I don't understand why people treat Joss Wheadon like he's the second coming of screenwriting. Listening to his dialogue is like listening to someone who grew up watching too much TV with too little Ritalin. Galactica is a little melodramatic for me, but at least I feel like I'm watching believable characters and not collections of quirks.
How long until I'm modded "Troll" for disagreeing?
Their PC's are notorously hard (if not impossible) to upgrade, as are their other products.
Actually, since the Blue & White G3s were introduced (January 1999) the machines have been incredibly easy to upgrade: new processors, new drives, etc. I even put a new processor and drive into my old G3 Powerbook. Took about ten minutes.
I am unaware of any MP3 player manufacturers who offer upgradable machines. Are you telling me that, should I buy a Rio or Archos, I will be able to crack it open and put a new processor in it?
Technical issues aside, I think there's another reason for the lack of Linux's success in the consumer desktop market: What is Linux?
I don't mean that as a silly statement. Look at OS X - Apple has created a very strong image for their product. It's 'sexy', 'stable', 'lickable', etc. Every John and Jane Computer User knows what Windows is; it's the software which runs computers. But what's Linux? Is it a kernel? An operating system? A series of distributions? A free operating system?
To me, marketing this is the biggest weakness of open source. Now, we all know that marketing has nothing to do with which OS is better, but in a market in which the actual differences between operating systems from the view of an average computer user are growing smaller and smaller, Linux doesn't have the kind of mindshare OS X and Windows do. What Linux really needs is a Steve Jobs, someone who will obsessively proselytize the OS to any and all.
But if she gets PPC versions of Photoshop and Illustrator now, she'll have to shell out for new applications again when she buys a new Mac, something she'll need to do in the next year or so. And if she gets a PPC mac now, she'll be locked into that machine until she (and her clients) are good and ready to start using newer Photoshop and Illustrator versions again - which takes a long time.
If she uses Adobe apps, she'll have to shell out money for the newer versions whether she likes it or not: Adobe is firmly into the mindset that profit comes from forcing "improved" versions of software on its customers every year whether they need it or not. Is she's using Illustrator 10 and someone sends her an Illustrator CS file, she's screwed: she can't open it. If someone sends her an InDesign CS2 file which uses features not supported in CS, she has problems, etc.
I imagine that Adobe will offer the OS X x86 versions of their software as an upgrade to those who have the PPC versions. Well, I hope they will, because, if they don't, they stand to piss a lot more people off. If she gets a Windows machine she's looking at font and ICC profile headaches.
1) You assume I'm an Apple zealot simply because I disagree with you;
2) Download the Adobe's 10Q for 2Q05 and you will see that a significant amount of Adobe's Windows sales are from their Intelligent Document desktop products, which make up 36% of total sales, and that the percenatge of sales for the Mac platform are up from 2Q04.
I anxiously await facts to back up your "argument".
Adobe and heaps of others just kinda gave up on Mac software years ago, and as a response, Apple was forced to make faster (read: dual processor) machines. When the Mac market started to wane and alot of design firms moved to PCs, Adobe et. al discovered that instead of selling 1000 copies of Photoshop a year they could sell 100,000 copies.
Whatever you're smoking, pass it over.
1) Adobe and 'heaps of others' didn't give up on the Mac software market. 50% of Adobe's CS sales are for the Mac;
2) Apple started with dual machines because of Moto's inability to match Intel/AMD in clock speed;
3) There was no mass migration away from Macs to PCs in the design/production/pre press world/non-linear editing worlds.
Yep. There's a lot more down there than the World Trade Hole: the World Financial Center (across West Street from the WTC) is only the beginning of it.
Sorry to dint your tinfoil body suit, but the reason the NSA is interested in OS X is because they use OS X. I have a very interesting, very thorough PDF authored by the NSA (report #I331-009R-2004) on how to secure an OS X box, from install through end use. Very interesting, and I learned a bit.
You're on the right track here: Apple's philosophy has always been to give the user an easily understandable tool which does a well-defined job very well.
But for $1,299 refurb'd from Apple's website, it was a great alternative to the iMac. $45 for a used Dell 17 inch monitor from Craigslist and I have a machine with a graphics card I can upgrade and an empty drive bay just waiting to be filled.
Hard-Science Fiction is about taking one little fact of science, twisting it a bit, and seeing how that would effect the rest of our scientific knowledge, and in the process gaining a further understanding about how science in the real world works.
