Even if you sit to #1, you still have to aim, silly. It isn't a hands-free endeavour!
When you turn on a firehose attached to a dinghy it will fly out of control.
When you turn on a firehose attached to a barge it generally doesn't affect the direction of the barge.
Back in the days of yore (199something), I remember some technology show (C|Net or something), showing off some bulletproof plastic that was gone over with a blowtorch, hit with AK-47s, Axes, Bazookas, etc, for a few minutes (one piece through it all), and eventually 20 minutes (or an hour, or "some non-immediate length of time") later, they eventually got a 15" hole in it through sustained torching while hitting it with an axe.
I remember this, too. Unfortunantely I also have forgotten many of the details. IIRC, this was proposed as a riot-proof window, made of a special plastic that could endure an insane amount of punishment. I believe the video was from a test done by a SWAT team because the company manufacturing the products wanted to sell their windows to some division of the government.
The guys attempting to trash the window only got a large slit into the window, and while the company had deemed the windows "indestructable", they still got a passing grade because the slit in the window was not large enough to get in (or out of). They threw everything at the window, from rocks, bottles, to all sorts of heavy weaponry, and still only a slit (and the window was no longer clear.)
Something that stood out to me was how the window absorbed bullets. Rather than bouncing off (and possibly hurting others) the bullets would actually stick into the plastic, and remain there.
Yeah, that's fair. Compare Opera, four years ago, to Firefox, today.
Fair? Sure, why not? What else do I have to judge a company by other than its past. If Opera, 4 years ago, couldn't handle my internet needs, 4 years ago, why should I assume that today's Opera can handle my internet needs today?
The answer to that question is "These posts." These recent posts by/. readers have poked at my curiosity. I liked Opera. When it worked, it was the best browser. However it had issues that caused it to freeze-up and/or crash too often for me. I eventualy found an alternate and used that. Though I am now experiencing the same problems with Firefox that I did with Opera so many years ago, and it's time to find an alternate to Firefox.
i use opera as my primary browser, and haven't had it crash on any flashes ever, although getting shockwave to work appears to be hard
I will be the first to admit that I am far less geeky than the average/. user, and I have to ask.... What's the difference between flash and shockwave? I've almost always head the two terms used together a la "Shockwave flash!" Sometimes with "Macromedia" attached at the beginning.
Perhaps my old Opera woes were from macromedia and not flash. Though now I'm assuming and I don't like that.
Also, do you know how well does Opera works on YouTube & Google Videos? Those are two of my favourite places on the internet. Chances are I'd stop using Opera if it doesn't work on as little as 10% of those videos.
I guess it is the time now for people to look into Opera
The last time I seriously used Opera, about 3-4 years ago, it crashed on over two thirds of the flash programs I tried to run. You know the little waste-of-time games people made back then. Now with flash being used for a lot more than just waste-of-time games, I am wary to even think about Opera.
Do you use Opera as your primary browser? And how well does it handle flash applications now?
but I don't want to spend 5 minutes searching for everything "new" in *nix, because, well, EVERYTHING is new to me!
Right. And when your old Dodge gives up, you go to the shop and it goes like this:
You: "I want to buy a car!"
Car dealer: "Very well, sir. What kind of car?"
You: "I don't know, just some car. I had a dodge and it's no good anymore, so I want a new car."
Car dealer: "Ok. A diesel or gasoline?"
You: "I don't know, just some car."
Car dealer: "Erm... look, we have a nice Honda here. Has ABS, ESC...
You: "Crap! I've no idea what you talk about! Can't you just sell me a car?" ...
I understand why you made this analogy, but you aren't selling me a car. A car is something that I have to make payments on. A car is something that once I get in, and drive somewhere, I must drive home. Linux is basically free. And if I fire up my computer, boot to Linux, and start to chat with friends there is nothing preventing me from hopping back into my Windows OS to finish the chat. I can very easily just reboot into Windows at any time. If I drive my car somewhere, I can't just hop into my old car and drive home. This is where the car analogy doesn't work.
