Specifically, change your product to a service? You go in and "design" the spreadsheets for them, they pay for their own software licenses and whatnot?
Here's a challenge fer ya. First person to make an ontopic, tasteful comment about this proposal and subsequent acceptance using three of the following:
1. Hot grits
2. Emacs vs. vi
3. Microsoft SuX0rs
4. PostgreSQL vs. MySQL
5. RMS SuX0rs
6. Jon Katz really SuX0rs
7. Goatse.cx
8. One of: Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings
9. Patents and Intellectual Property
10. Id Software
Think of it. If they threw in a bunch of Easter Eggs that had a built-in Quidditch match or chasing Voldemort down or something? That'd be pretty good.
The thing is, what makes it a technological breakthrough isn't the technology, but the quality of literature that wants to use the technology. In other words, it's an idea that would grow old if every other piece of crap book wanted to do it...
Buy a fucking copy of your Linux distribution. Buy a Linux product. Donate some money to KDE/GNOME. Got a Linux user's group? Pass the hat around and send the cash to Red Hat or Suse for some T-Shirts. Buy a Linux magazine, or ask for a subscription to one for Christmas.
Don't bother trying to control politicians, the system is too fucked up for anybody to change except people who are in love with bureaucracy.
Don't try to change Microsoft. They have too much money to buy lawyers to manipulate and find loopholes in laws with, and too many people with their hands tied to it.
Instead, vote with your dollars. And vote for the other guy. Right now we have one company breaking even on the open source model, and it's a bloody miracle if you ask me how a company can generate income when the GPL pretty much guarantees free (as in beer) redistribution of their core product.
As far as the distros go, they're not expensive, and if you know what you're doing with Linux you know you're getting more for your dollar with the latest distros than you will with any Microsoft Windows release. Loki failed because of the business model, not because of the quality of games, so BUY a Linux game. Have you tried the different office software products from KDE or GNOME yet? They're good! The basic stuff is free and for a little extra cash you can get more. They can import all sorts of shit and they're getting better all the time. Did you know that they're working on an Open Source spinoff of QuarkXPress? They could use some money. The list goes on and on...
We have nothing to gain from being miserly. Power flows when you let your money flow. Give power to the competition.
We do everything we can to not kill innocent civilians.
Well, not bombing civilian areas would certainly protect innocent civilians. The United States never considered THAT possibility, however.
You can hide your military's incompetence behind professions of honourable intent all you want. I'm not the one you have to convince not to retalliate against you. There are portions of the world that are sick and tired of the U.S. crapping on their head and telling them to call it a hat. But hey, that's your problem, not mine. In my end of the world, where such logic is common sense, we don't have airplanes being flown into our buildings. Food for thought, no?
In law and in life, intent means everything when pronouncing judgment. Expand your mind, please.
The United States has already killed more innocent civilians in Afghanistan than were killed in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack. Thousands more have died in refugee camps where aid was unable to reach because no aid agency would risk moving into Afghanistan. Congratulations -- your president has a higher score than the most demonized man on the planet.
It is a sad day when one expands their mind to the point of rationalizing away the perpetration of preventable violence against the innocent.
Here's another: When Al Quaida sends airplanes into American buildings and kill innocent civilians, it's called "terrorizing". When the Americans send bombs into Afghanistan cities and kill innocent civilians, it's called "demoralizing".
He deliberately blew up the Death Star, which, unless Storm Troopers were cleaning toilets and cooking meals and waxing floors and whatnot, must have had some civilians on it.
Meanwhile, if the Death Star is the source of power to the Empire, what do you call the World Trade Center, the economic center of the United States, which needs that economic power to do things like wage a war that costs billions of dollars over in Afghanistan? The financial resources come from somewhere...
didn't use innocents as shields
Ah yes. Didn't kill babies in their incubators, either. Betcha fell for THAT one hook, line and sinker too, hey?
...and didn't really whine or run to some pacifism lobby when the Empire tried to get medieval on his ass.
Lol! Al Quaida and the Taliban have been directly appealing to Nader-votes to stop the war? Gimme a break.
BEST PICTURE:
Shouldn't. It's a good film but not the best of the year. It's not a complete, self-contained story, and that usually counts for a lot.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ian McKellen
Shouldn't. It's a token nomination: Ian McKellan practically did nothing that was worthy of winning an award. He brings the same class to LOTR that Guinness brought to Star Wars, but his largely-ignored work in other films is so far superior it's almost laughable. Plus, Gandalf's an easy character to play.
