The gimp unfortunately is a pale imitation of photoshop, which suits most home users fine since some of photoshop's tools are unnecessary.
...Not to mention that Photoshop carries a pretty hefty price tag, while the GIMP is free, free, free.
The GIMP is plenty fun for pure wanking around, or doing projects that aren't intended for printing. But Photoship is indeed the tool of choice for our still-not-paperless society.
A variation on the non-compete clause is one seen frequently in contracts that consultancies issue to contractors. Basically, if you get hired by one company to go do work for another, they will nearly always pursue a clause in the contract preventing you from going to work for that company for some period. So, if The A Consultancy hires you go to work for The B group, they'll probably insist that you not work directly for the B group for some period of time (a year is common). This prevents them from pulling a "cut out the middleman" maneuver.
This can get interesting once the layers of indirection start to get thicker, though. Let's say, from the previous example, that The B Group is doing a contract job for C Incorporated. There's rarely anything in the contract that prevents the A employee from working for C, even though the effect is largely similar. I know someone who infuriated an old employer by doing exactly that, even though what she did was within the bounds of the contract, and even though her old employer had basically brought it upon himself by treating her like dirt.
One could say that the wheel or the transistor existed in nature as well, and yet both of those inventions were heavily patented in their day.
You have documentary evidence that the wheel was patented? Archaeologists estimate that the wheel was first used in 3500-3000 BC, which wasn't exactly the golden age of intellectual property law, but if you have a better reference, I'd love to know.
The trend has been towards granting more patents rather than less, and look where it's got us: our nation and our economies are more prosperous than ever...
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Show me the connection.
"One-click"-style patents are the exception in a world of truly innovative patents. As we start to remove the last vestiges of a paternalistic scheme of government that regulates what may be patented, true innovation will again shine through.
Or, conversely, those seeking frivolous patents will be encouraged by the utter abdication of authority on the part of an already weak-kneed PTO, and the spate of "one-click shopping" and "web indexing" patents will spiral out of control, until not even the most basic of technical operations can be implemented without paying a king's ransom in licensure and legal fees.
You're certainly right, but I suspect that people often confuse the functionality of rpm and apt-get because they both serve as front-ends. That is to say, most Debian users use apt-get to handle all their updates, while most RedHat users work directly with rpm, and rely on sources like rpmfind to get the actual files.
In related news, McDonald's Corporation Executive Vice President Steve Barfly spoke to legislators on Tuesday regarding the escalating numbers of free soup kitchens in inner-city America.
"Soup kitchens are the destroyer of commercial food enterprises," Barfly said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the food industry."
Barfly made his announcements shortly after confirming rumors that the Justice Department would be investigating their planned acquisition of Burger King, another fast food empire. Burger king announced last month that they would be stopping all of their donations to soup kitchens, but claimed that McDonald's was not consulted regarding the decision.
Maggie Smith, founder of Charitable Look, said most cities with soup kitchens do retain some number of for-profit restaraunts.
"I think McDonald's is trying to paint the soup-kitchen community as being fascist; that all food has to be free, or none of it can be," said Smith, whose organization assists churches and community groups in setting up their own soup kitchens.
Barfly said he's concerned that the give-food away model could stifle initiative in the food service industry.
"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way," he said. "I worry if the government encourages giving away food, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
"We can deliver a tastier product than the soup kitchens," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."
----- "You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Re:Arrogance is relative, indeed-hierarchical even
on
Pride Before The Fall
·
· Score: 1
Hrrm... let me get this straight. Some random ass-munch on Slashdot, on the strength of sheer force of ego, presumes to post that this guy, who has been a staff writer for the New Yorker, a Washington correspondent for The Economist, and covered political affairs for Wired and HotWired, that he's a hack.
Heilemann did an article for Wired a couple of months ago called The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth on exactly this subject. I'm assuming that the book (which I haven't read) is essentially a more in-depth look at the same thing.
When I started the article, I was hopeful that it would be an even-handed analysis of how Microsoft had come by the drubbing they'd received at the hands of Jackson. (Although - pardon the pun - the jury is still out on whether it will stick.) I couple pages into it, I started to become disappointed: it seemed to me at that point to be shaping up to be a tale of how a dedicated band of young lawyers turned a foundering investigation against an evil empire around, and blah blah blah.
