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User: Count+Fenring

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  1. Re:May I be the first to say on Author of ATSC Capture and Edit Tool Tries to Revoke GPL · · Score: 1

    Well... but that's not the case.

    I mean, it's all well to make "What if?" suppositions of this sort, but it's a single-author package, that links to GPL code. The author in this particular case is not only able, but REQUIRED to release it under the GPL, at least until he stops linking to GPL'd dynamic libraries.

  2. Re:May I be the first to say on Author of ATSC Capture and Edit Tool Tries to Revoke GPL · · Score: 1

    Key being future releases.

    The author, as copyright holder, has the right to change the license on new revisions of the code as much as he wants. But he has no right to revoke a license on existing code. Or, to use a less charged and more accurate word, he has no power, either under law or in spite of law, to do so.

    Fork it and forget him, sez I.

  3. Re:Gee, what a *GREAT* idea on Author of ATSC Capture and Edit Tool Tries to Revoke GPL · · Score: 1

    What if, however, this property isn't a "jewel-encrusted watch." What if it's a 97 chevy that is now C's only means of conveyance. Both A and C have then been severely harmed by B. And both of them need some form of equivalent recompense.

  4. Skillz on Ask the Designers of D&D Fourth Edition · · Score: 1

    A fair amount has been released about the differences in combat between 3.5 and 4, but I haven't read much about how skills will work. What kinds of changes will be made in the way skills work? Will there be grades of success? Will skills be folded into the talent trees for the classes, or still their own beast?

  5. Re:Scalability? on Ruby 1.9.0 Released · · Score: 1

    Now I'm no fancy-pants city programmer, but I do believe that the sole (or "reference and 90% of all implementations use it," in this case) interpreter being slow kinda counts as the language being slow, or near as makes no difference. As for trolling, well, you did seem to be deliberately misinterpreting a pretty clear statement, for purposes of raining on this fellow's parade.

  6. What would you suggest as... on Ask Database Guru Brian Aker · · Score: 1

    What would you suggest as a good first "learner" program for Database driven development? For Perl development?

  7. Re:You gotta be kidding. on OpenOffice.org 3.0 Wants to Compete with Outlook · · Score: 1

    Sadly, I must disagree. As a full-time Openoffice user, I have to say that the slider behavior is in fact stupid. Dumb as bricks dipped in lead paint. I base this not on any particular Office behavior: I haven't used office for anything since high school, and then I primarily used WordPerfect. No, I base this on the simple fact that arbitrarily sized indents are at worst useless, and at best something that you might want very occasionally. Regular indentation, however, is needed in, well, every document I've ever seen that uses indentation. Summary: It is a problem, and a legitimate one, that the indent sliders in Openoffice.org are nonintuitive, undocumented in their primary interface, and completely contra the standard behavior of similar widgets throughout Word-Processor-dom.

  8. Re:Effort? on Don't Take Notes In the Bookstore · · Score: 1

    No shooting necessary. You're right. ISBNs are not only not sensitive information, they're not even information that belongs to the bookstore. They are, by nature, de-privileged indexes. ISBN is an ISO standard, and an international standards body holds, administers, and allocates ISBNs. They are, in summary, the most public possible information about a book. They are a means to find it. As far as their prices being privileged information... ALSO CRAP. The prices are, in fact, owned by them... but are publicly posted, specifically for the consumption of those who have not yet bought them.

  9. Re:Effort? on Don't Take Notes In the Bookstore · · Score: 1

    Here's the rub, though. They TOLD him why they tossed him out. Meaning that, regardless of the fact that they don't have to give him a reason, he has one. And if they toss you out for an unethical or irresponsible reason (Or, in the edge case, an actionable one), then they have the problems.

  10. Re:HP 48GX is an Amazing Calculator on The Best Graphing Calculator on the Market? · · Score: 1

    Ahem. Qwerty. Sorry.

  11. Re:HP 48GX is an Amazing Calculator on The Best Graphing Calculator on the Market? · · Score: 1

    And the TI-89 (and the 92, which is the same innards with a querty keyboard) would do it right from the main interface. This is, in fact, why they were taken off the list of approved calculators for AP exams, and eventually for AP math in my high school. We had a couple of students for a while who had both 89s and 83s, who would use one for class, and another for the exam.

  12. Re:APL on Sun Releases Fortran Replacement as OSS · · Score: 1

    It is no harder to learn than TeX - easier if you already know TeX in fact.

    This is kind of like saying "It's no more painful than torture," you realize.


    Not to say that TeX has an obscure syntax... but TeX has an obscure syntax.

