Clearly, GIMP needs a complete fork. There are sooo many different partial enhancements, revisions, face-lifts and the like, and none of them actually work all that well/universally. Something like, say, inkscape, which works identically on all platforms (natively, without any hosery) or OpenOffice.org would be pretty damn useful for bitmapped graphics. We've got gimpshop, gimp.app, GimpPhoto, and surely a handful of others I'm not immediately familiar with.
Most of the major functionality is "there" in GIMP, as I understand things. I understand there is (or was until very recently) some problems with it's "professional" color rendering precision or some such thing, and a handful of other things. I'm surprised there hasn't been a concerted effort to fork things to something "new" and more universally accessible instead of the arcane, cumbersome menus.
Personally, I'd love to see a "Photoshop Pro" type UI, or for that matter: I'd be quite happy to have a working Paint.NET or similar.
Actually, the skin color would be closer to a "white Mexican" (as opposed to a native-skinned Mexican): a blending of the 30% of blacks, increasing South American population, and existing white populations. It'll probably be more "brown-black" than "white" - white people aren't reproducing much anymore.
Actually, I probably shouldn't have posted; I was getting pretty tired. My point was lost: I did make that quote reference in the sense that it was originally intended: you've got to get together and work together, but work together realizing that there are differences which require said fence in the first place. That's why the fences were there: keep the outside, out.
The final sentence of that post was in reference to the excessive "cultural mandate" of ethno-diversity which has, frankly, not worked out so well with the degree of excess we have tackled it.
The difference between skilled workers and the "lower classes" is that the lower classes tend to not integrate; they're the ones which form the ghettos and will sometimes foster negative worldviews against their host country. This can be readily seen in Italy and France, as well as in parts of the Southwest US. It's not endemic to non-natives, either, and it can take a long time to integrate: Chinese in San Francisco, blacks in Hollywood, and until fairly recently the Irish and Italians in Boston and NY.
Skilled workers, on the other hand, tend to adopt a great deal more of the prevailing culture due to being a smaller percentage of the overall "local" population: there is social pressure to integrate. At the same time, they offer a "cultural injection" to the local area, giving it a new life and color.
Personally, I'm 100% for immigration. Hell, "illegal" immigration does not bother me so much. The problem I have is that the numbers of immigrants are too many (throughout the Western world) for the immigrants to effectively integrate with the parent society to any significant degree within a generation. Groups like Lutheran Social Services don't help matters by moving large non-endemic populations to various places throughout the Midwest at a time: those groups do not integrate, they form ghettos (albeit in smaller or medium sized cities, so they don't look like an inner city ghetto).
That's interesting. Though, my impression is that, pragmatically speaking, it's one and the same: if you're against Israel-as-a-state's policy, then you're more-or-less against the existence of Israel and a Jewish people at all. The last 30 years have made it pretty clear that their Arab/Muslim neighbors are dead-set against their existence - culturally, religiously, ethnically, and so on.
Here's something nobody ever considers: what makes different skin colors "diverse"? They don't; they make people different colors. Associating race/color with diversity is a slight to all people, as it in and of itself is truly racist: "Oh, look; he has different color skin. He must be different/exciting/exotic/angry/mean/fun!" No, he's just a man - like you and like me, and every other goddamn man on this planet. (We then go on to associate their skin color or features with their behavior, as is biologically imperative, just as a soldier learns what an enemy combatant's uniform looks like or a dog learns that a specific bag that comes into the house every once in a while has treats.)
Also, xenophobic and racist have two very distinctly different meanings. Racism is a hatred of an "essence" of a person's race, and those people; xenophobia is a fear (and maybe hatred) of outside cultures and forces, which is much more understandable (and natural, as such things tend to be disruptive.) What I suspect has happened in Poland (and has/is happening in many other places as well) is that it's an internal struggle trying to deal with what is seen as an invading culture and way of life - fear and anger at their structured world being disrupted, and someone 'forcing' change around them in their environment. Look at the Balkans for a perfect example: many distinctly different cultures, but all (mostly) very genetically similar people, yet... chaos. Their cultures are night and day from each other, resulting in an ethnic clusterf*ck.
