Who gets to decide what a bad person is? I mentioned a friend of mine who is a caring, compassionate, loving human being, a devoted husband and father...but he is not a Christian. Will he be punished? Does he deserve to be? You cannot claim to have no grudge or resentment against someone, and then at the same time say they're going to face (by your definition) the most horrible punishment and pain imaginable, and add also that this pleases you. Wrapping it in a flag, and saying your deity is really the one condemning them is a cheat, the words are coming from YOUR mouth, and YOU are responsible for them. Either you believe your own words--and if so, stand up for them yourself--or you are unsure, and feel the need to deflect and disguise where they really come from.
There are equal amounts of evidence to support nearly every religion man has ever invented, yours is no exception. There is as much truth to be found in Christianity as there is in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Roman Paganism or any other religion you could name. They are equals. They are equal because they all provide no evidence, or even attempt to. They are instead snapshots of the moral and ethical teachings of the time they were created, wrapped in mysticism. Every one of the 1.8 billion Muslims doesn't just believe that YOU are going to hell, but they know it for a fact, with every fiber of their being they know you'll be punished. They have just as much authority to say so as you do, and their words hold the same weight as yours when you condemn them.
Maybe none of the Religions are right, have you ever considered that? What if you live in a universe where the creator punishes people for blindly believing what other HUMANS say to you, instead of searching for the truth yourself. And that is what you're doing, make no mistake. You follow the bible, conceived, written and edited not by a god, but by men. Again, Christians use a cheat and say something such as god inspired them to write it, but anyone can claim that, claiming something doesn't make it true. What if I claim the Christian god inspired me to write a supplemental text to the bible that edits a lot of stuff, and adds in new material? Would you believe me? I hope not, because you'd be a fool to do so! You're taking the words of people you've never met, who haven't even been alive for thousands of years as fact, BLINDLY, without any evidence. Better hope for your own sake we don't live in the universe like I described, because boy would you be in for a hard time in the afterlife.
What I'm getting at is that all people (regardless of their faith or lack of it) need a great deal more humility. If you don't even consider the possibility, even a theoretical possibility, that you could be wrong then your beliefs mean nothing. Looking objectively at what you believe, and more importantly why and who was responsible for teaching you those beliefs is probably one of the most useful exercises we as humans can do, and if not for the fear of change, the fear of admitting they were wrong, more people would do it. It takes much more strength to say, yes I was wrong and spent much of my life devoted to something that isn't true, than to keep on being a follower because you don't want to admit you made a mistake joining in the first place. Doubt and skepticism take infinitely more strength, humility and compassion than faith--which requires only that you stop thinking for yourself. That is the one and only sin.
Thank you for your service. You deserve much better than the current administration.
I have always supported two different ways to end this war. One is infinitely more preferable to me than the other, that one you have already read, the other is a massive--as in hundreds of thousands more Soldiers--increase in presence in Iraq; the way it should have happened to begin with, the way it would have happened if not for Rumsfeld's mismanagement. I am no pacifist, nor am I beholden to any particular ideology. Whichever one of these is more realistic and will lead to the quickest resolution of the conflict has my support.
The Powell Doctrine was overwhelming force. You go in hard and fast, with more than you need to get the job done so that there is no possible chance for the enemy. It's the only way to win a war. If he had orchestrated the second gulf war, there would have been 300,000 more troops on the ground after the government fell, enough to stop the insurgency from forming and provide security for the fledgling government. We'd already be out, victorious. The "Rumsfeld Doctrine" of lighter leaner fighting units turned out to be just enough to lose. The historical numbers to win insurgencies and have an effective occupation (as effective as one could be) is 1 soldier for every 12 civilians in the WHOLE country. The Iraq numbers are an order of magnitude worse than that. If anyone wants to support the war, that's their right to do so, but you can't support half a war, or one quarter of war. You either go all in or you don't go. This administration thought they could have their war on a shoestring budget with minimal human resources; reality disagreed.
