After stowing away on a SEAL training flight, John exited the aircraft at 50,000 feet. His H.A.L.O. insertion going to plan, he landed 50 nautical miles in the blue waters off the coast of Belize. As luck would have it, there was a submarine, a Russian boomer, on the surface, which John quickly boarded. After killing the captain with his own sidearm, John took command of the sub. Setting course for his island lair, the Russian sub was intercepted by an American fast attack sub with Alec Baldwin on board coaching the crew.
Several "Crazy Ivan's" later, the US sub dodging Russian torpedoes all the while, the Russian sub was struck by its own torpedo, fatally damaging the vessel. By this time, the majority of the crew had committed suicide, opting for that fate rather than listen to John regale them with his witty anecdotes of his worldly exploits. As the sub was sinking, John managed to escape to the surface using a deep water escape gadget, which, as the inventor, he owns the patent on.
Armed only with his trusty knife, he fought off several Great White sharks, and met up with a pod of Pacific spotted dolphins who, recognizing him, agreed to help him reach his island stronghold. Knowing both the CIA and members of the former KGB were closing on his location, John set about arming the charges he had built into the foundation of his house and laboratory.
Laughing maniacally, John set off the charges as he slowly walked away from his compound, huge explosions in the background. This ensuring nobody would ever get the secrets of his special formula female Viagra created with his own blend of freebase MDPV and rare jungle herbs.
Warning: some foul language ahead, and no, I do not advocate violence towards women. All right, then.
TOS was pretty good and the remasters are pretty cool to watch if for nothing other than how tacky they are. That being said, about half of the episodes are really, really cheesy. Some of the costumes are downright hilarious, like they raided the Hollywood studio equivalent of a Goodwill store. But hey, it's the original, and still quite watchable. We all know the characters, no need to go into that.
TNG was really very good in it's time, but I DARE you to watch it now. Wow, just horrific stuff. Bad acting, all the "men" have vaginas, way way overly PC, and the episodes flog you non-stop with the fucking morality angle. Ugh. Almost every actor way overacts, including Patrick Stewart, who is the star of the whole ordeal. He's excellent, if a little preachy and theatrical. But again, I just dare you to watch it.
DS9 is probably my favorite these days, as it's not too ancient, doesn't get too high & mighty, and the Ferengi presence makes for some good comedy. Still, the Bajor angle wears you down, and you just want to smack Kira around with her Bajor this Bajor that, Bajor...SHUT UP!!!!. You almost start rooting for the Cardassians. Sisko, and especially Quark and Garak steal the show. Keiko, Julian, and Odo are mostly annoying. The Cardassians are delightfully evil; I love me some Gul Dukat.
Voyager: Holy shit, this is a frickin' train-wreck in space. Like a train-wreck, it's a terrifyingly horrible thing to witness, but hard to look away. Being Trek, I have to watch it. It's really an unintentional comedy, and even watching it alone, I end up howling with laughter. Usually my dog will start biting me because I'm scaring the hell out of her as I'm doubled over in fits of laughter. You've got a helium addict for a captain (as I type this I'm laughing my ass off), the spastic half Klingon woman as the engineer, the 1st officer Tonto, the Hologram Doctor you just want to kick in the nuts he's so annoying, the Neelix cook dude (what the fuck is that?), and his Carol-Brady-hairdo sporting girlfriend playing the ???, fuck, I don't know what. This series is the very height of technobabble, and the plots and scripts are just downright ludicrous. I'm going to watch one after I post this, because they're funny as all hell.
Now there's Enterprise, which is pretty good actually. It takes a while to get rolling, and the last several episodes are for shit, but overall, it's pretty good as long as the T&A doesn't offend you: it's really blatant. The stars of this series are definitely the Vulcan science officer T'Pol's breasts and her ass, as this is what the camera is usually focused on. Could be worse. The doctor, Phlox, is excellent: actually, he's my favorite character. It's not without its share of annoying characters, however. Here we go: The WORST has got to be Hoshi, the Korean actress cast as a Japanese (of course) communication officer. At first you think: "Hey, at least she's kind of cute." But then the whining starts. And the pouting. Oh the pouting. Please just STOP IT, HOSHI. Ugh, she is such a bummer. Malcom, the security officer is OK sometimes, but definitely neurotic. Then the hotheaded engineer, who again, grows on you, but is mostly annoying. I liked Scott Bakula (for the most part) as the captain, but the fatal flaw is that NOBODY LISTENS TO HIM, and he rarely kicks their asses, electing to let it slide. Some really cool alien species show up here and there.
So, there's my take on the Star Trek series. Which should really be called Time Trek, because it seems half of the episodes are about time travel. I liked the 1st reboot for what it was (mindless action in space), but really people, ALL of the Trek iterations are pretty bad, so take off those rose tinted glasses and lighten up.
Yes, GIMP is a stupid name (even as an acronym)... but a name alone doesn't make or break a product. USABILITY is the #1 factor in making a software product successful.
I'd say the #1 factor would be perception, then marketing, THEN usability. Look at the success of Microsoft, and learn from how they name their products. Word. Office. Windows. See a pattern? Simple, common words, even if they are non-descriptive of the product, like Excel for example. You don't need to use a recursive acronym in your product name to show me how clever you are. I know you're clever because you can write programs! That takes care of the perception issue.
