I know I'm going to get flamed and mod'ed into oblivion for this, but seriously, what's the big deal about LotR? Why do people lash out viciously at movies that actually make an attempt a real depth (Matrix), while simultaneously holding up the LotR as the cinematic "Gold Standard?" I mean, sure, it's a moderately interesting story, but does it need 9+ hours to be told? Sure, some interesting fights happen along the way, and the effects are great, but are there subtle metaphors, philosophical references, and character dualities (besides Golem, obviously) that I'm missing?
Why do people bitch and complain that the Matrix was too much gobbledygook (translation: they didn't understand, and hate movies that challenge them to think about it anywhere beyond the concession stand on their way out), then act like LotR is this untouchable masterpiece?
There's this ring. It's evil. It has to be destroyed. That's where we left off after the first one. "Two Towers" and 3 hours later, that's STILL where we are. Still got that ring. Still has to be destroyed.
Why is this such amazing work, while the Wachowskis out-of-the-box conclusion to the Matrix (everyone's pretty pissed, but no one expected it, did they now), is seen as hack-work?
I don't get it. I'm not a Tolkien fanboy, but I watched the first two, and I'll watch the third. But there's really nothing cool to discuss about them, is there? The Matrix movies work because there are so many different interpretations of what they mean and how they all interrelate, and it's fun to discuss. But, as far as I can tell, the LotR "is what it is," isn't it? They lay the whole story out there in front of you, and hold your hand. They don't challenge you to try and figure out what the ring really represents, or if maybe, just maybe, the good NEEDS the evil to give it a purpose to exist? The Matrix suggests these kinds of things, but the LotR seems to shy completely away from them, afraid of challenging (and alienating) their audience.
It's not embarassing to argue like that over Tolkien, because he really put some thought into his works.
Really? What, exactly, deep "though" went into LotR? What subtexts, metaphors, and implied commentaries are made? I mean, I don't mean to rag on Tolkien, but I saw the movie, and while it made sense and had some cool effects, there really wasn't anything to discuss or debate. The movie(s) laid the whole story right out in front of you in a nice, neat, tidy package. Nothing to think about. There's these rings. They make people evil and powerful. Frodo is taking the ring to have it destroyed. Frodo is still taking the ring to be destroyed. They meet some nasty orcs. Frodo is still working on getting that ring destroyed. There's a big battle, and Frodo is - you guessed it - still trying to get that ring destroyed.
Are there any messages on the meaning of life, love, emotion, or self-discovery in LotR? Any interesting paradoxes about the symbiotic dependencies of real vs. artificial life? The triumph of spirit? Well, OK, maybe that one, but we'll have to wait 3 more hours (on top of the 6 I've already invested) to find out if Frodo does in fact, finally "triumph."
How long does it take for a "solar flare" to... well, "flare?" I mean, the little animated gif I saw on one of the news sites, what's the timespan of those images? I mean, are we talking hours, or minutes, or seconds? Is watching a solar flare erupt like watching a cloud change shape? Faster? Slower?
Also, same question, but with respect to the Northern Lights. I've seen video animations of the lights vividly rippling in the night sky, like waves lapping at the shore of a pond, but do they actually move that fast? If I were to see them (and I never have), and I watched them for 5 or 10 seconds, would I see them move at all? Or are they, again, like clouds, and very slow moving?
Ooo, good one, I hadn't thought of that. That makes even more sense. But what happened to "The One" after he freed those first 23 and restarted Zion? Why wouldn't he continue to go into the Matrix, using his special powers, and freeing people at an alarming rate? Does he eventually just die off of old age, or do the machines kill him after he chooses and frees the first 23?
Expect the rumor mill to be full of stories regarding control and creative differences in the making of this movie because it doesn't quite fit the mold and really looks hacked together to make the release date.
"Reloaded" and "Revolutions" were filmed simultaneously. They've both been completed for months. They could have released "Revolutions" at the same time as "Reloaded," if they'd wanted to, but the studio chose to release it months later. Rushced to "make the release date?" I think not. "Revolutions" has been on the shelf, ready to go for months.
(Come on, if Human history had included 5 prior almost-extinctions, including a 23 person boot-up and the construction of a new Zion.. How the HELL could someone not know ?)
They didn't rebuild Zion in the same place each time. They moved. So the humans quite possibly have never stumbled upon the previously-destroyed Zions.
