The rate of adoption of OS X in the physical sciences astounds me. Our own department made a transition from Dec to SGI to Linux over the last 10 years. I thought Linux was going to be the end-all-be-all. But now here come the Macs, rolling in and starting to make a dent in the Linux mindshare. And that's even without me evangelizing at all:)
With this pricing, one wonders if iPod mini is going to drive iPod sales just like iTunes. I don't quite get it. If it were non-hard drive, maybe, but the slim factor just isn't enough to justify that small price differential.
GarageBand was the real highlight, IMHO. Very, very slick, although I have little experience with other similar tools that were made after oh, say 1990 or so:)
I thought the Office 2004 presentation was a joke. How can they possibly think that those kinds of features are worthy of keynote announcement, much less a major upgrade. The interface looks nearly identical, which is really what needed an overhaul. I think MS, even the MBU needs to study Apple a bit more carefully for their future copying...
Unless they change something, the AAC files they sell to Windows users will play on "iTunes for Windows" or on iPods, but not on any other digital audio players (unless you burn an audio CD). So it will still encourage iPod purchases.
Only in the short-term. AAC (MPEG-4) requires a license, but isn't Apple-only. But still the point holds. The seamless integration between iTunes and the iPod would hopefully drive the hardware sales via Windows as well.
As for using the Music Store to drop iPod prices, I do think it's a good idea in the long run, even with Apple's hardware focus. The iPods are expensive not only for entry, but also for the "average" biannual upgrades that many do with other computer products and peripherals. As an owner of a perfectly functioning, 1/2-filled, 20GB iPod (previous generation), I have little desire to leap to the new models, especially with the current pricing.
Apple has a unique position compared to any other portable music player that they could leverage. But my gut reaction is that they better move fast and to get the Win version out ASAP and seriously think about price cuts on the hardware if the MS purchasing volume stays up there. It probably won't be a unique position for long...
Actually, I should have said, with the SRD, you don't need the PHB, really. My point about the extra stuff they make (which is what they are charging for) still stands. The information in the SRD is free in every PCGen release...
With all the data files, many gamers can get away with not having the Player's Handbook at all.
You must be joking. You can't do squat with the character sheet/info printed by PCGen without the books or the SRD (the d20 ref doc). If you add anything outside the core rules to your character, it's pretty much useless. Descriptions of things are not included in these data files.
It's the redistribution for no cost that is illegal.
What if that redistribution is to someone who already has the CD? These data files are nearly useless without the books. Getting mad about redistribution (those many moons ago) just makes no sense... no one was making a penny of them or cheating them out of a penny.
Current story is that this $1-$5 is per book and perhaps even per year (subscription model). Add it up now... and then multiply by the number of gamers in your gaming group. Cute, eh?
Why do these data files change? Well, historically, developing versions of PCGen occationally break backward compatibility and/or reorganize the data files. There has always been a converter buit into the program, but I think it's range of updating old files is limited.
You're comparing apples and oranges (pun intended?). I love tabs too, but you can do the same thing you're talking about in most browsers without tabs by opening links in new windows. Safari even has 'open windown in background' with cmd-shift-click. Map that to middle button and you'll not be much different than that particular nice feature of tabs.
The reason why this sucked (and still sucks) in Moz (at least on a Mac) is the speed or CPU hit of opening a new window and cycling among them. This is gone in Safari, as far as I'm concerned. Install Pith if you want a little clickable list of your open windows like your tabs. I'm kind of sad they open new windows staggered now in the second beta. When they all stacked on top of one another, cmd-~ to cycle among the windows was exactly like cycling through tabs. Bummer...
Anyway, what I meant to point out is that snap-back is a better back button, not a tab replacement. Tabs (or something like it) still would be a nice option to have in Safari.
Exactly. Especially with OS X and the ease of Rendezvous and AppleShare/IP, what did this really do but put an interface within iTunes? All you have to do is make a user for them and set aside a folder for them to mount. I guess it might be harder with dynamic IP's and hostnames, but did iCommune get around that? I mount the music volume of my desktop machine (in the basement) on my laptop all the time and play through iTunes. Cake!
Re:My reply to Nytmes.org
on
Who Owns Science?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
A few comments on your comments:)
First, remember that in this new public scheme, the authors still (well that's the standard in my field... astro) have to foot the bill for publishing. So, yes, it might be easier to get access to the publications, but there is still that wall to publish.
