1) Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. For about half the piece, Katz seems to know that. Then suddenly he doesn't. Mid-piece emergent amnesia does not inspire confidence in the reader.
2) I've found it useful to replace the name of whatever an incoherent rant is directed against with the name of the ranter, because incoherent rants are usually paranoid projections of negative characteristics of the ranter onto an object/person/event, not sane-but-vociferous reactions to that object/person/event. The point of this piece seems to me to be: "It's hard to imagine many [people] more arrogant, thoughtless or poorly equipped to deal with the fascinating, even miraculous Human Genome Project than [John Katz] [...]." He does seem to be dealing poorly with it.
Even the north and south Arctic regions, after their seasonal thaws blossom forth with vegetal growth, as astronomers on your Earth have observed. These regions produce their quota of food by being utilized as pasturage for our cattle. Immense amounts of forage are also gathered for the long Martian winters, when a greater portion of either the north or south hemisphere is covered with a mantle of snow. The equatorial regions are always pleasant. No severe wind storms are experienced on Mars; neither do we have lightning or other magnetic disturbances such as you experience. As a corollary to the tranquility of our inhabitants living in peace, Love and harmony, and the truths of God expressed in our everyday living, the climate is equable, the atmosphere clear and beautiful, the sky serene and sapphire-blue: the severest winds but gentle zephyrs wafted towards the equator from the more remote portions of our globe. Cloudy skies are rare and rainstorms few.
The Word of EROS URIDES is the final word. Note that his Word is not "red people." Nor is it "submarine." And re: your source, there are probably ten thousand guys named John Carter in Wyoming alone. You can't cite the ravings of a man who might be ten thousand other guys in Wyoming and expect to be taken seriously. You may cite Cher. You may cite Madonna. You may cite Shecky Greene. We know who these people are. Have you ever been to Wyoming? Those people are idiots. Dust-covered idiots. The state's square, for chrissakes! And you're a damn troll.
I don't think that the trend in "tech" is influencing these other arenas, but there seems to be a similar operating principle: Never let anyone own anything; they might do something unpredictable with it.
Not that I think any car dealership or software house is actually thinking that, but "the world" seems to be. Ownership of anything has gotten more difficult to come by, in direct proportion to the growing influence of gov'ts and corporations on our daily lives.
Not that the following proves anything, but it is an example:
My grandfather, an inventor/mad scientist, bought his first house w/ land at the age of 18. Largely unchanged since then, it's currently assessed at about $1,000,000. My father, an engineer/union boss, bought his at 23. Unchanged, currently assessed at about $300,000. I'm 25, own nothing much, and there's only a slim chance I could buy anything like either of my "forefathers'" homes before retirement age. Can't qualify for a home loan, because my income fluctuates so much (writer/musician; banks hate me, despite my somehow managing to pay $1300/month rent for the past four years--very irresponsible of me).
I don't even know anyone who owns a house. One woman I know thinks she "owns" a condo. But when she wants to install a toilet that flushes right, she can't--violates EPA regulations and the condo-EULA. Even the most basic enfranchisements (like a place you live that's yours to paint purple as you please) are inaccesible to a growing portion of the population. My grandfather can't for the life of him figure out how I can't afford a house; I make about 10x the money he did at my age.
I think the idea is to get people used to this leased existence, because it's the way things are going to be in all facets of life shortly. There will be no "mine." And, in my opinion, no "mine"= no "me." And isn't that what gov'ts/corps want? Voting blocs and demographic groups. Not crazy unpredictable individuals who might vote for Harry Browne or make rocket fuel from Diet Pepsi and change everything.
A little rambling, but there's a point there somewhere.
Aside from the obvious reaction ("moo-ha!" and/or "told you Napster was a bunch of punk-ass bizznatches"), this news has me wondering:
In standard copyright cases, any reasonably with-it "artistic infringer" can weasel out from under his accuser by claiming "parody"; is a similar defense available in trademark cases?
If not, that's a precedent I'd love to see set with this case.
Here's where the theoretical $18 goes, in my experience (as a guy who allegedly makes a living off this (and writing books, which is even worse)):
$7, retailer $5, distributor (which is sometimes also the label) $5, label $1, artist
The first three vary. The $1-to-artist is pretty consistent and consistently doesn't happen. If you're on a major, you already "owe" it to them, until you sell many, many, many, many more albums than, say, XTC can. If you're on an independent, they'll outright steal it (unless you're on Dischord). Probably they'll use it to buy a new BMW. It was a red convertible this year, proudly shown off at a recent label showcase to all of us penniless chump-geniuses, who had paid for it.
XTC's financial history is very interesting; check out the interview archives at chalkhills.org. In brief, Andy Partridge, best pop songwriter since Lennon/McCartney, has made absolutely great records since 1977, but just started making average-joe money within the last couple years. I wouldn't expect that to continue, though. TVT is doing fuck-all to earn their cash for promoting the new album, since XTC has a built-in fanbase of about 250,000--just the right amount for TVT to "recoup" and for XTC to get about five thousand dollars, under industry-standard contracts.