A decent program will market itself given the nature of the Internet; you no longer need commercial advertising. So now you attack the usability factor.
In this day and age, if you want your wares to have broad appeal, the formula is really simple: Style, popularity, and substance coming in last place, generally speaking. Sad but true.
...the major problems most people have with GIMP is that it's GUI isn't a 100% clone of Photoshop.
I'll go one step further, from my observations of the typical arguments seen re: GIMP vs. PS:
1. The biggest problem seems to be the name. Silly, but what can I say? I do agree that the name sucks, but oh well.
2. Next would be the lack of a (default) MDI-type interface, as horrible as that style is. Yes I know GIMP has that option now. Most people don't know this.
3. It lacks obscure feature X or Y which is useful to a certain percentage of users, like the Libre Office vs Word arguments
Personally, I have no problem using GIMP on Linux or OS X (I don't use Windows except at work to launch PuTTy), but then again, any image adjustments I do are simple resizing, rotations, color corrects, sharpening, format conversions and other simple tasks. Sure the name is stupid, but that doesn't bother me.
What mystifies me is *why* there is no OSS PS clone; it's not like this is rocket science. Most image processing algorithms are well known; a simple web search will find them, as most come from papers submitted to SIGGRAPH (sp?) over the years. In addition, it seems like it would be a fun and interesting project, unlike say accounting software, so that kills the 'boring' argument. And last, this would probably be *the* most popular piece of free software, end of story. Whoever wrote it would be a frickin' rockstar.
Going back to my original points, the biggest issue w/GIMP is probably the fact that PS is one of the most widely illegitimately distributed pieces of software. If it wasn't so easy to get a copy off the 'net, it's usage would be a small fraction of what it is today.
To put it in perspective, that 86 billion neurons would be 86 "giga-neurons"; huh, conceptually not too overwhelming. Then we have the 100 trillion connections between them, or 100 "tera-connections"? Forget it.
Not to even mention (as someone already did) the initial state, then the learning process. To even form this structure in RAM would require, what? 40-50 more Moores Law iterations? Which I doubt is even physically possible.
I think this is the wrong approach, and even if possible, not in our lifetimes....
GTalk, Chrome all of them install Windows Services. Why does a browser or a chat application need a Service running all the time?
I think the main reason is that there is no standard mechanism to provide automated updates in Windows, unless the software happens to come from Microsoft, so every app that provides that functionality typically installs a service to check for, download, and apply updates. Contrast w/Linux where you have package managers & repos, and OS X where there's Software update (for all Apple software and 3rd party wares purchased thru the App store) in addition to a 3rd party framework (can't think of the name ATM) that tons of applications use...
I only use Google Play Store, and I'm aware I can cancel an installation. Yet most apps have unreasonable access to various facilities IME. If I cancelled the installs, I'd be left with basically nothing. Thanks anyways...
Mod parent up. So many times I've done a drive-by asshole post here, and then been so ashamed of it that I would avoid/. for weeks. I'm really trying to stop this G.I.F.T. type behavior, and this username is a big motivator. (BTW, what was I thinking when I signed up?)
A couple of observations: most people seem to use mobile gaming as a time waster (say, waiting for a bus or an appointment) rather than playing the game for the sake of, well, gaming. Another thing is that now that smartphones are pretty much a mainstream item, it only follows that the games will cater to a broad as audience as possible: in other words, mostly watered down junk. And third, seeing as these devices use the touchscreen for the controls, it really limits the types of games that can realistically be deployed.
I've read that Android supports Bluetooth controllers such as the PS3 controller, but it can be hit or miss which games themselves support this input method. Add to this the fact that its not too convenient to carry a controller around everywhere, and you have the state of the games as we see them today.
Hopefully now that there are some Android console type devices on the horizon, there will be more games released which take advantage of external controller input, enabling the release of more complex game types. It remains to be seen how much these devices will sell. If they sell well, then I think more developers will take notice and not only enable alternative input devices in their wares to broaden their appeal, but also consider porting more complex games to Android.
So true, so true. In addition to "leak", other terms that have lost original meaning are "hacker", "zero-day" and "bricked". Anyone got any more?
And somewhat on topic, it's pretty pathetic how Google is "forcing" users to join Google+ to use an increasing number of their services. I loaded an app on my S3 from Play last week which caused it to go into a reboot loop. Figuring I'd write a review warning others about this issue, I was "forced" (yeah, I know) to join Google+ just to leave a review on Google Play for this turd of an app. It felt like a really cheap shot, and yeah, I felt dirty just "signing up".
And now completely off-topic: can anyone recommend an app that denies (per app) access to various Android facilities (contacts, dialer, etc) that works w/Android 4.1+? (Why do so many basic apps, like for example a flashlight (I'm making this example up) need access to my contacts and call logs? )
This is on Slashdot because it is profitable for them to post troll stories. You might notice that the stories that get the most replies have either a political, religious, or the current all-time favorite: the patent-related slant to whip the unsuspecting into a reading/posting frenzy generating ad revenue.
