After all, even the prettiest of computers are still just big dumb bit-shifters. Shift that paradigm!
Personally, I think debates like this are what's good about the computing industry and computer science. I don't pretend to have anything but a basic grasp of the concepts here, but it's fantastic to see these arguments.
I don't think it's a sign of immaturity. It's a sign of health. There's no ultimate 'do it this way'. And if someone thinks they've found the One True Path, just go and code it!
Rather than having to ignore the HOSTS file because it may be malicious, shouldn't the solution be to prevent HOSTS from getting mangled in the first place?
(oh, and on an unrelated note: why on earth is the Win32 HOSTS file buried away under C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\? I mean.... 'drivers'?!!? Bizarre.
I bought myself a PSP a few weeks ago. I was attracted by the homebrew scene, and thought it just looked like an interesting piece of kit.
Then, I noticed the problems in the PSP gaming community, and felt a little buyer's remorse. But I think things are looking up.
The PSP was done no favours by the Playstation development community. Games seemed to be ports of PS(not P) games. Porting an existing franchise is a safe bet when a new platform's released. The Nintendo world did better out of this: Nintendo have a legacy of great games targeted at portable play. Developers saw the PSP's pretty damn awesome abilities and gave in to the porting temptation. But not straight ports from regular console games rarely survive 100% intact after the move to a portable. Even if the portable's got all the tech to make it an almost seamless port, many games just don't feel right on a portable. The controls are odd. The 'style' of play feels wrong. _Splinter Cell_ is a great example of this: the original was great, the PSP version's technically gorgeous.... but it's a bastard to play.
I think Playstation development world needed a taste of failure to make them take a step back and actually develop _for_ the PSP. Continuing along the 'Splinter Cell' vein, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror is what SC on the PSP should've been. The 'stealth-combat' genre reworked for the portable format... and it's fantastic. Nintendo already knew how to make great portable games, and the DS has some brilliant titles. Looking at some upcoming PSP games, I'm a bit more happy with my purchase. It's taken a while, but I think the PSP's on its way towards getting out of the shadow of the PS. I hope we'll see some games that are both great to play on a portable, and make full use of the PSP's abilities.
Although this is kinda mitigated by a couple of good practices I try to stick to:
1) Backup your home folder! It's damn easy to do, and because of the Mac's strong filesystem domains, you're 99% guaranteed to be able to just drag it back to its original location and get all your preferences, data and more right back and working. From experience, getting a fresh OS X install back to 'how I like it', with all my stuff is much less painful than doing the same with Windows.
2) Make a 'sandbox' user. Just create a blank non-admin account on your machine. I've got one (unimaginatively named 'sandbox') which I use for procedures that might be a risk to my home folder. Just drop whatever files are needed into/Users/shared, then fast-user-switch into sandbox. Do whatever needs to be done, and if things work ok, FUS back to your main user and you're set. I use this mainly for cases where I'm tinkering with shell scripts or applescripts. If it goes pear-shaped, just switch back to the main user, delete and re-create the sandbox.
That second hint may well be a little 'too much' for a novice user. However, it's a nice habit to get into, and isn't at all difficult to implement.
But to sum up: your home folder is your life. Everything else can be reinstalled easily. The home folder cannot. Back it up. No, really. Do it. Get a cheap firewire or usb drive and just back the damn thing up already! Incidentally, I think Apple should bundle the.Mac Backup software with all Macs, irrespective of whether or not the user subscribes to.Mac. It's a great little program which could really quickly make a decent backup solution available to the regular Joe (or even Joe's grandmother) user.
I'm a huge fan of.conf files (or, on my home platform of choice -- OS X --.plist) files. Although I appreciate.conf files' readability, sometimes I want to store prefs which are a little more complex. My preferred method is to create 'Prefs' classes in my apps. Depending on requirements, I'll make a UserPrefs class and optionally a SystemPrefs class (for prefs that apply to all users). These are just a bunch of properties to hold each setting. It's nice from a coding point of view because you can put sensible defaults into the prefs class(es)' constructor in case the prefs haven't been saved previously. I then just serialise and de-serialise these classes into and out of an XML file. These get saved into appropriate filesystem locations.