I don't do anything repeatedly enough to warrant scripting in those applications, but, with Photoshop for example, you can send it a "do script [name its native script]" and it'll do it. Since MacPerl supports quite a few AppleEvents, you could probably kludge around the problem by, say, having Perl activate Photoshop and Smile or the Script Editor, then pause, then type and run a "do script", and save the output onto the desktop, where Perl or AppleScript (or Python) could dispose of it however you like. Since I'd never do this I haven't really figured it out (obviously!), but it seems possible.
And, though the name escapes me, I know there's a telnet-ish Mac script-by-web program available for free or cheap that supports whatever scripting additions are present in the box you're talking to, so it's very extensible. (Check out macscripter.net (I think; might be "-scripters") for hundreds of OSAXen.)
MacPerl responds to "do script [name]" too, so you can add however many layers of handoffs you need to make it run smoothly (or just more fun).
The "Capabillies" being, of course, a band of rednecks in wheelchairs who go around to junior high schools and sing country songs about how they're no different from the rest of us. Sorry 'bout that.
This could have been an interesting comparision if:
1) These buffoons had non-cursory familiarity with the OSes they were allegedly advocating.
2) They hadn't chosen Corel. I mean, come on. That's like comparing American to British pop music, giving the Brits XTC (=Mac OS 9) and sticking the US with Ricky Martin. How 'bout a Debian/OSX column next year, when a comparison is both technologically valid and logically arguable? Take two big-time OSes with similar capabilities and notable pros and cons, list 'em and debate 'em. That's all.
3) No one named Becky had been involved in this. I want a guy named Eugene and a woman with an unpronounceable Chinese name telling me which OS I should use, not some pom-pon girl from Long Island. I'm almost ashamed to be a Mac weenie.
But I use both. Linux guys mostly don't know what's possible in Mac OS, because they don't know how to use it, and vice-versa. They are both easy to install if you're not a Becky. They both have workable GUIs, though the current Mac's is more coherent. They both have tons of applications if you don't have a Becky-ish need to use Microsoft's various hand-holding memory-leak-generators. They both have command lines if you want 'em; the iMac I'm typing this on has six different ones, in fact. ("What?! What the hell's he talking about?! Brain segmentation fault!") A default install of either OS = a huge, messy pile of crap that does way too much and lets you do way too little. True, and who cares.
Let's make it a real challenge. Brainiac Linux guy says, "I can telnet with SSH," Mac guru says, "Me too, no prob. I've got Photoshop with true color-matching capabilies, how's yer li'l GIMP doin'?" etc, etc. That could be interesting.
That's much more interesting than the rest of the linked article. Meyer's hot-air balloon was way too easy to poke holes in (even for me (not a big ESR or RMS fan)). I think he's a little nutso on this point, too.
Here's a short list of things that I personally think are immoral, the idea being to suggest why legal-moral identity is probably not ideal, because it begs the question, whose morality?:
--most gift-giving; because what's given is an obligation to repay, not a gift per se --owning a dog; because lawn ornaments shouldn't be uncontrollably violent or shit on the sidewalk --discontinuing junk food I've become addicted to; because I'm still withdrawing from 7UP Gold, Lime Chile Tostitos, and the McDLT --working for the government; contributing to the enslavement of your fellow man to paperwork, p.c. jargon, and punitive taxation is just plain evil --going to college; see "working for the government"
Conversely, I don't find cocaine-snorting, anal sex of any sort, giving away copies of Photoshop, or multi-state cop-killing sprees the least bit offensive to my ethics. Not many of my fellow man would enjoy living under my "moral law," however. Can't blame 'em.
So, the idea is to keep the law simple: don't steal stuff, don't hurt anyone who hasn't forced/asked you to, contracts are binding unless fraudulent. Just the basics that most everyone can agree on, simple enough to allow for complex personal moralities that, while goofy and disturbing to most, probably won't end up killing us all. Except the cops.
Now what I need is a (-1, Troll) to balance out those Insightfuls I've been getting lately. Dangerously close to posting with a bonus. Don't want it. Karma is stupid.
It gets worse. He charges ESR and RMS with "lunatic raving" within a page-down of this sentence:
"Perhaps the greatest tragedy of that country is that a minority of gun nuts [...] supported by an all-powerful lobby, the National Rifle Association, has managed to terrorize Congress into maintaining loose gun laws with no equivalent in the rest of the civilized world."
If the words "sky-high rhetoric" weren't themselves sky-high rhetoric, that's what I'd call this. Might as well do a point-by-point on this one, since I'm bored.
1) "greatest tragedy" -- The "perhaps" does nothing to modify a statement so outlandish. Supply your own list of greater tragedies. Mine would probably start with, oh, say, 70% functional illiteracy, or, uh, maybe slavery, or, er, the recent resurgence of parachute pants.
