I'm not either, but I'm also not naive enough to think American owned multinationals won't have global policies that include this sort of thing. If I apply for a job at at (for argument sake) Microsoft New Zealand, I'd expect my name to run through and added to their list of known people. If this list is correlated with a terrorist database, odds are my name will be added as a non-US citizen who is deemed a non-threat. Fine you say, but now I'm on the list, I get cross-checked every time I import/export via the US, go travelling, and chat with friends in the Middle East. No sir, I don't like it.
[As to the alledged criminal, they could invite them to the US and arrest them there.]
I guess this now means he can not travel to the US without getting arrested at the borders. But I wonder if the US has ties with other countries with more "sharing" extradition deals? Can he safely go to Canada for example?
I understand why some folks see Samba as important for market penetration. What I'm implying is that Linux may have reached the stage where it doesn't have to be a "drop in replacement" to gain acceptance. That if an OSS server has benefits then users/customers may be ready to change the worstation's network interface, instead of making the server march to the MS drum.
but good luck on most campuses. The "student interface" is often some hell desk staffed by a bitter MSCE who couldn't get a real job after studying on same campus. If you can get OO.o past that to someone with some authority, I applaud you.
It might not be so bad. Even if Samba is toast (which would suck largely), perhaps those who have invest heavily in Linux infrastructure will promote development of a free Windows network protocol that can work effectively with CUPS, NFS, and LDAP. I've often thought that making Linux servers bend over for Windows clients as backwards. Hell, lets see what Novell can bring to the party with their years of similar work with Netware. Even if Samba has been shut out in the EU, Linux has not.
I get your point, but what I mean is, If I don't want supply from company X, I can reroute my connection to company Y. Or if I've got a wind tubine in my back yard and am away on holiday, I can route my surplus electricy to my brother across town. I know there's loadings and things to consider, but you get the idea. Some of that is kind of possible already, but it's a bit of a farce - basically you send your money to different companies for the same service over the same lines from the same generators. I want to be able to choose for my electricy comes from a hydro plant and not a coal plant for example.
If releasing the full Windows APIs is part of the deal, it should be possible to provide a Mozilla based DLL to replace the IE one. Ditto Opera and others. If enough functionality is released to allow WindowsUpdate to work, any browser war will be formally over.
I think it's also about decentralising the networks. Sure my electricity can be rerouted, but not by me. Electricity supply and distribution is still an "old boys" game, and I don't think they'll give up that power without much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
What if they sold it as such, said it was dangerous and pushing the limits of what we can achieve? And what if the rover guys found a confirmed fossile? (as confirmed as it can be, remotely) and the Govt would be able to say, well, we've got to get our boys there and find out for sure. It might not work out, but it beats waiting 20 years and letting the Chinese do it first. Then, if it doesn't work out, we look at it, find the failure, and try again. Hell, make it a US lead International project to try to rebuild some of the goodwill lost over Iraq. I'm sure the ESA or others would be keen get men to Mars too.
Re:Windows?
on
Gimp Hits 2.0
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You nailed it with "I can tell you that when your customer is an artist, quite often it absolutely is more important how something looks than what it does". While I agree with the sentiment of targeting your audience with an appropriate design, they aren't my "customer" - I am.
These artists who are moaning about The Gimp are complaining about a free app they won't invest the time to learn. If they were paying me a few hundred dollars then fine, I'll worry about it and bust a nut trying to make it aesthetically pleasing for them. But they're not, so I'll make it functional to get the job done. If it's too ugly, these graphic artists are more than welcome to whip up a screen shot or concept of what they actually want. Maybe then some clueless programming like me can provide something that has both the functionality and mad stylz to keep everyone happy. Unfortunately, most of them seem more interested in prima-donna bitchings about how nasty and un-Photoshop-like The Gimp's UI is. I've heard similar moans when faced with PhotoPaint, PaintShop Pro and Photogenics too.
I should also point out that some of The Gimp users (and developers) are rather well respected graphic artists in their own right and produce some very nice artwork indeed, some of which lands in open source projects. The UI not withstanding.
I use ecode tags because I'm such a fucking artist that I even care about how cool my text looks on Slashdot. Unfortunately, I'm not too bright so I'm still pasting into MSPaint on Windows to get my screenshots, instead of the Gnome Screenshot tool on Linux and saving directly to file. I secretly wish I was smart enough to learn The Gimp, but instead I'll just diss it. I also think that the way software looks is more important than what it does, so I'll keep using Photoshop for my fairly basic artwork - which takes some time, because I'm rather slow and because my Windows machine keeps crashing when I'm working on a big image.
