Yes, NASA is careful about disinfecting, but only to help with the research. I don't think they're really that concerned about "contaminating" another planet with microbes
We're very concerned about forward contamination, and in fact there is an international agreement that prevention of forward contamination from a probe is one of the highest priorities for all nations engaged in extraplanetary research.
It's not just to keep the science solid, it's because it only takes one mistake to wipe out a possible separate chain of life (maybe the only other one in the universe). We want to find it, not kill it by accidentally sending along bacteria that'll eat it...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
There is no reason to think that humanity has had any affect on the weather.
Really? Have you ever been to Egypt? For the past several thousand years it has been a complete desert -- that's why all the mummies and tombs are so perfectly preserved.
A hundred years ago they began to irrigate, moving towards a "modern" society. Now Egypt, and much of northern Africa has humidity and a few thousand years worth of artifacts are decaying in a matter of decades, and no one has enough money to preserve them all (or even 10%, for that matter).
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Because you *can't*. Period. End of story. Next question. On UNIX, programmers can do anything they want. They can write anything and anyhow they want, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Nobody is suggesting we send thugs to break legs if people violate programming guidelines. Sayin it's IMPOSSIBLE is too easy an answer -- what's so impossible about coming up with a text format for config files that can be addressed in a uniform way?
Feel free to write applications that don't use the format, but your config files won't be usable with the config editors expecting that format. Even under windows you can screw up all your hotkeys, MS isn't gonna sue you. The point is why would someone go out of their way to change the control keys, just to annoy their users?
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I strongly doubt *any* designs exist where this was a design goal. Often, people design a program to be used by users like themselves - people already very familiar with the subject area. The interface is thus designed to be complex, for the sake of flexibility and ease of use (for the advanced user).
From my point of view, I see programmers who don't know anything about interface design, and so write off their ineptitude by denigrating the value of UI.
Rather than spending time to make the program easy to use (which should be an explicit design goal) they say it's for "power users" and they don't want to make it "pretty". Prettiness has NOTHING to do with UI, but it's easier to sound cool that way.
Doing something like laying out your fields so using the TAB key goes through them in a logical order isn't pretty, but it's sure usable. Make your hotkeys standard. That's not pretty. It doesn't hurt power users. Make windows resizable and have them remember their size. If you make a dialog box pop up at 10 lines in hieght and you've got 20 lines of text, then you've hurt usability and added nothing in terms of power.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I am very glad that just about everything I need to work with can be manipulated via some text file.
No disagreement here -- I just don't uinderstand why we have to reinvent the text file layout for every application, and why some of the basic function (like cut and paste) can't be described in a single text file, like the win.ini file of yore.
Having a binary registry with everything dumped together is the most collosal mistake of the entire Win32 system these days, but that's not to say some values shouldn't be centrally configurable (and if you had a standard XML or whatever format, you could easily make full-featured config editors!).
Note that due to the standard file layout of the MS.ini files, the MSconfig utilty can edit the.ini files on a windows system using a tree interface, so you don't actually have to delve into it with a text editor (but of course you can if you want to). This is a perfect example of making things easier for novices (less likely to screw up the text file using the GUI) while sacrificing nothing for experts (text file is still available for direct edits).
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
You mean like 'fucknut' instead of 'NMerriam', right?
Well, most people in conversation have different names for me. No one calls me NMerriam, even though that's my "official" name here. My mom calls me Nat. My boss calls me Nathaniel, my girlfriend calls me honey.
The point being that names are for addressing things in a convenient way, hence we do not call "Microsoft Windows with Internet Explorer" by that name, we simply call it Windows. But when MS refers to it, they use the "official" name.
So feel free to call it the "X-Window System", but get over yourself if you think people are going to stop calling it X-Windows just because that isn't the "official" name...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Those components of Unix that are shared, like glibc, have developed through consensus and bitter experience. If you want to develop in an enforced-policy environment, well, there's Windows NT or VMS or OS/390.
I think his point is that maybe it's time for consensus to be reached on a few points. if he wanted to enforce policy he wouldn't be putting out pages of arguments for why we need to discuss it...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Why should I be stuck with gnome or kde or twm when I can switch at will?
A lot of folks seem to confuse user-friendliness with window managers. So what if you can change from kde to Gnome? If you still have to remember different key combinations to cut and paste for different applications, it's not user friendly.
Why does every application have to reinvent the wheel? That's whay Miguel is saying -- why isn't there a SINGLE configuration file where I can define that I want "cut" to be ctrl-C and paste to be "ctrl-V"? It doesn't sacrifice ANY POWER WHATSOEVER, but it will go a long way to making every system easier to use. But we're all so afraid to actually make a real decision and have to hide behind the euphemism that "we're letting the user decide".
