I don't fear flying... In fact, I used to thoroughly enjoy it back in the '80s/'90s...

But flying isn't nearly as fun/humane as it used to be. And the additional security theater is annoying.

These days it just isn't worth the hassle. If I have to go somewhere, I'll drive. It certainly makes for longer travel times... But it's a far more enjoyable experience, so I don't mind.

Really?

When we moved in to this house we slowly replaced all the incandescent bulbs with CFLs as they burned out... That was years ago. It's gotten to the point where it's downright inconvenient to have a bulb burn out, because we don't have any spares sitting around the house. I mean... Maybe one bulb a year?

Indeed.

After reading that summary I thought about it for a little while... Trying to come up with instances of magical thinking in my own life. Not to prove anyone wrong, but out of curiosity.

Do we really all think magically?

But I really couldn't come up with anything.

Oh, sure... Maybe I'll get spooked and dash up the stairs in the middle of the night after watching a horror movie... But I don't actually believe anything is going to jump out at me - I'm just unsettled from the movie.

If I see something neat and orderly out in the wild I might speculate on whether somebody built it, or if it was naturally occurring, or perhaps was a product of human intervention... You know - the differences between an arrangement of rocks that makes a convenient stairway, somebody going out an legitimately building a stairway, and having people use the same path for so long that steps become worn into the trail. But I don't see something like that and just assume that somebody had to have made it.

And when coincidences start lining up, I might very well mutter about bad luck, or claim that somebody out there is looking out for me... But that isn't actually because I believe there's an intelligent agent out there looking out for me - it's just a figure of speech.

I really, genuinely, do not attribute anything to supernatural forces.

I don't feel anxious on Friday the 13th... It reminds me of the movie series, and I'm a big fan of horror movies. Although I may very well feel creeped-out after watching several Friday the 13th tonight.

Similarly, the idea of organ transplantation in general weirds me out. I'd prefer that my internal organs remain internal, and I don't much like the thought of somebody cutting me open and replacing parts. But if something breaks, and I need a replacement, I don't much care where it comes from.

Honestly, it hasn't been that big a deal for a little while now. Like it or not, HTML5 is supplanting Flash in a lot of places.

Personally, I see this as less of a ding against Linux than an admission that Flash just isn't that important anymore.

Because it is always easier to come up with a technological solution (even if it doesn't work) than it is to address the real (usually human) problem.

This really illustrates the absurdity of the claim that phones are to blame for the problem.

If you're using a hands-free device, you're just basically having a conversation with someone who isn't actually in the car. It's not going to be any more inherently distracting than having a conversation with somebody who is in the car. So if hands-free phones are a problem... So is talking to a passenger.

Pretty much anything purchased in the last few years is going to be 64-bit capable.

If you're running 32-bit, it probably isn't the hardware holding you back. It's probably your software.

I'm still having to reload machines with 32-bit Windows XP because we've got software that won't support anything else.

That's funny. I really never thought I'd see someone on Slashdot complain about a CLI being more useful than a GUI.

I can certainly relate. Windows has been so GUI-centric for so long that suddenly finding the CLI more functional than the GUI is downright strange. Moving from Exchange 2003 to 2007 was a very jarring experience for me.

However... Now that I'm actually learning PowerShell, I have to say that it's pretty damn nice. The added flexibility and control is amazing. And it enables all kinds of scripting and automation.

This.

I'd be willing to bet a year's pay that the previous guy wasn't straight-up incompetent. He was probably relatively skilled, and doing the best he could with the resources at his disposal. Which were probably not actually the resources he needed.

Odds are good that there's a reason why the place is in the condition it is now.

Odds are good that there's a reason why the last guy isn't there anymore.

Odds are good that you're going to need more than one guy in IT to get it all straightened-out.

Which is where practical effects really shine.

Again, you aren't trying to re-invent the wheel. You're just filming reality.

Agreed.

Teleporting from one continent to another because it's Star Trek and that's what we do is fine.

Somehow traveling from the US to Australia with absolutely no apparent passage of time or explanation of how it happened in the context of the story is a plot hole.

Sure, if you're doing something that's straight-up impossible, being free of the constraints of real-world physics is pretty nice.

But if you're just trying to do something impractical or incredibly dangerous, and still want it to look somewhat realistic, you're adding a lot of overhead by doing it in CGI instead of practical effects. A ball bouncing down stairs shot with practical effects looks real because it is real... The same shot using CGI looks real because some guy spend hours/days/weeks tweaking the shot until it looked right. There's nothing intrinsic to the CGI process that'll make a ball fall down at all, much less deform and bounce and roll correctly. All that is the result of many lines of code and many hours of tweaking.

Really?

Right after you talk about how CGI is nice for doing impossible things, you say that it should all be as realistic and believable as possible?

Needless to say, I disagree.

Sure, if you're doing some kind of gritty cop-drama or something, realism is pretty nice. But what if you're doing a fantasy or science fiction movie? Do you really want realism? Once you introduce magic or dragons or FTL travel or something, realism pretty much goes out the window.

They'll probably do it exactly the same way the original Star Trek did it... And Next Generation did it... Without a green screen.

But, they aren't.

They're making a decision to use a specific real-world technology to tell their story in what they believe to be the best way possible.

It would really depend on the situation.

If I were at work - sure. Plenty of folks around the building with radios or TVs on. I'm sure somebody would see the warning.

At home? Probably not. My wife is just as bad as I am, if not worse. Our neighbors all head South for the winter, and aren't terribly social at the best of times. My wife's side of the family is all dead. My side of the family is 1,500+ miles away.

That's kind of what I was thinking when I heard about this test.

I consume less and less broadcast media - be it television or radio - every day.

Unless I just happened to be driving somewhere in a car at the time of the emergency, I simply wouldn't hear the warning.

And, like it or not, that is a prevalent assumption in the U.S.

I'm no constitutional lawyer... And I'd like to think that we're better than this... But I really wouldn't be all that surprised to see such an obviously discriminatory policy at least proposed, if not actually approved.

Or kicking folks off planes because they look too Muslim?

Granted, it's a private corporation that's kicking people off of planes, so they don't really have to worry about constitutionality the way that the government does... But it's just as discriminatory, and just as stupid, and just as effective.

I'm no expert. We've got a NetApp where I work now, and had a Netgear ReadyNAS at my previous job. But I will say that some ability to upgrade is going to be key.

We got the ReadyNAS up and running with just a couple TB of storage because we really didn't think we'd need more than that. Within a year we were full and looking for some way to expand it.

The NetApp here was installed with a good pile of storage... But we've grown our environment so much that we've exceeded the capabilities of the chassis, and are looking at upgrading to a faster model.

It's very easy, when you're shopping around, to simply look at prices and your current needs and come to the conclusion that you really don't need that much storage... It's also very easy, once you've got a network storage device, to throw everything on there - simply because it is so convenient. And then, before you know it, you're running out of room.

Make sure you get something that can easily be expanded and/or upgraded - because it will happen. Probably much sooner than you expect.