Let's see, take the things that open sourcerers are best at, like writing drivers for obscure hardware and coming up with cool hardware hacks and do that part for them; then take the user interface, one of the primary areas where open source has not fared well against proprietary solutions, and leave it up to the community. I'm going to go with just the "publicity stunt" option on this one.
I personally think it's extremely customer-hostile of Blizzard to present the entire EULA each patch, with no "diff"s or other indication of any change, and make you agree to it. Either you have to spend the better part of an hour reading and understanding it every time they upgrade, or you are agreeing to some unknown clause. It seems like there should be some expectation of a reasonable burden when updating a contract... as in, it's not enforceable because the company obviously has no intention of the customer ever actually reading it and, in fact, makes it difficult to do so. (I'm just making this up, I'm definitely not a lawyer.)
Any software that puts the EULA in a tiny little uncopyable window and makes you agree to the full terms every patch should have their EULA voided IMHO.
My guess is the last generation of G5 PowerMacs will hold a price premium for awhile as people prefer the "best of a generation" rather than the 1.0 version of something new. And professionals really can justify the ROI on the G5's rather than wait a year for something whose specs are unclear.
As for the PowerBook, I suspect the Intel-switchover will hit them hardest since Apple no longer offers any high-end laptops, but fortunately they're widely expected to be among the first to switch to Intel.
It looks like the answers might be: a) no (I don't see any evidence of overlays. For experimenting, instead of working on a layer it just keeps every version you've created, like a version-control system) b) yes (Dust, spot, blemish, red-eye, patch tools, and Lift and Stamp tool to copy and paste adjustments) c) Doesn't say, but they definitely are pushing the RAW support hard, so probably yes
It looks like the real power of this app is workflow, not necessarily per-image features. The "stacking", tools, loupe, "lightboard" UI, integration with Automator (MacOS X's system-wide scripting), and similar attention to workflow issues. The Automator support seems like it could be especially interesting, since you can control many applications and integrate them with a Aperture workflow, and create a single script for photo operations, file, network transfer, searches, etc.
It seems more like an iPhoto-on-steroids, and something you'd want to add to a Photoshop-like app, rather than something that could replace the creative content creation apps.
Actually, my post was more on-topic than yours, I believe.
I'm fine with other people distilling research to make it easier for a voter to grok. But it's still research, and should be done by any voter. Uninformed voting favors those with more money and name recognition instead of those who will do a better job or better represent the voter's interest.
In general, I think uninformed voters will almost always cause more problems for a democracy than people who don't know or care staying home, and thus I tend to oppose knee-jerk "get out the vote" contentless campaigns.
Just to add some content to my post, I'll post a few sites where you can do some meta-research (read distilled opinions about candidates and issues) in addition to the http://www.vote-smart.org/ site mentioned in the grandparent post: * League of Women Voters (look for local leagues for local issues): http://www.lwv.org/ * FactCheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/ * Google for your city/state and "voting information": http://www.google.com/
Research, then vote. Get your friends to read about the candidates and issues, then vote.
Please don't "just vote". Don't try to convince your friends to "just vote". It dilutes the votes of people who actually know what they're voting for and skews the vote in favor of superficial whims. If you don't know a candidate or issue while in the voting booth, it's too late; leave the entry blank, please.
Agreed... the new Onion design is one of the most God-awful redesigns I've ever seen. I sometimes don't even bother reading it anymore it's so annoying to navigate. Thus, I'm all for Slashdot going with this guy-- it will free up more time in my day with one less site to read.
According to an update on today's Penny Arcade, PA went ahead and made the promised $10,000 donation themselves to the Entertainment Software Association... in his name.
The PA guys really know how to cut someone down with class. Help kids and drive Jack Thompson insane all in one fell-swoop. I wonder about what he's going to threaten to sue now.
"A year ago, I was getting hundreds of spam messages a day; now I might get ten, occasionally twenty a day. SpamAssassin + ClamAV identify the vast majority of those."
