If only record companies would put a fraction as much effort and resources into mastering their CDs properly and making them sound good, all this would be unnecessary.
Unfortunately, some of us still need to use those abandoned-or-dead programs.
"Depending on this kind of software is irresponsible and should be avoided at all cost." OK, maybe so. In my case, the "cost" involved building a new computer to run Ubuntu MATE. I wonder if that's what Apple intended?
quote: "You're were sufficiently outraged by the idea of object orientation"
I don't believe I wrote anything to indicate that I was outraged in any way by object orientation. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote.
quote: "you somehow missed that Ruby's "hello world" is shorter than Python's"
I don't believe I wrote anything about Ruby's "hello world" at all. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote.
quote: "in general the only difference in scripting is that Ruby has less required syntax."
I don't believe I wrote anything about which language has more concise syntax. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote.
quote: "Not understanding such basic logical abstractions as classes is also completely absurd"
I don't believe I wrote anything that indicated I have any difficulty understanding what classes are or how they work. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote, which was primarily a gripe about the presentation and "marketing", if you will, of Ruby rather than its technical characteristics. (In fact, I think the only criticism I made of a technical nature was aimed at Python's use of whitespace.)
I think it was a detriment for a while. As somebody who was interested in learning Python, it was a bit confusing and off-putting to me. However, I do get the feeling that Python 3 is over that hump now and the language can move forward again.
I think Ruby has been overshadowed by the huge success of Python. Recently I set out to learn a new high-level interpreted language, something for easy scripting and prototyping, somewhat like the role BASIC (at least in its more advanced variants) used to fill. I was drawn to Python and Ruby. They both made a similar sales pitch, they sounded good. But which would it be?
Well, I have a friend who is already a Pythonista, and it appears to have more mindshare all around.
In all my web searches about Ruby, I kept coming up with Rails, Rails, Rails. Ruby on Rails is great for web development! Ruby is a great language for web development! (In case you all haven't guessed, web development is something I have no interest in.) And, oh yeah, Ruby can supposedly, theoretically, be used to create stand-alone applications, though we don't really talk much about that.
The other thing that irked me was Ruby pushing OOP in my face, hard. In Ruby everything is an object! EVERYTHING!! (This seems to be true in Python as well, but they don't harp on it like this.) Then I look at the Ruby tutorials, and they immediately launch into discussion of classes and objects, before even basic stuff like flow control. Well, I'm one of those crazy geezers who thinks that OOP is oversold. Sometimes useful, yes, nice to have built into a language, sure, but there's no point in messing with it just to dash off a quick script or simple little application. If I just want to say Hello World, I shouldn't have to begin by defining classes. Didn't we go through that madness already with Java? Was no lesson learned? So, I got a tutorial book on Python. Classes are covered in chapter 22, not in chapter 1. To me, that's a lot more sensible. And if I merely want to use my classes as a slightly fancier counterpart of C structs, Python doesn't judge me.
By comparison, the only really dumb thing I've encountered with Python is its ridiculous use of white space. I guess I can learn to live with that.
Yes, Mac OS Pre-X programs continued running with Rosetta for a while. And 680x0 programs continued running PowerPC for a while, and then PPC programs continued running on X86 for a while until they didn't anymore, and it wasn't really all that long. The older programs were always phased out at some point. Programs that aren't still being actively maintained will be phased out, and sometimes that's a problem. Old programs sometimes get left behind by Windows or Linux, but not in the wholesale, aggressive way that it keeps happening on the Mac.
I wonder if this is related in any way to the upcoming "phase-out" of 32-bit applications?
In an abstract, theoretical way, I like the idea of finally leaving X86 in the dustbin of history where it belongs. However, as you noted, Apple has changed the Mac's processor architecture twice before, and they changed the OS (from Mac OS Pre-X to X) and each time there was significant cost to the users. I'd hoped we were finally through with such upheavals for a while, but no It almost seems to be coded into Apple's corporate DNA that they just have to overthrow their own platform from time to time.
There's Formula One in a nutshell: Once in a blue moon the car behind somehow, inexplicably, overtakes the car that was ahead, and everybody freaks out. The cars didn't finish the race in the same order they started, and people start crying about what went wrong and how to fix it.
And yes, radio is still like that too. And so is Pandora, which frustrates me to no end. I thought Pandora was supposed to base its picks on the analyzed traits, the "musical DNA" if you will, of the songs. But no If I give it a popular 1970s-1980s Classic Rock track, then it'll cough up a steady playlist of all the same 1970s-1980s Classic Rock hits that I've already heard a thousand times, just like my local radio station. I've had better luck feeding it more specific and more obscure stuff. For example, instead of giving it "Asia" as a starting point, I gave it Asia's Valkyrie (from Gravitas, their 2014 album). Then NEVER like or dislike anything, because as soon as I do Pandora will start figuring out which generic, boring-ass playlist it wants to slot me into. And even then it seems very, very determined to play only the most popular and already-familiar tracks. I feel like it's fighting me every inch of the way, instead of doing what it was supposed to do, which is help me find stuff I like that I haven't heard before.
