The first time I went, I was expecting something extremely cheap and stupid. I was so very pleasantly surprised by the transporter the first time. The recreation of the bridge was top notch and the surprise transport blew me away, since I was expecting something stupid.
It was definitely worth seeing and it's sad that it's closing down, since it was a pretty decent "show" for fairly cheap. The shuttle craft bit was standard motion ride fare, but otherwise the actors did a good job and Quarks bar was pretty good for ambiance and such.
Oh, did I mention the surprise transporter was excellent?:) I took a few people over the years just for that effect.
If you don't enjoy what you do. If you aren't enjoying the chase and the finding of security holes. If it makes you crazy or think it might make you crazy. If your professional "paranoia" is causing you emotional/mental issues... then you are in the wrong line of work. The best IT security professionals enjoy all of that, so it does not cause them problems outside of work.
That can really be applied to any line of work. Any job that causes those sorts of things makes you "less" happy than others in a line of work they enjoy.
As a PS3 owner I must admit that the PS3 can only share via DLNA in GameOS, not SMB. It can do SMB under Linux but without RSX there's limits. XBMC does require "modding" your Xbox via sofmod, modchip etc.
XBMC doesn't require any modding if you load it on a Linux box as opposed to an XBox. It has the added bonus of being able to play HD movies in 1080p as well.
It's like they're allergic to using actual professional-grade tools. I'd suppose deliberate incompetence, but tell me this first: do they use those tools on their ATMs, when there's actual money at stake?
No. They use OS/2 (seriously) on many legacy machines and the software is very custom. Is it any good? Well, probably not... But you'll never know, because you can't ever, ever, EVER see the code. It's kept very secure.
If you ever get the pleasure of booting an ATM machine, look for the nice OS/2 logo splash screen.:)
There is simply not enough bandwidth available to download full HD video at the quality you get with BlueRay. NetFlix Watch it Now and Apple iTunes movies are way too compressed for my eyes.
That's weird, cause I do it all the time. Magic Internet Connection FTW!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares?"
"For all intensive purposes" - Seriously? What exactly is an "intensive purpose" anyway?
While you're looking up "intents and purposes" so as not to look like a moron, you might want to check out the definition of "begs the question" because you fucked that up, too.
I'm right there with you on the home media server (have a nice setup myself).
But how do you get content on the server? For years, I've done DVD content, but lately I've been adding blu-ray to the server since I've gotten a blu-ray drive for the computer.
Personally, I stream to a XBOX360, which means I lose the surround sound (which stinks) but the quality is very VERY good.
I download the content. I do not feel bad about the quasi-piracy, since I will not purchase the media. If it's not available via download, I won't watch it. I don't care enough about the content to purchase it. I will, however, pay for it from legitimate sites that offer it online. If it's not available online from a legitimate site, then there is no sale lost when I download it elsewhere. I use to pirate all of my music, but I pay for much of it now from sites that are DRM free. I have no problem paying for it, I just won't pay for it in formats I don't want to use.
I looked into using the Xbox 360 to stream the media, and after mucking with Tversity and Transcode360 and stuff like that and finding it sorely lacking, and then you have the surround sound issue, I gave up. It's really cheap and easy to build a Linux box and put XBMC on it and use that as your set top box, and even the server if you're so inclined. I did it for under $200 - the nVidia 7150 motherboard has a built in HDMI and DVI port, with optical audio out and it's $75. The Core2Duo is less than $100. Spring for a cheap ass case and you probably have a PS, ram and HD lying around and you're done. Doesn't even need a hard drive if you just boot off a USB stick or over the network. The video quality is excellent and the audio is good. Not audiophile quality stuff, really, but you'd be hard pressed to find spend so little and get so much elsewhere. Load Ubuntu Hardy Heron, add the XBMC repository, apt-get xbmc and bang, you have the worlds fastest, most complete media streaming device on the planet at any price.
...except hard drives can crash, but I still have my CD's from 15 years ago. I don't know how many "collections" of MP3's I've built and subsequently lost due to a drive failure, but it's enough that it has made me hesitant of abandoning physical media.
I hear this occasionally as an argument, but my experience has been: I've never lost a drive catestrophically. There has always been some warning and I've copied the data off. I was running a RAID 5 array in my media server for a number of years, but switched to a couple of 1TB drives recently, running independently... if they fail, then yes I lose my data, but I won't be heartbroken. I'll just go download what I want to replace. It might take some time, but it's not like I watch the same things every night or even every week or month, I can take the time to replace stuff I really really want to keep.
Question for you: Is your home media server in the same room as the TV? I've been looking into ways to stream videos from my computer upstairs to my main viewing TV downstairs. I've seen a few solutions, but nothing that really seemed like it would work. Wired is out as my wife nixed the idea of drilling holes in the walls to run cable and I'm not convinced that my Wireless B network is capable of the speeds needed to transfer a movie. (Not dealing with HD content here, BTW. Our TV is a 32" standard definition set.)
No, the media server is in my bedroom closet. It runs Linux and serves the files via SMB.
I have several Xboxes running XBMC as SD content media players and a Linux box running XBMC as my HD movie player. Everything is streamed over SMB via a gigabit network, though I suspect you could probably do HD content over Wireless-N if you increase your buffer sizes. You can't do HD content over G or B, but you can do SD content over wireless G if you have a stable connection.
You could use your computer upstairs if it's a windows box, just share out the directory you have your media files in.
