Okay, good point. My point was, enlight of the may posts talking about fascism, was that when you see a "feature" of it, people use the word. Now just because a feature of it exist, it doesn't mean you have a facist state.
And if I recall my history leasons correctly, the combination of things like a government coupled with business, strong nationalism, a strong right-wing political system with little political diversity, loyalty to a single leader, and a few others I don't recall off the top of my head were elements one would define as a facist state. Typically a government resembling Mussolini's. The quote I posted was not in reference to Standard Oil but what he says, IMHO, are things happening today with business and the US government. Like when a large corporation want to increase its bottom line and that envades on the peoples' rights granted by the Fair Use Act, the US politcians are siding with the large corps in lieu of the people.
And, yes, everyone doesn't agree on the definiton of fascism either.
Well, you can identify elements of fascism. Mabye that's why people use the word. One element is a government tightly coupled with business.
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That in it's [sic] essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message proposing the "Standard Oil" Monopoly Investigation, 1938
Darn if Roosevlt's words don't ring some element of truth in today's US government.
The author of the article set up a pretty high-end box for his project. But it was unclear to me what would be, say, the minimum system you would find acceptable for a MythTV box. Do you have any experience you'd like to share on that?
"There is no reason for black and white anything today. Its time to stop dragging our feet and actually walk forward"
Sad, just sad. Ansel Adams is rolling in his grave hearing that.
The rewards from large format B/W photography still can't be matched digitally. The reward is the personal satisfaction of hand metering a scene with your 1 degree spot meter. Adjusting your exposure to compensate for a modified development process that can compress or expand your hilights. And finally selecting the tone and texture of paper for the print (a selection that far exceeds color paper options).
If all went well, you have a beautiful piece of work... hence the joy of photography. Note that color film only captures around 5 stops of light and BW captures 7 stops. And you can increase that using expansion techniques.
"...Microsoft cannot afford to support older versions of software...."
Yes, I think they can. With $50b or so in cash reserves, they can afford it. More accurately would be to say that can't reep maximum profits by supporting older versions of their product.
You may be right about having no competition. My brother is a graphic artist for over 15 years now. He has used them all, he claims. He swears by this vector base graphic software: http://www.xara.com/ I've never used it but I have watched him crank out stuff on Xara at amazing speed.
"...I'm a student now, and our school is just short of OWNED by MS..."
Pretty sad really. As TFA said, "...our elected government are scared of displeasing a vendor!" That statment alone should set off alarms, down under, that a vendor has you by the short hairs! And it's time to educate and diversify; othrwise, stay technically challenged and dependant.
"...MS still has over 95% of the desktop share and roughly 50% of the server market...."
Darn, I don't have time to find the link. But some time ago, there was an article about Market Share vs Installed Base. Here, the author claims that MS only has around 88% of Installed Base (which does not equal Market Share). Market Share (recored sales in a time period) is not an accurate measure, he says, of what is out there.
If all of Microsoft's "free" readers end in a.exe, then I say, no, they are not free. That is, I would have to buy a MS license for the operating system to run that "free" reader. And is the cost of that "free" reader rolled into the cost of that license?
Proprietary file formats are bad for long-term storage of your data. Can you get to your data 30, 40 years from now? Is the company still in business. Can the hardware of the future run the old stuff that read your data?
Are you locking up your IP in someone else's IP? You may find that you have to spend a lot of effort or money to get at your data in the future (if at all).
Open standards reduce that risk by a long shot because you can convert the data to new systems.
"...Nearly everything works as it should out of the box..."
Ha, when I upgraded to the 2004.3 PPC version on my PowerBook (haven't done the new ver yet), I went through hell! It was broken in every respect. I had to do a complete reinstall plus learn more about udev/devfs than I cared to know. And today, I still don't have the all the features working and I'm tired of chasing down why some applications don't compile without errors. The x86 version is obviouly more polished.
Yes, UTC is kept within 0.9 seconds of UT1 with the addition or subtraction of the leap-second. This is to keep the sun where we expect it to be at noon; otherwise, given enough time, it would not match our sense of the day. UTC is not adjusted for the purpose of matching GMT per se.
The master atomic clocks of the world don't measure time by the definition of the second in GMT. It's a matter of keeping your "units" correct.
And, yes again, in the pratical sense, GMT is UTC to you and me but only because the magnitude of the error is small. But like calling weight kilograms (should be kilograms-force), you continue to propogate the wrong defintion of a unit.
