The frog and the scorpion?
With much pleading and swearing of oaths of non-agression, a scorpion convinces a frog to take him across a river on the frogs back. As they reach the shore, the scorpion thanks the frog, then promptly stings the frog. As the frog lays dying and twitching, he asks the scorpion why he stung him.
The scorpion simply replies: I'm a scorpion, what did you expect me to do?
It's a bit different from the version I knew. In my version, the frog refuse to take the scorpion across the river because he says the scorpion will stung him. The scorpion answers "that's impossible, if I stung you while crossing the river, I'd die too". So the frog agrees. When they are in the middle of the river, the scorpion sting the frog. The frog ask "Why did you do that ? You will die too." The scorpion answers "It's part of my nature".
And I think it's a much better analogy for Microsoft wanting to "play nice".
That's a special case. That's completely different than the rushed to get out-of-the-door software that we usually have on the shelves.
Beside, there's still no problem with the system we have. When you need mission critical software, you don't buy it on the shelves, you pay for custom develloped and you add responsibilities clauses in the contract.
If your software crashes, you won't die. The best solution IMHO is to sell insurances to customers. You buy the software normally and buy an insurance to either a third party or the company providing the software that if you ever gets problems with it, they are going to pay you.
That way, the outragous fees that would cost would be limitated to those who actually want it and those of us who test properly and have good security (including backup) practice can continue to act as we always did.
It's not Canada it's Ontario. Timezones are of provincial authority. So if any province wants to switch timezone or DST, Canada can't say anything against it. Quebec already announced it would switch so either it is first to or Slashdot is slow to report the news:)
I do not remember that episode. But it would sound like thick faux-Scottish accent too. And we make at least as much jokes about the french than you.;-)
What I'd be curious to hear is the english version of the episode with George Bush (the father). In one scene, Homer is in a hamac and makes a word play that obviously can't be literally translated. I'd be curious to know what it was.
In french, Bush is pronounced like mouth (bouche). So Homer says "They'd swallow anything that comes from Bush's mouth" (Y avaleraient tout ce qui sort de la bouche à Bush).
Quebec have the highest ratio of standup comedians / population in the world so yes, there might be a relation. Humour is definitively a big part of the culture.
And you can make jokes about almost anything. I'll give an extreme exemple : it took only one month before I saw a (graphical) Nick Berg joke in a comedy magazine (called Safarir). Granted, they often do boderline humour and I'm not sure anybody else would dare do it but there was no uproar and that magazine is very popular.
When I say that I like our version better, it's really about the voice acting. The jokes are the same.
And it isn't chauvinism because I usually dislike translations. I always watch movies in the original language, with subtitles if it is not a language I know.
AFAIK, there are (or were) two completely different French-language versions because the Quebec variant is more true to the original characters, whereas the France-French version is more butchered to move it closer to the French sensibilities.
It's true that Quebec's version is very true to the original. The only changes they made is that they used to change geographical locations (they'd replace US by Quebec for instance), put local celebrities names and change the political parties for local ones. They also find new jokes to replace word plays in english.
They changed that soon enough that we could learn that Sideshow Bob was republican.
It's one of the best translated show I saw. They also keep names intact (you just don't want to know how King of the Hill characters are renamed...).
The example that I remember is that the Quebec Homer has an obviously lower-class accent and speech pattern, whereas in France, all the characters have a generic social-class accent, because in France they don't want to discriminate against any accent by implying that it's low-class.
Homer have such an excellent voice in our version ! Just the way he talks is funny. The funniest voices (IMHO) are Homer, Krusty and Wiggum. In that order. Ralph is hilarious too.
There's something worth mentioning here. In english, you can talk the way you write and it's mostly ok. In french, there is sentences structures for written and spoken text. And those structures vary more by class than english. And if you are very rich and want to show your disdain for the rest of society, the best way is to speak exactly as you'd write.
Often, people who write text will make the mistake of making their character speak close to written french. It makes it sound very fake. It's probably the mistake they made.
Re:It just won't be the same!
on
Homer Becomes Omar
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I live in Quebec (Canada) and we have a french version since forever. They tried for years to make the text more "local" and it ended up being very weird someone because some things just don't fit out of the US context. You laugh anyway because you still get the original joke. And someone it just doesn't fit so much that they keep it american ("I never been so proud to be American" in front of the toilet that flush like in America).
On the other hand, this is the only show where I think that the voice acting is better than the original. Not that the original voice acting isn't good but actors in the french version are just doing a better job.