I'm glad I stuck with it. The article was indeed even handed, and still managed to be damning. For example, Heilemann asked Ballmer point-blank if Scott McNealy was right when he said that Microsoft licensed Java in bad faith (with the intent of breaking the contract). The response, edited for space:
"We always honored our license. We always intended to... We said, Hey Sun, you want to get on the back of us and ride, baby, ride?..."
Ballmer's face was beet-red now, and he was screaming... Up on his feet, leaning across the table so that his face was no more than 6 inches from mine, "Nobody was ever one little teeny tiny bit confused that we and Sun had this wonderful dovetailing of strategic interests! Those sub-50-IQ people who work at Sun who believe that are either uninformed, crazy, or sleeping!"
I took this as a Yes.
It's such a weird picture - Ballmer starts off saying "Of course we entered into the contract in good faith," but seems to immediately do a 180, and finishes up with "Of course we didn't. And the Sun people wore morons to think we did."
I'm gonna buy the book. The article was worth the price of admission just for that.
Probably not. Most of the rumors I heard about "IT" concerned it being very small, light, and easily assembled with a minimum of tools. I wouldn't want to go trying to reassemble a two stroke engine while demonstrating it to venture capitalists.
This is actually pretty close to zero sum - if you scale it down to Von Neuman's model, it's 1 for a win, zero for a tie, zero for an overtime loss, and -1 for a loss. That's variable sum (either zero or one). But you're definitely right.
Zero-sum is a reference to game theory, which holds that any game in which there is one definite winner and one definite loser is a zero sum game: basically, a win is a +1, a loss is a -1, and when you sum the scores, you get zero. Chess is a good example: you either win or lose, and point-value systems are usually used only as a measure of how well you did at it. Hockey (or baseball, or football, or soccer) is another: whomever has the most points at the end, wins. Period. Stalemates/draws are worth zero points.
There are a few examples of non zero-sum games: for example, "The Prisoner's Dilemma" is a non-zero sum game (and technically, it is a game, albeit a very serious one).
We're sort of dancing around the same idea here. I don't believe that the computer should be viewed as a luxury either: my point is that it can only be used in conjunction with resources that you already have, and if you've got squat, it's not going to do much for you. In the end, I think we probably agree: I'm just a little less optimistic about the program than you are.
There have been a few "anti Digital Divide" posts in this discussion already, but most of them revolve around the "computer is a luxury" issue, and that you shouldn't go around buying them for people for that reason. I don't buy into that logic exactly, but it's not far off the mark.
The real reason that Internet access can't be considered a panacea for poverty is because, regardless of what the New Economy blowhards tell you, the average Joe can't use a computer to generate wealth. You need to be able to use it to create something that people are willing to shell out bucks for - a video game, or spreadsheet programs, or at the very least, your own services (presumably using a program written by someone else).
The real economic impact of the Internet is that it has allowed businesses to leverage resources they already had in different ways. Unfortunately, the truly poor in Brazil don't have any resources. This is what makes folks who get breathless about E-Bay ending poverty so funny. You can't make any money at all off E-Bay, unless you have something to sell. Otherwise, you might as well be pr0n trolling.
There's a very real chance that small businesses in Brazil will be able to do something useful with this, assuming someone is smart enough to capitalize on their newfound net access, and can effectively target them. If the government is smart in how they distribute them, they may even be able to steer their citizens towards educational resources for their kids. But to the average guy squatting in a shanty town not far outside Rio, Internet access means (with apologizes to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) "pictures of pretty things I can't have."
Somehow, though, I just don't see it as appropriate that my desktop software is updating my OS.
I thought this was a case of the tail wagging the dog too. I've been using the Helix desktop (Oh - excuse me. Ximian Feh.), which at least integrates with apt-get to some extent.
My understanding is that RedHat's update service is a pay-for-play kind of deal. Somone better versed in their products can correct me here if I'm wrong.
The idea is to use the software as a desktop interface which also automatically updates Linux.
...probably because plenty of people are sick and tired of the prolems involved with simply downloading RPMs and updating that way, over an extended period of time. It's pretty frustrating to see a "This version of RPM supports major numbers My frustration grew to the point where I abandoned RedHat and tried out Debian. It's hard to imagine going back. apt-get and dselect are happy things, even if they've made me somewhat obsessive compulsive ("9 PM - time for my daily apt-get dist-upgrade!"). And now, I get to join the ranks of people grumbling that folks just don't package up their software in.deb format.
