We are back!

So what exactly was the problem?

The service provider keeps having their own DNS server point to itself or another of their own DNS servers so requests go into the big black hole of the internet. Pretty obvious when you look at a tracert.

Ah well I didn't bother to work out why it went down i just caught up on my RL stuff.

Haven't you figured it out yet? There is no real life... we're all trapped in a matrix representation of real life... playing games that simulate real life for other fictional characters...


There is no reality...

On the other hand... it is nice and comforting that Dumpshock is back

Praise Dog!

Since our hosting is kindly donated by html.com, when they rolled out a new billing system, our account got suspended as we weren't actually IN the billing system.

finally!
i started going through withdrawl about 12 hours ago x.x . . .

I think most of us did......

Think of the awesomeness that could happen if, next time Dumpshock goes down, everyone wrote a short adventure and posted it when the site came back up. Harness that downtime for good!

i am afraid to think of what would happen if geeks around the world actually used their geekness to do something productive . .

Just glad the site is back.

and now we return to our scheduled programming...

It would either fail due to bickering or be very very good.

OMG! That was horrible!! I sat here stunned , staring at the screen. My mind was spinning uncontrollably. Will dumpshock return? What Evildoer is responsible for this act of mindless innernet terrorism? HOW COULD SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN?????????

Praise all that is holy, though my Dumpshock is back.!! I can breathe again. and on the positive side, my family has quit calling me "that guy who lives in the computer room " and I got a shower and the dogs will sit by me again. so i guess its a good thing.

That's basically what my weekend was like.

As I am typing, I am sick at home, suffering from withdrawal symptoms. OK, suffering from a cold.

Praise ye the Matrix that Dumpshock is back.

Maybe Dumpshock should be one of the Technomancer streams I keep hearing about?

-paws

Thank god DS came back up before I had to go back to work...

I might have actually been... heavens! Productive!

What did people do before the internet, hmm looking back through my gaming stuff I have folders full of maps, npc's and adventures. Since the internet I have print outs of maps,npc's and adventures I found online....hmmm

I had to prepare the sunday run without access to DS.

My hand does not draw maps that are as nice as printouts from Methods honeypot.

Figures that "Method" is not a helpful term on a general internet search...

About that time my own PC broke and I started to be afraid of alltogether lost info.

It was a cold, cold world.

Say what you will but it sure seems like mankind made most of it's major accomplishments before the internet

We found new continents, oppressed indigenous people, fought slavery, went to the moon, invented all sorts of thing.

Perhaps the internet is what's actually holding us back

B-b-BUT IT CAN'T BE TRUE!

though while DS was off line I did more work in class....

I don't think its holding us back, exactly. It does seem to be bringing people to the same level. Unfortunately, while most people are coming up, some are coming down... So maybe its better to say that the internet encourages mediocrity?

-paws
Wow, what a depressing thought...

Hehe... I'm just saying that it sure does feel like we haven't really uh... accomplished anything in the last 30 or so year (I know that's a gross generalization, the human genome springs to mind and CERN) but I mean... if you had to represent the last 3 decades versus the previous 3 it'd be like:

Representative For the 40's-60's: We fought Nazi's and landed on the moon.
Representative For the 70's-2010: War on uh... Terror? That was good right? We learned how to genetically engineer glowing rats and plants? No? er...




Look let me be totally honest with the rest of you, this just my way of shaming humanity into stopping all this stupid shit and focus on what really matters.

Awesome science. Like permanently colonizing Mars. Yeah! What now! How bout them apples previous generations of man! We might not have discovered the facets of modern medicine or produced mind boggling good art but yEEEEEEHAH! We live on Mars.

Right now I just feel like we don't have much to show for ourselves.

Well, aside from vast amounts of internet porn. That has to count for something.

Don't limit yourself to the kind of achievements previous generations thought were important. Sure, a big war was won by the last generation, but this generation has bucked the trend and hasn't had a world war. That IS worth something. World leaders (eg. Canadian Prime Minister, U.S. President) have earned Nobel Peace Prizes. World leaders used to be warmongering megalomaniacs. (OK, so maybe those nations are backtracking a bit, but still.) There is a world court to adjudicate crimes against humanity. Imagine that... worldwide recognition of a higher set of principles than national self-interest.

Science? My step-son is applying Kantian philosophy to reconfigure quantum theory. Beats me, but that's gotta be worth something! And we're ON Mars, without risking a single human life. And we've found water there.

I'm sure those in the know could find many more examples. Great ones came before us, and we stand on their shoulders to reach even higher.

Peter

BOO not risking human life! BOO! I don't want ROBOTS on Mars /I/ want to be on Mars, I want to freeze my ass off humping up Mt. Olympus and dig through that red sand with my own two paws! There's water on Mars and by goddamn I want to drink it!
That said I am pleased we've managed to put very functional drones on Mars. I'm pleased at the results we've come back with but I recognize that the bigger problem is no one seems to care except for me and three other science nutjobs who grew up on a steady diet of Robert A. Heinlein and C. Clarke.

Totally unrelated story: My good buddy who's from Sri Lanka actually played ping-pong with Clarke. That's fucking awesome.


I'd also point out that America (And I think a number of other "big" countries") don't belong to the World Court for various reasons. Seeing at what a cluster the UN can be I'm not at all surprised (although it would be grand if such a court could exist, could be fair, and could in fact bring us a bit of peace). While I'd normally be supportive, conceptually, of a world court, the reality of the UN makes me learey to say the least. We are talking about an organization that thought it might be a good idea to put Iran in charge of the committee of human rights.

*shrugs*

We've skipped out on a World War and that is something to be proud of. We've also stood by and done very little about some of the worst atrocities, in scale and in terribleness, that humanity has ever endured.

Great generations have come before us but I sometimes wonder if we squander their gift. It's my own prejudice showing through but I can't help feel like we'd be better off if we'd stop looking at the top of our shoes and start looking ahead.

One problem sientificly is that really the big discoverys arnt thire to be made so its all these little steps left to do things that outside the science don't mean squat to Mr. man on street. Its unlikely that huge things will happen in physics at least not for a few years. In fact IIRC it more likely that a huge theory will be proved wrong that a new one discovered. This paning out might not be panning out who knows if some tiny thing today could end up fueling some thing huge in 10-20 years. Then we'll look back at (I don't know glowing rats) and go see that's why we can have X and Y. Really I don't think that some of the big idea 30 years ago where big then.



Im unshure what Kantian philosophy is but quantum theory is just a bit messy atm but it's unlikely work in that filed will effect the common man soon. It will affect me his its proven right as I'll learn about it in 2-ish years in my degree. Really working out what we have done is quite a hard thing to think of. Though computing has come on a lot in the last 30 years.

Immanuel Kant

Post #666! \m/