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1

Guns, Drugs, and Crazy Independence Stuff / Re: Post your favorite calibers.

« on: August 27, 2012, 02:03:57 AM »

For shooting at the range and self-defense, 9x19mm, 5.56x45mm, and 12 gauge.

For flexibility (e.g. reloading, especially with unusual payloads and charges) , .357 Magnum, .308 Winchester, and still 12 gauge.

These are more a function of the guns I own for these calibers than the calibers themselves though.

2

General / Re: Cut the IP crap

« on: February 14, 2012, 01:30:17 AM »

tl;dr

I'm anti IP. Yes you own the product of your labor, but that means nobody can deprive you of it, not necessarily that you can deprive others of it, if it is not a rivalrous thing.

It's not my fault that the MPAA/RIAA/etc have a retarded business model that fails to take into account the realities of information exchange. My money goes to netflix. What doesn't get to netflix, gets pirated.

I don't buy any music, period. I can live a fulfilling life without it. I rarely pay for movies except through netflix. I can live a fulfilling life without them.

They have created an artificial scarcity and overinvested themselves in a completely unnecessary industry that is dependent upon facts which are no longer true. That's not my problem, that's theirs. Reality is asserting itself, and there's nothing they can do about it. Boo hoo. Go do something important. We already have more movies and music and games and books than a single person can watch, hear, play, and read in their lifetime.

Unless you're documenting or writing about something completely new, or inventing something, your IP has zero marginal significance and I see no loss if you don't get compensated for it in any way, because you're being useless.

If you are doing something new then you don't need to follow the business model that is currently the most widely accepted. There are a number of alternatives that don't rely on things to be true which are false.

For you others who tl;dr: PIRATE ALL OF THE THINGS!

3

General / Re: "Passive-Aggressive" is Bullshit

« on: April 02, 2011, 02:19:34 AM »

What you're talking about is part of what passive aggressive can be, but it is not always in response to aggression. To the extent that it is in response to agression I agree, I wish more people would be "passive aggressive" in the face of aggression, but in reality there are non-aggressive situations where one can cause psychic loss to another by doing what you have a right to do, and this can evoke the same reaction. It can also be in a voluntary environment where for example maintaining a small group lets the group be efficient, but one person in the group seems always to get their most-hated tasks, yet still where the disutility of leaving the group is greater than that of doing the unwanted work. This is not aggression, but it can still evoke the same "passive-aggressive" reaction. At least 95% of the time though it's a response to aggression, and the word is likely widely overextended to places where it's not a useful concept.

4

General / Re: Lee Roy Selman Expressway

« on: March 21, 2011, 12:35:22 AM »

I'm glad I never have to take that road.

5

General / Re: Microsoft

« on: March 20, 2011, 03:07:21 PM »

KDE is good for reasons that don't apply to your needs. That doesn't make it less good for others. It being weird does not make it inferior. There aren't any apps that I need that don't have KDE equivalents except for apps that don't usually have GTK versions either. I don't need anything very weird...a browser, a multimessenger, an IRC client, a mail client, skype, a music player, and a terminal are the most common applications I use. KOffice isn't amazing but it's good enough for what little I do that I can't use a browser WYSIWYG editor for and Krita's interface was much much better than GIMP's last I used it.

Also, I've never had problems using nVidia's binary driver for FreeBSD.

6

General / Re: Tom Naughton (FatHead) on True Believers

« on: March 20, 2011, 02:30:00 AM »

Left and right have different flavors of true-belief. On the left it's a political flavor, on the right it's a religious flavor. I think if you compare the political true-belief of the left with the political true-belief of the right it looks more balanced. The left has far fewer religious nutjobs. (I cannot say that the right has fewer political nutjobs.) People inclined to be nutty about things will find their own things to be nutty about. Church and state are roughly equal opportunities for nuttiness. The left only looks nuttier from the libertarian view because of the belief that it's okay for the agents of government to do things that it is not okay for the agents of god to do. This makes religion less harmful in that regard but doesn't make it less of a true-believer thing. It's much more true-believer than the statist left. Warmongering is a very right-wing attitude not nearly as pervasive on the left, and that's as true-believer as anything on the left, just of a different flavor, going by the standards he mentions where not being imposing makes it less true-believerish.

