Like every other fear mongering cause, (Anthropic Global Warming) is being used to justify taking your money or your freedom.
Let's make a short recent list:
The Cold War
The War on Drugs
The War on Terrorism
Global Warming
You're forgetting that The Cold War was a real thing... do you think tens of thousands of megatons of nuclear weaponry on twenty-four hour alert for 40 years was "fear mongering"?
I have to agree with you that the War on Drugs is a farce and the War on Terrorism is a political strawman to consolidate power, both started by the Neocons. (The War on Drugs was started by the Neocons during the Reagan administration.) However, to lump global warming in with these is counter-intuitive. Neoconservatives will dispute the existence of global warming right up until their coastal beach houses are underwater.
Who stands to benefit from reductions in greenhouse emissions? No one. It's a lose-lose situation all around. The Conservative leadership of the United States is playing a global game of "chicken" with the rest of the world to see who flinches first.
This is about triage. This is about slowing our own growth before our growth outstrips the very medium (the planet) on which it flourishes.
This is the guy, his arm pinned under a log, debating whether or not he should cut off the arm and let the body survive or maintain the status quo by not cutting it off and die much sooner. Yours is the arguement made by the arm.
It is an ages-old rule in journalism that one writes for the least common denominator (or close to it). This explains why the articles in Playboy magazine are written at a 10-year-old reading level...
...when the primary consumer of newspaper articles shifted from intelligent (human) news consumers to the largely autistic (stoopid) search engines, the content had to be dumbed down to their level.
When you let a computer program do the evaluating for you, the results will only be as sophisticated as the algorithm that processed the data. Lacking the breadth of knowledge that humans do, current search engines lack the sophistication of a human reader, missing instances of similie, metaphor, et cetera. Does this surprise anyone?
They go on to show some increased correlation for digital phones for "ipsilateral" (same side) use, as well an increased correlation as time of exposure increases.
A more interesting question: what is it about people who use cell phones (esp. early adopters who heavily used analog phones) that increases their chance of brain tumors? Do they fly more? Are they more likely to be exposed to other environmental agents?
Wouldn't the increased correlation between digital phone use and "ipsilateral" (same side) brain cancers that you mention invalidate the "more interesting question" you propose? Are there other potentially cancer-inducing activities that would also only occur on the same side of the head as phone use? I can't think of many, if any at all.
The Wal*Mart Phenomenon is quite real and well documented. The PBS investigative journalism show FRONTLINE paints a very telling picture of Wal*Mart's economic strategies in the show "Is Wal*Mart Good For America?"
Click the 'View This Program Online' link on the episode's homepage.
FRONTLINE the relationship between U.S. job losses and the American consumer's insatiable desire for bargains. Through interviews with retail executives, product manufacturers, economists, and trade experts, correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way of doing business and asks whether a single retail giant has changed the American economy.
I agree! Bill's disingenuous pining over a lack of US job applicants is the doing of companies like his own.
Why would I want to go out and become heavily trained in a highly specialized kind of knowledge (CompSci), only to watch company after company outsource every job I am trained to do?
It's really hard to outsource jobs in areas like physical education to overseas IT sweatshops. Such a job would require an overseas person to come here in order to do their job, negating the savings benefit of outsourcing.
Then again, if we could outsource Phys Ed, my kid could learn Tai Chi, Kung Fu or Yoga instead of the stupid Crab Walk and Teatherball...
You still haven't read the EPSON literature, right? Their UltraChrome Ink does use acrylic as a binder (like Liquitex or any other brand of acrylic artist paints) and it does penetrate the paper (they have a nifty little diagram on page 2 of their online brochure).
When it comes to claims made by any person, corporation, or government, I am one of the most cynical people I know. But EPSON cannot claim to have something they do not. Terminology like "milled pigment" and "acrylic suspension" (aka: acrylic BINDER if that's the word you need to hear) have scientific meaning. If EPSON claims to have them then they darn well better have them or people/other companies will sue them.
I don't care so much about the word "archival" because it has no true definition. How long is archival? 10 years, 100 years, 1,000,000,000 years? None of the above are true and all of the above are true, because the word archival has no standard definition. But that's OK because every manufacturer lists their ink longevity now, so the word archival is irrelevant. (or maybe meaningless is a better term...)
