Here is a link to a little win95 program called BSOD properties which DOES let you change the colour of the (B)SOD quite easily. Mine's a nice alarming bright red:).
That is the moral of the latest chapter in the Napster story. A company that is smart enough to write an application that is used by 20 million people should be smart enough to find a way for that application to conform to the law. And if the company does not think that conforming to the law is important, then maybe it is not smart enough to succeed.
And Ford, Nissan, Toyota (and so on) must implement 'driver access safetl control devices' to check that their cars wont be used: in drive-by-shootings, to run people down intentionally, to be used by drunk drivers, to be reversed into other cars or objects causing property damages blah blah blah. And newsagents will now be forced to conduct background checks on anybody buying paper and pens, since they may be used write fraudulent letters or be used for defamation.
How about 3 days later on October 31? That way we could kill two birds with one stone, by dressing up as Bill to appreciate him, then stay in costume for halloween:).
I couldn't agree more. Ever since I saw the shots from that recent conference, I've suddenly had a new outlook on linux desktops. The future looks very bright.
I've been a Gnome or Windowmaker user thoughout my linux-using history. I didn't really like KDE because of ugly windows-ish QT, and it just didn't seem polished. But now, as soon as KDE2 is released, I'm switching. I know looks can be deceiving, but it just seems so polished and well done, compared to Gnome, which always seems to me like a bit of a hack. I also loved the TigerT icons in gnome, but the new ones in KDE2 look even better IMO.
With the new polished look, new functionality in the WM and panel, plus also Koffice etc. I think it's going to be hard to beat KDE2. But no matter what, it certaily paints a rosy future for the linux desktop in general.
I'm pretty sure you've confused two of your laws : UCITA, which make click-wrap agreements legally binding, and the DMCA, which makes circumventing access controls to a copyrighted work illegal.
Not only that, but a problem lies in the formats as well.
Just one random example I can think of now is the animation format:.flc (Autodesk animator ?). I used to use this ages ago for creating stupid animations. Yet, (not that I really care) these days its hard to find support for it in any apps and you probably have to resort to converter utilities, or even using different OSes if there is none for the OS you're using.
Of course its a proprietary (though I don't think all that closed) format, but what happens when formats (even standard ones) become so out-dated that people just won't bother to implement them in any software?
Keep in mind that the software industry with its multitudes of ways of storing digital media, has only really been big for 20~30 years or so, and we're already having formats stagnate and become deprecated and unused. 20~30 years is not much, in the grand scheme of things.
So the best alternative is to keep converting your digital media from format to format, but not only is this extremely time-consuming and costly, but it can also be lossy when compression, or subtleties in import/export filters are involved. I think a while ago,/. had an article about a group doing their best to keep alive old formats - to me that's an incredibly important thing to do.
Not only is this good for projects like Abiword, Koffice etc. as they can use Sun's code, it also means that Sun can use code from other GPL projects. From what I've seen, the page layout/frames aspect of koffice looks very powerful, as well as other interesting features, and now Sun could quite easily put this in SO.
Here's another take on this issue which could probably be way off target..
Scenario: Sun keeps development of SO going, heavily encourages open source development, and because its now GPLed, they can take good bits from Koffice, Abiword etc. etc. et.c and put them in SO. And even though its GPLed (which means providing source), they could still sell the binaries and make money from a product that would get much better with improvements from the community and from other GPL projects.
GPL doesn't only have to mean freebies for you, it also can mean freebies for Sun (and code sharing is great no matter who's doing it).
I believe the GPL makes source availability compulsory, not binaries. As long as the source for all GPL-ed stuff is available in some form, that ok. They aren't (AFAIK) required to provide a fully working binary installation set for you to download. Yes, its a shame but I think its legal..
Mozilla, please lose the fucking red star on your logo.
The red star (as you are taking it to symbolise communism) has nothing to do with the things you are saying about China and the problems of living there. Communism is a system in which wealth is spread, personal ownership is disallowed, etc. etc. etc. What brings on the situation you have described is not communism, but a dictatorship by a totalitarian party. It just so happens that the leaders of many of the world's communist nations have become power-hungry and exercised totalitarian control.