The resultant XML isn't as tidy as that which OS X's Cocoa frameworks produce, but it's still a gazillion times more manageable and flexible than registry entries. I'd like to put together a generic viewer/editor for these xml files (much like OS X's 'Property List Editor'), although they're still plain-text tweakable if you're paying attention.
The registry is an idea whose time has passed. I'd like to see a future MS operating system implement a standardised xml file layout for everything the registry holds, using as many individual files as are appropriate. Turn the legacy Registry API calls into wrappers for the file-based system.
Some models of the Apple PowerMac G5 are indeed liquid-cooled from stock. I've got no evidence, but I imagine that some Alienware PC's may also feature this sort of esoteric cooling.
Not to mention some Cray supercomputers which were, IIRC, literally submersed in some kind of coolant.
It's because of the need in some syntaxes to clearly differentiate between "is equal to" and "becomes set to".
The C family tend to use == as a comparison, and = as assignment. IIRC, Pascal used:= for assignment but kept = for comparison.
Of course, there's plenty of languages which use context to decide what the symbol means... but that only seems to be the case with more 'wordy' languages (VB f'rex).
Languages redefined what &&, *, |, ^, !, and a heap of other stuff meant.:)
I don't want to be alive to see any of the situations you describe. What particularly worries me is the "Glassing over a nation to act as a deterrent".
My boss at work is ex-Army. His solution to all the trouble in the world? Turn Mecca to glass. I guess I just don't buy the idea that you can seriously scare people into submission, once and for all. If we glassed Mecca, for example, we'd stand a very good chance that every single peaceful Islamic community in every western nation would radicalise.
... and it's interesting that so many of the contestants are Welsh. Bless 'em!
I've watched a few hours of the show. I can't say I like it. It's taking the piss out of people's dreams. And it doesn't matter how low your IQ, you're still entitled to dream. The whole thing's designed to make fools out of the participants, and that sort of thing doesn't sit well with me.
Being a bit of a geek, and having hopes for space travel, all I can think of when watching these people is:
"There but the grace of God (and a little cynicism, knowlege and common sense) go I"
I've even heard suggestions that companies do the 'made in XYZ' thing like this purely as a tax break. By performing some work in a specific country, they open access to government grants and tax exemptions and get to slap a 'made in a western country' that seems to appease some consumers.
Not only that (and the following isn't a guess -- it's business common sense), but this is also done to avoid customs duties. You'll have the components manufactured where it's cheap to do so (China, S.E. Asia), then you'll have assembly points strategically placed to serve your markets (US, Mexico, Europe, Africa/Middle-East, Asia, Australasia for example). The customs duties and tax levies on components is much, much lower than finished product. So, you manufacture cheaply and move the components to your assembly plants as required to satisfy each area's demand. Then, you assemble the product and distribute to the area of the world that particular assembly plant serves... paying the least possible duties across borders. It's why NAFTA countries tend to have their kit 'Made In Mexico' (assembled there, but manufactured in Asia). EU nations will probably have 'Made in Czech Republic' or Ireland. Same components from the same factories, transported in volume across the world at the lowest cost, and then 'made' within their customer's trading bloc to avoid customs and taxes.
Thanks! I'd forgotten that Chung did one of the Animatrix shorts. I'll watch them again after work tomorrow... I've only watched the DVD once, and I never get too critical of stuff on the first view. First view's for switching off the hair-splitting analytical bit of brain. Second viewing's for "Ahh... so that's where that bit gets set up..." and the third's for "That bit's a bit weak... but holy crap that next bit's well done!".:)
I've just stuck Dark Fury on my Amazon rental list, so I'll have that to watch too come Tuesday. Then I suppose I'd better sit and watch my Aeon Flux (the series) DVD's. The film's not out here in the UK 'till February.
