I normally don't jump into the top thread with a post that doesn't relate to it. It's kind of a Karma Whore thing to do, and we all know it.
I'm making an exception this time because I can save a lot of people time before they delve into the over 500 posts of reaction to this story (at least for those who read/. in threaded mode).
Adobe is not expressing a preference for Windows PC's
The linked page is called "pcprefered.html" because it is the page which is brought up on the Adobe Digital Video Products page when you click on a link that says: "Prefer a PC for DV? See what an industry expert has to say about PC vs. Mac for video editing."
In other words, those who followed the link from The Adobe DV Products Page are indicating a preference for PC's. Since it's a page for those who prefer PC's, it's called "pcprefered.html".
There is nothing in the body of the page to indicate that Adobe has any preference for PC's, reccomends PC's over Macs, or even likes PC's. The page is a mirror of some Dell vs. Mac speed tests that some guy did. That is all.
By deep-linking to this page out of context, the person who submitted this was obviously trolling... perhaps hoping that the article would not go up until a little closer to April 1.
You may now safely ignore all of the responses below and move on with your life. No need to mod up this post, I'm already posting it at 2. Save your mod points for a real article.
The web page the data is on is pcprefered.html. That tells me a pc is prefered.
How the hell did that get modded up as "insightful"!?
He just made the same (wrong) assumption as the person who submitted the article.
The document is called "pcprefered.html", becuase it is linked from a menu on the main page which asks if you prefer Mac or PC. If you indicate that you prefer PC's, it takes you to a page called pcprefered.html, which shows you that a Dell can run photoshop filters quickly.
Too bad there isn't a "-1, Kneejerk" mod. I guess those with mod points will have to settle for the ol' "Overrated" option.
I seem to recall reading that the vast majority of effective leaders are usually not from the MENSA crowd. A poll of the CEO's of the most successful companies, along with most political leaders, shows that the typical profile is that of a slightly-above-average scholar.
My best guess is that those who score high in IQ tests and get high grades are often the borderline Asperger Syndrome cases who lack the human interaction skills needed to lead.
Your comment is the first I've seen in this thread that deserves to be modded up at all.
Back on topic, I did not vote for Gore, because I disagree with some of his politics, but I've always thought of him as an intelligent and competent administrator. He's always kept up on technology issues, even when he was a busy Senator. I think his experience will ultimately be good for Apple.
The place you are thinking of is Dexis Corporation in Eden Prairie. It's nestled inside a bunch of warehouses, so it can be tricky for some people to find, but definately worth checking out before buying a computer part at retail prices.
In the Twin Cities, there are several AxMan stores that are just awesome. I had a Traynor bass guitar amplifier that had these massive vacuum tubes in it that needed replacing. Nobody else in town could help me, but rather than resort to mail-order, I went to AxMan, who had a wide selection of russian-made tubes, including the exact type I needed.
They are the first place I look for mechanical or electronic parts, speaker wire, or just to browse through bizarre military surplus.
If they don't know what something is, they'll just make something up and sell it off cheap. A very fun surplus store. I strongly reccomend it if you are in the area.
Is the music store you purchase (possibly hypothetically, lots of that going round here these days) music at giving you a voucher for gasoline or bus fare every time you visit make a purchase?
No, but they don't force you to drive around town bringing copies of their CD's to other buyers, either.
But, I keep hearing about this reviled "Ken Burns Effect".
Ken Burns makes a lot of historical documentaries for PBS. Since most of his source material is old photographs, he pans over the pictures while zooming in and out to make the TV a little less lifeless while the narrator is speaking. It actually helps you keep your attention span up fairly well, but gets annoying if it is overdone.
Your link only served to strengthen the case that NY and LA are the only major cities. Each has a population of over 14 million. Chicago is the next closes with 8, and most of the other cities who like to think of themselves as "major" metropolitan sites have about 2-4. Pretty much what I thought.
