OSS OSes, Linux in my case, are free, open, stable, secure and allways give you the possibility to solve problems. We all know that. Yet there is one thing that comes with OSS that lots of people don't think of conciously, one which I think weighs in bigger than all the rest. Linux is open and thus there is no comercial interest in making it obsolete. On the contrary. Entry: The single biggest reason for embracing OSS/Linux and never touching Windows again: I never again will have to learn a new OS and how to handle it. I repeat:
I will never again - in my entire life - have to learn a new OS and it's wayabouts.
Or the other way around:
All I learn now on Linux will most likely never become obsolete.
Just think about that one for a minute.
Thinking about it, this could be a reason why MickeySofts death may even be inevitable in the end.
I'm suprised that this is news with the slashdot crowd. Konrad Zuses Z3 was the first truely turing complete device in history (the first 'real' computer). Curiously, it was actually a mostly mechanical device. Only the rebuilds use electricity to a larger extent.
Yet the most significant invention to me is not the computer (as the concept has been around almost for centuries) but the microcircuit, imho. Making the world first microcomputer an invention actually worth talking about.
BTW: Who built the first commercial microcomputer? Was that IBM? Unisys? Or what?
I'm a Freelancer and do my coding at home. That has it's advantages. One of them being that I'm there often and that I can turn away from the machine as soon as my daughter wants something from me and it will wait and wont be insulted, I can turn my attention to her imidiately. You should take that advantage too.
The only problem I see with coding is that your doing something a three year old can't imitate. Be shure to be doing practical stuff aswell when your child is around. Be it housework, gardening or fixing things. Large portions of the brain only develope properly if children have a larger variety of manual tasks they can observe and 'ape' in the first 3 years. I believe this is also one of the reasons that so many programmers children are autistic.
He compares MickeySoft with a Mac. That's that computer with the Unix (the stable one) underneath and that superneat GUI (the easiest one) on top. Usabilitywise and in terms of getting the job done Macs kick every other desktop up and down the street. OSS and especially MicroSuck. I a Linux guy for quite some time now and just got myself an iBook (for some Flash programming). Panther is a breeze even compared to a custom Fluxbox setup. It hasn't got all the tweeks but it's got Expose (think "deep and wide workspace management orgasm") and you can get working in something like 40 to 60 seconds. Now imagine a Windows person used to a crappy dell with MS on it trying a custom fit Mac. No wonder he thinks he's in heaven.
MickeySoft to it's doom? Not likely. Unless the people there are _extremely_ stupid. They've done some stupid stuff in recent years, but as I see it M$ still has a chance to learn and cope with the changes brewing. They have definitely missed their chance to maintain their monopoly in ranting about OSS instead of joining the fray and taking the lead - which they could''ve easyly done. MS will become less important as a player in the software field. If they manage they may become a top notch overall service provider, but they've definitely lost their monopol. Yet I doubt they'll go away as in 'doom'. MS has some businessmodels in their genes that comes with some serious moneymaking and surviving instincts.
Sorry to ask this question that way, but even the first page of that book you link to gives me the creeps. And I make a living of writing Software. How did you get the Idea that a book like that would bring your Mom closer to what computers are all about???
Show her someting PRATICAL! Such as how she can sort the adresses of her friends by name or how she can automatically rearange knitting maps with self made algorythims. Use "O"s "X"es and other characters to resemble different knots. In case you've forgotten: Computers emulate primitive aspects of human thinking and automate these. Give her examples of this to show her what makes these machines so fascinating. With numbertheory and all that stuff she'll never grasp what you're so exited about.
On a sidenote: I'm right now building my mother a new Linux box. It's her first computer. She's 64 years old. I showed here the screenshots of Fluxbox, KDE and Windowmaker (all three of which I know best) and explained the up's and downs of all. She chose Windowmaker. She's going to do Content Management for me, helping me out a little and that will enable us to pep up her pension a bit. She wouldn't have touched a computer with a ten foot pole if I would've bugged her with spaced-off computer science and number theory.
As PL for what you want to do I recomend Python, because it's the most consitent of the modern ones. Perl, Scheme and whatnot are much to quirky and have to much historically grown inconsitencies to be understandable for someone new to the field.
