Apple hardware and software is the bees knees for graphics and video.
Then there's video games.
For which a 500$ Dell offers a shitload more bang for the buck than a 1800$ G5.
Pretty much the entire non-portable PC userbase can upgrade their machines to play games. Only the Pro Desktop end of the Apple spectrum has this option- four of the five types of machines Apple sells have non-upgradeable graphics cards.
I like to game, but on the Mac, my options are so limited it's pathetic.
Value is relative. A 2000$ Apple box is a steal for doing Real Video Editing. It's a complete ripoff for games.
Which means Creative Professionals end up owning multiple computers.:P
They have a screen rez of 2560x1600. My dual 21" setup at work has a total area of 2560x1024. I could jack both monitors up a notch and have 3200x1200, with the advantage of being able to set one of the heads for Windows gamma.
I do my comic pages at 2400x3000. Three of those, full sized, don't fit on anything.:| I'd technically need two of the 30"s, one on top of the other, to view the whole thing at Actual Size (where Actual Size is one pixel of the document per pixel of screen, or 2400x3000).
Yeah, they're big. That's fine. I don't want three pages side by side. I want one page REAL BIG.:P
As I've heard it, yes. And Apple bought Final Cut from Macromedia, iirc. On the other hand, they _do_ have a long history of - much like microsoft- taking commonly used third party extensions and incorporating them into the system. The Watson thing was a bit of a stink for some people: I'm just glad they stopped making Sherlock The Default Find Thinger. Hated it.:-/
Considering everything Apple's reintegrated or swiped and called a "new feature", I can only hope that eventually they remember that whole WINDOWSHADING THING.:-|
I'm working on a graphic novel. Pages are 8x10 at 300dpi. IF I could run one of these 30" displays vertically- in portrait mode- I'd be able to fit the entire page on the display at 100% of its size. Not so horizontally.
Radius made a display (that capped out at 1024x768) that could run portrait or landscape- it swiveled on its base and it was basically a driver configuration thinger that switched modes. A friend of mine uses one STILL to this day on a beige mac- because that display gives him EXACTLY what he needs in terms of aspect ratio.
Why Apple doesn't do portrait mode on their displays is totally beyond me.:|
Dashboard looks like it does everything konfabulator does, with possibly a smidge more tossed in. Oh, and no registration reminder. Bet those guys are happy.
True, but USB still sucks for video. Namely, USB bandwidth (including usb2) is BURST. Meaning that's the most you CAN get out of it, if you're lucky, and not for long. Firewire bandwidth is SUSTAINED- meaning it's There. All the time.
You can chain four ATA-100 drives in firewire enclosures into one daisy-chain running into a single firewire jack and you'll barely saturate the bus. Compare to USB, which can't be chained.:-|
I don't do pr0nmags. They annoy the hell out of me, honeslty. The cheaper ones are just nasty, the "upper class" ones are totally airbrushed, I'm not down with the variety of models, and at the bottom line... pictures don't breathe. They don't sweat. There's no smell.
There is, in short, no fucking point. It's a waste of my time.
So yeah, if I'm going to read a magazine, it's going to be one that's focused on something of use to me, like technology. Something I can read and put down without feeling irritated, pissed off, or ready to kill the first advertising monkey I meet.
Less Secure : Got me. Though IRIX is allegedly a security nightmare, designed on the assumption that IRIX boxxen are existing on a locked down, secured network.
Crashes More Frequently : Win2k and XP are stable compared to, say... MacOS 8. Pre-X MacOS is volatile, to say the least.
EULA : Depends on how you look at it. Some companies see the GPL as pretty restrictive. QNX, iirc, has an odd license.
Ship Dates : Doom 3, Halflife 2, Duke Nukem Forever for games. Copland and Rhapsody on the Apple side- OS projects that never shipped, ever. Though Rhapsody got out a couple of DR candidates.
As for Security, well.... the OLD MacOS has never had a single remote exploit in its entire history (you had to specifically install and badly configure certain software to even allow for the possibility thereof- software 95% of the userbase doesn't even know about). Using that as the metric, there are a LOT of operating systems that can be rotorooted from the other side of the planet. Just so happens that with Windows, you're doing it largely through IE and Outlook as opposed to, say, Telnet.
