Sounds like you have the same box I do, the Zotac with the Atom d510 and ION graphics?
I keep on pondering throwing some flavor of Windows on it (probably XP or Vista, don't want do the expense of another Win7 license), but I feel like it would be cheating. I actually prefer Ubuntu's interface at this point. If anything I would put my Mac back on the TV, and live with the Intel graphics, which does 720p alright, but chokes at 1080. I want Linux because I can strip it down to basics, keeping it simple for the girlfriend, and keeping the overhead to a minimum.
It makes me somewhat mad, running Ubuntu on my laptop has been a completely pleasurable experience, so I expected it to decent in all areas. Sadly Linux still sucks at entertainment. Finding a decent music player has been a pain, as much as iTunes sucks, it is still better than every option I've tried (especially with Home Sharing, I started to take the ease of automatically syncing and organizing libraries for granted). Right now I'm forced to use Banshee to keep importing sane, and Guay... something... to actually play music since it has a decent party shuffle like option.
I've heard some negative things about Kubuntu, that it is a bit hacked together feeling and is a bit inferior to KDE native distros. I tried it a while back, and it was a bit of a pain to get set up (mostly first newbie issues, I'm sure), and an even larger pain to get rid of on a straight Ubuntu install, with tons of hidden dependencies that never quite go away.
I'll probably try it again. I'm just a bit trepidatious. While I love Linux, I'm still rather a novice. I've tested every distro, and did a full install once a year for about 10 years just to see if it was there yet. It really hasn't been until the last year or so. I've been using it around 50% of the time for around a year, so I still have a ton to learn. I still try typing in DOS commands, and getting very confused when they work or don't (old, very old, habits die hard).
Trying to get HDMI sound and Flash working on Ubuntu has been a nice trial by fire, though. If I ever try mucking with ALSA again, it will be too soon.
Linux Mint does a much better job at being easy-to-use right out of the box (and doesn't make stupid design decisions involving window buttons... cough cough).
How? All I can see is it is a reskinned Ubuntu with "restricted extras" and medibuntu installed. I tried it on my HTPC/Nettop and it was about as easy to use as Ubuntu, except with a dog-ugly and inefficient Windows XP menu. It did not live up to the hype. Yes, it was prettier, and yes it maintained Windows-style buttons, but this doesn't really matter since I still had to put in 30 minutes to make it custom.
The same thing I do with every other Linux install, no matter the distro.
I don't get the button debate thing. It takes all of a minute to change them around. Most people don't use the stock desktop/look, so how hard it is it to change your buttons at the same time your changing your themes/fonts/icons? Hell, I always set them to the left anyways, so it saved me work.
Compiz and Flash and the NVIDIA ION still didn't play nice, and it still doesn't do HDMI audio. (does anyone have an ION box that manages HDMI sound and fullscreen flash from Firefox/Chromium and the Hulu app? What distro are you using? Did it require huge amounts of tweaking?). Meaning it still made me wish my MacMini had actual graphics and not some strange Intel chip.
I keep meaning to give Fedora or OpenSuse a spin. But haven't had the time to dig around. Ubuntu has been annoying me of late. I feel like its yelling at me to "web2.0 moar!", with all its silly social networking features that are a slight pain to remove. Perhaps I don't want to use my computer for updating Twitter and Facebook, or chatting, or... making faux friends. Perhaps the two computers I have running Ubuntu are for tasks? When I think of mock social people, the first people I think of aren't Linux nerds. I also keep tossing around trying a newer version of KDE (I haven't used it since it stopped being a Win95 clone), just to see if Amarok is indeed good (better than its Gnome brotheren).
Some people just do better short stories than novels. It happens. Thomas Pynchon is like that, his short fiction is pretty damn good, his actual books are convoluted, messy, and rather annoying. Short fiction and novels are very different beasts when it comes to writing. Just because you can do a neat bit of short fiction, doesn't mean you can scale up your plotting skills.
Asimov was a master of short fiction. When he got tried to write longer things (ahem... Foundation), he got overly convoluted. Probably nothing to do with what technology he used.
Clive Barker is the same, as is a lot of the people who transitioned from short, pulp based, fiction to longer novel type fiction. Going from short stories to novels basically means relearning how to write.
Writers are also know for their idiosyncratic ways. Stephen King basically made his Underwood type-writer a religious artifact, and later his Mac. Neil Stephenson does everything long hand using a pen and ink. I just read a bio on an author who swore off electric lights while writing (I think it was Joe Haldeman). A lot of times this choice has more to do with superstition than rationality. You manage to write your first successful novel with a fountain pen on velum; why risk killing your muse by using anything else?
Using older and simpler means of writing doesn't really matter in itself, since many authors DO use Word, or whatnot and manage to churn out text.
When I briefly tried my hand at writing I got fixed into using a certain method of outlining, using certain tools. I had to do it this way, while fully knowing it was less efficient than probably any other way known to man. The actual application for writing didn't matter much to me, since I can ignore pretty much any feature (do I really need advanced formating for a draft?). The actual preparation phase was a pain though, since I kept trying different software to keep track of things. I probably spent more time playing with software than actually preparation. If I found a method that worked, I would probably stick with it forever, even if the technology became so archaic that I had to go kill and skin animals and forage my own parts.
Try poking holes in THAT without utterly ignoring a basic economic theory called supply-and-demand.
Not going to every try to poke holes in that, or any other silly, simplistic political ideology. All of them are overly simplistic and fail to really;sum up the complicated mess that is reality; they only serve to self-justify people who have heavy personal investment in political dogmas.
