No, I'm not saying that people who read half the series don't know what they are talking about. I'm saying that the first half of the first book in this twelve book series (including prequel) is not indicative of the rest of the series. Your reading comprehension leaves a bit to be desired, AC. You might work on that before making derisive presumptions regarding my reading level.
I've read them all several times now, but the first WoT book I ever read was Book 2. Had I started from Book 1 I doubt I would have ever gotten into the series.
I feel that in Book 1 he hadn't really found the series' "voice" yet, that the story and prose are amateurish as you say. Books 2-5 are both much better written and much more interesting as stories. You get the sense sometimes while reading them that he wishes he could undo some of the things that happened in Book 1, or that he wishes he made the 'rules' slightly differently in Book 1. Books 2-3 carry on the same themes as Book 1 did, but in a richer way.
In Books 6-9 the tone changes. The stories start becoming very complex, very mature. Many people don't like 6-9 as the plot lines tend to deal more with politics and character motivations, rather then personal growth and exploring exotic lands (the primary motifs of 1-5). The villains in particular become less cartoon-y. Ishamael, the howling, ranting, "join the darkside!" villain of 1-3, is replaced by Moridin a quiet, sinister figure whom manipulates all the characters from the background, and who's motives are completely unknowable. Lanfear of the early books, who's only function is to tempt the protagonists with sex and glory or to fly into jealous rages, is swept aside in favor of Mogedian, a much more three-dimensional villain. Jordan also develops characters such as Elida, Verin and Asmodean, characters who are acting in the moral grey areas, neither completely good or evil.
In Books 10-11 the series' tone changed one last time. Maybe responding to fans complaints, Jordan begins wrapping up plot lines rather then creating new ones. The storys become more personal: a love story, a war of succession, and a personal vendetta of revenge. There are more battles, and the hero Rand loses much of his near-invincibility he possessed in the previous books. There is a sense of impending catastrophe, lacking in previous volumes.
The series isn't perfect, but judging the series by the first half of first book is misleading.
I had a bad stick of RAM in my old PB and got the "Grey Screen of Death" panic he describes practically every day. The OS would die anytime I did anything that was RAM intensive. I yanked it and it was good as new.
I had forgotten what GSoD looked like, until I installed Leopard (two machines in my case). Going through the logs, each panic seems to be related to either the power management or the Arabesque screen saver (of all things). I've had 3 panics. One on the old aforementioned PB (with RAM that isn't faulty and has preformed without error for years), and two on my Macbook. I stopped running that particular screensaver and have not had problems since, though it hasn't really been long enough to say if that was the culprit.
BTW, I agree with you that the author is more interested in drawing attention with an inflammatory rant then in actually discussing the problem, but that doesn't mean there are not issues with Leopard. I can't condemn Apple for a few bugs as he does, especially since they have a good track record for fixing them.
I actually get the impression that there are a lot of female Trekkies, more so then any other flavor of geek. My aunt was the person that got me into TNG, as a matter of fact.
Though her favorite character was Riker for some reason.
I have to disagree as well. Buffy season 1 was terrible, 2 was ok, 3 great, 4 not as good as 3, 5 excellent, 6 a little tired, 7 overwrought and pretty bad. Angel just got better with each season.
My fellow art nerds and I are all poor. We can't afford to go out and buy expensive software like photoshop; so what do we do? We go out and buy a wacom, get ourselves a copy of the GIMP and go to work. When we start getting ourselves into decision making positions, what are we going to choose? A very expensive and (imho) difficult to use piece of software like photoshop? Or a very familiar, and 100% free piece of software like the gimp?
I agree. Back in the day, 'they' would just snag a copy of Photoshop off one of the computers at work or school. It was copyright infringment, but it ensured that later, when they had real money to spend, they would choose Photoshop as it was what they knew. Now that Adobe has CS locked down like a copy of Vista, I wonder if OSS or maybe a commercial company might come in and knock them off their cloud.
NYC transit tops out at $76 a month, as that is the cost for unlimited monthly use. Unlike everything else in this city, transportation is a steal.