In my experience, Mac resellers and independant Apple servicing companies SUCK. Of course, I live in Pittsburgh, and it's a 45 minute drive out to the suburbs to get to a service center. Intelligence obviously isn't a prerequisite in these parts.
Last time out, the assneck employee spelled my name wrong on the invoice. Twice. Despite the fact I was still wearing my work ID AND I SPELLED IT AT HIM. Then there's the several phone contacts with said service place- during which they'd refuse to specify what problems were encountered with the hardware, hang up without prompting, and generally go the extra mile to prove to me that they're dumb like toast.
Oh, and a G4 we sent in for servicing came back with a.25mm by 3mm GAUGE in the SCSI board. That kicked ass.
Oh, and they charge the original list price for Mac games that were current in 98-99. Like I'd pay 50$ for Oni.
High prices, mentally challenged staff, and one hell of a commute. All in all, orders of magnitude better than the place that used to be in Downtown, which (somehow!) sucked even MORE.
Unfortunately, since recent Apple hardware seems to be about the same quality as Gateway or Dell (as opposed to, you know, better), I've had to deal with these people at least once a year. It's that or drive seven hours to Philly.:P
Photoshop peaked at 5.0.2. There wasn't a 5.1, unfortunately. 5.5 is as high as it useably gets- the only reason to use 5.5 over 5.0.2 is G4 MP support.
Curious Labs, who currently own Poser, already have it locked, albeit indirectly. The amount of poser-generated pr0n out there that's being passed off as real 3d art is disturbingly high. Some companies even make money selling movies/comics using Poser as the modelling and rendering base.
It doesn't take much experience with Creative Types to learn that when we're in the zone, we are In The Zone. Some people have varying tolerances for distraction- mine's extremely low (I've wrecked two vehicles because I can't do something as simple as find a decent radio station and drive straight), so if the phone rings while I'm shading a comic panel, I don't answer it- I unplug it. The distraction pulls me out of The Zone, and being yanked out of the Zone instead of voluntarily stepping out of it is Very Bad. Makes me angry.
A compatible SO will understand The Zone and allow for a Creative Type to go nuts on his/her project... but the Creative Type needs to understand that that isn't really time given so much as time moved around- you might burn an all-nighter on a project you've gotten a sudden breakthrough on, but if you don't make up for it by spending some time with the SO later in the week, well... it ain't gonna last.
There's competition in hardware. Ergo, hardware is extremely cheap. Especially compared to, say, eight years ago.
There WAS competition in software.
Now, we have Photoshop and we have Office and we have Illustrator. And we have price hikes with each new version. Because if you're a cube farmer, you use Office. If you work in the graphics industry, you use Photoshop. Period. There is no competition, no alternative product.
There's also the fact that PS, Illustrator, and Office are available both on the Mac and on Windows. This is a factor in their success, and a way for Adobe to easily justify cost increases. Microsoft can charge whatever they want for Office- people will pay.
Illustrator has competition in the form of Freehand- which blew Illustrator away for color seperation the last time I saw it in use. But Photoshop.... photoshop has NOTHING. We can thank patents for some of that, unfortunately.
Professional video software is a whole 'nother price gouging arena- the difference being that Professional Video has actually had SOME COMPETITION in recent years with the rise of Final Cut Pro.
Alternatively, you need a couple of good ones to recognize a bad one for what it is and get out before you sustain too much Damage. I've seen many friends of mine be all DOOD I SUCK I'M LONELY I JUST WANT A GIRLFRIEND and then they GET one and do absolutely anything she demands because they are very, VERY afraid she'll up and leave if they don't comply.
Leaving your dirty underwear on the pillows is one thing. A girl goading you into changing your hairstyle, lifestyle, POSITION IN LIFE, etceteras, is NOT someone who's going to make you happy. At all. Ever. Women and boys are like Linux geeks and Linux- they see a lot of things they want to change and approach the guy from a standpoint of Potential, as opposed to what he Actually Is- and they set about to make changes. This in and of itself seems to be an inherent compulsion (in my experience and observation), and how (badly) it manifests depends largely on the woman's personality.
