Not sure of the tone of your comment, but...
They used to be cool, back in the days of Caldera, Love, and United Linux. With their distro and participation in a promising Linux distro standardisation effort, they were really contributing to free software quite nicely.
Yes, everything was very cool indeed, until Darth McBride took over. "Congratulations. In a few short months you've dethroned Bill Gates as the most hated man in the industry."
This reply goes to everyone who replied to my other post, not just the parent:
Thanks for your replies. I'd really lost touch with the Free Software movement. I think I'll do my best to ignore RMS from now on (until fairly recently, as in until GPLv3, I could defend free software to the death. It's very nice to be back.) I think this little episode has been the effect of traces of zealot in me dying.
I'll say. RMS zealotry is the main thing that I hate about Linux (which I use exclusively, for what it's worth). Every time he makes a noise, I go and check up on FreeBSD's hardware compatibility.
The GPL is lame in my opinion too. If it's open source, why should it limit how one can use that source? Such a thing seems as unrealistic to me as the proprietary lock-in method, or trying to Manage peoples' Digital Rights.
Am I right in thinking that if an American telco implements a tiered service, it can either only really affect American companies and users? Sure, the rest of the world will have to move away from whatever American sites they use to faster ones hosted outside of the US, but apart from that, these bastards can't screw with us over in Britain can they? If it will, expect the UN's hands to suddenly get very heavy. Or would this system actually screw the US over by putting it out of step with the rest of the world's internet?
hehe, it's not meant to be any specific language - I tried to make it look as generic as possible. I was planning on putting some filepath in there too, like "/usr/lib/sounds/$sound", hence the quotation marks. Then I realised I didn't know how this should look in a Windows filesystem.
I don't know why this is what came to my mind.
Yes, my variables are usually this untidy.
Yes, I realise that in the real world even this scenario would probably be something like "$pathtosounddir$sound"
If it still seems screwy, then take into account that I have about zero programming experience or background (as in education) and take pity on my poor soul! Anyway, why am I being berated for my imaginary code practice for an unreleased product that I'm not a developer for? You must be one of those BSD people, all worried about "code quality" and "application stability". Yeah right, real men have a cron job upgrade all their apps back to bleeding edge every 15 minutes, and just save their work more often.
It's not even the user level software, if XP is anything to go by. There's a high probability that a lot of the differences will come in the form of boolean variables.
if($AllowSound == "1") {
___PlaySound("$sound");
}
else {
___print "This version of Windows Vista does not come with sound playback.";
}
Maddox has managed it for more than five years now because "giving away content" wasn't his source of income. Now he's set to make a boatload of cash from various ventures including a book and a comic.
See also every commercial webcomic. Some go for a pure related-merchandise-for-sale approach, such as ctrl alt del, others push a little harder, like questionablecontent selling clothes that appear in comics.
And if your site doesn't fit into an easy category for making money, but does have traffic, I have three words for you: Ads by Goooooooogle. I hate these ads, but they work. As for corporations and such, and their continued profit from the internet, I have nothing but a big Fuck You for them. The only area this discussion is even relevant to big business is newspapers. The answer for them in most cases is advertising. Others try to lock in their content. These are the ones who miss the point. Screw them. The third case is the BBC - no need to profit from the internet. This is where I go for my news.
You're really overreacting mate, especially since the kind of english being put down is the sort that's poor and lazy when the speaker could just as easily speak normal english. At least you included the word somehow as a handy comfort zone. Now, how to take away the flamey tone of this reply? Common ground!
I disagree with you on one note. Google is upstream from the rest of us, meaning they have more effect on what happens, and in my opinion this gives them more responsibility (morally, not practically) about these decisions. The way this should work is that consumers decide they don't want any more Chinese products, and the market accomodates this. The reality is that consumers don't give a shit about evil in China, whereas Google specifically claims that they aim to not be evil.
That, and you go a little mad in your retort. You can't berate somebody retroactively for a decision they weren't aware they were making at the time. Google on the other hand was well aware of the implications of their decision, which was quite literally a decision of whether or not to do business in China.
That, and the fact that there's nothing free about the service anyway. Those of you saying things like "a leaf out of Google's book" are way off. Google offers its services for free to all comers. This Microsoft thing is more analogous to the "free dvd" you get on a magazine - it's only free in that you can't quantify the mark-up of the price of what it comes with.
