After all, cross-platform Open Source software can't possibly succeed, can it?
How much money has GTK+ made for GNU? How much money has LGPL wxWindows made? How about plain XFree86? I'm not talking about donations from Redhat or SuSE, I'm talking about actual revenue from actual customers. Now ask yourself if that's enough to support even one full time developer?
I do wish that Trolltech would release a QPL/GPL version of Qt for Windows. But they'll still have to charge proprietary prices for proprietary development if they want to stay in business.
MSRP of Microsoft Visual C++.NET Standard Edition: US$109. MSRP of Qt/Windows Professional Edition: US$1550.
Rather than repeat the tired cliche about apples and oranges, let me merely remind you that filet mignon costs a lot more than canned tuna, yet no one complains about the discriminatory and punitive pricing of fine steaks.
The lack of a Free Software Qt for Windows is a problem. But under X11, the dual QPL/GPL license grants *ALL* of the benefits of the LGPL.
But that's for Free Software developers. For commercial proprietary developers, if they're going to bitch at paying for commercial Qt, then I'm going doubly bitch at paying for their stuff. Fair is fair.
No, the Saruman scenes will not be in there. You wasted your signature on a petulant protest. So stay home on opening day. That way the line will be just a bit shorter for the rest of us.
You would think that with all that money, they could at least pay me to buy their products. Until they do, I'm voting with my own pocketbook. So far this year I've bought movie tickets once and bought a new CD once.
Their money may be able to buy off my Senators, but it's still not enough to buy a position of authority over me. I'm still the one in charge of deciding what movies and music I'm going to buy.
This situation is ludicrous. What are they going to do next, issue prewritten reviews to the reviewers? Last time I checked, reviewers didn't work for the movie industry, but for newspapers and magazines.
I'm sick and tired of this attitude. Stop giving these people more power than they have! You are a free human being. Act like it. Microsoft doesn't employ me, so they can't fire me if I use an OS they don't like. Likewise, the MPAA doesn't employ me, so they can't fire me if I write a review they don't like.
Jackson already had the full script available from the start. Very little creative talent in the story area required.
ROTFLMAO! Have you ever written a screenplay? I thought not...
It'd be a little harder to forgive Jackson for messing up the plot of a movie when all he had to do was NOT change the given story.
Where do you guys come from? And why don't you all crawl back to wherever it was? If PJ did not change the given story, the three movies combined would have been at LEAST 48 hours long. You simply cannot film a movie identical to the book without ruining the movie.
To get LOTR down to 9+ hours, you need to do some serious cutting. First thing you do is cut 99% of the poetry. But even that pissed off some of the diehard fans. Next you cut stuff that doesn't progress the story. Like Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs. Piss off more people. You'll have to cut the Scouring of the Shire because you can't tack on an extra hour after the audience has sat through nine already. Piss off more people. You certainly don't have enough time to show the ents carefully and unhastily constructing a dam in order to flood Isengard, so you conveniently have one already built. Piss off more people. Etc, etc, etc.
Peter Jackson has done an admirable job on LOTR. Better than I could have done, that's for sure. I'm not so arrogant that I can't admit that.
No other scifi thriller has come anywhere close to doing what the Matrix has done
This must be a generational thing or something. Because all of my friends agree with me. The last two Matrix movies sucked. And the first one was far from stupendous. Boil the first one down to its essentials, and it's merely an action flick with some predictable cyberpunk. It was entertaining but it won't make my top ten list, or even my top 100.
This is a movie. Not a novel. A movie. You can't expect the audience to sit through a fourth hour for the scouring. Get real!
That part may be meaningful to you (as it is to me), but I can't imagine a movie doing it right after the huge climax of Mount Doom. It would be like a mission to blow up a supply depot after the the destruction of the deathstar in ROTJ.
Also keep in mind, if you want support, you have to pay that fee yearly.
