Kubrick's only flaws as a filmmaker are that he had no sense of humor; therefore he couldn't give his films a variety of tone.
I have to respectfully disagree with your comment here. He had a sense of humour, but it was dark and satirical: Dr. Strangelove (which is still hilarious to this day), Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket.
Re:Group Gathereings: Vancouver BC
on
Serenity Opens Today
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Just saw it at the Paramount at 600 Burrard Street.
What is quite remarkable is that even though Serenity has been pre-screened what, 100 times? since May, you don't see cam torrents floating around. The restraint of the fan base from leaking spoilers and cams says a lot about their loyalty. Contrast that with say, the Hulk or Revenge of the Sith.
That little bit of nostalgia hit home. What is disturbing is that when my parents bought their first home, it was around $40k. They were earning around $50k and $30k respectively. My dad had no university education.
Now, 30 years later, my wife and I earn just above what my parents earned. But now, a house in my market costs over $400k.
In other words, while incomes maybe have increased only two- or possibly three-fold in the past 30 years, real estate has gone up by an entire order of magnitude.
I suspect that this is partly the reason why many people, not just the GP, pine for decades-old admission prices.
I haven't had a game console since the Atari 2600 and the Magnavox Odyssey. But if you develop an "orchestra conductor" type game, I'll buy a Revolution in a heartbeat.
In fact, I did use ubcd4win. Building a BartsPE CD, even with ubcd4win is still a relatively complex process, because the licences attached to the various bits of Windows software does not permit binary distribution of a whole CD image. Therefore, users are required to collect the software parts separately and build an image themselves, each and every time. ubcd4win is convenient in that it collects a number of popular packages to make this process easier, but it still requires some work.
Contrast this with Knoppix, where anyone who remasters it can post their customization for the world to download. Consequently, customizations only have to be done once by one developer, not by every single user. As a user, all I have to do is download the Knoppix remastered *.iso and burn it.
This would explain the plethora of Linux Live CDs, mostly which are Knoppix derivatives and to some extent SLAX. Contrast with the BartsPE world: there is huge dearth in the variety and selection of software for Windows LiveCDs. Further, the Linux LiveCDs are full operating environments, completely identical to hard drive installs, whereas BartsPE (and ubdcd4win) are only intended as recovery platforms.
So, how exactly do you use Knoppix to (for example) clean viruses and adware/malware, fix corrupt registry or NTFS drive, or undelete files from Windows system?
canadiangoose in the post above has replied with a number of specific F/OSS tools to aid with system recovery and filesystem forensics. I would like to add that these tools, and more, are included with a number of Knoppix-derived security LiveCD distros. Here is a partial list:
As I posted before, BartsPE is a cute tool that was useful in running a Windows-only firmware tool, and it is superior to captive-ntfs when transferring large amounts of data from NTFS partitions. However, it feels absolutely crippled compared to Knoppix. Since I mostly use Linux at home and work, I have fortunately been spared the necessity of doing a lot of system recovery and malware cleaning; I cannot comment as to whether BartsPE or Knoppix is better at these tasks for Windows systems.
While I think that the EULA is ambiguous enough to make it risky for Microsoft to actually try to litigate its EULA against personal users of BartsPE (which is probably why they haven't done it), I have heard that the BSA tends to err on the side of false positives when they audit corporate sites.
For that reason, I agree that corporations should avoid the risk of using BartsPE in the business environment. The BSA would tend to interpret any ambiguity as a licence infringement, and the company would have to expend considerable legal resources even if they were ultimately proven correct.
As far as personal use goes, I don't believe there is much risk. As I posted, I have only one copy of BartsPE, I haven't distributed images of my copy, and my hard drive install of Server 2003 Evaluation has expired.
BartsPE and Windows Server 2003 Evaluation version
on
Windows XP In Your Pocket
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I've had to make a BartsPE CD so that I could use a Windows-only firmware utility. It wouldn't work in Wine, and I didn't know how to use qemu or the like, so I thought of going through the BartsPE route.
I didn't want to pirate a copy of XP, so I downloaded the evaluation version of Windows Server 2003 instead (BartsPE needs at least XP or Server 2003). Although the Server 2003 evaluation version on the harddrive expired after 180 days, the BartsPE CD created from that install still works.
I found that BartsPE was a real pain to build, because you have to hunt down all the software and drivers, and edit *.ini files.
BartsPE is kind of cool, and is better and faster for accessing NTFS partitions than captive-ntfs, but compared to Knoppix (and its derivatives), it's not that useful.
