I work as a sysad at a Naval Air Station. We'll be switching to Win2k in another two months from NT 4.0.
You'd be surprised how much NT there still is out there, and in which places.
If it wasn't for MST3K, there would be no reason to turn to SciFi anymore
Stargate SG-1. IMO, as good a show as Farscape.
And for me, I enjoyed the Dune and Children of Dune miniseries (and I thought Children was better made than the Dune miniseries). And tomorrow night, they're showing their own movie version of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld. Alex Proyas of Dark City fame is directing it.
Sadly, much of SciFi's lineup is crap, but there are still gems that make it worth watching.
Can anyone who watches this tonight (No Sci-Fi in Canada) confirm that there is "To Be Continued" at the end?
Ok, just saw it on Sci Fi Channel here in America. Yes, there was a great big "To Be Continued" at the end. Rotten bastards - if they didn't plan to show series 5, then it wouldn't have been much for them to cut the last 60 seconds as you suggested, and the series would have had a satisfactory end. *sigh*
If you read the article, you find out the guy is a cop who got fired for selling drugs. So, I doubt he'd be much concerned with family values no matter what the circumstance.
And let us all hope that he doesn't pollute this world with offspring.
I haven't met many managers who seemed to retain much command of their liberal arts "skills" once they entered the workforce. Just give the H-1B imported managers a good wardrobe allowance, a copy of GQ, and train them to integrate the latest tech buzzwords into their daily conversation and presto! chango! - insta-Manager. No one will ever know the difference.
I don't know about many of you, but I find the comments praising $4/ hr. overseas tech labor and chiding "overpaid" laid-off American engineers from Slashdotters rather strange. I think I'm safe in assuming that most contributors making those comments also come from the States, so I wonder how much they value their own labor? Are they so much more 1337 than Sun engineers that the latter are only worth $4/ hr. but they themselves deserve every bit of their 5 or 6 digit salaries? And do you think they'd still sing the same song when their bosses tell them to take sweatshop wages or else they'll be replaced with H-1B's? I didn't think so.
Hypocrisy, if you ask me.
Whoever posted this story must have wanted Amazon to see their mistake and take action fast. A good/.'ing gets management's attention a lot faster than a letter from a concerned customer.
Why someone would want to do that is beyond me, unless they had Amazon stock or something like that.
I've got it, and after taking a while getting used to it - it is much different than MOO2 - it's really grown on me and I think it's a good game. It's got some flaws, or rather some things that I feel are clunky and unelegant (and will hopefully be addressed in a patch), but the sum of the parts works.
I was all set not to like the game due to the AI after the first few times the AI overruled something I ordered, but I have come to appreciate the role of the Viceroys. I've found that the game flows much faster and I am better able to concentrate on grand strategic planning because much of the necessary micromanagement is taken care of for me. The Viceroys do a competent job of making the best decisions on what DEAs to build and so forth and after some fiddling, I'm to the point where I know how to override them if I need to (which is rare). YMMV of course, but a problem I've always had in 4x games is getting lost in administrative details and losing the big picture. I like having the detail, though, so here MOO3 offers me a way to have it both ways. I really feel like the Emperor/President/whatever in this game.
I like the economic model and the way game handles colony development (the whole idea of economic regions is really cool). I think diplomacy is good too and generally it makes sense. I had read complaints on the usenet about erratic enemy empires, but I haven't had any instances of this. I have had empires out of the blue sending me messages to "stop my actions or else" for no seeming reason, but after further analysis, it seemed that I was getting messages like this from some empires the balance of power between me and them began to tip in my favor. Makes sense to me.
There are some things I wish could have been better addressed, like tactical ship combat, and some things that still mystify me, like star systems near my borders being turned into outposts and then colonies for me by the viceroy even though I have autocolonization off, but I'm happy with the game overall.
MOO3 is no simple updating of MOO2 to circa 2003 graphics and sound; it's a different game in fundamental ways. IMO, it's an improvement, though I think people wanting a MOO2 repeat will be disappointed.
