A single universal document format superficially sounds like utopia, but I wouldn't ever want to see it come to pass, any more than I'd like to see one-size-fits-all clothing being the only thing available off-the-rack.
"We became the first two people to know the speed of gravity, one of the fundamental constants of nature," the scientists say, in an article in New Scientist print edition.
I thought that the speed of light was recently found to not be a constant, and that this would imply that maybe the speed of gravity isn't either. Could they be speaking loosely here, or maybe I misunderstood the "speed-of-light-not-constant" discovery also?
Wow, you are an idiot. The same principle applies to the editors (note the plural). Your post only makes sense if you imagine there to be only one editor.
That's a tough question for anybody...not just Microsoft. Nobody can please all people all of the time. It helps to think of slashdot as a diverse collection of individuals rather than a unified anti-MS collective.
To put it more succinctly: when you are the dog on the top of the dogpile, any move you make is downward. That doesn't make you the underdog...it makes you the top dog.
"Microsoft can't win" is one of the funniest memes I've seen floating about slashdot as of late. Does anybody remember back in the DOS days when you had to type "win" to start the window server...like typing "startx"...it always annoyed me to have to type "win" in order to lose. Now they're a monopoly, and you have to do some clever dancing to be employable without touching their products these days.
Yet they "just can't win". The underdog reflex is so powerful in some people that even Microsoft gets sympathy. Incredible.
Speaking of defense of reason, have you actually demonstrated that these attacks come from the same people? It would, indeed, be a hypocrisy for the same person to both decry the lack of concern for security and a move to address it, but is this actually what's happening here?
Or are all of the people leaping to the defense of microsoft doing so merely because they've read both kinds of bitching in the pages of slashdot.
Because, you see, if I bitch about one position and another slashdotter bitches about the other, it's not hypocrisy.
It's only hypocrisy when the same person expresses both.
I'm torn on this issue. After years of trade rags ignoring well-designed alternatives in the marketplace and failing to do anything besides sucking Microsoft cock, I still find it refreshing when slashdot, a mere weblog, pulls out a headline with sardonic spin. I also find it amusing that people feel the need to rush to the defense of Microsoft. Seems as silly as protecting god with a sword.
I guess I'm tired of people trotting out Yngwie every time virtuosity is brought up, as if one example of poorly-applied virtuosity is evidence that virtuosos can't write good music. If you like well-composed music with a hired-gun session player who was brought in because the composer could not execute his/her work, just wait until you hear a great composer interpret their own composition at a virtuoso level. It's far better than doing without skill entirely for the sake of good composition, I can tell you. I should mention Morse again, because he's an example of the rare breed of virtuoso who is adept at the art of composition...able to fugue with the best of them.
It's not an either/or proposition. Music is at its best when you don't have to sacrifice anything.
It's funny that you make the comparison between virtuosos and open source fanatics here, because those guitarists that you mentioned..and Steve Morse, who does an excellent job of architecting songs (though, sadly, they won't help you in your quest to dance)...are musicians who write music that musicians would appreciate. Similarly, open source software tends to be software that programmers can appreciate.
So ignorant newbies look at both, scratch their heads, and call it crap. Doesn't mean it is...just means it's beyond the reach of their appreciation.
And those Lydian modes that you yawn about have another interesting parallel, which is that they are the fundamentals that, if understood deeply, give you a knowledge of the instrument that few will acheive and a fluency of expression that few could hope to attain without their study. Same with open source, IMO.
Using commercial software will broaden your horizons as much as a very dancable Britney Spears album, meaning "not much".
I don't follow you. Shouldn't the design goal be to make the chip do more work in the same amount of time within the constraints of power consumption and heat dissipation? Cranking up the clock may not be the way to get there.
Gather together a group of doctors and try to argue that smoking is good, or that unnecessary surgery is bad, or that a Plymouth Horizon is a good-enough set of wheels...will your peers still accept you as a doctor!? Hell, no.
Like the Address Book, iChat is another brushed metal application. Unlike Address Book, it is not clear why it's brushed metal. As far as I can tell, it isn't an "interface for a digital peripheral", or an "interface for managing data shared with digital peripherals", nor does it "strive to re-create a familiar physical device." It's just...metal.
Am I the only one here who's surprised that the author's neuron's didn't fire to associate the following two bits of his own review...?
Exhibit A
This screen is not specific to the installer. All Macs running Jaguar will show this image when starting up. Also, note the total lack of color...you know, just in case Mac OS X ever needs to boot on a device without a color screen... (cue X-Files music;-)
Exhibit B
As fun as Ink is to play with, its presence in Jaguar is a bit puzzling. Its recognition ability isn't really all that bad--my handwriting is mostly to blame for the comical results above. But a keyboard is a much more efficient (and accurate) input method. The only logical conclusion is that Ink is the first step towards hardware that can run Mac OS X but lacks a keyboard. Although waiting for an Apple tablet or PDA is like waiting for Godot, what other possible conclusion can be drawn? Does Apple really think that pen-based text input will ever be used when a keyboard is available. Like I said, puzzling...
How will such a system distinguish between someone with terroristic thoughts and someone who merely experiences a lot of anxiety from being in the middle of large crowds of people? Will those poor souls be delayed and harassed every time they travel? It would be a pity.
Open source is not a *requirement*. It is primarily a philosophy/religion/hobby/social organization.
