It's highly likely that Jesus had a wife. There's strong evidence to show that Jesus had Rabbii training, and strong evidence that his wife was Mary Magdelene, aka Mary of Bethany (yes, the one and same person). During that era, it was extremely unusual for a jewish male to not be married, and a Rabbii had to be married. It was basically a 'law'.
The Roman Catholic church has long sought to hide the line of Jesus, spread by Mary Magdelene when she moved to the area of Marseilles. The deal with Clovis was renegged less than 100 years after his death, removing the line of the Menengoverians by the assassination of Dagobert II. Of course, evidence tends to point that his son was smuggled to safety and survived and the line continued, leading to the Cathars, and then to the Knights Templar.
For a very interesting read, and a very thought provoking read, try:
Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
It really shows how much the Roman Catholic church has lied, cheated and killed to remain in power. Add to insult that most of the holy Roman Catholic religious holidays are based on pagan holidays/celebrations (yes!!!).
Add to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is highly intolerant of other religions - the murder and war against the Saracens in the 11th century, the purge of 'witches' (six million deaths at least) in the 14th century.
Things are cheaper, hence poorer quality. The two factors are linked. We're to the point of being a throw-away society, and most people don't care. Gone are the days of doing something, and doing it right. Here are the days of do a quick and dirty dodgy job, make a buck and then screw the customer.
My original pioneer dvd rom (dvd-116) drive died after just under a year of usage a year and a bit ago. Not heavily used. Would play CDs, but not dvd-roms, well not all of them. After Pioneer Australia tried fucking me around for a week [they were trying to blame the disks themselves, then had the gall to tell me that "not every DVD will work and we can't control that" and I put it to them very blunty that i'd take legal action if they kept fucking me around].
My arguments?
1. Said DVDs play OK in my standalone player. They also play OK in 2 other dvd rom drives in the house.
2. Updated firmware, same issue.
3. Problem existed in both Windows and Linux. pre and post firmware update.
4. Reinstallation of the DVD playing software, updating, patching, trying different software totally didn't fix the problem. It occurred over multiple installs, different installs (windvd vs powerdvd).
And as I said, they tried this bullshit about it being a problem with the disks, and sometimes not all DVDs will play in all media. My answer to them?
DVD is a standard. Their players say that they play DVDs. Their players are meant to conform to a standard. The software advertises it plays DVDs. DVD movies are obviously meant to conform to the very same standards. Otherwise:
1. Either the mpaa/manufacturer of the DVD disk is lying, and the disks don't conform to standards
2. The software developer(s) are lying and the software doesn't conform to standards
3. The hardware manufacturer is lying and the hardware doesn't conform to standards.
Either way, it doesn't give these bastards the right to fuck over consumers, and shove the blame onto other groups, thus making it very difficult for the consumer to take the necessary action to ensure that their rights are being met legally by the above groups. This is common practice these days btw - blame others. Company A blames Company B, who in turn blames Company C, who in turn blames Company A or B. They all flick the responsibility between themselves and lead the consumer on a wild goose chase.
In the end, Pioneer Australia accepted that there was a fault with their unit, and I sent it back to them, explicitly asking not to receive a slot DVD rom drive, but a tray loader, as I dislike the slot units. They send me a slot unit. A Pioneer dvd-120s. I was not impressed. This unit is now failing, and in fact hanging my system whenever I tried to use k3b to burn a disk (even with another burner), or play a DVD. xine, mplayer, ogle and vlc have all refused to work with this DVD rom drive for some time now. I recently purchased a LG dvd burner drive (now that's another kettle of fish rant for later on), and altered it to be the/dev/dvd device and it plays DVDs perfectly, and flawlessly. Of course k3b still hangs on startup because the Pioneer drive is still in the system. I've tried dma on, dma off, nothing fixes it, and my conclusion from several weeks of logical troubleshooting is that this drive is on the way out. I'll of course buy another drive, and my money is on it that it'll fix the problem, but it doesn't make me happy at all. How old is this Pioneer dvd-120s drive? About 16 months. Shocking quality.
Oh, and I have an older Acer cd-rw burner (4x), that is 5 years old that still works perfectly in another machine that someone else in the house uses. It cost me more, but it's damn well been a lot reliable, and has been used more than the combined usage of the old Pioneer DVD rom drive, the new Pioneer DVD rom drive, the new LG burner, and my current Sony cd-rw drive.
The past 5 years has seen a tremendous downturn in quality of products, and longevity. Sure, people are paying less, but in the end, they're paying the same. Why? If yo
They'd simply pass laws to re-engineer ALL Microsoft software if Microsoft pulled out...and oh, oops, open source accidently found out about it. What's Microsoft gonna do? Hire the US army? If it comes down to it, a unified Europe would crush the US both economically and in a show of arms. Both Germany and France are drifting away from the US dictatorship that's been shoved down Europe post WWII, it's only a matter of time until they realise that by playing to whatever the US wants they are cutting their own throats.
Dave
Partly yes. Partly no. Large corporate businesses seek to control - whether there's piracy or not, they'll still seek to introduce methods to control their customers. The MPAA and RIAA are monopolies. Yet the US government seeks to give them unlimited power (above the law, legal for them to do dDos attacks as an example). Laws are for everyone to abide, not for the rich and powerful to avoid.
As to downloaded music (mp3s), a lot of people do buy the CDs. I grabbed an "illegal" mp3 of Avril Lavignes "complicated" a few years ago and was hooked. The result? I've bought both of her albums, seen her live in concert @ Sydney, bought all of her CD singles. If I hadn't heard that song (courtesy of someone else - "illegally" downloaded mp3) i'd never have heard of her, since I don't listen to the radio and don't watch TV. Sure - not everyone's like this, but some people are. Technically, i've participated in piracy, but I challenge the RIAA and ARIA to have a go at me. They're rich, greedy bastards, that's all.
With the introduction of compact discs, it became easier and cheaper to make music (LPs were much more expensive to produce). Recording companies profits sky rocketed, whilst artists didn't get an increase in royalties. music stores could pack more "music" and also made more money. The losers? The artists. The recording comapnies are nothing but greedy leeches. They leech on others talent, when they have none. They seek to control and rort the system, because they are rich and powerful. I also fail to see why 2 US based monopolistic organisations have ANY legal right to extend their crap to any other country other than the US.
As to those that engage in piracy - I suggest you go back to dialup accounts. Or drop your internet accounts completely. If 80% of the population does it, it'll completely fuck the ISPs, and have a large downward effect on local economies. Keep doing it. Speak with your wallet, withhold money. Don't use their services. It's the only thing that large bastard corporations understand. Don't buy music CDs/DVDs, DVD movies, VCR movies. Boycott them. Six months of this and the MPAA and RIAA would be broken, and the artists would be rebelling. The damage to local economies would force governments to intervene. Return power to the people, for the people, not for the very tiny % of greedy, rich bastards that seek to control, and seek to be above the law(s).
I use GPL'd software. I'll never touch commercial software again. I won't support illegal monopolists like Microsoft, and I certainly won't support a corrupt US or Australian government.
Dave
I prefer Ep1 to Ep2, even though Ep2 has some really kickass action in it, and the CGI is pretty good as well.
There's a lot of people bitching about CGI - it was pretty good. I think a lot of people got turned off by the CGI cos of Jar Jar. I actually enjoyed Jar Jar and his slapstick humour. That's all it was intended to be, it's a shame that those adults that saw the OT as children have grown up and fail to see that. But then, maybe there's still some child in myself, and maybe that's why I see Jar Jar like I do.
Now - the musical score for the NT has been fine. Nothing super gripping, but it's been fine - I feel that it's successfully conveyed the emotions of the characters at the appropriate times.
The actors - they are fine actors. Even the synopsis story is fine.
The sets and costumes have been fine imho.
So - what has let the NT down? I firmly believe it's several things.
