I read them, and was consistantly dissapointed by the triumph of carictature over character.... Am I being unfair to a set of "children's books?"
Yes, you are. The Harry Potter series is a modern-day fairy tale whose only plausible social effect is to make more children enjoy reading.
You are being far too hard on Rowling. Everyone's a carictature, we're just MORE than that. You and I are/. geeks, so we act a certain way--but we also act other ways, as well. But if someone could only see me when I post on/., they'd have a mere two-diensional take on who and what I am.
Real characters in fiction only show up with the passage of time and real events--and the only possibilities for real characters in Rowling's work are Harry Potter and his immediate friends and teachers, who show up in greater detail throughout each book.
I've been an avid reader of fantasy since I was about 12, and I have yet to find a book that, by itself, changed my life. The books help shape my imagination and help me cultivate the aspects of myself that I like--but they're doubly passive members in my growth, because if the books didn't have something that appealed to me, i wouldn't read them like I do.
Harry Potter probably isn't "Great" children's fiction or even adult fiction--but that's all the better. It's entertaining, enjoyable, and not offensive in the least. In short, as Stephen King put it, "They're fun books."
I think the superficiality of the slashdot crowd is apparent with the Harry Potter phenomenon. There a million slashdot readers that are all slobering to be the first to prove their Alpha Geekness by insulting N'Sync or Brittany Spears when the chance comes up. But when it comes time to prove that they have some taste that goes beyond the shit the Hollywood media culture is feeding them, they lap it all up like everyone else.
Ah, but here you are betraying yourself in your own post. Hollywood is a place where movies with budgets get made--it's neither a home of all-quality movies, nor is it a place from whence quality never comes. For every three artificial stars we see from RIAA or MPAA, there's at least one who's worth listening to.
What gives them the right to prepackage their PocketPC software on other companies' phones? It's absolutely dispicable.
MS doesn't. They have salespeople who go to the mobile phone folks, and conivnce them to buy the MS PocketPC stuff.
Phone/PDA combos are a fairly natural synergy (how many high-power computing devices do you REALLY need in your pocket?), and MS moving PocketPC over to the phone makes sense.
But, really, I don't see how they have a monopoly. Palm still licenses Palm OS, and it competes with PocketPC in just about every area PocketPC is in. It's not like Macintosh, where Macs are to "PCs" like motorcycles are to cars; most of the functionality of a PDA (or a phone) is built right in, and neither MS or Palm are selling their own phones. (Palm is even running their OS divison as a seperate company)
Maybe the editor wanted to write 4*10e6 (4 * 1'000'000) or (4e6)e2 (2'048 * 2'048 ~= 4'000'000), but, damn, he's an editor, not a mathematician nor a true nerd - he'd have learned the scientific notation way before starting to write on a website.
Sheesh.
The editior didn't write that part, the submitter did.
Plus, scientific notation is almost a worthless custom. In any scale that we work in, we (as humans, not just geeks) create new measurements when our old ones become too cumbersome to use anymore.
Oh, I'm sure that it has its place--but it's hardly the most intuitive thing ever thought up by science...
Besides while the US may not have a National ID, it does have a unique identifier for everyone, the SSN#, and each State does require an ID that must be presented to law enforcement on demand or to receive any services from that state. National ID in the US would be redundan
You can hide your SSN from anyone who doesn't need it for its original purpose--pick a random number if they just want it for ID purposes.
In NYS, you don't need to carry your driver's license--you just need to identify yourself. To gain state services, a driver's license is just the most convenient method, as you've allready identified yourself to the body you're dealing with. You could choose not to, and just carry sufficient redundant identifications if you like... (I think a credit card in your name and six bills in your name at your address will work... it's been awhile.)
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Sheesh. There's a difference between national ID cards and bar-code tattoos. And I haven't heard any real issues that would arise from folks not carrying their ID cards, aside from maybe not getting on an airline--but wait, you need a passport to leave the country anyway...
Solomon brought plauges upon his country because he took a bloody census, but that doesn't stop us from doing it every ten years. And I think that there's a city somewhere named Babylon that doesn't get attacked by all of christendom...
