Think about it, instead of endless rehashes of the same Guitar Hero game, you could have new ones, like: Lyre Hero, Recorder Hero, Viola Hero, and the always impressive Oboe Hero.
The majority of OSS is half-finished, poorly-planned crap that is in perpetual beta. In my experience (and I've held long debates with friends and colleagues about this) this has been caused by plain and simple pride. i.e. what happened with Pidgin - developers imposing their own viewpoints on their software for no valid reason.
That, and the language/OS elitism. A lot of abandoned projects in sourceforge are developed in an obscure scripting language and/or extension that requires very, VERY careful installation (i.e. wxPython - choose the wrong version and you'll end up in a support nightmare), or perhaps use a specific UI toolkit (perhaps even proprietary *cough cough* cinelerra *cough cough*) that keeps crashing and crashing. I remember when I tried to install GAIM in Windows. It sucked big time. You can't just design something as "cross-platform" if you don't do extensive testing on ALL operating systems, and that includes the Redmond Nightmare.
I believe that a lot of OSS developers program for selfish reasons - i.e. "I'm programming a tool that does what I want" instead of "I'm programming a tool that will help people who might not use my OS or won't share my personal tastes, therefore I need to think about them".
The lesson: It's not really the OS or the toolkit, or even the language used. It's the attitude of the developers that ruins projects.
yes, but what happens when suddenly the Word Viewer stops working for some obscure new Microsoft Word format? Microsoft has been known to simply stop supporting certain formats. Last year it dropped DBF support for Microsoft Excel.
Embrace, Extend, Exterminate.
This reminds me of an old game...
on
Iron Sky Trailer
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
First, the movie tagline: "In 1945, the Nazis went to the moon. In 2018, they're coming back."
This reminded me of an old Cinemaware game called "Rocket Ranger", where the Nazis obtained alien technology that they could use to conquer the world. Rocket Ranger had to stop their plans, and go to the moon to dismantle their base.
In any case, the trailer looks great. I think I'm going to watch this movie.
I disagree that the Slashdot system works very well. Sure, it has kept the site going, but is it working well? I would argue no, because the problem with the Slashdot system is that too many people get modded up or down for "political" reasons: "I disagree with you, therefore I will mod you".
You haven't read digg recently, have you? Slashdot is in Valhalla compared to digg's moderation system, and that's because moderation merits in Slashdot are hierarchical - the first moderators were wisemen chosen by the Mighty Taco Himself. Besides, anyone can metamoderate. If they don't it's their problem.
In contrast, digg is open to hordes of uncontrollable moderation, and this is specially true when a scientology article gets modded down by the Hubbard hordes.
I learned a long time ago that in the court room the judge and attorneys involved are not interested in the truth, the facts, or with dispensing justice. They are there to tell a story and put on an act to convince the jury that their side is telling a better story than the other side.
One movie that describes this perfectly, is "my cousin vinny". In the movie, Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid interprets a teenager who just happened to buy something at a store where 5 minutes later the clerk was shot.
The district attorney hired a wonderful lawyer that moved the hearts and minds of everyone. Fortunately, the kid's cousin, Vinny, the most inefficient lawyer on earth, happened to save the day by presenting the facts to the jury (and add a lot of fun with his irreverence).
I do think there is room for civil disobediance here - go download music that *would* have passed into public domain before the Bono act was passed. But downloading new music while claiming evils of copyright - which many people are doing - doesn't work.
I beg to differ. PURCHASING new music while claiming evils of copyright is what doesn't work, because you're feeding the very beasts you're trying to fight - the intermediaries. From my point of view, someone who supports the RIAA by letting them collect more than 90% of the purchase, has no right to protest against them. It would be like Gandhi accusing England of abuses while still paying the taxes (he didn't pay, and thanks to that, India became an independent country).
This isn't about technology. The RIAA's aggresive war against users isn't based on good or bad technology. It's just a bunch of lies.
* An IP address can't be used to pinpoint a user, and that's a FACT. What does that have to do with better technology? * The companies they hired to do their investigations weren't authorized by the government. That's ILLEGAL. What does that have to do with better technology?
But I hope we agree that having to use undocumented API calls because it's the only way is the fault of the OS manufacturer, yes? Conclusion: Microsoft's greedy and dirty tactics are the very cause of its doom.
