I see, since you can't flood the comment section with dumb crap, it's Rob's perl scripts that are buggy. They're not buggy, he probably just never expected anybody to do anything so dumb. Maybe it's you that are buggy.
I still think Apple made yet another huge mistake by dropping SCSI (yeah, I know it's an "option"). From what I've been seeing, the BW g3s will be replaced by the next generation sometime this year, so if they were trying to get rid of SCSI, why not phase it out in steps, instead of changing everything completely.
So how does this relate to the topic? Well, I'm glad to finally be seeing some stuff for firewire. I was worried there for a while.
... because I have no idea what this article is about. The closest I can figure is that people are getting mad because people are buying RPG characters or something. Is this close? I don't see how that would be "the big story" as opposed to online violence.
... but if you think I pay that, you're nuts. After grants and loans (I have a terribly high financial need) my share comes out to a number so disgustingly low that I won't post it. But suffice it to say that my school, though not really a "heavy hitter" in the CS world, has had some big computer related events (BASIC was invented here, for one... er, maybe that's the only one), and the price tag is outrageous. But I really feel that the schools with the huge price tags are the ones best able to help poor students. People shouldn't get frightened away by the price. I mean, if the school gives me a "grant" for $20K, they're really just knocking that off the price tag. Maybe I won't be in the black upon graduation, but at least I can GO to a rather decent school. I'm not so brilliant that I could have done CS on my own. I didn't even discover CS until I got to college, so for me it was definitely the right choice (college, that is).
I'll probably die in debt... isn't that the American way?
I think the article may just have been badly worded. It seems they were just trying to say that QT4 plays MP3s. If they were trying to imply that Apple owns MP3 now or something I think they're wrong. MacNN didn't have anything regarding this and the stuff on Apple Insider wasn't anything earth shattering. I thought everybody already knew about QT4's mp3-playing abilities. AFAIC, the only thing this is good for is playing an mp3 in the browser (which, itself, I find rather useless). I still intend to use SoundApp (the long-standing king of audio on Mac) and/or MacAmp. QT doesn't have a playlist or a shuffle or a tiny mode like MacAmp or SoundApp, so I'll be sticking with the prettier ones.
On the topic of whether Apple owning MP3, I don't think anybody should own it. It should be a standard. I thought that if it has MPEG in the name it means it was made by the MPEG, and is a standard, like JPEG. I never really understood why the Frauhofer people "owned" it in the first place. I don't know about codecs or anything, but it seems to me that if it's a standard then people ought to be free to use it, and if they're not, well then it isn't really a standard. Why can't somebody make something like mp3 that's really free?
Well, I don't know about entire movies floating around anywhere, but I do know that our network is jam-packed with MP3s, any games you want, and plenty of other Apps... though after a while it seems everybody ends up with the same collection of MP3s since it's a limited gene pool. "MP3 inbreds," I call the ones that just have the same old stuff. Every once in a while I try and get into my friend's network at rpi to download some new ones but it hasn't been working lately.
Something I did come across that was kind of cool were a bunch of episodes of South Park in real video. I'm no fan of real, but for free I'd be more inclined to watch anything. I mean, I've watched the stupid episode 1 trailer dozens of times, mostly because I want to see if it will ever play without being so choppy. In that sense, the terrible quality SP shows were nice... and I assume I would probably watch low quality movies as well. Of course, we don't have 100 mb Ethernet... Large files (>100mb) take a while over 10mb... well, at least mine, I don't know. I think people will probably watch them more for the novelty than because it's such a great cinematic event. And even though I'm planted in front of a computer for several hours every day, I don't really think people want to sitt on their butts for 2 hours watching some low quality movie (probably not even full screen); to just stare at the screen is torture, I need some kind of interaction. That's why I gave up on TV in the first place.
Everybody's touting the "10 Gun Control Myths," which cite all this stuff by this Gary Kleck guy... Depending on research by one guy isn't generally a good idea. Every "second opinion" seems to include something with his name on it.
Anyway, everybody's tossing around numbers so here're some more to think about.
