"The UI of recent Linux distros are not that bad anymore. They just differ from what most people know, i.e. Microsoft Windows."
Both KDE and Gnome, though they are significantly better now, are still inferior to Windows when it comes to UI. (as of Redhat 7.3, I have not used the ones with 8.0, I've heard they're supposed to be better.) It suffers from serious lack of refinement. It's hard to find anything (In KDE, nearly every app begins with K), and I've had no luck doing any real configuration. You still have to use the CLI to change desktop resolution, for example. Installing something is a cruel joke. The RPM Packager thing-a-ma-bob is not a very clear UI, nor is it immediately obvious why you need to go through that. Coming from the Windows world where you use setup.exe and pick where you want your stuff to go, RPM is full of un-necessities.
So no, it's not a matter of 'just being different', there are serious defficiences here that desperately need to be addressed. Microsoft has put a great deal of research effort into making a usable UI. Like or hate it, millions upon millions of people are able to make use of it.
I think you bring up a valid point. Linux is definitely more worthwhile there. I can't say I share that experience with you.
Granted, most of my experience is with 2k. I recently bought a laptop that came with XP. It's not bad, but I don't trust it right now. Most of my company uses Win2k, and it's my job to fix the machines when they go done. They haven't gone down. The only real work I've done with 2k was migrating people from one machine to another.
As I said, your point is quite valid, but I really haven't had a need to boot from a floppy with Win2k.
"Claiming that p2p song swapping wouldn't exist if a cd cost is $5 instead of $20 is silly."
I didn't claim that. I was talking about 'true piracy'. I.e. copying it off to somebody because they don't want to pay for it. P2P doesn't exist so people can save money on CDs, so I don't believe lowering the prices would make it go away. If prices were lower, though, people'd rely less on P2P to find what they want. That's what disturbs the RIAA.
"Instead of just making up stuff to get karma points, why don't you actually find out what's really going on?"
I'd suggest you take your own advice. You didn't understand my point (even though othere people did, as hinted at by the moderations I've recieved), so you errored by making assumptions about what I meant instead of trying to get some clarification. So please, don't start rock-slinging, you're living in a glass house.
Re:I'm not going to get it. And you shouldn't eith
on
The Long-Awaited MOO!
·
· Score: 1
"I guess that in the Linux version, any technology you did research would be Open Source and automatically shared with all other players..."
But to use it, you have to hire programmers to come in and make it usable.
... another 2 years worth of weekends in front of my computer. *sigh*
Re:I'm not going to get it. And you shouldn't eith
on
The Long-Awaited MOO!
·
· Score: 4, Funny
"Isn't Windows that MS OS? And isn't MS the company that does really bad and illegal stuff, undermining yours and my rights, bribing it's way around every law that apears in sight?"
Well it is ironic that the point of the game is to be like Microsoft.
"I didn't have time to read the article, but I saw moo and vapor, so this must be about global warming right? Man, it's NOT from the cows, it's from the factories!"
Yeah, the long awaited moo was followed by a frppbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpb. (Bet you all didn't know how to spell that!)
"Just because a game doesn't require a 1GHz+ cpu doesn't mean it's old or low tech. Maybe they just know how to give you more bang per cycle than the latest greatest blockbuster developers do."
Or maybe they got a good deal of development done back when 300mhz was the shit. That's probably why people found his comment funny as opposed to getting defensive because they think he's picking on the game.
"A more successful paradigm would be to see every thief as a potential customer."
I was telling a friend of mine at lunch today that the SonicBlue court case is retarded. There are shows he likes, there are shows I like, there are very few shows we both like. It occured to me that if I had a VCR setup, I could tape one of my favorite episodes of my favorite show and convince him to watch it, perhaps give that show a chance it never had with him before. Either he'll like it and keep watching on his own (I aint supplying the episodes for him...) or he'll hate it and move on.
P2P offers a kick ass opportunity to give people better accesss to shows they never liked before. I *hated* Austin Powers until I watched it with my cousin. He was able to show me what the appeal was of that show. The internet with P2P provides a really nice solution to that problem. They could be using it to increase exposure! Why don't they do it? If they reward me by letting me keep the content if I convince other people to watch it, then they've got a virtually free advertising systme.
