the degree of acceptance of a given idea doesn't necessarily reflect it's truth. That as may be (and I agree with you on that point), you were the one who made scientific acceptance of the point an issue. And frankly, it *is* an issue with respect to the credibility of scientists, because it has been used to imply that scientists are flipflopping (and thus lacking in credibility) because they supposedly took the exact opposite position just as seriously 30 years ago, which just isn't the case.
BANG! YOU'RE wrong. The only difference between then and now is that there are now billions upon billions of dollars being funneled by governments into global warming research. There's no scientific difference between then and now. Scientists are still studying the next ice age and when it will come. Linking an environmentalist site and a pro-AGW site doesn't change reality. The original poster said (or could reasonably have been assumed to be implying) that the "environmental lobby" had reversed its position from 30 years ago; when in fact global warming is far more widely (and seriously) accepted than the "global cooling" theory was. It's still misleading to imply that the scientific masses have changed their positions over 30 years, when in fact "global cooling" was never as widely-accepted or taken as seriously as global warming is.
The point being addressed was his implication of the masses having changed their minds; they hadn't. So regardless of the *reasons* for their position (or whether or not it is accurate), my assertion was correct; the majority of scientists were *not* making the same level of fuss about "global cooling" during the 1970s.
Part of the reason the outsides are so ugly is because the insides are. Take one of those cute Japanese girls that Slashdotters drool over. Do you think that her insides are likely to be pretty? I doubt it.:-6
It is absolutely a matter of style, and wooden computers -I hate to say it because of the amount of time that this guy spent making it- are not particularly good style. No, it is absolutely a matter of taste. Even if we accept that there is a taste-independent concept of "style", I don't believe that it applies here. You don't like wooden computers? Good for you, but it's your personal preference. That's all.
Where will a wooden computer fit in? Anywhere with a large amount of traditional-looking wooden furniture. It would probably look at home in my parents' living room; far more so than their 4-year-old beige PC, or even a more recent black and silver one. Ditto anyone who spent the money on a wood-paneled study, etc.
Technology is not supposed to look wooden. Says who? Oh... yeah, you do. Well, I'm sold.
They tried it with tvs too, in case anyone remembers. Yeah, it used to be quite a common styling. There obviously weren't too many complaints at the time, else they wouldn't have used that style for something like 25 years.
Who has wooden tvs these days? They look like crap. Matter of taste. And- more importantly- probably a matter of long-term fashion trends.
Have you ever noticed that all electronics these days are silver? Yet from the early-1980s to the mid-to-late-1990s, everything was black. When I was a kid I remembered thinking finding those late-70s brushed metal hifis old fashioned, because I associated black with the modern stuff that was in the shops. I remember at some point in the late-1980s my CS teacher came across an early-80s computer that we both laughed at because it was so "space age". Okay, part of that was the styling, but it was also because it was covered in spray-painted silver coating. The exact same style of silver coating that covers a lot of modern electronics.
Nowadays, those mid-80s black-with-flat-panel-buttons-and-red-lettering hifis now look... very 80s. I'd have found a lot of the style-conscious brushed-metal digital cameras around now very dated-looking if I'd seen them in the 80s. I saw an Agfa camera from the 1960s recently and briefly had trouble telling if it was really old or really new; but I liked it. And yet 20 years ago, I'd have hated it and thought it looked old-fashioned.
Similar arguments could apply to wood. Sure, wood looks old-fashioned and is less likely to make a comeback for that reason, but that's not really the issue here.
In short, never underestimate the effect long-term technological fashion trends will have on you.
A wooden computer might fit in well in a cottage, but why would you want a computer in a cottage anyways? If we ever needed confirmation of your blinkered closed-mindedness, here it is. Do you think that someone living in a cottage wants to live in some sort of 19th-century Beatrix Potter lala land, cut off from modern technology and society? I suspect they'd want a computer for the same reasons that 99% of the population do. Why the hell wouldn't they?
The environmental lobby should focus on something other than global warming regardless. 30 years ago they were saying pollution would block the sun and cause another ice age. BANG! WRONG. Thank you for playing.
I was going to make a vaguely sarcastic comment about your "putting on shorts" for global warming, and then you played the booby-trapped card.
