I do a fair bit of work in live theatre and I have often considered making a movie of the shows we do. However I am held back by the exact opposite problem - I have access to some very good actors, lighting designers, makeup people and costume makers but only a very limit access to the things that modern film needs, decent editing software for a beginner, special effects skills and raw talent when it comes to holding a camera.
It is a shame really that sometimes Live Theatre people refuse to see Motion Pictures as quality theatre and vice versa.
That is why my hat is always off to Peter Jackson. He just seemed to bridge the gaps by surrounding himself with what was best for the film - not for the box-office or having the right product-placed stars or the hippest soundtrack etc. PJ seemed to want to make a world not just a movie.
Good luck to the independant Star Wars crew!
I'm sorry.. but doesn't he do it in the exact reverse.. if the older movies don't agree with his current "work of art" he wiggles the rest of the movies to match.
I had to do the same thing flyng from Australia to Toronto about 7 years ago. It seemed like a fairly standard document. I also had to specify if I intended to visit any farms or travel to rural localities. At the time the answer given to me was that if they had to contact me (eg. the Australian Govt) they had a number or name to at least start to get a message out.
This is about getting backyard whitebox builders who install winXP on the machine to "test" it and then accidently give it to the buyer before deleting it so they can shave a few hundred off the price while still giving them a WinXP installed machine. It's a very common practice here in Sydney, Australia.
What stinks about this scheme is that first of all most people that buy from the corner shop guys are not mum and pop (they tend to buy from the larger retail stores), they are the semi computer savvy people and small business owners that need computers a the cheapest prices and probably know very well that they aren't getting a fully licensed version but don't really care. However now that MS are going to reward them with a legit copy and give them a golden handshake - the people that are going to cop it are the PC sellers who (while they should have known better anyway) have probably done the thing on the buyers request anyhow.
Even more scary is if you've built a system for a family member and they think they are doing the right thing by getting a legit copy may implicate you without purposely meaning to but they are trying to get something for nothing.
Another thing, to drive the local competition out of business go buy a few machines from them with a pirated version and then graciously line up for your free legit copies then drop their names and then profit.
"'It's pretty difficult to respond to this. He's so out of touch,' said Phipps. 'To even begin one must first address the error in his world view: He has taken quotes given by Scott McNealy to analysts and attacked them as if they were spoken to the Open Source community."
I don't understand this.. does this mean we are only to listen to statements from Sun that are addressed to us and ignore, or have no right to comment on those that are spoken to other industries?
"This article discusses the dangers posed by a very successful Mono project."
Must be using a different definition of discuss. I didn't actually see any discussion in the article. More like ponderings.
Wouldn't be in the OSS spirit to wish success on anyone now would it?
Would have been interesting if they looked at other possible outcomes - the bleak armageddon ones that the author favours as well as the more cheery ones.
My AUD two cents worth is that it'll be like Java has been.. another tool in the belt, but not critical to anything Linux. Afterall, what assurance have we got that Sun won't do something similar with Java? And yet the penguin will keep evolving.
When I started using dual displays, it was initially out of curiosity to see it work, then when I started getting used to it and ironed out some of the irritations (windows popping up between the monitors on the seam) I loved it.
After several months several of the other developers also went 17 and 15 inchers. When management talked about moving to 17 inch LCD's not a single developer requested one if it meant getting rid of their dual setup.
Since then I have moved my home setup to linux, I splashed out and got myself two LCD monitors.. I am still finding Xinerama on the challenging side - I can get it working, Mandrake did it alot easier than Redhat, but there are still some issues that persist.
Yes, if Linux becomes popular enough for virus authors to target it, we'll see a round of trojans using root exploits - But unlike Windows exploits, very few of these exist to start with, and they will (and do) get fixed within a few hours of discovery.
This is exactly the over confidence that fills me with fear when dealing with some linux users. There is no denying that windows has placed security at the bottom of the heap for too long. I personally think (as other posts have said) that Windows needs a rewrite with security foremost in mind and until that day we are going to have constant doubts over windows despite the spin-doctoring from Redmond.
In the meantime - I won't deny the speed at which opensource can have fixes and patches ready for closing holes, this is fantastic, this is the reason why I don't run Windows at home. BUT, lets assume that you are completely correct, lets push it even harder - lets say that OSS is so good that it can fix the holes even before the exploit is found, we are still only half way there.
