With names like Ogg and Vorbis it is much easier to establish a trademark given that they are completely invented name (oh! wait! Maybe they are words in another langage?). And given the controversy inside Free Software circles it gives them much marketing for free.
BTW, on close view I am for Apple on this one, I really think they will win against Apple;).
"I'm sure we all wonder if all these foreign governments are seriously considering Linux, or just trying to negotiate better prices from Microsoft."
I don't wonder because in either case its a loss for MS. Either the guys don't care about Linux and just threaten MS for a price cut, thus cutting a part of MS's profits or they consider Linux and whenever it's ready for them they will adopt it (or not, their choice).
Anyway, I see the future as such:
1. MS gives price cuts if you threaten to use Linux.
2. The word gets out and a large number of businesses threaten to use Linux even if they don't care about it. Why shouldn't they if an idle threat makes them save money (after all, don't public corporations have duties to hteir shareholders).
This has two effects:
3.a. The price of MS Windows effectively drops (if most everyone gets a 50% cut then the average price effectively drops by an amount between 0% and 50%).
3.b. More decisin makers hear about Linux in a good way, or at all. Which wil probably generate further interest in it, at least to study it.
4. As Linux becomes more and more featureful and easy to use (both for servers and desktops) companies that may not have bothered testing and studying it in the past may start to use it on a small scale, prompting MS to go back to 1.
Now the big part for the OSS community and Linux companies is to improve Linux to be as good or better than Windows in every area.
I can't tell you how many people I come across that say things like:
"I'll help you install any Operating System you wish."
The catch-all? It must either be 95, 98, me, 2000 or XP. What a choice.
Ask them to install MacOS on your Intel/AMD PC. It's well known enough that you can bitch "but you said any OS" while making it much harder for them to install than Linux, obviously.
"explaining how easy it is to do the task the writer used as an example of complexity"
Please tell me where I said it was easy.
All I did was say some of the worst difficulties there was (some of them totally unneeded) and give detailed instructions to help him if he wants to give it a second try.
Some people rant that they are told to RTFM when they have a problem, I give as simple instructions as I can (If he can admin a BSD server he should be able to follow these instructions) and still I get trolled/flamed for something I didn't do.
Before flaming me try at least to understand the post.
" it is possible to hear the reliability and strength of an internet connection"..."I'm convinced that there's nothing here that couldn't be done with a suitably clever piece of software - unless I'm missing something."
Of course, you can always do it using a suitably clever piece of software that "converts the frequencies of a 'ping' to sound", what were they thinking?;)
I used Mozilla 1.0.1 from Redhat 8 before (and 1.1 when on WinXP) and can't remember having it crash on me (it probably did, but seldomly enough for me not to remember it), but Moz 1.2+Xft did crash a few time since yesterday (very annoying). I don't know if it is 1.2 or Xft that causes the problem but meanwhile I will use vanilla 1.2 to see (which is gonna be hard given how much used to aa fonts I became in such a short time).
"You're forgetting that Herge was french/dutch bilingual, and all Tintin were also originally released in Dutch (as 'Kuifje')."
Actually, I didn't forget, I jus thad no idea. Thanks for the info, although in my opinion it doesn't invalidate my point (mainly because I am French and although I always know Tintin was Belgium I also always took it as an integral part of French culture).
"i'm pretty sure Haliday never sang in Dutch (thank god!:-))"
Hey, if you don't want to compare similar configurations (although allowing for the processor speed difference) then at least take the real low end, which, for Apple, is the original style iMac at $800, barely $200 more than the Dell one.
Now don't bitch that one is vastly more powerful, you didn't compare similar configurations, just the lowest price, which is what I did, just better.
"I had the day off today so I installed Redhat 8.0 (SURPRISE!) and tried to get Mozilla 1.2 up and running with anti-aliased fonts. I wasted the whole day and I am glad to be back on Win2K"
I agree that it still isn't as simple as Windows or MacOS X but, at least in the case of Mozilla, and judging your level of computer knowledge from your post you should have been able to find the right RPMs.
First, the RPMs for Mozilla 1.2 with antialiased fonts and for Redhat 8 are here: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozi ll a1.2/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/RPMS/i386/
It took me les than 5 minutes to find them on the Mozilla ftp server but only because I saw a post on/. talking about their existence and mentionning Xft. I then went to ftp.mozilla.org and searched in/pub (but that already requires some knowledge that joe user doesn't have).
