Agreed about the G3 Powerbooks. Their LCDs are not that great (although IMHO, they are still MUCH better than most laptop LCDs on the market).
However, if you get the chance, pop over to the nearest store that has either the TiBook or the new iBooks on display and take a look at the LCDs on those (I am assuming the new iBooks use the same tech. as the G4 TiBook...I haven't actually seen the new iBooks in person yet). The TiBook display is INCREDIBLE! Move your head off center...still sharp and colors are still correct. Move your head way off center and the colors degrade to about the equiv. of having your head ~15 degrees off center on the G3 PowerBook.
Anyway, give it a shot. Apple is doing a fine job with their LCDs.
I'll see you at the end of the universe, Mr. Adams. Let's do lunch at Milliways, okay?
I am not a nuclear physicist...
on
Fission in a Box
·
· Score: 3
I am in need of enlightenment.
Nuclear Fission releases incredibly large amounts of energy, even when it is a controlled fission such as that in a nuclear reactor. If I understand correctly, nuclear fusion is capable of releasing as much as if not more energy. But like the topic says, IANANP.
Now, perhaps I read too much science fiction, but surely there must be a better way of harnessing this energy than using it to boil water (in the case of current nuclear power stations) or heat up helium (in the case of this article) to turn a turbine to create electricity. It seems to me that a LOT of energy would be lost in the transfer from heat to mechanical to electrical energy.
The article mentions that "The early designers and builders minimized the risk of their projects by combining the new nuclear fission--based heaters with the well-proven closed-cycle steam engines." So, my Isaac-Asimov-reading-lets-build-a-reactor-the-size -of-a-walnut mind takes this to mean, there are other possibilities. Does anyone know of any research being done on this? (Of course, with the fear of anything nuclear that seems to prevail in modern society, I wouldn't be surprised if a project like this would find difficulty getting funding.)
I dunno, but it seems like an awful lot of energy is being wasted in the current reactors, including these new PBMRs mentioned in the article
And I have to admit, I wouldn't mind having a personal sized one to power my home for a couple of years (decades? centuries??...depending on the amount of fuel). Oh well...perhaps I was just born a few hundred years too early.;)
Nothing like a good meteor shower to brighten your evening. I usually don't have a lot of luck with the Lyrids, but I have spotted a few over the past few nights (in FL).
My best luck is with the Perseids shower which is in August, IIRC. Nothing like seeing that from the top of a mountain in Colorado a few years ago.
Anyway, this is good stuff. Any of you code-hackers that plan to be awake tonight, or exam-studiers, or graveyard shift workers, etc. I highly suggest taking a little break this evening and stepping outside. (I personally will be having an intermission in the Cowboy Bebop marathon I am having tonight for this).
"Falling stars like jewels flung across the sky..." (author?)
Take care all. No matter what you are doing or what problems you may have or what is on your mind, take a few minutes and bask in the beauty of the universe this evening.
Ok, I'll stop being a sap now. Back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot.
If these companies (AOL, Microsoft, Sun, etc)are so concerned about not keeping things "under wraps" or "private" if you will, then why don't they open up all of the source code of all of their major software for everyone to see?
Surely, this would be an excellent gesture of their faith in the idea that Privacy (and keeping secrets) hurts consumers.
Ok, granted, it wasn't just the software, but the hardware as well. But it was mainly the OS on that hardware.
(heh...sorry, couldn't resist.)
As for Nautilus, it's definitely not for me.It seems that I can get the functionality like that that I need from Mac OS X (currently PB, but soon 1.0...only 11 days:D )
To each his own, tho.
BTW, I have heard that xFree can now run rootless on OS X. Anyone know anything about this?
"...probably won't..."
-and-
"...ship on the... CD."
Which, means that a.)there is the possibility that it will ship on the CD, and b.) if not, it still may be in our iDisks on the 24th. I'm sure I won't be alone in letting everyone know as soon as my copy arrives.
If you need DVD playback that badly, then don't upgrade on March 24. Let the rest of us be the Guinea pigs.
DVD playback is important to me too. My computer is my only DVD player, and most of what I watch is on DVDs. However, I can handle the slight inconvenience of dual booting untill Apple has a player ready. Hell, for all we know they may actually have one ready and sitting on our iDisks by March 24 or very soon thereafter. Just because it probably won't make the shipping CD doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all.
And, btw, for the rest of the Slashdot FUD-mongers, it is only DVD playback that doesn't work. You can still use the drive. Hell, you can even read the file system of a DVD video. If you are willing to break the law (as crappy of a law it is, Apple won't break it), you can probably hack a way to watch DVDs without too much trouble. Apple just has to make sure they do it to the letter of the law.
As for the other concerns of the article, I cannot comment on sleep issues because my computer never sleeps. However, there have been a lot of comments on the MacNN forums stating that sleep works just fine. As for problems causing the system to hang, I doubt it. I personally was unable to crash the original PB, and I can only assume that stability has increased since then. IMNSHO, even the PB was better and more stable than any of the crap that Microsoft puts out, and the interface was much smoother than anything on any other *nix OS. It can only have gotten better since then. I don't know anything about the video stuff except that I am pretty sure that the Rage 128 pro cards (which are probably in 65%-70% of the G3 and G4 macs on the market, work just fine.
A LOT of people are saying that Apple should not ship an "incomplete" OS on the 24th. Well, the OS is pretty much complete. There may be a few applications that are extra, that may not ship, but the OS is there. And Apple needs to ship this OS so that software companies (who have been holding off porting their apps until the OS is finished) will get off their buts and write their software for OS X.
