> Could you please recount for me the *personal* rights that were revoked in the Dixie Chicks case? I'm having trouble remembering them.
Yeah, you got me on that one now that I think of it - their censure was a popular reaction wasn't it?
In terms of personal rights being revoked one might look at the many Arab-Americans who have been wrongfully detained. Many of them were threatened and others have suffered psychological damage from the extended sleep deprivation and interrogation processes. I'll also point out that Canada has also worked hand-in-hand with more than case that was never proven, lest we start feeling sanctimonious up here:)
Living in Canada I just duct tape my computer to the outside of the window and let mother nature do the cooling. In fact in January mother nature is a little too willing so I have to put a garbage can full of burning coal under the window.
Best part is, I can open the window and let the coal fumes heat the house.
Remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
I find it interesting that there is an ongoing suggestion that only big money firms are innovators and that small companies and open source concerns are just copiers. Such willful ignorance is staggering.
You have any doubt? Let us look at Microsoft then as they are the biggest and surely the "most innovative." Which world famous products of theirs have shown them to be the great innovators that all else copy?
MS-DOS? A clone of existing operating systems. They took someone else's idea, made their own implementation, and profited.
Their greatest triumph? Windows OS. So can we assume Microsoft created the first graphical operating system? The first window based operating system? The first point-and-click, mouse navigated operating system? No, no and no. In all three cases they took an existing idea from someone else, extended it and profited.
Which is exactly what small companies and open source projects do. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...
Tell me then, what is the second item Microsoft is famous for? MS Office. So then, did Microsoft invent the word processor? Spreadsheet? Email client? Database? Not one thing that Microsoft is famous for is a software idea of their own invention. In every case they have extended a previous software idea. And have gotten rich doing it.
This is how software has ALWAYS been created... until now.
Software patents are simply a tool for the mighty to beat the young in manners they themselves were NEVER subjected to. If the EU passes this proposal they should be consistent and pass a proposal to allow adults to choke and stifle children, to choke them until they die. Sure, we understand that we became adults because someone else was leanient toward us. Just as the process of creating software was leanient toward today's giants. Should that debt cause us to extend the same courtesy toward those that come after us?
Pass software patents? Let us be consistent then: punish the weak, the poor, the young, the lessers - all they who fall outside the scope of the "master race." Good Nazi's vote in favour of patents.
I would still like to count Canada as a US friend, even if half the politicians down here call it "Canuckistan"...
Then please do:) And I apologize for those times we come across as self-righteous.
It is unfortunate that American media often mistake an angry reaction on our part for hatred. Hey, no one can get under your skin more than someone you care about, right? When someone you don't care about does something dumb you just shrug your shoulders because that's what you expect of them.
But we have known Americans to be good people; people of heart, courage and compassion.
So our expectations of America are very high. And some current events have made us quite nervous.
Please bring back those good American neighbours we know and love;)
Re:Many fields left where Linux is unsuitable
on
Cooking With Linux
·
· Score: 1
While there is not the same selection of software for Linux, the situation is improving all the time. I don't know about Flash, but having been required to evaluate tools in the game development industry I can assure you that GIMP + Maya is one of the most powerful 3D art combinations out there. You can build AAA level content with that pack.
In fact Blender can be useful too if you care to take the time to learn it and port it to your engine.
Just take a peek at some of the work posted on http://blender.org if you have any doubts about the capabilities of open source rendering software. If you care to argue, please include a link to some superior work that you have done.
I'm sure the techies at FBI headquarters get lonely sorting through all the false positives these programs churn up. Instead of encrypting our email, I say include a friendly message for them. Hey, they're geeks too. (probably read slashdot)
First, make sure you include one or more key words, (pr3sid3nt, b0mb, j1h4d) then include a hello to the kind folks who snoop your correspondence for you.
Yeah! And I believe that Microsoft had nothing to do with an elaborate blackmail operation attempting to crush a non-profit OS from making a dent in its brute force monopoly. But then again I believe everything coming out of Steve Balmer's fork tongued mouth.;)
I have to think the best way to ensure economic feasibility would be for games to ship with Windows, OS X and Linux support on the same disc.
