This is nail number 128 in the coffin lid of the Universal Computing Device. Welcome to the machine.
We will tell you when and where you may apply your licensed software. Do not try to trick us, because we will know. This hurts us more than it hurts you. It's for your own good. This is the only way we can protect our ability to deliver robust, secure software on-time and on-demand.
...Um. Scratch that.
Thank you Linus. I mean, seriously. Thank you. Whose chaps would we be sucking if it weren't for you?
I recently had the opportunity to get to know Blender.
Does its feature set compare well with commercial packages? Yes, it does. Is the performance reasonable given high-end hardware? Yeah, not awful.
And yet I was able to safely declare the application at this time unusable by our art department, because they're not software engineers. Why should that matter? Hint: it shouldn't.
It's all about what concepts are taken for granted as part of the knowledge-base of the user -- and Blender is obviously built by engineers. For example, object transformation tools frequently use mathematical rather than descriptive (or industry-standard) terminology. I can see where the coder is coming from -- it's a transform involving such-and-such an algorithm, it must seem straight-forward to name it that way...I mean, heck, everybody knows what a such-and-such algorithm is, right?
Wrong.
I am educated in my discipline. I studied art at a variety of institutions and have a decade of experience in commercial design. I am used to labels like "knife tool" (from ElectricImage) or "reflect tool" (from Illustrator). I can't make heads or tails of the "fourier meta-transform fuckulation B-phase inhibitor" tool, like the labels seen in Blender.
Blender is an engineer's application -- suitable, I guess, for making really sadly misdesigned crap like Elephant's Dream which screams "engineer pretending to be an artist!" with every rendered frame.
The problem isn't only Blender.
Open source software engineers, or a distinct but visible subset thereof, are too egocentric to be software architects. Their interfaces remain mired in overly technical jargon, with options that should be drill-down options presented alongside top-layer options -- because engineers hate to think there are features "too advanced" for day to day use. It insults them. Burying fine controls is for wimps. Engineers want their brains respected by their software, so they'll all into coding it like it is.
The rest of us find using such applications awkward and plagued by nerditis.
The GIMP is maturing nicely, but it still isn't there. Blender has recently become much more powerful, but is still about as usable to a designer (ie, the profession for whom it is targeted) as a slide-rule.
I'm not trying to resurrect the spirit of Kai Krausse here or advocate the dumbing down of interfaces, but there is a happy medium between utilitarian low-level access bloat and a piece of software that fits in tune with the knowledge context its users have.
When the Empire wins the LUCRETIVE CASH SETTLEMENTS from these actions, how do they disperse them to the artists?
Do they toss the money into a general bonus slush fund meated out in infinitessimal slicettes to each artist their various members represent? Like, does Michael Jackson get 0.0001 cents for every suit settled?
Or, conversely, do they pass the money on directly to the artists whose songs are found to have been shared? In this scenario they would audit a defendant's hard-drive, find lots of Madonna songs, and then give Madonna her share of the bounty.
If so, they should be making available these backdoor sales for the purposes of inclusion in music charts. Like the Pirate Top 10.
(I know, I know -- some folk'll cry foul and claim that that sort of thing would only encourage illegal filesharing 'cause the cool kids are doing it, but those people should take their beef up with Sweden, first.)
From this point of view the lawsuits could be seen as friendly, random audits to pay for shared songs. If the artists were compensated in direct relation to illicitly shared tracks found, it becomes a kind of sale. Totally legit -- like a kind of anti-lottery.
Then the government could tax it and we could all get on with our business.
I think we all know what happens in the long run to people who are soft on alternative lifestyles (being gay, using the Darwin kernel, not eating meat) -- that's right: aitch e double hockey sticks.
And everyone knows that AIDS is an alternative lifestyle virus, so I don't see how their smugness can last. Now that Microsoft is building condoms directly into the Vista user interface, everyone pious except Catholics can now breathe easy.
Also, I have it on good authority that evil thetans are harboured inside the brains of liberals, parasiting on the electromagnetic waves of anti-American thought.
IANAL or other IP professional, but how would excerpting copyright materials for public display fall under fair use? The audience is undifferentiated (this ain't "education") and advertizers (depending on where the clip is embedded) are potentially reaping the rewards of the traffic generated without license or authorization.
Or did you mean "fair" in the sense of actual fairness? This, sadly, is only a distant cousin of "fair use" fair.
But I've been fooled by this vaporware before. Wake me up when the products are on sale.
Otherwise, toss this in the forgettery along with flying cars, Asimovian robots, predictably functional North Korean nukes, the last digit of pi, Windows Vista and leprechauns.
I know before too long they'll be some long and nearly interesting thread about the Darwinian loveliness manifest in this virus' competitive adaptation, but I think it instead provides a firm basis to identify the handiwork of Intelligent Design.
