Drupal is a far superior and really well thought-out PHP framework compared to Joomla.
I don't disagree that PHP makes it really easy to write horrible code, but that doesn't mean that all PHP is horrible, or that everything else is automatically better. For instance, I am currently working a large Java project that is far more of a horrible mess (and takes 10x longer to get actual work accomplished) than any PHP project I've ever worked.
How would it even be possible for BitTorrent to "suffer the same fate" as Napster?
Who would they sue?
Napster was a centralized service, and thus a vulnerable target. BitTorrent is a protocol, they can attempt to block it, but it will never be "shut down".
The reason for the app store has nothing to do with security and everything about Apple wringing every last penny out of developers by taking an arbitrary cut of their sales
I think the app store is about control, and providing the walled garden experience for average users. And you know what? They have proven it pretty successful.
As long as power users can jailbreak without being cracked down on, I really don't see what the big fuss is about.
But multi-touch on a larger screen genuinely opens up new interface possibilities not possible on an iPhone form factor. Instead of just multiple fingers at once, think multiple hands, even multiple people. The true value of this will only become apparent in time as new apps are developed to take advantage of the larger screen real estate.
I seriously don't get all the hate and cynicism already pouring out over this. What exactly were people expecting?
Perhaps it is just backlash caused by the hype... but you can't really blame Apple for the hype, they didn't breathe a word about it. They're in a weird position where everyone creates these crazy expectations for them.
Agreed. I think Cameron deliberately made the Na'vi very similar to humans to help the audience relate to them... it is after all a very allegorical tale.
Cameron has also boasted that he could make true humans with this tech that would be indistinguishable from the real thing. We'll have to see on that one, but he has an impressive track record when it comes to making good on his claims.
As another poster pointed out, Cameron never claimed he "invented" mocap.
He has however, perfected it, via the facial capture stuff he added, to the extent that "performance capture" is now a more apt label than simply motion capture, and can be used large scale.
Gollum required a small army of animators to complete Serkis's performance (especially Weta Digital's Bay Raitt, who crafted Gollum's facial expressions [http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1554342,00.asp]).
The detailed expressions on the Na'vi in Avatar, on the other hand, are almost entirely (95% is the number being thrown around) taken directly from the actor's performances, without requiring extensive intervention from animators.
That is a breakthrough in filmmaking IMHO, and Cameron deserves kudos for it. The new 3D tech he was instrumental in developing (or at least championing), and his extensive use of a virtual camera to compose scenes after the fact, are also very impressive.
I also disagree with your dismissal of why Avatar avoided the "uncanny valley"; the Na'vi seemed like actors in blue makeup, not "so alien you don't even associate them with humans".
Sorry, I was referring to the feature that automatically CHECKS for updates, colour codes your out-of-date modules, and provides a direct download link to the latest version (ie the Available Updates page). I would classify that as extremely easy.
the stable 6.x version requires you to do a lot of file and configuration manipulation just to go from 6.14 to 6.15 (if you follow all the recommended steps, which I did for my test site recently)
You don't have to do all those steps. You just need to replace the core files and run any required database updates. Yes, I know the documentation specifies a lot more steps... I brought up this very issue in a thread (posting as "brian_c") here: http://drupal.org/node/360656
Updating a Drupal site within the same major revision (ie, 6.x) is extremely easy, thanks to the auto-update features you mention.
What the article refers to as being difficult, is upgrading to an entirely new major revision (ie, going from 6.x to 7.x). This is because they tend to refine and rework APIs across major revisions which breaks a lot of modules... so you generally can't use a 6.x module with 7.x core.
I tend to just use jQuery core and write everything else on top of that from scratch.
I don't usually bother looking at using jQuery addons unless trying something really tricky, I can write much leaner code myself for highly specific purposes than I would be able to accomplish by bolting together some generalized components.
I'm not sure where the GP got 19KB though, unless it's a really old version. Current version is 54KB "minified", which is what people should be using. Prior to 1.3.x, they used to provide "packed" (compressed) versions which were smaller (last one clocked in at ~30KB), but these were never a good idea to use (which is why they were discontinued) as they had to be decompressed by the browser on *every* page load, whereas the larger size of the minified version is a one-time penalty due to browser cache.