If I were a sysadmin this would be completely different. Sysadmins NEED to do this type of research. I, however, am just a regular user who just wants to use my computer my day-to-day things. Chatting with friends, browsing the web, laughing at people on YouTube, postin on internet forums, etc.
Or are you saying that I need to do hours and hours of research before I can chat with my friends using Linux? Because if that's the case, Linux is not ready for the "average user."
I learned Windows by using it and reading the help files and webpages that provided me with information on Windows. I prefer to learn about what I can do with Linux while running Linux.
If you like to tinker (which it sounds like you do), I recommend Kubuntu over Ubuntu because KDE is more for people who like to change things while GNOME is for people who just want to "consume" their computer without changing a single damn setting.
Of course, it's completely based on personal preference, so give 'em both a try (before choosing which one to install).
I have no idea what you just said.:)
And this is the part of *nix that has always scared me.:(
I don't know what GNOME or KDE means. I don't know if they're acronyms or abbreviations or what. I'm sure 5 minutes on Google can help me, but I don't want to spend 5 minutes searching for everything "new" in *nix, because, well, EVERYTHING is new to me! If I were to spend 5 minutes on each new *nix term I heard, I would end up spending the better part of a weekend just learning. That's not what I want to do with my weekend.
Your comments, jZnat, look like they're trying to be helpful, but things like this are where people like me get worried and/or scared. I totally understand there will be a learning curve; I expect there to be one. However, I've only just decided to install, and already I'm worried I'm going to do something wrong.
I live alone and I don't have an in-house geek to default to when things go wrong, nor will there be anyone to 'fix' anything I do wrong. Granted, I have a legit copy of Windows 2k Pro (yes, I bought it) which I've reinstalled countless times before, and nothing on my hard drive is irreplacable, so the worst case scenario is a clean Win2kPro install.
Let me sum it up as best I can: I'm wary because you just gave me an option and I don't know of the reprocussions to choosing one over the other.
Regardless, I put my contact info into my bio, and will leave it there for a day or two, so if anyone wishes to contact me they can. Wish me luck.:)
"I think Ubuntu Linux is definitely ready for almost anyone with a Windows system who is tired of havig their computer infested with spyware and viruses. It is also a way to avoid Microsoft's "activation" demands. It's free! It's good! It works!"
I could be considered a "clueless newbie" when it comes to *nix. Sure I know how to ls, I know what grep does, I understand what man is, and I've even heard of chmod and used a bit of vi ! But that's about where my knowledge stops. I imagine that a lot of other "average users" are very much like me, or worse, have less knowledge than me. No, I'm pretty sure the "average user" has less knowledge of computers than me; I've been configuring home NT networks since the first release of NT4.0 in the mid 90s. Even with this knowledge and experience *nix has always scared me.
I've only ever used DOS and Windows my whole life, but after reading this article I feel comfortable to give UBUNTU a shot. And I like that.
Anybody know of any usefull tools to completely wipe the contents of a drive?
A Magnetic Bulk Eraser is a device commonly used by those in commercial radio to "format" audio tapes. My knowledge is somewhat limited, but I believe it works by generating a strong electro-magnetic pulse that alternates back and forth rapidly. Keep your credit cards clear of these machines!
It works on video tapes as well. One video tape I remember had been recored over many times, yet still had a fuzzy image of the original recoring. We applied the video tape to the bulk eraser, and reinserted it into the VCR only to observe the lack of anything noteable.
I bet this would be an effective tool for wiping every last piece of data clean from a hard drive too, though I have never tried.
That is a refrence to a soundclip of a nazi raid leader that was released and became popular. Many of the battles in WoW are fairly technical, meaning you do more than shoot the gun, swing the axe, or cast the spell. Coordinating 39 other people to move to the right place at the right time, or even asking the other 39 people to stop attacking doesn't always end up with the end result you'd like. This can be very frustrating. The nazi raid leader brings this to a whole new level.
