I blame YouTube. Seems every other video posted has some lame metal or techno background. I actually saw a vacuum cleaner demo with a thumpin' house beat.
The different widgets in that screenshot didn't bother me so much as the fact that all those semi-translucent window borders all over the screen make so much of the desktop into a blurry smudged mess.
17 USC paragraph 107 establishes a defense, not a right. It's phrased in terms of "fair use is not infringement", not "copyrighted works must enable fair use".
Hey, I'd prefer the latter too, but that's not how the law reads.
PBS doesn't much care how their programs are distributed as long as you pledge. They'd also really prefer you don't strip out the underwriter mentions, which are like what, a minute long and once? FCI (his studio) is a non-profit anyway, and advertising would be antithetical to their mission.
> So, self-defense is not a right because it's a defense?
It's an implied right, like privacy, one of those things that the ninth amendment covers. You want to argue timeshifting on constitutional grounds, that's going to be an interesting case.
Fair use is most certainly not a right. It's not even an automatic defense, it's an affirmative one.
Winforms is the old and busted tech that has all sorts of compatibility kludges to be backward compatible. The new sexiness is WPF, which unfortunately isn't even on Mono's roadmap (Silverlight is just a subset of it).
> so that the devs get to write it once and debug it everywhere
"Write once Debug Anywhere". No, you're not repeating that like a mantra or anything. Can you name even one time this has held true for Java in your experience? For bonus points, show me how this does not apply to some other language.
There is near unanimity in the technical world that OOXML is not a worthwhile or well written standard. It is not complete or consistent. There is not even a working reference and it is also patent encumbered. That it passed is a textbook example of how position and power can be abused.
Did you even bother to read the rest of the article? He doesn't even want XP on the OLPC. What he wants is some focus on the application usability in order to further constructivist learning, regardless of the operating system underneath. The damn thing ships with Squeak, the apps are written in python, and they SHOULD manage to run on any platform.
I think most people read about a page in, then rushed back to slashdot to muster their defense of Free Software and Fight The Good Fight, and well, pretty much proved his point: OLPC's mission is being lost by people who care more about meta-issues than either the learning mission (enabled by the software, not really the kernel) or the ongoing viability of the project itself (deployments need support!)
Peru may soon be stuck with 40,000 doorstops. Maybe I'll go take a look at Sugar and see if any of the ideas are worth lifting for a groove-like P2P network.
> There's a lot of spin and intentional ignorance here and it spills out best when he says this:
Spin? Spin is what organizations do to put bad news back "on message". This is one guy, ranting. One guy who was really involved, who went out to do the deployments to places that make the term "backwater" seem a goddam metropolis, and one guy who is really bitter about what he saw. If you read about, oh, one or two paragraphs more, it's quite obvious he doesn't think XP is going to save what he considers a fundamentally doomed project.
Imagine your IT department deployed 40,000 laptops (that's about as many people as work for Microsoft) and didn't have one single person on the payroll to actually deploy the things into the field. Now imagine that in Peru.
I suspect this has everything to do with having XNA able to import Blender formats, and nothing more. Why this warranted the involvement of the CEO, however, I have no idea.
> It's crap, s/he found letter from ballmer, and then published it with snide remarks every few lines.
This is pretty much par for the course with Groklaw. They do have a lot of source material, but the "analysis" is quite frankly beneath consideration these days.
I'd really rather not. It's an even worse echo chamber than slashdot. Ballmer's letter is just raw meat to the crowd of screaming sychophants.
I mean, I got a bitter chuckle out of the OOXML reference too, but I don't let that tear away all objective thought with regard to the letter -- my first impression of which is "Blender just got some serious recognition". I'm sure Groklaw is full of oh-so-clever analysis about how MS is out to get Blender, because we all know how serious they are about making 3D modeling apps...
> mainly because it isn't a kitchen sink like Perl....
Perl on the other hand doesn't litter the global namespace with hundreds of functions. Most of perl's builtins, furthermore, follow a consistent naming convention and argument order, neither of which is true in PHP.
True, but what's really the definition of "still running" for purposes of it being the same code? If you patch one byte, is it the same code? Sort of a Ship of Theseus problem, no?
> If PC gaming is dying, HTPC gaming can revive it.
Considering the HTPC itself doesn't seem to be gaining much traction these past couple years, and consoles have been encroaching (albeit very slowly) on the HTPC space, I'm interested to hear what your view on the topic is.
Slashdot Mirror
I blame YouTube. Seems every other video posted has some lame metal or techno background. I actually saw a vacuum cleaner demo with a thumpin' house beat.
The different widgets in that screenshot didn't bother me so much as the fact that all those semi-translucent window borders all over the screen make so much of the desktop into a blurry smudged mess.
17 USC paragraph 107 establishes a defense, not a right. It's phrased in terms of "fair use is not infringement", not "copyrighted works must enable fair use".
