I agree. Averaging scores may not work since if there are a lot of bad articles in a thread and one good one, it'll get knocked down.
I like your idea of sorting by highest score in a thread. (Secondary criterion might be the second highest score in teh thread.. so we get the best threads at the top.)
The counter on that page (view source) that others have pointed out seems particularly fishy to me. Either this is a faked publicity stunt, or they really did get cracked, and are milking the publicity by putting up a counter on the page and leaving it up.
I think it would be really useful to display the scores beside the list of your own articles in your "user" page, so we can see which of our comments have been moderated.
Wow. I disagree with most of the points in your post!:)
>How many of you out there have sat down at your >computer, logged in to the net and read a novel? >Probably none.
Why do we need to read books? Lots of information comes in other forms, short posts, short articles, etc. Most ideas can be effectively conveyed in a reasonably short space. We're talking about free speech, not research.
>It allows people to not have to actually carry on >a conversation with another human being, that is >not always so great. I sometimes feel we are >building a society of introverts.
I disagree wholeheartedly. What are we doing now? We're carrying a conversation, no? And are you not a human being? Talking "in person" is not the only way to communicate. I'd say I'm exposed to far more different people and different ideas online than I would be if I didn't have internet access.
I think total censorship of the net is inherently impossible. There are two ways to go about it, additive and subtractive: Additive: Allow only sites you don't mind people seeing. Problem: The internet is absurdly huge, and you'll never be able to come close to checking every last site that your people might need. Subtractive: Allow everything EXCEPT bad sites. Problem: If you filter manually, you come to the same problem as in teh additive case. If you use automated filtering software, people will find out the algorithm you use and defeat it. (By spelling words f*ck, for instance.)
I'd actually love to see some figures on how much a typical, say, popular musician makes from album sales vs. ticket sales. Not how much is made by middlemen, but how much the musicians actually make. Then again, there are tons of middlemen even in concert ticketing.
But how would this work for, say, authors? If they can't sell their work, and I don't see any other major source of income, how in the world can they support writing as a full-time job?
Sure, "real" artists do their work out of passion rather than pocketbook, but if they're going to do it full-time, they'll have to find a source of income as well, or they'll be forced to do it only part-time, which would be a detriment for us readers.
What the whole free software and MP3 movements seems to be a forerunner of is the free access of all information. Whether or not that's a good thing is another matter, but copy protection has NEVER been unbreakable, afaik, and probably never will be unbreakable. After all, if there's a way to read the content at all, there will be a way to write it again elsewhere.
The well-established institutions of buying books, music, movies, etc., may come crashing down through necessity, just as MP3s are already causing the music distribution world to crash down. (I'm guessing that movies will follow with increased storage, and books will come when we have a nice way to read them, like those electronic ink projects.)
How will artists get paid, then? I think that's a really interesting question. And it's better to start thinking of alternatives now than to face a meltdown of creativity because the artists can't find a way to get paid.
I'd say it's far easier to program GUIs in a GUI at times. I think SOME ammount visual tools are pretty darn useful when developing a large application.
I'm a diehard text-editor guy when it comes to HTML, but I can understand if some people want to use visual HTML tools. I don't say they're not "real" programmers. (In fact, I'd say some amount of automated HTML tools might be useful on a really large scale site, which I haven't done myself.)
Putting down people who use certain tools is pretty lame. Different people have different needs and wants.
>Obviously you don't want open source to go >anywhere. Me I want to have sources for the OS and >Language and I want to use successful OS's and >languages.
Linux was a pretty darn good language long before RedHat, etc. began to commercialize it. The whole POINT of free software is that it doesn't need any money to fuel it.
>Forcing logins to use user preferences is useless >and a big liability. Get rid of it.
How else would it be done? Simply a cookie on the local machine? That would not be multi-user friendly. What if two people want to use the same machine, but with different prefs? This could happen often with computers which multiple people use (either at home, work, or school). It would also not support transporting prefs to different computers.
Logging in to use prefs is the only thing that makes sense to me.
I was recently recompressing a piece of video of mine, looking at the quality carefully, and Cinepak is definitely quite crappy. Lots of pixelation and screwed up color palette. Sorenson, though not perfect, is far more faithful to the original and pleasant to look at. The only downside I see is the CPU requirement which makes it practically unplayable on anything slower than 100 Mhz...
MPEG, in my experience, has some major playback control problems, often stuttering or lacking proper audio/video syncing.
