Add commenting capability to a website, update it regularly and SUDDENLY, OH NOEZ ITS A BLAWG!!!!!.
Bloggers are hot shit the same way desktop linux is hot shit. Everybody doing it thinks it's the coolest damned thing since the toaster. Nobody else gives a shit.
The Prisoner is absolutely one of my favorite shows of all time. I really don't see why a remake is necessary - the original was just fine, thank you. If we're talking "liberties" I can only assume it'll be in the "sex sells" department as opposed to the allegory department, or the Iconic Representation department.
Sorry, I just don't see The Prisoner working without McGoohan or that 60s Bond-esque Secret Agent flavor.
The first Apple machine I saw IDE on was a Quadra 630, I think. Performas were IDE well before Power Macintoshes were (and the PM 6400/6500 were VERY performa in hardware) - the real powermacs didn't get IDE until the beige G3.
As for Nubus -> PCI -> PCI-X... when was the last time the consumer hardware even had expansion slots?;^)
For the most part I agree with you entirely - specifically the jump to SATA. I still maintain that the approach has changed somewhat since Jobs came back, specifically with the introduction of the iMac (USB) and hypothetically with the switch to Intel. I for one miss the numeric designations - checking a G4 or a G5 for model revision isn't nearly as painless.
The perormas also used numbers, and were more confusing - we know that a 7x00 is a desktop and 8x00s and 9x00s are towers, but Performa 400, 405, 410, 430? (LC II variants) Performa 460, 466, 467, 475, 476? (LC III variants) Nevermind the Performa 6110CD-6118CD (6100 variants). If memory serves the differences were largely modem speeds (back when that mattered) and bundled software.
The Centris, if memory serves, were 68LC030s and 68LC040s with slightly different faceplates from their 680{3|4}0 Quadra 650/610 and later PPC 601 7100/6100 counterparts. I remember the LC difference - it ultimately means that my Quadra 650 runs OpenBSD and my Centris collection was sold to a collector in Canada.
Free email, but the mail client showed ads. Rather you had mail or not, connecting to check was a bother, as the client spent a great deal of time downloading new ads - mail or not (this was in 1998).
My roommates and I were so disgusted by this that we eventually wound up with a real ISP and real email accounts.
Apple tried the same ad-injection thing with OS 8.5 - Sherlock's internet search function would show banner ads. I think I used it twice.
Given the choice between ad-loaded software and less featureful free software, I've always tried to go the route that doesn't jam ads up my nose.:|
At least since the iMac, probably since the 6500 (the first personal computer- x86 OR PPC -to break 300mhz), Apple has ALWAYS lead the jump to new and improved technology and aesthetics with the consumer hardware. The pro hardware comes along later - learning from flaws in the revA consumer stuff and fitting in new features in the process.
There's also a good chunk of mac fanboi out there that are all OMG!!!!! GLEEEEE!!!!!!!! when Apple releases new kit. We're talking the kind of people that bought an iMac, then turned right around and bought a blue-and-white G3 when those were released.
Also... the big advantage of the mini is you're not bound to a specific keyboard and monitor. Much as I love my iBook, the keyboard blows compared to my old powerbook and a 12" display makes my face hurt (it's nice but it's too damned small for my eyes) - the mini lets me use my existing pile of mid-90s Apple CRTs (DVI -> VGA adapter with a VGA -> 25-pin Mac adapter plugged into that, FOR THE WIN!) and my existing keyboards and input devices. It's certainly true that if you're starting fresh (say, just out of high school), a notebook is a much better bang for the buck... but if your house is the Macintosh equivalent of an elephant graveyard, the mini fits into that magic slot of "slightly more expensive than a processor upgrade."
Keep in mind that when the first Playstations shipped, magazines like Game Players and EGM were giving piles of shit like Warhawk perfect scores. Better graphics and better music always seem to make for better review scores, even if the game play is balls.
All you guys who slept through Physics and ended up with a Liberal Arts degree instead contributed to this situation.
