SF - Earthquakes
- Not sure what else... Commute to work continually held up by:
- Gay pride marches
- Exciting car chases starring Steve McQueen
- Massive cascades of small, brightly-coloured balls
I'm working on switching people over to Linux, but it's slow as some of the tools just aren't good enough yet... That's no way to talk about Windows users.
Just 30 years? 25-30 years was the figure mentioned by the OP I was replying to.
Hell, I just now found out the picture view I have will read Amiga IFF images. HOw is that for a fucking dinosaur? Not that big a deal. There was still a mainstream market for hobbyist (and some remaining commercial) Amiga support until the late 1990s. (I remember being surprised that my local supermarket was still selling Amiga Format magazine circa 1997/1998).
Besides, jpeg isn't that diffcult an format to figure out. If we where bomb back to the stoneage. If we're bombed back to the stone age and manage to climb our way to a stage where we can figure out JPEGs, it's likely we'll be able to figure out a lot of other formats too.
That's fine while you are alive - but what happens after? Well, that's a question that has vexed mankind for millenia. Some religions believe that the soul will continue on in some form of afterlife, others believe that it will be reborn in a new body. However, there is no concrete evidence for either of these, so it's possible you might just lie in the ground and get eaten by worms.
What device will read MMC or SD cards in 25, 30 years? That's a bad example. People rarely use flash-memory cards for archival, they're just a temporary holder until the data is transferred; and it can be transferred to *anything*. (FWIW, I believe that the data-retention lifetime of flash is estimated at 10 years, so it's not even suitable for the purpose).
Barring corporate machinations and/or government moves, there is no reason to believe that the standard JPEG format won't be supported by computers in 30 years time.
Having read the article, all I can say is... that game is seriously fucked up. "I can't believe it's not" incest and paedophilia? I seriously hope you were joking.
Indeed, this is why people dislike Microsoft's general attitude. It's like they have multiple personalities or something. Microsoft only has one true personality. All the others are just like attempts by the sleazy guy to convince the girl that he really loves her so that she'll sleep with him- and *then* he can dump her.
Not that I'm suggesting that Steve Ballmer is literally trying to get developers to sleep with him, obviously. At least, not that I'm aware of...
Yeah, I didn't think much of that letter either. It came across as a manipulative attempt by a senior corporate guy to present himself as an honest, down-to-earth and enthusiastic developer but in reality was just a weaselish attempt by him (or someone in PR) to present MS's corporate position in a better light.
So, when a program has a "complicated" interface with a "large number of features" it is a professional grade tool but when the free tool "GIMP" has a "complicated interface" with a "large number of features" it is, well, too complicated to use. Your reply mixes something I *did* say (that Photoshop has a "large number of features") with a load of other stuff that sure as hell didn't (if anyone did). In the process you've blatantly misrepresented what I said. It's not even a legitimate distillation or summary of my underlying message. At no stage did *I* attack GIMP for having a "complicated interface".
This is at best sloppy (and incompetent) mixing of quotes and/or replying to different audiences, and at worst a deliberate strawman.
Or was it just a kneejerk reaction that simply because I said something not 100% in GIMP's favour (i.e. that Photoshop was more powerful) you could lump me in with anyone who had ever criticised GIMP and assume that their views were mine?
So which is it? Is GIMP a powerful tool or just a complicated tool? I'm not a graphics pro, but GIMP has done everything I need for graphics quite well That's great, and I'm pleased that you're happy with it. GIMP is pretty powerful; probably more than powerful enough for people who (like yourself) aren't graphics professionals, or at least very serious amateurs.
and is well worth its price. WTF? GIMP is free, so this part is either meaningless or an underhanded insult to GIMP. I assume that you didn't mean it as an insult.
At least the GIMP is free clutter. In some ways I prefer GIMP. I'm not sure if that's because I'd used it more though. However, some people might say that the "clutter" is having stuff immediately accessible or visible- or simply the manifestation of Photoshop being more powerful.
