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User: ameoba

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Comments · 1,725

  1. Re:Why why why? on Blade Director to Adapt 'Akira' For Western Audiences · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Shakespeare is as synonymous with "classic English Literature" as Einstein is with "Scientific Genius" for most Americans, and he never wrote an original story in his life; they were all adaptations of older stories. If Akira really is a great story, it can stand to be retold and reinterpreted. If its merits are solely based on the quality of the animation, then a remake is pointless.

    As for the 'accessability' bit that keeps getting mocked, Akira is very much intertwined w/ Japanese culture and imagery. Most people would rather not go into an in-depth study of a foreign culture to watch a movie. Saying that altering the 'cultural scenery' to be understandable to people who have been born in raised in North America is akin to labotomizing the film is narrowminded elitism. (I'm very much aware that a majority of /. posters are USian. Feelings of hatred for and superiority over one's own culture are just sad. High-school sucked; get over it. For foreigners making those comments: Fuck you; we've got the bombs).

    If the story has any value at all there is a culturally-independant kernel that will remain after the story stops being a "Japanese Story". This kernel would be what a responsible adaptation would work from.

  2. Re:Just in case the site gets /.ed on Abit's New Motherboard Lays On The Ports · · Score: 2

    ...and there never will be cheap USB KVMs until there's enough hardware out there requiring USB KVMs to create a market for them.

  3. Re:Completely useless on Abit's New Motherboard Lays On The Ports · · Score: 2

    Oh how quickly you forget...

    having all of the STANDARD components that a VAST MAJORITY of computer users are going to be using integrated on the motherboard, with guaranteed compatability between them is a bad idea. I sure wanna go back to the days when NOTHING was built onto the motherboard and I had to go out and buy my serial/parallel/fdd/hdd controlers and add them onto the board.

    And what's the point in bringing up poor implimentations? Integrated hardware or not, you'll still have cut-rate crappy hardware, better to have it integrated so that you have some hope of it working together without catching on fire.

    And most integrated hardware these days is fine.. integrated audio is good enough for non-audiophiles. Integrated video good enough for those who aren't demanding gamers. Integrated IDE is good enough for those who don't want to run multi-TB databases. Integrated NICs are good enough unless you have the bandwidth to saturate a 100Mb connection.

    Notice a trend here? If the standard integrated componets aren't good enough for your needs you belong to a SMALL NICHE MARKET that has more demanding standards than the vast majority of users, and as such are going to need more expensive high-end hardware. I'm sure you'd like to live in a utopia where everyone had the very best in hardware, but I like being able to buy my father an $800 machine that's got more power than he'll ever need to use.

  4. Re:Not likely :) on Trouble Ahead for Java · · Score: 2

    People arguing over ideological purity in language paradigms lose sight of the fact that real people need to use these TOOLS in the real world if their existance is to be justified. Compromise is good; there's a reason why Smalltalk is a niche language and Java and C++ are so widely used. That same 'purity' that makes Smalltalk so much better also limits its expressiveness.

    Personally, I'm quite fond of Python, it lets you use the appropriate abstractions where you need them; It's got OO, but no so much that you can't ignore it; It's got FP, but not so much that you can't write normal loops.

  5. Re:Aimed at the consumer market on Abit's New Motherboard Lays On The Ports · · Score: 2

    High-end consumer market... Let's look at some possibilities here:

    For starters, if you want good performance out of an IDE system, you only put a single device on each channel. Bringing you to only 6 possible drives. 2 System drives in a RAID, on the HPT chip, DVD, CD-RW with 2 channels free. You could get a $BIGSIZE drive to store your MP3/pr0n collection, internal Zip, DVD burner, or whatever super-cool toy comes down the line 6mo from now.

  6. Re:Also used by 'hackers' on CNN Says Chat Rooms Are a Haven for Hackers · · Score: 2

    It's not that hard to watch IRC. Simply stick a bot in there to record what's said. It's not like anyone would really notice ANOTHER idle motherfucker.

  7. Re:That would NOT be legal on Internal MP3 Server? 1 Million Dollars Please · · Score: 2

    Isn't Australia one of the countries where you need to pay taxes/licence-fees for a radio, and the government subsidises the radio stations based on that? If so, I could see why a radio station would get snotty 'bout it.

  8. Re:That would NOT be legal on Internal MP3 Server? 1 Million Dollars Please · · Score: 2

    why would the RIAA want to sink money into a repeat of the horrible failure that was DIVX?

  9. Re:Not fair use.... on Internal MP3 Server? 1 Million Dollars Please · · Score: 2

    What if you're throwing a massive "need to pay rent"-style house party with a couple of kegs and you're charging $X for a keg-cup at the door, and between your friends band and your other friend's little brother (who, agreed to play for free 'cuz he thinks that he might get laid for being in a band) playing, you throw some music in the stereo.

    Were you charging for admission, or just charging for the beer?

    Few of the bars I frequent ever charge a cover, they simply charge inflated prices for beverages to cover their expenses, yet they're expected to give somebody a royalty check if they play music.

    Where is the line to be drawn? Would the bar still be 'public' if the owner knew everyone by name? Is the houseparty still private, even if you've never seen 90% of the people there?

