I am not entirely certain that I would classify chiropractors as quacks. About a year ago, I was sleeping "wrong" and something "misaligned" in my back. I was uncomfortable for two months and when I finally had a chance, I went to a chiropractor for a few visits. He eventually found the spot that was causing me discomfort and popped it back into place. I have been fine ever since.
A chiropractor is useful for those "one off" situations to get you back to normal. It is absurd to use a chiropractor for regular treatment because if you do need regular treatment, something is wrong (bad posture, notched bone, etc) and it really needs to be fixed by a real doctor.
"So, frankly, if a parent isn't worried - I'm not sure they're doing they're job."
You will probably not think that I am doing my job. I have two kids, 15 and 10 and I am not worried in the least about what they will find on the internet. Both of them have run across porn and both of them quickly ignored it. The younger one thought it was gross and the elder one did not wish to see it.
While I am checking their computer for spyware, malware and other baddies, I do look through their browser histories and such but they have no idea that I check such things. All of their online activities are 100% innocent even without the fear of me monitoring them.
I trust my kids 100% but I do know that children can make mistakes which is why I check sometimes. I have taught my children about all sorts of things and let them explain to me how it could affect them. I tell them they can do anything they want and they turn around and limit themselves even more than I would limit them if I were an authoritarian parent.
At their ages, I was always rebelling against my parents. I swore I would never be like my parents and it has paid off in spades. My kids get excellent grades, A- is the lowest for the 15 year old and a B is the lowest for my 10 year old. All of their teachers have always complimented me on how courteous and hard working both children are. Both children are well disciplined and never do anything (major/serious) that I would not want them to do. Most importantly though, both of them love and trust me. They know that they can talk to me about _anything_ even if it is embarrassing or against the rules.
A web filter is bad parenting in my book. The real world does not censor itself and showing your kids a censored world will only hurt them by limiting their view/knowledge. Murderers, child molesters, thieves, etc do not perform their crimes only on other bad people. They perform their crimes on innocent people too. Better yet, innocent people make great targets because an innocent person does not know what to look for or know how to defend themselves. When they run across bad stuff make sure that your kids can, and will want to, talk to you about it so you can provide the knowledge that they need to get along in this world.
Teach your children properly and you will have less to worry about. (kind of like the saying, "do not tell lies so you do not have to remember as much")
"Seriously, most people aren't going to notice..."
Truly, I am not most people. That being said. *I* notice. The 2.0 kernel always felt pretty snappy to me. The 2.2 kernel seemed a little less snappy but it worked very well for me. The 2.4 kernel was where it all seemed to go downhill from a desktop users perspective and 2.6 made me think I was back in Windows with all of the waiting I had to do. You might think that a millisecond or two means nothing to a desktop user, but it means a lot to me. Surely the kernel devs think that way. Honestly, I do not even use Linux as a desktop OS anymore because of how bad it is.
Maybe it is because I play Counter Strike a lot, but I _really_ notice when a mouse movement or a window adjustment lags even a little. I suppose it could be KDE and Gnome being so bloated that even if the kernel were perfect, the cpu still would not have enough horsepower to handle those ungodly beasts, but I doubt it, since even Blackbox is not really snappy. The kernel is for servers only anymore.
It really saddens me that Linux, X, and Enlightenment with all of its eye candy going was snappier on a 600mhz computer with 512mb ram than it is on a 2.4ghz Athlon with 2 gigs of ram running Blackbox. It is a shame that I never tried out Mr. Kolivas' scheduler but I had already given up on Linux by then. If I will not have a snappy OS, I would rather use something less painful like OS X. Linux has lost me as a supporter because of this crap (there were not desktop optimized kernels in early 2.6). I do not buy new hardware and expect my experience to be less snappy than it was. I wish the kernel devs would respect the desktop users at least a little.
You do realize that Steve Jobs is one of the original founders of Apple, right? He was squeezed out due to political maneuvering and replaced by some moron whose name I can't remember now. Scully possibly. Apple begged Steve to come back after almost being driven completely into the ground by clueless MBAs. Steve did come back and had Apple purchase NeXT (which Steve had created).
