I'm pretty sure that one can actually happen. Your motherboard has enough brains (somewhere) to bootstrap as far as BIOS config without a processor at all. I'm fairly sure of that, because when you screw up the processor overclock settings, it doesn't work, and you can start up and correct the problem usually. (Depending on what mobo type you have).
I had an alarm clock with an electro luminescent backlight once. It was one of those 'radio set ones'. However when the battery got a bit low, when the alarm went off, the additional power consumption was enough to get it to 'reset'. So obviously, not sound the alarm at all.
And reset the time again, whilst I was out, making it un-obvious what the hell happened.
Very true. I've picked up numerous DVDs of 'stuff I like' at that sort of price point, just because I like it. I'm aware I can download it, but... choose to buy a the product when it's got a sensible price tag.
The core problem is that the recording industry haven't really caught on to the fact that they're just obselete. When you've got a production cost of 'stuff' e.g. tapes and CDs, and you charge 'some' for the physical object, people buy them. Sometimes they get copied, but a lot have the opinion of 'I bought it, so it's mine, do to what I like with'.
However in a world where media is digital, and the cost of replication is negligable (at least, to the supplier - it may take me some disk space or bandwidth to download whatever) then... well, then the unit cost clearly has to skew. Piracy is much like smuggling. It's always going to happen, but it happens a hell of a lot more when the profit margin is present. If you 'tax' the end user for their product, then they'll consider going to an illegitimate source for a significantly cheaper one.
I don't know of an easy solution, but what I do know is that the genie is well out of the bottle. The RIAA and friends are fighting a losing battle, for territory they just can't reclaim. They need to diversify and 'reinvent' the purpose of the recording industry, in a way that means they can continue to function, rather than trying to stop the tide coming in.
I like Perl. Really I do. It's got a lot of niceties, and a lot of coolness. However it's also got a really annoying habit of being easy to write 'obscurely'. The coolest most funky way to perform operation XYZ is not often the best way of implementing your code. Something that's clear about what it does, and how, is.
Well written Perl is good. It's easy to write bad Perl.
Disagree. Religion has it's strengths for improving society. There's worse ways to live than following the 10 commandments. And 'because God said so, now do it' is, in the right 'social climate' a more powerful motivator than just because, or 'because you'll go to jail if you don't.
Religion itself, spirituality, belief? These I consider positive things, in many ways. However the problem with organised religion is that the people involved are... well people. And just as susceptible to bias, corruption, or just plain failing to forsee consequences. (I mean, telling people to not eat pig is good health advice in a hot country, but it becomes irrelevant in this day and age)
What is 'fact' depends a lot on your perspective. To some, Iraq is being liberated. To others, the infidels have moved in, and are performing atrocities. The truth lies somewhere between.
There is much documentary evidence about the holocaust. (Although not as much 'proof' as you might think). History is all about assembling the evidence, and deciding what it means. I'd be prepared to bet if Germany had 'won' then the whole 'holocaust' thing would have been heavily downplayed, and it'd have been 'unwise' to mention it too much, to the point where it _wouldn't_ have been an 'obvious, glaring horror'.
Human history is filled with such things. I mean, look at the Crusades. They're actually really rather nasty bits of human business, where a whole bunch of people were really quite nasty in the name of God, and incidentally taking their stuff and raping and pillaging. It's a little further back in history, true, but on one hand you have heroic tales of the liberators of Jerusalem, and on the other you get the 'barbarian horde burning cities'.
History may have happened one way. Memories cloud, and evidence is never 100% reliable. History study is all about putting together those snippets and windows we have on the past.
But broadly, I agree. If your 'religious viewpoint' includes trying to portray someone else in a bad light, you might end up being not exactly truthful about what happened. At which point, if you're the kind of manipulative weasel who wants to instill hate of someone else (in this case, Jews) getting exposed as a lying manipulative weasel will offend you.
I've seen similar in several areas. Particularly things like bouncers. If there's a fight in a pub, or someone's assaulted, then being a witness or pressing charges means it's likely to happen again, several times, from the wolfpack.
I was assaulted in a takeaway a few years back. The staff there weren't prepared to give statements, because... well, at the end of the day, some one who's had a few (I had been drinking, but not particularly heavily) and gets assaulted and a leg broken is one thing. Getting their livelyhood smashed up because the chavs didn't like being 'grassed up' is another. It's sad, but true.
