You do understand that you've been able to adjust the gamma correction (and other video settings) in Windows and in Linux for a long time now. (though your mileage may vary depending on your video card and drivers.)
Oh yes- absolutely - however, my point isstraight out of the box both then and now, Windoze boxes look(ed) ugly and grim - and back in the day, video cards were such a weird crap shoot that adjusting the gamma (if and when possible) was often quite the nightmare experience.
I use Apple computers and I have a presently non-functioning SUSE Linux box that I am nursing back into health (drive crash, then a video card failure - it used to be a RadioShack Compaq running WinME, so it'll be a while before it's working up to snuff...)
Why do I avoid MS?
Because I never had to submit to the Borg in the first place. My background is in graphic design and type design, and all the cool stuff in that little world was on the Mac OS, so I never had to get a Windows Machine. I *did* have to aquaint myself to the Borg Mind that is Windows, and when I was doing technical support in the late 1990s, I had to get *really* good at it (win3.1, 95, 98, NT). Everytime I found myself in the depths of the living pit of despair and mediocrity that is Windows, my love for that which is not MS only grew.
I still think the MacOS, specifically OSX, is superior to Linux, but I am also fairly well convinced that Linux OSs will be of comparable quality and ease of use in less than 5 years. Once the apps on Linux get GUIs worth using and looking at (which I also believe will be in the next 5 years), then Apple will have an interesting dilemma, but not half as interesting as what MS will face in the next few years in trying to get the travesty that is Longhorn out the door.
At first, I detested Windows because of its instability. Look at it sideways and the BSOD would come visit. Woof. MacOS v7 - 9 wasn't any prize for stability, but it did improve over time, and would often fail in a less spectacular way. Linux has always (to me) been more stable than either, except for OSX.
Another thing I dislike about Windows is its gamma. Looking into a windows machine is a dim and dingy thing compared to Apple. (I wish Linux were brighter as well...) And the OS has always been cumbersome, ugly and just plain nasty. Remember IRQs? What a load that was - just to hook up a freaking scanner or install a CD drive was often a nightmare in Windows.
So, let's see- it was ugly (still is, IMHO), unstable, unfriendly, and owned by a rapacious monopolistic enterprise run by an autistic geek and Monkey Boy. It's an insecure system in continuous need of updating, it's the source of continuous viruses and worms because of the Swiss Cheese nature of the OS and VB.
What exactly is there to BRING me to Windows? So I can trade.doc files with every other office drone?
So: that's why I don't use Windows. It's Just Not Worth The Hassle.
The Nazi Hell Creatures burned "decadent" art, i.e., art that didn't cowtow to the Reichsparty line.
Now Ashcroft's thugs just bust in, take all the gear (note: NONE of his art supplies have been returned, even though the place was declared "not a hazard") and then vow to prosecute.
Next thing, Widower Kurtz will be breakin' rock till Kingdom Comes in Gitmo.
Face it, folks, it's fascism. Pure and simple. A new kind of fascism, a marginally democratic, largely free market, and prozac addled, but still - it's the steel toed boot of authority stomping on the face of humanity. Again. And Again. And Again.
1. work for a real company - not some psycho-start up run by a bunch of childless 20 nothings wired up on Red Bull. Sure - the start up might have a big pay out at the end of the day, but then... it might not. And you only get ONE chance to be involved with your kid's early childhood.
2. Telecommute. My wife works for HP, and she hasn't been to the office in...ummmm... two months? She works her butt off, but she's home, and so it makes things a lot easier to juggle. I work at home as well (she took over half the "dining room" and I built a small room off the garage for my video editing / sound design / graphic design biz) so even though we're both home, we're not in each other's face all the time, and either or both of us can care for the Wee Child when she's not in school.
3. Get the kid into a Really Good Pre-K. This is important for a number of reasons - he or she will have lots of friends, will learn to read faster, and have better social skills. Oh- and you can get lots of work done from your home office without a 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 year old destroying things.
This is ALL true, and I speak from experience.
by the by: congrats on reproducing, and I welcome your child to this little green planet of clocks.
Now: do the sensible thing and get your yarbles snipped before you do it again. The world needs fewer people, not more. And a gradual reduction in population is what is indicated.
I agree. FreeHand has many advantages over Illustrator - a big one is MULTIPLE PAGES (duh!). However, it's largely moot, as it seems to me that Macromedia has pretty much scuttled FreeHand development.
