I would use Realplayer except for one thing: To me, it is the most annoying media player ever. It is always bugging me to upgrade or some stupid popup. Finally I took it off my Win box. If something requires me to use Real to view it, I don't bother. It isn't worth cleaning up the mess afterwards.
You might have a slightly different opinon if you had see the original Star Wars movie ( IV ) in the movie theater when it first came out. For a movie theater experience, most people were impressed and thought it was at least something unique at the time.
Same years ago with doing serious photography. A Mac you hook it up to high end scanners and output devices and it works, easy. Windows was almost unusable for the longest time because hardware was a pain in the neck to setup. When Win2k came along it at least added OS reliability but hooking up some high end photo gear was still a pain. Mac back then ? drag and drop plug-ins and you are up. ( early OSX obviously broke this record:) ) At least XP has helped this issue.
The short statement being: Windows for the longest time was a pain to do connectivity with hardware at least in my job ( photography ), so IMHO when I see the above article, my first idea was: "Where have I seen this before?"
Gee thanks. I was going to watch that show. Not now. I wouldn't be able to see it without wondering when the hamster scene is going to appear in the show.
NSA is a great organization. Could be worse. You could be in the USAF where you have to consume mass quantities of MS Windows stuff, for almost everything. Some days I think MS owns part of USAF.
Also to the person above about the A-10 being a great "tank buster" not anymore.
When discussing conventional warfare with conventional military formations,
the best "tank buster" is the WCMD CBU -105( wind corrected munitions container ) ( Think of a CBU canister with a GPS/INS kit to guide it in ANY weather.) The Inside of it are SFW's ( Sensor Fused Weapons or "Skeets" that once deployed seek out a vehicle in it's field of view and kill it.) In OIF 2 of these were dropped from several miles away at 40,000ft from a B-52, in support of a small USMC force that was coming under threat from an Iraqi Armored Brigade. Right after impact about 1/3 of the brigade ( almost 2 dozen tanks ) blew up. Gone. Finished. Seeing their buddies die and not knowing how it happened. the other 2/3s of the Brigade got out of their tanks and surrendered to the USMC.The response to the B-52 from the "G-FAC" ( Ground Forward Air Controller with the Marines) upon seeing the weapons hit was "holy s***". Thats the kind of customer support airpower can provide to a guy on the ground.
An Apache or A-10 could never do that in even their most wet of dreams, without putting aircrew at risk and getting shot at. The goal today is "I can touch you, but you can't touch me.... in any weather." Problem is that A-10s and Apaches have to go in range of enemy guns and get shot up.And they aren't all weather unless assisted by off board sensors ( UAV, JSTARS etc. )
Today tanks and vehicles die en masse and we don't have to get in range of the smaller SAMs and "triple A" ( AAA Anti-Aircraft Artillery)
The biggest advantage of the A-10 is that it can get in and out of some crappy airfields. Now it is being converted to do very "un A-10" like work,with LITENING ( proof of concept used in OIF ) and SNIPER-XR when funded ( new gen Laser / Sensor Pods ). Droping PGMs ( Precision Guided Munitions ) from 10,000 feet and higher once they all get them. Also it will be able someday to do more all weather poor vis. work.
Also, another goal: Before enemy ground forces even come in range of our ground forces, they are worked over and beat up for days by our airpower "tank plinking" with LGBs, and WCMD, JSOW, JDAM etc. What does get up to the front is either crippled or ceases to function as an organized combat unit.
Killing the new helo was a good idea. We have plenty of sensor platforms to keep Apache informed ( JSTARS now puts target cueing into the Apache aircrew display ) Used successfully in OIF. Kinda scary where the Apache(s) show up and have excellent situational awareness.
Army Aviation has SERIOUS leadership issues ( that poor use of Apaches in OIF that got a bunch of them shot up ) Very poor mission planning. Should not have happened. Army Aviation has a lot of people issues to solve, that a new useless helo can't solve. These people issues are a first priorty.
Apaches and A-10s are still very useful. Just that some of their traditional jobs like "tank busting" are better done by other methods when possible. The Apache is excellent portable "artillery". ( You cant take field artillery to Afghanistan and go on a long range patrol or offensive through the mountains. Again A-10 gets in and out of some garbage airfields in Iraq and Afghanistan and is very handy. If USAF goes though with the new idea of getting "Jump" JSF ( originally required by USMC and UK ) then bare base options will be even better for CAS ( Close Air Support ) customer service to the grunts.
Hey if it helps the U.N. do its job better, what do I care?
The mean side of me can see the next MS advert where the U.N. is used as a backdrop to sell product.
