Snark/rant

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Lambi, obvious maybe, but have you tried ftp instead of Frintpage?

Change the "p" to an "r" and I think you've got it.   

My web provider is quirky.  For some reason, I have to upload to the http://... address; the FTP programs I've used can't handle it.  I think it has something to do with the fact it's on a Windows server.

It's my first time uploading since I got my router (with built-in firewall) - I think that may have something to do with the problems.  But it kinda works: last night, I got it to upload a bunch of stuff, but the navigation bar was missing.  Crazy.

[Griffin NoName]

...., but the navigation bar was missing.

Maybe one of our Pirates can help with that

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

I think so.  Anthing with "navigation" and "bar"  involved kind of screams "pirate", doesn't it?

[anthrobabe]

WHEN are we EVER going to give up the STUPID notion that we somehow "own" our genes?

When we decide to engineer them (handy home kits from the local pharmacy would be excellent) and some big pharma says we can't because they own them?

is there a true benefit to trisomy 21?
what I'm talking about is that a person who is heterozygous for sickle cell anemia will be immune to malaria ( a very great benefit in the past up until treatment was discovered and working)but a person who is homozygous will suffer the effects of this horrible disease- so sickle cell can be an adaptive selection benefit to an organism.
Also the same idea with TB and tay sachs disease
for more on both I suggest starting here

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/educators/course/session7/explain_b_pop1.html

I agree- I say turn DeeDee loose on the true!!! idiots in the situation!

[Griffin NoName]

Ranting to ensue:

The Universe gave me a gift tody and cancelled my two pm appointment.

Since todays imperative task was to food shop, because tomorrow is out, and sunday is stay in bed even if offered a peerage to get up, a I got a double gain. Do the food shop instead of getting knackered counselling and do it earlier than I could otherwise. Net gain, easy shop, not so tired, and a larger chunk of time in bed. Reason for this being fantastic: sons and lunch tomorrow- desperate need to be feeling fresh and well-rested.

I was in a state of euphoria, The Universe rarely gives me gifts. So much so, I wrote another chunk of essay and still set of for the shops earlier than usual.

But what the Universe gives it can take away. Shopping plan running beautifully until found my battery was flat (car not me, tho I was close too). Rest of afternoon spent with with AA man call out car help  then more time in garage. They cant agree on what's wrong. ended up shopping later than I would have if my client hadn't cancelled.

Rant: why can't the Universe indicate that isn't a gift, but just a re-scheduling, when it makes the initial contact?

Anit-Rant - AA man was a nice guy who told me his life tribulations and I gave him our helpline number (could the Universe have arranged for him to get it some other way?)

Anti-Rant - the car breakdown would have happened anyway and would have been worse if my appoitment hadn't cancelled.

Main Rant: Universe get your act together. You hold the master plan. Please shunt my tokens into to the "rants if gets gift snatched back" category.

[Griffin NoName]

Additional associated rank.

I am not supposed to wake up this early. I never wake up too early. Now I'll fall asleep in my lunch. Better not order soup.

[beagle]

If I wake up in the middle of the night I generally go home.

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

If I wake up in the middle of the night I generally go home.

I hope you put your clothes on first though.

[Swatopluk]

Didn't know that our beagle is a natural blonde ?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Didn't know that our beagle is a natural blonde ?

Or a soprano?
---
Apologies to all blonds, sopranos and blond sopranos out there.
---
I have a rant to do.

I have recently had the *pleasure* to deal with M$ latest and greatest operating system code name Longhorn, commonly known as Vista.

The first impression is "Oooh.. shiny...!"

And then reality kicks in.

You need 2Gb of RAM to operate that thing properly, that is, run the system with on app open smoothly. If you have less, the system crawls, and the less you have it starts locking on you making your life pretty miserable. I have seen 3 (new) laptops with that thing and even with 1Gb are slow as hell. I even had the unimaginable pleasure to deal with one with 512 of RAM (worse, it used main memory for video so in effect it had 420) and it isn't usable at all, even after disabling a number of services, the *shiny* interface and thinker with it. We had to add 1Gb memory for a total of 1.4Gb of RAM to make it barely usable.

But that isn't what I was going to rant about.

In Vista, you CANNOT copy files easily from one harddisk  to other, from a Flash drive to the harddisk of from the network without getting a very nice "Calculating time" dialog. Better, such dialog frequently may take hours to start or move files at a agonizing 1Kb/s. It sometimes just remains there even moving a small text file.