I can draw like a motherfucker and I got Ds and Fs in algebra regardless of effort. I'm an artist, not a fucking mathematician - and I'm no fucking slacker.
Don't try to pin this on the students - they're not the ones glorifying touchdowns over long division.
My point's still valid, though - the term in current use is of french origin. Regardless of the roots of the term 'manga', US artists are using it to mean 'japanese-influenced non-superhero comics'. Still confusing, in my opinion.... but the only US comics I read are all written by writers in the UK. So.:P
AutoCAD::Photoshop::Quark::Office::AVID etc === $app for the following.
People keep buying upgrades in order to fill seats for new employees or to interoperate with some dipstick who bought the new version. People keep using $app because it's what they know, it's what they're comfortable with, and it's what they can get work done in. Hell, I still use photoshop 5.5 because I find Photoshop CS to be a slow, bloated, damned-near useless pile of shit... but I have to keep it or 7 around for professional reasons- much the same way I use Office 98 but have to have a current version of Office around Just In Case. I've stopped explaining the concept of the "save as..." dialogue to people because if they actually wanted to know, they'd remember and I wouldn't have to repeat myself every time my email client ejaculated *.doc all over my home directory.
People use this crap because it's what they know. More importantly, their PHBs believe the marketing buzz that it is The Industry Standard. And we need to be compatible with The Industry, don't we?
[ disclaimer, I do professional video work for moneyhats. It pays the bills, I've been doing it since the last century, I've always done it on a mac so I know what I am FRIGGING TALKING ABOUT. ]
PREMIERE WAS A GIANT FESTERING PIECE OF SHIT.
Apple didn't come up with FCP, they bought the damned thing from Macromedia. THAT is why Adobe is pissed at them... and Adobe didn't drop Premiere until FCP Elements came out - a stripped down gutted FCP that functions in Premiere's market space. Rather than work to make premiere a non-shitty piece of software, they simply dropped Mac support and limped off to Windows... which is kind of like getting your ass beat so badly that you switch to a school in another city where they've never heard of you, then start spreading stories about how much ass you used to kick in your hometown.
Premiere is entry-level ass. Think iMovie with a bit more functionality. FCP isn't "better premiere", it's cheap, useable AVID. Apple is gaining professional application marketshare with superior product. And UNlike SGI, Apple's OS and applications are at a pro-sumer price point and are portable... as opposed to SGI's through-the-roof pricing.
If you haven't noticed, SGI is still in business. They just don't give the ghost of a shit about the market you function in.
And in the meantime, maybe the GIMP will replace Photoshop, is that your next line?
Yeeeeeeeahno.
Blender has its uses, but Super Mega High End ain't one of them. Ditto GIMP vs. Photoshop. The biggest single advantage of Blender is that it's FOSS and multiplatform - after that.... whoo. Studios shell out for Maya licenses for a reason, scooter.
Heee. Shit like the parent reminds me of a conversation I had awhile back - a mistake on my part, attempting to divulge some information about the cyberpunk world I've been developing. Started talking about the communications hardware being essentially exactly what the cops have now and the geek in question threw a fit - got red in the face and started insisting they cops would be using quantum encryption and all sorts of fifty cent words and flavor-of-the-month TLAs he'd obviously pulled out of a recent issue of Wired.
Like Gibson said - the future is here, it just isn't widely distributed yet.:P We have functional beam canon, but the military is still using howitzers. Why? Beam canon are expensive and part of the point of the howitzer is that nice big crater the shell leaves. Why would alt-future cops be using super expensive high-maintenance technology (in a desert environment) when CB radio is not only cheap but rugged?
Bleh. People either read/watch sci-fi for the science or the fiction - Personally, I like the fiction. I find the people that are too fixated on the science to be even more removed from reality than cosplayers and DnD geeks.
I've had tinnitus since the first season of Picket Fences - YEARS before I started listening to loud music. One day, my ears just started roaring.
Damned near drove me mad - it took a couple of days to "get used to it" - and at the time, I passed a hearing test with flying colors.
