Speaking as an Apple lover, I don't despise Microsoft because they are Microsoft. I despise Microsoft because of what Microsoft is: a company that is unable to make anything except for wonky, artless crap. And if that were the end of it that would be fine; but their crap is ubiquitous, and sometimes a requirement.
To use a non-car analogy, Microsoft is like....Celine Dion. I mean, sure, I can concede that she's a gifted technical singer, but she has the aesthetic sensibility of a third-grade dropout Appalachian bootlegger who lost 90% of his hearing in a still explosion, with the rest of his faculties addled by methanol poisioning and a dose of the clap he got while stationed in the Pacific theater fighting the nips. (Hi, Grampa). Now, there are some people whose palate Vann diagram overlpas well with this, and more power to them. As for me, I won't allow that meliasmic dog sick in the house. And if that were the end of it that would be fine. Now imagine a world where you go to work and they pipe Dion over the PA; and after work you go online to your bank website to pay your credit card, and there's a banner that says "Sorry -- you must be playing 'My Heart Will Go On' to access this feature"; and then your so-called friends keep sending you email with attachements that plays a mashup of 'Ce N'Etait Qu'un Reve' and 'To Love You More'; and then, to get a grip on sanity you turn on the news and Rene Angelil is on Letterman talking about how Celine Dion is spurring 'innovation' by requiring the vast majority of mp3 player manufacturers to include 'Miracle' and 'On Ne Change Pas' pre-installed, along with preview tracks of 'D'Elles' that can, in some instances, cause malware to take over your player and play 'Power of Love' repeatedly at full volume.
I see your mistake. Your opinion that NeXT was a failure is the fault of a mis-statement in the Economist article. Aplle did not buy NeXT, NeXT acquired Apple for negative 400 million dollars.
A circular (or near-circular) orbit should be extremely rare. It is the special case of an elliptical orbit where the speed is very very close to the theoretical speed required to orbit at that distance from the sun and the direction of motion is very close to being at right-angles to the sun.
Well, not that rare. You make it sound as if there is a cosmic crapshoot between all values of ellipticity, ergo the subset of low ellipticities should be small according to the vagaries of chance. However, the formation mechanism of planets favors low ellipticities: they emerge from the debris disk around a protostar. Large planetoids in circular orbits within the debris disk can accrete nearby material slowly and build up over time. A large planetoid sweeping through the debris disk in a highly elliptical orbit is more likely to suffer a high-velocity collision that will break the planetoid into smaller chunks (since the disk rotates in a Keplerian fashion rather than a rigid disk, speeds vary with radius), reducing its accretion rate. In short, the odds favor more-circular orbits.
As to why most extra-solar planets found so far are non-Earthlike and have orbits that are highly elliptical — well, massive planets with short periastrons are easier to find than smaller planets with large orbital radii. It's the nature of the observing method.
(And yes IAAA, or at least W while funding was around.)
No, it wouldn't make more sense, since he proposes measuring the temperature variation in the lunar surface dust (regolith). What he measures with this is a global average Earth temperature, avoiding problems such as having weather stations in city heat islands. Additionally, the method also measures heating changes due to variations in solar input. Both of these criticisms have arisen among the anti-global warming crowd, so the addition of this methodology is useful. Plus, it's not like it replaces the use of orbiting satellites, getting the required additional funding from Big Oil-controlled politicians notwithstanding. *cough cough*
Jobs will get an icon as soon as someone figures out what a Reality Distortion Field looks like.
Me, I have no clue, but I'm pretty sure it wears a turtleneck.
I agree with both of those; not being independently wealthy, I have opted for the French press. It's easy to carry to the computer, so I don't have to get up every 15 minutes to refill it. It doesn't take up valuable counterspace in my wee kitchen, and I don't have the temptation to drink cup after cup after cup (ah, memories of grad school), since it's just inconvenient enough to wash it out and start over.
As for the beans, while I consider myself a demi-connoisseur, I no longer grind at home. Pick a good bean at the store, grind it there, and keep in an opaque sealed canister. Measure, boil, pour, wait, press. As long as I don't try to buy more than a fortnight's worth at a time, staleness is not really an issue.
I can't speak to the helpfulness of your tutorial (amazingly, one of the few I haven't read yet), but what got me over the Blender hump was the open courseware materials for a class at Tufts University. The professor, Neal Hirsig, has posted an extensive set of UI-centric tutorials (both PDF and video). If you can get past the general distaste for Real Player streaming video, and the extremely minor annoyance of him saying "ver-teh-cee" when he means "vertex", you will go a long way towards mastering the UI.
On another note, Blender has five Google Summer of Code projects this year. Maybe those who want to develop for the competing packages should try that avenue.
My gods, man, didn't you see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? By jumping on the 'j' unused in Latin you would have Alfred Molina'd yourself into the abyss, denying yourself a front-row seat to the cool-ass dessication of the head jackass.
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Speaking as an Apple lover, I don't despise Microsoft because they are Microsoft. I despise Microsoft because of what Microsoft is: a company that is unable to make anything except for wonky, artless crap. And if that were the end of it that would be fine; but their crap is ubiquitous, and sometimes a requirement.