Can anyone familiar with the Eazel updating system post a comparison between it and apt-get? I'm assuming that Eazel's updater is RPM based, since RedHat wanted to enter into this partnership.
Atlas Games: A small games company which has the distinction of being the fourth organization to own the Ars Magica property (following WotC, which followed White Wolf, which followed Lion Rampant). For my money, Ars Magica is the best roleplaying game ever written: it has the best background for any game I've ever seen, and the guts to say "screw game balance, we're making the mages kick ass."
You're close - the Anglicized version would be "Jehovah's Witnesses".
I did carry on a brief doctrinal discussion with a Jehovah's Witness to try and explain why I'm not a Christan. It was rough going. A JW isn't interested in hearing you say you've made a rational decision that their religion isn't for you, because reason doesn't really enter into it.
The best story I know on this subject involves a friend of a friend, who was actually working as a butcher at the time. Upon being forewarned that the witnesses were canvassing their block, he put his apron on and grabbed the biggest knife he could find. When they showed up, he threw open the door, and shouted back to his wife with glee - "Sarah! Guess what! More Christians!"
You make the comparison between AltaVista and Lexis inappropriately. It's certainly true that both AltaVista and Lexis survive through the content created by other people, but the two pursued completely different payment models.
AltaVista provides its services for free, while Lexis charges a premium. If AltaVista decided tomorrow to stop offering its services for free, and starting a subscription program, I'd support them completely - I wouldn't actually pay for the service, but I'd have no problem with their decision.
Lexis may be the gold standard in their field, but nothing (other than the usual price of going in against the heavies) prevents others from competing with them. The problem is that AltaVista believes that nobody should be competing with them in the searching/indexing game, at least without paying unspecified - but likely rapacious - licensing fees. David Wetherell of CMGI:
[Digital was] the first to spider and index the Web. And Digital did a good job of recognizing the potential value of that intellectual property. And they were very thorough in filing broad and deep and narrow patents. And we have another 30 patents that are in application. So we believe that virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is in violation of at least several of those key patents.
So, the patents are both broad and narrow (?). And virtually everyone who indexes the web is in violation of several.
I don't know if Digital was actually the first to develop these techniques. I don't know if the technology they use has actually been copied that closely, or the patents are sufficiently (read: ridiculously) broad enough to encompass what Google, HotBot, Lycos, and whatever all else is out there is doing. I do know that it's Bad News for the health of the Internet in general.
Hah! Tee hee! Hoo! Okay. I was buying into this post at first. Then, I got to this part:
Look at the succesful companies in the industry. Microsoft, Compaq, IBM et al are not control freaks,
Hee! Right. Microsoft, which pressures OEM's not to change the bitmap displayed on boot, and not to load competitors' software at the factory, isn't a control freak. Bill Gates, as notorious a micromanager as ever has worked in tech, isn't a control freak. IBM, I'm suspicious of. Compaq, couldn't tell you. But Microsoft?
[Apple needs] to adopt the more socialist methods... of MS, IBM and so forth, who are unafraid to compete in an open market, with open standards.
Slashdot Mirror
...Not to mention that Photoshop carries a pretty hefty price tag, while the GIMP is free, free, free.
The GIMP is plenty fun for pure wanking around, or doing projects that aren't intended for printing. But Photoship is indeed the tool of choice for our still-not-paperless society.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
A variation on the non-compete clause is one seen frequently in contracts that consultancies issue to contractors. Basically, if you get hired by one company to go do work for another, they will nearly always pursue a clause in the contract preventing you from going to work for that company for some period. So, if The A Consultancy hires you go to work for The B group, they'll probably insist that you not work directly for the B group for some period of time (a year is common). This prevents them from pulling a "cut out the middleman" maneuver.
This can get interesting once the layers of indirection start to get thicker, though. Let's say, from the previous example, that The B Group is doing a contract job for C Incorporated. There's rarely anything in the contract that prevents the A employee from working for C, even though the effect is largely similar. I know someone who infuriated an old employer by doing exactly that, even though what she did was within the bounds of the contract, and even though her old employer had basically brought it upon himself by treating her like dirt.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
You have documentary evidence that the wheel was patented? Archaeologists estimate that the wheel was first used in 3500-3000 BC, which wasn't exactly the golden age of intellectual property law, but if you have a better reference, I'd love to know.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Show me the connection.
