With that kind of logic, what would be the point for, say, Adobe to create Photoshop? They don't sell hardware and the program is designed for ease-of-use, so they couldn't make much back from support. We simply wouldn't have it, or it would be a much different-- and most likely worse-- application.
And yes, I'm aware of the Gimp. But the Gimp is the open source community's reaction to Photoshop, it's not what natural evolution in an open source world would have brought us.
Software is as much a tool as hardware. People, or more importantly, companies make money using it. Why shouldn't Adobe be able to charge for the use of an application that's a bedrock for my production house?
I believe it's a setup too. Google "Corey Gouker"... Wade through some of the results, interesting what you'll find.
This is either the biggest-- and most clueless-- Microsoft fanboy in existence, or Microsoft's ad department is creating a fake blogger (actually, blog community) to give their products some "street cred."
Nah, your real problem is with the movie studios. Basically, they stopped making plots in, what, '86 or so? With the rare exception of a "Memento" here or a "Requiem For A Dream" there, you can limit your watching to only movies made prior to the late '80s without missing a single thing.
People keep saying this, but I don't buy it. We have a collective ability to remember the classics and forget all the crappy movies made throughout the years and think things used to be better. They weren't. They've made shitty hack movies since day one. Sequels aren't even anything new, look how many third-rate sci-fi and detective series have been produced throughout the years. I'll give you that the major studios put out some great stuff in the '70's, but that was a fluke-- before then, it was much the same as it is now.
The truth is, people want the crap. A good movie can do pretty well and find an audience-- look at, say, Donnie Darko-- but the majority want their Alien Vs. Predator. They want to forget their troubles and watch special effects, not be asked to think. And you can give AvP a scathing review, and their friends will tell them it sucked, and they'll still go to see it. If the audience truly hungered for better movies, there would be more of them.
There are good movies being made, by the way. Thanks in part to both DVD potential and the explosion of low-cost digital editing, idependent filmmaking is stronger now than ever. And it's actually possible to make something great on a shoestring budget with no studio backing or big names and get it seen. That was much, much harder to do as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago.
It's not necessarily PG-13's fault. It's the market. Studios know they'll make more releasing a movie for the widest range of audiences. If there wasn't a PG-13, movies like Alien Vs. Predator would be butchered further down to PG. Or not be released at all.
At least we have DVD now, so movies hacked up to get the tamer rating can release "unrated" versions with the lost footage intact (in fact, the unrated versions drive up sales, consumers are much more inclined to buy a movier they're already seen when they're promised new gory or sexy footage.)
Of course, it's much easier for kids to get ahold of an unrated or R-rated DVD to repeatedly watch in the privacy of their own home... But that's another matter.
The answer is no. DSL is wholly the domain of your phone company and can't be separated from the line. You need a phone number to activate it.
There are third party DSL providers, but they're basically renting the DSL portion of your line from the phone comany and and selling it back to you.
Worldcom is an MCI company, right? If you really feel a loyalty to them, or just don't want to change your e-mail address, it's possible they offer other options (cable?) in your area.
Or, just keep the land line and bare-bones it. You'd be surprised how cheap it can be if you examine all the options-- you may be paying for "features" like access to 3-way calling that you never use. A $10 answering machine is much cheaper than the phone company's voice mail plan. If you're a student or don't have much income, many companies have a "lifeline" plan that will cut the basic rate down to as little as a few dollars. You may be able to pay by-the-call instead of a flat rate, which is cheaper if you never use the line but adds up quickly if you do. If all else fails, tell the phone company you're considering dropping them for cellular and see what they have to offer.
In the end, I think it's still a good idea to have a land line. Cell phones can be lost, stolen or defective. If you forget to charge your battery you could be without a phone for a day. If you have to spend a few hours waiting on hold for some customer service or DMV-type nightmare you won't waste all your precious cell minutes. Land lines usually work during a power outage or major storm, when cell towers may be knocked out. And 911 service from a land line is much, much more reliable...
One thing Snopes fails repeatedly to take into account is that people in other cultures have a sense of humor. They drop the "Fix It Again Tony" (Fiat) comparison that's been an endless running joke for Americans, but don't realize that "No Va" was basically the same thing. No, those silly Spanish people didn't think Nova literally meant "Doesn't Run." It was an often-told, well travelled joke.
