I really don't hold out much hope for our species...mainly because of the religious nuts.

I have no intention of turning this into a relious war thread, but I just would like to point out:

1. I believe in a divine creator
2. I feel I am just as normal as you.
3. I am not a threat to anyone because of my beliefs.

I would never think of imposing my beliefs on you or anyone else. If I am 'delusional' in your opinion, I can live with that. But I am also harmless. If our species does die out, I can assure you, I will have had nothing to do with it!

Classifying church-goers as "Jesus-Freaks" is petty at best, and downright rude at worst.

No, it's not. It's realistic. Have you ever seen these freaks in the throes of worship? It's downright scary. These people are freaks...very literally.

Since you are an atheist, does that make you a "Humanist-freak"?

I'm an agnostic at worst and an atheist at best, either way it doesn't make me a humanist. If anything it makes me a realist. I really don't hold out much hope for our species...mainly because of the religious nuts.

I'm not sure why someone has to disavow the existence of a Creator in order to be considered "normal".

Um, because you're delusional otherwise? I used to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny when I was a child, but I grew up and out of those childish beliefs. Deities are nothing more than the collective childish beliefs of a species in its infancy. We are finally outgrowing this psychological need for god constructs; but still have a long way to go - at least for most people. The sooner the religious kooks wake up to reality, the better off our species will be. If they don't we're doomed.

Of course, you have the right to your opinion. Just thought I'd interject...

Just calling a spade a spade here.


"I am an evil giraffe, and I shall eat more leaves from this tree then prehaps I should, so that other giraffes may die"
- Eddie Izzard

Stupid question, but what's the easiest way of surveying channels?

FYI, I have an Apple Powerbook which is at home and a no-name Wintel laptop with XP Pro which is normally at work. The wintel box though will be home soon since they're finally replacing my development machine at work. BEA weblogic on a company 1.6GHz laptop is painful.


"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you."
-Fry, Futurmama

Meaning : same channel. My wireless had stopped working since Sunday, couldn't figure out, tried to fix it again tonight, still no go. Fuck.
I finally do a survey of the area, and find some new prick set up his wireless lan on the same channel as mine. Fuck, is it THAT hard to survey and pick a channel nobody else is using??

Stupid question, but what's the easiest way of surveying channels?

2 of my neighbors got their own AP's after the "incident" I posted earlier. Unfortunately they're not up all the time; only when they're home (which is sporadic) to conserve power.

And I think at least 1 of them has it set on the same channel because my laptop keeps going down shortly after they get home. So it's either a channel issue or they're doing something that gives off major RF interference.

I didn't have mine set to the "default" channel but I guess someone picked to same one as me. I've picked one at random, but who knows how long it will be until one of my 2 other neighbors set one up. I'd love to record that for future use or at least check on them from time to time.



"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you."
-Fry, Futurmama
This comment was edited on May 2, 23:49.

69 posts and only one Deadwood post? I suppose all can be forgiven, considering the topic was mostly Sci-Fi.

I liked every Trek series except Enterprise; I'm not hard to please but I just couldn't manage to watch it. BSG on the other hand is just plain awsome. I just finally managed to catch the 4 hour mini-series and am fairly glad this happened after I saw the entire first season. If I had seen it first, and then they tell us they're going to make a series out of it.....well, I would've geeked-out in ways that normal society should never be subjected to.

---
"Pain, or damage don't end the world, or despair, or fuckin' beatin's. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back." -Al Swearengen

Classifying church-goers as "Jesus-Freaks" is petty at best, and downright rude at worst. Since you are an atheist, does that make you a "Humanist-freak"? I'm not sure why someone has to disavow the existence of a Creator in order to be considered "normal". Of course, you have the right to your opinion. Just thought I'd interject...

Right. Because NOBODY else does that, right? It's only people who go to church.

Nah, it's just that jesus freaks rationalize it away. If they get hit by a car and die it was god's will. If they survive it's a miracle.

Normal people just realize that there is no god and that due to the laws of physics that several hundred or thousand pounds of metal moving at sufficient velocity can't stop on a dime. And that getting run over by said vehicle is going to either kill you or leave you in an excruciating amount of pain. Thus they endeavor to do their best to avoid playing in traffic.


"I am an evil giraffe, and I shall eat more leaves from this tree then prehaps I should, so that other giraffes may die"
- Eddie Izzard

Right. Because NOBODY else does that, right? It's only people who go to church.

Didn't say that. See post 61...



May 3rd, 2005 - "We are preparing to destroy you." http://www.nin.com

*edit*
Hah, edit will always work for me now!!
This comment was edited on May 2, 22:49.

How you can feel one is great and one is ‘lame’ without being ludicrously fickle?

Obviously they look the same; they share almost the exact same formula. Both have the implausibly brainless family members, the only semi-sane characters being non human dog & alien hominoids. Add the eccentric character with the campy European accent in this case the baby & fish and it equates to two cartoons that are equally lame.

Only variation is the type mocking that takes place.

I love Family Guy but HATE American Dad.

But…just like people are discussing about Star Trek in this thread. They all share the same formula, right down to every series having basically an emotionless character from Vulcan’s to Androids to shape shifters (though, he was normally emotionless except plenty of anger). Yet, they are also greatly different and different people enjoy different series more than the other.

Just because something is the same formula does not mean it is the same….go give 10 different people a recipe to your favorite cookie and all 10 will have the same basic taste but will also taste different…but it’s the same formula.



.sigs are for losers…

This comment was edited on May 2, 21:23.

There's a church right down the street from where I work. Every day, at noon (right about the time I'm coming back from lunch, in my car), they have mass. But NO ONE uses the crosswalk to get to the church, instead, just crossing in the middle of the street.