And besides that:
included in a mobile version of Microsoft Office Communicator
allows Office users to make free voice calls
phones running Windows Mobile software
We are Microsoft. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile
You say it's cultural, but then you imply that it's social: economically poor brown trash.
This model doesn't account for equally poor people elsewhere who would not riot if you insulted their core values. Stick with it being cultural.
Environmental damage has its upsides too, at least for us humans. It should at least serve as the first drop through the crack in the damn, demonstrating to the world that the current system should be seen only as a phase, not as a sustainable worldview that deserves to be promoted and even killed for (see iraq).
You missed out those of us who are actually in favor of the acceleration of man's destruction of the environment! If you don't give us our cue, how are we supposed to know when to give our opinions?
I disagree with you 100% on your point about the quality of language used on slashdot.
It's easily the best I've seen in any context. The many times something needs fixing on relatives' business workstation and personal computers, I see a lot of business email (usually because they're having me select their emails one by one so as they can read them), in lots of different areas of business - from haulage & storage to fashion retail. The quality of the english these people use is absolutely minimal. Even inital emails from potential clients/suppliers get typed in caps lock, with abbreviations like 'u' and '2', and worse. And then there's the issue of international communication. You think most foreign businesspeople speak good english? Afraid not. The only place with any real quality is their *.doc typed letters.
After "The Beloved Comment System of God", the next thing on my list of reasons I visit this site is "quality of english". Even most of the editors' mistakes are only typos rather than proper spelling mistakes in my opinion.
Back in the day, when all we had to communicate was letters and maybe the odd telegram, people put some thought into their words.
These days, on the other hand, thanks to technology and the internet and whatnot, anybody can just walk up to anybody and start a conversation willy-nilly! No wonder the amount of instant communication is hurting communcative skills in children!
Friendly tip: don't follow a claim to be a true slashdotter with the "word" lol.
You're meant to value good writing skills just as much as an aversion to TFA. As punishment, I prescribe you 10 Hail Tacos.
Games have always been about story.
I'm not flaming. I can tell you just weren't thinking about what you were saying. That you got modded up is slightly more disturbing.... anyway, onto my point, which I will give in list form:
Pong
Space Invaders
Galaga
Every racing game ever made with a few exceptions
Every fighting game ever made
Bishi Bashi
Mario Party & Clones
That's enough list items
I'm fairly sure you're not generalising as much as your words themselves indicate, but then there is your use of the words "videogame writers", which makes me wonder if writers-as-in-authors have actually become that ubiquitous now.
I'm sure we'd both agree, on developing the point further, that the immersion is found mostly in the gameplay, and fun gameplay is not tied to technological advances in the slightest.
something awful satirised the "next-gen" gaming attitude beautifully a few days ago, with this work of art:
After almost a combined man-hour of intense research with our Vice President's grandson, Steve, we have discovered the only two things modern gamers really care about: Motion blur and light bloom. And believe us, we have those two things in spades.
Yeah, sorry about the flamey tone of my message. I regretted it from the moment I pressed submit. I'm not "anti reproduction" or anything, there was just something about the way you linked "productive" and the words "finding a mate" that got to me. It's not down to bitterness, just the plain implication of what it sounded like you were saying.
Ah absolutely! With world population growth slowing rapidly, finding a mate is the single most important thing a slashdotter can do! Hurry out into the streets! Start an orgy! Save the human race from extinction!
I'm tempted to call you a fucking moron for having your self-worth so tied into your reproductive instincts, but it's not you, it's just the way most people are. It's also barbaric and primitive.
You're right, but you've got to see the other side of the story. The FOSS community's main experience with Microsoft is their many, many, many attempts to sabotage its efforts. There are going to be consequences for picking Microsoft out of all the IT companies in the world (though I think they came to him). I'm inclined to say that there should be as well. Don't forget, all that really happened to him was social. A move in the other direction by a born-and-bred Microsoftie would entail lockdown on that person's computer and stern letters reminding them of NDA clauses in their contract (this comes to you direct from my arse, yes, but the point is that that's the level of "shunning" they'd be dealing with). It's clear to me which side harbours the real zealots.
