Hoo-ray! My piles of GW character sheets and original Chainmail, D&D + suppliments and obscure modules have finally paid off. Pity I don't want to sell them.
I can't believe anyone would really pay that sort of money for my old floorplans and city geomorphs.
On the other hand, I'd pay a lot for the original Petal Throne maps.
I stopped reading after he started his populist, simplistic "big companies are bad" shit.
They generally are bad for the simple reason that the people in the company with power become more and more removed from the customers' needs and problems. It's hard to avoid but it's nice if they at least try.
Pick up The Screwtape Letters and come back to post after reading it.
Actually, the Screwtape Letters were the first thing I read as an adult that made me wonder if my high opinion of Lewis (from doing his stuff at school) might be off-beam.
I think JC's philosophy is one of the most insightful things to come down to us from ancient times but in a world where "Army Chaplain" is a respected job and people carrying guns call themselves Christians it's clear that the message was lost on the vast majority of people.
Well, since all religion is based on lies it's off to a bad start but in Lewis' case the lack of subtlety is the worst part: Tolkien got across many of the same moral and ethical values without jamming it down the reader's throat.
If, like I did, you remember the Narnia books as being one of the high points of your childhood, for pity's sake leave it like that. Returning to the material as an adult reveals them to be the most hopelessly inept and clumsy stream of the most sickly Christian propaganda ever written. ONLY children could read this stuff without feeling nauseous.
I discovered that one of the machines here wouldn't boot from the Slackware 8.1 CD, so for the first time in a long time it was out with the floppies. For ten dollars it's worth having that chance.
Results in compression at least 75% of the time would be a starting point. It would also need to be a reasonable degree (15%?) before it would be worth the time to encode it.
But obviously to some people its just about how much music they can hoard away.
My particular problem is that I hate the noise PC CD-ROMS make while spinning at 1x. Since I like to listen to music while working, I make recordings that play without that noise in the background (my PC fan is very quiet). Plus, I can play from a large subset of my CD collection from either machine at home or from my machine at the office.
If 128kbps is 'good enough' for you then I too suppose you would fall into the sounding 'good' instead of sounding 'accurate' category.
If accurate is what you want you don't use any of these: just save raw samples! There is a balance in all compressed formats between good enough and accurate. Anyone reading this test is, by definition, looking for "good" rather than accurate.
If you want to know WHICH codec will sound the best at 128kbit, you should look at which codec sounds the best at 64kbit--the two are likely to be the same.
64Kbps is where the flaws of a codec are truely exposed.
Running your car over a cliff is where the flaws in its safety system are truely exposed but I don't tend to drive over cliffs much.
However, if the difference between sounding 'good' and sounding 'accurate' mean little to you, as someone who'd make an argument of 64Kbps tests being worthless would, then you really aren't the intended audiance of such tests.
What do you mean by this? 64Kbits is worthless for listening to any music I own while 128 is good enough to not actually annoy me much of the time so why should I be interested in these tests? Are you saying that the intended audience for these tests are people that are not interested in the quality of the music they're listening to?
Unfortunately, apt-get goes barmy as soon as you install an rpm it doen't know and the documetation does not seem to show any way of fixing it. Plus it doesn't (and can't) solve the problem of false dependencies. I use my own spooling software and apt-get kept telling me to install LPRng before it would work so I had to ditch it. The packages that claim to need LPRng actually only need a program called `lpr' which sends jobs to the printer.
Some way of telling apt-get that its idea of what's installed or needs to be installed is sometimes wrong is needed before it's usable for me.
have to be protected or a holder runs the risk of losing those rights, correct?
Only trademarks. Copyright and patents are different although when a judge is involved, as in the DeCSS case, what the law actually says has little to do with it.
Microsoft helps companies make MONEY with their product.
No, Microsoft helps companies make Microsoft money. If the companies manage to make some too that's just their good luck. If they manage to make a lot of money then Microsoft will copy their product, give it away for "free" and it's hello bankruptcy for the poor sod that thought Bill was his friend.
Microsoft is not a capitalist company, it is an oligarchic/plutocratic one; it regards the area of software as belonging to it alone and mearly suffers the little people to make money so long as it is not inconvenienced. This is not surprising when you look at Gate's background: he's never had to work a day in his life if he didn't want to, from the day he was born into a million dollar trust fund from Grandpa he's been surrounded by the privileged stratophere of American aristocracy and it's clear that he'll do anything, including breaking the law, to defend that privilege from threats from the lower classes.