Silence drives me completely up the wall - for the last fourteen or so years of my life, killing all ambient noise has left an incessant "rrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh" that I can't turn off, turn down, or tune out.
I do subtitling and video editing where I work. They won't give me an office, so I have to do the work in a "public" area that I share with two other coworkers, that everyone else walks through or stops and bullshits in.
This sucks flaming horse cock when I'm trying to edit or subtitle, since I need to be able to hear the video files, not my coworkers - two of which are incapable of shutting up for more than a few minutes at most. All of whom complain when I'm editing without headphones.
Headphones were a filtering defense, then they were necessary for work, now they're both - and after a couple of years of this, my upper midrange is pretty much GONE.
The downside? If you're right in front of me in a crowded space, I can't hear you at all.
The upside? Smashing Pumpkins doesn't annoy the shit out of me anymore.
I'd rather have headphones stuck in my ears and be listening to power noise while I'm shopping for pants than to be subjected to Rod Stewart, Phil Collins and Soul Asylum, thank you. Given the choice between headphones and eventual hearing loss and having to listen to the inane drivel people call "words" all day - and the even more infuriating stream of diarrhea they call "pop music" - I'll take the headphones, kthks.
HP calculators (enthusiast, niche market), SGI (before Maya was ported to windows NT and before consumer-level video cards caught up, they were THE bomb and had quite a fan following), Sun (I know several solaris admins who dig the OS and the kit), IBM kit(ditto, mainframes and AIX) - all have enthusiastic niche followings.
Sony? Playstation, Walkman, etc.
Microsoft? Yeah, uh.... k.
Just because you're not part of the userbase and/or don't know anybody who is, doesn't mean the aforementioned companies don't have some degree of fan/cult following.
I've been using Apple kit since the Quadra 650 - the rash of OS X / iPod newcomers and their faddish enthusiasm for Apple The Brand and ignorance of the history of Apple The Company is alternatingly amusing and infuriating.
That all the Sony and Microsoft and IBM and Sun and SGI and HP fanboys just shut up and take it, while Every. Single. Fucking. Educated Stupid. Mac User spouts off APPLE SHOULD _____________!!!!!!!! like they have even the ghost of a clue?
I've heard some of the STUPIDEST shit pour out of otherwise intelligent mouths - people who obviously have no grasp of what Apple's interested in, where the market is going, or even what good / viable business practices are.
Yet the "brand" attracts this verbal ejaculate like a fresh pile of shit attracts flies.
It never got out of prototyping. Combination Quadra 605/610 based motherboard and MPEG decoder hardware. I have a small stack of the things - the 605s are chunky and ugly, the 610s look like actual cable boxes.
Think TIVO a few years before the technology was reasonably viable.
The iPod's the first thing from Apple since the Second Coming Of Jobs that either Apple or NeXT hasn't already done at least once before (think ADC/Applevision, OS X/AUX, etc).
I've hated that shit since 1998 - socially, it drove me into being one of few artists in a geek community, for the simple fact that I value information clarity and ease of navigation as opposed to bloated whiz-bang billshit... the sort of stuff the kids I went to artskool with are conditioned to be all about, almost to a pavlovian level. It and Macromedia have fueled many an argument - greed and moneyhats and buzzwords on one side, legibility and clarity on the other.
Doesn't help that flash runs like shit on the mac.
A shitty EULA is one less reason to use the thing, and another arrow in the "flash sucks!" quiver.
Though I suppose if there's enough of a stink, a FOSS solution wile rise up.
Slashdot Mirror
Add commenting capability to a website, update it regularly and SUDDENLY, OH NOEZ ITS A BLAWG!!!!!.
Bloggers are hot shit the same way desktop linux is hot shit. Everybody doing it thinks it's the coolest damned thing since the toaster. Nobody else gives a shit.
(disclaimer : I blog.)
... how is it that given the Standard IQ Tests that Pennsylvania public skoolz distributed during the 80s, my SISTER and I both scored THE SAME* ??
:P
It might be A gene, but I seriously doubt it's THE gene.
