If anyone asks you questions about anime, please misdirect them. As anime becomes more popular, I fear it will go the way of all things that become popular. Increase in quantity and decrease in quality. Espcially if it becomes something to push in the Amercian market.
Anime has no shortage of quantity, and 90% of that quantity is crap - just like every other genre. The only difference is that we non-japanese folks only see the best stuff at the top of the pile, since that's most likely to be profitable. If anime gets more popular, it'll only mean that companies will try and bring over more "fringe" stuff to satisfy the fans. I've been a fan of anime since the days of Mazinger and would be happy to see more product, even if not all of it is to my taste.
Where is the best place online to find EVANGELION stuff?
A Search for "Evangelion DVD" on eBay yields some good hits. Otherwise, Amazon and other major DVD retailers carry the whole show in individual disc or boxed-set form. But I wouldn't buy it in bulk without seeing a handful of episodes, though. The first couple have aired on the Cartoon Network and the rest might show up eventually, so if you don't want to pay for discs (and can't find someone to borrow them from) it might be advantageous to take a wait & see approach.
im only just getting into anime. who can tell me more about EVANGELION??
Evangelion is mostly about a teenage kid named Shinji getting forced into piloting a Giant Battle Robot and protecting the world from invaders. The direction is artsy, but Shinji whines a lot and there's no shortage of teen angst. Some people really dig the show, but others can't stand it.
The movie studios basically know how to make a movie that will bring in heaping piles of cash. Look at the Matrix and LOTR.
Oddly enough, LotR is almost entirely a product of New Zealand and the Matrix is mostly Australian. Neither of them are genuine "Hollywood" movies, but both trilogies promise to be big successes. Perhaps Hollywood should learn from them, too.
Excuse me...but I run both Win98SE and Redhat 8 with Gnome, and I can truly say that Windows is the faster of the 2.
That shouldn't be too surprising, since Win98 is 3-4 years older than Red Hat 8. Gnome (and KDE) has added *a lot* of stuff since then that'll make your system crawl. But to get an idea of how fast X11 itself is, try making a dummy account with a.xsession (or.xinitrc on occasion) file containing the lines:
#!/bin/sh
twm &
xterm
Make the.xsession file executable and then login to the dummy account. (The account will log-out when you exit the xterm) I think you'll find the speed faster than Win98, and I hope it'll demonstrate exactly where Linux's desktop slowness comes from.
I've long believed it needs to be removed from the nuts-n-bolts for something smaller and faster. Let X11 support be a strap-on application for those who need it, like it is for OSX.
Please make up your minds, people. X11 was certainly fast enough on this speedy beast, and hasn't inherently gotten slower since. If you want something *smaller* than X11 to drive graphics, you'd better be prepared to write lots of code to handle niggling details like window displaying - in the graphics libraries. Ick. Projects like Berlin try to add *more* features to the windowing system that X11 doesn't have, which isn't necessarily bad. But it's not going to be *less* bloated than X11 is now.
But "old" and "bloated" is going to be a contradiction when one considers the advances in hardware over the 10+ years I've been using X11.
Even Xfree86 isn't all that slow - so long as it's got decent drivers to work with. But people tend to load lots of Gnome/KDE stuff to get their machines to look/act more like Windows, then complain that their machines run at Windows-like speeds. But X11 is easy to blame because few understand what it is or what it does; kindof like a "not invented here" syndrome for the open source world.
Because when Linux was written in the early 90s, most Unix systems were using X11 for a GUI and that's where most of the open sourced apps were. Inventing a whole new graphic system would've been a huge waste of effort. Arguably, it still is. But for embedded systems, an alternative isn't a bad idea.
It strikes me that a really good watermarking technology is needed before this type of technology will be truly trustworthy. Imagine a Rodney King scenario, but since the cops have it on digital video they could "edit in" some attack footage before the beating starts. Call me paranoid, but it would be possible.
Wouldn't it be easier for the cops to simply not record the offending event in the first place? In the case of Rodney King, it was a third party recording that got them into trouble. Though on occasion cops have been known to be caught by their own cameras, it's unlikely one that stupid is going to do much digital video editing to cover up their misdeeds.
Besides, it's not as if tapes are immune to editing (digital or otherwise) either.
After reading the scores of dissatisfied Amazon customers, my folks decided against it in favor of TaxCut and had no problems. Whether or not they stay away depends on what TaxCut and TurboTax decide next year, I'm sure.
But IMHO, hurling so much copy protection at software sold so cheaply and used for so little time was a mistake.
Damn! I was going to patent this but it sounds like there is some "prior art"...
That's not much of an obstacle lately. I'm planning to patent a process known as "respiration" that involves oxygen and human lungs. You can all expect letters from my attorney shortly...
Naturally, but people (and management types in particular) are liable to forget that fact when $(SOFTWARE COMPANY) rep offers $(EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE PACKAGE) free of charge - and that's highly unfortunate.
