I think this is exaggerated. The actual source code isn't where most of my disk space goes. It is for (to me) unnecessary templates, clip art, and graphics.
Even looking at my disk usage the majority of it is disappearing due to files and not applications. (I was rather surprised when I had to clean things up) The advent of DV and MP3's really changed things. While Office is, indeed, bloated, a lot of that bloat is in graphics and not code. But it can't hold a candle to all my MPEG-2 stores and MP3s.
The trickiest rebate offer I dealt with involved cutting off thick cardboard UPC stickers. Unfortunately the company in question had three different bar code stickers on the box -- all apparently different. Yet only one was acceptable for the rebate. By the time I found out the wrong one had been sent in the rebate was over. Very, very annoying and ended up "costing" several hundred dollars.
This doesn't sound right as much of the video game involved characters not in the movie. (Although perhaps licensed) If they did do what you say though then clearly Marvel has a point.
On the other hand Harry Knowles says this is nothing. (Not that his track record is that great, mind you) Ain't It Cool News
Presumably they are being *paid* to use a particular format. It is all moot anyways since lots of individual public radio stations offer MP3 streams. Here's the one I use:
There still are many companies writing these more simple games but with excellent game play. You don't have to run MAME with the associated 20 year old graphics.
For instance Ambrosia has had versions of classic games with excellent graphics and game play. I'm sure that were I to look I could find many more examples.
Just because most of the games down at CompUSA most games are fairly complex and driven by "gee whiz" graphics and long play time doesn't mean all are.
We don't need another full-blown story on this just because Sun confirmed it. All we need is a paragraph in Slashback saying, "By the way, remember this story about Sun and the Opteron? Sun's confirmed it."
However most of us read stories and then *don't* keep going back to them over and over again.
Thus having a new story is helpful. However I do agree that stories which are updates on older stories should have the link to the original story. That is advantageous as we may have missed the original story and wish to read the talkback there.
My understanding is that the Mormon settlers entered southern Alberta under the encouragement of the Federal governemnt. They'd been encouraging settlers to what was then known as the "Palliser Triangle." (Basically southern Alberta and Saskatchewan)
Regarding smallpox, hadn't the Blood been beset by smallpox before from US wiskey traders in the 1870's? If I recall that was deliberately spread, in keeping with a policy of the US government of biological warfare against native Americans. The Mormons didn't arrive until 15 years later, in 1886. I believe that the Mormon settlers bought land from pre-existing settlers (the Galts) as well.
While Mormon - Indian relationships certainly weren't good in the later part of the 20th century, my understanding is that they started out fairly good. Indians were invited to Mormon events and treaties were signed between them. Indeed during the "bad blood" between the Blood and the inhabitants of Cardston in the 1970's those documents were to prove significant. The Indians claimed all of Cardston and claimed they were going to occupy it. It made national news and there was a standoff for quite some time. The Blood further tried to aggravate Mormons by claiming that they'd put their chief in the Mormon temple and use the baptismal font as a swimming pool / hot tub. While Mormon treatment of Bloods was often not much better in the 20th century, the documents and history that came out in that era showed that once they had been much friendly and closer.
While the natives do believe that Card stole a strip of land, the documents prove otherwise.
The artificial diamond production technology is relatively old. Of course quality varies and is improving. Just here in town there are two companies that make then and they've been here as long as I can recall. I've not read it, but a history of the diamond manufacturing industry can be found in the book The Diamond Makers by Robert Hazen
With any laser sufficiently powerful to kill someone tin foil or simple mirrors will do little. You'll get some initial scattering for sure. And that's the big issue. Just as bullets have ricochets, you'll have something possibly worse with laser guns. Eye protection will be a must. But with civilians becoming more and more important avoiding burns on civilians and also blindness will be quite difficult.
I have to disagree. The first thing I did when I got my Mac was copy Lucida Console from my PC. I love that Font. Very readible. Looks great in Terminal.
More than just visual recognition occurs though (although that is significant). With the visual recognition comes a recognition of using the object for something.
Thus not only is it easier to recognize a trashcan over the word trashcan, but you immadiately intuit that you can put things into a trash can, move a trashcan and so forth.
Some people confused this aspect of UI to mere metaphor. This led to all sorts of horrible interfaces - many that pushed metaphor. The problem was that the power of icons and mice wasn't metaphoric but a kind of embodied action. You can have embodied actions with CLIs as well. Indeed many aspects of CLI do this - although they tend to be more complex than icons.
