I'm very grateful for what open source has given me, but the open source community needs to get their heads out of the sand. There are some very decent applications, but-- like you said-- some just don't cut it compared to their proprietary (expensive) counterparts. In some situations, the open source product may suffice, or even be preferable, but that's not the same as an equivalent. Photoshop has its place. GIMP has its place. GIMP != Photoshop.
What I'd like to see in The Gimp is a mouse pointer the size of the current brush. I'd like real-time scaling/rotation, so that I can see how big it will look and I won't have to guess. There are a bunch of other such (arguably) minor issues and some bigger. Fact is, improvements should still be made. There is still a long road to travel. I just wonder if we're persistent enough to pull it off. WILL we ever get there?
Tim: "Well, Mike, just the another day, something AMAZING happened! I was walking down a hallway carrying my FANTASTIC shotgun, when this INCREDIBLE zombie scientist spotted me. Seeing as I was low om ammo and health, I ran back and hid in the other room. There was a light behind him that cast an UNBELIEVABLE long shadow in front of him!"
*applause"
Mike: "That's AMAZING, Tim. Please, tell us more!"
Tim: "Well, I shot the zombie point blank in the chest and the force of the shot just blew him straight through this window that was behind him and our FABOULOUS patented RAG-DOLL(tm) system made his fall down the stairs look SO REALISTICLY I wet my pants!"
*audience laughs*
Mike: "That's absolutely great, Tim. This game really changed your life. I remember when I saw you six months ago, you were vastly impopular and couldn't score a chick even if she was unconscious. But now, you have a Ferrari, three girl-friends and will never have to work again! Isn't that AMAZING, people?"
*applause, confirmative nods*
Tim: "Yes, Mike, Doom III saved me from the gutter. If it weren't for Doom III, I'd probably have to kneel on one of those little platforms with wheels all day, pretending to be crippled, with a "FEED ME" sign hanging from my neck!"
*laughing*
I don't know, it just slightly comes across like that, as if it were pre-orchestrated.
While it could be possible that ID's lead designer is genuinely enthousiastic about Doom III, it seems that he's hyping the game with popular words and playing the "I love this game so much!" part. I sure hope he's the honest sort, since I hate this kind of behavior.
It'd almost funny if it wouldn't be so sad. These days, openly admitting to committing these "crimes" could brand you overly rebellious in some environment; someone that needs to be shut up and controlled like the rest of the flock. Where's the world going to if that's the way it works?
Agreed. The thing that gets to me is that I can get at more stuff, and I do, but I still buy DVD's on a whim and will go out to buy this and that DVD if I think it is really worth it. I simply don't see my use of file sharing as a crime severe enough to warrant a jail sentence. It's like jailing pot smokers. Over here, we have public coffee shops in which we do that undisturbed by the law.
No material is gone missing and I do not think I would buy less products if I didn't have file sharing. I'm not going to say 'on the contrary,' because I also don't believe that to be true. It just allows me to see more of what's out there and that makes me happy. I would never buy all that stuff.
It doesn't make it alright, but I sure benefit from it and I don't see anyone getting worse from it.
You moderators are really missing the point I'm trying to make here. This is starting to look like a mass hysteria. Even Slashdot seems not to care anymore that a "crime" (read: offense) that is so easily commited can just as easily get you jail-time (possibly resulting in a very fucked-up life).
I suppose-- like more such articles-- the issue raised by this Slashdot's submission is that simple music piracy can trigger such severe legal action. I'm not saying music piracy is okay, but it certainly does not need five years in jail.
I break laws every day. I ride my bicycle through a red light. I jay-walk. I cross the speed limit. So what? I use my brain and have my restraint. Screw the authorities. I can think for myself. I have morals that will not rob others off their rights too much. That's more important than abiding by the law.
Congratulations on the most obvious troll for the day!
I agree to some extent that it's not very ethical to be sharing mp3's on your fave p2p network. I'm the last one to scream "but it can be used for good, too!" We all know what the primary purpose is. Fact remains, times are changing.
P2p file sharing isn't going away. And I perceive that as a good thing.