Who cares what 'archival' means anyway. It ranks right up there with extremely precise words like 'yummy', 'superific', and 'egregious'.
I have seen photographic prints at my local art museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, which were made with antique processes so volatile that they must be displayed behind a black cloth shroud to keep out light. Visitors to the museum have to lift the shroud to view them. Such volatile processes are no less 'artistic', the art printed on them no less valid, than so-called archival processes. If it was the process the artist thought would best suit his or her creative needs then it must be valid.
The point of this, though, is that you should actually read their literature before you post a rebuttal saying it's a lie.
I have gone back to school to pursue a degree in architecture, having attended previously for graphic design. I have a professor who is constantly bashing Apple computers. It's bizarre. He claims to "be a Mac guy from way back." But all of the facts and statistics he quotes are from waaaay back, too! It's maddening having to listen to this guy quoting stuff that's completely out of date, just to bash a product he no longer understands. I only hope you're not doing the same, that's all.
I work in the print lab at school. This lets me collaborate very closely with the photography department. The professor I work with is a graduate of Cranbrook with a MFA in photography. Between the two of us we have a decent pool of knowledge (Cranbrook only accepts 7 or so grad students a year). We have experimented heavily and tested a myriad of products from different manufacturers. We've had really good results from this new EPSON ink. It outperforms their old products as well as the so-called archival stuff that everyone else is putting out. (Which, I have to agree with you, is junk.)
So my question to you is, have you actually seen output made with UltraCrome Ink?
Know why Macs have a reputation as great graphics machines? Because great machines are great for graphics and Macs are just plain great. Sure, they're like little portable supercomputers, but just because they're great at everything doesn't mean you couldn't use them for just Photography. You see... they have built in color management. And since you are a professional photography, I think you should consider actually investing money in your business, which means buying a real (non-flatbed) slide scanner and a good graphics machine!
I decided to learn about inkjet dyes and (pigment) inks immediately after reading sashuka's post. I felt it necessary after seeing him so vehemently deny the existence of pigment based ink. After fifteen minutes of light research, the following document revealed the existence of a milled pigment inkjet ink. EPSON's UltraChrome Ink Factsheet provides information in detail. Below are listed some of the clues to this ink's existence... clues which EPSON cleverly hid on their own website!
It appears that EPSON has had a line of inks for (at least) a year now that are milled pigment inks in an acrylic suspension. Their method of delivery is inkjet technology.
According to the literature, EPSON UltraChrome(tm) Inks are: "super penetrating pigment inks" that "are engineered to deliver incredible print quality and color brilliance rivaling that of dye based inks" and that have "a lightfastness rating of up to 82 years under glass on certain Epson media".
They further go on to describe these inks as consisting of: "Evenly milled microencapsulated pigments."
Since EPSON compares their ink to dye-based ink, and since dyes use pigments dissolved in solution, not "milled pigments in suspension", we can safely conclude that EPSON makes a non-dye based ink. This would seem to invalidate your proclamation that states, "there are no inkjet "inks," they are all dyes."
Now, I don't want to seem harsh here, but I feel you need a little bit of a scolding. You see, I'm tired of amature hobbyists who also happen to be intelligent jumping on Slashdot and proclaiming their knowledge of the state of the universe without actually knowing what they are talking about. There is something which tempers the sharp cutting edge of intelligence and guides its proper use. It's called wisdom.
One of the primary assumptions which wise people everywhere seem to know intrinsically is that no one knows everything about anything. So be careful when using words or phrases like never, impossible, no such thing, et cetera. I would also add that it compounds the problem when you make such proclamations in bold text. You might give off the impression that you are on a rant.
Perhaps you've confused function with fashion. I've never seen a back from Targus, REI, or any of these other companies in a Manhattan boutique's window. Totally different from Coach, Prada or Gucci.
The simple reality is this:
If you spent $2000-$4000 on a decent laptop and then fail to protect it properly by putting it in a $10 army surplus bag with absolutely no padding, you will get what you deserve.
Well designed laptop cases aren't about looks they're about protection, and you don't get a lot of protection for $10.
It's akin to owning a Porsche but putting the cheapest tires you can find on it.
Shaun Jackson, an architecture professor at the University of Michigan, has designed a series of totally unique laptop bags. They can even be layed on your lap to function as a portable desk.