In short, there's nothing contradcitory about Christians who think National IDs are a good idea. It fits in with the whole "what is whispered in the shadows shall be shouted from rooftops" kind of thing.
The biggest reason is, of course, Office--OpenOffice still doesn't handle emdashes, which means it's not worth the time to learn for me yet.
Ease of setup is the other big one--I don't want my computer to ever expect me to go into a command line to set something, and I don't have a desire to learn UNIX commands just to use my overgrown typewriter.
(That reminds me--gotta give Linux its fair chance this weekend, which means no writing in Windows for me... I'll post a journal to let y'all know if it works out bearably.)
Companies may be bitching and moaning about the cost of the new licensing system for it, but not many of them are actually switching to Word Perfect or OpenOffice/StarOffice.
That's beacause, for various reasons, it still doesn't work as well as just staying with what they have.
OO/SO/WP need to be better than Microsoft Office to beat MS--disregarding the low cost or "Freedom" associated with it. "As Good as" and "workable" won't get mass converts.
Spyware, a contemporary of "adware" or "freeware" and a derivitive of "shareware", is "software that you pay for, in whole or in part, by being spied upon."
Programs downloaded as part of a web site that spy on you can be called spyware, even though what you get is a website, not a program.
I believe the correct word for "all programs forced on you" is "trojan." Feel free to come up with a new one if it doesn't fit, but please don't co-opt "spyware" to mean something that it doesn't.
I'm still undecidied if the parent is a liar or a real fanatic, Ferniscowles.
That "secret Catholic password" might be the tip over into the "false catholic" catagory--or he might just be referring to a part of the ceremony that's not on the handouts.
Re:Change their minds?
on
Film Gimp
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Unfortunetly as history has shown, profits (or should I say more profits) will win out over anything else.
Every for-profit corporation is designed to only care about profits. Nothing else matters--unless you can phrase it in profitability terms.
Ideas like "Long Term Investment" and "Goodwill" are how one expressed the value of OSS to accountants.
Lets see, things Linux has that they didn't copy from MS:
That's not the question. The question is, what did OSS come up with on their own?
You might be spot-on with Virtual Memory, Memory protection, or preemtive multitasking--but I doubt it. GUIs and POSIX aren't OSS creations etiher--GUIs were an Apple / Xerox idea, and POSIX, IIRC, was a gov't / industry standard in the pre-OSS UNIX days.
BAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH Name me one innovation that MS has ever had that ISN'T a copy of someone else's innovation.
Please go find yourself a dictionary. "Invent" and "innovate" are not synonyms.
I'm unaware of anyone else who devised something like MS's HTML extensions for round trip adaptability. The series of tags, allowing MS files to preserve info that HTML doesn't support, strike me as a rather innovative use of the standard.
(And, yes, not having an easy way to leave those tags out--or MS's bloated CSS--is a pain, but we're talking innovations, not quality of implementation.)
Heh. I challenge YOU to name a single M$ innovation.
Smart Tags and the office assistant.
Every single thing that M$ releases is a copy of someone else's innovation. M$ either copies it, buys out the innovator and includes their innovation into M$ (after ensuring that it is polluted with unneeded addons to ensure that it will only work with M$ OSes).
Please, get the language straight. Inventors make inventions. People who take inventions and find new ways to use them (or just adapt them) are innovators.
Linux cannot be slammed for cloning or reverse engineering M$ non-innovations because this allows users otherwise locked-in to buggy, security-flawed, overpriced oses to use a free, stable, and more secure alternative. It is working too as the userbase of linux is climbing rapidly while that of M$ is essentially flat. They are not only saturated in the market, they are killing themselves off with DRM, draconian licensing nonsense, etc. Perhaps this is what you consider an M$ innovation?
I didn't say Microsoft. I said closed-source shops. There are more than just MS, y'know--most of the inventive companies that MS bought with their large cash flow were closed-source shops.
You still didn't answer the question, btw. Name me one useful invention / innovation done by OSS in the past fifteen years (since 1987), preferrably one done recently that I can take home and use tonight.
