Good catch on the type-o. An interesting mistake to have made, I must have been distracted at the time.
As for the other anon coward... My eyes are currently set on the EU/Aust 2.0l VW/Audi TDI with the DSG tranny for the next engine in the Fiero. The big hold up there is money... I can go to any local junk yard and pull out a running 2.8-3.4 or 350 block for $100. Coming up with a 1.9 TDI from a junked car is rare, finding a 2.0 is import only. Dropping $6k on a new engine and tranny might not sit too well with the wife;)
Harsh. Apparently someone hasn't been keeping up on Diesel Technology lately. You know it was an Audi Diesel that one the last LeMans right?
I dirve a little VW Golf TDI. 115hp is nothing special, but 175 lbs/ft of torque is enough to get the car moving in a hurry. The car is almost as quick stock as my '88 Fiero with a 3.4l V6 (about 180 hp and 175lbs/ft).
When you have an engine that can (lightly/medium modded) put out 250 lbs/ft or torque from 1800rpm to 3500rpm, the concern is less about RPM and more about Gearing and shifting. Have you seen the new VW/Audi dual clutch manual automatic trannys? Their 6 speed DSG auto transmissions can upshift in 8ms. With that wide of gear range, and that fast of shifting, having a somewhat* limited rpm band is not an issue.
*I say somewhat because the vast, vast majority of drivers will never spin their engine over 3500 rpm. Hondas, Subarus, what have you, they are all designed (stock) as commuter vehicles. And if you have to turn 7k rpms to get your car off the line, it's not going to hold up to daily driving.
A solid law team working on the case full time over the next 5 years will cost what, $25 million?
A solid copywrite enforcement team (ie: college interns who watch YouTube and send Google take down notices part time) over the next 5 years would cost what, $500,000?
An automated piece of software that does frame by frame image comparisons to all of YouTubes content to their existing library would cost maybe $150,000 to develop and maybe another $100,000 per year to maintain.
This is what happens when you let lawyers come up with solutions to technical issues. Instead of funding the next generation's education, or developing the latest innovation in video software, they're going to attempt to sue a culturally supported entity into the ground. Not that Viacomm will be any better off because of this lawsuit, but that the lawyers will be.
Yeah because setting up a 4-way game over serial cables was such a fun way to handle LAN parties. Once again, Quake was there at just the right time to see Ethernet becoming the standard, and with it came the easy (comparatively) to set up LAN party, games with more than 4 people, and long distance gaming.
Sure, everyone will chime in with "obscure reference" games claiming that each was the "first" in a genre, but it doesn't matter. We are talking about IMPORTANCE. No body gives a crap about some text based mud that started in the 70's (except for those of us who were playing it in the 80's). Start Craft set the standard for multiplayer RTS games for years. Yes, there were others before it, and many clones of it, but it was the flag ship. Much like Counter Strike is the flag ship of team based FPSs. Quake was the most important standard set in the FPS arena though because of what it did to the industry. Quake was the software that was needed to sell the hardware, which spawned a whole industry of PC Gaming, not just a little fan base.
WoW is the standard setter not for its timing, but for its total package. Technically, the game is very impressive, marketing, customer service, balance, web experience... it's not perfect, but it is the closest anything has come on a large scale. 8+ million players can't be wrong.;)
Anyways, it's after 1:00am, I'm half passed out writing this, so I'll retain the right to rebut any and everything I may have said come morning.
"I just find it hard to justify putting in WarCraft when it didn't even spawn the genre it "represents" in the first place, and on top of that not putting in the games that spawned much more prominent genres."
Good call. Warcraft was a nice series and all, but hardly one of the most important games ever. Start Craft really set the standard for Multiplayer RTS while WoW has clearly set the standard for MMORPGs.
And as great of a game as Doom was, it's Quake that really was the break out point of FPS and the GPU requirements. If it wasn't for Quake where would nVidia and ATI be now?
Okay, animated banner at the top, ticker at the head of the page, image swapping adds when you cursor over the menu, animated vertical add on the right, flash add mid text, two smaller animated box adds on the left... did I miss any this time?
