Maybe it's that I just woke up but I was aware of the fact that it was April 1st and I am firmly convinced that Apple would never make this move unless times got desperate for them and just the same... I fell for it anyway!
New rule: coffee before Slashdot... coffee before Slashdot... coffee before Slashdot...
If yahoo is offering all of it's features as a free and publically accessable system, don't they have the right to do whatever they want with the default settings?
Sure they do, but why does that preclude just being decent about this kind of thing instead of just doing what they want and inconveniencing people? Why couldn't they have emailed all users and warned them and given them a link to turn off all the spam? Someone at Yahoo has committed the same breach of public trust that Amazon.com is guilty of which is precisely why I won't do business with Amazon.com ever--because they have given me no reason to trust them. Likewise, I wouldn't buy anything from Yahoo (should they ever try any sales ventures) as I don't trust them either. Bear in mind, this isn't the first time they've futzed around with their users in this manner.
So, yes, nobody is denying them their right to do as they please with their free services, but at the same time, they should recognize that the trust of the public and their own users (paying or otherwise) is a valuable resource and a good thing to have. These kinds of moves, done without notice, erode that kind of trust and sully the name-recognition/branding that they clearly take for granted. Most online companies would kill for the kind of branding that Yahoo has managed.
You are sorely incorrect, sir. If you know anything about the basis of the story presented in "2112", you would know that this song portrays the ruin of a man due to an authoritarian government stripping his freedom from him and those around him.
Whoa... hold on. You're taking this way too seriously. I was merely pointing out the irony of those lyrics and how they sound like they apply to the current situation with the RIAA's attempt to retain control of every aspect of what we see and what we hear. The lyrics do sound like they were written about it.
BTW, I am a huge Rush fan and a regular contributor to a popular Rush zine on the web, The Camera Eye. I understand the story of "2112". I thought the lyrical coincidence with this topic was remarkable and sort of humorous. Don't take it so seriously.
Well, Rush's lyricist and drummer Neil Peart foresaw all this. These lyrics describe a world that isn't supposed to happen until 2112. Nice to see our greedy, mindless coprorations are ahead of schedule.
We've taken care of everything The words you hear the songs you sing The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes It's one for all and all for one We work together common sons Never need to wonder how or why
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx Our great computers fill the hallowed halls We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx All the gifts of life are held within our walls
Twelve more months of Taco bitching about the single mouse button.
The days of bitching about that may be numbered. The rumors circulating on some of the more reputable Mac rumor sites is that Apple is about to unveil a wireless, multi-button mouse which will shortly become the standard-issue.
As a long time Mac user and someone who has also used Windows, I can't see what the big deal is other than pandering to the 95% of the computing world that can't live without that crutch. A second button doesn't affect my productivity one bit on Windows or the Mac OS. As far as I can tell, the second button is more of a bad design decision than anything else that opens the floodgates for bad interface design ('hey, I finally found the "preferences" dialog by right-clicking exactly in the right place!') However, I hope Apple does as usual and manages to release a multi-button mouse that somehow one-ups or redefines the current concepts about multi-button mouses out there.
Insight, intelligence, and a sober viewpoint. Aside from the "know it alls" line, a well reasoned point. Mod this parent up!
Well, thank you. And, btw, the "know it alls" line wasn't meant to apply to all in the open source community... just the know it alls therein. No offense intended.:^)
I don't know if anyone else has posted about it and I won't go on at length here, but thanks to the COPPA laws passed about two years ago (IIRC) Apple -- or anyone online -- can get into serious legal trouble for soliciting any kind of information or doing any kind of exchange with minors. Mock Apple all you want, but save the real derision for our lawmakers who, in their infinite zeal to protect us all from ourselves and to be a surrogate parent to all those kids out there on the net, are to blame.
You know-it-alls in the open source comminity can mock Apple's decision all you want, but I have a feeling you'll be singing a different tune when some parent decides to sue your ass off for eliciting information from their kid over the net through a web site. Thanks to our stupid lawmakers, it's not legal. Keep that in mind.
--Rick
Re:Why would i switch over.. how about why WONT I?
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I have x86 hardware. I have spent money on this hardware over the years and do not want to start over. There is a large collection of hardware and I will make my investment work.