Communism is related (however somewhat inversely) to Capitalism. Totalitarianism is related (inversely) to Democracy. Don't confuse the issue, because communism doesn't always mean a dictatorship and capitalism doesn't always mean democracy. Of course whether communism is good for a nation depends on your economic (and maybe social) viewpoint, but remember communism != totalitarianism.
So, back to Mozilla, I don't see any problem with the red star, as it may only be assumed to be symbolic of communism (eg. shared wealth etc. etc.), not of anything nasty like civil rights abuses.
As for a GPL HomeSite work-alike, try Screem. Its very similar, an while it doesn't have some of the more obscure features of HomeSite (yet), it has quite a few really nifty ones of its own. Plus, it is progressing extremely quickly.
I pretty much entirely agree with you here. What I was arguing about was the way that people try to justify copyright infringement in the form of piracy, whether it be movies, mp3s etc. etc. in the name of 'sharing ideas' and 'standing on the shoulders of others'. There is a profound difference between using a piece of work as inspiration, and napsterising the latest Metallica MP3.
I definitely believe there should be less control over derivative works. Unfortunately though, like you said, a well paid lawyer these days would have no trouble arguing copyright infringement over an only slightly related derivative work.
As for the employment of artists, I'm well aware that there are many who produce works for the love of it, rather than for monetary reward. However, if there were NO copyrights, then (although there still would be some) the quantity of artwork would decrease - hence less inspiration. Whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing is debatable.
How? Play a piece of music to me and I remember it. I can adapt it for new uses; hum or whistle, and maybe even reproduce it faithfully. How do you propose the creator of that music (or of any other piece of information) control it?
... [ snip ]...
On copyrights now: I think that they're unconstitutional
I'm afraid you're confusing the issue. In your post you mention the sharing of ideas and information, and how it benefits society and the go on to say that copyright is bad because it prevents this.
Copyright has nothing to do with whether you can hum or sing a tune and remember the ideas. Copyright is about the implementation - not the ideas contained. For example, if I hear a song and think to myself "hey that's a neat bass riff" and then go and use that bass riff in a composition of mine as inspiration, then that is fine. That is what enables the arts to progress and allows people to 'stand on the shoulders of others', while not at the expense of the original creator. This is perfectly legal under copyright law. Now you tell me how illegally copying a recording equates to sharing ideas and benefitting society. It doesn't. It just lets you get music for free at the expense of the original creator. That is what copyright law is concerned with - protecting artist's rights over their own recordings and implemented creations, not their ideas.
To those that say "well music is just a collection of ideas anyway, and artists can't control ideas", that is absolute rubbish. I guarantee that if you take the 'ideas' from Foxy Lady and perform it, you certainly won't sound like Hendrix. Again, THAT is what copyright law is concerned with. The tangible implementations, not the ideas.
If you truly believe that sharing ideas ais a good thing, you should be totally supportive of copyright law. Without copyrights as a way for artists to make money from their creations, there would be much less incentive (emotional and practical) for them to create new works (artists can't spend time developing their creativity if they're busy trying to put food on the table in a full-time job). Hence without copyrights, we have less implementations of music, and hence there are less ideas that people can draw on 'to stand on their shoulders'.
Although many people are confused about this, the real danger comes from patents which allow people to contain ideas by suing people if they use those ideas. That is bad, and don't confuse this with the copyrighting of actual implementations of an artist's work.
Yes, but Governments so have jurisdiction over servers that are physically located in their country. And as for copyrights, just about every country in the world except for a few like Taiwan has signed the Berne Convention which is a global treaty to respect copyright. Due to this, governments can and must enforce copyright if there are infringements in their countries, which of course includes data on servers in their conutries.
Freenet etc. may change the rules somewhat, but the internet isn't some amazing flowing ether of information. It is an enormous heap of servers with bits on them and wires between them, which are physically located in countries.
