I knew there was a protest in St. Paul, and I knew it due to the information posted in the previous Slashdot stories, specifically the links to the boycott Adobe website, which had specific details on all the protests, when and where they were being held, etc. That's too much information for a Slashdot story, which is why the provide links to the places you can find the details if you're interested. Either you simply weren't interested in finding out, or you're one of those Slashdot readers who never follows the links...
I see. Even though it's the wrong thing to do, since the law allows it, it is unrealistic to expect anyone to refrain from doing it. It's too bad our country is to fucked up that this sort of reasoning sounds reasonable to anyone.
That wouldn't make any sense. The Federal Government is an entirely seperate entitty from (for example) the government of the State of Minnesota. What your suggesting is kind of like saying "I owe $20,000, but that's nothing compared to how much money all the people on my block make." Sure, that's true, but what the other people on your block make has nothing to do with how much you make or owe.
Actually, waging war on the large corporations that are getting these stupid laws passed in Washington would benefit the majority of us, who work for the much smaller corporations that are the ones usually being hurt by these stupid laws. I say this as someone with a not insignificant percentage of ownership in an American corporation. Most Americans work for small businesses, not for Big Business. It's time we in fact did start waging war on these guys... they are a tiny but way overly influential group of people, and what benefits them does not benefit most American corporations, much less most Americans!
I think anyone whose cashflow is in the black, or at least not in the red more than a few hundred thousand dollars, technically makes more money than all Linux corporations combined. Of course, I'm talking net. Gross is probably a different story...
Actually, Adobe, like most corporations these days, is multinational. Multinational corporations can't really be properly said to be Canadian or American or anything like that, regardless of what they claim is their "home office" -- any such distinction is legalistic and practically meaningless. They are organizations becoming more and more like nations themselves -- increasingly large, bureaucratic, and dedicated to their own interests, not those of any other corporation or nation save those they have entered into strategic alliances with. They are rapidly rising towards being on par with nations as organizations. For a corporation of this size, it's silly to argue about it's nationality -- it's effectively its own nationality...
Err, there's a problem with pointing out out the percentage of population imprisoned in the US -- it's not a meaningful number compared with other nations unless crime rates are also factored into the equation. Naturally, Japan or other nations imprison a smaller percentage of their population -- they generally have fewer criminals percentage wise to begin with!
Now, I'm not proud of the fact that the US is one of the most violent nations in the world -- I'm just pointing out that there's more to raw numbers of prison population than meets the eye. You can't simply conclude from the numbers that America is less free. I'd rather be in downtown Tokyo at 3am than downtown New York. Hell, I'd rather be in downtown Tokyo at 3am than downtown New York any time of day -- it's safer. There are more lawless nations in the world -- but not many industrialized ones...
Dealing with crime levels as high as the US has will naturally inflate these numbers...
Personally, I think it's kind of funny... I think I'll go make a big "Adobe Sucks!" wallpaper for my computer and put a "Made with Adobe Photoshop" in the corner. I just wish I could return the software. I use GIMP for almost everything these days anyway...
I usually follow this sort of policy, except for Blizzard games. Sure, they have patches, but I've actually never felt the need for one, they just get foisted on my from time to time logging in to battlenet. I've never seen a Blizzard game that didn't work perfectly fine out of the box for a long as I wanted to play it without going online. I have friends who still play the 1.0 versions of the Blizzard games because they never do get online. Never have any problems, either.
Of course, every Blizzard game ships way late.
Everyone here seems to think if you don't ship early enough, your games won't see. They say the companies have to ship buggy products early or they'll loose money.
Hmm. Blizzard doesn't seem to be hurting for money. In fact, they're the one company I'm willing to plop down any amount of cash for on a box with software I've never seen running nor read a single review.
People who think you have to ship early and patch later are full of crap. Delay the launch, miss your Christmas deadline. Are you nuts, they say? But when has Blizzard ever made a Christmas deadline? Are they hurting for cash? I don't think so...
I guess most game companies are just too stupid too live. Hopefully they'll go out of business before disappointing too many people...
Actually, if the game was promising enough, I'd be willing to buy a box in the store labeled "beta". A lot of people wouldn't, true, but this would be an honest way to accomplish the same goal. Especially if it was promising and said "free playtime during beta period". I have no problem with companies funding themselves through gamers dollars if they're willing to be honest about it. It wouldn't sell as well as a full release but there'd be quite a few people who would take them up on the offer as long as the playtime was free as well as the upgrade...
If you'd bothered to actually read the article, you would know (a) these newly discovered pillars are not volcanic per se (unlike the previously known, darker pillars found in spread zones), they build up due to chemical reactions, and (b) the largest ever discovered is 180 feet -- these are not things that build up for millions of years to make islands.
It should be noted that there's this wonderful current running by Europe that flows right across the Atlantic to the Carribean. With good weather and a little luck, you could take a makeshift raft from Europe to America! The idea that, in all those years of seafaring, no one from Europe managed to get to America is pretty far fetched, even if it wasn't until much later that systematic exploration and cross-Atlantic commerce began...
