But I'd wager the lions share of it's user base want samba to replace/supplement Win2k Server, and soon Win2003.
Actually, no- I'd rather have cross-platform file locking. Correct me if things have changed since 2000 when samba and netatalk developers were "thinking" about this problem, but...
It is a HUGE problem that netatalk, Samba, NFS, and the system itself don't share common file-locking, and some file-based applications like Visual Source Safe(still used by many shops) -require- file locks be across all the shares; if you don't have it, you run a serious chance of screwing things up.
WinNT/Win2k with Services for Macintosh is the only server I know of capable of cross-platform locking, and that is pathetic...
A reciprocating piston engine generates maximum combustion chamber pressure when the angle of the crankshaft is least effective.
That's -sort of- correct, but the diagram is VERY misleading; it's implied that compression = the explosion. and worse, that the instant you start the explosion, you get all your power, which is simply not true.
In a reciprocating piston engine, combustion is far from instantaneous. It's called the flame front speed, and it varies with compression, air/fuel mixture ratio, the fuel itself, air/fuel temperature, and combustion chamber design...for starters. At the speeds engines work at, believe it or not, this speed is actually -very- important...and to boot, higher compression equals more power; sports cars usually have pretty high compression ratios(and as a result require higher octane gas so the air/fuel mixture doesn't preignite, since the more you compress something, the hotter it gets.)
The consequence it that right off the bat, their first diagram is wrong; it implies that all the energy is released into a system positioned so that it can't use most of the power it just made because of the alignment of the components, namely the connecting rod(the rod that connects the piston to the crankshaft). Trust me, engine designers are NOT that stupid! Countless hours are spent on designing just the shape of the combustion chamber to get the right flame propagation etc.
If we get hydrogen as fuel source I'm all for sticking in a normal engine.
...the problem with hydrogen is that overall, it is not the slightest bit cleaner. It's cleaner to BURN, but to make it, the current popular proposal is to make it from, guess what, petroleum or natural gas. You just lost, best case, half the argument for alternative energy- ALTERNATIVE:-) Worst case, you're creating just as much pollution because, say, it turns out the cheapest/easiest way to make hydrogen involves all sorts of pollution, either from the stuff you don't need anymore(carbon atoms) or stuff used as a catalyst.
The only clean way, that I know of, to make hydrogen, is by cracking water- but that takes enormous amounts of energy, which COULD come from wind, solar, wave-action, etc...but because it requires -so much power-, it's not practical. Alternative energy solutions produce very little power, and hydrogen takes enormous amounts of power to make. That's a horrible combination.
There's also the massive public perception problem- despite hydrogen requireing a heavier concentration than gasoline to ignite, dispersing almost instantly(whereas gasoline sinks and pools), safer to store(the cylinders are far more durable than most gasoline tanks. Sure, we could all be using racing fuel-cells with internal bladders, but...) and NOT being the cause of the Hindenberg fire(it was the paint; notice all the yellow, sooty flame? Hydrogen burns nearly invisibly, and 100% cleanly)...the public still says "Hindenberg!" when you say "Hydrogen".
If a hydrogen tanker truck flipped over and broke open, you'd have a massive spill that evaporated almost instantly, and some people might die from getting frozen to death(think the scene in Goldeneye)- but it would simply, and VERY quickly, dissappear up into the atmosphere. Gasoline sticks around and becomes a significant health, fire, and ecological hazard.
Returning to your final comment about Apple, their strategy of releasing two different OS's for desktop and server is a marketing decision, not a technical one.
Oh for chrissakes...no, it's not just marketing. For example, system updates are released entirely separately for OS X client and server- and often contain drastically different updates. The server updates come almost always after the client updates, and rarely have I heard of the server updates causing nearly as many problems as the client side updates.
Don't be stupid. Server operating systems and desktop operating systems are similar. The fundamentals are the same. The differences are in the fine tuning.
...and believe it or not, that "fine tuning" is a little more complex than "picking which set of packages to install" and "how we market it". Novell is, in fact, the perfect example of the power of a ground-up, purpose-built server platform. Linux's weakness is that it has NO equivalent; your precious Debian has no core, ground-up focus on being a server distro and ONLY a server distro.
Case and point- there simply isn't a way to use Novell as a desktop operating system(at least, it's not as easy on any other OS). It is ONLY for serving, and as a result, has a clear path in all regards, from development, to QA, to marketing. Do one thing, do it well.
Having had a coworker who was a professional locksmith, I can say that absolutely everything you said is wrong. Point by point:
tumbler locks only have 10 height levels at most
Wrong. They have many, many possible height levels. They are completely analog devices. Any locksmith should be able to make pins that are whatever height he wants, completely analog. Its not just like they have a box of pins, only available in 10 different lengths.
Less secure tumbler locks will allow each individual tumbler to move independantly of the rest.
Wrong. All(that I know of) tumbler locks allow individual tumblers to move independently, otherwise you wouldn't be able to insert or remove the key(duuuh.)
oh and most locks also have a master key that will work on every lock of that type, not just the specific tumbler combination given to your door specifically.
Again, WRONG. Only if the key is set up with several separate pins in each tumbler. Otherwise, there is only ONE position where all the pins will clear.
It is simply amazing how such a simple, very plain and ordinary device is completely misunderstood and given an almost magical status. Locks are VERY simple devices. Even picking them isn't rocket science, just methodical and you need a ton of practice. Most of the tricks used by lock-pickers are very obvious once you see how a lock works.
They should just rename it "TransAm", its the same thing anyways
Or, how about what the automotive world refers to the Firebird as(screaming/flaming chicken car), with a Mozilla twist?
I can see it now: "Screaming Dinosaur 7.0! Now featuring the Mullet theme, complete with AC/DC background music. Cinderblocks available as add-on module(please note, Cinderblock module disables browser completely, installs junk on your desktop)"
Well, okay, you've got to have OS X Server to get that one, but if you don't want to even run OS X Server, guess what? Darwin streaming server is both open source and runs on Linux, Solaris, OS X(server or regular, 10.1.x or better), AND WINDOWS(both win2k and NT).
If -that- isn't good enough for you, there's no shortage of MP3 streaming servers. If THAT isn't good enough, there's ogg-vorbis.
Something smells, folks. MS -bought- their way into this one, probably via strong-arming or simply bribing with free hardware+licenses. By the way, PBS dropped Quicktime recently too.
