I doubt it. A lot of the anime has always gone towards a niche audience in Japan, I don't see that changing when it comes here. Some anime is more mainstream (DBZ *shudder, and Naruto for instance), so has always been a 'sell-out'. Regardless, its corporations making the anime, so the whole notion of selling-out is pretty stupid.
And really, anyone who watches anime for 'sophistication', well I guess if there is a low enough thershold for sophistication maybe. I watch anime because of the 13 or 26 episode format that allows character development and an actual overarching plot. Even before I watched anime, I always enjoyed mini-series, except for the fact that with some exception, the production value can be pretty cheap. Anime gets around that by using relatively-cheap (but nowadays at least) quality-looking animation techniques.
As noted, thats not true (the TV part, at least thats what I've read), but having seen most of the series, I don't know what would need to be edited. US Cable generally has lots of violence, and thats the only 'questionable' material I can think of. Cartoon Network sometimes picks odd things to edit, and odd things not to edit.
The 'cute' Tachikomas are freakin' awesome. The best GITS episodes are centered around them. Seeing them in an English dub just sounds more ridiculous.
Or you can just get a computer, mplayer and a BitTorrent and watch anime fansubs only days after released in Japan. Granted, I don't own a TV, so its not like I have much choice, though I can't imagine every waiting for Anime to be released by Cartoon Network.
Have you tried playing it in mplayer? I know it can play.wma files, though not sure about secure ones. If it does, then converting it into the MP3 file format is trivial.
The main issue is that Trillian brought 3rd-party IM clients to the masses. I mean the news.com article only mentions Trillian. Before the barrier to entry was too high (have to run Linux, or figure out Jabber etc.) I think it is Trillian's fault that the non-AIM networks have started getting bitchy as well. Certainly the spammers aren't helping, though I'm uncertain how much of that is pretext and how much of it isn't.
We should just start using the Spanish word "estadounidense" as an adjective for the USA. In a context-less situation like the Internet, using the word American is not very specific and somewhat offensive. And USAians looks kind of silly.
I guess its like how people suggest we should start using "libre" for Free Software to better differentiate it from free as in gratis software. I'm all for taking liberally from other languages when English isn't specific enough and another one is.
Well, your quite possible right about us as well. Probably our IT dept. is too lazy/not smart enough/concerned people will just stick their ethernet into a different port.
I think it sounds like a good policy. At my school they just brought down all the dorms and turned on their internet one at a time as they contacted people on their list who had been flagged as having one of the worms. Obviously this isn't the ideal way of doing it. But I'm glad the did, since now we have internet again (whereas before the internet was pretty unusable).
If you have Linux, then you don't need a virus scanner. The only way I could see Linux getting hit in a mostly Microsoft environment is with a multi-platform worm, which isn't impossible, but until then I'm sure the university would just turn those ports on. Mac users should have a virus scanner.
If you get infected, well they turn you back off. I'm sure part of bringing in and getting your computer scanned is fixing whatever bug allowed the worm to spread in the first place. At my university, they distributed CDs with the scanners and fixes for the specific worms.
Um, so you reinstall your machine the next day. Congrats. Hopefully you patch it up?
Re:Since when is sci-fi defined by films?
on
Science Faction
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· Score: 1
This was exactly my reaction. Books are certainly what is on the frontline for science fiction. I mean it talks about robots and cites Terminator and Star Wars?!? I mean, Hondas robot isnt named Asmo (or some such) for nothing. For instance, none of the science fiction ideas presented in The Matrix are original (though maybe the brain-battery is, but only because its bogus), which I realized after reading the 1984 (as in the year) book/Neuromancer/ a few weeks ago.
Star Trek is a little different though, seeing how its a (series of) TV series, giving it time to explore ideas.
What would be left of Excel Saga after the censors got to it? Apparently the last episode is so bad we're not even going to watch it at the more formal meeting of the Anime Club I go to. They would have to take out a whole character for sure. And several of the subplots throughout the series wouldn't be "fit" for the US audience.
Also, in my opinion its not really a very good series. Its feels kind of recycled after a while. We're on episode 22 or 23 and the last good episode we watched was the one with the attacking pandas, and that episode was in the single digits. Granted, there are still some funny moments here and there.
Now, Witch Hunter Robin, thats a good series. Perhaps CmdrTaco wouldn't like it since he apparently isn't a big fan of plot (I assume when he said "kind of crazy" he was refering to actual plot development). It starts out being a police-but-with-witch's anime (with some pretty neat episodic plots) but at about episode 15 or so it starts getting into the over-arching plot thats pretty nifty.