But the basic economic theory called supply-and-demand is that, basic. Yes, the basics exist, but with enough caveats and addendum to fill and entire book, or library. Saying that JUST supply and demand can dictate anything is naive. There are an infinite amount of factors involved. Supply and Demand, as a stand-alone theory, is ridiculously overly simplistic. It ignore consumer expectations, prestige pricing, the entirety of the digital economy (unlimited supply), behavioral advertising, advertising based on instincts, the whole gamet of informal fallacies used in advertising, market coercion, monopolies, government interference, pubic image, etc...
Its like the basic theory of economics stating that people are rational agents acting in their own self-interest. Its so basic that it is nothing more than an idealized model. Its like population modeling a park-land, and deciding, for the sake of simplicity, that you'll only model bunnies and foxes.
Though an argument can be made that every illegal immigrant is a criminal, just by the "illegal" in the term. This is a pretty boring argument though. I'd be more interested in "active" crime statistics.
I'm not snobbish enough to feel entitled to a good time even if it means I break the law.
I don't see what one has to do with the other. The law can be fallible, and the law can be immoral, the law can be unethical, and the law can (oddly enough) be illegal. Just because something is against the law does not make it wrong. For some class of people; having a blurb that says "...it's the law!", just makes them ask the question "why?", and doesn't bring instant fear and revulsion.
I personally don't smoke marijuana, or do any other (illegal) drugs, though I used to. Actually, I lie, on average I smoke pot once a year, if it is available and being used by others in a social setting. I stopped smoking pot not for legal concerns, but because I couldn't stand the culture around it, and it makes my joints hurt.
As a rational person, the laws against marijuana use make no sense. If these laws make no sense I will probably ignore them. The only time these laws matter is in cost analysis, what is the potential enjoyment I get from breaking the law, versus risk of getting caught and scope of consequences of getting caught. If the enjoyment is higher than the risk and odds, then I will break the law, if the law makes no sense.
If the government tried prohibition again, you would instantly be a criminal. If they made alcohol consumption illegal would you stop drinking wine with dinner in the comfort of your own home? If yes, even if there was a very low probability of you getting caught? Would it make sense that a harmless activity that was perfectly legal last night, suddenly means your an immoral, evil, criminal tonight for the same activity?
Just being law isn't a strong argument. If you don't want me to do an activity give me a decent reason why the activity is wrong. With marijuana use, the only argument against is a legal one, and this, to me, is nonsensical.
I remember pondering what lesson I was supposed to learn. I'm pretty sure it was "everyone is an asshole, except that one Mexican guy". I'm sure that is applicable to my day-to-day life, though the message was a bit hurt by me pondering WHY that one Mexican guy wasn't an ass, was it an oversight by the film makers, or what it intentional? They went out of their way to paint everyone as sympathetic racists, except that ONE guy?!
Much like all the of the recent politically correct movie genre, I'm confused. People told me that that move, "Hard Candy" was awesome, poignant, insightful, ad nauseum. I watched it, and pondered the fact that I just watched a movie that made me feel sympathetic for a pedophile. I doubt this was intentional, but still it made it hard to enjoy the movie.
I hate idiotic movies that are supposed to teach me a moral lesson. Most of the time they fail completely. But then again I suppose I'm not the intended audience, the intended audience are people who already agree with the message and want to feel smug.
Then, what if the Americans forced the creation of Israel and gave back a small piece of Judea to the rightful caretakers, the Jews?
Your wrong. It was the British, mostly. And a lot of Americans were against going to war with Germany because they viewed the Jews in pretty much the same way as the Germans. Before Pearl Harbor, invading Europe to put down Germany was a very unpopular idea. Please don't pain America better than it was. Revisionism is bad.
I had a teacher in high school who basically told us that WWII was fought over Jews, and the Civil War was fought over freeing Blacks. Both of these are complete falsehoods. America also had an active eugenics campaign, and Hitler actually wrote one of our presidents (I think Wilson) a letter commending our "great" ideas.
Also, my family moved from Ireland and Germany to be here. Do I have the right to go back to these countries and claim some of my forefather's land? Am I the "rightful caretaker" of this land? It has only been around 70-100 years that they moved, not the thousand that the Jews have been vacant from Israel. Do the native Americans have the right to reclaim most of North America? Does Mexico have the right to reclaim much of the Southwestern US?
Pretty much every group has taken something from another group sometime in their history. It happens. Pining over somewhere that you didn't hold since BABYLON (note: that was a very, VERY, long time ago) always struck me as a bit inane.
I refuse to argue the general point of your post though, since you are obviously a troll, or one of those "bring on the apocalypse" fundamentalist Christians.
But then again I don't understand how Khomeini can be called a "satanist", last I checked he didn't worship the Christian guy named "Satan", he worshiped Muhammad and Allah (who also happens to be the Christian and Jewish god) and power. Mostly the latter.
Oh and btw hiring terrorist thugs is not a government
Terrorism is often in the eye of the beholder. Much of the world would think the CIA is a bunch of "terrorist thugs" since they had many of the same tactics, and some of the same ideology. Does this mean the US government is no longer a government?
No. I'm debating the relevance of debating with someone who comes across like an immature 14 year old. You obviously have no desire to debate, yet you persist in replying to every single comment just to call the person who replied a "moron" or "idiot" because their anecdotal experience does not mesh with yours. You do this even when you claim your experiences are only "relevant to you".
Looking at this thread, it seems clear that it typifies what is wrong with debate in America. You have no desire to actually communicate (that being a communal thing), but only to say something. You just want people to read your text, you really don't want any input whatsoever, and, in fact, you would rather flame people with opposing experience than try to understand the difference.
If you are reading a debate, and see the phrase "you are an idiot", you know you stumbled on someone who is probably not worth the time and effort to pay attention to. Reading your replies, you very much seem to be frothing at the mouth, and bouncing up and down inanely.
I replied for two reasons, one (the naive reason) was to point this out to you, so perhaps someday you will attempt to engage in a rational discussion like a mature adult. The second was for shear amusement value, much the same reason that I am replying again.
