5801

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Thread for talking about council nominations.

« on: December 09, 2013, 11:49:58 PM »

I just picked people who do things. wiki, art, write stuff. I'm only interested in having people who will get stuff done and make the site a success.
Someone nominated Markjo for instance. I have never seen him draw a single diagram. Never volunteered to help with anything. Just likes to criticise with repetitive one liners. I'm not interetested in an RE balance. just that those who get stuff done can go get stuff done. If its a good panel, I don't care if I'm on it or not.

This is why I will not run for council.  I don't want to get stuff done in the name of The Flat Earth.  Too much damn work.

5802

Status Notices / Re: Sorry about the brief downtime

« on: December 09, 2013, 09:27:13 PM »

5 minutes of downtime is inexcusable.

IT WAS 3 MINUTES OKAY?!

Oh well, that's alright then.

5803

Technology & Information / Re: Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 09, 2013, 05:42:49 PM »

As a computer idiot, why can't current systems have what old computers, games, phones, etc used to have which is a little red 'return to factory settings' button on the bottom?

It's technically possible but to do it you'd need to tie that button into firmware so that when pressed it loads up a ROM copy of whatever settings are changeable then writes those settings to the HDD.
But to ensure that it actually worked properly, it would have to remove any and all updates as well as other data which may interfere.

So it may actually need to wipe your entire HDD and reinstall the OS.  But doing so requires a sizable amount of storage space.  Plus it makes it so easy to essentially erase everything that little brothers would do it just for fun.  And since the console isn't designed to be bricked so easily (old games required you to put in IRQ settings and the like) then said button is essentially worthless.

It's far easier to simply have the technicians have a way to boot from a USB drive into the console and reinstall the OS.  Not only do they make money on repairs, but they also ensure that your data isn't wiped without your consent.

5804

Technology & Information / Re: Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 09, 2013, 01:02:10 PM »

PS4 is demonstrably more powerful, however. For example: running games in actual 1080p rather than 720p or upscaled 900p like the Xbox One.

Please tell me you're joking because I can't believe that the latest console from Microsoft doesn't do full HD resolution.

Display    4K, 1080p, 1080i, and 720p resolutions

You know what I mean.  720p is low HD.  In meant 1080.

5805

Technology & Information / Re: Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 09, 2013, 12:03:12 PM »

PS4 is demonstrably more powerful, however. For example: running games in actual 1080p rather than 720p or upscaled 900p like the Xbox One.

Please tell me you're joking because I can't believe that the latest console from Microsoft doesn't do full HD resolution.

5806

Technology & Information / Re: Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 09, 2013, 02:40:43 AM »

I wonder why they actually did turn off backwards compatibility.  I mean, it's not like they couldn't have built an emulation layer.  The damn thing's powerful enough.

Emulation is not a software issue, it's a hardware one. The original PS3 could only emulate PS2 games because they literally built a PS2 into the damn thing. The Xbone's architecture is too radically different from an Xbox 360 for proper emulation. Same goes for the PS4.

*reads up on the specs of both X-Boxes*
Yeah, I see what you mean.  Damn.  I guess when you're designing a gaming console, you can need to sacrifice compatibility for efficiency.

5807

Technology & Information / Re: Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 09, 2013, 02:21:52 AM »

I wonder why they actually did turn off backwards compatibility.  I mean, it's not like they couldn't have built an emulation layer.  The damn thing's powerful enough.

5808

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Zetetic Council

« on: December 09, 2013, 12:13:59 AM »

He is the self-proclaimed king of a forum that no one ever visits, Markjo.

Irrelevant.  For some strange reason, you keep thinking that the FES forum is the sum total of the Flat Earth Society.  I have no idea where you got that silly notion.

well there is a wiki ... which we host, FE library ... which we are building, Twitter ... we have that, G+ ... yup. We don't have a podcast once a year or a book that isn't finished but I think we've all the other bases covered.

Tell me, what else is it that Daniel does that is so valuable and unique that only he can do it (or not do it as is his preference)?

Interviews.

5809

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Zetetic Council

« on: December 08, 2013, 08:24:43 PM »

Also, these decisions should be done over the course of a few days.
We have time zones and user schedules to consider.  It wouldn't be fair if only those online now had a say in the rules of how the council is formed.

