...aren't these (or similar) invented by somebody every year?
I think you undestimate the scopes of these products. The issue isn't the evolution of these coasters as you seem to perceive, but the intelligent design of yet another product to subtley spy on the user. A WiFi report of your alcohol consumption rate would be a nice bit of info to report to a concerned relative such as your big brother.
Please! This was a serious inquiry into the iPod nano complete purchase experience
Soon, there will be a follow-up on what excuses they had to give to the AppleCare representative to get them to replace their "accidentally" damaged nano.
"Uh... well... it looked like that when we took it out of the box. The sales rep must have put it down on the counter too hard."
There was an interview on NPR's Fresh Air today with a former city planner of New Orleans. She raised your point that the Mississippi wants to move westward and join up with another river.
Your point of economic disaster for New Orleans was exactly reversed from their perspective. New Orleans would change economically but not die, but all of the industrial functions needed because it is at the mouth of the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico would have to be rebuilt anew in some westward swamp where there is no city and this would be extremely costly. The new city would be no safer as it would still have all the location problems of New Orleans.
No idea what the best argument is, but (no matter what side you take) if we could rebuild New Orleans with "spin" we'd be sitting pretty right now.:-)
One wrong keystroke, and you've just moved dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of incorrect files. Good luck undoing that mess
Having no "undo" in the shell not a flaw in the interface. We all make mistakes no matter what interface we're using.
There is nothing to stop an "undo" system from being developed at either the shell or filesystem level. The fact that such undo systems are seen as a waste of space, resources, or brain power is a better indicator that the target audience has different goals and tolerances for what they see as a "good" interface.
That's the point. A good HCI [Human Computer Interface] will DWIMNWIS [Do What I Mean Not What I Say].
Of course, it's also a good idea to point out a counter-example of just why that's so hard for a computer to do. Some people in my HCI class back in 1992 thought that these interfaces were a brilliant idea.
Here are the article's instructions:
Tip to the right a quarter
Crop by Half
And email to Stevie Wonder
The computer could:
Donate $0.25 cents to Karl Rove's PayPal account
Harvest half of my developed land in SimFarm
Go on google and locate the first spammer claiming "Send Email to Stevie Wonder HERE!"
Send SimFarm Harvest Report to Spam harvesting account
Collect 12,235 emails for herbal viagra and hot sex now.
Imagine the trouble with homonyms trying to order stationery from Amazon and instead getting a new piece of furniture delivered. Being on a webcam might also produce some interesting side-effects ("I want to F*** you baby" might sign you up for child pornography mailing lists or just report you to the authorities directly).
While I disagree with this argument, I don't think making corners into standard hotspots is a good thing.
Hot corners become practically useless with multiple monitor setups. Defining functionality as part of a corner sets requirements that there is a hard boundry between monitors. (Bad) Or that a standard shortcut will be hard to reach for me (Bad).
I prefer the idea of hot corners being optional, user-established, activation options so that I can map their shortcut abilities to a keyboard funtction key if I happen to be hooked up to a multi-monitor system.
My biggest complaint about caps lock is that it's very rarely used but is layed out on most keyboards opposite the enter key. Shouldn't we be able to shove caps lock into a deep dark hole on the keyboard and use that space for a key that's used a bit more often (like control)?
"Apple ][ forever, dude"
The old keyboard layouts of Apple ]['s did exactly that with the control key. (They also didn't have a full set of arrow keys or a numeric keypad built in but there were many third party providers):-)
Technically, this doesn't appear to be a problem, but legally, that's another story.
My friend's Windows XP Tablet edition is specifically listed as a platform that's in violation of the agreement as well as requiring an edition of Microsoft Windows that's not in the approved operating system list.
Being a doctor, this agreement to allow Macromedia to audit his machine puts him in a precarious legal position over the privacy agreements with patients, whether you actually carry out such an audit or not.
Using this technique, biometric inputs (such as facial characteristics) are altered based upon individual characteristics in a hopefully one-way process.
Let's hope it's a one-way process. I don't trust any computer to alter my facial characteristics.
Problem is that Freescale (formerly Motorolla) makes G4s, not the IBM G5.
Very true, and I knew that, I meant to write PowerPC rather than just G5 but I didn't press preview.
Schools weren't holding on to old//e hardware, but rather wanting to run their//e software on those Mac LCs. The PDS card was required because the Mac wasn't really fast enough to emulate the//e hardware in software.