Milwaukee, Providence, and Columbus are exactly what New Yorkers are talking about when they use the expression "fly-over land." If you live in Detroit, you live in a small-ish city. Get over it already.
You are exactly the sort of person I was ranting about. People who can't just be happy living in their relatively insignifigant (on a global scale) city which has a few interesting things to be proud of, but that's all.
Atlanta is the biggest city in a small, jerkwater state, yes. That does not make it a Major City. I don't care if they hosted the Olympics. So did Lake Placid.
I love how everyone thinks that L.A. and New York are the only major cities.
Mexico City has a polulation of that dwarfs most US states. London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Rome, Cairo... these, like NY and LA, are major cities.
Detroit and Atlanta are not major cities, regardless of where Ted Turner and Ford Motor Company choose to be located. They are small cities, made up of only a few million people, and of little note to anybody who doesn't live in either Michigan or Georgia.
That doesn't make them less nice places to live. If fact, I prefer not to live in a major city. I would hate to live in any of the places I just cited as examples.
It's why George Lucas wet his panties over CGI, becuase it opens up the kind of freedom you get in animation for live action directors.
True, but I think we are just about all in agreement that Lucas did much better work when he was forced to stay within the constraints of traditional film-making and special effects.
Scientific truth depends not on "warning signs", it depends on logical consistency and experimental reproducibility, and it depends only on that.
I got the impression from the article that these "warning signs" were not a methodology for scientists to establish scientific truth, but rather a handy guide for the media, to help them determine, "this press release could be junk science. Ask the scientific community for more information before printing it as fact."
If a new announcement of discovery hits some or all of these red flags, the chance of it being bogus is really, really high. For scientific laymen, his guide is actually a fairly useful BS detection system.
Actually that was two reasons, not one two-part reason, but whatever.
1. Animation can show things real life cannot either due to technological, financial or time constraints. For example, Cowboy Bebop. If you've seen the series, imagine trying to translate that into a show or movie. You know how much money that would cost? I'd guess upwards of $20 million an episode on average (CG ain't cheap, especially when every second has some).
As was just proven this year with Firefly, a live-action TV show that reminded some people more than a little bit of Cowboy Bebop. At $2 Million an episode, it was simply too expensive to stay on the air with as limited of a following as it had. It was cancelled just as it was getting really good.
In addition to the cost savings and subculture appeal, there's one more reason for anime being loved so much by some people in the US. Only the most appealing stuff ever gets exported. Then, once they went through the trouble of translating and exporting it, they carefully market it to the right audience (Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" vs. after-school syndication).
The strength of anime is that it allows the creative force complete control over the visual environment, without concern for if its possible to do in terms of special effects or in terms of real life freedom. Thus, the storyteller gets the ultimate freedom to express his or her ideas. That is what makes Anime unique in contrast to other mediums.
Actually, that's not completely true. If you watch the credits of any good anime, it's pretty easy to see that it actually takes a much bigger crew to do a cartoon well than to shoot with film. You don't even save much on cast, because you still need to hire voice actors.
What makes anime a (slightly) more "free" medium is that it is quite a bit cheaper, which allows producers to take bigger chances on rolling with a creative person's vision. The idea that a single Manga artist ever really has complete control of their vision during the production of something like Cowboy Bebop is a bit of a myth, though. Compromises were made, even if you were never told about them in a DVD commentary track the way you are with a lot of Hollywood films these days.
but what about other major cities, like Atlanta or Charlotte? I'm sorry to have to break it too you, but if you don't live in one of the cities this is being released in, you don't live in a major city. You live in fly-over land. It takes more than having an NBA franchise (for a brief while, in Charlotte's case) to be a major city.
