Tell me about it. I got thrown into the deep end in my first programming gig and there was SQL involved. The C# and Asp.Net parts were simple. The SQL and figuring out what the hell the people were doing who I took the site over from were the difficult parts.
The FUN part was learning XSLT and replacing all those damn asp:Repeater controls with it. I love opening up a blank XSL file and starting on it for some reason. That's the really fun stuff.
I hope this comment is in jest pointing out that people have been claiming that AMD is in trouble for years and despote those prognostications AMD continues to carry on.
Either that you're totally wrong. AMD's not the GM of the PC industry.
I use it and I actually write code. Of course I happen to prefer a fun, eclectic mix of XSLT, jquery, and ASP.Net. To be honest, I get a little gleeful when I crack open a new XSL stylesheet.
Because when private industry does it it's ok. Government can only fail but private industry seeking a profit motive is free to do what it wants. If a non-union business enslaved a libertarian in a gulag where said libertarian was forced to listen to the Numa Numa song and build widgets all day it would be hunky dory if said business was seeking a profit motive. I could build a plant that turned all the dirt in my property into nuclear waste and belch said nuclear dirt into the air but it would be fine as long as I was seeking a profit for it and I didn't have government subsidy or union employees.
Of course in the real world I could only make money hand over fist for so long until the government shut my business down but by then my wife would be a gazillionaire and I would have stashed away enough money in the Cayman Islands that I could afford to go Galt to protest unnecessary government intrustion into my life. Either way, libertarianism FTW!
Asus is just doing this to make a buck selling the EE PCs that have Windows on them. They'll still sell the Linux ones but they're expanding the market to Windows-only people who are afraid of Linux. And they're likely getting some marketing dollars from Microsoft to do this as well. Sucks that the company is "disloyal" but the libertarians among us should be happy that the free market is working so well. Asus is just following their profit motive and doing what comes naturally as distasteful as it is.
I'm only going to quibble with one of these because it's so dead obvious:
Dick Cheney is a Republican. He claimed Iraq trained Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda attacked us on September 11th. Dick Cheney made the link between Iraq and 9/11.
They had evidence from emails that these secret deals were occurring and AMD couldn't even give a computer manufacturer a million free chips because Intel would punish them. That's blatantly illegal. So if your argument is that Intel shouldn't have to obey the law, then that argument encourages illegal behavior.
And if AMD had the share they deserved back when Athlon 64 was blowing away Intel they would have made more money and had more money for R&D in which case would have likely been able to keep up with Intel. The cause and effect is pretty obvious. That AMD couldn't even give away a million free chips to a computer manufacturer makes it pretty obvious that something was mighty fishy.
I loved it when they'd let us handle two calls at a time. Put user on hold, tell the other one to click next until the files start copying, go back, repeat. Hello 5 calls per hour!
I think I've played five characters in Oblivion. I've done every single quest in that game and Shivering Isles, Mehrune's Blade (or whatever), and the Knights of the Nine expansion. LOVED Oblivion. There's nothing even close yet.
And yeah, I dig a well-crafted single player game and played NWN2 alone first. Now I'm helping the above mentioned people go through enjoying it as a multiplayer experience.
I didn't hear about it because I prefer to play well crafted single-player games than MMORPGs. I've bought 3 copies of the OC and 3 copies of MoTB and only spent about 60 bucks. With that, my wife and a bud of mine can play as much as we want, join persistant worlds, etc. and pay no additional monthly fee. So yeah, I just hadn't heard of DDO. Sue me.:)
Apparently there's a game called DnD Online that is an MMORPG or something and their new module is called Module 7. It adds a monk class and some other crap that is linked to from the page o' links that TFA resembles.
I didn't even know there was a DnD Online. I'm still playing Neverwinter Nights 2 multiplayer with my wife and friends (you can find it and the expansion at Target in the clearance aisle for five to ten bucks). I think I'll stick with NWN2 until a game comes out based on the 4e rules, frankly. They seem to be a little more compatible with CRPGs anyway.