There were already software emulators for the Apple II on the mac and had been since 1985 (e.g. ][ in a Mac). The issue was completely because schools had incompatible hardware like joysticks and monitors and printer dongles that just weren't usable on a Mac like on an Apple II. The emulator card has physical ports,//e roms, and hardware on-board to really make it like you're running an Apple//.
Could the same thing happen with the PowerPC G4? Possibly. But with this transition more complaints are likely to come from influential customers who have developed in-house programs that rely on AltiVec (a G4 standard Apple isn't transitioning to Intel) or need a real PowerPC chip for running a custom assembly language routine they don't want to pay to re-write yet. Hardware is less of an issue in this transition, but Apple has people still using old 601 and 603 PowerPC machines with SCSI ports, LocalTalk ports, and Apple Serial or ADB ports. Again, all of this stuff would be reasons for their choosing NOT to move to modern mac architectures, but providing an optional $200 PowerPC card aimed at getting the old faithful to move to Intel may be a necessary evil for Apple.
Some might see it as providing more support for dead technologies, but I think Apple would see it as the way to provide a final compelling argument to get old users to move on and by making it optional and of some cost, it would discourage the cult of mac from continuing to write new Altivec routines or rely on quirks in the old Apple SCSI drivers.
The evaluator's personal evaluation, but in the case of IT many hiring personell know they don't know enough.
The endorsement of an associate who the evaluator trusts.
Various degrees of separation of trusted associates (your vice president, your vp's coordinator, your vp's coordinator's brother, your vp's coordinator's brother's schoolmate)
Claims made by the person under consideration themselves are the lowest form of endorsement and hold no weight until verified with sources of trust.
IT certifications are good if you don't have an inside friend in a company. They companys' providing them build their "trust" because they often have a reputation that would be harmed from being too incompetent or corrupt with their evaluations. Certifications are like a college education without the actual education; you're buying a reputation and some level of assurance that others trust.
Personally, I've had better luck with getting hired because people saw where I graduated college from (even though I was an engineer rather than a CS major) and people who knew my name from my controversies in the school paper and clubs I belonged to. My only regret is that I didn't join a fraternity since they often have their own networking systems. I know a lot about CS and IT from work experience, but getting a job is always about making a point of trustworthy contact with someone in the company rather than showing off what I know or even what prior work I've done.
If you pass a certification and the company is revealed to be allowing rich students to purchase passing results, then it's no longer a trustworthy endorsement and it loses it's value. A college education often does not succumb to similar corruption because it provides more sources of trust you can exploit than simply your passing test scores.
Apple used to make and sell an Apple//e emulation card for 680x0 macs with PDS slots when they were trying to transition schools and final hold-outs clinging to old Apple II hardware to something they were more willing to produce and support.
It appears likely that having a chip supply would allow Apple to make a G5 plugin card for new Intel Macs if some high powered hold-outs demanded G5's remain available.
I see no concern about purchasing chips for a tech Apple claims it's dumping. It actually makes it more likely they'll be prepared to deal with stragglers and hold-outs so that they can officially abandon PowerPC retail computers sooner (if not the chips and architecture itself).
Great! so I can lay back on the couch with a Grande Frapacino and let the caffeine up my heart rate, while the anti-oxidents reduce my guilt from not eating any fruits and vegetables.
It's good to know that such great work comes from studies funded by such unbiased groups as the American Cocoa Research Institute.
Perhaps similar studies funded by Hustler and Blueboy might find benefits in swallowing versus spitting?
While I can appreciate a noble desire by people to wonder why weapons are needed, you do need to understand that weapons exist both as a means to inflict force as well as a means to psychologically affect a potential enemy.
The psychological impact of this weapon actually sounds like it's more likely to backfire than the technical aspect (and the technical aspects don't sound all that effective to me).
Part of the psychological effect of this weapon is that the users look like gods in their ability to control lightning in a very frightening way. Unfortunately, it also suggests survival from this non-lethal weapon is due to possible theological reason.
If the Muslim/Jewish/Christian/Mormon/Buddhist Student Union's assembly turned riot is being dispersed with this weapon it's asking for misinterpretation. If what looks like a lethal weapon merely stings or temporarily disables a target, it suggests they were chosen by God in their position of resistance. Psychologically, it's going to backfire.
Even though this lightning weapon just sounds like a scam, perhaps we will be strip searched for terrorist tools like "Bounce" dryer sheets and those little battery powered fans both of which could be used to reflect or de-ionize this weapon's hair dryer... err... ionized air projector.
