You had a minor inaccuracy there. . . Objective C should not be listed as a "variant" on C++ or any kind of spinoff from it. It's a competitor. I'm not sure which one was invented first, but I remember clearly that both C++ and Objective C were introduced around the same time and both competed to be the widespread successor to C. C++ won that competition, though the reasons why are obscure to me. I rather like Objective C, and it's still the preferred language for application development on Mac OS X (that's a legacy from NeXT).
10 years of pain and suffering. I feel sorry for those who must code C++, like it or not, to put bread on their table. No, I'm not going to use C++. I'd rather use Objective C. I'd rather use ANSI C. Heck, I'd rather use Java.
I'd even rather try to bend my mind around Smalltalk. . . the original object-oriented language, in case anybody forgot. Squeak Smalltalk is open source, cross-platform, and seems to be pretty powerful. It's just so damned *alien* though. It's like something that dropped through a wormhole from some alternate reality. (I suspect Squeak would be much easier to learn if I'd never been exposed to any normal programming languages.)
As best I recall, both Objective C and C++ were introduced about the same time and for the same purpose: to add OOP support to C. For some reason the marketplace chose C++ and made it successful and widespread while Objective C languished. Why? I have no idea. . . From my admittedly limited experience with both languages, Objective C appears to be a lot easier to work with.
I agree that the world doesn't need yet another extended C. If you're going to build a modern buzzword-compliant language, build it from scratch!
Considering the era C came from, it's a fundamentally good procedural language. Not perfect. Probably not even great. Just good.
In particular, its terse syntax and heavy reliance on operators instead of keywords makes C code dense and hard to read. You can write readable C code, but it takes a conscious effort, some documenting, and some discipline *not* to use every clever coding trick that pops into your mind. (I've read one opinion that C really stands for Clever, because it encourages you to do all sorts of excessively clever things that you'll later regret.)
The reason why the whole software industry seems hell-bent on created mutated versions of C, several decades later, is beyond my understanding.
Many years ago, Amiga E was the first OO language that I learned -- after trying and failing to understand C++. E not only made OO concepts easy, but it also had great, readable syntax. Some people say syntax doesn't matter, but I was able to read E code easier and faster than C code, even though at the time I had far more experience with C. I still have a fond memory of Amiga E, and I wish there was something else like it in widespread use.
So what happened to E? It never got ported from Amiga to other systems. Much of the compiler was coded in 68000 assembler, and much of the documentation was concerned with accessing Amiga APIs.
Another factor was ambivalence on the part of its creator, Wouter van Oortmerssen. His hobby was designing and implementing new programming languages, he cranked out one after another. It seems he never became too attached to any one of them. After he got Amiga E working the way he wanted, he lost interest and started working on the next language. I guess he didn't consider advocacy to be a productive use of his time.
It's a pity, because as someone else here pointed out. . . A language that isn't widely available or widely used doesn't do much good, no matter how well designed it may be.
I'm on a Mac now, so I'll probably use Objective C and call it good enough.
So how long does it take your typical C coder to learn Objective C? A couple of hours? Even if you begrudge a couple of precious hours gone from your life, that's still less time than it would take to learn most other new languages we might contemplate.
That's unless we simply plan on sticking with C and C++ from now on. . . But speaking for myself, I detest C++. Nothing would please me more than a widespread acknowledgment that C++ was a mistake from the beginning.
I can't speak for others, but. . . For me, it's not really about the user interface. Sure, I like the Mac OS X interface -- I like it a lot, though it does have a few quirks that bug me.
The big saving in time with a Mac comes from not having to constantly tinker with the computer to get stuff working right. It's about not having to spend hours searching through websites where all the text is in Korean, trying to get a video driver so my new game's cut scenes won't all display upside-down anymore. It's about not having to spend half a day re-installing Windows when it inexplicably gets messed up and will only start in safe mode. It's about not having to launch a big investigation into why my computer's audio has quit working again, or why it can't find my CD-R/RW drive, or my second hard drive, etc.
