Yeah, I'm sure the coal/oil/gas needed to run one of the numerous power stations in order to power an electric fridge manufactured in one of the many electronics fabrication plants in northern africa is MUCH more abundant than ordinary water.
Jackass.
Off topic - dreamhost down?
on
PC In An XP Box
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Does anyone know what the FUCK is going on with Dreamhost web hosting?
I have a number of client's sites hosted with them and none of their servers are responding to pinging or visible on tracert.
Anyone know what is happening? I have been scouring the web for info to no avail.
This is what I've always wanted for my less... um... public files. I would love to have one of these things stashed discreetly around my house, with the power switch easily accessible. That way, if there are any issues it's simply a matter of flicking a switch and anything incriminating/sensitive disappears from the network.
I would like to know what security this thing has, though. Would it be possible to use PGP or similar to encrypt the contents and thereby limit access only to certain physical computers with the appropriate keys?
Is anyone aware of any similar alternatives, other than laptops?
Um... presumably because, being external, part of the point of this is to move data between different PCs at will. Not all PCs have wireless, ergo, it is a good idea to have both options.
Well, if you asserting that Apple's formats are all open and DRM-free, then that's fine. Otherwise, this is a somewhat fatuous argument, and is the equivalent of saying that just because Henry Ford invented the production line it's fine if Ford now sells heroin to babies. If you're unaware of what the letters M-P-E-G stand for (hint: not 'a-p-p-l-e') then maybe you should look it up.
Sorry to disagree completely, but the 'invisible hand' of capitalism only works where certain conditions are met, such as:
- perfect information for consumers - perfect information for competitors - no barriers to entry (e.g. technology, setup costs, reputation)
As these are plainly unachievable, and as companies are clearly self-interested and would like nothing better than to keep a market as uncompetitive as possible, competition DOES NOT work properly. Because it does not work properly, it must be fixed. The way we fix it is to regulate it to prevent monopolies/oligopolies.
The auto industry is relatively competitive in some senses. The pharmaceuticals industry is not, and that is why Americans pay idiotic amounts for their drugs. The nuclear industry is an interesting one, because arguably it should not be 'competitive' at all - it's too dangerous, so it should be very tightly regulated or (shock horror) state controlled, a concept that most countries outside the USA still believe in to some extent.
By the way... using force is what banana republics do? I guess that's why the US has such a huge prison population and is constantly at war. Or is your little saying only applicable in the context of large, self-serving corporations?
"Apple is not a target because they don't have all the market share MS does"
This is exactly the point though - in competition law, if you have the market share, or more accurately market power, and you use it to crush the competition then that is viewed as bad for competition and ultimately bad for society because less competition = less efficient outcomes.
American and European law is quite similar to what we have here in Australia. Here the requirements for throwing the book at someone are:
1. You have substantial market power 2. You take advantage of your market power 3.... for a proscribed purpose, being: (a) seriously damaging a competitor (b) preventing entry of a competitor into a market (c) discouraging competition in a market
Note that 'a market' in part 3 doesn't have to be the market in which you have substantial market power, it can be a downstream market.
So the key question is really: could Microsoft do what they are doing without their market power? So, in comparison, if Apple bundles iTunes with OS-X using their OS sales, this doesn't really hurt third party media player manufacturers because they still have the option of selling their product in a range of other OS products, most importantly Windows. On the other hand, if MS does it, they are seriously going to harm companies like Real - if you are screwed by MS, you run out of options fast.
Apple is interesting though - I personally think that they are pretty much identical to MS in their behaviour on such things, so morally they are pretty well in the same boat. However, they aren't yet (and hopefully ever:P) powerful enough for it to seriously fuck up competition in the market through their actions.
I guess, to quote the crappiest comic book movie yet (Spiderman), "with great power comes great responsibility" would be an apt maxim at this point.
So what's your solution? How is any small to middle sized company ever going to break into the desktop media market? If I have a small startup company, how is my great new media player/web browser going to compete with a product that is installed by default on 90% of the earth's computers? How do I ensure websites carry data in my media format, when they can just as easily opt for an MS format that is guaranteed to work on 90% of computers?
Please give me a reasonable, believable explanation of how the above can take place without any form of government intervention.