How about insightful? I'm not a big fan of our Police roading enforcement right now, but that aside, NZ is actually making laws that reflect the reality of the people. Prostitution ain't flash, but it's real, and legalising it means the girls get the same workers rights as anyone else. CD ripping is common place, and is considered "fair use" in the eyes of all outside the music sales industry boardrooms. These laws reflect the people's view, not some corporation's greed. I guess that's why it's news here on US based Slashdot.
A couple of years from now, all the RHCEs will be bummed because the latest OpenBEOS certification will be the new hotness... More serously though, certifications such as these are just another product for OS vendors to sell.
Remember the Matrix, when Keanu says "I know Kung Fu"? It's like that, only with Java. It doesn't mean you can puddle your way through a toy app, it means you make the language your bitch. It does what you want, when you want it, how you want it. Maybe you don't remember all the classes and their methods, but you know the common ones, and you can find the rest from the API in a flash.
Programming *shouldn't* be an art! Not if you're being paid to do it. The last thing I want on my projects is individual programmers getting creative. All that unmanaged creativity does is screw up the design we've spent hundreds of man-hours writing the spec for, testing the requirements of, and documenting in painful detail.
"Monkey work" is the bread and butter that makes real applications happen. "Monkey work" is what we need to keep large projects managable. "Monkey work" is what can turn software development from a craft into engineering. If the design is good then it works damn well.
I wonder how that works on the 'net? If they missed out on 20,000 hits on a 2 MB video, does that mean Slashdot would have to stream 40 GB of their video ad data to/dev/null?
Uh, maybe it's your reality, but not everybody's. If you've written a site that *needs* functionality that you only know how to support in IE, you've written it wrong. Plain and simple.
But from the evidence gathered so far, it doesn't look like an error; it looks like a shortsighted attempt by the publisher to control how its content is distributed.
Not quite. I'd say it looks like a shortsighted attempt by the publisher to rewrite copyright laws. I'm sure they think they are in the right, but they're not. I also think LT should sue them for libel, for inferring that they are in breach of some imaginary content redistribution authorization. If you didn't know better about copyright laws, it wouldn't be good for LT's reputation.
Slashdot Mirror
So... 10 years from now, unemployed == terrorist?
Thank god I am not in the land of the free!
I'm not either, but I'm also not naive enough to think American owned multinationals won't have global policies that include this sort of thing. If I apply for a job at at (for argument sake) Microsoft New Zealand, I'd expect my name to run through and added to their list of known people. If this list is correlated with a terrorist database, odds are my name will be added as a non-US citizen who is deemed a non-threat. Fine you say, but now I'm on the list, I get cross-checked every time I import/export via the US, go travelling, and chat with friends in the Middle East. No sir, I don't like it.[As to the alledged criminal, they could invite them to the US and arrest them there.]
I guess this now means he can not travel to the US without getting arrested at the borders. But I wonder if the US has ties with other countries with more "sharing" extradition deals? Can he safely go to Canada for example?
I understand why some folks see Samba as important for market penetration. What I'm implying is that Linux may have reached the stage where it doesn't have to be a "drop in replacement" to gain acceptance. That if an OSS server has benefits then users/customers may be ready to change the worstation's network interface, instead of making the server march to the MS drum.
but good luck on most campuses. The "student interface" is often some hell desk staffed by a bitter MSCE who couldn't get a real job after studying on same campus. If you can get OO.o past that to someone with some authority, I applaud you.
It might not be so bad. Even if Samba is toast (which would suck largely), perhaps those who have invest heavily in Linux infrastructure will promote development of a free Windows network protocol that can work effectively with CUPS, NFS, and LDAP. I've often thought that making Linux servers bend over for Windows clients as backwards. Hell, lets see what Novell can bring to the party with their years of similar work with Netware. Even if Samba has been shut out in the EU, Linux has not.
Because Geeks can't snowboard.
Damn, they kept that quiet...
I get your point, but what I mean is, If I don't want supply from company X, I can reroute my connection to company Y. Or if I've got a wind tubine in my back yard and am away on holiday, I can route my surplus electricy to my brother across town. I know there's loadings and things to consider, but you get the idea. Some of that is kind of possible already, but it's a bit of a farce - basically you send your money to different companies for the same service over the same lines from the same generators. I want to be able to choose for my electricy comes from a hydro plant and not a coal plant for example.
