I believe it's voluntary though, isn't it? I signed up months ago, but I still get woken up in the middle of the night by text messages trying to sell me ringtones and online dating services. And to respond you either have to write to an anonymous PO Box or dial a 1.50/min 0906 number. Fuck that. We need a proper 'leave me the hell alone' registry, propped up by something more than the Data Protection Act. Come on, Brussels has done so many anti-business things (some of which I agree with) that surely they can manage this?
It's just trying to get the street cred it craves. It's important to make sure it doesn't get it.
Thankfully, Microsoft's success in having become 'the establishment' will make it very hard for them to acquire street cred. That sort of perception tends to attach to rebels, free-thinkers and high performers, not monolithic institutions. While it's true that MS itself has shown breathtaking contempt for the law, using their software is not going to make you a rebel without a cause; it's going to make you a sheep without an alternative.
Photoshop as a tool is completely mature. It has been for quite a while now. For many people that use it, there is no reason to upgrade.
Agreed, but - and I know this doesn't actually contradict your point in any way - Illustrator still has a way to go. There are loads of things I wish I could do in Illustrator. Just straight off the top of my head, I wish I could: apply layer effects in the same way as Photoshop; automatically trace around bitmaps in a remotely intelligent way; apply spherical gradients without having to screw around with meshes; slice items in two by extending a line across them; press a key to select the point directly above or below the selected one; create a wider range of more complex graphs and charts; fill vector objects with bitmaps; click in a contiguous area of colour to make a new object that shape (God that would be bliss)... the list goes on and on.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I adore the program to bits. But there's so much that could be improved. When you use Photoshop you get the idea that the people who designed it really do do serious print production and know what you need to do the job efficiently and effectively. With Illustrator sometimes you're left wondering whether the designers are really just programmers trying to guess what graphic designers want. The new 3D effects stuff looks promising, but I think there were rather more pressing improvements that could have been made.
*lol* Big up to you, sir. I wouldn't normally call myself a subnormal intellect, but I admit I did foolishly allow myself to believe what I'd read on Slashdot, rather than bother downloading and installing the official client to check it. And actually I'm doing it again, because I still haven't bothered, so for all I know you could be trolling. But hey.:)
My guess is that they concluded that, since Linux has such a tiny market share on the desktop, it probably wasn't worth marketing - which allowed them to write a simpler IM client. But while they can afford to let this 2% or whatever (probably an immense overestimate) of their users use the network for free, third party Windows clients have the potential to make far, far larger inroads into their revenue. So... well, you see where I'm going with this.
So, there's 50 users that Yahoo! lost, how many more times will this scenario be duplicated across the planet?
Yes, but if these people are using Trillian, they weren't the sort of users Yahoo! wants anyway. They were using the service, but not generating any revenue to pay for it (principally by not looking at ads). Of course, Trillian users boosted Y!'s market share, and their presence made it a more attractive choice to new users, some of whom would use the official client, see the ads and generate revenue. But Y! seems to have concluded that letting Trillian users use their network for free doesn't attract enough new users of the official client to be cost-effective; so why would they encourage it?
I think Y! know exactly what they're doing. Depending on your long-term strategy, it can be better to have forty thousand customers making you a tiny profit than forty million who cost you money.
Seems to me they're teaching kids that copyright violation is frustrating to those who hold the copyright. Which is a valid enough thing for them to learn: I wouldn't want kids to grow up thinking copyright violation was victimless. Having said that, I'm comfortable ripping off the RIAA, just as I'm comfortable committing affray against some idiot who pisses me off. But IMO it's important to realise that when you do things like that you are crossing a line.
Remember kids, CDs do not just cleanly break into 2 pieces......
Actually, they often do. Now CD-RWs, on the other hand, shatter like you wouldn't believe. God, I nearly blinded someone on the other side of the office first time I tried that. I was expecting it to just bend and snap like a normal CD, but nope. That's some brittle shit right there.