Well, I'm not one of these people who hates guns, I really think they're kind of cool, but I think the ease with which one can acquire guns certainly helped these lunatics in their endeavors (and I would gladly give up the "right" to own a gun if it would save one life). When the '80s ended, I was finishing my 11th year on the planet, so I can't really tell you what gun control was like back then. Maybe there were so many more drugs back then that everybody was getting stoned instead of killing each other.
Certainly there was no internet for losers to hide on back then. The reports I've heard seem to say that Doom was these kids' lives. They played for hours and hours and really didn't have any friends. One was described as a "follower." So you have two probably already unstable people here, ostracized from the normal social group, who spend all their free time in front of a computer screen away from everybody else, who apparently have easy access to a great deal of ordinance, and one of whom would probably do whatever the other one suggested.
The cause of this was not "the net," "easy access to guns, or "the media." The cause of this was "the net," "easy access to guns, AND "the media." The role the media played was informing (sensationalizing, whatever) the stories of the other high school killers, making them think, "Hey, they did it, we can too!" The real culprit was probably the insanity of these boys. I played a lot of Doom in high school and had few friends (not none) and NEVER considered anything like this. These kids had to have had some mental defect in order to have carried out something like this. The other factors contributed, of course, but are dwarfed in comparison to the insanity.
When crazy people become isolated for long periods of time and have access to weapons of destruction, what do we expect will happen? Isn't a crazy guy with weapons of mass destruction why we fought the second world war?
I'm not saying you're wrong about people using this to further their agenda -- many people will. But it made me stop and think how ludicrous it is that these kids even had access to guns. And just because people use this to further their idea that "the net" or "the media" or "the guns" are bad doesn't mean they're wrong.
The problem is not Doom, and it is not the Internet. The problem is guns.
Article the fourth [Amendment II]
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The Second Amendment to the constitution has been used for too long as a shield for cowards to hide behind in defense of weapons whose sole purpose is to kill. Fans of guns cite this antiquated notion as the reason why every American should be allowed -- encouraged, even -- to have fully automatic assault rifles.
Let's take a look at the history of the Second Amendment. It was passed -- as were the other amendments in the Bill Of Rights -- by an America completely different from the America of today. America in 1787 was a nation that had just fought a war against governmental tyranny and that wanted to ensure such a situation would not come about again. The military at that time was not a professional, standing army as we have today, it was composed of "citizen" soldiers, men who left their normal lives to defend their country. When the war ended, the Founders wanted to make sure that if such a situation ever arose again, the citizen army would be able to defend the nation again.
The Founders did not anticipate that America would adopt a standing, professional, highly trained army to defend its interests. They did not intend for the Second Amendment to put killing machines in the hands of every American for recreational purposes; and they certainly did not intend to arm every crack dealer, petty thief, disgruntled postal employee, and psychopathic loser geek teenager with a death wish. Had they seen the America of today, the Founders would most likely never have even proposed such an Amendment to the Constitution.
It is far too easy for anyone to buy a gun. Go to any Kmart and check. The self-defense argument is a moot point because far more people are killed or hurt trying to "defend" themselves with guns than are criminals. For every criminal that is killed in self-defense, how many children must die? The number I heard is that 11 children die every day because of guns (i.e. they are shot). Am I the only one who finds this absolutely appalling? The "recreational" argument -- used by skeet shooters and most hunters -- is more valid. But if we can pass a law that makes it illegal for me to do donuts in an empty parking lot -- recreation for bored teens -- then we can pass a law forbidding the use of guns. The safety of the public must come before the pleasure of the hunters.
We must make it not only difficult, but impossible for anyone to own a gun. I am against tyranny as much, if not more than, anyone else, but the threat of the government breaking into our homes and terrorizing its citizens is unrealistic. I am far more afraid of the tyranny that is occurring each and every day by the members of the population who hold the rest of us at bey with their tools of death. This is not only a much more realistic threat, but a far more immediate one. I can't see the U.S. Armed forces turning against the American people any time soon, can you?