OS X is more than just YAUC because it also integrates many Mac OS features. And whether or not YOU like the Mac OS, there are some of us who do like its interface a whole lot. Thus, I'd rather use a Un*x that has a Mac interface than X-Windows, or GNU/KDE.
You seem to be saying that Apple's products being better benefits only Apple. Products benefit their consumers as well!
So if Darwin makes OS X better, not only Apple, but us users are benefitted as well.
Yeah.. but it's the principle of the thing.. Someone COULD conceivably sue Apple for all of Darwin, and Apple would then have the option of terminating it all!
Well, I guess the point is that someone could potentially place a claim on ALL the code, and Apple would have an excuse to terminate the entire license.
The entire episode 1 is stored digitally, then transferred to film! So the very high quality trailer you see in the theater is made from a digital copy already!
Besides, tons of films already out also have entirely digital sequences. Any CGI shot is a digital copy. They look just fine, don't they?
The only difference this would make is that they would be projected directly from the digital copy, thus skipping the transfer to film step, which can only degrade quality.
Whether or not you agree with it, Apple DOES have an argument in favor of closedness. Namely, they want to purvey consistency and reliability across their product line.
Apple-compatible hardware, for instance, tends to be true plug-and-play, precisely because of restrictions. I was trying to install Linux the other day and had to really muck around to get the mouse to work properly.
Interface-wise, Apple wants consistency. Personally, I can't STAND the fact that every X app is completely different. Hopefully, GNOME/KDE will help remedy the situation.
Basically, where Un*x users like customizability above all else, Apple goes for reduced customizability in favor of ease of learning curve.
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I agree. Averaging scores may not work since if there are a lot of bad articles in a thread and one good one, it'll get knocked down.
I like your idea of sorting by highest score in a thread. (Secondary criterion might be the second highest score in teh thread.. so we get the best threads at the top.)
I wasn't talking about SHOULD.. I was talking about WILL.
Information will be free whether or not we like it.
So we should learn to deal with it.
As in Kubler-Ross, stage 4 is where they just learn to live with it.
The counter on that page (view source) that others have pointed out seems particularly fishy to me.
Either this is a faked publicity stunt,
or they really did get cracked, and are milking the publicity by putting up a counter on the page and leaving it up.
Somehow, the former seems more likely.
I think it would be really useful to display the scores beside the list of your own articles in your "user" page, so we can see which of our comments have been moderated.
Wow. I disagree with most of the points in your post! :)
>How many of you out there have sat down at your
>computer, logged in to the net and read a novel?
>Probably none.
Why do we need to read books? Lots of information comes in other forms, short posts, short articles, etc. Most ideas can be effectively conveyed in a reasonably short space. We're talking about free speech, not research.
>It allows people to not have to actually carry on
>a conversation with another human being, that is
>not always so great. I sometimes feel we are
>building a society of introverts.
I disagree wholeheartedly. What are we doing now? We're carrying a conversation, no? And are you not a human being? Talking "in person" is not the only way to communicate. I'd say I'm exposed to far more different people and different ideas online than I would be if I didn't have internet access.
I think total censorship of the net is inherently impossible.
There are two ways to go about it, additive and subtractive:
Additive: Allow only sites you don't mind people seeing.
Problem: The internet is absurdly huge, and you'll never be able to come close to checking every last site that your people might need.
Subtractive: Allow everything EXCEPT bad sites.
Problem: If you filter manually, you come to the same problem as in teh additive case. If you use automated filtering software, people will find out the algorithm you use and defeat it. (By spelling words f*ck, for instance.)
I'd actually love to see some figures on how much a typical, say, popular musician makes from album sales vs. ticket sales. Not how much is made by middlemen, but how much the musicians actually make.
Then again, there are tons of middlemen even in concert ticketing.
But how would this work for, say, authors? If they can't sell their work, and I don't see any other major source of income, how in the world can they support writing as a full-time job?
Sure, "real" artists do their work out of passion rather than pocketbook, but if they're going to do it full-time, they'll have to find a source of income as well, or they'll be forced to do it only part-time, which would be a detriment for us readers.
What the whole free software and MP3 movements seems to be a forerunner of is the free access of all information.
Whether or not that's a good thing is another matter, but copy protection has NEVER been unbreakable, afaik, and probably never will be unbreakable. After all, if there's a way to read the content at all, there will be a way to write it again elsewhere.
