It sounds nice, sure, but do we really need it? I mean, most monitors now are supposed to be around 72 DPI and the pixels on them are fine. And while the size of a screen increases, so does the practical viewing distance so you can get away with even larger pixels.
This doesn't mean I don't want one, but we can do it cheaper than that.
This only works if they don't consider it better than the rival products, I'm afraid.
They're not directly making money off this any more, but it's still used (according to the press release) as the base compiler for C++ Builder. Which they at least try and make money from, though I haven't seen the balance sheets and can't say whether they actually do:)
If they don't think it's anything special, they might consider opening the source under a particular license - but why would people work on it rather than on GCC?
On the other hand if they consider it special then it's a potential selling point for C++ Builder. But if they open the source then they're leaving the oppportunity for a rival product to use their code. Philosophically nice but it could hurt their sales if (for example) Visual C++ could now use each and every trick that C++ Builder's compiler does to produce nice code as well as their own, unknown tricks. At which point they've done something which reduces the profitability of the company and that isn't legal for a publically traded company in the UK so I can't see the US investors looking that kindly on it.
I can see why you want it, I just don't think it's all that realistic.
This mostly seems to be because of people linking free (beer) with the GPL's definition of freedom. They're two different concepts.
Inprise have decided here that the best option for them is to release this free. Whatever the reason for it, it's not that they're dumping the program and so might as well GPL it. They're just saying that this makes sense NOW.
Remember here that this is the basis for a nice product they're still pushing. C++ builder. Not as nice as Delphi IMHO, but....;)
This is mostly (I suspect) a decision to get some PR off a product they don't really use by itself any more. The push is behind C++ Builder, JBuilder and Delphi, so this, while still the base compiler for C++ Builder, wasn't doing anything on its own. Might as well do something nice and get some good PR while you're there.
If you don't like Office, then you haven't learned to really use Office.
No, and even if that was true, it'd be a sign of quite how far wrong Microsoft had pitched it.
Let's look at Word, as that's the Office app I'm most familiar with personally. It's quite nice, sure. It's pretty powerful, no doubt. But it also does tons of crazy stuff automatically with no obvious way to turn it off. Auto indenting and auto numbering mainly.
Now, I'm a university student living in halls and there's a fair number of people here who know I'm a reasonably friendly soul who understands the computers. So I get asked to help people reasonably often. Same at home - I help my parents and sister when they get stuck and I've helped several members of our church learn to use their computers.
These people are farm from idiots, but Word will catch them out fairly often - and the amount of daft playing you have to do to defeat the automatic systems is crazy. It slows people down and causes real heartache, along with forcing people to learn how to work round features. And I don't think I'm the only one here who'd say that any feature most people have to work around should be considered a problem.
Word is powerful, sure - but most of that power's in directions which no-one except nerds like us and technical reviewers ever use. Which gets it high scores from the magazines and our respect (well, mostly) but which cause problems for everyday users.
The problem, to put it simply, is that Microsoft don't seem to know who actually uses it. Tone it down a long way and it would be a better program for 90% of its users, along with being cheaper, faster and more stable.
The pther reason is resolution. No TV will clear 800*600 (though PAL turns out up to 768*576 IIRC) so you don't have to worry about turning out anything higher than that. It looks better than tht resolution on your monirot as the TV's blurrier.
Lower the resolution and the frame rate or polygon count can be boosted, it's that simple.
Windows is entirely capable of self-corrupting that badly. I've had 95 delete its copy of GDI.EXE - and there wasn't a virus anywhere near the system, we did check.
It may well come off, but the objection seemed to be that people had to pay for Windows to read this data. Well, Rob appears to have a Windows license going spare so that's a non-issue.
About halfway between the two, actually - I'd suggest having a (small) time fade component, but having most of it fade relative to posting volume. Time's important as people do change over time, but volume has to be the major one as the whole point about moderation is signal : noise ratios so surely karma should represent your own personal signal : noise ratio?
I've posted a few times to moderation myself and can recommend it for reading. Wish the code would let this sort of thing be more visible - say, as a slashbox or something - so we could choose our own threads for the front page and get this sort of thing!
Anyway...
The main problem we've had recently is the tiny number of points getting used for some reason. Whether we've simply had a week where no-one's been using them or whether the system hasn't been gving them out properly I don't know, but it's not good. Getting better now, fortunately.