I can't tell if you're joking or not (you seem to be almost a Republican caricature, but I know real Republicans who appear as such), but you do know there are other religions in this world other than yours, and all of them have the same amount of proof backing them up and legions of followers just as devoted and convinced they're right as you are. No, I don't expect this to change anyone's opinion, but have you actually ever considered that before--and NOT just wrote them off as sinners, heretics, or charlatans who shouldn't be listened to? I know a very kind hearted Buddhist who's a loving father and an overall caring and decent human being, is he going to hell too?
Notice how I treated you, a complete stranger, with respect and I used no profanities or insults to make my point.
We're being slowly bleed dry in Iraq right now because this administration can't see the difference between actual terrorists who have a grudge against America and insurgents who just want us out of their country. Blaming equipment or protocol would be laughable if it wasn't so shameful and arrogant. The blame for this on going catastrophe rests squarely on the shoulders of one very stubborn man who believes completely and sincerely that he is on the side of justice and that his every action is not only righteous, but indeed endorsed and guided by God himself.
You can't call these people we are fighting terrorists when WE are the foreign troops on their home soil occupying their country. The only justification Bush hasn't abandoned for this war (WMD was a criminal fraud, ousting Saddam already happened), the ludicrous idea that fighting the enemy "over there" makes us safer at home is so mind numbingly flawed at the most basic level that even a C student should be able to see there can be no victory the way the war is being prosecuted. The terrorists who would "follow us home" are doing so anyway, Iraq is diverting precious man power and resources away from stopping them. They are probably already here in fact. The 9/11 hijackers lived in the country for an extended amount of time before they carried out their attacks. Every dollar we spend on Bush's crusade is a dollar that could have went to pay more police officers, increase border security, inspect more cargo. The current plan we're on to get out of this hole is to keep digging until we get to the other side when the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole is STOP making it deeper! Violence, even when justified, against religious extremists only begets more violence. It's such an un-American concept to accept, there's no pride in it, no feeling of success but the only way to win is not to continue fighting. Every insurgent you kill insures his sons will be your next generation of enemies. There is a point, and we have long passed it, when someone strong has to stand up and say "Enough." accept the consequences to their reputation, and walk away.
This is a very trying time for the USA, and I fear that we will not long survive the ruinous path we are currently following. Our leader, and calling him that brings me an almost physical pain, will not change our path. He is too stubborn to admit defeat, even if that means dragging an entire country down with him. History will count him among the worst of our Presidents.
Let's take a look at some of these and put a more positive, game industry friendly, take on them.
11 percent of males had been convicted of a crime, compared with 3 percent for other males.
We could rephrase this to say that 89% of males who play video games never commit crimes! Where as 97% who don't are just a lot better at not getting caught.
42 percent of males had "pushed, grabbed or shoved their spouse" in the past year, compared with 22 percent of other males.
Sounds bad right? But what about the males that don't have spouses because they spend all their time playing violent video games? Aren't we jumping to conclusions, I'm sure these numbers even out when you consider that.
39 percent of females had "thrown something at their spouse" in the past year, compared with 17 percent of other females.
Well that is just misleading, what exactly did they throw? Maybe it was a pillow.
As you can see these statistics have perfectly reasonable and non game related explanations. There is absolutely no connection between cigaret...I mean games and violence. But our industry is going to do everything to investigate these matters further and invest in ad campaigns to keep kids from picking up the habit of violent games. We can all agree that the children, are our (financial) future.
Well, the joke is on google then because I don't see ANY ads. Not on my gmail account, not on search results, not on Facebook, not anywhere. All the data mining and profiling in the world wont do any good if at the end of the day I'm blocking every advertisement you serve up with that info. Privacy is a real concern but anything REALLY important I do through the internet is encrypted, so good going if they're logging all that they're holding useless bits they can never read.
