> What makes you say that? The people who understand software and software patents well enough to understand what's going on already dislike Microsoft. Those who don't > aren't going to change their mind over this.
Because people who aren't patent/tech nerds but who have tomtoms are going to hear about this and go `what the fuck?`...
Nah. Think about what's going to happen with this thing.
Currently Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom. Most TomTom users probably don't know about it, or don't care. It's TomTom's problem.
If Microsoft loses, all is well, TomTom users won't care.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom has to pay money to license the patent - TomTom will continue doing business, all will be well, TomTom users won't care.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom changes their platform as a result, then TomTom users might care if it starts to impact them - but they might not make the connection or blame Microsoft.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom as a company dies as a result, then TomTom users will probably care. "Where am I gonna get map updates or new, funny voices?" But how likely is this scenario? Microsoft doesn't want TomTom out of business, they just want money... and they want to assert their patents over pieces of Linux code. They can't continue to extract money if TomTom is out of business. And of course, TomTom themselves don't want to lose their lucrative business so they'll be trying to find a way to make this all work...
So I really don't see why TomTom users will get all outraged over this.
Actually, I guess it's worth adding (from TFA) that it's not HMX making this. I don't know to what extent they're involved with the production of Rock Band: Unplugged... The similarities to FreQ & Amp are still interesting, though...
If you want LBP on the PSP, just play Megaman Powered Up which is like LittleBigPlanet only fun.
How is it like LittleBigPlanet? Does it have a physics engine? A system for creating working mechanical objects? Those would be the defining characteristics of LBP, as far as I'm concerned...
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. "Play song notes with the controller buttons. Switch tracks any time you like - but you lose your multiplier if it's at the wrong time. Sounds like Amplitude."
What's interesting about this iteration, to me at least, is that they're going with four inputs instead of three - and by having the inputs on the left and right thumb by default (as opposed to FreQ and Amp's use of the right-thumb buttons as the "primary" controls) they've got easy-to-explain controls which allow for fast sequences, and multiple presses at once (as many as two, anyway). FreQ and Amp controlled nicely with the shoulder buttons - but HMX found that wasn't really as intuitive for players as using face controls... Seems like they came up with a good solution to that one.
The only advantage of Silverlight seems to be the unified language for both backend and content, but that doesn't seem compelling to me.
I'm not exactly sold on Silverlight either, but a unified language environment for backend and content does seem compelling to me...
Web development seems generally a mess - it's like you use "whatever" on the back end, and then "whatever - as long as it's Javascript" on the front end. So assuming the back end isn't Javascript, there's presumably a level of code duplication on the two ends of this thing, for pieces of functionality that are basically the same but have to be implemented for the two different coding environments.
I also like the idea of using a VM for the client-side scripting, rather than just a scripting language like Javascript. If the client-side code is VM bytecode, then it's more compact going out over the network (less wasted bandwidth), and I can conveniently target that platform from almost any language I like. (Python, Ruby, Haskell, C#... I've got options other than "Javascript" which makes me happy.)
The problem with saying "this stuff should run on a VM", of course, is that somebody needs to make the decision about which VM and somehow make it stick. Someone powerful has to stand behind it, and get people to use it. I have to admit that the fact that Microsoft is the one behind.NET is one of the reasons I still haven't embraced it - but from a practical perspective it would be difficult for anyone else to get such a thing standardized...
I would trust a bible bashing, gun toting, right wing, 5000 year old Earth creationist's views on evolution more than I would ever trust FOX.
If the creationist is 5000 years old, I'd probably value his opinion, too. He'd have lots of good wisdom.
Nah, nah, I talked to one of these guys once, it didn't go real well.
Me: So I hear you were one of the first generations descended from the children of Adam. Were you around before they were cast out? 5000 year old creationist: Uh-huh Me: Really? What was that like? 5000 year old creationist: Nope Me:...Huh... I don't really understand what you're saying here... could you elaborate? 5000 year old creationist:...
Yeah. I've done a few of the Palm PDAs over the years, starting with the Palm Pilot Pro. Back then, those things were cutting edge, lots of software, lots of support. You looked at the device and you knew it had a future.
It just seems like, since then, the company has had high goals, but has been on a behind-the-curve downhill slide ever since.
I now look back with regret on my decision a little over a year ago to buy a Palm T|X. Little third party development these days. Almost no vendor support on the built-in software. And yet, somehow, these are still selling today for $250-$300?
Sadly, it only performs the following functions for me to today:
1. MP3 player 2. Notepad 3. Emergency wifi web browser
Palm only has one shot left, IMHO. They need to put something out there, and it needs to be WOW.
