Erm. I just checked on a price for one. You can get a 60gig hard drive that's physically larger than an iPod, that doesn't have a battery, that doesn't have a screen, and doesn't have any features beyond "I can plug it into a computer and put data on it."... for $320. Or, you can spend $80 more and get video playback, photo playback, music playback, some very basic PDA functionality, AND "I can plug it into a computer and put data on it." Eighty bucks, for a pretty reasonable set of features, I'd say.
How is this a ripoff?
It may not be something you, personally, need, Sparky, but it's certainly not a ripoff in and of itself. Let's lose the "I'm so much better than you because I haven't fallen for Apple's nefarious plans." attitude. It's a device. For what it is, based on current prices in the marketplace, it's a reasonably priced device.
Now, if they advertised it as a PDA replacement, and claimed that it would do everything a PDA does... then, yes, it might be a ripoff. But they don't. They say it's a music player that now also plays some video.
No, in this case, it certainly looks you're so full of your own innate superiority that you can't actually be bothered to go look at prices, and to see that people might choose to buy something that has different features that you, yourself, might want.
I have an iPod. Guess what I use it for? I play music on it. I have a PDA. Guess what? It's in a drawer somewhere because I didn't use it enough to make the trouble of using it worthwhile. That is to say, I have information as to the advantages and disadvantages of both devices in my particular situation, data concerning my own preferences for consumer electronics, and... oddly enough... I made a decision as to which device best fit my needs based on that information.
Guess which one of the two devices... the one I use for its intended purpose, and the one that's gathering dust in a drawer... I feel is a ripoff?
Before you get all worked up about this... do a little research on Jack Campbell and DV Forge. As listed in other posts in this thread, the guy has had a long career of being Less Than Forthcoming about his products, their origins, and their real manufacturer, to the point where not only do I not believe him when he says his product is superior, I don't believe him when he says the other company is using the patent to keep his product off the market.
Yet more proof that you want the rewards without doing the work. To wit:
You have been told exactly how you go about achieving your goals.
You go to where the industry is: this is not a matter of luck, this is not a matter of "Gosh darn, that guy was just SO FORTUNATE to have decided to move to LA and sleep in the gutter until he manages to get work." This is How. It. Works. Unless you manage to build a writing career elsewhere that makes them sit up and take notice - and that means makes someone a fair chunk of money - you go to LA. Period.
You send printed scripts in the format that the agencies and script editors demand. If you can't do something as basic and as simple as that, then you're more trouble than you're worth to them, and they won't bother with you. The writing staff of any series want to find people - and according to the people in the industry I know, some of them are pretty desperate to find people - who will make their jobs easier, not harder. Reading a script on-line is hard, because it's not the way the industry is set up. Expecting them to print your scripts is hard, because a: printing takes them *time*, and they're already working eighteen hour days - when they have work at all, and b: it costs them money, and they don't know you from Adam, so they have zero reason to spend the money. You might be broke - but you want something from them, and they don't particularly want what you've got to give them, which is attitude. Your post basically screams that you think that "I'm So Talented That Everybody Must Adjust To Me." Which, quite frankly, is an attitude they have enough of in the industry, and they don't need to be bringing any more in.
Your scripts might be good. I don't know. I don't especially care, because I *do* know that the people who sign the checks want to know that they're likely to make their money back and then some. To *know*. To be able to go to the stockholders and say, even in the case of failure, "We did everything we could to make sure we weren't wasting our money."
You aren't willing to give them that. You aren't even willing to make the most basic of concessions to them. "I'm so talented that someone with eighty million dollars to invest in a TV series should come to my website and print out my scripts because I'm too fucking lazy to print and mail them myself."
It's always easier to cry and claim that if it weren't for these immense hurdles that you'd show them, show them aaaallll than it is to actually try to surmount those hurdles, isn't it?
It's not luck in your case, Sparky. You're convicted by your own words. You're just lazy. Face facts.
You know, comments like this remind me of that guy who used to stand outside the studio gates with a sign that said something along the lines of "I HAVE WRITTEN THE FUNNIEST SCRIPT IN THE WORLD" and was continually surprised that the people who drove past him didn't stop and buy his script for millions of dollars.