I run two Counter Strike servers and one Counter Strike: Source server on Linux. I seriously doubt that they need help writing server software for Linux; therefore it seems reasonable to assume that they are porting actual game client/s to Linux.
As always, reality will be what reality is regardless of our assumptions.
Actually, Wii Sports is a very fun all by itself. The only game I do not like in Wii Sports is the boxing. I would say that including a very fun game with the console is why it is selling well despite the lackluster titles generally available.
All of your assertions only prove that mainstream media is quite effective at keeping large numbers of people from sharing their discontent. This allows each of us to think that we are the only ones who are pissed and that most of the others couldn't give a shit.
"I'd bet the release of SP1 ends up being good for everyone."
Whatever.
"People that already have Vista will have (at least some of) their performance issues sorted out."
If it were real software, the performance issues would have been "sorted out" long before it was ever in beta, much less released to the world.
| conspiracy theory | In all actuality, the performance issues will _never_ be sorted out. Why? Because if the software were good enough, you would never need to buy an upgraded version.
| angry rant | I get so fucking angry about being forced to use substandard software. It just drives me nuts.
Menus hesitate for 5 or more seconds while Windows fetches the menu items from swap when I have 2.3 gigabytes of FREE fucking RAM.
Mac OS X refuses to unmount a drive after being asleep despite the fact that all locks on the data have been fucking released.
MPlayer crashes while seeking in a file because it has to hack into proprietary CODECS.
STOP creating shit and telling me it is fucking wonderful. Write reliable god damned software. It really is not all that fucking hard despite all of the hand wringing on this site about how pointers are so difficult and assembler is too arcane. "High level languages will solve all of our problems.", many of you say. NO IT FUCKING WON'T! The problem is morons writing code and morons managing them. If you can't fucking write a program properly, then do not write it at all.
DISCLAIMER: High level languages are useful and have their place... they are NOT solutions to allow morons to program.
| normal mode | Back to my response to you: You are a sucker if you think a service pack or 20 will solve Vista's problems. Despite any conspiracy theories or angry rants, history has shown us with 100% certainty that Microsoft products, operating systems especially, suck.
"People discuss gangs, illegal drugs, and all kinds of crazy stuff. But when it comes to pedophilia, they have to cover their bases or get in big trouble with the government."
Why is pedophilia worse than anything else in the world? Even it were the absolute worst crime that could ever be committed, why would you only cover your bases on this one crime and not all crimes? This is all rather creepy to me.
is it your sig that has caused your post to be modded as flamebait? I see nothing wrong with your post. At least it will all get sorted out in metamoderation.
"I mean, it's not surprising that they keep fucking up some things, but surveillance of American citizens? Sadly, that's something I trust my government to do quite well."
Yeah, but they still can not properly analyze what they are seeing so all the wrong people will get arrested and Bad Things will still happen.
"Hot!! Oh my god! don't set it on your lap if you have shorts. And this is the newer model without the battery problems."
Apple, for whatever reason, chose quiet fan operation over efficient cooling. Fortunately, someone decided to empower you to choose the proper balance of silence and efficiency.
You can set the minimum fan speed to whatever makes you happy. In a normal environment (70F, low humidity), I set my fans 1600 RPMs which is still effectively silent but keeps the laptop MUCH cooler. When I am in a more hostile environment (>80 with high humidity), I set my fans to a minimum of 4k RPMs.
"but the first thing I noticed back then about CD's was the dynamic range closely followed by the relatively flat frequency response"
The first thing I noticed was how poorly the original mastering was done... or maybe it was just bad DACs. While the CD had better "resolution" in the upper ranges, I could hear artifacts that gave me the impression of "blocks". I loved my tapes for years after the CD was first introduced because the analog signal smoothed out the rough edges left behind by either the encoding or decoding process.
If you ever do listen to casettes again, you can "tune" the head on almost all tape players with a jewelers screwdriver. Everyone used to think I was a bit odd for screwing (pun was not originally intended) with their tape decks. The increased sound quality made them understand what I was doing.:)
How would you know about a product that fits your needs if it were not advertised first?
Do not misunderstand me here, I have your same point of view (mostly).
There have been a few times where I wanted to buy something but had a very hard time deciding which product to buy because I could find so little information on the product in question. Advertisements (which are informative) would have been quite useful.
