janstett
Oct 23, 11:44 AM
Unfortunately not many multithreaded apps - yet. For a long time most of the multi-threaded apps were just a select few pro level things. 3D/Visualization software, CAD, database systems, etc.. Those of us who had multiprocessor systems bought them because we had a specific software in mind or group of software applications that could take advantage of multiple processors. As current CPU manufacturing processes started hitting a wall right around the 3GHz mark, chip makers started to transition to multiple CPU cores to boost power - makes sense. Software developers have been lazy for years, just riding the wave of ever-increasing MHz. Now the multi-core CPUs are here and the software is behind as many applications need to have serious re-writes done in order to take advantage of multiple processors. Intel tried to get a jump on this with their HT (Hyper Threading) implementation that essentially simulated dual-cores on a CPU by way of two virtual CPUs. Software developers didn't exactly jump on this and warm up to it. But I also don't think the software industry truly believed that CPUs would go multi-core on a mass scale so fast... Intel and AMD both said they would, don't know why the software industry doubted. Intel and AMD are uncommonly good about telling the truth about upcoming products. Both will be shipping quad-core CPU offerings by year's end.
What you're saying isn't entirely true and may give some people the wrong idea.
First, a multicore system is helpful when running multiple CPU-intensive single-threaded applications on a proper multitasking operating system. For example, right now I'm ripping CDs on iTunes. One processor gets used a lot and the other three are idle. I could be using this CPU power for another app.
The reality is that to take advantage of multiple cores, you had to take advantage of threads. Now, I was doing this in my programs with OS/2 back in 1992. I've been writing multithreaded apps my entire career. But writing a threaded application requires thought and work, so naturally many programmers are lazy and avoid threads. Plus it is harder to debug and synchronize a multithreaded application. Windows and Linux people have been doing this since the stone age, and Windows/Linux have had usable multiprocessor systems for more than a decade (it didn't start with Hyperthreading). I had a dual-processor 486 running NT 3.5 circa 1995. It's just been more of an optional "cool trick" to write threaded applications that the timid programmer avoids. Also it's worth noting that it's possible to go overboard with excessive threading and that leads to problems (context switching, thrashing, synchronization, etc).
Now, on the Mac side, OS 9 and below couldn't properly support SMP and it required a hacked version of the OS and a special version of the application. So the history of the Mac world has been, until recently with OSX, to avoid threading and multiprocessing unless specially called for and then at great pain to do so.
So it goes back to getting developers to write threaded applications. Now that we're getting to 4 and 8 core systems, it also presents a problem.
The classic reason to create a thread is to prevent the GUI from locking up while processing. Let's say I write a GUI program that has a calculation that takes 20 seconds. If I do it the lazy way, the GUI will lock up for 20 seconds because it can't process window messages during that time. If I write a thread, the calculation can take place there and leave the GUI thread able to process messages and keep the application alive, and then signal the other thread when it's done.
But now with more than 4 or 8 cores, the problem is how do you break up the work? 9 women can't have a baby in a month. So if your process is still serialized, you still have to wait with 1 processor doing all the work and the others sitting idle. For example, if you encode a video, it is a very serialized process. I hear some work has been done to simultaneously encode macroblocks in parallel, but getting 8 processors to chew on a single video is an interesting problem.
What you're saying isn't entirely true and may give some people the wrong idea.
First, a multicore system is helpful when running multiple CPU-intensive single-threaded applications on a proper multitasking operating system. For example, right now I'm ripping CDs on iTunes. One processor gets used a lot and the other three are idle. I could be using this CPU power for another app.
The reality is that to take advantage of multiple cores, you had to take advantage of threads. Now, I was doing this in my programs with OS/2 back in 1992. I've been writing multithreaded apps my entire career. But writing a threaded application requires thought and work, so naturally many programmers are lazy and avoid threads. Plus it is harder to debug and synchronize a multithreaded application. Windows and Linux people have been doing this since the stone age, and Windows/Linux have had usable multiprocessor systems for more than a decade (it didn't start with Hyperthreading). I had a dual-processor 486 running NT 3.5 circa 1995. It's just been more of an optional "cool trick" to write threaded applications that the timid programmer avoids. Also it's worth noting that it's possible to go overboard with excessive threading and that leads to problems (context switching, thrashing, synchronization, etc).