As long as the Second Amendment exists, the NRA, with nutty Chuck Heston ("This would never have occurred if the school had an armed guard. The answer is at least one armed guard in every school in America." -- He actually said that!!) at the helm, is going to be in the right. After all, it's part of the Constitution, and all other laws must be in compliance with the Constitution. So the only recourse for people of conscience is to work to repeal the Second Amendment.
Of course, this will never happen. Guns are such a part of American culture that despite all the horror, Americans love guns. They are cool looking. According to the movies, cool people use them. They're loud and they give power. It is this idea, so ingrained in American culture, that will prove more difficult to fight than the NRA (though all the congressmen in their pockets doesn't help the cause any).
The Second Amendment is an evil, antiquated notion whose usefulness has long since passed.
Hmm... I got the my reg. code from buying OS 8.5, so I have QT3 Pro, and it didn't ask me for any registration key... when I go into my quicktime prefs, the reg code is still there. That's weird.
Oh, that's not a lot?? If there were two albums for $6, then that would add up to $12. So you could get two for $12 or one for $10. To me that's a much better deal. Paying $2 more for two albums, or $4 for one... Gee, let my get my calculator.
And if you won't wait 2 months to save 40% you're a real moron.
Hey, any time you have $4 you're not using just mail it to me. I'll pay for the stamp. Not all of us live in your land of riches.
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People SHOULD hear things they don't like
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ShutUp Software
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· Score: 1
I hate to draw stupid parallels, but let's just say that during the civil rights movement of the '60s everybody had an "ignore" button. Nobody would have ever heard of or seen any of what was going on to bring liberty to the Blacks in the South. "Oh, it's that crazy Martin Luther King again, click the ignore button."
Perhaps this seems like a trite example, but this is exactly what will happen if people "filter out" ideas that "waste their time." Now, I'm not talking about crap spam -- on one email account of mine that was added to a spam list, I've had to send any message with the "dollar," "$," or "buck" straight to the trash or else there are 30 useless messages waiting for me every day.
What I am talking about are the people who get on their soapboxes and sound like lunatics to most "normal" people. Many people who introduce revolutionary ideas are branded as lunatics initially, and when their ideas "catch on," they are immediately converted from nutcases to heroes.
In true free speech, the rights of people to be heard should be paramount to the desire of other people not to hear them. If nobody can hear them then they do not have free speech. America is supposed to be a melting pot of ideas -- not just the ideas we like, but ALL ideas, in which people are exposed to many different viewpoints and then decide for themselves as to the merit of the viewpoints. If we leave out the loonies -- or the revolutionaries, depending on your perspective -- we are agreeing to a dire form of censorship.
You may say that the people who agree with these lunatics can still hear them, but that eliminates the possibility that they may say something of merit at any time in the future. And if people begin filtering out every idea with which they don't agree, those people will begin living in a perfect little world without any conflicts of interests; a world, I say, very far from our own.
I went into the prefs and selected t1/LAN, and almost every time I try and listen or watch any real audio or real video -- whether from CDNOW or CNN.com or whatever, there is some error or another, or it will begin playing and then tell me there's net congestion. 10 minutes later I'll be downloading something at 100k/sec, so the problem doesn't seem to really be congestion. Then there's sound quality... it sucks. A much better idea for cdnow would have been for them to follow the lead of cheap cd's and put really small mp3s (93k) on their site, rather than only marginally smaller real audio files. The mp3s, even at 22khz and 24kbps, sound much, MUCH better than any RA I've heard in a while. One notable exception is Experience Music, whose 200kbps real audio files are beautiful.
I can understand why streaming audio is desired by content providers, they want people to have to return to their site. But real, as far as I'm concerned, sucks, and there must be a better way.
The title was supposed to be more like "THE IMAC MOUSE WAS DESIGNED FOR BABIES' HANDS." I didn't mean to imply that people who use the iMac mouse are babies. The general gist was supposed to be that if you like the iMac mouse, great, but I think you must have a much smaller hand than I do. For me it's uncomfortable and I have to stop using it after a few minutes.
