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__THISRES__81653.jpg "Fly... by °Phill 3 weeks 19 hours ago")
^nat
This wallpaper captures the urban essence that proliferated the art of Ghost in the Shell in every incarnation of the series. Phill does an amazing job of capturing a moment of surrealism.
While there are a few, stray building angles and shadows, you find that your eye forgives the minor details and instead focuses on the overall scene that is larger than life, with lights trailing off into infinity.
While there are a few, stray building angles and shadows, you find that your eye forgives the minor details and instead focuses on the overall scene that is larger than life, with lights trailing off into infinity.
ShoutBox
$damoser
9 minutes ago
But then that would be accepting a mistake, and men don't make mistakes, none that are acceptable.
^hatesyou
11 minutes ago
He punctuated with a full stop. What if you just accepted you misread it?
$damoser
13 minutes ago
Then why would he put a period instead?
$motogp
13 minutes ago
What if he forgot to put a question mark :P
^hatesyou
16 minutes ago
His comment was a statement. Not a question.
$damoser
16 minutes ago
Seemed more like a rhetorical question to me.
$motogp
20 minutes ago
No he was asking.i was telling xD
$damoser
20 minutes ago
So basically what aki said, only more specific.
$motogp
23 minutes ago
U can edit it and add the new size
°akiranyo
42 minutes ago
Ah, I see. So after approving is possible to change to even a not listed resolution.
Apple?
5 months 3 weeks ago
"As DeepDragoon stated, Apple tried licensing Mac OS in the mid 90s. It didn't work out because the licensees gave crappy support for their machines, which painted a bad picture of Mac OS, among other reasons.
I also hope that you realize that in order to license Mac OS X to other PC vendors now and sell OS X for generic PCs, they'd have to write drivers for every type of hardware under the sun, resulting in a bloated, unstable version of Mac OS X that is no better than its competitors. So there is actually a good reason for them not licensing Mac OS X.
Incorrect, games are not the only applications out there that take advantage of multiple processors or cores. Thanks to Apple utilizing multiple processors in consumer computers before other companies even considered it (Apple started putting dual processors in their towers in July 2000), the vast majority of Mac applications these days are designed to take advantage of this extra power. This is in stark contrast to Windows, where the only programs to do that are games.
Your virus comment is also false. The only known OS X malware of any type are a few proof-of-concept viruses that never made it into the wild and one trojan horse that relies 100% on human stupidity. Most have had the vulnerabilities that they used fixed, and the trojan can't even run on its own - it requires the user to manually download it, open it, and give the trojan their name and password in order to work.
"
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Don't you use Microsoft?
5 months 3 weeks ago
"I'm a Mac OS X user, although I have used Windows 95 through XP, various distrobutions of Linux, and BeOS Personal Edition r5.I find myself always coming back to OS X for a number of reasons -
• It's been plenty stable for me.
• The UI and workflow really feels smooth and thought out, unlike "maximizing every program window open is best" Windows.
• No stupid space-wasting redundant menubars attached to each and every window. The one at the top is also at the same location no matter what, making it easy to throw your mouse at and grab a menu at any time.
• Consistent design and feel between Mac OS applications, even if they're not Apple-created. You don't have a huge clashing mess of a mish-mash of different designs and techniques between programs, as is seen in Windows and ESPECIALLY in Linux (the open source community is so indecisive).
• Emphasis on drag and drop. Drag and drop is almost 100% guaranteed to work in any situation in any program running on Mac OS. I really don't know why other OSes haven't picked this up as well.
• Eye candy and fancies without dragging your hardware down. Mac OS X is capable of Vista Aero-level visuals without the beastly requirements that Vista has.
• OS X takes little or no maintenance. Never needing defragmented, scanned for viruses, or spyware, you really can just use the hell out of it and not have to worry.
• Constant, very substantial updates. Unlike Windows users, we don't have to wait years and years for service packs and new versions to come out (lolvistadelays).
• The OS doesn't get in the way or treat you like an idiot. There are very few stupid things in OS X such as Vista's UAC or having to go through a stream of dialog windows just to delete a single shortcut. It just faithfully and silently does the work you give it, waiting for your next command.
• Anybody can be a developer. Every Mac and Mac OS X Install disc comes with a very large set of free enterprise-class development tools. There's no need to piece together your own software development kit or even buy development software. It's all included.
• It's *NIX power without the hassle. With OS X, you will never have to recompile the kernel just to make a single driver work, or even touch the commandline once during the entire time you use it. If you do happen to need it, however, just pull up the Terminal for 100% unadulterated pure *NIX power.
