It looks like a cheap stereo-set! All those flashing lights! I like Apple because they look clean and uncluttered. If I wanted something similar in x86-world, I would look here.
really: form follows function. Say no to flashing lights!
Well, I get mine from the local supermarket. Occasionally I drink a cup or two at a cafe. And it's good coffee, supermarket-coffee included. I read it somewhere that Finns are quite demanding when it comes to coffee. Not only do we drink lots and lots of coffee (every time you visit someone, it's customary to drink at least few cups of coffee. AFAIK Finns are close to the top when it comes to coffee-consumption per capita), the coffee we have here is of high quality.
Of course you CAN get bad coffee in here as well. But times when I have had bad coffee are few and far between. And, like I said, we drink the real stuff here, not the decaffenated fake-coffee. I have never seen decaf for sale anywhere.
And decaf? I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen decaf here (Finland), whereas it seems to be everywhere in USA. No, this is not USA-bashing, I'm just stating my observations. And after listening to people with experiences from both Europe/Finland and USA, it does seem that coffee in USA is not as good as it is in here. Of course, you CAN get a good cup of coffee in USA, and that was not my point. I was talking about the regural coffee available there.
Decaf seems to be quite popular in USA, when compared to other countries. And since decaf is crap by default, I think it's only logical to assume that the average coffee sold in USA is crap when compared to coffee sold elsewhere. I haven't been to Starbucks, but since they are the biggest coffeeshop-chain in USA and they are getting bigger all the time (correct?) and their coffee is crap (as said by numerous people), I can only assume that the average coffee in USA is getting crappier still.
So, crappy coffee (decaf) is more popular in USA than it is elsewhere, and crappy regural coffee (Starbucks) is getting more and more popular. I stand by my original comment.
He destroyed the WTC. What purpose did this serve?
He seriously damaged US economy, he killed thousands of people, he caused serious restriction in liberties of Americans, because of him, USA wastes billions upon billion of dollars on "war against terrorism".
Do those things sound like something a smart ("educated") person would do??
Depending on his goals, yes.
OBL is educated. In fact, he's educated by the CIA. He knows what he's doing.
Imagine that when texturing instead of using 128 bit bus to the on-card memory - the card now uses a 128 bit bus to the on-card memory PLUS(!!!) another 128 bit bus to the local memory thus giving you higher bandwidth for the same cost.
Isn't that the way it's done in AGP-texturing? Difference is, that these days vid-cards have so much on-board RAM that it's not really needed. But if you try to store too much textures, the ones that do not fit in the RAM on the vid-card are stored on the system-RAM and are accessed through the AGP-bus (PCI-Express these days).
Really, this "Turbocache" seems to me like an euphenism for "we were so cheap that we equipped these cards with miniscule amounts of RAM! Therefore most of the textures are stored in your system-RAM, since they can't fit in the RAM on the vid-card! This is not a bug, it's a feature!"
But still, this features has been available in all AGP-cards (OCI-Express as well). Why are they now telling people that this is a new and exiting technology, when in fact it has been around since AGP was introduced?
Am I missing something here? What's the difference between TurboCache and regural AGP-texturing?
Free as in freedom, free as in beer, no proprietary crap, direct lines of communication with the developers, open source, freedom of choice etc. etc.
OK, now imagine an OS with all of that plus a good desktop.
Well, I have zero complaints when it comes to KDE, but... Is OS X "free as in freedom"? Is it free as in beer? Does it push proprietary stuff? Can I talk with Steve Jobs about the OS? Is it open source (yes, some of it is, but not all of it)? What if I don't happen to like the computer it's running on, can I switch to another brand of computer?
Don't get me wrong, Apple does make some kick-ass stuff (I'm thinking of getting an iPod Mini and a second-hand Titanium Powerbook). But OS X is NOT "Linux + lots of other kick-ass stuff". For me, OS X is not a replacement for Linux. Not even close. The Powerbook I might buy? I would run Linux on it. The Powerbook is one of the best laptops available, and that's why I'm interested in it (although I hate the one-button mouse). Yes, I have tried out OS X. And while it did have lots of eye-candy, I failed to get turned on by it. Yes, it was "nice", no, it wasn't the uber-OS that is destined to rule over other OS'es. I can see why some people think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm not one of those, however.
