Hmmm, somehow I think that one of the most popular, long-running and influential web-comics who were actually commissioned by Blizzard to create several pages of comics for the World of Warcraft strategy guide after waxing lyrical about the beta juuuust might get Blizzard's attention when they turn their admiration into unbridled disgust.
Hmmm, a good question that opens up a lot of possibilities. If I remember right, Carnivore was ostensibly installed to snoop for terrorism leads in internet communication. Telling the world it was there may have acted to discourage terrorists from using an easy to access tool like the internet for their purposes, thus keeping the technology out of most of their operations. If that's the case, why say it's gone? Either they're trying to give the impression that they now have tools just as good or better than Carnivore, maintaining the same level of snooping, or perhaps they'll just eventually get in trouble if they don't tell us when they discontinue stuff like this. I'd imagine they need to make such announcements with possible Freedom of Information Act revelations in years to come in mind.
Judging the crawl at which the normally bulletproof Apple website is moving, it seems the allure of cheap Apple goodies is what it took to bring the weight of the internet to bear on one of the strongest servers out there.
While I agree with you 100% that rotoscoping sucks and cannot be called "Animation," there is one classic animated film that used it a lot: Snow White. All of the human characters were rotoscoped and it's plain to see that the quality of their movement is sub-par compared to the drawn-from-scratch dwarf characters, which is why Disney himself abandoned the technique right afterwards. Of course he realized it wasn't working while the film was being made, so his animators actually spent a lot of time correcting the rotoscoping to make it fit more with the background (Rotoscoped characters tend to look like they're floating) so it's not as obvious as LOTR.
Well, I was half right, traitors do indeed go to the very center of hell, but it's they who are put into the frozen lake, as McGarry said. And yes, the neutrals, though not mentioned specifically would probably go someone in the 8th circle with the hypocrites and false advisors.
But the idea is a sound one, in my view. Total neutrality in an abstract sense is not necessarily being 100% non-judgemental, because just about every assertion that one can make involves a judgement. I believe 100% neutrality is when everyone's varied views on a matter are taken into account. What the Wiki projects do is give everyone the opportunity to inject their view on an issue.
The problem is when anyone thinks they are 100% right and, at least in the case of wikipedia, monitor an article to prevent and undermine any changes that run contrary to their views. This is the main failing of the wiki project and it really has no easy answer. The wikinews site offers the advantage that specific articles will be under more intense scrutiny by more people in a short period of time, reducing the potential for sabateurs marginally, but also running the risk that the status quo will dominate the tone and content of the articles more often, drowning out minority voices.
Not true, the hottest place in Hell was/is reserved for slaves who rebel against their masters, according to Dante. Those who waste the opportunity to do the right thing (neutrality) were sent to a frozen lake near the mouth of Hell.
I suppose CNN would be a possability but to be honest I've found them to be woefully inadequate as an information source (this applies to pretty much every 24 hour news provider, except for two or three British channels), if there was something to warn people in Asia about, my question is would they do it?
Not only do most of the news networks that happen to be broadcast to hotel rooms internationally reflect almost exclusively American interests, when they mention international events that do so after the fact. Were the governments of the countries affected to put out a warning to people to get to high ground, would CNN pick up on the message and broadcast it as a public service? I find it unlikely that they would do anything beyond that little tickertape they run along the bottom of the screen.
The island is called Los Gigantos, the one that Mt Teide is located on. The volcano itself isn't the real threat, it's the cliffs that rise almost a mile above the shore, with a fault line less than a mile offshore.
Actually only the preceeding earthquake is unpredictable. When you know where the epicenter of the earthquake is and the topography and makeup of the ocean floor, you can see where the resulting tsunamis (if any are created) will hit hardest.
Unfortunately, you don't have much time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. I hear if Canary Island (The one ready to fall into the sea and wipe out the east coast) would cause a tsunami that could travel across the Atlantic Ocean in 45 minutes, and I read on the BBC that this most recent tsunami was going 2,000km/h, which seems to be roughly the same speed. Mind boggling though.
