Evil Thought of the Day: Everyone donate money to the FSF or EFF for the express purpose of buying the Learning Company from Mattel and then using it against them. Yes, I know it wouldn't work well, and neither would be able to get enough money together nor want to by the company, but its still evil, no? -RickHunter
I've always liked playing them on the PC, mostly because I don't like the Playstation. Dunno why, maybe because I don't like some of Sony's business tactics. (Yes, I know Square is practically part of Sony) Plus, the PC versions have higher-res graphics and actually run faster with a good system/3D accelerator/drivers. Finally, I know that the PC version of FFVII was harder than the American PSX version, although I'm not sure if it was as hard as the Japanese version. I'm not sure about FFVIII, but I know there were some changes.
FYI, most of the Free Software products I've used are a lot better than their closed equivalents. They generally have less bugs, are less bloated, have an interface I like, and nicer features. However, I do agree with you that there are more ways to contribute than writing code. You can give money (always nice!), write documentation, find bugs (also nice!), give feedback (nicer still!), or any one of a bunch of things. Anyone who says that the only way to contribute is to code needs to have their horizons widened by a metal bar.
As for your last point, I believe that the whole issue with Mattel and the CPHack program centers around a copyright holder's right to revoke a free lisence. AFAIK, the GPL has clauses in it that say that once you've got a GPLed copy of a program, the author can't do anything to restrict your rights under the GPL. Including revoking the lisence.
As for the other two, remember that the basic element of multi-task programs can also be applied to free programming projects: Code Fork!
-RickHunter
Re:Review of the Pre-beta
on
Netscape 6
·
· Score: 1
I actually like the skins idea. I think that may be one of the things that made WinAmp such a popular MP3 player. Plus, it means that if you don't like the interface, you can tweak it to your satisfaction.
That said, a small, fast, powerful browser using Gecko would be nice. If I had the time to do something like that, I'd try it.
-RickHunter
Re:Mozilla is not Netscape
on
Netscape 6
·
· Score: 1
Hmm... Auto-URL completion is something I'm not sure about. I know that pretty much every major browser (with the possible exception of Lynx, which I haven't used too often) does it. I'm just not sure if I like it. Yes, it is useful at times. But its also annoying. Like when I'm typing in a URL, and it keeps auto-completing it to the wrong URL. Or when it re-auto-completes it just as I hit [enter].
Maybe if they tried to find a way to make it a bit more intelligent?
With regards to Congress and the slashing of NASA's budget, I think things went something like this:
Congress: Your work is expensive and provides no real bonuses towards us getting re-elected, like jobs in our regions or profits for $big_corporation. We're going to slash your funding, but we won't again if you don't screw up.
NASA: Well, cutting our funding won't help our success rate, but since we don't have any choice, we'll try and make do.
*Several major screw-ups that could've been prevented by some cash later*
Congress: We told you. We don't want to do this, but its necessary. We need the money to get re-elected. Sorry, but we're cutting again. No more problems, and we might give you a few hundred dollars back. What is this space thing you're always talking about, anyway?
NASA: Umm... Those problems could've been prevented if you hadn't slashed our funding.
And if Mattel manages to turn up some laws or get a ruling that the essay is illegal... After all, writing is covered by the United States constitution. And the authors aren't even in the US, even though it seems that US laws are being applied to them by Mattel. From what I've heard (haven't actually had the time to read it), the essay is based on fact.
This should, IMHO, be rated a lot higher than it is. It seems that a lot of the people who've gotten high scores in this discussion haven't read the article. They just saw "Open Source project...not disclosing" and jumped.
No, the labels exist because once this was true. Good recording and editing equipment was very expensive and complex. Now, however, systems like BeOS (or products for Windows, even) make production easy. Distribution is what digital music transfer is for. Why are the labels still around? Because they've made it virtually impossible to get any kind of distribution without them. Kinda like Microsoft's strategies, only more repressive.
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
I don't know why your comment got moderated up (and didn't get labelled flamebait), but here's my reply.
According to your reasons, the following should also be illegal:
Kitchen knives. You can use them to kill people, can't you?
Keycopying machines or lockpicks. You can use them to get illagal access to a location, can't you?