The big problem with windows is that there are so many boxes out there that run it unmaintained and completely open and unpatched. When linux gets this kind of treatment from the "unpatched masses" (and it will eventually get up there) you can sure as hell bet that the number of live viruses will grow very rapidly. Even if as we have said the patch comes out before the exploit, what mechanism is in place to then patch every box connected to the net? If Microsoft in all their monetary power, and with all their clout with PR and their ability at getting the "average joe" believing what MS says can't get people to simply maintain their box with a few simple clicks then what is the OSS community going to do in place of this?
Apps/systems like urpmi, apt, up2date and portage etc are fantastic - I love em - but they don't don't guarantee that I'll even run them once a month let alone patch an insecure system daily. Added to this, is that the average user won't necessarily even keep up to date with the actual issues, let alone the specifics.
The very fact that Unix-like OSs have a concept of a "root" account (which the Windows "equivalent", "administrator", does not even come CLOSE to matching in terms of actual separation of permissions), makes it all but invincible to virii.
I have no idea what you have to back this up with, but if you want to live in your "invicible to virii" world, then you're entitled to, I won't be hiring you to look after any of my systems. It strikes me rather like the "this cool screen saver email can't be a virus because it's from my best friend" issue.
*IF* a user runs their account as root (as I'm sure some of the ever increasing linux users may be doing) then shit creek here we come - all the posturing about the unix root permission system being what it is doesn't mean a thing.
The premise of the original article may be based on sound principles, such as superior design and focus on security will make better and more secure systems, but with popularity and large install bases comes users that will inadvertantly work against the design in order to better facilitate their own uses/abuses. Simply put, we won't know what the impact will be until we get there. If in a university where 500 students on unix can manage to use trojans and other techniques to screw with each others accounts and counter security (AND should know better), then I can't help but fear when 50 million people that don't know better get their hands on the same platform.
I understand completely the importance of writing without distractions. As a playwright and a poet I spent my fair share of time in text editors.
One thing I just don't understand is what all these "distractions" from word/openoffice are? I mean are they really so overwhelmed by choice of buttons to press?
So far alot of people just want the basics - put text on the page. I can understand that. Writing plays however does require some formatting, it's not the blocks of text for articles and novels. Specific formatting represents definite areas of interest - dialogue, stage instructions, scene changes and transitions etc. Different people are reading the script for different reasons.
There are several excellent stage/screen play tools out there but none of them are free. I have half considered trying to write one OSS.
I spent 25 minutes writing a template and style for Word, turn off all the toolbars (that's part of the template automatically), added some drop down menus of commonly used terms and instructions and created a floating toolbar of character names for quick dialogue insertion.
After that I type.
There are some important points to remember though.
1) Plays rarely go for more than 100 pages (I wouldn't use Word for large docs - I've tried with much stress).
2) I wouldn't use Word where there is significant diagramming (such as tech docs).
3) I still don't believe that its ready for so called "collaborative" editing, although it is improving and still well ahead of some other document processors.
The moaning about distractions seems pretty tiny to me when you can turn them off (and keep them off) so easily.
As someone that is active in theatre, this technology would be amazing for set design. Imagine backdrops and cyc's that changed without having to rig projectors or layers of roller cloth?
I've been biting my lip because I think windows vs linux rants are a waste of time but here is my contribution to the big dump.
When I was at Uni, we used unix (Solaris in fact). There may have been windows boxes somewhere in the faculty, but I don't think anyone touched them. Even in our first year we were writing trojans and hacks to try to steal each others passwords and write silly titled files in the system directories. It was sport. If someone annoyed me I'd know how to bring their machine down. In fact I brought one of the undergrad servers down - it's not special, it was stupid, but it happened regularly as we were all really learning about the system.
The point is that if a person is motivated to do something they will probably find a way to do it. Motivation is the key. Previous posts have mentioned the "cool" factor in bringing down MS, I think that is undeniable.
Before anyone says "But your Uni system wasn't secured properly" to that I say "exactly" - I am sick and tired of people talking as if security is something tangible that it's something you have or your don't - depending entirely on the OS. Security is a process, it's a matter of discipline and habit. A poorly admin'd box is a security risk no matter what OS runs it.