It is unfortunate that these aspects of UI design are so often neglected.
But you miss my point. How gruesomely someone dies does not adequately represent the consequence. I have no problem showing the grieving families, interviewing them, telling about the person who died. That's what really is lost.
To say that a gruesome death is what informs the consequence of action is in effect to say that a gruesome death is worse than a death where the body is intact. That, for instance, someone murdered with poison is somehow less deserving of our empathy than someone hacked to bits.
I am not saying we shouldn't pay attention to our consequences. Quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that the nature of the body doesn't represent the consequences but is simply a way of causing a visceral reaction not directly related to the consequences - as is demonstrable by the differing effects two kinds of death present.
When you show that graphic violence then all you will do is either get people to react emotionally rather than logically or desensitize them to the violence.
My instinct, as I mentioned above, is that those clamoring for graphic violence recognize that people react emotionally worse to a disfigured dead body than to a regular dead body. So they want the most graphic pictures possible to bring out as viceral reaction possible. The intent is that since the information isn't convincing they must using a picture, framed just so.
It is style over substance. Sophistry. Which is ironic since that is what many of those calling for these photos claim of those who don't show them in full. What is recognized is that a photo is manipulative. That's why a product with a beautiful woman is more effective than just the product. It is the old addage of the ad mogul.
Personally I want people, whether they be for or against the war, to at least make a decision rationally. If someone is for the war because of a photo of a hurt marine or if they are against the war because of the photo of a hurt Iraqi then to me they are making their decision for the wrong reasons.
Yeah, I got that. I probably didn't phrase that well.
I guess my point was that appreciation tends to be based upon *how many* appreciate it.
But I understand what you are getting at now. I appreciate films like Blade, but clearly how I appreciate it is different from how I appreciate Ikiru, 2001, or Schindler's List.
I agree with you regarding The Matrix, btw - contrasting literary vs. deepness probably is a good way of putting it.
Except that the reporters in question are members of the class. Merely picking a pronoun that sounds objective says nothing about being objective. One could easily be far more objective using the pronoun "we" than with the pronoun "they."
Further, to make a big deal about pronoun choice as indicative of bias suggests they were really having trouble finding true bias.
(I actually think there are biases - but it tends to be in terms of focus and what gets the most airtime.)
Fight Club and Matrix are two of my favorite movies. Both are far deeper than their appear (Fight Club moreso than Matrix which just has structures from philosophy and religion but says little with them)
But...surely you aren't saying those are underappreciated? They sell very well. The Matrix has the most anticipated sequel of the year - even more than Return of the King. And Fight Club keeps selling well on DVD even if it only did so-so in release. (~$60 million as I recall)
I've heard from many sources that only a few filters are altivec optimized. Further not all filters are multithreaded well. When dealing with multiprocessor systems, which Apple has been using to try and keep up with the x65 world, multithreading is dramatically important.
Realistically though multithreading can only get you so far. And many problems simply don't multithread. They are too serial. For those your dual 867 or dual 1 GHz is effectively a single processor machine. So you are competing against an equivalent system with 3x the clockrate, a better bus, and so forth. Even if we acknowledge that for some functions the G4 is faster per clock cycle than x86 systems that can only take you so far.
Everyone knows this, of course, which is why no one is really posting much in this thread. Until the 970 is released this summer or fall, you'd have to be an idiot to buy a desktop Mac unless you really like OSX. (And OSX is pretty damn sweet - but the hardware. ..)
I don't understand this. Why is it so necessary to see the mangled bodies of soldiers. On several sites now I've seen a poor young girl with half her foot blown off. I've seen some Iraqi soldiers with huge holes in their head and brains everywhere. It just isn't necessary.
If you sincerely think that somehow this is informing you, could you explain why? Further, do you think it important to show the mangled bodies off car accident victims, when they report that? How about the bruised vaginas of rape victims? What is the logic?
My heart goes out to vitims on all sides of this conflict. But it seems like saying that this is censorship by the US media is difficult, if not impossible, to justify. The media never shows such things because it is tasteless and disturbing. Perhaps the middle-east has more tolerance for such pictures. If so then that probably shows how desensitized they've become to the sight of violence.