I have been using the 15" BackOffice model for almost a year now and I will never switch to anything else. It does everything. My favorite features include:
Integral lap-desk functionality.
Backpack straps which hide away when not in use.
A strong, comfortable handle for briefcase carrying.
Killer design aesthetics.
Tons of cargo space. Easily enough room for a power supply, full-size mouse, pda or cell phone, 1" 3-ring binder and more.
NOTE: I am in no way related to Shaun or his company. I'm simply an extremely satisfied customer who believes in the quality and design of his products.
Can't we recall him or something? Orrin Hatch is extremely annoying. Corporate America has totally made him their bitch. He has been responsible for a ton of the legislation geared at taking away our rights little by little so that huge corporations can make more and more off of us. Somebody's got to pry this guy of the RIAA/MPAA teat!
No, I'm not talking about Ted Turner's article. It's not the BS. It's right on. The BS is everyone who thinks that Ted Turner has to have an alterior motive to voice an opinion like this.
The truth of the matter is, Ted is damn-spot-on right. Every word of that article is something that every American should heed.
You don't think it's a problem? Have you watched Fox News lately? Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is one of the huge abusers that Turner is referring to. There is currently a lawsuit against Fox to have "Fair and Balanced" be eliminated as their motto. Don't believe me? Check out Outfoxed.org
Why do you think the media coverage has been so miserable during this presidency? Why has the editorial content been so weak that it has failed to raise a single eyebrow? The effects of corporate media domination are all around us and we're letting them tell us it's okay!
Microsoft, for example, conducts a great deal of its business outside the law. No, Microsoft is not above the law, they simply find it is more profitable to break our laws and pay the fines. Over and over and over again. And don't think this is limited to our buddy Billy's empire. Breaking the law in the name of profits is de rigeur the order of the day in corporate America. Remember Enron? Now add Monsanto, AOL Time-Warner, ALCOA, and a hundred other giants.
The corporate music giants are blackmailing our universities through their puppet group, the RIAA. "Pony up for our legal Napster service or we'll sue you and your students all the way to the poor house."
If any of you doubt this, check your local movie listings and see the film "The Corporation." If it isn't showing near you, wait a little while and rent or buy it when it comes out on DVD. (I'm pretty sure I saw it on IRC the other day...) These are issues we must all think about, whether we agree with the views presented or not.
IN ORDER TO MAKE UP OUR MINDS, WE MUST FIRST PULL OUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND AND USE THEM! You don't have to agree with me, I don't require blind confidence. I do, however, ask that you to take the time to learn about and consider these issues. Reject them if you will, but do so only once you understand the issues. How can we reject ideas we know nothing about?
We must call our legislators to action. We need to get the corporations and their lobbyists out of Washington. We need to create new restrictions on corporate behavior that protect the interests of the public good. If we don't protect ourselves from the actions of corporations, who will? The corporations themselves certainly won't. It's simply not profitable to do so, and profit is the only motivator in the conciousness of the corporation.
The huge flaw with algae-created bio-diesel, aside from where the heck to put it, is the fact that these little buggers would still be producing OIL. Bio-diesel would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it does nothing from an environmental standpoint.
Diesel, whether it comes from fossil origins or from algae, still produces greenhouse gases when burned. These include: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulfurhexafluoride along with many other agents.
The greenhouse effect is the primary contributor to global warming, a phenomenon whose negative repurcussions extend into fields such as agricultural productivity and economics. Since all reliable climate models show that increases in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are anthropogenic (man-caused), we cannot ignore the fact that we are causing it. The data further show that the burning of fossil fuels is one of the primary contributors to this build-up, along with industrial output. So, in short, we must stop burning fossil fuels and turn to alternative energy sources which do not produce greenhouse gases.
With electric vehicles and generators powered by hydrogen fuel cells, we could realize this potential. Additionally, "hot"-fusion power plants could become a reality in the next 30-50 years. The energy creation potential of this technology is staggering, and completely safe, with none of the nasty radioactive waste which results from fission power.
But unfortunately the music industry will have to settle for less money if they're giving us less product.
