If it makes you feel better, if you're willing to subscribe for 3 years, you can get the service a fair amount cheaper than $12.95 / month.
Also, I've stated this already in this thread, but a common misconception is that the Comcast DVR service is only $10 / month. At least in my area, if you take a look at your bill, there's a separate $6 charge for each DVR that I have. With the price you're citing on Amazon, you'll actually come out ahead vs. just renting the Comcast boxes for the same period of time.
I certainly agree with you on the cost of the DVR you're using vs. paying for the box up front, but look at your bill more closely. At least in Pittsburgh, one of the cute things that Comcast does is splits out the charge for the DVR service--one $10 charge and one $6 charge. You're actually paying $16 / month.
It actually works out that the $300 Tivo with the 3 year subscription is pretty much a wash, even with paying for the equipment up front.
(Granted, the Tivo isn't 2-way, but it's actually not as far off as you think)
You're missing Cambria county (Johnstown primarily), but aside from that, you're dead on with your classification of PA in general. This effectively cripples our state, as the state legislature is dominated by conservative members from rural PA, which "don't want to give our money to the cities", completely discounting the fact that the bulk of the money comes from them in the first place.
As an aside, and even more OT, there are a lot of rumors that Lynn Swann (of the 70's Steelers) is planning to run in the next governor election as the Republican nominee. I had a difficult time figuring this out, until I realized that the Republicans are hoping to erode some of the liberal base of Pittsburgh away by getting football fans to jump-ship. If you think this is crazy, you seriously underestimate how much Pittsburgh lives & dies by the Steelers.
Anyway, back to your post: As far as the last race, Specter was never going to lose the general election if he could get past the primary (which he barely did). He's a moderate Republican, that is actually (in-so-much as a politician can be) respectable--witness his stance on judicial nominations (which he had to back off on, lest he lose his seat on the committee).
And as a previous poster said, never underestimate a Casey running in Pennsylvania. Santorum could be in serious trouble in '06--particularly with his living out of state, but still collecting significant sums of money for his kids to go to (charter? boarding?) schools quasai-scandal.
Actually, GotDotNet.com has a pretty sizeable and growing collection of.NET based open-source applications. Sf.net also has a decent number of OSS C# programs as well.
Obviously the bulk of the applications are for Windows only, but to say that there are no (or very little).NET based OSS solutions at all isn't entirely fair.
As far as the IDEs go, there are SharpDevelop and Web Matrix, which are both OSS development environments, serving different purposes.
Because Apple, by being a closed hardware manufacturer, does not have thousands of computer configuration possibilities out there to deal with.
It's easy for them to release a security patch and be able to test that against a few dozen possibilities, and know that it's not going to break anyone's system.
Thus, if you need to do system testing, your entire job would be doing this on a daily basis if Microsoft released things patch-by-patch. While not an optimum solution, having one large test to do on semi-regular (yearly?) basis, sure beats having to test systems every single day.
That was the case for VHS tapes, because they used to give the stores the tapes a few months in advance of public release. Thus, anyone could buy the movie, but it would cost you anywhere from $85 to $135 a tape (it was always fun explaining to people that if they didn't return the tapes, they owed us that amount of money--usually got them right back in the store.)
But when DVDs came out, in an attempt to spread the adoption of the format more quickly, they did simultaneous releases to the rental stores and the public. So DVDs only ended up being normal retail prices for the stores.
So while your argument may be true for VHS tapes, it's no longer the case with DVDs.
Well that's the point though. People who enjoy traditional MMORPG's are going to continue playing them. I for one enjoy the social aspect of them, but got kinda sick and tired of the hack & slash atmosphere. (Not to mention that I can't play any of those games in Linux, and I as I refuse to pirate software, I'm not going to drop $200 for the copy of Windows I'd need to play it).
For a person like me, Puzzle Pirates is a perfect fit. I get to enjoy various puzzles and the traditional social aspects (well, PP doesn't have the idiot l33t's around) of MMORPG's.
I'm telling ya though, give it a crack; it's marvelously addicting.
This game really is great; if you sign up now before the December 8th Release date, you can get 2 years of the game for $50. It's definitely filled the void in Linux gaming for myself and all for the price of a PS2 game that I get sick of in 2 weeks; not to mention being able to see some of my ideas and features be implemented into the game
The devels really are great, they're constantly active on the forums and in game; not to mention that they actually listen to the players (for example, there were quite a few complaints that there weren't enough Brigands (NPP boats) out there for you to pillage, so the devels made a few changes to the game so you now see consistently more Brigands on the waters).
I highly recommend that you go check it out; for anyone new to the game, feel free to look me up in game for any help or info "/tell spuggy". I also recommend that you get involved in the social aspect of the game, which as a previous poster said, ranks right up there as one of the best features of the game.
The option is still there for the SCSI emulation (I'm assuming this will go away in the future), but you should have no problem using your drive as a pure IDE drive now w/ the newest versions of cdrtools & cdrdao.