You are wrong. Basically, Apple could just let the issue be. That is, not purposefully deny consumers from using Real's service, but not support it either. But Apple doesn't do that, they purposefully try to block Real's service. They waste time and resources on this thing, instead of using those resources to improve their own service.
Like I said, they could just leave the matter as it is. Take no effort in supporting Real on iPod, but don't actively block them either. Doing that they would keep their customer-base happy and they wouldn't waste resources on this thing. What they are now doing does NOT in any shape or form benefit the consumer! Having alternative to itunes does NOT harm the consumers in any shape or form. And since some people think that Apple is doing this for the benefit of the consumers, really tells quite alot about Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field....
Of course not, don't be absurd! if RIAA hires a bunch of new secretaries, it's perfectly OK. I was talking more about their claims of "filesharing will destroy music"-claims. their claims that "downloading is stealing!"-bullshit. Their claims that "we lost xx billion dollars due to filesharing!" or copy-protected CD's or any other similar crap they spout all the time. None of those things they spout are illegal as such. Wrong, yes. Illegal, no.
Of course we then have the issue of price-fixing, which is illegal, and RIAA (or more precisely, the companies that make up RIAA) has been punished for it.
By purposefully blocking competing products, and therefore limiting the choices consumers have. More questions?
What I mean is that while this might be legal, it doesn't make it right, as long as consumers are concerned. How exactly do we, as consumers, benefit from this? Why should we be cheering Apple to "Yes please! Limit our choices! Yes, we like it in the ass!"? WHY should we be defending Apple? Because they are "cool"? Because what they are doing is legal? Yes, they have the right to do this. No, that doesn't mean it's OK or that we should be cheering them for their actions.
What Apple is doing here, harms consumers. And in my book, this makes this action "evil". Hell, the stunts RIAA pull are all perfectly legal, but that doesn't make them right!
DISCLAIMER: I'm a KDE-user, but it is not my intention to bash Gnome (and, IMO, I'm not). I'm merely stating my observations on this matter.
The whole affair with spatial Nautilus is quite interesting. And I do not mean simply the way how it affects the users, but what it tells about the developement-policy. I mean, Gnome radically changed the way the user interacts with his files. And they did that in a minor (2.x ==> 2.y) release. And it seems that many users hate the change.
OTOH, in KDE they faced something similar (but not as dramatic): The change of the default style. Users disliked Keramik (the default), and wanted Plastik to be the default. Now, that change would not be as dramatic as moving from browsing to spatial would be, it woukd just change the appearance of the UI somewhat. KDE-developers did not want to make that change, espesially in a minor release (3.x ==> 3.y). It was thought that the change would be too big, and it would also mean redoing all the "official" screenshots and documentation (so that pictures in docs show the new style). Only after numerous requests to change the style and after Plastik was tweaked and optimized did they decide to make the change (it's the default in upcoming 3.4).
What's also interesting is that AFAIK people were not begging the Gnome-developers to give them spatial filemanagement, but they did it anyway. OTOH, users were begging KDE-developers to change from Keramik to Plastik, and they did it only after long discussions about the matter.
It seems to me that Gnome-folks are more willing to make big and disruptive ("disruptive" is not automatially a bad thing, FYI) changes to the desktop, whereas KDE-folks tend to be more conservative and careful. Which of those ways is better, is up to every indivudal user.
Well, never mind the fact that creationism doesn't survive real scientific scrutiny... But hey, if we should peddle one crackpot-idea (creationism), why not peddle Dänikens crackpot-ideas? I mean, what makes creationism better than Dänikens ideas? Seriously?
Actually, the corrected text would be, "Are our children learning?"
I thought the actual quote was "is our children learning?".
Re:Get out your wallet
on
RAD with Ruby
·
· Score: 1
Not if you do in-house software. Then you can use GPL just fine and not release your sources. If you are planning to sell your software for a living, but can't afford the relatively modest fee of commercial Qt, then you should REALLY reconsider your career-options.
