Apple's APIs are such that, if you do things the right way, new supported languages will just work.
I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true.
That's complete and utter balderdash.
If you're writing a notepad replacement, maybe.
If you're doing anything more complex - no, I doubt it.
Do all applications suddenly magically support 32-bit unicode because of Apple's API support? No. They don't. So that's at least one language (namely, Chinese) that's not automatically supported.
Right to left layout and ligatures were in the OS X text object from the time that OS X was called Openstep in 1996. The problem is with the Carbon and more likely with Microsoft themselves since the Office suite uses precious little Carbon as it is, but rather does a lot of it's own text layout and rendering.
Yes, and Office for Windows handles it fine, using its own text layout and rendering. It does, however, require Uniscribe support and Opentype script support for glyph reording and substitution.
The most obvious answer is that when Office vX first came out, the functionality needed to support it wasn't available from the API used to write it.
2) they do support Hebrew, just that the MacOS X versions of Office don't. In the article they talk about the OS supporting R to L scripts such as Hebrew (and Arabic and Urdu) since 10.2.
The Mac OS X versions of Office came out before MacOS 10.2, which is why there's no support in Office v.X for right-to-left languages.
Apple has recently added a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to their line of products, making my powerbook's bluetooth chipset actually useful. The mouse is very well designed for use by travellers, although someone here is sure to bitch about the number of buttons within minutes
As of [the end of?] next year I expect that ALL Apple laptops will support bluetooth. Certainly all powerbooks. And a lot of the desktops - all the towers and maybe all the imacs as well. I tend to doubt the xserve will, though.
By the end of the following year I expec that Dell, Gateway, IBM, etc will have notebooks and desktops that support bluetooth.
In other words, just like most Apple proponents claimed that Apple was the thing that really got USB going (even though I had a Packard Bell with USB a year before the first Apple systems did)... you're going to claim the same thing about Bluetooth, even though you can buy Acer laptops, Dell systems and laptops, and Gateway systems with Bluetooth built in.
Clue for you: they already do have support for bluetooth. Try looking on their websites.
Have we already forgotten the words of our forefathers? [snip] Without God in our society the worst will happen, William Penn put it best: "Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
Have you already forgotten the words of God?
Namely... I seem to recall a certain "Thou shalt not worship false idols" clause in the 10 commandments.
Surely, pledging allegiance to any kind of inanimate object - flag of the USA, or otherwise - is a breach of one of those commandments?
Therefore, shouldn't you be condemning the pledge, rather than bitching about it needing more God in it?
As far as the holier than thou attitude, yeah, so what? I'm choosy about the people I like and if I'm condescending its because a lot of people who're above me are there not because they're better than me but because they have the "Oh so called Social Skills."
I don't see the point -- as long as I do my job and get my stuff done, whats the point and the problem?
All that most "informed bosses" can do is kiss everyone's ass and pretend to know everything. And serve everything as sugar coated lies to the clients and investors.
Perhaps the hatred-filled, mocking tone of condescension you feel towards your bosses is the problem.
Tech skills aren't the be all and end all. Everyone plays a part in a business. If they're above you, try finding out why, and get the skills you need to get to that level.
Exactly, an SVCD looks a hell of alot better than a VHS but people watched VHS for years and found it just fine for movie viewing.
Sure, if you can't see artifact noise on MPEG compression, I imagine you're quite happy with it.
VHS is lower "resolution" than SVCD. But it's really just lower bandwidth. Because it's an analog signal, all that means is smears. With digital, lower bandwidth means more artifacts, which are more visible.
So sure, some SVCDs might look great, but most don't. That's why we have DVD - not SVCD - as the main format out there right now. And given that we were originally talking about VCD, not SVCD... just exactly how does this relate to the original point at all?
VCD or actually SVCD has the same resolution as a TV and the same frame rate.
Actually, only SVCD can claim that - the OP. said "VCD", which is 320x240. Television is 720x480 (D1).
Also, resolution has nothing to do with bitrate, which is the main problem with SVCD and VCD.
And yes, I've seen them. I've made my own. They look like crap. Which is why I burn DVDs today, instead of SVCDs or VCDs. (That, and DVD burners got cheap enough).
First, they applied the pressure to help force microsoft into fixing the software.
Second, they are now giving microsoft some slack (negative reinforcement?) for trying to fix its browser.