If you don't know that Animal Farm had parallels in Russian history, then perhaps you have not read enough other fiction? Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? Chekhov? And perhaps that is an indication of a lack of encompassing knowledge and perhaps you should fail to pass? Hmm...
Did you read the parent? He was specifically talking about reading Animal Farm in high school. While I would expect a college student to have familiarity with a broad range of classic books and be able to connect the dots themselves, the average (and even above average) sixteen year old is the definition of "lack of encompassing knowledge." Failing to explain or at least suggest the context would be the fault of the teacher in this case.
Re:Nice, but they've got it all wrong...
on
Linux Desktop Guide
·
· Score: 1
There are very few "new users" left of any computer system in America, 2004. Saturation is pretty much complete, and those few elderly folks who don't have a computer now aren't likely to get one.
So this guide isn't for someone new to computers, it's for someone new to Linux. Yes, they probably have a fair amount of knowledge, but the safest way to write this kind of guide is to assume they don't know anything (which may be the case anyway with people who've just used out-of-the-box Windows for years; they may not understand there are options besides Outlook, Explorer and Office.) It's kind of a "for dummies" approach, but it's one that makes perfect sense.
WTF should someone who just reposts a copyrighted article in its entirety (which is not an example of fair-use) get modded up? Maybe I should pull the Slashdot First-post-alizer out of retirement and reprogram it to simply repost articles... whoo-hoo, watch the karma fly!
Ah, the inevitable AC questioning why cutting and pasting the article gets modded up...
The answer is, who cares? "Karma" is a fun little toy, it can't be traded in for prizes and it's not a measure of your worth as a human being.
That's a bit draconian. I would like to be notified when Blizzard is releasing a new game or the new Glen Cook book is being released.
Are you really so out of the loop that you need to be told when Blizzard releases a new game, or an author you like releases a new book? Seems like that kind of information is pretty easily picked up through osmosis. Maybe if it's something more obscure, I'd understand...
I'd happily lose a few useful mailing lists to get rid of spam. Frankly, most lists I seem to be on are a nuisance anyway, even if they're from legitimate businesses-- the worst of it all those the friends of friends of friends' bands who seem to have a show every night of the week and need to tell me about it. Or those godawful eBay ads that come four times a week. Even my DSL service and web host seem to need to send me useless bi-weekly newsletters. I get so much useless information that any useful e-mail ad is going to get lost in the shuffle.
You're obligated to pay a fine to the government if you commit a misdemeanor. You are not required to pay a fine to a corporation because you violated their copyright. How can so many people miss this simple point?
Not saying downloading is right or wrong, this isn't about that. But this isn't a "fine." It's not punishment, it's either a settlement or extortion depending on what side of the fence you're on.
This may not be a direct path to engineering, but it would be a good toy for an 11 year old with those inclinations. Most kids, even geeks, aren't going to gravitate towards learning code.
We all start somewhere, y'know. I knew every peek and poke and hack and crack on my beloved C-64. Not a single hour I spent on it could be considered "useful", but I did walk away with the confidence that I could master any machine.
... Usually offers the best "extended warranty" you're going to find. The details vary with the card, but it's not unusual to find one that will replace a defective, damaged or stolen item with much less hassle than Best Buy or the manufacturer would ever give you.
And by the way, don't put too much of the blame on the pimply-faced Best Buy salesmen, or even the store managers-- they're only following orders, and scruples are a commodity in a tough job market. Blame the Best Buy execs for creating an environment designed to mislead the consumer.
That's what CS is like now. Everything is so perfectly balanced, that there's no excitement to playing any longer. There's no challenge.
No. That's WHY the game is still immensely popular (and it's why Starcraft is still going strong, too.) It's a complex game of strategy where both sides are balanced, yet have very different strengths and weaknesses. Counterstrike takes thought, and you have to out-think as well as out-shoot your opponent. And I can't stress enough how great it is that once you're dead, you're dead.
Quake, now that is a boring game. THAT is a game where everyone is equal. And there's not much incentive to protect yourself because you'll re-spawn anyway.
Since we're all writing in English on a mostly U.S. site, his assumption was correct. It didn't make it to these shores, thus we don't care all that much.
"We?" You mean, "You."
I don't see how anyone with the basest knowledge of video games could write of the Japanese market.
In other words - 1 GB iDisk $350 per year. 1 GB gMail - free. Something is wrong there with somebody's pricing model for such a difference to exist.
