Attached Link: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050418/adobe_macromedia.html?.v=16

Wow...Interesting news. Did'nt Adobe bring a lawsuit against Macromedia some time back concerning the "Adobe-like"interface of Macromedia product prior to the MX versions? Tom

Developers are nervous. It means less competition, and that means less incentive to keep pushing the edge. :sigh:

Yeah, imagine.. -Having only one main, big seller in the marketplace! -Curious Labs buying everything! -Corel buying everything! -Only certain artists always monopolizing the hot twenty! -Wal-Mart opening up across from your fave Mall that's too expensive! -You take months to create something awsome to sell and Daz decides to give away that same similar item for free! -You make a nice big dinner for your family and then find out they already ate at Macdonalds on the way home! -You spend months making a texture to sell and someone else only takes a couple of days, but the other one sells ten times as fast as yours because it is advertised on a younger looking model that looks more provocative!! -Every fashion store out there starts catering only to Japanese Anime looking styles meaning we women all get to wear only short, tight school outfits and high heels!!! -Your having a hard time selling a 3D Basketball you created for 1.99 only to find out Turbosquid is having no problem at all selling one for thirty times as much!! Can you imagine!!

If you spend your time comparing your lot in life with someone else, you probably will end up driving yourself crazy. But you can have a strategy for dealing with this stuff.

Strategies. You don't like Curious Labs, Daz, Corel, TurboSquid, or Walmart. Don't shop at them.

Teach your family better manners than to eat before dinner.

Support small business by buying from them. Recommend small businesses to other.

Ignore the Hot 20. Who cares? On the list of things that don't matter, Hot 20 is at the top of my list (or bottom, depending on your perspective).

Don't like the gallery here? Start your own website. Show them how it should be done.

Remember that fashion is a temporary infliction created by people who want you to buy something new and expensive every year. No one needs a new warerobe every season (except Vicky, of course). Just hold on to the stuff you love, and don't fall into the trap of having to keep up with the 19 year olds whose parents were dumb enough to give them credit cards.

Focus on doing the best you can, and support the people whose work you respect.

Model the behavior you want other to have. Respect their right not to care what you think.

I've allowed other people to raise my blood pressure most of my life. I'm working on changing my focus. I can't change them. I can change my approach. Not saying I don't get mad (everyone here knows I've got a short fuse), but I'm working on it day by day.

And I think if someone comes up with a really cool idea, the competition will rise again, and push the status quo. We've been predicting the death of imagination, creativity and inventiveness for years, but people who don't know they can't do it still manage to rise to the surface and do it despite the naysayers and doomsters.

Don't give your power away to other people. You have choices you can make. Don't make them on the basis of what everyone else is doing, but what you need to to do for yourself, your family, your friends, your causes near to your heart and soul.

And that's about all one can do.

And don't complain if you don't participate. I'm tired of non-voters whining. If you don't care enough to get involved, don't come to me or anyone else, and complain that something didn't get done.

And that's it for me.

Soap box dismantled.

Walking off to build my bomb shelter with the pieces.

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 11:16

Because this is something that does annoy me. Daz, Renderosity, RuntimeDNA, PoserPros, 3dCommune are NOT monolithic corporations taking over people's lives. They are communes of small businesses and members that are supporting each other by coming together in one place. Before you fly off the handle about Marketplace manipulation, remember those merchants are your fellow artists. Okay, back to the bomb shelter.

"Okay, back to the bomb shelter." Whew! Pour yourself a stiff drink while you're at it.

dialyn, Good thoughts and expressed very well! SWAMP Side note: However I do like the "women all get to wear only short, tight school outfits and high heels" idea also.

You sure should take a stiff drink. Cheers to you while I have a sip of mine! You have good points to ponder except I never suggested I hate this and I hate that and I can't stand this and want to spit on that and strangle the world. Sure, it's not good to gripe and boo and whine and hiss about anything and everything, just like it's not too smart for someone to have road rage about somebody cutting them off or not signalling or going through a red light or running someone over and taking off or just driving darn awful, there's just nothing you can really do by having road rage, it just looks dumb upon you. But it sure will be the day where we have to just sit back and are not able to vent or voice ourselves or have opinions, whether in jest, or just sarcasm, or for real, it's a part of human nature to have our say at times, and even be able to scream and rant at other times, within reason. Your analogy would be like not bothering to ever take a bath or shower because you will only get dirty again tomorrow or the next day, so why bother, just live with it. Be a pretty stinky scenario, but hey, everybody would smell the same after a while so who cares, just let it happen and stop yer silly, nonsensible whining!