Now, on the Mac side, OS 9 and below couldn't properly support SMP and it required a hacked version of the OS and a special version of the application. So the history of the Mac world has been, until recently with OSX, to avoid threading and multiprocessing unless specially called for and then at great pain to do so.
So it goes back to getting developers to write threaded applications. Now that we're getting to 4 and 8 core systems, it also presents a problem.
The classic reason to create a thread is to prevent the GUI from locking up while processing. Let's say I write a GUI program that has a calculation that takes 20 seconds. If I do it the lazy way, the GUI will lock up for 20 seconds because it can't process window messages during that time. If I write a thread, the calculation can take place there and leave the GUI thread able to process messages and keep the application alive, and then signal the other thread when it's done.
But now with more than 4 or 8 cores, the problem is how do you break up the work? 9 women can't have a baby in a month. So if your process is still serialized, you still have to wait with 1 processor doing all the work and the others sitting idle. For example, if you encode a video, it is a very serialized process. I hear some work has been done to simultaneously encode macroblocks in parallel, but getting 8 processors to chew on a single video is an interesting problem.
Bill McEnaney
Mar 1, 04:13 AM
You can condemn me to Hell if you want to, I'm still gonna bump uglies with my girlfriend.
On another note, please join us in the 21st century. Why is it so important to you what other people do? Wouldn't it be very crowded in Heaven if everyone did as you said?
I have no right to condemn anyone to hell.
If heaven were very crowded, it wouldn't be very heavenly, would it?
On another note, please join us in the 21st century. Why is it so important to you what other people do? Wouldn't it be very crowded in Heaven if everyone did as you said?
I have no right to condemn anyone to hell.
If heaven were very crowded, it wouldn't be very heavenly, would it?
rtkane
Apr 6, 01:31 PM
I hope that number keeps rising; we need competition to not let Apple rest on it's laurels.
As someone who likes his Apple products, part of me laughs seeing numbers like this for the Xoom, but the other part thinks the same thing you post above--that Apple needs to have a successful competitor in the space to keep Apple's progress from stagnating. More competition will make them take bigger steps more quickly.
As someone who likes his Apple products, part of me laughs seeing numbers like this for the Xoom, but the other part thinks the same thing you post above--that Apple needs to have a successful competitor in the space to keep Apple's progress from stagnating. More competition will make them take bigger steps more quickly.
Fearless Leader
Nov 28, 06:26 PM
dang it microsoft.
mrsir2009
Apr 6, 02:10 PM
Good for them.
cult hero
Mar 26, 07:02 PM
Windows manages to run legacy apps still. Even if you do have to resort to using the virtual machine they've called 'XP Mode.'
There's no reason you can't do the exact same thing on a Mac. There are no shortage of virtual machine apps and no room to complain either seeing as VirtualBox is free (and Parallels is almost always available through some cheap MacUpdate bundle). Virtualize.
Rosetta needs to go away. Backward compatibility very often holds back forward progress (just look at how badly web technologies have been stifled by IE 6 even today). Widespread use of virtualization is making it more convenient to move forward and the average computer user simply doesn't need/use software that's a decade old.
There's no reason you can't do the exact same thing on a Mac. There are no shortage of virtual machine apps and no room to complain either seeing as VirtualBox is free (and Parallels is almost always available through some cheap MacUpdate bundle). Virtualize.
Rosetta needs to go away. Backward compatibility very often holds back forward progress (just look at how badly web technologies have been stifled by IE 6 even today). Widespread use of virtualization is making it more convenient to move forward and the average computer user simply doesn't need/use software that's a decade old.
NoSmokingBandit
Nov 30, 07:15 AM
I havent gotten to them yet, but i've heard they are just as awesome as GT3's endurance races.
epitaphic
Aug 18, 06:09 AM
A whole 9 months? Those systems are supposed to last four years.
iphone 4 white release date
Apple Confirms White iPhone 4
White iPhone 4 making its way
White iPhone 4 release date
iphone 4 white release date
When the iPhone 4 was
White+iphone+4+release+
Was this White iPhone 4
white iphone 4 release date
The price of the white iPhone
kdarling
Apr 20, 09:17 AM
The key thing here from Apple's standpoint is "Trade Dress".
