Making all art resources into vector graphics is not nearly as easy as you seem to think it is. Absolutely nobody believes that rendering SVG or other vector formats is the hard part--the problem is converting content to vector formats!
I work in the publishing industry for a small publisher.
I was at a convention several weeks ago and spoke with some people who worked for a subsidiary of Elsevier. As an aside, just like in other industries, the publishing industry conglomerates are GIANT. Beyond the science and medical journals that were involved in starting the boycott, Elsevier owns LexisNexis (synonymous with law databases and also a book publisher), Harcourt (fiction), Butterworth, and many more. They have gobbled up literally dozens of formerly independent publishers, and in general data and knowledge companies in all fields.
Anyway, the employees of this particular subsidiary said Elsevier was SEVERELY hurting because of the boycott. I was shocked... I had assumed the boycott would have minimal impact. These particular employees (again, not of Elsevier directly) were glad as they were fully aware of how expensive Elsevier journals are and how ridiculous Elsevier's links in to government are. One of them said basically that Elsevier had spent millions of dollars over the past 15 years to get exclusive rights to public domain research (link). Once they got it, the situation blew up and Elsevier backed off--waiting no doubt for people to forget.
This also goes to show how many of the individuals in a corporation can believe the "right" thing but that horrible leadership at the top is all that matters.
It's corporations like Elsevier that give ALL companies a bad name. I support the boycott.
I don't think they're very well known in the US. I obviously can't speak for anyone beyond my anecdotal evidence, but none of my friends (most of whom are s.f. and fantasy fans) none had read the Gormenghast novels. Curious.
Yeah, I mean AAPL is ONLY up ~32% since the beginning of the year. Big woop Apple fanbois--spin the news any way you want. It's clear the "the new iPad" (brilliant product name, by the way) is going to be a HUGE flop.
I really do like both the Lynch movie and the SyFy miniseries. Between the two, on a visceral level I definitely like the Lynch better. Perhaps it's just that I saw it first (and when I was younger) but the characters just seem better and the environment more true. Like you said--it had the right look and feel. Paul from the movie is forever who I will think of as Paul.
The miniseries had a lot going for them too, and while I enjoy them, they're just... off.
I would love the Lynch movie completely without reservation if it didn't have bald women, weirding modules, etc.
Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast (and sequels). HARD to get into, but rewarding if you understand that they are very experimental.
Cool! Someone at work literally lent me two of these books today, and I was planning on starting them tonight. I had never heard of them before, so I'll definitely give them a thorough chance.
Sheesh, apparently posting one link that provides a graphical comparison is enough to get me modded down to 0 and marked a troll. Amazing how worked up some people get over phones.
The reason I was so surprised upon seeing the icon comparison...I do not believe that some of the elements could not have just happened to end up so similar by chance. The graphical composition of the buttons is very similar in many cases!
For example, the pictures button just happens to have a yellow flower? Why a flower? Why a YELLOW flower with green highlights? Similar arguments could be made for the most of the buttons, IMHO. I'm not one to argue that a green dial button is a dealbreaker, but do other phones have a white phone outline on a green background at the same angle? If anything, I would say that the last link you provides just shows how much room for originality and differences there are amongst the problem domain "design phone icons."
It's enough to make me believe that Samsung's designers absolutely did copy from Apple. Whether you believe that's a good thing, a bad thing, or an illegal thing is another question. I have an iPhone (old 3gs) and I like it. Whenever it dies, I'll get a new phone. I have not liked the Android phones I have used, though to be fair I have not tried ICS. Not sure why some people get so incredibly emotional over the issue!
Hi mjwx, I've never done this before, but you replied to a post of mine about a week ago. I hadn't checked comments since then and was surprised by your response! http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2684981&cid=39121029 I figured you probably wouldn't see my response, since it was a week old thread, so I'm posting here.
Would you mind clarifying what you're talking about? I'm a bit confused.
I realize I'm late to the party in responding, but what's been photoshopped in the link I posted? The link I posted has 7 sets of icons to compare. The links you provided either are a specs sheet (which I'm not sure why that's relevant), someone's modified custom iPhone and S2 home screens (again, why relevant--though a few of the relevant icons are pictured), and a generic Samsung marketing image which does indeed show three of the icons in question.
So, what's the fake? Are you claiming some of those icons are not present on the stock iPhone or the stock S2?
Try linking to something other then CultOfMac. So nice troll, but it's nothing but a troll.
How is it a troll?
Sorry if reality doesn't fit in with your warped world view, but that's reality for you.
