Re:Tutorial: How to create a successful web comic
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PAX 2007 In A Nutshell
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I liked the site where they author-created app randomly strung together Garfield panels. Some of which were much better than the actual strip.
Alas, I've followed Penny-Arcade for years and unlike the expo, which is filling a niche and doing a fine job of it, the strip seems less relevant than ever. I think there are a few other web comics which are past their golden days and are now cruising along, Garfield-like, on a faithful following who still expect gems.
I remember when it was commonplace to get a recovery disc along with your computer; now you have to pay (quite a bit) for software that's already on your system. What happened?
It's one more trick, like extended warrantees, to fleece the consumer and add to the bottom line for the store. (I remember being offered an extended warrantee on something years ago and having to point out to the salesman that the item already came with a 5 year warrantee. Dar!
I will say this, however. It is a good idea to make Recovery Discs or get them from the manufacturer ASAP, because often I find you can't get get them a couple years later.
"Support for that old thing?!? We haven't made that for almost 16 months. I don't think you'll be able to find anything for that now."
It's all part of Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery, to elminate warehousing. JIT means all the bits arrive at the distribtion center at the same time to go out to stores. The closest thing they see to a warehouse is a container. This means the parent corporation stores virtually nothing. Once the model is out of production you have to find service and support through servicing companies, not too many of them like to keep warehouses either.
Lawyers my eye, this is probably covered by the DMCA reverse engineering, same as for unlocking XBoxes and so forth. Simply purchasing an iPhone does not convey complete ownership and the right to dismantle protections under such law. Worse, offering up the modified iPhone on eBay, which I expect to see cancelled, will not simply bring grief from AT&T, but Apple as well. (It's currently up to $15K, which I doubt will be honoured.) It's best if someone does unlock the iPhone for other GSM services to keep their yap shut and use it as they see fit. Sadly, ego must be fed, but at what price?
Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?
Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone wo doesn't want them about.
So do what geocachers do, figure out how to hide something in plain sight. A grotty old tin is lying in the gutter. Who would guess it actually contains a little robot cabable of moving the can around with some motors and gyros?
The fact is warfare is again changing, to employ swarms of networked robots to monitor and react in a hostile environment some may not requre any camo.
Reminds me of when I bought my ultra slim Sony Vaio laptop, with a Pentium 300MHz processor. I thought it was pretty cool. Eventually I grew tired of waiting for it to boot up, load programs, do anything. Maybe if it comes with a tight Linux distro.
They need to stop fscking with everything. It was fine, now it's starting to look cluttered.
Google has made a right pig's ear out of Deja News where they have developed their own interface, which is javascript heavy and becoming a nuisance to use. I long for the days when i could read USENET news with Mozilla, threaded, unthreaded by date, etc.
...because the low Earth orbit clutter problem just got a lot worse with all the pigs up there.
I mean, they must be, since I'm going to be rooting for Microsoft to win a lawsuit.
Ain't this the NEW Granddaddy of all mixed blessings?
The old granddaddy was somewhere in Bloom County, but I don't have my collections with me.
What is up with PDF documents? (In this case, the list of items.) Why can't people just use normal hypertext? It makes it harder for people like me to view.
Hypertext doesn't print friendly from your browser.
This is why mplayer is nice. Play any title immediately, without the stupid menu games or the mandatory FBI warning.
Which is certainly great, but I have a portable DVD player I take on long flights or when I travel. It's adequate and I don't bother with laptops (bulk, limited battery etc.) I'm stuck.
Imagine MP3 players, or iPods even, which would not let you fast-forward past plugs for the new Nike shoe (Only $250 and it might last 3 months! [Not water resistant]) or Coca-Cola (will rot your teeth AND contribute to your personal obesity!) Yay!
People don't like listening to ads before listening to music? Shock and awe.
Tell it brother!
I have DVDs which are years old and they still play these gawddam previews for upcoming films of years past. I'm ticked because my DVD player gives me guff when I try to fast forward, skip chapter or go directly to the menu, with the circle with a slash through it stating such behaviour is vorboten. I must sit like a good little monkey and watch whatever shite they deemed necessary prior to enjoying the content I shelled many quid for, however many times I want to watch the films.
Come to think of it, it's a very strong argument in favour of ripping, editing and burning your own videos to get around this abhorent behaviour.
Now if they think I need to listen to the Coke or some sports figure hawking the latest rubber shoe straight outta China before I can listen to my toonz, they can forget it.
