Sorry to nitpick but Conroy doesn't hold a seat, he's a senator and hence representative of the state as a whole. Thats essentially the problem. If he had a seat there could be a grassroots movement to unseat him, but since he's a senator all he needs is for the party to put him forward and for the majority of punters to vote above the line.
I couldn't agree more, android has been a spectacular rise from the original, clunky and slow G1 to the astounding offerings out today from a variety of manufacturers. The new iPhone is only marginally superior to the Nexus One (and half a dozen similar devices) which has been out for 6 months. HTC and Samsung are set to leapfrog Apple in the coming year by at least a generation of devices, given Apple's slow release cycle, Android has already begun to take large strides ahead of iOS in terms of innovation. Anyone interested in this should watch the Android keynote from this years I/O, really incredible stuff.
I'm not saying iPhone sales will slow, its a simple device that suits the masses, I am however saying they are going from a leader in innovation (for once they really did bring us an innovative platform in iPhone) to a follower, rapidly. Exciting times in the smartphone world if you ask me.
No, we don't. The importers of cheap goods benefit in the short term by being able to undercut domestic manufacturers, causing those domestic manufacturers to either go bankrupt or lower their standards of pay and treatment of workforce to match China. This, in turn, causes said workforce to have lower income, which lowers their standard of living unless they take debt, which of course can't happen endlessly. It also makes them dependent on cheap Chinese imports while eating the initial benefits. The end result is economic ruin, which is what has been happening lately.
Thats a pretty narrow minded view, and not necessarily correct. It is entirely possible to have a high performing economy that is not based on manufacturing and exports, there is an entire industry known as the service industry which does very well without having anything to do with manufacturing. I'm willing to bet you make a lot of money without a job in manufacturing. The problem right now most developed nations face is an ageing population, this dwarfs any losses in manufacturing and exports by orders of magnitude. The figures often quoted are that beginning next year, baby boomers begin to retire and the workforce will lose people at a faster rate than it is gaining them, plus the added costs of pensions and medicare (or whatever they call it in the US). I mean this is not a hard line, its already happening and thats what is underscoring general downward economic trends (recent economic collapse notwithstanding). I mean its easy to connect the dots and figure out this is why your government isn't interested in doing anything about immigration, and honestly thats a smart move.
Protecting local manufacturing is a proven losing strategy, besides, wealthy OECD citizens should be looking at highly educated service jobs anyway, thats where the money is at. What you have going is really a good thing: Companies like Apple and Intel designing tech and having it manufactured offshore makes money for the USA. Google is good for the USA, etc. What we, as OECD citizens, need is high levels of education, and a high output of quality IP. As China grows in wealth manufacturing will move elsewhere, improving the lot of new places. Hopefully by the time we've run out of cheap labour its all going to be robots or something equally as awesome. When this day comes you will want to be the smartest nation with the most and best engineers, not the one with the biggest manufacturing base.
In regards to censorship, the laws have always been in place, Australia has always had draconian censorship laws. Somewhere along the line they decided they could extend this to the internet. Of course nobody as yet has been able to demonstrate this as plausible and the last I've heard the tests have resulted in the decision to limit the black list to something like 500 websites!
We are in the end of that era right now, not that the era has ended.
I disagree, strongly. We are at the end of an era where Apple primarily focus on laptops and desktops, thats all. This doesn't even make sense anymore, comparing Apple and MS market cap, Apple are now a successful entertainment company, MS are still just a software company with a few entertainment devices, only one of which is popular. MS still own the business world, and will continue to do so.
I predict that we won't be seeing any Apple designed OS breaking 20% market share in the near future, and I predict that Apple know this and don't care. The thing is they need to be a premium brand, and without the mystique of OSX and their amazing computers, they don't have this. Their consumer electronics are nicely designed, but everybody owns one! Its not a boutique brand anymore, the iPod is just todays walkman, the iPhone is just todays nokia. They need something to keep up the appearance that they actually are a boutique brand, so that nobody realises that everyone around them has the same damn phone and media player. If Apple had a significant market share of the grey suits and cubicles, they lose this magical branding. They just become Microsoft or IBM.
