Can't see my wife liking this new wallpaper
on
Anti-Wi-Fi Wallpaper
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· Score: 2, Funny
WIFE: "What do you mean we need it to prevent the hacker children next door from getting our credit card numbers?"
HUSBAND: "I know, honey -- it sounds bad, but think of all the information we have flying through the house and out the walls because we don't have this anti-wifi wallpaper in every room."
WIFE: "What information? You mean three to four hours every Friday and Saturday night of video game data? Are you scared the hacker children next door will get your serial number? Are you scared that THEY too will learn of your porn like I did last week? Christ -- they're 12!"
HUSBAND: "Hey -- the black hats start early these days, babe. Porn? What porn?"
WIFE: "Never mind. What's a black hat? What are you friggin' talking about? Enough -- stop bothering me with this tin foil looking wallpaper and help me pick out a nursery paint color."
HUSBAND: "Are you sure you want paint in the nursery, babe? What if someone hacks our wifi baby monitoring camera because we don't have this wallpaper and decides to kidnap our child?"
WIFE: "You sad little nerdy man. Shut up and pick out a paint color."
HUSBAND: "But -- what about our credit card num---"
I left a university job 6 months ago, and one of the nagging questions that I got before I left was "WHY do you people make us download and install RealPlayer and all its adware/spyware/credit card requesting crap to view multimedia on your school's website?" Well -- at the time, licensing for adequate #'s of Windows Media-based servers was too expensive relative to the early-adopter setup of RealServer(s) around campus.
Still, you can't get students (or parents) to like your school's website when the audio/video tours are rife with SUBSCRIBE NOW notices every time you load a presentation.
From what I've heard, though, RealNetworks is offering a corporate version of the RealPlayer sans the adware/spyware/subscribe now bullshit. My multimedia counterpart at the school that I left says that they've made it a free download from their various website properties to avoid complaints from both prospective students and alumni alike.
The first and foremost rule for this DARPA challenge in 2005 will be...
Vehicle must not assume that heat emitting humanoid objects are expendable until contract is awarded and vehicle is deployed, for example, to iraq. Any vehicle veering off course right out of the starting gate and heading toward said heat emitting humanoid objects -- hereafter referred to as spectators -- will be immediately disqualified from the main challenge.
A secondary, non-public demonstration of the ability to run down large crowds, however, will be run at a later date as part of DARPA's 'Fuck Anti-Capitalist Protestors' Crowd Control Technology Program.
Sounds to me like they're having to put this cluster together to keep us from bringing down their website/servers/network whenever one of us posts a news item to/. about the photo a space probe took of a methane cloud on Venus, supposedly caused by a single gassy Venutian 35 million years ago -- before they moved to a better neighborhood.
IronChefMorimoto
Isn't obvious? Elderly volunteers are to blame!
on
How To Lose An Election
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Seriously -- how hard is it to understand WHY these voting machines, despite having backups, printed copies, etc. to verify that they work in a test environement, are crapping out, crashing, being manipulated, etc.?
ELDERLY VOLUNTEERS AT THE POLLS!
Come on! Whenever I've gone to the polls, I've never seen anyone younger than retirement home/Tuesdasy night bingo age running the show.
Certainly, they're nice and friendly, but seriously -- this is the generation that, for the most part, yell and scream if someone automates anything in their life with a computer.
The same generation, for example, that tells a postal worker (who is TRYING to speed up the line by recommending the vending machines) that he/she won't use the stamp vending machine...BECAUSE IT'S "ONE OF THOSE MACHINES!" (Swear to God, I almost bought the woman's stamps for her so I could move up a spot in line.)
Christ, people -- we're telling these volunteers to NOT hand out pencils or punching tools. Instead, they're asked to monitor COMPUTERS! MACHINES! CONFABULATORS DESIGNED BY THE WHIPPERSNAPPER GENERATION!
Do you not think they're even more terrified since the grandkids turned on The Matrix during their Sunday afternoon nap? Since they read in Readers' Digest that Jar-Jar Binks was, in fact, not a stereotypical ethnic actor wearing a really dumb outfit, but instead a computer generated character?
Shit -- we're lucky that the voting machines haven't been secretly replaced in the wee hours of a major primary with #2 pencils and handwritten ballots. With the closet in the corner of the school gym bulging open with a Diebold display hanging out near the bottom of the door. And the volunteers looking around nervously like someone spiked the retirement home Jell-O mold with Maalox.
ATHLONXP vs. SEMPRON (SOCKET A) -- can't really tell upon first glance. The Sempron is available in the same speeds as the AthlonXP and based on the Thoroughbred B core (I'm running a Barton and a Thoroughbred B pair of cores in mine and Allison's desktops). The Sempron tops out at a slower over speed vs. the AthlonXP lineup. How confusing is that? The FSB, right now, tops out at 333Mhz, so it might be a little odd to pair a Sempron Socket A up with DDR400 (PC3200) memory.
