Back in 1992, there was no GUI for the web (Mosaic came out in late 1993), so you'd have to be using Lynx, or something similar if there was such a beast, as I did way back then.
I was a Senior in college, and a fellow student was writing a paper on this new WWW thing, so I got to hear about the speculation of what it could become. You are right, there wasn't a GUI yet, I was just scoffing at the absurd notion of such a thing.
Then I got to my first job in late '93 at Motorola, and they were running Unix workstations. Got Mosaic installed when it came out, and another guy and I figured out how to get out to the internet. Talk about exciting! Being able to surf the web while everyone else not only didn't have access, but didn't really know what it was. It was pretty tough in those days, there weren't even any search engines yet. I helped set up our intranet website, and had to give a few presentations (to seasoned professionals) on how it could benefit us. I actually got an award for being a founding member of our department's web team. It is really funny looking back those times. I can't wait to see how different things become in the next 10+ years.
This is why Slashdot is relatively good journalism, IMO. Even when the submitters and editors are clearly biased, it is only a few comments into the following discussion that things get balanced out. How often do we see on the big cable and broadcast networks retractions and alternatives being shown within minutes? Almost never.
Well, that is true - but can you say that it gives Slashdot credibility? I guess it depends on what you define as Slashdot. I have noticed the phenomenon of which you speak more and more over the past year. It *almost* seems intentional at times. That would qualify as questionable journalism in my book, posting a misleading story just so your readers will hash out the details for you.
Think of it this way - *without* the faithful Slashdot readers, how good would Slashdot's journalism be?
You know you're no longer a snotty nosed geek when you can remember Canter & Siegel. Back in the days when you said "the internet" most people thought "Usenet", not "the Web." I think I still have an old O'Reiley book Using the Internet or some such thing were mention of the "World Wide Web" was relegated to an Appendix.
I remember when I first heard of the World Wide Web, back in '92. I thought "Why do you need a gui interface? Gopher and FTP work just fine."
Being the most hated doesn't make them the most feared. You're correct that MS is the biggest threat to Open Source. That isn't a reason to hate them, but to be wary of them. Granted, they have used some despicable tactics in the past and are masters of FUD, but nothing they've ever done rises to the level of what SCO has been attempting.
Unless of course they funded SCO.
In which case SCO is just a pathetic crack-whore, robbing people to pay the pimp.
If you want a single 'client' at all locations, you probably want to use webmail.
I have tried a few mail programs, and I am forced to use Outlook at work. It is actually handy there, simply because of the scheduling aspect.
But at home, it is pine all the way. I am about speed and function. I can ssh into the box from anywhere and run the mail client locally. I don't have to wait to download any messages. The only caveat is attachments. But if I need to view them, I can save them off and download them. I would rather choose when to download something than wait for everything to download.
So my emails exist in two places - on my ISPs mail server, and on my home machine. If for some reason I can't access pine, I have webmail via my ISP. I not only have one interface, I have the same interface, and I know that there aren't various copies of my emails floating around. If I have net access, I can get PuTTY very quickly and be into my server in minutes. From anywhere. It is sweeeet.
People have laughed at me for still using Pine, but email is email. HTML in email is evil. Viruses don't harm me, I don't get flashing banners and crap. I haven't seen anything in another email client to cause me to even think about switching.
Now I can't be the only one who finds the generalizations made in the article offensive! And I'm not a woman and by no means some earthy-crunchy sensitive 90's-type guy.
On top of that, the concept is stupid. There are things that people (yes, even women) can do themselves under the hood of their own car. What's next? Welding our computer cases shut? (or at least making better "void your warranty" stickers)
I thought it sounded like it was made "by women - for women" the way a man would think it should be done. Some of it was pretty ridiculous, and the article says that it won't go into production. But amongst the stupid things, I thought the removable pads on the seat weren't that bad of an idea, but you can certainly buy those after-market. And the rear seat that folds down only to sit in was an interesting idea. I could see that being an option on a smaller car, where space is at a premium.
Some interesting ideas, some really dumb and impractical ones. One piece front end? Please. Any damage to any part of the front end would require the whole thing to be replaced. $$$$$ Gee, maybe the car will call up the dealership and have them ship you a new front end, and automatically charge your credit card.
I guess I meant it more of a joke than you took it to be. And I never said that it was wrong to end sentences with a preposition, just that you shouldn't. So their.
.
(Don't even bother, that was intentional to get you're hopes up.)