Anyway, most of this is old news. We already went through all of the FUD-mongering last week when c|net broke this "news". I'll tell you what. I'll make a deal with you. My copy of OS X is preordered, DVD or no DVD. I'll give you all a full report of what I think of it, what works, what doesn't, what is better than OS 9.1 or any other OS out there, and what is worse. I see MacOS X as a Good Thing(tm) and I will have it as soon as possible.
I was unaware of animosity between Gainax and ADV. Thanks for the info. I guess that I am one of the few (only?) people on the planet that was fairly happy with the Eva Dub. Oh well...no need to debate opinion, right?
About the FLCL being subbed, you are quite correct, with the exception of the first episode. That doesn't stop me from owning the first 4 though (having friends in Japan can be a good thing). However, I have seen a fan-sub of the first episode, and it is great stuff. I am only reminded that I need to keep studying my Japanese. ^^;;
I understand fully about the anger in the overlays in Nadesico. However, I still feel that the dubbing of that was excellent. As far as Kenshin, AFAIK ADV had no choice but to change the title because Anime Works beat them to the liscensing of the title "Rurouni Kenshin". However, I may be mistaken. Anyway, their dubbing of that was pretty horrible, but it is nice to be able to own all 4 episodes of the Kenshin OVAs for ~$40US vs. however much you will pay to get them from Japan.
I guess the main reason that I would like to see a US release of FLCL is because it currenly goes at about $35 per episode in Japan. Face it, Anime is cheap in the US, especially on DVD (I just bought my friend in Japan the Magic Knight Rayearth box set because it is so much cheaper here than there, plus he wanted the English dubs so he could practice his English comprehension...in exchange he sent me FLCL). Plus, I see the *potential* for a very good and very funny English dub.
My apologies for not being a subtitle-nazi. I have found somethings to be better in English than the Original Japanese, and vice versa (I am mainly referring to the sounds of the voices vs. what is actually said as my Japanese if only about 1 word/phrase in 5-10 right now).
I have been and continue to be impressed with the quality and selection of anime that ADV releases in the US. Adding this classic to the mix is yet another example of ADV's excellence. I have so far enjoyed just about everything that I have seen come from them, from Evangelion (which, IMHO, they did a pretty good job with the dubbing) to the Kenshin OVAs (a.k.a. Samurai X...no flame wars about the title change, please) to Nadesico (which, IMHO, the English dub is actually better than the original Japanese dub).
Keep up the good work ADV. And please, please, please, please, PLEASE get the rights to the US release of FLCL.
Disclaimer: please, no dub vs. sub debates and other various flame wars from this. This is my opinion. It doesn't have to match yours. ^_^
How much of this patent claim actually "holds any water"? I read all 16 claims, but I am not particularly proficient in legalese. It would seem to me that everything in each claim has already been done before.
Can anyone clarify exactly what they are trying to patent here in layman's terms? Because if they are trying to patent OS themability in general, then it certainly won't hold up. However, it almost seems like they are trying to patent a certain *method* of themability. If this is the case, then perhaps the patent could stand, but rather weakly, it would seem.
Could someone please clarify this a bit?
I can understand why Apple would want to protect Aqua to the fullest extent possible. That interface is their current baby and they have invested a LOT of money in it. And I can understand if the purpose of this patent is to help protect that. Hopefully, Apple won't jump on the bandwagon of patenting stupid things solely to suck money out of others (Rambus, anyone?).
1. Bungie no longer owns Oni. Oni is owned by Take 2/GoD. This was part of the deal of the MS buyout. In exchange for Take 2's shares of Bungie, they got Oni and the Myth games. Take 2 is currently developing Myth 3.
2. Microsoft bought Bungie because they (MS) needed a killer app for the xBox when it comes out. That killer app is Halo, which IMNSHO will be one of the best games ever created, and will probably ship with the xBox. However, it will be followed later by the Mac/PC version(after the initial xBox sales)...sorry, a linux version if HIGHLY unlikely to come out of MS.:(
BTW, the opening of the source of Marathon 2 is pretty old news, but still very good news. The aptly named Aleph One project is awesome and doing a great job keeping the Marathon universe alive. Here's a few sites of interest:
Marathon.bungie.org - Tons of Marathon info including links to the story page, the Aleph One project, and many many user created maps and scenarios.
HBO - Lots of Halo information. This game is going to ROCK!!!
Rampancy.net - A Bungie community site that primarily focuses on Halo but covers all things Bungie.
Hope this info is useful to some of you.:) I hold Bungie in very high esteem because they have always made quality games with excellent plots (well, since PiD at least...)
There may be life, but it is extremely improbable that any of it is intelligent apart from us. This can be deduced from simple statistics. Evolution is mostly a random process - it does not go in any particular 'direction'. It is a modern conceit that life has to aim towards being intelligent, that is no borne out by the facts. The fact that intelligent life arose here is due to a multitude of accidents.
You bring up an interesting point, but your logic is flawed. Evolution is a very interesting concept in that it is bound by the randomness of the universe (which asserts your idea of evolution being random) however it acts towards a single goal (which counters your idea that it lacks direction).
That goal is of course replication and proliferation, i.e. the continued survival of the species. That is the ultimate aim of all life (from the point of view of a Biologist, at least. BTW, IAAB -> I am a biologist).
Now, from an evolutionary standpoint, being intelligent may not be the ultimate goal of life in order to proliferate itself. The idea of "the strong survive" holds very true. However, evolutionarily speaking, if you are not strong, you can either die or get smart, to put it simply.
