* It sets up a semi-plausible explanation which allows the main characters to exhibit "superpowers". The audience doesn't have to suspend as much disbelief as they do to enjoy Spider Man, for example. (Bitten by a radioactive spider? Yeah, that'll do it..)
* There's a fairly strong anti-establishment message, backed up by powerful metaphor. Humans as batteries ~= humans as dumb consumers/peasants/wage slaves, the matrix representing the entertainment and news media. The message is: you are being used; wake up.
* Ironically, the film has made a lot of money from dumb consumers. Heh heh.
My take on Star Wars is:
* (VI) Death to all ewoks. They should have used Wookies as I have heard was the original intention.
* (IV,V,VI) Luke Skywalker is an incredible wank.
* (I) That Jedi with the long neck stands no chance of surviving his first lightsaber fight.
* (I) Death to Jar-Jar. I mean it. The first few minutes of the film were excellent. Then he turns up and ruins every scene he appears in.
* (I) Annie is a girl's name. No wonder he turned evil. It was that or turn gay and shack up with Jar-Jar.
* (I) Midichlorians are a stupid idea. Annakin's mum doesn't know who his father was. I think the usual explanation for that is most likely.
* (II) I hope the last good act of Annakin Skywalker or the first evil act of Darth Vader is killing Jar Jar.
As you can tell, I don't take Star Wars very seriously.
Actually, you have given a stupendous reason to get away from using MS Office as soon as possible.
If Microsoft's formats are only going to get more complex and error-prone you might as well take the pain of moving to OpenOffice now.
Yes, some documents will need a certain amount of editing and tidying after conversion, but this is a bit of a red herring if the number of documents you plan to produce in the future is greater than the number of non-simple documents you have to convert so far.
The alternative is, inevitably, tighter lock-in and diminishing compatibility with your older documents.
The sooner you change, the easier it will be on you in the long term.
Yes Abiword and StarOffice 5.2 suck in serious ways. But OpenOffice 1.0 is excellent. In the short term, its interoperability with MS Office can only increase.
In the long term interoperability with MS Office will become as irrelevant as interoperability with WordStar.
OK your analogy sucks too. Re-broadcasting recorded material is a matter covered by copyright. It is analogous to distributing unauthorised copies of copyrighted software, not to using that software in a different way.
Long story short - it is simply NOT illegal to use bnetd to play a game you have bought. It is not even unethical: for starters you are saving Blizzard money by not using up the bandwidth on their battle.net servers.
Since the bnetd code has a significant use that is reasonable, fun and and legal, to complain about the development and distribution of that code is unreasonable, whiny and without any intellectual or ethical foundation.
In other words, several people posting here should STFU.
If I had to go back to BBC Basic now after using Python, I'd vomit. Likewise if I had to go back to 11-character filenames, a toy CLI and cooperative multitasking.
The consistent use of the 3-button mouse was good, and some of the clever stuff to do with xxx$PATH variables. And OK, the anti-aliased fonts. That's about it. The rest is just nostalgia.
The ARM has a beautiful instruction set, though. If I ever do any more embedded work that's what I'd like to use.
As if any more reasons were needed to use samba for your servers. The demonstrated fact that samba performs better than W2K (look it up, I'm lazy) is just a bonus;)
WTO specifically regulates procurement in the public sector, i.e., any purchase by a government which would total more than $130'000.
Which is where the "free beer" comes in to play... Governments that can figure out a way to use Free Software to lower the official cost of their software purchases below the $130000 threshold can tell the WTO to fuck off.
At this point, I would like to point out that the EU Commission has freedoms that the Us leglislators can only dream about.
Essentially, they are only constrained by the EU charter of human rights, and 3 treaties (as nice has yet to be ratified).
There is no constitution of the organisation that I've been able to find. they can do what they like!!
I think the Commission can propose what they like, but the European parliament can tell them to fuck off. I hope.
Interesting. I never thought about it that way, and it makes a kind of sense, but it's a slippery slope. Arguing that a particular copy "belongs" to entity A, so even though A lets B use it, it hasn't been distributed to her, sounds weasely and unconvincing to my ears.
I wouldn't argue the legal niceties because IANAL either, but I think the spirit and intent of the GPL is clear: The software cannot "belong" to entity A, at least to the extent of having power to restrict access to the source code. Where the binaries go, the source must be allowed to follow.
Although clearly, it would be bad form for "Sue from Accounts" to ransack our in-house modifications to sell to a competitor. I think that's a different issue, however.
The problem with this is the assumption that the ISP should care what the bandwidth is used for and make moral or legal judgements about it. I don't think so. 200Mb is 200Mb.
Overuse of bandwidth is a technical problem, and it merits a technical solution. Misuse of bandwidth is either a social and ethical problem, or just an ill-defined problem.
