http://www.galun.com/misc/seasonal/2002/12/17-Moor e.html - Michael Moore is one of the sleaziest documentary makers/authors around. Almost nothing he says is true. I have to revise this article (that's my next project) because more falsehoods in the movie have been discovered since I wrote it.
Well, this is funny. The corrections on this web page are almost the same numbers as in the movie. Sometimes these numbers would even been to the advantage of the movie cause. Is it really important if they were 11,127 gun murders in the US, not 11,167? Anyway, it doesn't remove any credit to Bowling for Colombine analysis to me...
Again, eye candy is fast on Windows, slow on X, on the same machine with the same drivers and the same video card.
You use the same drivers on Windows and Linux. Hummm... that's interesting...
Re:Michael Moore's Letter to Governor Bush
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
Ah, yes. The French. Oh, please. Could they perhaps be supporting Iraq because of the nuclear reactors they're selling there? Or the French oil company operating there, the biggest in Iraq? Could the French possibly have their own business interests in mind when they oppose this war? Ya think?
Sure, but BTW, the compagny you're talking about is in big part owned by US investment funds. Even, if French are defending their interest, Russia also said they would use their veto and we were expecting a majority of security counsil to oppose US/England resolution. So why shit on French? Isn't US defending their interests? US have used their veto many more times than France, so what's the problem?
In England, Blair has succesfully voted his motion for war, but with the biggest rebellion of its own deputies in 100 years and with the demission of 3 ministers.
Yes, US have always been a symbol of democracy, and yes Irak is far from democratic, but there's a world democracy and it's called the UN. Don't say you agree with war in Iraq, we all want Saddam out. Think about the long-term consequences of ignoring UN. What next country will attack another one pretending doing it for its security? It's a shame what is happening right now. A shame for all of us, even if the operation is successful.
BTW, Irak can't attack US, so what is the real reason for all that? Many analyst said Bush need to correct economy situation to be reelected, and lower oil price would do it. Might not be the truth, but I think that makes sense.
I don't "get" the fascination people have with computers playing chess. Searching a game tree is not something I find overly impressive. The root problem (the tree searching algorithms and such) is somewhat interesting, but the computer isn't playing chess in the same way as a person. I don't really care how far down into a tree a modern processor has time to search. It doesn't indicate any sort of "intelligence" in the holy grail sense of AI. Chess is a very limited, structured problem.
My calculator can find nth roots faster and with greater precision than I can...should I be fascinated by that as well?
Don't take it personal, but your comment shows a lot of ignorance about chess AI. There's too much possible moves per turn in chess and I don't know of a chess program that calculates them all. Usually a program will calculate, let's say, around 10 moves. The job is there: evaluate the 10 best moves. Remember than even doing that, you still won't calculate very further. Suppose 10 moves per turn, one for black, one for white, it makes 100 moves per turn for both players. For only 7 complete turns you have to calculate 100,000,000,000,000 moves. It means your algorithm to evaluate positions needs to be very good, since, for example for a sacrifice, you only see calculable benefits after many more turns, sometime only in final.
Like Kasparov, I very impressed to see a machine making an intelligent sacrifice; this is usually how you trap a computer. There's no doubt to me that Kasparov is still superior to any machine, but when machines begin to show some interesting moves, they begin to teach something. I'm a chess player and I understand chess enough to consider it an art. I can see emotions or genius in a game the same way some see it in painting. A big part of music is mathematical and if we're wise enough to build programs that create innovative chess games, maybe we can build some that create good melodies, who knows. I understand it may sound wierd for non-chess players to compare chess with an art, but creating a melody is also "a very limited, structured problem" and no one doubt it's an art. The main difference is that chess has a clear and easy to measure result. I don't think is "the holy grail sense of AI", but it is an important milestone in AI, no doubt for me.
The Linux vendors have fallen to beg mode, "please give us money or we will vanish" (Mandrake). VA Linux Labs, now VA Software (stock symbol: LNUX) says "We are in no way a Linux company - we are a proprietary software company". Red Hat made a $300K profit last quarter, first ever, on a market cap of about $1B, what a complete joke.