1) LESS DATA = LESS DETAIL = LESS MUSIC
What's the bitrate of a CD? Isn't it something like 1200 Kb/s versus 128 Kb/s of the iTunes music store's MP4-AAC files? You think there's nothing in that data that's getting chucked? Audiophiles cringe at the possibility that MP4/MP3/etc will supplant the audio cd. if you can't hear the difference, either your equipment isn't up to snuff, or you're just not listening.
2) LIMITATIONS ON YOUR FAIR USE
I can play a CD in any drive that supports CD audio, anytime, anywhere. iTunes limits the number of computers that a given file can be installed on.
3) MORE LIMITATIONS ON YOUR FAIR USE
Limited # of times you can back up/copy your files? Looking back on audio tapes, I don't seem to recall any limit to how many times I could copy a track from a CD to any of my mix tapes. Why should they have the right to limit this?
Even if you do choose to back up your iTunes music store MP4-AAC files to audio cd format, they have already lost all that information that got tossed when it was originally encoded for the music store. So even if you,i>do want to commit to hauling around bits instead of bits+atoms, the atoms you haul around have waaaay fewer bits on them!
WHY IS IT THAT EVERY TIME A NEW CONSUMER AUDIO FORMAT COMES OUT, THE QUALITY GOES DOWN!!!!
You are the one who is comparing Apple and Oranges. The reason that Lord of the Rings has such a high readership is because it has existed for more than half a century. The fact is this, you could use the same metaphor with The Shining, for instance. You don't give Stanley Kubrick the credit for writing the novel that Steven King wrote. Period.
This is patently absurd. The underlying philosophical themes in the anime are all present in the manga, only in a more solidly worked out form.
Of course, of course, of course the anime will feel more dynamic than the manga. It is moving while manga is a series of static frames.
So yes, the sound is very nice in the anime. Yes, the anime is very powerful. But you have forgotten one salient detail which makes all the difference in the world. Mamoru Oshii is reinterpreting Shirow's original story. It is not Oshii's story. Shirow wrote the manga long before the anime came out.
What you are proposing is like giving Peter Jackson credit for writing the Lord of the Rings trilogy simply because he directed the films. He lent great cinematic beauty to the story, but the story itself was written by Tolkien.
The same is true in GitS. Shirow wrote the story. So before you go making blanket statements about how misguided my news is, perhaps you should think about the creative process. To say Shirow is "only behind the manga," is to understate the importance of an author of a work. Other people could have directed the Ghost in the Shell anime project, but the project could not have existed in the first place if Shirow hadn't written the ideas behind it.
(Personally, I always felt like he shied away from digging into a storyline a deep as Appleseed when he was writing GitS. My guess is that he waded into the Appleseed storyline and he wove it too densely to extricate himself from it. Now he can't just tie up all the loose ends quickly and end it. So with GitS, he has a modular storyline that he can end and continue as he pleases, but it comes off as being less immersive and substantively real.)
The big eyes are actually an artifact left over from animation from the United States in the 30s and 40s (Think, Felix the Cat). The Japanese saw our big eyed animation and loved the expressiveness of it. Like our automotive industry in the early 80s, they took our idea, refined and improved upon it and sent it back across the ocean to us. : )
Why not simply run a digital optical out from the computer to a multi-channel distribution pre-amp/amp? Then the computer would be in charge of the stream and the audio hardware would take care of adjusting volume for and sending signal to the various rooms. You could install touchpads with volume controls in every room and route it all back to the distribution pre-amp. Why buy all that computer hardware when the audio hardware is so much cheaper. Just use the computer for the signal source.
Oops! You missed the fact that the display you referenced is manufactured by Samsung. The announcement in the original post is by NEC. So you might be comparing apples and oranges.
I think a stiff penalty for vaporware overhyping would give folks like Micro$oft pause before they release software. It seems like their supposed superiority over folks like the Linux crowd and Apple before them is based largely on corporate disinformation campaigns and the like. Perhaps it would level the playing field by making software vendors accountable for the quality of their products. Think of the old, "if car-makers followed the same rules as software companies, your car would crash on the way to work at least twice a week," arguement.
Sony owns a large chunk of Hollywood right now, don't they? Unless the company has grown so large that it's achieved schizoid-hydra-status, where one branch doesn't care about the rest of the corporate branches, I doubt it will step on any Hollywood toes.
