Stop crying. I would have killed for that kind of work in high school, when I worked in a pet store to try and get enough money to buy a car so I would have reliable transportation to get to a decent job after graduation.
You are a high school student. I know people making $100,000+ who do that kind of work, and they hate it too. Grow up and learn from the experience. Ask questions. Work late to get it all done sooner and then maybe they can find you other stuff to do.
But do not complain. You could be working at Taco Bell like many of your fellow students.
"...Apple still sold more units last year than the linux community has sold ever. This is because Linux is a worthless desktop product with a markey consisting of 5% informed users and 95% ignorant trolls."
I never said that Linux was any better than Apple. Just because I encourage Apple to support the GPL does not mean that I think Linux is better than anything Apple has done. I am just stating that Apple can make a lot of money by encouraging Macs running OSX as a platform.
"Their philosophy of computation is that even if the entire third party market fails, even if every support company gave up, you could still use a mac without any trouble."
So? Nothing wrong with that. But dumping their annoying license instead of using the better GPL for Open Source work would not change this. Keeping things proprietary to get the systems to work is one thing, keeping strings attached to a license so that they can screw anything they do not like is just lame.
Given the abysmal state of Apple sales, one would think that Apple would stop trying to dance around like this and just use the GPL. Using the GPL cannot really hurt Apple, but they are so obsessed with being in control (Most likely the lawyers want to be able to shut down anything Apple does not like.) that they are shooting themselves in the foot with a bad license.
Apple has a chance to combine their hardware with a UNIX OS and bring much of the open source community into the fold as Mac users, yet they are still so obsessed with having a proprietary niche that they are ruining it. By continuing to do stuff like this, Apple could really hurt themselves financially, and MicroSoft might not bail them out next time (Then again, Larry Ellison would likely bail them out just to piss off Bill Gates.).
- A christian would say never, because they believe that the jews are sinners for not accepting Jesus as the saviour.
- A muslim would say never, because god just sent out another prophet, Muhammed, and that the jews and christians are wrong for not accepting the word of god as told through Muhammed.
- A jew probably would tell you that he does not know, because the jews only live up to their agreement with god, and do not realyl worry about how the rest of the world gets along with god.
"It seems as if God were vindictively punishing the Egyptians"
The actually concept is that god was making the hewbrews suffer for, and in a way, earn their freedom. god did this to the Hebrews over and over again. They would get their shit together, follow the rules god had seet forth, and eventually start fucking up. After a while most of the Hebrews would be out of line, god would send a prophet to tell them to knock the shit off, they would ignore the warnings, and then god would let all the people the hebrews had pissed off recently come kick their asses, throw them out of the holy land, enslave them, etc.
I am not blaming a god, there is not one to blame. I am blaming the idiots who have faith in gods, and perform heinous acts based upon that faith, and pointing out how much trouble the world will be saved once they are no longer a problem.
I guess you have not noticed that one of the big requirements for the rewards in many religions is following only that religion, and knowing that all other religions are wrong. This has lead to quite a bit of horrible violence, such as the work of Charlemagne, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust (Hitler was Catholic, the Pope at the time was formerly assigned to Germany and a Nazi supporter.), and the current violence between the Israelis and Palestinians.
By wiping out religion, people have one less thing to fight over. One step closer to peace.
As for keeping out the scum, take a look at all the religious groups that do horrible things. The KKK is a group of white protestants. Televangelists have bilked millions of dollars from followers. Catholic monasteries/nunneries used jews for slave labor during the Holocaust. Religion does not keep people from doing horrible things or being scum, it just gives them a pillow of forgiveness to fall on.
"However, it would be literaly mind blowing if something unmistakable, like a straight forward representation of the equations that solve the grand unified field problem were found nestled amongst the junk DNA I'm carrying around."
What would be really funny is if a wrong answer was found, due to degradation in DNA caused by mankind's habit of living in toxic environments created for/by humans.