I think the ISP should step back from the issue of misuse completely, which by the way covers their arse better than a half-hearted stab at it, implying responsibility but no competence.
Let them solve the overuse problem, if necessary by employing quotas, and ADVERTISE THOSE QUOTAS HONESTLY.
Of course, I've never run an ISP, so I could be being naive about their real motives and the constraints they work under.
Of course, they probably don't make all that many *large* wireless devices.
Re:I am SOOOO getting this.....
on
e-Denounce
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· Score: 2
I am the inventor and owner of the color 'white', also known as '#FFFF'
Also known more accurately as "cyan" or "undefined". Yes, all websites with badly-formatted hex colour strings should be shut down!
And web designers making heavy use of the colour #00FFFF should probably be treated for pathological lack of taste.
There is no distinction between internal and public distribution. You distribute the binaries, so you MUST distribute the source ON DEMAND to the same people.
We use some GPL software where I work, occasionally with a few in-house patches. If somebody in accounts asked me for the source code (why they would do this I can't imagine), I would be obligated to provide it. "Internal" or not, they could re-distribute the source to anyone.
That's the GPL. There is no exception for subsets of the concept of "distribution".
I am eagerly awaiting JAM, not because I need to use messaging middleware yet, but so I can use it like a big cattle prod to repel Progress sales reps when they try to push SonicMQ.
At the moment I am forced to use a taser, but the batteries are expensive:)
My PS1 died a slow unreliable death, but my PS2 rocks, and still plays all my favourite games. I can get used PS1 games *very* cheap.
Even if I had an X-box given to me gratis, it would not play the games I currently have, and I could only get new games at what I consider to be a grossly inflated price.
Fast forward to 2005...
My PS2 gets a little flaky, but my new PS3 rocks and also plays all my favourite games (PS2, and hopefully still the PS1 games that have some gameplay left in them). I get used PS2 games cheap, of course.
Backward compatibility is what keeps MS Office users on the treadmill, so it's only fair that it should work against MSFT sometimes too.
Slashdot Mirror
My take on The Matrix is:
* It sets up a semi-plausible explanation which allows the main characters to exhibit "superpowers". The audience doesn't have to suspend as much disbelief as they do to enjoy Spider Man, for example. (Bitten by a radioactive spider? Yeah, that'll do it..)
* There's a fairly strong anti-establishment message, backed up by powerful metaphor. Humans as batteries ~= humans as dumb consumers/peasants/wage slaves, the matrix representing the entertainment and news media. The message is: you are being used; wake up.
* Ironically, the film has made a lot of money from dumb consumers. Heh heh.
My take on Star Wars is:
* (VI) Death to all ewoks. They should have used Wookies as I have heard was the original intention.
* (IV,V,VI) Luke Skywalker is an incredible wank.
* (I) That Jedi with the long neck stands no chance of surviving his first lightsaber fight.
* (I) Death to Jar-Jar. I mean it. The first few minutes of the film were excellent. Then he turns up and ruins every scene he appears in.
* (I) Annie is a girl's name. No wonder he turned evil. It was that or turn gay and shack up with Jar-Jar.
* (I) Midichlorians are a stupid idea. Annakin's mum doesn't know who his father was. I think the usual explanation for that is most likely.
* (II) I hope the last good act of Annakin Skywalker or the first evil act of Darth Vader is killing Jar Jar.
As you can tell, I don't take Star Wars very seriously.
Actually, you have given a stupendous reason to get away from using MS Office as soon as possible.
If Microsoft's formats are only going to get more complex and error-prone you might as well take the pain of moving to OpenOffice now.
Yes, some documents will need a certain amount of editing and tidying after conversion, but this is a bit of a red herring if the number of documents you plan to produce in the future is greater than the number of non-simple documents you have to convert so far.
The alternative is, inevitably, tighter lock-in and diminishing compatibility with your older documents.
The sooner you change, the easier it will be on you in the long term.
Yes Abiword and StarOffice 5.2 suck in serious ways. But OpenOffice 1.0 is excellent. In the short term, its interoperability with MS Office can only increase.
In the long term interoperability with MS Office will become as irrelevant as interoperability with WordStar.
OK your analogy sucks too. Re-broadcasting recorded material is a matter covered by copyright. It is analogous to distributing unauthorised copies of copyrighted software, not to using that software in a different way.
Long story short - it is simply NOT illegal to use bnetd to play a game you have bought. It is not even unethical: for starters you are saving Blizzard money by not using up the bandwidth on their battle.net servers.
Since the bnetd code has a significant use that is reasonable, fun and and legal, to complain about the development and distribution of that code is unreasonable, whiny and without any intellectual or ethical foundation.
In other words, several people posting here should STFU.
I don't. I thought I would, but no.