Perhaps Sony has build in data detectors that sense Sony Pictures intellectual property and refuses to record it.
Knowing Sony, they've made the box based on some organo-computing principle and engineered that component to have to eat cookies to function. But not just any cookies... SONY-branded cookies. And any attempts at reverse-engineering them to produce aftermarket nourishment would result in a viral state that would eat the processor. Or something like that.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, your friends at Black's Photography don't support Camino, the OS X native rewrite of Firefox from our intrepid friends at Mozilla.org
You're forgetting that The Cold War was a real thing... do you think tens of thousands of megatons of nuclear weaponry on twenty-four hour alert for 40 years was "fear mongering"?
I have to agree with you that the War on Drugs is a farce and the War on Terrorism is a political strawman to consolidate power, both started by the Neocons. (The War on Drugs was started by the Neocons during the Reagan administration.) However, to lump global warming in with these is counter-intuitive. Neoconservatives will dispute the existence of global warming right up until their coastal beach houses are underwater.
Who stands to benefit from reductions in greenhouse emissions? No one. It's a lose-lose situation all around. The Conservative leadership of the United States is playing a global game of "chicken" with the rest of the world to see who flinches first.
This is about triage. This is about slowing our own growth before our growth outstrips the very medium (the planet) on which it flourishes.
This is the guy, his arm pinned under a log, debating whether or not he should cut off the arm and let the body survive or maintain the status quo by not cutting it off and die much sooner. Yours is the arguement made by the arm.
It is an ages-old rule in journalism that one writes for the least common denominator (or close to it). This explains why the articles in Playboy magazine are written at a 10-year-old reading level...
...when the primary consumer of newspaper articles shifted from intelligent (human) news consumers to the largely autistic (stoopid) search engines, the content had to be dumbed down to their level.
When you let a computer program do the evaluating for you, the results will only be as sophisticated as the algorithm that processed the data. Lacking the breadth of knowledge that humans do, current search engines lack the sophistication of a human reader, missing instances of similie, metaphor, et cetera. Does this surprise anyone?
Be your own media filter!
Wouldn't the increased correlation between digital phone use and "ipsilateral" (same side) brain cancers that you mention invalidate the "more interesting question" you propose? Are there other potentially cancer-inducing activities that would also only occur on the same side of the head as phone use? I can't think of many, if any at all.
I's think soh. Me not understand to good too. May be I watch to much teveee, uh... OMG Ponies!!! LOL LOL!!!
When oldskool is outlawed, only outlaws will be oldskool.
or... as Charlton Heston said...
FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!!!!
viva la Colecovision! hahahahah
The Wal*Mart Phenomenon is quite real and well documented. The PBS investigative journalism show FRONTLINE paints a very telling picture of Wal*Mart's economic strategies in the show "Is Wal*Mart Good For America?"
I agree! Bill's disingenuous pining over a lack of US job applicants is the doing of companies like his own.
Why would I want to go out and become heavily trained in a highly specialized kind of knowledge (CompSci), only to watch company after company outsource every job I am trained to do?
It's really hard to outsource jobs in areas like physical education to overseas IT sweatshops. Such a job would require an overseas person to come here in order to do their job, negating the savings benefit of outsourcing.
Then again, if we could outsource Phys Ed, my kid could learn Tai Chi, Kung Fu or Yoga instead of the stupid Crab Walk and Teatherball...
You still haven't read the EPSON literature, right? Their UltraChrome Ink does use acrylic as a binder (like Liquitex or any other brand of acrylic artist paints) and it does penetrate the paper (they have a nifty little diagram on page 2 of their online brochure).
When it comes to claims made by any person, corporation, or government, I am one of the most cynical people I know. But EPSON cannot claim to have something they do not. Terminology like "milled pigment" and "acrylic suspension" (aka: acrylic BINDER if that's the word you need to hear) have scientific meaning. If EPSON claims to have them then they darn well better have them or people/other companies will sue them.
I don't care so much about the word "archival" because it has no true definition. How long is archival? 10 years, 100 years, 1,000,000,000 years? None of the above are true and all of the above are true, because the word archival has no standard definition. But that's OK because every manufacturer lists their ink longevity now, so the word archival is irrelevant. (or maybe meaningless is a better term...)