Considering all the games which are built on OpenGL compatible engines (Q3 engine, Unreal engine, et al) there's no reason reason it couldn't be done. The majority of any game disc is comprised of platform neutral art assets and level logic. The platform specific binary of the game engine is seldom more than a very few MB. You could easily fit all three on the same disc.
Barring that, the package could specify that OS X and Linux binaries are available for download from the company website.
There are a number of very good cross platform compatible game engines out there already and it sickens me that more companies don't take the few moments to expand their market.
I understand exactly what the poster is saying, we Linux users are used to freeware, but those of us who play games do browse the store shelves. When titles start showing up which include support for our platform of choice, we'll buy 'em!
P.S. if you are curious about cross platform game development you might want to check out the Torque engine at Garage Games.
Make no mistake, these actions not only generate resentment toward Microsoft, they also generate resentment toward America.
This is not a good time to further alienate the people of America from the rest of the world and the good of the American public is somewhat betrayed.
Odd; they say those who ignore history are bound to repeat its mistakes. Microsoft is a corporate super power. If you look at history there is an unmistakeable trend:
At some point the predominant empire feels threatened by a lesser opponent. If the empire leans too strongly toward an iron hand policy (and they almost always do) they also begin to alienate moderate entities and eventually even their allies. Over time they manage to create an atmosphere which unites the entire known world against them. At that point their power erodes until they finally implode.
I have no sympathy for Microsoft. If they so choose the path of the doomed, let them die. But there is another super power for whom I have very much love and sympathy. Let us hope their leaders will not repeat history's mistakes.
Looks like it might be time to dust off my old Star dot matrix printer. It was a gem and I've never had the heart to get rid of it. Maybe I'll hook it up yet for old time's sake.
The math is correct. The headline says, "Bomb kills 10 insurgents and 20 civilians." The simpleton says, "That's 10 less bad guys, we're winning." The realist says all 20 of those civilians has a family. If some of them were on the fence before, they're ready to join the insurrection now.
And the math appears to be borne out in real life. We are now at a stage where every month is becoming more perilous for foreigners (not to mention locals who happen to be in the wrong place) than the month before, so you have to understand why some are able to doubt that the end is in sight.
Ironically (sadly) for the first time ever, terrorist attacks on Americans have now become a daily event. Again please understand the skepticism many feel when Bush asks people to believe the answer is "more of the same". More appalling are his appeals that these attacks defray the energy the enemy would otherwise employ in attacks on American soil. So the soldiers are decoys then?
To make things more difficult the enemy does not think like we do. Westerners go to war thinking in terms of winning and losing. We go to war with a goal in mind, what we hope to accomplish when hostilities cease. The enemies come from a culture where sometimes the fight itself can be the goal. If victory occurs it is the icing on the cake. The goal is to struggle. The stronger the adversary the better - and who is a stronger adversary than the U.S.?
The next question is can Kerry do much better? Certainly he stands a better chance of making the world a more friendly place toward Americans, but I don't see how he's going to get all her allies into Iraq. Countries who begged America not to rush into war are understandbly unhappy to send their youth into a volatile situation which they did not create.
I realize there are still many who feel the president is immune to error, that he has done the right thing and is on the right course and that America cannot fail in this regard. There were such people at the time of the Vietnam conflict as well.
What is the answer? Please post if you know. One still hopes that America can hand over power and make a clean exit sooner rather than later.
Marten, as you know, this is slashdot - home of techies, intellectuals and also a large collection of wannabes who never, EVER RTA.
Or in this case even the summary.
I'm afraid there's nothing you can do now - MySQL has just been branded the #1 enemy of open source software. (narrowly overtaking SCO and Microsoft put together) All those years of world class open source development and evangelism for nothing.
Right now it's the very large offices of big businesses and governments which are actively reaping the most benefit from open source software. An ISO standard document format will only spur this trend forward. Bear in mind these are offices with sizeable I.T. departments.