Wow, just like...wow. It's a phone, nothing to get so worked up about. I had a one word post that was posed as a question and a link, and you really feel it necessary to post such a vitriolic reply? Please explain, from my posting one link and the word "Really?" what kind of "warped world view" I have. Your post is honestly one of the craziest over reactions I have ever seen on slashdot.
Reminds me of a funny Isaac Asimov short story in which people completely forget how to do math by hand other than with a calculator and then rediscover the "lost art."
It's a rather interesting question. How hard is it to come up with a name that is meaning neutral in all languages and isn't trademarked/copyrighted/used ANYWHERE in the world?
I recently worked on a US-centric software release. US trade and service marks were registered. A month after release I found somebody developing a competing program with almost exactly the same name, based in Europe.
Snark normally comes across better if you RTFA . Mistakes were perhaps made (though that remains to be seen), but certainly not what you seem to think happened.
However...I think that while Apple does a super job of making transitions easy, they care less about legacy than you suggest. This general direction is apparent in the direction they took with (yes, they backtracked, but I think this will be the exception) FCPX
When evaluating how much Apple cares about legacy usage and supporting old platforms and software, I think I would rather look to the most analogous situation (the 68k->PPC and PPC->Intel transitions) rather than Apple's deservedly panned FCPX "upgrade." Apple does not seem to care very much about enterprise usage right now (Xcode gone, Pro tools weakened, Mac Pros on the chopping block?), but Apple has always cared about user experience.
I don't see another more away from a processor family, but the addition of one or two more, and we're not going to see a Rosetta-style program available for the new families to run Intel code; rather, anything new will just work, while older programs will run on Intel but not the new cpus. I doubt the App Store would carry anything that's not cross-compatible.
Could be. I guess we'll see soon enough. I would hope that any future platform shifts, divergences, or diversifications would come as smoothly as the past ones!
Apple also had a concurrent build of OS X on Intel while they sold PowerPC machines. Fat Binaries also would allow Apple, if they felt like it, to make the CPU all but invisible to the user for properly recompiled programs, letting them have multiple processors in their lineup (this does, however, leave anything older or not recompiled out in the cold; that doesn't seem to matter much to Apple, however).
I'm not sure if you're aware of recent history or not.
OSX already supports "fat binaries" under the name "universal binaries." One mac program can target PPC and Intel. Secondly, your hypothetical already happened! Between easy recompiling (if your project used Xcode already) to target universal binaries and Rosetta (PPC emulator on Intel) the PPC to Intel transition on Apple was rather seamless. The first Intel mac was released in January 2006. OSX 10.5 supported both Intel and PPC platforms. OSX 10.6 (late 2009) supported only Intel. 10.6 still supports Rosetta and can run PPC applications. 10.7 (released 2011) no longer supports Rosetta applications.
Apple supported PPC as a platform with new OS releases for ~3.5 years, supported PPC programs for ~5 years, and generally made it pretty seamless for users. If they switch to ARM, I imagine things will go roughly the same.
I would say that on the contrary to your message, Apple very much cares about not leaving programs (and therefore, users) "out in the cold."
Other than Chrome, Terminal.app is easily my most used application on OSX. Apple is very good about creating useful command line hooks into system functionality. 'mdfind' for spotlight, 'open' for interfacing with Finder/Applications, 'osascript' for interfacing with AppleScripting, 'pbpaste' / 'pbcopy' for interfacing with the system clipboard, etc.
I would not let my son play with a brand new phone (this one is 2 years old)...but he loves using the iphone and ipad. Since he was about 1.5 years old he can swipe screens and start his apps (interactive books, guitar app, keyboard app, etc). I think they're great devices (in moderation!) for little ones. My phone had a case so it was pretty well protected from falling. I did not expect the dog water (my fault). Lucky for me that lesson didn't turn out too horribly.
I'm not really sure to what degree that is true. I won't argue that Apple does not offer better support for older devices than most Android sellers, as I do think that is totally true.
I have a 3gs that is 2.5 years and still fully supported. Still being sold, even!
But I would say that there IS some disgruntlement over older releases running on new harder in the iOS world. iOS5 is worth it for me for the features, but my phone at times lags when it never lagged before. Likewise, when iOS4 came out, many iPhone 3g owners said it slowed down their devices horribly. I even know a couple people who said they upgraded to the iPhone 4s because iOS5 had slowed down their older iPhones to the point they felt it was worth a new phone.
Slashdot Mirror
Making all art resources into vector graphics is not nearly as easy as you seem to think it is. Absolutely nobody believes that rendering SVG or other vector formats is the hard part--the problem is converting content to vector formats!
Bitmaps are not going anywhere for a long time.
Did not realize that, thanks for the correction!
I work in the publishing industry for a small publisher.
