Time to market will depend upon how much focus and funding goes into making it happen. If funding well and with reasonable intentions it could be much sooner rather than later.
mentions a completely different approach to codecs:
``Media and Internet
Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X features optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content.''
We'll have to see what direction Apple is going with rich media content and the codecs combined with Internet standards they are embracing, when 10.6 is released into the wild.
When I was evaluating codecs for an embedded platform H.264 consumed three times the MIPS of the Theora decoder, on our target CPU architecture.
H.264 did win out on quality, but the licensing was very expensive... almost as costly as our whole CPU. The cpu load would have required us to add an expensive decoding chip. Because of those negatives H.264 was simply a non-starter.
Fortunately our application didn't require interworking with the outside world so Theora was a good fit. At the low bitrates we needed Theora's quality was far above our other options (MPEG1, for example) and reasonable enough.
As Theora adoption increases we can expect the pace of increase to increase. For many people the objective balance is already in favour of Theora but for most applications compatibility dwarfs all other factors. Few care about 10% differences in bitrate, and free has a huge advantage over the long term in terms of archiving ubiquity.
Which embedded platform did you evaluate? They aren't on a level playing field making each codec optimized equally for each platform.
The problem with nuclear is waste, which we currently have no way of disposal.
What we *NEED* is ultra efficient storage of energy. "Batteries" that can store the energy produced from sunlight and windmills and store it until it is needed at night. Trick is, their production needs to be lower environmental impact than nuclear.
Picture solar concentrators in orbit sending focused beams of intensified sunlight to solar stations on the planet surface which is converted and stored for use later.
Or switch the Pebble-bed based Nuclear Energy that was patented in the early 1940s and banned as the first action by the Atomic Energy Commission's formation.
By the way, IBM is great for offering theorists to spend years thinking about their theories without the necessary fear of being on their ass, unemployed and living on the streets. They haven't been known for always leveraging their IP capital as well as other companies--Microsoft comes to mind.
Good for you. I worked for NeXT and Apple and sir, IBM is no Apple nor remotely NeXT.
Programming is an Art mainly due to the time value of money and not because their is a lack of Mathematical theory available to deliver more sound, error free code if time weren't driven by markets.
Computer Science is at least 50 years behind the other Engineering Disciplines, Physics and more. It's still a tool to manage large data sets that allow Engineers, Mathematicians and Physicists to better grasp their theories by modeling them before application, through simulations.
We could have a pissing contest all damn day, but Computer Science is dictated by the Time-Value of Money more now then ever before and if it means "theoretical research in Computer Science" gets absorbed by traditional engineering, physics and mathematics departments then so be it. If your research doesn't produce valid R&D revenue then scrap it or switch fields.
That's how it works in most of the world. To become a professional software engineer you take a software engineering degree (BEng or sometimes BSc) and then do your professional engineer certification (PEng).
Otherwise you're a programmer.
P.E. is interchangeably entitled as, "Principle Engineer" and for this Mechanical Engineer or for that matter, EE, CE, ChemE, MatSciE, et.al., it requires a P.E. working for a firm in the state you are going to test [in my case, Washington State] and when I graduated ['93 in M.E. from WSU] it was encouraged one do the EIT [passed] to reduce the time frame from 12 years to 4 years before one can qualify to take the examination.
Either way, unless someone does some serious work in developing an EIT curriculum and ABET certification by turning Computer Science actually into an Engineering on par with ME, EE, CE, ChemE, et.al, there is no chance in hell of that every happening.
Show me some Laws of Computer Science on par with Mechanics, Kinematics, Heat Transfer, et.al and then you'll get a shot at seeing a P.E. licensed examination becoming accredited and worthy of taking.
As a Mechanical Engineer who went on to do Computer Science I can assure you it's nothing like Engineering and thus nothing like an Applied Pure Science; and nor has it ever been.
It's still too much of an Art and if your curriculum is encumbered by the talent on the staff who aren't current with both Theory and Practical you haven't a chance at working for Apple, Sun, IBM, et.al,, within their Core Engineering groups, unless you naturally have the ability to be both adept at socializing and technically quick on your feet.
To expand on this, not everyone needs Google's API to do AJAX. It's possible to write cross browser AJAX code and not end up with 10k of javascript. My own stuff ended up being 1.58k total.
This code reads xml (generated by server side processing on the fly), and generates large dynamic arrays of form controls, as well as the typical list population stuff. In my case, that's all I needed.
It will actually _add_ to a user's experience if they are on a slow modem, since the static html would be 100k +. The AJAX powered stuff is under 8k source they are downloading.