If this isn't a Killer OS, then it'll be the OS that killed the company.
Meh, they've been killing the company since 1999 or so... There have been a few times when they were well-positioned and they more or less blew it...
They had dominated the PDA market for a while, but that kind of went away... And then they had the Treo, which for a year or two was the smartphone of choice - the best combination of size and functionality - and Blazer was pretty good for its day... but then pretty quickly other manufacturers proved they could match it feature-for-feature...
IMO a key mistake was not getting some major renovation done on PalmOS when they transitioned over to the ARM platform. Being perpetually saddled with M68K emulation and 1990s-era assumptions about their hardware crippled the platform. They had to make a real transition sometime, it seems like it would have been better to make the transition while their platform was still strong...
Bad enough that they renamed standard library functions. They also changed the order of arguments to those functions.
Windows PocketPC, meanwhile, was programmable using the same languages and toolchain as regular Windows.
The original devices had between 128KiB and 512KiB of RAM. Toward the late 90s they had up to 8MiB RAM - and in either case this represented the total of all storage available on the system. I really think it was quite reasonable to invent a new API for running on that environment - file I/O doesn't make any sense in that environment, for instance, since everything is -in- RAM... though I would agree, in retrospect, there was absolutely no reason to invent a new API for filesystem access (VFS) when PalmOS devices started including flash card slots...
Windows PocketPC, meanwhile, was lucky to get half the battery life in a device twice the size of a Palm III. It was not well suited to the hardware of the mid-to-late 90s, but these days, hardware has more than caught up...
Palm OS was nicely tailored to the original series of devices - but it didn't adapt at all well to later models as they became more powerful. Particularly the ARM transition was outright botched, and never corrected. I liked PalmOS back in the day but as far as I'm concerned, that's over.
So if you've got filenames with spaces in them, you're in trouble.
Set the built-in IFS variable to be a newline.
xargs doesn't use $IFS. And a shell "foreach", in bash, anyway, would wait for the whole result of "find" to be available before starting the loop - buffering the whole result instead of stream-processing it.
You can get far by sticking to the lowest-common-denominator set of features... but I think the shell is seriously limited in terms of providing a stable set of features across platforms - the set of commands can vary wildly across distributions or OSes, and the shell itself doesn't provide any means to deal with that problem. I'd really like to find a good solution to that...
Python. Shell was never meant to be portable.
Right. But then it's not exactly shell programming any more, is it? Rather than solving the problem, we've avoided it. (Which is fine when all you want is to write a portable script - but not so great when what you want is to improve the shell.)
To put it another way, why shouldn't we expect the same level of portability (and functionality!) from the shell as we see from a language like python? Why shouldn't the shell provide facilities that are every bit as good as those you'd find in a scripting language like Python, Perl, or Ruby, with their large collections of well-implemented (and more-or-less stable between revisions) libraries?
A particular shell program (or Python library) is either present, or not... A particular version of a particular program or library is either present, or not. Why shouldn't the shell have the same ability to handle those cases intelligently that Python would?
Could someone who used BeOS, knows it and loves it, please explain to me what's so great about it?
I mean, I have some familiarity with its reputation and I guess its feature set - better support for realtime applications, database-filesystem of some kind, etc... But I don't personally have a good feel for how all that plays out.
Basically I am lazy: I would like to learn all I can about what worked well (and what didn't) in this OS design without having to take the time to run it myself.:D
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> What makes you say that? The people who understand software and software patents well enough to understand what's going on already dislike Microsoft. Those who don't
> aren't going to change their mind over this.
Because people who aren't patent/tech nerds but who have tomtoms are going to hear about this and go `what the fuck?`...
Nah. Think about what's going to happen with this thing.
Currently Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom. Most TomTom users probably don't know about it, or don't care. It's TomTom's problem.
If Microsoft loses, all is well, TomTom users won't care.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom has to pay money to license the patent - TomTom will continue doing business, all will be well, TomTom users won't care.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom changes their platform as a result, then TomTom users might care if it starts to impact them - but they might not make the connection or blame Microsoft.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom as a company dies as a result, then TomTom users will probably care. "Where am I gonna get map updates or new, funny voices?" But how likely is this scenario? Microsoft doesn't want TomTom out of business, they just want money... and they want to assert their patents over pieces of Linux code. They can't continue to extract money if TomTom is out of business. And of course, TomTom themselves don't want to lose their lucrative business so they'll be trying to find a way to make this all work...