Marrying the first girl who's willing to have sex with you is not a recipe for success- surviving a handful of relationships will teach you what you want out of one, what you need to change about yourself, and what you shouldn't change about yourself.
Oddly enough, relationships are like video games in the standpoint that the more you "play" them, the "better" you get at them.
I play video games when I'm too burned out to do anything else. The rest of my time is spent video editing (a skill I picked up slacking off, which is now my present means of earning a living), rebuilding old macintosh computers for people who can't afford their own machines, and working on my graphic novel.
I've realized over time that video games don't offer much ROI for the time spent learning them and attaining some level of skill with them. Yeah, the bus might be a good place for a game boy, but that's the only time of the day I have to write in my journal. I'm in a position where, psychologically, my paid work is entertainment and my "hobbies" are mentally demanding. Friends in my age bracket (consistently obsessed with GTA, NWN, Quake, BF1942, Final Fantasy, etc.) have repeatedly asked me how I'm so "productive."
The simple answer is that the time they're spending level-building in EQ is time I'm spending rewriting my script, thumbnailing panel layouts, editing video, or processing and coloring inks. I'm barely earning a living, but I'm happy doing what I'm doing... and I have very little free time.
Of course, I'm not blowing 20 hours a week on video games, I'm spending it in the myriad stages of graphic novel production. Time for it has to come from somewhere- out went video games, out went movies. I do those when I'm too burned out from writing, pencilling, inking, coloring to do anything else.
Oh yeah, and there's the day job. Combine that with the graphic novel and I have about six hours of free time a week. Broke up with the girl I was dating the week I started the project in earnest. I told her I had finally started work on the thing- which I have been planning since 1994- and her response wasn't "sweet!" or "nice!" or "it's good that you're starting to realize your dreams!", it was "I'M NOT TAKING A BACK SEAT TO SOME STUPID WEBCOMIC!"
And so, quite suddenly, she wasn't.
When I'm 40, my memories of my mid twenties will be a haze of production striving to pull together a story that has been taking shape in my head for ten years. I will have ACCOMPLISHED something, rather than suffering the tyranny of an ice queen who wanted my creative energies for herself.
Fortunately, the woman I'm half-dating now understands exactly where I'm coming from (she's a writer)- and has caught more than a few typos.
If you have to sacrifice something you love, then it's pretty obvious that there's a more compatible girl out there.
Video games don't whine (well, good ones). Video games don't call you at work and DEMAND you spend more time with them. Video games don't pull stupid dramatic stunts that even high schoolers would laugh at to get you to pay attention to them. Video games demand time and money, sure, but they're not guilting you with WE NEVER GO OUT!!! and WE'RE GOING TO VISIT MY PSYCHOTIC MOTHER!!!. Video games do not withhold sex over something as stupid as showing up five minutes late.
In short, video games are better than a bad relationship by orders of magnitude. I'd rather play Daikatana than spend ten minutes with my ex. Yeah, relationships are a give and take thing, but when you're doing all the giving and SheBitch, Queen of the Universe is doing all of the taking, well.... fuck that noise. GTA calls.
A good relationship, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Bad relationships drive me to video games. Good ones leave me with little inclination to pick up the control pad.
The Japanese have that whole "honor" thing going, culture-wide, which I'm sure is a contributing factor. There's also the fact that they approach business the way our generals approach warfare. When was the last time you heard of a general firing several platoons, outsourcing munitions resupply and comminucations to India, running the Division into the ground and bouncing on to the next Division with a severance package the size of a smaller country's GNP?
Of course, our Generals have to report to the penultimate PHBs, which nicely breaks my analogy.