Wow, I just revisted the site to see if I could get a less annoying add in the middle of the page. I did, but since my eyes were no longer bleeding while looking at the page I realized that there are accually 4 full motion adds on the page. And they are all still really annoying.
WTF is wrong with marketers for producing this crappy advertising and WTF is wrong with web admins allowing this crap on their sites? 2 full motion adds? One right smack dab in the middle of the text, on repeat with a flashing animation.
I'd love to have a meaningful debate about what ever the message was, but I gave up trying to read it after I couldn't successfully block out the advertising with my hand while trying to read the text.
I work for a small R&D firm, not in the environmental arena, but another analogous environment. We have a number of Phd Docs who get money from large firms. Are they corrupted by that money? Hardly. I've seen one of our docs, who was paid by a large firm to speak at a presentation, stand up and say their product sucks in front of a crowd in a conference hall. They paid for his opinion, and that's what he gave them. (although I believe his words were a bit more elegant)
All of our Docs started out saying "I'm really excited about X, lets find out all we can on it." which means they have to talk to the consumers and corporations that already have a stake. And if the corps are willing to pay for research that will improve the consumers' lives, wonderful! It's not like the consumers are going to come to us and pay for the R&D process.
So yeah, take what funded individuals say with a gain of salt, but realize that if they were not funded, then the research would not have been done, and the only people who want to pay for research are those with a vested interest. And as always, trust peer reviewed journals over the mass media.
Our network guys used a Samba machine for at least one file share server that I knew of at HQMC. That was a number of years ago now. I know my college (a MS certified partner) used it and it was used heavily in a number of our networking and security classes.
"With Saddam having access to even more cash and no limits on trade and no more monitoring, what do you think would have happened?"
I could see it going one of 3 ways:
1) Nothing really changes, Saddam gets richer and richer, there is a limited, yet brutal abuse of non-Sunnis. While this situation isn't great, it's a hell of a lot better than many other parts of the world. 2) Saddam starts up a military missile program along with nuclear and chemical warhead research and manufacturing. At which point the UN would have likely gone in to clean things up again. 3) International economic pressure leads Saddam/Iraq to becoming a more west-friendly nation.
It's easy to tell everyone to f'off when the sanctions make legit exports illegal. But telling everyone to f'off when you've opened up multi-trillion dollar annual trade agreements...
Hey, thanks for the response (and the AC who posted also)! I have never been to Iraq, I did my time in the US Marine Corps, but I missed both wars there. The very few Iraqi people I have talked to personally portrayed a slightly better situations, but I have no idea what part of the country they were from, nor to which religious faction they belonged. By 'Relative Peace' I was not implying that everything was suburbia Illinois, so much as that walking to your local market in a Shi'ite neighborhood would not put you at the risk of a drive by shooting, car bomb, or suicide bomber.
And I was not saying that the US's actions in Iraq were necessarily terrorist. There was a peaceful option, but as you pointed out, that peaceful option would undoubtedly lead to many unjust imprisonments and executions. Given the damage done by the initial conflict, the insurgency, and the sectarian violence however, I think that price would be small by comparison.
What I was specifically saying is that the Bush Administration's actions in the US are terrorist. They have used the perceived threat of force to gain political power. But that is a huge discussion (and debate) all on its own.
Thank you (and the AC) for sharing your input on life in Iraq, I'd love to hear more if you're willing to share.
Not sure where you're going with that one. As for getting the Taliban out of Afghanistan, there really wasn't a good non-violent option, thus it was a traditional war. In the case of Saddam however, it's a little fuzzier. Saddam was so heavily sanctioned and monitored, it's not like he had any power to commit the same atrocities as he had in the past. He wasn't an international threat. And the people of his country, albeit stifled, lived in relative peace with one another. So if the goal was to remove Saddam for a position where he created a threat outside (or even within) his borders, we had already accomplished that. If the goal was to convert Iraq to a Democracy, then the non-violent option was simple: Patience. Wait it out, Saddam would eventually grow old and step down or die. Years of careful negotiations and marketing to make Iraq a more west-friendly nation would likely lead to a more liberal leader, and eventually the founding of a democratically elected government.