I've lived in the Minneapolis area almost my entire life, and while I love it here, if there's one thing I can't stand it's the huge inferiority complex that some Twin City people seem to have about wanting to be considered an important city. Yes, we have an orchestra that's almost as good as Philly's. Yes, the U of M is has a great medical program. Sure, we have four major league sports teams (for now). Yea, we have the tallest tower between Chicago and California. Blah blah blah. We are not all that important. Half the kids in NYC schools probably can't find us on a map. Foreign visitors think we are a suburb of Los Angelis or something. Get over it already.
There's nothing wrong with simply being from a nice city with only a few million people in it. Are you listening, Denver?
As to anybody else whining about the very limited release of the Cowboy Bebop movie. Hey, small movies always start with a limited release. If you live in any city big enough to have an "arthouse" movie theater or two, it will probably come to you within a couple months. Chill.
Also, it could well be that there are 20 times more people willing to pay $1 for a copy of "Slave 4 U" (or howeverdahell she spelled it) than pay the $12 - $20 cost of the whole CD.
In fact, this could result in the music industry looking more like it did before the Beach Boys released "Endless Summer." Instead of every new act releasing a full album, lots of artists will just record singles, and a full-length album won't even be released until they have pilled up enough hits to fill one.
Personally, I kind of regret the death of the Concept Album. A new band who wants to record works on the scale of Thick As A Brick, Tommy, or Dark Side Of The Moon really doesn't stand much of a chance in the MP3 age, unless they are willing to clip "radio edits" as a way of enticing people to go buy the full album. Then again, would anybody want to pay money for a shortened promotional track, even if it's only 99 cents?
3-chord rock came out of jazz in the mid 20th century. It's easy to play, and easy to listen to. There are sounds that are naturally pleasing to the western ear.
This is a common misperception, but false. While it's true that Rock became popular just as big-band swing jazz was on the decline, the roots of rock and roll can easilly be traced back to three sources: blues, folk music, and gospel... mainly blues.
Louis Armstrong may have been the greatest musician of the 20th Century, but it was guys like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Sonny Boy Wiliamson who created the music that would become rock.
120 bpm is a longtime holdover from military marches. A healthy person without ambulatory difficulties can walk comfortably to music set at 120 bpm, just ask any Sousa fanatic.
Actually, and true Sousa fanatic (such as Fredrick Fennel of the Easman Wind Ensemble) will tell you that 120 is too fast for Sousa. It's an all-too-common mistake to play Sousa marches any faster than about 100-105 bpm.
Besides, you would be hard-pressed to find much in seminal rock that has anything like a march feel to it. Marching to "Good Golly, Miss Molly" by Little Richard could cause you to pull a hamstring.
But it was stupid and contrived. "OOH we're being 'CONTROVERSIAL'".
That's just the thing though. There is nothing controversial about Willow's relationship with Tara. The kiss was never hyped (and inserted into an episode that would be hyped for completely different reasons). If anything, they were very careful to avoid the cheap sensationalism that usually comes with lesbians on TV.
If you think it's so unusual for a lesbian to have had relationships with (and crushes on) guys while in High School, you need to talk to more lesbians. It's actually fairly common for lesbians to discover the gay side of themselves later in life.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm making an exception this time because I can save a lot of people time before they delve into the over 500 posts of reaction to this story (at least for those who read /. in threaded mode).
Adobe is not expressing a preference for Windows PC's
The linked page is called "pcprefered.html" because it is the page which is brought up on the Adobe Digital Video Products page when you click on a link that says: "Prefer a PC for DV? See what an industry expert has to say about PC vs. Mac for video editing."
In other words, those who followed the link from The Adobe DV Products Page are indicating a preference for PC's. Since it's a page for those who prefer PC's, it's called "pcprefered.html".
There is nothing in the body of the page to indicate that Adobe has any preference for PC's, reccomends PC's over Macs, or even likes PC's. The page is a mirror of some Dell vs. Mac speed tests that some guy did. That is all.
By deep-linking to this page out of context, the person who submitted this was obviously trolling... perhaps hoping that the article would not go up until a little closer to April 1.
