Now that they don't have to worry so much about maintaining compatibility with Sun/Oracle's version (like they did with the go-oo fork), they can fix a lot of old cruft. If you want to get involved, there is a list of easy hacks that should provide a starting point for people who want to contribute.
Honestly, it was smart to borrow from old serials and the old Batman show by starting every episode with an action sequence/escape and then ending the next episode with a cliffhanger. I'm not sure why other shows don't use this tactic more.
The marble tomb of Pope Julius II will be finished later this year. Sure, it won't be by Michaelangelo. It won't necessarily be his vision. It is being rushed to completion by people who had no previous connection to the early 16th century project. And no one knows or cares who Pope Julius II is anymore, but it will be finally finished.
The big sales pitch was that this show would expose fringe science to the average person. I watched probably six or seven episodes of the first season and had precisely zero basis in reality. Fictional shows have a right to be fictional, except this was mismarketed.
The X-Files took a fairly simple plot idea (that the government would conspire with aliens for their benefit while possibly selling out the rest of humanity) and used that to tie together a good character drama. What really made the show work was chemistry between the characters.
In Fringe, I never connected with the characters. I couldn't care one bit about them, or their interactions. And since Lost, shows try too hard to have this mega-supernatural mystery plot. Abrams already showed with Alias that he doesn't understand the basics of good storytelling. He twists for the sake of twisting without ever keeping sight of a consistent and meaningful story arch.
I say this as an iPhone user, I'm not sure why it is commonly accepted that Apple provides this perfect user experience.
Repeatedly my iPhone has been wiped when connecting to iTunes. I've lost save data on games, photos, videos, contact information, etc.
I could in theory have contacts in groups, but there is no way in the interfact to add a contact to a group. I have to pay for a third party app to handle this for me.
I can't do basic things like add new SMS tones.
I tried importing contacts from a Yahoo account, a Gmail account, and Exchange. All failed. I can't edit my address book by typing at a computer. I have to very slowly type entries in via the phone.
iTunes is one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used. I see UI problems galore.
And the few times I've sat at a Mac to try and fix them for friends, Finder has driven me up a wall.
Can we instead say that Apple provides an alternative for those who prefer it? I don't buy how Apple is perfect and a superior user experience.
There have been far too few bad car analogies on/. as of late.
Consider taking your car to the dealership, and they tampered with your car so you couldn't change your own oil in the future. Wouldn't a lawsuit be involved shortly there after?
Google already famously fought Bush's request to hand over search data on all users and then changed their policies to anonymize logs sooner.
They also fought the government in Brazil in handing over data on a group sharing photos over Orkut. To my knowledge, this is the only know case where Google did eventually hand over government data, after a judge forced them to. And the data was a group of child pornographers sharing pics.
I like indie films, but I rarely watch many foreign films.
I largely detest TV as a medium, because like most monthly comics, TV shows are designed to not tell complete stories. They just want to get renewed to continue their stories to perputuity.
I enjoy movies precisely because they are complete stories.
And yet Netflix will only allow you to stream a small fraction of their library.
I signed up for a trial because everyone swears by it. I couldn't find a single thing I wanted to watch that they were streaming that month, so I canceled my account right away.
I don't know if it is most states. I know a few states I've lived in (California for example) mandate you have a state issued photo ID on you to show authorities.
Oddly enough I was told in California that my military ID didn't qualify. I needed an additional state issued photo ID.
I don't know off hand how many states are like this.
Technically this is true in all 50 states, but the law doesn't require that you be a US citizen. It requires that you show proof you have a right to be in the country.
My wife immigrated from Canada. She was required to carry her visa with her when she was on a visa, and she was required to carry her greencard (permanent resident card) with her at all times when she was a permanent resident.
Everyone made a stink about Arizona's law, but we're all subject to it currently.
The issue is that we have tons of laws on the books that no one intends to enforce, especially when it comes to immigration.
I agree that the fact that life exists under a set of conditions doesn't inherently prove they were created specifically for the life that observes those conditions.
Nor do I agree with Don Page's suggestion that it is definitively proven that a Creator didn't create the universe, because by his calculations, the universe isn't perfectly optimized for the maximum creation of galaxies.
If we could stand outside of the universe and definitively record whether or not the universe is expanding or not, as well as ascertain an increase or decrease in that expansion over a period of time, as well as better understand and observe how galaxies are formed, then we could better determine if we have had at any time, or ever will have an optimal cosmological constant for the forming of galaxies, and whether or not the constant itself is in fact a constant to begin with.