No one will ever confuse a Samsung F700 with an iPhone. Now way. No how.
However the Galaxy devices are so close to Apple's products in appearance and design, it's very hard to tell them apart. THAT is the problem.
It's ony a problem if the customer can't tell the Samsung is not an Apple device at point of sale.
As for the tablets, I think it'd be pretty hard to confuse a Tab with an iPad, or think that the Tab is made by Apple.
As for the phones, who knows. I have a Fascinate (Verizon Galaxy) and the stock live koi pond wallpaper kind of gives it away, but then I know that Apple doesn't allow that. The big "Samsung" printed on the front is also a major cue.
In either case, Apple could have to come up with proof that normal consumers are actually confused between the products.
Why are you always anti-apple in every
other thread?
When you bash him instead of giving arguments, you lost already. Too many immature kids around here crying "troll" instead of using their brain.
Samsung has no honor.
It seems their problem is that they had access to Apple's design and so were able to copy more closely than is usually the case with Apple competitors.
That's a silly accusation. Why would Apple give Samsung access to their design? They buy parts from them, not cases or software.
The iPhone has been out for years. Plenty of time for Samsung to adopt rounded corners without having any secret info.
Now, if the Galaxy had looked like an iPhone 4.... :)
No one will ever confuse a Samsung F700 with an iPhone. Now way. No how.
However the Galaxy devices are so close to Apple's products in appearance and design, it's very hard to tell them apart. THAT is the problem.
It's ony a problem if the customer can't tell the Samsung is not an Apple device at point of sale.
As for the tablets, I think it'd be pretty hard to confuse a Tab with an iPad, or think that the Tab is made by Apple.
As for the phones, who knows. I have a Fascinate (Verizon Galaxy) and the stock live koi pond wallpaper kind of gives it away, but then I know that Apple doesn't allow that. The big "Samsung" printed on the front is also a major cue.
In either case, Apple could have to come up with proof that normal consumers are actually confused between the products.
Why are you always anti-apple in every
other thread?
When you bash him instead of giving arguments, you lost already. Too many immature kids around here crying "troll" instead of using their brain.
Samsung has no honor.
It seems their problem is that they had access to Apple's design and so were able to copy more closely than is usually the case with Apple competitors.
That's a silly accusation. Why would Apple give Samsung access to their design? They buy parts from them, not cases or software.
The iPhone has been out for years. Plenty of time for Samsung to adopt rounded corners without having any secret info.
Now, if the Galaxy had looked like an iPhone 4.... :)
crackbookpro
Apr 25, 03:51 PM
Ladies Ladies... they are storing information that should be private(yes, indeed), but let's not blow this out of proportion.
THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING YOU!!!
The OS or iOS collects & stores this information like many platforms for specific reasons... Android, does indeed do the very same type of stored information of the 3 cell-tower's estimation of location.
The really REALLY bad news is that this information is stored in your iPhone as well as the actual device(Mac or PC) you sync your iPhone/iPad with. The information get's logged correctly... but what is not correct is how it is securely(insecurely) being stored - we are talking about Privacy.
THE iPHONE IS JUST NOT AS SECURE AS IT SHOULD BE!!!
The file should be stored(for technical specific reasons), but not with this lack of diligence on user privacy...
APPLE, you need a way to log this info in a much more secure atmosphere if the iOS does truly need this information for specific OS reasons.
THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING YOU!!!
The OS or iOS collects & stores this information like many platforms for specific reasons... Android, does indeed do the very same type of stored information of the 3 cell-tower's estimation of location.
The really REALLY bad news is that this information is stored in your iPhone as well as the actual device(Mac or PC) you sync your iPhone/iPad with. The information get's logged correctly... but what is not correct is how it is securely(insecurely) being stored - we are talking about Privacy.
THE iPHONE IS JUST NOT AS SECURE AS IT SHOULD BE!!!