The 1930s radio program was a novelty act that would be forgotten today if it hadn't caused panic, and if Orson Wells hadn't gone on to do much greater things. As for the 1950s movie, it really shouldn't have been called War of the Worlds because it had practically nothing to do with the novel.
But the book. . . Ah, the book is a true classic! Even today it's still a good read. I think War of the Worlds occupies a place in SF literature much like The Hobbit does in fantasy. They are both relatively short novels, they are both adventure stories with a sympathetic "everyman" protagonist, they are both written in an engaging and accessible way, and both played a crucial role in shaping their genres: science fiction and high fantasy, respectively.
If War of the Worlds had any weakness, it was that the protagonist was maybe too passive -- he's a walking camera perspective, blundering through the war and reporting what he sees, never taking a hand in events. In that way he represented the helplessness of the human race in the face of cosmic forces, but I'm not sure how that will play in a movie.
And yes, both War of the Worlds and The Hobbit introduced themes that have since been done to death.
Yes, I remembered that book from years back, as soon as I saw the article. Interestingly, Aereon Corporation is still in business after all these years. Check it. ..
http://www.aereoncorp.com/
The page about the Aereon III is especially interesting.
These ships were based on the theory that a lighter-than-air craft could "glide" upwards, then vent some gas and glide downward, then drop some ballast and glide upward again, and continue in this manner until it ran out of gas or ballast. It's all about using aerodynamics to translate the up-and-down movements into horizontal motion. It's not a perpetual motion machine.
A nifty and clever idea, but one of dubious practicality.
Let me give an example exactly opposite: one where I figured out something complicated simply by tinkering with a well-designed user interface.
I have a 802.11b "Wi-Fi" access point here, which is my link to my ISP, another 802.11b station for my local network, my main computer, my personal laptop, and a second laptop which is used as a MUCK server. I had to get the computers on the internet and set up the firewall with NAT and port-mapping on my 802.11b station, with the right ports opened and redirected to the MUCK server.
And I started out with no clue. I am not a network-savvy person. I had only a vague idea what a firewall was, and had never heard of port mapping or NAT. I only knew that what I wanted to do ought to be possible, somehow. I had no "how to" manual to explain it, and no handy geeks to call on for help.
What I did have was Mac OS X. I figured everything out by poking around the GUI in the AirPort Admin Utility and tinkering with it. All the settings are there, in a tabbed window. There are short, simple explanations. There are buttons and other gadgets showing what my options are, and what I can edit. Thankfully, there's no "wizard" to lead me around by the nose.
Now. . . If only Apple would make a GUI configuration program for Sendmail, all would be right with the world. (I think they might have one for Mac OS X Server, but we mere peasants with regular Mac OS X don't get one.)
I was having a little, um, debate with some of my PC-using friends a while back, trying to explain to them why I like Mac OS X so much. There's several reasons, but the big number one reason is that I spend so much less time tinkering and fixing things on my computer. However, the last Windows PC that I ever used had Win98. ..
My PC-using friends explained to me that WinNT doesn't do any of that bad stuff. It doesn't have driver problems anymore (no more searching for video drivers on websites where all the text is in Korean), doesn't have configuration problems, doesn't make you reboot after installing software, doesn't ever need to be re-installed, and even if you did need to re-install the OS it wouldn't take long (unlike the tortuous process I remember from Win95/98). WinNT, they assured me, is just as solid and trouble-free as Mac OS X on all these points.
For some reason, though, I have a little trouble believing all of those things.
- The "system resources" consumed by USB mouse and keyboard are trivial.
- USB just works too . . . at least on my Macs. Is the PC platform screwed up in some way such that it has trouble dealing with USB devices?
- If price is your top concern, generic beige USB keyboards are available for nearly nothing. I have one, it works OK.
- Face it: at some point you're going to buy a USB hub anyhow. You might as well buy it on day one and plug your mouse and keyboard into it.
USB is cool. Replacing the whole hodgepodge of legacy ports with something as neat and versatile as USB is cool. I don't understand people who aren't eager to do this, and instead want to hold onto their obsolete, redundant ports.