What do we give them for listing several bugs in earlier versions of IE that were already fixed in IE6? I mean, it's a free browser. If you can't upgrade a version number to get the patches + fixes...
Scott McNealy went and told the Cabinet (including Blair) at the time when they were about to jump in bed with Microsoft that "the first hit of heroin's always free."
You mean Scott got out of his crack-addled stupor long enough to actually speak coherently?
That's the problem with heroin. It's a gateway drug for stupid CEOs who think that the best way to make money is to take every opportunity to slam a competitor - no matter how insane or stupid it makes you look./me waits for the world run by McNealy to appear, and shudders
You spoiled little brat. More than 70% of US citizens (who are paid drastically more than those in pretty much all other nations) make less than $55k/year!
And more than 70% of US citizens don't live in the rather damn expensive Seattle Metropolitan Area.
Look, if you were paid $55k/yr in Southern California, you'd be commuting for 3 hours a day to work. It's all relative. $55k is about the lowest you want to go in the Seattle area and have any kind of independence. Lower than that, and you're talking roommates.
You'd be able to define a DIV style which was a box:
/ - \ | X | \ -/
Anything in the middle sections gets repeated to the width (or height) of the contained elements. Corner pieces don't expand. The X in the middle is the contained elements.
You can hack this VERY poorly and in a way that doesn't work on all browsers particularly well (some have repaint issues) using nested DIVs. But they don't really get around the problem all that well, unfortunately.
It's yet one more reason why people still use tables for page layout.
I'd prefer to think of myself as being in the "pro-well-written-software" camp though. If Microsoft started writing good, secure, and interoperable software, I'd welcome them with open arms. My problem with MS is that in my "learned-the-hard-way" opinion, they don't.
Compared to whom?
For example, compare Metrowerks Codewarrior to MS Visual Studio.
Using Visual Studio is a pain in the ass.
Using Metrowerks Codewarrior is like going into a gladiatorial arena, butt naked, bare fisted, and going up against a guy in armor with a chainsaw.
That's why they call it codewarrior. Because you have to fight with it.
sighs... ok, so maybe I'm just having a "can't believe they're so f*&*@*(# stupid" day compiling my coldfire code today. I wish I was using ARM and Embedded CE. At least that stuff's easy. The defaults make sense. The tools are correctly documented. And they don't just throw you a "Stationery Project" and expect you to go through it line by line to find out what the hell it is.
So go ahead... good, secure, interoperable... compared to what exactly?
Maybe the W3C will eventually release a CSS standard which supports the concept of being able to layout objects on a tic-tac-toe grid instead of as nested blobs, but I don't see it happening soon.
(Seriously though; this would be a good thing; you could get rid of tables for most layout issues that way... *sigh*)
Remember that the role of the patent office is to NOT check for prior art. All they do is make sure that your invention is not a perpetual motion machine (and if it is, they dispatch the Men In Black to deal with you).
Actually, the role of the patent office is to determine if a patent application is valid before handing out a patent. If you read the Patent Officer's rulebooks and the associated laws regarding patents in the US legal code, you will indeed find that they have to do a reasonably exhaustive search for prior art in both the public domain and the patent catalogue.
(All of these laws and guidelines, by the way, are available for you to read on the USPTO website).
Well, you do have to admit that as special effects get better the returns diminish. Considering that we keep flat screens etc. how much more 'special' can the effects get? Three decades ago, story tellers didn't have the effects to properly render their stories to video. Now, by and large, they do.
True, but there are still problems with a lot of movies when it comes to compositing color matching and matching the light of the scene to the composited in image.
A lot of these problems could be quite simply fixed by handling the color timing as an iterative process:
1. Make sure the images match under normal display conditions. 2. Make sure the images match when the brightness is turned down. 3. Make sure the images match when the brightness is turned way up. 4. Make sure the images match with color turned off. 5. Make sure the image match with color saturation turned way up.
If you can make the images match under all of the above conditions, it'll be a seamless composite. Otherwise, repeat until you do.
*shrugs*
Better handling of light in scenes... better match moving... basically, better computer AI to handle visually interpreting an image and move the effort off the frame-by-frame rotoscoping job and color timing job you've got now, and it'll be a good thing.