To use a non-car analogy, Microsoft is like....Celine Dion. I mean, sure, I can concede that she's a gifted technical singer, but she has the aesthetic sensibility of a third-grade dropout Appalachian bootlegger who lost 90% of his hearing in a still explosion, with the rest of his faculties addled by methanol poisioning and a dose of the clap he got while stationed in the Pacific theater fighting the nips. (Hi, Grampa). Now, there are some people whose palate Vann diagram overlpas well with this, and more power to them. As for me, I won't allow that meliasmic dog sick in the house. And if that were the end of it that would be fine. Now imagine a world where you go to work and they pipe Dion over the PA; and after work you go online to your bank website to pay your credit card, and there's a banner that says "Sorry -- you must be playing 'My Heart Will Go On' to access this feature"; and then your so-called friends keep sending you email with attachements that plays a mashup of 'Ce N'Etait Qu'un Reve' and 'To Love You More'; and then, to get a grip on sanity you turn on the news and Rene Angelil is on Letterman talking about how Celine Dion is spurring 'innovation' by requiring the vast majority of mp3 player manufacturers to include 'Miracle' and 'On Ne Change Pas' pre-installed, along with preview tracks of 'D'Elles' that can, in some instances, cause malware to take over your player and play 'Power of Love' repeatedly at full volume.
So yeah, I hate Microsoft. That's The Way It Is.
Han sagitti antecedo!
trans. I am not interested in your dopey religious cult.
Me transmitte sursum, caledoni!
I see your mistake. Your opinion that NeXT was a failure is the fault of a mis-statement in the Economist article. Aplle did not buy NeXT, NeXT acquired Apple for negative 400 million dollars.
I absolutedly need this new version. That way I can convert those Real Player movies I have into a usable format and shitcan Real Player!
GUI mothers choose Gif.
Well, not that rare. You make it sound as if there is a cosmic crapshoot between all values of ellipticity, ergo the subset of low ellipticities should be small according to the vagaries of chance. However, the formation mechanism of planets favors low ellipticities: they emerge from the debris disk around a protostar. Large planetoids in circular orbits within the debris disk can accrete nearby material slowly and build up over time. A large planetoid sweeping through the debris disk in a highly elliptical orbit is more likely to suffer a high-velocity collision that will break the planetoid into smaller chunks (since the disk rotates in a Keplerian fashion rather than a rigid disk, speeds vary with radius), reducing its accretion rate. In short, the odds favor more-circular orbits.
As to why most extra-solar planets found so far are non-Earthlike and have orbits that are highly elliptical — well, massive planets with short periastrons are easier to find than smaller planets with large orbital radii. It's the nature of the observing method.
(And yes IAAA, or at least W while funding was around.)
Well, clearly you're not welcome to the social.
No, it wouldn't make more sense, since he proposes measuring the temperature variation in the lunar surface dust (regolith). What he measures with this is a global average Earth temperature, avoiding problems such as having weather stations in city heat islands. Additionally, the method also measures heating changes due to variations in solar input. Both of these criticisms have arisen among the anti-global warming crowd, so the addition of this methodology is useful. Plus, it's not like it replaces the use of orbiting satellites, getting the required additional funding from Big Oil-controlled politicians notwithstanding. *cough cough*
As for those who don't, a rogues gallery...
Jobs will get an icon as soon as someone figures out what a Reality Distortion Field looks like. Me, I have no clue, but I'm pretty sure it wears a turtleneck.
Why limit it to Clippy?
Windows.
...which is irrelevant, since he spelled "winning" correctly. PEBCAK.
It's when you use "it's" when you mean "its".
Well, that's just nitpicking, in'nit.
I agree with both of those; not being independently wealthy, I have opted for the French press. It's easy to carry to the computer, so I don't have to get up every 15 minutes to refill it. It doesn't take up valuable counterspace in my wee kitchen, and I don't have the temptation to drink cup after cup after cup (ah, memories of grad school), since it's just inconvenient enough to wash it out and start over.
As for the beans, while I consider myself a demi-connoisseur, I no longer grind at home. Pick a good bean at the store, grind it there, and keep in an opaque sealed canister. Measure, boil, pour, wait, press. As long as I don't try to buy more than a fortnight's worth at a time, staleness is not really an issue.
Did you dislike Reagan's approach of firing everyone immediately too, or just Clinton's?
I can't speak to the helpfulness of your tutorial (amazingly, one of the few I haven't read yet), but what got me over the Blender hump was the open courseware materials for a class at Tufts University. The professor, Neal Hirsig, has posted an extensive set of UI-centric tutorials (both PDF and video). If you can get past the general distaste for Real Player streaming video, and the extremely minor annoyance of him saying "ver-teh-cee" when he means "vertex", you will go a long way towards mastering the UI.
On another note, Blender has five Google Summer of Code projects this year. Maybe those who want to develop for the competing packages should try that avenue.
Now that gives me an idea...Someone should steal the body, cremate it, and spread his ashes via bitchtorrent.
The title says "mascot", not "muskrat". And no, "mascot" is not a contraction of "lame ass caught abusing his monopoly.
I'll take that bet.
My gods, man, didn't you see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? By jumping on the 'j' unused in Latin you would have Alfred Molina'd yourself into the abyss, denying yourself a front-row seat to the cool-ass dessication of the head jackass.
See — grammar (er, spelling) has consequences!
The more they tighten their grip, the more systems slip through their fingers?
Well, Bush did claim to have seen into his soul and liked what he saw. It's our fault for taking his statement optimistically...
No thanks, I hate reality TV.