For a guy like you the problems are: 1. While there is an entry for the Redhat 8 antialiased enabled RPMS, it says "RPMS for Red Hat Linux 8.x with Xft support", so you need to knows what Xft is before knowing that it is what you are looking for.
2. The ftp directory for the RPMs does not lead directly to the directory containing them but to a grandparent directoy containing a RPMS and a SRPMS directories. Given that most people who want these RPMs probably don't want the source ones and may even not know what these SRPMS are. Conversely, somebody who knows that he wants the SRPMs probably has enough knowledge to try and go up one or two levels to find the right directory.
3. Given that the RPMS directory only contain an entry for i386 it would be less confusing for people less knowledgeable about Linux to find themselves in that directory when clicking "RPMS for Red Hat Linux 8.x with antialiasing support". Again, somebody needing RPMs for another Redhat 8 platform should be knowledgeable enough to click that "Parent Directory" link.
4. There are many RPMs. To know which ones you need, you need to know the CLI command rpm -qa|grep mozilla, otherwise you need to download them all. In any case this is confusing for joe user.
5. You need to know that you can install them using the command rpm -U mozilla-* as the root user in the directory in which they are.
To me, it took me less than 10 minutes, excluding the download time, but while I am no Linux guru I know my way around it.
So if you want to give it a second chance tonight or tommorrow do the following:
1. Log in Redhat 8 (root user or not). 2. open a terminal window. 3. type: rpm -qa|grep mozilla 4. Open mozilla. 5. Go to the page: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozill a1.2/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/RPMS/i386/ 6. Download the same packages whose name the preceding command gave you but with the new version number. Make sure to note in which directory you saved the files. 7. Wait 8. Either open a terminal window (if you are root) or open a terminal window AND type the command su, which will ask you for your root password, to log in as root. 9. Change your directory to the one in which you saved the RPM files. This is done by using the command: cd/path/to/directory, replacing path/to/directory with the correct path of course (for example,/home/sri/download/mozilla). 10. type rpm -U mozilla* . Alternatively, if you have other files there than the one you just downloaded, type rpm -U mozilla*1.2-0*.rpm. Voila.
Sorry if this list seems condescending or flamebaiting you but I tried to make as few assumptions as possible. I just assumed that you know how to use a keyboard and other basic computer skills, that you know how to open/launch a new terminal and that you know how to download a file on your hard drive using a web browser.
"Tintin is not a French comic, it's from Belgium."
While Tintin is indeed from Belgium by a Belgium author it is most certainly part of the French culture and can therefore be reasonably accurately be described as French.
Only anal retentive nitpicker and a few Belge people wanting to differentiate themselves from France much like some Canadians do from the States would vehemently object ot qualifying Tintin as French.
Oh, and there is another good example of intermixing of French culture and French-speaking Belgium culture:
Johny Haliday is the biggest French rockstar in France, but he is Belge(Belgian?).
Arguing that either Johny Haliday or Tintin are not French is stupid and pointless because though it is true in a strictly literal sense both are as much a part of French culture as they are of Belgium culture.
"Not that you've seen the special features on the extended DVD, but Christopher Lee specifically talks about his meeting JRRT and receiving permission to play Gandalf if LotR was ever made into a movie."
Yeah, but did he get the permission to play Saruman;)
"Ditto with Herge. The art can't be duplicated on film the way it can be drawn (witness "The Lake of Sharks" film), and any attempts at portraying the characters dilute them (e.g. what voice do you imagine Captain Haddock to have?)."
I disagree. It's a very long time since I have seen that movie so I won't comment on that, but the Tintin world can certainly be translated on film as was proven by a series of anime made by a franco-canadian cooperation in the 90's, it was (and is) really good stuff.
Now to know if Hollywood can refrain from screwing things up or to know if it is even possible to make it live action at all without screwing it up is another question, but I am not expecting much intil the shootong begins and we can talk about something abit more concrete.
BTW, the names used in the English version suck IMAO.
Tintin was most probably not a teenager, although he does look very young and not too manly.
