And all the stupid posts like the GP are simply anti-M$ zealots that are just trying to get karma points. (Seeing how it is at +4 insightful right now shows how successful they are at gaming the moderator system).
Oh, wah, popular sentiments get modded up! I'm gonna tell!
On my Linux system, Firefox starts up in less 1/2 to 1 second, surely that's fast enough for anyone.
The time it takes for a page to load is still limited more by my internet connection speed and the speed of the server than anything. I notice little difference between other browsers and Firefox even on our corporate network speed.
Is our society so caught up on "more, faster, now" that no one can wait a couple extra milliseconds for something to happen?
We're not talking a "couple extra milliseconds" here. Depending on your machine and what you're viewing, Firefox may exhibit lags of seconds in which the GUI is nonresponsive - after which all the queued GUI events suddenly get processed all at once. Waiting for a page to load is one thing - but the GUI should always be responsive.
Or do all these complaints about Firefox==slow|unstable|whatever come from Windows users? In which case, I would suspect something else is wrong, because the Linux and OS X versions have been rock solid for me.
I can't shift the blame off Flash, but I've also experienced the "Firefox freezes for a couple seconds" stuff on both Windows and Linux. For Windows I just have the official build; for Linux I can't say as I didn't install it. The Linux version definitely had more of a problem with that.
(I also had to restart FF on Linux once or twice a day if I was using it for Pandora because the sound would get garbled after a while. I blame that on Flash though.)
Those freezes are pretty brutal on my EEE 901... I think a good deal of it was coming from the crash recovery auto-saves (hence, I've recently disabled them) and other little bits of data being written to the (very slow) disk on the 901... But I have seen issues freezes on my desktop (quad-core, Linux) as well...
The one that's really been bugging me lately on Windows, though, is with the Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin... When I load a PDF in a browser tab, Acrobat takes over the download - and for some reason it downloads the data much, much slower than the web browser itself would... If I try navigating to a part of the document that's not ready yet, Acrobat freezes - and, thus, Firefox does as well... Sometimes the only way out of that one is to kill Acrobat.
Damn, dude - I haven't seen that in years, but I watched it just now and it's like the whole video was imprinted on the back of my brain this whole time...
The MW2 of which you speak is one of my favorites of all time.
I loved the opening video for that one with the Timberwolves on patrol on an airless moon.
"He's got a lock on me! He's got a lock on me!"
The two games I miss most from DOS are MW2 and X-Wing. Yes I could probably get them working, but I don't want to spoil my memories...
XD I went through a phase (probably about 10 years ago) where I would look specifically for DOS games that could be ramped up to higher resolution settings than my computer could manage when they were new... Basically anything that could run at 1024x768 was good.:) Well, except for not so much since the models were still low-poly... One of these days I'd really like to play some of the later X-Wing games, with the overhauled graphics... I just don't want to run Windows to do it.:)
I seriously wouldn't mind having Mechwarrior 2 up and running again but I feel like I don't have the controls to do it justice. I've got a few of the old non-USB Suncom flight controls (the F-15 stick and throttle) but I feel like it'd be a fair bit of trouble to get them working on my current computer (no gameports, no keyboard ports) with 15 year old software...
You know, all this talk of Mechwarrior 2 and "basically one shot and you're dead" and I didn't even think to mention what happens when one of your mech's legs gets blown up... XD Damn good stabilization gyros in those MW2 mechs, that's for sure.
I was never all that well set up for Mechwarrior 2 or X-Wing or Wing Commander or what have you back in the day - no throttle, no pedals, just a joystick and the keyboard - though at times I used an NES-to-keyboard adaptor to make a few keystrokes more convenient... At one time I had plans to build a power level controller for X-Wing (two strips of five buttons used to control power to the lasers or shields - push a button and it sends the keystrokes to the game to set that power level...) - it was kind of a tough project for me back then, I was trying to figure out how to do it with 4017's and such...
My Descent controller, on the other hand, was nearly perfect... Flightstick in one hand, clicky NES joystick in the other hand... Flightstick for attitude and fire control, and NES joystick for six axes of movement. The only thing I couldn't readily do with that control setup is roll. But rolling doesn't affect your aim in that game...
I just got MW2 this weekend and I played online. It basically is one shot and you're dead.
Well, you must be using a lightweight mech, like the Jenner - and presumably your opponent is using something massive and this "one shot" is fire-linked, with all their weapons... When you're using the lighter stuff you need to take advantage of your mobility - those Timber Wolves are tough but they're not too fast...
