Worst thing ever to happen to software
on
Oracle Buys Sun
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· Score: 1
Isn't anyone else concerned about this travesty? If you look at Sun's portfolio of products:
Java
ZFS
Solaris
VirtualBox
OpenOffice
Glassfish
Netbeans
They are all outstanding, products that embrace openness, reliability and innovation.
Oracle has a stack of crap, with the only decent offering being a database that requires a skilled administrator to manage it.
While Sun's products reach out and enable entrepreneurs and individual developers, Oracle caters to large corporate teams with very specialized skills.
This is, in my opinion, the darkest day in the history of software.
Xerox was an investor in Apple at the time. The Apple engineers were brought in to discuss the technology with the folks at Parc who developed it. Read 'Dealers of Lightning' and you'll realize Apple came upon the technology legally and Xerox literally gave away one (among many, many others) incredible opportunity.
I have to disagree with you about their support. It is, in my experience, awful. My company has gold level support with them and yet every time we try to pull their support group in, we get very little effective help. The last time was with SQLCE 2.0, where the support manager stated they could better help me if I moved my app to SQL Mobile 3.0 (the new SQLCE at that time) for which they had some 'new tools' available for debugging and analysis. She recommended this knowing that I was unlikely to make the move, but in the end I had to because the problem was crashing my app. After I ported the app to the new db version I called them back, to get their help with the "new tools" they said were available. At this point they admitted they lied about there being any new debugging tools available and I was basically on my own. Good service my A$$.
I am shocked that anyone liked this awful show. I am a scifi nut and I couldn't stomach the first two episodes. Did it get better? I thought it didn't cause it was cancelled right away.
I don't watch Raymond regularly but on the occasions I've seen it (usually on a transatlantic flight) it has been funny and enjoyable.
I think that, in general, you are pretty thoughtful with your points. But I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that nobody would come to see the movie unless he changed the dialog or the tone of the characters. This is utter nonsense. Peter Jackson's directing and script changes added no appeal to this movie.
I may not agree with his changes, but that doesn't cloud my mind when it comes to his directing. I mean how many times can Glorfindel's...oops, i mean Arwen's... horse wind around those trees in the forest. I get it already! Deftly handled? Ok, to each his own.
I think I can separate out, in a logical fashion, what Jackson did with the movie. I give the man his due when it comes to the scenery and special effects. Masterful!
But he is a low budget hack when it comes to directing. You didn't find the hobbits snivelling little annoying twirps in the movies?
Well, ok, I guess there is no accounting for taste. However, I just watched Star Trek Generations again and that is a perfect example of a thoroughly stupid plot (the whole nexus thing is dumb imo) yet it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie because of the directing.
I am also sick of hearing the "not enough time" argument. If Jackson had enough time to insert his own crap into the story, he had enough time to present the material native to the original story.
I can't believe anyone would characterize these movies as stacking up well to other movies in anything other than scenery and special effects.
Peter Jackson is a terrible director who handles the story material with sledghammer-like grace. I mean, how many times do you need to see a closeup of an orc growling. Alright already, I get it.
Perhaps the only thing worse than Jackson's directing is his writing. The parts he has added, like that whole stupid Aragorn disappearing scene in the Two Towers, are so poorly done they would be laughable if it weren't so sad that he was changing a classic story.
Now, I am a fair, if obsessive, Tolkien fan. Jackson's work with the scenery and special effects is simply amazing. In the two towers, the scene of Gandalf plunging into the pool at the bottom of Moria with the Balrog was worth the price of admission alone.
With his ability with the special effects and scenery, all Jackson had to do was tell the story. Tolkien wrote it and people love it. No need to mess with it.
Faramir is a well discussed example. He was a heroic figure in the book, with a nobility and trueness of spirit to resist the ring, though he feared it true enough. Let us remember that Elrond or Gandalf could have taken the ring from Frodo as easily as Faramir could have. Do we think any less of them or the ring because of this? The blood of Numenor ran true in Faramir, much moreso than in Boromir or perhaps anyone else in Gondor.
I can't believe Jackson felt he had to change this character.
I think you're right. Those of us who hate X hate it because we don't understand it. Now, first a little disclaimer, I am a winblows user (out of necessity I assure you) and a Linux newbie, and so far X has been the bane of my existence.