Also hurting any warning effort is how do you get a mass warning out to places like Sri Lanka? There's no mass media infrastructure and only the minimum of transport infrastructure. I suppose part of this tragedy is how unavoidable it was in these nations' current states. Only Japan has invested any significant amount of money in Tsunami warning systems.
Makes me think that a Metal Gear Solid game would be a good idea for a phone, and the best part is that your service provider could bill you for each codec call you initiae to Meryl. And Revolver Ocelot could torture you by making you type an inane text message as quickly as possible using all capital letters and the words LOL and L8R.
And of course let's not forget being able to sit on a bus and make every other passenger listen to Liquid scream "SNAAAAAKE! PREPARE TO DIE, MY BROTHEEEERRR!!!!"
Exactly, Princess Mononoke (As an animator, I think it is one of the best films ever made, period. Anime or otherwise) was a huge hit! Ironically in a conversation about James Cameron, it was only his Titanic that narrowly beat Princess Mononoke's box office in its home country of Japan.
I'm not posting this as flame-bait, but when I played the original Half Life on the PS2 (I'm a mac user, was my first chance to see what the fuss was about) I found a fun, solid shooter, but I had heard so many people laud the game's story, and how great it was for a FPS to have a good plot. I really didn't see anything impressive with the plot, at all.
Warning, possible Half Life 1 spoilers, for those who haven't played the 7 or so year old gameYou have a scenario suspiciously similar to Doom where a bunch of aliens come through a wormhole, you're a bad-ass scientist with a crowbar able to kick more butt than the many wimpy scientists or security guards. Eventually soldiers arrive as the aliens get bigger, eventually you kill their homeworld's giant space baby, all the while, Men in Black run around and chuckle at you.
Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention, but even if I was, I cannot possibly see how that can be lauded as a great story, especially when games like Bungie's Marathon, released 6 years before Half-Life, had plots that still confound people to this day. Half-Life may have captured the experiance of being a bad-ass alien asskicker scientist rather well, but it's the same as Gran Turisimo capturing the experiance of being a race car driver well. Both are great games, but please don't pretend there was a good story where there wasn't.
That aside, I wouldn't be surprised if Half-Life 2 actually made a better attempt at a story than the first game, though as the parent post implies, it's probably not very good, and at that point, it's safe to ask "Why try?" Much like the first Half Life, a FPS can be very good without a plot, look at Far Cry. That was one of the year's most fun games, but you could write the entire game's story on one side of a napkin.
"(do I get bonus points for an on-topic link to a site I host?:) )"
Giving bonus points to someone for self-slashdotting, even on topic, is like giving bonus points to a cow getting squished in a stampede, even if it's running in the same direction.:)
Actually, I would argue that susceptability to a disease IS an element, if those susceptible to disease are kept alive and are mating, their offspring may have the same susceptability, requiring further aid, etc, while animals with stronger immune systems and their offspring live on without need of care.
I just feel slightly uncomfortable talking about living things like that, I guess, because when people talk about humans in those terms they begin to sound like evil eugenics fans. In terms of our overall evolutionary success as a species, compassion may turn out to be a big mistake.
But then people like Steven Hawking prove that wrong. How about we just let things continue as they are, only give prosthetics to the most rare and expensive of animals, let the rest die as they would anyway, and save all humans from everything.
Have you ever considered trying an animated form of Penny Arcade? It seems that your brand of humor makes particular use of precise timing, and while you tend to be successfull at conveying that through comic strip panels, the formula could translate to animation quite well.
As an animation student myself, I of course have no particular stake in the matter:)
Maybe, but no one reads the journals apart from $$$$$exyGal's.:)
More seriously, I think the thing about calling/. a blog site because of journals is a bit misleading. For instance, LiveJournal is not a blog site, it's a business that provides users with blog pages. An individual's account page qualifies as a blog site, LiveJournal itself doesn't./. is a news site, its journals can be blogs.