In other words, God spams.
He Is That He Is has simply moved on from meat-based proselytizing and entered the so-called Cyber Age, as was foreseen in Deuteronomy 4:20, Revelations 1:1415, and Glossary 36:D.
Let me rephrase: I, for one, welcome the continued hegemony of the richest bastards on Earth. I sure hope when the shit hits the fan their ATATs will deign to protect my meagre nation from Chinese Decepticons.
By the bye, for the purposes of data ming I would like to go on record as saying that I love the American people, America, American movies and bombs. Any suggestion to the contrary is probably just my jealousy showing through, since I, like everyone on Earth, wishes I was a real American.
...That way I could vote in the elections that generate the policy that influences all of our lives, instead of just watching it on TV. Because, let's face it, you genuine Americans have dropped the ball. I could vote in a better president with my brain tied up my ass.
Yes yes, don't even bother trying to detect the sardony -- just mod me flamebait or troll and let's be done with it.
I'm embarrassed on behalf of all of us that nobody was on the ball enough to camcorder the assault and get it up onto YouTube. Without the supporting video link this is nothing but a Fark headline.
People who don't like brown are racists. Racists only listen to crappy music. Crappy music is disproportionately laden with restrictive Digital Rights Mungling. Restricted music makes little 5 pound, 4 ounce Baby Jesus cry.
REUTERS - Jupiter System - Dirty hippie environmentalists all across the globe are rallying this morning in an appeal to Primal Fuxquot Xorquon to reverse her policy on atmospheric pollutants. The office of the Primal Fuxquot declined to comment, but StripePeace spokesthings stated that, "This escalation in extreme weather phenomena is a direct result of the Xorquon Administration's invasion of Io."
Ionese vapour, which tends to gather at LaGrange points, has been diffusing into the upper Jovian atmosphere for decades. Administration officials insist this gaseous mixing is a natural process, while environmental activists maintain that the corrosive bleed-off is a direct result of increased industrial activity on the occupied moon.
"When will the madness end? Will it take another Great Red Spot?" demanded chief hippie Starshine at a press conference this morning.
Scientists are divided on the matter, but a recent conference at Europa issued a position paper stating in clear terms that a majority of researchers believe atmospheric stabilization is the result of hiccoughs in the orbits of the inner pebble planets. A solution would involve billions of zoltots of spending and could encompass projects as ambitious as wiping out all Earthlings.
When pressed for comment the Earthlings this reporter was able to contact screamed and ran in terror. Updates as they develop.
I was arguing about global warming the other night with my half-senile extreme right-wing nutjob father-in-law. He maintained with great vehemence that the causes of global warming are debatable, therefore any emphasis on moderating pollution is a misdirected effort.
My view is that, regardless of the causes of global warming, wouldn't moderating pollution help to mitigate the effects? The cause be damned -- if there's something we can do to control the process by a few degrees isn't that worth doing?
Why all the obsession with cause to the detriment of consequence?
If the planet may be subject to orbital shifts that change the climate, shouldn't our civilization be empowered to do whatever it can to minimize such changes insofar as they represent a threat to our current au courant version of the ecosystem?
This is one of those/. stories that all too predictably garner hundreds of replies from people who wouldn't know IP law from a hole in their own anatomy.
IANAL, but you have to realize that Apple (or Jobs) is not "deciding" to eradicate the term 'pod, nor are they too stupid to understand the power of contagious verbal branding.
What they are doing is defending against the dilution of their trademark not because they don't want anybody using the word fragment 'pod but instead so that, if they are called upon to defend the crown jewels at the heart of their trademark, they can demonstrate an effort to establish their usage as unique, commercial, and controlled. What they're preparing for is an instance when they might have to say "See? We did try. You can't accuse us of encouraging the dilution of the term."
I believe the technical term for this is "being prepared."
Is it an ugly, ugly IP world out there? It is. But Apple has to live and work in that world. They didn't make the rules.
Slashdot Mirror
This is nail number 128 in the coffin lid of the Universal Computing Device. Welcome to the machine.
...Um. Scratch that.
We will tell you when and where you may apply your licensed software. Do not try to trick us, because we will know. This hurts us more than it hurts you. It's for your own good. This is the only way we can protect our ability to deliver robust, secure software on-time and on-demand.
Thank you Linus. I mean, seriously. Thank you. Whose chaps would we be sucking if it weren't for you?
I recently had the opportunity to get to know Blender.
Does its feature set compare well with commercial packages? Yes, it does. Is the performance reasonable given high-end hardware? Yeah, not awful.
And yet I was able to safely declare the application at this time unusable by our art department, because they're not software engineers. Why should that matter? Hint: it shouldn't.