Information availability has been upped a few notches and now I can quickly access music and movies that before I could only dream of. I'm talking non-commercially available stuff. Will I have to wait before someone decides to release a DVD box set (that is very much over-priced)? No, but will I buy it if I deem it a valuable addition to my collection? Yes! No one ever bought a movie to watch it once and let it collect dust afterwards.
This whole situation is called evolution. It happens and no one can do anything about it, no matter how hard they try. Some victims will fall, but in the end, the majority will benefit the most. No, I don't see mp3 file sharing as a severe crime punishable by jail time. That's just a shock-and-awe tactic that will get the music industry nowhere. They think "set an example!" and don't think in terms of human beings. What do they care? As long as they get out the message that they want. A person's life does not matter, nor does it matter that possibly this offender will fall victim to more severe crimes because of his social decline. If anything is criminal, this is it.
The people will continue buying. Maybe a little less than before, but that may be for the better. Too much of anything is simply too much. Step off your high horse and see things in perspective. This is just an over-reaction and it's painfully obvious.
Yes, but the primary use for a car is not running people over. I think it is safe to say that Napster's aim was not to avoid allowing copyrighted music to be shared; in fact, I'd say it wanted to allow users to share copyrighted music.
On the other hand, if you're innocent and Grub accessed some of that illegal content, try to convince the jury that you didn't abuse Grub to cover up some of your illegal activities like this or that terrorist turned out to have done.
That's the reason I haven't tried the new GAIM yet: it needs Gnome 2.x. I try to live a solemn Debian live, in which I do big application installations by the apt-get book. However, as you all know, Debian stable is very cautious about upgrades, so maybe I'll deviate from that and install it from unstable (or testing?) or from source.
Will it work with just the GNOME panel? Since I run WindowMaker without the clip and with the GNOME panel. Works wonderfully.
Well, maybe you'll accomplish something by mentioning that you find their sounds bloody irritating and that you'll anally insert their keyboards if they won't make them go away.
On Windows, I use Trillian. On Linux, I use GAIM and licq (both at the same time, since my skinned licq blends in so perfectly with my WindowMaker dock and I also use MSN). When a message comes in, an icon will appear (not in GAIM's case, unfortunately). It is up to you to respond immediately or continue working until you have a minute. It's that discipline that keeps you from your work, not the messages that are coming in. Unless you receive tens of then per minute, in which case you may have to ignore them, invalidating the fact that you're running an instant messaging application.
The sound is of course the first thing that has to go.
Granted, but I find email a better medium for this.
Email is an entirely different form of communication, better suited for larger amounts of text that don't immediately need a response. The nice thing about instant messaging is that you can almost interpret the other person's reactions and get an impression of what the other is thinking. I'll give you that email communication is usually deeper and on a higher intellectual plane (or at least has the potential to), but for some good mindless chatter, instant messaging would be the better tool, in my opinion.
I don't feel comfortable using IM for social purposes.
Surely, I had to get used to the idea, too. It just didn't feel right. But at one point, I think I kind of got sucked in. I still hate to think that I participate in the hype, though. It can be fun and useful and that's why I use it.
"R U going 2 " is considered formal speech by a lot of youth in South Africa
Do you know that over here in The Netherlands, we have a KitKat ad poster that takes advantage of this craze by displaying its message in this way? It goes to show the popularity of it all and it sort of annoys me. I don't know. I appreciate full, grammatically correct and intelligent sentences. It seems that many people today don't really care about that stuff anymore.
All in all, excellent post. It should be moderated up.
*grins* Just when I finally get some modpoints, the "you can't participate and moderate in the same discussion" thing bites me in the nose.:)
It's still nice to be able to keep contact with someone you'd normally not be able to communicate with without working up an amazing phonebill. You know, like someone living on another continent. That doesn't mean you have to chat whole days (and nights) with them, though. Besides that, you can easily multi-task between instant messaging and some other, more useful computer task. Furthermore, a group chat can be useful for quickly discussing some matter, such as which pub you and your friends will be going to tonight. Finally, instant messaging can lower the threshold for some people in some situations that are too shy in real life (not that this isn't a problem that should be addressed in real life).
There are some good uses to instant messaging. However, you can certainly get by without it. I truly hate the way instant messaging and technologies such as SMS seems to affect today's youth with the Trash-talk virus: thye wil b typin liek this til u lose ur mind and don't even see a problem with it.