Those I've discussed the issue with feel that such scenes are necessary to bring out the emotion of war. Perhaps. But then I'm not sure that bringing up such emotion is a good idea. While we are human beings and have emotions, "news" that primarily appeals to emotion really isn't news. It is propaganda. Regardless of what side does it. That's why media savvy political action groups are always so careful to pick their words carefully. (Pro-life vs. Pro-choice) It is the emotional response. That's why they show bloodied fetuses - the emotional response. Nearly any major controversial issue out there and you'll find people doing everything they can to make it an emotional issue rather than an intellectual one.
The only thing worse than that kind of propoganda are those who actually claim such bloodied bodies are what they want to see. Those using it for propaganda I can understand. Those who search for such things are doing little more than enjoying snuff pornography. They watch war coverage to get excited by violence. And they want more gore to get their pornographic fix. Hell, beautiful naked women I can understand. But people who get their kicks off of mangled flesh and the suffering of others. . . And whats worse justify it by saying they are "becoming informed. .."
CNN has been fairly critical of the government. For instance they (along with many other outlets) have been criticizing them for a plan without enough ground troops, for allowing supply lines to be undefended, and so forth.
I'll criticize both CNN, FOX and NBC for not being clear enough at times distinguishing what is "confirmed" from what is an initial report. The pundits have been even worse. The "chemical weapons plan" from Sunday night was very embarrassing. So was the "uprising" in Basra. Of course to be fair, that was the BBC that the American media outlets then picked up. So it is hardly an American phenomena.
Further most of the outlets have had a very narrow view of things. Very few questions and, in general, superficial reporting. One of the generals working for CNN has been pretty good and I was quite impressed with the CNN interview with the New York Times reporter last night. But overall they've not done that great a job. Further they seemed *shocked* that there were casualties and that the war didn't end in a week.
I think the media could do much better, for sure. But I suspect that they will improve with time. One hopes anyway. But while they tend to have a pro-American bias, that's hardly surprsing given their audience. But I don't think it is necessarily a pro-Administration bias.
On the other hand all of the other networks have had their biases. As for Al Jazeera, the following was an interesting discussion on them.
One problem in Canada when I lived there was that many assumed that Canadians had the same civil rights as Americans. Personally I think that Canadians *ought* to have more civil rights - especially against self-incrimination and protection for government searches. I recognize most Canadians are fervently anti-firearm, so I don't expect the second ammendment type rights.
But then I admit that all of those things were partially why I moved to the states. Further the lack of checks and balances and democratic feedback in Canada bothered me tremendously. For instance most MPs can't vote their conscience but have to tow the party line. You don't vote for PM, you vote for MP who votes for PM. No elected senate. The effect, in my mind, is that you end up voting for a PM who gets to do whatever he (or she) wants until the next election is held. The only time that doesn't happen if you can get a vote of no-confidence. MPs simply have very little power relative to American senators or congressmen. Further appealing to your representative down here typically produces quick action (especially if you threaten to go to the media). Up in Canada it often seems the government is "above" the populace.
I recognize most Canadians don't mind this. Further many dislike the American system. So this isn't a criticism. However I know that despite how much I love Canada, the *form* of government is one significant reason why I left.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is exaggerated. The actual source code isn't where most of my disk space goes. It is for (to me) unnecessary templates, clip art, and graphics. Even looking at my disk usage the majority of it is disappearing due to files and not applications. (I was rather surprised when I had to clean things up) The advent of DV and MP3's really changed things. While Office is, indeed, bloated, a lot of that bloat is in graphics and not code. But it can't hold a candle to all my MPEG-2 stores and MP3s.
The trickiest rebate offer I dealt with involved cutting off thick cardboard UPC stickers. Unfortunately the company in question had three different bar code stickers on the box -- all apparently different. Yet only one was acceptable for the rebate. By the time I found out the wrong one had been sent in the rebate was over. Very, very annoying and ended up "costing" several hundred dollars.
On the other hand Harry Knowles says this is nothing. (Not that his track record is that great, mind you) Ain't It Cool News
KUER
There are a few under iTunes' radio list and Google could find more.
Of course this won't let you listen to backstories. But so long as they don't start using WMP9 who cares?
For instance Ambrosia has had versions of classic games with excellent graphics and game play. I'm sure that were I to look I could find many more examples.
Just because most of the games down at CompUSA most games are fairly complex and driven by "gee whiz" graphics and long play time doesn't mean all are.
However most of us read stories and then *don't* keep going back to them over and over again.
Thus having a new story is helpful. However I do agree that stories which are updates on older stories should have the link to the original story. That is advantageous as we may have missed the original story and wish to read the talkback there.
