I'm writing my first MacOS app now after decades with UNIX and X windows. I have to say I'm impressed with the Interface Builder and with the use of Objective-C as the main Cocoa language.
But on the other hand, I think their class library leaves a lot to be desired. When I'm coding in Java and I'm working with, say, a collection class, I usually think "gee it would be nice if a method to do blah existed". And when I look it up, it's almost always there. The Java designers seem to think the way I do. But in Cocoa, it seems like the methods are rarely what I expect and I have to spent a lot of time figuring out how they want me to do it. Things that I feel should take me 5 minutes to code can actually take hours. It can be rather frustrating. Has anyone had similar experiences?
That said, a lot of the core of this system was developed with the NeXT machine a long time ago. So I guess I have to cut them some slack there. Still, would be nice to have things modernized a bit. Just my experience...
I think Mars is 1.3AUs from the Earth, making it 2.3AUs from the Sun
You're right that it's 1.3AUs from earth at the moment but you can only add the two when it's at opposition. Mars is actually about 1.5AUs from the sun.
Because people make laws. We allow artists to have "copyrights" to what they create. We do this to support the artist in order to ensure that society continues to benefit from their creative energies. This, by the way, is very clearly stated in the US Constitution. In other words, copying artistic works is only illegal because we, as a society, agree that it's illegal. There is no "natural" reason for it.
Ok, so now the artist claims (I know it's not the artist - it's the RIAA - but that's a different argument) that they are losing sales due to copying. If that's true, then it goes against the original reason for our laws and we should enforce those laws better. However, if it's not true, and, perhaps, copying music actually has some positive benefits for artists and society, then we need to have that information so we can rethink our laws.
True. I was using numbers for the Americas rather than limiting to just the US area since the point was more about mass destruction than anything else. Ok, we can use 10 million then. Is that better?;-)
I find your other point a bit odd, though. The difference between "extermination" and "died fighting colonization" is rather moot from my perspective.
It should be pointed out that America (the country) exists because of the extermination of tens of millions of Native Americans. Also nothing to sneeze at when talking about "murderous regimes ever to see the face of the globe". But somehow that never gets included.
By the way, any guess on how many millions have died in the Congo in the last few years? Last estimates I read were 3-5 million but that was a year ago. See anyone doing anything about that? Even see it in the papers? Saddam is extremely tame by comparison.
I don't mean to say your points are wrong. Just that it would be nice to have a little balance.
True. And very nice! But my understanding is that Cablecom has been having financial problems, too. I hope this doesn't increase their financial stress since I'd hate to see them go belly up. I use both their phone and internet services. By the way, a friend with ADSL in Zurich is getting a free speed bump in February, too. A reaction to the Cablecom announcement, I guess. 8-)
Devon
Re:You know... things just don't amaze me.
on
Message in a Battle
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· Score: 1
I'm not so sure. The Maya web site had a "test" of real and CG images and when I took the test I got them all correct (didn't speak very well for Maya!). True, I did get the chance to study them before answering (ie, they weren't moving) but on the other hand, I didn't have bad motion effects to judge by either. I think CG is still too easy to identify. Although I would agree that the context in which it's presented (like orcs or spiderman) make it easier to accept sometimes.
Having personal intent to contact someone doesn't preclude them wanting to send them commercial advertisements.
True. Also reasonably irrelevant. I have been approached by people wanting to sell me something my whole life. Spam just makes that process automated. My definition would solve the problem of spam, not capitalism. And it would reduce the amount of spam I get by about 99.9999%. Which is hardly "rubbish" to me.
And you would prove this how?
In a court of law, as usual. Seems it would be rather trivial to find other people that got the same spam. Show a large enough number with no correlation and it's rather clear. Do you doubt that web sites for this purpose would instantly arise?
Ok, so spam for head hunting purposes is Ok? No. Rubbish definition.
Yeah, I would except spam for headhunting as long as I could also opt out and, as I noted, they weren't just calling people from a list. I used to get phone calls from them before email and they weren't even close to 200 times a day like my spam is.