Having a car here is really a huge pain, anyway. My business partner used to have a car when he lived in Brooklyn, and he hated it. Its not just the traffic. You either have to pay a fortune to garage it (likely both at home and at work (easily $800 per month, unless your company is paying, which if they are small they aren't), or make time for moving it from one side of the street to the other practically every day for street cleaning. Keep in mind that everyone else is doing the same thing and there are never enough spots, its like playing musical chairs with the entire neighborhood. Then add to that the fact that the smallest parking ticket you can get in NYC is now well over $100.
Personally I love driving, and try to do so whenever I get out of town, I'm in no way anti-automobile. Its just too bad that more care wasn't taken to preserve our nation's public transit systems. If NYC's subway, with its dingy atmosphere, dated infrastructure, rats, and general smelliness was the worst the country had to offer instead of the best, our country as a whole might be less stressed out and less overweight.
Are they talking about the Best Buy "Geek Squad"? If not I would really like to know how they qualify "geeks". After reading TFA I kinda doubt they do, they might as well said "Most random people we asked to fix a computer we intentionally broke" could not quickly discover that we were screwing with them.
No kidding! My uncle makes this incredible pepper-sprayH^H^H^ I mean, hot sauce. He makes it from the roasted habbanero seeds. Its so hot that literally just a drop will make most meals so hot that some novices can't eat then. On the other hand, he drowns everything he eats in it, like a kid putting catsup on french fries. Lately I've been eating really spicy southwestern food everyday (in the area of Brooklyn I work in there is little else) and I'm proud to say that the last time I saw him I was able to eat (and more importantly digest) a couple good sized dabs.
Sounds like a plan... except for one thing. Capsaicin come out just as hot as it goes in. Add to that the constipation that opiates cause and you are talking about an excruciating bowel movement.
I just mentioned Corel Paint Shop Pro to my girlfriend who is a fashion photographer. Turns out she actually had to become familiar with it back in college, as its evidently popular among fashion designers.
Before CS2 I was of the opinion that Adobe was intentionally taking a blind eye to piracy. It made sense that they would. By taking a blind eye to piracy they were insuring that Photoshop and their other apps had the largest install base possible. Businesses (who could afford to pay) would then be forced to use them, as its they are the programs everone knows.
Perhaps by CS2 they've reasoned that they can afford to clamp down, as they no longer have any meaningful compotition.
I agree that number 2 is the real show stopper and what you said about CMYK only really being useful these days if you are doing prepress. What I wanted to add is that almost all images benefit from having a greater dynamic range during the input phase. Even if your output is going to be 8 bits per channel (which it often is), if you do any real manipulation to the image you need some data to throw away, 12 or 16 bits in your source. Otherwise you get some really nasty artifacts, sometimes in the form of color banding and sometimes in just a 'digital-y look' to the image. Its really apparent if you look at late 90s digital that they generally only had 8 bpc to work with.
I would say that amateurs (as well as artists and illustrators) actually need the extra channels even more then professionals do, as amateurs rely on post processing more, where as a professional will usually strive to get it all in camera if possible so as to minimize the amount of work they have to put into the shoot.
Interface and everything aside, the big stumbling block with the Gimp was its lack of support for more then 8 bits per channel. I would love to be able to use the GIMP, I can't afford to keep up with Photoshop, but without support for more then 8 bits per channel you wind up with some pretty nasty artifacts if you do any major editing.
Every part of Saturn exposed to the sun is reflecting part of its light back toward the 'dark' side of Titan in transit. If Saturn is sufficiently large and sufficiently reflective, the 'dark' side of Titan could be brighter. I don't know if it is though.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that /. is the only website with a -1 Redundant option, you're right. HA!
This is one of those times when two seemingly contradictory posts are both correct.
Given that /. is the only website with a -1 Redundant option, you're right.