This leads me to the same quesiton: why doesn't Adobe roll Illustrator into Photoshop? It wouldn't be *that* hard.
And that leads me to the same conclusion: there's no point in cannibalising one app for another. It's why Illustrator never had multiple pages - it would have hurt the Pagemaker (now InDesign) product slot.
What will always prevent GIMP and Inkscape and other apps from really making inroads on Adobe, is the same reason FH never beat Adobe, even though for many years it was clearly the better product. That reason is EDUCATION. People use what they learn on. Hundreds of (so-called) Art Schools are churning out thousands of "Graphic Design Professionals". what software do they know and trust?
Adobe.
Why? because it's what they learned on.
Why? Because Adobe has pursued an extremely aggressive loss leader campaign in getting their creative apps locked into art schools. In fact, the evil Evil EVIL "Art Institute International" (a multinational for profit conglomerate that has dozens of "Art" schools all over the world) is Adobe's single largest sales client, with many thousands of seat licenses. Schools like AI spew these kids out by the squillions onto the art job market and what do they know? Adobe.
So when they do get a job, they use Adobe products, and these products are ordered by colleagues and bosses who also *learned on Adobe.* It becomes self perpetuating, much the same way Microsoft has dominated the Office productivity market.
Because of this, Inkscape might be useful by the time it's 1.x, but it's NEVER going to be an Illustrator killer.
Illustrator's UI shares many similarities with Photoshop and InDesign and After Effects and Premiere (IIRC- it's called the Adobe Workflow or Standard UI or something like that) and this UI design has been refined for many years, and successfully prosecuted (for instance, they won a case against Macromedia Freehand for having a tabbed Inspector several years ago) both legally and in the market.
I don't see GIMP getting a decent UI anytime in the near future, or even distant future for that matter - the thing is a mess- and I don't see Inkscape integrating their workflow into the GIMP's inconsistent trainwreck of a UI. So, right there out of the gate, AI and PS have a critical advantage.
Oddly, I don't see this as much of a problem for GIMP or Inkscape - they will remain bit players in the greater scheme of things (IIRC, the really hard and important stuff, like CMYK management, is so over patented, I don't see how either GIMP or Inkscape will be able to work around it), where Adobe's strategy of a unified UI is goingto be very destructive is to the likes of Apple Computer.
How? Like so:
Adobe is no longer developing Premiere for MacOS. their DVD software has never been developed for Mac OS. Their Audio software is Windows only. The only thing in their video development line that is still on MacOS is After Effects. So, now to use the Adobe Video suite, you have to be on Windows. People use what they learn, and they will be learning on Windows, as schools like AII et al cowtow to their software source, Adobe. so they get the Adobe Video suite, and start churning out jillions of junior league video editors / DVD developers / etc. they all use Adobe, and they all use Windows.
supports bad people who do bad things to us?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
have lame taste in pop music?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
Have weapons of Mass Destruction?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
has murdered many thousands, if not millions of its citizens?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
corrupt to the core?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
is opposed to free speech?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
has hundreds of nuclear weapons pointed at us?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
is an economic threat to our working classes?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
Is an up and coming superstate, to rival US (Oceania) and the EU (Eurasia)?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
has the world's second largest oil reserves?
No - - - - - - - - Yes
So, let's see: why didn't we invade China to liberate THEM from their evil gummint? Oh- that's right: the Chinese have nukes... So we'll invade Iraq on the pretext of it having WMD.
You think this is bull? Read THIS: it's intense and amazing. Iraq is just a side show. China's the main course, and don't forget it. They are the only thing standing in the way of Eurasia and Oceania. Eurasia will get Oceania to blow its military power on side shows, and founder on the rocks of China. This will leave China spent, the USA a leftover empire in a death spiral, and an Expanded (Russia Inclusive) and ascendent Eurasia, spanning from Portugal to Alaska.
No matter what, Europe wins, as long as the USA insists on a unipolar geopolitic. IF we agree to a multipolar system (like what Clinton was trying to wedge us into) then we can use the down time to develop ourselves and surpass both EastAsia and Eurasia, without having recourse to sideshows like Iraq.
in a comedy sketch they did back in the late 1990s- they discussed the invention of the "Steam Powered Internet". However, IIRC, it was invented, Thursday, 1923.