1. screenplay/dialogue. The dialogue has been awful Truly. Lucas' forte is not in writing. He can do a rough synopsis with a original idea pretty damn good, but when it comes to fleshing it out, he's not the man. He really should have deferred to a professional screenwriter. Honestly. The quality of a screenplay really limits how the actors can determine their characters, and that, in turn, makes them less believable. There's a reason why TESB was the best movie of the original trilogy, and that's cos Leigh Brackett wrote the script. She did a damn well fine job. Brilliant. I don't think too many Star Wars fans will disagree with me here.
2. Direction. Sorry, but Lucas is a 2nd rate director. That said, he's a better director than he is a writer:-) A directors job is to create the vision, transfer the actors, the script writer, the music, the sfx into a film. He directs the composer, the sfx guys, the film editors, the sound recordists, the sound editors, the set design to an extent, the mood of the film.
Sadly, EP 1 and EP 2 lack mood. Characterisation. There are brief periods where you see it. Padmes impassioned speech to the senate in EP 1. Qui Gons quite reflection about Anakin on Tatooine when he realises who he is. Anakin when he impatiently rushes to take on Count Dooku, rather than take him on 2 on 1 with Obi Wans help. Mace Windu in Ep 2 - who can forget who kickass he is when he's pissed off! The seething menace in Palpatines voice in the trailer for EP 3 when he says "are you threatening me?". The menace is simply dripping, and his face. You can see the hatred. Obi Wan in the trailer for Ep 3 when he says "you were the chosen one" - the anguish, the pain. It's in his voice. The emotion. Even the look on his face, says it all.
Ep 1 & Ep 2 could have been better - by simply a better script and better directing. But - they weren't bad films. People like to bash things i'm afraid. It's fashionable these days. Sad, very sad.
Dave
Gee,
Don't give up your day job. I haven't seen any of the bloat, lack of apps, or slowness in kde, gnome that you're reporting. Most likely you fucked up installing it due to stupidity. BTW i've used Apple OS X, hell, I used to work for Apple providing support to dimwits like yourself. It's nice, but it's not perfect. And it's not a helluva lot better than Gnome or KDE (I do agree that it is better, but not by a lot like you're saying).
As to stability - wow. I haven't seen a kernel panic in nearly 8 years of using Linux. I've found Linux to be a lot more stable than Windows, and i'd say even OS X. I had 3 kernel panics in 10 months at Apple - that's surely worse than none in 8 years by my statistics.
As to BSD - Apple chose that because it could use it, lounge on other peoples hard work, and not have to contribute back to the community, which the BSD license allows. The GPL is a wee bit different (Apple did actually consider the Linux kernel but didn't like the GPL, surprise, surprise).
As to 5 minutes booting, that's a load of bollocks. And OS X doesn't boot in ten seconds, at least not on my PowerBook G4 1ghz machine - more like 30 seconds from start to login screen. This is a default install of Panther, upgraded to 10.3.4 with a single 3rd party applications on it.
OS X is pretty good, I like it, but I don't go trashing it cos I prefer Linux. Oh, and your poetry REALLY sucks. Take some lessons. Please.
Dave
1) Wrong - is your average user going to go out and try all 400 distros? I think not. They'll settle for one of the "big names" after doing a rough appraisal of what's on offer. Do you see people going out and test driving all 200 cars on the market? Nope, and it's for the same reason that your first comment is wrong.
2) Have you NOT heard of OpenOffice? It handles Microsoft word and excel documents very well, powerpoint less so. But how many mom & dads will want to use powerpoint on a regular basis, or will be "power users". Not many I imagine. The more advanced features that Microsoft Word and Excel offer are generally used within an office environment, by professionals, for specialist tasks. Every day usage for normal word processing, for the average, normal user is fine with OpenOffice.
3) This is true, but this is not linuxs' fault, but is the fault of the software developer being lazy and not porting the software to Linux. It's the old chicken and egg thing. Software developers won't develop cos they say there aren't enough users on the Linux platform, but the Linux platform won't grow in this area till the software applications are availab.e. It not might help that Microsoft actively encourages software developers to only develop for the Windows platform.
4) I don't know where you're getting this from, but I haven't seen a lot of RTFM to be honest. I've seen a bit, but it's not a large percentage of it occurring, and most Linux users are extremely friendly and helpful. You're taking an extremely small, and rare percentage of things and making a molehill into a mountain.
5) I haven't seen a Linux distro come with a thick manual for a while. Suse does it still, but they're about the only one. Pretty much all documentation is in electronic format and easily searchable. As to the hour(s) trawling the net for comp. sci nerd bullshit as you put it, that's to a large bit over the top. To do the basic PC usage thing these days is a no brainer with Linux.
Quote: "With Windows, right or wrong, they ignore it till their machine goes bung." This is correct, and it's the one big downfall of Windows - it dumbs it down to appeal to ordinary, non technical folk who fuck their own PCs up very quickly, and then are conduits to viruses, spyware and adware, that is then spread to other computers across the net.
man pages are atrocious, i'll agree with you there. They need to be completely and utterly re-written.
I'd say you've been modded down previously because your comments are incorrect in many areas. I personally couldn't be bothered modding down 'trolls' like yourself, because it doesn't stop you posting. Of course, beating you in a good argument is much more constructive and fun;-)
Dave
mmm my take on this? Don't. I have several reasons why (and yes i've actually installed Solaris 10 on my system).
1. The install took a freaking one and a half hours! I kid you not. Six or so disk swaps as well. Not good. The automated eject your CD and reboot your system didn't work. Well the reboot did...
2. 4 CDs to download, 1.2 gb or so. And you don't get a lot for it imho. Very poor software value.
3. No where during the install do you get prompted to create a normal user account, it's root and that's it. All post install. That's very bad security imho.
4. The hardware support is no where near as good as Windows or Linux, in fact i'd say hardware on Solaris 10 for x86 is worse than freebsd!
5. CDE blows. Majorly. Why Sun is even still trying to palm this off I don't know. Get rid of it guys! It's slow, old and harder to navigate than what it really should be. You can do it, but the UI isn't great imho.
6. Beware - it totally hogs your entire pc and fucks ANY other bootloader that you have installed. I mean it. I had to boot off a Linux CD with rescue root=/dev/hdx to boot up and then fuck with setting up grub again. I was not impressed. Sun did not probe for other operating systems, didn't mention a bootloader and then hijacks the PC! Not good - period.
7. Solaris cannot live with Linux on the same drive. It will detect the Linux partitions and wipe them. Clean. Not good. Talk about not like to share.
8. The license. Sorry, i'm a GPL guy, and RMS has it 100% right. That's my honest personal belief. Proprietary software needs to go the way of dinosaurs.
9. Performance. Sluggish to say the best. Needs at least 384mb for a GUI install and 12gb hdd space. What a joke. Even post install it's sluggish (and i'm talking a reasonably up to date Athlon 3ghz XP CPU here, 512 mb pc3200 400mhz ddr ram). I noticed a shitload of disk "thrashing"...RAM/CPU hogging as well.
10. Use the fucking bourne shell as the default for ffs. C'mon it's way past it. BASH shits on the bourne shell.
If this is the best Sun can do they're fucked. Honestly. It's a proprietary Unix that they're trying to flog for free (and get the money back from support contracts) because they know that they couldn't sell the software as Linux shits on it in just about every area.
Others have said "oh Sun can run on 128 CPUs, Linux can't do this, yada yada yada". Sure. I mean sure. Tell that to Google. I bet they don't buy it.
We'll add to the list moral issues - Sun is being very dodgy with it's CDDL license, and it knows it. The open source community has already ripped it to shreds. Sun does dodgy deals with Microsoft - and then expects to remain the darling of the Open Source arena? Puh-lease! Sun are nothing but fence sitting, back stabbing corporates, they'd screw their mother to make a buck. And have no regrets/guilt. That's my honest appraisal of them as a company. At least Microsoft openly dislikes Linux, Sun tries to play act that it's Linux' best friend, whilst stabbing it in the back for all it's worth.
