Uh, they're little kids. They're going to step away from the ice cream truck without looking to see if you're coming whether they have a cellular phone or not. Are all your arguments as specious as this one? If you don't already assume that kids are going to throw themselves out from behind an ice cream truck in an attempt to commit suicide under your wheels, you shouldn't be allowed to ride in a car, let alone drive one.
I was going for the +1 Funny modifier. I think you need to take a step back from yourself and look at just how much more serious you are than you need to be.
On the other hand, if you're out driving, you can't be posting to slashdot...
You must not be familiar with the Samsung i730 (or any of the other dozens of internet enabled wireless phones).
Like my life on the road isn't hectic enough already with soccer moms in their SUVs changing lanes without looking because they are on the phone. Now I'm going to have to worry about running over little kids stepping away from the ice cream truck with their cellphones stuck to their heads.
It seems like the top three winners are working in the right direction. I setup a virtual machine at home (albeit using Virtual PC) after Symantec kept quarantining all of the fun tools that I wanted to work with. Virtual machines provide a great environment for setting up network tools that might otherwise not get along with applications and services running on a production server.
de_dust pwnz j00. Don't forget de_dawn for variety. =)
I stopped playing CS when America's Army came out. I was pretty good at CS and very often on the top of the list on pub servers. I got kicked all the time for "hacking". Eventually I quit because I got tired of getting shot through walls, got tired of grenades not killing people, and got tired of crazy Quake, jumping around / bunny hopping style of gameplay. America's Army was great for a while, but now that game has suffered the same scourge as every other FPS... aimbots and wallhacks.
I've read a lot of replies in this thread knocking the HP support by making comparisions with what sounds like (to me) their home support line. The technicans that you talk to when you call for support on a Proliant server are not the same guys you are going to talk to when you call with a problem on your Pavillion Media Center PC. HP has been supporting *nix for a long time now and I'm sure that they will do a good job with Debian. If their Debian SmartStart CD is anything like the Windows and Novell ones, then getting the OS up and running on a Proliant will be SIMPLE. Like another poster said, all the HP techs are going to be doing is helping you figure out why the OS and the hardware aren't getting along with each other. Based on past experience with HP, the only reason something wouldn't work is because of an actual hardware failure. I've never, ever had a problem with an HP driver on a production server.
The absolute worst part about raiding is how it tears the community apart. Unless you whore (whoring is the correct term since you effectivly is selling your body and soul) yourself out to a raiding guild, you will have no access whatsoever to the high end content. A pickup group of 5 people is workable. 10 people is possible, but tough. 25-40 people is impossible.
I purchased WoW last month because I wanted to see what all of the excitement is about. A few friends of mine are really into it and I thought that it would be fun to play with them. I bought a three month subscription with the intention of re-evaluating my desire to play at the end of that period.
From what I've learned so far, I don't plan on continuing after the three month point. I'm a casual gamer at this point in my life. Between work, my girlfriend and martial arts my time is spoken for. I like the questing aspect of WoW that I'm involved in right now. I can logon, quest for an hour or two and then go do something else. The whole concept of raiding is a huge turn-off. I talk to my friends about it and it isn't uncommon for them to spend 3+ hours in a single instance. That's ridiculous.
The thing that really turned me off to the whole game is when my buddy explained DKP to me. The concept of "earning points" by doing the same thing over and over and over again so that you can have the "privledge" of getting a certain piece of gear just sucks. I understand the system, and I understand the benefits. If you're willing to WHORE yourself to a group and by doing so help others succeed, then eventually you'll get some reward from it as well. I just don't have the time and patience to grind through the same thing again and again and again and again and again and agai..........
You came up with a different interpretation of PatchGuard than I did and I'm curious about which one of us is right. My understanding is that the AV vendors are whining because Microsoft is locking down the kernel and refusing to publish APIs or any documentation that will make it easy for third-party vendors to get at the kernel. PG is intended to sit between the kernel and the rest of the system. It will intercept any attempts to modify or interact with the kernel in non-approved ways. Microsoft decided to impliment this with the x64 version of Windows because vendors were going to have to re-write the drivers anyway.
The whole concept of add-on programs having access to kernel memory is so insecure that it has to go.
