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User: turgid

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Comments · 3,649

  1. Re:Yay for DRM! on BBC Discusses PVR Software, Creative Archive Plans · · Score: 1
    *Puts on tinfoil helmet*

    I think there's un unsaid law or implication in British society that everyone must watch the TV, or how else would we be pacified. It's how we're controlled and told what to do and think. Our culture is prescribed, right the way up from the most trashy Radio 1 techno handbag disco music and TV soap operas through to serious politics , news and documentaries. The license fee is how this is funded.

    Not to own or operate a TV set is subversive, a symptom of induviduality, free though, danger to the Establishment. You probably have latend deviant sociopathic terrorist tendencies. You may upset the apple cart.

    Most people capitulate eventually (such as I) and get a TV. "If I must have the damned license (for a quiet life) I might as well get a TV set." Before you know it, if you're not careful, you're hooked.

    *Removes tinfoil helmet and looks at real world outside window*

    In English at school I studied a short story about a TV-sedated society in the future. I wrote about it in an exam. I've forgotten what it was called.

  2. Re:So many channels so little time. on BBC Discusses PVR Software, Creative Archive Plans · · Score: 1
    The best things about the BBC are BBC2 and Radio 4. Everything else (perhaps excluding BBC4 and Radio 3) are drivel, and in my opinion should not be funded by the television license.

    BBC TV news has become very "dumbed down" in recent years and very tabloid. The news casters often have a very poor grasp of the language, unlike days of old.

    BBC science programmes have been subject to dumbing down recently. I watched a Horizon a few weeks ago. It was about something nominally interesting. However, it was so bad I can't even remember what it was about (something to do with space). It was all visual and audio special effects, minimalist content and very slow narration. The picture kept flashing and changing quickly. There was very little in the way of information.

    Channel 4 (and even Channel 5) have some better documentaries, good comedy, good science programmes etc.

    I really object to the current BBC set-up. It is not value for money. It should not try to be all things to all people. It should concentrate on providing a solid foundation of news, education and information, and seek to provide quality entertainment where commercial broadcasting is unable.

    But who cares what I think? I went for 6 years without a TV. And I had to fend of the license Gestapo with a poopy stick.

  3. Remember children... on BBC Discusses PVR Software, Creative Archive Plans · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you don't use DRM your computer is insecure and is at risk from viruses, trojans, hackers, paedophiles, terrorists and illegal copyright violators.

  4. Re:That would suck for java... on Beyond An Open Source Java · · Score: 1
    Or how the x86 arch being open ruins the ability to write for it?

    Just a small nit to pick: the x86 architecture is not "open". It is well documented and ubiquitous. It is not "open" in the sense that anyone is free to implement their own version of it. Far from it. Complex and stringent licenses are required.

  5. Guard Dog on Protecting Your Gear from Pets? · · Score: 1

    Get a dog to guard your gear. Cats are scared of dogs. Give the dog an old sock to chew.

  6. Re:Why's it so bad? on Linus on Intel's 64 bit Extensions · · Score: 1
    Actually, although Opterons theoretically scale up to 8 way, they really don't go beyond 4 way.....Opteron systems are NUMA based, meaning RAM is local to a CPU.

    What OS were you using? I think you'll find the problem is more likely to be in your OS kernel than in the hardware. The NUMA architecture in the Opteron has its roots in Cray, back in the mists of time, and has been (and is in other incarnations) used in substantially larger systems to good effect.

    The Opeteron does not scale to more than 8-way natively. (Pentium/Xeon doesn't scale to more that 2 way natively). That does not mean it can't be done. You need extra hardware for that, but again, that's all been done, 15 years ago, by people like Cray.

    Opteron (and POWER for that matter) could be more of a danger to itanic than people think. AMD is playing nice with intel by swweping this conveniently under the carpet.

  7. Re:Willing Workers on Too slow! FBI Shuts Down Hosting Service · · Score: 1

    Quite. Concentration camps are pretty much the same whether their directors have Communist or Capitalist economic leanings.

  8. In Other News... on Cell Phone with Camera = Scanner · · Score: 2, Funny
    Sheep + Kangaroo = Wooly Jumper.

    *ducks*

  9. Re:Slackware on SlashNET Forum with Marcel Gagne · · Score: 1

    I was a newbie when I started with Slackware back in 1995.

  10. Not quite on New Draganflyer Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle · · Score: 1

    That might involve revealing the pot-belly and two-peas-and-a-shrivelled-carrot. On a related note: never venture out into the Essex countryside at night, without a barf-bag, that is.

