You have a "study", but you have to use a laundromat? I think your priorities are bit mixed up:)
My priorities are nicely ordered, thanks.:)
I don't live in a "complex" of any kind. My apartment is the ground floor of a house built in the early part of the last century, whose "washer/dryer hookup" consists of a large sink and hooks for clotheslines in the basement. Although living here sends me to the laundromat every week or two (which isn't too bad, especially if I hang out in the little park across the street), I have hardwood floors, a front porch overlooking a shaded lawn, a bus stop just a couple doors down, and... room for a study. I wouldn't trade all that for a washer/dryer set in some moern tenant-warehouse apartment complex.
I've heard a rumor that the non-Java code that underlies NeoOffice has already been ported successfully to Intel processors. The codename for it is "OpenOffice.org for Linux".;)
Even if they can't pull of the "universal binary" thing, I wouldn't expect it to be especially difficult to compile a separate version of NeoOffice for the MacIntel boxes.
J is for Java, which was one of two toolkits the NeoOffice developers tried using to integrate OOo into OS X. The other version was NeoOffice/C, which was an attempt at creating the legendary "native Mac app" version of OOo. It didn't go well.
Meanwhile, the NeoOffice/J project used OS X's Java toolkits, and worked rather well, rather quickly. The NeoOffice/C project was abandoned as the porting equivalent of beating one's head against a brick wall to make a doorway, when you've got an Acme Doorway Cutter tool sitting next to you.
For the record, most of the guts of NeoOffice are the same compiled C++ code as the Linux/BSD/Solaris version of OOo. Java's just used to tell OS X what kinds of pretty window dressing, fonts, etc. to put on the screen.
As a person who switches between half a dozen boxes running OS X, Linux, and Windows (sometimes all in a single day), I decided over a year ago to switch to OOo, as something I could run on all of these (and work on the script for my Great American Graphic Novel in stolen moments at work, at the laundromat, sitting in front of the TV, and even sometimes in my study). The OS X boxes required some substantial hacks to get OOo for X11 working well enough for even a geek like me to put up with. (Don't get me started about fonts.) No real fault of the OOo folks; just the nature of the Xbeast.
But since I switched the iBook and PowerMacs to NeoOffice, I've found it an excellent and perfectly viable option: even good enough to give to civilian Mac users. It does need a facelift (for which I apologise to the people I give it to) (Anybody know if there's a project underway to address that?), but that's the only substantial complaint I have.
Have you considered just buying obsolete VHS camcorders from garbage sales/flea markets/eBay, running them until they die, and then disposing of their corpses? If you're justing making recordings for your own viewing, ye olde analogue video tape should be good enough quality.
iBook screens are limited to 1024x768 and 1.25G of RAM, while PB's go up to 1280x1024 and 2G on the 15" model and 1440x900 with 2G on the 17"..... 167 for the PB, 133 for the ibook. Video cards are different also.... ibook cannot do DVI output, pbook can
ibook doesn't support screen spanning out of the box, pbook does
ibook cannot run with the lid closed, pbook can
I know. I can read the spec pages. But a larger range of screen sizes, different bus specs, more video options, and a few other minor checklist features don't amount to "clear differentiation". That's geekstuff, not marketing.
As the resident techie at an art/design school, I frequently get students asking me which Mac they should buy. I can explain to them the fundamental difference between the two *Mac lines with a few simple bullet points (and one of them - the different form factor - they already get); when I try to explain the difference between the two *Book lines, it takes me a paragraph and they end up just repeating, "So... which one should I buy?"
This move is good for more clearly differentiating Apple's product lines. Now there's a clear difference between a PowerMac and an iMac: the former have two processors. (And the clear difference between a PowerBook and an iBook is that the former are silver-colored.)
It almost sounds like they wish everyone was still down in the mud grubbing around for survival.
Only if you assume that any criticism of capitalism must be motivated by stark raving insanity. To most other people it just sounds like they're saying it's... yeah, you had the right word for it: unfair. Many people consider fairness a virtue worth pursuing, not one to sneer at.
My hobby is the ancient tech of storycrafting. The ability to commit thoughts and ideas to semi-permanent physical form (and convert them back) was one of the great technologies of ancient priests. Coming up with an idea and plan, developing characters, debugging the threads of a narrative, and so on aren't all that different from procedural programming (which is itself a more creative task than usually given credit for). I use semi-modern gear for it (a G3 iBook), but writing stories is still fundamentally the same craft as in the days of Homer or Moses or the author of Gilgamesh.
Why bother with pedals, when the elegant simplicity of the push-powered reel mower is already available? It's already superior to the alternatives in every way: quieter, less expensive to buy, less expensive to run, and easier to store. And the fact that I get a little bit of light exercise pushing it around the yard is a bonus. Who needs to sit down to do it?