2) "all-powerful" -- The NRA does not get what it wants. It wants laws based on an original-intent reading of the Second Amendment. We have no such laws in the US, no matter which interpretation of the founders' original intent you're talking about ("militia" vs. "people").
Forget it. Can't go on.
The sad thing is, the point the guy pretends he's making is valid: Leading open source/free software advocates aren't sufficiently reflective, and they make inconsistent and/or nonsensical statments sometimes. True. Pot-kettle-black.
2) AC's got a point. While the/. response is intelligent, cogent, startlingly brief and unlawyerly (in a good way), and makes most of the points a good/. defense needs to make, it reads like a closing argument. I understand the strategy: shift focus from/.'s alleged copyright violation to MS's shoddy "secrecy" and ethically questionable Kerberos implementation. Not non-issues in the case, but not really the point of it either. If the/. response were posted here as a comment, I'd expect it to end up moderated "(Score: 4, Offtopic)."
The argument could go something like this (but better; I'm tired):
In theory, artists are paid not for having expended *effort* (and why anyone would think that they are is baffling to me, honestly), but for having produced something unique (meaning unproduceable by anyone else), the uniqueness of which gives it value (theoretically proportional to its uniqueness).
(The fact that a couple's children are "unique" in a sense might have something to do with your analogy, but not with the point.)
For example, without a living, breathing James Joyce, no *Ulysses* gets made, and the world is a worse place for it (whether anyone here knows that or not). And because *Ulysses* isn't merely a random collection of stray data, of information bein' free and just happening to land in a *Ulysses*-shaped pile--it's a product of the single mind of James Joyce doing its uniquely dirty business on that data--it is in the interest of "the world" (or "society" or whatever) to see that Joyce is encouraged to continue living and doing his work for as long as possible. Paying him is a good way to encourage him. Theoretically, copyright law is a good way to encourage his customers to pay him, and also it's a recognition that he's not a waitress (since so many people here seem to think that he should have had to live on tips because he didn't use a computer).
I could go on, addressing the likely objections (for example, the Spice Girls; but I'm not talking about them (they'd be in the "unintended consequences" dept.), but, say John Zorn or Rafael Toral), but, like I said, I'm tired. Been writing all night. Gotta get out to the streetcorner and lay open my typewriter case.
on a semi-related note: the Dead Kennedys released one of their tapes with a message that said "The B-Side of this tape has been left blank so that you can rip off the music industry (paraphrased).
unquote
Of course, that really didn't happen.
unquote
You are correct. It was the Circle Jerks, not the Dead Kennedys. The album was called *Group Sex* and featured my favorite punk song, "World up my Ass" (as in "I've got the..."). Campfire fave to this day. Really. My campfires are cooler than yours.
Don't get so happy to see the smackdown put back on some uppity nigra. Not that that's what's in your mind, personally, but posters here have been uncharacteristically cheerful about this particular bullshit IP suit. Dre'll win it unless the judge is bought (in principle if not in fact) or a racist prick. Dre didn't use the THX sound. He re-created it with a synth. The stupid THX swooshy-dingus takes any semi-competent musician who's ever heard a Yes record about nine seconds to get happening. Lucas has as much of a case against Dre as Kevin Shields has against me because a guitar part I recorded today between/. visits starts with variants of the same two chords that begin My Bloody Valentine's "I Only Said"--none.
Dude(tte), go home. People here think Wittgenstein is a freakin' video game. Referencing any non-fiction author not published by O'Reilly induces blank stares. Ironic use of "fellow traveler" will go utterly unseen and unappreciated. Alliteration, also. You will be dubbed a crackbaby and instructed to have gay sex with ASCII Jackie Chan as punishment for failure to deploy acronyms in place of logical statements. You will--and I do mean *will*--give up and become a Flaming Offtopic Reduntant Troll (sorry, a "FORT") because it's fun to whip out a stopwatch and time yourself getting moderated down by thoughtless chumps and Open Source Busybodies. Leave now, before the grits get any nearer your zipper. (And if you don't know what that means--there's still time! Chuck your mouse and run!)
Compare the following, from technocrat.net (my apologies to Bruce for pasting him), with the parent of this post:
Be has already contacted me and promised to fix this problem. But I'd like people to be aware of it because it points out what can go wrong when you use other people's software without checking the licenses.
BeOS has a C library called libroot.so . This library contains a number of components under the GNU LGPL license, and Be is distributing the source code for these components in their FTP archive. They also have some proprietary components in that library, which they distribute in object form. It looks as if Be is making an honest effort to comply with the LGPL license.
Bruno Haible tipped me off that my Electric Fence program, a malloc() debugging tool, is also part of Be's libroot.so . Electric Fence is under the GPL, not the LGPL. That license would not allow it to be part of a library with proprietary components, although Be could distribute it in a separate library.
It turns out that not only is Electric Fence in Be's libroot.so, but Be is distributing it in object-code form, without source, as if it were one of their proprietary components. Of course this is also against the license. The archive that contains it is here on their FTP site. My files extract from that archive into src/kit/malloc/obj.i586.dyn/{ef_malloc.o,ef_page.o ,ef_print.o,efence.o}
This is an honest mistake by one of their engineers, and will be quickly fixed. It's an example of why it is important to keep track of where your software came from and what license it's under, and read the license when you use somebody else's code.