I'd guess this is the same amalagmated diety that people refer to when normally mixing U.S. government and religion since it's described as a "Lightning Gun" rather than "Lightning Deterrent" it sounds like something more patriotic and more protected by Amendment 2.
You know the diety in question, it's the one...
whose documented creation stories and value of pi are both expressed as simple, whole, and rational, yet seemingly contradictory with observations of reality. Thus creating all sorts of controversy when brought up in legal settings.
who insists on allowing free worship of what must be other fictional dieties, yet who often wins elections and votes by demanding that he is the only diety around. This is often as chaotic as when he insists that use of his name can create public indecency in speech yet demand it be added to the pledge of allegience out of reverence.
who frequently turns factual debates about the death penalty and assisted suicide into tenaciously argued theological questions about whether this diety had a son, whether he was innocent, whether he was really executed, and whether his choosing not to stop an execution was really a form of suicide. Such questions often obscure facts and create a chaotic debate arena.
who seemingly endorses both candidates during an election, yet who doesn't seem to involve himself afterwards in the details of actually running the government.
Moderators and Theologians Please Note: I'm not specifically referring to the diety who reset his creation with a blue sea of death after Ark-iving a small backup, and then creating a Mac OS X like special effect to remind people that it will never happen again. My comments were specifically meant to be about that amalgamated diety whose involvement in government issues causes more controversy than it solves: Loki.
I think boot loaders in general will become a much bigger topic for the technically ignorant because:
Mac OS X will bring some of the most tech-phobic users to Intel in mid-2006 and much will be talked about setting up one's computer to boot different OS's if there is no "Red Box" included.
Boot loaders are a big security point of failure and may rise again as a popular exploit if easier targets like Word Macros ever die off. IMHO knowledge is better protection than ignorance though.
Declining interest in boot loaders could solidify Microsoft's goal of being the only OS people want to use. Open Source boot loaders aim for versatility; Microsoft aims for extreme ease of use and zero versatility. If the first chapter of every linux install book is how to troubleshoot your boot loader; this is great at maintaining Windows monopoly.
Boot loaders aren't really sexy, but they are important. Hence any article that tries to build some interest in them is a good thing (even if this one may have some imperfections in it).
To a developer the Gimp is really two projects in one: functionality and interface. To a user it's all just interface. The unique functionality that The Gimp provides can be completely obscured if hidden behind atypical GUI behaviors. Users complain that the interface doesn't work as expected; developers complain that the users aren't being objective. Both sides venom demoralizes and drives away the other.
Photoshop had a similar issue with it's great color model and anti-aliasing tools in version 1.0. The interface was akin to Pixel Paint or other paint programs, but users weren't able to make retina-searing RGB color gradients and everything always looked fuzzy because of anti-aliasing. Rather than just arguing technical supperiority of their tool, later versions added more color models and ways to turn off anti-aliasing. Users saw Photoshop was easier to use and could produce better results.
If the Gimp wants to evolve into an OS independent graphics platform (like Adobe apps have), they'd be smart to create a version that lets users explore in a way that meets their expectations. Make a "Gimp Lite" that works like dozens of other MacPaint inspired tools (Paint Shop Pro, MS Paint, Photoshop, etc). Some functionality will be more difficult to use because of the more constrained interface, but users will learn the capabilites of The Gimp in a familiar way. When they hear about how much more productive the interface of "Gimp Advanced" is than Gimp Lite they'll be more capable of making the jump to a new interface.
On the other hand, if they have to learn both functionality in a new interface they'll only be likely to complain.
The people are ripe for it. You've heard stories about how ticket sales are plummeting at movie theaters, in favor of home DVD viewing. Why? Why do so many people want to work from home now? Because we're sick of having to sit with other people. We want that extra layer of control that meat interaction will never give us. We want a world without the unpredictability of real, unrestrained humanity. Either that...Or DVD+/-R & DVDwriters prices are coming down.
A female friend of mine recently went to see the premiere of War of the Worlds on opening day in a packed theatre. After a particularly intense scene about half-way through the movie, realized the strange man next to her had his hand on her knee and she had no idea how long it had been there.
She freaked. The other theater patrons thought it was just part of her reaction to the movie. The man took off. And for some reason she's expressed nothing but antipathy at going to a theatre since that incident.