It's all about what concepts are taken for granted as part of the knowledge-base of the user -- and Blender is obviously built by engineers. For example, object transformation tools frequently use mathematical rather than descriptive (or industry-standard) terminology. I can see where the coder is coming from -- it's a transform involving such-and-such an algorithm, it must seem straight-forward to name it that way...I mean, heck, everybody knows what a such-and-such algorithm is, right?
Wrong.
I am educated in my discipline. I studied art at a variety of institutions and have a decade of experience in commercial design. I am used to labels like "knife tool" (from ElectricImage) or "reflect tool" (from Illustrator). I can't make heads or tails of the "fourier meta-transform fuckulation B-phase inhibitor" tool, like the labels seen in Blender.
Blender is an engineer's application -- suitable, I guess, for making really sadly misdesigned crap like Elephant's Dream which screams "engineer pretending to be an artist!" with every rendered frame.
The problem isn't only Blender.
Open source software engineers, or a distinct but visible subset thereof, are too egocentric to be software architects. Their interfaces remain mired in overly technical jargon, with options that should be drill-down options presented alongside top-layer options -- because engineers hate to think there are features "too advanced" for day to day use. It insults them. Burying fine controls is for wimps. Engineers want their brains respected by their software, so they'll all into coding it like it is.
The rest of us find using such applications awkward and plagued by nerditis.
The GIMP is maturing nicely, but it still isn't there. Blender has recently become much more powerful, but is still about as usable to a designer (ie, the profession for whom it is targeted) as a slide-rule.
I'm not trying to resurrect the spirit of Kai Krausse here or advocate the dumbing down of interfaces, but there is a happy medium between utilitarian low-level access bloat and a piece of software that fits in tune with the knowledge context its users have.
So...we tried out Blender and we're buying Maya.
When the Empire wins the LUCRETIVE CASH SETTLEMENTS from these actions, how do they disperse them to the artists?
Do they toss the money into a general bonus slush fund meated out in infinitessimal slicettes to each artist their various members represent? Like, does Michael Jackson get 0.0001 cents for every suit settled?
Or, conversely, do they pass the money on directly to the artists whose songs are found to have been shared? In this scenario they would audit a defendant's hard-drive, find lots of Madonna songs, and then give Madonna her share of the bounty.
If so, they should be making available these backdoor sales for the purposes of inclusion in music charts. Like the Pirate Top 10.
(I know, I know -- some folk'll cry foul and claim that that sort of thing would only encourage illegal filesharing 'cause the cool kids are doing it, but those people should take their beef up with Sweden, first.)
From this point of view the lawsuits could be seen as friendly, random audits to pay for shared songs. If the artists were compensated in direct relation to illicitly shared tracks found, it becomes a kind of sale. Totally legit -- like a kind of anti-lottery.
Then the government could tax it and we could all get on with our business.
I think we all know what happens in the long run to people who are soft on alternative lifestyles (being gay, using the Darwin kernel, not eating meat) -- that's right: aitch e double hockey sticks.
And everyone knows that AIDS is an alternative lifestyle virus, so I don't see how their smugness can last. Now that Microsoft is building condoms directly into the Vista user interface, everyone pious except Catholics can now breathe easy.
Also, I have it on good authority that evil thetans are harboured inside the brains of liberals, parasiting on the electromagnetic waves of anti-American thought.
IANAL or other IP professional, but how would excerpting copyright materials for public display fall under fair use? The audience is undifferentiated (this ain't "education") and advertizers (depending on where the clip is embedded) are potentially reaping the rewards of the traffic generated without license or authorization.
Or did you mean "fair" in the sense of actual fairness? This, sadly, is only a distant cousin of "fair use" fair.
But I've been fooled by this vaporware before. Wake me up when the products are on sale.
Otherwise, toss this in the forgettery along with flying cars, Asimovian robots, predictably functional North Korean nukes, the last digit of pi, Windows Vista and leprechauns.
I know before too long they'll be some long and nearly interesting thread about the Darwinian loveliness manifest in this virus' competitive adaptation, but I think it instead provides a firm basis to identify the handiwork of Intelligent Design.
In other words, God spams.
He Is That He Is has simply moved on from meat-based proselytizing and entered the so-called Cyber Age, as was foreseen in Deuteronomy 4:20, Revelations 1:1415, and Glossary 36:D.
...Welcome our new God-fearing, English-mangling, Imperialist, sanctimonious, fat, egocentric, autistic overlords!
...That way I could vote in the elections that generate the policy that influences all of our lives, instead of just watching it on TV. Because, let's face it, you genuine Americans have dropped the ball. I could vote in a better president with my brain tied up my ass.
Oh wait -- they're not new.