"It's a power so great is can ONLY be used for GOOD...
This is one of my most fave films, and I will be collecting the DVD as soon as I can get the scratch together.
Frankly, I thought the pacing was fine. I like films that are not typical slapdash hollywood speed flicks. I prefer films that are slower and more elegant. I am convinced that THX1138 is one of Lucas's best films.
People who whinge about the pacing are just typical speed junkies - everything has to match their hamster sized attention spans and monkey brained prurience - very similar to the sadistic crap THX watches on TV in the movie.
I see THX1138 as prophetic: a puritanical (NO SEX!!!) consumerist capitalist totalitarian technological nightmare - all the tendencies we see about us today, only amplified in the worst possible way. And the surface of the earth? A beautiful wasteland.
THX1138 is magnificent. My only complaint is the audio is kind of noisy, and the voices weren't mixed well, and it all sounds kind of "canned". Murch is normally a genius, but this was not his best effort. My guess is the budget didn't permit anything better.
this is EXACTLY the kind of document The Memory Hole should have.
someone should get it over to them ASAP, before it disappears.
This is all very distressing. These fascists must be stopped. I wonder when they'll have our Kristalnacht or when will these neocons burn down the Capitol Building. These are dark days we are living in.
It said "We're not compatible" and suggested that I upgrade my IE5 to one of several:
Mozilla (for mac)
netscape (for mac)
firefox (for mac)
And in each case, NONE of them are available for OS9. So, if you're running OS9, you're screwed. On this machine (my internet/email / web machine) I use OS9 because:
no one bothers to write viruses for it
it runs on my G3 350, and OSx is a PIG on this machine, and being one of the unemployed, I can't afford a new machine for email etc.
So, I'M SCREWED and so is anyone else runnign OS9.
Science is figuring out how the universe works, not how swiftly we can slaughter each other like so many cattle.
Another example of
"Ummm... we got a grant for it, and it beats flippin burgers. Living in Oceania has fewer options than it did a few years back. So I sold my soul to the neocons and now I make stupid weapons that are not going to stop some idiot trained in martial arts armed with a plastic knife on an airplane. I'm just part of the problem, but it pays my mortgage."
He's accurate and on target. the AOLTW disaster is bad, but the horror Carly has visited upon HP is also going to be book-worthy.
After Carly's idiotic invasion of Compaq, long term employees at HP LOST a week's vacation. Then she set the pay curves to match Compaq's saving the company millions (true) but basically condemning thousands of employees to work at HP for the rest of their days with little hope of ever getting another raise. In the meantime, Carly stuffs her greedy pockets with millions in cash.
No- the parent is not a troll, and I urge someone with points to give it a 5 / insightful, because the book on Carly has yet to be written, and it will prove that she, like Case, is just a big fat loser.
Oh, no no no - if Hollywood was located in Atlanta, I'd want to see Atlanta vapourised, and I'd be singing the praises of your fine Southern California metropolis.
Of course, if it hit Atlanta, (and given it's roughly the same distance from both of us) the results for us in CA would be:
A massive earthquake (but we're used to those, right?) and then 23 minutes later, tiny bits of grit ripping us to pieces as they fly through the air at supersonic speed. But at least the air blast would only be 22 mph.
See? Except for the supersonic sand blasting, not so bad, dontcha think?
And you're here with me in San Francisco, this is what would happen, according to the impact calculator:
Thermal Radiation:
Time for maximum radiation:
3.29 seconds after impact
Visible fireball radius:
8.4 km = 5.2 miles
The fireball appears 2.4 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure:
1.19 x 105 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation:
77 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun):
1.5
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 161.0 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 9.1 (This is greater than any shaking in recorded history)
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 805 km: IV. Hanging objects swing. Vibration like passing of heavy trucks; or sensation of a jolt like a heavy ball striking the walls. Standing motor cars rock. Windows, dishes, doors rattle. Glasses clink. Crockery clashes. In the upper range of IV wooden walls and frame creak.
V. Felt outdoors; direction estimated. Sleepers wakened. Liquids disturbed, some spilled. Small unstable objects displaced or upset. Doors swing, close, open. Shutters, pictures move. Pendulum clocks stop, start, change rate.