Yes, yes, we have Apache, we have MySQL, we have numerous charity cases, but there is no way in hell that this has been a "great year" for Linux. If you can't make a buck, you can't eat, and sooner or later, you will stop breathing.
Well, to me it's a proof of how much open source is successful, not the opposite. Freedom, it's all free software is about. If we are able to have the quality we have right now (and always improving) without making anyone insanely rich like Microsoft is doing with Windows and Office, than it's great.
Yes, we need companies like Red Hat to make profits because they need to stay there. But hey, they are making profits by selling Linux! Linux market continues to grow and I think we can afford to have less distributors. Except because of temporary economic difficulties, we can expect to see revenues of distributors to grow.
Yes, Linux is taking more market share to other Unixes than Windows, but again, it seems good to me. If Sun, IBM, HP, etc. can put more effort in free software than prioritary software, it's a win for us.
Since I've installed RH 5.2 few years ago, I've been really impressed by open source software progress year after year. Today, I'm a Linux developer and my compagny plans to switch from Irix to Linux over the next year. Almost everytime I download a Windows software, I see also a Linux version with a smile. It's like a few years ago dream.
Wal Mart selling Linux PCs... Honestly, how could it be better (considering time needed for change)? We have no idea when Linux progress will stop and its current state is already impressive. Isn't all geeks premonitions coming true for now?
In the next weeks, I'll buy a friend PC, install Windows for my girlfriend and install Linux for myself. My first install without dual boot, and I'm not afraid to switch back to or adding Windows if necessary, 'cause looking at Linux progress, I'm more and more confident that someday, if it's not already the case, free software will offer a complete and poweful alternative to prioritary software for simple desktop users. I don't want my children to pay for an operating system at a dictated price and year after year, I'm more reassured.
"If Spirits Within were a GAME, even with the same plot, it would probably be considered the most amazing RPG ever, story-wise (oooh!! sweeping epic!)."
The story was still much poorer than usual FF stories. FF plots usually have more depth and left the player with some mysteries (unless you do everything). The movie plot was too clear and too simple. I guess FF creators were not used to make stories that last only 2 hours...
1st: Nintendo is the ONE who bring FF and Dragon Quest to US market. These games were originally made by Enix and Square.
2nd: Yes, the US market WAS DUMB at that time and younger than now. Games like Mortal Kombat are not a big success in Japan. Companies like Square like to make money. They are the one who decided to not port their games to US become they thought it was too immature. Also it's not a matter of underestimate the intellects in US, it's a matter of underestimates the number of intellects in US interested in these types of games.
3rd: Despite the lag between Japan and US release, which is far less than 2 years by the way, except for games made by third parties like Final Fantasy, we had few games released in US first, like Super Mario Bros. 2 (the american version). I'm sure some Japanese are still frustrated about that...
4th: It's not because Nintendo treats their 3rd parties like shit that Square left. I fact, Square was with Nintendo during Nintendo's monopoly. Square left because Nintnedo refuse to give a special treatment to them (Sony paid FFVII publicity) and because their platform was cartridge-oriented.
Few other facts you said were true, but you're obviously not objective... In opposition with Microsoft, who made his monopoly with buggy software, Nintendo made it with great games (IMHO).
To answer your question, not just censoring. All the relation between Edge and Rydia (except the end) has been removed and all the personalities of the characters has been weaked. Some other information like the guy from the moon (don't remember his name) was the uncle of Cecil have also been removed. Sure the story is not really different, but it's presented in an adult way, a little bit like in FFVII.
It is missing two important things:
- A standard package format (RPM or DEB)
- A standard desktop framework (KDE or GNOME)
Am I wrong or standards are made so that many package formats or desktop framework can coexist? We need standards for copy-paste and all kind of interactions in the system. A desktop framework is not a standard, it's a choice. To me a standard is something more strict and simple.
