Funny thing about Rand Fans, "Let's all be individualists, just like Ayn Rand." Perhaps that's unfair of me.
From what I've seen of many of them, it's not. A lot of writers from the Ayn Rand(r) Institute especially are guilty of that kind of behavior. Their articles usually begin with the deification of some rich or famous person, what individualists they are, and why we should try to model ourselves after them. It's almost to the level of unintentional self parody at times. One of the biggest ironies though is that often the person they're lauding praise on dosn't seem to meet the qualifications of a 'good person' as set by Rand. I've seen a number of articles by various Rand folk about how great Bill Gates is for example, and he donates to charity and is more of a manager than actual producer of anything new.
do not let forth the hounds of ignorance and fearmongering onto a promising technology, please!
There's something I've long wondered, does the technophobia come from the people, the movies, or do they feed off each other in a continous loop of paranoia? It seems like from the very beginning of cinima, we've had the scientist "meddling in affairs man was not meant to know" who brings destruction on everything around him. Even before that, with figures such as Frankenstein and Faust, there's been ample evidence that there's an underlying fear of tampering with what is perceived as the "natural order".
I have to wonder if anything really could be done about it. Personally, I'd love to watch a movie about a scientist fighting management and public opinion to get 'cool robot 1.0' onto the market. Unfourtunatly most people wouldn't identify with the problems of the scientist. They want Will Smith to jump in and prove that their fear of the unknown was justified. In my more pesimistic moments I think they also want justification for putting self education near the bottom of their list of priorities. In short (I know, too late), I don't think the trend of demonising new technology is going to stop untill the population as a whole develops enough interest in science and technology to have a fair grasp of it. If that's a trend happening anywhere in the world, I'd like to know so I could move there, because I've yet to find it anywhere I've been.
I have to second that. I've been using unstable for a little over a year, and have only had one problem of any significance with an upgrade. I'd say it compares quite favorably to any other bleeding edge distro.
There are also products like VMWare and VirtualPC which help significantly.
I don't know if you're aware of PearPC, but it might help. Sadly my system's too slow to make any use of it, so I can't offer much in the way of a review. Also sadly, I'm in the same situation as yourself - well, minus project popularity. I'd be happy if there were just a way to easily crosscompile for osx/ppc from an x86 linux setup.
That's right. It's a hell of a lot easier to download a 500Mb MPEG from a dodgy site and then sit in front of the computer for a couple of hours watching a blurry image on a 17" monitor than it is to pass by the cinema or buy a DVD.;-)
Well, yes, sometimes it can be. It took us three hours each way to get to a theater that was actually playing 911.
I'm a bit hesitant to even mention this, as the information is basically just "some guy told me". But I've heard that a lot of contracts specify that the artist can't accept any money for their music that dosn't come through santioned routes and materials. If that's not the case thogh, it sounds like a good idea to me.
entirely, what you are left with is just bands, their music, and their fans. While this model words great for established groups, it doesn't appear to leave much room for new bands.
I think internet radio combined with word of mouth might be enough to launch new bands into the public view. The vast majority of bands whose music I own came to my attention soley through shoutcasts.
I havn't bought anything from They Might Be Giants in a while, since flood I belive. I really liked their stuff from around that period, but havn't heard any of the offerings on the page. One's listed as childrens songs, which dosn't fill me with a huge amount of confidence. Children tend to not be the most demanding audience. The other is listed as rarities, and I've found that quite often those are rare for a reason, and not one that would lend well to wanting to put money down on it.
But I am curious how their music has evolved since I last heard them, and I'm very eager to support this kind of distribution system. Any comments on how the music being sold holds up to, say, flood?
I have nearly the same level of dislike for them as you. It's not even so much what they're trying to sell, but the fact that they do so in such an insulting manner. If the norm was to just put the product on display and give actual facts as to why I might want to lay down money for it, then I might actually be interested in seeing them. But instead they try to sell image, or use the most pathetic and intelectually mind numbing humor imaginable.
Hate to say it, but I find myself doing that quite a bit as well. There's little enough on worth watching that I sometimes forget to turn the vcr on for what is - and in those times that's a great resource. The kicker is, that like you, I'd pay if there were any way to do so.
the quality of programming is simply too weak, and too diluted.
The people in charge of programming might counter with "So is the taste of the average viewer". While I don't know if it's true or not, I have a feeling they strongly believe it to be.
Too bad you can't actually replace Photoshop with Gimp.
No, you can't replace Photoshop with the Gimp. Someone like myself, who didn't depend on anything in photoshop that dosn't also exist in the gimp, is able to.
There was a more pleasurable side to it too. I can see beauty everywhere now, even in things that are also ugly. I feel as if I were born blind and deaf but can now see and hear for the first time. Life the universe and everything are wondrously beautiful.
