And this comment applies well to the RIAA suing a few 'example' file sharers. Scare 'em off. No problem. Nothing we should worry about.
Right?
More or less. We should be working at replacing the RIAA with something relevent to the 21st century and that recognises that their role is now greatly reduced and therefore more of the money for music should go to the artists.
Wanting the artists to get a bigger cut doesn't mean that I think people should steal the music and thereby deprive both the RIAA and the artists of their money.
The fact that the RIAA is suing people for insane amounts of money and using quasi-legal methods of doing it is a separate issue from whether or not having 5Gigs of music on your hard drive that you never paid for is right or not.
Both programmers and musicians deserve to have their choice of licence respected, especially since the musicians basically don't have any choice: you play with the RIAA or you forget about air-play and a career.
Fair enough. It does bring up the question of what products MS has actually come up with on their own. Windows is one (obviously copied in functionality but as far as I remember they did actually write it themselves). Office was all bought in initially, I think. What "innovation" has MS actually produced?
TWW
Re:"DRM Support for Xfree?" parse error...
on
Kernel 2.4.23 Released
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Direct Rendering Manager. It's been an option in the kernel for some time but has lagged behind Xfree releases.
Blind fucking Freddy from the home for people without any fucking clue whatsoever could see that it did.
Those of us not on a juvenile paranoia freak-out based on a need to defend their choice of operating system may well have seen it, as I did, simply as an assertion that cars with centrally-controled door locks, windows etc. can turn into a death trap in the event of that central system failing. Which is a simple fact. The same could be said if the system was plain old ICs, Linux or MacOS or Forth or FreeBSD, or QNX or any one of a dozen other. I would be reluctant to put my life into any of these systems with no backup. I would never willingly do so with Windows; it would be like having Hannibal Lector as your chef.
Which, by the way, was a ridiculous statement. You gave it away on "insecure" you see. Insecurity has only recently become an accusation levelled at Microsoft - mostly because buggy and unstable no longer apply to their latest OSes.
It is true that MS's total lack of concern about security is more in the spotlight now than when they started off but this is more to do with the fact that almost everyone now connects to networks of some sort or another than fact that XP is almost as stable as Unix was thirty years ago.
MS software today is as buggy and unreliable as it ever was, that's the main cause of the security problems.
I read both the article and your post, and in neither did I find any evidence that Microsoft has "little or no regard to quality control"
That part (ie, the logical step from the article to what common sense should tell you) is down to the collective experience of the world's computer users over the time that MS have been providing them with software. I assume you've not been involved in computers for long (if at all) if you are unaware of the company's policy of releasing before the product is ready and only fixing the worst bugs if it sells. IE is still one of the worst written programs on the market. How long have they had to fix it now?
I've got a friend from Nigeria who'd love to have a chat with you.
you are still using the non-example of a non-MS car OS trapping passengers within a car to attack MS,
I'm not using that to attack MS, their record speaks for itself. I was pointing out the dangers of a system crash in general. The logical implication of those dangers is that you should be careful who you get to build the system and not go with a bunch of cowboys like Microsoft.
you characterize Windows as "the worlds most failed OS", when it clearly isn't when you take into consideration the millions of computers out there running Windows in its various implementations - most of which are running quite well, thank you very much.
We asked 100 virus writers about this statement but all they did was laugh. I'd hate to see what you think is a system that doesn't run "quite well"!
but don't attack them as being buggy and crash-prone when you have no evidence whatsoever to back up your claim, other than your anti-MS bias.
Having had to use MS products for most of the 20 years in question I can assure you that there is no bias: they really are crap.
Given the title and the rest of the summary that last sentence totaly implies that Microsoft was to blame for the problem.
No, it didn't.
to assume that everything they've produced for the last 20 years is "buggy, unreliable, insecure software"
If I say you have a criminal record that does not imply that your every act is criminal. I said that Microsoft has a 20+ year record of buggy etc. They have made some good mice.
the Dignitary was not traped in his car by a microsoft product.
That's right. Did you actually read either the article or my post? The point is that there are dangers involved in software (or hardware) systems being installed into cars. It is a simple and logical step to state that installing a system from a company with little or no regard to quality control is unwise.
Too bad he wasn't driving a BMW with an iDrive system, but an earlier BMW.
Which is what it said in the article. So what? Does that suddenly mean that Microsft's 20+ year record of buggy, unreliable, insecure software just vanishes? The lession was not about what system the car was using but what can happen if systems fail on a modern, particularly a modern bullet proof, car. Why would anyone want to risk using the world's most famous failed OS in such circumstances?
