Shame on whatever moderator(s) are going through this thread marking anything that mentions Macs as flamebait and troll. There's nothing flamebait or troll about this post; if you don't happen to personally like Macs, fine, but they're a perfectly valid alternative to Windows machines.
As has been said previously, TOS had an extremely low budget (pick up Shatner's book Star Trek Memories sometime if you're interested; it has some great stories about just how hard it was to get these shows made), and was made in the Sixties, when expectations for television were very different.
In a time when you have branding, popups during the programs, and advertisements plastered all over the end credits, I can see where something like TOS would seem very slow-paced. And yeah, they're not all gems, but a lot of those episodes were the first of their kind, and would be ripped off -- err, emulated in later series.
TOS also experimented a lot more with different stories, something TNG did, and gave up on, in its first and second seasons. The first couple seasons of TNG bore a lot of similarity to TOS in tone and style, but once you get to the fourth season and onward, they've established a slick, well-done, but ultimately formulaic approach to Star Trek -- "The alien is attacking, rerout the arglebargle through the froofraw to go back in time and defeat it." "Oh no, we all fell unconscious and the holodeck went crazy; Data will have to fix it."
This is something I felt kind of helped murder the franchise, personally; DS9 broke from the mold, taking the environment off a spaceship, putting it on a station, and adding real continuity. A lot of people didn't like it; I thought it was great. Then came Voyager and it was back to more of the same old thing. Enterprise just seems incredibly tired to me -- like the whole thing is just out of gas.
I think there a lot of different stories to be told int he Trek universe; unfortunately, it seems easiest to just rehash the same old thing for twelve years running or however long it is now. I think TOS has definitely dated itself (as one day all the series will), but I can still appreciate it for what it is.
In other news, in this movie, Zaphod Beeblebrox will be played by an eleven year old Vietnamese girl who speaks all her lines through interpretive dance.
Hey, relax you uptight purists! Just go read the book! It's in the movie, so it has to be right!
Wait a minimum of 1 week after the movie's release before seeing it. This act in itself would send a message that people were not happy with the prequels if lots of people did it.
I'll see your week and raise you "don't see it at all."
I'm never spending another nickel on anything Star Wars-related. I spent most of my youth buying Lucas's stuff, and he gave me a giant middle finger in return.
So, would some MUD veterans like to give some suggestions on how to reach MUD enlightenment?
Yeah. Don't.
Re:and a slightly more cynical view...
on
The Cult of Mac
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Pleased to meet you. I own a mac powerbook, and I'd like to tell you how much OS X sucks. Why?
These are some interesting points you make. I'd like to offer my input on them.
- Only one mouse button. Thats really debilitating. Sure, you can get a USB mouse for a desktop system, but on a laptop you are stuck having to hit the keyboard and the mouse button every time you want to right click. Not that there are ever any usefull funcitons in the drop down menus anyway - Mac applications are designed for people who can't use computers very well to be able to use. Those of us who want more functionality from their applications are stuck.
I'm using a $25 wireless USB mouse on my Powerbook right now and it works great. I hate track-pads on ANY laptop. I find hitting ctrl-and the trackpad button is a little counterintuitive at first, but eventually I just got used to it.
As for the contextual menu being useless by default, I rather agree... FruitMenu is a neat little app that makes the contextual menu completely customizable, and Menu Master does the same for drop-downs. Yeah, they're payware, but pretty inexpensive.
The phrase "Mac applications are designed for people who can't use computers very well to be able to use" makes me wonder if IHBT, but I'm going to continue on anyway.
- Window management is rediculous. You can't maximize a window without jumping through hoops. And those pretty eye-candy window control buttons in the tilte bar are way to small and easy to miss.
OS X is skinnable, so you can find a skin that makes those buttons bigger. Maximizing is different than Windows, and I agree can be a bit counterintuitive, but it's not a big deal in my opinion. Just click and drag the window to its maximum size... the Finder should remember it next time.
- The Finder is lame. Windows Explorer is crap too, but you can get a lot more functionality out of it if you know where to look.
I barely use the Finder anymore, as I use Quicksilver to launch all my apps and find things. Much easier that way. I actually find the opposite to be true now; the Finder's search function works seamlessly and quickly, while searching in Windows explorer takes too many steps for my taste. For an out and out Finder replacement, Pathfinder looks good, though I haven't worked with it enough yet to know if it's worth the money.
- Crashes just as often as my windows PC. I bought the thing for stability and have been very dissapointed.
I hate to be one of those guys that says "my Mac never crashes," but it never does. I had maybe three or four lockups back during 10.2 and none since. My uptime regularly runs into the months, until I need to reboot for security updates. And it's not like I don't try out a lot of new applications, either. It really should not be crashing that much, or at all, if it's running right. You might try doing some maintenance.