Of course, you'll still need a human to decide whether or not it's aesthetically pleasing:-)
It always kills me when people with interesting, fun jobs get money and awards. Like this and the Academy Awards. To qualify for these awards you first have to have a great job that you love. In that case do you really need more award.
Where's the award for the programmer who refactored 500K lines of hopeless spaghetti code left over by some idiot who hard no idea about structured programing?!
Yes, but you seem to be ignoring that to get the great job that you love, you have to persistently wade through a lot of crap until you have that AHA! moment, or the willpower, to make the jump from the job you hate to the job you love.
There's no point bitching about it. Life is random and unfair. Learn how to stack the deck in your favor - which doesn't mean doing anything illegal, or immoral. It just means looking for opportunity, and then, when that opportunity arises, chasing it for all you're worth.
Alternatively, find a job you enjoy, and figure out what it takes to get you to the point where you can do that instead. You'll be much more productive that way, and you'll be happier, and the rewards will speak for themselves.
I'm not sure of that. There is a point were it stops making a difference, and it's indistinguishable from real. IMHO LotR a milestone- is at that point (mostly - don't mention the ents). It is the end of special-effects-as-special-effects, you know, stuff that you look at and go "hey, that's pretty special". After a while the brain adjusts and you just accept that Gandalf is twice as tall as Frodo and it seems normal not special.
Indistinguishable from real for you, maybe.
The practical perspective tricks used for LOTR have been used for years. There's nothing particularly new or impressive with them - just the scale of them, because they're in nearly every shot.
The computer graphics shots? I can still see some glitches.
When I can't see glitches, and someone who's at least twice as good as I am at seeing glitches can't see them either, then it'll be perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple's APIs are such that, if you do things the right way, new supported languages will just work.
I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true.
That's complete and utter balderdash.
If you're writing a notepad replacement, maybe.
If you're doing anything more complex - no, I doubt it.
Do all applications suddenly magically support 32-bit unicode because of Apple's API support? No. They don't. So that's at least one language (namely, Chinese) that's not automatically supported.
Right to left layout and ligatures were in the OS X text object from the time that OS X was called Openstep in 1996. The problem is with the Carbon and more likely with Microsoft themselves since the Office suite uses precious little Carbon as it is, but rather does a lot of it's own text layout and rendering.
Yes, and Office for Windows handles it fine, using its own text layout and rendering. It does, however, require Uniscribe support and Opentype script support for glyph reording and substitution.
The most obvious answer is that when Office vX first came out, the functionality needed to support it wasn't available from the API used to write it.
2) they do support Hebrew, just that the MacOS X versions of Office don't. In the article they talk about the OS supporting R to L scripts such as Hebrew (and Arabic and Urdu) since 10.2.
The Mac OS X versions of Office came out before MacOS 10.2, which is why there's no support in Office v.X for right-to-left languages.
Apple has recently added a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to their line of products, making my powerbook's bluetooth chipset actually useful. The mouse is very well designed for use by travellers, although someone here is sure to bitch about the number of buttons within minutes
Microsoft beat them to it
As of [the end of?] next year I expect that ALL Apple laptops will support bluetooth. Certainly all powerbooks. And a lot of the desktops - all the towers and maybe all the imacs as well. I tend to doubt the xserve will, though.
By the end of the following year I expec that Dell, Gateway, IBM, etc will have notebooks and desktops that support bluetooth.
In other words, just like most Apple proponents claimed that Apple was the thing that really got USB going (even though I had a Packard Bell with USB a year before the first Apple systems did)... you're going to claim the same thing about Bluetooth, even though you can buy Acer laptops, Dell systems and laptops, and Gateway systems with Bluetooth built in.
Clue for you: they already do have support for bluetooth. Try looking on their websites.
This is Autodesk we are talking about here folks.
No, it's not. John Walker, while being the person who founded Autodesk, is not part of that company any more. Sheesh.
Have we already forgotten the words of our forefathers?
[snip]
Without God in our society the worst will happen, William Penn put it best:
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
Have you already forgotten the words of God?
Namely... I seem to recall a certain "Thou shalt not worship false idols" clause in the 10 commandments.
Surely, pledging allegiance to any kind of inanimate object - flag of the USA, or otherwise - is a breach of one of those commandments?
Therefore, shouldn't you be condemning the pledge, rather than bitching about it needing more God in it?
... and some knee pads.
