I work professionally in both the design and music fields and can tell you that everything for Mac exists and has existed on the Windows platform since the early 90s. For quite a long time through the late 90s Apple had a real problem courting developers to their oft-delayed and buggy platform and so both industries went to Windows. So these days, not only does everything work on Windows, but in the case of plugins for Photoshop or VSTs for DAWs, Windows users continue to have more available. I know - this works against the whole "Macs are for creative professionals" idea, but that idea has been wrong since 1996.
Of course, I amazed at what's available on Linux these days. I actually have decent (though not perfect) multi-track recording on my Ubuntu box and am able to do most of my day-to-day design work using Inkscape, Scribus and GIMP. We live in incredible times.
I own a Mini and used OSX for months before giving up and going with Debian simply because there is no single approach to installing drivers, software, codecs, etc. Need a printer driver? You'll probably also need to install GhostScript and at least one other driver (good luck finding it). Want to install a general hardware driver? Pick from thirteen different versions and - if you have no idea what you're doing, like most Apple users I know - hope that you got the right one for your kernel. Want to uninstall a driver? Good luck with that. Codecs? Which installation location do you go for? OSX is a mess that makes Windows look pristine, and most decent Linux distros make them both look like they have no idea what they're doing.
One of the best SNES games of all time (so you need an emulator and the ROM) is Kirby's Avalanche. The great thing about this game is the handicap system that really does allow for your girlfriend to feel like she's beating the crap out of you while you're having fun actually playing as hard as you can to keep up. Perfect balance there.
You might also want to try out one of the karaoke games that are available. It might seem weird at first, but they're usually hard enough to make the "game" part fun.
If you reread the article you linked to about the 360 running linked code, you'd notice that it's only a dumb-terminal and that all of the code execution happens on the PC.
That said, when you consider that the original X-Box exploits were FONTS, it's totally possible to imagine that some other form of media will be this box's undoing. It probably won't be a bitmap (already done on the PSP), but something equally cool should be in order. Maybe a MIDI file!
I would have to agree that OSX was a step backward for every non-technical user whose computer I've installed it on. Consistency between releases is rotten. Driver support is, strangely, worse than Linux. The file structure is absurd, making something like Spotlight a neccessity. Text rendering is about as inconsistent as Linux, even in bundled apps. Don't get me started on the flaunting of UI standards... half the time I feel like running KDE apps next to Gnome apps would be a little less jarring.
OSX Server is much better than desktop, in that it has GUI tools for basic system administration that desktop doesn't. Even then, I've thought many times of installing a Linux derivative on my machine rather than having to fight with the system. I stick with it because I need to have a Mac to test on, but that's about the only reason I haven't switched.
The reality is that anger and racism (or violent nationalism) tend to be diseases that every nation gets at some point. The US has about as much blood on it's hands as everyone else (if you consider the civil war), and our people tend to be just as defensive as everyone else in the world when forced to deal with those realities.
On the asian front - the Chinese brutalized their own people in an attempt to bring about the communist ideal and to throw down the oppression of the Kuomintang. Europeans brutalized one another for centuries to bring religious unity (or at least political unity). Africans brutalize each other to this day to bring about ethnic purity.
Nobody is clean. When we realize that, we'll begin to watch more carefully both what our leaders, the mob-will, and our own hearts end up doing.
"...or be relabeled AO is effectively censorship..."
This assumes that censorship is a bad thing. However, it's what shows off our ability to make good decisions. For example - when you're walking past a bilboard of a scantily clad woman (or guy - don't know what you're into) and you find yourself turned on, you don't immediately start mastrubating on the street. If you did, it would be embarassing and totally inappropriate. No - you censor the natural desire to "get it on" and wait until you're in the privacy of your own home.
At least... I hope you do. Please.
Anyhow - my point is that censorship is what makes society work. It keeps us from saying stupid stuff we'd regret and allows us to avoid having to be faced with the stupid stuff other people do. Without it, we'd see way more naked fat people, and nobody wants to see that.
MythTV has amazing documentation and KnoppMyth is the simplest way to install it. I've got fairly standard hardware and was able to get KnoppMyth running without any significant modifications. I then started adding non-standard hardware and found that even that stuff was supported - with full HOWTOs available.
If you're looking to never have to use a CLI, then you're not looking to use MythTV. However, if you're willing to put in a little effort (and I mean a VERY little effort), then MythTV is outstanding.
I would like to not only second the recommendation for MythTV, but also say that for this Linuz newbie, the experience of installing and using MythTV was fantastic. The community is extremely helpful, the Wikis are updated with the most important stuff and the latest version installed without any hitches. My wife can't believe it's free. I can't believe it was so easy.
