The more you tighten your grip, Bill, the more systems will slip through your fingers.
This will be grand when employers start having update problems because employess (or even ex-employees) took copies of software home and now the machines in the office can't update.
We should use this as an opportunity to go to metric time. 10 hours in a day/100 minutes in an hour/100 seconds in a minute. The new second would be about 8.6 current seconds long, but I think a second is too short right now anyway. Heck we could even rename it (centon?). Just think of how many jobs would be created after something like this! I am still working on how to handle metric dates; I am thinking that it might require us to speed up the earth's orbit around the sun so that it is a nice round number (say until there are only 300 days in a year).
This isn't a problem; simply get Hallmark to create yet another holiday. Something catchy like, "Don't burn your house down" day to help people remember to change their batteries (maybe even with a pocket to hold replacement batteries).
When do they start allowing contestant cars to carry guns/rockets/etc to take out other cars?
In fact, this could be a whole new brand of reality show: a few dozen death row inmates are released, followed minutes later by "smart cars with guns" that chase them down. Last inmate alive gets a pardon.
You can read the original Andersen fairy tale (with pictures) for free here. made availble with a Creative Commons License. Or you could fork over money and go buy a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales like Dvorak must have.
The only thing missing from this manual is the picture of a crying/screaming user standing in a pile of unlabelled cards that he just spilled on the floor.
Michael Lefenfeld and James Dye of Signa Chemistry wanted to make rooms smell better. Instead, they stumbled on a way that could make hydrogen fuel cells a practical reality.
Who wants to bet that Michael and James have a room full of stinky unshowered nerds to thank for stumbling onto this innovation?
I always go by 5PM GMT as the end of the day. That would be 11am local time, which is probably why my boss looks at me funny when I am saying I am going home for the day.
I'd be fascinated to know what you people do to your Windows machines to get file corruption so commonly. I don't think I've ever seen it happen on any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of Windows machines I've been responsible for over the years.
Things have improved here, but when I typically see problems is when the machine hangs during an install. Of course now that Microsoft has a blessed set of "trusted" software perhaps this won't be as much of a problem, at least if all the software you ever want to install is on their list of trusted software. I can say that in the 7+ years I have worked on Linux, I have never seen a Linux machine hang during a software install, ever. But again, if it did it most likely wouldn't stop the machine from booting to fix any/etc files the install mangled.
And how about if filesystem corruption takes out the entire/etc directory ? Or the entire filesystem ?
This same problem would take out the registry as well. The only thing that will save you here is a good set of backups. The advantage of the linux solution is the/etc files are not typically machine-dependant; what happens when you restore your registry on a brand new machine with different hardware?
One thing that drives me nuts about the registry is if it gets corrupted, it often makes the system unusable/unbootable. However, if one of my Linux config files gets mangled, 99.999% of the time the machine can boot just fine and I can easily fix the problem. Putting all your eggs in one basket seems to lead to problems that are much more difficult to fix, at least in my experience.
I agree that the culture would be gone, but we could still learn quite a bit from a living individual. For example, we could see if how well they can learn to throw a spear (see earlier discussions), how dextrious they are, dietary needs, etc. I think it could be raised as a human without to much mental anguish (at least until it becaomes a teenager anyway:-) )
I have wondered about that too. Then again, if they were pretty much 100% carnivores, I have to wonder how well a lion would fare in the same situation; most likely no matter how hungry they were, they still wouldn't see non-meat as food. Sorta like one of us being stuck in a buffet line where the only thing for dinner is a wide variety of lichens:-)
Gorillas are quite a bit stronger than we are, but they can't throw a spear like we can. Granted Neanderthals could probably throw one better than a gorilla too, but it is obvious strength isn't everything, or we wouldn't be here. Apparently their bigger brains weren't much help either, so I am still left to wonder why they are gone and we are still here. I keep coming back to our inherent violent nature and I can't help but think that is at least a big part of the reason.
From wikipedia: Also, while they [Neanderthals] had weapons, they were not used as projectile weapons. They had spears in the sense of a long wooden shaft with an arrow head firmly attached to it, but spears were first used as projectiles by Homo sapiens.
Three guesses why they are gone and we aren't? It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.
How about a multiplayer game where you can play a traditional role (person who plays all day), or play one of the "bad guys"(play for just a short while, as often or as little as you like). Certainly even a noob would be better than the AI in some of the games out there. For example, imagine being able to play as one of the baddies in Diablo; maybe with experience you could play meaner baddies as time went on. Besides, who wouldn't love chasing down players?
I can't wait for Longhorn to come out; I have several Windows 2000 machines at work that I want to upgrade to XP, but right now it is too expensive. Hurry up with Longhorn already!
Which reminds me, when do we get to see Wil's face on a box of Wheaties (poker is a sport right)? I mean "Wil Wheaton on a Wheaties box" could be the next big thing (wow is that a great epithet or what?)
'What if Frodo Baggins, instead of confronting the evil empire in "The Lord of the Rings," just got himself a lawyer and sued?'
Well, the movie wouldn't have been as good, though we probably would have seen more riots on TV, with the police whacking/tear gassing geeks dressed up as elves and hobbits. It certainly would have made the evening news more entertaining anyway.
Or if iptables give you the heebie-geebies, you might look at Firestarter: http://www.fs-security.com/. It gives you a nice GUI interface to the linux firewall. This on an old PC with two ethernet cards running redhat would work. Or get a Netgear FVS318 for less than $100; we have been using one of those for awhile now and it seems to offer resonable protection.
