It's different because a large percentage of the western world now has reasonably fast computers and internet access. In 1992, a 286 was fast and 98% of the world did not know what the internet was.
Now (yes, it's still mostly Windows), a 2 GHz processor with a 40 GB hard drive connected to the net via 56.6 dial-up is average. And everyone now knows about the internet, so they are less likely to buy what they don't really need.
The level of detail you could do with this thing is orders of magnitude beyond traditional brushes. Did you know that many computer art programs can zoom down to a pixel? And dig this: They also let you assign your granularity in something called dpi. Imagine a single brush that could be adjusted from an angstrom thick to a kilometer wide. Cool, eh?
indicate an obsession with perfection. That's not what art is about. If you are fascinated with angstrom-thick brushstrokes you are likely missing the forest due to the bark texture on the trees.
There is no reason for much faster processing outside of specialty applications. The only possible use (for the average computer owner) is digitizing video more fastly.
Then again, marketing can be an amazing thing and convince people that they NEED something that they really don't. This type of hype will be going down the tubes as more and more people discover that what's being tossed at them is just more blinky lights and fancy buzzwords.
I hate to comment on this but feel compelled due to boredom. WTF is with these antique shows?
I suspect that they edit the parts where the "evaluator" says, "this is just shit from your grandma's basement". And yet people apparently gobble this stuff up like wannabe lottery winners.
Knowing current TV production tactics, it wouldn't surprise me that multiple takes are done to get the "perfect" reaction shot.
FYI, the "reaction shot" is the 21st century's version of the laugh track.
Look, the point these days of having books is not that you've read and understood them, it's posing. I seem to hazily remember false book fronts that could be bought to populate shelving furniture so as to give the impression that one is a scholar or well-read. So, logically, loading up an ebook reader with a pile of literary classics on cheap 1 GB memory cards is a great way to crank up the phony at little cost.
When a hot social studies babe notices your collection and asks specific details you can just say, "I read so much that I've forgotten that one" and quickly switch to Tetris.
*Great story, by the way. King Vikramiditya (Vikram for short) is tasked to carry a vampire a certain distance. Every time he speaks, the vampire goes back to its tree and he has to start again. So the meat of the book is a dozen or so stories told by the vampire in order to get Vikram to react by saying something out loud.
Do vampires live in trees now? If so, are they harmless when doing so? If so, wouldn't Vikram want to be babbling?
I remember some years ago where "coast to coast to coast" was being used regularly (must have been CBC Radio) as some sort of bizarre "unique identifier" and call to pride for Canucks. It was most likely a pathetic attempt at a slogan from a Canadian History Ph.D with a minor in marketing (funded by the party in power, of course).
Today I read about a quasi-government-type person mentioning "target-rich environments" while referring to finding dead bodies in some areas of New Orleans. This disgusted me for some reason.
It looks like some low-level, TV-speaking functionaries have adopted military-speak (since it sounds so organizationally cool) but have no clue about the careful use of language when it comes to tact and respect for the dead and their families.
Look at it this way: computers and software are now forced upon people in exchange for them having the privilege of having an office job. Since there is now an "out" for shoddy performance, they blame the nearest inanimate object. 25 years ago you wouldn't see many people blaming typewriters or pencils for their own incompetence.
I wish I could mod you up to +5 for this and your previous post.
I've seen this happen where the only purpose seemed to be to make it as complicated as possible to order a new stapler. Of course, the employee "task force" charged with the responsibility to get the moronstrosity to work (and do all the legwork debugging/customization) was essentially an arm of the bigname software vendor (Oracle? I forget now). They really had no idea of how the software actually worked, it was someone else pulling the strings and the accountants and MBAs are to blame for this phenomenon.
Absolutely! It can screw up a site's visual presentation, but being able to actually read the content is more important than what some graphic artist thinks "looks cool".
I suppose the use of all Flash for sites is the graphic designers' revenge, but more often than not, sites that use Flash exclusively are just that - flashy eyecandy for people who can't/won't/don't want to read.
In the field I know best (process plant design and construction) I suppose the R&D would be considered to be the chemical and process engineers' involvement up to the P&ID stage.
The mechanical, civil, electrical engineering is a huge cost that generally takes several months (if not years) to complete, so building these facilities is not quite the same as normal "product development". It's probably more like fab plant construction with a helluva lot more piping.