The original soundclip is from the battle with Onyxia where you have to move around quite a bit more than most fights, depending on how the dragon is reacting. The nazi raid leader is SCREAMING about how people are "Staning in the wrong fucking place" while calling for "More DOTs! More DOTs now!" and spouting "I want you to DPS very fucking slowly." You can hear the veins poping out of his forhead when he screams.
Onyxia = a large dragon that can be assaulted with up to 40 players
DOT = Damage Over Time ability
DPS = Damage Per Second
But the real charmer is when he screams "That's a 50 DKP minus!" Various sound boards, music mixed in, etc. have spawned off this "That's a 50 DKP minus!" bit. It's quite amusing, even if you only a casual WoW raider.
DKP = Dragon Killing Points, a system to keep track of individual participation vs rewards netted.
Think of it as the "All Your Base" of World of Warcraft.
The best thing about BC is the 25 man raid cap for instances. More casual guilds on lower population servers will finally have a chance to do more than ZG.
This is a common misconception. Blizzard won't be capping instances at 25 man. They have said that they will only create new content that will be capped at 25 persons... That is, until the 2% of the populations that are very vocal forum whores and throw a temper-tantrum whine scream and cry about how much they miss and need more 40 man instances.
Remeber, Nax, AQ, and ZQ weren't in the game initially. Blizzard has added new instances already, and I am sure that they will add new instances in the BC. Who's to say those won't be 40 man instances?
Misspelt? That could easily have been a key transposition.
Now, the time on IRC I ran into a guy who claimed he was a "ginocologist", that's "embarassingly misspelt".
Yes, but do you remember what you get to do with the dehydrated water? (And by get, I mean have to do with it to continue.)
You toss the dehydrated water into the mouth of the first big scary alien monsters you meet up with. The dehydrated water gets into his/her/its stomach and expands, causing the beast to explode and die. (Because everybody knows that dehydrated water takes up much much less space than regular water!)
Space Quest was one of my favourite games when I was a kid.
I was told by AT&T that they didn't cover that area... I was told that it would be $500 to break the contract, when I inquired how fair that was when they couldn't provide the services anymore - their responce back was literally "AT&T didn't tell you to move, sir."
That sounds more like negligence in your part than any screwy billing or customer service. You are responsible to any contracts you sign and/or agree to. If it is fair or not does not matter. If it is legal or not does. While I have no knowledge about the contract you signed and/or agreed to, I will side with AT&T, given the information above.
I work retail, in a very heavy customer service industry, and I agree that the phrase "AT&T didn't tell you to move" is a little rude. However, given your attitude on the subject I can safely assume that this was after you had already talked to and been rude to customer service when they told you this.
My advice to you would to see if you can downgrade your service to the minimum available without breaking your contract. Hopefully only something like $5 / month, and then request to pay the balance in full to complete your contract. Perhaps you are only stuck for 10 more months, and can get out at under $100 rather than $500.
they've done exactly what in the last five years that's significantly better than their competitors?
According to Google ads, there are thousands of local women who want to meet me NOW! That is significantly better than anyone else has ever done for me in the past.
Briliant analogy there - morally equating the violence of rape with kids giving each other copies of sound
I believe the GP's message was more along the lines of, "What is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular," not equating rape to copyright infringment.
Slashdot Mirror
When you turn on a firehose attached to a dinghy it will fly out of control.
When you turn on a firehose attached to a barge it generally doesn't affect the direction of the barge.
Just sayin'.
I remember this, too. Unfortunantely I also have forgotten many of the details. IIRC, this was proposed as a riot-proof window, made of a special plastic that could endure an insane amount of punishment. I believe the video was from a test done by a SWAT team because the company manufacturing the products wanted to sell their windows to some division of the government.
The guys attempting to trash the window only got a large slit into the window, and while the company had deemed the windows "indestructable", they still got a passing grade because the slit in the window was not large enough to get in (or out of). They threw everything at the window, from rocks, bottles, to all sorts of heavy weaponry, and still only a slit (and the window was no longer clear.)
Something that stood out to me was how the window absorbed bullets. Rather than bouncing off (and possibly hurting others) the bullets would actually stick into the plastic, and remain there.