This needs to be emphasized more. I have never in my entire life had dealings with a worse pack of surly incompetents than Deutsche Telekom. They are utterly unreliable and chances are you are going to get plenty of overcharged bills and dealing with their customer service is harrowing, even if you speak fluent German. The only positive thing I have to say about them is that I got a free DSL modem from them as part of a promotion.
I left Germany from the States in November and cancelled my phone and DSL service before I left. Yesterday in the mail I get a bill from them for February. Ah, Telekom.
You have to deal with them to get the DSL line, but you should look into getting a different ISP. Depending on where you live, there are other broadband ISPs. Since your e-mail address is af.mil, I'm betting that you're off to Ramstein. That's not so good, as the only other choice is AOL.de. You have to live in the bigger cities to have a choice.
I second igotmybfg's recommendation on cell phones - I had Vodafone D2 and was pleased with them. In fact, I like them better than my current US carrier, Verizon.
Sorry to say, but you'll be pining for your Cox.net cable broadband in no time.
So let's see, you're saying that DALnet won't be able to stop users from using their network for warez, but they'll leave anyway if DALnet tries?
If your idea holds, sounds like DALnet will be rid of the warez kiddies one way or the other.
Haven't others claimed this before? IIRC, a British telco tried this a year or so ago.
How on earth do they propose to collect on this? Shut down millions and millions of web sites? I'm getting this imagine of a corporate exec or lawyer rampaging around his office "You wanna mess with me?! I can shut down the INTERNET! Bwahahahahah!!"
Is this the latest in dodgy business models after the dot com crash - profit margin by lawyer?
When the sons and daughters of all those congresspeople join (I'm sure some of them will be on the Justice department's blacklist) we'll see some serious changes in short order.
Nah, it'll run just like drug convictions already do. If you get busted with drugs and your Dad's a judge or $political_party contributor, you're home in an hour with a "stern warning." If you're the progeny of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Nobody, you get 15-25.
). Remember that the US is part of the UN, and is _supposed_ to be able to rely on the UN for military assistance. That fact that we ignore the UN so often (think "World Court", or "not paying dues") and choose to get into wars that they do not support is part of our problem. Then again, perhaps that's part of what you meant by "our way of life"?
Are you really serious? Rwanda is a member of the UN too, but that did not save 800,000 Tutsis from being massacred by the Hutus despite advance warnings and pleas for help. In fact, if you dig into the record, the UN (deliberately, thanks to certain *cough* France *cough* member states) turned a deaf ear to the situation. Relying on the UN for military assistance is suicidal.
I've lived in Canada and The Netherlands. They're both "less priveleged" than the US (as is every other nation on Earth, according to the US:), and they're both great, despite (or due to?) having smaller militaries than the US.
Both of those states are NATO members are rely ultimately on the United States for their defense. They could not defend themselves without the US. That's how they pull that trick off.
Why should we assume that the US is going to fight them alone?
Because US allies with the exception of the UK lack the capability to even deploy their forces abroad. Also, they increasingly lack the ability to operate with US forces due to antiquated command, control and communications systems.
Why should the US have the forces necessary to fight multiple enemies constantly available rather than simply having the capacity to acquire them? Do you really think that the US will have zero time to prepare for the next war?
Because it takes a long time to acquire modern warfighting capability. Years. Modern wars proceed extremely quickly - "come as you are" wars since what you have on hand is what you fight with. The pace of warfare has gotten significantly faster than WW2.
Don't try to apply that type of thinking to the modern world. Instead, try thinking about what's _actually_ going on.
From the points you made, it seems you need to do a lot more informed thinking about modern military affairs.
The military has a recruitment mission and for this mission it gets millions and millions of dollars. Have you any clue on how much advertising costs? So now the Army decided to spend of those millions on a game as a recruiting tool instead of lame Army of One and Be All You Can Be commercials. Pretty smart move, I think. It's not like that money was in a pot that was otherwise going to fund school lunches or something like that.
I meen it's just a recruiting tool isn't it?
Recruiting is a pretty good use, certainly from the Army's point of view. Hard to fight wars if you don't have any soldiers.
Actually, this being a democracy, it is the "fucking business" of people to decide to promote some forms of transit over others. And it makes sense too, to promote healthier living over non-healthy living. Sorry you have such a problem with it. Burn on.
