I agree with the parent (I'm also from Romania). I've come across some eBay scammers - they are your garden variety of low-lifes - usually college students with little knowledge in computers.
In the grand scheme of things, eBay theft is rather unprofitable here. If you're an IT pro, companies will go out of their way to employ you as there is a serious shortage of qualified workers (in my city the unemployment rate is 0.2% I kid you not). If you're a criminal, you can make better money by other means.
I do have a three year old son (btw, I'm European, so no prude). He does ask a lot of questions and we do our best to answer them. But there are thing difficult to comprehend at that age. You can't simply expose your child to EVERYTHING and expect them to actually understand it.
And let's forget for a moment about the whole "think about the children". Talking about "porn" is very general. Do YOU like ALL KINDS of porn? It's a pretty sure bet that you don't. I don't have a problem with people having strange fetishes, as long as I am not forced to see them.
One thing I've noted on airplanes: On international flights, Americans (especially those in their 40's) tend to be the most annoying, rude, self-centered and demanding passengers - like the flights attendants should care ONLY about them. I can usually spot Americans by their manners and behaviors. Sorry, I don't mean to offend, I'm just stating a fact I noticed.
OK, I'm not saying Google Docs is right for everyone, but you seem to be completely dismissing the advantages of having your documents online and ignoring the disadvantages of having your documents offline.
Actually, I've tried. A client of mine absolutely loves Google spreadsheets and uses them for sharing data, so I had to used it too. After using it for 6 months, I can say that the service uptime is not incredibly great (99.4% by my calculations). This means that on several occasions I haven't been able to access the files for several hours (worst case was a downtime of at least 6 hours).
So, yes, Google Docs is great it you use it infrequently and need just the features that were available like 20 years ago in Lotus/Wordstar and you don't mind that it's slow, and you don't care that you can't copy&paste properly (due to browser security).
It's not just monopolies. The free market model operates on several key principles:
a very large number of sellers;
a very large number of buyers;
completely transparent and complete information;
all agents (buyers and sellers) act independently
It's not difficult to demonstrate that in the real world, these things don't happen. You have monopoly or monopsony (look it up) situations; Very rarely the buyers are informed; cartels and herd-like behaviours further alter the model.
In the end, the free-market model, which is based on the supply-demand equilibrium, is all fine and dandy on paper. In reality, a completely deregulated market is an utopia, just like the communist ideal was an utopia.
I know there are many libertarians on Slash, which is mostly an American thing; not being an American, my view may seem unpopular...
Your post does show common sense - but don't you know that common sense is in short supply?
Nowadays, at least in US, any remark toward race is considered racist, even if meant in a good way. I recall how a private remark from Schwarzenegger last year or so made headlines because he had said:
"She maybe is Puerto Rican or the same thing as Cuban. I mean, they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it."
Actually, where I live, a month or so ago there was a big media frenzy as the lottery jackpot was to the tune of 5 million euros, and the winning numbers were something like 2,3,4,5,6,13. Of course, no one chose that combination.
Obviously, after 6 years of/., I'd expect no less...
Why he would expect a large number of Linux-based visitors to the site when the media downloads are Windows XP only is not clear
Highfield's (the chief of tech) argument is pretty solid actually. The BBC site (bbc.co.uk, not the media download area) has 17 million monthly visitors, out of which 600 use Linux.
It does make perfect sense to please the 99% of the users first and then cater to the specific needs of the other 1%.
[...] despite the example of many major sites that support Linux (even if this is through the closed-source flash player)
Gotta love the spin. They were offering media downloads, not just streaming, so it's apple to oranges. I may not agree with the DRM, but then again it's their right to make the content available only to those who pay the tax.
Finally, so self-respecting zealot could fail to note that flash is closed-source. Obviously, if BBC would have chosen flash from the beginning, slashdotters would be now outraged for BBC ignoring Ogg...
And what's this doing in "Your Rights Online" section?
Sorry, but this is just wishful thinking. Most people will simply get a photoshop trial version and a crack off the net. Can't do that with a OS/400:-) Not ONE artist I know has ever used Gimp professionally.
Oh, by the way, when you buy a Wacom tablet that you mention, you already get a bundled software like PS Elements or Paintshop, which are at least as capable as Gimp. And if you're looking to put your Wacom to good use, you should look into Corel Painter anyway.
I have to agree that Consolas is the best font I've ever seen for coding. I won't even compare it to Courier New, it's ages better than Lucida Console and more legible than Andale Mono (my previous favourite). Excellent distinction between "O" and "0", or "1", "i", "I" and "l" to name just the obvious.