DARPA would be more useful if they could find a way for some of the Army "leadership" to get better organizational skills. We don't need more total troop strength in the Army to meet taskings. Silly as it sounds the Army could add 30,000 to the fight by managing..... teeth, overall unit readiness and reorganization.
Read this short op/ed by an Army combat vet. It is things like this and not some Buck Rogers solution that would be more useful:
Nothing to Smile About ( SFTT.org )
Spending more money on education won't and hasn't helped. Getting rid of the dead wood overly thick management structure in the Ed system and swaping that out for more teachers and breaking up union influence against using other solutions would be a step in the right direction.
Wacked agenda science guys do a press release and everyone buys it. The Peace Prize used to have merit. The last several years it doesn't. The only way for that org to get back any self respect would be to award it to the U.S. Military which has provided peace for years in many regions.
As for missile defense: Which would you prefer: A wack job like NK sends a missile or two our way toward the left coast and we stop it? Or... it hits and we respond with a full attack wiping out the whole country?
Some could make an argument that nuking the left coast would be an improvement, but that might be a bit harsh.
Yeah it is a safety issue. Sloppy attitude is a big part of flight safety. This includes the sustainment management of the craft. The idiots at NASA learned nothing from the first shuttle disaster, except how to act suprised at the revelation of their poor program management Nothing that firing some of the lead management couldn't fix to set a firm example.
If you are using OSX or Linux you are at least better off than those that aren't.
The saying by Roger Ebert ( the movie review guy ) and what he said about the Apple applies here: In the saying below replace "Apple" with "OSX and Linux"
"Apple's market share does provide us with an accurate reading of the percentage of reasonable people in our society"
"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you" - Kurt Cobain
I thought that was Joseph Heller? Didn't Kurt say something like: "Now where did I put that shotgun?"
Slashdot Mirror
I would use Realplayer except for one thing: To me, it is the most annoying media player ever. It is always bugging me to upgrade or some stupid popup. Finally I took it off my Win box. If something requires me to use Real to view it, I don't bother. It isn't worth cleaning up the mess afterwards.
Good article for the completely uninformed. For me: I don't pay for a Linux Distro; ever.
"The roadmap to desktop acceptance for Linux cannot go through WINE." Good words.
You might have a slightly different opinon if you had see the original Star Wars movie ( IV ) in the movie theater when it first came out. For a movie theater experience, most people were impressed and thought it was at least something unique at the time.
Same years ago with doing serious photography. A Mac you hook it up to high end scanners and output devices and it works, easy. Windows was almost unusable for the longest time because hardware was a pain in the neck to setup. When Win2k came along it at least added OS reliability but hooking up some high end photo gear was still a pain. Mac back then ? drag and drop plug-ins and you are up. ( early OSX obviously broke this record :) ) At least XP has helped this issue.
The short statement being: Windows for the longest time was a pain to do connectivity with hardware at least in my job ( photography ), so IMHO when I see the above article, my first idea was: "Where have I seen this before?"
Great, it will arrive with a whole new family of exploits/patches flying in trail.
Been using Photoshop for over 10 years. Hard to get out of that comfort zone. Been using Gimp for some stuff lately and kinda like it.
Gee thanks. I was going to watch that show. Not now. I wouldn't be able to see it without wondering when the hamster scene is going to appear in the show.
NSA is a great organization. Could be worse. You could be in the USAF where you have to consume mass quantities of MS Windows stuff, for almost everything. Some days I think MS owns part of USAF.
It was worth reading. I got some laughs out of it so it wasn't a complete waste :)
Later Eminem was quoted as saying:
"Yo the little ***** shouldn't have been singin my m**** f****** song. Anybody else I'd ah f***** them up good if I wasn't such a punk ass loser."
Word.
Also to the person above about the A-10 being a great "tank buster" not anymore.
When discussing conventional warfare with conventional military formations, the best "tank buster" is the WCMD CBU -105( wind corrected munitions container ) ( Think of a CBU canister with a GPS/INS kit to guide it in ANY weather.) The Inside of it are SFW's ( Sensor Fused Weapons or "Skeets" that once deployed seek out a vehicle in it's field of view and kill it.) In OIF 2 of these were dropped from several miles away at 40,000ft from a B-52, in support of a small USMC force that was coming under threat from an Iraqi Armored Brigade. Right after impact about 1/3 of the brigade ( almost 2 dozen tanks ) blew up. Gone. Finished. Seeing their buddies die and not knowing how it happened. the other 2/3s of the Brigade got out of their tanks and surrendered to the USMC.The response to the B-52 from the "G-FAC" ( Ground Forward Air Controller with the Marines) upon seeing the weapons hit was "holy s***". Thats the kind of customer support airpower can provide to a guy on the ground.