  10. Re:Spectre on Review: BZFlag 3D Tank Game · · Score: 2

    At one time, spectre was the Big Hype game of the year, available on both PC and Mac. Something about it's graphics.. dunno.

  11. Re:All Programs need better names. on Review: BZFlag 3D Tank Game · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and everything begins to sound like a poorly translated Anime title...

    Liberating Music Player Sonique

    Archaic Compiler f77
    Multi-Purpose Text Mangler sed

    Tireless Text Locator grep -r

  12. Re:would you like some cheese? on Students Seek Widespread Internet Access · · Score: 2

    [blockquote]
    So far the results have been fantastic and it's based on students learning most of the material ahead of time and then learning what they don't know in class.
    [/blockquote]

    Is this fundamentally different than expecting them to read their textbooks before class? Most people don't bother...

  13. Re:would you like some cheese? on Students Seek Widespread Internet Access · · Score: 2

    Unfortunately, most public universities in the US are having budget problems, and jacking up tuition. If they were to provide 'universal broadband', there is no gov't money to pay for it, it'd have to be in student fees, so they would end up paying for it anyways. I think that broadband users are likely to be a minority, and this would outrage the rest of the student body. IE not going to happen.

  14. Re:would you like some cheese? on Students Seek Widespread Internet Access · · Score: 2

    My point exactly...

    if you want the University to take care of all the details of your life, live in the dorms. Move off campus if you want to pretend to be a responsible adult.

    Responsible adults pay for their own internet access.

  15. would you like some cheese? on Students Seek Widespread Internet Access · · Score: 0, Troll

    Shit... at best, you're paying around $7000/yr to go to school. Spending an extra $350/yr for dialup isn't going to break the bank. Here I am, taking out loans on $15k/yr, living with my GD parents, and you complain about a public school not subsidising your broadband?

    If paying for it is really that bad, move in w/ a couple geeks and spread the cost of the connection between you.

  16. Re:How much are you paying for the WARRANTY? on How Much Are You Paying For A Nameplate? · · Score: 2

    One problem... MS licencing. Based on a recent attempt at purchasing 50 machines from Dell, they refused to sell them with a site licence, or OS-less so we could purchase our own licence. XP is really piddly 'bout licences.

  17. Re:No killer application? on How Much Are You Paying For A Nameplate? · · Score: 2

    No... the 'killer app' for laptops is a laptop hard-drive that doesn't suck ass, and hardware that can handle the duty cycles of a desktop. I'm not getting a laptop 'till I can use it as a desktop replacement w/o losing performance.

    Actually... a number of years ago, Compaq made a system with a docking station that held normal desktop IDE/SCSI drives. Even that would be acceptable, but 'docking stations' these days are little more than a convience so that you can plug all your plugs in at once.

  18. Re:VNC vs. Remote Desktop on Microsoft XP License Prohibits VNC · · Score: 2

    At what cost? The protocol used by VNC is -much- more concise & comprehensible than RDP.

    VNC = 26 pages

    RDP = 5-600 pages of 'international standards' + MSFT extensions.

  19. Re:teenagers, certs, and jobs? on IT Certifications Summary · · Score: 2

    At least get your ass out of highschool first; Don't be tempted to drop out by the lure of easy money. Trust me, it's never worth it.

  20. What about... on Hawaii Wi-Fi · · Score: 1, Troll

    I could see this really pissing me off if I wanted my own -private- 802.11 network running inside of my house/busines. Perhaps I am just naive as to the realities of 802.11, but wouldn't any 802.11 set up in the range covered by this guys network be forced to compete with it for bandwidth, or even worse, be borged into joining it?

  21. CLIPS on Simple-to-setup Expert System? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've heard good things about CLIPS, for expert-system authoring. It's another one of those NASA projects. Another approach might be to read a usenet group on expert systems and see what ppl are talking about; while not the best approach, it's a decent indicator of popularity.

    http://www.ghg.net/clips/CLIPS.html

  22. Re:RESPOND to the REQUEST FOR COMMENTS!!! on Canada to Raise Tariffs on Recordable Media · · Score: 2

    (d) 0.8 for each megabyte of memory in each removable electronic memory card, each removable flash memory storage medium of any type, or each removable micro-hard drive;


    So I'm paying the record companies for the right to place media in my digital camera? It'd make a little sense if the money was going to film developers & manufactureres, but record companies? WTF?

  23. Re:Excuse me? on ACPI Forced On & Option Disabled in WinXP-Certified Motherboards · · Score: 2

    I can see a big demand for USB gear on Crays...

    supercomputer webcam anyone?

  24. Re:Informative?? Not...! on Underclocking for a Quiet Machine? · · Score: 2

    One thing to keep in mind, however; AMD chips allow you to alter clock settings based on both bus speed and the CPU multiplier where Intel only allows . Considering that the memory bus is one of the bigger bottlenecks in modern PCs, you'll see less of a performance hit by dropping the CPU multiplier and keeping the FSB high than you would by keeping a high CPU multiplier on a slow bus.

  25. Re:US Goverment on Unintended Results From U.S. Hardware Dumps In Asia · · Score: 2

    Well, if you look on ebay, a lot machines that have had 'sensitive information' stored on them have their HDDs, RAM, cables, keyboards and mice pulled for 'security' reasons. +)