Let's be honest: The overly loud and violent movie was a massive letdown after the subtle and very human original series. The new TV ads touting the DVD as an "action" movie over clips of explosions and River's absurd tough-girl routine just add insult to injury.
Whedon steered Firefly into a ditch when he compromised its integrity in order to make Serenity.
There's no doubt that AJAX is fundamentally more complex than traditional web development. If you've figured out a good way to abstract away this complexity using a framework, good for you -- and maybe you should share it with the rest of the world.
I disagree. Unless you're developing for fun, you need lots of users and/or transactions to justify the extra expense required to implement AJAX.
You use it when it's appropriate to support a desktopish interaction model.
Okay, but that's nearly tautological. The problem is to determine when a "desktopish interaction model" is appropriate.
You don't want to reload the page every time.
Whether you "want" to reload the page isn't nearly as important as whether you can justify the expense of avoiding reloads. Lots of people "want" to use AJAX. That doesn't make it a good idea.
The main inovation in your scenario is that you are able to listen to MP3 files on a portable player. Does it really matter that they are spoken "podcasts" rather than music?
Re:PLEASE, enough with the words!
on
The Podjacker Threat
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Except it's not really broadcasting and you don't have to use an iPod. In reality, "podcasting" is nothing more than listening to MP3s from an RSS feed.
I think it's rather amusing to observe these people thinking that they've invented a new medium when it's really just a minor variation on plain old web browsing.
This story seems to inadvertently prove that production and marketing are two different skills. The author was good at creating content, but so miserably poor at marketing that he didn't even realize where his audience was coming from. The "podjacker", on the other hand, created nothing, but apparently did an excellent job of marketing the author's content.
You might argue that the world would be better off without middle men such as marketers, publishers, etc. (I think the catchy phrase for this is "disintermediation".) But this story provides evidence that these people actually do add value in some cases.
This seems identical to the deep linking debate that the web world went through five years ago (or more):
Is it legal/ethical for someone else to link to your content without your permission?
An RSS feed is nothing but a collection of hyperlinks (URLs), so "podjacking" is just the deep linking problem in a slightly different form.
It seems to me that the concensus at the time was that deep linking isn't the nicest thing in the world, but it isn't evil and certainly not illegal. Same goes for "podjacking", I think.
If the podjacker had hosted this guy's copyrighted content on his own server, then he'd have a legitimate beef. As it is, I think he needs to tone down the rhetoric a bit.
I'm not a doctor, but I know a bit about evolution. From that point of view, it's always seemed to me that cancer cells are not malfunctioning. Rather, they are reverting to an ancient paradigm, still embedded in their DNA, as single-celled creatures. They are, in essence, rejecting the compromise of sharing a body with other cells and deciding to strike out on their own. Even though it leads to death, it is in the short time a remarkably successful adaptation -- resulting in many copies of the original cancer cells.
It's remarkable to me that some human cancer lines from the 1950s are still reproducing happily as single-celled creatures. Normal human cells cannot reproduce indefinitely like this. I think of these as single-celled versions of humans. They are in some ways a separate daughter species.
And I'm going to hazard a guess that you are under 30 years old. As you get older, you'll probably start to realize what a fantastic opportunity you wasted by not paying much attention in college.
I'm all for using mnemonics to remember somewhat arbitrary information (Roy G. Biv, Every Good Boy Deserves Fish), but not for semantic cramming. If you need a song to understand the difference between glucose and fructose, then why bother taking the course in the first place? You're just going to forget everything you learned as soon as you complete the final exam.
Mountain View is in the heart of Silicon Valley, which has been famous for years as a tech haven (due originally to HP out of Stanford). so you can scratch that one off your list.
Re:The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
on
Top 20 Geek Novels
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· Score: 1
The Lathe of Heaven is probably my favorite book of all time. I come back to it every few years, and it's always a rewarding read. The character of Dr. Haber is fascinating and tragic. The scene where he attempts to distract Heather as most of the world's population "suddenly" dies of plague is stunning.
To my knowledge, there is no fair use right that covers distribution in any form except for first sale
IANAL, but that doesn't make sense to me. If I am reviewing your book, I have a right to use a quote from the book in my review. I also have the right to distribute the review (with your quote in it) in the New York Times. That sounds like a fair use right that covers distribution to me.
Slashdot Mirror
"Happy New Year's" is short for "Happy New Year's Day".
Spelling tip: Grammar isn't spelled the way you think it is.
Yes, except of course for assassination and its aftermath.
Let's be honest: The overly loud and violent movie was a massive letdown after the subtle and very human original series. The new TV ads touting the DVD as an "action" movie over clips of explosions and River's absurd tough-girl routine just add insult to injury.
:)
Whedon steered Firefly into a ditch when he compromised its integrity in order to make Serenity.
Mod me down if you can't take the truth.
It was Alex Haley.