Art will ALWAYS be made, there's something much deeper in ourselves than greed which drives us to create things of beauty. Humans have a will and a need to create, even if it is not profitable.
I agree with most of your complaints, although not your attitude. What I'd like to see is a product as professional and polished as Apple's OS X but still true to the spirit of open source. I have hopes that Ubuntu will be such a product but there's still a long way to go to reach the level of completeness and professionalism offered by Windows and OSX. I try out the latest Ubuntu ever few months and every time I find some show stopper problem along with the consistent sense that these many different parts haven't quite coalesced into a refined operating system. Canonical is at least 5 years behind I would say, the only way to close that gap is to do everything Apple and MS have done in that time but faster. It's time to prove that the OSS development model is the superior one.
Really? I did an Ubuntu 7.10 install just a few days ago on a laptop with broadcom, the restricted driver manager needed a file and that made it work, but I never tested WEP. I assumed that download was just an automated install for ndiswrapper and the driver. Either way though it wasn't working after first boot or after downloading all the updates. I have a similar notebook with broadcom, I plan on seeing for myself now just what is going on. I'm also interested to see if performance is similar to XP, I remember back with ndiswrapper that the signal would be fine when only a few meters from the router but dropped off very sharply after I left the room. Thank you for correcting me.
Broadcom doesn't work under Linux without using ndiswrapper (that allows the loading of Windows drivers), and then you can't use WEP. This is a very common wireless chipset found in a majority of laptops. So you'd be correct in saying that the majority are unsupported and unreliable.
If their beliefs are so fragile that they can be undone by a movie, I think they have some deeper problems to contend with. If they are truly comfortable with their beliefs they should welcome criticism because they know their ideas will be able to stand on their own merit, the only reason to be this protective is if they're fearful of people taking a critical look at their religion and realizing they don't agree. What scares them is free thought. It has for centuries.
That's why I said good scientists. A PhD doing those things is actually just being a good politician. If you consider that their job is really to keep the money flowing into their department, then they ARE doing a good job. The problem is really that we've allowed a system to form where those types of people have a place.
I just saw a story about this today. I was amazed at the shock and outrage coming from the creationists side of the fence over this film. These are the same people who backed the Narnia movie correct? Maybe I was blinded by my sides evolutionist "beer-goggles" (or perhaps actual beer goggles), but I can't remember the scientific/evolution community crying fowl over Narnia. Did any scientific foundations print up pamphlets to disperse to good atheist parents about the dangerous of The Chronicles of Narnia? Now the tables are turned and they're screaming "No fair! No fair! We're the ones that have a monopoly on propaganda aimed at impressionable children! You're infringing on our IP!" They always seem to want it both ways. All the same, one of the benefits of being on OUR side is that we don't have an emotional connection to the material we're defending. No good scientist clings to theories that have been disproved because his self worth and world view are bound to them. That's effectively what religion is. We have the luxury of being more nimble than that. We can toss things out when something better comes along. The bible is, well, the bible. About time for a revised addition I'd say, we've calculated Pi out a lot further now.
Really, it's a movie. These adults, and I use that term loosely, are getting worked up over a movie for CHILDREN. Do you think 10 year olds will be able to see the deep religious and philosophical undertones of this film? Somehow, I don't think that's what they're going to take away from it.
I realize this, but the end result is the same. If I want my hardware to work, I can't use Linux. Different hardware that complies to standards would fix the problem, but can't you see how a member of the Linux community telling a user "You have to buy new hardware for Linux to work, sorry." doesn't go a long way in bolstering support of the platform? If it weren't for Windows, this laptop I'm typing on would be a brick, that's the only reality I care about, and I actually understand the politics and the reasons behind this, imagine the reaction of someone who has never heard of Linux before, someone who doesn't take philosophical or idealogical stances into consideration when they purchase electronics. I keep hoping I'll be able to install Linux on this machine and have it work at least as well as XP, but that doesn't look like it will happen within the lifespan of this laptop. I bought it because it was cheap and effective for what I wanted to do, the next one I buy will probably be purchased with the intent to run Linux, and that will be my primary factor in determining what hardware I get, but just the fact that I have to go out of my way to do all that research shows that Windows has a HUGE advantage over Linux in the range of its hardware compatibility. And that count for a lot.