- Safari is way better than Internet Explorer on Windows, but far, far the inferior of Firefox
I find Firefox way too slow on OS X -- which is sad, because I like Firefox, but it's just too much of a hog on my Powerbook. I've gotten really used to working with Safari, and have very few complaints with it, even compared to Firefox (which I like a lot).
Don't get me wrong, I think Windows sucks too, and I do appreciate the OS X command line. But OS X's much ballyhooed GUI interface runs a far second behind windows in terms of actual utility.
So to anyone who is considering the switch, I say, dont. Take the extra money you would blow on a powerbook and buy yourself a nice Sony laptop.
I would have to respectfully disagree -- I think OS X takes
Re:and a slightly more cynical view...
on
The Cult of Mac
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
A hearty amen to that. I work at an ISP where generally everyone uses Windows machines. I bought a Powerbook a while back (I use it as a writing tool), and after I brought it to work, I instantly became the "Mac guy."
Not only was I expected to know everything about Macs going back to System 7.5 (I hate anything before OS X), but people would come up to me and make all sorts of political comments about how stupid Mac users were, how much Macs sucked, etc. as if they expected me to get offended and evangelistic about it.
I even had a couple people say things like "Ugh, you're a Mac user? Don't let it touch me!" and "EWW!" and the like. Which just amazed me -- perfectly mature adults (for the most part) acting in this outlandish manner. I still own a Windows PC, and have plenty of experience in the platform, but suddenly ownership of a Mac makes me The Enemy.
For all the reputation that Mac users have for being elitist and snobbish, I've seen way more snobbish, rude behavior from Windows people. Of course, what's funny, is they have an equal amount of hatred for "their" operating system. No Mac user I know talks about how much OS X sucks... yet, with Windows, it happens all the time. It makes me wonder if there's not more than a little defensiveness going on.
My Powerbook does exactly what I want it to very well, and i find OS X a great computing environment to work in. I despise the politics that go with owning a machine, and like you, I just try to ignore it.
Re:Have to disagree with this
on
The Cult of Mac
·
· Score: 1
An interesting hypothesis, though I think some of the points are a bit over-the-top. We have no way of knowing what kind of path Apple would have taken had they ended up on the top and stayed there. Business philosophies change to suit time and circumstances.
If Apple had the market share that Microsoft does, I doubt their hardware would be as expensive.
Re:The cult of Apple
on
The Cult of Mac
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I can't speak for anyone else, but I didn't buy a Powerbook to be cool. Believe me, using a Mac you have to develop a thick skin very quickly, as everyone who sees you using one will accuse you of being a crazy evangelist or snobby elitist. (Case in point.)
I bought it because I like the way the OS works, and the software is perfect for what I want to use a computer for. And this is after 10+ years of using Windows PCs, not to mention giving Linux a try.
The only trend-humping lemming behavior I ever see is from people who make knee-jerk assumptions that anyone who uses a Mac must be part of the Steve Jobs "cult."
Threatening the President has been illegal since long before 9/11 or George W. Bush.
True story. Back in 1990, one of my co-workers, whom I think was mildly ill in the head, called up the state capital when George Bush Sr. was coming to town, and told them he was going to shoot the President. The Secret Service came and took his ass away. He came back about a year later, and never really explained to anyone exactly where he'd been. Of course, he came back crazier than ever...
So yeah, don't threaten the President. It doesn't have anything to do with "Amerika;" you just can't expect the government to brush off any statement about killing or harming world leaders as a joke.
Well, according to Lucas, the older, unedited versions of the film "technically no longer exist". So I guess "technically", the next time he changes the film in a few more years, this game will also cease to exist. And then you can buy it all over again, the way he always intended you to buy it -- the original vision of the trivia game that couldn't be done because of technological limitations!
Yeah? Well I had my laptop in a regular backpack and cast it in four feet of solid concrete. Someone got out a pneumatic drill and still managed to get to it! Darn thieves.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I thought that was the funniest part of the bit.
Shame on whatever moderator(s) are going through this thread marking anything that mentions Macs as flamebait and troll. There's nothing flamebait or troll about this post; if you don't happen to personally like Macs, fine, but they're a perfectly valid alternative to Windows machines.
Awesome work, sir, I salute you!
(For those of you who don't know, this is a take-off from the 1986 musical Chess. And shame on whomever modded this as Troll.)
There was a much longer rant on his site about how Evil Dead 4 would never be made, but they're years old.
Dig back far enough in the media archives and you'll see George Lucas talking about how he'd never make the prequels. If only, huh?
a few nods from more modern horror films (28 Days for example)
The Sandra Bullock movie?!
I think you mean 28 Days Later, although I guess it depends on how you feel about Sandra Bullock...