This always comes up; the global cooling theories during the 1970s were *nowhere* near as widely-accepted and publicised in the scientific community/press. Even the popular press, who were responsible for promoting these theories didn't carry anywhere near as much on "global cooling" than they do now on warming. See this and this. And people were considering global warming even back then.
one note: CDs scratch. I have several possibly irreplaceable small label disks that have small data layer scratches, I believe in part due to budget pressing. If only I had FLACs I assume you mean that the upper side has become damaged? If the scratch is on the underside it's normally fixable. Also note that you can rip the raw CD data using (e.g.) cdparanoia; but you have a good point- it hadn't occurred to me because AFAIK all of my CDs are easily replacable and I can't recall ever having one go bad.
Caverns of Mars, 1981
on
Caves on Mars?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
To some of us, it is news. To be completely honest, it had never occurred to me that there would be caves on Mars. Greg Christensen was more insightful than you then.:-)
Not much size = 50%. That may not be much to you, but it's still a reasonable amount. Yes, but from that point-of-view alone, you're still having to do a lot of work to get it. And it's not 50%; it's 150%, unless he's binning his original CDs.
With foobar, you can take that collection - or any subset - and do a custom recode. It may take a day or two, but its totally automated. I dunno; it kind of smacks of the geek tendency to spend a day automating a procedure that would otherwise take 15 minutes or so, and then using it 3 or 4 times before they decide they want things done differently and abandoning it. Can't beat that logic;-) Maybe I'm wrong, of course, but I'm just getting that vibe; I know, because I've sometimes done it myself.
Because if you're the average person on the street you don't have the faintest clue who Jack Thompson is? Bearing in mind that the guy is an attention whore whose aim seems to be to attract and exploit the attention of those ignorant of the issues (i.e. the "average" person on the street), I'd say that this is what he'd deserve.
Bearing in mind that you're not going to save that much file size using lossless storage, and that you already have an "archive" of CDs in a box in your basement (or wherever), is it really worth the hassle of creating another lossless copy that'll take up even more space?
If you're planning on re-converting from these lossless copies, it sounds like you're going to be doing a *lot* of work based on some second-guessing of where you'll be in 5 years time; and things may have changed then.
Interview to be a burger flipper at McDonalds Quit his corporate job he's unhappy with to work at a fast food joint? I'm getting deja-vu here. Whilst lusting after your teenage daughter's friend and smoking marajuana? Oh, and BTW watch out for your neighbour; he may get the wrong end of the stick regarding your friendship with his son.
Hmm.... I think that was the theory at the time, Atari's health in the 16-bit market helping keep the 8-bits alive. But to be honest, Atari didn't do much with the 8-bit line after the mid-80s; they kept selling it and made a "new" XE console which was still basically the same 1979 technology (albeit with more memory). They released a few new peripherals. And the 8-bits they sold in the late 80s probably added a bit to the user-base and helped keep it alive a bit longer. But they didn't do anything radically new(*).
And looking back, I doubt that buying the ST would have encouraged them not to drop the 8-bit if it was selling poorly; Jack Tramiel (who owned Atari from the mid-80s onwards) was a hard-nosed, ruthless (and frankly immoral) businessman who probably couldn't care less about the line per se.
You're right about the resources; much as I appreciate the support of the user magazines at the time, there's countless stuff that (in retrospect) I didn't know or was deprived of at the time.
(*) A la the Commodore 128; although to be fair to Atari, their situation was somewhat different. The Amiga was far more expensive than the ST when it came out in 1985, and there was plenty of room for a machine between the C64 and the Amiga. Whereas the ST was always "affordable" and any super-advanced 8-bit would probably have been competing in price and spec with the 520ST; and Atari already sold too many competing product lines. If anything, the 8-bit line should have been upgraded in 1983 when the XL series came out.
Though they use the same logo, can one truly call these systems chicken head computers with these specs? Oh, absolutely. I hear that the new Commodore has a promotional tie-in with McDonalds; the Chicken Head Extra Value Meal. Yummy!
Maybe so, but I agree with his basic point. The Atari logo (or more specifically, the Fuji symbol part of it) is a design classic. It's so deceptively simple, but that just emphasises how right they got it and how easy it is to upset the balance by fiddling with a few curves.