Ugh, people are coming out in SUPPORT of that horrible thing??? Listen, there are iMacs scattered out all over campus for email checking, and some in the computer lab. I use them when necessary (i.e. no others available). Maybe I am the exception, but the entire iMac mouse fits completely under the palm of my hand. The only way I have found to use this instrument from hell is by using the "underside" of my knuckles, I guess the equivalent of the "ball" of your hand, to push the mouse. I have to maneuver the mouse with my fingers outstretched, looking like a complete moron.
And don't tell me about carpal tunnel. I'm supposed to agree to a completely uncomfortable design in order to prevent some syndrome that I will probably never get? And if you want to not bend your wrist anymore, you can do that little finger thing you described on any normal mouse.
I would like to respond individually to each comment, but I don't have the patience. Perhaps I did overreact in stating that the terrible mouse was an obstacle to LinuxPPC, but I didn't realize there were such inexpensive Mac-compatible mice. Everything I've ever seen from apple has been in the $70-80 range, so I assumed the replacements would also be ludicrously priced.
As for the comment that "A good application shouldn't need more than one button:" What? Why not? I think the hold-down-the-button-until-a-menu-pops-up feature is crap. Contextual menus are very nice and a right mouse button is much more convenient.
As for the comment that three buttons are not necessary, I agree with you. I just wanted more than one.
And as for the comment that the biggest obstacle to LinuxPPC being people satisfied with their OS and not willing to partition and whatnot: I don't think so. I did a FTP install -- several actually -- of LinuxPPC after doing the partitioning and other such pleasantries, and after about the fourth time (when I finally decided having the compilers might be a good idea), everything worked fine. I don't think the majority of Linux users on Intel computers said to themselves one day, "Boy, I am dissatisfied with my operating system. Let me partition my hard disk and install Linux." They probably either had experience with Linux and wanted it on the computer, or just wanted to learn it. I contend that this would be the same motivation driving a Mac user to install LinuxPPC. Believe me, if I can do it, anybody can do it.
But maybe not over FTP. I got all 322MB in 30 minutes... don't try that at home, kids.
So I guess you can fill in the blank.
The biggest obstacle to LinuxPPC is: __________
I, for one, would like to see performance comparisons of a G3/400/128MB with LinuxPPC and a PII(or III)/400/128MB. THAT, I think, would be as close to a fair fight as we could ever see.
Interlocking, which allows theaters to use one print to present a film on two screens, is prohibited;
What is interlocking? Why would he want only 1 film shown per 1 reel? Are there quality issues he doesn't want to mar his masterpiece?
I'm sure his intentions are not so noble. The theater has to rent (or buy, I'm not sure) each print, so he's making sure he gets all possible money.
Theaters are not to honor passes for the first eight weeks;
It sounds like he doesn't want people buying passes to circumnavigate standing in line and getting a Star Wars ticket, probably to guarantee that everyone who bought a Star Wars ticket will be able to see the show... Similar to his reasoning on not allowing pre-sales and to prevent scalping?
I believe that he was talking about using free passes for access to the film. You know, you're watching a movie and all of a sudden the projector breaks, so the theater gives you a free pass? Well, Lucas says you can't use it to watch his movie.
It's restrictions like these that have jacked up movie prices so much. A friend of mine, a film fanatic, told me that basically the ticket goes to cover the cost that the theater pays the studio for rental of the movie. They don't make much on ticket sales. The theater makes most of its money on the popcorn and soda (who wouldn't, charging $4 for a coke that costs $0.89 at any 7-11?). By placing these childish restrictions on the theaters, he's giving them impetus to raise prices once again. $8.50 in my home town right now. Ridiculous. If a guy takes his wife and 2 kids, that's $34 in ticket sales. For that much money, get the video (or better, dvd).
I swear, I'll wait for the video. Lucas always seemed to have a reputation for arrogance, but now he just seems like a whiny baby. Whether you see it opening day or two weeks later, is it going to matter? I guess for the hardcore StarWars fans. Wouldn't it be great if the world staged a huge protest and made Georgey-boy cry? I could see it now: "George Lucas sobbed uncontrollably at the premiere of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when nobody showed up." God, that would be great. What an annoying, greedy, obnoxious fellow.