My favorite anime is Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu. You can BitTorrent it at AnimeSuki.com. Its really funny in a unique way. Don't be quick to judge it as as yet another "WTF Anime", I definitedly started liking it the more I saw of it (though I had more or less decided to watch the whole thing after seeing the intro). Theres good character development, none of the characters are as superficial as they first might seem. Depending on its time slot, they might not have to censor too much, but who knows.
One thing this article does is confirm all my negative sterotypes of Redhat users. Does he even care about the formats these players can play? He only seems to care about the superficial things. All he mentions is that Ogle can only play DVD. Well, duh, its a DVD player. And of course he complains about installing stuff, well, gosh, then stop using Redhat. I used Mandrake until I got sick of RPM, now I'm a gentoo user.
I have found mplayer to be the best DivX player for Windows or Linux. It plays DivX's other players give up on, it has a lot of tolerance for bad DivX's. My windows-using friend had to come over to my room to watch an anime DivX that wouldn't even start on his computer. I havn't really used xine much, it could be just as good especially considering they use a lot of the same libraries. I agree, the interfaces aren't the best. It really annoys me that the mplayer-gui has a distracting scrolling marquee. But I just watch it in full-screen mode (push 'f' and then double click the video to make the gui disappear). But is that the most important thing? Especially considering that if you watch a lot of videos, its well worth it to pick up the keyboard commands, their easy to pick up unlike the Windows conterparts which have various odd key combinations to do something as simple as fullscreen.
iD software writes crossplatform from the very beginning. The fact of the matter is that it can be done. And what about this Miles Sound System? Granted I'd never heard of it before the NWN Linux Client page mentioned it, but I've been to their website and it looks like its competeing with DirectSound and it can compile on Linux (though it doesn't appear to be a fully supported platform.) And more importantly its what NWN is actually using. I think its a good example of the non-Microsoft propiertary stuff that is/can be ported to Linux and be a real benefit for companies wanting to port to Linux.
Granted this sort of issue:
"Support for the wheel varies on different distributions of Linux. " (from the NWN Linux Client page) is I imagine a real headache for developers and reiterates the importance of standardization. Of course, to some extent the commericial distros don't what too much standardization, because obviously each distros uniqueness is what makes it marketable. At the same time they do want standardization as its good for their consumers. But this is getting into another issue entirely.
I like miniseries format in general, and considering the great majority of anime has plot running through the whole series they can be classified as miniseries's. In a miniseries you have enough time to get to know the character and develop an interesting plot that can be more along the lines of a book in scope (a miniseries can be faithful to a book - movies almost never are.)
I've always been frustrated with shows like the Simpsons how by the end of episode things will be much like the beginning.
Truthfully, the other reason I like anime is that its really easy to get ahold of it on campus. Theres a guy who lives above me who pratically has a library of anime DVDs. And I heavily dislike commercials, I've all but stopped watching TV completely since starting university. Hopefully for ADV, not all anime fans are like that.
Not really, considering that the.01% who know what they are doing don't have remote management turned on. Then there are the large majority of home users who went through the quick step guide and never accessed their router again, so have the default setting (remote management off). Those at risk are those who know enough to be dangerous.
I suppose there are a few people who have an actual reason to use remote management. These people need to update.
I'm not going to update my router - its functional, and secure. Since all your settings are erased on update, it would take more work then is worth it.
No, Harry Potter appeal is fairly universial. I don't remember hearing of someone who has read the books but didn't like them (granted I'm sure they're out there). However, the people who I know who do not like Harry Potter have never read it. I have never actually met someone who didn't for the witchcraft reasons, most because they go under the general principal that if its widely popular then it must be catering to the lowest-common-denominator and so is crap. I often subscribe to this philosophy myself, except in this case they're popular because they're really fun, well written books. The characters are very good, they remind me of various people I knew and know. And characters are usually whats the most important thing for me.
I guess your right about Beanie Babies, but I've never seen a Pog recently. However, I think books are different. Beanie babies are still popular with a small minority, however it has become a "oh yea, I still remember those" for most. I think Harry Potter will become a classic childrens series. As such, it won't be "I remember when those were popular" but a "I remember reading those when I was 11." I think they will lose there adult appeal largely because the next generation is forunate enough to read them at the age they are intended to (at least those who read at all, which is all that matters).
