It's like Chinese water torture. The knowledge that whenever there's a story that mentions computer keyboards *somewhere*, someone will very quickly mention the IBM Model M.
It seems to have a cult following amongst a particular group of users, and it's inevitable that they'll reply to each other, saying how well-built it was, and how crappy modern membrane keyboards are.
And the thing is, it probably was well-built, but so what? I've used one, and the action felt unnatural... not even the 'linear' action of some other 1980s mechanical keyboards, but with a weird pressure point 2/3 of the way down, and the requirement to put a large amount of pressure on the keys (*). I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people who hadn't already got used to that style of keyboard would dislike it.
And some membrane-jobs are pretty good nowadays. Some are awful too, but the same applies to mechanical keyboards.
To be honest, I think a lot of it's what you're used to.
Oh I agree... on reading the words "High-End Aluminum PC Cases Make A Comeback", I was reminded of the article/. had on the front page a few months back regarding the insiduous effects of PR on journalism. I've lost the link, but the gist was... Write a PR piece in a style that is easily reusable by lazy/busy journalists, and it's shockingly easy to get your PR fluff passed off as "news".
In that case, the example given was that "suits are making a comeback". Well, says who? Says the people who make suits and want to play to people's paranoia about appearing out-of-date; but of course, this isn't a "fact" or "news"; it is (if successful) a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone *will* be wearing suits because they *think* everyone else is.
Anyway, who the heck said Aluminium cases had ever gone away, and more importantly, who is the "anonymous reader" who submitted it?
Now; I'm not saying that everyone involved was in the pay of Lian-Li (they don't need to be, just the original source of the information), or even with 100% certainty that this *is* just a passed-on PR piece. But it certainly has the feel of something that is at most two or three generations away from a PR writer's "journalistic" hand.
Well, all I know about Scotland is what I've learned from Danny Boyle movies. So, I'm forever doomed to think of the Scottish as a bunch of heroin-addicted, money-grubbing punks who are good at running from zombies.
Well, having seen Trainspotting, you'll also know what we do to American tourists. (^_^)
The risk that the main point of the license "this software will always stay free" will change is close to zero and the "or later" clause is a safe bet to prevent license upgrade hassles
Well; for one thing, what is "free"?
Opinions may change. Whilst I agree that the chance of future versions being "non-free" is low, there is a non-zero risk that someone at the FSF may decide on a different version of "freedom" for future GPLs.
The BSDL is more "free" in a "do what you want with it" sense than the GPL. I wouldn't consider it acceptable for code I'd intended to be licensed under the "true" GPL to be automatically distributable under a pseudo-BSD license.
The "or later" clause is a convenience, and one that is traded off against certainty.
This is not correct. Code licensed under the BSD license has its "freedom preserved" - it will always be BSD licensed. *Modifications* to that code, *derivatives* of that code and products that utilise the functionality of that code, however, might not be.
You're right if you consider 'freedom' to only apply to the original code *as written*, and not the freedom of the "project". It does, however, make it very simple to create a piece of proprietary software from a piece of free software, and encourages nothing.
As I said elsewhere, it's the writer's choice; BSDL guarantees a credit in return, and pretty much nothing else. I wouldn't consider that acceptable terms for use of any code I wrote, but if others want to do that, it's their choice.
(My emphasis:-) For instance, if you're a developer joining an ongoing project previously released as GPL then you're liable to falling in the "GPL trap": the original authors can, provided they get you to file papers giving up on any copyright on your code
That's not a fault of the GPL- it's a fault over assigning the copyright/ownership of your code to someone else.
You don't have to do that. Of course, your modifications might not be accepted into the mainstream version. Your choice. It's nothing to do with the GPL license itself.
They could do the exact same thing with BSD-licensed code.
You're right that the GPL isn't entirely "free" in the "can do what the heck you want with it" sense. That would be more like the BSD license; or taken to its logical conclusion, releasing your software as "public domain".
Personally, I think that if people want to release their work under a BSD (or weaker) license, that's their choice. I just don't want to hear anyone bitch about it when such freely-available software gets incorporated into a proprietary product, and the company gives nothing back.