Knoppix has far more and useful software and networks automagically. Unlike BartsPE, you don't need to build Knoppix, you just download it and burn it to CD.
Absolutely agree that many mutations do not confer an immediate selective advantage. Also, some phenotypes that may be advantageous in one environment may become disadvantageous if the environment changes.
I'm hardly an expert at evolutionary biology, merely an interested amateur. However, I think that for a trait to persist over millenia, there must be some long term survival advantage to it.
Just a nitpick. While birds may be direct descendants from one lineage of dinosaurs, dinosaurs trace ancestry from reptiles.
Also, nurturing had a part in the evolution of bird species in so much as any other adaption helped. Evolution proceeds by natural selection based on random variation. That is, if nurturing conferred a selective advantage, then the organisms that expressed nurturing traits would tend to reproduce and propagate the genes.
I'm not sure if it is thought that mammals descended from dinosaurs or from reptiles. However, note that many mammals also display nurturing, so it is conceivable that mammals and birds trace this trait back to a common dinosaur ancestor.
Your have neatly and concisely summarized the main issue. I don't know the full facts of this case, but the Telecommunications Workers Union will probably be filing an unfair labour practice motion against Telus for this conduct.
Considering that the parties have been without an agreement for almost 5 years, I think that this will be a long lockout.
Definitely one of the best squad-based, tactical games ever. Check out UFO 2000 a GPL'd clone of XCOM that claims to have multiplayer support. You need the data files from XCOM, however. Looks interesting, but I haven't tried it.
Normally, I would post this anonymously to avoid being a "karma whore", but since it's late in the day and the story has been up for a while...
The following is mentioned every time a Slashdot story is posted about Canadian copyright law, but it deserves to be repeated: fellow Canadians, if you want to do something constructive about this, there is a website set up to lobby against this bill, at http://www.digital-copyright.ca/
Thanks for your post. I just tried it out; it's pretty clever. The IP address is 62.48.224.25 for that URL you posted (h t t p://linux.fal.pt/fundicao/img/cmd/index.html -- spaces inserted intentionally). whois 62.48.224.25 shows:
inetnum: 62.48.224.24 - 62.48.224.31
netname: FAL-NET
descr: FAL - FUNDICAO ALTO LIXA, SA
descr: Alto da Lixa - Lixa
country: PT
admin-c: PT4010-RIPE
tech-c: JMF13-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
role: PT PRIME IP-REG
address: PT Prime - Solucoes Empresariais de Telecomunicacoes SA
address: Servicos Internet Empresariais
address: R. de Entrecampos, 28
address: 1749-076 Lisboa
address: Portugal
phone: +351 215003000
remarks: trouble: Abuse Reports - abuse@webside.pt
admin-c: PG259-RIPE
tech-c: JMF13-RIPE
tech-c: PC2422-RIPE
tech-c: LL1052-RIPE
nic-hdl: PT4010-RIPE
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
abuse-mailbox: abuse@webside.pt
person: Jose Manuel Fonte
address: R. Tomas Ribeiro, 2 - Bloco A, Sala 2.18
address: 1069-300 Lisboa - Portugal
phone: +351 215001845
fax-no: +351 215002175
nic-hdl: JMF13-RIPE
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to 'PT4010-RIPE'
route: 62.48.128.0/17
descr: PTPRIMENET
descr: PT Prime - Network Service Provider
origin: AS15525
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
I am also using Evolution with the corporate Exchange server via WebDAV. For those of you who don't know what WebDAV is, it's a web-server interface to your Exchange mailbox, calendar etc. If your company has it enabled, then you can point any browser (yes, Firefox is good) to your company's Exchange server (eg. http://webdav.mycompany.com/ and after authentication, you will see an Outlook-like interface in your browser.
Evolution is somewhat slower than Outlook when accessing an Exchange server, probably as a result of WebDAV. However, I personally found Outlook ain't all milk and honey, either. Aside from the security issues, I found that about once a month, when I exited Outlook it would hang WindowsXP, requiring a hard reset.
Thank you for your post. I'm typing this from a Dell Latitude D600 with Ubuntu 5.04 installed. Ubuntu automagically detected and configured the 802.11g wireless mini-pci nic, the ATI Mobility 9000 videocard, and the corporate network SMB shares. All without any configuration on my part (aside from choosing the desktop theme to something blue; the Ubuntu default is too brown for my taste). I was simply amazed; people, who continue to whinge on about Linux compatability or installation, obviously haven't tried a current distro.
