So this is that Mac arrogance that I have heard so much about. Integrating into the OS isn't a good thing, but you Mac users have yet to learn that lesson the way Windows users have. Having your operating system store passwords so any web browser can access them...that's a horrible security flaw waiting to happen.
And besides for some of the English-speaking slashdot crowd, who really needs spell-check in their web browser?
Having a web browser that integrates with the operating system isn't exactly a good thing. Ask any competent Windows user about what they think about having a web browser that integrates with the operating system and other applications, and most will tell you that its a bad idea.
As Macs become more popular, they will no longer be able to rely on security through obscurity. Sure, Macs may be based on Unix, but those security enhancements will be undone by integrating programs into the operating system. Programs like Keychain are a hackers dream waiting for an exploit to take advantage of it.
I don't care how many laws of aethestic elegance Firefox breaks. It works. It doesn't have to look good.
What is the difference between a rusted Chevy El-camino and a Jaguar? The Chevy, despite its appearance, is still probably running while you're taking the Jaguar in every thousand miles for a tune-up and an oil change.
I guess you can say that Mac users are like teenage girls. They are willing to spend $80 on a pair of jeans while the rest of us are happy with a $14 pair from Wal-mart that does the job just as well and will last twice as long.
The western fertility rate is way down [wikipedia.org]. For example, in the UK it's just 1.66 children per woman. In the US it's 2.08 - that's only just above the point at which the population is stable (2.00).
Is fertility down? Or are women making the choice to have fewer kids?
I realize that there are some environmental factors that lead to lower birthrates in environmental birthrates. But there are other factors to consider as well. Women in many nations had more choices than they did 50 years ago. In addition to careers, there are many methods of birth control that are encouraged. So the lower fertility rates may be partly due to choice.
There are a couple of reasons for that. In some cases, the soils are poor to begin with or have been depleted by poor farming practices. However, there are a lot of farmers who use fertilizers, even when they don't have to, because the seed company reps tell them they're needed or because they get a tax break when they use them.
If I recall correctly, there is a ton of government money available for farmers who buy and use tons of fertilizers on their crops.
Which, while understandable, is completely different than reporting the fire to Apple. Just because your classmates don't know doesn't mean that Apple shouldn't.
I could get next-day onsite service, but I have found that it is easier to send it in for repairs when the mainboard is replaced. Besides, I can usually go without my machine for a weekend.
I didn't report it to Apple, as it was a used machine and I was looking to replace it with a Windows laptop at the time.
Your computer starts on fire, and you don't bother to report it because it was used? Unless I had a stolen computer, I would report that anyway because that is a serious problem. Sure, I wouldn't expect a replacement, but I think it would be something that the company needed to know about.
Do I believe you? No. I don't think that your computer started on fire in the middle of class.
Well, your friend is an idiot. He should have done his homework before he ever dealt with a salesman given that the Apple III was rife with problems. It doesn't matter that the Apple III would soon be replaced by the Lisa, it is his own fault that he allowed a salesman to talk him into a sale. Its no wonder why Dell is so successful today.
Apple did pre-announce the changeover. It has been known since sometime in early 2005 that there would be Mactel computers, and such a move was suspected for many years before that. The customers weren't exactly blindsided by this switch unless they were living in some cave without access to Slashdot.
If anything, you sound like an angry Ebayer who thought that you would still be able to make a bundle off of your PPC Macs despite knowing that the changeover to Intel was just a short time away.
As for Apple wilting, I don't think that will happen. They have a pretty strong position right now, and their only serious competitor keeps delaying their supposed "OSX killer." Apple could greatly improve their position, but I doubt they would take those moves by licensing their operating system to another manufacturer.
Being a better operating system overall won't help Apple topple Microsoft's dominance. They simply can't reach the same number of customers as Microsoft does due to their business model.
I've heard better romantic dialog out of my high school classmates than the sappy, uninspired dialog in episodes II and III.
And I think that is part of the problem with the perception of the prequel trilogy. No one takes a moment to understand the characters for what they are.
Who is Anakin Skywalker? He is a boy who was torn away from his mother, the only person who really cared for him, told that he was the Chosen One who had this great destiny, and then trained not to have any feelings. At some point, he discovers that he loves/lusts after Padme Amidala and encouters feelings he's never had explained to him or was told to repress. Has he had the benefit of normal social interaction with kids his own age? For a while, but then he was thrust into Jedi training.
Who is Amidala? She's the girl who was Queen. As a teenager, she had the burden of ruling a planet, a position she was most likely groomed for from birth. That hardly leaves room for her to have a normal childhood that would lead to a well-adjusted adult.
Both characters are isolated and lonely. Heck, Anakin is still probably that 7 year old boy on some levels.