If I used googles API it would take 2-3x as long for someone on a slow connection. Anyone that's seen the broadband penetration numbers for the U.S. (just hit 50% in April) realizes that page size is, indeed, still important.
Add that fact to the fact that you become dependent on google's site being up when you use google's API to generate your interfaces, and it's simply not an attractive option for some (apparently most) people.
It's Google's API so it doesn't suprise me that they are just about the only one's using it. AJAX is Really Simple(tm) stuff. You are better off grokking it and writing the minimum you need to do the job.
I do use google maps though; that's cool stuff. However since my site will work if the map server dies, I don't feel so cagey about using it.
-Viz
Well said, and might I add that shouldn't the goal of all develop be to incrementally improve the performance of a site by code optimization, once you've gotten your requirements met? I don't care if you have a Fiber connection it's a waste of bandwidth to serve up substandard code and content when you can improve both.
That's ridiculous. That's like saying an airline pilot knows about the latest top secret fighter plane designs. Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that a civilization is smart enough to travel interstellar distances but too stupid to use basic camouflage.
Raise your hand all you airline pilots with B.S. Aeronautical Engineering (M.E) and the a PhD in it. Come out now. Don't be shy. We're all waiting on the millions of you.
Not to piss in your wheaties too harshly, but TOP SECRET space craft design isn't exactly going to go over this PhD's head and I'm sure he's kept abreast on Aerodynamics and the material composition going into such areas. It's something you do once you've invested an entire career in it.
I mean who in their right mind would object to anyone snorting coke on their desk?
I would. Everybody knows that the best way to snort coke is off a hookers ass. Didn't you learn anything in college?;)
It brings new meaning to the phrase, ``Just say no to crack.'' Somehow I think it wouldn't be as successful of a campaign with all the pr0n and ass licking in the adult film industry.
Seriously....I look in the paper and it's filled with ads for drivers. That and health care professionals. And as I would rather stick a pencil in my eye than work in health care, I figure my misanthropic ways would be better shifted toward driving.
I'm 46 and have to basically totally switch careers as there are just aren't any jobs in my profession anymore. It's over saturated. I hardly ever see an ad for IT or anything related in my area. As scary as it sounds, changing directions even this far into life may not be a bad idea.
Even with fuel prices sky-high, trucking will be with us for a while as lets face it....everything within your eyesight right now reading these words was all delivered or transported some way via a truck (unless you're looking out your window at a tree or something).
Not if someone with a brain and vision runs the country and reintroduces the Rail Infrastructure, effectively cutting down Semi freight transport to short distance loop zones. It sure would make the roads safer, less congested and all-around faster transportation of goods if we had that rail infrustructure updated in the U.S.
More to the point, more jobs of various fields will be created and truck drivers can be absorbed within areas of those jobs.
... and especially WebKit. The direction Apple is going with their WebKit and the many native Toolkits tying into WebKit [Qt, GKT+, Win32, wx and the obvious Cocoa] should be a clue to Mozilla that XUL and it's like aren't driving the direction of the Web like they once did.
In fact, I'd wager in a year's time with iPhone 3G and it's Cocoa Touch frameworks, combined with the WebKit on many platforms[ Qt for Cocoa being quite interesting] you'll see Apple and Google driving the Web more than Mozilla.
But if they want to beat it and are going to try and do so on the basis of better-looking documents, it would be nice if they at least did a couple of the obvious things Word doesn't.
And yes, for some types of document LaTeX does a much better job; personally, I use XeLaTeX more these days, so I can use those OpenType fonts. But LaTeX is not without its fundamental flaws: it has an unhealthy obsession with messing up vertical spacing, and its control of floats is limited, to give two obvious ones that will hit most people writing a long document sooner or later.
XeTeX and with the upcoming SoC projects it's get even easier to use TeX with native Unicode Support.
That's be eldeberries. @ColdWetDog: Apple users are considered normal, but Apple isn't. Hate the sin not the sinner kinda.
Are you sure you have that one right? Macs these days are basically Intel boxes with blinky keyboards and bog standard innards (OK, the MacPro innards are pretty neat but memory card risers have been around since at least S-100 bus days).
It's the Mac users that are bat-shit insane (absent myself, of course - I'm OK, just ask my dog).
Do me a favor by designing, building and implementing the clean case, inside and out, motherboard connectors, fans, etc., that's in the Mac Pro, iMac or Laptops they produce and show me the equivalent off-the-shelf clone available to compete against Apple.
The United States and the rest of the Earth are at an all-time Population explosion.