The non-serious gamer market it TOTALLY a big hit. And the benefit of this chipset for many users is that you get decent 3D performance with a motherboard for the same price you would pay for a motherboard without the integrated graphics.
And if you decide to bump it up a notch and buy a 3450 it operates in Hybrid Crossfire so your onboard graphics aren't totally disabled. Explain to me how that isn't cool?
Intel is and always has been CPU-centric. That's all they ever seem to focus on because it's what they do best. Nvidia is focusing 100% on GPUs because it's what they best. AMD seems to have it right with their combination of the two (by necessity) because they're focusing on a mix between the two. I'm seriously stoked about the 780G chipset they rolled out this month because it's an integrated chipset that doesn't suck and actually speeds up an ATI video card if you add the right one.
Given, AMD isn't the fastest when it comes to either graphics or processors but at least they have a platform with a chipset, CPU, and graphics that work together. Chipsets have needed to be a bit more powerful for a long-ass time.
We still owe 9 trillion dollars. Would you propose to pay that money back? If so, lowering taxes across the board (including to the rich) isn't the way to go.
Redeploy forces in Iraq, close permanent bases we've built, fire Blackwater and other government contractors.
Direct the EPA to begin strictly enforcing air pollution laws, get snowmobiles out of national parks, sign the stem cell bill that Bush vetoed twice. Lobby congress to increase taxes on the rich so that we can get out of debt. Lobby for single-payer health care (much like the French plan), the Equal Rights Amendment, a new FISA bill that requires warrants before eavesdropping, a new energy policy that lessens demand for oil and increases demand for renewable energy, lobby for incentives for pebble bed nuclear reactors as long as companies that accept governemnt money will release their patents and allow for greater competition, lobby for a du jure right for gay people to serve in the military (Don't Ask Don't Tell is not being enforced currently and things aren't falling apart any more than they would be if it were). I'd close Guantanamo and return those prisoners I couldn't legitimately charge to either their home nation or a nation willing to accept them. I'd even likely pay some reparations. I'd pardon the Grenada prisoners, repair our relations with Venezuela, and end the Cuban embargo. And I'd fight fight fight fight fight because the other side would fight me at every turn. I'd talk on TV as long as they'd let me, I'd implore the American people to give this whole experiment a try because we've given right-wing neoconservativism a try for the last 8 years and gotten nowhere. I'd debate just about any wingnuts on TV publically in order to further push and lobby the nation for what we should do. I'd use the bully pulpit every damn day in language average people understand rather than getting all Wonky like many Democrats have.
Speaking of unfair, I think it's completely unfair for you to ruin a wonderful flame war based on supposition and misunderstanding. How dare you roll up on Slashdot busting caps with your reasoned approach, data, and project management skills? Now this topic of conversation is hosed because nobody can BS their way through why you're a bad guy who's stepping on Roman's neck because of some daddy issues or something. Sheesh, of all the gall...
I find it hard to believe that civil libertarians would want to replace government power with corporate power. Antitrust legislation is a great thing so that the "invisible hand" of the market is not thwarted by mopoly powers. A fair market is the only way to achieve the efficiencies that market forces bring. Unfettered competition is not competition once a monopoly power gains hegemony. And school bussing is a case of civil rights/liberties. It enforces the right to equal protection and equality in education.
Also, the "rights" of business owners might be impinged upon by smoking bans, but the rights of non-smokers are of greater concern, are they not? Attendance increases with smoking bans and laws are enacted to protect the common good with the side effect of infringing upon some freedoms. The delicate balancing act of ensuring that as little freedom is traded for the greatest common good is why government exists and it is why government power is in our hands, is it not?
I don't see why libertarians would argue against public schools unless they're simply morons (and yes, that is an ad hominem, but it is a just one.) The infrastructure which public school provides is essential to us as a country. Without public schools we are not competitive, and our way of life is threatened. Hating government in toto is not libertarianism; it's anarchy. Hating public schools doesn't promote freedom; it promotes ignorance and inequality. You can wish for solely private schools, private roads, private police forces and fire departments, but this simply is not pragmatic. If the argument is that pragmatism is not important, then your ideology is only theoretical with no practical purpose (which is what I have been arguing about libertarianism all along.)