We are not at the end of the PC era, and we are not about to see the end of Microsoft. We are at the end of any era where Apple gave a shit about desktops and laptops though. Of course they will sell them, and they will continue to be nice machines, but I don't think they will ever be at center stage again for Apple. Microsoft will continue on its slow decline, but they aren't going anywhere fast.
Not the same, but very similar. As far as I'm aware Matlab uses a Fortran backend, while Numpy uses C. Now thats kind of picking at straws, but my point is honestly I don't think Matlab is faster than Python.
Either way I guess it depends on your toolbox in Matlab, or library in Python. Given both I'd choose Python every day of the week.
Speed: Core Matlab operations are highly optimized in C; properly vectorized Matlab code will run much faster than what most programmers could write in C themselves.
I'm not disagreeing with you per se, as I'm not extremely experienced in Matlab, but my empirical observations (working on my own code here) have shown that this isnt really true. I have recently written identical pieces of code in Matlab and Python/Numpy, with the same level of vectorisation I spose, and found Numpy to be significantly faster at times, not always, but often enough for me to think this stuff about Matlab being fast is just bunk.
I know how much faster my Python code would be if I used weave or just straight C, so if the raw Python can compete with Matlab, then how on earth can Matlab compete with C? Again, YMMV, but I really have my doubts about the 'speed' of Matlab.
Why? Simulink sucks, what on earth would prevent you from doing that stuff in raw Python, or a good micro language? Do you think control systems really need a $10k package to operate? Simulink is great for prototyping, and for engineers who can't program, thats about it I reckon.
In my experience, while Matlab is a great way to get started, the code you produce in Matlab tends to be difficult to port across nicely, even to Python, because Matlab just does stuff in such a unique and honestly, bizarre way. I agree, Matlab doesn't really do anything well in my opinion, hell I am a TA for first year Matlab classes at my uni and I hate every minute of it.
Personally, I rate the absolute number 1 worst UI design flaw in the history of computing as abstracting application menus outside of the application window. Seriously, what the fuck is that about? It make no fucking sense at all?!?
Why don't you just put things side by side? I really like my 16:9 widescreen for this reason, it has more vertical real estate than my old 4:3 19" monitor, plus about double the horizontal real estate. And it doubles as an excellent TV, which is really the point, right?
Hangon, doesn't the Queen install Lords? So the entire upper house of parliment is one great big representative of the crown? I'd say thats a fairly large amount of active political power!
I just want to jump in here and point out that it is complete bullshit that you have to use the mouse more with the ribbon. In fact, not only do the alt+whatever shortcuts still exist, they are (as far as I'm aware) still mapped to the same functions. Hit alt, and every icon on the ribbon will display a letter.
Nested drop down menus, are quite simply a profoundly stupid way of organizing vast amounts of user options, the ribbon is a massive step forward in usability... if you bother to learn a new way of doing something.
Not to mention the fact that the super best friends episode is aired as a rerun frequently! The mental gymnastics required to reconcile that is making my head spin.
Give me $10,000 and I'll build you a studio that will return sound quality so close to a multi million dollar equivalent that 99% of people would not know the difference. Recording is very cheap these days, and does not justify the exorbitant rates we are charged for digital media.
The value is in the experience. And no, thank you I do not think all music should involve 'dancing around', but yeah thanks for the high and mighty "I am a more sophisticated listener and therefore superior to you" attitude. Why do people still go to classical concerts? The experience, the atmosphere, the social aspect. It is fun, and entertaining, infinitely more entertaining than playing a recording, even if it sounds the same (in reality, no audiophile can reproduce the acoustic qualities of a good concert hall).
Thanks for ignoring my real point and jumping on one single example I provided though.
I am not trying to justify stealing peoples work, I am simply stating two facts. One: historically music was about performance, it existed BEFORE recording was even a concept, Two: Recording was once value-adding, in that recording and storage and distribution were costly things which added value to your music. Technology has rendered this invalid, artists should move with technology to stay relevant.