It appears to me we're being bombarded with bugs found in open source software lately. I hope this doesn't make some people lose faith in these projects.
Slashdot Mirror
You echoed my thoughts.
I'm very grateful for what open source has given me, but the open source community needs to get their heads out of the sand. There are some very decent applications, but-- like you said-- some just don't cut it compared to their proprietary (expensive) counterparts. In some situations, the open source product may suffice, or even be preferable, but that's not the same as an equivalent. Photoshop has its place. GIMP has its place. GIMP != Photoshop.
What I'd like to see in The Gimp is a mouse pointer the size of the current brush. I'd like real-time scaling/rotation, so that I can see how big it will look and I won't have to guess. There are a bunch of other such (arguably) minor issues and some bigger. Fact is, improvements should still be made. There is still a long road to travel. I just wonder if we're persistent enough to pull it off. WILL we ever get there?
Doom didn't need a plot. Doom had class and atmosphere.
Perhaps. The wording just sounds like:
Tim: "Well, Mike, just the another day, something AMAZING happened! I was walking down a hallway carrying my FANTASTIC shotgun, when this INCREDIBLE zombie scientist spotted me. Seeing as I was low om ammo and health, I ran back and hid in the other room. There was a light behind him that cast an UNBELIEVABLE long shadow in front of him!"
*applause"
Mike: "That's AMAZING, Tim. Please, tell us more!"
Tim: "Well, I shot the zombie point blank in the chest and the force of the shot just blew him straight through this window that was behind him and our FABOULOUS patented RAG-DOLL(tm) system made his fall down the stairs look SO REALISTICLY I wet my pants!"
*audience laughs*
Mike: "That's absolutely great, Tim. This game really changed your life. I remember when I saw you six months ago, you were vastly impopular and couldn't score a chick even if she was unconscious. But now, you have a Ferrari, three girl-friends and will never have to work again! Isn't that AMAZING, people?"
*applause, confirmative nods*
Tim: "Yes, Mike, Doom III saved me from the gutter. If it weren't for Doom III, I'd probably have to kneel on one of those little platforms with wheels all day, pretending to be crippled, with a "FEED ME" sign hanging from my neck!"
*laughing*
I don't know, it just slightly comes across like that, as if it were pre-orchestrated.
While it could be possible that ID's lead designer is genuinely enthousiastic about Doom III, it seems that he's hyping the game with popular words and playing the "I love this game so much!" part. I sure hope he's the honest sort, since I hate this kind of behavior.
What about Planeshift? It's a MMORPG in a fantasy setting and uses the CrystalSpace 3D engine.
Wearing all black is TRUE. Satan wants you to wear black clothes.
It'd almost funny if it wouldn't be so sad. These days, openly admitting to committing these "crimes" could brand you overly rebellious in some environment; someone that needs to be shut up and controlled like the rest of the flock. Where's the world going to if that's the way it works?
Agreed. The thing that gets to me is that I can get at more stuff, and I do, but I still buy DVD's on a whim and will go out to buy this and that DVD if I think it is really worth it. I simply don't see my use of file sharing as a crime severe enough to warrant a jail sentence. It's like jailing pot smokers. Over here, we have public coffee shops in which we do that undisturbed by the law.
No material is gone missing and I do not think I would buy less products if I didn't have file sharing. I'm not going to say 'on the contrary,' because I also don't believe that to be true. It just allows me to see more of what's out there and that makes me happy. I would never buy all that stuff.
It doesn't make it alright, but I sure benefit from it and I don't see anyone getting worse from it.
They probably have a deal with the record company for stuff like that.
You moderators are really missing the point I'm trying to make here. This is starting to look like a mass hysteria. Even Slashdot seems not to care anymore that a "crime" (read: offense) that is so easily commited can just as easily get you jail-time (possibly resulting in a very fucked-up life).
I suppose-- like more such articles-- the issue raised by this Slashdot's submission is that simple music piracy can trigger such severe legal action. I'm not saying music piracy is okay, but it certainly does not need five years in jail. I break laws every day. I ride my bicycle through a red light. I jay-walk. I cross the speed limit. So what? I use my brain and have my restraint. Screw the authorities. I can think for myself. I have morals that will not rob others off their rights too much. That's more important than abiding by the law.