ATHLON64 (SOCKET 754) vs. SEMPRON (SOCKET 754) -- same issue -- they both look the same and have the same speed numbering. However, the original 754 was a Clawhammer (1MB L2 cache), followed by Newcastle (512KB L2 cache). Now, the Sempron has a 256KB L2 cache and NO x86-64 instructions. You can run matching memory FSB speeds of 400MHz with the 754 variant of the Sempron.
The Anandtech article noted that the AthlonXP is the better performance value now, until it's phased out. After that, the Sempron 754 is a good entry-level processor vs. a slightly slower full Athlon64.
Ugh -- talk about confusing. No more so, I guess, than Intel having 2.8GHz P4 Prescotts and 2.8GHz Celeron Ds.
My god -- cutting funding and crew to the International Space Station. What will aliens think?
"Org -- we are approaching the human planet, Earth."
"Excellent, Zal -- after years of secretly abducting and probing countless asses of this species, we will finally properly introduce ourselves. I really wish we had a fruit basket to give their leader."
"Interesting, Org. It appears that the humans have replicated what they refer to as 'bad real estate' and a 'trailer park' in orbit around the planet."
"What? I thought that sorry piece of -- how did they say -- Russkie crog fell out of orbit years ago."
"No, Org -- it appears to be their 'space station' -- and it looks like crog."
"Let me see that, Zal."
[A few moments pass.]
"Damn, Zal -- they have really malurked their first peaceful space indeavor to Miktar. They should, as they say, just put the piece of crog on blocks and set a -- um -- hound dog -- under the solar panels. What a piece of crog."
"Yes, Org -- our estimations of their potential have been severely overstated. I am frankly glad that we did not bring the fruit basket."
"You are right, Zal -- this species has no potential. Deploy the Teragian genetic bio reversal weapon. We'll reset the species back several million lurgs and wait to see if they do any better. Damn -- that means I have to pull out the non-opposable thumb version of the anal probe."
I'm pretty sure ET has already found me. At least, that's what the grey midget sticking the cattle prod up my ass while covering me in slimy Saran Wrap told me through my mind the other night when I was snatched out of bed via a beam of light.
Wait -- never mind -- that was Tequila talking after some really bad Mexican food. No wonder my ass hurts. Damn that Mexican midget waitress!
I think this is a great product, but I have this awful feeling that, if not properly situated in your domicile, this little doodad runs the risk of getting unplugged when the wife or housekeeper comes through to vacuum.
Wait -- I don't have a housekeeper, and my wife makes me vacuum.
...is getting that many liberals in one spot without adult supervision. There should be a 5-mile safe zone around the perimeter to ensure that conservatives and moderates don't spontaneously combust.
In other news, the laser-cannon-enabled crosses of the ridculously Christian right will be set around the perimeter of the Republican convention later this year. Liberals walking within the perimeter will be burned alive instantly, their ashes teleported to Hell, where, according to Rush Limbaugh and his demonic minions, all liberals go.
Finally, independents will sit at home and grouse, "Why the hell do we only have Nader to pick from?"
I had a friend in 1998 who was trying to buy one of a lot of IBM Thinkpads on eBay. We had just graduated from college and were getting ready to move out and start our jobs/graduate education. We were both pretty broke.
He was an early eBay user (I'd never heard of it), and he sent $1000+ (money order -- not a credit card that might have been protected) to a seller on eBay for one of the guy's ThinkPads. And he never got it. Months passed, and he never got it.
He realized he'd been scammed, so he started filing complaints with the FTC, FBI and other government agencies. And he garnered some degree of hope when said agencies responded and said that they were after this guy for fraud. And a few months passed.
Eventually, the scammer was arrested and sent to prison for thousands of dollars of eBay scams and other fraud. He was ordered, as part of a plea deal, to repay the people he'd scammed.
It was almost 5 years later (after the original attempted eBay purchase) that my friend called me after work one afternoon to say that he'd gotten some money back via the US government for this guy's plea bargain.
It was about a $15 check, if I remember correctly. Might have been $30. That was all the guy could afford to send out (or have sent out by the prison) from his wages at the prison.
5 years. Government investigations. And my buddy only got about $15 back of his $1000+. Now, he just asks me for my parts before I list them on eBay.
Tried getting to the website a bit ago and discovered something. Slashdot is perhaps the only reason in the world that NASA would need to go back and re-freeze priceless man to the Moon photos. So they'd have time to think of a better way to show them to the world other than through a WEBSITE THAN CAN BE SLASHDOTTED TO HELL!
Well -- there's another reason they'd re-freeze 'em, but it only comes up if one of the technicians in the lab breaks wind and compromises the air quality around the photographs he's un-freezing.
If you look at the homepage right now (July 19, 2004, 11:05am EST), you'll see two stories. An ironic juxtaposition of Apple releasing its latest/greatest iPod and Microsoft's PocketPC platform getting a test virus.
In a moment of complete stupidity, I managed to split Brannon Braga into two people. ST fans were pleased with the concept, but not the idea of having two of them to really screw up their beloved franchise.
