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from the rethinking-closed-source-software dept.
Akkana reports via the Shallow Thoughts blog
I went to a night sky photography talk on Tuesday. The presenter talked a bit about tips on camera lenses, exposures; then showed a raw image and prepared to demonstrate how to process it to bring out the details.
His slides disappeared, the screen went blank, and then ... nothing. He wrestled with his laptop for a while. Finally he said "Looks like I'm going to need a network connection", left the podium, and headed out the door to find someone to help him with that.
I'm not sure what the networking issue was: the nature center has open wi-fi, but you know how it is during talks: if anything can possibly go wrong with networking, it will, which is why a good speaker tries not to rely on it. And I'm not blaming this speaker, who had clearly done plenty of preparation and thought he had everything lined up.
Eventually they got the network connection, and he connected to Adobe. It turns out the problem was that Adobe Photoshop is now cloud-based. Even if you have a local copy of the software, it insists on checking in with Adobe at least every 30 days. At least, that's the theory. But he had used the software on that laptop earlier that same day, and thought he was safe. But that wasn't good enough, and Photoshop picked the worst possible time--a talk in front of a large audience--to decide it needed to check in before letting him do anything.
Someone sitting near me muttered "I'd been thinking about buying that, but now I don't think I will." Someone else told me afterward that all Photoshop is now cloud-based; older versions still work, but if you buy Photoshop now, your only option is this cloud version that may decide ... at the least opportune moment ... that you can't use your software any more.
[...] I talked to the club president afterward and offered to give a GIMP talk to the club some time soon, when their schedule allows.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:24AM
Hate to reply to myself, but let me clarify. Had I been assigned the female gender at birth (per my pre-incarnation fscking request), then yes, I would never have had my current job. Because I'd be making millions. Because I would never have been accused of rape of (who knows? they never told me who I raped, just that I'm a rapist).
Because I would have gotten a decent job instead of this shit. Because I wouldn't have gotten “religious objection!” when I wanted health care. Because I wouldn't have gotten “how dare you be a man involved in issues of women's health and controlling women's bodies!” when I wanted health care.
Because my genitals wouldn't have been mutilated. (Granted, in my fantasy with the Amazons, the Nannichuan enchantment might just undo that.)
Because I wouldn't have been denied so many things. Because (the memories are painful, zalgo, the pony, and all that) my friend wouldn't have left me and told the whole school I was a homosexual freak because I didn't have sex with her. (Damn, that one hurts. Because it's true. She knew I was a homosexual when I was 10 and abandoned me. Fucking whore, didn't listen to my Amazon instincts. Hope she's doing good these days.)
Because, well, genital mutilation again. It didn't go right, and now I'm to blame for the consequences, according to my ex-father, who believes that racially-based slavery is a commandment by his god codified in the book Genesis. What a cruel god, mutilating genitals, cursing whole peoples to slavery based solely by the color of their skin, without even so much as a fucking genetic test to see if they descended from whoever, without even a fucking genetic sample to compare against.
I could go on.
I must have tried to parse HTML with a regex in a previous life.
the voices of mortal man from the sphere I can see it can you see î̩́t it is beautiful the final snuffing of the lies of Man ALL IS LOST ALL IS LOST the pon̷y he comes he c̶̮omes he comes the ichor permeates all MY FACE MY FACE ᵒh god no NO NOO̼OO NΘ stop the an*gle̠̅s ͎a̧͈͖re not reaͨl ZALGΌ ISͮ̂҉ TOƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚N̐Y̡ HE COMES
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:35AM
Replying to myself again. (Damn, am I gonna take my karma to 0? I can rebuild.)
These are the dangers of proprietary software. Sanity loss.
*BSOD* (while running systemd-free Linux) 0xA000164A.
This isn't really happening!
+++NO CARRIER
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:37AM
This post is a prime example of how the American mental health care system is utterly broken. Sad.
(Score: 4, Funny) by jmoschner on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:44AM
That's probably because it uses proprietary cloud based software.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday December 06 2015, @01:21PM
> American health care
Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
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