I looked at screens from both games. So what, Nintendo has patented cell shaded characters with white skin and yellow hair?
I don't think the Big N has any point here. Really. Hair is different, cloaths are different, no green zelda outfit. Have you ever seen Link in anything but green?
Sorry, last I checked nintendo did not have a trademark on all cell shaded wasp characters.
Hmm. I wonder if we could put together a list of "spam sites" and then have a custom query form that automatically adds -site:blah for all spam sites blah in our list?
Why not tackle search engine spamming like we tackle e-mail spam?
As the contact person for a website, I get a few e-mails of these types. The majority of these e-mails are very poorly targeted. Usually they want me to link to a completely unrelated website. I consider this completely inappropriate and no different than spam.
On the other hand, some requests are to link to *very* weakly related sites. While I still don't respond to these, I do feel that they are acceptable requests. However, such requests are in the minority.
So, you are claiming that the sample of companies you've worked for represents a fair sample of all software companies? You have also looked, in depth, at the same number of open source projects and can claim that that number is representative of all open source projects?
If you are going to use your own experience as justification for your point, you should at the least state exactly what that experience is. It would be nice if you could also compile some statistics on the total number of open and closed source companies so that you can support your claim that your experience is representitive of each camp.
If you can't or won't do this, please do not presume to speak with such authority.
I guess my response to this idea is that I'd sooner have appropriate menus even if they are slightly less efficient. Why? Because almost all other applications work with menus, and I'd like all my applications to be consistent. This way I can switch between using any application and not have to 'shift perspective'.
Also, consistency REALLY helps less savy computer users. As for the toolboxes, I really like mac's solution. On OS X (and indeed, even in X), the tool windows have a special designation. When the application loses focus... the tool windows dissappear. I certainly don't need to see them if I am using another program!
Ironically, GIMP, at least version 1.x, doesn't label it's pallettes as dialog windows! So even on mac, the tool windows won't dissapear.
This is perhaps somewhat of a window manager issue, but none the less, I feel it's the best solution. I understand from another post that GIMP 2.x has menus!! Yay. So I suppose it is improving.
Anyways, just my thoughts, not trying to trash talk GIMP or anything. It does sound like it's improving since I last used it.
The problem is with having all the menus in the right click context menu. Most programs have a menu bar where the file menu and other menus reside.
I'm not sure exactly when right clicking is usefull, but it's certainly annoying when it's used for everything.
Perhaps the only way out of this dilemma is to have a single mac-like menu bar. Otherwise, the only solution is something like MDI, were the parent window holds the menu bar.
I suppose you could also put the menu bar on top of each graphic window, but that would clutter things up an aweful lot and doesn't seem like a very good solution.
The other problem is that it's easy to lose the many tool windows. Mac solves this by having the tool palletes dissapear when an image window is not in focus. With GIMP, I find it difficult to minimize all those little tool pallets when I really just want to click minimize once and have them all go away.
There may be some solutions to some of these complaints, I'm not a gimp expert. But that is my first impression of gimp, and why I haven't used it.
This isn't about punishing the US. This is simply about keeping our data private. It would be nice if we had a choice. As is, we don't even know if our data is safe or not!
What about US companies that operate in Canada for instance? By the previous posters logic, they should play by Canada's rules? But is this the case? I remember reading some US legal document saying that they still had to divulge information to the US government.
So what is going on? We need our government to clear these things up. We simply need to know who we can and cannot do business with in order to keep our data private.
It is not nearly as simply as "if data goes physically into the US, sure, the US gov can read it". That much is obvious. Mind you, in some cases companies don't even tell customers when this obvious thing happens!!
And just for my 2 cents on topic, tough luck Canada.:) If you do business that crosses into our country, you need to be held accountable by our laws, whatever they may be. The same holds true in reverse - if we're doing business with your country, then once we, our product, or our communication crosses the border, it's susceptible to whatever laws you have up there.
Yes, and as a Canadian, what I'd like to see from our government is laws preventing canadian banks and other companies with sensitive information to avoid using American companies. At the very least, I'd like Canadian companies to be *forced* to tell customers upfront that their information is going to be subject to US law.
That way, it makes it easier for me to avoid doing business with American companies. Simple as that. Don't believe me? When it came out that CIBC outsourced visa data to a US company, tons of people promptly left CIBC for another bank.
Don't fool yourself, Canadians WILL boycott your products over this.
I might have added that I've used Apple GUIs since the days of Lisa and that there's been a steady decine in the quality of the front end. Luckily the decline has been matched by a decline in how often I use them.
This coming from someone who uses Linux? It never ceases to amaze me how utterly blind and myopic some people can be.