IronChefMorimoto
Man -- I'm not sure I'd fly first class...
on
X43-A on to Mach 10
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· Score: 1
I really can't say that I'd envy first-class passengers in an aircraft designed with this technology unless I was assured that I would be burned alive at 4000+ degree temperatures.
"Stewardess? Can you bring me another gin and tonic. It's stifling in here. Stewardess? STEWARDESS?!"
"I'm sorry, sir. Sherry has burned a crisp after going after your last drink. Can I interest you in a shrimp cocktail instead?"
In other news, the Star Trek series was saved as the infamous Brannon and Braga duo who have single-handedly butchered the ST universe were sent through the Stargate BACK to Earth WITHOUT a GDO code.
The trip was actually an elaborate plan by a group of serious Star Trek fans -- fans who only wish that their franchise would have as much life again as the Stargate franchise appears to enjoy.
Brannon and Braga were "invited" to the "set" of Stargate SG-1 under the pretense of a review of the show's innovative special effects. In reality, the Star Trek fans begged the Stargate crew to actually build a REAL Stargate and send the duo out to the far reaches of our known galaxy, where they met the REAL G'hould (sp?) enemy depicted in the show.
According to reports from the set, the two reported back from the other side of the REAL working gate, pretty much screaming their asses off and begging to be sent back. After being ass-whipped by a lesser G'hould god named Lohr Atana (a.k.a. Frank the Destroyer), the Butchers of ST were sent back through the G'hould Stargate to Earth -- without a GDO.
Had Brannon and Braga actually ever shown an ounce of consistency with some of their ST storylines, they would've remembered such key AND CONSISTENT plot elements as the GDO, the code, the iris, etc. and asked for a GDO transmitter before being sent through the Stargate.
The last "communication" ST fans at the Stargate SG-1 set had with Brannon and Braga was the dull thud of their bodies slapping up against an improvised iris on the REAL Stargate. A few minutes later, the Stargate was reactivated, and Frank the Destroyer sent a handwritten note asking the crew to never send idiots like that to his domain again or suffer enslavement at the yada, yada, evil bad guy bullshit talk, yada.
After the REAL Stargate was dismantled (at the request of SCI-FI CHANNEL lawyers insistent on not actually allowing Frank the Destroyer free access to Earth and our solar system), the cast and crew of Stargate SG-1 treated the elated ST fans to a catered party and autograph session.
Plans are in the works to have the ST: Enterprise crew find a Stargate in the third season of the poorly rated show so they can travel back through time and save themselves from cancellation. Brad Wright, of Stargate fame, will direct the pilot episode of Stargate ST-1: Enterprise.
Gay-ass pop music will NOT be used in the title sequence and credits of the revamped show. Some of the ST fans at the SG-1 set have vowed to send the guy that sings the current theme song through the REAL Stargate as well. They are negotiating rights for a legal transfer of liability for said Stargate with SCI-FI CHANNEL lawyers.
To configure Linux, I refer to the Windows XP blue CD-ROM boot screen AFTER I give up on installing Linux.
Dammit. I hate being a Linux virgin. Or does a semi-successful installation of Mandrake Linux 8.x on a Dell laptop count? No? Still got the Linux cherry? DAMMIT!
I predict that the release of this game will have so many computer geeks, nerds, gamers, etc. (I'm in all those categories) out of the office for most of August that the following will happen:
backups will be left undone; servers worldwide will fail and not come back up; electronic commerce as we know it will halt
viruses will run rampant; OS patches and virus definitions will remain uninstalled
traffic management systems will be left unattended; millions will die in horrible car accidents
Apple will go out of business; its approx. 4% market share will dwindle as Mac users realize that an OS X native version of DOOM3 isn't being released
skeletons will be spotted via the International Space Station cameras around mid-September; mission control specialists will have ignored their pleas for a replacement crew/supply ship for 6+ weeks
Al Qaeda will blow up 7 buildings, resulting in the deaths of the elderly, women, and children; teenage and 20-40-something males will mysteriously escape the carnage by sheer absenteeism (gamer chicks will also escape -- we're not all men)
first semester classes around the world will be canceled; not enough students will show to class to occupy faculty members' time
divorce will skyrocket to millions/day within the first week of DOOM3's release
Damn! Thank you, Mr. Gates! I am SOOOOO friggin' glad to get that timely news. I mean, if I'd learned that DVDs were going to be obsolete in only FIVE years rather than TEN, I'd be pissed at the industry for not giving me enough time to think about what I was going to do with my new DVD player.
"Honey! Throw out the DVD player at the yard sale this Saturday! We're gettin' the next big thing...a few years from now...but we're gettin' it!"