It seems odd to me, these small computers are all the rage now . . . yet Apple closed out the G4 Cube after not being able to sell enough of them. What gives?
Disgusting sounding 128 kbps MP3s? I don't get it. . . I've tried, but I can't hear any difference between 128K MP3s and the audio CDs that they were ripped from. (I usually make 160K MP3s just to be on the safe side, and because that's the default setting of iTunes anyhow.)
Am I a tin-eared boob? Or am I listening to the wrong kind of music? Or both?
Incidentally. . . I'm 37 and don't need a hearing aid yet, but I don't have the ears of a teenager anymore either. Maybe hearing loss is a factor -- as opposed to merely being ignorant about what kind of distortion to listen for.
Pelikan 200 with a XF (extra fine) steel nib -- one of the transparent demonstrator models, so you can see how much ink is in it. Mine is graphite gray, it's a nice match for my old graphite iMac.:) It's not too expensive, not too big or heavy (as the collector's pens tend to be), won't dry out when it's not in use, and it writes absolutely terrific with almost any kind of bottled fountain pen ink. The Pelikans also have interchangeable nibs, so if you decide you don't like XF, you can change it out for something different.
My favorite word processors, in chronological order, have been:
ST Writer (Atari ST) ST Writer Elite (Atari ST)
Those were anachronistic relics even in the mid-to-late 1980s when I used them, as WYSIWYG was already starting to take over. But I had little patience with on-screen rulers, tab and margin stops, page breaks, and nonsense like that.
Transcript (Amiga) Transwrite (Amiga)
These were sort of hybrid semi-WYSIWYG programs (they showed italics and bold text on the screen!), and they were small and highly efficient. They could also be used as decent text editors for programming.
TextEdit (Mac OS X)
I think TextEdit is the ultimate writing tool. No, it doesn't do footnotes, it doesn't do formulas. It doesn't output HTML, or integrate with spreadsheets or presentation software. It's a word processor, it does word processing. The user interface is completely Mac-like and easy to understand.
Also, it can output in either ASCII text or RTF, so I don't have to worry about having documents in some unreadable format if I ever change word processors again -- not that I foresee changing at all.
Okay, so now there is an alpha-test demo of AmigaOS4 making the rounds. . . . Meanwhile, I've been getting things done on my Macs for the last five years, and I have Mac OS X and all the goodies that go with it. Tell me again why I should have waited for a new Amiga?
According to the article: "The computer display produces 3D images by sending a slightly different image to the right eye and the left eye at once by bending them in different angles, according to Sharp."
Ewwww! I don't *want* my eyes bent in different angles, that sounds painful.;)
Let's put a maximum limit, a cap, on the amount of net worth a person can have. Let's say for example. . . that everyone is allowed to have up to 30 million dollars.
If you have more than 30 million, what happens? You have to give it away. . . to anyone you choose. Friends, relatives, charitable organizations -- doesn't matter who, but you just can't keep it. There's nothing to keep you from earning more money, as much as you can bring in, but you then keep giving it away to other people as necessary keep your net worth under the legal limit.
This would force wealth to be spread around. No, not spread around evenly to everybody . . . but at least spread around moreso than we see today. It would clear out the class of "super-rich" at any rate.
Maybe we could draw lessons from the native American "potlatch" culture, for ways to create a society based on abundance and generosity -- where the way to impress people is showing how much you can give away, not how much junk you can collect.
You're assuming that the EULA is, in fact, a legally binding contract. I have serious doubts about that. In fact, I was under the impression that most EULAs are simply legal fantasies created to intimidate consumers into doing whatever the seller wants.
EULAs are a completely weird quirk of the computer industry. You don't see cars sold with EULAs, or home appliances, or books, or music or movies. Yet, every guy peddling shareware out of his attic/basement/garage thinks he has to tack several pages of legal mumbo-jumbo onto his product. It's a kind of mass insanity.
I wonder if they can make it into some kind of paint that's reasonably easy to apply (i.e. without baking, toxic solvents, etc.)? I would love to repaint the inside of my telescope with it. Even if it comes in sheets, it would be great as flocking material. A lot of telescope builders will go nuts over this stuff.
