BTW, before knocking George Lucas, remember that he MADE the original three Star Wars.
No, he didn't. He wrote and directed the first one. He is credited with "story" on the second, but the real writing was done by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, and it was directed by Irvin Kerchner. Being credited with "story" means one supplied and outline to the writers and let them do the work. He co-wrote the third along with Kasdan, and Richard Marquand directed.
What's important here is that, IMO, Empire Strikes Back was the best of the bunch. With the death of Leigh Brackett the franchise lost the best writer it had, a woman who could write sci-fi movies with character development and pathos. The two most recent movies in the franchise (I and II) are, IMO, deep, howling pits of suck. Both were written and directed by George Lucas himself, and both are, IMO, completely devoid of any interesting characters and chock full of dialogue fully deserving of the worst fan fiction. When left to his own devices, Lucas is one of the worst out there.
What's really strange about this is that Lucas also made THX-1138 and American Graffiti, two very good movies. Lucas has admitted publicly that he doesn't like directing. Personally, I trace the decline of the franchise to the release of the special edition versions of the original three movies, and, specifically, the scene in Star Wars in which Han Solo shoots Greedo. In the special edition version this scene was re-edited to make it appear that Greedo fired first. Lucas' public reasoning for this was to make the movie more palatable for children and not send them bad messages. To me it meant that Lucas was never a great director, but a guy who had a few good stories to tell, and a guy who will gladly abrogate any artistic vision he has for the sake of societal worries.
What is, perhaps, even more disappointing is the waste of the potential of the franchise. Despite the trendy bashing of archetypal of the first film, it is clearly present - Read Campbell's Hero With 1000 Faces and see for yourself - and there was a rich vein of storytelling which could have been exploited. Beyond this, the first two movies gave us characters in the process of growth and change. Not so the third, fourth, and fifth, which have given us cardboard cut-outs as characters and heavy plodding instead of plotting.
CMYK, 30 inches x 20 inches x 300dpi x 21 layers, 19 of them with layer masks most with effects gives you a 4 GB Photoshop file. For the record, this was for a very complicated folder for some drug company. Lots of die cuts, lots of flash blah blah blah.
Now, this file was not 4 GB on disk. But keep in mind that Photoshop keeps two copies of the file you're using in memory, one for undo and one for various other purposes, and you'll 1) understand why it used 4 GB of RAM and 2) Why I could've used 5 GB of RAM in that machine. I'm given the advances in Photoshop and printing in the last few years I could easliy top that today with a complicated, large Hexachrome job.
But can you get a dual processor Pentium? Of course the answer is "yes". Not only that, you can get 4x and 8x (and possibly more) Pentium and Xeon systems. You can also get 1x, 2x, and 4x, etc Opteron systems with a Hypertransport bus
Dude, ain't no such thing as a dual processor P4. They. Don't. Exist.
Dude, directors watch dailies at the end of every day. Jackson spent three to four hours watching dailies at the end of every shooting day, as LOTR had seven units filming. The director is the only person with the complete film in his or her head. Implying that s/he wouldn't be involved with the process in the most intimate way is ludicrous.
Actually, moron, he didn't claim he created the internet, and what he said is true.
In 1986 he introduced legislation to enable the Office of Science and Technology Policy to provide Congress with an analysis of U.S. networking needs. In 1988 he introduced the National High Performance Computing and Communications Act that was signed by President Bush into Public Law 102-194 in 1991.
To quote a friend of mine: "You, out of the gene pool, now!"
Having worked in the "graphics" industry (design/production/pre-press) since 1989, I can assure you that you are the idiot. It's all Macs, all the time.
With the exception of Franklin, who was one of the first modern atheists, all of the above quote reference the orthodox beliefs of the religions and not belief in a Higher Something. These folks are saying the do not find the orthodoxy of religion to be helpful, which is what Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha all said
But there's also a great deal of Christian idealism in the original as well. Neo's willingness to come back to lead others to safety strikes me as different than the Buddhist leitmotif of detachment. (I'm not a practicing Buddist, so if there is a strong tradition of self-sacrifice for others as being foundational to being a good Buddhist, I'd appreciate being corrected.