It's false. FFIII (japan) introduced the job system. In fact many things (big chobocos, mugs, summon) have been introduced in FF II & III (never been released in U.S.). I strongly suggest you to get an emulator and get the translated ROMs of FF II & III (and also try the original translation of FFIV). You might like them.
For me, FFIV is the most important Final Fantasy game for two major things: storyline and music. The original story of FFIV, not the one we got in U.S., was great and SNES sound was just good enough to show Uematsu composer talents. But I'm not saying it is the best...
The argument in the article that this keyboard is good for typing documents and bad for games is funny for me. I mean, why the hell use a one-hand keyboard to type a Word document when you can do everything with the keyboard. But when I play StarCraft, I really need the mouse...
To me, only the "portable and compact" arguments are really valid.
How would you design a filesystem for a storage device with 1 TB or more? It seems to me that the directory tree concept would become unwieldy, too much stuff would get lost.
I don`t think the stuff would get more lost than now. You wouldn`t really have more files, but bigger files. I remember using 40 MB on a 286 and at that time it was big enough. Now I have 1000 times this space and I would like more to make backups in case of a disk crash. Having 4000 mp3 or 1000 divx, directories are still fine.
If this kind of technology is released soon enough, the real problem may be that the internet access speed don`t grow as fast as disk space...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, this is funny. The corrections on this web page are almost the same numbers as in the movie. Sometimes these numbers would even been to the advantage of the movie cause. Is it really important if they were 11,127 gun murders in the US, not 11,167? Anyway, it doesn't remove any credit to Bowling for Colombine analysis to me...
Regards,
You use the same drivers on Windows and Linux. Hummm... that's interesting...
Sure, but BTW, the compagny you're talking about is in big part owned by US investment funds. Even, if French are defending their interest, Russia also said they would use their veto and we were expecting a majority of security counsil to oppose US/England resolution. So why shit on French? Isn't US defending their interests? US have used their veto many more times than France, so what's the problem?
In England, Blair has succesfully voted his motion for war, but with the biggest rebellion of its own deputies in 100 years and with the demission of 3 ministers.
Yes, US have always been a symbol of democracy, and yes Irak is far from democratic, but there's a world democracy and it's called the UN. Don't say you agree with war in Iraq, we all want Saddam out. Think about the long-term consequences of ignoring UN. What next country will attack another one pretending doing it for its security? It's a shame what is happening right now. A shame for all of us, even if the operation is successful.
BTW, Irak can't attack US, so what is the real reason for all that? Many analyst said Bush need to correct economy situation to be reelected, and lower oil price would do it. Might not be the truth, but I think that makes sense.
Regards
Don't take it personal, but your comment shows a lot of ignorance about chess AI. There's too much possible moves per turn in chess and I don't know of a chess program that calculates them all. Usually a program will calculate, let's say, around 10 moves. The job is there: evaluate the 10 best moves. Remember than even doing that, you still won't calculate very further. Suppose 10 moves per turn, one for black, one for white, it makes 100 moves per turn for both players. For only 7 complete turns you have to calculate 100,000,000,000,000 moves. It means your algorithm to evaluate positions needs to be very good, since, for example for a sacrifice, you only see calculable benefits after many more turns, sometime only in final.
Like Kasparov, I very impressed to see a machine making an intelligent sacrifice; this is usually how you trap a computer. There's no doubt to me that Kasparov is still superior to any machine, but when machines begin to show some interesting moves, they begin to teach something. I'm a chess player and I understand chess enough to consider it an art. I can see emotions or genius in a game the same way some see it in painting. A big part of music is mathematical and if we're wise enough to build programs that create innovative chess games, maybe we can build some that create good melodies, who knows. I understand it may sound wierd for non-chess players to compare chess with an art, but creating a melody is also "a very limited, structured problem" and no one doubt it's an art. The main difference is that chess has a clear and easy to measure result. I don't think is "the holy grail sense of AI", but it is an important milestone in AI, no doubt for me.