BEST DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson
Won't, but should. His work in showing characters of disproportionate size in the same shots is hugely underrated. It takes talent to fit that as seamlessly into a movie as Jackson did.
ART DIRECTION:
Would any other year, but might lose to Moulin Rouge.
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Should. Had too much nice stuff to look at.
COSTUME DESIGN:
Shouldn't. Fantasy adventure is pretty easy to make neat-looking costumes for.
FILM EDITING:
Shouldn't. LOTR wasn't as clean in some areas as it could have been.
MAKEUP:
Should. The beasties were great.
MUSIC (SCORE):
Dunno. They all sound the same to me. There hasn't been a really fantastic score since The Thin Red Line.
MUSIC (SONG):
If this is for the Enya song, shouldn't. It contributed nothing to the movie except once the credits were rolling. This award is custom made to silly Disney or Pixar movies.
SOUND:
Should? Didn't see Black Hawk Down or Pearl Harbour in one of those arena theatres. Still bombs and machinery crashes are easy -- Jackson had to incorporate unusual sound effects (eg: the Balrog).
VISUAL EFFECTS:
Shouldn't, but probably will. For all the good stuff, there was some sloppy CGI work at times in that film.
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY):
Shouldn't. Much of what made the book great was edited down, and the dialogue was run of the mill push-the-plot-forward stuff (except when it was oh-looky-we're-talking-about-THE-THEME stuff).
If you're coding small things, then it's pretty easy -- any language strikes the right balance for you of being fast and easy to maintain, and can do the five following:
1. Accept input/Produce output
2. Read from memory/Write to memory (arguably the same as #1)
3. The ability to repeat actions
4. The ability to make decisions
5. The ability to do complex math
So, basically, it can be any godawful thing you want, so long as it doesn't need lots of eyes looking at it (in which case you might want something with a larger common-demoninator (eg: not pure assembly or something you cooked up one drunken evening with lex and yacc)). Chances are, if you documented it well enough, then if you get hit by a bus someone could either come in and pick up where you left off, or redo the thing in their language of choice.
If you're coding for a group or a large project, though, your demands are going to be different. Modularity will be necessary, and it probably wouldn't hurt to consider OO for any sort of data construct that might get reused more than once or twice throughout the project. Languages that offer that would be a better choice (C++, Java, etc.).
If you're looking at distributed programming, consider getting a language that works well with CORBA. ORBit's a free implementation that you can play with, although last time I checked it was mostly C-based and meant primarily for Linux & GNOME.
If you're looking at a visual-based environment, go with something that builds interfaces easily and can glue into more complicated components (Visual Basic with ActiveX references, or maybe Python/TKinter with C++ components, or whatever). It would also help to mess around with a language that already has a large common base of libraries so you don't have to reinvent the wheel for printing reports or whatnot. As computer speed continues to outstrip inefficient coding (with apologies to the purists) there are fewer and fewer arguments against Visual Basic.
If you've got to patch into databases alot, there's very little that's cleaner -- and can produce prettier output -- than PHP, although that restricts your interface options somewhat. Fortunately most languages have APIs that can let you work directly with SQL statements.
Avoid.NET until somebody's built a killer ap with it. Java's still pretty good for delivering binaries that need to run on more than one platform. Don't know enough about functional programming languages to comment on their usefulness. You might want to stay away from lower-level languages if you need to dynamically build strings.
For text parsing, consider something that works well with regular expressions (ie: Perl). Also, don't underestimate the benefits of learning shell scripting in general, especially if all you want to do is automate some system tasks.
If you're doing something that involves getting the highest performance possible, you need to go with assembly, C, C++, or some combination thereof. You might want to fork over for a better compiler too, if it's that important to you.
Sorry, this is a totally offtopic issue. Just wondering what sorts of games out there are turning a profit, what kind of sales the average game might need to break even, that sort of thing.
The only reference material I've found on this is piecemeal stuff on websites or in a small chapter in an advanced Linux programming book, or that hybrid DOS/Linux one that's out there. I think it'd be great if a book about x86 assembly programming strictly for Linux was done, aimed at beginners.
Linux isn't Linus's ball anymore to take away when he doesn't like how people are playing the game.
Actually, it is.
But it is stupid and insulting to say that people who aren't satisfied with Linus's management should just suck it and pick another OS.