The first thing that struck me when I looked at the page, before thinking about all of the competitors lining up to fall at Apple's feet was the photo of the iRiver's MPEG-4 video jukebox.
The player itself is viewed rotated 20 degrees or so. What happens is that the entire picture, including the black background looks rotated as well. I actually had to scroll and line up the image with the top of my browser window to make sure it was straight. Needless to say, iRiver is trying to win the MP3 market by disorientating potential customers enough that they grab an iRiver while reaching for an iPod.
Perhaps I sound like an insufferable n00b, perhaps I sound like I'm too lazy to do a google search (Umm, guilty) and perhaps I don't actually remember this guy's Christmas display, but what is this X10 thing?
There was a message saying control would be activated in 2 hours or so, does that mean we can control the decorations from the webcam? If so, what can be controlled?
Annoying questions aside, the "Incoming Slashdotter" message was cool. Nice to be part of an internet locust swarm.
I'm an American living in Ireland, and I own a black Smart Pulse Convertible. I've never regretted it. Even disregarding the amazing fuel economy (Our other car is a Jeep Cherokee with an engine 4x the size of the Smart, and guzzles gas like nothing else), and the semi-automatic tiptronic transmission, which gives you input into gear choices like a manual but without ever having to touch a clutch, the looks of the car are actually pretty snazzy, and the Irish here seem to agree. I'll agree it can look silly, but with the top down, it really looks cool.
I swear this thing is catching more glances than my neighbor's Porsche. So don't be so quick to say Americans and Irish don't like it, this Irish American loves it.:)
Funny how I should see this news just an hour after watching Ray Bradbury Presents for the first time. Guess which episode was on? I found it to be a fairly well done version, for a TV show, sure the dinosaur was very animatronic but it looked fun to shoot at.
I haven't read the book but I was aware of the story, I wonder if anyone has any opinions on the TV show version versus the book.
"Back up this statement with facts, Coward. Or better yet: make a movie about it, and distribute worldwide.:-)"
It's his opinion, he doesn't need to back it up. Moore certainly doesn't back up most of what he says, and the film in question is an opinion piece as much as that was an opinion post.
Moore is certainly not my favorite outlet for opinions, even though in this case I coincidentally agree with the overall message of the film. Appaently the most convincing and telling parts of the film are from footage that's already been publically circulated. The one clip of the film I've seen, where he ambushes politicians and asks if they want to "sign their kids up to go to Iraq." This just struck me as dishonest and showy. No one can sign other people up for anything, and I heard that one particular politician answered that he had two nephews in Iraq, but was left out of the film.
Moore's film is an opinion piece, and it doesn't pretend to give the other side a fair due, but I think that the issue deserves a film that tries to present a balanced and thoughtful opinion.
When I first saw that headline I thought it said he invented "RTFA."
I was so ready to create the most ironic uninformed post ever, then again, I haven't read this article, and I can hardly be considered on-topic, maybe my dream can be realized.
On the one hand, like the article mentions, Europe has a lot more socialists who aren't fans of Big Business. And they were the people who were actually able to succeed in nailing Microsoft with that big antitrust fine. (Sure that's not patent per-se, but given that every second slashdot and fark headline these days is a new rediculous MS patent, it fits.)
On the other hand, speaking from Ireland, multinations with lots of patents like Microsoft and Intel have become rather cozy here, but the tax breaks that used to be unique to foreign companies settling are disappearing from here and being imitated elsewhere. I know the local government in Ireland would be open to US style patent laws if it will keep foreign investment and jobs coming in.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm, somehow I think that one of the most popular, long-running and influential web-comics who were actually commissioned by Blizzard to create several pages of comics for the World of Warcraft strategy guide after waxing lyrical about the beta juuuust might get Blizzard's attention when they turn their admiration into unbridled disgust.
Just a hunch.
