So in English, Microsoft is not claiming ownership of anything. They are just saying that they may or may not own something but you can license it from them anyway.
Fine. then next week, I'll be putting together an even more inclusive license that says much the same thing and I want you all to read it, print it, and mail it to me, Ralph Icebag, at 4010 Rhode Island School of Design Terrace, here in Ukaiphah, CA.
If you don't do as I instruct, terrible things will happen. the same terrible things that will happen if you don't sign the MS agreement.
Sung to the tune of "Armagh"
We don't torture, we're a civilized nation
We're avoiding any confrontation
We don't torture, we don't torture
Beheaded hostages
in Iraq
Heard daily on the news
forget about Vietnam
You can ignore the women too
There are plenty of women in Iraqi jails
political prisoners in their home
the Oceania state's got nothing to lose
It's a subject better left alone -
We don't torture
we're a civilized nation
We're avoiding any confrontation
We don't torture
Alleged crimes withheld information
They get no sanitation
Gitmo brain blasters defy
All convention
They're all doped up on valium
And so relaxed for the next interrogation
naked spread-eagled on their backs
it's a better position for internal examination
it's a better position for giving information
information. ..
An armed guard squad they all get a beating
bleeding and wounded some stopped eating
forming pyramids of naked flesh led on a leash
the facts don't mesh!
We don't torture, we're a civilized nation
We're provoking all the confrontation, but -
We don't torture, we don't torture!
While I agree with you, my guess is that the freaks who run things around here will simply use these new NASA funded technologies and LEO flights to deliver a bunch of soldiers to some resource rich third world gummint for plunder aka "liberation and democracy".
Also, the $7trillion debt is not of as great a consequence as one might think. As long as you meet the interest payments, you're good to go. Once you can't meet the payments, just inflate the currency so you pay back a 2004 debt with worthless 2010 dollars. Once the debt is paid, the interest payments are meaningless - they could 30%, but if the debt's paid for, 30% of nothing is still nothing. Then you put the brakes on the currency, and once things are somewhat stablised, you reduce the interest rates, and start over.
evil Evil EVIL EVIL!!!
Here's a technology they should develop:
How to cheaply rip He3 out of the moon's surface, so the Bush / Cheney junta have something to do after the oil runs out.
You are correct in two of your points. where you err is in this one:
* Purchased Compaq in an ill advised grab for market share. Their reason: they wanted Digital's professional services...
That was part of the deal, but hardly the best or most important, as the DEC services were an increasingly small and troublesome part of compaq, and have proven to be a real money loser for HP. The REAL reason for the Compaq merger was this:
HR, specifically: Pay Curves, Benefits, and Vacation.
In all three categories HP provided VASTLY better environments for their workers. By merging with Compaq, Carly was able to adopt the Compaq HR policies combined with HP's flatter structure, resulting in MILLIONS of dollars saved. Every Year. Forever.
the results? Predictable: massive layoffs to cut the labour force to the bone, massive outsourcing to reduce labour costs, and those who were lont term HP employees found their vacation time cut, some as much as 30%, and that they wree now at the top of their pay curve, meaning they would probably never see another raise in their career. combine that with decreased health benefits, and the result is a leaner cheaper workforce.
However, this comes at a cost. There was a time when people at HP really cared about the place. No one I know at HP gives a flying fuck about it anymore. They all know they are on a slowly sinking ship, and they're just riding it out as long as they can - HP probably has another 5 or so years left. Then its will be dismembered, and sell off chunks of itself in order to survive.
The computer division will get bought by Dell or IBM, the imaging division might carry on for a while longer. Eventually it too will be absorbed, probably by someone like Canon (who makes a bunch of their engines, anyway) But, basically: you're correct: they're fucked.
completely fucked.
Assuming what you describe is true, the fact you know this is kinda scary. Not in a bad way.
What about lesser but equally wonderful things, like the fact that Macromedia basically SHELVED several programs (such as Fontgrapher) and never sold the the code for someone else to bring into the world of OSX, OpenType, and complete Unicode?
HMmmmmmm?
How many other wonderful apps coulda been contenders except for the second most common resource in the universe: corporate myopia?
TELL ME? What do I HEAR?
(someone shouts from another room: "Hey dude- that's like metaphysically absurd! How can I know what you hear?")
Ridiculed, ignored and abandoned? BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
SOUNDS LIKE MY LIFE!!!!
Let's hear it for AMERICA.
(strike the trumpets, Fred)
The end is near, the sad pathetic end is near, not from political excursion, not from military misapprehension, not from religious stories (always stories, never theories - must be an appeal from the limbic system) but from our own self apprehension.
This is a turning point - either the final emancipation from fiction or we die frozen in caves in 1,000,000 years.
Applying binary logic to a system that is non-linear will give stochastic results. This was proven in the late Devouring Period when fish became obnoxious. Known as Chump's law, it dictates that it is always better to do than not do because in doing you have a chance of getting it right, but not acting guarantees failure.
Is that a call for insurrection or room service?
But only on Tuesdays, in November and Image-nation. Snow is vague, and so is Tuesday: living proof that MICROSOFT Bob and tinfoil share a certain few characteristics : continuous attraction of complete amnesia -but as Marker said, memory is not the opposite of forgetting, but its lining.
Remember the Colorado Mining strikes? Women and kids mowed down so you could have an 8 hour day, which you cheerfully surrender for some chimeral gold?
vive la corkscrew!