Granted, this is way oversimplifying things, but the gist of the statement holds true for this example.
So, assuming life does exist out there and has had time to evolve, then it seems to me that the odds of "intelligent" life evolving are actually quite good, because all species have a "desire" to survive and proliferate, and there is *almost always* a weaker species.
Anyway, enough rambling from me. One last thing though, just so we can boost our egos a bit. I would wager that humans are unique in the universe. As has been stated, evolution is random and the odds of another planet evolving along the exact same lines are probably pretty slim. So, in a sense we are "alone" in the universe. We are unique.
So let's shape up a bit so we can make a good impression when we meet the others.:-)
Wow...I haven't thought about the idea of phreaking a phone system in years. It is very interesting to see where Cap'n Crunch is these days and see what he is doing... It is nice to see that he has/is overcoming his hard times and getting along pretty well.
Anyone know what ever happened to the blind guy who could whistle a perfect 2600 tone? I think he was simply called Joe the Whistler, but I may be mistaken...
I used to have an interest in all of the phreaking stuff in the early to mid '90s (even then most of it was out of date, but still interesting). It was interesting stuff and I may have pulled a trick or two with it in my day, but it taught me a LOT about the phone system and why things happen, not to mention about various electronics devices and how to put them together (anyone remember the file all.box? had plans on how to build/use the many different "box" types...all this info is useless today and most of was useless when I learned it, but it sure was fun to build that variable tone generator, even if I never used it).
Ahhh...tinkering with these devices was always fun and very educational.
I realize that the parent post is probably a troll, and fully accept being modded down for responding to it...
First of all, does it occur to you, Mr. atrowe, that not everyone who reads this site is God-fearing, Christian, or American?
But beyond that, I can obviously tell that you have not watched a lot of anime, since you seem to be of the opinion that it is all smut, violence, filth. That is like condemning all movies because some of them are pr0n, ultraviolent, etc.
Anime is *NOT* a genre. It is a medium.
Anime is no more a genre than books are a genre, TV shows are a genre, or live action motion pictures (movies) are a genre.
There are many aspects to anime, many of which fit just fine into your "god fearing christian american" view. And many that don't.
- Try watching Princess Mononoke and see the message that no one is all good or all bad, you will lose your soul if you allow yourself to be swallowed by hatred, and balance is very important for man to coexist with nature.
- Watch Marmalade Boy and see the dreams and romance that many people feel while coming of age.
- Watch Fushigi Yuugi and see that love does indeed conquer all, love is timeless, and true love can never die.
- Watch Graveyard of the Fireflies and see how war is not only horrible to the people who fight but to the families that remain at home. See how hard war is on a society and how sad it is no matter what side you are on.
- Watch Record of Lodoss War and see that in order to be human, good and evil must balance. See that balance is EVERYTHING.
- Watch Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind and see that all living things are precious regardless of their differences.
- Watch Serial Experiments Lain and perhaps dare to question who God is and what makes him God. See where technology is going and see if the physical world is truly more important than the "wired" world.
I could go on an on. And I have yet to mention an excessively and needlessly violent anime. So, I guess your comment doesn't really hold much water, does it?
There is violence in many forms of media. Do you want to know what the most violent, brutal, and smut-ridden book I have ever read was?
The Holy Bible.
Sorry to flame so much, but stuff like this really gets to me.
You are correct that you may not *need* to partition, but I personally would recommend it, or at least have 2 OS 9 system folders. OS X puts some stuff in your OS 9 system folder which can (in the PB) cause conflicts when running in OS 9.
My personal recommendation is to install OS X on a separate partition, and then install a basic install of the OS 9 system folder on the same partition to be used for the Classic environment. Then you can remove the redundant extensions (Quicktime, Open Transport, etc) and copy over any needed extensions from your main OS 9 system folder.
This has the advantage of keeping your main OS 9 folder untouched by OS X. It also has the advantage of speeding up the boot time and lessening the overhead of the classic environment of OS X because you have removed many extensions that it will try to load but don't work anyway.
This is a little safer than blindly allowing OS X to do what it pleases to your OS 9 system folder.
Anyway, this is how I have been handling classic in the PB. Also, it has allowed me to keep using the classic environment (OS 9.0.4) while upgrading my main system to OS 9.1.
First of all, kind of a "flamebait" statement:
Miscrosoft is not a control freak?!?!?!
Ok, back to the issue at hand. Do you honestly believe that it would be good for Apple to open up? That would be good for Apple in the way that a quick suicide could be good for someone with a particularly painful terminal disease.
With the way the market is now, if Apple were to open up its standards, the rest of the market would cannibalize it and leave Apple as a rotting, gutted carcass at the side of the road.
I for the most part am happy with my experiences with Apple Computer, and would rather not see them devoured by hungry competitors that lack the ability to innovate for themselves (when was the last time you saw Compaq release a truly cool consumer computer system? How long untill they jump on the DVD-R bandwagon?).
Opening any of their systems, or porting their OS over to x86 would be certain doom for Apple, even if they ported it on a proprietary box. Imagine the expense involved in supporting 2 hardware platforms (Apple is too buried in PPC to even think about dropping that half of the hardware), the expense involved in trying to get developers to develop for it (why develop for OS X x86 when they can just develop for WinXX?), not to mention the risk of losing hardware sales (put OS X on ANY x86 box or open-source it and it is only a matter of time before some ingenious hacker(s) get it to run on most or all x86 hardware), which would be certain death to a company that makes most of its money from hardware.
Sure, it would be nice to see Apple open up its systems in an idealistic world. Many years ago, they may have even done so and gotten away with it. However, now they are too deep into the game to change the hand they delt themselves. To change now would be suicide.