Adoption of open source in small to medium sized businesses is a slower process and we can't expect many of them to lead the way on this one either. This is a direct result of MicroSoft's intelligent saturation of local college certification programs. If quality open source training programs can advance in the college market, so will open source adoption.
More to the point, an ISO standard ensures that anyone who feels they can build a product with a more compelling feature set than Microsoft or Sun is free to do so.
One of the things which has kept me with Yahoo throughout these wars is that my account is fully compatible with Evolution / Thunderbird / Look-Out / (insert favourite client here)...
I mostly use the web interface when away from my own computer so it's pretty handy.
I suspect, though, that GMail is going to revolutionize email handling to some degree and that we will soon see some GMail like features appearing in these other email clients.
Longhorn is going to include some exciting new technologies... most importantly their new Monad (you really must research this)
I did some research and it appears the new shell was originally to be named Gates One-up-on uNix ADministrative tool.
Only after their lawyers insisted they couldn't patent the name in more than a handful of countries they went with the name Monad, which thankfully still rhymed.
Very true although in the case of hockey you also need to consider that the course of American hockey has been largely influenced by Canadian talent. Canada still supplies the most players to the NHL as well as many top coaches and consultants. In fact some American super stars and top coaches are either Canadian immigrants or first generation Americans born to Canadian immigrants. It doesn't make them any less American but it's no different than the way so many countries develop their talent under superior American programs and then claim the gold for themselves.
But the opposite is also true. In 1996 Canada sent a traditional fast skating, high scoring team to the World Cup while the U.S. sent a heavier defensive team - and took home the gold. It was a superior strategy that changed the course of the game even in Canada. Every team we've submitted since has been more defensive in nature.
Integrating hockey training programs between the two nations has borne superior results. It's great to see people work together to increase the quality of international athletics.
Slashdot Mirror
...I fail to see how this does anything to solve the NHL lockout :(
> Could you please recount for me the *personal* rights that were revoked in the Dixie Chicks case? I'm having trouble remembering them.
:)
Yeah, you got me on that one now that I think of it - their censure was a popular reaction wasn't it?
In terms of personal rights being revoked one might look at the many Arab-Americans who have been wrongfully detained. Many of them were threatened and others have suffered psychological damage from the extended sleep deprivation and interrogation processes. I'll also point out that Canada has also worked hand-in-hand with more than case that was never proven, lest we start feeling sanctimonious up here
> Biggest political scandals involve PM's mistress instead of lying to start a war...check!
PM's mistress?? PM's aren't considered sexy up here. In fact I've heard their pickup line is "I know the president..."
...Tell that to the Dixie Chicks
Living in Canada I just duct tape my computer to the outside of the window and let mother nature do the cooling. In fact in January mother nature is a little too willing so I have to put a garbage can full of burning coal under the window. Best part is, I can open the window and let the coal fumes heat the house. Remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
I find it interesting that there is an ongoing suggestion that only big money firms are innovators and that small companies and open source concerns are just copiers. Such willful ignorance is staggering.
You have any doubt? Let us look at Microsoft then as they are the biggest and surely the "most innovative." Which world famous products of theirs have shown them to be the great innovators that all else copy?
MS-DOS? A clone of existing operating systems. They took someone else's idea, made their own implementation, and profited.
Their greatest triumph? Windows OS. So can we assume Microsoft created the first graphical operating system? The first window based operating system? The first point-and-click, mouse navigated operating system? No, no and no. In all three cases they took an existing idea from someone else, extended it and profited.
Which is exactly what small companies and open source projects do. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...
Tell me then, what is the second item Microsoft is famous for? MS Office. So then, did Microsoft invent the word processor? Spreadsheet? Email client? Database? Not one thing that Microsoft is famous for is a software idea of their own invention. In every case they have extended a previous software idea. And have gotten rich doing it.
This is how software has ALWAYS been created... until now.
Software patents are simply a tool for the mighty to beat the young in manners they themselves were NEVER subjected to. If the EU passes this proposal they should be consistent and pass a proposal to allow adults to choke and stifle children, to choke them until they die. Sure, we understand that we became adults because someone else was leanient toward us. Just as the process of creating software was leanient toward today's giants. Should that debt cause us to extend the same courtesy toward those that come after us?