Second, the point about arXiv.org is that you can put your paper there as well as publish in a 'prestigious' journal. At least, in my field, there hasn't been an argument from publishers (to my knowledge) for anyone to send papers there as well. As well, we have not had any problems having students use published papers in their theses. In fact, it's encouraged by most(?) faculty since it's great to have on your vita when you graduate and it lends more credence to your thesis results (in a case where peer-review is working properly).
In fact, in some cases in astro it's gone to the extreme where pre-reviewed papers appear on arXiv.org (astro-ph in our lingo) and get incorporated into newly written papers before the referenced one has even been accepted/published. This happens more in the 'hot-topic' fields than anywhere. I, personally, am not all that crazy about that aspect of this public archive. In particular, without the ability for public discussion of said papers, there's little recourse for non-experts to wade into these non-reviewed papers and have some hint that they're verifiable (again, assuming peer-reviewing is working for the most part).
It would also allow Apple to tell MS to shove that carrot they dangle over Apple where the sun don't shine.
You mean where Sun does shine?:P
Of course the way Apple's operating these days, it would be Aquified, renamed iOffice, bundled (but require 10.2 of course), and be free for a year or so. After that, they would announce that you can now only save your documents to your iDisk, which of course costs $100/yr now.
Sigh...
mh, long-time, but now severely cynical Mac-head...
I can't tell you how many times I've seen users who primarily use other platforms just close the window(s) on a Mac app when they are done. Under OS 9, that would cause you to run out of memory pretty quick with a few apps and a casual user might not know that the other apps are still open if they don't know about how to switch apps without clicking on windows.
I think Apple is being very clever here with OS X. Now with systems that have healthy memory (most that run OS X) and a 'proper' VM system, such users don't bog down their experience at all as unused apps will just get swapped out if needed. In fact, many 'power' OS X tips suggest working exactly this way. A click on the task bar, the same action as the launch, brings back the app in a flash. A casual or new user used to working another way will probably have a much better experience with this setup. It even adds the perception of a faster overall system response.
The only potential confusion in this case is the lack of a new window popping up. However, it's minor compared to getting an annoying dialog that you're out of memory and having to find out how to solve that problem. And such behavior could in theory be built into apps as a default option (pop new window if no windows when brought to front).
It shouldn't have been release with such glaring bugs.
Why not? Every other game released today is (except maybe Blizzard's). We keep lining up at the trough hoping it will be different, but it just gets worse. But oooo, look a the pretty graphics! That's about all pre/re-views center on anyway. Gameplay? Stability? Not at the expense of screenshots.
Sure it does. On somebody's box somewhere... You just can't go to the store and pick it up yet. Oh wait, that's the same for Windows too.:P
How about waiting until the game actually shows up on the shelves before the crass comments, eh? And I can't wait to see how it shipped with the beta testers barely getting a chance to fiddle with it. Oh wait, that's normal today... *paying* to be a beta tester... sigh...
I wouldn't be surprised if the first version that everyone is happy with doesn't show up until the Mac version ships in a few months anyway.
I think this was only a small change to the code to take advantage of a 10.1.5 feature that allows any Carbon app to request Quartz rendered, anti-aliased text. I don't think there was a radical shift in how the Moz UI is drawn. So, in this case, the Chimera UI will still win out since it's using native Aqua components. As for anti-aliased text, I think it's been in Chimera for a while.
Quartz is the new graphics engine API in Mac OS X. A small change in the Moz code was made to take advantange of a new hook in OS X 10.1.5 (recently released) to render anti-aliased text in a Carbon application (one that has been minimally ported from a Mac OS 9 codebase).
that means it'll work on newer iMacs and eMacs, but not on older machines, he emphasized. AGP 2x and 32MB video RAM are required for this new technology.
So, it's unclear except maybe from the close context whether this is just the Quartz Extreme that won't work or whether it's the whole release. I would assume they aren't quite that silly...:)
Bummer that I have the 32MB but not the AGP 2x on my B&W rev.1. Ah well, I knew it was coming soon since RtCW had its min reqs above my machine--the first time I can remember. Sigh...:/
As a user of both the 'other' platforms that the game is going to be released for, I keep feeling shafted that the tools are not coming out for either and that they don't look to be promised, from the bits I've read.