And I notice that some people say that GIMP is nicer for programmers and people with that mentality. Which is fine, but Photoshop wasn't created with primarily that market in mind.
I took the latest PhotoShop Beta for a spin recently. I couldn't figure out how to do the most basic things like use a line drawing tool. What were you expecting to get out of it? You do realise that Photoshop isn't- by reputation- a pick-up-and-go package, and isn't meant to be?
Adobe released Photoshop Elements for that market. You may think I'm demeaning you by suggesting the lite "consumer" or "beginner" version- but you were the one you expected it to be easy, and criticised it for failing in that respect. The full Photoshop is designed to be powerful, not easy. Elements is still quite powerful for something easy to use.
Actually, I'd suggest that Photo Deluxe (Elements' predecessor) was even easier to use- but that was very cut down and wizard-based, and has been discontinued.
I'm sure with professional training I'd be doing all kinds of amazing things, but seriously, for the hefty price tag I'd expect a UI that made things easy enough to figure out on my own. No, the reason Photoshop is expensive is that it's a serious tool with a large number of features, priced for the professional market it's aimed at. You're paying for the power, not the ease of use.
You can only go so far in making something easy to use without losing flexibility.
I don't know Photoshop well enough to claim that everything "hard" in the interface can be explained as an intentional move by its developers to choose power and flexibility over immediate ease-of-use and intuitiveness (as opposed to bad interface design). But I do know that it's generally accepted that Photoshop is *not* aimed at the casual user.
Cinepaint? To be fair, it's *is* an offshot of GIMP and supports the depths you mention; AFAIK that was one of the reasons behind its creation (8-bit is nowhere near enough for film).
However, although it may have started as a fork of GIMP, Cinepaint is not- and is no longer meant to be- just a "16-bit version of GIMP". To quote its website that you linked to
CinePaint has fundamentally different design goals from projects like GIMP. I'm sure that if CinePaint did everything GIMP could do- in a similar fashion- but with 16-bit, everyone would be using it.
Except you are trolling at worst, and flamebaiting at best.
Wikipedia defines trolling as follows: [snip] If you're not doing that, then I don't know what you're doing. (Disclaimer: I don't necessarily agree with the OP's opinion. Whether I do or not is irrelevant).
IMHO, there was nothing in his post to indicating that trolling was his intent- he expressed and defended reasonably an opinion that ran against the Slashdot norm. By contrast, your misleading implication that he was trolling- ironically- smacks more of a troll itself.
And yes, we all understand that there are more cameras, modifications of laws to account for acts of terror, etc., but people simply can't see the application of technology or updates of laws for what it is: for the most part, a genuine, honest attempt by persons within free governments Whether or not the attempt was made in good faith, the risk of any such system being misused by any future government is even more important that what this one are likely to do with it. It's a cliche, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Personally, I don't trust the current government very far, but if I did, the same principle applies.
I find it humorous that the people who live in what are essentially the freest, richest nations that afford them, in general and on balance, the widest variety of personal freedoms Yep. You're damn right that I enjoy and want to keep those freedoms.
Are there people with ulterior motives and are people in power looking to stay in power? Sure. Absolutely. But the CCTV systems in the UK aren't a part of some larger plot to create a secret police state and keep "the people" down. Perhaps not. But does it carry the risk of being abused for the purpose you describe? Yes? Are there sufficient measures in place to prevent this? No? Then please excuse my scepticism, but I don't trust any system that is reliant upon the goodwill of the people administering it.
But to paraphrase Churchill, the general systems of what we loosely call "democracy" are a hell of a lot better than any other systems we've seen tried over the centuries. What is your point here? That because these moves have been carried out by a democratically elected government, that they're beyond criticism? Nope. Democracy does not mean being unable to point out the flaws of our elected leaders plans; on the contrary, what's the point of democracy if we're not free to criticise and suggest that things might be done differently, by different people?
...but not necessarily because of its content. No, what is interesting is how the film maker will decry the loss of liberties, the encroachments of freedom, and the institution of censorship -- in a film openly distributed and marketed to the general public, and all without the government shutting him down. Nice strawman, but he was warning against the destruction of civil liberties, not claiming that Britain was a police state yet.