Bottom Line: Whatever you do, stay practical and try to remember what fascinated you about computers and programming when you got involved. I bet it was something like infinitely printing out 'Pogo was here!' in a Basic loop on the c64 or something like that... That's almost where you should start of anybody else aswell.
One option: Learn your favourite martial arts. I recommend Aikido or Hising-I and Pakua (the prerequesites of _real_ Tai Chi) Those are cool contrasts to the usual geek stuff and you'll be suprised about the inteligent people practicing and teaching the 'inner' martial arts such as those mentioned above. I have an Aikido Dojo right around the corner since 6 weeks ago. Started training 3 weeks ago. Very cool. Always wanted to do that, now I finally am. Learn to be prepared to use your favourite martial arts technique in RL when troubles brewing.
Melee Weapon MA is cool too. Dobble stick fighting (Eskrima, Dan Insentos 'Eskrido', etc.) is especially effective in beating the crap out of anybody and anything with two rather short sticks which are easy to carry around on/with your usual baggage/backpack/whatever.
Bottom line: Get exercise and boost your self esteem. Be prepared but don't be paranoid.
Postgres is one of those products that are cool but don't soar due to a hazy unhip image. People either use MySQL (most know DB) or something like SAP(!!)DB or it's follow-up MaxDB. For one I'd say Postgres (or is it PostgreSQL???) could _really_ use a better, grittier name. And the Site needs an optical redo. My 2 cents.
1st of all: I feel sorry for your sister and what she may be about to go through. I've had serious issues of phobia as a teenager (which I also coped with with philosophy) but I know that that's cake compared to what schizo induced phobias can be. I shure hope all involved get through all this well and grow stronger from it!
Someone mentioned checking for amalgam fillings. Usually composed of all sorts of posionous metals, including mercury and lead. I second this totally! These are poisons that can seriously affect brain activity! But also check for other external chemical causes of the disease. Including nutricion as someone else mentioned. Even sugar can be a cause of a wide range of mental symptoms with some people. General point in case: I was in Wales a few years ago and the people I stayed with told me that some years ago seriously notable amounts of sheep farmers in the area where getting depressive with a large part of those commiting suicide. It turned out that was due to a new anti-parasite treatment bath the farmers treated their herds with. Inhaling the fumes was enough for many of them to get seriously depressive in a very short period of time - even those who had never been depressive before. Bottom line: Mental diseases can have chemical causes! Double check for those and adjust acordingly, even if the 'experts' say it a non-issue. In the worst case it only supports the heavy-drug medication, therapy and treatment, which is just fine anyway. Be it even a placebo effect. Who cares?
A last thing: I know this won't count with a lot of people and probably go through as unscientific esotheric crackpot bullshit but I'd like to give you one personal advice: Do also consult an anthoposophical Doktor. They allways have the classical medical training but also have the additional anthoposophical knowledge. WHich makes them additionally creditable in my opinion. Many people will say (some 'normal' Doctors especially) that the stuff about the etheric and astral body and such is major bullcrap but do consult one if you have a chance. Be it to get your own impression. These people know more answers than lots of the run-of-the mill psycologist or other specialist dealing with semi-'physical' issues.
If you sister needs stationary treatment (god forbid) I also strongly recommend an anthoposophical clinic if you can afford it. Even if it's substacially farther away.
RealPlayer is *not* Spyware. And it's not shoddy and it does *not* bloat your system. Lots of Ads at startup? And a crappy website for years on end? Ok, I'll give you that. But anything else is just plain baseless FUD! I must say that I am gratefull for Real actually offering a Linux Player for their stuff long befor any other company had the amount of braincells to grasp the concept of alternative OSes. It works, doesn't look to crappy, even on Motiv-only systems (which is quite an achievement, admit it) and SMIL is actually a very nice thing and was an official, fully XML compliant open standard long before SVG even crossed the mind of any one at Adobe and Macromedia still was f*cking around with a crappy Flash 4 that couldn't even get it's own IDE sorted out. Not that they have been able to do that up to date.