My company used to by five figures each year to Cygnus/Redhat for GNUPro support. Five years later we dumped it when we realized we hadn't used it once.
Having used Qt extensively, I can tell you that it doesn't NEED pay-for support. It's that good.
I have to assume reviewers stop getting free passes if they EVER badmouth industry
If the reviewers put up with this, they're stupid. If I write an honest review and get blackballed from screenings, you had better believe I'm going to pan everything else that producer does.
You're in an advanced screeing for a reason. Use that to your advantage. If you're a reviewer, spend several paragraphs saying how you were treated like a criminal suspect. If they're trying to gauge audience reactions, walk out halfway through. If you're an academy member, tell the producer that you won't vote for it, and follow through.
Movies are no different than anything else. When a food critic goes to a restaurant and the waiter treats him like dirt, the restaurant won't get a good review, despite the quality of the food.
Yes, that's horrible. Although we all realize that PJ couldn't have filmed everything that was in the books, one has to question his sanity by not filming the breaking of Saruman's staff. Come on! This is totally CENTRAL to the books! The ring is nothing without Saruman. The war with Mordor is nothing without Saruman. Aragorn's kingship is nothing without Saruman. Heck, even the Council of Elrond was nothing but a coffee klatch without Saruman. If a decision had to have been made, then PJ should have dumped Helm's Deep, Henneth Annun, Cirith Ungol and the Pelennor Fields, just to give enough room so that Saruman could have insulted the Hobbits properly. It appears that PJ will even film "The Black Gate Opens". What kind of a compromise is that! No one cares about Mordor! Who wants the Mouth of Sauron when you can have the Voice of Saruman?!?!
And I speak from the experience of two extended editions of the other two films that are both superior to the theatrical releases
I have nearly the opposite opinions. I felt that the theatrical releases were better. There were some parts of the extended editions that I thought should have been in the movies, but overall they were weaker. The orcs meeting up with each other and the "medicine" was good, but the ent draughts scene was silly. Faramir seeing dead Boromir drifting by on the boat was good, but the extended scene of them with Denethor definitely was weak, and seemed only to be there to tie in the first movie. And of course, the scenes with Faramir abusing Gollum were completely out of character.
For all those bitching about the "liberties" Peter Jackson made, stop and place yourself into the shoes of a film maker. Everyone is having kittens of the portrayal of Faramir. At first I had some problems too, then I started thinking about how I would film it. I came to the same conclusions that Phillipa Boyens did when writing the script.
1) You have to remember the "shape" of the film. Though the three movies tell one story, you have to make some effort into making each stand on its own. You need a some conflict during the latter part of the Frodo/Sam story line. Shelob was already moved to the third movie for a variety of excellent reasons. So you're left with Faramir. He doesn't need to be a bad guy, but he does need to be an obstacle. If he had been filmed strictly from the book, the few die hard LOTR fans would be pleased, but everyone else in the world would have been bored to tears watching the Hobbit holiday traipsing through the wilderness and meeting all sorts of charming fellows.
2) While Tolkien can tell you that Faramir wouldn't take the ring even if he say it laying at the side of the road, the movie audience simply wouldn't have believed it. This is the ring that destroyed Boromir, tempted the wise and immortal Gandalf and Galadriel, twisted Smeagol into a pitiful shell, and even corrupted Bilbo. Do you really think that the audience would have believed that Faramir wouldn't have given it a second look? Give me a break! This guy's nation is tottering on the brink of complete and utter destruction, and here comes some puny hobbits with the way out.
3) "But, but, but," I hear you stammer, "what about the Nazgul who saw the ring!" You need something to show Faramir that the ring is corrupting. Sam's speeches simply aren't enough. But now Faramir can see that Frodo is turning into another Gollum. And that's the point where Faramir understands and lets them go. Also remember the Tolkien timeline. This is another excuse for Sauron to unleash his armies too soon. Remember, in a few days Frodo and Sam will be right by Minas Morgul in time to see Mordor's army marching off to Gondor. This "excuse" is much easier to film than Aragorn wrestling with Sauron through the palantir.