Your Voodoo 3 should work fine in XFree86 4. The Voodoo3/Banshee drivers for XFree86 4 support OpenGL-in-a-window unlike the X 3.3* drivers. And I know that the latest win95/98 Banshee reference drivers from 3dfx support rendering in OpenGL in a window (Driver wise, Banshees are very similar to Voodoo3s). I use a Banshee, and while I 'm still running XFree 3.3.6, I know that the latest win32 drivers run Blender beautifully in win95.
Well actually I've been told and read (but never tried) that the really heavy-grade ceremonial kimchi is so strong that it can be smelt on your breath for two weeks after you've eaten it!
One long-term effect of kimchi that I experienced while in Korea was that it certainly gives you a mouth of steel! When I was in KO, in my prime I could eat whole garlic cloves, red chillis etc. no problem!
Don't be so surprised that the Linux Expo got so much coverage in Korea. I'm an Australian but have recently been in Korea, and I was amazed by how mainstream technology stuff is. It's like a geek's paradise!
While I was shopping in Tongdaemun (one of the hip, trendy, young areas) I saw popular-type teenagers walking around with linux t-shirts and bags from Linux related shows etc. Books on linux are everywhere, and many people know of it. As another poster pointed out, a large proportion of people on the Linux Counter are Koreans (and the counter is a foreign-language site!).
It seemed to me that computers and geekier things are much more mainstream there, than in AU (and supposedly the US). check out this photo I took, and observe the gratuitous advertising of computer games. On TV, there are championships of the top people playing the 'Dancing machines' (DDR) video games. The Koreans are mad about Starcraft, and the Korean Battle.net champion is somewhat of a celebrity - I often saw him in TV commercials. And he's a geeky looking guy with glasses too:)
MP3 players are also HUGE there. I was in a specialty MP3 player shop once, with about 10 different varieties of players, including one that could actually be put in a cassette deck and used in a way similar to those car radio-discman adaptors, and also one about 3x3x1cm which was a keyring!
Not to mention the 'PC bang' ( translation --> 'PC store/room' , similar to a net cafe). Even in smallish towns, its hard not to see quite a few (The smallish place I was mainly staying at had roughy 4 or 5 per square Km around the town centre). They usually consist of a room with about 30 or 40 computers, networked with fast net connections, which are mainly used either for surfing / downloading, or playing games (mainly Starcraft;). Believe it or not, hanging out and playing Starcraft in PC bangs is a good way to meet ladies! My friend met his girlfriend in one!
Add to that the way EVERYBODY carries a mobile phone (as other posters have already elaborated on). Many people use them to surf the web, and heaps use it to send email (not necessarily SMS - I receive email all the time from phones in Korea).
So anyway, Korea is a very cool place for the technologically inclined. I'm planning to go there and work when I finish uni. I'm sure Timothy, ESR and RMS thoroughly enjoyed it:).
I have recently been in Japan and Korea for a while, so I know Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) all too well;). As others have pointed out, its a game in which you stand on a stage whih has four arrows on it in the N, E, S, W positions. Arrows scroll up the screen and you have to stomp on those arrows on the stage in syncronisation with the arrows as they leave the top of the screen, to techno-ish dance-ish music. Hence, you end up dancing. Along similar lines are games such as Drum Mania where you play an electronic set of drums in synch with scrolling lines or Beatmania, a 'DJ simulator' where you press keyboard keys and scratch a fake turntable in time with the music, in synch with the scrolling lines.
There are also a few DDR clones around - one called 'Pump' in which the arrows are in the NE, SE, SW, and NW positions and also another one I saw in Korea (which I can't remember the name of) which has 6 circular pads on the stage, arranged in a circle. I think they're really fun - actually they're the first video games I've played that have caused me to break out in a hot sweat after playing them for a while (and I'm pretty fit too).
You can also by vinyl pads (similar to Twister pads but smaller of course) with sensors inside them that you can plug into Playstations. They cost about 20,000 ~ 30,000 Won (roughly AU $30~$40). Otherwise you have to just press the directional arrows on the PSX contorller. I was reading a Korean computer magazine once and it had a detailed guide of how to hack up these Playstation controller mats to plug into your parallel port (or was it joystick port...) and use them on your PC. Cool stuff - I wish I'd photocopied it;).