Stupid and insulting how, exactly? Free software gives us a lot of rights, but badgering a lead developer to change his work habits for our piece of mind isn't one of them.
Linus himself would tell you that Linux is more the community's than his.
Except the expectations aren't piling up on the community, they're piling up on him. And when he burns out, we'll all be right fucked, won't we?
Stupid and insulting indeed. Perhaps some people still need reminding that he's given over 10 years of his life to this project. Show a little respect.
It's high time he told the community to screw off for a bit.
It's his friggin' hobby, after all. If people don't like the way he deals with it, maybe they ought to go work for a more personable coder on another OS, like, say, Theo De Raadt.
I think this is the crucial moment for RMS where he either becomes more flexible or risk alienating the remaining few developers who still rally around him and his ideas.
I believe you've got it backwards.
Keep in mind the number of GPL evangelists in the world. Not many, hey? Certainly not enough, and definitely none with the power that Microsoft's PR department has.
We should be thankful that there's a guy out there who risks mockery on a regular basis in order to try to ensure some balance. His role isn't to represent the average coder, it's to give us an extreme point of view opposite of what's normally given out there in the world of software -- corporate corporate corporate.
The man is getting old and it shows.
Look, if you don't like him, tune him out. But don't underestimate his importance. He gives us balance where the Microsoft monopoly would like us to believe it's their right to bleed us dry of every penny we've got. You might as well criticize the Yin Yang symbol for not being all gray.
Slashdot Mirror
Specifically, change your product to a service? You go in and "design" the spreadsheets for them, they pay for their own software licenses and whatnot?
What else is new?
How about this?
"Anadium"
That's probably only funny to chem majors.
Okay, maybe not even chem majors.
How will Digital Screens increase my ability to digest poor dialogue, unimaginative characterization and that #$%@! Jar Jar?
Answer: They won't. George Lucas needs to focus in on what's still important in film and get off this stupid techno-toy kick he's on.
Here's a challenge fer ya. First person to make an ontopic, tasteful comment about this proposal and subsequent acceptance using three of the following:
1. Hot grits
2. Emacs vs. vi
3. Microsoft SuX0rs
4. PostgreSQL vs. MySQL
5. RMS SuX0rs
6. Jon Katz really SuX0rs
7. Goatse.cx
8. One of: Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings
9. Patents and Intellectual Property
10. Id Software
Moderators pick the winner.
I hate Microsoft, but my favourite part isn't this story. My favourite part is the link directly under it.
.NET? | Linus Merges ALSA Into 2.5.4 >
< What is
You gotcher answer, folks.
Think of it. If they threw in a bunch of Easter Eggs that had a built-in Quidditch match or chasing Voldemort down or something? That'd be pretty good.
The thing is, what makes it a technological breakthrough isn't the technology, but the quality of literature that wants to use the technology. In other words, it's an idea that would grow old if every other piece of crap book wanted to do it...
...will be Lawyers vs. Hungarian Notation. Poor bastards.
Buy a fucking copy of your Linux distribution. Buy a Linux product. Donate some money to KDE/GNOME. Got a Linux user's group? Pass the hat around and send the cash to Red Hat or Suse for some T-Shirts. Buy a Linux magazine, or ask for a subscription to one for Christmas.
Don't bother trying to control politicians, the system is too fucked up for anybody to change except people who are in love with bureaucracy.
Don't try to change Microsoft. They have too much money to buy lawyers to manipulate and find loopholes in laws with, and too many people with their hands tied to it.
Instead, vote with your dollars. And vote for the other guy. Right now we have one company breaking even on the open source model, and it's a bloody miracle if you ask me how a company can generate income when the GPL pretty much guarantees free (as in beer) redistribution of their core product.
As far as the distros go, they're not expensive, and if you know what you're doing with Linux you know you're getting more for your dollar with the latest distros than you will with any Microsoft Windows release. Loki failed because of the business model, not because of the quality of games, so BUY a Linux game. Have you tried the different office software products from KDE or GNOME yet? They're good! The basic stuff is free and for a little extra cash you can get more. They can import all sorts of shit and they're getting better all the time. Did you know that they're working on an Open Source spinoff of QuarkXPress? They could use some money. The list goes on and on...
We have nothing to gain from being miserly. Power flows when you let your money flow. Give power to the competition.
We do everything we can to not kill innocent civilians.
Well, not bombing civilian areas would certainly protect innocent civilians. The United States never considered THAT possibility, however.