Do carpenters get free tools? No, they have to buy them. And if their products are good enough, they can easily afford them. If your software is so crappy that you can't afford Qt, may I suggest different career?
I guess I'm "bitching" about the fact that some people want to make the movies identical to the books. And while that might satisfy few gung-ho Tolkien-fans (I consider myself to be a fan, having read the books over dozen times), it would have been a crappy movie. Great book, yes, but a terrible movie. And Peter Jackson was not making a book, he was making a MOVIE. His goal was to make a great movie, while staying as close to the books as possible. And as far as I'm concerned, he succeeded magnificently.
Had he tried to preserve the "original flavor" of the books 100%, he would have made a crappy movie. That is a fact. He preserved it 90%, the 10% was sacrificed due to limitations of the medium. What works in a book, might not work in a movie. And that is certainly true to book like LOTR.
But what is fact is that more and more the series leaned twords long drawn out epic battles.
Could that be because the BOOKS also had more and more "drawn out epic battles"?
I certainly do not want to see more of this.
Too bad, since those battles were in the books as well. I for one had been pretty pissed if they had given Pelennor fields a whopping 5 minutes of screen-time.
Yes I know that Pelennor fields got relatively little time in the book. But regardless: it WAS one of the highlights of the book, and it looks great on the silver-scree. That is why it's longer in the movie as well. Movies usually have the "big end-fight" or something similar. And in LOTR, it was Pelennor Fields.
My thoughts, which I have stated before, is that the series had gotten away from the original nature of the books the further into the series you go.
The EE's are closer to the original than the theatrical releases, and we have to wait and see what the ROTK-EE looks like. Two Towers was a bit different from the book, but that was because the book itself was so busy (following three separate groups of people) that doing a 1:1 movie-conversion would have been BAD. The EE improved the pacing considerably and made the whole movie better.
Remember: we are not talking about books here, we are talking about movies. You simply cannot do 1:1 migration from book to movie. And that is why LOTR the book and LOTR the movie are different from time to time. If they made a movie that was similar to the book and closer to the "original nature" of 'em, it would have been a bad MOVIE. They are not making a book here, they are making a MOVIE. And they have to adapt the story to fit the requirements and limitations of the media. Had they made the movie like you wished it was, Pelennor Fields would have been a marginal incident, and most of the time would have been spent watching Sam and Frodo walk towards Mount Doom. That might work in the book, but it would not work in a movie!
Well, the extra scenes in the previous EE's were mostly NOT battle-scenes (were there ANY new battle-scenes in 'em?). So I have to ask: what the hell are you blathering about? Have you even seen the past EE's?
Looking at "Fellowship of the Ring", I can remember these new scenes (found in the usenet):
*A new addition to the opening sequence in which Bilbo provides background on Hobbits and their history in voice-over as he writes his memoirs.
*A new introduction to Samwise Gamgee, seen in his capacity as a gardener.
*A scene taking place at the Green Dragon Inn, which introduces us to the camaraderie of the Hobbits (we see them singing together) and sets up the geopolitics of the story.
*The Hobbits witnessing the departure of the Elves from Middle Earth on the way to Bree.
*Aragorn watching over the sleeping Hobbits, singing the ballad of Beren and Luthien to himself in the night.
*Aragorn at his mother's grave, in which we learn that he was raised by Elves and that Sauron has long hunted him.
*Two new moments during the departure from Rivendale, one in which we see Arwen's emotional reaction to Aragorn's leaving, and another in which Elrond sees the Fellowship off.
*A scene with the Fellowship in the mines of Moria, in which we learn how the Dwarves themselves unleashed the fire-demon that eventually destroyed them.
*A scene at Lothlorien, where Galadriel bestows upon each of the Fellowship a gift which will play an important role later in the Trilogy.
*And finally, more footage of the battle at Amon Hen. This is not particularly bloody footage, but its addition will likely result in this cut of the film receiving an R-rating.
Oh yes, that's LOTS of "new battle-scenes"! NOT!