"It's sad how as Christians we are laughed at for believing in a omnipotent creator who designed and created this world for us"
Acutally, the sad thing is that you people are so arrogant you believe that it took a god to create you, that the god first created a world just for you, and that this unimaginably powerful being has nothing better to do than screw around with mankind all day, like a devine game of The Sims.
Creationists are the most self-aggrandizing people on Earth.
"Fortunately, the Romans were able to kill off every other form of christianity except the one that met thier standards for a religion that benefited them."
Actually, it was more like they created their own religion, Catholocism, based it on some of the principles of the Christians, killed all the Christians, and then took the name.
That this will not sway anyone from religion is obvious and unsurprising. What really matters here is that this is more evidence against religion, giving support to aethiests, so that fewer people will be swayed toward religion. Children will be taught of this science at an early age, and will question the beliefs of their parents, and be more likely to move toward aethiesm.
Eventually, religion will start falling apart in the face of logic, reason, and intelligence. People will stop seeing through the eyes of arrogance that lead them to believe mankind was special enough to warrant a god to create it. As religion fades away, barriers between humans will continue to break down. World peace will move closer. Politics will clean up worldwide, as people begin electing candidates for important, intelligent reason, and not simply because of a religious tie. Mankind will grow a greater respect for the non-human entities on earth, as the concept of a god-given world created for man to dominate fades away.
In short, people will evolve on an pan-societal intellectual level, until one day, when the religious are the minority, and we can all move forward to a better world.
"In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development.""
If someone wants to make money off of software, would it not be more appropriate for him to do the work himself, instead of leeching off the work of others and trying to keep all of it?
From this it seems that M$ is really trying to get the government to invalidate the GPL, so that they can get free access to all of the open code generated from publicly funded sources (For example, Universities.) and incorporate it into their products, allowing them to do things like "extend" open standards and continue their attempts at market dominance by keeping everything proprietary to Windows.
"I've never understood what keeps compaq and dell afloat - their stuff is not as cheap or as good as generic clone hardware."
A few things:
1- Standardization: I can buy big OEM servers year after year and little actually changes. This makes all aspects of physical server management easier. For example, by ordering two-hundred servers from the same line over the course of two years, little parts here and there will change, but overall the design stays the same. This makes things like quick part replacements quick and easy. It also makes planning for rack utilization easier if I know exactly how big all the boxes I will use in the next year will be.
2- Vendor support. If I have a big problem with a Compaq/Dell box, I can pay them to come deal with it, and chances are that one way or another I can get someone who knows the hardware in and out. Good luck doing that with a clone box.
"VaLinux was and probably always will be a company that builds expensive linux machines for elite linux users (unlike Dell and other companies targetting the low-end linux crowd)."
My sentiments exactly. I looked into some VA linux hardware last year, and quickly understood why they are not picking up most of the Linux market share; their servers cost too much.
They are most likely cutting employees in response to the massive slowdown in growth for the IT industry. VA, like many other companies (Sun, Cisco) overdid it as they ramped up for the new economy, and now that the new economy has suddenly been smacked with the reality stick and fallen apart, all the companies that hired people for the new economy realize that those people are never going to be needed, and are letting those people go.
Owned it once, yes. But he had given it up by the 1970s, at which point Peanuts became little more than endlessly repeated gags, serving little purpose than to keep fueling the Peanuts advertising/merchandising machine that made Schulz rich by whoring out snoopy to everything from bedsheets to insurance.
"the artistic abilities of the two are night and day."
Artistic ability is entirely subjective.
That said, I was comparing style, not ability. Breathed has the ability to draw far more stunningly detailed work than the minimalistic Bloom County work. Given that UF is simply a webcomic, it could certainly be a cheesy side project.
"I've never seen such a leftist self-centered piece of garbage comic in my entire life."
Leftist? Probably so, but the Republican party does seem to do far better at leaving itself open to jabs from critics than the democrats. Also, do not forget that Doonesbury started as the adventures of a gang of college students, and would likely have been far less funny had it focused on the adventures of church going, red-hating, young republicans.
