You can build one for $500 dollars easily enough. Seriously, buy one of those gOS PC's Walmart is selling for $199, and buy a few larger hard drives to replace the standard 80GB(?) one it comes with. Set up a 1GB software (yes excessively large; I know) mirror'ed/boot on two of the drives and use 1GB on the third for your swap partition. Set up software RAID 5 across the three drives with the remainder space. I did this with 3x250GB drives in a Shuttle mini pc, and also put a slimline DVD-RW drive in it using the two internal bays, as well as a special bracket to house a 3.5" hard drive and a slimline CDROM drive in the 5.25" bay.
Things are tight, but in the big ole' gOS case you should have plenty of room to manuever.
I have Fedora installed (8 now, had 7 prior, and 6 before that), but you should be able to use just about any distribution you want. Samba works like a champ for network access both via my Mac OS laptop and my wifes Windows Vista computer. Same with Xsane and CUPS (albeit with turboprint which I bought) providing access to the Canon PIXMA MP170 printer/scanner; we print and scan over the network as if it were locally attached no problem.
Also use mediatomb to stream media to my PS3 when its booted into the game OS, and I'm working on getting pulseaudio working properly so that I can stream audio from internet radio sites that use Flash to the PS3 from this 'server' as well (right now I use rdesktop to connect to a vmware server virtual machine which runs Windows XP in order to stream the audio from the 'server' to the PS3)
You really, really, really can get so much more for so much less money if you do it yourself... no NAS would do all the things I just listed, even for $1,200. Your own PC for $500 probably could though. Yes, setting it up will take some effort. I smashed my head against the wall, particularly with the udev permissions to get my scanner to work over the network, but now that I recorded what I have to do for a rebuild, each time a new version of Fedora comes out it takes me about 30-60 minutes of configuration after the install is complete to get her flying again.
I'm sorry. He may not have been as calm or rational about this as he should have at the time it was transpiring, but in principal I am on his side.
I also refuse to show my receipt to the stores when I purchase items. It, in no uncertain terms, pisses me off that as a patron to the ever growing number of stores that do this, I am considered a shop lifter until proven innocent. We don't do that in this country; anyone heard of a little something called innocent until proven guilty?
Not to mention the fact that by the time they want to check your receipt the stuff is now yours. Who the hell do they think they are demanding to search me and my property, especially when I have showed no suspicious behaviour, or signs of wrongdoing. Now, if someone working security for the store swears up and down I shoved something in my pocket I'd probably humor him, and let him search me. I'd probably rub it in his face when he didn't find anything, but I wouldn't be too upset. I am all for some security measures to prevent shop lifting, and certainly if the police get involved they can ask you to do a lot more and expect you to carry out their directions.
Anyway, I'm just waiting for Wals-Mart to make a wrong move and arrest me with no proof, etc. I certainly wouldn't mine claiming my own little chunk of their fortune. Of course, it probably won't happen since I avoid stores that do this like the plague...
What doesn't work in Vista? Both my wife and I use Vista Ultimate and neither one of us have encountered the supposed instability or failures to work. Sure, I tuned down the interface to make it look more classic for both of us, and also turned off UAC, which I considered a failed attempt at security (only because it is so blasted annoying not because it doesn't work), but nothing just 'doesn't work'
I say this as someone who uses Mac OS X as his primary desktop OS, using Vista only through Parallels/Boot Camp to use the occasional odd program or video game, and (Fedora) Linux as a server OS; it is not as a fascist Windows nazi that I say I have not encountered any problems...
I keep hearing it is unstable and things don't work without substantiation as to what it is doing and failing to do. That is more troubling to me than the claim that it does not work...
This doesn't bother me as much as it probably should. On one side we have Adobe who have a binary only flash plugin for Linux x86 only. If you use a 64-bit system you can use nspluginwrapper, or worse if you run something like PPC64 architecture you can go pound sand. Adobe's support for open source really isn't all that much better than Microsoft's.