Sugar here in the UK too. Wow. Screw the War Against Terror... not even using real sugar in your own iconic drink? You guys in the USA have seriously lost your way! (Hey, just kidding!)
Anyway, my Canadian friend... Let me get this straight: you have both 'real' Coke, *and* proper British-style chocolate (Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Kit-Kats, Roses, etc.)? And proper beer too?
I'm rapidly deciding that Canada may well be the single greatest country on this fair planet.
Man... how many commas, subclauses and sentence fragments did I want to use in that post? Somewhere a grammar checker is crying on the shoulder of my English professor. Lucky grammar checker... she was cute.
Anyway, sorry for the appalling sentence structure:)
I get the feeling however that, should the film have attempted to get the point of the original series, it would never have been released.
Sadly, because of the expense of making a film in this style, the studio's are only going to allow something to be made which they can sell. Even some of the bigger studios who're known to take risks (Miramax, for example) probably wouldn't have touched a true-to-the-series Aeon Flux film with a barge pole.
The only ways I can imagine a 'true' Aeon Flux being made is: someone like Canal+, Momentum or similar pick up the rights and make a grittier, less expensive film. If you choose your style carefully, you can mask budgetary restrictions, and often come up with a fantastic film (something like Delicatessen).
Or, Peter Chung takes the characters into full-length anime. That'd be great to see. Or perhaps even some flat-out CGI'd romp... awesome and other-worldly. Sure, it'd never enter blockbuster territory, but a handful of well made, AF animated films, free to indulge in the bizarre world of the original series, could easily become a cult classic.
Sure, I found that, but I was looking for something more like what the BBFC shows on its site
(apologies for the links below -- I had to dig the relevant frames out of the original pages. BBFC say they'll have a redesigned site launching Monday, hopefully frameless!)
The link between NC-17 and X, historical or not, is a bit daft, surely?
To my unAmerican ears, it sounds like: "Any other rating, you're safe. NC-17? Well, that just might be PORNOGRAPHY!"
We've got the 18 cert to say "Make Up Your Own Damn Minds. If you're at least this old, you should be big enough and ugly enough to figure out if the film contains material you'd object to." Or, in their own words, "at '18' the BBFC's guideline concerns will not normally override the wish that adults should be free to chose their own entertainment, within the law."
Our porn (videos from sex shops... your average smut) gets an R18 (R for Restricted). But no film with plot, narrative, etc ends up with an R18. That cert's really only for crappy porn directed by the likes of Phil McCavity and Hugh G. Coque. So no big loss to the cinema-going public:D
Incidentally, does the MPAA have a site like that of the British Board of Film Classification? ((link)). The site gives a nice overview of what each cert denotes, and some nice stats going back to 1912 showing what certs were awarded to what films, and how many cuts were made to films (a reassuringly low number - 97% of films recent films have passed with no cuts at all).
I had to look up what an NC-17 was, since I'm from the UK.
Broadly speaking, it seems similar to our 18 cert. In other words, a level of maturity reasonable for an 18 year old is required to see the film.
So why do cinemas in the US have a problem showing material appropriate for everyone from 18-[dead] year olds? Does this not annoy anyone? The ratings system there seems to have been appropriated to decide what should be seen by adults, not what I'd imagine a ratings system's purpose to be: to highlught material which is perhaps not appropriate for minors
Just seems a little horse-before-cart to me. And more than a little Victorian. What I don't understand is why there isn't outrage over this sort of behaviour? Well, perhaps outrage is too strong a word. A broad assumption seems to be that here in Ye Olde Europe, we all live in nanny-states. But perhaps the nanny'ing pressure groups in the US need to be treated to a little more questioning, and perhaps brought down a peg or two.
