That's like giving up driving because someone honked at you.
Check your ego at the door.
Where does ego come into it? As an occasional contributor I have no desire of participating in an edit war. Moreover, if information backed up by good evidence is going to be rejected by petty individuals with agenda of their own, the problem is not with the person trying to improvethe article. I'm happy to contribute on minor subjects that no one cares about, but I would never dream of touching certain more popular articles even though I am an expert on the subject. Not because my ego is tender, but because (a) an edit war is not an effective use of my time, and (b) significant re-writes run the risk of damaging other people's egos, making edit wars more likely. It's not so much like giving up driving because someone honked; it's more like giving up driving to a particular destination because the people who live there leave caltrops on the road.
On further investigation, it looks as though essentially everyone else commenting here is much more balanced and realistic about what Wikipedia is for and what responsibilities its users have. I hope that means the cabal of xenophobes like the GP is relatively small... and that's a very good thing.
what I think the writer of this (imho) crappy article didn't seem to get.. it's not a normal encyclopedia. it's a shared media.. to share information.. not to suck it up.
Wow, then they should really get rid of the tag "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia", shouldn't they?
Many visitors come to this site is to acquire knowledge. The second reason is to share knowledge.
What you seem to be saying is that the first category mentioned there should be an empty set: everyone has a moral obligation to belong to the second category.
If your view is representative, then it seems to me Andrew Orlowski's write-up in The Register is dead-on about cabals of Wikipedians trying to alienate people -- in this case, anyone who might want to be anything less than a dedicated author/participant. If that's what it's for -- if its purpose isn't to be a resource that people can draw on -- then what's it for? Kind of like a FOSS group believing that there are no end-users and everyone has a moral obligation to be a coder. I find both mindsets equally abhorrent. Anyway, if that's your attitude, don't go expecting people to want to join in. I've written about a half dozen new articles, but when I remember that I might have to work alongside individuals like you I have to say it makes me think twice about whether I am willing to be associated with it.
In terms of going MP3, wouldn't the author have saved a lot in fees by going OGG, or is acceptance too much of a concern?
Well, the publisher's and author's number one concern is to sell copies. Anyone can play MP3 files on their digital audio player; not everyone can play OGGs. That would make up for the fees for using MP3, and then some.
But how many people would be happy buying a car that could only be serviced, or enhanced, by taking it to teh dealer, that it was not just illegal to work on it your self, but impossible?
Or come to that, how many people would buy a computer that could only be upgraded or serviced by the dealer you bought it from, and where modding it yourself voided the warranty?
Er.... quite a lot, actually. Apple is the first dealer that comes to my mind that operates in this way - they're not exactly short of customers. Game consoles are another example. So... really, it looks like it could be a pretty worthwhile business model...
Mod parent up!! I work at a university that recently started a marketing campaign using the slogan "In 1400 people thought the world was flat -- it makes you think!", and it's really embarrassing. Now I kind of feel I have to warn off potential students, if they're going to get miseducated that badly by coming here. "In 2005, the marketing people at this university thought that people in 1400 thought the world was flat"... honestly, exactly the same phrasing has gone through my head very many times.
Er... you are joking, right? I can't quite tell: American irony is a bit too subtle for me sometimes. For the record, velcro was invented in the 1940s in Switzerland, space pens were offered to NASA by Fisher out of the blue, without any commission or R&D on NASA's part... but I've never heard of Tang. What is it?
Well, I've certainly heard right-wingers in the UK refer to the BBC as the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Communists" (with sometimes a different, shorter, word substituted for "Communists"). They weren't really extremists, either -- not by UK standards, anyway.
I don't know where the stuff about bodily fluids and DNA came from, but the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, taken together, allow for any individual to be marked by the Secretary of State for detention (normally, it seems, in the form of house arrest, though that is not specified), or almost any other kind of restriction on movement, ownership of anything, etc etc, for an indefinite period (renewable 12 months at a time), without court intervention. In the 2005 act, see especially section 1 (what kinds of restrictions can be placed), section 2 (the Secretary of State can do anything he damn well pleases), and section 6 (you may be restricted forever).