Parking, drugs, agreed. Penalties for excess are fine, but zero tolerance it too far.
I'm less sure about bullying. In my opinion, it's one of the worst things for a society as a whole. OK, so legal action isn't the right solution, but neither is being tolerant of one person being horrible to another.
Trust me, Omestes-the-average-citizen isn't nearly interesting enough to have all the police force spend their time watching your every move and taking note of everything you do and everywhere you go.
I don't know. Isn't this the premise behind stuff like Big Brother, and a whole load of 'fly on the wall' TV?
Just think of the potential for a series 'drunk people do crazy stuff' based on footage captured from headcams. Or... repeat for a load of themes 'lives of...' 'what... did on his holidays' and last but by no means least 'all the naughty bits'.
Never need to spend money on making TV ever again, just rely on all the attentionwhores to do stuff, in the hopes of getting 'televised', and just edit edit edit.
Thing is though, why would those numbers be listed on a web page at all, unless it were for billing? I've seen quite a few examples of poorly protected.htaccess files, which go something like:
#4455 6677 9933 2233 Mr. A Bravo, 231 Some Road, Some Where, XX4 6YY, CVN 123
username:3DESPASS
Clearly it's a result of a disgusting signup form, but... well, the OP mentions he rang 'em up, so I'd assume the details were a little more complete than just the CCN.
Well, the reason I like linux (and to be fair, I prefer other Unix variants, such as Solaris), is because it's easy to drive remotely. The level of 'command line power' is... very very impressive indeed, which means almost anything you need to do, can be done remotely over a telnet session.
Microsoft is learning, windows RDP is a step in the right direction, but... well, there's still some stuff that you need 'console' for.
I much prefer the flexibilty of Unixes. Windows still seems to have the 'oh now reboot' mentaility built in. It also has the 'single task can hog the box' thing going on. Basically, Unix in general is far better in a multi-user environment. That includes things like webserving, databases and whatnot.
But it's not the magic bullet. Like it or not, there are still some things that windows does better. Perhaps this is marketing strategy, but... well, if you want to play games on your PC, windows is the tool for the job. For home use? 6 of one, half dozen of the other. There are good apps for linux, if you go find them.
Basically, the difference to an 'end user' between Windows XP + MS Office, vs. Linux + Open Office + free tools is actually not all that high. Linux gets good when you get to 'advanced users' but... well, then you also have people who'd rather stick with something familiar - like it or not, learning a new OS _isn't_ a trivial task. On Windows, you'll be fairly sure your games work, and you can get office. Linux the games might not work, you might have to find your apps, and it's free.
Linux is what I use for work. Or Cygwin if I really have to use windows (like on my laptop). The... well paradigm is just so much better for doing 'systems stuff'.
My home system, is a nice high spec box, with Windows XP on it. My majority activities at home, are websurfing (which works about the same on both Windows and Linux) and games. Supreme Commander, Medieval2: Total War, and EVE-Online being the major ones currently. EVE in particular is my major 'habit' for gaming, and it looks like they'll be continuing the 'Windows' route, with DX10 support in the works.
Basically, I see no reason to be running linux, and a few reasons to be running windows. I don't like it, and don't like to work with it, but for the niche I'm wanting my home PC to fill, windows does the job.
Guantanamo Bay is one of the most offensive blots on human rights in the world. I mean, there REMAIN people there, who have been locked up for what, 5 years now? On the sayso of the powers that be. And are held, with neither trial, nor justice.
Now, it may be that some of the people held there have been a 'bit naughty'. It's also entirely possible that they haven't been. But... it just makes a total mockery of a justice system that that can happen, in a so-called civilised nation. I mean, seriously, NO ONE deserves that. By all means, if they've been bad, hold a trial, lock 'em away. Or if you're one of these who believe in the death penalty, ok. I don't agree, but *shrug*. The VITALLY Important point is that it happens within due process of law.
The law's terrible, and trial by jury is flawed. But much like democracy, it's the least worst system we've come up with so far. Hell, if it's 'really sekrit stuff' then security clear the jury too, and embargo the court reporting, but the people held there deserve a fair trial.