7

General / Re: Microsoft

« on: March 18, 2011, 10:41:44 PM »

[...]  And tmux is fucktons better than screen.

Definitely, but the only time you need it is when you're remote connecting to other servers, and most servers have `screen` installed by default, so you better be used to pressing Ctrl-A instead of Ctrl-B and not relying on any tmux-only features.  (Yes, I know you can customize the keys, that's not the point.)

I'd rather install tmux somewhere in my home folder and alias it than use screen.

[...]  I never need more than one connection to the server  [...]

So you are really inconveniencing yourself by introducing a whole new interface paradigm and confusing your shortcut key "muscle memory" (ex. I still find myself pressing wmii's Mod-# by habit when running something else)...  just to constrain yourself to one ssh session instead of (at times) several?  What's the benefit of that, really?

No, I do it because tmux is more convenient than multiple ssh sessions. Especially because I use strong passwords and don't want to have to "su -" to root and enter my 30-character password on each session I want root access for. Rather just ssh in once, become root, tmux, and split my windows up until I'm happy.

[...]  I usually use KDE, which is very coherent as a desktop in terms of appearance.  [...]

Qt/KDE BSD is a pointless second way of doing things that offers no real advantages over the first.  GTK apps are Linux is a lot more polished [...] KDE BSD is a weird little sect.

Coherence! I think I said that at the beginning. There's much more consistency within KDE BSD than there is in GNOME/GTK Linux.

8

General / Re: Microsoft

« on: March 18, 2011, 03:09:34 AM »

Maybe I've just been stuck with tiny touchpads one too many times but a touchpad larger than 4 square inches is a big deal to me. If it's too small it's either too sensitive to be precise or I have to lift my finger up to move the cursor across the screen.

And tmux is fucktons better than screen. I don't have X installed on my server, but I do have sshd and tmux, and I never need more than one connection to the server unless I started a compile or something without launching tmux first and I wanted to do something else.

I usually use KDE, which is very coherent as a desktop in terms of appearance. The most mismatched application I ever used was Skype, which at least uses QT color themes if not the widget styles, and the window decorations look the same unlike any of the Windows applications I use. I don't like Ubuntu. Microsoft's stuff is good about being coherent. Windows application developers are terrible at it. I don't have problems like that in OS X at all however.

9

General / Re: Microsoft

« on: March 18, 2011, 12:26:52 AM »

I use, and like, Microsoft products. Oh, I'm sure Apple is SO much better. But, it also costs SO much more.

It's like someone saying, "You know, instead of a Toyota you should drive a Lexus. It's much better." Perhaps. But, I can actually afford a Toyota.

Like I said....you may want to consider purchasing a used Lexus, instead of a new Toyota. But, I think It is wrong for you to compare a PC to a new Toyota, cuz them cars are pretty reliable. Maybe it's more accurate to compare a new PC to a new Ford.

My used mac has outperformed a my dead Dell (that I bought new). I'm wondering how long this used mac is gonna last, and I'm thinking that I should get a new computer soon. But, you know what, I have a feeling that this used mac is gonna last a lot longer than I expect it to.

Maybe a mac is worth the money.

As an average computer user, and if you take the price difference away, and just deal with quality, I really cannot think of any reason why I would choose a PC over a Mac. Having worked with both PCs and Macs over the years, I have no doubt that Apple makes a much better product (in general), and you might save yerself some money in the long run by going with a Mac, instead of a PC.

The fact that for $300 I can build a PC that's equivalent to a $1000 mac kinda kills your argument.

Find me a laptop with a touchpad as big and sensitive as a macbook for $300. Find a laptop with a shell that isn't made out of plastic for under $1000 (the macbook air at $999 is the nearest I know of).