If you have the right kind of digitizing hardware for audio and video, and you have a DBS satellite TV system, you can rip all the stuff you want from it. You can archive the stuff and keep it for your future reference, and it's all completely legal.
Problems? Well... It can be time consuming to find the things you want on TV, digitize them, edit them, etc. Plus you have to pay your DBS bill. So it's not free, and I think the cost of invested time is more significant than the money.
But I just have to emphasize..... It's all legal. I've collected quite some music by this method.
Does the new revision of Internet Explorer display PNG images yet? AFAIK, IE 5.1 is the only browser on the Mac that won't show PNGs, it's really shameful.
It has been known for a while now that the Linux and Mac versions weren't going to ship in the box. That was the old plan, it was abandoned weeks (or months?) ago, but nobody bothered to update the FAQ. The whole decision is probably based on the toolset being Windows-only.
The speculation I've heard is that a Mac publisher will be brought on board to finish up the Mac version -- *including* porting the toolset. Which I'm guessing might take 10 or 12 months.
But I've also heard there may be a new announcement about the Mac version as early as tomorrow, so here's hoping for a pleasant surprise.
1. Too much use of camera shake. This made it hard to watch in some points, while not really helping tell the story in any way. It also gave me a creepy feeling at one point.... The obviously hand-held camera is following our hero, and I'm wondering: Who is following our guy around with a camera? The shake makes it seem like there should be a person there.
2. Too heavy-handed use of music soundtrack. I don't like being lead by the nose with music telling me what I should feel at every moment in the movie. Silence can be golden. Just watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again, you'll see.
3. The whole theme of hero's doubts about "why are we here" seems quaintly anachronistic after the events of Sept 11. So do the parts where UN officials are bossing around the US Navy. Can anyone imagine that happening today? The world has changed in a short time, and this film is already taking on the feeling of a historical piece.
Slashdot Mirror
You had a minor inaccuracy there. . . Objective C should not be listed as a "variant" on C++ or any kind of spinoff from it. It's a competitor. I'm not sure which one was invented first, but I remember clearly that both C++ and Objective C were introduced around the same time and both competed to be the widespread successor to C. C++ won that competition, though the reasons why are obscure to me. I rather like Objective C, and it's still the preferred language for application development on Mac OS X (that's a legacy from NeXT).
10 years of pain and suffering. I feel sorry for those who must code C++, like it or not, to put bread on their table. No, I'm not going to use C++. I'd rather use Objective C. I'd rather use ANSI C. Heck, I'd rather use Java.
I'd even rather try to bend my mind around Smalltalk. . . the original object-oriented language, in case anybody forgot. Squeak Smalltalk is open source, cross-platform, and seems to be pretty powerful. It's just so damned *alien* though. It's like something that dropped through a wormhole from some alternate reality. (I suspect Squeak would be much easier to learn if I'd never been exposed to any normal programming languages.)
As best I recall, both Objective C and C++ were introduced about the same time and for the same purpose: to add OOP support to C. For some reason the marketplace chose C++ and made it successful and widespread while Objective C languished. Why? I have no idea. . . From my admittedly limited experience with both languages, Objective C appears to be a lot easier to work with.
I agree that the world doesn't need yet another extended C. If you're going to build a modern buzzword-compliant language, build it from scratch!
Considering the era C came from, it's a fundamentally good procedural language. Not perfect. Probably not even great. Just good.
In particular, its terse syntax and heavy reliance on operators instead of keywords makes C code dense and hard to read. You can write readable C code, but it takes a conscious effort, some documenting, and some discipline *not* to use every clever coding trick that pops into your mind. (I've read one opinion that C really stands for Clever, because it encourages you to do all sorts of excessively clever things that you'll later regret.)
The reason why the whole software industry seems hell-bent on created mutated versions of C, several decades later, is beyond my understanding.
Many years ago, Amiga E was the first OO language that I learned -- after trying and failing to understand C++. E not only made OO concepts easy, but it also had great, readable syntax. Some people say syntax doesn't matter, but I was able to read E code easier and faster than C code, even though at the time I had far more experience with C. I still have a fond memory of Amiga E, and I wish there was something else like it in widespread use.
