OSNews has been reporting, since its start in 1997, on the world of operating systems, their applications, their hardware, and their people – both users and developers. OSNews has seen 3 major rewrites, various personnel changes, and numerous topics of discussion, some way beyond the original scope OSNews started out with over a decade ago. Today, we are announcing a major shift in what we do, with which we hope to re-ignite OSNews – yes, we are shifting our focus. Read on for the details.If anyone didn’t get the hint: we’re not shifting focus away from anything. If you had been paying attention to your RSS feed even before 4.1, you would’ve already known – may I introduce, as part of the OSNews overhaul, the OSNews comic (first mentioned here):
Named after Be, Inc.’s infamous shift away from the BeOS operating system, Focus Shift is supposed to lighten the tone on OSNews, to introduce lightheartedness among the often heated and way-too-serious debates – to shift the focus away from the serious stuff, so to speak. Apart from that deep justification, it’s also quite the catchy name. And it’s a BeOS reference. And let’s face it, that makes it perfect for OSNews.
So, what will it be? The target is three comics a week: Monday-Tuesday, Wednesday-Thursday, Friday-Sunday, with the option of publishing more if we want to, of course. The comics will focus on the news we run, but sometimes, they may be about other things too. Occasionally, we will even make fun of ourselves (easy), and maybe even our (regular) users. You have been warned.
The comics reside at /comics, and look exactly the same as any other newsitem, including comments, recommendations, moderation, and so on. They will not (I repeat, they will not) appear on the frontpage between normal newsitems – we may offer that as an option for our users later on. As you can see, there is a link to Focus Shift in your sidebar, including a nice cropped section of the current comic.
I hope you will enjoy reading Focus Shift as much as I enjoy making them. A final note: be gentle with me when judging Focus Shift. I can break, and David lost my receipt from the Annoying Editors Shop.
For now, the comics fall under the default copyright of OSNews. In the future, a Creative Commons license will be chosen. Hotlinking is allowed, but please be nice and include a link back to the Focus Shift page.
Giddy up
I love the look of the site. Personally I would read it in frames a la 1998 for the quality of the discourse and reason. Plus the occasion flamewar & grammar crit let me laugh. The new look is proud without being elite. Verr Klean und Prrrrty
You are in the home tabs in my Omniweb. Good luck and may your blessings multiply
P.S.
Omnifocus
{{-groove-}}
Humm.. Three cartoons a week, now if that isn’t modern day innovation I don’t know what is! May Dilbert be proud.
really nice look, guys.
But have new authors comic? 😉
Personally I always read the UI-rants.
In the words of Daniel Quinn, it’s not enough to say an OS is bad, “someone” needs to be constructive and provide “Another Story to Be In”.
In the words of Malcolm Powell from his latest blog at teslamotors.com, “You’ve heard us say this many times but, “This isn’t easyâ€. Being the guy who’s done this sort of thing before, I’ve often warned my colleagues that this was going to be hard. If you think you know about cars because you’ve tinkered with them during the weekend, I can assure you that it is a whole new world when you design a new one and try to put it into production. Unfortunately, no one told me how hard this particular one was going to be.”
Still looking forward to that UI-implementation which will be to OS what the now-50-state-legal Tesla promises to be for cars !
Seriously, your comics are terrible.
If other people like ’em, well, you’re welcome to do them, but in my opinion you’re not doing yourself a favour. You are great OSNews editor, why don’t you focus on that instead of trying to be a comic author?
I believe it was Robert Love, kernel developer, who said that the best way to get a problem fixed right is to submit a bad patch to lkml which fixes the problem in the wrong way. This guarantees that someone else will jump on it and do the job right. Simply reporting the problem is less effective.
And if someone could refer me to that quote, I’d appreciate it. What I wrote above is highly paraphrased, severely limiting the effectiveness of Google searches.
I don’t think comments like this are constructive and I don’t think they are well-purposed. Frankly, I think they’re just rude. I signed up just a week or so ago, and I can’t believe that people are so mean to each other here. If you don’t like the comics, don’t read them! Why you gotta come here and rant about it too? Get a life.
It’s the reason we come here.. and if we all left osnews would receive about 100 hits a day from the holy people like yourself.
I don’t think comments like this are constructive and I don’t think they are well-purposed. Frankly, I think they’re just rude.
They are constructive. They are basically telling someone I esteem (Thom) to pursue his real talents instead of doing something he’s (IMHO) not talented to do.
At least he should have to give the graphical part to someone that has a bit of drawing skills. Funny, badly drawn cartoon are somehow good. Unfunny, well drawn cartoons are bearable. Unfunny and badly drawn cartoon are just making my eyes screaming.
I can’t believe that people are so mean to each other here. If you don’t like the comics, don’t read them! Why you gotta come here and rant about it too?
Because I like this site and I want it to be improved.
The comics idea is damn good. It’s Thom drawing them the problem. If he can find someone qualified to draw comics for OSNews, it would be beautiful.
