I would, but I am afraid it would just be used to pay your apartment's rent or something.
Re:OT: I bet your "realtime" MPEG is nowhere near.
on
Jaguar is Over
·
· Score: 1
For the record, it's possible to get "realtime" MPEG4 encoding that looks good.. but it still won't be artifact-free. That is what they are claiming here.
Just like Jobs claim that AACs sound BETTER than CDs. Less noticeable artifacts maybe - hell, very likely. Artifact free? No way in hell.
Re:Brushed Metal Appearance
on
Jaguar is Over
·
· Score: 1
You are certainly not the only one. The pure tackiness of brushed metal is enough to make me nearly completely avoid trying out OSX. Status symbols that apparently appeal to people with little taste simply do not interest me.
My GF was looking at a Mac laptop recently, and the ugly brushed metal look certainly had a hand in convincing her to not bother with Apple.
His aside very well could have been referring to that - I can't really tell. Since the editor's whole input consisted of 4 words, the context to support either interepretation is kind of missing.:) That is probably deserving of a whole other standard Slashdot complaint, that I will graciously leave to others.
Only kidding, any lesbian readers (hey, there has to be at least one on Slashdot, right?). My GF is practically a lesbian anyway (long story:P), so I know they can look very nice indeed.
Re:Stuff that matters.
on
P4 3.2GHz Reviews
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree, and in fact I have no interest in the latest Intel processor (had some bad experiences with Intel in the past). But I was referring to the editor's little aside. If he didn't find it important, he shouldn't have posted it!
I can think of plenty of "works of art" in which I didn't love every song on it after the first, second, or even tenth listen. Some songs just take longer to 'click' with various people, for all sorts of reasons. Maybe you don't like the music style they are attempting. Maybe you aren't yet familiar with what it is parodying, or what it is an homage of.
The same thing is true of books, art, films. Sometimes parts of a piece of art take a while to appreciate and digest, but if it is surrounded by art you find more approachable (maybe the rest of the film is very funny, or you really like the first few chapters of the book), you will oftentimes give it a fair chance to grow on you.
That is what this potential new singles industry could destroy, and that is what at least the better artists are complaining about. If singles are what sells, this time with no (sometimes very innovative) B sides even, all music essentially becomes pop music.
I wonder how Westwood, Jordan Mechner, Miyamoto and others felt when Blizzard essentially rode the coattails of their pretty innovative game designs that they worked their asses off to make? They certainly didn't sue Blizzard, though.
I do agree the TV series mods and the like are a little ridiculous (of course they will and do get sued), but I still have sympathy to the people who try and do it. When our cultural stories and mythology are mostly created by big corporations, I don't care that copyright laws protect them. Stuff like Star Wars, Aliens, Buffy, DBZ*, Simpsons, etc. etc. Especially considering how much power these companies wield to prevent the 'common people' from creating popular stories, or to steal them when they appear regardless.belong to us too, now. They are our shared culture - these are our stories now too. Culture is beyond Copyright.
*In the case of anime and manga, most Japanese companies/creators actually do understand that the myths belong to the people at least a little, and allow all sorts of fan creations like doushinji. I am not sure how much this extends to things like mods, though. The American licensors of these series certainly don't allow any of this, AFAIK.
Anyone else find it silly that Blizzard, makers of such innovative games as Warcraft I (Dune2 with Orcs), Blackthorne (Prince of Persia with guns), Rock and Roll Racing (Mario Kart with better music), Diablo (Nethack with better graphics), etc. are complaining about someone else copying them?
Yeah yeah, I know this is probably Vivendi's doing more than Blizzard, but it just seemed a little silly to me. Blizzard has made a very good business for itself around essentially updating and modifying other people's games. It would be like if Britney Spears (Madonna with the actual ability to sing) sued some young and upcoming pop slut...
die of old age by the time you're 20 When in human history was this true, except perhaps for segments of the population during the industrial revolution or major world wars? The 'early humans had short lifespans' thing is a hoary cliche - the various given numbers refer to statistical averages. Once you made it past early childhood (which had a higher death rate), you could generally live to the same kind of reasonable old age some people enjoy now. This 'progress thing' you people like to rave about hasn't seemed to improve any general knowledge of statistics, apparently!:P
Living in caves is another interesting incorrect cliche, of course. You realize a lot of your argument was just made up to justify all of this 'progress', right?
And as an aside - evolution (ie optimal adaptation to changing environment) can be considered a form of progress. But the 'progress' you are speaking of can directly counteract it, as people who are not very well adapted to the world still manage to survive and pass on genes because of our tools. Why fight evolution? It has been working for billions of years! Would you prefer to still be swimming in the ocean? The only abomination is stagnation. If you require tools of any sort to live, you should just willingly lie down and wait for death to come!