But... but... but... now I'm confused. After all these years of being bashed around by my PC using peers for using a needlessly expensive Mac, I thought investing in x86 hardware was cheap! Surely, you can't have much of an investment in all that open source Unix software and all those Windows apps and PC hardware that have been driven down to insanely dirt-cheap prices by the vastly more competitive PC market! C'mon... couldn't be more than $700, surely.
--Rick (hopes the sarcasm is noticed.)
Re:Why not ask the real question...?
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Apple Wants Your Input
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If I was in Apple's marketing department I'd be asking "what would it take to get you to switch to Macs?" not "why are you thinking about buying a Mac?" or "Now that we have your money, what do you think?"
But you're not in Apple's marketing dept. and just judging from the point you're making, you're not in any marketing dept. I undestand where you're coming from, but that isn't how this kind of thing works. Love 'em or hate 'em, marketing people are stuck with the onerous task of managing the public relations and public image of a business and its products. The last thing a marketing person would do is throw up a question to the public like "Why aren't you considering Apple?" or "What would it take to get you to switch to Macs?" Not only does that sound slightly like a plea (and pathetic), but it also carries the assumption that there is something inherently wrong or missing in the product in question. May as well just put up a question like "Why do we suck so much that you choose Windows instead?" or "Tell us about your worst Mac using experience?"
No doubt you're right that they want to know why people don't pick Macs; that's what they're getting at, but marketing people (at least the ones I know) are excruciatingly detail-oriented and pick and choose their words, images, and public relation moves with extreme care. It's their job.
No, but yet again I see the standard PC-centric attitude applied to the Mac side of the computing world and yet again I wonder what this is supposed to prove. Let's go over this one more time, and this time I'll try to avoid polysyllables so it will be easier to understand.
Okay, sitting comfy? Let's begin...
People who buy Macs do not want to build the machine themselves. They want it to work out of the box and are willing to pay for that.
Criticizing Macs on the basis that you can't build one cheap is nothing short of a non sequitur. It make sense only to someone who doesn't use Macs. To us Mac users, it makes no sense and says more about the person doing the criticism than it does about Apple.
I found the inability to fork subprocesses, and the general "anti-command-line" tendencies of applications on the Mac OS, to make Mac Perl's usefullness much diminished compared to traditional unix environments.
Nothing personal but this sentiment just reeks of Geek Tunnel-vision. MacPerl is possibly one of the most powerful, useful tools on the Mac that I have at my disposal in running my company's website. I can't imagine what I'd do without it. Because it doesn't support a few (IMO) esoteric technical issues hardly diminishes its relevance.
Bear in mind that there are Mac-specific libraries distrbuted with MacPerl that interface with the Mac API/Toolbox (I was awestruck when I got my MacPerl script to access the Speech Manager--a talking Perl script. Cool!) Does the lack of those libraries on Unix diminish its usefulness there? I doubt it.
In many respects, I think AppleScript is the more effective scripting language for the classic Mac OS, although certainly it's not as fun or easy to work with as Perl (speaking from experience someone who's worked with both.)
I can speak as someone who's worked with both as well and I find that they naturally lend themselves to different tasks. If you want the ability to manipulate raw data or sift through enormous quantities of information, Perl is hands-down the way to go. If you need a quick script to facilitate interapplication communication, exchange of data between apps, or to automate a program (and especially if you need an application that can communicate with non-geek users via GUI elements) AppleScript is hard to beat since that functionality is built right in, no loading extra libraries which makes for quick and lean scripts. Each has its own strength. I don't think I've ever been in a quandry over which one to use for any given task.
Does anyone out there actually use Mac Perl for major development?
Probably not, but how does that diminish its relevance to those of us who leverage its power on a daily basis to conquer some Herculean tasks? I find this update unexpected, exciting and quite relevant..
This will get a little ranty... my apologies up front.
I believe IBM did this first with the Netvista line. The netvista predated the imac almost a whole year but was very pricey.
Wasn't that line also missing a few important features? Someone directed me to it recently and it occurred to me that it was lacking in a few important areas, but I don't recall now. So it's not that it was just pricey, but also lacking.
I guess it's more in who makes it popular.
C'mon... that sounds like sour grapes. Apple takes enough beating in the press and elsewhere--at least give them credit when it's due.