Isn't that what is happening? MS is denying add-on programs access to the kernel and the vendors who produce those add-on programs are whining about it?
Thanks for the heads up on the fonts. I'm all too familiar with the hell that comes from dealing with Macintosh fonts. (Oh, we don't actually use the font, we link to it. Blah.) Fonts are one of the few things that I can say SUCK about a Macintosh. (Lets keep multiple copies of the font all over the place. Display, type, print, application... ya, that's a good idea. And Mac guys complain about DLLs all over the place?) Luckily Adobe came up with OpenType fonts to address the cross-platform compatibility issues, and that's a good thing. The first time I tried to get PC and Mac Adobe products to play nice together was in 1996. Things have changed a lot since then.
Maybe you should have listened to your design guy, since he obviously knows at least the basics of working with layout files. You don't.
You're talking about the same design guy who doesn't know crap about why his files keep getting corrupted and I had to do the research into version queue to figure that one out for him. As I'm sure you know, InDesign doesn't always work so well in a networked environment.
We could go back and forth all day playing the, "Your computer sucks because..." game, but getting back to the point of the original post, a computer is a computer. If it's running Windows you are going to have to deal with a certain set of problems. If you're running MacOS, you're going to have to deal with another set of them. No matter what OS you're running, a failed hard drive is going to ruin your day. At the end of the day, the people who know how to deal with and work around the problems are the ones who are going to get the job done.
The discount comes more from the volume than it does from the non-profit status. InDesign definitely costs the same. We can get a desktop for ~$800 with enough RAM and a decent enough video card to fit the require of "Needing to open and review InDesign files." The MacBoy wanted the supah dupah G5 with all the bells and whistles.
I think the notion that you can spend $X on a PC vs. Mac and somehow come out way ahead on a PC is almost dead...
Almost, but not quite yet. If your requirements don't include desktop publishing or design work then spending the extra cash on a Mac is hard to justify. The average user simply doesn't need a G5 to open some word processing documents and check their email.
Apples are just another computer. They aren't as superior as the commercials lead you to believe.
You make a good point and I wanted to comment on it because I only belately came to the same conclusion a year or two ago. I've been working with computers in networked environments for over a decade at this point. In that time I've realized that the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is the integrity of the data. It doesn't matter what technology you use to access it, or update it, or create it with. When you get right down to it, you want your data to be there and you rely on the availability of it. When it comes to functionality, the computers all do more or less the same thing but they do it in slightly different ways. Apple vs PC is just a preference.
[Tangent]One of the designers upstairs just threw a temper tantrum because we wouldn't spend $8,000 to get a new employee a Mac with all of the software necessary to view the InDesign files. His only justification for "needing" a Mac was that design uses Macs to work with InDesign and therefore the new editor should have a Mac too. We bought a PC with a PC version of InDesign, plus the OS and Office suite software and spent less than $3,000 to do it. The editor can do their job, the designers can do their jobs, they can share files, and a Whiney Mac Boy is still whining because a PC can do something that he "needs" a Mac to do, AND it can do it for less. (Granted, we have a non-profit cost Volume License agreement with Microsoft and pay SIGNIFICANTLY less than retail)[/Tangent]
Until the wireless companies sort out the problems with the wireless devices, I will stay wired at home. The problems that I've run into are somewhat minor, unless you're playing video games. The keyboard will miss inputs and the mouse will lag for a second or two at a time. If all you're doing is browsing around the internet or whatever then having to give the mouse a shake to wake it up isn't such a big deal.
Having to press a key more than once on the keyboard is just frustrating. If you touch type, or you're working on a paper where you're transcribing from a book onto the computer and not even looking at the monitor, then missed keystrokes get to be a huge PITA.
Being able to completely control your surroundings, as you can't in real life? What is it about a videogame like WoW or Everquest that sucks people in so completely that it makes them ignore friends, family, and real life?
I think, as someone who's not an addict, I'll never really understand it.
Like a lot of other people in this thread, I have some friends who are addicted to WoW. I picked it up about a month ago and have been playing it when I have time. It has been my experience that the people who get really into the online games are the kind of people who never adjusted to the "real world". They were the kids who were always playing pretend.
