you might enjoy reading about the Dada performances.
they would judge the success of a performance by how much was thrown at them.
They seem to be the first to work humour into art in an obvious way, which might have been needed, considering this came right after WWI and the Spanish flu.
The main idea behind the movement seems to be based on the idea that grown-up rationalism lead to The Great War, so reverting to child-like mischievous behaviour would somehow fix everything.
it's fun to read about, but it can be hard to appreciate when you have been trained to think of art as a serious endeavour embarked upon by some depressed, brooding, out of touch with reality wine-chugging genius. Seeing Dada, which seems more like a big practical joke can really challenge some preconceptions. But there is a lot of crap out there, too.
...the "art" in question really is just a black cube. Part of me has to admire the "artist" in spite of myself.
The art isn't the black cube. the 'art' is the conditions of sale. it's a piece about the market forces in the art world. The black box is only the frame. There is a very good chance that the artist is just toying with the collectors about this whole project. in a sense, the artist is gaming the system, and presenting that as art.
So you buy it, smash it and post a video of you doing that on youtube... declare that to be art - performance art... plus declare that the individual pieces have become new, unique individual pieces of artwork based on some bullshit premise you spew... and thus you have create some kind of meta-meta art.
And also declare it as the world's first anti-art, on the basis that your "work of art" magically transformed it from art to not-art due to the original artists assertion that it would no longer be his art...
Then sell these rare, valuable fragments of your meta art anti-art individually on ebay.
Sorry, it's been done. look up Man Ray's "indestructible object" as for "Anti-Art", thats what Dada was all about. I'm not saying your idea is bad, just that it's been done....about 90 years ago.
Honestly, I'm not to surprised. The music in video games have increased in complexity and quality on an exponential scale. Now full orchestras are making music with real instruments versus the previous 8-bit simple tunes. But I still prefer the classic themes. Maybe I'm just overly nostalgic instead of knowing my music...
I don't think it's just nostalgia that causes the old 8-bit classics to remain special to us. old video game music has 2 things going for it. One is editing. Over time, the mediocre music is forgotten, while the very best (and some of the embarrassingly terrible) live on. For every Zelda tune we remember, there are dozens, if not hundreds that are forgotten.
The second factor is timber. I'm a fan of the sounds you can get from low-fi electronics. But even I must admit that most of these sounds are awful. When you can't rely on your instrument to give results that sound great, you need strong, well-composed melodies. Being limited to simple bleeps and hisses, classic video game music had to be very memorable, something you can whistle in the shower. The melodies are just really damn good.
Compare this to more recent video game music. Some of them use soundscapes. Take any sample, any sample at all. pitch bend it down to make it nice and bassy, then run it through granular synthesis, throw on some reverb, and chances are you've got a great sounding sonic texture. do this with several different samples, mix them together so they fade in and out. There you go. Instant backing sounds for a game. But you can't whistle it, you can't hum it, and you can't easily remember it. I'm not saying this is a bad thing necessarily, it can set the tone for a game and enhance the atmosphere in ways a good tune can't, it just isn't memorable when you put the controller down.
Mario and Zelda are consistently great in the music department. They still have the same great hooks, with the improved sound design made possible by better technology.
As an artist, I use tons of cadmium red because it has properties that no other red pigment can match. it's got great intensity, great opacity, and unlike 90% of the other reds used in paint, cadmium is actually permanent. It doesn't fade after a few months exposure to sunlight. Unlike every other red pigment out there, when you mix cadmium red with white, you don't get pink, you get light red. When mixed with other colours, it gives you very natural tones. Classical portraiture and landscapes would be impossible without it. Ever noticed how when high school kids paint portraits, it often looks like the men are wearing pink lipstick? it's cause the kids aren't using cadmium. The synthetic pigments just don't mix right.
The thing that surprised me about this story: cadmium pigment is bloody expensive compared to all the other reds. ($75/tube vs $20/tube) why the hell aren't they using one of the much cheaper, safer reds?
