Hell lets hope Windows 8 continues their "deadly" DRM, as Windows 7 was a hell of a lot easier to pirate then XP! That made it wonderful for us PC repair guys as one of the first things to come out was a "universal" disc, which let you install any version of Windows 7 you wanted. made it butt simple to set up automated installs, just use the person's legit key on it and voila! Instant fully unattended Win 7 installer.
And of course there are the guys cooking up the really cool one offs like the guy who made TinyXP and TinyVista who came out with Tiny7 just as the RTM was coming out. We're talking about a fully loaded Win 7 WITH Aero that runs great on a 1.4GHz with 512Mb of RAM! They really need to hire that guy at MSFT because frankly his builds stomp the shit out of WinFLP and embedded as far as power usage.
Ya wanna know the sad part? they HAD the cure for piracy in the west. For 6 months I saw piracy practically disappear, nobody was pirating Win 7, everybody was buying it legit. What was this miracle? The $50 Win 7 HP upgrade. that thing caused guys I knew which had NEVER owned a legit version of Windows to buy Win 7.
But if there is one thing Ballmer has proved over and over he is a completely worthless CEO and therefor they shitcanned it. Soon after I started seeing Win 7 Ultimate on every other box on Craigslist again, and at flea markets, mom and pop shops, etc. you can always spot the pirates as you'll have a $200 box with a $400 OS on it. They ALWAYS go for the most expensive SKU, always.
If they wanted piracy in the west to end they could have it disappear tomorrow so all I can figure is yet again Ballmer cares more about aping Apple than actually running his own company. that is why I say the Gates borg needs to be replaced with a symbol that shows the reality of MSFT today: A pic of Ballmer in a "I Heart Apple!" beanie with his tongue sticking out. Sadly he is to MSFT what the Pepsi guy was to Apple, only MSFT won't have gates come riding in to save them like Jobs did Apple.
Gone are the days of anything making any sense in FF.
FTFY.
Seriously I have to wonder if someone from the IE or Chrome teams managed to plant a few ringers because frankly everything they've done lately has been to the advantage of Chrome and IE! Tossing point releases for a frankly insane 6 week release goal which killed everyone that was trying to roll FF into the enterprise (point for IE) and the constant changing of enough of the guts so that FF is a royal PITA to keep an extension going for which caused extensions for Chrome to shoot through the roof.
I don't know, maybe its just me, but I can see only one of two reason why they would do this. One someone there wants the company to go tits up for some reason, so they are being the biggest dicks they can possibly be to run off the FF users and developers, or two they have become Netscape all over again, with a shitload of arrogance but without the code to back it up.
Because lets face it folks the Chromium based stomp a mudhole in FF's ass. I've tried Chromium, Chrome, SWIron, QTWeb, and the one I now use and give customers Comodo Dragon, and frankly ALL of them stomp the shit out of FF in speed, responsiveness, and in conservation of CPU/RAM. The only thing FF had going for it was more extensions but FF is running those developers off as fast as they can! I just don't get it, it is like the company is trying to commit suicide.
Bottom of the line dual DIY kit...$199, or you can get a quad refurb for $370 and of course MR PC does things that PS3 simply can't, like actual work, drag and drop hardware transcoding to most of the popular formats, rip those BDs and DVDs and convert them into a nice.MKV or H.264.avi and store them on the 1Tb of space so your media is at your fingertips without needing stupid discs, play real FPS and MMOs instead of the auto aiming crap, etc.
Hey if a PS3 floats your boat? Do what you want with your money, I hear there are guys that think Halo is actually innovative as well. If you think gear 3 generations behind the curve is worth $250? Hey I'm happy for you. But when you can get an HD4850 for $60 that GPU in the PS3 don't look that impressive and lets be honest folks the PS3 ain't never had a really great game library and nearly all the big titles are either for both or for x360.
Personally I hope they make it, I'm a big believer in competition. But Sony has bled through cash this generation while MSFT had enough cash in the bank it frankly didn't matter if they made a profit or not, but considering how many X360s are out there I'm sure they cleaned up.
The question is are they gonna have enough money to make the PS4. It looks like IBM isn't gonna do anything else with the cell, so they are probably gonna have to jump arches AGAIN which will probably tick off developers that took ages to get the hang of the funky PS3 layout. With Nintendo going to be first out the gate I wouldn't be surprised if MSFT isn't far behind and I don't know if they are gonna be able to string along the PS3 like they did the PS2, it simply doesn't have the back catalog the latter did. And Blu Ray is pretty much a bomb, Netflix and Redbox has pretty much killed BD as for the masses streaming and DVD is "good enough".
I wish them luck I truly do but I bet the next couple of years are gonna be ugly for Sony as they try to come up with the truly insane money it costs to crank out a new console.
Dude from what I heard its Michael Bay which frankly should get a good ass kicking just on general principle for all the crapola he has thrust upon the world. Hell for Transformers two he should have been put in the hospital with a broken ass for all the kicking it should have gotten!
As for TFA my heart wants it to be good because it is Ridley Scott, but my head says he'll probably just be cashing a VERY big check and phoning it in. I just don't see how they are gonna top Ford and Hauer in the original, I just don't. As long as it isn't Green Lantern bad i think most will let it slide just because it IS Scott, but I seriously doubt it will be anywhere as good as the first.
Actually I haven't dealt with WinRot in years, even on XP! Once I figured out what the secret was I killed WinRot dead dead dead. How did I pull off this miracle? simple and like everything else in Windows and Apple worlds it requires paying a third party.
You see what you need is a little program called "TuneUp Utilities" which is like raid for WinRot, it kills it dead. The secret of WinRot is like you found out that even when Windows isn't used it makes temp crap up the ass and puts crap in the registry, again even if nobody is using it. why does it do this? fuck if I know but I suspect it has something to do with the way they implement time stamps as XP machines on FAT32 don't suffer WinRot if they ain't used.
But if you don't ever want to deal with winRot again go to their website and pick up the trial version of TuneUp. You just make a profile in TuneUp, where it gathers a little info about what kind of connection you have and other little tidbits, and then you don't do a damned thing as TuneUp takes care of it all FOR you. bloody brilliant piece of software, and thanks to Tuneup I haven't dealt with WinRot in years.
Ya see, that's where you're wrong. To get #3 they won't have to push them retail, just push them on corporate which has always been MS territory anyway. they already have the leads and the contacts, they already have the saleforce, all they have to do is show that like the old crackberry you'll be able to drop WinPhone into a corporate environment and they can lock it down and control it from a central WinServer.
So I honestly don't think it will cost them much. Nokia makes good hardware, MSFT has the business customers pretty locked down, so the only real costs will be adding the hooks for GPO and AD along with backup solutions and encrypted communications that the head office can control. Tie Office in and have a mobile version on the WinPhone? Cha Ching!