These devices are also a lot cheaper than even an ION nettop. How much effort does getting the computer to the TV require?
One issue, neither of them have Hulu support. Hulu is pretty much my only source of shows these days. Currently I have an ION nettop/HTPC from Zotac (Atom d510, I think, plus 2GB ram, and a 150GB hdd ripped from a dead Macbook), it is a VERY nice box in theory, and it beats the old MacMini I had running my TV (replaced because Intel graphics being suck). It fails though. Linux, both Mint and Ubuntu, fail at Flash. Well, Compiz hates Flash 10. Or Everything hates NVIDIA drivers. Meaning no Hulu or Netflix. Oddly Hulu videos will play via Boxee, but not through Firefox, Chromium, or the stand-alone client.
So my ION box can barely play Hulu. My MacMini could do it flawlessly, but the graphics got to the point where I could barely pull 720p. The Google TV can't do Hulu. The Apple TV can't do Hulu.
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you're an idiot.
Pot, meet kettle.
my comments about my personal experiences are ONLY relative to me, moron.
Then why are you sharing them? If they are only relevant to you, then they make a very poor basis of communications.
I like blueberries, but one of the ones I had this morning had bugs on it. See how much that contributed? Not very much, if anything.
I have no idea (further I don't care) if anything you said was accurate. Even if it is 100% gospel truth, you come across as such an wanker I would rather just pretend that you were completely wrong. You sound like a 14 year old. If you are 12, this is a compliment, if you are over 14 it is not. Also, while I applaud your correct use of "you're" (actually I am more shocked than anything), you do realize that there are two "shift" keys on your keyboard. You use them to capitalize the first letter of sentences, generally.
I've noticed a very sad trend, everyone with a UID over a million are generally nothing but trolls of adolescent idiots. You are nearing two million, and that makes me rather sad, since there isn't much hope for the next million either.
one way or another (through war or election) those people chose their own government. if that government is not acting in their own best interest it is just a matter of time before its people will choose another.
Tricky topic there. Did they choose their government? If some asshat comes in, with a full military, and threatens to kill and rape everyone there, and managed to convert some youths (generally) into zealot shock troops to bring terror to the local populace, can you really say it is a choice? If it comes down to support General Asshat or died, and have your family killed, is it really a choice? On one, almost purely literal, level; yes. On another, it isn't, though, since it is a coerced choice, and thus barely a choice at all.
What good is freedom if your dead, and your family raped or slaughtered? Personal safety and your family is generally more important than everyone else, so you'll generally choose these over dying for a nebulous, and potentially unsuccessful cause. This does not mean you endorse, or chose, your government.
Also a government is a wild beast, you can agree with some bits, while hating others vehemently (this is how I feel about the US, I sure as hell didn't choose some of our policies, I was just born here, that doesn't mean I have a shred of control).
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, being a philosophy major and associating with a couple people working on their masters in foreign policy. On one hand we have to agree that people should have the right to choose their religion and government. On the other hand do people have the right to inflict their views on others? Is depriving the choice in the former worth allowing the latter? Also, can people freely choose oppression?
Personally I think not. Yes, some Muslim (for example, not to single them out) women would choose their limited (repressed, even) position in society, and completely buy their societies masculine and religious line. But this is all they know, since they are barred meaningful education or experience of the world. Is this choice a real choice, since it isn't an educated choice? Also is this a choice that someone else has the right to make for them?
Education is the precursor to choice. You cannot make a free choice without an awareness of the options. If you repress this awareness you are oppressing choice, thus there is no choice. Women didn't choose to be restricted to burkas, even if they think they did.
If your country restricts information, and doesn't have elections it is a tyranny. Pure and simple.
Is this a justification to outside action? This is debatable. I think it is, though not necessarily a justification for war or military action.
I can see why the US might not be the best person to help allow people to choose their own mess, though. We have a bad history of it, especially on fighting people's choice of economic systems (translation, deciding not to kneel to US corporations), and their choice in electing leaders who are on a different end of the political spectrum than us. But sadly most of the rest of the world is more likely to just enter the relativistic nonsense loop and say "its their culture, thus it is okay". Or the whole "we can't inflict our culture on others", when the question isn't "culture", but "freedom to be an individual".
You've gotta be trolling. 21 million copies sold of her debut album, MTV Music awards, BRIT awards, Grammy nominated, #98 best selling of the 21st century, duet with Eminem, music featured in a big movie, song the opening theme of a US TV show, haircut named after her, sold-out world tours..
Some people don't care. Micheal Jackson sold umpteen million albums, and I never bought a single one, nor have I listened to any of them (willingly). Yes, I know who he is, but just because you sell a ton of records doesn't mean anyone knows who you are or cares. My mom doesn't know who Lady Gaga is, and she is supposed to be somehow relevant. Actually, my dad doesn't know who Trent Reznor is, and there was a ton of albums in our house when I lived there. Some people don't value pop culture, or have the desire to actually research it.
Who watches MTV, or cares about their awards? I haven't watched MTV since 1995, and I couldn't tell you who won any of their awards, ever. The BRIT awards? I don't even know what the hell those are. I know the Grammies, but I still couldn't tell you anyone who won one in the last... ever... much less who was nominated for them. #98 best selling? Wow, is this relevant either? I don't think I've listened to something that charted since... perhaps 2000.
The Eminem thing is the only thing I know her from, and thats only because I had a friend who aspired to be "street", and listened to nothing but Eminem back when he was cool (or something). I honestly haven't thought of her for... since that damn album came out. I don't see any circumstance where she would come up.