This new X is supposed to be using OpenGL. That sure sounds like it's relying on 3D video performance to me.
It's still being investigated whether to use OpenGL or not. And even if they choose to, it will only be done for cards that have OpenGL (like in E17).
The only reason OpenGL is being considered is because it's an existing standard that has compositing and other stuff. Rendering 2D alpha-blended windows using OpenGL is like planting tomatoes with a backhoe. But if that's the only tool in your garden shed, you don't have much choice. If there were numerous video cards supporting a 2D standard that did the same thing, OpenGL probably would not be considered.
Since day one (somewhere in the early 80's) the hardcore gamers have ruled the hardware marketplace. It's not that Keith thinks OpenGL is the best solution for 2D graphics, it's that the gamers have ruled that 2D cards are irrelevant.
a decent graphics card, and not to use a Matrox G500
So you're saying the Matrox G500 is NOT a decent graphics card? For a dual-head system, it's STILL a damned decent video card. What Keith is talking about is video memory, not 3D video performance. A normal low-end 2D card with 64/128Meg memory is sufficient. No need to spend hundreds of dollars for cards requiring multiple heatsinks and a dedicated PSU power connector.
Don't confuse usability with familiarity. MS products meet very low levels of usability, and are frequently used as examples of what NOT to do. But no one cares because they are used to it.
One trivial and quick example: if you had never, ever, ever used a computer before this first session, how would you go about turning off the system? Would you think to click on the "Start" button to stop?
Slashdot Mirror
Considering that Gimp is the only ported GTK application I'm interested in, the GTK-1 issues are very relevant.
After all, cross-platform Open Source software can't possibly succeed, can it?
.NET Standard Edition: US$109. MSRP of Qt/Windows Professional Edition: US$1550.
How much money has GTK+ made for GNU? How much money has LGPL wxWindows made? How about plain XFree86? I'm not talking about donations from Redhat or SuSE, I'm talking about actual revenue from actual customers. Now ask yourself if that's enough to support even one full time developer?
I do wish that Trolltech would release a QPL/GPL version of Qt for Windows. But they'll still have to charge proprietary prices for proprietary development if they want to stay in business.
MSRP of Microsoft Visual C++
Rather than repeat the tired cliche about apples and oranges, let me merely remind you that filet mignon costs a lot more than canned tuna, yet no one complains about the discriminatory and punitive pricing of fine steaks.
The lack of a Free Software Qt for Windows is a problem. But under X11, the dual QPL/GPL license grants *ALL* of the benefits of the LGPL.
But that's for Free Software developers. For commercial proprietary developers, if they're going to bitch at paying for commercial Qt, then I'm going doubly bitch at paying for their stuff. Fair is fair.
Hell, even the Win32 GTK port is more widely used.
Which is a shame, since the Win32 GTK port has some serious issues.
Care to back that up with some real evidence?
No, the Saruman scenes will not be in there. You wasted your signature on a petulant protest. So stay home on opening day. That way the line will be just a bit shorter for the rest of us.
You're new to Linux, aren't you?
Well, it's still better than the SCO strategy, which is feed Darl McBride beans, point a microphone at his butt, and call it a press release.
Sometimes when you don't treat people like potential criminals, you'll find that they "do the right thing" without being asked.
You would think that with all that money, they could at least pay me to buy their products. Until they do, I'm voting with my own pocketbook. So far this year I've bought movie tickets once and bought a new CD once.
Their money may be able to buy off my Senators, but it's still not enough to buy a position of authority over me. I'm still the one in charge of deciding what movies and music I'm going to buy.
This situation is ludicrous. What are they going to do next, issue prewritten reviews to the reviewers? Last time I checked, reviewers didn't work for the movie industry, but for newspapers and magazines.