In a capitalist society MS would be broken up by the government to preserve the balance of the market - the only legitimate role for a government in the capatalist model - to allow the maximum number of companies to compete.
.NET is a trap and MONO is walking straight into it.
MS don't give a toss about the ECMA or any other standards body. They treat HTML as if they were the standards body (remember all of two days ago we had this story about the effect MS has on "standards" and that was one they didn't even invent!) they just want some stamp of approval that they're playing nice at the start of the game. After that the ECMA can pack up and go home, Bill won't be needing them anymore.
MONO simply gives more credence to.NET by allowing MS to honestly (not that that's ever bothered them!) say that.NET is a cross-platform technology. Of course, they'll add, the non-Windows versions aren't very good. And they'll be telling the truth.
The reason they'll be telling the truth is that they will make it their business to make it true. Every point upgrade (and there'll be lots of them) will come out just as MONO catches up with the changes since the one before last, making MONO a permanent 'old version' of.NET. And if the point update breaks old code or ignores the "standard" guess what? MS couldn't care less. Their customers will be locked in, they won't be able to change to MONO because it will be two points back and not able to do what the customers' software needs. So it'll be out with the chequebook again to add another wing to Bill mansion.
I mean, for Christ's sake, it's not like Microsoft haven't done this all before! What are you people? BLIND???
Qt: -A strong contender: good documentation, tools.
The documentation alone is enough for me!
-Lost out because they say the Windows version requires a purchased copy of Visual C++ to do any compiling with it.
Well, I don't really care that much about supporting a legacy OS but TrollTech claim that Borland works too. Haven't tried it myself.
-Emulates widgets instead of using native.
But this allows some control over the style (I don't believe in repeating MS's mistakes: a good UI is better than one that has familiar screw-ups like having shutdown under "Start").
Except that it still takes a given units of dollars to deliver a given unit of computing regardless of your standard of living.
That's why I think the larger figure is a better guide as it relates to what the government would have had to remove from other programmes (such as social security and housing). The 550K will, as you say, only buy 550K worth of computing but the 550K saved will have a much bigger effect on the government's budget in other areas.
Of course, an even bigger win would be to save all the money they currently pay MS.
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Arguments are next door; this is abuse.
TWW
I can't believe anyone would really pay that sort of money for my old floorplans and city geomorphs.
On the other hand, I'd pay a lot for the original Petal Throne maps.
TWW
I got the impression that they were hiring attractive people...
TWW
They generally are bad for the simple reason that the people in the company with power become more and more removed from the customers' needs and problems. It's hard to avoid but it's nice if they at least try.
TWW
Excuse me, but isn't a bit pretentious to pan the not-even-shot film simply because its plot relies on religious themes?
I'm saying that a faithful adaption will not give an adult the enjoyment that s/he might remember from being a child reading the books.
I, for one, have no problem with these classic tales of companionship, loyalty, and mysiticism that captured my imagination when I was young.
They captured mine when I was young too and I wish I'd never returned to them later.
TWW
I just find the Narnia (and Screwtape) patronising as an adult.
TWW
Actually, the Screwtape Letters were the first thing I read as an adult that made me wonder if my high opinion of Lewis (from doing his stuff at school) might be off-beam.
TWW
Jesus=Great bloke: yes
Jesus=Child of a god: no
I think JC's philosophy is one of the most insightful things to come down to us from ancient times but in a world where "Army Chaplain" is a respected job and people carrying guns call themselves Christians it's clear that the message was lost on the vast majority of people.
TWW
Well, since all religion is based on lies it's off to a bad start but in Lewis' case the lack of subtlety is the worst part: Tolkien got across many of the same moral and ethical values without jamming it down the reader's throat.
Do you just have something against Christianity?
Not JUST Christianity, no.
TWW
If, like I did, you remember the Narnia books as being one of the high points of your childhood, for pity's sake leave it like that. Returning to the material as an adult reveals them to be the most hopelessly inept and clumsy stream of the most sickly Christian propaganda ever written. ONLY children could read this stuff without feeling nauseous.
Leave the memory intact is my advice.
TWW
I discovered that one of the machines here wouldn't boot from the Slackware 8.1 CD, so for the first time in a long time it was out with the floppies. For ten dollars it's worth having that chance.