Both you and cayenne will not agree because you both have totally different views. Your views, either consciously or unconsciously, tend to promote monogamism. His views are explicitly non-monogamous. Both of you have valid points, but neither set of points invalidates the other.
Getting good programmers does not help if their software still sucks. Have you ever tried Windows Mobile? It crashes more often than Windows 3.11 did. Blech.
You seem to forget that mainframe time was exorbitantly expensive. Personal computers were, and likely still are, vastly cheaper. Whether that is because of greed (like the Unix Wars) or due to plain economics, I do not know. Yes, centralization makes sense many times in corporations, but do not forget how we arrived where we are at now.
I think I'm with you guys for a very long time now. This is really too good to be true. None of you guys have read what EU Theory states.
Actually, that is not true. I read about Electric Universe "theory" quite some time ago when you had brought it up before. It sounds very interesting, however, there was not much science there. It is all "scientists are wrong because of..."
EU would be much more interesting if it was more than idle speculation. As it is, I lump it in with Intelligent Design and other crackpot "theories" because there is no hard science behind it. Why not make a prediction based on EU and then attempt to disprove that prediction? If the prediction is valid, EU would gain some credibility.
I have a hypothetical situation: What if everything NASA is seeing is the result of electrical activity instead of water, and NASA sends people to Mars in search of water, life and national prestige, only to have them subjected to intense transient electrical storms in various forms? What if these people then died due to persistent equipment failures?
Wow. You are really really fixated on electricity. Electricity and water have totally different signatures. I would be interested to hear a rational explanation of how electricity could have effects on the Martian landscape that would have the same effects as water. Please be specific, clear, and scientific and be sure to explain how electricity causes craters as well please.
You also seem fixated on using the "OMG! People will die if you do not examine my pet theories!" gambit. You should drop it as it makes you look like a zealot.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not entirely certain that I would classify chiropractors as quacks. About a year ago, I was sleeping "wrong" and something "misaligned" in my back. I was uncomfortable for two months and when I finally had a chance, I went to a chiropractor for a few visits. He eventually found the spot that was causing me discomfort and popped it back into place. I have been fine ever since.
A chiropractor is useful for those "one off" situations to get you back to normal. It is absurd to use a chiropractor for regular treatment because if you do need regular treatment, something is wrong (bad posture, notched bone, etc) and it really needs to be fixed by a real doctor.
strike
"So, frankly, if a parent isn't worried - I'm not sure they're doing they're job."
You will probably not think that I am doing my job. I have two kids, 15 and 10 and I am not worried in the least about what they will find on the internet. Both of them have run across porn and both of them quickly ignored it. The younger one thought it was gross and the elder one did not wish to see it.
While I am checking their computer for spyware, malware and other baddies, I do look through their browser histories and such but they have no idea that I check such things. All of their online activities are 100% innocent even without the fear of me monitoring them.
I trust my kids 100% but I do know that children can make mistakes which is why I check sometimes. I have taught my children about all sorts of things and let them explain to me how it could affect them. I tell them they can do anything they want and they turn around and limit themselves even more than I would limit them if I were an authoritarian parent.
At their ages, I was always rebelling against my parents. I swore I would never be like my parents and it has paid off in spades. My kids get excellent grades, A- is the lowest for the 15 year old and a B is the lowest for my 10 year old. All of their teachers have always complimented me on how courteous and hard working both children are. Both children are well disciplined and never do anything (major/serious) that I would not want them to do. Most importantly though, both of them love and trust me. They know that they can talk to me about _anything_ even if it is embarrassing or against the rules.
A web filter is bad parenting in my book. The real world does not censor itself and showing your kids a censored world will only hurt them by limiting their view/knowledge. Murderers, child molesters, thieves, etc do not perform their crimes only on other bad people. They perform their crimes on innocent people too. Better yet, innocent people make great targets because an innocent person does not know what to look for or know how to defend themselves. When they run across bad stuff make sure that your kids can, and will want to, talk to you about it so you can provide the knowledge that they need to get along in this world.
Teach your children properly and you will have less to worry about. (kind of like the saying, "do not tell lies so you do not have to remember as much")
strike
"Seriously, most people aren't going to notice..."