The well-established institutions of buying books, music, movies, etc., may come crashing down through necessity, just as MP3s are already causing the music distribution world to crash down. (I'm guessing that movies will follow with increased storage, and books will come when we have a nice way to read them, like those electronic ink projects.)
How will artists get paid, then? I think that's a really interesting question. And it's better to start thinking of alternatives now than to face a meltdown of creativity because the artists can't find a way to get paid.
So are you saying you don't use X-Windows?
I'd say it's far easier to program GUIs in a GUI at times. I think SOME ammount visual tools are pretty darn useful when developing a large application.
I'm a diehard text-editor guy when it comes to HTML, but I can understand if some people want to use visual HTML tools. I don't say they're not "real" programmers. (In fact, I'd say some amount of automated HTML tools might be useful on a really large scale site, which I haven't done myself.)
Putting down people who use certain tools is pretty lame. Different people have different needs and wants.
>Obviously you don't want open source to go
>anywhere. Me I want to have sources for the OS and
>Language and I want to use successful OS's and
>languages.
Linux was a pretty darn good language long before RedHat, etc. began to commercialize it.
The whole POINT of free software is that it doesn't need any money to fuel it.
>Forcing logins to use user preferences is useless
>and a big liability. Get rid of it.
How else would it be done? Simply a cookie on the local machine? That would not be multi-user friendly. What if two people want to use the same machine, but with different prefs? This could happen often with computers which multiple people use (either at home, work, or school). It would also not support transporting prefs to different computers.
Logging in to use prefs is the only thing that makes sense to me.
I was recently recompressing a piece of video of mine, looking at the quality carefully, and Cinepak is definitely quite crappy. Lots of pixelation and screwed up color palette.
Sorenson, though not perfect, is far more faithful to the original and pleasant to look at. The only downside I see is the CPU requirement which makes it practically unplayable on anything slower than 100 Mhz...
MPEG, in my experience, has some major playback control problems, often stuttering or lacking proper audio/video syncing.
I don't like having the closeboxes around, where I could accidentally close a box, forcing me to dig to the preferences to re-enable it.
A way to disable the closeboxes would be nice.
OS X is more than just YAUC because it also integrates many Mac OS features.
And whether or not YOU like the Mac OS, there are some of us who do like its interface a whole lot.
Thus, I'd rather use a Un*x that has a Mac interface than X-Windows, or GNU/KDE.
You seem to be saying that Apple's products being better benefits only Apple.
Products benefit their consumers as well!
So if Darwin makes OS X better, not only Apple, but us users are benefitted as well.
Yeah.. but it's the principle of the thing..
Someone COULD conceivably sue Apple for all of Darwin, and Apple would then have the option of terminating it all!
Don't just spoil the ending for us!
Well, I guess the point is that someone could potentially place a claim on ALL the code, and Apple would have an excuse to terminate the entire license.
Check out section 7. It says that if Apple revises the license, you are still allowed to use any earlier version of the license.
Bruce,
I could've sworn your problem with the IBM clause was that they could terminate if ANYONE brought a patent suit against IBM.
Here, they can only terminate if YOU bring a suit against Apple. Isn't that the key difference?
They even have that whole section about how if they revise the license, you can still always use an earlier version.
Or am I misunderstanding the issue?
>because the terms of use are still anything but free.
Actually, as far as I can tell, this is truly open source in the sense that as long as you post changes, you can distribute it for free.
I'm waiting to see just how much is released.
i.e., what they mean by "Mac OS X Server foundation".
The entire episode 1 is stored digitally, then transferred to film!
So the very high quality trailer you see in the theater is made from a digital copy already!
Besides, tons of films already out also have entirely digital sequences. Any CGI shot is a digital copy. They look just fine, don't they?
The only difference this would make is that they would be projected directly from the digital copy, thus skipping the transfer to film step, which can only degrade quality.
What bothers me more is the "THE". Why "THE open sourcish"?
Whether or not you agree with it, Apple DOES have an argument in favor of closedness.
Namely, they want to purvey consistency and reliability across their product line.
Apple-compatible hardware, for instance, tends to be true plug-and-play, precisely because of restrictions. I was trying to install Linux the other day and had to really muck around to get the mouse to work properly.
Interface-wise, Apple wants consistency. Personally, I can't STAND the fact that every X app is completely different. Hopefully, GNOME/KDE will help remedy the situation.
Basically, where Un*x users like customizability above all else, Apple goes for reduced customizability in favor of ease of learning curve.