one reason why journalists are in no hurry to use the word ``hacker'' in any sense that self-acknowledged hackers would recognize as legitimate may be the old non-computer origin of ``hack''. Originally, a ``quick hack'' or a ``hack job'' referred to any solution thrown together quickly using whatever you found lying around. For an engineer (and by extension a computer programmer,) being called a ``hacker'' could thus be seen as a compliment, since it means you're very good at modifying existing equipment to do tasks it was never intended to do. but for writers and journalists, being called a ``hack'' is no compliment, since it implies you aren't producing quality work.
so let's start spreading a new meme: only hack journalists call criminals ``hackers''.
(as an afterthought: you might want to start defining ``cracker'' as a CRiminal hACKER.)
I watched the movie. I watched it for pretty much the same reason most people watched it -- they wanted to see a catastrophe, secretly believing the biggest catastrophe would be the movie itself.
and I wasn't disappointed. the acting was pretty lame, as befitting a cast of nobodies. the plot was mainly just a string of disaster-movie cliches: the cassandra-like hero predicting that things are going to be much worse than anyone imagined, the hero's loved ones inevitably being caught in the disaster, the old guy providing unexpected aid when things looked bad. there was also the rather stupid way that factoids were dropped into the middle of dialogues: "oh, by the way, honey, the millennium really starts in 2001."
some of the commentary here, though, has been unfair. the massive blackout, for instance, wasn't that farfetched, since it happened once before... but then, supposedly powercompanies back east made changes after that blackout to guarantee that one powerfailure wouldn't take out the entire eastern seaboard.
also, the comments about how unrealistic it was to portray "hackers" using AIM are way off. you should complain instead that the dialog labeled those kids as "hackers". from what I could see, they weren't even *crackers* or script kiddies; they demonstrated they knew how to use aol, and they "hacked" a guestlist for a rave. sounds like a couple of lusers, to me.
I was also annoyed by the resurfacing of the "I don't think Y2K will be a big deal, but I'm afraid of the people who *do* believe it" comment. if you are afraid of that, you are afraid of Y2K, so just admit it.
one tiny thing about the movie annoyed me more than anything else: on more than one occasion, characters in the movie said that some machine would fail "because it thinks it's 1900 and it hasn't been serviced | filled | whatever in 99 years."
excuse me, but if some machine kept track of the *year* it was last serviced (instead of using a counter) and subtracted it from the current year, AND if it though the current year was 1900, then it would think it hasn't been serviced in -99 years.
my predictions for Y2K: there won't be any large-scale problems except in third-world cities there will be a number of annecdotal incidents (filler material for the news) Y2K alarmists will point to these and say "see, we told you so." I will be able to buy Y2K books for a buck apiece in January.
hmmm... mix and match images, select only those matches emphasizing a shared quality, and have a human create the final product?
there's at east a dozen such programs already out there. paramind does something like this, for example. I've gotten even better results just using emacs and dissociated press... generated some damned cool surreal poetry.
the important step is the *filtering* process after the phrase generation.
also used various random midi generators as part of my experimental music compositions: create midi streams and mix them together to "paint" an aural picture.
I haven't seen everything available for linux multimedia yet, but it seems to be that the weak point is video capture, since that depends on proprietary hardware.
video editing is also lacking, but it seems to me a good future project would be a GIMP plug-in that would convert between MPEG and multiple JPEGs. the GIMP already does some simple animation editing...
add another plug-in that allowed rendering multiple video layers and you have the beginnings of an adobe premiere clone.
if we had *this*, then we could set up a video production network with a windows machine or mac doing the video capture and production, and the linux machine doing the editing and rendering.
Multimedia on a Linux PC? Buy WINDOWS 98 and an ATI all-in-wonder card.
that's silly.
first, as others have noticed, the question is not "what's the best os for video editing?" but "what kind of video editing can you do on linux?"
second, although I came close to getting an all- in-wonder card, when I did research and asked AIW owners about the card, they said the video codec is kinda weird and winds up not looking as good as other vidcap cards. of course, I didn't get any specific examples of what was "weird" about it, and they could have just been referring to the original AIW and not the pro/128... but the consensus seemed to be that the AIW was not a good capture card for *windows*.
third, I had problems on a win98 system w/ the iomega buz. the buz is probably the best option for low-end multimedia under windows, but I ran into numerous problems which I traced back to internet explorer and activemovie. conclusion: win98 is *not* a good choice for multimedia.
Re:New look Themes.org -- It's a disaster!
on
Quickie Sunday
·
· Score: 1
I thought it was just me and my slow machine (I don't have the PIII linux up and online yet, still using this 486 win95...) glad to hear it's just because the site sucks.
when I tried to browse screenshots in the kde section, I couldn't find anything. only way I got to see a screenshot was by clicking on the top 5 links on the righthand column.