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Indeed. Despite holding Apple products generally in high regard (OS X is my current desktop OS), I've often wondered quite what Apple are thinking with their display prices. I think they're gorgeous bits of design, but I can't justify coughing up for one when the cost is simply going towards a neat bit of design around a commodity component (the panel). Especially when that commodity component is the raison d'etre of the whole device (you don't spend 9 hours a day staring at the bevel:))
Having said that, Apple displays are often 'first of a kind'. I believe Apple were the first to use this particular Samsung panel in the consumer market -- albeit with Dell a close second.
A quick bit of OT: I'm looking to get the exact same model as you've got for my machines (a Mac Mini and a homebrew Wintendo PC ('Wintendo' isn't meant to be derogatory -- it's my gaming system and it works like a charm). Hopefully I'll be getting myself a 2005FPW around Christmas-time, along with a DVI-capable KVM. It sounds like you're very pleased with it, which is reassuring! Quick question which I'd appreciate an honest answer to: how's the refresh on it, especially for games? Also, have you had a chance to hook up something like a digital satellite/cable/whatever receiver to it via the S-Video input? Any comments about the quality? (not expecting miracles from S-Video, but is it watchable?).
Looks like a lovely display. Prices have dropped considerably, even over here in the UK. Not to mention that my company's supply agreement with Dell gives me a 7% discount for personal purchases!
Oh, and it's even wider than 16:9... it's 16:10:-)... which leads me to another question -- that thing looks like an absolute monster when rotated to portrait! I've checked that both my Mac Mini and PC can handle rotation, so I'm looking forward to that... have you tried a little web browsing with it in portrait? Is it as cool as I imagine?:-)
Slashdot Mirror
...then write it ;-)
After all, even the prettiest of computers are still just big dumb bit-shifters. Shift that paradigm!
Personally, I think debates like this are what's good about the computing industry and computer science. I don't pretend to have anything but a basic grasp of the concepts here, but it's fantastic to see these arguments.
I don't think it's a sign of immaturity. It's a sign of health. There's no ultimate 'do it this way'. And if someone thinks they've found the One True Path, just go and code it!
Hmm. This seems a bit ass-backwards to me.
Rather than having to ignore the HOSTS file because it may be malicious, shouldn't the solution be to prevent HOSTS from getting mangled in the first place?
(oh, and on an unrelated note: why on earth is the Win32 HOSTS file buried away under C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\? I mean.... 'drivers'?!!? Bizarre.
I bought myself a PSP a few weeks ago. I was attracted by the homebrew scene, and thought it just looked like an interesting piece of kit.
Then, I noticed the problems in the PSP gaming community, and felt a little buyer's remorse. But I think things are looking up.
The PSP was done no favours by the Playstation development community. Games seemed to be ports of PS(not P) games. Porting an existing franchise is a safe bet when a new platform's released. The Nintendo world did better out of this: Nintendo have a legacy of great games targeted at portable play. Developers saw the PSP's pretty damn awesome abilities and gave in to the porting temptation. But not straight ports from regular console games rarely survive 100% intact after the move to a portable. Even if the portable's got all the tech to make it an almost seamless port, many games just don't feel right on a portable. The controls are odd. The 'style' of play feels wrong. _Splinter Cell_ is a great example of this: the original was great, the PSP version's technically gorgeous.... but it's a bastard to play.
I think Playstation development world needed a taste of failure to make them take a step back and actually develop _for_ the PSP. Continuing along the 'Splinter Cell' vein, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror is what SC on the PSP should've been. The 'stealth-combat' genre reworked for the portable format... and it's fantastic. Nintendo already knew how to make great portable games, and the DS has some brilliant titles. Looking at some upcoming PSP games, I'm a bit more happy with my purchase. It's taken a while, but I think the PSP's on its way towards getting out of the shadow of the PS. I hope we'll see some games that are both great to play on a portable, and make full use of the PSP's abilities.
Absolutely.
/Users/shared, then fast-user-switch into sandbox. Do whatever needs to be done, and if things work ok, FUS back to your main user and you're set. I use this mainly for cases where I'm tinkering with shell scripts or applescripts. If it goes pear-shaped, just switch back to the main user, delete and re-create the sandbox.