So I really don't see why TomTom users will get all outraged over this.
Actually, I guess it's worth adding (from TFA) that it's not HMX making this. I don't know to what extent they're involved with the production of Rock Band: Unplugged... The similarities to FreQ & Amp are still interesting, though...
If you want LBP on the PSP, just play Megaman Powered Up which is like LittleBigPlanet only fun.
How is it like LittleBigPlanet? Does it have a physics engine? A system for creating working mechanical objects? Those would be the defining characteristics of LBP, as far as I'm concerned...
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. "Play song notes with the controller buttons. Switch tracks any time you like - but you lose your multiplier if it's at the wrong time. Sounds like Amplitude."
What's interesting about this iteration, to me at least, is that they're going with four inputs instead of three - and by having the inputs on the left and right thumb by default (as opposed to FreQ and Amp's use of the right-thumb buttons as the "primary" controls) they've got easy-to-explain controls which allow for fast sequences, and multiple presses at once (as many as two, anyway). FreQ and Amp controlled nicely with the shoulder buttons - but HMX found that wasn't really as intuitive for players as using face controls... Seems like they came up with a good solution to that one.
You may wish to try http://www.eeebuntu.org/ which is NOT the same as Ubuntu-eee.
It has worked decently on my 1000HD.
IMarv
Ah... Not to be confused with The People's Front of Judea!
The 904 is the same size as the 1000 series, but with a 9" screen. Probably that's the one you're thinking of.
You know, I think Cyrus Redblock would be amazingly well suited to this story, if we could work him into it...
Isn't that the plot of the new re-imagined Charlie Chan movie?
Christ...I meant to say, fucking idiots. Being in bed with RIAA? What sound card? what drivers? what the fuck?
The sound card was a Gravis Ultrasound, with a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 as a second card to provide better Sound Blaster compatibility!
The only advantage of Silverlight seems to be the unified language for both backend and content, but that doesn't seem compelling to me.
I'm not exactly sold on Silverlight either, but a unified language environment for backend and content does seem compelling to me...
Web development seems generally a mess - it's like you use "whatever" on the back end, and then "whatever - as long as it's Javascript" on the front end. So assuming the back end isn't Javascript, there's presumably a level of code duplication on the two ends of this thing, for pieces of functionality that are basically the same but have to be implemented for the two different coding environments.
I also like the idea of using a VM for the client-side scripting, rather than just a scripting language like Javascript. If the client-side code is VM bytecode, then it's more compact going out over the network (less wasted bandwidth), and I can conveniently target that platform from almost any language I like. (Python, Ruby, Haskell, C#... I've got options other than "Javascript" which makes me happy.)
The problem with saying "this stuff should run on a VM", of course, is that somebody needs to make the decision about which VM and somehow make it stick. Someone powerful has to stand behind it, and get people to use it. I have to admit that the fact that Microsoft is the one behind .NET is one of the reasons I still haven't embraced it - but from a practical perspective it would be difficult for anyone else to get such a thing standardized...
was friggin great.
hey remember destro? why was his head silver?
He knows all the bitches (i.e., the baroness) go crazy-wet over the chrome look.
It's not just his head that's silver...
Cats have been used widely to get rid of rats and mice since the beginning of time. perhaps you should get some of those ?
Not all cats are good mousers, however. It really helps to have one who was properly taught by their mama-cat how to do it.
Not very long ago, Cuba targeted the United States with armed nuclear missiles.
Erm, yeaaaaahhhh....
No, really! Watch Red Zone Cuba sometime. It'll explain everything.
Counter-Revolution OS...
Shit, you're worried? A friend of mine has been saying Linux is Communist for aeons.
Yeah, probably one of your Monican friends gadding about in skimpy leather outfits...
If the creationist is 5000 years old, I'd probably value his opinion, too. He'd have lots of good wisdom.
Nah, nah, I talked to one of these guys once, it didn't go real well.
Me: So I hear you were one of the first generations descended from the children of Adam. Were you around before they were cast out? ...Huh... I don't really understand what you're saying here... could you elaborate? ...
5000 year old creationist: Uh-huh
Me: Really? What was that like?
5000 year old creationist: Nope
Me:
5000 year old creationist:
Wisdom doesn't always last, I guess.
Some kind of ultra-mobile PC? Or an iPod Touch... Best suggestions I can offer.
Yeah. I've done a few of the Palm PDAs over the years, starting with the Palm Pilot Pro. Back then, those things were cutting edge, lots of software, lots of support. You looked at the device and you knew it had a future.