I agree, but realize Novell had a lot of things going for it:
They tightly controlled what was Novell certified, and what wasn't. Admins didn't buy hardware unless it had that little red sticker on it that said "Novell Certified". When you limit the subset of hardware and software, you make QA infinitely easier, and your operating system's reputation isn't tarnished by some guy selling video cards out of the back of his truck that cause novell servers to die(people constantly confuse OS reliability with hardware stability). It isn't just simplifying your hardware/software base though- Apple had(well, ok, still does, to some extent) this theory, except that the quality of code and QA -before releases went out the door- was piss-poor; even today it's pretty bad; case and point would be 10.2.5, which is reputed to be causing a lot of kernel panics related to USB. They have the same problem with hardware- almost everything they ship is defective in at least a half dozen ways(some of them minor, some of them very much not so.)
Novell never had to worry about making a desktop OS; in the server world, #1 priority is reliability, and so you don't have to worry about adding the latest this-or-that. Servers are simpler than desktops; they're asked to do a limited number of things, comparatively, but just do it on a big scale. It's like the difference between -most- Linux distros, and OS's like OpenBSD; do one thing(network/serving) and do it well. The big boys(and even the little guys) only cared about keeping their fileserver up 24x7x365. Novell could do that exceptionally well. Remember, you can't make everyone happy all of the time, so why bother trying? I wish linux distros would grow up and find their market segments instead of trying for everything. Even Apple has recognized the need for separate desktop and server "distros".
Network services back in Novell's hayday were a hell of a lot simpler than they are today. It used to be all you really had to handle was logins to the network from a workstation, printing, and filesharing, and chances are you could do it with a limited amount of hardware. That was it. Nowadays, networks are far, far more complicated and decentralized, AND at the same time you've got people who want to run a NATing gateway, print server, SMB, mail, web...and slice their veggies, all with one box.
"Anyone except me that see the irony in the fact that those who wrote the paper Defending against an internet-based attack on the physical world displays their physichal world location on the top of the paper?"
Whoa, lay off the sauce, bub. In your current condition, I think you'd get about 2 blocks before you smacked your car into a tree. Just to be safe though, please give your keyboard+mouse to a designated Slashdot Reader? We wouldn't want you to bash up your car(ma).
Pardon while I run for cover due to the atrocious pun in the last sentence.
Why every time something new comes out, there are people who propose halting it until the most fantastic claims are investigated. If this sort of stop-now/ask-questions-forever approach becomes law, it'll bog down all R&D for all time, and ruin the world economy simultaneously.
...maybe because people with technological know-how are supremely arrogant(thinking they know all possible outcomes, have perfectly engineered something, there's no downside, it won't interact funny with something else, etc.) and either the consequenes of their technology don't occur to them, or they do, and they go ahead anyway.
DDT, Asbestos, PCBs, Nuclear ANYTHING, most bioengineering(especially with foods), most chemical engineering...all of it is plauged with problems and enormous consequences nobody thought of. There are, in fact, few scientific "advances" that haven't caused numerous other problems. Look at computers- they are INCREDIBLY toxic to make, and it's even worse when they get disposed of.
It's kinda funny, but the Japanese, who have usually been one step ahead of us technology-wise, are one step ahead of us in the department of "technology ethics", if you want to call that. Remember Godzilla? Remember what would make him mad? The Japanese, for at least 50 years, have had it pounded into them that technology often has serious consequences.
Americans, meanwhile, go "OOOOh, SHINY! [KA-CHING!]"
Proponents of nanotech dismiss the meta-study as nonsense
"DDT is perfectly safe"(films in the '50s show kids, sitting at picnic tables, getting fogged with DDT, grinning ear to ear. DDT is later shown to cause all manner of health problems)
"PCBs won't cause widescale pollution" (PCBs found to migrate in wildlife half-way across the globe from a single source)
"Nuclear power is completely safe."(3-mile island, Chernobyl, and countless accidents of one kind or another at US facilities, not to mention millions of tons of deadly radioactive waste that we still haven't figured out what to do with. Don't even get me started on the secretive testing they did on mental institution patients.)
"MBTE is a great way to meet emissions goals!"(too bad it pollutes the water table faster than you can say 'aquifer', and is a known carcinogen. Next time you fill up, look for that nice little "this gas may contain MTBE" sticker. Do a search on "MTBE health hazards" on google some time. That electric car looking better all of the sudden?)
"Asbestos is a great material to use in brake pads, clutches, fire curtains in theaters, insultation on pipes..." (asbestos is now 100% proven to cause lung cancer)
"Lobotomies are a great way to cure mental illness"
Oh, and the greatest of them all, "Cigarettes don't cause cancer." Let's throw in alcohol, too, since both are poisons(and, as a whole, people can't seem to handle alcohol responsibly- I'd be surprised if the death count from alcohol-related deaths isn't higher than cigarettes.)
That's just a small sampling of some of the gems that have come from both the scientific community and industry, often both. Why should we trust them now? These days, you should be forced to prove your product is safe, since time after time scientists and industry have proven themselves incapable of putting safety in front of "progress" and financial interests.
Yeah, convenient how you can't see the parents who decided to have children which they couldn't feed. You see starving kids? Blame the parents.
Hey I live in this poor African country with AIDS epidemics and live in starvation conditions.
Hey, you happen to be so poor you have to sell your body to be able to feed yourself, because your country has no education system to speak of so you're not qualified to do anything else.
Since you can't afford birth control...surprise, you end up with kids.
By the way- not everyone who got pregnant did so by choice, and I'm not talking about the young 20-something newlywed who giggles "oops" to her hubby in their shiny new 3-bedroom suburbian home. I'm talking about the women who are raped, en masse, in third world countries, by gun-toting "rebels", government troops...hell, raped by plain ordinary sick guys.
Your viewpoint is about as sick as those who refused to spend money on protecting people from AIDS and such. The opinion, at one time, was "well, they're GAY, they do that gross stuff, good, LET them DIE, that'll solve the problem!"
Personally, I find the same anti-space-exploration arguments being repeated for every single article discussing space-exploration to be a bit depressing and redundant with each other. "Why?" is certainly a good question, but when people ask it OVER and OVER again, while covering their ears when someone replies, that's just irritating.
The reason we keep asking the question is because we keep getting, from supposedly intelligent, thoughtful people...answers like "because it's there".
If YOU want to go to space, be my damn guest. I'll cheer you on and when you make it, I'll say "good for them!" Don't use MY tax dollars until we've solved the problems taxes are supposed to be used for- helping society.
If we constantly forget about the big picture and devote 100% of our resources to fighting short-term problems, we piss our children off (and maybe go extinct).
I hardly consider "world hunger" a short-term problem. Furthermore, have you looked at the population stats? We're all going to be busy supporting our parents in another 20 years, because among other things, we haven't been doing a very good job of supporting social security. We've been buying all the nice shiny toys, but not saving up for the future you speak so fondly of.