That this OSS Helix Player is bound to be the first one to support SMIL 2 is an impressive thing and could actually use some moral support. Real back in the dot-boom days was the only thing you actually could do dynamic rich media media with. I was doing SMIL with an EDITOR back then. Try that with any other 'open' standard even today. As soon as this works I'm outta Flash 2k4 Pro again in an instant. Unless Macromedia gets a grip and sorts out their serious IDE problems. They actually should do that before they semi-port stuff for Linux with Wine, imho.
Bottom Line: Quit the Spyware Legend and support a working streaming media standard that isn't half as nazi about DRM than Mickeysoft.
The funniest (sadest?) thing is that you kicked the british out and kept the worse thing they had voluntarily. The *imperial* system! Even thought the french helped you! That's the real loser part.
BTW: It was Napoleon who established the metric system big time in large parts of his area of influence. Shame he couldn't follow the other guidelines: Universal Rule Number One: Never start a land war in Asia.
I think that is a significant impercision you've got in that translation. Mine says: "... the free and the peasants altogether give themselves a malsign...". They give it themselves because they honor the beast. That's a huge difference. (And it describes what's happening more percisely) Can anyone with the hebrew 'original' and the appropriate hebrew skills clarify this one? Or anyone with knowlege of the different translations and which is the truest?
Revelation 13 ... 16: And it comes to be that the small and the large, the rich and the poor, the free and the peasants altogether give themselves a malsign on their right hand or their forehead.
17: So it be that no one can buy or sell, if he not bear the sign, namely the sign of the beast or the number of his name.
Somewhat creepy, ain't it?
Yet it is conclusive in a way. Consider the following: The spiritual inspirator of arts being the spiritual being (read: 'power') we call Lucifer, the inspirator of science being the 'power' Satan (or Ariman, to be more percise) - which, on a side note, makes the amish people the most consequent religious-confessional christians IMHO - and the spiritual being who holds the balance in the middle being the christ. We live in an age where science and materialisim (which aims to neglect any sort of true spirituality) runs rampant. Call it the western age or 'the age of the white man' as the chief of the cree (was it cree?) put it. It's quite a logic consequence for this RFID/body-chip issue taking the turn the Bible profecies (spelling?) here. I consider myself quite sober in terms of spirituality and I do think the evangelists and some other people had the knowlege and wisdom to look this far into the future. Then again, large parts of the revelation are somewhat 'babbleish' so again everybody has to make his own impression.
Being a techie and a geek for a very long time I have to say I'm buying into this overall-consitency thing Nintendo and Apple like to emphasise. I bought a GB SP earlier this year and just got a new iBook the other week. And their overall desing and feeling makes the extra money worthwhile. And that's a former Linux-only user saying this!
This dual screen thing seemed stupid, but now I understand what they where talking. It's not about a screen but about coping with the lack of GB buttons!!! That's why the bottom one is a touchscreen. And a touchscreen where you can change the writing size and amount of buttons instantly is the next best thing to a mechanical keyboard. IMHO this has all the chances of becoming a neat engineering/solution stunt. For my part I can say that I'm sold. I'll definitely check this gadget out when it hits the shelves. I hope it has enough ooomph and controlability to get some neat RTS and FPS games on it. Duke Nukem GBA is neat but not really stunning.
...software patents or not. We may see the time when it becomes de-facto illegal to write software, but then most coders either will stop coding or will move into the underground. Sort of like the alchemists a few hundred years ago. I even think software patents could even push OSS, as freelance coders officially won't sell software anymore but more obscure 'services'. Licences will become less important since they require an officil legal holder - a big no-no for the small programmer in future thought-crime societies. There will be lots of semi-legal quasi public-domain stuff and in the end software-only vendors will fold. Be they US american or not. As I've said before: Bonjour Cyberpunk.
We've got a few (3?) Rothenburg's in Germany. The one americans probably know the best is Rothenburg op der Tauber. Rothenburg a. d. Wümme is not the medival postcard town, it's just a small boring northern german town.:-) BTW: Wümme and Tauber are both rivers. German cities with same names ofter difference themselves by the rivers they lie at.