Fortunately, the ones for the last few years are more sane and portray the familly as 100% american.
But the worse adaptation we have is King of the Hill. They decided to remove any and all reference to US in the text and turns it into total nonsense.
Both shows are funny to watch even tranlated but we are in a North American context too and can understand the jokes even when they are butchered. I guess it won't be the case in middle east...
How does Apple have a monopoly? I don't have an iPod for an MP3 player, or anything, and I never intend to get one. There are dozens of companies making MP3 players.
How does Microsoft have a monopoly ? I don't have Windows as an operating system, or anything, and I never intend to get it. There is dozens of competing OSes !
Then there's the fact that no distro has the latest AbiWord build in its package tree.
What are you talking about ? I'm apt-getting it as I write (version 2.4.1) on Ubuntu 5.10
Not gonna happen because we would have a hard time pointing out who is responsible. Is your software that caused the problem or is it Bonzi Buddy that caused a problem in your software ? How do you know ? How does the court decide ?
There is two benefits I can see from having "perfect code". It saves money and it saves data. The current system have workarounds to minimize those losses. If law manage responsibilities, it's a lot of money going down the drain, more than the workarounds cost us.
And beside, software that would be written because of the delays it would bring means you won't get the money it could help you earn or the data it would makes you able to create.
And in the end, nations adopting those things would just end up a technological dark age compared to the rest of the world that would continue to go forward.
Plain studid.
"It just amazes me that Microsoft has managed to get a strangehold on the email market with a fairly straight-forward produce, and the only industry response is a new version of Lotus Notes. Am I missing something here?"
Mozilla have a calandar since a very long time. You can add it to either the suite or Thunderbird (as an extension) or even in Firefox. However, it looks just like your normal app with a link that launch a calendar app. They are developing a stand-alone version (Sunbird) and an actual merge of Thunderbird and Sunbird which will be called Lightning. The process to write this new applications seems to be very long so don't expect to have it soon.
On the other hand, there is an equivalent app for Linux called Evolution. Novell made a Windows build but it's too buggy to be usable right now. When the port will be complete, it will be a worthy competitor to Outlook.
It's the best book out there to explain how Gimp works to a novice. It actually explain the image manipulation concepts and how to use them. For exemple, it will explain to you *why* a picture look bad.
It was made for version 1.2 of The Gimp but the interface still works the same way.
Except for bezier paths (check Gimp online help by pressing F1 when you get there) and the author tell you that intelligent scissors is broken but it works pretty well in 2.0+ versions.
Slashdot Mirror
And I think it's a much better analogy for Microsoft wanting to "play nice".
That's a special case. That's completely different than the rushed to get out-of-the-door software that we usually have on the shelves.
Beside, there's still no problem with the system we have. When you need mission critical software, you don't buy it on the shelves, you pay for custom develloped and you add responsibilities clauses in the contract.
If your software crashes, you won't die. The best solution IMHO is to sell insurances to customers. You buy the software normally and buy an insurance to either a third party or the company providing the software that if you ever gets problems with it, they are going to pay you.
That way, the outragous fees that would cost would be limitated to those who actually want it and those of us who test properly and have good security (including backup) practice can continue to act as we always did.
I remember the episode now. But I don't remember at all what Willy was saying... :-/
And according to CBC (our National TV), we *will* follow suit.
It's not Canada it's Ontario. Timezones are of provincial authority. So if any province wants to switch timezone or DST, Canada can't say anything against it. Quebec already announced it would switch so either it is first to or Slashdot is slow to report the news :)
I do not remember that episode. But it would sound like thick faux-Scottish accent too. And we make at least as much jokes about the french than you. ;-)
What I'd be curious to hear is the english version of the episode with George Bush (the father). In one scene, Homer is in a hamac and makes a word play that obviously can't be literally translated. I'd be curious to know what it was.
In french, Bush is pronounced like mouth (bouche). So Homer says "They'd swallow anything that comes from Bush's mouth" (Y avaleraient tout ce qui sort de la bouche à Bush).
Quebec have the highest ratio of standup comedians / population in the world so yes, there might be a relation. Humour is definitively a big part of the culture.
And you can make jokes about almost anything. I'll give an extreme exemple : it took only one month before I saw a (graphical) Nick Berg joke in a comedy magazine (called Safarir). Granted, they often do boderline humour and I'm not sure anybody else would dare do it but there was no uproar and that magazine is very popular.