Now I'm finishing my English degree and studying poetry. *** snip **** The fact is that, given basic education, intelligence and wherewithal, we live in a world where you don't *have* to settle for doin' what yer daddy done, or towing the line, or staying "safe" if you don't want to.
Hey English boy, it is "toeing the line". And you shouldn't end your sentences with a preposition.
Sorry, I just love taking jabs at people with English degrees. I had one correct my grammar once.:-)
Dude, If you need Knoppix to be able to install Debian easily on your HD then you need help! If on the other hand you need a live Linux distro to use in emergencies or when a full installation is not viable/ available or required, then rather stick with your Knoppix.
Wow, are you missing it! How many CDs are there in a Debian distro? In any distro? LiveCDs are 1 cd.
LiveCDs are fantastic as emergency disks, but they are even better as installation disks. You get to SEE and USE the system before you install it. I have considered switching to Debian a couple of times (mainly because of apt-get), but it is a much bigger deal to backup, install, and try it out than to boot it and try it. Forget using a spare machine. Why would I want to spend hours when I could be up and running in 2 minutes?
These things are fantastic, and will only improve over time. The only thing a distro offers that these don't is configurability during the install, where you pick and choose what you want to install. But that is a minor point IMO, and will be fixed if the need is really there.
I have several different LiveCDs, and you know how many times I have used them for emergencies? None. I have performed several installs off of them though. Why would you deny one of the major benefits of these things?
Bush and crew, if you want re-election, look here: Barratry is bad for business! Tell Ashcroft to stop worrying about abortion doctors and start protecting American jobs and investors!
I wouldn't want Bush to be re-elected even if he agreed to send me his twin daughters, a Guinness truck, Natalie Portman and a truckload of grits!
Bush **IS** big business. Note the recent happenings with Clear Channel firing DJs as a n^Hripple effect of the Superbowl fiasco. Clear Channel is in bed with the Bush administration all the way. And they aren't the only ones by far.
companies are given patents or copyrights for products that involve huge costs to develop. If it wasn't for copyrights, these companies would not make the initial investment because it would be significantly harder to earn back the cost if everyone could just copy your product.
Wrongo. They are given patents because they apply for them, regardless of what it costs to make said product. Even if there IS no product. Or if it is just an idea.
Copyrights are something inherent, you don't have to be assigned a copyright.
Tell me, what happens once that initial investment has been recouped? Nothing.
Hahah. And you and I both know they don't really matter anyway unless you're dealing with poor programming ability, in which case you're screwed anyway... what are you going to do, fire the volunteer programmer from his own project?
Dude, this isn't the 90's. I'd like to see Open Source EVOLVE. People with your attitude will still be writing new versions of Xeyes out of their basement.
Code reviews don't find bugs. You might be able to get more conformity to the coding guidelines if any that way. But in general, many projects enforce their guidelines by having few people allowed to check in. And good programmers go with the flow as far as code formatting anyway.
The reason I am answering this point of your post is because it is probably the dumbest thing you said. Code reviews DO find bugs, that is their entire purpose. If you choose not to do them, that is your call. If Open Source is going to grow up, then code reviews will have to happen. I am sure there are millions of good programmers out there who are cringing at your "go with the flow" comment.
What are your defect escape rates?
Escape rates? Must be some QA auditor speak.
I'll answer this not because it was dumb, but because it was ignorant. QA is not auditing. SQA is process auditing and improvement. QA is Quality Assurance. Big difference. Just like there is a big difference between programming and software engineering. But I am sure you don't understand the difference there either.
Does that mean bugs V&V didn't find before release? Anyway, Not interesting... If the stuff doesn't work people won't use it. It will die a natural death.
You mean testing? V&V is very specific, and I think it would be hard to do on an Open Source product the way they are developed today. For those that don't know, V&V is Verification and Validation. These can be summed up in these two questions: Are we building the correct product? Are we building the product correctly?
Those questions would be very hard to answer for an Open Source project, because unless you define your requirements up front, you don't know if you are building the right product. If you don't have anything to test against (requirements/design/something) then you really don't know if you have built it correctly. You are just doing testing, and relying on the tester's ability to cover all the functionality, know what it should do, and be able to determine if there is a problem. If you think getting an email from some beta testers that say "looks good", then you aren't even close to V&V, and probably are barely on the edge of having it tested.