If by "the rest of the Earth" you mean "underdeveloped Asian and African countries", then you are correct. But the First World is mostly shrinking - almost all Western Europe countries have negative birth rates (IIRC, Ireland is the only exception). USA population is still growing, but nowhere fast enough to keep up with economy growth.
The European Union must be that First World you are describing and it will scale down as immigration controls are implemented. The United States continues to expand both with illegal aliens and legal immigration. These families aren't scaling down their families. In fact, they have very large families.
You keep missing the main point of this spurious article regarding a lack of skills which is a strawman argument for H1B Visa cap lifts--people are leaving the Industry and working in new fields or their prior fields. People move around.
Truly educated people continue to add new skills in all their prior and current fields knowing that there are no true Careers anymore, but short-term jobs.
Look around. People are cutting out relocation funds--started around 1996, reinvesting in training--justifying it as fear of staff leaving for greener pastures, etc.
It's a joke. White Collar staff is just as expendable as Blue Collar Labor. That fantasy shoved down our throats as kids about job security with high skills is a joke in a world where companies outsource staff to third world dumps.
Dude, it's a shortage of people. It's caused by decades of birth control and a philosophy that you should wait till you're 30 before you start a family. It's in every field of endeavor. It has nothing to do with education, or loyalty, or any of that shite. It has to do with demographics, and it's going to keep getting worse, most likely for the rest of your life.
The United States and the rest of the Earth are at an all-time Population explosion. It's not a lack of people, but it is a lack of people willing to make a Career change every 4 or 5 years. I've been retrofiting back into my Mechanical Engineering skillset, with my CS skillset to start my own projects/ideas. I'm knee deep in writing novels and I'm not at all interested in being an overly skilled grunt, but when my projects are further along I will be contacting some former co-workers who just as sick of the crap as myself and see if they want to pitch in and set their own schedules.
Slashdot Mirror
Time to market will depend upon how much focus and funding goes into making it happen. If funding well and with reasonable intentions it could be much sooner rather than later.
We'll have to see what direction Apple is going with rich media content and the codecs combined with Internet standards they are embracing, when 10.6 is released into the wild.
When I was evaluating codecs for an embedded platform H.264 consumed three times the MIPS of the Theora decoder, on our target CPU architecture.
H.264 did win out on quality, but the licensing was very expensive... almost as costly as our whole CPU. The cpu load would have required us to add an expensive decoding chip. Because of those negatives H.264 was simply a non-starter.
Fortunately our application didn't require interworking with the outside world so Theora was a good fit. At the low bitrates we needed Theora's quality was far above our other options (MPEG1, for example) and reasonable enough.
As Theora adoption increases we can expect the pace of increase to increase. For many people the objective balance is already in favour of Theora but for most applications compatibility dwarfs all other factors. Few care about 10% differences in bitrate, and free has a huge advantage over the long term in terms of archiving ubiquity.
Which embedded platform did you evaluate? They aren't on a level playing field making each codec optimized equally for each platform.
To say Al Gore actually claimed he invented the internet is to say the Beatles actually claimed they were bigger than Jesus.
At least the Beatles can prove they existed.
The problem with nuclear is waste, which we currently have no way of disposal.
What we *NEED* is ultra efficient storage of energy. "Batteries" that can store the energy produced from sunlight and windmills and store it until it is needed at night. Trick is, their production needs to be lower environmental impact than nuclear.
Picture solar concentrators in orbit sending focused beams of intensified sunlight to solar stations on the planet surface which is converted and stored for use later.
Or switch the Pebble-bed based Nuclear Energy that was patented in the early 1940s and banned as the first action by the Atomic Energy Commission's formation.
http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/pebbles/pebbles.html
You'd be surprised what Liquid Helium and Uranium encased in Graphite can do without Cooling rods or Towers.
By the way, IBM is great for offering theorists to spend years thinking about their theories without the necessary fear of being on their ass, unemployed and living on the streets. They haven't been known for always leveraging their IP capital as well as other companies--Microsoft comes to mind.
Good for you. I worked for NeXT and Apple and sir, IBM is no Apple nor remotely NeXT.
Programming is an Art mainly due to the time value of money and not because their is a lack of Mathematical theory available to deliver more sound, error free code if time weren't driven by markets.
Computer Science is at least 50 years behind the other Engineering Disciplines, Physics and more. It's still a tool to manage large data sets that allow Engineers, Mathematicians and Physicists to better grasp their theories by modeling them before application, through simulations.
We could have a pissing contest all damn day, but Computer Science is dictated by the Time-Value of Money more now then ever before and if it means "theoretical research in Computer Science" gets absorbed by traditional engineering, physics and mathematics departments then so be it. If your research doesn't produce valid R&D revenue then scrap it or switch fields.