So what happened to E? It never got ported from Amiga to other systems. Much of the compiler was coded in 68000 assembler, and much of the documentation was concerned with accessing Amiga APIs.
Another factor was ambivalence on the part of its creator, Wouter van Oortmerssen. His hobby was designing and implementing new programming languages, he cranked out one after another. It seems he never became too attached to any one of them. After he got Amiga E working the way he wanted, he lost interest and started working on the next language. I guess he didn't consider advocacy to be a productive use of his time.
It's a pity, because as someone else here pointed out. . . A language that isn't widely available or widely used doesn't do much good, no matter how well designed it may be.
I'm on a Mac now, so I'll probably use Objective C and call it good enough.
So how long does it take your typical C coder to learn Objective C? A couple of hours? Even if you begrudge a couple of precious hours gone from your life, that's still less time than it would take to learn most other new languages we might contemplate.
That's unless we simply plan on sticking with C and C++ from now on. . . But speaking for myself, I detest C++. Nothing would please me more than a widespread acknowledgment that C++ was a mistake from the beginning.
I can't speak for others, but. . . For me, it's not really about the user interface. Sure, I like the Mac OS X interface -- I like it a lot, though it does have a few quirks that bug me.
The big saving in time with a Mac comes from not having to constantly tinker with the computer to get stuff working right. It's about not having to spend hours searching through websites where all the text is in Korean, trying to get a video driver so my new game's cut scenes won't all display upside-down anymore. It's about not having to spend half a day re-installing Windows when it inexplicably gets messed up and will only start in safe mode. It's about not having to launch a big investigation into why my computer's audio has quit working again, or why it can't find my CD-R/RW drive, or my second hard drive, etc.
The 1930s radio program was a novelty act that would be forgotten today if it hadn't caused panic, and if Orson Wells hadn't gone on to do much greater things. As for the 1950s movie, it really shouldn't have been called War of the Worlds because it had practically nothing to do with the novel.
But the book. . . Ah, the book is a true classic! Even today it's still a good read. I think War of the Worlds occupies a place in SF literature much like The Hobbit does in fantasy. They are both relatively short novels, they are both adventure stories with a sympathetic "everyman" protagonist, they are both written in an engaging and accessible way, and both played a crucial role in shaping their genres: science fiction and high fantasy, respectively.
If War of the Worlds had any weakness, it was that the protagonist was maybe too passive -- he's a walking camera perspective, blundering through the war and reporting what he sees, never taking a hand in events. In that way he represented the helplessness of the human race in the face of cosmic forces, but I'm not sure how that will play in a movie.
And yes, both War of the Worlds and The Hobbit introduced themes that have since been done to death.
Yes, I remembered that book from years back, as soon as I saw the article. Interestingly, Aereon Corporation is still in business after all these years. Check it. . .
http://www.aereoncorp.com/
The page about the Aereon III is especially interesting.
These ships were based on the theory that a lighter-than-air craft could "glide" upwards, then vent some gas and glide downward, then drop some ballast and glide upward again, and continue in this manner until it ran out of gas or ballast. It's all about using aerodynamics to translate the up-and-down movements into horizontal motion. It's not a perpetual motion machine.
A nifty and clever idea, but one of dubious practicality.
Let me give an example exactly opposite: one where I figured out something complicated simply by tinkering with a well-designed user interface.
I have a 802.11b "Wi-Fi" access point here, which is my link to my ISP, another 802.11b station for my local network, my main computer, my personal laptop, and a second laptop which is used as a MUCK server. I had to get the computers on the internet and set up the firewall with NAT and port-mapping on my 802.11b station, with the right ports opened and redirected to the MUCK server.
And I started out with no clue. I am not a network-savvy person. I had only a vague idea what a firewall was, and had never heard of port mapping or NAT. I only knew that what I wanted to do ought to be possible, somehow. I had no "how to" manual to explain it, and no handy geeks to call on for help.
