Disqus - Friends of lmorchard

Re: Cutting the Cord (or: Bright House, you're fired) - 0xDECAFBAD

Craig Maloney — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 11:57:19 -0000

Not sure if you can get it, but I've been happy with Wide Open West for my phone / Internet connectivity. Not sure how they handle the TV part of it, but they've been very responsive to me whenever there's been an outage.

Re: Moved to Jekyll and Disqus - 0xDECAFBAD

Craig Maloney — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:00:04 -0000

Oh c'mon, there's nothing in the world more fun than updating Wordpress blog every time someone manages to sneeze wrong and cause an exploit. Sheesh, where's your sense of discipline.

Re: Beaches and Sun for a Year

Craig Maloney — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:48:33 -0000

We're going to miss you up here in the freezing north.

Re: Daniel Solis: The No-No's of Game Design [Seminar]

Craig Maloney — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:11:08 -0000

Is there a way to download this file to listen to it later?

Re: Ubuntu Membership Next Steps

Craig Maloney — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:29:12 -0000

I can't quite put my finger on the exact reason why, but this doesn't make me more encouraged to try for membership. I'm glad to see the changes taking place, but it feels like there's a lot of bureaucracy involved just for something as simple as membership. I'm getting the sense that Ubuntu is moving from community to committee, and where the grand scheme is to encourage participation, the end result is bookkeeping, metrics, and disenfranchisement.

I'm looking for more meritocracy, and a lot less bureaucracy, and the above doesn't make me hopeful that we'll see that anytime soon.

Re: Menu Discoverability In Ubuntu 11.10

Craig Maloney — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:43:21 -0000

There are several problems with the menus as they stand now:

1) Empathy changes menu context depending on which window you last had highlighted. If you have chat highlighted, it will show you chat window options. If you have the main window highlighted, it shows a completely different set. The same is true with The GIMP.

2) Focus follows mouse is completely broken with the menu at the top. If you so much as mouse over an errant pixel, you can't use the menu for the application you want to use.

3) Mousing up to the top to see the menu is not terribly discover-able, but that's pretty much been drilled to death. My personal preference is to have it show all of the time like a Mac.

I'm not opposed to having the menu at the top, but if we're going this route there needs to be consistency. Empathy and The GIMP need patches to make the menu consistent.

Unfortunately, while trying to reinvent the Macintosh interface, we're neglecting that Apple has very strict guidelines for user interfaces. They can get away with it because they control everything about what goes in to making a Macintosh. Ubuntu either needs to get very strict about what gets packaged and how well it conforms, or they need to rethink this strategy. Anything less will give a sub-optimal experience.

Re: Menu Discoverability In Ubuntu 11.10

Craig Maloney — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:46:09 -0000

8 out of 10 could find the menu? Shouldn't that be 10 out of 10? I'm sure if you gave the same exam on a Windows machine, they'd have little problem finding it.

Re: Ubuntu Membership Next Steps

Craig Maloney — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:42:25 -0000

..."attend an IRC meeting where the board vote on your approval or not." - Bingo. That's the problem that I have. It's the sense that your contributions are put on a scale and deemed worthy enough to afford a pass. What happens if the board, for whatever reason, denies an application? Has that happened in the past?

I mean, certainly we couldn't just give folks who ask for membership the rights and privileges of being members. That would be foolish. We might get people who haven't contributed at all in that way. Then we'd have to suffer them on Planet Ubuntu, and come up with some super membership to really recognize the contributions of those in the community.

I guess my problem is that contributions, no matter how big or small, if done in the name of, and for the community are something special in themselves. When you make it so folks can somehow deem which contributions are more worthy than others, it cheapens the efforts of those who might not be the rockstars of the community, but still do good work.

I don't have answers, just the feeling that we're going about this in a way that is not going to help us long-term.

Re: Ubuntu Membership Next Steps

Craig Maloney — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:29:48 -0000

I get sustained; it's the significant part that irks me. It's as if one can put some numerical value to the significance of a contribution.

And yes, it does feel like an entrance exam for the community.

Re: Do We Need A Desktop OS Anymore?

Craig Maloney — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:54:08 -0000

We're seeing the same thing happen with mobile / desktop that we saw with PC / Mainframe. Until we get on-board development, there will still be a place and need for a desktop OS. And then all the greybeards can grouse about how we had real interfaces on our desktop machines. ;)

Re: Feedback Welcome

Craig Maloney — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:10:53 -0000

Any particular reason why this is only available to members? Seems like a self-selecting group bias.

Re: Feedback Welcome

Craig Maloney — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:13:20 -0000

That's a very valid point, but wouldn't it be more useful to poll the folks that aren't as engaged with the community as well? I understand we can send Jono mail directly, so perhaps I should toss my peanuts that way instead of just random drive-by comments on the blog.

I dunno though. Feels very managerial to me. Like asking the management of a company how things are going, instead of asking the rest of the company.

Re: WDET Shows - The Craig Fahle Show - All Things Considered Co-Host Michele Norris Talks About "The Race Card"

Craig Maloney — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:56:23 -0000

"Underneath, we all taste like chicken".

(Or perhaps more appropriately: "Backgrounds set stages, but friendship engages")

Re: Google Tashout

Craig Maloney — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:07:52 -0000

Jono: Please make this a reality. You totally need a monocle and a top-hat to go with that stunning 'stache.