  13. Re:Why? on Why are Free-Desktop Developers Wedded to Linux? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mayhaps they are thinking "Outside the box" because the box is a shape that is displeasing, and also is ON FIRE.



    The windows way of handling filesystems and drives is more familiar to more people, true... but it's also kind of brain damaged (Example: No distinction between Hard Drives and Partitions in the naming schema). Also, people are either A)Technically illiterate, in which case they navigate the computer by set, static procedures, thus making ANY change of directory harder, but also meaning that keeping some similarities doesn't actually help. B)Technically competant, in which case, they can learn a new directory structure pretty quickly.



    And, again. ON FIRE. A Windows box (XP Corporate) that is not running signifigant antivirus and antispyware can be locked up and owned in less than 10 seconds, remote execution through webpage. I SAW IT HAPPEN. Before I updated it, user miskeyed a search site, got a hostile webpage, and BOOM. Had to reformat.

  14. I don't know if this counts... on What Bizarre IT Setups Have You Seen? · · Score: 1

    The following computer is real. The names have been changed, to protect the innocent.

    So, my friend Jake, in high school, was running a combined FTP and HTTP server/firewall, in addition to a gaming/school desktop and laptop. His standard desktop was a something Athlon, as was the laptop, and both were in fine condition (well, the desktop ran Windows ME, but the hardware was unfscked). The server, on the other hand...

    He called it Frankenstein.

    The system was a 350 Pentium II, on a motherboard from an old Aptiva. Gross, but not too strange. What was strange, however, was the case he had it in. From the outside, it looked like a normal old tower case. Internally, though, it was a monster. The power supply from the Aptiva was a stupid custom job, and hadn't fit the brackets in the case, so, of course, he had duct taped it to the case's ceiling, avoiding the vents. The drive bay carrier was long since gone, so the optical drive was taped likewise to the top of the case. The hard drive was balanced on its side near the front of the case, under the motherboard's bottom edge.

    It was the motherboard that was the worst. The mount points on the motherboard and case failed to agree, not only in all particulars, but in any. So his solution was to suspend the motherboard inside the case... with twine run through the four corners of the board. The motion of the fan would set the board rocking back and forth, in a sickening manner.

  15. Re:Linux is not enterprise quality on MySQL Quietly Drops Support For Debian Linux [UPDATED] · · Score: 1

    As opposed to.... what? Windows? VMS? Solaris? Your Mother?

    I'm pretty sure that all operating systems, at some point, are hacked together by collections of individuals. How "craptastic" they are may have some variation, but I'd guess that, out of the hundreds of people who worked on Linux, some were "craptastic." Same for Windows. Same for VMS, the BSDs, etc.

    I can't tell you if, by and large, the people who worked on any particular OS are "craptastic."

    But you sure are!

    Ba-ZING!

  16. Weeeeell..... on Why Do Computers Take So Long to Boot Up? · · Score: 1

    It's not that it's not a priority... it's more that it's much more difficult than you're making it sound. Windows (Or any other modern OS, in standard configuration, for that matter) doesn't just boot up the base system and leave you. It boots up several subsystems, and checks for things like "Is the Ethernet connector connected? If so, search for DHCP. What stuff do I have in my USB ports? Do I have drivers for it? For that matter, are my PCI slots filled with the same crap as last time I booted?" The raw fact is that, especially with USB and/or Bluetooth, there are a lot of things that can change from boot to boot. With a TV... there just aren't. A TV doesn't need to worry about having new stuff plugged in, or installed, or whatever. They don't even need to worry about networking. They just need to warm up the screen, than connect it to whichever input it's set on.

  17. Re:Take Action on OpenBSD Ahead of Linux for Wi-Fi Drivers · · Score: 1

    Heh. Base it off of Debian, call it "Fork You!" Linux.

    Seriously, though... One of the biggest barriers to Linux adoption is "ease of use concerns", and the 30-45 minutes it takes to get java, codecs, et al. set up is a big one. No real way around it, but I do haves my fingers crossed for open-source java.

  18. Re:Been there, done that on Captain America vs. The Patriot Act? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmmm... I disagree. While both awesome pieces of work, neither is really dealing with the issues of government control in the same way, if at all.

    For one, the conspiracy in Watchmen is non-governmental: It's actually an exceedingly liberal private citizen (Adrian/Ozymandias) who is controlling public opinion and worldview. The government plays a strang side-role in this; they are environment, not actor.

    And Astro City: Confession, while one of my all-time favorite comics, is really dealing with public opinion and its manipulation by authority in a much softer, more human-focused way.

    Maybe a better example would be Frank Miller's Martha Washington books, or Elektra: Assassin. Still, I don't think anything out there invalidates this project.