Everyone likes to criticize the writing of the prequels and claim that the romance dialogue was mishandled without ever stopping to look at it from the perspective of the characters. They're not normal teenagers. They've never had the benefit of going to a school or having "normal" social interactions. And despite all this, Anakin is somehow supposed to become Casanova or Don Juan.
Re:Visualisation is the only thing he's good at no
on
The New Force at Lucasfilm
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Thank you! Its about time there was some sense in the Star Wars community. The movies, despite their problems, weren't THAT bad.
Sure, Anakin Skywalker went to the darkside because he was desperate to prevent his visions of his wife's death from coming true. No one would ever be tempted by the devil to save the woman (or man) they love from death?
And yeah, that love dialog from Episodes II and III sounded like it came from two socially inept, isolated teenagers who had never been encouraged to explore their feelings.
The Prequels really stood out in some areas, but were disappointing in others. Yes, the dialogue could have used work in most cases. Kevin Smith should have been brought in to ghostwrite on the project. Sometimes, the characters would have been better off saying nothing at all.
That isn't to say that the dialogue was all bad. In Episode III, I thought some of the interactions between Obi-Wan and Anakin were pretty good. The dialogue of the other Jedi, while dry in some spots, really wasn't terrible.
I think the biggest reason why a lot of people didn't like the prequels is that it is hard to live up to the originals. In some ways, Lucas had to fit certain characters into a mold so they would develop into the ones we see in the original trilogy. I'm no author, but I suspect that it would be very hard to do and could cause problems.
And yes, the acting was a bit wooden, and that is clearly Lucas's fault. He isn't an experienced director, and he didn't know how to handle his characters.
That is a very important point. We want to know when companies are influencing the election of politicians who are going to give them a sweet deal. Its imperitive to ensure that our nation doesn't turn into a corporate controlled state. Oops. Too late.
However, if I, as an independent citizen, wish to publish a political blog under the name Publius, I should have that right as well. I shouldn't have to file forms or disclose my funding if I wish to exercise my right to free speech. Nor should the government be able to tell me that I can't talk about the subject of politics simply because it is an election season.
When I was a student, I had my laptops in several classes. In classes where the Internet wasn't accessible, I would usually take notes (except for a psychology class where I would play the Sims).
Laptops can be an incredible boon for students in a class. Programs like OneNote and its equivalents are a great tool for taking notes, and the ability to have all the software you need for class on one machine means you can carry all your work and the tools to do that work with you.
Your professor friend sounds like one I have had in the past. In his classes, I would be surfing the Internet, checking my email, or doing things besides paying attention 100% of the time. That didn't mean that I didn't know what was going on, though. I would be called upon to answer questions when he knew I wasn't paying attention. But I would also volunteer to answer, and the only reason I would be called upon was because no one else would want to answer.
Not all of their support is in Atlanta. They must have a call center in India or something because I know I have dealt with individuals who had very thick indian accents that were both hard to understand and couldn't understand me.
I was a student of Information Technology, and I just graduated in December. Amongst my classmates, I was the only student who routinely brought my laptop to class while everyone else carried around disks or memory keys.
At times, it came in handy. While I was in my database classes, I could have my own instance of SQL server running so I could test my work before uploading it to the class server, and in our programming classes, I didn't have to jump through hoops to work on my projects on other computers (we used Visual Studio). I can even go back and look at my notes from my marketing and advertising classes.
But if I got bored, then I had distractions besides day dreaming. Unfortunately, my email was always at my fingertips, and I could browse the web or IM my friends.
There are pros and cons for students having laptops in class, and those will vary by major.
What's wrong with the way the Thinkpad looks? Are looks more important than functionality?
I don't care that my thinkpad looks like a black concrete slab. It works. It works better than every other laptop I have worked with. And when it doesn't work, IBM's service is second to none.
You are talking about having 4 xboxes (boxen?) networked in one place at the same time. This ALONE makes you not part of the gameplaying majority. Just because YOU and your "friends" enjoyed this does NOT make this "the selling point" by any stretch of the imagination!
I don't know. I know a few people who ran out and bought the Xbox system because of the multiplayer feature. The orignal Halo sparked many weekend Xbox LAN parties at my fraternity house, and Halo 2 became a daily campus-wide social event.
Technical merits and flaws of the game aside, the social aspects of the game were a STRONG selling point. Up until Halo on the Xbox, I am not aware of any FPS that allowed you to play multiplayer over a LAN from a console.
The single-player mode isn't what makes the game such a big seller. Its the multiplayer mode over TCP/IP that drives the sales of this game. I don't recall a single console first-person shooter that offered that feature when Halo was originally released.
Slashdot Mirror
So this is that Mac arrogance that I have heard so much about. Integrating into the OS isn't a good thing, but you Mac users have yet to learn that lesson the way Windows users have. Having your operating system store passwords so any web browser can access them...that's a horrible security flaw waiting to happen.