Last year I bought a Lindows machine, cause I'd like nothing more than to eliminate my family's dependence on M$. Hell most of what we do is thru an internet browser, word processor and spreadsheet. So how hard would it be to set up an Linux environment?
Well, I tossed Lindows cause the apps in their click-n-run warehouse suck, but I bought an old version of WordPerfect suite for Linux and I decided to use Gnome instead of KDE (OK, I think it LOOKS cooler).
So I downloaded the iso's for Debian and installed it. No problem, half hour later I was rocking and rolling in Linux. And, hey, BASH is pretty cool. Now on to the GUI.
So I had to download about 500MB worth of I-don't-know-what (cause apt supposedly gets what I need) and a month later I still can't get X to work right. I have tried about 10 different installs. Sometimes Linux tells me I have no X profiles (or something else, I forget what they're called) defined. Sometimes I get into X but it looks like I see only a quarter of the screen, and my mouse acts crazy.
I have like 4 linux books and none adequately tell me how to configure X. And bloated and complicated, yeah I'd use those terms to describe X. And Gnome needs X, the GTK libraries and a window manager, and blah blah blah. WTF, if you want to get Linux accepted in the mainstream, make it easy.
I hope this is what Athene will do. So you can say that I'm not smart (I am a windows and Java programmer) but I REALLY want to use Linux. I love Linux, but I hate X, and if I devote any more of my weekend time to it, my wife will be changing the locks on the door when I'm gone.
In college I took Electrical Engineering as a major because I wanted to be assured of having a decent job when I got out.
By 1991, when I graduated, there were practically no opportunities for internships (for those still in school) much less entry-level positions.
And this wasn't just limited to my job, things were bad everywhere. I must have collected a stack of about 200 rejection letters before I went to work at a local photo lab.
So I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of us who can sympathize with what current college students/grads are going thru in this economy.
Finding your first "real" job is probably one of the most challenging things you will ever do in your life. For me the only thing harder was finding an apartment in San Francisco. Good luck.
I think it is pretty obvious it is a fake. The DOJ may shut down sites, but I've never seen them take the time to put up a lengthy explanation page. C'mon.
And then when they direct you someplace for more info, it's not to the DOJ site, it's to another page on the isonews site.
Finally, there are tons of modchips for sale for the xbox, and simply selling the modchips is not a crime. It seems there are legal ramifications for selling the modchips preflashed with a BIOS, but otherwise these guys should have been able to sell the chips without a problem.
Hell, I'm going to buy a mod chip for MY xbox and I have a plethora of sites and chips to choose from.
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Java
ZFS
Solaris
VirtualBox
OpenOffice
Glassfish
Netbeans
They are all outstanding, products that embrace openness, reliability and innovation.
Oracle has a stack of crap, with the only decent offering being a database that requires a skilled administrator to manage it.
While Sun's products reach out and enable entrepreneurs and individual developers, Oracle caters to large corporate teams with very specialized skills.
This is, in my opinion, the darkest day in the history of software.
Xerox was an investor in Apple at the time. The Apple engineers were brought in to discuss the technology with the folks at Parc who developed it. Read 'Dealers of Lightning' and you'll realize Apple came upon the technology legally and Xerox literally gave away one (among many, many others) incredible opportunity.
I have to disagree with you about their support. It is, in my experience, awful. My company has gold level support with them and yet every time we try to pull their support group in, we get very little effective help. The last time was with SQLCE 2.0, where the support manager stated they could better help me if I moved my app to SQL Mobile 3.0 (the new SQLCE at that time) for which they had some 'new tools' available for debugging and analysis. She recommended this knowing that I was unlikely to make the move, but in the end I had to because the problem was crashing my app. After I ported the app to the new db version I called them back, to get their help with the "new tools" they said were available. At this point they admitted they lied about there being any new debugging tools available and I was basically on my own. Good service my A$$.
I am shocked that anyone liked this awful show. I am a scifi nut and I couldn't stomach the first two episodes. Did it get better? I thought it didn't cause it was cancelled right away. I don't watch Raymond regularly but on the occasions I've seen it (usually on a transatlantic flight) it has been funny and enjoyable.