Yes those are problems, but they are FAR from major. Radiation can be shielded against (Water does that well).
Check again- the radiation that's a problem in space takes enormous amounts of lead and concrete to stop; space is full of very high energy radiation, which isn't THAT much of a problem where the space station is thanks to the Earth's Van Allen belt. Once you get away from Earth, any space ship you send out is going to turn into one of those stove-top popcorn things, right down to the shiny tin foil.
As to why we are going to mars, there are lots of GREAT reasons. Here area few: # Because it is there.
That is far from good reasoning for the expenditure of trillions of dollars.
# To further develop our manned space craft, so that eventually we will know enough to get a ship to Alpha Centauri.
...and Alpha Centauri gets us WHAT? Hello, pay attention here please.
# To further develop our medical science so that we no longer have ANY problem with space travel.
How about developing medical science to help people back here at home? Not 'sexy' enough? Maybe that's why we have an over-abundance of specialist doctors, and a lack of general practitioners and nurses. Again, take care of people HERE first(here's a thought- instead of saying "space will help us advance medical science", how about "better medical science will help us explore space"?)
# To pay the smart people a ton of money to build something positive, instead of having them be unemployed and jobless when the terrorist asks them to use their rocket science to build something.
News flash - maybe all those smart people can build things like affordable water treatment and evironmentally-friendly/affordable power generation, figure out ways to control a skyrocketing population...the third world is poised, if not in, the same position the "industrialized" world was in a hundred+ years ago. Ever seen the graphs of greenhouse gasses? BIG spike from when England and the US went "industrialized". It would be nice if we didn't go through that again(ie, put the last 100+ years of science and technology towards helping these people so they don't destroy the planet in a few dozen years.)
#To give money to SMART people letting them leave lesser jobs. Where upon, slighlty less smart people will be hired to fill those jobs, (after they quit their old jobs - so even less capable people are hired to fill those old jobs etc. etc. etc) Trickle down does work when you are talking about JOBS, (as opposed to money.)
We have serious budget problems right now. We can't even get enough books in some schools. If we can't educate our frigging children, where are all these "smart" people going to come from? Furthermore, why are only "smart" people deserving of jobs, happiness, wealth, etc?
You see, when you spend money on a Science project, the money is spent on EARTH, even if the science is off Earth. This means you are WRONG, trips to mars DOES feed, clothe and house people and it DOES work it's way down to the guy on 32nd and Main under a box, if he is at least willing to try and work.
Except because of our crumbling education system, he's not going to be "smart" enough for to work on your space toys. In any case, this is called "trickle down economics", and it's mainly used by people who are filthy rich, to justify their filthy-rich lifestyle by basically saying "but, look at all the pool-boys I employ!"
Mars is a good target because it is just barely within our reach. Once we get there, then we can try for the moons of Jupiter. After that Pluto. Then Alpha Centauri here we come!
You're romanticizing space travel again- you're justifying it by saying "because it's there." That is not sufficient justification for re-altering the priorities and resources of a society.
The Washington Times is reporting that the US and Russia (and the Europeans are mentioned too) are planning for an eventual manned Mars trip.
Has anyone solved the "lethal radiation that will kill everyone aboard long before they get there" problem yet? Or the problems with the human body breaking down after extended weighlessness? Or of simply putting any more than 1 person in the same place for more than a month or two and not kill each other? Unlike the space station, if someone's causing a ruckus, you can't just haul the person out...and to make matters worse, everyone, including any potential troublemakers, will be well aware of this.
Furthermore, has anyone explained to us WHY we're going to Mars? Look what the Moon got us. Zippo. Zilch. Nada...and it was a cakewalk compared to Mars. Next to no gravity(making landing pretty easy), pretty close. Wait, let me guess...there are 'signs of life', right? I think it's high time we had someone from NASA on Ask Slashdot to explain what the big shit is about Mars, and why it ranks above providing the basic services expected in a modern civilized society.
Lastly, couldn't help but notice that all the comments questioning the mission and/or space exploration got modded to "Flamebait", and those were just the ones modded UP to 1 and 2. Why is it that on slashdot, Thou Shalt Not Speak Against Space "Exploration"? It was rather telling that those comments, while modded "Flamebait", were also modded UP; maybe the rest of us are sick of space-weenies with moderation who just can't take a little old fashioned "Why?", or the viewpoint that maybe we ought to have other priorities(like, social/human services. Trip to mars doesn't feed, clothe, and house the guy on 32nd and Main under a box.)
You can see the lights from space, but you can't see the starving children.
If you have DSL you should still use your upstream SMTP server for outgoing mail.
If I did that, I'd be accused of spamming by my ISP, since I run a VERY high volume mailing list. We have approximately 12 lists; the bigest list has 1,500 subscribers and gets about 100 emails a DAY. We have another major list that's about 500 people and similar volume.
About 90% of incoming SPAM on my box originates from Windows boxes on DSL lines with open relays.
99% of MY spam comes from chinese and eastern european ISPs that don't give a crap what people do with their internet connections. The solution is not blacklisting DSL and cable connections(because, among other things, it's not easy to switch, unlike dialup.) The solution is cutting off bad ISPs from backbones...but that's not likely to happen any time soon, because the backbone providers don't give a crap- every packet is money in their pocket, regardless of what kind of packet it is.
And guess what? If you are getting lots of spam from DSL/Cable users, it's really easy to solve. Report it. If there's a report of spam, the ISP disconnects the customer until they fix it. Imagine how fast people will learn to keep their machine clean if their internet connection goes down. ISPs will whine about the work, but, gee, that's like the gas station attendant whining about having to give directions to people all the time. Comes with the territory, bub.
It's ignorant people like you(who think "since -I- don't need to send mail directly, neither does anyone else!") that cause people like me grief.
We get next to NO money from subscribers to pay for costs- $5 donations here and there. DSL and Cable offer a nice, cheap way to host a mailing list, or a webboard; we don't use very much bandwidth at all, and occasional hiccups aren't a problem, especially given the design of SMTP; if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Commercial DSL is just less down bandwidth, slightly more up bandwidth, a 'real' static IP instead of a DHCP-assigned address that basically never changes...and a HELL of a lot more expensive. Oh, and instead of telling you to go screw yourself when you scream at them for your line being down, they -politely- tell you there's nothing they can do(and, by the way, -please- go screw yourself.)
Luckily, we're sucking bandwidth off a hosting company that has graciously allowed the box to sit off their network- but if they tank, we'll be screwed- commercial hosting runs about $90+ or more, and our box isn't rackmountable, so there's another $25-50/mo.