Only if you're really bad at getting the skills.
As far as the holier than thou attitude, yeah, so what? I'm choosy about the people I like and if I'm condescending its because a lot of people who're above me are there not because they're better than me but because they have the "Oh so called Social Skills."
I don't see the point -- as long as I do my job and get my stuff done, whats the point and the problem?
All that most "informed bosses" can do is kiss everyone's ass and pretend to know everything. And serve everything as sugar coated lies to the clients and investors.
Perhaps the hatred-filled, mocking tone of condescension you feel towards your bosses is the problem.
Tech skills aren't the be all and end all. Everyone plays a part in a business. If they're above you, try finding out why, and get the skills you need to get to that level.
Exactly, an SVCD looks a hell of alot better than a VHS but people watched VHS for years and found it just fine for movie viewing.
Sure, if you can't see artifact noise on MPEG compression, I imagine you're quite happy with it.
VHS is lower "resolution" than SVCD. But it's really just lower bandwidth. Because it's an analog signal, all that means is smears. With digital, lower bandwidth means more artifacts, which are more visible.
So sure, some SVCDs might look great, but most don't. That's why we have DVD - not SVCD - as the main format out there right now. And given that we were originally talking about VCD, not SVCD... just exactly how does this relate to the original point at all?
VCD or actually SVCD has the same resolution as a TV and the same frame rate.
Actually, only SVCD can claim that - the OP. said "VCD", which is 320x240. Television is 720x480 (D1).
Also, resolution has nothing to do with bitrate, which is the main problem with SVCD and VCD.
And yes, I've seen them. I've made my own. They look like crap. Which is why I burn DVDs today, instead of SVCDs or VCDs. (That, and DVD burners got cheap enough).
Ya I'll probably just wait and download a screener.
I downloaded the second one on VCD, very glad I didn't pay to see it. It sucked in my opinion.
It didn't suck totally like kill bill but it was just kind of a medoicre showing for all the hype and the potential of the original.
That's your problem. Some movies are meant to be watched on the big screen -- not at 320x240 and crappy bitrates.
We all should give pivx a huge hand!
First, they applied the pressure to help force microsoft into fixing the software.
Second, they are now giving microsoft some slack (negative reinforcement?) for trying to fix its browser.
What do we give them for listing several bugs in earlier versions of IE that were already fixed in IE6? I mean, it's a free browser. If you can't upgrade a version number to get the patches + fixes...
*sheesh*
Scott McNealy went and told the Cabinet (including Blair) at the time when they were about to jump in bed with Microsoft that "the first hit of heroin's always free."
/me waits for the world run by McNealy to appear, and shudders
You mean Scott got out of his crack-addled stupor long enough to actually speak coherently?
That's the problem with heroin. It's a gateway drug for stupid CEOs who think that the best way to make money is to take every opportunity to slam a competitor - no matter how insane or stupid it makes you look.
I went to Fry's in Seattle today.
They had at least three MPEG4 players for bargain basement prices.
What's the deal? Or is it just because it's Sony?
You spoiled little brat. More than 70% of US citizens (who are paid drastically more than those in pretty much all other nations) make less than $55k/year!
And more than 70% of US citizens don't live in the rather damn expensive Seattle Metropolitan Area.
Look, if you were paid $55k/yr in Southern California, you'd be commuting for 3 hours a day to work. It's all relative. $55k is about the lowest you want to go in the Seattle area and have any kind of independence. Lower than that, and you're talking roommates.
Doesn't help, unfortunately.
/
The case I'm talking about is this:
You'd be able to define a DIV style which was a box:
/ - \
| X |
\ -
Anything in the middle sections gets repeated to the width (or height) of the contained elements.
Corner pieces don't expand. The X in the middle is the contained elements.
You can hack this VERY poorly and in a way that doesn't work on all browsers particularly well (some have repaint issues) using nested DIVs. But they don't really get around the problem all that well, unfortunately.
It's yet one more reason why people still use tables for page layout.
I'd prefer to think of myself as being in the "pro-well-written-software" camp though. If Microsoft started writing good, secure, and interoperable software, I'd welcome them with open arms. My problem with MS is that in my "learned-the-hard-way" opinion, they don't.
... compared to what exactly?
Compared to whom?
For example, compare Metrowerks Codewarrior to MS Visual Studio.