I highly recommend you don't bother with the other solutions out there and go straight to XBMC if streaming is all you're looking for. There is nothing on the planet that views as many media file types as XBMC. MythTV, etc... all the other Linux and Windows solutions are woefully inadequate when compared to the functionality of XBMC for streaming media. The other Linux solutions (and I suspect the Windows solutions) do other things that XBMC does not or can not, but for pure media streaming, nothing even comes vaguely close to XBMC.
The quality of the program is largely irrelevant to me and many of my friends. Yes, it may be better quality, but I've been living off my home media server for several years now. I will never, ever, ever, ever go back to keeping physical media around. I can't stand it. I want all of my media available at any TV in my home and ready when I want it.
If I have to have a disc to keep track of, you can forget it. I don't want the technology. I want my media available whenever, wherever and HOWEVER I want to play it. Blu-Ray offers NONE of the those things (and to be fair, neither did HD-DVD) and THAT is why I won't ever be adopting Blu-Ray. The players can drop to $10 and I still wouldn't buy one, simply because I do not care. I realize that I'm not in the majority currently... but as time goes on, more and more people are going to get sick of carrying around physical media.
The popularity of MP3 players is a prime example... instead of toting around hundreds of CDs, why not just carry around one MP3 player. The same thing is happening with video, and the trend will only accelerate. The disc as a medium for entertainment is dying, if it's not dead already and only still twitching.
Wow. Just wow. "I don't agree with you, so you must be trolling," is really rude, even for the internet. Consider not posting any more if you can't handle people who disagree with you.
It's not the fact that I disagree with you, it's the fact that you are wrong. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. Therefore, you are trolling or are mentally handicapped, because you are no longer ignorant, since you've been informed you are wrong by a number of different people.
I noticed you completely skipped over the part about how science and statistics are gathered. I put that there for a reason. It's to enlighten you to the fact that there IS A REASON wide swaths of random people are polled, and not just one or two people. It's because IT IS MORE ACCURATE.
Furthermore, if all it takes for something to be trustworthy is for a lot of people to endorse it, then I'd believe a hell of a lot of things, many of them conflicting. Christianity, atheism, evolution, creationism, old music is better, new music is better... the list could extend for a very long time. Trustworthiness is based on past results. Nothing more, nothing less. One company can be just as trustworthy as the entire Internet, and the entire Internet can be just as untrustworthy as one company.
It doesn't take a lot of people, it takes a lot of people who are experts in the field AND have no vested interest in the outcome. Everything you cite has lots of people who either not and expert, have a vested interest in the outcome, or BOTH.
Trustworthiness is not based solely on past results. Trustworthiness is a product of verification and honesty. In the context we are talking about, it's also based on interests. The company in question has a vested interest in certain results, therefore their "conclusions" for those results should be automatically suspect if they confirm their claims. People skew reported data all the time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not... but it happens, and it happens a lot. The same thing happens with companies/corporations (though usually it's on purpose).
you automatically have a less accurate assessment
Bull. You may still have a very accurate assessment, that's why you get someone who you trust to check it over for you. It may happen that you trust the company making the product, it may happen that you trust your brother who works on the Linux kernel in his spare time. The important thing is that you get the information verified by a trustworthy source, not whether or not it comes from the vendor or someone independent.
How? How do you get someone you trust to check it over for you? I, you, your LInux kernel buddy doesn't have access to the code. How does he check it for you?
It's kinda funny, since you claim to want someone to check it for you that is expressly NOT the company involved. This is why I know you're trolling, now. You agree, you just want to get a rise out of people by being an idiot.
By whom? Someone trustworthy? Mathematics? You're clutching at straws there, dude.
Uh, prior experience. Isn't that obvious? I don't have to trust someone to use their stuff. For example, I don't trust the people who put cracks up on gamecopyworld.com, necessarily... I just don't care. I use their stuff even though I don't trust them, and they could theoretically build up trust over time.
The point is not that open-source is inherently more trustworthy than closed source, it's that an open-source vendor who claimed that their code could do something it couldn't do would lose credibility. Closed-source products give the vendor "credibility through obscurity", i.e. something for nothing.
Uh... any vendor who claims their product does something it can't loses credibility. And when they claim they can do something that they can, in fact, do, they gain it. This is all very elementary, and has nothing to do with closed or open source.
I have to think you are trolling, because I can't possibly believe that someone that's capable of typing on a keyboard can be so inept and unable to discern the difference between the level of trustworthiness on a given topic when an unrelated sample of the population gives it a thumbs up and a single vendor gives it a thumbs up.
There's a reason science and statistic gathering uses random swaths of the population for information gathering. It provides a fairly accurate sample of the whole. Using a single data point, rarely, if ever, provides an accurate depiction of a larger system.
When you accept the consensus of 1000 unrelated programmers who have no coinciding agenda nor any stake in the product succeeding or failing, you have a much more unbiased and therefore a much more likely to be accurate assessment of the code.
When you accept what a single company tells you about their code, which they have an agenda (to sell more software) and a stake in the outcome/product success (to make more money), you automatically have a less accurate assessment and a HUGE bias in the assessment. You are likely to get a very inaccurate assessment of the code.
The fact that you can't discern the difference between the two is evidence of mental retardation or trolling. Since you don't seem to write like someone with a metal handicap, I'm going to go with trolling. So stop.
Your first mistake is lumping all people who wear blue uniforms and carry a badge "the police". There are big differences between your local traffic cops and the police forces in L.A. and N.Y. Among other things, I highly doubt your local police have shot unarmed people from over 50 yards away, or beaten up protesters.
