It's a mental handicap to pre-judge software that way.
There are only so many hours in the day. SourceForge is live burial. Exhumation takes time.
Maybe you should not assume, that you can demand special treatment from someone who gives you things for free.
Which is why The GIMP disappears from the default Ubuntu install.
IrfanView is free. Paint.NET is free. When you present something to the public you invite comparison.
The best-of-breed finds sponsors.
You can offer me money to listen to your suggestion or help you, of course. But also don't expect me to take it, if it's not worth it for me.:)
There is something to be said for working with the guy who is building a business. The bathrooms are clean and the dishes have been washed. The doors open at seven and close at nine as predictably as the rising and setting of the sun.
As far as I know, Word HTML is actually readable mostly in IE. It does so on purpose - 1. Get monopoly 2. Break standards 3. Get people to use your proprietary formats / equipment 4. Profit!
Which came first, IE or the "standards?"
In the typical scenario, would-be monopolist flies the hyperjet out of LAX
The politically correct standards committee books seats on the huff-and-puff local wheezing its way towards Hampstead.
It may get to where it wants to go, but it is going to take awhile.
If someone in South Africa, for instance, where the price of 3DS Max is the equivalent of 3/4 of a years salary in some cases, were to wish to do 3D, he would have to either use a pirated copy of 3DS Max, or use something like Blender.
South Africa isn't quite the backwater you might think: Animation SA
As a general rule, "1.0" doesn't really hold a lot of significance in the open source community with regard to actual usefulness.
It's rather a pity that so many projects like Inkscape might be overlooked by all those folks living outside the open source community.
Where Rev. 0.x = Beta state, maybe, and Alpha, more than likely. Immature. Unstable. Basic features missing or unusable.
Think of it as another handicap, like naming your premier photo editing program The GIMP - which to the outsider translates simply as "crippled" and "sexually perverse."
Stop spending ~$43,000 per prisoner to house them in Club Fed and revert prison to what it should be: Three square meals and the chance to break big rocks into little rocks.
Lesson Number 1:
In the American federal system almost all violent offenders are prosecuted at the state and local level.
Lesson Number 2:
The constitutional roots of federal criminal jurisdiction are in interstate and economic crimes. The Secret Service, for example, was originally organized to fight counterfeiting.
The white collar criminal can do enormous harm but it is often only the Feds who can put him behind bars - and keep him there.
That thought can be - disquieting - for the geek.
Because Club Fed was built for him. It's the prison farm for the financial and technocratic elite.
Lesson Number 3:
Prisoners do not remain prisoners forever. Breaking big ones into little ones does nothing to prepare them - or us - for their eventual release.
In the United States, political correctness has concluded that all human behavior (in a "normal" person) is due to nurture and free will. To even hint that human behavior is due, in part, to genetics is taboo: it quickly leads to the conclusion that different races and ethnic groups can have different inclinations. This conclusion is forbidden.
Your "inclinations" have nothing to offer as a defense to a conviction on a capital charge.
You can be inclined to many things - which will make some choices easier than others.
But the decisions are still yours to make.
The most an American court has ever been willing to consider as an alternative to the traditional insanity defense is the notion of an "irresistible impulse:"
As an example, if you think about the medieval era and how you moved around, there we're basically two options:1) by horse 2) by walking This meant that every business had to own a horse and feed it to move around.
It meant that you had a tight little monopoly in your own neighborhood.
The handsome brick structure on on our village main street was originally a three story department store that served a population of less than 1000. The alternative, if you wanted to shop for a set of dishes, a mattress or sofa, would be to take a train into Buffalo and pay the freight back.
I don't even look at computer ads that include windows OS's, except to see whether or not Windows is included.
It is difficult to conceive of a more unlikelier hero in the Slashdot pantheon.
For years "The World's Largest Retailer" carried the torch for OEM Linux in big box retail in the states.
The geek could forgive the thirty-second warranty. The absence of the basic system bundle with monitor and printer.