I've been weeping, jobless, broke and hopeless, loking for the next big thing or an easier deal. This all defines us, and it makes us stronger - the space between the desperate and the disinterested - the failure of both in imagination and scope. But don't feel bad - it was what it was. (REMEMBER AMERICAN CULTURE? Nooo. REALLY?)
But large portions of the city will have serious trouble with it.
My neighbourhood (Midtown Terrace) is one of those challenges. It's *extremely*hilly, and TV / Radio reception is zilch thanks to Sutro tower. One would think that living unter a TV tower would give me great reception, but, well... it doesn't work that way. My wife's car opener doesn't even work because of all the RF fro mthe damn thing. So, be tween the hills and the RF from Sutro- we're fucked. We don't even get cable TV, because the cable just act as a huge antennae for Sutro. It's a fucking mess.
On top of all that, we're really far fro mthe nearest phone building, so the only DSL we get is 384. You'd think that living literally in the middle of SF, we'd be inundated with techno gizmos, but, no.
I *DO* hope that they find a way to make this work. Although, I had to build weird faraday cages around my living room and wrap my speaker wire in lead to keep my stereo from buzzing...
If you go to get work done on your car, it is perfectly aceptable to use dealer parts, or any of a number of aftermarket vendors. The specs for the parts arent kept secret, and any vendor has the opportunity to make a suitable part.
Cars are not software. Software is a tool.
Example: I sometimes do calligraphy (of all analogue outdated things to do) and I can assure you that in certain times, a speedball nib *just won't do*, and my clients expect as much. If they're expecting extremely sharp edges at small sizes I had damn well better be using a (FLASH FLASH BRAND NAME ALERT) Brause nib because Speedball SUCKS ASS in small sizes. SURE: technically I could use one, if I wanted to spend all fucking day wasting a ton of paper on some sputtering piece of crap. At super small sizes I have only found Brause to be worth a damn. Mitchell's can be very good, but there's something about Brause that I find is dead on perfect at tiny sizes.
Now, if I need a stroke that's a centimeter wide, then I'm not going to bother with Brause or Mitchell - I'll use my Speedball steel brushes, becasue they are quite adequate at that size, and much less prone to stick and make a mess. I COULD use razor-like Brause nibs, but it would suck and the client would be Very Mad.
You're (clearly) a FOSS zealot. FOSS has its place, but it's not universal, especially when people need specific things done on deadline and absolute compatibility must be guaranteed, no ifs ands or buts.
At that point, you need everyone singing in tune.
You're trying to shoehorn in an agenda completely alien to Ballmer's argument. I was simply pointing at the actual errors in his argument. My refutation complies with Occam's Razor, yours does not, as yours is insisting on a completely different model, which is totally unnecessary to refute his argument. I refuted Ballmer very exactly, and demonstrated the falsehood in his argument, and how it doesn't apply to anything today or in the forseeable future.
you can toot your FOSS horn all you want, and that's your perogative, but you should know that your argument is cumbersome and unnecessary.
Have you ever heard of development costs? The software you use cost a TON of money to develop, and has a relatively small customer base compared to the hardware it runs on. Remember, all the web surfers in the world will be using the same type of hardware you're using, while a select few people actually NEED the software you're using. So, sure the software is expensive. The point is, that software is the real tool. The hardware is the platform.
I completely agree with you. I wasn't *complaining about the high cost of software* - I was criticising Ballmer's idiotic notion that if computers cost $100 there would be less software piracy, by demonstrating that software is usually the most expensive part of a given computer system.
If you're running all that software on one $1000 computer, then I pity your customers for your productivity.
Actually I use several computers. the cheapest one cost me $1300 and the most expensive was $3000. Note: I said:
This is not a point of practicality, just a point of economics.
I would never run all that software on a $500 or $1000 computer. THAT would suck. I was simply
USING THE STRUCTURE OF BALLMER'S ARGUMENT AGAINST ITSELF
So, please, before you post something, think twice: once would be an improvement.
Re:Ballmer's WRONG, hardware is cheap. Numbers her (Score:1)
by The Cisco Kid (31490) on Thursday October 21, @03:14PM (#10590868)
While you got the main point right, you make a perfect example of another thing that is absolutely ludicrous.
Let me illustrate with a comparison
I need to work on my car, I need
A Craftsman Philips screwdriver
A Craftsman Flat screwdriver
A Snap-On battery drill..... etc.
Do I really need the *specific* brand of tools I list? No. Why should it be any less ludicrous to specify a *specific* brand of software? A phillips screwdriver, any brand, can turn a phillips screw, any brand - there is only one reason that a given 'photo editing package' (for example), *ANY BRAND* cant work on photos produced by a different brand of photo editing software, and that is that it was *intentionally* made to use a proprietary format to prevent standards and compatibility.
You're completely wrong. When a client wants a Flash animation, it has to be a flash animation, and flash makes Flash animations.
When a printer expects a Quark Xpress 4.x file, you have to send them a Quark Xpress 4.x file - no ifs ands or buts about it.
When a program I'm using requires a Photoshop psd file and it's internal layering configuration in CMYK, GIMP isn't going to do the job, period.
The list goes on and on. When I'm called in to do audio mixing, it's usually done in ProTools. If I have to take files home, it is easier to take them home and work on them in ProTools. Period.
The only program I regularly "cheat on" is Illustrator, because I think it's a piece of shit, and I'd rather use FreeHand and then export from FreeHand as an Illustrator file. Too bad Macromedia has basically killed FreeHand - it's still better than AI, but that's a nother discussion.