I don't think many end users such as myself were that bothered by his move, but the developer community has a higher proportion of "purists".
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure of the tone of your comment, but...
They used to be cool, back in the days of Caldera, Love, and United Linux. With their distro and participation in a promising Linux distro standardisation effort, they were really contributing to free software quite nicely.
Yes, everything was very cool indeed, until Darth McBride took over. "Congratulations. In a few short months you've dethroned Bill Gates as the most hated man in the industry."
This reply goes to everyone who replied to my other post, not just the parent:
Thanks for your replies. I'd really lost touch with the Free Software movement. I think I'll do my best to ignore RMS from now on (until fairly recently, as in until GPLv3, I could defend free software to the death. It's very nice to be back.)
I think this little episode has been the effect of traces of zealot in me dying.
I'll say. RMS zealotry is the main thing that I hate about Linux (which I use exclusively, for what it's worth). Every time he makes a noise, I go and check up on FreeBSD's hardware compatibility.
The GPL is lame in my opinion too. If it's open source, why should it limit how one can use that source? Such a thing seems as unrealistic to me as the proprietary lock-in method, or trying to Manage peoples' Digital Rights.
Wow, so this is Slashdot on a Sunday night? Cool. It feels like being at a 24 hours shop or library in the middle of the night.
Am I right in thinking that if an American telco implements a tiered service, it can either only really affect American companies and users? Sure, the rest of the world will have to move away from whatever American sites they use to faster ones hosted outside of the US, but apart from that, these bastards can't screw with us over in Britain can they? If it will, expect the UN's hands to suddenly get very heavy.
Or would this system actually screw the US over by putting it out of step with the rest of the world's internet?
- I don't know why this is what came to my mind.
- Yes, my variables are usually this untidy.
- Yes, I realise that in the real world even this scenario would probably be something like "$pathtosounddir$sound"
If it still seems screwy, then take into account that I have about zero programming experience or background (as in education) and take pity on my poor soul!Anyway, why am I being berated for my imaginary code practice for an unreleased product that I'm not a developer for? You must be one of those BSD people, all worried about "code quality" and "application stability". Yeah right, real men have a cron job upgrade all their apps back to bleeding edge every 15 minutes, and just save their work more often.
It's not even the user level software, if XP is anything to go by. There's a high probability that a lot of the differences will come in the form of boolean variables.
if($AllowSound == "1") {
___PlaySound("$sound");
}
else {
___print "This version of Windows Vista does not come with sound playback.";
}
Maddox has managed it for more than five years now because "giving away content" wasn't his source of income. Now he's set to make a boatload of cash from various ventures including a book and a comic.
See also every commercial webcomic. Some go for a pure related-merchandise-for-sale approach, such as ctrl alt del, others push a little harder, like questionablecontent selling clothes that appear in comics.
And if your site doesn't fit into an easy category for making money, but does have traffic, I have three words for you: Ads by Goooooooogle. I hate these ads, but they work.
As for corporations and such, and their continued profit from the internet, I have nothing but a big Fuck You for them. The only area this discussion is even relevant to big business is newspapers. The answer for them in most cases is advertising. Others try to lock in their content. These are the ones who miss the point. Screw them. The third case is the BBC - no need to profit from the internet. This is where I go for my news.
You're really overreacting mate, especially since the kind of english being put down is the sort that's poor and lazy when the speaker could just as easily speak normal english. At least you included the word somehow as a handy comfort zone.
Now, how to take away the flamey tone of this reply? Common ground!
I disagree with you on one note. Google is upstream from the rest of us, meaning they have more effect on what happens, and in my opinion this gives them more responsibility (morally, not practically) about these decisions. The way this should work is that consumers decide they don't want any more Chinese products, and the market accomodates this. The reality is that consumers don't give a shit about evil in China, whereas Google specifically claims that they aim to not be evil.
That, and you go a little mad in your retort. You can't berate somebody retroactively for a decision they weren't aware they were making at the time. Google on the other hand was well aware of the implications of their decision, which was quite literally a decision of whether or not to do business in China.
And besides that:
- included in a mobile version of Microsoft Office Communicator
- allows Office users to make free voice calls
- phones running Windows Mobile software
We are Microsoft. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futileYou say it's cultural, but then you imply that it's social: economically poor brown trash.