Japan is very big on buying Japanese. America, conversely, is very big on buying Cheap, especially if it's Better (witness what Nintendo and Sony did to Atari; Toyota et al. to Detroit). American management doesn't seem to give two shits about American culture, prestige, prowess, capability, standing, or advance- they're in it for the money, focused on the short term, and are running American tech industry into the ground.:|
I know Japan outsources some of its animation to Korea (and dude, you can tell)- but what about their high-tech industry? Physical area and population density aren't the only factors!
Yeah, there's the occasional really interesting/. comment that gets nuked off of the face of the earth- but all too frequently, there's an assload of repetetive and redundant comments that get modded up.... and damned near all of the "Funny" posts are just NOT funny. At all.
I love the fact I can twiddle my user prefs to smack a -5 on "Funny" mods and a +3 on "redundant". It's not perfect, but it kicks a hell of a lot more ass than the k5 mod system, imo.
At least on the NES. The vault door to Fred's lab is locked by a keypad, and the combination is whatever the high score on Meteor Madness (second floor arcade room) happens to be. All you have to do is get the key to the outer door, get captured by Nurse Edna or Weird Ed, and get tossed in the basement before Fred plays Meteor Madness. Do this and the combination for the door is all zeros!:D
Found this out the hard way when I was a kid- I was stuck and didn't know where to look for the code, so I figured I'd brute force it (yes, I was BORED), and.... surprise, it worked on the first go. Found out it was tied to the arcade machine when I inadvertently closed the door and tried to open it again later.
"There's this part of Steve that most people don't understand," says Catmull. "He's a very loyal person - he's invested in only two companies his entire life.
Lessee.... Jobs co-founded Apple, was ousted from Apple, founded NeXT, Apple boughtNeXT, and somewhere in between, Jobs got involved with Pixar.
Historically, that's three companies, all of which have accomplished some seriously badass things in their fields. Though I suppose if you look at it in the Now, Jobs is currently invested in only two companies....
Slashdot Mirror
Apple hardware and software is the bees knees for graphics and video.
:P
Then there's video games.
For which a 500$ Dell offers a shitload more bang for the buck than a 1800$ G5.
Pretty much the entire non-portable PC userbase can upgrade their machines to play games. Only the Pro Desktop end of the Apple spectrum has this option- four of the five types of machines Apple sells have non-upgradeable graphics cards.
I like to game, but on the Mac, my options are so limited it's pathetic.
Value is relative. A 2000$ Apple box is a steal for doing Real Video Editing. It's a complete ripoff for games.
Which means Creative Professionals end up owning multiple computers.
They have a screen rez of 2560x1600. My dual 21" setup at work has a total area of 2560x1024. I could jack both monitors up a notch and have 3200x1200, with the advantage of being able to set one of the heads for Windows gamma.
:| I'd technically need two of the 30"s, one on top of the other, to view the whole thing at Actual Size (where Actual Size is one pixel of the document per pixel of screen, or 2400x3000).
:P
I do my comic pages at 2400x3000. Three of those, full sized, don't fit on anything.
Yeah, they're big. That's fine. I don't want three pages side by side. I want one page REAL BIG.
Tell that to Dell, yo. They ship FreeDOS on some of their boxes.
As I've heard it, yes. And Apple bought Final Cut from Macromedia, iirc. On the other hand, they _do_ have a long history of - much like microsoft- taking commonly used third party extensions and incorporating them into the system. The Watson thing was a bit of a stink for some people: I'm just glad they stopped making Sherlock The Default Find Thinger. Hated it. :-/
:-|
Considering everything Apple's reintegrated or swiped and called a "new feature", I can only hope that eventually they remember that whole WINDOWSHADING THING.
I'm working on a graphic novel. Pages are 8x10 at 300dpi. IF I could run one of these 30" displays vertically- in portrait mode- I'd be able to fit the entire page on the display at 100% of its size. Not so horizontally.
:|
Radius made a display (that capped out at 1024x768) that could run portrait or landscape- it swiveled on its base and it was basically a driver configuration thinger that switched modes. A friend of mine uses one STILL to this day on a beige mac- because that display gives him EXACTLY what he needs in terms of aspect ratio.
Why Apple doesn't do portrait mode on their displays is totally beyond me.
I mean, really.