When a client is PAYING ME to deliver in a specific program, I had better use the program. When I go to work on site, I have to know that program, and not its Free/OSS analogue. It's what I get paid to do.
Now if you want to dork around with analogical software on your own time - fine. But that's not how the professional world operates.
Let's double the cost of the computer he considers too expensive, from $500 to $1000, and skip the obvious discussion of the MS tax - we'll stipulate that it's a Windows machine, even though I use a Macintosh. This is not a point of practicality, just a point of economics.
Now, let's see: I want to get MY work done.
My clients are in video, audio, web, and print. I need:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator
Macromedia FreeHand (because I like to work in it better than Illustrator)
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Quark Xpress (for cranky or fussy printers who are still runnning Quark 4 on OS9 or 2000)
Macromedia Fireworks
Macromedia Flash
Ableton Live (for music development)
Adobe Audition (for Windows based destructive editing)
Propellorheads Reason (for composition)
AVID DV Express, Pro edition (for video)
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere (because it comes with the Video Bundle)
And, of course, MS Office
TOTAL COST OF SOFTWARE?
Assuming I buy most of it in Bundles (Adobe Creative Suite, MM MX suite, etc.) I come out to a rough number of:
$7700
At that point, a $1000 computer is one of THE LEAST of my expenses. When you bring in a DV camera, a decent audio ADC, Firewire RAIDs, scanners, printers, and similar crucial items, a $1000 computer becomes even less of a cost to the total operation. A $500 computer becomes insignificant - heck - it's almost impossible to find a decent multichannel audio ADC for less than $600.
Ballmer is COMPLETELY wrong, or, more likely: HE'S LYING. SOFTWARE is the expensive item, followed by peripherals. The last item is the computer. The expensive part of the computer is not in its cost, but in configuring it to one's needs, which takes time (which is extremely expensive) software (which isn't cheap) and peripherals (which can be cheap or extremely expensive).
I was BEGGING SBC to get DSL to my house since 1999. I live (literally) in the middle of San Francisco, and they refused to hook me up. "Too far".
Finally, about 2 years ago they got our neighbourhood wired up with DSL, but the fastest I can get is 384. (I live in a weird little neighbourhood just west of Twin Peaks. I have to drive just to get a cup of coffee.)
And now they say they're going to be putting HD over IP? If my previous experience is any indication, I'll be getting MP4 from them at a reduced framerate around 2012...
Ah, so that's it -- you're one of those frightened bio-chauvinists who's comforted by the idea that the current human condition is necessary (and desirable) for sentience; that our wetware brains can't be transfered to more efficient self-modifiable substrates because of consciousness depending on spooky quantum effects.
Nonsense. Sentience is an illusion produced by the brain. Read Ramachandran, and don't make such specious strawman arguments.
and I don't mean that as Flamebait or Trolling - I think Kurzweil's recent career has been one of a flaming Troll. I've read his books and they're little more than materialist New Age guru crap. Before you go modding me down, hear this out.
1. great statements require great proof.
2. predictions should follow patterns of substructure
He offers no proof - he simply says : look what's happened so far, by (x) date (which will likely be after I'm dead) the world will be SO different and it will be like (THIS).
His claims of AI are floundering on simple facts like Intel scrapping 4gHz chips and any number of other signs that Moore's Law, on which Kurzweil's argument rests, is being scrapped as we speak.
another example: stick a blank floppy in your fancy pants XP machine and start the computer up. Computers are SO far from being "intelligent" in even the most rudimentary way, it's absurd. The basic flaw in Kurzweil's notions are that he believes that intelligence is a disembodied effect, when (if the likes of Ramachandran are correct) intelligence is an embodied effect and specifically dependent on wetware. So, the pattern doesn't hold, and he has no real proof. He's selling snake oil to technodweebs.
Then there's the entire issue of social class, and Kurzweil has no interest in serving the greater masses of humanity. He is interested in pushing a technological vanguard that will be open only to the rich, who, once properly enabled/enhanced with have no need or desire to accomodate a working class. Why bring on board the middle classes, when you can replace them all with machines? And if you think this doesn't mean you, you're an idiot.
But beyond all that his fantasy is just that: a fantasy.Technology is a means, not an end in itself, and the likes of Kurzweil seek to put the managers of technology in a position of power above and beyond democratic principles, and for that he and his ilk must be opposed and revealed for what they are: techno-fascists.
Now, for full disclosure: I do think we need a robust space program, I do think we need faster and better computers, I do think we can and should use technology to solve the world's ills where technology is a legitimate solution. I *even agree* that we can make humans more disease resistant and longer lived, and I also believe that that is a good thing. However:
I do not see technology as Kurzweil does: in some kind of Messianic Eschatology. It's not like that, and I feel that he and his ilk are perpetrating a fraud on the public, but mostly on the people they advocate the most: technologists. I think the Really Hard Nut To Crack is not going to be technological, but sociological and political.
Jaron Lanier wrote an interesting opposition paper that also opposes Kurzweil, but in more polite language than myself. I guess Lanier doesn't consider Kurzweil to be the charlatan I see him as.
I've done this several times. I go over a friends house, with two other interested people. We all have Macintosh computers. We all have Firewire Drives. At around 1 in the afternoon we start drinkin' ourselves stupid and plugging our drives into each other's laptops or desktop (depending). Then we go through the drive, copying files over to our own drive as we see fit.