I think people in today's 'diverse' and 'connected' world need to take a step back and look at what used to make sense, in so many ways: good fences make good neighbors. All this cultural "blending" (which doesn't happen, ethnic ghettos form with a few stragglers leave to join the 'parent' culture to give the appearance of diversity) is not going to end well for anyone.
Many Polish people may indeed be nationalist, they may be anti-semites, russophobes... but racists?
I'm seeing/hearing a lot of sentiments like this lately. If being anti-Semite or a Russophobe isn't "racist", then what is it? Are you to say that "racist" can only be applied against someone who's "hating" on "black" people? That's absurd. It leaves absolutely no classification/terminology (that I'm aware of) for people who are afraid of/hate Western Europeans (and those of their descent, commonly called "white"), Mexican, or the like.
Considering how often idiots everywhere in the media have been trotting out "racist!" in the last 6 months, I'm prone to support MS in their whitewashing in this instance. I am so, so very sick and tired of all this "racist" shit flying around, most often from the Left to the Right (politically speaking).
In the media, it has happened repeatedly that someone says "behavior made by so-and-so is racist" and then the media turns around and labels -those- comments as racist. The fuck? On both counts, honestly. Can we try and use different words, maybe? Words which haven't been pushed to the point of uselessness due to having been excessively gamed for political and financial gain and have reached the level of a curse word in our modern lexicon? The damn word has been used - successfully - to damn people many, many times in the eyes of the public for acts which may or may not have actually -been- racist, particularly in context. The media (you know, the one that wanted to leave the era of race behind us, back in November) is pushing this 'racism' agenda and is seemingly trying to create the new "Jew". It's sickening.
And no, it's not JUST "the media". It's our whole damn society. Say you don't like rap music? Someone might accuse you of racism. Shit, Bill Cosby has been accused of as much for ripping into black "culture". (Personally, I think the comments that Beck made were intended to convey the same 'cultural ambivalence' that Cosby did; but unlike Cosby, Beck is a bit of a tool and not all together good with words.)
Yeah, anyway. So, no, it wasn't cool for MS to hire a company to do that, but it's flippin' marketing. That's what marketing does: lies, cajoles, distorts, and tries to pull the wool over the consumer's eyes. It's they're job. It's detestable, but expecting anything else is like expecting a dog to not shit on the carpet (bad dog! bad!)
That doesn't mean I don't think we should helm a ship with robots and give all the marketeers and lawyers a free trip to China via the Atlantic Divide.
That's nonsense. It doesn't explain why designed-for-linux netbooks like the Linux Eee systems perform as poorly as they do.
I would bet that the problem can be largely attributed to 1) vm.swappiness being set too high and (IMO every laptop user should set vm.swappiness = 0 unless they know a higher metric would help their specific operation behavior) 2) ext3 sucks horribly, 3) linux often defaulting to the 'standard' and ignoring/overriding hardware bugs which might be accounted for in the closed drivers (such as with the BIOS), 4) hard drive power management options/defaults are usually not very good and do not account for/override filesystem settings.
There might be something else to it, too. I've personally never had a laptop that got better battery performance in Linux than in Windows; it's always just been Part of the Deal of running Linux to get worse battery life, despite what I've heard others say.
Simple solution: shut down the border to Mexico, and send all the illegals back. Problem solved: you've quarantined the disease vector, and you've just reduced the infections to those who travel to 3rd world countries (except for statistically insignificant accounts).
I agree with you that healthcare is like a fire or police department. Neither of those, however, should be (or have historically been) federally funded. They, like healthcare, should be a local issue (if we're going to cast it in the light of a security issue at all).
And what are we talking about when we're talking about 'healthcare'? Are we talking about prescription drugs for people who have lived poorly (diabetes) when they refuse to change their lifestyle? Should the fireman risk his existence to save the idiot who refuses to leave his burning home?
If we're talking about epidemics and healthcare when it's a triage or similar situation (emergencies), certainly. But a pregnancy isn't an emergency, and neither is a preventable disease brought on by self-abuse.
And I suppose you want people to believe that these problems - as well as the diseases - are largely the fault of the USA, aka Americans, right? Not completely true, or honest.
I recently saw a handful of maps displaying statistical information with regard to various "3rd world" diseases, dividing it up by both state and county. Unless you're paying attention to demographics, you'd never expect the results: these diseases are primarily occurring in southern border states, in counties where there is a significant "Southern" influence. Likewise, many counties in NY and NJ, with high illegal populations, are having these problems.