What I did have was Mac OS X. I figured everything out by poking around the GUI in the AirPort Admin Utility and tinkering with it. All the settings are there, in a tabbed window. There are short, simple explanations. There are buttons and other gadgets showing what my options are, and what I can edit. Thankfully, there's no "wizard" to lead me around by the nose.
Now. . . If only Apple would make a GUI configuration program for Sendmail, all would be right with the world. (I think they might have one for Mac OS X Server, but we mere peasants with regular Mac OS X don't get one.)
I was having a little, um, debate with some of my PC-using friends a while back, trying to explain to them why I like Mac OS X so much. There's several reasons, but the big number one reason is that I spend so much less time tinkering and fixing things on my computer. However, the last Windows PC that I ever used had Win98. . .
My PC-using friends explained to me that WinNT doesn't do any of that bad stuff. It doesn't have driver problems anymore (no more searching for video drivers on websites where all the text is in Korean), doesn't have configuration problems, doesn't make you reboot after installing software, doesn't ever need to be re-installed, and even if you did need to re-install the OS it wouldn't take long (unlike the tortuous process I remember from Win95/98). WinNT, they assured me, is just as solid and trouble-free as Mac OS X on all these points.
For some reason, though, I have a little trouble believing all of those things.
I'm really disappointed that this wasn't on their list. . .
Terrestrial Planet Finder
If this thing finds Earth-like planets in our nearby galactic neighborhood, it could change the whole way we view our places in the cosmos.
Point by point:
- The "system resources" consumed by USB mouse and keyboard are trivial.
- USB just works too . . . at least on my Macs. Is the PC platform screwed up in some way such that it has trouble dealing with USB devices?
- If price is your top concern, generic beige USB keyboards are available for nearly nothing. I have one, it works OK.
- Face it: at some point you're going to buy a USB hub anyhow. You might as well buy it on day one and plug your mouse and keyboard into it.
USB is cool. Replacing the whole hodgepodge of legacy ports with something as neat and versatile as USB is cool. I don't understand people who aren't eager to do this, and instead want to hold onto their obsolete, redundant ports.
It seems odd to me, these small computers are all the rage now . . . yet Apple closed out the G4 Cube after not being able to sell enough of them. What gives?
Disgusting sounding 128 kbps MP3s? I don't get it. . . I've tried, but I can't hear any difference between 128K MP3s and the audio CDs that they were ripped from. (I usually make 160K MP3s just to be on the safe side, and because that's the default setting of iTunes anyhow.)
Am I a tin-eared boob? Or am I listening to the wrong kind of music? Or both?
Incidentally. . . I'm 37 and don't need a hearing aid yet, but I don't have the ears of a teenager anymore either. Maybe hearing loss is a factor -- as opposed to merely being ignorant about what kind of distortion to listen for.
Pelikan 200 with a XF (extra fine) steel nib -- one of the transparent demonstrator models, so you can see how much ink is in it. Mine is graphite gray, it's a nice match for my old graphite iMac. :) It's not too expensive, not too big or heavy (as the collector's pens tend to be), won't dry out when it's not in use, and it writes absolutely terrific with almost any kind of bottled fountain pen ink. The Pelikans also have interchangeable nibs, so if you decide you don't like XF, you can change it out for something different.
My favorite word processors, in chronological order, have been:
ST Writer (Atari ST)
ST Writer Elite (Atari ST)
Those were anachronistic relics even in the mid-to-late 1980s when I used them, as WYSIWYG was already starting to take over. But I had little patience with on-screen rulers, tab and margin stops, page breaks, and nonsense like that.
Transcript (Amiga)
Transwrite (Amiga)
These were sort of hybrid semi-WYSIWYG programs (they showed italics and bold text on the screen!), and they were small and highly efficient. They could also be used as decent text editors for programming.
TextEdit (Mac OS X)
I think TextEdit is the ultimate writing tool. No, it doesn't do footnotes, it doesn't do formulas. It doesn't output HTML, or integrate with spreadsheets or presentation software. It's a word processor, it does word processing. The user interface is completely Mac-like and easy to understand.