Net result?
I have 85 gigs of music on my 120 gig drive.
Now, it's much more "site specific" - I'm not "open to the public" but I know my friends have remarkable taste in music and we get to recommend music to each other.
If I like something, I go to the record store AND I BUY THE CD. (sometimes I buy it used, sometimes new, depending on how I feel and the depth of my pocket and the obscurity of the music)
Why? It's not because I'm feeling guilty - I just know that the CD will likely outlast the hard drive, and it's just good sound back up policy.
Of course, to rip all my CDs over would take a few months of dedicated part time effort, but that's fine. It's still good to have the back up, JIC.
"the sort of things where you get more capability out of a processor by designing specific silicon solutions as opposed to just keep turning the clock faster."
But the droids blinkered by intel FUD put their fingers in their ears sang "lalalalala" and barked "NO - faster clock speed is a FASTER CHIP!!!"
Now, suddenly: oOooooo - cycles per second isn't as important!
Oh well. It will certainly be very interesting to see what Intel does over the next few years.
Here's an interesting question, related to this topic:
Assuming they go multicore (like IBM and Power[x] chips) what are the limits involved there? What would logically stop the development of multicore chips from increasing their number of cores?
Article states:
>P>
Terahertz (THz) detection system that can be deployed inside cargo containers is central to the project. Already under study at NJIT, THz electromagnetic radiation can be used to detect and identify explosives and biological agents even concealed in sealed packages, since THz radiation is readily transmitted through plastics, clothing and other non-metals.
Fine. So, you build a nuke - not even a very good or small one - and wrap it in a foot of solid lead. Then put it inside something plausible, like the back half of a container, and then put a shipment of fish weights in front of it.
The container ship saunters into NY harbour and KABLOOEY!!!!
You don't even have to wait for it to dock. As long as it's within a few miles, you've just evaporated hundreds of thousands of people.
This thing is just another example of the American Empire's paranoia and willingness to blow billions of dollars on a technical solution to a problem that is fundamentally social (dependence on third world resource and a willingness to squander said resources), political (as the empire supports hideous regimes that provide said resources, viz the Middle East, Africa, etc), and ideological (as the empire is no longer concerned with being loved, as simply being feared will suffice).
The blimp idea is a waste of time, and it would be much better if we spent the money on ways to eliminate our petroleum addiction, get people into the valueing our resources instead of consuming them, and worked at really helping the peasants and working classes around the world instead of the ruling classes that exploit them.
I liked the jokes in it - there were many stright up funny parts, and as the reviewer noted, the first half hour is deadly.
I'm a big fan of Fireball XL5, Thuderbirds, Stingray, Capt. Scarlet, Supercar, etc. so the marionette aspect totally worked for me.
My only problem with the movie was seen as a strength in the review, where he said:
The movie could very easily get mired down in preaching a point. But thankfully it never really does that. It simultaneously makes fun of liberal hollywood actors, and the rah rah 'Go America' right wing stereotype.
The problem is, I see our political system in a greater crisis than simpletons like the makers of this movie. Their whole political consciousness is like "there are dicks and assholes, and we need the dicks because of the assholes." Which, of course, is errant nonsense. True we need "cops" to put "bad guys" behind bars, but invading other countries on lies, stripping away civil liberties, and skewing the tax code to favour the welathy and bankrupt the treasury is not excusable.
So, by playing both sides, all they do is come down on the side of the Powers That Be, who, at this time are corrupt, murderous plutocrats who are (as Bush stated some time ago, but not in so many words) bent on a unipolar global hegemony.
So, I found the politics offensive, but no more so than any other typical hollywood crapola film. And it is *extremely* funny, so I would give it a B-. DEFINITELY worth seeing, but to be soon forgotten due to the cluelessness of the poltical stance of the makers.
Working with some hayseed name company,
set up a script that sets up arbitrary pr0n sites with a specific set of images to choose from.
Stuff like KRGKGE.com or 3495ww43.com, etc.
Once the site is up and functioning, I contact a "citizen" in China, who reports the site to the authorities. We split the difference. I keep him fed with pr0n sites, and he sends me money for "finding" them.
Stupid fucking commie bastards. I could set up 50 sites a day. At $125 per, that's a nice piece of green...
You don't own a TV, and have a computer, but you have no internet service provider: you just go to the local cafe and leech off the wifi?
Sometimes, I feel like I'm in the bloo bloo world: the world that looks Just Like The Real World, but somehow, I'm not in it. I think the transition started with the hoax of an election that put the Bush junta in office, was nailed down when those assholes flew into the WTC, and the door was shut and locked when Bush went into Iraq.
It's like every little bit of news that's coming up just seems completely fraught with evil Evil EVIL, and now the freakin Germans are going to tax their people for owning a damn computer hooked to the Net, just 'cuz.
It's fucking bullshit, and I feel like it's just more evidence for the world having gone off the rails and into the weeds.
I am hoping that someday soon, I will wake up and things will be better - Bush will be retired to his ranch, the US will renounce Empire, the Germans will let their people buy a damn computer and hook it up to the net to read email, and we'll all be at least trying to act like we get along together.
It is also utter rubbish to claim that books which do contain a certain degree of melodrama and fantasy are the exclusive purview of middle to low brow senses of literature.
That's fair enough. I was a bit hasty and inaccurate. However, I think it's important to counter the parent's notion that melodrama and fantasy are requisite features of good literature.