When I say that I like our version better, it's really about the voice acting. The jokes are the same.
And it isn't chauvinism because I usually dislike translations. I always watch movies in the original language, with subtitles if it is not a language I know.
They changed that soon enough that we could learn that Sideshow Bob was republican. It's one of the best translated show I saw. They also keep names intact (you just don't want to know how King of the Hill characters are renamed...).
Homer have such an excellent voice in our version ! Just the way he talks is funny. The funniest voices (IMHO) are Homer, Krusty and Wiggum. In that order. Ralph is hilarious too.There's something worth mentioning here. In english, you can talk the way you write and it's mostly ok. In french, there is sentences structures for written and spoken text. And those structures vary more by class than english. And if you are very rich and want to show your disdain for the rest of society, the best way is to speak exactly as you'd write.
Often, people who write text will make the mistake of making their character speak close to written french. It makes it sound very fake. It's probably the mistake they made.
I live in Quebec (Canada) and we have a french version since forever. They tried for years to make the text more "local" and it ended up being very weird someone because some things just don't fit out of the US context. You laugh anyway because you still get the original joke. And someone it just doesn't fit so much that they keep it american ("I never been so proud to be American" in front of the toilet that flush like in America).
On the other hand, this is the only show where I think that the voice acting is better than the original. Not that the original voice acting isn't good but actors in the french version are just doing a better job.
Fortunately, the ones for the last few years are more sane and portray the familly as 100% american.
But the worse adaptation we have is King of the Hill. They decided to remove any and all reference to US in the text and turns it into total nonsense.
Both shows are funny to watch even tranlated but we are in a North American context too and can understand the jokes even when they are butchered. I guess it won't be the case in middle east...
Nope, I buy my computers part by part.
And Apple eventually will if they continue down that road.
Then there's the fact that no distro has the latest AbiWord build in its package tree. What are you talking about ? I'm apt-getting it as I write (version 2.4.1) on Ubuntu 5.10
http://www.180solutions.com/
If we are only talking about geographical size, Canada wins.
Not gonna happen because we would have a hard time pointing out who is responsible. Is your software that caused the problem or is it Bonzi Buddy that caused a problem in your software ? How do you know ? How does the court decide ? There is two benefits I can see from having "perfect code". It saves money and it saves data. The current system have workarounds to minimize those losses. If law manage responsibilities, it's a lot of money going down the drain, more than the workarounds cost us. And beside, software that would be written because of the delays it would bring means you won't get the money it could help you earn or the data it would makes you able to create. And in the end, nations adopting those things would just end up a technological dark age compared to the rest of the world that would continue to go forward. Plain studid.
Because Sun knows the code inside and out ?
I forgot my USB drive in my pocket before washing my pants once. It survived without any problem. :)
He was also said that teaching Cobol should be a criminal offense.
"It just amazes me that Microsoft has managed to get a strangehold on the email market with a fairly straight-forward produce, and the only industry response is a new version of Lotus Notes. Am I missing something here?"
Mozilla have a calandar since a very long time. You can add it to either the suite or Thunderbird (as an extension) or even in Firefox. However, it looks just like your normal app with a link that launch a calendar app. They are developing a stand-alone version (Sunbird) and an actual merge of Thunderbird and Sunbird which will be called Lightning. The process to write this new applications seems to be very long so don't expect to have it soon.
On the other hand, there is an equivalent app for Linux called Evolution. Novell made a Windows build but it's too buggy to be usable right now. When the port will be complete, it will be a worthy competitor to Outlook.
You forget stealth shooters which are still first person shooters.
You could just use a LiveCD to rip then either burn it on another CD, or copy them to a USB drive.
http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/
It's the best book out there to explain how Gimp works to a novice. It actually explain the image manipulation concepts and how to use them. For exemple, it will explain to you *why* a picture look bad.
It was made for version 1.2 of The Gimp but the interface still works the same way.
Except for bezier paths (check Gimp online help by pressing F1 when you get there) and the author tell you that intelligent scissors is broken but it works pretty well in 2.0+ versions.
Wouldn't work at a place where the PHB made technology purchasing decisions.
Then you would not be influenced by any ad, it is then not targetted at you but at PHBs who do make decisions.
There's a part of their market that they have to get with technical merit and a part that they have to get with publicity.
Yes, they have. It's in TFA. You might consider reading this one, it's full of pretty pictures.