I do agree with you, it's nowhere near enough. I don't plan on renewing my.mac account when the new-computer-trial is up.
But I think it should be noted that iDisk and gmail serve different purposes. iDisk isn't e-mail storage with all the restrictions that implies, it's basically fancy FTP storage space. I don't have gmail, but I would assume there are restrictions about attachment size... iDisk, on the other hand, has made transfer of huge files pretty easy.
And it brings some people together. I know several people that have met and married in real life through Everquest.
C'mon. SEVERAL? I mean, I could see knowing one couple, but more? I mean, the odds of a woman playing Everquest to begin with is so astoundingly low... Unless some dude you know married some other guy who was pretending to be an elf chick.
They are happily married and two couples have already started families.
Gahh, so there are at least THREE couples who met on Everquest, and you personally KNOW THEM?
I'm sorry, but unless you work for Sony, run some sort of MMOG support group or happen to personally know thousands and thousands of people I have to call bullshit.
But are you comparing the U.S. to smaller countries with much greater population densities?
Not that we don't have a long way to go to improve, but we do have large expanses of rural areas, many smallish cities and expansive suburbs. It's a much bigger pain to "connect" the States... I mean, cable TV wasn't even available in the midwestern town I'm from until the early '90s.
Of course we also have many different phone and cable companies dividing these terrirories up (as opposed to Europe or Asia, where one company or the government itself may hold a monopoly.) While the competition is good for lowering prices in some of our cities (3.0/384 DSL is L.A. is as low as $23.95) it's a hindrance to setting up a unified network.
There's really no call to use HTML whatsoever. Not when Flash can make your web page look just like a TV show, kind of. At least you can finally throw in some cool music and lots of spinning logos.
And now that there are no more dial-up users, there's no call to compress the Flash animations either. So go ahead and throw in a bunch of large bitmaps, too.
Remember, people don't want to go to boring sites where all you do is read.
Slashdot Mirror
With that kind of logic, what would be the point for, say, Adobe to create Photoshop? They don't sell hardware and the program is designed for ease-of-use, so they couldn't make much back from support. We simply wouldn't have it, or it would be a much different-- and most likely worse-- application.
And yes, I'm aware of the Gimp. But the Gimp is the open source community's reaction to Photoshop, it's not what natural evolution in an open source world would have brought us.
Software is as much a tool as hardware. People, or more importantly, companies make money using it. Why shouldn't Adobe be able to charge for the use of an application that's a bedrock for my production house?
Not to mention, it takes place in (I believe) 2019. Which means we have 15 years to create fake humans and harvest Saturn's moons. Get cracking, NASA.
(It always bugs me when futuristic movies are set too soon. Even in the early 80's they should'a known better.)
I believe it's a setup too. Google "Corey Gouker"... Wade through some of the results, interesting what you'll find.
This is either the biggest-- and most clueless-- Microsoft fanboy in existence, or Microsoft's ad department is creating a fake blogger (actually, blog community) to give their products some "street cred."
Nah, your real problem is with the movie studios. Basically, they stopped making plots in, what, '86 or so? With the rare exception of a "Memento" here or a "Requiem For A Dream" there, you can limit your watching to only movies made prior to the late '80s without missing a single thing.
People keep saying this, but I don't buy it. We have a collective ability to remember the classics and forget all the crappy movies made throughout the years and think things used to be better. They weren't. They've made shitty hack movies since day one. Sequels aren't even anything new, look how many third-rate sci-fi and detective series have been produced throughout the years. I'll give you that the major studios put out some great stuff in the '70's, but that was a fluke-- before then, it was much the same as it is now.
The truth is, people want the crap. A good movie can do pretty well and find an audience-- look at, say, Donnie Darko-- but the majority want their Alien Vs. Predator. They want to forget their troubles and watch special effects, not be asked to think. And you can give AvP a scathing review, and their friends will tell them it sucked, and they'll still go to see it. If the audience truly hungered for better movies, there would be more of them.
There are good movies being made, by the way. Thanks in part to both DVD potential and the explosion of low-cost digital editing, idependent filmmaking is stronger now than ever. And it's actually possible to make something great on a shoestring budget with no studio backing or big names and get it seen. That was much, much harder to do as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago.
It's not necessarily PG-13's fault. It's the market. Studios know they'll make more releasing a movie for the widest range of audiences. If there wasn't a PG-13, movies like Alien Vs. Predator would be butchered further down to PG. Or not be released at all.