What is happening here legally? I now have to sign a relase for them, because the software is already in distribution. I'll sign it, but you don't want to get your company in this position unnecessarily. Be is going to be a lot more careful about this now, and your company should, too, if you are embedding other people's software in your product.
Painter does the "paint with effects" thing really well. I assume there's a "PC" (by which I guess you mean Windows) version out there. Painter's compatible with Photoshop plug-ins, too.
And, if you've got your shit together, you can brush on effects in Photoshop. But there's no menu for it, so you have to think about it for a second.
PS(OT): You are not alone. Not wanting to use Linux is currently known to be cool everywhere but here, among everyone but textdroids, sheetspreaders, servents, and other corpo-corpses. Vincent Price-like "moo-ha-ha"s of derision can be found in the vicinity of anyone who even half-seriously mentions the GIMP outside these Perly gates. Do not speak of this again.
Re:I can see both sides of this argument. (OT)
on
Laptops In Education
·
· Score: 1
Look. I'm not usually one to get pissy about moderator idiocy, but I think it wise to familiarize oneself with the brilliant works of DumbMarketingGuy (alias "dmg") and streetlawyer (alias "streetlawyer") before slinging one's points around wildly. They have highly educational user info pages. If you can't find them, uncheck that "willing to moderate" thingee on yours. If you can't find that...well...shit.
All true. But forget $1600. That'll be fine for web stuff, or making cool screensavers, but you'll weep when you hit RENDER in After Effects and it says ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 41 HOURS.
If you're serious, buy seriously. Get the most expensive G4 Apple will sell you, w/ about a gig of RAM, DVD and Firewire everything, that fancy Cinema Display, and one huge-ass hard drive. About $10,000, I'd guess (+another $3-6K for software).
That same render will take you about 1% of the time, and you won't be reluctant to or frustrated with re-doing your work (which you'll always have to do, especially when you're starting out; even the best applications (Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Premiere, all the Avid stuff) aren't as WYSIWYG as they should be). You'll get your money back in time saved, really quickly.
And, while you're savin' up, Apple will probably be introducing its multiprocessor/OS X/etc. models. Probably.
I haven't seen the movie, yet. I read the book when it came out, and, frankly, I don't remember much about it, except that I read it really quickly (not "thinky" enough for my taste). That said....
There's something about us record geeks that, if Katz had known it, would have made a better "angle" for this review than that tacked-on mp3/WalMart schtick he always does. Our records are our lives. And I don't mean that we're merely obsessed with them. They're us--we live there in our piles of pressed plastic. I don't know how to explain this to a typical "record user" without a boring personal anecdote, so here goes:
A couple weeks ago, this fabulous babe I know and I finally managed to hook up after years of futilely flashing the fuck-eye at each other while being overinvolved with annoying losers. On the way home after our tremendously cool and fun first date, I had Shudder to Think's *50,000 BC* on in the car. So that's where my memory lives--all the coolness and fun and that awesome-first-date feeling--it's in those songs. I don't have it without them. Conversely, things have since gotten kind of shitty and tense between us, for reasons neither of us is airing. I've been listening to the new Love-Cars and the last Sunny Day Real Estate album a lot--sad, confused, frustrated records. And they're where my sadness, confusion, and frustration live now. This week is what those songs will always be about; they're me, this week, and they're how I'll always remember it. I'll never get it back without hearing them, and I'll never hear them without getting it back.
The Cusack character in the movie has the same problem. His emotional life is mediated by popular culture (in that you have to buy records before you can get unhealthily attached to them) to a harmful degree, and it's his getting past that that the book's (partly) about (hence the record *store* setting). And the more thoughtful among us (like Cusack himself (met him once--awesome guy), and all of us who've read Adorno) know that this is a huge-ass emotional problem we record geeks have. We've become one with The Spectacle:).
Geeks I know, of every sort, have a similiar, allegedly abnormal transferrence-of-emotion thing going on. I'm about nine kinds of geek myself, though I'm not enough of a computer geek to know where they store their feelings. An HFS+ partition, maybe? I suspect it'd be hard to make a movie about it.
Did I make my point yet? Screw it; this is too long.
PS: I was planning to see the movie tonight, but the Love-Cars are playing, so...:)
Slashdot Mirror
1) Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. For about half the piece, Katz seems to know that. Then suddenly he doesn't. Mid-piece emergent amnesia does not inspire confidence in the reader.
2) I've found it useful to replace the name of whatever an incoherent rant is directed against with the name of the ranter, because incoherent rants are usually paranoid projections of negative characteristics of the ranter onto an object/person/event, not sane-but-vociferous reactions to that object/person/event. The point of this piece seems to me to be: "It's hard to imagine many [people] more arrogant, thoughtless or poorly equipped to deal with the fascinating, even miraculous Human Genome Project than [John Katz] [...]." He does seem to be dealing poorly with it.