Contrast the FUD stories with the few articles posted about hard science, and sadly they typically get about 5% of the replies as say an Apple/MS/Samsung/Google patent troll-the-readership type story. As a Ferengi would say, there's just no profit in that. I'm sure this business model is somehow described in some way among the 285 Rules of Acquisition, but I digress.
Like it or not, Slashdot has degenerated into using the same trolling and scare tactics that is business as usual in the main stream media. The same thing happened to Ars Technica and countless other sites that started off as legitimate community-driven, hobbyist type sites that became popular, then sold off to Big Money. Tell me I'm wrong. (And to be honest, I'd do the same damn thing because, well, I'm just greedy like that.)
I suspect the spelling and grammar errors in the titles and summaries are mostly intentional as well. NOBODY is that lazy and incompetent.
So: Deal with it. Cause it's not going away. Malware in ads is to be expected. Always.
Or to put it another way, ads *are* malware, and as such, need to be blocked. Just as its standard fare to run AV on (Windows) PCs, all PCs regardless of OS should be running adblockers. Until the online advertising industry cleans up its act (don't hold your breath), everyone should be blocking their trojan-infused crap.
Some may call this a dishonest justification for blocking ads; I call it safe and smart computing.
Anybody have a car analogy? I couldn't come up with one. Extra points for working Natalie or Soviet Russia into the car analogy:)
I got this guy pegged. Bear with me, because this is a long winded post, but I think you'll find it interesting. I'm sure some of you have also known people of his personality type, and for those who haven't, let me explain it. It may help you to understand this type and hopefully steer well clear of them. Because while they can be funny, extremely entertaining, and can often accomplish seemingly unbelievable things, it is always at the expense of others. Be it financial, emotional, reputational or otherwise.
First off, let me begin by saying I have nothing against this McAfee character (and he *is* quite a character it seems). Not knowing a thing about him other than his connection to the AV company, I read his response with great delight and enjoyment, like a lot of you. Being the entertaining fellow that he is, I started to read some stories written about him on the web and one at boing-boing, which led me to an interesting piece at FastCompany. After reading that story and all the contradictions between what John described to the writer, and the follow up the writer did with other people who were involved with John in one way or another, the stories didn't match up. They were similar, but John's descriptions were always way more grandiose or downright misleading. But always with a kernel of truth. Remember that piece, because it's an important part of the game. Or hey, perhaps he was telling the truth and the others were misleading. I'll let you decide.
After reading up a bit, it dawned on me that I knew a guy almost exactly like John. I'll call him Tim (not his real name). I met Tim through his younger brother, Mike (not his real name either) in high school in the mid-eighties and we became friends immediately: we liked the same music, we both played guitar, we were both partiers, and we were also somewhat social misfits. Fast forward through the years. Tim was always doing different things for a living, dealing illicit substances of one kind or another which in hindsight probably funded his several companies he had over the years. Mike hated his brother Tim, because Tim was always the focal point wherever he went. He told great stories, and everything was always a larger than life adventure. Not knowing at the time that Tim was a compulsive liar and a manipulator of people, I couldn't understand Mike's attitude towards his seemingly successful and charismatic brother. I never spent enough time around Tim to figure it out right away.
I figured it out first hand for myself when I moved halfway across the country to work at Tim's business, a small ISP. He offered me a 20% stake in the company, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Mike warned me not to, but I wrote it off as sibling rivalry and jealousy. You see, I did my research before I moved (not well enough as it turned out) and was amazed at the connections Tim had. One thing worried me though: he was not too bright. Tim wasn't an idiot by any stretch, but it was obvious to me that he could talk the talk, but not walk the walk. What the hell, I told myself. He may not have the technical chops, but he has connections, a growing business, and could strike up a conversation with anyone: the perfect salesman! I'll take care of the tech, he can sell in our untapped market, and we'll make a mint! I'm not ashamed to admit that I let myself be manipulated by my greed, because I learned an important lesson, and hopefully can educate others as well.
I left my job of some 15 years and moved far away from home, friends and family. After about a year, it became obvious to me that it was a sham; Tim really didn't want to work or sell, he just wanted to talk, bullshit, and make others believe he was some genius, all the while manipulating suckers (me being one of them) into doing the actual work. He was really slimy, manipulative, and had no interest in technology at all I discovered. Tim was a paranoid, compulsive liar and I'm guessing had been one for most or all of his life. And not only did most people believe his lies, he did, t
This is good news! #1: Piss of the sheep; maybe they'll look for greener pastures once the video ad bandwidth usage starts costing them. #2 Yes! "Compete" w/TV advertising dollars by undercutting them (race to the bottom), devaluing the ad industry on the way. #3 NarcissistBook's stock took a hit on this news. A trifecta.
Multiple people record the stream. Then, they de-watermark it collectively by combining the video files. Where do I miss something?
Why even bother using this type of stream as a source when a Blu-ray or even a DVD rip* would be easier, quicker, and of superior quality?
*I'd imagine that, even if the stream is 1080p, a DVD rip would be of superior quality due to the fact that the stream would be of limited bit-rate due to being streamed over the Internet. In addition to that, you be re-compressing an already compressed stream, resulting in further degradation.
Please note that I don't advocate piracy: I believe that ships and booty should be acquired in a legal and civilized manner.
Nothing has changed in a couple of years regarding the relative performance of the open source kernel drivers for NVidia and ATI cards and their closed source binary counterparts.