So basically in 3 years, maybe 2, MSFT will be where RIM was before the fall. Every corporate drone will be carrying his WinPhone and having a heart attack if he doesn't have access to it. there was a reason why they called them Crackberries and MSFT will do the same by simply having Nokia just ape whatever hardware Apple comes out with. Should be an easy third no problem.
They just don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting past that niche. Weeeelllll maybe if they integrate XBLA into WinPhone, as there are a hell of a lot of Halo junkies and X360 owners. That might get them a little closer to #2, but I doubt they have a prayer of overcoming the twin juggernauts of iOS and Android.
Well when you're ready look at the MSI models. Damned nice little machines and having the video offloaded to the Radeon really helps on the battery life. I don't blame ya using Vista Business if you had it laying around but damn I hate that OS! Windows 7 rocks but Vista is like the retarded cousin Cleetus with the clubfoot. I've tested Vista and 7 side by side and the responsiveness of 7 just stomps Vista.
So I'd be looking at the MSI models when you are ready for a new laptop. Some folks swear by the new Brazos based but frankly I prefer the Athlon and Turion based myself. Brazos is just a little slow for my tastes whereas most of the Athlon and Turion are 2.0-2.4Ghz which I've found to be just about the perfect speed for a mobile workstation.
Going fine thanks. I haven't touched Dell since that run of Optiplex where the caps go BOOM! real good. Can't remember the line but that was irritating as hell. The problem I have with Dell is they have so damned many lines it is damned hard to get it through a customer's thick head that an Inspiron and an Optiplex are NOT the same damned thing!
You see that's the problem with not having a specific low rent brand like HP with Compaq, in that people by and large don't know jack about PCs so if I were to recommend a dell Optiplex the next thing i know they have an inspiron and are pissed because the POS fell apart.
meh I'm just about out of the VAR gig anyway, too much PITA. If they don't buy it from me I won't support it, simple as that. that way I have complete control of the hardware and can design for the working condition. you'd be surprised how many dumbasses will buy an inspiron and then put the thing in a dusty factory somewhere. naturally they make it maybe a week past warranty and then BOOM! real good. just not worth the BS.
Actually, and I'm sure everyone will laugh, but I think WinPhone is gonna end up taking the #3 slot, especially now that WebOS is out of the game. One thing MSFT has always been good at is giving businesses what they want and I have a feeling they'll release a shitload of GPOs for WinPhone along with an easy peasy way to push whatever apps you want the drones to have through WinServer.
So now that WebOS is history I think the final score with be iOS and Android trading #1 and #2 back and forth and WinPhone will be what RIM used to have with crackberry, the OS for the corporate environment. And RIM will be DOA, I had thought maybe Google might buy them but after snatching Motorola I don't see that happening. maybe HTC or even MSFT will snatch them for the IP?
I would suggest you look at the MSI AMD laptops and netbooks. That is what i've been getting my customers that need to be mobile and they are great! they have dual, triple, and quad CPUs, Radeon GPUs, plenty of RAM, don't get crazy hot like the Nvidia stuff, just good solid all around machines.
As for TFA just another great example of what happens when management runs a company into the shitter. between Carly and Hurd frankly it is a miracle that they are afloat and the fact they are already pulling the plug on the tablet without even letting it build any steam just shows what a clueless bunch they have at the helm of that company.
Look how long it took for Android to take off, it didn't just pop out and become a mega hit in less than 2 months. it took several releases to get the bugs worked out and the UI nice and solid, yet HP thinks they can release a $500 tablet, the same price as an iPad, and then just walk off with the market? what are they smoking?
Sad to see them go, but it'll be just another corp killed by stupidity. Oh well at least there is still MSI, ASUS, and Lenovo.
And are their margins REALLY that thin? Sure they ain't making Apple money but HP has never been a low rent brand like eMachines or Dell for that matter. Hp has always had themselves a really nice niche carved out right in the dead center of the curve and for customers that don't feel comfortable with custom builts (which admittedly i'm finding less and less resistance to when they find out how much money they can save while getting quality hardware) I have no problem playing VAR to HP gear. Unlike Dell typical HP hardware is usually well designed and built, Compaq crap not withstanding of course.
I have to wonder if Carly and that other one after her didn't leave the company in a lot worse shape than they are letting on. it wouldn't be the first time we have seen a CEO bring a company from a decent niche to the edge of death, just look at what the Pepsi guy did to Apple back in the day. if they are desperate enough they are seriously thinking of bailing on their PC business I have to wonder what is really going on there.
O Lord another Linux nutter. listen Sparky your brilliant idea WILL NOT WORK for several reasons. 1.-Every corp has mission critical apps and guess what? they don't run on Linux and would cost incredible amounts of money to have built in house. A hell of a lot more than using Windows. 2.-The bottom of the line corporate drone PCs? Well guess what again? they do NOT come with Linux drivers AT ALL. You want those? then it is workstations which again crazy money not worth the effort. 3.-Until Linus gets his big fat head out of his ass (yeah good luck with that) and allows an ABI like EVERYBODY ELSE HAS good fucking luck getting drivers worth a piss for anything other than the workstation gear, which again big money you just fucked the company. 4.- Linux admins worth a fuck? NOT cheap. Windows MCSEs? you can pick good ones up on the corner besides the Mexican day laborers. Again more money not worth the shit.
Despite your dreams of the "mythical office" where the ONLY things they run are a browser? hate to break the news to ya pal but they don't exist. There is always SOMETHING, some mission critical program, some piece of hardware that Linux will NEVER have a driver for, something. As Munich and a thousand other places that had the same brilliant idea found out there is ALWAYS something, and that something bites you right in the ass.
The ONLY way your idea works is if you start a business from scratch around that idea and you got some serious VC to burn through getting off the ground because you are talking about having to start out with a workforce with ZERO experience in ANYTHING you are using. Every single office worker out there? they know how to run Windows and MS Office. hell most places even teach those in HS. Otherwise you are only replacing MSFT desktops for MSFT thin clients and frankly with the price of PCs you again end up losing money on the deal. I've looked into it for customers and frankly it is cheaper to just give a low end Brazos or Atom based box for the "non heavy" employees and a standard AMD quad for those doing the heavy lifting.
I have to agree. Seriously WTF/. anti-spam software has been blocking this kind of lamer spam for years (Hint...multiple identical links? dead giveaway) so it is pretty obvious you have yet again broke the damned code. you telling me with as many uber programmers that hang out here you can't even get functional code? WTF?
As for TFA I'm torn, on the one hand that should have been busted just for being so damned stupid as to use their own FB accounts, on the other I truly believe the west is in for our own Arab Spring. Lets face it, the corps have been sending the jobs to Bangalore as fast as they can close the factories, there are no jobs to be had, and I don't know how it is in the UK but here in the USA the teabagger party has pretty much ensured that relief or well anything at all for the poor will not be forthcoming. it is a powderkeg and I bet what they are calling "flash mobs" is only the beginning.