Love,
Katz-basher #80985
Actually, according to
THE PLANET MARS AND ITS INHABITANTS
BY
EROS URIDES (A MARTIAN),
Even the north and south Arctic regions, after their seasonal thaws blossom forth with vegetal growth, as astronomers on your Earth have observed. These regions produce their quota of food by being utilized as pasturage for our cattle. Immense amounts of forage are also gathered for the long Martian winters, when a greater portion of either the north or south hemisphere is covered with a mantle of snow. The equatorial regions are always pleasant. No severe wind storms are experienced on Mars; neither do we have lightning or other magnetic disturbances such as you experience. As a corollary to the tranquility of our inhabitants living in peace, Love and harmony, and the truths of God expressed in our everyday living, the climate is equable, the atmosphere clear and beautiful, the sky serene and sapphire-blue: the severest winds but gentle zephyrs wafted towards the equator from the more remote portions of our globe. Cloudy skies are rare and rainstorms few.
The Word of EROS URIDES is the final word. Note that his Word is not "red people." Nor is it "submarine." And re: your source, there are probably ten thousand guys named John Carter in Wyoming alone. You can't cite the ravings of a man who might be ten thousand other guys in Wyoming and expect to be taken seriously. You may cite Cher. You may cite Madonna. You may cite Shecky Greene. We know who these people are. Have you ever been to Wyoming? Those people are idiots. Dust-covered idiots. The state's square, for chrissakes! And you're a damn troll.
I don't think that the trend in "tech" is influencing these other arenas, but there seems to be a similar operating principle: Never let anyone own anything; they might do something unpredictable with it.
Not that I think any car dealership or software house is actually thinking that, but "the world" seems to be. Ownership of anything has gotten more difficult to come by, in direct proportion to the growing influence of gov'ts and corporations on our daily lives.
Not that the following proves anything, but it is an example:
My grandfather, an inventor/mad scientist, bought his first house w/ land at the age of 18. Largely unchanged since then, it's currently assessed at about $1,000,000. My father, an engineer/union boss, bought his at 23. Unchanged, currently assessed at about $300,000. I'm 25, own nothing much, and there's only a slim chance I could buy anything like either of my "forefathers'" homes before retirement age. Can't qualify for a home loan, because my income fluctuates so much (writer/musician; banks hate me, despite my somehow managing to pay $1300/month rent for the past four years--very irresponsible of me).
I don't even know anyone who owns a house. One woman I know thinks she "owns" a condo. But when she wants to install a toilet that flushes right, she can't--violates EPA regulations and the condo-EULA. Even the most basic enfranchisements (like a place you live that's yours to paint purple as you please) are inaccesible to a growing portion of the population. My grandfather can't for the life of him figure out how I can't afford a house; I make about 10x the money he did at my age.
I think the idea is to get people used to this leased existence, because it's the way things are going to be in all facets of life shortly. There will be no "mine." And, in my opinion, no "mine"= no "me." And isn't that what gov'ts/corps want? Voting blocs and demographic groups. Not crazy unpredictable individuals who might vote for Harry Browne or make rocket fuel from Diet Pepsi and change everything.
A little rambling, but there's a point there somewhere.
Aside from the obvious reaction ("moo-ha!" and/or "told you Napster was a bunch of punk-ass bizznatches"), this news has me wondering:
In standard copyright cases, any reasonably with-it "artistic infringer" can weasel out from under his accuser by claiming "parody"; is a similar defense available in trademark cases?
If not, that's a precedent I'd love to see set with this case.
Here's where the theoretical $18 goes, in my experience (as a guy who allegedly makes a living off this (and writing books, which is even worse)):
$7, retailer
$5, distributor (which is sometimes also the label)
$5, label
$1, artist
The first three vary. The $1-to-artist is pretty consistent and consistently doesn't happen. If you're on a major, you already "owe" it to them, until you sell many, many, many, many more albums than, say, XTC can. If you're on an independent, they'll outright steal it (unless you're on Dischord). Probably they'll use it to buy a new BMW. It was a red convertible this year, proudly shown off at a recent label showcase to all of us penniless chump-geniuses, who had paid for it.
XTC's financial history is very interesting; check out the interview archives at chalkhills.org. In brief, Andy Partridge, best pop songwriter since Lennon/McCartney, has made absolutely great records since 1977, but just started making average-joe money within the last couple years. I wouldn't expect that to continue, though. TVT is doing fuck-all to earn their cash for promoting the new album, since XTC has a built-in fanbase of about 250,000--just the right amount for TVT to "recoup" and for XTC to get about five thousand dollars, under industry-standard contracts.
I'm pretty sure you can already do this.