Dashboard looks like it does everything konfabulator does, with possibly a smidge more tossed in. Oh, and no registration reminder. Bet those guys are happy.
True, but USB still sucks for video. Namely, USB bandwidth (including usb2) is BURST. Meaning that's the most you CAN get out of it, if you're lucky, and not for long. Firewire bandwidth is SUSTAINED- meaning it's There. All the time.
:-|
You can chain four ATA-100 drives in firewire enclosures into one daisy-chain running into a single firewire jack and you'll barely saturate the bus. Compare to USB, which can't be chained.
I don't do pr0nmags. They annoy the hell out of me, honeslty. The cheaper ones are just nasty, the "upper class" ones are totally airbrushed, I'm not down with the variety of models, and at the bottom line... pictures don't breathe. They don't sweat. There's no smell.
There is, in short, no fucking point. It's a waste of my time.
So yeah, if I'm going to read a magazine, it's going to be one that's focused on something of use to me, like technology. Something I can read and put down without feeling irritated, pissed off, or ready to kill the first advertising monkey I meet.
iD's never stated a ship date. Activision's a different matter entirely.
:-/ No BF, no Painkiller, and UT makes my eyes bleed.
Personally, I just want the damned game to come OUT. iD games are effectively IT for Mac FPS.
Less Secure : Got me. Though IRIX is allegedly a security nightmare, designed on the assumption that IRIX boxxen are existing on a locked down, secured network.
Crashes More Frequently : Win2k and XP are stable compared to, say... MacOS 8. Pre-X MacOS is volatile, to say the least.
EULA : Depends on how you look at it. Some companies see the GPL as pretty restrictive. QNX, iirc, has an odd license.
Ship Dates : Doom 3, Halflife 2, Duke Nukem Forever for games. Copland and Rhapsody on the Apple side- OS projects that never shipped, ever. Though Rhapsody got out a couple of DR candidates.
As for Security, well.... the OLD MacOS has never had a single remote exploit in its entire history (you had to specifically install and badly configure certain software to even allow for the possibility thereof- software 95% of the userbase doesn't even know about). Using that as the metric, there are a LOT of operating systems that can be rotorooted from the other side of the planet. Just so happens that with Windows, you're doing it largely through IE and Outlook as opposed to, say, Telnet.
In my experience, Mac resellers and independant Apple servicing companies SUCK. Of course, I live in Pittsburgh, and it's a 45 minute drive out to the suburbs to get to a service center. Intelligence obviously isn't a prerequisite in these parts.
.25mm by 3mm GAUGE in the SCSI board. That kicked ass.
:P
Last time out, the assneck employee spelled my name wrong on the invoice. Twice. Despite the fact I was still wearing my work ID AND I SPELLED IT AT HIM. Then there's the several phone contacts with said service place- during which they'd refuse to specify what problems were encountered with the hardware, hang up without prompting, and generally go the extra mile to prove to me that they're dumb like toast.
Oh, and a G4 we sent in for servicing came back with a
Oh, and they charge the original list price for Mac games that were current in 98-99. Like I'd pay 50$ for Oni.
High prices, mentally challenged staff, and one hell of a commute. All in all, orders of magnitude better than the place that used to be in Downtown, which (somehow!) sucked even MORE.
Unfortunately, since recent Apple hardware seems to be about the same quality as Gateway or Dell (as opposed to, you know, better), I've had to deal with these people at least once a year. It's that or drive seven hours to Philly.
Photoshop peaked at 5.0.2. There wasn't a 5.1, unfortunately. 5.5 is as high as it useably gets- the only reason to use 5.5 over 5.0.2 is G4 MP support.
Curious Labs, who currently own Poser, already have it locked, albeit indirectly. The amount of poser-generated pr0n out there that's being passed off as real 3d art is disturbingly high. Some companies even make money selling movies/comics using Poser as the modelling and rendering base.
ph34r.