Having been in the vague proximity of the staff toilets (read 'in the same building as') after a _serious_ beer and curry night, I would be inclined to agree.
Who needs pepper spray, when you can have curry-squit-fumes.
Not so much 'different ways of spelling names' as 'different interpretations of transliteration from another alphabet'. Places like China, Japan, India and the Arabic countries write with an entirely different 'script'. So the 'translation' is often the best effort to make a phonetic in the latin alphabet. This of course, is very subtley affected by regional variance in prounciation.
Now I think on it, does that mean you see different 'spellings' of names in America vs. UK for example? Given there's a few small ish differences in prounciation of syllables. I've seen enough different variants of 'Bhajee' (as in 'onion bhajee') around the UK... (and other spellings of dishes of course)
Every now and then, I consider the virtues of 'data protection act' queries. I seem to recall, you have a right to any information about you, held electronically. Which would include camera footage, wouldn't it? Ok, so they get to charge you an admin fee, but I still think it'd be really funny to request, under the Data Protection Act, all CCTV footage they have of you.
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Vibration in time to music? Doesn't seem an unreasonable design premise.
I'm pretty sure that one can actually happen. Your motherboard has enough brains (somewhere) to bootstrap as far as BIOS config without a processor at all. I'm fairly sure of that, because when you screw up the processor overclock settings, it doesn't work, and you can start up and correct the problem usually. (Depending on what mobo type you have).
I remember that keylock. Annoyed the hell out of the people who thought it was security when I just popped the case, and unplugged the jumper.
And reset the time again, whilst I was out, making it un-obvious what the hell happened.
Very true. I've picked up numerous DVDs of 'stuff I like' at that sort of price point, just because I like it. I'm aware I can download it, but ... choose to buy a the product when it's got a sensible price tag.
However in a world where media is digital, and the cost of replication is negligable (at least, to the supplier - it may take me some disk space or bandwidth to download whatever) then ... well, then the unit cost clearly has to skew. Piracy is much like smuggling. It's always going to happen, but it happens a hell of a lot more when the profit margin is present. If you 'tax' the end user for their product, then they'll consider going to an illegitimate source for a significantly cheaper one.
I don't know of an easy solution, but what I do know is that the genie is well out of the bottle. The RIAA and friends are fighting a losing battle, for territory they just can't reclaim. They need to diversify and 'reinvent' the purpose of the recording industry, in a way that means they can continue to function, rather than trying to stop the tide coming in.
Given the behaviour of a large fraction of the player base in _any_ MMO I'd say a Vet was perfectly appropriate to have on staff.
Well written Perl is good. It's easy to write bad Perl.
Religion itself, spirituality, belief? These I consider positive things, in many ways. However the problem with organised religion is that the people involved are ... well people. And just as susceptible to bias, corruption, or just plain failing to forsee consequences. (I mean, telling people to not eat pig is good health advice in a hot country, but it becomes irrelevant in this day and age)
There is much documentary evidence about the holocaust. (Although not as much 'proof' as you might think). History is all about assembling the evidence, and deciding what it means. I'd be prepared to bet if Germany had 'won' then the whole 'holocaust' thing would have been heavily downplayed, and it'd have been 'unwise' to mention it too much, to the point where it _wouldn't_ have been an 'obvious, glaring horror'.
Human history is filled with such things. I mean, look at the Crusades. They're actually really rather nasty bits of human business, where a whole bunch of people were really quite nasty in the name of God, and incidentally taking their stuff and raping and pillaging. It's a little further back in history, true, but on one hand you have heroic tales of the liberators of Jerusalem, and on the other you get the 'barbarian horde burning cities'.
History may have happened one way. Memories cloud, and evidence is never 100% reliable. History study is all about putting together those snippets and windows we have on the past.
But broadly, I agree. If your 'religious viewpoint' includes trying to portray someone else in a bad light, you might end up being not exactly truthful about what happened. At which point, if you're the kind of manipulative weasel who wants to instill hate of someone else (in this case, Jews) getting exposed as a lying manipulative weasel will offend you.