.Mac Backup software with all Macs, irrespective of whether or not the user subscribes to .Mac. It's a great little program which could really quickly make a decent backup solution available to the regular Joe (or even Joe's grandmother) user.
Although this is kinda mitigated by a couple of good practices I try to stick to:
1) Backup your home folder! It's damn easy to do, and because of the Mac's strong filesystem domains, you're 99% guaranteed to be able to just drag it back to its original location and get all your preferences, data and more right back and working. From experience, getting a fresh OS X install back to 'how I like it', with all my stuff is much less painful than doing the same with Windows.
2) Make a 'sandbox' user. Just create a blank non-admin account on your machine. I've got one (unimaginatively named 'sandbox') which I use for procedures that might be a risk to my home folder. Just drop whatever files are needed into
That second hint may well be a little 'too much' for a novice user. However, it's a nice habit to get into, and isn't at all difficult to implement.
But to sum up: your home folder is your life. Everything else can be reinstalled easily. The home folder cannot. Back it up. No, really. Do it. Get a cheap firewire or usb drive and just back the damn thing up already! Incidentally, I think Apple should bundle the
(I'm a .NET developer .... hey, don't shoot me!)
.conf files (or, on my home platform of choice -- OS X -- .plist) files. Although I appreciate .conf files' readability, sometimes I want to store prefs which are a little more complex. My preferred method is to create 'Prefs' classes in my apps. Depending on requirements, I'll make a UserPrefs class and optionally a SystemPrefs class (for prefs that apply to all users). These are just a bunch of properties to hold each setting. It's nice from a coding point of view because you can put sensible defaults into the prefs class(es)' constructor in case the prefs haven't been saved previously. I then just serialise and de-serialise these classes into and out of an XML file. These get saved into appropriate filesystem locations.
:)
I'm a huge fan of
The resultant XML isn't as tidy as that which OS X's Cocoa frameworks produce, but it's still a gazillion times more manageable and flexible than registry entries. I'd like to put together a generic viewer/editor for these xml files (much like OS X's 'Property List Editor'), although they're still plain-text tweakable if you're paying attention.
The registry is an idea whose time has passed. I'd like to see a future MS operating system implement a standardised xml file layout for everything the registry holds, using as many individual files as are appropriate. Turn the legacy Registry API calls into wrappers for the file-based system.
That'd make things neater, if done right!
Some models of the Apple PowerMac G5 are indeed liquid-cooled from stock. I've got no evidence, but I imagine that some Alienware PC's may also feature this sort of esoteric cooling.
Not to mention some Cray supercomputers which were, IIRC, literally submersed in some kind of coolant.
It's because of the need in some syntaxes to clearly differentiate between "is equal to" and "becomes set to".
:= for assignment but kept = for comparison.
:)
The C family tend to use == as a comparison, and = as assignment. IIRC, Pascal used
Of course, there's plenty of languages which use context to decide what the symbol means... but that only seems to be the case with more 'wordy' languages (VB f'rex).
Languages redefined what &&, *, |, ^, !, and a heap of other stuff meant.
Amen.
I don't want to be alive to see any of the situations you describe. What particularly worries me is the "Glassing over a nation to act as a deterrent".
My boss at work is ex-Army. His solution to all the trouble in the world? Turn Mecca to glass. I guess I just don't buy the idea that you can seriously scare people into submission, once and for all. If we glassed Mecca, for example, we'd stand a very good chance that every single peaceful Islamic community in every western nation would radicalise.
Bye-bye, Civilisation.
Hehe. Yeah, why not. That word tastes better :)
Thanks!
Oops. "There but the grace..." should've read "There but by the grace..."
:)
But ya knew what I meant, didn't you?
... and it's interesting that so many of the contestants are Welsh. Bless 'em!
I've watched a few hours of the show. I can't say I like it. It's taking the piss out of people's dreams. And it doesn't matter how low your IQ, you're still entitled to dream. The whole thing's designed to make fools out of the participants, and that sort of thing doesn't sit well with me.