I don't do anything repeatedly enough to warrant scripting in those applications, but, with Photoshop for example, you can send it a "do script [name its native script]" and it'll do it. Since MacPerl supports quite a few AppleEvents, you could probably kludge around the problem by, say, having Perl activate Photoshop and Smile or the Script Editor, then pause, then type and run a "do script", and save the output onto the desktop, where Perl or AppleScript (or Python) could dispose of it however you like. Since I'd never do this I haven't really figured it out (obviously!), but it seems possible.
And, though the name escapes me, I know there's a telnet-ish Mac script-by-web program available for free or cheap that supports whatever scripting additions are present in the box you're talking to, so it's very extensible. (Check out macscripter.net (I think; might be "-scripters") for hundreds of OSAXen.)
MacPerl responds to "do script [name]" too, so you can add however many layers of handoffs you need to make it run smoothly (or just more fun).
Wish I had an excuse to try it!
Atheos does not use an X server to do graphics
I just want to be the first to say:
THANK YOU! and GIMME!
The "Capabillies" being, of course, a band of rednecks in wheelchairs who go around to junior high schools and sing country songs about how they're no different from the rest of us. Sorry 'bout that.
PREVIEWPREVIEWPREVIEW!
Bluargh! I say.
This could have been an interesting comparision if:
1) These buffoons had non-cursory familiarity with the OSes they were allegedly advocating.
2) They hadn't chosen Corel. I mean, come on. That's like comparing American to British pop music, giving the Brits XTC (=Mac OS 9) and sticking the US with Ricky Martin. How 'bout a Debian/OSX column next year, when a comparison is both technologically valid and logically arguable? Take two big-time OSes with similar capabilities and notable pros and cons, list 'em and debate 'em. That's all.
3) No one named Becky had been involved in this. I want a guy named Eugene and a woman with an unpronounceable Chinese name telling me which OS I should use, not some pom-pon girl from Long Island. I'm almost ashamed to be a Mac weenie.
But I use both. Linux guys mostly don't know what's possible in Mac OS, because they don't know how to use it, and vice-versa. They are both easy to install if you're not a Becky. They both have workable GUIs, though the current Mac's is more coherent. They both have tons of applications if you don't have a Becky-ish need to use Microsoft's various hand-holding memory-leak-generators. They both have command lines if you want 'em; the iMac I'm typing this on has six different ones, in fact. ("What?! What the hell's he talking about?! Brain segmentation fault!") A default install of either OS = a huge, messy pile of crap that does way too much and lets you do way too little. True, and who cares.
Let's make it a real challenge. Brainiac Linux guy says, "I can telnet with SSH," Mac guru says, "Me too, no prob. I've got Photoshop with true color-matching capabilies, how's yer li'l GIMP doin'?" etc, etc. That could be interesting.
That's much more interesting than the rest of the linked article. Meyer's hot-air balloon was way too easy to poke holes in (even for me (not a big ESR or RMS fan)). I think he's a little nutso on this point, too.
Here's a short list of things that I personally think are immoral, the idea being to suggest why legal-moral identity is probably not ideal, because it begs the question, whose morality?:
--most gift-giving; because what's given is an obligation to repay, not a gift per se
--owning a dog; because lawn ornaments shouldn't be uncontrollably violent or shit on the sidewalk
--discontinuing junk food I've become addicted to; because I'm still withdrawing from 7UP Gold, Lime Chile Tostitos, and the McDLT
--working for the government; contributing to the enslavement of your fellow man to paperwork, p.c. jargon, and punitive taxation is just plain evil
--going to college; see "working for the government"
Conversely, I don't find cocaine-snorting, anal sex of any sort, giving away copies of Photoshop, or multi-state cop-killing sprees the least bit offensive to my ethics. Not many of my fellow man would enjoy living under my "moral law," however. Can't blame 'em.
So, the idea is to keep the law simple: don't steal stuff, don't hurt anyone who hasn't forced/asked you to, contracts are binding unless fraudulent. Just the basics that most everyone can agree on, simple enough to allow for complex personal moralities that, while goofy and disturbing to most, probably won't end up killing us all. Except the cops.
Now what I need is a (-1, Troll) to balance out those Insightfuls I've been getting lately. Dangerously close to posting with a bonus. Don't want it. Karma is stupid.
Thank you.
It gets worse. He charges ESR and RMS with "lunatic raving" within a page-down of this sentence:
"Perhaps the greatest tragedy of that country is that a minority of gun nuts [...] supported by an all-powerful lobby, the National Rifle Association, has managed to terrorize Congress into maintaining loose gun laws with no equivalent in the rest of the civilized world."
If the words "sky-high rhetoric" weren't themselves sky-high rhetoric, that's what I'd call this. Might as well do a point-by-point on this one, since I'm bored.
1) "greatest tragedy" -- The "perhaps" does nothing to modify a statement so outlandish. Supply your own list of greater tragedies. Mine would probably start with, oh, say, 70% functional illiteracy, or, uh, maybe slavery, or, er, the recent resurgence of parachute pants.
2) "all-powerful" -- The NRA does not get what it wants. It wants laws based on an original-intent reading of the Second Amendment. We have no such laws in the US, no matter which interpretation of the founders' original intent you're talking about ("militia" vs. "people").