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I feel safer already. Oh and the upside is if there is a crowd of people, finding the westerners will be so much easier now. What a great plan!
This will be grand when employers start having update problems because employess (or even ex-employees) took copies of software home and now the machines in the office can't update.
We should use this as an opportunity to go to metric time. 10 hours in a day/100 minutes in an hour/100 seconds in a minute. The new second would be about 8.6 current seconds long, but I think a second is too short right now anyway. Heck we could even rename it (centon?). Just think of how many jobs would be created after something like this! I am still working on how to handle metric dates; I am thinking that it might require us to speed up the earth's orbit around the sun so that it is a nice round number (say until there are only 300 days in a year).
This isn't a problem; simply get Hallmark to create yet another holiday. Something catchy like, "Don't burn your house down" day to help people remember to change their batteries (maybe even with a pocket to hold replacement batteries).
In fact, this could be a whole new brand of reality show: a few dozen death row inmates are released, followed minutes later by "smart cars with guns" that chase them down. Last inmate alive gets a pardon.
I'm just pissed to find out that you really can major in PE; I thought the advisor was joking when he said that.
You can read the original Andersen fairy tale (with pictures) for free here. made availble with a Creative Commons License. Or you could fork over money and go buy a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales like Dvorak must have.
The only thing missing from this manual is the picture of a crying/screaming user standing in a pile of unlabelled cards that he just spilled on the floor.
Michael Lefenfeld and James Dye of Signa Chemistry wanted to make rooms smell better. Instead, they stumbled on a way that could make hydrogen fuel cells a practical reality.
Who wants to bet that Michael and James have a room full of stinky unshowered nerds to thank for stumbling onto this innovation?
I always go by 5PM GMT as the end of the day. That would be 11am local time, which is probably why my boss looks at me funny when I am saying I am going home for the day.
Things have improved here, but when I typically see problems is when the machine hangs during an install. Of course now that Microsoft has a blessed set of "trusted" software perhaps this won't be as much of a problem, at least if all the software you ever want to install is on their list of trusted software. I can say that in the 7+ years I have worked on Linux, I have never seen a Linux machine hang during a software install, ever. But again, if it did it most likely wouldn't stop the machine from booting to fix any /etc files the install mangled.
And how about if filesystem corruption takes out the entire
This same problem would take out the registry as well. The only thing that will save you here is a good set of backups. The advantage of the linux solution is the /etc files are not typically machine-dependant; what happens when you restore your registry on a brand new machine with different hardware?
One thing that drives me nuts about the registry is if it gets corrupted, it often makes the system unusable/unbootable. However, if one of my Linux config files gets mangled, 99.999% of the time the machine can boot just fine and I can easily fix the problem. Putting all your eggs in one basket seems to lead to problems that are much more difficult to fix, at least in my experience.
Interesting weblog :-) So do you think it is even possible they can recover a whole DNA strand to clone, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
I agree that the culture would be gone, but we could still learn quite a bit from a living individual. For example, we could see if how well they can learn to throw a spear (see earlier discussions), how dextrious they are, dietary needs, etc. I think it could be raised as a human without to much mental anguish (at least until it becaomes a teenager anyway :-) )
I have wondered about that too. Then again, if they were pretty much 100% carnivores, I have to wonder how well a lion would fare in the same situation; most likely no matter how hungry they were, they still wouldn't see non-meat as food. Sorta like one of us being stuck in a buffet line where the only thing for dinner is a wide variety of lichens :-)
Gorillas are quite a bit stronger than we are, but they can't throw a spear like we can. Granted Neanderthals could probably throw one better than a gorilla too, but it is obvious strength isn't everything, or we wouldn't be here. Apparently their bigger brains weren't much help either, so I am still left to wonder why they are gone and we are still here. I keep coming back to our inherent violent nature and I can't help but think that is at least a big part of the reason.
Three guesses why they are gone and we aren't? It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.
Personally I can't wait to have my very own roach chauffeur; I will be the envy of all, and can laugh at those who pay to be driven around.
How about a multiplayer game where you can play a traditional role (person who plays all day), or play one of the "bad guys"(play for just a short while, as often or as little as you like). Certainly even a noob would be better than the AI in some of the games out there. For example, imagine being able to play as one of the baddies in Diablo; maybe with experience you could play meaner baddies as time went on. Besides, who wouldn't love chasing down players?
I can't wait for Longhorn to come out; I have several Windows 2000 machines at work that I want to upgrade to XP, but right now it is too expensive. Hurry up with Longhorn already!
I wonder how you keep from spilling your drink in the pool in water polo? And don't even get me started on carrying a beer while skiing.
Which reminds me, when do we get to see Wil's face on a box of Wheaties (poker is a sport right)? I mean "Wil Wheaton on a Wheaties box" could be the next big thing (wow is that a great epithet or what?)
Well, the movie wouldn't have been as good, though we probably would have seen more riots on TV, with the police whacking/tear gassing geeks dressed up as elves and hobbits. It certainly would have made the evening news more entertaining anyway.
Yeah, sort of a "we must invade them to keep them safe" philosophy :-)
Or if iptables give you the heebie-geebies, you might look at Firestarter: http://www.fs-security.com/. It gives you a nice GUI interface to the linux firewall. This on an old PC with two ethernet cards running redhat would work. Or get a Netgear FVS318 for less than $100; we have been using one of those for awhile now and it seems to offer resonable protection.