First of all, thousands of films have been produced with no Hollywood studio involved. So... there's that. Short films of that quality are created, thousands a year, without Hollywood studios. That's how most people working for Hollywood studios got their jobs.
Secondly, saying Blender has anything to do with the quality of the final product is like saying Kubrick directed great movies because he picked Kodak cameras. Tools are just tools.
I mean, if you want to pimp the short, pimp the short. But the crap in the summary is just crap.
Adding a rich text command field is useless for the half dozen of HTML tags you can insert. Adding more tags would be counter-productive - the existing ones already let you structure your post, which is the important part; enabling style changes for each comment would make the site unreadable.
Of course I should have expected the grumpy "we hate technology even though we visit a tech site" and "we absolutely hate anything that makes software more usable" crowd to support that idea, so big mistake on my part. At the very least, they could get rid of the "HTML" comment formatting mode, which is not only completely useless, but frequently results in "giant paragraph of death" posts because new users think it's required to add HTML tags to the post.
But seriously, this site *badly* needs a usability review and revision. Other than SourceForge itself, this is by far the least usable website I've visited in the last 5 years.
So that's not really important. I would prefer if they fixed the CSS for Idle - the comment textarea still doesn't use the whole width.
That idle bug is in their bugtracker, but since they never actually *read* their own bugtracker, it's still not fixed. If you care, here's a bunch of screenshots I made for bugs I entered about Slashdot-- of those 10-12 bugs, I think maybe 4-5 are fixed, and they were fixed by accident. (That is, they were fixed as a side-effect of another change, not because any Slashdot devs actually read the bugtracker.) If you really care, I could dig up the SourceForge bug links, too.
The sad fact is that nobody at Slashdot really cares at all. The people writing the code don't care to fix bugs or increase usability. The editors don't care enough to actually edit. And most of the submissions are nothing but people promoting their own projects, and also they don't care enough to actually edit. They just don't care.
I think we must be doing it wrong around here... we usually can't even get games before the release date, much less get free rotting meat.
Even by the extremely low standards of video game journalism, Slashdot can't get any respect. Maybe you should think about focusing on the writing/editing. Or fix the awful bugs on this site that have been around for... well, decades at this point. (How about a rich text comment field? Let's join 2005!)
I can understand hesitancy to deploy radical new ideas. However, I don't understand the hesitancy to deploy ideas that have been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely.
Because the stuff they already have also has been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely. And they don't have to hire more staff, or buy more equipment, to keep using it.
I'm always amazed when I meet people like you so ignorant of basic economics. Just, whenever you have a question like that, think to yourself: "what's in it for them?"
As much as I disliked the Day the Earth Stood Still remake they make a great point. Bate's character says "It's our planet, we own it" in which Neo... err I mean Klatus bluntly states, "uhhh no."
Seriously? Of all the movies you could cite... seriously?
If I were an intelligent alien, I would abduct humans and try and find a way to make them less destructive to an environment they are a marginal, by % of life, participant in. Or at the very least greatly restrict their ability to breed.
So would you be ok with the US swooping down on, for example, Bangladesh and sterilizing half the population? (I mean, how else do you plan to "restrict their ability to breed?") If an alien came down and did that, would you cheer them on? I'm asking seriously.
Intelligence doesn't confer ownership, it mandates responsibility in which by and large we have done a poor job so far.
Possibly; but we're getting better at it each and every day. 10,000 years ago, we (humanity) wiped out every large mammal on 3 continents without shedding a tear. Hell, the UK was whaling into the mid-50s. Now we spend millions of dollars preserving them.
And it's not like Gorillas would do a better job of it, not right off the bat at least.
Seriously, of all of the hairbrained and stupid things that the UN has ever done in all of the years I've been alive, this has got to be one of the most insane bureaucracies to do nothing that I have ever seen.
Be fair! At least the UN isn't indirectly supporting rape with this one.
Who would fund the creation of new recipes if everyone shared them freely? Without copyright protection, we'd all be eating gray sludge fortified with nutrients.
Now that the source code is out, security experts can audit the code and make improvements.
Yes, you can, but the article points out that there are already servers *offering this code release to the public*. It may be pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-Alpha, but because it's Open Source, it's ALREADY DEPLOYED. In this horribly insecure state.
Some of those sites are already promising that they will not wipe their DB as newer versions come along, meaning someone taking advantages of the security holes now may be able to cause damage *years* in the future. By simply being patient.