First, I think the interview attributes spaceflight as part of the wrong Ultima. Ultima III has "underwater" activity, but it's Ultima ][ that uses the Russian rocket program and has the reference to his dad Owen Garriot looking for his shuttle. Ultima I has a small bit of space flight in shuttles. And of course someone will mention the crashed alien spacecraft in a farmer's field in the later Ultima, but that has even less to do plot wise other than being an in-joke about another Origin title.
Richard Garriot has always been a hero of mine for his ability to make a cool game, feed his family, and pay for his computer education with his series of Ultima titles. Probably most others don't share this perspective. But even though I do regret the consumption of Ultima into nothing more than yet another corporate brand of Electronic Arts, I do have a small bit of nostalgia for the guy who created it even if the modern game does nothing for me today.
It is cool to see someone spending their dot com bubble money on things other than fancy cars.
I mostly agree with your opinion, but I do have to say that there is something that only video can capture.
When the subject changes, grows, or dies there is a certain magic about even the worst video that will make some people watch it over and over and over again until even you (the photographer) can't stand it.
I took a video of my sister waiting in her car outside of a gate for the guard to come and open it. It was just okay footage of a car outside a locked gate. You couldn't see her at all. But the guard doesn't come and she starts honking her horn in outrage. She starts backing up the car and more impatient honking. I seriously thought of overwriting this footage, but to my suprise (and those watching it) they find it an incredibly funny picture of my sister's "attitude" even though you can't see her at all.
Some action footage (like my brother-in-law and I swinging from vines) is far more embarassing and funny and foolish on video than it ever would be in photographs. A few select photos and you'd think I could swing like Tarzan, but after watching this video you'd think I was a fat fool and be ROFL.
Some photos of my nephews during their terrible two's show two of the cutest little boys you've ever seen. But even bad videos show two hellions whose impatience is now preserved for years and years to come (much to their embarassment).
Some birthday footage I was asked to shoot of my friend's mom was really poor both because I'm only an amateur videographer and because she was wasn't feeling well. She was celebrating her birthday but she was very weak and fragile and constantly coughing. Six months later we found it had been her final birthday. The still photos taken of her show a woman posing with fake smiles and unrealistic joy and energy. The video shows things much more as they were: just about at the end and out of gas, but really loving and sincere when she could get the energy together. Shortly after the event, I made an edited video with iMovie which consolidated about 2 hours of video footage into 5 minutes. The two of them enjoyed it, but after she died six months later my friend came back and he said he wanted the raw footage. I told him that the best bits were in the iMovie and warned him of long stretches of nothing of interest going on parts which are out of focus or of horrible sound quality. But I gave it to him on a DVD. He's thanked me repeatedly for the crap footage much more than he ever even mentioned the iMovie. I know I'm not a great videographer and I can only conclude from his comments that there's something more revealing and uncaptured of his mom than in other stills and recordings buried in all that information captured in the raw footage.
Video is a pain. It really gives a person way too much information. Even if you're reasonably good with the mechanics you can still wind up with long stretches of boring crap. But it also captures something more than a series of still photos can. As time goes on, it will capture an air of life that we wouldn't bother to capture with a camera. It takes so many pictures that we can't always hide or pose or fake like we can with Kodak moments. Being close to the event, that's a real pain, but as time goes by and the incredibly boring crap in our lives changes we can find old videos of incredibly boring crap to be incredibly memorable.
"You've got UnixWare in my Linux!"
"And you've got Linux in my UnixWare!"
For those not familiar with 70's advertising slogans, that was the moniker of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups except that it used Chocolate instead of UnixWare and Peanut Butter instead of Linux. And instead of ending with a fist fight or litigation, the commercials always showed the two klutzes trying the choco-nut concoction and saying (in unison no less) that they're great together.
Of course, the GPL has been in these sorts of showdowns before and has talked down some very litigious oponnents (e.g. Steve Jobs' & NeXT).
Of course maybe this whole thing is a trap to get GPL Linux programmers to subpoena the code and henceforth be "contaminated" in the eyes of the law whether or not they discover any stolen code.
I don't mean this in an insulting way, but the eager crowd who like discussing the direction Apple is taking with their Macs remind me of cliques of friends I had who would discuss the direction Doctor Who was going in.
Getting the trickle of episodes in syndication weekly from our PBS station, while the British versions had already aired several seasons previously created some very specific groups of arguers.
The clueless - base their speculation entirely on their own hopes.