To illustrate how it's hard to do simple design right, I'd ask someone to go away and design a very simple typeface from scratch. Nothing fancy, totally functional plain-as-you-like sans-serif lettering. And I *guarantee* that if you've never done this before you'll find it much, much harder than you think. I know, because I've tried it myself. The letters won't look quite right, the proportions will be somehow wrong, but you won't be able to figure out why. Ironically, if you tried designing a chaotic, fancier typeface it would probably be much easier. Something clean and simple, though- you have to get every last aspect right.
My point is that while the guy may be slightly obsessing, his commentary about curves and so on is relevant; it's easy to lose what made the Atari logo such a classic. There was no need for them to mess around with the classic "Fuji"; it smacked of a third-rate designer trying to justify his salary. Yeah, it's still recognisable, but so what?
Oddly, I had an Atari 800XL and after a year of owning an ST, replaced it with an Amiga. Basically, the Amiga was more of a spiritual successor to the Atari 400/800/XL lines than the ST was. So the ST was "made" by the same company, big deal. And since Atari owners generally didn't like Atari (the company) itself, it begs the question as to why (for example) magazines for the Atari 8-bit also supported the ST when that came out.
I didn't think it was that stupid at the time, but looking back, it's quite silly. A few packages, such as "Atariwriter" aside, there wasn't even much software continuity from the 8-bit Ataris to the ST.
Did MS actually say that they'd rather people used illegal copies of Windows than legal copies of Linux? The article kind of implies that this is what they'd want, but MS themselves don't actually say that (or indeed even address that specific issue).
Um, because Linux has sucked ass since the day it was unleashed from the putrid minds of untalented, stupid developers? Sucks ass? Linux must be the one at the front, then.
If you are familiar with the standard unix command line tools, then it's pretty easy, you just need to understand how the application build process works if you want to build your own apps As someone once said;
Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. -- Karl Lehenbauer.
They rather have me running Vista illegally than running Linux legally. Oddly, that's what I thought too. Great minds think alike.... but then again, so do stupid ones:-)
Anyhow, don't expect MS to admit that any time soon though.
Clever, and of course total bollocks. I believe it's that people want Linux to be adopted more widely, and they realise that to achieve this, companies promoting its use have to make money. The financial aspect is a means, not an end.
Slashdot Mirror
The point being addressed was his implication of the masses having changed their minds; they hadn't. So regardless of the *reasons* for their position (or whether or not it is accurate), my assertion was correct; the majority of scientists were *not* making the same level of fuss about "global cooling" during the 1970s.
That's interesting; but the question is whether properly-treated wood really is any more of a fire hazard than plastic.
Have you ever noticed that all electronics these days are silver? Yet from the early-1980s to the mid-to-late-1990s, everything was black. When I was a kid I remembered thinking finding those late-70s brushed metal hifis old fashioned, because I associated black with the modern stuff that was in the shops. I remember at some point in the late-1980s my CS teacher came across an early-80s computer that we both laughed at because it was so "space age". Okay, part of that was the styling, but it was also because it was covered in spray-painted silver coating. The exact same style of silver coating that covers a lot of modern electronics.
Nowadays, those mid-80s black-with-flat-panel-buttons-and-red-lettering hifis now look... very 80s. I'd have found a lot of the style-conscious brushed-metal digital cameras around now very dated-looking if I'd seen them in the 80s. I saw an Agfa camera from the 1960s recently and briefly had trouble telling if it was really old or really new; but I liked it. And yet 20 years ago, I'd have hated it and thought it looked old-fashioned.
Similar arguments could apply to wood. Sure, wood looks old-fashioned and is less likely to make a comeback for that reason, but that's not really the issue here.
In short, never underestimate the effect long-term technological fashion trends will have on you. A wooden computer might fit in well in a cottage, but why would you want a computer in a cottage anyways? If we ever needed confirmation of your blinkered closed-mindedness, here it is. Do you think that someone living in a cottage wants to live in some sort of 19th-century Beatrix Potter lala land, cut off from modern technology and society? I suspect they'd want a computer for the same reasons that 99% of the population do. Why the hell wouldn't they?
....Lynndie England?
I was going to make a vaguely sarcastic comment about your "putting on shorts" for global warming, and then you played the booby-trapped card.