* Plus or minus the usual five point margin of error but we're talking an "average" score around a third again above the norm.
The Prisoner is absolutely one of my favorite shows of all time. I really don't see why a remake is necessary - the original was just fine, thank you. If we're talking "liberties" I can only assume it'll be in the "sex sells" department as opposed to the allegory department, or the Iconic Representation department.
Sorry, I just don't see The Prisoner working without McGoohan or that 60s Bond-esque Secret Agent flavor.
The first Apple machine I saw IDE on was a Quadra 630, I think. Performas were IDE well before Power Macintoshes were (and the PM 6400/6500 were VERY performa in hardware) - the real powermacs didn't get IDE until the beige G3.
;^)
As for Nubus -> PCI -> PCI-X... when was the last time the consumer hardware even had expansion slots?
For the most part I agree with you entirely - specifically the jump to SATA. I still maintain that the approach has changed somewhat since Jobs came back, specifically with the introduction of the iMac (USB) and hypothetically with the switch to Intel. I for one miss the numeric designations - checking a G4 or a G5 for model revision isn't nearly as painless.
The perormas also used numbers, and were more confusing - we know that a 7x00 is a desktop and 8x00s and 9x00s are towers, but Performa 400, 405, 410, 430? (LC II variants) Performa 460, 466, 467, 475, 476? (LC III variants) Nevermind the Performa 6110CD-6118CD (6100 variants). If memory serves the differences were largely modem speeds (back when that mattered) and bundled software.
The Centris, if memory serves, were 68LC030s and 68LC040s with slightly different faceplates from their 680{3|4}0 Quadra 650/610 and later PPC 601 7100/6100 counterparts. I remember the LC difference - it ultimately means that my Quadra 650 runs OpenBSD and my Centris collection was sold to a collector in Canada.
Free email, but the mail client showed ads. Rather you had mail or not, connecting to check was a bother, as the client spent a great deal of time downloading new ads - mail or not (this was in 1998).
:|
My roommates and I were so disgusted by this that we eventually wound up with a real ISP and real email accounts.
Apple tried the same ad-injection thing with OS 8.5 - Sherlock's internet search function would show banner ads. I think I used it twice.
Given the choice between ad-loaded software and less featureful free software, I've always tried to go the route that doesn't jam ads up my nose.
At least since the iMac, probably since the 6500 (the first personal computer- x86 OR PPC -to break 300mhz), Apple has ALWAYS lead the jump to new and improved technology and aesthetics with the consumer hardware. The pro hardware comes along later - learning from flaws in the revA consumer stuff and fitting in new features in the process.
There's also a good chunk of mac fanboi out there that are all OMG!!!!! GLEEEEE!!!!!!!! when Apple releases new kit. We're talking the kind of people that bought an iMac, then turned right around and bought a blue-and-white G3 when those were released.
Also... the big advantage of the mini is you're not bound to a specific keyboard and monitor. Much as I love my iBook, the keyboard blows compared to my old powerbook and a 12" display makes my face hurt (it's nice but it's too damned small for my eyes) - the mini lets me use my existing pile of mid-90s Apple CRTs (DVI -> VGA adapter with a VGA -> 25-pin Mac adapter plugged into that, FOR THE WIN!) and my existing keyboards and input devices. It's certainly true that if you're starting fresh (say, just out of high school), a notebook is a much better bang for the buck... but if your house is the Macintosh equivalent of an elephant graveyard, the mini fits into that magic slot of "slightly more expensive than a processor upgrade."
Every time I hear "tagging" I think grafitti. The word has negative connotations in this context. :P
Keep in mind that when the first Playstations shipped, magazines like Game Players and EGM were giving piles of shit like Warhawk perfect scores. Better graphics and better music always seem to make for better review scores, even if the game play is balls.
Actually, "runs faster with a clean desktop" has been an issue since early versions of MacOS. You know, when people still thought DOS was a good idea.
;^P
MS swiped it from Apple, Apple swiped it back.
I can draw like a motherfucker and I got Ds and Fs in algebra regardless of effort. I'm an artist, not a fucking mathematician - and I'm no fucking slacker.