Speaking of watches that is something I've always wondered...why not put one of those devices that turn your movement into power into a laptop? Sorry I can't think of the tech term but its 4AM here and I have a monster cold but I always thought if it works on a watch, why not size it up for a laptop? if you are gonna be lugging the thing around in a bag all day might as well turn some of that foot power into energy. you wouldn't be able to power the thing directly with it but it could probably help keep the battery topped off.
Nah what he's saying is the reason they are pushing iPads is because they don't lock them down and if they would give the users a teeny tiny bit of freedom on the PC instead of being total BOFH about everything you'd see more work getting done.
Sadly I have to agree. While AD and GPOs are nice I've seen too many BOFH get addicted to GPOs and end up locking the machines down to almost the point of unusability. The reason you don't see innovation at corps on the PC is because the IT guys first lock the living shit out of it THEN put some really shitty AV that sucks resources like Norton. What you have is a machine that is painful to use that just screams drudgery.
But don't worry two or three really nasty apps will come out for the iShiny and then the IT guys will find a way to lock the living shit out of them too. There can be a healthy middle between giving everyone admin and making them so locked out they can't do squat without IT standing there but sadly from what I've seen all you get is the two extremes.
Because if last year is normal the Windows machine is more expensive gamer gear than the standard Mac laptop? And again if you are the first with the fastest time you get $10,000 in cash which means you could keep the windows laptop and just buy the fricking mac and have a big pile o' cash left over.
Go back to my first post, read the link. You'll see why the macs fall first. it is the lack of ASLR, DEP, and low rights mode as well as file and registry (or in the case of Macs settings) virtualization that causes macs to fall. If you'll read TFL you'll see a detailed analysis of what the Macs are lacking and how when macs do implement one of the security technologies it is often done poorly.
Apple has been coasting on security through obscurity for so long their coders simply aren't up to speed on the latest hacking tricks. MSFT not only got all that experience from their brain dead 'hey lets run everyone as admin!" XP debacle but thanks to MS MSRT they get monthly reports through Windows Update of what attack vectors are being hit the most month by month. Compare that to the recent "Whatever you do don't say malware!" Applecare debacle and you can see why MSFT beats Apple in Pwn2Own.
While that may be a meme never underestimate the dumbshit stupidity of the feds. true story:
My late sis was the head of the local clic and pretty much had the sheep in line whenever she was at the local hangout which was this video arcade. So one of the Bambi types comes up to her and says 'there is somebody out there that wants to see you" and when she heads out what does she see? Classic fed, complete with ear piece, dark suit, board up the ass attitude, the whole works. I swear he goes "We're uhhh Jehovah's witnesses and was wondering if you could get the other girls to come out here so we can talk to them?".
She just rolled her eyes and said "Whatever Mr FBI, why don't you be honest and I'll see what I can do, otherwise i'm heading back in." It turned out there was a guy in there wanted in like 3 states for rape and murder and they were afraid he'd grab a hostage. She with her excellent bullshitting skills managed to get the other kids out of there without tipping the guy off and then gave the feds the all clear. When they grabbed him it turned out he had enough firepower under his coat it could have been really messy.
So never underestimate the feds for being Mr Obvious. According to sis they were such a stereotypical fed she wanted to laugh just looking at them, from the shined shoes to the classic MiB black unmarked fed car. She said anybody would have spotted their ass from a mile away they were so obvious. Subtle and FBI? Don't really go together in a sentence.
Fukushima? Oh Good Lord I didn't realize people were THAT damned stupid. How much you wanna bet somebody saw that video on those WWII fire balloons launched from Japan and said "ZOMG if teh balloons could get here teh rads could get here too ZOMG!" while ignoring the fact that unlike a mushroom cloud Fukushima hasn't done anything that could reach up into the trade winds.
Ya know, if nothing else we need to give the Tinfoil Hatters of America credit for being entertaining. I mean every time you've heard what you are sure has to be THE most crackpot theory ever, they top it! That takes dedication right there, kinda like how old twitter could sit here on/. and turn ANY TFA into a secret M$ Ninja plot to derail FLOSS which was like the secret of making water into gasoline. Crazy THAT thick takes real dedication to the art of batshit.
Nice straw man, don't mind this match...WHOOSH! Ooops, he all burned up. your argument MIGHT have merit if anybody including Bethesda actually called their game scroll anything, but they don't and they NEVER have. it has ALWAYS been Morrowind, Oblivion, Arena, etc. Hell look up some of their past ads, they have the name once at the top and then for the rest of the ad its called by the last name.
This is just as damned stupid as MSFT trying to claim the word WIndows for things other than OSes, or Apple trying to sue a grocery for having the logo of an apple. The only reason they are even being given ANY weight on thus dumb shit is because the US courts are so horribly broken that those with money usually win by default against those without. Still don't make it right or this shit not be dumb.
Oh it ain't just the old folks, you can get the others just by changing up the tactic. Back in the day my admin buddy Glenn ended up getting hauled before the regional head of the bunch he was working for by a PHB that wanted to have him fired because, and I quote "You have NO RIGHT to tell ME who I can and can't speak to! You WILL allow my emails from Melissa through this very minute!". That's right folks, he was actually fighting for the right to get infected!
Oh and for the moron that ALWAYS ends up posting some "Give them Linux!" total horseshit? Won't work dumbass. number one Linux is a fiddly little bitch so unless you are gonna pay an army of admins to go out and do the forum dance to fix all the fucked drivers with all that funky Chinese hardware, which BTW on consumer goods most likely NEVER had a Linux driver ever written, certainly not by the OEM? good luck Chuck.
Second as a social experiment I actually tried that with a "Must click on teh porn password emails!" type of dumbass. I gave him either Mepis or PCLOS, I can't remember which. So what happened, was it him and RMS dancing through the flowers? Nope he broke that sucker in less than a week, had Linux completely unbootable. How did he do that? Simple he didn't like that whole package management bullshit so he went and Google'd what he wanted, downloaded a bunch of shit off of Freshmeat, and promptly put the machine in dependency hell.
So can we please quit the "give them Linux!" crap already? the people that are infected by shit like this simply don't have the skills to deal with the 6 month upgrade deathmarch, the forum dance where you do the two step looking for fixes, nor have the ability to tweak said fixes because they were written for hardware f rev g and they have hardware h rev k. And the people that DO have the skills? Well they ain't clicking on stupid email attachments so they have no problem running Windows. Maybe when you make a Linux where drivers don't break, the OS don't need to be upgraded every six months, and the CLI has been permanently removed, maybe then Linux will work for the people in TFA. Yeah and when that day comes I'll be riding a purple pony with She-Ra.