And the only people who would know would be the original 23, who would have not said anything. Think about it. The only reason they survived and were permitted to restart Zion was to continue the symbiotic cycle. They would have understood that the only way to give humanity a fighting chance was by cooperating with the machines during that reboot cycle. Of course, they could never tell the rest of the humans this, or it would have killed their spirit to keep fighting. So each time, the 23 new ones kept the truth to themselves, and eventually died off over the few hundred years it took Zion to build up to a critical mass of population again, at which point the machines struck and restarted the cycle.
The original 23 kept the secret, hoping that this time, the humans in Zion would be able to defeat the machines when they finally came.
he doesnt know. he's a tool with a job to do. When the matrix reset, he'd be destroyed and replaced. He has no idea that there is a larger plan.
He knows. In the first one, in a couple different places, he says "It's happening exactly as before." In "Reloaded," he says it again just after fighting with Neo in the ally, when the second Smith walks up and counters, "Well, not exactly."
If you assume Smith knows about the iterating Matrix,
You don't have to assume that, it's handed to you on a silver platter at the very beginning of the first movie. Right after Trinity gets out through the phone booth that Smith destroyed with the garbage truck, the 3 agents (Smith, Jones, and Brown [interesting trick - do a Google search on those 3 names and add the words "Alien Accountant"]) stand around discussing what just happened. It goes something to the effect of, "She got out," "It doesn't matter," and most importantly, "It's happening exactly as before."
I am really convinced that M1 was meant to be M. I'm going to need more proof than someone saying "I thought of the trilogy back then".
OK, how about this then: In the first Matrix movie, near the beginning, after Neo is arrested, the camera shows a wall of TV monitors watching Neo in the interrogation room through the surveillance camera.
That wall of monitors is in the Architect's room, as we see in Reloaded.
It's not redundant. The reason they say that is because there have been larger non-nuclear explosions since the atomic bomb was invented. The Seymour Narrows Explosion, for example, was larger than the Halifax explosion, but occurred in 1953 - well after the first atomic bomb had been detonated.
The Halifax Explosion is one of the most impressive disasters in history. Often billed as the largest non-nuclear explosion prior to the atomic age, two ships, one loaded with war ammunition, collided right in the middle of Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. It exploded, killing over 1600 people. The anchor from one of the ships was found 5 kilometers away. The explosion shattered windows and rang churchbells in my hometown of Truro, over 100 km away.
Uh-huh... OK, let me see if I can get this straight. Any musician that is good enough that people would actually pay for their music, and who then tries to actually sell their music to that vast audience, is automatically no longer a musician?
So, in order to be a "musician," you have to make music that hardly anybody likes? And if you happen to make music that people do like, and become successful, you're no longer a musician, and become a "sellout?"
Musician == bad, unpopular music, but true to your roots. Sellout == actually producing music that people like and will pay for, but lose "musician" status.
First, musicians won't get the money they deserve. The minions and scumbags around them will get the lions share.
This point of view has often bothered me. I don't get it. First of all, it takes dozens, maybe even hundreds of people to produce an album. From the talent scouts, to the lyricists, marketers, sound engineers, cover artists, and everyone in between. If it takes 200 people (counting the actual artist) to produce an album, why should the artist get more than 1/200th of the profits? What makes them so deserving of this huge windfall, leaving the other 199 equally hard-working (and probably better educated and less drug-addicted) staff to fight over the remaining scraps?
Would you prefer the type of arrangement we see in the movie industry? Tom Hanks makes a movie and gets paid $20 million. The other 500 people involved in the movie get... well, far, far less, needless to say. Is that fair? Doesn't the guy who puts in overtime painting the sets so they'll be dry for tomorrow's shoot deserve just as much pay as the trained monkey spouting lines (that someone else wrote for him) in front of the camera (which is being run by another low-paid professional)?
So which situation would you prefer? Relatively equal distribution for all, including the artist (a la music), or grossly disproportionate distribution of the profits (a la movies)?
Yes there were. That was why the Bush reference was in there. Are you not familiar with Bush's famous commandeering of the English language? Google for "Bushisms" and you'll see what I mean.:)
Oh, and the proper term for a space ship that travels faster than light is, "SUPERLUMINAL".
I thought "superliminal" that was when someone flashes messages on a screen too fast for you to read, but that affect your behaviour anyway? Maybe I've been listening to Bush too much.