You can get a really good DDR emulatory-type thing for Windows here: http://www.d-d-e.net. You will also need to pick up the song files which are available at the same site. The site's mainly in Japanese but English speakers should be able to find their way around (especially if you mouseover the hyperlinks, as the page filenames are usually in English). Anyone working on a Linux version?:P You control it with the arrows on your keyboard. One of those hacked-up PSX pads would do very nicely here.
That program can also play 'Beatmania' emulator files. There are quite a few sites around the net that deal with Beatmania emulators such as 'bm98'. A good site for them is http://www.bms.ne.jp (Japanese).
As you can tell I really love this stuff - I play it all the time where I can here in AU:).
Its definitely not as obvious as in PS etc. But to do a line in The Gimp, Select your favourite painting tool (for instance the paintbrush or pencil). Click at the starting point of the line, hold down SHIFT and then click at the finishing point of the line. Unfortunately, you can't see the line overlayed over the image as you are drawing it (like in PS) but it still works pretty well for most purposes.
This isn't an easter egg either, but its incredibly cool. I found this program going through freshmeat the other day.
What it does is, it displays different bar-code like patterns on your screen in a timed sequence depending on what song you want. The RF noise generated by the monitor when it displays this, can be picked up on an AM radio at the right frequency, and you hear the tune! It's amazing to hear basic music on the radio that not only is being broadcasted by your computer, but by your monitor!
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a link to a little win95 program called BSOD properties which DOES let you change the colour of the (B)SOD quite easily. Mine's a nice alarming bright red :).
BSOD Properties
I agree - thats a classic..
That is the moral of the latest chapter in the Napster story. A company that is smart enough to write an application that is used by 20 million people should be smart enough to find a way for that application to conform to the law. And if the company does not think that conforming to the law is important, then maybe it is not smart enough to succeed.
And Ford, Nissan, Toyota (and so on) must implement 'driver access safetl control devices' to check that their cars wont be used: in drive-by-shootings, to run people down intentionally, to be used by drunk drivers, to be reversed into other cars or objects causing property damages blah blah blah. And newsagents will now be forced to conduct background checks on anybody buying paper and pens, since they may be used write fraudulent letters or be used for defamation.
Pathetic..
George Orwell wrote '1984' which contained the term Newspeak.
How about 3 days later on October 31? That way we could kill two birds with one stone, by dressing up as Bill to appreciate him, then stay in costume for halloween :).
I couldn't agree more. Ever since I saw the shots from that recent conference, I've suddenly had a new outlook on linux desktops. The future looks very bright.
I've been a Gnome or Windowmaker user thoughout my linux-using history. I didn't really like KDE because of ugly windows-ish QT, and it just didn't seem polished. But now, as soon as KDE2 is released, I'm switching. I know looks can be deceiving, but it just seems so polished and well done, compared to Gnome, which always seems to me like a bit of a hack. I also loved the TigerT icons in gnome, but the new ones in KDE2 look even better IMO.
With the new polished look, new functionality in the WM and panel, plus also Koffice etc. I think it's going to be hard to beat KDE2. But no matter what, it certaily paints a rosy future for the linux desktop in general.
I'm pretty sure you've confused two of your laws : UCITA, which make click-wrap agreements legally binding, and the DMCA, which makes circumventing access controls to a copyrighted work illegal.
Jeez, and I'm not even an American!
Not only that, but a problem lies in the formats as well.
.flc (Autodesk animator ?). I used to use this ages ago for creating stupid animations. Yet, (not that I really care) these days its hard to find support for it in any apps and you probably have to resort to converter utilities, or even using different OSes if there is none for the OS you're using.
/. had an article about a group doing their best to keep alive old formats - to me that's an incredibly important thing to do.
Just one random example I can think of now is the animation format:
Of course its a proprietary (though I don't think all that closed) format, but what happens when formats (even standard ones) become so out-dated that people just won't bother to implement them in any software?