Ejecta:
The ejecta will arrive approximately 436.0 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness:
2.7 cm = 1.04 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter:
1.4 mm = 0.0561 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 2683.3 seconds.
Peak Overpressure:
39729.6 Pa = 0.3973 bars = 5.6416 psi
Max wind velocity:
73.5 m/s = 164.5 mph
Sound Intensity:
92 dB (May cause ear pain)
Damage Description:
Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse. Glass windows will shatter. Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.
So: In a nut shell:
the asteroid smacks LA. A great cheer is heard round the world - that idoitic show Friends is finally off the air, and now nature is here to make sure it never sees re-runs. A fitting punishment, much like that space byport problem meted out for Really Bad Poetry. So, all in all, the erasure of Los Angeles isn't such a bad thing, in the greater scheme of things - no more Meg Ryan movies, Bruce and Demi vapourised - aaaah - not so bad at all!
The problem is:
on the horizon would be a largish fireball, and things here in SF would get really warm for about a minute or two. Then 2 minutes and 41 seconds later, an earthquake hits, the likes of which makes 1906 look like a joyride. Then about 5 and a half minutes later gravel comes flying out of the sky at supersonic speed. Then about 45 minutes later the wind hits at 165 miles per hour, pretty much scouring the bay area of anything left alive.
So, while it would completely wipe LA off the map (YAY!!!) and leave a crater 35 miles wide ( |{3vv|_ !!! ) it will first lightly toast (boo!) then pulverise with hypersonic gravel (EEEK!!) then shake to pieces (Bad. Reeeally Bad) and then blow away (Suckage!) the Bay Area.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the Bay Area to find a way to stop such a rock from hitting the earth, because, as we all know, such disasters only hit two cities: Tokyo and LA. And given that Tokyo is being continuously reduced to rubble by those giant lizards, Moths and Turtles, it's the rocks we have to watch out for.
When the impoverished starving unemployed millions march on the neighborhoods of the rich bastards who destroyed their lives, which method of assasination would they prefer?
Random gunfire (like they did to the miners in Colorado a hundred years ago?)
Or being beaten to death with a bat (like the poor sap in Italy a few years back or Luxembourg back in 1919?)
The ruling classes in the American Empire are so caught up in their own mythology and enamoured of the power of their weapons, that they don't quite understand that revolutions DO occur, and the results are often unpleasant.
I don't care about possible worlds or impossible worlds - it doesn't matter.
Any evidence you have for another world must be present in this world. Therefore, there is only this world. There is no other world. Possibility has nothing to do with it.
The article talks about Platonism and other worlds, and gives it a possible "Perhaps". This is utter rubbish, of course, as ANY POSSIBLE evidence for "another world" must exist in THIS world. Therefore, there is no other world. There is only this one.
Yeah- we're really sophisticated. When we have to deal with someone we don't like we don't throw feces at him. Noooo- we PUT A BULLET IN HIS HEAD. And then we dump napalm all over his relatives, and burn their cities down, or drop atomic bombs on them.
We would NEVER throw poop at someone - WE'RE CIVILISED!!!
The family's back from long ago
The voices burnt, the voices gold
Vapour trails go by
Voices on the lines
Nothing to come back to can't we fade?
Someone's gone liquid in the sheets
A sudden smell of burning leaves
The old streets overgrown
Somewhere else to go
It's just another switchback can't we fade?
Speaking of people named Moron, go to Switchboard and do a search on different words for last name.
LOTS of freaks in this world, and hundreds of people named Moron.
No kiddin'. Check it out. Hours of fun.
RS
Re:Great examples as to why they SHOULD NOT use CS
on
CSS for the LDP?
·
· Score: 1
Oh, I completely agree- IE is a roiling POS, but that doens't mean that it isn't a useful browser, and given the stranglehold the Redmond bastards have, it is also a DOMINATING browser (unfortunately).
Therefore, even though it sucks, it has to be reckoned with and worked around.
Safari is also a very good browser, but one of the pages came up all crap in that as well.
My point remains: Never do something complicated, when something simple will do.
Also, here's an example as to why this would matter:
My G3 has IE5. Navigator SUCKS on this machine (I've tried - several times), so I use IE on it. I'm trying to coax Linux along on a *true* POS (A Compaq Presario - one of the Radio Shack specials from a few years ago - I'm not adverse to all challenges...) and frankly, the Linux install isn't going well. I must often resort to cruising the web on my G3 in IE.