Your second mistake is thinking that the cops treat you and everyone else the same. You're probably white and relatively well off, and were pulled over wearing a nice button-down shirt and slacks. That makes cops think you're generally a law-abiding citizen, even if they're pulling you over because you broke the law. When less privileged people are pulled over, they're far more likely to be ordered from their car, patted down for weapons, have their trunk searched for drugs, etc.
Funny thing is, I'm white, late 30's, clean cut, blond hair, blue eyes, etc... the very model of upstanding white suburban citizen.
Except... I've been pulled over, harassed, my car searched for drugs, handcuffed, patted down for weapons and a host of other things on numerous occasions.
Cops abuse their power all the time. I can only imagine what it's like to be a black guy around here. I've only met a helpful police officer maybe a handful of times in my life. Most of the time they are harassing or at the very least, unwilling to be helpful. The majority of cops are on a power trip and are there to feel powerful, not to be helpful. Yes, my evidence is ancedotal, however, the fact that over the course of my lifetime, I've encountered many police in many different capacities and situations, from many different jurisdictions, cities and states, yet the majority are consistently on power trips. So ancedotal or not, the cross section of my experience, at least for me, is pretty conclusive police in America.
Those of you saying police are great, they don't do this kind of stuff... you need to get out more. Maybe in your one small city or county, they are good cops. But in America at large, they are not.
But in the US you can choose to go to a different ISP. Maybe you'll have to go to dial-up, but you can do it. Go to the library, an internet cafe. Hell, go to Starbucks.
I don't buy that 'compromise other users' argument. It might be a shared database SERVER, but every customer should be at least one distinct database user and should get their own database on that server(*)(**). Nobody should be able to see anybody else. If the database server can't handle it, find one that does. If the hosting company doesn't bother giving everyone their own database user accounts, find one that does.
The only reason the hosting company should ever look at the contents of a customer's database is 1) court order or 2) to do transparent optimization to eliminate real performance hits on other users, as permitted by hosting contract. This would cover the case somebody else mentioned where the hosting company added indexes to his database. The hosting company should have kept him informed, though.
(*) you want multiple users so that the owner of the database tables is different from the web app. You might still get hit by SQL injection if you aren't careful, but you won't have some bozo altering your tables.
(**) the exception is if the host provides certain tools to all users, e.g., an interface to a credit card processing engine. In this case the app might have a common backend database, but should still be designed so that one user can't see any other user's data.
So are you under the mistaken impression that because each user has a separate and distinct database and/or database user that that separate and distinct user can't bring down the entire server with crazy tables or poor SQL statements?
I've seen exactly that many times, and often times you have to dig into the separate and distinct database and find out which table if fucking it up for everyone. On a shared server, such as the one in question, with neophytes creating applications, tables and queries, you are going to run into crazy stuff all the time.
Before you say "Just disable that users account/application." Yes, that's all well and good, but then you have other problems to deal with. Either way you are going to be dealing with problems. Some people choose to fix the problem, some people choose to disable the problem. Whatever you personally would choose doesn't matter - this particular company and many like it choose to potentially fix the problem (or think they are fixing the problem), and as such they find it acceptable to access user data. Since it's a legitimate way to go about solving the problem, complaining about it is ridiculous.
If he doesn't like the policy, get a co-lo server and secure the data. Then when something fucks up, you know it's your own fault.
He said it was MySQL. the almost universal approah is to provide discrete databases (i.e. files) for each database instance. It's therefore very unlikely that the database itself is shared. Although I agree, the hardware and resources (CPU, memory, bandwidth etc.) will be shared.
I meant shared server, not the specific databases contained therein. The point is, he owns nothing and he even admins nothing. He's just some middleman reselling someone elses services. Therefore he has absolutely no leg to stand on when the admins of that server go nosing around the data on that server. That is their job. Keep things running smoothly and efficiently for everyone using that service.
If he wants privacy and data integrity, a reseller account with possibly hundreds or thousands of other users is definitely not the place to find it. It's like complaining that you have no privacy when you choose to sleep in a bay with 30 other bunks. Well duh, go get a hotel room and don't stay at the Y. Sure, it might be cheaper, but there's a reason for that.
Half of you people replying are completely missing the point of the post. He is NOT Co-Locating a server, he is a reseller. He is using the companies equipment and hardware. He owns absolutely nothing hardware wise.
As such, the company is perfectly within their rights to inspect what data is being stored on their servers, in a SHARED database. He's not the only customer using that MySQL server. He is not the only customer using that CPU, that hard drive, that webserver.
The hosting company has every right to be sure there is nothing in the database or elsewhere that is going to compromise the other customers.
That's why you colo a server. Then it's YOURS and YOU control access to it. No one is going to be inspecting anything on it without your consent or at worst, if they hack your password and/or reboot it without your consent into single user mode. Either way, then you'll know something hinky was going on. Whereas if you are just a "reseller," the hosting provider can do whatever they want as root on a box you do NOT own.
So yeah... if the original poster doesn't like it, he needs to colo a server. If he doesn't want the hassle of that, then you're at the mercy of the system admin.
Why not... I don't know... JUST DON'T BUY THE FUCKING THING if it pisses you off so much. Seems like a better idea to me than clogging up the "Genius Bars" - whatever that's suppose to be.
I haven't bought an iPhone because I don't like the restrictions placed on it. Seems like a no brainer to me. Why bitch and moan to Apple and try to fuck them over AND THEN TURN AROUND AND GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY? That doesn't make a bit of sense. If you're so angry with the company, why the hell would you patronize them?