What really steams me is that when they came out with this announcement (builder toolkit was Win only), they kept saying things like "[sic]... but we're really making a game here. The editor is just a bonus." Then a week later, they went back to their typical PR/press quotes, every one mentioning how unique this game will be *because* of the ability to create adventures.
All I have to say is, if you buy this game, let's put some serious pressure on them to get the whole job done for all three platforms. I'm so tired of false advertising and super hype from these game companies on *any* platform.
An alternative to bungie.net for both Myth and Myth II has existed for a few months now via mariusnet. Marius did a great job reverse engineering the b.net protocol during the days of closed source while b.net began to falter. The site has quick and easy instructions on how to redirect your Myth app to the marius.net server.
The article didn't say, but I think these must be absorption lines where the starlight shines through the atmosphere of the planet, around the edges as it transits. I would assume it is ionic sodium -- you just plain don't find sodium in any other form.
Sure you do. In fact these lines arise from elemental, gaseus sodium, which as others have noted contains some the strongest transitions in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
I think you are right about the transit comment. The sodium absorption lines are so strong it takes very few atoms (relatively speaking) for us to see the lines. These bits of atmosphere are probably the very tenuous outer reaches. Closer to the planet, the entire continuum of starlight begins to be extinguished and you lose your background source.
I don't know if this has been common with other recent e-mail worms, but this one has extracted random e-mails from some spam lists (presumably) and is using them to spoof the From: header line. An older e-mail of mine was used and now I'm getting Undeliverable and Rejected Relays from a bunch of places for mail I never sent.
I only use Linux and Mac, so there's no auto-execing going on to propagate this from my end and our admin has confirmed that no outgoing mail was initiated on our servers here from me last night.
They aren't free, but in my field (Astronomy) every major journal hs been on-line with HTML, PDF, and PS versions available for download since about 3-5 years ago. A large fraction (>80-90%) of old papers have been scanned in and are available electronically as well. Abstracts for just about every paper every published in the field are searchable from a single site by author, title, object, journal, etc, etc. I haven't spent more than an hour in the library (2 floors up!) for research for the last few years. On-line data and catalog access is also essential to our field these days.
I can't deny my twitch skills haven't increased somewhat over the last 10 years, but what you gonna do with all the free time you have now since you don't have to spend ages in a dusty 'ol lib?;)
IMHO, that's exactly what the GUI feels like even on my 2x933 PIII box: Java. Everything inside the page rendering box is sweet and fast but the GUI seems to have the most problems still. There are many graphic anomalies, windows that aren't the right size for their components or that won't close properly, ghosting while dragging, etc. 90% of this is really minor and didn't kept me from switching over from NS 4.x last week when 0.8 came out. As I said the rendering is much, much better than NS 4.x.
What was preventing me before, and what is still very painful, is the lack of romaing access. Oh how I miss it!:(
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, actually I can. It was called gopher
The rate of adoption of OS X in the physical sciences astounds me. Our own department made a transition from Dec to SGI to Linux over the last 10 years. I thought Linux was going to be the end-all-be-all. But now here come the Macs, rolling in and starting to make a dent in the Linux mindshare. And that's even without me evangelizing at all :)
With this pricing, one wonders if iPod mini is going to drive iPod sales just like iTunes. I don't quite get it. If it were non-hard drive, maybe, but the slim factor just isn't enough to justify that small price differential.
:)
GarageBand was the real highlight, IMHO. Very, very slick, although I have little experience with other similar tools that were made after oh, say 1990 or so
I thought the Office 2004 presentation was a joke. How can they possibly think that those kinds of features are worthy of keynote announcement, much less a major upgrade. The interface looks nearly identical, which is really what needed an overhaul. I think MS, even the MBU needs to study Apple a bit more carefully for their future copying...
Only in the short-term. AAC (MPEG-4) requires a license, but isn't Apple-only. But still the point holds. The seamless integration between iTunes and the iPod would hopefully drive the hardware sales via Windows as well.
As for using the Music Store to drop iPod prices, I do think it's a good idea in the long run, even with Apple's hardware focus. The iPods are expensive not only for entry, but also for the "average" biannual upgrades that many do with other computer products and peripherals. As an owner of a perfectly functioning, 1/2-filled, 20GB iPod (previous generation), I have little desire to leap to the new models, especially with the current pricing.