Here's an especially good paragraph, from section 2:
(9) It shall be immaterial, for the purposes of determining what obligations may be imposed by a control order made by the Secretary of State, whether the involvement in terrorism-related activity to be prevented or restricted by the obligations is connected with matters to which the Secretary of State's grounds for suspicion relate.
So suspicion of terrorist activity, and hence restrictions, may be based on anything the Secretary of State feels like.
There's also a nice summary of the situation on Wikipedia. I especially like the quirk whereby an individual's human rights may legally be curtailed in the UK if the UK government decides that deportation would lead to the individual's human rights being curtailed in his/her home country.
How come no one is mentioning gOffice.com? It's not Google, but it *is* a web based office suite. Free for personal use too. Exports to PDF.
Because Writely is considerably better. Uses basically the same technique (getting the web browser to activate its html editing capability) but it's more powerful and much sleeker. It doesn't do PDF, though; but I reckon anyone sane should either be using an operating system that allows printing to PDF anyway, or if not, then at least have PDFCreator installed.
Provided it was SSL enabled anyway, one thing that chaps my hide is that all these free email clients don't have any security on them. That sort of keeps me from using goggle mail for anything but fluff email.
Producing something of value, like Star Wars (made $380M), requires skill and taking risks.
So long as by "skill" you mean "hiring the usual geeks to make lots of OK special effects while ignoring every artistic standard in existence", and by "taking risks" you mean "not taking risks".
But even if it didn't require skill or risk-taking... well, I suppose it required money.
I also liked the "follow-up" to that in Neverwinter Nights -- "Although your characters don't have to eat, monsters do. They eat adventurers."
Come to that, I just remembered another message from BG2, popping up again in KotOR - "You must gather your party before venturing forth." Fortunately without the annoying voice over:-)
... a 15 Mbit SYMMETRIC connection available, which is enough to make any torrenting geek happy (one ISP doing this is here). That's $44/mo...
Heh. Here in New Zealand, even a 256 Kb/128 Kb connection capped at 1 GB/month costs more than that: about US$28, plus another US$28 for using the same company for a land-line telephone connection. Ain't monopolies great.
Now this summary does appear to be accurate. A reading of the law as a whole seems to me to encourage consideration of free software strongly (the careful definitions of what free software is and how its should be approved suggest that to me); but as you say, the law certainly does not require it. But where did this business about file formats come from?
It's Stare Decisis, not Stari Decisis. It's latin. It means, roughly, "To Stay the Decision."
Er, actually "to stand, things having been settled". Or to re-phrase, "to remain in place, now that everything's been decided".
I hate legal Latin. It should be something more like "stet iudicium rebus decisis" or something, but NO, those lawyers have to abbreviate everything to make it less comprehensible... rant, rant
Except those Mac boxes can also run Vista. If you think that isn't going to matter...
No, I don't think that'll matter. Mac fans aren't going to toss OS/X for Vista.
I reckon it'll matter a whole lot when you get people re-selling Macs and advertising them as dual-booting OS X and Windows. People will be willing to pay for that, you betcha.
The law is not to compete with MSoft , the law is to have an open format.
That's very interesting, and not at all what TFA says: TFA mentions software constantly, and file formats aren't mentioned even once. Come to that, the text of the bill doesn't mention file formats either, and does mention free software as opposed to proprietary software rather a lot. See for example article 1:
La presente Ley tiene por objeto establecer las medidas que permitan a la administración pública la contratación de licencias de software y servicios informáticos en condiciones de neutralidad, vigencia tecnológica, libre concurrencia y trato justo e igualitario de proveedores.