So, I go to a website to get info on Linux, and it blows up in my browser, preventing me from getting the Linux box working?
We. Don't. Think. So.
Yet another reason to Not Even Bother. (But yea - I shall trudge on, even as the cards are stacked agin' me.)
So, no, I'm not flaming him at all, I'm simply using the most common browser on the most common non-Linux, non-MS OS.
Slashdot Mirror
You do understand that you've been able to adjust the gamma correction (and other video settings) in Windows and in Linux for a long time now. (though your mileage may vary depending on your video card and drivers.)
Oh yes- absolutely - however, my point isstraight out of the box both then and now, Windoze boxes look(ed) ugly and grim - and back in the day, video cards were such a weird crap shoot that adjusting the gamma (if and when possible) was often quite the nightmare experience.
HW
Why do I avoid MS?
Because I never had to submit to the Borg in the first place. My background is in graphic design and type design, and all the cool stuff in that little world was on the Mac OS, so I never had to get a Windows Machine. I *did* have to aquaint myself to the Borg Mind that is Windows, and when I was doing technical support in the late 1990s, I had to get *really* good at it (win3.1, 95, 98, NT). Everytime I found myself in the depths of the living pit of despair and mediocrity that is Windows, my love for that which is not MS only grew.
I still think the MacOS, specifically OSX, is superior to Linux, but I am also fairly well convinced that Linux OSs will be of comparable quality and ease of use in less than 5 years. Once the apps on Linux get GUIs worth using and looking at (which I also believe will be in the next 5 years), then Apple will have an interesting dilemma, but not half as interesting as what MS will face in the next few years in trying to get the travesty that is Longhorn out the door.
At first, I detested Windows because of its instability. Look at it sideways and the BSOD would come visit. Woof. MacOS v7 - 9 wasn't any prize for stability, but it did improve over time, and would often fail in a less spectacular way. Linux has always (to me) been more stable than either, except for OSX.
Another thing I dislike about Windows is its gamma. Looking into a windows machine is a dim and dingy thing compared to Apple. (I wish Linux were brighter as well...) And the OS has always been cumbersome, ugly and just plain nasty. Remember IRQs? What a load that was - just to hook up a freaking scanner or install a CD drive was often a nightmare in Windows.
So, let's see- it was ugly (still is, IMHO), unstable, unfriendly, and owned by a rapacious monopolistic enterprise run by an autistic geek and Monkey Boy. It's an insecure system in continuous need of updating, it's the source of continuous viruses and worms because of the Swiss Cheese nature of the OS and VB.
What exactly is there to BRING me to Windows? So I can trade .doc files with every other office drone?
So: that's why I don't use Windows. It's Just Not Worth The Hassle.
HW
Now Ashcroft's thugs just bust in, take all the gear (note: NONE of his art supplies have been returned, even though the place was declared "not a hazard") and then vow to prosecute.
Next thing, Widower Kurtz will be breakin' rock till Kingdom Comes in Gitmo.
Face it, folks, it's fascism. Pure and simple. A new kind of fascism, a marginally democratic, largely free market, and prozac addled, but still - it's the steel toed boot of authority stomping on the face of humanity. Again. And Again. And Again.
We have always been at war with EastAsia.
RS
2. Telecommute. My wife works for HP, and she hasn't been to the office in...ummmm... two months? She works her butt off, but she's home, and so it makes things a lot easier to juggle. I work at home as well (she took over half the "dining room" and I built a small room off the garage for my video editing / sound design / graphic design biz) so even though we're both home, we're not in each other's face all the time, and either or both of us can care for the Wee Child when she's not in school.
3. Get the kid into a Really Good Pre-K. This is important for a number of reasons - he or she will have lots of friends, will learn to read faster, and have better social skills. Oh- and you can get lots of work done from your home office without a 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 year old destroying things.
This is ALL true, and I speak from experience.
by the by: congrats on reproducing, and I welcome your child to this little green planet of clocks.
Now: do the sensible thing and get your yarbles snipped before you do it again. The world needs fewer people, not more. And a gradual reduction in population is what is indicated.
best,
RS
This leads me to the same quesiton: why doesn't Adobe roll Illustrator into Photoshop? It wouldn't be *that* hard.