I've been using OSX for the past two months, and I'm growing more and more to hate it. I really wanted to like it and went into it expecting great things... but all I've found are outdated modalities for the user interface, poor or no driver support for common hardware (not necessarily Apples fault, but none the less there it is), lack of applications, extremely poor networking support when talking to a bonafied Samba server running on Linux (which works just fine with other Linux, Windows and XBoxes), extremely poor networking support when trying to ACT as a Samba server, extremely lacking or poor "bundled" applications... the list goes on. I want to like OSX and I'm going to continue to use it in an effort to try to get past all the crap... but as it stands now, I don't see very much to convince me that OSX is anything special, like it's made out to be. So no, I won't be buying a Mac either.
My point is, the company is releasing crappy products at ridiculous price points. They are defective by design in regards to DRM, and they are defective by design by poor design. I won't give them my money, and I won't reccomend them to my family and friends. But I'm sure not going to stake out the Apple store and try to wreck their business to get them to "fix" their junk. I just won't give them money and I will convince my friends and family to give them no money either. Seems like a logical solution here...
How do you even pronounce something like that? "Two" doesn't sound like the letter "O" nor does it look like one. Isn't "2" supposed to replace the letter "Z" or something?
Can someone with a major in L337-sp34k explain it?
If you are trying to parse it in l337 sp34k, that's your problem. It's parsed in Prince-Speak.
While there does appear to be letters in the title, it's actually a symbol. You pronounce it "The movie formerly known as Tron 2."
It also makes the game load faster in many cases. When you're playing FPSs, this can be especially important so you either gain or at least do not lose a tactical advantage in the first round. The suckers with the CD's always load last, the people with the NO-CD cracks are already at their flags and taking them home by the time they load in.
Not to mention the fact that often times, I find I need the CD/DVD drive for something useful while I'm playing the game. Burning a dual layer DVD at 2.4x takes a bit of time, so playing a game while that's going on is something that happens often. If I have to have the CD in the drive for useless copy protection, I'm not able to do that.
Nasch already took care of some of your illogical arguments... but you've made other assumptions that are just plain wrong or at best outdated.
20% efficiency on a solar panel is not uncommon. In fact, you can buy 28% efficient solar panels (as long as you don't live in the US *grumble*). Over their lifetime, of course that rate is going to fall, but it will still remain a bit above 20%.
Given time, that efficiency is only going to improve. Both of these factors right there shoot your 600M^2 theory to shit.
Using you and your family as an example, your average 1.4KW usage could be dramatically reduced without impacting your quality of life in an appreciable manner. I know this is so because I've done it myself. It takes some will power and awareness of what power you are actually using, but it can be done fairly painlessly. You can start by replacing your incandescent bulbs with CFL or better yet with LEDs. One of the largest single power draw in a home is from all the light bulbs. Reducing that can cut your monthly average quite a bit.
You need to turn off stuff you aren't using. Putting things into standby is not turning them off... in fact, many appliances and electronic gadgets don't even HAVE an off switch, they go into standby. So that means you have to unplug them. That's a pain in the ass. However, a simple solution to this is to plug everything you use for a particular activity into a power strip... when you're done, turn the power strip off. This overcomes the leeching power used by wall-warts, as well as gadgets and electronics that go into standby mode. Yes, you may have to wait a few seconds longer for something to power up, but it's not a huge deal.
Another big energy saver is to replace your windows. If you have contractor grade windows in your house, you are leaking energy like a sieve. Replacing your windows with high quality double or triple paned, krypton filled windows with insulated frames will save you a TON of money and energy for cooling and heating.
Do you have an ancient refrigerator? If so, it's probably drawing 2 to 3 times the amount of energy a modern refrigerator uses (or more if it's REALLY old). Might be worth it to replace it.
Do you leave your computer on at night? Turn it off, or at least put it in standby. My system, at idle, draws about 600w, when it's in standby it drops to about 30w. That's a HUGE savings on a month or yearly basis. If you're on Slashdot, chances are you've got multiple computers - I think you see where that's going. If you're using an old computer as a Linux router or something we are all fond of doing - stop. Old computers are incredible power hogs. A cheap wireless router that you can load new firmware onto will suck a fraction of the power, produce a fraction of the heat and noise. It's nice to think you're recycling your computers, but it's costing you more than they are worth in power per year, for sure.
There's lots of things you can do to reduce your power consumption. You can take your 1.4kw to 800kw fairly easily I suspect. That almost halves your 600M^2, coupled with the fact that you can buy efficient PV panels, now you only need about 200M^2. The average house has that much roof space that's likely suitable.
Even if you don't, as long as you are offsetting some of your power needs, it goes a long way to helping bring about a more energy efficient future.
Is it going to be uncomfortable? Probably a bit, but not cripplingly so, and once the "new" way sets in, it will seem silly that we didn't do it a long time ago.
There's also the problem of the fact if you have modern, quality windows (think Schuco triple paned / krypton filled type), the solar radiation getting through the window is so dramatically reduced as to make the solar panels useless. I know this because I use to charge some small electronics via a solar panel in the window. After installing new windows, the panel no longer gets enough solar energy to drive a current and thus no charging. I have to open the window or put the panel outside.
Another clue was the fact that some of my plants died for lack of sun, even though they got what appeared to be the same amount of light as they did previously.
Slashdot Mirror
The first time I went, I was expecting something extremely cheap and stupid. I was so very pleasantly surprised by the transporter the first time. The recreation of the bridge was top notch and the surprise transport blew me away, since I was expecting something stupid.
It was definitely worth seeing and it's sad that it's closing down, since it was a pretty decent "show" for fairly cheap. The shuttle craft bit was standard motion ride fare, but otherwise the actors did a good job and Quarks bar was pretty good for ambiance and such.
