> "We offer 10MBit symmetrical connection, but the contract states that we only guarantee 256k symmetrical dedicated. Anything above that is burst, which means that you have no right to saturate the connection full time more than 256k, but you're more than welcome to burst up to that for periods. To me this is fair."
I really, really, really wish service providers would make such a designation in the contract. But I guess that goes right next to the entire point you just made. Instead of giving us contractual bandwidth limitations, they tell us how to use the network and specifically forbid running any kind of server (including but not limited to a laundry list of protocol names), no matter how much or little of their network's resources are actually being used. That's the problem, they're not selling a technical solution that's application neutral, they're selling a service oriented to home users and they'll nickle and dime anything else. They're just slightly less horrendous than cellular companies, and that's just because they don't control anywhere near as much of the network.
$100/month for a T1? That's like 3x-5x cheaper than what I understood it to generally cost, and a quick google search confirms. Why are you complaining, if that is indeed dedicated, non-oversubscribed bandwidth? Especially if that includes internet service and not just a line to a colocation center?
Of course there's no reason any home user would want dedicated bandwidth rather than a much, much higher shared bandwidth for the same cost.
I was reading about dark fiber the other day and the possible scenarios under which it'd make sense to deploy it. And it wouldn't make sense in my area, as I live close to New York City and therefore get excellent speeds compared to most of the country, through either Cablevision's 30 Mb/s plan or Verizon FIOS. The availability of that kind of service, regardless of the fine print, pretty much eliminates almost all incentive to find a custom solution. In addition, the county is planning for free public wifi soon. Fighting a few crappy contractual terms just isn't worth it.
But I don't understand why communities like yours wouldn't do that. Have the town, or a group of individuals who care enough to shell out some dough, pay for a fiber trunk, and take it from there. Well, at 500 people I suppose that's still a stretch, but the point still stands for slightly larger populations who are isolated from major high-speed providers.
I actually spent several hours over the past couple of days researching the idea of customer owned dark fiber as an alternative to traditional ISPs. Of course I knew it'd be financially ludicrous, but it's fun to dream. Anyway, without community or customer owned connections, what do you expect us to do? Revert to dialup? Until the government wakes up and realizes that monopoly and competition are antonyms, we may be stuck with these terms.
If that bridge you have goes somewhere I need to go, and only you can get me there, then I'll pay any price I can afford.
Off topic question: What's the general limit on the speed I can expect to get between two end points that have essentially unlimited bandwidth on their local loops? That is, what's the approximate limit to what I can get from the Internet "backbone".
Neglecting the fact that they do not actually promise bandwidth in the contract:
I see. So which alternative are you suggesting, in particular? Should I abandon the Internet altogether or just revert to dialup? Why are these alternatives better than dealing with a dishonest company that at least gives me better than nothing?
I use Kopete because in my mind the only other choice I care to consider is Gaim, and I hate GTK with a passion. Also, I have a bias towards using KDE applications when running KDE, for the shared library benefit. Indeed, kopete's pretty fast because of it. There were some serious bugs in it in older versions, such as duplicating your entire buddy list, and some connection issues, but most of those have since been fixed. I still won't recommend it as a great client, but it's the one I prefer.
Bleh, it's like using the word "exponentially" to describe "growing faster than I can comprehend". It would be nice if everyone had enough perspective to be able to judge the approxomate size and importance of things, including those that aren't necessarily tangible. But that's not going to happen any time soon.
Indeed. I am a die hard SC2000 fan, in everything ranging from the game itself to the "urban renewal kit" to SimCopter to Streets of SimCity. I can't fathom the number of hours of my childhood spent on that generation of the franchise, and I've been disappointed with Maxis ever since.
I also miss the damn hydroelectric plant. I used to cheat my way to easy power by teraforming a freaking huge waterfall pyramid in the center of town.
I loved Streets of Simcity. I spent a lot of time with that game, and SimCopter. Maybe that has to do with the fact that I thought SimCity 2000 was the greatest game ever and didn't care much for the later ones.
Cartman functions as a mega antagonist. He is the chosen target of so many unfathomably unfair and negative fates, because he is the one character who everyone feels truly deserves it. Even if he's "proven right" on occasion, the audience and the creators all identify with Stan and Kyle, and his victory is a defeat for everyone else, from which they can all learn a lesson. If Cartman's victory is genuine (fabricated by the creators as a real result, not something outlandish for comedy purposes), then normally that lesson involves, as you said, a compromise which may be further right than their original stance, but it is at least a lesson of moderation and balance.
Libertarian may fall under conservative but it's not the direction I associate with evil corporate biases.
Now, failure in the Boondocks indicates that there is a war to fight, not that the fight is hopeless and futile. If it were, Huey wouldn't even bother trying. Alternatively, if it is in fact futile and Huey tries anyway, there is still something admirable and poetic in that. I suppose as it is, both these approaches exist in the show, as Huey will get involved in the larger things but he'll take the smaller matters for granted. For example he remained silent on the R. Kelly trial until he finally got fed up at the end. Under normal circumstances he'd reserve his anger for the big fish, showing the lesser tragedies only his disdain.