That happened to me as well, after my first experience with ayahuasca. I really didn't have any actual perception of beauty before then. The world was something to hurt and be hurt in, not somewhere where one could appreciate the mere existance of anything. After the ayahuasca though, and ever since then, I've been actuly aware of how beautiful everything is. Even, as you say, ugly things. Which is something I've often found very difficult to talk about to people who havn't had similar experiences. It's one of those things which seems possible to express on an intellectual basis, but which is very difficult to actually integrate into life or to actually internalise. At least without a little chemical help.
I'd say that it remains to be seen. I can see your point, but I also have to wonder if non-geeks might still have vauge memories of using commadore's as kids. They were pretty great for the time, kids are easily impressed anyway, and memories of our youth have a way of becoming inflated as time goes by. It's possible a twenty something could walk by, and be caught up on sight of the logo by vauge recolections of technology way ahead of its time.
Or, as you say, they may not. I'd say there's at least a chance though.
You might try the wxwidgits bindings for python. I've been using it for the past six months on a somewhat large multiplatform project, and have been nothing but happy with it so far. It's snappy, gives a native look and feel, and has a fairly nice gui builder with boa-constructor.
While watching someone play a video game sounds pretty dull to me, I don't think it's any worse than watching any normal sport. But then again, I've never seen the apeal of that at all, so I might not be the most qualified to speak.
The mayer of the next town over to me gave this gem in a speech recently, "If we don't have it, we don't need it!". I think a lot of it just boils down to something similar. For every one of us geeks out there who love spending a little time to write a script to gain us time in the long run, there's a hundred people out there who don't like the idea of putting in a little effort now to get a non-imediate gain. Especially when that gain comes in the form of the ever nervewracking "other" - da feriners use it!
Why themes? I don't understand why everyone would want their apps to look different.
The same reason (most of us) don't wear black t-shirts seven days a week, or sometimes rearrange the look or the actual desktop we sit behind. It's nice to have a little variety in the appearnce of something that's going to be looked at for a large amount of time every day.
A ringworld miniseries is apparently in the works at the moment - which might be a good start. Somewhere around the time of that travesty of a riverworld movie though, I started becoming more sad than anything about books I like getting the hollywood treatment. No matter where the 'hollywood' in question is located.
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Funny thing about Rand Fans, "Let's all be individualists, just like Ayn Rand." Perhaps that's unfair of me.
From what I've seen of many of them, it's not. A lot of writers from the Ayn Rand(r) Institute especially are guilty of that kind of behavior. Their articles usually begin with the deification of some rich or famous person, what individualists they are, and why we should try to model ourselves after them. It's almost to the level of unintentional self parody at times. One of the biggest ironies though is that often the person they're lauding praise on dosn't seem to meet the qualifications of a 'good person' as set by Rand. I've seen a number of articles by various Rand folk about how great Bill Gates is for example, and he donates to charity and is more of a manager than actual producer of anything new.
do not let forth the hounds of ignorance and fearmongering onto a promising technology, please!
There's something I've long wondered, does the technophobia come from the people, the movies, or do they feed off each other in a continous loop of paranoia? It seems like from the very beginning of cinima, we've had the scientist "meddling in affairs man was not meant to know" who brings destruction on everything around him. Even before that, with figures such as Frankenstein and Faust, there's been ample evidence that there's an underlying fear of tampering with what is perceived as the "natural order".
I have to wonder if anything really could be done about it. Personally, I'd love to watch a movie about a scientist fighting management and public opinion to get 'cool robot 1.0' onto the market. Unfourtunatly most people wouldn't identify with the problems of the scientist. They want Will Smith to jump in and prove that their fear of the unknown was justified. In my more pesimistic moments I think they also want justification for putting self education near the bottom of their list of priorities. In short (I know, too late), I don't think the trend of demonising new technology is going to stop untill the population as a whole develops enough interest in science and technology to have a fair grasp of it. If that's a trend happening anywhere in the world, I'd like to know so I could move there, because I've yet to find it anywhere I've been.
I have to second that. I've been using unstable for a little over a year, and have only had one problem of any significance with an upgrade. I'd say it compares quite favorably to any other bleeding edge distro.
There are also products like VMWare and VirtualPC which help significantly.
I don't know if you're aware of PearPC, but it might help. Sadly my system's too slow to make any use of it, so I can't offer much in the way of a review. Also sadly, I'm in the same situation as yourself - well, minus project popularity. I'd be happy if there were just a way to easily crosscompile for osx/ppc from an x86 linux setup.
That's what I love about both the left and right, everything's a conspiracy to both of you.
That's right. It's a hell of a lot easier to download a 500Mb MPEG from a dodgy site and then sit in front of the computer for a couple of hours watching a blurry image on a 17" monitor than it is to pass by the cinema or buy a DVD. ;-)
Well, yes, sometimes it can be. It took us three hours each way to get to a theater that was actually playing 911.