Let's see, did IBM back their flat-panel with a consumer-oriented concept about being the user's digital hub? Was the software distributed with it honed to the point of serving the user's needs in that very specific manner? Was the display thought out so carefully that IBM arrived at the inevitable conclusion that it should somehow "float" above the machine (really, Johnathon Ive is absolutely correct in pointing out that if you're going to make the flat panel stuck in the traditional position, it may as well be a CRT. What do you gain besides looks othewise)? No, IBM made a machine with a nice look. End of story. In all other ways, it fails to distinguish itself.
There is a lot of evidence in the new iMac that Apple gets design on an esoteric --almost philosophical--level. They get it in ways that other box makers simply haven't even considered. In the mad rush to be the fastest, the most cutting edge, a lot of companies just forgot all about catering to the very real needs of the home user and about giving them designs that look good and work well.
The prevalent attitude amongst the Wintel crowd (which is an attitude I've argued against for years) seems to be that if it looks nice, it's a "good design" or that Apple was only playing with the look because they had nothing else to impress people with.
The look of the machine is the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to it than that, but it's easy to lose sight of that simple fact when we're all getting caught up in the daily inanities of the Great AMD-Intel Processor Speed Circle Jerk.
So, I disagree with your conclusion that it's more in who makes it popular. It's not marketing or an attitude or the result of fanatical Mac users (like me) flooding discussions with pro-Apple tripe. It becomes popular when the company making it has a reason other than looks to do it that way, when the company really understands design beyond the shape of the box and caters to users in a way that elicits a response.
--Rick
Design is more than just looks
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iMac LCD Impostors
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I just saw someone ask this: Why doesn't someone like Dell or Compaq, with their billions of dollars, hire some designers to come in and create some nice looking systems?
This is exactly where we Mac users get to sit back and laugh and say "we told you so." We've taken a pummelling over the years because Macs weren't standard, weren't cutted-edge enough, couldn't lay claim to the buzzword-du-jour, but Apple has always done interface and design like nobody else.
Why don't Dell or Compaq create something "nice looking"? They do create "nice looking" but they don't create "nice using." Unlike Apple, their users just don't (apparently) demand that. Design isn't just how something looks, but how something works and how something fits into the workflow of whatever you're doing. The look is the least of it.
But Compaq and Dell and other box makers will continue to try to do "nice looking" because they don't get the whole human user interface concept the way Apple does. They don't get design on the multiple levels that Apple and most of its users do. It's something that we long-time Mac users have argued ad nauseam about in countless discussion forums (and will no doubt continue to do so) for ages and have been written off as pathetic Apple apologists.
When you are a public figure or a coproration, you have a much harder case in proving libel from another party. Traditionally, libel was only truly considered an actionable offense if it was directed at a private citizen. If you're a public figure or corporation, dealing with that just comes with the territory (or did at one time... it would appear.)
So it doesn't (or didn't) matter what you say about a public figure or a corporation. Until lately, that wasn't considered something you could sue the offending party for. Public figures and corporations are (were) essentially fair game, for the most part. There are exceptions. Celebrities sometimes sue tabloids for libel, but that's usually when the tabloids get personal and make claims about a celebrity's personal life.
The fact that a corporation can sue for non-personal criticism, regardless of how accurate it is, reveals a startling shift in our legal system that I think undermines freedom of speech.
I see so much finger-pointing aimed at Apple over the fact that Adobe took so long with an OS X-native Photoshop but many of these posts don't make sense when you consider the number of applications (not just from other companies, but from Adobe as well) that made the leap to OS X without much problem before Photoshop (many of them well before Photoshop.) Adobe may have had some technical problems with moving to OS X but that doesn't explain it all. Why did PageMaker and Illustrator get to OS X with relative ease then? And if a carbonized Photoshop was so quick to make, why didn't they release that to paid customers of PS 6 for free?
I've heard lots of rumors about Adobe using the release of an OS X-native Photoshop as leverage in some dispute they were having with Apple. I don't know what it was concerning, but I doubt it's totally fair to blame Apple and let Adobe off the hook.
Except that Apple have their own monopoly; only their business practives are worse than those of Microsoft
Standard-issue claim about Apple. They are not a monopoly. Other companies have attempted to create OSes for Apple hardware, but they inevitably fail because that's not what Mac users want. Note that Apple doesn't do anything to actively stop companies from trying to compete. In fact, until OS X, Apple was actively backing LinuxPPC (including having part of their site devoted to it.) Does Microsoft have any pages about Linux like that?