In the last year I have been involved with a company run by a man as dishonest as McBride. He literally stole a dozen computers and all the software and data on them. When the police came he simply lied to them and said they were his.
In addition he has been publishing material writen by and for our company with our copyright notice on every page but with a little sticker over the copyright notice on the first page. When copyright law was invoked he simply lied and said we had given him permission to do this.
The law will eventually grind around to dealing with this but by then he will have declared himself bankrupt (all his assets are in his wife's name) and moved on to his next crime.
What this has shown me is that the law is very ill-equipped to handle someone who, like McBride, is totally dishonest and prepared to say anything with no shame or morallity nor any interest in how it affects other peoples' lives. Quite simply, it takes a lot more time and effort to stop bastards like this than they have to expend to make money this way; their part is easy.
But then, I suppose, if stealing things wasn't easier than getting your own people like McBride wouldn't bother doing it.
You appear to be under the impression that this is an adaptation of the book. It's not. I doubt very much that Jackson has read the whole book; he certainly didn't understand it if he did.
No, these movies are advertisements for the DVDs which are in turn advertisements for the Deluxe DVDs, which are in turn advertisements for the Collector's set 3-in-1 DVDs which are in turn an advertisement for the Delux Collector's Set Definitive Edition DVDs.
That's why the movies make no sense: if you want the story as well as the sight of Gandalf and Sauruman break-dancing you have to buy some of the DVDs. (Actually, you'll probably just get more break-dancing).
Someday someone will film LotR and at least try to do it right, but that person won't be a third-rate hack like Jackson.
Then MS patents their 10% so that people can't really write some filter to convert from one format to another without risking to be sued. This is what Microsoft calls 'innovation'.
Actually, MS hardly ever sue over patents (I can't think of any examples at all but I assume there must be some somewhere).
What MS actually does is add their 10% of crap, badly designed and insecure changes and then it deploys them to 90% of new computers and starts encouraging third-rate programmers everywhere to write applications using that 10% of buggy shit they added.
The result is a "standard" that is only actually obeyed by 10% of personal computers which gradually falls into disuse by mainstream programmers because it becomes associated with the bugs and security issues that MS added.
In other words: this is great news for Macromedia as it means Flash will continue to be the choice for "real" programmers and bad news for Linux as Joe Users go to websites thrown together by the third-rate programmers using MS tools which won't display on Linux systems because those systems obey the standard and not the shitty MS version. Joe User thus continues to think that Linux is not ready for the desktop (funny, I've been using it for four years!) when in fact it is Windows that should be taken off any desktop that doesn't have a full-time security expert on hand to maintain it.
Sun Tzu once said that you should always leave your enemy a way out, so he does not become desperate and do some lasting damage.
SCO started desparate: no product, no customers, worthess shares. Tzu was right: they did then start lashing out. Now it's time to put the mad dog down.
the bits about Tom are key to understanding Middle Earth
Certainly to a deeper understanding but not to the more immediate situation nor the plot as it relates to Frodo et al.
Personally, I think dropping Saruman is rather appropriate.
It's never appropriate to introduce a major character and then just drop them once you're bored with them. The events in the Shire are important to the understanding of Middle Earth and what JRRT was saying about corruption and evil (as well as fate).
I was sorry that Tom Bombadil was cut from the first one, bu I understood why, and I didn't bitch and whine about it like you are doing.
Bombadil is a long way from Saruman in importance to the story, even the mangled version Jackson has cobbled together.
It is, however, typical of his total disinterest in characterisation that he drops a character as soon as they have no major fight scenes left. He also painted himself into a bit of a corner with Saruman with his mis-handling of Lothlorien.
Gnome and KDE need to lock out using window managers with their enviornments and just allow "skins" (widgets stay in the same place with same general shape, just colour/texture changes).
They can do that if they want, I always install WindowMaker. Even people that come straight from Windows can use it and, here's the big lesson, they prefer it to Windows.
The fact is that Windows (which, let's face it, is the standard that GNOME, KDE, and you are aiming at) is shit, and even the people that are used to it think it's shit.
The bizarre thing is what happens when you try to make the ideal GUI for the masses. By "masses" here I mean the vast majority of computer users that use their machines for and at work.
For them the ideal GUI is a set of buttons that are on screen and when clicked produce the applications they use. That's it. Overlapping windows are nice too although many don't use them.