Oh I didn't say I didn't think they weren't nutters, as I said the tinfoil hatters are by and large completely full of shit. I simply said anybody who thinks the government would detect something that was gonna seriously fuck our shit up and be honest with the people is likewise full of shit. Governments aren't in the business of being honest, they are in the business of keeping things running smooth. Things don't run smooth when the monkeys are freaked the fuck out so they would STFU.
And how far out can you detect? Because I have used amateur telescopes that make Jupiter look like the moon (got to be friends with an ex NASA engineer with a killer one, being able to watch Jupiter's moons go round? VERY cool) so I have no doubt the non pros could tell us when we were gonna have the bad day next week, but what about next year? Next decade? the USA has those killer space based rigs that I have no doubt make the stuff on the ground look like a $20 spyglass.
What radiation from the west? I guess I hadn't heard that one yet. I've heard of the comet, that "rogue planet" bit, the asteroid in 2029, but I must have missed a memo from the Tinfoil Hatters of America on the radiation thing. Where is it supposed to be coming from, China? Because I know we can pick up their pollution on the west coast.
Two things...1.-Are they 256bit? Because while being 256bit doesn't make much of a diff in gaming I've found it makes a pretty BIG diff when it comes to transcoding, which with most of my customers going HTPC is really nice. Between the AMD drag and drop and some of the newer converters coming with Streams support it is easier than ever to use the GPU for video conversion.
Second thing, I have to work within a customers budget and we are talking 256bit pipes for $60! Most folks around here simply aren't gonna blow $110 of their budget on a GPU, not when they aren't hardcore gamers and frankly I don't blame them. the diff between prices can mean another 4Gb of RAM or another Tb HDD without having any noticeable effect on gaming quality since most games are still directX 9. Hell the only game that is Dx10 I've seen that didn't use it for wanking off like TFA is Just Cause II, and that runs just fine on the HD48xx series.
So while I'm sure the HD5770 is a nice card for me and my customers frankly it is just too expensive for what you get. And Crossfire? I haven't met but a single guy that has ever used that stuff and he was one of those "must have teh benchmarks!" types with more money than brains. I seriously doubt an HD5770 in Crossfire is gonna use less juice or crank out less heat than an HD48xx which frankly if the customer decides they don't like the heat (haven't had any complaints myself, but then again I always use quality fans and make sure the boxes had good venting) I've seen guys online drop the temp on an HD4870 by a good 30 degrees F by just replacing the stock cooler with a $20 aftermarket.
So you are looking at $50-$70 for the HD4850 (I lucked out and got mine for $50 on sale) and another $20 for the cooler, that is still less than the single HD5770 which last I checked was around $120. Considering my biggest seller ATM is a $450 triple core setup tacking on another $50 just for the GPU when the client won't see any difference in picture quality? Would be a VERY hard sale and would price it right out of many folks budgets.
You don't know how this shit works, do you? You get a hell of a lot more money for the dope busts than you do for catching a mugger, since you can do seizures and fines.
True story...My late sister lived in an apt across the street from this girl that was getting beaten by her ex. He'd ignore the restraining order and when she'd call the cops they'd show up maybe two hours later which of course by then he's long gone and she's had her door kicked in and her ass stomped again. My sis calls me because she is afraid the gal is gonna get killed and she liked the girl so I went to her place and said "next time you call the cops, say the "d" word. tell them he looks high and you think he may have drugs on him". Well both the gal and my sis looked skeptical but she agreed to do it.
Well sure enough not two days later he comes the wife beater. She calls the cops, uses the "d" word and they are there in under 6 minutes flat with no less than TWO cop cars so they can block off the ends of the street so he can't escape. they tear his truck practically to the frame looking for dope and when they don't find any they throw the book at the guy, coming up with every single thing to tack on they possibly can.
You see in my little county alone they have probably netted a cool half a million in seizures this year alone, and that don't count the ones that get busted with X3 amount of drugs and they only get charged for X1 amount while the other X2 mysteriously goes poof! Had a bail bond buddy of mine actually help to get a guy off when the paperwork he got from the jail had copies of pics from the scene showing 4 suitcases worth of weed and the guy was only charged and they only recorded one suitcase. What happened to the other three? neither the prosecutor nor the cops would say. needless to say the judge was none too happy about that and the guy walked.
But drugs are big business dude, and not just for the dealers. if we got rid of the stupid sin laws the cops would have much more time to go after violent criminals, but there is so much more $$$ to be made off dope that in most places I've been they will ignore pretty much anything short of the big three, kidnapping, rape, and murder, if they can get a shot at a drug bust. Sorry dude that's just reality, money makes the world go round and all.
Not to mention anybody who has watched the news lately has seen that the threat at ATMs isn't some hacker nerd but a "Thug Life!"er sticking a gun in your ribs or bashing your head in with a rock and just taking the money after you have put in the pin.
And has anyone else noticed that for the "Thug Life!"ers there is no such thing as robbery? There is murder with a cash bonus. We had a typical "Thug life!"er robbery in the next town over a couple of months ago, the "Thug Life!"er walks into a nail salon, blows away everyone in the place THEN goes for the til. Got something like $363 for 3 dead and 1 wounded.
Frankly having a geek go to all that trouble to rob you with infrared would probably be refreshing since all I see anymore is someone blowing you away and then rifling through your pockets.
Nah the only shooting they did was of tinfoil hatters who had seen too many movies.
What I DO find funny though is that anyone would believe a word they say. Now I'm not a tinfoil hatter and thought they were full of shit, but does anyone here HONESTLY believe if an agency of the US government was to find out that something seriously fucking nasty was gonna happen to us that they couldn't stop that they would tell us? Not a chance in hell. There would be too much panic, too much rioting and looting, too much of humanity acting like crazed monkeys. Instead right up to the very last possible second they'd lie their asses off, while the rich and powerful quietly got shuttled to old NORAD shelters and the like.
So this press release is probably only for the "Your government is in control, nothing to see here" types. The tinfoil hatters certainly ain't gonna believe it, and those of us that have seen the US government lie their asses off repeatedly are gonna decide on our own about the comet and not gonna pay attention to this. But every time I see press releases like this I'm reminded of the old USAF manual my grandfather showed me. It said "There is NO SUCH THING as UFOs. But if you see one don't shoot at it." Which he would always laugh "Typical government logic. If it don't exist how in the hell am I supposed to be in a position to shoot at it?".
But expecting the US government to be honest about something nasty? Not gonna happen, too big of a risk of panic if there was something even slightly bad, just as my grandfather and those on the base were told if they see a UFO to report it to the CO but do NOT talk about it with a civilian, as it might cause panic. Hell that should probably be the motto of the US gov- DON'T PANIC.