I'm sick and tired of this attitude. Stop giving these people more power than they have! You are a free human being. Act like it. Microsoft doesn't employ me, so they can't fire me if I use an OS they don't like. Likewise, the MPAA doesn't employ me, so they can't fire me if I write a review they don't like.
Jackson already had the full script available from the start. Very little creative talent in the story area required.
ROTFLMAO! Have you ever written a screenplay? I thought not...
It'd be a little harder to forgive Jackson for messing up the plot of a movie when all he had to do was NOT change the given story.
Where do you guys come from? And why don't you all crawl back to wherever it was? If PJ did not change the given story, the three movies combined would have been at LEAST 48 hours long. You simply cannot film a movie identical to the book without ruining the movie.
To get LOTR down to 9+ hours, you need to do some serious cutting. First thing you do is cut 99% of the poetry. But even that pissed off some of the diehard fans. Next you cut stuff that doesn't progress the story. Like Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs. Piss off more people. You'll have to cut the Scouring of the Shire because you can't tack on an extra hour after the audience has sat through nine already. Piss off more people. You certainly don't have enough time to show the ents carefully and unhastily constructing a dam in order to flood Isengard, so you conveniently have one already built. Piss off more people. Etc, etc, etc.
Peter Jackson has done an admirable job on LOTR. Better than I could have done, that's for sure. I'm not so arrogant that I can't admit that.
No other scifi thriller has come anywhere close to doing what the Matrix has done
This must be a generational thing or something. Because all of my friends agree with me. The last two Matrix movies sucked. And the first one was far from stupendous. Boil the first one down to its essentials, and it's merely an action flick with some predictable cyberpunk. It was entertaining but it won't make my top ten list, or even my top 100.
This is a movie. Not a novel. A movie. You can't expect the audience to sit through a fourth hour for the scouring. Get real!
That part may be meaningful to you (as it is to me), but I can't imagine a movie doing it right after the huge climax of Mount Doom. It would be like a mission to blow up a supply depot after the the destruction of the deathstar in ROTJ.
Also keep in mind, if you want support, you have to pay that fee yearly.
My company used to by five figures each year to Cygnus/Redhat for GNUPro support. Five years later we dumped it when we realized we hadn't used it once.
Having used Qt extensively, I can tell you that it doesn't NEED pay-for support. It's that good.
I have to assume reviewers stop getting free passes if they EVER badmouth industry
If the reviewers put up with this, they're stupid. If I write an honest review and get blackballed from screenings, you had better believe I'm going to pan everything else that producer does.
You're in an advanced screeing for a reason. Use that to your advantage. If you're a reviewer, spend several paragraphs saying how you were treated like a criminal suspect. If they're trying to gauge audience reactions, walk out halfway through. If you're an academy member, tell the producer that you won't vote for it, and follow through.
Movies are no different than anything else. When a food critic goes to a restaurant and the waiter treats him like dirt, the restaurant won't get a good review, despite the quality of the food.
yowzabyte (2^90 bytes)
...having cut out Saruman and all.
Yes, that's horrible. Although we all realize that PJ couldn't have filmed everything that was in the books, one has to question his sanity by not filming the breaking of Saruman's staff. Come on! This is totally CENTRAL to the books! The ring is nothing without Saruman. The war with Mordor is nothing without Saruman. Aragorn's kingship is nothing without Saruman. Heck, even the Council of Elrond was nothing but a coffee klatch without Saruman. If a decision had to have been made, then PJ should have dumped Helm's Deep, Henneth Annun, Cirith Ungol and the Pelennor Fields, just to give enough room so that Saruman could have insulted the Hobbits properly. It appears that PJ will even film "The Black Gate Opens". What kind of a compromise is that! No one cares about Mordor! Who wants the Mouth of Sauron when you can have the Voice of Saruman?!?!
</sarcasm>
Too long. "Cute Hobbit Children" become "Surly Hobbit Teenagers".
