I had a similar experience with "Pitch Black" -- a mildly entertaining action/scifi flick, but nothing substantial. However, I saw it back-to-back with "Mission to Mars." Vin Diesel came out looking like an oscar contender in that matchup...
> you guys hear the bell "RFID" and you can't help but start salivating.
It's funny... as near as I can tell, RFID is just fancier barcodes. Despite being the kind of geek who refuses to buy Microsoft products, builds computers just to install free OSes on them, abhors the one-click patent, and in general finds himself responding to most of the causes that are espoused on Slashdot, I've never seen what the big friggin' deal is.
I'm sure someone will attempt to enlighten me now, though.:)
This thing might be what you're looking for -- it does have games, but making them work well is hardly the focus of the thing. Hell, it doesn't even have a web browser;).
True, but I think we are just about all in agreement that Lucas did much better work when he was forced to stay within the constraints of traditional film-making and special effects.
Yes, but this is because he lacks the imagination to create both awesome visuals and a good story... seems like it's one or the other with Lucas;).
> If people don't have guns, they don't shoot people
So what you're saying is, the law-abiding people who aren't apt to kill people anyway won't have guns, because it's illegal. But it's already against the law to shoot someone. If someone is already planning to break the law that way, why will they have any qualms about illegally buying weapons? Or stealing them? Or are there no guns anywhere in Australia and no black market by which they could be obtained? Sure, there are crimes of passion, and it can be argued that guns make such crimes easier, but the interesting thing is that people can kill quite efficiently without a firearm -- or a weapon of any kind, for that matter. There are no shortage of documented cases of crimes of passion involving pocketknives, tire irons, dishes and tableware, cars used as large projectiles, etc. The old cliche, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." -- true. We're pretty damned good at it when we want to be, too.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should all be running around waving our handguns in the air. We should, however, be permitted to do what we want as long as we're making reasonable efforts to ensure that our actions don't harm others.
The problem isn't really with guns; it's with the irresponsibility and an unwillingness to be held accountable for one's own actions that permeates modern Western society. Witness the lawsuit from the overweight guy who feels that the fast food companies are to blame for his obesity. There are mountains of evidence supporting the conclusion that Western society has real problems with self-responsibility (and this post would be prohibitively long if I went down that path very far). As such, some guidelines should be laid down regarding gun ownership. If you own a gun which is stolen and used to commit a crime, and you did not take reasonable precautions to safeguard it from theft, then you should be held partially responsible. Same thing goes if your neighbor's kid shoots his sister after finding your gun while they're over playing with your own kids.
I'd go so far as to say that perhaps a firearm-ownership license is a possible answer. Screw up -- let the neighbor's kid steal it or leave it in your car overnight only for it to be stolen -- and you lose that license (along with whatever other penalties are imposed). Safes should be required. Proof of ownership of a gun safe should be a prerequisite to licensing, and maybe proof of an appropriate separate storage area for ammunition. Make people accountable. Make pentalties for irresponsibility.
It's been said before (paraphrased): "If guns are illegal, only criminals will have them." There are genuine problems related to the mere existence, to say nothing of the abuse, of firearms; the same statement can be made for many, many other things. Automobiles. Cellular phones. The RIAA tries to connect possession to unlawful use all the time. The MPAA does the same thing. "There can't possibly be a legitimate reason for any person to own an MP3 player," is a good example of what these guys are preaching. Substitute "gun" for "MP3 player" now. Next, try this phrase: "Guns must be made illegal for the protection of..." Subsitute "MP3 players" back in. Of course the argument can be made that guns can be fatal far more easily than MP3 players can. The real crux of it all, then, is where you draw the line. At what point do we decide that the potential risks of something outweigh any potential for usefulness? Perhaps I'd rather the guys in charge err on the side of personal freedoms. You might disagree with me, but that's my viewpoint. Seems I'm turning Libertarian...
> Now, I also think that modchips being illegal is bullshit.
Eh, I don't know if the new "PCS Vision" or whatever plans have this option, but on my current old Sprint PCS plan I have a $5/mo option that lets me use my regular minutes (450 anytime/3500 night&weekend I think) for wireless web access. Quite a good deal, actually.
Don't get me wrong, OSX is neat, but you can run X on Windows too, along with a good number of unix utilities. The first thing I do when an employer sticks me on a Windows box or something is grab Cygwin... The underlying BSDness on the Mac is nice, but as far as "choice" goes... 'fraid I just can't award the point here.
Right, 'cause people today have a real hard time getting over Pearl Harbor...