In the chinese empire a good copy of a masters painting was considered just as worthy as the original. Of course there were guilds and things considered secrets or uniqieness-by-law for certain documents (mostly the emporers treasure bills that were a reciept for gold, the first modern money), but basically there was no IPR. I don't know about you, but I have the impression the chinese empire managed quite well without IPR. In fact, they way the chinese handled IP I personally consider more sane than that crazy western concept of patents, which is basically not much different from the spiritual monopoly of the catholic church in medieval times. A somewhat primitive concept if you ask me. And a wrong one too. There is no such thing as IP. Only a guaranteed (spelling?) monopoly by law for imaterial goods. You may have a so-called 'thought-patent' on a software algorithim, but you don't own the thought or intelectual concept behind it. No matter what a legal system may tell you about IP and such bullshit.
I doubt the most/.ers even would grasp PS and what it's all about. The headline should give you an impression. You _can_ do some usefull stuff with Gimp, but only on a _very_ limited scale compared to PS. This guy obviously is somebody who uses PS for a living. It's a shame he doesn't come to what makes PS really tick. Gimp 2.0 has all the editing features and the most basic layers. And THATS IT. Imagine a guy used to emacs checking in on this Notepad thing everyones talking about. Mr. Emacs would spend like 2 minutes before getting the impression that he's wasting his time. PS is the reference for all GFX programms. It has features that you use twice every minute once you know them, but are lightyears ahead of any other program out there. You can do things with PS you wouldn't even think of doing with other pixel editors. Very much like Notepad compared to Jedit. Gimp 2.0 actually can be used for usefull things but it is by no means in the same ballpark as PS. Anybody saying that this guy probably didn't look properly doesn't know what he's talking about.
Good ol' D&D. If it only would be that way....
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
D&D is good old D&D. Yes, we all know it. I actually started with the good ole german DSA in 1984, which then was an amplified D&D with more diversity, but D&D-like nonetheless. We actually still meet 4 times a year to play. That's 20 years! No shit. Yet what amazes me to date is that people still consider (A)D&D or DSA a good RPG system. No geek would use CPM over Linux or MacOS X today, but you meet a dime a dozen who say AD&D is a good RPG. Just a few weeks ago I met a guy who said the new AD&D got better because the Ranger is better now. I just stood in bedazzlement and couldn't say anything.
D&D is nice to remember, but it's nonetheless the classic CEH - Characterclasses, Experiencelevels, Hitpoints - pain. All three of which don't exist here or in any fantasy world and actually get in the way of any good RPG system. Hitpoints maybe not so much - but the other two definitely. Nearly every RPG that came out since around about 1990 takes that into account. Yet them (A)D&D zealots still act as if they are cream of the RPG scene. They probably are in the shops because they spent the most money on books. And it _is_ no sweat to spend 5000$ to 6000$ on (A)D&D books.
People calling (A)D&D as good a RPG as Torg, Harnmaster or Runequest, or Shadowrun as good a RPG as Torg, SLA or Gurps sound to me like the guy who fancies WinNT over Solaris as a Network OS. I have a hard time taking them for granted.
Just had to be said.....
Often textfiles are perfectly sufficient.
on
Why MySQL Grew So Fast
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· Score: 3, Insightful
MySQLs popularity is due to it being percieved as an extension of the textfile solution and it's open and closing problems rather than what database savy would call a database. If you want to drop data somewhere and pick it up later - which is usually the case in 99% of the time - MySQL is perfectly sufficient. Real usecases of databases however acutally require a solid integration of data and code and transparent runtime access to it. In terms of true object orientednes the 'real' DBs are just as much a compromise as MySQL is and require tall stacks of code to compensate for hardware constraints and data obscurety. Object relational DB's that offer absolute transparence of data and application space at runtime are the true thing. But those, appart from a few exeptions, aren't quite there yet. Zope/ZopeDB comes to mind as an example of what DBs should be like. Compared to Zope, MaxDB, Postgres or even Oracle are not much more than MySQL. It's all dependent on the perspective.
Slashdot Mirror
OSS OSes, Linux in my case, are free, open, stable, secure and allways give you the possibility to solve problems. We all know that. Yet there is one thing that comes with OSS that lots of people don't think of conciously, one which I think weighs in bigger than all the rest. Linux is open and thus there is no comercial interest in making it obsolete. On the contrary.