Wow - you just published your student's e-mail addresses to Slashdot without their consent. THAT'S a massive problem!
One thing to keep in mind when setting up a youth focused forum (as many of us have) is that privacy is not just a good idea when working with kids - in many places it's the law. I would be extremely careful to make sure that you have people moderating the forum at all times and making sure that you have some idea who is posting. We regularly ask new users to give some personal information so that we can get to know them and begin some really decent conversations.
I've read on all sorts of devices, and the best so far has been my Apple Newton. You can pick one up for cheap with a rechargable battery. It works OK with OSX. It reads all sorts of files. The backlit screen is pleasant to read on and the interface is... well it's Apple. But the really brilliant thing is the form factor - it's just large enough to make holding it a dream. It's like a book and is very confortable in your hand. The screen size is large enough to get enough text on a screen to be useful.
However, I've since moved to an e310 because of the price and the features. It's still one of the least expensive in it's class and it works extremely well for reading. I take novels with me everywhere I go now.
The main issue that the Economist's arguement relies on is that Americans consume vastly more than the rest of the earth's population. Energy consumption, food consumption, etc. per capita are far above the rest of the world. The net result is that if America grows in population, the total resource use of the nation grows faster that the rest of the earth's population.
As an example, imagine the total consumption of one American (energy, food, etc.) compared to that of people from various other nations. How many Ethiopians would it take to match the consumption of one American? How man Germans would it take? How many Chinese farmers? How many Liberians?
The issue becomes clearer when you realise how much is actually being used by the US compared to the rest of the world. Does the US need a bandwidth cap?
Think online RPGs are a recent invention? We had one of these "laptops" in the house (in addition to the Model III, Model IV and Color Computer which I turned into my first MIDI device) and because of the amazing 300 baud modem, we had a Compuserve account.
One of the coolest things on Compuserve was a very basic RPG. Problem with it was that it was formatted for 80 character screens, and the Model 100 had something like 15 lines. I had to read the descriptions of each room as fast as I possibly could. I ended up typing random directions just to get a chance to read the room info again.
I ended up getting my first scolding for racking up a phone bill online when I was in 5th grade (84-85). Man, those were the days.
Having spent a good deal of my summer working on my own PVR, I've tried almost every package that's available for the PC. There are a number of packages that have their benefits, but nothing beats ShowShifter ( http://www.showshifter.com ). Features on this thing include:
- Record, pause, rewind live TV
- Set up scheduled recordings
- Recompress video to CD size in the background
- Play DVDs with digital audio out
- CD playing
- MP3 playback
- TV oriented interface for living room based sets.
No package is perfect, and ShowShifter is definitely not a video editing suite. Use VirtualDub or some other package to copy your video tapes to CD.
Like I said - I've tried way too many packages and this is the only one that's compared to TiVO.
Having just built an extremely portable rig for both recording and performance, here's what I'd suggest you do:
Build a machine into a rackmount case, setting it up with removeable RAID drives and stick it into a hefty case that can withstand travel. Here's why:
1) Even with top notch equipment, it will be cheaper than a laptop.
2) If you do this right, you'll be able to drop the machine out of your gig van (which you should assume will happen about once a month) and you won't suffer massive problems.
3) You'll be able to make sure that your MB chipset works for multimedia. I have many a friend who's been burned buying a machine for music that ended up not being able to handle audio without problems.
4) If you're planning to record, RAID is the only way to go for your drives. You'll be sure that you're getting the throughput you need so that you don't get glitches in the middle of playback.
5) Most rackmount gig cases will allow you to fit a breakout box type of soundcard in addition to your computer. I use the Mark of the Unicorn 2408 (http://www.motu.com) and it all fits together wonderfully in my Mini GigRig case.
As far as Mac vs. PC - I've used both extensively in professional situations and I keep coming back to one thing - PC software is written to use more than one mouse button. In the end, you can get all the same software for both Mac and PC and both platforms are quite developed for Multimedia. Multimedia drivers work fine, and ASIO is almost flawless no matter how you go. PCs just have those darned other buttons that make quick editting data easier.
Having spent tons of time attempting to move over to a Linux distro only to be completely disappointed with the overall stability (I have yet to run a KDE session that didn't involved some piece of the graphical system crashing), speed (being able to watch windows redraw on an 800MHz machine is silly - even with optimized drivers), and rather unintuitive featuresets (setting up my network card - with a linux tech over my shoulder - has always been frustrating) I'm amazed that I don't hear comments like this more often.