Friends and family and real life put demands on you. Your friends expect a certain level of attention. If you have a girlfriend / boyfriend, they expect even more of your attention. The game doesn't place any expectations on you. Anyone you meet in the game wants to do the exact same thing that you want to do (play the game). The game is predictable. The game doesn't have a bad day. The game doesn't change it's mind and what to do something different than what you planned to do with it. The game is a comfortable place and a predictable place... very much unlike real life. Some people enjoy the variety of life. Others get completely creeped out and unsettled by it.
Another addictive aspect is the competition aspect, and the achivement aspect. When a person works a crappy job and doesn't have many social skills or any drive to make their life better, they can find their fix online. They can go beat up that boss monster and get the good gear that few other people. They can go PvP other people and be superior to them. They can set goals for themselves, and get the good feeling of accomplishing those goals. My buddy who is addicted to WoW wants to get to Rank 10 right now, so he spends his days grinding away, grinding away to get to Rank 10. Next he'll decide that he wants some piece of gear, and he'll go after that until he has it. His brain obviously has the wiring to become dedicated to achieving a result. He just set his goals low in life. He doesn't need a million dollars, or a hot girlfriend, or a fast car. He's happy with his computer, and in some ways, I have to admit that I kind of envy him for being able to be so happy and so content with such simplistic entertainment.
I have an addictive personality and ADD. I had to think long and hard about whether or not I wanted to play WoW, and I eventually decided that I had to set some boundries on it. I set up priorities in my life, and I only allow myself to play WoW after; the house is clean, my work is done, I've made sure my g/f doesn't have anything else that she REALLY wants to do, and I've practiced my kung fu for at least an hour.
...if it weren't so easy to pirate games, there indeed would be more people who bought them.
It has been a long time since I swapped the no-day, but from what I remember, about 90% of the releases just flat out sucked. They sucked so bad that even though I had them on my hard drive I never played them. And when I did bother to install them, I wondered why I wasted my time. If I had bought them, I would have been mad about wasted time and money and would have never bought another game from that developer ever again.
I looked at piracy as "Try before you buy." I actually spent money on games that I really liked because I wanted to support the developers, and I liked the packaging, manuals, etc. In the end, it didn't matter though because EA bought out all of my favorite developers whose games I really did legally purchase and made them the sux0rz. =/
Don't I read this exact same article following every one of Steve Jobs' keynote speeches?
Yes. And I read something to the effect of, "Apple to unveil supah sekrit only rumored about new SpiffyTech (tm) at next conference." preceeding every keynote speech.
I'm not. I'm implying that there's a time and place for 'net use, and that's not (always) in the classroom. The library, computer courses, at home for research, but we don't need more distractions in class. (And a *good* teacher will keep the class's attention.)
I think that I understand where you are coming from. The idea of letting a few students use a computer during class time creates a distraction for the rest of the class. However I think that every classroom should have a computer and every teacher should know enough about the computer to use it as a tool. The teachers should know how to search Google and other topic specific sites for information that they can share with the class. They should demonstrate the kind of skills and abilities with the computers that their students will benefit from when the students reproduce those skills in the appropriate venues (library, computer courses, home, etc).
There are plenty of ways to crash IE with malformed HTML.
What's with this argument?
How about... There are many ways to break a car by putting sugar in the gastank. There are plenty of ways to rip a groin muscle by not stretching properly. There are plenty of....
Of course things won't work if you purposefully do them incorrectly.
No better way to convince someone that IE is broken than to break it right in front of them...
There's no better way to look like someone who can't code than by generating code that doesn't work right.
(Personally, I think that the 'net doesn't need to be in classrooms anyway. I went to HS from 1993 to 1997 and survived just fine without going online in school.)
You mentioned that you didn't go online in school. What about at home? I graduated from high school in 1996 and the internet, in addition to some local BBS', were a great source of information and... TERM PAPERS. Sites like Altavista made doing research a breeze. While the rest of my peers were in the libraries and at the universities, I was able to access about 75% of the same stuff with my blazing fast SLIP connection. =)~ Access to the internet definitely improved the paper writing process.
Why would you implicitly deny access to the internet to students with a statement like the one you made?
Now granted there are always kids who are going to do something besides what they should do at school... be it "misusing" a computer by going to MySpace, or by "misusing" a pencil by having a pencil fight with it. Maybe pencils don't need to be in classrooms either.