Personally, I'm waiting for the schlong-bomb. Some poor schlub gets castrated and then fitted with a horse-sized prosthetic full of bomb, detonators in the balls of course. The TSA will just let him pass as they will be shocked and awed by the size of his tool, not realizing who he's really going to use that tool to fuck over.
As hilarious as that would be, I highly doubt we will ever see something like that. I've heard that suicide bombers often wrap their genitals in protective cloth, so their junk will be spared from the blast. It has to be in working order for the 72 virgins. (if that seems unreasonably stupid (a disembodies schlong floating around in the afterlife), just remember, they are blowing themselves up for a fairy tale, so reason doesn't seam to really come into play here)
Might be easier to just look for people with obvious signs of stuffing their crotch with cloth.
So in short everyone who knows me has learned to adjust to my allergies, and now it's actually just a big joke, and the comedy in the situation actually helps keep everyone on point and careful since everyone loves brining it up as often as possible.
That is exactly the situation with my friend. we have turned it into a big joke, and are always mocking him about it. And it has actually saved his life several times, because an outsider to the group will hear us, realize he has an allergy, and say something like "Oh, I didn't know! This is hazelnut coffee in my cup, will you be ok" and my friend knows to step back, move the group outside, or run for the soap if they have shaken hands. (well, half the time, hazelnut coffee is safe, since it very rarely contains actual hazelnut, but i hope you let that slide in this example)
Before meeting him in highschool, I had the attitude, 'lets just eat nuts all the time, so the nut allergy gene becomes an evolutionary dead end for people" but I have since soften my views. But his view on limiting nuts is pretty agreeable, schools should absolutely NOT ban nut products entirely, just limit them to a cafeteria, children with allergies need to learn to be careful and lookout for themselves, otherwise when they enter that dreadful real world, they will get killed off pretty quickly, since they never had to learn to be cautious of their environment. but places like air plane, there is no escape for allergy sufferers, their life is in danger, and there are tones of snacks besides nuts that could be offered to people. so this ban isn't an unreasonable request.
And which public would that be? The one's that take their civic responsibility seriously, or the public that yells at their politician through the TV? Your complaints about "fraudulent governance" or "public mandate" would actually mean something if people were actually participating and the entire failure was they were simply being overpowered. But it's rather hard to be sympathetic over someone who simply lies there and takes it. Get back with me on "fraudulent governance" and "public mandate" once the global public grows a backbone and actually starts understanding that mandates don't come from silence, but faulty governance does.
Canada recently had an open consultations about the direction of copyright in the future for Canada, where the public was invited to town hall meetings and to participate in web forums, and to contact their MPs. The response was huge, and the overwhelming majority wanted copyright to be limited, no anti-circumvention laws, no penalties for non-commercial infringement, abolition of crown copyright, a promise that copyright duration would never be extended beyond life+50, and for fair dealing (what we call fair use) to be expanded greatly.
The Canadian pubic participated, and made their voices heard.
The whole time, ACTA was being negotiated in Seoul, and another trade agreement equally as ridiculous was being negotiated in Europe (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4627/125/) The entire public consultation was a sham. The whole thing was just a big distraction so the government can do whatever the hell it wants, directly go against the will of the people, and still say "you had your chance to speak up, you spoke we listened"
We might as well stay home and yell at the TV. Going out and talking to our elected representatives is equally ineffective, so why waste the gas to go out?
that expiration thing happens with epipens, which makes things really tough. He carries 2 with him at all times, but they only last about a year, so he has to shell out some cash every year. at least they don't have to be kept cold.
There are so many subtle ways something like that affects your life. Even career opportunities are changed, suddenly, a great drug plan is worth a whole lot.
I don't think it's that hard for him, now. Once the person knows all about avoiding it, and what is safe and what isn't, it becomes part of the daily routine.
The really hard part is how it affects everyone around him, because it's not part of our routine, so we're not used to it, we're not as educated about it, so we really have to go out of our way to be sure. eg. If I want to stop in and visit him, I have to ask myself, "what did I eat? oh, crap, that product wasn't specifically labeled as 'nut safe', so I'd better shower/brush my teeth/change before I go see him. (this is probably overkill, but I don't want to kill one of my best friends)
I have an idea about how he can safely be around nuts, but he refuses to be put in a bubble.