As has been said previously, TOS had an extremely low budget (pick up Shatner's book Star Trek Memories sometime if you're interested; it has some great stories about just how hard it was to get these shows made), and was made in the Sixties, when expectations for television were very different.
In a time when you have branding, popups during the programs, and advertisements plastered all over the end credits, I can see where something like TOS would seem very slow-paced. And yeah, they're not all gems, but a lot of those episodes were the first of their kind, and would be ripped off -- err, emulated in later series.
TOS also experimented a lot more with different stories, something TNG did, and gave up on, in its first and second seasons. The first couple seasons of TNG bore a lot of similarity to TOS in tone and style, but once you get to the fourth season and onward, they've established a slick, well-done, but ultimately formulaic approach to Star Trek -- "The alien is attacking, rerout the arglebargle through the froofraw to go back in time and defeat it." "Oh no, we all fell unconscious and the holodeck went crazy; Data will have to fix it."
This is something I felt kind of helped murder the franchise, personally; DS9 broke from the mold, taking the environment off a spaceship, putting it on a station, and adding real continuity. A lot of people didn't like it; I thought it was great. Then came Voyager and it was back to more of the same old thing. Enterprise just seems incredibly tired to me -- like the whole thing is just out of gas.
I think there a lot of different stories to be told int he Trek universe; unfortunately, it seems easiest to just rehash the same old thing for twelve years running or however long it is now. I think TOS has definitely dated itself (as one day all the series will), but I can still appreciate it for what it is.
Ah yes, the forty-year-old balding man with a hand puppet calling other people nerds. Smells like irony!
It wouldn't be useful anyway, the resolution is way to low to steal the interesting stuff.
See, that's why you need to get the Zire 72!
In other news, in this movie, Zaphod Beeblebrox will be played by an eleven year old Vietnamese girl who speaks all her lines through interpretive dance.
Hey, relax you uptight purists! Just go read the book! It's in the movie, so it has to be right!
"Sorry, third world... you can't have this corn to eat. We need it to store our valuable data!"
No, Starvin' Marvin, that's a bad Starvin' Marvin!
Wait a minimum of 1 week after the movie's release before seeing it. This act in itself would send a message that people were not happy with the prequels if lots of people did it.
I'll see your week and raise you "don't see it at all."
I'm never spending another nickel on anything Star Wars-related. I spent most of my youth buying Lucas's stuff, and he gave me a giant middle finger in return.
To quote The Who, I won't be fooled again.
So, would some MUD veterans like to give some suggestions on how to reach MUD enlightenment?
Yeah. Don't.
Pleased to meet you. I own a mac powerbook, and I'd like to tell you how much OS X sucks. Why?
These are some interesting points you make. I'd like to offer my input on them.
- Only one mouse button. Thats really debilitating. Sure, you can get a USB mouse for a desktop system, but on a laptop you are stuck having to hit the keyboard and the mouse button every time you want to right click. Not that there are ever any usefull funcitons in the drop down menus anyway - Mac applications are designed for people who can't use computers very well to be able to use. Those of us who want more functionality from their applications are stuck.
I'm using a $25 wireless USB mouse on my Powerbook right now and it works great. I hate track-pads on ANY laptop. I find hitting ctrl-and the trackpad button is a little counterintuitive at first, but eventually I just got used to it.
As for the contextual menu being useless by default, I rather agree... FruitMenu is a neat little app that makes the contextual menu completely customizable, and Menu Master does the same for drop-downs. Yeah, they're payware, but pretty inexpensive.
The phrase "Mac applications are designed for people who can't use computers very well to be able to use" makes me wonder if IHBT, but I'm going to continue on anyway.
- Window management is rediculous. You can't maximize a window without jumping through hoops. And those pretty eye-candy window control buttons in the tilte bar are way to small and easy to miss.
OS X is skinnable, so you can find a skin that makes those buttons bigger. Maximizing is different than Windows, and I agree can be a bit counterintuitive, but it's not a big deal in my opinion. Just click and drag the window to its maximum size... the Finder should remember it next time.
- The Finder is lame. Windows Explorer is crap too, but you can get a lot more functionality out of it if you know where to look.
I barely use the Finder anymore, as I use Quicksilver to launch all my apps and find things. Much easier that way. I actually find the opposite to be true now; the Finder's search function works seamlessly and quickly, while searching in Windows explorer takes too many steps for my taste. For an out and out Finder replacement, Pathfinder looks good, though I haven't worked with it enough yet to know if it's worth the money.
- Crashes just as often as my windows PC. I bought the thing for stability and have been very dissapointed.
I hate to be one of those guys that says "my Mac never crashes," but it never does. I had maybe three or four lockups back during 10.2 and none since. My uptime regularly runs into the months, until I need to reboot for security updates. And it's not like I don't try out a lot of new applications, either. It really should not be crashing that much, or at all, if it's running right. You might try doing some maintenance.