These diseases aren't due to the decline of the US, per se. They're introduced diseases which come here and spread amongst illegals and those they interact with. This is the kind of thing that the nuts like Pat Buchanan talk about; unfortunately, at least on things like this and the dangers of illegal immigration, they are correct. We would be negligent to ignore their presentation of facts due to their ideological skewer.
Sparklers have more in them than magnesium. That's how you're able to be lit by a simple lighter or match and why they sparkle. I believe gunpowder is a minor ingredient, but I've no idea what else. While such a mess would not explode, it would burn very, very quickly and shoot off sparks in a myriad of directions.
Oh, really. You should have one of those good forensic guys go here and accept the challenge on that page; it would be pretty financially lucrative, if what you say is true. But it isn't true; such a recovery is impossible until proven otherwise.
Interestingly, I have heard that some electronics, like televisions are far more reliable than they've ever been before.
No, it's an original. Front 'bay' loading model with the pop-up door. The bay still goes down and stays down properly. We got it in '91, I think, and I'd seen friends abuse their's so I knew what Didn't Work. (Our dad being comfortable and knowledgeable with electronics and their proper use didn't hurt, I suppose.)
My brother and I played the hell out of it for about 10 years. We played hundreds and beat dozens of games, wore out three controllers (guess which button), and broke a cable (fixed and replaced by Dad). This was followed by my sister and her friends (comparably) abusing it for 4 years while she was in college. Though I will admit that both my brother and I took relatively good care of both the NES and our toys, compared to most kids.
Actually, it was at 20 (he's almost 6 and there was 9 months of pregnancy where manning-up was required).
You can feel sympathy for me if I'm allowed to hold disdain and pity for you and your irresponsible, hedonistic lifestyle. Somehow, I think we need more responsible young adults (and children) in this world, particularly the developed world, than we need emotionally uncommitted, self-focused, single 30-year-olds who spend all of their money on self-gratification.
I recall several friends having Nintendo consoles that wouldn't load cartridges properly. The common technique used to try to get them to work was to blow into the cartridge; I'm not sure that it actually helped, but everyone tried it.
Well, yeah. Mine does that too. It's due to poor contact between the cartridge and the pins in the NES: it's no different than a dirty disk or dust on the laser in a DVD/CD drive, really. The blowing helped short-term because it would introduce moisture to the NES and/or cartridge, while blowing away dust. The moisture would lead to a better electrical contact, allowing the game to boot. I suspect that, long term, it led to more problems (moisture/salt in saliva = corrosion).
I do know that a couple kids who had the cleaner cartridge kit (myself included) had very few problems.
Interestingly, I have heard that some electronics, like televisions are far more reliable than they've ever been before.
I can believe that if we're talking about LCDs, but plasma displays and normal backlit CRT TVs were getting really, really bad there for a while - to the point where people would replace them every couple years due to failure (I knew of several people who did this).
Or alcohol and a cotton swab (the long ones the doctors use to take cultures works for the inside of the NES). BTDT. The only other thing, as near as I can tell, is gradual wearing of the pins/contacts. It only started happening 5 years or so on my NES, and it's easily rectifiable if you're willing to take the NES apart and give the pins more tension.
You do know what happens to all those 9V, AA, and AAA batteries you see in grocery stores after people use them up, right? How about the batteries in laptops? Yeah, that's right: the average person throws them away. As in, in the landfill.
If they don't throw them away when they die, they throw them in the trash when they're doing some housecleaning or getting ready to move. Even in the locations where recycling batteries is possible and suggested, batteries are accepted at the dump/landfill. Especially for something like a car battery: people will throw that sucker away if they can (and can't get it exchanged for a discount on the new one).
Here's what I want to know: what is the point of this? I mean, I get the novelty and buzz, but this seems kinda half-assed to me. Why not just sell your magazine in an eBook format for the Kindle (or similar) and sell video ads on there?
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly, GIMP needs a complete fork. There are sooo many different partial enhancements, revisions, face-lifts and the like, and none of them actually work all that well/universally. Something like, say, inkscape, which works identically on all platforms (natively, without any hosery) or OpenOffice.org would be pretty damn useful for bitmapped graphics. We've got gimpshop, gimp.app, GimpPhoto, and surely a handful of others I'm not immediately familiar with.