I have been saying this for a while and I'm glad that the executives in charge of things are one the same wavelength. The computer underground is full of brilliant people with the knowledge that will make products better. Microsoft doesn't even need to put people on the payroll. They can simply pay them as consultants. It's a great situation for everyone involved. Microsoft gets knowledge that the typical programmer who has gone the legit route through college and computer science will not have. The black hats get paid for their fresh sk33lz and the rest of the world gets a better, more secure product.
I can say that Symantec Corporate Antivirus works great, is centrally managed, and does what it is supposed to and no more.
I would have agreed with you... until Symantec wiped out VNC earlier this week because the latest patterns have determined that it is a "Remote Access Trojan".
Have them send you to BlackHat. You might as well learn some cool stuff. In addition to the bookshelf full of O'Reilly books that another poster mentioned, I found Linux Network Servers 24/7 to be a helpful book. Although it was centered on RedHat it did a good job of focusing on the setup of all the typical components that you'd want to run on a Linux server in a networked environment.
Actually 130 is on the low end, bordering right on unhealthy. You can have 'smokin hot' women. I've had enough of them to know that they aren't worth the drama, and keeping up with their whims. By smoking hot I'm sure you mean 10:10 on the physical scale. Good for you buddy. I'm sure you make a lot of money, and that's what most women like that want. I'm not trying to work to support someone else's lifestyle.
Slashdot Mirror
I was going for the +1 Funny modifier. I think you need to take a step back from yourself and look at just how much more serious you are than you need to be.
On the other hand, if you're out driving, you can't be posting to slashdot...
You must not be familiar with the Samsung i730 (or any of the other dozens of internet enabled wireless phones).
Like my life on the road isn't hectic enough already with soccer moms in their SUVs changing lanes without looking because they are on the phone. Now I'm going to have to worry about running over little kids stepping away from the ice cream truck with their cellphones stuck to their heads.
Mod this up. Definitely more insightful than the parent it was attached to.
It seems like the top three winners are working in the right direction. I setup a virtual machine at home (albeit using Virtual PC) after Symantec kept quarantining all of the fun tools that I wanted to work with. Virtual machines provide a great environment for setting up network tools that might otherwise not get along with applications and services running on a production server.
I stopped playing CS when America's Army came out. I was pretty good at CS and very often on the top of the list on pub servers. I got kicked all the time for "hacking". Eventually I quit because I got tired of getting shot through walls, got tired of grenades not killing people, and got tired of crazy Quake, jumping around / bunny hopping style of gameplay. America's Army was great for a while, but now that game has suffered the same scourge as every other FPS... aimbots and wallhacks.
..and Syndicate. Fuckers!!!!!!
I've read a lot of replies in this thread knocking the HP support by making comparisions with what sounds like (to me) their home support line. The technicans that you talk to when you call for support on a Proliant server are not the same guys you are going to talk to when you call with a problem on your Pavillion Media Center PC. HP has been supporting *nix for a long time now and I'm sure that they will do a good job with Debian. If their Debian SmartStart CD is anything like the Windows and Novell ones, then getting the OS up and running on a Proliant will be SIMPLE. Like another poster said, all the HP techs are going to be doing is helping you figure out why the OS and the hardware aren't getting along with each other. Based on past experience with HP, the only reason something wouldn't work is because of an actual hardware failure. I've never, ever had a problem with an HP driver on a production server.
I purchased WoW last month because I wanted to see what all of the excitement is about. A few friends of mine are really into it and I thought that it would be fun to play with them. I bought a three month subscription with the intention of re-evaluating my desire to play at the end of that period.
From what I've learned so far, I don't plan on continuing after the three month point. I'm a casual gamer at this point in my life. Between work, my girlfriend and martial arts my time is spoken for. I like the questing aspect of WoW that I'm involved in right now. I can logon, quest for an hour or two and then go do something else. The whole concept of raiding is a huge turn-off. I talk to my friends about it and it isn't uncommon for them to spend 3+ hours in a single instance. That's ridiculous.