Watch real users sometimes on Windows: they often don't use explorer, they find files from the file menu of the app they want to use that file with; they don't use many apps and the apps they do use tend to be on all day unless they crash, at which point they get restarted.
WindowMaker is actually far better for these people than Windows!
So, why should we standardise on something that isn't the correct, or even best available, solution?
I didn't mind so much that he changed Faramir's character
It was a good illustration of his inability to grasp characterisation, though: Faramir should have stood as a contrast to Boromir but now we'll just have a dreary parade from Boromir to Faramir to Denethor all basically presenting a negative view of the Gondorians which will make the viewer wonder why anyone would want to save them in the first place.
but taking them to Osgiliath, and then having the Ringwraith almost catch Frodo with the ring
When Frodo said to Sam "This is terrible; we shouldn't be here!" I thought that maybe Jackson was being ironic, because Frodo was right on both counts.
Ah, well. I don't think I'll bother with the third one.
A few; not 38. I did read the whole thing out load once, though, which is quite fun and makes you think about the characters more so that the intonation works.
Have you read the 12 book Histories?
Silmarillion?
Just finished Unfinsihed tales and I'm currently re-reading Silmarillion (or "beware elves bearing oaths"). Of the others, I read as far as Lost Tales 2 but I didn't feel at that point that it was clear how much was doodles that JRRT did not intend to be "true" and which bits were just left out because he didn't get a chance to put them anywhere. UT and Silmarillion are at least quite clearly material that fit into the canon (although the Galadriel stuff is a bit tricky in places) and I'm happy with that.
The main difficulties with the film were characterisation. Visually they have been pretty good and the scenes of Saruman industrialising Orthanc were particularly good (almost made up for the break-dancing with Gandalf). I do wish, however, that the director had done Weathertop the way it was in the book instead of the "Keystone Nazgul" act that he replaced it with. Visually, Weathertop is one of the best scenes in the book (certainly in FotR) and should have been really pretty scary in the film.
One day someone will do it right; I just hope they do it in my lifetime. My second-worst nightmare is that Jackson will tackle the Silmarillion. My worst nightmare is that he'll try to do his own sequal to LotR. He's just the sort of hack that would try it.
Furthermore, it's Qt-based and Qt isn't doing so well
That's interesting: I didn't know it was QT based (I assumed it was yet-another-toolkit); I might look at it now. Gtk is easier to program but the results are very ugly.
Maybe they should have made a bigger noise about it being QT.
Slashdot Mirror
Right?
More or less. We should be working at replacing the RIAA with something relevent to the 21st century and that recognises that their role is now greatly reduced and therefore more of the money for music should go to the artists.
Wanting the artists to get a bigger cut doesn't mean that I think people should steal the music and thereby deprive both the RIAA and the artists of their money.
The fact that the RIAA is suing people for insane amounts of money and using quasi-legal methods of doing it is a separate issue from whether or not having 5Gigs of music on your hard drive that you never paid for is right or not.
Both programmers and musicians deserve to have their choice of licence respected, especially since the musicians basically don't have any choice: you play with the RIAA or you forget about air-play and a career.
TWW
I don't think I'm too worried about scaring thieves off.
TWW
TWW
Fair enough. It does bring up the question of what products MS has actually come up with on their own. Windows is one (obviously copied in functionality but as far as I remember they did actually write it themselves). Office was all bought in initially, I think. What "innovation" has MS actually produced?
TWW
TWW
Those of us not on a juvenile paranoia freak-out based on a need to defend their choice of operating system may well have seen it, as I did, simply as an assertion that cars with centrally-controled door locks, windows etc. can turn into a death trap in the event of that central system failing. Which is a simple fact. The same could be said if the system was plain old ICs, Linux or MacOS or Forth or FreeBSD, or QNX or any one of a dozen other. I would be reluctant to put my life into any of these systems with no backup. I would never willingly do so with Windows; it would be like having Hannibal Lector as your chef.
Which, by the way, was a ridiculous statement. You gave it away on "insecure" you see. Insecurity has only recently become an accusation levelled at Microsoft - mostly because buggy and unstable no longer apply to their latest OSes.
It is true that MS's total lack of concern about security is more in the spotlight now than when they started off but this is more to do with the fact that almost everyone now connects to networks of some sort or another than fact that XP is almost as stable as Unix was thirty years ago.