Let us not forget that the scientific community was convinced that the constant had a value of zero, and it is now assumed to be a positive (though small) value. And in 1998 it was determined that the rate of the universe's expansion is increasing more than expected, which could us to reevaluate if the constant was undervalued again.
There has also been some concern that an observed redshift does not always denote expansion. We're not observing expansion directly, but rather a secondary effect that we believe denotes expansion.
There are so many factors here that we're making best guesses at, and we keep changing our opinions on. Yet from these factors some are suggesting they are definitive proof that divine intervention was at play, or there is definitive proof that divine intervention could not have been at play.
You apparently didn't actually RTFA. You looked at the pretty picture and moved along. That chart shows music sales in iTunes, and App sales in iTunes. But the article said that physical game sales currently sit at $840 million a month, but are trending down 5%, where as app sales are steadily trending way up.
The suggestion was that as iTunes came to dominate all music sales, surely it will do the same for games.
The problem I have with the article is that I want to see overall game sales over a lengthy period. Is the 5% decrease this month, this year, or over 5 years?
Even then, I've got a couple problems with the article's assumption. They're directly comparing all app purchases (most of which are games, but not all of are) to physical media games. I think a better comparison might be iTunes GAMES REVENUE compared to that of console and PC games on the whole. Throw in Steam sales, PSN titles, X-Box Live titles, Wiiware, and physical media.
Now, how do those numbers look?
I think you might see that iOS games put a small dent into a gamers budget, but that didn't stop them from buying Left For Dead 2.
Games like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D and the like are crediting with innovating and pushing 3D engines. People always seem to forget Ultima Underworld. Ultima Underworld shipped a full year before Doom, ran on lesser hardware, and had a more advanced engine.
It really is a shame these two games aren't very playable on modern systems and have been forgotten in the mists of time.
I'd kill to see the GPL Arx Fatalis engine used to remake Ultima Underworld I and II.
IF you cause me quantifiable damages, then I have a valid lawsuit even if there isn't a law to govern it.
And while I feel dirty citing it, the famous McDonalds Coffee lawsuit comes to mind. McDonalds merely served the same temperature coffee that they always have forever. Someone spilled coffee on themselves, and McDonalds had to fork over something like 14 million.
Thanks to the way Slashdot hides certain posts and shows others (despite my settings to promote up certain posts and hide others) I missed the parent post.
That being said, there are people in this very thread who are insisting these murders are due to political rhetoric.
Looking at the facts revealed thus far about the shooter, that isn't remotely the case.
I don't listen to Glenn Beck since I avoid crazy shock jocks on both sides. But don't suggest that only one side has ever wished ill on their political opponents. Because of this debate I just saw a video clip from a MSNBC segment back in October where a guest was calling for violent revolution against the US government, and a Democratic Congressman also said in October that a political rival of his should be lined up against a wall and shot.
This kind of hyperbole and speech is prevelant on both sides, and has been for years. You can't try to suggest it is isolated to one side, or that nutjob murderers are tools of Republicans or Democrats.
You can sue someone for anything. There doesn't have to be a criminal law for the basis of a lawsuit.
Every libel/slander/defamation case I can recall has been a civil one. It wouldn't shock me to discover criminal defamation laws, but I'd argue they are unconstitutional.
I read that he quoted Marx and seemed to support Commmunism in his videos. I haven't bothered to watch his videos myself. Admittedly I could be mistaken as to whether or not he is pro-Communism. At the least, a fan of Marx and Rand is certainly not a Tea Party Palinite.
But the point remains that an immediate fiction was created that he is some tool of the Tea Party that seems to bear no semblence to reality.
Personally, I think free speech should be an absolute. Thusly I should be able to say I think all Yankee fans should die in a fire without fear of being dragged to court for it. All speech, even hate speech, should be protected.
That being said, this isn't an issue of prosecuting him for speech. It is a matter of using his statements to prove the murders were premeditated.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that they don't have to worry so much about maintaining compatibility with Sun/Oracle's version (like they did with the go-oo fork), they can fix a lot of old cruft. If you want to get involved, there is a list of easy hacks that should provide a starting point for people who want to contribute.
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks
Honestly, it was smart to borrow from old serials and the old Batman show by starting every episode with an action sequence/escape and then ending the next episode with a cliffhanger. I'm not sure why other shows don't use this tactic more.