I run Win workstations, laptops, servers, set-top machines, etc. with no stability problems, and excellent up time. Our main Windows server has been up two years with only one reboot. How can this be if the OS is so bad? Are we just lucky, or is it just a matter of knowing how to use the machine? I think an honest man would admit to the later. We do well becuase we understand how the system works and how to write and use software on the OS.
The same conclusion can be reached for why Linux users love their OS - they use it well, and thus they like it. And if the learning and getting comfortable and being able to do what you want was equal between systems, I'd say that there was no reason at all not to switch back and forth. But that's sadly not the case.
The homogenity inherent in Microsoft's heavyhanded approach to certification has lead to the one thing that keeps me coming back - I know how every program will work the first time I use it. The only thing standard on most Linux distros is stdout. Until standards in UI and architecture are agreed upon by the community, Linux will continue to be an OS for people who have tons of free time to play with their machines.
Does anyone else feel like they've been magically transported to 1983?!? Having been involved in computer art (both fine art and graphic design) I thought this discussion had been wrapped up years before Mondo 2000 and Wired rediscovered it in the mid-90s!
The answer to this man is simple - yes, computer art is generally considered by most professionals as fine art. Some academics who got trapped in the same time warp that got Marshal, Will and Holly in "Land of the Lost" might argue - vehemently - that computer generated art is not fine art, but that certainly doesn't make them right.
However, since the acceptance of computer generated art is fairly universal at this point (I live in LA and see computer generated work right next to work done in traditional media all the time) I would suggest that those telling you that your work is design may in fact be correct.
Logical distinctions have already been outlined by many posters so I won't go down that road. I will give you this as a reference point: look up Toulouse Lautrec and compare his work to yours. His work has been accepted as graphic design for years. Yes, he's been in fine art manuals for most of this century, but he's held in high regard as a graphic designer. What about his work, in terms of function, style, materials used, etc. are similar or dissimilar to your own work. Be honest.
Find other artsists and go through this same exercise. As you begin to work through art history, you'll begin to understand your own work and see how it fits in with the whole of it.
At some point in this process you'll find your own voice and distinctions, schools, media, etc. will either no longer matter or become the reason for your work. That's when you'll know if your work is fine art or graphic design.
ego.093
Slashdot Mirror
I work professionally in both the design and music fields and can tell you that everything for Mac exists and has existed on the Windows platform since the early 90s. For quite a long time through the late 90s Apple had a real problem courting developers to their oft-delayed and buggy platform and so both industries went to Windows. So these days, not only does everything work on Windows, but in the case of plugins for Photoshop or VSTs for DAWs, Windows users continue to have more available. I know - this works against the whole "Macs are for creative professionals" idea, but that idea has been wrong since 1996.
Of course, I amazed at what's available on Linux these days. I actually have decent (though not perfect) multi-track recording on my Ubuntu box and am able to do most of my day-to-day design work using Inkscape, Scribus and GIMP. We live in incredible times.
I own a Mini and used OSX for months before giving up and going with Debian simply because there is no single approach to installing drivers, software, codecs, etc. Need a printer driver? You'll probably also need to install GhostScript and at least one other driver (good luck finding it). Want to install a general hardware driver? Pick from thirteen different versions and - if you have no idea what you're doing, like most Apple users I know - hope that you got the right one for your kernel. Want to uninstall a driver? Good luck with that. Codecs? Which installation location do you go for? OSX is a mess that makes Windows look pristine, and most decent Linux distros make them both look like they have no idea what they're doing.
One of the best SNES games of all time (so you need an emulator and the ROM) is Kirby's Avalanche. The great thing about this game is the handicap system that really does allow for your girlfriend to feel like she's beating the crap out of you while you're having fun actually playing as hard as you can to keep up. Perfect balance there.
You might also want to try out one of the karaoke games that are available. It might seem weird at first, but they're usually hard enough to make the "game" part fun.
If you reread the article you linked to about the 360 running linked code, you'd notice that it's only a dumb-terminal and that all of the code execution happens on the PC.
That said, when you consider that the original X-Box exploits were FONTS, it's totally possible to imagine that some other form of media will be this box's undoing. It probably won't be a bitmap (already done on the PSP), but something equally cool should be in order. Maybe a MIDI file!
I would have to agree that OSX was a step backward for every non-technical user whose computer I've installed it on. Consistency between releases is rotten. Driver support is, strangely, worse than Linux. The file structure is absurd, making something like Spotlight a neccessity. Text rendering is about as inconsistent as Linux, even in bundled apps. Don't get me started on the flaunting of UI standards... half the time I feel like running KDE apps next to Gnome apps would be a little less jarring.
