Capture The Art Blog's

It's interesting how Apple seem to put the customer (and the customer's experience) first and profit big time in the process.

Note to self - note the above.

It is the old story, focus on the product and the profits will follow. The problem is far too many focus on the profit and ignore the product resulting in a crap product no person wants to buy.

When Apple Buys Nintendo eventually, it will be a good merge.

Here is a question. Why (if you want to see good games on the iphone) would you want Nintendo (and Sony's gaming department) to go away?

As some one pointed out in some other forum, all the really good, non-angry-birds/cut-the-rope, traditional style (racing, jrpgs, simulators, shooters) games seem to be ports from the other handhelds. In general companies like Squaresoft tend to port over games they've made on other handhelds to make more money on the iphone (usually after they've made their money on the handhelds).

If the other handhelds go away, do you think we'll see more of that style game for handhelds? Or do you think gaming will go more the way of the social (Freemium) gaming (farmville, ick. I admittedly got into these games when I first was on facebook but after a while realized there was absolutely no substance at all and it was just a game of accumulate stuff with no real "game") and puzzle games (cut the rope/Angry birds. fine for a little time wasting but not something you really immerse yourself in, though I will say some are much better than others).

I have nothing against puzzle games (But I would be pissed if social/freemium gaming became the pretty much norm) but I still love my jrpgs and my racing games and my flight simulators. And I'm really getting into third person rpgs (Prince of Persian, Assassin's Creed... oddly, these I didn't have as much interest until I got an iphone which I admit is not the best format for them but they're still fun on it). I'd hate to see them go away.

(and somewhere on the net is a really good rant on why freemium games really isn't a great style of gaming, how just paying some money to get that extra incentive takes away from the actual fun of playing the game vs. actually working in the game to get that stuff).

Most Islamic countries are not inhabitable by homosexuals or religious minorities, your mileage may vary.

The biggest muslim population right now is Indonesia, and they tried banning Christians from using Allah to describe their God. They're also trying to ban the Ahmadiyah sect...

I don't think France or Britain are responsible for Iran's strict implementation of Islamic law and ruthless persecution of dissidents, and to claim that they are responsible is insulting to Muslims because it implies they're far too reactionary to deal with anything using Reason. Just like people who want to ban qur'an burnings and blasphemy because they're afraid of how muslims might react. Are Muslims animals who are so easily goaded? No, they're human beings so they should be expected to act responsibly and not go on rampages at the slightest provocation.
@ the underlined: It's almost like I couldn't even see you move the goalposts :rolleyes:

As for your rant at the end, you've completely missed my point, then used your very own to rant against with your twisted logic. In fact, it was the same exact tactic I was laughing hysterically (in a morbid way) about listening to Hannity in the car last night.

Have fun with your misunderstandings.

Gah... "it's against the law"... whatever.

When stuff is ********, you have to protest. I assume you also think all "illegal" protests, such as the sit-ins and the like during the civil rights movement, were wrong because they were technically illegal?

My mp3 collection is 100% legal (ripped from CDs and downloaded from artists' websites). However, I might consider using this service. Everyone still gets paid, and I get a version of the song that I CAN ****ING PLAY ON MY LINUX PARTITION. *ahem*

One of my thoughts on why people follow a religion are that they were raised with it, so it becomes a tradition.

That would not be my word of choice.

Brainwashing or indoctrination comes closer to the mark.

I think part of the problem may have to do with the fact that the plants are designed by engineers. Engineers' focus is elegance: accomplishing the most in the most minimalist way. Nuclear power plants need much less minimalism and elegance than just about anything else humans can make, but costs and other limitations tend to guide the design toward what engineers are best at. Redundancy and over-building are desirable, I believe we end up with too much elegance instead.

I was paraphrasing something a nuclear physicist once told me. I didn't get the sense that he thought it mattered what type of human was involved.

Bah humans in general are eejits.

Some, but otherwise I cannot fault your abuse of English. ;)

Except for you and me ...... and I'm not totally sure about you. :p

I wouldn't be so opposed to this if AT&T could accurately track data usage. A number of people are being billed for some fairly large data usage which does not match their actual usage.

Here is the thread on Apple's support forum. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2450738

As you can see, its been going on for a while. No one noticed until AT&T introduced their tiered data plan.

Until AT&T gets their data usage accounting worked out, I will NEVER sign up for their tiered plan nor their hot spot plan. Imagine how much worse their accounting will be with hot spot. And you have no tools to determine the real cause of the issue.

What is really stupid about this from AT&T is that they are requiring the user to act to Opt Out of getting the hot spot data plan. I thought companies stopped automatically enrolling people even if they were notified. I thought companies were supposed to require an Opt In for subscriptions and services.

Did we just go back 10 years?