The printing press obsoleted the town crier. Is it valid in this day and age to complain that the town crier no longer has a job? Is his role fulfilled none the less? Digital media and recording is fast obsoleting the record labels. A new business model is required. An artist should not be protected from technological advancement simply because. By that logic we might as well ban graphics tablets because digital art is cutting into the market share of real paintings. Or, by some perverse manner as the GP is arguing, we should ban PAINTERS to save the digital artists... Thats essentially what his argument is leading to.
The market is saying something clear: Recorded music has little to no value anymore, live concerts however fetch ever higher prices. Its pretty clear what the message is here from the demand side.
Clarification: I am a musician, so go fuck yourselves.
Steam is the perfect compromise if you ask me, mostly because Valve are willing to adopt a reasonable pricing model. Actually all my steam games are either Valve or Indie, and I *ahem* "own" one or two steam titles which are certainly not on steam, so you can't really say it is succeeding at stopping anything.
Honestly, go listen to Gabe Newell's opinions on this: He literally said in a recent interview that he believes piracy is not a problem of people being unwilling to purchase games, it is a problem of them not accepting the price point. I can say that for me, this is EXACTLY the case. I bought Orange Box for $30. For that I got 5 games, one of which (TF2) has had ongoing support, new content and major changes constantly, for free, since its inception. THAT is how games should be sold. They are just not worth the $100 they charge (Australian here), no way in hell are they worth that much.
Bollocks you can't! A professional musician that does this will just hire a band, its extremely common. Lenny Kravitz, Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, all do this, and so on and so forth.
The parent is right, if they can't play it live, or even press play on a laptop and dance around a bit, then they are not performers. If you are not providing a service, you are dependent on a model which no longer makes sense. Turn of last century, recording was non-existent, and music was a service not a product. Recording was costly, hence a product was sold, and actual physical product. Now we're in a new setting, but basically music as a product just doesn't work anymore.
But the main point is that Apple does not want to fill their platform up with mediocre apps written to support the lowest common denominator feature set and UI conventions.
I'm pretty sure it would be very easy to write some damn mediocre apps that don't adhere to Apples idea of UI conventions in C, C++ or Obj-C. The language has nothing to do with that at all, thats supposedly what the app store vetting process is about. Oh but wait, the app store is full of mediocre apps that don't adhere to the UI stuff already.... and they are supposedly vetted!
Honestly dude, the programming language you use has very little bearing on the quality of your app!
I think its likely that artists will slowly gravitate to directly managing their recording and distribution, especially when the internet becomes the dominant medium for distribution. Big labels grew up in a time when recording was expensive and complicated, media required expensive equipment to produce (records/cds etc), distribution was a logistical nightmare, and promotion was similarly a logistical nightmare. It made sense under all of these conditions to use a big company to help you. Nowadays for a few tens of thousands of dollars you can have a professional grade studio in your home, media is digital and typically just file formats, distribution and promotion happen on the internet. None of this is highly technical, expensive or anything.
I think we've already witnessed the start of this trend, and my evidence for that is the fact that everyone seems to agree there is very little good music on big labels anymore. Some people moan and say this means there is no good music, but honestly that is far from the truth, we are spoiled rotten for the amount of amazing music that is around these days, if you bother to get off your ass and look for it. Music festivals with spectacular artists are more common now than they ever have been. I honestly believe we are seeing the beginning of a trend towards artists taking care of a lot of the stuff the big labels used to be needed for, all on their own. And I believe this trend will continue.
I say rejoice in the death throes of the big labels, and support the rise of small labels who embrace the new technology. Oh and in regards to the draconian stuff proposed in TFA: They can't claim that non-drm mp3's are not yours, since you could have legally backed them up from cds you legitimately owned, but perhaps lost or it got badly damaged. This has always been the case and won't change anytime soon.
Wow man, seriously? You should get out and find something that helps to change that state of mind, the world is equally as beautiful and amazing as it is fucked, you can justify choosing to focus on one over the other, its ok to spend more energy focusing on positive things.