Or, conversely, those seeking frivolous patents will be encouraged by the utter abdication of authority on the part of an already weak-kneed PTO, and the spate of "one-click shopping" and "web indexing" patents will spiral out of control, until not even the most basic of technical operations can be implemented without paying a king's ransom in licensure and legal fees.
Just a thought.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Oof. Not that don't think that that plenty of school syestems in the US could use a major overhaul, but seriously, this is hyperbole.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
In related news, McDonald's Corporation Executive Vice President Steve Barfly spoke to legislators on Tuesday regarding the escalating numbers of free soup kitchens in inner-city America.
"Soup kitchens are the destroyer of commercial food enterprises," Barfly said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the food industry."
Barfly made his announcements shortly after confirming rumors that the Justice Department would be investigating their planned acquisition of Burger King, another fast food empire. Burger king announced last month that they would be stopping all of their donations to soup kitchens, but claimed that McDonald's was not consulted regarding the decision. Maggie Smith, founder of Charitable Look, said most cities with soup kitchens do retain some number of for-profit restaraunts.
"I think McDonald's is trying to paint the soup-kitchen community as being fascist; that all food has to be free, or none of it can be," said Smith, whose organization assists churches and community groups in setting up their own soup kitchens.
Barfly said he's concerned that the give-food away model could stifle initiative in the food service industry.
"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way," he said. "I worry if the government encourages giving away food, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
"We can deliver a tastier product than the soup kitchens," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Not anymore.
Straight to the bottom, with a bullet!
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Hrrm... let me get this straight. Some random ass-munch on Slashdot, on the strength of sheer force of ego, presumes to post that this guy, who has been a staff writer for the New Yorker, a Washington correspondent for The Economist, and covered political affairs for Wired and HotWired, that he's a hack.
Sorry, who's the troll here?
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Heilemann did an article for Wired a couple of months ago called The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth on exactly this subject. I'm assuming that the book (which I haven't read) is essentially a more in-depth look at the same thing.
When I started the article, I was hopeful that it would be an even-handed analysis of how Microsoft had come by the drubbing they'd received at the hands of Jackson. (Although - pardon the pun - the jury is still out on whether it will stick.) I couple pages into it, I started to become disappointed: it seemed to me at that point to be shaping up to be a tale of how a dedicated band of young lawyers turned a foundering investigation against an evil empire around, and blah blah blah.
I'm glad I stuck with it. The article was indeed even handed, and still managed to be damning. For example, Heilemann asked Ballmer point-blank if Scott McNealy was right when he said that Microsoft licensed Java in bad faith (with the intent of breaking the contract). The response, edited for space:
It's such a weird picture - Ballmer starts off saying "Of course we entered into the contract in good faith," but seems to immediately do a 180, and finishes up with "Of course we didn't. And the Sun people wore morons to think we did."
I'm gonna buy the book. The article was worth the price of admission just for that.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Doh! I can't believe I forgot this.
This is actually pretty close to zero sum - if you scale it down to Von Neuman's model, it's 1 for a win, zero for a tie, zero for an overtime loss, and -1 for a loss. That's variable sum (either zero or one). But you're definitely right.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
There are a few examples of non zero-sum games: for example, "The Prisoner's Dilemma" is a non-zero sum game (and technically, it is a game, albeit a very serious one).
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
There have been a few "anti Digital Divide" posts in this discussion already, but most of them revolve around the "computer is a luxury" issue, and that you shouldn't go around buying them for people for that reason. I don't buy into that logic exactly, but it's not far off the mark.
The real reason that Internet access can't be considered a panacea for poverty is because, regardless of what the New Economy blowhards tell you, the average Joe can't use a computer to generate wealth. You need to be able to use it to create something that people are willing to shell out bucks for - a video game, or spreadsheet programs, or at the very least, your own services (presumably using a program written by someone else).
The real economic impact of the Internet is that it has allowed businesses to leverage resources they already had in different ways. Unfortunately, the truly poor in Brazil don't have any resources. This is what makes folks who get breathless about E-Bay ending poverty so funny. You can't make any money at all off E-Bay, unless you have something to sell. Otherwise, you might as well be pr0n trolling.