The tradition of boddhisatvas in Buddhism is just this - souls who forego enlightenment to return to Earth and help others reach enlightenment. Although there are people (like me) who feel this is very much against the original teachings of Buddhism, it is a very entrenched and popular tradition.
There's a reason why artists and musicians are trading in on PC's running XP in droves.
Care to back this up with some facts, or should we just treat your generalization like the revealed word? Where I live (NYC) and what I do (write) exposes me to lots of those artists and musicians folks, and there's nary a PC among them. Some sweet new Powerbooks, tho. . .
Seems to go in cycles, and it seems to be dependent upon topic. Anything on sci-fi is guaranteed to go critical in under an hour as people try to pass off aesthetic judgement as empirical fact. Any Mac thread will have its share, but I can usually dumpster dive through the shit and find some good shit. Linux threads are the same. Science/Technology threads are interesting, and these are ususally where I learn the most.
I avoid any and all political discussions. I'd rather shave with a cheese grater.
Very good coverage of technology/privacy issues, and some good stuff about the way technology may impact society. When the threads aren't degenerating into various flame wars, I learn stuff from people's comments. And, about once a day, I get a good laugh.
Inneresting. However, I wish they would have left off the
Mac fans, our wait will be rewarded. The fight is over and Apple will soon rule the world !
cause it makes the whole article sound silly. I've been a Mac user since 1989, but I really, really, really, really wish people would find something more interesting to argue over than which platform/OS you use.
who really cares or needs to know; Yet another Art History Major with little future use
Exactly. I mean, this world doens't need movies or TV or music or architects or ad execs or writers or any of that shit. All we need is programmers and engineers, damnit!
There is a conceit among some Slashdotters that scientific/engineering knowledge is the highest form of knowledge and, while I can see this as the last hangover from the Enlightenment, I can't see any logic in the statement.
Possibly, but it depends on the writer. We're all different, and what works for one won't necessarily work for the other.
Personally, I find that I don't blog or anything like that because I don't have all that much interesting to say on a day to day basis, and what I do have to say I put into other forms.
I used the service the night it was released, to purchase one song. It worked flawlessly, and I had the song in about two minutes. It plays, and sounds, fine. I haven't tried to burn anything to CD, so I can't comment on that.
I would've bought more, but I thought I'd save some of my money for food and things.
The "except" being your suggestion that the G3 will somehow magically die when the 970 comes out. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts for a while, as the IBM G3s can scale to 2 GHz.
clearly, i am being flamed by a bunch of apple afficionados
Actually, we're flaming you because you have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about. There are pygmies in Africa using Neolithic technology who know more about OS X than do you.
Slashdot Mirror
What's important here is that, IMO, Empire Strikes Back was the best of the bunch. With the death of Leigh Brackett the franchise lost the best writer it had, a woman who could write sci-fi movies with character development and pathos. The two most recent movies in the franchise (I and II) are, IMO, deep, howling pits of suck. Both were written and directed by George Lucas himself, and both are, IMO, completely devoid of any interesting characters and chock full of dialogue fully deserving of the worst fan fiction. When left to his own devices, Lucas is one of the worst out there.
What's really strange about this is that Lucas also made THX-1138 and American Graffiti, two very good movies. Lucas has admitted publicly that he doesn't like directing. Personally, I trace the decline of the franchise to the release of the special edition versions of the original three movies, and, specifically, the scene in Star Wars in which Han Solo shoots Greedo. In the special edition version this scene was re-edited to make it appear that Greedo fired first. Lucas' public reasoning for this was to make the movie more palatable for children and not send them bad messages. To me it meant that Lucas was never a great director, but a guy who had a few good stories to tell, and a guy who will gladly abrogate any artistic vision he has for the sake of societal worries.