There are a lot more reasons that I use it, but I don't feel like listing them out :P
Now that's not to say that other OSes aren't good - I'm personally a fan of Ubuntu - but if the Linux crowd doesn't get its shit together pretty soon and set forth a set of standards for software developers to follow and eliminate the need for the end-user to ever use the commandline, it'll get nowhere fast.
"
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End of the World?
11 months 3 weeks ago
"Well, it really depends on how the end of the world comes into place. If it's something like a planet-sized asteroid hitting earth and blowing into chunks, I'd probably spend my remaining time doing all the things I wished I could do but never did.If it's a situation where there's a possibility of survival, though, I'd take myself and my family, gather supplies to last a good 4-5 years, and dig a bunker in some remote mountain wilderness somewhere. When the apocalyptic stuff started going on I'd then hide in my bunker and hope nobody bothers me for the duration of it and pop out whenever things seemed safe or when I had to due to running out of supplies. I have no intention of giving up easily..."
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Learning to Like Bad Anime Music
11 months 3 weeks ago
"Yeah, I can think of a few cases when a new season of an anime started or I started watching a new anime and thinking to myself, "holy cow, this theme song sucks!" After a while though, they usually end up growing on me and I add them to my ever-growing music library :POf course there is also anime music that doesn't necessarily suck, but there would have been no way that I would have listened to it before watching the anime series. A good example of this is most of the Eureka Seven soundtrack... the animation pretty much made me like the music, if you know what I mean."
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Will Bleach become the new DBZ?
11 months 3 weeks ago
"I agree with that, actually. I wish they would have added in a few "back-at-home" type filler episodes between the end of the bounto arc and the beginning of the Vaizard/Aizen arc... It felt kinda rushed with Ichigo and friends being so abrubtly pushed into action again so soon.
"
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Old School Cartoons
11 months 3 weeks ago
"I agree, so many cartoons are just plain stupid these days. A few, such as Justice League, managed to escape this fate, but most are very badly drawn, animated, and written. The art looks like it could be something a 5-year-old drew, the animation is mediocre at best, and storylines are just plain out nonexistent. It's sad that I'm disgusted 90% of the time when I flip to Cartoon Network or Toon Disney.The old Looney Toons are classics. They were funny without being nasty or disgusting and the art/animation was actually pretty darned good considering the period they were created in ('60s to early '80s, and some even earlier). The '90s produced some decent stuff too, such as Doug.
I really hope this trend changes soon... it's such a shame seeing all of our awesome modern animation technology never used and the great cartoon writing talents of the world never given a chance."
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Will Bleach become the new DBZ?
11 months 3 weeks ago
"Where exactly are the filler episodes? I've watched up to episode 126 so far and the only fillers that I know of (and I'm not even sure of that) is the Bounto arc, which I thought wasn't all that bad... I dunno. Maybe I'm just stupid, but it's flowed quite nicely in my opinion.As for comparing Bleach to DBZ, I wouldn't know. The animation/art style in DBZ annoyed me too much for me to watch it - 3-foot tall foreheads FTL!
"
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Vista Vs. XP
11 months 3 weeks ago
"I personally don't like Vista for the following reasons:• So many "editions". Please just release one, we don't need 1,254,698 to the power of 4 in different versions of the same freakin' OS.
• Too many unnecessary UI changes and rearrangements - every time I use Vista, I can't help but ask myself, "Why the heck did MS change that?" about something and am constantly searching for things because they aren't where they used to be. Don't get me wrong - change is good in a lot of cases, but here they were 100% unneeded.
• Requirements to run Aero smoothly are too high and artificially push hardware progress. Both Mac OS X Tiger and OS X Leopard Beta (yes, I have an Apple Developer account) are both fully capable of everything Aero offers but takes only a fraction of the requirements - I've run them both on my old 1Ghz iMac with a wimply little 32MB nVidia GeForce4 graphics card and 768MB of RAM and they run almost as smoothly as silk. Heck, Tiger even runs on my 400Mhz iMac pretty well as long as it has 512MB+ RAM.
• Aero took the whole glossy bit too far. After using Vista for more than 15 minutes, my eyes start to become strained from everything being shiny. At the very least, MS should have included a toned-down more matte-based skin so I can look at a decent modern UI without completely switching off Aero and going back to the dinosaur Win9x/Win2k look.
• Under the hood changes really aren't all that major. While some were rather significant, they were nowhere near as great as MS seems to indicate and certainly aren't worth $150+.
• Microsoft is using Vista to push their super-proprietary DirectX crap even more. I personally hate DirectX with a passion and wish MS would abandon it and start putting effort into OpenGL, just like how Apple dropped QuickDraw 3D long ago and started developing OpenGL.
