Hannibal

There are 11 bugs blocking rc1. 15 bugs have requested to block the rc1. Fixing these and testing all those fixes properly will take time. 4 days is not enough for all of that, I think. Then there are still those regressions, and even though they take more time this time around, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make the deadline this time, either. Then after the RC's are out, we need community testing of those. The community testing of 1.5b2 has turned up some really nasty bugs, imho, and I wouldn't be surprised if some persist for rc1. All in all, I doubt they'll make the release happen before late november. Though, I guess you're right in pointing out that december is close already - I'd just read the first page (which was posted in september) and assumed the replies were new (which they weren't). Sorry :)

over 3mbit up and down. Straight ethernet connection to a local server, throttled, and then straight onto the backbone :). Downloading stuff from sourceforge or legal torrents (read: Linux iso's) at 330-350kbyte/s = win

Hehe, you're joking, right? There's not even a release candidate at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes them till December to actually launch the release.

Well, do you? With all major browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE 7 beta 1) actively supporting it, do you use many RSS feeds? Why, why not? I myself have a feed off the BBC, CNet News, a local Mozilla Feed, a feed from a blog of a friend and a feed for church news. What about you?

Right. So I've searched the website, scanned through all of the Gift of Scripture off the official website, and I can't find any of the sentences quoted by these newsmagazines. Furthermore, these are all statements by the Catholic Church of England and Scotland. Ratzinger would hang himself before stating the bible is not true. Also, insane, they're saying exactly what you're accusing them of not understand. They warn against taking certain symbolic texts literally, because they find that is happening increasingly and is fueling hate between different religions. They do acknowledge these symbolics. Blogs and populist newssites are pulling this way out of proportion (sensationalism, anyone?). If anyone does find any official documents which contain these quotes, I'd be very interested. I have a feeling they're taken very much out of context.

GhostRanger: no. For one, you got the first one wrong :P, and the last one too, assuming you meant number 4 of the second list of puzzles. Then you miss one solution (you posted 7 and there's 8 puzzles in total - or didn't you bother solving the last one?). I think the other ones are correct, though. Stevester77: there are multiple puzzles. I posted 8, they're just very similar in a way. The title does read 'puzzles', not 'puzzle'. Mods: don't we have [spoil] [/spoil] tags or something?

It's easier if you know how to work with truth tables yeah :). Though I suppose you have a point, that is, if you don't like the subject. I do ;)

What should we help with? You tried everything, you said :) Additionally, don't spam. And try some Capitalization, Punctuation and Spelling. Grammar wouldn't hurt either, by the way. Finally, the number of exclamation marks behind your request for help does give any additional information. What would help is telling us useful information. Do you have a virus scanner? Did you scan for viruses? Is your entire computer slow, or just Runescape? Did you try playing at a different time. Is your internet connection fast enough? Sounds like you have trouble with lag - get a faster connection or run less programs while you play. The list of questions goes on. To be honest, we've had worse cases than yours, information-wise. But spamming how important you and your problem are after just 2 hours really does not help, you know...

