I've heard that it's actually quite hard to just shoot something into the sun, even though it sounds simple--big target, lots of gravity. Can someone explain why, or point to a link that does?
ClearType wouldn't be as effective with horizontal sub-pixels anyway. The most common use case (besides round letters) is letters with steep (more than 45 degrees off of horizontal) diagonal lines, like A, N, W, x, y. "Tall" sub-pixels help in these cases, "wide" pixels wouldn't. Also, being able to fine-tune widths helps kerning (spacing between letters.) In OS X, if you type a bunch of lowercase Ls and look closely, you'll see that there are a few different variations in that letter.
It's a two-part issue. One is that, at any given diagonal size, widescreen = fewer pixels. Not only have we gone from 4:3 to 16:10, we're now going from 16:10 to 16:9.
For 4:3 to 16:10, let's look at two common 20" sizes. 1600 x 1200 = 1.92 million pixels. 1680x1050 is 1.76 million. The 4:3 screen has 8% more real estate. On a 20" LCD (right around 100 pixels per inch in both cases) the widescreen monitor adds 0.8 inches in width and hacks off a whole 1.5 inches.
For 16:10 to 16:9, look at Apple. They just changed their 30" 16:10 LCD (a glorious 2560x1600) to a 27" at 16:9, 2560x1440. That's ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY vertical pixels gone. That's enough for the Dock, the menu bar, and Safari's title bar... AND Safari's location bar, bookmarks bar, and tab bar.
Laptops are going the same way. 16:10 laptops at 1280 x 800 (a decent enough size) are now being replaced with 16:9, 1280 x 720 screens. Eighty vertical pixels is a LOT to lose on such a small screen. At any given diagonal measurement (and thus, price) we truly are losing pixels as we wider and wider. Thankfully, I don't think we'll go past 16:9.
I think he meant Microsoft is late to the "doing it right" party. MS will probable push something like this, where the mouse is visible until it's totally done booting. Great work like always, guys.
I think half of the readers here could have written that article (natural aversion to articles in general notwithstanding) if any of them thought that the topic hadn't been thoroughly addressed a decade or so ago.
No, it's only been for a few years now. Maybe a decade or so. Like the old joke: how far can you run into a forest? Halfway--after that you're running out.
Underestimate? I think he is totally unaware of what dedicated hardware can do. Does he know why CD players came out in the mid-80s but TEN YEARS LATER a PC or Mac with a CD-ROM drive would often crash while playing CD audio in software? Or when DVD players came out in the mid-90s and it wasn't until the early 2000s that you could watch a software-decoded DVD on a computer without pegging the CPU? Why the iPhone can play back H.264 video for several hours on a battery charge, but can only play certain games (or hell, run the camera) for an hour or two?
I skimmed the whole thing, and read a few good chunks of it, in about 5 minutes. Much better than listening to a full hour-plus of audio. Thanks to whoever did that!
> in a few years smartphones and maybe tablets will > become something everyone buys like a computer > or blu ray player and someone else will have the spotlight
The trick will be for the shills to write subtly-positive one-star reviews. "This book is crap! It only has 14 sex scenes! Sure, the characters were well drawn-out but the whole time-travel part just felt tacked on."
... I thought it was going to be a map of where all the microwaves on the moon are, like in case you find yourself stuck up there with a cold chili-dog or something.
Spanish is spoken so quickly, compressing it is like trying to make an MP3 smaller by zipping it--it just won't work. French, though, with all its mushy pronunciation, compresses very well, like how a blurry image responds well to JPG encoding.
>> Android was designed from the beginning to fight with guys like RIM and Microsoft, and to a lesser extent, Palm.
> I don't know which "beginning" you are referring to, but Android was released on the market to compete against what was at the time iPhone OS.
You're both right. Android was indeed originally designed to compete with older, BlackBerry-style smartphones: small screen on the top half, physical keyboard on the bottom. Check out Wikipedia--Google started in 2005, two years before the iPhone. Then, the iPhone came out and changed the standard, and the first Android phones that actually hit the market were indeed competing directly with the iPhone, with full-size touchscreens.
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Yup, I remember well. Halo was going to be huge on the Mac.
More details about Bungie -> MS here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo:_Combat_Evolved#Development
I've heard that it's actually quite hard to just shoot something into the sun, even though it sounds simple--big target, lots of gravity. Can someone explain why, or point to a link that does?
ClearType wouldn't be as effective with horizontal sub-pixels anyway. The most common use case (besides round letters) is letters with steep (more than 45 degrees off of horizontal) diagonal lines, like A, N, W, x, y. "Tall" sub-pixels help in these cases, "wide" pixels wouldn't. Also, being able to fine-tune widths helps kerning (spacing between letters.) In OS X, if you type a bunch of lowercase Ls and look closely, you'll see that there are a few different variations in that letter.