Being a bit of a geek, and having hopes for space travel, all I can think of when watching these people is:
"There but the grace of God (and a little cynicism, knowlege and common sense) go I"
PowerPC's mainly an IBM-designed and promoted architecture, borne from the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance.
Apple are simply one of IBM and Motorola's (now Freescale) customers.
Not only that (and the following isn't a guess -- it's business common sense), but this is also done to avoid customs duties. You'll have the components manufactured where it's cheap to do so (China, S.E. Asia), then you'll have assembly points strategically placed to serve your markets (US, Mexico, Europe, Africa/Middle-East, Asia, Australasia for example). The customs duties and tax levies on components is much, much lower than finished product. So, you manufacture cheaply and move the components to your assembly plants as required to satisfy each area's demand. Then, you assemble the product and distribute to the area of the world that particular assembly plant serves... paying the least possible duties across borders. It's why NAFTA countries tend to have their kit 'Made In Mexico' (assembled there, but manufactured in Asia). EU nations will probably have 'Made in Czech Republic' or Ireland. Same components from the same factories, transported in volume across the world at the lowest cost, and then 'made' within their customer's trading bloc to avoid customs and taxes.
Thanks! I'd forgotten that Chung did one of the Animatrix shorts. I'll watch them again after work tomorrow... I've only watched the DVD once, and I never get too critical of stuff on the first view. First view's for switching off the hair-splitting analytical bit of brain. Second viewing's for "Ahh... so that's where that bit gets set up..." and the third's for "That bit's a bit weak... but holy crap that next bit's well done!". :)
I've just stuck Dark Fury on my Amazon rental list, so I'll have that to watch too come Tuesday. Then I suppose I'd better sit and watch my Aeon Flux (the series) DVD's. The film's not out here in the UK 'till February.
Chris
Just picked up the bottle next to me...
Sugar here in the UK too. Wow. Screw the War Against Terror... not even using real sugar in your own iconic drink? You guys in the USA have seriously lost your way! (Hey, just kidding!)
Anyway, my Canadian friend... Let me get this straight: you have both 'real' Coke, *and* proper British-style chocolate (Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Kit-Kats, Roses, etc.)? And proper beer too?
I'm rapidly deciding that Canada may well be the single greatest country on this fair planet.
Man... how many commas, subclauses and sentence fragments did I want to use in that post? Somewhere a grammar checker is crying on the shoulder of my English professor. Lucky grammar checker... she was cute.
:)
Anyway, sorry for the appalling sentence structure
I get the feeling however that, should the film have attempted to get the point of the original series, it would never have been released.
Sadly, because of the expense of making a film in this style, the studio's are only going to allow something to be made which they can sell. Even some of the bigger studios who're known to take risks (Miramax, for example) probably wouldn't have touched a true-to-the-series Aeon Flux film with a barge pole.
The only ways I can imagine a 'true' Aeon Flux being made is: someone like Canal+, Momentum or similar pick up the rights and make a grittier, less expensive film. If you choose your style carefully, you can mask budgetary restrictions, and often come up with a fantastic film (something like Delicatessen).
Or, Peter Chung takes the characters into full-length anime. That'd be great to see. Or perhaps even some flat-out CGI'd romp... awesome and other-worldly. Sure, it'd never enter blockbuster territory, but a handful of well made, AF animated films, free to indulge in the bizarre world of the original series, could easily become a cult classic.
*dodges sarcasm* ;-)
Sure, I found that, but I was looking for something more like what the BBFC shows on its site
(apologies for the links below -- I had to dig the relevant frames out of the original pages. BBFC say they'll have a redesigned site launching Monday, hopefully frameless!)
Year-by-year stats - number of works rated, percentage of those cut.
Search Works - by Type, Title, Director, Distributor, Cast and Free Text
...which returns information on the work such as this, instead of just a link to iMDB
Recent Decisions
Mostly, I'd be interested in stats from the MPAA similar to those in the first link.