And besides for some of the English-speaking slashdot crowd, who really needs spell-check in their web browser?
Having a web browser that integrates with the operating system isn't exactly a good thing. Ask any competent Windows user about what they think about having a web browser that integrates with the operating system and other applications, and most will tell you that its a bad idea.
As Macs become more popular, they will no longer be able to rely on security through obscurity. Sure, Macs may be based on Unix, but those security enhancements will be undone by integrating programs into the operating system. Programs like Keychain are a hackers dream waiting for an exploit to take advantage of it.
I don't care how many laws of aethestic elegance Firefox breaks. It works. It doesn't have to look good.
What is the difference between a rusted Chevy El-camino and a Jaguar? The Chevy, despite its appearance, is still probably running while you're taking the Jaguar in every thousand miles for a tune-up and an oil change.
All a matter of perspective, I suppose.
I guess you can say that Mac users are like teenage girls. They are willing to spend $80 on a pair of jeans while the rest of us are happy with a $14 pair from Wal-mart that does the job just as well and will last twice as long.
The western fertility rate is way down [wikipedia.org]. For example, in the UK it's just 1.66 children per woman. In the US it's 2.08 - that's only just above the point at which the population is stable (2.00).
Is fertility down? Or are women making the choice to have fewer kids?
I realize that there are some environmental factors that lead to lower birthrates in environmental birthrates. But there are other factors to consider as well. Women in many nations had more choices than they did 50 years ago. In addition to careers, there are many methods of birth control that are encouraged. So the lower fertility rates may be partly due to choice.
There are a couple of reasons for that. In some cases, the soils are poor to begin with or have been depleted by poor farming practices. However, there are a lot of farmers who use fertilizers, even when they don't have to, because the seed company reps tell them they're needed or because they get a tax break when they use them.
If I recall correctly, there is a ton of government money available for farmers who buy and use tons of fertilizers on their crops.
Evolution is only inconsistent if you take the Bible literally, but then the Bible becomes inconsistent as well.
Which, while understandable, is completely different than reporting the fire to Apple. Just because your classmates don't know doesn't mean that Apple shouldn't.
I could get next-day onsite service, but I have found that it is easier to send it in for repairs when the mainboard is replaced. Besides, I can usually go without my machine for a weekend.
I didn't report it to Apple, as it was a used machine and I was looking to replace it with a Windows laptop at the time.
Your computer starts on fire, and you don't bother to report it because it was used? Unless I had a stolen computer, I would report that anyway because that is a serious problem. Sure, I wouldn't expect a replacement, but I think it would be something that the company needed to know about.
Do I believe you? No. I don't think that your computer started on fire in the middle of class.
Well, your friend is an idiot. He should have done his homework before he ever dealt with a salesman given that the Apple III was rife with problems. It doesn't matter that the Apple III would soon be replaced by the Lisa, it is his own fault that he allowed a salesman to talk him into a sale. Its no wonder why Dell is so successful today.
Apple did pre-announce the changeover. It has been known since sometime in early 2005 that there would be Mactel computers, and such a move was suspected for many years before that. The customers weren't exactly blindsided by this switch unless they were living in some cave without access to Slashdot.
If anything, you sound like an angry Ebayer who thought that you would still be able to make a bundle off of your PPC Macs despite knowing that the changeover to Intel was just a short time away.
As for Apple wilting, I don't think that will happen. They have a pretty strong position right now, and their only serious competitor keeps delaying their supposed "OSX killer." Apple could greatly improve their position, but I doubt they would take those moves by licensing their operating system to another manufacturer.
Being a better operating system overall won't help Apple topple Microsoft's dominance. They simply can't reach the same number of customers as Microsoft does due to their business model.
When Steven King republished the Stand, he added over 300 pages to his novel.
I've heard better romantic dialog out of my high school classmates than the sappy, uninspired dialog in episodes II and III.
And I think that is part of the problem with the perception of the prequel trilogy. No one takes a moment to understand the characters for what they are.
Who is Anakin Skywalker? He is a boy who was torn away from his mother, the only person who really cared for him, told that he was the Chosen One who had this great destiny, and then trained not to have any feelings. At some point, he discovers that he loves/lusts after Padme Amidala and encouters feelings he's never had explained to him or was told to repress. Has he had the benefit of normal social interaction with kids his own age? For a while, but then he was thrust into Jedi training.
Who is Amidala? She's the girl who was Queen. As a teenager, she had the burden of ruling a planet, a position she was most likely groomed for from birth. That hardly leaves room for her to have a normal childhood that would lead to a well-adjusted adult.
Both characters are isolated and lonely. Heck, Anakin is still probably that 7 year old boy on some levels.