Well, I think the Thailanders photo works OK. (Forget about ethnicity for a moment: Their clothing and context imply a pre-industrial way of life that was dominant throughout human history but now is diminishing rapidly!) However I would have more likely have suggested a recognizably African couple. My reasoning: Humans originated from Africa, and it still holds the greatest genetic and cultural diversity of any region. People elsewhere in the world are offshoots from that root.
We could get rid of time changes and time zones completely. We have the technology.
When most people are carrying around a phone or some other device with GPS and significant computing power, it should be easy to create an app that calculates local solar time anywhere on Earth that you go. You can display it graphically, showing sunrise, sunset, day length (not to mention moonrise and moonset, why not?) somewhat after the fashion of a Yes Watch.
Then we would only need TWO times: local time and universal time (like GMT or Zulu time). Everything local could be designated with local, solar time: school hours, work hours, local events, etc. Everything that has to be coordinated over a larger geographical area could be done with universal time.
The only downside I can figure is, that local time often won't be any clean one-hour offset from universal time. So maybe instead of being GMT+6, your local time might be GMT+5hrs 17mins. Conversions between different places become a bit more awkward. Yet, again, we've got this tool in our pockets that can easily perform such calculations and show the results in a friendly graphical form. Let's use it!
It's not just about handwriting. If they don't have the strength and coordination to hold a pencil properly, how are they going to handle a soldering iron?!
I collect fountain pens and build my own keyboards (you insensitive clod!). I don't see any reason why somebody wouldn't want to be skilled at both handwriting and typing. It does seem like both are on the decline, though.
Have you noticed the resurgent interest in mechanical keyboards recently? I see this (at least partly) as a reaction against the aesthetic that Steve Jobs pushed so hard, and which so many companies then copied. Jobs never saw a device (including a keyboard) that was thin enough or flat enough to please him. It's not natural, though, for human beings to poke at flat surfaces. We're adapted to manipulating objects in three dimensions.
I remember when some people were claiming that we'd soon be doing everything with web apps and with Java apps, which are "write once, run everywhere", and then platform-specific Windows or Mac or Linux programs would be obsolete. How long ago was that? Hint: Some people actually thought this would save the Amiga platform.
Bob Truax argued that the most cost-effective way to build a big rocket was using one huge engine, which is what was planned for the Sea Dragon booster. He said cost is driven not by size but by parts count. More engines equals more parts that have to be produced, inventoried, tested, assembled, etc., and that leads to higher cost.
However. . . The way SpaceX are returning their boosters to earth wouldn't work with one huge engine. There would be no feasible way to throttle it down enough for the return and landing burns! Each Falcon 9 core typically lights up just one engine for the landing.
Someday the audio CD will be rediscovered and appreciated as the freakin brilliant format that it is. When they are produced and mastered right, the audio quality is stunning, and it's quite close to what the human ear is capable of perceiving. They're long-lasting and resistant to damage (if you don't outright abuse them), and totally DRM-free and region-free too, and you don't have to wade through menus and promos and crap like with DVDs.
The major problem with the audio CD is that all the record companies have forgotten how to master music so it'll sound good, or maybe they just don't care. They compress the hell out of everything in the whole rock-and-pop space. New LP records usually sound better than the CD counterpart just because they are mastered better. Pick out CDs from the 80s and 90s and they sound fantastic. (And avoid anything with "remastered" on the label. That's the mark of death.)
quote, "We don't even have free will. You only need to to consider both the generic and environmental basis of behavior to know this is true. It's a well established axiom in neuroscience."
It drives me up the wall when people say there's no such thing as free will and then come up with convoluted rationales to try and justify such a bizarre claim. The only way you get get rid of free will is by redefining it as something very different from anything normal people think of when they hear the term. It's like trying to explain away gravity. Despite all attempts to do so, things keep falling down. Despite all attempts to make free will go away, people keep making decisions and acting upon them.
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If only record companies would put a fraction as much effort and resources into mastering their CDs properly and making them sound good, all this would be unnecessary.
Unfortunately, some of us still need to use those abandoned-or-dead programs.