Oh, did I mention the surprise transporter was excellent? :) I took a few people over the years just for that effect.
If you don't enjoy what you do. If you aren't enjoying the chase and the finding of security holes. If it makes you crazy or think it might make you crazy. If your professional "paranoia" is causing you emotional/mental issues... then you are in the wrong line of work. The best IT security professionals enjoy all of that, so it does not cause them problems outside of work.
That can really be applied to any line of work. Any job that causes those sorts of things makes you "less" happy than others in a line of work they enjoy.
For all intensive purposes, "south specific" is a geographic location?
Add that to the list of neo-homophonics, eexcelent!
Did you just fucking actually type "for all intensive purposes" AND try to hold an intelligent conversation at the same time?
Fuck. Seriously. Fuck. Stop posting.
As a PS3 owner I must admit that the PS3 can only share via DLNA in GameOS, not SMB. It can do SMB under Linux but without RSX there's limits. XBMC does require "modding" your Xbox via sofmod, modchip etc.
XBMC doesn't require any modding if you load it on a Linux box as opposed to an XBox. It has the added bonus of being able to play HD movies in 1080p as well.
It's like they're allergic to using actual professional-grade tools. I'd suppose deliberate incompetence, but tell me this first: do they use those tools on their ATMs, when there's actual money at stake?
No. They use OS/2 (seriously) on many legacy machines and the software is very custom. Is it any good? Well, probably not... But you'll never know, because you can't ever, ever, EVER see the code. It's kept very secure.
If you ever get the pleasure of booting an ATM machine, look for the nice OS/2 logo splash screen. :)
There is simply not enough bandwidth available to download full HD video at the quality you get with BlueRay. NetFlix Watch it Now and Apple iTunes movies are way too compressed for my eyes.
That's weird, cause I do it all the time. Magic Internet Connection FTW!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares?"
"For all intensive purposes" - Seriously? What exactly is an "intensive purpose" anyway?
While you're looking up "intents and purposes" so as not to look like a moron, you might want to check out the definition of "begs the question" because you fucked that up, too.
Your sig is just one big boat of fail.
I'm right there with you on the home media server (have a nice setup myself).
But how do you get content on the server? For years, I've done DVD content, but lately I've been adding blu-ray to the server since I've gotten a blu-ray drive for the computer.
Personally, I stream to a XBOX360, which means I lose the surround sound (which stinks) but the quality is very VERY good.
I download the content. I do not feel bad about the quasi-piracy, since I will not purchase the media. If it's not available via download, I won't watch it. I don't care enough about the content to purchase it. I will, however, pay for it from legitimate sites that offer it online. If it's not available online from a legitimate site, then there is no sale lost when I download it elsewhere. I use to pirate all of my music, but I pay for much of it now from sites that are DRM free. I have no problem paying for it, I just won't pay for it in formats I don't want to use.
I looked into using the Xbox 360 to stream the media, and after mucking with Tversity and Transcode360 and stuff like that and finding it sorely lacking, and then you have the surround sound issue, I gave up. It's really cheap and easy to build a Linux box and put XBMC on it and use that as your set top box, and even the server if you're so inclined. I did it for under $200 - the nVidia 7150 motherboard has a built in HDMI and DVI port, with optical audio out and it's $75. The Core2Duo is less than $100. Spring for a cheap ass case and you probably have a PS, ram and HD lying around and you're done. Doesn't even need a hard drive if you just boot off a USB stick or over the network. The video quality is excellent and the audio is good. Not audiophile quality stuff, really, but you'd be hard pressed to find spend so little and get so much elsewhere. Load Ubuntu Hardy Heron, add the XBMC repository, apt-get xbmc and bang, you have the worlds fastest, most complete media streaming device on the planet at any price.
...except hard drives can crash, but I still have my CD's from 15 years ago. I don't know how many "collections" of MP3's I've built and subsequently lost due to a drive failure, but it's enough that it has made me hesitant of abandoning physical media.
I hear this occasionally as an argument, but my experience has been: I've never lost a drive catestrophically. There has always been some warning and I've copied the data off. I was running a RAID 5 array in my media server for a number of years, but switched to a couple of 1TB drives recently, running independently... if they fail, then yes I lose my data, but I won't be heartbroken. I'll just go download what I want to replace. It might take some time, but it's not like I watch the same things every night or even every week or month, I can take the time to replace stuff I really really want to keep.
Question for you: Is your home media server in the same room as the TV? I've been looking into ways to stream videos from my computer upstairs to my main viewing TV downstairs. I've seen a few solutions, but nothing that really seemed like it would work. Wired is out as my wife nixed the idea of drilling holes in the walls to run cable and I'm not convinced that my Wireless B network is capable of the speeds needed to transfer a movie. (Not dealing with HD content here, BTW. Our TV is a 32" standard definition set.)
No, the media server is in my bedroom closet. It runs Linux and serves the files via SMB.
I have several Xboxes running XBMC as SD content media players and a Linux box running XBMC as my HD movie player. Everything is streamed over SMB via a gigabit network, though I suspect you could probably do HD content over Wireless-N if you increase your buffer sizes. You can't do HD content over G or B, but you can do SD content over wireless G if you have a stable connection.
You could use your computer upstairs if it's a windows box, just share out the directory you have your media files in.
I highly recommend you don't bother with the other solutions out there and go straight to XBMC if streaming is all you're looking for. There is nothing on the planet that views as many media file types as XBMC. MythTV, etc... all the other Linux and Windows solutions are woefully inadequate when compared to the functionality of XBMC for streaming media. The other Linux solutions (and I suspect the Windows solutions) do other things that XBMC does not or can not, but for pure media streaming, nothing even comes vaguely close to XBMC.