Slashdot Mirror
one reason why journalists are in no hurry to use the word ``hacker'' in any sense that self-acknowledged hackers would recognize as legitimate may be the old non-computer origin of ``hack''. Originally, a ``quick hack'' or a ``hack job'' referred to any solution thrown together quickly using whatever you found lying around. For an engineer (and by extension a computer programmer,) being called a ``hacker'' could thus be seen as a compliment, since it means you're very good at modifying existing equipment to do tasks it was never intended to do. but for writers and journalists, being called a ``hack'' is no compliment, since it implies you aren't producing quality work.
so let's start spreading a new meme: only hack journalists call criminals ``hackers''.
(as an afterthought: you might want to start defining ``cracker'' as a CRiminal hACKER.)
I watched the movie. I watched it for pretty much
the same reason most people watched it -- they
wanted to see a catastrophe, secretly believing
the biggest catastrophe would be the movie itself.
and I wasn't disappointed. the acting was pretty
lame, as befitting a cast of nobodies. the plot
was mainly just a string of disaster-movie
cliches: the cassandra-like hero predicting that
things are going to be much worse than anyone
imagined, the hero's loved ones inevitably being
caught in the disaster, the old guy providing
unexpected aid when things looked bad. there
was also the rather stupid way that factoids were
dropped into the middle of dialogues: "oh, by the
way, honey, the millennium really starts in 2001."
some of the commentary here, though, has been
unfair. the massive blackout, for instance,
wasn't that farfetched, since it happened once
before... but then, supposedly powercompanies
back east made changes after that blackout to
guarantee that one powerfailure wouldn't take
out the entire eastern seaboard.
also, the comments about how unrealistic it was
to portray "hackers" using AIM are way off. you
should complain instead that the dialog labeled
those kids as "hackers". from what I could see,
they weren't even *crackers* or script kiddies;
they demonstrated they knew how to use aol, and
they "hacked" a guestlist for a rave. sounds
like a couple of lusers, to me.
I was also annoyed by the resurfacing of the
"I don't think Y2K will be a big deal, but I'm
afraid of the people who *do* believe it"
comment. if you are afraid of that, you are
afraid of Y2K, so just admit it.
one tiny thing about the movie annoyed me more
than anything else: on more than one occasion,
characters in the movie said that some machine
would fail "because it thinks it's 1900 and it
hasn't been serviced | filled | whatever in 99
years."
excuse me, but if some machine kept track of
the *year* it was last serviced (instead of using
a counter) and subtracted it from the current
year, AND if it though the current year was 1900,
then it would think it hasn't been serviced in
-99 years.
my predictions for Y2K:
there won't be any large-scale problems
except in third-world cities
there will be a number of annecdotal
incidents (filler material for
the news)
Y2K alarmists will point to these and
say "see, we told you so."
I will be able to buy Y2K books for a
buck apiece in January.
hmmm... mix and match images, select only those
matches emphasizing a shared quality, and have a
human create the final product?
there's at east a dozen such programs already out there. paramind does something like this, for
example. I've gotten even better results just
using emacs and dissociated press... generated
some damned cool surreal poetry.
the important step is the *filtering* process
after the phrase generation.
also used various random midi generators as part of my experimental music compositions: create
midi streams and mix them together to "paint" an aural picture.
pretty nifty. but nothing new.
I haven't seen everything available for linux
multimedia yet, but it seems to be that the
weak point is video capture, since that depends
on proprietary hardware.
video editing is also lacking, but it seems to me
a good future project would be a GIMP plug-in
that would convert between MPEG and multiple JPEGs. the GIMP already does some simple animation
editing...
add another plug-in that allowed rendering multiple video layers and you have the beginnings
of an adobe premiere clone.
if we had *this*, then we could set up a video
production network with a windows machine or mac
doing the video capture and production, and the
linux machine doing the editing and rendering.
this would rock.
Multimedia on a Linux PC? Buy WINDOWS 98 and an ATI all-in-wonder card.
... but
that's silly.
first, as others have noticed, the question is
not "what's the best os for video editing?" but
"what kind of video editing can you do on linux?"
second, although I came close to getting an all-
in-wonder card, when I did research and asked
AIW owners about the card, they said the video
codec is kinda weird and winds up not looking as
good as other vidcap cards. of course, I didn't
get any specific examples of what was "weird"
about it, and they could have just been referring
to the original AIW and not the pro/128
the consensus seemed to be that the AIW was not
a good capture card for *windows*.
third, I had problems on a win98 system w/ the
iomega buz. the buz is probably the best option
for low-end multimedia under windows, but I ran
into numerous problems which I traced back to
internet explorer and activemovie. conclusion:
win98 is *not* a good choice for multimedia.
I thought it was just me and my slow machine
(I don't have the PIII linux up and online yet,
still using this 486 win95...) glad to hear it's
just because the site sucks.
when I tried to browse screenshots in the kde
section, I couldn't find anything. only way
I got to see a screenshot was by clicking on
the top 5 links on the righthand column.