Someone said once (I forgot who) that Bill Gates wasn't a programmer. He was a businessman, and his business was computer programming. A true programmer would of course care if unauthorized copies of his operating system would be one of the main causes for viruses, spyware, spam and whatnot. A true programmer would care about developers not following the design guidelines. A true programmer would care about the darn security holes.
But neither Gates or Ballmer care about this important stuff. They're not programmers, they're businessmen, and the only thing they care about is the f***ing money.
No wonder Windows users are in deep sh**. Fortunately for me, I'm using Linux.
The guy simply didn't do his homework. For starters, he thinks MEPIS is based on Mandriva - but it's based on Debian. Then, uses the latest beta of Ubuntu to compete with older distros. Finally, there is NO COMPARISON CHART.
What kind of research is that? He just shows a separate review of each distro, to finally announce "and the winner is...". I call this bull. Much more informative is the "girlfriend linux test" article.
I didn't know you could use the Internet to heat water.
At first i thought "rofl!" but then I realized that this is precisely what watercooling does. Maybe one day someone will create a water heater for your coffee using your CPU's heat.
Adobe needs to put the Flash player (as well as the Flash program itself) under the GPL license if they want to be relevant.
And sign their death sentence? Adobe depends on the sale of their software. It's fair enough opening the formats. I'm thinking that Adobe has realized that closed formats have no future in the web. It's catch 22: If they don't open the formats, they risk extinction. But if they do, they give their keys to the competition (including F/OSS) in a few years.
Well, for starters, a transistor has a base, an emitter and a collector. A current flows from the base to the emitter which also lets another current flow from the collector to the emitter.
A memristor only varies the resistivity from one of the wires, which effectively isolates the two circuits. This cannot be effectively be achieved with resistors, capacitors, or inductors. So, the memristor is actually a "resistivity transistor", which happens to have memory included.
A practical application for this would be a digitally-driven analog volume control for your stereo. The + / - buttons would apply a current to change the "virtual knob"'s memory. So the next time you turn on the stereo, it'll have the same volume that it was when you turned it off. No mechanical wear and tear, and no batteries required.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, you forgot Cowbell Hero!
Independently of the pain that the performance caused to my ears, this is effectively hardware hacking, which does deserve a Slashdot front page.
That, and the language/OS elitism. A lot of abandoned projects in sourceforge are developed in an obscure scripting language and/or extension that requires very, VERY careful installation (i.e. wxPython - choose the wrong version and you'll end up in a support nightmare), or perhaps use a specific UI toolkit (perhaps even proprietary *cough cough* cinelerra *cough cough*) that keeps crashing and crashing. I remember when I tried to install GAIM in Windows. It sucked big time. You can't just design something as "cross-platform" if you don't do extensive testing on ALL operating systems, and that includes the Redmond Nightmare.
I believe that a lot of OSS developers program for selfish reasons - i.e. "I'm programming a tool that does what I want" instead of "I'm programming a tool that will help people who might not use my OS or won't share my personal tastes, therefore I need to think about them".
The lesson: It's not really the OS or the toolkit, or even the language used. It's the attitude of the developers that ruins projects.
The GPL is *NOT* an EULA! It's a DISTRIBUTION license!!!
Spore, heavenly version?
Hmmm... I wonder what would happen if....
"Awww what a cute little platy- AAAAAAAAAAARGH GET HIM OFF ME GET HIM OFF ME SON OF A -*starts swearing in pain*"
Here's a poison-free version if you can't resist the hugging urges :)
yes, but what happens when suddenly the Word Viewer stops working for some obscure new Microsoft Word format? Microsoft has been known to simply stop supporting certain formats. Last year it dropped DBF support for Microsoft Excel.
Embrace, Extend, Exterminate.
First, the movie tagline: "In 1945, the Nazis went to the moon. In 2018, they're coming back."
This reminded me of an old Cinemaware game called "Rocket Ranger", where the Nazis obtained alien technology that they could use to conquer the world. Rocket Ranger had to stop their plans, and go to the moon to dismantle their base.
In any case, the trailer looks great. I think I'm going to watch this movie.
You haven't read digg recently, have you? Slashdot is in Valhalla compared to digg's moderation system, and that's because moderation merits in Slashdot are hierarchical - the first moderators were wisemen chosen by the Mighty Taco Himself. Besides, anyone can metamoderate. If they don't it's their problem.