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Hell lets hope Windows 8 continues their "deadly" DRM, as Windows 7 was a hell of a lot easier to pirate then XP! That made it wonderful for us PC repair guys as one of the first things to come out was a "universal" disc, which let you install any version of Windows 7 you wanted. made it butt simple to set up automated installs, just use the person's legit key on it and voila! Instant fully unattended Win 7 installer.
And of course there are the guys cooking up the really cool one offs like the guy who made TinyXP and TinyVista who came out with Tiny7 just as the RTM was coming out. We're talking about a fully loaded Win 7 WITH Aero that runs great on a 1.4GHz with 512Mb of RAM! They really need to hire that guy at MSFT because frankly his builds stomp the shit out of WinFLP and embedded as far as power usage.
Ya wanna know the sad part? they HAD the cure for piracy in the west. For 6 months I saw piracy practically disappear, nobody was pirating Win 7, everybody was buying it legit. What was this miracle? The $50 Win 7 HP upgrade. that thing caused guys I knew which had NEVER owned a legit version of Windows to buy Win 7.
But if there is one thing Ballmer has proved over and over he is a completely worthless CEO and therefor they shitcanned it. Soon after I started seeing Win 7 Ultimate on every other box on Craigslist again, and at flea markets, mom and pop shops, etc. you can always spot the pirates as you'll have a $200 box with a $400 OS on it. They ALWAYS go for the most expensive SKU, always.
If they wanted piracy in the west to end they could have it disappear tomorrow so all I can figure is yet again Ballmer cares more about aping Apple than actually running his own company. that is why I say the Gates borg needs to be replaced with a symbol that shows the reality of MSFT today: A pic of Ballmer in a "I Heart Apple!" beanie with his tongue sticking out. Sadly he is to MSFT what the Pepsi guy was to Apple, only MSFT won't have gates come riding in to save them like Jobs did Apple.
Gone are the days of anything making any sense in FF.
FTFY.
Seriously I have to wonder if someone from the IE or Chrome teams managed to plant a few ringers because frankly everything they've done lately has been to the advantage of Chrome and IE! Tossing point releases for a frankly insane 6 week release goal which killed everyone that was trying to roll FF into the enterprise (point for IE) and the constant changing of enough of the guts so that FF is a royal PITA to keep an extension going for which caused extensions for Chrome to shoot through the roof.
I don't know, maybe its just me, but I can see only one of two reason why they would do this. One someone there wants the company to go tits up for some reason, so they are being the biggest dicks they can possibly be to run off the FF users and developers, or two they have become Netscape all over again, with a shitload of arrogance but without the code to back it up.
Because lets face it folks the Chromium based stomp a mudhole in FF's ass. I've tried Chromium, Chrome, SWIron, QTWeb, and the one I now use and give customers Comodo Dragon, and frankly ALL of them stomp the shit out of FF in speed, responsiveness, and in conservation of CPU/RAM. The only thing FF had going for it was more extensions but FF is running those developers off as fast as they can! I just don't get it, it is like the company is trying to commit suicide.
Bottom of the line dual DIY kit...$199, or you can get a quad refurb for $370 and of course MR PC does things that PS3 simply can't, like actual work, drag and drop hardware transcoding to most of the popular formats, rip those BDs and DVDs and convert them into a nice .MKV or H.264 .avi and store them on the 1Tb of space so your media is at your fingertips without needing stupid discs, play real FPS and MMOs instead of the auto aiming crap, etc.
Hey if a PS3 floats your boat? Do what you want with your money, I hear there are guys that think Halo is actually innovative as well. If you think gear 3 generations behind the curve is worth $250? Hey I'm happy for you. But when you can get an HD4850 for $60 that GPU in the PS3 don't look that impressive and lets be honest folks the PS3 ain't never had a really great game library and nearly all the big titles are either for both or for x360.
Personally I hope they make it, I'm a big believer in competition. But Sony has bled through cash this generation while MSFT had enough cash in the bank it frankly didn't matter if they made a profit or not, but considering how many X360s are out there I'm sure they cleaned up.
The question is are they gonna have enough money to make the PS4. It looks like IBM isn't gonna do anything else with the cell, so they are probably gonna have to jump arches AGAIN which will probably tick off developers that took ages to get the hang of the funky PS3 layout. With Nintendo going to be first out the gate I wouldn't be surprised if MSFT isn't far behind and I don't know if they are gonna be able to string along the PS3 like they did the PS2, it simply doesn't have the back catalog the latter did. And Blu Ray is pretty much a bomb, Netflix and Redbox has pretty much killed BD as for the masses streaming and DVD is "good enough".
I wish them luck I truly do but I bet the next couple of years are gonna be ugly for Sony as they try to come up with the truly insane money it costs to crank out a new console.
Dude from what I heard its Michael Bay which frankly should get a good ass kicking just on general principle for all the crapola he has thrust upon the world. Hell for Transformers two he should have been put in the hospital with a broken ass for all the kicking it should have gotten!
As for TFA my heart wants it to be good because it is Ridley Scott, but my head says he'll probably just be cashing a VERY big check and phoning it in. I just don't see how they are gonna top Ford and Hauer in the original, I just don't. As long as it isn't Green Lantern bad i think most will let it slide just because it IS Scott, but I seriously doubt it will be anywhere as good as the first.
Actually I haven't dealt with WinRot in years, even on XP! Once I figured out what the secret was I killed WinRot dead dead dead. How did I pull off this miracle? simple and like everything else in Windows and Apple worlds it requires paying a third party.
You see what you need is a little program called "TuneUp Utilities" which is like raid for WinRot, it kills it dead. The secret of WinRot is like you found out that even when Windows isn't used it makes temp crap up the ass and puts crap in the registry, again even if nobody is using it. why does it do this? fuck if I know but I suspect it has something to do with the way they implement time stamps as XP machines on FAT32 don't suffer WinRot if they ain't used.
But if you don't ever want to deal with winRot again go to their website and pick up the trial version of TuneUp. You just make a profile in TuneUp, where it gathers a little info about what kind of connection you have and other little tidbits, and then you don't do a damned thing as TuneUp takes care of it all FOR you. bloody brilliant piece of software, and thanks to Tuneup I haven't dealt with WinRot in years.
Ya see, that's where you're wrong. To get #3 they won't have to push them retail, just push them on corporate which has always been MS territory anyway. they already have the leads and the contacts, they already have the saleforce, all they have to do is show that like the old crackberry you'll be able to drop WinPhone into a corporate environment and they can lock it down and control it from a central WinServer.
So I honestly don't think it will cost them much. Nokia makes good hardware, MSFT has the business customers pretty locked down, so the only real costs will be adding the hooks for GPO and AD along with backup solutions and encrypted communications that the head office can control. Tie Office in and have a mobile version on the WinPhone? Cha Ching!
