12 ozs is the size of a can of soda in the usa. So basically they're telling us how much caffeine per can of beverage. I'm sure the only measures they have of caffeine is in mg and it wouldn't make sense to convert it to metric. They're catering to those of us in the states.
Fair enough, but shouldn't they just make it lbs/oz then? I believe in Europe everything is measured out of 100ml, so you can work out what percentage of the stuff it corresponds to.
In any case, I'd like all of my GUI to be in human readable code, thank you very much. Having binaries for such things is an incredibly stupid idea (except for things like images of course that need to be binary, but even then something like SVG is better).
Well it doesn't need to be binary, but at least in format that is optimised for specifying resources, and is easily machine parsable. XML certainly fits these needs, but the deployed file should still be in binary, since it makes for faster processing.
I've spent most of the last 10 years building desktop and web applications with Java: AWT, Swing, JSP, Struts, J2EE, EJBs, and on and on.
If have done a fair amount of that too and my biggest gripe: having to write user interfaces in source code or UI builder generating source code! The problem with this approach is that you are tied into some builder and the code generated is ugly. Compare this it to Visual Studio (on MS-Windows) or Interface Builder (on MacOS X) which both generate binary resource files indicating how things should be laid out. With Interface Builder you design your GUI and then tell which are the handlers in the source code for handling the UI even. For me this is the one thing that needs to be sorted out in Java if it is going to be taken seriously for desktop applications.
FairPlay is already hacked. I don't see how that would change if Apple started licensing it to other MP3 players. So it seems more likely that the refusal is all about customer lock-in.
It has been, but then Apple goes and releases an updated version. Apple never intended their DRM to be unbreakable, but sufficiently inconvenient. If Apple license out Fairplay then they would have to ensure that they don't break compatibility somewhere when they tweak the DRM for the nth time. Either way, I am not a DRM fan.
BTW I believe what Universal is doing is a classic bargaining tactic: say you aren't interested in renewing in the hopes that the other party will change their offer. Of course the other party could call your bluff, knowing how important they are to you. If Universal does show that there is a sufficiently good alternative that Apple is not needed and Apple realises this, then Apple will change their bargaining stance.
You could say the same thing to Apple; if you don't agree with what free software "stands for", then DON'T USE IT IN YOUR PRODUCTS!
Actually, Apple does publish all the source it is required to:
- With Darwin (the base OS) there is no requirement (it is a BSD license), but they do so: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
- With WebKit (a fork of KHTML), and engine used by Safari, they do so: http://webkit.org/
Sure in some cases the source is not always in an easy to compile form, but they are publishing it. As for the rest of the OS, since it is running in user space then as long as it is not based on an GPL type open source license, then there too there is no need to publish the source code.
A lot of apps still aren't supporting 64 bit. Might have been a good idea to ask.
When you know that you have something that most don't have it is important to do so. At the same time, should a 64-bit version of an OS provide a means to run 32-bit applications (forget drivers for the moment)? I ask this whether your given OS is Linux, MacOS X or Windows. I know that it can be a little tricky when we are talking library dependencies, but knowing that the vast majority of applications out there are 32-bit, I would hope that some solution is provided to make the average user's life easier until 64-bit applications are more available.
I design my sites for compatibility. Sure I might tweak a small feature here and there in special cases, but compatability remains key. If the site is not compatible, then I lose some viewership somewhere. Google in many ways is what we all strive for, since they manage to add cool features, but still manage to provide backwards compatibility.
One of the issues that seems to be apparent is that the BlackBerry servers are out of country, on someone else's soil. I am not sure the USA would react any differently if the servers were on French soil instead? One way to reassure the French government could be by placing the BlackBerry servers handling French traffic in France. As to whether the USA or France spy on each other? Well I just take the cynical point of view that if national security matters you need act as if anyone could be spying on you. I don't mind that governments wear tin foil hats, as long as their policy of doing so does not effect Joe public.
According to the most recent road map, a Moon base is/was already the step prior to a manned Mars mission. If that Moon base is interpreted as "related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars," then we lose that, too.
Well that's why the moon mission should be considered an independent project. In fact, while I am all for a Mars mission, I do feel that there are some intermediate steps that need to be sorted out. Better research on projects that are of immediate use, such as a suitable reusable launch vehicle, would be a better focus. Investing in the right projects that help us now, may actually make the Mars mission that much easier and less pie in the sky.