I was being a bit of an ignorant bastard right there, obviously. Of course, so was you in most of your post. 'Progress' of any kind cannot be feasibly measured by a simple good-bad scale, and people will continue to (very reasonably) fight their damndest to prevent their lifestyle from ending. You can spew your progress religion all you want, but don't act like the rest of us all buy into it!
(sorry no links - just trying to share info, not win an argument or anything)
But his ideas and how he acted definitely stemmed from atheistic sources.
The Nazi party's belief in an Aryan superrace is fundamentally rooted in ancient German religion/mythology (though it certainly was twisted and changed radically - just as Christianity or Islam has been through history). Nazi Germany as well was overwhelmingly Christian. Their whole belief system was rooted in and derived from various religions, predominantly Christian and Germainic in origin. The inner circles of the Nazi party placed a very high importance on (usually secretive) religious ceremonies. Even just the massive nationalism that allowed for this movement is rooted in increasing religious fervor (because of translations of the bible, if my memory serves).
And I am not really sure what "athiestic sources" would be. There really hasn't been many groups of athiests that have affected history. Maybe the Enlightenment, though much of that was just draped in other religions like spiritualism. Maybe the Communists, but Nazi Germany certainly was not using them as an influence. Depending on how you define athiesm, you could argue that some groups are athiestic (like most Buddhists), but you are really using the term to signify nonreligious, right? Religious != not athiestic, because so many religions are athiestic!
Though I suppose you could argue it, the Nazi ideology was, for all intents and purposes, a religion. It was rooted in older religions, it used religious iconography (such as the swatzika), it had a holy book (Mein Kampf, in which Hitler incidentally talks a lot about God for an 'athiest'), it portrayed its struggles in religious terms, etc. You could probably say the same thing about Communist Russia, though there perhaps the ruling party was much less influenced by older religions (not sure - haven't studied it much unfortunately).
Massive genocides, as far as I can tell, are solely committed by religious zealots, or at least are nearly always draped in religion. Stalin might be an exception. But Marx was right - religion is used to control the people. States that want to control their people create a religion, even if they don't call it that. If it looks like a religion, it acts like a religion, it sounds like a religion, it can probably be called a religion.
Perhaps you should change your argument to something like "Christian zealotry is not a requirement for genocide," which is certainlu a true statement. History is filled with religious groups committing forms of genocide, and obstensibly nonreligious groups are a relatively recent historical event. That fact alone really kills your argument.
And Nietzsche, for the record, was not actually much of an influence on the Nazi party. His sister was, though, as well as her forgeries and edited compilations that she assembled and put out under his name. The last thing Nietzsche ever wrote (well before Nazi Germany was around) was: "I am having all of the anti-semites shot." Though they adopted some of his ideas (ubermensch, etc.), the vast majority of his philosophy (which is admittedly not a coherent method to live like many philosophies strive to be) was ignored. He hated all forms of groupthink, for one, fought against the nascent forms of thought that would lead to Nazism, and celebrated individuals above all else - hardly values of the Nazi party.:P
I do agree with your basic point, that nuclear seems to be the way we need to go for the near future (incidentally, I am also a Green, like the parent poster). But I do take issue with this:
Nuclear is safer in the long run than fossil fuels
The problem is, we don't really know this. Sure, we don't really know about the lasting dangers of fossil fuels, either. But one of the problems of nuclear power is that the ramifications can last just so ridiculously long. Sure, it seems like nuclear is safer in the long run, but we have so little data to really support this, and nuclear just requires a lot more data than fossil fuels anyway.
Though nuclear certainly seems like the lesser of all evils in this situation, you have to acknowledge that long term safety is not as sure of a thing as many would imply. And couple that with the myriad deceptions of the companies and people who have promised us various 'best energy sources' in the past... Though I disagree with their conclusion, you have to admit that groups like Greenpeace do have somewhat valid concerns about nuclear because of these things.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but the recording industry doesn't pay nearly as much as ~$13.50 to make CDs - which is the price they are using to determine how many 'free' CDs they are giving schools, libraries, etc.
So maybe we should start another lawsuit on this new case of price-fixing.:P
Your examples don't negate the fact that the employees could have been much worse off without the unions. There is no way to know for sure. In particular, I can't see how a lack of unionization would have prevented most of these jobs from moving overseas - differences in costs of living standards alone are usually a much larger difference than any union financial 'penalties'.