It will be interesting to see whether Harry Potter books or Star Wars hangs on longer. This will probably have more to do with the media they use then anything. I can easily enjoy a book from the 30's or 40's, but most of the movies seem archaic, and to me boring. Its somewhat of an unfair advantage considering movies have just started out and were (perhaps are) less developed then books.
I agree, I don't think Rowling will be writing books about Harry Potter after Harry finish's Hogwarts, though it is possible. There may be other books in their world though. However, if you go into any library you will find reprints of childrens books decades old. Narnia is one that comes to mind. I think Harry Potter will have a similar role, just one of the many childrens novels.
I think we are coming at this from different directions. I see it as a series a book that had a movie and some merchandise made out of it, whereas you (with your comparisions of Star Trek and Star Wars) seem to see the books as just one part of it. Really everything else is secondary at best (though perhaps not financially). In fact I thought the movie was pretty bad, and they probably wouldn't be making another movie except for people like me who feel obligated to see the movie version of good books they've read. Star Wars and Star Trek are long lasting franchises, I don't really see this happening with Harry Potter. But I don't see why it should have to for Harry Potter not to be a fad. A fad is something like Beanie Babies or Pogs where it is really popular for a while and then drops off the face of the Earth.
First off, Harry Potter is not just a fad. People will continue to read Harry Potter for decades. Its place in pop culture will fade certainly when Rowling moves on to other things or perhaps before then, but just because somethings in pop culture doesn't make it a fad. Whatever happens, Harry Potter will continue to be popular for a book.
And just you watch come late 2002, early 2003 when Harry Potter 5 comes out. Then you will hear about it in the media. Unlike Britney Spears, Harry Potter is a book so there isn't much news except when something comes out. Harry Potter does not flick off reporters, skip concerts or strip off its clothes.
Do you believe in witchcraft? Kind of sounds like you do. I mean "witchcraft connotations"? The word 'witchcraft' is used in the book ('Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry' I believe). How is it a connotation? A connotation to the real deal? I think its sorta funny the people you hear speaking out againist Harry Potter are those who actually believe in that stuff to some extent, though I guess it makes sense.
I agree though that Harry Potter is not Sci Fi, and probably shouldn't have gotten the Hugo award. I was actually planning on modding up your comment until I read the rest of it.
Actually better then lead would be water, as this would stop most radiation and is obviously much more pratical as its something you need anyways. Robert Zubrin's plan for Mars calls for them having a room in the spacecraft surrounded by water for when there is a solar storm on the way to Mars, and just piling some rocks on the top of their building while on Mars (IIRC).
At Truman State University we will be taught Ada. I've heard it is a good structured programming languager which forces the programmer to use good technique. Ada is I believe related to Pascal. I've read that is mainly used in embedded devices (probably embedded as in the program in airplane, as opposed to a Palm). It has some OOP, but they were added kind of as an afterthought (as opposed to Ruby which lives and breaths OOP.)
In theory I think it is a good idea and it probably will be in practice as well. You go to college so you can have a basis of knowledge to work with the rest of your career. I have some programming experience and know that it isn't that difficult to apply your experience from one language into another. So colleges top priority should be picking an language that is best for teaching with. The professors that I've talked to seem to really embrace Ada, and that's important. I wonder what kind of reception C# is getting from the U of Waterloo. Its one thing to learn a somethinge new, its another to have to teach it.
Microsoft was doing this kind of stuff before and told by the government not to (with the threat of being told not to again). Doesn't mean they wouldn't do it again, but that a person would not have to be very creative to come up with something like this.
Until I see a link to something on Dell's website backing this up, I'll withhold judgement. Its not like Slashdot is a pillar of the journalistic community - I doubt they asked MS's or Dell's opinion or in any way tried to find out about this from another source.
This is where a DE like KDE comes in. In KDE the CRTL-C/CRTL-V functionality is different then the highlight/use center button copy and paste system. I thought it was going to be confusing, having two seperate ways to copy and paste, but someone it works. So when I want to copy a URL into Mozilla I use CRTL-C/CRTL-V, so that I can highlight the current URL and paste over it. But if I'm just copying into a console screen I can do so easily enough with just highlighting.
So, I guess the way it works is that most of the time whats in the highlight buffer is going to be the same as what is in the CRTL-C/CRTL-V buffer since you have to highlight to do CRTL-C in the first place. Which is why it ends up not being all that confusing.
Granted, I don't know what the deal with Gnome is. Havn't used it. I was somewhat tempted to try it before I read this review. I use KDE and IceWM for stuff like VNC when I want something light weight.