Hell -- TEN years to think about what to do with these DVDs and my DVD-ROM drive. Maybe I'll go ahead and toss the DVD-ROM drive and fill the space with one of those 5.25" drive bay Easy-Bake-Ovens -- or a 5.25" drive bay aquarium. Yeah! That's it! Watch two male betas battle it out in my cold cathode-lit case while I frag on Far Cry! And then DOOM3, followed by Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell 4, World of Diablo vs. WarCraft VII, and Star Wars Galaxies III: The Expansion Pack......and then whatever replaces DVDs will be mature and ready for end-user consumption! WOOHOO! Oh, wait -- I may not have money for that new piece of hardware after having 10 years to spend money on stuff that I'd not been told was going to be obsolete in 10 years. DAMMIT!
My only regret -- we didn't get at least 10 years notice that Duke Nuke'Em Forever was in development. On the other hand...we're getting close.:-D
IronChefMorimoto
The Saturn weather question of the day...
on
Saturn Hailstorm
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· Score: 0
Were they golf ball sized or grapefruit sizes Saturn hail?
I have to wonder, in all of this talk about Apple doing this or that wrong, if the company isn't just stuck where it is for a single reason -- aside from all of the high prices, no middle-tier lines, etc. type issues. That single reason is STEVE JOBS.
I don't know the guy personally. I can't read his mind. I don't know what he's thinking. And I could care less what his intentions are.
But for the life of me, after reading stories about the man over the years, I don't know why some of his peers -- THOSE WHO WANT HIM AND APPLE TO SUCCEED -- can't get him into a room and have an APPLE INTERVENTION. The stories I've read pain the man as an enigmatic, eccentric visionary who really has great ideas. But, going by many of these same articles, he's also a guy who has run off colleagues, insulted friends, and rejected many ideas for doing great things with his company to move it forward.
In the end, the underlying currents all seem to point to the fact that Steve Jobs must just be very damned stubborn. Does this "stubborness" translate, despite his vision and grand ideas of the computing future with Apple, into an approach to management that stifles his very dream child of a company?
I REALLY want the guy to succeed. I really want to be able to afford an Apple some day without my wife yelling at me and telling me to (HORRORS AND HELL FREEZING OVER!) spend the money on a homebrew Athlon64 system instead. I really want to turn on my PC someday and hear the beautiful music that is the Mac OS X Panther (or Tiger, Kitten, Feline, etc.) operating system startup chime!
But...will it ever happen? Must he insist, to his deathbed, on keeping Apple at its measly sub-5% market share? Will those dreams ever come true if Steve continues being...well...Steve? Stubborn Steve?
IronChefMorimoto
P.S. - Don't flamebait me -- I am a long, diehard PC user who has discovered Mac OS X and all its glories. I would SO love to have this operating system at home -- but it'll never happen unless I win the lottery.;-)
I was talking hosting center backup options the other day with my boss. He's a Mac guy. Terribly devoted to Apple, blindly devoted to anything open source (regardless of immediate return on invested time/effort), and horribly anti-Microsoft.
That, said, he has lectured me over and over again about how he hates tapes. He never gives a decent reason, except that they're slow to restore stuff. Now, I'm new to IT support (web development/multimedia design by trade), so I just let my eyes glaze over and wait for him to get to the part where tapes can be tied back to Bill Gates and the Evil Microsoft (I'll spare you the use of the $ in that word) Empire. When he's finished, I just sort of nod my head and mention that there are newer, faster tape technologies out there that we could look into.
And then I mention cost. It's my understanding that these newer, faster tape solutions are really dang expensive, particularly for small businesses. Autoloaders and all that -- I've browsed the Dell website and been all but floored at some of the pricing on these things.
In the end, I'm left with either recommending a shoddy USB/Firewire hard drive backup for certain servers (like that's reliable) or going back to the drawing board. I can only pray that my boss' lack of acceptance of this technology (and advances in said technology) won't come back to bite him (and the company) in the ass when a server goes down.
Thanks for the responses. I will definitely do some W3C validation and look at AListApart.com, seeing as now I know that Safari isn't based on Mozilla. One would assume that, building from the Gecko engine, one would get similar results with the same page. I wasn't aware that Safari was based on Konqueror.
That said, I should note that I'm using Safari on fully updated Panther machines, since someone mentioned it.
Thanks for the feedback!
IronChefMorimoto
I should preface my comments with this -- I'm new to OS X (IT/developer working in creative environment), so my experience with Safari may not be totally up to snuff. Correct me if I terribly skew off track with comments about Safari.
That said, I'm wondering if Apple has improved Safari to be more compatible with websites. And if not, why not before doing this RSS application?
When I do testing of websites with Mozilla 1.x and FireBird 0.9 on my PC, I run into some "damn you Internet Explorer"-specific pages that limit the features that I see with these alternative browsers. However, when I use Safari (which I thought was loosely based on the Mozilla project's browser engine), I see even more rendering problems than in the other two browsers.
Do I just need to spend more time with Safari, or are there still major issues with how it renders some pages and code? And if the latter is true, was it wise for Apple to add another Safari-esque feature with this RSS application when they need to fix some rendering issues with what could be a really sweet browser?