But thanks for the info, I will definitely let him know about the vet epinephrine. Do you need to be a vet to pick this up, or can regular people* buy it
I understand that there are severe allergic reactions. I understand that some people are sensative to notice it within the same room. Has there ever been a case of someone being killed by a peanut in the same room? Or do they merely get discomforted (itchy, hot, etc) much like everyone else on the airplane?
My friend is very allergic to peanuts and nuts. Since nut-weenies sometimes grow put of their allergies, He used to get the occasional test. The last time he had an allergy test, (where they prick your skin and put some stuff in the would to see if you react to it) his reaction was so severe he had to be rushed to the hospital (luckily the lab is right across the street from the hospital, so he made it in time) If you were to eat nuts, then shake his hand hours later, within minutes, he will break out in hives, his hand will swell up like Kirk's in the latest trek flick. If he washes it quickly enough, and has no cuts or cracks in his skin, hospitalization isn't always necessary.
Ingestion of one little flake of just the skin of a peanut is enough to make him very dead.
Not only can he not sit in a room where people have eaten nuts, he is unable to travel on any airplane that has ever served nuts in the past. The dust from the nuts trapped in the vents would kill him, and since it's a plane, there is no where to go for fresh air.
When the reaction starts, he has 15 minutes to inject himself with his epipen. if he doesn't get his injection in time, he's dead. The epipen doesn't save him, it just buys him another 15 minutes of stayin' alive time. I imagine that theoretically, he could take an epipen every 15 minutes for the duration of the flight, but since they cost around $90 each, that would be a tad expensive.
It is very possible to kill someone by eating nuts in the same room as them.
Remember Andy Warhole entering the urinal in the art show and winning! There are some very, very idiotic people who have no taste at all. They usually think they are sensitive and all knowing. Ubuntu can look really great. But a box stock XP machine looks cheesy to me.
It was Marcel Duchamp, not Andy Warhol, who entered a urinal into an art show, (and he did this 11 years before Warhol was even born) And far from winning, the urinal was never actually put on display in that show. The only reason it got into the show was because the organizers accepted all submissions they received.
The point of the urinal wasn't to be looked at in the same way we look at a Michelangelo, it was to draw attention to how we look at art vs. mass-produced objects. What exactly is the distinction between a fine art object, and a non-art object? How does placing one in the context of another change our reaction?
How we approach something drastically changes how we think about it.
The same thing can be said for Windows vs. Linux. We look at Linux as being vastly superior in nearly every way, and we can't understand why regular people see it differently. When we approach linux as nerds, we miss the 1st thing that non-techy people see. That is the interface. its not about being more powerful, more stable, more flexible, and free, to them, it's about being familiar. making Ubuntu look like XP might not be pretty, it might be cheesy, but how would a non-nerd approach it? with fear and confusion, or with the comfort and familiarity they are accustomed to? this could very possibly be a great way to help gain support in the Linux world.
It is very hard for Westerners (such as myself) to understand how Confucianism has influenced Asian Societies. But it is very hierarchical culture: "You have your place. A peasant's place is in the field, your boss' place is in the office, and the emperor's place is in the palace. Do not question, do not challenge, it's not your place." It is also one where respect is earned though age and position, not though accomplishment.
The idea of a group of peasants gathering to make decisions above the emperor, (and even about who the emperor should be) is very alien to their culture.
To us, this is ridiculous, if the boss is a moron, screw him, do it your way. "who cares that you are old, you're still wrong"
I can be argued which way is better. From my perspective, I see that in only a few hundred years, our way has dominated the world. From their perspective, their way has lasted the test of time, we are just a blip, one of many they have seen come and go.
Either way, China is opening up, their students are coming to our countries, assimilating our values, having access to our knowledge, and retuning home with them, and possibly discussing their findings with their close friends. you can't stop the signal.