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That episode of Star Trek: TNG
on
Killer Asteroid
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· Score: 1
Does anybody remember the episode where there was an asteroid headed for a planet, and they were trying to tractor-beam the thing off course, and somebody suggested blowing up the asteroid, but Data said that all that would do is disintegrate the asteroid, but it would still have the same mass except be made up of tons of smaller particles? That seemed to make sense to me, and contradicts the two horrible movies of this summer. Of course, I don't usually base my opinions on TV, but the point seems valid. So we can't blow it up, what the hell could we do?
Deep Impact was much worse than Armageddon, I thought. Everybody died except the people I had hoped would
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No future with that piece of crap iMac mouse!!
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Motorola G4 Chip News
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· Score: 2
"MacOS Rumors has a few tidbits on the upcoming G4 chips. Sounds like it should have good SMP capabilities, and be blazingly fast. I think Linux certainly has a good future on the macs "
I recently installed LinuxPPC, and let me tell you, I'm considering bringing my crappy 486 from home just to run Linux. One mouse button makes running Linux very annoying. There are ways aroung this with aftermarket mice and special commands, I know, but linuxPPC will not take off until these speedy Macs come with a REAL mouse designed for an ADULT HAND and THREE (3) BUTTONS!!!
Hmm, somebody made a knockoff of this graphic: http://www.microsoft.com/questions/graphics/wd.g if
which can be seen here (provided Xoom doesn't start whining): http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/hoffleman/wd2.gif If that takes you to a tosviol.gif, hit reload a few hundred times.
(Derivative works of art are new works of art and so not covered by the original copyright. I think.)
This reminds me of the whole " Toys R Gus" thing a while back, where toys r us said they owned anything with an "r us" in it.
But it's not like somebody is calling themselves "Microslobs" or "Microsloth" or "Micro$oft" or any of the other fun variants, they are using Microsoft's stupid tag line to poke fun at them. Microsoft is totally out of control. What's worse, they have no sense of humor.
As if anybody going to www.linux.de is going to buy anything from them because they think they're at Microsoft's site! Hello? Anybody home? I think we should do what the guy in the other article is saying, abolish copyright. No artist is against MP3 that I've heard, and the ones that are for it (Tom Petty) get in trouble and are told not to distribute their songs anymore. How can people own words?
I'm not talking about books here, or anybody's livelihood, but to own a sentence? Like "This way in." or "Where do you want to go today?" or "We make it your way." or "News for Nerds: Stuff that matters" er... scratch that last one. Anyway, you get the point.
This is just a general rant after having tried to login to the old "renegade OLGA archive, which was down. I guess forever? Stupid money grubbing lawyers... like Pearl Jam or Eric Clapton or any guitarist cares if people can play their songs?? No by-ear transcriptions??? Ugh, it gets me so aggravated!!
Slashdot Mirror
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Evan
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Evan
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Evan
So how does this relate to the topic? Well, I'm glad to finally be seeing some stuff for firewire. I was worried there for a while.
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Evan
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Evan
I'll probably die in debt... isn't that the American way?
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Evan
On the topic of whether Apple owning MP3, I don't think anybody should own it. It should be a standard. I thought that if it has MPEG in the name it means it was made by the MPEG, and is a standard, like JPEG. I never really understood why the Frauhofer people "owned" it in the first place. I don't know about codecs or anything, but it seems to me that if it's a standard then people ought to be free to use it, and if they're not, well then it isn't really a standard. Why can't somebody make something like mp3 that's really free?
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Evan
Something I did come across that was kind of cool were a bunch of episodes of South Park in real video. I'm no fan of real, but for free I'd be more inclined to watch anything. I mean, I've watched the stupid episode 1 trailer dozens of times, mostly because I want to see if it will ever play without being so choppy. In that sense, the terrible quality SP shows were nice... and I assume I would probably watch low quality movies as well. Of course, we don't have 100 mb Ethernet... Large files (>100mb) take a while over 10mb... well, at least mine, I don't know. I think people will probably watch them more for the novelty than because it's such a great cinematic event. And even though I'm planted in front of a computer for several hours every day, I don't really think people want to sitt on their butts for 2 hours watching some low quality movie (probably not even full screen); to just stare at the screen is torture, I need some kind of interaction. That's why I gave up on TV in the first place.