Okay, since someone posted some 'brain teasers' and got flamed for it, I thought I might as well try my hand it - this time with a few exercises that I've already done myself. I'd link you to my solutions, but that'd spoil the fun, and besides, they're in Dutch, and the original problems were formulated in dutch as well. They were exercises for my university course in Logic (this is just the first few weeks we've had it, so they're quite doable by just about everyone with some reasoning abilities, imho :) ) So, let's get started. All of these puzzles involve a quiz show (or a heroic quest, whatever you like). After winning that quiz show (or slaying some demons), its participant / hero has to pick one of two doors. Either door may hide a princess or a tiger. Maybe both doors have a tiger behind them, maybe both a princess, maybe one of each. You don't know. On both of the doors, there is a hint. These make it clear which door you should pick - at least, if you can figure out the clues. [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: There's a princess In THIS room. There's a tiger in the other room. Door 2 says: There's a princess in one room, and a tiger in the other room. One of the statements is true, the other is false. Now in which room is the princess? [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: AT LEAST one of the two rooms has a princess in it. Door 2 says: There's a tiger in the other room. Now, either both statements are false, or both statements are true. Which room has the princess in it? [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: At least one of the following is true: 1. There is a tiger in this room. 2. There is a princess in the other room. Door 2 says: There's a princess in the other room. Again, either both statements must be false, or both statements must be true. These were the easy ones. For all the following ones, this is the case: If there is a princess in room 1, then the statement on door 1 is true, otherwise it is false. If there is a tiger in room 2, then the statement on door 2 is true, otherwise it is false. Remember that the above MUST be true! Then which room has the princess in it? [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: There is a princess in both rooms. Door 2 says: There is a princess in both rooms. [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: There is a princess in AT LEAST 1 room. Door 2 says: There is a princess in the other room. [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: It doesn't make any difference which room you pick. Door 2 says: There's a princess in the other room. [*:3jjfubhm]Door 1 says: It DOES make a difference which room you pick. Door 2 says: It's better for you to pick the other room. A last one, for the diehards: There are two hints. They've fallen off their doors. Again, if there is a princess in room 1, whatever once hung on the door of room 1 must be true, if there's a tiger in room 1 then it is false. And once again, whatever hung on the door of room 2 must be true if there's a tiger in room 2, if there's a princess in room 2 then it is false. One hint reads: There's a tiger in this room. The other reads: There's a tiger in both rooms. Happy puzzling :)

If an urinoir is art, then Terragen pieces most certainly are too.

Err, people. He most likely doesn't have PCI-Express slots if he has an AGP slot, he'll just have normal PCI slots. Ergo, suggesting a PCI-Express graphics card is a rather silly advice. He won't be able to use it that way.

Yea, done by Ron Howard. I bet that's going to be one puddle of you know what. Anyway, I'm not updated on what's new and so. I only know there's going to be a remake of "Evil Dead starring Ashton "dude where's my car" Kutcher. Blasphemy. Ron Howard directed A Beautiful Mind, which I did think you thought was a good movie? So why would the DaVinci Code suck? The story can't really be the problem, considering the amount of books Dan Brown has sold so far...

The first one didn't own. Johnny Depp owned, but he always does. Without him, the film would have been total trash, IMHO. Personally, I'm waiting for HP 4 (hoping the new director does a good job - I liked HP 3 better than the first two in any case, but there's still plenty of room for improvement, imho) and for Narnia. Trailer of Narnia already rocks, btw :) And, artefacts and modeling is done by Richard Taylor's wonderful Weta workshop, which we all know from the LOTR trilogy :)

Okay. Next time, please get a clue what you're talking about before making random accusations. 1. Firefox is not anti-MS-java. MS Java was never and will never be developed to work on anything other than MS IE. That's not anyone's problem but Microsoft's, and Firefox is definitely not going to adopt the ActiveX standard just to create some more security holes. 2. Microsoft and Jagex do not have some kind of 'deal' that there is no sound when using the SUN java vm. SUN just never had an implementation that offered music playback until about a year ago. Why Jagex haven't fixed their code to use this implementation (they said they would), I have no idea. 3. Memory usage (in the case of runescape) is a virtual machine problem. IE, it has nothing to do with the browser - it has everything to do with the virtual machine you're using. Using SUN's vm, you get more memory usage, even in IE. Firefox 1.0.x does have memory usage issues. Most (all?) of the leaks have been fixed for 1.5beta1, so either use that or wait until it goes out of beta. These issues would only show up when you open loads of tabs, load them with webpages and close them again, and repeat that quite a few times. Anyhow, I can't see why you're complaining. I've had Firefox use 150MB of ram and another 200MB of swap space without ever loading RS. I just keep one browser window open all day, and use tabs excessively. Which is sucky for performance in just about any app.