My recommendation is not to even bother - for the average user, there's no need. If you really must, go for it, but I think you'll be very, very, very disappointed and going "what's the big deal".
Sun is blandering on about dtrace and containers, sure they're cool, neat features. 2 years and Linux will have tools with similar functionality. Big deal. *yawn*.
Dave
Quote: "Americans put their hands over their hearts and preach to the world about freedom and human rights, and then turn around and torture prisoners, and attack freedom of the press, not to mention.... and then are bewildered that the world doesn't love them."
Amen! This is so true. I've been saying it for a long time now that the US is the most undemocratic country in the world - the powers given to the people are second to what the corporate world wants and nothing more. Don't believe me? Then why does the RIAA have the unpecedented right to dDos suspects, something which is plainly illegal to every other citizen of the US (other than the armed forces, CIA, FBI and other secret services). mmm? Please explain. You have one law for everyone, not favourites who get special treatment.
Try explaining it all to the hundreds of people in Cuba imprisoned illegally by the US - the US has contravened just about every rule under the Berne and Geneva conventions with those poor souls.
This is an interesting article:
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file =/headlines05/0114-02.htm/
There's one thing i've learnt and that's Americans are very patriotic, to the point of being blind to fair criticism of their beloved country.
I'm quite happily convinced that this is a pre US attack on Iran - first cut off their link to the world. Hell, they already illegally have spies in Iran. Since the US treats foreigners with no respect, then I'd suggest that those US spies that do get caught get hung, since spying is illegal in most countries. I bet the US would cry foul there! The US loves rules that suits itself, and if it fucks any other country over, so be it. That's why the US is so despised throughout the world, and you better believe it, it is. And that despise is growing, year by year, with more and more people disliking the US.
If I sound anti US, I proudly am. Of course, if I was in America and said this, i'd be branded a terrorist and arrested and hidden away and tortured by the CIA no doubt. So much for freedom of speech!
Dave
Absofuckinglutely spot on! We all know that Microsoft owns the US politicians, and most probably half the judges as well, it's just a fact that the US is a place full of corruption, but most Americans are too proud to admit it.
Dave
As usual, as i've said many times before Apple is a bunch of litiguous bastards. I'd love to see Apple go bankrupt from every bastard suing them cos they deserve it. What comes around goes around Apple, you've got your bit coming. And you thoroughly deserve it. Great products, shame about the fuckwits driving the company and their legal behaviour.
Dave
Around 10 times the mass would be required to fission to start. It's a hard figure to exactly quote.
Our sun is NOT larger than average, in fact it's a smaller than average G2 runty shitty lil star. There was never really enough mass in the system i'd say for a binary system.
I seriously hope that your post was in jest. Your average user doesn't know what an administrator is, what ActiveX is, what a firewall is and doesn't care. They might run anti virus software only cos it's now sold to them, but they rarely update it. They are promiscious in their surfing habits, they generally are point and clickers, they click without thinking. Spyware scanners, what's that? Most average users know nothing about spyware, what it is, why it exists and if they're vulnerable. Try it - go out and ask people if they'v heard or and used spybot, adaware, zonealarm etc. See how many say yes. You'll be surprised at how low the percentage is.
Microsoft is most certainly not doing everything it its power - if the problem is 3 months old and hasn't been patched then there is an issue. Of course it would be nice if fair trading bodies allowed you to hammer Microsoft for being slack. This is true of all proprietary software vendors - they take their time with updates and security patches.
As to IE - Secunia advises to use another product (something that I endorse). Internet explorer is reknowned for having security issues, and most of that is due to the fact that Microsoft have created ActiveX, tied the browser so closely to the kernel it isn't funny, all in the attempt to create vendor lock in to their product. The US DOJ had the opportunity to force Microsoft to remove the hooks and didn't. The last time I used Windows I asked it to remove Internet Explorer and it didn't. It removed it from my start menu, the desktop, the quickstart area but the executable was still there, as were the registry entries etc. That is not removing in my eyes, as they were told to do by the US DOJ decision. It's hiding it. Not removing.
It doesn't help that by default Microsoft Windows runs a user account with administrative rights. And that the system is inherently broken (in abilities) without this enabled. Your average user is not going to know what administrative rights mean, or even care. They won't know what the "run as" menu means, or where to find it even.
Your average person is a pointer and clicker - and therein lies the root of the problem. If we actually controlled the quality of the people using computers, we'd find that issues go down. People who neglect their cars (ie mechanically or by poor driving skills) do not stay on the road for a long time - they are removed from the roads, by the system. Whilst cars can and do kill people, I realise that PCs do not. I'm using an analogy here to simply demonstrate that the permission to use something should be governed by you being able to show that you are competent. Many Windows users are not. And it is this that causes a lot of problems. User Stupidity is rampant and needs to be curtailed. Microsoft is pro actively feeding this stupidity by making each version of Windows easier to use, at the expense of security.
Quote: "There is no secret piece of cross platform software available that can give 100% systeminfo without detection and be transparent to a clued up user."
Bullshit. Ever heard of Carnivore? Carnivore can infiltrate your PC without you knowing, it can keylog, password sniff etc. If you're connected to the net, you're a target. Period. I'd put money on it that every single ISP in both USA and Australia and the UK has been quietly forced to have Carnivore installed on their servers, monitoring ANY and ALL traffic running thru the ISP, irrespective of the user account(s).
If you don't believe me try a simple trick - set up a bunch of hotmail accounts. Start sending emails to them with words such as bin laden and terrorist attack and bomb etc. Keep doing it. Make it sound real. See if the men in black come and pay you a visit, i'm sure that they will.
My proposal to beat shit like this is for every single individual with internet access to flood the net with such things. Those listening will get pretty sick and tired of doing it after a while.
Governments the world over don't give a fuck about the individuals right(s). We're sheep to them. They do what they want, when they want, how they want and where they want, and if you really think i'm paranoid think again. It's criminal that anti virus companies have not provided protection against Carnivore. I'm a paying customer and I have EVERY single right to expect protection, and they are knowingly provided users with incomplete protection. They have been economically bullied into doing what the US government tells them to do, for fear or tax reprisals and other things.
If you don't think that Microsoft has secret backdoors that the CIA et al can access at will, think again.
Quote: "This makes no sense. Okay so, they didn't condone it, but they didn't stop it... so they condone it. That's a clear and valid point. Despite what global socialism has taught, the United States is NOT, and never was, an imperialist country. " Double standards plain and simple. OK to not allow invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, but OK to allow Israel to invade Palestine. Double standards. You can argue all you want you have no case. It's no fact that Israel is the US' largest middle eastern ally. There's also no hidden fact that the US has supplied arms to Israel. Neither invasion was legal.
Quote: "Israel doesn't need to be bullied; they are a US ally, because they are a free democracy not ruled by tryants, militants, or radicals"
Really? The behaviour of the Israelis in ghaza is appalling (but then the Palestinians haven't been much better). Israeli soldiers go in and wipe anything out that moves in retaliation.
Quote: "We were off winning an arms race and a political race, so the world isn't under communist control. Sorry.".
Please! Don't make me laugh. Lame excuse.
Quote: "Yes, powerless nations like Germany and the Soviet Union"
Ahh yes. WWII. Germany had France, England, USSR, Australia, Holland and the US of A hammering it. If Hitler had been smarter and delayed the invasion of the USSR he'd have crushed them. If Hitler had managed to get his hands on fully developed atomic bomb first the US and England would have been history. Thankfully he didn't. It wasn't the sole intervention of the US that saved the world my friend.
Quote: "As far as I'm concerned, foreign nationals who murder Americans are not bound to the same rules as peaceful individuals".