Oh, and remember to set up the "torso twist" controls! You're really slowing yourself down if you have to reorient your legs just to fire in a different direction... If you can get one of those Thrustmaster throttles, and one of those joysticks with the hat switch - those are supposed to be very good for MW2.
At least in the US, The trick is to get the stripper classified as a "reasonable accommodation". Then your boss has to allow it under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Usually this means the stripper is being allowed as a "reasonable accommodation" for a medical condition such as sexual dysfunction, for which a doctor has prescribed a regimen of lap dances. Employers can't legally stop employees from seeking this kind of accommodation, but in practice they discourage it by requiring an inordinate amount of paperwork, including detailed photographs and statistics of the service provider in question...
Only after hours and off company premises. Believe me, I've unsuccessfully lobbied for a change in this policy everywhere I've worked. Only one place allowed me to bring a stripper to work, and that was because she was a customer. Working below market with strippers all day at the office and no deadlines to get in the way of enjoying the show is a much better idea.
In most companies, upper-level management has already established exclusive contracts for the procurement of strippers and sex workers in general. Letting an employee make arrangements for an office stripper on their own would jeopardize these contracts - so it's really not surprising you weren't allowed.
My laptop is not too big to lug around. 14", 5lbs. Not bad at all. It is also pretty powerful. 2-3 hours of battery life isn't all that great, but how often do I need to use a laptop for more than 2 hours where there isn't a plug around?
<shrug> I had roughly the same specs with my Powerbook before I got the EEE... Going to conventions was one of its main "mobile" uses for me, playing games and videos and such, or internet usage if I needed info... That was a pretty regular thing for me for a while, and it was more of a "charge when I get back to the hotel room" kind of situation. I also didn't especially like carrying around 5 lbs of laptop all day, it did get to be a drag. I think the EEE is noticeably lighter and even though the battery life is less than double I feel much less dependent upon the AC adapter than I was with the powerbook.
Personally I put a very high value on mobility when it comes to mobile devices. It's no good having the thing be "mobile" if I leave it home, or run out of power too soon.
That's qualitative reasoning for a question that ought have a quantitative answer. The energy your cell phone dumps into your head should be well-known. How about estimates for radio, TV, etc?
True. My point was simply that one can't write off the potential impact of having a radio transmitter next to your head for extended periods just because there is environmental EM radiation to which we're exposed. You would have to consider the apparent intensity of the source that comes with proximity.
I'm not really in the mood to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of signal strength at the moment... I was actually just nitpicking a flaw in the structure of the argument, not contesting its message.
It has long been my stance that while all 6 movies are fanstically enteraining movies, Mr. Lucas couldn't make a quality film to save his life. I just want to put it out there and start a movement. Start to finish, episodes 1-6 maybe even thrawn years (7,8,9) reimagined star wars movie with no Lucas influence. Who's with me!!!
You can already guess how it turns out. I like flashbacks. I've seen many enjoyable stories where the past of certain characters and events is kept a mystery to slowly tease out over the course of the story. But it's never the primary focus of the story. When you go and make a prequel, dedicating an entire movie to going backwards, it feels like retreading old ground, even if we haven't explicitly seen it. Vader starts off as good guy, falls to evil. We caught the gist from Obi-Wan's exposition. Nothing we saw in the prequels added anything to it whatsoever.
It might have worked if they'd really sold it. If they'd somehow made me believe that the same Anakin from "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones" someday would turn into Big Bad Vader... (Damn! I shoulda used spoiler tags...)
I think the more natural point for a prequel would have been a straight lead-in to "Episode 4" - the formation of the rebellion, early battles, the theft of the plans, and so on. With the right treatment I think that could have made a fine set of prequels. Phantom Menace went back too far, IMO - it went back to a point where not much interesting was happening.:)
I mean.. how is it that Obi-Wan needs Yoda to remind him that "there is another" when.. OBI-WAN WAS THERE FOR THE BIRTH?!?!
Well, she's a girl! She doesn't count...
But, really, I think the whole Skywalker family tree was thrown together as an afterthought. I can believe that maybe Vader really was Luke's father all along and Obi-Wan just lied about that in "Star Wars"... But if Leia as Luke's sister had been the plan all along I don't think they would have had the two of them frenching.:)
I was rooting for a final battle in the real world, and Matrix at the same time between Neo and the Agent. You have a stylized, over the top fight going on in the Matrix, and cut back to a gritty, realistic fight with two bodies duking it out.
