What, you've never taken your daughter out to a holiday in the country? That should be a criminal offence. Maybe I'm just lucky that my grandmother owns a farm...
As far as I understand, 'open source' was a term invented by the OSI, and I think it's even trademarked. From the perspective of the OSI, then, all open-source licences are by definition certified by the OSI. However, I reckon a court would agree with you that it hasn't been well-protected, so it's a public domain term by now.
But the fact is, with the exception of ROX and RISC OS (which see things in a totally different manner from other environments), I'm not familiar with any programs that have features you can only access via context-clicking that you can't only access via context-clicking on the Mac. For instance, no program seems to have a way to open a link in a new window by going to the main menu on Windows or Linux webbrowsers. But the same applies to the Mac! You need to context click (at least the first time to discover that command-clicking does the trick, or after you've read the manual and learn that second-clicking does it on LInux).
How do you access properties on Windows? You right click and choose 'properties', or left click to select, go to the file menu, and choose 'properties'. How do you access propeties on Mac? You left click to select, go to the file menu, and choose 'Get Info', or you right click and choose 'get info'. There's no huge difference.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is an advantage. Use of a Mac is made easier with a multi-button mouse. Use of Windows is made easier with a multi-button mouse. Use of Windows is not significantly disadvantaged by not having a multi-button mouse. Use of a Mac is not significantly disadvantaged by not having a multi-button mouse.
Actually, most grandmothers capable of using a computer are probably smart enough to understand left and right buttons. People don't get stupider as they get older (in general); but they let their brains atrophy.
My grandmother is still sharp as a tack because she'd never contemplate letting her mind or body fall apart. If your grandmother doesn't keep using her mind so that concepts evidently quite simple become difficult, that's her own problem.
While this particular grandmother of mine dispises computers, her brother (my great uncle), who speaks no English and came to Australia last year, and who didn't start using a computer till he was relatively old, was right- and left-clicking quite successfully according to the nature of the task (without prompting) in the English version of Windows we have. (Actually, some things he was doing better than I would've, because I'm out of practice using Windows. But am I stupid because I keep forgetting I need to explicitly say I want to copy text?) In fact, he even briefly used Linux on my computer without much difficulty (considering he's used to Windows).
And there's a huge difference between right-clicking and control-clicking. One's goddamned annoying because you need to use two hands. The other's a mildly annoying because the person in question is either out of practice learning, refuses to learn, or isn't being taught at the correct pace, but can be overcome.
When apple themselves make a web browser that it's possible to use without needing to use one hand on the keyboard and another on the mouse, I might believe them.
Yeah, sorry, I meant my Dvorak-thinking brain wonders that and thinks that. I knew they had their reasons (and I reckon copy/paste is better with the mouse than the keyboard:).
Plagiarism is a different matter entirely. It's ethical and academic. Copyright infringement is legal. It is possible to plagiarise without including anything but an idea, whereas that is perfectly legal for copyright purposes; if you properly cite your source, you are probably not plagiarising, but you could still be infringing on someone's copyright.
Actually, that was an earlier case (Eldred vs Ashcroft), and unfortunately was lost. This case is challenging the ability of congress to have changed copyright from opt-in (you have to say 'this work is copyright' if you desire that) to opt-out (you have to say 'this work is not copyright' if you desire that). This one, as you say, has to do with free speech.
Unfortunately, I think this case (Kahle) is even less likely to be won than Eldred.
Actually, as I understand it the AUSFTA won't allow you to reduce the copyright levels below what Australia's 'upgraded' ours to, which are now the same as yours. Life+70's where it's at, unless Kahle wins. Personally, I'm barracking for him, but I have a habit of liking the loser.
But in the case of the Berne Convention, you're slightly wrong, as I understand it. You have to respect life+50 for other countries', but you can have your own lower limit for your own country's copyrights. This proviso was put in to alow the US to sign without changing their laws---strange place this world is!
Two comments only randomly related... one in favor of your comments, one in opposition.
Being an X-and-dvorak-using zealot, I totally forgot the standard copy-and-paste keys. When I started using a Mac with the Dvorak keyboard, my first thought was: How on earth can this possibly be construed as a User Friendly environment, what has V got to do with pasting? --- I'd been trying Ctrl-P and I'm still sure that'd be better. In any case, if you use a decent environment/toolkit, it'll let you arbitrarily remap your keyboard shortcuts to whatever you want; GTK+ is especially nice like this (you need to turn on an option which Gnome doesn't expose, but ROX does, and I'm a bigger ROX zealot than a Dvorak one!). But still, I use the keyboard most for non-typing in VI(M), and even things like the navigation keys don't phase me.