...this is big news. Because it has been years since Apple has really discussed anything with its resellers? Because Apple is paying attention to what others say and think? Because Apple is openly admitting its mistakes?
Or because Steve Jobs said "Fuck"?
However, it is nice to see Apple paying more attention. It is very nice to see him aim some flak at CompUSA. I have been there on occasion (the most recent time was a few months ago to actually see and play with the Cube), and the Mac department was TERRIBLE. It is amazing how some of the employees will try to "nudge" you towards the WIntel section. Excuse me but I am in the Mac Section for a reason.
As for Apple Retail Stores, I think they could be a great success if implemented correctly. That is, set them up to compete with the big chain stores (CompUSA, Circuit City, etc...the stores that don't seem to care that much about selling a Mac). Leave the smaller, Apple only resellers alone.
As for swearing up a storm, I do it to when I am extremely pissed off and frustrated about something.
As for the new hardware (the Titanium G4 Powerbook and the 733MHz G4 with DVD-R), all I can say is, "OH DEAR GOD! THAT IS AWESOME!"
*drool*
At first, it was denying my anonymous login. Then it allowed it, but it won't list the directories...
InterArchy Output:
200 PORT command successful.
LIST
550/bin/ls: Resource temporarily unavailable.
QUIT
Guess that either the surver is overloaded or they don't want anyone coming in the side door...Anyone else having this problem?
I agree...I was just pointing out my dream configuration as it would cost ordered straight from the apple store...
More realistically, I would probably only order the most scaled down system that I could from Apple and then buy all of the hard-drive, memory, etc. upgrades from somewhere else...
And that would probably easilly cut a couple of thousand dollars from the price...
But it is still all hopeless dreaming because I am a poor, recent-college-graduate w/ student loans to pay off... *grin*
Only $10,047 for my dream setup:
the High end 733MHz G4 system w/ DVD-R
1.5GB RAM
120GB HD space total
22" Flat Panel
GeForce 2 MX
Airport (the cheapest thing I picked)
I am highly impressed with all of this new stuff. Speed bumped G4s (about time), DVD-R/CD-RW, some cool new software...
Not to mention 5 hours of battery life!!! And Titanium (anyone want to hammer some nails? *grin*)
Ok...this is all pretty cool stuff. Just wish I could afford it! Seems like most, if not all of the new stuff is aimed at either the super rich, or the ultra-professionals that can benefit from this sort of thing. Not too many home users can afford or are willing to pay the $3499 for the only system that allows home DVD authoring.
Now, for some gripes: how about a G3 cube for under $1k? New iBooks perhaps with better resolution? Better servers to handle the/. like effect of thousands of users trying to simulatneously download OS 9.1 update?
Apple has done some really cool things so far with the new stuff at MWSF, but it seems mostly aimed at the returning Mac User. When combining price and performance (mainly price), it doesn't seem like they have done much to try to convert WIntel users.
On a slightly different note, it is nice to see that they listened to feedback about OS X and implemented some of the demands of the public. Of course, we'll have to wait untill March to find out just how much it has improved. By the way, I didn't quite catch this: anyone know if they put the clock back on the menu bar or not?
Ok...I'm going to stop now because this post is all over the place...guess I'm just too excited.
disclaimer: I'm not trying to start a platform war, so please don't treat this as such.
And I quote:
"My Mac is NOT a toy its something to get work done, my PC is a toy, its something to make work. "
This is quite possibly one of the most accurate comparisons of Macs and PCs, and also MacOS (any version) and Linux that I have ever seen.
Mac users don't want to have to hack their machines to get them to work. We expect them to work and if there is a problem, we expect it to be easy to fix. We don't want to have to track down some obscurely named.dll or.inf, or, like another person said somewhere in this discussion, spend an hour typing in some obscure commands and editing some obscure text files just to get our video card to work. We would rather simply drop the aptly named "ATI Rage Pro" system extension into our extension folder and voila! the graphics card works with our OS. This doesn't mean we don't want to hack our machines at all, but we expect them to work from the beginning and then we break them. ~_^
OS X has the potential to still remain this way, or at least appear to, which will make it infinitely more likeable than LinuxPPC.
In my experience with both OSes, both under the hood and in the driver's seat, I have to say that my LinuxPPC CD will *probably* never be inserted into my machine again after I install the final version of MacOS X. Although a lot of the conventions in Darwin are different than Linux, for some reason I still have an easier time getting things to work how I want them to. Add to that the fact that I have an extremely pretty interface to play with while I am in the driver's seat, an interface that makes sense, works properly, and like all interfaces, can be hacked to be customized if you know what you are doing. All of this is something that LinuxPPC cannot do at the moment. Add to all of this the fact that Darwin/MacOS X was written specifically to run on Mac Hardware, rather than ported over, which increases speed and stability (at least, in my experience). I see no reason to ever use LinuxPPC again on my machines. Congratulations Apple! You'll be getting my money when the time comes.
if the people at 4C even use the computers that they make...
It is nice to see that they *may* be backing down, but it is a wonder that someone actually thought this might be a good idea to begin with. I can understand the fears about piracy (though many of them are unfounded), but it should be up to the user to decide what to use a device for, be it a hard drive or a steak knife. It is up to the user to break the law with it.
[sarcasm]Of course, anyone could be a criminal, so the big industries should treat everyone as if they are.[/sarcasm]
I'm sorry, but this kind of logic really gets me angry. Logic like this just takes the world (or at least the US) one step closer to 1984.