Slowly but surely, the media companies are doing their best to squeeze out other sources of competition- the little guys. Check your Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy. My home connection(ATTBI, now Comcast) has banned "messageboards and mailing lists" for years, along with FTP, web, mail, IRC...and specifically states it's an "entertainment service", and I am a "consumer" of that service- ie, sit down, shut up, and be a good little consumer of mass web media. How dare you produce your OWN media...
Microsoft's interest is said to be at the level of "poking around, kicking the tires,"
Vivendi is like a shitbox Ford Pinto. Jokes aside about the dangers of kicking ANYTHING on a Ford Pinto...it seems like cars and companies do have one thing in common- they both attract idiots who think they can fix 'em back up, make 'em stop leaking, polish the fenders, and show 'em off to the world, for a few weekends in the summer, a little elbow grease, and a little bit of money.
It NEVER turns out that way.
Apple's stock took a serious dip when this rumor(and I stress, rumor) hit. Why can't Apple focus on producing hardware that's more up-to-date performance-wise, more durable, more competitive cost-wise, and policies that are more customer-friendly? Apple has the WORST warranty/service policies, the WORST service system(ONE service center in Texas that has a horrible reputation)...and their hardware is pretty and has some neat stuff in it, but isn't up-to-date in processing power, isn't very price-competitive(except maybe the powerbooks), and is far from durable. Example: the very cool TiBook is PAINTED. What #$@!ing moron thought that up? Tough as nails Titanium shell, but then they PAINTED it. Smooth move, guys. Apple continuously demonstrates that they haven't learned from their hardware design mistakes; how long did it take them to make screen clutches that didn't break?(not rocket science- you just make them from something other than cheap pot metal!)
My opinion is that you shouldn't be looking for more stuff to put on your plate when you can't take care of what's ALREADY on your plate; if you can't manage one business successfully, what makes you think you'll manage TWO successfully? Besides, what makes anyone at Apple think they're even remotely qualified to run a media company? Oh, wait, I forgot about Jobs' ego, I guess that makes him qualified- thinks the world revolves around him.
just because they "melt slowly" doesn't mean it's not an environmental catastrophe if they spill in a neighborhood or highway. With pipelines, you have control.
There are regular pipeline accidents. I remember one(I think gasoline pipeline?) levelled a neighborhood. Levelled. For about a two block radius.
With a tanker, you only have to worry about what's in the tanker. Pipelines? There are MILES between control valves(ie, dozens of tanker-truck's worth.)
In the particular accident I'm thinking of, the situation was made worse by the fact that they didn't have checkback valves installed, and all the material in the pipeline, which went up a hill right after the break, drained back down.
The fire department had to sit and watch, basically, as blocks of houses disappeared.
Arrrg, what a dillema. Make a wisecrack about Mini Me filing a Mini "Return"(can he deduct the very non-mini 17" Powerbook?), or make a wisecrack along the lines of 'leave the size of my banana out of it'?
Sure I am tired of my spam but its not really an inconvenience, a couple clicks and it is gone. Isn't all this legislation going to start infringing on rights in the future if not now?
When my 85 year old grandmother gets spam advertising animal bestiality porn on her "internet appliance" a few days after it's set up...that's just downright rediculous(and not just on the "animal besitality" count. Her username was so obscure that it was clear MSN ratted out her email address to spammers, and boy did they do so quickly.
For her, it's a major inconvenience- the appliance has a "you have mail" light that blinks when it's found, during the night, that she has mail. She now leaves the appliance off, because almost every night, it'd find she had spam, not legitimate email from a friend or family member, and set the light a-blinking. The bloody thing is so slow that deleteing 5 spam emails takes a good 10 minutes, between logging on, deleteing the emails, etc.
I'd just like to see peeople running for office that don't accept a nickel from a contributor. That would be what I'd like to do if I ever ran for office. It really should be illegal IMHO. You're buying their approval.
...except that, these days, you CAN'T run for office unless you accept contributions- or you have huge wads of cash, because it requires spin doctors, TV advertising...the amount of money spent on TV advertising in the last elections was in the multiple-billion-dollar range.
If you've got wads of cash, you're seen as a guy who, well, has wads of cash- and the masses(who are 99% lower/middle class) won't vote for you- they'll see you as a rich little boy/girl. The trick, it seems, is to get your money from sources just far enough out of sight from the low/mid class(who, incidentally, don't do the research to see where their candidate gets their money from, and/or thinks "hey, that's OK".)
Massachusetts had a state-funded 'slush fund' of sorts for candidates who were under the limit on finances/resources; a couple of candidates tried to get at it, but the majority couldn't. Why? Thomas J. Finnernan, Speaker of the House, who practically runs a dictatorship in MA(and gets ENORMOUS contributions), refused to appropriate money for the fund. The candidates sued, won, the state legislature still refused to fund it(claiming, gee, gosh, the coffers are just TOO tight!)...so the judge ordered(get this) an auction of state property to pay for the fund. Not surprisingly, Finnernan's office furniture was top of the plaintiff's hit list, along with the dozens of state-owned vehicles the lottery had hanging around, for some reason(work for the lottery, get use of a free car, I guess.)
There was somewhat of an outcry when people realized who was going after the money(with a few exceptions, the really out-to-lunch candidates), and the public was tricked into voting, in the next election, to strike the fund; it had biased wording, and thanks to a nice smear campaign, to many voters it seemed to ask "Do you want those commie-scum-Green-party-candidate-freaks to get YOUR TAX DOLLARS when we're having to CUT the budget?"
Not surprisingly, the state legislature managed to find the funds to give themselves yet another raise, although many of them were pressured into giving up the money back to the state to "help with the budget."
About the only good thing that's come from our new governor(Mitt Romney, poster child for rich, everything-handed-to-them, white, privledged CEOs) is that he's been going after the feds for money to pay for these #$@!%ing "homeland security" measures the state is being forced to enact.
Funny thing is, one of his selling points(I'll be able to work with my fellow republicans!) has fallen flat- Bush, Ridge, and most of the republican leadership have flat-out told him he's not getting a dime, and that's that.
craft a strong enough bill to stand 1st Amendment challenges and punish violators in the pocketbook enough and a few prosecutions will bring most of the domestic junk to a screeching halt. I tend to daydream about winning the lottery, too. Contact your Senators and Representative with your wishes, maybe this time something will get a move on."
While you're at it, make sure they don't sneak in BS exempting various groups.
Like the telemarketing bills, the usual exempted-from-spam-and-telemarketing-legislation parties include:
Politicians(big surprise. Make it CRYSTAL clear to them that if they exempt themselves, your vote walks)
Non-profit organizations(uh, if it's not valid for for-profits, why is it valid for non-profits? Spam is spam. Plus, we've seen non-profit org status is easily abused)
Survey companies. Which part of "unsolicited" do these guys not understand? I'm personally sick and tired of getting survey phone calls- they're almost more plentiful than telemarketing calls...and I suppose it's only a matter of time until they figure out they can use email more cheaply.