Of course that wouldn't work today, because the watershed has probably been sucked down so far by the increasing water demands of modern human populations, that there wouldn't be any mist to spot.
That sounds more like "going far enough", not "going too far".
The point I was trying to make is that it's important for a kid to (building on your example) work 24 hours straight on a science project, fall asleep in class the next day, and miss some important information from the teacher. "Going too far" means making mistakes, and it's from mistakes that we learn the most. It's a hard thing for parents to accept, but the compelling instinct to keep their children in the "safe" zone at all times is actually harmful in the long run.
Kids whining about being sent outside isn't new to the 21st century; if you were only 13 when you got your first computer, then you must remember doing some whining yourself when told to stop watching TV and go outside.
So think hard: How did you parents handle it? Are you glad they did it that way? Then follow their example. If not? Learn from their mistakes. (Just don't overcompensate by making them live like Amish kids. By the time they grow up enough to appreciate it, you'll be dead.)
Chat rooms with names like "Girls 13 And Under For Older Guys" are going to be populated entirely by middle-aged men indulging in nothing more than fantasy. (I'd call it "consensual", but there's probably some self-delusion involved, so maybe not.) Would anyone in their right mind look at a chatroom named "Unwilling Sex Slaves" and raise the alarm that abduction, rape, and slavery are occurring? Um.... no.
Yes, there are people preying on children via the internet. But here's a clue: the ones who succeed at it are sneaky about it. You'll find them in chatrooms with names like "Harry Potter Chat 4 Kidz", not in "9-17-Year-Olds Wantin' Sex".
As a comics reviewer, I have occasionally run into publishers that assert that I cannot use excerpts from their works without permission, even for review purposes. I ignore such claims, because they have no lawful basis for that restriction.
The U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Congress, and a previous President of the United States say that I can do what I'm doing. As a citizen and resident of that country, that's good enough for me.
And clearly a screenshot (an image) is not a derived work of the program,
That is not at all clear. If the visual design of a program is a copyrightable work (and it is), then a screenshot of it is just as much a "derivative work" as a scan of a professional wedding photo is. You need to make a "fair use" argument for it (which seems pretty easy).
Besides, this GPL-gazing is missing the point. This legal verbiage is included in the licence to assure people using Free software that they don't have to GPL everything they produce with it (their GCCed executables, their Blendered pr0n, their Abiworded autobiography, their KMailed letters to mummy). Applying it to the ''interface'' of the program rather than ''output'' of the program is the kind of deliberate semantic torture that you're disparaging lawyers for engaging in.
Fair use only allows for limited, non-commercial uses (i.e. criticisms, news oriented, etc.).
Not quite. "Fair use" is a deliberately subjective four-part test that considers:
the purpose and character of your use
the nature of the copyrighted work
the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
the effect of the use upon the potential market.
source:
So you're not exactly wrong because "limited" and "non-commercial" are factors, but they're not the only factors, and it's conceivable that a large-scale, commercial use could qualify as "fair use" if the other factors weighed very heavily in favor of that judgment.
Slashdot Mirror
My priorities are nicely ordered, thanks. :)
I don't live in a "complex" of any kind. My apartment is the ground floor of a house built in the early part of the last century, whose "washer/dryer hookup" consists of a large sink and hooks for clotheslines in the basement. Although living here sends me to the laundromat every week or two (which isn't too bad, especially if I hang out in the little park across the street), I have hardwood floors, a front porch overlooking a shaded lawn, a bus stop just a couple doors down, and... room for a study. I wouldn't trade all that for a washer/dryer set in some moern tenant-warehouse apartment complex.
Surely you weren't expecting a yes/no answer...
Even if they can't pull of the "universal binary" thing, I wouldn't expect it to be especially difficult to compile a separate version of NeoOffice for the MacIntel boxes.
Meanwhile, the NeoOffice/J project used OS X's Java toolkits, and worked rather well, rather quickly. The NeoOffice/C project was abandoned as the porting equivalent of beating one's head against a brick wall to make a doorway, when you've got an Acme Doorway Cutter tool sitting next to you.
For the record, most of the guts of NeoOffice are the same compiled C++ code as the Linux/BSD/Solaris version of OOo. Java's just used to tell OS X what kinds of pretty window dressing, fonts, etc. to put on the screen.
But since I switched the iBook and PowerMacs to NeoOffice, I've found it an excellent and perfectly viable option: even good enough to give to civilian Mac users. It does need a facelift (for which I apologise to the people I give it to) (Anybody know if there's a project underway to address that?), but that's the only substantial complaint I have.