Not to mention taking the Massive Money Makers one step closer to making users pay per use and gouge even more money out of our pockets. GRRRRR!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Guess it would be pretty easy to get a FP there.
:D
Agreed about the G3 Powerbooks. Their LCDs are not that great (although IMHO, they are still MUCH better than most laptop LCDs on the market).
However, if you get the chance, pop over to the nearest store that has either the TiBook or the new iBooks on display and take a look at the LCDs on those (I am assuming the new iBooks use the same tech. as the G4 TiBook...I haven't actually seen the new iBooks in person yet). The TiBook display is INCREDIBLE! Move your head off center...still sharp and colors are still correct. Move your head way off center and the colors degrade to about the equiv. of having your head ~15 degrees off center on the G3 PowerBook.
Anyway, give it a shot. Apple is doing a fine job with their LCDs.
I am in need of enlightenment.
e -of-a-walnut mind takes this to mean, there are other possibilities. Does anyone know of any research being done on this? (Of course, with the fear of anything nuclear that seems to prevail in modern society, I wouldn't be surprised if a project like this would find difficulty getting funding.)
;)
Nuclear Fission releases incredibly large amounts of energy, even when it is a controlled fission such as that in a nuclear reactor. If I understand correctly, nuclear fusion is capable of releasing as much as if not more energy. But like the topic says, IANANP.
Now, perhaps I read too much science fiction, but surely there must be a better way of harnessing this energy than using it to boil water (in the case of current nuclear power stations) or heat up helium (in the case of this article) to turn a turbine to create electricity. It seems to me that a LOT of energy would be lost in the transfer from heat to mechanical to electrical energy.
The article mentions that "The early designers and builders minimized the risk of their projects by combining the new nuclear fission--based heaters with the well-proven closed-cycle steam engines." So, my Isaac-Asimov-reading-lets-build-a-reactor-the-siz
I dunno, but it seems like an awful lot of energy is being wasted in the current reactors, including these new PBMRs mentioned in the article
And I have to admit, I wouldn't mind having a personal sized one to power my home for a couple of years (decades? centuries??...depending on the amount of fuel). Oh well...perhaps I was just born a few hundred years too early.
Nothing like a good meteor shower to brighten your evening. I usually don't have a lot of luck with the Lyrids, but I have spotted a few over the past few nights (in FL).
My best luck is with the Perseids shower which is in August, IIRC. Nothing like seeing that from the top of a mountain in Colorado a few years ago.
Anyway, this is good stuff. Any of you code-hackers that plan to be awake tonight, or exam-studiers, or graveyard shift workers, etc. I highly suggest taking a little break this evening and stepping outside. (I personally will be having an intermission in the Cowboy Bebop marathon I am having tonight for this).
"Falling stars like jewels flung across the sky..." (author?)
Take care all. No matter what you are doing or what problems you may have or what is on your mind, take a few minutes and bask in the beauty of the universe this evening.
Ok, I'll stop being a sap now. Back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot.
Hrmm...
If these companies (AOL, Microsoft, Sun, etc)are so concerned about not keeping things "under wraps" or "private" if you will, then why don't they open up all of the source code of all of their major software for everyone to see?
Surely, this would be an excellent gesture of their faith in the idea that Privacy (and keeping secrets) hurts consumers.
;)
MacOS 1.0?
:D )
"Maybe 1984 won't be so much like 1984..."
Ok, granted, it wasn't just the software, but the hardware as well. But it was mainly the OS on that hardware.
(heh...sorry, couldn't resist.)
As for Nautilus, it's definitely not for me.It seems that I can get the functionality like that that I need from Mac OS X (currently PB, but soon 1.0...only 11 days
To each his own, tho.
BTW, I have heard that xFree can now run rootless on OS X. Anyone know anything about this?
my $.02US.
I just want to emphasize the following:
... CD."
"...probably won't..."
-and-
"...ship on the
Which, means that a.)there is the possibility that it will ship on the CD, and b.) if not, it still may be in our iDisks on the 24th. I'm sure I won't be alone in letting everyone know as soon as my copy arrives.
Cheers.
DVD playback is important to me too. My computer is my only DVD player, and most of what I watch is on DVDs. However, I can handle the slight inconvenience of dual booting untill Apple has a player ready. Hell, for all we know they may actually have one ready and sitting on our iDisks by March 24 or very soon thereafter. Just because it probably won't make the shipping CD doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all.
And, btw, for the rest of the Slashdot FUD-mongers, it is only DVD playback that doesn't work. You can still use the drive. Hell, you can even read the file system of a DVD video. If you are willing to break the law (as crappy of a law it is, Apple won't break it), you can probably hack a way to watch DVDs without too much trouble. Apple just has to make sure they do it to the letter of the law.
As for the other concerns of the article, I cannot comment on sleep issues because my computer never sleeps. However, there have been a lot of comments on the MacNN forums stating that sleep works just fine. As for problems causing the system to hang, I doubt it. I personally was unable to crash the original PB, and I can only assume that stability has increased since then. IMNSHO, even the PB was better and more stable than any of the crap that Microsoft puts out, and the interface was much smoother than anything on any other *nix OS. It can only have gotten better since then. I don't know anything about the video stuff except that I am pretty sure that the Rage 128 pro cards (which are probably in 65%-70% of the G3 and G4 macs on the market, work just fine.
A LOT of people are saying that Apple should not ship an "incomplete" OS on the 24th. Well, the OS is pretty much complete. There may be a few applications that are extra, that may not ship, but the OS is there. And Apple needs to ship this OS so that software companies (who have been holding off porting their apps until the OS is finished) will get off their buts and write their software for OS X.