It depends what you expect in return for the work you put into writing software; some consider getting their good-quality software used as widely as possible (for whatever motive) the most important thing (a la BSD). Me? I'm not opposed to proprietary software, but I wouldn't consider it acceptable that someone tied up work that I'd released (possibly) for no-cost redistribution and re-use, and incorporated it into a proprietary product- and then gave nothing back in any shape or form.
Personally, I'm *guessing* (no more) that ESR's views on the GPL's 'obselescence' somewhat reflect his "liberatarian" politics, anticipating that left to do their own thing, companies will somehow contribute back. I don't buy this; they don't have to, so they won't.
You're right; the GPL isn't "free"; it does, however, support the *preservation* of the *same level of freedom* that came with it in the first place. Contrast with BSD/public domain, which is more "free", but does nothing to *preserve* its freedom.
So they have an implicit acceptance of whatever might go into to version n years from now?
Like "permission to use the author's power tools on odd weekends"?;-)
This is why I don't quite get the "or later" clause. Sure it adds flexibility, but it basically trusts that the FSF won't do anything you're significantly unhappy with in future versions of the license.
Tying it down to one version, and saying that a later version of the GPL can be applied *provided the original author agrees* might work, but it runs into problems when the the program (or the most common version) has more than one author, as might happen if it is modified by several people. What happens then? Do they require permission to "upgrade the license" on their code? Do they leave the original author with the choice over what license to apply to their modifications/expansions (which, if you're not the original author, takes us back to the first problem)?
I'd sure love to hear ESR's input as to what goes into GPL3
"By redistributing this software, you accept that any violation of the terms of this license may result in you being pursued and shot by a rabid gun fiend with large number of firearms."
Part of the problem is that, in the US, a lot of professors make serious cash by writing a textbook, producing a "new, improved version" every year (actually the old version with the questions rearranged a bit) and standardising on it for their course.
(1) Buy a single copy of this year's book
(2) Scan it as a PDF and distribute the resulting file via CD-ROMs.
(3) Don't profit.
(4) ???????
Downsides (A) You don't make any money yourself- indeed, you have to purchase one copy of the book. On the other hand, the greedy prof doesn't make any either. And (B) I had to include the mystery step somewhere. As it's the final one, it doesn't matter what it is; it could read "Go to pub and drink ten pints of beer", "Become a rent-boy" or "Wait for the second coming". It really isn't important.
BTW, in the UK, some profs use their own books, but it's not that widespread, and they don't change the things every year.
The other reply to my post mentioned it was Nikon, not Canon (I wasn't 100% sure in the first place, hence the 'IIRC').
Frankly, anything that smacks of having to rely on the manufacturer to support *my* camera on subsequent operating systems is a major turn-off for me. Not that I'm planning on buying a digital SLR in the near future, but this is certainly a good reason not to IMHO...
Yeah, but I learned my shell command line geekery on Multics, so I laugh at the arrogance of all you Johnny-come-latelies....har de har har....
I notice you didn't deny having a small penis though;-)
Anyhow, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. You could be Dennis Ritchie, and you'd still get less respect for having a high user-ID.
Tongue-in-cheekness aside, there *is* a somewhat elevated status accorded to those with low user IDs (though it's *very* logarithmic). Unfortunately, I've seen at least one case where someone was treated differently on the basis of his/her low-numbered ID, and it was pointed out that the owner has actually *purchased the #*!& thing on EBay*!!!
Geez, don't be so cynical. After I got my PhD from Berkeley, with a dissertation in quantum mechanics, I taught the stuff to graduate students for five years or so. I've published QM papers in PRA and all that, too. So, yeah, I know what they mean.
No, you misunderstand. This is Slashdot; you have an approaching-seven-figure user ID. Therefore you know nothing, deserve no respect, and are considered to have a small penis.
It's worth bearing in mind that "photographers" are not a homogeneous mass.
For example, someone producing portraits to be blown up to large size on high-quality media might be unhappy with the fact that digital still isn't as good as (e.g.) medium/large format film.