Get a life.
I have a good life, thanks. Heck, I even have a girlfriend, which for a OSNews geek is incredible!
On a completely unrelated note: can I know what is the history for the green GIF you use as avatar? It’s years I see it on the Internet, it’s clearly a meme, but I don’t know what it is or where is it born as a meme.
Why? So I can take away one of the unique things about Focus Shift? Should C&H hire proper artists to draw the people for them (since they obviously suck at it)? Would they still be as unique?
Actually, I think the limited drawing skill adds to the cartoon – it gives it a more abstract quality. This aids the more geeky message that is being conveyed.
“can I know what is the history for the green GIF you use as avatar? It’s years I see it on the Internet, it’s clearly a meme, but I don’t know what it is or where is it born as a meme.”
I don’t really know I stole it off someones profile on Myspace.com.
I think it’s one of Andrew Bell’s creatures.
See http://www.creaturesinmyhead.com/
if this were slashdot or digg you’d get the ‘you must be new here’ obligatory comments even though you’ve stated you are quite new……
Compared to those sites, OSnews is almost Utopian.
Oh, screw that, you turd.
See? It worked! I didn’t even feel offended
.
😉
Focus Shift is supposed to lighten the tone on OSNews,
Most of them seem to be very negative cartoons. More like political cartoons which are designed to make a point but not much in the terms of lighting things up. Dilbert, User Friendly, JoyofTech. do a good job at lighting things up. Lets use something wrong in government or IT and play with it to a funny end. Right now UserFriendly is poking fun at the Blackest substance that was just created in RPI a few weeks ago. There are a lot of light hearted ways to make a point. So far these comics are not really that funny or light hearted they just say the world sucks.
You know, I greatly prefer Thom’s comics to UserFriendly. Mainly because Thom is actually funny.
Not fair… I was about to use the name “FocusShift Software” for a company!
You said it: It’s a catchy name!
(I was hoping to attract plenty of customers that way!)
;-P
Edit: spelling (not that is ok now but…).
Edited 2008-01-30 12:27 UTC
what is the opinion of osnews staff about syndicating/downloading/webscraping/whatever of the comics?
kde4 has a webcomic viewer plasmoid, but some webcomics can’t be supported because their legal terms don’t allow such things to be done.
now, i can’t speak officially for the kde project, but can we support this comic? maybe wait until and if it will be under creative commons?
the idea i had and i think would be best for everyone was only to display the cropped version of the sidebar and by clicking on it it would open a browser on the proper osnews article.
i still had not checked how easily automatically parsable is it
oh and last thing of course won’t do anything witout an explicit permission, don’t want to upset anybody
Well, as I said, hotlinking (which this essentially is) is fine by me, but a link back to the comics page would be nice. I won’t make a fuss of it if you don’t, but hey, courtesy is a nice thing.
As soon as it’s CC licensed, the images can be placed on other servers too (although I won’t allow derivative works). I’ll get my behind into the CC thing later today.
ok, can’t promise when i will be able to start working on it, but there will definitely be a link to osnews page.
i see that there is an rss feed for it and this should make things quite easy
Are the editors purposely trying to ruin OSNews? This used to be a great tech site. Now there is all this talk about videography and comic books. Just because the editor’s hobby’s have changed doesn’t mean ours have.
Edited 2008-01-30 13:31 UTC
Seriously, they’re almost as bad as those Gearheads things that show up on Planet KDE once in awhile that are so bad I had to write an Adblock filter to keep from seeing them
You know, the thing is… I don’t really care. I can’t please everyone. I’m not exactly known for my widely accepted and liked sense of humour (ask my friends), so I don’t even have the illusion of being able to make cross-cultural comics work.
I just do what I do, and the positive reactions heavily outweigh the negative ones, meaning people actually do like it. On top of that, comics are not intended to make you ‘rofl’ – a small chuckle, or even a “hey, I never thought about it this way” fulfills its purpose.
Are they intended to p*ss of your readers as well, or is that just a part of you not caring?
no it’s just a part on the readers not being able to accept a joke.
If you cant laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?
Everyone else
In all seriousness, if the intent of your “comics” are to “lighten” things up around here, then you should try to do so without attacking anyone’s political views. While that view might be the “popular” thing to do, and you think it’s cute, you know very well that it’s just going to aggravate some of your readers. You’re being intellectually dishonest by making the claim to “lighten” things up around here and put out things that attack readers’ views and political beliefs. Frankly, that’s just a good way to lose readers.
Like I said, I never said I can make cross-cultural comics work. I’m Dutch, and we have a rich tradition of ridiculising our politicians, leader, and our Royal Family. We Dutch have a very thick skin when it comes to these things, and seeing I am quite Dutch, this will shine through in the comics.