5810

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Zetetic Council

« on: December 08, 2013, 07:39:40 PM »

Ok, work something out and tell me what happens. This is getting ridiculous.

If I can't vote, I can't be a part of organising it either for the same reasons.

I don't agree. There's no reason you can't be part of the discussion. I'm not an official member either, but I'm happy to accept that I don't get a vote this election as a result.

If you would prefer to decouple this Society from the old one and define an "official member" in some other way, I'm all ears, but I don't see an easy way to define that.

If a zentic council is formed, doesn't that essentially mean a few society is being formed?

Yes, which brings us back to the matter of how to define "official member" for the purposes of this election.


I don't like this way of defining voting privileges any more than you do, but I don't see a fairer alternative. If somebody can come up with one, I will be more than happy to listen.

Well whenever a new country forms they just define a voter as whoever is there.
So it stands to reason that we just make a cutoff date and say that anyone with at least 1 post here (and isn't a spam bot or alt) on or before this date can vote in the first election provided they pledge to be an FEer.

After that the council can figure out how to evaluate who is an FEer.

5811

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Zetetic Council

« on: December 08, 2013, 07:30:46 PM »

If a zentic council is formed, doesn't that essentially mean a few society is being formed?

5812

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Zetetic Council

« on: December 08, 2013, 07:22:53 PM »

If you're going to have a council, it must be made up of actual FEers.

So the first thing you should do is make up a contract that all members who wish to be on the council need to agree to.

Then find out who wants to agree to it.

Then vote.

5813

Technology & Information / Re: Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 08, 2013, 05:03:32 PM »

What does it actually do?

It enables dev-mode on the Xbox, which if you're not an authorized dev, it more or less results in your Xbox no longer working.

They kept dev-mode in the software?  Knowing it could brick the thing?
Lazy.

5814

Announcements / Re: Permanent forum staff assignments have been made

« on: December 08, 2013, 03:29:51 PM »

Congrats guys.  Make the forum proud.

5815

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Zetetic Council

« on: December 08, 2013, 05:30:12 AM »

I have to echo Lemon's sentiments.

We shouldn't be trying to form anther Flat Earth Society.  Let Daniel do what he does.  If people want to learn about FES, they'll eventually find themselves here.  Then, the only difference between this forum and the old one is that we won't get updates on what Daniel announces.

5816

Announcements / Re: We have our first cloud-hosted subdomain!

« on: December 07, 2013, 03:29:26 PM »

I just tested it here in NY and each item downloaded at 1.3-1.5mb/s which is almost as fast as steam games download.  So I'd call it a success.


So if I understand correctly, this cloud-host basically takes the contents of your library.tfes.org and caches it.  Then, when someone requests it, that host sends it to them.  And since said host is bigger and more powerful than your VPS, it can send them with greater speed while also allowing your VPS to not have to worry about it.  Like say if someone wrote a script to download the entire library 1,000 times the VPS wouldn't notice a damn thing.

5817

Technology & Information / Re: How to Subnet, an Example

« on: December 07, 2013, 02:07:44 PM »

I used to know this stuff but its been years.  Thanks for the refresher.

5818

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Use CloudFront for serving static content

« on: December 07, 2013, 02:34:48 AM »

emily is probably a guy.

 

I honestly thought you were a spambot when I saw your e-mail.

5819

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Use CloudFront for serving static content

« on: December 06, 2013, 03:22:04 PM »

I'm unconvinced of the merit of using this CDN at this point. There would be the benefit of high availability, which means I could use the main website to post status updates if and when my VPS goes down. I think I'll sleep on it.

AWS' CDN uses their slower S3 servers - it's more about offloading requests from your servers, rather than actually using faster servers. So if your VPS isn't under strain, it's probably better to leave it like that. Probably better to just focus on preventing your VPS from going down

I didn't see this coming.

5820

Technology & Information / Re: Steam on Linux

« on: December 06, 2013, 01:29:41 AM »

Got it working.

I had to grab an RPM, extract the file, and throw that into /usr/lib

And it did give me an error about OpenGL not having direct rendering but steam loaded.