If this were part of that "cycle", then I'd agree with you, but RTFA. We're well outside of the cycle. The last cycle peaked in 2000. The sun is supposed to be relatively dormant right now. So this is odd. And newsworthy.
Unless you're the government. Them you are the courts.
You're mistaken. The court system operates independently of the government. That's why the government (also known as "The Prosecution") must prove their case in front of a judge. The judge is heavily biased to find in favour of the defendant, unless the "government" can prove their claim "beyond any reasonable doubt."
thanks to living in perhaps the freest society on the face of the planet.
The USA is not the "freest society on the face of the planet." Canada, to name one, enjoys all the freedoms of the US, plus several more, and without absurd restrictions like the CDMA-II, DMCA, PATRIOT act, Total Information Awareness, and the "Terrorist" boogeyman, to name but a few.
It might surprise you to learn that the US is not the only place in the world where people are allowed to speak their mind and own guns. Open a newspaper, or travel a little.
For example, look at ecstasy. There's countless tales of someone trying it once and then dying from it.
WRONG. Sorry to yell, but this is a frustratingly persistent myth.
Ecstasy, or MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), is an SSRI, like Prozac. An antidepressant. Where Prozac raises your mood by blocking your brain from re-absorbing the seratonin that's already in your system (and thus making your cheerful), Ecstasy takes it a step further and triggers your brain to flush its entire seratonin stores into your system, making you feel even better. The downside to this is that studies have suggested this can have a negative effect on your long-term memory.
Ecstasy is an extremely benign drug. A fatal dose is roughly 20 times the normal dose. You would have to take an immense amount of Ecstasy to suffer a lethal overdose. So what's with all the stories that claim "Ecstasy kills another raver?"
These ill-informed claims can be blamed on two things:
Ecstasy's chief side-effect is hyperthermia, or elevated body temperature. When you're on Ecstasy, it is crucial to keep yourself well-hydrated. That's why many ravers are often seen with water bottles. (Frightening side-story: I've heard of people organizing raves at which the water to the washroom faucets is cut off, and the bar sells bottled water. This is extremely dangerous! This is just asking for trouble!) This is one reason why you occassionally hear about a death attributed to Ecstasy - the person didn't hydrate adequately.
Ecstasy is a synthetic, not an organic, drug. That means it has to be produced in a lab. Which is difficult, expensive, and risky. Since it is illegal, producing Ecstasy "properly" like this is very hard. Most people who wish to sell Ecstasy, when faced with this reality, will instead sell some other mix of organic drugs that are much easier to obtain, and market the pills as "Ecstasy." These are often heroin, laced with horse tranquilizers or rat poison. The unsuspecting buyer takes the pills, which he/she thinks are Ecstasy, then dies due to a poor mix of the adultered substitutes. They thought they'd taken E, their friends thought the victim had taken E, they tell the police he took E, the papers chalk up another death to E. In most of the cases in which a death is attributed to Ecstasy, the victim hadn't taken Ecstasy at all, but rather, some other hybrid drug which the seller just told them was E.
The solution to both these problems is: LEGALIZE IT! If it were legal, it could be producted in a controlled environment, with QA ensuring that the resulting product contained the proper mix of chemicals. They could be sold in stores, in packages like cigarettes, containing warning labels advising the user to take plenty of fluids.
Despite your judicious use of the word "fictitious," you still neglected to apply it preceding "vacuum," since space is, of course, not a perfect vacuum.
No it's not. GIMP for Windows (and possibly for all platforms?) can't (won't) save as GIFs. That's a pretty big gap for a product that professes to be an alternative for Photoshop!
It is free.
Do you think the people who sell multi-thousand dollar ads using Photoshop give a crap about the $900 sticker price?
The bus is cheaper than my car, but you don't see me on the bus, do you? I could wipe my ass with last week's newspaper, but I'll spring for the toilet paper instead, thanks. "Free" doesn't automatically mean "better." I could eat dirt for free, or chicken for a couple of bucks. Hmm...
With that unbeatable price, you even get the source code !
Do you think the people who buy Photoshop give a shit about the source code? Do you think they even know what "source code" is?
If there's a bug, you can do the debugging yourself.
I've been using Photoshop for several years now, and haven't found a single bug. The few days I spent fighting with the GIMP, on the other hand, it crashed several times. But hey! I've go the source code, and it was free! I can spend days and days fixing it myself, instead of earning the tousands of dollars I would otherwise have earned from the graphics I could have been designing! Surely that's worth the $900 I saved, right? Not!
