the guy is a tool. No, I'm still uncertain on the election. I'm certain that neither of the two options handed to me as possibilities are worth a crap; McCain is just more of the same, and Obama is a liar, claiming to support the constitution but the only constitutional issue he has ever showed true commitment on is killing the 2nd amendment. I've been thinking of voting for Obama for prez, and for congress, strict libertarian if the candidate has a chance, republican if they don't.
infoseek always seemed to have a pretty happening algorithm. sigh. infoseek, winfiles.com, Jamba when it was a really neat graphical java design tool with a awesome theme song, coolium, that really cool program that searched for files by using peoples shared bookmarks that I can't seem to remember the name of... The internet changed in 2001.
I've been around forever, built ICs from bearskins and flint, etc, etc. My rule of thumb has been, since around 1994: if less than or equal to 512MB RAM, swap should be RAM X 2, unless you are severely limited spacewise, in which case TRY RAM X 1.5; if greater than 512MB, Swap should be equal to RAM. It's worked pretty well. I think the problem most people have, with Windows systems at least, is that they don't set min=max. With Solaris, I usually go for swap = 25-50% of RAM, depending on how busy the system is. Debian, I just make it equal to RAM, but I haven't got any reason for it. Vista, is Evil. No amount of swap will change that.
you said: "Seems pretty sensible to me. What reason can you have for owning a semi-automatic weapon? You can't say "to fight the government" as if you really had to, you'd be fucked regardless (how many more hundred billion than you do they spend on "defense"?). Not to mention the probability of a gun being used to intentionally, or worse accidentally, kill someone is far higher than you having to fight the army."
From your statement, I got the impression you were thinking one of two possible things; the first possibility I considered was that you did not know what a Semi-Automatic is, which is a weapon which fires one time when you pull the trigger, and uses, usually, a portion of the energy released by firing to both eject the empty casing and feed another round to the chamber, preparing the semi-automatic to fire the next time the trigger is pulled.
The 2nd possibility was that you completely and totally reject private ownership of firearms, and feel that figures of authority would never abuse their position to the extent that Private Citizens could find no other survival option except armed resistance.
I, and I think the GP, was referring to the situation in the US, not the UK. According to the Department of Justice and a few other similar extremist groups, legal gun ownership in the US is somewhere between 35% and 43%. That varies, of course. I've hunted or plinked with all but one of my 10 closest neighbors, and that one is a retired New York cop, so he's probably got a crate of Uzi's in his closet. Oddly, my neighborhood has Zero violent crime and no robberies for at least the last 5 years.
Sorry? the majority of handguns in use today in the US are semi-automatics; I can't find any decent statistics for this, and about the only stats likely to show up are for new weapons sales, but if you took any 10 random individuals out of all the hunters I know, maybe 8 of them would own a semi-automatic hunting rifle; probably 4 of the 10 are going to own a semi-automatic shotgun. Between me and my 70 year old Dad, we have in rifles: 1 lever action, 1 bolt action, 1 semi-auto. in shotguns, 2 semi-autos and one single-shot. in pistols, 3 revolvers and 3 semi-automatics.
What really sort of scared me was this statement he made in 2003: "I would support banning the sale of ammunition for assault weapons and limiting the sale of ammunition for handguns" lets see...since what he considers a "Assault Weapon" is in reality just a scary looking hunting rifle, that would illegalize ammunition for every single one of my hunting rifles; I imagine you could still get 30-30 rounds, 22-250 and some other weak rounds that were never chambered for a scary looking gun. but you would also lose a lot of hunting rifles because they use pistol ammunition, like the.357 and.44 marlin lever actions. So, what, 90% plus of all rifles made illegal or "limited"? If he came out and definitively said "I'm going to fully restore all the rights infringed upon by BushCo, the patriot act, etc" it would be a little easier to swallow having someone so intent on crippling the 2nd amendment as a potential president. On the other hand, with McCain the only hope we have is that he can't really make things much worse, can he?