I've lived in both places--and I proffered the weather in Washington! That state is much more beautiful than California. Maybe not the cities, but the cities in CA aren't anything to boast about either. Neither of those slogans really matter, in fact I've never noticed until I just checked my iPod video (sure enough, there it is). Now, if I saw "Manufactured in Washington/California" that could actually sway my decision on what to buy.
I have a notebook with the same graphics, XP and Vista are supported perfectly. It might be ATI's fault for not supporting all platforms equally, but that doesn't change the reality that under Linux the hardware you paid for wont fully work. On that same notebook the wifi doesn't work either with Linux, and the built in card reader is impossible to get working. Drivers just don't exist for it. All the drivers are there for XP, and with Vista I didn't even have to track them down, it worked right after install.
A vote for Ron Paul would effectively eliminate every social welfare program we have. If you value things like health care and an education system you'd be wise to find a different candidate. I would really like for the liberals to stop pretending to like Ron Paul just because he's antiwar. He hasn't started talking about private militias, corporate sponsored highways and the gold standard yet, but if he does I will officially count him as insane--along with all the other libertarians. Right now he's merely a hard right economics Republican who doesn't focus on social issues. Unchecked libertarianism would be just as ruinous for the country as the worst policies any neocon could dream up. As someone already said, Obama does not take PAC or lobbyist money, it's a major point of his campaign.
you'll be doing most of your file management from a shell prompt or a dired buffer Just when I think Linux users are starting to realize how regular people actually work I read something like this. Still a long way to go.
I knew I wasn't the only person to take notice of that. Laptops and monitors are increasingly sold with widescreen monitors. All the screens I use now have them. The most common resolutions being 1280x800 for the smaller ones and 1440x900 for medium sizes. I only have one larger than that. Now when you make something that takes up an extra 10px of vertical space it's actually a larger percentage of the total space than before because of the different aspect ratio. Just a quick comparison between Ubuntu and XP's default shows this. Consider the very common situation of having a web browser maximized. Vertical space is so important in this case because web pages primarily are set up to scroll up and down to fit more content. The more you can see without scrolling the better. On Ubuntu you've, starting from the top, the top panel, the windows border, the Firefox controls, then the content of the page, status bar, lower panel. Both panels start out at 22px I believe and the window at the top is about the same. It's easy to see how the little things add up. On XP it's a noticeable difference--at least to me--not having those extra spaces. Add to that the problem of Ubuntu (and indeed all recent distros) using very large font sizes by default, a hold over from the days when font rendering sucked and you needed big sizes to hide the atrocious anti-aliasing (and they still look bad when small, try Ubuntu defaults, size 9, sub pixel hinting, check the word "File" or the number 8. Very uncommon I know so it probably hardly comes up), and you start to see that monitor space getting nickel and dimed away from the stuff that you really want to use it for.
[I] believe that Japanese culture is flat out superior to ours in terms of diversity and creativity Definition of a weeaboo.:P I don't think it's fair to say though, we make plenty of quality stuff here in America too. If popularity is any measurement then we're still number one in the world. There's not a lot of Japanese music I like, a few groups stand on their own merits quite well such as the pillows (Best known for providing the music to FLCL), Yoko Kanno, Seatbelts, but for the most part all the music I listen to was made in the US (or the UK).
Haruhi was excellent however. They've botched the English dub, and the subs on the official DVD release SUCK. Fansubbers did a better job than the official release, it's pretty sad actually. Also if you're any fan of that song, DON'T listen to the dubbed version, it's absolutely horrid. It will ruin it for you. It's possible to do dubs well; there are several shows. that I prefer the English dub to the sub (FLCL, GitS:SAC, Azumanga), but they really missed their mark with Haruhi, it was primarily a casting problem too, which is a shame.