Two Towers is similar. Very little battle-scenes, but lots of background material.
Slashdot Mirror
Where exactly does he say that? If you read the article and understand what he's saying, you will notice that he does NOT say anything of the sort.
It looks like a cheap stereo-set! All those flashing lights! I like Apple because they look clean and uncluttered. If I wanted something similar in x86-world, I would look here.
really: form follows function. Say no to flashing lights!
Well, I get mine from the local supermarket. Occasionally I drink a cup or two at a cafe. And it's good coffee, supermarket-coffee included. I read it somewhere that Finns are quite demanding when it comes to coffee. Not only do we drink lots and lots of coffee (every time you visit someone, it's customary to drink at least few cups of coffee. AFAIK Finns are close to the top when it comes to coffee-consumption per capita), the coffee we have here is of high quality.
Of course you CAN get bad coffee in here as well. But times when I have had bad coffee are few and far between. And, like I said, we drink the real stuff here, not the decaffenated fake-coffee. I have never seen decaf for sale anywhere.
And decaf? I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen decaf here (Finland), whereas it seems to be everywhere in USA. No, this is not USA-bashing, I'm just stating my observations. And after listening to people with experiences from both Europe/Finland and USA, it does seem that coffee in USA is not as good as it is in here. Of course, you CAN get a good cup of coffee in USA, and that was not my point. I was talking about the regural coffee available there.
Decaf seems to be quite popular in USA, when compared to other countries. And since decaf is crap by default, I think it's only logical to assume that the average coffee sold in USA is crap when compared to coffee sold elsewhere. I haven't been to Starbucks, but since they are the biggest coffeeshop-chain in USA and they are getting bigger all the time (correct?) and their coffee is crap (as said by numerous people), I can only assume that the average coffee in USA is getting crappier still.
So, crappy coffee (decaf) is more popular in USA than it is elsewhere, and crappy regural coffee (Starbucks) is getting more and more popular. I stand by my original comment.
Considering how bad the typical coffee in USA is, this might actually be a step up!
He seriously damaged US economy, he killed thousands of people, he caused serious restriction in liberties of Americans, because of him, USA wastes billions upon billion of dollars on "war against terrorism".
Depending on his goals, yes.
OBL is educated. In fact, he's educated by the CIA. He knows what he's doing.
What makes you think that the people who come up with the terrorist-attacks are "uneducated"?
And I think you forgot about this card
In the book, the Southerners have dark skin, while the Easterlings are oriental. And no, that fact doesn't make LOTR "racist".
So this isn't in any way "new", this is simply AGP-texturing with more bandwidth.
How so?
Isn't that the way it's done in AGP-texturing? Difference is, that these days vid-cards have so much on-board RAM that it's not really needed. But if you try to store too much textures, the ones that do not fit in the RAM on the vid-card are stored on the system-RAM and are accessed through the AGP-bus (PCI-Express these days).
Really, this "Turbocache" seems to me like an euphenism for "we were so cheap that we equipped these cards with miniscule amounts of RAM! Therefore most of the textures are stored in your system-RAM, since they can't fit in the RAM on the vid-card! This is not a bug, it's a feature!"
But still, this features has been available in all AGP-cards (OCI-Express as well). Why are they now telling people that this is a new and exiting technology, when in fact it has been around since AGP was introduced?
Am I missing something here? What's the difference between TurboCache and regural AGP-texturing?
Free as in freedom, free as in beer, no proprietary crap, direct lines of communication with the developers, open source, freedom of choice etc. etc.
Well, I have zero complaints when it comes to KDE, but... Is OS X "free as in freedom"? Is it free as in beer? Does it push proprietary stuff? Can I talk with Steve Jobs about the OS? Is it open source (yes, some of it is, but not all of it)? What if I don't happen to like the computer it's running on, can I switch to another brand of computer?
