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I'm sad that one of my favorites have come to an end. http://www.sabrina-online.com/
First started in 1996 and only finished end 2017. With four-ish pages a month. (Archive: http://www.sabrina-online.com/... )
And for the geeks, it was and mostly is still done with an Amiga. Fans of the platform will know EWS's style. :)

I'm sad that one of my favorites have come to an end. http://www.sabrina-online.com/
First started in 1996 and only finished end 2017. With four-ish pages a month. (Archive: http://www.sabrina-online.com/... )
And for the geeks, it was and mostly is still done with an Amiga. Fans of the platform will know EWS's style. :)

... i can freely say that the guy is seriously behind; webcomics have been around since '96 (the trophy for oldest webcomic that is still updated goes to http://www.sabrina-online.com/, closely followed by sluggy and user friendly).

So why does he notice only now?

You know, here in germany we have this term called "saure-gurken-zeit" (roughly translates as "pickled cucumbers period"), meaning this stretch during the summer where there are NO news at all, and the papers start publishing cooking recipes on their frontpages for lack of anything better to print...

is there a term for this in english?

Because analysts tend to play the role of pundit they can come across as insightful or just plain idiotic. [note: fixed typo on "plain"]

Best quote ever. Darn, it's refreshing to find an honest, non-pompous analyst.

Yes, one thing. I go to a lot of events where I can be the only woman in the room with a bunch of guys, and that's fine. I have no issues with that, really, except that I just think that more diversity in the Linux ecosystem is always good. I think it is great that Pamela Jones created Groklaw. It would be great to see more women developers involved too- there are a few, but seeing more of them would actually be better. The growth of Linux in India, Brazil, China and other countries may foster an increase of women in the community. I think that's probably one of the things that, if I could effect any change, it would be to encourage more women to enter the Linux ecosystem.

That is actually a facinating point.

I've tended to find that as a very rough, general rule, women tend to do a better job of getting along with people than men, and take longer to get angry. If I had a choice between a male or female manager, and was choosing only based on ability to get people to work together and only with knowledge of the gender, I'd probably pick the female manager.

This is especially true for the open-source world, where nobody is *made* to work together. Communities form around how well people deal with each other and work together.

My guess as to why there are few female developers comes down to drive. This isn't that there aren't driven females, but there is a difference in the psychology here. I was reading an article (listed on fark and Metafilter) on why many fields of science generally have breakthroughs done by relatively young people -- developments and interest in work for the sake of work and glory fall off after a certain point. The article drew a link between drive to impress females and the attempt to rack up accomplishments under ones name. (I got a kick out of this, and it stuck in my head -- apparently, my subconscious has been trying hard to improve my sex life by convincing me to code up new algorithms). Anyway, point is that there's at least some research evidence for the male personality being an easier fit for OSS.

Linus' claim for support of "a law to get geeks laid" could have been OSS's undoing. :-)

While that's very powerful, it can be unpleasant.

We have a society that just plain didn't develop around the idea that missteps are never forgotten.

Our laws, our social conventions, and our reactions to things are just not currently able to deal well with this idea of our life being scrawled out in permanent marker.

Usability and UI are exactly my background. Please explain to me how I can have a positive impact on OSS...

Wow. This reads something like:

I am a hot chick with a geek fetish who desperately wants to get laid. Please explain to me how I might manage to do this...

I think the problem is that you aren't talking to usability folks -- most OSS projects don't currently have a "usability guy" or often even a designated "interface programming guy". It's kinda too bad. I'd like to suggest that if you are interested in GNOME, try the Usability Project folks, who *are* interested in taking and cataloging suggestions. Dropping by their IRC channel and working on identifying user interface issues with GNOME is something that a lot of folks would like. Sun donated some UI people's time to the project for a decently-sized study, but they always would like more input. If you like KDE, try the KDE Usability Project. Since these two are about the most usability-focused projects around, they're probably a good place to put in some improvements, where your work won't get dropped or ignored.