In either case, if our goal was to instill peace, prosperity, and democracy in foreign countries, there are some other nations who could have actually used our help. Somalia, Uganda, Congo... There are war torn countries across the world we mass Genocide is being actively perused and the US is wasting time, resources, and lives on disposing of a has been dictator who was already castrated.
The best definition of "Terrorist" I've ever heard was: "The use, or threat of use, of violence to pursue a political, ideological, or religious change when a non-violent option exists."
While the special interest groups and senators behind this bill are a bunch of greedy bastards, they are hardly using a threat of violence to achieve their goal.
The Bush administration on the other hand has used violence and the continued threat of violence ("fighting over there so we don't have to fight over here") to increase the power of the executive branch.
Life is hardly such a dichotomy, but I agree with you. I've done my time in the military and state government. I have seen the protection of incompetence based on bureaucratic rule sets developed by years of union (like) systems.
Union provide stability and security for masses of employees, which is far more valuable to most people than the "freedom" to go job hunting.
And it's a balancing act. In environments where the management is more brutal (low skill, easily replaceable work force), and the employees have little individual negotiating power, I think Unions can perform a good service. In situations where employees have some amount of power in negotiations (highly skilled, large training investment, large replacement costs) it's not such a big deal. Is the $2500 raise that skilled worker is asking for worth it? Well, when compared to the $40,000 it'll cost the company to replace him, it probably is!
Do schools need unions? I don't know. I wouldn't mind seeing a charter program for state run schools where a select number of districts went to a non-unionized environment, just to see what the effect is (on the children that is).
The trade off however is to have employees with no meaningful negotiation power against their employers. The vast majority of States in the US are "Work at will". Basicly, your employer can come up to you and say things like:
"I don't like you, you're fired." "You smell funny, you're fired." "Your performance last quarter was outstanding, it was so good that it made me look bad, you're fired." "You've worked here for 15 years, you cost us twice as much as that high school drop out doing the same job, you're fired." "Your wife, son, and dog were killed when an arsonist burnt down your house last weekend, we think that you're going to be depressed and we don't want you around, you're fired."
You can be fired for 'morally reprehensible' reasons, and you're employer is completely protected. With very few exceptions, the standard harassments (sex, age, religion, etc...), government employees, and Unions.
I agree that Unions are by and large a drain on the US as a whole, but so long as there are corporate entities who exercise their ability to treat individual employees unfairly, they will continue to be necessary.
I don't think this is all that bad. Sure, people will say "The parents should read the label", but how many of those 'caution' labels do you actually read? The damn things are like Vista UAC warnings, you don't Actually read them, you just acknowledge them.
Anyways, if this group's inflammatory campaign motivates parents to better monitory their children's online behavior, then all the better. If Sony/MS/Nitendo lose a handful of sales to far right wing conservatives, I doubt it will make or break the bottom line.
AKAImBatman's parents, in a fit of desperation, have turned to the state government for assistance in raising their kin. Hilarity expected soon. Stay tuned for details.
I didn't say they had to kiss and make up.;) Politics in the Middle East is a dangerous beast. But the reason why the radical fringe is as large as it is is because of instability, insecurity, and lack of employment. If you can provide a stable 'rat-race' live style (9-5 work week, safe shopping, free-TV) for the vast majority of the population, you can greatly reduce the number of people in that fringe group. It's hard to find time to prepare for Jihad when you have a wife, 2.5 kids, a dog and a house to care for. And if you have a family you provide for, it gives you a lot more to lose.
That was the big f'up in Iraq. We took the largest standing army in the Middle East and fired them all. We sent them home with nothing but the money in their pockets and the gun in their hands. Same with the police force. THEN, after letting them all go, we did nothing to enforce stability and security. So you have a whole bunch of people with no income, lots bullets, and no one to enforce proper moral behavior.
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Good catch on the type-o. An interesting mistake to have made, I must have been distracted at the time.