What makes English such a pain in the backside is that the language has been so utterly simplified over the millenia that we have lots of words with identical spellings, but different parts of speech.
Also, what makes English such a pain in the backside to learn is its popularity and the tendancy to make up words and phrases for best marketing effect. WTF is boo-ya, for example? Do I get "props" for this message?
I could go on but I have to mamoo dogface to the banana patch now - I wonder if anyone knows this reference.
No software was setup for all the computers to be connected together? I guess he never heard of Unix.
The internet would not have exploded into popular worldwide culture were it not for Windows' widespread adoption into the business world.
That made computer familiarity fairly common amongst non-nerds and brought down the price to "reasonable" levels for non-enthusiasts and opened up the internet for many more people.
I really wanted an Apple ][ when I was a teenager but the cost was way too high.
As a culture we have come to revere feelings rather than thought.
We weep for people we see on television whom we have never met, but cannot name the person who lives three doors away and have no idea of their pain, needs and fears.
It's the same sensibilities behind the mass pilgrimages to spots where people have been murdered, as if this gives us a sense of meaning and inclusion. We vicariously feel the flame of fame.
The recent scenes of entire crowds of people weeping on the anniversary of the death of Princess Diana say it all, really.
One almost expected Celine Dion to step forward and sing a ballad in the woman's memory.
Not cynical but realistic. We're drinking neurosis from buckets offered by pop singers and television hosts.
Slashdot Mirror
It's different because a large percentage of the western world now has reasonably fast computers and internet access. In 1992, a 286 was fast and 98% of the world did not know what the internet was.
Now (yes, it's still mostly Windows), a 2 GHz processor with a 40 GB hard drive connected to the net via 56.6 dial-up is average. And everyone now knows about the internet, so they are less likely to buy what they don't really need.
Get used to it; in 10 years he'll be your boss.
Comments like this:
The level of detail you could do with this thing is orders of magnitude beyond traditional brushes. Did you know that many computer art programs can zoom down to a pixel? And dig this: They also let you assign your granularity in something called dpi. Imagine a single brush that could be adjusted from an angstrom thick to a kilometer wide. Cool, eh?
indicate an obsession with perfection. That's not what art is about. If you are fascinated with angstrom-thick brushstrokes you are likely missing the forest due to the bark texture on the trees.
There is no reason for much faster processing outside of specialty applications. The only possible use (for the average computer owner) is digitizing video more fastly.
Then again, marketing can be an amazing thing and convince people that they NEED something that they really don't. This type of hype will be going down the tubes as more and more people discover that what's being tossed at them is just more blinky lights and fancy buzzwords.
I hate to comment on this but feel compelled due to boredom. WTF is with these antique shows?
I suspect that they edit the parts where the "evaluator" says, "this is just shit from your grandma's basement". And yet people apparently gobble this stuff up like wannabe lottery winners.
Knowing current TV production tactics, it wouldn't surprise me that multiple takes are done to get the "perfect" reaction shot.
FYI, the "reaction shot" is the 21st century's version of the laugh track.
Look, the point these days of having books is not that you've read and understood them, it's posing. I seem to hazily remember false book fronts that could be bought to populate shelving furniture so as to give the impression that one is a scholar or well-read. So, logically, loading up an ebook reader with a pile of literary classics on cheap 1 GB memory cards is a great way to crank up the phony at little cost.
When a hot social studies babe notices your collection and asks specific details you can just say, "I read so much that I've forgotten that one" and quickly switch to Tetris.
*Great story, by the way. King Vikramiditya (Vikram for short) is tasked to carry a vampire a certain distance. Every time he speaks, the vampire goes back to its tree and he has to start again. So the meat of the book is a dozen or so stories told by the vampire in order to get Vikram to react by saying something out loud.
Do vampires live in trees now? If so, are they harmless when doing so? If so, wouldn't Vikram want to be babbling?
In the immortal words of ObviousGuy, I don't get it.
Now the other thing to ask is do 99.99% of consumers want e-books or is it publishers who want to save the coin and cut out the middle-man?
In the Slashdot world, isn't "cutting out the middleman" a good thing when it comes to entertainment (RIAA/MPAA=bad)? I'm confused now.
Sealand is not a "floating fortress", it was an anti-aircraft platform during WW2. I'm not sure if it is floating and it certainly isn't a fortress.