Given similar and modern hardware, the open source ATI driver is much better in several areas including general performance and ease of installation. I believe this is due to ATI publishing specs to a much greater extent, and I think they even have (had?) employee(s) dedicated to developing the OSS driver that ships w/the kernel. NV on the other hand, shows very clearly through their (in)actions that they do not give a shit about Linux, and the neuveau (sp?) driver is completely reverse engineered w/little to no help or interest from NV.
The closed binary drivers in terms of relative performance show the opposite with nVidia edging ATI out in terms of performance. But again, the ATI driver is a breeze to install where the NV driver installation is a bit quirky, for example forcing you to exit X to do the install. Not a big deal for most users, but probably a bit disconcerting for "newbies". Another thing that turned me off about the closed NV drivers in the past (don't know if this still holds) is that they would not install if you were running a Xen kernel, or if you were running VMware Workstation.
Another thing to keep in mind when selecting a card is GPU compute capabilities: cuda vs. OpenCL support. The level of support varies by both OS and program; some apps support one API but not the other. If your app supports OpenCL only, by all means go for the ATI card as they perform much better. If your app supports cuda only, or if the app happens to be Blender, then the only choice is NVidia because ATI cards cannot run the proprietary cuda API, and in the case of Blender, it's OpenCL implementation is severely lacking for various reasons regardless of operating system.
In the end, use your head and do your homework before deciding on a GPU, and ignore the troll headlines.
Here's my solution (This being/., I did not read the article. I stopped reading after the problem was described so I could solve it)
3-chamber bag created w/that silvery plastic foil material, chambers created by a heat seal. Larger top compartment has black coffee (and pie-hole nozzle) and at the bottom, 2 small compartments side-by-side hold cream & sweetener. The top of each of the lower 2 chambers has a simple pressure-activated valve into the coffee chamber. You squeeze these to add desired amounts of cream and sugar to the coffee.
Wow, that was intelligent and civil. Where did I say I was wealthy? If you can't manage your finances and have to resort "killing grandma" for a paltry couple grand spread over several years, that's your issue. eee PC? The toy? ASUS gear is just more plastic-y crap, IME. And the Game Boy and CP/M references? What are you blathering about? Where did I say I was against progress and miniaturization? Nowhere.
I buy quality gear and take care of it and it lasts, but there's really only 1 company I'll even consider these days (which shall remain nameless because this is/., home of the success-hating trolls). That's my whole point re: Race to the Bottom. It leaves me w/1 choice. Is this starting to sink in yet?
>>I wonder why you aren't looking at 1440p displays...
I do have a 27" 1440p display, and my laptop is 1920x1200, but, at least in the case of the laptop, the display is a relative rarity. I stand by my statement that there was vastly more choice 10-20 years ago. And of course the tech was more primitive; that was not my point. My point was that there was vastly more choice. Are you getting it yet?
>>Ranting about cliche stereotypes, CRTs, yellowing keyboards and other strange nonsense
Again, that was intelligent and civil. Where did I imply I am "clinging to these things"? Nowhere.
>>Now get off my KINDERGARTEN.
With pleasure. As long as you consider working on your reading comprehension...
The problem is not access to components used to make explosives & IEDs, the problem is hatred based on ignorance, fear, and Western meddling in these hellholes and wastelands... same as it ever was. Take away every conceivable object that can be used as a weapon, and they'll use rocks. Then you can call them IRTDs (Improvised Rock Throwing Devices) and ban all manner of rock and stone. That'll learn 'em!
It's pretty sad seeing the PC Industry happily kill itself. It's seems like, other than Apple and to a much, much smaller extent Google, the entire PC Industry has absolutely zero imagination. Just cookie cutter crap stamped out by the millions. This race to the bottom benefits NOBODY.
Why is ultra cheap hardware bad for users? (a.k.a. But but I can buy a "laptop" for $200 for my cat)
Because you have very little to no choice in features/options, it's bottom-of-the-barrel junk components, and it will be treated as a disposable item. In order to hit these price points, everything is compromised; every single aspect of the unit. You'll treat is as disposable because its pretty much ready for the trash right out of the box. The units go from factory, to warehouse, to retailer, to end user, to trash can inside of a year or two, then off to the landfill it goes. It encourages a culture of disposable consumption that wreaks havoc on the environment.
Why is ultra cheap hardware bad for business?
Because it demands that companies compete on razor thin margins, killing competition by forcing smaller manufacturers out of business. I don't think I need to explain the multitude of issues that having just a handful of manufacturers presents.
I like to use the monitor explanation: before HDTVs were ubiquitous, there was a large selection (in terms of resolution) of LCD panels available. We were able to get laptops with very high res. screens. Now because producing everything needs to be produced in the millions of units to fit the razor thin profit model, it's really difficult to find displays that are anything other than 1080 pixels vertical. And just try to find a laptop (other than Apple) w/a decent high res. display. "But I can get super cheap monitors now." Yeah, well I refer you to the paragraph above on disposable hardware.
Honestly, things were better in the Pentium days when PCs costed $2k-$3k. There was tons (TONS) of choice, and the stuff was built like a tank. Now GET OFF MY LAWN!