You forget that they could give every able-bodied Chinese citizen a pointy stick and dump them on our shores. We'd be so hopelessly overrun our tech wouldn't matter.
it would be sort of like a Protoss vs Zerg battle, you guys just gotta survive the 1st rush, and victory is assured in the long run.
Just to be safe, I'd build those additional pylons now.
Making software--good software--takes time and resources. Time that you can't really make money on, and tools and computer equipment that is not free. Unless you sell the software you're essentially losing money, in most situations.
and that's why we will never, ever, ever see any sort of free software movement. Without monetary incentives, people just wont create anything. no music, no software, nothing....
Oh, come on. It's his JOB to know. The guy either lied or he's incompetent. Either way, fire the bum!
the guy actually represents my riding-Ontario's York Region area, which is at least 2 time zones away from Vancouver. Imagine a New Yorker commenting on a situation in Seattle. His understanding of the situation is not based on 1st hand knowledge, he heard it from a guy who's cousin's roommate had a friend who heard about it on the news....
I've tried to fire his ass the last 4 municipal elections, but the rest of the town is working against me.
Also, regarding the tougher design point - you had better hope it's more durable. Kid drops it, breaks it, and the entire library of games is ruined with it. Rather than just the system + 1 game in the drive.
well, from the company's point of view, this is a great system, because it means parents will have to buy the same games multiple times if the unit is lost of stolen. With possible multiple-purchases AND with no-cost to manufacture/distribute additional copies, since they are not physical goods, they are almost triple dipping.
note: my cellphone was stolen several months ago. whoever found it downloaded about $40 worth of content onto that phone before trashing it. When I bought a new phone and re-activated my account, I now had the ability to download all those applications free of charge, because they were not just downloaded to that specific phone, they were added to my account, and were transferable to any new phone after I cancel/reactivate. i is possible that the new PSP could use a similar system.
You know they found a solution for that. It's called scientific or exponential notation. And once you learn it, it's quite simple - you just add the specified number of zero's or move the comma the correct number of times.
Just imagine if Roman-Latin has been stabilized in 500 A.D. with fixed spelling and mandatory education. Rather than have a bunch of devolved Latinate dialects, Western Europe would now be united under one universal tongue which would make communication between the peoples of the EU much easier.
yea, that makes sense, if you ignore the existence of English, which is pretty much the universal language, not just across Western Europe, but globally.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet that is a big deal is compatibility with proprietary systems.
If I'm a photographer who's working with another photographer, I can't send them my gimp files, and them them open them in photoshop. I can't open their photoshop files in gimp. It doesn't matter how good a FOSS video editor is, All the other pros are using AVID or final cut, and we can't work together on anything. If I have a recording to be mastered externally, the studios are set up to work with pro tools. You can't have one person off in their own little bubble while the rest of the team is working together on different software. Choosing to use a FOSS program immediately isolates you from the rest of your peers.
If you are a lone person working freelance, FOSS is possible. I can edit wedding photos in gimp, and edit some audio in audacity, and get the job done. But larger production places, the work flow is more like an assembly line. after doing your job, You send off your work to the next guy. If you are ever expected to work as part of a team, you have to use what the rest of them are using. In these cases, a FOSS alternative, even if it works better than the proprietary alternative, breaks the chain, and is useless.
Slashdot Mirror
you might enjoy reading about the Dada performances.
they would judge the success of a performance by how much was thrown at them.
They seem to be the first to work humour into art in an obvious way, which might have been needed, considering this came right after WWI and the Spanish flu.
The main idea behind the movement seems to be based on the idea that grown-up rationalism lead to The Great War, so reverting to child-like mischievous behaviour would somehow fix everything.
it's fun to read about, but it can be hard to appreciate when you have been trained to think of art as a serious endeavour embarked upon by some depressed, brooding, out of touch with reality wine-chugging genius. Seeing Dada, which seems more like a big practical joke can really challenge some preconceptions.
But there is a lot of crap out there, too.
...the "art" in question really is just a black cube.
Part of me has to admire the "artist" in spite of myself.