Keep in mind that the software industry with its multitudes of ways of storing digital media, has only really been big for 20~30 years or so, and we're already having formats stagnate and become deprecated and unused. 20~30 years is not much, in the grand scheme of things.
So the best alternative is to keep converting your digital media from format to format, but not only is this extremely time-consuming and costly, but it can also be lossy when compression, or subtleties in import/export filters are involved. I think a while ago,
Isn't the opposite the case? Gzip included in tar?
This is why most corporation now set the prices [...] on the psychological price people are ready to put for the item.
Welcome to economics : supply and demand. Its always been this way.
Not only is this good for projects like Abiword, Koffice etc. as they can use Sun's code, it also means that Sun can use code from other GPL projects. From what I've seen, the page layout/frames aspect of koffice looks very powerful, as well as other interesting features, and now Sun could quite easily put this in SO.
Open source - it's a win-win situation!
Here's another take on this issue which could probably be way off target..
Scenario: Sun keeps development of SO going, heavily encourages open source development, and because its now GPLed, they can take good bits from Koffice, Abiword etc. etc. et.c and put them in SO. And even though its GPLed (which means providing source), they could still sell the binaries and make money from a product that would get much better with improvements from the community and from other GPL projects.
GPL doesn't only have to mean freebies for you, it also can mean freebies for Sun (and code sharing is great no matter who's doing it).
I can make a stream exactly as good as anything Mr. Murdoch puts out
And that's exactly why he's giving us this POS legislation.
I believe the GPL makes source availability compulsory, not binaries. As long as the source for all GPL-ed stuff is available in some form, that ok. They aren't (AFAIK) required to provide a fully working binary installation set for you to download. Yes, its a shame but I think its legal..
Mozilla, please lose the fucking red star on your logo.
The red star (as you are taking it to symbolise communism) has nothing to do with the things you are saying about China and the problems of living there. Communism is a system in which wealth is spread, personal ownership is disallowed, etc. etc. etc. What brings on the situation you have described is not communism, but a dictatorship by a totalitarian party. It just so happens that the leaders of many of the world's communist nations have become power-hungry and exercised totalitarian control.
Communism is related (however somewhat inversely) to Capitalism. Totalitarianism is related (inversely) to Democracy. Don't confuse the issue, because communism doesn't always mean a dictatorship and capitalism doesn't always mean democracy. Of course whether communism is good for a nation depends on your economic (and maybe social) viewpoint, but remember communism != totalitarianism.
So, back to Mozilla, I don't see any problem with the red star, as it may only be assumed to be symbolic of communism (eg. shared wealth etc. etc.), not of anything nasty like civil rights abuses.
As for a GPL HomeSite work-alike, try Screem. Its very similar, an while it doesn't have some of the more obscure features of HomeSite (yet), it has quite a few really nifty ones of its own. Plus, it is progressing extremely quickly.
I pretty much entirely agree with you here. What I was arguing about was the way that people try to justify copyright infringement in the form of piracy, whether it be movies, mp3s etc. etc. in the name of 'sharing ideas' and 'standing on the shoulders of others'. There is a profound difference between using a piece of work as inspiration, and napsterising the latest Metallica MP3.
I definitely believe there should be less control over derivative works. Unfortunately though, like you said, a well paid lawyer these days would have no trouble arguing copyright infringement over an only slightly related derivative work.
As for the employment of artists, I'm well aware that there are many who produce works for the love of it, rather than for monetary reward. However, if there were NO copyrights, then (although there still would be some) the quantity of artwork would decrease - hence less inspiration. Whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing is debatable.
How? Play a piece of music to me and I remember it. I can adapt it for new uses; hum or whistle, and maybe even reproduce it faithfully. How do you propose the creator of that music (or of any other piece of information) control it?
...
... [ snip ]
On copyrights now: I think that they're unconstitutional
I'm afraid you're confusing the issue. In your post you mention the sharing of ideas and information, and how it benefits society and the go on to say that copyright is bad because it prevents this.