As for garbage, you obviously lack the intellectual facilities needed to examine and appreciate quality while still not agreeing with it. Go back to your Garfield, then, and enjoy one dimensional characters that no longer grow or change, as Jim Davis years ago gave up and hired others to recycle the drivel that passes for gags in similar comics. Enjoy a comic afraid to poke fun at the politics, economics, religion, itself, and society at large.
Enjoy not thinking, because you obviously are not very good at it.
Thank you for bringing that up. I actually meant to bring up work like Pogo, Lil' Abner, and a fwe others, but I read so many comics lately that I could not remember the name, and I was trying to get that comic finished rather hurriedly so that I could return to my work duties.
I never stated that Illiad was as "good" in that sense. It is just the style of things in general, the sparse backgrounds (Often containing changing photographic images, changing across panels, something breathed often did.), the shapes in the faces, the shading, etc.
His acerbic wit and use of rewritten songs on Sundays (As Breathed was known to do on occasion, using old ballads to mock acid rain, on drastically tweaking the last lines of a Dickenson poem to involve pickles in one's nose.) also seem to draw inspiration from Bloom Country. User Friendly depends heavily on sociopolitical cynicism for humor, as did Bloom County (Albeit from a far more generalized point of view.).
"Chris: Do you have any regrets about not drawing Bloom County any more? Do you miss it?
Breathed: If the world still read the comic page... and if they weren't the size of 2 stamps... I would still do it. But their days as a topic of national conversation are over I fear. There are a great many more distractions of a more visceral nature to compete with. Too small, too quiet."
This comment brought tears to my eyes. Berke used to make cracks about comics as a dying phenomenon in his strips. I remember a "Star Trek" parody involving the endlessy shrinking size of comics in particular. Another distinct memory is of the time Opus spent working as a cartoonist, calling himself a "stripper," and being treated as a wage slave to editors demanding gag-a-day humor slapped together in time for a deadline.
He is so right that people no longer read and discuss comics. I remember discussing Bloom County and Doonesbury as a child with friends and family, now the only way it comes up is when a buddy and I discuss a webcomic, or I have to explain all the perverse/obscense/obscure webcomics I stick up at work. I truly miss having conversations about politcal candidates who wear "Frederick's of Holywood peek-a-boo panties" (From Breathed's 1988 election coverage) or little Ronald-ann sticking it to Rotney Washington the crack dealer.
Now I bask in the glory of webcomics, creations of the purist love. Bound only by themselves, webcomics fill a void created by the American newspaper editors' misunderstanding of what may be the most important art form since mankind learned to write.
Hopefully Berke will see this, and maybe get stimulated to do work online.
For the longest time I was sure that illiad was Berke Breathed. The artistic styles often matched far too well, the style of the humor and stories so close.
Then I noticed the same thing with some other web comics. After a while I started picking up the same (Albeit same in a Calvin-knock-off-way) vibe from all the Bill Watterson-esque webcomics out there.
So I went back, reread my Bloom Country/Outland collected editons, and realized something.
Berke Breathed is one of the greatest daily comic creators ever. Far beyond of the tepid humor of Peanuts, flying up there in the glorious airspace shared by Gary Treadau, Billl Watterson, and Gary Larson. His work influenced comic creators in the best ways possible, and now he is honored with imitation.
Nothing like cloning to prove how greedy, conniving, self-rightious, and generally depraved humans are. The simplest solution would be to just not restrict cloning, let it be a non-issue, and treat them all just like anyone else.
But of course, that would be too easy. Instead, we have to deal with corporations and governments that will try and find ways to abuse clones and their freedoms however possible. Every religious zealot out there will assume that his opinions on the nature of reality should matter to others for some reason, and in a fit of self-aggrandization, will expect the rest of the world to bow down and accept restrictions based on what he wants.
In the long run, it might lead to ludicrous amounts of legislation, protest, violence, even war. All because mankind is too selfish to just let cloning be without abuse, exploitation, or restriction.
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Stop crying. I would have killed for that kind of work in high school, when I worked in a pet store to try and get enough money to buy a car so I would have reliable transportation to get to a decent job after graduation.