Someone should tell Apple that's no way to run a monopoly!
Anyway, cite some examples of Apple putting competition out of business with underhanded practices and monopolistic practices. Cite some examples of Apple being caught stealing the source code from other companies. Cite examples of Apple "embracing and extending" the work of others. Cite any instance where Apple dragged their feet on a glaring security patch until the bad press was enough to warrant it. Cite some horror stories about Apple's tech support that rival the endless stories about indifferent and clueless help desks at MS.
These are two very different companies. Apple is no MS.
the only reason their market share is so small compared to MS is the price of the hardware.
This price complaint is another standard-issue Wintroll claim. It's because Apple was clueless about marketing in the late 80s and early 90s and they left an opening that was easy for MS to fill. End of story.
Remember, the Free Software Foundation have never imposed a boycott on Microsoft. They have on Apple.
Yeah, the police have never ticketted a pedestrian for speeding either. At least Apple has actually done something that Free Software Foundation could criticize. If MS does nothing, they can't be criticized. Your complaint is silly.
It's gotten ridiculous -- WinAmp is bloated spyware, RealPlayer is the same (plus it's a fscking virus that changes all your settings, sticks its shortcuts everywhere, and inserts itself into your Systray).
From the article: In 1996, Id created the first true 3D game, Quake[....]
I guess this depends on your definition of "3D" in games. I was under the impression that true 3D meant that passages and rooms could exist on top of each other, creating true multi-layer scenarios. This is something that Doom could not do, but that Bungie's Marathon did. By that definition, Marathon should get the honor of being the "first true 3D" game. Marathon was released well before Quake, although I don't have the exact year at hand.
I suppose the author is probably referring to (or maybe being confused by) the fact that the monsters in Quake are models as opposed to sprites. IMO, true 3D would mean a true 3D environment not monsters. Oh well... nitpicking, I suppose.
From the article: "That's not what we're doing," Mr. Carmack says. "We're doing entertainment. Saying it's art is a kind of sophistry from people who want to aggrandize our industry."
I totally disagree with this statement. I view coding (particularly coding for games) as something that straddles the gulf between work and art. It may not be 100% pure art, but it's certainly not aggrandizing to say that there is a fair amount of artistry in well conceived and written code. The first 25 years of my life was spent pursuing a variety of artistic endeavors (writing, music, visual arts) and I get nearly the exact same feeling in me when I'm writing code as when I'm composing music or drawing. There is definitely some link between those activities. I feel the same creative impulses firing when I'm programming as when I'm doing any other art form and I feel that same sense of artistic fulfillment or satisfaction when I'm finished with a project. It probably sounds a little fruit-loopy, but it's the truth. There is an element of artistry in writing code. I have no doubt about that.
True to bad form, Slashdot's lead-in to this link is a far more egregious example of bad journalism than anything in this article. What's with the spin on this making it sound like the entire news media is being totally duped here or that it's so amazing that someone at Reuters believes this is true? Reporting someone's claims doesn't mean you believe those claims. BTW, I hope Slashdot readers expect better of Slashdot. After all, wasn't that AOL/Red Hat rumor posted here? I hope the Slashdot moderators thoroughly checked the facts in that story before posting it here.
Interesting double-standard.
The tone of the article is largely skeptical, pointing out prior examples of such energy solution claims and talking (albeit too briefly) to a few experts who pointed out the problems with the claims. Seemed pretty balanced to me. Mostly the article is reporting the guy's claims and offering opinions of others which is perfectly legitimate reporting and doesn't necessarily mean the reporter believes what is being claimed. IMO, this isn't particularly bad journalism, but I can understand interpretting it that way if you are constantly watching for any reason to jump on the news media. They even end the article with what I view as a tongue-in-cheek joke.
Sounds to me like a few Slashdot readers need to learn a bit more about journalism before attempting to critique the media.
I understand that I risk being banished to modded-as-troll hell for saying this, but isn't this essentially a non-story? I mean, speculation about reactions to rumors? It's doesn't get much less interesting than that. Only on Slashdot--and only when concerning the Linux pantheon--could this be considered newsworthy. (Yawn!)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's that I just woke up but I was aware of the fact that it was April 1st and I am firmly convinced that Apple would never make this move unless times got desperate for them and just the same... I fell for it anyway!