I am not as interested in how QA pertains to small Open Source projects, I would like to hear how OSS development/rollout works at places like IBM or RedHat. I am sure they don't have such a lax attitute towards QA there.
But, always remember that in many Open Source efforts, the users are the testers. That's a valid viewpoint if something is free; Microsoft is excoriated when they periodically lure customers into paying to become testers, but the practice is more defensible when no money changes hands.
All of your points are of course valid - for the state of OSS today. I am more interested in the OSS of *tomorrow*. At least my hope for tomorrow - when OSS becomes more prevalent. How will QA/testing fit into OSS vs FOSS? When someone *IS* paying the bills, how will things change?
Additionally, the themes of Superprogrammer vs The Horde" are relevant to understanding why. Having seen a few SEI CMM 5 shops in action, it's clear that to fill the man-hours for all the redudant tasks requires hiring a grade of developer that's frankly sub-par. Programming is the one field where a true 20x productivity differential between two professionals is unremarkable. It seems that the prominent Open Source projects have gotten more attention from generous SuperProgrammers than a typical commercial developement is able to attract.
Of course. But those big projects have to ensure they can survive if their superstar programmer leaves. Or they do it because they are government regulated, or they are building software that could be life or death, and they can't afford to rely on someone's opinion. You have to remember that there is a LOT of software out there, it ain't all word processors and games. These are the applications where I question if open source is the way to go. I don't think it is the be-all-end-all of software development, just like being CMM level 5 isn't either. There is a reality out there, and I think Slashdot users could use a little check every now and then.
QA is also something the US government requires for many things. Especially the military. If there is a good QA process in place that can help improve US government acceptance.
Being a 10 year veteran of QA/Testing and holding a CS degree, I have long wondered where QA would fit into OSS. And by "QA" I don't just mean testing, there is a lot more to it than that. Here are some topics that would need to be addressed:
What is the development process? Is it documented?
What types of estimation procedures do you do?
What is the SCM process? Is it documented?
What is the review/inspection process for all artifacts?
Are there software requirements? Are they inspected/reviewed?
Are there development plans/design docs? Are they inspected/reviewed?
Are there code reviews?
What are your defect escape rates?
What is your plan for alpha/beta testing?
What is your release schedule?
I think I could go on, but you get the idea. If you want solid, defect-finding, QA people who can improve your product, you'll be asked questions like these. If you just want someone who will run a few regression tests against your product before you put it on a website, then you are looking for some software testers. I am not saying that all of those things are necessary, but they might be. Maybe all of this stuff is archaic and applies only to the proprietary model, I don't know. I know that is what I have worked in for the last 10 years. I don't know if anyone has asked these questions of an OSS project, or done any research into if they need to be asked.
Boohoo. Greedo shoots first. Big fucking deal.
How is that ruining the film? If that ruins the film for you, perhaps you should reconsider things...
If it is no big deal, then why is Lucas doing it? Why mess with something that has PROVEN to be popular? This isn't just a "Director's Cut" or added scenes, he makes changes and passes them off like they were always there.
And it isn't just that - it is all the dumbass CG muppets he added into that and other scenes. The same reasons I hated both of his prequels.
Lucas is a twit, that's all. I am not obsessing over it, just offering my opinion and providing information to back it up. I have never waited in line for any of his movies, I don't own any Star Wars memorabilia. I am just a disappointed fan of the original series.
The COVER ART of a DVD pack of movies WE HAVE ALREADY SEEN is not exactly "stuff that matters".
I am sure I haven't seen THESE versions of the films. They'll have some fucked up modifications that will ruin them even further. Lucas is a twit. You want to screw around with the movies that MADE you, fine. But give the fans the originals that they deserve. Lucas has lost all credibility with those last two pieces of garbage movies. He is just being a prick. Take a look at how he has been suckling the teat of his successes in his IMDB filmography .
I think SCO would be afraid to go after Google. Even though deep down it's just two young nerds running it, I'm sure other companies would not want to see Google at risk of being harmed by some little showoff company who can't backup their own claims for copyright infringement.
Afraid of Google? Dude, they sued IBM. IBM. Google might be a ripe target because they are obviously not very seasoned in the business world, they are just a couple of punk kids and their friends who own a very successful company.
The only "surprise" lawsuit at this point would one against Microsoft.