The marble tomb of Pope Julius II will be finished later this year. Sure, it won't be by Michaelangelo. It won't necessarily be his vision. It is being rushed to completion by people who had no previous connection to the early 16th century project. And no one knows or cares who Pope Julius II is anymore, but it will be finally finished.
Ghostbusters 3?
The big sales pitch was that this show would expose fringe science to the average person. I watched probably six or seven episodes of the first season and had precisely zero basis in reality. Fictional shows have a right to be fictional, except this was mismarketed.
The X-Files took a fairly simple plot idea (that the government would conspire with aliens for their benefit while possibly selling out the rest of humanity) and used that to tie together a good character drama. What really made the show work was chemistry between the characters.
In Fringe, I never connected with the characters. I couldn't care one bit about them, or their interactions. And since Lost, shows try too hard to have this mega-supernatural mystery plot. Abrams already showed with Alias that he doesn't understand the basics of good storytelling. He twists for the sake of twisting without ever keeping sight of a consistent and meaningful story arch.
I say this as an iPhone user, I'm not sure why it is commonly accepted that Apple provides this perfect user experience.
Repeatedly my iPhone has been wiped when connecting to iTunes. I've lost save data on games, photos, videos, contact information, etc.
I could in theory have contacts in groups, but there is no way in the interfact to add a contact to a group. I have to pay for a third party app to handle this for me.
I can't do basic things like add new SMS tones.
I tried importing contacts from a Yahoo account, a Gmail account, and Exchange. All failed. I can't edit my address book by typing at a computer. I have to very slowly type entries in via the phone.
iTunes is one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used. I see UI problems galore.
And the few times I've sat at a Mac to try and fix them for friends, Finder has driven me up a wall.
Can we instead say that Apple provides an alternative for those who prefer it? I don't buy how Apple is perfect and a superior user experience.
There have been far too few bad car analogies on /. as of late.
Consider taking your car to the dealership, and they tampered with your car so you couldn't change your own oil in the future. Wouldn't a lawsuit be involved shortly there after?
Google already famously fought Bush's request to hand over search data on all users and then changed their policies to anonymize logs sooner.
They also fought the government in Brazil in handing over data on a group sharing photos over Orkut. To my knowledge, this is the only know case where Google did eventually hand over government data, after a judge forced them to. And the data was a group of child pornographers sharing pics.
And then there is this:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-wins-floating-data-center-patent/17266
I like indie films, but I rarely watch many foreign films.
I largely detest TV as a medium, because like most monthly comics, TV shows are designed to not tell complete stories. They just want to get renewed to continue their stories to perputuity.
I enjoy movies precisely because they are complete stories.
And yet Netflix will only allow you to stream a small fraction of their library.
I signed up for a trial because everyone swears by it. I couldn't find a single thing I wanted to watch that they were streaming that month, so I canceled my account right away.
I don't know if it is most states. I know a few states I've lived in (California for example) mandate you have a state issued photo ID on you to show authorities.
Oddly enough I was told in California that my military ID didn't qualify. I needed an additional state issued photo ID.
I don't know off hand how many states are like this.
Technically this is true in all 50 states, but the law doesn't require that you be a US citizen. It requires that you show proof you have a right to be in the country.
My wife immigrated from Canada. She was required to carry her visa with her when she was on a visa, and she was required to carry her greencard (permanent resident card) with her at all times when she was a permanent resident.
Everyone made a stink about Arizona's law, but we're all subject to it currently.
The issue is that we have tons of laws on the books that no one intends to enforce, especially when it comes to immigration.
It does in both directions.
I agree that the fact that life exists under a set of conditions doesn't inherently prove they were created specifically for the life that observes those conditions.
Nor do I agree with Don Page's suggestion that it is definitively proven that a Creator didn't create the universe, because by his calculations, the universe isn't perfectly optimized for the maximum creation of galaxies.
If we could stand outside of the universe and definitively record whether or not the universe is expanding or not, as well as ascertain an increase or decrease in that expansion over a period of time, as well as better understand and observe how galaxies are formed, then we could better determine if we have had at any time, or ever will have an optimal cosmological constant for the forming of galaxies, and whether or not the constant itself is in fact a constant to begin with.
Let us not forget that the scientific community was convinced that the constant had a value of zero, and it is now assumed to be a positive (though small) value. And in 1998 it was determined that the rate of the universe's expansion is increasing more than expected, which could us to reevaluate if the constant was undervalued again.
