That sounds great to me.  I used a trial version for a while and a couple of those tools were doing good things for me.   

Quote from: stockastic on March 23, 2016, 12:13

The U.S. media wants Trump to be elected; it's the political story of a lifetime.  To that end they've given him 10 times the coverage of other candidates - free of charge.  And they'll continue playing ball with him until the election - by running soft-pitch stories like "Trump refuses to back down" instead of going after his ridiculous and inconsistent statements.

But if Trump somehow manages to get elected, that all changes and the media sets out to bring him down.  That's when they'll start to pull all the skeletons out of the closet, and go for his blood.  They'll do their best to push it all the way to impeachment.  It won't be pretty.  Chaos and conflict is what they want, what they sell, and what they know how to create.

Really? Have you read huffpo for example nowadays? How is saying that Trump incites violence, will get someone killed at his rallies, is part of the mob so he should be banned, or this note et the end of each Trump article: "Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims - 1.6 billion members of an entire religion - from entering the U.S."... is "playing ball with him" ?

Playing ball with Trump doesn't mean you're for, or against, him, politically.  It means you give him free publicity that reinforces his image, and you make money by doing it.   Huffington Post churns out  over-the-top political correctness, exaggerating what Trump actually says.  Then they sell the outrage, and Trump gets another soft pitch to hit out of the park.   This is followed by more "Trump refuses to back down" and "Trump stands by his remarks" headlines.  And his numbers go up.

Here's part of what Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, said to an investor gathering in January:
�I�ve never seen anything like this, and this is going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It�s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on,  Donald. Keep going."

Just take a look at this (from 2015) to understand what kind of people are running 500px now. Really no surprises here.
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2015/05/23/co-founder-ex-ceo-500px-trial-errors-lessons-learned/

I love this comment from Andy Yang: "It�s not beneficial to rehash that time." Like - "I stabbed the guy who hired me in the back and robbed him of his company, but hey who wants to talk about that?"

Thanks, that was interesting.  I actually didn't know about all the conflict and turnover.  It seems to me  that nothing salvageable was left, and I wonder why new investment came in.  Sounds like they should have just shuttered it.

If someone wanted to pick up the pieces and head in a new direction, they should have made that clear in the email to contributors.  Instead, it was just - starting now, you will get a lot less, take it or leave it.  Nothing about marketing plans or future possibilities, no apologies, no candor, no hope.    After reading that, who's going to spend the time uploading hundreds of photos? 

When logging in, FAA contributors are now being asked for a 'yes' or 'no' opinion on a new plan.  Here's an excerpt:


"Fine Art America is in discussions with a major electronics manufacturer about co-developing a large-format digital picture frame which would hang on a wall and allow the owner of the picture frame to stream FAA images to the picture frame using an iPhone or Android phone.

The owner of the picture frame would pay a monthly subscription fee (e.g. $10 per month) for the ability to stream any image from Fine Art America to the picture frame at any time.
 
You (the image owner) would get paid based on how many minutes your image appeared on the digital picture frame during a given month.   Please read below for complete details."



Needless to say, your markup is ignored - you have no control over pricing, you get whatever they decide to pay, and I assume that will be pennies.   I couldn't click "NO" fast enough.   But watch the FAA forum for gushy posts thanking "Sean" for this "great new opportunity".

The U.S. media wants Trump to be elected; it's the political story of a lifetime.  To that end they've given him 10 times the coverage of other candidates - free of charge.  And they'll continue playing ball with him until the election - by running soft-pitch stories like "Trump refuses to back down" instead of going after his ridiculous and inconsistent statements.

But if Trump somehow manages to get elected, that all changes and the media sets out to bring him down.  That's when they'll start to pull all the skeletons out of the closet, and go for his blood.  They'll do their best to push it all the way to impeachment.  It won't be pretty.  Chaos and conflict is what they want, what they sell, and what they know how to create.

Quote from: stockastic on March 22, 2016, 17:37

I don't think it's correct to say that Bush convinced Congress to invade Iraq. Rather, Bush invaded Iraq and later convinced Congress to pass a resolution supporting what he had already done.   Now, with the prospect of an utter fool like Trump as President, we see what a dangerous precedent Bush has set.

It depends on the Bush.  The first President Bush deployed troops to the Gulf during the second half of 1990 and then asked Congress for a resolution during January of 1991, after he had the troops there but before entering Iraq.  Bush II convinced Congress to give him his resolution for war during October of 2002 before invading in March of 2003 (can you remember where you were during the whole "shock and awe" spectacle?).  Although it seemed like they both invaded first and asked for resolutions later it isn't exactly true.  However, I agree completely about the precedent and how scary it would be if Trump were in charge.