But who takes these award shows seriously, really? I mean, I watched to be entertained. It's a bit like watching gladitorial games, for me. But even for the winners, now--do you think an intelligent person who wins an award is going to see it as proof that they're the best? Maybe, but everybody else would know that's ridiculous. Do you think somebody who doesn't win is going to really be all that upset about it, once they get past the initial disappointment? Maybe, but we'd call that immature.
Ask any of their agents. You think having an Oscar on your resume doesn't mean they get paid more? Think again. It is about recognition and credibility. If it didn't mean anything, they wouldn't have them. Hell, look at the other posts. They quote what other movies have won 11 awards. They quote which are the top grossing movies. If it didn't mean anything, then the awards show wouldn't still be happening.
It's a stupid awards show, and not even the most honest and unbiased of stupid awards shows. The nice thing about it is that quality work can be recognized. The terrible thing is that it always also passed over completely.
I lend some credibility to awards shows. If I see that something won awards at Cannes, or Sundance, I will consider seeing it. Or even an Oscar! There are some movies I didn't see, like Mystic River. But I know it was nominated a lot, and I might consider renting it. I mean, if it was nominated, it can't be all bad, right? But I see some movies regardless of the nominations. I loved The Last Samurai, but it wasn't nominated for very many awards at all.
Awards are all about marketing, and they do hold some credibility. If they didn't, ratings systems wouldn't be so popular. Moderation wouldn't exist here on Slashdot. We don't want to weed through all the chaff to get to the goods, we want a little bit of direction.
Think of the weeks leading up to the Oscars. There were commercials for movies that proudly stated "WINNER OF 4 ACADEMNY AWARD nominations". Spin baby spin. I'll bet a lot of people don't notice the distinction. Actually, you can look no further than this thread! There are people who are of the opinion "You are an idiot for not liking this movie - it swept the Oscars for crying out loud!" What if ROTK didn't win a single Oscar? Do you think it would have meant something then? Hell, it would have been the end of the world for many Tolkien lovers. The same way people made such a big friggin deal about the actor who played Smiegel not being nominated for best supporting actor in the past.
If it doesn't mean anything, then why are we talking about it?
NOTHING Peter Jackson has done is bad, at least not in a gigli sort of way. You make not like meet the feebles, or bad taste, or deal alive, or any of his other movies. My dad did not like lord of the rings, but does that make it a bad movie...
I am sure this will get modded as either troll of flamebait, since for some reason moderators can't stand to have someone disagree with the "geek consensus". But I have to say it.
Agreed, it wasn't a bad movie - but it wasn't the best of the year IMO. I think the academy was a little biased this year, simply because of the other two movies in the trilogy. It was a great movie, I don't dispute that - but I don't think it was the best of the year. I think the academy voters, like Slashot, are a bit jaded. They were looking at the trilogy, not just ROTK. Hey, the trilogy was an amazing set of work that deserves a lot of recognition. There aren't too many sequels that are very good, let alone trilogies. But for ROTK by itself, I don't think it stacked up against the other nominated movies. I don't think Peter Jackson did that great of a job directing this movie, in comparison with the other nominees. He deserved to be recognized for the trilogy, but I don't think ROTK was the best of the three (I'd but it at a solid #3).
And before you say "The academy is the only opinion that matters here", I'd say you are right. It is their award show, whooptie doo. They also gave Titanic 11 awards, and I could hardly sit through that stinker. I thought it was cheesy. I hoped Lost in Translation would win. I thought Bill Murray should have won for best actor, although I didn't see some of the other performances. I thought it was ironic that before the best picture announcement, they said it was a combination of all of the other awards - yet nobody from ROTK was nominated for a best acting award, let alone won. If there is no great acting in a movie, then it has to get by on something else - like sets and special effects, or the story. ROTK was 1/3 of a story that many people hold fondly, and THAT is why it won. I don't think it had half of the elements necessary to win best picture, yet it won anyway.
Just another opinion to think about. Not that it matters much now.
Slashdot Mirror
If this thing would ever get implemented (which it won't) you would be doing both. Ain't that a bitch.
I was a Senior in college, and a fellow student was writing a paper on this new WWW thing, so I got to hear about the speculation of what it could become. You are right, there wasn't a GUI yet, I was just scoffing at the absurd notion of such a thing.
Then I got to my first job in late '93 at Motorola, and they were running Unix workstations. Got Mosaic installed when it came out, and another guy and I figured out how to get out to the internet. Talk about exciting! Being able to surf the web while everyone else not only didn't have access, but didn't really know what it was. It was pretty tough in those days, there weren't even any search engines yet. I helped set up our intranet website, and had to give a few presentations (to seasoned professionals) on how it could benefit us. I actually got an award for being a founding member of our department's web team. It is really funny looking back those times. I can't wait to see how different things become in the next 10+ years.