That being the case, novels are written, to briefly take such men, out of that quiet desperation, even for a short while. Novels therefore require a certain melodrama and fantasy element. For if the novels lacked such exaggerated drama, it would suffice to read the New York Times, and not Tom Clancy.
Utter rubbish. There are many many novels of extra-ordinary importance that have nothing to do with fantasy or melodrama. The parent is describing a certain middle to low brow sense of literature. People write and read stories for a multitude of reasons, and to say that books missing the aforementioned elements equate with reading the newspaper, just goes to show the parent's reduced sense of human existence and imagination as to what literature can be and do.
Also, the book he describes sounds terrible. I'll wait for the movie to come out and snag a torrent of it in a few years.
Slashdot Mirror
Fine. then next week, I'll be putting together an even more inclusive license that says much the same thing and I want you all to read it, print it, and mail it to me, Ralph Icebag, at 4010 Rhode Island School of Design Terrace, here in Ukaiphah, CA.
If you don't do as I instruct, terrible things will happen. the same terrible things that will happen if you don't sign the MS agreement.
Fuck MS.
RS
We're avoiding any confrontation
We don't torture, we don't torture
Beheaded hostages
in Iraq
Heard daily on the news
forget about Vietnam
You can ignore the women too
There are plenty of women in Iraqi jails
political prisoners in their home
the Oceania state's got nothing to lose
It's a subject better left alone -
We don't torture
we're a civilized nation
We're avoiding any confrontation
We don't torture
Alleged crimes withheld information .
They get no sanitation
Gitmo brain blasters defy
All convention
They're all doped up on valium
And so relaxed for the next interrogation
naked spread-eagled on their backs
it's a better position for internal examination
it's a better position for giving information
information. .
An armed guard squad they all get a beating
bleeding and wounded some stopped eating
forming pyramids of naked flesh led on a leash
the facts don't mesh!
We don't torture, we're a civilized nation
We're provoking all the confrontation, but -
We don't torture, we don't torture!
Also, the $7trillion debt is not of as great a consequence as one might think. As long as you meet the interest payments, you're good to go. Once you can't meet the payments, just inflate the currency so you pay back a 2004 debt with worthless 2010 dollars. Once the debt is paid, the interest payments are meaningless - they could 30%, but if the debt's paid for, 30% of nothing is still nothing. Then you put the brakes on the currency, and once things are somewhat stablised, you reduce the interest rates, and start over.
evil Evil EVIL EVIL!!!
Here's a technology they should develop:
How to cheaply rip He3 out of the moon's surface, so the Bush / Cheney junta have something to do after the oil runs out.
RS
* Purchased Compaq in an ill advised grab for market share. Their reason: they wanted Digital's professional services...
That was part of the deal, but hardly the best or most important, as the DEC services were an increasingly small and troublesome part of compaq, and have proven to be a real money loser for HP. The REAL reason for the Compaq merger was this:
HR, specifically: Pay Curves, Benefits, and Vacation.
In all three categories HP provided VASTLY better environments for their workers. By merging with Compaq, Carly was able to adopt the Compaq HR policies combined with HP's flatter structure, resulting in MILLIONS of dollars saved. Every Year. Forever.
the results? Predictable: massive layoffs to cut the labour force to the bone, massive outsourcing to reduce labour costs, and those who were lont term HP employees found their vacation time cut, some as much as 30%, and that they wree now at the top of their pay curve, meaning they would probably never see another raise in their career. combine that with decreased health benefits, and the result is a leaner cheaper workforce.
However, this comes at a cost. There was a time when people at HP really cared about the place. No one I know at HP gives a flying fuck about it anymore. They all know they are on a slowly sinking ship, and they're just riding it out as long as they can - HP probably has another 5 or so years left. Then its will be dismembered, and sell off chunks of itself in order to survive.
The computer division will get bought by Dell or IBM, the imaging division might carry on for a while longer. Eventually it too will be absorbed, probably by someone like Canon (who makes a bunch of their engines, anyway) But, basically: you're correct: they're fucked. completely fucked.
RS
What about lesser but equally wonderful things, like the fact that Macromedia basically SHELVED several programs (such as Fontgrapher) and never sold the the code for someone else to bring into the world of OSX, OpenType, and complete Unicode?
HMmmmmmm?
How many other wonderful apps coulda been contenders except for the second most common resource in the universe: corporate myopia?
TELL ME? What do I HEAR?
(someone shouts from another room: "Hey dude- that's like metaphysically absurd! How can I know what you hear?")
Ridiculed, ignored and abandoned? BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
SOUNDS LIKE MY LIFE!!!!
Let's hear it for AMERICA.
(strike the trumpets, Fred)
The end is near, the sad pathetic end is near, not from political excursion, not from military misapprehension, not from religious stories (always stories, never theories - must be an appeal from the limbic system) but from our own self apprehension.
This is a turning point - either the final emancipation from fiction or we die frozen in caves in 1,000,000 years.
Applying binary logic to a system that is non-linear will give stochastic results. This was proven in the late Devouring Period when fish became obnoxious. Known as Chump's law, it dictates that it is always better to do than not do because in doing you have a chance of getting it right, but not acting guarantees failure.
Is that a call for insurrection or room service?
But only on Tuesdays, in November and Image-nation. Snow is vague, and so is Tuesday: living proof that MICROSOFT Bob and tinfoil share a certain few characteristics : continuous attraction of complete amnesia -but as Marker said, memory is not the opposite of forgetting, but its lining.