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Maybe they should outsource their search features to google.
Who gets to decide what a bad person is? I mentioned a friend of mine who is a caring, compassionate, loving human being, a devoted husband and father...but he is not a Christian. Will he be punished? Does he deserve to be? You cannot claim to have no grudge or resentment against someone, and then at the same time say they're going to face (by your definition) the most horrible punishment and pain imaginable, and add also that this pleases you. Wrapping it in a flag, and saying your deity is really the one condemning them is a cheat, the words are coming from YOUR mouth, and YOU are responsible for them. Either you believe your own words--and if so, stand up for them yourself--or you are unsure, and feel the need to deflect and disguise where they really come from.
There are equal amounts of evidence to support nearly every religion man has ever invented, yours is no exception. There is as much truth to be found in Christianity as there is in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Roman Paganism or any other religion you could name. They are equals. They are equal because they all provide no evidence, or even attempt to. They are instead snapshots of the moral and ethical teachings of the time they were created, wrapped in mysticism. Every one of the 1.8 billion Muslims doesn't just believe that YOU are going to hell, but they know it for a fact, with every fiber of their being they know you'll be punished. They have just as much authority to say so as you do, and their words hold the same weight as yours when you condemn them.
Maybe none of the Religions are right, have you ever considered that? What if you live in a universe where the creator punishes people for blindly believing what other HUMANS say to you, instead of searching for the truth yourself. And that is what you're doing, make no mistake. You follow the bible, conceived, written and edited not by a god, but by men. Again, Christians use a cheat and say something such as god inspired them to write it, but anyone can claim that, claiming something doesn't make it true. What if I claim the Christian god inspired me to write a supplemental text to the bible that edits a lot of stuff, and adds in new material? Would you believe me? I hope not, because you'd be a fool to do so! You're taking the words of people you've never met, who haven't even been alive for thousands of years as fact, BLINDLY, without any evidence. Better hope for your own sake we don't live in the universe like I described, because boy would you be in for a hard time in the afterlife.
What I'm getting at is that all people (regardless of their faith or lack of it) need a great deal more humility. If you don't even consider the possibility, even a theoretical possibility, that you could be wrong then your beliefs mean nothing. Looking objectively at what you believe, and more importantly why and who was responsible for teaching you those beliefs is probably one of the most useful exercises we as humans can do, and if not for the fear of change, the fear of admitting they were wrong, more people would do it. It takes much more strength to say, yes I was wrong and spent much of my life devoted to something that isn't true, than to keep on being a follower because you don't want to admit you made a mistake joining in the first place. Doubt and skepticism take infinitely more strength, humility and compassion than faith--which requires only that you stop thinking for yourself. That is the one and only sin.
Best wishes.
Thank you for your service. You deserve much better than the current administration.
I have always supported two different ways to end this war. One is infinitely more preferable to me than the other, that one you have already read, the other is a massive--as in hundreds of thousands more Soldiers--increase in presence in Iraq; the way it should have happened to begin with, the way it would have happened if not for Rumsfeld's mismanagement. I am no pacifist, nor am I beholden to any particular ideology. Whichever one of these is more realistic and will lead to the quickest resolution of the conflict has my support.
When the only tool you have is Excel, every problem starts looking like a spreadsheet.
The Powell Doctrine was overwhelming force. You go in hard and fast, with more than you need to get the job done so that there is no possible chance for the enemy. It's the only way to win a war. If he had orchestrated the second gulf war, there would have been 300,000 more troops on the ground after the government fell, enough to stop the insurgency from forming and provide security for the fledgling government. We'd already be out, victorious. The "Rumsfeld Doctrine" of lighter leaner fighting units turned out to be just enough to lose. The historical numbers to win insurgencies and have an effective occupation (as effective as one could be) is 1 soldier for every 12 civilians in the WHOLE country. The Iraq numbers are an order of magnitude worse than that. If anyone wants to support the war, that's their right to do so, but you can't support half a war, or one quarter of war. You either go all in or you don't go. This administration thought they could have their war on a shoestring budget with minimal human resources; reality disagreed.