OSX Server is much better than desktop, in that it has GUI tools for basic system administration that desktop doesn't. Even then, I've thought many times of installing a Linux derivative on my machine rather than having to fight with the system. I stick with it because I need to have a Mac to test on, but that's about the only reason I haven't switched.
The reality is that anger and racism (or violent nationalism) tend to be diseases that every nation gets at some point. The US has about as much blood on it's hands as everyone else (if you consider the civil war), and our people tend to be just as defensive as everyone else in the world when forced to deal with those realities.
On the asian front - the Chinese brutalized their own people in an attempt to bring about the communist ideal and to throw down the oppression of the Kuomintang. Europeans brutalized one another for centuries to bring religious unity (or at least political unity). Africans brutalize each other to this day to bring about ethnic purity.
Nobody is clean. When we realize that, we'll begin to watch more carefully both what our leaders, the mob-will, and our own hearts end up doing.
"...or be relabeled AO is effectively censorship..."
This assumes that censorship is a bad thing. However, it's what shows off our ability to make good decisions. For example - when you're walking past a bilboard of a scantily clad woman (or guy - don't know what you're into) and you find yourself turned on, you don't immediately start mastrubating on the street. If you did, it would be embarassing and totally inappropriate. No - you censor the natural desire to "get it on" and wait until you're in the privacy of your own home.
At least... I hope you do. Please.
Anyhow - my point is that censorship is what makes society work. It keeps us from saying stupid stuff we'd regret and allows us to avoid having to be faced with the stupid stuff other people do. Without it, we'd see way more naked fat people, and nobody wants to see that.
Seriously.
MythTV has amazing documentation and KnoppMyth is the simplest way to install it. I've got fairly standard hardware and was able to get KnoppMyth running without any significant modifications. I then started adding non-standard hardware and found that even that stuff was supported - with full HOWTOs available.
If you're looking to never have to use a CLI, then you're not looking to use MythTV. However, if you're willing to put in a little effort (and I mean a VERY little effort), then MythTV is outstanding.
Every day I would ask my friend, as we walked out from classes...
"Want a ride? Course ya do!"
And then there's the toast...
"Here's to us! Who's like us? Damned few! And they're all dead!!!!"
I don't think I've been to our local pub and NOT toasted at least twice to that one. Oh Zork, how you defined the lives of geeks.
I would like to not only second the recommendation for MythTV, but also say that for this Linuz newbie, the experience of installing and using MythTV was fantastic. The community is extremely helpful, the Wikis are updated with the most important stuff and the latest version installed without any hitches. My wife can't believe it's free. I can't believe it was so easy.
Enough gushing.
Wow - you just published your student's e-mail addresses to Slashdot without their consent. THAT'S a massive problem!
One thing to keep in mind when setting up a youth focused forum (as many of us have) is that privacy is not just a good idea when working with kids - in many places it's the law. I would be extremely careful to make sure that you have people moderating the forum at all times and making sure that you have some idea who is posting. We regularly ask new users to give some personal information so that we can get to know them and begin some really decent conversations.
Remember - be safe and considerate!
I've read on all sorts of devices, and the best so far has been my Apple Newton. You can pick one up for cheap with a rechargable battery. It works OK with OSX. It reads all sorts of files. The backlit screen is pleasant to read on and the interface is... well it's Apple. But the really brilliant thing is the form factor - it's just large enough to make holding it a dream. It's like a book and is very confortable in your hand. The screen size is large enough to get enough text on a screen to be useful.
However, I've since moved to an e310 because of the price and the features. It's still one of the least expensive in it's class and it works extremely well for reading. I take novels with me everywhere I go now.
The main issue that the Economist's arguement relies on is that Americans consume vastly more than the rest of the earth's population. Energy consumption, food consumption, etc. per capita are far above the rest of the world. The net result is that if America grows in population, the total resource use of the nation grows faster that the rest of the earth's population.
As an example, imagine the total consumption of one American (energy, food, etc.) compared to that of people from various other nations. How many Ethiopians would it take to match the consumption of one American? How man Germans would it take? How many Chinese farmers? How many Liberians?
The issue becomes clearer when you realise how much is actually being used by the US compared to the rest of the world. Does the US need a bandwidth cap?
Think online RPGs are a recent invention? We had one of these "laptops" in the house (in addition to the Model III, Model IV and Color Computer which I turned into my first MIDI device) and because of the amazing 300 baud modem, we had a Compuserve account.
One of the coolest things on Compuserve was a very basic RPG. Problem with it was that it was formatted for 80 character screens, and the Model 100 had something like 15 lines. I had to read the descriptions of each room as fast as I possibly could. I ended up typing random directions just to get a chance to read the room info again.