Amen to that. I work in a city, and I used to take the bus in, but started to park across the river & park at the stadiums. (Which in turn was cheaper than the bus, but also had the bonus of being forced to walk a mile and a half each way to get to work).
To be honest, aside from the good aspect of exercise associated with walking that far, it's great to just clear your head at the end of a day. I'm not walking as far as Jucius suggests (25 minutes each way vs. 35 at a brisk pace as he mentions), but damn...after a rough day of putting up with office BS and some nasty progs, nothing is greater than just blasting some music on the mp3 player & walking back to the car.
In regards to the article, I lost around 50-60 pounds since January by pretty much changing a lot of aspects of my lifestyle. Everyone mentions trashing beer, but at my age (22), I'm going to keep doing it regardless of what everyone says...I'm also willing to venture that I drink a helluva lot more than the poster mentioned (we're talking about a case during the course of the working week, then a case a night during the weekend), so it's still easy to lose weight even keeping this vice in your life (granted it's going to be even easier if you stop drinking, but I'm assuming you're in the same boat as me and aren't going to stop.
Here are my suggestions. 1) Stop drinking any sugar aside from alcohol. This has been mentioned a lot already in these posts, but it's amazing how many calories you save by getting rid of non-diet soda & sugar w/ your coffees. For beers, look into a low-carb beer...I got lucky in that it turned out my favorite beer (IC Light) was already low carb, but Michelob Ultra, Thin Ice, etc. are in the same type of position.
2) Start doing something. Start walking to your car from work; get an exercise bike so you can play NCAA 2004 or Madden 2004 in front of it. This is the greatest advice I can possibly give...I was in a situation similar where my working day (including commute) took up 11 hours of my day. If you get a bike that you can sit down on and play video games, it will distract you from the boring fact that you're working out.
3) Keep at it...after a few months when you start to lose weight, and lots of people are telling you how great you look, this won't be a problem at all...it's just tough to get going initially. I've gone through a few periods of a week or 2 stretches where I haven't done a damned thing but drink & eat horribly, but if you just start back up again, everything's cool; don't get discouraged by setbacks.
4) Lift weights. Even if you're lifting lightly, muscle burns more calories than fat; so your inactive metabolism is kicked up due to the increased muscle mass. I'm not talking about anything absurd along the lines of body builders, but if you do some basic muscle training, you'll notice a difference.
Bottom line is this (don't want to really get into it, but let's just say I know a lot about vitamins & supplements); there's no miracle out there:: reduce your calorie intake, start working out, even if it's a little...you'll notice a difference. You see tons of ads on these thermogenic supplements (Stacker 2/3, Zantrex-3, TrimSpa, HydroxyCut, NO2, etc.)...none of those are going to work unless you do something yourself...I've found that they help as an appetite suppresant/energy builder, but you still need to do something yourself.
Good luck to ya, I was in really bad shape from the horrible stuff I did in college (drinking constantly, eating fried foods/pizza/etc. non-stop, and doing absolutely no physical activity), and I've really turned my life around w/out a prob.
I live in Moon Township, PA (10 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, 5 miles from Pittsburgh International Airport).
We had Earthlink DSL for a year, and were pretty happy with the service. Verizon told us that it was impossible for us to get DSL out here, & AT&T (at the time) lied to us about the availability of Cable access, so we were screwed w/out Broadband for several months until Earthlink said we could get it w/out issue.
We recently switched to Comcast's (formerly AT&T) cable and are really happy with it. Our download speeds frequently exceed 250kB/s, where as we'd only get around 125-150kB/s on Earthlink DSL.
I used to live in Johnstown, PA (2 hours East of Pittsburgh), where we had Cablecomm (now Charter) and had Cable access way back in 1998. Had great service through them as well; used to get around 150kB/s pretty consistently. My parents love their service because they offer reduced speeds (I think 512 or 768kb/s for $25 / month; which is way more than my parents would ever need.
So from my perspective aside from Verizon being poor to deal w/ initially DSL-wise, I've had pretty good experiences w/ Broadband in Western PA.
You do have a good point there about owning the code. I've found this repeatedly at my company with using external/free software solutions in general.
It's a completely idiotic approach to take. They have no problem paying for a god-awful piece of software that somebody thought was cute, but never bothered to check and make sure it'll support everything we need (or even bother to ensure that it'll scale properly), but they are vehemently against using any type of open source software and discourage use large chunks of external code in your apps.
A lot of this stems from code-ownership. They want somebody that they're paying to come back and blame; whether it be me, the outside vendor, or whomever. It's ridiculous and I've tried to make my case time and time again when trying to deal with some of the morons at support, that if we were dealing with an open solution and I could see the code, that I could figure it out for myself. Sure a lot of times it's nice to be able and call and throw it in their laps, but when you hit that week mark and your support vendor isn't able to come up with a solution and you've reached the limits of what isn't in a binary format, you start to get a little frustrated.