Right. So seeing as I am a student and live on my own, I have to cook, too. As some of you will know, most students love pasta. One reason is that you can put cooked pasta in the fridge, and warm it up in the microwave the next day, meaning you have to cook less, and still get healthier food compared to getting microwave meals from the local wal-mart. So, my pasta recipe: For two persons (or one person, but two portions, so you can put half in the fridge) you need: 1 onion mushrooms, about 125 gram creme fraiche, one small plastic thingy (about 125ml / gram, I believe) sliced bacon, about 100 gram. macaroni, spaghetti or some other pasta, about 250 gram First things first: wash the mushrooms and cut them in slices. Cut up the onion (yes, that sucks for your eyes, can't help it. Then again, it's okay to cry, isn't it Smavey? ;) ) Mix the mushrooms and onion in a bowl or whatever. Next, put the bacon in a pan, and cook it light-brown (careful not to burn it!), that should take roughly 10 minutes. Now, use some kitchen paper to remove most of the fat from the pan, to leave just the bacon behind (you don't want all the grease and fat in your sauce!). Put the onion and mushroom in the pan with the bacon. Cook this for another 10 minutes. Meanwhile, put up a pan with water, and cook it until it boils. Lower the fire / use less power, and put in the pasta. If you're using spaghetti, and don't want to break it, put the ends in, they will soften as you go along. When the pasta is entirely in the pan (in the case of spaghetti), cook it for another 8-10 minutes. ~~~~! Okay, edit. From what I've experienced so far, the creme fraiche tends to dry out a bit when left in the fridge for a day (as part of a meal). So, if you intend to keep part of what you're making in the fridge, I suggest keeping it there *without* the creme fraiche, and add that when you're warming it up. So add only half of the creme in the next step, to only half of the prepared onion, mushroom and bacon. Store the half without creme and the remainder of the creme in the fridge. Make sure you store the creme in something that's closed tight (tupperware box or whatever). ~~~~ When the onion, mushroom and bacon is done, take the lid off the creme fraiche, and turn it upside down above the pan (take it off the fire/furnace/stove, or it'll spatter you with hot stuff. Don't want that.). You may need to tap the bottom or use a knife to get the creme to fall out of the cup it's in. The creme fraiche will melt even without a furnace as the rest of the stuff in the pan is still hot. Mix it together, and add it to the pasta when you're done. Mix that too, and you're done. Have a nice meal ;-) * runs off to eat the remainder of the above (I cooked it yesterday)

That's not too bad then. Still, I insist on the bit about SLI and the dual core setup being too much. RE; 2GB of RAM - you really don't need that much. 1GB will do fine for most of the things currently out there. I'm on Linux, I've compiled a massive amount of source (Mozilla Firefox) while continuing to use the machine normally. I never came close to using up the 1GB. Even for games, 1GB is all you need for now. Sure, maybe in a year or two you will need more. You buy more then, when it's also about half as cheap as it is now. Buying it now just costs you extra money which you could better spend at something else.

Use bitlbee with your IRC client, or Trillian, GAIM, Miranda... there's so many programs that enable you to use the MSN network.

Sometimes I magically discern that someone has a computer problem without being poked about it :P Unfortunately, I really don't know what is the cause of all this. There are lots of possibilities. I'd try a virus scan if at all possible, as well as Ad-ware scans etc. etc. Apparently you can still get into safe mode - did you try to back up recently changed files and use a System Restore point? (Yes, I'm aware that those should keep your files, but I just don't trust Windows when it comes to that...) Also, was there *anything* out of the ordinary you did with your computer before what happened this morning? Install software, accidentally bump into it when coming home, anything? If not, you have a decent chance that it's a hardware problem. Did you try to check the disk from safemode? (lots of faults in harddisk r/w is often a cause for slowness). Additionally, you may want to try to enable logging during XP startup... I don't know how to do that out of the top of my head - Google around or wait until I'm home again (currently at uni). Also, if more people from #dw see this, poke Merc, GSW, Pyro and rick` about this too :-)