Try this, go watch Avatar 3D again, and occasionally cover one of your eyes to force it into 2D. I was honestly surprised how much my eyes "missed" the 3D.
I actually enjoyed it for its "spirit of the old stories" as well. I think Downey really nailed the essence of Holmes, making him come across almost as an idiot-savant of sleuthing.
They went a bit too far with it though, making him a slob when it comes to personal hygiene. Holmes, IIRC, while being a complete clutterbug, was described as having a "catlike" sense of personal cleanliness.
I very much enjoyed the boxing sequences though... while really only hinted at in the books, Holmes was a noted pugilist.
The story though... just never really gelled for me. Felt more like a series of set pieces. Didn't hold a candle to say, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
I also feel that in a well crafted Holmes story, the audience should be able to feel like they are "playing along" and trying to solve the mystery themselves; I got no sense of that from this film... we are robbed of any real suspense by knowing who the villain is from the outset, the only "mystery" is how he pulls off his various parlor tricks.
In your opinion. Metacritic only has Sherlock Homles as an average rating of 57%, so clearly not everybody agrees with you.
Myself, I thought Downey was fantastic, but the story was a mess. Or as one reviewer put it: "Despite some arresting visual flourishes and Downey’s inherent likeability, it’s nearly incoherent both as cinema and as story". The people I saw it with all thought it was "OK, but nothing special".
I don't disagree in general, but I found James Horner's score very subtle and non-intrusive in Avatar, compared to most other movies of similar scope (ie, Braveheart) that I can think of.
After seeing it several times, I actually think Avatar's most compelling emotional component is Zoe Saldana. Her performance is amazing, and absolutely convincing.
It even posits a propulsion system (photons produced from matter/anti-matter annihilation, magnetically accelerated by the superconducting Unobtainium) that seems, at least to a layman like myself, to be plausible. They then accelerate over 6 months to 0.7C.
Huge kudos for not skipping/cheating on the whole interstellar travel physics like, well, pretty much every other sci-fi movie ever made.
*Disclaimer: I don't know if the info on Pandorapedia comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure looks like more than your typical fanboy post-hocs.
According to the Pandorapedia, the starship we see at the beginning is only one of twelve in a constant supply chain. The round-trip time is given as 14.5 years, so one may posit that 5-6 ships are already en route, with the next one due to arrive in about a year.
Cameron and co evidently wrote a 5000-page "bible" for his universe, I think a LOT of thought has gone into everything.
I don't know if the info at http://www.pandorapedia.com/ comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure doesn't look like some fanboy just "made it up"; the detail is fascinating. Take for instance this excerpt about the design of the starship we see at the beginning:
Engines: Two, arranged symmetrically in a tractor configuration. They are angled outward a few degrees off the ship’s longitudinal axis so their exhaust plumes bypass the ship’s structure. This results in a slight cosine loss to thrust efficiency, and the body of the ship must be shielded from the plume’s thermal radiation, but the mass-savings advantage of a tensile structure outweigh these disadvantages. Since a very long truss is needed to separate the habitable section of the ship from the engines which produce large amounts of radiation, such a structure would be prohibitively massive if it were a conventional space-frame truss designed for compressive loading. But the carbon-nanotube composite tensile-truss creates the necessary stand-off distance at one tenth the mass. Essentially it is a tow cable with enough torsional rigidity to allow the ship to maneuver, including the pitch-over maneuver which must be performed to turn 180 degrees for the deceleration burn when inbound to Pandora.
Unobtainium, as a room-temperature super conductor, which is only available in another star system, is the perfect candidate for actually being "officially" assigned this name, IMHO.
Indeed, and perhaps it's an obvious point but I'd also add that clean code should also tell you "what".
Whenever I have a block of code whose purpose seems unclear, I try to put it into a function whose name clearly describes what it does. This immediately makes it more understandable, and reusable to boot.
Comments should explain why something is done the way it is, the reasoning behind it. They should not simply label what something IS, that should be the job of good naming practices.
Your guess would be wrong, the super-conducting levitation stuff was apparently in the original script but didn't make it into the movie (understandable, given its irrelevance to the larger story and the movie's runtime).
