Hmm, according to this comment over at MacSlash, the 20G drive is slightly larger and therefore wouldn't work. Take it for what it's worth, as it was posted by an AC... Maybe someone can find real information to back this up (or refute it)?
Re:Different interpretation of 3.14159265... joke
on
Simpsons Guide to Math
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· Score: 2
The calendar trick is pretty cool, called the Doomsday method (actually I don't know if this is what Benjamin uses - never had him for any of my math classes there). It was reported here last year.
Thanks to everyone who's pointed out what a complete moron I am. I wouldn't have figured it out otherwise! And I even screwed up that one... (idiot)
I did, in fact, read all of the links in the story except the MacCentral one. I had submitted a story on all this just a minute or so after the guy that got it did, so I thought I'd add the little tidbit that I didn't see in his submission. I was wrong. Can slashdot ever forgive me?
As I said, moderators, please mod me down to -1 (I'm posting this at +2 for maximum karma damage) and if you find it in your hearts to do so, moderate all of my recent posts down as well. Thank you.
Looks like the iTunes update is on the Apple website but not yet in Software Update. I downloaded and installed anyway, and it wanted a restart (maybe new iPod drivers??). Haven't restarted yet, but version 2.0.4 works now.
Unfortunately, the problem I most wanted fixed (and reported to Apple) wasn't fixed. It still miscalculates the playing time of VBR files (I did clear my iTunes library and reload just to be sure). I'm guessing this is also why crossfading doesn't work for me. iTunes thinks the file is longer than it is, so it doesn't even try to start the crossfade until it's already over.
Oh well.
Offtopic rant: I now officially hate IE for OS X. Apparently the Esc key clears a text boxes, which just happened as I finished typing this the first time around (vi habit). Arrg.
Apple also announced a $100 price increase on all three iMacs. I guess their profit margin couldn't quite absorb the increase in LCD and memory prices lately.
Also, The Mac Observer has a nice blow by blow of Steve's keynote.
I agree completely with most of what you said. Just wanted to comment on this little point:
I think Apple needs to address how easy it would be to MOVE from Windows to Mac, and make it easy by making systems with Virtual PC bundled and a tool for moving data from the PC to the Mac.
From what I've heard, practically the only reason Apple won't bundle VPC with new Macs is support. They don't want to be swamped with the massive amounts of support calls that Windows will generate. Even if they put some sort of "you're on your own" disclaimer with the Windows stuff, I'll bet it would be a continual problem.
One of the beauties of Mac OS (classic or X) is that it's designed to be easy to use. I don't have any hard numbers, but I'll bet support incidents per user are much lower than for Windows. The very thought of supporting all kinds of Windows issues probably gives Steve nightmares and keeps him from ever doing it.
I kind of agree and disagree with you at the same time. Take me, for example. I'm definitely a "techie geek," as you put it. I've been using Linux since '93, FreeBSD for over a year, typing this on IRIX, etc. But I own two Apple machines, in large part because I was introduced to them and used them in college.
Your assertion that this is the only reason Apple is still around sounds like that of a Mac hater who thinks Apple is a crappy toy maker that should go under. Forgive me if I read into your comments wrong, but that's what the wording suggests to me.;-) But anyway, I strongly disagree with that.
Yes, it was school programs using Macs that introduced me to Apple, but it was the quality that brought me back when I got out of school. I bought my first Mac because it was a damn fine machine and absolutely the best for creating music (my hobby). I bought my second because it is a damn fine machine, the best for digital video editing (my newest hobby), and OS X is a damn fine OS with lots of tech-geekiness under the hood.
While Apple gains many of its new customers because of products used in schools, it retains those customers because of the quality. Honestly I can think of few educational situations where a student is exposed to Apple more than Windows, and thus later chooses Apple only out of familiarity. Graphic arts and music are the only ones that come to mind, and anyone making a living out of those would have to be suicidal to use Windows for them anyway.