For me, most spam (unwanted email not intended for me personally) I receive are either bounces or "confirmation" emails from other people's spam filters. Since spammers never send FROM their own address, they usually just pick a random address off their list and send from them (ie. Mine.) So bounces go to me.
These days, I've started clicking the "confirmation" URL on all of those "Please confirm you are a real person" emails just to make those people stop using their broken, idiotic anti-spam systems that just make life worse for the rest of us.
From the article: "In addition to Microsoft, ATL's founding members include Staples, Inc., CompUSA, Citizens Against Government Waste, CompTIA, Small Business Survival Committee, Clarity Consulting, Cityscape Filmworks, Association for Competitive Technology and 60Plus Association."
I guess CompUSA is worried that less Microsoft software sold means less profits for them, but it's still sad. Fortunately every time I set foot in the place it's such a mess that I usually leave emptyhanded. The funniest part, though, is a group called "Citizens Against Government Waste" advocating the government buy expensive proprietary software and locking themselves into a vendor instead of free, open software that competes on an open market.
They should just have a "Buy DVD" button attached to every television show, movie, superbowl advertisement collection, movie preview collection, whatever. DVDs are so cheap these days, with that kind of volume and throwing in a few ads, you could probably charge a lot less than retail.
Actually... maybe they shouldn't. That might be something too tempting for me.
"Which just goes to show you--once a scientific "fact" has been established, our attachment to it becomes as dogmatic as any theological notion..."
The entire history of the scientific method spans only a few hundred years. If your statement were true, we'd still be burning the Gnostic texts instead of sending probes to the edge of the solar system.
Besides, it's always possible IBM will lose one of their counter-claims. A lot of things can happen in court, and an untested patent owned by a large company is better than a patent against which a claim has been lost any day. In the risk/reward game, with SCO's bankroll as the only possible reward, it becomes a no-brainer.
The question of whether copyright infringement is theft isn't really so cut-and-dried. If someone sneaks into another company and photocopies trade secrets, they are said to have stolen the secrets. If someone copies enough of my personal information that they can and do pose as me, that's identity theft. In other words, the word theft is commonly used to refer to taking something ephemeral, not just something physical. You can argue as a language purist that what everyone else does is wrong, but if the word's new meaning is common among most users of the language, then the word has shifted meaning and you'll have to keep up with the times. That's how languages shift over time, and in the world of bits and bytes, some old words are taking on new meanings.
Is there any evidence that intelligent, well-informed businesspeople (i.e. those who have clueful lawyers) have a remote concern about licensing when choosing Linux?
That's a pretty big caveat there. Is there any evidence that most businesspeople have clueful lawyers, or are well-informed on operating-system-license minutia? I think the whole point of the article is that linux requires such things more than other options.
While I generally agree with the overall sentiment, it bears little relation to the topic at hand. I think the argument surrounding the original article is more one of bargaining power. While on a large scale pay and cost are determined by supply and demand, on an individual case basis, everything is always determined by what you can negotiate for. If there is a perceived tech under or oversupply, it gives certain people bargaining power.
As for foreign workers, as long as they have to come to the US, live here, obey US work laws, pay taxes here, etc., I'm not against the limited H1-B system. Especially if you consider that shipping them back offshore will probably just lead to the jobs following them back to their home country when they set up the next outsourcing shop.
However, if a US company can hire foreign off-shore workers who aren't guaranteed the same rights, benefits, and quality of life as they would be in the US, it's hardly fair or healthy to hire them in place of more expensive US workers. Americans' rights, benefits, and quality of life are things valuable for the United States to maintain. As are safety nets so one wrong move doesn't land someone on skid row-- the ability to take a chance and land on your feet is really key to our economy's health. And these things cost money that we're short-changing by off-shoring too much.