Ahem. Immediately after reading your post I walked up to the road by my house, then urinated in public (nobody around, of course). This made me a Criminal on an American Street, and I have to tell you, I have no idea where I would go right at this moment to get an illegal handgun. And, taking my tongue slightly out of my cheek, you are pretty much wrong; a certain class of criminal may well always know where to go to get an illegal handgun, but the majority of criminals who reside outside of the very largest metro areas aren't going to know where to go to get a illegal pistol.
Interesting reality you live in there. results of a really quick google search: http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html (england & gun control) the Obama thing is a little hard to pin down, as he has been pretty good at avoiding any straight answers. But you could start here: http://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/Barack_Obama_Gun_Control.htm note: if you are pro-gun control, you obviously won't see anything wrong with this.
I'm not surprised you got modded "flamebait"; how DARE you criticize Obama! Besides, he is definitely NOT planning on the same thing as England, he just wants to ban all semi-automatic weapons; you could still have your double-barrel shotguns, bolt action rifles and single action revolvers as long as you live outside of an Urban area. I guess a person could be concerned that he hasn't defined what an Urban area is...but still, shut up! he Gives us hope!
....and i just remembered (actually, I cheated and looked on one of my very earliest burnt CD's). Pueblo / Chaco. and they are still around: http://pueblo.sourceforge.net/
VRML enabled browsers have not only been around for years, but also dedicated VRML browsers; I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, but there was a MUD client back in around '97 that not only did VRML mud rendering, it also had a integrated web/VRML browser. it's going to bug the crap out of me until I remember what it was called now.
I went to a job interview in '99 for a contract doing Network Admin for a pretty major bank; I had no certs, no degree at the time, but I had been working off and on with Tek systems for several years and they knew I had extremely extensive experience. The Bank didn't want to interview me, but the recruiter sort of insisted; they were asking for people qualified in NT, Solaris and OS/2, and I was really about the only person they had available at that time with the right mix. It was a working lunch interview; They started asking questions, and I started answering. then came the question, "what command would you use to upgrade a NT workstation machine to NT server?" I replied that you would probably be best off formatting the drive, then installing it, as there was no good way to upgrade; Microsoft said you couldn't do it at all, and the workarounds were more trouble than they were worth. The interviewers sort of grinned, and told me that of the 20+ people they interviews, all of which had at least a MCSE or a comp sci degree, not a single one of them had answered the question correctly. At the time I had problems believing it, but as time went on and I got in to situations where I was doing interviews it got more believable; in the late 90's if you worked on computers, it was probably because you were a computer enthusiast and actually more or less enjoyed working with them; after about '98, you started running into people that were just doing it because it paid well; they might be damned smart people, but you lose something when you don't actually enjoy working with computers. I also saw a lot of people who just were not smart enough, but were somehow able to cheat or memorize well enough to get a degree; when you asked them something that wasn't in anything they had studied, they didn't have the core of hands-on knowledge that would enable them to make an educated guess at the answer. So, yeah, I have to agree, interview everybody no matter what their credentials are.
Microsofts DRM is a lot more draconian than even SecureROM. I've got a XP laptop, I'm currently putting together a windows 2008 installation for a customer, Debian is on my main surfing machine... I'm not really a luddite, I just hate the idea of not having complete control of what my systems do; with Win2k integrated TCP/IP filtering and TPFS, I don't really see how secureROM can hurt me. I'm not saying I would work with classified data or access my bank accounts on a machine that had SecureROM on it, just like I won't do it with a Microsoft DRM'd system, they both suck.
I'm not sure that is an excuse; I'm fairly confident that Robert & Virginia Heinlein were fully capable of producing a computer from parts from a TV, washing machine, and whatever was laying around in the basement, anytime from about 1946 on. I bet it was the printer that was the sticking point.
Windows XP was released with DRM, the first microsoft operating system that was. Which is why I still do almost everything on Win2k, including playing Spore retail. it sucks that it installed a rootkit along with it, but what ya gonna do? I wouldn't be surprised if Spore: console won't use online content if you log-in from a different console than it was first seen on.