Not quite. The difference with quarterly payments is that they can fine you if you don't withhold the proper amount each quarter. If your income is steady throughout the year, this isn't much of an issue, but if you get a raise or a bonus, then you need to make sure you adjust the payments appropriately.
I don't remember the exact details off the top of my head, but there's like a thousand bucks or so of wiggle room before you're getting penalized... so that would have to be one hell of a raise.
A better option to accomplish much the same thing is to withhold nothing all year and then do all of your withholding in your last paycheck or two. My understanding (and I'd suggest verifying this before acting on it, in case I'm wrong) is that withholding is treated as if it were spread evenly across the year, regardless of how it actually occurred. Thus withholding nothing for 51 weeks and then withholding $5200 in your final paycheck of the year is treated exactly the same as if you withheld $100 every week.
That is an interesting idea... I'll have to look into it for this year. Thanks!
Or you can withhold nothing, and just pay what you owe each year. Of course, then you have to make quarterly tax payments, which is more-or-less the same thing as withholding, but at least you are't tricked, psychologically, into thinking the Government is paying *you*, instead of just giving you a tiny portion of your own money back to you.
Seriously, when April 15th comes by, people act as if their tax refund is just a Christmas gift... no, that's YOUR own money that YOU were not allowed to spend. Getting a big refund is a bad thing, not a good thing!
Well, Washington currently has property taxes, a small car licensing fee (now expanded to boats), Business & Occupation tax, 7.5% sales tax (statewide), plus whatever your local county adds to that (it's 10% in Seattle for some services). In addition, we pay Federal taxes, of course, which could be up to 35%+ of your income.
It's not nearly as unbalanced as you think. We're not like you Brits, we have cities (that levy taxes), counties (that levy taxes), States (that levy taxes), and the Federal Government (which levies taxes.) There's no shortage of taxes being paid out here.
So, assume this is the primary way for the state to collect significantly more money (not sure if this is true). If they don't start collecting income taxes, then the alternative is for the state to provide fewer and fewer services. Again, this doesn't really affect people making $200,000 every year, but it is a significant burden for the least powerful and most needy people of the state.
Or they could cut the "services" they provide that nobody wants.
What the Washington State government needs to do is go back to basics.
The opponents of this measure are some very smart and creative people. What are they proposing as an alternative to income taxes?
Cutting the bloated runaway budget, duh. Why the holy shit should a state government *ever* be paying an advertising agency? Why are they paying to air "click it and ticket" ads on billboards, radio, TV, banners being towed by planes? Is there a single person in the entire state who doesn't already know there's a seatbelt law?
For instance, one of my favorites is the cost of registering (and renewing) a vehicle license plate. The cost of a license tag is a percentage of the value of the car. Every year. And it has an odd impact on the auto market. When you finance a car purchase from a dealer, the first year's license fee is usually rolled into the financing, so you don't really notice it much. Then, in the second year, you get a bill from the state for potentially thousands of dollars for a license tag, and now you're scrounging. Or, you sell the car, and buy another one.
When's the last time you lived in Washington? Eyman put the kibosh on that particular tax a decade ago. Either you don't live here anymore, or you've been dodging taxes so long you don't even know how they're calculated anymore... hah.
Someone recently did an interesting survey of Japanese game developers, quizzing them on what games they had played. I'm sorry, I don't remember who was asking and who was answering, but I distinctly remember that one famous and successful Japanese game developer had never played Starcraft. Ever. Didn't even recognize the *name* Starcraft.
So there is definitely a problem; Japanese game developers *only* play Japanese games. Or, at least, are less likely to venture outside of their comfort zone.
This state has run fine the last century with no income tax, and we certainly don't need one now. Our politicians in Washington spend like fucking MAD.
They love to give lectures on the TV news about how horrible our finances are, while there's a fucking state-funded airplane flying above my house towing a banner reading "click it or ticket." (That literally happened to me.) Aerial advertising of seatbelt laws! WHAT A GREAT USE OF MY TAX MONEY! Assholes.
Or maybe Gog.com just hired a shitty accountant and he got behind on payroll. No sense jumping to conclusions before we know all the facts-- truth is, a ton of businesses fail for a ton of different reasons.