If releasing the full Windows APIs is part of the deal, it should be possible to provide a Mozilla based DLL to replace the IE one. Ditto Opera and others. If enough functionality is released to allow WindowsUpdate to work, any browser war will be formally over.
That's all the WINE project really needs.
I think it's also about decentralising the networks. Sure my electricity can be rerouted, but not by me. Electricity supply and distribution is still an "old boys" game, and I don't think they'll give up that power without much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
What if they sold it as such, said it was dangerous and pushing the limits of what we can achieve? And what if the rover guys found a confirmed fossile? (as confirmed as it can be, remotely) and the Govt would be able to say, well, we've got to get our boys there and find out for sure. It might not work out, but it beats waiting 20 years and letting the Chinese do it first. Then, if it doesn't work out, we look at it, find the failure, and try again. Hell, make it a US lead International project to try to rebuild some of the goodwill lost over Iraq. I'm sure the ESA or others would be keen get men to Mars too.
You nailed it with "I can tell you that when your customer is an artist, quite often it absolutely is more important how something looks than what it does". While I agree with the sentiment of targeting your audience with an appropriate design, they aren't my "customer" - I am.
These artists who are moaning about The Gimp are complaining about a free app they won't invest the time to learn. If they were paying me a few hundred dollars then fine, I'll worry about it and bust a nut trying to make it aesthetically pleasing for them. But they're not, so I'll make it functional to get the job done. If it's too ugly, these graphic artists are more than welcome to whip up a screen shot or concept of what they actually want. Maybe then some clueless programming like me can provide something that has both the functionality and mad stylz to keep everyone happy. Unfortunately, most of them seem more interested in prima-donna bitchings about how nasty and un-Photoshop-like The Gimp's UI is. I've heard similar moans when faced with PhotoPaint, PaintShop Pro and Photogenics too.
I should also point out that some of The Gimp users (and developers) are rather well respected graphic artists in their own right and produce some very nice artwork indeed, some of which lands in open source projects. The UI not withstanding.
Even though they only get a tiny fraction of the population, they hope that this will scare everyone individually.
Right on. Does this mean it's OK to take out RIAA execs with helicopter mounted missles now?
How about insightful? I'm not a big fan of our Police roading enforcement right now, but that aside, NZ is actually making laws that reflect the reality of the people. Prostitution ain't flash, but it's real, and legalising it means the girls get the same workers rights as anyone else. CD ripping is common place, and is considered "fair use" in the eyes of all outside the music sales industry boardrooms. These laws reflect the people's view, not some corporation's greed. I guess that's why it's news here on US based Slashdot.
A couple of years from now, all the RHCEs will be bummed because the latest OpenBEOS certification will be the new hotness... More serously though, certifications such as these are just another product for OS vendors to sell.
Remember the Matrix, when Keanu says "I know Kung Fu"? It's like that, only with Java. It doesn't mean you can puddle your way through a toy app, it means you make the language your bitch. It does what you want, when you want it, how you want it. Maybe you don't remember all the classes and their methods, but you know the common ones, and you can find the rest from the API in a flash.
Programming *shouldn't* be an art! Not if you're being paid to do it. The last thing I want on my projects is individual programmers getting creative. All that unmanaged creativity does is screw up the design we've spent hundreds of man-hours writing the spec for, testing the requirements of, and documenting in painful detail.
"Monkey work" is the bread and butter that makes real applications happen. "Monkey work" is what we need to keep large projects managable. "Monkey work" is what can turn software development from a craft into engineering. If the design is good then it works damn well.
/rant over
I wonder how that works on the 'net? If they missed out on 20,000 hits on a 2 MB video, does that mean Slashdot would have to stream 40 GB of their video ad data to /dev/null?
The only problem is that it makes me want to go into space... well, more than I did already...
The time when we need in excess of 640 GB or RAM will be closer than you think. I give it 5 years absolute tops. Probably less.
Uh, maybe it's your reality, but not everybody's. If you've written a site that *needs* functionality that you only know how to support in IE, you've written it wrong. Plain and simple.
But from the evidence gathered so far, it doesn't look like an error; it looks like a shortsighted attempt by the publisher to control how its content is distributed.
Not quite. I'd say it looks like a shortsighted attempt by the publisher to rewrite copyright laws. I'm sure they think they are in the right, but they're not. I also think LT should sue them for libel, for inferring that they are in breach of some imaginary content redistribution authorization. If you didn't know better about copyright laws, it wouldn't be good for LT's reputation.