Don't try to pin this on the students - they're not the ones glorifying touchdowns over long division.
I stand corrected.
:P
My point's still valid, though - the term in current use is of french origin. Regardless of the roots of the term 'manga', US artists are using it to mean 'japanese-influenced non-superhero comics'. Still confusing, in my opinion.... but the only US comics I read are all written by writers in the UK. So.
manga is the japanese word for comic,
And 'anime' is the FRENCH word for 'cartoon'. So why are we calling japanese cartoons 'anime', mmm?
AutoCAD::Photoshop::Quark::Office::AVID etc === $app for the following.
People keep buying upgrades in order to fill seats for new employees or to interoperate with some dipstick who bought the new version. People keep using $app because it's what they know, it's what they're comfortable with, and it's what they can get work done in. Hell, I still use photoshop 5.5 because I find Photoshop CS to be a slow, bloated, damned-near useless pile of shit... but I have to keep it or 7 around for professional reasons- much the same way I use Office 98 but have to have a current version of Office around Just In Case. I've stopped explaining the concept of the "save as..." dialogue to people because if they actually wanted to know, they'd remember and I wouldn't have to repeat myself every time my email client ejaculated *.doc all over my home directory.
People use this crap because it's what they know. More importantly, their PHBs believe the marketing buzz that it is The Industry Standard. And we need to be compatible with The Industry, don't we?
Mod parent troll plz.
[ disclaimer, I do professional video work for moneyhats. It pays the bills, I've been doing it since the last century, I've always done it on a mac so I know what I am FRIGGING TALKING ABOUT. ]
PREMIERE WAS A GIANT FESTERING PIECE OF SHIT.
Apple didn't come up with FCP, they bought the damned thing from Macromedia. THAT is why Adobe is pissed at them... and Adobe didn't drop Premiere until FCP Elements came out - a stripped down gutted FCP that functions in Premiere's market space. Rather than work to make premiere a non-shitty piece of software, they simply dropped Mac support and limped off to Windows... which is kind of like getting your ass beat so badly that you switch to a school in another city where they've never heard of you, then start spreading stories about how much ass you used to kick in your hometown.
Premiere is entry-level ass. Think iMovie with a bit more functionality. FCP isn't "better premiere", it's cheap, useable AVID. Apple is gaining professional application marketshare with superior product. And UNlike SGI, Apple's OS and applications are at a pro-sumer price point and are portable... as opposed to SGI's through-the-roof pricing.
If you haven't noticed, SGI is still in business. They just don't give the ghost of a shit about the market you function in.
And in the meantime, maybe the GIMP will replace Photoshop, is that your next line?
Yeeeeeeeahno.
Blender has its uses, but Super Mega High End ain't one of them. Ditto GIMP vs. Photoshop. The biggest single advantage of Blender is that it's FOSS and multiplatform - after that.... whoo. Studios shell out for Maya licenses for a reason, scooter.
Heee. Shit like the parent reminds me of a conversation I had awhile back - a mistake on my part, attempting to divulge some information about the cyberpunk world I've been developing. Started talking about the communications hardware being essentially exactly what the cops have now and the geek in question threw a fit - got red in the face and started insisting they cops would be using quantum encryption and all sorts of fifty cent words and flavor-of-the-month TLAs he'd obviously pulled out of a recent issue of Wired.
:P We have functional beam canon, but the military is still using howitzers. Why? Beam canon are expensive and part of the point of the howitzer is that nice big crater the shell leaves. Why would alt-future cops be using super expensive high-maintenance technology (in a desert environment) when CB radio is not only cheap but rugged?
Like Gibson said - the future is here, it just isn't widely distributed yet.
Bleh. People either read/watch sci-fi for the science or the fiction - Personally, I like the fiction. I find the people that are too fixated on the science to be even more removed from reality than cosplayers and DnD geeks.
Nervous? Hardly.
I'd rather listen to headphones at any level than tinnitus.