Well, that is true - but can you say that it gives Slashdot credibility? I guess it depends on what you define as Slashdot. I have noticed the phenomenon of which you speak more and more over the past year. It *almost* seems intentional at times. That would qualify as questionable journalism in my book, posting a misleading story just so your readers will hash out the details for you.
Think of it this way - *without* the faithful Slashdot readers, how good would Slashdot's journalism be?
I remember when I first heard of the World Wide Web, back in '92. I thought "Why do you need a gui interface? Gopher and FTP work just fine."
As you can tell, I am no techo-revolutionary.
Is it? I wouldn't know.
Unless of course they funded SCO.
In which case SCO is just a pathetic crack-whore, robbing people to pay the pimp.
Do NOT offer The Holy Grail.
This place will turn into a ghost town.
You say that like it is a bad thing.
I have tried a few mail programs, and I am forced to use Outlook at work. It is actually handy there, simply because of the scheduling aspect.
But at home, it is pine all the way. I am about speed and function. I can ssh into the box from anywhere and run the mail client locally. I don't have to wait to download any messages. The only caveat is attachments. But if I need to view them, I can save them off and download them. I would rather choose when to download something than wait for everything to download.
So my emails exist in two places - on my ISPs mail server, and on my home machine. If for some reason I can't access pine, I have webmail via my ISP. I not only have one interface, I have the same interface, and I know that there aren't various copies of my emails floating around. If I have net access, I can get PuTTY very quickly and be into my server in minutes. From anywhere. It is sweeeet.
People have laughed at me for still using Pine, but email is email. HTML in email is evil. Viruses don't harm me, I don't get flashing banners and crap. I haven't seen anything in another email client to cause me to even think about switching.
I thought it sounded like it was made "by women - for women" the way a man would think it should be done. Some of it was pretty ridiculous, and the article says that it won't go into production. But amongst the stupid things, I thought the removable pads on the seat weren't that bad of an idea, but you can certainly buy those after-market. And the rear seat that folds down only to sit in was an interesting idea. I could see that being an option on a smaller car, where space is at a premium.
Some interesting ideas, some really dumb and impractical ones. One piece front end? Please. Any damage to any part of the front end would require the whole thing to be replaced. $$$$$ Gee, maybe the car will call up the dealership and have them ship you a new front end, and automatically charge your credit card.
. (Don't even bother, that was intentional to get you're hopes up.)
.
P.S. Hah! So was that. :-)
Hey English boy, it is "toeing the line". And you shouldn't end your sentences with a preposition.
Sorry, I just love taking jabs at people with English degrees. I had one correct my grammar once. :-)
Too big for the lap, but is doable on the desk.
Wow, are you missing it! How many CDs are there in a Debian distro? In any distro? LiveCDs are 1 cd.
LiveCDs are fantastic as emergency disks, but they are even better as installation disks. You get to SEE and USE the system before you install it. I have considered switching to Debian a couple of times (mainly because of apt-get), but it is a much bigger deal to backup, install, and try it out than to boot it and try it. Forget using a spare machine. Why would I want to spend hours when I could be up and running in 2 minutes?
These things are fantastic, and will only improve over time. The only thing a distro offers that these don't is configurability during the install, where you pick and choose what you want to install. But that is a minor point IMO, and will be fixed if the need is really there.
I have several different LiveCDs, and you know how many times I have used them for emergencies? None. I have performed several installs off of them though. Why would you deny one of the major benefits of these things?
I wouldn't want Bush to be re-elected even if he agreed to send me his twin daughters, a Guinness truck, Natalie Portman and a truckload of grits!
Bush **IS** big business. Note the recent happenings with Clear Channel firing DJs as a n^Hripple effect of the Superbowl fiasco. Clear Channel is in bed with the Bush administration all the way. And they aren't the only ones by far.
Bush and crew - your days are numbered.
Wrongo. They are given patents because they apply for them, regardless of what it costs to make said product. Even if there IS no product. Or if it is just an idea.
Copyrights are something inherent, you don't have to be assigned a copyright.
Tell me, what happens once that initial investment has been recouped? Nothing.
Damn, this slope is getting very slippery....