What is, perhaps, even more disappointing is the waste of the potential of the franchise. Despite the trendy bashing of archetypal of the first film, it is clearly present - Read Campbell's Hero With 1000 Faces and see for yourself - and there was a rich vein of storytelling which could have been exploited. Beyond this, the first two movies gave us characters in the process of growth and change. Not so the third, fourth, and fifth, which have given us cardboard cut-outs as characters and heavy plodding instead of plotting.
If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. Only driven over every Sunday by a little old lady on her way to Brooklyn Heights.
Ya got any figures to back this up, Sparky?
CMYK, 30 inches x 20 inches x 300dpi x 21 layers, 19 of them with layer masks most with effects gives you a 4 GB Photoshop file. For the record, this was for a very complicated folder for some drug company. Lots of die cuts, lots of flash blah blah blah.
Now, this file was not 4 GB on disk. But keep in mind that Photoshop keeps two copies of the file you're using in memory, one for undo and one for various other purposes, and you'll 1) understand why it used 4 GB of RAM and 2) Why I could've used 5 GB of RAM in that machine. I'm given the advances in Photoshop and printing in the last few years I could easliy top that today with a complicated, large Hexachrome job.
Dude, ain't no such thing as a dual processor P4. They. Don't. Exist.
Dude, directors watch dailies at the end of every day. Jackson spent three to four hours watching dailies at the end of every shooting day, as LOTR had seven units filming. The director is the only person with the complete film in his or her head. Implying that s/he wouldn't be involved with the process in the most intimate way is ludicrous.
In 1986 he introduced legislation to enable the Office of Science and Technology Policy to provide Congress with an analysis of U.S. networking needs. In 1988 he introduced the National High Performance Computing and Communications Act that was signed by President Bush into Public Law 102-194 in 1991.
To quote a friend of mine: "You, out of the gene pool, now!"
4 GB Photoshop files.
Dude, you got problems. My 500 MHz G3 fires up Photoshop 7 in about 10 seconds.
Having worked in the "graphics" industry (design/production/pre-press) since 1989, I can assure you that you are the idiot. It's all Macs, all the time.
With the exception of Franklin, who was one of the first modern atheists, all of the above quote reference the orthodox beliefs of the religions and not belief in a Higher Something. These folks are saying the do not find the orthodoxy of religion to be helpful, which is what Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha all said
The tradition of boddhisatvas in Buddhism is just this - souls who forego enlightenment to return to Earth and help others reach enlightenment. Although there are people (like me) who feel this is very much against the original teachings of Buddhism, it is a very entrenched and popular tradition.
Care to back this up with some facts, or should we just treat your generalization like the revealed word? Where I live (NYC) and what I do (write) exposes me to lots of those artists and musicians folks, and there's nary a PC among them. Some sweet new Powerbooks, tho. . .
Another beautiful theory killed by an ugly fact.
I avoid any and all political discussions. I'd rather shave with a cheese grater.
Very good coverage of technology/privacy issues, and some good stuff about the way technology may impact society. When the threads aren't degenerating into various flame wars, I learn stuff from people's comments. And, about once a day, I get a good laugh.
Mac fans, our wait will be rewarded. The fight is over and Apple will soon rule the world !
cause it makes the whole article sound silly. I've been a Mac user since 1989, but I really, really, really, really wish people would find something more interesting to argue over than which platform/OS you use.
Exactly. I mean, this world doens't need movies or TV or music or architects or ad execs or writers or any of that shit. All we need is programmers and engineers, damnit!
There is a conceit among some Slashdotters that scientific/engineering knowledge is the highest form of knowledge and, while I can see this as the last hangover from the Enlightenment, I can't see any logic in the statement.
Personally, I find that I don't blog or anything like that because I don't have all that much interesting to say on a day to day basis, and what I do have to say I put into other forms.
Bought music from the Music Store.
Played it on my iPod.
Can you shut up now, please?
I would've bought more, but I thought I'd save some of my money for food and things.
Prove this statement or shut up.
The "except" being your suggestion that the G3 will somehow magically die when the 970 comes out. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts for a while, as the IBM G3s can scale to 2 GHz.
Except that all G3s used by Apple are made by IBM.