To make the Mars mission that much easier I believe the following should happen, in the follwing order:
- development of a reusable and affordable launch vehicle, with orbital capabilities
- further development of above launch vehicle to carry satellite and servicing equipment
- improve vehicle so that it maintains the requirements of the previous steps, yet is capable of performing a return trip to the moon
- establishment of a moon base, from which we can perform research and learn about the issues
- creation of a transport vehicle capable of making it to Mars
- establishment of a Mars base
While we can jump steps, I feel that in doing so we won't be able to establish the long term durability of the technology established in that step. What we would end up with otherwise is something akin to the previous moon missions which did much for the ego of humanity, but just could not be maintained because the costs were too high.
Also, I'd personally love it if YouTube let me set an option in my profile to view H.264 videos as I'm browsing the website. Keep the videos in flash by default, but let people who know they can view embedded H.264 take advantage of it.
Yup, that would be sweet, though I just have to wonder about bandwidth and whether they would get exposed to copyright issues?
Doing what you suggest is certainly within the realm of technical possibility, from a business perspective it is another thing.
I can help you with a few examples of what I don't think would work:
- Gandalf with a deep Texan accent
- King Arthur with an Indian accent
- your female avatar speaking with a guy's accent Sure it could make great comedy, but it makes it difficult to lose yourself in medieval England or whatever the game context is meant to be. Games like this are about suspension of belief and escapism, so bring in real elements kinda ruins things.
You really think web developers are going to give a shit if their sites work on IE 5&6, Netscape, and Firefox but break/look odd on Safari?
From my experience if you make a web page that works with Firefox, then in most cases it works with no modification on Opera, Safari and Omniweb. Now IE is whole different matter. I actually have to dedicate time to work out how to get round the issues there (CSS and Javascript), and just when I think I have a winner I find that IE 6 and IE 7 produce different results to each other too!!! I get the feeling that issues with IE are more down to incompetence at Microsoft, rather than any evil intent.
Safari does have issues, but at least its DOM is W3C compliant.
The Flash games are basically those available via web pages. If it can be displayed in a web page, then it can be displayed by Opera on the Wii. For example, the following will work anywhere Flash does.
How long did you have to wait for the wii to come out?
Until you get lucky;) Seriously, I have been going to various stores, every once in a while, asking them when their next batch is due. Most either don't know and tell you, that you have to call almost every day to find out and then they are usually sold in a couple of hours. The other day I went to buy a home phone, didn't find the one I wanted and asked on the off chance if they if they knew when the next batch of Wiis was due. Guy told me they actually happened to have two in stock, so I bought it in an instant, along with Rayman - now that's one crazy game.
So in my case about seven months, since release date.
I recently managed to get myself a Wii and from playing around with it, I feel there is a lot of untapped potential. Much of this could be accelerated if they made it easier for individual developers to add new channels. Although the Wii does not have a huge amount of processing power, when compared to a home PC, some of the stuff that I could see being added to it:
- MP3 Player, accessing music from SD card or a media server such as iTunes. Currently the only MP3 player is part of the slide show.
- Ability to play MPEG and MPEG4 movies, using codecs other than Motion-JPEG, from SD or a media server
- Support for Bonjour, for discovering services on you local home network.
I know that the Wii is meant to be a games machine, but once you have explored the weather, news and internet channels you realise it could be so much more. This price also makes it very attractive.
On the game front this kind of competition could foster more imagination, than some game companies are will to provide, especially when it comes to using the controller.
BTW you can play Flash based games with the help of Opera.
One of the points was that their current network implementation sucked. They have multiple networks, each handling a different type of medium, be it telephone, computer data and TV. This makes for huge complexity when administering the networks. Their current data network was not designed in an optimal manner and quickly got over run. Their plan is to provide one IP network for all data types (voice, fax, data and TV), instead of dedicated networks, and then have a box in each room which would provide an interface to allow to use phone, computers and TVs. This approach reduces cabling and makes it much easier to manage.
Declaring those who haven't paid the protection racket as not "real mail" is not really something that I would envision as something which would pass a non-bribed judge.