"We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - The Declaration of Independence
Sorry you have such a problem with it. Burn on.
The operator was driving down the street at night.
No lights. No reflectors. Grey vehicle out in traffic and no helmet on operator.
Yeah, but SF is banning them from the sidewalks, not the streets. Now traffic is the only place for them to go in SF (rather daft considering they can only go about 12 mph, but this is SF...).
Where do you get that idea? Not only haven't they gone down in the past 30 years, they've gone rather upward. Low launch costs would make NASA irrelevant as anyone with a few million (instead of a many billion) dollars could go do their own thing.
It's true that launch costs haven't gone down in the past 30 years; it is not NASA's fault that this is so. Who do you think designs, builds and markets the rockets that put things in space? It's not NASA, I'll tell you that. The fault, at least according to Dr. Robert Zubrin, lies with the management of Lockheed-Martin and other very large aerospace corporations who wish to retain their oligopoly on space launch (he makes a good case for it in Entering Space).
I also doubt it would make NASA obsolete, just as affordable terrestial transportation has not made the FAA, NOAA, and several other government agencies involved in transport and research obsolete. NASA's role would evolve, and private industry would still rely on basic research conducted by NASA (and participate in such research with NASA), just as the aircraft industry does today with NASA (remember, the "aero" part of "aerospace" in NASA).
I think you misunderstand NASA's role in space and its relations with private industry and academia. That a lot of industry is even interested in space is thanks to NASA's handing out big money contracts for space-related work.
anything i say that criticises the american propensity to overeat and underexercise can only be constructive.
No, if you talk outright nonsense then it's not constructive, and thus better off not said. Things like -
there is an epidemic in the us of obesity. having efficient transportation that competes with efficient walking= making you fat... diabetes is the problem. the best way to get to the post office is WALKING. the segway is an extension of the american propensity to underexercise. end of friggin' story.
I have news for you: if you're obese (and you indicated you are), walking to the post office, even if several times every day, isn't going to cure that problem. You need to change your diet and do serious exercise, i.e. hitting the gym and taking up running or similar kinds of aerobic exercise.
I know a lot of people who do very little walking to get to the places they need to go in life (and for most Americans, that's not really an option anyway, given the sprawl of American towns and cities) yet they manage to exercise and eat well. Using a vehicle and staying fit and healthy aren't mutually exclusive, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can stop posting nonsense to Slashdot.
Connections (and Connections 2) can still be seen on the Science Channel, which is a Discovery/TLC offering that I get here on Cox digital cable. It's great.
But don't slam Junkyard Wars, it's a brilliant idea and a great show and definitely in a different league than the Robot Wars type shows (not to mention things like Trading Spaces).
Putting soldiers on a college campus that had little history of violent action may not be premeditated murder but it is premeditated stupidity, which when added to people being killed is usually called manslaughter. There was no riot at Kent State that needed to be controlled that day, and soldiers were the wrong people to be controlling a riot anyways.
Well, those soldiers were from the Ohio National Guard, and as it happens, riot control is a mission of the National Guard. National Guard soldiers are trained annually in "civil disturbance training" and most NG units also have appropriate equipment for this (batons, plexiglass face shields that fit on to helmets, etc.). I don't know if you've ever been to Kent, but it is small and only big cities have actual riot police. All other places get the NG.
Although I believe that the situation was a terrible cock-up, I am not surprised they were deployed. There was an ongoing riot as a matter of fact, it was violent and there was certainly plenty of precedent for violent riots in the years prior to Kent State. Don't forget that two days before, the ROTC building was set afire and fire department equipment was sabotaged so that the blaze couldn't be put out; the previous day, protestors and the Guard clashed with injuries on both sides, and the day of incident protestors rained rocks on the Guard. I am not justifying the Guard firing on the protestors, but I can see how it came to pass.
In any case, in those days NG units didn't have the appropriate equipment for the mission and Kent State lead to changes in how the NG is trained and equipped for the mission.
Slashdot Mirror
I work as a sysad at a Naval Air Station. We'll be switching to Win2k in another two months from NT 4.0.
You'd be surprised how much NT there still is out there, and in which places.