Professor Calculus. -> Professor Tournesol(?) Thompson & Thomson. -> Dupont et Dupont (I'm not sure about t or d for the spelling but I think its t) Snowy -> Milou
"And they have, essentially, reproduced out of control. Every place on Earth where a plant could grow, there's one growing."
You invalidate your point in the same sentence you make it. They are not out of control, they are control by the factors that limit where they can grow.
Oh, and if they really were out of control we would have a green goo on earth with no complex animal life possible, since all complex animals depend on some form of herbivore who are a form of control.
So, no plants are not out of control.
The same argument could also be applied to bacteria/microbes/virii(or viruses, whatever)/... which also cover the face of the earth and are in far greater number than plants.
"From orbit, a rocket the size of two soft-drink cans could loft a couple of kilos of small ball-bearings into a widely dispersed cloud on a collision course with a colony. This would be very difficult to even detect, let alone parry or dodge."
Sir, that's what we've got deflector dishes for;).
There is a game called adventure in Debian; I think it is coming from BSD and is probably a port of the original. It says at the start:
"This program was originally developed by Will Crowther. Most of the features of the current program were added by Don Woods. Address complaints about the UNIX version to Jim Gillogly."
Yes, From http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/meter.html
"The origins of the meter go back to at least the 18th century. At that time, there were two competing approaches to the definition of a standard unit of length. Some suggested defining the meter as the length of a pendulum having a half-period of one second; others suggested defining the meter as one ten-millionth of the length of the earth's meridian along a quadrant (one fourth the circumference of the earth). In 1791, soon after the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences chose the meridian definition over the pendulum definition because the force of gravity varies slightly over the surface of the earth, affecting the period of the pendulum."
Slashdot Mirror
With names like Ogg and Vorbis it is much easier to establish a trademark given that they are completely invented name (oh! wait! Maybe they are words in another langage?). And given the controversy inside Free Software circles it gives them much marketing for free.
BTW, on close view I am for Apple on this one, I really think they will win against Apple
"If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla"
I wonder how stupidly Ballmer thinks to sweat that much.
".Duh!!! IF YOUr computer crashed, then how did u POST this comment! Lame attempt at a joke."
Hi, ComicBook Guy, how are you?
"I'm sure we all wonder if all these foreign governments are seriously considering Linux, or just trying to negotiate better prices from Microsoft."
I don't wonder because in either case its a loss for MS. Either the guys don't care about Linux and just threaten MS for a price cut, thus cutting a part of MS's profits or they consider Linux and whenever it's ready for them they will adopt it (or not, their choice).
Anyway, I see the future as such:
1. MS gives price cuts if you threaten to use Linux.
2. The word gets out and a large number of businesses threaten to use Linux even if they don't care about it. Why shouldn't they if an idle threat makes them save money (after all, don't public corporations have duties to hteir shareholders).
This has two effects:
3.a. The price of MS Windows effectively drops (if most everyone gets a 50% cut then the average price effectively drops by an amount between 0% and 50%).
3.b. More decisin makers hear about Linux in a good way, or at all. Which wil probably generate further interest in it, at least to study it.
4. As Linux becomes more and more featureful and easy to use (both for servers and desktops) companies that may not have bothered testing and studying it in the past may start to use it on a small scale, prompting MS to go back to 1.
Now the big part for the OSS community and Linux companies is to improve Linux to be as good or better than Windows in every area.
I can't tell you how many people I come across that say things like:
"I'll help you install any Operating System you wish."
The catch-all? It must either be 95, 98, me, 2000 or XP. What a choice.
Ask them to install MacOS on your Intel/AMD PC. It's well known enough that you can bitch "but you said any OS" while making it much harder for them to install than Linux, obviously.
"explaining how easy it is to do the task the writer used as an example of complexity"
Please tell me where I said it was easy.
All I did was say some of the worst difficulties there was (some of them totally unneeded) and give detailed instructions to help him if he wants to give it a second try.
Some people rant that they are told to RTFM when they have a problem, I give as simple instructions as I can (If he can admin a BSD server he should be able to follow these instructions) and still I get trolled/flamed for something I didn't do.
Before flaming me try at least to understand the post.
"Surveys indicate that very few people are willing to donate their face. Would you?"
I would, but who would want mine?
" it is possible to hear the reliability and strength of an internet connection"..."I'm convinced that there's nothing here that couldn't be done with a suitably clever piece of software - unless I'm missing something."