On the other hand, the US Government is treated as being guilty of telling Sweden to kick Wikileaks out of Sweden with absolutely zero evidence other than some jerk's say-so. Yes, there's plenty of idiocy going around in this thread.
I'm an American but why the fuck is our govt telling Sweden "what they're allowed to do."
Why the fuck are you believing unfounded rumors posted on Slashdot by a self-promoting jerk?
How about maybe we look for this thing... what's it called... oh yeah, evidence! How about we find some of that evidence stuff *before* we start burning effigies, eh? What do you think of that?
God you make me ashamed to be an American. Considering the track record of this site, why would you believe *anything* posted on Slashdot? Even the sourced stuff is usually bullshit.
While there was a small amount of snark; the ease of setting up an OSX network and maintaining it compared to others makes up for lot of the initial cost. There is a value to not worrying if things will work, as a small business owner I am willing to pay a bit more upfront for less headaches later.
It's probably better than Linux, but I doubt it matches Windows. Especially when you consider the costs associated with finding OS X experts to manage it. Of course, this all depends on the size of the network as well.
As for costs, quality PC's are not all that cheaper than Macs. Tech support is another plus - I've had a lot better support from Apple than Dell
Where I live, Dell provides same-day parts and labor service for servers. As does HP and IBM. Apple... next day, at best. Now, again, this is situation dependent-- if you're in New York City there's probably no difference in support. But Apple badly needs to build up their support network if they want to compete with Dell, HP and IBM in that department... right now it's wholly inadequate.
As a side note, not sure why you got moderated troll other than the/. view that a dissenting opinion must be a troll or flamebait.
There's some asshole following me around and modding every post I make as "troll". It's nothing you did-- someone just has a grudge with me, and Slashdot's moderation is easy to game.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey I hold grudges. Leave me alone.
The reason people don't upgrade Microsoft crap is that you never know what's going to suddenly stop working.
Ok, I used to be a Mac user and ... wow!
I'm guessing you missed out on the System 7 fiasco, when something like a third of all older Mac apps stopped working?
I mean, I totally get your argument, but to suggest Apple is *better*! That's ridiculous.
First of all, thousands of films have been produced with no Hollywood studio involved. So... there's that. Short films of that quality are created, thousands a year, without Hollywood studios. That's how most people working for Hollywood studios got their jobs.
Secondly, saying Blender has anything to do with the quality of the final product is like saying Kubrick directed great movies because he picked Kodak cameras. Tools are just tools.
I mean, if you want to pimp the short, pimp the short. But the crap in the summary is just crap.
Adding a rich text command field is useless for the half dozen of HTML tags you can insert. Adding more tags would be counter-productive - the existing ones already let you structure your post, which is the important part; enabling style changes for each comment would make the site unreadable.
Of course I should have expected the grumpy "we hate technology even though we visit a tech site" and "we absolutely hate anything that makes software more usable" crowd to support that idea, so big mistake on my part. At the very least, they could get rid of the "HTML" comment formatting mode, which is not only completely useless, but frequently results in "giant paragraph of death" posts because new users think it's required to add HTML tags to the post.
But seriously, this site *badly* needs a usability review and revision. Other than SourceForge itself, this is by far the least usable website I've visited in the last 5 years.
So that's not really important. I would prefer if they fixed the CSS for Idle - the comment textarea still doesn't use the whole width.
That idle bug is in their bugtracker, but since they never actually *read* their own bugtracker, it's still not fixed. If you care, here's a bunch of screenshots I made for bugs I entered about Slashdot-- of those 10-12 bugs, I think maybe 4-5 are fixed, and they were fixed by accident. (That is, they were fixed as a side-effect of another change, not because any Slashdot devs actually read the bugtracker.) If you really care, I could dig up the SourceForge bug links, too.
The sad fact is that nobody at Slashdot really cares at all. The people writing the code don't care to fix bugs or increase usability. The editors don't care enough to actually edit. And most of the submissions are nothing but people promoting their own projects, and also they don't care enough to actually edit. They just don't care.
I think we must be doing it wrong around here... we usually can't even get games before the release date, much less get free rotting meat.
Even by the extremely low standards of video game journalism, Slashdot can't get any respect. Maybe you should think about focusing on the writing/editing. Or fix the awful bugs on this site that have been around for... well, decades at this point. (How about a rich text comment field? Let's join 2005!)
I can understand hesitancy to deploy radical new ideas. However, I don't understand the hesitancy to deploy ideas that have been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely.