Remember the Colorado Mining strikes? Women and kids mowed down so you could have an 8 hour day, which you cheerfully surrender for some chimeral gold?
vive la corkscrew!
I've been weeping, jobless, broke and hopeless, loking for the next big thing or an easier deal. This all defines us, and it makes us stronger - the space between the desperate and the disinterested - the failure of both in imagination and scope. But don't feel bad - it was what it was. (REMEMBER AMERICAN CULTURE? Nooo. REALLY?)
RS
Oh, that's right - that would be directly peddling a highly addictive and extremely toxic drug (nicotine). As if selling cigarettes isn't...
Gaaah. Pathetic. The lot of them.
RS
I also believe that Titan holds a much better chance of containing some kind of life than Mars.
Well, not until they botrh warm u pa bit. And Titan is WAY cold.
I think that MArs has a better chance than Titan. If Titan is like Earth, then its Earth before they discovered central heating.
RS
Someone else do the math - I'm tired...
RS
My neighbourhood (Midtown Terrace) is one of those challenges. It's *extremely*hilly, and TV / Radio reception is zilch thanks to Sutro tower. One would think that living unter a TV tower would give me great reception, but, well... it doesn't work that way. My wife's car opener doesn't even work because of all the RF fro mthe damn thing. So, be tween the hills and the RF from Sutro- we're fucked. We don't even get cable TV, because the cable just act as a huge antennae for Sutro. It's a fucking mess.
On top of all that, we're really far fro mthe nearest phone building, so the only DSL we get is 384. You'd think that living literally in the middle of SF, we'd be inundated with techno gizmos, but, no.
I *DO* hope that they find a way to make this work. Although, I had to build weird faraday cages around my living room and wrap my speaker wire in lead to keep my stereo from buzzing...
RS
If you go to get work done on your car, it is perfectly aceptable to use dealer parts, or any of a number of aftermarket vendors. The specs for the parts arent kept secret, and any vendor has the opportunity to make a suitable part.
Cars are not software. Software is a tool.
Example: I sometimes do calligraphy (of all analogue outdated things to do) and I can assure you that in certain times, a speedball nib *just won't do*, and my clients expect as much. If they're expecting extremely sharp edges at small sizes I had damn well better be using a (FLASH FLASH BRAND NAME ALERT) Brause nib because Speedball SUCKS ASS in small sizes. SURE: technically I could use one, if I wanted to spend all fucking day wasting a ton of paper on some sputtering piece of crap. At super small sizes I have only found Brause to be worth a damn. Mitchell's can be very good, but there's something about Brause that I find is dead on perfect at tiny sizes.
Now, if I need a stroke that's a centimeter wide, then I'm not going to bother with Brause or Mitchell - I'll use my Speedball steel brushes, becasue they are quite adequate at that size, and much less prone to stick and make a mess. I COULD use razor-like Brause nibs, but it would suck and the client would be Very Mad.
You're (clearly) a FOSS zealot. FOSS has its place, but it's not universal, especially when people need specific things done on deadline and absolute compatibility must be guaranteed, no ifs ands or buts.
At that point, you need everyone singing in tune.
You're trying to shoehorn in an agenda completely alien to Ballmer's argument. I was simply pointing at the actual errors in his argument. My refutation complies with Occam's Razor, yours does not, as yours is insisting on a completely different model, which is totally unnecessary to refute his argument. I refuted Ballmer very exactly, and demonstrated the falsehood in his argument, and how it doesn't apply to anything today or in the forseeable future.
you can toot your FOSS horn all you want, and that's your perogative, but you should know that your argument is cumbersome and unnecessary.
RS
Have you ever heard of development costs? The software you use cost a TON of money to develop, and has a relatively small customer base compared to the hardware it runs on. Remember, all the web surfers in the world will be using the same type of hardware you're using, while a select few people actually NEED the software you're using. So, sure the software is expensive. The point is, that software is the real tool. The hardware is the platform.
I completely agree with you. I wasn't *complaining about the high cost of software* - I was criticising Ballmer's idiotic notion that if computers cost $100 there would be less software piracy, by demonstrating that software is usually the most expensive part of a given computer system.
If you're running all that software on one $1000 computer, then I pity your customers for your productivity.
Actually I use several computers. the cheapest one cost me $1300 and the most expensive was $3000. Note: I said:
This is not a point of practicality, just a point of economics.
I would never run all that software on a $500 or $1000 computer. THAT would suck. I was simply
USING THE STRUCTURE OF BALLMER'S ARGUMENT AGAINST ITSELF
So, please, before you post something, think twice: once would be an improvement.
RS
Re:Ballmer's WRONG, hardware is cheap. Numbers her (Score:1) by The Cisco Kid (31490) on Thursday October 21, @03:14PM (#10590868) While you got the main point right, you make a perfect example of another thing that is absolutely ludicrous. Let me illustrate with a comparison I need to work on my car, I need A Craftsman Philips screwdriver A Craftsman Flat screwdriver A Snap-On battery drill... .. etc.
Do I really need the *specific* brand of tools I list? No. Why should it be any less ludicrous to specify a *specific* brand of software? A phillips screwdriver, any brand, can turn a phillips screw, any brand - there is only one reason that a given 'photo editing package' (for example), *ANY BRAND* cant work on photos produced by a different brand of photo editing software, and that is that it was *intentionally* made to use a proprietary format to prevent standards and compatibility.