Making windows that have brushed metal versus wood grain is not a user interface.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I didn't see anywhere in his paper that claimed a complete novice should be able to operate the system without assistance. He's calling for a standard interface (or guidelines), code reuse, and less complexity for complexity's sake. We shouldn't have a different control key set for cutting and pasting depending on which application we're in.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
osix system's aren't really aimed at beginners - that's what people keep forgeting
No, people keep forgetting that everyone is a beginner at some point.
Making a system good for beginners does not mean crippling it for advanced users. I think we should be past the point where complexity for complexity's sake should be attractive...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
the gravity isn't a big enough issue to throw off the design entirely. It's close enough to do good testing on earth.
And we have engines that work in the martian atmosphere (NASA developed them in the 60s/70s) but it's not necessary to use them for tooling around here on Devon.
That said, from our experiences here, I'd say this design is overkill in about a hundred ways. it looks way too complex to survive three years on Mars, and too top-heavy. it would roll over like a suzuki samurai if you tried to drive anywhere with it...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Id say its about half mac, half PC up here. the nasa folks from Ames seem to have the preference for Macs, the rest of us leaned towards Wintel boxes. And our DHCP server is Linux...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Well those aren't things we're testing here, so don't worry about the bad science. The good science that's happening around me is testing microbes that are likely to be able to survive the harsh radiation of Mars -- good candidates for possible forward-contamination of the red planet, or useful for making plants for food that would survive should we decide to do such a thing.
We're testing space suits, and already several changes have been made in the design because of what we've seen in terms of flexibility and mobility while spending hours moving around in the terrain.
etcetera (visit the web pages for more details ont he experiments, none of wehich need low atmospheirc pressure or high radiation to succeed)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
To all those pointing out "Lock, stock and two smoking barrels" -- this Urban legend predates that movie by several years if not decades.
Although given the relative cleverness and realism of the story, I think it's pretty likely people have actually done it, urban legend or not -- it would work.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Raid as "backup" is bullshit.A second disk as "backup" is bullshit.... What kind of backup is that?
WEll, if you know of a way to back up 110 gigs of data without buying a $10,000 tape controller I'd love to know about it. Unfortunately, buying a whole second hard drive really is the cheapest method of protecting against the kind of errors I've found most common (though doing it in the same box probably isn't a great idea).
I have the best security a system can get -- it doesn't connect to the internet at all and I live by myself. My biggest problems are FAT errors and physical damage, not hackers...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Re:Big enough that nobody cares any more
on
Maxtor's 80GB Drive
·
· Score: 2
This is like saying that everyone needs a dual Alpha system because "I need to solve systems of thousands of equations."
No, it's like saying "I have a certain amount of space and it's not enough". I never claimed anyone's PDA needed 100 gigs.
But the thread started with "nobody needs this space". But of course as more people store MP3's (many first-time hard-drive buyers I know are there for MP3 downloads) and do home video editing (which is why I pointed out we don't even use firewire -- too much data!) your mom really will be able to use this space...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Re:Big enough that nobody cares any more
on
Maxtor's 80GB Drive
·
· Score: 2
We've got 100 gigs on our video system and it's not close to being enough. We don't even use the firewire interface because the files would be too big -- we still capture analog so we can get better compression...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I lost a 60 gig drive that was 95% full of MP3s -- backup is a big problem at that size. All due to the f%cking highpoint controller card. Next time I'm buying a promise controller and setting up RAID, which is surprisingly the cheapest backup method...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
well if you've got a hollywood plus (or other hardware DVD card) then make sure you're using the right software, because there's something really wrong for stuttering at that point. I was playing DVDs on a classic Pentium 233 with a hollywood+ card last year. It was when I got the celeron (and faster motherboard) that I could dump the card and do all-software (higher-quality) playback.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
You're right that most software does the conversion, but it doesn't have to pull that data from the DVD disk or process it in any way, it just says, "next frame, next frame, next frame, play the last frame again, next frame".
So you do wind up with it being 20%+ less intensive on the disks and processor to play film vs. video content.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
It's borderline, if the rest of your system is great you'd be fine (I'm surprised the 750 isn't fast enough to run DVD in software alone).
The ATI chips didn't have any real DVD/MPEG accelerator functions until the rage 128, and that was minimal. Make sure yu're using DVD player software that takes advantage of the AMD optimizations (most of the big ones do, I believe - PowerDVD, WinDVD, but check that it's using them). Check that you've got the AMD-optimized drivers for the video card, too.