Apple has a unique position compared to any other portable music player that they could leverage. But my gut reaction is that they better move fast and to get the Win version out ASAP and seriously think about price cuts on the hardware if the MS purchasing volume stays up there. It probably won't be a unique position for long...
mh
Or, using their same 32-bit cheater, in parallel.
Actually, I should have said, with the SRD, you don't need the PHB, really. My point about the extra stuff they make (which is what they are charging for) still stands. The information in the SRD is free in every PCGen release...
You must be joking. You can't do squat with the character sheet/info printed by PCGen without the books or the SRD (the d20 ref doc). If you add anything outside the core rules to your character, it's pretty much useless. Descriptions of things are not included in these data files.
What if that redistribution is to someone who already has the CD? These data files are nearly useless without the books. Getting mad about redistribution (those many moons ago) just makes no sense... no one was making a penny of them or cheating them out of a penny.
Current story is that this $1-$5 is per book and perhaps even per year (subscription model). Add it up now... and then multiply by the number of gamers in your gaming group. Cute, eh?
Check the lastest Q&A.
Why do these data files change? Well, historically, developing versions of PCGen occationally break backward compatibility and/or reorganize the data files. There has always been a converter buit into the program, but I think it's range of updating old files is limited.
You're comparing apples and oranges (pun intended?). I love tabs too, but you can do the same thing you're talking about in most browsers without tabs by opening links in new windows. Safari even has 'open windown in background' with cmd-shift-click. Map that to middle button and you'll not be much different than that particular nice feature of tabs.
The reason why this sucked (and still sucks) in Moz (at least on a Mac) is the speed or CPU hit of opening a new window and cycling among them. This is gone in Safari, as far as I'm concerned. Install Pith if you want a little clickable list of your open windows like your tabs. I'm kind of sad they open new windows staggered now in the second beta. When they all stacked on top of one another, cmd-~ to cycle among the windows was exactly like cycling through tabs. Bummer...
Anyway, what I meant to point out is that snap-back is a better back button, not a tab replacement. Tabs (or something like it) still would be a nice option to have in Safari.
Exactly. Especially with OS X and the ease of Rendezvous and AppleShare/IP, what did this really do but put an interface within iTunes? All you have to do is make a user for them and set aside a folder for them to mount. I guess it might be harder with dynamic IP's and hostnames, but did iCommune get around that? I mount the music volume of my desktop machine (in the basement) on my laptop all the time and play through iTunes. Cake!
A few comments on your comments :)
First, remember that in this new public scheme, the authors still (well that's the standard in my field... astro) have to foot the bill for publishing. So, yes, it might be easier to get access to the publications, but there is still that wall to publish.
Second, the point about arXiv.org is that you can put your paper there as well as publish in a 'prestigious' journal. At least, in my field, there hasn't been an argument from publishers (to my knowledge) for anyone to send papers there as well. As well, we have not had any problems having students use published papers in their theses. In fact, it's encouraged by most(?) faculty since it's great to have on your vita when you graduate and it lends more credence to your thesis results (in a case where peer-review is working properly).
In fact, in some cases in astro it's gone to the extreme where pre-reviewed papers appear on arXiv.org (astro-ph in our lingo) and get incorporated into newly written papers before the referenced one has even been accepted/published. This happens more in the 'hot-topic' fields than anywhere. I, personally, am not all that crazy about that aspect of this public archive. In particular, without the ability for public discussion of said papers, there's little recourse for non-experts to wade into these non-reviewed papers and have some hint that they're verifiable (again, assuming peer-reviewing is working for the most part).
mh
Of course the way Apple's operating these days, it would be Aquified, renamed iOffice, bundled (but require 10.2 of course), and be free for a year or so. After that, they would announce that you can now only save your documents to your iDisk, which of course costs $100/yr now.
Sigh...
mh, long-time, but now severely cynical Mac-head...
I can't tell you how many times I've seen users who primarily use other platforms just close the window(s) on a Mac app when they are done. Under OS 9, that would cause you to run out of memory pretty quick with a few apps and a casual user might not know that the other apps are still open if they don't know about how to switch apps without clicking on windows.