What I am saying is that the new shiny operating system cannot manage files properly! (just so you know, half of the basic requirements of an OS are file related).

Doing some research I found that several things can aggravate the condition but in some cases it cannot be cured, IOW, it is a design flaw, to add insult to injury there is a patch to alleviate the problem but you have to call MS support line at their rate to download the bloody patch! (it isn't freely available from MS! I downloaded it from a 3rd party and guess: it didn't work).

It isn't enough that the system is (like the now infamous Mac vs PC commercial) asking all the time if I *really* want to do this or that. What good is a system that cannot copy files or that could take days copying them to a network?

In any case, I am posting this as a warning for anyone having to deal with that DRM infection called Vista, to avoid it at all costs and -if you have to use MS software- to use XP instead.

Now, if ubuntu were so kind to install without problems...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I've heard a lot of complaints about Vista, and only a few good things. I've also heard its not compatible with anything, pretty much.

[Griffin NoName]

Never go near new operating systems.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Never go near new operating systems.

Certainly, the thing is that it is hard to get a new OEM computer without it. Dell finally realized the problem and now you can get them with XP but there is a hard pitch to move you to Vista.

While investigating I found a thread in a MS forum (BTW, what an ugly forum SW, you can't even go to the last page without navigating the full thread) and the answer from the tech as to why it happened and how to fix it was particularly unhelpful:

because many handles and processes are working simaltiousely, your hard disk activity is so busy with all processes, so it should need so long time for this, add to this, you need UAC to be on and shows you prompt message for file operations.

Good luck 

After reading most of the thread for clues and fixes (there were some but in the end none worked for me) I commented that:

I guess we got it wrong, the slowness to move files is a big *antipiracy feature*, you see, when you are copying files it is *quite likely* that you are infringing someone's copyright, and given that the system cannot determine if you really hold the rights of that word document you did at home, then to prevent you from getting use to do something nasty like copying files, the system artificially slows the process, thereby slowing any copyright infringement.

Vista is infamous for its Dynamic Rights Management (DRM for short, an attempt to prevent copyright infringement by forcing the system to only use signed media) it seems that they got it right this time. 

[Griffin NoName]

Rant-wise I've been wanting to upgrade hardware and software for a long time now. Keep putting it off because I can't see Vista as a viable option for the foreseeable future and suspect MS will be forced to do some major rehash of XP. I still have Win 98 SE on one machine and put up with not being able to upgarde software on that but it really irritates me that even my W2K setup is becoming more non-viable. For example, I'm still stuck on MSN Messenger 7.5 as they haven't released any version of Windows Live for 2K.

Dell used to supply without Op Sys installed if asked. Won't they do that anymore?

because many handles and processes are working simaltiousely, your hard disk activity is so busy with all processes, so it should need so long time for this, add to this, you need UAC to be on and shows you prompt message for file operations.

So duo/dual core is not enough for MS. What a surprise. Funny, I seem to remember many handles, many processes on other Op Sys back in the dark ages running fine. A bug that seems endemic to MS Op Syses is failing to drop handles and release memory............. Presume it is a plot to sell more expensive hardware.

After reading most of the thread for clues and fixes (there were some but in the end none worked for me) I commented that:

I guess we got it wrong, the slowness to move files is a big *antipiracy feature*, you see, when you are copying files it is *quite likely* that you are infringing someone's copyright, and given that the system cannot determine if you really hold the rights of that word document you did at home, then to prevent you from getting use to do something nasty like copying files, the system artificially slows the process, thereby slowing any copyright infringement.

Vista is infamous for its Dynamic Rights Management (DRM for short, an attempt to prevent copyright infringement by forcing the system to only use signed media) it seems that they got it right this time. 

So it would seem - vague memory back of early days of Longhorn development, copyright was planned to be hardwired into the actual drives... some loopy idea or other. DRM - Deny Rights Management.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

For example, I'm still stuck on MSN Messenger 7.5 as they haven't released any version of Windows Live for 2K.

Why use Live messenger when other clients are less intrusive and memory hungry? I use Pidgin (what used to be Gaim) as multiprotocol IM and I'm very happy with it. For voice I use Skype (MSN/Y! aren't that good for voice anyway).

Dell used to supply without Op Sys installed if asked. Won't they do that anymore?

I believe they have been considering supplying Linux, but I haven't seen it nor without OS (at least for regular consumers). You can order them with XP though.