Don't get me wrong, Apple does make some kick-ass stuff (I'm thinking of getting an iPod Mini and a second-hand Titanium Powerbook). But OS X is NOT "Linux + lots of other kick-ass stuff". For me, OS X is not a replacement for Linux. Not even close. The Powerbook I might buy? I would run Linux on it. The Powerbook is one of the best laptops available, and that's why I'm interested in it (although I hate the one-button mouse). Yes, I have tried out OS X. And while it did have lots of eye-candy, I failed to get turned on by it. Yes, it was "nice", no, it wasn't the uber-OS that is destined to rule over other OS'es. I can see why some people think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm not one of those, however.
You are wrong. Basically, Apple could just let the issue be. That is, not purposefully deny consumers from using Real's service, but not support it either. But Apple doesn't do that, they purposefully try to block Real's service. They waste time and resources on this thing, instead of using those resources to improve their own service.
Like I said, they could just leave the matter as it is. Take no effort in supporting Real on iPod, but don't actively block them either. Doing that they would keep their customer-base happy and they wouldn't waste resources on this thing. What they are now doing does NOT in any shape or form benefit the consumer! Having alternative to itunes does NOT harm the consumers in any shape or form. And since some people think that Apple is doing this for the benefit of the consumers, really tells quite alot about Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field....
Of course not, don't be absurd! if RIAA hires a bunch of new secretaries, it's perfectly OK. I was talking more about their claims of "filesharing will destroy music"-claims. their claims that "downloading is stealing!"-bullshit. Their claims that "we lost xx billion dollars due to filesharing!" or copy-protected CD's or any other similar crap they spout all the time. None of those things they spout are illegal as such. Wrong, yes. Illegal, no.
Of course we then have the issue of price-fixing, which is illegal, and RIAA (or more precisely, the companies that make up RIAA) has been punished for it.
By purposefully blocking competing products, and therefore limiting the choices consumers have. More questions?
What I mean is that while this might be legal, it doesn't make it right, as long as consumers are concerned. How exactly do we, as consumers, benefit from this? Why should we be cheering Apple to "Yes please! Limit our choices! Yes, we like it in the ass!"? WHY should we be defending Apple? Because they are "cool"? Because what they are doing is legal? Yes, they have the right to do this. No, that doesn't mean it's OK or that we should be cheering them for their actions.
What Apple is doing here, harms consumers. And in my book, this makes this action "evil". Hell, the stunts RIAA pull are all perfectly legal, but that doesn't make them right!
DISCLAIMER: I'm a KDE-user, but it is not my intention to bash Gnome (and, IMO, I'm not). I'm merely stating my observations on this matter.
The whole affair with spatial Nautilus is quite interesting. And I do not mean simply the way how it affects the users, but what it tells about the developement-policy. I mean, Gnome radically changed the way the user interacts with his files. And they did that in a minor (2.x ==> 2.y) release. And it seems that many users hate the change.
OTOH, in KDE they faced something similar (but not as dramatic): The change of the default style. Users disliked Keramik (the default), and wanted Plastik to be the default. Now, that change would not be as dramatic as moving from browsing to spatial would be, it woukd just change the appearance of the UI somewhat. KDE-developers did not want to make that change, espesially in a minor release (3.x ==> 3.y). It was thought that the change would be too big, and it would also mean redoing all the "official" screenshots and documentation (so that pictures in docs show the new style). Only after numerous requests to change the style and after Plastik was tweaked and optimized did they decide to make the change (it's the default in upcoming 3.4).
What's also interesting is that AFAIK people were not begging the Gnome-developers to give them spatial filemanagement, but they did it anyway. OTOH, users were begging KDE-developers to change from Keramik to Plastik, and they did it only after long discussions about the matter.
It seems to me that Gnome-folks are more willing to make big and disruptive ("disruptive" is not automatially a bad thing, FYI) changes to the desktop, whereas KDE-folks tend to be more conservative and careful. Which of those ways is better, is up to every indivudal user.
Well, never mind the fact that creationism doesn't survive real scientific scrutiny... But hey, if we should peddle one crackpot-idea (creationism), why not peddle Dänikens crackpot-ideas? I mean, what makes creationism better than Dänikens ideas? Seriously?
Why stop at just those two? Why not teach Erich Von Däniken's theories as well? After all, his theories are more believable that creatioism is...