I don't watch much TV (perhaps the local news once a week, and I don't have cable). I don't pay attention to Hollywood. Perhaps I saw the movie, but then again movies that exist to push soundtracks annoy me, and I generally don't watch that type. Sold out world tours, how the hell does this matter? Does that mean that everyone in the world saw it? The only person with a hair cut named after them that I am aware of is Julius Ceasar.
As people get older, pop culture matters less to them. They get kind of fixed into whatever they liked in their youth, and get rather jaded. Some people also have limited media consumption. My father only watched the New Hour and MLB. My mom only watches PBS and morning news shows geared towards adults.
Celebrity and popularity doesn't matter to a lot of people, at all. Probably youth culture music celebrities matter even less. I'm sure there was a couple of uber-popular youth figures that I completely missed because I way paying attention to more important things. Hell, when the evening news hits the celebrity/sports time, I generally turn it off and do something else. It has no impact on my life, so I don't care what the kids are listening to.
I sound a bit harsh, I'm sorry. My main point was that some people don't care enough to know anything about pop culture.
I kind of don't blame him. The switch to Intel is part of why I stopped using Macs, the PPC ones just seemed better. At least spec wise, a 1.xxghz PPC seemed much more "zippy" than the 1.xxGhz Intel variety. That and the transition wasn't as painless as advertised. Rosetta made 90% of older apps suck.
That and he has a Six String Samurai sig, meaning he gains a couple of geek points.
Back on topic, and having nothing to do with your reply: I played WoW since right after the release (about 2 months), and quit. Then started with BC, and quit. Then started again with Wrath, and quit. Each time the break grew longer, when I quit the first time it was only for 3 months or so, and mostly because school wasn't being forgiving. The second time it was around 6 months, and mostly because I go bored. The third and last time has been around a year, and mostly because I got REALLY bored, and now I have pretty much no motivation of going back. Some times I miss it because of social concerns, I have couple friends from high school who play, who I never talk to outside of WoW (and now b.net chat). But I look at the end game with a sense of dread. I'm one of the few players who liked leveling more than raiding/arena, both of which seemed rather Sisyphus like, an annoying never ending grind for the prize of having the largest epeen on the server (which really doesn't hold my interest).
And now they are further "dumbing down" the game, so I care even less. Not to be one of those "hardcore" types, but I miss 40-man raids, they were interesting, and held interest past the whole "I got my purples!" thing. I find it hard to be motivated when I just have to get to the Icecrown Pavillian and MiniMall, just to get the epic shoulders of Bob the Whalesmacker so I can go to the Icecrown Dirty Dungeon of Vice and kill Belluga the Retconned Stripper, so I can get the Hat Of Vengence +9000, so I can then wait until the next expansion/content patch hits so I can do it all over again.
WoW is a bit too much like living in some strange existential novel for my tastes, I suppose. In a strange way it mimics real life a bit too much.
The social aspect is also a bit nasty. I made several friends on WoW, but they pretty much only exist within WoW. The second one of us leaves the game for a while, the friendship is completely destroyed. Yes, there are exceptions, but pretty much everyone you know in WoW is only existent in WoW. I'm kind of sick of the ephemeral friend trend (Wow, I'm in a guild with 500 people, and have 4,000 FaceSpace friends! I must be cool!).
I did enjoy the story and mythology though. It probably is the only game when I actually am interested in the story, and sought out information outside of the game.
Cataclysm might make me come back, since it is nice that the developers decided to actually put some time and throw us people who love leveling a bone, for the first time since launch.
This geek friend's universal advice: "take it to a repair shop, or buy a new one".
I'm really sick of fixing peoples computers. I figure by doing everyone for people, I'm not helping them since they never have incentive to do it themselves (i.e. learn).
And people get dependent. I don't think I've actually talked to my dad in 3 months where the conversation was not actually an excuse to make me solve some stupid computer problem. Its actually getting to the point where I don't answer his calls, since I know that I'm going to have to go over and spend six hours digging around on his old (1.6Ghz AMD single core, with less than 1Gb of memory) XP box. Generally because he has 7000 passwords, and hasn't bothered to actually remember what any of them are for.
The last time I had a PSU fry it managed to take out my CPU, and somehow make my mobo unable to recognize PCI cards. Oddly it was the second PSU to fail in that machine in a month. I replaced the old one upon getting some new hardware. That one failed in a week (granted it wasn't the best). The second one failed within two days, and took the computer with it (this one wasn't so cheap).
At which point I got really mad, and bought an iBook.
Which later pissed me off as well.
Rambling aside, the PSU is the component most likely to kill other components.
I tried Mint on my Atom HTPC, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 over it pretty quickly. I couldn't stand the Windows XP menu, and some of the other graphical elements seemed a bit underdone or amateur (like the update manager). It was nice that it saved me the five minutes needed to install codecs, but that is about the only benefit I found. The default theme is better than Ubuntu's, but the default Ubuntu theme generally only lasts around a day on a fresh install. It had the same problem with sound over HDMI as Ubuntu, and really didn't offer any noticeable improvements.
But then again I'm used to Ubuntu, been running it on and off since 7.something or another, and pretty much constantly (on my laptop) since 9.something or another. It might be perfect, for all I know. Sadly it doesn't matter, since running Ubuntu or Mint of an Atom box with an Ion chip is like delving into some nasty circle of hell where anything using flash (Like Hulu) is impossible yet taunts you constantly like a vulture. I wish my old Mac Mini could handle 1080, the Linux box would turn into a headless server. I prefer Ubuntu to OS X, but it is barely usable (at least the HTPC, my Laptop, also running 10.04 works fine).
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Sounds like you have the same box I do, the Zotac with the Atom d510 and ION graphics?
I keep on pondering throwing some flavor of Windows on it (probably XP or Vista, don't want do the expense of another Win7 license), but I feel like it would be cheating. I actually prefer Ubuntu's interface at this point. If anything I would put my Mac back on the TV, and live with the Intel graphics, which does 720p alright, but chokes at 1080. I want Linux because I can strip it down to basics, keeping it simple for the girlfriend, and keeping the overhead to a minimum.