Copying non-text still doesn't really some to be there, though I havn't tried that hard.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt it. A lot of the anime has always gone towards a niche audience in Japan, I don't see that changing when it comes here. Some anime is more mainstream (DBZ *shudder, and Naruto for instance), so has always been a 'sell-out'. Regardless, its corporations making the anime, so the whole notion of selling-out is pretty stupid.
And really, anyone who watches anime for 'sophistication', well I guess if there is a low enough thershold for sophistication maybe. I watch anime because of the 13 or 26 episode format that allows character development and an actual overarching plot. Even before I watched anime, I always enjoyed mini-series, except for the fact that with some exception, the production value can be pretty cheap. Anime gets around that by using relatively-cheap (but nowadays at least) quality-looking animation techniques.
As noted, thats not true (the TV part, at least thats what I've read), but having seen most of the series, I don't know what would need to be edited. US Cable generally has lots of violence, and thats the only 'questionable' material I can think of. Cartoon Network sometimes picks odd things to edit, and odd things not to edit.
The 'cute' Tachikomas are freakin' awesome. The best GITS episodes are centered around them. Seeing them in an English dub just sounds more ridiculous.
Or you can just get a computer, mplayer and a BitTorrent and watch anime fansubs only days after released in Japan. Granted, I don't own a TV, so its not like I have much choice, though I can't imagine every waiting for Anime to be released by Cartoon Network.
KDE 3.2 has a similar feature integrated into Konqueror called KWallet. It looks pretty neat.
Have you tried playing it in mplayer? I know it can play .wma files, though not sure about secure ones. If it does, then converting it into the MP3 file format is trivial.
The main issue is that Trillian brought 3rd-party IM clients to the masses. I mean the news.com article only mentions Trillian. Before the barrier to entry was too high (have to run Linux, or figure out Jabber etc.) I think it is Trillian's fault that the non-AIM networks have started getting bitchy as well. Certainly the spammers aren't helping, though I'm uncertain how much of that is pretext and how much of it isn't.
We should just start using the Spanish word "estadounidense" as an adjective for the USA. In a context-less situation like the Internet, using the word American is not very specific and somewhat offensive. And USAians looks kind of silly.
I guess its like how people suggest we should start using "libre" for Free Software to better differentiate it from free as in gratis software. I'm all for taking liberally from other languages when English isn't specific enough and another one is.
Well, your quite possible right about us as well. Probably our IT dept. is too lazy/not smart enough/concerned people will just stick their ethernet into a different port.
The problem with this is then their roommate gets kicked off too. Which sucks, but I guess you gotta do something.
I think it sounds like a good policy. At my school they just brought down all the dorms and turned on their internet one at a time as they contacted people on their list who had been flagged as having one of the worms. Obviously this isn't the ideal way of doing it. But I'm glad the did, since now we have internet again (whereas before the internet was pretty unusable).
If you have Linux, then you don't need a virus scanner. The only way I could see Linux getting hit in a mostly Microsoft environment is with a multi-platform worm, which isn't impossible, but until then I'm sure the university would just turn those ports on. Mac users should have a virus scanner.
If you get infected, well they turn you back off. I'm sure part of bringing in and getting your computer scanned is fixing whatever bug allowed the worm to spread in the first place. At my university, they distributed CDs with the scanners and fixes for the specific worms.
Um, so you reinstall your machine the next day. Congrats. Hopefully you patch it up?
This was exactly my reaction. Books are certainly what is on the frontline for science fiction. I mean it talks about robots and cites Terminator and Star Wars?!? I mean, Hondas robot isnt named Asmo (or some such) for nothing. For instance, none of the science fiction ideas presented in The Matrix are original (though maybe the brain-battery is, but only because its bogus), which I realized after reading the 1984 (as in the year) book /Neuromancer/ a few weeks ago.
Star Trek is a little different though, seeing how its a (series of) TV series, giving it time to explore ideas.
You people went to some sick high schools. I've always thought of bullying as more of a junior high/middle school thing.
What would be left of Excel Saga after the censors got to it? Apparently the last episode is so bad we're not even going to watch it at the more formal meeting of the Anime Club I go to. They would have to take out a whole character for sure. And several of the subplots throughout the series wouldn't be "fit" for the US audience.
Also, in my opinion its not really a very good series. Its feels kind of recycled after a while. We're on episode 22 or 23 and the last good episode we watched was the one with the attacking pandas, and that episode was in the single digits. Granted, there are still some funny moments here and there.