CD Burners. You can use a burner to copy the CDs of all your friends, right?
Among others. The problem you state here is that people use programs like Napster and GNUTella to steal music that is overcharged for in any case. Not that it makes stealing right, but anyway....
Whereas, my view of things is this. Yes, the technology can be used illegally. But gun manufactuers aren't responsible for people killed by their guns, Ford isn't responsible for criminals who get away in their cars, and those who make products to distribute digital music shouldn't be held responsible for what people do with their technology. Go after the criminals who copy, or the mentality that says "stealing is okay if you profit" (which the RIAA uses too), not those who want to start something new. Digital music could very well be the wave of the future, with musicians distributing their art without repressive record behemoth contracts. And you want to kill that because people can use the technology to steal....
I do layout work for my school newspaper, and I can't say how much of a pain this is for us. We decided against an "underground" paper because that lets us use school resources like the photocopier, scanner, digital camera, and the like that we couldn't afford by ourselves. However, the downside is that we have to be very careful what we publish that criticizes the school or a teacher.
We've only printed two issues that didn't get run past our "teacher supervisor." One we almost got in major trouble for, as it had an opinion piece (by the Head Editor!) critizing the way the school ran and curriculum for a BS (and required!) class called "Career and Life Management." And our "teacher supervisor" is a big supporter of this class...
We'd been garunteed that the school wouldn't censor the paper, although we had self-censored a couple of articles as overly inflamatory without substance. Looks like they didn't really care about that...
The problem with this at my High School is that the "Student Services Department" considers students avoiding classes because the teacher is crummy to be "prejudice." So in order to "protect" the teachers against this "prejudice," they do two things: they don't publicize who will be taking a class ahead of time, and they only allow one schedule change of any kind. The second one is further restricted, because you can't change to a different course at the same "level" (ie, change teachers). And if you do change levels, they try and put you into a class with the same teacher.
That said, my school has a lot of good teachers. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of really, really, really bad ones.
Give someone who brags overly much about their ability to screw up systems the "root" password, and tell them to do as much damage as they like.
Brag about your ability to secure systems so much that not even root can mess them up.
Or, the ultimate way to secure a system (a friend of mine actually DID this): chmod every file so that nothing can read or write to it. Of course, you then can't log in, but that's a small price to pay for the ultimate in security, right?;-)
First, IMHO, its the artists that should be paid for the music, not the RIAA. They're the ones who are doing all the work, no? Well, as has been mentioned in several posts, artists generally get less than $0.05/CD. And, AFAIK, a lot of the costs of producing the CD come out of the artist's share! So most of the price of a CD is pure profit for the RIAA.
That said, I'm not for illegally copying music. Yes, I can rip music into MP3 or write a legally-obtained MP3 to a CD for my own use. But ripping a song then distributing it, or selling a CD of legal MP3 songs... That's not right. However, I do believe that the internet (and MP3s) are a viable medium for the distribution of music, especially since it makes it easy for independant bands to get some recognition.
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
You do have a point here. I think that most people's problem with them will be that they promised an open system, and then switched to a closed one. Maybe a solution would be to sell the system using the terms and price described. Then offer a more expensive version (expensive enough so they make a reasonable profit?) that is open?
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
I agree that any GUI that tries to hide the file system organization is doomed to fail. I also agree that most (I haven't used every single one) modern GUIs try and hide or disguise the file system. However, a GUI could work with a hierarchial (?) filesystem by being designed in a way that emphasizes the structure of the filesystem and makes it easier to navigate and use (not having to remember cryptic (to a new user) commands to manage files, etc).
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
No, not everyone will be a super-Jedi-master. There are other roles to play in the Starwars universe that can be just as fun. Fighter pilot (LOTS of those around!), starship captain (small, Millennium Falcon-sized ship), elite soldier, trader, criminal, etc. There's a Star Wars pencil-and-paper RPG (not sure if its still available) that was quite fun, even without everyone playing a Jedi.
And the Star Wars universe is, IMHO, sufficiently large so that you don't run into the same problem as you do in Medieval games. Especially if you set up some kind of random-world generating system like Diablo had...