Most of the major functionality is "there" in GIMP, as I understand things. I understand there is (or was until very recently) some problems with it's "professional" color rendering precision or some such thing, and a handful of other things. I'm surprised there hasn't been a concerted effort to fork things to something "new" and more universally accessible instead of the arcane, cumbersome menus.
Personally, I'd love to see a "Photoshop Pro" type UI, or for that matter: I'd be quite happy to have a working Paint.NET or similar.
Or FACE TOWARDS ENEMY.
Actually, the skin color would be closer to a "white Mexican" (as opposed to a native-skinned Mexican): a blending of the 30% of blacks, increasing South American population, and existing white populations. It'll probably be more "brown-black" than "white" - white people aren't reproducing much anymore.
Actually, I probably shouldn't have posted; I was getting pretty tired. My point was lost: I did make that quote reference in the sense that it was originally intended: you've got to get together and work together, but work together realizing that there are differences which require said fence in the first place. That's why the fences were there: keep the outside, out.
The final sentence of that post was in reference to the excessive "cultural mandate" of ethno-diversity which has, frankly, not worked out so well with the degree of excess we have tackled it.
The difference between skilled workers and the "lower classes" is that the lower classes tend to not integrate; they're the ones which form the ghettos and will sometimes foster negative worldviews against their host country. This can be readily seen in Italy and France, as well as in parts of the Southwest US. It's not endemic to non-natives, either, and it can take a long time to integrate: Chinese in San Francisco, blacks in Hollywood, and until fairly recently the Irish and Italians in Boston and NY.
Skilled workers, on the other hand, tend to adopt a great deal more of the prevailing culture due to being a smaller percentage of the overall "local" population: there is social pressure to integrate. At the same time, they offer a "cultural injection" to the local area, giving it a new life and color.
Personally, I'm 100% for immigration. Hell, "illegal" immigration does not bother me so much. The problem I have is that the numbers of immigrants are too many (throughout the Western world) for the immigrants to effectively integrate with the parent society to any significant degree within a generation. Groups like Lutheran Social Services don't help matters by moving large non-endemic populations to various places throughout the Midwest at a time: those groups do not integrate, they form ghettos (albeit in smaller or medium sized cities, so they don't look like an inner city ghetto).
That's interesting. Though, my impression is that, pragmatically speaking, it's one and the same: if you're against Israel-as-a-state's policy, then you're more-or-less against the existence of Israel and a Jewish people at all. The last 30 years have made it pretty clear that their Arab/Muslim neighbors are dead-set against their existence - culturally, religiously, ethnically, and so on.
It's on the bed right next to the 9; 8 is supposedly filming.
Here's something nobody ever considers: what makes different skin colors "diverse"? They don't; they make people different colors. Associating race/color with diversity is a slight to all people, as it in and of itself is truly racist: "Oh, look; he has different color skin. He must be different/exciting/exotic/angry/mean/fun!" No, he's just a man - like you and like me, and every other goddamn man on this planet. (We then go on to associate their skin color or features with their behavior, as is biologically imperative, just as a soldier learns what an enemy combatant's uniform looks like or a dog learns that a specific bag that comes into the house every once in a while has treats.)
Also, xenophobic and racist have two very distinctly different meanings. Racism is a hatred of an "essence" of a person's race, and those people; xenophobia is a fear (and maybe hatred) of outside cultures and forces, which is much more understandable (and natural, as such things tend to be disruptive.) What I suspect has happened in Poland (and has/is happening in many other places as well) is that it's an internal struggle trying to deal with what is seen as an invading culture and way of life - fear and anger at their structured world being disrupted, and someone 'forcing' change around them in their environment. Look at the Balkans for a perfect example: many distinctly different cultures, but all (mostly) very genetically similar people, yet... chaos. Their cultures are night and day from each other, resulting in an ethnic clusterf*ck.
I think people in today's 'diverse' and 'connected' world need to take a step back and look at what used to make sense, in so many ways: good fences make good neighbors. All this cultural "blending" (which doesn't happen, ethnic ghettos form with a few stragglers leave to join the 'parent' culture to give the appearance of diversity) is not going to end well for anyone.