There's a very real chance that small businesses in Brazil will be able to do something useful with this, assuming someone is smart enough to capitalize on their newfound net access, and can effectively target them. If the government is smart in how they distribute them, they may even be able to steer their citizens towards educational resources for their kids. But to the average guy squatting in a shanty town not far outside Rio, Internet access means (with apologizes to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) "pictures of pretty things I can't have."
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
I thought this was a case of the tail wagging the dog too. I've been using the Helix desktop (Oh - excuse me. Ximian Feh.), which at least integrates with apt-get to some extent.
My understanding is that RedHat's update service is a pay-for-play kind of deal. Somone better versed in their products can correct me here if I'm wrong.
...probably because plenty of people are sick and tired of the prolems involved with simply downloading RPMs and updating that way, over an extended period of time. It's pretty frustrating to see a "This version of RPM supports major numbers My frustration grew to the point where I abandoned RedHat and tried out Debian. It's hard to imagine going back. apt-get and dselect are happy things, even if they've made me somewhat obsessive compulsive ("9 PM - time for my daily apt-get dist-upgrade!"). And now, I get to join the ranks of people grumbling that folks just don't package up their software in .deb format.
Can anyone familiar with the Eazel updating system post a comparison between it and apt-get? I'm assuming that Eazel's updater is RPM based, since RedHat wanted to enter into this partnership.
Atlas Games : A small games company which has the distinction of being the fourth organization to own the Ars Magica property (following WotC, which followed White Wolf, which followed Lion Rampant). For my money, Ars Magica is the best roleplaying game ever written: it has the best background for any game I've ever seen, and the guts to say "screw game balance, we're making the mages kick ass."
Yeah, well, Jerry Lewis is big in France. That and US$.99 will get you a McDonald's burger for a limited time.
You're close - the Anglicized version would be "Jehovah's Witnesses".
I did carry on a brief doctrinal discussion with a Jehovah's Witness to try and explain why I'm not a Christan. It was rough going. A JW isn't interested in hearing you say you've made a rational decision that their religion isn't for you, because reason doesn't really enter into it.
The best story I know on this subject involves a friend of a friend, who was actually working as a butcher at the time. Upon being forewarned that the witnesses were canvassing their block, he put his apron on and grabbed the biggest knife he could find. When they showed up, he threw open the door, and shouted back to his wife with glee - "Sarah! Guess what! More Christians!"
They didn't come back.
You make the comparison between AltaVista and Lexis inappropriately. It's certainly true that both AltaVista and Lexis survive through the content created by other people, but the two pursued completely different payment models.
AltaVista provides its services for free, while Lexis charges a premium. If AltaVista decided tomorrow to stop offering its services for free, and starting a subscription program, I'd support them completely - I wouldn't actually pay for the service, but I'd have no problem with their decision.
Lexis may be the gold standard in their field, but nothing (other than the usual price of going in against the heavies) prevents others from competing with them. The problem is that AltaVista believes that nobody should be competing with them in the searching/indexing game, at least without paying unspecified - but likely rapacious - licensing fees. David Wetherell of CMGI:
So, the patents are both broad and narrow (?). And virtually everyone who indexes the web is in violation of several.
I don't know if Digital was actually the first to develop these techniques. I don't know if the technology they use has actually been copied that closely, or the patents are sufficiently (read: ridiculously) broad enough to encompass what Google, HotBot, Lycos, and whatever all else is out there is doing. I do know that it's Bad News for the health of the Internet in general.
Hah! Tee hee! Hoo! Okay. I was buying into this post at first. Then, I got to this part:
Hee! Right. Microsoft, which pressures OEM's not to change the bitmap displayed on boot, and not to load competitors' software at the factory, isn't a control freak. Bill Gates, as notorious a micromanager as ever has worked in tech, isn't a control freak. IBM, I'm suspicious of. Compaq, couldn't tell you. But Microsoft?
Hee hee! Hee. Hoo. Microsoft, the company that broke Kerberos? The same company that threatened to sue a competitor for benchmarking them? Okay. With my Rod of Lordly Moderation, I dub this post -1 Troll, +4 Funny. Take the net gain to your Karma and go back under your bridge.