The art isn't the black cube. the 'art' is the conditions of sale. it's a piece about the market forces in the art world. The black box is only the frame.
There is a very good chance that the artist is just toying with the collectors about this whole project. in a sense, the artist is gaming the system, and presenting that as art.
So you buy it, smash it and post a video of you doing that on youtube... declare that to be art - performance art... plus declare that the individual pieces have become new, unique individual pieces of artwork based on some bullshit premise you spew... and thus you have create some kind of meta-meta art.
And also declare it as the world's first anti-art, on the basis that your "work of art" magically transformed it from art to not-art due to the original artists assertion that it would no longer be his art...
Then sell these rare, valuable fragments of your meta art anti-art individually on ebay.
Sorry, it's been done. look up Man Ray's "indestructible object"
as for "Anti-Art", thats what Dada was all about.
I'm not saying your idea is bad, just that it's been done....about 90 years ago.
Honestly, I'm not to surprised. The music in video games have increased in complexity and quality on an exponential scale. Now full orchestras are making music with real instruments versus the previous 8-bit simple tunes. But I still prefer the classic themes. Maybe I'm just overly nostalgic instead of knowing my music...
I don't think it's just nostalgia that causes the old 8-bit classics to remain special to us. old video game music has 2 things going for it. One is editing. Over time, the mediocre music is forgotten, while the very best (and some of the embarrassingly terrible) live on. For every Zelda tune we remember, there are dozens, if not hundreds that are forgotten.
The second factor is timber. I'm a fan of the sounds you can get from low-fi electronics. But even I must admit that most of these sounds are awful. When you can't rely on your instrument to give results that sound great, you need strong, well-composed melodies. Being limited to simple bleeps and hisses, classic video game music had to be very memorable, something you can whistle in the shower. The melodies are just really damn good.
Compare this to more recent video game music. Some of them use soundscapes. Take any sample, any sample at all. pitch bend it down to make it nice and bassy, then run it through granular synthesis, throw on some reverb, and chances are you've got a great sounding sonic texture. do this with several different samples, mix them together so they fade in and out. There you go. Instant backing sounds for a game. But you can't whistle it, you can't hum it, and you can't easily remember it.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing necessarily, it can set the tone for a game and enhance the atmosphere in ways a good tune can't, it just isn't memorable when you put the controller down.
Mario and Zelda are consistently great in the music department. They still have the same great hooks, with the improved sound design made possible by better technology.
There's nothing positive that you can say about this metal
It's sulfide makes for a good photoresistor. Combined with nickel, cadmium makes for a good rechargeable battery. It's also used in the heat sensitive trigger in fire suppresion sprinkler systems. In short, cadmium has probably saved more lives than it's taken.
It also makes a very, very nice red pigment.
As an artist, I use tons of cadmium red because it has properties that no other red pigment can match. it's got great intensity, great opacity, and unlike 90% of the other reds used in paint, cadmium is actually permanent. It doesn't fade after a few months exposure to sunlight. Unlike every other red pigment out there, when you mix cadmium red with white, you don't get pink, you get light red. When mixed with other colours, it gives you very natural tones.
Classical portraiture and landscapes would be impossible without it. Ever noticed how when high school kids paint portraits, it often looks like the men are wearing pink lipstick? it's cause the kids aren't using cadmium. The synthetic pigments just don't mix right.
The thing that surprised me about this story: cadmium pigment is bloody expensive compared to all the other reds. ($75/tube vs $20/tube) why the hell aren't they using one of the much cheaper, safer reds?
Personally, I'm waiting for the schlong-bomb. Some poor schlub gets castrated and then fitted with a horse-sized prosthetic full of bomb, detonators in the balls of course. The TSA will just let him pass as they will be shocked and awed by the size of his tool, not realizing who he's really going to use that tool to fuck over.
As hilarious as that would be, I highly doubt we will ever see something like that.
I've heard that suicide bombers often wrap their genitals in protective cloth, so their junk will be spared from the blast. It has to be in working order for the 72 virgins.