Even Balmer's family isn't buying Zunes? I knew they weren't exactly a hit, but that's just sad.
Doesn't it just bug you, a guy can be CEO, so stupid and yet worth billions?
Here I am with my multiple degrees, driving around in a 1986 Volvo.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. If Steve was suddenly working my job, could be get his current job? I don't think so.
He may be able to toss a mean chair, but I don't accredit him any extrordinary wisdom or business insight. He's just a ruthless business man who ensures Dell will not be offering customers a choice between XP and Vista. With the leverage Microsoft have, they don't have to be smart and have shown how bloody minded stupid they can be on many occasions. Zune being just one of the latest. If they made a phone it would be a dud, just like the Zune.
I see more and more in common media that everybody tries to blame everything on new technology going from cancer to depression, blamed on cell phones to video games. Yet, they don't bother looking or trying to understand the deeper reasons like our old friends in the mushroom... euhm, fungi world.
Is it an artifact of ancient religion or superstition maybe? (Like the sun and moon worshipers, or offerers of livestock and enemies, witchhunting?)
Did it occur to you that human stupidity has a lot to answer for? Individually we are quite clever animals, but we're also the only creature which will pollute our own drinking water, our own air and poison our own food.
We give the rule of unintended consequences meaning.
Sounds more like Cyrano de Bergerac has been sticking his nose into beehives and spreading a fungus. At least it's not like those
aussies coming here and killing off bees with their jars of Varroamite, or was that something else..
Well, back to using my mobile with a clear conscience it's not making the bees die off.
In Soviet Russia the Cagey Bee makes YOU disappear!
I will be buying a Kodak if the cost of both toner and printers is low as well as a minimum reliability.
I'd like to see them enter the low end laser printer market. These damn things are as bad as inkjets. Printer for $200, refill for $70 to $145. Feck that.
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I liked the site where they author-created app randomly strung together Garfield panels. Some of which were much better than the actual strip. Alas, I've followed Penny-Arcade for years and unlike the expo, which is filling a niche and doing a fine job of it, the strip seems less relevant than ever. I think there are a few other web comics which are past their golden days and are now cruising along, Garfield-like, on a faithful following who still expect gems.
"We had a situation where an employee sent a communication via e-mail that was inconsistent with our corporate policy,"
Yes, the policy of not leaving a trail and not getting caught.
I remember when it was commonplace to get a recovery disc along with your computer; now you have to pay (quite a bit) for software that's already on your system. What happened?
It's one more trick, like extended warrantees, to fleece the consumer and add to the bottom line for the store. (I remember being offered an extended warrantee on something years ago and having to point out to the salesman that the item already came with a 5 year warrantee. Dar!
I will say this, however. It is a good idea to make Recovery Discs or get them from the manufacturer ASAP, because often I find you can't get get them a couple years later.
"Support for that old thing?!? We haven't made that for almost 16 months. I don't think you'll be able to find anything for that now."
It's all part of Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery, to elminate warehousing. JIT means all the bits arrive at the distribtion center at the same time to go out to stores. The closest thing they see to a warehouse is a container. This means the parent corporation stores virtually nothing. Once the model is out of production you have to find service and support through servicing companies, not too many of them like to keep warehouses either.
I smell Lawsuits.
Lawyers my eye, this is probably covered by the DMCA reverse engineering, same as for unlocking XBoxes and so forth. Simply purchasing an iPhone does not convey complete ownership and the right to dismantle protections under such law. Worse, offering up the modified iPhone on eBay, which I expect to see cancelled, will not simply bring grief from AT&T, but Apple as well. (It's currently up to $15K, which I doubt will be honoured.) It's best if someone does unlock the iPhone for other GSM services to keep their yap shut and use it as they see fit. Sadly, ego must be fed, but at what price?
Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?
Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone wo doesn't want them about.
So do what geocachers do, figure out how to hide something in plain sight. A grotty old tin is lying in the gutter. Who would guess it actually contains a little robot cabable of moving the can around with some motors and gyros?
The fact is warfare is again changing, to employ swarms of networked robots to monitor and react in a hostile environment some may not requre any camo.
"It's barely enormous!"
"It's merely huge!"
Not buying software that hasn't been written yet.
Reminds me of when I bought my ultra slim Sony Vaio laptop, with a Pentium 300MHz processor. I thought it was pretty cool. Eventually I grew tired of waiting for it to boot up, load programs, do anything. Maybe if it comes with a tight Linux distro.
They need to stop fscking with everything. It was fine, now it's starting to look cluttered.