Because the stuff they already have also has been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely. And they don't have to hire more staff, or buy more equipment, to keep using it.
I'm always amazed when I meet people like you so ignorant of basic economics. Just, whenever you have a question like that, think to yourself: "what's in it for them?"
Yah. But Minecraft has a usable UI. UI matters.
/queue omggoogleknowsmybookmarks crowd
It's "cue", although I suppose in this context "queue" could work also.
I don't want Google to know what porn sites I bookmark. Queue begins behind me.
We are one of the smallest lifeforms by population.
Assuming you mean "on Earth," that's one hell of a "one of the".
As much as I disliked the Day the Earth Stood Still remake they make a great point. Bate's character says "It's our planet, we own it" in which Neo... err I mean Klatus bluntly states, "uhhh no."
Seriously? Of all the movies you could cite... seriously?
If I were an intelligent alien, I would abduct humans and try and find a way to make them less destructive to an environment they are a marginal, by % of life, participant in. Or at the very least greatly restrict their ability to breed.
So would you be ok with the US swooping down on, for example, Bangladesh and sterilizing half the population? (I mean, how else do you plan to "restrict their ability to breed?") If an alien came down and did that, would you cheer them on? I'm asking seriously.
Intelligence doesn't confer ownership, it mandates responsibility in which by and large we have done a poor job so far.
Possibly; but we're getting better at it each and every day. 10,000 years ago, we (humanity) wiped out every large mammal on 3 continents without shedding a tear. Hell, the UK was whaling into the mid-50s. Now we spend millions of dollars preserving them.
And it's not like Gorillas would do a better job of it, not right off the bat at least.
Seriously, of all of the hairbrained and stupid things that the UN has ever done in all of the years I've been alive, this has got to be one of the most insane bureaucracies to do nothing that I have ever seen.
Be fair! At least the UN isn't indirectly supporting rape with this one.
Who would fund the creation of new recipes if everyone shared them freely? Without copyright protection, we'd all be eating gray sludge fortified with nutrients.
It looks bad, but it tastes like Tastee Wheat.
Now that the source code is out, security experts can audit the code and make improvements.
Yes, you can, but the article points out that there are already servers *offering this code release to the public*. It may be pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-Alpha, but because it's Open Source, it's ALREADY DEPLOYED. In this horribly insecure state.
Some of those sites are already promising that they will not wipe their DB as newer versions come along, meaning someone taking advantages of the security holes now may be able to cause damage *years* in the future. By simply being patient.
Love it or hate it... Hate it! ...this is one of the more successful marketing stunts of late.
Not quite. The difference with quarterly payments is that they can fine you if you don't withhold the proper amount each quarter. If your income is steady throughout the year, this isn't much of an issue, but if you get a raise or a bonus, then you need to make sure you adjust the payments appropriately.
I don't remember the exact details off the top of my head, but there's like a thousand bucks or so of wiggle room before you're getting penalized... so that would have to be one hell of a raise.
A better option to accomplish much the same thing is to withhold nothing all year and then do all of your withholding in your last paycheck or two. My understanding (and I'd suggest verifying this before acting on it, in case I'm wrong) is that withholding is treated as if it were spread evenly across the year, regardless of how it actually occurred. Thus withholding nothing for 51 weeks and then withholding $5200 in your final paycheck of the year is treated exactly the same as if you withheld $100 every week.
That is an interesting idea... I'll have to look into it for this year. Thanks!
Or you can withhold nothing, and just pay what you owe each year. Of course, then you have to make quarterly tax payments, which is more-or-less the same thing as withholding, but at least you are't tricked, psychologically, into thinking the Government is paying *you*, instead of just giving you a tiny portion of your own money back to you.
Seriously, when April 15th comes by, people act as if their tax refund is just a Christmas gift... no, that's YOUR own money that YOU were not allowed to spend. Getting a big refund is a bad thing, not a good thing!
Well, Washington currently has property taxes, a small car licensing fee (now expanded to boats), Business & Occupation tax, 7.5% sales tax (statewide), plus whatever your local county adds to that (it's 10% in Seattle for some services). In addition, we pay Federal taxes, of course, which could be up to 35%+ of your income.
It's not nearly as unbalanced as you think. We're not like you Brits, we have cities (that levy taxes), counties (that levy taxes), States (that levy taxes), and the Federal Government (which levies taxes.) There's no shortage of taxes being paid out here.