There is a way to support Will Wright, and screw EA. Buy the game. Install the DRM free torrent. Call EA tech support at least once a day with DRM issues relating to the game. Will gets his payoff for designing a groundbreaking game, EA gets ginourmous support bills. Hit 'em in the pocketbook, but don't suppress innovation.
Here is my plan. I'm buying the game. I'm downloading the pirate version, and putting it on my game PC. the one I buy, goes on my work PC. Every 2 to 3 days, I'm going to call EA and complain about the game making my emulators not work, restricting me from testing hardware out. Changing bios settings, messing with my firewall, whatever I can do to make the DRM shut me down. If they get enough phone calls, and it costs them enough money, they WILL kill the DRM with a Patch. Will Wright still gets money, and EA might get the shaft.
and it's now free. I grabbed a copy, logged into the free server, but that was about it. without a single player game I'm just not interested, I didn't even dust off my Gravis Phoenix to see if it had joystick support. But it looked like a pretty good online space combat sim.
Thats my plan. I'm buying it the moment I see it on a shelf, but If I can't bust out the DRM myself, I'll download and install a version that is fixed.
I then plan on pursuing every possibility of complaining about the DRM. I don't want to think that Will Wright would endorse Securom based on his past history, so i can't see ripping him off.
But the more overtime I can cause EA tech support, the better.
It's too bad there is not a semi-official way you could get the fixed download and donate money to the game creators at the same time; maybe thats something piratebay could look in to?
Slashdot Mirror
the guy is a tool.
No, I'm still uncertain on the election. I'm certain that neither of the two options handed to me as possibilities are worth a crap; McCain is just more of the same, and Obama is a liar, claiming to support the constitution but the only constitutional issue he has ever showed true commitment on is killing the 2nd amendment.
I've been thinking of voting for Obama for prez, and for congress, strict libertarian if the candidate has a chance, republican if they don't.
infoseek always seemed to have a pretty happening algorithm.
sigh.
infoseek, winfiles.com, Jamba when it was a really neat graphical java design tool with a awesome theme song, coolium, that really cool program that searched for files by using peoples shared bookmarks that I can't seem to remember the name of...
The internet changed in 2001.
I've been around forever, built ICs from bearskins and flint, etc, etc.
My rule of thumb has been, since around 1994:
if less than or equal to 512MB RAM, swap should be RAM X 2, unless you are severely limited spacewise, in which case TRY RAM X 1.5; if greater than 512MB, Swap should be equal to RAM.
It's worked pretty well. I think the problem most people have, with Windows systems at least, is that they don't set min=max.
With Solaris, I usually go for swap = 25-50% of RAM, depending on how busy the system is.
Debian, I just make it equal to RAM, but I haven't got any reason for it.
Vista, is Evil. No amount of swap will change that.
you said:
"Seems pretty sensible to me. What reason can you have for owning a semi-automatic weapon? You can't say "to fight the government" as if you really had to, you'd be fucked regardless (how many more hundred billion than you do they spend on "defense"?). Not to mention the probability of a gun being used to intentionally, or worse accidentally, kill someone is far higher than you having to fight the army."
From your statement, I got the impression you were thinking one of two possible things; the first possibility I considered was that you did not know what a Semi-Automatic is, which is a weapon which fires one time when you pull the trigger, and uses, usually, a portion of the energy released by firing to both eject the empty casing and feed another round to the chamber, preparing the semi-automatic to fire the next time the trigger is pulled.
The 2nd possibility was that you completely and totally reject private ownership of firearms, and feel that figures of authority would never abuse their position to the extent that Private Citizens could find no other survival option except armed resistance.
I, and I think the GP, was referring to the situation in the US, not the UK.
According to the Department of Justice and a few other similar extremist groups, legal gun ownership in the US is somewhere between 35% and 43%.