It doesn't take much experience with Creative Types to learn that when we're in the zone, we are In The Zone. Some people have varying tolerances for distraction- mine's extremely low (I've wrecked two vehicles because I can't do something as simple as find a decent radio station and drive straight), so if the phone rings while I'm shading a comic panel, I don't answer it- I unplug it. The distraction pulls me out of The Zone, and being yanked out of the Zone instead of voluntarily stepping out of it is Very Bad. Makes me angry.
A compatible SO will understand The Zone and allow for a Creative Type to go nuts on his/her project... but the Creative Type needs to understand that that isn't really time given so much as time moved around- you might burn an all-nighter on a project you've gotten a sudden breakthrough on, but if you don't make up for it by spending some time with the SO later in the week, well... it ain't gonna last.
There's competition in hardware. Ergo, hardware is extremely cheap. Especially compared to, say, eight years ago.
There WAS competition in software.
Now, we have Photoshop and we have Office and we have Illustrator. And we have price hikes with each new version. Because if you're a cube farmer, you use Office. If you work in the graphics industry, you use Photoshop. Period. There is no competition, no alternative product.
There's also the fact that PS, Illustrator, and Office are available both on the Mac and on Windows. This is a factor in their success, and a way for Adobe to easily justify cost increases. Microsoft can charge whatever they want for Office- people will pay.
Illustrator has competition in the form of Freehand- which blew Illustrator away for color seperation the last time I saw it in use. But Photoshop.... photoshop has NOTHING. We can thank patents for some of that, unfortunately.
Professional video software is a whole 'nother price gouging arena- the difference being that Professional Video has actually had SOME COMPETITION in recent years with the rise of Final Cut Pro.
RJ45 is ethernet (8 pins). IIRC, telephony is RJ11 (4 pins). :)
Alternatively, you need a couple of good ones to recognize a bad one for what it is and get out before you sustain too much Damage. I've seen many friends of mine be all DOOD I SUCK I'M LONELY I JUST WANT A GIRLFRIEND and then they GET one and do absolutely anything she demands because they are very, VERY afraid she'll up and leave if they don't comply.
Leaving your dirty underwear on the pillows is one thing. A girl goading you into changing your hairstyle, lifestyle, POSITION IN LIFE, etceteras, is NOT someone who's going to make you happy. At all. Ever. Women and boys are like Linux geeks and Linux- they see a lot of things they want to change and approach the guy from a standpoint of Potential, as opposed to what he Actually Is- and they set about to make changes. This in and of itself seems to be an inherent compulsion (in my experience and observation), and how (badly) it manifests depends largely on the woman's personality.
Marrying the first girl who's willing to have sex with you is not a recipe for success- surviving a handful of relationships will teach you what you want out of one, what you need to change about yourself, and what you shouldn't change about yourself.
Oddly enough, relationships are like video games in the standpoint that the more you "play" them, the "better" you get at them.
I play video games when I'm too burned out to do anything else. The rest of my time is spent video editing (a skill I picked up slacking off, which is now my present means of earning a living), rebuilding old macintosh computers for people who can't afford their own machines, and working on my graphic novel.
I've realized over time that video games don't offer much ROI for the time spent learning them and attaining some level of skill with them. Yeah, the bus might be a good place for a game boy, but that's the only time of the day I have to write in my journal. I'm in a position where, psychologically, my paid work is entertainment and my "hobbies" are mentally demanding. Friends in my age bracket (consistently obsessed with GTA, NWN, Quake, BF1942, Final Fantasy, etc.) have repeatedly asked me how I'm so "productive."
The simple answer is that the time they're spending level-building in EQ is time I'm spending rewriting my script, thumbnailing panel layouts, editing video, or processing and coloring inks. I'm barely earning a living, but I'm happy doing what I'm doing... and I have very little free time.
Of course, I'm not blowing 20 hours a week on video games, I'm spending it in the myriad stages of graphic novel production. Time for it has to come from somewhere- out went video games, out went movies. I do those when I'm too burned out from writing, pencilling, inking, coloring to do anything else.
Oh yeah, and there's the day job. Combine that with the graphic novel and I have about six hours of free time a week. Broke up with the girl I was dating the week I started the project in earnest. I told her I had finally started work on the thing- which I have been planning since 1994- and her response wasn't "sweet!" or "nice!" or "it's good that you're starting to realize your dreams!", it was "I'M NOT TAKING A BACK SEAT TO SOME STUPID WEBCOMIC!"