Slashdot Mirror
SETTING: SOMEWHERE OFF THE COAST OF BELIZE
After stowing away on a SEAL training flight, John exited the aircraft at 50,000 feet. His H.A.L.O. insertion going to plan, he landed 50 nautical miles in the blue waters off the coast of Belize. As luck would have it, there was a submarine, a Russian boomer, on the surface, which John quickly boarded. After killing the captain with his own sidearm, John took command of the sub. Setting course for his island lair, the Russian sub was intercepted by an American fast attack sub with Alec Baldwin on board coaching the crew.
Several "Crazy Ivan's" later, the US sub dodging Russian torpedoes all the while, the Russian sub was struck by its own torpedo, fatally damaging the vessel. By this time, the majority of the crew had committed suicide, opting for that fate rather than listen to John regale them with his witty anecdotes of his worldly exploits. As the sub was sinking, John managed to escape to the surface using a deep water escape gadget, which, as the inventor, he owns the patent on.
Armed only with his trusty knife, he fought off several Great White sharks, and met up with a pod of Pacific spotted dolphins who, recognizing him, agreed to help him reach his island stronghold. Knowing both the CIA and members of the former KGB were closing on his location, John set about arming the charges he had built into the foundation of his house and laboratory.
Laughing maniacally, John set off the charges as he slowly walked away from his compound, huge explosions in the background. This ensuring nobody would ever get the secrets of his special formula female Viagra created with his own blend of freebase MDPV and rare jungle herbs.
CUE BOND MUSIC, FADE TO BLACK...
He uses the morals of a female horse to... what????
Warning: some foul language ahead, and no, I do not advocate violence towards women. All right, then.
TOS was pretty good and the remasters are pretty cool to watch if for nothing other than how tacky they are. That being said, about half of the episodes are really, really cheesy. Some of the costumes are downright hilarious, like they raided the Hollywood studio equivalent of a Goodwill store. But hey, it's the original, and still quite watchable. We all know the characters, no need to go into that.
TNG was really very good in it's time, but I DARE you to watch it now. Wow, just horrific stuff. Bad acting, all the "men" have vaginas, way way overly PC, and the episodes flog you non-stop with the fucking morality angle. Ugh. Almost every actor way overacts, including Patrick Stewart, who is the star of the whole ordeal. He's excellent, if a little preachy and theatrical. But again, I just dare you to watch it.
DS9 is probably my favorite these days, as it's not too ancient, doesn't get too high & mighty, and the Ferengi presence makes for some good comedy. Still, the Bajor angle wears you down, and you just want to smack Kira around with her Bajor this Bajor that, Bajor...SHUT UP!!!!. You almost start rooting for the Cardassians. Sisko, and especially Quark and Garak steal the show. Keiko, Julian, and Odo are mostly annoying. The Cardassians are delightfully evil; I love me some Gul Dukat.
Voyager: Holy shit, this is a frickin' train-wreck in space. Like a train-wreck, it's a terrifyingly horrible thing to witness, but hard to look away. Being Trek, I have to watch it. It's really an unintentional comedy, and even watching it alone, I end up howling with laughter. Usually my dog will start biting me because I'm scaring the hell out of her as I'm doubled over in fits of laughter. You've got a helium addict for a captain (as I type this I'm laughing my ass off), the spastic half Klingon woman as the engineer, the 1st officer Tonto, the Hologram Doctor you just want to kick in the nuts he's so annoying, the Neelix cook dude (what the fuck is that?), and his Carol-Brady-hairdo sporting girlfriend playing the ???, fuck, I don't know what. This series is the very height of technobabble, and the plots and scripts are just downright ludicrous. I'm going to watch one after I post this, because they're funny as all hell.
Now there's Enterprise, which is pretty good actually. It takes a while to get rolling, and the last several episodes are for shit, but overall, it's pretty good as long as the T&A doesn't offend you: it's really blatant. The stars of this series are definitely the Vulcan science officer T'Pol's breasts and her ass, as this is what the camera is usually focused on. Could be worse. The doctor, Phlox, is excellent: actually, he's my favorite character. It's not without its share of annoying characters, however. Here we go: The WORST has got to be Hoshi, the Korean actress cast as a Japanese (of course) communication officer. At first you think: "Hey, at least she's kind of cute." But then the whining starts. And the pouting. Oh the pouting. Please just STOP IT, HOSHI. Ugh, she is such a bummer. Malcom, the security officer is OK sometimes, but definitely neurotic. Then the hotheaded engineer, who again, grows on you, but is mostly annoying. I liked Scott Bakula (for the most part) as the captain, but the fatal flaw is that NOBODY LISTENS TO HIM, and he rarely kicks their asses, electing to let it slide. Some really cool alien species show up here and there.
So, there's my take on the Star Trek series. Which should really be called Time Trek, because it seems half of the episodes are about time travel. I liked the 1st reboot for what it was (mindless action in space), but really people, ALL of the Trek iterations are pretty bad, so take off those rose tinted glasses and lighten up.
I'd say the #1 factor would be perception, then marketing, THEN usability. Look at the success of Microsoft, and learn from how they name their products. Word. Office. Windows. See a pattern? Simple, common words, even if they are non-descriptive of the product, like Excel for example. You don't need to use a recursive acronym in your product name to show me how clever you are. I know you're clever because you can write programs! That takes care of the perception issue.