I still stick to my original definition although I would grant that an opt-out is also legally necessary.
Define 'legitimate' and I will tell you. Actually, don't bother, I can tell that your definition would almost certainly suck.
I would define legitimate email as email from someone that has personal knowledge of you and wants to communicate something to you. In other words, you are not just a random address in a database. Could be a potential employer, an old friend, whatever, as long as they have a personal intent to contact you. Sure, this definition doesn't stop crackpots that are stalking movie stars, but it seems to cover most reasonable cases.
Whatever happened to the concise, well-written, to the point books of a few years ago. Kernigan/Ritchie's C book comes to mind
Amen, brother. I spend as much time sifting through useless books as I do reading useful ones these days. K&R was wonderfully direct. Even the nutshell books aren't that direct anymore.
Ok, so I'm replying to my own post... I now see the the MP4 files are sitting in the music folder without any DRM. I copied them to my laptop and all works fine. So this really is the music service I've been waiting for. They just need more artists now. This is so cool.
Ok, I can stream to 3 other machines - great. But I can't copy the files to 3 other machines. Meaning when I'm on the road with my laptop, I can't listen to my music. Unless I want to carry a bunch of CDs. But portability is kind of the point of a laptop. This is a serious drawback for me.
I've got a couple of music CDs that autolaunch classic apps. Drives me crazy. Anyone know how to disable this without turning off classic? I have even sometimes resorted to ripping the tracks and reburning the discs to get rid of the software portion. Yet another perfectly valid reason to be against DRM.
Taliban made a lot of the money that kept them in power in Afghanistan by growing and selling opium
That's funny. The Bush administration gave the Taliban $43 million in aid just three months before September 11. They said it was a thank you for all that the Taliban did against the drug trade and to help in the war on drugs.
Interestingly, I chose not to write my current app in Java because of portability. It would actually be a lot easier to write it in Java. But the product is a small downloadable app that I want anyone to be able to trivially install on any platform. Now, I know I can count on having a JVM on the Mac. But I can't on Windows or Linux. I can't tell your mom that installation is easy... just grab this little app and then download a 20 Meg virtual machine, installed separately, through your little 28k modem. Even if she were to find the motivation and patience to do this, there is a good chance the install would get screwed up and there would be other issues.
So I've chosen C instead. I know that I can write C in a portable way so that it will be trivial for the end user to install on any platform. I have the division between OS specific code and general code well defined. So I can call the C backend from, say, Objective-C in the Cocoa environment. Or I can link it into a GTK+ front-end. It's more work for me than a Java app would be and I don't get the many advantages that Java offers to developers. But I just don't see any other realistic solution. Java's portability is largely theoretical in this world.
The problem is that markets are provably not random walks. A random walk would result in a gaussian distribution of price moves but it is well known that the distribution of financial markets have "fat tails" (heteroskedasticity) when compared to a gaussian. Meaning that extreme events like crashes happen more frequently than they are supposed to. One can question whether these deviations from random are sufficient to allow any prediction. But stating that the markets are a "random walk" is really just wrong.
Oh, and the above assumes any general "upward trend" in, for example, a stock market, is taken out of the data. Some markets (like currency, for example) don't have an upward trend.
Since most of the follow-ups seem to be against you, I thought I'd post some support. There are actually a lot of us out there that don't have televisions. Most of my friends don't. And those that do very rarely turn it on. I think the last program I saw was about six months ago. It's not only about independent thought. It's also about wasting your life. I just can't imagine in the instant before my death with my life flashing before my eyes thinking "I wish I'd watched more TV".
One could imagine a correlation between the energy someone puts into projects independent of financial gain and financial gain itself. In other words, someone that goes all out to do interesting and creative things when they are unemployed might have a better chance of making more money when they are employed and, therefore, have a larger savings to draw from. Just a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm writing my first MacOS app now after decades with UNIX and X windows. I have to say I'm impressed with the Interface Builder and with the use of Objective-C as the main Cocoa language.