Failure in the Simpsons serves a similar role - what's the point of the fight if it were really that simple - but I won't pretend that that's the primary reason everything returns to normal. No, The Simpsons merely follows the same pattern as most other shows in returning to the plot's status quo by the end of each episode, with no long term development besides major things like Maude dying and occasional details that are self-referenced from time to time. But I fail to see a message of futility here - it's just the format of the media.
Gilligan didn't keep failing to get off the island because there was a political agenda conspiring to keep him there; there was just more money in more seasons.
Bah, just realized the angled brackets in my post were cut. That was supposed to read as "But Family Guy is the most liberal satire around, and calling Seth MacFarland a conservative is about as accurate as 'It's midnight; Insert appropriately insane comparison here because I can't think of one'."
> "How often do any of those shows tackle a serious social issue and end up with a result outside the status quo?"
It's been said a million times in this thread: gay rights, immigration, flag burning... I mean, what more do you want from mainstream television? Unless you're defining status quo to mean every opinion accepted by either liberals or conservatives.
> "The Simpsons have made a franchise of giving "liberals" warm and happy feelings by "dealing" with issues in a leftist manner while using deus ex machina to ruin the leftist scheme. How many times has Lisa worked hard for social equity, only to have her efforts thrown in her face?"
I don't understand why so many people can't grasp that the failure of a protagonist often does not equate to the author dismissing or opposing their views. I just don't see why it's so difficult. What kind of show would it be if Lisa simply succeeded in her efforts - permanently?
> "South Park has a decidedly right bent."
Of course it does - it's South Park. Although technically it's more libertarian than conservative. Certainly far more right than any other animated adult comedy I know of. But if you're going to use it as evidence to support your generalization, then I'm going to counter it by mentioning the ultimate leftist show to rule them all: The Boondocks.
> "Cartman has become an infallible conservative (dare I say -- Nazi. The comparison isn't faulty, considering the shit he's done), constantly sparring with Kyle about social issues, and always being proven right by mere fictional circumstance."
HAVE YOU GONE INSANE? CARTMAN? INFALLIBLE AND PROVEN RIGHT? I think you just gave me an aneurysm! Cartman is all sins wrapped into one being - he's the personification of pure greed, ambition, sloth, anger, gluttony, and whatever else, plus a complete failure to learn from his mistakes, and totally warped social values, and he's utterly annoying to every other character, and whiny, and - why the hell am I even bothering to try to enumerate the faults that make it clear he is NOT the moral voice of the show?! On the rare occasions when Cartman is proven right, the circumstances aren't just fictitious, they're absolutely ludicrous, and obviously intentionally so.
South Park is a more conservative show and no one denies that, but don't you try to tell me the ideals of Matt and Trey are expressed best through the character of Cartman.
> "Family Guy is a bit different. It uses predictable formulas to "subvert" the mainstream media, to engross an audience. The constant use of self-reference makes audience members feel like they're a part of an inside joke, when they're in fact sharing it with millions of people. And it's not even funny. Moreover, they often use real leftist ideas as the basis for their "jokes", giving the cognescenti a chuckle and making everyone else think the idea is as dated as Alf."
Seth MacFarlane is a leftist, and obviously so. Family Guy has sold out, or given up, or tired out, or whatever you want to call it, but that is totally independent of its political ideology. When you start to talk about it in the context of mainstream media, it's a money maker, not a conservative comfort show.
> "Distorting art to suit one's goals is easy. And it's certainly possible I've done that."
Distorting art to suit one's goals? Even if it's artificial and serves a political agenda, it can hardly be called distortion if it's done by the artist himself. Or if you're referring to your own interpretations of the shows, then I agree that it is easy to see a lot of connections and meanings that the creator did not necessarily intend.
> "But I hope you read what I said with an open mind and decide for yourself if I've been unfair."
I have read it with however open a mind my knowledge of the source material permits me, and I don't think you've been unfair so much as you've mischaracterized the intent of a lot of elements of these shows. Or to put it more objectively, your in
>> Gay tolerance, > But Mr Garrison and Mr Slave are figures of ridicule...
Garrison is simply a freak. Slave is just... there. But what about Big Gay Al? He was a pretty positive character in several episodes. If anything you could argue that their ubiquitous use of the words "gay" and "fag" in a derrogatary context undermine tolerance, but I believe that to be more a comment on the mechanisms of tolerance itself rather than the overall ideal, to which I think they advocate neutrality and indifference (which is really the ultimate goal of tolerance unless you're very liberal and politically correct about drawing attention to inequities).
>> making fun of Christianity, >...even Peter's family goes to church on Sunday...