If all you look at are numbers and you compare gigahertz and gigabytes you can do better for your money with something that isn't a Mac. If you want a computer that isn't crap in every way that is not mathematically quantifiable, you want a Mac.

Nobody said macs are cheap. But Macs aren't crappy computers where minimal engineering effort went into configuring a plastic craptastic windows-running contraption. If you want a laptop that doesn't suck, you want a Mac. If you want a normal desktop that runs Windows, Apple doesn't have anything for that market.

I've tried them all.  They ALL suck.  [...]

OK, if that's true, well, then Microsoft loses in that regard.  The 1% of users who share your multi-desktop mania have a legitimate reason to avoid Windows.

I've always preferred the interface concept of nested tabs, and I still use tabs for Web browsing and editing, but I now prefer a tiling window manager and xterms instead of a gnome-terminal like interface.  Even with wmii and lots of stuff running, I never use more than ~6 "views".  There are add-ons for most browsers and IDE's that let you organize tabs into a hierarchy or use a side tree view.  You could set up an X server with something like wmii in MS Windows as well.

I use tmux extensively and it's similar in some regards to a tiling WM, except for the lack of it being a window manager. (BSDL and included in OpenBSD's base system. If you don't use it then wtf why not.) It works well for that. And I probably could set up an X server but then I'd have to use applications that look nothing like the rest of the computer. That's another annoying aspect of Windows that none of the GUI applications look anything alike. I don't hold it against Microsoft, but it's a major turnoff for using Windows. Steam, Chrome, iTunes, Skype, Notepad, Photoshop, and Trillain all look completely different. GTK apps like GIMP and Xchat look nothing like QT apps like the KDE apps I've installed. I blame the developers of the individual applications for being stupid and gimmicky with everything. It's still a huge turnoff for using Windows. And I don't want to add even more stuff that doesn't fit and doesn't even use the same window manager.

10

General / Re: Microsoft

« on: March 17, 2011, 02:22:30 AM »

The only valid reason I can think of to choose a PC over a Mac is if it's something Apple simply has no analogue for, (4 socket server? Power-sipping media server with multiple drives? Laptop with aircard built in?) or if you can't do what you want to do with a Mac (Exchange is not likely to be ported over). It's worth saving up extra money so you can get a Mac, especially laptops where you're stuck with overpriced proprietary parts anyways, Apple makes the best laptops hands down. For normal users, there's not a lot that you can't do with a Mac.

11

General / Re: Microsoft

« on: March 17, 2011, 01:26:04 AM »

[...]  for fuck's sake it's 2011 and they still don't have multiple workspaces?!  [...]

That simply isn't true.  If you Google "multiple workspaces windows" (w/o quotes) and spend an hour looking into this, you'll find multiple different solutions you can try.  I think there was a third party shell that did this for Windows 3.1!

I've tried them all. They ALL suck. They are either severely limited in number of desktops available (I use 9 to 16 depending on the machine), integrate poorly with the taskbar (e.g. if I click on the Chrome button it will launch a new Chrome window rather than taking me back to my already-open with 32 tabs instance), have absolutely shitty controls (some require using a small window or a tray icon for switching) or more than one of these. The most basic X11 WM provides more elegant multi-workspace solutions than the most advanced grafted-on Windows application. The ones included with Compiz, Kwin, Metacity, and OS X are done in a way that actually has the ability to improve your workflow rather than impede it.

Absolute shit. The least Microsoft could do is provide some way for such applications to be written that can more intelligently switch desktops based on open windows, even a half-assed reference implementation for demonstration purposes only would be better than the obnoxious workarounds that all virtual-desktop applications for Windows need to employ to even come close to imitating a feature that's been around for decades.