It makes me somewhat mad, running Ubuntu on my laptop has been a completely pleasurable experience, so I expected it to decent in all areas. Sadly Linux still sucks at entertainment. Finding a decent music player has been a pain, as much as iTunes sucks, it is still better than every option I've tried (especially with Home Sharing, I started to take the ease of automatically syncing and organizing libraries for granted). Right now I'm forced to use Banshee to keep importing sane, and Guay... something... to actually play music since it has a decent party shuffle like option.
I've heard some negative things about Kubuntu, that it is a bit hacked together feeling and is a bit inferior to KDE native distros. I tried it a while back, and it was a bit of a pain to get set up (mostly first newbie issues, I'm sure), and an even larger pain to get rid of on a straight Ubuntu install, with tons of hidden dependencies that never quite go away.
I'll probably try it again. I'm just a bit trepidatious. While I love Linux, I'm still rather a novice. I've tested every distro, and did a full install once a year for about 10 years just to see if it was there yet. It really hasn't been until the last year or so. I've been using it around 50% of the time for around a year, so I still have a ton to learn. I still try typing in DOS commands, and getting very confused when they work or don't (old, very old, habits die hard).
Trying to get HDMI sound and Flash working on Ubuntu has been a nice trial by fire, though. If I ever try mucking with ALSA again, it will be too soon.
Linux Mint does a much better job at being easy-to-use right out of the box (and doesn't make stupid design decisions involving window buttons... cough cough).
How? All I can see is it is a reskinned Ubuntu with "restricted extras" and medibuntu installed. I tried it on my HTPC/Nettop and it was about as easy to use as Ubuntu, except with a dog-ugly and inefficient Windows XP menu. It did not live up to the hype. Yes, it was prettier, and yes it maintained Windows-style buttons, but this doesn't really matter since I still had to put in 30 minutes to make it custom.
The same thing I do with every other Linux install, no matter the distro.
I don't get the button debate thing. It takes all of a minute to change them around. Most people don't use the stock desktop/look, so how hard it is it to change your buttons at the same time your changing your themes/fonts/icons? Hell, I always set them to the left anyways, so it saved me work.
Compiz and Flash and the NVIDIA ION still didn't play nice, and it still doesn't do HDMI audio. (does anyone have an ION box that manages HDMI sound and fullscreen flash from Firefox/Chromium and the Hulu app? What distro are you using? Did it require huge amounts of tweaking?). Meaning it still made me wish my MacMini had actual graphics and not some strange Intel chip.
I keep meaning to give Fedora or OpenSuse a spin. But haven't had the time to dig around. Ubuntu has been annoying me of late. I feel like its yelling at me to "web2.0 moar!", with all its silly social networking features that are a slight pain to remove. Perhaps I don't want to use my computer for updating Twitter and Facebook, or chatting, or... making faux friends. Perhaps the two computers I have running Ubuntu are for tasks? When I think of mock social people, the first people I think of aren't Linux nerds. I also keep tossing around trying a newer version of KDE (I haven't used it since it stopped being a Win95 clone), just to see if Amarok is indeed good (better than its Gnome brotheren).
I don't get the hype.
Some people just do better short stories than novels. It happens. Thomas Pynchon is like that, his short fiction is pretty damn good, his actual books are convoluted, messy, and rather annoying. Short fiction and novels are very different beasts when it comes to writing. Just because you can do a neat bit of short fiction, doesn't mean you can scale up your plotting skills.
Asimov was a master of short fiction. When he got tried to write longer things (ahem... Foundation), he got overly convoluted. Probably nothing to do with what technology he used.
Clive Barker is the same, as is a lot of the people who transitioned from short, pulp based, fiction to longer novel type fiction. Going from short stories to novels basically means relearning how to write.
Writers are also know for their idiosyncratic ways. Stephen King basically made his Underwood type-writer a religious artifact, and later his Mac. Neil Stephenson does everything long hand using a pen and ink. I just read a bio on an author who swore off electric lights while writing (I think it was Joe Haldeman). A lot of times this choice has more to do with superstition than rationality. You manage to write your first successful novel with a fountain pen on velum; why risk killing your muse by using anything else?
Using older and simpler means of writing doesn't really matter in itself, since many authors DO use Word, or whatnot and manage to churn out text.
When I briefly tried my hand at writing I got fixed into using a certain method of outlining, using certain tools. I had to do it this way, while fully knowing it was less efficient than probably any other way known to man. The actual application for writing didn't matter much to me, since I can ignore pretty much any feature (do I really need advanced formating for a draft?). The actual preparation phase was a pain though, since I kept trying different software to keep track of things. I probably spent more time playing with software than actually preparation. If I found a method that worked, I would probably stick with it forever, even if the technology became so archaic that I had to go kill and skin animals and forage my own parts.
Try poking holes in THAT without utterly ignoring a basic economic theory called supply-and-demand.
Not going to every try to poke holes in that, or any other silly, simplistic political ideology. All of them are overly simplistic and fail to really;sum up the complicated mess that is reality; they only serve to self-justify people who have heavy personal investment in political dogmas.
But the basic economic theory called supply-and-demand is that, basic. Yes, the basics exist, but with enough caveats and addendum to fill and entire book, or library. Saying that JUST supply and demand can dictate anything is naive. There are an infinite amount of factors involved. Supply and Demand, as a stand-alone theory, is ridiculously overly simplistic. It ignore consumer expectations, prestige pricing, the entirety of the digital economy (unlimited supply), behavioral advertising, advertising based on instincts, the whole gamet of informal fallacies used in advertising, market coercion, monopolies, government interference, pubic image, etc...