Oh well. Aint gonna happen because they think everybody who downloads it would normally have bought it.
"Then maybe you should upgrade to Win2k or WinXP."
I wish either of these OS's had come out instead of Windows 9x. Windows 95/98/ME is/are total garbage. Windows 2000/XP, though, is considerably different a MUCH more stable and reliable.
I wish the/. community was a little more informed about that. I bet you anything the pro Windows people here are talking specifically about the NT based OS's.
"I did it to help demonstrate my point that being rude to others isn't very helpful. Obviously that went right over your head:-)"
You really should have thought out your delivery a little more then.:-)
"What about his mistakes (like thinking apt would cause conflicts with RPM)? Does this mean we should now act likes pricks towards him?"
I don't live in a world of absolutes. I don't think everybody should be tactful or that they should shout expletives at every chance they get. I'm not a rulemaker, and I'm not going to generalize every situation. To assume that I'd do so is ignorant.
If he's being really boneheaded, then go for it. I'm a fan of being tactful about it, but if he's envoked a strong emotion in you then why hide it?
Funny thing is, we're arguing, but we sort of agree. I thought a little bit more about what you said and yeah, fucktards was a bit excessive. Thing is though, he's being honest. He got his point across: he was frustrated to the point that he didn't want to mess with it. He could have said it more politely, but either it'd be considerably longer, or it'd lose his emotional response.
*Shrug* I'm not particularly passionate about this issue. He made his point. The developers can balk at being called fucktards, or they can see what they can do to make this process easier. Linux is supposed to be the 'oh so great' OS, but that gets hindered when things are broken here and there.
"(1) You can preview music from almost any album on Amazon. (True, the quality's not great...)"
You can preview selected tracks of music, you don't get a chance to preview the whole cd. Plus, if you don't like it, tough shit you own it anyway.
"(2) Music has a much broader appeal (to the non-geek public) than games, etc., so it no surprise that it's traded more."
Games are harder to buy than music CDs are, especially for college students. It's not a matter of MP3s being more broadly distrubted, it's a matter of need. Warez are all over the web. Strangely enough, P2P hasn't been a big conduit of that. You'd think the warez kiddies would be all over that.
"I think it's delusional to think that people are mostly download music to preview it, and then they'll go and pay for the stuff they like."
I think it's delusional to think that people flock to P2P because the music's free, yet the RIAA hasn't had a bite taken out of it's revenue stream. The only real concsequences the RIAA has faced with P2P is a severe dropoff in the sales of singles. Color me stunned.
"... the proper price for something is free, even when paying for something gives you moral happiness and gets you a better product..."
Sorry, not true. If price was the motivator behind music trading, then we'd also have more games/apps/other warez available on places like Kazaa. Surprisingly, it's not that well populated with anything but music.
Games cost $50. Think about it. I think the main reason games aren't so popular there is that game demos are widely available and are free to download. That's enough to make a purchasing decision right there. You don't get that type of service with music.
"Then maybe they should thank the developers for the work they've done so far and politely point out ways that their work can be improved, rather then calling the developers fucktard."
Though I agree he could have been more tactful, it's hard to blame a guy for being upset at a mistake that should have been rectified with a little testing.
"As compared to your comment which is devoid of any thought, fucktard?"
What, didn't find anything interesting in my comment? The fault is yours, not mine. Heh too bad you couldn't take your own advice. That must be embarrasing.:)
Is this really +4 insightful? Do you really think that if people had the time/motivation/knowledge to write something like that they wouldn't go solve it themselves? Didn't it occur to you that maybe people are bitching because they want the problem fixed but are unable to do it themselves?
I hate comments like these. They're devoid of intellectual thought, but people cheer it on anyway.
"The primary point that he seems to be making is what a lot of people feel about Linux/open source: This isn't a hobby for me, so what's the point? For someone for whom it's a hobby, using a command line with reams of intricate command line options is a very reasonable option, but for someone who it isn't they want a clean and clear interface that affords usage in obvious ways (for a media player that of course is for VCR like functionality)."