Umm, OK. So maybe Microsoft should just terminate the Express line? MS wouldn't have released the Express line in the first place if it hadn't been in their interest. Releasing a cut-down version that's fun to play with, but not ultimately much good for serious work is a good way to get people using MS products, and make them more likely to stay with them when they start doing serious work (which will, of course, require them to fork out for the proper version).
They'd terminate it if it wasn't in their interests anyway. Any (phoney) "generosity" from MS that is dependent upon everyone playing the way MS would like is of questionable value.
How would Jamie like that, I wonder, being the one person responsible for ending availability of a product his customers apparently use? Yeah, it'll all be Jamie's fault if kind Uncle Bill is *forced* to withdraw his entirely altruistic offer. Nice scapegoat.
It's sad that no mind at Microsoft can conceive of a compelling argument why Jamie is wrong. I notice that Dan's argument includes comments like
The vast majority of our customer base, now with 14 million downloads, isn't even professional developers, its non-professionals. [..] From a total number perspective, beginners are the largest segment of Express customers and they still find Express too complex, [..] Our Express customers haven't been asked for unit testing or extensiblity in much the same way as I didn't ask or even know to ask when I grew up programming BASIC on an Apple IIe. So? That wasn't the issue. If this is true, then the "vast majority" of Express users simply won't use it, so what was the point of bringing it up? If Dan was implying that Jamie is wasting his time, then that's Jamie's problem; it's not going to damage their experience, or MS/Express's reputation.
Is he attempting to steer the discussion (and basis of MS's actions) away from ground that may not be as firm as MS would like to pretend it is? "Our ickle novice programmers don't want or need TestDriven.NET". Then they won't use it, Dan.
As you may remember from my previous posts, Visual Studio Express was a labor of love. MS would not have permitted the release of Express if it had not been to their benefit; in this case, giving low-end programmers the chance to use, learn and be steered towards their product without cannibalising sales of the full Visual Studio.
If it really was a "labor of love" for Dan, then I'd question why he's pouring his heart and soul into products for a company like Microsoft, and consider him somewhat deluded. On the other hand, he's a manager, not a low-level Bill-Gates-is-God-Kool-Aid-drinking peon, so you'll excuse my scepticism if I consider this to be an attempt to play the "I'm one of you and really enthusiastic about this" sympathy card.
The tone of such comments as
It's unfortunate that this happened, but as you can see, we have been very patient with Jamie and it's our hope he will remain in compliance of the Visual Studio Express Editions license agreement. smacks of PR. It's the weaselly attempt to come over as firm-but-friendly whilst underneath making clear what they expect to be done and the veiled threat if it isn't. Either he or someone else has consciously worked on this.
I also notice that he states here:
Back in 1975, Microsoft started out as *the* hobbyist company for a nascient software industry. While many things have changed since then, we always had a special place in our hearts for hobbyists. Yeah, MS has always been the hobbyist's friend, ever since Bill Gates' friendly letter to them in 1975. They've always been open and let people play around with their stuff.
My cat does this with spiders. Once he's got one of the hairy buggers pinned, he just sits there and waits for it to make a dash for "freedom". Then he chews another leg off it, and goes back to waiting.
Whenever I see this happen, I'm torn between horror at the grisly spectacle of such torture, and the guilty pleasure of seeing something I hate being toyed with so cruelly. Let's hope he never comes across a Black Widow then.
The whole notion that publishers want a bunch of garbage written by amateurs -- even worse, by a bunch of amateurs working together -- when the market is already flooded, and there are plenty of writers who would gladly sell out for extra cash... it's just silly. Yeah, that's what they want you to believe. Just because they wouldn't be smart enough by themselves to come up with ideas like "Should Star Trek be more about Ghosts?"