This model doesn't account for equally poor people elsewhere who would not riot if you insulted their core values. Stick with it being cultural.
Environmental damage has its upsides too, at least for us humans. It should at least serve as the first drop through the crack in the damn, demonstrating to the world that the current system should be seen only as a phase, not as a sustainable worldview that deserves to be promoted and even killed for (see iraq).
You missed out those of us who are actually in favor of the acceleration of man's destruction of the environment! If you don't give us our cue, how are we supposed to know when to give our opinions?
I disagree with you 100% on your point about the quality of language used on slashdot.
It's easily the best I've seen in any context. The many times something needs fixing on relatives' business workstation and personal computers, I see a lot of business email (usually because they're having me select their emails one by one so as they can read them), in lots of different areas of business - from haulage & storage to fashion retail. The quality of the english these people use is absolutely minimal. Even inital emails from potential clients/suppliers get typed in caps lock, with abbreviations like 'u' and '2', and worse. And then there's the issue of international communication. You think most foreign businesspeople speak good english? Afraid not. The only place with any real quality is their *.doc typed letters.
After "The Beloved Comment System of God", the next thing on my list of reasons I visit this site is "quality of english". Even most of the editors' mistakes are only typos rather than proper spelling mistakes in my opinion.
Back in the day, when all we had to communicate was letters and maybe the odd telegram, people put some thought into their words.
These days, on the other hand, thanks to technology and the internet and whatnot, anybody can just walk up to anybody and start a conversation willy-nilly! No wonder the amount of instant communication is hurting communcative skills in children!
Friendly tip: don't follow a claim to be a true slashdotter with the "word" lol.
You're meant to value good writing skills just as much as an aversion to TFA. As punishment, I prescribe you 10 Hail Tacos.
I'd say it's pretty close between Brazil and S.Korea. I'm rooting for Brazil, personally - I already speak some Portuguese.
I'm not flaming. I can tell you just weren't thinking about what you were saying. That you got modded up is slightly more disturbing.... anyway, onto my point, which I will give in list form:
- Pong
- Space Invaders
- Galaga
- Every racing game ever made with a few exceptions
- Every fighting game ever made
- Bishi Bashi
- Mario Party & Clones
- That's enough list items
I'm fairly sure you're not generalising as much as your words themselves indicate, but then there is your use of the words "videogame writers", which makes me wonder if writers-as-in-authors have actually become that ubiquitous now.I'm sure we'd both agree, on developing the point further, that the immersion is found mostly in the gameplay, and fun gameplay is not tied to technological advances in the slightest.
something awful satirised the "next-gen" gaming attitude beautifully a few days ago, with this work of art:
After almost a combined man-hour of intense research with our Vice President's grandson, Steve, we have discovered the only two things modern gamers really care about: Motion blur and light bloom. And believe us, we have those two things in spades.
Yeah, sorry about the flamey tone of my message. I regretted it from the moment I pressed submit. I'm not "anti reproduction" or anything, there was just something about the way you linked "productive" and the words "finding a mate" that got to me. It's not down to bitterness, just the plain implication of what it sounded like you were saying.
Ah absolutely! With world population growth slowing rapidly, finding a mate is the single most important thing a slashdotter can do! Hurry out into the streets! Start an orgy! Save the human race from extinction!
I'm tempted to call you a fucking moron for having your self-worth so tied into your reproductive instincts, but it's not you, it's just the way most people are. It's also barbaric and primitive.
You're right, but you've got to see the other side of the story. The FOSS community's main experience with Microsoft is their many, many, many attempts to sabotage its efforts. There are going to be consequences for picking Microsoft out of all the IT companies in the world (though I think they came to him). I'm inclined to say that there should be as well. Don't forget, all that really happened to him was social. A move in the other direction by a born-and-bred Microsoftie would entail lockdown on that person's computer and stern letters reminding them of NDA clauses in their contract (this comes to you direct from my arse, yes, but the point is that that's the level of "shunning" they'd be dealing with). It's clear to me which side harbours the real zealots.
I don't think many end users such as myself were that bothered by his move, but the developer community has a higher proportion of "purists".
Sounds like a good concept for a screensaver, instead of Flying Windows.
The idea of an "independent .Net developer" doesn't ring right to me. Sounds like an oxymoron.