Many Polish people may indeed be nationalist, they may be anti-semites, russophobes... but racists?
I'm seeing/hearing a lot of sentiments like this lately. If being anti-Semite or a Russophobe isn't "racist", then what is it? Are you to say that "racist" can only be applied against someone who's "hating" on "black" people? That's absurd. It leaves absolutely no classification/terminology (that I'm aware of) for people who are afraid of/hate Western Europeans (and those of their descent, commonly called "white"), Mexican, or the like.
Considering how often idiots everywhere in the media have been trotting out "racist!" in the last 6 months, I'm prone to support MS in their whitewashing in this instance. I am so, so very sick and tired of all this "racist" shit flying around, most often from the Left to the Right (politically speaking).
In the media, it has happened repeatedly that someone says "behavior made by so-and-so is racist" and then the media turns around and labels -those- comments as racist. The fuck? On both counts, honestly. Can we try and use different words, maybe? Words which haven't been pushed to the point of uselessness due to having been excessively gamed for political and financial gain and have reached the level of a curse word in our modern lexicon? The damn word has been used - successfully - to damn people many, many times in the eyes of the public for acts which may or may not have actually -been- racist, particularly in context. The media (you know, the one that wanted to leave the era of race behind us, back in November) is pushing this 'racism' agenda and is seemingly trying to create the new "Jew". It's sickening.
And no, it's not JUST "the media". It's our whole damn society. Say you don't like rap music? Someone might accuse you of racism. Shit, Bill Cosby has been accused of as much for ripping into black "culture". (Personally, I think the comments that Beck made were intended to convey the same 'cultural ambivalence' that Cosby did; but unlike Cosby, Beck is a bit of a tool and not all together good with words.)
Yeah, anyway. So, no, it wasn't cool for MS to hire a company to do that, but it's flippin' marketing. That's what marketing does: lies, cajoles, distorts, and tries to pull the wool over the consumer's eyes. It's they're job. It's detestable, but expecting anything else is like expecting a dog to not shit on the carpet (bad dog! bad!)
That doesn't mean I don't think we should helm a ship with robots and give all the marketeers and lawyers a free trip to China via the Atlantic Divide.
No, that'd be the Athlon 64 x2. Because cojoined twins are HOT.
That's nonsense. It doesn't explain why designed-for-linux netbooks like the Linux Eee systems perform as poorly as they do.
I would bet that the problem can be largely attributed to 1) vm.swappiness being set too high and (IMO every laptop user should set vm.swappiness = 0 unless they know a higher metric would help their specific operation behavior) 2) ext3 sucks horribly, 3) linux often defaulting to the 'standard' and ignoring/overriding hardware bugs which might be accounted for in the closed drivers (such as with the BIOS), 4) hard drive power management options/defaults are usually not very good and do not account for/override filesystem settings.
There might be something else to it, too. I've personally never had a laptop that got better battery performance in Linux than in Windows; it's always just been Part of the Deal of running Linux to get worse battery life, despite what I've heard others say.
Simple solution: shut down the border to Mexico, and send all the illegals back. Problem solved: you've quarantined the disease vector, and you've just reduced the infections to those who travel to 3rd world countries (except for statistically insignificant accounts).
I agree with you that healthcare is like a fire or police department. Neither of those, however, should be (or have historically been) federally funded. They, like healthcare, should be a local issue (if we're going to cast it in the light of a security issue at all).
And what are we talking about when we're talking about 'healthcare'? Are we talking about prescription drugs for people who have lived poorly (diabetes) when they refuse to change their lifestyle? Should the fireman risk his existence to save the idiot who refuses to leave his burning home?
If we're talking about epidemics and healthcare when it's a triage or similar situation (emergencies), certainly. But a pregnancy isn't an emergency, and neither is a preventable disease brought on by self-abuse.
And I suppose you want people to believe that these problems - as well as the diseases - are largely the fault of the USA, aka Americans, right? Not completely true, or honest.
I recently saw a handful of maps displaying statistical information with regard to various "3rd world" diseases, dividing it up by both state and county. Unless you're paying attention to demographics, you'd never expect the results: these diseases are primarily occurring in southern border states, in counties where there is a significant "Southern" influence. Likewise, many counties in NY and NJ, with high illegal populations, are having these problems.