None of those is a technical "innovation." The first is simply a relfection of OSS's "better quality" nature; the second is the root idea of OSS that stretches back quite a ways--and is worthless in day-to-day use for non-OS coders--and the third is just a marketing blip (MS could give away Windows to home users if they wanted to and still make profits.)
Doesn't improve how I use my PC one bit, thank you very much. Even if Linux copied everything that MS did, down to the smallest innovation and setup, it wouldn't be innovation--even if it could be turned on in half a second and crashed less than my Sony Clie.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Is it possible that MS is starting to lose control of it's own software? Maybe we are seeing the boundaries of what can be accomplished in a restrictive, closed source development environment.
Kindly name me one major innovation from the past ten years that I can take home to my Linux install that isn't a copy of a MS innovation.
OSS definitly gets better qualitity--but I have yet to see an example or hear a theory that gives OSS an innovative edge over closed-source.
So, does the new licensing plan allow them to basically, delay new technologies? It seems that, with their latest scheme, it reduces their motivation to release newer/better products.
You think that removing MS's "release it now" catch is a BAD thing?
Whatever happened to "it's done when it's done"?
Re:Encryption and compression make a lot of sense.
on
PKWare Zips to Growth
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· Score: 2
These programs are essentailly filters and the most logical and flexible way to provide them is as seperate entities.
Your argument could work for spellcheckers and word processors--but they still get bundled because they're used together.
Whenever a set of programs is commonly used together for the same task (create a file, move a file, etc.), a consolodation should at least be attempted.
I for one hate having to make WAVs before I can make OGGs. If the only way to have encryptied archives was to ZIP and then Archive them, I probably wouldn't do it.
That's why movies made in the 80's are considerably better than movies made today.
Come again?
Star Wars wasn't made in the 80s--and what made it great was the groundbreaking FX that held up the suspension of disbelief all good fantasys require, even with Lucas's script and plot.
Movies made very recently--most notably IMO, Spider-Man--beneft from even better FX, as well as (in many cases) better stories.
Some of the best movies ever made are being made as we chat on/. Some of the best stories are centuries old, and stories from the 80s may very well be, on average, better--but they're not better moves.
As for Dune... it still strikes me as an agnostic science fiction writer trying to be spiritual, and failing. Star Wars does "mystic warrior" better by not even trying.
I think Dune is one of the works that shaped my beleif about what differentiates fantasy and scifi. In Fantasy, it doesn't matter what your stories aboubt as much as how you tell it. In scifi, it doesn't matter how crappy your writing is, as long as you've got some new ideas.
If only we were taught the truth about things then we would have more faith in our teachers.
Reforming the school system so everyone tells the truth would require a massive overhaul.
In 1st grade I was told "you can't subtact a larger number from a smaller one." Similar necessary inconsitencies show up throughout my (long over) public education.
An alleged misconduct of Poe has little if any bearing on the Raven--just like it's irrelevant to a HS reading of Romeo_and_Juliet if Shakesphere was or was not romantically influenced.
Get into advanced courses, where the basics are done--then it's good to talk about what could or could not be. Until then, just smile and enjoy the class.
Why? If someone else can offer the same songs for cheaper, you're doing business wrong.
Hardly.
After I, as a hypothetical music label, pay money to get a song "just right" with the artist, possibly give the artist an advance that may or may not be earned back, and spend money promoting the songs on music, print, and other media, I deserve to have a fair chance to recoup my costs.
If the artist can step in to a market the label has advertised in, and sell the exact same thing for less & with no $ going to the label, the label gets shafted into holding the bag for the promotion costs.
I can undercut Microsoft on Windows real cheap, not having to pay for development or advertising or anything....
Slashdot Mirror
I read them, and was consistantly dissapointed by the triumph of carictature over character. ... Am I being unfair to a set of "children's books?"
/. geeks, so we act a certain way--but we also act other ways, as well. But if someone could only see me when I post on /., they'd have a mere two-diensional take on who and what I am.
Yes, you are. The Harry Potter series is a modern-day fairy tale whose only plausible social effect is to make more children enjoy reading.