"I don't like SG 1. It annoys me." This gets modded up to +5 Insightful? What am I missing here?
If it wasn't for MST3K, there would be no reason to turn to SciFi anymore
Stargate SG-1. IMO, as good a show as Farscape.
And for me, I enjoyed the Dune and Children of Dune miniseries (and I thought Children was better made than the Dune miniseries). And tomorrow night, they're showing their own movie version of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld. Alex Proyas of Dark City fame is directing it.
Sadly, much of SciFi's lineup is crap, but there are still gems that make it worth watching.
Can anyone who watches this tonight (No Sci-Fi in Canada) confirm that there is "To Be Continued" at the end?
Ok, just saw it on Sci Fi Channel here in America. Yes, there was a great big "To Be Continued" at the end. Rotten bastards - if they didn't plan to show series 5, then it wouldn't have been much for them to cut the last 60 seconds as you suggested, and the series would have had a satisfactory end. *sigh*
If you read the article, you find out the guy is a cop who got fired for selling drugs. So, I doubt he'd be much concerned with family values no matter what the circumstance.
And let us all hope that he doesn't pollute this world with offspring.
I haven't met many managers who seemed to retain much command of their liberal arts "skills" once they entered the workforce. Just give the H-1B imported managers a good wardrobe allowance, a copy of GQ, and train them to integrate the latest tech buzzwords into their daily conversation and presto! chango! - insta-Manager. No one will ever know the difference.
I don't know about many of you, but I find the comments praising $4/ hr. overseas tech labor and chiding "overpaid" laid-off American engineers from Slashdotters rather strange. I think I'm safe in assuming that most contributors making those comments also come from the States, so I wonder how much they value their own labor? Are they so much more 1337 than Sun engineers that the latter are only worth $4/ hr. but they themselves deserve every bit of their 5 or 6 digit salaries? And do you think they'd still sing the same song when their bosses tell them to take sweatshop wages or else they'll be replaced with H-1B's? I didn't think so.
Hypocrisy, if you ask me.
Wow...some programmer has his balls in the vice for that one.
You mean data entry clerk.
Whoever posted this story must have wanted Amazon to see their mistake and take action fast. A good /.'ing gets management's attention a lot faster than a letter from a concerned customer.
Why someone would want to do that is beyond me, unless they had Amazon stock or something like that.
I've got it, and after taking a while getting used to it - it is much different than MOO2 - it's really grown on me and I think it's a good game. It's got some flaws, or rather some things that I feel are clunky and unelegant (and will hopefully be addressed in a patch), but the sum of the parts works.
I was all set not to like the game due to the AI after the first few times the AI overruled something I ordered, but I have come to appreciate the role of the Viceroys. I've found that the game flows much faster and I am better able to concentrate on grand strategic planning because much of the necessary micromanagement is taken care of for me. The Viceroys do a competent job of making the best decisions on what DEAs to build and so forth and after some fiddling, I'm to the point where I know how to override them if I need to (which is rare). YMMV of course, but a problem I've always had in 4x games is getting lost in administrative details and losing the big picture. I like having the detail, though, so here MOO3 offers me a way to have it both ways. I really feel like the Emperor/President/whatever in this game.
I like the economic model and the way game handles colony development (the whole idea of economic regions is really cool). I think diplomacy is good too and generally it makes sense. I had read complaints on the usenet about erratic enemy empires, but I haven't had any instances of this. I have had empires out of the blue sending me messages to "stop my actions or else" for no seeming reason, but after further analysis, it seemed that I was getting messages like this from some empires the balance of power between me and them began to tip in my favor. Makes sense to me.
There are some things I wish could have been better addressed, like tactical ship combat, and some things that still mystify me, like star systems near my borders being turned into outposts and then colonies for me by the viceroy even though I have autocolonization off, but I'm happy with the game overall.
MOO3 is no simple updating of MOO2 to circa 2003 graphics and sound; it's a different game in fundamental ways. IMO, it's an improvement, though I think people wanting a MOO2 repeat will be disappointed.