I was assaulted in a takeaway a few years back. The staff there weren't prepared to give statements, because ... well, at the end of the day, some one who's had a few (I had been drinking, but not particularly heavily) and gets assaulted and a leg broken is one thing. Getting their livelyhood smashed up because the chavs didn't like being 'grassed up' is another. It's sad, but true.
If people really want to see me naked, I think they get everything they deserve. I'm an overweight, slightly balding unfit geek.
I'm less sure about bullying. In my opinion, it's one of the worst things for a society as a whole. OK, so legal action isn't the right solution, but neither is being tolerant of one person being horrible to another.
Just think of the potential for a series 'drunk people do crazy stuff' based on footage captured from headcams. Or ... repeat for a load of themes 'lives of ...' 'what ... did on his holidays' and last but by no means least 'all the naughty bits'.
Never need to spend money on making TV ever again, just rely on all the attentionwhores to do stuff, in the hopes of getting 'televised', and just edit edit edit.
Life is stranger than fiction, after all.
#4455 6677 9933 2233 Mr. A Bravo, 231 Some Road, Some Where, XX4 6YY, CVN 123
... well, the OP mentions he rang 'em up, so I'd assume the details were a little more complete than just the CCN.
username:3DESPASS
Clearly it's a result of a disgusting signup form, but
More likely HTML tags, given this is the wonderful slashdot comment system, which ignores carriage returns.
It was a truly awesome day. AOL gave whole swathes of geeks someone to make 'ethnic' jokes about.
When it stops being a 'limited' degree of gaming, then I'll switch my home system over.
Microsoft is learning, windows RDP is a step in the right direction, but ... well, there's still some stuff that you need 'console' for.
I much prefer the flexibilty of Unixes. Windows still seems to have the 'oh now reboot' mentaility built in. It also has the 'single task can hog the box' thing going on. Basically, Unix in general is far better in a multi-user environment. That includes things like webserving, databases and whatnot.
But it's not the magic bullet. Like it or not, there are still some things that windows does better. Perhaps this is marketing strategy, but ... well, if you want to play games on your PC, windows is the tool for the job. For home use? 6 of one, half dozen of the other. There are good apps for linux, if you go find them.
Basically, the difference to an 'end user' between Windows XP + MS Office, vs. Linux + Open Office + free tools is actually not all that high. Linux gets good when you get to 'advanced users' but ... well, then you also have people who'd rather stick with something familiar - like it or not, learning a new OS _isn't_ a trivial task. On Windows, you'll be fairly sure your games work, and you can get office. Linux the games might not work, you might have to find your apps, and it's free.
My home system, is a nice high spec box, with Windows XP on it. My majority activities at home, are websurfing (which works about the same on both Windows and Linux) and games. Supreme Commander, Medieval2: Total War, and EVE-Online being the major ones currently. EVE in particular is my major 'habit' for gaming, and it looks like they'll be continuing the 'Windows' route, with DX10 support in the works.
Basically, I see no reason to be running linux, and a few reasons to be running windows. I don't like it, and don't like to work with it, but for the niche I'm wanting my home PC to fill, windows does the job.
Now, it may be that some of the people held there have been a 'bit naughty'. It's also entirely possible that they haven't been. But ... it just makes a total mockery of a justice system that that can happen, in a so-called civilised nation. I mean, seriously, NO ONE deserves that. By all means, if they've been bad, hold a trial, lock 'em away. Or if you're one of these who believe in the death penalty, ok. I don't agree, but *shrug*. The VITALLY Important point is that it happens within due process of law.
The law's terrible, and trial by jury is flawed. But much like democracy, it's the least worst system we've come up with so far. Hell, if it's 'really sekrit stuff' then security clear the jury too, and embargo the court reporting, but the people held there deserve a fair trial.
Who needs pepper spray, when you can have curry-squit-fumes.
Now I think on it, does that mean you see different 'spellings' of names in America vs. UK for example? Given there's a few small ish differences in prounciation of syllables. I've seen enough different variants of 'Bhajee' (as in 'onion bhajee') around the UK... (and other spellings of dishes of course)
Every now and then, I consider the virtues of 'data protection act' queries. I seem to recall, you have a right to any information about you, held electronically. Which would include camera footage, wouldn't it? Ok, so they get to charge you an admin fee, but I still think it'd be really funny to request, under the Data Protection Act, all CCTV footage they have of you.