I'm slowly making in-roads though; I can see a lot of managers' concern with using Open-source because if you don't get a support contract, you're relying on your in-house people to support everything, which obviously causes a problem if those in the know leave. But is it really necessary to pay a small fortune for a SQL Server, Windows 2000 Server running IIS to produce some basic web applications when Apache/PHP/MySQL|PostgreSQL are all available out there. (And this is the reason that I'm loving.NET & the mono project--should be easier to push this if I can say the same (intelligently) written code will work in Linux).
Ah well, got off topic there, but I'm always a big fan of using external code, but have found repeatedly that I'm not allowed unless I sneak it in and take credit for it myself (which I have/will never do).
Aside from the color, that's nearly the exact same Antec case to which he is referring to.
The same goes with those cool looking Alien Ware cases you see at Best Buy on display. Looks great, but they run around $200.
I got an Antec Case at CompUSA with a 350W power supply for $100. It's a massive case so take heed if you're limited in the amount of space where you can put your desktop. If space isn't an issue, then I'd highly recommend this beast--aside from the front-locking panel to which you are referring, it's also one of the easiest cases to work with that I've ever seen--it has all the features of the Chieftec Dragon case that greg2000 linked to.
Been using apt for a few hours now and you're pretty much right, I have no idea how I got along w/out it before. It's by far the most useful program I've seen for Redhat in terms of installations yet. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal sticking w/ manual RPM installations, but after dealing with missed dependencies time and time again and seeing how this resolves it, I can't complain at all.
Received a reply to an inquiry to Marc (Owner of the On-Line Petition) referring me to the site for the Off-Line Letter Writing Campaign here.
[From the site: Let's face it, this is going to be hard battle and we doubt that online petitions will help much, but we do not want to exclude these options: There is a petition by CGEF going at petitiononline . Click this link to open a new window and sign away. I will wait here till you are done. (Please stop mailing me about the spelling mistakes, I asked petitiononline to correct a few. Bear with me, I'm German;))
2. This wasn't too hard. But now comes the most important part. You need to write letters. Go buy 6 letters and stamps at the local mall/post office, we have some mailing to do during the next few days. International public, too! Airmail is only a like 1 or 2 euros or equivalent. A letter is worth about 1000 petition entries. Some stuff to include: Hugely popular overseas, potent quality public, never having a chance to grow due to severe time slot sabotage. Have a look at the petition text for hints on what to write and add anything YOU can think of. It's your letter. No excuses for not getting a pen right now! ]
Check if out if you guys are serious about saving the show.
Do you have a link to an official site for Tarkin? I haven't checked google yet, 'cause I don't want to end up at an unofficial site for it.
I'd be very interesting in at least getting acquainted with the project. I do not have any experience in the ideas you have suggested, but I would be interested in learning.
And as far as streaming/compressed video goes, I think for a solution to really become open and feasible, that the project should go the same route as Vorbis and be for both. (Obviously this is probably the wrong place to express this opinion).
Hells yeah, I refuse to work on Sunday's (granted I have a job now where working on them isn't even an option) because of Football. The question here though shouldn't be whether or not Football should run over; the for the game, there is no reason why it shouldn't.
Look, I know everyone's psyched up to trash Football on this, but the amount of revenue the sport brings in and the amount that Fox/CBS/ABC pays to broadcast it is astronomical. And for those who are saying that Football should be cut off at their respective time slot, you're in the minority in the rest of the US. Check the Nielsens for any week during the NFL season. Aside from "trend" shows (ie. Millionaire at the time, Survivor at the time) Monday Night Football is almost always the highest rated show.
That being said, there are plenty of other time slots out there for Fox to put a show in. Futurama is my favorite show on TV and it pisses me off that Fox would even consider cancelling it. Do we really need to see That 70's Show 5x a week? Yes its also a great show and also one of my favorites, but this type of replay should be saved for Syndication--not prime time viewing. That 80's Show is a piece of trash. Okay, there might be a market for it out there, but that's beside the point. My point is, is that it's not like Fox has hit after hit show on TV. For God's sake, get rid of the atrocity Temptation Island (The First Season bombed when none of the couples broke up, and the Second one sucks because it's obvious they're just throwing everything possible at the couples in an attempt to get some of them to break up). For Prime Time Viewing, there is essentially 10 good hours per week--Sunday-Thursday (8-10). Don't try to tell me that Fox has 10 hours worth of good shows a week.
How about this? Move Malcolm in the Middle (one of their highest rated shows) to another time-slot now that it got its boost from the Simpsons, and put Futurama after the Simpsons for at least a season. That should be good enough to grow your fan-base with a similar style audience. Don't just cancel the damned show because you gave it absolutely no advertising, gave it a horrible time slot, and in that time slot, didn't manage to show it the majority of the time anyway.
Ah well--guess that's why I could never have a Nielsen box. I'd take the job too seriously and go beserk trying to save every show I like.
Oh well, maybe we'll get lucky and another Network would pick it up. Hell maybe even WB, after all--do they really need 10 Dawson's Creek clones?