After reading your wonderfully nerdy treatises on AI self-awareness, I agree that you would highly appreciate Battlestar Galactica. Ronald D. Moore (former TNG and DS9 writer), freed from Roddenberry's utopian constraints, explores exactly those issues and themes of AI and humanity that you found lacking in Star Trek.
BSG is nothing like the original campy series from the 1970's. Essentially, Moore took the premise of the original series, then reimagined it as a Phillip K. Dick story. The Cylons become Replicants, originally "chrome toasters" imbued with AI and programmed to be slaves to humanity's wars in the 12 Colonies. They eventually rise against the humans, and learn to clone themselves into human form.
What's fascinating about BSG is that the humans are deeply flawed and often misguided, selfish and evil; the Cylons sometimes show more humanity than the humans. You write that you saw a dark side of the Federation in Star Trek, and see their use of AIs as being a form of slavery that, to your frustration, is never acknowledged. In BSG, all of that is explicitly the central premise of the story.
This article is far more than just "sleazy". As Turner points out, regardless of the propriety of publishing PJ's private information, O'Gara was unable to verify whether she even had the right Pamela Jones, by O'Gara's own admission!
This is clearly unethical. If the Pamela Jones in O'Gara's article is the wrong one, O'Gara breached the privacy interests of a third party.
Just to clarify my post, I was merely anticipating the false "viral IP" meme (that's why I use the quotation marks). I definitely do not consider the GPL, or any other licensing scheme for that matter, as "viral".
(disclaimer: not a Nikon owner). You probably have to examine Nikon's EULA carefully. They likely retain their copyright over the "NEF" part even if it is incorporated into the subsequent photograph.
Before anyone gets excited, this isn't "viral" like GPL; this would be more like the original BSD licence, where you can incorporate someone else's copyrighted material (the NEF) into your new work (the photo) subject to the restrictions in the licence (like advertising clause, covenant not to decrypt etc).
Don't forget his Saturday Night Live appearance... he was actually really good, just like his Futurama guest spots. It's too bad his sense of humour never came across when he was campaigning.
Slashdot Mirror
Kubrick's only flaws as a filmmaker are that he had no sense of humor; therefore he couldn't give his films a variety of tone.
I have to respectfully disagree with your comment here. He had a sense of humour, but it was dark and satirical: Dr. Strangelove (which is still hilarious to this day), Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket.
Just saw it at the Paramount at 600 Burrard Street.
What is quite remarkable is that even though Serenity has been pre-screened what, 100 times? since May, you don't see cam torrents floating around. The restraint of the fan base from leaking spoilers and cams says a lot about their loyalty. Contrast that with say, the Hulk or Revenge of the Sith.
Here's hoping for the sequels.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll look it up.
That little bit of nostalgia hit home. What is disturbing is that when my parents bought their first home, it was around $40k. They were earning around $50k and $30k respectively. My dad had no university education.
Now, 30 years later, my wife and I earn just above what my parents earned. But now, a house in my market costs over $400k.
In other words, while incomes maybe have increased only two- or possibly three-fold in the past 30 years, real estate has gone up by an entire order of magnitude.
I suspect that this is partly the reason why many people, not just the GP, pine for decades-old admission prices.
I use Ubuntu on a Dell D600. It detected my office's SMB network and the network HP laser printers with absolutely no intervention on my part.
There is a "System" menu on the taskbar, which has various admin dialogs where you can probably configure your printer if you have to.
I haven't had a game console since the Atari 2600 and the Magnavox Odyssey. But if you develop an "orchestra conductor" type game, I'll buy a Revolution in a heartbeat.
In fact, I did use ubcd4win. Building a BartsPE CD, even with ubcd4win is still a relatively complex process, because the licences attached to the various bits of Windows software does not permit binary distribution of a whole CD image. Therefore, users are required to collect the software parts separately and build an image themselves, each and every time. ubcd4win is convenient in that it collects a number of popular packages to make this process easier, but it still requires some work.
Contrast this with Knoppix, where anyone who remasters it can post their customization for the world to download. Consequently, customizations only have to be done once by one developer, not by every single user. As a user, all I have to do is download the Knoppix remastered *.iso and burn it.