Since GMT is an obsolete time scale (for what 30 years now), I think you will be hard-pressed finding an official time keeping source that measures time by the definition of the second in GMT. Your NTP time server will get its time from master time servers which report time in the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time scale which is derived from measurements in the TAI (International Atomic Time) time scale.
The basis for civil time is an atomic time scale (GMT is an astronomical based time scale). Thus, the correct "units" for time on the prime meridian is UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) which is derived from TAI.
Go to any official place that measures and reports time and you will see the complete absence of the words GMT (except for the BBC who just can't give it up).
GMT is an abused time scale used by the layman just like people use kilograms (a unit of mass not weight) to report weight without the qualifying "force" on the end. The same is true with calories in food. That one-calorie diet coke is really 1000 calories by the SI definition of the unit. The inference in this case is a Dietary Calorie (=1000 calories)
Yes, do you really think your concerns are going to be addressed if you talk like that? Get over the emotion will ya. Otherwise, you're just put into the zealot catagory and ignored.
Yes, it was a good interview. And what is more interesting is that the higher up you go in the corporate chain for interviews, the less substance that comes out of them. That is, if you ask, say Bill Gates, any tough questions, you get PR washed responses and even diverted answers because there is no way they are going to admit anything that puts them in a bad light (even if it is the truth).
So, good job Martin. I respect answers from employees like you than from any corporate mouth piece. Now if you want to win me back as another Microsoft customer, you need to work on that EULA.
"...When there are enough people that want to buy games for linux there will be commercial games for linux. It's that simple...."
I don't think it's that simple. Developers won't port games to Linux unsless there is a user base. And those who define an OS by what games it has (hence user base) won't use Linux without any games. Plus so many game developers don't use OpenGL so their games become more of a rewrite than a port which creates more of a barrier.
Slashdot Mirror
" Fuck the EULA. Load the programme on whatever..."
That may only work if you have nothing to lose. And the more you have to lose, the more it won't work.
Large Drink - $7
Large Popcorn - $7
Tea (even if you bring your own bag) - $4
Watching a re-make of a formulated movie... priceless!
LOL
Okay, good point. My point was, enlight of the may posts talking about fascism, was that when you see a "feature" of it, people use the word. Now just because a feature of it exist, it doesn't mean you have a facist state.
And if I recall my history leasons correctly, the combination of things like a government coupled with business, strong nationalism, a strong right-wing political system with little political diversity, loyalty to a single leader, and a few others I don't recall off the top of my head were elements one would define as a facist state. Typically a government resembling Mussolini's. The quote I posted was not in reference to Standard Oil but what he says, IMHO, are things happening today with business and the US government. Like when a large corporation want to increase its bottom line and that envades on the peoples' rights granted by the Fair Use Act, the US politcians are siding with the large corps in lieu of the people.
And, yes, everyone doesn't agree on the definiton of fascism either.
" Do you even know what fascism is?"
Well, you can identify elements of fascism. Mabye that's why people use the word. One element is a government tightly coupled with business.
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That in it's [sic] essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message proposing the "Standard Oil" Monopoly Investigation, 1938
Darn if Roosevlt's words don't ring some element of truth in today's US government.
Stephanie -- oops, I mean paid shill -- Can you say:
A s T r O t U r F i N g
Thanx
"MythTv user myself for a long time now"
The author of the article set up a pretty high-end box for his project. But it was unclear to me what would be, say, the minimum system you would find acceptable for a MythTV box. Do you have any experience you'd like to share on that?
"...And to be honest there is no realistic alternative to the average consumer .i.e. grandmother other than Windows...."
You don't think your grandma can operate a Mac? I bet she could. So there *is* another alternative.
"There is no reason for black and white anything today. Its time to stop dragging our feet and actually walk forward"
Sad, just sad. Ansel Adams is rolling in his grave hearing that.
The rewards from large format B/W photography still can't be matched digitally. The reward is the personal satisfaction of hand metering a scene with your 1 degree spot meter. Adjusting your exposure to compensate for a modified development process that can compress or expand your hilights. And finally selecting the tone and texture of paper for the print (a selection that far exceeds color paper options).
If all went well, you have a beautiful piece of work... hence the joy of photography. Note that color film only captures around 5 stops of light and BW captures 7 stops. And you can increase that using expansion techniques.
"...Microsoft cannot afford to support older versions of software...."
Yes, I think they can. With $50b or so in cash reserves, they can afford it. More accurately would be to say that can't reep maximum profits by supporting older versions of their product.
"...because Photoshop has no real competition..."