Hmmm, a good question that opens up a lot of possibilities. If I remember right, Carnivore was ostensibly installed to snoop for terrorism leads in internet communication. Telling the world it was there may have acted to discourage terrorists from using an easy to access tool like the internet for their purposes, thus keeping the technology out of most of their operations. If that's the case, why say it's gone? Either they're trying to give the impression that they now have tools just as good or better than Carnivore, maintaining the same level of snooping, or perhaps they'll just eventually get in trouble if they don't tell us when they discontinue stuff like this. I'd imagine they need to make such announcements with possible Freedom of Information Act revelations in years to come in mind.
Judging the crawl at which the normally bulletproof Apple website is moving, it seems the allure of cheap Apple goodies is what it took to bring the weight of the internet to bear on one of the strongest servers out there.
Raise your glasses, this is a day to remember.
While I agree with you 100% that rotoscoping sucks and cannot be called "Animation," there is one classic animated film that used it a lot: Snow White. All of the human characters were rotoscoped and it's plain to see that the quality of their movement is sub-par compared to the drawn-from-scratch dwarf characters, which is why Disney himself abandoned the technique right afterwards. Of course he realized it wasn't working while the film was being made, so his animators actually spent a lot of time correcting the rotoscoping to make it fit more with the background (Rotoscoped characters tend to look like they're floating) so it's not as obvious as LOTR.
Okay, we've inadvertantly dredged up an instance where the Wikipedia project is useful! Dante's Inferno, according to Wikipedia
Well, I was half right, traitors do indeed go to the very center of hell, but it's they who are put into the frozen lake, as McGarry said. And yes, the neutrals, though not mentioned specifically would probably go someone in the 8th circle with the hypocrites and false advisors.
And the off-topic to on-topic circle is complete.
But the idea is a sound one, in my view. Total neutrality in an abstract sense is not necessarily being 100% non-judgemental, because just about every assertion that one can make involves a judgement. I believe 100% neutrality is when everyone's varied views on a matter are taken into account. What the Wiki projects do is give everyone the opportunity to inject their view on an issue.
The problem is when anyone thinks they are 100% right and, at least in the case of wikipedia, monitor an article to prevent and undermine any changes that run contrary to their views. This is the main failing of the wiki project and it really has no easy answer. The wikinews site offers the advantage that specific articles will be under more intense scrutiny by more people in a short period of time, reducing the potential for sabateurs marginally, but also running the risk that the status quo will dominate the tone and content of the articles more often, drowning out minority voices.
Not true, the hottest place in Hell was/is reserved for slaves who rebel against their masters, according to Dante. Those who waste the opportunity to do the right thing (neutrality) were sent to a frozen lake near the mouth of Hell.
:)
Ahem, I'm just being annoying I guess
I suppose CNN would be a possability but to be honest I've found them to be woefully inadequate as an information source (this applies to pretty much every 24 hour news provider, except for two or three British channels), if there was something to warn people in Asia about, my question is would they do it?
Not only do most of the news networks that happen to be broadcast to hotel rooms internationally reflect almost exclusively American interests, when they mention international events that do so after the fact. Were the governments of the countries affected to put out a warning to people to get to high ground, would CNN pick up on the message and broadcast it as a public service? I find it unlikely that they would do anything beyond that little tickertape they run along the bottom of the screen.
The island is called Los Gigantos, the one that Mt Teide is located on. The volcano itself isn't the real threat, it's the cliffs that rise almost a mile above the shore, with a fault line less than a mile offshore.
Actually only the preceeding earthquake is unpredictable. When you know where the epicenter of the earthquake is and the topography and makeup of the ocean floor, you can see where the resulting tsunamis (if any are created) will hit hardest.
Unfortunately, you don't have much time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. I hear if Canary Island (The one ready to fall into the sea and wipe out the east coast) would cause a tsunami that could travel across the Atlantic Ocean in 45 minutes, and I read on the BBC that this most recent tsunami was going 2,000km/h, which seems to be roughly the same speed. Mind boggling though.
