To: pr@forgent.com subject: Important information regarding the matter at hand
Dear Sir stroke Madam,
I am writing to you to express my utmost contempt for your company. Your attempt to put the squeeze on users of the FREE AND ISO STANDARD jpeg format makes me sick. The fact that Sony gave you $15 million when I can't even afford to pay my mortgage makes me sick.
Your company did not invent the jpeg image format. That was done by people who actually work for a living instead of litigating.
All you have is a patent, which DOESN'T EVEN APPLY TO JPEG AT ALL, and now you are ruthlessly attempting to enforce it.
Well I am going to use the jpeg format a lot more from now on. I am going to release some commercial software that allows users to batch filter jpeg images.
I would like to be the first person to draw your attention to the bottom of the report, where they state that it can be downloaded in msword, pdf or rtf formats, and say something funny about it.
Only I can't think of anything funny to say. Make up your own joke, maybe even post it here so the rest of us can appreciate it.
As usual, another news story on there caught my eye and was far more interesting: 60 foot squid washes up on Tamsmanian beach!
I mean, blah blah fascists police the internet and make their laws up as they go along. Blah blah, but Giant Squid! 60 feet long! That's like, 18 metres!
I too can never find my monitor manuals, and I use a kvm switch, and some computers connected to it have experimental OSs put on them every once in a while. That's why I wrote:
You know, although I was really joking with the original post (well, half-joking- see my other post), I realized something when I read Zenithal's post...
Windows XP is a pretty damn stable OS; it supports a lot of hardware, video codecs, sound codecs, development tool both free and proprietary etc. You *can* hack with XP. You can install mingw32, an Xserver or client, free game-development libs, free obscure programming languages etc...
BUT XP is anathema to the geek, and why? Lots of reasons: a big nasty corporation control it, there is only one UI and it sucks, there are loads of "dumb filters" designed to by default stop you viewing your files properly or do anything complicated etc.
Well imagine new "popular linux". It could be very like XP. Only one user-interface because most people run it so developers target it (KDE could do this), corporations control it (effectively) by providing commercial applications that you just "gotta have", locking you into their customer-base, dumb filters in place on all the apps which it is tedious to take off, etc.
In fact, "popular linux" could be exactly like Windows XP, except for:
1) We would have the source to the OS 2) errrm.
So think about it. If MS released the full source for Windows XP, would it be a fantastic operating system that code-hackers flocked to?
But you see Linux is already too popular- it's now really easy to install and people don't have to even do any messing about on most distributions and their sound cards etc. are all set up automatically, and they can play mp3s, play divx with mplayer and get work done with gnumeric, abiword, koffice etc.
I had to damn-well switch to freeBSD in an attempt to feel elite, and even there people are realizing that freeBSD is not just for servers! Mplayer, xmms, is there no end to the clever desktop apps that actually work?
(/joke)
Actually my real reason for using free OSs is to escape from the control of MS, and now, with palladium looming on the horizon I feel the need to make the switch total, so xmms, mplayer and friends are total god-sends.
I use freeBSD rather than linux because I *personally* find it easier to configure; I like and am used to the ports system.
As you may have guessed, my original post was joking too, though maybe only half-joking, because while we got a lot of good things when the net became popular we also got the commercial interest, the banner ads, the pr0n subscriptions, the cookies, the pop-ups and unders...
Maybe that was inevitable because marketing scum will go where there are large clumps of people, but it doesn't stop me from regretting that aspect of the internet's popularity.
Who gives a fuck how fast NTFS is compared to fat? Fat32 has a stupid max file length of 2^32 bytes, rendering it all but useless for video work.
If you're stuck doing video work on an NT kernel, (and many people are, since linux is definately behind in this area), do you really want no files bigger than 4gig?
So what they're going to do is basically conduct future wars like in certain RTS games- i.e. we see in certain RTS games in FMV footage, that "you" are some guy controlling remote units via some terminal in some concrete bunker.
This of course has been predicted by many SF authors for years, and even surpassed where we have the case of AIs continuing to generate units and attack each other long after all the humans are dead.
Karma will now be dispensed, yea! I say, dispensed to those posters who can cite authors and works as examples of this.
graspee
Re:I use Linux at work but Windows XP at home beca
on
A Linux User Goes Back
·
· Score: 2
" Because there isn't any filesharing app that runs on Linux that has as much content as Kazaa"
Try mldonkey. You'll find as much content as kazaa without the spyware and fake files.
Have to MORE than agree with you about divx support though, but then I am using freebsd which is even worse in this area than linux.
As for >700 MB files, you can either overburn them, or sometimes, bizarrely, RARing them up on max compression will make them small enough.