Absolutely, I'm not disputing the need for patents. The type of patent you describe is the type that our system does best for protecting. What I get frustrated over is what you mentioned--the type of patents that companies like Amazon get.
Yes I know. My point was this person's ignorance on the fact that he was unaware that there were elections in 2001 and his ignorance toward the fact that your say in local elections ultimately has a much greater impact on your life than national ones do.
I just think that with as much money that we throw around elsewhere in this country that the patent office is something that needs to be invested in heavily. I don't want to sound like I'm attacking the Patent Office entirely--I realize there is a huge amount of Bureaucracy behind the workings of the office.
When you stop and think about how important Patents are to our system of Capitalism (Kills any type of competition in some cases if one is granted / or have ridiculous suits despite the fact that there are obvious cases of prior art) that this is something that needs a serious overhall. The government needs to spend the extra money in this area to ensure consumer safety. After all, we're shelling out God knows how much for a Missle Shield that's a violation of missle treaties and that has not been proven to work at all and more so now under the guise that Terrorist Groups can get Nukes from Russia blocs. (Despite the fact that it has long been argued that countries can easily get their hands on a Nuke, it's the delivery part that is near impossible to get). I could be wrong though--who woulda thought somebody would ues planes as a weapon.
Your suggestion regarding the companies being responsible for doing the background on Patents would be excellent if I thought we could really trust the companies on this matter. Maybe have some sort of Auditing system for a certan percentage of Patent Filings and stiff penalties for violations. Or perhaps what we need is another government office to oversee this aspect of patent filings.
I really don't Immersion is to blame on this one. If the patent office was stupid enough to award the Patent to them without checking for prior art, than it's still something that Microsoft and Sony are bound to recognize.
I remember when the Dual Shock Controller first came out for the PSX and how I was sure to buy one quick because everything I read pointed to a quick removal from the market for a patent infringement.
To Immersion's Defense, they did try to work with MS and Sony to work out a licensing agreement for the technology. I can't imagine that their asking price was that unreasonable seeing as though I had to pay $35 for a PS2 Dual Shock and $40 for the XBox controller.
[From the Article] Immersion has expanded its licensees into the gaming console market with partners such as MadCatz, Saitek and others
This would indicate to me that other vendors have licensed Immersion's Technology. They sell their products a substantially cheaper price and in many cases are not an inferior product. I find it hard to believe that Sony and MS could not afford to pay this.
This is another case in which the Patent Office has screwed up again. If, as many of these other posts indicate there was prior art to the Force Feedback, then the Patent Office is to blame for awarding this in the first place. Immersion is simply excersing a right they have as patent holder--they are not to blame in this.
Look, it's not the Intelluctual Property I have a problem with. Come up with a new idea? Great! If it's something worthy of it, than that person by all means deserves a Patent for the concept.
What I have a problem with, is people being awarded common-sense patents. OOoo! I had this great idea, that if instead of making a user click "Check-Out", then go through all the horrible tedious screens to do so, I'll make a one-click idea!!
Even better are the people who claim years after the fact that something becomes popular that they had the idea in the first place. Nothing explemifies this better than British Telecoms claims over the Hyperlink. If you had such a great idea in the first place, maybe you should have implemented it somehow. Or at the very least, at least keep posted on what's happening in the Real World with it. You mean to tell me that you had this patent since 198x/199x (not positive of the right date and too lazy to look it up) and you are just noticing now that it is being used massively on the Internet? Cut me an f-ing break.
Again, you come up with a great idea/new invention, than hey--I think you should be rewarded; but an onus falls upon those people as well to protect themselves if it's really that innovative.
Seriously, the patent office needs massive reforms. They need to start taking a serious look at what they are awarding patents for and really how innovative of an idea this is. How about going out on a limb and hiring some knowledgeable tech people that can check technology patents over before we award them?
As far as the MPAA and RIAA go, I hate them with a passion. Yeah, that's flamebait right there. I think they have far too much lobbying power (how else could we have gotten the DMCA out there). I do however think it is important for Artists to have some of protection (ie. a Union, which they have). The RIAA and MPAA are just the representation of more Big Business Interests who really care nothing about what happens to their artits. Intelluctual Property? Bah, as long as they can milk more money out of us, they're happy.
Honestly as optimistic as I'd like to be, I just can't see anyting really positive happening from this. Bush's Cabinet is just too far in the pocket of big business to really care about Fair-Use or any of those worrysome consumer ideas.
But Bush has an 85%+ approval rating. Boy do I hate the knowledge and ideals of the majority of voters in the US. (I talked to someone yesterday who was angry that he missed the last election. 2001? Huh? No, that one with Gore and Bush--that about sums it up for me.)
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If it makes you feel better, if you're willing to subscribe for 3 years, you can get the service a fair amount cheaper than $12.95 / month.
Also, I've stated this already in this thread, but a common misconception is that the Comcast DVR service is only $10 / month. At least in my area, if you take a look at your bill, there's a separate $6 charge for each DVR that I have. With the price you're citing on Amazon, you'll actually come out ahead vs. just renting the Comcast boxes for the same period of time.