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Evan
Anyway, everybody's tossing around numbers so here're some more to think about.
http://www.aclu-sc.org/GunStats.htm
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Evan
Certainly there was no internet for losers to hide on back then. The reports I've heard seem to say that Doom was these kids' lives. They played for hours and hours and really didn't have any friends. One was described as a "follower." So you have two probably already unstable people here, ostracized from the normal social group, who spend all their free time in front of a computer screen away from everybody else, who apparently have easy access to a great deal of ordinance, and one of whom would probably do whatever the other one suggested.
The cause of this was not "the net," "easy access to guns, or "the media." The cause of this was "the net," "easy access to guns, AND "the media." The role the media played was informing (sensationalizing, whatever) the stories of the other high school killers, making them think, "Hey, they did it, we can too!" The real culprit was probably the insanity of these boys. I played a lot of Doom in high school and had few friends (not none) and NEVER considered anything like this. These kids had to have had some mental defect in order to have carried out something like this. The other factors contributed, of course, but are dwarfed in comparison to the insanity.
When crazy people become isolated for long periods of time and have access to weapons of destruction, what do we expect will happen? Isn't a crazy guy with weapons of mass destruction why we fought the second world war?
I'm not saying you're wrong about people using this to further their agenda -- many people will. But it made me stop and think how ludicrous it is that these kids even had access to guns. And just because people use this to further their idea that "the net" or "the media" or "the guns" are bad doesn't mean they're wrong.
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Evan
Article the fourth [Amendment II]
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The Second Amendment to the constitution has been used for too long as a shield for cowards to hide behind in defense of weapons whose sole purpose is to kill. Fans of guns cite this antiquated notion as the reason why every American should be allowed -- encouraged, even -- to have fully automatic assault rifles.
Let's take a look at the history of the Second Amendment. It was passed -- as were the other amendments in the Bill Of Rights -- by an America completely different from the America of today. America in 1787 was a nation that had just fought a war against governmental tyranny and that wanted to ensure such a situation would not come about again. The military at that time was not a professional, standing army as we have today, it was composed of "citizen" soldiers, men who left their normal lives to defend their country. When the war ended, the Founders wanted to make sure that if such a situation ever arose again, the citizen army would be able to defend the nation again.
The Founders did not anticipate that America would adopt a standing, professional, highly trained army to defend its interests. They did not intend for the Second Amendment to put killing machines in the hands of every American for recreational purposes; and they certainly did not intend to arm every crack dealer, petty thief, disgruntled postal employee, and psychopathic loser geek teenager with a death wish. Had they seen the America of today, the Founders would most likely never have even proposed such an Amendment to the Constitution.
It is far too easy for anyone to buy a gun. Go to any Kmart and check. The self-defense argument is a moot point because far more people are killed or hurt trying to "defend" themselves with guns than are criminals. For every criminal that is killed in self-defense, how many children must die? The number I heard is that 11 children die every day because of guns (i.e. they are shot). Am I the only one who finds this absolutely appalling? The "recreational" argument -- used by skeet shooters and most hunters -- is more valid. But if we can pass a law that makes it illegal for me to do donuts in an empty parking lot -- recreation for bored teens -- then we can pass a law forbidding the use of guns. The safety of the public must come before the pleasure of the hunters.
We must make it not only difficult, but impossible for anyone to own a gun. I am against tyranny as much, if not more than, anyone else, but the threat of the government breaking into our homes and terrorizing its citizens is unrealistic. I am far more afraid of the tyranny that is occurring each and every day by the members of the population who hold the rest of us at bey with their tools of death. This is not only a much more realistic threat, but a far more immediate one. I can't see the U.S. Armed forces turning against the American people any time soon, can you?