Anyway, most of this is old news. We already went through all of the FUD-mongering last week when c|net broke this "news". I'll tell you what. I'll make a deal with you. My copy of OS X is preordered, DVD or no DVD. I'll give you all a full report of what I think of it, what works, what doesn't, what is better than OS 9.1 or any other OS out there, and what is worse. I see MacOS X as a Good Thing(tm) and I will have it as soon as possible.
Cheers. ^_^
I was unaware of animosity between Gainax and ADV. Thanks for the info. I guess that I am one of the few (only?) people on the planet that was fairly happy with the Eva Dub. Oh well...no need to debate opinion, right?
About the FLCL being subbed, you are quite correct, with the exception of the first episode. That doesn't stop me from owning the first 4 though (having friends in Japan can be a good thing). However, I have seen a fan-sub of the first episode, and it is great stuff. I am only reminded that I need to keep studying my Japanese. ^^;;
I understand fully about the anger in the overlays in Nadesico. However, I still feel that the dubbing of that was excellent. As far as Kenshin, AFAIK ADV had no choice but to change the title because Anime Works beat them to the liscensing of the title "Rurouni Kenshin". However, I may be mistaken. Anyway, their dubbing of that was pretty horrible, but it is nice to be able to own all 4 episodes of the Kenshin OVAs for ~$40US vs. however much you will pay to get them from Japan.
I guess the main reason that I would like to see a US release of FLCL is because it currenly goes at about $35 per episode in Japan. Face it, Anime is cheap in the US, especially on DVD (I just bought my friend in Japan the Magic Knight Rayearth box set because it is so much cheaper here than there, plus he wanted the English dubs so he could practice his English comprehension...in exchange he sent me FLCL). Plus, I see the *potential* for a very good and very funny English dub.
My apologies for not being a subtitle-nazi. I have found somethings to be better in English than the Original Japanese, and vice versa (I am mainly referring to the sounds of the voices vs. what is actually said as my Japanese if only about 1 word/phrase in 5-10 right now).
I have been and continue to be impressed with the quality and selection of anime that ADV releases in the US. Adding this classic to the mix is yet another example of ADV's excellence. I have so far enjoyed just about everything that I have seen come from them, from Evangelion (which, IMHO, they did a pretty good job with the dubbing) to the Kenshin OVAs (a.k.a. Samurai X...no flame wars about the title change, please) to Nadesico (which, IMHO, the English dub is actually better than the original Japanese dub).
Keep up the good work ADV. And please, please, please, please, PLEASE get the rights to the US release of FLCL.
Disclaimer: please, no dub vs. sub debates and other various flame wars from this. This is my opinion. It doesn't have to match yours. ^_^
How much of this patent claim actually "holds any water"? I read all 16 claims, but I am not particularly proficient in legalese. It would seem to me that everything in each claim has already been done before.
Can anyone clarify exactly what they are trying to patent here in layman's terms? Because if they are trying to patent OS themability in general, then it certainly won't hold up. However, it almost seems like they are trying to patent a certain *method* of themability. If this is the case, then perhaps the patent could stand, but rather weakly, it would seem.
Could someone please clarify this a bit?
I can understand why Apple would want to protect Aqua to the fullest extent possible. That interface is their current baby and they have invested a LOT of money in it. And I can understand if the purpose of this patent is to help protect that. Hopefully, Apple won't jump on the bandwagon of patenting stupid things solely to suck money out of others (Rambus, anyone?).
just my $.02US.
1. Bungie no longer owns Oni. Oni is owned by Take 2/GoD. This was part of the deal of the MS buyout. In exchange for Take 2's shares of Bungie, they got Oni and the Myth games. Take 2 is currently developing Myth 3.
2. Microsoft bought Bungie because they (MS) needed a killer app for the xBox when it comes out. That killer app is Halo, which IMNSHO will be one of the best games ever created, and will probably ship with the xBox. However, it will be followed later by the Mac/PC version(after the initial xBox sales)...sorry, a linux version if HIGHLY unlikely to come out of MS. :(
BTW, the opening of the source of Marathon 2 is pretty old news, but still very good news. The aptly named Aleph One project is awesome and doing a great job keeping the Marathon universe alive. Here's a few sites of interest:
Marathon.bungie.org - Tons of Marathon info including links to the story page, the Aleph One project, and many many user created maps and scenarios.
HBO - Lots of Halo information. This game is going to ROCK!!!
Rampancy.net - A Bungie community site that primarily focuses on Halo but covers all things Bungie.
Hope this info is useful to some of you. :) I hold Bungie in very high esteem because they have always made quality games with excellent plots (well, since PiD at least...)
out.
You bring up an interesting point, but your logic is flawed. Evolution is a very interesting concept in that it is bound by the randomness of the universe (which asserts your idea of evolution being random) however it acts towards a single goal (which counters your idea that it lacks direction).
That goal is of course replication and proliferation, i.e. the continued survival of the species. That is the ultimate aim of all life (from the point of view of a Biologist, at least. BTW, IAAB -> I am a biologist).
Now, from an evolutionary standpoint, being intelligent may not be the ultimate goal of life in order to proliferate itself. The idea of "the strong survive" holds very true. However, evolutionarily speaking, if you are not strong, you can either die or get smart, to put it simply. Granted, this is way oversimplifying things, but the gist of the statement holds true for this example.
So, assuming life does exist out there and has had time to evolve, then it seems to me that the odds of "intelligent" life evolving are actually quite good, because all species have a "desire" to survive and proliferate, and there is *almost always* a weaker species.