For one thing, sparky, it's not a matter of luck. Whedon put in a lot of time writing other scripts, making other series, polishing other people's writing. He has what is known as a "track record." People have an idea that he can write, that he can create a successful series, and so on.
Or, in other words, people who aren't persistent think that the people who are are lucky.
And for another thing, it's not exactly a secret as to how to get into the system. It's hard, but I have a dozen books that all say, in essence the same thing:
Go to where the market is. Send your scripts to agents and script editors. While you are waiting for agents and script editors to get back to you, write more scripts. Write scripts for series that you didn't create. Write scripts for movies that won't take eighteen billion dollars to create. Write. And, when you've written, send them out. Eventually, if you're any good, someone will call you back and say "Hey, want to come in and pitch a story idea for this series?" or "Hey, we liked that movie script, but we need it to have a role for a wise-cracking dwarf and two funny animals." or something like that.
At which point, you still won't be able to get *your* script ideas made in the form you want them to be. But - and this is the important thing - you'll have started establishing a track record for your work.
Alternatively, you can write a script and make your own movie, like _Pi_ or _Clerks_ or _Primer_. Or, to be blunt, like eighteen million crap cheap movies that suck money out of their creator's pockets because they're just not any good. That's the other route.
The only sure route to failure is to write wish-fufillment scripts that feature characters JUST LIKE all the ones from Robotech or Hellsing or Bubblegum Crisis or whatever series is causing anime geeks to develop wrist injuries this week, except for the one character who all the women adore and who, coincidentally, looks and sounds JUST LIKE the author of the script.
If you've written a bunch of scripts that *aren't* cheap ripoffs of popular series, great. Why not see if you can edit a few into something you can afford to shoot with your credit limit being what it is? Or rewrite it into a radio drama and get some friends (if you have any) together to produce it. Or... and this might shock you... take the fucking things off the internet and start sending them to agents and script editors?
Or would you just rather sit around and feel superior and unappreciated?
The auto-update program lives in the control panel/system preferences. You can download patch installers from the Apple web site, if you prefer, but the auto-updater works fine for me.
So far, Apple's been pretty good about patches, as long as you keep in mind the fact that you're not going to need as many critical patches to keep a Unix box with user privileges locked down as you will with a Windows-style every-program-for-itself paradigm. That said, it's a mix. There're a few little patches every so often, interspersed with bigger patches.
In what way is the Shuttle's track record better than anything humans have ever designed before? Two lethal failures per - oh, let's be generous - thousand uses is *better* than, I dunno, anything up to actual kamikaze missions?
For one thing, it's been 18 months since the last one. And for another thing, we actually get things we can use in these things, as opposed to Microsoft's tendency to sell you things which *reduce* your ability to use your computer. But thanks for playing.
You gotta love it when people throw the word 'fascist' around without knowing what it means. For the record:
Fascism means "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, integration of government and corporation power, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
Last I checked, it wasn't the *left* telling people to do things because The President Said So, selling out the government to corporations, and invading other countries to benefit one major industry.
I hope this helps. Insult the left all you like, but, please, get your definitions right.
...which means that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. Army deploys Steve Gutenberg in battle, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
Er, sparky... if you have a PC, you *also* are learning what games don't run on YOUR platform. Halo 2 isn't there, and I haven't heard of any plans to put it there. Ratchet and Clank won't run. Star Ocean won't run (the modern one), Onimusha won't run. Viewtiful Joe won't run, Baiten Kaitos won't run, Metroid Prime won't run, Katamari Damancy won't run, etc., etc., etc. Take a look at the shelves at any game store, and you'll see how many A-list titles are console only, and how many budget titles and Deer Hunter-level games are padding out the shelves in the PC area.
I've got a Mac. I also have a PC. I *also* have an Xbox. Guess which gets used for gaming?
Well, we *did* buy efficient appliances. We've got a Swedish washer/dryer setup that has the magic number "189" on its EnergyStar use sticker, f'rinstance.
The fridge came with the apartment, though, and we'd really, really like to bury it at sea to form an artificial reef, 'cos it's probably using more power than the rest of the apartment combined.
Actually, a big part of this is we also want a machine to serve that costs little enough that, when it gets nuked by lightning, we won't cry too hard. The build-your-own boxes look cool, but the idea of running a broken laptop as throwaway file server is actually pretty intriguing.