With Silverlight, where they are helping Mono to port it, there stands at least a small hope that it remains an open standard that they can update on their own in the future. Then every x86, x86_64, PPC, PPC64, and whoever else running whatever else can continue to keep with the current release. Of course, I understand peoples concerns with Microsoft locking it up and saying go screw.
Neither one is ideal; it's like picking the greater of two evils, and I can't really be bothered to care who wins. Actually I hope neither does, and it spurs severe competition so that they keep trying to outdo each other with cross platform support, etc. If, for instance, you can run Solverlight on Linux on PPC, x86, x86_64, Mac on PPC or Intel, Windows, blah blah blah, maybe it will scare Adobe a bit, and get them to release plugins for additional platforms as well...
From the article (emphasisi my own): The Crowd Farm is not intended for home use. According to Graham and Jusczy, a single human step can only power two 60W light bulbs for one flickering second. But get a crowd in motion, multiply that single step by 28,527 steps...
From your post (emphassis my own):
There's also NEVER 30,000 people in South Station
While I agree with you that we will probably not see 30,000 people in South Station for quite some time, it looks like they're talking 28,527 foot steps. I can easily see that many steps being taken by the number of people you do see in South Station each day... still agree it seems a waste, but I their numbers don't look quite as bad as all that...
Any one of these; even a few of them together, might not be cause for concern. But if you start seeing several of these signs for one individual it might be time to start worrying. I think they're on the right track teaching people to be aware, but they need to teach these same people not to be ludicrous. Witch hunts went out of fashion along time ago afterall...
I would say 85% is pretty close to a reasonable expectation. Like I said, games, especially OpenGL ones are playing very smoothly. Some aren't working yet, but it's still in beta yet so.... They just released the DirectX support beta release before the last so it is lagging a bit behind OpenGL. But both are making steady progressions:)
The performance is better much better than 10-15% . It's not 100%, but a lot of games are very much playable on it. Still, there are many that have problems in the betas, but it is getting there...
I was staying in TVQ (Transient Visitors Quarters) on King's Bay naval base, and they gave the same warning about the room keys. Apparently this is not an entirely isolated issue...
Friend, Masters in Literature, teacher and all. Listens to Skinny Puppy and Gwar. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm not the dimmest person going, and I like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Wumpscut, KMFDM and a score of other bands most maintstream music listeners have never heard of. Another Marine in my shop, who is not by any stretch dumb either listens to music that makes mine seem tame.
Since when should taste in music make people believe that you are a delinquent not even worth giving the time of day. Mozart wasn't the only one to write something brilliant. And why would I even bother considering the word of your average Britney Aguilera lover when they tell me my music is strange and stupid. I don't go around and tell country, jazz, rap, and classic music lovers that their music sucks...
Intolerance is the first sign of poor mental faculties in my not even remotely humble opinion. But go on believing that everyone different in the world has nothing to offer.
Gaming, I haven't seen any official support for any of these: Ventrilo, World of Warcraft, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, and Diablo 2
But they all work.
As for Adobe Graphic Programs, Adobe Photoshop CS2 is working just fine.
So does XSane 0.991, WinSCP, PuTTY, RealVNC, 7-zip, OpenOffice 2.1, ClamWin, Nero, AdAware, Filezilla, Acrobat Reader, Sun Java, Diskeeper and a boat load of other programs.
I didn't actually look at the list, so I've no idea how many are or are not on the list, but I would dare to guess that most are not. Just because a program is not on the list does not mean it is not going to work... I doubt that MS was able to comprehensively test every single Windows program in existence...
...getting back the tech support service I used to know and love them for. They've picked up a lot of bad tricks from Alienware, which has to have THE WORST tech support service I have ever seen. I am hoping this is one of the areas that will improve with Michael Dell returning to the company.
At this point (thought it is a little distant into the future) I seriously believe my next laptop will be a Mac. It's not that I necessarilly dislike Windows all that much, but the PC vendors are all becoming carbon copies of their HORRIBLE selves. It used to be one of the places Dell was better than the rest...