That's how it works in most of the world. To become a professional software engineer you take a software engineering degree (BEng or sometimes BSc) and then do your professional engineer certification (PEng).
Otherwise you're a programmer.
P.E. is interchangeably entitled as, "Principle Engineer" and for this Mechanical Engineer or for that matter, EE, CE, ChemE, MatSciE, et.al., it requires a P.E. working for a firm in the state you are going to test [in my case, Washington State] and when I graduated ['93 in M.E. from WSU] it was encouraged one do the EIT [passed] to reduce the time frame from 12 years to 4 years before one can qualify to take the examination.
Either way, unless someone does some serious work in developing an EIT curriculum and ABET certification by turning Computer Science actually into an Engineering on par with ME, EE, CE, ChemE, et.al, there is no chance in hell of that every happening.
Show me some Laws of Computer Science on par with Mechanics, Kinematics, Heat Transfer, et.al and then you'll get a shot at seeing a P.E. licensed examination becoming accredited and worthy of taking.
As a Mechanical Engineer who went on to do Computer Science I can assure you it's nothing like Engineering and thus nothing like an Applied Pure Science; and nor has it ever been.
It's still too much of an Art and if your curriculum is encumbered by the talent on the staff who aren't current with both Theory and Practical you haven't a chance at working for Apple, Sun, IBM, et.al,, within their Core Engineering groups, unless you naturally have the ability to be both adept at socializing and technically quick on your feet.
Used to be they beat up the freshmen with assembler, C, and vi, and they liked it. Not sure if they pussified the curriculum since then...
If that's the qualities of being a tough curriculum then any PAC-10 University does that and much more.
If you can't tell which word is being used improperly in the above sentence, then having it explained to you won't help.
Perhaps when the original poster correctly quotes ``A Prince's Bride" then perhaps they'll be taken seriously.
>Not everyone needs AJAX.
To expand on this, not everyone needs Google's API to do AJAX. It's possible to write cross browser AJAX code and not end up with 10k of javascript. My own stuff ended up being 1.58k total.
This code reads xml (generated by server side processing on the fly), and generates large dynamic arrays of form controls, as well as the typical list population stuff. In my case, that's all I needed.
It will actually _add_ to a user's experience if they are on a slow modem, since the static html would be 100k +. The AJAX powered stuff is under 8k source they are downloading.
If I used googles API it would take 2-3x as long for someone on a slow connection. Anyone that's seen the broadband penetration numbers for the U.S. (just hit 50% in April) realizes that page size is, indeed, still important.
Add that fact to the fact that you become dependent on google's site being up when you use google's API to generate your interfaces, and it's simply not an attractive option for some (apparently most) people.
It's Google's API so it doesn't suprise me that they are just about the only one's using it. AJAX is Really Simple(tm) stuff. You are better off grokking it and writing the minimum you need to do the job.
I do use google maps though; that's cool stuff. However since my site will work if the map server dies, I don't feel so cagey about using it.
-Viz
Well said, and might I add that shouldn't the goal of all develop be to incrementally improve the performance of a site by code optimization, once you've gotten your requirements met? I don't care if you have a Fiber connection it's a waste of bandwidth to serve up substandard code and content when you can improve both.
What does K mean here?
K should reference Kelvins, whereas k represents in thousands.
That's ridiculous. That's like saying an airline pilot knows about the latest top secret fighter plane designs. Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that a civilization is smart enough to travel interstellar distances but too stupid to use basic camouflage.
Raise your hand all you airline pilots with B.S. Aeronautical Engineering (M.E) and the a PhD in it. Come out now. Don't be shy. We're all waiting on the millions of you.
Not to piss in your wheaties too harshly, but TOP SECRET space craft design isn't exactly going to go over this PhD's head and I'm sure he's kept abreast on Aerodynamics and the material composition going into such areas. It's something you do once you've invested an entire career in it.
I mean who in their right mind would object to anyone snorting coke on their desk?
I would. Everybody knows that the best way to snort coke is off a hookers ass. Didn't you learn anything in college? ;)
It brings new meaning to the phrase, ``Just say no to crack.'' Somehow I think it wouldn't be as successful of a campaign with all the pr0n and ass licking in the adult film industry.
Seriously....I look in the paper and it's filled with ads for drivers. That and health care professionals. And as I would rather stick a pencil in my eye than work in health care, I figure my misanthropic ways would be better shifted toward driving.