On the other hand, photographers at a football (soccer) match- in the UK at least- have favoured digital (to the best of my knowledge) for quite a few years now; even though until recently, it was far more expensive and lower in quality than the equivalent film cameras. Why?
Simple; newspaper publishers want the paper (containing photos and reports of the match) to be on sale outside the stadia by the time the match is finished and the fans are hitting the streets again. A football match is 90 minutes long with 15 minutes at half time. You can see that this is going to be logistically difficult if you're using film.
In fact, I doubt it's trivial even if you're using digital, but that at least gives you some much-needed flexibility; as much in the transmission of pictures as in their production. I would assume that doing it this way allows pictures to be taken some way into the second half of the match, transmitted, and dropped into the layout digitally, still leaving time for the printing and delivery.
Nowadays, most photographs taken on a professional Digital SLR will look as good as ones taken on a film camera when printed at normal size on low-quality newsprint; so frankly, cost and minor quality issues are far less important than the convenience of digital.
As I said, two quite different photographic styles; or rather, businesses.
Good point in some respects. However, at the same time, with companies like Canon IIRC playing silly buggers with their RAW file formats (e.g. taking legal action against open-source programs that allow you to download/modify the raw data from the camera because they make money off their own poorly-designed software that does the same thing), can you be guaranteed that your camera will be properly supported in 5 or 10 years time under the next version(s) of Windows?
Yeah, I'm sure you'll be able to copy the JPEG-degraded images from the graphics card, but isn't that rather like getting to keep the prints, but not the original negatives?
That last case sounds weird; although it *is* what the US/UK Commodore Amigas did, so it's not altogether out of the ordinary.
I can live with laptops that have slightly nonstandard layouts in order to fit the keys into the space available; what *really* annoys me is having some desktop keyboard insert an extra 'Fn' key (WTF?!) beside the shift, swap stuff around, and move them for no good reason. WHY?!!!!!!!
Oh good lord! You're using one of those keyboards that stick the backslash next to ' so they can make the enter key double high! I'd always assumed they had all been burned by now in an effort to get the evil out.
Is this less common in the US? It's a widespread layout in the UK...
Without wanting to get too anally-retentive about this, I'd say that I've seen keyboards (with otherwise the same layout) that lack the backslash there (and another key) and simply have a bigger Shift and *massive* Enter key taking up the extra space.
That seems to be an older layout, so I guess they didn't choose a double-height Enter simply to get the backslash in.
On the contrary, those two extra keys seem to get use in international keyboards (w/ different key labelling), so I suspect including them on US/UK keyboards means they can sell the (physically) same keyboard in all countries.
The Enter key is 'kind of' in the normal place, but I don't know whether the fact it only occupies one row instead of two is a problem, or whether I could get used to that; I might end up hitting backspace instead. Also, I'd miss the key that normally resides to the left of 'Enter' (backslash on a US layout).
When you say 'giant L-shaped Enter key', did you have those (older US/UK) keyboards that only have two symbolic keys (; and ') between the letters and Enter in mind?
Agree with you about Caps; however, I do use Caps quite a lot- typically when I have to type three or more consecutive capitals. The problem *I* have is that they moved Control from its traditional position. Now, Caps only needs to be hit with one finger, and I'm sure that if it occupied Ctrl's position it wouldn't make typing any harder for me (once I was used to it). Ctrl, OTOH has always felt wrong there; it has to be used in conjunction with other keys, and that position makes it much harder to do this without contorting my fingers.
There was *no* good reason for them to swap Caps and Ctrl like that IMHO, but I'm kind of loathe to get used to a non-standard layout by swapping them back now:-(
Slashdot Mirror
Parent is subtle troll; search for 'celery'.
Most of it was interesting, though. Guess that was plagiarised from elsewhere....
Still I prefer the IBM Model M.
AAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!
It's like Chinese water torture. The knowledge that whenever there's a story that mentions computer keyboards *somewhere*, someone will very quickly mention the IBM Model M.
It seems to have a cult following amongst a particular group of users, and it's inevitable that they'll reply to each other, saying how well-built it was, and how crappy modern membrane keyboards are.