I'll just use Parallels/Boot Camp to dual boot/VM for those pesky Windows Apps/games, if there are still any at that point... And can keep Linux/Solaris VM's around if I want too. Best of all worlds on one machine really...
People who get charged with DUI's and other more grievous crimes don't even necessarilly end up in prison for the first offense. Sending people to prison for over 5 years for taking down a website is absurd. It's something that should probably be dealt with via stiff fines. In most cases it's just a frikkan' website. In most cases no ones life or well-being rely on it... perhaps a separate more severe punishment like prison time could be reserved for those public service type sites that might exist with a greater purpose...
At least the 'maximum punishment' of 2 years they are seeking does not seem too severe. If that maximum sentence isn't abused, and used only for those repeat offenders who just don't learn it seems alright...
Dell bought Alienware.... And now uses their customer service apparently... what he described is my sum total experience with Alienware; it's a shame really; I used to believe Dell had great customer service; but I will never buy an Alienware system again because of the wretched support I have received; and from what I hear about Dell lately, I pretty much feel the same is unfortunately true of them now as well.
When you finally get to someone in any position of authority they call you a liar, tell you they will call back and don't, or just apparently now hang up on you too.
I don't really agree that the ordinary citizen has the right to all information out there. I don't understand why American citizens get butt hurt every time information is not open to them. There is classified information, and information that is available on a need to know basis all over the government. Being in the military there have been several times when I have done things without knowing why I am doing them, or why they are happening. It sucks, but you know what, I have come to accept that sometimes it is necessary.
Do you NEED to know the layout of a nuclear facility? No (well unless you actually do have a reason to know it), and neither do I. Am I afraid of putting it in your hands personally? Probably not; but I am afraid to put that information in some peoples hands.
You are 100% correct that something like a "better safe than sorry" approach can go way overboard. I don't condone atrocities like Abu Ghraib; that wasn't done for any good reason, and definitely denies individuals basic human rights. Likewise, keeping everything top secret and out of the hands of the public is going overboard. But so is letting everyone know about everything at all times. I don't think what they have done crosses any lines.
Now, I admit, being in the military I am part of something more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy, so my view point is coming from quite a bit different perspective, but I don't think that they are harming anyones freedoms or liberties by doing this. I don't think that there is any reason for anger, distrust, or the controversy people are trying to rake up over this either... just my opinion and two cents on the matter, for what it is worth...
Thank you. Someone with common sense. Better safe than sorry. Your analogy is perfect. I went through it with server admins who saw no reason to patch servers because we had a firewall in place. I was one of the guys maintaining the firewall(s) and I didn't have so much confidence that I'd run around telling them they shouldn't patch their servers... Do you really think firewall company X never had a vulnerability in their software, that they didn't see until it already had been taken advantage of? You think disgruntled employyes don't exist? Or users with floppy discs and USB keychains they plugged into their home computer? All the policy in the world is not going to prevent the actual act from occurring, only help launch their butt out the door if/when it does. Thought processes like that are just foolish. And so is not taking simple preventative measures to keep people from doing something potentially harmful to thousands, if not millions. By blurring out a picture, you may keep someone from seeing what others have missed.
You could argue that by letting everyone see it, someone could discover it before the bad guy, and alert someone; but then again, you'd be risking the bad guy seeing it first too. This way neither has a chance...
...when I read "The investigators did not have to notify No 10..." was the The Prisoner... I am still wondering, with a name like that, if I am the only one watching entirely too much television...
If you were a true geek you wouldn't be so concerned with the blender. The barista in a box over there is a gift from the gods, as coffee is the nectar of the gods, as all true geeks know. I wish that I had $3,600 for a coffee maker that is that simple to use, yet squirts out such delicious looking coffee.
Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II. These are awesome games, but my wife and I cry about our fingers falling off within a mere hour of starting play taking turns. It's great for laughs with multiple players. My wife is ruthless about laughing at me playing, and it adds to the fun when you're getting boo'd off stage to a riot of laughter. You might want to play these before your fingers can't handle it anymore.
Planescape Torment was an awesome game. It caught every aspect of the campaign setting very nicely. It's ancient though. He'd probably have to find it on e-Bay or something. Shoot, I still have my original discs, but over time they've become so scratched I had to copy them to keep playing. One of them flat out doesn't work anymore. That is one game I definitely wished for a new version or expansion for. Sadly it never came.
That and a Syndicate Wars remake would rule the day.
99 doesn't mean you got one problem wrong. 99 is the highest score you can get. It means you are in hte 99th percentile, and you did better than 99% of the people who take the test. In actuality you can get a lot more than one problem wrong and get a 99. I scored 99 and know for a fact that I got at least a few problems wrong; or at least had to make guesses on at least a few... so unless my guessing was really good...
My wife and I both have identical Alienware laptops. They are great, awesome, amazing. And I will never buy one again. My wife had a Hard Drive fail in hers and she sent it in to get repaired. Now enter the fun part. While her's was still out, I did the slow kid bit and spilled water in my laptop.
Now I acknowledge this is all my fault, voided the warranty, and all that. My dumb fault, period. Nonetheless, I call up Alienware to send in the laptop for repair. I arrange everything, have it shipped USPS express, etc. I kept my tracking slip until it was received, and called to confirm once I saw that it had been. The *ssh@t on the line told me that my laptop was received, and they could confirm it. Two weeks later, I haven't heard anything. I waited this time because I didn't expect miracles with the mess I made. Well, I call, and they claim now they never received the laptop. They had only received my wifes.
The SOB's, when I was unable to immediately provide a tracking number, accused me of lying and having never sent the laptop in the first place. Furthermore they absolutely refused to lift a finger to try to find the laptop. Now, I didn't hold onto the tracking slip, but you can go to your local post office from where you sent your express package, and get a copy of the number. And I did, after several people at Alienware, in so many words called me a liar, and one person flat out did the same.
They eventually found the box. After that it was a two month wait for the replacement motherboard.
So, I will never buy a laptop again from a company that A) accuses me of being a liar without proof, B) will not help a customer unless they could be heald liable, C) actually loses a $3,000 laptop, and D) to a far lesser extent makes me wait 2 months for a motherboard (which by some miracle was the only thing I destroyed.)
They did end up sending the whole mess up the chain, and eventually someone did give 10% off the repair cost, but it does not make up for them calling me a liar. The 2 months wait is fine, stuff like that happens all the time, and while annoying I could let go, and the 10% makes up for losing my system in their receiving warehouse, but nothing will repair the part where they called me a liar.
When I was stationed on Okinawa, the Chaplain had regular volunteer visits to local school where us Marines could help teach English to young students. On one occasion less than a year ago, we got to the class room which started out empty. The bell rang, and within seconds an almost literal whirlwind of students came running in chasing each other and playing all kinds of games. I was amazed at how rough, and yet how jovial and friendly all the horse play remained at the same time. At least one kid took a very hard fall on the floor, another busted his head very hard into a wall... the teachers never stopped any of this. The kids looked happy, healthy, energetic, and stress free.
It is a far cry from the morbidly obese, stressed out, candy munching, video gaming, slothful children of our country.
America is falling behind other countries, and not just in math skills. Our litigious nature is our own downfall. It seriously needs to stop, for the sake of the countries future...
The way to change her arguement, is to have her play an eight way skirmish or two in Warhammer 40,000: Winter Assault. The violence starts just a couple minutes in and can take almost two hours to end. I play a couple hours a night, and the blood splattering wars waged on my PC make my heart squeal with glee. Once she witnesses that fun, Pac-Man won't even make it into her study...
Where in Japan? I was stationed in Okinawa for one year, and let me tell you, that was bad enough. If I had to spend the rest of my life there, I would commit suicide too.