Personally, I'd love a ban on election TV advertising; politicians should be required to submit detailed biographies, full position statement(s), and if they're incumbants- their voting and attendance records, as well as campaign contributions. All the information should be distributed by the state(just like tax forms, available in libraries, post offices, town halls, etc). Let voters decide from that and public debates- not 30 second sound bytes.
I think the wireframe tank game on the Mac was Spectre. When I got it came with a cool plot outline and a copy of Snowcrash. That had me quite hooked for a while. Very simple, but very intense.
YES! That's the one! It was sweet. You had a limited budget of "stuff" and could spread it between ammmo capacity, speed, and armour if I remember correctly...and holy cow did the bad guys get tough after a while:-)
Man, I miss all the cool old Mac games...NetTrek, Bolo, Spectre, Cannon Fodder, Brickles, Solarian II...[siiiigh]. I've been trying to get Ben Haller(Stick Software) to re-do Solarian II for OS X, he seemed to already be leaning towards it himself...
I think the BZFlag guys get the award for "most modifier goodies"- it made my dizzy, reading all the different kinds of flags there are. Forget a 'gunner', you need a 'flag checker'.
Driver:"Ooo, ooo! A flag! [steer steer steeer]"
Flag Checker(slow motion): "nnnooooooOOOO!"
-BOINK- BROADCAST MESSAGE: "Team A ran over Hippie Flag, now shooting Daisies"
I wish they'd do collaborative roles, so you really COULD have a driver, gunner, etc..that would ROCK.
Who remembers playing Bolo on their old Mac, or that crazy wireframe tank game? I forget the name, had a 3-D shaped retail box with a red pyramid or something
Thanks, I don't want to watch the whole thing in slow-mo...especially since, when watching a quicktime file, you can't jump around very well at all using either the slider or the left/right arrow keys.
Xine lets you switch somewhat clumsily, and only go forwards, but it can do it on-the-fly, just like a DVD player, good VHS deck, etc.
Setting the FPS overall is only useful for when the file has the wrong FPS set itself, which is pretty rare.
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Actually, no- I'd rather have cross-platform file locking. Correct me if things have changed since 2000 when samba and netatalk developers were "thinking" about this problem, but...
It is a HUGE problem that netatalk, Samba, NFS, and the system itself don't share common file-locking, and some file-based applications like Visual Source Safe(still used by many shops) -require- file locks be across all the shares; if you don't have it, you run a serious chance of screwing things up.
WinNT/Win2k with Services for Macintosh is the only server I know of capable of cross-platform locking, and that is pathetic...
A reciprocating piston engine generates maximum combustion chamber pressure when the angle of the crankshaft is least effective.
That's -sort of- correct, but the diagram is VERY misleading; it's implied that compression = the explosion. and worse, that the instant you start the explosion, you get all your power, which is simply not true.
In a reciprocating piston engine, combustion is far from instantaneous. It's called the flame front speed, and it varies with compression, air/fuel mixture ratio, the fuel itself, air/fuel temperature, and combustion chamber design...for starters. At the speeds engines work at, believe it or not, this speed is actually -very- important...and to boot, higher compression equals more power; sports cars usually have pretty high compression ratios(and as a result require higher octane gas so the air/fuel mixture doesn't preignite, since the more you compress something, the hotter it gets.)
The consequence it that right off the bat, their first diagram is wrong; it implies that all the energy is released into a system positioned so that it can't use most of the power it just made because of the alignment of the components, namely the connecting rod(the rod that connects the piston to the crankshaft). Trust me, engine designers are NOT that stupid! Countless hours are spent on designing just the shape of the combustion chamber to get the right flame propagation etc.
...the problem with hydrogen is that overall, it is not the slightest bit cleaner. It's cleaner to BURN, but to make it, the current popular proposal is to make it from, guess what, petroleum or natural gas. You just lost, best case, half the argument for alternative energy- ALTERNATIVE :-) Worst case, you're creating just as much pollution because, say, it turns out the cheapest/easiest way to make hydrogen involves all sorts of pollution, either from the stuff you don't need anymore(carbon atoms) or stuff used as a catalyst.
The only clean way, that I know of, to make hydrogen, is by cracking water- but that takes enormous amounts of energy, which COULD come from wind, solar, wave-action, etc...but because it requires -so much power-, it's not practical. Alternative energy solutions produce very little power, and hydrogen takes enormous amounts of power to make. That's a horrible combination.
There's also the massive public perception problem- despite hydrogen requireing a heavier concentration than gasoline to ignite, dispersing almost instantly(whereas gasoline sinks and pools), safer to store(the cylinders are far more durable than most gasoline tanks. Sure, we could all be using racing fuel-cells with internal bladders, but...) and NOT being the cause of the Hindenberg fire(it was the paint; notice all the yellow, sooty flame? Hydrogen burns nearly invisibly, and 100% cleanly)...the public still says "Hindenberg!" when you say "Hydrogen".
If a hydrogen tanker truck flipped over and broke open, you'd have a massive spill that evaporated almost instantly, and some people might die from getting frozen to death(think the scene in Goldeneye)- but it would simply, and VERY quickly, dissappear up into the atmosphere. Gasoline sticks around and becomes a significant health, fire, and ecological hazard.
Oh for chrissakes...no, it's not just marketing. For example, system updates are released entirely separately for OS X client and server- and often contain drastically different updates. The server updates come almost always after the client updates, and rarely have I heard of the server updates causing nearly as many problems as the client side updates.
Don't be stupid. Server operating systems and desktop operating systems are similar. The fundamentals are the same. The differences are in the fine tuning.
...and believe it or not, that "fine tuning" is a little more complex than "picking which set of packages to install" and "how we market it". Novell is, in fact, the perfect example of the power of a ground-up, purpose-built server platform. Linux's weakness is that it has NO equivalent; your precious Debian has no core, ground-up focus on being a server distro and ONLY a server distro.
Case and point- there simply isn't a way to use Novell as a desktop operating system(at least, it's not as easy on any other OS). It is ONLY for serving, and as a result, has a clear path in all regards, from development, to QA, to marketing. Do one thing, do it well.
Having had a coworker who was a professional locksmith, I can say that absolutely everything you said is wrong. Point by point:
tumbler locks only have 10 height levels at most
Wrong. They have many, many possible height levels. They are completely analog devices. Any locksmith should be able to make pins that are whatever height he wants, completely analog. Its not just like they have a box of pins, only available in 10 different lengths.