Hard science fiction is also often about disregarding every aspect of fiction other than science: character, plot, and dialogue. Some of the absolute worst writing I have ever read was hard science fiction: it read like a paper written for an IEEE conference. Science fiction isn't alone in this. One of the problems with genre fiction is that there is people will read or watch poor genre works because they are fans of the genre. Poor writing abounds in all genres, from science fiction to murder mysteries to romance.
Which is to say, I guess, I don't like hard science fiction for the reasons I mentioned. IMO only. YMMV. Etc.
My personal favorite early sci fi are the short stores of Heinlein and Bradbury. Heinlein, in particular, was excellent in his early years. For some reason he seems to have lost the plot (!) when he started writing novels. I tried to reread Time Enough for Love a few years ago and had to stop after fifty pages, so wooden were the characters and awful the dialogue.
As to the larger question, if science fiction is used as an "opiate" it is not the fault of science fiction. The desire to create and participate in artistic creation is as old as the human race, and the Greek dramatic traditions from which ours descend had an overtly transcendental purpose. You can find the same phenomenon in any artistic pursuit, from writing to music to movies.
I've get a new 1.8 G5. It still runs fine, even after the Intel announcement. It will continue to run just fine for the next three or four years, when I will buy a new machine.
They have already slowed or ceased development for the Mac platform--Framemaker, which may admittedly be something of an orphan for Adobe, is no longer supported on the Mac.
Framemaker was never more than a niche application, and was never widely used on the Mac. Cutting Mac support meant next to nothing.
Adobe Capture, an OCR scan to Word and PDF is not available for the Mac. This means that, with PDF drivers that are available for PC but not Mac, Adobe has already decided to cut Mac out of future commercial participation in advanced Adobe production techniques.
I don't know what point you're making here. OCR is another niche application and is rarely used in the design/production/pre-press fields in which the Mac has market dominance. In fifteen years in the industry I have seen OCR used only a few times. Adobe Capture looks to be more of an application for end users. As the production/pre-press people are the ones making the documents and the the deliverable PDFs, we have access to the text files used to create them. We don't need to scan anything, unless it's an older piece which isn't in a digital form. That, like I said, is very rare.
I would concede that writing is lucas' greatest weakness... however, imho, the worst star wars movie is ROTJ. Which lucas did not write. I also believe ANH is the best movie, which lucas did write... so go figure.
Interesting. Although I think ROTJ was the weakest of the first three, I thought that ANH and CW were abysmally horribly bad, especially from a writing point of view.
Isn't that the job of the screen writer and not the director
With respect to Lucas: Who has written the worst Star Wars films?
With respect to Spielberg: You have a point. I would counter by saying that, IMO, Spielberg is often unable to get good performances out of well-written work, and has a penchant for adding his own terrible writing to others works, as in the endings to AI and Schindler's List.
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Nothing will replace my G5 with twin four barrel Holleys!
I don't understand why people treat Joss Wheadon like he's the second coming of screenwriting. Listening to his dialogue is like listening to someone who grew up watching too much TV with too little Ritalin. Galactica is a little melodramatic for me, but at least I feel like I'm watching believable characters and not collections of quirks.
How long until I'm modded "Troll" for disagreeing?
Actually, since the Blue & White G3s were introduced (January 1999) the machines have been incredibly easy to upgrade: new processors, new drives, etc. I even put a new processor and drive into my old G3 Powerbook. Took about ten minutes.
I am unaware of any MP3 player manufacturers who offer upgradable machines. Are you telling me that, should I buy a Rio or Archos, I will be able to crack it open and put a new processor in it?
I don't mean that as a silly statement. Look at OS X - Apple has created a very strong image for their product. It's 'sexy', 'stable', 'lickable', etc. Every John and Jane Computer User knows what Windows is; it's the software which runs computers. But what's Linux? Is it a kernel? An operating system? A series of distributions? A free operating system?
To me, marketing this is the biggest weakness of open source. Now, we all know that marketing has nothing to do with which OS is better, but in a market in which the actual differences between operating systems from the view of an average computer user are growing smaller and smaller, Linux doesn't have the kind of mindshare OS X and Windows do. What Linux really needs is a Steve Jobs, someone who will obsessively proselytize the OS to any and all.
Jeff Gannon asked Scott McClellan more interesting questions.
FWIW: Took about 30 seconds to download.