I think that, in general, you are pretty thoughtful with your points. But I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that nobody would come to see the movie unless he changed the dialog or the tone of the characters. This is utter nonsense. Peter Jackson's directing and script changes added no appeal to this movie. I may not agree with his changes, but that doesn't cloud my mind when it comes to his directing. I mean how many times can Glorfindel's...oops, i mean Arwen's... horse wind around those trees in the forest. I get it already! Deftly handled? Ok, to each his own. I think I can separate out, in a logical fashion, what Jackson did with the movie. I give the man his due when it comes to the scenery and special effects. Masterful! But he is a low budget hack when it comes to directing. You didn't find the hobbits snivelling little annoying twirps in the movies? Well, ok, I guess there is no accounting for taste. However, I just watched Star Trek Generations again and that is a perfect example of a thoroughly stupid plot (the whole nexus thing is dumb imo) yet it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie because of the directing. I am also sick of hearing the "not enough time" argument. If Jackson had enough time to insert his own crap into the story, he had enough time to present the material native to the original story.
I can't believe anyone would characterize these movies as stacking up well to other movies in anything other than scenery and special effects.
Peter Jackson is a terrible director who handles the story material with sledghammer-like grace. I mean, how many times do you need to see a closeup of an orc growling. Alright already, I get it.
Perhaps the only thing worse than Jackson's directing is his writing. The parts he has added, like that whole stupid Aragorn disappearing scene in the Two Towers, are so poorly done they would be laughable if it weren't so sad that he was changing a classic story.
Now, I am a fair, if obsessive, Tolkien fan. Jackson's work with the scenery and special effects is simply amazing. In the two towers, the scene of Gandalf plunging into the pool at the bottom of Moria with the Balrog was worth the price of admission alone.
With his ability with the special effects and scenery, all Jackson had to do was tell the story. Tolkien wrote it and people love it. No need to mess with it.
Faramir is a well discussed example. He was a heroic figure in the book, with a nobility and trueness of spirit to resist the ring, though he feared it true enough. Let us remember that Elrond or Gandalf could have taken the ring from Frodo as easily as Faramir could have. Do we think any less of them or the ring because of this? The blood of Numenor ran true in Faramir, much moreso than in Boromir or perhaps anyone else in Gondor.
I can't believe Jackson felt he had to change this character.
Last year I bought a Lindows machine, cause I'd like nothing more than to eliminate my family's dependence on M$. Hell most of what we do is thru an internet browser, word processor and spreadsheet. So how hard would it be to set up an Linux environment?
Well, I tossed Lindows cause the apps in their click-n-run warehouse suck, but I bought an old version of WordPerfect suite for Linux and I decided to use Gnome instead of KDE (OK, I think it LOOKS cooler).
So I downloaded the iso's for Debian and installed it. No problem, half hour later I was rocking and rolling in Linux. And, hey, BASH is pretty cool. Now on to the GUI.
So I had to download about 500MB worth of I-don't-know-what (cause apt supposedly gets what I need) and a month later I still can't get X to work right. I have tried about 10 different installs. Sometimes Linux tells me I have no X profiles (or something else, I forget what they're called) defined. Sometimes I get into X but it looks like I see only a quarter of the screen, and my mouse acts crazy.
I have like 4 linux books and none adequately tell me how to configure X. And bloated and complicated, yeah I'd use those terms to describe X. And Gnome needs X, the GTK libraries and a window manager, and blah blah blah. WTF, if you want to get Linux accepted in the mainstream, make it easy.
I hope this is what Athene will do. So you can say that I'm not smart (I am a windows and Java programmer) but I REALLY want to use Linux. I love Linux, but I hate X, and if I devote any more of my weekend time to it, my wife will be changing the locks on the door when I'm gone.
By 1991, when I graduated, there were practically no opportunities for internships (for those still in school) much less entry-level positions.
And this wasn't just limited to my job, things were bad everywhere. I must have collected a stack of about 200 rejection letters before I went to work at a local photo lab.
So I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of us who can sympathize with what current college students/grads are going thru in this economy.
Finding your first "real" job is probably one of the most challenging things you will ever do in your life. For me the only thing harder was finding an apartment in San Francisco. Good luck.
And then when they direct you someplace for more info, it's not to the DOJ site, it's to another page on the isonews site.
Finally, there are tons of modchips for sale for the xbox, and simply selling the modchips is not a crime. It seems there are legal ramifications for selling the modchips preflashed with a BIOS, but otherwise these guys should have been able to sell the chips without a problem.
Hell, I'm going to buy a mod chip for MY xbox and I have a plethora of sites and chips to choose from.