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
Could you please tell me why there has to be a war between KDE and GNOME any more than there is between BASH and CSH, or Blackbox and IceWM? Why won't it end up that the people who like one use it, and those who like the other use it? With enough compatibility between the libraries of the two that its not a problem to port programs between them. Especially if the UI is seperated from the program code itself.
Personally, I don't like KDE. I don't care if its better looking, the interface feels too much like Win98's for my taste. At least, the versions I've used did. I don't like the single click or the browser integration, and from what I could tell, KDE didn't let you turn those off any more than Windows did.
I do realize, however, that there are people who like KDE. Go ahead and use it. It just means better software for everyone.
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
A pretty chilling statement. Should we just rollover anytime we disagree with something? In my real world I work to change things for (what I believe is) the better.
I thing the toe the line part is the worst bit. There is no line to toe. We aren't all identical. That's why/. is a discussion forum, instead of Cmdr. Taco telling us all what to think. From everything I've read, I personally do not like the way the US Patent Office works currently.
As for Amazon, I also don't like what I've read about their current business tactics. Until they change those, I'm not planning to shop there.
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
Well, it could be normal hey-lets-get-some-money-by-jumping-on-the-bandwago n tactics. Or it could be the lets-lock-them-into-our-software tactic. Either way, its a pain.
What's even wierder is that, as has been previously suggested, if AOL is trying to move away from Microsoft, this might be good. Yet Microsoft owns part of Corel. 10%, if memory serves. I'm betting that's enough to have a say in company policy....
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
Exactly. I personally like the "Linux" way of doing things a lot better than the "Windows" way. Especially since the Linux way usually doesn't hide necessary details from me. People just have to spend a bit more time learning it. Printed, well-written documentation might help a lot with this. O'Reilly's been doing well with some of that, but they're only one company.
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
I like this idea! Most people, when they talk about UI standards, seem to be saying "everyone will be forced to do things this way!" One of the things I like best about X is that there are so many different ways of doing things. If you don't like the way this graphical toolkit does things (or whatever), use another one! So any standard that works against this choice is useless to me. -RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
Slashdot Mirror
Evil Thought of the Day: Everyone donate money to the FSF or EFF for the express purpose of buying the Learning Company from Mattel and then using it against them. Yes, I know it wouldn't work well, and neither would be able to get enough money together nor want to by the company, but its still evil, no?
-RickHunter
I've always liked playing them on the PC, mostly because I don't like the Playstation. Dunno why, maybe because I don't like some of Sony's business tactics. (Yes, I know Square is practically part of Sony) Plus, the PC versions have higher-res graphics and actually run faster with a good system/3D accelerator/drivers. Finally, I know that the PC version of FFVII was harder than the American PSX version, although I'm not sure if it was as hard as the Japanese version. I'm not sure about FFVIII, but I know there were some changes.
-RickHunter
FYI, most of the Free Software products I've used are a lot better than their closed equivalents. They generally have less bugs, are less bloated, have an interface I like, and nicer features. However, I do agree with you that there are more ways to contribute than writing code. You can give money (always nice!), write documentation, find bugs (also nice!), give feedback (nicer still!), or any one of a bunch of things. Anyone who says that the only way to contribute is to code needs to have their horizons widened by a metal bar.
-RickHunter
As for your last point, I believe that the whole issue with Mattel and the CPHack program centers around a copyright holder's right to revoke a free lisence. AFAIK, the GPL has clauses in it that say that once you've got a GPLed copy of a program, the author can't do anything to restrict your rights under the GPL. Including revoking the lisence.
As for the other two, remember that the basic element of multi-task programs can also be applied to free programming projects: Code Fork!
-RickHunter
I actually like the skins idea. I think that may be one of the things that made WinAmp such a popular MP3 player. Plus, it means that if you don't like the interface, you can tweak it to your satisfaction.
That said, a small, fast, powerful browser using Gecko would be nice. If I had the time to do something like that, I'd try it.
-RickHunter
Hmm... Auto-URL completion is something I'm not sure about. I know that pretty much every major browser (with the possible exception of Lynx, which I haven't used too often) does it. I'm just not sure if I like it. Yes, it is useful at times. But its also annoying. Like when I'm typing in a URL, and it keeps auto-completing it to the wrong URL. Or when it re-auto-completes it just as I hit [enter].