But on the other hand, I think their class library leaves a lot to be desired. When I'm coding in Java and I'm working with, say, a collection class, I usually think "gee it would be nice if a method to do blah existed". And when I look it up, it's almost always there. The Java designers seem to think the way I do. But in Cocoa, it seems like the methods are rarely what I expect and I have to spent a lot of time figuring out how they want me to do it. Things that I feel should take me 5 minutes to code can actually take hours. It can be rather frustrating. Has anyone had similar experiences?
That said, a lot of the core of this system was developed with the NeXT machine a long time ago. So I guess I have to cut them some slack there. Still, would be nice to have things modernized a bit. Just my experience...
Devon
Although that idiot should probably short the stock first. 8-)
Devon
You're right that it's 1.3AUs from earth at the moment but you can only add the two when it's at opposition. Mars is actually about 1.5AUs from the sun.
Devon
He's just trying to be kind. The alternative explanation is much worse. ;-)
Devon
Because people make laws. We allow artists to have "copyrights" to what they create. We do this to support the artist in order to ensure that society continues to benefit from their creative energies. This, by the way, is very clearly stated in the US Constitution. In other words, copying artistic works is only illegal because we, as a society, agree that it's illegal. There is no "natural" reason for it.
Ok, so now the artist claims (I know it's not the artist - it's the RIAA - but that's a different argument) that they are losing sales due to copying. If that's true, then it goes against the original reason for our laws and we should enforce those laws better. However, if it's not true, and, perhaps, copying music actually has some positive benefits for artists and society, then we need to have that information so we can rethink our laws.
Devon
True. I was using numbers for the Americas rather than limiting to just the US area since the point was more about mass destruction than anything else. Ok, we can use 10 million then. Is that better? ;-)
I find your other point a bit odd, though. The difference between "extermination" and "died fighting colonization" is rather moot from my perspective.
Devon
It should be pointed out that America (the country) exists because of the extermination of tens of millions of Native Americans. Also nothing to sneeze at when talking about "murderous regimes ever to see the face of the globe". But somehow that never gets included.
By the way, any guess on how many millions have died in the Congo in the last few years? Last estimates I read were 3-5 million but that was a year ago. See anyone doing anything about that? Even see it in the papers? Saddam is extremely tame by comparison.
I don't mean to say your points are wrong. Just that it would be nice to have a little balance.
Devon
True. And very nice! But my understanding is that Cablecom has been having financial problems, too. I hope this doesn't increase their financial stress since I'd hate to see them go belly up. I use both their phone and internet services. By the way, a friend with ADSL in Zurich is getting a free speed bump in February, too. A reaction to the Cablecom announcement, I guess. 8-)
Devon
I'm not so sure. The Maya web site had a "test" of real and CG images and when I took the test I got them all correct (didn't speak very well for Maya!). True, I did get the chance to study them before answering (ie, they weren't moving) but on the other hand, I didn't have bad motion effects to judge by either. I think CG is still too easy to identify. Although I would agree that the context in which it's presented (like orcs or spiderman) make it easier to accept sometimes.
Devon
True. Also reasonably irrelevant. I have been approached by people wanting to sell me something my whole life. Spam just makes that process automated. My definition would solve the problem of spam, not capitalism. And it would reduce the amount of spam I get by about 99.9999%. Which is hardly "rubbish" to me.
And you would prove this how?
In a court of law, as usual. Seems it would be rather trivial to find other people that got the same spam. Show a large enough number with no correlation and it's rather clear. Do you doubt that web sites for this purpose would instantly arise?
Ok, so spam for head hunting purposes is Ok? No. Rubbish definition.
Yeah, I would except spam for headhunting as long as I could also opt out and, as I noted, they weren't just calling people from a list. I used to get phone calls from them before email and they weren't even close to 200 times a day like my spam is.
I still stick to my original definition although I would grant that an opt-out is also legally necessary.