So basically in 3 years, maybe 2, MSFT will be where RIM was before the fall. Every corporate drone will be carrying his WinPhone and having a heart attack if he doesn't have access to it. there was a reason why they called them Crackberries and MSFT will do the same by simply having Nokia just ape whatever hardware Apple comes out with. Should be an easy third no problem.
They just don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting past that niche. Weeeelllll maybe if they integrate XBLA into WinPhone, as there are a hell of a lot of Halo junkies and X360 owners. That might get them a little closer to #2, but I doubt they have a prayer of overcoming the twin juggernauts of iOS and Android.
Well when you're ready look at the MSI models. Damned nice little machines and having the video offloaded to the Radeon really helps on the battery life. I don't blame ya using Vista Business if you had it laying around but damn I hate that OS! Windows 7 rocks but Vista is like the retarded cousin Cleetus with the clubfoot. I've tested Vista and 7 side by side and the responsiveness of 7 just stomps Vista.
So I'd be looking at the MSI models when you are ready for a new laptop. Some folks swear by the new Brazos based but frankly I prefer the Athlon and Turion based myself. Brazos is just a little slow for my tastes whereas most of the Athlon and Turion are 2.0-2.4Ghz which I've found to be just about the perfect speed for a mobile workstation.
Going fine thanks. I haven't touched Dell since that run of Optiplex where the caps go BOOM! real good. Can't remember the line but that was irritating as hell. The problem I have with Dell is they have so damned many lines it is damned hard to get it through a customer's thick head that an Inspiron and an Optiplex are NOT the same damned thing!
You see that's the problem with not having a specific low rent brand like HP with Compaq, in that people by and large don't know jack about PCs so if I were to recommend a dell Optiplex the next thing i know they have an inspiron and are pissed because the POS fell apart.
meh I'm just about out of the VAR gig anyway, too much PITA. If they don't buy it from me I won't support it, simple as that. that way I have complete control of the hardware and can design for the working condition. you'd be surprised how many dumbasses will buy an inspiron and then put the thing in a dusty factory somewhere. naturally they make it maybe a week past warranty and then BOOM! real good. just not worth the BS.
Actually, and I'm sure everyone will laugh, but I think WinPhone is gonna end up taking the #3 slot, especially now that WebOS is out of the game. One thing MSFT has always been good at is giving businesses what they want and I have a feeling they'll release a shitload of GPOs for WinPhone along with an easy peasy way to push whatever apps you want the drones to have through WinServer.
So now that WebOS is history I think the final score with be iOS and Android trading #1 and #2 back and forth and WinPhone will be what RIM used to have with crackberry, the OS for the corporate environment. And RIM will be DOA, I had thought maybe Google might buy them but after snatching Motorola I don't see that happening. maybe HTC or even MSFT will snatch them for the IP?
I would suggest you look at the MSI AMD laptops and netbooks. That is what i've been getting my customers that need to be mobile and they are great! they have dual, triple, and quad CPUs, Radeon GPUs, plenty of RAM, don't get crazy hot like the Nvidia stuff, just good solid all around machines.
As for TFA just another great example of what happens when management runs a company into the shitter. between Carly and Hurd frankly it is a miracle that they are afloat and the fact they are already pulling the plug on the tablet without even letting it build any steam just shows what a clueless bunch they have at the helm of that company.
Look how long it took for Android to take off, it didn't just pop out and become a mega hit in less than 2 months. it took several releases to get the bugs worked out and the UI nice and solid, yet HP thinks they can release a $500 tablet, the same price as an iPad, and then just walk off with the market? what are they smoking?
Sad to see them go, but it'll be just another corp killed by stupidity. Oh well at least there is still MSI, ASUS, and Lenovo.
And are their margins REALLY that thin? Sure they ain't making Apple money but HP has never been a low rent brand like eMachines or Dell for that matter. Hp has always had themselves a really nice niche carved out right in the dead center of the curve and for customers that don't feel comfortable with custom builts (which admittedly i'm finding less and less resistance to when they find out how much money they can save while getting quality hardware) I have no problem playing VAR to HP gear. Unlike Dell typical HP hardware is usually well designed and built, Compaq crap not withstanding of course.
I have to wonder if Carly and that other one after her didn't leave the company in a lot worse shape than they are letting on. it wouldn't be the first time we have seen a CEO bring a company from a decent niche to the edge of death, just look at what the Pepsi guy did to Apple back in the day. if they are desperate enough they are seriously thinking of bailing on their PC business I have to wonder what is really going on there.
O Lord another Linux nutter. listen Sparky your brilliant idea WILL NOT WORK for several reasons. 1.-Every corp has mission critical apps and guess what? they don't run on Linux and would cost incredible amounts of money to have built in house. A hell of a lot more than using Windows. 2.-The bottom of the line corporate drone PCs? Well guess what again? they do NOT come with Linux drivers AT ALL. You want those? then it is workstations which again crazy money not worth the effort. 3.-Until Linus gets his big fat head out of his ass (yeah good luck with that) and allows an ABI like EVERYBODY ELSE HAS good fucking luck getting drivers worth a piss for anything other than the workstation gear, which again big money you just fucked the company. 4.- Linux admins worth a fuck? NOT cheap. Windows MCSEs? you can pick good ones up on the corner besides the Mexican day laborers. Again more money not worth the shit.
Despite your dreams of the "mythical office" where the ONLY things they run are a browser? hate to break the news to ya pal but they don't exist. There is always SOMETHING, some mission critical program, some piece of hardware that Linux will NEVER have a driver for, something. As Munich and a thousand other places that had the same brilliant idea found out there is ALWAYS something, and that something bites you right in the ass.
The ONLY way your idea works is if you start a business from scratch around that idea and you got some serious VC to burn through getting off the ground because you are talking about having to start out with a workforce with ZERO experience in ANYTHING you are using. Every single office worker out there? they know how to run Windows and MS Office. hell most places even teach those in HS. Otherwise you are only replacing MSFT desktops for MSFT thin clients and frankly with the price of PCs you again end up losing money on the deal. I've looked into it for customers and frankly it is cheaper to just give a low end Brazos or Atom based box for the "non heavy" employees and a standard AMD quad for those doing the heavy lifting.
I have to agree. Seriously WTF /. anti-spam software has been blocking this kind of lamer spam for years (Hint...multiple identical links? dead giveaway) so it is pretty obvious you have yet again broke the damned code. you telling me with as many uber programmers that hang out here you can't even get functional code? WTF?
As for TFA I'm torn, on the one hand that should have been busted just for being so damned stupid as to use their own FB accounts, on the other I truly believe the west is in for our own Arab Spring. Lets face it, the corps have been sending the jobs to Bangalore as fast as they can close the factories, there are no jobs to be had, and I don't know how it is in the UK but here in the USA the teabagger party has pretty much ensured that relief or well anything at all for the poor will not be forthcoming. it is a powderkeg and I bet what they are calling "flash mobs" is only the beginning.
