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Except that a lot of the ships (and station itself) *have* been redone for the 2007 stories. And I'm pretty sure the people that made the amateur videos would be happy to give them the models.

An amateur redid parts of a battle from DS9 in HD, and was asked by someone from Foundation Imaging to contact him (don't remember where I've read this). DS9 also used motion control for the ships, which makes it even harder, and it could be possible to do it.

http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/...

Since B5 was entirely CGI, it would be easier. If the morons at WB didn't insist to have a 16:9 format for the DVDs, it would look so much better than blowing and cropping the CGI stuff.

http://www.modeemi.fi/~leopold...

In fact, the episode previews on the DVDs look *so much* better, even on a big screen...

I'd like to add to this question, since I missed my chance last time and I'm a huge B5 fan (it was on PTEN when I was a kid, and we didn't have cable so it was UHF channels for me... and then I missed season 5 entirely which led to rewatching it a couple of years ago... and hooking plenty of other people since then).

Would it be possible to have the portions that were not composited retransfered in HD, progressive scan video? And maybe the CGI portions upscaled and transferred as full frames at the original frame rate instead of being converted to interlaced/24fps video? Running a version of the filter at the previous link does result in a noticeable quality improvement, and it would be great if officially released versions didn't have to be ripped/filtered to restore the quality.

Availibility in DRM-free formats (Bluray and GNU/Linux aren't really friends, and it sucks having to break the law to watch video you paid for) would be awesome too.

Of course, I hear that the rights situation with the whole PTEN explosion is likely what is preventing any of this from being possible...

Meaning

1- If it was filmed at a resolution higher than NTSC so they just don't upscale it
2- If they keep the ratio it was filmed in (4:3)

WB totally messed up B5, and it looks like crap on DVD compared to VHS. I know that part of the problem was the CGI was not done in 16:9 and some moron at WB probably insisted it would sell better in Widescreen, they cropped and stretched the composited shots and it's a big blurry mess...)

http://www.modeemi.fi/~leopold/Babylon5/DVD/DVDTransfer.html

Vinyl.

LD and CD.

From a disc construction and reader hardware perspective, LD is like CD and nothing like vinyl.

Xinerama is probably one of the worst hacks around from a design perspective, and therefore from a perspective of writing useful software for it. For instance, check out:

http://www.modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/faq/entries/Xinerama.html
http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/b/2008/the_downfall_of_x/

Xinerama is probably one of the worst hacks around from a design perspective, and therefore from a perspective of writing useful software for it. For instance, check out:

http://www.modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/faq/entries/Xinerama.html
http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/b/2008/the_downfall_of_x/

Against cluttered windows, just use frames (ion). Couldn't live without.

You might want to try the Ion window manager.

We're going the wrong way.

If Tuomo Valkonen is accurate in his predictions, it will take less than three years for Linux to suck more than Microsoft Windows.

Sounds like you need to try ion3.

And pwm and later ion has been there for a long time. I ran pwm when I still had a PC laptop, to my amusement when any of my friends tried to use it.

I don't disagree at all. But I'm not much of a GUI user so it's not a question of switching from KDE to OSX... I used to use ION as my window manager because, personally, KDE was brutal and ION gave me a buttload of great features and stayed the hell out of my way. Now, switching from THAT to OSX has been painful, but it's been totally worth it. I don't "fiddle" with things anymore ... hell, I don't even have printing working from my linux box because it requires me to screw around with a bunch of crap to get it going... what the hell is that? I plug it in to the network, and my Mac says "Bonjour!" and I print. It's stuff like that that I got tired of mucking around with. I want to code, I want to surf, I want to edit photos, read email, view attachments, watch movies, etc etc... I don't want to go and modify fstab to get my USB mounts working right, or futz with the printer subsystem to print a document, or install something that can play mp3's from the browser, etc etc... that's all just busy work that I shouldn't have to do. I could switch to Windows, but hey, that would be stoopid. So I switched to the Mac.

At the end of the day, if the UI let's me open terminal windows and surf the net then that's all I need. If your window manager is actually more important than the OS then, yeah, you probably want an X11 unix so that you can use any window manager you want. But I'm more concerned with my machine doing the right thing than how it presents my windows to me.

He's not talking about Tomboy being integrated like IE in Windows: It's the issue of Novell pushing the Mono project into tighter integration with GNOME and then the serious repercussions _when_ (not if) Microsoft decides enough is enough and makes it very hard for Mono to stay alive.