Google has made a right pig's ear out of Deja News where they have developed their own interface, which is javascript heavy and becoming a nuisance to use. I long for the days when i could read USENET news with Mozilla, threaded, unthreaded by date, etc.
I mean, they must be, since I'm going to be rooting for Microsoft to win a lawsuit.
Ain't this the NEW Granddaddy of all mixed blessings?
The old granddaddy was somewhere in Bloom County, but I don't have my collections with me.
What is up with PDF documents? (In this case, the list of items.) Why can't people just use normal hypertext? It makes it harder for people like me to view.
Hypertext doesn't print friendly from your browser.
All I do is Geocache :o(
This isn't just the mode of religions. Governing regimes practice it, too.
As to Scientology being a religion, I think that's a very broad definition of Religion - it's a pyramid scheme and cult rolled up into one.
My advice would be to stop anthropomorphising robots. They don't like it.
You mean your robotic mine-detecting pal who's fun to be with?
Even more reason to build a MythTV box..
Even more reason not to watch TV at all.
I probably haven't watched TV in at least three months.
Reminds me of queues chinese wore under the manchus. A mark of respect or a mark of submission?
Yes. Just before the Death Star blew her home world to smithereens.
But let's hope that's not the case here, eh?
This is why mplayer is nice. Play any title immediately, without the stupid menu games or the mandatory FBI warning.
Which is certainly great, but I have a portable DVD player I take on long flights or when I travel. It's adequate and I don't bother with laptops (bulk, limited battery etc.) I'm stuck.
Imagine MP3 players, or iPods even, which would not let you fast-forward past plugs for the new Nike shoe (Only $250 and it might last 3 months! [Not water resistant]) or Coca-Cola (will rot your teeth AND contribute to your personal obesity!) Yay!
People don't like listening to ads before listening to music? Shock and awe.
Tell it brother!
I have DVDs which are years old and they still play these gawddam previews for upcoming films of years past. I'm ticked because my DVD player gives me guff when I try to fast forward, skip chapter or go directly to the menu, with the circle with a slash through it stating such behaviour is vorboten. I must sit like a good little monkey and watch whatever shite they deemed necessary prior to enjoying the content I shelled many quid for, however many times I want to watch the films.
Come to think of it, it's a very strong argument in favour of ripping, editing and burning your own videos to get around this abhorent behaviour.
Now if they think I need to listen to the Coke or some sports figure hawking the latest rubber shoe straight outta China before I can listen to my toonz, they can forget it.
Even Balmer's family isn't buying Zunes? I knew they weren't exactly a hit, but that's just sad.
Doesn't it just bug you, a guy can be CEO, so stupid and yet worth billions?
Here I am with my multiple degrees, driving around in a 1986 Volvo.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. If Steve was suddenly working my job, could be get his current job? I don't think so.
He may be able to toss a mean chair, but I don't accredit him any extrordinary wisdom or business insight. He's just a ruthless business man who ensures Dell will not be offering customers a choice between XP and Vista. With the leverage Microsoft have, they don't have to be smart and have shown how bloody minded stupid they can be on many occasions. Zune being just one of the latest. If they made a phone it would be a dud, just like the Zune.
I see more and more in common media that everybody tries to blame everything on new technology going from cancer to depression, blamed on cell phones to video games. Yet, they don't bother looking or trying to understand the deeper reasons like our old friends in the mushroom... euhm, fungi world. Is it an artifact of ancient religion or superstition maybe? (Like the sun and moon worshipers, or offerers of livestock and enemies, witchhunting?)
Did it occur to you that human stupidity has a lot to answer for? Individually we are quite clever animals, but we're also the only creature which will pollute our own drinking water, our own air and poison our own food.
We give the rule of unintended consequences meaning.
Technology must be blamed somehow! It's always technology's fault!
Gosh, I sure hope it doesn't adversely affect the africanised bees, aka killer bees.
Sounds more like Cyrano de Bergerac has been sticking his nose into beehives and spreading a fungus. At least it's not like those aussies coming here and killing off bees with their jars of Varroamite, or was that something else..
Well, back to using my mobile with a clear conscience it's not making the bees die off.
In Soviet Russia the Cagey Bee makes YOU disappear!
I will be buying a Kodak if the cost of both toner and printers is low as well as a minimum reliability.
I'd like to see them enter the low end laser printer market. These damn things are as bad as inkjets. Printer for $200, refill for $70 to $145. Feck that.