Also hurting any warning effort is how do you get a mass warning out to places like Sri Lanka? There's no mass media infrastructure and only the minimum of transport infrastructure. I suppose part of this tragedy is how unavoidable it was in these nations' current states. Only Japan has invested any significant amount of money in Tsunami warning systems.
Makes me think that a Metal Gear Solid game would be a good idea for a phone, and the best part is that your service provider could bill you for each codec call you initiae to Meryl. And Revolver Ocelot could torture you by making you type an inane text message as quickly as possible using all capital letters and the words LOL and L8R.
And of course let's not forget being able to sit on a bus and make every other passenger listen to Liquid scream "SNAAAAAKE! PREPARE TO DIE, MY BROTHEEEERRR!!!!"
Exactly, Princess Mononoke (As an animator, I think it is one of the best films ever made, period. Anime or otherwise) was a huge hit! Ironically in a conversation about James Cameron, it was only his Titanic that narrowly beat Princess Mononoke's box office in its home country of Japan.
Mmmm, the smell of ignorance frying is spicy.
I'm not posting this as flame-bait, but when I played the original Half Life on the PS2 (I'm a mac user, was my first chance to see what the fuss was about) I found a fun, solid shooter, but I had heard so many people laud the game's story, and how great it was for a FPS to have a good plot. I really didn't see anything impressive with the plot, at all.
Warning, possible Half Life 1 spoilers, for those who haven't played the 7 or so year old gameYou have a scenario suspiciously similar to Doom where a bunch of aliens come through a wormhole, you're a bad-ass scientist with a crowbar able to kick more butt than the many wimpy scientists or security guards. Eventually soldiers arrive as the aliens get bigger, eventually you kill their homeworld's giant space baby, all the while, Men in Black run around and chuckle at you.
Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention, but even if I was, I cannot possibly see how that can be lauded as a great story, especially when games like Bungie's Marathon, released 6 years before Half-Life, had plots that still confound people to this day. Half-Life may have captured the experiance of being a bad-ass alien asskicker scientist rather well, but it's the same as Gran Turisimo capturing the experiance of being a race car driver well. Both are great games, but please don't pretend there was a good story where there wasn't.
That aside, I wouldn't be surprised if Half-Life 2 actually made a better attempt at a story than the first game, though as the parent post implies, it's probably not very good, and at that point, it's safe to ask "Why try?" Much like the first Half Life, a FPS can be very good without a plot, look at Far Cry. That was one of the year's most fun games, but you could write the entire game's story on one side of a napkin.
"(do I get bonus points for an on-topic link to a site I host? :) )"
:)
Giving bonus points to someone for self-slashdotting, even on topic, is like giving bonus points to a cow getting squished in a stampede, even if it's running in the same direction.
Actually, I would argue that susceptability to a disease IS an element, if those susceptible to disease are kept alive and are mating, their offspring may have the same susceptability, requiring further aid, etc, while animals with stronger immune systems and their offspring live on without need of care.
I just feel slightly uncomfortable talking about living things like that, I guess, because when people talk about humans in those terms they begin to sound like evil eugenics fans. In terms of our overall evolutionary success as a species, compassion may turn out to be a big mistake.
But then people like Steven Hawking prove that wrong. How about we just let things continue as they are, only give prosthetics to the most rare and expensive of animals, let the rest die as they would anyway, and save all humans from everything.
Have you ever considered trying an animated form of Penny Arcade? It seems that your brand of humor makes particular use of precise timing, and while you tend to be successfull at conveying that through comic strip panels, the formula could translate to animation quite well.
:)
As an animation student myself, I of course have no particular stake in the matter
Maybe, but no one reads the journals apart from $$$$$exyGal's. :)
/. a blog site because of journals is a bit misleading. For instance, LiveJournal is not a blog site, it's a business that provides users with blog pages. An individual's account page qualifies as a blog site, LiveJournal itself doesn't. /. is a news site, its journals can be blogs.