This one's commercial, but it's easier to cope with than the other ones I've got experience with - InkNoise.com 's offering is more of a service than a package you can install, but it has pretty good configuration tools, and it's easy enough for the Aunt Tilly crowd to use.
I doubt you would get a boost per chip on a single frame. However, the people who are gonna be interested in this aren't exactly going to be only rendering single frames, and therefore, if you have more than one Quadro, you'll be able to render more than one frame simultaneously.
Yeah, but what you *can* do is carry a wall adapter with you, and charge where you are. Wall adapters are cheaper and lighter than the batteries - true, they're bulkier, and they're not terribly handy in every case, but it does work in most.
'course, the file format it uses is closed and can't be used for anything outside of this application, and it puts a nasty watermark on any output, so it's not really a *usable* bit of free software, in the sense that you can use it to produce something. So, you know, "woot!" may not be the best reaction, unless you really want to learn Maya. Me, I've had this for a couple of months (it's been available in the buy-a-cheap-CD form for a while, it just hasn't been linked from a web page,) because I do want to learn Maya - but *your* mileage may vary.
*Alien Nation* was one of the most original ideas? Ye gods, dude, it was a cop-with-new-partner-he-doesn't-like movie with a drug mcguffin and a very thinly... I mean, original Star Trek-level thin... disguised immigrant-to-this-country subplot. Original means things like Sapphire and Steel (note that I don't say I like or dislike that, I just say it was original) or Twin Peaks. Alien Nation, on the other hand, was almost exactly as original as Automan.
o'course, it's not a *fake* cipher at all. It's a real one, in both the sense of 'it really encodes information that can later be extracted,' and 'it's a cipher that had actual use outside of this current context.' But thanks for playing.
Slashdot Mirror
Ripped off?
... for $320. Or, you can spend $80 more and get video playback, photo playback, music playback, some very basic PDA functionality, AND "I can plug it into a computer and put data on it." Eighty bucks, for a pretty reasonable set of features, I'd say.
... then, yes, it might be a ripoff. But they don't. They say it's a music player that now also plays some video.
... oddly enough ... I made a decision as to which device best fit my needs based on that information.
... the one I use for its intended purpose, and the one that's gathering dust in a drawer ... I feel is a ripoff?
Erm. I just checked on a price for one. You can get a 60gig hard drive that's physically larger than an iPod, that doesn't have a battery, that doesn't have a screen, and doesn't have any features beyond "I can plug it into a computer and put data on it."
How is this a ripoff?
It may not be something you, personally, need, Sparky, but it's certainly not a ripoff in and of itself. Let's lose the "I'm so much better than you because I haven't fallen for Apple's nefarious plans." attitude. It's a device. For what it is, based on current prices in the marketplace, it's a reasonably priced device.
Now, if they advertised it as a PDA replacement, and claimed that it would do everything a PDA does
No, in this case, it certainly looks you're so full of your own innate superiority that you can't actually be bothered to go look at prices, and to see that people might choose to buy something that has different features that you, yourself, might want.
I have an iPod. Guess what I use it for? I play music on it. I have a PDA. Guess what? It's in a drawer somewhere because I didn't use it enough to make the trouble of using it worthwhile. That is to say, I have information as to the advantages and disadvantages of both devices in my particular situation, data concerning my own preferences for consumer electronics, and
Guess which one of the two devices
And guess who, between us, is stupid.
So, um... how long have you been reading Slashdot, Mr. Wolfram?
Before you get all worked up about this ... do a little research on Jack Campbell and DV Forge. As listed in other posts in this thread, the guy has had a long career of being Less Than Forthcoming about his products, their origins, and their real manufacturer, to the point where not only do I not believe him when he says his product is superior, I don't believe him when he says the other company is using the patent to keep his product off the market.
Yet more proof that you want the rewards without doing the work. To wit:
You have been told exactly how you go about achieving your goals.
You go to where the industry is: this is not a matter of luck, this is not a matter of "Gosh darn, that guy was just SO FORTUNATE to have decided to move to LA and sleep in the gutter until he manages to get work." This is How. It. Works. Unless you manage to build a writing career elsewhere that makes them sit up and take notice - and that means makes someone a fair chunk of money - you go to LA. Period.