"I'd like to hear *anyone* here list off a real, serious reason why they're using XP instead of 2k or NT"
1) Cleartype for the TTFs on LCD screens 2) Grouping of minimized programs on taskbar 3) built-in zips as folders support 4) built-in cd burning support 5) task manager now has a networking throughput display 6) better compatibility with older programs 7) you can finally turn the swap file off completely 8) improved tcp/ip stack 9) two sets of networking settings you can switch between 10) file completion in the shell bound to tab key by default 11) more stable 12) only way to get media player 8 13) Improved picture preview in folders 14) Can set a slideshow of images in a folder as the screensaver
Etc. etc. I know lots of these are minor things, but they are a lot less minor than the things people upgrade from kde 2 to kde 3 for.
Me, I use windowmaker on freebsd so I don't really care, but I know about the competition.
" Speaking of intelligence level, it is "affects", not "effects"."
Funnily enough the linked-to story made the same mistake. How can people learn proper grammar, spelling etc. when all they read is the internet and the internet is like this?
#5 can be a far better mental stimulant than any crappy FPS clone churned out by ID. You guys should try it; you'll thank me."
Well, ok, I took your advice, putting down SOF2 and going out for a walk in the real world. Now I have shot 15 people and I don't know where to hide the bodies, and you say I should thank you?!?
Slashdot Mirror
OK, so I am a farscape fan.
Plus, I thought it sounded offensive, yet they couldn't put my email in the abuse category like they could if I had said "get fucked".
graspee
Oops, they've turned off the pr email account so mail to pr@forgent.com is bouncing...
Anyone have an email address that works ?
graspee
To: pr@forgent.com
subject: Important information regarding the matter at hand
Dear Sir stroke Madam,
I am writing to you to express my utmost contempt for your company. Your
attempt to put the squeeze on users of the FREE AND ISO STANDARD jpeg
format makes me sick. The fact that Sony gave you $15 million when I
can't even afford to pay my mortgage makes me sick.
Your company did not invent the jpeg image format. That was done by
people who actually work for a living instead of litigating.
All you have is a patent, which DOESN'T EVEN APPLY TO JPEG AT ALL, and
now you are ruthlessly attempting to enforce it.
Well I am going to use the jpeg format a lot more from now on. I am
going to release some commercial software that allows users to batch
filter jpeg images.
If you don't like it you can get frelled.
graspee
"Kylix 3.0 integrates two great object-oriented languages into one very powerful IDE. Check it out!"
What did they replace object pascal and c++ with ?
graspee
I would like to be the first person to draw your attention to the bottom of the report, where they state that it can be downloaded in msword, pdf or rtf formats, and say something funny about it.
Only I can't think of anything funny to say. Make up your own joke, maybe even post it here so the rest of us can appreciate it.
graspee
" Tony Blair is a progressive, you know."
Is he interlaced too ?
graspee
"To some people, the simple statement "god does not exist" is highly offensive."
Yeah, it offends me on logical grounds. You should say "There is no God" rather than "God does not exist" which is a contradiction.
Think of it as "There is no plate of macaroni over there" vs. "That plate of macaroni over there does not exist".
graspee
" And I can say that you're posting of that quote from Romans is also quite offensive."
And I can say that your inability to distinguish between "your" and "you're" is also quite offensive.
graspee
" Strangely enough, that's how I became a Druid."
Admit it, dude, your INT wasn't high enough to be a magic-user.
graspee
"What would the internet look like if every organisation, religous or otherwise, can block internet sites just because it offend's them?"
404 - Page not found
graspee
"Diests take the love, comfort, and answer of a higher power, while leaving behind the dogma, traditions, and culture of nomadic herders"
This is religion, damnit, not pick 'n' mix!
graspee
As usual, another news story on there caught my eye and was far more interesting: 60 foot squid washes up on Tamsmanian beach!
I mean, blah blah fascists police the internet and make their laws up as they go along. Blah blah, but Giant Squid! 60 feet long! That's like, 18 metres!
graspee
Nicotine reduces risk of Alzheimer's too. I always new drinking 10 cups of coffee a day and chainsmoking was good for me...
I too can never find my monitor manuals, and I use a kvm switch, and some computers connected to it have experimental OSs put on them every once in a while. That's why I wrote:
H: 30-110
V: 48-170
on the plastic edge of my monitor...
graspee
You know, although I was really joking with the original post (well, half-joking- see my other post), I realized something when I read Zenithal's post...
Windows XP is a pretty damn stable OS; it supports a lot of hardware, video codecs, sound codecs, development tool both free and proprietary etc. You *can* hack with XP. You can install mingw32, an Xserver or client, free game-development libs, free obscure programming languages etc...