Dude, everyone's surprised when they hit 39.
Have you considered just buying obsolete VHS camcorders from garbage sales/flea markets/eBay, running them until they die, and then disposing of their corpses? If you're justing making recordings for your own viewing, ye olde analogue video tape should be good enough quality.
I know. I can read the spec pages. But a larger range of screen sizes, different bus specs, more video options, and a few other minor checklist features don't amount to "clear differentiation". That's geekstuff, not marketing.
As the resident techie at an art/design school, I frequently get students asking me which Mac they should buy. I can explain to them the fundamental difference between the two *Mac lines with a few simple bullet points (and one of them - the different form factor - they already get); when I try to explain the difference between the two *Book lines, it takes me a paragraph and they end up just repeating, "So... which one should I buy?"
This move is good for more clearly differentiating Apple's product lines. Now there's a clear difference between a PowerMac and an iMac: the former have two processors. (And the clear difference between a PowerBook and an iBook is that the former are silver-colored.)
Only if you assume that any criticism of capitalism must be motivated by stark raving insanity. To most other people it just sounds like they're saying it's... yeah, you had the right word for it: unfair. Many people consider fairness a virtue worth pursuing, not one to sneer at.
My hobby is the ancient tech of storycrafting. The ability to commit thoughts and ideas to semi-permanent physical form (and convert them back) was one of the great technologies of ancient priests. Coming up with an idea and plan, developing characters, debugging the threads of a narrative, and so on aren't all that different from procedural programming (which is itself a more creative task than usually given credit for). I use semi-modern gear for it (a G3 iBook), but writing stories is still fundamentally the same craft as in the days of Homer or Moses or the author of Gilgamesh.
If he were a Stephen Hawking, he wouldn't have lived much past 20, regardless.
A fair amount of humanity still lives the way our ancestors did centuries ago
More than don't, in fact.
Why bother with pedals, when the elegant simplicity of the push-powered reel mower is already available? It's already superior to the alternatives in every way: quieter, less expensive to buy, less expensive to run, and easier to store. And the fact that I get a little bit of light exercise pushing it around the yard is a bonus. Who needs to sit down to do it?
Of course that wouldn't work today, because the watershed has probably been sucked down so far by the increasing water demands of modern human populations, that there wouldn't be any mist to spot.
This is only true for very old values of "today" (e.g. 1973). It's currently estimated at over 1.3 billion.
Let the pointless semantic bickering, hopelessly esoteric metaphysical sky-gazing, and ideological sermonizing commence.
The point I was trying to make is that it's important for a kid to (building on your example) work 24 hours straight on a science project, fall asleep in class the next day, and miss some important information from the teacher. "Going too far" means making mistakes, and it's from mistakes that we learn the most. It's a hard thing for parents to accept, but the compelling instinct to keep their children in the "safe" zone at all times is actually harmful in the long run.
No, his grandmother was Grace Hopper. ;)
Just make sure you exercise moderation in moderation. It's important to go too far occasionally.
So think hard: How did you parents handle it? Are you glad they did it that way? Then follow their example. If not? Learn from their mistakes. (Just don't overcompensate by making them live like Amish kids. By the time they grow up enough to appreciate it, you'll be dead.)
Yes, there are people preying on children via the internet. But here's a clue: the ones who succeed at it are sneaky about it. You'll find them in chatrooms with names like "Harry Potter Chat 4 Kidz", not in "9-17-Year-Olds Wantin' Sex".
You forgot to use tags. Seriously, some people might not get it.
The U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Congress, and a previous President of the United States say that I can do what I'm doing. As a citizen and resident of that country, that's good enough for me.
That is not at all clear. If the visual design of a program is a copyrightable work (and it is), then a screenshot of it is just as much a "derivative work" as a scan of a professional wedding photo is. You need to make a "fair use" argument for it (which seems pretty easy).
Besides, this GPL-gazing is missing the point. This legal verbiage is included in the licence to assure people using Free software that they don't have to GPL everything they produce with it (their GCCed executables, their Blendered pr0n, their Abiworded autobiography, their KMailed letters to mummy). Applying it to the ''interface'' of the program rather than ''output'' of the program is the kind of deliberate semantic torture that you're disparaging lawyers for engaging in.
Not quite. "Fair use" is a deliberately subjective four-part test that considers:
- the purpose and character of your use
- the nature of the copyrighted work
- the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market.
source: So you're not exactly wrong because "limited" and "non-commercial" are factors, but they're not the only factors, and it's conceivable that a large-scale, commercial use could qualify as "fair use" if the other factors weighed very heavily in favor of that judgment.