MS software today is as buggy and unreliable as it ever was, that's the main cause of the security problems.
I read both the article and your post, and in neither did I find any evidence that Microsoft has "little or no regard to quality control"
That part (ie, the logical step from the article to what common sense should tell you) is down to the collective experience of the world's computer users over the time that MS have been providing them with software. I assume you've not been involved in computers for long (if at all) if you are unaware of the company's policy of releasing before the product is ready and only fixing the worst bugs if it sells. IE is still one of the worst written programs on the market. How long have they had to fix it now?
I've got a friend from Nigeria who'd love to have a chat with you.
I doubt you have any friends at all.
TWW
I'm not using that to attack MS, their record speaks for itself. I was pointing out the dangers of a system crash in general. The logical implication of those dangers is that you should be careful who you get to build the system and not go with a bunch of cowboys like Microsoft.
you characterize Windows as "the worlds most failed OS", when it clearly isn't when you take into consideration the millions of computers out there running Windows in its various implementations - most of which are running quite well, thank you very much.
We asked 100 virus writers about this statement but all they did was laugh. I'd hate to see what you think is a system that doesn't run "quite well"!
but don't attack them as being buggy and crash-prone when you have no evidence whatsoever to back up your claim, other than your anti-MS bias.
Having had to use MS products for most of the 20 years in question I can assure you that there is no bias: they really are crap.
TWW
No, it didn't.
to assume that everything they've produced for the last 20 years is "buggy, unreliable, insecure software"
If I say you have a criminal record that does not imply that your every act is criminal. I said that Microsoft has a 20+ year record of buggy etc. They have made some good mice.
the Dignitary was not traped in his car by a microsoft product.
That's right. Did you actually read either the article or my post? The point is that there are dangers involved in software (or hardware) systems being installed into cars. It is a simple and logical step to state that installing a system from a company with little or no regard to quality control is unwise.
TWW
Which is what it said in the article. So what? Does that suddenly mean that Microsft's 20+ year record of buggy, unreliable, insecure software just vanishes? The lession was not about what system the car was using but what can happen if systems fail on a modern, particularly a modern bullet proof, car. Why would anyone want to risk using the world's most famous failed OS in such circumstances?
TWW
In the last year I have been involved with a company run by a man as dishonest as McBride. He literally stole a dozen computers and all the software and data on them. When the police came he simply lied to them and said they were his.
In addition he has been publishing material writen by and for our company with our copyright notice on every page but with a little sticker over the copyright notice on the first page. When copyright law was invoked he simply lied and said we had given him permission to do this.
The law will eventually grind around to dealing with this but by then he will have declared himself bankrupt (all his assets are in his wife's name) and moved on to his next crime.
What this has shown me is that the law is very ill-equipped to handle someone who, like McBride, is totally dishonest and prepared to say anything with no shame or morallity nor any interest in how it affects other peoples' lives. Quite simply, it takes a lot more time and effort to stop bastards like this than they have to expend to make money this way; their part is easy.
But then, I suppose, if stealing things wasn't easier than getting your own people like McBride wouldn't bother doing it.
TWW
Oh, yeah, that was a leap alright! New splash screen and a different colour scheme. Whoop-de-do.
TWW
No, these movies are advertisements for the DVDs which are in turn advertisements for the Deluxe DVDs, which are in turn advertisements for the Collector's set 3-in-1 DVDs which are in turn an advertisement for the Delux Collector's Set Definitive Edition DVDs.
That's why the movies make no sense: if you want the story as well as the sight of Gandalf and Sauruman break-dancing you have to buy some of the DVDs. (Actually, you'll probably just get more break-dancing).
Someday someone will film LotR and at least try to do it right, but that person won't be a third-rate hack like Jackson.
TWW
Actually, MS hardly ever sue over patents (I can't think of any examples at all but I assume there must be some somewhere).
What MS actually does is add their 10% of crap, badly designed and insecure changes and then it deploys them to 90% of new computers and starts encouraging third-rate programmers everywhere to write applications using that 10% of buggy shit they added.
The result is a "standard" that is only actually obeyed by 10% of personal computers which gradually falls into disuse by mainstream programmers because it becomes associated with the bugs and security issues that MS added.
In other words: this is great news for Macromedia as it means Flash will continue to be the choice for "real" programmers and bad news for Linux as Joe Users go to websites thrown together by the third-rate programmers using MS tools which won't display on Linux systems because those systems obey the standard and not the shitty MS version. Joe User thus continues to think that Linux is not ready for the desktop (funny, I've been using it for four years!) when in fact it is Windows that should be taken off any desktop that doesn't have a full-time security expert on hand to maintain it.