You send printed scripts in the format that the agencies and script editors demand. If you can't do something as basic and as simple as that, then you're more trouble than you're worth to them, and they won't bother with you. The writing staff of any series want to find people - and according to the people in the industry I know, some of them are pretty desperate to find people - who will make their jobs easier, not harder. Reading a script on-line is hard, because it's not the way the industry is set up. Expecting them to print your scripts is hard, because a: printing takes them *time*, and they're already working eighteen hour days - when they have work at all, and b: it costs them money, and they don't know you from Adam, so they have zero reason to spend the money. You might be broke - but you want something from them, and they don't particularly want what you've got to give them, which is attitude. Your post basically screams that you think that "I'm So Talented That Everybody Must Adjust To Me." Which, quite frankly, is an attitude they have enough of in the industry, and they don't need to be bringing any more in.
Your scripts might be good. I don't know. I don't especially care, because I *do* know that the people who sign the checks want to know that they're likely to make their money back and then some. To *know*. To be able to go to the stockholders and say, even in the case of failure, "We did everything we could to make sure we weren't wasting our money."
You aren't willing to give them that. You aren't even willing to make the most basic of concessions to them. "I'm so talented that someone with eighty million dollars to invest in a TV series should come to my website and print out my scripts because I'm too fucking lazy to print and mail them myself."
It's always easier to cry and claim that if it weren't for these immense hurdles that you'd show them, show them aaaallll than it is to actually try to surmount those hurdles, isn't it?
It's not luck in your case, Sparky. You're convicted by your own words. You're just lazy. Face facts.
You know, comments like this remind me of that guy who used to stand outside the studio gates with a sign that said something along the lines of "I HAVE WRITTEN THE FUNNIEST SCRIPT IN THE WORLD" and was continually surprised that the people who drove past him didn't stop and buy his script for millions of dollars.
... and this might shock you ... take the fucking things off the internet and start sending them to agents and script editors?
For one thing, sparky, it's not a matter of luck. Whedon put in a lot of time writing other scripts, making other series, polishing other people's writing. He has what is known as a "track record." People have an idea that he can write, that he can create a successful series, and so on.
Or, in other words, people who aren't persistent think that the people who are are lucky.
And for another thing, it's not exactly a secret as to how to get into the system. It's hard, but I have a dozen books that all say, in essence the same thing:
Go to where the market is. Send your scripts to agents and script editors. While you are waiting for agents and script editors to get back to you, write more scripts. Write scripts for series that you didn't create. Write scripts for movies that won't take eighteen billion dollars to create. Write. And, when you've written, send them out. Eventually, if you're any good, someone will call you back and say "Hey, want to come in and pitch a story idea for this series?" or "Hey, we liked that movie script, but we need it to have a role for a wise-cracking dwarf and two funny animals." or something like that.
At which point, you still won't be able to get *your* script ideas made in the form you want them to be. But - and this is the important thing - you'll have started establishing a track record for your work.
Alternatively, you can write a script and make your own movie, like _Pi_ or _Clerks_ or _Primer_. Or, to be blunt, like eighteen million crap cheap movies that suck money out of their creator's pockets because they're just not any good. That's the other route.
The only sure route to failure is to write wish-fufillment scripts that feature characters JUST LIKE all the ones from Robotech or Hellsing or Bubblegum Crisis or whatever series is causing anime geeks to develop wrist injuries this week, except for the one character who all the women adore and who, coincidentally, looks and sounds JUST LIKE the author of the script.
If you've written a bunch of scripts that *aren't* cheap ripoffs of popular series, great. Why not see if you can edit a few into something you can afford to shoot with your credit limit being what it is? Or rewrite it into a radio drama and get some friends (if you have any) together to produce it. Or
Or would you just rather sit around and feel superior and unappreciated?
So, where are these exploits?
The auto-update program lives in the control panel/system preferences. You can download patch installers from the Apple web site, if you prefer, but the auto-updater works fine for me.
So far, Apple's been pretty good about patches, as long as you keep in mind the fact that you're not going to need as many critical patches to keep a Unix box with user privileges locked down as you will with a Windows-style every-program-for-itself paradigm. That said, it's a mix. There're a few little patches every so often, interspersed with bigger patches.