I think Apple is being very clever here with OS X. Now with systems that have healthy memory (most that run OS X) and a 'proper' VM system, such users don't bog down their experience at all as unused apps will just get swapped out if needed. In fact, many 'power' OS X tips suggest working exactly this way. A click on the task bar, the same action as the launch, brings back the app in a flash. A casual or new user used to working another way will probably have a much better experience with this setup. It even adds the perception of a faster overall system response.
The only potential confusion in this case is the lack of a new window popping up. However, it's minor compared to getting an annoying dialog that you're out of memory and having to find out how to solve that problem. And such behavior could in theory be built into apps as a default option (pop new window if no windows when brought to front).
mh
Sure it does. On somebody's box somewhere... You just can't go to the store and pick it up yet. Oh wait, that's the same for Windows too. :P
How about waiting until the game actually shows up on the shelves before the crass comments, eh? And I can't wait to see how it shipped with the beta testers barely getting a chance to fiddle with it. Oh wait, that's normal today... *paying* to be a beta tester... sigh...
I wouldn't be surprised if the first version that everyone is happy with doesn't show up until the Mac version ships in a few months anyway.
I think this was only a small change to the code to take advantage of a 10.1.5 feature that allows any Carbon app to request Quartz rendered, anti-aliased text. I don't think there was a radical shift in how the Moz UI is drawn. So, in this case, the Chimera UI will still win out since it's using native Aqua components. As for anti-aliased text, I think it's been in Chimera for a while.
Quartz is the new graphics engine API in Mac OS X. A small change in the Moz code was made to take advantange of a new hook in OS X 10.1.5 (recently released) to render anti-aliased text in a Carbon application (one that has been minimally ported from a Mac OS 9 codebase).
So, it's unclear except maybe from the close context whether this is just the Quartz Extreme that won't work or whether it's the whole release. I would assume they aren't quite that silly...
Bummer that I have the 32MB but not the AGP 2x on my B&W rev.1. Ah well, I knew it was coming soon since RtCW had its min reqs above my machine--the first time I can remember. Sigh...
As a user of both the 'other' platforms that the game is going to be released for, I keep feeling shafted that the tools are not coming out for either and that they don't look to be promised, from the bits I've read.
What really steams me is that when they came out with this announcement (builder toolkit was Win only), they kept saying things like "[sic]... but we're really making a game here. The editor is just a bonus." Then a week later, they went back to their typical PR/press quotes, every one mentioning how unique this game will be *because* of the ability to create adventures.
All I have to say is, if you buy this game, let's put some serious pressure on them to get the whole job done for all three platforms. I'm so tired of false advertising and super hype from these game companies on *any* platform.
mh
An alternative to bungie.net for both Myth and Myth II has existed for a few months now via mariusnet. Marius did a great job reverse engineering the b.net protocol during the days of closed source while b.net began to falter. The site has quick and easy instructions on how to redirect your Myth app to the marius.net server.
mh
I think you are right about the transit comment. The sodium absorption lines are so strong it takes very few atoms (relatively speaking) for us to see the lines. These bits of atmosphere are probably the very tenuous outer reaches. Closer to the planet, the entire continuum of starlight begins to be extinguished and you lose your background source.
I don't know if this has been common with other recent e-mail worms, but this one has extracted random e-mails from some spam lists (presumably) and is using them to spoof the From: header line. An older e-mail of mine was used and now I'm getting Undeliverable and Rejected Relays from a bunch of places for mail I never sent.
I only use Linux and Mac, so there's no auto-execing going on to propagate this from my end and our admin has confirmed that no outgoing mail was initiated on our servers here from me last night.
Truely annoying...
mh
They aren't free, but in my field (Astronomy) every major journal hs been on-line with HTML, PDF, and PS versions available for download since about 3-5 years ago. A large fraction (>80-90%) of old papers have been scanned in and are available electronically as well. Abstracts for just about every paper every published in the field are searchable from a single site by author, title, object, journal, etc, etc. I haven't spent more than an hour in the library (2 floors up!) for research for the last few years. On-line data and catalog access is also essential to our field these days.
I can't deny my twitch skills haven't increased somewhat over the last 10 years, but what you gonna do with all the free time you have now since you don't have to spend ages in a dusty 'ol lib? ;)
mh
What was preventing me before, and what is still very painful, is the lack of romaing access. Oh how I miss it! :(
mh