And the DMA setting on the drive -- I've had it mysteriously turn off, especially on CD/DVD drives, and it makes a HUUUGE difference in how smoothly anything off a disc plays.
It definitely wouldn't HURT to drop a few bucks on a video card, but you really should be able to play full-screen video in software on a 750 anything, so check over the other settings/hardware to make sure something isn't goofy/underpowered...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Why is it that my k7-650 can't get 30 frames per second, per second for the entire length of a movie? Mac's don't studder like PC's do
I don't know, but there's something wrong (or at least sub-optimal). Maybe a bottleneck somewhere. My home entertainment system runs off a Celeron 433 and no problems with 30fps video (though DVD is frequently 24 fps - film speed).
Do you have DMA enabled on the drives? Old video/drivers? You'll get more bang from upgrading your video card than you will by going to a new processor.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Any computer manufacturer who relies on, tries to obtain, or pushes for recognition on the basis of a novel looking CASE is in trouble. Do you know why? Because it's what's inside the case that matters.
Uh-oh, the secret's out! I'm gonna have to sell my stock in the Gap and Starbucks now that everyone will be looking beneath the surface! (g)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I'm normally not a critic of Katz's, but this just got me:
Beyond that, Singer's particular rendering has some big flaws as a big-screen tale. We're supposed to hate Magento, but there isn't anything particularly hateful about him. He's trying to save his species from what he believes from personal experience is a possible Holocaust-style extinction
That's exactly the point! Writers don't usually like to crate black and white tales of good and evil. No one in the world is EVIL, the whole point is that evil actions are done by those who most fanatically believe they are doing good.
This is called good storytelling in most fiction-writing circles -- you give your characters depth beyond "he's the bad guy" and "they're the good guys".
That's why the spend so much time questioning who is right and wrong -- maybe Wolverine is right to question "are you sure you're on the right side?" This is a war, and normals won't hesitate to kill the mutants.
Should the mutants hold to ideals of freedom and sacrifice, knowing that Rogue will die because Xavier is unwilling to kill Magneto when he has the chance? Should we stand by and sacrifice innocents so that we can nobly allow murderers to live?
Does being "right" matter in the end if you are dead?
This is (hopefully) a little more complex than DieHard (I'm the robber, you're the cop, catch me!)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, NASA is careful about disinfecting, but only to help with the research. I don't think they're really that concerned about "contaminating" another planet with microbes
We're very concerned about forward contamination, and in fact there is an international agreement that prevention of forward contamination from a probe is one of the highest priorities for all nations engaged in extraplanetary research.
It's not just to keep the science solid, it's because it only takes one mistake to wipe out a possible separate chain of life (maybe the only other one in the universe). We want to find it, not kill it by accidentally sending along bacteria that'll eat it...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
There is no reason to think that humanity has had any affect on the weather.
Really? Have you ever been to Egypt? For the past several thousand years it has been a complete desert -- that's why all the mummies and tombs are so perfectly preserved.
A hundred years ago they began to irrigate, moving towards a "modern" society. Now Egypt, and much of northern Africa has humidity and a few thousand years worth of artifacts are decaying in a matter of decades, and no one has enough money to preserve them all (or even 10%, for that matter).
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Because you *can't*. Period. End of story. Next question. On UNIX, programmers can do anything they want. They can write anything and anyhow they want, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Nobody is suggesting we send thugs to break legs if people violate programming guidelines. Sayin it's IMPOSSIBLE is too easy an answer -- what's so impossible about coming up with a text format for config files that can be addressed in a uniform way?
Feel free to write applications that don't use the format, but your config files won't be usable with the config editors expecting that format. Even under windows you can screw up all your hotkeys, MS isn't gonna sue you. The point is why would someone go out of their way to change the control keys, just to annoy their users?
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I strongly doubt *any* designs exist where this was a design goal. Often, people design a program to be used by users like themselves - people already very familiar with the subject area. The interface is thus designed to be complex, for the sake of flexibility and ease of use (for the advanced user).
From my point of view, I see programmers who don't know anything about interface design, and so write off their ineptitude by denigrating the value of UI.
Rather than spending time to make the program easy to use (which should be an explicit design goal) they say it's for "power users" and they don't want to make it "pretty". Prettiness has NOTHING to do with UI, but it's easier to sound cool that way.
Doing something like laying out your fields so using the TAB key goes through them in a logical order isn't pretty, but it's sure usable. Make your hotkeys standard. That's not pretty. It doesn't hurt power users. Make windows resizable and have them remember their size. If you make a dialog box pop up at 10 lines in hieght and you've got 20 lines of text, then you've hurt usability and added nothing in terms of power.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I am very glad that just about everything I need to work with can be manipulated via some text file.