You're completely wrong. When a client wants a Flash animation, it has to be a flash animation, and flash makes Flash animations.
When a printer expects a Quark Xpress 4.x file, you have to send them a Quark Xpress 4.x file - no ifs ands or buts about it.
When a program I'm using requires a Photoshop psd file and it's internal layering configuration in CMYK, GIMP isn't going to do the job, period.
The list goes on and on. When I'm called in to do audio mixing, it's usually done in ProTools. If I have to take files home, it is easier to take them home and work on them in ProTools. Period.
The only program I regularly "cheat on" is Illustrator, because I think it's a piece of shit, and I'd rather use FreeHand and then export from FreeHand as an Illustrator file. Too bad Macromedia has basically killed FreeHand - it's still better than AI, but that's a nother discussion.
When a client is PAYING ME to deliver in a specific program, I had better use the program. When I go to work on site, I have to know that program, and not its Free/OSS analogue. It's what I get paid to do.
Now if you want to dork around with analogical software on your own time - fine. But that's not how the professional world operates.
RS
Now, let's see: I want to get MY work done.
My clients are in video, audio, web, and print. I need:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator
Macromedia FreeHand (because I like to work in it better than Illustrator)
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Quark Xpress (for cranky or fussy printers who are still runnning Quark 4 on OS9 or 2000)
Macromedia Fireworks
Macromedia Flash
Ableton Live (for music development)
Adobe Audition (for Windows based destructive editing)
Propellorheads Reason (for composition)
AVID DV Express, Pro edition (for video)
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere (because it comes with the Video Bundle)
And, of course, MS Office
TOTAL COST OF SOFTWARE?
Assuming I buy most of it in Bundles (Adobe Creative Suite, MM MX suite, etc.) I come out to a rough number of:
$7700
At that point, a $1000 computer is one of THE LEAST of my expenses. When you bring in a DV camera, a decent audio ADC, Firewire RAIDs, scanners, printers, and similar crucial items, a $1000 computer becomes even less of a cost to the total operation. A $500 computer becomes insignificant - heck - it's almost impossible to find a decent multichannel audio ADC for less than $600.
Ballmer is COMPLETELY wrong, or, more likely: HE'S LYING. SOFTWARE is the expensive item, followed by peripherals. The last item is the computer. The expensive part of the computer is not in its cost, but in configuring it to one's needs, which takes time (which is extremely expensive) software (which isn't cheap) and peripherals (which can be cheap or extremely expensive).
RS
RS
I was BEGGING SBC to get DSL to my house since 1999. I live (literally) in the middle of San Francisco, and they refused to hook me up. "Too far".
Finally, about 2 years ago they got our neighbourhood wired up with DSL, but the fastest I can get is 384. (I live in a weird little neighbourhood just west of Twin Peaks. I have to drive just to get a cup of coffee.)
And now they say they're going to be putting HD over IP? If my previous experience is any indication, I'll be getting MP4 from them at a reduced framerate around 2012...
RS
Ah, so that's it -- you're one of those frightened bio-chauvinists who's comforted by the idea that the current human condition is necessary (and desirable) for sentience; that our wetware brains can't be transfered to more efficient self-modifiable substrates because of consciousness depending on spooky quantum effects.
Nonsense. Sentience is an illusion produced by the brain. Read Ramachandran, and don't make such specious strawman arguments.
RS
1. great statements require great proof.
2. predictions should follow patterns of substructure
He offers no proof - he simply says : look what's happened so far, by (x) date (which will likely be after I'm dead) the world will be SO different and it will be like (THIS).
His claims of AI are floundering on simple facts like Intel scrapping 4gHz chips and any number of other signs that Moore's Law, on which Kurzweil's argument rests, is being scrapped as we speak.
another example: stick a blank floppy in your fancy pants XP machine and start the computer up. Computers are SO far from being "intelligent" in even the most rudimentary way, it's absurd. The basic flaw in Kurzweil's notions are that he believes that intelligence is a disembodied effect, when (if the likes of Ramachandran are correct) intelligence is an embodied effect and specifically dependent on wetware. So, the pattern doesn't hold, and he has no real proof. He's selling snake oil to technodweebs.
Then there's the entire issue of social class, and Kurzweil has no interest in serving the greater masses of humanity. He is interested in pushing a technological vanguard that will be open only to the rich, who, once properly enabled/enhanced with have no need or desire to accomodate a working class. Why bring on board the middle classes, when you can replace them all with machines? And if you think this doesn't mean you, you're an idiot.
But beyond all that his fantasy is just that: a fantasy.Technology is a means, not an end in itself, and the likes of Kurzweil seek to put the managers of technology in a position of power above and beyond democratic principles, and for that he and his ilk must be opposed and revealed for what they are: techno-fascists.
Now, for full disclosure: I do think we need a robust space program, I do think we need faster and better computers, I do think we can and should use technology to solve the world's ills where technology is a legitimate solution. I *even agree* that we can make humans more disease resistant and longer lived, and I also believe that that is a good thing. However:
I do not see technology as Kurzweil does: in some kind of Messianic Eschatology. It's not like that, and I feel that he and his ilk are perpetrating a fraud on the public, but mostly on the people they advocate the most: technologists. I think the Really Hard Nut To Crack is not going to be technological, but sociological and political.
Jaron Lanier wrote an interesting opposition paper that also opposes Kurzweil, but in more polite language than myself. I guess Lanier doesn't consider Kurzweil to be the charlatan I see him as.