Entry: The single biggest reason for embracing OSS/Linux and never touching Windows again:
I never again will have to learn a new OS and how to handle it.
I repeat:
I will never again - in my entire life - have to learn a new OS and it's wayabouts.
Or the other way around:
All I learn now on Linux will most likely never become obsolete.
Just think about that one for a minute.
Thinking about it, this could be a reason why MickeySofts death may even be inevitable in the end.
I'm suprised that this is news with the slashdot crowd. Konrad Zuses Z3 was the first truely turing complete device in history (the first 'real' computer). Curiously, it was actually a mostly mechanical device. Only the rebuilds use electricity to a larger extent.
Yet the most significant invention to me is not the computer (as the concept has been around almost for centuries) but the microcircuit, imho. Making the world first microcomputer an invention actually worth talking about.
BTW: Who built the first commercial microcomputer? Was that IBM? Unisys? Or what?
I'm a Freelancer and do my coding at home. That has it's advantages. One of them being that I'm there often and that I can turn away from the machine as soon as my daughter wants something from me and it will wait and wont be insulted,
I can turn my attention to her imidiately. You should take that advantage too.
The only problem I see with coding is that your doing something a three year old can't imitate. Be shure to be doing practical stuff aswell when your child is around. Be it housework, gardening or fixing things. Large portions of the brain only develope properly if children have a larger variety of manual tasks they can observe and 'ape' in the first 3 years. I believe this is also one of the reasons that so many programmers children are autistic.
He compares MickeySoft with a Mac. That's that computer with the Unix (the stable one) underneath and that superneat GUI (the easiest one) on top.
Usabilitywise and in terms of getting the job done Macs kick every other desktop up and down the street. OSS and especially MicroSuck.
I a Linux guy for quite some time now and just got myself an iBook (for some Flash programming). Panther is a breeze even compared to a custom Fluxbox setup. It hasn't got all the tweeks but it's got Expose (think "deep and wide workspace management orgasm") and you can get working in something like 40 to 60 seconds.
Now imagine a Windows person used to a crappy dell with MS on it trying a custom fit Mac. No wonder he thinks he's in heaven.
MickeySoft to it's doom? Not likely. Unless the people there are _extremely_ stupid. They've done some stupid stuff in recent years, but as I see it M$ still has a chance to learn and cope with the changes brewing.
They have definitely missed their chance to maintain their monopoly in ranting about OSS instead of joining the fray and taking the lead - which they could''ve easyly done.
MS will become less important as a player in the software field. If they manage they may become a top notch overall service provider, but they've definitely lost their monopol.
Yet I doubt they'll go away as in 'doom'. MS has some businessmodels in their genes that comes with some serious moneymaking and surviving instincts.
Sorry to ask this question that way, but even the first page of that book you link to gives me the creeps. And I make a living of writing Software.
How did you get the Idea that a book like that would bring your Mom closer to what computers are all about???
Show her someting PRATICAL! Such as how she can sort the adresses of her friends by name or how she can automatically rearange knitting maps with self made algorythims. Use "O"s "X"es and other characters to resemble different knots.
In case you've forgotten: Computers emulate primitive aspects of human thinking and automate these. Give her examples of this to show her what makes these machines so fascinating. With numbertheory and all that stuff she'll never grasp what you're so exited about.
On a sidenote: I'm right now building my mother a new Linux box. It's her first computer. She's 64 years old. I showed here the screenshots of Fluxbox, KDE and Windowmaker (all three of which I know best) and explained the up's and downs of all. She chose Windowmaker. She's going to do Content Management for me, helping me out a little and that will enable us to pep up her pension a bit. She wouldn't have touched a computer with a ten foot pole if I would've bugged her with spaced-off computer science and number theory.
As PL for what you want to do I recomend Python, because it's the most consitent of the modern ones. Perl, Scheme and whatnot are much to quirky and have to much historically grown inconsitencies to be understandable for someone new to the field.