As for the possible superiority of Dvorak, try getting used to touchtyping Dvorak, then go back to qwerty. The *only* word harder to type in dvorak than qwerty is 'qwerty', and going backwards (i.e D=>Q) really does show the advantages of dvorak; it doesn't hurt to type mostly. No random stretches, no going backwards... I can feel my bones complaining right now as I'm not typing on my own computer.
It was a damned good browser when your only choice was IE, Opera or Mozilla's bloatware. Now that we have the much milder take on bloat that is Firefox and because K-Meleon spent a few eons not being developed, there is a choice... But I hate Firefox, so if I'm forced to use Windows I might give K-Meleon another shot...
Head jue south. Eventually you'll reach this thing called the equator. It's not signposted, but after you reach it, assuming you continue travelling south (and don't turn around the second you're at the equator), you'll be in the southern hemisphere. A nice place, the seasons are the way god intended here.
TeX, or at least LaTeX, produces PDFs that look a lot better than most other things people are going to use for that sort of thing. The kind of typesetting Word or Mozilla produces are acceptible for webpages (I suspect only because I have no choice), but when I see PDFs that are little more than just Word documents printed to PDF, it makes me want to tear my eyes out.
If that means I can't use a proper layout language, can't produce documents that look just how I want, then it's a small price to pay.
If you enjoy using KDE, use it. People who enjoy using Gnome will use it. They don't need to be identical; in fact, it would be pointless to have them both if they were. I congratulate both the Gnome and KDE teams for making different products (though I prefer ROX, which is different again from both!).
Traditional in the sense of nothing but honey, water and yeast (and chemicals), not in the sense of the way it was made/drunk in the old country. But anything I say about America is obviously based on hearsay and conjecture from the net, so it can't be trusted further than you can throw it (and it's very hard to throw speech any distance!). In Australia, on the other hand, I think there's maybe one commercial meadery and it's damn near impossible to find their stuff.
I imagine anything written about mead by Englishmen probably uses the nasty Imperial measurements. At least you know what a pound is, and how many ounces there are in a gallon, even if they're different sizes!
I think including hops and using an ale yeast in your mead makes it work out quickly; it ferments more like beer than wine. But I'm just going by what I see on the Internet, for all I know it could be ready by Sunday. I've never fermented anything else before (well, except bread dough). And maybe some fruit I forgot to throw out---but you get what I mean.
I think I'd rather leave wynn to history. With a thorn and p already, you wouldn't be able to tell if I was talking about wee or pee! Yogh would also have a somewhat limited application---if we spell vocal Y with I and delete/rewrite all cases of GH to represent the phonetics, when would we use yogh?
But we stopped using them because Americans only put twenty-six letters on the keyboard, so it was impossible or difficult to type them.
That is to say, we stopped using them because ash merged in sound with E or A; the French invaded not just England but England's orthography, and Dutch printers (who introduced printing to England) only put 52 letters in their fonts, and the damn English were too lazy to insist on a thorn. Also, the English had dodgy handwriting and thorn developed into something that looked like a y (hence Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe).
OTOH, in Iceland, the sound represented by ash remained distinct from A and E, the French never invaded, and the Icelanders tapped their geothermal energy to reduce their consumption of oil, meaning that they had more money to spend on fonts containing the necessary letters.
Please, I'm already obsessed with Iceland. At least one great band comes from there (Agætis Byrun), and they have a very nifty orthography! (English could do with thorns, eths and ashes... it's no surprise they were invented in our very own language!)
How about coke and chips, they both have oil in them too! And while we're misinterpreting the point, what good's a country without any people in them? we've got oil in us too!
Well, it is an inconvenience, because it uses two hands, not one. I often have my second hand busy doing other things (I MEAN like enabling the insertion of food and/or drink into my mouth, or just relaxing inconveniently distant from my keyboard. I don't like being cramped up in a ball just to use my computer).
But that's not what I meant. What I meant was there's no way of selecting a link to make it the active element and Macishly use the main menu to do Macish stuff with it, like you can select a file in the Finder and Macishly use the main menu.
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What, you've never taken your daughter out to a holiday in the country? That should be a criminal offence. Maybe I'm just lucky that my grandmother owns a farm...
As far as I understand, 'open source' was a term invented by the OSI, and I think it's even trademarked. From the perspective of the OSI, then, all open-source licences are by definition certified by the OSI. However, I reckon a court would agree with you that it hasn't been well-protected, so it's a public domain term by now.