At least we have DVD now, so movies hacked up to get the tamer rating can release "unrated" versions with the lost footage intact (in fact, the unrated versions drive up sales, consumers are much more inclined to buy a movier they're already seen when they're promised new gory or sexy footage.)
Of course, it's much easier for kids to get ahold of an unrated or R-rated DVD to repeatedly watch in the privacy of their own home... But that's another matter.
The answer is no. DSL is wholly the domain of your phone company and can't be separated from the line. You need a phone number to activate it.
There are third party DSL providers, but they're basically renting the DSL portion of your line from the phone comany and and selling it back to you.
Worldcom is an MCI company, right? If you really feel a loyalty to them, or just don't want to change your e-mail address, it's possible they offer other options (cable?) in your area.
Or, just keep the land line and bare-bones it. You'd be surprised how cheap it can be if you examine all the options-- you may be paying for "features" like access to 3-way calling that you never use. A $10 answering machine is much cheaper than the phone company's voice mail plan. If you're a student or don't have much income, many companies have a "lifeline" plan that will cut the basic rate down to as little as a few dollars. You may be able to pay by-the-call instead of a flat rate, which is cheaper if you never use the line but adds up quickly if you do. If all else fails, tell the phone company you're considering dropping them for cellular and see what they have to offer.
In the end, I think it's still a good idea to have a land line. Cell phones can be lost, stolen or defective. If you forget to charge your battery you could be without a phone for a day. If you have to spend a few hours waiting on hold for some customer service or DMV-type nightmare you won't waste all your precious cell minutes. Land lines usually work during a power outage or major storm, when cell towers may be knocked out. And 911 service from a land line is much, much more reliable...
Does Ashcroft really expect me to believe there are 60,000 distinct movies on that network
60,000 distinct movies, or 3,000 copies of 200 movies... Does it matter?
If anything, multiple copies of the same movie would give that copyright holder more ammuntion to sue, since that's further "proof" of loss of sales.
One thing Snopes fails repeatedly to take into account is that people in other cultures have a sense of humor. They drop the "Fix It Again Tony" (Fiat) comparison that's been an endless running joke for Americans, but don't realize that "No Va" was basically the same thing. No, those silly Spanish people didn't think Nova literally meant "Doesn't Run." It was an often-told, well travelled joke.
If you don't know that Animal Farm had parallels in Russian history, then perhaps you have not read enough other fiction? Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? Chekhov? And perhaps that is an indication of a lack of encompassing knowledge and perhaps you should fail to pass? Hmm...
Did you read the parent? He was specifically talking about reading Animal Farm in high school. While I would expect a college student to have familiarity with a broad range of classic books and be able to connect the dots themselves, the average (and even above average) sixteen year old is the definition of "lack of encompassing knowledge." Failing to explain or at least suggest the context would be the fault of the teacher in this case.
There are very few "new users" left of any computer system in America, 2004. Saturation is pretty much complete, and those few elderly folks who don't have a computer now aren't likely to get one.
So this guide isn't for someone new to computers, it's for someone new to Linux. Yes, they probably have a fair amount of knowledge, but the safest way to write this kind of guide is to assume they don't know anything (which may be the case anyway with people who've just used out-of-the-box Windows for years; they may not understand there are options besides Outlook, Explorer and Office.)
It's kind of a "for dummies" approach, but it's one that makes perfect sense.
WTF should someone who just reposts a copyrighted article in its entirety (which is not an example of fair-use) get modded up? Maybe I should pull the Slashdot First-post-alizer out of retirement and reprogram it to simply repost articles... whoo-hoo, watch the karma fly!
Ah, the inevitable AC questioning why cutting and pasting the article gets modded up...
The answer is, who cares? "Karma" is a fun little toy, it can't be traded in for prizes and it's not a measure of your worth as a human being.
Well, yeah, of course. I was replying to the parent, you know.
That's a bit draconian. I would like to be notified when Blizzard is releasing a new game or the new Glen Cook book is being released.
Are you really so out of the loop that you need to be told when Blizzard releases a new game, or an author you like releases a new book? Seems like that kind of information is pretty easily picked up through osmosis. Maybe if it's something more obscure, I'd understand...