Can I do this on Windows as well? Where do I sign up
Of course you can. The title of the submission is misleading (in typical Slashdot fashion). It's not about a 'special' player for Apple/Linux. It's just a Flash-based player that works on Windows, MacOSX, Linux and probably a number of smart phones too.
I agree with the stagnation part. At work some of our laptops are more than 4 years old (May 2003) and they are still perfectly capable and working (P4 @ 2.8 GHz, 512Mb RAM, 60GB HDD). We even have two T30 Thinkpads that are just enough when traveling to browse, check email and write a doc.
Regarding the second part (reinstalling XP) - you should really look at Acronis True Image - it's what we use. Basically, you install WinXP+patches and whatever programs you need once, make an image and store it on a DVD, network or on a hidden partition on HDD. At boot, you can press F11 to start Acronis instead of Windows from the hidden partition (it's a lightweight Linus distro) and you can restore your image in 5-10 minutes. Even if the image is 6 months old, you still need to download just a few patches and software updates (e.g. update from FF 2.0.0.0 to 2.0.0.7).
Everything was auto-numbered and auto-formatted and I was pleased and thought to myself that maybe Word was finally usable
Well, you'd be lucky if you can get auto-numbering to work at all correctly in Writer.
I use OOo exclusively; I have a MS Office XP somewhere gathering dust because I can't activate it. For most day-by-day small documents, Writer is OK, however, if you're planning to write something more, be ready for serious frustration.
I wrote a few scientific documents (~100 pages each). Getting headings to display the correct numbering, simply sucks. Formatting works erratically and it's simply a PITA to make document look professional. No matter how careful I'm with styles and how organized I am, it's still frustrating.
I was A LOT MORE productive with WordPerfect 5.1 (yes, the text-only, DOS-based, blue-background one), simply because of its Reveal Codes function.
I'm no MS fan, but actually "few critical vulnerabilities" means NONE in this case. Secunia lists exactly 3 (THREE) IIS6 vulnerabilities, two of them Medium and one Low.
Pretty impressive considering the mess that was IIS5.
This just confirms my opinion that Flash is an evil cancer on the web designed [...] blah blah blah
This is just FUD - but obviously this is Slashdot so who cares about facts anyway?
The truth is that the Flash player has actually a pretty draconian sandbox: 1. A flash movie can not write to disk or execute any command. Period. It only has a "cookie" mechanism to store info on user's computer but the user can allow/deny the action and allocate a quota for that info. The cookie is saved in the user's Documents and Settings folder (and the Mac/Linux equivalent), e.g. "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\LQ93AHGQ\www.youtube.com" The flash app cannot control the location or the file name. 2. A flash movie can't simultaneously have read access from the local file system and the Internet. What I mean is - either a flash movie loads a local file (text, xml, jpg, flv, etc) or it can communicate with a site (load URL, send variables with GET/POST, invoke a WS, etc) - but it cannot do both of them. A user has to go to Adobe website and specifically trust an application in order for that app to have more access. 3. Flash movies can't read the clipboard. 4. Access to microphone/webcam is disabled by default and must be enabled on a per-URL basis.
Anyone who RTFA knows that it's not about exploits inside the video stream, it's about fake links.
Now, I'm pretty sure I just wasted 10 minutes of my time trying to dispel some myths, because the average Slashdot user is too busy hating Flash and worshiping Steve Jobs. Mod me down, or better yet, just ignore this post and keep on living inside your bubble.
About 20 years ago I've read old sci-fi short story (was published in the '60s in brochure-style format, so I don't remember who wrote it). Anyway, it was about the scientists building a new fancy car that among other features was controlled by thought. One day, one of the test drivers was killed when the prototype jumped over a cliff. They try to figure out what went wrong. Turns out the driver was amazed by the beautiful scenery and thought something along the lines of 'I wish I could fly over these mountains'... so the car tried to obey...
Please RTFA. The cases mentioned violate the normal guidelines so blatantly that it's hard to imagine how they got through. Anyone who's done a bit of SEO knows that a stunt like this is nearly impossible to pull off.
[...]they have to factor in that blender will undergo 5 or more years of development before they hit the job market after uni. They'd be insane to learn a closed source one, which might go bust in that time, as opposed to coming into the market with 5 years of Blender
Sorry, I disagree.
First, all the major 3D apps have very strong markets; it's highly unlikely to see any of these disappearing any time soonn. Even when Autodesk purchased Maya, they didn't kill it, but rather refocused the programs a little: 3ds max for games and architectural visualisation and Maya for film.