It's sad, but on many pages that work fine in Mozilla 1.x and FireBird 0.9 on a PC, I have to send designers who want to see their work BACK to IE for Mac so that the pages properly render what they designed. Of course, my code could just really suck too.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
WIFE: "What do you mean we need it to prevent the hacker children next door from getting our credit card numbers?"
HUSBAND: "I know, honey -- it sounds bad, but think of all the information we have flying through the house and out the walls because we don't have this anti-wifi wallpaper in every room."
WIFE: "What information? You mean three to four hours every Friday and Saturday night of video game data? Are you scared the hacker children next door will get your serial number? Are you scared that THEY too will learn of your porn like I did last week? Christ -- they're 12!"
HUSBAND: "Hey -- the black hats start early these days, babe. Porn? What porn?"
WIFE: "Never mind. What's a black hat? What are you friggin' talking about? Enough -- stop bothering me with this tin foil looking wallpaper and help me pick out a nursery paint color."
HUSBAND: "Are you sure you want paint in the nursery, babe? What if someone hacks our wifi baby monitoring camera because we don't have this wallpaper and decides to kidnap our child?"
WIFE: "You sad little nerdy man. Shut up and pick out a paint color."
HUSBAND: "But -- what about our credit card num---"
WIFE: [SLAP!]
HUSBAND: "Yes dear -- I like Nemo Yellow."
HUSBAND: [SIGH]
IronChefMorimoto
I left a university job 6 months ago, and one of the nagging questions that I got before I left was "WHY do you people make us download and install RealPlayer and all its adware/spyware/credit card requesting crap to view multimedia on your school's website?" Well -- at the time, licensing for adequate #'s of Windows Media-based servers was too expensive relative to the early-adopter setup of RealServer(s) around campus.
Still, you can't get students (or parents) to like your school's website when the audio/video tours are rife with SUBSCRIBE NOW notices every time you load a presentation.
From what I've heard, though, RealNetworks is offering a corporate version of the RealPlayer sans the adware/spyware/subscribe now bullshit. My multimedia counterpart at the school that I left says that they've made it a free download from their various website properties to avoid complaints from both prospective students and alumni alike.
My 2 cents.
IronChefMorimoto
The first and foremost rule for this DARPA challenge in 2005 will be...
Vehicle must not assume that heat emitting humanoid objects are expendable until contract is awarded and vehicle is deployed, for example, to iraq. Any vehicle veering off course right out of the starting gate and heading toward said heat emitting humanoid objects -- hereafter referred to as spectators -- will be immediately disqualified from the main challenge.
A secondary, non-public demonstration of the ability to run down large crowds, however, will be run at a later date as part of DARPA's 'Fuck Anti-Capitalist Protestors' Crowd Control Technology Program.
IronChefMorimoto
Sounds to me like they're having to put this cluster together to keep us from bringing down their website/servers/network whenever one of us posts a news item to /. about the photo a space probe took of a methane cloud on Venus, supposedly caused by a single gassy Venutian 35 million years ago -- before they moved to a better neighborhood.
IronChefMorimoto
Seriously -- how hard is it to understand WHY these voting machines, despite having backups, printed copies, etc. to verify that they work in a test environement, are crapping out, crashing, being manipulated, etc.?
ELDERLY VOLUNTEERS AT THE POLLS!
Come on! Whenever I've gone to the polls, I've never seen anyone younger than retirement home/Tuesdasy night bingo age running the show.
Certainly, they're nice and friendly, but seriously -- this is the generation that, for the most part, yell and scream if someone automates anything in their life with a computer.
The same generation, for example, that tells a postal worker (who is TRYING to speed up the line by recommending the vending machines) that he/she won't use the stamp vending machine...BECAUSE IT'S "ONE OF THOSE MACHINES!" (Swear to God, I almost bought the woman's stamps for her so I could move up a spot in line.)
Christ, people -- we're telling these volunteers to NOT hand out pencils or punching tools. Instead, they're asked to monitor COMPUTERS! MACHINES! CONFABULATORS DESIGNED BY THE WHIPPERSNAPPER GENERATION!
Do you not think they're even more terrified since the grandkids turned on The Matrix during their Sunday afternoon nap? Since they read in Readers' Digest that Jar-Jar Binks was, in fact, not a stereotypical ethnic actor wearing a really dumb outfit, but instead a computer generated character?
Shit -- we're lucky that the voting machines haven't been secretly replaced in the wee hours of a major primary with #2 pencils and handwritten ballots. With the closet in the corner of the school gym bulging open with a Diebold display hanging out near the bottom of the door. And the volunteers looking around nervously like someone spiked the retirement home Jell-O mold with Maalox.
IronChefMorimoto
The Semprons are available in Socket A (AthlonXP) and Socket 754 flavors.
Anandtech - http://www.anandtech.com (better article)
Tomshardware - http://www.tomshardware.com
Big differences are...
