Not to detract from the silliness of this lawsuit, but Oak Park isn't really a small town. It's one of the wealthier suburbs just outside of Chicago.
And while I'm on it, just what is this "small town mentality" that I hear so much about? I only ask because I've met just as many close-minded, ignorant people from large cities as I have from small towns. But I digress...
But how many professional Graphic Designers know C, C++, perl, etc? My educated guess (as someone who knows more than a handful of graphic designers) is not many. Writing a script for the Gimp in the language of your choice may be appealing for your average Slashdot reader, but for just about anyone else (myself included) creating a Photoshop action to do the same thing is much easier...
1) Select New Action 2) Name New Action 3) Start recording steps for the new action 4) Stop recording 5) Save action
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe writing something in whatever programming language is easier than that...
My concerns aren't privacy, I'm more worried about letting the average person run basically run this system. This smacks of 1930s/40s Germany, where you were asked to basically spy on your neighbor. It smacks of the Red Scare here in the US, where, again, you were basically asked to spy on your own neighbor. The list goes on and on.
I'm all for securing potential targets but I don't think that letting the average person run the system is a great idea. Think back a few months to an incident in Florida where three medical students on their way to their new residencies were chased down and then detained on the side of the highway for nearly 24 hours. This was all because one ignorant woman saw three Middle Easter-looking men having a private discussion in a restaraunt. I'm afraid that this system of cameras will only increase instances like this.
Hate to rain on your parade, but the new iPods that just came out can use Firewire, USB 2 or USB 1. Sure you have to buy an adapter to use USB, but it's a lot better than having to buy a completely different model to get that functionality like I would have to do if I wanted to use Firewire with the Nomad Zen. Isn't $20 for a different cable a much better deal than $400 for a different MP3 player?
Also, the iPod is compatible with both Macs and Windows out of the box. From what I can tell the Nomad Zen isn't, and I haven't seen any indication that it will be.
And speaking of optional remote controls that enable FM tuning, you might want to look at the iFM from Griffin Technology. It allows you to turn your older iPod into an FM tuner. Sure it's only for the older models right now, but I've been informed that there will be an updated version that works with the new iPods shortly.
Oh, and in addition to MP3 and AAC the iPod also supports WAV, AIFF, and Audible (books-on-tape). But I don't see why how many file formats a device supports is really important. I mean, do you really have any of your music encoded as WAV or WMA?
Have most students entering college today seen War Games or TRON? Even most of my friends who graduated a few years ago, and who grew up when these movies were released in the theatres haven't seen them. Okay, maybe a few of them have seen War Games, but most of them haven't seen TRON.
And if today's students have seen these movies why should I believe that those students view them as accurate portrayals of anything. I'm especially thinking of TRON. Don't get me wrong, it's a great movie, but the visual effects in TRON seem only slightly better than some of the effects in sci-fi movies from the '50s, at least compared to what is coming out of Holywood today.
I think what this comes down to is a new twist to the old argument of popular media ruining the world. Think back to how many times video games, music, television, and movies have been blamed for corrupting the youth. Now how is this argument any different? Rather than blame the media (who will continue to misrepresent everyone, not just programmers) why don't we actually get out into the world and let students know what we really do. Maybe even invite students to shadow us at work for a day.
What makes you think IE on the Mac is just a patchwork port running in some sort of mythical compatability layer? While it may be true that older versions of IE on the Mac (versions 4.5 and earlier) were based on the Windows versions, version 5 was built from scratch for the Mac. I would encourage you to do a little research before posting next time.
Why is everyone assumming that Apple won't build in some sort of tactile response with this new mouse? And really what's so weird about a "vibrating" mouse? We've had vibrating joysticks for years now, I know guys that won't use anything else. It seems obvious to me that Apple is going to build in some sort of respone. But hey, I'm a mac user so what do I know, right?
Slashdot Mirror
Not to detract from the silliness of this lawsuit, but Oak Park isn't really a small town. It's one of the wealthier suburbs just outside of Chicago.
And while I'm on it, just what is this "small town mentality" that I hear so much about? I only ask because I've met just as many close-minded, ignorant people from large cities as I have from small towns. But I digress...
But how many professional Graphic Designers know C, C++, perl, etc? My educated guess (as someone who knows more than a handful of graphic designers) is not many. Writing a script for the Gimp in the language of your choice may be appealing for your average Slashdot reader, but for just about anyone else (myself included) creating a Photoshop action to do the same thing is much easier...
1) Select New Action
2) Name New Action
3) Start recording steps for the new action
4) Stop recording
5) Save action
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe writing something in whatever programming language is easier than that...
Yeah, thanks AC.
My concerns aren't privacy, I'm more worried about letting the average person run basically run this system. This smacks of 1930s/40s Germany, where you were asked to basically spy on your neighbor. It smacks of the Red Scare here in the US, where, again, you were basically asked to spy on your own neighbor. The list goes on and on.
I'm all for securing potential targets but I don't think that letting the average person run the system is a great idea. Think back a few months to an incident in Florida where three medical students on their way to their new residencies were chased down and then detained on the side of the highway for nearly 24 hours. This was all because one ignorant woman saw three Middle Easter-looking men having a private discussion in a restaraunt. I'm afraid that this system of cameras will only increase instances like this.
Hate to rain on your parade, but the new iPods that just came out can use Firewire, USB 2 or USB 1. Sure you have to buy an adapter to use USB, but it's a lot better than having to buy a completely different model to get that functionality like I would have to do if I wanted to use Firewire with the Nomad Zen. Isn't $20 for a different cable a much better deal than $400 for a different MP3 player? Also, the iPod is compatible with both Macs and Windows out of the box. From what I can tell the Nomad Zen isn't, and I haven't seen any indication that it will be. And speaking of optional remote controls that enable FM tuning, you might want to look at the iFM from Griffin Technology. It allows you to turn your older iPod into an FM tuner. Sure it's only for the older models right now, but I've been informed that there will be an updated version that works with the new iPods shortly. Oh, and in addition to MP3 and AAC the iPod also supports WAV, AIFF, and Audible (books-on-tape). But I don't see why how many file formats a device supports is really important. I mean, do you really have any of your music encoded as WAV or WMA?
Have most students entering college today seen War Games or TRON? Even most of my friends who graduated a few years ago, and who grew up when these movies were released in the theatres haven't seen them. Okay, maybe a few of them have seen War Games, but most of them haven't seen TRON.
And if today's students have seen these movies why should I believe that those students view them as accurate portrayals of anything. I'm especially thinking of TRON. Don't get me wrong, it's a great movie, but the visual effects in TRON seem only slightly better than some of the effects in sci-fi movies from the '50s, at least compared to what is coming out of Holywood today.
I think what this comes down to is a new twist to the old argument of popular media ruining the world. Think back to how many times video games, music, television, and movies have been blamed for corrupting the youth. Now how is this argument any different? Rather than blame the media (who will continue to misrepresent everyone, not just programmers) why don't we actually get out into the world and let students know what we really do. Maybe even invite students to shadow us at work for a day.
What makes you think IE on the Mac is just a patchwork port running in some sort of mythical compatability layer? While it may be true that older versions of IE on the Mac (versions 4.5 and earlier) were based on the Windows versions, version 5 was built from scratch for the Mac. I would encourage you to do a little research before posting next time.
tim
Why is everyone assumming that Apple won't build in some sort of tactile response with this new mouse? And really what's so weird about a "vibrating" mouse? We've had vibrating joysticks for years now, I know guys that won't use anything else. It seems obvious to me that Apple is going to build in some sort of respone. But hey, I'm a mac user so what do I know, right?