.ini files, the MSconfig utilty can edit the .ini files on a windows system using a tree interface, so you don't actually have to delve into it with a text editor (but of course you can if you want to). This is a perfect example of making things easier for novices (less likely to screw up the text file using the GUI) while sacrificing nothing for experts (text file is still available for direct edits).
No disagreement here -- I just don't uinderstand why we have to reinvent the text file layout for every application, and why some of the basic function (like cut and paste) can't be described in a single text file, like the win.ini file of yore.
Having a binary registry with everything dumped together is the most collosal mistake of the entire Win32 system these days, but that's not to say some values shouldn't be centrally configurable (and if you had a standard XML or whatever format, you could easily make full-featured config editors!).
Note that due to the standard file layout of the MS
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
You mean like 'fucknut' instead of 'NMerriam', right?
Well, most people in conversation have different names for me. No one calls me NMerriam, even though that's my "official" name here. My mom calls me Nat. My boss calls me Nathaniel, my girlfriend calls me honey.
The point being that names are for addressing things in a convenient way, hence we do not call "Microsoft Windows with Internet Explorer" by that name, we simply call it Windows. But when MS refers to it, they use the "official" name.
So feel free to call it the "X-Window System", but get over yourself if you think people are going to stop calling it X-Windows just because that isn't the "official" name...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Those components of Unix that are shared, like glibc, have developed through consensus and bitter experience. If you want to develop in an enforced-policy environment, well, there's Windows NT or VMS or OS/390.
I think his point is that maybe it's time for consensus to be reached on a few points. if he wanted to enforce policy he wouldn't be putting out pages of arguments for why we need to discuss it...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Why should I be stuck with gnome or kde or twm when I can switch at will?
A lot of folks seem to confuse user-friendliness with window managers. So what if you can change from kde to Gnome? If you still have to remember different key combinations to cut and paste for different applications, it's not user friendly.
Why does every application have to reinvent the wheel? That's whay Miguel is saying -- why isn't there a SINGLE configuration file where I can define that I want "cut" to be ctrl-C and paste to be "ctrl-V"? It doesn't sacrifice ANY POWER WHATSOEVER, but it will go a long way to making every system easier to use. But we're all so afraid to actually make a real decision and have to hide behind the euphemism that "we're letting the user decide".
Making windows that have brushed metal versus wood grain is not a user interface.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I didn't see anywhere in his paper that claimed a complete novice should be able to operate the system without assistance. He's calling for a standard interface (or guidelines), code reuse, and less complexity for complexity's sake. We shouldn't have a different control key set for cutting and pasting depending on which application we're in.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Normal people (ie, non-zealots) call it X-Windows. It's a conciet from the popularity of Windows, but it's true.
The same reason people rarely say "GNU/Linux" - it's not that we don't love the GNU tools, but give me a break, it's Linux.
Coca-Cola would have an easier time trying to convince people to stop calling it "Coke". We like shorter, easier way to say things...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
osix system's aren't really aimed at beginners - that's what people keep forgeting
No, people keep forgetting that everyone is a beginner at some point.
Making a system good for beginners does not mean crippling it for advanced users. I think we should be past the point where complexity for complexity's sake should be attractive...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
the gravity isn't a big enough issue to throw off the design entirely. It's close enough to do good testing on earth.
And we have engines that work in the martian atmosphere (NASA developed them in the 60s/70s) but it's not necessary to use them for tooling around here on Devon.
That said, from our experiences here, I'd say this design is overkill in about a hundred ways. it looks way too complex to survive three years on Mars, and too top-heavy. it would roll over like a suzuki samurai if you tried to drive anywhere with it...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Id say its about half mac, half PC up here. the nasa folks from Ames seem to have the preference for Macs, the rest of us leaned towards Wintel boxes. And our DHCP server is Linux...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Well those aren't things we're testing here, so don't worry about the bad science. The good science that's happening around me is testing microbes that are likely to be able to survive the harsh radiation of Mars -- good candidates for possible forward-contamination of the red planet, or useful for making plants for food that would survive should we decide to do such a thing.
We're testing space suits, and already several changes have been made in the design because of what we've seen in terms of flexibility and mobility while spending hours moving around in the terrain.
etcetera (visit the web pages for more details ont he experiments, none of wehich need low atmospheirc pressure or high radiation to succeed)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
To all those pointing out "Lock, stock and two smoking barrels" -- this Urban legend predates that movie by several years if not decades.
Although given the relative cleverness and realism of the story, I think it's pretty likely people have actually done it, urban legend or not -- it would work.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Raid as "backup" is bullshit.A second disk as "backup" is bullshit....