;)
As for the other anon coward... My eyes are currently set on the EU/Aust 2.0l VW/Audi TDI with the DSG tranny for the next engine in the Fiero. The big hold up there is money... I can go to any local junk yard and pull out a running 2.8-3.4 or 350 block for $100. Coming up with a 1.9 TDI from a junked car is rare, finding a 2.0 is import only. Dropping $6k on a new engine and tranny might not sit too well with the wife
-Rick
"...limiting their power"
Harsh. Apparently someone hasn't been keeping up on Diesel Technology lately. You know it was an Audi Diesel that one the last LeMans right?
I dirve a little VW Golf TDI. 115hp is nothing special, but 175 lbs/ft of torque is enough to get the car moving in a hurry. The car is almost as quick stock as my '88 Fiero with a 3.4l V6 (about 180 hp and 175lbs/ft).
When you have an engine that can (lightly/medium modded) put out 250 lbs/ft or torque from 1800rpm to 3500rpm, the concern is less about RPM and more about Gearing and shifting. Have you seen the new VW/Audi dual clutch manual automatic trannys? Their 6 speed DSG auto transmissions can upshift in 8ms. With that wide of gear range, and that fast of shifting, having a somewhat* limited rpm band is not an issue.
*I say somewhat because the vast, vast majority of drivers will never spin their engine over 3500 rpm. Hondas, Subarus, what have you, they are all designed (stock) as commuter vehicles. And if you have to turn 7k rpms to get your car off the line, it's not going to hold up to daily driving.
-Rick
A solid law team working on the case full time over the next 5 years will cost what, $25 million?
A solid copywrite enforcement team (ie: college interns who watch YouTube and send Google take down notices part time) over the next 5 years would cost what, $500,000?
An automated piece of software that does frame by frame image comparisons to all of YouTubes content to their existing library would cost maybe $150,000 to develop and maybe another $100,000 per year to maintain.
This is what happens when you let lawyers come up with solutions to technical issues. Instead of funding the next generation's education, or developing the latest innovation in video software, they're going to attempt to sue a culturally supported entity into the ground. Not that Viacomm will be any better off because of this lawsuit, but that the lawyers will be.
-Rick
Yeah because setting up a 4-way game over serial cables was such a fun way to handle LAN parties. Once again, Quake was there at just the right time to see Ethernet becoming the standard, and with it came the easy (comparatively) to set up LAN party, games with more than 4 people, and long distance gaming.
-Rick
Sure, everyone will chime in with "obscure reference" games claiming that each was the "first" in a genre, but it doesn't matter. We are talking about IMPORTANCE. No body gives a crap about some text based mud that started in the 70's (except for those of us who were playing it in the 80's). Start Craft set the standard for multiplayer RTS games for years. Yes, there were others before it, and many clones of it, but it was the flag ship. Much like Counter Strike is the flag ship of team based FPSs. Quake was the most important standard set in the FPS arena though because of what it did to the industry. Quake was the software that was needed to sell the hardware, which spawned a whole industry of PC Gaming, not just a little fan base.
;)
WoW is the standard setter not for its timing, but for its total package. Technically, the game is very impressive, marketing, customer service, balance, web experience... it's not perfect, but it is the closest anything has come on a large scale. 8+ million players can't be wrong.
Anyways, it's after 1:00am, I'm half passed out writing this, so I'll retain the right to rebut any and everything I may have said come morning.
-Rick
"I just find it hard to justify putting in WarCraft when it didn't even spawn the genre it "represents" in the first place, and on top of that not putting in the games that spawned much more prominent genres."
Good call. Warcraft was a nice series and all, but hardly one of the most important games ever. Start Craft really set the standard for Multiplayer RTS while WoW has clearly set the standard for MMORPGs.
And as great of a game as Doom was, it's Quake that really was the break out point of FPS and the GPU requirements. If it wasn't for Quake where would nVidia and ATI be now?
-Rick
Thanks for that! Flashblock has just been added to my "Must Have" list. It's only been installed for 5 minutes and I already love it!
-Rick
Crap, there's a 5th!
Okay, animated banner at the top, ticker at the head of the page, image swapping adds when you cursor over the menu, animated vertical add on the right, flash add mid text, two smaller animated box adds on the left... did I miss any this time?
-Rick
Wow, I just revisted the site to see if I could get a less annoying add in the middle of the page. I did, but since my eyes were no longer bleeding while looking at the page I realized that there are accually 4 full motion adds on the page. And they are all still really annoying.