Now you all understand where Windows users come from. A little bit of instability is a small price to pay for an interface that does what you expect.
"We have been using an in-house format we call RGBA. This is simply SGI's format with the "exponent" of the largest of RGB put in the alpha channel, and the top 8 bits (with a leading 1) of the mantissa of RGB put into the RGB channels...."
I think I understand what you're saying. It's a bit of a surprise to me, I didn't realize how much programming work is involved in an FX studio.
"Biggest problem with renderers is that they refuse to treat incoming texture maps as anything other than linear."
Has Lightwave been tested in this sense? Before I responded to your post, I used an HDRI image I found and textured a cube with it, comparing it to a 24-bit version of the same texture. In playing with light intensities, I noticed the HDRI image behaved much differently in comparison to the 24-bit image. It responded much better to the light source, even better than a well defined diffuse channel. But I'm still not completely sure how I can use that to my advantage without tools to really create a texture that way. I think I can photograph some textures though that'd work really well. It might be a fun experiment at some point.
So yeah, I was just curious if D2 had tested Lightwave with HDRI images as textures lately. It seems to support them, but maybe I'm not totally understanding what you mean?
What got my interest in HDRI started is that my company has a 360 degree spherical video camera with an adjustable shutter. It occured to me that we can replace a light-probe with this camera placed in the center of the action. Since video can be captured, changing lighting conditions (like stage lights) could be captured as well. I wish time was more abundant do I can pursue experimentation with it.
Cheers
P.S. Not sure if you remember me or not, we had an email conversation about a month ago. I showed you the rocket image I did.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"The UI of recent Linux distros are not that bad anymore. They just differ from what most people know, i.e. Microsoft Windows."
Both KDE and Gnome, though they are significantly better now, are still inferior to Windows when it comes to UI. (as of Redhat 7.3, I have not used the ones with 8.0, I've heard they're supposed to be better.) It suffers from serious lack of refinement. It's hard to find anything (In KDE, nearly every app begins with K), and I've had no luck doing any real configuration. You still have to use the CLI to change desktop resolution, for example. Installing something is a cruel joke. The RPM Packager thing-a-ma-bob is not a very clear UI, nor is it immediately obvious why you need to go through that. Coming from the Windows world where you use setup.exe and pick where you want your stuff to go, RPM is full of un-necessities.
So no, it's not a matter of 'just being different', there are serious defficiences here that desperately need to be addressed. Microsoft has put a great deal of research effort into making a usable UI. Like or hate it, millions upon millions of people are able to make use of it.
I think you bring up a valid point. Linux is definitely more worthwhile there. I can't say I share that experience with you.
Granted, most of my experience is with 2k. I recently bought a laptop that came with XP. It's not bad, but I don't trust it right now. Most of my company uses Win2k, and it's my job to fix the machines when they go done. They haven't gone down. The only real work I've done with 2k was migrating people from one machine to another.
As I said, your point is quite valid, but I really haven't had a need to boot from a floppy with Win2k.
"Claiming that p2p song swapping wouldn't exist if a cd cost is $5 instead of $20 is silly."
I didn't claim that. I was talking about 'true piracy'. I.e. copying it off to somebody because they don't want to pay for it. P2P doesn't exist so people can save money on CDs, so I don't believe lowering the prices would make it go away. If prices were lower, though, people'd rely less on P2P to find what they want. That's what disturbs the RIAA.
"Instead of just making up stuff to get karma points, why don't you actually find out what's really going on?"
I'd suggest you take your own advice. You didn't understand my point (even though othere people did, as hinted at by the moderations I've recieved), so you errored by making assumptions about what I meant instead of trying to get some clarification. So please, don't start rock-slinging, you're living in a glass house.
"I guess that in the Linux version, any technology you did research would be Open Source and automatically shared with all other players..."
But to use it, you have to hire programmers to come in and make it usable.
"http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2003/01/ 24/ba_sub04.jpg"
Man I'm tempted to make a rude Kenny Baker joke.