The gOS system that sold in rural markets without a working modem and to draw in the suckers had a mini board mounted in a cheap out-sized case like a flea market boom box stereo.
Thus its value declines physically. Software is not like that at all.
Then I should assume all my old PC games won't have the least problem running on a multi-core 3 GHz CPU with a DX 11 graphics card.
That the upscaled low res sprite animation of The Dig will be tolerable at distances of less than 10 feet.
That color palettes designed for dithering on a low res CRT will display properly on the 47" LED wide screen.
Software may not decay physically.
But it does age - and it does lose its value. XP was a good choice for the first generation Atom netbook.
That doesn't make it the best choice for netbook security in 2010, the dual-core netbook CPU, solid state drive, DX10 ION graphics, power management, wireless networking, etc., etc.
How did this badly researched, apparent hoax of a story get to the frontpage?
The geek knowingly goes out and buys the dirt cheap mass market OEM Windows PC - which represents about 90%-95% of all consumer PC sales.
He will then demand a refund to punish the OEM, Microsoft, and the big box retailer for delivering the marketable and well-advertised Windows product and - not at all incidentally to his purpose - shave another few bucks off the price of his new Linux laptop.
This cheeky little scam costs everyone in the chain a little bit of time and money. It costs the independent Linux-friendly retailer a sale.
PC Pro has traced the history of sci-fi's influence on real-world technology, from Jules Verne to Snow Crash, but suggests that writers have run out of ideas when it comes to inspiring tomorrow's products
To Buy n' Large everything was a product.
But it was the machines who chose to remain - or become - human - and more than passive consumers of tech.
It's impossible to imagine Eve and Wall-E being content with the illusions of the The Veldt. Ray Bradbury's early and prophetic foreshadowing of the Matrix and Holodeck.
Disgusting is not a legal reason to void a legal contract.
You sure about that?
I wouldn't be in the least surprised if a judge ruled than an express or implied condition of a warranty that is that the computer you returned for repair show no extrordinary signs of abuse or mishandling.
That a technician is not obliged to put on his Haz-Mat gear because your laptop looks like it was dredged out of a septic tank.
There are jobs which are inherently dirty and dangerous - but when working conditions are concealed or misrepresented, when things come as a surprise, "disgusing" is a legitimate reason to back out,
But NOT walking through a cloud of smoke for 5 seconds, or working on a computer.
You can be working on a computer - or computer repairs - 9 to 5. That is far more than your five seconds of casusal exposure.
Even a few minutes of exposure to tobacco smoke can be enough to trigger an asthma attack, heighten the chances of blood clotting, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that can result in cancer.
The outgassing from those computers is worse for your health than cigarette smoke residue, I assure you. Ecplain to me why an unsupported argument gets a mod-up to +5, Insightful.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a mental handicap to pre-judge software that way.
There are only so many hours in the day. SourceForge is live burial. Exhumation takes time.
Maybe you should not assume, that you can demand special treatment from someone who gives you things for free.
Which is why The GIMP disappears from the default Ubuntu install.
IrfanView is free. Paint.NET is free. When you present something to the public you invite comparison.
The best-of-breed finds sponsors.
You can offer me money to listen to your suggestion or help you, of course. :)
But also don't expect me to take it, if it's not worth it for me.
There is something to be said for working with the guy who is building a business. The bathrooms are clean and the dishes have been washed. The doors open at seven and close at nine as predictably as the rising and setting of the sun.
As far as I know, Word HTML is actually readable mostly in IE. It does so on purpose - 1. Get monopoly 2. Break standards 3. Get people to use your proprietary formats / equipment 4. Profit!
Which came first, IE or the "standards?"
In the typical scenario, would-be monopolist flies the hyperjet out of LAX
The politically correct standards committee books seats on the huff-and-puff local wheezing its way towards Hampstead.
It may get to where it wants to go, but it is going to take awhile.
If someone in South Africa, for instance, where the price of 3DS Max is the equivalent of 3/4 of a years salary in some cases, were to wish to do 3D, he would have to either use a pirated copy of 3DS Max, or use something like Blender.