Pass software patents? Let us be consistent then: punish the weak, the poor, the young, the lessers - all they who fall outside the scope of the "master race." Good Nazi's vote in favour of patents.
Don't you mean Noo-ku-lar? Not quoting anybody in particular...
Then please do:) And I apologize for those times we come across as self-righteous.
It is unfortunate that American media often mistake an angry reaction on our part for hatred. Hey, no one can get under your skin more than someone you care about, right? When someone you don't care about does something dumb you just shrug your shoulders because that's what you expect of them.
But we have known Americans to be good people; people of heart, courage and compassion.
So our expectations of America are very high. And some current events have made us quite nervous.
Please bring back those good American neighbours we know and love ;)
While there is not the same selection of software for Linux, the situation is improving all the time. I don't know about Flash, but having been required to evaluate tools in the game development industry I can assure you that GIMP + Maya is one of the most powerful 3D art combinations out there. You can build AAA level content with that pack.
In fact Blender can be useful too if you care to take the time to learn it and port it to your engine.
Just take a peek at some of the work posted on http://blender.org if you have any doubts about the capabilities of open source rendering software. If you care to argue, please include a link to some superior work that you have done.
I'm sure the techies at FBI headquarters get lonely sorting through all the false positives these programs churn up. Instead of encrypting our email, I say include a friendly message for them. Hey, they're geeks too. (probably read slashdot)
First, make sure you include one or more key words, (pr3sid3nt, b0mb, j1h4d) then include a hello to the kind folks who snoop your correspondence for you.
I had a bear that was well behaved until he learned to use a lazer. Would've shot him but he fried my retinas every time I pulled out the Weatherby.
Yeah! And I believe that Microsoft had nothing to do with an elaborate blackmail operation attempting to crush a non-profit OS from making a dent in its brute force monopoly. But then again I believe everything coming out of Steve Balmer's fork tongued mouth. ;)
I have to think the best way to ensure economic feasibility would be for games to ship with Windows, OS X and Linux support on the same disc.
Considering all the games which are built on OpenGL compatible engines (Q3 engine, Unreal engine, et al) there's no reason reason it couldn't be done. The majority of any game disc is comprised of platform neutral art assets and level logic. The platform specific binary of the game engine is seldom more than a very few MB. You could easily fit all three on the same disc.
Barring that, the package could specify that OS X and Linux binaries are available for download from the company website.
There are a number of very good cross platform compatible game engines out there already and it sickens me that more companies don't take the few moments to expand their market.
I understand exactly what the poster is saying, we Linux users are used to freeware, but those of us who play games do browse the store shelves. When titles start showing up which include support for our platform of choice, we'll buy 'em!
P.S. if you are curious about cross platform game development you might want to check out the Torque engine at Garage Games.
Anyone else notice that Apache 2 seems to perform significantly better for sites which use a lot of SSL encryption?
Make no mistake, these actions not only generate resentment toward Microsoft, they also generate resentment toward America.
This is not a good time to further alienate the people of America from the rest of the world and the good of the American public is somewhat betrayed.
Odd; they say those who ignore history are bound to repeat its mistakes. Microsoft is a corporate super power. If you look at history there is an unmistakeable trend:
At some point the predominant empire feels threatened by a lesser opponent. If the empire leans too strongly toward an iron hand policy (and they almost always do) they also begin to alienate moderate entities and eventually even their allies. Over time they manage to create an atmosphere which unites the entire known world against them. At that point their power erodes until they finally implode.
I have no sympathy for Microsoft. If they so choose the path of the doomed, let them die. But there is another super power for whom I have very much love and sympathy. Let us hope their leaders will not repeat history's mistakes.
I suppose now NASA is kicking themselves for not entering the X-Prize competition.
Looks like it might be time to dust off my old Star dot matrix printer. It was a gem and I've never had the heart to get rid of it. Maybe I'll hook it up yet for old time's sake.
They flatten it vertically. Wohoo! Zero investment, complete knowledge!