Bottom Line: Whatever you do, stay practical and try to remember what fascinated you about computers and programming when you got involved. I bet it was something like infinitely printing out 'Pogo was here!' in a Basic loop on the c64 or something like that... That's almost where you should start of anybody else aswell.
One option: Learn your favourite martial arts. I recommend Aikido or Hising-I and Pakua (the prerequesites of _real_ Tai Chi) Those are cool contrasts to the usual geek stuff and you'll be suprised about the inteligent people practicing and teaching the 'inner' martial arts such as those mentioned above.
I have an Aikido Dojo right around the corner since 6 weeks ago. Started training 3 weeks ago. Very cool. Always wanted to do that, now I finally am. Learn to be prepared to use your favourite martial arts technique in RL when troubles brewing.
Melee Weapon MA is cool too. Dobble stick fighting (Eskrima, Dan Insentos 'Eskrido', etc.) is especially effective in beating the crap out of anybody and anything with two rather short sticks which are easy to carry around on/with your usual baggage/backpack/whatever.
Bottom line: Get exercise and boost your self esteem. Be prepared but don't be paranoid.
Postgres is one of those products that are cool but don't soar due to a hazy unhip image. People either use MySQL (most know DB) or something like SAP(!!)DB or it's follow-up MaxDB.
For one I'd say Postgres (or is it PostgreSQL???) could _really_ use a better, grittier name. And the Site needs an optical redo.
My 2 cents.
1st of all:
I feel sorry for your sister and what she may be about to go through. I've had serious issues of phobia as a teenager (which I also coped with with philosophy) but I know that that's cake compared to what schizo induced phobias can be. I shure hope all involved get through all this well and grow stronger from it!
Someone mentioned checking for amalgam fillings. Usually composed of all sorts of posionous metals, including mercury and lead. I second this totally! These are poisons that can seriously affect brain activity!
But also check for other external chemical causes of the disease. Including nutricion as someone else mentioned. Even sugar can be a cause of a wide range of mental symptoms with some people.
General point in case:
I was in Wales a few years ago and the people I stayed with told me that some years ago seriously notable amounts of sheep farmers in the area where getting depressive with a large part of those commiting suicide.
It turned out that was due to a new anti-parasite treatment bath the farmers treated their herds with. Inhaling the fumes was enough for many of them to get seriously depressive in a very short period of time - even those who had never been depressive before.
Bottom line:
Mental diseases can have chemical causes! Double check for those and adjust acordingly, even if the 'experts' say it a non-issue. In the worst case it only supports the heavy-drug medication, therapy and treatment, which is just fine anyway. Be it even a placebo effect. Who cares?
A last thing:
I know this won't count with a lot of people and probably go through as unscientific esotheric crackpot bullshit but I'd like to give you one personal advice:
Do also consult an anthoposophical Doktor. They allways have the classical medical training but also have the additional anthoposophical knowledge. WHich makes them additionally creditable in my opinion. Many people will say (some 'normal' Doctors especially) that the stuff about the etheric and astral body and such is major bullcrap but do consult one if you have a chance. Be it to get your own impression. These people know more answers than lots of the run-of-the mill psycologist or other specialist dealing with semi-'physical' issues.
If you sister needs stationary treatment (god forbid) I also strongly recommend an anthoposophical clinic if you can afford it. Even if it's substacially farther away.
RealPlayer is *not* Spyware. And it's not shoddy and it does *not* bloat your system.
Lots of Ads at startup? And a crappy website for years on end? Ok, I'll give you that. But anything else is just plain baseless FUD!
I must say that I am gratefull for Real actually offering a Linux Player for their stuff long befor any other company had the amount of braincells to grasp the concept of alternative OSes.
It works, doesn't look to crappy, even on Motiv-only systems (which is quite an achievement, admit it) and SMIL is actually a very nice thing and was an official, fully XML compliant open standard long before SVG even crossed the mind of any one at Adobe and Macromedia still was f*cking around with a crappy Flash 4 that couldn't even get it's own IDE sorted out. Not that they have been able to do that up to date.
That this OSS Helix Player is bound to be the first one to support SMIL 2 is an impressive thing and could actually use some moral support. Real back in the dot-boom days was the only thing you actually could do dynamic rich media media with. I was doing SMIL with an EDITOR back then. Try that with any other 'open' standard even today.