(if that seems unreasonably stupid (a disembodies schlong floating around in the afterlife), just remember, they are blowing themselves up for a fairy tale, so reason doesn't seam to really come into play here)
Might be easier to just look for people with obvious signs of stuffing their crotch with cloth.
So in short everyone who knows me has learned to adjust to my allergies, and now it's actually just a big joke, and the comedy in the situation actually helps keep everyone on point and careful since everyone loves brining it up as often as possible.
That is exactly the situation with my friend. we have turned it into a big joke, and are always mocking him about it. And it has actually saved his life several times, because an outsider to the group will hear us, realize he has an allergy, and say something like "Oh, I didn't know! This is hazelnut coffee in my cup, will you be ok" and my friend knows to step back, move the group outside, or run for the soap if they have shaken hands.
(well, half the time, hazelnut coffee is safe, since it very rarely contains actual hazelnut, but i hope you let that slide in this example)
Before meeting him in highschool, I had the attitude, 'lets just eat nuts all the time, so the nut allergy gene becomes an evolutionary dead end for people" but I have since soften my views.
But his view on limiting nuts is pretty agreeable, schools should absolutely NOT ban nut products entirely, just limit them to a cafeteria, children with allergies need to learn to be careful and lookout for themselves, otherwise when they enter that dreadful real world, they will get killed off pretty quickly, since they never had to learn to be cautious of their environment. but places like air plane, there is no escape for allergy sufferers, their life is in danger, and there are tones of snacks besides nuts that could be offered to people. so this ban isn't an unreasonable request.
And which public would that be? The one's that take their civic responsibility seriously, or the public that yells at their politician through the TV? Your complaints about "fraudulent governance" or "public mandate" would actually mean something if people were actually participating and the entire failure was they were simply being overpowered. But it's rather hard to be sympathetic over someone who simply lies there and takes it. Get back with me on "fraudulent governance" and "public mandate" once the global public grows a backbone and actually starts understanding that mandates don't come from silence, but faulty governance does.
Canada recently had an open consultations about the direction of copyright in the future for Canada, where the public was invited to town hall meetings and to participate in web forums, and to contact their MPs.
The response was huge, and the overwhelming majority wanted copyright to be limited, no anti-circumvention laws, no penalties for non-commercial infringement, abolition of crown copyright, a promise that copyright duration would never be extended beyond life+50, and for fair dealing (what we call fair use) to be expanded greatly.
The Canadian pubic participated, and made their voices heard.
The whole time, ACTA was being negotiated in Seoul, and another trade agreement equally as ridiculous was being negotiated in Europe (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4627/125/)
The entire public consultation was a sham. The whole thing was just a big distraction so the government can do whatever the hell it wants, directly go against the will of the people, and still say "you had your chance to speak up, you spoke we listened"
We might as well stay home and yell at the TV.
Going out and talking to our elected representatives is equally ineffective, so why waste the gas to go out?
wow, thanks for the really detailed reply.
that expiration thing happens with epipens, which makes things really tough. He carries 2 with him at all times, but they only last about a year, so he has to shell out some cash every year. at least they don't have to be kept cold.
There are so many subtle ways something like that affects your life. Even career opportunities are changed, suddenly, a great drug plan is worth a whole lot.
I don't think it's that hard for him, now.
Once the person knows all about avoiding it, and what is safe and what isn't, it becomes part of the daily routine.
The really hard part is how it affects everyone around him, because it's not part of our routine, so we're not used to it, we're not as educated about it, so we really have to go out of our way to be sure.
eg. If I want to stop in and visit him, I have to ask myself, "what did I eat? oh, crap, that product wasn't specifically labeled as 'nut safe', so I'd better shower/brush my teeth/change before I go see him. (this is probably overkill, but I don't want to kill one of my best friends)
I have an idea about how he can safely be around nuts, but he refuses to be put in a bubble.
But thanks for the info, I will definitely let him know about the vet epinephrine. Do you need to be a vet to pick this up, or can regular people* buy it
*we aren't exactly regular people, we're pretty weird...