You sell Cameron short, he is not Michael Bay. Read about some of the effort they put into the Na'vi culture (inventing an entire language, among other things).
Slashdot Mirror
Pfft, shows what you know. Microsoft made security its top priority in 2002. I bet you feel really dumb now, huh?
Are you sure? I'm quite certain it's all porn and lolcat videos (and possibly turtles), all the way down.
Drupal is a far superior and really well thought-out PHP framework compared to Joomla.
I don't disagree that PHP makes it really easy to write horrible code, but that doesn't mean that all PHP is horrible, or that everything else is automatically better. For instance, I am currently working a large Java project that is far more of a horrible mess (and takes 10x longer to get actual work accomplished) than any PHP project I've ever worked.
How would it even be possible for BitTorrent to "suffer the same fate" as Napster?
Who would they sue?
Napster was a centralized service, and thus a vulnerable target. BitTorrent is a protocol, they can attempt to block it, but it will never be "shut down".
Apple barely breaks even on the App Store.
I think the app store is about control, and providing the walled garden experience for average users. And you know what? They have proven it pretty successful.
As long as power users can jailbreak without being cracked down on, I really don't see what the big fuss is about.
Yes, it is "just" a larger iPhone.
But multi-touch on a larger screen genuinely opens up new interface possibilities not possible on an iPhone form factor. Instead of just multiple fingers at once, think multiple hands, even multiple people. The true value of this will only become apparent in time as new apps are developed to take advantage of the larger screen real estate.
I seriously don't get all the hate and cynicism already pouring out over this. What exactly were people expecting?
Perhaps it is just backlash caused by the hype... but you can't really blame Apple for the hype, they didn't breathe a word about it. They're in a weird position where everyone creates these crazy expectations for them.
Agreed. I think Cameron deliberately made the Na'vi very similar to humans to help the audience relate to them... it is after all a very allegorical tale.
Cameron has also boasted that he could make true humans with this tech that would be indistinguishable from the real thing. We'll have to see on that one, but he has an impressive track record when it comes to making good on his claims.
As another poster pointed out, Cameron never claimed he "invented" mocap.
He has however, perfected it, via the facial capture stuff he added, to the extent that "performance capture" is now a more apt label than simply motion capture, and can be used large scale.
Gollum required a small army of animators to complete Serkis's performance (especially Weta Digital's Bay Raitt, who crafted Gollum's facial expressions [http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1554342,00.asp]).
The detailed expressions on the Na'vi in Avatar, on the other hand, are almost entirely (95% is the number being thrown around) taken directly from the actor's performances, without requiring extensive intervention from animators.
That is a breakthrough in filmmaking IMHO, and Cameron deserves kudos for it. The new 3D tech he was instrumental in developing (or at least championing), and his extensive use of a virtual camera to compose scenes after the fact, are also very impressive.
I also disagree with your dismissal of why Avatar avoided the "uncanny valley"; the Na'vi seemed like actors in blue makeup, not "so alien you don't even associate them with humans".
Sorry, I was referring to the feature that automatically CHECKS for updates, colour codes your out-of-date modules, and provides a direct download link to the latest version (ie the Available Updates page). I would classify that as extremely easy.
You don't have to do all those steps. You just need to replace the core files and run any required database updates. Yes, I know the documentation specifies a lot more steps... I brought up this very issue in a thread (posting as "brian_c") here: http://drupal.org/node/360656
Updating a Drupal site within the same major revision (ie, 6.x) is extremely easy, thanks to the auto-update features you mention.
What the article refers to as being difficult, is upgrading to an entirely new major revision (ie, going from 6.x to 7.x). This is because they tend to refine and rework APIs across major revisions which breaks a lot of modules... so you generally can't use a 6.x module with 7.x core.
I tend to just use jQuery core and write everything else on top of that from scratch.
I don't usually bother looking at using jQuery addons unless trying something really tricky, I can write much leaner code myself for highly specific purposes than I would be able to accomplish by bolting together some generalized components.
I'm not sure where the GP got 19KB though, unless it's a really old version. Current version is 54KB "minified", which is what people should be using. Prior to 1.3.x, they used to provide "packed" (compressed) versions which were smaller (last one clocked in at ~30KB), but these were never a good idea to use (which is why they were discontinued) as they had to be decompressed by the browser on *every* page load, whereas the larger size of the minified version is a one-time penalty due to browser cache.