No, I'm not saying that people who read half the series don't know what they are talking about. I'm saying that the first half of the first book in this twelve book series (including prequel) is not indicative of the rest of the series. Your reading comprehension leaves a bit to be desired, AC. You might work on that before making derisive presumptions regarding my reading level.
I've read them all several times now, but the first WoT book I ever read was Book 2. Had I started from Book 1 I doubt I would have ever gotten into the series.
I feel that in Book 1 he hadn't really found the series' "voice" yet, that the story and prose are amateurish as you say. Books 2-5 are both much better written and much more interesting as stories. You get the sense sometimes while reading them that he wishes he could undo some of the things that happened in Book 1, or that he wishes he made the 'rules' slightly differently in Book 1. Books 2-3 carry on the same themes as Book 1 did, but in a richer way.
In Books 6-9 the tone changes. The stories start becoming very complex, very mature. Many people don't like 6-9 as the plot lines tend to deal more with politics and character motivations, rather then personal growth and exploring exotic lands (the primary motifs of 1-5). The villains in particular become less cartoon-y. Ishamael, the howling, ranting, "join the darkside!" villain of 1-3, is replaced by Moridin a quiet, sinister figure whom manipulates all the characters from the background, and who's motives are completely unknowable. Lanfear of the early books, who's only function is to tempt the protagonists with sex and glory or to fly into jealous rages, is swept aside in favor of Mogedian, a much more three-dimensional villain. Jordan also develops characters such as Elida, Verin and Asmodean, characters who are acting in the moral grey areas, neither completely good or evil.
In Books 10-11 the series' tone changed one last time. Maybe responding to fans complaints, Jordan begins wrapping up plot lines rather then creating new ones. The storys become more personal: a love story, a war of succession, and a personal vendetta of revenge. There are more battles, and the hero Rand loses much of his near-invincibility he possessed in the previous books. There is a sense of impending catastrophe, lacking in previous volumes.
The series isn't perfect, but judging the series by the first half of first book is misleading.
I had a bad stick of RAM in my old PB and got the "Grey Screen of Death" panic he describes practically every day. The OS would die anytime I did anything that was RAM intensive. I yanked it and it was good as new.
I had forgotten what GSoD looked like, until I installed Leopard (two machines in my case). Going through the logs, each panic seems to be related to either the power management or the Arabesque screen saver (of all things). I've had 3 panics. One on the old aforementioned PB (with RAM that isn't faulty and has preformed without error for years), and two on my Macbook. I stopped running that particular screensaver and have not had problems since, though it hasn't really been long enough to say if that was the culprit.
BTW, I agree with you that the author is more interested in drawing attention with an inflammatory rant then in actually discussing the problem, but that doesn't mean there are not issues with Leopard. I can't condemn Apple for a few bugs as he does, especially since they have a good track record for fixing them.
I actually get the impression that there are a lot of female Trekkies, more so then any other flavor of geek. My aunt was the person that got me into TNG, as a matter of fact.
Though her favorite character was Riker for some reason.
I have to disagree as well. Buffy season 1 was terrible, 2 was ok, 3 great, 4 not as good as 3, 5 excellent, 6 a little tired, 7 overwrought and pretty bad. Angel just got better with each season.
My fellow art nerds and I are all poor. We can't afford to go out and buy expensive software like photoshop; so what do we do? We go out and buy a wacom, get ourselves a copy of the GIMP and go to work. When we start getting ourselves into decision making positions, what are we going to choose? A very expensive and (imho) difficult to use piece of software like photoshop? Or a very familiar, and 100% free piece of software like the gimp?
I agree. Back in the day, 'they' would just snag a copy of Photoshop off one of the computers at work or school. It was copyright infringment, but it ensured that later, when they had real money to spend, they would choose Photoshop as it was what they knew. Now that Adobe has CS locked down like a copy of Vista, I wonder if OSS or maybe a commercial company might come in and knock them off their cloud.
I guess they are going to have to start making long, rectangular post-it notes now.