Nothing that ONLY works on BeOS, but applications always seemed a lot more responsive and stable under BeOS than anything else I'd used (except the Amiga). This gave me very good feelings about it, and made me want it to be my platform for multimedia applications.
If you ask me, BeOS has the potential to become what a lot of people want Linux to be - a free, open, stable desktop environment (well, if not BeOS then OpenBeOS). Seriously, it stomps all over Windows in terms of efficiency and versatility, but it doesn't impose any of the complexities of running a Linux box on the end user (though they're there if you want them). As I've said elsewhere in this story - it's what MacOS X should have been.
So if it could only get some damn marketshare it would absolutely the ideal OS for running productivity software (it was originally marketed as a "media OS", whatever that means). It just seems to handle resources so much more cleanly than anything else I've used. There's a demo where a 3D teapot spins around in a window on the desktop, and you can just keep on opening them till your desktop is full of these lovely 3D things moving around in real time, and damned if I can get any of them to even stutter, no matter what else I do. Try that with Windows some time.
So I would LOVE BeOS to be my platform for graphics and for digital audio. If only...
Anyway, to answer your question: it's still coming along, slowly but surely. They're releasing updated components (most recently new versions of the tracker and the audio mixer). There was a newsletter a fortnight ago.
I don't know how usable OBOS is though. They don't seem to say on their site, and I really can't be bothered with installing it until it runs Photoshop.;)
It has a single, consistent GUI? Counts for a lot if you want to make it on the desktop. Not, of course, that BeOS is going to do that any time soon. Which is a DAMN SHAME if you ask me, because it's the only OS I've ever used that actually made my Athlon 2400+ feel significantly faster than my old 14MHz A1200.
Woo hoo. If only they hadn't discontinued the PPC edition, we could have run this on our AmigaONE boards.
Which may sound like a troll, but actually I'd love that. BeOS is everything I used to love about AmigaOS, and loads more besides. Seriously, if anyone out there hasn't tried it, I really do urge you to give it a whirl. It's (IMO) what MacOS X should have been.
Dude - good argument, but let down a bit by your stats.
50 million is actually rather less than the 105,405,100 people who voted in the last Presidential election. Both Bush and Gore received more than 50 million votes, though by relatively slim margins.
And there aren't 200 million people in the US - there are nigh on 300 million.
IMO, the fact that that other country would see it as a threat is precisely why we need one - my personal perception being that that other country doesn't listen to foreign arguments unless they're backed up with force...
I don't remember the EU ever "crowing" like that. Certainly not as an institution, though in a polity of some 380 million people I'm sure you'll find idiots who'll say anything.
Anyway, we Brits at least have been badly represented in the EU since we joined it (actually, we as a nation never agreed to join it - we voted to join the European Economic Community, and successive governments have just gradually ceded more and more powers to it). It's no great secret that this happens, nor is it a surprise any more; and developments like the proposed new EU constitution and Sweden's vote against joining the euro are gradually permeating the consciousnesses of even the less politically aware. Not many of us would call the EU "the real democracy" by comparison with our own nation or any other.
I'd also observe that, by a democratic reckoning, the EU already is "just as powerful as the US" - there are more citizens of the EU than of the US, and EU nations hold more votes at the UN. Of course, G.W. Bush doesn't recognise the authority of the UN, relying on America's economic and military superiority rather than international agreement to "authorise" its global actions. But its hegemony won't last forever, and whoever's President then won't have much choice.
[And yes, I'm fully aware that Tony Blair is far from blameless on that front. I'll vote against him, like I'd vote against Bush if only I could.]
Slashdot Mirror
Your name is a Radiohead allusion, and I claim my 5.
I'm a Mac user. This rules out the "cheap" theory.
But you have to admit he was bang on with the 'not much of a man' theory.
I'm joking! I'm joking!
I believe it's voluntary though, isn't it? I signed up months ago, but I still get woken up in the middle of the night by text messages trying to sell me ringtones and online dating services. And to respond you either have to write to an anonymous PO Box or dial a 1.50/min 0906 number. Fuck that. We need a proper 'leave me the hell alone' registry, propped up by something more than the Data Protection Act. Come on, Brussels has done so many anti-business things (some of which I agree with) that surely they can manage this?