Copyright has nothing to do with whether you can hum or sing a tune and remember the ideas. Copyright is about the implementation - not the ideas contained. For example, if I hear a song and think to myself "hey that's a neat bass riff" and then go and use that bass riff in a composition of mine as inspiration, then that is fine. That is what enables the arts to progress and allows people to 'stand on the shoulders of others', while not at the expense of the original creator. This is perfectly legal under copyright law. Now you tell me how illegally copying a recording equates to sharing ideas and benefitting society. It doesn't. It just lets you get music for free at the expense of the original creator. That is what copyright law is concerned with - protecting artist's rights over their own recordings and implemented creations, not their ideas.
To those that say "well music is just a collection of ideas anyway, and artists can't control ideas", that is absolute rubbish. I guarantee that if you take the 'ideas' from Foxy Lady and perform it, you certainly won't sound like Hendrix. Again, THAT is what copyright law is concerned with. The tangible implementations, not the ideas.
If you truly believe that sharing ideas ais a good thing, you should be totally supportive of copyright law. Without copyrights as a way for artists to make money from their creations, there would be much less incentive (emotional and practical) for them to create new works (artists can't spend time developing their creativity if they're busy trying to put food on the table in a full-time job). Hence without copyrights, we have less implementations of music, and hence there are less ideas that people can draw on 'to stand on their shoulders'.
Although many people are confused about this, the real danger comes from patents which allow people to contain ideas by suing people if they use those ideas. That is bad, and don't confuse this with the copyrighting of actual implementations of an artist's work.
Yes, but Governments so have jurisdiction over servers that are physically located in their country. And as for copyrights, just about every country in the world except for a few like Taiwan has signed the Berne Convention which is a global treaty to respect copyright. Due to this, governments can and must enforce copyright if there are infringements in their countries, which of course includes data on servers in their conutries.
Freenet etc. may change the rules somewhat, but the internet isn't some amazing flowing ether of information. It is an enormous heap of servers with bits on them and wires between them, which are physically located in countries.
Your Voodoo 3 should work fine in XFree86 4. The Voodoo3/Banshee drivers for XFree86 4 support OpenGL-in-a-window unlike the X 3.3* drivers. And I know that the latest win95/98 Banshee reference drivers from 3dfx support rendering in OpenGL in a window (Driver wise, Banshees are very similar to Voodoo3s). I use a Banshee, and while I 'm still running XFree 3.3.6, I know that the latest win32 drivers run Blender beautifully in win95.
Well actually I've been told and read (but never tried) that the really heavy-grade ceremonial kimchi is so strong that it can be smelt on your breath for two weeks after you've eaten it!
One long-term effect of kimchi that I experienced while in Korea was that it certainly gives you a mouth of steel! When I was in KO, in my prime I could eat whole garlic cloves, red chillis etc. no problem!
Don't be so surprised that the Linux Expo got so much coverage in Korea. I'm an Australian but have recently been in Korea, and I was amazed by how mainstream technology stuff is. It's like a geek's paradise!
:)
;). Believe it or not, hanging out and playing Starcraft in PC bangs is a good way to meet ladies! My friend met his girlfriend in one!
:).
While I was shopping in Tongdaemun (one of the hip, trendy, young areas) I saw popular-type teenagers walking around with linux t-shirts and bags from Linux related shows etc. Books on linux are everywhere, and many people know of it. As another poster pointed out, a large proportion of people on the Linux Counter are Koreans (and the counter is a foreign-language site!).
It seemed to me that computers and geekier things are much more mainstream there, than in AU (and supposedly the US). check out this photo I took, and observe the gratuitous advertising of computer games. On TV, there are championships of the top people playing the 'Dancing machines' (DDR) video games. The Koreans are mad about Starcraft, and the Korean Battle.net champion is somewhat of a celebrity - I often saw him in TV commercials. And he's a geeky looking guy with glasses too
MP3 players are also HUGE there. I was in a specialty MP3 player shop once, with about 10 different varieties of players, including one that could actually be put in a cassette deck and used in a way similar to those car radio-discman adaptors, and also one about 3x3x1cm which was a keyring!