Hint: Style comes from taste, and people's tastes differ.
But thats exactly what I mean, that means that criticizing Python for its style is a silly argument, its not really pointing out an inherent flaw in the language its just proclaiming loudly that it doesn't suit your taste.
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Sorry to nitpick but Conroy doesn't hold a seat, he's a senator and hence representative of the state as a whole. Thats essentially the problem. If he had a seat there could be a grassroots movement to unseat him, but since he's a senator all he needs is for the party to put him forward and for the majority of punters to vote above the line.
I couldn't agree more, android has been a spectacular rise from the original, clunky and slow G1 to the astounding offerings out today from a variety of manufacturers. The new iPhone is only marginally superior to the Nexus One (and half a dozen similar devices) which has been out for 6 months. HTC and Samsung are set to leapfrog Apple in the coming year by at least a generation of devices, given Apple's slow release cycle, Android has already begun to take large strides ahead of iOS in terms of innovation. Anyone interested in this should watch the Android keynote from this years I/O, really incredible stuff.
I'm not saying iPhone sales will slow, its a simple device that suits the masses, I am however saying they are going from a leader in innovation (for once they really did bring us an innovative platform in iPhone) to a follower, rapidly. Exciting times in the smartphone world if you ask me.
Thats a pretty narrow minded view, and not necessarily correct. It is entirely possible to have a high performing economy that is not based on manufacturing and exports, there is an entire industry known as the service industry which does very well without having anything to do with manufacturing. I'm willing to bet you make a lot of money without a job in manufacturing. The problem right now most developed nations face is an ageing population, this dwarfs any losses in manufacturing and exports by orders of magnitude. The figures often quoted are that beginning next year, baby boomers begin to retire and the workforce will lose people at a faster rate than it is gaining them, plus the added costs of pensions and medicare (or whatever they call it in the US). I mean this is not a hard line, its already happening and thats what is underscoring general downward economic trends (recent economic collapse notwithstanding). I mean its easy to connect the dots and figure out this is why your government isn't interested in doing anything about immigration, and honestly thats a smart move.
Protecting local manufacturing is a proven losing strategy, besides, wealthy OECD citizens should be looking at highly educated service jobs anyway, thats where the money is at. What you have going is really a good thing: Companies like Apple and Intel designing tech and having it manufactured offshore makes money for the USA. Google is good for the USA, etc. What we, as OECD citizens, need is high levels of education, and a high output of quality IP. As China grows in wealth manufacturing will move elsewhere, improving the lot of new places. Hopefully by the time we've run out of cheap labour its all going to be robots or something equally as awesome. When this day comes you will want to be the smartest nation with the most and best engineers, not the one with the biggest manufacturing base.
In regards to censorship, the laws have always been in place, Australia has always had draconian censorship laws. Somewhere along the line they decided they could extend this to the internet. Of course nobody as yet has been able to demonstrate this as plausible and the last I've heard the tests have resulted in the decision to limit the black list to something like 500 websites!
I disagree, strongly. We are at the end of an era where Apple primarily focus on laptops and desktops, thats all. This doesn't even make sense anymore, comparing Apple and MS market cap, Apple are now a successful entertainment company, MS are still just a software company with a few entertainment devices, only one of which is popular. MS still own the business world, and will continue to do so.
I predict that we won't be seeing any Apple designed OS breaking 20% market share in the near future, and I predict that Apple know this and don't care. The thing is they need to be a premium brand, and without the mystique of OSX and their amazing computers, they don't have this. Their consumer electronics are nicely designed, but everybody owns one! Its not a boutique brand anymore, the iPod is just todays walkman, the iPhone is just todays nokia. They need something to keep up the appearance that they actually are a boutique brand, so that nobody realises that everyone around them has the same damn phone and media player. If Apple had a significant market share of the grey suits and cubicles, they lose this magical branding. They just become Microsoft or IBM.