It should also be noted that high level spammers usually make enough to more than cover costs anyhow. A small business is would love to in such a position, but usually they are trying to control every expense. Having to pay to have their e-mail delivered, when they didn't have to before is not welcome news, but it would just end up being put down to the 'price of doing business'.
As a recent convert from Windows and Trillian, Adium really impressed me. Fast, non-bloated, gorgeous UI, very customizable. The only thing that Trillian has it beat on is support of video and audio chat.
Yup, it this is certainly a major feature that is missing. Up until now the developers of Adium have not wanted to touch this, since they say this is not in their realm of expertise. Since Adium is using libpurple, this support will likely come once it is incorporated into the library. This is something which is getting some focus, but I don't know the exact timeline.
I thought that adium was basically gaim restyle to match OSX, in which case it would sort of be cheating to list it separately from gaim/pidgin. I didn't realize there were any other differences..
Other than the common dependency on the same library, known as libpurple (as it is now known), they are very different. You should think of Adium as third-party IM that happens to use libpurple. Adium has already used other libraries for features that libpurple just didn't implement well or at all. The Adium developer work closely with the developers of the Pidgin/libpurple project, ensuring fixes, bug reporting et al.
It should be noted that the separation into Pidgin and libpurple is recent, but that an unofficial libgaim had existed before this separation, and this is what Adium used. The Pidgin team, at about the same time as Gaim got renamed, split the UI and the core logic into two units, in order to facilitate development. There are now three projects that officially used libpurple, these being Pidgin (UI for Linux, Windows and possibly others, where X11 is present), Finch (CLI UI) and Adium (MacOS specific).
What would prevent you from being able to boot off a ZFS drive? Surely all that needs to be done is for Apple to add ZFS support to their EFI implementation?
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12 ozs is the size of a can of soda in the usa. So basically they're telling us how much caffeine per can of beverage. I'm sure the only measures they have of caffeine is in mg and it wouldn't make sense to convert it to metric. They're catering to those of us in the states.
Fair enough, but shouldn't they just make it lbs/oz then? I believe in Europe everything is measured out of 100ml, so you can work out what percentage of the stuff it corresponds to.
In any case, I'd like all of my GUI to be in human readable code, thank you very much. Having binaries for such things is an incredibly stupid idea (except for things like images of course that need to be binary, but even then something like SVG is better).
Well it doesn't need to be binary, but at least in format that is optimised for specifying resources, and is easily machine parsable. XML certainly fits these needs, but the deployed file should still be in binary, since it makes for faster processing.
I've spent most of the last 10 years building desktop and web applications with Java: AWT, Swing, JSP, Struts, J2EE, EJBs, and on and on.
If have done a fair amount of that too and my biggest gripe: having to write user interfaces in source code or UI builder generating source code! The problem with this approach is that you are tied into some builder and the code generated is ugly. Compare this it to Visual Studio (on MS-Windows) or Interface Builder (on MacOS X) which both generate binary resource files indicating how things should be laid out. With Interface Builder you design your GUI and then tell which are the handlers in the source code for handling the UI even. For me this is the one thing that needs to be sorted out in Java if it is going to be taken seriously for desktop applications.
Would this be the formula: CnH2n+1OH? At least it seems to be popular for dampening memories.
FairPlay is already hacked. I don't see how that would change if Apple started licensing it to other MP3 players. So it seems more likely that the refusal is all about customer lock-in.
It has been, but then Apple goes and releases an updated version. Apple never intended their DRM to be unbreakable, but sufficiently inconvenient. If Apple license out Fairplay then they would have to ensure that they don't break compatibility somewhere when they tweak the DRM for the nth time. Either way, I am not a DRM fan.
BTW I believe what Universal is doing is a classic bargaining tactic: say you aren't interested in renewing in the hopes that the other party will change their offer. Of course the other party could call your bluff, knowing how important they are to you. If Universal does show that there is a sufficiently good alternative that Apple is not needed and Apple realises this, then Apple will change their bargaining stance.
You could say the same thing to Apple; if you don't agree with what free software "stands for", then DON'T USE IT IN YOUR PRODUCTS!