Who cares what 'archival' means anyway. It ranks right up there with extremely precise words like 'yummy', 'superific', and 'egregious'.
I have seen photographic prints at my local art museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, which were made with antique processes so volatile that they must be displayed behind a black cloth shroud to keep out light. Visitors to the museum have to lift the shroud to view them. Such volatile processes are no less 'artistic', the art printed on them no less valid, than so-called archival processes. If it was the process the artist thought would best suit his or her creative needs then it must be valid.
The point of this, though, is that you should actually read their literature before you post a rebuttal saying it's a lie.
I have gone back to school to pursue a degree in architecture, having attended previously for graphic design. I have a professor who is constantly bashing Apple computers. It's bizarre. He claims to "be a Mac guy from way back." But all of the facts and statistics he quotes are from waaaay back, too! It's maddening having to listen to this guy quoting stuff that's completely out of date, just to bash a product he no longer understands. I only hope you're not doing the same, that's all.
I work in the print lab at school. This lets me collaborate very closely with the photography department. The professor I work with is a graduate of Cranbrook with a MFA in photography. Between the two of us we have a decent pool of knowledge (Cranbrook only accepts 7 or so grad students a year). We have experimented heavily and tested a myriad of products from different manufacturers. We've had really good results from this new EPSON ink. It outperforms their old products as well as the so-called archival stuff that everyone else is putting out. (Which, I have to agree with you, is junk.)
So my question to you is, have you actually seen output made with UltraCrome Ink?
Know why Macs have a reputation as great graphics machines? Because great machines are great for graphics and Macs are just plain great. Sure, they're like little portable supercomputers, but just because they're great at everything doesn't mean you couldn't use them for just Photography. You see... they have built in color management. And since you are a professional photography, I think you should consider actually investing money in your business, which means buying a real (non-flatbed) slide scanner and a good graphics machine!
I decided to learn about inkjet dyes and (pigment) inks immediately after reading sashuka's post. I felt it necessary after seeing him so vehemently deny the existence of pigment based ink. After fifteen minutes of light research, the following document revealed the existence of a milled pigment inkjet ink. EPSON's UltraChrome Ink Factsheet provides information in detail. Below are listed some of the clues to this ink's existence... clues which EPSON cleverly hid on their own website!
It appears that EPSON has had a line of inks for (at least) a year now that are milled pigment inks in an acrylic suspension. Their method of delivery is inkjet technology.
According to the literature, EPSON UltraChrome(tm) Inks are: "super penetrating pigment inks" that "are engineered to deliver incredible print quality and color brilliance rivaling that of dye based inks" and that have "a lightfastness rating of up to 82 years under glass on certain Epson media".
They further go on to describe these inks as consisting of: "Evenly milled microencapsulated pigments."
Since EPSON compares their ink to dye-based ink, and since dyes use pigments dissolved in solution, not "milled pigments in suspension", we can safely conclude that EPSON makes a non-dye based ink. This would seem to invalidate your proclamation that states, "there are no inkjet "inks," they are all dyes."
Now, I don't want to seem harsh here, but I feel you need a little bit of a scolding. You see, I'm tired of amature hobbyists who also happen to be intelligent jumping on Slashdot and proclaiming their knowledge of the state of the universe without actually knowing what they are talking about. There is something which tempers the sharp cutting edge of intelligence and guides its proper use. It's called wisdom.
One of the primary assumptions which wise people everywhere seem to know intrinsically is that no one knows everything about anything. So be careful when using words or phrases like never, impossible, no such thing, et cetera. I would also add that it compounds the problem when you make such proclamations in bold text. You might give off the impression that you are on a rant.
Perhaps you've confused function with fashion. I've never seen a back from Targus, REI, or any of these other companies in a Manhattan boutique's window. Totally different from Coach, Prada or Gucci.
The simple reality is this:
Well designed laptop cases aren't about looks they're about protection, and you don't get a lot of protection for $10.It's akin to owning a Porsche but putting the cheapest tires you can find on it.
Shaun Jackson, an architecture professor at the University of Michigan, has designed a series of totally unique laptop bags. They can even be layed on your lap to function as a portable desk. I have been using the 15" BackOffice model for almost a year now and I will never switch to anything else. It does everything. My favorite features include:
Here's a link to his website: http://www.sjdesign.com/
NOTE: I am in no way related to Shaun or his company. I'm simply an extremely satisfied customer who believes in the quality and design of his products.