The informed - Try to inform themselves of what happens by reading a fan magazine of the plots, but can't fathom the meaning of what they read. These braggarts would yell that they know what's going to happen but completely misunderstand a point like Ramana regenerates into Princess Astra. So when you actually see the episode, it may be completely different than you expected or completely disappointing because you expected so much more.
The knowing - These people saw the shows via a different PBS station or via import. They seem the most quiet because they're so far ahead in their knowledge that they just can't seem to explain what's going on to you. They're either really quiet or they give access to their pre-released info to a special friend.
Whovians or Apple fans both speculate on:
Fashions of their main character (long scarf or black turtleneck?)
What particular companions will do (Ive makes a new case or Adric stumbles into a trap?)
Obsess about ancillary items (sonic screwdriver or iPod)
Debate reasons for heading where they are (random to avoid Guardian or random to avoid Gates)
Boycott a product that hasn't even shipped yet? We have no idea how secure/insecure it is, or how standards compliant IE7 is going to be. Just stop blustering already.
It's not as crazy an idea as it sounds. Already I've heard of IT groups strategizing how to play the new arrival of Internet Explorer 7 for expanded development budgets and political maneuvering. There are contracts that some of my graphic designer friends have had to sign that include assurances that the website their promising to deliver will be functional on Internet Explorer 7. It's an insane practice, but I know of very few who consider IT management to be the height of logic or sanity.
I think Paul Thurrot is correct to be making noise about IE 7 now. This is still the point that something can get done. This is the point where people are making huge assumptions about just what sort of kitchen sink will be included.
Whether a "boycott" is necessary or possible, the point is that if you're doing major web planning or development, you're better off sticking to the standards rather than the rumors and beta features that leak out of Redmond. Microsoft has a clear road ahead of them where there development can meet you half way.
Going off the path is only going to get you lost in the weeds.
I am not the original poster, but I've used OmniGraffle:
It has a long NeXT heritage means GnuStep and Mac OS X are the targeted OS's. Others may be a challenge.
In my opinion, OmniGraffle excels at diagramming office graphics rather than print graphics (Illustrator) or drafting graphics (CAD). But templates exist for circuit diagrams, UML, and many other technical domains.
The big features I like in OmniGraffle are:
AutoLayout - Makes a first pass at arranging your data.
Connection Magnets - very flexible "snap to" points
Nifty shadow tools - impress the boss with
Action buttons - create simple navigation scripts to walk the boss through the document.
It will export in CMYK, but whether these are the NeXTStep Libraries or something custom to Omni, I don't know. It exports in PDF and EPS vector formats, PNG, TIF, and JPG for bitmaps, as well as a proprietary format and an HTML image map.
Its layers, grids, and page sizes are all user definable, but use the defaults from your chosen printer to start with. It has text handling prefs for text overflowing an object that it's placed in, but this isn't a Quark killer by any means.
Personally, I like Freehand as my vector tool of choice for artwork, but OmniGraffle is great for a quick and dirty diagram especially if its text heavy or has lots of often changing connection lines.
Slashdot Mirror
Soon, there will be a follow-up on what excuses they had to give to the AppleCare representative to get them to replace their "accidentally" damaged nano.
"Uh... well... it looked like that when we took it out of the box. The sales rep must have put it down on the counter too hard."
Your point of economic disaster for New Orleans was exactly reversed from their perspective. New Orleans would change economically but not die, but all of the industrial functions needed because it is at the mouth of the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico would have to be rebuilt anew in some westward swamp where there is no city and this would be extremely costly. The new city would be no safer as it would still have all the location problems of New Orleans.
No idea what the best argument is, but (no matter what side you take) if we could rebuild New Orleans with "spin" we'd be sitting pretty right now. :-)
There is nothing to stop an "undo" system from being developed at either the shell or filesystem level. The fact that such undo systems are seen as a waste of space, resources, or brain power is a better indicator that the target audience has different goals and tolerances for what they see as a "good" interface.
- Tip to the right a quarter
- Crop by Half
- And email to Stevie Wonder
The computer could:- Donate $0.25 cents to Karl Rove's PayPal account
- Harvest half of my developed land in SimFarm
- Go on google and locate the first spammer claiming "Send Email to Stevie Wonder HERE!"
- Send SimFarm Harvest Report to Spam harvesting account
- Collect 12,235 emails for herbal viagra and hot sex now.