Using Visual Studio is a pain in the ass.
Using Metrowerks Codewarrior is like going into a gladiatorial arena, butt naked, bare fisted, and going up against a guy in armor with a chainsaw.
That's why they call it codewarrior. Because you have to fight with it.
sighs... ok, so maybe I'm just having a "can't believe they're so f*&*@*(# stupid" day compiling my coldfire code today. I wish I was using ARM and Embedded CE. At least that stuff's easy. The defaults make sense. The tools are correctly documented. And they don't just throw you a "Stationery Project" and expect you to go through it line by line to find out what the hell it is.
So go ahead... good, secure, interoperable
Maybe the W3C will eventually release a CSS standard which supports the concept of being able to layout objects on a tic-tac-toe grid instead of as nested blobs, but I don't see it happening soon.
(Seriously though; this would be a good thing; you could get rid of tables for most layout issues that way... *sigh*)
Remember that the role of the patent office is to NOT check for prior art. All they do is make sure that your invention is not a perpetual motion machine (and if it is, they dispatch the Men In Black to deal with you).
Actually, the role of the patent office is to determine if a patent application is valid before handing out a patent. If you read the Patent Officer's rulebooks and the associated laws regarding patents in the US legal code, you will indeed find that they have to do a reasonably exhaustive search for prior art in both the public domain and the patent catalogue.
(All of these laws and guidelines, by the way, are available for you to read on the USPTO website).
Simon
(note: IANAL)
"Solitaire" only $80?
When was that, pray tell?
Aren't you mixing up full retail price with the upgrade price?
Well, you do have to admit that as special effects get better the returns diminish. Considering that we keep flat screens etc. how much more 'special' can the effects get? Three decades ago, story tellers didn't have the effects to properly render their stories to video. Now, by and large, they do.
:-)
True, but there are still problems with a lot of movies when it comes to compositing color matching and matching the light of the scene to the composited in image.
A lot of these problems could be quite simply fixed by handling the color timing as an iterative process:
1. Make sure the images match under normal display conditions.
2. Make sure the images match when the brightness is turned down.
3. Make sure the images match when the brightness is turned way up.
4. Make sure the images match with color turned off.
5. Make sure the image match with color saturation turned way up.
If you can make the images match under all of the above conditions, it'll be a seamless composite. Otherwise, repeat until you do.
*shrugs*
Better handling of light in scenes... better match moving... basically, better computer AI to handle visually interpreting an image and move the effort off the frame-by-frame rotoscoping job and color timing job you've got now, and it'll be a good thing.
Of course, you'll still need a human to decide whether or not it's aesthetically pleasing
Simon
It always kills me when people with interesting, fun jobs get money and awards. Like this and the Academy Awards. To qualify for these awards you first have to have a great job that you love. In that case do you really need more award.
Where's the award for the programmer who refactored 500K lines of hopeless spaghetti code left over by some idiot who hard no idea about structured programing?!
Yes, but you seem to be ignoring that to get the great job that you love, you have to persistently wade through a lot of crap until you have that AHA! moment, or the willpower, to make the jump from the job you hate to the job you love.
There's no point bitching about it. Life is random and unfair. Learn how to stack the deck in your favor - which doesn't mean doing anything illegal, or immoral. It just means looking for opportunity, and then, when that opportunity arises, chasing it for all you're worth.
Alternatively, find a job you enjoy, and figure out what it takes to get you to the point where you can do that instead. You'll be much more productive that way, and you'll be happier, and the rewards will speak for themselves.
Yup. For me, Uniball Vision micro. They kick ass as far as pens go.
I'm not sure of that. There is a point were it stops making a difference, and it's indistinguishable from real. IMHO LotR a milestone- is at that point (mostly - don't mention the ents). It is the end of special-effects-as-special-effects, you know, stuff that you look at and go "hey, that's pretty special". After a while the brain adjusts and you just accept that Gandalf is twice as tall as Frodo and it seems normal not special.
Indistinguishable from real for you, maybe.
The practical perspective tricks used for LOTR have been used for years. There's nothing particularly new or impressive with them - just the scale of them, because they're in nearly every shot.
The computer graphics shots? I can still see some glitches.
When I can't see glitches, and someone who's at least twice as good as I am at seeing glitches can't see them either, then it'll be perfect.