• Thanks to Microsoft not enforcing UI standards on Windows developers, quite a bit of Windows software looks like utter crap under Vista because it has the old Win9x interface but has the Aero frame around its windows. Feels very cheap and "tacked on".
• Microsoft is too concerned with backwards compatibility. Stop building on the same old base! Things like the registry are extremely archaic and should have been abandoned long ago. They should have just forgotten about backwards compatibility completely, actually produced a REAL modern OS with a completely new codebase, and forced developers to come up to the new standard. They also should have had a "Classic Mode" ala OS X that allows Win2k to run in a layer above Vista for old software.
• Vista goes after its ancestors and still has everything hooked into everything else. As has been demonstrated time and time again before, that means one hole in a completely unrelated area can yield full control of something else. This major flaw could be fixed if Microsoft changed to a more modular, area-independent design (similar to BSD/various Linux flavors/OS X).
• This is pretty minor, but it still bugs me. "Vista" is a pretty tacky name - more creativity please, lol.
So yeah... whenever I have to use Windows, I'll be using XP and not Vista, at least until nothing runs on XP any more, or until MS decides to scrap the current crap codebase and start something new."
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Online Design Jobs as a Teenager
11 months 3 weeks ago
"After searching all over the place, I'm beginning to think it's a pipe dream. Although I have adequate skills and have even designed for a company over the internet in the past (which was a result of dumb luck), I have almost no chance of competing against other artists for work since I haven't been through college and as a result, don't have a degree.I am currently 18 and plan to enter college in January, and would like to be able to use my skills to earn myself some extra money both before and during college attendance. I have been working with Photoshop since 2001 and have a 9x12 tablet, so I'm quite familiar with the necessary software and even have the tools necessary. Take a look at my gallery here and my site if for examples of my work.
So do I stand a chance or not have one at all? If I do have a chance, where do I start? One thing a few people have told me is build a portfolio, but that's awfully hard to do when you have no customers...
Thanks in advance for any input on this matter, and I sincerely apologize if this sounds like some sort of advertisement - that certainly isn't the case, I'm just looking for advice."
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What do you think of youth nowadays?
1 year 3 days ago
"Well, as an 18-year-old who had parents who tried as hard as possible and did everything in their power to discipline me and raise me properly (which I am inexplicably thankful for), I have to say that I believe it's a combination of many factors.1. Parents these days either do not care for their children or are too busy to properly care for them, which kills any possibility of the parents forming bonds with their children and ensures that the children will not even learn the very basics.
2. As a result of factor #1, parents are throwing their kids in school as soon as possible. Why, you ask? Well it's quite simple, really. Free babysitting! If their kids are in school, the parents don't have to worry about them for 3/4th of the day.
3. Once in school, kids immediately pick up and imitate the bad influences in the class, since they had no good influence from their parents to take up the same spot. This is compounded by the fact that kids will feel the need to fit into the crowd. Because of this, the kids grow up without any sense of responsibility and their conscience never develops.
Once all of the factors combine and the children reach their teenage years, the natural rebellious nature of the teenager takes over and they refuse to listen to anything their parents say since no bond was formed when they were young. Then, since they have no sense of guilt or responsibility, they do whatever they want or whatever someone else tells them to do.
It's quite sad, really. All that would be needed to stop this madness is for parents to actually start giving a damn about their kids and put some effort into teaching, loving, and caring for them, because then, even if the "bad eggs" of society try to sway the will of teen whose parents care, the teen will know better an have the resolve necessary to simply say, "No.""
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Art isn't cute
1 year 3 days ago
"So "real" art can't be cute, eh? To me, it sounds like your teacher needs to loosen up some - being serious as a heart attack all the time isn't healthy.Art has such a broad definition that there is no one true set definition for it, other than "a creation that appeals to the senses". What one person considers art may be trash to someone else. For example, although Picasso is looked to and respected almost universally by artists, I don't find anything interesting about his work at all. Does that really make his work any less "art" than the work of an artist I'm a fan of? I think not.
And besides, if your teacher thinks all anime is cute then she needs to wake up. Tell her to go watch Ghost in the Shell or Akira and then ask her what she thinks."
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Full Metal Panic - A Bright Future
1 year 1 month ago
"Heya!I just got finished "vectoring" the characters from a scan for my wallpaper and I am now having trouble finding what I need to complete its background.
Click to Enlarge
In the wallpaper, Kaname, Tessa, and Sosuke are standing on the roof of a building in some city. That's where the problem comes in - in order to make the desk look as I just described, I need a cityscape stock photo to vector and put in the background. I have checked several different sites and searched the internet over and I can't find a fitting free stock photo to base the background on. Sure, I could buy a stock photo for it, but I really can't afford that at this point.
