Suborbital (or even low orbit) travel is the same way. Maybe you're wasting weeks of work to go 62.5 miles now, but in thirty years, you'll be able to get almost anywhere in the world in 90 minutes
Don't forget to add an hour to clean off the vomit of you and your fellow passengers. A 90-minute sub-orbital flight would make your average amusement park rollercoaster seem like a few seconds on the La-z-boy.
Criticism is a valid way of participating in the process; we don't all have time to "fix it ourselves".
I would add to this that even if we do have the time, that time gets sunk into maybe 1 project, or a smattering of 1-line patches in a handful of projects, not into every single OSS application we use.
Tinkering with the code is something that hardly anyone actually does, except for the core developers.
True, but I think that it is the knowledge that one could if one had to, that is the real issue. The fear of flying is largely due to the fact that one is powerless to save yourself should something go wrong; the much-more-dangerous act of driving a car is more comforting because you are in control. OSS fans look at software the same way -- the car often feels like a better choice, because you know how to fix it (even though you generally don't). Sometimes it really is the better choice, since airplanes don't always go where you're going.
Saying that all software should be free ignores the hidden price - including your own ability to make a living from writing software.
Most software is not written to be a commercial product. It follows that most software developers make a perfectly decent living by writing software that was never meant to be sold.
Closed source software can be just as good, sometimes even better, than Open Source.
The quality of software is proportional to the number of eyes on it. Just because a package is open-source doesn't mean it has many eyes. Most packages are handled by 1 or 2 people, and can't compete against a professional team of 4 developers, 2 testers, 1 designer, a technical writer, a couple of managers, and a support call center. An OSS package with a couple dozen regular contributors will compete fairly well, however.
Having a lot of programmers "scratching their personal itch" just ensures that a lot of programmer tools get written.
Which is a Good Thing if you are a programmer.
Sometimes restricting the choices might not be a bad idea.
I'd rephrase this as: sometimes it's nice when a reasonable choice is made for us. Don't give me 12 different examples of a particular app and stick them all in monstrous start-up menu, forcing me to research them all to figure out which one I want to use. Choose one and pre-configure it for me. If I don't like it, then I can do the research.
Yeah, exactly. In fact, screw gnome-terminal! It's too bloated. Even xterm is better! That's why I don't use GNOME. The only power tool GNOME offers is gnome-terminal, which frankly sucks by comparison to other terminal emulators.
Had to laugh at this. I run FluxBox with gnome-terminal because I need something lightweight and xterm is a pig compared to gnome-terminal once you have more than 3 of them running (xterm runs each as a separate process). On my desktops 4-6 concurrent terminals is minimal.
Speaking of which, here's a wacky idea: since the terminal is, indeed, the power user's file manager, how about a spatial terminal instead of spatial nautilus/finder/filemanager? Having 15 concurrent working directories, but only 4 fully visible terminals on each desktop to interact with them can be a pain.
Cut-and-paste is damn annoying in gnome-terminal, but that's a whole other flamewar.
That simplifies things, acually, since by definition you aren't searching for them.
What complicates matters is the assumption that a technological civilization that has this technology is still primitive enough to pump out massive amounts of EM radiation in all directions to communicate with other individuals around them.
Even here on primitive ol' Earth we can see where EM communication is going... directed beam, spread-spectrum, low-power wireless mesh, encrypted (ie. reandom-looking) digital, and that's all a mere 100 years or so into this radio thing. How many of the 10K-1M civilizations out there do we hope to accidentally catch in this tiny window of radio naivete? And since it will take 100-1000 years to send a message back, does anyone seriously think they'll still be listening attentively to their little alien vacuum tube sets when it gets there?
How in the world can a government think that they are entitled to 50% of _your_ money?
The same way ANYONE can think they are entitled to your money - by providing you with VALUE. How much is it worth to have clean, safe streets even in the worst neighbourhoods in your city? Universal health care? Well-maintained roads? Cheap, good quality education? A foreign policy that causes you be welcomed when you travel abroad? A free economy that allows you to make too much money and then complain about how the government did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help you get that way?
If these things hold no value for you, then you have a right to be pissed. I suggest moving to central Africa or perhaps Haiti, where I'm sure you would never have cause to complain about over-taxation, and your opportunities for making millions would therefore be completely unbounded.
Don't compare film to a $99 snappy digital camera. If you are going to make judgements such as "Don't use digital".
Why shouldn't one compare a $100 (used) film SLR with a $100 (or even $500) digital camera?
At least start out by comparing the output of a decent Digital SLR with a film SLR.
Fair enough. Output for a decent (new) digital SLR: $2000. Output for a decent (used) film SLR: $100.
(Fair comparisons with decent used digital SLRs will be available in 5 or 10 years. But by then I expect people will have figured out that they can recycle the lenses...)
This isn't true at all. Lens for a digital SLR (such as a Canon) are in fact the same lens one uses for their film SLRs. They aren't going to magically cost loss just because you have a film body.
