Actually, that *is* constructive criticism. Gimp's awful GUI and generally "ugly" look are two of the big things holding it back from mainstream appeal. Mainstream users expect their programs to have a basic "professional" appearance. Too many OSS programmers neglect to even consider this, to the detriment of what may actually be a decent underlying program.
I think I just had an orgasm. That would be the greatest system seller since Steve Jobs realized he could charge 50% more for a computer if he painted it orange and rounded some corners on the case.
They're going to do exactly what G4 did, introduce a bunch of shitty reality shows and bad syndicated crap designed to shamelessly appeal to the "young male demographic" (as if young males are completely devoid of taste, and just want some drunk slut in a bikini making an ass of herself in front of Brett Michaels).
You don't teach a kid to be mundane, you teach them that everyone has both talents and shortcomings--that not everyone can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. It's not "mundane" to tell the 30 wannabe rap stars in your class that they can't all be the next 50 Cent. Sometimes kids get stars in their eyes and you have to bring them down to earth a little. I don't see anything wrong with telling a kid "You're probably not going to be the next big pop-star, sports legend, or Oscar winner. But, with some hard work, there are plenty of other things you CAN be."
Poor light performance has ALWAYS been the biggest problem I've had with digital cameras. What good is a million megapixels when you can't even see your subject without shooting in direct sunlight? Low light performance has always lagged behind on digitals (most of them I've bought over the years have had the light performance of equivalent of about 200 ISO film).
The military these days contracts out EVERYTHING, not just IT stuff. I remember going back to one of my old bases a few years ago and realizing that they didn't even have real MP's at the gates anymore. All the gate security was being contracted out to a private firm. How sad is it when the Army is contracting out one of its most essential functions? We're not talking food services or vending services here, we're talking BASIC PERIMETER SECURITY.
It takes a lot of balls to ask someone to pay almost $400 for the privilege of buying stuff exclusively from you, and then tell them that modifying the software to do anything BUT buy stuff from you is illegal.
I never said the big company's cars were any GOOD, just that there were a lot of them. IE sucks compared to Firefox (in fact, IMHO, about the only thing IE is good for is getting to the Mozilla website to download Firefox). But people still use it in overwhelming numbers, nonetheless.
Go into any U.S. maximum security prison and you'll see just how much we're alike. Kind of warms the heart to know that we both sling shit at the guards.
Losing clients is hardly just a "lame excuse." I've seen it actually happen. I have, in fact, taken over website projects in the past for clients whose previous developer got canned after delivering a bland site that didn't look particularly professional in IE (because the developer focused so much on making the site's CSS bulletproof). These sites passed W3C validation with flying colors, but they looked like weak tea and cost the developer a client.
But you are right about the possibility of a major company coming along and changing things. If the W3C were to introduce some revolutionary new feature, and every browser but IE were to adopt it. And then some major player (like Google) were to come along and really embrace that feature, leaving IE users out in the cold, of course it would motivate MS to become more standards compliant. But that's not usually the way it works. W3C standards improvements are generally incremental and small (evolutionary, not revolutionary). So this seems an unlikely scenario.
If they were one big company, and controlled 75% of the market share, of course they would. Let's say this super car company existed. And all the cars they built were tall and so required 7' of clearance. Now some worldwide body comes along and says the real "standard" for cars is that they should require no more than 5' of clearance. And a few smaller startup car companies embrace that 5' standard and start building shorter cars (and they capture about 20-25% of the market).
Now, you're building a fast-food business in the U.S. and your building the cover for the drive-thru. Do you build it to 5' just because some international body said that was the "standard" or do you recognize the REAL standard and build it to at least 7'?
And if you don't realize that there is really no such thing as "browser independent code" then your websites must look pretty bland. Are you trying to tell me that you can write miracle code that you don't ever need to test in individual browsers (and versions)?
LOL, reminds me of an old Robot Chicken episode from a couple of years back. It features a "flashback" skit where we see Ang Lee being interviewed before "The Hulk" came out. At the interview, he says something along the lines of "The movie will be like a pretty flower. Surely it won't be a complete flop that destroys my career. Surely."
Much as I loathe it (as a small web designer myself), the reality is that MS *IS* the standard right now. Anyone using markup not supported by IE is basically doing a disservice to their clients (unless they can find a way to at least mask it for IE). I know a lot of you would respond with some noble "Screw MS! If they're not going to adhere to the standards, we should ignore them!" sentiment. But the reality is that, until they can be driven to under 50% of the browser market share, they pretty much get to set the standard.
How can you doubt our national intelligence agencies when they have "intelligence" right in their name?!?!? I predict this will be their most effective law enforcement and intelligence tool since the U.S. government created the Stargate Project. It's tax dollars well spent!
Every day in the life of a Fox exec must be hell. Each morning you have to wake up and think of a good reason not to eat a bullet. Each day you have to drive to and from work and resist the urge not to just drive right into Coldwater Canyon. Each night you have to come home and face a wife and kids who know you're responsible for Fox. I would almost feel sorry for them, if I were entirely convinced they had human emotions and felt what we call "pain."
I bet he said that after Firefly too. If Fox ever starts dangling that big money again, you can bet he'll come running back. Right now he's just trying to save face in case they don't ever WANT him back.
Bill Maher learned that lesson the hard way. He left Comedy Central for the big network money; only to discover that more people watching not only means a higher salary, but also a much more sensitive audience.
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Actually, that *is* constructive criticism. Gimp's awful GUI and generally "ugly" look are two of the big things holding it back from mainstream appeal. Mainstream users expect their programs to have a basic "professional" appearance. Too many OSS programmers neglect to even consider this, to the detriment of what may actually be a decent underlying program.