More seriously, I think the thing about calling
The first thing that struck me when I looked at the page, before thinking about all of the competitors lining up to fall at Apple's feet was the photo of the iRiver's MPEG-4 video jukebox.
The player itself is viewed rotated 20 degrees or so. What happens is that the entire picture, including the black background looks rotated as well. I actually had to scroll and line up the image with the top of my browser window to make sure it was straight. Needless to say, iRiver is trying to win the MP3 market by disorientating potential customers enough that they grab an iRiver while reaching for an iPod.
Perhaps I sound like an insufferable n00b, perhaps I sound like I'm too lazy to do a google search (Umm, guilty) and perhaps I don't actually remember this guy's Christmas display, but what is this X10 thing?
There was a message saying control would be activated in 2 hours or so, does that mean we can control the decorations from the webcam? If so, what can be controlled?
Annoying questions aside, the "Incoming Slashdotter" message was cool. Nice to be part of an internet locust swarm.
I'm an American living in Ireland, and I own a black Smart Pulse Convertible. I've never regretted it. Even disregarding the amazing fuel economy (Our other car is a Jeep Cherokee with an engine 4x the size of the Smart, and guzzles gas like nothing else), and the semi-automatic tiptronic transmission, which gives you input into gear choices like a manual but without ever having to touch a clutch, the looks of the car are actually pretty snazzy, and the Irish here seem to agree. I'll agree it can look silly, but with the top down, it really looks cool.
:)
I swear this thing is catching more glances than my neighbor's Porsche. So don't be so quick to say Americans and Irish don't like it, this Irish American loves it.
Funny how I should see this news just an hour after watching Ray Bradbury Presents for the first time. Guess which episode was on? I found it to be a fairly well done version, for a TV show, sure the dinosaur was very animatronic but it looked fun to shoot at.
I haven't read the book but I was aware of the story, I wonder if anyone has any opinions on the TV show version versus the book.
"Back up this statement with facts, Coward. Or better yet: make a movie about it, and distribute worldwide. :-)"
It's his opinion, he doesn't need to back it up. Moore certainly doesn't back up most of what he says, and the film in question is an opinion piece as much as that was an opinion post.
Moore is certainly not my favorite outlet for opinions, even though in this case I coincidentally agree with the overall message of the film. Appaently the most convincing and telling parts of the film are from footage that's already been publically circulated. The one clip of the film I've seen, where he ambushes politicians and asks if they want to "sign their kids up to go to Iraq." This just struck me as dishonest and showy. No one can sign other people up for anything, and I heard that one particular politician answered that he had two nephews in Iraq, but was left out of the film.
Moore's film is an opinion piece, and it doesn't pretend to give the other side a fair due, but I think that the issue deserves a film that tries to present a balanced and thoughtful opinion.
When I first saw that headline I thought it said he invented "RTFA."
I was so ready to create the most ironic uninformed post ever, then again, I haven't read this article, and I can hardly be considered on-topic, maybe my dream can be realized.
RTFA? More like RTFLHYOAWN - Read the F*cking Last Hundred Years of Archived Items of Import from the Corresponding Time Periods.
The acronym loving slashdotters will LOVE this development, but then again, IANAALS (I Am Not An Acronym Loving Slashdotter)
I can see this going either way.
On the one hand, like the article mentions, Europe has a lot more socialists who aren't fans of Big Business. And they were the people who were actually able to succeed in nailing Microsoft with that big antitrust fine. (Sure that's not patent per-se, but given that every second slashdot and fark headline these days is a new rediculous MS patent, it fits.)
On the other hand, speaking from Ireland, multinations with lots of patents like Microsoft and Intel have become rather cozy here, but the tax breaks that used to be unique to foreign companies settling are disappearing from here and being imitated elsewhere. I know the local government in Ireland would be open to US style patent laws if it will keep foreign investment and jobs coming in.