New rule: coffee before Slashdot... coffee before Slashdot... coffee before Slashdot...
--Rick
If yahoo is offering all of it's features as a
free and publically accessable system, don't they have the right to do whatever they want with the default settings?
Sure they do, but why does that preclude just being decent about this kind of thing instead of just doing what they want and inconveniencing people? Why couldn't they have emailed all users and warned them and given them a link to turn off all the spam? Someone at Yahoo has committed the same breach of public trust that Amazon.com is guilty of which is precisely why I won't do business with Amazon.com ever--because they have given me no reason to trust them. Likewise, I wouldn't buy anything from Yahoo (should they ever try any sales ventures) as I don't trust them either. Bear in mind, this isn't the first time they've futzed around with their users in this manner.
So, yes, nobody is denying them their right to do as they please with their free services, but at the same time, they should recognize that the trust of the public and their own users (paying or otherwise) is a valuable resource and a good thing to have. These kinds of moves, done without notice, erode that kind of trust and sully the name-recognition/branding that they clearly take for granted. Most online companies would kill for the kind of branding that Yahoo has managed.
--Rick
You are sorely incorrect, sir. If you know anything about the basis of the story presented in "2112", you would know that this song portrays the ruin of a man due to an authoritarian government stripping his freedom from him and those around him.
Whoa... hold on. You're taking this way too seriously. I was merely pointing out the irony of those lyrics and how they sound like they apply to the current situation with the RIAA's attempt to retain control of every aspect of what we see and what we hear. The lyrics do sound like they were written about it.
BTW, I am a huge Rush fan and a regular contributor to a popular Rush zine on the web, The Camera Eye. I understand the story of "2112". I thought the lyrical coincidence with this topic was remarkable and sort of humorous. Don't take it so seriously.
--Rick
--Rick
The days of bitching about that may be numbered. The rumors circulating on some of the more reputable Mac rumor sites is that Apple is about to unveil a wireless, multi-button mouse which will shortly become the standard-issue.
As a long time Mac user and someone who has also used Windows, I can't see what the big deal is other than pandering to the 95% of the computing world that can't live without that crutch. A second button doesn't affect my productivity one bit on Windows or the Mac OS. As far as I can tell, the second button is more of a bad design decision than anything else that opens the floodgates for bad interface design ('hey, I finally found the "preferences" dialog by right-clicking exactly in the right place!') However, I hope Apple does as usual and manages to release a multi-button mouse that somehow one-ups or redefines the current concepts about multi-button mouses out there.
--Rick
Insight, intelligence, and a sober viewpoint. Aside from the "know it alls" line, a well reasoned point. Mod this parent up!
:^)
Well, thank you. And, btw, the "know it alls" line wasn't meant to apply to all in the open source community... just the know it alls therein. No offense intended.
--Rick
I don't know if anyone else has posted about it and I won't go on at length here, but thanks to the COPPA laws passed about two years ago (IIRC) Apple -- or anyone online -- can get into serious legal trouble for soliciting any kind of information or doing any kind of exchange with minors. Mock Apple all you want, but save the real derision for our lawmakers who, in their infinite zeal to protect us all from ourselves and to be a surrogate parent to all those kids out there on the net, are to blame.
You know-it-alls in the open source comminity can mock Apple's decision all you want, but I have a feeling you'll be singing a different tune when some parent decides to sue your ass off for eliciting information from their kid over the net through a web site. Thanks to our stupid lawmakers, it's not legal. Keep that in mind.
--Rick
But... but... but... now I'm confused. After all these years of being bashed around by my PC using peers for using a needlessly expensive Mac, I thought investing in x86 hardware was cheap! Surely, you can't have much of an investment in all that open source Unix software and all those Windows apps and PC hardware that have been driven down to insanely dirt-cheap prices by the vastly more competitive PC market! C'mon... couldn't be more than $700, surely.
--Rick (hopes the sarcasm is noticed.)