Actually, Apple does publish all the source it is required to:
- With Darwin (the base OS) there is no requirement (it is a BSD license), but they do so: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
- With WebKit (a fork of KHTML), and engine used by Safari, they do so: http://webkit.org/
and there is also more: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/
Sure in some cases the source is not always in an easy to compile form, but they are publishing it. As for the rest of the OS, since it is running in user space then as long as it is not based on an GPL type open source license, then there too there is no need to publish the source code.
A lot of apps still aren't supporting 64 bit. Might have been a good idea to ask.
When you know that you have something that most don't have it is important to do so. At the same time, should a 64-bit version of an OS provide a means to run 32-bit applications (forget drivers for the moment)? I ask this whether your given OS is Linux, MacOS X or Windows. I know that it can be a little tricky when we are talking library dependencies, but knowing that the vast majority of applications out there are 32-bit, I would hope that some solution is provided to make the average user's life easier until 64-bit applications are more available.
I guess you'll need to have Windows or a Mac somewhere to have a fully functional iPhone...
The iTunes requirement certainly seems to do this. Its a shame that AT&T or Apple don't simply provide a traditional web page for this.
I design my sites for compatibility. Sure I might tweak a small feature here and there in special cases, but compatability remains key. If the site is not compatible, then I lose some viewership somewhere. Google in many ways is what we all strive for, since they manage to add cool features, but still manage to provide backwards compatibility.
One of the issues that seems to be apparent is that the BlackBerry servers are out of country, on someone else's soil. I am not sure the USA would react any differently if the servers were on French soil instead? One way to reassure the French government could be by placing the BlackBerry servers handling French traffic in France. As to whether the USA or France spy on each other? Well I just take the cynical point of view that if national security matters you need act as if anyone could be spying on you. I don't mind that governments wear tin foil hats, as long as their policy of doing so does not effect Joe public.
According to the most recent road map, a Moon base is/was already the step prior to a manned Mars mission. If that Moon base is interpreted as "related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars," then we lose that, too.
Well that's why the moon mission should be considered an independent project. In fact, while I am all for a Mars mission, I do feel that there are some intermediate steps that need to be sorted out. Better research on projects that are of immediate use, such as a suitable reusable launch vehicle, would be a better focus. Investing in the right projects that help us now, may actually make the Mars mission that much easier and less pie in the sky.
To make the Mars mission that much easier I believe the following should happen, in the follwing order:
- development of a reusable and affordable launch vehicle, with orbital capabilities
- further development of above launch vehicle to carry satellite and servicing equipment
- improve vehicle so that it maintains the requirements of the previous steps, yet is capable of performing a return trip to the moon
- establishment of a moon base, from which we can perform research and learn about the issues
- creation of a transport vehicle capable of making it to Mars
- establishment of a Mars base
While we can jump steps, I feel that in doing so we won't be able to establish the long term durability of the technology established in that step. What we would end up with otherwise is something akin to the previous moon missions which did much for the ego of humanity, but just could not be maintained because the costs were too high.
Also, I'd personally love it if YouTube let me set an option in my profile to view H.264 videos as I'm browsing the website. Keep the videos in flash by default, but let people who know they can view embedded H.264 take advantage of it.
Yup, that would be sweet, though I just have to wonder about bandwidth and whether they would get exposed to copyright issues?
Doing what you suggest is certainly within the realm of technical possibility, from a business perspective it is another thing.
Not sure how else to explain it.
I can help you with a few examples of what I don't think would work:
- Gandalf with a deep Texan accent
- King Arthur with an Indian accent
- your female avatar speaking with a guy's accent
Sure it could make great comedy, but it makes it difficult to lose yourself in medieval England or whatever the game context is meant to be. Games like this are about suspension of belief and escapism, so bring in real elements kinda ruins things.
You really think web developers are going to give a shit if their sites work on IE 5&6, Netscape, and Firefox but break/look odd on Safari?
From my experience if you make a web page that works with Firefox, then in most cases it works with no modification on Opera, Safari and Omniweb. Now IE is whole different matter. I actually have to dedicate time to work out how to get round the issues there (CSS and Javascript), and just when I think I have a winner I find that IE 6 and IE 7 produce different results to each other too!!! I get the feeling that issues with IE are more down to incompetence at Microsoft, rather than any evil intent.
Safari does have issues, but at least its DOM is W3C compliant.
The Flash games are basically those available via web pages. If it can be displayed in a web page, then it can be displayed by Opera on the Wii. For example, the following will work anywhere Flash does.