Plus, if you think you wanna tweak the code to your own liking, you can do it.
Photoshop already has more features than I know how to use. I'd rather use the software as it is to create products I can sell, rather than donating my time improving a sub-standard product for free.
With photoshop, you don't get the source code.
Yah, that's a big deal. I think that's what's hindered Windows from gaining widespread adoption. The lack of source code. That must be it. Windows could've been huge, if they'd only included the source code.
Plus, if you want a legal copy, be prepared to fork over your hard earned money.
Do taxi drivers bitch about spending money on the car they use to earn their living? Do airlines consider stealing the airplanes to use to earn their revenue? Do mechanics bemoan the few hundred bucks they spend on their tools, so they can charge you $80 an hour to change your oil?
Here's a clue: when you use something that costs $n to perform services that can bring you $(n*100) per day, you don't bitch about the $n. Saving the $n isn't even a factor. The only thing that matters is how easily and quickly it allows you to perform theh tasks that earn you the dough.
You definitely don't spend your valuable time fixing bugs and making the "free", sub-standard product functional, while your customers wait patiently for you to take their orders.
Also, if you find a bug, you can't do anything about it, because you are at the mercy of Adobe.
We're up to version 7, pal. All major bugs are fixed. All minor bugs are fixed. We're in the "continuous improvement" phase now.
So why are you using Photoshop ?
Because it's stable, works, is affordable, generates money for me, has a wealth of published materials documenting it, is supported, mature, reliable, and well-known.
Download GIMP now !
Uh, no thanks. You have fun with your buggy little "free" toy. While you're busy implementing features that should already have been there and fixing bugs that never should have made it into the "stable" tree, I'll be taking care of your customers.
You won't regret it.
Spring for the professional software that lets you forget about all the meaningless things like tweaking the hundred-thousand line source code and focus on delivering what your customers want.
This is gonna cost me some "Offtopic" modes, but I can afford the Karma, and I'm really curious.
What the heck is up with Slashdot lately? Has anyone else noticed the weirdness? First of all, when I metamod now, I only get 1 or 2 posts to metamod, instead of the usual 10 or so. Secondly, I haven't had mod points in an eternity, and it doesn't seem like many others have either. The number of posts that breach my +2 threshold has been noticeably lower over the last week or so. Often, stories mentioning "spammers" or "telemarketers" will easily garner 300+ posts that have been modded up, but lately, it seems it's a rarity for a story to even break 100 modded-up comments.
Are there fewer moderators out there nowadays? Are they overhauling the moderation system? What's going on? Anyone know?
Slashdot Mirror
I know I'm going to get flamed and mod'ed into oblivion for this, but seriously, what's the big deal about LotR? Why do people lash out viciously at movies that actually make an attempt a real depth (Matrix), while simultaneously holding up the LotR as the cinematic "Gold Standard?" I mean, sure, it's a moderately interesting story, but does it need 9+ hours to be told? Sure, some interesting fights happen along the way, and the effects are great, but are there subtle metaphors, philosophical references, and character dualities (besides Golem, obviously) that I'm missing?
Why do people bitch and complain that the Matrix was too much gobbledygook (translation: they didn't understand, and hate movies that challenge them to think about it anywhere beyond the concession stand on their way out), then act like LotR is this untouchable masterpiece?
There's this ring. It's evil. It has to be destroyed. That's where we left off after the first one. "Two Towers" and 3 hours later, that's STILL where we are. Still got that ring. Still has to be destroyed.
Why is this such amazing work, while the Wachowskis out-of-the-box conclusion to the Matrix (everyone's pretty pissed, but no one expected it, did they now), is seen as hack-work?
I don't get it. I'm not a Tolkien fanboy, but I watched the first two, and I'll watch the third. But there's really nothing cool to discuss about them, is there? The Matrix movies work because there are so many different interpretations of what they mean and how they all interrelate, and it's fun to discuss. But, as far as I can tell, the LotR "is what it is," isn't it? They lay the whole story out there in front of you, and hold your hand. They don't challenge you to try and figure out what the ring really represents, or if maybe, just maybe, the good NEEDS the evil to give it a purpose to exist? The Matrix suggests these kinds of things, but the LotR seems to shy completely away from them, afraid of challenging (and alienating) their audience.