They are too deeply in the pocket of big business and our 'most important ally' to do anything like protect the rights of their own citizens.
If the govt. won't act to rescue its own citizens from a cage in Guantanamo Bay where they are being held and tortured illegally in contravention of all international law precedent, we can't really expect them to care about our right to use things we legally own in ways we see fit, can we?
Additionally, there is a push by big business in Australia for the 'harmonisation' of our IP laws with the US of A, so you can forget about anything sane like these NZ laws ever happening.
I agree - I can't believe what a pos internet explorer is. I have never used it - I used to use Communicator/Navigator, then Opera, then Mozilla, now Firebird/fox. I would say IE now is as bad as Navigator 4, if not worse as it takes longer to load.
I tried Thunderbird for a few days last week... it was so riddled with bugs I found it unusable.
In particular: - massive problems moving/deleting nested mail folders - massive problems importing from another mail client (Eudora) - seems to crash sometimes for no apparent reason - crazy things happened with the preview pane all the time, like it would disappear at random or make itself really, really tiny and refuse to return to its former, big size - some options tied exclusively to a particular account - e.g. filters - making the mail-checking process less transparent if you have multiple/many e-mail accounts - seems to be trying to look a lot like Outlook, which is a shame and unnecessary
I wasn't looking for problems - I WANT to use it, and it has a lot of potential, but right now I'm not gonna use it myself and I couldn't in good conscience recommend it to any non-technical people.
I've been using FireFox for a few days and I must say that the old version of FireBird I have installed seems much nicer to me... I don't know what exactly, but there really aren't many improvements I can put my finger on, and FireFox seems to load a bit slower and have fewer options.
that Google no longer seems to search effectively for phrases longer than 2-3 words? I used to use Google by working out what I would post if I was anwering a question, then searching for that phrase - it was very, very effective for quickly finding very specific info. Now Google invariably returns 0 results for longer phrases.
I can't understand why it is necessary to mention that he used to use an Apple in the./ posting. I mean, is the implication that only Apple users are creative? That this somehow demonstrates how awesome Apple is? Surely there were other bits of information more relevant to the story that could have been placed in the summary.
To be honest I'm not that big a fan of D till D either... the first half is brilliant, the second half... well, there's such a thing as taking it too far.
Did you know Chuck Palhuniak (or however you spell it)'s father was killed by a random psycho serial-killer type? He was just abducted at random and murdered. Or that his grandfather shot his grandmother while young Chuck was present and then walked around the house calling for him to come out before killing himself when he couldn't find Chuck?
No-one can accuse that guy of being a poser, anyway.
"some people really really hated what it because on some level it made them question whether their lives were empty and meaningless which is the same reason why some people like it so much."
My feelings exactly. I feel that the moral, philosophical violence in FC is FAR more affronting to the average viewer than the fist fighting. However, due to the high level of physical violence, it seems most people simple associate the film with negative/confrontation feelings and assume it was because of the punching, not the nihilsm/fascism/rebirth concepts therein.
Another thing many, many people don't seem to appreciate is that the movie and the book are *not* advocating violence as a solution - our hero's moment of realisation when Bob is killed and subsequent attempts to stop project mayhem represent his attempt at redemption.
A fair point, and I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen the EE despite being told by several people that I would like it better. I will make a point of doing so, and I'm also waiting to see exactly what was cut from ROTK and how it might all hang together. Now I just need to find a spare 12 hours...
Um... that was kinda the POINT of the book. Our hero is leaping across the surface of some alien homeworld, encased in high-tech armour, thinking he's doing his duty and protecting the Earth when in fact it is made clear that he is annihilating and subjugating a foreign culture with little or no moral forethought. Earth then forces the defeated alien race to ally with us against the bugs, against whom we are also the aggressors.
For a book like this to be effective it is necessarily going to contain much that fascists would agree with. It would not be possible to ironically/satirically criticise a point of view without expressing that viewpoint in some form or other.
Still, we agree on one thing - Verhoven did a good job lampooning the fascist overtones in the book. I would argue, however, that he aimed to achieve the same end as the book, but took a different path to the author.
Ah, so torn - you loved Fight Club, yet hated Starship Troopers!