Can't we recall him or something? Orrin Hatch is extremely annoying. Corporate America has totally made him their bitch. He has been responsible for a ton of the legislation geared at taking away our rights little by little so that huge corporations can make more and more off of us. Somebody's got to pry this guy of the RIAA/MPAA teat!
No, I'm not talking about Ted Turner's article. It's not the BS. It's right on. The BS is everyone who thinks that Ted Turner has to have an alterior motive to voice an opinion like this.
The truth of the matter is, Ted is damn-spot-on right. Every word of that article is something that every American should heed.
You don't think it's a problem? Have you watched Fox News lately? Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is one of the huge abusers that Turner is referring to. There is currently a lawsuit against Fox to have "Fair and Balanced" be eliminated as their motto. Don't believe me? Check out Outfoxed.org
Why do you think the media coverage has been so miserable during this presidency? Why has the editorial content been so weak that it has failed to raise a single eyebrow? The effects of corporate media domination are all around us and we're letting them tell us it's okay!
Microsoft, for example, conducts a great deal of its business outside the law. No, Microsoft is not above the law, they simply find it is more profitable to break our laws and pay the fines. Over and over and over again. And don't think this is limited to our buddy Billy's empire. Breaking the law in the name of profits is de rigeur the order of the day in corporate America. Remember Enron? Now add Monsanto, AOL Time-Warner, ALCOA, and a hundred other giants.
The corporate music giants are blackmailing our universities through their puppet group, the RIAA. "Pony up for our legal Napster service or we'll sue you and your students all the way to the poor house."
If any of you doubt this, check your local movie listings and see the film "The Corporation." If it isn't showing near you, wait a little while and rent or buy it when it comes out on DVD. (I'm pretty sure I saw it on IRC the other day...) These are issues we must all think about, whether we agree with the views presented or not.
IN ORDER TO MAKE UP OUR MINDS, WE MUST FIRST PULL OUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND AND USE THEM! You don't have to agree with me, I don't require blind confidence. I do, however, ask that you to take the time to learn about and consider these issues. Reject them if you will, but do so only once you understand the issues. How can we reject ideas we know nothing about?
We must call our legislators to action. We need to get the corporations and their lobbyists out of Washington. We need to create new restrictions on corporate behavior that protect the interests of the public good. If we don't protect ourselves from the actions of corporations, who will? The corporations themselves certainly won't. It's simply not profitable to do so, and profit is the only motivator in the conciousness of the corporation.
The huge flaw with algae-created bio-diesel, aside from where the heck to put it, is the fact that these little buggers would still be producing OIL. Bio-diesel would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it does nothing from an environmental standpoint.
Diesel, whether it comes from fossil origins or from algae, still produces greenhouse gases when burned. These include: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulfurhexafluoride along with many other agents.
The greenhouse effect is the primary contributor to global warming, a phenomenon whose negative repurcussions extend into fields such as agricultural productivity and economics. Since all reliable climate models show that increases in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are anthropogenic (man-caused), we cannot ignore the fact that we are causing it. The data further show that the burning of fossil fuels is one of the primary contributors to this build-up, along with industrial output. So, in short, we must stop burning fossil fuels and turn to alternative energy sources which do not produce greenhouse gases.
With electric vehicles and generators powered by hydrogen fuel cells, we could realize this potential. Additionally, "hot"-fusion power plants could become a reality in the next 30-50 years. The energy creation potential of this technology is staggering, and completely safe, with none of the nasty radioactive waste which results from fission power.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
for more information on global warming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
But unfortunately the music industry will have to settle for less money if they're giving us less product.
,i>do want to commit to hauling around bits instead of bits+atoms, the atoms you haul around have waaaay fewer bits on them!
1) LESS DATA = LESS DETAIL = LESS MUSIC
What's the bitrate of a CD? Isn't it something like 1200 Kb/s versus 128 Kb/s of the iTunes music store's MP4-AAC files? You think there's nothing in that data that's getting chucked? Audiophiles cringe at the possibility that MP4/MP3/etc will supplant the audio cd. if you can't hear the difference, either your equipment isn't up to snuff, or you're just not listening.
