Let me describe for you most people's experience with QR codes:
1) Launch a special app because QR doesn't seem to be a built in feature of any phone.
No phones implement the described standard either. The point was why we should adopt one over the other.
2) Hold the phone in the right way ensuring there is enough light on the QR code, or to ensure the LED doesn't wash the QR code completely white. Wait for the image to stabilize and focus because phone cameras suck at close range.
Modern phones have autofocus. It's never taken me over a second to scan a QR code. And it doesn't matter if I rotate my phone 45 (or any amount, for that matter).
3) Hit a button to scan, watch a green or red line move across the QR code.
Modern phones have autofocus. I don't press anything on my almost two year old Nokia N9. Just open the app (two touches at most), and point the phone. No rotation, no button-pressing.
4) Watch the phone fail to register the QR code
Can't reproduce that, sorry. Get something from 2011 or later.
You experience sound pretty much like what I remember QR codes being like in 2009. Hardware has evoled, times have changed. The only valid point you make, is the lack of built-in app. (though Nokia provides an official one through their download centre, in my case).
So we both agree that the GPL puts the software and developer second, and the user first. Again, I'm not arguing if that's a good thing or a bad thing, my point was just that.
No, copyleft puts users first, developers second. Software freedom is about the "four freedoms", and they are, as you can see, things the user is free to do.
Being a user and being a developer is in no way mutually exclusive. Developers are, generally, the first users of any software. In any case, why would a non-developer user care about those "freedoms"? It's the devs that are affected.
Secondly, why would a developer ever pick a license that puts HIM second.
1) The FSF criticizes copyright, but that has nothing to do with the fact that "freedom" to take freedoms away isn't a freedom to begin with;
2) FSF criticizing copyright (as it is) doesn't mean that they oppose to any kind of copyright. It is not true that you need "strong copyright laws", but you need some copyright laws (instead of everything being on public domain). More about that here: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/pirate-party-and-free-software
However, MIT/ISC are way close to public domain that the GPL.
"Weeks to buy a house"? Those contracts are usually 3 to 4 pages long, and might quote 2 laws which are less than a single page each. No more than 30 minutes.
Nowadays, I tend to grab my phone and record that. A video of a legal contract is quite hard to dispute. I'm not sure why that's not more common really.
Likewise. I actually refused to sign the boiler plate at a new dentist after I moved. Upon close reading, the forms insisted that I agree to undergo any procedure the dentist thought necessary for the care of my teeth. So, don't want that root canal the dentist says you need? Too bad - you've already agreed to it. So, I crossed out those parts and corrected the language until it was something I was satisfied with. I called it to the attention of the receptionist and said "I don't agree to these terms as is. I have modified it in the following way, as noted on the form." Signed and handed it back. Not a peep out of them - they were as surprised as I was! They likely had no idea that clause was even in their paperwork, probably inserted by an over-zealous lawyer at some point.
I would assume that clause is not there to allow your dentist to force you into a procedure you don't want or need, but to let the dentist change their plan of action during a procedure if something during the procedure warrants the change.
For example, I went in to have an old filling replaced that was showing signs of decay in an x-ray, the dentist warned me ahead of time that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to preserve enough tooth surface to let her do a new 2 surface filling. And sure enough, after she started the procedure, she said that after she removed the old amalgam filling and some decayed areas that there wasn't enough tooth surface support a filling, so she'd need to do a crown instead.
I've been under an extremely similar scenario. The dentist simply removed the tools from inside my mouth, asked me if it was ok, and I replied. Way easier than signing some obscure paper ahead of time.
You do, I do, and a great many more on slashdot do as well. But we're probably the 2% who can read, write and add. The other 98% signs the whole stack without thinking it.
What kept me from using a wacom style tablet before? Well, being able to carry a single device and jot on it in the same way as one would a real clipboard and paper is not possible if you're carrying multiple devices with cables between them. With surface pro, you literally walk around taking notes, snapping photos recording conversations or jotting quick pieces of information as you go, with a device that can do what a real piece of paper can as well all the other cool stuff a laptop can.