Oddly, the CG stuff in LOTR looked fine to me, and blended into the rest of the film seamlessly, so who knows.
I can't put my finger on "why" exactly, that is just how I feel.
LotR uses *a lot* of models (the Rivendell wide shots, certain shots of the towering statues, etc.). That, along with the less fantastical surroundings helps the movies to look more "real". And since the entire trilogy is already digitally re-colorized, the CGI effects can be blended better.
Of course, it helps that the LotR films are better written than the latest Star Wars installments, which means the effects don't have to carry the film so much:)
And yet Linux users (especially the converts over the last 3-5 years) can't stop moaning about how Linux will never be successful until it apes Windows and MacOS. And then they complain about a lack of innovation...
The problem is that the Linux community is populated partly by ex-Unix guys who are quite capable of installing their own window managers and getting by without pointy-clicky desktop environments. But it's also partly populated by ex-Windows guys who feel more at ease with a desktop full of icons and something resembling a "start" menu where their "applications" live. This generates a fair amount of tension within the community itself.
For example, take a typical X11 flamewar. The old-school Unix guys have spent a lot of time configuring their system for productivity and certainly don't want X11's benefits to be thrown out. But, the Windows folks want to eliminate any hindrances that prevent their latest OS from looking and feeling more like what they were used to.
Bringing things back on topic, there's little reason Linux folks and X11 users can't pick-and-choose whatever improvements they want to add (antialiased fonts being the latest example). But without a centralized force in charge of UI development, improvements are ultimately decided by program authors themselves. The result is a more conservative development path overall, but that's not necessarily such a bad thing.
Surely there are adacemic researchers out there probing the frontier of human-computer interaction that could use Linux as the basis for their work? Could it be that X is slowing us down somehow? I mean, think of how much fuss there was over minor and superficial enhancements antialiased fonts and transparent windows. Where are the big ideas?
There's nothing to stop someone from inventing FancyUI with all sorts of bells and whistles and installing it in place of X11, but who would use it? All of my current GUI-based apps live in X11-land and giving them up isn't going to help me get my work done no matter how much neato graphical stuff FancyGUI offers.
The better approach, I think, is to merge improvements into X11 through extensions (perhaps moving to X11R7, if enough of them become commonplace) so that people have a smooth upgrade path and without all the wheel reinvention required by Yet Another X11 Re-attempt.
Up here in NH, we just go inside during blizzards.
But a blizzard will kill just as readily (though perhaps not as quickly) as a tornado should you get caught out in one. In both cases, the safest bet is to keep an eye on the weather and find appropriate shelter until it passes.
Re:Not inteded to be a callus question
on
Surviving Tornadoes
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Why do people live in places like this when they get hit _every year_ by tornados? I mean, holy crap - what kind of stress must it be to know that, next year, come May, you or someone near you has almost a 100% chance of having their new house flattened... again... next may. Hell, maybe in two months?
Really now. In spite of nasty natural phenomena, people continue to build homes in California and Florida without a second thought. By comparison to the widespread damage caused by earthquakes and hurricanes, tornadoes tend to be localized affairs that are much more likely to happen to somebody else. For most people, the dangers are (pardon the pun) overblown.
It's an educational show, sheesh.
on
Junkyard Wars Tour
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The point of the show is to get the viewer to watch the little animated bits where they tell you how a certain piece of technology works (or might not work, in some cases). The rest is just hooks to get the viewer interested.
In October 2002, they found that 59% of developers expect to write Linux applications in the next year.
Waiting for Linux apps...tapping foot....still waiting....
What makes you think that those developers were making "off-the-shelf" applications? It's likely that some of them are, but I'd wager that most are meant for internal use.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Berman and UPN's handling of Enterprise content is the reason I don't watch the show...
Anime has no shortage of quantity, and 90% of that quantity is crap - just like every other genre. The only difference is that we non-japanese folks only see the best stuff at the top of the pile, since that's most likely to be profitable. If anime gets more popular, it'll only mean that companies will try and bring over more "fringe" stuff to satisfy the fans. I've been a fan of anime since the days of Mazinger and would be happy to see more product, even if not all of it is to my taste.
A Search for "Evangelion DVD" on eBay yields some good hits. Otherwise, Amazon and other major DVD retailers carry the whole show in individual disc or boxed-set form. But I wouldn't buy it in bulk without seeing a handful of episodes, though. The first couple have aired on the Cartoon Network and the rest might show up eventually, so if you don't want to pay for discs (and can't find someone to borrow them from) it might be advantageous to take a wait & see approach.
Evangelion is mostly about a teenage kid named Shinji getting forced into piloting a Giant Battle Robot and protecting the world from invaders. The direction is artsy, but Shinji whines a lot and there's no shortage of teen angst. Some people really dig the show, but others can't stand it.
Oddly enough, LotR is almost entirely a product of New Zealand and the Matrix is mostly Australian. Neither of them are genuine "Hollywood" movies, but both trilogies promise to be big successes. Perhaps Hollywood should learn from them, too.