Its like the basic theory of economics stating that people are rational agents acting in their own self-interest. Its so basic that it is nothing more than an idealized model. Its like population modeling a park-land, and deciding, for the sake of simplicity, that you'll only model bunnies and foxes.
30% of it alone among illegal aliens.
Citation needed.
Though an argument can be made that every illegal immigrant is a criminal, just by the "illegal" in the term. This is a pretty boring argument though. I'd be more interested in "active" crime statistics.
I'm not snobbish enough to feel entitled to a good time even if it means I break the law.
I don't see what one has to do with the other. The law can be fallible, and the law can be immoral, the law can be unethical, and the law can (oddly enough) be illegal. Just because something is against the law does not make it wrong. For some class of people; having a blurb that says "...it's the law!", just makes them ask the question "why?", and doesn't bring instant fear and revulsion.
I personally don't smoke marijuana, or do any other (illegal) drugs, though I used to. Actually, I lie, on average I smoke pot once a year, if it is available and being used by others in a social setting. I stopped smoking pot not for legal concerns, but because I couldn't stand the culture around it, and it makes my joints hurt.
As a rational person, the laws against marijuana use make no sense. If these laws make no sense I will probably ignore them. The only time these laws matter is in cost analysis, what is the potential enjoyment I get from breaking the law, versus risk of getting caught and scope of consequences of getting caught. If the enjoyment is higher than the risk and odds, then I will break the law, if the law makes no sense.
If the government tried prohibition again, you would instantly be a criminal. If they made alcohol consumption illegal would you stop drinking wine with dinner in the comfort of your own home? If yes, even if there was a very low probability of you getting caught? Would it make sense that a harmless activity that was perfectly legal last night, suddenly means your an immoral, evil, criminal tonight for the same activity?
Just being law isn't a strong argument. If you don't want me to do an activity give me a decent reason why the activity is wrong. With marijuana use, the only argument against is a legal one, and this, to me, is nonsensical.
You are absolutely correct.
Why it does! Thank you!
My collection is complete now!
I DO!
You make a nice specimen.
I remember pondering what lesson I was supposed to learn. I'm pretty sure it was "everyone is an asshole, except that one Mexican guy". I'm sure that is applicable to my day-to-day life, though the message was a bit hurt by me pondering WHY that one Mexican guy wasn't an ass, was it an oversight by the film makers, or what it intentional? They went out of their way to paint everyone as sympathetic racists, except that ONE guy?!
Much like all the of the recent politically correct movie genre, I'm confused. People told me that that move, "Hard Candy" was awesome, poignant, insightful, ad nauseum. I watched it, and pondered the fact that I just watched a movie that made me feel sympathetic for a pedophile. I doubt this was intentional, but still it made it hard to enjoy the movie.
I hate idiotic movies that are supposed to teach me a moral lesson. Most of the time they fail completely. But then again I suppose I'm not the intended audience, the intended audience are people who already agree with the message and want to feel smug.
No, I'm a Howard. As in my name is Howard.
Well, thats a lie, but the rhyme was irresistible.
That is entirely possible. I'm glad you read Descartes!
I love you!
Obvious troll.
But...
Then, what if the Americans forced the creation of Israel and gave back a small piece of Judea to the rightful caretakers, the Jews?
Your wrong. It was the British, mostly. And a lot of Americans were against going to war with Germany because they viewed the Jews in pretty much the same way as the Germans. Before Pearl Harbor, invading Europe to put down Germany was a very unpopular idea. Please don't pain America better than it was. Revisionism is bad.
I had a teacher in high school who basically told us that WWII was fought over Jews, and the Civil War was fought over freeing Blacks. Both of these are complete falsehoods. America also had an active eugenics campaign, and Hitler actually wrote one of our presidents (I think Wilson) a letter commending our "great" ideas.
Also, my family moved from Ireland and Germany to be here. Do I have the right to go back to these countries and claim some of my forefather's land? Am I the "rightful caretaker" of this land? It has only been around 70-100 years that they moved, not the thousand that the Jews have been vacant from Israel. Do the native Americans have the right to reclaim most of North America? Does Mexico have the right to reclaim much of the Southwestern US?
Pretty much every group has taken something from another group sometime in their history. It happens. Pining over somewhere that you didn't hold since BABYLON (note: that was a very, VERY, long time ago) always struck me as a bit inane.
I refuse to argue the general point of your post though, since you are obviously a troll, or one of those "bring on the apocalypse" fundamentalist Christians.
But then again I don't understand how Khomeini can be called a "satanist", last I checked he didn't worship the Christian guy named "Satan", he worshiped Muhammad and Allah (who also happens to be the Christian and Jewish god) and power. Mostly the latter.
Oh and btw hiring terrorist thugs is not a government
Terrorism is often in the eye of the beholder. Much of the world would think the CIA is a bunch of "terrorist thugs" since they had many of the same tactics, and some of the same ideology. Does this mean the US government is no longer a government?
No. I'm debating the relevance of debating with someone who comes across like an immature 14 year old. You obviously have no desire to debate, yet you persist in replying to every single comment just to call the person who replied a "moron" or "idiot" because their anecdotal experience does not mesh with yours. You do this even when you claim your experiences are only "relevant to you".
Looking at this thread, it seems clear that it typifies what is wrong with debate in America. You have no desire to actually communicate (that being a communal thing), but only to say something. You just want people to read your text, you really don't want any input whatsoever, and, in fact, you would rather flame people with opposing experience than try to understand the difference.
If you are reading a debate, and see the phrase "you are an idiot", you know you stumbled on someone who is probably not worth the time and effort to pay attention to. Reading your replies, you very much seem to be frothing at the mouth, and bouncing up and down inanely.