You said "especially as a student". Since I'm a student, I replied with the most commonly seen paperless solution. The fact the you couldn't go paperless before if merely because you didn't want to carry a tablet (fits in a notebook bag), and a single cable.
Also, how do you walk around taking notes? I find it extremely hard to use a keyboard walking, be it a notebook, surface, or anything else.
If you've managed to be paperless using a wacom style tablet, then congratulations on being able to, but your job differs from the majority of normal peoples' jobs.
Please elaborate. The keyboard lets me type text, the wacom tablet lets me draw graphs and stuff. What else do these mythical "normal people" do on paper aside from write and draw?
Modern note taking is a technically non-trivial task, especially when you consider that OneNote consolidates free inking functionality, text note taking with a keyboard, importing content from Internet, embedding audio and video notes and makes it all nicely polished. If notepad.exe suffices for your needs, then fine, but I believe I pre-empted the "my use case is simple therefore anything more complex is wrong" argument in my previous post.
I never said notepad was an option, I just stated that OneNote is not. I have 4 PCs, 2 phones and a tablet. None of these devices are capable of running OneNote. Also, I'd have to pay for it as well.
Latex isn't even analogous to a word processor. Do you have any connection to the real work that real people do? Or are you one of those BOFH types who revels in wielding petty power from the dungeon of an office building, only emerging to unjam a printer somewhere?
Nope, that's not even close to what I do. I interoperate with other without any issue, and don't generally get to pick what software we use either.
You say MSO is hard to use after considering Latex to be an alternative product? You're living on bizarro world. Thankfully, I don't live there, which is why we disagree.
So you're saying that people use MS software because it's GOOD SOFTWARE, and not because of marketing or monopolies, etc?
The [L]GPL keeps the software FLOSS, but actually removes freedoms from the user/developer.
Copyleft makes sure that users retain freedoms, including the freedom to hire developers to make the software do what the user wants.
No, copyleft puts software first, and the user second. If that's a good or bad thing is rather subjective though. Personally, I dislike that, but I understand that others think that keep software free is more important the individuals.
Something like the ISC/MIT grant the user more freedom, including the freedom to make the software non-free.
Perhaps the difference is that in the FSF philosophy, the "freedom" to take freedoms away from users isn't a freedom to begin with.
The FSF critizicies copyright, but uses it as a key tool maintain it's goals. Without strong copyright laws, something like GPL is totally impossible.
At the time of the Burning Platforms memo, Samsung had not established its dominance over Android, Nokia had one of the best brand names, it had the largest market share of smartphones (yes, more than Apple at that time).
Had Elop not Osbourned the Symbian phones, he would have had time to transition to Android and could have leveraged its market share to advantage instead of adopting a platform with a history of failure.
Android? Nokia had a great thing going with meego. They just needed a bit more marketing to give it the final push and they could have taken over a huge chunk of Android's current market.
- The XBox line isn't exactly a sidelined product. - Surface Pro is loved by those who use it, and many (including me) think it is a product whose time is only just arriving. It is the closest we've come yet to being able to go truly paperless, especially as a student.
What kept you from using a tablet (wacom-style tablets) before? I've been paperless for ages, and there's no credit for the Surface Pro there.
- OneNote is the best note-taking app on the planet, the only limitation being it's lack of broad device support.
Device, and OS. Actually, how can note-taking be "the best in the planet" when (a) note taking is extremely simple to do right (b) OS and device support is so aweful (c) shareware? REALLY?
- Office 365 with documents stored on Skydrive ROCKS. It is like GDocs, except with more features and not totally sucking. Full real time collaborative edits would be nice, but I'll take the ability to work on and generate.docx /.xlsx files without munging them up any day*.
Let's also not forget that even after decades, Excel and Word are light years ahead of anything else that has attempted to challenge them.
Sure, because word now has better formatting and backwards/forwards compatibility than latex had 2 decades ago.
Sure, I have issues with some of their moves (I'm looking at you, Metro!), but I can't say, as a mature objective person, they anything they've done has totally ballsed things up to the point that I have to go running into the decrepit arms of OpenOffice.
