I love the GIMP, I use it every day (yes, for real work), but the name is beginning to bug me more and more. It may seem harmless, but 1) it could be a lot more appealing with a better name, and 2) yes, there are some people who find the name offensive. We wouldn't want it named New Image Gnu Graphics Editing Routine, would we?
* Santa Claus - No more Christmas presents. Obvious.
* The Tooth Fairy - If you don't leave a tooth for the tooth fairy every so often, she comes and starts taking them herself.
* The Easter Bunny - You lose the ability to digest eggs.
* Superman - Lex Luthor turns you into Soylent Lex.
* The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Two words: Citizen Krang.
* Monkey Magic - I... don't know what this is, sorry.
* Jesus - No valet parking for you! No, wait, that's Jesús.
It has been a long time, a very long time, since copyrights expired after only fourteen years.
Don't be disingenuous. 28 years is still a hell of a lot shorter than life of the author plus seventy years. Absurdly long copyrights only started showing up in 1976, which is not "a very long time." Anyway, who cares how long it's been? 14 years was long enough to begin with, and it's plenty long enough now, especially given how fast the life cycle of copyrighted materials has become.
I don't care about ringtones (my phone's always on silent), but I can understand why some people do, especially teenagers.
What I really don't understand is ringback tones, the ones people hear when they call you. Is there really an allure in spending money so that other people can enjoy music?
I don't see any reason that someone couldn't create such a game.
Well, the main reason is that FPS-type games usually cost a few million dollars to develop, and they're done so in the business model of selling copies for profit. Inventing a "standard" game that could be used for professional play would mean spending a few million dollars to develop the game, and then hoping you can set up some kind of professional league that actually ends up using that game and blah blah blah...
There's not that much demand to watch electronic sports in the same way we watch meatspace sports. If there was, then we might have seen such a game arise by now.
Even if MPEG-4 would be better for this application than MPEG-2 (it's not), they don't want to make the next format too much better. That way, they can release yet another "improved" format in ten years in order to try to get us all to upgrade again.
A head as disproportionately large as you suggest would suggest that these apes were very bright - so why do we rule the world?
Because brain size does not correlate to intelligence very well? Structure and complexity are far more important than size. Elephants' brains are three times the size of human brains, yet they're not nearly as intelligent.
We'd be better off if we didn't have people thinking about ethical issues? Are you mad? The law is not (and should not be) the final arbiter of right and wrong. We use the law to approximate right and wrong; professional ethics are an adjunct to that system, in place for professions whose members can have the most direct, life-altering influence over the lives of laymen: doctors and lawyers.
I wonder what the medical ethicists would have said.
This statement has so many things wrong with it, I can't even speculate where to begin.
but then, why is it not unethical for me to work 80 hour weeks for a few months to keep my job by keeping my project up and running?
Because the two situations are radically different?
When you got your job, it was presumably with the understanding that you might sometimes have to work 80 hour weeks. When this "lab worker" got her job, it was with the understanding that she would not be pressured into donating her eggs.
If your employer told you when they hired you that you would never have to work more than 40 hours a week, and then a few months later starts dropping hints that you'd better put in unpaid overtime if you want to keep your job, that is definitely unethical (and, depending on local laws, illegal).
Should police be able to search through your search history for "questionable" searches before you've been arrested for a crime, and what effect would this have on the health of society?
This is no different than being able to subpoena any kind of privately held information in relation to a crime. In other words, this is a non-issue.
Slow news day, is it? Honestly, this is one of the most ridiculous (i.e., uninteresting, uninspired, un-newsworthy) stories I've seen on Slashdot in quite a while.
That's it. Hand over your geek card, you communist.
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I feel like I've been playing against the exact same AI for the last 10 years. The only thing that's changed is more intricate scripting.
Yeah... there's a reason for that. AI is hard, short of actually replicating the entire structure of a human brain. Unless the AI involved can actually learn on the fly as well as a human -- and no AI ever created can do that yet -- it will always have a limited ability space, and players (who are humans) will always be able to learn the AI's parameters and then devise a strategy it's incapable of defeating.
How this got put on the front page TWICE in such a short period of time really blows my mind.
Is a month and six days really "such a short period of time"? Besides, I didn't see this article the first time around. Does it really cause you that much anguish when a story is repeated?
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I think your browser is missing the plugin that makes the WHOOSH sound when a joke flies over your head.
I love the GIMP, I use it every day (yes, for real work), but the name is beginning to bug me more and more. It may seem harmless, but 1) it could be a lot more appealing with a better name, and 2) yes, there are some people who find the name offensive. We wouldn't want it named New Image Gnu Graphics Editing Routine, would we?
*sigh* No, Microsoft, you may not add the evil bit to RSS!
* Santa Claus - No more Christmas presents. Obvious.
* The Tooth Fairy - If you don't leave a tooth for the tooth fairy every so often, she comes and starts taking them herself.
* The Easter Bunny - You lose the ability to digest eggs.
* Superman - Lex Luthor turns you into Soylent Lex.
* The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Two words: Citizen Krang.
* Monkey Magic - I... don't know what this is, sorry.
* Jesus - No valet parking for you! No, wait, that's Jesús.
I don't care about ringtones (my phone's always on silent), but I can understand why some people do, especially teenagers.
What I really don't understand is ringback tones, the ones people hear when they call you. Is there really an allure in spending money so that other people can enjoy music?
There's not that much demand to watch electronic sports in the same way we watch meatspace sports. If there was, then we might have seen such a game arise by now.
Ah. My bad, I misunderstood the formats then.
Even if MPEG-4 would be better for this application than MPEG-2 (it's not), they don't want to make the next format too much better. That way, they can release yet another "improved" format in ten years in order to try to get us all to upgrade again.
Nonsense! Everyone knows the best way to kill a mime is with a rocket launcher.
Head the size of a planet, and they ask me to stare at the sun. Unbelievable...
It's clear from all the discussions in previous articles about global warming that no amount of science is going to convince anyone of anything.
Therefore, I'm sticking with the eminently reasonable position that global warming is caused by Republicans.
When you got your job, it was presumably with the understanding that you might sometimes have to work 80 hour weeks. When this "lab worker" got her job, it was with the understanding that she would not be pressured into donating her eggs.
If your employer told you when they hired you that you would never have to work more than 40 hours a week, and then a few months later starts dropping hints that you'd better put in unpaid overtime if you want to keep your job, that is definitely unethical (and, depending on local laws, illegal).