I thought the actual quote was "is our children learning?".
Not if you do in-house software. Then you can use GPL just fine and not release your sources. If you are planning to sell your software for a living, but can't afford the relatively modest fee of commercial Qt, then you should REALLY reconsider your career-options.
Do carpenters get free tools? No, they have to buy them. And if their products are good enough, they can easily afford them. If your software is so crappy that you can't afford Qt, may I suggest different career?
I guess I'm "bitching" about the fact that some people want to make the movies identical to the books. And while that might satisfy few gung-ho Tolkien-fans (I consider myself to be a fan, having read the books over dozen times), it would have been a crappy movie. Great book, yes, but a terrible movie. And Peter Jackson was not making a book, he was making a MOVIE. His goal was to make a great movie, while staying as close to the books as possible. And as far as I'm concerned, he succeeded magnificently.
Had he tried to preserve the "original flavor" of the books 100%, he would have made a crappy movie. That is a fact. He preserved it 90%, the 10% was sacrificed due to limitations of the medium. What works in a book, might not work in a movie. And that is certainly true to book like LOTR.
Could that be because the BOOKS also had more and more "drawn out epic battles"?
Too bad, since those battles were in the books as well. I for one had been pretty pissed if they had given Pelennor fields a whopping 5 minutes of screen-time.
Yes I know that Pelennor fields got relatively little time in the book. But regardless: it WAS one of the highlights of the book, and it looks great on the silver-scree. That is why it's longer in the movie as well. Movies usually have the "big end-fight" or something similar. And in LOTR, it was Pelennor Fields.
The EE's are closer to the original than the theatrical releases, and we have to wait and see what the ROTK-EE looks like. Two Towers was a bit different from the book, but that was because the book itself was so busy (following three separate groups of people) that doing a 1:1 movie-conversion would have been BAD. The EE improved the pacing considerably and made the whole movie better.
Remember: we are not talking about books here, we are talking about movies. You simply cannot do 1:1 migration from book to movie. And that is why LOTR the book and LOTR the movie are different from time to time. If they made a movie that was similar to the book and closer to the "original nature" of 'em, it would have been a bad MOVIE. They are not making a book here, they are making a MOVIE. And they have to adapt the story to fit the requirements and limitations of the media. Had they made the movie like you wished it was, Pelennor Fields would have been a marginal incident, and most of the time would have been spent watching Sam and Frodo walk towards Mount Doom. That might work in the book, but it would not work in a movie!
Well, the extra scenes in the previous EE's were mostly NOT battle-scenes (were there ANY new battle-scenes in 'em?). So I have to ask: what the hell are you blathering about? Have you even seen the past EE's?
Looking at "Fellowship of the Ring", I can remember these new scenes (found in the usenet):
*A new addition to the opening sequence in which Bilbo provides background on Hobbits and their history in voice-over as he writes his memoirs.
*A new introduction to Samwise Gamgee, seen in his capacity as a gardener.
*A scene taking place at the Green Dragon Inn, which introduces us to the camaraderie of the Hobbits (we see them singing together) and sets up the geopolitics of the story.
*The Hobbits witnessing the departure of the Elves from Middle Earth on the way to Bree.
*Aragorn watching over the sleeping Hobbits, singing the ballad of Beren and Luthien to himself in the night.
*Aragorn at his mother's grave, in which we learn that he was raised by Elves and that Sauron has long hunted him.
*Two new moments during the departure from Rivendale, one in which we see Arwen's emotional reaction to Aragorn's leaving, and another in which Elrond sees the Fellowship off.
*A scene with the Fellowship in the mines of Moria, in which we learn how the Dwarves themselves unleashed the fire-demon that eventually destroyed them.
*A scene at Lothlorien, where Galadriel bestows upon each of the Fellowship a gift which will play an important role later in the Trilogy.
*And finally, more footage of the battle at Amon Hen. This is not particularly bloody footage, but its addition will likely result in this cut
of the film receiving an R-rating.
Oh yes, that's LOTS of "new battle-scenes"! NOT!
Two Towers is similar. Very little battle-scenes, but lots of background material.