A decent program will market itself given the nature of the Internet; you no longer need commercial advertising. So now you attack the usability factor.
In this day and age, if you want your wares to have broad appeal, the formula is really simple: Style, popularity, and substance coming in last place, generally speaking. Sad but true.
I'll go one step further, from my observations of the typical arguments seen re: GIMP vs. PS:
1. The biggest problem seems to be the name. Silly, but what can I say? I do agree that the name sucks, but oh well.
2. Next would be the lack of a (default) MDI-type interface, as horrible as that style is. Yes I know GIMP has that option now. Most people don't know this.
3. It lacks obscure feature X or Y which is useful to a certain percentage of users, like the Libre Office vs Word arguments
Personally, I have no problem using GIMP on Linux or OS X (I don't use Windows except at work to launch PuTTy), but then again, any image adjustments I do are simple resizing, rotations, color corrects, sharpening, format conversions and other simple tasks. Sure the name is stupid, but that doesn't bother me.
What mystifies me is *why* there is no OSS PS clone; it's not like this is rocket science. Most image processing algorithms are well known; a simple web search will find them, as most come from papers submitted to SIGGRAPH (sp?) over the years. In addition, it seems like it would be a fun and interesting project, unlike say accounting software, so that kills the 'boring' argument. And last, this would probably be *the* most popular piece of free software, end of story. Whoever wrote it would be a frickin' rockstar.
Going back to my original points, the biggest issue w/GIMP is probably the fact that PS is one of the most widely illegitimately distributed pieces of software. If it wasn't so easy to get a copy off the 'net, it's usage would be a small fraction of what it is today.
To put it in perspective, that 86 billion neurons would be 86 "giga-neurons"; huh, conceptually not too overwhelming. Then we have the 100 trillion connections between them, or 100 "tera-connections"? Forget it.
Not to even mention (as someone already did) the initial state, then the learning process. To even form this structure in RAM would require, what? 40-50 more Moores Law iterations? Which I doubt is even physically possible.
I think this is the wrong approach, and even if possible, not in our lifetimes....
I think the main reason is that there is no standard mechanism to provide automated updates in Windows, unless the software happens to come from Microsoft, so every app that provides that functionality typically installs a service to check for, download, and apply updates. Contrast w/Linux where you have package managers & repos, and OS X where there's Software update (for all Apple software and 3rd party wares purchased thru the App store) in addition to a 3rd party framework (can't think of the name ATM) that tons of applications use...
I only use Google Play Store, and I'm aware I can cancel an installation. Yet most apps have unreasonable access to various facilities IME. If I cancelled the installs, I'd be left with basically nothing. Thanks anyways...
Mod parent up. So many times I've done a drive-by asshole post here, and then been so ashamed of it that I would avoid /. for weeks. I'm really trying to stop this G.I.F.T. type behavior, and this username is a big motivator. (BTW, what was I thinking when I signed up?)
My favorite, describing this phenomenon: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
More in depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect
-Rob
A couple of observations: most people seem to use mobile gaming as a time waster (say, waiting for a bus or an appointment) rather than playing the game for the sake of, well, gaming. Another thing is that now that smartphones are pretty much a mainstream item, it only follows that the games will cater to a broad as audience as possible: in other words, mostly watered down junk. And third, seeing as these devices use the touchscreen for the controls, it really limits the types of games that can realistically be deployed.
I've read that Android supports Bluetooth controllers such as the PS3 controller, but it can be hit or miss which games themselves support this input method. Add to this the fact that its not too convenient to carry a controller around everywhere, and you have the state of the games as we see them today.
Hopefully now that there are some Android console type devices on the horizon, there will be more games released which take advantage of external controller input, enabling the release of more complex game types. It remains to be seen how much these devices will sell. If they sell well, then I think more developers will take notice and not only enable alternative input devices in their wares to broaden their appeal, but also consider porting more complex games to Android.
So true, so true. In addition to "leak", other terms that have lost original meaning are "hacker", "zero-day" and "bricked". Anyone got any more?
And somewhat on topic, it's pretty pathetic how Google is "forcing" users to join Google+ to use an increasing number of their services. I loaded an app on my S3 from Play last week which caused it to go into a reboot loop. Figuring I'd write a review warning others about this issue, I was "forced" (yeah, I know) to join Google+ just to leave a review on Google Play for this turd of an app. It felt like a really cheap shot, and yeah, I felt dirty just "signing up".
And now completely off-topic: can anyone recommend an app that denies (per app) access to various Android facilities (contacts, dialer, etc) that works w/Android 4.1+? (Why do so many basic apps, like for example a flashlight (I'm making this example up) need access to my contacts and call logs? )
This is on Slashdot because it is profitable for them to post troll stories. You might notice that the stories that get the most replies have either a political, religious, or the current all-time favorite: the patent-related slant to whip the unsuspecting into a reading/posting frenzy generating ad revenue.
Contrast the FUD stories with the few articles posted about hard science, and sadly they typically get about 5% of the replies as say an Apple/MS/Samsung/Google patent troll-the-readership type story. As a Ferengi would say, there's just no profit in that. I'm sure this business model is somehow described in some way among the 285 Rules of Acquisition, but I digress.