This would explain the plethora of Linux Live CDs, mostly which are Knoppix derivatives and to some extent SLAX. Contrast with the BartsPE world: there is huge dearth in the variety and selection of software for Windows LiveCDs. Further, the Linux LiveCDs are full operating environments, completely identical to hard drive installs, whereas BartsPE (and ubdcd4win) are only intended as recovery platforms.
canadiangoose in the post above has replied with a number of specific F/OSS tools to aid with system recovery and filesystem forensics. I would like to add that these tools, and more, are included with a number of Knoppix-derived security LiveCD distros. Here is a partial list:
As I posted before, BartsPE is a cute tool that was useful in running a Windows-only firmware tool, and it is superior to captive-ntfs when transferring large amounts of data from NTFS partitions. However, it feels absolutely crippled compared to Knoppix. Since I mostly use Linux at home and work, I have fortunately been spared the necessity of doing a lot of system recovery and malware cleaning; I cannot comment as to whether BartsPE or Knoppix is better at these tasks for Windows systems.
While I think that the EULA is ambiguous enough to make it risky for Microsoft to actually try to litigate its EULA against personal users of BartsPE (which is probably why they haven't done it), I have heard that the BSA tends to err on the side of false positives when they audit corporate sites.
For that reason, I agree that corporations should avoid the risk of using BartsPE in the business environment. The BSA would tend to interpret any ambiguity as a licence infringement, and the company would have to expend considerable legal resources even if they were ultimately proven correct.
As far as personal use goes, I don't believe there is much risk. As I posted, I have only one copy of BartsPE, I haven't distributed images of my copy, and my hard drive install of Server 2003 Evaluation has expired.
I've had to make a BartsPE CD so that I could use a Windows-only firmware utility. It wouldn't work in Wine, and I didn't know how to use qemu or the like, so I thought of going through the BartsPE route.
I didn't want to pirate a copy of XP, so I downloaded the evaluation version of Windows Server 2003 instead (BartsPE needs at least XP or Server 2003). Although the Server 2003 evaluation version on the harddrive expired after 180 days, the BartsPE CD created from that install still works.
I found that BartsPE was a real pain to build, because you have to hunt down all the software and drivers, and edit *.ini files.
BartsPE is kind of cool, and is better and faster for accessing NTFS partitions than captive-ntfs, but compared to Knoppix (and its derivatives), it's not that useful.
Knoppix has far more and useful software and networks automagically. Unlike BartsPE, you don't need to build Knoppix, you just download it and burn it to CD.
Absolutely agree that many mutations do not confer an immediate selective advantage. Also, some phenotypes that may be advantageous in one environment may become disadvantageous if the environment changes.
I'm hardly an expert at evolutionary biology, merely an interested amateur. However, I think that for a trait to persist over millenia, there must be some long term survival advantage to it.
Just a nitpick. While birds may be direct descendants from one lineage of dinosaurs, dinosaurs trace ancestry from reptiles.
Also, nurturing had a part in the evolution of bird species in so much as any other adaption helped. Evolution proceeds by natural selection based on random variation. That is, if nurturing conferred a selective advantage, then the organisms that expressed nurturing traits would tend to reproduce and propagate the genes.
I'm not sure if it is thought that mammals descended from dinosaurs or from reptiles. However, note that many mammals also display nurturing, so it is conceivable that mammals and birds trace this trait back to a common dinosaur ancestor.
Your have neatly and concisely summarized the main issue. I don't know the full facts of this case, but the Telecommunications Workers Union will probably be filing an unfair labour practice motion against Telus for this conduct.
Considering that the parties have been without an agreement for almost 5 years, I think that this will be a long lockout.
Definitely one of the best squad-based, tactical games ever. Check out UFO 2000 a GPL'd clone of XCOM that claims to have multiplayer support. You need the data files from XCOM, however. Looks interesting, but I haven't tried it.
Normally, I would post this anonymously to avoid being a "karma whore", but since it's late in the day and the story has been up for a while...
The following is mentioned every time a Slashdot story is posted about Canadian copyright law, but it deserves to be repeated: fellow Canadians, if you want to do something constructive about this, there is a website set up to lobby against this bill, at http://www.digital-copyright.ca/
According to that site, there is a Member of Parliament (MP) with an interest in this issue, who presented the first petition against this bill back in April 2005 around the time the first Slashdot story broke, and a second petition in May: Peter Julian, New Democratic Party (NDP), MP Burnaby-New Westminster.
