens that don't.
In either case the choice would be up to the user, which is something Windows is currently missing.
Look, I can guarantee you that ReactOS will never make it. It really has no meaningful audience
It does though. What if I want to run a Windows machine, but have the full source code to it? One of the primary charms of Linux (to me, anyways) is that there is no such thing as an unanswerable question - you have all the source. Having that kind of insight into a Windows system would be *fantastic*.
Second point. Given the above, the dev community will be able to solve their own issues and create their own bugfixes rather than wait for Redmond. ReactOS has the potential to be a flavor of windows that is actually more stable than the original it is copying! It could potentially wind up being better than the original.
Fox News Product!?! That's fantastic! I had no idea they said that.
Reminds me of "non dairy creamer product".
This isn't Flamebait. We're talking about why media is failing these days, and this is absolutely relevant.
Currently Fox news is #1 and this is what they're serving up for the public. It's unethical, misleading, and just plain flat-out wrong. And currently (if the numbers mean anything) this is what the public actually wants.
This should scare the absolute crap out of you.
And it's good Subgenius rant. But I have to point out something.
I've worked at large companies as well as small ones. There *is* slack to be had at larger companies as well. Think Wally from Dilbert. Sometimes you can land a position where your job is to warm a chair. I had a job like that for 3 1/2 years. I was a chair warmer. Sure they gave me work. And I did the work. But. None of it went anywhere. I knew that about 3 months in - a co-worker told me how 99% of the things they make get buried, and my project would definitely be one of them. At hire there were lots of big promises about the new product line and spearheading a new effort and taking the company in new directions and territories. But it became obvious that my job really was to justify the amount of management the company had. A sickly symbiotic relationship began.
And once I had learned that, I had some pretty serious slack.
I used to sneak out to the parking lot and nap in my van, or work on projects from home. I had a laptop pc. I'd run the AC in the big van and just hang out. I even soldered an electronics project in my van. Mostly to see if I could do it. Yes, I could.
Now I'm not saying that every corporate cube has that much ease. But. You shouldn't discount larger companies out of hand. Some of them are so large you simply "get lost" and people just leave you alone. When that happens you are on your own. Just show up at 8:30, make sure the boss sees you...then sneak out and go to the park or take a 3 hour lunch. When you're lost in a large company, it's almost fun to see how much you can get away with. Bring in a portable HD and play games with Portableapps DOSBox, or WinUAE (nothing that installs files on the work PC is the rule). I taught myself Java from downloaded PDF books. And snuck out to take the exam.
Yes, I've actually done all of those things. Not every day, not all the time...but I have had some absolutely excellent slack at big company jobs.
How did it end? I got bored and ran out of stuff to do, the economy turned around...so I found a real job. I actually do prefer to work and I do like what I do. But it was an excellent place to lay low and ride out the dotcom bubble. A lovely paid vacation, I like to think of it.
I think you'll find with a little research that is not the case.
This is some text about the first atomic device at the Trinity site. (Link here)
Only six months before the test, according to General Groves Joseph Hirschfelder, a Los Alamos physicist, had first brought up the possibility that fallout might be a real problem. For this reason it was considered essential that wind direction be such that the radioactive cloud would not pass over inhabited areas that might have to be evacuated, and there should be no rain immediately after the shot which would bring concentrated amounts of fallout down on a small area.
The physicists who originally designed these things were no dummies. They knew what they were building. They knew that they weren't simply big bombs. They were something other, and everyone knew that.
Watch Oppenheimer's famous quote and you can see it for yourself. Watch his face. He is near tears.
No - they knew exactly what they were doing.
Would you like some help?
The US let loose 2 nukes on Japan, and the world didn't end. Any nuclear conflicts involving Israel or Iran or Pakistan or India and possibly China, would be local.
You do realize that at the time we dropped those two nukes on Japan, they were the only ones on the planet. Right? It's not like anybody could nuke us back.
The people who say we're ~99.6% on the way to total world annihilation think the world is "rainbows and poppies"?