The file should be stored(for technical specific reasons), but not with this lack of diligence on user privacy...
APPLE, you need a way to log this info in a much more secure atmosphere if the iOS does truly need this information for specific OS reasons.
Multimedia
Aug 19, 12:33 PM
And I'm not convinced this is only an application problem. When I run Handbrake on the Quad G5 alone it uses just over two cores 203% @ about 100fps analysis (1st Pass of 2) speed. If I add a Toast encode while that is happening, Handbrake takes a huge hit down to below 150% @ 70-80 fps analysis while Toast can only use about 130% instead of more alone. So the Tiger OS X seems to have difficulty managing more than one multicore application's core usage allocation up to its maximum capability - IE Tiger is not so MultiCore Enabeled as it could be IE Leopard probably will be much moreso - let's hope that is one of its TOP SECRETS.
When I ran tests on the Mac Pro at the Apple Store last Saturday between Toast and/or Handbrake, their use of more cores alone and together was much better. Handbrake alone can analyze up to around 134fps while writing at about 107 fps using about 1.5-1.75 cores. So while not yet fully optimized for Mac Pro yet, it's already outperforming the Quad G5 significantly. Handbrake would appear to analyze files about 33% faster while writing them about 15% faster while using 1.5 to 1.75 cores. Quad G5 does analysis @ about 100fps and writes about 93 fps (2nd Pass) using up to about 2.2 cores.
Toast 7.1 UB uses Mac Pro cores much more than it does Quad cores - in the range of 280 - 310% IE about 3 cores compared to only about 1.5 cores on the Quad G5 as well as on the Dual Core G5. Unfortunately I didn't have encode times for each of the sample files I brought with me from the Quad so I don't know the real time how much faster that really amounts to. Running simultaneously on the Mac Pro, Toast would use over 2.5 cores while handbrake would use only one or less than one at best.
Together simultaneously on Mac Pro 2.66 it's
Toast/Handbrake
2.7 cores/1 core best
2.5 cores/.75 core worst
Handbrake during Toast is down to as few as 60fps but sometimes up to 100fps as well. Toast meanwhile is Still consuming up to almost 3 cores with Handbrake running at the same time. So Toast would appear to be much more optimized for the Mac Pro's MultiCores than it is for the Quad G5's Multicores. Same could be said for Handbrake - especially since it is not really fully Optimized for Mac Pro yet.
When I ran tests on the Mac Pro at the Apple Store last Saturday between Toast and/or Handbrake, their use of more cores alone and together was much better. Handbrake alone can analyze up to around 134fps while writing at about 107 fps using about 1.5-1.75 cores. So while not yet fully optimized for Mac Pro yet, it's already outperforming the Quad G5 significantly. Handbrake would appear to analyze files about 33% faster while writing them about 15% faster while using 1.5 to 1.75 cores. Quad G5 does analysis @ about 100fps and writes about 93 fps (2nd Pass) using up to about 2.2 cores.
Toast 7.1 UB uses Mac Pro cores much more than it does Quad cores - in the range of 280 - 310% IE about 3 cores compared to only about 1.5 cores on the Quad G5 as well as on the Dual Core G5. Unfortunately I didn't have encode times for each of the sample files I brought with me from the Quad so I don't know the real time how much faster that really amounts to. Running simultaneously on the Mac Pro, Toast would use over 2.5 cores while handbrake would use only one or less than one at best.
Together simultaneously on Mac Pro 2.66 it's
Toast/Handbrake
2.7 cores/1 core best
2.5 cores/.75 core worst
Handbrake during Toast is down to as few as 60fps but sometimes up to 100fps as well. Toast meanwhile is Still consuming up to almost 3 cores with Handbrake running at the same time. So Toast would appear to be much more optimized for the Mac Pro's MultiCores than it is for the Quad G5's Multicores. Same could be said for Handbrake - especially since it is not really fully Optimized for Mac Pro yet.
dmkidd
Mar 26, 12:05 AM
Yes come on summer! Daddy is waiting!!
*LTD*
Apr 6, 10:28 AM
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8G4)
This is impossible.
Apple isn't supposed to care about Macs anymore, just iToys.