And that leads me to the same conclusion: there's no point in cannibalising one app for another. It's why Illustrator never had multiple pages - it would have hurt the Pagemaker (now InDesign) product slot.
What will always prevent GIMP and Inkscape and other apps from really making inroads on Adobe, is the same reason FH never beat Adobe, even though for many years it was clearly the better product. That reason is EDUCATION. People use what they learn on. Hundreds of (so-called) Art Schools are churning out thousands of "Graphic Design Professionals". what software do they know and trust?
Adobe.
Why? because it's what they learned on.
Why? Because Adobe has pursued an extremely aggressive loss leader campaign in getting their creative apps locked into art schools. In fact, the evil Evil EVIL "Art Institute International" (a multinational for profit conglomerate that has dozens of "Art" schools all over the world) is Adobe's single largest sales client, with many thousands of seat licenses. Schools like AI spew these kids out by the squillions onto the art job market and what do they know? Adobe.
So when they do get a job, they use Adobe products, and these products are ordered by colleagues and bosses who also *learned on Adobe.* It becomes self perpetuating, much the same way Microsoft has dominated the Office productivity market.
Because of this, Inkscape might be useful by the time it's 1.x, but it's NEVER going to be an Illustrator killer.
Illustrator's UI shares many similarities with Photoshop and InDesign and After Effects and Premiere (IIRC- it's called the Adobe Workflow or Standard UI or something like that) and this UI design has been refined for many years, and successfully prosecuted (for instance, they won a case against Macromedia Freehand for having a tabbed Inspector several years ago) both legally and in the market.
I don't see GIMP getting a decent UI anytime in the near future, or even distant future for that matter - the thing is a mess- and I don't see Inkscape integrating their workflow into the GIMP's inconsistent trainwreck of a UI. So, right there out of the gate, AI and PS have a critical advantage.
Oddly, I don't see this as much of a problem for GIMP or Inkscape - they will remain bit players in the greater scheme of things (IIRC, the really hard and important stuff, like CMYK management, is so over patented, I don't see how either GIMP or Inkscape will be able to work around it), where Adobe's strategy of a unified UI is goingto be very destructive is to the likes of Apple Computer.
How? Like so:
Adobe is no longer developing Premiere for MacOS. their DVD software has never been developed for Mac OS. Their Audio software is Windows only. The only thing in their video development line that is still on MacOS is After Effects. So, now to use the Adobe Video suite, you have to be on Windows. People use what they learn, and they will be learning on Windows, as schools like AII et al cowtow to their software source, Adobe. so they get the Adobe Video suite, and start churning out jillions of junior league video editors / DVD developers / etc. they all use Adobe, and they all use Windows.
It's a sad sad world.
RS
As of 2002:
CHINA - - - - - -IRAQ
===================
authoritarian gummint?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
invades its neighbours?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
supports bad people who do bad things to us?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
have lame taste in pop music?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
Have weapons of Mass Destruction?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
has murdered many thousands, if not millions of its citizens?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
corrupt to the core?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
is opposed to free speech?
Yes - - - - - - - - Yes
has hundreds of nuclear weapons pointed at us?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
is an economic threat to our working classes?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
Is an up and coming superstate, to rival US (Oceania) and the EU (Eurasia)?
Yes - - - - - - - - No
has the world's second largest oil reserves?
No - - - - - - - - Yes
So, let's see: why didn't we invade China to liberate THEM from their evil gummint? Oh- that's right: the Chinese have nukes... So we'll invade Iraq on the pretext of it having WMD.
You think this is bull? Read THIS: it's intense and amazing. Iraq is just a side show. China's the main course, and don't forget it. They are the only thing standing in the way of Eurasia and Oceania. Eurasia will get Oceania to blow its military power on side shows, and founder on the rocks of China. This will leave China spent, the USA a leftover empire in a death spiral, and an Expanded (Russia Inclusive) and ascendent Eurasia, spanning from Portugal to Alaska.
No matter what, Europe wins, as long as the USA insists on a unipolar geopolitic. IF we agree to a multipolar system (like what Clinton was trying to wedge us into) then we can use the down time to develop ourselves and surpass both EastAsia and Eurasia, without having recourse to sideshows like Iraq.
The Great OZ has spoken.
RS
"It's a power so great is can ONLY be used for GOOD...