Devon
I would define legitimate email as email from someone that has personal knowledge of you and wants to communicate something to you. In other words, you are not just a random address in a database. Could be a potential employer, an old friend, whatever, as long as they have a personal intent to contact you. Sure, this definition doesn't stop crackpots that are stalking movie stars, but it seems to cover most reasonable cases.
Devon
Amen, brother. I spend as much time sifting through useless books as I do reading useful ones these days. K&R was wonderfully direct. Even the nutshell books aren't that direct anymore.
Devon
Well, well. Another person to add to my slashdot "foe" list so I don't have to see their drivel anymore. ;-)
Devon
Who said anything about loved ones? ;-)
Devon
Ok, so I'm replying to my own post... I now see the the MP4 files are sitting in the music folder without any DRM. I copied them to my laptop and all works fine. So this really is the music service I've been waiting for. They just need more artists now. This is so cool.
Devon
Ok, I can stream to 3 other machines - great. But I can't copy the files to 3 other machines. Meaning when I'm on the road with my laptop, I can't listen to my music. Unless I want to carry a bunch of CDs. But portability is kind of the point of a laptop. This is a serious drawback for me.
Devon
And the more members they have, the easier it is for them. Are you a member? Or maybe a member of the EFF?
Devon
I've got a couple of music CDs that autolaunch classic apps. Drives me crazy. Anyone know how to disable this without turning off classic? I have even sometimes resorted to ripping the tracks and reburning the discs to get rid of the software portion. Yet another perfectly valid reason to be against DRM.
Devon
That's funny. The Bush administration gave the Taliban $43 million in aid just three months before September 11. They said it was a thank you for all that the Taliban did against the drug trade and to help in the war on drugs.
Devon
Interestingly, I chose not to write my current app in Java because of portability. It would actually be a lot easier to write it in Java. But the product is a small downloadable app that I want anyone to be able to trivially install on any platform. Now, I know I can count on having a JVM on the Mac. But I can't on Windows or Linux. I can't tell your mom that installation is easy... just grab this little app and then download a 20 Meg virtual machine, installed separately, through your little 28k modem. Even if she were to find the motivation and patience to do this, there is a good chance the install would get screwed up and there would be other issues.
So I've chosen C instead. I know that I can write C in a portable way so that it will be trivial for the end user to install on any platform. I have the division between OS specific code and general code well defined. So I can call the C backend from, say, Objective-C in the Cocoa environment. Or I can link it into a GTK+ front-end. It's more work for me than a Java app would be and I don't get the many advantages that Java offers to developers. But I just don't see any other realistic solution. Java's portability is largely theoretical in this world.
Devon
No, Shepard didn't get into orbit on his first flight. He just went up, crossed the line, and fell back. It was like a 20 minute flight.
Devon
The problem is that markets are provably not random walks. A random walk would result in a gaussian distribution of price moves but it is well known that the distribution of financial markets have "fat tails" (heteroskedasticity) when compared to a gaussian. Meaning that extreme events like crashes happen more frequently than they are supposed to. One can question whether these deviations from random are sufficient to allow any prediction. But stating that the markets are a "random walk" is really just wrong.
Oh, and the above assumes any general "upward trend" in, for example, a stock market, is taken out of the data. Some markets (like currency, for example) don't have an upward trend.
Devon
Since most of the follow-ups seem to be against you, I thought I'd post some support. There are actually a lot of us out there that don't have televisions. Most of my friends don't. And those that do very rarely turn it on. I think the last program I saw was about six months ago. It's not only about independent thought. It's also about wasting your life. I just can't imagine in the instant before my death with my life flashing before my eyes thinking "I wish I'd watched more TV".
Devon
I have heard that the worst coffee beans are sent to the US because Americans will buy them anyway. Don't know if that's true or not.
Devon
One could imagine a correlation between the energy someone puts into projects independent of financial gain and financial gain itself. In other words, someone that goes all out to do interesting and creative things when they are unemployed might have a better chance of making more money when they are employed and, therefore, have a larger savings to draw from. Just a thought.