I was at a convention several weeks ago and spoke with some people who worked for a subsidiary of Elsevier. As an aside, just like in other industries, the publishing industry conglomerates are GIANT. Beyond the science and medical journals that were involved in starting the boycott, Elsevier owns LexisNexis (synonymous with law databases and also a book publisher), Harcourt (fiction), Butterworth, and many more. They have gobbled up literally dozens of formerly independent publishers, and in general data and knowledge companies in all fields.
Anyway, the employees of this particular subsidiary said Elsevier was SEVERELY hurting because of the boycott. I was shocked... I had assumed the boycott would have minimal impact. These particular employees (again, not of Elsevier directly) were glad as they were fully aware of how expensive Elsevier journals are and how ridiculous Elsevier's links in to government are. One of them said basically that Elsevier had spent millions of dollars over the past 15 years to get exclusive rights to public domain research (link). Once they got it, the situation blew up and Elsevier backed off--waiting no doubt for people to forget.
This also goes to show how many of the individuals in a corporation can believe the "right" thing but that horrible leadership at the top is all that matters.
It's corporations like Elsevier that give ALL companies a bad name. I support the boycott.
I don't think they're very well known in the US. I obviously can't speak for anyone beyond my anecdotal evidence, but none of my friends (most of whom are s.f. and fantasy fans) none had read the Gormenghast novels. Curious.
Yeah, I mean AAPL is ONLY up ~32% since the beginning of the year. Big woop Apple fanbois--spin the news any way you want. It's clear the "the new iPad" (brilliant product name, by the way) is going to be a HUGE flop.
I agree with this.
I really do like both the Lynch movie and the SyFy miniseries. Between the two, on a visceral level I definitely like the Lynch better. Perhaps it's just that I saw it first (and when I was younger) but the characters just seem better and the environment more true. Like you said--it had the right look and feel. Paul from the movie is forever who I will think of as Paul.
The miniseries had a lot going for them too, and while I enjoy them, they're just ... off.
I would love the Lynch movie completely without reservation if it didn't have bald women, weirding modules, etc.
Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast (and sequels). HARD to get into, but rewarding if you understand that they are very experimental.
Cool! Someone at work literally lent me two of these books today, and I was planning on starting them tonight. I had never heard of them before, so I'll definitely give them a thorough chance.
Sheesh, apparently posting one link that provides a graphical comparison is enough to get me modded down to 0 and marked a troll. Amazing how worked up some people get over phones.
The reason I was so surprised upon seeing the icon comparison...I do not believe that some of the elements could not have just happened to end up so similar by chance. The graphical composition of the buttons is very similar in many cases!
For example, the pictures button just happens to have a yellow flower? Why a flower? Why a YELLOW flower with green highlights? Similar arguments could be made for the most of the buttons, IMHO. I'm not one to argue that a green dial button is a dealbreaker, but do other phones have a white phone outline on a green background at the same angle? If anything, I would say that the last link you provides just shows how much room for originality and differences there are amongst the problem domain "design phone icons."
It's enough to make me believe that Samsung's designers absolutely did copy from Apple. Whether you believe that's a good thing, a bad thing, or an illegal thing is another question. I have an iPhone (old 3gs) and I like it. Whenever it dies, I'll get a new phone. I have not liked the Android phones I have used, though to be fair I have not tried ICS. Not sure why some people get so incredibly emotional over the issue!
Hi mjwx, I've never done this before, but you replied to a post of mine about a week ago. I hadn't checked comments since then and was surprised by your response! http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2684981&cid=39121029 I figured you probably wouldn't see my response, since it was a week old thread, so I'm posting here.
Would you mind clarifying what you're talking about? I'm a bit confused.
Cheers
-M
I realize I'm late to the party in responding, but what's been photoshopped in the link I posted? The link I posted has 7 sets of icons to compare. The links you provided either are a specs sheet (which I'm not sure why that's relevant), someone's modified custom iPhone and S2 home screens (again, why relevant--though a few of the relevant icons are pictured), and a generic Samsung marketing image which does indeed show three of the icons in question.
So, what's the fake? Are you claiming some of those icons are not present on the stock iPhone or the stock S2?
Try linking to something other then CultOfMac. So nice troll, but it's nothing but a troll.
How is it a troll?
Sorry if reality doesn't fit in with your warped world view, but that's reality for you.
Wow, just like...wow. It's a phone, nothing to get so worked up about. I had a one word post that was posed as a question and a link, and you really feel it necessary to post such a vitriolic reply? Please explain, from my posting one link and the word "Really?" what kind of "warped world view" I have. Your post is honestly one of the craziest over reactions I have ever seen on slashdot.