You can hide your military's incompetence behind professions of honourable intent all you want. I'm not the one you have to convince not to retalliate against you. There are portions of the world that are sick and tired of the U.S. crapping on their head and telling them to call it a hat. But hey, that's your problem, not mine. In my end of the world, where such logic is common sense, we don't have airplanes being flown into our buildings. Food for thought, no?
In law and in life, intent means everything when pronouncing judgment. Expand your mind, please.
The United States has already killed more innocent civilians in Afghanistan than were killed in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack. Thousands more have died in refugee camps where aid was unable to reach because no aid agency would risk moving into Afghanistan. Congratulations -- your president has a higher score than the most demonized man on the planet.
It is a sad day when one expands their mind to the point of rationalizing away the perpetration of preventable violence against the innocent.
Ah, how tragic is the loss of the concept of the metaphor these days...
Grand Moff Tarkin was a terrorist.
Oh, but that's not nearly as catchy!
Here's another: When Al Quaida sends airplanes into American buildings and kill innocent civilians, it's called "terrorizing". When the Americans send bombs into Afghanistan cities and kill innocent civilians, it's called "demoralizing".
Hm...
...and didn't really whine or run to some pacifism lobby when the Empire tried to get medieval on his ass.
Luke was a known combatant who didn't hide it...
Neither is Osama Bin Laden.
didn't deliberately target civillians
He deliberately blew up the Death Star, which, unless Storm Troopers were cleaning toilets and cooking meals and waxing floors and whatnot, must have had some civilians on it.
Meanwhile, if the Death Star is the source of power to the Empire, what do you call the World Trade Center, the economic center of the United States, which needs that economic power to do things like wage a war that costs billions of dollars over in Afghanistan? The financial resources come from somewhere...
didn't use innocents as shields
Ah yes. Didn't kill babies in their incubators, either. Betcha fell for THAT one hook, line and sinker too, hey?
Lol! Al Quaida and the Taliban have been directly appealing to Nader-votes to stop the war? Gimme a break.
You like? I'm rather fond of it.
BEST PICTURE:
Shouldn't. It's a good film but not the best of the year. It's not a complete, self-contained story, and that usually counts for a lot.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ian McKellen
Shouldn't. It's a token nomination: Ian McKellan practically did nothing that was worthy of winning an award. He brings the same class to LOTR that Guinness brought to Star Wars, but his largely-ignored work in other films is so far superior it's almost laughable. Plus, Gandalf's an easy character to play.
BEST DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson
Won't, but should. His work in showing characters of disproportionate size in the same shots is hugely underrated. It takes talent to fit that as seamlessly into a movie as Jackson did.
ART DIRECTION:
Would any other year, but might lose to Moulin Rouge.
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Should. Had too much nice stuff to look at.
COSTUME DESIGN:
Shouldn't. Fantasy adventure is pretty easy to make neat-looking costumes for.
FILM EDITING:
Shouldn't. LOTR wasn't as clean in some areas as it could have been.
MAKEUP:
Should. The beasties were great.
MUSIC (SCORE):
Dunno. They all sound the same to me. There hasn't been a really fantastic score since The Thin Red Line.
MUSIC (SONG):
If this is for the Enya song, shouldn't. It contributed nothing to the movie except once the credits were rolling. This award is custom made to silly Disney or Pixar movies.
SOUND:
Should? Didn't see Black Hawk Down or Pearl Harbour in one of those arena theatres. Still bombs and machinery crashes are easy -- Jackson had to incorporate unusual sound effects (eg: the Balrog).
VISUAL EFFECTS:
Shouldn't, but probably will. For all the good stuff, there was some sloppy CGI work at times in that film.
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY):
Shouldn't. Much of what made the book great was edited down, and the dialogue was run of the mill push-the-plot-forward stuff (except when it was oh-looky-we're-talking-about-THE-THEME stuff).
Just need to build the bonfire big enough.
Heck, I'll even show you how it's done. Lemme just grab my sister's Backstreet Boys collection...
If you're coding small things, then it's pretty easy -- any language strikes the right balance for you of being fast and easy to maintain, and can do the five following:
.NET until somebody's built a killer ap with it. Java's still pretty good for delivering binaries that need to run on more than one platform. Don't know enough about functional programming languages to comment on their usefulness. You might want to stay away from lower-level languages if you need to dynamically build strings.