Another thing that I have witnessed in the business world is that you get the savvy Lunix Guru walking into a network or admin role and be "too good for it" and while they can tune a linux box to perfection, they don't give a rats arse about learning more about the windows boxes. Soon as there is something wrong with the windows box the reply is always "It's a microsoft product what do you expect?" to that my reply is "I expect you to do your job". I dispise the mentality that a IT person is allied to a platform and not to the best tool for the job. It cuts both ways, for every linux nut I meet that wears the penguin goggles there is an equally nutty windows pin head that will even try to deny the existance of linux.
If IT professionals start burying their head in the sand about other platforms, then what hope do Users have?
Stand in line buddy.
It's crap like this that makes me ashamed to be associated with the IT industry. What makes it even worse is that the shareholders don't give a rat's as long as it keeps the cash rolling in.
Windows will be renamed to DMCA-OS, requiring a super broadband connection to facilitate all the traffic seeking permission to open your own work from yourself, the copyright owner from a central database in the US Patent Office.
SCO sueing toaster manufacturers for infringements on their newly acquired bread warming copyrights.
Gnome and KDE users in block wars.
My mother still not able to reply to email properly.
Any finally - your PDA Cluster will come with a car.
While I totally agree with the parent statement (try hanging out with arts - drama people and listen to their jargon) I don't think that is the point of the article. Jargon is inescapable because one man's jargon is another man's definition, in this regard the PR people and the researchers hired by AMD should just get over themselves because this is pure schlock designed to make a better headline. I think the guts of the article is that people are turned off buying things that they don't understand IF they don't think they need them.
A better synopsis of the article would be "people aren't buying these fancy gadgets because they can't be convinced that they need them." The "Layman's terms" is really charging these devices with a clearer reason to purchase. I myself have spent 7 years working on the IT side of market research (and I hate it to the dpeths of it's miserable soul - I'm never going back there again). The spin of this article is really about trying to protect the advertising companies and sales people from the truth that they aren't convincing people that they need a MP3 player that takes photos and in is the size of movie ticket.
In my current job we have sales people out there selling the service we provide (basically consolidating content from various sources) there are those sales people that can talk about what the service offers and how it is superior to our competitors (and thus make good sales) and then we have the sales person that says "I can't make a sale in my region because the data is missing sale X and that is really what this person wants to know" - In otherwords they blame the fact that 2 records (out of 7 million) are missing for their lack of sales (and they have very few).
I'd love to know what department in AMD commissioned the study - whether is was a project designed to understand what the consumer needs to know or a prepayed for excuse by the sales and marketing dept.
PS: sorry, this has become a rant - steam blowing off was required as this article touched a raw nerve about what I hated most about my other job - fact fucking.
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It is a shame really that sometimes Live Theatre people refuse to see Motion Pictures as quality theatre and vice versa.
That is why my hat is always off to Peter Jackson. He just seemed to bridge the gaps by surrounding himself with what was best for the film - not for the box-office or having the right product-placed stars or the hippest soundtrack etc. PJ seemed to want to make a world not just a movie. Good luck to the independant Star Wars crew!
I'm sorry.. but doesn't he do it in the exact reverse.. if the older movies don't agree with his current "work of art" he wiggles the rest of the movies to match.
Great.. you know if there is a GNU/Communist it's only a matter of time before a KDE app Kommunist is released.
I had to do the same thing flyng from Australia to Toronto about 7 years ago. It seemed like a fairly standard document. I also had to specify if I intended to visit any farms or travel to rural localities. At the time the answer given to me was that if they had to contact me (eg. the Australian Govt) they had a number or name to at least start to get a message out.
What stinks about this scheme is that first of all most people that buy from the corner shop guys are not mum and pop (they tend to buy from the larger retail stores), they are the semi computer savvy people and small business owners that need computers a the cheapest prices and probably know very well that they aren't getting a fully licensed version but don't really care. However now that MS are going to reward them with a legit copy and give them a golden handshake - the people that are going to cop it are the PC sellers who (while they should have known better anyway) have probably done the thing on the buyers request anyhow.
Even more scary is if you've built a system for a family member and they think they are doing the right thing by getting a legit copy may implicate you without purposely meaning to but they are trying to get something for nothing.