Really, I think this applies to any software used educationally, but depending on the software quality. If a student uses a mediocre application in school (but no competitors), he/she's likely to buy it out of familiarity. If the application is excellent, the student will buy it due to quality. And if it just sucks, the student will likely avoid it and look for alternatives later on.
As a Mac fan, I think a lot more people would end up buying them because of the quality if everything weren't moving more towards Windows these days. Instead, they're usually given zero exposure in school anymore, so they either think nothing of it, or think it must be that Macs suck. But that's an argument for another story...;-)
I think a lot of the paranoia stems from taking information out of context. Yeah, I might be paranoid if I were told of large scale network and/or camera surveillance. That's if I assumed it meant cameras watching me everywhere, including in the privacy of my own home. That's clearly not the case here.
As a few other people have rationally argued, there is no expectation of privacy in public places. The only public place where there is reasonable expectation of privacy is a public restroom. Yeah, if they started putting cameras in those, I might get a little upset. Otherwise, if I'm not doing anything illegal, what's the big deal? The US government, huge and bloated as it is, doesn't have the time, resources, money, or desire to track my every move. They don't care that I went to the mall last Saturday and had ice cream afterwards. If I rob somebody while I'm there, they'll be able to use the video as evidence against me, which is a good thing. Otherwise, big deal.
So what if my book buying habits are stored somewhere in a database? Companies keep records of their transactions all the time, and for many good reasons other than tracking and screwing over their customers. The government is not, I repeat, is not actively searching this sort of information to look for potential felons. Any such information obtained in this manner would be completely inadmissible in court - unless probable cause and therefore a warrant already existed to look for information on a specific suspect, it doesn't hold. That means the government can't go and, out of the blue, upon discovering my book purchase mentioned above, assume I'm some sort of terrorist. Furthermore, conviction of any crime on the above evidence alone is completely ludicrous.
No, I'm not paranoid. Yes, I think it's very important to make sure the government doesn't overstep its bounds. There are many cases where it does, and people need to fight that, for sure. It's also important to be smart and protect my privacy - there are plenty of people, in business and yes, government, who would like to invade it for their own gain. I don't believe this is one of those cases. If I don't want anyone to know I bought a particular product, fine. I'll pay cash. But I don't think I'll be labeled a terrorist because I have an interest in cryptography. The sort of paranoia that seems rampant here whenever a story like this comes up is just ridiculous.
Personally, I think the slow erosion of civil liberties by the US government is just a drop in the bucket compared to how inappropriately large the federal government has become. It's a travesty that my tax dollars are so completely wasted on crap that the federal government neither needs to nor should do, and was never designed to do by the founding fathers. If you want to talk about problems with the government, talk about how it's run by a bunch of rich people who are in the business of helping themselves and their rich friends get richer. The fact that they actually want to improve crime fighting techniques by having cameras in public areas is great. One of the few things they're doing right.
Regarding that last editorial comment, the last book I bought from Amazon was Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography. Should I be worried? I don't think so. Yeah, we need to make sure the gov't doesn't overstep its bounds, but sometimes I think a few people get a little too paranoid about it.
As people were saying in an earlier story last night, everything in moderation.
I already made a game last year I called Search Engine Wars. I wonder if it would qualify?
It's a party game. The basic idea is that a bunch of people are in the game, and it goes around in turns. On your turn, you type in a few words to search for. The game goes and queries google for the first hit on that search, and sends everyone's browser to that page. Then the other players get 100 seconds to guess which words you searched for. The first player to guess correctly gets points for the amount of time remaining.
It's written using BYOND, which you'll have to download if you want to play.
Not that anyone will read this a week later, but for the one person who comes across it in the archives...
I ordered my G4/733 (educational) with CD/RW last week. Turns out the SuperDrive is a Pioneer DVR-103. Pioneer has recently put out the DVR-A03, which is exactly the same drive, but marketed towards PCs. I picked one up online (check Pricewatch) for over $100 cheaper than what the Apple SuperDrives are going for on eBay. Cool! The machine should arrive tomorrow and hopefully the drive soon after...