I ended up getting my first scolding for racking up a phone bill online when I was in 5th grade (84-85). Man, those were the days.
Having spent a good deal of my summer working on my own PVR, I've tried almost every package that's available for the PC. There are a number of packages that have their benefits, but nothing beats ShowShifter ( http://www.showshifter.com ). Features on this thing include:
- Record, pause, rewind live TV
- Set up scheduled recordings
- Recompress video to CD size in the background
- Play DVDs with digital audio out
- CD playing
- MP3 playback
- TV oriented interface for living room based sets.
No package is perfect, and ShowShifter is definitely not a video editing suite. Use VirtualDub or some other package to copy your video tapes to CD.
Like I said - I've tried way too many packages and this is the only one that's compared to TiVO.
Having just built an extremely portable rig for both recording and performance, here's what I'd suggest you do:
Build a machine into a rackmount case, setting it up with removeable RAID drives and stick it into a hefty case that can withstand travel. Here's why:
1) Even with top notch equipment, it will be cheaper than a laptop.
2) If you do this right, you'll be able to drop the machine out of your gig van (which you should assume will happen about once a month) and you won't suffer massive problems.
3) You'll be able to make sure that your MB chipset works for multimedia. I have many a friend who's been burned buying a machine for music that ended up not being able to handle audio without problems.
4) If you're planning to record, RAID is the only way to go for your drives. You'll be sure that you're getting the throughput you need so that you don't get glitches in the middle of playback.
5) Most rackmount gig cases will allow you to fit a breakout box type of soundcard in addition to your computer. I use the Mark of the Unicorn 2408 (http://www.motu.com) and it all fits together wonderfully in my Mini GigRig case.
As far as Mac vs. PC - I've used both extensively in professional situations and I keep coming back to one thing - PC software is written to use more than one mouse button. In the end, you can get all the same software for both Mac and PC and both platforms are quite developed for Multimedia. Multimedia drivers work fine, and ASIO is almost flawless no matter how you go. PCs just have those darned other buttons that make quick editting data easier.
My two cents.
Having spent tons of time attempting to move over to a Linux distro only to be completely disappointed with the overall stability (I have yet to run a KDE session that didn't involved some piece of the graphical system crashing), speed (being able to watch windows redraw on an 800MHz machine is silly - even with optimized drivers), and rather unintuitive featuresets (setting up my network card - with a linux tech over my shoulder - has always been frustrating) I'm amazed that I don't hear comments like this more often.
I run Win workstations, laptops, servers, set-top machines, etc. with no stability problems, and excellent up time. Our main Windows server has been up two years with only one reboot. How can this be if the OS is so bad? Are we just lucky, or is it just a matter of knowing how to use the machine? I think an honest man would admit to the later. We do well becuase we understand how the system works and how to write and use software on the OS.
The same conclusion can be reached for why Linux users love their OS - they use it well, and thus they like it. And if the learning and getting comfortable and being able to do what you want was equal between systems, I'd say that there was no reason at all not to switch back and forth. But that's sadly not the case.
The homogenity inherent in Microsoft's heavyhanded approach to certification has lead to the one thing that keeps me coming back - I know how every program will work the first time I use it. The only thing standard on most Linux distros is stdout. Until standards in UI and architecture are agreed upon by the community, Linux will continue to be an OS for people who have tons of free time to play with their machines.
I still prefer to be out biking.
Does anyone else feel like they've been magically transported to 1983?!? Having been involved in computer art (both fine art and graphic design) I thought this discussion had been wrapped up years before Mondo 2000 and Wired rediscovered it in the mid-90s! The answer to this man is simple - yes, computer art is generally considered by most professionals as fine art. Some academics who got trapped in the same time warp that got Marshal, Will and Holly in "Land of the Lost" might argue - vehemently - that computer generated art is not fine art, but that certainly doesn't make them right. However, since the acceptance of computer generated art is fairly universal at this point (I live in LA and see computer generated work right next to work done in traditional media all the time) I would suggest that those telling you that your work is design may in fact be correct. Logical distinctions have already been outlined by many posters so I won't go down that road. I will give you this as a reference point: look up Toulouse Lautrec and compare his work to yours. His work has been accepted as graphic design for years. Yes, he's been in fine art manuals for most of this century, but he's held in high regard as a graphic designer. What about his work, in terms of function, style, materials used, etc. are similar or dissimilar to your own work. Be honest. Find other artsists and go through this same exercise. As you begin to work through art history, you'll begin to understand your own work and see how it fits in with the whole of it. At some point in this process you'll find your own voice and distinctions, schools, media, etc. will either no longer matter or become the reason for your work. That's when you'll know if your work is fine art or graphic design. ego.093