This is impossible.
Apple isn't supposed to care about Macs anymore, just iToys.
Multimedia
Sep 14, 12:23 PM
i think they're coming up with 2 dual octo-core.......True That. But not until next summer 2007.
Laird Knox
Mar 31, 04:16 PM
Ya got to love this guy.... Mr Gloom and doom!
Glad to see the hot selling iPad 2 only has "one" advantage against the non-selling Android tablets. :rolleyes:
So that advantage is that people actually buy them? ;)
Glad to see the hot selling iPad 2 only has "one" advantage against the non-selling Android tablets. :rolleyes:
So that advantage is that people actually buy them? ;)
cjoy
Apr 25, 03:01 PM
Brings to mind:
If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns.
statistics show that distribution of firearms mainly lead to more homocides and also suicides using firearms.
if guns are outlawed, their distribution is greatly limited, making it a lot harder for outlaws to obtain them.
the more you spread guns, the greater is the risk of them being used in illegal activities.
..oh wait... this forum is about apple and computers, right? :rolleyes:
If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns.
statistics show that distribution of firearms mainly lead to more homocides and also suicides using firearms.
if guns are outlawed, their distribution is greatly limited, making it a lot harder for outlaws to obtain them.
the more you spread guns, the greater is the risk of them being used in illegal activities.
..oh wait... this forum is about apple and computers, right? :rolleyes:
jibjab kalonji
Aug 12, 02:37 AM
hey this is great news. if this piece of crap does in fact come out, i will be really disappointed if it doesn't come with a built-in flashlight, red laser pointer, and classic support.
MrXiro
Apr 8, 12:20 AM
me too! I wanna learn!
How does withholding stock from the public aid a company? I can imagine holding them till everything is registered in their system and accounted for. But turning people away when they actually do have stock doesn't sound like a good business practice to me
Drives up the "hotness" of the product... I've seen Best Buys force you to buy their "packages" of accessories for whatever hot product and refused to sell to people unless they bought accessories and possibly their service plans.
iphone 4 white release date
![]()
How does withholding stock from the public aid a company? I can imagine holding them till everything is registered in their system and accounted for. But turning people away when they actually do have stock doesn't sound like a good business practice to me
Drives up the "hotness" of the product... I've seen Best Buys force you to buy their "packages" of accessories for whatever hot product and refused to sell to people unless they bought accessories and possibly their service plans.
IceMacMac
Apr 10, 08:47 PM
The pro of today is no longer the pro of the past decade. Pro is a far broader term in 2011. Nearly anyone could be a 'pro' with a little interest, work, and dedication.
To me the term denotes a person who is gaining a sizeable portion of their income from video production...and whom is talented enough to woo paying clients.
So in my opinion the meaning for "Pro" has changed little.
To me the term denotes a person who is gaining a sizeable portion of their income from video production...and whom is talented enough to woo paying clients.
So in my opinion the meaning for "Pro" has changed little.
TangoCharlie
Jul 20, 11:40 AM
I have a question.
If Kentsfield is a relation of the Conroe part (ie. Core 2 Duo) then will it be capable of being configured in a pair to create a "octo" core machine?
Surely that will require a Xeon class processor (like a quad version of the Woodcrest)?
edit: quad version of Woodcrest is Clovertown.
Intel has for the last few years restricted the "destop" parts to single socket systems. ** If Intel continues along these lines, then Kentsfield will also be restricted to single socket systems (ie a maximum of 4 cores).
Cloverton, being the "Xeon" equivalent will support multi-socket systems, taking us to the quoted 8 cores for dual-cpu systems.
====
**The Pentium III S was the last "desktop" CPU which could be used in a dual cpu configuration. P4's were always "crippled" to work only in single-cpu systems.
If Kentsfield is a relation of the Conroe part (ie. Core 2 Duo) then will it be capable of being configured in a pair to create a "octo" core machine?
Surely that will require a Xeon class processor (like a quad version of the Woodcrest)?
edit: quad version of Woodcrest is Clovertown.
Intel has for the last few years restricted the "destop" parts to single socket systems. ** If Intel continues along these lines, then Kentsfield will also be restricted to single socket systems (ie a maximum of 4 cores).