An Apache or A-10 could never do that in even their most wet of dreams, without putting aircrew at risk and getting shot at. The goal today is "I can touch you, but you can't touch me.... in any weather." Problem is that A-10s and Apaches have to go in range of enemy guns and get shot up.And they aren't all weather unless assisted by off board sensors ( UAV, JSTARS etc. ) Today tanks and vehicles die en masse and we don't have to get in range of the smaller SAMs and "triple A" ( AAA Anti-Aircraft Artillery) The biggest advantage of the A-10 is that it can get in and out of some crappy airfields. Now it is being converted to do very "un A-10" like work,with LITENING ( proof of concept used in OIF ) and SNIPER-XR when funded ( new gen Laser / Sensor Pods ). Droping PGMs ( Precision Guided Munitions ) from 10,000 feet and higher once they all get them. Also it will be able someday to do more all weather poor vis. work.
Also, another goal: Before enemy ground forces even come in range of our ground forces, they are worked over and beat up for days by our airpower "tank plinking" with LGBs, and WCMD, JSOW, JDAM etc. What does get up to the front is either crippled or ceases to function as an organized combat unit.
Killing the new helo was a good idea. We have plenty of sensor platforms to keep Apache informed ( JSTARS now puts target cueing into the Apache aircrew display ) Used successfully in OIF. Kinda scary where the Apache(s) show up and have excellent situational awareness.
Army Aviation has SERIOUS leadership issues ( that poor use of Apaches in OIF that got a bunch of them shot up ) Very poor mission planning. Should not have happened. Army Aviation has a lot of people issues to solve, that a new useless helo can't solve. These people issues are a first priorty.
Apaches and A-10s are still very useful. Just that some of their traditional jobs like "tank busting" are better done by other methods when possible. The Apache is excellent portable "artillery". ( You cant take field artillery to Afghanistan and go on a long range patrol or offensive through the mountains. Again A-10 gets in and out of some garbage airfields in Iraq and Afghanistan and is very handy. If USAF goes though with the new idea of getting "Jump" JSF ( originally required by USMC and UK ) then bare base options will be even better for CAS ( Close Air Support ) customer service to the grunts.
Hey if it helps the U.N. do its job better, what do I care? The mean side of me can see the next MS advert where the U.N. is used as a backdrop to sell product.
BBC = Baathist Broadcasting Corporation.
Rats are not little people.
DARPA would be more useful if they could find a way for some of the Army "leadership" to get better organizational skills. We don't need more total troop strength in the Army to meet taskings. Silly as it sounds the Army could add 30,000 to the fight by managing..... teeth, overall unit readiness and reorganization. Read this short op/ed by an Army combat vet. It is things like this and not some Buck Rogers solution that would be more useful: Nothing to Smile About ( SFTT.org )
"Hi I'd like to order the N.Y. Times." "She goes right for the Plagiarizing Section... while I like the biased opinons of Clintonista hacks..."
Spending more money on education won't and hasn't helped. Getting rid of the dead wood overly thick management structure in the Ed system and swaping that out for more teachers and breaking up union influence against using other solutions would be a step in the right direction.
Wacked agenda science guys do a press release and everyone buys it. The Peace Prize used to have merit. The last several years it doesn't. The only way for that org to get back any self respect would be to award it to the U.S. Military which has provided peace for years in many regions. As for missile defense: Which would you prefer: A wack job like NK sends a missile or two our way toward the left coast and we stop it? Or... it hits and we respond with a full attack wiping out the whole country? Some could make an argument that nuking the left coast would be an improvement, but that might be a bit harsh.
Yeah it is a safety issue. Sloppy attitude is a big part of flight safety. This includes the sustainment management of the craft. The idiots at NASA learned nothing from the first shuttle disaster, except how to act suprised at the revelation of their poor program management Nothing that firing some of the lead management couldn't fix to set a firm example.
If you are using OSX or Linux you are at least better off than those that aren't.
The saying by Roger Ebert ( the movie review guy ) and what he said about the Apple applies here: In the saying below replace "Apple" with "OSX and Linux"
"Apple's market share does provide us with an accurate reading of the percentage of reasonable people in our society"
No suprise on the original claim of harm. Plenty of sloppy "research" to go around.
"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you" - Kurt Cobain I thought that was Joseph Heller? Didn't Kurt say something like: "Now where did I put that shotgun?"
Hope there are some good German Beer songs or I ain't gonna buy it.