I like the last paragraph. IMHO, organized religion is a mechanism for spreading ideas in a hierarchical manner. It is just one of many ways to coordinate actions of a large group of people. Sometimes we want to have a way to make everybody act together, so that cannot be bad in itself. But many (IMHO, all organized religion) implementations are retarded to some degree. I can pick on Catholics, just for their size. All ideas trickle down from a handful of people in red and one jolly old fellow in white. What if they happen to be The Crazy Bunch? Well, they are. Bloopers range from ironic (priests cannot have sex) to devilish (war on contraception).
I empathize with the press, but charging for content will not work. Just like everyone who traded in information, newspapers used to charge at the point of delivery of a physical copy. Internet is different: you can "deliver" once only, and all further copies are essentially free. Charging for an online newspaper is like putting a single tollbooth on a road with a million lanes. People won't even notice.
The only way to sustain old business models is to tax ALL internet use and then distribute the cash among content producers. And that should not be tolerated because internet access should be a right.
Can we turn off updates? Can Amazon remotely kill Kindle? If yes, why? What is the utility in that for a user? Why do we have to pay almost $500 to get a Linux-based (!) platform without root access, with Amazon having as much access as they want over the net?
I cannot find any info about hacking Kindle, so I am making assumptions. Correct me if I am wrong.
What jonaskoelker said made me think, and I want to emphasize that Wine is very useful, in particular during a migration, but its existence will not accelerate the trend. One has to migrate fully knowing that a Wine-dependent app can realistically just become unavailable without notice.
That is what I am saying: Wine will never get apps like that working. If Wine ever lucks out and makes it happen, Microsoft will just break it again. We should stop thinking of Wine as a transition layer and just write free accounting software. At the very least, once we get it to the point where it is somewhat comparable with QB, good men of Intuit will shit their pants and release a GNU/Linux version, because if they won't, then they will miss the train.
We are lucky, you see. Most software companies have no allegiance to Microsoft at all. In fact, they would gladly switch to GNU/Linux, where software development is just plain easier, and develop for GNU/Linux only, which is easier than developing a cross-platform app. They are just waiting for a point in time when it is prudent to pay for the transition.
I'd like to test the windows version of this new program I'm developing without rebooting. I also would like to not run the full overhead of a virtual machine at all times, and I want to test it *fast* (so starting one up also isn't allowed). I'd also prefer not keeping my spare crappy windows box turned on at all times.
I see your point. Wine is useful and has legitimate applications which do not require perfect compatibility. It is, however, nowhere close to helping to beat Windows at its own game by running Windows apps out of the box. It will never achieve that, and it is time we stopped hoping and started writing free software that is better than whatever Windows has to offer, especially because we are almost there. The free software community literally has something like three applications to finish rewriting.
that would require 100% compatibility, which is impossible to achieve.
Microsoft can.
Just barely;)
Seriously though, it would be hard enough to do if Microsoft was not in business of changing things just to break compatibility.
So, OK, let's see, it's not OK to put hate speech on my own freaking website, even though no one is obligated to read it or believe it, because some people may voluntarily read it, believe it, and get confused because they are dumb.
The following paragraph describes a hypothetical content of a hypothetical website. It does not reflect my or anyone else's opinions, only investigates the consequences of having such a website around.
So one should be able to start a website with "This entire website should be regarded as a work of fiction. All names and events described herein should be viewed as fictional and any similarity with actual people and events as purely coincidental", and then put there whatever is not copyrighted or child porn, right? Because there is no danger of confusion, right? And if one says there that the president of the United States [insert his real name here] is "a fucking retard" and "a dirty nigger", and that Jews "aren't done yet, we should put them back till they are crispy", one should be OK, right? Because, after all, (1) one does not compel people to read the website, people volunteer to do that, and (2) the disclaimer indicates that the author of the website believes the content to be fictional, so there is no danger of confusion.
Right? Personally, I do not subscribe the the views presented in the previous paragraph, but I just fail to see how some wanker's blog can do any harm to anyone who is not already mentally ill. If a certified journalist prints something like this, fine him and throw him in jail, but do you really want to go after wankers?