Now, Witch Hunter Robin, thats a good series. Perhaps CmdrTaco wouldn't like it since he apparently isn't a big fan of plot (I assume when he said "kind of crazy" he was refering to actual plot development). It starts out being a police-but-with-witch's anime (with some pretty neat episodic plots) but at about episode 15 or so it starts getting into the over-arching plot thats pretty nifty.
My favorite anime is Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu. You can BitTorrent it at AnimeSuki.com. Its really funny in a unique way. Don't be quick to judge it as as yet another "WTF Anime", I definitedly started liking it the more I saw of it (though I had more or less decided to watch the whole thing after seeing the intro). Theres good character development, none of the characters are as superficial as they first might seem. Depending on its time slot, they might not have to censor too much, but who knows.
One thing this article does is confirm all my negative sterotypes of Redhat users. Does he even care about the formats these players can play? He only seems to care about the superficial things. All he mentions is that Ogle can only play DVD. Well, duh, its a DVD player. And of course he complains about installing stuff, well, gosh, then stop using Redhat. I used Mandrake until I got sick of RPM, now I'm a gentoo user.
I have found mplayer to be the best DivX player for Windows or Linux. It plays DivX's other players give up on, it has a lot of tolerance for bad DivX's. My windows-using friend had to come over to my room to watch an anime DivX that wouldn't even start on his computer. I havn't really used xine much, it could be just as good especially considering they use a lot of the same libraries. I agree, the interfaces aren't the best. It really annoys me that the mplayer-gui has a distracting scrolling marquee. But I just watch it in full-screen mode (push 'f' and then double click the video to make the gui disappear). But is that the most important thing? Especially considering that if you watch a lot of videos, its well worth it to pick up the keyboard commands, their easy to pick up unlike the Windows conterparts which have various odd key combinations to do something as simple as fullscreen.
Granted this sort of issue:
"Support for the wheel varies on different distributions of Linux. " (from the NWN Linux Client page)
is I imagine a real headache for developers and reiterates the importance of standardization. Of course, to some extent the commericial distros don't what too much standardization, because obviously each distros uniqueness is what makes it marketable. At the same time they do want standardization as its good for their consumers. But this is getting into another issue entirely.
I like miniseries format in general, and considering the great majority of anime has plot running through the whole series they can be classified as miniseries's. In a miniseries you have enough time to get to know the character and develop an interesting plot that can be more along the lines of a book in scope (a miniseries can be faithful to a book - movies almost never are.)
I've always been frustrated with shows like the Simpsons how by the end of episode things will be much like the beginning.
Truthfully, the other reason I like anime is that its really easy to get ahold of it on campus. Theres a guy who lives above me who pratically has a library of anime DVDs. And I heavily dislike commercials, I've all but stopped watching TV completely since starting university. Hopefully for ADV, not all anime fans are like that.
Not really, considering that the .01% who know what they are doing don't have remote management turned on. Then there are the large majority of home users who went through the quick step guide and never accessed their router again, so have the default setting (remote management off). Those at risk are those who know enough to be dangerous.
I suppose there are a few people who have an actual reason to use remote management. These people need to update.
I'm not going to update my router - its functional, and secure. Since all your settings are erased on update, it would take more work then is worth it.
No, Harry Potter appeal is fairly universial. I don't remember hearing of someone who has read the books but didn't like them (granted I'm sure they're out there). However, the people who I know who do not like Harry Potter have never read it. I have never actually met someone who didn't for the witchcraft reasons, most because they go under the general principal that if its widely popular then it must be catering to the lowest-common-denominator and so is crap. I often subscribe to this philosophy myself, except in this case they're popular because they're really fun, well written books. The characters are very good, they remind me of various people I knew and know. And characters are usually whats the most important thing for me.
I guess your right about Beanie Babies, but I've never seen a Pog recently. However, I think books are different. Beanie babies are still popular with a small minority, however it has become a "oh yea, I still remember those" for most. I think Harry Potter will become a classic childrens series. As such, it won't be "I remember when those were popular" but a "I remember reading those when I was 11." I think they will lose there adult appeal largely because the next generation is forunate enough to read them at the age they are intended to (at least those who read at all, which is all that matters).
It will be interesting to see whether Harry Potter books or Star Wars hangs on longer. This will probably have more to do with the media they use then anything. I can easily enjoy a book from the 30's or 40's, but most of the movies seem archaic, and to me boring. Its somewhat of an unfair advantage considering movies have just started out and were (perhaps are) less developed then books.