The thing that really turned me off to the whole game is when my buddy explained DKP to me. The concept of "earning points" by doing the same thing over and over and over again so that you can have the "privledge" of getting a certain piece of gear just sucks. I understand the system, and I understand the benefits. If you're willing to WHORE yourself to a group and by doing so help others succeed, then eventually you'll get some reward from it as well. I just don't have the time and patience to grind through the same thing again and again and again and again and again and agai..........
The whole concept of add-on programs having access to kernel memory is so insecure that it has to go.
Isn't that what is happening? MS is denying add-on programs access to the kernel and the vendors who produce those add-on programs are whining about it?
Maybe you should have listened to your design guy, since he obviously knows at least the basics of working with layout files. You don't.
You're talking about the same design guy who doesn't know crap about why his files keep getting corrupted and I had to do the research into version queue to figure that one out for him. As I'm sure you know, InDesign doesn't always work so well in a networked environment.
We could go back and forth all day playing the, "Your computer sucks because..." game, but getting back to the point of the original post, a computer is a computer. If it's running Windows you are going to have to deal with a certain set of problems. If you're running MacOS, you're going to have to deal with another set of them. No matter what OS you're running, a failed hard drive is going to ruin your day. At the end of the day, the people who know how to deal with and work around the problems are the ones who are going to get the job done.
I think the notion that you can spend $X on a PC vs. Mac and somehow come out way ahead on a PC is almost dead...
Almost, but not quite yet. If your requirements don't include desktop publishing or design work then spending the extra cash on a Mac is hard to justify. The average user simply doesn't need a G5 to open some word processing documents and check their email.
You make a good point and I wanted to comment on it because I only belately came to the same conclusion a year or two ago. I've been working with computers in networked environments for over a decade at this point. In that time I've realized that the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is the integrity of the data. It doesn't matter what technology you use to access it, or update it, or create it with. When you get right down to it, you want your data to be there and you rely on the availability of it. When it comes to functionality, the computers all do more or less the same thing but they do it in slightly different ways. Apple vs PC is just a preference.
[Tangent]One of the designers upstairs just threw a temper tantrum because we wouldn't spend $8,000 to get a new employee a Mac with all of the software necessary to view the InDesign files. His only justification for "needing" a Mac was that design uses Macs to work with InDesign and therefore the new editor should have a Mac too. We bought a PC with a PC version of InDesign, plus the OS and Office suite software and spent less than $3,000 to do it. The editor can do their job, the designers can do their jobs, they can share files, and a Whiney Mac Boy is still whining because a PC can do something that he "needs" a Mac to do, AND it can do it for less. (Granted, we have a non-profit cost Volume License agreement with Microsoft and pay SIGNIFICANTLY less than retail)[/Tangent]
Having to press a key more than once on the keyboard is just frustrating. If you touch type, or you're working on a paper where you're transcribing from a book onto the computer and not even looking at the monitor, then missed keystrokes get to be a huge PITA.
I think, as someone who's not an addict, I'll never really understand it.
Like a lot of other people in this thread, I have some friends who are addicted to WoW. I picked it up about a month ago and have been playing it when I have time. It has been my experience that the people who get really into the online games are the kind of people who never adjusted to the "real world". They were the kids who were always playing pretend.
Friends and family and real life put demands on you. Your friends expect a certain level of attention. If you have a girlfriend / boyfriend, they expect even more of your attention. The game doesn't place any expectations on you. Anyone you meet in the game wants to do the exact same thing that you want to do (play the game). The game is predictable. The game doesn't have a bad day. The game doesn't change it's mind and what to do something different than what you planned to do with it. The game is a comfortable place and a predictable place... very much unlike real life. Some people enjoy the variety of life. Others get completely creeped out and unsettled by it.
Another addictive aspect is the competition aspect, and the achivement aspect. When a person works a crappy job and doesn't have many social skills or any drive to make their life better, they can find their fix online. They can go beat up that boss monster and get the good gear that few other people. They can go PvP other people and be superior to them. They can set goals for themselves, and get the good feeling of accomplishing those goals. My buddy who is addicted to WoW wants to get to Rank 10 right now, so he spends his days grinding away, grinding away to get to Rank 10. Next he'll decide that he wants some piece of gear, and he'll go after that until he has it. His brain obviously has the wiring to become dedicated to achieving a result. He just set his goals low in life. He doesn't need a million dollars, or a hot girlfriend, or a fast car. He's happy with his computer, and in some ways, I have to admit that I kind of envy him for being able to be so happy and so content with such simplistic entertainment.