Cloverton, being the "Xeon" equivalent will support multi-socket systems, taking us to the quoted 8 cores for dual-cpu systems.
====
**The Pentium III S was the last "desktop" CPU which could be used in a dual cpu configuration. P4's were always "crippled" to work only in single-cpu systems.
gnasher729
Mar 26, 07:05 PM
so, it's beta #1? Feature complete but still has bugs to iron out.
Golden master is usually when they are confident of no bugs isn't it?
Golden master is the one that gets shipped.
"Golden master candidate" is one with no known bugs that need fixing, but there are plenty of people still testing, so you expect new bugs to come up that need fixing. You fix them and have a new "Golden master candidate". With the first "Golden master candidate" you are usually quite sure that there will be bugs found.
And you _know_ there are bugs in the Golden Master, you just reached the point where you aren't finding any more bugs. Some customers tend to be quite good at finding them :mad: which is why you have 10.6.1, 10.6.2 and so on.
Golden master is usually when they are confident of no bugs isn't it?
Golden master is the one that gets shipped.
"Golden master candidate" is one with no known bugs that need fixing, but there are plenty of people still testing, so you expect new bugs to come up that need fixing. You fix them and have a new "Golden master candidate". With the first "Golden master candidate" you are usually quite sure that there will be bugs found.
And you _know_ there are bugs in the Golden Master, you just reached the point where you aren't finding any more bugs. Some customers tend to be quite good at finding them :mad: which is why you have 10.6.1, 10.6.2 and so on.
aafuss1
Aug 6, 10:20 PM
Jhonen Vasquez-would be a great guest at a Apple keynote, when Steve does a update on TV shows-like WWDC or a iPod event.
hulugu
Mar 23, 12:19 AM
Although I backed the implementation of a no-fly zone a few weeks ago, I wouldn't describe my position as one of wholehearted support. More a queasy half-hearted recognition that something had to be done and that all alternatives lead to rabbit holes of some degree or another. When all is said and done, my usual fallback position is an intense weariness at the evil that men do.
For the record, I actually supported (if silence is considered consent) both Gulf wars at the start; I believed in the fictional WMD, I believed it when Colin Powell held his little vial up at the UN... but I, like many was tied down with work and other concerns and was only paying cursory attention to the news at the time. Like Obama, I also initially supported the war in Afghanistan, or at least the idea of it, initiated by a Republican president, but since then it seems to have become a fiasco of Catch-22 proportions.
Slowly discovering the real agenda and true ineptness of the Bush administration was a pivotal point in my reawakening political understanding of US current affairs after reading Hunter Thompson for so many years. Disgusted and appalled at the casual way in which we all were lied to, I'm quite happy to hold my hands up and say 'I was wrong'.
Thing is about Obama, I never had any starry-eyed notion about him being a peace-maker. He's an American president, the incentives are cemented into the role as one of using power and protecting wealth. Not that many conservatives were paying attention at the time, but he stood up in front of the Nobel academy when accepting his Nobel Peace Prize and laid out a justification for war.
Since the second Gulf War, the entire circus has been one of my occasional interests, because I've never seen a political process elsewhere riddled with so many bald-faced liars, grotesque characters and half-baked casual hate speech. What power or the sniff of it does to people, twisting them out of shape, is infinitely more interesting and has more impact on us than any other endeavour, except for possibly the parallel development of technology.
I used you as an example more out of rhetoric than anything else. However, I think your essay is spot on.
I didn't believe the Bush administration's call for war in Iraq because I was reading Hans Blix's reports and I was suspicious of the whole endeavor: the Bushies struck me as a group wholly unprepared for the difficulty of governing a foreign country after a military invasion. I did hope, like Tom Friedman, that an Iraq without Saddam might be a powerful symbol in the Middle East, but I was deeply concerned about the war.
Reading Anthony Shadid's reporting on Iraq told me that the situation was, days in, already spinning out of control. Once it became apparent that looters were able to steal artifacts from the museums, office chairs pilled with computers from the bureaus and weapons from Iraq's hundreds of ammunition dumps I knew we were in trouble.