These diseases aren't due to the decline of the US, per se. They're introduced diseases which come here and spread amongst illegals and those they interact with. This is the kind of thing that the nuts like Pat Buchanan talk about; unfortunately, at least on things like this and the dangers of illegal immigration, they are correct. We would be negligent to ignore their presentation of facts due to their ideological skewer.
Deskstar platters are made from glass? How is that possible? That's actually one of the few drive types I've not done any percussive adjustment to.
Sparklers have more in them than magnesium. That's how you're able to be lit by a simple lighter or match and why they sparkle. I believe gunpowder is a minor ingredient, but I've no idea what else. While such a mess would not explode, it would burn very, very quickly and shoot off sparks in a myriad of directions.
Oh, really. You should have one of those good forensic guys go here and accept the challenge on that page; it would be pretty financially lucrative, if what you say is true. But it isn't true; such a recovery is impossible until proven otherwise.
Interestingly, I have heard that some electronics, like televisions are far more reliable than they've ever been before.
No, it's an original. Front 'bay' loading model with the pop-up door. The bay still goes down and stays down properly. We got it in '91, I think, and I'd seen friends abuse their's so I knew what Didn't Work. (Our dad being comfortable and knowledgeable with electronics and their proper use didn't hurt, I suppose.)
My brother and I played the hell out of it for about 10 years. We played hundreds and beat dozens of games, wore out three controllers (guess which button), and broke a cable (fixed and replaced by Dad). This was followed by my sister and her friends (comparably) abusing it for 4 years while she was in college. Though I will admit that both my brother and I took relatively good care of both the NES and our toys, compared to most kids.
Actually, it was at 20 (he's almost 6 and there was 9 months of pregnancy where manning-up was required).
You can feel sympathy for me if I'm allowed to hold disdain and pity for you and your irresponsible, hedonistic lifestyle. Somehow, I think we need more responsible young adults (and children) in this world, particularly the developed world, than we need emotionally uncommitted, self-focused, single 30-year-olds who spend all of their money on self-gratification.
I recall several friends having Nintendo consoles that wouldn't load cartridges properly. The common technique used to try to get them to work was to blow into the cartridge; I'm not sure that it actually helped, but everyone tried it.
Well, yeah. Mine does that too. It's due to poor contact between the cartridge and the pins in the NES: it's no different than a dirty disk or dust on the laser in a DVD/CD drive, really. The blowing helped short-term because it would introduce moisture to the NES and/or cartridge, while blowing away dust. The moisture would lead to a better electrical contact, allowing the game to boot. I suspect that, long term, it led to more problems (moisture/salt in saliva = corrosion).
I do know that a couple kids who had the cleaner cartridge kit (myself included) had very few problems.
Interestingly, I have heard that some electronics, like televisions are far more reliable than they've ever been before.
I can believe that if we're talking about LCDs, but plasma displays and normal backlit CRT TVs were getting really, really bad there for a while - to the point where people would replace them every couple years due to failure (I knew of several people who did this).
Or alcohol and a cotton swab (the long ones the doctors use to take cultures works for the inside of the NES). BTDT. The only other thing, as near as I can tell, is gradual wearing of the pins/contacts. It only started happening 5 years or so on my NES, and it's easily rectifiable if you're willing to take the NES apart and give the pins more tension.
You're kidding, right?
The answer is: no, not to any appreciable degree.
You do know what happens to all those 9V, AA, and AAA batteries you see in grocery stores after people use them up, right? How about the batteries in laptops? Yeah, that's right: the average person throws them away. As in, in the landfill.
If they don't throw them away when they die, they throw them in the trash when they're doing some housecleaning or getting ready to move. Even in the locations where recycling batteries is possible and suggested, batteries are accepted at the dump/landfill. Especially for something like a car battery: people will throw that sucker away if they can (and can't get it exchanged for a discount on the new one).
Here's what I want to know: what is the point of this? I mean, I get the novelty and buzz, but this seems kinda half-assed to me. Why not just sell your magazine in an eBook format for the Kindle (or similar) and sell video ads on there?
you could probably figure that out by looking at console game sales and rentals, to some degree.