But the thing is, they do magically cost less, if you buy on the used market. Plenty of people are dumping their old film SLR equipment, instead of just replacing the body. They buy digital all-in-ones instead, and let all the film equipment go for a song, because in their head it's old tech. I could take time out to educate them, but I don't because (1) they actually prefer their all-in-ones, and (2) they might raise the price of their "junk".
I've bought plenty of camera equipment this way - most recently, a Canon AE1 with 4 lenses, filters, plunger, and tripod for $100. I have a total of 4 bodies and 9 lenses picked up under similar circumstances. Mind you, these aren't state-of-the-art bodies. They are good old fashioned film SLRs, with solid bodies, and basic features. You have to focus and set shutter speeds, and do all that insanely complicated technical stuff. But the durability, battery life, optics quality, and most importantly for me, click-to-clunk time, leave consumer digitals in the dust.
So it's not about the media, it's about the camera. In fact, until someone makes an affordable digital that can capture a candid action shot (not some random image from a full second later), you really have no choice -- film SLR plus scanner is the only way to get quality digital action images for cheap.
A good quality Digital SLR costs many thousands of dollars, once you buy a decent selection of lenses. A similar film SLR, complete with a selection of quality lenses, can be picked up for as little as a hundred bucks on the used market from some older techno-geek who has gone digital. Add a scanner with a negative carrier, and you can digitize anything you shoot at any resolution that suits you. And, don't forget: never order prints when you get your film processed - request developing only. It's only a couple bucks a roll.
It takes longer than pure digital, it's more complicated, it requires detailed technical knowledge, there is exotic machinery that must be mastered, every tip in this article still works, and you end up with amazing digital images with the warmth and tone of film, much to the amazement and envy of professional photographers everywhere. What's not to like?
Linux advocates talk about all these imaginary flaws in Windows and people out here in the real world think "well that isn't my experience at all".
I had a nice dose of the "real world" user experience yesterday.
My wife uses XP quite productively, and based on her positive experience, I recommended XP to my mother when she bought a new computer after her old Win-ME box became terminally clogged with cruft.
The install went like the war on Iraq, amazingly quick and smooth, and then, just when you think it's all wrapped up... failed device installs, Outlook crashing, and all the other features of a quagmire.
Suspecting bad hardware, I threw in a Knoppix CD, and it came up just fine and I was able to surf the web to research the Windows problems, and download and read email -- without (in case it's not obvious), configuring a damn thing, since Knoppix runs entirely off CD. So the hardware was fine, the real problem was that I was a fscking idiot for believing a bunch of half-wit MS apologists when they insist that newer Windows work well on newer hardware.
I eventually got the Windows install working, after downloading some drivers (using another computer), buying some new hardware, disabling some onboard controllers, and reinstalling Outlook 3 times.
I had to get my wife to help, since she's more familiar with XP. Oh yeah, and she has a CS degree and has worked for years as a Windows application developer. She said the f-word about 40 times as she sorted out various problems.
So the problem with Windows, based on my "real world" experience yesterday is that:
it has lousy device support
you need to be an IT professional to install the damn thing
it doesn't run Windows applications very well
At least after seeing Knoppix run, my mother now knows that you can use Linux if you need to work around these problems.
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Don't forget to add an hour to clean off the vomit of you and your fellow passengers. A 90-minute sub-orbital flight would make your average amusement park rollercoaster seem like a few seconds on the La-z-boy.
I would add to this that even if we do have the time, that time gets sunk into maybe 1 project, or a smattering of 1-line patches in a handful of projects, not into every single OSS application we use.
Tinkering with the code is something that hardly anyone actually does, except for the core developers.
True, but I think that it is the knowledge that one could if one had to, that is the real issue. The fear of flying is largely due to the fact that one is powerless to save yourself should something go wrong; the much-more-dangerous act of driving a car is more comforting because you are in control. OSS fans look at software the same way -- the car often feels like a better choice, because you know how to fix it (even though you generally don't). Sometimes it really is the better choice, since airplanes don't always go where you're going.
Saying that all software should be free ignores the hidden price - including your own ability to make a living from writing software.
Most software is not written to be a commercial product. It follows that most software developers make a perfectly decent living by writing software that was never meant to be sold.
Closed source software can be just as good, sometimes even better, than Open Source.
The quality of software is proportional to the number of eyes on it. Just because a package is open-source doesn't mean it has many eyes. Most packages are handled by 1 or 2 people, and can't compete against a professional team of 4 developers, 2 testers, 1 designer, a technical writer, a couple of managers, and a support call center. An OSS package with a couple dozen regular contributors will compete fairly well, however.
Having a lot of programmers "scratching their personal itch" just ensures that a lot of programmer tools get written.
Which is a Good Thing if you are a programmer.
Sometimes restricting the choices might not be a bad idea.
I'd rephrase this as: sometimes it's nice when a reasonable choice is made for us. Don't give me 12 different examples of a particular app and stick them all in monstrous start-up menu, forcing me to research them all to figure out which one I want to use. Choose one and pre-configure it for me. If I don't like it, then I can do the research.
Had to laugh at this. I run FluxBox with gnome-terminal because I need something lightweight and xterm is a pig compared to gnome-terminal once you have more than 3 of them running (xterm runs each as a separate process). On my desktops 4-6 concurrent terminals is minimal.