Also, it can output in either ASCII text or RTF, so I don't have to worry about having documents in some unreadable format if I ever change word processors again -- not that I foresee changing at all.
Writing. . . Does anybody remember writing?
Okay, so now there is an alpha-test demo of AmigaOS4 making the rounds. . . . Meanwhile, I've been getting things done on my Macs for the last five years, and I have Mac OS X and all the goodies that go with it. Tell me again why I should have waited for a new Amiga?
According to the article: "The computer display produces 3D images by sending a slightly different image to the right eye and the left eye at once by bending them in different angles, according to Sharp."
;)
Ewwww! I don't *want* my eyes bent in different angles, that sounds painful.
Let's put a maximum limit, a cap, on the amount of net worth a person can have. Let's say for example. . . that everyone is allowed to have up to 30 million dollars.
If you have more than 30 million, what happens? You have to give it away. . . to anyone you choose. Friends, relatives, charitable organizations -- doesn't matter who, but you just can't keep it. There's nothing to keep you from earning more money, as much as you can bring in, but you then keep giving it away to other people as necessary keep your net worth under the legal limit.
This would force wealth to be spread around. No, not spread around evenly to everybody . . . but at least spread around moreso than we see today. It would clear out the class of "super-rich" at any rate.
Maybe we could draw lessons from the native American "potlatch" culture, for ways to create a society based on abundance and generosity -- where the way to impress people is showing how much you can give away, not how much junk you can collect.
You're assuming that the EULA is, in fact, a legally binding contract. I have serious doubts about that. In fact, I was under the impression that most EULAs are simply legal fantasies created to intimidate consumers into doing whatever the seller wants.
EULAs are a completely weird quirk of the computer industry. You don't see cars sold with EULAs, or home appliances, or books, or music or movies. Yet, every guy peddling shareware out of his attic/basement/garage thinks he has to tack several pages of legal mumbo-jumbo onto his product. It's a kind of mass insanity.
I wonder if they can make it into some kind of paint that's reasonably easy to apply (i.e. without baking, toxic solvents, etc.)? I would love to repaint the inside of my telescope with it. Even if it comes in sheets, it would be great as flocking material. A lot of telescope builders will go nuts over this stuff.
If you have the right kind of digitizing hardware for audio and video, and you have a DBS satellite TV system, you can rip all the stuff you want from it. You can archive the stuff and keep it for your future reference, and it's all completely legal.
Problems? Well... It can be time consuming to find the things you want on TV, digitize them, edit them, etc. Plus you have to pay your DBS bill. So it's not free, and I think the cost of invested time is more significant than the money.
But I just have to emphasize..... It's all legal. I've collected quite some music by this method.
Does the new revision of Internet Explorer display PNG images yet? AFAIK, IE 5.1 is the only browser on the Mac that won't show PNGs, it's really shameful.
It has been known for a while now that the Linux and Mac versions weren't going to ship in the box. That was the old plan, it was abandoned weeks (or months?) ago, but nobody bothered to update the FAQ. The whole decision is probably based on the toolset being Windows-only.
The speculation I've heard is that a Mac publisher will be brought on board to finish up the Mac version -- *including* porting the toolset. Which I'm guessing might take 10 or 12 months.
But I've also heard there may be a new announcement about the Mac version as early as tomorrow, so here's hoping for a pleasant surprise.
I generally liked it, but I had a few quibbles.
1. Too much use of camera shake. This made it hard to watch in some points, while not really helping tell the story in any way. It also gave me a creepy feeling at one point.... The obviously hand-held camera is following our hero, and I'm wondering: Who is following our guy around with a camera? The shake makes it seem like there should be a person there.
2. Too heavy-handed use of music soundtrack. I don't like being lead by the nose with music telling me what I should feel at every moment in the movie. Silence can be golden. Just watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again, you'll see.
3. The whole theme of hero's doubts about "why are we here" seems quaintly anachronistic after the events of Sept 11. So do the parts where UN officials are bossing around the US Navy. Can anyone imagine that happening today? The world has changed in a short time, and this film is already taking on the feeling of a historical piece.