Unions aren't necessarily a silver bullet for everyone involved, but neither is anarcho-capitalism. I certainly know which one would be better for my peers and I, though....
Though I don't think you are lying, the idea of this boggles my mind. Can you give any more details? I just can't even imagine how this would happen, unless your "fucked for life" statement applies only to small areas.
You do know it refers to a shepard's rod, right? Metaphorically understanding it, a shepard would never use it to hit their sheep. Understanding it more literally (make your kids help you with your job) also doesn't refer to any physical abuse.
So, maybe you aren't so much a sadistic bastard as you are an ignorant sadistic bastard.:P You do have plenty of company nowadays, though!
maybe the third Matrix movie will fall flat on its face and fail to deliver
I don't think we have to wait for the third film to see this occur.
Reloaded has dropped roughly 60% in ticket sales during both its second week and again in its third. The original Matrix was making more money during its third week than Reloaded is now. I know ticket sales aren't necessarily an indicator of film quality, but for a film that looked like it was going to smash through at least $400 million in US sales to now look like it will struggle to limp through $300 million... Obviously many viewers didn't think it was worth another viewing (myself included).
And Gaeta doesn't understand what exactly is the problem with the Star Wars prequels - it isn't that they are ignoring the story, it is that there is too much storyline. Think of all of the scenes that could be easily removed from the prequels without having to change the storyline much. Matrix Reloaded has the exact same problem.
Another problem that Matrix will face is that it relies too much on being "cool". Star Wars (original trilogy especially) never really tried to be all that trendy - it was more of a fantasy film. This 'coolness' of the Matrix dates it terribly. Star Wars had at least a decade before many people found it cheesy. Matrix 1 is cheesy right now. And if Gaeta thinks the structure or dialogue of the first film was "good storytelling" - well, he is just an SFX guy I suppose.:P
Words mean different things to different people, all depending on context as well. Terms can be a depressing or negative, and still also be used with pride by the group it refers to (see "fag", "nigger", etc.). And as someone else pointed out, we aren't talking about houses here, either. A subculture can use words how it wants. Don't be a language fascist!
Slashdot Mirror
I would, but I am afraid it would just be used to pay your apartment's rent or something.
For the record, it's possible to get "realtime" MPEG4 encoding that looks good.. but it still won't be artifact-free. That is what they are claiming here.
Just like Jobs claim that AACs sound BETTER than CDs. Less noticeable artifacts maybe - hell, very likely. Artifact free? No way in hell.
You are certainly not the only one. The pure tackiness of brushed metal is enough to make me nearly completely avoid trying out OSX. Status symbols that apparently appeal to people with little taste simply do not interest me.
My GF was looking at a Mac laptop recently, and the ugly brushed metal look certainly had a hand in convincing her to not bother with Apple.
His aside very well could have been referring to that - I can't really tell. Since the editor's whole input consisted of 4 words, the context to support either interepretation is kind of missing. :) That is probably deserving of a whole other standard Slashdot complaint, that I will graciously leave to others.
Nah.
Super USB 2.0 Alpha Ultra Turbo High Speed Mega Special Tournament Edition Plus Plus for Matching Service!
Wow, she really does look like a lesbian!
:P), so I know they can look very nice indeed.
Only kidding, any lesbian readers (hey, there has to be at least one on Slashdot, right?). My GF is practically a lesbian anyway (long story
I agree, and in fact I have no interest in the latest Intel processor (had some bad experiences with Intel in the past). But I was referring to the editor's little aside. If he didn't find it important, he shouldn't have posted it!
Yay. Benchmarks. Wowee-zowee.
If it isn't important, if it doesn't matter, then don't post it.
The only real solution is to search out every unskilled actor and then execute them. :P
I can think of plenty of "works of art" in which I didn't love every song on it after the first, second, or even tenth listen. Some songs just take longer to 'click' with various people, for all sorts of reasons. Maybe you don't like the music style they are attempting. Maybe you aren't yet familiar with what it is parodying, or what it is an homage of.
The same thing is true of books, art, films. Sometimes parts of a piece of art take a while to appreciate and digest, but if it is surrounded by art you find more approachable (maybe the rest of the film is very funny, or you really like the first few chapters of the book), you will oftentimes give it a fair chance to grow on you.
That is what this potential new singles industry could destroy, and that is what at least the better artists are complaining about. If singles are what sells, this time with no (sometimes very innovative) B sides even, all music essentially becomes pop music.
Err, not sure what happened there. Nevermind. Sorry!