Second, by learning any of these programs (I'm thinking of Max, Maya, Lightwave and XSI) a student would more easily jump to another program than from Blender.
Third, if a graduate goes to an interview and says he only knows Bldender, their chances of being hired would drop dramatically.
I too have learned Corel Draw 2 in German without even knowing German, so I consider myself as having patience and intuition. I've been working with 3d apps over the years (since 3d studio 3 - yeah, in the DOS era), now mostly 3ds max but I've also tried Lightwave, Maya and all the smaller 3d apps. Except for Blender, I never had any problem picking a 3d application and do some modelling in it. Heck, I modeled my first car in Rhino 1 beta in 2 hours, without even reading the help.
The conclusion is pretty simple: unless Blender gets a better UI, it'll never become mainstream, even if it's free. In this market, free doesn't really matter beyond a pure intellectual level. The jobs are well paid, so price is not a factor, and hobbyists will rather pirate 3ds max anyway (sad but true).
You know, before Amazon's announcement, I've never seen eMusic mentioned on Slashdot. It was iTunes, iTunes vs. Urge, iTunes vs SomeOtherDRMStore, iTune vs TheWorld.
Now that Amazon's store is here, I see the comparison with eMusic everywhere, as if it's no big deal since others have done that before. Maybe so, but Amazon is the first real competitor that has a compelling strategy.
It's one thing if one of your programs fails on your laptop/desktop. It's another when your're walking around and your phone breaks. With something like a data tablet, there would be more leeway.
I keep hearing this argument and it doesn't make any sense to me. My phone has a number of apps installed. I don't have any problems with any of them, and even then, it's my CHOICE.
Moreover, a good design means that even if a bad app crashes, it doesn't render the device unusable.
So, ALL other modern phones (smart or not) let the user install software and there is no problem, no one complains, we don't read big headlines about how bad for the consumer these are, and people still come up with that argument?
But it's being bundled with home computers, and your average Joe is NOT going to know about the problems
I have a few friends who are not in IT - a teacher, a manager, a lawyer - they all bought laptops wit Vista preinstalled. I think they were also different brands - Dell and HP, not sure about the third.
At least two of them boasted in front of me - "It's got Vista" when they told me about their acquisition, as if they were saying "it's gold-plated".
Now, 6 months later, the teacher has installed a 'pirate' copy of XP, the lawyer dug up a retail version of XP and begged me to install it for her, while the manager still grudgingly uses Vista because there are no XP drivers for his laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with the parent (I'm also from Romania).
I've come across some eBay scammers - they are your garden variety of low-lifes - usually college students with little knowledge in computers.
In the grand scheme of things, eBay theft is rather unprofitable here. If you're an IT pro, companies will go out of their way to employ you as there is a serious shortage of qualified workers (in my city the unemployment rate is 0.2% I kid you not). If you're a criminal, you can make better money by other means.
Oh cut the crap. Do you even have kids? How old?
It's so easy to preach when you have no clue.
I do have a three year old son (btw, I'm European, so no prude). He does ask a lot of questions and we do our best to answer them. But there are thing difficult to comprehend at that age. You can't simply expose your child to EVERYTHING and expect them to actually understand it.
And let's forget for a moment about the whole "think about the children". Talking about "porn" is very general. Do YOU like ALL KINDS of porn? It's a pretty sure bet that you don't. I don't have a problem with people having strange fetishes, as long as I am not forced to see them.
One thing I've noted on airplanes: On international flights, Americans (especially those in their 40's) tend to be the most annoying, rude, self-centered and demanding passengers - like the flights attendants should care ONLY about them. I can usually spot Americans by their manners and behaviors. Sorry, I don't mean to offend, I'm just stating a fact I noticed.
Actually, I've tried. A client of mine absolutely loves Google spreadsheets and uses them for sharing data, so I had to used it too. After using it for 6 months, I can say that the service uptime is not incredibly great (99.4% by my calculations). This means that on several occasions I haven't been able to access the files for several hours (worst case was a downtime of at least 6 hours).
So, yes, Google Docs is great it you use it infrequently and need just the features that were available like 20 years ago in Lotus/Wordstar and you don't mind that it's slow, and you don't care that you can't copy&paste properly (due to browser security).
The free market model operates on several key principles:
It's not difficult to demonstrate that in the real world, these things don't happen.
You have monopoly or monopsony (look it up) situations; Very rarely the buyers are informed; cartels and herd-like behaviours further alter the model.