I can't tell if you're joking or not (you seem to be almost a Republican caricature, but I know real Republicans who appear as such), but you do know there are other religions in this world other than yours, and all of them have the same amount of proof backing them up and legions of followers just as devoted and convinced they're right as you are. No, I don't expect this to change anyone's opinion, but have you actually ever considered that before--and NOT just wrote them off as sinners, heretics, or charlatans who shouldn't be listened to? I know a very kind hearted Buddhist who's a loving father and an overall caring and decent human being, is he going to hell too?
Notice how I treated you, a complete stranger, with respect and I used no profanities or insults to make my point.
We're being slowly bleed dry in Iraq right now because this administration can't see the difference between actual terrorists who have a grudge against America and insurgents who just want us out of their country. Blaming equipment or protocol would be laughable if it wasn't so shameful and arrogant. The blame for this on going catastrophe rests squarely on the shoulders of one very stubborn man who believes completely and sincerely that he is on the side of justice and that his every action is not only righteous, but indeed endorsed and guided by God himself.
You can't call these people we are fighting terrorists when WE are the foreign troops on their home soil occupying their country. The only justification Bush hasn't abandoned for this war (WMD was a criminal fraud, ousting Saddam already happened), the ludicrous idea that fighting the enemy "over there" makes us safer at home is so mind numbingly flawed at the most basic level that even a C student should be able to see there can be no victory the way the war is being prosecuted. The terrorists who would "follow us home" are doing so anyway, Iraq is diverting precious man power and resources away from stopping them. They are probably already here in fact. The 9/11 hijackers lived in the country for an extended amount of time before they carried out their attacks. Every dollar we spend on Bush's crusade is a dollar that could have went to pay more police officers, increase border security, inspect more cargo. The current plan we're on to get out of this hole is to keep digging until we get to the other side when the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole is STOP making it deeper! Violence, even when justified, against religious extremists only begets more violence. It's such an un-American concept to accept, there's no pride in it, no feeling of success but the only way to win is not to continue fighting. Every insurgent you kill insures his sons will be your next generation of enemies. There is a point, and we have long passed it, when someone strong has to stand up and say "Enough." accept the consequences to their reputation, and walk away.
This is a very trying time for the USA, and I fear that we will not long survive the ruinous path we are currently following. Our leader, and calling him that brings me an almost physical pain, will not change our path. He is too stubborn to admit defeat, even if that means dragging an entire country down with him. History will count him among the worst of our Presidents.
Let's take a look at some of these and put a more positive, game industry friendly, take on them.
11 percent of males had been convicted of a crime, compared with 3 percent for other males.
We could rephrase this to say that 89% of males who play video games never commit crimes! Where as 97% who don't are just a lot better at not getting caught.
42 percent of males had "pushed, grabbed or shoved their spouse" in the past year, compared with 22 percent of other males.
Sounds bad right? But what about the males that don't have spouses because they spend all their time playing violent video games? Aren't we jumping to conclusions, I'm sure these numbers even out when you consider that.
39 percent of females had "thrown something at their spouse" in the past year, compared with 17 percent of other females.
Well that is just misleading, what exactly did they throw? Maybe it was a pillow.
As you can see these statistics have perfectly reasonable and non game related explanations. There is absolutely no connection between cigaret...I mean games and violence. But our industry is going to do everything to investigate these matters further and invest in ad campaigns to keep kids from picking up the habit of violent games. We can all agree that the children, are our (financial) future.
The correct form of the joke is, "That's not funny, my brother died that way."