Imagine the trouble with homonyms trying to order stationery from Amazon and instead getting a new piece of furniture delivered. Being on a webcam might also produce some interesting side-effects ("I want to F*** you baby" might sign you up for child pornography mailing lists or just report you to the authorities directly).Hot corners become practically useless with multiple monitor setups. Defining functionality as part of a corner sets requirements that there is a hard boundry between monitors. (Bad) Or that a standard shortcut will be hard to reach for me (Bad).
I prefer the idea of hot corners being optional, user-established, activation options so that I can map their shortcut abilities to a keyboard funtction key if I happen to be hooked up to a multi-monitor system.
The old keyboard layouts of Apple ]['s did exactly that with the control key. (They also didn't have a full set of arrow keys or a numeric keypad built in but there were many third party providers) :-)
My friend's Windows XP Tablet edition is specifically listed as a platform that's in violation of the agreement as well as requiring an edition of Microsoft Windows that's not in the approved operating system list.
Being a doctor, this agreement to allow Macromedia to audit his machine puts him in a precarious legal position over the privacy agreements with patients, whether you actually carry out such an audit or not.
Could the same thing happen with the PowerPC G4? Possibly. But with this transition more complaints are likely to come from influential customers who have developed in-house programs that rely on AltiVec (a G4 standard Apple isn't transitioning to Intel) or need a real PowerPC chip for running a custom assembly language routine they don't want to pay to re-write yet. Hardware is less of an issue in this transition, but Apple has people still using old 601 and 603 PowerPC machines with SCSI ports, LocalTalk ports, and Apple Serial or ADB ports. Again, all of this stuff would be reasons for their choosing NOT to move to modern mac architectures, but providing an optional $200 PowerPC card aimed at getting the old faithful to move to Intel may be a necessary evil for Apple.
Some might see it as providing more support for dead technologies, but I think Apple would see it as the way to provide a final compelling argument to get old users to move on and by making it optional and of some cost, it would discourage the cult of mac from continuing to write new Altivec routines or rely on quirks in the old Apple SCSI drivers.
- The evaluator's personal evaluation, but in the case of IT many hiring personell know they don't know enough.
- The endorsement of an associate who the evaluator trusts.
- Various degrees of separation of trusted associates (your vice president, your vp's coordinator, your vp's coordinator's brother, your vp's coordinator's brother's schoolmate)
- Claims made by the person under consideration themselves are the lowest form of endorsement and hold no weight until verified with sources of trust.
IT certifications are good if you don't have an inside friend in a company. They companys' providing them build their "trust" because they often have a reputation that would be harmed from being too incompetent or corrupt with their evaluations. Certifications are like a college education without the actual education; you're buying a reputation and some level of assurance that others trust.Personally, I've had better luck with getting hired because people saw where I graduated college from (even though I was an engineer rather than a CS major) and people who knew my name from my controversies in the school paper and clubs I belonged to. My only regret is that I didn't join a fraternity since they often have their own networking systems. I know a lot about CS and IT from work experience, but getting a job is always about making a point of trustworthy contact with someone in the company rather than showing off what I know or even what prior work I've done.
If you pass a certification and the company is revealed to be allowing rich students to purchase passing results, then it's no longer a trustworthy endorsement and it loses it's value. A college education often does not succumb to similar corruption because it provides more sources of trust you can exploit than simply your passing test scores.
It appears likely that having a chip supply would allow Apple to make a G5 plugin card for new Intel Macs if some high powered hold-outs demanded G5's remain available.
I see no concern about purchasing chips for a tech Apple claims it's dumping. It actually makes it more likely they'll be prepared to deal with stragglers and hold-outs so that they can officially abandon PowerPC retail computers sooner (if not the chips and architecture itself).
It's good to know that such great work comes from studies funded by such unbiased groups as the American Cocoa Research Institute.
Perhaps similar studies funded by Hustler and Blueboy might find benefits in swallowing versus spitting?
Part of the psychological effect of this weapon is that the users look like gods in their ability to control lightning in a very frightening way. Unfortunately, it also suggests survival from this non-lethal weapon is due to possible theological reason.
If the Muslim/Jewish/Christian/Mormon/Buddhist Student Union's assembly turned riot is being dispersed with this weapon it's asking for misinterpretation. If what looks like a lethal weapon merely stings or temporarily disables a target, it suggests they were chosen by God in their position of resistance. Psychologically, it's going to backfire.
Even though this lightning weapon just sounds like a scam, perhaps we will be strip searched for terrorist tools like "Bounce" dryer sheets and those little battery powered fans both of which could be used to reflect or de-ionize this weapon's hair dryer ... err ... ionized air projector.