And so, quite suddenly, she wasn't.
When I'm 40, my memories of my mid twenties will be a haze of production striving to pull together a story that has been taking shape in my head for ten years. I will have ACCOMPLISHED something, rather than suffering the tyranny of an ice queen who wanted my creative energies for herself.
Fortunately, the woman I'm half-dating now understands exactly where I'm coming from (she's a writer)- and has caught more than a few typos.
If you have to sacrifice something you love, then it's pretty obvious that there's a more compatible girl out there.
Video games don't whine (well, good ones). Video games don't call you at work and DEMAND you spend more time with them. Video games don't pull stupid dramatic stunts that even high schoolers would laugh at to get you to pay attention to them. Video games demand time and money, sure, but they're not guilting you with WE NEVER GO OUT!!! and WE'RE GOING TO VISIT MY PSYCHOTIC MOTHER!!!. Video games do not withhold sex over something as stupid as showing up five minutes late.
In short, video games are better than a bad relationship by orders of magnitude. I'd rather play Daikatana than spend ten minutes with my ex. Yeah, relationships are a give and take thing, but when you're doing all the giving and SheBitch, Queen of the Universe is doing all of the taking, well.... fuck that noise. GTA calls.
A good relationship, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Bad relationships drive me to video games. Good ones leave me with little inclination to pick up the control pad.
The Japanese have that whole "honor" thing going, culture-wide, which I'm sure is a contributing factor. There's also the fact that they approach business the way our generals approach warfare. When was the last time you heard of a general firing several platoons, outsourcing munitions resupply and comminucations to India, running the Division into the ground and bouncing on to the next Division with a severance package the size of a smaller country's GNP?
:|
Of course, our Generals have to report to the penultimate PHBs, which nicely breaks my analogy.
Japan is very big on buying Japanese. America, conversely, is very big on buying Cheap, especially if it's Better (witness what Nintendo and Sony did to Atari; Toyota et al. to Detroit). American management doesn't seem to give two shits about American culture, prestige, prowess, capability, standing, or advance- they're in it for the money, focused on the short term, and are running American tech industry into the ground.
I know Japan outsources some of its animation to Korea (and dude, you can tell)- but what about their high-tech industry? Physical area and population density aren't the only factors!
Yeah, there's the occasional really interesting /. comment that gets nuked off of the face of the earth- but all too frequently, there's an assload of repetetive and redundant comments that get modded up.... and damned near all of the "Funny" posts are just NOT funny. At all.
I love the fact I can twiddle my user prefs to smack a -5 on "Funny" mods and a +3 on "redundant". It's not perfect, but it kicks a hell of a lot more ass than the k5 mod system, imo.
At least on the NES. The vault door to Fred's lab is locked by a keypad, and the combination is whatever the high score on Meteor Madness (second floor arcade room) happens to be. All you have to do is get the key to the outer door, get captured by Nurse Edna or Weird Ed, and get tossed in the basement before Fred plays Meteor Madness. Do this and the combination for the door is all zeros! :D
Found this out the hard way when I was a kid- I was stuck and didn't know where to look for the code, so I figured I'd brute force it (yes, I was BORED), and.... surprise, it worked on the first go. Found out it was tied to the arcade machine when I inadvertently closed the door and tried to open it again later.
Man, that game kicked all of the ass.
From the article:
"There's this part of Steve that most people don't understand," says Catmull. "He's a very loyal person - he's invested in only two companies his entire life.
Lessee.... Jobs co-founded Apple, was ousted from Apple, founded NeXT, Apple boughtNeXT, and somewhere in between, Jobs got involved with Pixar.
Historically, that's three companies, all of which have accomplished some seriously badass things in their fields. Though I suppose if you look at it in the Now, Jobs is currently invested in only two companies....
I can hardly look for a comparative upgrade path from MT 2.6 if it's NOT ON THE LIST. :|