That coulda been fun... Or, going back to the "Matrix within a Matrix" idea - it could have ended with the world being torn down, Big O style...
So after the hobbit, Tolkien should not have been allowed to write the lord of the rings books?
Or perhaps he just shouldn't have been allowed to re-write "Riddles in the Dark"...:)
Nah, actually I'm with you. The audience doesn't "own" the art after they come to love it, there's no reason the author shouldn't have the ability to meddle with it later if he feels like it...
It might be nice, though, if the author didn't have the ability to end availability of the old versions...
Nope. Didn't read the books. Strangling Jabba? Neh. She and her version of the force should have been central to that film. Instead. Ewoks.
Hm, that could have been interesting... Say, if Boba Fett had taken Luke down into the Sarlacc with him, and then Leia was the one to take on the burden of facing daddy Vader... There wouldn't be much time for her to learn Jedi stuff (since they didn't establish her as the sister in the second film) - which would be the main problem with this idea, I think - she would need her own little arc to grow into those abilities. That arc of development is the whole fun of the idea and also the reason it wouldn't work... No time for it...
I hope I don't have to wait 10 years for the The Definitive Evisceration of The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace.
No, what's going to happen is you're going to keep thinking about this: and then, ten years from now it'll hit you: "Hey, nobody's ever really said anything bad about this thing, and it's been ten years, ten is a nice, round number that coincides with how many fingers I have, and I think it's time the truth be told about this turkey!" You, yourself, are destined to someday write this definitive evisceration. Accept this burden, for it is your fate. You are the Chosen One.
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fluoride, alien invasion, cheese making, fjords, unsafe railings on very high catwalks...
And all the stupid posts like the GP are simply anti-M$ zealots that are just trying to get karma points. (Seeing how it is at +4 insightful right now shows how successful they are at gaming the moderator system).
Oh, wah, popular sentiments get modded up! I'm gonna tell!
Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Putrid Debris
Coming Q4 1994!
Open up a command line and type IDDQD, press enter, and see what happens.
...or not
You know, suddenly I have an urge to add a "sudo" alias called "iddqd"...
For those who don't know, "politics" is the American term for yakuza or organized crime.
On my Linux system, Firefox starts up in less 1/2 to 1 second, surely that's fast enough for anyone.
The time it takes for a page to load is still limited more by my internet connection speed and the speed of the server than anything. I notice little difference between other browsers and Firefox even on our corporate network speed.
Is our society so caught up on "more, faster, now" that no one can wait a couple extra milliseconds for something to happen?
We're not talking a "couple extra milliseconds" here. Depending on your machine and what you're viewing, Firefox may exhibit lags of seconds in which the GUI is nonresponsive - after which all the queued GUI events suddenly get processed all at once. Waiting for a page to load is one thing - but the GUI should always be responsive.
Or do all these complaints about Firefox==slow|unstable|whatever come from Windows users? In which case, I would suspect something else is wrong, because the Linux and OS X versions have been rock solid for me.
I can't shift the blame off Flash, but I've also experienced the "Firefox freezes for a couple seconds" stuff on both Windows and Linux. For Windows I just have the official build; for Linux I can't say as I didn't install it. The Linux version definitely had more of a problem with that.
(I also had to restart FF on Linux once or twice a day if I was using it for Pandora because the sound would get garbled after a while. I blame that on Flash though.)
Those freezes are pretty brutal on my EEE 901... I think a good deal of it was coming from the crash recovery auto-saves (hence, I've recently disabled them) and other little bits of data being written to the (very slow) disk on the 901... But I have seen issues freezes on my desktop (quad-core, Linux) as well...
The one that's really been bugging me lately on Windows, though, is with the Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin... When I load a PDF in a browser tab, Acrobat takes over the download - and for some reason it downloads the data much, much slower than the web browser itself would... If I try navigating to a part of the document that's not ready yet, Acrobat freezes - and, thus, Firefox does as well... Sometimes the only way out of that one is to kill Acrobat.
Damn, dude - I haven't seen that in years, but I watched it just now and it's like the whole video was imprinted on the back of my brain this whole time...
GREAT POST.
The MW2 of which you speak is one of my favorites of all time.
I loved the opening video for that one with the Timberwolves on patrol on an airless moon.
"He's got a lock on me! He's got a lock on me!"