Wow. So youre the jury, judge and executiorer. For a country that supposedly values the rights of an individual, that's really out of line. Oh and guess what, your federal courts are vastly disagreeing with your Bush jr. government and indicating that the a lot of the legislation bought in by Bush jr has been unconstitutional. Every individual has the right to a fair trial.
Quote: "FREE DEMOCRACIES/REPUBLICS DO NOT NEED ELECTION MONITORING."
Rubbish. NO country is safe for election fraud. It's well known that their was fraud in Florida in 2001, and fraud in Ohio in 2004. That the US government has pressured investigations to be kept quiet speaks glaringly to the rest of the world.
Quote: "That's too bad, because what would the UN be without the United States to do most of its funding since its inception"
You mean bribery right? If the UN has voted on no invasion, then you should respect the vote. Personally, Hussein was a madman that needed to be kept in check, but the US should have waited to invade after the UN had approved it. Then i'd have been fine with the invasion. As I was in 1991 gulf war. We might as well get rid of the UN right now, because the US has shown that it will plainly ignore mandates from the UN if it doesn't suit its own needs.
Quote: "If those combating terrorism, taking an aggressive stance instead of waiting to be attacked when it is too late, were gone, you would all live in a peaceful society correct?"
Stop and think why the US is despised by most of the rest of the world. Go on. Whilst terrorism isn't good, a lot of the terrorism that is affecting the US is only affecting the US, and quite plainly because of the behaviour of the US at the international level. That hate is only going to grow as long as the US takes the sort of action that it's doing now. Remember Abraham Lincoln? His comments of the best way to get rid of an enemy is to make them your friend ring to mind.
Quote: "Why do I need an account to post legitimately?"
ACs should be banned from making comments. Put your money where your mouth is or shot up and slinker back under the rock where you crawled out of.
Yes, slide has much less latitude. Generally you wanna be spot on with your exposure - or no more than 1/3 to 1/2 stop. Generally, you'd underexpose slide film by about a 1/3 of a stop to enhance to colours and degree of saturation. It's a common trick done by many amateurs and pros alike. Slides typically don't always render accurate colours, negatives are generally better I agree. But when you're shooting for maximum colour impact, or a press release, or a image house then you generally want colour! Not always, but generally. The human eye likes strong colours and it's a powerful way of making your image stand out. Ektapress was no where near as good as kodachrome, I have many fond memories of using that film (kodachrome 25 no less!!!). I primarily shoot in negatives these days for ease of convenience and cost, although I do have a very soft spot for Fuji Velvia.
Dave
Exactly what cyberphotography commented in his reply to your post. Trust me, reversal film is most certainly slide film. Since i'm semi pro and have been photographing for nearly 20 odd years I think I have a good idea what i'm talking about.
Dave
well why don't you learn a bit about history first. Firstly, Israel illegally invaded palestine territory, taking the golan heights with it. It was not condoned by the UN, nor was the Israelis made to vacate the invaded territory or face economic sanctions? Why? Cos the mighty fucked up US of A was pulling the UN strings and wants Israel as a US ally and base of operations for all things middle east. Israel most certainly has thermonuclear weapons, do I see the US bullying them? No. They prefer to bully Iran, Iraq, illegally invade Iraq, bully North Korea. Where was the US when the Russians were terrorising Afghanistan? Or when the Russians were murdering Chezhneyans? mmm? The US only likes to pick on small, powerless nations, because it's a bully. I don't give a fuck what yankees say about their precious nation, they're so blinded by so called 'patriotism' that they fail to see what their country does do wrong.
Where does the US get the ability to ignore the Geneva convention of prisoners of war? Hold individuals and withhold legal aide? Poor conditions? tortue them? Obtain false statements via torture? mmm? If you believe the US isn't guilty of any of this you're a fucking moron.
Pulling out of the UN election monitoring system? Pulling out of the global nuclear body? The US does its own thing. It bullies other countries into either joining it, or being screwed over. Iran anyone in 1956? A us funded CIA operated political kooh de tah to take out a person who was elected by the Iranian people democratically, all because he didn't like the US way of doing things and wasn't their poppet.
The UN is a bunch of fuckwits. The US, Australia and Great Britain should have been expulsed from the UN for their illegal invasion of Iraq, with full economic sanctions. Did it happen? No. The UN veto system is a joke.
Howard is a dirty lying, low down, bush cock-sniffing cunt as far as i'm concerned, and i'd gladly donate to the bin laden fund to assassinate both blair, bush jr and howard. The sooner the world is rid of these moronic idiots the better and I don't really care how it's done.
Unlike you wanker, I don't post anonymously. I proudly vaunt my anti US/Israel stances. I proudly vaunt my anti UN stances. I'm well and tired of sucking up to yankee governments. I'm sick and tired of my own government selling out.
For those others that read my post, I do apologise for my language, but the parent really pissed me off something badly.
Dave
The studio shot, whilst looking better scan wise, is still flat in the tonal range to my eyes. None of this fancy photoshop bull, I rely on my eyes. If it looks flat, chances are it is flat. Her eyes are not sharp either, generally a good thing with portraits.
Dave
PS I don't do portraits, hate the damn things!
Quote: "More likely he needs to invest in some decent hardware in order to make the setup work to his satisfaction. Windows or a Mac might be necessary, but solve the first problem first. If he isn't a pro, he might be able to use Linux for this."
Yes. He needs to invest in one of the upmarket scanners from either Canon or Nikon (I favour the Nikon ones even though I use Canon eos gear). I don't know if they're supported on Linux (officially they are not). They will sort out his scanning problems. If it's blurry scans I put money on it that his rail that he puts his slide in is flexing. Or quite possibly his shots are not sharp. Or a combination.
These days you're getting to the point where it's most probably cheaper and easier to just invest in a good solid digital SLR - something like a Canon EOS 20. Won't break the bank like a 1Ds or 1D, but still very capable. I'd love one to go along side my EOS1n, but analogue is still my love. It all depends really on what you want to shoot. If you want to do motor sport or wildlife, then a SLR is the way to go. Digital compacts just won't cut it in terms of lense sharpness, speed, autofocus ability etc. If you want to do portraits or candids you can get away with a digicam style camera. Horses for courses!
As to sharpening, no amount of software sharpening is going to make up for a blurry original slide, or poor scanning process. Best to get the basics right first.
Dave
Ahh, another young'un. You most probably haven't heard of LPs either. Or compact cassette. Or medium format film. What's the world coming to.
For those that don't know - most professional photographers used to shoot on slide film, aka reversal film. Why? Much better colour rendition than print film. One of the reasons why commercial stock houses want it on slide film. That said, slide film isn't always "accurate" in it's colours. If you want nice vibrant colours, try films like Fuji Velvia or Provia 100D. Brilliant colours. Very expensive film (used to be around au $28 for a roll of 36 4 or 5 years ago, and that didn't include the developing/mounting costs).
I even have colour medium format (120) slide film (showing my age I suspect) - negs are 6 x 4.5cm. Black and white slide film died many, many years ago.
And to the fool that said 'where I come from...'. The camera is only an extension of the photography, nothing more, nothing less. A great photographer will make great shots with just about any gear. He or She has the "eye". A poor photographer with fancy pro gear will take average to poor shots. Don't believe me? That's why there's very few really great pro photographers in various genres.
At least have an idea about what you're talking about before posting. Oh hang on, this is/.
Dave
Most Windows users wouldn't know what a bug report was or how to do it if it hit them on the head - they simply don't give a shit.
Your more advanced firefox/mozilla users on the window platform might report a bug, might not. Depends on their mood.
Since the average Linux and BSD users are generally far more technically advanced than the average windows users, the chances are greater that Linux/BSD users of konqueror will report bugs back to kde. I think that evens out the user base advantage of firefox.
Dave
Re:Features for KDE 3.4 that should be there
on
Preview of KDE 3.4
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· Score: 1
umm kde menu editor works fine, and has worked fine for quite some time now. No worse than editing the menu for Windows 95 and above.