I know ST was a violent affront to the book, but I tend to view it thus: it was so different it was really not an adaptation at all. I mean, in the book they barely even fight any bugs. As a schlock sci-fi movie with a ridiculous budget, ST has got to be one of the most entertaining movies I've seen, however - kinda like From Dusk Till Dawn in space.
Speaking of Fight Club, am I insane? Why do so many people hate/dislike this movie? It *is* startlingly great, right? And as an adaptation of a book, it couldn't be better done. As the author said, he felt slightly foolish after he saw how good the movie was, he felt the book didn't do it justice.
Yeah, I'm sure a real actor scampered down a vertical rockface head first, jumped through the air with a rope around his neck only to have it jerked back violently before being slammed to the ground, and caught an actual fish in a stream using his bare hands, as well as actually plunging into a raging torrent of lava holding a magic ring. You fucking idiot.
In addition to which, motion capture is very coarse and doesn't capture muscle movement, skin movement, small changes in particular parts of the body, hair, etc. Furthermore, a human actor would have different weight distribution to a wiry, twisted, living skeleton-monster.
Hey, I'm not saying they did a bad job, some of it was frickin amazing, especially the scenery IMHO. I'm just saying that when I hear people talking about how CG actors/sets are now a functional replacement for real actors/sets I can't help but think of those little things I still notice. Elijah Wood may be a stumpy little man-boy, but I never thought "gee, his skin texture looks kinda unrealistic" or "no real man-boy would move like that."
Plus no-one ever thinks of all the unemployed puppets that CG is producing... Falcor and the cast of Labyrinth (except Bowie) are all queued up down at the unemployment office thanks to Weta.
Slashdot Mirror
Stealing = taking something with the intention of permenantly depriving its owner of possession
Copyright violation = making an unauthorised COPY of something
YOU CANNOT STEAL SOMETHING BY MAKING A COPY.
Because Apple will create a Brave New World, instead of Microsoft's 1984.
Yeah, I'm sure the coal/oil/gas needed to run one of the numerous power stations in order to power an electric fridge manufactured in one of the many electronics fabrication plants in northern africa is MUCH more abundant than ordinary water.
Jackass.
Does anyone know what the FUCK is going on with Dreamhost web hosting?
I have a number of client's sites hosted with them and none of their servers are responding to pinging or visible on tracert.
Anyone know what is happening? I have been scouring the web for info to no avail.
Does anyone know what the FUCK is going on with Dreamhost web hosting?
I have a number of client's sites hosted with them and none of their servers are responding to pinging or visible on tracert.
Anyone know what is happening? I have been scouring the web for info to no avail.
This is what I've always wanted for my less... um... public files. I would love to have one of these things stashed discreetly around my house, with the power switch easily accessible. That way, if there are any issues it's simply a matter of flicking a switch and anything incriminating/sensitive disappears from the network.
I would like to know what security this thing has, though. Would it be possible to use PGP or similar to encrypt the contents and thereby limit access only to certain physical computers with the appropriate keys?
Is anyone aware of any similar alternatives, other than laptops?
Um... presumably because, being external, part of the point of this is to move data between different PCs at will. Not all PCs have wireless, ergo, it is a good idea to have both options.
Well, if you asserting that Apple's formats are all open and DRM-free, then that's fine. Otherwise, this is a somewhat fatuous argument, and is the equivalent of saying that just because Henry Ford invented the production line it's fine if Ford now sells heroin to babies. If you're unaware of what the letters M-P-E-G stand for (hint: not 'a-p-p-l-e') then maybe you should look it up.
Sorry to disagree completely, but the 'invisible hand' of capitalism only works where certain conditions are met, such as:
- perfect information for consumers
- perfect information for competitors
- no barriers to entry (e.g. technology, setup costs, reputation)
As these are plainly unachievable, and as companies are clearly self-interested and would like nothing better than to keep a market as uncompetitive as possible, competition DOES NOT work properly. Because it does not work properly, it must be fixed. The way we fix it is to regulate it to prevent monopolies/oligopolies.