Regarding smallpox, hadn't the Blood been beset by smallpox before from US wiskey traders in the 1870's? If I recall that was deliberately spread, in keeping with a policy of the US government of biological warfare against native Americans. The Mormons didn't arrive until 15 years later, in 1886. I believe that the Mormon settlers bought land from pre-existing settlers (the Galts) as well.
While Mormon - Indian relationships certainly weren't good in the later part of the 20th century, my understanding is that they started out fairly good. Indians were invited to Mormon events and treaties were signed between them. Indeed during the "bad blood" between the Blood and the inhabitants of Cardston in the 1970's those documents were to prove significant. The Indians claimed all of Cardston and claimed they were going to occupy it. It made national news and there was a standoff for quite some time. The Blood further tried to aggravate Mormons by claiming that they'd put their chief in the Mormon temple and use the baptismal font as a swimming pool / hot tub. While Mormon treatment of Bloods was often not much better in the 20th century, the documents and history that came out in that era showed that once they had been much friendly and closer.
While the natives do believe that Card stole a strip of land, the documents prove otherwise.
The artificial diamond production technology is relatively old. Of course quality varies and is improving. Just here in town there are two companies that make then and they've been here as long as I can recall. I've not read it, but a history of the diamond manufacturing industry can be found in the book The Diamond Makers by Robert Hazen
With any laser sufficiently powerful to kill someone tin foil or simple mirrors will do little. You'll get some initial scattering for sure. And that's the big issue. Just as bullets have ricochets, you'll have something possibly worse with laser guns. Eye protection will be a must. But with civilians becoming more and more important avoiding burns on civilians and also blindness will be quite difficult.
Yeah - but I only had a 1000. Do you think I'd get better icons that she hadn't made already if I'd brought more monkies?
April Fools Day ends at noon. OR so I'd always been told. This story posted at 11:59 so I guess it'll be OK.
I have to disagree. The first thing I did when I got my Mac was copy Lucida Console from my PC. I love that Font. Very readible. Looks great in Terminal.
Thus not only is it easier to recognize a trashcan over the word trashcan, but you immadiately intuit that you can put things into a trash can, move a trashcan and so forth.
Some people confused this aspect of UI to mere metaphor. This led to all sorts of horrible interfaces - many that pushed metaphor. The problem was that the power of icons and mice wasn't metaphoric but a kind of embodied action. You can have embodied actions with CLIs as well. Indeed many aspects of CLI do this - although they tend to be more complex than icons.
It is unfortunate that these aspects of UI design are so often neglected.
Because when I applied 1000 monkeys designing icons on 16x16 I found that she'd already come up with all the good ones.
Are we likely to see the initial (expensive) drives for sale a year from now?
This will really put the fear into Hollywood since it'll allow DVDs to be copied with ease.
To say that a gruesome death is what informs the consequence of action is in effect to say that a gruesome death is worse than a death where the body is intact. That, for instance, someone murdered with poison is somehow less deserving of our empathy than someone hacked to bits.
I am not saying we shouldn't pay attention to our consequences. Quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that the nature of the body doesn't represent the consequences but is simply a way of causing a visceral reaction not directly related to the consequences - as is demonstrable by the differing effects two kinds of death present.
My instinct, as I mentioned above, is that those clamoring for graphic violence recognize that people react emotionally worse to a disfigured dead body than to a regular dead body. So they want the most graphic pictures possible to bring out as viceral reaction possible. The intent is that since the information isn't convincing they must using a picture, framed just so.
It is style over substance. Sophistry. Which is ironic since that is what many of those calling for these photos claim of those who don't show them in full. What is recognized is that a photo is manipulative. That's why a product with a beautiful woman is more effective than just the product. It is the old addage of the ad mogul.
Personally I want people, whether they be for or against the war, to at least make a decision rationally. If someone is for the war because of a photo of a hurt marine or if they are against the war because of the photo of a hurt Iraqi then to me they are making their decision for the wrong reasons.
I guess my point was that appreciation tends to be based upon *how many* appreciate it.
But I understand what you are getting at now. I appreciate films like Blade, but clearly how I appreciate it is different from how I appreciate Ikiru, 2001, or Schindler's List.
I agree with you regarding The Matrix, btw - contrasting literary vs. deepness probably is a good way of putting it.
Further, to make a big deal about pronoun choice as indicative of bias suggests they were really having trouble finding true bias.