Dave
Slashdot Mirror
It's highly likely that Jesus had a wife. There's strong evidence to show that Jesus had Rabbii training, and strong evidence that his wife was Mary Magdelene, aka Mary of Bethany (yes, the one and same person). During that era, it was extremely unusual for a jewish male to not be married, and a Rabbii had to be married. It was basically a 'law'.
The Roman Catholic church has long sought to hide the line of Jesus, spread by Mary Magdelene when she moved to the area of Marseilles. The deal with Clovis was renegged less than 100 years after his death, removing the line of the Menengoverians by the assassination of Dagobert II. Of course, evidence tends to point that his son was smuggled to safety and survived and the line continued, leading to the Cathars, and then to the Knights Templar.
For a very interesting read, and a very thought provoking read, try:
Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
It really shows how much the Roman Catholic church has lied, cheated and killed to remain in power. Add to insult that most of the holy Roman Catholic religious holidays are based on pagan holidays/celebrations (yes!!!).
Add to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is highly intolerant of other religions - the murder and war against the Saracens in the 11th century, the purge of 'witches' (six million deaths at least) in the 14th century.
Dave
Things are cheaper, hence poorer quality. The two factors are linked. We're to the point of being a throw-away society, and most people don't care. Gone are the days of doing something, and doing it right. Here are the days of do a quick and dirty dodgy job, make a buck and then screw the customer. My original pioneer dvd rom (dvd-116) drive died after just under a year of usage a year and a bit ago. Not heavily used. Would play CDs, but not dvd-roms, well not all of them. After Pioneer Australia tried fucking me around for a week [they were trying to blame the disks themselves, then had the gall to tell me that "not every DVD will work and we can't control that" and I put it to them very blunty that i'd take legal action if they kept fucking me around]. My arguments? 1. Said DVDs play OK in my standalone player. They also play OK in 2 other dvd rom drives in the house. 2. Updated firmware, same issue. 3. Problem existed in both Windows and Linux. pre and post firmware update. 4. Reinstallation of the DVD playing software, updating, patching, trying different software totally didn't fix the problem. It occurred over multiple installs, different installs (windvd vs powerdvd). And as I said, they tried this bullshit about it being a problem with the disks, and sometimes not all DVDs will play in all media. My answer to them? DVD is a standard. Their players say that they play DVDs. Their players are meant to conform to a standard. The software advertises it plays DVDs. DVD movies are obviously meant to conform to the very same standards. Otherwise: 1. Either the mpaa/manufacturer of the DVD disk is lying, and the disks don't conform to standards 2. The software developer(s) are lying and the software doesn't conform to standards 3. The hardware manufacturer is lying and the hardware doesn't conform to standards. Either way, it doesn't give these bastards the right to fuck over consumers, and shove the blame onto other groups, thus making it very difficult for the consumer to take the necessary action to ensure that their rights are being met legally by the above groups. This is common practice these days btw - blame others. Company A blames Company B, who in turn blames Company C, who in turn blames Company A or B. They all flick the responsibility between themselves and lead the consumer on a wild goose chase. In the end, Pioneer Australia accepted that there was a fault with their unit, and I sent it back to them, explicitly asking not to receive a slot DVD rom drive, but a tray loader, as I dislike the slot units. They send me a slot unit. A Pioneer dvd-120s. I was not impressed. This unit is now failing, and in fact hanging my system whenever I tried to use k3b to burn a disk (even with another burner), or play a DVD. xine, mplayer, ogle and vlc have all refused to work with this DVD rom drive for some time now. I recently purchased a LG dvd burner drive (now that's another kettle of fish rant for later on), and altered it to be the /dev/dvd device and it plays DVDs perfectly, and flawlessly. Of course k3b still hangs on startup because the Pioneer drive is still in the system. I've tried dma on, dma off, nothing fixes it, and my conclusion from several weeks of logical troubleshooting is that this drive is on the way out. I'll of course buy another drive, and my money is on it that it'll fix the problem, but it doesn't make me happy at all. How old is this Pioneer dvd-120s drive? About 16 months. Shocking quality.
Oh, and I have an older Acer cd-rw burner (4x), that is 5 years old that still works perfectly in another machine that someone else in the house uses. It cost me more, but it's damn well been a lot reliable, and has been used more than the combined usage of the old Pioneer DVD rom drive, the new Pioneer DVD rom drive, the new LG burner, and my current Sony cd-rw drive.
The past 5 years has seen a tremendous downturn in quality of products, and longevity. Sure, people are paying less, but in the end, they're paying the same. Why? If yo
They'd simply pass laws to re-engineer ALL Microsoft software if Microsoft pulled out...and oh, oops, open source accidently found out about it. What's Microsoft gonna do? Hire the US army? If it comes down to it, a unified Europe would crush the US both economically and in a show of arms. Both Germany and France are drifting away from the US dictatorship that's been shoved down Europe post WWII, it's only a matter of time until they realise that by playing to whatever the US wants they are cutting their own throats. Dave
You are spot on.
Dave
Partly yes. Partly no. Large corporate businesses seek to control - whether there's piracy or not, they'll still seek to introduce methods to control their customers. The MPAA and RIAA are monopolies. Yet the US government seeks to give them unlimited power (above the law, legal for them to do dDos attacks as an example). Laws are for everyone to abide, not for the rich and powerful to avoid. As to downloaded music (mp3s), a lot of people do buy the CDs. I grabbed an "illegal" mp3 of Avril Lavignes "complicated" a few years ago and was hooked. The result? I've bought both of her albums, seen her live in concert @ Sydney, bought all of her CD singles. If I hadn't heard that song (courtesy of someone else - "illegally" downloaded mp3) i'd never have heard of her, since I don't listen to the radio and don't watch TV. Sure - not everyone's like this, but some people are. Technically, i've participated in piracy, but I challenge the RIAA and ARIA to have a go at me. They're rich, greedy bastards, that's all. With the introduction of compact discs, it became easier and cheaper to make music (LPs were much more expensive to produce). Recording companies profits sky rocketed, whilst artists didn't get an increase in royalties. music stores could pack more "music" and also made more money. The losers? The artists. The recording comapnies are nothing but greedy leeches. They leech on others talent, when they have none. They seek to control and rort the system, because they are rich and powerful. I also fail to see why 2 US based monopolistic organisations have ANY legal right to extend their crap to any other country other than the US. As to those that engage in piracy - I suggest you go back to dialup accounts. Or drop your internet accounts completely. If 80% of the population does it, it'll completely fuck the ISPs, and have a large downward effect on local economies. Keep doing it. Speak with your wallet, withhold money. Don't use their services. It's the only thing that large bastard corporations understand. Don't buy music CDs/DVDs, DVD movies, VCR movies. Boycott them. Six months of this and the MPAA and RIAA would be broken, and the artists would be rebelling. The damage to local economies would force governments to intervene. Return power to the people, for the people, not for the very tiny % of greedy, rich bastards that seek to control, and seek to be above the law(s). I use GPL'd software. I'll never touch commercial software again. I won't support illegal monopolists like Microsoft, and I certainly won't support a corrupt US or Australian government. Dave
I prefer Ep1 to Ep2, even though Ep2 has some really kickass action in it, and the CGI is pretty good as well. There's a lot of people bitching about CGI - it was pretty good. I think a lot of people got turned off by the CGI cos of Jar Jar. I actually enjoyed Jar Jar and his slapstick humour. That's all it was intended to be, it's a shame that those adults that saw the OT as children have grown up and fail to see that. But then, maybe there's still some child in myself, and maybe that's why I see Jar Jar like I do. Now - the musical score for the NT has been fine. Nothing super gripping, but it's been fine - I feel that it's successfully conveyed the emotions of the characters at the appropriate times. The actors - they are fine actors. Even the synopsis story is fine. The sets and costumes have been fine imho. So - what has let the NT down? I firmly believe it's several things. 1. screenplay/dialogue. The dialogue has been awful Truly. Lucas' forte is not in writing. He can do a rough synopsis with a original idea pretty damn good, but when it comes to fleshing it out, he's not the man. He really should have deferred to a professional screenwriter. Honestly. The quality of a screenplay really limits how the actors can determine their characters, and that, in turn, makes them less believable. There's a reason why TESB was the best movie of the original trilogy, and that's cos Leigh Brackett wrote the script. She did a damn well fine job. Brilliant. I don't think too many Star Wars fans will disagree with me here. 2. Direction. Sorry, but Lucas is a 2nd rate director. That said, he's a better director than he is a writer :-) A directors job is to create the vision, transfer the actors, the script writer, the music, the sfx into a film. He directs the composer, the sfx guys, the film editors, the sound recordists, the sound editors, the set design to an extent, the mood of the film.