- http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/wii/
- http://www.wiiplayable.com/
I have no idea how much it costs to develop flash content on Windows/Linux/MacOS X, etc, but it isn't anything Nintendo specific.
How long did you have to wait for the wii to come out?
;) Seriously, I have been going to various stores, every once in a while, asking them when their next batch is due. Most either don't know and tell you, that you have to call almost every day to find out and then they are usually sold in a couple of hours. The other day I went to buy a home phone, didn't find the one I wanted and asked on the off chance if they if they knew when the next batch of Wiis was due. Guy told me they actually happened to have two in stock, so I bought it in an instant, along with Rayman - now that's one crazy game.
Until you get lucky
So in my case about seven months, since release date.
I recently managed to get myself a Wii and from playing around with it, I feel there is a lot of untapped potential. Much of this could be accelerated if they made it easier for individual developers to add new channels. Although the Wii does not have a huge amount of processing power, when compared to a home PC, some of the stuff that I could see being added to it:
- MP3 Player, accessing music from SD card or a media server such as iTunes. Currently the only MP3 player is part of the slide show.
- Ability to play MPEG and MPEG4 movies, using codecs other than Motion-JPEG, from SD or a media server
- Support for Bonjour, for discovering services on you local home network.
I know that the Wii is meant to be a games machine, but once you have explored the weather, news and internet channels you realise it could be so much more. This price also makes it very attractive.
On the game front this kind of competition could foster more imagination, than some game companies are will to provide, especially when it comes to using the controller.
BTW you can play Flash based games with the help of Opera.
One of the points was that their current network implementation sucked. They have multiple networks, each handling a different type of medium, be it telephone, computer data and TV. This makes for huge complexity when administering the networks. Their current data network was not designed in an optimal manner and quickly got over run. Their plan is to provide one IP network for all data types (voice, fax, data and TV), instead of dedicated networks, and then have a box in each room which would provide an interface to allow to use phone, computers and TVs. This approach reduces cabling and makes it much easier to manage.
BTW The article could have been written better.
Declaring those who haven't paid the protection racket as not "real mail" is not really something that I would envision as something which would pass a non-bribed judge.
It should also be noted that high level spammers usually make enough to more than cover costs anyhow. A small business is would love to in such a position, but usually they are trying to control every expense. Having to pay to have their e-mail delivered, when they didn't have to before is not welcome news, but it would just end up being put down to the 'price of doing business'.
As a recent convert from Windows and Trillian, Adium really impressed me. Fast, non-bloated, gorgeous UI, very customizable. The only thing that Trillian has it beat on is support of video and audio chat.
Yup, it this is certainly a major feature that is missing. Up until now the developers of Adium have not wanted to touch this, since they say this is not in their realm of expertise. Since Adium is using libpurple, this support will likely come once it is incorporated into the library. This is something which is getting some focus, but I don't know the exact timeline.
I thought that adium was basically gaim restyle to match OSX, in which case it would sort of be cheating to list it separately from gaim/pidgin. I didn't realize there were any other differences..
Other than the common dependency on the same library, known as libpurple (as it is now known), they are very different. You should think of Adium as third-party IM that happens to use libpurple. Adium has already used other libraries for features that libpurple just didn't implement well or at all. The Adium developer work closely with the developers of the Pidgin/libpurple project, ensuring fixes, bug reporting et al.
It should be noted that the separation into Pidgin and libpurple is recent, but that an unofficial libgaim had existed before this separation, and this is what Adium used. The Pidgin team, at about the same time as Gaim got renamed, split the UI and the core logic into two units, in order to facilitate development. There are now three projects that officially used libpurple, these being Pidgin (UI for Linux, Windows and possibly others, where X11 is present), Finch (CLI UI) and Adium (MacOS specific).
That's what I say. I am naked even as I type this message.
;) Just imagine the static build up your are harming you computer with.
Well being clothed near an open computer is evil
Being a computer user is really tough sometimes: Not only do they expect you to be a computer expert, but they also expect you to be a legal expert.
Haven't you already been able to do this with a fluorescent tube under a high tension power line?
What would prevent you from being able to boot off a ZFS drive? Surely all that needs to be done is for Apple to add ZFS support to their EFI implementation?