South Africa isn't quite the backwater you might think:
Animation SA
As a general rule, "1.0" doesn't really hold a lot of significance in the open source community with regard to actual usefulness.
It's rather a pity that so many projects like Inkscape might be overlooked by all those folks living outside the open source community.
Where Rev. 0.x = Beta state, maybe, and Alpha, more than likely. Immature. Unstable. Basic features missing or unusable.
Think of it as another handicap, like naming your premier photo editing program The GIMP - which to the outsider translates simply as "crippled" and "sexually perverse."
Stop spending ~$43,000 per prisoner to house them in Club Fed and revert prison to what it should be: Three square meals and the chance to break big rocks into little rocks.
Lesson Number 1:
In the American federal system almost all violent offenders are prosecuted at the state and local level.
Lesson Number 2:
The constitutional roots of federal criminal jurisdiction are in interstate and economic crimes. The Secret Service, for example, was originally organized to fight counterfeiting.
The white collar criminal can do enormous harm but it is often only the Feds who can put him behind bars - and keep him there.
That thought can be - disquieting - for the geek.
Because Club Fed was built for him. It's the prison farm for the financial and technocratic elite.
Lesson Number 3:
Prisoners do not remain prisoners forever. Breaking big ones into little ones does nothing to prepare them - or us - for their eventual release.
In the United States, political correctness has concluded that all human behavior (in a "normal" person) is due to nurture and free will. To even hint that human behavior is due, in part, to genetics is taboo: it quickly leads to the conclusion that different races and ethnic groups can have different inclinations. This conclusion is forbidden.
Your "inclinations" have nothing to offer as a defense to a conviction on a capital charge.
You can be inclined to many things - which will make some choices easier than others.
But the decisions are still yours to make.
The most an American court has ever been willing to consider as an alternative to the traditional insanity defense is the notion of an "irresistible impulse:"
The McNaughton rule -- not knowing right from wrong
As libertarians have continually pointed out we are headed towards a police state.
You would prefer the headline 600 Die In Iroquois Theater Fire?
When exits are jammed, when crowd control fails, people die. Wal-Mart worker dies in rush; two killed at toy store
How many scribes is one printer worth?
How many printers can output an illuminated Book Of Hours which will retain its rich colors and gold decoration for over 600 years?
As an example, if you think about the medieval era and how you moved around, there we're basically two options:1) by horse
2) by walking
This meant that every business had to own a horse and feed it to move around.
It meant that you had a tight little monopoly in your own neighborhood .
The handsome brick structure on on our village main street was originally a three story department store that served a population of less than 1000. The alternative, if you wanted to shop for a set of dishes, a mattress or sofa, would be to take a train into Buffalo and pay the freight back.
The end user sees the Windows PC delivering the biggest bang for the buck even if he wants to install Linux.
The Spore debacle has shown, that the times of companies dominating their clients is over. The Internet killed it, by freeing us.
Spore continues to rank second only to The Sims in sales of "Life-simulation games." PC Games-Simulation-Life
A DIY system build with the Open Source OS of your choice is by far the best route to avoid the Microsoft Tax.
The "Microsoft Tax" is the most worthless of all geek memes.
The OEM Windows system install delivers 95% of your potential customers - and there are a lot of customers.
Millions - perhaps tens of millions - for the major players.
That implies enormous cost savings at every step along the way to the retail shelf.
I don't even look at computer ads that include windows OS's, except to see whether or not Windows is included.
It is difficult to conceive of a more unlikelier hero in the Slashdot pantheon.
For years "The World's Largest Retailer" carried the torch for OEM Linux in big box retail in the states.
The geek could forgive the thirty-second warranty. The absence of the basic system bundle with monitor and printer.
The gOS system that sold in rural markets without a working modem and to draw in the suckers had a mini board mounted in a cheap out-sized case like a flea market boom box stereo.
In the end, nothing ever came of it.
Thus its value declines physically. Software is not like that at all.