Thanks for your post. I just tried it out; it's pretty clever. The IP address is 62.48.224.25 for that URL you posted (h t t p ://linux.fal.pt/fundicao/img/cmd/index.html -- spaces inserted intentionally). whois 62.48.224.25 shows:
inetnum: 62.48.224.24 - 62.48.224.31
netname: FAL-NET
descr: FAL - FUNDICAO ALTO LIXA, SA
descr: Alto da Lixa - Lixa
country: PT
admin-c: PT4010-RIPE
tech-c: JMF13-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
role: PT PRIME IP-REG
address: PT Prime - Solucoes Empresariais de Telecomunicacoes SA
address: Servicos Internet Empresariais
address: R. de Entrecampos, 28
address: 1749-076 Lisboa
address: Portugal
phone: +351 215003000
remarks: trouble: Abuse Reports - abuse@webside.pt
admin-c: PG259-RIPE
tech-c: JMF13-RIPE
tech-c: PC2422-RIPE
tech-c: LL1052-RIPE
nic-hdl: PT4010-RIPE
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
abuse-mailbox: abuse@webside.pt
person: Jose Manuel Fonte
address: R. Tomas Ribeiro, 2 - Bloco A, Sala 2.18
address: 1069-300 Lisboa - Portugal
phone: +351 215001845
fax-no: +351 215002175
nic-hdl: JMF13-RIPE
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to 'PT4010-RIPE'
route: 62.48.128.0/17
descr: PTPRIMENET
descr: PT Prime - Network Service Provider
origin: AS15525
mnt-by: AS15525-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
I am also using Evolution with the corporate Exchange server via WebDAV. For those of you who don't know what WebDAV is, it's a web-server interface to your Exchange mailbox, calendar etc. If your company has it enabled, then you can point any browser (yes, Firefox is good) to your company's Exchange server (eg. http://webdav.mycompany.com/ and after authentication, you will see an Outlook-like interface in your browser.
Evolution is somewhat slower than Outlook when accessing an Exchange server, probably as a result of WebDAV. However, I personally found Outlook ain't all milk and honey, either. Aside from the security issues, I found that about once a month, when I exited Outlook it would hang WindowsXP, requiring a hard reset.
Thank you for your post. I'm typing this from a Dell Latitude D600 with Ubuntu 5.04 installed. Ubuntu automagically detected and configured the 802.11g wireless mini-pci nic, the ATI Mobility 9000 videocard, and the corporate network SMB shares. All without any configuration on my part (aside from choosing the desktop theme to something blue; the Ubuntu default is too brown for my taste). I was simply amazed; people, who continue to whinge on about Linux compatability or installation, obviously haven't tried a current distro.
After reading your wonderfully nerdy treatises on AI self-awareness, I agree that you would highly appreciate Battlestar Galactica. Ronald D. Moore (former TNG and DS9 writer), freed from Roddenberry's utopian constraints, explores exactly those issues and themes of AI and humanity that you found lacking in Star Trek.
BSG is nothing like the original campy series from the 1970's. Essentially, Moore took the premise of the original series, then reimagined it as a Phillip K. Dick story. The Cylons become Replicants, originally "chrome toasters" imbued with AI and programmed to be slaves to humanity's wars in the 12 Colonies. They eventually rise against the humans, and learn to clone themselves into human form.
What's fascinating about BSG is that the humans are deeply flawed and often misguided, selfish and evil; the Cylons sometimes show more humanity than the humans. You write that you saw a dark side of the Federation in Star Trek, and see their use of AIs as being a form of slavery that, to your frustration, is never acknowledged. In BSG, all of that is explicitly the central premise of the story.
This article is far more than just "sleazy". As Turner points out, regardless of the propriety of publishing PJ's private information, O'Gara was unable to verify whether she even had the right Pamela Jones, by O'Gara's own admission!
This is clearly unethical. If the Pamela Jones in O'Gara's article is the wrong one, O'Gara breached the privacy interests of a third party.
Just to clarify my post, I was merely anticipating the false "viral IP" meme (that's why I use the quotation marks). I definitely do not consider the GPL, or any other licensing scheme for that matter, as "viral".
(disclaimer: not a Nikon owner). You probably have to examine Nikon's EULA carefully. They likely retain their copyright over the "NEF" part even if it is incorporated into the subsequent photograph.
Before anyone gets excited, this isn't "viral" like GPL; this would be more like the original BSD licence, where you can incorporate someone else's copyrighted material (the NEF) into your new work (the photo) subject to the restrictions in the licence (like advertising clause, covenant not to decrypt etc).
The XFCE developers keep their own Debian package repository for the latest version (4.2). Instructions for XFCE and Debian on their website.
Don't forget his Saturday Night Live appearance... he was actually really good, just like his Futurama guest spots. It's too bad his sense of humour never came across when he was campaigning.
Until Captain Kirk comes along and spoils all the fun.