Speaking of watches that is something I've always wondered...why not put one of those devices that turn your movement into power into a laptop? Sorry I can't think of the tech term but its 4AM here and I have a monster cold but I always thought if it works on a watch, why not size it up for a laptop? if you are gonna be lugging the thing around in a bag all day might as well turn some of that foot power into energy. you wouldn't be able to power the thing directly with it but it could probably help keep the battery topped off.
Nah what he's saying is the reason they are pushing iPads is because they don't lock them down and if they would give the users a teeny tiny bit of freedom on the PC instead of being total BOFH about everything you'd see more work getting done.
Sadly I have to agree. While AD and GPOs are nice I've seen too many BOFH get addicted to GPOs and end up locking the machines down to almost the point of unusability. The reason you don't see innovation at corps on the PC is because the IT guys first lock the living shit out of it THEN put some really shitty AV that sucks resources like Norton. What you have is a machine that is painful to use that just screams drudgery.
But don't worry two or three really nasty apps will come out for the iShiny and then the IT guys will find a way to lock the living shit out of them too. There can be a healthy middle between giving everyone admin and making them so locked out they can't do squat without IT standing there but sadly from what I've seen all you get is the two extremes.
Because if last year is normal the Windows machine is more expensive gamer gear than the standard Mac laptop? And again if you are the first with the fastest time you get $10,000 in cash which means you could keep the windows laptop and just buy the fricking mac and have a big pile o' cash left over.
Go back to my first post, read the link. You'll see why the macs fall first. it is the lack of ASLR, DEP, and low rights mode as well as file and registry (or in the case of Macs settings) virtualization that causes macs to fall. If you'll read TFL you'll see a detailed analysis of what the Macs are lacking and how when macs do implement one of the security technologies it is often done poorly.
Apple has been coasting on security through obscurity for so long their coders simply aren't up to speed on the latest hacking tricks. MSFT not only got all that experience from their brain dead 'hey lets run everyone as admin!" XP debacle but thanks to MS MSRT they get monthly reports through Windows Update of what attack vectors are being hit the most month by month. Compare that to the recent "Whatever you do don't say malware!" Applecare debacle and you can see why MSFT beats Apple in Pwn2Own.
While that may be a meme never underestimate the dumbshit stupidity of the feds. true story:
My late sis was the head of the local clic and pretty much had the sheep in line whenever she was at the local hangout which was this video arcade. So one of the Bambi types comes up to her and says 'there is somebody out there that wants to see you" and when she heads out what does she see? Classic fed, complete with ear piece, dark suit, board up the ass attitude, the whole works. I swear he goes "We're uhhh Jehovah's witnesses and was wondering if you could get the other girls to come out here so we can talk to them?".
She just rolled her eyes and said "Whatever Mr FBI, why don't you be honest and I'll see what I can do, otherwise i'm heading back in." It turned out there was a guy in there wanted in like 3 states for rape and murder and they were afraid he'd grab a hostage. She with her excellent bullshitting skills managed to get the other kids out of there without tipping the guy off and then gave the feds the all clear. When they grabbed him it turned out he had enough firepower under his coat it could have been really messy.
So never underestimate the feds for being Mr Obvious. According to sis they were such a stereotypical fed she wanted to laugh just looking at them, from the shined shoes to the classic MiB black unmarked fed car. She said anybody would have spotted their ass from a mile away they were so obvious. Subtle and FBI? Don't really go together in a sentence.
Fukushima? Oh Good Lord I didn't realize people were THAT damned stupid. How much you wanna bet somebody saw that video on those WWII fire balloons launched from Japan and said "ZOMG if teh balloons could get here teh rads could get here too ZOMG!" while ignoring the fact that unlike a mushroom cloud Fukushima hasn't done anything that could reach up into the trade winds.
Ya know, if nothing else we need to give the Tinfoil Hatters of America credit for being entertaining. I mean every time you've heard what you are sure has to be THE most crackpot theory ever, they top it! That takes dedication right there, kinda like how old twitter could sit here on /. and turn ANY TFA into a secret M$ Ninja plot to derail FLOSS which was like the secret of making water into gasoline. Crazy THAT thick takes real dedication to the art of batshit.
Nice straw man, don't mind this match...WHOOSH! Ooops, he all burned up. your argument MIGHT have merit if anybody including Bethesda actually called their game scroll anything, but they don't and they NEVER have. it has ALWAYS been Morrowind, Oblivion, Arena, etc. Hell look up some of their past ads, they have the name once at the top and then for the rest of the ad its called by the last name.
This is just as damned stupid as MSFT trying to claim the word WIndows for things other than OSes, or Apple trying to sue a grocery for having the logo of an apple. The only reason they are even being given ANY weight on thus dumb shit is because the US courts are so horribly broken that those with money usually win by default against those without. Still don't make it right or this shit not be dumb.
Oh it ain't just the old folks, you can get the others just by changing up the tactic. Back in the day my admin buddy Glenn ended up getting hauled before the regional head of the bunch he was working for by a PHB that wanted to have him fired because, and I quote "You have NO RIGHT to tell ME who I can and can't speak to! You WILL allow my emails from Melissa through this very minute!". That's right folks, he was actually fighting for the right to get infected!
Oh and for the moron that ALWAYS ends up posting some "Give them Linux!" total horseshit? Won't work dumbass. number one Linux is a fiddly little bitch so unless you are gonna pay an army of admins to go out and do the forum dance to fix all the fucked drivers with all that funky Chinese hardware, which BTW on consumer goods most likely NEVER had a Linux driver ever written, certainly not by the OEM? good luck Chuck.
Second as a social experiment I actually tried that with a "Must click on teh porn password emails!" type of dumbass. I gave him either Mepis or PCLOS, I can't remember which. So what happened, was it him and RMS dancing through the flowers? Nope he broke that sucker in less than a week, had Linux completely unbootable. How did he do that? Simple he didn't like that whole package management bullshit so he went and Google'd what he wanted, downloaded a bunch of shit off of Freshmeat, and promptly put the machine in dependency hell.
So can we please quit the "give them Linux!" crap already? the people that are infected by shit like this simply don't have the skills to deal with the 6 month upgrade deathmarch, the forum dance where you do the two step looking for fixes, nor have the ability to tweak said fixes because they were written for hardware f rev g and they have hardware h rev k. And the people that DO have the skills? Well they ain't clicking on stupid email attachments so they have no problem running Windows. Maybe when you make a Linux where drivers don't break, the OS don't need to be upgraded every six months, and the CLI has been permanently removed, maybe then Linux will work for the people in TFA. Yeah and when that day comes I'll be riding a purple pony with She-Ra.