And the thing is, it probably was well-built, but so what? I've used one, and the action felt unnatural... not even the 'linear' action of some other 1980s mechanical keyboards, but with a weird pressure point 2/3 of the way down, and the requirement to put a large amount of pressure on the keys (*). I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people who hadn't already got used to that style of keyboard would dislike it.
And some membrane-jobs are pretty good nowadays. Some are awful too, but the same applies to mechanical keyboards.
To be honest, I think a lot of it's what you're used to.
By my estimates, it's about as fast as a Cray-2, but I may be pulling that out of my ass.
You intend pulling a Cray-2 out of your ass?!
Are you a fan of the Goatse man by any chance?
The aluminum case is not, and has never been dead.
It's just pining for the fjords.
Can it get any more blatant than this?
/. had on the front page a few months back regarding the insiduous effects of PR on journalism. I've lost the link, but the gist was... Write a PR piece in a style that is easily reusable by lazy/busy journalists, and it's shockingly easy to get your PR fluff passed off as "news".
Oh I agree... on reading the words "High-End Aluminum PC Cases Make A Comeback", I was reminded of the article
In that case, the example given was that "suits are making a comeback". Well, says who? Says the people who make suits and want to play to people's paranoia about appearing out-of-date; but of course, this isn't a "fact" or "news"; it is (if successful) a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone *will* be wearing suits because they *think* everyone else is.
Anyway, who the heck said Aluminium cases had ever gone away, and more importantly, who is the "anonymous reader" who submitted it?
Now; I'm not saying that everyone involved was in the pay of Lian-Li (they don't need to be, just the original source of the information), or even with 100% certainty that this *is* just a passed-on PR piece. But it certainly has the feel of something that is at most two or three generations away from a PR writer's "journalistic" hand.
Well, all I know about Scotland is what I've learned from Danny Boyle movies. So, I'm forever doomed to think of the Scottish as a bunch of heroin-addicted, money-grubbing punks who are good at running from zombies.
Well, having seen Trainspotting, you'll also know what we do to American tourists. (^_^)
The last thing we need is some random voice telling me to "Be nicer!".
It'd be like having your mother in the background during every phone conversation.
The risk that the main point of the license "this software will always stay free" will change is close to zero and the "or later" clause is a safe bet to prevent license upgrade hassles
Well; for one thing, what is "free"?
Opinions may change. Whilst I agree that the chance of future versions being "non-free" is low, there is a non-zero risk that someone at the FSF may decide on a different version of "freedom" for future GPLs.
The BSDL is more "free" in a "do what you want with it" sense than the GPL. I wouldn't consider it acceptable for code I'd intended to be licensed under the "true" GPL to be automatically distributable under a pseudo-BSD license.
The "or later" clause is a convenience, and one that is traded off against certainty.
This is not correct. Code licensed under the BSD license has its "freedom preserved" - it will always be BSD licensed. *Modifications* to that code, *derivatives* of that code and products that utilise the functionality of that code, however, might not be.
You're right if you consider 'freedom' to only apply to the original code *as written*, and not the freedom of the "project". It does, however, make it very simple to create a piece of proprietary software from a piece of free software, and encourages nothing.
As I said elsewhere, it's the writer's choice; BSDL guarantees a credit in return, and pretty much nothing else. I wouldn't consider that acceptable terms for use of any code I wrote, but if others want to do that, it's their choice.
(My emphasis:-) For instance, if you're a developer joining an ongoing project previously released as GPL then you're liable to falling in the "GPL trap": the original authors can, provided they get you to file papers giving up on any copyright on your code
That's not a fault of the GPL- it's a fault over assigning the copyright/ownership of your code to someone else.
You don't have to do that. Of course, your modifications might not be accepted into the mainstream version. Your choice. It's nothing to do with the GPL license itself.
They could do the exact same thing with BSD-licensed code.
You're right that the GPL isn't entirely "free" in the "can do what the heck you want with it" sense. That would be more like the BSD license; or taken to its logical conclusion, releasing your software as "public domain".
Personally, I think that if people want to release their work under a BSD (or weaker) license, that's their choice. I just don't want to hear anyone bitch about it when such freely-available software gets incorporated into a proprietary product, and the company gives nothing back.