-Rick
WTF is wrong with marketers for producing this crappy advertising and WTF is wrong with web admins allowing this crap on their sites? 2 full motion adds? One right smack dab in the middle of the text, on repeat with a flashing animation.
I'd love to have a meaningful debate about what ever the message was, but I gave up trying to read it after I couldn't successfully block out the advertising with my hand while trying to read the text.
-Rick
I work for a small R&D firm, not in the environmental arena, but another analogous environment. We have a number of Phd Docs who get money from large firms. Are they corrupted by that money? Hardly. I've seen one of our docs, who was paid by a large firm to speak at a presentation, stand up and say their product sucks in front of a crowd in a conference hall. They paid for his opinion, and that's what he gave them. (although I believe his words were a bit more elegant)
All of our Docs started out saying "I'm really excited about X, lets find out all we can on it." which means they have to talk to the consumers and corporations that already have a stake. And if the corps are willing to pay for research that will improve the consumers' lives, wonderful! It's not like the consumers are going to come to us and pay for the R&D process.
So yeah, take what funded individuals say with a gain of salt, but realize that if they were not funded, then the research would not have been done, and the only people who want to pay for research are those with a vested interest. And as always, trust peer reviewed journals over the mass media.
-Rick
Our network guys used a Samba machine for at least one file share server that I knew of at HQMC. That was a number of years ago now. I know my college (a MS certified partner) used it and it was used heavily in a number of our networking and security classes.
-Rick
"With Saddam having access to even more cash and no limits on trade and no more monitoring, what do you think would have happened?"
I could see it going one of 3 ways:
1) Nothing really changes, Saddam gets richer and richer, there is a limited, yet brutal abuse of non-Sunnis. While this situation isn't great, it's a hell of a lot better than many other parts of the world.
2) Saddam starts up a military missile program along with nuclear and chemical warhead research and manufacturing. At which point the UN would have likely gone in to clean things up again.
3) International economic pressure leads Saddam/Iraq to becoming a more west-friendly nation.
It's easy to tell everyone to f'off when the sanctions make legit exports illegal. But telling everyone to f'off when you've opened up multi-trillion dollar annual trade agreements...
-Rick
Hey, thanks for the response (and the AC who posted also)! I have never been to Iraq, I did my time in the US Marine Corps, but I missed both wars there. The very few Iraqi people I have talked to personally portrayed a slightly better situations, but I have no idea what part of the country they were from, nor to which religious faction they belonged. By 'Relative Peace' I was not implying that everything was suburbia Illinois, so much as that walking to your local market in a Shi'ite neighborhood would not put you at the risk of a drive by shooting, car bomb, or suicide bomber.
And I was not saying that the US's actions in Iraq were necessarily terrorist. There was a peaceful option, but as you pointed out, that peaceful option would undoubtedly lead to many unjust imprisonments and executions. Given the damage done by the initial conflict, the insurgency, and the sectarian violence however, I think that price would be small by comparison.
What I was specifically saying is that the Bush Administration's actions in the US are terrorist. They have used the perceived threat of force to gain political power. But that is a huge discussion (and debate) all on its own.
Thank you (and the AC) for sharing your input on life in Iraq, I'd love to hear more if you're willing to share.
-Rick
Not sure where you're going with that one. As for getting the Taliban out of Afghanistan, there really wasn't a good non-violent option, thus it was a traditional war. In the case of Saddam however, it's a little fuzzier. Saddam was so heavily sanctioned and monitored, it's not like he had any power to commit the same atrocities as he had in the past. He wasn't an international threat. And the people of his country, albeit stifled, lived in relative peace with one another. So if the goal was to remove Saddam for a position where he created a threat outside (or even within) his borders, we had already accomplished that. If the goal was to convert Iraq to a Democracy, then the non-violent option was simple: Patience. Wait it out, Saddam would eventually grow old and step down or die. Years of careful negotiations and marketing to make Iraq a more west-friendly nation would likely lead to a more liberal leader, and eventually the founding of a democratically elected government.