Cool, thanks for the info.
:D
The link between NC-17 and X, historical or not, is a bit daft, surely?
To my unAmerican ears, it sounds like: "Any other rating, you're safe. NC-17? Well, that just might be PORNOGRAPHY!"
We've got the 18 cert to say "Make Up Your Own Damn Minds. If you're at least this old, you should be big enough and ugly enough to figure out if the film contains material you'd object to." Or, in their own words, "at '18' the BBFC's guideline concerns will not normally override the wish that adults should be free to chose their own entertainment, within the law."
Our porn (videos from sex shops... your average smut) gets an R18 (R for Restricted). But no film with plot, narrative, etc ends up with an R18. That cert's really only for crappy porn directed by the likes of Phil McCavity and Hugh G. Coque. So no big loss to the cinema-going public
Incidentally, does the MPAA have a site like that of the British Board of Film Classification? ((link)). The site gives a nice overview of what each cert denotes, and some nice stats going back to 1912 showing what certs were awarded to what films, and how many cuts were made to films (a reassuringly low number - 97% of films recent films have passed with no cuts at all).
I had to look up what an NC-17 was, since I'm from the UK.
Broadly speaking, it seems similar to our 18 cert. In other words, a level of maturity reasonable for an 18 year old is required to see the film.
So why do cinemas in the US have a problem showing material appropriate for everyone from 18-[dead] year olds? Does this not annoy anyone? The ratings system there seems to have been appropriated to decide what should be seen by adults, not what I'd imagine a ratings system's purpose to be: to highlught material which is perhaps not appropriate for minors
Just seems a little horse-before-cart to me. And more than a little Victorian. What I don't understand is why there isn't outrage over this sort of behaviour? Well, perhaps outrage is too strong a word. A broad assumption seems to be that here in Ye Olde Europe, we all live in nanny-states. But perhaps the nanny'ing pressure groups in the US need to be treated to a little more questioning, and perhaps brought down a peg or two.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
OMWH
Pardon?
another Microsoft insider said, 'Everything. Hosted Office. Everything hosted.'" .... before slumping face-first into his cornflakes?
Sounds like someone needs to lay off the amphetamines for a while...
1) Fun.
Or
2) A Slap.
Indeed. Despite holding Apple products generally in high regard (OS X is my current desktop OS), I've often wondered quite what Apple are thinking with their display prices. I think they're gorgeous bits of design, but I can't justify coughing up for one when the cost is simply going towards a neat bit of design around a commodity component (the panel). Especially when that commodity component is the raison d'etre of the whole device (you don't spend 9 hours a day staring at the bevel :))
:-) ... which leads me to another question -- that thing looks like an absolute monster when rotated to portrait! I've checked that both my Mac Mini and PC can handle rotation, so I'm looking forward to that... have you tried a little web browsing with it in portrait? Is it as cool as I imagine? :-)
/. for my ramblings)
Having said that, Apple displays are often 'first of a kind'. I believe Apple were the first to use this particular Samsung panel in the consumer market -- albeit with Dell a close second.
A quick bit of OT: I'm looking to get the exact same model as you've got for my machines (a Mac Mini and a homebrew Wintendo PC ('Wintendo' isn't meant to be derogatory -- it's my gaming system and it works like a charm). Hopefully I'll be getting myself a 2005FPW around Christmas-time, along with a DVI-capable KVM. It sounds like you're very pleased with it, which is reassuring! Quick question which I'd appreciate an honest answer to: how's the refresh on it, especially for games? Also, have you had a chance to hook up something like a digital satellite/cable/whatever receiver to it via the S-Video input? Any comments about the quality? (not expecting miracles from S-Video, but is it watchable?).
Looks like a lovely display. Prices have dropped considerably, even over here in the UK. Not to mention that my company's supply agreement with Dell gives me a 7% discount for personal purchases!
Oh, and it's even wider than 16:9... it's 16:10
Thanks (and sorry to