I certainly agree with you on the cost of the DVR you're using vs. paying for the box up front, but look at your bill more closely. At least in Pittsburgh, one of the cute things that Comcast does is splits out the charge for the DVR service--one $10 charge and one $6 charge. You're actually paying $16 / month.
It actually works out that the $300 Tivo with the 3 year subscription is pretty much a wash, even with paying for the equipment up front.
(Granted, the Tivo isn't 2-way, but it's actually not as far off as you think)
Off-topic I realize...
You're missing Cambria county (Johnstown primarily), but aside from that, you're dead on with your classification of PA in general. This effectively cripples our state, as the state legislature is dominated by conservative members from rural PA, which "don't want to give our money to the cities", completely discounting the fact that the bulk of the money comes from them in the first place.
As an aside, and even more OT, there are a lot of rumors that Lynn Swann (of the 70's Steelers) is planning to run in the next governor election as the Republican nominee. I had a difficult time figuring this out, until I realized that the Republicans are hoping to erode some of the liberal base of Pittsburgh away by getting football fans to jump-ship. If you think this is crazy, you seriously underestimate how much Pittsburgh lives & dies by the Steelers.
Anyway, back to your post: As far as the last race, Specter was never going to lose the general election if he could get past the primary (which he barely did). He's a moderate Republican, that is actually (in-so-much as a politician can be) respectable--witness his stance on judicial nominations (which he had to back off on, lest he lose his seat on the committee).
And as a previous poster said, never underestimate a Casey running in Pennsylvania. Santorum could be in serious trouble in '06--particularly with his living out of state, but still collecting significant sums of money for his kids to go to (charter? boarding?) schools quasai-scandal.
(For the record, I'm an independent voter)
Actually, GotDotNet.com has a pretty sizeable and growing collection of .NET based open-source applications. Sf.net also has a decent number of OSS C# programs as well.
.NET based OSS solutions at all isn't entirely fair.
Obviously the bulk of the applications are for Windows only, but to say that there are no (or very little)
As far as the IDEs go, there are SharpDevelop and Web Matrix, which are both OSS development environments, serving different purposes.
Because Apple, by being a closed hardware manufacturer, does not have thousands of computer configuration possibilities out there to deal with.
It's easy for them to release a security patch and be able to test that against a few dozen possibilities, and know that it's not going to break anyone's system.
Thus, if you need to do system testing, your entire job would be doing this on a daily basis if Microsoft released things patch-by-patch. While not an optimum solution, having one large test to do on semi-regular (yearly?) basis, sure beats having to test systems every single day.
That was the case for VHS tapes, because they used to give the stores the tapes a few months in advance of public release. Thus, anyone could buy the movie, but it would cost you anywhere from $85 to $135 a tape (it was always fun explaining to people that if they didn't return the tapes, they owed us that amount of money--usually got them right back in the store.)
But when DVDs came out, in an attempt to spread the adoption of the format more quickly, they did simultaneous releases to the rental stores and the public. So DVDs only ended up being normal retail prices for the stores.
So while your argument may be true for VHS tapes, it's no longer the case with DVDs.
Benedict
gregorybritt {at} comcast {dot} net
Who are you in game mate? :)
Well that's the point though. People who enjoy traditional MMORPG's are going to continue playing them. I for one enjoy the social aspect of them, but got kinda sick and tired of the hack & slash atmosphere. (Not to mention that I can't play any of those games in Linux, and I as I refuse to pirate software, I'm not going to drop $200 for the copy of Windows I'd need to play it).
For a person like me, Puzzle Pirates is a perfect fit. I get to enjoy various puzzles and the traditional social aspects (well, PP doesn't have the idiot l33t's around) of MMORPG's.
I'm telling ya though, give it a crack; it's marvelously addicting.
This game really is great; if you sign up now before the December 8th Release date, you can get 2 years of the game for $50. It's definitely filled the void in Linux gaming for myself and all for the price of a PS2 game that I get sick of in 2 weeks; not to mention being able to see some of my ideas and features be implemented into the game
The devels really are great, they're constantly active on the forums and in game; not to mention that they actually listen to the players (for example, there were quite a few complaints that there weren't enough Brigands (NPP boats) out there for you to pillage, so the devels made a few changes to the game so you now see consistently more Brigands on the waters).
I highly recommend that you go check it out; for anyone new to the game, feel free to look me up in game for any help or info "/tell spuggy". I also recommend that you get involved in the social aspect of the game, which as a previous poster said, ranks right up there as one of the best features of the game.
Cheers, hope to you see you all there.
The option is still there for the SCSI emulation (I'm assuming this will go away in the future), but you should have no problem using your drive as a pure IDE drive now w/ the newest versions of cdrtools & cdrdao.
I'm running in IDE mode only with no issues.