TWW
Results in compression at least 75% of the time would be a starting point. It would also need to be a reasonable degree (15%?) before it would be worth the time to encode it.
TWW
Since you mention it, are there any non-lossy compressed audio formats that actually give reliable compression with real music?
TWW
Playing music at 64Kb will sound crap, this was not a valid guide to what is a good audio codec!
TWW
My particular problem is that I hate the noise PC CD-ROMS make while spinning at 1x. Since I like to listen to music while working, I make recordings that play without that noise in the background (my PC fan is very quiet). Plus, I can play from a large subset of my CD collection from either machine at home or from my machine at the office.
TWW
If accurate is what you want you don't use any of these: just save raw samples! There is a balance in all compressed formats between good enough and accurate. Anyone reading this test is, by definition, looking for "good" rather than accurate.
TWW
Any proof of that?
TWW
Running your car over a cliff is where the flaws in its safety system are truely exposed but I don't tend to drive over cliffs much.
However, if the difference between sounding 'good' and sounding 'accurate' mean little to you, as someone who'd make an argument of 64Kbps tests being worthless would, then you really aren't the intended audiance of such tests.
What do you mean by this? 64Kbits is worthless for listening to any music I own while 128 is good enough to not actually annoy me much of the time so why should I be interested in these tests? Are you saying that the intended audience for these tests are people that are not interested in the quality of the music they're listening to?
TWW
Some way of telling apt-get that its idea of what's installed or needs to be installed is sometimes wrong is needed before it's usable for me.
TWW
I'm sure Dick Cheney is more than four years old.
TWW
Only trademarks. Copyright and patents are different although when a judge is involved, as in the DeCSS case, what the law actually says has little to do with it.
TWW
No, Microsoft helps companies make Microsoft money. If the companies manage to make some too that's just their good luck. If they manage to make a lot of money then Microsoft will copy their product, give it away for "free" and it's hello bankruptcy for the poor sod that thought Bill was his friend.
Microsoft is not a capitalist company, it is an oligarchic/plutocratic one; it regards the area of software as belonging to it alone and mearly suffers the little people to make money so long as it is not inconvenienced. This is not surprising when you look at Gate's background: he's never had to work a day in his life if he didn't want to, from the day he was born into a million dollar trust fund from Grandpa he's been surrounded by the privileged stratophere of American aristocracy and it's clear that he'll do anything, including breaking the law, to defend that privilege from threats from the lower classes.
In a capitalist society MS would be broken up by the government to preserve the balance of the market - the only legitimate role for a government in the capatalist model - to allow the maximum number of companies to compete.
TWW
MS don't give a toss about the ECMA or any other standards body. They treat HTML as if they were the standards body (remember all of two days ago we had this story about the effect MS has on "standards" and that was one they didn't even invent!) they just want some stamp of approval that they're playing nice at the start of the game. After that the ECMA can pack up and go home, Bill won't be needing them anymore.
MONO simply gives more credence to .NET by allowing MS to honestly (not that that's ever bothered them!) say that .NET is a cross-platform technology. Of course, they'll add, the non-Windows versions aren't very good. And they'll be telling the truth.
The reason they'll be telling the truth is that they will make it their business to make it true. Every point upgrade (and there'll be lots of them) will come out just as MONO catches up with the changes since the one before last, making MONO a permanent 'old version' of .NET. And if the point update breaks old code or ignores the "standard" guess what? MS couldn't care less. Their customers will be locked in, they won't be able to change to MONO because it will be two points back and not able to do what the customers' software needs. So it'll be out with the chequebook again to add another wing to Bill mansion.
I mean, for Christ's sake, it's not like Microsoft haven't done this all before! What are you people? BLIND???
TWW
The documentation alone is enough for me!
-Lost out because they say the Windows version requires a purchased copy of Visual C++ to do any compiling with it.
Well, I don't really care that much about supporting a legacy OS but TrollTech claim that Borland works too. Haven't tried it myself.
-Emulates widgets instead of using native.
But this allows some control over the style (I don't believe in repeating MS's mistakes: a good UI is better than one that has familiar screw-ups like having shutdown under "Start").
TWW
That's why I think the larger figure is a better guide as it relates to what the government would have had to remove from other programmes (such as social security and housing). The 550K will, as you say, only buy 550K worth of computing but the 550K saved will have a much bigger effect on the government's budget in other areas.
Of course, an even bigger win would be to save all the money they currently pay MS.
TWW