Then I should assume all my old PC games won't have the least problem running on a multi-core 3 GHz CPU with a DX 11 graphics card.
That the upscaled low res sprite animation of The Dig will be tolerable at distances of less than 10 feet.
That color palettes designed for dithering on a low res CRT will display properly on the 47" LED wide screen.
Software may not decay physically.
But it does age - and it does lose its value. XP was a good choice for the first generation Atom netbook.
That doesn't make it the best choice for netbook security in 2010, the dual-core netbook CPU, solid state drive, DX10 ION graphics, power management, wireless networking, etc., etc.
How did this badly researched, apparent hoax of a story get to the frontpage?
The geek knowingly goes out and buys the dirt cheap mass market OEM Windows PC - which represents about 90%-95% of all consumer PC sales.
He will then demand a refund to punish the OEM, Microsoft, and the big box retailer for delivering the marketable and well-advertised Windows product and - not at all incidentally to his purpose - shave another few bucks off the price of his new Linux laptop.
This cheeky little scam costs everyone in the chain a little bit of time and money. It costs the independent Linux-friendly retailer a sale.
But what the pictures show her out and active several times a week - over many weeks?
That would seem to at least warrant a review of her claim.
The machine would just "know" the stuff shown, without having to use a visual overlay..
The machine will know but the audience won't.
That's why HUDs are used in Wall-E - and - more subtly - one of the reasons why Auto has to work the bridge controls manually.
The Captain needs to know what he is doing. The audience needs to know what he is doing.
In other words, it's exactly what mom and pop need.
The geek has been saying this since Slashdot was a pup but every time the web appliance makes it entry in the market it tanks.
Compressing air can be done with any source of mechanical energy. Put a windmill on your roof, gear it down, and have it drive the compressor directly
Translate this into practical terms.
Give me an estimate of the air car's speed, range, weight of cargo, weight of passengers.
Tell me how long it will take to refill the tank.
They were first developed to be used in environments where sparks could lead to an explosion
Compressed air engines were used in sealed, oxygen-deprived, environments: mines, tunnels, refrigerated storage plants and so on.
They could be quite practical as switch engines.
Larger and more powerful than you might expect. You'll find some pictures here:
INDUSTRIAL LOCOMOTIVES FOR MINING, FACTORY, AND ALLIED USES PART. II. COMPRESSED AIR AND INTERNAL COMBUSTION LOCOMOTIVES
Does it involve an electric middle stage?
How can you compress air efficiently and economically without a mechanical compresor?
PC Pro has traced the history of sci-fi's influence on real-world technology, from Jules Verne to Snow Crash, but suggests that writers have run out of ideas when it comes to inspiring tomorrow's products
To Buy n' Large everything was a product.
But it was the machines who chose to remain - or become - human - and more than passive consumers of tech.
It's impossible to imagine Eve and Wall-E being content with the illusions of the The Veldt. Ray Bradbury's early and prophetic foreshadowing of the Matrix and Holodeck.
Disgusting is not a legal reason to void a legal contract.
You sure about that?
I wouldn't be in the least surprised if a judge ruled than an express or implied condition of a warranty that is that the computer you returned for repair show no extrordinary signs of abuse or mishandling.
That a technician is not obliged to put on his Haz-Mat gear because your laptop looks like it was dredged out of a septic tank.
There are jobs which are inherently dirty and dangerous - but when working conditions are concealed or misrepresented, when things come as a surprise, "disgusing" is a legitimate reason to back out,
But NOT walking through a cloud of smoke for 5 seconds, or working on a computer.
You can be working on a computer - or computer repairs - 9 to 5. That is far more than your five seconds of casusal exposure.
Even a few minutes of exposure to tobacco smoke can be enough to trigger an asthma attack, heighten the chances of blood clotting, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that can result in cancer.
Report unequivocal about dangers of secondhand smoke
Secondhand Smoke: Questions and Answers
,
The outgassing from those computers is worse for your health than cigarette smoke residue, I assure you.
Ecplain to me why an unsupported argument gets a mod-up to +5, Insightful.