RS
I've done this several times. I go over a friends house, with two other interested people. We all have Macintosh computers. We all have Firewire Drives. At around 1 in the afternoon we start drinkin' ourselves stupid and plugging our drives into each other's laptops or desktop (depending). Then we go through the drive, copying files over to our own drive as we see fit.
Net result?
I have 85 gigs of music on my 120 gig drive.
Now, it's much more "site specific" - I'm not "open to the public" but I know my friends have remarkable taste in music and we get to recommend music to each other.
If I like something, I go to the record store AND I BUY THE CD. (sometimes I buy it used, sometimes new, depending on how I feel and the depth of my pocket and the obscurity of the music)
Why? It's not because I'm feeling guilty - I just know that the CD will likely outlast the hard drive, and it's just good sound back up policy.
Of course, to rip all my CDs over would take a few months of dedicated part time effort, but that's fine. It's still good to have the back up, JIC.
But the droids blinkered by intel FUD put their fingers in their ears sang "lalalalala" and barked "NO - faster clock speed is a FASTER CHIP!!!"
Now, suddenly: oOooooo - cycles per second isn't as important!
Oh well. It will certainly be very interesting to see what Intel does over the next few years.
Here's an interesting question, related to this topic:
Assuming they go multicore (like IBM and Power[x] chips) what are the limits involved there? What would logically stop the development of multicore chips from increasing their number of cores?
And: What next?
RS
Fine. So, you build a nuke - not even a very good or small one - and wrap it in a foot of solid lead. Then put it inside something plausible, like the back half of a container, and then put a shipment of fish weights in front of it.
The container ship saunters into NY harbour and KABLOOEY!!!!
You don't even have to wait for it to dock. As long as it's within a few miles, you've just evaporated hundreds of thousands of people.
This thing is just another example of the American Empire's paranoia and willingness to blow billions of dollars on a technical solution to a problem that is fundamentally social (dependence on third world resource and a willingness to squander said resources), political (as the empire supports hideous regimes that provide said resources, viz the Middle East, Africa, etc), and ideological (as the empire is no longer concerned with being loved, as simply being feared will suffice).
The blimp idea is a waste of time, and it would be much better if we spent the money on ways to eliminate our petroleum addiction, get people into the valueing our resources instead of consuming them, and worked at really helping the peasants and working classes around the world instead of the ruling classes that exploit them.
RS
I'm a big fan of Fireball XL5, Thuderbirds, Stingray, Capt. Scarlet, Supercar, etc. so the marionette aspect totally worked for me.
My only problem with the movie was seen as a strength in the review, where he said:
The movie could very easily get mired down in preaching a point. But thankfully it never really does that. It simultaneously makes fun of liberal hollywood actors, and the rah rah 'Go America' right wing stereotype.
The problem is, I see our political system in a greater crisis than simpletons like the makers of this movie. Their whole political consciousness is like "there are dicks and assholes, and we need the dicks because of the assholes." Which, of course, is errant nonsense. True we need "cops" to put "bad guys" behind bars, but invading other countries on lies, stripping away civil liberties, and skewing the tax code to favour the welathy and bankrupt the treasury is not excusable.
So, by playing both sides, all they do is come down on the side of the Powers That Be, who, at this time are corrupt, murderous plutocrats who are (as Bush stated some time ago, but not in so many words) bent on a unipolar global hegemony.
So, I found the politics offensive, but no more so than any other typical hollywood crapola film. And it is *extremely* funny, so I would give it a B-. DEFINITELY worth seeing, but to be soon forgotten due to the cluelessness of the poltical stance of the makers.
RS
Stuff like KRGKGE.com or 3495ww43.com, etc.
Once the site is up and functioning, I contact a "citizen" in China, who reports the site to the authorities. We split the difference. I keep him fed with pr0n sites, and he sends me money for "finding" them.
Stupid fucking commie bastards. I could set up 50 sites a day. At $125 per, that's a nice piece of green...
RS
RS
Sometimes, I feel like I'm in the bloo bloo world: the world that looks Just Like The Real World, but somehow, I'm not in it. I think the transition started with the hoax of an election that put the Bush junta in office, was nailed down when those assholes flew into the WTC, and the door was shut and locked when Bush went into Iraq.
It's like every little bit of news that's coming up just seems completely fraught with evil Evil EVIL, and now the freakin Germans are going to tax their people for owning a damn computer hooked to the Net, just 'cuz.
It's fucking bullshit, and I feel like it's just more evidence for the world having gone off the rails and into the weeds.
I am hoping that someday soon, I will wake up and things will be better - Bush will be retired to his ranch, the US will renounce Empire, the Germans will let their people buy a damn computer and hook it up to the net to read email, and we'll all be at least trying to act like we get along together.
Is it so much to ask?
RS
That's fair enough. I was a bit hasty and inaccurate. However, I think it's important to counter the parent's notion that melodrama and fantasy are requisite features of good literature.
RS
Utter rubbish. There are many many novels of extra-ordinary importance that have nothing to do with fantasy or melodrama. The parent is describing a certain middle to low brow sense of literature. People write and read stories for a multitude of reasons, and to say that books missing the aforementioned elements equate with reading the newspaper, just goes to show the parent's reduced sense of human existence and imagination as to what literature can be and do.
Also, the book he describes sounds terrible. I'll wait for the movie to come out and snag a torrent of it in a few years.
RS