ATHLONXP vs. SEMPRON (SOCKET A) -- can't really tell upon first glance. The Sempron is available in the same speeds as the AthlonXP and based on the Thoroughbred B core (I'm running a Barton and a Thoroughbred B pair of cores in mine and Allison's desktops). The Sempron tops out at a slower over speed vs. the AthlonXP lineup. How confusing is that? The FSB, right now, tops out at 333Mhz, so it might be a little odd to pair a Sempron Socket A up with DDR400 (PC3200) memory.
ATHLON64 (SOCKET 754) vs. SEMPRON (SOCKET 754) -- same issue -- they both look the same and have the same speed numbering. However, the original 754 was a Clawhammer (1MB L2 cache), followed by Newcastle (512KB L2 cache). Now, the Sempron has a 256KB L2 cache and NO x86-64 instructions. You can run matching memory FSB speeds of 400MHz with the 754 variant of the Sempron.
The Anandtech article noted that the AthlonXP is the better performance value now, until it's phased out. After that, the Sempron 754 is a good entry-level processor vs. a slightly slower full Athlon64.
Ugh -- talk about confusing. No more so, I guess, than Intel having 2.8GHz P4 Prescotts and 2.8GHz Celeron Ds.
IronChefMorimoto
My god -- cutting funding and crew to the International Space Station. What will aliens think?
"Org -- we are approaching the human planet, Earth."
"Excellent, Zal -- after years of secretly abducting and probing countless asses of this species, we will finally properly introduce ourselves. I really wish we had a fruit basket to give their leader."
"Interesting, Org. It appears that the humans have replicated what they refer to as 'bad real estate' and a 'trailer park' in orbit around the planet."
"What? I thought that sorry piece of -- how did they say -- Russkie crog fell out of orbit years ago."
"No, Org -- it appears to be their 'space station' -- and it looks like crog."
"Let me see that, Zal."
[A few moments pass.]
"Damn, Zal -- they have really malurked their first peaceful space indeavor to Miktar. They should, as they say, just put the piece of crog on blocks and set a -- um -- hound dog -- under the solar panels. What a piece of crog."
"Yes, Org -- our estimations of their potential have been severely overstated. I am frankly glad that we did not bring the fruit basket."
"You are right, Zal -- this species has no potential. Deploy the Teragian genetic bio reversal weapon. We'll reset the species back several million lurgs and wait to see if they do any better. Damn -- that means I have to pull out the non-opposable thumb version of the anal probe."
IronChefMorimoto
I'm pretty sure ET has already found me. At least, that's what the grey midget sticking the cattle prod up my ass while covering me in slimy Saran Wrap told me through my mind the other night when I was snatched out of bed via a beam of light.
Wait -- never mind -- that was Tequila talking after some really bad Mexican food. No wonder my ass hurts. Damn that Mexican midget waitress!
IronChefMorimoto
I think this is a great product, but I have this awful feeling that, if not properly situated in your domicile, this little doodad runs the risk of getting unplugged when the wife or housekeeper comes through to vacuum.
Wait -- I don't have a housekeeper, and my wife makes me vacuum.
Dammit. It's a moot point.
IronChefMorimoto
...is getting that many liberals in one spot without adult supervision. There should be a 5-mile safe zone around the perimeter to ensure that conservatives and moderates don't spontaneously combust.
In other news, the laser-cannon-enabled crosses of the ridculously Christian right will be set around the perimeter of the Republican convention later this year. Liberals walking within the perimeter will be burned alive instantly, their ashes teleported to Hell, where, according to Rush Limbaugh and his demonic minions, all liberals go.
Finally, independents will sit at home and grouse, "Why the hell do we only have Nader to pick from?"
IronChefMorimoto
Equal Opportunity Troll
I had a friend in 1998 who was trying to buy one of a lot of IBM Thinkpads on eBay. We had just graduated from college and were getting ready to move out and start our jobs/graduate education. We were both pretty broke.
He was an early eBay user (I'd never heard of it), and he sent $1000+ (money order -- not a credit card that might have been protected) to a seller on eBay for one of the guy's ThinkPads. And he never got it. Months passed, and he never got it.
He realized he'd been scammed, so he started filing complaints with the FTC, FBI and other government agencies. And he garnered some degree of hope when said agencies responded and said that they were after this guy for fraud. And a few months passed.
Eventually, the scammer was arrested and sent to prison for thousands of dollars of eBay scams and other fraud. He was ordered, as part of a plea deal, to repay the people he'd scammed.
It was almost 5 years later (after the original attempted eBay purchase) that my friend called me after work one afternoon to say that he'd gotten some money back via the US government for this guy's plea bargain.
It was about a $15 check, if I remember correctly. Might have been $30. That was all the guy could afford to send out (or have sent out by the prison) from his wages at the prison.
5 years. Government investigations. And my buddy only got about $15 back of his $1000+. Now, he just asks me for my parts before I list them on eBay.
IronChefMorimoto
Tried getting to the website a bit ago and discovered something. Slashdot is perhaps the only reason in the world that NASA would need to go back and re-freeze priceless man to the Moon photos. So they'd have time to think of a better way to show them to the world other than through a WEBSITE THAN CAN BE SLASHDOTTED TO HELL!