You may be right about having no competition. My brother is a graphic artist for over 15 years now. He has used them all, he claims. He swears by this vector base graphic software: http://www.xara.com/ I've never used it but I have watched him crank out stuff on Xara at amazing speed.
" "fun" home project to build one using services like Pad2Pad..."
Their CAD software looks like it's limited to Windblows only.
"...I'm a student now, and our school is just short of OWNED by MS..."
Pretty sad really. As TFA said, "...our elected government are scared of displeasing a vendor!" That statment alone should set off alarms, down under, that a vendor has you by the short hairs! And it's time to educate and diversify; othrwise, stay technically challenged and dependant.
"...MS still has over 95% of the desktop share and roughly 50% of the server market...."
Darn, I don't have time to find the link. But some time ago, there was an article about Market Share vs Installed Base. Here, the author claims that MS only has around 88% of Installed Base (which does not equal Market Share). Market Share (recored sales in a time period) is not an accurate measure, he says, of what is out there.
If all of Microsoft's "free" readers end in a .exe, then I say, no, they are not free. That is, I would have to buy a MS license for the operating system to run that "free" reader. And is the cost of that "free" reader rolled into the cost of that license?
I donno... just asking.
Proprietary file formats are bad for long-term storage of your data. Can you get to your data 30, 40 years from now? Is the company still in business. Can the hardware of the future run the old stuff that read your data?
Are you locking up your IP in someone else's IP? You may find that you have to spend a lot of effort or money to get at your data in the future (if at all).
Open standards reduce that risk by a long shot because you can convert the data to new systems.
"...Nearly everything works as it should out of the box..."
Ha, when I upgraded to the 2004.3 PPC version on my PowerBook (haven't done the new ver yet), I went through hell! It was broken in every respect. I had to do a complete reinstall plus learn more about udev/devfs than I cared to know. And today, I still don't have the all the features working and I'm tired of chasing down why some applications don't compile without errors. The x86 version is obviouly more polished.
"...We can see stars literally hundreds of miles away...
Hundreds of miles away, professor? You do the math!
Yes, UTC is kept within 0.9 seconds of UT1 with the addition or subtraction of the leap-second. This is to keep the sun where we expect it to be at noon; otherwise, given enough time, it would not match our sense of the day. UTC is not adjusted for the purpose of matching GMT per se.
The master atomic clocks of the world don't measure time by the definition of the second in GMT. It's a matter of keeping your "units" correct.
And, yes again, in the pratical sense, GMT is UTC to you and me but only because the magnitude of the error is small. But like calling weight kilograms (should be kilograms-force), you continue to propogate the wrong defintion of a unit.
"...We run our servers off GMT..."
Since GMT is an obsolete time scale (for what 30 years now), I think you will be hard-pressed finding an official time keeping source that measures time by the definition of the second in GMT. Your NTP time server will get its time from master time servers which report time in the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time scale which is derived from measurements in the TAI (International Atomic Time) time scale.
The basis for civil time is an atomic time scale (GMT is an astronomical based time scale). Thus, the correct "units" for time on the prime meridian is UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) which is derived from TAI.
Go to any official place that measures and reports time and you will see the complete absence of the words GMT (except for the BBC who just can't give it up).
GMT is an abused time scale used by the layman just like people use kilograms (a unit of mass not weight) to report weight without the qualifying "force" on the end. The same is true with calories in food. That one-calorie diet coke is really 1000 calories by the SI definition of the unit. The inference in this case is a Dietary Calorie (=1000 calories)
How many parents think their baby is ugly? I think we have a case of that now with spyware companies. Spyware only a mother could love.
Yes, do you really think your concerns are going to be addressed if you talk like that? Get over the emotion will ya. Otherwise, you're just put into the zealot catagory and ignored.
Yes, it was a good interview. And what is more interesting is that the higher up you go in the corporate chain for interviews, the less substance that comes out of them. That is, if you ask, say Bill Gates, any tough questions, you get PR washed responses and even diverted answers because there is no way they are going to admit anything that puts them in a bad light (even if it is the truth).
So, good job Martin. I respect answers from employees like you than from any corporate mouth piece. Now if you want to win me back as another Microsoft customer, you need to work on that EULA.
"...When there are enough people that want to buy games for linux there will be commercial games for linux. It's that simple...."
I don't think it's that simple. Developers won't port games to Linux unsless there is a user base. And those who define an OS by what games it has (hence user base) won't use Linux without any games. Plus so many game developers don't use OpenGL so their games become more of a rewrite than a port which creates more of a barrier.