This needs to be emphasized more. I have never in my entire life had dealings with a worse pack of surly incompetents than Deutsche Telekom. They are utterly unreliable and chances are you are going to get plenty of overcharged bills and dealing with their customer service is harrowing, even if you speak fluent German. The only positive thing I have to say about them is that I got a free DSL modem from them as part of a promotion.
I left Germany from the States in November and cancelled my phone and DSL service before I left. Yesterday in the mail I get a bill from them for February. Ah, Telekom.
You have to deal with them to get the DSL line, but you should look into getting a different ISP. Depending on where you live, there are other broadband ISPs. Since your e-mail address is af.mil, I'm betting that you're off to Ramstein. That's not so good, as the only other choice is AOL.de. You have to live in the bigger cities to have a choice.
I second igotmybfg's recommendation on cell phones - I had Vodafone D2 and was pleased with them. In fact, I like them better than my current US carrier, Verizon.
Sorry to say, but you'll be pining for your Cox.net cable broadband in no time.
So let's see, you're saying that DALnet won't be able to stop users from using their network for warez, but they'll leave anyway if DALnet tries?
If your idea holds, sounds like DALnet will be rid of the warez kiddies one way or the other.
Haven't others claimed this before? IIRC, a British telco tried this a year or so ago.
How on earth do they propose to collect on this? Shut down millions and millions of web sites? I'm getting this imagine of a corporate exec or lawyer rampaging around his office "You wanna mess with me?! I can shut down the INTERNET! Bwahahahahah!!"
Is this the latest in dodgy business models after the dot com crash - profit margin by lawyer?
When the sons and daughters of all those congresspeople join (I'm sure some of them will be on the Justice department's blacklist) we'll see some serious changes in short order.
Nah, it'll run just like drug convictions already do. If you get busted with drugs and your Dad's a judge or $political_party contributor, you're home in an hour with a "stern warning." If you're the progeny of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Nobody, you get 15-25.
). Remember that the US is part of the UN, and is _supposed_ to be able to rely on the UN for military assistance. That fact that we ignore the UN so often (think "World Court", or "not paying dues") and choose to get into wars that they do not support is part of our problem. Then again, perhaps that's part of what you meant by "our way of life"? :), and they're both great, despite (or due to?) having smaller militaries than the US.
Are you really serious? Rwanda is a member of the UN too, but that did not save 800,000 Tutsis from being massacred by the Hutus despite advance warnings and pleas for help. In fact, if you dig into the record, the UN (deliberately, thanks to certain *cough* France *cough* member states) turned a deaf ear to the situation. Relying on the UN for military assistance is suicidal.
I've lived in Canada and The Netherlands. They're both "less priveleged" than the US (as is every other nation on Earth, according to the US
Both of those states are NATO members are rely ultimately on the United States for their defense. They could not defend themselves without the US. That's how they pull that trick off.
Why should we assume that the US is going to fight them alone?
Because US allies with the exception of the UK lack the capability to even deploy their forces abroad. Also, they increasingly lack the ability to operate with US forces due to antiquated command, control and communications systems.
Why should the US have the forces necessary to fight multiple enemies constantly available rather than simply having the capacity to acquire them? Do you really think that the US will have zero time to prepare for the next war?
Because it takes a long time to acquire modern warfighting capability. Years. Modern wars proceed extremely quickly - "come as you are" wars since what you have on hand is what you fight with. The pace of warfare has gotten significantly faster than WW2.
Don't try to apply that type of thinking to the modern world. Instead, try thinking about what's _actually_ going on.
From the points you made, it seems you need to do a lot more informed thinking about modern military affairs.
War is bad. It makes Baby Jeebus cry. Film at 11.
Honestly, why does stuff like this get marked up as "insightful?" Good grief.
The military has a recruitment mission and for this mission it gets millions and millions of dollars. Have you any clue on how much advertising costs? So now the Army decided to spend of those millions on a game as a recruiting tool instead of lame Army of One and Be All You Can Be commercials. Pretty smart move, I think. It's not like that money was in a pot that was otherwise going to fund school lunches or something like that.
I meen it's just a recruiting tool isn't it?
Recruiting is a pretty good use, certainly from the Army's point of view. Hard to fight wars if you don't have any soldiers.