The two games I miss most from DOS are MW2 and X-Wing. Yes I could probably get them working, but I don't want to spoil my memories...
XD I went through a phase (probably about 10 years ago) where I would look specifically for DOS games that could be ramped up to higher resolution settings than my computer could manage when they were new... Basically anything that could run at 1024x768 was good. :) Well, except for not so much since the models were still low-poly... One of these days I'd really like to play some of the later X-Wing games, with the overhauled graphics... I just don't want to run Windows to do it. :)
I seriously wouldn't mind having Mechwarrior 2 up and running again but I feel like I don't have the controls to do it justice. I've got a few of the old non-USB Suncom flight controls (the F-15 stick and throttle) but I feel like it'd be a fair bit of trouble to get them working on my current computer (no gameports, no keyboard ports) with 15 year old software...
You know, all this talk of Mechwarrior 2 and "basically one shot and you're dead" and I didn't even think to mention what happens when one of your mech's legs gets blown up... XD Damn good stabilization gyros in those MW2 mechs, that's for sure.
I was never all that well set up for Mechwarrior 2 or X-Wing or Wing Commander or what have you back in the day - no throttle, no pedals, just a joystick and the keyboard - though at times I used an NES-to-keyboard adaptor to make a few keystrokes more convenient... At one time I had plans to build a power level controller for X-Wing (two strips of five buttons used to control power to the lasers or shields - push a button and it sends the keystrokes to the game to set that power level...) - it was kind of a tough project for me back then, I was trying to figure out how to do it with 4017's and such...
My Descent controller, on the other hand, was nearly perfect... Flightstick in one hand, clicky NES joystick in the other hand... Flightstick for attitude and fire control, and NES joystick for six axes of movement. The only thing I couldn't readily do with that control setup is roll. But rolling doesn't affect your aim in that game...
I just got MW2 this weekend and I played online. It basically is one shot and you're dead.
Well, you must be using a lightweight mech, like the Jenner - and presumably your opponent is using something massive and this "one shot" is fire-linked, with all their weapons... When you're using the lighter stuff you need to take advantage of your mobility - those Timber Wolves are tough but they're not too fast...
Oh, and remember to set up the "torso twist" controls! You're really slowing yourself down if you have to reorient your legs just to fire in a different direction... If you can get one of those Thrustmaster throttles, and one of those joysticks with the hat switch - those are supposed to be very good for MW2.
Yeah, that bothers me too, Jobs is a classic narcissist, and stock price shouldn't be the measure of a person's worth.
Yeah! You have to factor in how many shares they've got, too!
You are forgetting the iMac, which was the product that changed everything at Apple.
And gave us three years of "Bondi Blue" computer hardware...
Here you go, watch and experience the awesome...
in cars...
Music videos were kind of different back then. Gotta love the bit with the tambourine.
At least in the US, The trick is to get the stripper classified as a "reasonable accommodation". Then your boss has to allow it under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Usually this means the stripper is being allowed as a "reasonable accommodation" for a medical condition such as sexual dysfunction, for which a doctor has prescribed a regimen of lap dances. Employers can't legally stop employees from seeking this kind of accommodation, but in practice they discourage it by requiring an inordinate amount of paperwork, including detailed photographs and statistics of the service provider in question...
If only the real-life girlfriend quest was as easy as finding a girl with a giant exclamation point over her head.
It can be... But then it's a real pain in the ass 'cause she starts talking and you've got to keep pressing the A button to skip over it.
Only after hours and off company premises. Believe me, I've unsuccessfully lobbied for a change in this policy everywhere I've worked. Only one place allowed me to bring a stripper to work, and that was because she was a customer. Working below market with strippers all day at the office and no deadlines to get in the way of enjoying the show is a much better idea.
In most companies, upper-level management has already established exclusive contracts for the procurement of strippers and sex workers in general. Letting an employee make arrangements for an office stripper on their own would jeopardize these contracts - so it's really not surprising you weren't allowed.
My laptop is not too big to lug around. 14", 5lbs. Not bad at all. It is also pretty powerful. 2-3 hours of battery life isn't all that great, but how often do I need to use a laptop for more than 2 hours where there isn't a plug around?