IMHO, holding personal non-commercial blogs to the same high journalistic standard as FOX is clearly an attack on the freedom of speech: many bloggers are not journalists, and they do not want to be. A blogger keeps an essentially private journal which is available by request only. Moreover, the proposed legislation cannot be effective against anonymous hate speech, which is trivial to publish on the web, which totally defeats the purpose of the legislation.
Hmm I dunno. Games are great for generating interest in young people, especially interest in programming, but I seriously doubt that the presence of high-profile games will be a deciding factor in any office or workplace.
Also, if you want to make your own game and you do not care about making bajillions of dollars, you are much better off with GNU/Linux anyway. There you have the entire development toolchain free, documented, community-supported. You are as free to hack out something quick and dirty as you are to develop a truly cross-platform game.
IMHO, Wine is not "getting there" at all. If the Windows API specs were open, it would be a different matter. As it stands, the specs are closed, and Microsoft is as willing as usual to spoil any attempts to make things compatible. Would it not be easier to rewrite core apps from scratch? Office, Photoshop, Exchange. What else do you guys need? No one really cares about games. If Windows remains the primary game platform, no big loss. We have plenty of other proprietary game platforms, and it seems to be the natural way. Can we finally have a productivity platform running free software, though?
We already have OpenOffice, which is comparable to MS Office in both feature set and performance. While it may be wise at the time for most people to delay the transition, those who say that MS Office is better for anything are insane. Today, those who build a solution from scratch and are not tied to DOC format will automatically choose OO. Here we won already.
Gimp is not Photoshop, but it would be a Photoshop Jr. if only we added more color depth. That seems to be easier to do than to make Wine work.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but Exchange server is a database with a web interface. Don't we have all the components already? Compared to the Wine project goals, it would be almost trivial to throw some stuff together to make a feature-equivalent app.
I greatly respect the effort that went into Wine, but it seems like we could do better by simply filling the few remaining gaps in the desktop application world. Wine offers quickly diminishing returns because MS will never publish (let alone free) the code and will never stop intentionally breaking compatibility. Aside from very simple cases, Wine will never be used for OS transition, as that would require 100% compatibility, which is impossible to achieve.
I agree. I especially like it when some government agency or other switches without much ado, or comes out saying that they have it running the back end. Because one thing I do not see in the future is people converting from an established Linux solution back to Windows: the costs would appear to be astronomical.
Authors of the reply [...] agree that "supporting a national developer is a strategy" and that "the stimulation of creation and use of free software is a priority in the government policy, as it relates to information and communication technologies [ICT]." Yet they decided against creation of a national software platform and said that it would not solve any problems in the national IT sector.
The ministry of communication suggested to explore the options which are available through the [existing] free software development model. They said, the government's resources are limited and should be directed towards development and improvement of "the best solutions available in the world, in cooperation with leading specialists abroad".
From Ponomarev's reply:
The parliament member is sure that the ministry of communication does not want to invest in ICT sector, but instead wants to stimulate the development according to the liberal theory [of market economy?]. "Government was indirectly involved in all major successful hi-tech projects. Internet, UNIX: they all are collateral results of government programs. Market stimulation methods will not work. This can only happen in an established market, which we do not have at the moment."
Translation is mine.
Hey, I kind of agree with the government. Why fork it again if they can simply adapt one of the mature distributions out there and give some people research grants to work with free software developers around the world? It sounds like the representative is simply trying to create a government-funded software company they do not really need. I mean, Russian works in Ubuntu out of the freaking box.
I used Adblock [Plus] and Flashblock for a long time. Yesterday (talk about timing) I buckled and installed NoScript after hearing many good things for months. Today I uninstalled NoScript forever.
Slashdot Mirror
I like the last paragraph. IMHO, organized religion is a mechanism for spreading ideas in a hierarchical manner. It is just one of many ways to coordinate actions of a large group of people. Sometimes we want to have a way to make everybody act together, so that cannot be bad in itself. But many (IMHO, all organized religion) implementations are retarded to some degree. I can pick on Catholics, just for their size. All ideas trickle down from a handful of people in red and one jolly old fellow in white. What if they happen to be The Crazy Bunch? Well, they are. Bloopers range from ironic (priests cannot have sex) to devilish (war on contraception).
IMO you are right about the main course of events though. The press will switch to PPW model before we see the end of this story.