Ask Alanis Morrisette.
It's just trying to get the street cred it craves. It's important to make sure it doesn't get it.
Thankfully, Microsoft's success in having become 'the establishment' will make it very hard for them to acquire street cred. That sort of perception tends to attach to rebels, free-thinkers and high performers, not monolithic institutions. While it's true that MS itself has shown breathtaking contempt for the law, using their software is not going to make you a rebel without a cause; it's going to make you a sheep without an alternative.
And not only did you read i6...
I'm used to people on Slashdot saying they prefer k5, but this just sounds like one-upmanship...
Photoshop as a tool is completely mature. It has been for quite a while now. For many people that use it, there is no reason to upgrade.
Agreed, but - and I know this doesn't actually contradict your point in any way - Illustrator still has a way to go. There are loads of things I wish I could do in Illustrator. Just straight off the top of my head, I wish I could: apply layer effects in the same way as Photoshop; automatically trace around bitmaps in a remotely intelligent way; apply spherical gradients without having to screw around with meshes; slice items in two by extending a line across them; press a key to select the point directly above or below the selected one; create a wider range of more complex graphs and charts; fill vector objects with bitmaps; click in a contiguous area of colour to make a new object that shape (God that would be bliss)... the list goes on and on.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I adore the program to bits. But there's so much that could be improved. When you use Photoshop you get the idea that the people who designed it really do do serious print production and know what you need to do the job efficiently and effectively. With Illustrator sometimes you're left wondering whether the designers are really just programmers trying to guess what graphic designers want. The new 3D effects stuff looks promising, but I think there were rather more pressing improvements that could have been made.
(IAAGD)
Clearly they should call it the quintium.
*lol* Big up to you, sir. I wouldn't normally call myself a subnormal intellect, but I admit I did foolishly allow myself to believe what I'd read on Slashdot, rather than bother downloading and installing the official client to check it. And actually I'm doing it again, because I still haven't bothered, so for all I know you could be trolling. But hey. :)
Nine [computers] bound together with a super fast connection?
Perhaps he was imagining a Beowulf cluster of those.
My guess is that they concluded that, since Linux has such a tiny market share on the desktop, it probably wasn't worth marketing - which allowed them to write a simpler IM client. But while they can afford to let this 2% or whatever (probably an immense overestimate) of their users use the network for free, third party Windows clients have the potential to make far, far larger inroads into their revenue. So... well, you see where I'm going with this.
So, there's 50 users that Yahoo! lost, how many more times will this scenario be duplicated across the planet?
Yes, but if these people are using Trillian, they weren't the sort of users Yahoo! wants anyway. They were using the service, but not generating any revenue to pay for it (principally by not looking at ads). Of course, Trillian users boosted Y!'s market share, and their presence made it a more attractive choice to new users, some of whom would use the official client, see the ads and generate revenue. But Y! seems to have concluded that letting Trillian users use their network for free doesn't attract enough new users of the official client to be cost-effective; so why would they encourage it?
I think Y! know exactly what they're doing. Depending on your long-term strategy, it can be better to have forty thousand customers making you a tiny profit than forty million who cost you money.
I think it's fitting to have the protest on their own site!
You do? You don't think it rather weakens your campaign for free stuff from Yahoo to have it hosted for free by Yahoo?
Having the Doctor get involved with his companions would probably screw the plots up something awful
I'll say! Remember the last time it happened??
There's no stealing involved!
Seems to me they're teaching kids that copyright violation is frustrating to those who hold the copyright. Which is a valid enough thing for them to learn: I wouldn't want kids to grow up thinking copyright violation was victimless. Having said that, I'm comfortable ripping off the RIAA, just as I'm comfortable committing affray against some idiot who pisses me off. But IMO it's important to realise that when you do things like that you are crossing a line.
Those who would sacrifice a small amount of quality for a "free" MP3 file deserve neither.