Amen to that. I work in a city, and I used to take the bus in, but started to park across the river & park at the stadiums. (Which in turn was cheaper than the bus, but also had the bonus of being forced to walk a mile and a half each way to get to work).
:: reduce your calorie intake, start working out, even if it's a little...you'll notice a difference. You see tons of ads on these thermogenic supplements (Stacker 2/3, Zantrex-3, TrimSpa, HydroxyCut, NO2, etc.)...none of those are going to work unless you do something yourself...I've found that they help as an appetite suppresant/energy builder, but you still need to do something yourself.
To be honest, aside from the good aspect of exercise associated with walking that far, it's great to just clear your head at the end of a day. I'm not walking as far as Jucius suggests (25 minutes each way vs. 35 at a brisk pace as he mentions), but damn...after a rough day of putting up with office BS and some nasty progs, nothing is greater than just blasting some music on the mp3 player & walking back to the car.
In regards to the article, I lost around 50-60 pounds since January by pretty much changing a lot of aspects of my lifestyle. Everyone mentions trashing beer, but at my age (22), I'm going to keep doing it regardless of what everyone says...I'm also willing to venture that I drink a helluva lot more than the poster mentioned (we're talking about a case during the course of the working week, then a case a night during the weekend), so it's still easy to lose weight even keeping this vice in your life (granted it's going to be even easier if you stop drinking, but I'm assuming you're in the same boat as me and aren't going to stop.
Here are my suggestions.
1) Stop drinking any sugar aside from alcohol. This has been mentioned a lot already in these posts, but it's amazing how many calories you save by getting rid of non-diet soda & sugar w/ your coffees. For beers, look into a low-carb beer...I got lucky in that it turned out my favorite beer (IC Light) was already low carb, but Michelob Ultra, Thin Ice, etc. are in the same type of position.
2) Start doing something. Start walking to your car from work; get an exercise bike so you can play NCAA 2004 or Madden 2004 in front of it. This is the greatest advice I can possibly give...I was in a situation similar where my working day (including commute) took up 11 hours of my day. If you get a bike that you can sit down on and play video games, it will distract you from the boring fact that you're working out.
3) Keep at it...after a few months when you start to lose weight, and lots of people are telling you how great you look, this won't be a problem at all...it's just tough to get going initially. I've gone through a few periods of a week or 2 stretches where I haven't done a damned thing but drink & eat horribly, but if you just start back up again, everything's cool; don't get discouraged by setbacks.
4) Lift weights. Even if you're lifting lightly, muscle burns more calories than fat; so your inactive metabolism is kicked up due to the increased muscle mass. I'm not talking about anything absurd along the lines of body builders, but if you do some basic muscle training, you'll notice a difference.
Bottom line is this (don't want to really get into it, but let's just say I know a lot about vitamins & supplements); there's no miracle out there
Good luck to ya, I was in really bad shape from the horrible stuff I did in college (drinking constantly, eating fried foods/pizza/etc. non-stop, and doing absolutely no physical activity), and I've really turned my life around w/out a prob.
I live in Moon Township, PA (10 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, 5 miles from Pittsburgh International Airport).
We had Earthlink DSL for a year, and were pretty happy with the service. Verizon told us that it was impossible for us to get DSL out here, & AT&T (at the time) lied to us about the availability of Cable access, so we were screwed w/out Broadband for several months until Earthlink said we could get it w/out issue.
We recently switched to Comcast's (formerly AT&T) cable and are really happy with it. Our download speeds frequently exceed 250kB/s, where as we'd only get around 125-150kB/s on Earthlink DSL.
I used to live in Johnstown, PA (2 hours East of Pittsburgh), where we had Cablecomm (now Charter) and had Cable access way back in 1998. Had great service through them as well; used to get around 150kB/s pretty consistently. My parents love their service because they offer reduced speeds (I think 512 or 768kb/s for $25 / month; which is way more than my parents would ever need.
So from my perspective aside from Verizon being poor to deal w/ initially DSL-wise, I've had pretty good experiences w/ Broadband in Western PA.
You do have a good point there about owning the code. I've found this repeatedly at my company with using external/free software solutions in general.
.NET & the mono project--should be easier to push this if I can say the same (intelligently) written code will work in Linux).
It's a completely idiotic approach to take. They have no problem paying for a god-awful piece of software that somebody thought was cute, but never bothered to check and make sure it'll support everything we need (or even bother to ensure that it'll scale properly), but they are vehemently against using any type of open source software and discourage use large chunks of external code in your apps.
A lot of this stems from code-ownership. They want somebody that they're paying to come back and blame; whether it be me, the outside vendor, or whomever. It's ridiculous and I've tried to make my case time and time again when trying to deal with some of the morons at support, that if we were dealing with an open solution and I could see the code, that I could figure it out for myself. Sure a lot of times it's nice to be able and call and throw it in their laps, but when you hit that week mark and your support vendor isn't able to come up with a solution and you've reached the limits of what isn't in a binary format, you start to get a little frustrated.