You know the diety in question, it's the one...
- whose documented creation stories and value of pi are both expressed as simple, whole, and rational, yet seemingly contradictory with observations of reality. Thus creating all sorts of controversy when brought up in legal settings.
- who insists on allowing free worship of what must be other fictional dieties, yet who often wins elections and votes by demanding that he is the only diety around. This is often as chaotic as when he insists that use of his name can create public indecency in speech yet demand it be added to the pledge of allegience out of reverence.
- who frequently turns factual debates about the death penalty and assisted suicide into tenaciously argued theological questions about whether this diety had a son, whether he was innocent, whether he was really executed, and whether his choosing not to stop an execution was really a form of suicide. Such questions often obscure facts and create a chaotic debate arena.
- who seemingly endorses both candidates during an election, yet who doesn't seem to involve himself afterwards in the details of actually running the government.
Moderators and Theologians Please Note: I'm not specifically referring to the diety who reset his creation with a blue sea of death after Ark-iving a small backup, and then creating a Mac OS X like special effect to remind people that it will never happen again. My comments were specifically meant to be about that amalgamated diety whose involvement in government issues causes more controversy than it solves: Loki.- Mac OS X will bring some of the most tech-phobic users to Intel in mid-2006 and much will be talked about setting up one's computer to boot different OS's if there is no "Red Box" included.
- Boot loaders are a big security point of failure and may rise again as a popular exploit if easier targets like Word Macros ever die off. IMHO knowledge is better protection than ignorance though.
- Declining interest in boot loaders could solidify Microsoft's goal of being the only OS people want to use. Open Source boot loaders aim for versatility; Microsoft aims for extreme ease of use and zero versatility. If the first chapter of every linux install book is how to troubleshoot your boot loader; this is great at maintaining Windows monopoly.
Boot loaders aren't really sexy, but they are important. Hence any article that tries to build some interest in them is a good thing (even if this one may have some imperfections in it).Photoshop had a similar issue with it's great color model and anti-aliasing tools in version 1.0. The interface was akin to Pixel Paint or other paint programs, but users weren't able to make retina-searing RGB color gradients and everything always looked fuzzy because of anti-aliasing. Rather than just arguing technical supperiority of their tool, later versions added more color models and ways to turn off anti-aliasing. Users saw Photoshop was easier to use and could produce better results.
If the Gimp wants to evolve into an OS independent graphics platform (like Adobe apps have), they'd be smart to create a version that lets users explore in a way that meets their expectations. Make a "Gimp Lite" that works like dozens of other MacPaint inspired tools (Paint Shop Pro, MS Paint, Photoshop, etc). Some functionality will be more difficult to use because of the more constrained interface, but users will learn the capabilites of The Gimp in a familiar way. When they hear about how much more productive the interface of "Gimp Advanced" is than Gimp Lite they'll be more capable of making the jump to a new interface.
On the other hand, if they have to learn both functionality in a new interface they'll only be likely to complain.
She freaked. The other theater patrons thought it was just part of her reaction to the movie. The man took off. And for some reason she's expressed nothing but antipathy at going to a theatre since that incident.
(And no I was not the strange man, you sicko's)
Richard Garriot has always been a hero of mine for his ability to make a cool game, feed his family, and pay for his computer education with his series of Ultima titles. Probably most others don't share this perspective. But even though I do regret the consumption of Ultima into nothing more than yet another corporate brand of Electronic Arts, I do have a small bit of nostalgia for the guy who created it even if the modern game does nothing for me today.
It is cool to see someone spending their dot com bubble money on things other than fancy cars.
I mostly agree with your opinion, but I do have to say that there is something that only video can capture.
When the subject changes, grows, or dies there is a certain magic about even the worst video that will make some people watch it over and over and over again until even you (the photographer) can't stand it.
I took a video of my sister waiting in her car outside of a gate for the guard to come and open it. It was just okay footage of a car outside a locked gate. You couldn't see her at all. But the guard doesn't come and she starts honking her horn in outrage. She starts backing up the car and more impatient honking. I seriously thought of overwriting this footage, but to my suprise (and those watching it) they find it an incredibly funny picture of my sister's "attitude" even though you can't see her at all.
Some action footage (like my brother-in-law and I swinging from vines) is far more embarassing and funny and foolish on video than it ever would be in photographs. A few select photos and you'd think I could swing like Tarzan, but after watching this video you'd think I was a fat fool and be ROFL.