The Leviticus rule about homosexuality is in the same chapter as that prohibiting wearing wool and cotton simultaneously. In my church, we learned that the Ten Commandments pretty much replaced all the old Laws, and then Jesus' teachings trumped even them. Since Jesus didn't have much to say on the subject of homosexuality, despite ranting at length on other matters, I assume He didn't find it all that abhorrent. I have no idea what personal relationships He may or may not have been in, because the early Catholic church chose to burn the gnostic and other writings that may have discussed it, but I suspect the things that current US southern baptists spend most of their energy on were way, way down Jesus' list, while issues like poverty and inclusiveness don't seem to get through at all sometimes.
Awhile back, some spammer list picked up my email address as someplace to fake sending spam FROM. (Not the mail servers, just the "from" line of the email.) Since then, I get more "Your mail has been blocked due to it likely being spam" and bounces from non-existant addresses than actual spam. Of course, I count all those emails as spam themselves.
Please, if you have an auto-replyer to spam, turn it off. You're just harassing other people with your meta-spam.
It wasn't just a web site. After finding information on the web site concerning other computers, they went in via other protocols, as well, according to what I've read. And the email from the Spanish announcing the discovery was sent by the same IP address as the people snooping through accidentally-left-public data on the US servers several days earlier.
At the VERY least, the rules of scientific discourse require you to cite other researchers if you've reviewed their data. At the worst, they took the coordinates and went through their own records and "found" the object that was pointed out to them.
The most surprising thing about this article to me is that it calls the doctrine "new". Although I have no inside info on the matter, it was always my understanding that for decades our policy was that if we detected an imminent threat from an enemy such as the Soviet Union, such as preparations for a launch, that we would launch first. No question asked, no call on the red phone, etc.
It was also my understanding that this policy led the Soviet Union to be VERY communicative about their actions and intents, and generally led to more open exchanges between the two countries.
Perhaps the "new" part is that we're now including non-governmental entities in this policy?
Slashdot Mirror
use the internet while on the toilet
Sure, as long as you have handy an 850ft mas... ummm... nevermind.
Why can't it be both?
It could be, but it rarely is.
Let's see, take the things that open sourcerers are best at, like writing drivers for obscure hardware and coming up with cool hardware hacks and do that part for them; then take the user interface, one of the primary areas where open source has not fared well against proprietary solutions, and leave it up to the community. I'm going to go with just the "publicity stunt" option on this one.
I personally think it's extremely customer-hostile of Blizzard to present the entire EULA each patch, with no "diff"s or other indication of any change, and make you agree to it. Either you have to spend the better part of an hour reading and understanding it every time they upgrade, or you are agreeing to some unknown clause. It seems like there should be some expectation of a reasonable burden when updating a contract... as in, it's not enforceable because the company obviously has no intention of the customer ever actually reading it and, in fact, makes it difficult to do so. (I'm just making this up, I'm definitely not a lawyer.)
Any software that puts the EULA in a tiny little uncopyable window and makes you agree to the full terms every patch should have their EULA voided IMHO.
The original article, which both MSNBC and Yahoo linked to when reposting it on their sites, was on LiveScience.com.
_ light.html
http://www.livescience.com/technology/051021_nano
Not all creations are created equally creatively.
My guess is the last generation of G5 PowerMacs will hold a price premium for awhile as people prefer the "best of a generation" rather than the 1.0 version of something new. And professionals really can justify the ROI on the G5's rather than wait a year for something whose specs are unclear.
As for the PowerBook, I suspect the Intel-switchover will hit them hardest since Apple no longer offers any high-end laptops, but fortunately they're widely expected to be among the first to switch to Intel.
I'm not clear on whether you've already reviewed Apple Aperture site at:
Tech specs: http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs.html
Quicktime tours: http://www.apple.com/aperture/quicktours/
Screenshots: http://www.apple.com/aperture/gallery/
It looks like the answers might be:
a) no (I don't see any evidence of overlays. For experimenting, instead of working on a layer it just keeps every version you've created, like a version-control system)
b) yes (Dust, spot, blemish, red-eye, patch tools, and Lift and Stamp tool to copy and paste adjustments)
c) Doesn't say, but they definitely are pushing the RAW support hard, so probably yes
It looks like the real power of this app is workflow, not necessarily per-image features. The "stacking", tools, loupe, "lightboard" UI, integration with Automator (MacOS X's system-wide scripting), and similar attention to workflow issues. The Automator support seems like it could be especially interesting, since you can control many applications and integrate them with a Aperture workflow, and create a single script for photo operations, file, network transfer, searches, etc.