You are being far too hard on Rowling. Everyone's a carictature, we're just MORE than that. You and I are
Real characters in fiction only show up with the passage of time and real events--and the only possibilities for real characters in Rowling's work are Harry Potter and his immediate friends and teachers, who show up in greater detail throughout each book.
I've been an avid reader of fantasy since I was about 12, and I have yet to find a book that, by itself, changed my life. The books help shape my imagination and help me cultivate the aspects of myself that I like--but they're doubly passive members in my growth, because if the books didn't have something that appealed to me, i wouldn't read them like I do.
Harry Potter probably isn't "Great" children's fiction or even adult fiction--but that's all the better. It's entertaining, enjoyable, and not offensive in the least. In short, as Stephen King put it, "They're fun books."
I think the superficiality of the slashdot crowd is apparent with the Harry Potter phenomenon. There a million slashdot readers that are all slobering to be the first to prove their Alpha Geekness by insulting N'Sync or Brittany Spears when the chance comes up. But when it comes time to prove that they have some taste that goes beyond the shit the Hollywood media culture is feeding them, they lap it all up like everyone else.
Ah, but here you are betraying yourself in your own post. Hollywood is a place where movies with budgets get made--it's neither a home of all-quality movies, nor is it a place from whence quality never comes. For every three artificial stars we see from RIAA or MPAA, there's at least one who's worth listening to.
What gives them the right to prepackage their PocketPC software on other companies' phones? It's absolutely dispicable.
MS doesn't. They have salespeople who go to the mobile phone folks, and conivnce them to buy the MS PocketPC stuff.
Phone/PDA combos are a fairly natural synergy (how many high-power computing devices do you REALLY need in your pocket?), and MS moving PocketPC over to the phone makes sense.
But, really, I don't see how they have a monopoly. Palm still licenses Palm OS, and it competes with PocketPC in just about every area PocketPC is in. It's not like Macintosh, where Macs are to "PCs" like motorcycles are to cars; most of the functionality of a PDA (or a phone) is built right in, and neither MS or Palm are selling their own phones. (Palm is even running their OS divison as a seperate company)
Maybe the editor wanted to write 4*10e6 (4 * 1'000'000) or (4e6)e2 (2'048 * 2'048 ~= 4'000'000), but, damn, he's an editor, not a mathematician nor a true nerd - he'd have learned the scientific notation way before starting to write on a website.
Sheesh.
The editior didn't write that part, the submitter did.
Plus, scientific notation is almost a worthless custom. In any scale that we work in, we (as humans, not just geeks) create new measurements when our old ones become too cumbersome to use anymore.
Oh, I'm sure that it has its place--but it's hardly the most intuitive thing ever thought up by science...
Besides while the US may not have a National ID, it does have a unique identifier for everyone, the SSN#, and each State does require an ID that must be presented to law enforcement on demand or to receive any services from that state. National ID in the US would be redundan
You can hide your SSN from anyone who doesn't need it for its original purpose--pick a random number if they just want it for ID purposes.
In NYS, you don't need to carry your driver's license--you just need to identify yourself. To gain state services, a driver's license is just the most convenient method, as you've allready identified yourself to the body you're dealing with. You could choose not to, and just carry sufficient redundant identifications if you like... (I think a credit card in your name and six bills in your name at your address will work... it's been awhile.)
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Sheesh. There's a difference between national ID cards and bar-code tattoos. And I haven't heard any real issues that would arise from folks not carrying their ID cards, aside from maybe not getting on an airline--but wait, you need a passport to leave the country anyway...
Solomon brought plauges upon his country because he took a bloody census, but that doesn't stop us from doing it every ten years. And I think that there's a city somewhere named Babylon that doesn't get attacked by all of christendom...
In short, there's nothing contradcitory about Christians who think National IDs are a good idea. It fits in with the whole "what is whispered in the shadows shall be shouted from rooftops" kind of thing.
And windows is stable as opposed to what, California around the San Andreas faultline?
No, older versions of Windows. Oh, and non-professionaly admin'd installs of Linux.
I don't remember the last time a PC crash stopped me in the middle of using my computer--I suspect it was playing UT, which is hardly Windows's fault.