Remember kids, CDs do not just cleanly break into 2 pieces......
Actually, they often do. Now CD-RWs, on the other hand, shatter like you wouldn't believe. God, I nearly blinded someone on the other side of the office first time I tried that. I was expecting it to just bend and snap like a normal CD, but nope. That's some brittle shit right there.
Nothing that ONLY works on BeOS, but applications always seemed a lot more responsive and stable under BeOS than anything else I'd used (except the Amiga). This gave me very good feelings about it, and made me want it to be my platform for multimedia applications.
If you ask me, BeOS has the potential to become what a lot of people want Linux to be - a free, open, stable desktop environment (well, if not BeOS then OpenBeOS). Seriously, it stomps all over Windows in terms of efficiency and versatility, but it doesn't impose any of the complexities of running a Linux box on the end user (though they're there if you want them). As I've said elsewhere in this story - it's what MacOS X should have been.
So if it could only get some damn marketshare it would absolutely the ideal OS for running productivity software (it was originally marketed as a "media OS", whatever that means). It just seems to handle resources so much more cleanly than anything else I've used. There's a demo where a 3D teapot spins around in a window on the desktop, and you can just keep on opening them till your desktop is full of these lovely 3D things moving around in real time, and damned if I can get any of them to even stutter, no matter what else I do. Try that with Windows some time.
So I would LOVE BeOS to be my platform for graphics and for digital audio. If only...
Dude, the answer's right here!
;)
Anyway, to answer your question: it's still coming along, slowly but surely. They're releasing updated components (most recently new versions of the tracker and the audio mixer). There was a newsletter a fortnight ago.
I don't know how usable OBOS is though. They don't seem to say on their site, and I really can't be bothered with installing it until it runs Photoshop.
It has a single, consistent GUI? Counts for a lot if you want to make it on the desktop. Not, of course, that BeOS is going to do that any time soon. Which is a DAMN SHAME if you ask me, because it's the only OS I've ever used that actually made my Athlon 2400+ feel significantly faster than my old 14MHz A1200.
Woo hoo. If only they hadn't discontinued the PPC edition, we could have run this on our AmigaONE boards.
Which may sound like a troll, but actually I'd love that. BeOS is everything I used to love about AmigaOS, and loads more besides. Seriously, if anyone out there hasn't tried it, I really do urge you to give it a whirl. It's (IMO) what MacOS X should have been.
(No apps, of course. Ho hum.)
Dude - good argument, but let down a bit by your stats.
50 million is actually rather less than the 105,405,100 people who voted in the last Presidential election. Both Bush and Gore received more than 50 million votes, though by relatively slim margins.
And there aren't 200 million people in the US - there are nigh on 300 million.
IMO, the fact that that other country would see it as a threat is precisely why we need one - my personal perception being that that other country doesn't listen to foreign arguments unless they're backed up with force...
I don't remember the EU ever "crowing" like that. Certainly not as an institution, though in a polity of some 380 million people I'm sure you'll find idiots who'll say anything.
Anyway, we Brits at least have been badly represented in the EU since we joined it (actually, we as a nation never agreed to join it - we voted to join the European Economic Community, and successive governments have just gradually ceded more and more powers to it). It's no great secret that this happens, nor is it a surprise any more; and developments like the proposed new EU constitution and Sweden's vote against joining the euro are gradually permeating the consciousnesses of even the less politically aware. Not many of us would call the EU "the real democracy" by comparison with our own nation or any other.
I'd also observe that, by a democratic reckoning, the EU already is "just as powerful as the US" - there are more citizens of the EU than of the US, and EU nations hold more votes at the UN. Of course, G.W. Bush doesn't recognise the authority of the UN, relying on America's economic and military superiority rather than international agreement to "authorise" its global actions. But its hegemony won't last forever, and whoever's President then won't have much choice.
[And yes, I'm fully aware that Tony Blair is far from blameless on that front. I'll vote against him, like I'd vote against Bush if only I could.]