It depends what you expect in return for the work you put into writing software; some consider getting their good-quality software used as widely as possible (for whatever motive) the most important thing (a la BSD). Me? I'm not opposed to proprietary software, but I wouldn't consider it acceptable that someone tied up work that I'd released (possibly) for no-cost redistribution and re-use, and incorporated it into a proprietary product- and then gave nothing back in any shape or form.
Personally, I'm *guessing* (no more) that ESR's views on the GPL's 'obselescence' somewhat reflect his "liberatarian" politics, anticipating that left to do their own thing, companies will somehow contribute back. I don't buy this; they don't have to, so they won't.
You're right; the GPL isn't "free"; it does, however, support the *preservation* of the *same level of freedom* that came with it in the first place. Contrast with BSD/public domain, which is more "free", but does nothing to *preserve* its freedom.
So they have an implicit acceptance of whatever might go into to version n years from now? Like "permission to use the author's power tools on odd weekends"? ;-)
This is why I don't quite get the "or later" clause. Sure it adds flexibility, but it basically trusts that the FSF won't do anything you're significantly unhappy with in future versions of the license.
Tying it down to one version, and saying that a later version of the GPL can be applied *provided the original author agrees* might work, but it runs into problems when the the program (or the most common version) has more than one author, as might happen if it is modified by several people. What happens then? Do they require permission to "upgrade the license" on their code? Do they leave the original author with the choice over what license to apply to their modifications/expansions (which, if you're not the original author, takes us back to the first problem)?
I'd sure love to hear ESR's input as to what goes into GPL3
"By redistributing this software, you accept that any violation of the terms of this license may result in you being pursued and shot by a rabid gun fiend with large number of firearms."
No, (C) which I forgot to include should have been "You have to take *great* care to avoid the Prof in question catching you doing it".
As for being copyright violation and illegal... well, DUH!
Part of the problem is that, in the US, a lot of professors make serious cash by writing a textbook, producing a "new, improved version" every year (actually the old version with the questions rearranged a bit) and standardising on it for their course.
(1) Buy a single copy of this year's book
(2) Scan it as a PDF and distribute the resulting file via CD-ROMs.
(3) Don't profit.
(4) ???????
Downsides (A) You don't make any money yourself- indeed, you have to purchase one copy of the book. On the other hand, the greedy prof doesn't make any either. And (B) I had to include the mystery step somewhere. As it's the final one, it doesn't matter what it is; it could read "Go to pub and drink ten pints of beer", "Become a rent-boy" or "Wait for the second coming". It really isn't important.
BTW, in the UK, some profs use their own books, but it's not that widespread, and they don't change the things every year.
The other reply to my post mentioned it was Nikon, not Canon (I wasn't 100% sure in the first place, hence the 'IIRC').
Frankly, anything that smacks of having to rely on the manufacturer to support *my* camera on subsequent operating systems is a major turn-off for me. Not that I'm planning on buying a digital SLR in the near future, but this is certainly a good reason not to IMHO...
Yeah, but I learned my shell command line geekery on Multics, so I laugh at the arrogance of all you Johnny-come-latelies....har de har har....
;-)
I notice you didn't deny having a small penis though
Anyhow, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. You could be Dennis Ritchie, and you'd still get less respect for having a high user-ID.
Tongue-in-cheekness aside, there *is* a somewhat elevated status accorded to those with low user IDs (though it's *very* logarithmic). Unfortunately, I've seen at least one case where someone was treated differently on the basis of his/her low-numbered ID, and it was pointed out that the owner has actually *purchased the #*!& thing on EBay*!!!
Geez, don't be so cynical. After I got my PhD from Berkeley, with a dissertation in quantum mechanics, I taught the stuff to graduate students for five years or so. I've published QM papers in PRA and all that, too. So, yeah, I know what they mean.
No, you misunderstand. This is Slashdot; you have an approaching-seven-figure user ID. Therefore you know nothing, deserve no respect, and are considered to have a small penis.
That's all that matters.
ISO is more often than not quoted without the DIN component; for most people it's pretty much the same as ASA.