As long as the Second Amendment exists, the NRA, with nutty Chuck Heston ("This would never have occurred if the school had an armed guard. The answer is at least one armed guard in every school in America." -- He actually said that!!) at the helm, is going to be in the right. After all, it's part of the Constitution, and all other laws must be in compliance with the Constitution. So the only recourse for people of conscience is to work to repeal the Second Amendment.
Of course, this will never happen. Guns are such a part of American culture that despite all the horror, Americans love guns. They are cool looking. According to the movies, cool people use them. They're loud and they give power. It is this idea, so ingrained in American culture, that will prove more difficult to fight than the NRA (though all the congressmen in their pockets doesn't help the cause any).
The Second Amendment is an evil, antiquated notion whose usefulness has long since passed.
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Evan
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Evan
"An Open forum for Fermilab employees and their families"
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Evan
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Evan
And if you won't wait 2 months to save 40% you're a real moron.
Hey, any time you have $4 you're not using just mail it to me. I'll pay for the stamp. Not all of us live in your land of riches.
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Evan
Perhaps this seems like a trite example, but this is exactly what will happen if people "filter out" ideas that "waste their time." Now, I'm not talking about crap spam -- on one email account of mine that was added to a spam list, I've had to send any message with the "dollar," "$," or "buck" straight to the trash or else there are 30 useless messages waiting for me every day.
What I am talking about are the people who get on their soapboxes and sound like lunatics to most "normal" people. Many people who introduce revolutionary ideas are branded as lunatics initially, and when their ideas "catch on," they are immediately converted from nutcases to heroes.
In true free speech, the rights of people to be heard should be paramount to the desire of other people not to hear them. If nobody can hear them then they do not have free speech. America is supposed to be a melting pot of ideas -- not just the ideas we like, but ALL ideas, in which people are exposed to many different viewpoints and then decide for themselves as to the merit of the viewpoints. If we leave out the loonies -- or the revolutionaries, depending on your perspective -- we are agreeing to a dire form of censorship.
You may say that the people who agree with these lunatics can still hear them, but that eliminates the possibility that they may say something of merit at any time in the future. And if people begin filtering out every idea with which they don't agree, those people will begin living in a perfect little world without any conflicts of interests; a world, I say, very far from our own.
I had more to say but I think I forgot the rest.
-Begin Evan's Dumb Signature.....
I can understand why streaming audio is desired by content providers, they want people to have to return to their site. But real, as far as I'm concerned, sucks, and there must be a better way.
-Begin Evan's Dumb Signature.....
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And don't tell me about carpal tunnel. I'm supposed to agree to a completely uncomfortable design in order to prevent some syndrome that I will probably never get? And if you want to not bend your wrist anymore, you can do that little finger thing you described on any normal mouse.
I would like to respond individually to each comment, but I don't have the patience. Perhaps I did overreact in stating that the terrible mouse was an obstacle to LinuxPPC, but I didn't realize there were such inexpensive Mac-compatible mice. Everything I've ever seen from apple has been in the $70-80 range, so I assumed the replacements would also be ludicrously priced.
As for the comment that "A good application shouldn't need more than one button:" What? Why not? I think the hold-down-the-button-until-a-menu-pops-up feature is crap. Contextual menus are very nice and a right mouse button is much more convenient.
As for the comment that three buttons are not necessary, I agree with you. I just wanted more than one.
And as for the comment that the biggest obstacle to LinuxPPC being people satisfied with their OS and not willing to partition and whatnot: I don't think so. I did a FTP install -- several actually -- of LinuxPPC after doing the partitioning and other such pleasantries, and after about the fourth time (when I finally decided having the compilers might be a good idea), everything worked fine. I don't think the majority of Linux users on Intel computers said to themselves one day, "Boy, I am dissatisfied with my operating system. Let me partition my hard disk and install Linux." They probably either had experience with Linux and wanted it on the computer, or just wanted to learn it. I contend that this would be the same motivation driving a Mac user to install LinuxPPC. Believe me, if I can do it, anybody can do it.
But maybe not over FTP. I got all 322MB in 30 minutes... don't try that at home, kids.