In a million years, they'd never come up with ideas like this for the franchise (source here and here):
Starfleet Command is haunted by the wraith of a ship designer who is about to die but has projected his soul into the ship to make starships alive - Starfleet loves the new ships and the designer has to kill murderers and psycopaths to put their souls into battleships so he goes around murdering new people. Brilliant!
Man, I gotta cut down on the caffeine and get more sleep. I was really confused about why the fanfic folks were having their LinuxJournal forum accounts terminated. It was all the Linus Torvalds/Steve Ballmer slash fiction that caused it.
Slashdot Mirror
Does this give me another excuse to praise the foresight of this computer game's creators?
...or are you just happy to see me? Personally, I don't want *anything* named "pico" confused with my genitalia.- Earthquakes
- Not sure what else... Commute to work continually held up by:
- Gay pride marches
- Exciting car chases starring Steve McQueen
- Massive cascades of small, brightly-coloured balls
Barring corporate machinations and/or government moves, there is no reason to believe that the standard JPEG format won't be supported by computers in 30 years time.
Having read the article, all I can say is... that game is seriously fucked up. "I can't believe it's not" incest and paedophilia? I seriously hope you were joking.
Not that I'm suggesting that Steve Ballmer is literally trying to get developers to sleep with him, obviously. At least, not that I'm aware of...
Yeah, I didn't think much of that letter either. It came across as a manipulative attempt by a senior corporate guy to present himself as an honest, down-to-earth and enthusiastic developer but in reality was just a weaselish attempt by him (or someone in PR) to present MS's corporate position in a better light.
This is at best sloppy (and incompetent) mixing of quotes and/or replying to different audiences, and at worst a deliberate strawman.
Or was it just a kneejerk reaction that simply because I said something not 100% in GIMP's favour (i.e. that Photoshop was more powerful) you could lump me in with anyone who had ever criticised GIMP and assume that their views were mine? So which is it? Is GIMP a powerful tool or just a complicated tool? I'm not a graphics pro, but GIMP has done everything I need for graphics quite well That's great, and I'm pleased that you're happy with it. GIMP is pretty powerful; probably more than powerful enough for people who (like yourself) aren't graphics professionals, or at least very serious amateurs. and is well worth its price. WTF? GIMP is free, so this part is either meaningless or an underhanded insult to GIMP. I assume that you didn't mean it as an insult.
...I always wondered what happened to them after their 80s TV show finished.
And I notice that some people say that GIMP is nicer for programmers and people with that mentality. Which is fine, but Photoshop wasn't created with primarily that market in mind. I took the latest PhotoShop Beta for a spin recently. I couldn't figure out how to do the most basic things like use a line drawing tool. What were you expecting to get out of it? You do realise that Photoshop isn't- by reputation- a pick-up-and-go package, and isn't meant to be?
Adobe released Photoshop Elements for that market. You may think I'm demeaning you by suggesting the lite "consumer" or "beginner" version- but you were the one you expected it to be easy, and criticised it for failing in that respect. The full Photoshop is designed to be powerful, not easy. Elements is still quite powerful for something easy to use.
Actually, I'd suggest that Photo Deluxe (Elements' predecessor) was even easier to use- but that was very cut down and wizard-based, and has been discontinued. I'm sure with professional training I'd be doing all kinds of amazing things, but seriously, for the hefty price tag I'd expect a UI that made things easy enough to figure out on my own. No, the reason Photoshop is expensive is that it's a serious tool with a large number of features, priced for the professional market it's aimed at. You're paying for the power, not the ease of use.
You can only go so far in making something easy to use without losing flexibility.
I don't know Photoshop well enough to claim that everything "hard" in the interface can be explained as an intentional move by its developers to choose power and flexibility over immediate ease-of-use and intuitiveness (as opposed to bad interface design). But I do know that it's generally accepted that Photoshop is *not* aimed at the casual user.
However, although it may have started as a fork of GIMP, Cinepaint is not- and is no longer meant to be- just a "16-bit version of GIMP". To quote its website that you linked to CinePaint has fundamentally different design goals from projects like GIMP. I'm sure that if CinePaint did everything GIMP could do- in a similar fashion- but with 16-bit, everyone would be using it.