Well -- there's another reason they'd re-freeze 'em, but it only comes up if one of the technicians in the lab breaks wind and compromises the air quality around the photographs he's un-freezing.
IronChefMorimoto
...featured the tagline:
;-)
"To hell with shoes that shit to sprint..."
F7 could've saved this guy his job.
IronChefMorimoto
If you look at the homepage right now (July 19, 2004, 11:05am EST), you'll see two stories. An ironic juxtaposition of Apple releasing its latest/greatest iPod and Microsoft's PocketPC platform getting a test virus.
Apple loves it. Microsoft hates it. Film at 11.
IronChefMorimoto
In a moment of complete stupidity, I managed to split Brannon Braga into two people. ST fans were pleased with the concept, but not the idea of having two of them to really screw up their beloved franchise.
IronChefMorimoto
I really can't say that I'd envy first-class passengers in an aircraft designed with this technology unless I was assured that I would be burned alive at 4000+ degree temperatures.
"Stewardess? Can you bring me another gin and tonic. It's stifling in here. Stewardess? STEWARDESS?!"
"I'm sorry, sir. Sherry has burned a crisp after going after your last drink. Can I interest you in a shrimp cocktail instead?"
IronChefMorimoto
In other news, the Star Trek series was saved as the infamous Brannon and Braga duo who have single-handedly butchered the ST universe were sent through the Stargate BACK to Earth WITHOUT a GDO code.
The trip was actually an elaborate plan by a group of serious Star Trek fans -- fans who only wish that their franchise would have as much life again as the Stargate franchise appears to enjoy.
Brannon and Braga were "invited" to the "set" of Stargate SG-1 under the pretense of a review of the show's innovative special effects. In reality, the Star Trek fans begged the Stargate crew to actually build a REAL Stargate and send the duo out to the far reaches of our known galaxy, where they met the REAL G'hould (sp?) enemy depicted in the show.
According to reports from the set, the two reported back from the other side of the REAL working gate, pretty much screaming their asses off and begging to be sent back. After being ass-whipped by a lesser G'hould god named Lohr Atana (a.k.a. Frank the Destroyer), the Butchers of ST were sent back through the G'hould Stargate to Earth -- without a GDO.
Had Brannon and Braga actually ever shown an ounce of consistency with some of their ST storylines, they would've remembered such key AND CONSISTENT plot elements as the GDO, the code, the iris, etc. and asked for a GDO transmitter before being sent through the Stargate.
The last "communication" ST fans at the Stargate SG-1 set had with Brannon and Braga was the dull thud of their bodies slapping up against an improvised iris on the REAL Stargate. A few minutes later, the Stargate was reactivated, and Frank the Destroyer sent a handwritten note asking the crew to never send idiots like that to his domain again or suffer enslavement at the yada, yada, evil bad guy bullshit talk, yada.
After the REAL Stargate was dismantled (at the request of SCI-FI CHANNEL lawyers insistent on not actually allowing Frank the Destroyer free access to Earth and our solar system), the cast and crew of Stargate SG-1 treated the elated ST fans to a catered party and autograph session.
Plans are in the works to have the ST: Enterprise crew find a Stargate in the third season of the poorly rated show so they can travel back through time and save themselves from cancellation. Brad Wright, of Stargate fame, will direct the pilot episode of Stargate ST-1: Enterprise.
Gay-ass pop music will NOT be used in the title sequence and credits of the revamped show. Some of the ST fans at the SG-1 set have vowed to send the guy that sings the current theme song through the REAL Stargate as well. They are negotiating rights for a legal transfer of liability for said Stargate with SCI-FI CHANNEL lawyers.
IronChefMorimoto
To configure Linux, I refer to the Windows XP blue CD-ROM boot screen AFTER I give up on installing Linux.
Dammit. I hate being a Linux virgin. Or does a semi-successful installation of Mandrake Linux 8.x on a Dell laptop count? No? Still got the Linux cherry? DAMMIT!
IronChefMorimoto
I predict that the release of this game will have so many computer geeks, nerds, gamers, etc. (I'm in all those categories) out of the office for most of August that the following will happen:
IronChefMorimoto
Damn! Thank you, Mr. Gates! I am SOOOOO friggin' glad to get that timely news. I mean, if I'd learned that DVDs were going to be obsolete in only FIVE years rather than TEN, I'd be pissed at the industry for not giving me enough time to think about what I was going to do with my new DVD player.
...and then whatever replaces DVDs will be mature and ready for end-user consumption! WOOHOO! Oh, wait -- I may not have money for that new piece of hardware after having 10 years to spend money on stuff that I'd not been told was going to be obsolete in 10 years. DAMMIT!
:-D
"Honey! Throw out the DVD player at the yard sale this Saturday! We're gettin' the next big thing...a few years from now...but we're gettin' it!"