No no, you're misreading me. The atheists I've spoken to, here in the UK and various European countries, tend to not back up their atheism with reasons of any sort. They just are.

I think faith is such a personal thing that the "proof" could be in their heads. Paul's conversion occurred on the road to Damascus, he had an epiphany from somewhere. It was proof to him but he couldn't explain it. A lot of theists and born again Christians claim to have these damascene revelations which change their lives etc etc.

All form of religious talk ends in aporia usually... At least religious debate that pertains to ontology of God. You can still argue aspects of different religions or beliefs.

Hmm, I might argue that what happens in your head may have personal value, in fact it may change your life, but it really has no bearing on the reality of our existence, just what we imagine it to be, and has no real right to be called "proof". It's jut faith if you see the distinction I'm trying to make.

Here ya go: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=creativecontest&message.id=143&l=en&s=dhs
This is a really good deal. Ordered mine a few minutes ago for $1350+tax. Will use it with my home-built PC (nVidia 7800 GTX with dual-link DVI) until the next-gen Mac Pro is released.

Seriously? It's Santa Claus for adults. Lots of wishful thinking and not accepting reality. But we are definitely immortal in the sense that when we die, we feed the ground that helps feed other organisms. We may die as personalities, but everything we are feeds some other life form. I think that's beautiful. I don't want to live forever, that would be horrible. I would just like to think that while I was alive, I helped someone be happy or made others' lives easier.

I have been blessed with an athletic and healthy body. Other people are not so lucky. I see people with CP or Parkinson's or other illnesses, and all I can think about is how I can help those folks. You all know that hockey has become important to me in the last few months since I started playing-it has changed me in ways I can't explain. It's made me a new person. It is that one thing I thought I could never do, and now at 44, I am playing with guys who are 21 years old and I freak them out. And they have helped me out too. "Dude, no way, you are pretty damn good." I love that. :) I want to help other people do the same. I only have maybe what? 10 years to play this game at a competitive level if I'm lucky?

Lots of programs I want to get involved with for physically challenged kids and hockey. It is just such a great confidence builder:

http://www.mapetfoundation.org/prensa/angel_02_22_04/MAPET_Angels_eng.pdf
http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/national/disabled-kids-even-score-with-sled-hockey

Point is- for all we know, we get one time here. Let's make the best of it by having fun and helping everyone we can.

So screw a "god" or whatever. There is no such thing. We live and we should be thankful that we are here now. We only get so much time. Let's make the best of it.

And the wait for 8 Core Mac Pros and Merom MacBook Pros/MaBook is on. Waiting for speed bumps means no one buys a dang thing.It's also not just speed bumps. I want a MBP redesign that includes a better cooling system and an easy access HD Bay like in the MB. Lots of good reasons to be waiting. It's the IN thing to do right now. We're the IN Crowd. :Dat least the educated do not.... Well... it's amazing that now every dual core computer is obsolete, and every single core computer is like an Apple II compared to this.Yes but that 2.7GHz DP G5 of yours is a keeper. The fastest last classic G5 DP on the planet. Kudos to you for hanging on to it. If I were you I would NEVER sell it. Should become a family heirloom. Wish I had one.

Dude did you miss the coverage. This thing plays HD. He played Incredibles in HD. Just because the content they are offering now is 480p does not mean that it will be 6 months from now when this is released. Also the HDMI and component connectors would be pointless if it was not HD.

Exactly. In the end, we only had a sneak peak, and dont know much.

I will say that we were shown the back ports, so I doubt there is going to be any other inputs/outputs added.

This IS the iPod of home theater. Just read back in this thread about people who have this unit beat: "Ive got a chipped xBox that does the same" "My xbox 360 and Windows MCE can do this" "All I need is x, y, and z to do this much better" There were MP3 players before the ipod; the ipod made it simple for AVERAGE users; we on here generally dont represent average users.

Buy it, plug it in, it works. No keyboard, no booting up, etc etc. A computer on a TV makes things more complicated.

Does anyone know if the new FC will take AVCHD files natively as Premiere CS5 does?

AVCHD...RED in supported and immediately rendered.

I have been seeing the breaking news, I saw a tsunami!:(

It was originally 7.9 then upgraded to 8.8, then 8.9:eek:

It's so devastating! Cars couldn't escape!:eek:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598

Almost all of that is due to the iPad. They had around 4% of the global market for computers last year.

Apple sold 820K+ more Macs in Q2 2011 over Q2 2010. You want to dismiss the halo effect that's your business.