IMHO, there was nothing in his post to indicating that trolling was his intent- he expressed and defended reasonably an opinion that ran against the Slashdot norm. By contrast, your misleading implication that he was trolling- ironically- smacks more of a troll itself.
Personally, I don't trust the current government very far, but if I did, the same principle applies. I find it humorous that the people who live in what are essentially the freest, richest nations that afford them, in general and on balance, the widest variety of personal freedoms Yep. You're damn right that I enjoy and want to keep those freedoms. Are there people with ulterior motives and are people in power looking to stay in power? Sure. Absolutely. But the CCTV systems in the UK aren't a part of some larger plot to create a secret police state and keep "the people" down. Perhaps not. But does it carry the risk of being abused for the purpose you describe? Yes? Are there sufficient measures in place to prevent this? No? Then please excuse my scepticism, but I don't trust any system that is reliant upon the goodwill of the people administering it. But to paraphrase Churchill, the general systems of what we loosely call "democracy" are a hell of a lot better than any other systems we've seen tried over the centuries. What is your point here? That because these moves have been carried out by a democratically elected government, that they're beyond criticism? Nope. Democracy does not mean being unable to point out the flaws of our elected leaders plans; on the contrary, what's the point of democracy if we're not free to criticise and suggest that things might be done differently, by different people?
...but not necessarily because of its content. No, what is interesting is how the film maker will decry the loss of liberties, the encroachments of freedom, and the institution of censorship -- in a film openly distributed and marketed to the general public, and all without the government shutting him down. Nice strawman, but he was warning against the destruction of civil liberties, not claiming that Britain was a police state yet.They'd terminate it if it wasn't in their interests anyway. Any (phoney) "generosity" from MS that is dependent upon everyone playing the way MS would like is of questionable value. How would Jamie like that, I wonder, being the one person responsible for ending availability of a product his customers apparently use? Yeah, it'll all be Jamie's fault if kind Uncle Bill is *forced* to withdraw his entirely altruistic offer. Nice scapegoat.
Is he attempting to steer the discussion (and basis of MS's actions) away from ground that may not be as firm as MS would like to pretend it is? "Our ickle novice programmers don't want or need TestDriven.NET". Then they won't use it, Dan. As you may remember from my previous posts, Visual Studio Express was a labor of love. MS would not have permitted the release of Express if it had not been to their benefit; in this case, giving low-end programmers the chance to use, learn and be steered towards their product without cannibalising sales of the full Visual Studio.
If it really was a "labor of love" for Dan, then I'd question why he's pouring his heart and soul into products for a company like Microsoft, and consider him somewhat deluded. On the other hand, he's a manager, not a low-level Bill-Gates-is-God-Kool-Aid-drinking peon, so you'll excuse my scepticism if I consider this to be an attempt to play the "I'm one of you and really enthusiastic about this" sympathy card.
The tone of such comments as It's unfortunate that this happened, but as you can see, we have been very patient with Jamie and it's our hope he will remain in compliance of the Visual Studio Express Editions license agreement. smacks of PR. It's the weaselly attempt to come over as firm-but-friendly whilst underneath making clear what they expect to be done and the veiled threat if it isn't. Either he or someone else has consciously worked on this.
I also notice that he states here: Back in 1975, Microsoft started out as *the* hobbyist company for a nascient software industry. While many things have changed since then, we always had a special place in our hearts for hobbyists. Yeah, MS has always been the hobbyist's friend, ever since Bill Gates' friendly letter to them in 1975. They've always been open and let people play around with their stuff.
Lying corporate fuck.
My mistake; the first link should be to here.
In a million years, they'd never come up with ideas like this for the franchise (source here and here): Starfleet Command is haunted by the wraith of a ship designer who is about to die but has projected his soul into the ship to make starships alive - Starfleet loves the new ships and the designer has to kill murderers and psycopaths to put their souls into battleships so he goes around murdering new people. Brilliant!