Hell -- TEN years to think about what to do with these DVDs and my DVD-ROM drive. Maybe I'll go ahead and toss the DVD-ROM drive and fill the space with one of those 5.25" drive bay Easy-Bake-Ovens -- or a 5.25" drive bay aquarium. Yeah! That's it! Watch two male betas battle it out in my cold cathode-lit case while I frag on Far Cry! And then DOOM3, followed by Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell 4, World of Diablo vs. WarCraft VII, and Star Wars Galaxies III: The Expansion Pack...
My only regret -- we didn't get at least 10 years notice that Duke Nuke'Em Forever was in development. On the other hand...we're getting close.
IronChefMorimoto
Were they golf ball sized or grapefruit sizes Saturn hail?
IronChefMorimoto
I have to wonder, in all of this talk about Apple doing this or that wrong, if the company isn't just stuck where it is for a single reason -- aside from all of the high prices, no middle-tier lines, etc. type issues. That single reason is STEVE JOBS.
;-)
I don't know the guy personally. I can't read his mind. I don't know what he's thinking. And I could care less what his intentions are.
But for the life of me, after reading stories about the man over the years, I don't know why some of his peers -- THOSE WHO WANT HIM AND APPLE TO SUCCEED -- can't get him into a room and have an APPLE INTERVENTION. The stories I've read pain the man as an enigmatic, eccentric visionary who really has great ideas. But, going by many of these same articles, he's also a guy who has run off colleagues, insulted friends, and rejected many ideas for doing great things with his company to move it forward.
In the end, the underlying currents all seem to point to the fact that Steve Jobs must just be very damned stubborn. Does this "stubborness" translate, despite his vision and grand ideas of the computing future with Apple, into an approach to management that stifles his very dream child of a company?
I REALLY want the guy to succeed. I really want to be able to afford an Apple some day without my wife yelling at me and telling me to (HORRORS AND HELL FREEZING OVER!) spend the money on a homebrew Athlon64 system instead. I really want to turn on my PC someday and hear the beautiful music that is the Mac OS X Panther (or Tiger, Kitten, Feline, etc.) operating system startup chime!
But...will it ever happen? Must he insist, to his deathbed, on keeping Apple at its measly sub-5% market share? Will those dreams ever come true if Steve continues being...well...Steve? Stubborn Steve?
IronChefMorimoto
P.S. - Don't flamebait me -- I am a long, diehard PC user who has discovered Mac OS X and all its glories. I would SO love to have this operating system at home -- but it'll never happen unless I win the lottery.
I was talking hosting center backup options the other day with my boss. He's a Mac guy. Terribly devoted to Apple, blindly devoted to anything open source (regardless of immediate return on invested time/effort), and horribly anti-Microsoft.
That, said, he has lectured me over and over again about how he hates tapes. He never gives a decent reason, except that they're slow to restore stuff. Now, I'm new to IT support (web development/multimedia design by trade), so I just let my eyes glaze over and wait for him to get to the part where tapes can be tied back to Bill Gates and the Evil Microsoft (I'll spare you the use of the $ in that word) Empire. When he's finished, I just sort of nod my head and mention that there are newer, faster tape technologies out there that we could look into.
And then I mention cost. It's my understanding that these newer, faster tape solutions are really dang expensive, particularly for small businesses. Autoloaders and all that -- I've browsed the Dell website and been all but floored at some of the pricing on these things.
In the end, I'm left with either recommending a shoddy USB/Firewire hard drive backup for certain servers (like that's reliable) or going back to the drawing board. I can only pray that my boss' lack of acceptance of this technology (and advances in said technology) won't come back to bite him (and the company) in the ass when a server goes down.
IronChefMorimoto
Thanks for the responses. I will definitely do some W3C validation and look at AListApart.com, seeing as now I know that Safari isn't based on Mozilla. One would assume that, building from the Gecko engine, one would get similar results with the same page. I wasn't aware that Safari was based on Konqueror. That said, I should note that I'm using Safari on fully updated Panther machines, since someone mentioned it. Thanks for the feedback! IronChefMorimoto
I should preface my comments with this -- I'm new to OS X (IT/developer working in creative environment), so my experience with Safari may not be totally up to snuff. Correct me if I terribly skew off track with comments about Safari.
;-)
That said, I'm wondering if Apple has improved Safari to be more compatible with websites. And if not, why not before doing this RSS application?
When I do testing of websites with Mozilla 1.x and FireBird 0.9 on my PC, I run into some "damn you Internet Explorer"-specific pages that limit the features that I see with these alternative browsers. However, when I use Safari (which I thought was loosely based on the Mozilla project's browser engine), I see even more rendering problems than in the other two browsers.
Do I just need to spend more time with Safari, or are there still major issues with how it renders some pages and code? And if the latter is true, was it wise for Apple to add another Safari-esque feature with this RSS application when they need to fix some rendering issues with what could be a really sweet browser?
It's sad, but on many pages that work fine in Mozilla 1.x and FireBird 0.9 on a PC, I have to send designers who want to see their work BACK to IE for Mac so that the pages properly render what they designed. Of course, my code could just really suck too.
IronChefMorimoto