Less secure tumbler locks will allow each individual tumbler to move independantly of the rest.
Wrong. All(that I know of) tumbler locks allow individual tumblers to move independently, otherwise you wouldn't be able to insert or remove the key(duuuh.)
oh and most locks also have a master key that will work on every lock of that type, not just the specific tumbler combination given to your door specifically.
Again, WRONG. Only if the key is set up with several separate pins in each tumbler. Otherwise, there is only ONE position where all the pins will clear.
It is simply amazing how such a simple, very plain and ordinary device is completely misunderstood and given an almost magical status. Locks are VERY simple devices. Even picking them isn't rocket science, just methodical and you need a ton of practice. Most of the tricks used by lock-pickers are very obvious once you see how a lock works.
Or, how about what the automotive world refers to the Firebird as(screaming/flaming chicken car), with a Mozilla twist?
I can see it now: "Screaming Dinosaur 7.0! Now featuring the Mullet theme, complete with AC/DC background music. Cinderblocks available as add-on module(please note, Cinderblock module disables browser completely, installs junk on your desktop)"
Maybe because Quicktime streaming server is freely downloadable.
Well, okay, you've got to have OS X Server to get that one, but if you don't want to even run OS X Server, guess what? Darwin streaming server is both open source and runs on Linux, Solaris, OS X(server or regular, 10.1.x or better), AND WINDOWS(both win2k and NT).
If -that- isn't good enough for you, there's no shortage of MP3 streaming servers. If THAT isn't good enough, there's ogg-vorbis.
Something smells, folks. MS -bought- their way into this one, probably via strong-arming or simply bribing with free hardware+licenses. By the way, PBS dropped Quicktime recently too.
I agree, but realize Novell had a lot of things going for it:
Whoa, lay off the sauce, bub. In your current condition, I think you'd get about 2 blocks before you smacked your car into a tree. Just to be safe though, please give your keyboard+mouse to a designated Slashdot Reader? We wouldn't want you to bash up your car(ma).
Pardon while I run for cover due to the atrocious pun in the last sentence.
...maybe because people with technological know-how are supremely arrogant(thinking they know all possible outcomes, have perfectly engineered something, there's no downside, it won't interact funny with something else, etc.) and either the consequenes of their technology don't occur to them, or they do, and they go ahead anyway.
DDT, Asbestos, PCBs, Nuclear ANYTHING, most bioengineering(especially with foods), most chemical engineering...all of it is plauged with problems and enormous consequences nobody thought of. There are, in fact, few scientific "advances" that haven't caused numerous other problems. Look at computers- they are INCREDIBLY toxic to make, and it's even worse when they get disposed of.
It's kinda funny, but the Japanese, who have usually been one step ahead of us technology-wise, are one step ahead of us in the department of "technology ethics", if you want to call that. Remember Godzilla? Remember what would make him mad? The Japanese, for at least 50 years, have had it pounded into them that technology often has serious consequences.
Americans, meanwhile, go "OOOOh, SHINY! [KA-CHING!]"
"DDT is perfectly safe"(films in the '50s show kids, sitting at picnic tables, getting fogged with DDT, grinning ear to ear. DDT is later shown to cause all manner of health problems)
"PCBs won't cause widescale pollution" (PCBs found to migrate in wildlife half-way across the globe from a single source)
"Nuclear power is completely safe."(3-mile island, Chernobyl, and countless accidents of one kind or another at US facilities, not to mention millions of tons of deadly radioactive waste that we still haven't figured out what to do with. Don't even get me started on the secretive testing they did on mental institution patients.)
"MBTE is a great way to meet emissions goals!"(too bad it pollutes the water table faster than you can say 'aquifer', and is a known carcinogen. Next time you fill up, look for that nice little "this gas may contain MTBE" sticker. Do a search on "MTBE health hazards" on google some time. That electric car looking better all of the sudden?)
"Asbestos is a great material to use in brake pads, clutches, fire curtains in theaters, insultation on pipes..." (asbestos is now 100% proven to cause lung cancer)
"Lobotomies are a great way to cure mental illness"
Oh, and the greatest of them all, "Cigarettes don't cause cancer." Let's throw in alcohol, too, since both are poisons(and, as a whole, people can't seem to handle alcohol responsibly- I'd be surprised if the death count from alcohol-related deaths isn't higher than cigarettes.)
That's just a small sampling of some of the gems that have come from both the scientific community and industry, often both. Why should we trust them now? These days, you should be forced to prove your product is safe, since time after time scientists and industry have proven themselves incapable of putting safety in front of "progress" and financial interests.
Hey I live in this poor African country with AIDS epidemics and live in starvation conditions.
Hey, you happen to be so poor you have to sell your body to be able to feed yourself, because your country has no education system to speak of so you're not qualified to do anything else.
Since you can't afford birth control...surprise, you end up with kids.
By the way- not everyone who got pregnant did so by choice, and I'm not talking about the young 20-something newlywed who giggles "oops" to her hubby in their shiny new 3-bedroom suburbian home. I'm talking about the women who are raped, en masse, in third world countries, by gun-toting "rebels", government troops...hell, raped by plain ordinary sick guys.
Your viewpoint is about as sick as those who refused to spend money on protecting people from AIDS and such. The opinion, at one time, was "well, they're GAY, they do that gross stuff, good, LET them DIE, that'll solve the problem!"
The reason we keep asking the question is because we keep getting, from supposedly intelligent, thoughtful people...answers like "because it's there".
If YOU want to go to space, be my damn guest. I'll cheer you on and when you make it, I'll say "good for them!" Don't use MY tax dollars until we've solved the problems taxes are supposed to be used for- helping society.
If we constantly forget about the big picture and devote 100% of our resources to fighting short-term problems, we piss our children off (and maybe go extinct).
I hardly consider "world hunger" a short-term problem. Furthermore, have you looked at the population stats? We're all going to be busy supporting our parents in another 20 years, because among other things, we haven't been doing a very good job of supporting social security. We've been buying all the nice shiny toys, but not saving up for the future you speak so fondly of.
Yes those are problems, but they are FAR from major. Radiation can be shielded against (Water does that well).
Check again- the radiation that's a problem in space takes enormous amounts of lead and concrete to stop; space is full of very high energy radiation, which isn't THAT much of a problem where the space station is thanks to the Earth's Van Allen belt. Once you get away from Earth, any space ship you send out is going to turn into one of those stove-top popcorn things, right down to the shiny tin foil.
As to why we are going to mars, there are lots of GREAT reasons. Here area few:
# Because it is there.
That is far from good reasoning for the expenditure of trillions of dollars.