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You can build one for $500 dollars easily enough. Seriously, buy one of those gOS PC's Walmart is selling for $199, and buy a few larger hard drives to replace the standard 80GB(?) one it comes with. Set up a 1GB software (yes excessively large; I know) mirror'ed /boot on two of the drives and use 1GB on the third for your swap partition. Set up software RAID 5 across the three drives with the remainder space. I did this with 3x250GB drives in a Shuttle mini pc, and also put a slimline DVD-RW drive in it using the two internal bays, as well as a special bracket to house a 3.5" hard drive and a slimline CDROM drive in the 5.25" bay.
Things are tight, but in the big ole' gOS case you should have plenty of room to manuever.
I have Fedora installed (8 now, had 7 prior, and 6 before that), but you should be able to use just about any distribution you want. Samba works like a champ for network access both via my Mac OS laptop and my wifes Windows Vista computer. Same with Xsane and CUPS (albeit with turboprint which I bought) providing access to the Canon PIXMA MP170 printer/scanner; we print and scan over the network as if it were locally attached no problem.
Also use mediatomb to stream media to my PS3 when its booted into the game OS, and I'm working on getting pulseaudio working properly so that I can stream audio from internet radio sites that use Flash to the PS3 from this 'server' as well (right now I use rdesktop to connect to a vmware server virtual machine which runs Windows XP in order to stream the audio from the 'server' to the PS3)
You really, really, really can get so much more for so much less money if you do it yourself... no NAS would do all the things I just listed, even for $1,200. Your own PC for $500 probably could though. Yes, setting it up will take some effort. I smashed my head against the wall, particularly with the udev permissions to get my scanner to work over the network, but now that I recorded what I have to do for a rebuild, each time a new version of Fedora comes out it takes me about 30-60 minutes of configuration after the install is complete to get her flying again.
I'm sorry. He may not have been as calm or rational about this as he should have at the time it was transpiring, but in principal I am on his side. I also refuse to show my receipt to the stores when I purchase items. It, in no uncertain terms, pisses me off that as a patron to the ever growing number of stores that do this, I am considered a shop lifter until proven innocent. We don't do that in this country; anyone heard of a little something called innocent until proven guilty? Not to mention the fact that by the time they want to check your receipt the stuff is now yours. Who the hell do they think they are demanding to search me and my property, especially when I have showed no suspicious behaviour, or signs of wrongdoing. Now, if someone working security for the store swears up and down I shoved something in my pocket I'd probably humor him, and let him search me. I'd probably rub it in his face when he didn't find anything, but I wouldn't be too upset. I am all for some security measures to prevent shop lifting, and certainly if the police get involved they can ask you to do a lot more and expect you to carry out their directions. Anyway, I'm just waiting for Wals-Mart to make a wrong move and arrest me with no proof, etc. I certainly wouldn't mine claiming my own little chunk of their fortune. Of course, it probably won't happen since I avoid stores that do this like the plague...
What doesn't work in Vista? Both my wife and I use Vista Ultimate and neither one of us have encountered the supposed instability or failures to work. Sure, I tuned down the interface to make it look more classic for both of us, and also turned off UAC, which I considered a failed attempt at security (only because it is so blasted annoying not because it doesn't work), but nothing just 'doesn't work' I say this as someone who uses Mac OS X as his primary desktop OS, using Vista only through Parallels/Boot Camp to use the occasional odd program or video game, and (Fedora) Linux as a server OS; it is not as a fascist Windows nazi that I say I have not encountered any problems... I keep hearing it is unstable and things don't work without substantiation as to what it is doing and failing to do. That is more troubling to me than the claim that it does not work...