The quality of the program is largely irrelevant to me and many of my friends. Yes, it may be better quality, but I've been living off my home media server for several years now. I will never, ever, ever, ever go back to keeping physical media around. I can't stand it. I want all of my media available at any TV in my home and ready when I want it.
If I have to have a disc to keep track of, you can forget it. I don't want the technology. I want my media available whenever, wherever and HOWEVER I want to play it. Blu-Ray offers NONE of the those things (and to be fair, neither did HD-DVD) and THAT is why I won't ever be adopting Blu-Ray. The players can drop to $10 and I still wouldn't buy one, simply because I do not care. I realize that I'm not in the majority currently... but as time goes on, more and more people are going to get sick of carrying around physical media.
The popularity of MP3 players is a prime example... instead of toting around hundreds of CDs, why not just carry around one MP3 player. The same thing is happening with video, and the trend will only accelerate. The disc as a medium for entertainment is dying, if it's not dead already and only still twitching.
Apple announced today that it will stop selling actual products and will only sell hype, in pretty packages of course.
That's not funny. Their garbage will still sell to the mindless assholes who buy their current packages of hype.
Except for the iPod. You'll have to pry my shiny iPod from my cold, dead hands.
Wow. Just wow. "I don't agree with you, so you must be trolling," is really rude, even for the internet. Consider not posting any more if you can't handle people who disagree with you.
It's not the fact that I disagree with you, it's the fact that you are wrong. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. Therefore, you are trolling or are mentally handicapped, because you are no longer ignorant, since you've been informed you are wrong by a number of different people.
I noticed you completely skipped over the part about how science and statistics are gathered. I put that there for a reason. It's to enlighten you to the fact that there IS A REASON wide swaths of random people are polled, and not just one or two people. It's because IT IS MORE ACCURATE.
Furthermore, if all it takes for something to be trustworthy is for a lot of people to endorse it, then I'd believe a hell of a lot of things, many of them conflicting. Christianity, atheism, evolution, creationism, old music is better, new music is better... the list could extend for a very long time. Trustworthiness is based on past results. Nothing more, nothing less. One company can be just as trustworthy as the entire Internet, and the entire Internet can be just as untrustworthy as one company.
It doesn't take a lot of people, it takes a lot of people who are experts in the field AND have no vested interest in the outcome. Everything you cite has lots of people who either not and expert, have a vested interest in the outcome, or BOTH.
Trustworthiness is not based solely on past results. Trustworthiness is a product of verification and honesty. In the context we are talking about, it's also based on interests. The company in question has a vested interest in certain results, therefore their "conclusions" for those results should be automatically suspect if they confirm their claims. People skew reported data all the time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not... but it happens, and it happens a lot. The same thing happens with companies/corporations (though usually it's on purpose).
you automatically have a less accurate assessment
Bull. You may still have a very accurate assessment, that's why you get someone who you trust to check it over for you. It may happen that you trust the company making the product, it may happen that you trust your brother who works on the Linux kernel in his spare time. The important thing is that you get the information verified by a trustworthy source, not whether or not it comes from the vendor or someone independent.
How? How do you get someone you trust to check it over for you? I, you, your LInux kernel buddy doesn't have access to the code. How does he check it for you?
It's kinda funny, since you claim to want someone to check it for you that is expressly NOT the company involved. This is why I know you're trolling, now. You agree, you just want to get a rise out of people by being an idiot.
Good luck with that.
By whom? Someone trustworthy? Mathematics? You're clutching at straws there, dude.
Uh, prior experience. Isn't that obvious? I don't have to trust someone to use their stuff. For example, I don't trust the people who put cracks up on gamecopyworld.com, necessarily... I just don't care. I use their stuff even though I don't trust them, and they could theoretically build up trust over time.
The point is not that open-source is inherently more trustworthy than closed source, it's that an open-source vendor who claimed that their code could do something it couldn't do would lose credibility.
Closed-source products give the vendor "credibility through obscurity", i.e. something for nothing.
Uh... any vendor who claims their product does something it can't loses credibility. And when they claim they can do something that they can, in fact, do, they gain it. This is all very elementary, and has nothing to do with closed or open source.
I have to think you are trolling, because I can't possibly believe that someone that's capable of typing on a keyboard can be so inept and unable to discern the difference between the level of trustworthiness on a given topic when an unrelated sample of the population gives it a thumbs up and a single vendor gives it a thumbs up.
There's a reason science and statistic gathering uses random swaths of the population for information gathering. It provides a fairly accurate sample of the whole. Using a single data point, rarely, if ever, provides an accurate depiction of a larger system.
When you accept the consensus of 1000 unrelated programmers who have no coinciding agenda nor any stake in the product succeeding or failing, you have a much more unbiased and therefore a much more likely to be accurate assessment of the code.
When you accept what a single company tells you about their code, which they have an agenda (to sell more software) and a stake in the outcome/product success (to make more money), you automatically have a less accurate assessment and a HUGE bias in the assessment. You are likely to get a very inaccurate assessment of the code.
The fact that you can't discern the difference between the two is evidence of mental retardation or trolling. Since you don't seem to write like someone with a metal handicap, I'm going to go with trolling. So stop.
Your first mistake is lumping all people who wear blue uniforms and carry a badge "the police". There are big differences between your local traffic cops and the police forces in L.A. and N.Y. Among other things, I highly doubt your local police have shot unarmed people from over 50 yards away, or beaten up protesters.