# To further develop our manned space craft, so that eventually we will know enough to get a ship to Alpha Centauri.
...and Alpha Centauri gets us WHAT? Hello, pay attention here please.
# To further develop our medical science so that we no longer have ANY problem with space travel.
How about developing medical science to help people back here at home? Not 'sexy' enough? Maybe that's why we have an over-abundance of specialist doctors, and a lack of general practitioners and nurses. Again, take care of people HERE first(here's a thought- instead of saying "space will help us advance medical science", how about "better medical science will help us explore space"?)
# To pay the smart people a ton of money to build something positive, instead of having them be unemployed and jobless when the terrorist asks them to use their rocket science to build something.
News flash - maybe all those smart people can build things like affordable water treatment and evironmentally-friendly/affordable power generation, figure out ways to control a skyrocketing population...the third world is poised, if not in, the same position the "industrialized" world was in a hundred+ years ago. Ever seen the graphs of greenhouse gasses? BIG spike from when England and the US went "industrialized". It would be nice if we didn't go through that again(ie, put the last 100+ years of science and technology towards helping these people so they don't destroy the planet in a few dozen years.)
#To give money to SMART people letting them leave lesser jobs. Where upon, slighlty less smart people will be hired to fill those jobs, (after they quit their old jobs - so even less capable people are hired to fill those old jobs etc. etc. etc) Trickle down does work when you are talking about JOBS, (as opposed to money.)
We have serious budget problems right now. We can't even get enough books in some schools. If we can't educate our frigging children, where are all these "smart" people going to come from? Furthermore, why are only "smart" people deserving of jobs, happiness, wealth, etc?
You see, when you spend money on a Science project, the money is spent on EARTH, even if the science is off Earth. This means you are WRONG, trips to mars DOES feed, clothe and house people and it DOES work it's way down to the guy on 32nd and Main under a box, if he is at least willing to try and work.
Except because of our crumbling education system, he's not going to be "smart" enough for to work on your space toys. In any case, this is called "trickle down economics", and it's mainly used by people who are filthy rich, to justify their filthy-rich lifestyle by basically saying "but, look at all the pool-boys I employ!"
Mars is a good target because it is just barely within our reach. Once we get there, then we can try for the moons of Jupiter. After that Pluto. Then Alpha Centauri here we come!
You're romanticizing space travel again- you're justifying it by saying "because it's there." That is not sufficient justification for re-altering the priorities and resources of a society.
Has anyone solved the "lethal radiation that will kill everyone aboard long before they get there" problem yet? Or the problems with the human body breaking down after extended weighlessness? Or of simply putting any more than 1 person in the same place for more than a month or two and not kill each other? Unlike the space station, if someone's causing a ruckus, you can't just haul the person out...and to make matters worse, everyone, including any potential troublemakers, will be well aware of this.
Furthermore, has anyone explained to us WHY we're going to Mars? Look what the Moon got us. Zippo. Zilch. Nada...and it was a cakewalk compared to Mars. Next to no gravity(making landing pretty easy), pretty close. Wait, let me guess...there are 'signs of life', right? I think it's high time we had someone from NASA on Ask Slashdot to explain what the big shit is about Mars, and why it ranks above providing the basic services expected in a modern civilized society.
Lastly, couldn't help but notice that all the comments questioning the mission and/or space exploration got modded to "Flamebait", and those were just the ones modded UP to 1 and 2. Why is it that on slashdot, Thou Shalt Not Speak Against Space "Exploration"? It was rather telling that those comments, while modded "Flamebait", were also modded UP; maybe the rest of us are sick of space-weenies with moderation who just can't take a little old fashioned "Why?", or the viewpoint that maybe we ought to have other priorities(like, social/human services. Trip to mars doesn't feed, clothe, and house the guy on 32nd and Main under a box.)
You can see the lights from space, but you can't see the starving children.
If I did that, I'd be accused of spamming by my ISP, since I run a VERY high volume mailing list. We have approximately 12 lists; the bigest list has 1,500 subscribers and gets about 100 emails a DAY. We have another major list that's about 500 people and similar volume.
About 90% of incoming SPAM on my box originates from Windows boxes on DSL lines with open relays.
99% of MY spam comes from chinese and eastern european ISPs that don't give a crap what people do with their internet connections. The solution is not blacklisting DSL and cable connections(because, among other things, it's not easy to switch, unlike dialup.) The solution is cutting off bad ISPs from backbones...but that's not likely to happen any time soon, because the backbone providers don't give a crap- every packet is money in their pocket, regardless of what kind of packet it is.
And guess what? If you are getting lots of spam from DSL/Cable users, it's really easy to solve. Report it. If there's a report of spam, the ISP disconnects the customer until they fix it. Imagine how fast people will learn to keep their machine clean if their internet connection goes down. ISPs will whine about the work, but, gee, that's like the gas station attendant whining about having to give directions to people all the time. Comes with the territory, bub.
It's ignorant people like you(who think "since -I- don't need to send mail directly, neither does anyone else!") that cause people like me grief.
We get next to NO money from subscribers to pay for costs- $5 donations here and there. DSL and Cable offer a nice, cheap way to host a mailing list, or a webboard; we don't use very much bandwidth at all, and occasional hiccups aren't a problem, especially given the design of SMTP; if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Commercial DSL is just less down bandwidth, slightly more up bandwidth, a 'real' static IP instead of a DHCP-assigned address that basically never changes...and a HELL of a lot more expensive. Oh, and instead of telling you to go screw yourself when you scream at them for your line being down, they -politely- tell you there's nothing they can do(and, by the way, -please- go screw yourself.)
Luckily, we're sucking bandwidth off a hosting company that has graciously allowed the box to sit off their network- but if they tank, we'll be screwed- commercial hosting runs about $90+ or more, and our box isn't rackmountable, so there's another $25-50/mo.
Slowly but surely, the media companies are doing their best to squeeze out other sources of competition- the little guys. Check your Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy. My home connection(ATTBI, now Comcast) has banned "messageboards and mailing lists" for years, along with FTP, web, mail, IRC...and specifically states it's an "entertainment service", and I am a "consumer" of that service- ie, sit down, shut up, and be a good little consumer of mass web media. How dare you produce your OWN media...
Vivendi is like a shitbox Ford Pinto. Jokes aside about the dangers of kicking ANYTHING on a Ford Pinto...it seems like cars and companies do have one thing in common- they both attract idiots who think they can fix 'em back up, make 'em stop leaking, polish the fenders, and show 'em off to the world, for a few weekends in the summer, a little elbow grease, and a little bit of money.
It NEVER turns out that way.