Dude, this isn't the 90's. I'd like to see Open Source EVOLVE. People with your attitude will still be writing new versions of Xeyes out of their basement.
Code reviews don't find bugs. You might be able to get more conformity to the coding guidelines if any that way. But in general, many projects enforce their guidelines by having few people allowed to check in. And good programmers go with the flow as far as code formatting anyway.
The reason I am answering this point of your post is because it is probably the dumbest thing you said. Code reviews DO find bugs, that is their entire purpose. If you choose not to do them, that is your call. If Open Source is going to grow up, then code reviews will have to happen. I am sure there are millions of good programmers out there who are cringing at your "go with the flow" comment.
Escape rates? Must be some QA auditor speak.I'll answer this not because it was dumb, but because it was ignorant. QA is not auditing. SQA is process auditing and improvement. QA is Quality Assurance. Big difference. Just like there is a big difference between programming and software engineering. But I am sure you don't understand the difference there either.
Does that mean bugs V&V didn't find before release? Anyway, Not interesting... If the stuff doesn't work people won't use it. It will die a natural death.
You mean testing? V&V is very specific, and I think it would be hard to do on an Open Source product the way they are developed today. For those that don't know, V&V is Verification and Validation. These can be summed up in these two questions: Are we building the correct product? Are we building the product correctly?
Those questions would be very hard to answer for an Open Source project, because unless you define your requirements up front, you don't know if you are building the right product. If you don't have anything to test against (requirements/design/something) then you really don't know if you have built it correctly. You are just doing testing, and relying on the tester's ability to cover all the functionality, know what it should do, and be able to determine if there is a problem. If you think getting an email from some beta testers that say "looks good", then you aren't even close to V&V, and probably are barely on the edge of having it tested.
I am not as interested in how QA pertains to small Open Source projects, I would like to hear how OSS development/rollout works at places like IBM or RedHat. I am sure they don't have such a lax attitute towards QA there.
All of your points are of course valid - for the state of OSS today. I am more interested in the OSS of *tomorrow*. At least my hope for tomorrow - when OSS becomes more prevalent. How will QA/testing fit into OSS vs FOSS? When someone *IS* paying the bills, how will things change?
Additionally, the themes of Superprogrammer vs The Horde" are relevant to understanding why. Having seen a few SEI CMM 5 shops in action, it's clear that to fill the man-hours for all the redudant tasks requires hiring a grade of developer that's frankly sub-par. Programming is the one field where a true 20x productivity differential between two professionals is unremarkable. It seems that the prominent Open Source projects have gotten more attention from generous SuperProgrammers than a typical commercial developement is able to attract.
Of course. But those big projects have to ensure they can survive if their superstar programmer leaves. Or they do it because they are government regulated, or they are building software that could be life or death, and they can't afford to rely on someone's opinion. You have to remember that there is a LOT of software out there, it ain't all word processors and games. These are the applications where I question if open source is the way to go. I don't think it is the be-all-end-all of software development, just like being CMM level 5 isn't either. There is a reality out there, and I think Slashdot users could use a little check every now and then.
Being a 10 year veteran of QA/Testing and holding a CS degree, I have long wondered where QA would fit into OSS. And by "QA" I don't just mean testing, there is a lot more to it than that. Here are some topics that would need to be addressed:
What is the development process? Is it documented?
What types of estimation procedures do you do?
What is the SCM process? Is it documented?
What is the review/inspection process for all artifacts?
Are there software requirements? Are they inspected/reviewed?
Are there development plans/design docs? Are they inspected/reviewed?
Are there code reviews?
What are your defect escape rates?
What is your plan for alpha/beta testing?
What is your release schedule?
I think I could go on, but you get the idea. If you want solid, defect-finding, QA people who can improve your product, you'll be asked questions like these. If you just want someone who will run a few regression tests against your product before you put it on a website, then you are looking for some software testers. I am not saying that all of those things are necessary, but they might be. Maybe all of this stuff is archaic and applies only to the proprietary model, I don't know. I know that is what I have worked in for the last 10 years. I don't know if anyone has asked these questions of an OSS project, or done any research into if they need to be asked.
If it is no big deal, then why is Lucas doing it? Why mess with something that has PROVEN to be popular? This isn't just a "Director's Cut" or added scenes, he makes changes and passes them off like they were always there.
And it isn't just that - it is all the dumbass CG muppets he added into that and other scenes. The same reasons I hated both of his prequels.