  11. Slackware on SlashNET Forum with Marcel Gagne · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Contrary to popular belief slackware is quite simple to install and get working as long as you don't mind using text-mode menus to install. However, with Linux, you only install once. If yo know what a disk partition is, then that's about as technical as you need to get these days to install Slackware. It's also comprehensive without being bloated, very unfussy about hardware, very up-to-date and un-"dumbed down" unlike Fedora (previously Red Hat).

    I am biased. I've been using Slackware since 1995. I've tried Debian, SuSE, Red Hat and certain commercial UNIXes. When it comes to my own personal machine, Slackware is never beaten.

  12. Re:Obvious... on Flash Mob Supercomputer? · · Score: 1

    As long as they don't come anywhere near my BIOS...

  13. Re:Yet Another Amusingly-Named X Replacement on Y Window System Project Started · · Score: 1

    Maybe they'll just start on the Greek alpha bet... and then the Russian one... and the Hebrew one etc. :-)

  14. Last one to Mars! on Brine on Mars? · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Last one to Mars is a hairy kipper/rotten egg etc.

  15. Yet Another Amusingly-Named X Replacement on Y Window System Project Started · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So why is it going to succeed where these failed? :
    fresco
    YAX (Y Ain't X)
    The Y Window System
    Oh never mind. What's the point?

  16. Saints Preserve Us! on Rexx for Everyone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Rexx is IBM's scripting language. Unfortunately I had to contend with it in a previous job. I advise people to avoid writing new code in this "language" wherever possible and relegate its use to supporting old code, perhaps that you have inherited from some defunct IBM dinosoaur.

  17. Art for Art's Sake on Default AmigaOS4 Icon Set Revealed · · Score: 1

    This is an emotional, post-modern exploration of our memories in a digital context. I am very moved indeed. This will, prehaps, give birth to an entire new genre of digital art, that of Graphical User Interface Nostalgic Fantasy. Perhaps we could open an exhibition at the Tate Modern?

  18. Re:How fast? on ATI PCI-Express Devices Revealed · · Score: 1

    Oh well. I gave up on Windows at 3.1. I haven't had it at home since 1997, so unless it runs on Linux, Solaris or PalmOS I can't use it. I managed to buy about 6 Loki games when they were still available. Everyone else around here who runs Linux appears to dual-boot into Windows. Not I. Oh well. I'm too old and jaded to be playing games nowadays anyway.

  19. Re:How fast? on ATI PCI-Express Devices Revealed · · Score: 1

    Two swallows do not a summer make, but I take your point.

  20. Re:How fast? on ATI PCI-Express Devices Revealed · · Score: 0
    My aging GeForce 4 can play games well at 1024x768

    So does my TNT2 Ultra :-) It plays Quake III Arena (Linux version) real good :-) It's a shame no one's making Linux games any more, or I might feel compelled to upgrade my graphics card.

  21. Re:32, 64,... on AMD Back in the Black · · Score: 1
    What I want to know is, where are the 128bit CPUs?

    In Jesus' flying saucer that we captured from the aliens, in Area 51.

  22. ReWhy? Viruses, that's why! on IBM Wants to Port Office to Linux · · Score: 1

    Maybe they want to create a Linux anti-virus industry.

  23. Patents on IBM Wants to Port Office to Linux · · Score: 1

    No, what they'll do is patent something in .NET that Mono needs to be able to run, thus rendering useless the whole thing, and the new .NET-ified applications unrunnable. Some people here were born yesterday. M$ is like the IBM of old. IBM is like the IBM of old....

  24. Re:Why ? on IBM Wants to Port Office to Linux · · Score: 1
    Why use Microsoft Office when Open Office is getting so good?

    Because OpenOffice.org comes from Sun, and if IBM can derail OpenOffice.org, the "Java Desktop" and Java for M$ Office, Linux and .NET, it can kill Sun. That's why.

  25. Re:You are an idiot troll on ESR's Open Letter to McNealy: Set Java Free! · · Score: 2, Insightful

    .NET is just another Windows API. Java is a working, mature and stable solution to real business problems. People may be writing new Windows apps in .NET but so what? That's having absolutely no effect on Java. The number of people developing for Java is growing. Java is here and now. .NET is yet another Microsoft Manyana product. I think Mono will all end in tears. I was right about itanium and I'll be right about that too.