But, long-term, we've still got a problem with karma: persistence. Right now I've got reasonable karma - 41 or so. That would give me, what, 20 posts trolling at +1 if I wanted?
Now, imagine some of the others. Signal 11 and Bruce Perens (the legit one...) both had 2-300 points before karma viewing was disabled. Both could troll at +1 for really quite a while if they wanted. But why should they be able to (hypothetically), just because they're a good contributor now?
Karma needs to fade. By making it degrade over time, the user's worth is related to their recent posting record and so their current worth to the community, not their historical worth.
It's also make it almost impossible to get karma in the 100s and make +1 posting a truly rare achievement. Whereas right now it seems almost anyone can get it given enough time.
You're going to want to make the karma fade relative to posting volume as well as time so you don't lose too much while on holiday but could with a large number of banal posts in one day.
The other idea - how about true mass moderation? Everyone rates a post on a scale of (say) 1 to 5, scores are expressed as a percentage? Logged in users post at 50% by default, ACs at whatever we want?
I want to be able to moderate myself DOWN. Not just with the 'No +1 Bonus', I want to be able to remove points I've been given. A while ago I got a 4 for a post I regretted posting at +1 after I submitted - it didn't say anything substantial or add to the discussion and I was emarrassed to have the points for it.
Moderating yourself up should be out, but moderating yourself down hould certainly be in - and permanent. If I don't think I deserve points, I should be able to reject them.
That's a good idea, but the problem seems to be that comments are listed in point then date order - so it wouldn't help if more people have already replied as +1 than they're going to submit questions.
I suspect this interview may have to be put on hold, unfortunately...
Interview questions are historically picked by the moderators - top X questions get submitted.
But, right now - and for a good few days - it just doesn't seem that there's any quantity of moderation points in the system. I mean, when did anyone last see a moderated post?
Something odd appears to have broken and normally this would only cause a real problem if +1s start trolling. But here it stops questions getting submitted by anyone other that +1s so what can we do?
Refusing to decrypt the data when you're able to is certainly a failure to allow a legal search, but that's not the real problem with this law.
As it stands, you're required to produce the key and thrown in jail if you don't - regardless of whether you even posess the key in the first place. The only thing that counts is the police opinion on whether you posess the key, with the defendant required to prove their innocence, contrary to UK law elsewhere where prosecution are required to prove guilt. Speaking personally, I've got something like 1,000 floppy disks and several Spectrum data cassettes. The idea of having to prove that none of them held a key is a little worrying.
On top of that, my memory is that it's now an offence to tell anyone that you're being prosecuted under this law. Truly terrifying.
Anyway, two good URLs here:
The bill. Whether the act contains any significant amendments, I don't know but none have been reported so make your own mind up...
.While it's good to get worried about this, there is hope yet. It's probably in breach of the European convention on Human Rights, which Britain has incorprated into its law. So hopefully it'll get struck down by the High Court as soon as any case on this law gets taken to them.
This is just crazy. Ghostscript has been around for a long time and there isn't a competing Microsoft product, so that one would look a little unlikely. Caldera's issue (well, Digital Research's issue if you go back to who had the problem rather than the current owner) was that they were selling a competing OS which looked rather better and was rather easier to squash with Windows than a silly little utility like this.
The real killer, though, has to be ps2pdf itself - you get at it via the command line. Not via Windows at all.
Sorry, but this is absolute paranoid rubbish. And, as for calling me a Microserf, anyone who knows me would be able to tell you I'm a long-term Amiga user who only reluctantly made the move in November '98. I'm also heavily involved in KOSH.
My love for Microsoft is quite possibly less than yours - but I don't tend to accuse them of something without a mechanism or motive for the offence. They have neither here and it looks rather strongly like it's simply a duff copy of Ghostscript.
You clearly haven't put much effort into getting postscript to work with your windows installation. the version of ps2pdf that comes with Mandrake works just fine...
Wow, that's helpful.
Believe me, I pored over all the documentation I could find, played with all relevant documented flags and tried them several times. I found no way to make the version of ps2pdf that came with Ghostscript work. Look at what you typed, though. Why should the Windows version automatically be fine just because the Mandrake version was? Doesn't follow at all.