;)
Of course, you can always do it using a suitably clever piece of software that "converts the frequencies of a 'ping' to sound", what were they thinking?
BTW, be careful with those.
I used Mozilla 1.0.1 from Redhat 8 before (and 1.1 when on WinXP) and can't remember having it crash on me (it probably did, but seldomly enough for me not to remember it), but Moz 1.2+Xft did crash a few time since yesterday (very annoying). I don't know if it is 1.2 or Xft that causes the problem but meanwhile I will use vanilla 1.2 to see (which is gonna be hard given how much used to aa fonts I became in such a short time).
"You're forgetting that Herge was french/dutch bilingual, and all Tintin were also originally released in Dutch (as 'Kuifje')."
:-))"
Actually, I didn't forget, I jus thad no idea. Thanks for the info, although in my opinion it doesn't invalidate my point (mainly because I am French and although I always know Tintin was Belgium I also always took it as an integral part of French culture).
"i'm pretty sure Haliday never sang in Dutch (thank god!
LOL
Hey, if you don't want to compare similar configurations (although allowing for the processor speed difference) then at least take the real low end, which, for Apple, is the original style iMac at $800, barely $200 more than the Dell one.
Now don't bitch that one is vastly more powerful, you didn't compare similar configurations, just the lowest price, which is what I did, just better.
"I had the day off today so I installed Redhat 8.0 (SURPRISE!) and tried to get Mozilla 1.2 up and running with anti-aliased fonts. I wasted the whole day and I am glad to be back on Win2K"
i ll a1.2/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/RPMS/i386/
/. talking about their existence and mentionning Xft. I then went to ftp.mozilla.org and searched in /pub (but that already requires some knowledge that joe user doesn't have).
l a1.2/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/RPMS/i386/ /path/to/directory, replacing path/to/directory with the correct path of course (for example, /home/sri/download/mozilla). .
I agree that it still isn't as simple as Windows or MacOS X but, at least in the case of Mozilla, and judging your level of computer knowledge from your post you should have been able to find the right RPMs.
First, the RPMs for Mozilla 1.2 with antialiased fonts and for Redhat 8 are here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/moz
It took me les than 5 minutes to find them on the Mozilla ftp server but only because I saw a post on
For a guy like you the problems are:
1. While there is an entry for the Redhat 8 antialiased enabled RPMS, it says "RPMS for Red Hat Linux 8.x with Xft support", so you need to knows what Xft is before knowing that it is what you are looking for.
2. The ftp directory for the RPMs does not lead directly to the directory containing them but to a grandparent directoy containing a RPMS and a SRPMS directories. Given that most people who want these RPMs probably don't want the source ones and may even not know what these SRPMS are. Conversely, somebody who knows that he wants the SRPMs probably has enough knowledge to try and go up one or two levels to find the right directory.
3. Given that the RPMS directory only contain an entry for i386 it would be less confusing for people less knowledgeable about Linux to find themselves in that directory when clicking "RPMS for Red Hat Linux 8.x with antialiasing support". Again, somebody needing RPMs for another Redhat 8 platform should be knowledgeable enough to click that "Parent Directory" link.
4. There are many RPMs. To know which ones you need, you need to know the CLI command rpm -qa|grep mozilla, otherwise you need to download them all. In any case this is confusing for joe user.
5. You need to know that you can install them using the command rpm -U mozilla-* as the root user in the directory in which they are.
To me, it took me less than 10 minutes, excluding the download time, but while I am no Linux guru I know my way around it.
So if you want to give it a second chance tonight or tommorrow do the following:
1. Log in Redhat 8 (root user or not).
2. open a terminal window.
3. type: rpm -qa|grep mozilla
4. Open mozilla.
5. Go to the page: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozil
6. Download the same packages whose name the preceding command gave you but with the new version number. Make sure to note in which directory you saved the files.
7. Wait
8. Either open a terminal window (if you are root) or open a terminal window AND type the command su, which will ask you for your root password, to log in as root.
9. Change your directory to the one in which you saved the RPM files. This is done by using the command: cd
10. type rpm -U mozilla* . Alternatively, if you have other files there than the one you just downloaded, type rpm -U mozilla*1.2-0*.rpm
Voila.