That varies, of course. I've hunted or plinked with all but one of my 10 closest neighbors, and that one is a retired New York cop, so he's probably got a crate of Uzi's in his closet.
Oddly, my neighborhood has Zero violent crime and no robberies for at least the last 5 years.
Sorry?
the majority of handguns in use today in the US are semi-automatics; I can't find any decent statistics for this, and about the only stats likely to show up are for new weapons sales, but if you took any 10 random individuals out of all the hunters I know, maybe 8 of them would own a semi-automatic hunting rifle; probably 4 of the 10 are going to own a semi-automatic shotgun.
Between me and my 70 year old Dad, we have in rifles: 1 lever action, 1 bolt action, 1 semi-auto. in shotguns, 2 semi-autos and one single-shot. in pistols, 3 revolvers and 3 semi-automatics.
What really sort of scared me was this statement he made in 2003: .357 and .44 marlin lever actions. So, what, 90% plus of all rifles made illegal or "limited"?
"I would support banning the sale of ammunition for assault weapons and limiting the sale of ammunition for handguns"
lets see...since what he considers a "Assault Weapon" is in reality just a scary looking hunting rifle, that would illegalize ammunition for every single one of my hunting rifles; I imagine you could still get 30-30 rounds, 22-250 and some other weak rounds that were never chambered for a scary looking gun. but you would also lose a lot of hunting rifles because they use pistol ammunition, like the
If he came out and definitively said "I'm going to fully restore all the rights infringed upon by BushCo, the patriot act, etc" it would be a little easier to swallow having someone so intent on crippling the 2nd amendment as a potential president.
On the other hand, with McCain the only hope we have is that he can't really make things much worse, can he?
Ahem.
Immediately after reading your post I walked up to the road by my house, then urinated in public (nobody around, of course).
This made me a Criminal on an American Street, and I have to tell you, I have no idea where I would go right at this moment to get an illegal handgun.
And, taking my tongue slightly out of my cheek, you are pretty much wrong; a certain class of criminal may well always know where to go to get an illegal handgun, but the majority of criminals who reside outside of the very largest metro areas aren't going to know where to go to get a illegal pistol.
Interesting reality you live in there.
results of a really quick google search:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html (england & gun control)
the Obama thing is a little hard to pin down, as he has been pretty good at avoiding any straight answers. But you could start here: http://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/Barack_Obama_Gun_Control.htm
note: if you are pro-gun control, you obviously won't see anything wrong with this.
I'm not surprised you got modded "flamebait"; how DARE you criticize Obama!
Besides, he is definitely NOT planning on the same thing as England, he just wants to ban all semi-automatic weapons; you could still have your double-barrel shotguns, bolt action rifles and single action revolvers as long as you live outside of an Urban area. I guess a person could be concerned that he hasn't defined what an Urban area is...but still, shut up! he Gives us hope!
....and i just remembered (actually, I cheated and looked on one of my very earliest burnt CD's).
Pueblo / Chaco.
and they are still around: http://pueblo.sourceforge.net/
VRML enabled browsers have not only been around for years, but also dedicated VRML browsers; I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, but there was a MUD client back in around '97 that not only did VRML mud rendering, it also had a integrated web/VRML browser.
it's going to bug the crap out of me until I remember what it was called now.
I went to a job interview in '99 for a contract doing Network Admin for a pretty major bank; I had no certs, no degree at the time, but I had been working off and on with Tek systems for several years and they knew I had extremely extensive experience.
The Bank didn't want to interview me, but the recruiter sort of insisted; they were asking for people qualified in NT, Solaris and OS/2, and I was really about the only person they had available at that time with the right mix.
It was a working lunch interview; They started asking questions, and I started answering. then came the question, "what command would you use to upgrade a NT workstation machine to NT server?"
I replied that you would probably be best off formatting the drive, then installing it, as there was no good way to upgrade; Microsoft said you couldn't do it at all, and the workarounds were more trouble than they were worth.