But you're not in Apple's marketing dept. and just judging from the point you're making, you're not in any marketing dept. I undestand where you're coming from, but that isn't how this kind of thing works. Love 'em or hate 'em, marketing people are stuck with the onerous task of managing the public relations and public image of a business and its products. The last thing a marketing person would do is throw up a question to the public like "Why aren't you considering Apple?" or "What would it take to get you to switch to Macs?" Not only does that sound slightly like a plea (and pathetic), but it also carries the assumption that there is something inherently wrong or missing in the product in question. May as well just put up a question like "Why do we suck so much that you choose Windows instead?" or "Tell us about your worst Mac using experience?"
No doubt you're right that they want to know why people don't pick Macs; that's what they're getting at, but marketing people (at least the ones I know) are excruciatingly detail-oriented and pick and choose their words, images, and public relation moves with extreme care. It's their job.
--Rick
What is it with the Wintel retard demographic on slashdot.
I'm probably going to score some troll points for this one, but we could coin a new term out of this: Wintard. >:^)
--Rick
I'd just love to see you fit your Maxtor USB 2.0 HDD in your pocket, myself.
Funny... I can think of a much better place to fit it into. >:^)
--Rick
Build a Mac yourself for $500...
Build a PC yourself for $500...
See the difference now?
No, but yet again I see the standard PC-centric attitude applied to the Mac side of the computing world and yet again I wonder what this is supposed to prove. Let's go over this one more time, and this time I'll try to avoid polysyllables so it will be easier to understand.
Okay, sitting comfy? Let's begin...
People who buy Macs do not want to build the machine themselves. They want it to work out of the box and are willing to pay for that.
Criticizing Macs on the basis that you can't build one cheap is nothing short of a non sequitur. It make sense only to someone who doesn't use Macs. To us Mac users, it makes no sense and says more about the person doing the criticism than it does about Apple.
--Rick
How relevant is this?
In 50 words or less: quite.
I found the inability to fork subprocesses, and the general "anti-command-line" tendencies of applications on the Mac OS, to make Mac Perl's usefullness much diminished compared to traditional unix environments.
Nothing personal but this sentiment just reeks of Geek Tunnel-vision. MacPerl is possibly one of the most powerful, useful tools on the Mac that I have at my disposal in running my company's website. I can't imagine what I'd do without it. Because it doesn't support a few (IMO) esoteric technical issues hardly diminishes its relevance.
Bear in mind that there are Mac-specific libraries distrbuted with MacPerl that interface with the Mac API/Toolbox (I was awestruck when I got my MacPerl script to access the Speech Manager--a talking Perl script. Cool!) Does the lack of those libraries on Unix diminish its usefulness there? I doubt it.
In many respects, I think AppleScript is the more effective scripting language for the classic Mac OS, although certainly it's not as fun or easy to work with as Perl (speaking from experience someone who's worked with both.)
I can speak as someone who's worked with both as well and I find that they naturally lend themselves to different tasks. If you want the ability to manipulate raw data or sift through enormous quantities of information, Perl is hands-down the way to go. If you need a quick script to facilitate interapplication communication, exchange of data between apps, or to automate a program (and especially if you need an application that can communicate with non-geek users via GUI elements) AppleScript is hard to beat since that functionality is built right in, no loading extra libraries which makes for quick and lean scripts. Each has its own strength. I don't think I've ever been in a quandry over which one to use for any given task.
Does anyone out there actually use Mac Perl for major development?
Probably not, but how does that diminish its relevance to those of us who leverage its power on a daily basis to conquer some Herculean tasks? I find this update unexpected, exciting and quite relevant..
--Rick
This will get a little ranty... my apologies up front.
I believe IBM did this first with the Netvista line. The netvista predated the imac almost a whole year but was very pricey.
Wasn't that line also missing a few important features? Someone directed me to it recently and it occurred to me that it was lacking in a few important areas, but I don't recall now. So it's not that it was just pricey, but also lacking.
I guess it's more in who makes it popular.
C'mon... that sounds like sour grapes. Apple takes enough beating in the press and elsewhere--at least give them credit when it's due.
Let's see, did IBM back their flat-panel with a consumer-oriented concept about being the user's digital hub? Was the software distributed with it honed to the point of serving the user's needs in that very specific manner? Was the display thought out so carefully that IBM arrived at the inevitable conclusion that it should somehow "float" above the machine (really, Johnathon Ive is absolutely correct in pointing out that if you're going to make the flat panel stuck in the traditional position, it may as well be a CRT. What do you gain besides looks othewise)? No, IBM made a machine with a nice look. End of story. In all other ways, it fails to distinguish itself.