"Depending on this kind of software is irresponsible and should be avoided at all cost." OK, maybe so. In my case, the "cost" involved building a new computer to run Ubuntu MATE. I wonder if that's what Apple intended?
quote: "You're were sufficiently outraged by the idea of object orientation"
I don't believe I wrote anything to indicate that I was outraged in any way by object orientation. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote.
quote: "you somehow missed that Ruby's "hello world" is shorter than Python's"
I don't believe I wrote anything about Ruby's "hello world" at all. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote.
quote: "in general the only difference in scripting is that Ruby has less required syntax."
I don't believe I wrote anything about which language has more concise syntax. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote.
quote: "Not understanding such basic logical abstractions as classes is also completely absurd"
I don't believe I wrote anything that indicated I have any difficulty understanding what classes are or how they work. I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote, which was primarily a gripe about the presentation and "marketing", if you will, of Ruby rather than its technical characteristics. (In fact, I think the only criticism I made of a technical nature was aimed at Python's use of whitespace.)
It's "offensively stupid" to simply relate what I have observed? I didn't make any of this stuff up.
I think it was a detriment for a while. As somebody who was interested in learning Python, it was a bit confusing and off-putting to me. However, I do get the feeling that Python 3 is over that hump now and the language can move forward again.
I think Ruby has been overshadowed by the huge success of Python. Recently I set out to learn a new high-level interpreted language, something for easy scripting and prototyping, somewhat like the role BASIC (at least in its more advanced variants) used to fill. I was drawn to Python and Ruby. They both made a similar sales pitch, they sounded good. But which would it be?
Well, I have a friend who is already a Pythonista, and it appears to have more mindshare all around.
In all my web searches about Ruby, I kept coming up with Rails, Rails, Rails. Ruby on Rails is great for web development! Ruby is a great language for web development! (In case you all haven't guessed, web development is something I have no interest in.) And, oh yeah, Ruby can supposedly, theoretically, be used to create stand-alone applications, though we don't really talk much about that.
The other thing that irked me was Ruby pushing OOP in my face, hard. In Ruby everything is an object! EVERYTHING!! (This seems to be true in Python as well, but they don't harp on it like this.) Then I look at the Ruby tutorials, and they immediately launch into discussion of classes and objects, before even basic stuff like flow control. Well, I'm one of those crazy geezers who thinks that OOP is oversold. Sometimes useful, yes, nice to have built into a language, sure, but there's no point in messing with it just to dash off a quick script or simple little application. If I just want to say Hello World, I shouldn't have to begin by defining classes. Didn't we go through that madness already with Java? Was no lesson learned? So, I got a tutorial book on Python. Classes are covered in chapter 22, not in chapter 1. To me, that's a lot more sensible. And if I merely want to use my classes as a slightly fancier counterpart of C structs, Python doesn't judge me.
By comparison, the only really dumb thing I've encountered with Python is its ridiculous use of white space. I guess I can learn to live with that.
Yes, Mac OS Pre-X programs continued running with Rosetta for a while. And 680x0 programs continued running PowerPC for a while, and then PPC programs continued running on X86 for a while until they didn't anymore, and it wasn't really all that long. The older programs were always phased out at some point. Programs that aren't still being actively maintained will be phased out, and sometimes that's a problem. Old programs sometimes get left behind by Windows or Linux, but not in the wholesale, aggressive way that it keeps happening on the Mac.
2010 was instantly forgettable. It ditched everything that made the original so fascinating and unique.
Mission to Mars (2000) was another movie that tried to tap into the mystique of 2001, but it fell short of the mark.
I wonder if this is related in any way to the upcoming "phase-out" of 32-bit applications?
In an abstract, theoretical way, I like the idea of finally leaving X86 in the dustbin of history where it belongs. However, as you noted, Apple has changed the Mac's processor architecture twice before, and they changed the OS (from Mac OS Pre-X to X) and each time there was significant cost to the users. I'd hoped we were finally through with such upheavals for a while, but no It almost seems to be coded into Apple's corporate DNA that they just have to overthrow their own platform from time to time.
There's Formula One in a nutshell: Once in a blue moon the car behind somehow, inexplicably, overtakes the car that was ahead, and everybody freaks out. The cars didn't finish the race in the same order they started, and people start crying about what went wrong and how to fix it.
quote: "...but come on -- you shouldn't expect to game with this thing."
I expect to game on a Raspberry Pi, you insensitive clod!
quote: "and the help of Microsoft's new DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API enhancements."
There's a red flag. Is this going to be yet another graphics "standard" for Windows only?