Speaking of which, here's a wacky idea: since the terminal is, indeed, the power user's file manager, how about a spatial terminal instead of spatial nautilus/finder/filemanager? Having 15 concurrent working directories, but only 4 fully visible terminals on each desktop to interact with them can be a pain.
Cut-and-paste is damn annoying in gnome-terminal, but that's a whole other flamewar.
Apparently there aren't any other students that realize someday they will probably be resposible for user interfaces of all sorts and sizes.
Apparently your university and professors also don't realize it, or they would have made the course a graduation requirement.
What complicates matters is the assumption that a technological civilization that has this technology is still primitive enough to pump out massive amounts of EM radiation in all directions to communicate with other individuals around them.
Even here on primitive ol' Earth we can see where EM communication is going... directed beam, spread-spectrum, low-power wireless mesh, encrypted (ie. reandom-looking) digital, and that's all a mere 100 years or so into this radio thing. How many of the 10K-1M civilizations out there do we hope to accidentally catch in this tiny window of radio naivete? And since it will take 100-1000 years to send a message back, does anyone seriously think they'll still be listening attentively to their little alien vacuum tube sets when it gets there?
They're way ahead of you...
The same way ANYONE can think they are entitled to your money - by providing you with VALUE. How much is it worth to have clean, safe streets even in the worst neighbourhoods in your city? Universal health care? Well-maintained roads? Cheap, good quality education? A foreign policy that causes you be welcomed when you travel abroad? A free economy that allows you to make too much money and then complain about how the government did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help you get that way?
If these things hold no value for you, then you have a right to be pissed. I suggest moving to central Africa or perhaps Haiti, where I'm sure you would never have cause to complain about over-taxation, and your opportunities for making millions would therefore be completely unbounded.
Yup, they already have faster craft: every space launch vehicle since the 1950s has easily surpassed Mach 10.
So it is a technology award.
Why shouldn't one compare a $100 (used) film SLR with a $100 (or even $500) digital camera?
At least start out by comparing the output of a decent Digital SLR with a film SLR.
Fair enough. Output for a decent (new) digital SLR: $2000. Output for a decent (used) film SLR: $100.
(Fair comparisons with decent used digital SLRs will be available in 5 or 10 years. But by then I expect people will have figured out that they can recycle the lenses...)
But the thing is, they do magically cost less, if you buy on the used market. Plenty of people are dumping their old film SLR equipment, instead of just replacing the body. They buy digital all-in-ones instead, and let all the film equipment go for a song, because in their head it's old tech. I could take time out to educate them, but I don't because (1) they actually prefer their all-in-ones, and (2) they might raise the price of their "junk".
I've bought plenty of camera equipment this way - most recently, a Canon AE1 with 4 lenses, filters, plunger, and tripod for $100. I have a total of 4 bodies and 9 lenses picked up under similar circumstances. Mind you, these aren't state-of-the-art bodies. They are good old fashioned film SLRs, with solid bodies, and basic features. You have to focus and set shutter speeds, and do all that insanely complicated technical stuff. But the durability, battery life, optics quality, and most importantly for me, click-to-clunk time, leave consumer digitals in the dust.
So it's not about the media, it's about the camera. In fact, until someone makes an affordable digital that can capture a candid action shot (not some random image from a full second later), you really have no choice -- film SLR plus scanner is the only way to get quality digital action images for cheap.
It takes longer than pure digital, it's more complicated, it requires detailed technical knowledge, there is exotic machinery that must be mastered, every tip in this article still works, and you end up with amazing digital images with the warmth and tone of film, much to the amazement and envy of professional photographers everywhere. What's not to like?
I had a nice dose of the "real world" user experience yesterday.
My wife uses XP quite productively, and based on her positive experience, I recommended XP to my mother when she bought a new computer after her old Win-ME box became terminally clogged with cruft.
The install went like the war on Iraq, amazingly quick and smooth, and then, just when you think it's all wrapped up... failed device installs, Outlook crashing, and all the other features of a quagmire.
Suspecting bad hardware, I threw in a Knoppix CD, and it came up just fine and I was able to surf the web to research the Windows problems, and download and read email -- without (in case it's not obvious), configuring a damn thing, since Knoppix runs entirely off CD. So the hardware was fine, the real problem was that I was a fscking idiot for believing a bunch of half-wit MS apologists when they insist that newer Windows work well on newer hardware.
I eventually got the Windows install working, after downloading some drivers (using another computer), buying some new hardware, disabling some onboard controllers, and reinstalling Outlook 3 times.
I had to get my wife to help, since she's more familiar with XP. Oh yeah, and she has a CS degree and has worked for years as a Windows application developer. She said the f-word about 40 times as she sorted out various problems.
So the problem with Windows, based on my "real world" experience yesterday is that:
- it has lousy device support
- you need to be an IT professional to install the damn thing
- it doesn't run Windows applications very well
At least after seeing Knoppix run, my mother now knows that you can use Linux if you need to work around these problems.