Truly, I am not most people. That being said. *I* notice. The 2.0 kernel always felt pretty snappy to me. The 2.2 kernel seemed a little less snappy but it worked very well for me. The 2.4 kernel was where it all seemed to go downhill from a desktop users perspective and 2.6 made me think I was back in Windows with all of the waiting I had to do. You might think that a millisecond or two means nothing to a desktop user, but it means a lot to me. Surely the kernel devs think that way. Honestly, I do not even use Linux as a desktop OS anymore because of how bad it is.
Maybe it is because I play Counter Strike a lot, but I _really_ notice when a mouse movement or a window adjustment lags even a little. I suppose it could be KDE and Gnome being so bloated that even if the kernel were perfect, the cpu still would not have enough horsepower to handle those ungodly beasts, but I doubt it, since even Blackbox is not really snappy. The kernel is for servers only anymore.
It really saddens me that Linux, X, and Enlightenment with all of its eye candy going was snappier on a 600mhz computer with 512mb ram than it is on a 2.4ghz Athlon with 2 gigs of ram running Blackbox. It is a shame that I never tried out Mr. Kolivas' scheduler but I had already given up on Linux by then. If I will not have a snappy OS, I would rather use something less painful like OS X. Linux has lost me as a supporter because of this crap (there were not desktop optimized kernels in early 2.6). I do not buy new hardware and expect my experience to be less snappy than it was. I wish the kernel devs would respect the desktop users at least a little.
strike
You do realize that Steve Jobs is one of the original founders of Apple, right? He was squeezed out due to political maneuvering and replaced by some moron whose name I can't remember now. Scully possibly. Apple begged Steve to come back after almost being driven completely into the ground by clueless MBAs. Steve did come back and had Apple purchase NeXT (which Steve had created).
strike
I run two Counter Strike servers and one Counter Strike: Source server on Linux. I seriously doubt that they need help writing server software for Linux; therefore it seems reasonable to assume that they are porting actual game client/s to Linux.
As always, reality will be what reality is regardless of our assumptions.
strike
Actually, Wii Sports is a very fun all by itself. The only game I do not like in Wii Sports is the boxing. I would say that including a very fun game with the console is why it is selling well despite the lackluster titles generally available.
strike
All of your assertions only prove that mainstream media is quite effective at keeping large numbers of people from sharing their discontent. This allows each of us to think that we are the only ones who are pissed and that most of the others couldn't give a shit.
"He who controls the media controls the masses."
strike
"We have short individual lives, but the knowledge that we discover outlives us."
Well, until the next Nero comes along anyways.
strike
Whatever.
"People that already have Vista will have (at least some of) their performance issues sorted out."
If it were real software, the performance issues would have been "sorted out" long before it was ever in beta, much less released to the world.
| conspiracy theory |
In all actuality, the performance issues will _never_ be sorted out. Why? Because if the software were good enough, you would never need to buy an upgraded version.
| angry rant |
I get so fucking angry about being forced to use substandard software. It just drives me nuts.
STOP creating shit and telling me it is fucking wonderful. Write reliable god damned software. It really is not all that fucking hard despite all of the hand wringing on this site about how pointers are so difficult and assembler is too arcane. "High level languages will solve all of our problems.", many of you say. NO IT FUCKING WON'T! The problem is morons writing code and morons managing them. If you can't fucking write a program properly, then do not write it at all.
DISCLAIMER: High level languages are useful and have their place... they are NOT solutions to allow morons to program.
| normal mode |
Back to my response to you: You are a sucker if you think a service pack or 20 will solve Vista's problems. Despite any conspiracy theories or angry rants, history has shown us with 100% certainty that Microsoft products, operating systems especially, suck.
strike
"People discuss gangs, illegal drugs, and all kinds of crazy stuff. But when it comes to pedophilia, they have to cover their bases or get in big trouble with the government."
Why is pedophilia worse than anything else in the world? Even it were the absolute worst crime that could ever be committed, why would you only cover your bases on this one crime and not all crimes? This is all rather creepy to me.
strike
is it your sig that has caused your post to be modded as flamebait? I see nothing wrong with your post. At least it will all get sorted out in metamoderation.
strike
"I mean, it's not surprising that they keep fucking up some things, but surveillance of American citizens? Sadly, that's something I trust my government to do quite well."