You have microsoft to thank for trying to keep postscript off of Windows machines... but hey, you get MS word files, whoopee!
Oh come off it, that's just paranoid, What reason do they have to break a utility like that - and what mechanism do they have for keeping it broken?
And no, I don't get Word files. I don't like Office, so I don't use it. I could if I wanted - I'm a student so can get it very cheap. But I don't.
I can make a reasonable stab at loading anything up to Word 7 files via WordPad or WordPro - but my memory says that WordPerfect can do that, while I'm pretty sure Star Office could in the review I saw recently. So I'm no further down the road than you, unless I choose to buy some additional software purely for that feature. Sure, you haven't got the software available to you on Linux, but what percentage of Linux users don't have any version of Windows on their machine and never did? Some, but not many I'd guess.
I'm sorry you think that, but I wouldn't regard my faith as either unreasoned or unquestioning. It's the result of actually looking into this sort of thing. I was moaning at exactly the attitude you seem to be complaining about, if you look again.
The normal thing I'd say to this is fairly simple, though - who cares whether I'm right or not? It'd be nice if I am (and I think I am), but it makes me happier now. So surely it's a good thing?
Scientologists I know very little about but I don't think that many people would refer to them as Christians or Dianetics as The Bible. What they want to get out of it I'm not sure, though I'm pretty sure I heard L. Ron Hubbard say that starting a religion was the best way to make a fortune...
Anyway, that's not all that relevant. I wasn't referring to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Why such a high resolution?
It sounds nice, sure, but do we really need it? I mean, most monitors now are supposed to be around 72 DPI and the pixels on them are fine. And while the size of a screen increases, so does the practical viewing distance so you can get away with even larger pixels.
This doesn't mean I don't want one, but we can do it cheaper than that.
Greg
This only works if they don't consider it better than the rival products, I'm afraid.
:)
They're not directly making money off this any more, but it's still used (according to the press release) as the base compiler for C++ Builder. Which they at least try and make money from, though I haven't seen the balance sheets and can't say whether they actually do
If they don't think it's anything special, they might consider opening the source under a particular license - but why would people work on it rather than on GCC?
On the other hand if they consider it special then it's a potential selling point for C++ Builder. But if they open the source then they're leaving the oppportunity for a rival product to use their code. Philosophically nice but it could hurt their sales if (for example) Visual C++ could now use each and every trick that C++ Builder's compiler does to produce nice code as well as their own, unknown tricks. At which point they've done something which reduces the profitability of the company and that isn't legal for a publically traded company in the UK so I can't see the US investors looking that kindly on it.
I can see why you want it, I just don't think it's all that realistic.
Greg
ISWYM, but...
;)
This mostly seems to be because of people linking free (beer) with the GPL's definition of freedom. They're two different concepts.
Inprise have decided here that the best option for them is to release this free. Whatever the reason for it, it's not that they're dumping the program and so might as well GPL it. They're just saying that this makes sense NOW.
Remember here that this is the basis for a nice product they're still pushing. C++ builder. Not as nice as Delphi IMHO, but....
This is mostly (I suspect) a decision to get some PR off a product they don't really use by itself any more. The push is behind C++ Builder, JBuilder and Delphi, so this, while still the base compiler for C++ Builder, wasn't doing anything on its own. Might as well do something nice and get some good PR while you're there.
Greg
No, and even if that was true, it'd be a sign of quite how far wrong Microsoft had pitched it.
Let's look at Word, as that's the Office app I'm most familiar with personally. It's quite nice, sure. It's pretty powerful, no doubt. But it also does tons of crazy stuff automatically with no obvious way to turn it off. Auto indenting and auto numbering mainly.
Now, I'm a university student living in halls and there's a fair number of people here who know I'm a reasonably friendly soul who understands the computers. So I get asked to help people reasonably often. Same at home - I help my parents and sister when they get stuck and I've helped several members of our church learn to use their computers.
These people are farm from idiots, but Word will catch them out fairly often - and the amount of daft playing you have to do to defeat the automatic systems is crazy. It slows people down and causes real heartache, along with forcing people to learn how to work round features. And I don't think I'm the only one here who'd say that any feature most people have to work around should be considered a problem.
Word is powerful, sure - but most of that power's in directions which no-one except nerds like us and technical reviewers ever use. Which gets it high scores from the magazines and our respect (well, mostly) but which cause problems for everyday users.