Well, the joke is on google then because I don't see ANY ads. Not on my gmail account, not on search results, not on Facebook, not anywhere. All the data mining and profiling in the world wont do any good if at the end of the day I'm blocking every advertisement you serve up with that info. Privacy is a real concern but anything REALLY important I do through the internet is encrypted, so good going if they're logging all that they're holding useless bits they can never read.
Art will ALWAYS be made, there's something much deeper in ourselves than greed which drives us to create things of beauty. Humans have a will and a need to create, even if it is not profitable.
I agree with most of your complaints, although not your attitude. What I'd like to see is a product as professional and polished as Apple's OS X but still true to the spirit of open source. I have hopes that Ubuntu will be such a product but there's still a long way to go to reach the level of completeness and professionalism offered by Windows and OSX. I try out the latest Ubuntu ever few months and every time I find some show stopper problem along with the consistent sense that these many different parts haven't quite coalesced into a refined operating system. Canonical is at least 5 years behind I would say, the only way to close that gap is to do everything Apple and MS have done in that time but faster. It's time to prove that the OSS development model is the superior one.
Really? I did an Ubuntu 7.10 install just a few days ago on a laptop with broadcom, the restricted driver manager needed a file and that made it work, but I never tested WEP. I assumed that download was just an automated install for ndiswrapper and the driver. Either way though it wasn't working after first boot or after downloading all the updates. I have a similar notebook with broadcom, I plan on seeing for myself now just what is going on. I'm also interested to see if performance is similar to XP, I remember back with ndiswrapper that the signal would be fine when only a few meters from the router but dropped off very sharply after I left the room. Thank you for correcting me.
Broadcom doesn't work under Linux without using ndiswrapper (that allows the loading of Windows drivers), and then you can't use WEP. This is a very common wireless chipset found in a majority of laptops. So you'd be correct in saying that the majority are unsupported and unreliable.
If their beliefs are so fragile that they can be undone by a movie, I think they have some deeper problems to contend with. If they are truly comfortable with their beliefs they should welcome criticism because they know their ideas will be able to stand on their own merit, the only reason to be this protective is if they're fearful of people taking a critical look at their religion and realizing they don't agree. What scares them is free thought. It has for centuries.
That's why I said good scientists. A PhD doing those things is actually just being a good politician. If you consider that their job is really to keep the money flowing into their department, then they ARE doing a good job. The problem is really that we've allowed a system to form where those types of people have a place.
I just saw a story about this today. I was amazed at the shock and outrage coming from the creationists side of the fence over this film. These are the same people who backed the Narnia movie correct? Maybe I was blinded by my sides evolutionist "beer-goggles" (or perhaps actual beer goggles), but I can't remember the scientific/evolution community crying fowl over Narnia. Did any scientific foundations print up pamphlets to disperse to good atheist parents about the dangerous of The Chronicles of Narnia? Now the tables are turned and they're screaming "No fair! No fair! We're the ones that have a monopoly on propaganda aimed at impressionable children! You're infringing on our IP!" They always seem to want it both ways. All the same, one of the benefits of being on OUR side is that we don't have an emotional connection to the material we're defending. No good scientist clings to theories that have been disproved because his self worth and world view are bound to them. That's effectively what religion is. We have the luxury of being more nimble than that. We can toss things out when something better comes along. The bible is, well, the bible. About time for a revised addition I'd say, we've calculated Pi out a lot further now.
Really, it's a movie. These adults, and I use that term loosely, are getting worked up over a movie for CHILDREN. Do you think 10 year olds will be able to see the deep religious and philosophical undertones of this film? Somehow, I don't think that's what they're going to take away from it.
Touche, sir. FF's spell checker obviously can't fix carelessness and haste.