Try this, go watch Avatar 3D again, and occasionally cover one of your eyes to force it into 2D. I was honestly surprised how much my eyes "missed" the 3D.
I actually enjoyed it for its "spirit of the old stories" as well. I think Downey really nailed the essence of Holmes, making him come across almost as an idiot-savant of sleuthing.
They went a bit too far with it though, making him a slob when it comes to personal hygiene. Holmes, IIRC, while being a complete clutterbug, was described as having a "catlike" sense of personal cleanliness.
I very much enjoyed the boxing sequences though... while really only hinted at in the books, Holmes was a noted pugilist.
The story though... just never really gelled for me. Felt more like a series of set pieces. Didn't hold a candle to say, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
I also feel that in a well crafted Holmes story, the audience should be able to feel like they are "playing along" and trying to solve the mystery themselves; I got no sense of that from this film... we are robbed of any real suspense by knowing who the villain is from the outset, the only "mystery" is how he pulls off his various parlor tricks.
I easily get two days out of a full charge, 3 if I push it.
Mind you, I don't use a lot of talk time.. I can see someone who talks on it for a couple hours a day easily draining in one day.
Thanks, good observation.
It is, however, still a Wiki; anyone may join and edit.
In your opinion. Metacritic only has Sherlock Homles as an average rating of 57%, so clearly not everybody agrees with you.
Myself, I thought Downey was fantastic, but the story was a mess. Or as one reviewer put it: "Despite some arresting visual flourishes and Downey’s inherent likeability, it’s nearly incoherent both as cinema and as story". The people I saw it with all thought it was "OK, but nothing special".
You're going to get your wish on that one ;)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6931166/Avatar-fans-promised-alien-sex-scene-on-DVD.html
I don't disagree in general, but I found James Horner's score very subtle and non-intrusive in Avatar, compared to most other movies of similar scope (ie, Braveheart) that I can think of.
After seeing it several times, I actually think Avatar's most compelling emotional component is Zoe Saldana. Her performance is amazing, and absolutely convincing.
Indeed. Check this out if you haven't already: http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star
It appears a lot of thought went into that as well, the Pandorapedia* goes into a lot of detail on that starship we see: http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star
It even posits a propulsion system (photons produced from matter/anti-matter annihilation, magnetically accelerated by the superconducting Unobtainium) that seems, at least to a layman like myself, to be plausible. They then accelerate over 6 months to 0.7C.
Huge kudos for not skipping/cheating on the whole interstellar travel physics like, well, pretty much every other sci-fi movie ever made.
*Disclaimer: I don't know if the info on Pandorapedia comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure looks like more than your typical fanboy post-hocs.
According to the Pandorapedia, the starship we see at the beginning is only one of twelve in a constant supply chain. The round-trip time is given as 14.5 years, so one may posit that 5-6 ships are already en route, with the next one due to arrive in about a year.
Cameron and co evidently wrote a 5000-page "bible" for his universe, I think a LOT of thought has gone into everything.
I don't know if the info at http://www.pandorapedia.com/ comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure doesn't look like some fanboy just "made it up"; the detail is fascinating. Take for instance this excerpt about the design of the starship we see at the beginning:
http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star
Awesome.
Unobtainium, as a room-temperature super conductor, which is only available in another star system, is the perfect candidate for actually being "officially" assigned this name, IMHO.
Indeed, and perhaps it's an obvious point but I'd also add that clean code should also tell you "what".
Whenever I have a block of code whose purpose seems unclear, I try to put it into a function whose name clearly describes what it does. This immediately makes it more understandable, and reusable to boot.
Comments should explain why something is done the way it is, the reasoning behind it. They should not simply label what something IS, that should be the job of good naming practices.
Your guess would be wrong, the super-conducting levitation stuff was apparently in the original script but didn't make it into the movie (understandable, given its irrelevance to the larger story and the movie's runtime).
You sell Cameron short, he is not Michael Bay. Read about some of the effort they put into the Na'vi culture (inventing an entire language, among other things).