<shrug> I had roughly the same specs with my Powerbook before I got the EEE... Going to conventions was one of its main "mobile" uses for me, playing games and videos and such, or internet usage if I needed info... That was a pretty regular thing for me for a while, and it was more of a "charge when I get back to the hotel room" kind of situation. I also didn't especially like carrying around 5 lbs of laptop all day, it did get to be a drag. I think the EEE is noticeably lighter and even though the battery life is less than double I feel much less dependent upon the AC adapter than I was with the powerbook.
Personally I put a very high value on mobility when it comes to mobile devices. It's no good having the thing be "mobile" if I leave it home, or run out of power too soon.
That's qualitative reasoning for a question that ought have a quantitative answer. The energy your cell phone dumps into your head should be well-known. How about estimates for radio, TV, etc?
True. My point was simply that one can't write off the potential impact of having a radio transmitter next to your head for extended periods just because there is environmental EM radiation to which we're exposed. You would have to consider the apparent intensity of the source that comes with proximity.
I'm not really in the mood to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of signal strength at the moment... I was actually just nitpicking a flaw in the structure of the argument, not contesting its message.
It has long been my stance that while all 6 movies are fanstically enteraining movies, Mr. Lucas couldn't make a quality film to save his life. I just want to put it out there and start a movement. Start to finish, episodes 1-6 maybe even thrawn years (7,8,9) reimagined star wars movie with no Lucas influence. Who's with me!!!
Meh, Star Wars has been done, why do it again?
You can already guess how it turns out. I like flashbacks. I've seen many enjoyable stories where the past of certain characters and events is kept a mystery to slowly tease out over the course of the story. But it's never the primary focus of the story. When you go and make a prequel, dedicating an entire movie to going backwards, it feels like retreading old ground, even if we haven't explicitly seen it. Vader starts off as good guy, falls to evil. We caught the gist from Obi-Wan's exposition. Nothing we saw in the prequels added anything to it whatsoever.
It might have worked if they'd really sold it. If they'd somehow made me believe that the same Anakin from "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones" someday would turn into Big Bad Vader... (Damn! I shoulda used spoiler tags...)
I think the more natural point for a prequel would have been a straight lead-in to "Episode 4" - the formation of the rebellion, early battles, the theft of the plans, and so on. With the right treatment I think that could have made a fine set of prequels. Phantom Menace went back too far, IMO - it went back to a point where not much interesting was happening. :)
I mean .. how is it that Obi-Wan needs Yoda to remind him that "there is another" when .. OBI-WAN WAS THERE FOR THE BIRTH?!?!
Well, she's a girl! She doesn't count...
But, really, I think the whole Skywalker family tree was thrown together as an afterthought. I can believe that maybe Vader really was Luke's father all along and Obi-Wan just lied about that in "Star Wars"... But if Leia as Luke's sister had been the plan all along I don't think they would have had the two of them frenching. :)
I was rooting for a final battle in the real world, and Matrix at the same time between Neo and the Agent. You have a stylized, over the top fight going on in the Matrix, and cut back to a gritty, realistic fight with two bodies duking it out.
That coulda been fun... Or, going back to the "Matrix within a Matrix" idea - it could have ended with the world being torn down, Big O style...
So after the hobbit, Tolkien should not have been allowed to write the lord of the rings books?
Or perhaps he just shouldn't have been allowed to re-write "Riddles in the Dark"... :)
Nah, actually I'm with you. The audience doesn't "own" the art after they come to love it, there's no reason the author shouldn't have the ability to meddle with it later if he feels like it...
It might be nice, though, if the author didn't have the ability to end availability of the old versions...
Nope. Didn't read the books. Strangling Jabba? Neh. She and her version of the force should have been central to that film. Instead. Ewoks.
Hm, that could have been interesting... Say, if Boba Fett had taken Luke down into the Sarlacc with him, and then Leia was the one to take on the burden of facing daddy Vader... There wouldn't be much time for her to learn Jedi stuff (since they didn't establish her as the sister in the second film) - which would be the main problem with this idea, I think - she would need her own little arc to grow into those abilities. That arc of development is the whole fun of the idea and also the reason it wouldn't work... No time for it...
I hope I don't have to wait 10 years for the The Definitive Evisceration of The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace.
No, what's going to happen is you're going to keep thinking about this: and then, ten years from now it'll hit you: "Hey, nobody's ever really said anything bad about this thing, and it's been ten years, ten is a nice, round number that coincides with how many fingers I have, and I think it's time the truth be told about this turkey!" You, yourself, are destined to someday write this definitive evisceration. Accept this burden, for it is your fate. You are the Chosen One.