I realize this, but the end result is the same. If I want my hardware to work, I can't use Linux. Different hardware that complies to standards would fix the problem, but can't you see how a member of the Linux community telling a user "You have to buy new hardware for Linux to work, sorry." doesn't go a long way in bolstering support of the platform? If it weren't for Windows, this laptop I'm typing on would be a brick, that's the only reality I care about, and I actually understand the politics and the reasons behind this, imagine the reaction of someone who has never heard of Linux before, someone who doesn't take philosophical or idealogical stances into consideration when they purchase electronics. I keep hoping I'll be able to install Linux on this machine and have it work at least as well as XP, but that doesn't look like it will happen within the lifespan of this laptop. I bought it because it was cheap and effective for what I wanted to do, the next one I buy will probably be purchased with the intent to run Linux, and that will be my primary factor in determining what hardware I get, but just the fact that I have to go out of my way to do all that research shows that Windows has a HUGE advantage over Linux in the range of its hardware compatibility. And that count for a lot.
I've lived in both places--and I proffered the weather in Washington! That state is much more beautiful than California. Maybe not the cities, but the cities in CA aren't anything to boast about either. Neither of those slogans really matter, in fact I've never noticed until I just checked my iPod video (sure enough, there it is). Now, if I saw "Manufactured in Washington/California" that could actually sway my decision on what to buy.
I have a notebook with the same graphics, XP and Vista are supported perfectly. It might be ATI's fault for not supporting all platforms equally, but that doesn't change the reality that under Linux the hardware you paid for wont fully work. On that same notebook the wifi doesn't work either with Linux, and the built in card reader is impossible to get working. Drivers just don't exist for it. All the drivers are there for XP, and with Vista I didn't even have to track them down, it worked right after install.
A vote for Ron Paul would effectively eliminate every social welfare program we have. If you value things like health care and an education system you'd be wise to find a different candidate. I would really like for the liberals to stop pretending to like Ron Paul just because he's antiwar. He hasn't started talking about private militias, corporate sponsored highways and the gold standard yet, but if he does I will officially count him as insane--along with all the other libertarians. Right now he's merely a hard right economics Republican who doesn't focus on social issues. Unchecked libertarianism would be just as ruinous for the country as the worst policies any neocon could dream up. As someone already said, Obama does not take PAC or lobbyist money, it's a major point of his campaign.
I knew I wasn't the only person to take notice of that. Laptops and monitors are increasingly sold with widescreen monitors. All the screens I use now have them. The most common resolutions being 1280x800 for the smaller ones and 1440x900 for medium sizes. I only have one larger than that. Now when you make something that takes up an extra 10px of vertical space it's actually a larger percentage of the total space than before because of the different aspect ratio. Just a quick comparison between Ubuntu and XP's default shows this. Consider the very common situation of having a web browser maximized. Vertical space is so important in this case because web pages primarily are set up to scroll up and down to fit more content. The more you can see without scrolling the better. On Ubuntu you've, starting from the top, the top panel, the windows border, the Firefox controls, then the content of the page, status bar, lower panel. Both panels start out at 22px I believe and the window at the top is about the same. It's easy to see how the little things add up. On XP it's a noticeable difference--at least to me--not having those extra spaces. Add to that the problem of Ubuntu (and indeed all recent distros) using very large font sizes by default, a hold over from the days when font rendering sucked and you needed big sizes to hide the atrocious anti-aliasing (and they still look bad when small, try Ubuntu defaults, size 9, sub pixel hinting, check the word "File" or the number 8. Very uncommon I know so it probably hardly comes up), and you start to see that monitor space getting nickel and dimed away from the stuff that you really want to use it for.
Haruhi was excellent however. They've botched the English dub, and the subs on the official DVD release SUCK. Fansubbers did a better job than the official release, it's pretty sad actually. Also if you're any fan of that song, DON'T listen to the dubbed version, it's absolutely horrid. It will ruin it for you. It's possible to do dubs well; there are several shows. that I prefer the English dub to the sub (FLCL, GitS:SAC, Azumanga), but they really missed their mark with Haruhi, it was primarily a casting problem too, which is a shame.