Like it or not, Slashdot has degenerated into using the same trolling and scare tactics that is business as usual in the main stream media. The same thing happened to Ars Technica and countless other sites that started off as legitimate community-driven, hobbyist type sites that became popular, then sold off to Big Money. Tell me I'm wrong. (And to be honest, I'd do the same damn thing because, well, I'm just greedy like that.)
I suspect the spelling and grammar errors in the titles and summaries are mostly intentional as well. NOBODY is that lazy and incompetent.
Oh, now *there's* some IRONy for ya'! :P
Or to put it another way, ads *are* malware, and as such, need to be blocked. Just as its standard fare to run AV on (Windows) PCs, all PCs regardless of OS should be running adblockers. Until the online advertising industry cleans up its act (don't hold your breath), everyone should be blocking their trojan-infused crap.
:)
Some may call this a dishonest justification for blocking ads; I call it safe and smart computing.
Anybody have a car analogy? I couldn't come up with one. Extra points for working Natalie or Soviet Russia into the car analogy
I got this guy pegged. Bear with me, because this is a long winded post, but I think you'll find it interesting. I'm sure some of you have also known people of his personality type, and for those who haven't, let me explain it. It may help you to understand this type and hopefully steer well clear of them. Because while they can be funny, extremely entertaining, and can often accomplish seemingly unbelievable things, it is always at the expense of others. Be it financial, emotional, reputational or otherwise.
First off, let me begin by saying I have nothing against this McAfee character (and he *is* quite a character it seems). Not knowing a thing about him other than his connection to the AV company, I read his response with great delight and enjoyment, like a lot of you. Being the entertaining fellow that he is, I started to read some stories written about him on the web and one at boing-boing, which led me to an interesting piece at FastCompany. After reading that story and all the contradictions between what John described to the writer, and the follow up the writer did with other people who were involved with John in one way or another, the stories didn't match up. They were similar, but John's descriptions were always way more grandiose or downright misleading. But always with a kernel of truth. Remember that piece, because it's an important part of the game. Or hey, perhaps he was telling the truth and the others were misleading. I'll let you decide.
After reading up a bit, it dawned on me that I knew a guy almost exactly like John. I'll call him Tim (not his real name). I met Tim through his younger brother, Mike (not his real name either) in high school in the mid-eighties and we became friends immediately: we liked the same music, we both played guitar, we were both partiers, and we were also somewhat social misfits. Fast forward through the years. Tim was always doing different things for a living, dealing illicit substances of one kind or another which in hindsight probably funded his several companies he had over the years. Mike hated his brother Tim, because Tim was always the focal point wherever he went. He told great stories, and everything was always a larger than life adventure. Not knowing at the time that Tim was a compulsive liar and a manipulator of people, I couldn't understand Mike's attitude towards his seemingly successful and charismatic brother. I never spent enough time around Tim to figure it out right away.
I figured it out first hand for myself when I moved halfway across the country to work at Tim's business, a small ISP. He offered me a 20% stake in the company, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Mike warned me not to, but I wrote it off as sibling rivalry and jealousy. You see, I did my research before I moved (not well enough as it turned out) and was amazed at the connections Tim had. One thing worried me though: he was not too bright. Tim wasn't an idiot by any stretch, but it was obvious to me that he could talk the talk, but not walk the walk. What the hell, I told myself. He may not have the technical chops, but he has connections, a growing business, and could strike up a conversation with anyone: the perfect salesman! I'll take care of the tech, he can sell in our untapped market, and we'll make a mint! I'm not ashamed to admit that I let myself be manipulated by my greed, because I learned an important lesson, and hopefully can educate others as well.
I left my job of some 15 years and moved far away from home, friends and family. After about a year, it became obvious to me that it was a sham; Tim really didn't want to work or sell, he just wanted to talk, bullshit, and make others believe he was some genius, all the while manipulating suckers (me being one of them) into doing the actual work. He was really slimy, manipulative, and had no interest in technology at all I discovered. Tim was a paranoid, compulsive liar and I'm guessing had been one for most or all of his life. And not only did most people believe his lies, he did, t
Just a lowly high school educated sysadmin... :)
Before I saw the last name, I read it as Asa Akira. Now THAT is a movie I would go see!
Sorry...
This is good news! #1: Piss of the sheep; maybe they'll look for greener pastures once the video ad bandwidth usage starts costing them. #2 Yes! "Compete" w/TV advertising dollars by undercutting them (race to the bottom), devaluing the ad industry on the way. #3 NarcissistBook's stock took a hit on this news. A trifecta.
Really, best news I've heard all day!
Go back under your bridge...
Why even bother using this type of stream as a source when a Blu-ray or even a DVD rip* would be easier, quicker, and of superior quality?
*I'd imagine that, even if the stream is 1080p, a DVD rip would be of superior quality due to the fact that the stream would be of limited bit-rate due to being streamed over the Internet. In addition to that, you be re-compressing an already compressed stream, resulting in further degradation.
Please note that I don't advocate piracy: I believe that ships and booty should be acquired in a legal and civilized manner.
Nothing has changed in a couple of years regarding the relative performance of the open source kernel drivers for NVidia and ATI cards and their closed source binary counterparts.