12

General / Re: Copyfree Software

« on: March 17, 2011, 01:13:24 AM »

I happen to like KDE more than all the other DE's available. I've long hated GNOME and xfce is too minimalist for my liking. Non-DE WM's have their place but I don't have a place for them. KDE 4 started sucking a lot less after 4.2, and and the latest releases are getting better and better as KDE 4 matures.

Glad to hear those improvements have been made, that's two of my major sticking points down. You've already said the giant kernel lock is still in place and that does have a big impact on performance and scalability.

How is jail a flawed idea? What are the disadvantages you speak of? I love jails and ZFS because they are conceptually simple in a way that using chroot and systrace aren't. It leaves me time to learn how to do other things so I don't have to worry much about them, and lets me efficiently use the resources I have, so I can cheap out on hardware and get more done with less.

Does OpenBSD have anything that offers a level of compartmentalization equivalent to FreeBSD's Jails? Not just sandboxing of services and stopping them from doing things they shouldn't be, but binding each one to a single IP address to let your configurations be simpler and more portable. If you give somebody a chrooted OpenBSD system and they try to run apache on it, it'll be using the system's port 80. You could configure it with multiple IP's and tell the person with control of the chroot to listen on a specific address, but they can create an issue more complex to troubleshoot than needed by missing that directive. Most services will listen on the only interface on the system by default, in a jail I can just leave that unspecified and it'll listen on the only address it has, and won't conflict with anything else.

This makes the configuration more portable. The way I have things set up, none of my jails depends on the jail infrastructure. If I wanted to move to a single userland for everything, I'd basically have to concatenate the jail-specific rc.conf variables to the host's, change a couple of mountpoints (by removing a /jails/$(jailname)-root prefix), and install the packages on the host instead of in the jails.

Nothing I'm doing depends on ZFS. I can move the files over to UFS and lose the extent of my snapshotting abilities and start having to worry about what size I should make /var, /usr, and /tmp, but why bother? It doesn't reduce portability, it only enhances manageability if it's there. zfs send | zfs recv is an excellent and well-integrated way to make robust transactional incremental backups and while I'd hate to have to switch to using some other backup tool, most other backup tools don't rely on the underlying filesystem much.

ZFS may be copyleft, but it's not viral copyleft like the GPL.

13

General / Re: Copyfree Software

« on: March 15, 2011, 11:26:53 PM »

Does OpenBSD have KDE 4 yet?
Can I use more than 4 GB of RAM on amd64 yet?
Does it have anything similar to jails yet?
MAC? ZFS?

OpenBSD may be less vulnerable (the base system at least, no telling about the third-party stuff or admin misconfiguration), but FreeBSD's jails provide a level of fault isolation that OpenBSD doesn't have an equivalent for. I have an atom box running FreeBSD with 16 jails on it running DHCP, DNS, apache, mpd, postgresql, SMTP and IMAP and tons of other stuff. If something in a jail gets compromised the only way to access the rest of the system is effectively through network sockets. The host runs nothing but sshd. mpd is by far the largest user of CPU, when it isn't playing the CPU is >99% idle. To get the same kind of fault isolation on OpenBSD I'd have to either run a dozen instances of qemu (soooo slooow, and I don't wanna store tons of stuff on a virtual hard drive image just so I can have a file share) or buy a dozen servers that will each be constantly at <1% utilization. And I still won't get the same level of seamlessness as I get with FreeBSD jails or Solaris zones.

Jails are kind of a big deal. Not just chroots, but full OS-level virtualization.

14

General / Re: Reasons to Hate Bill Gates and refuse the use Microsoft OS

« on: March 14, 2011, 08:13:14 PM »

Intellectual property and software patents and bloated, complicated software.

15

General / Re: Welfare makes up 35 percent of wages in USA

« on: March 14, 2011, 05:41:47 PM »

"Government" "employee" "wages" should count as "welfare" also.

I don't agree, but I would be interested to know that percentage - both on it's own and added with the government welfare payouts.

I remember recently seeing a stat showing that just over 50% of American citizens receive government money of some kind.

This is how we know that democracy is working.