Translation (adapted from apesol.org's version, which is incomplete):
This law has as its aim to establish the measures which permit the purchase of software licences and IT services by the public administration under conditions of neutrality, technological use(?), free concurrence, and just and equal treatment of suppliers.
Or, less closely related, the start of article 4:
Ninguna entidad de la administración pública adquirirá soportes físicos
(hardware) que la obliguen a utilizar sólo determinado tipo de software o que
de alguna manera limiten su autonomía informática.
Translation:
No public entity will adquire hardware which forces it to use only a determined type of software or in any way limits its IT autonomy.
So, not that I'd doubt your word, but, er... there really isn't any mention anywhere of file formats; it does indeed seem to be precisely about free/proprietary software. This situation really looks very different from the recent Massachusetts decision. So, unless someone can provide some more information to clarify the present post, I'd suggest modding the parent down.
Slashdot Mirror
Snap. Mod parent up.
Where does ego come into it? As an occasional contributor I have no desire of participating in an edit war. Moreover, if information backed up by good evidence is going to be rejected by petty individuals with agenda of their own, the problem is not with the person trying to improvethe article. I'm happy to contribute on minor subjects that no one cares about, but I would never dream of touching certain more popular articles even though I am an expert on the subject. Not because my ego is tender, but because (a) an edit war is not an effective use of my time, and (b) significant re-writes run the risk of damaging other people's egos, making edit wars more likely. It's not so much like giving up driving because someone honked; it's more like giving up driving to a particular destination because the people who live there leave caltrops on the road.
On further investigation, it looks as though essentially everyone else commenting here is much more balanced and realistic about what Wikipedia is for and what responsibilities its users have. I hope that means the cabal of xenophobes like the GP is relatively small ... and that's a very good thing.
Wow, then they should really get rid of the tag "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia", shouldn't they?
From their about page:
What you seem to be saying is that the first category mentioned there should be an empty set: everyone has a moral obligation to belong to the second category.
If your view is representative, then it seems to me Andrew Orlowski's write-up in The Register is dead-on about cabals of Wikipedians trying to alienate people -- in this case, anyone who might want to be anything less than a dedicated author/participant. If that's what it's for -- if its purpose isn't to be a resource that people can draw on -- then what's it for? Kind of like a FOSS group believing that there are no end-users and everyone has a moral obligation to be a coder. I find both mindsets equally abhorrent. Anyway, if that's your attitude, don't go expecting people to want to join in. I've written about a half dozen new articles, but when I remember that I might have to work alongside individuals like you I have to say it makes me think twice about whether I am willing to be associated with it.
Well, the publisher's and author's number one concern is to sell copies. Anyone can play MP3 files on their digital audio player; not everyone can play OGGs. That would make up for the fees for using MP3, and then some.
Or come to that, how many people would buy a computer that could only be upgraded or serviced by the dealer you bought it from, and where modding it yourself voided the warranty?
Er .... quite a lot, actually. Apple is the first dealer that comes to my mind that operates in this way - they're not exactly short of customers. Game consoles are another example. So ... really, it looks like it could be a pretty worthwhile business model ...
Mod parent up!! I work at a university that recently started a marketing campaign using the slogan "In 1400 people thought the world was flat -- it makes you think!", and it's really embarrassing. Now I kind of feel I have to warn off potential students, if they're going to get miseducated that badly by coming here. "In 2005, the marketing people at this university thought that people in 1400 thought the world was flat" ... honestly, exactly the same phrasing has gone through my head very many times.
Er ... you are joking, right? I can't quite tell: American irony is a bit too subtle for me sometimes. For the record, velcro was invented in the 1940s in Switzerland, space pens were offered to NASA by Fisher out of the blue, without any commission or R&D on NASA's part ... but I've never heard of Tang. What is it?
Well, I've certainly heard right-wingers in the UK refer to the BBC as the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Communists" (with sometimes a different, shorter, word substituted for "Communists"). They weren't really extremists, either -- not by UK standards, anyway.