And yes, radio is still like that too. And so is Pandora, which frustrates me to no end. I thought Pandora was supposed to base its picks on the analyzed traits, the "musical DNA" if you will, of the songs. But no If I give it a popular 1970s-1980s Classic Rock track, then it'll cough up a steady playlist of all the same 1970s-1980s Classic Rock hits that I've already heard a thousand times, just like my local radio station. I've had better luck feeding it more specific and more obscure stuff. For example, instead of giving it "Asia" as a starting point, I gave it Asia's Valkyrie (from Gravitas, their 2014 album). Then NEVER like or dislike anything, because as soon as I do Pandora will start figuring out which generic, boring-ass playlist it wants to slot me into. And even then it seems very, very determined to play only the most popular and already-familiar tracks. I feel like it's fighting me every inch of the way, instead of doing what it was supposed to do, which is help me find stuff I like that I haven't heard before.
Well, I think the Thailanders photo works OK. (Forget about ethnicity for a moment: Their clothing and context imply a pre-industrial way of life that was dominant throughout human history but now is diminishing rapidly!) However I would have more likely have suggested a recognizably African couple. My reasoning: Humans originated from Africa, and it still holds the greatest genetic and cultural diversity of any region. People elsewhere in the world are offshoots from that root.
We could get rid of time changes and time zones completely. We have the technology.
When most people are carrying around a phone or some other device with GPS and significant computing power, it should be easy to create an app that calculates local solar time anywhere on Earth that you go. You can display it graphically, showing sunrise, sunset, day length (not to mention moonrise and moonset, why not?) somewhat after the fashion of a Yes Watch.
Then we would only need TWO times: local time and universal time (like GMT or Zulu time). Everything local could be designated with local, solar time: school hours, work hours, local events, etc. Everything that has to be coordinated over a larger geographical area could be done with universal time.
The only downside I can figure is, that local time often won't be any clean one-hour offset from universal time. So maybe instead of being GMT+6, your local time might be GMT+5hrs 17mins. Conversions between different places become a bit more awkward. Yet, again, we've got this tool in our pockets that can easily perform such calculations and show the results in a friendly graphical form. Let's use it!
It's not just about handwriting. If they don't have the strength and coordination to hold a pencil properly, how are they going to handle a soldering iron?!
I collect fountain pens and build my own keyboards (you insensitive clod!). I don't see any reason why somebody wouldn't want to be skilled at both handwriting and typing. It does seem like both are on the decline, though.
Have you noticed the resurgent interest in mechanical keyboards recently? I see this (at least partly) as a reaction against the aesthetic that Steve Jobs pushed so hard, and which so many companies then copied. Jobs never saw a device (including a keyboard) that was thin enough or flat enough to please him. It's not natural, though, for human beings to poke at flat surfaces. We're adapted to manipulating objects in three dimensions.
I remember when some people were claiming that we'd soon be doing everything with web apps and with Java apps, which are "write once, run everywhere", and then platform-specific Windows or Mac or Linux programs would be obsolete. How long ago was that? Hint: Some people actually thought this would save the Amiga platform.
Bob Truax argued that the most cost-effective way to build a big rocket was using one huge engine, which is what was planned for the Sea Dragon booster. He said cost is driven not by size but by parts count. More engines equals more parts that have to be produced, inventoried, tested, assembled, etc., and that leads to higher cost.
However. . . The way SpaceX are returning their boosters to earth wouldn't work with one huge engine. There would be no feasible way to throttle it down enough for the return and landing burns! Each Falcon 9 core typically lights up just one engine for the landing.
Someday the audio CD will be rediscovered and appreciated as the freakin brilliant format that it is. When they are produced and mastered right, the audio quality is stunning, and it's quite close to what the human ear is capable of perceiving. They're long-lasting and resistant to damage (if you don't outright abuse them), and totally DRM-free and region-free too, and you don't have to wade through menus and promos and crap like with DVDs.
The major problem with the audio CD is that all the record companies have forgotten how to master music so it'll sound good, or maybe they just don't care. They compress the hell out of everything in the whole rock-and-pop space. New LP records usually sound better than the CD counterpart just because they are mastered better. Pick out CDs from the 80s and 90s and they sound fantastic. (And avoid anything with "remastered" on the label. That's the mark of death.)
quote, "We don't even have free will. You only need to to consider both the generic and environmental basis of behavior to know this is true. It's a well established axiom in neuroscience."
It drives me up the wall when people say there's no such thing as free will and then come up with convoluted rationales to try and justify such a bizarre claim. The only way you get get rid of free will is by redefining it as something very different from anything normal people think of when they hear the term. It's like trying to explain away gravity. Despite all attempts to do so, things keep falling down. Despite all attempts to make free will go away, people keep making decisions and acting upon them.
Most applications in MATE don't seem to be afflicted with this nonsense. I sure hope it stays that way!
That's exactly what I thought of when reading the press release, too.
For those who don't remember --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
quote: "I know for a fact their support system was flooded with issues from early adopters."
That's how Red Hat make their money, isn't it? A system that requires more support is good business for them.