Seriously, if they were girls, I would knock up Britannica, then dump her and marry Wikipedia.
I empathize with the press, but charging for content will not work. Just like everyone who traded in information, newspapers used to charge at the point of delivery of a physical copy. Internet is different: you can "deliver" once only, and all further copies are essentially free. Charging for an online newspaper is like putting a single tollbooth on a road with a million lanes. People won't even notice.
The only way to sustain old business models is to tax ALL internet use and then distribute the cash among content producers. And that should not be tolerated because internet access should be a right.
All men by nature desire to know. - A.
I was thinking jailbreaking.
Can we turn off updates?
Yes. just turn off the wireless service.
This is silly. By your logic, one can easily "disable" Vista's copy protection by smashing the computer into pieces.
As far as I can tell, the correct answer is "no". A Kindle owner can either disable net access completely, or trust in Amazon's benevolence.
Can we turn off updates? Can Amazon remotely kill Kindle? If yes, why? What is the utility in that for a user? Why do we have to pay almost $500 to get a Linux-based (!) platform without root access, with Amazon having as much access as they want over the net?
I cannot find any info about hacking Kindle, so I am making assumptions. Correct me if I am wrong.
Windows API specs are closed? Really? And how do you think Windows applications are written?
You are right, they are mostly open, but we do not have the whole story.
What jonaskoelker said made me think, and I want to emphasize that Wine is very useful, in particular during a migration, but its existence will not accelerate the trend. One has to migrate fully knowing that a Wine-dependent app can realistically just become unavailable without notice.
I am not trying to downplay the difficulty of migrating large projects, just saying that Wine is not our silver bullet.
That is what I am saying: Wine will never get apps like that working. If Wine ever lucks out and makes it happen, Microsoft will just break it again. We should stop thinking of Wine as a transition layer and just write free accounting software. At the very least, once we get it to the point where it is somewhat comparable with QB, good men of Intuit will shit their pants and release a GNU/Linux version, because if they won't, then they will miss the train.
We are lucky, you see. Most software companies have no allegiance to Microsoft at all. In fact, they would gladly switch to GNU/Linux, where software development is just plain easier, and develop for GNU/Linux only, which is easier than developing a cross-platform app. They are just waiting for a point in time when it is prudent to pay for the transition.
I'd like to test the windows version of this new program I'm developing without rebooting. I also would like to not run the full overhead of a virtual machine at all times, and I want to test it *fast* (so starting one up also isn't allowed). I'd also prefer not keeping my spare crappy windows box turned on at all times.
I see your point. Wine is useful and has legitimate applications which do not require perfect compatibility. It is, however, nowhere close to helping to beat Windows at its own game by running Windows apps out of the box. It will never achieve that, and it is time we stopped hoping and started writing free software that is better than whatever Windows has to offer, especially because we are almost there. The free software community literally has something like three applications to finish rewriting.
that would require 100% compatibility, which is impossible to achieve.
Microsoft can.
Just barely ;)
Seriously though, it would be hard enough to do if Microsoft was not in business of changing things just to break compatibility.
So, OK, let's see, it's not OK to put hate speech on my own freaking website, even though no one is obligated to read it or believe it, because some people may voluntarily read it, believe it, and get confused because they are dumb.
The following paragraph describes a hypothetical content of a hypothetical website. It does not reflect my or anyone else's opinions, only investigates the consequences of having such a website around.
So one should be able to start a website with "This entire website should be regarded as a work of fiction. All names and events described herein should be viewed as fictional and any similarity with actual people and events as purely coincidental", and then put there whatever is not copyrighted or child porn, right? Because there is no danger of confusion, right? And if one says there that the president of the United States [insert his real name here] is "a fucking retard" and "a dirty nigger", and that Jews "aren't done yet, we should put them back till they are crispy", one should be OK, right? Because, after all, (1) one does not compel people to read the website, people volunteer to do that, and (2) the disclaimer indicates that the author of the website believes the content to be fictional, so there is no danger of confusion.
Right? Personally, I do not subscribe the the views presented in the previous paragraph, but I just fail to see how some wanker's blog can do any harm to anyone who is not already mentally ill. If a certified journalist prints something like this, fine him and throw him in jail, but do you really want to go after wankers?