If she uses Adobe apps, she'll have to shell out money for the newer versions whether she likes it or not: Adobe is firmly into the mindset that profit comes from forcing "improved" versions of software on its customers every year whether they need it or not. Is she's using Illustrator 10 and someone sends her an Illustrator CS file, she's screwed: she can't open it. If someone sends her an InDesign CS2 file which uses features not supported in CS, she has problems, etc.
I imagine that Adobe will offer the OS X x86 versions of their software as an upgrade to those who have the PPC versions. Well, I hope they will, because, if they don't, they stand to piss a lot more people off. If she gets a Windows machine she's looking at font and ICC profile headaches.
2) Download the Adobe's 10Q for 2Q05 and you will see that a significant amount of Adobe's Windows sales are from their Intelligent Document desktop products, which make up 36% of total sales, and that the percenatge of sales for the Mac platform are up from 2Q04.
I anxiously await facts to back up your "argument".
Whatever you're smoking, pass it over.
1) Adobe and 'heaps of others' didn't give up on the Mac software market. 50% of Adobe's CS sales are for the Mac;
2) Apple started with dual machines because of Moto's inability to match Intel/AMD in clock speed;
3) There was no mass migration away from Macs to PCs in the design/production/pre press world/non-linear editing worlds.
Other than that, great post.
What does this mean?
Yep. There's a lot more down there than the World Trade Hole: the World Financial Center (across West Street from the WTC) is only the beginning of it.
Sorry to dint your tinfoil body suit, but the reason the NSA is interested in OS X is because they use OS X. I have a very interesting, very thorough PDF authored by the NSA (report #I331-009R-2004) on how to secure an OS X box, from install through end use. Very interesting, and I learned a bit.
I want one now.
If you listen carefully you can hear Jim Henson doing 6,000 rpm in his grave.
That Wired's purpose has always been to create hype so people will buy Wired.
You're on the right track here: Apple's philosophy has always been to give the user an easily understandable tool which does a well-defined job very well.
But for $1,299 refurb'd from Apple's website, it was a great alternative to the iMac. $45 for a used Dell 17 inch monitor from Craigslist and I have a machine with a graphics card I can upgrade and an empty drive bay just waiting to be filled.
Hard science fiction is also often about disregarding every aspect of fiction other than science: character, plot, and dialogue. Some of the absolute worst writing I have ever read was hard science fiction: it read like a paper written for an IEEE conference. Science fiction isn't alone in this. One of the problems with genre fiction is that there is people will read or watch poor genre works because they are fans of the genre. Poor writing abounds in all genres, from science fiction to murder mysteries to romance.
Which is to say, I guess, I don't like hard science fiction for the reasons I mentioned. IMO only. YMMV. Etc.
My personal favorite early sci fi are the short stores of Heinlein and Bradbury. Heinlein, in particular, was excellent in his early years. For some reason he seems to have lost the plot (!) when he started writing novels. I tried to reread Time Enough for Love a few years ago and had to stop after fifty pages, so wooden were the characters and awful the dialogue.
As to the larger question, if science fiction is used as an "opiate" it is not the fault of science fiction. The desire to create and participate in artistic creation is as old as the human race, and the Greek dramatic traditions from which ours descend had an overtly transcendental purpose. You can find the same phenomenon in any artistic pursuit, from writing to music to movies.
I've get a new 1.8 G5. It still runs fine, even after the Intel announcement. It will continue to run just fine for the next three or four years, when I will buy a new machine.
Framemaker was never more than a niche application, and was never widely used on the Mac. Cutting Mac support meant next to nothing.
I don't know what point you're making here. OCR is another niche application and is rarely used in the design/production/pre-press fields in which the Mac has market dominance. In fifteen years in the industry I have seen OCR used only a few times. Adobe Capture looks to be more of an application for end users. As the production/pre-press people are the ones making the documents and the the deliverable PDFs, we have access to the text files used to create them. We don't need to scan anything, unless it's an older piece which isn't in a digital form. That, like I said, is very rare.
$100? Are you buying three of them?
When the CEO starts publicly trash-talking rivals it's not a good sign.
There ya go. Learn something new every day.
Interesting. Although I think ROTJ was the weakest of the first three, I thought that ANH and CW were abysmally horribly bad, especially from a writing point of view.
Diff'rent strokes, diff'rent folks.
With respect to Lucas: Who has written the worst Star Wars films?
With respect to Spielberg: You have a point. I would counter by saying that, IMO, Spielberg is often unable to get good performances out of well-written work, and has a penchant for adding his own terrible writing to others works, as in the endings to AI and Schindler's List.