Oh, and before you go off yelling "OMG shillz0r!!" I would like to point out that I have been around here a long, long time. I've earned my stripes. I use Linux daily, admin several servers, have a homebrew NAS running FreeBSD and did my share of M$ bashing. However, berating them as though their products aren't worth anything is just immature. Grow up.
Also, don't be coughing up the old argument "$other product is better than Microsoft's offering because my personal use case fits into its feature set!"
* And yes, the OOXML format is here to stay. It's what the vast majority of businesses use, so get used to it. It'd be nice if ODF was the standard, but then again, try creating ODF files in OpenOffice, editing them in AbiWord and back again a few times. ODF is no better at providing word processor agnosticism than is OOXML, and has the detraction that all the ODF word processors suck royally.
The fact the businesses use it and that it's here to stay don't make it a good product. That's just good marketing. MSO is incredibly immature, and extremely hard to use. Although the same applies to LO and OO really, especially since they're now trying to imitate MSO, instead of thining up something intuitive. People keep using it because they already know how - and because they were taught; not because it's well designed.
I couldn't agree more. I think Nokia is starting to notice that throwing all their R&D out the window wasn't such a good idea - they just lacked marketing!
Not really, poor analogy. A vaccine cures the patient.
The [L]GPL keeps the software FLOSS, but actually removes freedoms from the user/developer. Something like the ISC/MIT grant the user more freedom, including the freedom to make the software non-free.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me describe for you most people's experience with QR codes:
1) Launch a special app because QR doesn't seem to be a built in feature of any phone.
No phones implement the described standard either. The point was why we should adopt one over the other.
2) Hold the phone in the right way ensuring there is enough light on the QR code, or to ensure the LED doesn't wash the QR code completely white. Wait for the image to stabilize and focus because phone cameras suck at close range.
Modern phones have autofocus. It's never taken me over a second to scan a QR code. And it doesn't matter if I rotate my phone 45 (or any amount, for that matter).
3) Hit a button to scan, watch a green or red line move across the QR code.
Modern phones have autofocus. I don't press anything on my almost two year old Nokia N9. Just open the app (two touches at most), and point the phone. No rotation, no button-pressing.
4) Watch the phone fail to register the QR code
Can't reproduce that, sorry. Get something from 2011 or later.
You experience sound pretty much like what I remember QR codes being like in 2009. Hardware has evoled, times have changed. The only valid point you make, is the lack of built-in app. (though Nokia provides an official one through their download centre, in my case).
If you're already using Android,it's unlikely thay you're giving access to more private information by using this.
What else would you ask for? You can send a validation SMS, and most Android users use gmail, so a token via email is useless too.
So we both agree that the GPL puts the software and developer second, and the user first.
Again, I'm not arguing if that's a good thing or a bad thing, my point was just that.
Most modern smartphoen cost about that, unless you sign some two year contract, where you end up paying it gradually over two years.
Why didn't you try with an image viewer instead of a browser? The results are usually WAY better.
So how do you email a contact that you have on your phone with your laptop? Do you turn to your iPhone and type the email there?
I'm pretty sure the TOS you agreed to pretty much covers that.
No, copyleft puts users first, developers second. Software freedom is about the "four freedoms", and they are, as you can see, things the user is free to do.
Being a user and being a developer is in no way mutually exclusive. Developers are, generally, the first users of any software.
In any case, why would a non-developer user care about those "freedoms"? It's the devs that are affected.
Secondly, why would a developer ever pick a license that puts HIM second.
1) The FSF criticizes copyright, but that has nothing to do with the fact that "freedom" to take freedoms away isn't a freedom to begin with;
2) FSF criticizing copyright (as it is) doesn't mean that they oppose to any kind of copyright. It is not true that you need "strong copyright laws", but you need some copyright laws (instead of everything being on public domain). More about that here: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/pirate-party-and-free-software
However, MIT/ISC are way close to public domain that the GPL.
"Weeks to buy a house"? Those contracts are usually 3 to 4 pages long, and might quote 2 laws which are less than a single page each. No more than 30 minutes.
Nowadays, I tend to grab my phone and record that. A video of a legal contract is quite hard to dispute. I'm not sure why that's not more common really.