There has also been some concern that an observed redshift does not always denote expansion. We're not observing expansion directly, but rather a secondary effect that we believe denotes expansion.
There are so many factors here that we're making best guesses at, and we keep changing our opinions on. Yet from these factors some are suggesting they are definitive proof that divine intervention was at play, or there is definitive proof that divine intervention could not have been at play.
Consider again Facebook's recent proposal that they become the new unified messaging service. Every email, text and IM goes through them.
And consider again how many times Facebook opens up private data and hands it out.
You apparently didn't actually RTFA. You looked at the pretty picture and moved along. That chart shows music sales in iTunes, and App sales in iTunes. But the article said that physical game sales currently sit at $840 million a month, but are trending down 5%, where as app sales are steadily trending way up.
The suggestion was that as iTunes came to dominate all music sales, surely it will do the same for games.
The problem I have with the article is that I want to see overall game sales over a lengthy period. Is the 5% decrease this month, this year, or over 5 years?
Even then, I've got a couple problems with the article's assumption. They're directly comparing all app purchases (most of which are games, but not all of are) to physical media games. I think a better comparison might be iTunes GAMES REVENUE compared to that of console and PC games on the whole. Throw in Steam sales, PSN titles, X-Box Live titles, Wiiware, and physical media.
Now, how do those numbers look?
I think you might see that iOS games put a small dent into a gamers budget, but that didn't stop them from buying Left For Dead 2.
Games like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D and the like are crediting with innovating and pushing 3D engines. People always seem to forget Ultima Underworld. Ultima Underworld shipped a full year before Doom, ran on lesser hardware, and had a more advanced engine.
It really is a shame these two games aren't very playable on modern systems and have been forgotten in the mists of time.
I'd kill to see the GPL Arx Fatalis engine used to remake Ultima Underworld I and II.
IF you cause me quantifiable damages, then I have a valid lawsuit even if there isn't a law to govern it.
And while I feel dirty citing it, the famous McDonalds Coffee lawsuit comes to mind. McDonalds merely served the same temperature coffee that they always have forever. Someone spilled coffee on themselves, and McDonalds had to fork over something like 14 million.
There was no criminal law broken.
A built in microphone is trivial from a cost perspective, as is a camera. If it already does wifi, then Skype video chat is already an option.
You can do Skype on the current PSP. The Playstation phone will ship with Android, and Android voip/videochat capabilities.
Actually Google doesn't sell your data to advertisers. They use your data to determine which ad to show you.
Microsoft conversely filed for a patent specifically to govern a method of how best to auction your private data to third-parties.
Thanks to the way Slashdot hides certain posts and shows others (despite my settings to promote up certain posts and hide others) I missed the parent post.
That being said, there are people in this very thread who are insisting these murders are due to political rhetoric.
Looking at the facts revealed thus far about the shooter, that isn't remotely the case.
I don't listen to Glenn Beck since I avoid crazy shock jocks on both sides. But don't suggest that only one side has ever wished ill on their political opponents. Because of this debate I just saw a video clip from a MSNBC segment back in October where a guest was calling for violent revolution against the US government, and a Democratic Congressman also said in October that a political rival of his should be lined up against a wall and shot.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Defeated-Scott-florida-Shot/2011/01/12/id/382582
This kind of hyperbole and speech is prevelant on both sides, and has been for years. You can't try to suggest it is isolated to one side, or that nutjob murderers are tools of Republicans or Democrats.
So yeah, I'm calling bullshit.
You can sue someone for anything. There doesn't have to be a criminal law for the basis of a lawsuit.
Every libel/slander/defamation case I can recall has been a civil one. It wouldn't shock me to discover criminal defamation laws, but I'd argue they are unconstitutional.
After a Google News search, it seems you are correct.
I hadn't read that yet.
People could still sue in civil courts over libel and slander, which is what they do most of the time currently.
I read that he quoted Marx and seemed to support Commmunism in his videos. I haven't bothered to watch his videos myself. Admittedly I could be mistaken as to whether or not he is pro-Communism. At the least, a fan of Marx and Rand is certainly not a Tea Party Palinite.
But the point remains that an immediate fiction was created that he is some tool of the Tea Party that seems to bear no semblence to reality.
Personally, I think free speech should be an absolute. Thusly I should be able to say I think all Yankee fans should die in a fire without fear of being dragged to court for it. All speech, even hate speech, should be protected.
That being said, this isn't an issue of prosecuting him for speech. It is a matter of using his statements to prove the murders were premeditated.