How does having characters go to church in any way equate to embracing Christianity? Have you forgotten that we're talking about satires? The fact that you can even question Family Guy's (of all satires) anti-religion stance is evidence that you have not seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Father%2C_the_Son %2C_and_the_Holy_Fonz.
>> making fun of immigration laws >...and Simpson's Proposition 24 passed with a landslide majority.
I agree with most of what you have to say there, except that I wouldn't accuse the media as a whole of leaning extremely right. Fox as a network, yes, their target demographic for most of their shows is probably more conservative than some other networks, and those other ones probably don't want to be thought of as "liberal" either. But there are plenty of shows that do not cater to conservatives. Off the top of my head I would name a couple of shows being discussed in this thread: The Simpsons, Family Guy, (not South Park), and I'd throw in Futurama, and how about all that "liberal media" I keep hearing about?
In four hundred episodes I have no doubt that you could find a few that seem to side with conservative viewpoints. Overall you would be very hard-pressed to argue that point. (Although I suppose the counter-point would be hard as well. Four hundred episodes!) The first one you mentioned, if it's the one that I'm thinking of, ends with a highly Christian song that I forget the name of, and struck me as one of the strangest and most out-of-character Simpsons episodes I've ever seen, specifically because it was more religious than anything else I had ever seen from the show. That one episode is not enough to convince me that they are conservative, or even that they promote Christianity.
The second one I remember the premise of, but I don't remember enough details about it to form an opinion on its morals solely from the content. But your description tells me all I need to argue the opposite. The Simpsons seldom portray anyone as truly evil - not even Mr. Burns is without redemption. In the case of a community divided over political issues like this one, it is not that the writers are disparaging one side or trying to convince the audience to dismiss them. They are simply accentuating their zeal as a prelude to opening up a dialog for compromise. The whole "Maybe we were a bit extreme" bit. As for election fraud being portrayed as acceptable - well you tell me, how much of what you see on the Simpsons is meant to be literally taken as acceptable? How much is actually meant to denote vice and corruption and the bending of morals? Which would be more in-line with the goals of a satire?
> "The Simpsons are Christians, many episodes have Christian themes, and Ned Flanders is (usually) the paragon of an upstanding Christian."
Hold on, I'm Wiktionary-ing the word "paragon" so I can properly dissent... Ok.
Remember that the Simpsons wasn't always political. Back in the day it was just about one family trying to get along in a world with humorous and sometimes heartwarming results. Back in those days, before Homer's stupidity was exaggerated to superhuman standards and before guest stars made regular appearances, remember that the main characterization of Homer was his lack of awareness, thought, and skill as a human being and member of his family. In particular, remember that he was not a particularly good father and his whole family did not lead an exceptionally moral or civilized life. Ned Flanders at this point was just a foil, to demonstrate what a real family unit could be. Christianity itself was not his purpose for existing in the series, although it did define his character; his purpose was to be the antithesis of Homer.
Case and point: The episode where both families are leaving chuch, and as the Flanders are openly expressing their love for one another, the Simpsons children are fighting over who gets to sit where in the car, as Marge groans. Homer looks back at the Flanders and the scene turns to hyperbole as the Flanders sing songs and drive up to parted clouds with light shining through them; he looks at his family once more to find that they are pointed demons, and sighs as he drives them along a fiery road back home, contemplating just how far he and his family are from leading a happy life.
All this really has nothing to do with Christianity, but with the stability, structure, and happiness it instills in one particular family. If I recall correctly, that's the episode where they go to counseling and fail miserably, receiving a money-back guarantee that enables them to buy a bigger television.
Enter the later years. The writers have exhausted so many plots and possibilities that they're beginning to run out of ideas, even with a character cast as tremendously large and diverse as they have. So they reinvent some characters and accentuate their foibles. Moe for instance became more hopeless and depressed than ever. This kind of thing happened in the Family Guy world as well - just look at Meg. Anyway, in the case of Flanders, the most obvious trait to turn into a fault was his religion, so that's exactly what they did. Thus, Flanders as he is today is not a positive image of a Christian but rather a satire (at times) of fanaticism.
The Simpsons don't unconditionally embrace Christianity, they treat it satirically as they're supposed to. If you're still not convinced, remember Reverend Lovejoy and his materialistic (albeit church-centered) needs. Aside from that, just re-watch the source material, and try to tell me that the majority of the episodes promote Christian philosophy (not counting generic do-good morals).
> "That's not necessarily so; though they often have such a moral, the character giving voice is usually compromised at the end of the episode and made to appear unreliable."
When that happens in South Park, it's usually done for comedic effect, sometimes as a self-satire on the format of their episodes. Generally the closing speech of a South Park episode does express the opinions and alignments of Matt and Trey.