Likewise. I actually refused to sign the boiler plate at a new dentist after I moved. Upon close reading, the forms insisted that I agree to undergo any procedure the dentist thought necessary for the care of my teeth. So, don't want that root canal the dentist says you need? Too bad - you've already agreed to it. So, I crossed out those parts and corrected the language until it was something I was satisfied with. I called it to the attention of the receptionist and said "I don't agree to these terms as is. I have modified it in the following way, as noted on the form." Signed and handed it back. Not a peep out of them - they were as surprised as I was! They likely had no idea that clause was even in their paperwork, probably inserted by an over-zealous lawyer at some point.
I would assume that clause is not there to allow your dentist to force you into a procedure you don't want or need, but to let the dentist change their plan of action during a procedure if something during the procedure warrants the change.
For example, I went in to have an old filling replaced that was showing signs of decay in an x-ray, the dentist warned me ahead of time that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to preserve enough tooth surface to let her do a new 2 surface filling. And sure enough, after she started the procedure, she said that after she removed the old amalgam filling and some decayed areas that there wasn't enough tooth surface support a filling, so she'd need to do a crown instead.
I've been under an extremely similar scenario. The dentist simply removed the tools from inside my mouth, asked me if it was ok, and I replied. Way easier than signing some obscure paper ahead of time.
You do, I do, and a great many more on slashdot do as well. But we're probably the 2% who can read, write and add. The other 98% signs the whole stack without thinking it.
Without strong copyright laws, something like GPL is totally impossible.
Without software copyright, anybody can obtain a copy of a proprietary program and lawfully disassemble, document, and distribute it.
Exactly. With the GPL, the same does not apply. There are a lot of usage restrictions.
A single user's password is privacy.
Algorithmic comparison amongst 70M passwords is statistics. Quite a difference there.
The paper in question is available here in case anybody is interested why the NSA granted him the award.
It's been proven to last up to three shots in europe, and about twenty is asia.
So if I buy a crappy monitor, I need to assemble my own monitors en able to criticise? The same with a car, wine, etc?
What kept me from using a wacom style tablet before? Well, being able to carry a single device and jot on it in the same way as one would a real clipboard and paper is not possible if you're carrying multiple devices with cables between them. With surface pro, you literally walk around taking notes, snapping photos recording conversations or jotting quick pieces of information as you go, with a device that can do what a real piece of paper can as well all the other cool stuff a laptop can.
You said "especially as a student". Since I'm a student, I replied with the most commonly seen paperless solution. The fact the you couldn't go paperless before if merely because you didn't want to carry a tablet (fits in a notebook bag), and a single cable.
Also, how do you walk around taking notes? I find it extremely hard to use a keyboard walking, be it a notebook, surface, or anything else.
If you've managed to be paperless using a wacom style tablet, then congratulations on being able to, but your job differs from the majority of normal peoples' jobs.
Please elaborate. The keyboard lets me type text, the wacom tablet lets me draw graphs and stuff. What else do these mythical "normal people" do on paper aside from write and draw?
Modern note taking is a technically non-trivial task, especially when you consider that OneNote consolidates free inking functionality, text note taking with a keyboard, importing content from Internet, embedding audio and video notes and makes it all nicely polished. If notepad.exe suffices for your needs, then fine, but I believe I pre-empted the "my use case is simple therefore anything more complex is wrong" argument in my previous post.
I never said notepad was an option, I just stated that OneNote is not. I have 4 PCs, 2 phones and a tablet. None of these devices are capable of running OneNote. Also, I'd have to pay for it as well.
Latex isn't even analogous to a word processor. Do you have any connection to the real work that real people do? Or are you one of those BOFH types who revels in wielding petty power from the dungeon of an office building, only emerging to unjam a printer somewhere?
Nope, that's not even close to what I do. I interoperate with other without any issue, and don't generally get to pick what software we use either.
You say MSO is hard to use after considering Latex to be an alternative product? You're living on bizarro world. Thankfully, I don't live there, which is why we disagree.
So you're saying that people use MS software because it's GOOD SOFTWARE, and not because of marketing or monopolies, etc?