This always comes up; the global cooling theories during the 1970s were *nowhere* near as widely-accepted and publicised in the scientific community/press. Even the popular press, who were responsible for promoting these theories didn't carry anywhere near as much on "global cooling" than they do now on warming. See this and this. And people were considering global warming even back then.
Bearing in mind that you're not going to save that much file size using lossless storage, and that you already have an "archive" of CDs in a box in your basement (or wherever), is it really worth the hassle of creating another lossless copy that'll take up even more space?
If you're planning on re-converting from these lossless copies, it sounds like you're going to be doing a *lot* of work based on some second-guessing of where you'll be in 5 years time; and things may have changed then.
My God, were they still *selling* the 286s in 1992?
I'm surprised they were still allowed to smoke at work even in '92 (probably because they weren't based in California or New York...)
Hmm.... I think that was the theory at the time, Atari's health in the 16-bit market helping keep the 8-bits alive. But to be honest, Atari didn't do much with the 8-bit line after the mid-80s; they kept selling it and made a "new" XE console which was still basically the same 1979 technology (albeit with more memory). They released a few new peripherals. And the 8-bits they sold in the late 80s probably added a bit to the user-base and helped keep it alive a bit longer. But they didn't do anything radically new(*).
And looking back, I doubt that buying the ST would have encouraged them not to drop the 8-bit if it was selling poorly; Jack Tramiel (who owned Atari from the mid-80s onwards) was a hard-nosed, ruthless (and frankly immoral) businessman who probably couldn't care less about the line per se.
You're right about the resources; much as I appreciate the support of the user magazines at the time, there's countless stuff that (in retrospect) I didn't know or was deprived of at the time.
(*) A la the Commodore 128; although to be fair to Atari, their situation was somewhat different. The Amiga was far more expensive than the ST when it came out in 1985, and there was plenty of room for a machine between the C64 and the Amiga. Whereas the ST was always "affordable" and any super-advanced 8-bit would probably have been competing in price and spec with the 520ST; and Atari already sold too many competing product lines. If anything, the 8-bit line should have been upgraded in 1983 when the XL series came out.
Maybe so, but I agree with his basic point. The Atari logo (or more specifically, the Fuji symbol part of it) is a design classic. It's so deceptively simple, but that just emphasises how right they got it and how easy it is to upset the balance by fiddling with a few curves.
To illustrate how it's hard to do simple design right, I'd ask someone to go away and design a very simple typeface from scratch. Nothing fancy, totally functional plain-as-you-like sans-serif lettering. And I *guarantee* that if you've never done this before you'll find it much, much harder than you think. I know, because I've tried it myself. The letters won't look quite right, the proportions will be somehow wrong, but you won't be able to figure out why. Ironically, if you tried designing a chaotic, fancier typeface it would probably be much easier. Something clean and simple, though- you have to get every last aspect right.
My point is that while the guy may be slightly obsessing, his commentary about curves and so on is relevant; it's easy to lose what made the Atari logo such a classic. There was no need for them to mess around with the classic "Fuji"; it smacked of a third-rate designer trying to justify his salary. Yeah, it's still recognisable, but so what?
Oddly, I had an Atari 800XL and after a year of owning an ST, replaced it with an Amiga. Basically, the Amiga was more of a spiritual successor to the Atari 400/800/XL lines than the ST was. So the ST was "made" by the same company, big deal. And since Atari owners generally didn't like Atari (the company) itself, it begs the question as to why (for example) magazines for the Atari 8-bit also supported the ST when that came out.
I didn't think it was that stupid at the time, but looking back, it's quite silly. A few packages, such as "Atariwriter" aside, there wasn't even much software continuity from the 8-bit Ataris to the ST.
Did MS actually say that they'd rather people used illegal copies of Windows than legal copies of Linux? The article kind of implies that this is what they'd want, but MS themselves don't actually say that (or indeed even address that specific issue).
Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. -- Karl Lehenbauer.
Anyhow, don't expect MS to admit that any time soon though.
Clever, and of course total bollocks. I believe it's that people want Linux to be adopted more widely, and they realise that to achieve this, companies promoting its use have to make money. The financial aspect is a means, not an end.