Sadly, EP 1 and EP 2 lack mood. Characterisation. There are brief periods where you see it. Padmes impassioned speech to the senate in EP 1. Qui Gons quite reflection about Anakin on Tatooine when he realises who he is. Anakin when he impatiently rushes to take on Count Dooku, rather than take him on 2 on 1 with Obi Wans help. Mace Windu in Ep 2 - who can forget who kickass he is when he's pissed off! The seething menace in Palpatines voice in the trailer for EP 3 when he says "are you threatening me?". The menace is simply dripping, and his face. You can see the hatred. Obi Wan in the trailer for Ep 3 when he says "you were the chosen one" - the anguish, the pain. It's in his voice. The emotion. Even the look on his face, says it all.
Ep 1 & Ep 2 could have been better - by simply a better script and better directing. But - they weren't bad films. People like to bash things i'm afraid. It's fashionable these days. Sad, very sad.
Dave
Gee, Don't give up your day job. I haven't seen any of the bloat, lack of apps, or slowness in kde, gnome that you're reporting. Most likely you fucked up installing it due to stupidity. BTW i've used Apple OS X, hell, I used to work for Apple providing support to dimwits like yourself. It's nice, but it's not perfect. And it's not a helluva lot better than Gnome or KDE (I do agree that it is better, but not by a lot like you're saying). As to stability - wow. I haven't seen a kernel panic in nearly 8 years of using Linux. I've found Linux to be a lot more stable than Windows, and i'd say even OS X. I had 3 kernel panics in 10 months at Apple - that's surely worse than none in 8 years by my statistics. As to BSD - Apple chose that because it could use it, lounge on other peoples hard work, and not have to contribute back to the community, which the BSD license allows. The GPL is a wee bit different (Apple did actually consider the Linux kernel but didn't like the GPL, surprise, surprise). As to 5 minutes booting, that's a load of bollocks. And OS X doesn't boot in ten seconds, at least not on my PowerBook G4 1ghz machine - more like 30 seconds from start to login screen. This is a default install of Panther, upgraded to 10.3.4 with a single 3rd party applications on it. OS X is pretty good, I like it, but I don't go trashing it cos I prefer Linux. Oh, and your poetry REALLY sucks. Take some lessons. Please. Dave
1) Wrong - is your average user going to go out and try all 400 distros? I think not. They'll settle for one of the "big names" after doing a rough appraisal of what's on offer. Do you see people going out and test driving all 200 cars on the market? Nope, and it's for the same reason that your first comment is wrong. 2) Have you NOT heard of OpenOffice? It handles Microsoft word and excel documents very well, powerpoint less so. But how many mom & dads will want to use powerpoint on a regular basis, or will be "power users". Not many I imagine. The more advanced features that Microsoft Word and Excel offer are generally used within an office environment, by professionals, for specialist tasks. Every day usage for normal word processing, for the average, normal user is fine with OpenOffice. 3) This is true, but this is not linuxs' fault, but is the fault of the software developer being lazy and not porting the software to Linux. It's the old chicken and egg thing. Software developers won't develop cos they say there aren't enough users on the Linux platform, but the Linux platform won't grow in this area till the software applications are availab.e. It not might help that Microsoft actively encourages software developers to only develop for the Windows platform. 4) I don't know where you're getting this from, but I haven't seen a lot of RTFM to be honest. I've seen a bit, but it's not a large percentage of it occurring, and most Linux users are extremely friendly and helpful. You're taking an extremely small, and rare percentage of things and making a molehill into a mountain. 5) I haven't seen a Linux distro come with a thick manual for a while. Suse does it still, but they're about the only one. Pretty much all documentation is in electronic format and easily searchable. As to the hour(s) trawling the net for comp. sci nerd bullshit as you put it, that's to a large bit over the top. To do the basic PC usage thing these days is a no brainer with Linux. Quote: "With Windows, right or wrong, they ignore it till their machine goes bung." This is correct, and it's the one big downfall of Windows - it dumbs it down to appeal to ordinary, non technical folk who fuck their own PCs up very quickly, and then are conduits to viruses, spyware and adware, that is then spread to other computers across the net. man pages are atrocious, i'll agree with you there. They need to be completely and utterly re-written. I'd say you've been modded down previously because your comments are incorrect in many areas. I personally couldn't be bothered modding down 'trolls' like yourself, because it doesn't stop you posting. Of course, beating you in a good argument is much more constructive and fun ;-)
Dave
mmm my take on this? Don't. I have several reasons why (and yes i've actually installed Solaris 10 on my system). 1. The install took a freaking one and a half hours! I kid you not. Six or so disk swaps as well. Not good. The automated eject your CD and reboot your system didn't work. Well the reboot did... 2. 4 CDs to download, 1.2 gb or so. And you don't get a lot for it imho. Very poor software value. 3. No where during the install do you get prompted to create a normal user account, it's root and that's it. All post install. That's very bad security imho. 4. The hardware support is no where near as good as Windows or Linux, in fact i'd say hardware on Solaris 10 for x86 is worse than freebsd! 5. CDE blows. Majorly. Why Sun is even still trying to palm this off I don't know. Get rid of it guys! It's slow, old and harder to navigate than what it really should be. You can do it, but the UI isn't great imho. 6. Beware - it totally hogs your entire pc and fucks ANY other bootloader that you have installed. I mean it. I had to boot off a Linux CD with rescue root=/dev/hdx to boot up and then fuck with setting up grub again. I was not impressed. Sun did not probe for other operating systems, didn't mention a bootloader and then hijacks the PC! Not good - period. 7. Solaris cannot live with Linux on the same drive. It will detect the Linux partitions and wipe them. Clean. Not good. Talk about not like to share. 8. The license. Sorry, i'm a GPL guy, and RMS has it 100% right. That's my honest personal belief. Proprietary software needs to go the way of dinosaurs. 9. Performance. Sluggish to say the best. Needs at least 384mb for a GUI install and 12gb hdd space. What a joke. Even post install it's sluggish (and i'm talking a reasonably up to date Athlon 3ghz XP CPU here, 512 mb pc3200 400mhz ddr ram). I noticed a shitload of disk "thrashing"...RAM/CPU hogging as well. 10. Use the fucking bourne shell as the default for ffs. C'mon it's way past it. BASH shits on the bourne shell. If this is the best Sun can do they're fucked. Honestly. It's a proprietary Unix that they're trying to flog for free (and get the money back from support contracts) because they know that they couldn't sell the software as Linux shits on it in just about every area. Others have said "oh Sun can run on 128 CPUs, Linux can't do this, yada yada yada". Sure. I mean sure. Tell that to Google. I bet they don't buy it. We'll add to the list moral issues - Sun is being very dodgy with it's CDDL license, and it knows it. The open source community has already ripped it to shreds. Sun does dodgy deals with Microsoft - and then expects to remain the darling of the Open Source arena? Puh-lease! Sun are nothing but fence sitting, back stabbing corporates, they'd screw their mother to make a buck. And have no regrets/guilt. That's my honest appraisal of them as a company. At least Microsoft openly dislikes Linux, Sun tries to play act that it's Linux' best friend, whilst stabbing it in the back for all it's worth. My recommendation is not to even bother - for the average user, there's no need. If you really must, go for it, but I think you'll be very, very, very disappointed and going "what's the big deal". Sun is blandering on about dtrace and containers, sure they're cool, neat features. 2 years and Linux will have tools with similar functionality. Big deal. *yawn*. Dave
Quote: "Americans put their hands over their hearts and preach to the world about freedom and human rights, and then turn around and torture prisoners, and attack freedom of the press, not to mention .... and then are bewildered that the world doesn't love them."