You want people to use Open Source, yet you use a Mac? Can you get any more proprietary than that?
Come again?
OS X has an OSS core; it's a BSD with a proprietary GUI on top of it.
Sure, it's locked to certain hardware--but I can't plug my toaster into my PC, either.
The biggest reason is, of course, Office--OpenOffice still doesn't handle emdashes, which means it's not worth the time to learn for me yet.
Ease of setup is the other big one--I don't want my computer to ever expect me to go into a command line to set something, and I don't have a desire to learn UNIX commands just to use my overgrown typewriter.
(That reminds me--gotta give Linux its fair chance this weekend, which means no writing in Windows for me... I'll post a journal to let y'all know if it works out bearably.)
Companies may be bitching and moaning about the cost of the new licensing system for it, but not many of them are actually switching to Word Perfect or OpenOffice/StarOffice.
That's beacause, for various reasons, it still doesn't work as well as just staying with what they have.
OO/SO/WP need to be better than Microsoft Office to beat MS--disregarding the low cost or "Freedom" associated with it. "As Good as" and "workable" won't get mass converts.
Any program that is forced upon you is spyware.
No, no, no-no-NO!
Spyware, a contemporary of "adware" or "freeware" and a derivitive of "shareware", is "software that you pay for, in whole or in part, by being spied upon."
Programs downloaded as part of a web site that spy on you can be called spyware, even though what you get is a website, not a program.
I believe the correct word for "all programs forced on you" is "trojan." Feel free to come up with a new one if it doesn't fit, but please don't co-opt "spyware" to mean something that it doesn't.
I'm still undecidied if the parent is a liar or a real fanatic, Ferniscowles.
That "secret Catholic password" might be the tip over into the "false catholic" catagory--or he might just be referring to a part of the ceremony that's not on the handouts.
Unfortunetly as history has shown, profits (or should I say more profits) will win out over anything else.
Every for-profit corporation is designed to only care about profits. Nothing else matters--unless you can phrase it in profitability terms.
Ideas like "Long Term Investment" and "Goodwill" are how one expressed the value of OSS to accountants.
... XML ... Evolution and it's VFolders ...
Thank you.
Lets see, things Linux has that they didn't copy from MS:
That's not the question. The question is, what did OSS come up with on their own?
You might be spot-on with Virtual Memory, Memory protection, or preemtive multitasking--but I doubt it. GUIs and POSIX aren't OSS creations etiher--GUIs were an Apple / Xerox idea, and POSIX, IIRC, was a gov't / industry standard in the pre-OSS UNIX days.
BAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH Name me one innovation that MS has ever had that ISN'T a copy of someone else's innovation.
Please go find yourself a dictionary. "Invent" and "innovate" are not synonyms.
I'm unaware of anyone else who devised something like MS's HTML extensions for round trip adaptability. The series of tags, allowing MS files to preserve info that HTML doesn't support, strike me as a rather innovative use of the standard.
(And, yes, not having an easy way to leave those tags out--or MS's bloated CSS--is a pain, but we're talking innovations, not quality of implementation.)
Heh. I challenge YOU to name a single M$ innovation.
Smart Tags and the office assistant.
Every single thing that M$ releases is a copy of someone else's innovation. M$ either copies it, buys out the innovator and includes their innovation into M$ (after ensuring that it is polluted with unneeded addons to ensure that it will only work with M$ OSes).
Please, get the language straight. Inventors make inventions. People who take inventions and find new ways to use them (or just adapt them) are innovators.
Linux cannot be slammed for cloning or reverse engineering M$ non-innovations because
this allows users otherwise locked-in to buggy, security-flawed, overpriced oses to use a free, stable, and more secure alternative. It is working too as the userbase of linux is climbing rapidly while that of M$ is essentially flat. They are not only saturated in the market, they are killing themselves off with DRM, draconian licensing nonsense, etc. Perhaps this is what you consider an M$ innovation?
I didn't say Microsoft. I said closed-source shops. There are more than just MS, y'know--most of the inventive companies that MS bought with their large cash flow were closed-source shops.