As soon as this works I'm outta Flash 2k4 Pro again in an instant. Unless Macromedia gets a grip and sorts out their serious IDE problems. They actually should do that before they semi-port stuff for Linux with Wine, imho.
Bottom Line: Quit the Spyware Legend and support a working streaming media standard that isn't half as nazi about DRM than Mickeysoft.
Market awareness is.
A common phrase in Germany is: The Germans invent it, the USAmericans sell it.
The funniest (sadest?) thing is that you kicked the british out and kept the worse thing they had voluntarily. The *imperial* system!
Even thought the french helped you! That's the real loser part.
BTW: It was Napoleon who established the metric system big time in large parts of his area of influence.
Shame he couldn't follow the other guidelines:
Universal Rule Number One: Never start a land war in Asia.
It came this far already... :-)
He also forced everyone, small...
...".
I think that is a significant impercision you've got in that translation.
Mine says:
"... the free and the peasants altogether give themselves a malsign
They give it themselves because they honor the beast. That's a huge difference. (And it describes what's happening more percisely)
Can anyone with the hebrew 'original' and the appropriate hebrew skills clarify this one? Or anyone with knowlege of the different translations and which is the truest?
Revelation 13
...
16: And it comes to be that the small and the large, the rich and the poor, the free and the peasants altogether give themselves a malsign on their right hand or their forehead.
17: So it be that no one can buy or sell, if he not bear the sign, namely the sign of the beast or the number of his name.
Somewhat creepy, ain't it?
Yet it is conclusive in a way.
Consider the following: The spiritual inspirator of arts being the spiritual being (read: 'power') we call Lucifer, the inspirator of science being the 'power' Satan (or Ariman, to be more percise) - which, on a side note, makes the amish people the most consequent religious-confessional christians IMHO - and the spiritual being who holds the balance in the middle being the christ. We live in an age where science and materialisim (which aims to neglect any sort of true spirituality) runs rampant. Call it the western age or 'the age of the white man' as the chief of the cree (was it cree?) put it.
It's quite a logic consequence for this RFID/body-chip issue taking the turn the Bible profecies (spelling?) here.
I consider myself quite sober in terms of spirituality and I do think the evangelists and some other people had the knowlege and wisdom to look this far into the future.
Then again, large parts of the revelation are somewhat 'babbleish' so again everybody has to make his own impression.
Being a techie and a geek for a very long time I have to say I'm buying into this overall-consitency thing Nintendo and Apple like to emphasise.
I bought a GB SP earlier this year and just got a new iBook the other week. And their overall desing and feeling makes the extra money worthwhile. And that's a former Linux-only user saying this!
This dual screen thing seemed stupid, but now I understand what they where talking. It's not about a screen but about coping with the lack of GB buttons!!! That's why the bottom one is a touchscreen. And a touchscreen where you can change the writing size and amount of buttons instantly is the next best thing to a mechanical keyboard. IMHO this has all the chances of becoming a neat engineering/solution stunt.
For my part I can say that I'm sold. I'll definitely check this gadget out when it hits the shelves. I hope it has enough ooomph and controlability to get some neat RTS and FPS games on it. Duke Nukem GBA is neat but not really stunning.
...software patents or not.
We may see the time when it becomes de-facto illegal to write software, but then most coders either will stop coding or will move into the underground. Sort of like the alchemists a few hundred years ago.
I even think software patents could even push OSS, as freelance coders officially won't sell software anymore but more obscure 'services'. Licences will become less important since they require an officil legal holder - a big no-no for the small programmer in future thought-crime societies. There will be lots of semi-legal quasi public-domain stuff and in the end software-only vendors will fold. Be they US american or not. As I've said before: Bonjour Cyberpunk.
Yeah, could be. :-)
We've got a few (3?) Rothenburg's in Germany. The one americans probably know the best is Rothenburg op der Tauber. :-)
Rothenburg a. d. Wümme is not the medival postcard town, it's just a small boring northern german town.
BTW: Wümme and Tauber are both rivers. German cities with same names ofter difference themselves by the rivers they lie at.