Apple sold 3.76 million Macs during the quarter Q2 2011. [http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/20results.html]
Apple sold 2.94 million Macintosh� computers during the quarter Q2 2010. [http://images.apple.com/euro/cemea_en/pr/library/2010/04/20results.pdf]

Come Q2 2012 we'll see that increase more than double year of year putting the Macs sold nearing 5.5+ million for Q2 2012. Of course, it will look small next to the 15 million iPads, but only a fool would think 5.5+ million in a quarter of Macs is small.

Face it. The trend lines of the top 3 is down, not up.

Is it any coincidence that the "so-called" Pros in this discussion (who have probably never even used FCP) are complaining about the Interface simply because it looks like iMovie, and so therefore must be "cheap/un-professional"? Its laughable! I'm sure these individuals don't even understand half the new features on offer which, of course, have been long waited.

My argument is simple - Unless you use this software on a regular basis, don't judge a book by its cover. Its no different to Logic Pro 8, for which I recall members were slamming because it had "no new big features", despite the fact it did.

That was with the flicker filter on max, and a minor color corection using the color corrector.

Maybe the drives couldn't feed the CPUs fast enough. This is going to be a problem going forward unless Apple gets hardware RAID in there,

For those of you advocating the elimination or reduction of nuke power, just realize that the only feasible alternative currently is...
Drill baby, drill!

While I have misgivings about Nuclear power I do think it is a good midrange solution to our problems until we can solve our battery problems (thus enabling true renewable energy sources to be viable), drilling isn't a viable solution to anything.

The US doesn't have the resources to provide for our society on our own. Not to mention that the whole process of drilling can take decades (meaning 10+ years, not something like 20+) to play through to the point where steady production can begin. You can't just go out and drill, even if you find something you have to set up the supporting infrastructure first before it is viable.

You think Dell will sell them for even less on Black Friday? - November 24 for you unfamiliar with the term.

...

So I'm going to wind up with:

24" + 20" on both the 2GHz Dual Core (got at Fry's for $864.26 in August) and Quad G5s

24" + 30" on the 8-Core Mac Pro.

I like the idea of having a 24" on everything because it is capable of displaying HD in its native resolution - not bigger not smaller.

But if Dell starts selling the 30" for $999 then all bets are off. :D

Having never spent any length of time with a 30", it is probably too soon to tell how much I will want two. My hunch is: a lot. :p

All that and just to jack videos off the cable TV. I would think a combination tivo and digital DVD recorder would be the cheaper solution. ... Whew! Still not sure how you can financially justify all that hardware without some kind of return. Must be an expensive hobby?? :rolleyes:

In other city states in ancient Greece homosexuality was also considered the norm.

and in other greek city states relationships between grown up men were frowned upon (while teacher-pupil relationships were encouraged) and ridiculed,
in some others even outlawed

It's easier to admit being an atheist on the Internet than in the real world, as even the Dalai Lama seems to hate atheists. Although only a fool would say in his heart "there is no god", it should be legitimate to say "I want to see proof before I believe".

Oh - and about the universe not likely being made by chance: a designer must be more advanced than what he creates, and where does the designer come from? I'm not saying that there is no such designer, just that I don't see any reason to think about that in the first place. Wouldn't it be far more likely that the universe is made by itself rather than by some creating force being made by itself?

Wow, the Quad Xeon is the Pentium D all over again!

The Quad Xeon is two Dual Xeons glued together, and the Pentium D was two Pentium 4s glued together.

Its still faster than the Dual Xeons, but it isnt as good as it can be.

Yeah... Kinda disappointing. Although, my 3D rendering work will benefit just fine from them as while it's CPU intensive, it's not bandwidth hungry and the software itself isn't all that great for thread scheduling, so it's better to run multiple software instances for each CPU/core. I'm curious to see how the Clovertowns compare to the upcoming AMD quad-core chips, which have full 4-way shared data pipe and L2 cache. I think it's going to be just like the AMD X2 vs. the Pentium-D all over again. AMD will hold the quad-core performance title until Intel releases their 45nm process chips with all 4 cores being fully linked. But such is the way it's been for the last few years, AMD and Intel continue to play leap-frog. Which is great for the consumer as it drives CPU tech ahead so fast... Too bad my wallet can't keep up. :(

I am a video editor. All the content I shoot these days is High Def. My client's video is high def. The personal movies I take of my kids are high def. I edit them in either Final Cut Pro HD or iMovie HD. I use a dLink 550 now to stream high def to my 27 LCD monitor.

BlueRay disks are soon to be high def. The iTV will handle High Def via ethernet at least.

High Def Broadcasts exist right now in SLC.

Not sure where you are at with all this but I view a lot of high def content.

I know there is plenty of HD out there but all I'm saying is that the only thing currenlty supported by Apple are your own home movies. There's no Apple solution for playing recorded HD television through their iTV. What's possible and waht's already integrated into iTunes are two different things, with completely different levels of geek involved.