Keeping them separate and having Mono fully support GNOME is a really good idea, but at the end of the day everybody still loaths Mono (and the .NET platform) runtime as much as Java for the extra overheads it introduces; some people might conclude that faster development times compared to C or C++ justify it, others don't - you choose what you want to run.

Personally I use Ion 3 to manage my terminals, gvim instances and Opera, instead of "desktop environments" focusing more on pretty boxes instead of helping productivity.

I tried Compiz when I upgraded my laptop to Slackware 12 -- it's included by default so I gave it a go (took a bit of experimenting to make it work...). The wobbly windows are cool and it seems to have a couple of features which may possibly be useful e.g. dragging windows between virtual desktops and the spinny cube thing. However, I found it a bit slow and unstable for my taste and there's nothing to increase productivity or anything useful enough to make me leave Icewm and Fluxbox.
... Recently I started using a tiling window manager (Ion - http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/) and my productivity has gone through the roof!

Check out Ion

http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/

This is also my case.

I tried to use Photoshop once, but I just couldn't get around it.

However, I believe that on Windows machine (at least XP, I haven't really looked into Vista), since there is no multiple desktops, it can get hard to make the search of the windows in the taskbar, when it's all mixed up with IE / Firefox / other browsers windows, Windows Explorer window, etc.

I think that this doesn't happen very often in a multi desktop environment. If you start gimp, and then find yourself with a taskbar full of windows, just send the Gimp windows to another desktop and work from there.

And if you even take the time to learn the keyboard shortcuts, and always use the same settings for several tools, you can even try and leave the control window on a desktop, and the image window on another, and work directly on the image window

Another idea would be to use a windows-manager that has non-overlapping windows. I believe that Ion does that. However, it's interface is more keyboard oriented, so it might not be for everyone.

On other note, I don't think that Gimp will be able to beat Photoshop. On your in school, what is the program that teachers usually use to teach more "advanced" image manipulation (for example, for photographers). It's usually Photoshop (at least, I've been in some weeding, and the photographers always were editing the photos and printing them in Photoshop.

Of course, for more simple manipulation, like changing color levels, contrast, etc. Gimp can be used as a teaching program (my school used it, when I recommend it, since they didn't had the money to buy Photoshop licences), however, I saw the look of desperation on my classmates' faces (some of them I think were pseudo-photoshoper, as in, they mostly dis some tutorials and that was about it. Not that I have anything against tutorials of course :D). I tried to teach them how to move around, and them I noticed something in them. Since it was different from the usual it was automatically labeled as "crap", and much "weeping" happened during those classes (But that also happened when they started learning Flash, so I don't know if I should consider it a Gimp problem).

So I think the Gimp / Photoshop relation is a bit like Linux / Microsoft relation, in the way that while one is learned in schools, most people wont even use the other.

Just my two cents anyway...

Lua is not only used in games.

As another example of what you can do with Lua, it is used in Ion, a window manager (http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/). Granted, it is a little known window manager, intended for people who dislike mouse and fancy graphic effects, but it has been designed to be a lightweight solution and that's why Lua had been chosen.

http://www.yzis.org/ uses it also.

Even better:

http://www.modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/

In addition to looking for a mouse replacement, look at alternatives to using the mouse at all. What options are available will depend upon the OS. I use Linux at work, and use Ion as my window manager. For most of the operations I do I can avoid using the mouse entirely. Avoding moving between keyboard and mouse makes a big difference. The only thing I use my mouse for on a regular basis is firefox, and with properly designed web UIs you can navigate from the keyboard pretty heavily.

For a mouse replacement I use the Kensington Expert Mouse, which is a trackball with a nice large ball and four buttons located around the ball. If I'm using my fingertips to move the ball I can reach any of the buttons with my fingers.

It's also used by ion, a neat tabbed windows manager that focuses on non-overlapping windows and keyboard shortcuts. Fun to try if you're bored. http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/

The common understanding is to use tools when programming in such an environment. Development proceeds not so much in language X as in language X within tool Y. I think Ruby on Rails takes the opposite approach, where the underlying code is as terse as possible using Ruby constructs and metaprogramming

Upgrading a Dell or HP to XP Professional would probably still leave it cheaper than a similar Mac. Some of us also prefer the Windows XP GUI to Mac OS X one, and appreciate all the applications available for Windows XP.