I'm 46 and have to basically totally switch careers as there are just aren't any jobs in my profession anymore. It's over saturated. I hardly ever see an ad for IT or anything related in my area. As scary as it sounds, changing directions even this far into life may not be a bad idea.
Even with fuel prices sky-high, trucking will be with us for a while as lets face it....everything within your eyesight right now reading these words was all delivered or transported some way via a truck (unless you're looking out your window at a tree or something).
Not if someone with a brain and vision runs the country and reintroduces the Rail Infrastructure, effectively cutting down Semi freight transport to short distance loop zones. It sure would make the roads safer, less congested and all-around faster transportation of goods if we had that rail infrustructure updated in the U.S.
More to the point, more jobs of various fields will be created and truck drivers can be absorbed within areas of those jobs.
Occassionally she burps up streams of fluid that are quite acidic.
... and especially WebKit. The direction Apple is going with their WebKit and the many native Toolkits tying into WebKit [Qt, GKT+, Win32, wx and the obvious Cocoa] should be a clue to Mozilla that XUL and it's like aren't driving the direction of the Web like they once did.
In fact, I'd wager in a year's time with iPhone 3G and it's Cocoa Touch frameworks, combined with the WebKit on many platforms[ Qt for Cocoa being quite interesting] you'll see Apple and Google driving the Web more than Mozilla.
I never said Word's typography was good. :-)
But if they want to beat it and are going to try and do so on the basis of better-looking documents, it would be nice if they at least did a couple of the obvious things Word doesn't.
And yes, for some types of document LaTeX does a much better job; personally, I use XeLaTeX more these days, so I can use those OpenType fonts. But LaTeX is not without its fundamental flaws: it has an unhealthy obsession with messing up vertical spacing, and its control of floats is limited, to give two obvious ones that will hit most people writing a long document sooner or later.
XeTeX and with the upcoming SoC projects it's get even easier to use TeX with native Unicode Support.
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/tex/about.html
Are you sure you have that one right? Macs these days are basically Intel boxes with blinky keyboards and bog standard innards (OK, the MacPro innards are pretty neat but memory card risers have been around since at least S-100 bus days).
It's the Mac users that are bat-shit insane (absent myself, of course - I'm OK, just ask my dog).
Do me a favor by designing, building and implementing the clean case, inside and out, motherboard connectors, fans, etc., that's in the Mac Pro, iMac or Laptops they produce and show me the equivalent off-the-shelf clone available to compete against Apple.
The problem is keeping all 131 napkins in order and intact.
Just buy an Apple iWipe. (But careful not to mix anal mode and facial mode.)
Warning: May cause streaking if not thoroughly fscked.
So that's where some of that fraud money has gone to, eh? I found this envelope and all it had was a return address to Barack.
I couldn't resist.
These TN Panels are simply POS.
If by "the rest of the Earth" you mean "underdeveloped Asian and African countries", then you are correct. But the First World is mostly shrinking - almost all Western Europe countries have negative birth rates (IIRC, Ireland is the only exception). USA population is still growing, but nowhere fast enough to keep up with economy growth.
The European Union must be that First World you are describing and it will scale down as immigration controls are implemented. The United States continues to expand both with illegal aliens and legal immigration. These families aren't scaling down their families. In fact, they have very large families.
You keep missing the main point of this spurious article regarding a lack of skills which is a strawman argument for H1B Visa cap lifts--people are leaving the Industry and working in new fields or their prior fields. People move around.
Truly educated people continue to add new skills in all their prior and current fields knowing that there are no true Careers anymore, but short-term jobs.
Look around. People are cutting out relocation funds--started around 1996, reinvesting in training--justifying it as fear of staff leaving for greener pastures, etc.
It's a joke. White Collar staff is just as expendable as Blue Collar Labor. That fantasy shoved down our throats as kids about job security with high skills is a joke in a world where companies outsource staff to third world dumps.
Dude, it's a shortage of people. It's caused by decades of birth control and a philosophy that you should wait till you're 30 before you start a family. It's in every field of endeavor. It has nothing to do with education, or loyalty, or any of that shite. It has to do with demographics, and it's going to keep getting worse, most likely for the rest of your life.
The United States and the rest of the Earth are at an all-time Population explosion. It's not a lack of people, but it is a lack of people willing to make a Career change every 4 or 5 years. I've been retrofiting back into my Mechanical Engineering skillset, with my CS skillset to start my own projects/ideas. I'm knee deep in writing novels and I'm not at all interested in being an overly skilled grunt, but when my projects are further along I will be contacting some former co-workers who just as sick of the crap as myself and see if they want to pitch in and set their own schedules.