It just seems like, since then, the company has had high goals, but has been on a behind-the-curve downhill slide ever since.
I now look back with regret on my decision a little over a year ago to buy a Palm T|X. Little third party development these days. Almost no vendor support on the built-in software. And yet, somehow, these are still selling today for $250-$300?
Sadly, it only performs the following functions for me to today:
1. MP3 player
2. Notepad
3. Emergency wifi web browser
Palm only has one shot left, IMHO. They need to put something out there, and it needs to be WOW.
If this isn't a Killer OS, then it'll be the OS that killed the company.
Meh, they've been killing the company since 1999 or so... There have been a few times when they were well-positioned and they more or less blew it...
They had dominated the PDA market for a while, but that kind of went away... And then they had the Treo, which for a year or two was the smartphone of choice - the best combination of size and functionality - and Blazer was pretty good for its day... but then pretty quickly other manufacturers proved they could match it feature-for-feature...
IMO a key mistake was not getting some major renovation done on PalmOS when they transitioned over to the ARM platform. Being perpetually saddled with M68K emulation and 1990s-era assumptions about their hardware crippled the platform. They had to make a real transition sometime, it seems like it would have been better to make the transition while their platform was still strong...
I was one of those people saying it wouldn't be enough. And I still do think it's not enough for some things.
Making a 3D game and using hardware openGL acceleration is tough to do in with HTML5 :)
Don't be ridiculous! You don't use HTML for that... That's what Javascript is there for!
And where is that UID threshold?
4 digits? 5?
5. Anybody with 6 digits or more in their UID is a total lame-ass poseur who came late to the party wearing last year's fashions.
Worst. API. Ever. EVAR!
Bad enough that they renamed standard library functions. They also changed the order of arguments to those functions.
Windows PocketPC, meanwhile, was programmable using the same languages and toolchain as regular Windows.
The original devices had between 128KiB and 512KiB of RAM. Toward the late 90s they had up to 8MiB RAM - and in either case this represented the total of all storage available on the system. I really think it was quite reasonable to invent a new API for running on that environment - file I/O doesn't make any sense in that environment, for instance, since everything is -in- RAM... though I would agree, in retrospect, there was absolutely no reason to invent a new API for filesystem access (VFS) when PalmOS devices started including flash card slots...
Windows PocketPC, meanwhile, was lucky to get half the battery life in a device twice the size of a Palm III. It was not well suited to the hardware of the mid-to-late 90s, but these days, hardware has more than caught up...
Palm OS was nicely tailored to the original series of devices - but it didn't adapt at all well to later models as they became more powerful. Particularly the ARM transition was outright botched, and never corrected. I liked PalmOS back in the day but as far as I'm concerned, that's over.
So if you've got filenames with spaces in them, you're in trouble.
Set the built-in IFS variable to be a newline.
xargs doesn't use $IFS. And a shell "foreach", in bash, anyway, would wait for the whole result of "find" to be available before starting the loop - buffering the whole result instead of stream-processing it.
You can get far by sticking to the lowest-common-denominator set of features... but I think the shell is seriously limited in terms of providing a stable set of features across platforms - the set of commands can vary wildly across distributions or OSes, and the shell itself doesn't provide any means to deal with that problem. I'd really like to find a good solution to that...
Python. Shell was never meant to be portable.
Right. But then it's not exactly shell programming any more, is it? Rather than solving the problem, we've avoided it. (Which is fine when all you want is to write a portable script - but not so great when what you want is to improve the shell.)
To put it another way, why shouldn't we expect the same level of portability (and functionality!) from the shell as we see from a language like python? Why shouldn't the shell provide facilities that are every bit as good as those you'd find in a scripting language like Python, Perl, or Ruby, with their large collections of well-implemented (and more-or-less stable between revisions) libraries?
A particular shell program (or Python library) is either present, or not... A particular version of a particular program or library is either present, or not. Why shouldn't the shell have the same ability to handle those cases intelligently that Python would?
Could someone who used BeOS, knows it and loves it, please explain to me what's so great about it?
I mean, I have some familiarity with its reputation and I guess its feature set - better support for realtime applications, database-filesystem of some kind, etc... But I don't personally have a good feel for how all that plays out.
Basically I am lazy: I would like to learn all I can about what worked well (and what didn't) in this OS design without having to take the time to run it myself. :D
Desktop linux is still far away since [2009..2023] will be the year of desktop linux.
That joke gets funnier every time I see it.
Admittedly, I don't run Linux on the desktop - my mini-tower sits on the floor, all the desktop space is taken up by the monitors.