The problem, to put it simply, is that Microsoft don't seem to know who actually uses it. Tone it down a long way and it would be a better program for 90% of its users, along with being cheaper, faster and more stable.
Greg
Please, not Mini-ME...
I've heard that used (admittedly by a rather sad looking individual) as a euphemism for male genitalia. Not a lot better than wince, really...
Greg
The pther reason is resolution. No TV will clear 800*600 (though PAL turns out up to 768*576 IIRC) so you don't have to worry about turning out anything higher than that. It looks better than tht resolution on your monirot as the TV's blurrier.
Lower the resolution and the frame rate or polygon count can be boosted, it's that simple.
Greg
Windows is entirely capable of self-corrupting that badly. I've had 95 delete its copy of GDI.EXE - and there wasn't a virus anywhere near the system, we did check.
Greg
It may well come off, but the objection seemed to be that people had to pay for Windows to read this data. Well, Rob appears to have a Windows license going spare so that's a non-issue.
Greg
Taco can almost certainly already watch this - IIRC he's got a Sony VAIO and I don't recall seeing them sold with anything other than Windows.
:) Who could pester Rob to bring his VAIO in to slashdot towers to get at the clip...
The poster, however, was Hemos
Greg
About halfway between the two, actually - I'd suggest having a (small) time fade component, but having most of it fade relative to posting volume. Time's important as people do change over time, but volume has to be the major one as the whole point about moderation is signal : noise ratios so surely karma should represent your own personal signal : noise ratio?
:)
Anyway, gotta go
I've posted a few times to moderation myself and can recommend it for reading. Wish the code would let this sort of thing be more visible - say, as a slashbox or something - so we could choose our own threads for the front page and get this sort of thing!
Anyway...
The main problem we've had recently is the tiny number of points getting used for some reason. Whether we've simply had a week where no-one's been using them or whether the system hasn't been gving them out properly I don't know, but it's not good. Getting better now, fortunately.
But, long-term, we've still got a problem with karma: persistence. Right now I've got reasonable karma - 41 or so. That would give me, what, 20 posts trolling at +1 if I wanted?
Now, imagine some of the others. Signal 11 and Bruce Perens (the legit one...) both had 2-300 points before karma viewing was disabled. Both could troll at +1 for really quite a while if they wanted. But why should they be able to (hypothetically), just because they're a good contributor now?
Karma needs to fade. By making it degrade over time, the user's worth is related to their recent posting record and so their current worth to the community, not their historical worth.
It's also make it almost impossible to get karma in the 100s and make +1 posting a truly rare achievement. Whereas right now it seems almost anyone can get it given enough time.
You're going to want to make the karma fade relative to posting volume as well as time so you don't lose too much while on holiday but could with a large number of banal posts in one day.
The other idea - how about true mass moderation? Everyone rates a post on a scale of (say) 1 to 5, scores are expressed as a percentage? Logged in users post at 50% by default, ACs at whatever we want?
Greg
Whoops, missed this one earlier.
I want to be able to moderate myself DOWN. Not just with the 'No +1 Bonus', I want to be able to remove points I've been given. A while ago I got a 4 for a post I regretted posting at +1 after I submitted - it didn't say anything substantial or add to the discussion and I was emarrassed to have the points for it.
Moderating yourself up should be out, but moderating yourself down hould certainly be in - and permanent. If I don't think I deserve points, I should be able to reject them.
Greg
Why not browse at highest score first instead? That way you can still see the responses, you just get the decent posts first.
Greg
Extrans posting is broken. Dunno why, but if you want HTML you have to post as HTML formatted instead of Extrans.
:)
The lesson here is simple - always preview your pages, and you'll catch slashdot bugs more often
Greg
That's a good idea, but the problem seems to be that comments are listed in point then date order - so it wouldn't help if more people have already replied as +1 than they're going to submit questions.
I suspect this interview may have to be put on hold, unfortunately...
Greg
Hi all!
Interview questions are historically picked by the moderators - top X questions get submitted.
But, right now - and for a good few days - it just doesn't seem that there's any quantity of moderation points in the system. I mean, when did anyone last see a moderated post?
Something odd appears to have broken and normally this would only cause a real problem if +1s start trolling. But here it stops questions getting submitted by anyone other that +1s so what can we do?