In what way is the Shuttle's track record better than anything humans have ever designed before? Two lethal failures per - oh, let's be generous - thousand uses is *better* than, I dunno, anything up to actual kamikaze missions?
For one thing, it's been 18 months since the last one. And for another thing, we actually get things we can use in these things, as opposed to Microsoft's tendency to sell you things which *reduce* your ability to use your computer. But thanks for playing.
I'm running - admittedly, in a very non-enterprise environment - python on a 200mhz ARM. Seems to work fine.
You gotta love it when people throw the word 'fascist' around without knowing what it means. For the record:
Fascism means "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, integration of government and corporation power, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
Last I checked, it wasn't the *left* telling people to do things because The President Said So, selling out the government to corporations, and invading other countries to benefit one major industry.
I hope this helps. Insult the left all you like, but, please, get your definitions right.
Yeah, but we drop out through rounding errors.
Dang it, my brain and my fingers didn't talk. They're charging $325, not $350.
Okay, they're not charging that much now. They're charging $350. Can we expect you to be ordering one today, then?
...which means that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. Army deploys Steve Gutenberg in battle, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
Er, sparky ... if you have a PC, you *also* are learning what games don't run on YOUR platform. Halo 2 isn't there, and I haven't heard of any plans to put it there. Ratchet and Clank won't run. Star Ocean won't run (the modern one), Onimusha won't run. Viewtiful Joe won't run, Baiten Kaitos won't run, Metroid Prime won't run, Katamari Damancy won't run, etc., etc., etc. Take a look at the shelves at any game store, and you'll see how many A-list titles are console only, and how many budget titles and Deer Hunter-level games are padding out the shelves in the PC area.
I've got a Mac. I also have a PC. I *also* have an Xbox. Guess which gets used for gaming?
Actually, no. But I'm sure they appreciate the sentiments.
Well, we *did* buy efficient appliances. We've got a Swedish washer/dryer setup that has the magic number "189" on its EnergyStar use sticker, f'rinstance.
The fridge came with the apartment, though, and we'd really, really like to bury it at sea to form an artificial reef, 'cos it's probably using more power than the rest of the apartment combined.
Actually, a big part of this is we also want a machine to serve that costs little enough that, when it gets nuked by lightning, we won't cry too hard. The build-your-own boxes look cool, but the idea of running a broken laptop as throwaway file server is actually pretty intriguing.
This one's commercial, but it's easier to cope with than the other ones I've got experience with - InkNoise.com 's offering is more of a service than a package you can install, but it has pretty good configuration tools, and it's easy enough for the Aunt Tilly crowd to use.
I doubt you would get a boost per chip on a single frame. However, the people who are gonna be interested in this aren't exactly going to be only rendering single frames, and therefore, if you have more than one Quadro, you'll be able to render more than one frame simultaneously.
Yeah, but what you *can* do is carry a wall adapter with you, and charge where you are. Wall adapters are cheaper and lighter than the batteries - true, they're bulkier, and they're not terribly handy in every case, but it does work in most.
'course, the file format it uses is closed and can't be used for anything outside of this application, and it puts a nasty watermark on any output, so it's not really a *usable* bit of free software, in the sense that you can use it to produce something. So, you know, "woot!" may not be the best reaction, unless you really want to learn Maya. Me, I've had this for a couple of months (it's been available in the buy-a-cheap-CD form for a while, it just hasn't been linked from a web page,) because I do want to learn Maya - but *your* mileage may vary.
Apple built the boxes, and the G5 was, pretty much, built to their specs. Also, the OS is, well, you know, MacOS.
*Alien Nation* was one of the most original ideas? Ye gods, dude, it was a cop-with-new-partner-he-doesn't-like movie with a drug mcguffin and a very thinly ... I mean, original Star Trek-level thin ... disguised immigrant-to-this-country subplot. Original means things like Sapphire and Steel (note that I don't say I like or dislike that, I just say it was original) or Twin Peaks. Alien Nation, on the other hand, was almost exactly as original as Automan.
o'course, it's not a *fake* cipher at all. It's a real one, in both the sense of 'it really encodes information that can later be extracted,' and 'it's a cipher that had actual use outside of this current context.' But thanks for playing.