Maybe if they tried to find a way to make it a bit more intelligent?
-RickHunter
With regards to Congress and the slashing of NASA's budget, I think things went something like this:
Congress: Your work is expensive and provides no real bonuses towards us getting re-elected, like jobs in our regions or profits for $big_corporation. We're going to slash your funding, but we won't again if you don't screw up.
NASA: Well, cutting our funding won't help our success rate, but since we don't have any choice, we'll try and make do.
*Several major screw-ups that could've been prevented by some cash later*
Congress: We told you. We don't want to do this, but its necessary. We need the money to get re-elected. Sorry, but we're cutting again. No more problems, and we might give you a few hundred dollars back. What is this space thing you're always talking about, anyway?
NASA: Umm... Those problems could've been prevented if you hadn't slashed our funding.
Lather, rinse, and repeat.
-RickHunter
And if Mattel manages to turn up some laws or get a ruling that the essay is illegal... After all, writing is covered by the United States constitution. And the authors aren't even in the US, even though it seems that US laws are being applied to them by Mattel. From what I've heard (haven't actually had the time to read it), the essay is based on fact.
-RickHunter
This should, IMHO, be rated a lot higher than it is. It seems that a lot of the people who've gotten high scores in this discussion haven't read the article. They just saw "Open Source project...not disclosing" and jumped.
-RickHunter
No, the labels exist because once this was true. Good recording and editing equipment was very expensive and complex. Now, however, systems like BeOS (or products for Windows, even) make production easy. Distribution is what digital music transfer is for. Why are the labels still around? Because they've made it virtually impossible to get any kind of distribution without them. Kinda like Microsoft's strategies, only more repressive.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
I don't know why your comment got moderated up (and didn't get labelled flamebait), but here's my reply.
According to your reasons, the following should also be illegal:
Among others. The problem you state here is that people use programs like Napster and GNUTella to steal music that is overcharged for in any case. Not that it makes stealing right, but anyway....
Whereas, my view of things is this. Yes, the technology can be used illegally. But gun manufactuers aren't responsible for people killed by their guns, Ford isn't responsible for criminals who get away in their cars, and those who make products to distribute digital music shouldn't be held responsible for what people do with their technology. Go after the criminals who copy, or the mentality that says "stealing is okay if you profit" (which the RIAA uses too), not those who want to start something new. Digital music could very well be the wave of the future, with musicians distributing their art without repressive record behemoth contracts. And you want to kill that because people can use the technology to steal....
-RickHunter
I do layout work for my school newspaper, and I can't say how much of a pain this is for us. We decided against an "underground" paper because that lets us use school resources like the photocopier, scanner, digital camera, and the like that we couldn't afford by ourselves. However, the downside is that we have to be very careful what we publish that criticizes the school or a teacher.
We've only printed two issues that didn't get run past our "teacher supervisor." One we almost got in major trouble for, as it had an opinion piece (by the Head Editor!) critizing the way the school ran and curriculum for a BS (and required!) class called "Career and Life Management." And our "teacher supervisor" is a big supporter of this class...
We'd been garunteed that the school wouldn't censor the paper, although we had self-censored a couple of articles as overly inflamatory without substance. Looks like they didn't really care about that...
-RickHunter
The problem with this at my High School is that the "Student Services Department" considers students avoiding classes because the teacher is crummy to be "prejudice." So in order to "protect" the teachers against this "prejudice," they do two things: they don't publicize who will be taking a class ahead of time, and they only allow one schedule change of any kind. The second one is further restricted, because you can't change to a different course at the same "level" (ie, change teachers). And if you do change levels, they try and put you into a class with the same teacher.
That said, my school has a lot of good teachers. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of really, really, really bad ones.
-RickHunter
Really, really evil gag:
Or, the ultimate way to secure a system (a friend of mine actually DID this): chmod every file so that nothing can read or write to it. Of course, you then can't log in, but that's a small price to pay for the ultimate in security, right? ;-)
-RickHunter
First, IMHO, its the artists that should be paid for the music, not the RIAA. They're the ones who are doing all the work, no? Well, as has been mentioned in several posts, artists generally get less than $0.05/CD. And, AFAIK, a lot of the costs of producing the CD come out of the artist's share! So most of the price of a CD is pure profit for the RIAA.