It's a two-part issue. One is that, at any given diagonal size, widescreen = fewer pixels. Not only have we gone from 4:3 to 16:10, we're now going from 16:10 to 16:9.
For 4:3 to 16:10, let's look at two common 20" sizes. 1600 x 1200 = 1.92 million pixels. 1680x1050 is 1.76 million. The 4:3 screen has 8% more real estate. On a 20" LCD (right around 100 pixels per inch in both cases) the widescreen monitor adds 0.8 inches in width and hacks off a whole 1.5 inches.
For 16:10 to 16:9, look at Apple. They just changed their 30" 16:10 LCD (a glorious 2560x1600) to a 27" at 16:9, 2560x1440. That's ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY vertical pixels gone. That's enough for the Dock, the menu bar, and Safari's title bar... AND Safari's location bar, bookmarks bar, and tab bar.
Laptops are going the same way. 16:10 laptops at 1280 x 800 (a decent enough size) are now being replaced with 16:9, 1280 x 720 screens. Eighty vertical pixels is a LOT to lose on such a small screen. At any given diagonal measurement (and thus, price) we truly are losing pixels as we wider and wider. Thankfully, I don't think we'll go past 16:9.
> Microsoft is anything but late to this party.
I think he meant Microsoft is late to the "doing it right" party. MS will probable push something like this, where the mouse is visible until it's totally done booting. Great work like always, guys.
Is it 1998?
I think half of the readers here could have written that article (natural aversion to articles in general notwithstanding) if any of them thought that the topic hadn't been thoroughly addressed a decade or so ago.
... the evil bit! Now, let me just check the RFC to see if that goes at the beginning or the end, then I can start decoding.
I bet he got a roughly equal number of 'insightful' and 'funny' mods. I laughed at first when I read it.
No, it's only been for a few years now. Maybe a decade or so. Like the old joke: how far can you run into a forest? Halfway--after that you're running out.
Fuck everything, we're doing five dimensions.
(BTW, I bet he still won't get rid of the slugs from the emperor's face, the garbage mattes around the ships, etc etc etc.)
Underestimate? I think he is totally unaware of what dedicated hardware can do. Does he know why CD players came out in the mid-80s but TEN YEARS LATER a PC or Mac with a CD-ROM drive would often crash while playing CD audio in software? Or when DVD players came out in the mid-90s and it wasn't until the early 2000s that you could watch a software-decoded DVD on a computer without pegging the CPU? Why the iPhone can play back H.264 video for several hours on a battery charge, but can only play certain games (or hell, run the camera) for an hour or two?
I skimmed the whole thing, and read a few good chunks of it, in about 5 minutes. Much better than listening to a full hour-plus of audio. Thanks to whoever did that!
> in a few years smartphones and maybe tablets will
> become something everyone buys like a computer
> or blu ray player and someone else will have the spotlight
iMac -> iBook -> PowerBook G4 -> iPod -> more iMacs ->more iPods -> iPhone -> iPad
My bet is that the next company to have the spotlight will be... Apple.
That new-fangled crap? Hogwash! A Prius uses 120-year-old electric car technology. :-)
If there was ever a robot in need of a fourth law of robotics, this one is it.
... read a similar book he's working on here.
The trick will be for the shills to write subtly-positive one-star reviews. "This book is crap! It only has 14 sex scenes! Sure, the characters were well drawn-out but the whole time-travel part just felt tacked on."
... I thought it was going to be a map of where all the microwaves on the moon are, like in case you find yourself stuck up there with a cold chili-dog or something.
But it's crap like this that still has me fiddling with fstab IN FUCKING 2010(!!)... John-Jesus H.B Christ, could we please try to get shit done
[My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
Your English is better than most Slashdotters' and your French is fanfuckingtastic. :-)
(It's an expression in English to say "Pardon my French" after swearing.)
Spanish is spoken so quickly, compressing it is like trying to make an MP3 smaller by zipping it--it just won't work. French, though, with all its mushy pronunciation, compresses very well, like how a blurry image responds well to JPG encoding.
Who wants to be the first to make a web service based on this codec and 3.75-second messages? :-)
Yes, his rights. As in, he buys something, he has the right to keep using it, and someone else doesn't have the right to stop him.
Fuck everything, we're doing five pixels.
What goes "Ha ha ha ha ha... Oh damn."?
Steve Jobs pissing his pants from laughing so hard.
>> Android was designed from the beginning to fight with guys like RIM and Microsoft, and to a lesser extent, Palm.
> I don't know which "beginning" you are referring to, but Android was released on the market to compete against what was at the time iPhone OS.
You're both right. Android was indeed originally designed to compete with older, BlackBerry-style smartphones: small screen on the top half, physical keyboard on the bottom. Check out Wikipedia--Google started in 2005, two years before the iPhone. Then, the iPhone came out and changed the standard, and the first Android phones that actually hit the market were indeed competing directly with the iPhone, with full-size touchscreens.