RS
FYI- I'm on a mac. The only one that worked was the mpg. The wma files came up in WMP with the sound (which was impressive) but no visuals. RS
Frankly, I thought the pacing was fine. I like films that are not typical slapdash hollywood speed flicks. I prefer films that are slower and more elegant. I am convinced that THX1138 is one of Lucas's best films.
People who whinge about the pacing are just typical speed junkies - everything has to match their hamster sized attention spans and monkey brained prurience - very similar to the sadistic crap THX watches on TV in the movie.
I see THX1138 as prophetic: a puritanical (NO SEX!!!) consumerist capitalist totalitarian technological nightmare - all the tendencies we see about us today, only amplified in the worst possible way. And the surface of the earth? A beautiful wasteland.
THX1138 is magnificent. My only complaint is the audio is kind of noisy, and the voices weren't mixed well, and it all sounds kind of "canned". Murch is normally a genius, but this was not his best effort. My guess is the budget didn't permit anything better.
RS
someone should get it over to them ASAP, before it disappears.
This is all very distressing. These fascists must be stopped. I wonder when they'll have our Kristalnacht or when will these neocons burn down the Capitol Building. These are dark days we are living in.
RS
It said "We're not compatible" and suggested that I upgrade my IE5 to one of several:
Mozilla (for mac)
netscape (for mac)
firefox (for mac)
And in each case, NONE of them are available for OS9. So, if you're running OS9, you're screwed. On this machine (my internet /email / web machine) I use OS9 because:
no one bothers to write viruses for it
it runs on my G3 350, and OSx is a PIG on this machine, and being one of the unemployed, I can't afford a new machine for email etc.
So, I'M SCREWED and so is anyone else runnign OS9.
Oh well - no gmail for me...
RS
Science is figuring out how the universe works, not how swiftly we can slaughter each other like so many cattle.
Another example of
"Ummm... we got a grant for it, and it beats flippin burgers. Living in Oceania has fewer options than it did a few years back. So I sold my soul to the neocons and now I make stupid weapons that are not going to stop some idiot trained in martial arts armed with a plastic knife on an airplane. I'm just part of the problem, but it pays my mortgage."
WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!!
RS
After Carly's idiotic invasion of Compaq, long term employees at HP LOST a week's vacation. Then she set the pay curves to match Compaq's saving the company millions (true) but basically condemning thousands of employees to work at HP for the rest of their days with little hope of ever getting another raise. In the meantime, Carly stuffs her greedy pockets with millions in cash.
No- the parent is not a troll, and I urge someone with points to give it a 5 / insightful, because the book on Carly has yet to be written, and it will prove that she, like Case, is just a big fat loser.
RS
Of course, if it hit Atlanta, (and given it's roughly the same distance from both of us) the results for us in CA would be:
A massive earthquake (but we're used to those, right?) and then 23 minutes later, tiny bits of grit ripping us to pieces as they fly through the air at supersonic speed. But at least the air blast would only be 22 mph.
See? Except for the supersonic sand blasting, not so bad, dontcha think?
RS
Thermal Radiation:
Time for maximum radiation:
3.29 seconds after impact
Visible fireball radius:
8.4 km = 5.2 miles
The fireball appears 2.4 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure:
1.19 x 105 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation:
77 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun):
1.5
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 161.0 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 9.1 (This is greater than any shaking in recorded history)
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 805 km: IV. Hanging objects swing. Vibration like passing of heavy trucks; or sensation of a jolt like a heavy ball striking the walls. Standing motor cars rock. Windows, dishes, doors rattle. Glasses clink. Crockery clashes. In the upper range of IV wooden walls and frame creak.
V. Felt outdoors; direction estimated. Sleepers wakened. Liquids disturbed, some spilled. Small unstable objects displaced or upset. Doors swing, close, open. Shutters, pictures move. Pendulum clocks stop, start, change rate.
Ejecta:
The ejecta will arrive approximately 436.0 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness:
2.7 cm = 1.04 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter:
1.4 mm = 0.0561 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 2683.3 seconds.
Peak Overpressure:
39729.6 Pa = 0.3973 bars = 5.6416 psi
Max wind velocity:
73.5 m/s = 164.5 mph Sound Intensity:
92 dB (May cause ear pain)
Damage Description:
Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse. Glass windows will shatter. Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.