You may now safely ignore all of the responses below and move on with your life. No need to mod up this post, I'm already posting it at 2. Save your mod points for a real article.
How the hell did that get modded up as "insightful"!?
He just made the same (wrong) assumption as the person who submitted the article.
The document is called "pcprefered.html", becuase it is linked from a menu on the main page which asks if you prefer Mac or PC. If you indicate that you prefer PC's, it takes you to a page called pcprefered.html, which shows you that a Dell can run photoshop filters quickly.
Too bad there isn't a "-1, Kneejerk" mod. I guess those with mod points will have to settle for the ol' "Overrated" option.
Pretty damn funny riff while it lasted, though. It made my whole week.
My best guess is that those who score high in IQ tests and get high grades are often the borderline Asperger Syndrome cases who lack the human interaction skills needed to lead.
Back on topic, I did not vote for Gore, because I disagree with some of his politics, but I've always thought of him as an intelligent and competent administrator. He's always kept up on technology issues, even when he was a busy Senator. I think his experience will ultimately be good for Apple.
Hey, its not there fault.
Your funny.
Here here!
The place you are thinking of is Dexis Corporation in Eden Prairie. It's nestled inside a bunch of warehouses, so it can be tricky for some people to find, but definately worth checking out before buying a computer part at retail prices.
Damn, you Bloomington City Council, damn you to hell.
They are the first place I look for mechanical or electronic parts, speaker wire, or just to browse through bizarre military surplus.
If they don't know what something is, they'll just make something up and sell it off cheap. A very fun surplus store. I strongly reccomend it if you are in the area.
No, but they don't force you to drive around town bringing copies of their CD's to other buyers, either.
Ken Burns makes a lot of historical documentaries for PBS. Since most of his source material is old photographs, he pans over the pictures while zooming in and out to make the TV a little less lifeless while the narrator is speaking. It actually helps you keep your attention span up fairly well, but gets annoying if it is overdone.
Like LA could do with Hollywood, you mean?
Detroit is a small city. Slightly more important than Omaha, perhaps slightly less than Philly. Sorry you had to hear it from me, but it's the truth.
Oh yea, and the Lions suck.
Milwaukee, Providence, and Columbus are exactly what New Yorkers are talking about when they use the expression "fly-over land." If you live in Detroit, you live in a small-ish city. Get over it already.
Atlanta is the biggest city in a small, jerkwater state, yes. That does not make it a Major City. I don't care if they hosted the Olympics. So did Lake Placid.
Mexico City has a polulation of that dwarfs most US states. London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Rome, Cairo... these, like NY and LA, are major cities.
Detroit and Atlanta are not major cities, regardless of where Ted Turner and Ford Motor Company choose to be located. They are small cities, made up of only a few million people, and of little note to anybody who doesn't live in either Michigan or Georgia.
That doesn't make them less nice places to live. If fact, I prefer not to live in a major city. I would hate to live in any of the places I just cited as examples.
True, but I think we are just about all in agreement that Lucas did much better work when he was forced to stay within the constraints of traditional film-making and special effects.
I got the impression from the article that these "warning signs" were not a methodology for scientists to establish scientific truth, but rather a handy guide for the media, to help them determine, "this press release could be junk science. Ask the scientific community for more information before printing it as fact."
If a new announcement of discovery hits some or all of these red flags, the chance of it being bogus is really, really high. For scientific laymen, his guide is actually a fairly useful BS detection system.
1. Animation can show things real life cannot either due to technological, financial or time constraints. For example, Cowboy Bebop. If you've seen the series, imagine trying to translate that into a show or movie. You know how much money that would cost? I'd guess upwards of $20 million an episode on average (CG ain't cheap, especially when every second has some).
As was just proven this year with Firefly, a live-action TV show that reminded some people more than a little bit of Cowboy Bebop. At $2 Million an episode, it was simply too expensive to stay on the air with as limited of a following as it had. It was cancelled just as it was getting really good.