Let's face it, this is a generation that barely acknowledges that things like the Vietnam War or the rise of the Khmer Rouge took place. I don't think anyone under 55 is holding any grudges.
apt-get install kernel-soruce-2.4.19 tar xvjf/usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.19.tar.bz2 cd kernel-source-2.4.19 make menuconfig make-kpkg --rootcmd=fakeroot buildpackage sudo dpkg -i../kernel*2.4.19*.deb
> I mean, it's not that they actually need root/admin or something. At least, not that I can think of... right?
Right. As for bind, it's got port 53, it needs no such priveleges. Hence the -u and -g options.
Same goes for sendmail (I can't speak to other MTAs as I don't use any others) -- probably why modern (more recent than 8.9) versions support running as a nonprivileged users when such privileges are not needed, and in most installs these versions do precisely that. At least, all the installs I've done of anything since 8.11 have done it.
I've had one of these for a couple of months now, and it's not like I had to go to a lot of trouble to get it (walked into Best Buy and there it was)... really on the ball, aren't we?;)
This thing's alright. Don't bother getting it for the TiVoish software -- it sucks. But it's a pretty good card overall, DVI output as well as svideo, RCAs, and maybe coax (not at home so this is off the top of my head). The RF remote is handy (especially the DVD player), though I'd like some sort of plugin to run Winamp or something since their media library software's pretty lame.
Oh, and if you don't have much hard drive bandwidth (like if that piece of garbage Win2k stops recognizing your drives as UDMA), the TV stuff is going to suck. A lot.
Slashdot Mirror
I had a similar experience with "Pitch Black" -- a mildly entertaining action/scifi flick, but nothing substantial. However, I saw it back-to-back with "Mission to Mars." Vin Diesel came out looking like an oscar contender in that matchup...
Umm... that's funny, I picked up Gnome 2.4 on an update to unstable weeks ago, to say nothing of OpenOffice 1.1.
While I'm completely unfamiliar with SodiPodi, it appears that version 0.32 of this is in unstable.
Maybe you actually have a factual statement to make?
Yes, to the bottom 99% of the spectrum...
If *I'd* submitted this story, I would of done it correctly.
(I swear, this shit's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me...)
> And I realize that it would be a rare occurence indeed for mankind to be wiped out at the end of a book
Read "The Forge of God" by Greg Bear sometime. I don't even like Bear, usually, but I found it pretty enjoyable.
> you guys hear the bell "RFID" and you can't help but start salivating.
:)
It's funny... as near as I can tell, RFID is just fancier barcodes. Despite being the kind of geek who refuses to buy Microsoft products, builds computers just to install free OSes on them, abhors the one-click patent, and in general finds himself responding to most of the causes that are espoused on Slashdot, I've never seen what the big friggin' deal is.
I'm sure someone will attempt to enlighten me now, though.
This thing might be what you're looking for -- it does have games, but making them work well is hardly the focus of the thing. Hell, it doesn't even have a web browser ;).
Perhaps because it's a PDA, not a real game system?
;).
I own one, it's got a wonderful screen, but a gaming machine it's not
True, but I think we are just about all in agreement that Lucas did much better work when he was forced to stay within the constraints of traditional film-making and special effects.
;).
Yes, but this is because he lacks the imagination to create both awesome visuals and a good story... seems like it's one or the other with Lucas
> If people don't have guns, they don't shoot people
:).
So what you're saying is, the law-abiding people who aren't apt to kill people anyway won't have guns, because it's illegal. But it's already against the law to shoot someone. If someone is already planning to break the law that way, why will they have any qualms about illegally buying weapons? Or stealing them? Or are there no guns anywhere in Australia and no black market by which they could be obtained? Sure, there are crimes of passion, and it can be argued that guns make such crimes easier, but the interesting thing is that people can kill quite efficiently without a firearm -- or a weapon of any kind, for that matter. There are no shortage of documented cases of crimes of passion involving pocketknives, tire irons, dishes and tableware, cars used as large projectiles, etc. The old cliche, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." -- true. We're pretty damned good at it when we want to be, too.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should all be running around waving our handguns in the air. We should, however, be permitted to do what we want as long as we're making reasonable efforts to ensure that our actions don't harm others.
The problem isn't really with guns; it's with the irresponsibility and an unwillingness to be held accountable for one's own actions that permeates modern Western society. Witness the lawsuit from the overweight guy who feels that the fast food companies are to blame for his obesity. There are mountains of evidence supporting the conclusion that Western society has real problems with self-responsibility (and this post would be prohibitively long if I went down that path very far). As such, some guidelines should be laid down regarding gun ownership. If you own a gun which is stolen and used to commit a crime, and you did not take reasonable precautions to safeguard it from theft, then you should be held partially responsible. Same thing goes if your neighbor's kid shoots his sister after finding your gun while they're over playing with your own kids.