Yes it's coming back to me now.   Bush did get a resolution, although not an actual declaration of war.  By that point the runup was well under way, the drums were pounding and voting against it would have been political suicide.   I'm pretty sure he made it clear the invasion would take place with or without the resolution.   And Congress hadn't declared war against Afghanistan, which we'd already attacked.   The details don't matter, because someone like Trump doesn't care about legalities or historical precedents.

Something similar happened here in Minnesota a few years ago, when we elected former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura as Governor.   Apparently a lot of people thought it would be cool to tell their friends they voted for him.   Actually he was not a bad guy, and he brought some experienced and reasonable people with him to run the government - although as it turned out, he had little interest in doing that himself.

We can elect a celebrity doofus as mayor or Governor and life goes on, because other people can run things for them while they mug for the cameras.   But the Presidency isn't a joke, it's life and death for thousands of people around the world.  You don't vote for some idiot just to "send a message to Washington", that's beyond foolish. 

I can actually accept that the original 500px plan wasn't working, and investors came in and wanted a new plan.  What I don't get is how this announcement could be part of a coherent plan.   

Maybe if they'd combined it with announcements of a new marketing direction, automatic downsizing/watermarking of displayed images, hiring of a reviewing staff, a streamlined uploading process, and answers to a number of obvious questions we've been asking about where 500px is going and how it will work, it might have made some sense.   

Instead, we see millions in venture capital come in, new management, months of silence and then a drum roll and: "our new plan is that you get a lot less".

Wow, I post my theories (see above) and within a day I'm proven wrong.  Instead we get the now-familiar 'sustainability' announcement about massive royalty cuts.   So, that's it for 500px, as far as I'm concerned. Moving on now. 

Quote from: marquixHD on March 18, 2016, 16:25

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on March 16, 2016, 20:00

to me, a non="american" (ie mexico, usa, cda)...
bill gates is the best person to be president.
he knows what it's like to be a person who works to be great at what he does.
he has track record of philantropy
he can reduce cost by firing all the corrupted politicians
he can run USA with robots

he is already ruling the world with his compute;
why not his own country???

this must be a joke, right?

- so you think Windows is great? Then why do advanced users -- most notably photographers -- use MacOS (not to mention Linux)?
- his "track record" is bullying an industry with a little help from his father shelling out some dubious license depriving a poor little programmer guy of his (not Gates'!) invention
- his "track record" of "philanthropy" is contaminating the world with Zica (his mosquito experiment in Panama went sour), abusing little girls in India as guinea pigs for his questionable HPV vaccines, and dodging U. S. taxes by way of thinking up some "foundation" that really is nothing more than a tax shelter for his billions not to go to Uncle Sam (the latter part I don't mind, but it's not "for others" either)
- reducing cost by firing people is usually not the way to improve the outcome (surprised that "firing" all of a sudden should be an acceptable thing to do in this union-friendly underdog forum her -- what a laugh),
- do you want to live in a world "rulded" or rather controlled by robots?! I am an IT systems developer but have quite enough of this pseudo-technophile attitude...
- that "rule of his computers" is, thank God, diminishing for the benefit of better solutions than an insecure monolithic OS like Windoze
- and finally (and for your information), the U. S. is not "his" country, nor anyone else's. Where I come from, countries are not owned but civil servants and politicians are supposed to serve the electorate in a political system

As for the bullying part and for (ab)using mechanisms in order to see his stuff through Gates would be "qualified" though for fighting a few more wars, occupy countries "for democracy" and unilaterally "change regimes" at will, I grant you that much, @etudiante_trop_lentement

While there is no conclusive evidence, all signs points to the Gates funded project that caused the outbreak. It's quite disturbing and people are not aware of it. I agree with a number of your points and I'll add one more.

- MS's monopolistic IE and their dirty tactics caused the death of Netscape. From 2001-2005, in which many called it the "Dark Ages of the Internet", little to no progress was made to internet browser technology and it was all because of the man pulling the strings behind Microsoft.

The idea that the Gates Foundation had anything to do with the spread of this virus is complete nonsense, as a minute spent Googling the issue - and reading actual news sources - makes clear.   

I do make a sale there now and then.  It's just not going anywhere, it's looking very dated, and it desperately needs some serious competition.

One thing we can be sure of is that the day after he wins the nomination, Trump starts dramatically changing his pitch and showing us Trump 2.0.  He knows that to get the Republican nomination, you run off the rails to the right, but to win the election you move back to the center.  So expect to see an all new Trump, more mainstream and less crazy, and also expect the news media to continue to play right along with him and give him exactly the sort of coverage he wants - while at the same time badgering Clinton about an email server. 

Wow.  That is truly foul.

A new low.