In Family Guy, you know you're watching a propaganda episode when all the characters agree, including the foils who are normally opposed to Peter. This really only happens in later episodes. In the before-time, Brian was just a clever guy with a penchant for mocking Peter at a level above his comprehension, using sarcasm. Then entirely different episodes come along where, against his originally neutral and indifferent personality, he takes a highly opinionated position that is miraculously in agreement with Peter.
And as for the Simpsons... Well, who knows. They've been through so many permutations over such a long period of time, I don't know what to make of it. But I will say their leanings are liberal.
> "The real problem with this quasi-subversive dreck is that it tears everything you consider sane apart by the end of the episode, subverting not just government and morality, but the idea of that people can be governed, can be loved, and can embody right action. The real losers at the end of a Family Guy or Simpsons episode are the characters that try to adjust this status quo. The message to the viewer is: The world is unjust and insane, and the worst thing you could possibly do is try to fix it."
That is an interesting point but I believe it applies primarily to Simpsons. How many episodes end with a cataclysmic Deus Ex Machina, followed by a moral statement such as "I guess you really can't fight city hall" or something similar. I always thought of that as more of a tool to restore plot continuity back to its starting position rather than a message of dispair and ineffectiveness. Family Guy's stories on the other hand tend to be more outrageous and less centered on real social issues, so I don't know that the same conclusion applies. And for South Park, cataclysmic results are par for the course and don't really mean much - the injustice, negligence, and failure of the non-protagonists (i.e., all the parents) is just a tool to build sympathy and outrage and draw the viewer in.
Wow, you are so magnificently wrong that you almost deserve a -1 mod for it (I acknowledge that your post does not even remotely warrant a Troll rating though). Of the three you named, South Park is the only satire that could be seen as promoting conservative viewpoints. All satires simplify the issues when they're trying to make a point rather than be strictly entertaining, and Family Guy is particularly guilty of that in some of its later "issue episodes" such as the rants about the FCC and religion. But Family Guy is the most liberal satire around, and calling Seth MacFarland a conservative is about as accurate as .
Showing real characters in thought-provoking dilemmas where they are shown to be three-dimensional and complex? I thought we were talking about comedy here, not some artistic vision of a drama. If you want that then you shouldn't be watching primetime.
Generally when you have problems involving the console, the first thing to consider is the framebuffer. Disable it in the kernel configuration or in your boot parameters to the kernel. As someone else said above, you'll get a less-pretty console, but if you can't trigger the bug then you'll be closer to solving the problem.
I had a similar issue, where switching to a framebuffered console after going to X would cause my consoles to become corrupted until I rebooted. The machine would function just fine except for displaying the console.
I remember reading that nvidia conflicts with one of the framebuffer drivers in the kernel to produce the corruption problem that I had, but I forgot the names of the good driver and the bad one. The good one that it works with is supposed to be more modern and support more features, and might have a T in the name. Like tgfb or something. You should be able to find it in your kernel configuration menu.
That's not the optimal solution, as that disables AGP altogether and gives you slower performance.
I've had stability problems with my AGP GeForce 6200 and VIA chipset for a long time. I'd get random crashes when doing anything remotely graphics intensive, always accompanied by nvidia error messages in my log. In the beginning I used to be able to still ssh into the system, or even switch to a virtual console for a little bit before I lost all system functionality, but later on I stopped trying and just used SysRQ to sync, unmount, and reboot my system.
Finally, it became frustrating enough for me to do something about it. I'd dabbled in the README and nvidia's forums before, but I looked longer and harder and isolated the problem to that setting fairly easily. It was embarassing that all that time all I needed to do was change my AGP settings; knowing nothing about the nature of the problem, it was previously all just a giant black box to me, and if it didn't work there was nothing I thought I could do about it.
Anyway, instead of getting rid of all AGP, you can set the option to 2 to use AGPGART instead of NVAGP. I've had no stability issues since then, and I still get reasonable performance for my crappy card. Of course agpgart has to be selected in the kernel as either a module or built in.
I don't think this problem is related to the grandparent's post though, because it occurs for him when he switches terminals, not at random while using hardware accelerated applications.
Nothing means anything in writing. You can get anyone in the country to sign anything you like and agree to whatever terms you choose. If congress legislates against it you just add a term saying you waive that right.
Take for example how there's a constitutional right to privacy that protects against random sobriety testing, but in the state of New York you give your implied consent to such testing by driving. Law/right? Great, now try to exercise it, we dare you.
What would you recommend for people who don't know enough about this kind of thing to actually manage and install the conduit/wiring themselves? Who would you talk to about getting this kind of thing in a house? An electrician perhaps, but would they set up a patch panel as well? Is there a name for the profession that handles this for homes?
I believe I heard a quote somewhere on television where they specifically claimed "It's not incest, it's masturbation". It might've been the Colbert Report or Harvey Birdman.
Slashdot Mirror
> "We offer 10MBit symmetrical connection, but the contract states that we only guarantee 256k symmetrical dedicated. Anything above that is burst, which means that you have no right to saturate the connection full time more than 256k, but you're more than welcome to burst up to that for periods. To me this is fair."