You are a high school student. I know people making $100,000+ who do that kind of work, and they hate it too. Grow up and learn from the experience. Ask questions. Work late to get it all done sooner and then maybe they can find you other stuff to do.
But do not complain. You could be working at Taco Bell like many of your fellow students.
"...Apple still sold more units last year than the linux community has sold ever. This is because Linux is a worthless desktop product with a markey consisting of 5% informed users and 95% ignorant trolls."
I never said that Linux was any better than Apple. Just because I encourage Apple to support the GPL does not mean that I think Linux is better than anything Apple has done. I am just stating that Apple can make a lot of money by encouraging Macs running OSX as a platform.
"Their philosophy of computation is that even if the entire third party market fails, even if every support company gave up, you could still use a mac without any trouble."
So? Nothing wrong with that. But dumping their annoying license instead of using the better GPL for Open Source work would not change this. Keeping things proprietary to get the systems to work is one thing, keeping strings attached to a license so that they can screw anything they do not like is just lame.
Given the abysmal state of Apple sales, one would think that Apple would stop trying to dance around like this and just use the GPL. Using the GPL cannot really hurt Apple, but they are so obsessed with being in control (Most likely the lawyers want to be able to shut down anything Apple does not like.) that they are shooting themselves in the foot with a bad license.
Apple has a chance to combine their hardware with a UNIX OS and bring much of the open source community into the fold as Mac users, yet they are still so obsessed with having a proprietary niche that they are ruining it. By continuing to do stuff like this, Apple could really hurt themselves financially, and MicroSoft might not bail them out next time (Then again, Larry Ellison would likely bail them out just to piss off Bill Gates.).
Depends on who you ask.
- A christian would say never, because they believe that the jews are sinners for not accepting Jesus as the saviour.
- A muslim would say never, because god just sent out another prophet, Muhammed, and that the jews and christians are wrong for not accepting the word of god as told through Muhammed.
- A jew probably would tell you that he does not know, because the jews only live up to their agreement with god, and do not realyl worry about how the rest of the world gets along with god.
"It seems as if God were vindictively punishing the Egyptians"
The actually concept is that god was making the hewbrews suffer for, and in a way, earn their freedom. god did this to the Hebrews over and over again. They would get their shit together, follow the rules god had seet forth, and eventually start fucking up. After a while most of the Hebrews would be out of line, god would send a prophet to tell them to knock the shit off, they would ignore the warnings, and then god would let all the people the hebrews had pissed off recently come kick their asses, throw them out of the holy land, enslave them, etc.
I am not blaming a god, there is not one to blame. I am blaming the idiots who have faith in gods, and perform heinous acts based upon that faith, and pointing out how much trouble the world will be saved once they are no longer a problem.
I guess you have not noticed that one of the big requirements for the rewards in many religions is following only that religion, and knowing that all other religions are wrong. This has lead to quite a bit of horrible violence, such as the work of Charlemagne, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust (Hitler was Catholic, the Pope at the time was formerly assigned to Germany and a Nazi supporter.), and the current violence between the Israelis and Palestinians.
By wiping out religion, people have one less thing to fight over. One step closer to peace.
As for keeping out the scum, take a look at all the religious groups that do horrible things. The KKK is a group of white protestants. Televangelists have bilked millions of dollars from followers. Catholic monasteries/nunneries used jews for slave labor during the Holocaust. Religion does not keep people from doing horrible things or being scum, it just gives them a pillow of forgiveness to fall on.
"However, it would be literaly mind blowing if something unmistakable, like a straight forward representation of the equations that solve the grand unified field problem were found nestled amongst the junk DNA I'm carrying around."
What would be really funny is if a wrong answer was found, due to degradation in DNA caused by mankind's habit of living in toxic environments created for/by humans.
"It's sad how as Christians we are laughed at for believing in a omnipotent creator who designed and created this world for us"
Acutally, the sad thing is that you people are so arrogant you believe that it took a god to create you, that the god first created a world just for you, and that this unimaginably powerful being has nothing better to do than screw around with mankind all day, like a devine game of The Sims.