This doesn't bother me as much as it probably should. On one side we have Adobe who have a binary only flash plugin for Linux x86 only. If you use a 64-bit system you can use nspluginwrapper, or worse if you run something like PPC64 architecture you can go pound sand. Adobe's support for open source really isn't all that much better than Microsoft's. With Silverlight, where they are helping Mono to port it, there stands at least a small hope that it remains an open standard that they can update on their own in the future. Then every x86, x86_64, PPC, PPC64, and whoever else running whatever else can continue to keep with the current release. Of course, I understand peoples concerns with Microsoft locking it up and saying go screw. Neither one is ideal; it's like picking the greater of two evils, and I can't really be bothered to care who wins. Actually I hope neither does, and it spurs severe competition so that they keep trying to outdo each other with cross platform support, etc. If, for instance, you can run Solverlight on Linux on PPC, x86, x86_64, Mac on PPC or Intel, Windows, blah blah blah, maybe it will scare Adobe a bit, and get them to release plugins for additional platforms as well...
From the article (emphasisi my own):
The Crowd Farm is not intended for home use. According to Graham and Jusczy, a single human step can only power two 60W light bulbs for one flickering second. But get a crowd in motion, multiply that single step by 28,527 steps...
From your post (emphassis my own):
There's also NEVER 30,000 people in South Station
While I agree with you that we will probably not see 30,000 people in South Station for quite some time, it looks like they're talking 28,527 foot steps. I can easily see that many steps being taken by the number of people you do see in South Station each day... still agree it seems a waste, but I their numbers don't look quite as bad as all that...
Any one of these; even a few of them together, might not be cause for concern. But if you start seeing several of these signs for one individual it might be time to start worrying. I think they're on the right track teaching people to be aware, but they need to teach these same people not to be ludicrous. Witch hunts went out of fashion along time ago afterall...
I would say 85% is pretty close to a reasonable expectation. Like I said, games, especially OpenGL ones are playing very smoothly. Some aren't working yet, but it's still in beta yet so.... They just released the DirectX support beta release before the last so it is lagging a bit behind OpenGL. But both are making steady progressions :)
The performance is better much better than 10-15% . It's not 100%, but a lot of games are very much playable on it. Still, there are many that have problems in the betas, but it is getting there...
I was staying in TVQ (Transient Visitors Quarters) on King's Bay naval base, and they gave the same warning about the room keys. Apparently this is not an entirely isolated issue...
Friend, Masters in Literature, teacher and all. Listens to Skinny Puppy and Gwar. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm not the dimmest person going, and I like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Wumpscut, KMFDM and a score of other bands most maintstream music listeners have never heard of. Another Marine in my shop, who is not by any stretch dumb either listens to music that makes mine seem tame.
Since when should taste in music make people believe that you are a delinquent not even worth giving the time of day. Mozart wasn't the only one to write something brilliant. And why would I even bother considering the word of your average Britney Aguilera lover when they tell me my music is strange and stupid. I don't go around and tell country, jazz, rap, and classic music lovers that their music sucks...
Intolerance is the first sign of poor mental faculties in my not even remotely humble opinion. But go on believing that everyone different in the world has nothing to offer.
Gaming, I haven't seen any official support for any of these: Ventrilo, World of Warcraft, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, and Diablo 2 But they all work.
As for Adobe Graphic Programs, Adobe Photoshop CS2 is working just fine.
So does XSane 0.991, WinSCP, PuTTY, RealVNC, 7-zip, OpenOffice 2.1, ClamWin, Nero, AdAware, Filezilla, Acrobat Reader, Sun Java, Diskeeper and a boat load of other programs.
I didn't actually look at the list, so I've no idea how many are or are not on the list, but I would dare to guess that most are not. Just because a program is not on the list does not mean it is not going to work... I doubt that MS was able to comprehensively test every single Windows program in existence...
...getting back the tech support service I used to know and love them for. They've picked up a lot of bad tricks from Alienware, which has to have THE WORST tech support service I have ever seen. I am hoping this is one of the areas that will improve with Michael Dell returning to the company.
At this point (thought it is a little distant into the future) I seriously believe my next laptop will be a Mac. It's not that I necessarilly dislike Windows all that much, but the PC vendors are all becoming carbon copies of their HORRIBLE selves. It used to be one of the places Dell was better than the rest...