1. Accept input/Produce output
2. Read from memory/Write to memory (arguably the same as #1)
3. The ability to repeat actions
4. The ability to make decisions
5. The ability to do complex math
So, basically, it can be any godawful thing you want, so long as it doesn't need lots of eyes looking at it (in which case you might want something with a larger common-demoninator (eg: not pure assembly or something you cooked up one drunken evening with lex and yacc)). Chances are, if you documented it well enough, then if you get hit by a bus someone could either come in and pick up where you left off, or redo the thing in their language of choice.
If you're coding for a group or a large project, though, your demands are going to be different. Modularity will be necessary, and it probably wouldn't hurt to consider OO for any sort of data construct that might get reused more than once or twice throughout the project. Languages that offer that would be a better choice (C++, Java, etc.).
If you're looking at distributed programming, consider getting a language that works well with CORBA. ORBit's a free implementation that you can play with, although last time I checked it was mostly C-based and meant primarily for Linux & GNOME.
If you're looking at a visual-based environment, go with something that builds interfaces easily and can glue into more complicated components (Visual Basic with ActiveX references, or maybe Python/TKinter with C++ components, or whatever). It would also help to mess around with a language that already has a large common base of libraries so you don't have to reinvent the wheel for printing reports or whatnot. As computer speed continues to outstrip inefficient coding (with apologies to the purists) there are fewer and fewer arguments against Visual Basic.
If you've got to patch into databases alot, there's very little that's cleaner -- and can produce prettier output -- than PHP, although that restricts your interface options somewhat. Fortunately most languages have APIs that can let you work directly with SQL statements.
Avoid
For text parsing, consider something that works well with regular expressions (ie: Perl). Also, don't underestimate the benefits of learning shell scripting in general, especially if all you want to do is automate some system tasks.
If you're doing something that involves getting the highest performance possible, you need to go with assembly, C, C++, or some combination thereof. You might want to fork over for a better compiler too, if it's that important to you.
Sorry, this is a totally offtopic issue. Just wondering what sorts of games out there are turning a profit, what kind of sales the average game might need to break even, that sort of thing.
Fallacy 10: Open Source is the Answer
;)
- Economic model is doubtful
- Source code is useless
- Motivation for Open Source is inappropriate for most software
- Nerd culture is counter-productive
I'd like to see him come here and say that.
MS trying to quell petition against closed source in Germany
What kind? Zope, and other web application servers are an area of interest.
Don't know if this interests you or not, but No Starch Press has one for Zope.
Linux-related x86 assembly programming.
The only reference material I've found on this is piecemeal stuff on websites or in a small chapter in an advanced Linux programming book, or that hybrid DOS/Linux one that's out there. I think it'd be great if a book about x86 assembly programming strictly for Linux was done, aimed at beginners.
Linux isn't Linus's ball anymore to take away when he doesn't like how people are playing the game.
Actually, it is.
But it is stupid and insulting to say that people who aren't satisfied with Linus's management should just suck it and pick another OS.
Stupid and insulting how, exactly? Free software gives us a lot of rights, but badgering a lead developer to change his work habits for our piece of mind isn't one of them.
Linus himself would tell you that Linux is more the community's than his.
Except the expectations aren't piling up on the community, they're piling up on him. And when he burns out, we'll all be right fucked, won't we?
Stupid and insulting indeed. Perhaps some people still need reminding that he's given over 10 years of his life to this project. Show a little respect.
It's high time he told the community to screw off for a bit.
It's his friggin' hobby, after all. If people don't like the way he deals with it, maybe they ought to go work for a more personable coder on another OS, like, say, Theo De Raadt.
Scary thought, hey?
I think this is the crucial moment for RMS where he either becomes more flexible or risk alienating the remaining few developers who still rally around him and his ideas.
I believe you've got it backwards.
Keep in mind the number of GPL evangelists in the world. Not many, hey? Certainly not enough, and definitely none with the power that Microsoft's PR department has.
We should be thankful that there's a guy out there who risks mockery on a regular basis in order to try to ensure some balance. His role isn't to represent the average coder, it's to give us an extreme point of view opposite of what's normally given out there in the world of software -- corporate corporate corporate.
The man is getting old and it shows.
Look, if you don't like him, tune him out. But don't underestimate his importance. He gives us balance where the Microsoft monopoly would like us to believe it's their right to bleed us dry of every penny we've got. You might as well criticize the Yin Yang symbol for not being all gray.