Hmmm. I wouldn't exactly call Visual Studio a "fancy code generator". In fact, I've never seen it generating anything other than ugly comments, and then only if you've been cursed with maintaining someone else's gawdawful MFC code... But then, I try to avoid both (MFC at all costs and VC++ if I can get away with it)...
Err, why would you expect a professional programmer to know where the network control panel is? That's like expecting the tech support guy to know what to put in a sockaddr struct. Me thinks you're confusing the two positions...
I think the horrible acting and complete lack of atmosphere in the mini-series...
Funny, those were my two biggest problems with the horrible Lynch movie. At least in the miniseries (a) Paul appears to be a human, rather than Lynch's Paul where it didn't really matter who the actor was since the character wasn't human, and (b) the atmosphere in the miniseries seems like the atmosphere of Arakis rather than the atmosphere of Hollywood. The miniseries had costumes that were goofy but plausible (in fact rather historical), the movie had costumes that were goofy and far more hysterical than historical. I did think the movie did have some better acting than the miniseries: that of several of the minor characters (who are ignored way too much but oh well), but Paul in the movie sucked so bad it that if you take an average, the average acting in the miniseries was much better.
I'll take the "whiney" Paul over the inhuman icon any day.
Actually, Niven prides himself on being a optimist. He had an idea for a short story once ("Inconstant Moon" IIRC) that he refused to actually write until he came up with a "happy" ending (sure, half the world is destroyed, but the main characters survive)...
Ugh... I'd correct the spelling in the post I just correcting the spelling in the post made before that, but I'm afraid I'd be caught in an infinite loop. Instead, I'm going to bed...
I don't understand how they could throw out the maturing NT kernel for something completely new.
They're website claims that it's not completely new, but is in fact built on top of the Windows 2000 (aka NT) codebase. Which is not surprising since it's the only "real" OS they've ever had. For them to drop it at this point would be, completely, totally, utterly insane...
I'd still rather run OS X -- Apple GUI-ness on the outside, BSD unix on the inside -- yummy...
Just because one's needs are simple doesn't mean they aren't serious...
Having used both, I think they're both excellent programs. Use whichever is most appropriate for the task at hand. Personally, I've never been a big fan of using tactical nuclear weapons when a flyswatter will do the job. Pointing out that the flyswatter is only a flyswatter won't convince me to stop using it when all I need is a flyswatter...
Slashdot Mirror
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"Corporations are the new governments, and computer generated info-domains are the new frontier..."
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Now, I'm not proud of the fact that the US is one of the most violent nations in the world -- I'm just pointing out that there's more to raw numbers of prison population than meets the eye. You can't simply conclude from the numbers that America is less free. I'd rather be in downtown Tokyo at 3am than downtown New York. Hell, I'd rather be in downtown Tokyo at 3am than downtown New York any time of day -- it's safer. There are more lawless nations in the world -- but not many industrialized ones...
Dealing with crime levels as high as the US has will naturally inflate these numbers...
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Looks like moderation is working perfectly fine to me...
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Of course, every Blizzard game ships way late.
Everyone here seems to think if you don't ship early enough, your games won't see. They say the companies have to ship buggy products early or they'll loose money.
Hmm. Blizzard doesn't seem to be hurting for money. In fact, they're the one company I'm willing to plop down any amount of cash for on a box with software I've never seen running nor read a single review.
People who think you have to ship early and patch later are full of crap. Delay the launch, miss your Christmas deadline. Are you nuts, they say? But when has Blizzard ever made a Christmas deadline? Are they hurting for cash? I don't think so...
I guess most game companies are just too stupid too live. Hopefully they'll go out of business before disappointing too many people...
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Funny, those were my two biggest problems with the horrible Lynch movie. At least in the miniseries (a) Paul appears to be a human, rather than Lynch's Paul where it didn't really matter who the actor was since the character wasn't human, and (b) the atmosphere in the miniseries seems like the atmosphere of Arakis rather than the atmosphere of Hollywood. The miniseries had costumes that were goofy but plausible (in fact rather historical), the movie had costumes that were goofy and far more hysterical than historical. I did think the movie did have some better acting than the miniseries: that of several of the minor characters (who are ignored way too much but oh well), but Paul in the movie sucked so bad it that if you take an average, the average acting in the miniseries was much better.
I'll take the "whiney" Paul over the inhuman icon any day.
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Sorry, not enough caffine today...
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They're website claims that it's not completely new, but is in fact built on top of the Windows 2000 (aka NT) codebase. Which is not surprising since it's the only "real" OS they've ever had. For them to drop it at this point would be, completely, totally, utterly insane...
I'd still rather run OS X -- Apple GUI-ness on the outside, BSD unix on the inside -- yummy...
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Having used both, I think they're both excellent programs. Use whichever is most appropriate for the task at hand. Personally, I've never been a big fan of using tactical nuclear weapons when a flyswatter will do the job. Pointing out that the flyswatter is only a flyswatter won't convince me to stop using it when all I need is a flyswatter...
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