I'd go so far as to say that perhaps a firearm-ownership license is a possible answer. Screw up -- let the neighbor's kid steal it or leave it in your car overnight only for it to be stolen -- and you lose that license (along with whatever other penalties are imposed). Safes should be required. Proof of ownership of a gun safe should be a prerequisite to licensing, and maybe proof of an appropriate separate storage area for ammunition. Make people accountable. Make pentalties for irresponsibility.
It's been said before (paraphrased): "If guns are illegal, only criminals will have them." There are genuine problems related to the mere existence, to say nothing of the abuse, of firearms; the same statement can be made for many, many other things. Automobiles. Cellular phones. The RIAA tries to connect possession to unlawful use all the time. The MPAA does the same thing. "There can't possibly be a legitimate reason for any person to own an MP3 player," is a good example of what these guys are preaching. Substitute "gun" for "MP3 player" now. Next, try this phrase: "Guns must be made illegal for the protection of..." Subsitute "MP3 players" back in. Of course the argument can be made that guns can be fatal far more easily than MP3 players can. The real crux of it all, then, is where you draw the line. At what point do we decide that the potential risks of something outweigh any potential for usefulness? Perhaps I'd rather the guys in charge err on the side of personal freedoms. You might disagree with me, but that's my viewpoint. Seems I'm turning Libertarian...
> Now, I also think that modchips being illegal is bullshit.
This we can agree on
Also worth noting that more modern versions of Pine can be found as a source-only package called, simply, "pine."
:).
apt-get source pine, dpkg-buildpackage
This won't revolutionize anything... I remember this when it was called timesharing on mainframes. The revolution was moving away from that model...
Eh, I don't know if the new "PCS Vision" or whatever plans have this option, but on my current old Sprint PCS plan I have a $5/mo option that lets me use my regular minutes (450 anytime/3500 night&weekend I think) for wireless web access. Quite a good deal, actually.
http://www.madhack.com/~madhack/shootme/
Now there's a telecom bill...
(yes, this is shameless self-promotion)
Don't get me wrong, OSX is neat, but you can run X on Windows too, along with a good number of unix utilities. The first thing I do when an employer sticks me on a Windows box or something is grab Cygwin... The underlying BSDness on the Mac is nice, but as far as "choice" goes... 'fraid I just can't award the point here.
...and buy in November. Not much of a conundrum, IMO :).
Right, 'cause people today have a real hard time getting over Pearl Harbor...
Let's face it, this is a generation that barely acknowledges that things like the Vietnam War or the rise of the Khmer Rouge took place. I don't think anyone under 55 is holding any grudges.
gpg: Signature made Fri Aug 2 17:43:11 2002 PDT using DSA key ID 517D0F0E
gpg: Good signature from "Linux Kernel Archives Verification Key "
Hmmmm... I mean, sure, I guess the ftpadmin key could've somehow been compromised, but the signature certainly seems fine...
Actually:
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.19.tar.bz2 ../kernel*2.4.19*.deb
:)
apt-get install kernel-soruce-2.4.19
tar xvjf
cd kernel-source-2.4.19
make menuconfig
make-kpkg --rootcmd=fakeroot buildpackage
sudo dpkg -i
Easy
> ...I can't be bother to weed through the wheat to get to the chaff any more.
:)
Don't you mean that the other way around? Or do you typically skip the good stuff and dive right in for the junk?
> I mean, it's not that they actually need root/admin or something. At least, not that I can think of... right?
:)
Right. As for bind, it's got port 53, it needs no such priveleges. Hence the -u and -g options.
Same goes for sendmail (I can't speak to other MTAs as I don't use any others) -- probably why modern (more recent than 8.9) versions support running as a nonprivileged users when such privileges are not needed, and in most installs these versions do precisely that. At least, all the installs I've done of anything since 8.11 have done it.
So, uh, what's your point?
> They cleverly avoid reference to any figure for submerge depth of the mother ship itself.
Here's a fancy idea: read the freaking page. Under the specs you'll see:
Operating Depth 305 meters
Just a smidge over 1000ft.
I've had one of these for a couple of months now, and it's not like I had to go to a lot of trouble to get it (walked into Best Buy and there it was)... really on the ball, aren't we? ;)
This thing's alright. Don't bother getting it for the TiVoish software -- it sucks. But it's a pretty good card overall, DVI output as well as svideo, RCAs, and maybe coax (not at home so this is off the top of my head). The RF remote is handy (especially the DVD player), though I'd like some sort of plugin to run Winamp or something since their media library software's pretty lame.
Oh, and if you don't have much hard drive bandwidth (like if that piece of garbage Win2k stops recognizing your drives as UDMA), the TV stuff is going to suck. A lot.
My Thinkpad hibernates...
Bah, it's "assholes", stupid TV edit...