Any suggestions on where I might be able to find an appropriate photo? Thanks!
P.S. - Don't worry, I'm not finished with the roof that they're standing on. The final product WILL be more than just slate grey, I promise :P
EDIT: Fixed broken link."
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Piercings and Tattoos
1 year 1 month ago
"I don't have any tattoos or piercings and don't really want any - not only because I don't think it looks all that great at my current age, and because it looks/sounds painful to put in/on, but just think: they're gonna look absolutely horrible when you're 50+ years old and all wrinkly."View
My latest work
1 year 1 month ago
"Not bad at all, although I agree with the previous posters' suggestions about the color and lineart. The Lineart needs a little more cleaning, and some of the colors need to be more saturated. Also, while it might be asking too much, I think some soft shading on the characters would help out too."
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Athlon vs Celeron
1 year 2 months ago
"Well, while I'm certainly no expert on the subject, Celerons have pretty much always been a joke, even from day #1. That's not to say all Pentiums are bad - Core Duos are pretty nice.In this case though, yeah, go for the Athlon."
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Smoking
1 year 2 months ago
"About the last bit there... Please try to keep in mind that non-smokers are much more sensitive to smoke than smokers are, sometimes close to hundreds of times more sensitive - for example, I don't smoke, and the least little bit of tobacco smoke can get me choked up and teary-eyed. Those that appear to be unreasonably coughing may actually be having trouble.
As for my opinion on the matter, I will never smoke, ever. The stinky, nasty habit killed my mother a few years ago and I have learned well from that. While I won't force my decision on others, I do beg other smokers to return that politeness and not blow smoke my way if I happen to be passing by."
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Most Kawaii Anime Character~?
1 year 5 months ago
"How anybody can talk about kawaii anime characters without mentioning Aoi from Ai Yori Aoshi? Seriously...And yes, Chii has a certain high ranking on the cuteness scale..."
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Yeah so i purchased Windows for the First time....
1 year 5 months ago
"Agreed. That way, even if you don't like it, it didn't cost you anything.
If you have any technical knowhow at all, though, you might come to prefer it."
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What anime made you cry?
1 year 5 months ago
"I haven't watched very many sad animes, but a few episodes of FMA, Cowboy Bebop's ending, a few parts in Ai Yori Aoshi ~Enishi~, Chobits' ending, and part of Scrapped Princess' end made me cry.While not quite tear-jerking, there were some really sad parts in Fruits Basket and another anime which I can't think of at the moment (possibly Neon Genesis Evangelion)."
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Anime: Entertainment or Art?
1 year 5 months ago
"I believe that any good anime is a mixture of both art and entertainment; a good anime won't focus only on its artwork and ignore the story, and vice versa. The animes that fail to blend both at least fairly equally don't hold much value for me. For example, if the series is filled with amazing art, but a horrible storyline, I can't make myself watch it. While less extreme, the same is true if the anime has a great story but looks like it was drawn by retarded monkeys - sometimes I can watch it, but I really do prefer that the show in question have a nice balance of both artistic value and entertainment value."View
Apple ads seem to be having an effect, Kid throws PC out window
1 year 5 months ago
"I could just be my opinion, but people really shouldn't have to perform regular stringent spyware/virus cleanings and backup every other day. Backing up is good, sure, but I only do it every two or three weeks.But yeah, this kid was a stupid brat. If he wanted a Mac so badly he should've gotten his lazy butt up and worked to earn it."
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Do you smoke?
1 year 5 months ago
"Yes, I see what you're saying, but really the small amount of pleasure obtained from smoking (if any, ugh), not to mention the cost, is not worth the risk. I would much rather die young never having smoked than to die old smoking the whole way.
"
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AI?! LOVE?!
1 year 5 months ago
"Love, whatever type it may be, is certainly necessary to us as humans. We were not designed to be solitaire; we were meant to live with some sort of companions and around other humans. At a deeper level, all of us have a desire to care for someone and to be cared about ourselves.A good way to put it into a single line is as written in John Donne's Meditation XVII, even though it's in different context: "No man is an island, entire of itself...""
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Do you smoke?
1 year 5 months ago
"Me? Smoke? Hell no. It's a nasty, stinky, ugly habit that would end up driving me broke and killing me. In fact, I hate it so much, that if any of you guys ever see me smoking in real life, I'd like you to give me a hard slap in the face."View
Why do people just have to tell evryone that they hate dubs?
1 year 6 months ago
"So, if I read correctly, you wish to discuss the pros and cons of subs vs. dubs without our feelings on dubs injected?"View