Libya is more like Bosnia than Iraq. A moment of force has the potential to change the scope of the conflict, hopefully for the positive, in a way that a full-blown invasion would merely complicate. That's the central part that fivepoint, who is merely interested in making another partisan screed, is ignoring.
We have complicated thoughts about the use of force in the world, which leads us to appear hypocritical when all things are made to appear equal to make straw.
George W. Bush is responsible for another calamity: me posting in PRSI, one of my many occasional weaknesses.
Me too. I wandered in here by accident as a new member and haven't left.
For the record, I actually supported (if silence is considered consent) both Gulf wars at the start; I believed in the fictional WMD, I believed it when Colin Powell held his little vial up at the UN... but I, like many was tied down with work and other concerns and was only paying cursory attention to the news at the time. Like Obama, I also initially supported the war in Afghanistan, or at least the idea of it, initiated by a Republican president, but since then it seems to have become a fiasco of Catch-22 proportions.
Slowly discovering the real agenda and true ineptness of the Bush administration was a pivotal point in my reawakening political understanding of US current affairs after reading Hunter Thompson for so many years. Disgusted and appalled at the casual way in which we all were lied to, I'm quite happy to hold my hands up and say 'I was wrong'.
Thing is about Obama, I never had any starry-eyed notion about him being a peace-maker. He's an American president, the incentives are cemented into the role as one of using power and protecting wealth. Not that many conservatives were paying attention at the time, but he stood up in front of the Nobel academy when accepting his Nobel Peace Prize and laid out a justification for war.
Since the second Gulf War, the entire circus has been one of my occasional interests, because I've never seen a political process elsewhere riddled with so many bald-faced liars, grotesque characters and half-baked casual hate speech. What power or the sniff of it does to people, twisting them out of shape, is infinitely more interesting and has more impact on us than any other endeavour, except for possibly the parallel development of technology.
I used you as an example more out of rhetoric than anything else. However, I think your essay is spot on.
I didn't believe the Bush administration's call for war in Iraq because I was reading Hans Blix's reports and I was suspicious of the whole endeavor: the Bushies struck me as a group wholly unprepared for the difficulty of governing a foreign country after a military invasion. I did hope, like Tom Friedman, that an Iraq without Saddam might be a powerful symbol in the Middle East, but I was deeply concerned about the war.
Reading Anthony Shadid's reporting on Iraq told me that the situation was, days in, already spinning out of control. Once it became apparent that looters were able to steal artifacts from the museums, office chairs pilled with computers from the bureaus and weapons from Iraq's hundreds of ammunition dumps I knew we were in trouble.
Libya is more like Bosnia than Iraq. A moment of force has the potential to change the scope of the conflict, hopefully for the positive, in a way that a full-blown invasion would merely complicate. That's the central part that fivepoint, who is merely interested in making another partisan screed, is ignoring.
We have complicated thoughts about the use of force in the world, which leads us to appear hypocritical when all things are made to appear equal to make straw.
George W. Bush is responsible for another calamity: me posting in PRSI, one of my many occasional weaknesses.
Me too. I wandered in here by accident as a new member and haven't left.
yoak
Apr 6, 06:59 AM
Hmm we have a Blu Ray burner in our duplication bay in 3 years and approx 1500 hrs of Broadcast HD TV it has only been used so editors can take home personal projects to screen them.
Really do not see the need for Blu Ray at all there are so many other better suited formats.
It all depends on what you do for a living I suppose. I can see wedding video makers would want to deliver blu-ray.
I don�t do weddings, but I would at least like to have the option to easily make a Blu-Ray longer than 20min . Now every time we give people a HD format of what we have done, we usually end up with an Apple TV HD file and that�s a very compressed HD file IMHO.
Really do not see the need for Blu Ray at all there are so many other better suited formats.
It all depends on what you do for a living I suppose. I can see wedding video makers would want to deliver blu-ray.
I don�t do weddings, but I would at least like to have the option to easily make a Blu-Ray longer than 20min . Now every time we give people a HD format of what we have done, we usually end up with an Apple TV HD file and that�s a very compressed HD file IMHO.