If you can’t laugh about yourself, your ideas, and your opinions – well, your loss, really. I’ve made comics I myself thoroughly disagree with – the ability to take a few steps back from your own ideas and opinions is part of growing up. If you can’t occasionally laugh about your own ideas, your own hypocrisy, you are taking life way too seriously.
That all depends on the views expressed. It doesn’t matter your nationality – you can be Dutch, Swede, Canadian, Brazilian, Ethiopian, etc… When you are constantly bombarded by stupidity over a subject in which reality is displaced by emotions of various tree hugging hippies, it gets very old after a while. There is no hypocrisy on my part at all, as my view has never changed. Perhaps the bigger problem isn’t your “thick Dutch skin” but your inability to not interject your own bias, as well as a severe lack of originality by regurgitating items well past qualified as “ad nauseum”, well, ad nauseum.
Those comics are not political stabs, they are just light, dry, funny things (which is great). The Ad nauseam you talk about actually makes it lighter.
Really, if anybody considers these comics as political stabs, or gets even a little aggravated by them, they ought to let there blood pressure be checked.
Thom, your comics are great it all it’s simpleness. Keep it up!
I was referring to the featuring the White House. You cannot seriously state that was not politically motivated and keep a straight face in the process.
Except… It’s not the white house. I specifically chose Capitol Hill, since that would mean impartiality (could be either Democrats or Republicans, or both).
I feel bombarded by your stupid complaints about Thom’s humor.
Political stabs? I thought it is just political satire.
Also, most of our life is related to politics in one way or another, so there’s no escaping politics. If you are not interested in political criticism, it is usually interpreted to mean that you are quite happy with things as they are, a supporter of the status quo.
Satire is polemic and often deals with things like politics that people strongly disagree with. Such things sometimes may need to be seen from a more humorous point of view too, because humor may broaden horizons, and also because otherwise the constant quarreling about such things may just give you headache… Especially the ability to sometimes laugh at oneself tends to make a person and also his opinions healthier.
It has been said that true democracy and freedom of speech needs political satire. There are laws that state if something really goes over the edge of the commonly approved ethics (and it is up to the politics to maybe improve those laws). Good taste or the correctness of satirical criticism is a matter of personal values and taste. You cannot force your “good taste” on others, it remains a matter of taste. Someone likes hip hop and cannot stand opera, another person prefers classical music and hates modern pop music.
Edited 2008-01-30 20:04 UTC
I especially like the “GoBe buys BeOS” one. As far as any “political ones”, I’m voting for either Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul. If neither are on the Primary ticket, by the time we vote in Feb., I either ain’t voting or I’m going to “vote” for someone I know WON’T win.
Same for September/November Elections this year.
Anyhow, I think FocusShift is a fun idea… gotta add it to my Gene Catlow, FreeFall, Jack, Nip and Tuck, Kevin & Kell, Black Tapestries, etc. furry comics list…
I sure hope a FocusShift is witten about “The Luposian Bug”, concerning Haiku. That’d be a riot…
The wit isn’t strong enough for me to want to look at such poorly drawn images. There are a wealth of better drawn and funnier comics out there. At the very least you could pass it through a few GIMP filters to make the drawing crisper and look less washed out. Even better, pick up Inkscape and spend 5 minutes converting your idea into a clean format that has the various benefits that come with being SVG.
So, you don’t like the style, nor the humour. Great. Then don’t read them, it’s that simple. There are millions and millions of comics out there that I don’t like, and you know what, I don’t read them.
I want to keep the style as-is because that’s what makes it unique. Sure, I can make these things in Illustrator (I have a tablet) but EVERYONE already does that. I want to do something different, something that’s not been done before. And I have never seen such poorly drawn comics (let’s face it) being liked by anyone – seeing the immense positive response (check the older story where I posed the idea first), I’m actually a little proud of myself.
You’re free to not like them, of course.
I’m just saying do yourself a favour and put a few extra minutes in to make them look better rather than just posting what are little more than a few seconds of hand drawn sketching. They would be better with a bit more effort.
My title “Not worth looking at” was a bit scathing; it detracted from the constructive element of my message.
I really like the janitor anology in the cartoon. It is good to remember just how trivial some of the stuff we argue/banter/flame about. In this case, BEOS. I also think the same (to a lesser degree) about the TollTech acquisition by Nokia. To us geeks, QT vs. GTK+ is practically a religious issue. However, to the “real” business world, they are very tiny pieces of a very large pie. Most of the business world (the folks who spend that green stuff) really care very little about OS’s or Programming Languages or Frameworks or whatever. So Nokia uses GTK+ for Maemo, and apparently the will start using QTopia for some new venture. To many that seems very strange – two such incompatable strategies. To them, it a phillips screwdriver vs. a slotted screwdriver. Whatever works.
Personally, I like arguing about it, though.
Keeps up the cartoons. I love them.
I just wanted to say, kick ass work on the new layout, the old one was sort of lacking. Secondly, I do like the comic idea, keep up the great work!