I have the INCREDIBLE urge to yell "REPENT JAYWALKERS!!!!!", but I've never brought myself to do it...yet.

Right. Because NOBODY else does that, right? It's only people who go to church.

Creston

it's highly unlikely anyone will take the few minutes needed to crack your WEP.
I don't see how anyone could easily crack a well made WEP password. Mine is like 20+ digits of totally randomized letters and numbers...

Actually, the FBI recently demonstrated how easy it is to crack that. They used commonly downloadable tools, and it took them a grand total of three whole minutes to crack a 128WEP.

As for the unprotected wireless WANS out there, it isn't so much the fact that they're unprotected that bothers me, it's that every time some fucking schlep in my near neighborhood gets a wireless router, he DOESN'T TAKE THE FIVE MINUTES WORTH OF FUCKING TIME TO SEE WHAT ELSE IS OUT THERE, AND THUS SETS IT UP EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS MINE.
Meaning : same channel. My wireless had stopped working since Sunday, couldn't figure out, tried to fix it again tonight, still no go. Fuck.
I finally do a survey of the area, and find some new prick set up his wireless lan on the same channel as mine. Fuck, is it THAT hard to survey and pick a channel nobody else is using??

I swear, 95% of the people in this world should not be allowed anywhere NEAR a computer.

As for the unprotected ones, you could connect to it and then try to attract their attention through a /net send message, but that will only work if they haven't turned their messenger service off. Then again, someone smart enough to know that will protect his wireless network.

Log into their router, see if they still have the defaults, then turn it off. That should get their attention.

Actually, I had one here earlier who was unprotected, I just put a little notice near the mailroom warning "whoever has network xxxxx, beware that it's unprotected".
Turned out to be my downstairs neighbor, who thanked me profusely.

As far as your data, I wouldn't be that worried about it. If you didn't share any drives, and don't have file and print sharing turned on, it's not THAT easy to get at those files, especially if you have some decent file security up and running. They'd have to literally crack one of your accounts to be able to copy files.

Unless, ofcourse, you DO have file and print sharing turned on, and have Everyone with Full Control on all your files...

Creston

I have the INCREDIBLE urge to yell "REPENT JAYWALKERS!!!!!"

You must do this. And make sure to bring someone along to record it, because I want to see the results. Drive slowly, yell loudly.

____________________
Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

People walking across the street, where they do not have the right away. And it is always worse, because instead of walking across in a STRIGHT line they must walk across in a obtuse angle taking twice as long to get across!!! ARGH!!

How 'bout the ones that cop an attitude or give you a look? Had one of those on the way home tonight...I would have stopped, rolled down the window and had a "chat" except it was the building right next to where I work, and as my building has a cafeteria, some people from the other building come over for lunch... (so as much as I would've liked to make a scene, I'd like to keep my job more)





May 3rd, 2005 - "We are preparing to destroy you." http://www.nin.com

Was great to see Family Guy back last night. American Dad was lame.

How you can feel one is great and one is ‘lame’ without being ludicrously fickle?

Obviously they look the same; they share almost the exact same formula. Both have the implausibly brainless family members, the only semi-sane characters being non human dog & alien hominoids. Add the eccentric character with the campy European accent in this case the baby & fish and it equates to two cartoons that are equally lame.

Only variation is the type mocking that takes place.

That is one of the only 2 things that piss me off while driving.

People walking across the street, where they do not have the right away. And it is always worse, because instead of walking across in a STRIGHT line they must walk across in a obtuse angle taking twice as long to get across!!! ARGH!!

I also have zero tolerance for people who can not figure out how to navigate the complexities of 4 way stops.

Other than that…as long as you do not hit me or make me hit something I do not really care.


.sigs are for losers…

Of course, since I can't even find a decent sci-fi BOOK lately, maybe my standards are just getting too high.

Every read any Niven or Bova? Both good sci-fi writers with Bova tending to the harder sci-fi.

-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.com
teh m4y0r ownz a GabeN b4ckp4k
http://www.azurebrigade.com
- WoW Guild / Board

There's a church right down the street from where I work. Every day, at noon (right about the time I'm coming back from lunch, in my car), they have mass. But NO ONE uses the crosswalk to get to the church, instead, just crossing in the middle of the street.

I think this has to do with everyone feeling full of Jesus. I see the same thing on Sunday in the church parking lot. People are real risk takers when they think they are full of the grace of god.

-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.com
teh m4y0r ownz a GabeN b4ckp4k
http://www.azurebrigade.com
- WoW Guild / Board

Of course, since I can't even find a decent sci-fi BOOK lately, maybe my standards are just getting too high.

Someone here recommended Altered Carbon awhile back, and it was really good.

Timeline by Crichton was awesome, better than Jurassic Park, I thought...

2010 I really liked, better than the others in the series...

Finished the first RingWorld book, and it was good also...

Labyrinth of Evil, the prequel lead-up to Revenge of the Sith, isn't bad, so far...


Any of those do anything for ya?





May 3rd, 2005 - "We are preparing to destroy you." http://www.nin.com

I don't see how anyone can call BSG sci-fi considering the complete lack of any thematic interest in technology or science whatsoever.

What do you call flying around in space ships shooting at other space ships, and the enemy being cybernetic robots created by humans?

I guess for it to be Sci-Fi there must be a “Professor” in it that explains how everything works; and anybody who had high school physics (and paid attention and learned) can laugh out loud at the down right stupidity of his explanation?

Of course, since I can't even find a decent sci-fi BOOK lately, maybe my standards are just getting too high.

No…I think in general the Sci-Fi genre has grown from its niche “smart” (science wise) audience to a more general audience…so it has been “dumbed” down some.


Just my opinion.



.sigs are for losers…