Does anyone else remember this?
Fair? Sure, why not? What else do I have to judge a company by other than its past. If Opera, 4 years ago, couldn't handle my internet needs, 4 years ago, why should I assume that today's Opera can handle my internet needs today?
The answer to that question is "These posts." These recent posts by
I will be the first to admit that I am far less geeky than the average
Perhaps my old Opera woes were from macromedia and not flash. Though now I'm assuming and I don't like that.
Also, do you know how well does Opera works on YouTube & Google Videos? Those are two of my favourite places on the internet. Chances are I'd stop using Opera if it doesn't work on as little as 10% of those videos.
The last time I seriously used Opera, about 3-4 years ago, it crashed on over two thirds of the flash programs I tried to run. You know the little waste-of-time games people made back then. Now with flash being used for a lot more than just waste-of-time games, I am wary to even think about Opera.
Do you use Opera as your primary browser? And how well does it handle flash applications now?
Right. And when your old Dodge gives up, you go to the shop and it goes like this:
You: "I want to buy a car!"
Car dealer: "Very well, sir. What kind of car?"
You: "I don't know, just some car. I had a dodge and it's no good anymore, so I want a new car."
Car dealer: "Ok. A diesel or gasoline?"
You: "I don't know, just some car."
Car dealer: "Erm
You: "Crap! I've no idea what you talk about! Can't you just sell me a car?"
I understand why you made this analogy, but you aren't selling me a car. A car is something that I have to make payments on. A car is something that once I get in, and drive somewhere, I must drive home. Linux is basically free. And if I fire up my computer, boot to Linux, and start to chat with friends there is nothing preventing me from hopping back into my Windows OS to finish the chat. I can very easily just reboot into Windows at any time. If I drive my car somewhere, I can't just hop into my old car and drive home. This is where the car analogy doesn't work.
If I were a sysadmin this would be completely different. Sysadmins NEED to do this type of research. I, however, am just a regular user who just wants to use my computer my day-to-day things. Chatting with friends, browsing the web, laughing at people on YouTube, postin on internet forums, etc.
Or are you saying that I need to do hours and hours of research before I can chat with my friends using Linux? Because if that's the case, Linux is not ready for the "average user."
I learned Windows by using it and reading the help files and webpages that provided me with information on Windows. I prefer to learn about what I can do with Linux while running Linux.
I have no idea what you just said.
And this is the part of *nix that has always scared me.
I don't know what GNOME or KDE means. I don't know if they're acronyms or abbreviations or what. I'm sure 5 minutes on Google can help me, but I don't want to spend 5 minutes searching for everything "new" in *nix, because, well, EVERYTHING is new to me! If I were to spend 5 minutes on each new *nix term I heard, I would end up spending the better part of a weekend just learning. That's not what I want to do with my weekend.
Your comments, jZnat, look like they're trying to be helpful, but things like this are where people like me get worried and/or scared. I totally understand there will be a learning curve; I expect there to be one. However, I've only just decided to install, and already I'm worried I'm going to do something wrong.
I live alone and I don't have an in-house geek to default to when things go wrong, nor will there be anyone to 'fix' anything I do wrong. Granted, I have a legit copy of Windows 2k Pro (yes, I bought it) which I've reinstalled countless times before, and nothing on my hard drive is irreplacable, so the worst case scenario is a clean Win2kPro install.
Let me sum it up as best I can: I'm wary because you just gave me an option and I don't know of the reprocussions to choosing one over the other.
Regardless, I put my contact info into my bio, and will leave it there for a day or two, so if anyone wishes to contact me they can. Wish me luck.
I could be considered a "clueless newbie" when it comes to *nix. Sure I know how to ls, I know what grep does, I understand what man is, and I've even heard of chmod and used a bit of vi ! But that's about where my knowledge stops. I imagine that a lot of other "average users" are very much like me, or worse, have less knowledge than me. No, I'm pretty sure the "average user" has less knowledge of computers than me; I've been configuring home NT networks since the first release of NT4.0 in the mid 90s. Even with this knowledge and experience *nix has always scared me.