Gee, did you know the world is flat too? But luckely I don't travel much, so hey, I won't fall off the end.
I just think this is something that needs to be looked at subjectively. Suppose the guy does actually give full human brains to mice. Assuming that one's consiousness is tied directly to the flesh the you'd assume these mice would have something at least akin to human consiousness.
A mouse cannot support a large brain. Considering the difference in brain size, the mouse with human brain would not come close to even a one year old baby in terms of intelligence. If you are concerned about the mouse with human brain, why not be concerned for the current mice? They certainly feel pain with their current brain, and some definately live tortured lives.
I'm not saying I think we should stop experimenting with mice mind you, just pointing out that there is little difference between now and if the mouse has a human brain.
Not at all, we only do things we think will benefit us. For instance, it's possible for us to blow up most of the earth, but we don't. It's possible for us to create viruses and disease, but we don't (depsite rumors to the contrary).
Granted some idiots have caused us to come close... but I still think you are being unfair.
(And obviously if we did muck around in this too much, homo sapiens would eventually be overthrown as the dominant species of this planet. That would kinda suck.)
Umm, sorry, but this is not obvious at all.
One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense,...
Look at it this way, we've already messed with evolution. We now prevent the sick from dying and help undesirable traits propagate. There is little selective pressure in our society.
This will, if it hasn't already, lead to a genetic weaking of our species. If we have any hope of surviving and improving, we need to start applying changes to our genetics ourselves. Essentially put an artificial selective pressure on our genome.
We can't do this unless we understand how we work. We can't experiement on ourselves very easily for many reasons (actually, mostly because we all value our lives above all else). So the only solution is to experiment on non-humans. By putting a little bit of humans into non-humans, we can better see how those parts of humans work.
Perhaps this step is not nessesay, but it certainly makes sense if one wants to find out how we tick faster than we are finding out now.
If the software is available (which for the vast majority of people who aren't playing games, it is), Linux beats both mac and windows for productivity by huge margins.
Nice troll. And we are supposed to take your word for it? I guess my word is just as good then, because I use Linux as work all day too?
Well, I use Mac and Windows at home... and guess what? Mac is more usable for me. It runs all my geeky unix programs, plus it *just works* for regular user stuff. I can't say the same about my work linux box.
But in all honesty, if Linux is beating other operating systems by huge margins for you, then I think there is something wrong with YOU. See, most people can get work done on any system. And considering that Mac runs nearly all your linux software, how Linux can be hugely more productive for you is a big mystery.
The point was not (well, not mainly;-) ) that it is morally superior to give software rather than sell it, but that one activity earns you money and the other don't - and it's a tad easier giving millions of dollars to charity when you became wealthy making money from software rather than when you spent your time working for free. Calling for a non-profit community to match not so much the generosity as the financial power of the richest man alive is a troll, quite independently of the morality of both in the first place.
I think this was the whole point of that little quip about seeing if the Linux community can match the donation. One of the biggest criticisims of GPL'ed software is that it is difficult to make money from it.
Every time this comes up, there are thousands of posts screaming "FUD" and claiming that you CAN make money on free software, and therefore haveing everything be free software won't in fact put 99% of programmers out of jobs.
Now all of a sudden the open source community CAN'T make money, and are "non-profit". That seems a little contradictory with previous claims.
It may be a troll or whatever you want to call it, but that comment does bring up a good point. Not that the slashdot community will ever admit it.
I doubt many people would be upset by this, except the creationists. This statement is no different than 'god exsists', which philosophers will likely argue about until we all cease to exist.
And DNA evidence, showing *absolutely clearly* that evolution is taking place is not good enough for you? While we may not know all the details of how evolution works, there is abundant evidence showing that evolution is a good theory. FAR more evidence than global worming or theories about the fall of the Roman empire. It's used every day to make better drugs and understand how desieases work. There is no alternative theory which can take it's place.
In that light, arguing over how much evidence there is for evolutoin is actually besides the point. The people who want these stickers want to teach a non-scientific idea that has no place in a science class.
Creationism is *not* an alternative theory. It can't be used to make any sort of prediction which makes it utterly useless as far as a scientific theory. Just like other philisophical ideas, it should be taught in a philosophy class.
Slashdot Mirror
I looked at screens from both games. So what, Nintendo has patented cell shaded characters with white skin and yellow hair?
I don't think the Big N has any point here. Really. Hair is different, cloaths are different, no green zelda outfit. Have you ever seen Link in anything but green?
Sorry, last I checked nintendo did not have a trademark on all cell shaded wasp characters.
They can try to ban whatever they like, I still won't be buying any TV service. Ads + braindead shows... no thanks.