Amen! This is so true. I've been saying it for a long time now that the US is the most undemocratic country in the world - the powers given to the people are second to what the corporate world wants and nothing more. Don't believe me? Then why does the RIAA have the unpecedented right to dDos suspects, something which is plainly illegal to every other citizen of the US (other than the armed forces, CIA, FBI and other secret services). mmm? Please explain. You have one law for everyone, not favourites who get special treatment.
Try explaining it all to the hundreds of people in Cuba imprisoned illegally by the US - the US has contravened just about every rule under the Berne and Geneva conventions with those poor souls.
This is an interesting article:
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file =/headlines05/0114-02.htm/
There's one thing i've learnt and that's Americans are very patriotic, to the point of being blind to fair criticism of their beloved country.
I'm quite happily convinced that this is a pre US attack on Iran - first cut off their link to the world. Hell, they already illegally have spies in Iran. Since the US treats foreigners with no respect, then I'd suggest that those US spies that do get caught get hung, since spying is illegal in most countries. I bet the US would cry foul there! The US loves rules that suits itself, and if it fucks any other country over, so be it. That's why the US is so despised throughout the world, and you better believe it, it is. And that despise is growing, year by year, with more and more people disliking the US.
If I sound anti US, I proudly am. Of course, if I was in America and said this, i'd be branded a terrorist and arrested and hidden away and tortured by the CIA no doubt. So much for freedom of speech!
Dave
Absofuckinglutely spot on! We all know that Microsoft owns the US politicians, and most probably half the judges as well, it's just a fact that the US is a place full of corruption, but most Americans are too proud to admit it. Dave
As usual, as i've said many times before Apple is a bunch of litiguous bastards. I'd love to see Apple go bankrupt from every bastard suing them cos they deserve it. What comes around goes around Apple, you've got your bit coming. And you thoroughly deserve it. Great products, shame about the fuckwits driving the company and their legal behaviour. Dave
Around 10 times the mass would be required to fission to start. It's a hard figure to exactly quote.
Our sun is NOT larger than average, in fact it's a smaller than average G2 runty shitty lil star. There was never really enough mass in the system i'd say for a binary system.
Still, Sol is home!
Dave
I seriously hope that your post was in jest. Your average user doesn't know what an administrator is, what ActiveX is, what a firewall is and doesn't care. They might run anti virus software only cos it's now sold to them, but they rarely update it. They are promiscious in their surfing habits, they generally are point and clickers, they click without thinking. Spyware scanners, what's that? Most average users know nothing about spyware, what it is, why it exists and if they're vulnerable. Try it - go out and ask people if they'v heard or and used spybot, adaware, zonealarm etc. See how many say yes. You'll be surprised at how low the percentage is.
Microsoft is most certainly not doing everything it its power - if the problem is 3 months old and hasn't been patched then there is an issue. Of course it would be nice if fair trading bodies allowed you to hammer Microsoft for being slack. This is true of all proprietary software vendors - they take their time with updates and security patches.
As to IE - Secunia advises to use another product (something that I endorse). Internet explorer is reknowned for having security issues, and most of that is due to the fact that Microsoft have created ActiveX, tied the browser so closely to the kernel it isn't funny, all in the attempt to create vendor lock in to their product. The US DOJ had the opportunity to force Microsoft to remove the hooks and didn't. The last time I used Windows I asked it to remove Internet Explorer and it didn't. It removed it from my start menu, the desktop, the quickstart area but the executable was still there, as were the registry entries etc. That is not removing in my eyes, as they were told to do by the US DOJ decision. It's hiding it. Not removing.
It doesn't help that by default Microsoft Windows runs a user account with administrative rights. And that the system is inherently broken (in abilities) without this enabled. Your average user is not going to know what administrative rights mean, or even care. They won't know what the "run as" menu means, or where to find it even.
Your average person is a pointer and clicker - and therein lies the root of the problem. If we actually controlled the quality of the people using computers, we'd find that issues go down. People who neglect their cars (ie mechanically or by poor driving skills) do not stay on the road for a long time - they are removed from the roads, by the system. Whilst cars can and do kill people, I realise that PCs do not. I'm using an analogy here to simply demonstrate that the permission to use something should be governed by you being able to show that you are competent. Many Windows users are not. And it is this that causes a lot of problems. User Stupidity is rampant and needs to be curtailed. Microsoft is pro actively feeding this stupidity by making each version of Windows easier to use, at the expense of security.
Dave
Quote: "There is no secret piece of cross platform software available that can give 100% systeminfo without detection and be transparent to a clued up user."
Bullshit. Ever heard of Carnivore? Carnivore can infiltrate your PC without you knowing, it can keylog, password sniff etc. If you're connected to the net, you're a target. Period. I'd put money on it that every single ISP in both USA and Australia and the UK has been quietly forced to have Carnivore installed on their servers, monitoring ANY and ALL traffic running thru the ISP, irrespective of the user account(s).
If you don't believe me try a simple trick - set up a bunch of hotmail accounts. Start sending emails to them with words such as bin laden and terrorist attack and bomb etc. Keep doing it. Make it sound real. See if the men in black come and pay you a visit, i'm sure that they will.
My proposal to beat shit like this is for every single individual with internet access to flood the net with such things. Those listening will get pretty sick and tired of doing it after a while.
Governments the world over don't give a fuck about the individuals right(s). We're sheep to them. They do what they want, when they want, how they want and where they want, and if you really think i'm paranoid think again. It's criminal that anti virus companies have not provided protection against Carnivore. I'm a paying customer and I have EVERY single right to expect protection, and they are knowingly provided users with incomplete protection. They have been economically bullied into doing what the US government tells them to do, for fear or tax reprisals and other things.
If you don't think that Microsoft has secret backdoors that the CIA et al can access at will, think again.
Dave
Quote: "This makes no sense. Okay so, they didn't condone it, but they didn't stop it... so they condone it. That's a clear and valid point. Despite what global socialism has taught, the United States is NOT, and never was, an imperialist country.
"
Double standards plain and simple. OK to not allow invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, but OK to allow Israel to invade Palestine. Double standards. You can argue all you want you have no case. It's no fact that Israel is the US' largest middle eastern ally. There's also no hidden fact that the US has supplied arms to Israel. Neither invasion was legal.
Quote: "Israel doesn't need to be bullied; they are a US ally, because they are a free democracy not ruled by tryants, militants, or radicals"
Really? The behaviour of the Israelis in ghaza is appalling (but then the Palestinians haven't been much better). Israeli soldiers go in and wipe anything out that moves in retaliation.
Quote: "We were off winning an arms race and a political race, so the world isn't under communist control. Sorry.".
Please! Don't make me laugh. Lame excuse.
Quote: "Yes, powerless nations like Germany and the Soviet Union"
Ahh yes. WWII. Germany had France, England, USSR, Australia, Holland and the US of A hammering it. If Hitler had been smarter and delayed the invasion of the USSR he'd have crushed them. If Hitler had managed to get his hands on fully developed atomic bomb first the US and England would have been history. Thankfully he didn't. It wasn't the sole intervention of the US that saved the world my friend.
Quote: "As far as I'm concerned, foreign nationals who murder Americans are not bound to the same rules as peaceful individuals".