I understand that there are severe allergic reactions.
I understand that some people are sensative to notice it within the same room.
Has there ever been a case of someone being killed by a peanut in the same room?
Or do they merely get discomforted (itchy, hot, etc) much like everyone else on the airplane?
My friend is very allergic to peanuts and nuts.
Since nut-weenies sometimes grow put of their allergies, He used to get the occasional test. The last time he had an allergy test, (where they prick your skin and put some stuff in the would to see if you react to it) his reaction was so severe he had to be rushed to the hospital (luckily the lab is right across the street from the hospital, so he made it in time)
If you were to eat nuts, then shake his hand hours later, within minutes, he will break out in hives, his hand will swell up like Kirk's in the latest trek flick. If he washes it quickly enough, and has no cuts or cracks in his skin, hospitalization isn't always necessary.
Ingestion of one little flake of just the skin of a peanut is enough to make him very dead.
Not only can he not sit in a room where people have eaten nuts, he is unable to travel on any airplane that has ever served nuts in the past. The dust from the nuts trapped in the vents would kill him, and since it's a plane, there is no where to go for fresh air.
When the reaction starts, he has 15 minutes to inject himself with his epipen. if he doesn't get his injection in time, he's dead. The epipen doesn't save him, it just buys him another 15 minutes of stayin' alive time. I imagine that theoretically, he could take an epipen every 15 minutes for the duration of the flight, but since they cost around $90 each, that would be a tad expensive.
It is very possible to kill someone by eating nuts in the same room as them.
Remember Andy Warhole entering the urinal in the art show and winning! There are some very, very idiotic people who have no taste at all. They usually think they are sensitive and all knowing. Ubuntu can look really great. But a box stock XP machine looks cheesy to me.
It was Marcel Duchamp, not Andy Warhol, who entered a urinal into an art show, (and he did this 11 years before Warhol was even born)
And far from winning, the urinal was never actually put on display in that show. The only reason it got into the show was because the organizers accepted all submissions they received.
The point of the urinal wasn't to be looked at in the same way we look at a Michelangelo, it was to draw attention to how we look at art vs. mass-produced objects. What exactly is the distinction between a fine art object, and a non-art object? How does placing one in the context of another change our reaction?
How we approach something drastically changes how we think about it.
The same thing can be said for Windows vs. Linux. We look at Linux as being vastly superior in nearly every way, and we can't understand why regular people see it differently. When we approach linux as nerds, we miss the 1st thing that non-techy people see. That is the interface. its not about being more powerful, more stable, more flexible, and free, to them, it's about being familiar.
making Ubuntu look like XP might not be pretty, it might be cheesy, but how would a non-nerd approach it? with fear and confusion, or with the comfort and familiarity they are accustomed to? this could very possibly be a great way to help gain support in the Linux world.
If his theory is correct and space and time are decoupled then faster than light travel wouldn't allow you to travel back in time.
even if you warped around a star?
^^ very true.
It is very hard for Westerners (such as myself) to understand how Confucianism has influenced Asian Societies.
But it is very hierarchical culture: "You have your place. A peasant's place is in the field, your boss' place is in the office, and the emperor's place is in the palace. Do not question, do not challenge, it's not your place." It is also one where respect is earned though age and position, not though accomplishment.
The idea of a group of peasants gathering to make decisions above the emperor, (and even about who the emperor should be) is very alien to their culture.
To us, this is ridiculous, if the boss is a moron, screw him, do it your way. "who cares that you are old, you're still wrong"
I can be argued which way is better.
From my perspective, I see that in only a few hundred years, our way has dominated the world.
From their perspective, their way has lasted the test of time, we are just a blip, one of many they have seen come and go.
Either way, China is opening up, their students are coming to our countries, assimilating our values, having access to our knowledge, and retuning home with them, and possibly discussing their findings with their close friends.
you can't stop the signal.
I downloaded the Windows release earlier this year and it was the same old crap...
In fairness to the parent of this thread, I haven't used the windows version of GIMP in about 24 months, so it could very well still be hideous.