Hmm. I wonder if we could put together a list of "spam sites" and then have a custom query form that automatically adds -site:blah for all spam sites blah in our list?
Why not tackle search engine spamming like we tackle e-mail spam?
As the contact person for a website, I get a few e-mails of these types. The majority of these e-mails are very poorly targeted. Usually they want me to link to a completely unrelated website.
I consider this completely inappropriate and no different than spam.
On the other hand, some requests are to link to *very* weakly related sites. While I still don't respond to these, I do feel that they are acceptable requests. However, such requests are in the minority.
So, you are claiming that the sample of companies you've worked for represents a fair sample of all software companies? You have also looked, in depth, at the same number of open source projects and can claim that that number is representative of all open source projects?
If you are going to use your own experience as justification for your point, you should at the least state exactly what that experience is. It would be nice if you could also compile some statistics on the total number of open and closed source companies so that you can support your claim that your experience is representitive of each camp.
If you can't or won't do this, please do not presume to speak with such authority.
I guess my response to this idea is that I'd sooner have appropriate menus even if they are slightly less efficient. Why? Because almost all other applications work with menus, and I'd like all my applications to be consistent. This way I can switch between using any application and not have to 'shift perspective'.
Also, consistency REALLY helps less savy computer users. As for the toolboxes, I really like mac's solution. On OS X (and indeed, even in X), the tool windows have a special designation. When the application loses focus... the tool windows dissappear. I certainly don't need to see them if I am using another program!
Ironically, GIMP, at least version 1.x, doesn't label it's pallettes as dialog windows! So even on mac, the tool windows won't dissapear.
This is perhaps somewhat of a window manager issue, but none the less, I feel it's the best solution. I understand from another post that GIMP 2.x has menus!! Yay. So I suppose it is improving.
Anyways, just my thoughts, not trying to trash talk GIMP or anything. It does sound like it's improving since I last used it.
The problem is with having all the menus in the right click context menu. Most programs have a menu bar where the file menu and other menus reside.
I'm not sure exactly when right clicking is usefull, but it's certainly annoying when it's used for everything.
Perhaps the only way out of this dilemma is to have a single mac-like menu bar. Otherwise, the only solution is something like MDI, were the parent window holds the menu bar.
I suppose you could also put the menu bar on top of each graphic window, but that would clutter things up an aweful lot and doesn't seem like a very good solution.
The other problem is that it's easy to lose the many tool windows. Mac solves this by having the tool palletes dissapear when an image window is not in focus. With GIMP, I find it difficult to minimize all those little tool pallets when I really just want to click minimize once and have them all go away.
There may be some solutions to some of these complaints, I'm not a gimp expert. But that is my first impression of gimp, and why I haven't used it.
Unless your contract, that you signed, claims ownership of ALL your work while employed, 9-5 or not. Yes, sometimes it happens. Be watchfull!
I really hope this doesn't mean that Elderscrolls IV will be "dumbed down" for the masses. : (
I don't have a lot of faith in mega media companies.
This isn't about punishing the US. This is simply about keeping our data private. It would be nice if we had a choice. As is, we don't even know if our data is safe or not!
What about US companies that operate in Canada for instance? By the previous posters logic, they should play by Canada's rules? But is this the case? I remember reading some US legal document saying that they still had to divulge information to the US government.
So what is going on? We need our government to clear these things up. We simply need to know who we can and cannot do business with in order to keep our data private.
It is not nearly as simply as "if data goes physically into the US, sure, the US gov can read it". That much is obvious. Mind you, in some cases companies don't even tell customers when this obvious thing happens!!
And just for my 2 cents on topic, tough luck Canada. :) If you do business that crosses into our country, you need to be held accountable by our laws, whatever they may be. The same holds true in reverse - if we're doing business with your country, then once we, our product, or our communication crosses the border, it's susceptible to whatever laws you have up there.
Yes, and as a Canadian, what I'd like to see from our government is laws preventing canadian banks and other companies with sensitive information to avoid using American companies. At the very least, I'd like Canadian companies to be *forced* to tell customers upfront that their information is going to be subject to US law.
That way, it makes it easier for me to avoid doing business with American companies. Simple as that. Don't believe me? When it came out that CIBC outsourced visa data to a US company, tons of people promptly left CIBC for another bank.
Don't fool yourself, Canadians WILL boycott your products over this.
I know, you have no other choices. So sad. (Really)
vi, GNOME (damn kde fanboys are too loud), mac, neither (but certainly not bush), what about a ninja who IS a pirate?
I might have added that I've used Apple GUIs since the days of Lisa and that there's been a steady decine in the quality of the front end. Luckily the decline has been matched by a decline in how often I use them.