Forget it. Can't go on.
The sad thing is, the point the guy pretends he's making is valid: Leading open source/free software advocates aren't sufficiently reflective, and they make inconsistent and/or nonsensical statments sometimes. True. Pot-kettle-black.
1) That was no troll.
/. response is intelligent, cogent, startlingly brief and unlawyerly (in a good way), and makes most of the points a good /. defense needs to make, it reads like a closing argument. I understand the strategy: shift focus from /.'s alleged copyright violation to MS's shoddy "secrecy" and ethically questionable Kerberos implementation. Not non-issues in the case, but not really the point of it either. If the /. response were posted here as a comment, I'd expect it to end up moderated "(Score: 4, Offtopic)."
2) AC's got a point. While the
"...improper purposes..." + $, influence, etc. = "Welcome to slashdot.org, the newest member of the MSN family"
See you there.
Uh...almost.
The horizontal is still free. If you want to control it, don't use commas.
Dude, no.
Great author:Jon Katz::Natalie Portman:ASCII-porn Jackie Chan.
The argument could go something like this (but better; I'm tired):
In theory, artists are paid not for having expended *effort* (and why anyone would think that they are is baffling to me, honestly), but for having produced something unique (meaning unproduceable by anyone else), the uniqueness of which gives it value (theoretically proportional to its uniqueness).
(The fact that a couple's children are "unique" in a sense might have something to do with your analogy, but not with the point.)
For example, without a living, breathing James Joyce, no *Ulysses* gets made, and the world is a worse place for it (whether anyone here knows that or not). And because *Ulysses* isn't merely a random collection of stray data, of information bein' free and just happening to land in a *Ulysses*-shaped pile--it's a product of the single mind of James Joyce doing its uniquely dirty business on that data--it is in the interest of "the world" (or "society" or whatever) to see that Joyce is encouraged to continue living and doing his work for as long as possible. Paying him is a good way to encourage him. Theoretically, copyright law is a good way to encourage his customers to pay him, and also it's a recognition that he's not a waitress (since so many people here seem to think that he should have had to live on tips because he didn't use a computer).
I could go on, addressing the likely objections (for example, the Spice Girls; but I'm not talking about them (they'd be in the "unintended consequences" dept.), but, say John Zorn or Rafael Toral), but, like I said, I'm tired. Been writing all night. Gotta get out to the streetcorner and lay open my typewriter case.
Re:
quote
quote
on a semi-related note: the Dead Kennedys released one of their tapes with a message that said "The B-Side of this tape has been left blank so that you can rip off the music industry (paraphrased).
unquote
Of course, that really didn't happen.
unquote
You are correct. It was the Circle Jerks, not the Dead Kennedys. The album was called *Group Sex* and featured my favorite punk song, "World up my Ass" (as in "I've got the..."). Campfire fave to this day. Really. My campfires are cooler than yours.
I hate HTML.
Don't get so happy to see the smackdown put back on some uppity nigra. Not that that's what's in your mind, personally, but posters here have been uncharacteristically cheerful about this particular bullshit IP suit. Dre'll win it unless the judge is bought (in principle if not in fact) or a racist prick. Dre didn't use the THX sound. He re-created it with a synth. The stupid THX swooshy-dingus takes any semi-competent musician who's ever heard a Yes record about nine seconds to get happening. Lucas has as much of a case against Dre as Kevin Shields has against me because a guitar part I recorded today between /. visits starts with variants of the same two chords that begin My Bloody Valentine's "I Only Said"--none.
Dude(tte), go home. People here think Wittgenstein is a freakin' video game. Referencing any non-fiction author not published by O'Reilly induces blank stares. Ironic use of "fellow traveler" will go utterly unseen and unappreciated. Alliteration, also. You will be dubbed a crackbaby and instructed to have gay sex with ASCII Jackie Chan as punishment for failure to deploy acronyms in place of logical statements. You will--and I do mean *will*--give up and become a Flaming Offtopic Reduntant Troll (sorry, a "FORT") because it's fun to whip out a stopwatch and time yourself getting moderated down by thoughtless chumps and Open Source Busybodies. Leave now, before the grits get any nearer your zipper. (And if you don't know what that means--there's still time! Chuck your mouse and run!)
Sincerely,
Fellow Smartypants
Compare the following, from technocrat.net (my apologies to Bruce for pasting him), with the parent of this post:
o ,ef_print.o,efence.o}
Be has already contacted me and promised to fix this problem. But I'd like people to be aware of it because it points out what can go wrong when you use other people's software without checking the licenses.
BeOS has a C library called libroot.so . This library contains a number of components under the GNU LGPL license, and Be is distributing the source code for these components in their FTP archive. They also have some proprietary components in that library, which they distribute in object form. It looks as if Be is making an honest effort to comply with the LGPL license.
Bruno Haible tipped me off that my Electric Fence program, a malloc() debugging tool, is also part of Be's libroot.so . Electric Fence is under the GPL, not the LGPL. That license would not allow it to be part of a library with proprietary components, although Be could distribute it in a separate library.
