Really; no offence, but the stereotype low-end (i.e. not management, etc.) Microsoft employee is out of university; smart but naive and willing to drink the Bill Gates Kool Aid.
Microsoft were unethical and quite willing to scre over people 10 or 15 years ago. If they've done more, it's only because they were in the position to do so. What's happened is that you've grown up a bit, and the scales have fallen from your eyes; you're seeing MS *then* as your old naive self remembers them, not with your current cynical perspective.
Anyway, MS don't need cynical old you any more; they'll simply get some more smart, flattered and naive Gates-worshippers straight from university to replace the cynical older employees as they've always done.
When the company selling you a product tells you the product will help demonstrate your status as l33t
Uh.... that's *exactly* the business model ThinkGeek follow.
Yeah, I know it's kind of hypocritical to criticise one of the major advertisers (regardless of the fact they're owned by OSTG) since I don't subscribe to Slashdot.
But the fact remains.... ThinkGeek are basically just another uber-consumerist outlet selling gimmicky "boys' toys" with a superficial pseudo-"geeky" twist.
They do occasionally come up with something interesting, like the universal "TV-off" remote-control keyring thing. But a *truly* smart geek, as opposed to a nerd with no social life and too much money, would be thinking how they could do that with their PDA or something.
Yes, some of the stuff is interesting, but it's mostly just techno-gimmickry that has nothing in particular to do with being "stuff for smart masses".
> > That's why I'd never put anything in my code that was liable to cause
> > major embarassment, even if I was sure it would be removed later on.
> You are wise.
Yeah, looking at it in isolation, it seems disgustingly "sensible" to me too.:)
And the tragic thing is that it doesn't get girls... they're always attracted to the "bad boys" who put sarcastic comments in their Visual Basic code. *sigh*
Unfortunately, those particular comments got stripped before we delivered the product to our Fortune-100 customer.
Hmm... comments like that have a nasty tendency to reappear or get missed even when you think they've been removed.
That's why I'd never put anything in my code that was liable to cause major embarassment, even if I was sure it would be removed later on. And if I was the boss in that office, I'd certainly DP the programmers in question for (a) Risking the above happening, and (b) Being grossly unprofessional and letting their personal spat spill over into their work.
The Star Wars films were all self-contained to some extent, although they had a greater story. I defy anyone to watch the Matrix #2 and tell me that it's complete on any scale; it has no 'conclusion', and ends smack in the middle of things.
I've only heard of Captain America out of those, and I doubt that that's even going to make it to the cinemas here in Australia. (Sorry mates but America's reputation quite right at the moment to have a superhero named after it)
The entertainment industry tried several new groundbreaking things in releasing the Matrix sequels by filming them at the same time (I believe it was the first time Hollywood greenlighted 2 sequels to be filmed simultaneously), releasing them in rapid-succession (a tactic followed up by Kill Bill doing the same thing)
Kill Bill was originally intended as a single film, and was only later decided to be split into two parts. It was also marketed as a single film in two parts; therefore, I don't consider "Kill Bill Vol.2" to be a "sequel" in the traditional sense.
In fact, the Matrix #2 and #3 are, if anything, even more so. *Neither* of them stand alone as a story; they're clearly two halves of the same narrative, and don't provide a complete experience on their own.
In short, I doubt it would have made sense to make people wait for 2-3 years to see "Revolutions" any more than it would make sense to split a film in two and leave a gap that long between showing the two halves. The same applies to shooting; one story, so it wouldn't have made sense to do them separately.
You could have someone in Venezuala, or on Mars, perform the benchmarking, and you'd STILL get sued in a California court
Note the word "you".
"You" don't use Oracle, so there's no contract between you and Oracle at all, and in particular no agreement to bullshit clauses.
"You" get someone else to do the benchmarking.
No, this isn't legalistic jiggery-pokery. "You" DO NOT USE ORACLE either directly or indirectly; you're simply getting someone else to test its performance.
Of course, IANAL, and since I'm pretty intolerant of the wank-fest of ignorant Slashdotters judging law on the way they think it is or (worse) the way it should be, the above statements may be equally self-indulgent deluded bullshit. But quite frankly, if Oracle were able to say something along the lines of "this guy was inducing the other guys to break their contract" (that was not legally enforcable in another country, and is pretty obviously an unreasonable and anti-comptetitive clause), it reflects really badly on American justice, though it wouldn't surprise me.