Re: DNA Lounge: 9-May-2012 (Wed) Wherein we're gonna get Pucced.

Craig Maloney — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:06:30 -0000

Would they have a serious shit-fit if you put in pay-toilets and pay sinks? :)

Re: There is no need to worry about Thunderbird - Jorge's Stompbox

Craig Maloney — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 09:33:41 -0000

I am a happy Thunderbird user. This saddens me. I run my own mail servers, and Thunderbird contains everything that I expect of a local mail client (contact integration, and calendar integration via lightning.) If there's a web-based mail system that allows me to do what I do with Thunderbird (send and receive e-mail quickly and efficiently) I won't complain too much when the time comes for me to abandon Thunderbird.

And I've used Evolution heavily in the past. Performant it ain't.

Re: There is no need to worry about Thunderbird - Jorge's Stompbox

Craig Maloney — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:20:01 -0000

Yeah, I think the knee-jerk reaction crew got this one wrong. It's not that it's going away, it's hitting maturity. We just don't see that in the web space, so it's a little jarring when it happens.

Re: Birthday Boy: Let’s Do Something Good

Craig Maloney — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:31:00 -0000

Happy Birthday, Jono. Hope you have a very Happy Birthday today.

Re: On The Recent Dash Improvements

Craig Maloney — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:19:38 -0000

The big problem I have isn't with this change, or with some of the other changes that have come down through the development cycles. What I have a problem with is the how far the community can get pushed before we snap. Sure, Amazon searching might not be so bad now, but what happens when a more invasive search or privacy intrusion is brought about to the community in the name of convenience? What if Ubuntu locks into your Facebook or Google+ account, downloads your contacts, and starts sending them recommendations based on your searches? Sure, today that might be reprehensible, but if later it's somehow deemed to be a net-benefit for a subset of users and Canonical, then what? Do we all get to hold our noses and hope for the stench to clear in the next release?

Canonical owes nothing to the users of Ubuntu, and folks shouldn't feel entitled to anything with Ubuntu. But there is a fine line between treating folks respectfully, and expecting them to just grin and bear it (or just uninstall it).

I'm still a fan of Ubuntu, but it seems there's always something each cycle that keeps pushing me to reconsider my position.For the sake of the community, please keep the community in mind when making these sorts of changes.

Re: More Information About Online Dash Search Privacy

Craig Maloney — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:14:17 -0000

Thank you Jono. I'm pleased at how delicately and professionally Canonical has handled this issue. I had my doubts before, but feel this resolves my concerns.

Re: Ubuntu Server Community, You Rule

Craig Maloney — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:20:16 -0000

Nice to see it work, but curious if that's why the Severed Fifth site is offline. :)

Re: Robin D. Laws: Open Licensing and DramaSystem (and GUMSHOE, too)

Craig Maloney — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:23:45 -0000

As someone who is interested in licenses, but sadly did not back Hillfolk (but will likely pick it up at some point), I'd like to throw in my vote for a CC license, OGL notwithstanding.

CC-BY-SA allows me to use the text of the rules in a sharable or modifiable fashion. Were there to be other elements released under a CC-BY-SA license, those would also be able to be used.

The OGL also allows for such things, but the problem with OGL is the notion of Product Identity. Whenever I've seen mention of Product Identity, it's essentially referring to stuff the creators feel are part of their trademark (trade dress, characters, setting, etc.). I have a hard time with the notion that CC-BY-SA is incompatible with the OGL simply because the OGL protects those items that are best covered under trademark law, and frees up those items (game mechanics) that aren't (from what I've been told by people smarter than I) copyrightable. Sure, the OGL allows me to copy text verbatim that is Open Content and modify them somewhat, but so does the CC-BY-SA. The nice part about CC-BY-SA is it allows for the text to be used outside of the gaming realm, whatever value that might have.

And should George Lucas come along and want to use Drama System for his big budget puppet show, you're going to want a separate license for that. Neither license will cover that adequately.

So, one more vote for CC-BY-SA, but if you really want to give the maximal amount of freedom, put it in the public domain. ;)

Re: Robin D. Laws: Open Licensing and DramaSystem (and GUMSHOE, too)

Craig Maloney — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:25:15 -0000

Would the CC-BY only be a more acceptable license without the "viral" component?

Re: Robin D. Laws: Open Licensing and DramaSystem (and GUMSHOE, too)

Craig Maloney — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:32:03 -0000

Public domain, no. CC-BY-SA means the content creator encourage you to release your "remixed" content under a similar license. Should you use a CC-BY-SA rules system to make a RPG with your world, all you'd need to do is make the resultant work available to other folks to also allow them to remix. You wouldn't have to make your current IP that is not CC-BY-SA part of the CC-BY-SA realm. You could even say the text of the document is CC-BY-SA, and leave things like images and other media as protected by copyright.

Re: Robin D. Laws: Open Licensing and DramaSystem (and GUMSHOE, too)

Craig Maloney — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:34:21 -0000

CC-BY is the Creative Commons By Attribution License
CC-BY-SA is the Creative Commons By Attribution, Share Alike license.

http://creativecommons.org has human-readable and legalese versions of all of their licenses.