Yeah, but they still can not properly analyze what they are seeing so all the wrong people will get arrested and Bad Things will still happen.
strike
"Hot!! Oh my god! don't set it on your lap if you have shorts. And this is the newer model without the battery problems."
Apple, for whatever reason, chose quiet fan operation over efficient cooling. Fortunately, someone decided to empower you to choose the proper balance of silence and efficiency.
smcFanControl http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/index.html
You can set the minimum fan speed to whatever makes you happy. In a normal environment (70F, low humidity), I set my fans 1600 RPMs which is still effectively silent but keeps the laptop MUCH cooler. When I am in a more hostile environment (>80 with high humidity), I set my fans to a minimum of 4k RPMs.
strike
We really, really need the ability to mod parent articles.
:)
Ummm, hello, McFly. That is EXACTLY what firehose is for. Put up or shut up.
strike
"but the first thing I noticed back then about CD's was the dynamic range closely followed by the relatively flat frequency response"
:)
The first thing I noticed was how poorly the original mastering was done... or maybe it was just bad DACs. While the CD had better "resolution" in the upper ranges, I could hear artifacts that gave me the impression of "blocks". I loved my tapes for years after the CD was first introduced because the analog signal smoothed out the rough edges left behind by either the encoding or decoding process.
If you ever do listen to casettes again, you can "tune" the head on almost all tape players with a jewelers screwdriver. Everyone used to think I was a bit odd for screwing (pun was not originally intended) with their tape decks. The increased sound quality made them understand what I was doing.
strike
How very appropriate that Slayer: Angel of Death is playing while I read your comment. Coincidences are weird sometimes.
strike
How would you know about a product that fits your needs if it were not advertised first?
Do not misunderstand me here, I have your same point of view (mostly).
There have been a few times where I wanted to buy something but had a very hard time deciding which product to buy because I could find so little information on the product in question. Advertisements (which are informative) would have been quite useful.
strike
Both you and cayenne will not agree because you both have totally different views. Your views, either consciously or unconsciously, tend to promote monogamism. His views are explicitly non-monogamous. Both of you have valid points, but neither set of points invalidates the other.
strike
Getting good programmers does not help if their software still sucks. Have you ever tried Windows Mobile? It crashes more often than Windows 3.11 did. Blech.
strike
You seem to forget that mainframe time was exorbitantly expensive. Personal computers were, and likely still are, vastly cheaper. Whether that is because of greed (like the Unix Wars) or due to plain economics, I do not know. Yes, centralization makes sense many times in corporations, but do not forget how we arrived where we are at now.
strike
Outstanding. This is something that we can work with. Let's watch and see what happens. :)
strike
Actually, I require mainstream scientists to provide falsifiable predictions as well. I am not picking on EU theorists.
strike
I think I'm with you guys for a very long time now. This is really too good to be true. None of you guys have read what EU Theory states.
Actually, that is not true. I read about Electric Universe "theory" quite some time ago when you had brought it up before. It sounds very interesting, however, there was not much science there. It is all "scientists are wrong because of..."
EU would be much more interesting if it was more than idle speculation. As it is, I lump it in with Intelligent Design and other crackpot "theories" because there is no hard science behind it. Why not make a prediction based on EU and then attempt to disprove that prediction? If the prediction is valid, EU would gain some credibility.
strike
I have a hypothetical situation: What if everything NASA is seeing is the result of electrical activity instead of water, and NASA sends people to Mars in search of water, life and national prestige, only to have them subjected to intense transient electrical storms in various forms? What if these people then died due to persistent equipment failures?
Wow. You are really really fixated on electricity. Electricity and water have totally different signatures. I would be interested to hear a rational explanation of how electricity could have effects on the Martian landscape that would have the same effects as water. Please be specific, clear, and scientific and be sure to explain how electricity causes craters as well please.
You also seem fixated on using the "OMG! People will die if you do not examine my pet theories!" gambit. You should drop it as it makes you look like a zealot.
strike
Actually, it only needs to be hard rebooted about once a week.