In the chinese empire a good copy of a masters painting was considered just as worthy as the original. Of course there were guilds and things considered secrets or uniqieness-by-law for certain documents (mostly the emporers treasure bills that were a reciept for gold, the first modern money), but basically there was no IPR.
I don't know about you, but I have the impression the chinese empire managed quite well without IPR. In fact, they way the chinese handled IP I personally consider more sane than that crazy western concept of patents, which is basically not much different from the spiritual monopoly of the catholic church in medieval times. A somewhat primitive concept if you ask me.
And a wrong one too.
There is no such thing as IP. Only a guaranteed (spelling?) monopoly by law for imaterial goods. You may have a so-called 'thought-patent' on a software algorithim, but you don't own the thought or intelectual concept behind it. No matter what a legal system may tell you about IP and such bullshit.
It needs GOOD DOCUMENTATION
Here you go.
And here too.
I'm afraid documentation for blender won't get any more in-depth than that. Or documentation for any 3D program for that matter.
I doubt the most /.ers even would grasp PS and what it's all about. The headline should give you an impression. You _can_ do some usefull stuff with Gimp, but only on a _very_ limited scale compared to PS.
This guy obviously is somebody who uses PS for a living. It's a shame he doesn't come to what makes PS really tick.
Gimp 2.0 has all the editing features and the most basic layers. And THATS IT. Imagine a guy used to emacs checking in on this Notepad thing everyones talking about. Mr. Emacs would spend like 2 minutes before getting the impression that he's wasting his time.
PS is the reference for all GFX programms. It has features that you use twice every minute once you know them, but are lightyears ahead of any other program out there. You can do things with PS you wouldn't even think of doing with other pixel editors. Very much like Notepad compared to Jedit. Gimp 2.0 actually can be used for usefull things but it is by no means in the same ballpark as PS.
Anybody saying that this guy probably didn't look properly doesn't know what he's talking about.
I thougt they made sneakers.
D&D is good old D&D. Yes, we all know it. I actually started with the good ole german DSA in 1984, which then was an amplified D&D with more diversity, but D&D-like nonetheless. We actually still meet 4 times a year to play. That's 20 years! No shit.
Yet what amazes me to date is that people still consider (A)D&D or DSA a good RPG system. No geek would use CPM over Linux or MacOS X today, but you meet a dime a dozen who say AD&D is a good RPG. Just a few weeks ago I met a guy who said the new AD&D got better because the Ranger is better now. I just stood in bedazzlement and couldn't say anything.
D&D is nice to remember, but it's nonetheless the classic CEH - Characterclasses, Experiencelevels, Hitpoints - pain. All three of which don't exist here or in any fantasy world and actually get in the way of any good RPG system. Hitpoints maybe not so much - but the other two definitely. Nearly every RPG that came out since around about 1990 takes that into account. Yet them (A)D&D zealots still act as if they are cream of the RPG scene. They probably are in the shops because they spent the most money on books. And it _is_ no sweat to spend 5000$ to 6000$ on (A)D&D books.
People calling (A)D&D as good a RPG as Torg, Harnmaster or Runequest, or Shadowrun as good a RPG as Torg, SLA or Gurps sound to me like the guy who fancies WinNT over Solaris as a Network OS. I have a hard time taking them for granted.
Just had to be said.....
MySQLs popularity is due to it being percieved as an extension of the textfile solution and it's open and closing problems rather than what database savy would call a database.
If you want to drop data somewhere and pick it up later - which is usually the case in 99% of the time - MySQL is perfectly sufficient.
Real usecases of databases however acutally require a solid integration of data and code and transparent runtime access to it. In terms of true object orientednes the 'real' DBs are just as much a compromise as MySQL is and require tall stacks of code to compensate for hardware constraints and data obscurety.
Object relational DB's that offer absolute transparence of data and application space at runtime are the true thing. But those, appart from a few exeptions, aren't quite there yet.
Zope/ZopeDB comes to mind as an example of what DBs should be like. Compared to Zope, MaxDB, Postgres or even Oracle are not much more than MySQL. It's all dependent on the perspective.