I'd rather listen to tinnitus than the inane prattle of my coworkers.
I've had tinnitus since the first season of Picket Fences - YEARS before I started listening to loud music. One day, my ears just started roaring.
Damned near drove me mad - it took a couple of days to "get used to it" - and at the time, I passed a hearing test with flying colors.
Silence drives me completely up the wall - for the last fourteen or so years of my life, killing all ambient noise has left an incessant "rrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh" that I can't turn off, turn down, or tune out.
I do subtitling and video editing where I work. They won't give me an office, so I have to do the work in a "public" area that I share with two other coworkers, that everyone else walks through or stops and bullshits in.
This sucks flaming horse cock when I'm trying to edit or subtitle, since I need to be able to hear the video files, not my coworkers - two of which are incapable of shutting up for more than a few minutes at most. All of whom complain when I'm editing without headphones.
Headphones were a filtering defense, then they were necessary for work, now they're both - and after a couple of years of this, my upper midrange is pretty much GONE.
The downside? If you're right in front of me in a crowded space, I can't hear you at all.
The upside? Smashing Pumpkins doesn't annoy the shit out of me anymore.
I'd rather have headphones stuck in my ears and be listening to power noise while I'm shopping for pants than to be subjected to Rod Stewart, Phil Collins and Soul Asylum, thank you. Given the choice between headphones and eventual hearing loss and having to listen to the inane drivel people call "words" all day - and the even more infuriating stream of diarrhea they call "pop music" - I'll take the headphones, kthks.
HP calculators (enthusiast, niche market), SGI (before Maya was ported to windows NT and before consumer-level video cards caught up, they were THE bomb and had quite a fan following), Sun (I know several solaris admins who dig the OS and the kit), IBM kit(ditto, mainframes and AIX) - all have enthusiastic niche followings.
Sony? Playstation, Walkman, etc.
Microsoft? Yeah, uh.... k.
Just because you're not part of the userbase and/or don't know anybody who is, doesn't mean the aforementioned companies don't have some degree of fan/cult following.
I've been using Apple kit since the Quadra 650 - the rash of OS X / iPod newcomers and their faddish enthusiasm for Apple The Brand and ignorance of the history of Apple The Company is alternatingly amusing and infuriating.
That all the Sony and Microsoft and IBM and Sun and SGI and HP fanboys just shut up and take it, while Every. Single. Fucking. Educated Stupid. Mac User spouts off APPLE SHOULD _____________!!!!!!!! like they have even the ghost of a clue?
I've heard some of the STUPIDEST shit pour out of otherwise intelligent mouths - people who obviously have no grasp of what Apple's interested in, where the market is going, or even what good / viable business practices are.
Yet the "brand" attracts this verbal ejaculate like a fresh pile of shit attracts flies.
Awesome.
They already made one of those.
In the 90s.
It never got out of prototyping. Combination Quadra 605/610 based motherboard and MPEG decoder hardware. I have a small stack of the things - the 605s are chunky and ugly, the 610s look like actual cable boxes.
Think TIVO a few years before the technology was reasonably viable.
The iPod's the first thing from Apple since the Second Coming Of Jobs that either Apple or NeXT hasn't already done at least once before (think ADC/Applevision, OS X/AUX, etc).
These guys are sucking so hard, their suck has gone from sad to noteworthy to cultural meme in less than a week.
GOOD JOB BROWNIE!!!!!
Solaris and Windows run on x86.
AIX doesn't.
I've hated that shit since 1998 - socially, it drove me into being one of few artists in a geek community, for the simple fact that I value information clarity and ease of navigation as opposed to bloated whiz-bang billshit... the sort of stuff the kids I went to artskool with are conditioned to be all about, almost to a pavlovian level. It and Macromedia have fueled many an argument - greed and moneyhats and buzzwords on one side, legibility and clarity on the other.
Doesn't help that flash runs like shit on the mac.
A shitty EULA is one less reason to use the thing, and another arrow in the "flash sucks!" quiver.
Though I suppose if there's enough of a stink, a FOSS solution wile rise up.