There is a lot of evidence in the new iMac that Apple gets design on an esoteric --almost philosophical--level. They get it in ways that other box makers simply haven't even considered. In the mad rush to be the fastest, the most cutting edge, a lot of companies just forgot all about catering to the very real needs of the home user and about giving them designs that look good and work well.
The prevalent attitude amongst the Wintel crowd (which is an attitude I've argued against for years) seems to be that if it looks nice, it's a "good design" or that Apple was only playing with the look because they had nothing else to impress people with.
The look of the machine is the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to it than that, but it's easy to lose sight of that simple fact when we're all getting caught up in the daily inanities of the Great AMD-Intel Processor Speed Circle Jerk.
So, I disagree with your conclusion that it's more in who makes it popular. It's not marketing or an attitude or the result of fanatical Mac users (like me) flooding discussions with pro-Apple tripe. It becomes popular when the company making it has a reason other than looks to do it that way, when the company really understands design beyond the shape of the box and caters to users in a way that elicits a response.
--Rick
I just saw someone ask this: Why doesn't someone like Dell or Compaq, with their billions of dollars, hire some designers to come in and create some nice looking systems?
This is exactly where we Mac users get to sit back and laugh and say "we told you so." We've taken a pummelling over the years because Macs weren't standard, weren't cutted-edge enough, couldn't lay claim to the buzzword-du-jour, but Apple has always done interface and design like nobody else.
Why don't Dell or Compaq create something "nice looking"? They do create "nice looking" but they don't create "nice using." Unlike Apple, their users just don't (apparently) demand that. Design isn't just how something looks, but how something works and how something fits into the workflow of whatever you're doing. The look is the least of it.
But Compaq and Dell and other box makers will continue to try to do "nice looking" because they don't get the whole human user interface concept the way Apple does. They don't get design on the multiple levels that Apple and most of its users do. It's something that we long-time Mac users have argued ad nauseam about in countless discussion forums (and will no doubt continue to do so) for ages and have been written off as pathetic Apple apologists.
--Rick
When you are a public figure or a coproration, you have a much harder case in proving libel from another party. Traditionally, libel was only truly considered an actionable offense if it was directed at a private citizen. If you're a public figure or corporation, dealing with that just comes with the territory (or did at one time... it would appear.)
So it doesn't (or didn't) matter what you say about a public figure or a corporation. Until lately, that wasn't considered something you could sue the offending party for. Public figures and corporations are (were) essentially fair game, for the most part. There are exceptions. Celebrities sometimes sue tabloids for libel, but that's usually when the tabloids get personal and make claims about a celebrity's personal life.
The fact that a corporation can sue for non-personal criticism, regardless of how accurate it is, reveals a startling shift in our legal system that I think undermines freedom of speech.
--Rick
I see so much finger-pointing aimed at Apple over the fact that Adobe took so long with an OS X-native Photoshop but many of these posts don't make sense when you consider the number of applications (not just from other companies, but from Adobe as well) that made the leap to OS X without much problem before Photoshop (many of them well before Photoshop.) Adobe may have had some technical problems with moving to OS X but that doesn't explain it all. Why did PageMaker and Illustrator get to OS X with relative ease then? And if a carbonized Photoshop was so quick to make, why didn't they release that to paid customers of PS 6 for free?
I've heard lots of rumors about Adobe using the release of an OS X-native Photoshop as leverage in some dispute they were having with Apple. I don't know what it was concerning, but I doubt it's totally fair to blame Apple and let Adobe off the hook.
--Rick
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Yet another Usenet-inspired Wintroll.
Yet another Usenet-inspired Wintroll who?
Except that Apple have their own monopoly; only their business practives are worse than those of Microsoft
Standard-issue claim about Apple. They are not a monopoly. Other companies have attempted to create OSes for Apple hardware, but they inevitably fail because that's not what Mac users want. Note that Apple doesn't do anything to actively stop companies from trying to compete. In fact, until OS X, Apple was actively backing LinuxPPC (including having part of their site devoted to it.) Does Microsoft have any pages about Linux like that?