Wow. So youre the jury, judge and executiorer. For a country that supposedly values the rights of an individual, that's really out of line. Oh and guess what, your federal courts are vastly disagreeing with your Bush jr. government and indicating that the a lot of the legislation bought in by Bush jr has been unconstitutional. Every individual has the right to a fair trial.
Quote: "FREE DEMOCRACIES/REPUBLICS DO NOT NEED ELECTION MONITORING."
Rubbish. NO country is safe for election fraud. It's well known that their was fraud in Florida in 2001, and fraud in Ohio in 2004. That the US government has pressured investigations to be kept quiet speaks glaringly to the rest of the world.
Quote: "That's too bad, because what would the UN be without the United States to do most of its funding since its inception"
You mean bribery right? If the UN has voted on no invasion, then you should respect the vote. Personally, Hussein was a madman that needed to be kept in check, but the US should have waited to invade after the UN had approved it. Then i'd have been fine with the invasion. As I was in 1991 gulf war. We might as well get rid of the UN right now, because the US has shown that it will plainly ignore mandates from the UN if it doesn't suit its own needs.
Quote: "If those combating terrorism, taking an aggressive stance instead of waiting to be attacked when it is too late, were gone, you would all live in a peaceful society correct?"
Stop and think why the US is despised by most of the rest of the world. Go on. Whilst terrorism isn't good, a lot of the terrorism that is affecting the US is only affecting the US, and quite plainly because of the behaviour of the US at the international level. That hate is only going to grow as long as the US takes the sort of action that it's doing now. Remember Abraham Lincoln? His comments of the best way to get rid of an enemy is to make them your friend ring to mind.
Quote: "Why do I need an account to post legitimately?"
ACs should be banned from making comments. Put your money where your mouth is or shot up and slinker back under the rock where you crawled out of.
Dave
bleh didn't realise that I was on html formatted setting. I did actually use paragraphs but the formatting blew it away.
Dave
Yes, slide has much less latitude. Generally you wanna be spot on with your exposure - or no more than 1/3 to 1/2 stop. Generally, you'd underexpose slide film by about a 1/3 of a stop to enhance to colours and degree of saturation. It's a common trick done by many amateurs and pros alike. Slides typically don't always render accurate colours, negatives are generally better I agree. But when you're shooting for maximum colour impact, or a press release, or a image house then you generally want colour! Not always, but generally. The human eye likes strong colours and it's a powerful way of making your image stand out. Ektapress was no where near as good as kodachrome, I have many fond memories of using that film (kodachrome 25 no less!!!). I primarily shoot in negatives these days for ease of convenience and cost, although I do have a very soft spot for Fuji Velvia. Dave
Exactly what cyberphotography commented in his reply to your post. Trust me, reversal film is most certainly slide film. Since i'm semi pro and have been photographing for nearly 20 odd years I think I have a good idea what i'm talking about. Dave
well why don't you learn a bit about history first. Firstly, Israel illegally invaded palestine territory, taking the golan heights with it. It was not condoned by the UN, nor was the Israelis made to vacate the invaded territory or face economic sanctions? Why? Cos the mighty fucked up US of A was pulling the UN strings and wants Israel as a US ally and base of operations for all things middle east. Israel most certainly has thermonuclear weapons, do I see the US bullying them? No. They prefer to bully Iran, Iraq, illegally invade Iraq, bully North Korea. Where was the US when the Russians were terrorising Afghanistan? Or when the Russians were murdering Chezhneyans? mmm? The US only likes to pick on small, powerless nations, because it's a bully. I don't give a fuck what yankees say about their precious nation, they're so blinded by so called 'patriotism' that they fail to see what their country does do wrong. Where does the US get the ability to ignore the Geneva convention of prisoners of war? Hold individuals and withhold legal aide? Poor conditions? tortue them? Obtain false statements via torture? mmm? If you believe the US isn't guilty of any of this you're a fucking moron. Pulling out of the UN election monitoring system? Pulling out of the global nuclear body? The US does its own thing. It bullies other countries into either joining it, or being screwed over. Iran anyone in 1956? A us funded CIA operated political kooh de tah to take out a person who was elected by the Iranian people democratically, all because he didn't like the US way of doing things and wasn't their poppet. The UN is a bunch of fuckwits. The US, Australia and Great Britain should have been expulsed from the UN for their illegal invasion of Iraq, with full economic sanctions. Did it happen? No. The UN veto system is a joke. Howard is a dirty lying, low down, bush cock-sniffing cunt as far as i'm concerned, and i'd gladly donate to the bin laden fund to assassinate both blair, bush jr and howard. The sooner the world is rid of these moronic idiots the better and I don't really care how it's done. Unlike you wanker, I don't post anonymously. I proudly vaunt my anti US/Israel stances. I proudly vaunt my anti UN stances. I'm well and tired of sucking up to yankee governments. I'm sick and tired of my own government selling out. For those others that read my post, I do apologise for my language, but the parent really pissed me off something badly. Dave
The studio shot, whilst looking better scan wise, is still flat in the tonal range to my eyes. None of this fancy photoshop bull, I rely on my eyes. If it looks flat, chances are it is flat. Her eyes are not sharp either, generally a good thing with portraits. Dave PS I don't do portraits, hate the damn things!
Quote: "More likely he needs to invest in some decent hardware in order to make the setup work to his satisfaction. Windows or a Mac might be necessary, but solve the first problem first. If he isn't a pro, he might be able to use Linux for this." Yes. He needs to invest in one of the upmarket scanners from either Canon or Nikon (I favour the Nikon ones even though I use Canon eos gear). I don't know if they're supported on Linux (officially they are not). They will sort out his scanning problems. If it's blurry scans I put money on it that his rail that he puts his slide in is flexing. Or quite possibly his shots are not sharp. Or a combination. These days you're getting to the point where it's most probably cheaper and easier to just invest in a good solid digital SLR - something like a Canon EOS 20. Won't break the bank like a 1Ds or 1D, but still very capable. I'd love one to go along side my EOS1n, but analogue is still my love. It all depends really on what you want to shoot. If you want to do motor sport or wildlife, then a SLR is the way to go. Digital compacts just won't cut it in terms of lense sharpness, speed, autofocus ability etc. If you want to do portraits or candids you can get away with a digicam style camera. Horses for courses! As to sharpening, no amount of software sharpening is going to make up for a blurry original slide, or poor scanning process. Best to get the basics right first. Dave
Ahh, another young'un. You most probably haven't heard of LPs either. Or compact cassette. Or medium format film. What's the world coming to. For those that don't know - most professional photographers used to shoot on slide film, aka reversal film. Why? Much better colour rendition than print film. One of the reasons why commercial stock houses want it on slide film. That said, slide film isn't always "accurate" in it's colours. If you want nice vibrant colours, try films like Fuji Velvia or Provia 100D. Brilliant colours. Very expensive film (used to be around au $28 for a roll of 36 4 or 5 years ago, and that didn't include the developing/mounting costs). I even have colour medium format (120) slide film (showing my age I suspect) - negs are 6 x 4.5cm. Black and white slide film died many, many years ago. And to the fool that said 'where I come from...'. The camera is only an extension of the photography, nothing more, nothing less. A great photographer will make great shots with just about any gear. He or She has the "eye". A poor photographer with fancy pro gear will take average to poor shots. Don't believe me? That's why there's very few really great pro photographers in various genres. At least have an idea about what you're talking about before posting. Oh hang on, this is /.
Dave
Most Windows users wouldn't know what a bug report was or how to do it if it hit them on the head - they simply don't give a shit. Your more advanced firefox/mozilla users on the window platform might report a bug, might not. Depends on their mood. Since the average Linux and BSD users are generally far more technically advanced than the average windows users, the chances are greater that Linux/BSD users of konqueror will report bugs back to kde. I think that evens out the user base advantage of firefox. Dave
umm kde menu editor works fine, and has worked fine for quite some time now. No worse than editing the menu for Windows 95 and above. Dave