This is ignorance. Open source is a category of licenses under which the the program is delivered. If the request for bids specifies that the program must be delivered under the terms of an open source license, then open source is, by definition, a requirement for landing that contract.
The solution, then, is to say "it can be any format, but that format must be unambiguously specified in a document that is available to the public without a license that restricts the use of said document to create software that reads/writes/transforms files of said format". This is different from saying "files must be PDF".
Slashdot Mirror
A single universal document format superficially sounds like utopia, but I wouldn't ever want to see it come to pass, any more than I'd like to see one-size-fits-all clothing being the only thing available off-the-rack.
I'd say that anything that promotes diversity in software and document formats is good news for OSS.
I thought that the speed of light was recently found to not be a constant, and that this would imply that maybe the speed of gravity isn't either. Could they be speaking loosely here, or maybe I misunderstood the "speed-of-light-not-constant" discovery also?
Wow, you are an idiot. The same principle applies to the editors (note the plural). Your post only makes sense if you imagine there to be only one editor.
That's a tough question for anybody...not just Microsoft. Nobody can please all people all of the time. It helps to think of slashdot as a diverse collection of individuals rather than a unified anti-MS collective.
What part of the dogpile metaphor don't you understand?
To put it more succinctly: when you are the dog on the top of the dogpile, any move you make is downward. That doesn't make you the underdog...it makes you the top dog.
"Microsoft can't win" is one of the funniest memes I've seen floating about slashdot as of late. Does anybody remember back in the DOS days when you had to type "win" to start the window server...like typing "startx"...it always annoyed me to have to type "win" in order to lose. Now they're a monopoly, and you have to do some clever dancing to be employable without touching their products these days.
Yet they "just can't win". The underdog reflex is so powerful in some people that even Microsoft gets sympathy. Incredible.
Or are all of the people leaping to the defense of microsoft doing so merely because they've read both kinds of bitching in the pages of slashdot.
Because, you see, if I bitch about one position and another slashdotter bitches about the other, it's not hypocrisy.
It's only hypocrisy when the same person expresses both.
I'm torn on this issue. After years of trade rags ignoring well-designed alternatives in the marketplace and failing to do anything besides sucking Microsoft cock, I still find it refreshing when slashdot, a mere weblog, pulls out a headline with sardonic spin. I also find it amusing that people feel the need to rush to the defense of Microsoft. Seems as silly as protecting god with a sword.
It's not an either/or proposition. Music is at its best when you don't have to sacrifice anything.
It's funny that you make the comparison between virtuosos and open source fanatics here, because those guitarists that you mentioned..and Steve Morse, who does an excellent job of architecting songs (though, sadly, they won't help you in your quest to dance)...are musicians who write music that musicians would appreciate. Similarly, open source software tends to be software that programmers can appreciate.
So ignorant newbies look at both, scratch their heads, and call it crap. Doesn't mean it is...just means it's beyond the reach of their appreciation.
And those Lydian modes that you yawn about have another interesting parallel, which is that they are the fundamentals that, if understood deeply, give you a knowledge of the instrument that few will acheive and a fluency of expression that few could hope to attain without their study. Same with open source, IMO.
Using commercial software will broaden your horizons as much as a very dancable Britney Spears album, meaning "not much".
+1 insightful
I don't follow you. Shouldn't the design goal be to make the chip do more work in the same amount of time within the constraints of power consumption and heat dissipation? Cranking up the clock may not be the way to get there.
Gather together a group of doctors and try to argue that smoking is good, or that unnecessary surgery is bad, or that a Plymouth Horizon is a good-enough set of wheels...will your peers still accept you as a doctor!? Hell, no.
This is a dangerous lack of diversity of opinion!
...do we hear the roar of engines in the vaccuum of space?
Like the Address Book, iChat is another brushed metal application. Unlike Address Book, it is not clear why it's brushed metal. As far as I can tell, it isn't an "interface for a digital peripheral", or an "interface for managing data shared with digital peripherals", nor does it "strive to re-create a familiar physical device." It's just...metal.
Exhibit A
This screen is not specific to the installer. All Macs running Jaguar will show this image when starting up. Also, note the total lack of color...you know, just in case Mac OS X ever needs to boot on a device without a color screen... (cue X-Files music ;-)
Exhibit B
As fun as Ink is to play with, its presence in Jaguar is a bit puzzling. Its recognition ability isn't really all that bad--my handwriting is mostly to blame for the comical results above. But a keyboard is a much more efficient (and accurate) input method. The only logical conclusion is that Ink is the first step towards hardware that can run Mac OS X but lacks a keyboard. Although waiting for an Apple tablet or PDA is like waiting for Godot, what other possible conclusion can be drawn? Does Apple really think that pen-based text input will ever be used when a keyboard is available. Like I said, puzzling...
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236
How did you get the crashing feature? Mine only came with the upgrade price!
the other clauses are there as a buffer so that no one bothers to read all the way down to #7.
How will such a system distinguish between someone with terroristic thoughts and someone who merely experiences a lot of anxiety from being in the middle of large crowds of people? Will those poor souls be delayed and harassed every time they travel? It would be a pity.
This is ignorance. Open source is a category of licenses under which the the program is delivered. If the request for bids specifies that the program must be delivered under the terms of an open source license, then open source is, by definition, a requirement for landing that contract.
The solution, then, is to say "it can be any format, but that format must be unambiguously specified in a document that is available to the public without a license that restricts the use of said document to create software that reads/writes/transforms files of said format". This is different from saying "files must be PDF".