BUT XP is anathema to the geek, and why? Lots of reasons: a big nasty corporation control it, there is only one UI and it sucks, there are loads of "dumb filters" designed to by default stop you viewing your files properly or do anything complicated etc.
Well imagine new "popular linux". It could be very like XP. Only one user-interface because most people run it so developers target it (KDE could do this), corporations control it (effectively) by providing commercial applications that you just "gotta have", locking you into their customer-base, dumb filters in place on all the apps which it is tedious to take off, etc.
In fact, "popular linux" could be exactly like Windows XP, except for:
1) We would have the source to the OS
2) errrm.
So think about it. If MS released the full source for Windows XP, would it be a fantastic operating system that code-hackers flocked to?
I myself think not.
graspee
(/joke)
But you see Linux is already too popular- it's now really easy to install and people don't have to even do any messing about on most distributions and their sound cards etc. are all set up automatically, and they can play mp3s, play divx with mplayer and get work done with gnumeric, abiword, koffice etc.
I had to damn-well switch to freeBSD in an attempt to feel elite, and even there people are realizing that freeBSD is not just for servers! Mplayer, xmms, is there no end to the clever desktop apps that actually work?
(/joke)
Actually my real reason for using free OSs is to escape from the control of MS, and now, with palladium looming on the horizon I feel the need to make the switch total, so xmms, mplayer and friends are total god-sends.
I use freeBSD rather than linux because I *personally* find it easier to configure; I like and am used to the ports system.
As you may have guessed, my original post was joking too, though maybe only half-joking, because while we got a lot of good things when the net became popular we also got the commercial interest, the banner ads, the pr0n subscriptions, the cookies, the pop-ups and unders...
Maybe that was inevitable because marketing scum will go where there are large clumps of people, but it doesn't stop me from regretting that aspect of the internet's popularity.
graspee
I suppose everything he says applies to freeBSD, except in one or two cases more so.
But who wants general adoption of linux anyway ? Look what happened to the internet when it got popular...
graspee
Who gives a fuck how fast NTFS is compared to fat? Fat32 has a stupid max file length of 2^32 bytes, rendering it all but useless for video work.
If you're stuck doing video work on an NT kernel, (and many people are, since linux is definately behind in this area), do you really want no files bigger than 4gig?
graspee
So what they're going to do is basically conduct future wars like in certain RTS games- i.e. we see in certain RTS games in FMV footage, that "you" are some guy controlling remote units via some terminal in some concrete bunker.
This of course has been predicted by many SF authors for years, and even surpassed where we have the case of AIs continuing to generate units and attack each other long after all the humans are dead.
Karma will now be dispensed, yea! I say, dispensed to those posters who can cite authors and works as examples of this.
graspee
" Because there isn't any filesharing app that runs on Linux that has as much content as Kazaa"
Try mldonkey. You'll find as much content as kazaa without the spyware and fake files.
Have to MORE than agree with you about divx support though, but then I am using freebsd which is even worse in this area than linux.
As for >700 MB files, you can either overburn them, or sometimes, bizarrely, RARing them up on max compression will make them small enough.
graspee
Transition Solaris. For great justice!
graspee
"I'd like to hear *anyone* here list off a real, serious reason why they're using XP instead of 2k or NT"
1) Cleartype for the TTFs on LCD screens
2) Grouping of minimized programs on taskbar
3) built-in zips as folders support
4) built-in cd burning support
5) task manager now has a networking throughput display
6) better compatibility with older programs
7) you can finally turn the swap file off completely
8) improved tcp/ip stack
9) two sets of networking settings you can switch between
10) file completion in the shell bound to tab key by default
11) more stable
12) only way to get media player 8
13) Improved picture preview in folders
14) Can set a slideshow of images in a folder as the screensaver
Etc. etc. I know lots of these are minor things, but they are a lot less minor than the things people upgrade from kde 2 to kde 3 for.
Me, I use windowmaker on freebsd so I don't really care, but I know about the competition.
graspee
" Speaking of intelligence level, it is "affects", not "effects"."
Funnily enough the linked-to story made the same mistake. How can people learn proper grammar, spelling etc. when all they read is the internet and the internet is like this?
graspee
"5) Walk/Jog/Run 45 minutes a day.
#5 can be a far better mental stimulant than any crappy FPS clone churned out by ID. You guys should try it; you'll thank me."
Well, ok, I took your advice, putting down SOF2 and going out for a walk in the real world. Now I have shot 15 people and I don't know where to hide the bodies, and you say I should thank you?!?
graspee
" Did you take the blue pill or the red pill?"
WTF? They were giving out pills? All I got was this Sun Java logo demi-tasse and a print-out of "man sed".
graspee