The auto industry is relatively competitive in some senses. The pharmaceuticals industry is not, and that is why Americans pay idiotic amounts for their drugs. The nuclear industry is an interesting one, because arguably it should not be 'competitive' at all - it's too dangerous, so it should be very tightly regulated or (shock horror) state controlled, a concept that most countries outside the USA still believe in to some extent.
By the way... using force is what banana republics do? I guess that's why the US has such a huge prison population and is constantly at war. Or is your little saying only applicable in the context of large, self-serving corporations?
"Apple is not a target because they don't have all the market share MS does"
... for a proscribed purpose, being:
:P) powerful enough for it to seriously fuck up competition in the market through their actions.
This is exactly the point though - in competition law, if you have the market share, or more accurately market power, and you use it to crush the competition then that is viewed as bad for competition and ultimately bad for society because less competition = less efficient outcomes.
American and European law is quite similar to what we have here in Australia. Here the requirements for throwing the book at someone are:
1. You have substantial market power
2. You take advantage of your market power
3.
(a) seriously damaging a competitor
(b) preventing entry of a competitor into a market
(c) discouraging competition in a market
Note that 'a market' in part 3 doesn't have to be the market in which you have substantial market power, it can be a downstream market.
So the key question is really: could Microsoft do what they are doing without their market power? So, in comparison, if Apple bundles iTunes with OS-X using their OS sales, this doesn't really hurt third party media player manufacturers because they still have the option of selling their product in a range of other OS products, most importantly Windows. On the other hand, if MS does it, they are seriously going to harm companies like Real - if you are screwed by MS, you run out of options fast.
Apple is interesting though - I personally think that they are pretty much identical to MS in their behaviour on such things, so morally they are pretty well in the same boat. However, they aren't yet (and hopefully ever
I guess, to quote the crappiest comic book movie yet (Spiderman), "with great power comes great responsibility" would be an apt maxim at this point.
So what's your solution? How is any small to middle sized company ever going to break into the desktop media market? If I have a small startup company, how is my great new media player/web browser going to compete with a product that is installed by default on 90% of the earth's computers? How do I ensure websites carry data in my media format, when they can just as easily opt for an MS format that is guaranteed to work on 90% of computers?
Please give me a reasonable, believable explanation of how the above can take place without any form of government intervention.
And I don't want my music in any format related to Quicktime.
Do you think uncle Steve will oblige, just because he's from a somewhat smaller, trendier company?
I am so sick of this 'Apple is the underdog' bs. WMA sucks. Apple's formats also suck in a number of ways, although perhaps not quite as many.
They are too deeply in the pocket of big business and our 'most important ally' to do anything like protect the rights of their own citizens.
If the govt. won't act to rescue its own citizens from a cage in Guantanamo Bay where they are being held and tortured illegally in contravention of all international law precedent, we can't really expect them to care about our right to use things we legally own in ways we see fit, can we?
Additionally, there is a push by big business in Australia for the 'harmonisation' of our IP laws with the US of A, so you can forget about anything sane like these NZ laws ever happening.
I agree - I can't believe what a pos internet explorer is. I have never used it - I used to use Communicator/Navigator, then Opera, then Mozilla, now Firebird/fox. I would say IE now is as bad as Navigator 4, if not worse as it takes longer to load.
How do the 90% who use it put up with such crap?
I tried Thunderbird for a few days last week... it was so riddled with bugs I found it unusable.
In particular:
- massive problems moving/deleting nested mail folders
- massive problems importing from another mail client (Eudora)
- seems to crash sometimes for no apparent reason
- crazy things happened with the preview pane all the time, like it would disappear at random or make itself really, really tiny and refuse to return to its former, big size
- some options tied exclusively to a particular account - e.g. filters - making the mail-checking process less transparent if you have multiple/many e-mail accounts
- seems to be trying to look a lot like Outlook, which is a shame and unnecessary
I wasn't looking for problems - I WANT to use it, and it has a lot of potential, but right now I'm not gonna use it myself and I couldn't in good conscience recommend it to any non-technical people.
I've been using FireFox for a few days and I must say that the old version of FireBird I have installed seems much nicer to me... I don't know what exactly, but there really aren't many improvements I can put my finger on, and FireFox seems to load a bit slower and have fewer options.