Your second mistake is thinking that the cops treat you and everyone else the same. You're probably white and relatively well off, and were pulled over wearing a nice button-down shirt and slacks. That makes cops think you're generally a law-abiding citizen, even if they're pulling you over because you broke the law. When less privileged people are pulled over, they're far more likely to be ordered from their car, patted down for weapons, have their trunk searched for drugs, etc.
Funny thing is, I'm white, late 30's, clean cut, blond hair, blue eyes, etc... the very model of upstanding white suburban citizen.
Except... I've been pulled over, harassed, my car searched for drugs, handcuffed, patted down for weapons and a host of other things on numerous occasions.
Cops abuse their power all the time. I can only imagine what it's like to be a black guy around here. I've only met a helpful police officer maybe a handful of times in my life. Most of the time they are harassing or at the very least, unwilling to be helpful. The majority of cops are on a power trip and are there to feel powerful, not to be helpful. Yes, my evidence is ancedotal, however, the fact that over the course of my lifetime, I've encountered many police in many different capacities and situations, from many different jurisdictions, cities and states, yet the majority are consistently on
power trips. So ancedotal or not, the cross section of my experience, at least for me, is pretty conclusive police in America.
Those of you saying police are great, they don't do this kind of stuff... you need to get out more. Maybe in your one small city or county, they are good cops. But in America at large, they are not.
But in the US you can choose to go to a different ISP. Maybe you'll have to go to dial-up, but you can do it. Go to the library, an internet cafe. Hell, go to Starbucks.
You can't do that in China.
I don't buy that 'compromise other users' argument. It might be a shared database SERVER, but every customer should be at least one distinct database user and should get their own database on that server(*)(**). Nobody should be able to see anybody else. If the database server can't handle it, find one that does. If the hosting company doesn't bother giving everyone their own database user accounts, find one that does.
The only reason the hosting company should ever look at the contents of a customer's database is 1) court order or 2) to do transparent optimization to eliminate real performance hits on other users, as permitted by hosting contract. This would cover the case somebody else mentioned where the hosting company added indexes to his database. The hosting company should have kept him informed, though.
(*) you want multiple users so that the owner of the database tables is different from the web app. You might still get hit by SQL injection if you aren't careful, but you won't have some bozo altering your tables.
(**) the exception is if the host provides certain tools to all users, e.g., an interface to a credit card processing engine. In this case the app might have a common backend database, but should still be designed so that one user can't see any other user's data.
So are you under the mistaken impression that because each user has a separate and distinct database and/or database user that that separate and distinct user can't bring down the entire server with crazy tables or poor SQL statements?
I've seen exactly that many times, and often times you have to dig into the separate and distinct database and find out which table if fucking it up for everyone. On a shared server, such as the one in question, with neophytes creating applications, tables and queries, you are going to run into crazy stuff all the time.
Before you say "Just disable that users account/application." Yes, that's all well and good, but then you have other problems to deal with. Either way you are going to be dealing with problems. Some people choose to fix the problem, some people choose to disable the problem. Whatever you personally would choose doesn't matter - this particular company and many like it choose to potentially fix the problem (or think they are fixing the problem), and as such they find it acceptable to access user data. Since it's a legitimate way to go about solving the problem, complaining about it is ridiculous.
If he doesn't like the policy, get a co-lo server and secure the data. Then when something fucks up, you know it's your own fault.
> in a SHARED database.
He said it was MySQL. the almost universal approah is to provide discrete databases (i.e. files) for each database instance. It's therefore very unlikely that the database itself is shared. Although I agree, the hardware and resources (CPU, memory, bandwidth etc.) will be shared.
I meant shared server, not the specific databases contained therein. The point is, he owns nothing and he even admins nothing. He's just some middleman reselling someone elses services. Therefore he has absolutely no leg to stand on when the admins of that server go nosing around the data on that server. That is their job. Keep things running smoothly and efficiently for everyone using that service.
If he wants privacy and data integrity, a reseller account with possibly hundreds or thousands of other users is definitely not the place to find it. It's like complaining that you have no privacy when you choose to sleep in a bay with 30 other bunks. Well duh, go get a hotel room and don't stay at the Y. Sure, it might be cheaper, but there's a reason for that.
Half of you people replying are completely missing the point of the post. He is NOT Co-Locating a server, he is a reseller. He is using the companies equipment and hardware. He owns absolutely nothing hardware wise.
As such, the company is perfectly within their rights to inspect what data is being stored on their servers, in a SHARED database. He's not the only customer using that MySQL server. He is not the only customer using that CPU, that hard drive, that webserver.
The hosting company has every right to be sure there is nothing in the database or elsewhere that is going to compromise the other customers.
That's why you colo a server. Then it's YOURS and YOU control access to it. No one is going to be inspecting anything on it without your consent or at worst, if they hack your password and/or reboot it without your consent into single user mode. Either way, then you'll know something hinky was going on. Whereas if you are just a "reseller," the hosting provider can do whatever they want as root on a box you do NOT own.
So yeah... if the original poster doesn't like it, he needs to colo a server. If he doesn't want the hassle of that, then you're at the mercy of the system admin.
WTF? Seriously?
Why not... I don't know... JUST DON'T BUY THE FUCKING THING if it pisses you off so much. Seems like a better idea to me than clogging up the "Genius Bars" - whatever that's suppose to be.
I haven't bought an iPhone because I don't like the restrictions placed on it. Seems like a no brainer to me. Why bitch and moan to Apple and try to fuck them over AND THEN TURN AROUND AND GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY? That doesn't make a bit of sense. If you're so angry with the company, why the hell would you patronize them?