If I thought there was a danger of a costly court case there, I'd just arrange to have some overseas company do the study without disclosing I'd paid them, and have them display it prominently on the web, along with the reasons the study was being hosted outside the US and the sponsors were anonymous ("Oracle are abusing the law system in an anti-competitive manner to suppress fair analysis and criticism of their product; the US law system upholds such unreasonable actions. So, we're hosting our study in a country that supports fair analysis of a company's products and not exposing our sponsors to Oracle's legal war of attrition.")
You'll notice I put 'liberal' in quotes. That's because Americans (which I'm not) usually use it to mean "left-wing" rather than "liberal".
Or misuse it, I don't know. It's not a word I'd use with that meaning personally, unless the context made clear that I didn't actually mean liberal, but "liberal". Or something.
Who needs 'liberals' to do all that stuff? It looks like your present government is the most zealous fan of the "use terrorism to suppress civil liberties" technique around.
It proves that the "right wing vs. left wing" is (and always has been) over-simplistic bullshit that leads people to believe "not left wing" means "in favour of freedom".
You think your media are biased? They are. By anyone else's measure, the American press is very pro-government and biased to the right. It's pretty mind-boggling that you consider it otherwise. Although I guess if you listen to Murdoch-mouthpiece outlets that spout that old lie often enough, you come to believe it, right?
Corrupt? The present US administration seems more nakedly partisan than any I've seen so far.
Anyway, I assume you don't lump your present government in with the "liberals", which is odd, because they seem more anti-freedom and pro- their own interests than the opposition. Not that I'm claiming the Democrats are perfect, but to criticise the American "left" (it's all relative I guess, though Clinton was- and the Democrats probably still are- more Republican by most standards) for things that the current right-wing administration are doing more seems pretty strange.
BTW, your opening paragraph doesn't make any sense, some rambling with stuff about liberals thrown in; couldn't make head nor tail of it.
Oracle has the 'non benchmarking' clause that prevents you from doing that.
Then arrange to have the benchmarking done in a country which won't uphold anti-competitive bullshit clauses (and when Oracle protest that the license lets them sue the guy in the jurisdiction of Buttfuck, Illinois, will tell them where they can stick their extradition request).
Although I reckon such a case (brought by Oracle) might still get thrown out in a US court, I wouldn't bet my life savings on that, and the US legal system means you're unlikely to get fees paid if Oracle lose (does this *ever* happen in the US?); a great way for the large company to effectively win by attrition if the benchmarkers don't have that much money.
No, Novell were pushing to have SCO's assets frozen because they were taking action against them and afraid that SCO would go belly-up before they got paid.
If SCO don't have the money, MySQL don't get paid.
You'd think they would have multiple winners because you know some jackass will be staring at it for days until he gets it. I, for one, have better things to do
.....like welcoming our new Linux game-publishing overlords?
SCO is seeing if they can find some STOLEN CODE in MySQL
Thought the whole point about open source was that anyone could examine the code without having to enter into some tangentially-related business arrangement? Guess I was wrong.
How are the same people who called the GPL 'unconstitutional' going to lend it credibility, even if they were a credible business in the first place, and not a dying company reliant on income from their existing customers (or from *suing* their existing customers)?
I should have made clear that I was referring to fitting the recording onto one side. It's annoying and stupid to waste a C-90 onto a 55 minute album; apart from the fact it requires a whole cassette (and hence costs more in money and space terms; actually, the latter isn't true, as C-120s were disproportionately expensive...); the most annoying thing is that you either end up with 80% of the album on side 1 and the remainder on side 2 (ruins the flow); or if you have the break at the side-change (on vinyl) or halfway point (on CD), you have tons of tape to wind through to the start of the next side.
A C-60 has this problem to a lesser extent; but it's still preferable to either have the whole thing in one, or use a near-perfect match for the album length (which pre-recorded tapes would do).
Slashdot Mirror
Really; no offence, but the stereotype low-end (i.e. not management, etc.) Microsoft employee is out of university; smart but naive and willing to drink the Bill Gates Kool Aid.
Microsoft were unethical and quite willing to scre over people 10 or 15 years ago. If they've done more, it's only because they were in the position to do so. What's happened is that you've grown up a bit, and the scales have fallen from your eyes; you're seeing MS *then* as your old naive self remembers them, not with your current cynical perspective.
Anyway, MS don't need cynical old you any more; they'll simply get some more smart, flattered and naive Gates-worshippers straight from university to replace the cynical older employees as they've always done.
Yes.
Hence the OSTG reference.
It's your vanilla cheap-ass membrane/rubber-dome job... not a "proper" mechanical switch/spring keyboard. Which is why it's grossly overpriced.
When the company selling you a product tells you the product will help demonstrate your status as l33t
Uh.... that's *exactly* the business model ThinkGeek follow.