I really, really, really wish service providers would make such a designation in the contract. But I guess that goes right next to the entire point you just made. Instead of giving us contractual bandwidth limitations, they tell us how to use the network and specifically forbid running any kind of server (including but not limited to a laundry list of protocol names), no matter how much or little of their network's resources are actually being used. That's the problem, they're not selling a technical solution that's application neutral, they're selling a service oriented to home users and they'll nickle and dime anything else. They're just slightly less horrendous than cellular companies, and that's just because they don't control anywhere near as much of the network.
$100/month for a T1? That's like 3x-5x cheaper than what I understood it to generally cost, and a quick google search confirms. Why are you complaining, if that is indeed dedicated, non-oversubscribed bandwidth? Especially if that includes internet service and not just a line to a colocation center?
Of course there's no reason any home user would want dedicated bandwidth rather than a much, much higher shared bandwidth for the same cost.
I was reading about dark fiber the other day and the possible scenarios under which it'd make sense to deploy it. And it wouldn't make sense in my area, as I live close to New York City and therefore get excellent speeds compared to most of the country, through either Cablevision's 30 Mb/s plan or Verizon FIOS. The availability of that kind of service, regardless of the fine print, pretty much eliminates almost all incentive to find a custom solution. In addition, the county is planning for free public wifi soon. Fighting a few crappy contractual terms just isn't worth it.
But I don't understand why communities like yours wouldn't do that. Have the town, or a group of individuals who care enough to shell out some dough, pay for a fiber trunk, and take it from there. Well, at 500 people I suppose that's still a stretch, but the point still stands for slightly larger populations who are isolated from major high-speed providers.
I actually spent several hours over the past couple of days researching the idea of customer owned dark fiber as an alternative to traditional ISPs. Of course I knew it'd be financially ludicrous, but it's fun to dream. Anyway, without community or customer owned connections, what do you expect us to do? Revert to dialup? Until the government wakes up and realizes that monopoly and competition are antonyms, we may be stuck with these terms.
If that bridge you have goes somewhere I need to go, and only you can get me there, then I'll pay any price I can afford.
Off topic question: What's the general limit on the speed I can expect to get between two end points that have essentially unlimited bandwidth on their local loops? That is, what's the approximate limit to what I can get from the Internet "backbone".
Neglecting the fact that they do not actually promise bandwidth in the contract:
I see. So which alternative are you suggesting, in particular? Should I abandon the Internet altogether or just revert to dialup? Why are these alternatives better than dealing with a dishonest company that at least gives me better than nothing?
I use Kopete because in my mind the only other choice I care to consider is Gaim, and I hate GTK with a passion. Also, I have a bias towards using KDE applications when running KDE, for the shared library benefit. Indeed, kopete's pretty fast because of it. There were some serious bugs in it in older versions, such as duplicating your entire buddy list, and some connection issues, but most of those have since been fixed. I still won't recommend it as a great client, but it's the one I prefer.
Bleh, it's like using the word "exponentially" to describe "growing faster than I can comprehend". It would be nice if everyone had enough perspective to be able to judge the approxomate size and importance of things, including those that aren't necessarily tangible. But that's not going to happen any time soon.
Cue xkcd comic discussing this the next day.
Indeed. I am a die hard SC2000 fan, in everything ranging from the game itself to the "urban renewal kit" to SimCopter to Streets of SimCity. I can't fathom the number of hours of my childhood spent on that generation of the franchise, and I've been disappointed with Maxis ever since.
I also miss the damn hydroelectric plant. I used to cheat my way to easy power by teraforming a freaking huge waterfall pyramid in the center of town.
I loved Streets of Simcity. I spent a lot of time with that game, and SimCopter. Maybe that has to do with the fact that I thought SimCity 2000 was the greatest game ever and didn't care much for the later ones.
And the music was great.
Cartman functions as a mega antagonist. He is the chosen target of so many unfathomably unfair and negative fates, because he is the one character who everyone feels truly deserves it. Even if he's "proven right" on occasion, the audience and the creators all identify with Stan and Kyle, and his victory is a defeat for everyone else, from which they can all learn a lesson. If Cartman's victory is genuine (fabricated by the creators as a real result, not something outlandish for comedy purposes), then normally that lesson involves, as you said, a compromise which may be further right than their original stance, but it is at least a lesson of moderation and balance.
Libertarian may fall under conservative but it's not the direction I associate with evil corporate biases.
Now, failure in the Boondocks indicates that there is a war to fight, not that the fight is hopeless and futile. If it were, Huey wouldn't even bother trying. Alternatively, if it is in fact futile and Huey tries anyway, there is still something admirable and poetic in that. I suppose as it is, both these approaches exist in the show, as Huey will get involved in the larger things but he'll take the smaller matters for granted. For example he remained silent on the R. Kelly trial until he finally got fed up at the end. Under normal circumstances he'd reserve his anger for the big fish, showing the lesser tragedies only his disdain.