Enough 'poppies' and you can't help but see rainbows.
MSDN is now powered by Bing too. So every windows programmer in the world is now making Bing queries by default. That's got to boost things a bit.
Mechanized soldiers can be dangerous, too.
Consider the following scenario.
In the early morning of December 7, 2041, one million mechanized soldiers arise from the receding tide and onto the shores of China. The robots march relentlessly westward, killing all Chinese soldiers in their path. The final destination is Tibet.
Fortunately, the Chinese have had state sponsored hackers for decades now. It was a simple matter for these hardened pros to return the bots to their creators, with orders to kill.
I had the same idea from the same guys, but a different movie:
OFFICIAL: Stop! Stop, will you?! Stop that! Stop it! Now, look! No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say 'Jehovah'.
Oh BTW, LEGOS LEGOS LEGOS. Nyah, GP. =)
There isn't. No place for him to go where he could find relief, unless he builds himself a Faraday cage to live in. Doesn't matter what his neighbor does or not.
Cosmic microwave background radiation is broadcasting at 2.4Ghz. There is literally no place outside of a Faraday cage in this entire universe he could be happy.
Also, this is a good article.
You can't take the sky from me.
I would really like to see the definitive version of the Dune saga done right
Hell yeah. I'll make your wish come true too if I ever win the lottery. I'm serious.
The Dune saga really deserves better treatment than it has received at the hands of previous studios and directors.
Again, hell yeah and amen.
IMHO, either James Cameron or Steve Jackson would be good choices to direct, but others may have different opinions.
Here is where we differ. Steve Jackson? No fscking way. Don't get me wrong - I liked his LOTR. It looked right, and had scenes that were 100% canon. But he made too many "my story ideas are better" changes to the storyline. It's why nobody has gotten Dune right.
These stories (LOTR, Dune) are finely tuned masterpieces. You can't simply swap out part of it with your own ideas and have them work. Here's an example:
Elrond showing up and giving Aragorn the sword halfway through the journey. "Hey thanks you bastard if you were committed to walking all this way we sure could have used your @%@%# help with the Balrog. Thanks for the sword though. I've really been needing a good sword these last six freaking months."
You just can't drop in your own ideas into the story and have them work. So in the spirit of that I would do NO SUCH THING to my hypothetical treatment of Dune. If it's not in the book, it doesn't make it to the screen. So I'd say that Peter Jackson is probably the exact wrong person to make Dune. YMMV of course.
Mod me redundant - I don't care.
Firefly Firefly Firefly.
The more times someone sees this, the more of a chance it will happen.
MORE FIREFLY.
Even in Windows.
My home system? Windows XP. And I use VMware Player to access the internet. And nothing else. That's the trick. Towards that end here's what I've done:
Step 1. I got a USB 2.0 10 Base T network doohickey. Then I plugged it in to my Windows box. It has never heard of the thing and wanted a driver. Cool! Step one - passed. There is no way my main machine can use this thing to get on the net. FWIW, if it had known how to connect to this thing I would have went and found the INF file that describes it and erase that. For part one the main thing is to have a USB gizmo that can connect you to the internet, and make sure your machine cannot use it. So for all purposes my main machine is not on the net.
Step 2. I load up a VMware Player machine (also XP) and disconnect the virtual network adapter, so there is no network link between it and the host machine. Just in case the VM gets owned. Then I have VMware transfer the USB device to the VM. And I install the USB driver there. And there *only*.
Viola! My main machine is 100% off the net, and not able to be owned. But I can still get on the net. I'm *sandboxed*. Zip up a copy of your VM and restore it every so often and Bob's your uncle. Be sure to save off your bookmarks and email to a shared folder. And if anything icky happens to your network VM, a full restore is just a file copy away.
The only thing this doesn't work well for is online gaming. You won't be able to WoW with this setup. Well, you won't be able to do it very well. I'd imagine the game would suck in a VM. But since I don't play I don't worry about it much.
"... with one click..."