You still didn't answer the question, btw. Name me one useful invention / innovation done by OSS in the past fifteen years (since 1987), preferrably one done recently that I can take home and use tonight.
Want me to go on?
None of those is a technical "innovation." The first is simply a relfection of OSS's "better quality" nature; the second is the root idea of OSS that stretches back quite a ways--and is worthless in day-to-day use for non-OS coders--and the third is just a marketing blip (MS could give away Windows to home users if they wanted to and still make profits.)
Doesn't improve how I use my PC one bit, thank you very much. Even if Linux copied everything that MS did, down to the smallest innovation and setup, it wouldn't be innovation--even if it could be turned on in half a second and crashed less than my Sony Clie.
Please try again.
You must have never tried, huh :P
;)
Nope--mostly because I figure it'd be worthless.
But what is and what should be are not necessarilly the same thing.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Is it possible that MS is starting to lose control of it's own software? Maybe we are seeing the boundaries of what can be accomplished in a restrictive, closed source development environment.
Kindly name me one major innovation from the past ten years that I can take home to my Linux install that isn't a copy of a MS innovation.
OSS definitly gets better qualitity--but I have yet to see an example or hear a theory that gives OSS an innovative edge over closed-source.
Please feel free to correct me if you can.
So, does the new licensing plan allow them to basically, delay new technologies? It seems that, with their latest scheme, it reduces their motivation to release newer/better products.
You think that removing MS's "release it now" catch is a BAD thing?
Whatever happened to "it's done when it's done"?
These programs are essentailly filters and the most logical and flexible way to provide them is as seperate entities.
Your argument could work for spellcheckers and word processors--but they still get bundled because they're used together.
Whenever a set of programs is commonly used together for the same task (create a file, move a file, etc.), a consolodation should at least be attempted.
I for one hate having to make WAVs before I can make OGGs. If the only way to have encryptied archives was to ZIP and then Archive them, I probably wouldn't do it.
Your ISPs job is to provide you an internet connection that you pay for - it is NOT their job to secure your computer for you.
It is their job to enforce their TOS--which most likely perclude spamming.
And if the IP is off-network, simply contacting whomever owns it would work.
That's why movies made in the 80's are considerably better than movies made today.
/. Some of the best stories are centuries old, and stories from the 80s may very well be, on average, better--but they're not better moves.
Come again?
Star Wars wasn't made in the 80s--and what made it great was the groundbreaking FX that held up the suspension of disbelief all good fantasys require, even with Lucas's script and plot.
Movies made very recently--most notably IMO, Spider-Man--beneft from even better FX, as well as (in many cases) better stories.
Some of the best movies ever made are being made as we chat on
As for Dune... it still strikes me as an agnostic science fiction writer trying to be spiritual, and failing. Star Wars does "mystic warrior" better by not even trying.
I think Dune is one of the works that shaped my beleif about what differentiates fantasy and scifi. In Fantasy, it doesn't matter what your stories aboubt as much as how you tell it. In scifi, it doesn't matter how crappy your writing is, as long as you've got some new ideas.
If only we were taught the truth about things then we would have more faith in our teachers.
Reforming the school system so everyone tells the truth would require a massive overhaul.
In 1st grade I was told "you can't subtact a larger number from a smaller one." Similar necessary inconsitencies show up throughout my (long over) public education.
An alleged misconduct of Poe has little if any bearing on the Raven--just like it's irrelevant to a HS reading of Romeo_and_Juliet if Shakesphere was or was not romantically influenced.
Get into advanced courses, where the basics are done--then it's good to talk about what could or could not be. Until then, just smile and enjoy the class.
Why? If someone else can offer the same songs for cheaper, you're doing business wrong.
Hardly.
After I, as a hypothetical music label, pay money to get a song "just right" with the artist, possibly give the artist an advance that may or may not be earned back, and spend money promoting the songs on music, print, and other media, I deserve to have a fair chance to recoup my costs.
If the artist can step in to a market the label has advertised in, and sell the exact same thing for less & with no $ going to the label, the label gets shafted into holding the bag for the promotion costs.
I can undercut Microsoft on Windows real cheap, not having to pay for development or advertising or anything....