Failure in the Simpsons serves a similar role - what's the point of the fight if it were really that simple - but I won't pretend that that's the primary reason everything returns to normal. No, The Simpsons merely follows the same pattern as most other shows in returning to the plot's status quo by the end of each episode, with no long term development besides major things like Maude dying and occasional details that are self-referenced from time to time. But I fail to see a message of futility here - it's just the format of the media.
Gilligan didn't keep failing to get off the island because there was a political agenda conspiring to keep him there; there was just more money in more seasons.
Yessss, let the hate flow through you. Embrace the dark side.
Bah, just realized the angled brackets in my post were cut. That was supposed to read as "But Family Guy is the most liberal satire around, and calling Seth MacFarland a conservative is about as accurate as 'It's midnight; Insert appropriately insane comparison here because I can't think of one'."
> "How often do any of those shows tackle a serious social issue and end up with a result outside the status quo?"
It's been said a million times in this thread: gay rights, immigration, flag burning... I mean, what more do you want from mainstream television? Unless you're defining status quo to mean every opinion accepted by either liberals or conservatives.
> "The Simpsons have made a franchise of giving "liberals" warm and happy feelings by "dealing" with issues in a leftist manner while using deus ex machina to ruin the leftist scheme. How many times has Lisa worked hard for social equity, only to have her efforts thrown in her face?"
I don't understand why so many people can't grasp that the failure of a protagonist often does not equate to the author dismissing or opposing their views. I just don't see why it's so difficult. What kind of show would it be if Lisa simply succeeded in her efforts - permanently?
> "South Park has a decidedly right bent."
Of course it does - it's South Park. Although technically it's more libertarian than conservative. Certainly far more right than any other animated adult comedy I know of. But if you're going to use it as evidence to support your generalization, then I'm going to counter it by mentioning the ultimate leftist show to rule them all: The Boondocks.
> "Cartman has become an infallible conservative (dare I say -- Nazi. The comparison isn't faulty, considering the shit he's done), constantly sparring with Kyle about social issues, and always being proven right by mere fictional circumstance."
HAVE YOU GONE INSANE? CARTMAN? INFALLIBLE AND PROVEN RIGHT? I think you just gave me an aneurysm! Cartman is all sins wrapped into one being - he's the personification of pure greed, ambition, sloth, anger, gluttony, and whatever else, plus a complete failure to learn from his mistakes, and totally warped social values, and he's utterly annoying to every other character, and whiny, and - why the hell am I even bothering to try to enumerate the faults that make it clear he is NOT the moral voice of the show?! On the rare occasions when Cartman is proven right, the circumstances aren't just fictitious, they're absolutely ludicrous, and obviously intentionally so.
South Park is a more conservative show and no one denies that, but don't you try to tell me the ideals of Matt and Trey are expressed best through the character of Cartman.
> "Family Guy is a bit different. It uses predictable formulas to "subvert" the mainstream media, to engross an audience. The constant use of self-reference makes audience members feel like they're a part of an inside joke, when they're in fact sharing it with millions of people. And it's not even funny. Moreover, they often use real leftist ideas as the basis for their "jokes", giving the cognescenti a chuckle and making everyone else think the idea is as dated as Alf."
Seth MacFarlane is a leftist, and obviously so. Family Guy has sold out, or given up, or tired out, or whatever you want to call it, but that is totally independent of its political ideology. When you start to talk about it in the context of mainstream media, it's a money maker, not a conservative comfort show.
> "Distorting art to suit one's goals is easy. And it's certainly possible I've done that."
Distorting art to suit one's goals? Even if it's artificial and serves a political agenda, it can hardly be called distortion if it's done by the artist himself. Or if you're referring to your own interpretations of the shows, then I agree that it is easy to see a lot of connections and meanings that the creator did not necessarily intend.
> "But I hope you read what I said with an open mind and decide for yourself if I've been unfair."
I have read it with however open a mind my knowledge of the source material permits me, and I don't think you've been unfair so much as you've mischaracterized the intent of a lot of elements of these shows. Or to put it more objectively, your in
>> Gay tolerance,
...even Peter's family goes to church on Sunday...
n %2C_and_the_Holy_Fonz.
...and Simpson's Proposition 24 passed with a landslide majority.
> But Mr Garrison and Mr Slave are figures of ridicule...
Garrison is simply a freak. Slave is just... there. But what about Big Gay Al? He was a pretty positive character in several episodes. If anything you could argue that their ubiquitous use of the words "gay" and "fag" in a derrogatary context undermine tolerance, but I believe that to be more a comment on the mechanisms of tolerance itself rather than the overall ideal, to which I think they advocate neutrality and indifference (which is really the ultimate goal of tolerance unless you're very liberal and politically correct about drawing attention to inequities).