Yeah, I know it's kind of hypocritical to criticise one of the major advertisers (regardless of the fact they're owned by OSTG) since I don't subscribe to Slashdot.
But the fact remains.... ThinkGeek are basically just another uber-consumerist outlet selling gimmicky "boys' toys" with a superficial pseudo-"geeky" twist.
They do occasionally come up with something interesting, like the universal "TV-off" remote-control keyring thing. But a *truly* smart geek, as opposed to a nerd with no social life and too much money, would be thinking how they could do that with their PDA or something.
Yes, some of the stuff is interesting, but it's mostly just techno-gimmickry that has nothing in particular to do with being "stuff for smart masses".
It's a selling point.
> > That's why I'd never put anything in my code that was liable to cause
:)
> > major embarassment, even if I was sure it would be removed later on.
> You are wise.
Yeah, looking at it in isolation, it seems disgustingly "sensible" to me too.
And the tragic thing is that it doesn't get girls... they're always attracted to the "bad boys" who put sarcastic comments in their Visual Basic code. *sigh*
> > Since when is there a First Post Magazine?
> Something had to take its place when Hot Grits Monthly ceased publishing.
'Hot Grits Monthly' is still available in Soviet Russia and Korea (although it's only popular with old people there).
This is Slashdot afterall, where "Bush = Monkey" gets 5+ insightful EVERY time.
Is Bush an object or a primitive?
If Bush is an object, then using Java-like handling, this means that people wishing to talk to Bush will end up talking to a monkey instead.
If Bush is a primitive, does this mean he is actually tranmogrified into a monkey?
Seriously, I really want to know.
Unfortunately, those particular comments got stripped before we delivered the product to our Fortune-100 customer.
Hmm... comments like that have a nasty tendency to reappear or get missed even when you think they've been removed.
That's why I'd never put anything in my code that was liable to cause major embarassment, even if I was sure it would be removed later on. And if I was the boss in that office, I'd certainly DP the programmers in question for (a) Risking the above happening, and (b) Being grossly unprofessional and letting their personal spat spill over into their work.
That's nothing...try a married couple sending angry IM's at each other while in their apartment.
Reminds me of a tale about a deaf couple arguing. They were signing to each other, and the woman was signing something when the man shut his eyes.
Apparently, the woman tried to prise his eyes open in an effort to get him to see what she was saying...
The Star Wars films were all self-contained to some extent, although they had a greater story. I defy anyone to watch the Matrix #2 and tell me that it's complete on any scale; it has no 'conclusion', and ends smack in the middle of things.
I've only heard of Captain America out of those, and I doubt that that's even going to make it to the cinemas here in Australia. (Sorry mates but America's reputation quite right at the moment to have a superhero named after it)
"Captain Bulgaria" it is, then...
The entertainment industry tried several new groundbreaking things in releasing the Matrix sequels by filming them at the same time (I believe it was the first time Hollywood greenlighted 2 sequels to be filmed simultaneously), releasing them in rapid-succession (a tactic followed up by Kill Bill doing the same thing)
Kill Bill was originally intended as a single film, and was only later decided to be split into two parts. It was also marketed as a single film in two parts; therefore, I don't consider "Kill Bill Vol.2" to be a "sequel" in the traditional sense.
In fact, the Matrix #2 and #3 are, if anything, even more so. *Neither* of them stand alone as a story; they're clearly two halves of the same narrative, and don't provide a complete experience on their own.
In short, I doubt it would have made sense to make people wait for 2-3 years to see "Revolutions" any more than it would make sense to split a film in two and leave a gap that long between showing the two halves. The same applies to shooting; one story, so it wouldn't have made sense to do them separately.
300 bucks is easy to swallow if you know games can be gotten free
300 bucks is still quite hard to swallow if they give it to you in pennies.
Hard to believe, since it left out the most important feature: SIDETALKING.
What in the name of $DEITY?!...
I think I may have caused myself permanent mental damage trying to make sense of that website.
we all know the reason the Brits love it is that it's great for perving on pr0n in the dunny.
Yeah, like the Brits are unique in that respect.
I bet the Australian model has little corks attached to the sides to scare off the flies in the "dunny".
You could have someone in Venezuala, or on Mars, perform the benchmarking, and you'd STILL get sued in a California court
Note the word "you".
"You" don't use Oracle, so there's no contract between you and Oracle at all, and in particular no agreement to bullshit clauses.
"You" get someone else to do the benchmarking.
No, this isn't legalistic jiggery-pokery. "You" DO NOT USE ORACLE either directly or indirectly; you're simply getting someone else to test its performance.