So: In a nut shell:
the asteroid smacks LA. A great cheer is heard round the world - that idoitic show Friends is finally off the air, and now nature is here to make sure it never sees re-runs. A fitting punishment, much like that space byport problem meted out for Really Bad Poetry. So, all in all, the erasure of Los Angeles isn't such a bad thing, in the greater scheme of things - no more Meg Ryan movies, Bruce and Demi vapourised - aaaah - not so bad at all!
The problem is:
on the horizon would be a largish fireball, and things here in SF would get really warm for about a minute or two. Then 2 minutes and 41 seconds later, an earthquake hits, the likes of which makes 1906 look like a joyride. Then about 5 and a half minutes later gravel comes flying out of the sky at supersonic speed. Then about 45 minutes later the wind hits at 165 miles per hour, pretty much scouring the bay area of anything left alive.
So, while it would completely wipe LA off the map (YAY!!!) and leave a crater 35 miles wide ( |{3vv|_ !!! ) it will first lightly toast (boo!) then pulverise with hypersonic gravel (EEEK!!) then shake to pieces (Bad. Reeeally Bad) and then blow away (Suckage!) the Bay Area.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the Bay Area to find a way to stop such a rock from hitting the earth, because, as we all know, such disasters only hit two cities: Tokyo and LA. And given that Tokyo is being continuously reduced to rubble by those giant lizards, Moths and Turtles, it's the rocks we have to watch out for.
RS
Random gunfire (like they did to the miners in Colorado a hundred years ago?)
Or being beaten to death with a bat (like the poor sap in Italy a few years back or Luxembourg back in 1919?)
The ruling classes in the American Empire are so caught up in their own mythology and enamoured of the power of their weapons, that they don't quite understand that revolutions DO occur, and the results are often unpleasant.
RS
I want to send my mother in law to the moon...
RS
I don't care about possible worlds or impossible worlds - it doesn't matter.
Any evidence you have for another world must be present in this world. Therefore, there is only this world. There is no other world. Possibility has nothing to do with it.
You need to read.
Now describe the universe : give three examples.
RS
The articles grasp of philosophy is suboptimal.
RS
Fast forward 50 years, hmmm, an oil dispute again.
Yeah. Only this time we went out and attacked first. Good move...NOT.
I know this forum is not supposed to be political, so forgive me, but damn - I hope and pray every day that we get these neocons out of office ASAP.
They are evil Evil EVIL.
RS
We would NEVER throw poop at someone - WE'RE CIVILISED!!!
RS
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard."
Ummm, only until some crazy person cracks WMA. If it took them what - a year (?) to crack Fairplay, how long will WMA take?
Another year or so?
It's not a question of IF, it's simply a matter of when and how.
RS
Seems like you were lit inside
I feel like fog beside the shine
Figure fades away
Someone takes my place
Meshing with the pictures on the pages
There's no-one driving There's no-one driving There's no-one driving There's no-one
The family's back from long ago
The voices burnt, the voices gold
Vapour trails go by
Voices on the lines
Nothing to come back to can't we fade?
Someone's gone liquid in the sheets
A sudden smell of burning leaves
The old streets overgrown
Somewhere else to go
It's just another switchback can't we fade?
There's no-one driving There's no-one driving There's no-one driving There's no-one
Speaking of people named Moron, go to Switchboard and do a search on different words for last name.
LOTS of freaks in this world, and hundreds of people named Moron.
No kiddin'. Check it out. Hours of fun.
RS
Therefore, even though it sucks, it has to be reckoned with and worked around.
Safari is also a very good browser, but one of the pages came up all crap in that as well.
My point remains: Never do something complicated, when something simple will do.
Also, here's an example as to why this would matter:
My G3 has IE5. Navigator SUCKS on this machine (I've tried - several times), so I use IE on it. I'm trying to coax Linux along on a *true* POS (A Compaq Presario - one of the Radio Shack specials from a few years ago - I'm not adverse to all challenges...) and frankly, the Linux install isn't going well. I must often resort to cruising the web on my G3 in IE.
So, I go to a website to get info on Linux, and it blows up in my browser, preventing me from getting the Linux box working?
We. Don't. Think. So.
Yet another reason to Not Even Bother. (But yea - I shall trudge on, even as the cards are stacked agin' me.)
So, no, I'm not flaming him at all, I'm simply using the most common browser on the most common non-Linux, non-MS OS.
RS