If I had to go back to BBC Basic now after using Python, I'd vomit. Likewise if I had to go back to 11-character filenames, a toy CLI and cooperative multitasking.
The consistent use of the 3-button mouse was good, and some of the clever stuff to do with xxx$PATH variables. And OK, the anti-aliased fonts. That's about it. The rest is just nostalgia.
The ARM has a beautiful instruction set, though. If I ever do any more embedded work that's what I'd like to use.
As if any more reasons were needed to use samba for your servers. ;)
The demonstrated fact that samba performs better than W2K (look it up, I'm lazy) is just a bonus
Which is where the "free beer" comes in to play... Governments that can figure out a way to use Free Software to lower the official cost of their software purchases below the $130000 threshold can tell the WTO to fuck off.
Delicious.
Yeah.
;)
Developers all over the world must be waiting with bated breath to release all their new cool features the week AFTER the Debian release
I hope your philosophy degree came in more handy than your Latin. ;)
I think the meaning of his sig is closer to "Not to progress is to go backwards".
And very few base are belong to him, thankfully.
Well done man, getting modded as insightful for admitting that you have been asleep for 6 years ;)
Interesting. I never thought about it that way, and it makes a kind of sense, but it's a slippery slope. Arguing that a particular copy "belongs" to entity A, so even though A lets B use it, it hasn't been distributed to her, sounds weasely and unconvincing to my ears.
I wouldn't argue the legal niceties because IANAL either, but I think the spirit and intent of the GPL is clear: The software cannot "belong" to entity A, at least to the extent of having power to restrict access to the source code. Where the binaries go, the source must be allowed to follow.
Although clearly, it would be bad form for "Sue from Accounts" to ransack our in-house modifications to sell to a competitor. I think that's a different issue, however.
nice.
To teach our kids critical thinking, martial arts and hacking. And some damn manners...
I think it's a quote from the Simpsons, or a similar show. You are supposed to get that it's satire.
;)
And even if he meant it, who says he thinks communism is a bad thing?
The problem with this is the assumption that the ISP should care what the bandwidth is used for and make moral or legal judgements about it. I don't think so. 200Mb is 200Mb.
Overuse of bandwidth is a technical problem, and it merits a technical solution. Misuse of bandwidth is either a social and ethical problem, or just an ill-defined problem.
I think the ISP should step back from the issue of misuse completely, which by the way covers their arse better than a half-hearted stab at it, implying responsibility but no competence.
Let them solve the overuse problem, if necessary by employing quotas, and ADVERTISE THOSE QUOTAS HONESTLY.
Of course, I've never run an ISP, so I could be being naive about their real motives and the constraints they work under.
Sorry, but no.
Code is code, documentation is documentation.
You don't have the right to copy other people's copyrighted code or documentation verbatim.
You can, however, write your own code implementing what the documentation describes, or write your own documentation of what the code does.
This latest attempt at grabbing more control over what programmers can write is simply what it appears to be - unethical, vicious even. And futile.
How *desperate* do MS look lashing out like that? Heh heh.
You're right.
Of course, they probably don't make all that many *large* wireless devices.
Also known more accurately as "cyan" or "undefined". Yes, all websites with badly-formatted hex colour strings should be shut down! And web designers making heavy use of the colour #00FFFF should probably be treated for pathological lack of taste.
There is no distinction between internal and public distribution. You distribute the binaries, so you MUST distribute the source ON DEMAND to the same people.
We use some GPL software where I work, occasionally with a few in-house patches. If somebody in accounts asked me for the source code (why they would do this I can't imagine), I would be obligated to provide it. "Internal" or not, they could re-distribute the source to anyone.
That's the GPL. There is no exception for subsets of the concept of "distribution".
I am eagerly awaiting JAM, not because I need to use messaging middleware yet, but so I can use it like a big cattle prod to repel Progress sales reps when they try to push SonicMQ.
:)
At the moment I am forced to use a taser, but the batteries are expensive
Valenti? Wtf was I thinking? The path of reason is fairly narrow and slippery on /. too.
My PS1 died a slow unreliable death, but my PS2 rocks, and still plays all my favourite games. I can get used PS1 games *very* cheap.
Even if I had an X-box given to me gratis, it would not play the games I currently have, and I could only get new games at what I consider to be a grossly inflated price.
Fast forward to 2005...
My PS2 gets a little flaky, but my new PS3 rocks and also plays all my favourite games (PS2, and hopefully still the PS1 games that have some gameplay left in them). I get used PS2 games cheap, of course.
Backward compatibility is what keeps MS Office users on the treadmill, so it's only fair that it should work against MSFT sometimes too.
I think they must be using Orcs as their PR team anyway.
Saruman didn't have much luck there, so Valenti must also have left the path of reason.
Limiting I know, but the alternative is a "best viewed with Mozilla or Konqueror" in the alt attribute