That shouldn't be too surprising, since Win98 is 3-4 years older than Red Hat 8. Gnome (and KDE) has added *a lot* of stuff since then that'll make your system crawl. But to get an idea of how fast X11 itself is, try making a dummy account with a .xsession (or .xinitrc on occasion) file containing the lines:
.xsession file executable and then login to the dummy account. (The account will log-out when you exit the xterm) I think you'll find the speed faster than Win98, and I hope it'll demonstrate exactly where Linux's desktop slowness comes from.
#!/bin/sh
twm &
xterm
Make the
Please make up your minds, people. X11 was certainly fast enough on this speedy beast, and hasn't inherently gotten slower since. If you want something *smaller* than X11 to drive graphics, you'd better be prepared to write lots of code to handle niggling details like window displaying - in the graphics libraries. Ick. Projects like Berlin try to add *more* features to the windowing system that X11 doesn't have, which isn't necessarily bad. But it's not going to be *less* bloated than X11 is now.
But "old" and "bloated" is going to be a contradiction when one considers the advances in hardware over the 10+ years I've been using X11.
Even Xfree86 isn't all that slow - so long as it's got decent drivers to work with. But people tend to load lots of Gnome/KDE stuff to get their machines to look/act more like Windows, then complain that their machines run at Windows-like speeds. But X11 is easy to blame because few understand what it is or what it does; kindof like a "not invented here" syndrome for the open source world.
Wouldn't it be easier for the cops to simply not record the offending event in the first place? In the case of Rodney King, it was a third party recording that got them into trouble. Though on occasion cops have been known to be caught by their own cameras, it's unlikely one that stupid is going to do much digital video editing to cover up their misdeeds.
Besides, it's not as if tapes are immune to editing (digital or otherwise) either.
But IMHO, hurling so much copy protection at software sold so cheaply and used for so little time was a mistake.
That's not much of an obstacle lately. I'm planning to patent a process known as "respiration" that involves oxygen and human lungs. You can all expect letters from my attorney shortly...
Naturally, but people (and management types in particular) are liable to forget that fact when $(SOFTWARE COMPANY) rep offers $(EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE PACKAGE) free of charge - and that's highly unfortunate.
Ah, but Microsoft software is free only if your time is worthless.
LotR uses *a lot* of models (the Rivendell wide shots, certain shots of the towering statues, etc.). That, along with the less fantastical surroundings helps the movies to look more "real". And since the entire trilogy is already digitally re-colorized, the CGI effects can be blended better.
Of course, it helps that the LotR films are better written than the latest Star Wars installments, which means the effects don't have to carry the film so much :)
The problem is that the Linux community is populated partly by ex-Unix guys who are quite capable of installing their own window managers and getting by without pointy-clicky desktop environments. But it's also partly populated by ex-Windows guys who feel more at ease with a desktop full of icons and something resembling a "start" menu where their "applications" live. This generates a fair amount of tension within the community itself.
For example, take a typical X11 flamewar. The old-school Unix guys have spent a lot of time configuring their system for productivity and certainly don't want X11's benefits to be thrown out. But, the Windows folks want to eliminate any hindrances that prevent their latest OS from looking and feeling more like what they were used to.
Bringing things back on topic, there's little reason Linux folks and X11 users can't pick-and-choose whatever improvements they want to add (antialiased fonts being the latest example). But without a centralized force in charge of UI development, improvements are ultimately decided by program authors themselves. The result is a more conservative development path overall, but that's not necessarily such a bad thing.
There's nothing to stop someone from inventing FancyUI with all sorts of bells and whistles and installing it in place of X11, but who would use it? All of my current GUI-based apps live in X11-land and giving them up isn't going to help me get my work done no matter how much neato graphical stuff FancyGUI offers.
The better approach, I think, is to merge improvements into X11 through extensions (perhaps moving to X11R7, if enough of them become commonplace) so that people have a smooth upgrade path and without all the wheel reinvention required by Yet Another X11 Re-attempt.
But a blizzard will kill just as readily (though perhaps not as quickly) as a tornado should you get caught out in one. In both cases, the safest bet is to keep an eye on the weather and find appropriate shelter until it passes.
Really now. In spite of nasty natural phenomena, people continue to build homes in California and Florida without a second thought. By comparison to the widespread damage caused by earthquakes and hurricanes, tornadoes tend to be localized affairs that are much more likely to happen to somebody else. For most people, the dangers are (pardon the pun) overblown.
The point of the show is to get the viewer to watch the little animated bits where they tell you how a certain piece of technology works (or might not work, in some cases). The rest is just hooks to get the viewer interested.
I suppose if you try and bypass DRM, the DMCA will provide you an opportunity to go to prison.
What makes you think that those developers were making "off-the-shelf" applications? It's likely that some of them are, but I'd wager that most are meant for internal use.
Whoops, I meant the "crippled version will quickly fade away". Darn typos.