Kidding, kidding. :P
I wonder how Westwood, Jordan Mechner, Miyamoto and others felt when Blizzard essentially rode the coattails of their pretty innovative game designs that they worked their asses off to make? They certainly didn't sue Blizzard, though.
I do agree the TV series mods and the like are a little ridiculous (of course they will and do get sued), but I still have sympathy to the people who try and do it. When our cultural stories and mythology are mostly created by big corporations, I don't care that copyright laws protect them. Stuff like Star Wars, Aliens, Buffy, DBZ*, Simpsons, etc. etc. Especially considering how much power these companies wield to prevent the 'common people' from creating popular stories, or to steal them when they appear regardless.belong to us too, now. They are our shared culture - these are our stories now too. Culture is beyond Copyright.
*In the case of anime and manga, most Japanese companies/creators actually do understand that the myths belong to the people at least a little, and allow all sorts of fan creations like doushinji. I am not sure how much this extends to things like mods, though. The American licensors of these series certainly don't allow any of this, AFAIK.
Anyone else find it silly that Blizzard, makers of such innovative games as Warcraft I (Dune2 with Orcs), Blackthorne (Prince of Persia with guns), Rock and Roll Racing (Mario Kart with better music), Diablo (Nethack with better graphics), etc. are complaining about someone else copying them?
Yeah yeah, I know this is probably Vivendi's doing more than Blizzard, but it just seemed a little silly to me. Blizzard has made a very good business for itself around essentially updating and modifying other people's games. It would be like if Britney Spears (Madonna with the actual ability to sing) sued some young and upcoming pop slut...
die of old age by the time you're 20 :P
When in human history was this true, except perhaps for segments of the population during the industrial revolution or major world wars? The 'early humans had short lifespans' thing is a hoary cliche - the various given numbers refer to statistical averages. Once you made it past early childhood (which had a higher death rate), you could generally live to the same kind of reasonable old age some people enjoy now. This 'progress thing' you people like to rave about hasn't seemed to improve any general knowledge of statistics, apparently!
Living in caves is another interesting incorrect cliche, of course. You realize a lot of your argument was just made up to justify all of this 'progress', right?
And as an aside - evolution (ie optimal adaptation to changing environment) can be considered a form of progress. But the 'progress' you are speaking of can directly counteract it, as people who are not very well adapted to the world still manage to survive and pass on genes because of our tools. Why fight evolution? It has been working for billions of years! Would you prefer to still be swimming in the ocean? The only abomination is stagnation. If you require tools of any sort to live, you should just willingly lie down and wait for death to come!
I was being a bit of an ignorant bastard right there, obviously. Of course, so was you in most of your post. 'Progress' of any kind cannot be feasibly measured by a simple good-bad scale, and people will continue to (very reasonably) fight their damndest to prevent their lifestyle from ending. You can spew your progress religion all you want, but don't act like the rest of us all buy into it!
(sorry no links - just trying to share info, not win an argument or anything)
:P
But his ideas and how he acted definitely stemmed from atheistic sources.
The Nazi party's belief in an Aryan superrace is fundamentally rooted in ancient German religion/mythology (though it certainly was twisted and changed radically - just as Christianity or Islam has been through history). Nazi Germany as well was overwhelmingly Christian. Their whole belief system was rooted in and derived from various religions, predominantly Christian and Germainic in origin. The inner circles of the Nazi party placed a very high importance on (usually secretive) religious ceremonies. Even just the massive nationalism that allowed for this movement is rooted in increasing religious fervor (because of translations of the bible, if my memory serves).
And I am not really sure what "athiestic sources" would be. There really hasn't been many groups of athiests that have affected history. Maybe the Enlightenment, though much of that was just draped in other religions like spiritualism. Maybe the Communists, but Nazi Germany certainly was not using them as an influence. Depending on how you define athiesm, you could argue that some groups are athiestic (like most Buddhists), but you are really using the term to signify nonreligious, right? Religious != not athiestic, because so many religions are athiestic!
Though I suppose you could argue it, the Nazi ideology was, for all intents and purposes, a religion. It was rooted in older religions, it used religious iconography (such as the swatzika), it had a holy book (Mein Kampf, in which Hitler incidentally talks a lot about God for an 'athiest'), it portrayed its struggles in religious terms, etc. You could probably say the same thing about Communist Russia, though there perhaps the ruling party was much less influenced by older religions (not sure - haven't studied it much unfortunately).
Massive genocides, as far as I can tell, are solely committed by religious zealots, or at least are nearly always draped in religion. Stalin might be an exception. But Marx was right - religion is used to control the people. States that want to control their people create a religion, even if they don't call it that. If it looks like a religion, it acts like a religion, it sounds like a religion, it can probably be called a religion.