Sorry if this list seems condescending or flamebaiting you but I tried to make as few assumptions as possible. I just assumed that you know how to use a keyboard and other basic computer skills, that you know how to open/launch a new terminal and that you know how to download a file on your hard drive using a web browser.
Hope this helps.
Looked around a bit and found it in the directory
:
(I took the ftp site out so you can change it with a mirror, no need to risk slashdotting them).
"you would not program an OS in Lisp or ML"
Oh yeah? What about Emacs?
More seriously there is the symbolics machines but another post above is very informative about them, go read it.
"redownloaded the tracks again (56k, remember), and finally got them to burn so she could listen to them in her car."
;)
Yeah, but that's only because the second time she downloaded the tracks using P2P that she was able to burn them
"Tintin is not a French comic, it's from Belgium."
While Tintin is indeed from Belgium by a Belgium author it is most certainly part of the French culture and can therefore be reasonably accurately be described as French.
Only anal retentive nitpicker and a few Belge people wanting to differentiate themselves from France much like some Canadians do from the States would vehemently object ot qualifying Tintin as French.
Oh, and there is another good example of intermixing of French culture and French-speaking Belgium culture:
Johny Haliday is the biggest French rockstar in France, but he is Belge(Belgian?).
Arguing that either Johny Haliday or Tintin are not French is stupid and pointless because though it is true in a strictly literal sense both are as much a part of French culture as they are of Belgium culture.
"Not that you've seen the special features on the extended DVD, but Christopher Lee specifically talks about his meeting JRRT and receiving permission to play Gandalf if LotR was ever made into a movie."
;)
Yeah, but did he get the permission to play Saruman
"Ditto with Herge. The art can't be duplicated on film the way it can be drawn (witness "The Lake of Sharks" film), and any attempts at portraying the characters dilute them (e.g. what voice do you imagine Captain Haddock to have?)."
I disagree. It's a very long time since I have seen that movie so I won't comment on that, but the Tintin world can certainly be translated on film as was proven by a series of anime made by a franco-canadian cooperation in the 90's, it was (and is) really good stuff.
Now to know if Hollywood can refrain from screwing things up or to know if it is even possible to make it live action at all without screwing it up is another question, but I am not expecting much intil the shootong begins and we can talk about something abit more concrete.
BTW, the names used in the English version suck IMAO.
Tintin was most probably not a teenager, although he does look very young and not too manly.
Professor Calculus. -> Professor Tournesol(?)
Thompson & Thomson. -> Dupont et Dupont (I'm not sure about t or d for the spelling but I think its t)
Snowy -> Milou
Haha, funny.
Just for your information, it's Treebeard and he is an Ent.
"And they have, essentially, reproduced out of control. Every place on Earth where a plant could grow, there's one growing."
You invalidate your point in the same sentence you make it. They are not out of control, they are control by the factors that limit where they can grow.
Oh, and if they really were out of control we would have a green goo on earth with no complex animal life possible, since all complex animals depend on some form of herbivore who are a form of control.
So, no plants are not out of control.
The same argument could also be applied to bacteria/microbes/virii(or viruses, whatever)/... which also cover the face of the earth and are in far greater number than plants.
"From orbit, a rocket the size of two soft-drink cans could loft a couple of kilos of small ball-bearings into a widely dispersed cloud on a collision course with a colony. This would be very difficult to even detect, let alone parry or dodge."
;).
Sir, that's what we've got deflector dishes for
There is a game called adventure in Debian; I think it is coming from BSD and is probably a port of the original. It says at the start:
"This program was originally developed by Will Crowther. Most of the features of the current program were added by Don Woods. Address complaints about the UNIX version to Jim Gillogly."
Yes, From http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/meter.html
"The origins of the meter go back to at least the 18th century. At that time, there were two competing approaches to the definition of a standard unit of length. Some suggested defining the meter as the length of a pendulum having a half-period of one second; others suggested defining the meter as one ten-millionth of the length of the earth's meridian along a quadrant (one fourth the circumference of the earth). In 1791, soon after the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences chose the meridian definition over the pendulum definition because the force of gravity varies slightly over the surface of the earth, affecting the period of the pendulum."
"What, don't you want the porn star?"
Not if its Rom Jeremy, no.