2) LIMITATIONS ON YOUR FAIR USE
I can play a CD in any drive that supports CD audio, anytime, anywhere. iTunes limits the number of computers that a given file can be installed on.
3) MORE LIMITATIONS ON YOUR FAIR USE
Limited # of times you can back up/copy your files? Looking back on audio tapes, I don't seem to recall any limit to how many times I could copy a track from a CD to any of my mix tapes. Why should they have the right to limit this?
Even if you do choose to back up your iTunes music store MP4-AAC files to audio cd format, they have already lost all that information that got tossed when it was originally encoded for the music store. So even if you
WHY IS IT THAT EVERY TIME A NEW CONSUMER AUDIO FORMAT COMES OUT, THE QUALITY GOES DOWN!!!!
You are the one who is comparing Apple and Oranges. The reason that Lord of the Rings has such a high readership is because it has existed for more than half a century. The fact is this, you could use the same metaphor with The Shining, for instance. You don't give Stanley Kubrick the credit for writing the novel that Steven King wrote. Period.
This is patently absurd. The underlying philosophical themes in the anime are all present in the manga, only in a more solidly worked out form.
Of course, of course, of course the anime will feel more dynamic than the manga. It is moving while manga is a series of static frames.
So yes, the sound is very nice in the anime. Yes, the anime is very powerful. But you have forgotten one salient detail which makes all the difference in the world. Mamoru Oshii is reinterpreting Shirow's original story. It is not Oshii's story. Shirow wrote the manga long before the anime came out.
What you are proposing is like giving Peter Jackson credit for writing the Lord of the Rings trilogy simply because he directed the films. He lent great cinematic beauty to the story, but the story itself was written by Tolkien.
The same is true in GitS. Shirow wrote the story. So before you go making blanket statements about how misguided my news is, perhaps you should think about the creative process. To say Shirow is "only behind the manga," is to understate the importance of an author of a work. Other people could have directed the Ghost in the Shell anime project, but the project could not have existed in the first place if Shirow hadn't written the ideas behind it.
CAN I GET AN AMEN! ;-)
(Personally, I always felt like he shied away from digging into a storyline a deep as Appleseed when he was writing GitS. My guess is that he waded into the Appleseed storyline and he wove it too densely to extricate himself from it. Now he can't just tie up all the loose ends quickly and end it. So with GitS, he has a modular storyline that he can end and continue as he pleases, but it comes off as being less immersive and substantively real.)
The big eyes are actually an artifact left over from animation from the United States in the 30s and 40s (Think, Felix the Cat). The Japanese saw our big eyed animation and loved the expressiveness of it. Like our automotive industry in the early 80s, they took our idea, refined and improved upon it and sent it back across the ocean to us. : )
Why not simply run a digital optical out from the computer to a multi-channel distribution pre-amp/amp? Then the computer would be in charge of the stream and the audio hardware would take care of adjusting volume for and sending signal to the various rooms. You could install touchpads with volume controls in every room and route it all back to the distribution pre-amp. Why buy all that computer hardware when the audio hardware is so much cheaper. Just use the computer for the signal source.
Oops! You missed the fact that the display you referenced is manufactured by Samsung. The announcement in the original post is by NEC. So you might be comparing apples and oranges.
I think a stiff penalty for vaporware overhyping would give folks like Micro$oft pause before they release software. It seems like their supposed superiority over folks like the Linux crowd and Apple before them is based largely on corporate disinformation campaigns and the like. Perhaps it would level the playing field by making software vendors accountable for the quality of their products. Think of the old, "if car-makers followed the same rules as software companies, your car would crash on the way to work at least twice a week," arguement.
Sony owns a large chunk of Hollywood right now, don't they? Unless the company has grown so large that it's achieved schizoid-hydra-status, where one branch doesn't care about the rest of the corporate branches, I doubt it will step on any Hollywood toes.
Perhaps Sony has build in data detectors that sense Sony Pictures intellectual property and refuses to record it.
Knowing Sony, they've made the box based on some organo-computing principle and engineered that component to have to eat cookies to function. But not just any cookies... SONY-branded cookies. And any attempts at reverse-engineering them to produce aftermarket nourishment would result in a viral state that would eat the processor. Or something like that. ;-)