Apple's stock took a serious dip when this rumor(and I stress, rumor) hit. Why can't Apple focus on producing hardware that's more up-to-date performance-wise, more durable, more competitive cost-wise, and policies that are more customer-friendly? Apple has the WORST warranty/service policies, the WORST service system(ONE service center in Texas that has a horrible reputation)...and their hardware is pretty and has some neat stuff in it, but isn't up-to-date in processing power, isn't very price-competitive(except maybe the powerbooks), and is far from durable. Example: the very cool TiBook is PAINTED. What #$@!ing moron thought that up? Tough as nails Titanium shell, but then they PAINTED it. Smooth move, guys. Apple continuously demonstrates that they haven't learned from their hardware design mistakes; how long did it take them to make screen clutches that didn't break?(not rocket science- you just make them from something other than cheap pot metal!)
My opinion is that you shouldn't be looking for more stuff to put on your plate when you can't take care of what's ALREADY on your plate; if you can't manage one business successfully, what makes you think you'll manage TWO successfully? Besides, what makes anyone at Apple think they're even remotely qualified to run a media company? Oh, wait, I forgot about Jobs' ego, I guess that makes him qualified- thinks the world revolves around him.
There are regular pipeline accidents. I remember one(I think gasoline pipeline?) levelled a neighborhood. Levelled. For about a two block radius.
With a tanker, you only have to worry about what's in the tanker. Pipelines? There are MILES between control valves(ie, dozens of tanker-truck's worth.)
In the particular accident I'm thinking of, the situation was made worse by the fact that they didn't have checkback valves installed, and all the material in the pipeline, which went up a hill right after the break, drained back down.
The fire department had to sit and watch, basically, as blocks of houses disappeared.
Arrrg, what a dillema. Make a wisecrack about Mini Me filing a Mini "Return"(can he deduct the very non-mini 17" Powerbook?), or make a wisecrack along the lines of 'leave the size of my banana out of it'?
Oh wait, problem solved :-)
When my 85 year old grandmother gets spam advertising animal bestiality porn on her "internet appliance" a few days after it's set up...that's just downright rediculous(and not just on the "animal besitality" count. Her username was so obscure that it was clear MSN ratted out her email address to spammers, and boy did they do so quickly.
For her, it's a major inconvenience- the appliance has a "you have mail" light that blinks when it's found, during the night, that she has mail. She now leaves the appliance off, because almost every night, it'd find she had spam, not legitimate email from a friend or family member, and set the light a-blinking. The bloody thing is so slow that deleteing 5 spam emails takes a good 10 minutes, between logging on, deleteing the emails, etc.
...except that, these days, you CAN'T run for office unless you accept contributions- or you have huge wads of cash, because it requires spin doctors, TV advertising...the amount of money spent on TV advertising in the last elections was in the multiple-billion-dollar range.
If you've got wads of cash, you're seen as a guy who, well, has wads of cash- and the masses(who are 99% lower/middle class) won't vote for you- they'll see you as a rich little boy/girl. The trick, it seems, is to get your money from sources just far enough out of sight from the low/mid class(who, incidentally, don't do the research to see where their candidate gets their money from, and/or thinks "hey, that's OK".)
Massachusetts had a state-funded 'slush fund' of sorts for candidates who were under the limit on finances/resources; a couple of candidates tried to get at it, but the majority couldn't. Why? Thomas J. Finnernan, Speaker of the House, who practically runs a dictatorship in MA(and gets ENORMOUS contributions), refused to appropriate money for the fund. The candidates sued, won, the state legislature still refused to fund it(claiming, gee, gosh, the coffers are just TOO tight!)...so the judge ordered(get this) an auction of state property to pay for the fund. Not surprisingly, Finnernan's office furniture was top of the plaintiff's hit list, along with the dozens of state-owned vehicles the lottery had hanging around, for some reason(work for the lottery, get use of a free car, I guess.)
There was somewhat of an outcry when people realized who was going after the money(with a few exceptions, the really out-to-lunch candidates), and the public was tricked into voting, in the next election, to strike the fund; it had biased wording, and thanks to a nice smear campaign, to many voters it seemed to ask "Do you want those commie-scum-Green-party-candidate-freaks to get YOUR TAX DOLLARS when we're having to CUT the budget?"
Not surprisingly, the state legislature managed to find the funds to give themselves yet another raise, although many of them were pressured into giving up the money back to the state to "help with the budget."
About the only good thing that's come from our new governor(Mitt Romney, poster child for rich, everything-handed-to-them, white, privledged CEOs) is that he's been going after the feds for money to pay for these #$@!%ing "homeland security" measures the state is being forced to enact.
Funny thing is, one of his selling points(I'll be able to work with my fellow republicans!) has fallen flat- Bush, Ridge, and most of the republican leadership have flat-out told him he's not getting a dime, and that's that.
While you're at it, make sure they don't sneak in BS exempting various groups.
Like the telemarketing bills, the usual exempted-from-spam-and-telemarketing-legislation parties include:
Personally, I'd love a ban on election TV advertising; politicians should be required to submit detailed biographies, full position statement(s), and if they're incumbants- their voting and attendance records, as well as campaign contributions. All the information should be distributed by the state(just like tax forms, available in libraries, post offices, town halls, etc). Let voters decide from that and public debates- not 30 second sound bytes.
YES! That's the one! It was sweet. You had a limited budget of "stuff" and could spread it between ammmo capacity, speed, and armour if I remember correctly...and holy cow did the bad guys get tough after a while :-)
Man, I miss all the cool old Mac games...NetTrek, Bolo, Spectre, Cannon Fodder, Brickles, Solarian II...[siiiigh]. I've been trying to get Ben Haller(Stick Software) to re-do Solarian II for OS X, he seemed to already be leaning towards it himself...
I think the BZFlag guys get the award for "most modifier goodies"- it made my dizzy, reading all the different kinds of flags there are. Forget a 'gunner', you need a 'flag checker'.
Driver:"Ooo, ooo! A flag! [steer steer steeer]"
Flag Checker(slow motion): "nnnooooooOOOO!"
-BOINK- BROADCAST MESSAGE: "Team A ran over Hippie Flag, now shooting Daisies"
I wish they'd do collaborative roles, so you really COULD have a driver, gunner, etc..that would ROCK.
Who remembers playing Bolo on their old Mac, or that crazy wireframe tank game? I forget the name, had a 3-D shaped retail box with a red pyramid or something
Thanks, I don't want to watch the whole thing in slow-mo...especially since, when watching a quicktime file, you can't jump around very well at all using either the slider or the left/right arrow keys.
Xine lets you switch somewhat clumsily, and only go forwards, but it can do it on-the-fly, just like a DVD player, good VHS deck, etc.
Setting the FPS overall is only useful for when the file has the wrong FPS set itself, which is pretty rare.