Anyway, enough rambling from me. One last thing though, just so we can boost our egos a bit. I would wager that humans are unique in the universe. As has been stated, evolution is random and the odds of another planet evolving along the exact same lines are probably pretty slim. So, in a sense we are "alone" in the universe. We are unique.
So let's shape up a bit so we can make a good impression when we meet the others. :-)
Wow...I haven't thought about the idea of phreaking a phone system in years. It is very interesting to see where Cap'n Crunch is these days and see what he is doing... It is nice to see that he has/is overcoming his hard times and getting along pretty well.
Anyone know what ever happened to the blind guy who could whistle a perfect 2600 tone? I think he was simply called Joe the Whistler, but I may be mistaken...
I used to have an interest in all of the phreaking stuff in the early to mid '90s (even then most of it was out of date, but still interesting). It was interesting stuff and I may have pulled a trick or two with it in my day, but it taught me a LOT about the phone system and why things happen, not to mention about various electronics devices and how to put them together (anyone remember the file all.box? had plans on how to build/use the many different "box" types...all this info is useless today and most of was useless when I learned it, but it sure was fun to build that variable tone generator, even if I never used it).
Ahhh...tinkering with these devices was always fun and very educational.
the memories...
First of all, does it occur to you, Mr. atrowe, that not everyone who reads this site is God-fearing, Christian, or American?
But beyond that, I can obviously tell that you have not watched a lot of anime, since you seem to be of the opinion that it is all smut, violence, filth. That is like condemning all movies because some of them are pr0n, ultraviolent, etc.
Anime is *NOT* a genre. It is a medium.
Anime is no more a genre than books are a genre, TV shows are a genre, or live action motion pictures (movies) are a genre.
There are many aspects to anime, many of which fit just fine into your "god fearing christian american" view. And many that don't.
- Try watching Princess Mononoke and see the message that no one is all good or all bad, you will lose your soul if you allow yourself to be swallowed by hatred, and balance is very important for man to coexist with nature.
- Watch Marmalade Boy and see the dreams and romance that many people feel while coming of age.
- Watch Fushigi Yuugi and see that love does indeed conquer all, love is timeless, and true love can never die.
- Watch Graveyard of the Fireflies and see how war is not only horrible to the people who fight but to the families that remain at home. See how hard war is on a society and how sad it is no matter what side you are on.
- Watch Record of Lodoss War and see that in order to be human, good and evil must balance. See that balance is EVERYTHING.
- Watch Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind and see that all living things are precious regardless of their differences.
- Watch Serial Experiments Lain and perhaps dare to question who God is and what makes him God. See where technology is going and see if the physical world is truly more important than the "wired" world.
I could go on an on. And I have yet to mention an excessively and needlessly violent anime. So, I guess your comment doesn't really hold much water, does it?
There is violence in many forms of media. Do you want to know what the most violent, brutal, and smut-ridden book I have ever read was?
The Holy Bible.
Sorry to flame so much, but stuff like this really gets to me.
You are correct that you may not *need* to partition, but I personally would recommend it, or at least have 2 OS 9 system folders. OS X puts some stuff in your OS 9 system folder which can (in the PB) cause conflicts when running in OS 9.
My personal recommendation is to install OS X on a separate partition, and then install a basic install of the OS 9 system folder on the same partition to be used for the Classic environment. Then you can remove the redundant extensions (Quicktime, Open Transport, etc) and copy over any needed extensions from your main OS 9 system folder.
This has the advantage of keeping your main OS 9 folder untouched by OS X. It also has the advantage of speeding up the boot time and lessening the overhead of the classic environment of OS X because you have removed many extensions that it will try to load but don't work anyway.
This is a little safer than blindly allowing OS X to do what it pleases to your OS 9 system folder.
Anyway, this is how I have been handling classic in the PB. Also, it has allowed me to keep using the classic environment (OS 9.0.4) while upgrading my main system to OS 9.1.
out.
First of all, kind of a "flamebait" statement:
Miscrosoft is not a control freak?!?!?!
Ok, back to the issue at hand. Do you honestly believe that it would be good for Apple to open up? That would be good for Apple in the way that a quick suicide could be good for someone with a particularly painful terminal disease.
With the way the market is now, if Apple were to open up its standards, the rest of the market would cannibalize it and leave Apple as a rotting, gutted carcass at the side of the road.
I for the most part am happy with my experiences with Apple Computer, and would rather not see them devoured by hungry competitors that lack the ability to innovate for themselves (when was the last time you saw Compaq release a truly cool consumer computer system? How long untill they jump on the DVD-R bandwagon?).
Opening any of their systems, or porting their OS over to x86 would be certain doom for Apple, even if they ported it on a proprietary box. Imagine the expense involved in supporting 2 hardware platforms (Apple is too buried in PPC to even think about dropping that half of the hardware), the expense involved in trying to get developers to develop for it (why develop for OS X x86 when they can just develop for WinXX?), not to mention the risk of losing hardware sales (put OS X on ANY x86 box or open-source it and it is only a matter of time before some ingenious hacker(s) get it to run on most or all x86 hardware), which would be certain death to a company that makes most of its money from hardware.
Sure, it would be nice to see Apple open up its systems in an idealistic world. Many years ago, they may have even done so and gotten away with it. However, now they are too deep into the game to change the hand they delt themselves. To change now would be suicide.
My $.02
----------
...this is big news. Because it has been years since Apple has really discussed anything with its resellers? Because Apple is paying attention to what others say and think? Because Apple is openly admitting its mistakes?