We are not at the end of the PC era, and we are not about to see the end of Microsoft. We are at the end of any era where Apple gave a shit about desktops and laptops though. Of course they will sell them, and they will continue to be nice machines, but I don't think they will ever be at center stage again for Apple. Microsoft will continue on its slow decline, but they aren't going anywhere fast.
Not the same, but very similar. As far as I'm aware Matlab uses a Fortran backend, while Numpy uses C. Now thats kind of picking at straws, but my point is honestly I don't think Matlab is faster than Python.
Either way I guess it depends on your toolbox in Matlab, or library in Python. Given both I'd choose Python every day of the week.
I'm not disagreeing with you per se, as I'm not extremely experienced in Matlab, but my empirical observations (working on my own code here) have shown that this isnt really true. I have recently written identical pieces of code in Matlab and Python/Numpy, with the same level of vectorisation I spose, and found Numpy to be significantly faster at times, not always, but often enough for me to think this stuff about Matlab being fast is just bunk.
I know how much faster my Python code would be if I used weave or just straight C, so if the raw Python can compete with Matlab, then how on earth can Matlab compete with C? Again, YMMV, but I really have my doubts about the 'speed' of Matlab.
Why? Simulink sucks, what on earth would prevent you from doing that stuff in raw Python, or a good micro language? Do you think control systems really need a $10k package to operate? Simulink is great for prototyping, and for engineers who can't program, thats about it I reckon.
In my experience, while Matlab is a great way to get started, the code you produce in Matlab tends to be difficult to port across nicely, even to Python, because Matlab just does stuff in such a unique and honestly, bizarre way. I agree, Matlab doesn't really do anything well in my opinion, hell I am a TA for first year Matlab classes at my uni and I hate every minute of it.
Personally, I rate the absolute number 1 worst UI design flaw in the history of computing as abstracting application menus outside of the application window. Seriously, what the fuck is that about? It make no fucking sense at all?!?
Why don't you just put things side by side? I really like my 16:9 widescreen for this reason, it has more vertical real estate than my old 4:3 19" monitor, plus about double the horizontal real estate. And it doubles as an excellent TV, which is really the point, right?
Hangon, doesn't the Queen install Lords? So the entire upper house of parliment is one great big representative of the crown? I'd say thats a fairly large amount of active political power!
I just want to jump in here and point out that it is complete bullshit that you have to use the mouse more with the ribbon. In fact, not only do the alt+whatever shortcuts still exist, they are (as far as I'm aware) still mapped to the same functions. Hit alt, and every icon on the ribbon will display a letter.
Nested drop down menus, are quite simply a profoundly stupid way of organizing vast amounts of user options, the ribbon is a massive step forward in usability... if you bother to learn a new way of doing something.
Actually the way I read it he was deliberately pointing out that none of us ride on a high horse, and attempting to pull the GP back down to earth...
Not to mention the fact that the super best friends episode is aired as a rerun frequently! The mental gymnastics required to reconcile that is making my head spin.
Give me $10,000 and I'll build you a studio that will return sound quality so close to a multi million dollar equivalent that 99% of people would not know the difference. Recording is very cheap these days, and does not justify the exorbitant rates we are charged for digital media.
The value is in the experience. And no, thank you I do not think all music should involve 'dancing around', but yeah thanks for the high and mighty "I am a more sophisticated listener and therefore superior to you" attitude. Why do people still go to classical concerts? The experience, the atmosphere, the social aspect. It is fun, and entertaining, infinitely more entertaining than playing a recording, even if it sounds the same (in reality, no audiophile can reproduce the acoustic qualities of a good concert hall).
Thanks for ignoring my real point and jumping on one single example I provided though.
Excuse me??!?!!?
I am not trying to justify stealing peoples work, I am simply stating two facts. One: historically music was about performance, it existed BEFORE recording was even a concept, Two: Recording was once value-adding, in that recording and storage and distribution were costly things which added value to your music. Technology has rendered this invalid, artists should move with technology to stay relevant.