In either case, if our goal was to instill peace, prosperity, and democracy in foreign countries, there are some other nations who could have actually used our help. Somalia, Uganda, Congo... There are war torn countries across the world we mass Genocide is being actively perused and the US is wasting time, resources, and lives on disposing of a has been dictator who was already castrated.
-Rick
The best definition of "Terrorist" I've ever heard was: "The use, or threat of use, of violence to pursue a political, ideological, or religious change when a non-violent option exists."
While the special interest groups and senators behind this bill are a bunch of greedy bastards, they are hardly using a threat of violence to achieve their goal.
The Bush administration on the other hand has used violence and the continued threat of violence ("fighting over there so we don't have to fight over here") to increase the power of the executive branch.
-Rick
I think that's an excellent point! Thanks for commenting.
-Rick
Life is hardly such a dichotomy, but I agree with you. I've done my time in the military and state government. I have seen the protection of incompetence based on bureaucratic rule sets developed by years of union (like) systems.
Union provide stability and security for masses of employees, which is far more valuable to most people than the "freedom" to go job hunting.
And it's a balancing act. In environments where the management is more brutal (low skill, easily replaceable work force), and the employees have little individual negotiating power, I think Unions can perform a good service. In situations where employees have some amount of power in negotiations (highly skilled, large training investment, large replacement costs) it's not such a big deal. Is the $2500 raise that skilled worker is asking for worth it? Well, when compared to the $40,000 it'll cost the company to replace him, it probably is!
Do schools need unions? I don't know. I wouldn't mind seeing a charter program for state run schools where a select number of districts went to a non-unionized environment, just to see what the effect is (on the children that is).
-Rick
-Rick
The trade off however is to have employees with no meaningful negotiation power against their employers. The vast majority of States in the US are "Work at will". Basicly, your employer can come up to you and say things like:
"I don't like you, you're fired."
"You smell funny, you're fired."
"Your performance last quarter was outstanding, it was so good that it made me look bad, you're fired."
"You've worked here for 15 years, you cost us twice as much as that high school drop out doing the same job, you're fired."
"Your wife, son, and dog were killed when an arsonist burnt down your house last weekend, we think that you're going to be depressed and we don't want you around, you're fired."
You can be fired for 'morally reprehensible' reasons, and you're employer is completely protected. With very few exceptions, the standard harassments (sex, age, religion, etc...), government employees, and Unions.
I agree that Unions are by and large a drain on the US as a whole, but so long as there are corporate entities who exercise their ability to treat individual employees unfairly, they will continue to be necessary.
-Rick
Someone has never used Windows ME.
-Rick
News at 11:00.
-Rick
I don't think this is all that bad. Sure, people will say "The parents should read the label", but how many of those 'caution' labels do you actually read? The damn things are like Vista UAC warnings, you don't Actually read them, you just acknowledge them.
Anyways, if this group's inflammatory campaign motivates parents to better monitory their children's online behavior, then all the better. If Sony/MS/Nitendo lose a handful of sales to far right wing conservatives, I doubt it will make or break the bottom line.
-Rick
PS: Link for those "Label lovers" out there: http://engrish.com/
AKAImBatman's parents, in a fit of desperation, have turned to the state government for assistance in raising their kin. Hilarity expected soon. Stay tuned for details.
-Rick
Youth engaging in self destructive addictive behavior. News at 11:00.
-Rick
I didn't say they had to kiss and make up. ;) Politics in the Middle East is a dangerous beast. But the reason why the radical fringe is as large as it is is because of instability, insecurity, and lack of employment. If you can provide a stable 'rat-race' live style (9-5 work week, safe shopping, free-TV) for the vast majority of the population, you can greatly reduce the number of people in that fringe group. It's hard to find time to prepare for Jihad when you have a wife, 2.5 kids, a dog and a house to care for. And if you have a family you provide for, it gives you a lot more to lose.
That was the big f'up in Iraq. We took the largest standing army in the Middle East and fired them all. We sent them home with nothing but the money in their pockets and the gun in their hands. Same with the police force. THEN, after letting them all go, we did nothing to enforce stability and security. So you have a whole bunch of people with no income, lots bullets, and no one to enforce proper moral behavior.
-Rick