I replied for two reasons, one (the naive reason) was to point this out to you, so perhaps someday you will attempt to engage in a rational discussion like a mature adult. The second was for shear amusement value, much the same reason that I am replying again.
Have a nice day.
These devices are also a lot cheaper than even an ION nettop. How much effort does getting the computer to the TV require?
One issue, neither of them have Hulu support. Hulu is pretty much my only source of shows these days. Currently I have an ION nettop/HTPC from Zotac (Atom d510, I think, plus 2GB ram, and a 150GB hdd ripped from a dead Macbook), it is a VERY nice box in theory, and it beats the old MacMini I had running my TV (replaced because Intel graphics being suck). It fails though. Linux, both Mint and Ubuntu, fail at Flash. Well, Compiz hates Flash 10. Or Everything hates NVIDIA drivers. Meaning no Hulu or Netflix. Oddly Hulu videos will play via Boxee, but not through Firefox, Chromium, or the stand-alone client.
So my ION box can barely play Hulu. My MacMini could do it flawlessly, but the graphics got to the point where I could barely pull 720p. The Google TV can't do Hulu. The Apple TV can't do Hulu.
you're an idiot.
Pot, meet kettle.
my comments about my personal experiences are ONLY relative to me, moron.
Then why are you sharing them? If they are only relevant to you, then they make a very poor basis of communications.
I like blueberries, but one of the ones I had this morning had bugs on it. See how much that contributed? Not very much, if anything.
I have no idea (further I don't care) if anything you said was accurate. Even if it is 100% gospel truth, you come across as such an wanker I would rather just pretend that you were completely wrong. You sound like a 14 year old. If you are 12, this is a compliment, if you are over 14 it is not. Also, while I applaud your correct use of "you're" (actually I am more shocked than anything), you do realize that there are two "shift" keys on your keyboard. You use them to capitalize the first letter of sentences, generally.
I've noticed a very sad trend, everyone with a UID over a million are generally nothing but trolls of adolescent idiots. You are nearing two million, and that makes me rather sad, since there isn't much hope for the next million either.
one way or another (through war or election) those people chose their own government. if that government is not acting in their own best interest it is just a matter of time before its people will choose another.
Tricky topic there. Did they choose their government? If some asshat comes in, with a full military, and threatens to kill and rape everyone there, and managed to convert some youths (generally) into zealot shock troops to bring terror to the local populace, can you really say it is a choice? If it comes down to support General Asshat or died, and have your family killed, is it really a choice? On one, almost purely literal, level; yes. On another, it isn't, though, since it is a coerced choice, and thus barely a choice at all.
What good is freedom if your dead, and your family raped or slaughtered? Personal safety and your family is generally more important than everyone else, so you'll generally choose these over dying for a nebulous, and potentially unsuccessful cause. This does not mean you endorse, or chose, your government.
Also a government is a wild beast, you can agree with some bits, while hating others vehemently (this is how I feel about the US, I sure as hell didn't choose some of our policies, I was just born here, that doesn't mean I have a shred of control).
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, being a philosophy major and associating with a couple people working on their masters in foreign policy. On one hand we have to agree that people should have the right to choose their religion and government. On the other hand do people have the right to inflict their views on others? Is depriving the choice in the former worth allowing the latter? Also, can people freely choose oppression?
Personally I think not. Yes, some Muslim (for example, not to single them out) women would choose their limited (repressed, even) position in society, and completely buy their societies masculine and religious line. But this is all they know, since they are barred meaningful education or experience of the world. Is this choice a real choice, since it isn't an educated choice? Also is this a choice that someone else has the right to make for them?
Education is the precursor to choice. You cannot make a free choice without an awareness of the options. If you repress this awareness you are oppressing choice, thus there is no choice. Women didn't choose to be restricted to burkas, even if they think they did.
If your country restricts information, and doesn't have elections it is a tyranny. Pure and simple.
Is this a justification to outside action? This is debatable. I think it is, though not necessarily a justification for war or military action.
I can see why the US might not be the best person to help allow people to choose their own mess, though. We have a bad history of it, especially on fighting people's choice of economic systems (translation, deciding not to kneel to US corporations), and their choice in electing leaders who are on a different end of the political spectrum than us. But sadly most of the rest of the world is more likely to just enter the relativistic nonsense loop and say "its their culture, thus it is okay". Or the whole "we can't inflict our culture on others", when the question isn't "culture", but "freedom to be an individual".
Okay, I have heard of Dido (thanks to having a friend, a long time ago, who though Eminem would make him "street"), but what the hell is "Faithless"?
To me, it is some obscure band.
You've gotta be trolling. 21 million copies sold of her debut album, MTV Music awards, BRIT awards, Grammy nominated, #98 best selling of the 21st century, duet with Eminem, music featured in a big movie, song the opening theme of a US TV show, haircut named after her, sold-out world tours..
Some people don't care. Micheal Jackson sold umpteen million albums, and I never bought a single one, nor have I listened to any of them (willingly). Yes, I know who he is, but just because you sell a ton of records doesn't mean anyone knows who you are or cares. My mom doesn't know who Lady Gaga is, and she is supposed to be somehow relevant. Actually, my dad doesn't know who Trent Reznor is, and there was a ton of albums in our house when I lived there. Some people don't value pop culture, or have the desire to actually research it.
Who watches MTV, or cares about their awards? I haven't watched MTV since 1995, and I couldn't tell you who won any of their awards, ever. The BRIT awards? I don't even know what the hell those are. I know the Grammies, but I still couldn't tell you anyone who won one in the last... ever... much less who was nominated for them. #98 best selling? Wow, is this relevant either? I don't think I've listened to something that charted since... perhaps 2000.
The Eminem thing is the only thing I know her from, and thats only because I had a friend who aspired to be "street", and listened to nothing but Eminem back when he was cool (or something). I honestly haven't thought of her for... since that damn album came out. I don't see any circumstance where she would come up.