Some photos of my nephews during their terrible two's show two of the cutest little boys you've ever seen. But even bad videos show two hellions whose impatience is now preserved for years and years to come (much to their embarassment).
Some birthday footage I was asked to shoot of my friend's mom was really poor both because I'm only an amateur videographer and because she was wasn't feeling well. She was celebrating her birthday but she was very weak and fragile and constantly coughing. Six months later we found it had been her final birthday. The still photos taken of her show a woman posing with fake smiles and unrealistic joy and energy. The video shows things much more as they were: just about at the end and out of gas, but really loving and sincere when she could get the energy together. Shortly after the event, I made an edited video with iMovie which consolidated about 2 hours of video footage into 5 minutes. The two of them enjoyed it, but after she died six months later my friend came back and he said he wanted the raw footage. I told him that the best bits were in the iMovie and warned him of long stretches of nothing of interest going on parts which are out of focus or of horrible sound quality. But I gave it to him on a DVD. He's thanked me repeatedly for the crap footage much more than he ever even mentioned the iMovie. I know I'm not a great videographer and I can only conclude from his comments that there's something more revealing and uncaptured of his mom than in other stills and recordings buried in all that information captured in the raw footage.
Video is a pain. It really gives a person way too much information. Even if you're reasonably good with the mechanics you can still wind up with long stretches of boring crap. But it also captures something more than a series of still photos can. As time goes on, it will capture an air of life that we wouldn't bother to capture with a camera. It takes so many pictures that we can't always hide or pose or fake like we can with Kodak moments. Being close to the event, that's a real pain, but as time goes by and the incredibly boring crap in our lives changes we can find old videos of incredibly boring crap to be incredibly memorable.
Of course, the GPL has been in these sorts of showdowns before and has talked down some very litigious oponnents (e.g. Steve Jobs' & NeXT).
Of course maybe this whole thing is a trap to get GPL Linux programmers to subpoena the code and henceforth be "contaminated" in the eyes of the law whether or not they discover any stolen code.
Getting the trickle of episodes in syndication weekly from our PBS station, while the British versions had already aired several seasons previously created some very specific groups of arguers.
- The clueless - base their speculation entirely on their own hopes.
- The informed - Try to inform themselves of what happens by reading a fan magazine of the plots, but can't fathom the meaning of what they read. These braggarts would yell that they know what's going to happen but completely misunderstand a point like Ramana regenerates into Princess Astra. So when you actually see the episode, it may be completely different than you expected or completely disappointing because you expected so much more.
- The knowing - These people saw the shows via a different PBS station or via import. They seem the most quiet because they're so far ahead in their knowledge that they just can't seem to explain what's going on to you. They're either really quiet or they give access to their pre-released info to a special friend.
Whovians or Apple fans both speculate on:I think Paul Thurrot is correct to be making noise about IE 7 now. This is still the point that something can get done. This is the point where people are making huge assumptions about just what sort of kitchen sink will be included.
Whether a "boycott" is necessary or possible, the point is that if you're doing major web planning or development, you're better off sticking to the standards rather than the rumors and beta features that leak out of Redmond. Microsoft has a clear road ahead of them where there development can meet you half way.
Going off the path is only going to get you lost in the weeds.
It has a long NeXT heritage means GnuStep and Mac OS X are the targeted OS's. Others may be a challenge.
In my opinion, OmniGraffle excels at diagramming office graphics rather than print graphics (Illustrator) or drafting graphics (CAD). But templates exist for circuit diagrams, UML, and many other technical domains.
The big features I like in OmniGraffle are:
- AutoLayout - Makes a first pass at arranging your data.
- Connection Magnets - very flexible "snap to" points
- Nifty shadow tools - impress the boss with
- Action buttons - create simple navigation scripts to walk the boss through the document.
It will export in CMYK, but whether these are the NeXTStep Libraries or something custom to Omni, I don't know. It exports in PDF and EPS vector formats, PNG, TIF, and JPG for bitmaps, as well as a proprietary format and an HTML image map.Its layers, grids, and page sizes are all user definable, but use the defaults from your chosen printer to start with. It has text handling prefs for text overflowing an object that it's placed in, but this isn't a Quark killer by any means.
Personally, I like Freehand as my vector tool of choice for artwork, but OmniGraffle is great for a quick and dirty diagram especially if its text heavy or has lots of often changing connection lines.