(I actually think there are biases - but it tends to be in terms of focus and what gets the most airtime.)
Ironically _Flesh and Blood_ is on AMC right now as we speak. I'd never heard of it. MAn Jennifer Jason Leigh looks young!
But...surely you aren't saying those are underappreciated? They sell very well. The Matrix has the most anticipated sequel of the year - even more than Return of the King. And Fight Club keeps selling well on DVD even if it only did so-so in release. (~$60 million as I recall)
Realistically though multithreading can only get you so far. And many problems simply don't multithread. They are too serial. For those your dual 867 or dual 1 GHz is effectively a single processor machine. So you are competing against an equivalent system with 3x the clockrate, a better bus, and so forth. Even if we acknowledge that for some functions the G4 is faster per clock cycle than x86 systems that can only take you so far.
Everyone knows this, of course, which is why no one is really posting much in this thread. Until the 970 is released this summer or fall, you'd have to be an idiot to buy a desktop Mac unless you really like OSX. (And OSX is pretty damn sweet - but the hardware. . .)
If you sincerely think that somehow this is informing you, could you explain why? Further, do you think it important to show the mangled bodies off car accident victims, when they report that? How about the bruised vaginas of rape victims? What is the logic?
My heart goes out to vitims on all sides of this conflict. But it seems like saying that this is censorship by the US media is difficult, if not impossible, to justify. The media never shows such things because it is tasteless and disturbing. Perhaps the middle-east has more tolerance for such pictures. If so then that probably shows how desensitized they've become to the sight of violence.
Those I've discussed the issue with feel that such scenes are necessary to bring out the emotion of war. Perhaps. But then I'm not sure that bringing up such emotion is a good idea. While we are human beings and have emotions, "news" that primarily appeals to emotion really isn't news. It is propaganda. Regardless of what side does it. That's why media savvy political action groups are always so careful to pick their words carefully. (Pro-life vs. Pro-choice) It is the emotional response. That's why they show bloodied fetuses - the emotional response. Nearly any major controversial issue out there and you'll find people doing everything they can to make it an emotional issue rather than an intellectual one.
The only thing worse than that kind of propoganda are those who actually claim such bloodied bodies are what they want to see. Those using it for propaganda I can understand. Those who search for such things are doing little more than enjoying snuff pornography. They watch war coverage to get excited by violence. And they want more gore to get their pornographic fix. Hell, beautiful naked women I can understand. But people who get their kicks off of mangled flesh and the suffering of others. . . And whats worse justify it by saying they are "becoming informed. . ."
I'll criticize both CNN, FOX and NBC for not being clear enough at times distinguishing what is "confirmed" from what is an initial report. The pundits have been even worse. The "chemical weapons plan" from Sunday night was very embarrassing. So was the "uprising" in Basra. Of course to be fair, that was the BBC that the American media outlets then picked up. So it is hardly an American phenomena.
Further most of the outlets have had a very narrow view of things. Very few questions and, in general, superficial reporting. One of the generals working for CNN has been pretty good and I was quite impressed with the CNN interview with the New York Times reporter last night. But overall they've not done that great a job. Further they seemed *shocked* that there were casualties and that the war didn't end in a week.
I think the media could do much better, for sure. But I suspect that they will improve with time. One hopes anyway. But while they tend to have a pro-American bias, that's hardly surprsing given their audience. But I don't think it is necessarily a pro-Administration bias.
On the other hand all of the other networks have had their biases. As for Al Jazeera, the following was an interesting discussion on them.
CNN Money
I can't speak for their bias, as I've not watched Al Jazeera. But clearly many have problems with them.
But then I admit that all of those things were partially why I moved to the states. Further the lack of checks and balances and democratic feedback in Canada bothered me tremendously. For instance most MPs can't vote their conscience but have to tow the party line. You don't vote for PM, you vote for MP who votes for PM. No elected senate. The effect, in my mind, is that you end up voting for a PM who gets to do whatever he (or she) wants until the next election is held. The only time that doesn't happen if you can get a vote of no-confidence. MPs simply have very little power relative to American senators or congressmen. Further appealing to your representative down here typically produces quick action (especially if you threaten to go to the media). Up in Canada it often seems the government is "above" the populace.
I recognize most Canadians don't mind this. Further many dislike the American system. So this isn't a criticism. However I know that despite how much I love Canada, the *form* of government is one significant reason why I left.