I walked right into that one. :)
I'm a bit hesitant to even mention this, as the information is basically just "some guy told me". But I've heard that a lot of contracts specify that the artist can't accept any money for their music that dosn't come through santioned routes and materials. If that's not the case thogh, it sounds like a good idea to me.
entirely, what you are left with is just bands, their music, and their fans. While this model words great for established groups, it doesn't appear to leave much room for new bands.
I think internet radio combined with word of mouth might be enough to launch new bands into the public view. The vast majority of bands whose music I own came to my attention soley through shoutcasts.
I havn't bought anything from They Might Be Giants in a while, since flood I belive. I really liked their stuff from around that period, but havn't heard any of the offerings on the page. One's listed as childrens songs, which dosn't fill me with a huge amount of confidence. Children tend to not be the most demanding audience. The other is listed as rarities, and I've found that quite often those are rare for a reason, and not one that would lend well to wanting to put money down on it.
But I am curious how their music has evolved since I last heard them, and I'm very eager to support this kind of distribution system. Any comments on how the music being sold holds up to, say, flood?
I have nearly the same level of dislike for them as you. It's not even so much what they're trying to sell, but the fact that they do so in such an insulting manner. If the norm was to just put the product on display and give actual facts as to why I might want to lay down money for it, then I might actually be interested in seeing them. But instead they try to sell image, or use the most pathetic and intelectually mind numbing humor imaginable.
Hate to say it, but I find myself doing that quite a bit as well. There's little enough on worth watching that I sometimes forget to turn the vcr on for what is - and in those times that's a great resource. The kicker is, that like you, I'd pay if there were any way to do so.
the quality of programming is simply too weak, and too diluted.
The people in charge of programming might counter with "So is the taste of the average viewer". While I don't know if it's true or not, I have a feeling they strongly believe it to be.
I hear ya. I feel like I'm really getting taken by paying for all these channels, while only actually watching four or five shows on a regular basis.
Too bad you can't actually replace Photoshop with Gimp.
No, you can't replace Photoshop with the Gimp. Someone like myself, who didn't depend on anything in photoshop that dosn't also exist in the gimp, is able to.
While I don't have the time to do anything with the code, I sure will send him a postcard now! I've gotten a huge amount of use out of that program.
Reality is an absolute, our perception of reality is not.
There was a more pleasurable side to it too. I can see beauty everywhere now, even in things that are also ugly. I feel as if I were born blind and deaf but can now see and hear for the first time. Life the universe and everything are wondrously beautiful.
That happened to me as well, after my first experience with ayahuasca. I really didn't have any actual perception of beauty before then. The world was something to hurt and be hurt in, not somewhere where one could appreciate the mere existance of anything. After the ayahuasca though, and ever since then, I've been actuly aware of how beautiful everything is. Even, as you say, ugly things. Which is something I've often found very difficult to talk about to people who havn't had similar experiences. It's one of those things which seems possible to express on an intellectual basis, but which is very difficult to actually integrate into life or to actually internalise. At least without a little chemical help.
I'd say that it remains to be seen. I can see your point, but I also have to wonder if non-geeks might still have vauge memories of using commadore's as kids. They were pretty great for the time, kids are easily impressed anyway, and memories of our youth have a way of becoming inflated as time goes by. It's possible a twenty something could walk by, and be caught up on sight of the logo by vauge recolections of technology way ahead of its time.
Or, as you say, they may not. I'd say there's at least a chance though.
Wonder if that can be run in mono.. installing to find out.
Any luck?
but afaik gcj doesn't compile windows or mac executables where mono does.
I don't know about mac, but a quick google gave a result for building gcj for windows.
You might try the wxwidgits bindings for python. I've been using it for the past six months on a somewhat large multiplatform project, and have been nothing but happy with it so far. It's snappy, gives a native look and feel, and has a fairly nice gui builder with boa-constructor.
While watching someone play a video game sounds pretty dull to me, I don't think it's any worse than watching any normal sport. But then again, I've never seen the apeal of that at all, so I might not be the most qualified to speak.
The mayer of the next town over to me gave this gem in a speech recently, "If we don't have it, we don't need it!". I think a lot of it just boils down to something similar. For every one of us geeks out there who love spending a little time to write a script to gain us time in the long run, there's a hundred people out there who don't like the idea of putting in a little effort now to get a non-imediate gain. Especially when that gain comes in the form of the ever nervewracking "other" - da feriners use it!
Why themes? I don't understand why everyone would want their apps to look different.
The same reason (most of us) don't wear black t-shirts seven days a week, or sometimes rearrange the look or the actual desktop we sit behind. It's nice to have a little variety in the appearnce of something that's going to be looked at for a large amount of time every day.
Larry Niven, or Phillip Jose Farmer?
A ringworld miniseries is apparently in the works at the moment - which might be a good start. Somewhere around the time of that travesty of a riverworld movie though, I started becoming more sad than anything about books I like getting the hollywood treatment. No matter where the 'hollywood' in question is located.