Not to mention the 'PC bang' ( translation --> 'PC store/room' , similar to a net cafe). Even in smallish towns, its hard not to see quite a few (The smallish place I was mainly staying at had roughy 4 or 5 per square Km around the town centre). They usually consist of a room with about 30 or 40 computers, networked with fast net connections, which are mainly used either for surfing / downloading, or playing games (mainly Starcraft
Add to that the way EVERYBODY carries a mobile phone (as other posters have already elaborated on). Many people use them to surf the web, and heaps use it to send email (not necessarily SMS - I receive email all the time from phones in Korea).
So anyway, Korea is a very cool place for the technologically inclined. I'm planning to go there and work when I finish uni. I'm sure Timothy, ESR and RMS thoroughly enjoyed it
I have recently been in Japan and Korea for a while, so I know Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) all too well ;). As others have pointed out, its a game in which you stand on a stage whih has four arrows on it in the N, E, S, W positions. Arrows scroll up the screen and you have to stomp on those arrows on the stage in syncronisation with the arrows as they leave the top of the screen, to techno-ish dance-ish music. Hence, you end up dancing. Along similar lines are games such as Drum Mania where you play an electronic set of drums in synch with scrolling lines or Beatmania, a 'DJ simulator' where you press keyboard keys and scratch a fake turntable in time with the music, in synch with the scrolling lines.
;).
:P You control it with the arrows on your keyboard. One of those hacked-up PSX pads would do very nicely here.
:).
There are also a few DDR clones around - one called 'Pump' in which the arrows are in the NE, SE, SW, and NW positions and also another one I saw in Korea (which I can't remember the name of) which has 6 circular pads on the stage, arranged in a circle. I think they're really fun - actually they're the first video games I've played that have caused me to break out in a hot sweat after playing them for a while (and I'm pretty fit too).
You can also by vinyl pads (similar to Twister pads but smaller of course) with sensors inside them that you can plug into Playstations. They cost about 20,000 ~ 30,000 Won (roughly AU $30~$40). Otherwise you have to just press the directional arrows on the PSX contorller. I was reading a Korean computer magazine once and it had a detailed guide of how to hack up these Playstation controller mats to plug into your parallel port (or was it joystick port...) and use them on your PC. Cool stuff - I wish I'd photocopied it
You can get a really good DDR emulatory-type thing for Windows here: http://www.d-d-e.net. You will also need to pick up the song files which are available at the same site. The site's mainly in Japanese but English speakers should be able to find their way around (especially if you mouseover the hyperlinks, as the page filenames are usually in English). Anyone working on a Linux version?
That program can also play 'Beatmania' emulator files. There are quite a few sites around the net that deal with Beatmania emulators such as 'bm98'. A good site for them is http://www.bms.ne.jp (Japanese).
As you can tell I really love this stuff - I play it all the time where I can here in AU
Oops forgot to add this..
To do circles, create a circular selection, then turn that circle into a path (in the paths dialog) then you can stroke that path.
You can also do other freeform lines by drawing paths and stroking them.
Its definitely not as obvious as in PS etc. But to do a line in The Gimp, Select your favourite painting tool (for instance the paintbrush or pencil). Click at the starting point of the line, hold down SHIFT and then click at the finishing point of the line.
Unfortunately, you can't see the line overlayed over the image as you are drawing it (like in PS) but it still works pretty well for most purposes.
This isn't an easter egg either, but its incredibly cool. I found this program going through freshmeat the other day.
What it does is, it displays different bar-code like patterns on your screen in a timed sequence depending on what song you want. The RF noise generated by the monitor when it displays this, can be picked up on an AM radio at the right frequency, and you hear the tune! It's amazing to hear basic music on the radio that not only is being broadcasted by your computer, but by your monitor!
The link to it on Freshmeat is here:
"Tempest For Eliza" : http://freshmeat.net/appind ex/1999/08/24/935505539.html