Or forever, if you annoy the Secretary of State.
I don't know where the stuff about bodily fluids and DNA came from, but the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, taken together, allow for any individual to be marked by the Secretary of State for detention (normally, it seems, in the form of house arrest, though that is not specified), or almost any other kind of restriction on movement, ownership of anything, etc etc, for an indefinite period (renewable 12 months at a time), without court intervention. In the 2005 act, see especially section 1 (what kinds of restrictions can be placed), section 2 (the Secretary of State can do anything he damn well pleases), and section 6 (you may be restricted forever).
Here's an especially good paragraph, from section 2:
So suspicion of terrorist activity, and hence restrictions, may be based on anything the Secretary of State feels like.
There's also a nice summary of the situation on Wikipedia. I especially like the quirk whereby an individual's human rights may legally be curtailed in the UK if the UK government decides that deportation would lead to the individual's human rights being curtailed in his/her home country.
Well done on learning to hit 'copy' and 'paste'. And for your next trick ...
Because Writely is considerably better. Uses basically the same technique (getting the web browser to activate its html editing capability) but it's more powerful and much sleeker. It doesn't do PDF, though; but I reckon anyone sane should either be using an operating system that allows printing to PDF anyway, or if not, then at least have PDFCreator installed.
The web interface to Google mail is via SSL, and Gmail also requires SSL to connect via POP/SMTP.
So long as by "skill" you mean "hiring the usual geeks to make lots of OK special effects while ignoring every artistic standard in existence", and by "taking risks" you mean "not taking risks".
But even if it didn't require skill or risk-taking ... well, I suppose it required money.
Folks, we may just have heard the first ever persuasive argument in favour of animated gifs. Remember, you heard it here first.
I also liked the "follow-up" to that in Neverwinter Nights -- "Although your characters don't have to eat, monsters do. They eat adventurers."
Come to that, I just remembered another message from BG2, popping up again in KotOR - "You must gather your party before venturing forth." Fortunately without the annoying voice over :-)
One could always try using a browser that supports integrated cookie preferences on both a global scale and also on a site-by-site basis, for whether cookies are accepted or not, whether they get treated as session cookies or not, and even I think how individual cookies from a domain get treated ... Opera's cookie handling really is miles ahead of any other browser I've tried.
Cool. Thanks.
Heh. Here in New Zealand, even a 256 Kb/128 Kb connection capped at 1 GB/month costs more than that: about US$28, plus another US$28 for using the same company for a land-line telephone connection. Ain't monopolies great.
Now this summary does appear to be accurate. A reading of the law as a whole seems to me to encourage consideration of free software strongly (the careful definitions of what free software is and how its should be approved suggest that to me); but as you say, the law certainly does not require it. But where did this business about file formats come from?
Er, actually "to stand, things having been settled". Or to re-phrase, "to remain in place, now that everything's been decided".
I hate legal Latin. It should be something more like "stet iudicium rebus decisis" or something, but NO, those lawyers have to abbreviate everything to make it less comprehensible ... rant, rant
I reckon it'll matter a whole lot when you get people re-selling Macs and advertising them as dual-booting OS X and Windows. People will be willing to pay for that, you betcha.
That's very interesting, and not at all what TFA says: TFA mentions software constantly, and file formats aren't mentioned even once. Come to that, the text of the bill doesn't mention file formats either, and does mention free software as opposed to proprietary software rather a lot. See for example article 1:
Translation (adapted from apesol.org's version, which is incomplete):
Or, less closely related, the start of article 4:
Translation:
So, not that I'd doubt your word, but, er ... there really isn't any mention anywhere of file formats; it does indeed seem to be precisely about free/proprietary software. This situation really looks very different from the recent Massachusetts decision. So, unless someone can provide some more information to clarify the present post, I'd suggest modding the parent down.
FWIW, I think the clones of Ultima IV that have been made in more recent years have tried to avoid cloning the bugs. Try this and this.