Reminds me of a funny Isaac Asimov short story in which people completely forget how to do math by hand other than with a calculator and then rediscover the "lost art."
http://www.themathlab.com/writings/short%20stories/feeling.htm
Good story and pretty apt with regards to the ephemeral nature of human memory.
http://www.cultofmac.com/91126/side-by-side-comparison-samsung-vs-ios-homescreen-icons/
Really?
So how much does the electrical bill run?
That's "AAPL", fwiw.
It's a rather interesting question. How hard is it to come up with a name that is meaning neutral in all languages and isn't trademarked/copyrighted/used ANYWHERE in the world?
I recently worked on a US-centric software release. US trade and service marks were registered. A month after release I found somebody developing a competing program with almost exactly the same name, based in Europe.
What should happen next?
Snark normally comes across better if you RTFA . Mistakes were perhaps made (though that remains to be seen), but certainly not what you seem to think happened.
However...I think that while Apple does a super job of making transitions easy, they care less about legacy than you suggest. This general direction is apparent in the direction they took with (yes, they backtracked, but I think this will be the exception) FCPX
When evaluating how much Apple cares about legacy usage and supporting old platforms and software, I think I would rather look to the most analogous situation (the 68k->PPC and PPC->Intel transitions) rather than Apple's deservedly panned FCPX "upgrade." Apple does not seem to care very much about enterprise usage right now (Xcode gone, Pro tools weakened, Mac Pros on the chopping block?), but Apple has always cared about user experience.
I don't see another more away from a processor family, but the addition of one or two more, and we're not going to see a Rosetta-style program available for the new families to run Intel code; rather, anything new will just work, while older programs will run on Intel but not the new cpus. I doubt the App Store would carry anything that's not cross-compatible.
Could be. I guess we'll see soon enough. I would hope that any future platform shifts, divergences, or diversifications would come as smoothly as the past ones!
Apple also had a concurrent build of OS X on Intel while they sold PowerPC machines. Fat Binaries also would allow Apple, if they felt like it, to make the CPU all but invisible to the user for properly recompiled programs, letting them have multiple processors in their lineup (this does, however, leave anything older or not recompiled out in the cold; that doesn't seem to matter much to Apple, however).
I'm not sure if you're aware of recent history or not.
OSX already supports "fat binaries" under the name "universal binaries." One mac program can target PPC and Intel. Secondly, your hypothetical already happened! Between easy recompiling (if your project used Xcode already) to target universal binaries and Rosetta (PPC emulator on Intel) the PPC to Intel transition on Apple was rather seamless. The first Intel mac was released in January 2006. OSX 10.5 supported both Intel and PPC platforms. OSX 10.6 (late 2009) supported only Intel. 10.6 still supports Rosetta and can run PPC applications. 10.7 (released 2011) no longer supports Rosetta applications.
Apple supported PPC as a platform with new OS releases for ~3.5 years, supported PPC programs for ~5 years, and generally made it pretty seamless for users. If they switch to ARM, I imagine things will go roughly the same.
I would say that on the contrary to your message, Apple very much cares about not leaving programs (and therefore, users) "out in the cold."
Other than Chrome, Terminal.app is easily my most used application on OSX. Apple is very good about creating useful command line hooks into system functionality. 'mdfind' for spotlight, 'open' for interfacing with Finder/Applications, 'osascript' for interfacing with AppleScripting, 'pbpaste' / 'pbcopy' for interfacing with the system clipboard, etc.
I'm from NC. I had never even heard of a pay toilet before my first trip to Italy. Don't think I've run into one in the US.
I would not let my son play with a brand new phone (this one is 2 years old)...but he loves using the iphone and ipad. Since he was about 1.5 years old he can swipe screens and start his apps (interactive books, guitar app, keyboard app, etc). I think they're great devices (in moderation!) for little ones. My phone had a case so it was pretty well protected from falling. I did not expect the dog water (my fault). Lucky for me that lesson didn't turn out too horribly.
Sorry for your loss...it's an awful thing to lose a pet.
Uncooked!
Dried rice is pretty darn good at sucking up moisture.
I'm not really sure to what degree that is true. I won't argue that Apple does not offer better support for older devices than most Android sellers, as I do think that is totally true.
I have a 3gs that is 2.5 years and still fully supported. Still being sold, even!
But I would say that there IS some disgruntlement over older releases running on new harder in the iOS world. iOS5 is worth it for me for the features, but my phone at times lags when it never lagged before. Likewise, when iOS4 came out, many iPhone 3g owners said it slowed down their devices horribly. I even know a couple people who said they upgraded to the iPhone 4s because iOS5 had slowed down their older iPhones to the point they felt it was worth a new phone.
Agree. I had silica gel packets from a shoebox. I used rice once before with a keyboard spill with good effect.