:)
The only thing is that it reminds you that you're getting old if you inadvertantly say 'ASA' instead of 'ISO' and have to explain what you mean
BTW, it used to be called 'ASA' in the UK too...
It's worth bearing in mind that "photographers" are not a homogeneous mass.
For example, someone producing portraits to be blown up to large size on high-quality media might be unhappy with the fact that digital still isn't as good as (e.g.) medium/large format film.
On the other hand, photographers at a football (soccer) match- in the UK at least- have favoured digital (to the best of my knowledge) for quite a few years now; even though until recently, it was far more expensive and lower in quality than the equivalent film cameras. Why?
Simple; newspaper publishers want the paper (containing photos and reports of the match) to be on sale outside the stadia by the time the match is finished and the fans are hitting the streets again. A football match is 90 minutes long with 15 minutes at half time. You can see that this is going to be logistically difficult if you're using film.
In fact, I doubt it's trivial even if you're using digital, but that at least gives you some much-needed flexibility; as much in the transmission of pictures as in their production. I would assume that doing it this way allows pictures to be taken some way into the second half of the match, transmitted, and dropped into the layout digitally, still leaving time for the printing and delivery.
Nowadays, most photographs taken on a professional Digital SLR will look as good as ones taken on a film camera when printed at normal size on low-quality newsprint; so frankly, cost and minor quality issues are far less important than the convenience of digital.
As I said, two quite different photographic styles; or rather, businesses.
Good point in some respects. However, at the same time, with companies like Canon IIRC playing silly buggers with their RAW file formats (e.g. taking legal action against open-source programs that allow you to download/modify the raw data from the camera because they make money off their own poorly-designed software that does the same thing), can you be guaranteed that your camera will be properly supported in 5 or 10 years time under the next version(s) of Windows?
Yeah, I'm sure you'll be able to copy the JPEG-degraded images from the graphics card, but isn't that rather like getting to keep the prints, but not the original negatives?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Novell the stewards of UNIX?
I dunno, but SCO is certainly the unwanted bar-steward of the Unix family.
That last case sounds weird; although it *is* what the US/UK Commodore Amigas did, so it's not altogether out of the ordinary.
I can live with laptops that have slightly nonstandard layouts in order to fit the keys into the space available; what *really* annoys me is having some desktop keyboard insert an extra 'Fn' key (WTF?!) beside the shift, swap stuff around, and move them for no good reason. WHY?!!!!!!!
Oh good lord! You're using one of those keyboards that stick the backslash next to ' so they can make the enter key double high! I'd always assumed they had all been burned by now in an effort to get the evil out.
Is this less common in the US? It's a widespread layout in the UK...
Without wanting to get too anally-retentive about this, I'd say that I've seen keyboards (with otherwise the same layout) that lack the backslash there (and another key) and simply have a bigger Shift and *massive* Enter key taking up the extra space.
That seems to be an older layout, so I guess they didn't choose a double-height Enter simply to get the backslash in.
On the contrary, those two extra keys seem to get use in international keyboards (w/ different key labelling), so I suspect including them on US/UK keyboards means they can sell the (physically) same keyboard in all countries.
The Enter key is 'kind of' in the normal place, but I don't know whether the fact it only occupies one row instead of two is a problem, or whether I could get used to that; I might end up hitting backspace instead. Also, I'd miss the key that normally resides to the left of 'Enter' (backslash on a US layout).
:-(
When you say 'giant L-shaped Enter key', did you have those (older US/UK) keyboards that only have two symbolic keys (; and ') between the letters and Enter in mind?
Agree with you about Caps; however, I do use Caps quite a lot- typically when I have to type three or more consecutive capitals. The problem *I* have is that they moved Control from its traditional position. Now, Caps only needs to be hit with one finger, and I'm sure that if it occupied Ctrl's position it wouldn't make typing any harder for me (once I was used to it). Ctrl, OTOH has always felt wrong there; it has to be used in conjunction with other keys, and that position makes it much harder to do this without contorting my fingers.
There was *no* good reason for them to swap Caps and Ctrl like that IMHO, but I'm kind of loathe to get used to a non-standard layout by swapping them back now