Am I wrong? What gives?
It's not embarassing to argue like that over Tolkien, because he really put some thought into his works.
Really? What, exactly, deep "though" went into LotR? What subtexts, metaphors, and implied commentaries are made? I mean, I don't mean to rag on Tolkien, but I saw the movie, and while it made sense and had some cool effects, there really wasn't anything to discuss or debate. The movie(s) laid the whole story right out in front of you in a nice, neat, tidy package. Nothing to think about. There's these rings. They make people evil and powerful. Frodo is taking the ring to have it destroyed. Frodo is still taking the ring to be destroyed. They meet some nasty orcs. Frodo is still working on getting that ring destroyed. There's a big battle, and Frodo is - you guessed it - still trying to get that ring destroyed.
Are there any messages on the meaning of life, love, emotion, or self-discovery in LotR? Any interesting paradoxes about the symbiotic dependencies of real vs. artificial life? The triumph of spirit? Well, OK, maybe that one, but we'll have to wait 3 more hours (on top of the 6 I've already invested) to find out if Frodo does in fact, finally "triumph."
How long does it take for a "solar flare" to
Also, same question, but with respect to the Northern Lights. I've seen video animations of the lights vividly rippling in the night sky, like waves lapping at the shore of a pond, but do they actually move that fast? If I were to see them (and I never have), and I watched them for 5 or 10 seconds, would I see them move at all? Or are they, again, like clouds, and very slow moving?
Just wondering.
What's that in Beetles? Aren't Volkswagen Beetles the standard layman's measuring unit for celestial objects?
Ooo, good one, I hadn't thought of that. That makes even more sense. But what happened to "The One" after he freed those first 23 and restarted Zion? Why wouldn't he continue to go into the Matrix, using his special powers, and freeing people at an alarming rate? Does he eventually just die off of old age, or do the machines kill him after he chooses and frees the first 23?
Expect the rumor mill to be full of stories regarding control and creative differences in the making of this movie because it doesn't quite fit the mold and really looks hacked together to make the release date.
"Reloaded" and "Revolutions" were filmed simultaneously. They've both been completed for months. They could have released "Revolutions" at the same time as "Reloaded," if they'd wanted to, but the studio chose to release it months later. Rushced to "make the release date?" I think not. "Revolutions" has been on the shelf, ready to go for months.
Hyuk hyuk, sex is funny, hyuk, hyuk, "your sister," that's hilarious. You're really funny. So clever.
You're lucky you didn't get killed with that juvenile, pre-pubescent, thinly veiled cry for the attention your parents clearly deny you.
(Come on, if Human history had included 5 prior almost-extinctions, including a 23 person boot-up and the construction of a new Zion.. How the HELL could someone not know ?)
They didn't rebuild Zion in the same place each time. They moved. So the humans quite possibly have never stumbled upon the previously-destroyed Zions.
And the only people who would know would be the original 23, who would have not said anything. Think about it. The only reason they survived and were permitted to restart Zion was to continue the symbiotic cycle. They would have understood that the only way to give humanity a fighting chance was by cooperating with the machines during that reboot cycle. Of course, they could never tell the rest of the humans this, or it would have killed their spirit to keep fighting. So each time, the 23 new ones kept the truth to themselves, and eventually died off over the few hundred years it took Zion to build up to a critical mass of population again, at which point the machines struck and restarted the cycle.
The original 23 kept the secret, hoping that this time, the humans in Zion would be able to defeat the machines when they finally came.
he doesnt know.
he's a tool with a job to do. When the matrix reset, he'd be destroyed and replaced. He has no idea that there is a larger plan.
He knows. In the first one, in a couple different places, he says "It's happening exactly as before." In "Reloaded," he says it again just after fighting with Neo in the ally, when the second Smith walks up and counters, "Well, not exactly."
If you assume Smith knows about the iterating Matrix,
You don't have to assume that, it's handed to you on a silver platter at the very beginning of the first movie. Right after Trinity gets out through the phone booth that Smith destroyed with the garbage truck, the 3 agents (Smith, Jones, and Brown [interesting trick - do a Google search on those 3 names and add the words "Alien Accountant"]) stand around discussing what just happened. It goes something to the effect of, "She got out," "It doesn't matter," and most importantly, "It's happening exactly as before."
I am really convinced that M1 was meant to be M.