But the fact is, with the exception of ROX and RISC OS (which see things in a totally different manner from other environments), I'm not familiar with any programs that have features you can only access via context-clicking that you can't only access via context-clicking on the Mac. For instance, no program seems to have a way to open a link in a new window by going to the main menu on Windows or Linux webbrowsers. But the same applies to the Mac! You need to context click (at least the first time to discover that command-clicking does the trick, or after you've read the manual and learn that second-clicking does it on LInux).
How do you access properties on Windows? You right click and choose 'properties', or left click to select, go to the file menu, and choose 'properties'. How do you access propeties on Mac? You left click to select, go to the file menu, and choose 'Get Info', or you right click and choose 'get info'. There's no huge difference.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is an advantage. Use of a Mac is made easier with a multi-button mouse. Use of Windows is made easier with a multi-button mouse. Use of Windows is not significantly disadvantaged by not having a multi-button mouse. Use of a Mac is not significantly disadvantaged by not having a multi-button mouse.
Actually, most grandmothers capable of using a computer are probably smart enough to understand left and right buttons. People don't get stupider as they get older (in general); but they let their brains atrophy.
My grandmother is still sharp as a tack because she'd never contemplate letting her mind or body fall apart. If your grandmother doesn't keep using her mind so that concepts evidently quite simple become difficult, that's her own problem.
While this particular grandmother of mine dispises computers, her brother (my great uncle), who speaks no English and came to Australia last year, and who didn't start using a computer till he was relatively old, was right- and left-clicking quite successfully according to the nature of the task (without prompting) in the English version of Windows we have. (Actually, some things he was doing better than I would've, because I'm out of practice using Windows. But am I stupid because I keep forgetting I need to explicitly say I want to copy text?) In fact, he even briefly used Linux on my computer without much difficulty (considering he's used to Windows).
And there's a huge difference between right-clicking and control-clicking. One's goddamned annoying because you need to use two hands. The other's a mildly annoying because the person in question is either out of practice learning, refuses to learn, or isn't being taught at the correct pace, but can be overcome.
When apple themselves make a web browser that it's possible to use without needing to use one hand on the keyboard and another on the mouse, I might believe them.
Yeah, sorry, I meant my Dvorak-thinking brain wonders that and thinks that. I knew they had their reasons (and I reckon copy/paste is better with the mouse than the keyboard :).
I dunno where you come from, but where I come from no-one talks to strangers on public transport ...
Plagiarism is a different matter entirely. It's ethical and academic. Copyright infringement is legal. It is possible to plagiarise without including anything but an idea, whereas that is perfectly legal for copyright purposes; if you properly cite your source, you are probably not plagiarising, but you could still be infringing on someone's copyright.
Actually, that was an earlier case (Eldred vs Ashcroft), and unfortunately was lost. This case is challenging the ability of congress to have changed copyright from opt-in (you have to say 'this work is copyright' if you desire that) to opt-out (you have to say 'this work is not copyright' if you desire that). This one, as you say, has to do with free speech.
Unfortunately, I think this case (Kahle) is even less likely to be won than Eldred.
Actually, as I understand it the AUSFTA won't allow you to reduce the copyright levels below what Australia's 'upgraded' ours to, which are now the same as yours. Life+70's where it's at, unless Kahle wins. Personally, I'm barracking for him, but I have a habit of liking the loser.
But in the case of the Berne Convention, you're slightly wrong, as I understand it. You have to respect life+50 for other countries', but you can have your own lower limit for your own country's copyrights. This proviso was put in to alow the US to sign without changing their laws---strange place this world is!
You mean this comment is my own property for 95 years just because I wrote it...
Yes.
Stay back fools and don't quote me. You'd better believe I'll protect my rights!
Oops, I just reused your creation.
Two comments only randomly related... one in favor of your comments, one in opposition.
Being an X-and-dvorak-using zealot, I totally forgot the standard copy-and-paste keys. When I started using a Mac with the Dvorak keyboard, my first thought was: How on earth can this possibly be construed as a User Friendly environment, what has V got to do with pasting? --- I'd been trying Ctrl-P and I'm still sure that'd be better. In any case, if you use a decent environment/toolkit, it'll let you arbitrarily remap your keyboard shortcuts to whatever you want; GTK+ is especially nice like this (you need to turn on an option which Gnome doesn't expose, but ROX does, and I'm a bigger ROX zealot than a Dvorak one!). But still, I use the keyboard most for non-typing in VI(M), and even things like the navigation keys don't phase me.