It turns out that not only is Electric Fence in Be's libroot.so, but Be is distributing it in object-code form, without source, as if it were one of their proprietary components. Of course this is also against the license. The archive that contains it is here on their FTP site. My files extract from that archive into src/kit/malloc/obj.i586.dyn/{ef_malloc.o,ef_page.
This is an honest mistake by one of their engineers, and will be quickly fixed. It's an example of why it is important to keep track of where your software came from and what license it's under, and read the license when you use somebody else's code.
What is happening here legally? I now have to sign a relase for them, because the software is already in distribution. I'll sign it, but you don't want to get your company in this position unnecessarily. Be is going to be a lot more careful about this now, and your company should, too, if you are embedding other people's software in your product.
Thanks
Bruce
End quote. Jefus!
Painter does the "paint with effects" thing really well. I assume there's a "PC" (by which I guess you mean Windows) version out there. Painter's compatible with Photoshop plug-ins, too.
And, if you've got your shit together, you can brush on effects in Photoshop. But there's no menu for it, so you have to think about it for a second.
PS(OT): You are not alone. Not wanting to use Linux is currently known to be cool everywhere but here, among everyone but textdroids, sheetspreaders, servents, and other corpo-corpses. Vincent Price-like "moo-ha-ha"s of derision can be found in the vicinity of anyone who even half-seriously mentions the GIMP outside these Perly gates. Do not speak of this again.
Look. I'm not usually one to get pissy about moderator idiocy, but I think it wise to familiarize oneself with the brilliant works of DumbMarketingGuy (alias "dmg") and streetlawyer (alias "streetlawyer") before slinging one's points around wildly. They have highly educational user info pages. If you can't find them, uncheck that "willing to moderate" thingee on yours. If you can't find that...well...shit.
Thank you.
All true. But forget $1600. That'll be fine for web stuff, or making cool screensavers, but you'll weep when you hit RENDER in After Effects and it says ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 41 HOURS.
If you're serious, buy seriously. Get the most expensive G4 Apple will sell you, w/ about a gig of RAM, DVD and Firewire everything, that fancy Cinema Display, and one huge-ass hard drive. About $10,000, I'd guess (+another $3-6K for software).
That same render will take you about 1% of the time, and you won't be reluctant to or frustrated with re-doing your work (which you'll always have to do, especially when you're starting out; even the best applications (Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Premiere, all the Avid stuff) aren't as WYSIWYG as they should be). You'll get your money back in time saved, really quickly.
And, while you're savin' up, Apple will probably be introducing its multiprocessor/OS X/etc. models. Probably.
1) If even you don't know that "linux" is a proper noun, it can't be too mainstream.
2) Trolling (redundantly) with a famous-guy +1 bonus is uncool.
3) It is time to moderate me down for 2).
4) Thank you.
I haven't seen the movie, yet. I read the book when it came out, and, frankly, I don't remember much about it, except that I read it really quickly (not "thinky" enough for my taste). That said....
:).
:)
There's something about us record geeks that, if Katz had known it, would have made a better "angle" for this review than that tacked-on mp3/WalMart schtick he always does. Our records are our lives. And I don't mean that we're merely obsessed with them. They're us--we live there in our piles of pressed plastic. I don't know how to explain this to a typical "record user" without a boring personal anecdote, so here goes:
A couple weeks ago, this fabulous babe I know and I finally managed to hook up after years of futilely flashing the fuck-eye at each other while being overinvolved with annoying losers. On the way home after our tremendously cool and fun first date, I had Shudder to Think's *50,000 BC* on in the car. So that's where my memory lives--all the coolness and fun and that awesome-first-date feeling--it's in those songs. I don't have it without them. Conversely, things have since gotten kind of shitty and tense between us, for reasons neither of us is airing. I've been listening to the new Love-Cars and the last Sunny Day Real Estate album a lot--sad, confused, frustrated records. And they're where my sadness, confusion, and frustration live now. This week is what those songs will always be about; they're me, this week, and they're how I'll always remember it. I'll never get it back without hearing them, and I'll never hear them without getting it back.
The Cusack character in the movie has the same problem. His emotional life is mediated by popular culture (in that you have to buy records before you can get unhealthily attached to them) to a harmful degree, and it's his getting past that that the book's (partly) about (hence the record *store* setting). And the more thoughtful among us (like Cusack himself (met him once--awesome guy), and all of us who've read Adorno) know that this is a huge-ass emotional problem we record geeks have. We've become one with The Spectacle
Geeks I know, of every sort, have a similiar, allegedly abnormal transferrence-of-emotion thing going on. I'm about nine kinds of geek myself, though I'm not enough of a computer geek to know where they store their feelings. An HFS+ partition, maybe? I suspect it'd be hard to make a movie about it.
Did I make my point yet? Screw it; this is too long.
PS: I was planning to see the movie tonight, but the Love-Cars are playing, so...