Another thing, to drive the local competition out of business go buy a few machines from them with a pirated version and then graciously line up for your free legit copies then drop their names and then profit.
Puppy linux might be what you're looking for (the flash version).. then again maybe it isn't. Your mileage may vary - good luck
At least it will be easy to case mod!
"'It's pretty difficult to respond to this. He's so out of touch,' said Phipps. 'To even begin one must first address the error in his world view: He has taken quotes given by Scott McNealy to analysts and attacked them as if they were spoken to the Open Source community."
I don't understand this.. does this mean we are only to listen to statements from Sun that are addressed to us and ignore, or have no right to comment on those that are spoken to other industries?
Thank you Sun for correcting my world view.
Asshat.
When one of the spare seats goes up for sale on lastminute.com
It'd be rather like trying to get their heads around that other 3D workspace environment called real life... Oh wait.
"This article discusses the dangers posed by a very successful Mono project."
Must be using a different definition of discuss. I didn't actually see any discussion in the article. More like ponderings.
Wouldn't be in the OSS spirit to wish success on anyone now would it?
Would have been interesting if they looked at other possible outcomes - the bleak armageddon ones that the author favours as well as the more cheery ones.
My AUD two cents worth is that it'll be like Java has been.. another tool in the belt, but not critical to anything Linux. Afterall, what assurance have we got that Sun won't do something similar with Java? And yet the penguin will keep evolving.
Move along, nothing to see here.
After several months several of the other developers also went 17 and 15 inchers. When management talked about moving to 17 inch LCD's not a single developer requested one if it meant getting rid of their dual setup.
Since then I have moved my home setup to linux, I splashed out and got myself two LCD monitors.. I am still finding Xinerama on the challenging side - I can get it working, Mandrake did it alot easier than Redhat, but there are still some issues that persist.
This is exactly the over confidence that fills me with fear when dealing with some linux users. There is no denying that windows has placed security at the bottom of the heap for too long. I personally think (as other posts have said) that Windows needs a rewrite with security foremost in mind and until that day we are going to have constant doubts over windows despite the spin-doctoring from Redmond.
In the meantime - I won't deny the speed at which opensource can have fixes and patches ready for closing holes, this is fantastic, this is the reason why I don't run Windows at home. BUT, lets assume that you are completely correct, lets push it even harder - lets say that OSS is so good that it can fix the holes even before the exploit is found, we are still only half way there.
The big problem with windows is that there are so many boxes out there that run it unmaintained and completely open and unpatched. When linux gets this kind of treatment from the "unpatched masses" (and it will eventually get up there) you can sure as hell bet that the number of live viruses will grow very rapidly. Even if as we have said the patch comes out before the exploit, what mechanism is in place to then patch every box connected to the net? If Microsoft in all their monetary power, and with all their clout with PR and their ability at getting the "average joe" believing what MS says can't get people to simply maintain their box with a few simple clicks then what is the OSS community going to do in place of this?
Apps/systems like urpmi, apt, up2date and portage etc are fantastic - I love em - but they don't don't guarantee that I'll even run them once a month let alone patch an insecure system daily. Added to this, is that the average user won't necessarily even keep up to date with the actual issues, let alone the specifics.
The very fact that Unix-like OSs have a concept of a "root" account (which the Windows "equivalent", "administrator", does not even come CLOSE to matching in terms of actual separation of permissions), makes it all but invincible to virii.
I have no idea what you have to back this up with, but if you want to live in your "invicible to virii" world, then you're entitled to, I won't be hiring you to look after any of my systems. It strikes me rather like the "this cool screen saver email can't be a virus because it's from my best friend" issue.
*IF* a user runs their account as root (as I'm sure some of the ever increasing linux users may be doing) then shit creek here we come - all the posturing about the unix root permission system being what it is doesn't mean a thing.
The premise of the original article may be based on sound principles, such as superior design and focus on security will make better and more secure systems, but with popularity and large install bases comes users that will inadvertantly work against the design in order to better facilitate their own uses/abuses. Simply put, we won't know what the impact will be until we get there. If in a university where 500 students on unix can manage to use trojans and other techniques to screw with each others accounts and counter security (AND should know better), then I can't help but fear when 50 million people that don't know better get their hands on the same platform.
One thing I just don't understand is what all these "distractions" from word/openoffice are? I mean are they really so overwhelmed by choice of buttons to press?