Meego was killed by Nokia in favour of WP.
Jolla seems to be pre-selling meego-derived phones without any issues.
Also, if you're wondering about the benefits of free software, there's plenty of sources out there, nobody's going to explain that to you on slashdot.
The [L]GPL keeps the software FLOSS, but actually removes freedoms from the user/developer.
Copyleft makes sure that users retain freedoms, including the freedom to hire developers to make the software do what the user wants.
No, copyleft puts software first, and the user second. If that's a good or bad thing is rather subjective though. Personally, I dislike that, but I understand that others think that keep software free is more important the individuals.
Something like the ISC/MIT grant the user more freedom, including the freedom to make the software non-free.
Perhaps the difference is that in the FSF philosophy, the "freedom" to take freedoms away from users isn't a freedom to begin with.
The FSF critizicies copyright, but uses it as a key tool maintain it's goals. Without strong copyright laws, something like GPL is totally impossible.
Except that Nokia could have dominated Android.
At the time of the Burning Platforms memo, Samsung had not established its dominance over Android, Nokia had one of the best brand names, it had the largest market share of smartphones (yes, more than Apple at that time).
Had Elop not Osbourned the Symbian phones, he would have had time to transition to Android and could have leveraged its market share to advantage instead of adopting a platform with a history of failure.
Android? Nokia had a great thing going with meego. They just needed a bit more marketing to give it the final push and they could have taken over a huge chunk of Android's current market.
- The XBox line isn't exactly a sidelined product.
- Surface Pro is loved by those who use it, and many (including me) think it is a product whose time is only just arriving. It is the closest we've come yet to being able to go truly paperless, especially as a student.
What kept you from using a tablet (wacom-style tablets) before? I've been paperless for ages, and there's no credit for the Surface Pro there.
- OneNote is the best note-taking app on the planet, the only limitation being it's lack of broad device support.
Device, and OS. Actually, how can note-taking be "the best in the planet" when (a) note taking is extremely simple to do right (b) OS and device support is so aweful (c) shareware? REALLY?
- Office 365 with documents stored on Skydrive ROCKS. It is like GDocs, except with more features and not totally sucking. Full real time collaborative edits would be nice, but I'll take the ability to work on and generate .docx / .xlsx files without munging them up any day*.
Let's also not forget that even after decades, Excel and Word are light years ahead of anything else that has attempted to challenge them.
Sure, because word now has better formatting and backwards/forwards compatibility than latex had 2 decades ago.
Sure, I have issues with some of their moves (I'm looking at you, Metro!), but I can't say, as a mature objective person, they anything they've done has totally ballsed things up to the point that I have to go running into the decrepit arms of OpenOffice.
Oh, and before you go off yelling "OMG shillz0r!!" I would like to point out that I have been around here a long, long time. I've earned my stripes. I use Linux daily, admin several servers, have a homebrew NAS running FreeBSD and did my share of M$ bashing. However, berating them as though their products aren't worth anything is just immature. Grow up.
Also, don't be coughing up the old argument "$other product is better than Microsoft's offering because my personal use case fits into its feature set!"
* And yes, the OOXML format is here to stay. It's what the vast majority of businesses use, so get used to it. It'd be nice if ODF was the standard, but then again, try creating ODF files in OpenOffice, editing them in AbiWord and back again a few times. ODF is no better at providing word processor agnosticism than is OOXML, and has the detraction that all the ODF word processors suck royally.
The fact the businesses use it and that it's here to stay don't make it a good product. That's just good marketing.
MSO is incredibly immature, and extremely hard to use. Although the same applies to LO and OO really, especially since they're now trying to imitate MSO, instead of thining up something intuitive.
People keep using it because they already know how - and because they were taught; not because it's well designed.
I couldn't agree more.
I think Nokia is starting to notice that throwing all their R&D out the window wasn't such a good idea - they just lacked marketing!
Not really, poor analogy. A vaccine cures the patient.
The [L]GPL keeps the software FLOSS, but actually removes freedoms from the user/developer.
Something like the ISC/MIT grant the user more freedom, including the freedom to make the software non-free.