- Safari is way better than Internet Explorer on Windows, but far, far the inferior of Firefox
I find Firefox way too slow on OS X -- which is sad, because I like Firefox, but it's just too much of a hog on my Powerbook. I've gotten really used to working with Safari, and have very few complaints with it, even compared to Firefox (which I like a lot).
Don't get me wrong, I think Windows sucks too, and I do appreciate the OS X command line. But OS X's much ballyhooed GUI interface runs a far second behind windows in terms of actual utility.
So to anyone who is considering the switch, I say, dont. Take the extra money you would blow on a powerbook and buy yourself a nice Sony laptop.
I would have to respectfully disagree -- I think OS X takes
A hearty amen to that. I work at an ISP where generally everyone uses Windows machines. I bought a Powerbook a while back (I use it as a writing tool), and after I brought it to work, I instantly became the "Mac guy."
Not only was I expected to know everything about Macs going back to System 7.5 (I hate anything before OS X), but people would come up to me and make all sorts of political comments about how stupid Mac users were, how much Macs sucked, etc. as if they expected me to get offended and evangelistic about it.
I even had a couple people say things like "Ugh, you're a Mac user? Don't let it touch me!" and "EWW!" and the like. Which just amazed me -- perfectly mature adults (for the most part) acting in this outlandish manner. I still own a Windows PC, and have plenty of experience in the platform, but suddenly ownership of a Mac makes me The Enemy.
For all the reputation that Mac users have for being elitist and snobbish, I've seen way more snobbish, rude behavior from Windows people. Of course, what's funny, is they have an equal amount of hatred for "their" operating system. No Mac user I know talks about how much OS X sucks... yet, with Windows, it happens all the time. It makes me wonder if there's not more than a little defensiveness going on.
My Powerbook does exactly what I want it to very well, and i find OS X a great computing environment to work in. I despise the politics that go with owning a machine, and like you, I just try to ignore it.
An interesting hypothesis, though I think some of the points are a bit over-the-top. We have no way of knowing what kind of path Apple would have taken had they ended up on the top and stayed there. Business philosophies change to suit time and circumstances.
If Apple had the market share that Microsoft does, I doubt their hardware would be as expensive.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I didn't buy a Powerbook to be cool. Believe me, using a Mac you have to develop a thick skin very quickly, as everyone who sees you using one will accuse you of being a crazy evangelist or snobby elitist. (Case in point.)
I bought it because I like the way the OS works, and the software is perfect for what I want to use a computer for. And this is after 10+ years of using Windows PCs, not to mention giving Linux a try.
The only trend-humping lemming behavior I ever see is from people who make knee-jerk assumptions that anyone who uses a Mac must be part of the Steve Jobs "cult."
Threatening the President has been illegal since long before 9/11 or George W. Bush.
True story. Back in 1990, one of my co-workers, whom I think was mildly ill in the head, called up the state capital when George Bush Sr. was coming to town, and told them he was going to shoot the President. The Secret Service came and took his ass away. He came back about a year later, and never really explained to anyone exactly where he'd been. Of course, he came back crazier than ever...
So yeah, don't threaten the President. It doesn't have anything to do with "Amerika;" you just can't expect the government to brush off any statement about killing or harming world leaders as a joke.
I'll wait for the super-special-edition box set of the game to come out! This time my character gets to shoot first!
....sigh.
Hyuk! Hyuk! Hyuk!
Well, according to Lucas, the older, unedited versions of the film "technically no longer exist". So I guess "technically", the next time he changes the film in a few more years, this game will also cease to exist. And then you can buy it all over again, the way he always intended you to buy it -- the original vision of the trivia game that couldn't be done because of technological limitations!
I do enjoy that bit, but only for the wonderful irony of watching a balding forty-year-old man with a puppet dog on his hand call other people losers.
I hate to use the word visionary, but Lucas truly has a vision.
So do people with malaria.
Linked because I'm lazy too and don't want to cut and paste this into my browser seven times...
r s.htm
e sten-einsatz-aller.html
2 218
/
http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/news/0408/0831-MCRooste
http://www.schnohne.de/2004/08/masterchief-im-hrt
http://www.nightmarearmorstudios.com/
http://files2.bungie.org/dragoncon2004.mov
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=12
http://files.bungie.org/rapture/saturday_update_1
http://files.bungie.org/rapture/sunday_update_3/
Yeah? Well I had my laptop in a regular backpack and cast it in four feet of solid concrete. Someone got out a pneumatic drill and still managed to get to it! Darn thieves.
You know, with signatures turned off in preferences, this exchange is surreal as hell.
Interesting theory. FWIW, Saruman's death was cut for time -- it will no doubt be in the ROTK extended edition.