Malcolm X was inconveniently dead at the time that his autobiography was published. It's worth a read to find out why.
1. RSS is subscription-based. "Podcasting" is no different from any other RSS feed in this regard.
2. Synchronization of content with mobile computers has been around for years now.
I agree that "podcasting" is a popular application of these existing technologies, but that hardly makes it revolutionary.
There's no doubt that AJAX is fundamentally more complex than traditional web development. If you've figured out a good way to abstract away this complexity using a framework, good for you -- and maybe you should share it with the rest of the world.
Good point. There's no point in polishing a GUI that doesn't need that kind of polish.
The number of users has nothing to do with it.
I disagree. Unless you're developing for fun, you need lots of users and/or transactions to justify the extra expense required to implement AJAX.
You use it when it's appropriate to support a desktopish interaction model.
Okay, but that's nearly tautological. The problem is to determine when a "desktopish interaction model" is appropriate.
You don't want to reload the page every time.
Whether you "want" to reload the page isn't nearly as important as whether you can justify the expense of avoiding reloads. Lots of people "want" to use AJAX. That doesn't make it a good idea.
-- Brian
Correct Answer: When you're building a web site that will have thousands or millions of users and you need maximum polish and usability to keep them.
Incorrect Answer: For the 99.999% of web sites that don't meet the above criteria.
The main inovation in your scenario is that you are able to listen to MP3 files on a portable player. Does it really matter that they are spoken "podcasts" rather than music?
I've always pronounced it "yer-l".
Except it's not really broadcasting and you don't have to use an iPod. In reality, "podcasting" is nothing more than listening to MP3s from an RSS feed.
I think it's rather amusing to observe these people thinking that they've invented a new medium when it's really just a minor variation on plain old web browsing.
This story seems to inadvertently prove that production and marketing are two different skills. The author was good at creating content, but so miserably poor at marketing that he didn't even realize where his audience was coming from. The "podjacker", on the other hand, created nothing, but apparently did an excellent job of marketing the author's content.
You might argue that the world would be better off without middle men such as marketers, publishers, etc. (I think the catchy phrase for this is "disintermediation".) But this story provides evidence that these people actually do add value in some cases.
This seems identical to the deep linking debate that the web world went through five years ago (or more):
Is it legal/ethical for someone else to link to your content without your permission?
An RSS feed is nothing but a collection of hyperlinks (URLs), so "podjacking" is just the deep linking problem in a slightly different form.
It seems to me that the concensus at the time was that deep linking isn't the nicest thing in the world, but it isn't evil and certainly not illegal. Same goes for "podjacking", I think.
If the podjacker had hosted this guy's copyrighted content on his own server, then he'd have a legitimate beef. As it is, I think he needs to tone down the rhetoric a bit.
You're being silly. Which of the following would you prefer:
* 0.5 millimeters* 0.0005 meters
In many ways a cancerous cell is malfunctioning.
I'm not a doctor, but I know a bit about evolution. From that point of view, it's always seemed to me that cancer cells are not malfunctioning. Rather, they are reverting to an ancient paradigm, still embedded in their DNA, as single-celled creatures. They are, in essence, rejecting the compromise of sharing a body with other cells and deciding to strike out on their own. Even though it leads to death, it is in the short time a remarkably successful adaptation -- resulting in many copies of the original cancer cells.
It's remarkable to me that some human cancer lines from the 1950s are still reproducing happily as single-celled creatures. Normal human cells cannot reproduce indefinitely like this. I think of these as single-celled versions of humans. They are in some ways a separate daughter species.
This project didn't write the 275 million lines of code, they collected code written by others.
That was pretty much my reaction too. Talk about a pointless project.
For the record, I went to an Ivy League school.
And I'm going to hazard a guess that you are under 30 years old. As you get older, you'll probably start to realize what a fantastic opportunity you wasted by not paying much attention in college.
I'm all for using mnemonics to remember somewhat arbitrary information (Roy G. Biv, Every Good Boy Deserves Fish), but not for semantic cramming. If you need a song to understand the difference between glucose and fructose, then why bother taking the course in the first place? You're just going to forget everything you learned as soon as you complete the final exam.
Mountain View is in the heart of Silicon Valley, which has been famous for years as a tech haven (due originally to HP out of Stanford). so you can scratch that one off your list.
We build custom software. Give us a call: RDA.
The Lathe of Heaven is probably my favorite book of all time. I come back to it every few years, and it's always a rewarding read. The character of Dr. Haber is fascinating and tragic. The scene where he attempts to distract Heather as most of the world's population "suddenly" dies of plague is stunning.
To my knowledge, there is no fair use right that covers distribution in any form except for first sale
IANAL, but that doesn't make sense to me. If I am reviewing your book, I have a right to use a quote from the book in my review. I also have the right to distribute the review (with your quote in it) in the New York Times. That sounds like a fair use right that covers distribution to me.