Actually, this being a democracy, it is the "fucking business" of people to decide to promote some forms of transit over others. And it makes sense too, to promote healthier living over non-healthy living. Sorry you have such a problem with it. Burn on.
"We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - The Declaration of Independence
Sorry you have such a problem with it. Burn on.
The operator was driving down the street at night. No lights. No reflectors. Grey vehicle out in traffic and no helmet on operator.
Yeah, but SF is banning them from the sidewalks, not the streets. Now traffic is the only place for them to go in SF (rather daft considering they can only go about 12 mph, but this is SF...).
I guess you'll be taking your Linux gaming business elsewhere then, eh?
Oh wait...
Where do you get that idea? Not only haven't they gone down in the past 30 years, they've gone rather upward. Low launch costs would make NASA irrelevant as anyone with a few million (instead of a many billion) dollars could go do their own thing.
It's true that launch costs haven't gone down in the past 30 years; it is not NASA's fault that this is so. Who do you think designs, builds and markets the rockets that put things in space? It's not NASA, I'll tell you that. The fault, at least according to Dr. Robert Zubrin, lies with the management of Lockheed-Martin and other very large aerospace corporations who wish to retain their oligopoly on space launch (he makes a good case for it in Entering Space).
I also doubt it would make NASA obsolete, just as affordable terrestial transportation has not made the FAA, NOAA, and several other government agencies involved in transport and research obsolete. NASA's role would evolve, and private industry would still rely on basic research conducted by NASA (and participate in such research with NASA), just as the aircraft industry does today with NASA (remember, the "aero" part of "aerospace" in NASA).
I think you misunderstand NASA's role in space and its relations with private industry and academia. That a lot of industry is even interested in space is thanks to NASA's handing out big money contracts for space-related work.
anything i say that criticises the american propensity to overeat and underexercise can only be constructive.
No, if you talk outright nonsense then it's not constructive, and thus better off not said. Things like -
there is an epidemic in the us of obesity. having efficient transportation that competes with efficient walking= making you fat... diabetes is the problem. the best way to get to the post office is WALKING. the segway is an extension of the american propensity to underexercise. end of friggin' story.
I have news for you: if you're obese (and you indicated you are), walking to the post office, even if several times every day, isn't going to cure that problem. You need to change your diet and do serious exercise, i.e. hitting the gym and taking up running or similar kinds of aerobic exercise.
I know a lot of people who do very little walking to get to the places they need to go in life (and for most Americans, that's not really an option anyway, given the sprawl of American towns and cities) yet they manage to exercise and eat well. Using a vehicle and staying fit and healthy aren't mutually exclusive, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can stop posting nonsense to Slashdot.
Connections (and Connections 2) can still be seen on the Science Channel, which is a Discovery/TLC offering that I get here on Cox digital cable. It's great.
But don't slam Junkyard Wars, it's a brilliant idea and a great show and definitely in a different league than the Robot Wars type shows (not to mention things like Trading Spaces).
Putting soldiers on a college campus that had little history of violent action may not be premeditated murder but it is premeditated stupidity, which when added to people being killed is usually called manslaughter. There was no riot at Kent State that needed to be controlled that day, and soldiers were the wrong people to be controlling a riot anyways.
Well, those soldiers were from the Ohio National Guard, and as it happens, riot control is a mission of the National Guard. National Guard soldiers are trained annually in "civil disturbance training" and most NG units also have appropriate equipment for this (batons, plexiglass face shields that fit on to helmets, etc.). I don't know if you've ever been to Kent, but it is small and only big cities have actual riot police. All other places get the NG.
Although I believe that the situation was a terrible cock-up, I am not surprised they were deployed. There was an ongoing riot as a matter of fact, it was violent and there was certainly plenty of precedent for violent riots in the years prior to Kent State. Don't forget that two days before, the ROTC building was set afire and fire department equipment was sabotaged so that the blaze couldn't be put out; the previous day, protestors and the Guard clashed with injuries on both sides, and the day of incident protestors rained rocks on the Guard. I am not justifying the Guard firing on the protestors, but I can see how it came to pass.
In any case, in those days NG units didn't have the appropriate equipment for the mission and Kent State lead to changes in how the NG is trained and equipped for the mission.