Or because Steve Jobs said "Fuck"?
However, it is nice to see Apple paying more attention. It is very nice to see him aim some flak at CompUSA. I have been there on occasion (the most recent time was a few months ago to actually see and play with the Cube), and the Mac department was TERRIBLE. It is amazing how some of the employees will try to "nudge" you towards the WIntel section. Excuse me but I am in the Mac Section for a reason.
As for Apple Retail Stores, I think they could be a great success if implemented correctly. That is, set them up to compete with the big chain stores (CompUSA, Circuit City, etc...the stores that don't seem to care that much about selling a Mac). Leave the smaller, Apple only resellers alone.
As for swearing up a storm, I do it to when I am extremely pissed off and frustrated about something.
As for the new hardware (the Titanium G4 Powerbook and the 733MHz G4 with DVD-R), all I can say is, "OH DEAR GOD! THAT IS AWESOME!"
*drool*
out.
----------
At first, it was denying my anonymous login. Then it allowed it, but it won't list the directories... /bin/ls: Resource temporarily unavailable.
InterArchy Output:
200 PORT command successful.
LIST
550
QUIT
Guess that either the surver is overloaded or they don't want anyone coming in the side door...Anyone else having this problem?
I agree...I was just pointing out my dream configuration as it would cost ordered straight from the apple store...
More realistically, I would probably only order the most scaled down system that I could from Apple and then buy all of the hard-drive, memory, etc. upgrades from somewhere else...
And that would probably easilly cut a couple of thousand dollars from the price...
But it is still all hopeless dreaming because I am a poor, recent-college-graduate w/ student loans to pay off... *grin*
Only $10,047 for my dream setup:
the High end 733MHz G4 system w/ DVD-R
1.5GB RAM
120GB HD space total
22" Flat Panel
GeForce 2 MX
Airport (the cheapest thing I picked)
ahhh...a boy can dream, can't he?
Wow!
/. like effect of thousands of users trying to simulatneously download OS 9.1 update?
I am highly impressed with all of this new stuff. Speed bumped G4s (about time), DVD-R/CD-RW, some cool new software...
Not to mention 5 hours of battery life!!! And Titanium (anyone want to hammer some nails? *grin*)
Ok...this is all pretty cool stuff. Just wish I could afford it! Seems like most, if not all of the new stuff is aimed at either the super rich, or the ultra-professionals that can benefit from this sort of thing. Not too many home users can afford or are willing to pay the $3499 for the only system that allows home DVD authoring.
Now, for some gripes: how about a G3 cube for under $1k? New iBooks perhaps with better resolution? Better servers to handle the
Apple has done some really cool things so far with the new stuff at MWSF, but it seems mostly aimed at the returning Mac User. When combining price and performance (mainly price), it doesn't seem like they have done much to try to convert WIntel users.
On a slightly different note, it is nice to see that they listened to feedback about OS X and implemented some of the demands of the public. Of course, we'll have to wait untill March to find out just how much it has improved. By the way, I didn't quite catch this: anyone know if they put the clock back on the menu bar or not?
Ok...I'm going to stop now because this post is all over the place...guess I'm just too excited.
disclaimer: I'm not trying to start a platform war, so please don't treat this as such.
.dll or .inf, or, like another person said somewhere in this discussion, spend an hour typing in some obscure commands and editing some obscure text files just to get our video card to work. We would rather simply drop the aptly named "ATI Rage Pro" system extension into our extension folder and voila! the graphics card works with our OS. This doesn't mean we don't want to hack our machines at all, but we expect them to work from the beginning and then we break them. ~_^
And I quote:
"My Mac is NOT a toy its something to get work done, my PC is a toy, its something to make work. "
This is quite possibly one of the most accurate comparisons of Macs and PCs, and also MacOS (any version) and Linux that I have ever seen.
Mac users don't want to have to hack their machines to get them to work. We expect them to work and if there is a problem, we expect it to be easy to fix. We don't want to have to track down some obscurely named
OS X has the potential to still remain this way, or at least appear to, which will make it infinitely more likeable than LinuxPPC.
In my experience with both OSes, both under the hood and in the driver's seat, I have to say that my LinuxPPC CD will *probably* never be inserted into my machine again after I install the final version of MacOS X. Although a lot of the conventions in Darwin are different than Linux, for some reason I still have an easier time getting things to work how I want them to. Add to that the fact that I have an extremely pretty interface to play with while I am in the driver's seat, an interface that makes sense, works properly, and like all interfaces, can be hacked to be customized if you know what you are doing. All of this is something that LinuxPPC cannot do at the moment. Add to all of this the fact that Darwin/MacOS X was written specifically to run on Mac Hardware, rather than ported over, which increases speed and stability (at least, in my experience). I see no reason to ever use LinuxPPC again on my machines. Congratulations Apple! You'll be getting my money when the time comes.
if the people at 4C even use the computers that they make...
It is nice to see that they *may* be backing down, but it is a wonder that someone actually thought this might be a good idea to begin with. I can understand the fears about piracy (though many of them are unfounded), but it should be up to the user to decide what to use a device for, be it a hard drive or a steak knife. It is up to the user to break the law with it.
[sarcasm]Of course, anyone could be a criminal, so the big industries should treat everyone as if they are.[/sarcasm]
I'm sorry, but this kind of logic really gets me angry. Logic like this just takes the world (or at least the US) one step closer to 1984.
Not to mention taking the Massive Money Makers one step closer to making users pay per use and gouge even more money out of our pockets. GRRRRR!!!!
ok...enough from me...out.