It seems more like an iPhoto-on-steroids, and something you'd want to add to a Photoshop-like app, rather than something that could replace the creative content creation apps.
Actually, my post was more on-topic than yours, I believe.
I'm fine with other people distilling research to make it easier for a voter to grok. But it's still research, and should be done by any voter. Uninformed voting favors those with more money and name recognition instead of those who will do a better job or better represent the voter's interest.
In general, I think uninformed voters will almost always cause more problems for a democracy than people who don't know or care staying home, and thus I tend to oppose knee-jerk "get out the vote" contentless campaigns.
Just to add some content to my post, I'll post a few sites where you can do some meta-research (read distilled opinions about candidates and issues) in addition to the http://www.vote-smart.org/ site mentioned in the grandparent post:
* League of Women Voters (look for local leagues for local issues): http://www.lwv.org/
* FactCheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/
* Google for your city/state and "voting information": http://www.google.com/
Research, then vote. Get your friends to read about the candidates and issues, then vote.
Please don't "just vote". Don't try to convince your friends to "just vote". It dilutes the votes of people who actually know what they're voting for and skews the vote in favor of superficial whims. If you don't know a candidate or issue while in the voting booth, it's too late; leave the entry blank, please.
Agreed... the new Onion design is one of the most God-awful redesigns I've ever seen. I sometimes don't even bother reading it anymore it's so annoying to navigate. Thus, I'm all for Slashdot going with this guy-- it will free up more time in my day with one less site to read.
According to an update on today's Penny Arcade, PA went ahead and made the promised $10,000 donation themselves to the Entertainment Software Association... in his name.
The PA guys really know how to cut someone down with class. Help kids and drive Jack Thompson insane all in one fell-swoop. I wonder about what he's going to threaten to sue now.
"A year ago, I was getting hundreds of spam messages a day; now I might get ten, occasionally twenty a day. SpamAssassin + ClamAV identify the vast majority of those."
For me, most spam (unwanted email not intended for me personally) I receive are either bounces or "confirmation" emails from other people's spam filters. Since spammers never send FROM their own address, they usually just pick a random address off their list and send from them (ie. Mine.) So bounces go to me.
These days, I've started clicking the "confirmation" URL on all of those "Please confirm you are a real person" emails just to make those people stop using their broken, idiotic anti-spam systems that just make life worse for the rest of us.
From the article:
"In addition to Microsoft, ATL's founding members include Staples, Inc., CompUSA, Citizens Against Government Waste, CompTIA, Small Business Survival Committee, Clarity Consulting, Cityscape Filmworks, Association for Competitive Technology and 60Plus Association."
I guess CompUSA is worried that less Microsoft software sold means less profits for them, but it's still sad. Fortunately every time I set foot in the place it's such a mess that I usually leave emptyhanded. The funniest part, though, is a group called "Citizens Against Government Waste" advocating the government buy expensive proprietary software and locking themselves into a vendor instead of free, open software that competes on an open market.
They should just have a "Buy DVD" button attached to every television show, movie, superbowl advertisement collection, movie preview collection, whatever. DVDs are so cheap these days, with that kind of volume and throwing in a few ads, you could probably charge a lot less than retail.
Actually... maybe they shouldn't. That might be something too tempting for me.
"Which just goes to show you--once a scientific "fact" has been established, our attachment to it becomes as dogmatic as any theological notion..."
The entire history of the scientific method spans only a few hundred years. If your statement were true, we'd still be burning the Gnostic texts instead of sending probes to the edge of the solar system.