Maybe it's just my brain though...
that Google no longer seems to search effectively for phrases longer than 2-3 words? I used to use Google by working out what I would post if I was anwering a question, then searching for that phrase - it was very, very effective for quickly finding very specific info. Now Google invariably returns 0 results for longer phrases.
I can't understand why it is necessary to mention that he used to use an Apple in the ./ posting. I mean, is the implication that only Apple users are creative? That this somehow demonstrates how awesome Apple is? Surely there were other bits of information more relevant to the story that could have been placed in the summary.
The Apple conspiracy continues...
To be honest I'm not that big a fan of D till D either... the first half is brilliant, the second half... well, there's such a thing as taking it too far.
Did you know Chuck Palhuniak (or however you spell it)'s father was killed by a random psycho serial-killer type? He was just abducted at random and murdered. Or that his grandfather shot his grandmother while young Chuck was present and then walked around the house calling for him to come out before killing himself when he couldn't find Chuck?
No-one can accuse that guy of being a poser, anyway.
"some people really really hated what it because on some level it made them question whether their lives were empty and meaningless which is the same reason why some people like it so much."
My feelings exactly. I feel that the moral, philosophical violence in FC is FAR more affronting to the average viewer than the fist fighting. However, due to the high level of physical violence, it seems most people simple associate the film with negative/confrontation feelings and assume it was because of the punching, not the nihilsm/fascism/rebirth concepts therein.
Another thing many, many people don't seem to appreciate is that the movie and the book are *not* advocating violence as a solution - our hero's moment of realisation when Bob is killed and subsequent attempts to stop project mayhem represent his attempt at redemption.
A fair point, and I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen the EE despite being told by several people that I would like it better. I will make a point of doing so, and I'm also waiting to see exactly what was cut from ROTK and how it might all hang together. Now I just need to find a spare 12 hours...
Um... that was kinda the POINT of the book. Our hero is leaping across the surface of some alien homeworld, encased in high-tech armour, thinking he's doing his duty and protecting the Earth when in fact it is made clear that he is annihilating and subjugating a foreign culture with little or no moral forethought. Earth then forces the defeated alien race to ally with us against the bugs, against whom we are also the aggressors.
For a book like this to be effective it is necessarily going to contain much that fascists would agree with. It would not be possible to ironically/satirically criticise a point of view without expressing that viewpoint in some form or other.
Still, we agree on one thing - Verhoven did a good job lampooning the fascist overtones in the book. I would argue, however, that he aimed to achieve the same end as the book, but took a different path to the author.
Ah, so torn - you loved Fight Club, yet hated Starship Troopers!
I know ST was a violent affront to the book, but I tend to view it thus: it was so different it was really not an adaptation at all. I mean, in the book they barely even fight any bugs. As a schlock sci-fi movie with a ridiculous budget, ST has got to be one of the most entertaining movies I've seen, however - kinda like From Dusk Till Dawn in space.
Speaking of Fight Club, am I insane? Why do so many people hate/dislike this movie? It *is* startlingly great, right? And as an adaptation of a book, it couldn't be better done. As the author said, he felt slightly foolish after he saw how good the movie was, he felt the book didn't do it justice.
Yeah, I'm sure a real actor scampered down a vertical rockface head first, jumped through the air with a rope around his neck only to have it jerked back violently before being slammed to the ground, and caught an actual fish in a stream using his bare hands, as well as actually plunging into a raging torrent of lava holding a magic ring. You fucking idiot.
In addition to which, motion capture is very coarse and doesn't capture muscle movement, skin movement, small changes in particular parts of the body, hair, etc. Furthermore, a human actor would have different weight distribution to a wiry, twisted, living skeleton-monster.
Hey, I'm not saying they did a bad job, some of it was frickin amazing, especially the scenery IMHO. I'm just saying that when I hear people talking about how CG actors/sets are now a functional replacement for real actors/sets I can't help but think of those little things I still notice. Elijah Wood may be a stumpy little man-boy, but I never thought "gee, his skin texture looks kinda unrealistic" or "no real man-boy would move like that."
Plus no-one ever thinks of all the unemployed puppets that CG is producing... Falcor and the cast of Labyrinth (except Bowie) are all queued up down at the unemployment office thanks to Weta.