>> making fun of Christianity,
>
How does having characters go to church in any way equate to embracing Christianity? Have you forgotten that we're talking about satires? The fact that you can even question Family Guy's (of all satires) anti-religion stance is evidence that you have not seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Father%2C_the_So
>> making fun of immigration laws
>
I think we're done here. You've demonstrated that you do not understand satire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
I agree with most of what you have to say there, except that I wouldn't accuse the media as a whole of leaning extremely right. Fox as a network, yes, their target demographic for most of their shows is probably more conservative than some other networks, and those other ones probably don't want to be thought of as "liberal" either. But there are plenty of shows that do not cater to conservatives. Off the top of my head I would name a couple of shows being discussed in this thread: The Simpsons, Family Guy, (not South Park), and I'd throw in Futurama, and how about all that "liberal media" I keep hearing about?
In four hundred episodes I have no doubt that you could find a few that seem to side with conservative viewpoints. Overall you would be very hard-pressed to argue that point. (Although I suppose the counter-point would be hard as well. Four hundred episodes!) The first one you mentioned, if it's the one that I'm thinking of, ends with a highly Christian song that I forget the name of, and struck me as one of the strangest and most out-of-character Simpsons episodes I've ever seen, specifically because it was more religious than anything else I had ever seen from the show. That one episode is not enough to convince me that they are conservative, or even that they promote Christianity.
The second one I remember the premise of, but I don't remember enough details about it to form an opinion on its morals solely from the content. But your description tells me all I need to argue the opposite. The Simpsons seldom portray anyone as truly evil - not even Mr. Burns is without redemption. In the case of a community divided over political issues like this one, it is not that the writers are disparaging one side or trying to convince the audience to dismiss them. They are simply accentuating their zeal as a prelude to opening up a dialog for compromise. The whole "Maybe we were a bit extreme" bit. As for election fraud being portrayed as acceptable - well you tell me, how much of what you see on the Simpsons is meant to be literally taken as acceptable? How much is actually meant to denote vice and corruption and the bending of morals? Which would be more in-line with the goals of a satire?
> "The Simpsons are Christians, many episodes have Christian themes, and Ned Flanders is (usually) the paragon of an upstanding Christian."
Hold on, I'm Wiktionary-ing the word "paragon" so I can properly dissent... Ok.
Remember that the Simpsons wasn't always political. Back in the day it was just about one family trying to get along in a world with humorous and sometimes heartwarming results. Back in those days, before Homer's stupidity was exaggerated to superhuman standards and before guest stars made regular appearances, remember that the main characterization of Homer was his lack of awareness, thought, and skill as a human being and member of his family. In particular, remember that he was not a particularly good father and his whole family did not lead an exceptionally moral or civilized life. Ned Flanders at this point was just a foil, to demonstrate what a real family unit could be. Christianity itself was not his purpose for existing in the series, although it did define his character; his purpose was to be the antithesis of Homer.
Case and point: The episode where both families are leaving chuch, and as the Flanders are openly expressing their love for one another, the Simpsons children are fighting over who gets to sit where in the car, as Marge groans. Homer looks back at the Flanders and the scene turns to hyperbole as the Flanders sing songs and drive up to parted clouds with light shining through them; he looks at his family once more to find that they are pointed demons, and sighs as he drives them along a fiery road back home, contemplating just how far he and his family are from leading a happy life.
All this really has nothing to do with Christianity, but with the stability, structure, and happiness it instills in one particular family. If I recall correctly, that's the episode where they go to counseling and fail miserably, receiving a money-back guarantee that enables them to buy a bigger television.
Enter the later years. The writers have exhausted so many plots and possibilities that they're beginning to run out of ideas, even with a character cast as tremendously large and diverse as they have. So they reinvent some characters and accentuate their foibles. Moe for instance became more hopeless and depressed than ever. This kind of thing happened in the Family Guy world as well - just look at Meg. Anyway, in the case of Flanders, the most obvious trait to turn into a fault was his religion, so that's exactly what they did. Thus, Flanders as he is today is not a positive image of a Christian but rather a satire (at times) of fanaticism.
The Simpsons don't unconditionally embrace Christianity, they treat it satirically as they're supposed to. If you're still not convinced, remember Reverend Lovejoy and his materialistic (albeit church-centered) needs. Aside from that, just re-watch the source material, and try to tell me that the majority of the episodes promote Christian philosophy (not counting generic do-good morals).
> "That's not necessarily so; though they often have such a moral, the character giving voice is usually compromised at the end of the episode and made to appear unreliable."
When that happens in South Park, it's usually done for comedic effect, sometimes as a self-satire on the format of their episodes. Generally the closing speech of a South Park episode does express the opinions and alignments of Matt and Trey.