I'd happily lose a few useful mailing lists to get rid of spam. Frankly, most lists I seem to be on are a nuisance anyway, even if they're from legitimate businesses-- the worst of it all those the friends of friends of friends' bands who seem to have a show every night of the week and need to tell me about it. Or those godawful eBay ads that come four times a week. Even my DSL service and web host seem to need to send me useless bi-weekly newsletters. I get so much useless information that any useful e-mail ad is going to get lost in the shuffle.
You're obligated to pay a fine to the government if you commit a misdemeanor. You are not required to pay a fine to a corporation because you violated their copyright. How can so many people miss this simple point?
Not saying downloading is right or wrong, this isn't about that. But this isn't a "fine." It's not punishment, it's either a settlement or extortion depending on what side of the fence you're on.
This may not be a direct path to engineering, but it would be a good toy for an 11 year old with those inclinations. Most kids, even geeks, aren't going to gravitate towards learning code.
We all start somewhere, y'know. I knew every peek and poke and hack and crack on my beloved C-64. Not a single hour I spent on it could be considered "useful", but I did walk away with the confidence that I could master any machine.
... Usually offers the best "extended warranty" you're going to find. The details vary with the card, but it's not unusual to find one that will replace a defective, damaged or stolen item with much less hassle than Best Buy or the manufacturer would ever give you. And by the way, don't put too much of the blame on the pimply-faced Best Buy salesmen, or even the store managers-- they're only following orders, and scruples are a commodity in a tough job market. Blame the Best Buy execs for creating an environment designed to mislead the consumer.
Back those claims up with links, or it comes off as FUD...
I got it from DSL Extreme (dynamic, though)... Their deals seem to change weekly so you have to keep up on them...
It was still better than the Dungeons and Dragons movie.
That's what CS is like now. Everything is so perfectly balanced, that there's no excitement to playing any longer. There's no challenge.
No. That's WHY the game is still immensely popular (and it's why Starcraft is still going strong, too.) It's a complex game of strategy where both sides are balanced, yet have very different strengths and weaknesses. Counterstrike takes thought, and you have to out-think as well as out-shoot your opponent. And I can't stress enough how great it is that once you're dead, you're dead.
Quake, now that is a boring game. THAT is a game where everyone is equal. And there's not much incentive to protect yourself because you'll re-spawn anyway.
Since we're all writing in English on a mostly U.S. site, his assumption was correct. It didn't make it to these shores, thus we don't care all that much. "We?" You mean, "You." I don't see how anyone with the basest knowledge of video games could write of the Japanese market.
In other words - 1 GB iDisk $350 per year. 1 GB gMail - free. Something is wrong there with somebody's pricing model for such a difference to exist.
.mac account when the new-computer-trial is up.
I do agree with you, it's nowhere near enough. I don't plan on renewing my
But I think it should be noted that iDisk and gmail serve different purposes. iDisk isn't e-mail storage with all the restrictions that implies, it's basically fancy FTP storage space. I don't have gmail, but I would assume there are restrictions about attachment size... iDisk, on the other hand, has made transfer of huge files pretty easy.
And it brings some people together. I know several people that have met and married in real life through Everquest.
C'mon. SEVERAL? I mean, I could see knowing one couple, but more? I mean, the odds of a woman playing Everquest to begin with is so astoundingly low... Unless some dude you know married some other guy who was pretending to be an elf chick.
They are happily married and two couples have already started families.
Gahh, so there are at least THREE couples who met on Everquest, and you personally KNOW THEM?
I'm sorry, but unless you work for Sony, run some sort of MMOG support group or happen to personally know thousands and thousands of people I have to call bullshit.
But are you comparing the U.S. to smaller countries with much greater population densities?
Not that we don't have a long way to go to improve, but we do have large expanses of rural areas, many smallish cities and expansive suburbs. It's a much bigger pain to "connect" the States... I mean, cable TV wasn't even available in the midwestern town I'm from until the early '90s.
Of course we also have many different phone and cable companies dividing these terrirories up (as opposed to Europe or Asia, where one company or the government itself may hold a monopoly.) While the competition is good for lowering prices in some of our cities (3.0/384 DSL is L.A. is as low as $23.95) it's a hindrance to setting up a unified network.
There's really no call to use HTML whatsoever. Not when Flash can make your web page look just like a TV show, kind of. At least you can finally throw in some cool music and lots of spinning logos. And now that there are no more dial-up users, there's no call to compress the Flash animations either. So go ahead and throw in a bunch of large bitmaps, too. Remember, people don't want to go to boring sites where all you do is read.