So far alot of people just want the basics - put text on the page. I can understand that. Writing plays however does require some formatting, it's not the blocks of text for articles and novels. Specific formatting represents definite areas of interest - dialogue, stage instructions, scene changes and transitions etc. Different people are reading the script for different reasons.
There are several excellent stage/screen play tools out there but none of them are free. I have half considered trying to write one OSS.
I spent 25 minutes writing a template and style for Word, turn off all the toolbars (that's part of the template automatically), added some drop down menus of commonly used terms and instructions and created a floating toolbar of character names for quick dialogue insertion.
After that I type.
There are some important points to remember though.
1) Plays rarely go for more than 100 pages (I wouldn't use Word for large docs - I've tried with much stress).
2) I wouldn't use Word where there is significant diagramming (such as tech docs).
3) I still don't believe that its ready for so called "collaborative" editing, although it is improving and still well ahead of some other document processors.
The moaning about distractions seems pretty tiny to me when you can turn them off (and keep them off) so easily.
This has huge potential for stage plays.
A single mother that pays monthly for their service gets done over by RIAA and pays more! Fantastic service you're providing there fellas.
I've been biting my lip because I think windows vs linux rants are a waste of time but here is my contribution to the big dump.
When I was at Uni, we used unix (Solaris in fact). There may have been windows boxes somewhere in the faculty, but I don't think anyone touched them. Even in our first year we were writing trojans and hacks to try to steal each others passwords and write silly titled files in the system directories. It was sport. If someone annoyed me I'd know how to bring their machine down. In fact I brought one of the undergrad servers down - it's not special, it was stupid, but it happened regularly as we were all really learning about the system.
The point is that if a person is motivated to do something they will probably find a way to do it. Motivation is the key. Previous posts have mentioned the "cool" factor in bringing down MS, I think that is undeniable.
Before anyone says "But your Uni system wasn't secured properly" to that I say "exactly" - I am sick and tired of people talking as if security is something tangible that it's something you have or your don't - depending entirely on the OS. Security is a process, it's a matter of discipline and habit. A poorly admin'd box is a security risk no matter what OS runs it.
Another thing that I have witnessed in the business world is that you get the savvy Lunix Guru walking into a network or admin role and be "too good for it" and while they can tune a linux box to perfection, they don't give a rats arse about learning more about the windows boxes. Soon as there is something wrong with the windows box the reply is always "It's a microsoft product what do you expect?" to that my reply is "I expect you to do your job". I dispise the mentality that a IT person is allied to a platform and not to the best tool for the job. It cuts both ways, for every linux nut I meet that wears the penguin goggles there is an equally nutty windows pin head that will even try to deny the existance of linux.
If IT professionals start burying their head in the sand about other platforms, then what hope do Users have?
Stand in line buddy. It's crap like this that makes me ashamed to be associated with the IT industry. What makes it even worse is that the shareholders don't give a rat's as long as it keeps the cash rolling in.
SCO sueing toaster manufacturers for infringements on their newly acquired bread warming copyrights.
Gnome and KDE users in block wars.
My mother still not able to reply to email properly.
Any finally - your PDA Cluster will come with a car.
A better synopsis of the article would be "people aren't buying these fancy gadgets because they can't be convinced that they need them." The "Layman's terms" is really charging these devices with a clearer reason to purchase. I myself have spent 7 years working on the IT side of market research (and I hate it to the dpeths of it's miserable soul - I'm never going back there again). The spin of this article is really about trying to protect the advertising companies and sales people from the truth that they aren't convincing people that they need a MP3 player that takes photos and in is the size of movie ticket.
In my current job we have sales people out there selling the service we provide (basically consolidating content from various sources) there are those sales people that can talk about what the service offers and how it is superior to our competitors (and thus make good sales) and then we have the sales person that says "I can't make a sale in my region because the data is missing sale X and that is really what this person wants to know" - In otherwords they blame the fact that 2 records (out of 7 million) are missing for their lack of sales (and they have very few).
I'd love to know what department in AMD commissioned the study - whether is was a project designed to understand what the consumer needs to know or a prepayed for excuse by the sales and marketing dept.
PS: sorry, this has become a rant - steam blowing off was required as this article touched a raw nerve about what I hated most about my other job - fact fucking.