I'm slowly making in-roads though; I can see a lot of managers' concern with using Open-source because if you don't get a support contract, you're relying on your in-house people to support everything, which obviously causes a problem if those in the know leave. But is it really necessary to pay a small fortune for a SQL Server, Windows 2000 Server running IIS to produce some basic web applications when Apache/PHP/MySQL|PostgreSQL are all available out there. (And this is the reason that I'm loving
Ah well, got off topic there, but I'm always a big fan of using external code, but have found repeatedly that I'm not allowed unless I sneak it in and take credit for it myself (which I have/will never do).
Aside from the color, that's nearly the exact same Antec case to which he is referring to.
p ?p roduct_code=286479
The same goes with those cool looking Alien Ware cases you see at Best Buy on display. Looks great, but they run around $200.
I got an Antec Case at CompUSA with a 350W power supply for $100. It's a massive case so take heed if you're limited in the amount of space where you can put your desktop. If space isn't an issue, then I'd highly recommend this beast--aside from the front-locking panel to which you are referring, it's also one of the easiest cases to work with that I've ever seen--it has all the features of the Chieftec Dragon case that greg2000 linked to.
Here's the link to it on CompUSA's website:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.as
It may not look flashy, but it's essentially the same case as all these designer ones and it's a helluva lot cheaper.
-Greg
Nailer,
Been using apt for a few hours now and you're pretty much right, I have no idea how I got along w/out it before. It's by far the most useful program I've seen for Redhat in terms of installations yet. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal sticking w/ manual RPM installations, but after dealing with missed dependencies time and time again and seeing how this resolves it, I can't complain at all.
-Greg
Ahh, nice. Thanks.
Didn't notice this in anybody's posts.
;))
Received a reply to an inquiry to Marc (Owner of the On-Line Petition) referring me to the site for the Off-Line Letter Writing Campaign here.
[From the site:
Let's face it, this is going to be hard battle and we doubt that online petitions will help much, but we do not want to exclude these options: There is a petition by CGEF going at petitiononline . Click this link to open a new window and sign away. I will wait here till you are done. (Please stop mailing me about the spelling mistakes, I asked petitiononline to correct a few. Bear with me, I'm German
2. This wasn't too hard. But now comes the most important part. You need to write letters. Go buy 6 letters and stamps at the local mall/post office, we have some mailing to do during the next few days. International public, too! Airmail is only a like 1 or 2 euros or equivalent. A letter is worth about 1000 petition entries. Some stuff to include: Hugely popular overseas, potent quality public, never having a chance to grow due to severe time slot sabotage. Have a look at the petition text for hints on what to write and add anything YOU can think of. It's your letter. No excuses for not getting a pen right now! ]
Check if out if you guys are serious about saving the show.
Hey krmt,
Do you have a link to an official site for Tarkin? I haven't checked google yet, 'cause I don't want to end up at an unofficial site for it.
I'd be very interesting in at least getting acquainted with the project. I do not have any experience in the ideas you have suggested, but I would be interested in learning.
And as far as streaming/compressed video goes, I think for a solution to really become open and feasible, that the project should go the same route as Vorbis and be for both. (Obviously this is probably the wrong place to express this opinion).
Thanks
Hells yeah, I refuse to work on Sunday's (granted I have a job now where working on them isn't even an option) because of Football. The question here though shouldn't be whether or not Football should run over; the for the game, there is no reason why it shouldn't.
Look, I know everyone's psyched up to trash Football on this, but the amount of revenue the sport brings in and the amount that Fox/CBS/ABC pays to broadcast it is astronomical. And for those who are saying that Football should be cut off at their respective time slot, you're in the minority in the rest of the US. Check the Nielsens for any week during the NFL season. Aside from "trend" shows (ie. Millionaire at the time, Survivor at the time) Monday Night Football is almost always the highest rated show.
That being said, there are plenty of other time slots out there for Fox to put a show in. Futurama is my favorite show on TV and it pisses me off that Fox would even consider cancelling it. Do we really need to see That 70's Show 5x a week? Yes its also a great show and also one of my favorites, but this type of replay should be saved for Syndication--not prime time viewing. That 80's Show is a piece of trash. Okay, there might be a market for it out there, but that's beside the point. My point is, is that it's not like Fox has hit after hit show on TV. For God's sake, get rid of the atrocity Temptation Island (The First Season bombed when none of the couples broke up, and the Second one sucks because it's obvious they're just throwing everything possible at the couples in an attempt to get some of them to break up). For Prime Time Viewing, there is essentially 10 good hours per week--Sunday-Thursday (8-10). Don't try to tell me that Fox has 10 hours worth of good shows a week.
How about this? Move Malcolm in the Middle (one of their highest rated shows) to another time-slot now that it got its boost from the Simpsons, and put Futurama after the Simpsons for at least a season. That should be good enough to grow your fan-base with a similar style audience. Don't just cancel the damned show because you gave it absolutely no advertising, gave it a horrible time slot, and in that time slot, didn't manage to show it the majority of the time anyway.