In Family Guy, you know you're watching a propaganda episode when all the characters agree, including the foils who are normally opposed to Peter. This really only happens in later episodes. In the before-time, Brian was just a clever guy with a penchant for mocking Peter at a level above his comprehension, using sarcasm. Then entirely different episodes come along where, against his originally neutral and indifferent personality, he takes a highly opinionated position that is miraculously in agreement with Peter.
And as for the Simpsons... Well, who knows. They've been through so many permutations over such a long period of time, I don't know what to make of it. But I will say their leanings are liberal.
> "The real problem with this quasi-subversive dreck is that it tears everything you consider sane apart by the end of the episode, subverting not just government and morality, but the idea of that people can be governed, can be loved, and can embody right action. The real losers at the end of a Family Guy or Simpsons episode are the characters that try to adjust this status quo. The message to the viewer is: The world is unjust and insane, and the worst thing you could possibly do is try to fix it."
That is an interesting point but I believe it applies primarily to Simpsons. How many episodes end with a cataclysmic Deus Ex Machina, followed by a moral statement such as "I guess you really can't fight city hall" or something similar. I always thought of that as more of a tool to restore plot continuity back to its starting position rather than a message of dispair and ineffectiveness. Family Guy's stories on the other hand tend to be more outrageous and less centered on real social issues, so I don't know that the same conclusion applies. And for South Park, cataclysmic results are par for the course and don't really mean much - the injustice, negligence, and failure of the non-protagonists (i.e., all the parents) is just a tool to build sympathy and outrage and draw the viewer in.
Wow, you are so magnificently wrong that you almost deserve a -1 mod for it (I acknowledge that your post does not even remotely warrant a Troll rating though). Of the three you named, South Park is the only satire that could be seen as promoting conservative viewpoints. All satires simplify the issues when they're trying to make a point rather than be strictly entertaining, and Family Guy is particularly guilty of that in some of its later "issue episodes" such as the rants about the FCC and religion. But Family Guy is the most liberal satire around, and calling Seth MacFarland a conservative is about as accurate as .
Showing real characters in thought-provoking dilemmas where they are shown to be three-dimensional and complex? I thought we were talking about comedy here, not some artistic vision of a drama. If you want that then you shouldn't be watching primetime.
Generally when you have problems involving the console, the first thing to consider is the framebuffer. Disable it in the kernel configuration or in your boot parameters to the kernel. As someone else said above, you'll get a less-pretty console, but if you can't trigger the bug then you'll be closer to solving the problem.
I had a similar issue, where switching to a framebuffered console after going to X would cause my consoles to become corrupted until I rebooted. The machine would function just fine except for displaying the console.
I remember reading that nvidia conflicts with one of the framebuffer drivers in the kernel to produce the corruption problem that I had, but I forgot the names of the good driver and the bad one. The good one that it works with is supposed to be more modern and support more features, and might have a T in the name. Like tgfb or something. You should be able to find it in your kernel configuration menu.
Good luck.
That's not the optimal solution, as that disables AGP altogether and gives you slower performance.
I've had stability problems with my AGP GeForce 6200 and VIA chipset for a long time. I'd get random crashes when doing anything remotely graphics intensive, always accompanied by nvidia error messages in my log. In the beginning I used to be able to still ssh into the system, or even switch to a virtual console for a little bit before I lost all system functionality, but later on I stopped trying and just used SysRQ to sync, unmount, and reboot my system.
Finally, it became frustrating enough for me to do something about it. I'd dabbled in the README and nvidia's forums before, but I looked longer and harder and isolated the problem to that setting fairly easily. It was embarassing that all that time all I needed to do was change my AGP settings; knowing nothing about the nature of the problem, it was previously all just a giant black box to me, and if it didn't work there was nothing I thought I could do about it.
Anyway, instead of getting rid of all AGP, you can set the option to 2 to use AGPGART instead of NVAGP. I've had no stability issues since then, and I still get reasonable performance for my crappy card. Of course agpgart has to be selected in the kernel as either a module or built in.
I don't think this problem is related to the grandparent's post though, because it occurs for him when he switches terminals, not at random while using hardware accelerated applications.
Nothing means anything in writing. You can get anyone in the country to sign anything you like and agree to whatever terms you choose. If congress legislates against it you just add a term saying you waive that right.
Take for example how there's a constitutional right to privacy that protects against random sobriety testing, but in the state of New York you give your implied consent to such testing by driving. Law/right? Great, now try to exercise it, we dare you.
What would you recommend for people who don't know enough about this kind of thing to actually manage and install the conduit/wiring themselves? Who would you talk to about getting this kind of thing in a house? An electrician perhaps, but would they set up a patch panel as well? Is there a name for the profession that handles this for homes?
I did, but only because the headline was misleading, suggesting that piracy was beating legitimate distribution by volume.
I believe I heard a quote somewhere on television where they specifically claimed "It's not incest, it's masturbation". It might've been the Colbert Report or Harvey Birdman.