Someone should tell Apple that's no way to run a monopoly!
Anyway, cite some examples of Apple putting competition out of business with underhanded practices and monopolistic practices. Cite some examples of Apple being caught stealing the source code from other companies. Cite examples of Apple "embracing and extending" the work of others. Cite any instance where Apple dragged their feet on a glaring security patch until the bad press was enough to warrant it. Cite some horror stories about Apple's tech support that rival the endless stories about indifferent and clueless help desks at MS.
These are two very different companies. Apple is no MS.
the only reason their market share is so small compared to MS is the price of the hardware.
This price complaint is another standard-issue Wintroll claim. It's because Apple was clueless about marketing in the late 80s and early 90s and they left an opening that was easy for MS to fill. End of story.
Remember, the Free Software Foundation have never imposed a boycott on Microsoft. They have on Apple.
Yeah, the police have never ticketted a pedestrian for speeding either. At least Apple has actually done something that Free Software Foundation could criticize. If MS does nothing, they can't be criticized. Your complaint is silly.
--Rick
It's gotten ridiculous -- WinAmp is bloated spyware, RealPlayer is the same (plus it's a fscking virus that changes all your settings, sticks its shortcuts everywhere, and inserts itself into your Systray).
:^)
Why not try iTunes?
--Rick
That was great. What a fantastic way to propose. Congratulations to both of you!
--Rick
From the article: In 1996, Id created the first true 3D game, Quake[....]
I guess this depends on your definition of "3D" in games. I was under the impression that true 3D meant that passages and rooms could exist on top of each other, creating true multi-layer scenarios. This is something that Doom could not do, but that Bungie's Marathon did. By that definition, Marathon should get the honor of being the "first true 3D" game. Marathon was released well before Quake, although I don't have the exact year at hand.
I suppose the author is probably referring to (or maybe being confused by) the fact that the monsters in Quake are models as opposed to sprites. IMO, true 3D would mean a true 3D environment not monsters. Oh well... nitpicking, I suppose.
--Rick
From the article: "That's not what we're doing," Mr. Carmack says. "We're doing entertainment. Saying it's art is a kind of sophistry from people who want to aggrandize our industry."
I totally disagree with this statement. I view coding (particularly coding for games) as something that straddles the gulf between work and art. It may not be 100% pure art, but it's certainly not aggrandizing to say that there is a fair amount of artistry in well conceived and written code. The first 25 years of my life was spent pursuing a variety of artistic endeavors (writing, music, visual arts) and I get nearly the exact same feeling in me when I'm writing code as when I'm composing music or drawing. There is definitely some link between those activities. I feel the same creative impulses firing when I'm programming as when I'm doing any other art form and I feel that same sense of artistic fulfillment or satisfaction when I'm finished with a project. It probably sounds a little fruit-loopy, but it's the truth. There is an element of artistry in writing code. I have no doubt about that.
--Rick
You mean to tell me that media sources (like Slashdot) sometimes report information that isn't true? You mean to tell me that sometimes news outlets don't check their facts and sources before reporting or passing on information to the reading public? Say it ain't so!
--Rick
True to bad form, Slashdot's lead-in to this link is a far more egregious example of bad journalism than anything in this article. What's with the spin on this making it sound like the entire news media is being totally duped here or that it's so amazing that someone at Reuters believes this is true? Reporting someone's claims doesn't mean you believe those claims. BTW, I hope Slashdot readers expect better of Slashdot. After all, wasn't that AOL/Red Hat rumor posted here? I hope the Slashdot moderators thoroughly checked the facts in that story before posting it here.
Interesting double-standard.
The tone of the article is largely skeptical, pointing out prior examples of such energy solution claims and talking (albeit too briefly) to a few experts who pointed out the problems with the claims. Seemed pretty balanced to me. Mostly the article is reporting the guy's claims and offering opinions of others which is perfectly legitimate reporting and doesn't necessarily mean the reporter believes what is being claimed. IMO, this isn't particularly bad journalism, but I can understand interpretting it that way if you are constantly watching for any reason to jump on the news media. They even end the article with what I view as a tongue-in-cheek joke.
Sounds to me like a few Slashdot readers need to learn a bit more about journalism before attempting to critique the media.
--Rick
--Rick