NYC transit tops out at $76 a month, as that is the cost for unlimited monthly use. Unlike everything else in this city, transportation is a steal. Having a car here is really a huge pain, anyway. My business partner used to have a car when he lived in Brooklyn, and he hated it. Its not just the traffic. You either have to pay a fortune to garage it (likely both at home and at work (easily $800 per month, unless your company is paying, which if they are small they aren't), or make time for moving it from one side of the street to the other practically every day for street cleaning. Keep in mind that everyone else is doing the same thing and there are never enough spots, its like playing musical chairs with the entire neighborhood. Then add to that the fact that the smallest parking ticket you can get in NYC is now well over $100. Personally I love driving, and try to do so whenever I get out of town, I'm in no way anti-automobile. Its just too bad that more care wasn't taken to preserve our nation's public transit systems. If NYC's subway, with its dingy atmosphere, dated infrastructure, rats, and general smelliness was the worst the country had to offer instead of the best, our country as a whole might be less stressed out and less overweight.
Certainly there are flaws, but please point to something better if you are going to make that assertion.
whoosh!
I agree, calling this currency intergalactic might be called hubris.
Are they talking about the Best Buy "Geek Squad"? If not I would really like to know how they qualify "geeks". After reading TFA I kinda doubt they do, they might as well said "Most random people we asked to fix a computer we intentionally broke" could not quickly discover that we were screwing with them.
No kidding! My uncle makes this incredible pepper-sprayH^H^H^ I mean, hot sauce. He makes it from the roasted habbanero seeds. Its so hot that literally just a drop will make most meals so hot that some novices can't eat then. On the other hand, he drowns everything he eats in it, like a kid putting catsup on french fries. Lately I've been eating really spicy southwestern food everyday (in the area of Brooklyn I work in there is little else) and I'm proud to say that the last time I saw him I was able to eat (and more importantly digest) a couple good sized dabs.
Sounds like a plan... except for one thing. Capsaicin come out just as hot as it goes in. Add to that the constipation that opiates cause and you are talking about an excruciating bowel movement.
I had no idea Corel was still in business.
I just mentioned Corel Paint Shop Pro to my girlfriend who is a fashion photographer. Turns out she actually had to become familiar with it back in college, as its evidently popular among fashion designers.
I don't know man, Chinese labor is awfully cheap.
Before CS2 I was of the opinion that Adobe was intentionally taking a blind eye to piracy. It made sense that they would. By taking a blind eye to piracy they were insuring that Photoshop and their other apps had the largest install base possible. Businesses (who could afford to pay) would then be forced to use them, as its they are the programs everone knows.
Perhaps by CS2 they've reasoned that they can afford to clamp down, as they no longer have any meaningful compotition.
I agree that number 2 is the real show stopper and what you said about CMYK only really being useful these days if you are doing prepress. What I wanted to add is that almost all images benefit from having a greater dynamic range during the input phase. Even if your output is going to be 8 bits per channel (which it often is), if you do any real manipulation to the image you need some data to throw away, 12 or 16 bits in your source. Otherwise you get some really nasty artifacts, sometimes in the form of color banding and sometimes in just a 'digital-y look' to the image. Its really apparent if you look at late 90s digital that they generally only had 8 bpc to work with.
I would say that amateurs (as well as artists and illustrators) actually need the extra channels even more then professionals do, as amateurs rely on post processing more, where as a professional will usually strive to get it all in camera if possible so as to minimize the amount of work they have to put into the shoot.
Interface and everything aside, the big stumbling block with the Gimp was its lack of support for more then 8 bits per channel. I would love to be able to use the GIMP, I can't afford to keep up with Photoshop, but without support for more then 8 bits per channel you wind up with some pretty nasty artifacts if you do any major editing.
Every part of Saturn exposed to the sun is reflecting part of its light back toward the 'dark' side of Titan in transit. If Saturn is sufficiently large and sufficiently reflective, the 'dark' side of Titan could be brighter. I don't know if it is though.
AHH HA! A car analogy! This makes it all seem so simple!
Oh okay, I stand corrected then. I hadn't heard of the software hack. These things happen pretty quickly, I suppose.