In contrast, digg is open to hordes of uncontrollable moderation, and this is specially true when a scientology article gets modded down by the Hubbard hordes.
I would have modded you funny if you were an AC ;-)
One movie that describes this perfectly, is "my cousin vinny". In the movie, Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid interprets a teenager who just happened to buy something at a store where 5 minutes later the clerk was shot.
The district attorney hired a wonderful lawyer that moved the hearts and minds of everyone. Fortunately, the kid's cousin, Vinny, the most inefficient lawyer on earth, happened to save the day by presenting the facts to the jury (and add a lot of fun with his irreverence).
One of my favorite movies, btw.
Whoa, you just reminded me of the Resident Evil and Silent Hill movies.
I do think there is room for civil disobediance here - go download music that *would* have passed into public domain before the Bono act was passed. But downloading new music while claiming evils of copyright - which many people are doing - doesn't work.
I beg to differ. PURCHASING new music while claiming evils of copyright is what doesn't work, because you're feeding the very beasts you're trying to fight - the intermediaries. From my point of view, someone who supports the RIAA by letting them collect more than 90% of the purchase, has no right to protest against them. It would be like Gandhi accusing England of abuses while still paying the taxes (he didn't pay, and thanks to that, India became an independent country).Now! From electronic researchers at the Princeton University, comes... Self-Perfection by Liquefaction! (public oohs)
... not 1,000, not 500, not 100, but a mere $9.95!
Testimony: "I was a lousy CPU, i overheated and it was exhausting. But when I tried Self-Perfection by Liquefaction, my life changed".
(Shows picture of before / after)
(public wows and applauds)
And this perfection can only be yours by the mere price of
CALL NOW!
This isn't about technology. The RIAA's aggresive war against users isn't based on good or bad technology. It's just a bunch of lies.
* An IP address can't be used to pinpoint a user, and that's a FACT. What does that have to do with better technology?
* The companies they hired to do their investigations weren't authorized by the government. That's ILLEGAL. What does that have to do with better technology?
Hmm... what would happen if it was Bill Gates who got bitten by a spider?
Uncle Ben: Remember, Bill... with great power, comes...
Bill Gates: MONEY!!!
Someone said once (I forgot who) that Bill Gates wasn't a programmer. He was a businessman, and his business was computer programming. A true programmer would of course care if unauthorized copies of his operating system would be one of the main causes for viruses, spyware, spam and whatnot. A true programmer would care about developers not following the design guidelines. A true programmer would care about the darn security holes.
But neither Gates or Ballmer care about this important stuff. They're not programmers, they're businessmen, and the only thing they care about is the f***ing money.
No wonder Windows users are in deep sh**. Fortunately for me, I'm using Linux.
The guy simply didn't do his homework. For starters, he thinks MEPIS is based on Mandriva - but it's based on Debian. Then, uses the latest beta of Ubuntu to compete with older distros. Finally, there is NO COMPARISON CHART.
What kind of research is that? He just shows a separate review of each distro, to finally announce "and the winner is...". I call this bull. Much more informative is the "girlfriend linux test" article.
Mod article down.
At first i thought "rofl!" but then I realized that this is precisely what watercooling does. Maybe one day someone will create a water heater for your coffee using your CPU's heat.
This url should be in the summary, I wonder why they missed it.
And sign their death sentence? Adobe depends on the sale of their software. It's fair enough opening the formats. I'm thinking that Adobe has realized that closed formats have no future in the web. It's catch 22: If they don't open the formats, they risk extinction. But if they do, they give their keys to the competition (including F/OSS) in a few years.
Well, for starters, a transistor has a base, an emitter and a collector. A current flows from the base to the emitter which also lets another current flow from the collector to the emitter.
A memristor only varies the resistivity from one of the wires, which effectively isolates the two circuits. This cannot be effectively be achieved with resistors, capacitors, or inductors. So, the memristor is actually a "resistivity transistor", which happens to have memory included.
A practical application for this would be a digitally-driven analog volume control for your stereo. The + / - buttons would apply a current to change the "virtual knob"'s memory. So the next time you turn on the stereo, it'll have the same volume that it was when you turned it off. No mechanical wear and tear, and no batteries required.
Alrighty then.
*ahem* Microsoft SUCK0RZ!!!1111ONE
There. Mission Accomplished!
Mind showing us some features? The funpidgin page is slashdotted.