Creationists are the most self-aggrandizing people on Earth.
"Fortunately, the Romans were able to kill off every other form of christianity except the one that met thier standards for a religion that benefited them."
Actually, it was more like they created their own religion, Catholocism, based it on some of the principles of the Christians, killed all the Christians, and then took the name.
That this will not sway anyone from religion is obvious and unsurprising. What really matters here is that this is more evidence against religion, giving support to aethiests, so that fewer people will be swayed toward religion. Children will be taught of this science at an early age, and will question the beliefs of their parents, and be more likely to move toward aethiesm.
Eventually, religion will start falling apart in the face of logic, reason, and intelligence. People will stop seeing through the eyes of arrogance that lead them to believe mankind was special enough to warrant a god to create it. As religion fades away, barriers between humans will continue to break down. World peace will move closer. Politics will clean up worldwide, as people begin electing candidates for important, intelligent reason, and not simply because of a religious tie. Mankind will grow a greater respect for the non-human entities on earth, as the concept of a god-given world created for man to dominate fades away.
In short, people will evolve on an pan-societal intellectual level, until one day, when the religious are the minority, and we can all move forward to a better world.
"In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development.""
If someone wants to make money off of software, would it not be more appropriate for him to do the work himself, instead of leeching off the work of others and trying to keep all of it?
From this it seems that M$ is really trying to get the government to invalidate the GPL, so that they can get free access to all of the open code generated from publicly funded sources (For example, Universities.) and incorporate it into their products, allowing them to do things like "extend" open standards and continue their attempts at market dominance by keeping everything proprietary to Windows.
1- Napster does not have one billion dollars, and given the quality (Or lack thereof.) in their product, they will not get many people to pay for it.
2- If Napster were given free reign over swapping for five years, it would cost the record companies far more than a billion dollars in lost sales.
"I've never understood what keeps compaq and dell afloat - their stuff is not as cheap or as good as generic clone hardware."
A few things:
1- Standardization: I can buy big OEM servers year after year and little actually changes. This makes all aspects of physical server management easier. For example, by ordering two-hundred servers from the same line over the course of two years, little parts here and there will change, but overall the design stays the same. This makes things like quick part replacements quick and easy. It also makes planning for rack utilization easier if I know exactly how big all the boxes I will use in the next year will be.
2- Vendor support. If I have a big problem with a Compaq/Dell box, I can pay them to come deal with it, and chances are that one way or another I can get someone who knows the hardware in and out. Good luck doing that with a clone box.
"VaLinux was and probably always will be a company that builds expensive linux machines for elite linux users (unlike Dell and other companies targetting the low-end linux crowd)."
My sentiments exactly. I looked into some VA linux hardware last year, and quickly understood why they are not picking up most of the Linux market share; their servers cost too much.
They are most likely cutting employees in response to the massive slowdown in growth for the IT industry. VA, like many other companies (Sun, Cisco) overdid it as they ramped up for the new economy, and now that the new economy has suddenly been smacked with the reality stick and fallen apart, all the companies that hired people for the new economy realize that those people are never going to be needed, and are letting those people go.
Owned it once, yes. But he had given it up by the 1970s, at which point Peanuts became little more than endlessly repeated gags, serving little purpose than to keep fueling the Peanuts advertising/merchandising machine that made Schulz rich by whoring out snoopy to everything from bedsheets to insurance.
"the artistic abilities of the two are night and day."
Artistic ability is entirely subjective.
That said, I was comparing style, not ability. Breathed has the ability to draw far more stunningly detailed work than the minimalistic Bloom County work. Given that UF is simply a webcomic, it could certainly be a cheesy side project.
"to get that comic finished rather"
Ooops, comic=comment. I guess that I just have comics on the brain.
Of course, I also misspelled few, which is even worse...
"I've never seen such a leftist self-centered piece of garbage comic in my entire life."
Leftist? Probably so, but the Republican party does seem to do far better at leaving itself open to jabs from critics than the democrats. Also, do not forget that Doonesbury started as the adventures of a gang of college students, and would likely have been far less funny had it focused on the adventures of church going, red-hating, young republicans.