Everyone likes to criticize the writing of the prequels and claim that the romance dialogue was mishandled without ever stopping to look at it from the perspective of the characters. They're not normal teenagers. They've never had the benefit of going to a school or having "normal" social interactions. And despite all this, Anakin is somehow supposed to become Casanova or Don Juan.
Thank you! Its about time there was some sense in the Star Wars community. The movies, despite their problems, weren't THAT bad.
Sure, Anakin Skywalker went to the darkside because he was desperate to prevent his visions of his wife's death from coming true. No one would ever be tempted by the devil to save the woman (or man) they love from death?
And yeah, that love dialog from Episodes II and III sounded like it came from two socially inept, isolated teenagers who had never been encouraged to explore their feelings.
The Prequels really stood out in some areas, but were disappointing in others. Yes, the dialogue could have used work in most cases. Kevin Smith should have been brought in to ghostwrite on the project. Sometimes, the characters would have been better off saying nothing at all.
That isn't to say that the dialogue was all bad. In Episode III, I thought some of the interactions between Obi-Wan and Anakin were pretty good. The dialogue of the other Jedi, while dry in some spots, really wasn't terrible.
I think the biggest reason why a lot of people didn't like the prequels is that it is hard to live up to the originals. In some ways, Lucas had to fit certain characters into a mold so they would develop into the ones we see in the original trilogy. I'm no author, but I suspect that it would be very hard to do and could cause problems. And yes, the acting was a bit wooden, and that is clearly Lucas's fault. He isn't an experienced director, and he didn't know how to handle his characters.
You consider Darksaber better than Episode I?
Designing and operating a surface combatant is different than designing and operating an aircraft carrier.
That is a very important point. We want to know when companies are influencing the election of politicians who are going to give them a sweet deal. Its imperitive to ensure that our nation doesn't turn into a corporate controlled state. Oops. Too late.
However, if I, as an independent citizen, wish to publish a political blog under the name Publius, I should have that right as well. I shouldn't have to file forms or disclose my funding if I wish to exercise my right to free speech. Nor should the government be able to tell me that I can't talk about the subject of politics simply because it is an election season.
Hmm...interesting. This is how the US Senate should operate. Damn 17th Amendment!!
When I was a student, I had my laptops in several classes. In classes where the Internet wasn't accessible, I would usually take notes (except for a psychology class where I would play the Sims).
Laptops can be an incredible boon for students in a class. Programs like OneNote and its equivalents are a great tool for taking notes, and the ability to have all the software you need for class on one machine means you can carry all your work and the tools to do that work with you.
Your professor friend sounds like one I have had in the past. In his classes, I would be surfing the Internet, checking my email, or doing things besides paying attention 100% of the time. That didn't mean that I didn't know what was going on, though. I would be called upon to answer questions when he knew I wasn't paying attention. But I would also volunteer to answer, and the only reason I would be called upon was because no one else would want to answer.
Not all of their support is in Atlanta. They must have a call center in India or something because I know I have dealt with individuals who had very thick indian accents that were both hard to understand and couldn't understand me.
I was a student of Information Technology, and I just graduated in December. Amongst my classmates, I was the only student who routinely brought my laptop to class while everyone else carried around disks or memory keys.
At times, it came in handy. While I was in my database classes, I could have my own instance of SQL server running so I could test my work before uploading it to the class server, and in our programming classes, I didn't have to jump through hoops to work on my projects on other computers (we used Visual Studio). I can even go back and look at my notes from my marketing and advertising classes.
But if I got bored, then I had distractions besides day dreaming. Unfortunately, my email was always at my fingertips, and I could browse the web or IM my friends.
There are pros and cons for students having laptops in class, and those will vary by major.
What's wrong with the way the Thinkpad looks? Are looks more important than functionality?
I don't care that my thinkpad looks like a black concrete slab. It works. It works better than every other laptop I have worked with. And when it doesn't work, IBM's service is second to none.
Turn down the bitterness a little.
You are talking about having 4 xboxes (boxen?) networked in one place at the same time. This ALONE makes you not part of the gameplaying majority. Just because YOU and your "friends" enjoyed this does NOT make this "the selling point" by any stretch of the imagination!
I don't know. I know a few people who ran out and bought the Xbox system because of the multiplayer feature. The orignal Halo sparked many weekend Xbox LAN parties at my fraternity house, and Halo 2 became a daily campus-wide social event.
Technical merits and flaws of the game aside, the social aspects of the game were a STRONG selling point. Up until Halo on the Xbox, I am not aware of any FPS that allowed you to play multiplayer over a LAN from a console.
The single-player mode isn't what makes the game such a big seller. Its the multiplayer mode over TCP/IP that drives the sales of this game. I don't recall a single console first-person shooter that offered that feature when Halo was originally released.