I find it strange that libertarians would "spit acid" at the mention of the ACLU given that the mission of the ACLU is to protect civil liberties that are threatened by the government. That a libertarian would deride an organization dedicated to their civil liberties seems rather counter-productive, wouldn't you think?
Perhaps they're less staunch libertarians than they would have you believe.
Also, the "conservatives" in power are certainly not huge critics of big government given the extraordinary powers they have given themselves. The deficit has grown so much in the last seven years due to these "conservatives" and their strange methods of reducing government intrusion have somehow resulted in a crumbling economy (due to insufficient regulations of the credit markets), a higher poverty rate and stagnating wages coupled with record corporate profits (due to idiotic monetary policies that lowered taxes on the rich, resulted in a negative inflation rate, and encouraged consumer debt on an unprecedented scale), and war spending out the wazoo for no benefit to us as a country. Conservativism is a failed movement. The "responsible" conservative politicians have been a disaster for their party and our country.
I didn't know that the commercials we hear just pay for royalties. I thought it actually cost money to hire engineers, DJs, morning show personalities, etc and had to pay for the energy to broadcast all those watts. You know, I even thought the building upkeep and maintenance cost money! Can you imagine what a rube I feel like now?
I just ran through the demo a couple of times and I can tell you that the game will only sell less than 250k copies if the marketing plan is utter trash, because the game itself is excellent. It has this weird atmosphere that's an amalgum of the '50s and Blade Runner, almost. It's totally weird. And there are these people with bunny ears chasing you around and stuff. I mean, c'mon! How can you not love that? It doesn't even matter how good the graphics are because what really counts in this game is the tight controls and the weird-ass underwater city you're running around in. You'll see what I'm talking about if you play it. It's well worth it. I'll be buying it for sure.
Thanks so much for your data driven election analysis! I've never seen such an intereseting cogent explanation of why a candidate is the wrong choice for our great country!
Also, the best reason to wish the end of this Presidency is surely that people will stop complaining about him. It's definitely not that he's actually a bad President or that his administration is incompetent or anything. Have you ever thought of getting a job at CNN or maybe replacing Tim Russert on Meet the Press?
Slashdot Mirror
Tell me about it. I got thrown into the deep end in my first programming gig and there was SQL involved. The C# and Asp.Net parts were simple. The SQL and figuring out what the hell the people were doing who I took the site over from were the difficult parts. The FUN part was learning XSLT and replacing all those damn asp:Repeater controls with it. I love opening up a blank XSL file and starting on it for some reason. That's the really fun stuff.
I hope this comment is in jest pointing out that people have been claiming that AMD is in trouble for years and despote those prognostications AMD continues to carry on.
Either that you're totally wrong. AMD's not the GM of the PC industry.
I use it and I actually write code. Of course I happen to prefer a fun, eclectic mix of XSLT, jquery, and ASP.Net. To be honest, I get a little gleeful when I crack open a new XSL stylesheet.
Because when private industry does it it's ok. Government can only fail but private industry seeking a profit motive is free to do what it wants. If a non-union business enslaved a libertarian in a gulag where said libertarian was forced to listen to the Numa Numa song and build widgets all day it would be hunky dory if said business was seeking a profit motive. I could build a plant that turned all the dirt in my property into nuclear waste and belch said nuclear dirt into the air but it would be fine as long as I was seeking a profit for it and I didn't have government subsidy or union employees.
Of course in the real world I could only make money hand over fist for so long until the government shut my business down but by then my wife would be a gazillionaire and I would have stashed away enough money in the Cayman Islands that I could afford to go Galt to protest unnecessary government intrustion into my life. Either way, libertarianism FTW!
Asus is just doing this to make a buck selling the EE PCs that have Windows on them. They'll still sell the Linux ones but they're expanding the market to Windows-only people who are afraid of Linux. And they're likely getting some marketing dollars from Microsoft to do this as well. Sucks that the company is "disloyal" but the libertarians among us should be happy that the free market is working so well. Asus is just following their profit motive and doing what comes naturally as distasteful as it is.