As for garbage, you obviously lack the intellectual facilities needed to examine and appreciate quality while still not agreeing with it. Go back to your Garfield, then, and enjoy one dimensional characters that no longer grow or change, as Jim Davis years ago gave up and hired others to recycle the drivel that passes for gags in similar comics. Enjoy a comic afraid to poke fun at the politics, economics, religion, itself, and society at large.
Enjoy not thinking, because you obviously are not very good at it.
Thank you for bringing that up. I actually meant to bring up work like Pogo, Lil' Abner, and a fwe others, but I read so many comics lately that I could not remember the name, and I was trying to get that comic finished rather hurriedly so that I could return to my work duties.
I never stated that Illiad was as "good" in that sense. It is just the style of things in general, the sparse backgrounds (Often containing changing photographic images, changing across panels, something breathed often did.), the shapes in the faces, the shading, etc.
His acerbic wit and use of rewritten songs on Sundays (As Breathed was known to do on occasion, using old ballads to mock acid rain, on drastically tweaking the last lines of a Dickenson poem to involve pickles in one's nose.) also seem to draw inspiration from Bloom Country. User Friendly depends heavily on sociopolitical cynicism for humor, as did Bloom County (Albeit from a far more generalized point of view.).
"Chris: Do you have any regrets about not drawing Bloom County any more? Do you miss it?
Breathed: If the world still read the comic page... and if they weren't the size of 2 stamps... I would still do it. But their days as a topic of national conversation are over I fear. There are a great many more distractions of a more visceral nature to compete with. Too small, too quiet."
This comment brought tears to my eyes. Berke used to make cracks about comics as a dying phenomenon in his strips. I remember a "Star Trek" parody involving the endlessy shrinking size of comics in particular. Another distinct memory is of the time Opus spent working as a cartoonist, calling himself a "stripper," and being treated as a wage slave to editors demanding gag-a-day humor slapped together in time for a deadline.
He is so right that people no longer read and discuss comics. I remember discussing Bloom County and Doonesbury as a child with friends and family, now the only way it comes up is when a buddy and I discuss a webcomic, or I have to explain all the perverse/obscense/obscure webcomics I stick up at work. I truly miss having conversations about politcal candidates who wear "Frederick's of Holywood peek-a-boo panties" (From Breathed's 1988 election coverage) or little Ronald-ann sticking it to Rotney Washington the crack dealer.
Now I bask in the glory of webcomics, creations of the purist love. Bound only by themselves, webcomics fill a void created by the American newspaper editors' misunderstanding of what may be the most important art form since mankind learned to write.
Hopefully Berke will see this, and maybe get stimulated to do work online.
For the longest time I was sure that illiad was Berke Breathed. The artistic styles often matched far too well, the style of the humor and stories so close.
Then I noticed the same thing with some other web comics. After a while I started picking up the same (Albeit same in a Calvin-knock-off-way) vibe from all the Bill Watterson-esque webcomics out there.
So I went back, reread my Bloom Country/Outland collected editons, and realized something.
Berke Breathed is one of the greatest daily comic creators ever. Far beyond of the tepid humor of Peanuts, flying up there in the glorious airspace shared by Gary Treadau, Billl Watterson, and Gary Larson. His work influenced comic creators in the best ways possible, and now he is honored with imitation.
Nothing like cloning to prove how greedy, conniving, self-rightious, and generally depraved humans are. The simplest solution would be to just not restrict cloning, let it be a non-issue, and treat them all just like anyone else.
But of course, that would be too easy. Instead, we have to deal with corporations and governments that will try and find ways to abuse clones and their freedoms however possible. Every religious zealot out there will assume that his opinions on the nature of reality should matter to others for some reason, and in a fit of self-aggrandization, will expect the rest of the world to bow down and accept restrictions based on what he wants.
In the long run, it might lead to ludicrous amounts of legislation, protest, violence, even war. All because mankind is too selfish to just let cloning be without abuse, exploitation, or restriction.