Of course, IANAL, and since I'm pretty intolerant of the wank-fest of ignorant Slashdotters judging law on the way they think it is or (worse) the way it should be, the above statements may be equally self-indulgent deluded bullshit. But quite frankly, if Oracle were able to say something along the lines of "this guy was inducing the other guys to break their contract" (that was not legally enforcable in another country, and is pretty obviously an unreasonable and anti-comptetitive clause), it reflects really badly on American justice, though it wouldn't surprise me.
If I thought there was a danger of a costly court case there, I'd just arrange to have some overseas company do the study without disclosing I'd paid them, and have them display it prominently on the web, along with the reasons the study was being hosted outside the US and the sponsors were anonymous ("Oracle are abusing the law system in an anti-competitive manner to suppress fair analysis and criticism of their product; the US law system upholds such unreasonable actions. So, we're hosting our study in a country that supports fair analysis of a company's products and not exposing our sponsors to Oracle's legal war of attrition.")
You'll notice I put 'liberal' in quotes. That's because Americans (which I'm not) usually use it to mean "left-wing" rather than "liberal".
Or misuse it, I don't know. It's not a word I'd use with that meaning personally, unless the context made clear that I didn't actually mean liberal, but "liberal". Or something.
Dammit, I'm tired. I'm going to sleep now.
Who needs 'liberals' to do all that stuff? It looks like your present government is the most zealous fan of the "use terrorism to suppress civil liberties" technique around.
It proves that the "right wing vs. left wing" is (and always has been) over-simplistic bullshit that leads people to believe "not left wing" means "in favour of freedom".
You think your media are biased? They are. By anyone else's measure, the American press is very pro-government and biased to the right. It's pretty mind-boggling that you consider it otherwise. Although I guess if you listen to Murdoch-mouthpiece outlets that spout that old lie often enough, you come to believe it, right?
Corrupt? The present US administration seems more nakedly partisan than any I've seen so far.
Anyway, I assume you don't lump your present government in with the "liberals", which is odd, because they seem more anti-freedom and pro- their own interests than the opposition. Not that I'm claiming the Democrats are perfect, but to criticise the American "left" (it's all relative I guess, though Clinton was- and the Democrats probably still are- more Republican by most standards) for things that the current right-wing administration are doing more seems pretty strange.
BTW, your opening paragraph doesn't make any sense, some rambling with stuff about liberals thrown in; couldn't make head nor tail of it.
Oracle has the 'non benchmarking' clause that prevents you from doing that.
Then arrange to have the benchmarking done in a country which won't uphold anti-competitive bullshit clauses (and when Oracle protest that the license lets them sue the guy in the jurisdiction of Buttfuck, Illinois, will tell them where they can stick their extradition request).
Although I reckon such a case (brought by Oracle) might still get thrown out in a US court, I wouldn't bet my life savings on that, and the US legal system means you're unlikely to get fees paid if Oracle lose (does this *ever* happen in the US?); a great way for the large company to effectively win by attrition if the benchmarkers don't have that much money.
No, Novell were pushing to have SCO's assets frozen because they were taking action against them and afraid that SCO would go belly-up before they got paid.
If SCO don't have the money, MySQL don't get paid.
You'd think they would have multiple winners because you know some jackass will be staring at it for days until he gets it. I, for one, have better things to do
.....like welcoming our new Linux game-publishing overlords?
*ducks*
...because MySQL stands to make money off of this?
Not if Novell have anything to do with it.
(Not my comment, but I thought it was a pity to let something that insightful languish at +2 obscurity because it didn't appear near the start).
SCO is seeing if they can find some STOLEN CODE in MySQL
Thought the whole point about open source was that anyone could examine the code without having to enter into some tangentially-related business arrangement? Guess I was wrong.
But SCO is giving credibility to GPL software
How are the same people who called the GPL 'unconstitutional' going to lend it credibility, even if they were a credible business in the first place, and not a dying company reliant on income from their existing customers (or from *suing* their existing customers)?
Please stop hogging the crack pipe.
I should have made clear that I was referring to fitting the recording onto one side. It's annoying and stupid to waste a C-90 onto a 55 minute album; apart from the fact it requires a whole cassette (and hence costs more in money and space terms; actually, the latter isn't true, as C-120s were disproportionately expensive...); the most annoying thing is that you either end up with 80% of the album on side 1 and the remainder on side 2 (ruins the flow); or if you have the break at the side-change (on vinyl) or halfway point (on CD), you have tons of tape to wind through to the start of the next side.
A C-60 has this problem to a lesser extent; but it's still preferable to either have the whole thing in one, or use a near-perfect match for the album length (which pre-recorded tapes would do).