We're 1/10 your size, so we have to do more with less. I think I speak for all Canadians when I singlehandedly apologize for Celine Dion.
I remember some years ago where "coast to coast to coast" was being used regularly (must have been CBC Radio) as some sort of bizarre "unique identifier" and call to pride for Canucks. It was most likely a pathetic attempt at a slogan from a Canadian History Ph.D with a minor in marketing (funded by the party in power, of course).
I thought that it just meant "man has been here".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inukshuk
Today I read about a quasi-government-type person mentioning "target-rich environments" while referring to finding dead bodies in some areas of New Orleans. This disgusted me for some reason.
It looks like some low-level, TV-speaking functionaries have adopted military-speak (since it sounds so organizationally cool) but have no clue about the careful use of language when it comes to tact and respect for the dead and their families.
Look at it this way: computers and software are now forced upon people in exchange for them having the privilege of having an office job. Since there is now an "out" for shoddy performance, they blame the nearest inanimate object. 25 years ago you wouldn't see many people blaming typewriters or pencils for their own incompetence.
I wish I could mod you up to +5 for this and your previous post.
I've seen this happen where the only purpose seemed to be to make it as complicated as possible to order a new stapler. Of course, the employee "task force" charged with the responsibility to get the moronstrosity to work (and do all the legwork debugging/customization) was essentially an arm of the bigname software vendor (Oracle? I forget now). They really had no idea of how the software actually worked, it was someone else pulling the strings and the accountants and MBAs are to blame for this phenomenon.
Be aware that any extensions you might have been using probably won't work with the beta versions.
Absolutely! It can screw up a site's visual presentation, but being able to actually read the content is more important than what some graphic artist thinks "looks cool".
I suppose the use of all Flash for sites is the graphic designers' revenge, but more often than not, sites that use Flash exclusively are just that - flashy eyecandy for people who can't/won't/don't want to read.
Woo-Hoo! Finally maybe all those emails I forwarded in 2002 will come to fruition!
In the field I know best (process plant design and construction) I suppose the R&D would be considered to be the chemical and process engineers' involvement up to the P&ID stage.
The mechanical, civil, electrical engineering is a huge cost that generally takes several months (if not years) to complete, so building these facilities is not quite the same as normal "product development". It's probably more like fab plant construction with a helluva lot more piping.
There is also reputed to be a fair amount of 'missing material' of which nobody knows the exact quantity or location.
I think Canada is holding much of that, so beware!
It must be nice to be able to go from R&D straight to production, bypassing engineering completely.
Or is "engineering" built into the R&D cost? I think we all realize that field engineers for processors are not required.
What makes English such a pain in the backside is that the language has been so utterly simplified over the millenia that we have lots of words with identical spellings, but different parts of speech.
Also, what makes English such a pain in the backside to learn is its popularity and the tendancy to make up words and phrases for best marketing effect. WTF is boo-ya, for example? Do I get "props" for this message?
I could go on but I have to mamoo dogface to the banana patch now - I wonder if anyone knows this reference.
I can't wait till the various language scholars start getting on PBS after the Holy Grail movie comes out. No, not that Holy Grail movie.
No software was setup for all the computers to be connected together? I guess he never heard of Unix.
The internet would not have exploded into popular worldwide culture were it not for Windows' widespread adoption into the business world.
That made computer familiarity fairly common amongst non-nerds and brought down the price to "reasonable" levels for non-enthusiasts and opened up the internet for many more people.
I really wanted an Apple ][ when I was a teenager but the cost was way too high.
[quote] All of the big news sites were much more interested in sharing emotion than information. [/quote]
Comments below from http://www.torontosun.com/News/Katrina/2005/09/10
As a culture we have come to revere feelings rather than thought.
We weep for people we see on television whom we have never met, but cannot name the person who lives three doors away and have no idea of their pain, needs and fears.
It's the same sensibilities behind the mass pilgrimages to spots where people have been murdered, as if this gives us a sense of meaning and inclusion. We vicariously feel the flame of fame.
The recent scenes of entire crowds of people weeping on the anniversary of the death of Princess Diana say it all, really.
One almost expected Celine Dion to step forward and sing a ballad in the woman's memory.
Not cynical but realistic. We're drinking neurosis from buckets offered by pop singers and television hosts.