IMHO, holding personal non-commercial blogs to the same high journalistic standard as FOX is clearly an attack on the freedom of speech: many bloggers are not journalists, and they do not want to be. A blogger keeps an essentially private journal which is available by request only. Moreover, the proposed legislation cannot be effective against anonymous hate speech, which is trivial to publish on the web, which totally defeats the purpose of the legislation.
Hmm I dunno. Games are great for generating interest in young people, especially interest in programming, but I seriously doubt that the presence of high-profile games will be a deciding factor in any office or workplace.
Also, if you want to make your own game and you do not care about making bajillions of dollars, you are much better off with GNU/Linux anyway. There you have the entire development toolchain free, documented, community-supported. You are as free to hack out something quick and dirty as you are to develop a truly cross-platform game.
IMHO, Wine is not "getting there" at all. If the Windows API specs were open, it would be a different matter. As it stands, the specs are closed, and Microsoft is as willing as usual to spoil any attempts to make things compatible. Would it not be easier to rewrite core apps from scratch? Office, Photoshop, Exchange. What else do you guys need? No one really cares about games. If Windows remains the primary game platform, no big loss. We have plenty of other proprietary game platforms, and it seems to be the natural way. Can we finally have a productivity platform running free software, though?
We already have OpenOffice, which is comparable to MS Office in both feature set and performance. While it may be wise at the time for most people to delay the transition, those who say that MS Office is better for anything are insane. Today, those who build a solution from scratch and are not tied to DOC format will automatically choose OO. Here we won already.
Gimp is not Photoshop, but it would be a Photoshop Jr. if only we added more color depth. That seems to be easier to do than to make Wine work.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but Exchange server is a database with a web interface. Don't we have all the components already? Compared to the Wine project goals, it would be almost trivial to throw some stuff together to make a feature-equivalent app.
I greatly respect the effort that went into Wine, but it seems like we could do better by simply filling the few remaining gaps in the desktop application world. Wine offers quickly diminishing returns because MS will never publish (let alone free) the code and will never stop intentionally breaking compatibility. Aside from very simple cases, Wine will never be used for OS transition, as that would require 100% compatibility, which is impossible to achieve.
I agree. I especially like it when some government agency or other switches without much ado, or comes out saying that they have it running the back end. Because one thing I do not see in the future is people converting from an established Linux solution back to Windows: the costs would appear to be astronomical.
Will we finally find out the question to 42?
I was not very clear. I want to refer specifically to VLC's ability to ignore the region coding.
Meh. "Offtopic + Idiotic" usually edges on "Funny".
There are several close source counterparts that blow that clunky turd away.
Hahaha, haha, haha, ha. Oh, man. Like what?? Beat this list. And good luck playing encoded DVDs with your "counterparts". You suck even at trolling.
Re: Clearly it exists
Second. QL is one smoooooth FPS.
-RobotJesus
Authors of the reply [...] agree that "supporting a national developer is a strategy" and that "the stimulation of creation and use of free software is a priority in the government policy, as it relates to information and communication technologies [ICT]." Yet they decided against creation of a national software platform and said that it would not solve any problems in the national IT sector.
The ministry of communication suggested to explore the options which are available through the [existing] free software development model. They said, the government's resources are limited and should be directed towards development and improvement of "the best solutions available in the world, in cooperation with leading specialists abroad".
From Ponomarev's reply:
The parliament member is sure that the ministry of communication does not want to invest in ICT sector, but instead wants to stimulate the development according to the liberal theory [of market economy?]. "Government was indirectly involved in all major successful hi-tech projects. Internet, UNIX: they all are collateral results of government programs. Market stimulation methods will not work. This can only happen in an established market, which we do not have at the moment."
Translation is mine.
Hey, I kind of agree with the government. Why fork it again if they can simply adapt one of the mature distributions out there and give some people research grants to work with free software developers around the world? It sounds like the representative is simply trying to create a government-funded software company they do not really need. I mean, Russian works in Ubuntu out of the freaking box.
Mew. They could also make a tiger or panther for Mac. Not that I care, I'll use Tux.
I used Adblock [Plus] and Flashblock for a long time. Yesterday (talk about timing) I buckled and installed NoScript after hearing many good things for months. Today I uninstalled NoScript forever.