... another 2 years worth of weekends in front of my computer. *sigh*
"Isn't Windows that MS OS? And isn't MS the company that does really bad and illegal stuff, undermining yours and my rights, bribing it's way around every law that apears in sight?"
Well it is ironic that the point of the game is to be like Microsoft.
"I didn't have time to read the article, but I saw moo and vapor, so this must be about global warming right? Man, it's NOT from the cows, it's from the factories!"
Yeah, the long awaited moo was followed by a frppbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpb. (Bet you all didn't know how to spell that!)
"I hope this game's released before my Colony Ship is finished."
Doubtful, the game's being developed by Silicoids.
"Just because a game doesn't require a 1GHz+ cpu doesn't mean it's old or low tech. Maybe they just know how to give you more bang per cycle than the latest greatest blockbuster developers do."
Or maybe they got a good deal of development done back when 300mhz was the shit. That's probably why people found his comment funny as opposed to getting defensive because they think he's picking on the game.
Man, it really has been a long time. They should have researched Automated Factories or something.
How to deal with the random internet outages caused by Slashdot?
"I heard that a single microchip takes 2 pounds of oil and 1 pound of toxic chemicals to create.."
Wouldn't microchips be more expensive if that were the case? Besides, they don't make one chip at a time, they make a plate of them.
"A more successful paradigm would be to see every thief as a potential customer."
I was telling a friend of mine at lunch today that the SonicBlue court case is retarded. There are shows he likes, there are shows I like, there are very few shows we both like. It occured to me that if I had a VCR setup, I could tape one of my favorite episodes of my favorite show and convince him to watch it, perhaps give that show a chance it never had with him before. Either he'll like it and keep watching on his own (I aint supplying the episodes for him...) or he'll hate it and move on.
P2P offers a kick ass opportunity to give people better accesss to shows they never liked before. I *hated* Austin Powers until I watched it with my cousin. He was able to show me what the appeal was of that show. The internet with P2P provides a really nice solution to that problem. They could be using it to increase exposure! Why don't they do it? If they reward me by letting me keep the content if I convince other people to watch it, then they've got a virtually free advertising systme.
Oh well. Aint gonna happen because they think everybody who downloads it would normally have bought it.
"Or maybe that they're an order of magnitude larger to download and bandwidth isn't infinite."
If that were the case, 700 meg DVD rips wouldn't be in abundance on kazaa.
"Then maybe you should upgrade to Win2k or WinXP."
/. community was a little more informed about that. I bet you anything the pro Windows people here are talking specifically about the NT based OS's.
I wish either of these OS's had come out instead of Windows 9x. Windows 95/98/ME is/are total garbage. Windows 2000/XP, though, is considerably different a MUCH more stable and reliable.
I wish the
"I did it to help demonstrate my point that being rude to others isn't very helpful. Obviously that went right over your head :-)"
:-)
You really should have thought out your delivery a little more then.
"What about his mistakes (like thinking apt would cause conflicts with RPM)? Does this mean we should now act likes pricks towards him?"
I don't live in a world of absolutes. I don't think everybody should be tactful or that they should shout expletives at every chance they get. I'm not a rulemaker, and I'm not going to generalize every situation. To assume that I'd do so is ignorant.
If he's being really boneheaded, then go for it. I'm a fan of being tactful about it, but if he's envoked a strong emotion in you then why hide it?
Funny thing is, we're arguing, but we sort of agree. I thought a little bit more about what you said and yeah, fucktards was a bit excessive. Thing is though, he's being honest. He got his point across: he was frustrated to the point that he didn't want to mess with it. He could have said it more politely, but either it'd be considerably longer, or it'd lose his emotional response.
*Shrug* I'm not particularly passionate about this issue. He made his point. The developers can balk at being called fucktards, or they can see what they can do to make this process easier. Linux is supposed to be the 'oh so great' OS, but that gets hindered when things are broken here and there.
"(1) You can preview music from almost any album on Amazon. (True, the quality's not great...)"
You can preview selected tracks of music, you don't get a chance to preview the whole cd. Plus, if you don't like it, tough shit you own it anyway.