So. No monitor. No keyboard/mouse/speakers. I don't know if that matters for you, but just in case. Then... Why doesn't it list a motherboard? You're bound to get a crappy one with little expansion capabilities if they don't list it (usually). Personally, I think this is way too much for the general home user. You really don't have a use for the double graphics card unless you really care about the few pixels off you get in Doom 3 if you play it with just one gpu. As for the dual core cpu, they're so new that the real performance difference is unclear. I doubt you really need that, too. Basically, you're paying double for maybe a 20% performance increase if you really put the system to its limit. That's not really worth it for most people.

any js errors in the js console?

All that and the fact that in general, Mozilla gets far less severe ratings for its vulnerabilities. IE tends to have more of the 'critical' ones. And anyhow, all the vulnerability checking is getting old. One could even argue that especially Firefox being such a new browser, should be compared to the earlier versions of IE (guess what, they also had a lot more vulnerabilities...). In the end it all comes down to patching security vulnerabilities quickly so the users are not at risk. While you can try very very hard, software without security problems is hard to do. It's a shame that Firefox was once advertised as being the browser without security problems, because that's obviously not true. Nor is Opera, Safari, Konqueror or any other browser without security glitches. In the end, all those browsers are still miles safer than IE, not just because of the security holes, but because of the general problem of ActiveX and VBScript: in the original default 6.0 version of IE (ie, default configuration for prefs/options and the like) it was possible to have a page with an ActiveX control that read all the files on your machine and uploaded them, without IE doing much more than asking you if you wanted to enable the signed additional content on this page (how many people do you know who just hit 'Yes' to that?)

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Like I said, I may upload some photographs I did when I have some time. That's NOT now - paper due tomorrow morning 11am. Must... work... :(

Assuming it's true (moral absolution), horrible things are never justified, because "horrible" things, would contradict the moral Law. And how would you know it is true? You just assume? Just like everyone else who believes in an absolute moral Law? They contradict eachother - which is right? Assuming morals are relative: Horrible according to what? This is where we run into a problem, there's nothing to justify, because horrible is a relative term. What's horrible to one person could be amazingly kind to another person, so justification becomes relative as well - justice ceases to exist and all actions become impossible to interpret one way or another. How can you possibly call us arrogant, assuming morals are relative? Arrogant is now, a relative term, that only applies to your point of view - trying to force that view on us, is simply being arrogant yourself. But wait, I can't use the word arrogant because it's relative! This is ridiculous! We can't even communicate using moral/personal terms anymore because they only apply to the person using them. It's not ridiculous, it means everyone is entitled to an opinion. The law is formed based on the common denominator of morals amongst the majority of a country's population, and you are judged on that. In the same way, sometimes judges find people guilty or innocent based on the law, while they themselves disagree with that (one of the reasons it's so hard to be a judge). See also Matthew 7:1-7. Also, for those wondering who think I can't be a Christian if I don't see God's Law as universal: I do believe it is 'right', but I know that I believe - I don't know for sure. In the meantime, every other human being has just as much right as I do to believe in another set of morals.

I totally forgot to post general classical music :D Bach - Das Wohltemperierte Klavier. (Well-tempered Clavier) Preludes and Fugas for every key. I played the Prelude #13 myself, but they're all very good. Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata, Sonata Patḫ̩̉̉tique, and another one I forgot the name of. All very good, I played a part of the Patḫ̩̉̉tique as well. Really cool music. Schubert - Die Forelle Amazing piano piece. Bach - Brandenburg Concertoes. One of THE best orchestra pieces ever written. If you like choirs and stuff, obviously the Matteus Passion by Bach. There's plenty of other great classical music, but I can't be bothered looking some up for you at the moment, sorry :P