Congratulations on the most obvious troll for the day!
I agree to some extent that it's not very ethical to be sharing mp3's on your fave p2p network. I'm the last one to scream "but it can be used for good, too!" We all know what the primary purpose is. Fact remains, times are changing.
P2p file sharing isn't going away. And I perceive that as a good thing.
Information availability has been upped a few notches and now I can quickly access music and movies that before I could only dream of. I'm talking non-commercially available stuff. Will I have to wait before someone decides to release a DVD box set (that is very much over-priced)? No, but will I buy it if I deem it a valuable addition to my collection? Yes! No one ever bought a movie to watch it once and let it collect dust afterwards.
This whole situation is called evolution. It happens and no one can do anything about it, no matter how hard they try. Some victims will fall, but in the end, the majority will benefit the most. No, I don't see mp3 file sharing as a severe crime punishable by jail time. That's just a shock-and-awe tactic that will get the music industry nowhere. They think "set an example!" and don't think in terms of human beings. What do they care? As long as they get out the message that they want. A person's life does not matter, nor does it matter that possibly this offender will fall victim to more severe crimes because of his social decline. If anything is criminal, this is it.
The people will continue buying. Maybe a little less than before, but that may be for the better. Too much of anything is simply too much. Step off your high horse and see things in perspective. This is just an over-reaction and it's painfully obvious.
Those bastards! Hang them from the biggest tree in Australia! Crucify! Crucify!
Yes, but the primary use for a car is not running people over. I think it is safe to say that Napster's aim was not to avoid allowing copyrighted music to be shared; in fact, I'd say it wanted to allow users to share copyrighted music.
On the other hand, if you're innocent and Grub accessed some of that illegal content, try to convince the jury that you didn't abuse Grub to cover up some of your illegal activities like this or that terrorist turned out to have done.
But really, any artist with the two letters D and J right before their name must be crap, honestly.
That's the reason I haven't tried the new GAIM yet: it needs Gnome 2.x. I try to live a solemn Debian live, in which I do big application installations by the apt-get book. However, as you all know, Debian stable is very cautious about upgrades, so maybe I'll deviate from that and install it from unstable (or testing?) or from source. Will it work with just the GNOME panel? Since I run WindowMaker without the clip and with the GNOME panel. Works wonderfully.
I guess that's my main complaint then. I hate kids. :)
Well, maybe you'll accomplish something by mentioning that you find their sounds bloody irritating and that you'll anally insert their keyboards if they won't make them go away.
On Windows, I use Trillian. On Linux, I use GAIM and licq (both at the same time, since my skinned licq blends in so perfectly with my WindowMaker dock and I also use MSN). When a message comes in, an icon will appear (not in GAIM's case, unfortunately). It is up to you to respond immediately or continue working until you have a minute. It's that discipline that keeps you from your work, not the messages that are coming in. Unless you receive tens of then per minute, in which case you may have to ignore them, invalidating the fact that you're running an instant messaging application.
The sound is of course the first thing that has to go.
It's still nice to be able to keep contact with someone you'd normally not be able to communicate with without working up an amazing phonebill. You know, like someone living on another continent. That doesn't mean you have to chat whole days (and nights) with them, though. Besides that, you can easily multi-task between instant messaging and some other, more useful computer task. Furthermore, a group chat can be useful for quickly discussing some matter, such as which pub you and your friends will be going to tonight. Finally, instant messaging can lower the threshold for some people in some situations that are too shy in real life (not that this isn't a problem that should be addressed in real life).
There are some good uses to instant messaging. However, you can certainly get by without it. I truly hate the way instant messaging and technologies such as SMS seems to affect today's youth with the Trash-talk virus: thye wil b typin liek this til u lose ur mind and don't even see a problem with it.
Sheez, some people collect IM buddies as a sport. You'd think someone has no real friends in life with 373 buddies in his contact list.
God. As in 'fear the network, for breaking it will invoke the wrath of God.'
It appears to me we're being bombarded with bugs found in open source software lately. I hope this doesn't make some people lose faith in these projects.