Let me rephrase: I, for one, welcome the continued hegemony of the richest bastards on Earth. I sure hope when the shit hits the fan their ATATs will deign to protect my meagre nation from Chinese Decepticons.
By the bye, for the purposes of data ming I would like to go on record as saying that I love the American people, America, American movies and bombs. Any suggestion to the contrary is probably just my jealousy showing through, since I, like everyone on Earth, wishes I was a real American.
Yes yes, don't even bother trying to detect the sardony -- just mod me flamebait or troll and let's be done with it.
To old people, everything is a site. My father talks about his "e-mail site" is down, for instance.
This behaviour goes hand in hand with [ab]use of the term downloading for any transfer of a file, regardless of the direction of transmission.
I'm embarrassed on behalf of all of us that nobody was on the ball enough to camcorder the assault and get it up onto YouTube. Without the supporting video link this is nothing but a Fark headline.
...if this were a battle in the murky depths of the Mutura Nebula.
When your tag begins to flash it means your LastDay has come, and it's off to the SleepShop with you.
This is really good news. I can only hope that the Canadian equivalent of the FCC, the CRTC, is paying close attention.
It would be great is this next generation of wireless tools could work across the entire continent.*
___________
* Not to snub Mexico's broadcasting authority, Pedro, who is a fine fellow. I'll buy him a beer and bring him around, too.
Some of us happen to favour brown.
People who don't like brown are racists. Racists only listen to crappy music. Crappy music is disproportionately laden with restrictive Digital Rights Mungling. Restricted music makes little 5 pound, 4 ounce Baby Jesus cry.
Bwah-ha, ha-ha-ha, oh lordie ha ha ha ha ha. H-huh. Huh. Tee-hee.
So, I guess it'll be servings of Linux and Mac OS X for all, then? See you on the other side!
REUTERS - Jupiter System - Dirty hippie environmentalists all across the globe are rallying this morning in an appeal to Primal Fuxquot Xorquon to reverse her policy on atmospheric pollutants. The office of the Primal Fuxquot declined to comment, but StripePeace spokesthings stated that, "This escalation in extreme weather phenomena is a direct result of the Xorquon Administration's invasion of Io."
Ionese vapour, which tends to gather at LaGrange points, has been diffusing into the upper Jovian atmosphere for decades. Administration officials insist this gaseous mixing is a natural process, while environmental activists maintain that the corrosive bleed-off is a direct result of increased industrial activity on the occupied moon.
"When will the madness end? Will it take another Great Red Spot?" demanded chief hippie Starshine at a press conference this morning.
Scientists are divided on the matter, but a recent conference at Europa issued a position paper stating in clear terms that a majority of researchers believe atmospheric stabilization is the result of hiccoughs in the orbits of the inner pebble planets. A solution would involve billions of zoltots of spending and could encompass projects as ambitious as wiping out all Earthlings.
When pressed for comment the Earthlings this reporter was able to contact screamed and ran in terror. Updates as they develop.
I was arguing about global warming the other night with my half-senile extreme right-wing nutjob father-in-law. He maintained with great vehemence that the causes of global warming are debatable, therefore any emphasis on moderating pollution is a misdirected effort.
My view is that, regardless of the causes of global warming, wouldn't moderating pollution help to mitigate the effects? The cause be damned -- if there's something we can do to control the process by a few degrees isn't that worth doing?
Why all the obsession with cause to the detriment of consequence?
If the planet may be subject to orbital shifts that change the climate, shouldn't our civilization be empowered to do whatever it can to minimize such changes insofar as they represent a threat to our current au courant version of the ecosystem?
...you slather my father; prepare to die.
I can't pass this link around to my friends -- the1r elliturit.
...it's amazing how not sucking works wonders for the way people interpret your actions and qualify the possible repercussions.
That's just compression artifacting around the mouth.
but I do not see a worthless hack brand here. You are not carrying that item."
...they'd end up on Enterprise.
...we'll finally be able to identify the Transformer who vandalized the Mars Rover?
I bet it was frickin' Starscream, that bitch.
This is one of those /. stories that all too predictably garner hundreds of replies from people who wouldn't know IP law from a hole in their own anatomy.
IANAL, but you have to realize that Apple (or Jobs) is not "deciding" to eradicate the term 'pod, nor are they too stupid to understand the power of contagious verbal branding.
What they are doing is defending against the dilution of their trademark not because they don't want anybody using the word fragment 'pod but instead so that, if they are called upon to defend the crown jewels at the heart of their trademark, they can demonstrate an effort to establish their usage as unique, commercial, and controlled. What they're preparing for is an instance when they might have to say "See? We did try. You can't accuse us of encouraging the dilution of the term."
I believe the technical term for this is "being prepared."
Is it an ugly, ugly IP world out there? It is. But Apple has to live and work in that world. They didn't make the rules.