The interviewers sort of grinned, and told me that of the 20+ people they interviews, all of which had at least a MCSE or a comp sci degree, not a single one of them had answered the question correctly.
At the time I had problems believing it, but as time went on and I got in to situations where I was doing interviews it got more believable; in the late 90's if you worked on computers, it was probably because you were a computer enthusiast and actually more or less enjoyed working with them; after about '98, you started running into people that were just doing it because it paid well; they might be damned smart people, but you lose something when you don't actually enjoy working with computers.
I also saw a lot of people who just were not smart enough, but were somehow able to cheat or memorize well enough to get a degree; when you asked them something that wasn't in anything they had studied, they didn't have the core of hands-on knowledge that would enable them to make an educated guess at the answer.
So, yeah, I have to agree, interview everybody no matter what their credentials are.
so, good enough for a contemporary patent you are saying?
Microsofts DRM is a lot more draconian than even SecureROM.
I've got a XP laptop, I'm currently putting together a windows 2008 installation for a customer, Debian is on my main surfing machine... I'm not really a luddite, I just hate the idea of not having complete control of what my systems do; with Win2k integrated TCP/IP filtering and TPFS, I don't really see how secureROM can hurt me.
I'm not saying I would work with classified data or access my bank accounts on a machine that had SecureROM on it, just like I won't do it with a Microsoft DRM'd system, they both suck.
I'm not sure that is an excuse; I'm fairly confident that Robert & Virginia Heinlein were fully capable of producing a computer from parts from a TV, washing machine, and whatever was laying around in the basement, anytime from about 1946 on.
I bet it was the printer that was the sticking point.
Windows XP was released with DRM, the first microsoft operating system that was.
Which is why I still do almost everything on Win2k, including playing Spore retail. it sucks that it installed a rootkit along with it, but what ya gonna do?
I wouldn't be surprised if Spore: console won't use online content if you log-in from a different console than it was first seen on.
I've just made a pretty interesting discovery.
Spore retail runs just fine on Win2k.
That almost, doesn't but ALMOST, makes up for the DRM.
He uses EA because they bought his company, Maxis; it's a long, sad story.
There is a way to support Will Wright, and screw EA.
Buy the game. Install the DRM free torrent. Call EA tech support at least once a day with DRM issues relating to the game. Will gets his payoff for designing a groundbreaking game, EA gets ginourmous support bills.
Hit 'em in the pocketbook, but don't suppress innovation.
Paris, TN; outside "city" limits:
Beasley Wireless
$40 for 384k down, 128k up (except during daylight hours, when you are lucky to get any connection at all)
AT&T
$23 for single channel ISDN (64k), $40 / mo. line charges. (128k ISDN unavailable)
Various
$23 for 33.6k (on a good day) dial-up
Must be nice to not be limited by the above choices.
Here is my plan.
I'm buying the game.
I'm downloading the pirate version, and putting it on my game PC. the one I buy, goes on my work PC.
Every 2 to 3 days, I'm going to call EA and complain about the game making my emulators not work, restricting me from testing hardware out. Changing bios settings, messing with my firewall, whatever I can do to make the DRM shut me down.
If they get enough phone calls, and it costs them enough money, they WILL kill the DRM with a Patch.
Will Wright still gets money, and EA might get the shaft.
and it's now free.
I grabbed a copy, logged into the free server, but that was about it. without a single player game I'm just not interested, I didn't even dust off my Gravis Phoenix to see if it had joystick support.
But it looked like a pretty good online space combat sim.
explain to me what side port ram is, and why it is necessary?
Thats my plan. I'm buying it the moment I see it on a shelf, but If I can't bust out the DRM myself, I'll download and install a version that is fixed. I then plan on pursuing every possibility of complaining about the DRM. I don't want to think that Will Wright would endorse Securom based on his past history, so i can't see ripping him off. But the more overtime I can cause EA tech support, the better. It's too bad there is not a semi-official way you could get the fixed download and donate money to the game creators at the same time; maybe thats something piratebay could look in to?