I've been using OSX for the past two months, and I'm growing more and more to hate it. I really wanted to like it and went into it expecting great things... but all I've found are outdated modalities for the user interface, poor or no driver support for common hardware (not necessarily Apples fault, but none the less there it is), lack of applications, extremely poor networking support when talking to a bonafied Samba server running on Linux (which works just fine with other Linux, Windows and XBoxes), extremely poor networking support when trying to ACT as a Samba server, extremely lacking or poor "bundled" applications... the list goes on. I want to like OSX and I'm going to continue to use it in an effort to try to get past all the crap... but as it stands now, I don't see very much to convince me that OSX is anything special, like it's made out to be. So no, I won't be buying a Mac either.
My point is, the company is releasing crappy products at ridiculous price points. They are defective by design in regards to DRM, and they are defective by design by poor design. I won't give them my money, and I won't reccomend them to my family and friends. But I'm sure not going to stake out the Apple store and try to wreck their business to get them to "fix" their junk. I just won't give them money and I will convince my friends and family to give them no money either. Seems like a logical solution here...
How do you even pronounce something like that? "Two" doesn't sound like the letter "O" nor does it look like one. Isn't "2" supposed to replace the letter "Z" or something?
Can someone with a major in L337-sp34k explain it?
If you are trying to parse it in l337 sp34k, that's your problem. It's parsed in Prince-Speak.
While there does appear to be letters in the title, it's actually a symbol. You pronounce it "The movie formerly known as Tron 2."
I believe I speak for everyone who has a clue about computing and the IT industry, as well as for gamers everywhere when I say
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAAH Yeah right.
It also makes the game load faster in many cases. When you're playing FPSs, this can be especially important so you either gain or at least do not lose a tactical advantage in the first round. The suckers with the CD's always load last, the people with the NO-CD cracks are already at their flags and taking them home by the time they load in.
Not to mention the fact that often times, I find I need the CD/DVD drive for something useful while I'm playing the game. Burning a dual layer DVD at 2.4x takes a bit of time, so playing a game while that's going on is something that happens often. If I have to have the CD in the drive for useless copy protection, I'm not able to do that.
Nasch already took care of some of your illogical arguments... but you've made other assumptions that are just plain wrong or at best outdated.
20% efficiency on a solar panel is not uncommon. In fact, you can buy 28% efficient solar panels (as long as you don't live in the US *grumble*). Over their lifetime, of course that rate is going to fall, but it will still remain a bit above 20%.
Given time, that efficiency is only going to improve. Both of these factors right there shoot your 600M^2 theory to shit.
Using you and your family as an example, your average 1.4KW usage could be dramatically reduced without impacting your quality of life in an appreciable manner. I know this is so because I've done it myself. It takes some will power and awareness of what power you are actually using, but it can be done fairly painlessly. You can start by replacing your incandescent bulbs with CFL or better yet with LEDs. One of the largest single power draw in a home is from all the light bulbs. Reducing that can cut your monthly average quite a bit.
You need to turn off stuff you aren't using. Putting things into standby is not turning them off... in fact, many appliances and electronic gadgets don't even HAVE an off switch, they go into standby. So that means you have to unplug them. That's a pain in the ass. However, a simple solution to this is to plug everything you use for a particular activity into a power strip... when you're done, turn the power strip off. This overcomes the leeching power used by wall-warts, as well as gadgets and electronics that go into standby mode. Yes, you may have to wait a few seconds longer for something to power up, but it's not a huge deal.
Another big energy saver is to replace your windows. If you have contractor grade windows in your house, you are leaking energy like a sieve. Replacing your windows with high quality double or triple paned, krypton filled windows with insulated frames will save you a TON of money and energy for cooling and heating.
Do you have an ancient refrigerator? If so, it's probably drawing 2 to 3 times the amount of energy a modern refrigerator uses (or more if it's REALLY old). Might be worth it to replace it.
Do you leave your computer on at night? Turn it off, or at least put it in standby. My system, at idle, draws about 600w, when it's in standby it drops to about 30w. That's a HUGE savings on a month or yearly basis. If you're on Slashdot, chances are you've got multiple computers - I think you see where that's going. If you're using an old computer as a Linux router or something we are all fond of doing - stop. Old computers are incredible power hogs. A cheap wireless router that you can load new firmware onto will suck a fraction of the power, produce a fraction of the heat and noise. It's nice to think you're recycling your computers, but it's costing you more than they are worth in power per year, for sure.
There's lots of things you can do to reduce your power consumption. You can take your 1.4kw to 800kw fairly easily I suspect. That almost halves your 600M^2, coupled with the fact that you can buy efficient PV panels, now you only need about 200M^2. The average house has that much roof space that's likely suitable.
Even if you don't, as long as you are offsetting some of your power needs, it goes a long way to helping bring about a more energy efficient future.
Is it going to be uncomfortable? Probably a bit, but not cripplingly so, and once the "new" way sets in, it will seem silly that we didn't do it a long time ago.
There's also the problem of the fact if you have modern, quality windows (think Schuco triple paned / krypton filled type), the solar radiation getting through the window is so dramatically reduced as to make the solar panels useless. I know this because I use to charge some small electronics via a solar panel in the window. After installing new windows, the panel no longer gets enough solar energy to drive a current and thus no charging. I have to open the window or put the panel outside.
Another clue was the fact that some of my plants died for lack of sun, even though they got what appeared to be the same amount of light as they did previously.