I don't watch much TV (perhaps the local news once a week, and I don't have cable). I don't pay attention to Hollywood. Perhaps I saw the movie, but then again movies that exist to push soundtracks annoy me, and I generally don't watch that type. Sold out world tours, how the hell does this matter? Does that mean that everyone in the world saw it? The only person with a hair cut named after them that I am aware of is Julius Ceasar.
As people get older, pop culture matters less to them. They get kind of fixed into whatever they liked in their youth, and get rather jaded. Some people also have limited media consumption. My father only watched the New Hour and MLB. My mom only watches PBS and morning news shows geared towards adults.
Celebrity and popularity doesn't matter to a lot of people, at all. Probably youth culture music celebrities matter even less. I'm sure there was a couple of uber-popular youth figures that I completely missed because I way paying attention to more important things. Hell, when the evening news hits the celebrity/sports time, I generally turn it off and do something else. It has no impact on my life, so I don't care what the kids are listening to.
I sound a bit harsh, I'm sorry. My main point was that some people don't care enough to know anything about pop culture.
I kind of don't blame him. The switch to Intel is part of why I stopped using Macs, the PPC ones just seemed better. At least spec wise, a 1.xxghz PPC seemed much more "zippy" than the 1.xxGhz Intel variety. That and the transition wasn't as painless as advertised. Rosetta made 90% of older apps suck.
That and he has a Six String Samurai sig, meaning he gains a couple of geek points.
Back on topic, and having nothing to do with your reply: I played WoW since right after the release (about 2 months), and quit. Then started with BC, and quit. Then started again with Wrath, and quit. Each time the break grew longer, when I quit the first time it was only for 3 months or so, and mostly because school wasn't being forgiving. The second time it was around 6 months, and mostly because I go bored. The third and last time has been around a year, and mostly because I got REALLY bored, and now I have pretty much no motivation of going back. Some times I miss it because of social concerns, I have couple friends from high school who play, who I never talk to outside of WoW (and now b.net chat). But I look at the end game with a sense of dread. I'm one of the few players who liked leveling more than raiding/arena, both of which seemed rather Sisyphus like, an annoying never ending grind for the prize of having the largest epeen on the server (which really doesn't hold my interest).
And now they are further "dumbing down" the game, so I care even less. Not to be one of those "hardcore" types, but I miss 40-man raids, they were interesting, and held interest past the whole "I got my purples!" thing. I find it hard to be motivated when I just have to get to the Icecrown Pavillian and MiniMall, just to get the epic shoulders of Bob the Whalesmacker so I can go to the Icecrown Dirty Dungeon of Vice and kill Belluga the Retconned Stripper, so I can get the Hat Of Vengence +9000, so I can then wait until the next expansion/content patch hits so I can do it all over again.
WoW is a bit too much like living in some strange existential novel for my tastes, I suppose. In a strange way it mimics real life a bit too much.
The social aspect is also a bit nasty. I made several friends on WoW, but they pretty much only exist within WoW. The second one of us leaves the game for a while, the friendship is completely destroyed. Yes, there are exceptions, but pretty much everyone you know in WoW is only existent in WoW. I'm kind of sick of the ephemeral friend trend (Wow, I'm in a guild with 500 people, and have 4,000 FaceSpace friends! I must be cool!).
I did enjoy the story and mythology though. It probably is the only game when I actually am interested in the story, and sought out information outside of the game.
Cataclysm might make me come back, since it is nice that the developers decided to actually put some time and throw us people who love leveling a bone, for the first time since launch.
This geek friend's universal advice: "take it to a repair shop, or buy a new one".
I'm really sick of fixing peoples computers. I figure by doing everyone for people, I'm not helping them since they never have incentive to do it themselves (i.e. learn).
And people get dependent. I don't think I've actually talked to my dad in 3 months where the conversation was not actually an excuse to make me solve some stupid computer problem. Its actually getting to the point where I don't answer his calls, since I know that I'm going to have to go over and spend six hours digging around on his old (1.6Ghz AMD single core, with less than 1Gb of memory) XP box. Generally because he has 7000 passwords, and hasn't bothered to actually remember what any of them are for.
The last time I had a PSU fry it managed to take out my CPU, and somehow make my mobo unable to recognize PCI cards. Oddly it was the second PSU to fail in that machine in a month. I replaced the old one upon getting some new hardware. That one failed in a week (granted it wasn't the best). The second one failed within two days, and took the computer with it (this one wasn't so cheap).
At which point I got really mad, and bought an iBook.
Which later pissed me off as well.
Rambling aside, the PSU is the component most likely to kill other components.
I tried Mint on my Atom HTPC, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 over it pretty quickly. I couldn't stand the Windows XP menu, and some of the other graphical elements seemed a bit underdone or amateur (like the update manager). It was nice that it saved me the five minutes needed to install codecs, but that is about the only benefit I found. The default theme is better than Ubuntu's, but the default Ubuntu theme generally only lasts around a day on a fresh install. It had the same problem with sound over HDMI as Ubuntu, and really didn't offer any noticeable improvements.
But then again I'm used to Ubuntu, been running it on and off since 7.something or another, and pretty much constantly (on my laptop) since 9.something or another. It might be perfect, for all I know. Sadly it doesn't matter, since running Ubuntu or Mint of an Atom box with an Ion chip is like delving into some nasty circle of hell where anything using flash (Like Hulu) is impossible yet taunts you constantly like a vulture. I wish my old Mac Mini could handle 1080, the Linux box would turn into a headless server. I prefer Ubuntu to OS X, but it is barely usable (at least the HTPC, my Laptop, also running 10.04 works fine).
Go-go NVIDIA drivers!