Regards,
Nicolas Fleury
Well, to me it's a proof of how much open source is successful, not the opposite. Freedom, it's all free software is about. If we are able to have the quality we have right now (and always improving) without making anyone insanely rich like Microsoft is doing with Windows and Office, than it's great.
Yes, we need companies like Red Hat to make profits because they need to stay there. But hey, they are making profits by selling Linux! Linux market continues to grow and I think we can afford to have less distributors. Except because of temporary economic difficulties, we can expect to see revenues of distributors to grow.
Yes, Linux is taking more market share to other Unixes than Windows, but again, it seems good to me. If Sun, IBM, HP, etc. can put more effort in free software than prioritary software, it's a win for us.
Since I've installed RH 5.2 few years ago, I've been really impressed by open source software progress year after year. Today, I'm a Linux developer and my compagny plans to switch from Irix to Linux over the next year. Almost everytime I download a Windows software, I see also a Linux version with a smile. It's like a few years ago dream.
Wal Mart selling Linux PCs... Honestly, how could it be better (considering time needed for change)? We have no idea when Linux progress will stop and its current state is already impressive. Isn't all geeks premonitions coming true for now?
In the next weeks, I'll buy a friend PC, install Windows for my girlfriend and install Linux for myself. My first install without dual boot, and I'm not afraid to switch back to or adding Windows if necessary, 'cause looking at Linux progress, I'm more and more confident that someday, if it's not already the case, free software will offer a complete and poweful alternative to prioritary software for simple desktop users. I don't want my children to pay for an operating system at a dictated price and year after year, I'm more reassured.
"If Spirits Within were a GAME, even with the same plot, it would probably be considered the most amazing RPG ever, story-wise (oooh!! sweeping epic!)."
The story was still much poorer than usual FF stories. FF plots usually have more depth and left the player with some mysteries (unless you do everything). The movie plot was too clear and too simple. I guess FF creators were not used to make stories that last only 2 hours...
You are saying a lot of wrong information.
1st: Nintendo is the ONE who bring FF and Dragon Quest to US market. These games were originally made by Enix and Square.
2nd: Yes, the US market WAS DUMB at that time and younger than now. Games like Mortal Kombat are not a big success in Japan. Companies like Square like to make money. They are the one who decided to not port their games to US become they thought it was too immature. Also it's not a matter of underestimate the intellects in US, it's a matter of underestimates the number of intellects in US interested in these types of games.
3rd: Despite the lag between Japan and US release, which is far less than 2 years by the way, except for games made by third parties like Final Fantasy, we had few games released in US first, like Super Mario Bros. 2 (the american version). I'm sure some Japanese are still frustrated about that...
4th: It's not because Nintendo treats their 3rd parties like shit that Square left. I fact, Square was with Nintendo during Nintendo's monopoly. Square left because Nintnedo refuse to give a special treatment to them (Sony paid FFVII publicity) and because their platform was cartridge-oriented.
Few other facts you said were true, but you're obviously not objective... In opposition with Microsoft, who made his monopoly with buggy software, Nintendo made it with great games (IMHO).
(sorry for poor english)
To answer your question, not just censoring. All the relation between Edge and Rydia (except the end) has been removed and all the personalities of the characters has been weaked. Some other information like the guy from the moon (don't remember his name) was the uncle of Cecil have also been removed. Sure the story is not really different, but it's presented in an adult way, a little bit like in FFVII.
For me, FFIV is the most important Final Fantasy game for two major things: storyline and music. The original story of FFIV, not the one we got in U.S., was great and SNES sound was just good enough to show Uematsu composer talents. But I'm not saying it is the best...
The argument in the article that this keyboard is good for typing documents and bad for games is funny for me. I mean, why the hell use a one-hand keyboard to type a Word document when you can do everything with the keyboard. But when I play StarCraft, I really need the mouse... To me, only the "portable and compact" arguments are really valid.
If this kind of technology is released soon enough, the real problem may be that the internet access speed don`t grow as fast as disk space...