In addition to the cost savings and subculture appeal, there's one more reason for anime being loved so much by some people in the US. Only the most appealing stuff ever gets exported. Then, once they went through the trouble of translating and exporting it, they carefully market it to the right audience (Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" vs. after-school syndication).
Actually, that's not completely true. If you watch the credits of any good anime, it's pretty easy to see that it actually takes a much bigger crew to do a cartoon well than to shoot with film. You don't even save much on cast, because you still need to hire voice actors.
What makes anime a (slightly) more "free" medium is that it is quite a bit cheaper, which allows producers to take bigger chances on rolling with a creative person's vision. The idea that a single Manga artist ever really has complete control of their vision during the production of something like Cowboy Bebop is a bit of a myth, though. Compromises were made, even if you were never told about them in a DVD commentary track the way you are with a lot of Hollywood films these days.
I've lived in the Minneapolis area almost my entire life, and while I love it here, if there's one thing I can't stand it's the huge inferiority complex that some Twin City people seem to have about wanting to be considered an important city. Yes, we have an orchestra that's almost as good as Philly's. Yes, the U of M is has a great medical program. Sure, we have four major league sports teams (for now). Yea, we have the tallest tower between Chicago and California. Blah blah blah. We are not all that important. Half the kids in NYC schools probably can't find us on a map. Foreign visitors think we are a suburb of Los Angelis or something. Get over it already.
There's nothing wrong with simply being from a nice city with only a few million people in it. Are you listening, Denver?
As to anybody else whining about the very limited release of the Cowboy Bebop movie. Hey, small movies always start with a limited release. If you live in any city big enough to have an "arthouse" movie theater or two, it will probably come to you within a couple months. Chill.
Swingin' way off topic here, but I always thought that the point of the movie was that he went the distance.
I agree that the first was the only one that mattered. It was an epic Quixotic hero story. The other 4 were just boxing movies.
In fact, this could result in the music industry looking more like it did before the Beach Boys released "Endless Summer." Instead of every new act releasing a full album, lots of artists will just record singles, and a full-length album won't even be released until they have pilled up enough hits to fill one.
Personally, I kind of regret the death of the Concept Album. A new band who wants to record works on the scale of Thick As A Brick, Tommy, or Dark Side Of The Moon really doesn't stand much of a chance in the MP3 age, unless they are willing to clip "radio edits" as a way of enticing people to go buy the full album. Then again, would anybody want to pay money for a shortened promotional track, even if it's only 99 cents?
eh... a little from column A, a little from column B.
This is a common misperception, but false. While it's true that Rock became popular just as big-band swing jazz was on the decline, the roots of rock and roll can easilly be traced back to three sources: blues, folk music, and gospel... mainly blues.
Louis Armstrong may have been the greatest musician of the 20th Century, but it was guys like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Sonny Boy Wiliamson who created the music that would become rock.
120 bpm is a longtime holdover from military marches. A healthy person without ambulatory difficulties can walk comfortably to music set at 120 bpm, just ask any Sousa fanatic.
Actually, and true Sousa fanatic (such as Fredrick Fennel of the Easman Wind Ensemble) will tell you that 120 is too fast for Sousa. It's an all-too-common mistake to play Sousa marches any faster than about 100-105 bpm.
Besides, you would be hard-pressed to find much in seminal rock that has anything like a march feel to it. Marching to "Good Golly, Miss Molly" by Little Richard could cause you to pull a hamstring.
That's just the thing though. There is nothing controversial about Willow's relationship with Tara. The kiss was never hyped (and inserted into an episode that would be hyped for completely different reasons). If anything, they were very careful to avoid the cheap sensationalism that usually comes with lesbians on TV.
If you think it's so unusual for a lesbian to have had relationships with (and crushes on) guys while in High School, you need to talk to more lesbians. It's actually fairly common for lesbians to discover the gay side of themselves later in life.