I'm going to need more proof than someone saying "I thought of the trilogy back then".
OK, how about this then: In the first Matrix movie, near the beginning, after Neo is arrested, the camera shows a wall of TV monitors watching Neo in the interrogation room through the surveillance camera.
That wall of monitors is in the Architect's room, as we see in Reloaded.
It's not redundant. The reason they say that is because there have been larger non-nuclear explosions since the atomic bomb was invented. The Seymour Narrows Explosion, for example, was larger than the Halifax explosion, but occurred in 1953 - well after the first atomic bomb had been detonated.
Check your English parser.
The Halifax Explosion is one of the most impressive disasters in history. Often billed as the largest non-nuclear explosion prior to the atomic age, two ships, one loaded with war ammunition, collided right in the middle of Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. It exploded, killing over 1600 people. The anchor from one of the ships was found 5 kilometers away. The explosion shattered windows and rang churchbells in my hometown of Truro, over 100 km away.
Uh-huh... OK, let me see if I can get this straight. Any musician that is good enough that people would actually pay for their music, and who then tries to actually sell their music to that vast audience, is automatically no longer a musician?
So, in order to be a "musician," you have to make music that hardly anybody likes? And if you happen to make music that people do like, and become successful, you're no longer a musician, and become a "sellout?"
Musician == bad, unpopular music, but true to your roots.
Sellout == actually producing music that people like and will pay for, but lose "musician" status.
Gotcha.
First, musicians won't get the money they deserve. The minions and scumbags around them will get the lions share.
... well, far, far less, needless to say. Is that fair? Doesn't the guy who puts in overtime painting the sets so they'll be dry for tomorrow's shoot deserve just as much pay as the trained monkey spouting lines (that someone else wrote for him) in front of the camera (which is being run by another low-paid professional)?
This point of view has often bothered me. I don't get it. First of all, it takes dozens, maybe even hundreds of people to produce an album. From the talent scouts, to the lyricists, marketers, sound engineers, cover artists, and everyone in between. If it takes 200 people (counting the actual artist) to produce an album, why should the artist get more than 1/200th of the profits? What makes them so deserving of this huge windfall, leaving the other 199 equally hard-working (and probably better educated and less drug-addicted) staff to fight over the remaining scraps?
Would you prefer the type of arrangement we see in the movie industry? Tom Hanks makes a movie and gets paid $20 million. The other 500 people involved in the movie get
So which situation would you prefer? Relatively equal distribution for all, including the artist (a la music), or grossly disproportionate distribution of the profits (a la movies)?
Yes there were. That was why the Bush reference was in there. Are you not familiar with Bush's famous commandeering of the English language? Google for "Bushisms" and you'll see what I mean.
It was a joke.
Oh, and the proper term for a space ship that travels faster than light is, "SUPERLUMINAL".
I thought "superliminal" that was when someone flashes messages on a screen too fast for you to read, but that affect your behaviour anyway? Maybe I've been listening to Bush too much.
If this were part of that "cycle", then I'd agree with you, but RTFA. We're well outside of the cycle. The last cycle peaked in 2000. The sun is supposed to be relatively dormant right now. So this is odd. And newsworthy.
Unless you're the government. Them you are the courts.
You're mistaken. The court system operates independently of the government. That's why the government (also known as "The Prosecution") must prove their case in front of a judge. The judge is heavily biased to find in favour of the defendant, unless the "government" can prove their claim "beyond any reasonable doubt."
thanks to living in perhaps the freest society on the face of the planet.
The USA is not the "freest society on the face of the planet." Canada, to name one, enjoys all the freedoms of the US, plus several more, and without absurd restrictions like the CDMA-II, DMCA, PATRIOT act, Total Information Awareness, and the "Terrorist" boogeyman, to name but a few.
It might surprise you to learn that the US is not the only place in the world where people are allowed to speak their mind and own guns. Open a newspaper, or travel a little.
WRONG. Sorry to yell, but this is a frustratingly persistent myth.
Ecstasy, or MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), is an SSRI, like Prozac. An antidepressant. Where Prozac raises your mood by blocking your brain from re-absorbing the seratonin that's already in your system (and thus making your cheerful), Ecstasy takes it a step further and triggers your brain to flush its entire seratonin stores into your system, making you feel even better. The downside to this is that studies have suggested this can have a negative effect on your long-term memory.