I agree, I don't think Rowling will be writing books about Harry Potter after Harry finish's Hogwarts, though it is possible. There may be other books in their world though. However, if you go into any library you will find reprints of childrens books decades old. Narnia is one that comes to mind. I think Harry Potter will have a similar role, just one of the many childrens novels.
I think we are coming at this from different directions. I see it as a series a book that had a movie and some merchandise made out of it, whereas you (with your comparisions of Star Trek and Star Wars) seem to see the books as just one part of it. Really everything else is secondary at best (though perhaps not financially). In fact I thought the movie was pretty bad, and they probably wouldn't be making another movie except for people like me who feel obligated to see the movie version of good books they've read. Star Wars and Star Trek are long lasting franchises, I don't really see this happening with Harry Potter. But I don't see why it should have to for Harry Potter not to be a fad. A fad is something like Beanie Babies or Pogs where it is really popular for a while and then drops off the face of the Earth.
First off, Harry Potter is not just a fad. People will continue to read Harry Potter for decades. Its place in pop culture will fade certainly when Rowling moves on to other things or perhaps before then, but just because somethings in pop culture doesn't make it a fad. Whatever happens, Harry Potter will continue to be popular for a book.
And just you watch come late 2002, early 2003 when Harry Potter 5 comes out. Then you will hear about it in the media. Unlike Britney Spears, Harry Potter is a book so there isn't much news except when something comes out. Harry Potter does not flick off reporters, skip concerts or strip off its clothes.
Do you believe in witchcraft? Kind of sounds like you do. I mean "witchcraft connotations"? The word 'witchcraft' is used in the book ('Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry' I believe). How is it a connotation? A connotation to the real deal? I think its sorta funny the people you hear speaking out againist Harry Potter are those who actually believe in that stuff to some extent, though I guess it makes sense.
I agree though that Harry Potter is not Sci Fi, and probably shouldn't have gotten the Hugo award. I was actually planning on modding up your comment until I read the rest of it.
Actually better then lead would be water, as this would stop most radiation and is obviously much more pratical as its something you need anyways. Robert Zubrin's plan for Mars calls for them having a room in the spacecraft surrounded by water for when there is a solar storm on the way to Mars, and just piling some rocks on the top of their building while on Mars (IIRC).
At Truman State University we will be taught Ada. I've heard it is a good structured programming languager which forces the programmer to use good technique. Ada is I believe related to Pascal. I've read that is mainly used in embedded devices (probably embedded as in the program in airplane, as opposed to a Palm). It has some OOP, but they were added kind of as an afterthought (as opposed to Ruby which lives and breaths OOP.)
In theory I think it is a good idea and it probably will be in practice as well. You go to college so you can have a basis of knowledge to work with the rest of your career. I have some programming experience and know that it isn't that difficult to apply your experience from one language into another. So colleges top priority should be picking an language that is best for teaching with. The professors that I've talked to seem to really embrace Ada, and that's important. I wonder what kind of reception C# is getting from the U of Waterloo. Its one thing to learn a somethinge new, its another to have to teach it.
It sounds kind of like a hoax to me.
Microsoft was doing this kind of stuff before and told by the government not to (with the threat of being told not to again). Doesn't mean they wouldn't do it again, but that a person would not have to be very creative to come up with something like this.
Until I see a link to something on Dell's website backing this up, I'll withhold judgement. Its not like Slashdot is a pillar of the journalistic community - I doubt they asked MS's or Dell's opinion or in any way tried to find out about this from another source.
This is where a DE like KDE comes in. In KDE the CRTL-C/CRTL-V functionality is different then the highlight/use center button copy and paste system. I thought it was going to be confusing, having two seperate ways to copy and paste, but someone it works. So when I want to copy a URL into Mozilla I use CRTL-C/CRTL-V, so that I can highlight the current URL and paste over it. But if I'm just copying into a console screen I can do so easily enough with just highlighting.
So, I guess the way it works is that most of the time whats in the highlight buffer is going to be the same as what is in the CRTL-C/CRTL-V buffer since you have to highlight to do CRTL-C in the first place. Which is why it ends up not being all that confusing.
Granted, I don't know what the deal with Gnome is. Havn't used it. I was somewhat tempted to try it before I read this review. I use KDE and IceWM for stuff like VNC when I want something light weight.
Copying non-text still doesn't really some to be there, though I havn't tried that hard.