That said, I'm not for illegally copying music. Yes, I can rip music into MP3 or write a legally-obtained MP3 to a CD for my own use. But ripping a song then distributing it, or selling a CD of legal MP3 songs... That's not right. However, I do believe that the internet (and MP3s) are a viable medium for the distribution of music, especially since it makes it easy for independant bands to get some recognition.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Oh, no offense at all. Or at least, verbal offense. The offensive possibilities of a anime-fan-modified exoskeleton, on the other hand...
Now the only problem is getting them up to the proper size... And getting ahold of weapons like beam sabers and rail guns....
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
You do have a point here. I think that most people's problem with them will be that they promised an open system, and then switched to a closed one. Maybe a solution would be to sell the system using the terms and price described. Then offer a more expensive version (expensive enough so they make a reasonable profit?) that is open?
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
I agree that any GUI that tries to hide the file system organization is doomed to fail. I also agree that most (I haven't used every single one) modern GUIs try and hide or disguise the file system. However, a GUI could work with a hierarchial (?) filesystem by being designed in a way that emphasizes the structure of the filesystem and makes it easier to navigate and use (not having to remember cryptic (to a new user) commands to manage files, etc).
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
No, not everyone will be a super-Jedi-master. There are other roles to play in the Starwars universe that can be just as fun. Fighter pilot (LOTS of those around!), starship captain (small, Millennium Falcon-sized ship), elite soldier, trader, criminal, etc. There's a Star Wars pencil-and-paper RPG (not sure if its still available) that was quite fun, even without everyone playing a Jedi.
And the Star Wars universe is, IMHO, sufficiently large so that you don't run into the same problem as you do in Medieval games. Especially if you set up some kind of random-world generating system like Diablo had...
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Could you please tell me why there has to be a war between KDE and GNOME any more than there is between BASH and CSH, or Blackbox and IceWM? Why won't it end up that the people who like one use it, and those who like the other use it? With enough compatibility between the libraries of the two that its not a problem to port programs between them. Especially if the UI is seperated from the program code itself.
Personally, I don't like KDE. I don't care if its better looking, the interface feels too much like Win98's for my taste. At least, the versions I've used did. I don't like the single click or the browser integration, and from what I could tell, KDE didn't let you turn those off any more than Windows did.
I do realize, however, that there are people who like KDE. Go ahead and use it. It just means better software for everyone.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Cut the crap and toe the line.
A pretty chilling statement. Should we just rollover anytime we disagree with something? In my real world I work to change things for (what I believe is) the better.
I thing the toe the line part is the worst bit. There is no line to toe. We aren't all identical. That's why /. is a discussion forum, instead of Cmdr. Taco telling us all what to think. From everything I've read, I personally do not like the way the US Patent Office works currently.
As for Amazon, I also don't like what I've read about their current business tactics. Until they change those, I'm not planning to shop there.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Well, it could be normal hey-lets-get-some-money-by-jumping-on-the-bandwago n tactics. Or it could be the lets-lock-them-into-our-software tactic. Either way, its a pain.
What's even wierder is that, as has been previously suggested, if AOL is trying to move away from Microsoft, this might be good. Yet Microsoft owns part of Corel. 10%, if memory serves. I'm betting that's enough to have a say in company policy....
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Exactly. I personally like the "Linux" way of doing things a lot better than the "Windows" way. Especially since the Linux way usually doesn't hide necessary details from me. People just have to spend a bit more time learning it. Printed, well-written documentation might help a lot with this. O'Reilly's been doing well with some of that, but they're only one company.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
I like this idea! Most people, when they talk about UI standards, seem to be saying "everyone will be forced to do things this way!" One of the things I like best about X is that there are so many different ways of doing things. If you don't like the way this graphical toolkit does things (or whatever), use another one! So any standard that works against this choice is useless to me.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
That it does. ;) As usual, I could have worded this better. I should have said:
XFree86, FVWM95, and Linux provide much the same functionality (without some of the flash), and they'll run on a lesser system...
Better?
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.