The printing press obsoleted the town crier. Is it valid in this day and age to complain that the town crier no longer has a job? Is his role fulfilled none the less? Digital media and recording is fast obsoleting the record labels. A new business model is required. An artist should not be protected from technological advancement simply because. By that logic we might as well ban graphics tablets because digital art is cutting into the market share of real paintings. Or, by some perverse manner as the GP is arguing, we should ban PAINTERS to save the digital artists... Thats essentially what his argument is leading to.
The market is saying something clear: Recorded music has little to no value anymore, live concerts however fetch ever higher prices. Its pretty clear what the message is here from the demand side.
Clarification: I am a musician, so go fuck yourselves.
Steam is the perfect compromise if you ask me, mostly because Valve are willing to adopt a reasonable pricing model. Actually all my steam games are either Valve or Indie, and I *ahem* "own" one or two steam titles which are certainly not on steam, so you can't really say it is succeeding at stopping anything.
Honestly, go listen to Gabe Newell's opinions on this: He literally said in a recent interview that he believes piracy is not a problem of people being unwilling to purchase games, it is a problem of them not accepting the price point. I can say that for me, this is EXACTLY the case. I bought Orange Box for $30. For that I got 5 games, one of which (TF2) has had ongoing support, new content and major changes constantly, for free, since its inception. THAT is how games should be sold. They are just not worth the $100 they charge (Australian here), no way in hell are they worth that much.
Bollocks you can't! A professional musician that does this will just hire a band, its extremely common. Lenny Kravitz, Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, all do this, and so on and so forth.
The parent is right, if they can't play it live, or even press play on a laptop and dance around a bit, then they are not performers. If you are not providing a service, you are dependent on a model which no longer makes sense. Turn of last century, recording was non-existent, and music was a service not a product. Recording was costly, hence a product was sold, and actual physical product. Now we're in a new setting, but basically music as a product just doesn't work anymore.
I'm pretty sure it would be very easy to write some damn mediocre apps that don't adhere to Apples idea of UI conventions in C, C++ or Obj-C. The language has nothing to do with that at all, thats supposedly what the app store vetting process is about. Oh but wait, the app store is full of mediocre apps that don't adhere to the UI stuff already.... and they are supposedly vetted!
Honestly dude, the programming language you use has very little bearing on the quality of your app!
I think its likely that artists will slowly gravitate to directly managing their recording and distribution, especially when the internet becomes the dominant medium for distribution. Big labels grew up in a time when recording was expensive and complicated, media required expensive equipment to produce (records/cds etc), distribution was a logistical nightmare, and promotion was similarly a logistical nightmare. It made sense under all of these conditions to use a big company to help you. Nowadays for a few tens of thousands of dollars you can have a professional grade studio in your home, media is digital and typically just file formats, distribution and promotion happen on the internet. None of this is highly technical, expensive or anything.
I think we've already witnessed the start of this trend, and my evidence for that is the fact that everyone seems to agree there is very little good music on big labels anymore. Some people moan and say this means there is no good music, but honestly that is far from the truth, we are spoiled rotten for the amount of amazing music that is around these days, if you bother to get off your ass and look for it. Music festivals with spectacular artists are more common now than they ever have been. I honestly believe we are seeing the beginning of a trend towards artists taking care of a lot of the stuff the big labels used to be needed for, all on their own. And I believe this trend will continue.
I say rejoice in the death throes of the big labels, and support the rise of small labels who embrace the new technology. Oh and in regards to the draconian stuff proposed in TFA: They can't claim that non-drm mp3's are not yours, since you could have legally backed them up from cds you legitimately owned, but perhaps lost or it got badly damaged. This has always been the case and won't change anytime soon.
Yes but you pay for the ability to undo the screws without voiding the warranty. Those screws can be little buggers you know!
Wow man, seriously? You should get out and find something that helps to change that state of mind, the world is equally as beautiful and amazing as it is fucked, you can justify choosing to focus on one over the other, its ok to spend more energy focusing on positive things.
But thats exactly what I mean, that means that criticizing Python for its style is a silly argument, its not really pointing out an inherent flaw in the language its just proclaiming loudly that it doesn't suit your taste.