I have an addictive personality and ADD. I had to think long and hard about whether or not I wanted to play WoW, and I eventually decided that I had to set some boundries on it. I set up priorities in my life, and I only allow myself to play WoW after; the house is clean, my work is done, I've made sure my g/f doesn't have anything else that she REALLY wants to do, and I've practiced my kung fu for at least an hour.
It has been a long time since I swapped the no-day, but from what I remember, about 90% of the releases just flat out sucked. They sucked so bad that even though I had them on my hard drive I never played them. And when I did bother to install them, I wondered why I wasted my time. If I had bought them, I would have been mad about wasted time and money and would have never bought another game from that developer ever again.
I looked at piracy as "Try before you buy." I actually spent money on games that I really liked because I wanted to support the developers, and I liked the packaging, manuals, etc. In the end, it didn't matter though because EA bought out all of my favorite developers whose games I really did legally purchase and made them the sux0rz. =/
Yes. And I read something to the effect of, "Apple to unveil supah sekrit only rumored about new SpiffyTech (tm) at next conference." preceeding every keynote speech.
I think that I understand where you are coming from. The idea of letting a few students use a computer during class time creates a distraction for the rest of the class. However I think that every classroom should have a computer and every teacher should know enough about the computer to use it as a tool. The teachers should know how to search Google and other topic specific sites for information that they can share with the class. They should demonstrate the kind of skills and abilities with the computers that their students will benefit from when the students reproduce those skills in the appropriate venues (library, computer courses, home, etc).
What's with this argument?
How about... There are many ways to break a car by putting sugar in the gastank. There are plenty of ways to rip a groin muscle by not stretching properly. There are plenty of....
Of course things won't work if you purposefully do them incorrectly.
No better way to convince someone that IE is broken than to break it right in front of them...
There's no better way to look like someone who can't code than by generating code that doesn't work right.
You mentioned that you didn't go online in school. What about at home? I graduated from high school in 1996 and the internet, in addition to some local BBS', were a great source of information and... TERM PAPERS. Sites like Altavista made doing research a breeze. While the rest of my peers were in the libraries and at the universities, I was able to access about 75% of the same stuff with my blazing fast SLIP connection. =)~ Access to the internet definitely improved the paper writing process.
Why would you implicitly deny access to the internet to students with a statement like the one you made?
Now granted there are always kids who are going to do something besides what they should do at school... be it "misusing" a computer by going to MySpace, or by "misusing" a pencil by having a pencil fight with it. Maybe pencils don't need to be in classrooms either.
I was swapping the 0-day at 2400 baud. I think that I'm entitled to a regression to l4m3n3ss phr0m tym3 t3w tym3. =)~
I have been saying this for a while and I'm glad that the executives in charge of things are one the same wavelength. The computer underground is full of brilliant people with the knowledge that will make products better. Microsoft doesn't even need to put people on the payroll. They can simply pay them as consultants. It's a great situation for everyone involved. Microsoft gets knowledge that the typical programmer who has gone the legit route through college and computer science will not have. The black hats get paid for their fresh sk33lz and the rest of the world gets a better, more secure product.
I would have agreed with you... until Symantec wiped out VNC earlier this week because the latest patterns have determined that it is a "Remote Access Trojan".
Have them send you to BlackHat. You might as well learn some cool stuff. In addition to the bookshelf full of O'Reilly books that another poster mentioned, I found Linux Network Servers 24/7 to be a helpful book. Although it was centered on RedHat it did a good job of focusing on the setup of all the typical components that you'd want to run on a Linux server in a networked environment.
Actually 130 is on the low end, bordering right on unhealthy. You can have 'smokin hot' women. I've had enough of them to know that they aren't worth the drama, and keeping up with their whims. By smoking hot I'm sure you mean 10:10 on the physical scale. Good for you buddy. I'm sure you make a lot of money, and that's what most women like that want. I'm not trying to work to support someone else's lifestyle.
Have fun with your coffee, tweak and whiney, strung out emo girls.