In the end, the free-market model, which is based on the supply-demand equilibrium, is all fine and dandy on paper. In reality, a completely deregulated market is an utopia, just like the communist ideal was an utopia.
I know there are many libertarians on Slash, which is mostly an American thing; not being an American, my view may seem unpopular...
Nowadays, at least in US, any remark toward race is considered racist, even if meant in a good way. I recall how a private remark from Schwarzenegger last year or so made headlines because he had said:
Stereotyping? Yes. Racist? Don't think so.
Actually, where I live, a month or so ago there was a big media frenzy as the lottery jackpot was to the tune of 5 million euros, and the winning numbers were something like 2,3,4,5,6,13. Of course, no one chose that combination.
Sorry to be replying to my own post...
Yes, the 400-600 figure is absurdly low. I based my original post on the assumption that no one is lying or massaging the stats to prove a point...
Highfield's (the chief of tech) argument is pretty solid actually. The BBC site (bbc.co.uk, not the media download area) has 17 million monthly visitors, out of which 600 use Linux.
It does make perfect sense to please the 99% of the users first and then cater to the specific needs of the other 1%.
Gotta love the spin. They were offering media downloads, not just streaming, so it's apple to oranges. I may not agree with the DRM, but then again it's their right to make the content available only to those who pay the tax.
Finally, so self-respecting zealot could fail to note that flash is closed-source. Obviously, if BBC would have chosen flash from the beginning, slashdotters would be now outraged for BBC ignoring Ogg...
And what's this doing in "Your Rights Online" section?
Sorry, but this is just wishful thinking. :-)
Most people will simply get a photoshop trial version and a crack off the net. Can't do that with a OS/400
Not ONE artist I know has ever used Gimp professionally.
Oh, by the way, when you buy a Wacom tablet that you mention, you already get a bundled software like PS Elements or Paintshop, which are at least as capable as Gimp. And if you're looking to put your Wacom to good use, you should look into Corel Painter anyway.
Actually I had ClearType enabled on Trinitron CRT screens, with great results.
I have to agree that Consolas is the best font I've ever seen for coding. I won't even compare it to Courier New, it's ages better than Lucida Console and more legible than Andale Mono (my previous favourite). Excellent distinction between "O" and "0", or "1", "i", "I" and "l" to name just the obvious.
Data mining, when done well, can be very beneficial.
Somehow, all I can think of is more targeted ads for Viagra instead.
Of course you can. The title of the submission is misleading (in typical Slashdot fashion). It's not about a 'special' player for Apple/Linux. It's just a Flash-based player that works on Windows, MacOSX, Linux and probably a number of smart phones too.
I agree with the stagnation part. At work some of our laptops are more than 4 years old (May 2003) and they are still perfectly capable and working (P4 @ 2.8 GHz, 512Mb RAM, 60GB HDD). We even have two T30 Thinkpads that are just enough when traveling to browse, check email and write a doc.
Regarding the second part (reinstalling XP) - you should really look at Acronis True Image - it's what we use.
Basically, you install WinXP+patches and whatever programs you need once, make an image and store it on a DVD, network or on a hidden partition on HDD. At boot, you can press F11 to start Acronis instead of Windows from the hidden partition (it's a lightweight Linus distro) and you can restore your image in 5-10 minutes. Even if the image is 6 months old, you still need to download just a few patches and software updates (e.g. update from FF 2.0.0.0 to 2.0.0.7).
Well, you'd be lucky if you can get auto-numbering to work at all correctly in Writer.
I use OOo exclusively; I have a MS Office XP somewhere gathering dust because I can't activate it.
For most day-by-day small documents, Writer is OK, however, if you're planning to write something more, be ready for serious frustration.
I wrote a few scientific documents (~100 pages each). Getting headings to display the correct numbering, simply sucks. Formatting works erratically and it's simply a PITA to make document look professional. No matter how careful I'm with styles and how organized I am, it's still frustrating.
I was A LOT MORE productive with WordPerfect 5.1 (yes, the text-only, DOS-based, blue-background one), simply because of its Reveal Codes function.
I'm no MS fan, but actually "few critical vulnerabilities" means NONE in this case.
Secunia lists exactly 3 (THREE) IIS6 vulnerabilities, two of them Medium and one Low.
Pretty impressive considering the mess that was IIS5.
Well, they could come up with scientific explanations for the reasons "red shirts" were so dependable for all I care.
Inertial Dampening Field, Heisenberg Compensator... I think the term "technobabble" was invented to describe Star Trek.