My favourite window manager is ion, but the rest of the GUI on Unix-like systems is pretty random, so Windows XP is best overall for me (although I would really like something like ion on it). I think the Mac OS X command line is a bit better than Interix on XP (mostly because more tools have been ported to it), but either one will work for me.

With lots of pointless eye candy and all the spyware and viruses you can eat. :P

I've used Windows XP since it came out, and I've never had any virus/worm/spyware infections.

The Gentoo package database lists e and says it's "the e17 window manager" and Enlightenment, with the description "Enlightenment Window Manager" and version 0.16.9999
<obvious joke goes here>
Maybe I'll emerge e later.
It might be a fun dissonance, to have a little shell script that randomly flops between Enlightenment and Ion3, my current WM.
Because, really, when did Emacs care fig #1 about the WM, much less X? ;)

I can't believe my eyes. Someone is really complaining that the DVD releases are in the aspect ratio that the director and cinematographer intended? Wow!

All these films have been framed for aspect ratio of 1.66:1 or 1.85:1. It's what the director and cinematographer wanted. It's the aspect ratio that is seen in theaters. It's the correct aspect ratio. Of course, the actual film frame itself has an aspect ratio of about 1.37:1, so there is more information available in the original film frames, but it's not supposed to be seen, and it's been framed out.

Because so many uninformed individuals seem to prefer wrong aspect ratios to black bars on their 82-inch 4:3 TVs it's pretty common to do TV/video versions of these movies by simply opening up the top and the bottom of the frame. This is called open matte. This way there is more picture to be seen, yes, but it's all picture that's not supposed to be seen. There may be visible microphones, visible effects, visible set pieces, that were framed out by the director and the cinematographer.

More explanation about widescreen formats and how they're done, with examples: http://www.modeemi.fi/~leopold/AV/FilmToVideo/#Vid eoSoftMatte. The page has also a demonstration of how Super35 widescreen/4:3 versions are done, which is worth noting, because it's the process that's widely used nowadays in high-profile productions, such as The Lord of the Rings or The Matrix trilogies.

Remember kids, it's intended to be widescreen, unless it's either very old or by Stanley Kubrick.

I can't speak for GNOME, but KDE has a central registry of URL handlers. The downside to implementing it at this layer, of course, is that it isn't usable (or, at least, used in practice) by non-KDE apps.

(Incidentally, I use neither GNOME nor KDE -- I find that ion, while less than newbie-friendly, lets me work most efficiently).

With Mandrake and Lindow's recent troubles, you'd think they would check that the name isn't already taken.

I just hope the distro ends up changing its name and not My favorite Window Manager

I use a window manager called Ion. The interface is divided up into frames instead of windows. The frames can be split and resized, and apps can be dragged from one frame to another.

Well, I think it's kinda cool, anyway.

I'll never use KDE or Gnome or E or the like ever again. If the "features" and bloat are getting you down, may i suggest Ion?

It would be nice if you could just stack windows on top of each other. Like, this are the emails I should reply to, I'll put them on this stack.

It sounds like tabbed Windows (not just for your browser, but for everything, and you can shuffle stuff between different sets of tabs) might do what you want. pwm did this first. There are other WMs that have implemented the same feature.

As the other reply mentioned, this is off-topic.

But on the other hand, I run Linux on a p166mmx laptop /w 96mb ram.

I run Debian on it, with the Ion window manager and XFree86 3.3.6 (cos I don't like the glidepoint, and I use mostly console apps on it), but you could use IceWM, Blackbox or XFCE, all of which are in Debian Stable (Woody).

For a web browser I use Dillo mostly but Mozilla for some stuff (SSL etc). I don't use email on that machine though.

For productivity I have vim :P but AbiWord and Gnumeric would work okay I would imagine.

Basically, keep it sensible, and don't go for any memory intensive stuff (KDE / GNOME). Recompiling the kernel would help.

It's a nice laptop actually, apart from the HDD has a maximum transfer rate of 4mb/s, which is it's downpoint. Still, it's adequate for it's needs.

Martin

Just run pwm fullscreen and get it over with :)

Tab everything, whether the original programmer thought of it or not: ion

Also check out Ion and ratpoison. Very minimal and can be controled from the keyboard.