Lucas is a twit, that's all. I am not obsessing over it, just offering my opinion and providing information to back it up. I have never waited in line for any of his movies, I don't own any Star Wars memorabilia. I am just a disappointed fan of the original series.
And I thought I was stressed working 10 hour days. I can't even imagine how stressed I would be after 300,000 years.
I am sure I haven't seen THESE versions of the films. They'll have some fucked up modifications that will ruin them even further. Lucas is a twit. You want to screw around with the movies that MADE you, fine. But give the fans the originals that they deserve. Lucas has lost all credibility with those last two pieces of garbage movies. He is just being a prick. Take a look at how he has been suckling the teat of his successes in his IMDB filmography .
Voting is like a woman shopping for a dildo. She isn't looking for the one that feels the best, she is looking for the one that hurts the least.
Afraid of Google? Dude, they sued IBM. IBM. Google might be a ripe target because they are obviously not very seasoned in the business world, they are just a couple of punk kids and their friends who own a very successful company.
The only "surprise" lawsuit at this point would one against Microsoft.
Ask any of their agents. You think having an Oscar on your resume doesn't mean they get paid more? Think again. It is about recognition and credibility. If it didn't mean anything, they wouldn't have them. Hell, look at the other posts. They quote what other movies have won 11 awards. They quote which are the top grossing movies. If it didn't mean anything, then the awards show wouldn't still be happening.
It's a stupid awards show, and not even the most honest and unbiased of stupid awards shows. The nice thing about it is that quality work can be recognized. The terrible thing is that it always also passed over completely.
I lend some credibility to awards shows. If I see that something won awards at Cannes, or Sundance, I will consider seeing it. Or even an Oscar! There are some movies I didn't see, like Mystic River. But I know it was nominated a lot, and I might consider renting it. I mean, if it was nominated, it can't be all bad, right? But I see some movies regardless of the nominations. I loved The Last Samurai, but it wasn't nominated for very many awards at all.
Awards are all about marketing, and they do hold some credibility. If they didn't, ratings systems wouldn't be so popular. Moderation wouldn't exist here on Slashdot. We don't want to weed through all the chaff to get to the goods, we want a little bit of direction.
Think of the weeks leading up to the Oscars. There were commercials for movies that proudly stated "WINNER OF 4 ACADEMNY AWARD nominations". Spin baby spin. I'll bet a lot of people don't notice the distinction. Actually, you can look no further than this thread! There are people who are of the opinion "You are an idiot for not liking this movie - it swept the Oscars for crying out loud!" What if ROTK didn't win a single Oscar? Do you think it would have meant something then? Hell, it would have been the end of the world for many Tolkien lovers. The same way people made such a big friggin deal about the actor who played Smiegel not being nominated for best supporting actor in the past.
If it doesn't mean anything, then why are we talking about it?
I am sure this will get modded as either troll of flamebait, since for some reason moderators can't stand to have someone disagree with the "geek consensus". But I have to say it.
Agreed, it wasn't a bad movie - but it wasn't the best of the year IMO. I think the academy was a little biased this year, simply because of the other two movies in the trilogy. It was a great movie, I don't dispute that - but I don't think it was the best of the year. I think the academy voters, like Slashot, are a bit jaded. They were looking at the trilogy, not just ROTK. Hey, the trilogy was an amazing set of work that deserves a lot of recognition. There aren't too many sequels that are very good, let alone trilogies. But for ROTK by itself, I don't think it stacked up against the other nominated movies. I don't think Peter Jackson did that great of a job directing this movie, in comparison with the other nominees. He deserved to be recognized for the trilogy, but I don't think ROTK was the best of the three (I'd but it at a solid #3).
And before you say "The academy is the only opinion that matters here", I'd say you are right. It is their award show, whooptie doo. They also gave Titanic 11 awards, and I could hardly sit through that stinker. I thought it was cheesy. I hoped Lost in Translation would win. I thought Bill Murray should have won for best actor, although I didn't see some of the other performances. I thought it was ironic that before the best picture announcement, they said it was a combination of all of the other awards - yet nobody from ROTK was nominated for a best acting award, let alone won. If there is no great acting in a movie, then it has to get by on something else - like sets and special effects, or the story. ROTK was 1/3 of a story that many people hold fondly, and THAT is why it won. I don't think it had half of the elements necessary to win best picture, yet it won anyway.
Just another opinion to think about. Not that it matters much now.