"(2) Music has a much broader appeal (to the non-geek public) than games, etc., so it no surprise that it's traded more."
Games are harder to buy than music CDs are, especially for college students. It's not a matter of MP3s being more broadly distrubted, it's a matter of need. Warez are all over the web. Strangely enough, P2P hasn't been a big conduit of that. You'd think the warez kiddies would be all over that.
"I think it's delusional to think that people are mostly download music to preview it, and then they'll go and pay for the stuff they like."
I think it's delusional to think that people flock to P2P because the music's free, yet the RIAA hasn't had a bite taken out of it's revenue stream. The only real concsequences the RIAA has faced with P2P is a severe dropoff in the sales of singles. Color me stunned.
"... the proper price for something is free, even when paying for something gives you moral happiness and gets you a better product..."
Sorry, not true. If price was the motivator behind music trading, then we'd also have more games/apps/other warez available on places like Kazaa. Surprisingly, it's not that well populated with anything but music.
Games cost $50. Think about it. I think the main reason games aren't so popular there is that game demos are widely available and are free to download. That's enough to make a purchasing decision right there. You don't get that type of service with music.
"Then maybe they should thank the developers for the work they've done so far and politely point out ways that their work can be improved, rather then calling the developers fucktard."
:)
Though I agree he could have been more tactful, it's hard to blame a guy for being upset at a mistake that should have been rectified with a little testing.
"As compared to your comment which is devoid of any thought, fucktard?"
What, didn't find anything interesting in my comment? The fault is yours, not mine. Heh too bad you couldn't take your own advice. That must be embarrasing.
...trusting your customers?
If something's fairly priced, nobody's going to take the time to copy off something to somebody who doesn't wanna pay. "Go buy your own."
"Actually, being able to change aspect ratios is a good thing."
For ameteur porn, it's fun to make fat chicks skinny.
"Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!"
Is this really +4 insightful? Do you really think that if people had the time/motivation/knowledge to write something like that they wouldn't go solve it themselves? Didn't it occur to you that maybe people are bitching because they want the problem fixed but are unable to do it themselves?
I hate comments like these. They're devoid of intellectual thought, but people cheer it on anyway.
"The primary point that he seems to be making is what a lot of people feel about Linux/open source: This isn't a hobby for me, so what's the point? For someone for whom it's a hobby, using a command line with reams of intricate command line options is a very reasonable option, but for someone who it isn't they want a clean and clear interface that affords usage in obvious ways (for a media player that of course is for VCR like functionality)."
Now you all understand where Windows users come from. A little bit of instability is a small price to pay for an interface that does what you expect.
"We have been using an in-house format we call RGBA. This is simply SGI's format with the "exponent" of the largest of RGB put in the alpha channel, and the top 8 bits (with a leading 1) of the mantissa of RGB put into the RGB channels. ..."
:)
I think I understand what you're saying. It's a bit of a surprise to me, I didn't realize how much programming work is involved in an FX studio.
"Biggest problem with renderers is that they refuse to treat incoming texture maps as anything other than linear."
Has Lightwave been tested in this sense? Before I responded to your post, I used an HDRI image I found and textured a cube with it, comparing it to a 24-bit version of the same texture. In playing with light intensities, I noticed the HDRI image behaved much differently in comparison to the 24-bit image. It responded much better to the light source, even better than a well defined diffuse channel. But I'm still not completely sure how I can use that to my advantage without tools to really create a texture that way. I think I can photograph some textures though that'd work really well. It might be a fun experiment at some point.
So yeah, I was just curious if D2 had tested Lightwave with HDRI images as textures lately. It seems to support them, but maybe I'm not totally understanding what you mean?
What got my interest in HDRI started is that my company has a 360 degree spherical video camera with an adjustable shutter. It occured to me that we can replace a light-probe with this camera placed in the center of the action. Since video can be captured, changing lighting conditions (like stage lights) could be captured as well. I wish time was more abundant do I can pursue experimentation with it.
Cheers
P.S. Not sure if you remember me or not, we had an email conversation about a month ago. I showed you the rocket image I did.