Oh I didn't say I didn't think they weren't nutters, as I said the tinfoil hatters are by and large completely full of shit. I simply said anybody who thinks the government would detect something that was gonna seriously fuck our shit up and be honest with the people is likewise full of shit. Governments aren't in the business of being honest, they are in the business of keeping things running smooth. Things don't run smooth when the monkeys are freaked the fuck out so they would STFU.
And how far out can you detect? Because I have used amateur telescopes that make Jupiter look like the moon (got to be friends with an ex NASA engineer with a killer one, being able to watch Jupiter's moons go round? VERY cool) so I have no doubt the non pros could tell us when we were gonna have the bad day next week, but what about next year? Next decade? the USA has those killer space based rigs that I have no doubt make the stuff on the ground look like a $20 spyglass.
What radiation from the west? I guess I hadn't heard that one yet. I've heard of the comet, that "rogue planet" bit, the asteroid in 2029, but I must have missed a memo from the Tinfoil Hatters of America on the radiation thing. Where is it supposed to be coming from, China? Because I know we can pick up their pollution on the west coast.
Two things...1.-Are they 256bit? Because while being 256bit doesn't make much of a diff in gaming I've found it makes a pretty BIG diff when it comes to transcoding, which with most of my customers going HTPC is really nice. Between the AMD drag and drop and some of the newer converters coming with Streams support it is easier than ever to use the GPU for video conversion.
Second thing, I have to work within a customers budget and we are talking 256bit pipes for $60! Most folks around here simply aren't gonna blow $110 of their budget on a GPU, not when they aren't hardcore gamers and frankly I don't blame them. the diff between prices can mean another 4Gb of RAM or another Tb HDD without having any noticeable effect on gaming quality since most games are still directX 9. Hell the only game that is Dx10 I've seen that didn't use it for wanking off like TFA is Just Cause II, and that runs just fine on the HD48xx series.
So while I'm sure the HD5770 is a nice card for me and my customers frankly it is just too expensive for what you get. And Crossfire? I haven't met but a single guy that has ever used that stuff and he was one of those "must have teh benchmarks!" types with more money than brains. I seriously doubt an HD5770 in Crossfire is gonna use less juice or crank out less heat than an HD48xx which frankly if the customer decides they don't like the heat (haven't had any complaints myself, but then again I always use quality fans and make sure the boxes had good venting) I've seen guys online drop the temp on an HD4870 by a good 30 degrees F by just replacing the stock cooler with a $20 aftermarket.
So you are looking at $50-$70 for the HD4850 (I lucked out and got mine for $50 on sale) and another $20 for the cooler, that is still less than the single HD5770 which last I checked was around $120. Considering my biggest seller ATM is a $450 triple core setup tacking on another $50 just for the GPU when the client won't see any difference in picture quality? Would be a VERY hard sale and would price it right out of many folks budgets.
You don't know how this shit works, do you? You get a hell of a lot more money for the dope busts than you do for catching a mugger, since you can do seizures and fines.
True story...My late sister lived in an apt across the street from this girl that was getting beaten by her ex. He'd ignore the restraining order and when she'd call the cops they'd show up maybe two hours later which of course by then he's long gone and she's had her door kicked in and her ass stomped again. My sis calls me because she is afraid the gal is gonna get killed and she liked the girl so I went to her place and said "next time you call the cops, say the "d" word. tell them he looks high and you think he may have drugs on him". Well both the gal and my sis looked skeptical but she agreed to do it.
Well sure enough not two days later he comes the wife beater. She calls the cops, uses the "d" word and they are there in under 6 minutes flat with no less than TWO cop cars so they can block off the ends of the street so he can't escape. they tear his truck practically to the frame looking for dope and when they don't find any they throw the book at the guy, coming up with every single thing to tack on they possibly can.
You see in my little county alone they have probably netted a cool half a million in seizures this year alone, and that don't count the ones that get busted with X3 amount of drugs and they only get charged for X1 amount while the other X2 mysteriously goes poof! Had a bail bond buddy of mine actually help to get a guy off when the paperwork he got from the jail had copies of pics from the scene showing 4 suitcases worth of weed and the guy was only charged and they only recorded one suitcase. What happened to the other three? neither the prosecutor nor the cops would say. needless to say the judge was none too happy about that and the guy walked.
But drugs are big business dude, and not just for the dealers. if we got rid of the stupid sin laws the cops would have much more time to go after violent criminals, but there is so much more $$$ to be made off dope that in most places I've been they will ignore pretty much anything short of the big three, kidnapping, rape, and murder, if they can get a shot at a drug bust. Sorry dude that's just reality, money makes the world go round and all.
Not to mention anybody who has watched the news lately has seen that the threat at ATMs isn't some hacker nerd but a "Thug Life!"er sticking a gun in your ribs or bashing your head in with a rock and just taking the money after you have put in the pin.
And has anyone else noticed that for the "Thug Life!"ers there is no such thing as robbery? There is murder with a cash bonus. We had a typical "Thug life!"er robbery in the next town over a couple of months ago, the "Thug Life!"er walks into a nail salon, blows away everyone in the place THEN goes for the til. Got something like $363 for 3 dead and 1 wounded.
Frankly having a geek go to all that trouble to rob you with infrared would probably be refreshing since all I see anymore is someone blowing you away and then rifling through your pockets.
Nah the only shooting they did was of tinfoil hatters who had seen too many movies.
What I DO find funny though is that anyone would believe a word they say. Now I'm not a tinfoil hatter and thought they were full of shit, but does anyone here HONESTLY believe if an agency of the US government was to find out that something seriously fucking nasty was gonna happen to us that they couldn't stop that they would tell us? Not a chance in hell. There would be too much panic, too much rioting and looting, too much of humanity acting like crazed monkeys. Instead right up to the very last possible second they'd lie their asses off, while the rich and powerful quietly got shuttled to old NORAD shelters and the like.
So this press release is probably only for the "Your government is in control, nothing to see here" types. The tinfoil hatters certainly ain't gonna believe it, and those of us that have seen the US government lie their asses off repeatedly are gonna decide on our own about the comet and not gonna pay attention to this. But every time I see press releases like this I'm reminded of the old USAF manual my grandfather showed me. It said "There is NO SUCH THING as UFOs. But if you see one don't shoot at it." Which he would always laugh "Typical government logic. If it don't exist how in the hell am I supposed to be in a position to shoot at it?".
But expecting the US government to be honest about something nasty? Not gonna happen, too big of a risk of panic if there was something even slightly bad, just as my grandfather and those on the base were told if they see a UFO to report it to the CO but do NOT talk about it with a civilian, as it might cause panic. Hell that should probably be the motto of the US gov- DON'T PANIC.