Perhaps you should change your argument to something like "Christian zealotry is not a requirement for genocide," which is certainlu a true statement. History is filled with religious groups committing forms of genocide, and obstensibly nonreligious groups are a relatively recent historical event. That fact alone really kills your argument.
And Nietzsche, for the record, was not actually much of an influence on the Nazi party. His sister was, though, as well as her forgeries and edited compilations that she assembled and put out under his name. The last thing Nietzsche ever wrote (well before Nazi Germany was around) was: "I am having all of the anti-semites shot." Though they adopted some of his ideas (ubermensch, etc.), the vast majority of his philosophy (which is admittedly not a coherent method to live like many philosophies strive to be) was ignored. He hated all forms of groupthink, for one, fought against the nascent forms of thought that would lead to Nazism, and celebrated individuals above all else - hardly values of the Nazi party.
Sheesh, another enviro-terrorist.
:P
More like sheesh, another humorless person with too high blood pressure.
I do agree with your basic point, that nuclear seems to be the way we need to go for the near future (incidentally, I am also a Green, like the parent poster). But I do take issue with this:
Nuclear is safer in the long run than fossil fuels
The problem is, we don't really know this. Sure, we don't really know about the lasting dangers of fossil fuels, either. But one of the problems of nuclear power is that the ramifications can last just so ridiculously long. Sure, it seems like nuclear is safer in the long run, but we have so little data to really support this, and nuclear just requires a lot more data than fossil fuels anyway.
Though nuclear certainly seems like the lesser of all evils in this situation, you have to acknowledge that long term safety is not as sure of a thing as many would imply. And couple that with the myriad deceptions of the companies and people who have promised us various 'best energy sources' in the past... Though I disagree with their conclusion, you have to admit that groups like Greenpeace do have somewhat valid concerns about nuclear because of these things.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but the recording industry doesn't pay nearly as much as ~$13.50 to make CDs - which is the price they are using to determine how many 'free' CDs they are giving schools, libraries, etc.
:P
So maybe we should start another lawsuit on this new case of price-fixing.
Your examples don't negate the fact that the employees could have been much worse off without the unions. There is no way to know for sure. In particular, I can't see how a lack of unionization would have prevented most of these jobs from moving overseas - differences in costs of living standards alone are usually a much larger difference than any union financial 'penalties'.
Unions aren't necessarily a silver bullet for everyone involved, but neither is anarcho-capitalism. I certainly know which one would be better for my peers and I, though....
Though I don't think you are lying, the idea of this boggles my mind. Can you give any more details? I just can't even imagine how this would happen, unless your "fucked for life" statement applies only to small areas.
(spare the rod and spoil the child and all)
:P You do have plenty of company nowadays, though!
You do know it refers to a shepard's rod, right? Metaphorically understanding it, a shepard would never use it to hit their sheep. Understanding it more literally (make your kids help you with your job) also doesn't refer to any physical abuse.
So, maybe you aren't so much a sadistic bastard as you are an ignorant sadistic bastard.
maybe the third Matrix movie will fall flat on its face and fail to deliver
:P
I don't think we have to wait for the third film to see this occur.
Reloaded has dropped roughly 60% in ticket sales during both its second week and again in its third. The original Matrix was making more money during its third week than Reloaded is now. I know ticket sales aren't necessarily an indicator of film quality, but for a film that looked like it was going to smash through at least $400 million in US sales to now look like it will struggle to limp through $300 million... Obviously many viewers didn't think it was worth another viewing (myself included).
And Gaeta doesn't understand what exactly is the problem with the Star Wars prequels - it isn't that they are ignoring the story, it is that there is too much storyline. Think of all of the scenes that could be easily removed from the prequels without having to change the storyline much. Matrix Reloaded has the exact same problem.
Another problem that Matrix will face is that it relies too much on being "cool". Star Wars (original trilogy especially) never really tried to be all that trendy - it was more of a fantasy film. This 'coolness' of the Matrix dates it terribly. Star Wars had at least a decade before many people found it cheesy. Matrix 1 is cheesy right now. And if Gaeta thinks the structure or dialogue of the first film was "good storytelling" - well, he is just an SFX guy I suppose.
Anyone?
Words mean different things to different people, all depending on context as well. Terms can be a depressing or negative, and still also be used with pride by the group it refers to (see "fag", "nigger", etc.). And as someone else pointed out, we aren't talking about houses here, either. A subculture can use words how it wants. Don't be a language fascist!
Huh? Couldn't you just use a digital output to digital input? That would be fully digital, wouldn't it?