Given similar and modern hardware, the open source ATI driver is much better in several areas including general performance and ease of installation. I believe this is due to ATI publishing specs to a much greater extent, and I think they even have (had?) employee(s) dedicated to developing the OSS driver that ships w/the kernel. NV on the other hand, shows very clearly through their (in)actions that they do not give a shit about Linux, and the neuveau (sp?) driver is completely reverse engineered w/little to no help or interest from NV.
The closed binary drivers in terms of relative performance show the opposite with nVidia edging ATI out in terms of performance. But again, the ATI driver is a breeze to install where the NV driver installation is a bit quirky, for example forcing you to exit X to do the install. Not a big deal for most users, but probably a bit disconcerting for "newbies". Another thing that turned me off about the closed NV drivers in the past (don't know if this still holds) is that they would not install if you were running a Xen kernel, or if you were running VMware Workstation.
Another thing to keep in mind when selecting a card is GPU compute capabilities: cuda vs. OpenCL support. The level of support varies by both OS and program; some apps support one API but not the other. If your app supports OpenCL only, by all means go for the ATI card as they perform much better. If your app supports cuda only, or if the app happens to be Blender, then the only choice is NVidia because ATI cards cannot run the proprietary cuda API, and in the case of Blender, it's OpenCL implementation is severely lacking for various reasons regardless of operating system.
In the end, use your head and do your homework before deciding on a GPU, and ignore the troll headlines.
Here's my solution (This being /., I did not read the article. I stopped reading after the problem was described so I could solve it)
3-chamber bag created w/that silvery plastic foil material, chambers created by a heat seal. Larger top compartment has black coffee (and pie-hole nozzle) and at the bottom, 2 small compartments side-by-side hold cream & sweetener. The top of each of the lower 2 chambers has a simple pressure-activated valve into the coffee chamber. You squeeze these to add desired amounts of cream and sugar to the coffee.
Where's my honorary engineering degree?
Wow, that was intelligent and civil. Where did I say I was wealthy? If you can't manage your finances and have to resort "killing grandma" for a paltry couple grand spread over several years, that's your issue. eee PC? The toy? ASUS gear is just more plastic-y crap, IME. And the Game Boy and CP/M references? What are you blathering about? Where did I say I was against progress and miniaturization? Nowhere.
/., home of the success-hating trolls). That's my whole point re: Race to the Bottom. It leaves me w/1 choice. Is this starting to sink in yet?
I buy quality gear and take care of it and it lasts, but there's really only 1 company I'll even consider these days (which shall remain nameless because this is
>>I wonder why you aren't looking at 1440p displays...
I do have a 27" 1440p display, and my laptop is 1920x1200, but, at least in the case of the laptop, the display is a relative rarity. I stand by my statement that there was vastly more choice 10-20 years ago. And of course the tech was more primitive; that was not my point. My point was that there was vastly more choice. Are you getting it yet?
>>Ranting about cliche stereotypes, CRTs, yellowing keyboards and other strange nonsense
Again, that was intelligent and civil. Where did I imply I am "clinging to these things"? Nowhere.
>>Now get off my KINDERGARTEN.
With pleasure. As long as you consider working on your reading comprehension...
The problem is not access to components used to make explosives & IEDs, the problem is hatred based on ignorance, fear, and Western meddling in these hellholes and wastelands... same as it ever was. Take away every conceivable object that can be used as a weapon, and they'll use rocks. Then you can call them IRTDs (Improvised Rock Throwing Devices) and ban all manner of rock and stone. That'll learn 'em!
Analyze THAT.
It's pretty sad seeing the PC Industry happily kill itself. It's seems like, other than Apple and to a much, much smaller extent Google, the entire PC Industry has absolutely zero imagination. Just cookie cutter crap stamped out by the millions. This race to the bottom benefits NOBODY.
Why is ultra cheap hardware bad for users? (a.k.a. But but I can buy a "laptop" for $200 for my cat)
Because you have very little to no choice in features/options, it's bottom-of-the-barrel junk components, and it will be treated as a disposable item. In order to hit these price points, everything is compromised; every single aspect of the unit. You'll treat is as disposable because its pretty much ready for the trash right out of the box. The units go from factory, to warehouse, to retailer, to end user, to trash can inside of a year or two, then off to the landfill it goes. It encourages a culture of disposable consumption that wreaks havoc on the environment.
Why is ultra cheap hardware bad for business?
Because it demands that companies compete on razor thin margins, killing competition by forcing smaller manufacturers out of business. I don't think I need to explain the multitude of issues that having just a handful of manufacturers presents.
I like to use the monitor explanation: before HDTVs were ubiquitous, there was a large selection (in terms of resolution) of LCD panels available. We were able to get laptops with very high res. screens. Now because producing everything needs to be produced in the millions of units to fit the razor thin profit model, it's really difficult to find displays that are anything other than 1080 pixels vertical. And just try to find a laptop (other than Apple) w/a decent high res. display. "But I can get super cheap monitors now." Yeah, well I refer you to the paragraph above on disposable hardware.
Honestly, things were better in the Pentium days when PCs costed $2k-$3k. There was tons (TONS) of choice, and the stuff was built like a tank. Now GET OFF MY LAWN!