Besides, it's always possible IBM will lose one of their counter-claims. A lot of things can happen in court, and an untested patent owned by a large company is better than a patent against which a claim has been lost any day. In the risk/reward game, with SCO's bankroll as the only possible reward, it becomes a no-brainer.
The question of whether copyright infringement is theft isn't really so cut-and-dried. If someone sneaks into another company and photocopies trade secrets, they are said to have stolen the secrets. If someone copies enough of my personal information that they can and do pose as me, that's identity theft. In other words, the word theft is commonly used to refer to taking something ephemeral, not just something physical. You can argue as a language purist that what everyone else does is wrong, but if the word's new meaning is common among most users of the language, then the word has shifted meaning and you'll have to keep up with the times. That's how languages shift over time, and in the world of bits and bytes, some old words are taking on new meanings.
That's a pretty big caveat there. Is there any evidence that most businesspeople have clueful lawyers, or are well-informed on operating-system-license minutia? I think the whole point of the article is that linux requires such things more than other options.
While I generally agree with the overall sentiment, it bears little relation to the topic at hand. I think the argument surrounding the original article is more one of bargaining power. While on a large scale pay and cost are determined by supply and demand, on an individual case basis, everything is always determined by what you can negotiate for. If there is a perceived tech under or oversupply, it gives certain people bargaining power.
As for foreign workers, as long as they have to come to the US, live here, obey US work laws, pay taxes here, etc., I'm not against the limited H1-B system. Especially if you consider that shipping them back offshore will probably just lead to the jobs following them back to their home country when they set up the next outsourcing shop.
However, if a US company can hire foreign off-shore workers who aren't guaranteed the same rights, benefits, and quality of life as they would be in the US, it's hardly fair or healthy to hire them in place of more expensive US workers. Americans' rights, benefits, and quality of life are things valuable for the United States to maintain. As are safety nets so one wrong move doesn't land someone on skid row-- the ability to take a chance and land on your feet is really key to our economy's health. And these things cost money that we're short-changing by off-shoring too much.
>
*cough*Firefly*cough*
The Leviticus rule about homosexuality is in the same chapter as that prohibiting wearing wool and cotton simultaneously. In my church, we learned that the Ten Commandments pretty much replaced all the old Laws, and then Jesus' teachings trumped even them. Since Jesus didn't have much to say on the subject of homosexuality, despite ranting at length on other matters, I assume He didn't find it all that abhorrent. I have no idea what personal relationships He may or may not have been in, because the early Catholic church chose to burn the gnostic and other writings that may have discussed it, but I suspect the things that current US southern baptists spend most of their energy on were way, way down Jesus' list, while issues like poverty and inclusiveness don't seem to get through at all sometimes.
Awhile back, some spammer list picked up my email address as someplace to fake sending spam FROM. (Not the mail servers, just the "from" line of the email.) Since then, I get more "Your mail has been blocked due to it likely being spam" and bounces from non-existant addresses than actual spam. Of course, I count all those emails as spam themselves.
Please, if you have an auto-replyer to spam, turn it off. You're just harassing other people with your meta-spam.
It wasn't just a web site. After finding information on the web site concerning other computers, they went in via other protocols, as well, according to what I've read. And the email from the Spanish announcing the discovery was sent by the same IP address as the people snooping through accidentally-left-public data on the US servers several days earlier.
At the VERY least, the rules of scientific discourse require you to cite other researchers if you've reviewed their data. At the worst, they took the coordinates and went through their own records and "found" the object that was pointed out to them.
The most surprising thing about this article to me is that it calls the doctrine "new". Although I have no inside info on the matter, it was always my understanding that for decades our policy was that if we detected an imminent threat from an enemy such as the Soviet Union, such as preparations for a launch, that we would launch first. No question asked, no call on the red phone, etc.
It was also my understanding that this policy led the Soviet Union to be VERY communicative about their actions and intents, and generally led to more open exchanges between the two countries.
Perhaps the "new" part is that we're now including non-governmental entities in this policy?
"autopsy the cute little guy"
I believe the term is "vivisect" unless the subject is already dead.