The only irritating change that has happened to Slashdot since Andover took it over is the appearance of Roblimo as an editor. But with his arrogant, condescending, self-satisfied articles, that sure is one big irritation. And this little piece of apologetics on behalf of UNISYS and their patent lawyers takes the cake.
Cut the crap, Roblimo. People here were actually aware that the latest patent issue only affected open-source image manipulation programs without a UNISYS license. You know, this is, uh, an open source site (perhaps you hadn't noticed?) and so that's kinda an important issue here. I'm delighted for you that your images all go through commercialware at some stage. We're breaking out the champagne at work as I speak. But, you know, some people choose not to use commercialware.
And finally you've only got your job as editor on slashdot because your virtual daddy (Andover) owns the site, so don't go round acting like you've been selected by the community to act on its behalf. Frankly, with the way UNISYS has been trying to screw everyone with this dubious patent for so long, I couldn't give a stuff what their chief patent lawyer or any of their staff think of the open source community, because I'm pretty sure what I think of them.
Reasons I prefer my HHKB over a remapped standard PC keyboard:
1.) ESC key moved down next to '1' (remap this on a PC keyboard, where do you put '~/`'?). 2.) ALT keys moved outwards so comfortable to use with fourth fingers (no keys there to map to on PC keyboard). 3.) Backspace reachable from home row (although I always use CTRL-H). 4.) Nice, solid keyboard, very pleasant to type with. 5.) Takes up half the space of a standard keyboard.
I bought the 'classic' version, with the Mac and Sun interfaces. They've got a new, PC-only version out for about $70 (from memory). Definitely recommended (http://www.pfuca.com)
Hey, this guy has a point. I used to teach in a diploma course that was meant to be aimed at programmers in industry wanting to formalise or upgrade their skills. Instead the university was stuffing it full of anyone who could pony up the dough, no matter how little understanding of or interest in computing they had, even pulling in students from third-world countries who completely lacked the prerequisites and were putting themselves into life-long debt to pay the fees, all by assuring them that whatever pitiful background they claimed would be sufficient for the course. Privately, the administrators were quite frank about this being the university policy. (Of course, the result was that standards were watered down and copying tacitly encouraged until at least a majority of students passed.)
Suing because you failed a course is stupid. But suing because a university misrepresented a course in order to maximise its profit from it has (IMHO) its positive aspects.
Slashdot Mirror
Cut the crap, Roblimo. People here were actually aware that the latest patent issue only affected open-source image manipulation programs without a UNISYS license. You know, this is, uh, an open source site (perhaps you hadn't noticed?) and so that's kinda an important issue here. I'm delighted for you that your images all go through commercialware at some stage. We're breaking out the champagne at work as I speak. But, you know, some people choose not to use commercialware.
And finally you've only got your job as editor on slashdot because your virtual daddy (Andover) owns the site, so don't go round acting like you've been selected by the community to act on its behalf. Frankly, with the way UNISYS has been trying to screw everyone with this dubious patent for so long, I couldn't give a stuff what their chief patent lawyer or any of their staff think of the open source community, because I'm pretty sure what I think of them.
Reasons I prefer my HHKB over a remapped
standard PC keyboard:
1.) ESC key moved down next to '1' (remap this
on a PC keyboard, where do you put '~/`'?).
2.) ALT keys moved outwards so comfortable to
use with fourth fingers (no keys there to map
to on PC keyboard).
3.) Backspace reachable from home row (although
I always use CTRL-H).
4.) Nice, solid keyboard, very pleasant to type
with.
5.) Takes up half the space of a standard
keyboard.
I bought the 'classic' version, with the Mac and
Sun interfaces. They've got a new, PC-only
version out for about $70 (from memory).
Definitely recommended (http://www.pfuca.com)
Hey, this guy has a point. I used to teach in a diploma course that was
meant to be aimed at programmers in industry wanting to formalise or upgrade
their skills. Instead the university was stuffing it full of anyone who
could pony up the dough, no matter how little understanding of or interest
in computing they had, even pulling in students from third-world countries
who completely lacked the prerequisites and were putting themselves into
life-long debt to pay the fees, all by assuring them that whatever pitiful
background they claimed would be sufficient for the course. Privately, the
administrators were quite frank about this being the university policy. (Of
course, the result was that standards were watered down and copying tacitly
encouraged until at least a majority of students passed.)
Suing because you failed a course is stupid. But suing because a university
misrepresented a course in order to maximise its profit from it has (IMHO)
its positive aspects.
William