I've only ever used DOS and Windows my whole life, but after reading this article I feel comfortable to give UBUNTU a shot. And I like that.
A Magnetic Bulk Eraser is a device commonly used by those in commercial radio to "format" audio tapes. My knowledge is somewhat limited, but I believe it works by generating a strong electro-magnetic pulse that alternates back and forth rapidly. Keep your credit cards clear of these machines!
It works on video tapes as well. One video tape I remember had been recored over many times, yet still had a fuzzy image of the original recoring. We applied the video tape to the bulk eraser, and reinserted it into the VCR only to observe the lack of anything noteable.
I bet this would be an effective tool for wiping every last piece of data clean from a hard drive too, though I have never tried.
That is a refrence to a soundclip of a nazi raid leader that was released and became popular. Many of the battles in WoW are fairly technical, meaning you do more than shoot the gun, swing the axe, or cast the spell. Coordinating 39 other people to move to the right place at the right time, or even asking the other 39 people to stop attacking doesn't always end up with the end result you'd like. This can be very frustrating. The nazi raid leader brings this to a whole new level.
The original soundclip is from the battle with Onyxia where you have to move around quite a bit more than most fights, depending on how the dragon is reacting. The nazi raid leader is SCREAMING about how people are "Staning in the wrong fucking place" while calling for "More DOTs! More DOTs now!" and spouting "I want you to DPS very fucking slowly." You can hear the veins poping out of his forhead when he screams.
Onyxia = a large dragon that can be assaulted with up to 40 players
DOT = Damage Over Time ability
DPS = Damage Per Second
But the real charmer is when he screams "That's a 50 DKP minus!" Various sound boards, music mixed in, etc. have spawned off this "That's a 50 DKP minus!" bit. It's quite amusing, even if you only a casual WoW raider.
DKP = Dragon Killing Points, a system to keep track of individual participation vs rewards netted.
Think of it as the "All Your Base" of World of Warcraft.
WoW; can anything be more addicting?
This is a common misconception. Blizzard won't be capping instances at 25 man. They have said that they will only create new content that will be capped at 25 persons... That is, until the 2% of the populations that are very vocal forum whores and throw a temper-tantrum whine scream and cry about how much they miss and need more 40 man instances.
Remeber, Nax, AQ, and ZQ weren't in the game initially. Blizzard has added new instances already, and I am sure that they will add new instances in the BC. Who's to say those won't be 40 man instances?
Perhaps he really likes his pizza.
Yes, but do you remember what you get to do with the dehydrated water? (And by get, I mean have to do with it to continue.) You toss the dehydrated water into the mouth of the first big scary alien monsters you meet up with. The dehydrated water gets into his/her/its stomach and expands, causing the beast to explode and die. (Because everybody knows that dehydrated water takes up much much less space than regular water!) Space Quest was one of my favourite games when I was a kid.
That sounds more like negligence in your part than any screwy billing or customer service. You are responsible to any contracts you sign and/or agree to. If it is fair or not does not matter. If it is legal or not does. While I have no knowledge about the contract you signed and/or agreed to, I will side with AT&T, given the information above.
I work retail, in a very heavy customer service industry, and I agree that the phrase "AT&T didn't tell you to move" is a little rude. However, given your attitude on the subject I can safely assume that this was after you had already talked to and been rude to customer service when they told you this.
My advice to you would to see if you can downgrade your service to the minimum available without breaking your contract. Hopefully only something like $5 / month, and then request to pay the balance in full to complete your contract. Perhaps you are only stuck for 10 more months, and can get out at under $100 rather than $500.
According to Google ads, there are thousands of local women who want to meet me NOW! That is significantly better than anyone else has ever done for me in the past.
Just the other day I stumbled across the Wikipedia bio for Andy Gibb (don't ask). It said he died in 1988 of heart disease.
That's similar to what happened to me. The other day I was on Wikipedia and I learned that the recent population of elephants has tripled...
I believe the GP's message was more along the lines of, "What is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular," not equating rape to copyright infringment.