This is just FUD - but obviously this is Slashdot so who cares about facts anyway?
The truth is that the Flash player has actually a pretty draconian sandbox:
1. A flash movie can not write to disk or execute any command. Period. It only has a "cookie" mechanism to store info on user's computer but the user can allow/deny the action and allocate a quota for that info. The cookie is saved in the user's Documents and Settings folder (and the Mac/Linux equivalent), e.g. "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\LQ93AHGQ\www.youtube.com" The flash app cannot control the location or the file name.
2. A flash movie can't simultaneously have read access from the local file system and the Internet. What I mean is - either a flash movie loads a local file (text, xml, jpg, flv, etc) or it can communicate with a site (load URL, send variables with GET/POST, invoke a WS, etc) - but it cannot do both of them. A user has to go to Adobe website and specifically trust an application in order for that app to have more access.
3. Flash movies can't read the clipboard.
4. Access to microphone/webcam is disabled by default and must be enabled on a per-URL basis.
Anyone who RTFA knows that it's not about exploits inside the video stream, it's about fake links.
Now, I'm pretty sure I just wasted 10 minutes of my time trying to dispel some myths, because the average Slashdot user is too busy hating Flash and worshiping Steve Jobs. Mod me down, or better yet, just ignore this post and keep on living inside your bubble.
About 20 years ago I've read old sci-fi short story (was published in the '60s in brochure-style format, so I don't remember who wrote it). Anyway, it was about the scientists building a new fancy car that among other features was controlled by thought. One day, one of the test drivers was killed when the prototype jumped over a cliff. They try to figure out what went wrong. Turns out the driver was amazed by the beautiful scenery and thought something along the lines of 'I wish I could fly over these mountains'... so the car tried to obey...
Please RTFA. The cases mentioned violate the normal guidelines so blatantly that it's hard to imagine how they got through. Anyone who's done a bit of SEO knows that a stunt like this is nearly impossible to pull off.
Sorry, I disagree.
First, all the major 3D apps have very strong markets; it's highly unlikely to see any of these disappearing any time soonn. Even when Autodesk purchased Maya, they didn't kill it, but rather refocused the programs a little: 3ds max for games and architectural visualisation and Maya for film.
Second, by learning any of these programs (I'm thinking of Max, Maya, Lightwave and XSI) a student would more easily jump to another program than from Blender.
Third, if a graduate goes to an interview and says he only knows Bldender, their chances of being hired would drop dramatically.
I agree with the parent...
I too have learned Corel Draw 2 in German without even knowing German, so I consider myself as having patience and intuition.
I've been working with 3d apps over the years (since 3d studio 3 - yeah, in the DOS era), now mostly 3ds max but I've also tried Lightwave, Maya and all the smaller 3d apps. Except for Blender, I never had any problem picking a 3d application and do some modelling in it. Heck, I modeled my first car in Rhino 1 beta in 2 hours, without even reading the help.
The conclusion is pretty simple: unless Blender gets a better UI, it'll never become mainstream, even if it's free. In this market, free doesn't really matter beyond a pure intellectual level. The jobs are well paid, so price is not a factor, and hobbyists will rather pirate 3ds max anyway (sad but true).
You know, before Amazon's announcement, I've never seen eMusic mentioned on Slashdot. It was iTunes, iTunes vs. Urge, iTunes vs SomeOtherDRMStore, iTune vs TheWorld.
Now that Amazon's store is here, I see the comparison with eMusic everywhere, as if it's no big deal since others have done that before. Maybe so, but Amazon is the first real competitor that has a compelling strategy.
I keep hearing this argument and it doesn't make any sense to me. My phone has a number of apps installed. I don't have any problems with any of them, and even then, it's my CHOICE.
Moreover, a good design means that even if a bad app crashes, it doesn't render the device unusable.
So, ALL other modern phones (smart or not) let the user install software and there is no problem, no one complains, we don't read big headlines about how bad for the consumer these are, and people still come up with that argument?
I have a few friends who are not in IT - a teacher, a manager, a lawyer - they all bought laptops wit Vista preinstalled. I think they were also different brands - Dell and HP, not sure about the third.
At least two of them boasted in front of me - "It's got Vista" when they told me about their acquisition, as if they were saying "it's gold-plated".
Now, 6 months later, the teacher has installed a 'pirate' copy of XP, the lawyer dug up a retail version of XP and begged me to install it for her, while the manager still grudgingly uses Vista because there are no XP drivers for his laptop.