I'll just use Parallels/Boot Camp to dual boot/VM for those pesky Windows Apps/games, if there are still any at that point... And can keep Linux/Solaris VM's around if I want too. Best of all worlds on one machine really...
People who get charged with DUI's and other more grievous crimes don't even necessarilly end up in prison for the first offense. Sending people to prison for over 5 years for taking down a website is absurd. It's something that should probably be dealt with via stiff fines. In most cases it's just a frikkan' website. In most cases no ones life or well-being rely on it... perhaps a separate more severe punishment like prison time could be reserved for those public service type sites that might exist with a greater purpose...
At least the 'maximum punishment' of 2 years they are seeking does not seem too severe. If that maximum sentence isn't abused, and used only for those repeat offenders who just don't learn it seems alright...
Dell bought Alienware.... And now uses their customer service apparently... what he described is my sum total experience with Alienware; it's a shame really; I used to believe Dell had great customer service; but I will never buy an Alienware system again because of the wretched support I have received; and from what I hear about Dell lately, I pretty much feel the same is unfortunately true of them now as well. When you finally get to someone in any position of authority they call you a liar, tell you they will call back and don't, or just apparently now hang up on you too.
I don't really agree that the ordinary citizen has the right to all information out there. I don't understand why American citizens get butt hurt every time information is not open to them. There is classified information, and information that is available on a need to know basis all over the government. Being in the military there have been several times when I have done things without knowing why I am doing them, or why they are happening. It sucks, but you know what, I have come to accept that sometimes it is necessary.
Do you NEED to know the layout of a nuclear facility? No (well unless you actually do have a reason to know it), and neither do I. Am I afraid of putting it in your hands personally? Probably not; but I am afraid to put that information in some peoples hands.
You are 100% correct that something like a "better safe than sorry" approach can go way overboard. I don't condone atrocities like Abu Ghraib; that wasn't done for any good reason, and definitely denies individuals basic human rights. Likewise, keeping everything top secret and out of the hands of the public is going overboard. But so is letting everyone know about everything at all times. I don't think what they have done crosses any lines.
Now, I admit, being in the military I am part of something more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy, so my view point is coming from quite a bit different perspective, but I don't think that they are harming anyones freedoms or liberties by doing this. I don't think that there is any reason for anger, distrust, or the controversy people are trying to rake up over this either... just my opinion and two cents on the matter, for what it is worth...
Thank you. Someone with common sense. Better safe than sorry. Your analogy is perfect. I went through it with server admins who saw no reason to patch servers because we had a firewall in place. I was one of the guys maintaining the firewall(s) and I didn't have so much confidence that I'd run around telling them they shouldn't patch their servers... Do you really think firewall company X never had a vulnerability in their software, that they didn't see until it already had been taken advantage of? You think disgruntled employyes don't exist? Or users with floppy discs and USB keychains they plugged into their home computer? All the policy in the world is not going to prevent the actual act from occurring, only help launch their butt out the door if/when it does. Thought processes like that are just foolish. And so is not taking simple preventative measures to keep people from doing something potentially harmful to thousands, if not millions. By blurring out a picture, you may keep someone from seeing what others have missed. You could argue that by letting everyone see it, someone could discover it before the bad guy, and alert someone; but then again, you'd be risking the bad guy seeing it first too. This way neither has a chance...
...when I read "The investigators did not have to notify No 10..." was the The Prisoner... I am still wondering, with a name like that, if I am the only one watching entirely too much television...
If you were a true geek you wouldn't be so concerned with the blender. The barista in a box over there is a gift from the gods, as coffee is the nectar of the gods, as all true geeks know. I wish that I had $3,600 for a coffee maker that is that simple to use, yet squirts out such delicious looking coffee.
Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II. These are awesome games, but my wife and I cry about our fingers falling off within a mere hour of starting play taking turns. It's great for laughs with multiple players. My wife is ruthless about laughing at me playing, and it adds to the fun when you're getting boo'd off stage to a riot of laughter. You might want to play these before your fingers can't handle it anymore.
Planescape Torment was an awesome game. It caught every aspect of the campaign setting very nicely. It's ancient though. He'd probably have to find it on e-Bay or something. Shoot, I still have my original discs, but over time they've become so scratched I had to copy them to keep playing. One of them flat out doesn't work anymore. That is one game I definitely wished for a new version or expansion for. Sadly it never came. That and a Syndicate Wars remake would rule the day.
99 doesn't mean you got one problem wrong. 99 is the highest score you can get. It means you are in hte 99th percentile, and you did better than 99% of the people who take the test. In actuality you can get a lot more than one problem wrong and get a 99. I scored 99 and know for a fact that I got at least a few problems wrong; or at least had to make guesses on at least a few... so unless my guessing was really good...
My wife and I both have identical Alienware laptops. They are great, awesome, amazing. And I will never buy one again. My wife had a Hard Drive fail in hers and she sent it in to get repaired. Now enter the fun part. While her's was still out, I did the slow kid bit and spilled water in my laptop.
Now I acknowledge this is all my fault, voided the warranty, and all that. My dumb fault, period. Nonetheless, I call up Alienware to send in the laptop for repair. I arrange everything, have it shipped USPS express, etc. I kept my tracking slip until it was received, and called to confirm once I saw that it had been. The *ssh@t on the line told me that my laptop was received, and they could confirm it. Two weeks later, I haven't heard anything. I waited this time because I didn't expect miracles with the mess I made. Well, I call, and they claim now they never received the laptop. They had only received my wifes.
The SOB's, when I was unable to immediately provide a tracking number, accused me of lying and having never sent the laptop in the first place. Furthermore they absolutely refused to lift a finger to try to find the laptop. Now, I didn't hold onto the tracking slip, but you can go to your local post office from where you sent your express package, and get a copy of the number. And I did, after several people at Alienware, in so many words called me a liar, and one person flat out did the same.
They eventually found the box. After that it was a two month wait for the replacement motherboard.
So, I will never buy a laptop again from a company that A) accuses me of being a liar without proof, B) will not help a customer unless they could be heald liable, C) actually loses a $3,000 laptop, and D) to a far lesser extent makes me wait 2 months for a motherboard (which by some miracle was the only thing I destroyed.) They did end up sending the whole mess up the chain, and eventually someone did give 10% off the repair cost, but it does not make up for them calling me a liar. The 2 months wait is fine, stuff like that happens all the time, and while annoying I could let go, and the 10% makes up for losing my system in their receiving warehouse, but nothing will repair the part where they called me a liar.
When I was stationed on Okinawa, the Chaplain had regular volunteer visits to local school where us Marines could help teach English to young students. On one occasion less than a year ago, we got to the class room which started out empty. The bell rang, and within seconds an almost literal whirlwind of students came running in chasing each other and playing all kinds of games. I was amazed at how rough, and yet how jovial and friendly all the horse play remained at the same time. At least one kid took a very hard fall on the floor, another busted his head very hard into a wall... the teachers never stopped any of this. The kids looked happy, healthy, energetic, and stress free. It is a far cry from the morbidly obese, stressed out, candy munching, video gaming, slothful children of our country. America is falling behind other countries, and not just in math skills. Our litigious nature is our own downfall. It seriously needs to stop, for the sake of the countries future...
The way to change her arguement, is to have her play an eight way skirmish or two in Warhammer 40,000: Winter Assault. The violence starts just a couple minutes in and can take almost two hours to end. I play a couple hours a night, and the blood splattering wars waged on my PC make my heart squeal with glee. Once she witnesses that fun, Pac-Man won't even make it into her study...
Where in Japan? I was stationed in Okinawa for one year, and let me tell you, that was bad enough. If I had to spend the rest of my life there, I would commit suicide too.