Ah well--guess that's why I could never have a Nielsen box. I'd take the job too seriously and go beserk trying to save every show I like.
Oh well, maybe we'll get lucky and another Network would pick it up. Hell maybe even WB, after all--do they really need 10 Dawson's Creek clones?
Absolutely, I'm not disputing the need for patents. The type of patent you describe is the type that our system does best for protecting. What I get frustrated over is what you mentioned--the type of patents that companies like Amazon get.
Yes I know. My point was this person's ignorance on the fact that he was unaware that there were elections in 2001 and his ignorance toward the fact that your say in local elections ultimately has a much greater impact on your life than national ones do.
I just think that with as much money that we throw around elsewhere in this country that the patent office is something that needs to be invested in heavily. I don't want to sound like I'm attacking the Patent Office entirely--I realize there is a huge amount of Bureaucracy behind the workings of the office.
When you stop and think about how important Patents are to our system of Capitalism (Kills any type of competition in some cases if one is granted / or have ridiculous suits despite the fact that there are obvious cases of prior art) that this is something that needs a serious overhall. The government needs to spend the extra money in this area to ensure consumer safety. After all, we're shelling out God knows how much for a Missle Shield that's a violation of missle treaties and that has not been proven to work at all and more so now under the guise that Terrorist Groups can get Nukes from Russia blocs. (Despite the fact that it has long been argued that countries can easily get their hands on a Nuke, it's the delivery part that is near impossible to get). I could be wrong though--who woulda thought somebody would ues planes as a weapon.
Your suggestion regarding the companies being responsible for doing the background on Patents would be excellent if I thought we could really trust the companies on this matter. Maybe have some sort of Auditing system for a certan percentage of Patent Filings and stiff penalties for violations. Or perhaps what we need is another government office to oversee this aspect of patent filings.
I really don't Immersion is to blame on this one. If the patent office was stupid enough to award the Patent to them without checking for prior art, than it's still something that Microsoft and Sony are bound to recognize.
I remember when the Dual Shock Controller first came out for the PSX and how I was sure to buy one quick because everything I read pointed to a quick removal from the market for a patent infringement.
To Immersion's Defense, they did try to work with MS and Sony to work out a licensing agreement for the technology. I can't imagine that their asking price was that unreasonable seeing as though I had to pay $35 for a PS2 Dual Shock and $40 for the XBox controller.
[From the Article]
Immersion has expanded its licensees into the gaming console market with partners such as MadCatz, Saitek and others
This would indicate to me that other vendors have licensed Immersion's Technology. They sell their products a substantially cheaper price and in many cases are not an inferior product. I find it hard to believe that Sony and MS could not afford to pay this.
This is another case in which the Patent Office has screwed up again. If, as many of these other posts indicate there was prior art to the Force Feedback, then the Patent Office is to blame for awarding this in the first place. Immersion is simply excersing a right they have as patent holder--they are not to blame in this.
Look, it's not the Intelluctual Property I have a problem with. Come up with a new idea? Great! If it's something worthy of it, than that person by all means deserves a Patent for the concept.
What I have a problem with, is people being awarded common-sense patents. OOoo! I had this great idea, that if instead of making a user click "Check-Out", then go through all the horrible tedious screens to do so, I'll make a one-click idea!!
Even better are the people who claim years after the fact that something becomes popular that they had the idea in the first place. Nothing explemifies this better than British Telecoms claims over the Hyperlink. If you had such a great idea in the first place, maybe you should have implemented it somehow. Or at the very least, at least keep posted on what's happening in the Real World with it. You mean to tell me that you had this patent since 198x/199x (not positive of the right date and too lazy to look it up) and you are just noticing now that it is being used massively on the Internet? Cut me an f-ing break.
Again, you come up with a great idea/new invention, than hey--I think you should be rewarded; but an onus falls upon those people as well to protect themselves if it's really that innovative.
Seriously, the patent office needs massive reforms. They need to start taking a serious look at what they are awarding patents for and really how innovative of an idea this is. How about going out on a limb and hiring some knowledgeable tech people that can check technology patents over before we award them?
As far as the MPAA and RIAA go, I hate them with a passion. Yeah, that's flamebait right there. I think they have far too much lobbying power (how else could we have gotten the DMCA out there). I do however think it is important for Artists to have some of protection (ie. a Union, which they have). The RIAA and MPAA are just the representation of more Big Business Interests who really care nothing about what happens to their artits. Intelluctual Property? Bah, as long as they can milk more money out of us, they're happy.
Honestly as optimistic as I'd like to be, I just can't see anyting really positive happening from this. Bush's Cabinet is just too far in the pocket of big business to really care about Fair-Use or any of those worrysome consumer ideas.
But Bush has an 85%+ approval rating. Boy do I hate the knowledge and ideals of the majority of voters in the US. (I talked to someone yesterday who was angry that he missed the last election. 2001? Huh? No, that one with Gore and Bush--that about sums it up for me.)