Hey, I'd prefer the latter too, but that's not how the law reads.
PBS doesn't much care how their programs are distributed as long as you pledge. They'd also really prefer you don't strip out the underwriter mentions, which are like what, a minute long and once? FCI (his studio) is a non-profit anyway, and advertising would be antithetical to their mission.
> So, self-defense is not a right because it's a defense?
It's an implied right, like privacy, one of those things that the ninth amendment covers. You want to argue timeshifting on constitutional grounds, that's going to be an interesting case.
Fair use is most certainly not a right. It's not even an automatic defense, it's an affirmative one.
Actually a $21M award would be better. What a difference a letter makes.
I'd like to "suffer" a $21 award.
Hi twitter. You wouldn't have to create so many accounts if anyone actually liked you and/or wanted to hear your bullshit opinions.
Winforms is the old and busted tech that has all sorts of compatibility kludges to be backward compatible. The new sexiness is WPF, which unfortunately isn't even on Mono's roadmap (Silverlight is just a subset of it).
> In the 21st century, the fact that you like technology does not automatically make you smart.
I like. Yoink!
> so that the devs get to write it once and debug it everywhere
"Write once Debug Anywhere". No, you're not repeating that like a mantra or anything. Can you name even one time this has held true for Java in your experience? For bonus points, show me how this does not apply to some other language.
> I use .NET all the time, but I can't say I like it half as much as Python.
I know what you mean -- ELF just doesn't hold a candle to Perl.
That pontificating tone is pure Twitter.
Did you even bother to read the rest of the article? He doesn't even want XP on the OLPC. What he wants is some focus on the application usability in order to further constructivist learning, regardless of the operating system underneath. The damn thing ships with Squeak, the apps are written in python, and they SHOULD manage to run on any platform.
I think most people read about a page in, then rushed back to slashdot to muster their defense of Free Software and Fight The Good Fight, and well, pretty much proved his point: OLPC's mission is being lost by people who care more about meta-issues than either the learning mission (enabled by the software, not really the kernel) or the ongoing viability of the project itself (deployments need support!)
Peru may soon be stuck with 40,000 doorstops. Maybe I'll go take a look at Sugar and see if any of the ideas are worth lifting for a groove-like P2P network.
> There's a lot of spin and intentional ignorance here and it spills out best when he says this:
Spin? Spin is what organizations do to put bad news back "on message". This is one guy, ranting. One guy who was really involved, who went out to do the deployments to places that make the term "backwater" seem a goddam metropolis, and one guy who is really bitter about what he saw. If you read about, oh, one or two paragraphs more, it's quite obvious he doesn't think XP is going to save what he considers a fundamentally doomed project.
Imagine your IT department deployed 40,000 laptops (that's about as many people as work for Microsoft) and didn't have one single person on the payroll to actually deploy the things into the field. Now imagine that in Peru.
> "Please stop blocking the OpenGL 3.0 standards process so we can move forward with our work."
Microsoft isn't even a member of Khronos. How are they blocking anything?
And sometimes they post here.
I rest my case.
I suspect this has everything to do with having XNA able to import Blender formats, and nothing more. Why this warranted the involvement of the CEO, however, I have no idea.
> It's crap, s/he found letter from ballmer, and then published it with snide remarks every few lines.
This is pretty much par for the course with Groklaw. They do have a lot of source material, but the "analysis" is quite frankly beneath consideration these days.
> Read the Groklaw post.
I'd really rather not. It's an even worse echo chamber than slashdot. Ballmer's letter is just raw meat to the crowd of screaming sychophants.
I mean, I got a bitter chuckle out of the OOXML reference too, but I don't let that tear away all objective thought with regard to the letter -- my first impression of which is "Blender just got some serious recognition". I'm sure Groklaw is full of oh-so-clever analysis about how MS is out to get Blender, because we all know how serious they are about making 3D modeling apps...
> Ever wondered why they picked the '.' for a concatenation operator over the trusty '+'?
Because perl did. Don't imagine any more thought than that went into it.
A language with only one sigil and they keep the sigils anyway. Facepalm.
> mainly because it isn't a kitchen sink like Perl....
Perl on the other hand doesn't litter the global namespace with hundreds of functions. Most of perl's builtins, furthermore, follow a consistent naming convention and argument order, neither of which is true in PHP.
> The very mention of its name sends Microsoft people into foaming fits of anger.
The only frothing I see here is from those driven to apoplexy at the term "Open Source" instead of "Free Software".
True, but what's really the definition of "still running" for purposes of it being the same code? If you patch one byte, is it the same code? Sort of a Ship of Theseus problem, no?
I'm very curious about your sig:
> If PC gaming is dying, HTPC gaming can revive it.
Considering the HTPC itself doesn't seem to be gaining much traction these past couple years, and consoles have been encroaching (albeit very slowly) on the HTPC space, I'm interested to hear what your view on the topic is.