I'm only going to quibble with one of these because it's so dead obvious: Dick Cheney is a Republican. He claimed Iraq trained Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda attacked us on September 11th. Dick Cheney made the link between Iraq and 9/11.
They had evidence from emails that these secret deals were occurring and AMD couldn't even give a computer manufacturer a million free chips because Intel would punish them. That's blatantly illegal. So if your argument is that Intel shouldn't have to obey the law, then that argument encourages illegal behavior.
And if AMD had the share they deserved back when Athlon 64 was blowing away Intel they would have made more money and had more money for R&D in which case would have likely been able to keep up with Intel. The cause and effect is pretty obvious. That AMD couldn't even give away a million free chips to a computer manufacturer makes it pretty obvious that something was mighty fishy.
I loved it when they'd let us handle two calls at a time. Put user on hold, tell the other one to click next until the files start copying, go back, repeat. Hello 5 calls per hour!
I think I've played five characters in Oblivion. I've done every single quest in that game and Shivering Isles, Mehrune's Blade (or whatever), and the Knights of the Nine expansion. LOVED Oblivion. There's nothing even close yet. And yeah, I dig a well-crafted single player game and played NWN2 alone first. Now I'm helping the above mentioned people go through enjoying it as a multiplayer experience.
I didn't hear about it because I prefer to play well crafted single-player games than MMORPGs. I've bought 3 copies of the OC and 3 copies of MoTB and only spent about 60 bucks. With that, my wife and a bud of mine can play as much as we want, join persistant worlds, etc. and pay no additional monthly fee. So yeah, I just hadn't heard of DDO. Sue me. :)
Apparently there's a game called DnD Online that is an MMORPG or something and their new module is called Module 7. It adds a monk class and some other crap that is linked to from the page o' links that TFA resembles. I didn't even know there was a DnD Online. I'm still playing Neverwinter Nights 2 multiplayer with my wife and friends (you can find it and the expansion at Target in the clearance aisle for five to ten bucks). I think I'll stick with NWN2 until a game comes out based on the 4e rules, frankly. They seem to be a little more compatible with CRPGs anyway.
And if you decide to bump it up a notch and buy a 3450 it operates in Hybrid Crossfire so your onboard graphics aren't totally disabled. Explain to me how that isn't cool?
Intel is and always has been CPU-centric. That's all they ever seem to focus on because it's what they do best. Nvidia is focusing 100% on GPUs because it's what they best. AMD seems to have it right with their combination of the two (by necessity) because they're focusing on a mix between the two. I'm seriously stoked about the 780G chipset they rolled out this month because it's an integrated chipset that doesn't suck and actually speeds up an ATI video card if you add the right one. Given, AMD isn't the fastest when it comes to either graphics or processors but at least they have a platform with a chipset, CPU, and graphics that work together. Chipsets have needed to be a bit more powerful for a long-ass time.
I had Pac Man too but I REALLY loved Combat. Especially the tank levels with the ponging bullets. I'd LOVE to play that again.
We still owe 9 trillion dollars. Would you propose to pay that money back? If so, lowering taxes across the board (including to the rich) isn't the way to go.
Redeploy forces in Iraq, close permanent bases we've built, fire Blackwater and other government contractors. Direct the EPA to begin strictly enforcing air pollution laws, get snowmobiles out of national parks, sign the stem cell bill that Bush vetoed twice. Lobby congress to increase taxes on the rich so that we can get out of debt. Lobby for single-payer health care (much like the French plan), the Equal Rights Amendment, a new FISA bill that requires warrants before eavesdropping, a new energy policy that lessens demand for oil and increases demand for renewable energy, lobby for incentives for pebble bed nuclear reactors as long as companies that accept governemnt money will release their patents and allow for greater competition, lobby for a du jure right for gay people to serve in the military (Don't Ask Don't Tell is not being enforced currently and things aren't falling apart any more than they would be if it were). I'd close Guantanamo and return those prisoners I couldn't legitimately charge to either their home nation or a nation willing to accept them. I'd even likely pay some reparations. I'd pardon the Grenada prisoners, repair our relations with Venezuela, and end the Cuban embargo. And I'd fight fight fight fight fight because the other side would fight me at every turn. I'd talk on TV as long as they'd let me, I'd implore the American people to give this whole experiment a try because we've given right-wing neoconservativism a try for the last 8 years and gotten nowhere. I'd debate just about any wingnuts on TV publically in order to further push and lobby the nation for what we should do. I'd use the bully pulpit every damn day in language average people understand rather than getting all Wonky like many Democrats have.