So I guess you can fill in the blank.
The biggest obstacle to LinuxPPC is: __________
I, for one, would like to see performance comparisons of a G3/400/128MB with LinuxPPC and a PII(or III)/400/128MB. THAT, I think, would be as close to a fair fight as we could ever see.
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What is interlocking? Why would he want only 1 film shown per 1 reel? Are there quality issues he doesn't want to mar his masterpiece?
I'm sure his intentions are not so noble. The theater has to rent (or buy, I'm not sure) each print, so he's making sure he gets all possible money.
Theaters are not to honor passes for the first eight weeks;
It sounds like he doesn't want people buying passes to circumnavigate standing in line and getting a Star Wars ticket, probably to guarantee that everyone who bought a Star Wars ticket will be able to see the show... Similar to his reasoning on not allowing pre-sales and to prevent scalping?
I believe that he was talking about using free passes for access to the film. You know, you're watching a movie and all of a sudden the projector breaks, so the theater gives you a free pass? Well, Lucas says you can't use it to watch his movie.
It's restrictions like these that have jacked up movie prices so much. A friend of mine, a film fanatic, told me that basically the ticket goes to cover the cost that the theater pays the studio for rental of the movie. They don't make much on ticket sales. The theater makes most of its money on the popcorn and soda (who wouldn't, charging $4 for a coke that costs $0.89 at any 7-11?). By placing these childish restrictions on the theaters, he's giving them impetus to raise prices once again. $8.50 in my home town right now. Ridiculous. If a guy takes his wife and 2 kids, that's $34 in ticket sales. For that much money, get the video (or better, dvd).
I swear, I'll wait for the video. Lucas always seemed to have a reputation for arrogance, but now he just seems like a whiny baby. Whether you see it opening day or two weeks later, is it going to matter? I guess for the hardcore StarWars fans. Wouldn't it be great if the world staged a huge protest and made Georgey-boy cry? I could see it now: "George Lucas sobbed uncontrollably at the premiere of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when nobody showed up." God, that would be great. What an annoying, greedy, obnoxious fellow.
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Deep Impact was much worse than Armageddon, I thought. Everybody died except the people I had hoped would
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I recently installed LinuxPPC, and let me tell you, I'm considering bringing my crappy 486 from home just to run Linux. One mouse button makes running Linux very annoying. There are ways aroung this with aftermarket mice and special commands, I know, but linuxPPC will not take off until these speedy Macs come with a REAL mouse designed for an ADULT HAND and THREE (3) BUTTONS!!!
That said, I can't wait for the Lombards...
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http://www.microsoft.com/questions/graphics/wd.
which can be seen here (provided Xoom doesn't start whining):
http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/hoffleman/wd2.gif
If that takes you to a tosviol.gif, hit reload a few hundred times.
(Derivative works of art are new works of art and so not covered by the original copyright. I think.)
This reminds me of the whole " Toys R Gus" thing a while back, where toys r us said they owned anything with an "r us" in it.
But it's not like somebody is calling themselves "Microslobs" or "Microsloth" or "Micro$oft" or any of the other fun variants, they are using Microsoft's stupid tag line to poke fun at them. Microsoft is totally out of control. What's worse, they have no sense of humor.
As if anybody going to www.linux.de is going to buy anything from them because they think they're at Microsoft's site! Hello? Anybody home? I think we should do what the guy in the other article is saying, abolish copyright. No artist is against MP3 that I've heard, and the ones that are for it (Tom Petty) get in trouble and are told not to distribute their songs anymore. How can people own words?
I'm not talking about books here, or anybody's livelihood, but to own a sentence? Like "This way in." or "Where do you want to go today?" or "We make it your way." or "News for Nerds: Stuff that matters" er... scratch that last one. Anyway, you get the point.
This is just a general rant after having tried to login to the old "renegade OLGA archive, which was down. I guess forever? Stupid money grubbing lawyers... like Pearl Jam or Eric Clapton or any guitarist cares if people can play their songs?? No by-ear transcriptions??? Ugh, it gets me so aggravated!!
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