Ecstasy is an extremely benign drug. A fatal dose is roughly 20 times the normal dose. You would have to take an immense amount of Ecstasy to suffer a lethal overdose. So what's with all the stories that claim "Ecstasy kills another raver?"
These ill-informed claims can be blamed on two things:
The solution to both these problems is: LEGALIZE IT! If it were legal, it could be producted in a controlled environment, with QA ensuring that the resulting product contained the proper mix of chemicals. They could be sold in stores, in packages like cigarettes, containing warning labels advising the user to take plenty of fluids.
Despite your judicious use of the word "fictitious," you still neglected to apply it preceding "vacuum," since space is, of course, not a perfect vacuum.
The GIMP is an alternative to Photoshop.
No it's not. GIMP for Windows (and possibly for all platforms?) can't (won't) save as GIFs. That's a pretty big gap for a product that professes to be an alternative for Photoshop!
It is free.
Do you think the people who sell multi-thousand dollar ads using Photoshop give a crap about the $900 sticker price?
The bus is cheaper than my car, but you don't see me on the bus, do you? I could wipe my ass with last week's newspaper, but I'll spring for the toilet paper instead, thanks. "Free" doesn't automatically mean "better." I could eat dirt for free, or chicken for a couple of bucks. Hmm...
With that unbeatable price, you even get the source code !
Do you think the people who buy Photoshop give a shit about the source code? Do you think they even know what "source code" is?
If there's a bug, you can do the debugging yourself.
I've been using Photoshop for several years now, and haven't found a single bug. The few days I spent fighting with the GIMP, on the other hand, it crashed several times. But hey! I've go the source code, and it was free! I can spend days and days fixing it myself, instead of earning the tousands of dollars I would otherwise have earned from the graphics I could have been designing! Surely that's worth the $900 I saved, right? Not!
Plus, if you think you wanna tweak the code to your own liking, you can do it.
Photoshop already has more features than I know how to use. I'd rather use the software as it is to create products I can sell, rather than donating my time improving a sub-standard product for free.
With photoshop, you don't get the source code.
Yah, that's a big deal. I think that's what's hindered Windows from gaining widespread adoption. The lack of source code. That must be it. Windows could've been huge, if they'd only included the source code.
Plus, if you want a legal copy, be prepared to fork over your hard earned money.
Do taxi drivers bitch about spending money on the car they use to earn their living? Do airlines consider stealing the airplanes to use to earn their revenue? Do mechanics bemoan the few hundred bucks they spend on their tools, so they can charge you $80 an hour to change your oil?
Here's a clue: when you use something that costs $n to perform services that can bring you $(n*100) per day, you don't bitch about the $n. Saving the $n isn't even a factor. The only thing that matters is how easily and quickly it allows you to perform theh tasks that earn you the dough.
You definitely don't spend your valuable time fixing bugs and making the "free", sub-standard product functional, while your customers wait patiently for you to take their orders.
Also, if you find a bug, you can't do anything about it, because you are at the mercy of Adobe.
We're up to version 7, pal. All major bugs are fixed. All minor bugs are fixed. We're in the "continuous improvement" phase now.
So why are you using Photoshop ?
Because it's stable, works, is affordable, generates money for me, has a wealth of published materials documenting it, is supported, mature, reliable, and well-known.
Download GIMP now !
Uh, no thanks. You have fun with your buggy little "free" toy. While you're busy implementing features that should already have been there and fixing bugs that never should have made it into the "stable" tree, I'll be taking care of your customers.
You won't regret it.
Spring for the professional software that lets you forget about all the meaningless things like tweaking the hundred-thousand line source code and focus on delivering what your customers want.
You won't regret it.
Stay in school, kid.
This is gonna cost me some "Offtopic" modes, but I can afford the Karma, and I'm really curious.
What the heck is up with Slashdot lately? Has anyone else noticed the weirdness? First of all, when I metamod now, I only get 1 or 2 posts to metamod, instead of the usual 10 or so. Secondly, I haven't had mod points in an eternity, and it doesn't seem like many others have either. The number of posts that breach my +2 threshold has been noticeably lower over the last week or so. Often, stories mentioning "spammers" or "telemarketers" will easily garner 300+ posts that have been modded up, but lately, it seems it's a rarity for a story to even break 100 modded-up comments.
Are there fewer moderators out there nowadays? Are they overhauling the moderation system? What's going on? Anyone know?