As for the possible superiority of Dvorak, try getting used to touchtyping Dvorak, then go back to qwerty. The *only* word harder to type in dvorak than qwerty is 'qwerty', and going backwards (i.e D=>Q) really does show the advantages of dvorak; it doesn't hurt to type mostly. No random stretches, no going backwards... I can feel my bones complaining right now as I'm not typing on my own computer.
It was a damned good browser when your only choice was IE, Opera or Mozilla's bloatware. Now that we have the much milder take on bloat that is Firefox and because K-Meleon spent a few eons not being developed, there is a choice... But I hate Firefox, so if I'm forced to use Windows I might give K-Meleon another shot...
Head jue south. Eventually you'll reach this thing called the equator. It's not signposted, but after you reach it, assuming you continue travelling south (and don't turn around the second you're at the equator), you'll be in the southern hemisphere. A nice place, the seasons are the way god intended here.
TeX, or at least LaTeX, produces PDFs that look a lot better than most other things people are going to use for that sort of thing. The kind of typesetting Word or Mozilla produces are acceptible for webpages (I suspect only because I have no choice), but when I see PDFs that are little more than just Word documents printed to PDF, it makes me want to tear my eyes out.
If that means I can't use a proper layout language, can't produce documents that look just how I want, then it's a small price to pay.
If you enjoy using KDE, use it. People who enjoy using Gnome will use it. They don't need to be identical; in fact, it would be pointless to have them both if they were. I congratulate both the Gnome and KDE teams for making different products (though I prefer ROX, which is different again from both!).
Erg, I knew that. I was just listening to Ágætis Byrjun at the time.
I would love that! If only I could do it now so I could add the feature... ;)
Well apparently some sulfite or other has been being used since Roman times at least :)
But read the first sentence of About Mead and see where I got mislead about mead's popularity.
Traditional in the sense of nothing but honey, water and yeast (and chemicals), not in the sense of the way it was made/drunk in the old country. But anything I say about America is obviously based on hearsay and conjecture from the net, so it can't be trusted further than you can throw it (and it's very hard to throw speech any distance!). In Australia, on the other hand, I think there's maybe one commercial meadery and it's damn near impossible to find their stuff.
I imagine anything written about mead by Englishmen probably uses the nasty Imperial measurements. At least you know what a pound is, and how many ounces there are in a gallon, even if they're different sizes!
I think including hops and using an ale yeast in your mead makes it work out quickly; it ferments more like beer than wine. But I'm just going by what I see on the Internet, for all I know it could be ready by Sunday. I've never fermented anything else before (well, except bread dough). And maybe some fruit I forgot to throw out---but you get what I mean.
I think I'd rather leave wynn to history. With a thorn and p already, you wouldn't be able to tell if I was talking about wee or pee! Yogh would also have a somewhat limited application---if we spell vocal Y with I and delete/rewrite all cases of GH to represent the phonetics, when would we use yogh?
But we stopped using them because Americans only put twenty-six letters on the keyboard, so it was impossible or difficult to type them.
That is to say, we stopped using them because ash merged in sound with E or A; the French invaded not just England but England's orthography, and Dutch printers (who introduced printing to England) only put 52 letters in their fonts, and the damn English were too lazy to insist on a thorn. Also, the English had dodgy handwriting and thorn developed into something that looked like a y (hence Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe).
OTOH, in Iceland, the sound represented by ash remained distinct from A and E, the French never invaded, and the Icelanders tapped their geothermal energy to reduce their consumption of oil, meaning that they had more money to spend on fonts containing the necessary letters.
So in short, as in all things: Blame the French!
Thankyou! A very insightful post. (PS: Tasmania, the Australian island state, gets most of its electricity from hydro too, as I understand it.)
Please, I'm already obsessed with Iceland. At least one great band comes from there (Agætis Byrun), and they have a very nifty orthography! (English could do with thorns, eths and ashes ... it's no surprise they were invented in our very own language!)
How about coke and chips, they both have oil in them too! And while we're misinterpreting the point, what good's a country without any people in them? we've got oil in us too!
Well, it is an inconvenience, because it uses two hands, not one. I often have my second hand busy doing other things (I MEAN like enabling the insertion of food and/or drink into my mouth, or just relaxing inconveniently distant from my keyboard. I don't like being cramped up in a ball just to use my computer).
But that's not what I meant. What I meant was there's no way of selecting a link to make it the active element and Macishly use the main menu to do Macish stuff with it, like you can select a file in the Finder and Macishly use the main menu.
Sorry for not being quite clear.