A proprietary book? Insults my FOSS ethics, it does!
Linux boxen with CS locked on and pre-installed.
I think I just had an orgasm. That would be the greatest system seller since Steve Jobs realized he could charge 50% more for a computer if he painted it orange and rounded some corners on the case.
Yeah but with a Palm device, my farts still smelled bad.
They're going to do exactly what G4 did, introduce a bunch of shitty reality shows and bad syndicated crap designed to shamelessly appeal to the "young male demographic" (as if young males are completely devoid of taste, and just want some drunk slut in a bikini making an ass of herself in front of Brett Michaels).
You don't teach a kid to be mundane, you teach them that everyone has both talents and shortcomings--that not everyone can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. It's not "mundane" to tell the 30 wannabe rap stars in your class that they can't all be the next 50 Cent. Sometimes kids get stars in their eyes and you have to bring them down to earth a little. I don't see anything wrong with telling a kid "You're probably not going to be the next big pop-star, sports legend, or Oscar winner. But, with some hard work, there are plenty of other things you CAN be."
Wouldn't it just be easier to go on a reality show and make an ass of myself?
Poor light performance has ALWAYS been the biggest problem I've had with digital cameras. What good is a million megapixels when you can't even see your subject without shooting in direct sunlight? Low light performance has always lagged behind on digitals (most of them I've bought over the years have had the light performance of equivalent of about 200 ISO film).
No, people can be photoshopped too.
Yeah, but he's got a blackberry. So he must be pro-IT, right?
The military these days contracts out EVERYTHING, not just IT stuff. I remember going back to one of my old bases a few years ago and realizing that they didn't even have real MP's at the gates anymore. All the gate security was being contracted out to a private firm. How sad is it when the Army is contracting out one of its most essential functions? We're not talking food services or vending services here, we're talking BASIC PERIMETER SECURITY.
Somebody said "DNS," Vasquez thought they said "INS" and ran away.
It takes a lot of balls to ask someone to pay almost $400 for the privilege of buying stuff exclusively from you, and then tell them that modifying the software to do anything BUT buy stuff from you is illegal.
It needs to die. But it probably won't.
I never said the big company's cars were any GOOD, just that there were a lot of them. IE sucks compared to Firefox (in fact, IMHO, about the only thing IE is good for is getting to the Mozilla website to download Firefox). But people still use it in overwhelming numbers, nonetheless.
Go into any U.S. maximum security prison and you'll see just how much we're alike. Kind of warms the heart to know that we both sling shit at the guards.
Losing clients is hardly just a "lame excuse." I've seen it actually happen. I have, in fact, taken over website projects in the past for clients whose previous developer got canned after delivering a bland site that didn't look particularly professional in IE (because the developer focused so much on making the site's CSS bulletproof). These sites passed W3C validation with flying colors, but they looked like weak tea and cost the developer a client.
But you are right about the possibility of a major company coming along and changing things. If the W3C were to introduce some revolutionary new feature, and every browser but IE were to adopt it. And then some major player (like Google) were to come along and really embrace that feature, leaving IE users out in the cold, of course it would motivate MS to become more standards compliant. But that's not usually the way it works. W3C standards improvements are generally incremental and small (evolutionary, not revolutionary). So this seems an unlikely scenario.
If they were one big company, and controlled 75% of the market share, of course they would. Let's say this super car company existed. And all the cars they built were tall and so required 7' of clearance. Now some worldwide body comes along and says the real "standard" for cars is that they should require no more than 5' of clearance. And a few smaller startup car companies embrace that 5' standard and start building shorter cars (and they capture about 20-25% of the market).
Now, you're building a fast-food business in the U.S. and your building the cover for the drive-thru. Do you build it to 5' just because some international body said that was the "standard" or do you recognize the REAL standard and build it to at least 7'?
And if you don't realize that there is really no such thing as "browser independent code" then your websites must look pretty bland. Are you trying to tell me that you can write miracle code that you don't ever need to test in individual browsers (and versions)?
LOL, reminds me of an old Robot Chicken episode from a couple of years back. It features a "flashback" skit where we see Ang Lee being interviewed before "The Hulk" came out. At the interview, he says something along the lines of "The movie will be like a pretty flower. Surely it won't be a complete flop that destroys my career. Surely."
Much as I loathe it (as a small web designer myself), the reality is that MS *IS* the standard right now. Anyone using markup not supported by IE is basically doing a disservice to their clients (unless they can find a way to at least mask it for IE). I know a lot of you would respond with some noble "Screw MS! If they're not going to adhere to the standards, we should ignore them!" sentiment. But the reality is that, until they can be driven to under 50% of the browser market share, they pretty much get to set the standard.
How can you doubt our national intelligence agencies when they have "intelligence" right in their name?!?!? I predict this will be their most effective law enforcement and intelligence tool since the U.S. government created the Stargate Project. It's tax dollars well spent!
Every day in the life of a Fox exec must be hell. Each morning you have to wake up and think of a good reason not to eat a bullet. Each day you have to drive to and from work and resist the urge not to just drive right into Coldwater Canyon. Each night you have to come home and face a wife and kids who know you're responsible for Fox. I would almost feel sorry for them, if I were entirely convinced they had human emotions and felt what we call "pain."
I bet he said that after Firefly too. If Fox ever starts dangling that big money again, you can bet he'll come running back. Right now he's just trying to save face in case they don't ever WANT him back.
Bill Maher learned that lesson the hard way. He left Comedy Central for the big network money; only to discover that more people watching not only means a higher salary, but also a much more sensitive audience.