TWW
As a desktop Apple beat everyone. Unfortunately it turned out there was no prize.
TWW
SCO started desparate: no product, no customers, worthess shares. Tzu was right: they did then start lashing out. Now it's time to put the mad dog down.
TWW
Certainly to a deeper understanding but not to the more immediate situation nor the plot as it relates to Frodo et al.
Personally, I think dropping Saruman is rather appropriate.
It's never appropriate to introduce a major character and then just drop them once you're bored with them. The events in the Shire are important to the understanding of Middle Earth and what JRRT was saying about corruption and evil (as well as fate).
TWW
Bombadil is a long way from Saruman in importance to the story, even the mangled version Jackson has cobbled together.
It is, however, typical of his total disinterest in characterisation that he drops a character as soon as they have no major fight scenes left. He also painted himself into a bit of a corner with Saruman with his mis-handling of Lothlorien.
Hire a hack, you'll get hackwork.
TWW
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, of course!
TWW
They can do that if they want, I always install WindowMaker. Even people that come straight from Windows can use it and, here's the big lesson, they prefer it to Windows.
The fact is that Windows (which, let's face it, is the standard that GNOME, KDE, and you are aiming at) is shit, and even the people that are used to it think it's shit.
The bizarre thing is what happens when you try to make the ideal GUI for the masses. By "masses" here I mean the vast majority of computer users that use their machines for and at work.
For them the ideal GUI is a set of buttons that are on screen and when clicked produce the applications they use. That's it. Overlapping windows are nice too although many don't use them.
Watch real users sometimes on Windows: they often don't use explorer, they find files from the file menu of the app they want to use that file with; they don't use many apps and the apps they do use tend to be on all day unless they crash, at which point they get restarted.
WindowMaker is actually far better for these people than Windows!
So, why should we standardise on something that isn't the correct, or even best available, solution?
TWW
It was a good illustration of his inability to grasp characterisation, though: Faramir should have stood as a contrast to Boromir but now we'll just have a dreary parade from Boromir to Faramir to Denethor all basically presenting a negative view of the Gondorians which will make the viewer wonder why anyone would want to save them in the first place.
but taking them to Osgiliath, and then having the Ringwraith almost catch Frodo with the ring
When Frodo said to Sam "This is terrible; we shouldn't be here!" I thought that maybe Jackson was being ironic, because Frodo was right on both counts.
Ah, well. I don't think I'll bother with the third one.
TWW
Since SCO know they have nothing they'll try to keep this out of court for years. Once it arrives in a courtroom, SCO is effectivly over as a company.
TWW
A few; not 38. I did read the whole thing out load once, though, which is quite fun and makes you think about the characters more so that the intonation works.
Have you read the 12 book Histories?
Silmarillion?
Just finished Unfinsihed tales and I'm currently re-reading Silmarillion (or "beware elves bearing oaths"). Of the others, I read as far as Lost Tales 2 but I didn't feel at that point that it was clear how much was doodles that JRRT did not intend to be "true" and which bits were just left out because he didn't get a chance to put them anywhere. UT and Silmarillion are at least quite clearly material that fit into the canon (although the Galadriel stuff is a bit tricky in places) and I'm happy with that.
The main difficulties with the film were characterisation. Visually they have been pretty good and the scenes of Saruman industrialising Orthanc were particularly good (almost made up for the break-dancing with Gandalf). I do wish, however, that the director had done Weathertop the way it was in the book instead of the "Keystone Nazgul" act that he replaced it with. Visually, Weathertop is one of the best scenes in the book (certainly in FotR) and should have been really pretty scary in the film.
One day someone will do it right; I just hope they do it in my lifetime. My second-worst nightmare is that Jackson will tackle the Silmarillion. My worst nightmare is that he'll try to do his own sequal to LotR. He's just the sort of hack that would try it.
TWW
ME, me! Ohh, pick me!
Railroad Tycoon II. Err... that's it. Do O'Reilly books count?
TWW
That's interesting: I didn't know it was QT based (I assumed it was yet-another-toolkit); I might look at it now. Gtk is easier to program but the results are very ugly.
Maybe they should have made a bigger noise about it being QT.
TWW
Oh goodie, XML - the brain-dead-file-format construction kit.
TWW