Greg
Not having read the convention in detail I don't know, but last time this came up it was certainly reckoned to be in breach.
Thinking about it, I can't see a lot getting through. One clause is effectively guilty until proven innocent, while the non-discolsure thing is crazy.
Does anyone else know?
Greg
Whoops, I'm not awake.
That's the old bill, which is merely very similar to the new one. Does anyone know where that can be found?
Greg
Refusing to decrypt the data when you're able to is certainly a failure to allow a legal search, but that's not the real problem with this law.
As it stands, you're required to produce the key and thrown in jail if you don't - regardless of whether you even posess the key in the first place. The only thing that counts is the police opinion on whether you posess the key, with the defendant required to prove their innocence, contrary to UK law elsewhere where prosecution are required to prove guilt. Speaking personally, I've got something like 1,000 floppy disks and several Spectrum data cassettes. The idea of having to prove that none of them held a key is a little worrying.
On top of that, my memory is that it's now an offence to tell anyone that you're being prosecuted under this law. Truly terrifying.
Anyway, two good URLs here:
- The bill. Whether the act contains any significant amendments, I don't know but none have been reported so make your own mind up...
- Secondly, some background information
.While it's good to get worried about this, there is hope yet. It's probably in breach of the European convention on Human Rights, which Britain has incorprated into its law. So hopefully it'll get struck down by the High Court as soon as any case on this law gets taken to them.Greg
This is just crazy. Ghostscript has been around for a long time and there isn't a competing Microsoft product, so that one would look a little unlikely. Caldera's issue (well, Digital Research's issue if you go back to who had the problem rather than the current owner) was that they were selling a competing OS which looked rather better and was rather easier to squash with Windows than a silly little utility like this.
The real killer, though, has to be ps2pdf itself - you get at it via the command line. Not via Windows at all.
Sorry, but this is absolute paranoid rubbish. And, as for calling me a Microserf, anyone who knows me would be able to tell you I'm a long-term Amiga user who only reluctantly made the move in November '98. I'm also heavily involved in KOSH.
My love for Microsoft is quite possibly less than yours - but I don't tend to accuse them of something without a mechanism or motive for the offence. They have neither here and it looks rather strongly like it's simply a duff copy of Ghostscript.
Greg
As well as being rather offensive...
Since when was Linux run by a Finnish company? Where it was started is entirely irrelevant.
Come on, you might at least try...
Greg
Wow, that's helpful.
Believe me, I pored over all the documentation I could find, played with all relevant documented flags and tried them several times. I found no way to make the version of ps2pdf that came with Ghostscript work. Look at what you typed, though. Why should the Windows version automatically be fine just because the Mandrake version was? Doesn't follow at all.
Oh come off it, that's just paranoid, What reason do they have to break a utility like that - and what mechanism do they have for keeping it broken?
And no, I don't get Word files. I don't like Office, so I don't use it. I could if I wanted - I'm a student so can get it very cheap. But I don't.
I can make a reasonable stab at loading anything up to Word 7 files via WordPad or WordPro - but my memory says that WordPerfect can do that, while I'm pretty sure Star Office could in the review I saw recently. So I'm no further down the road than you, unless I choose to buy some additional software purely for that feature. Sure, you haven't got the software available to you on Linux, but what percentage of Linux users don't have any version of Windows on their machine and never did? Some, but not many I'd guess.
Greg
I'd agree that that doesn't deserve a 2 - hope it gets moderated down ASAP.
If anyone else seriously doubts this, find an interview. There have been questions submitted from ACs...
Greg
I'm sorry you think that, but I wouldn't regard my faith as either unreasoned or unquestioning. It's the result of actually looking into this sort of thing. I was moaning at exactly the attitude you seem to be complaining about, if you look again.
The normal thing I'd say to this is fairly simple, though - who cares whether I'm right or not? It'd be nice if I am (and I think I am), but it makes me happier now. So surely it's a good thing?
Greg
Scientologists I know very little about but I don't think that many people would refer to them as Christians or Dianetics as The Bible. What they want to get out of it I'm not sure, though I'm pretty sure I heard L. Ron Hubbard say that starting a religion was the best way to make a fortune...
Anyway, that's not all that relevant. I wasn't referring to them.
Greg