This coming from someone who uses Linux? It never ceases to amaze me how utterly blind and myopic some people can be.
Gee, did you know the world is flat too? But luckely I don't travel much, so hey, I won't fall off the end.
So what are you posting from? A new calculator? Or an old 486?
But how do you know your choice is the right choice?
I just think this is something that needs to be looked at subjectively. Suppose the guy does actually give full human brains to mice. Assuming that one's consiousness is tied directly to the flesh the you'd assume these mice would have something at least akin to human consiousness.
A mouse cannot support a large brain. Considering the difference in brain size, the mouse with human brain would not come close to even a one year old baby in terms of intelligence. If you are concerned about the mouse with human brain, why not be concerned for the current mice? They certainly feel pain with their current brain, and some definately live tortured lives.
I'm not saying I think we should stop experimenting with mice mind you, just pointing out that there is little difference between now and if the mouse has a human brain.
So you think that a brain the size of a pea can be even close in thought process to a human brain?
If it's possible, we'll do it.
Not at all, we only do things we think will benefit us. For instance, it's possible for us to blow up most of the earth, but we don't. It's possible for us to create viruses and disease, but we don't (depsite rumors to the contrary).
Granted some idiots have caused us to come close... but I still think you are being unfair.
(And obviously if we did muck around in this too much, homo sapiens would eventually be overthrown as the dominant species of this planet. That would kinda suck.)
...
Umm, sorry, but this is not obvious at all.
One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense,
Look at it this way, we've already messed with evolution. We now prevent the sick from dying and help undesirable traits propagate. There is little selective pressure in our society.
This will, if it hasn't already, lead to a genetic weaking of our species. If we have any hope of surviving and improving, we need to start applying changes to our genetics ourselves. Essentially put an artificial selective pressure on our genome.
We can't do this unless we understand how we work. We can't experiement on ourselves very easily for many reasons (actually, mostly because we all value our lives above all else). So the only solution is to experiment on non-humans. By putting a little bit of humans into non-humans, we can better see how those parts of humans work.
Perhaps this step is not nessesay, but it certainly makes sense if one wants to find out how we tick faster than we are finding out now.
If the software is available (which for the vast majority of people who aren't playing games, it is), Linux beats both mac and windows for productivity by huge margins.
Nice troll. And we are supposed to take your word for it? I guess my word is just as good then, because I use Linux as work all day too?
Well, I use Mac and Windows at home... and guess what? Mac is more usable for me. It runs all my geeky unix programs, plus it *just works* for regular user stuff. I can't say the same about my work linux box.
But in all honesty, if Linux is beating other operating systems by huge margins for you, then I think there is something wrong with YOU. See, most people can get work done on any system. And considering that Mac runs nearly all your linux software, how Linux can be hugely more productive for you is a big mystery.
Unless of course you are just massively biased.
The point was not (well, not mainly ;-) ) that it is morally superior to give software rather than sell it, but that one activity earns you money and the other don't - and it's a tad easier giving millions of dollars to charity when you became wealthy making money from software rather than when you spent your time working for free.
Calling for a non-profit community to match not so much the generosity as the financial power of the richest man alive is a troll, quite independently of the morality of both in the first place.
I think this was the whole point of that little quip about seeing if the Linux community can match the donation. One of the biggest criticisims of GPL'ed software is that it is difficult to make money from it.
Every time this comes up, there are thousands of posts screaming "FUD" and claiming that you CAN make money on free software, and therefore haveing everything be free software won't in fact put 99% of programmers out of jobs.
Now all of a sudden the open source community CAN'T make money, and are "non-profit". That seems a little contradictory with previous claims.
It may be a troll or whatever you want to call it, but that comment does bring up a good point. Not that the slashdot community will ever admit it.
You typoed by typing 7.72 terahertz instead of 70.72 in the formula. Still, it would take 99 years.
I doubt many people would be upset by this, except the creationists. This statement is no different than 'god exsists', which philosophers will likely argue about until we all cease to exist.
And DNA evidence, showing *absolutely clearly* that evolution is taking place is not good enough for you? While we may not know all the details of how evolution works, there is abundant evidence showing that evolution is a good theory. FAR more evidence than global worming or theories about the fall of the Roman empire. It's used every day to make better drugs and understand how desieases work. There is no alternative theory which can take it's place.
In that light, arguing over how much evidence there is for evolutoin is actually besides the point. The people who want these stickers want to teach a non-scientific idea that has no place in a science class.
Creationism is *not* an alternative theory. It can't be used to make any sort of prediction which makes it utterly useless as far as a scientific theory. Just like other philisophical ideas, it should be taught in a philosophy class.