Oh, and 1 internet != a truck, fyi.
Speaking of unfair, I think it's completely unfair for you to ruin a wonderful flame war based on supposition and misunderstanding. How dare you roll up on Slashdot busting caps with your reasoned approach, data, and project management skills? Now this topic of conversation is hosed because nobody can BS their way through why you're a bad guy who's stepping on Roman's neck because of some daddy issues or something. Sheesh, of all the gall...
Yeah, let the invisible hand of the kernel decide! Atlas Multitasked.
I find it hard to believe that civil libertarians would want to replace government power with corporate power. Antitrust legislation is a great thing so that the "invisible hand" of the market is not thwarted by mopoly powers. A fair market is the only way to achieve the efficiencies that market forces bring. Unfettered competition is not competition once a monopoly power gains hegemony. And school bussing is a case of civil rights/liberties. It enforces the right to equal protection and equality in education. Also, the "rights" of business owners might be impinged upon by smoking bans, but the rights of non-smokers are of greater concern, are they not? Attendance increases with smoking bans and laws are enacted to protect the common good with the side effect of infringing upon some freedoms. The delicate balancing act of ensuring that as little freedom is traded for the greatest common good is why government exists and it is why government power is in our hands, is it not? I don't see why libertarians would argue against public schools unless they're simply morons (and yes, that is an ad hominem, but it is a just one.) The infrastructure which public school provides is essential to us as a country. Without public schools we are not competitive, and our way of life is threatened. Hating government in toto is not libertarianism; it's anarchy. Hating public schools doesn't promote freedom; it promotes ignorance and inequality. You can wish for solely private schools, private roads, private police forces and fire departments, but this simply is not pragmatic. If the argument is that pragmatism is not important, then your ideology is only theoretical with no practical purpose (which is what I have been arguing about libertarianism all along.)
Perhaps they're less staunch libertarians than they would have you believe.
Also, the "conservatives" in power are certainly not huge critics of big government given the extraordinary powers they have given themselves. The deficit has grown so much in the last seven years due to these "conservatives" and their strange methods of reducing government intrusion have somehow resulted in a crumbling economy (due to insufficient regulations of the credit markets), a higher poverty rate and stagnating wages coupled with record corporate profits (due to idiotic monetary policies that lowered taxes on the rich, resulted in a negative inflation rate, and encouraged consumer debt on an unprecedented scale), and war spending out the wazoo for no benefit to us as a country. Conservativism is a failed movement. The "responsible" conservative politicians have been a disaster for their party and our country.
I didn't know that the commercials we hear just pay for royalties. I thought it actually cost money to hire engineers, DJs, morning show personalities, etc and had to pay for the energy to broadcast all those watts. You know, I even thought the building upkeep and maintenance cost money! Can you imagine what a rube I feel like now?
I just ran through the demo a couple of times and I can tell you that the game will only sell less than 250k copies if the marketing plan is utter trash, because the game itself is excellent. It has this weird atmosphere that's an amalgum of the '50s and Blade Runner, almost. It's totally weird. And there are these people with bunny ears chasing you around and stuff. I mean, c'mon! How can you not love that? It doesn't even matter how good the graphics are because what really counts in this game is the tight controls and the weird-ass underwater city you're running around in. You'll see what I'm talking about if you play it. It's well worth it. I'll be buying it for sure.
Also, the best reason to wish the end of this Presidency is surely that people will stop complaining about him. It's definitely not that he's actually a bad President or that his administration is incompetent or anything. Have you ever thought of getting a job at CNN or maybe replacing Tim Russert on Meet the Press?