One of the main problems with OSS is that generally programmers are used to, y'know, doing their own thing. It's hard to take advice from someone else on a volunteer project, especially since they might get less of that precious credit for an improvement (and credit must be a primary motivating factor, since the code-for-self motivation generally isn't when it comes to UI). Hence the "well, why don't *you* implement it" business.

I realize that funding is a problem when it comes to doing studies, but you probably *do* have a knowledge of existing problems, stuff that people like Apple have run into in the past (I read interface articles as a bit of a hobby, and I've got a ton of interesting things that people have run into to try to avoid).

Do remember, though -- usability people and artists are the resource in shortest supply in the OSS world.

Funny.

While I think that adults won't necessarily *stop* playing games, I think that they types they play will be different.

Unless they're playing for nostalgia (or one of the simple five-minute-killers like Tetris), I would guess the following:

* Patience for reptition is low.

* Demand for plot and writing to be of a higher quality than many games have been (poorly-translated Japanese text, a hallmark of many SNES games, is not acceptable).

* Meaninglessly thrown-in buxom girls will have less appeal (and in some cases will be treated negatively) compared to the traditional male teen audience.

* Cost will be less of an issue.

* There will be a lower tolerance for long learning curves. If you have N hours free on a weekend, you don't want to blow half of it learning the intricacies of some complex control system.

* There will be a lower tolerance for long setup times. If you have N hours free on a weekend, you don't want to blow half of it toggling 3d options to get things running properly on your system.

* The ability to play with a pair may become more highly valued. Traditionally, there have not been many games that allow cooperative play (Halo and FF Crystal Chronicles spring to mind), though there are many with competitive support. Not many teens have someone handy to play games with all the time (and if they do, it's a friend -- with whom human culture tends to dictate that we have a somewhat competitive relationship with). However, I've read about a surprising number of couples that play Everquest or similar games together. It's something fun to do with your spouse. Think of it as the bridge or mahjong of the future...

* Violent games will be less highly-valued (though, of course, there are exceptions

diamond sales

And I used to sell/buy diamonds (Pawn industry) and Nothing loses value as fast.

(about 3 bucks a point for an okay quality stone, so 1 carat 300 bucks, hows that for ROI?)

^_^

Grell

In alphabetical order:

• Academy Vale is a strip about Kinkos life with two lady rabbits as the main characters.
• Adventures of Fifine is a lushly-drawn comic of a fox lady, very much in the tradition of Herge.
• Dela the Hooda is about an extraterrestrial fox lady who came to Earth.
• A Doemain of Our Own by Susan Parkin is about Susan Deer. Until recently in the plot, her husband, Eric, was just a minor character.
• Felicia is a well-plotted comic book about a female mage cat.
• Kevin and Kell is about a married couple. He's a stay- at-home rabbit; she's a corporate wolf. Kell gets about as much screentime as Kevin, and is far, far more than a girlfriend.
• Ozy and Millie has two main characters; and Millie (a fox) is far more active as a character than Ozy. In my opinion, it is the best comic strip currently being produced, on or off the Internet.
• Sabrina Online is about a very nice and innocent skunk girl... with a lot of un-innocent friends and coworkers.
• Satin and Silk by Tiffany Ross is a pair of skunk furries. Her other comics have strong, female characters.
• The Suburban Jungle 's main character is 'Tiffany Tiger'. She has fleshed out greatly from being just a model.

http://www.sabrina-online.com/1999-02.html

It's a fun cartoon strip. :-)

Here is my favorite strip, Sabrina Online

The modern strip location;
http://sabrina-online.com/

The old strip location;
http://www.coax.net/people/erics/Sabrina.htm

And, the author's website. He is an Amiga fan and has some cool Amiga art;
http://www.compsoc.net/ericschwartz/

I go out into the Big Blue room to be retro, and do some shopping in this place called a store, and when I get back, what do I see?

Anyhow, my two bits of webbased strips:

Sabrina -(mirror here) - Life as a dedicate Amiga user, etc.

Vinny The Vampire - Almost everyone is a hollywood classic monster of one sort or another. But other wise it is a more or less "normal" world.

Supermegatopis - the worlds largest open air insane asylum

FreeFall - Space Opera Lite

GeekComics - 'nuff said

except Sabrina! :)