And I speak from the experience of two extended editions of the other two films that are both superior to the theatrical releases
I have nearly the opposite opinions. I felt that the theatrical releases were better. There were some parts of the extended editions that I thought should have been in the movies, but overall they were weaker. The orcs meeting up with each other and the "medicine" was good, but the ent draughts scene was silly. Faramir seeing dead Boromir drifting by on the boat was good, but the extended scene of them with Denethor definitely was weak, and seemed only to be there to tie in the first movie. And of course, the scenes with Faramir abusing Gollum were completely out of character.
For all those bitching about the "liberties" Peter Jackson made, stop and place yourself into the shoes of a film maker. Everyone is having kittens of the portrayal of Faramir. At first I had some problems too, then I started thinking about how I would film it. I came to the same conclusions that Phillipa Boyens did when writing the script.
1) You have to remember the "shape" of the film. Though the three movies tell one story, you have to make some effort into making each stand on its own. You need a some conflict during the latter part of the Frodo/Sam story line. Shelob was already moved to the third movie for a variety of excellent reasons. So you're left with Faramir. He doesn't need to be a bad guy, but he does need to be an obstacle. If he had been filmed strictly from the book, the few die hard LOTR fans would be pleased, but everyone else in the world would have been bored to tears watching the Hobbit holiday traipsing through the wilderness and meeting all sorts of charming fellows.
2) While Tolkien can tell you that Faramir wouldn't take the ring even if he say it laying at the side of the road, the movie audience simply wouldn't have believed it. This is the ring that destroyed Boromir, tempted the wise and immortal Gandalf and Galadriel, twisted Smeagol into a pitiful shell, and even corrupted Bilbo. Do you really think that the audience would have believed that Faramir wouldn't have given it a second look? Give me a break! This guy's nation is tottering on the brink of complete and utter destruction, and here comes some puny hobbits with the way out.
3) "But, but, but," I hear you stammer, "what about the Nazgul who saw the ring!" You need something to show Faramir that the ring is corrupting. Sam's speeches simply aren't enough. But now Faramir can see that Frodo is turning into another Gollum. And that's the point where Faramir understands and lets them go. Also remember the Tolkien timeline. This is another excuse for Sauron to unleash his armies too soon. Remember, in a few days Frodo and Sam will be right by Minas Morgul in time to see Mordor's army marching off to Gondor. This "excuse" is much easier to film than Aragorn wrestling with Sauron through the palantir.
This new X is supposed to be using OpenGL. That sure sounds like it's relying on 3D video performance to me.
It's still being investigated whether to use OpenGL or not. And even if they choose to, it will only be done for cards that have OpenGL (like in E17).
The only reason OpenGL is being considered is because it's an existing standard that has compositing and other stuff. Rendering 2D alpha-blended windows using OpenGL is like planting tomatoes with a backhoe. But if that's the only tool in your garden shed, you don't have much choice. If there were numerous video cards supporting a 2D standard that did the same thing, OpenGL probably would not be considered.
Since day one (somewhere in the early 80's) the hardcore gamers have ruled the hardware marketplace. It's not that Keith thinks OpenGL is the best solution for 2D graphics, it's that the gamers have ruled that 2D cards are irrelevant.
a decent graphics card, and not to use a Matrox G500
So you're saying the Matrox G500 is NOT a decent graphics card? For a dual-head system, it's STILL a damned decent video card. What Keith is talking about is video memory, not 3D video performance. A normal low-end 2D card with 64/128Meg memory is sufficient. No need to spend hundreds of dollars for cards requiring multiple heatsinks and a dedicated PSU power connector.
Don't confuse usability with familiarity. MS products meet very low levels of usability, and are frequently used as examples of what NOT to do. But no one cares because they are used to it.
One trivial and quick example: if you had never, ever, ever used a computer before this first session, how would you go about turning off the system? Would you think to click on the "Start" button to stop?