What kind of backup is that?
WEll, if you know of a way to back up 110 gigs of data without buying a $10,000 tape controller I'd love to know about it. Unfortunately, buying a whole second hard drive really is the cheapest method of protecting against the kind of errors I've found most common (though doing it in the same box probably isn't a great idea).
I have the best security a system can get -- it doesn't connect to the internet at all and I live by myself. My biggest problems are FAT errors and physical damage, not hackers...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
This is like saying that everyone needs a dual Alpha system because "I need to solve systems of thousands of equations."
No, it's like saying "I have a certain amount of space and it's not enough". I never claimed anyone's PDA needed 100 gigs.
But the thread started with "nobody needs this space". But of course as more people store MP3's (many first-time hard-drive buyers I know are there for MP3 downloads) and do home video editing (which is why I pointed out we don't even use firewire -- too much data!) your mom really will be able to use this space...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
We've got 100 gigs on our video system and it's not close to being enough. We don't even use the firewire interface because the files would be too big -- we still capture analog so we can get better compression...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I lost a 60 gig drive that was 95% full of MP3s -- backup is a big problem at that size. All due to the f%cking highpoint controller card. Next time I'm buying a promise controller and setting up RAID, which is surprisingly the cheapest backup method...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
well if you've got a hollywood plus (or other hardware DVD card) then make sure you're using the right software, because there's something really wrong for stuttering at that point. I was playing DVDs on a classic Pentium 233 with a hollywood+ card last year. It was when I got the celeron (and faster motherboard) that I could dump the card and do all-software (higher-quality) playback.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
You're right that most software does the conversion, but it doesn't have to pull that data from the DVD disk or process it in any way, it just says, "next frame, next frame, next frame, play the last frame again, next frame".
So you do wind up with it being 20%+ less intensive on the disks and processor to play film vs. video content.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
It's borderline, if the rest of your system is great you'd be fine (I'm surprised the 750 isn't fast enough to run DVD in software alone).
The ATI chips didn't have any real DVD/MPEG accelerator functions until the rage 128, and that was minimal. Make sure yu're using DVD player software that takes advantage of the AMD optimizations (most of the big ones do, I believe - PowerDVD, WinDVD, but check that it's using them). Check that you've got the AMD-optimized drivers for the video card, too.
And the DMA setting on the drive -- I've had it mysteriously turn off, especially on CD/DVD drives, and it makes a HUUUGE difference in how smoothly anything off a disc plays.
It definitely wouldn't HURT to drop a few bucks on a video card, but you really should be able to play full-screen video in software on a 750 anything, so check over the other settings/hardware to make sure something isn't goofy/underpowered...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Why is it that my k7-650 can't get 30 frames per second, per second for the entire length of a movie? Mac's don't studder like PC's do
I don't know, but there's something wrong (or at least sub-optimal). Maybe a bottleneck somewhere. My home entertainment system runs off a Celeron 433 and no problems with 30fps video (though DVD is frequently 24 fps - film speed).
Do you have DMA enabled on the drives? Old video/drivers? You'll get more bang from upgrading your video card than you will by going to a new processor.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Any computer manufacturer who relies on, tries to obtain, or pushes for recognition on the basis of a novel looking CASE is in trouble. Do you know why? Because it's what's inside the case that matters.
Uh-oh, the secret's out! I'm gonna have to sell my stock in the Gap and Starbucks now that everyone will be looking beneath the surface! (g)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
I'm normally not a critic of Katz's, but this just got me:
Beyond that, Singer's particular rendering has some big flaws as a big-screen tale. We're supposed to hate Magento, but there isn't anything particularly hateful about him. He's trying to save his species from what he believes from personal experience is a possible Holocaust-style extinction
That's exactly the point! Writers don't usually like to crate black and white tales of good and evil. No one in the world is EVIL, the whole point is that evil actions are done by those who most fanatically believe they are doing good.
This is called good storytelling in most fiction-writing circles -- you give your characters depth beyond "he's the bad guy" and "they're the good guys".
That's why the spend so much time questioning who is right and wrong -- maybe Wolverine is right to question "are you sure you're on the right side?" This is a war, and normals won't hesitate to kill the mutants.
Should the mutants hold to ideals of freedom and sacrifice, knowing that Rogue will die because Xavier is unwilling to kill Magneto when he has the chance? Should we stand by and sacrifice innocents so that we can nobly allow murderers to live?
Does being "right" matter in the end if you are dead?
This is (hopefully) a little more complex than DieHard (I'm the robber, you're the cop, catch me!)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.