The math is correct. The headline says, "Bomb kills 10 insurgents and 20 civilians." The simpleton says, "That's 10 less bad guys, we're winning." The realist says all 20 of those civilians has a family. If some of them were on the fence before, they're ready to join the insurrection now.
And the math appears to be borne out in real life. We are now at a stage where every month is becoming more perilous for foreigners (not to mention locals who happen to be in the wrong place) than the month before, so you have to understand why some are able to doubt that the end is in sight.
Ironically (sadly) for the first time ever, terrorist attacks on Americans have now become a daily event. Again please understand the skepticism many feel when Bush asks people to believe the answer is "more of the same". More appalling are his appeals that these attacks defray the energy the enemy would otherwise employ in attacks on American soil. So the soldiers are decoys then?
To make things more difficult the enemy does not think like we do. Westerners go to war thinking in terms of winning and losing. We go to war with a goal in mind, what we hope to accomplish when hostilities cease. The enemies come from a culture where sometimes the fight itself can be the goal. If victory occurs it is the icing on the cake. The goal is to struggle. The stronger the adversary the better - and who is a stronger adversary than the U.S.?
The next question is can Kerry do much better? Certainly he stands a better chance of making the world a more friendly place toward Americans, but I don't see how he's going to get all her allies into Iraq. Countries who begged America not to rush into war are understandbly unhappy to send their youth into a volatile situation which they did not create.
I realize there are still many who feel the president is immune to error, that he has done the right thing and is on the right course and that America cannot fail in this regard. There were such people at the time of the Vietnam conflict as well.
What is the answer? Please post if you know. One still hopes that America can hand over power and make a clean exit sooner rather than later.
Marten, as you know, this is slashdot - home of techies, intellectuals and also a large collection of wannabes who never, EVER RTA.
Or in this case even the summary.
I'm afraid there's nothing you can do now - MySQL has just been branded the #1 enemy of open source software. (narrowly overtaking SCO and Microsoft put together) All those years of world class open source development and evangelism for nothing.
Right now it's the very large offices of big businesses and governments which are actively reaping the most benefit from open source software. An ISO standard document format will only spur this trend forward. Bear in mind these are offices with sizeable I.T. departments.
Adoption of open source in small to medium sized businesses is a slower process and we can't expect many of them to lead the way on this one either. This is a direct result of MicroSoft's intelligent saturation of local college certification programs. If quality open source training programs can advance in the college market, so will open source adoption.
More to the point, an ISO standard ensures that anyone who feels they can build a product with a more compelling feature set than Microsoft or Sun is free to do so.
One of the things which has kept me with Yahoo throughout these wars is that my account is fully compatible with Evolution / Thunderbird / Look-Out / (insert favourite client here)...
I mostly use the web interface when away from my own computer so it's pretty handy.
I suspect, though, that GMail is going to revolutionize email handling to some degree and that we will soon see some GMail like features appearing in these other email clients.
You mean to tell us Al Gore is working at Intel now?
Longhorn is going to include some exciting new technologies... most importantly their new Monad (you really must research this)
I did some research and it appears the new shell was originally to be named Gates One-up-on uNix ADministrative tool.
Only after their lawyers insisted they couldn't patent the name in more than a handful of countries they went with the name Monad, which thankfully still rhymed.
Very true although in the case of hockey you also need to consider that the course of American hockey has been largely influenced by Canadian talent. Canada still supplies the most players to the NHL as well as many top coaches and consultants. In fact some American super stars and top coaches are either Canadian immigrants or first generation Americans born to Canadian immigrants. It doesn't make them any less American but it's no different than the way so many countries develop their talent under superior American programs and then claim the gold for themselves.
But the opposite is also true. In 1996 Canada sent a traditional fast skating, high scoring team to the World Cup while the U.S. sent a heavier defensive team - and took home the gold. It was a superior strategy that changed the course of the game even in Canada. Every team we've submitted since has been more defensive in nature.
Integrating hockey training programs between the two nations has borne superior results. It's great to see people work together to increase the quality of international athletics.