So, assume this is the primary way for the state to collect significantly more money (not sure if this is true). If they don't start collecting income taxes, then the alternative is for the state to provide fewer and fewer services. Again, this doesn't really affect people making $200,000 every year, but it is a significant burden for the least powerful and most needy people of the state.
Or they could cut the "services" they provide that nobody wants.
What the Washington State government needs to do is go back to basics.
The opponents of this measure are some very smart and creative people. What are they proposing as an alternative to income taxes?
Cutting the bloated runaway budget, duh. Why the holy shit should a state government *ever* be paying an advertising agency? Why are they paying to air "click it and ticket" ads on billboards, radio, TV, banners being towed by planes? Is there a single person in the entire state who doesn't already know there's a seatbelt law?
For instance, one of my favorites is the cost of registering (and renewing) a vehicle license plate. The cost of a license tag is a percentage of the value of the car. Every year. And it has an odd impact on the auto market. When you finance a car purchase from a dealer, the first year's license fee is usually rolled into the financing, so you don't really notice it much. Then, in the second year, you get a bill from the state for potentially thousands of dollars for a license tag, and now you're scrounging. Or, you sell the car, and buy another one.
When's the last time you lived in Washington? Eyman put the kibosh on that particular tax a decade ago. Either you don't live here anymore, or you've been dodging taxes so long you don't even know how they're calculated anymore... hah.
Someone recently did an interesting survey of Japanese game developers, quizzing them on what games they had played. I'm sorry, I don't remember who was asking and who was answering, but I distinctly remember that one famous and successful Japanese game developer had never played Starcraft. Ever. Didn't even recognize the *name* Starcraft.
So there is definitely a problem; Japanese game developers *only* play Japanese games. Or, at least, are less likely to venture outside of their comfort zone.
This state has run fine the last century with no income tax, and we certainly don't need one now. Our politicians in Washington spend like fucking MAD.
They love to give lectures on the TV news about how horrible our finances are, while there's a fucking state-funded airplane flying above my house towing a banner reading "click it or ticket." (That literally happened to me.) Aerial advertising of seatbelt laws! WHAT A GREAT USE OF MY TAX MONEY! Assholes.
Or maybe Gog.com just hired a shitty accountant and he got behind on payroll. No sense jumping to conclusions before we know all the facts-- truth is, a ton of businesses fail for a ton of different reasons.
When the government wants evidence, they (usually) get a warrent. When the public wants evidence? Much harder.
Yes. But that doesn't change a single thing I said.
On the other hand, the US Government is treated as being guilty of telling Sweden to kick Wikileaks out of Sweden with absolutely zero evidence other than some jerk's say-so. Yes, there's plenty of idiocy going around in this thread.
I'm an American but why the fuck is our govt telling Sweden "what they're allowed to do."
Why the fuck are you believing unfounded rumors posted on Slashdot by a self-promoting jerk?
How about maybe we look for this thing... what's it called... oh yeah, evidence! How about we find some of that evidence stuff *before* we start burning effigies, eh? What do you think of that?
God you make me ashamed to be an American. Considering the track record of this site, why would you believe *anything* posted on Slashdot? Even the sourced stuff is usually bullshit.
While there was a small amount of snark; the ease of setting up an OSX network and maintaining it compared to others makes up for lot of the initial cost. There is a value to not worrying if things will work, as a small business owner I am willing to pay a bit more upfront for less headaches later.
It's probably better than Linux, but I doubt it matches Windows. Especially when you consider the costs associated with finding OS X experts to manage it. Of course, this all depends on the size of the network as well.
As for costs, quality PC's are not all that cheaper than Macs. Tech support is another plus - I've had a lot better support from Apple than Dell
Where I live, Dell provides same-day parts and labor service for servers. As does HP and IBM. Apple... next day, at best. Now, again, this is situation dependent-- if you're in New York City there's probably no difference in support. But Apple badly needs to build up their support network if they want to compete with Dell, HP and IBM in that department... right now it's wholly inadequate.
As a side note, not sure why you got moderated troll other than the /. view that a dissenting opinion must be a troll or flamebait.
There's some asshole following me around and modding every post I make as "troll". It's nothing you did-- someone just has a grudge with me, and Slashdot's moderation is easy to game.