From what I remember, windows GIMP was also very crashy. (but, that could just have been windows)
When I'm in Windows, I use PS7; in Ubuntu, I use GIMP. While all of my formal training was on Photoshop, 90% of the time, I'm using GIMP.
You forget that they could give every able-bodied Chinese citizen a pointy stick and dump them on our shores. We'd be so hopelessly overrun our tech wouldn't matter.
it would be sort of like a Protoss vs Zerg battle, you guys just gotta survive the 1st rush, and victory is assured in the long run.
Just to be safe, I'd build those additional pylons now.
have you tried using gimp in the last 18 months?
the photoshop modifications have been the default since Ubuntu 8.04. the UI is a lot less-worse these days.
Making software--good software--takes time and resources. Time that you can't really make money on, and tools and computer equipment that is not free. Unless you sell the software you're essentially losing money, in most situations.
and that's why we will never, ever, ever see any sort of free software movement. Without monetary incentives, people just wont create anything. no music, no software, nothing....
Oh, come on. It's his JOB to know. The guy either lied or he's incompetent. Either way, fire the bum!
the guy actually represents my riding-Ontario's York Region area, which is at least 2 time zones away from Vancouver. Imagine a New Yorker commenting on a situation in Seattle. His understanding of the situation is not based on 1st hand knowledge, he heard it from a guy who's cousin's roommate had a friend who heard about it on the news....
I've tried to fire his ass the last 4 municipal elections, but the rest of the town is working against me.
Also, regarding the tougher design point - you had better hope it's more durable. Kid drops it, breaks it, and the entire library of games is ruined with it. Rather than just the system + 1 game in the drive.
well, from the company's point of view, this is a great system, because it means parents will have to buy the same games multiple times if the unit is lost of stolen. With possible multiple-purchases AND with no-cost to manufacture/distribute additional copies, since they are not physical goods, they are almost triple dipping.
note: my cellphone was stolen several months ago. whoever found it downloaded about $40 worth of content onto that phone before trashing it. When I bought a new phone and re-activated my account, I now had the ability to download all those applications free of charge, because they were not just downloaded to that specific phone, they were added to my account, and were transferable to any new phone after I cancel/reactivate. i is possible that the new PSP could use a similar system.
Maybe they just aren't sure if they should pronounce it "Lie-nux" or "Lin-ux" and don't want a bunch of angry nerds criticizing their pronunciation.
Yeah just wait for the next release of the Linux kernel: "Now supports over a quadrillion processors and up to 64 yottabytes of memory".
but will it run fill screen flash video smoothly?
You know they found a solution for that. It's called scientific or exponential notation. And once you learn it, it's quite simple - you just add the specified number of zero's or move the comma the correct number of times.
Not all countries use commas in their numbers.
Just imagine if Roman-Latin has been stabilized in 500 A.D. with fixed spelling and mandatory education. Rather than have a bunch of devolved Latinate dialects, Western Europe would now be united under one universal tongue which would make communication between the peoples of the EU much easier.
yea, that makes sense, if you ignore the existence of English, which is pretty much the universal language, not just across Western Europe, but globally.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet that is a big deal is compatibility with proprietary systems.
If I'm a photographer who's working with another photographer, I can't send them my gimp files, and them them open them in photoshop. I can't open their photoshop files in gimp.
It doesn't matter how good a FOSS video editor is, All the other pros are using AVID or final cut, and we can't work together on anything.
If I have a recording to be mastered externally, the studios are set up to work with pro tools.
You can't have one person off in their own little bubble while the rest of the team is working together on different software. Choosing to use a FOSS program immediately isolates you from the rest of your peers.
If you are a lone person working freelance, FOSS is possible. I can edit wedding photos in gimp, and edit some audio in audacity, and get the job done. But larger production places, the work flow is more like an assembly line. after doing your job, You send off your work to the next guy. If you are ever expected to work as part of a team, you have to use what the rest of them are using. In these cases, a FOSS alternative, even if it works better than the proprietary alternative, breaks the chain, and is useless.