This page even shows all the steps one G4 owner took to install the thing in his machine (pretty easy).
Look fairly interesting, but I couldn't tell that they're terribly far along at this point.
For a truly extensible network game development environment, my money's on BYOND. Great object oriented language, and it's not just for RPGs (but certainly slanted in that direction).
1.I don't need a SuperDrive. I don't want a SuperDrive. Apple won't give you a 933 or 1GHz DP machine without a SuperDrive. Sorry
but I'd rather save hundreds of dollars by simply not buying one!
Heh. I have exactly the opposite problem from you. I want a SuperDrive - I want to be able to burn DVDs from the movies I take with my video camera. But I really can't justify spending the extra money for a 933 or dual 1000 just for the SuperDrive. I may end up getting a 733 (still available with educational discount) and getting a SuperDrive from ebay or something. I'm sure they're selling for more than they're worth on ebay but it's still cheaper than getting the 933 or above.
While it'd be nice to be able to configure the system with more flexibility, I'll bet Apple does this to maximize profit, plain and simple. Unlike me, most people who want a SuperDrive are probably willing to pay extra for the extra CPU power in those models. And unlike you, most who want the CPU power are probably willing to pay extra for the SuperDrive too. Oh well.;-)
Exactly. I'm having a really hard time restraining myself from picking up a 733 with the educational discount. My current Mac is over 5 years old now and it's just now getting to be time to upgrade (contrast that with my various PCs, which have been upgraded once every year or two). This looks like about the best deal that's come out of Apple for quite some time now - I'm just wondering if I should wait for the G5s to come out. Will the 933 or 1000 get bumped down to this price range then? Darn money and cool hardware, always burning a hole in my pocket!;-)
Login, go to preferences, change the date format to something that includes a year field. Viola. Personally, I'm not terribly thrilled about any of the options that include the year, but whatever. I'd rather see them properly handle daylight savings in the timezone (very easy to do) without me having to switch twice a year.
Re:musical applications?
on
Virtual Keyboard
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Oh lovely. This is a new one - apparently slashdot substituted someone else's entire comment instead of mine, even though it looked fine in preview. I'll try once more before giving up. Here is my original comment:
Re:musical applications?
on
Virtual Keyboard
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
What on God's green earth is a Hampster???
Re:problem with large storage mp3 players
on
80 Gig MP3 Player
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· Score: 1
Yup. I don't know what that funky C:\ stuff is, but mine's basically/mp3/Genre/Artist/Album/Song.mp3. I just dump the output of 'find/mp3' to a text file for faster searching. Then my mp3 player perl script will search that text file for regular expressions to play whatever I'm in the mood for. If I want some weird playlist, I can probably concoct a regexp to cover it - if not, just build the playlist ahead of time and feed it to the player script. Works like a charm!
Re:God damned MP3 anti-pirate busybodies...
on
80 Gig MP3 Player
·
· Score: 1
Actually one digit in that base could encode about 25 bits of information (technically more, but less than 26), or 3 full bytes and some change. If you have a way to compress (without loss) any file into 3 bytes or less, let's hear it!;-)
I'd sooner wait a week or two and get a seat in the
center of the theater, not jammed between a couple of overzealoud Tolkien fans, where the air is stale and I
miss lines of dialogue from 400 other people all going "OOOHH!!!" or laughing at the same time.
I agree totally. Plus with my luck, I'd get the guy in the big Gandalf hat sitting right in front of me... I'll probably go see it sometime between Christmas and New Year's.
If you don't find something she likes and you're a programmer type, you might consider writing one that she will like. There is a wonderful network game development system out there called BYOND (Build Your Own Net Dream) that does all the hard stuff (networking, etc) for you so that you can concentrate on building the actual game. The graphics system is fairly simple (sorry, no 3-D shooters in this system) which may actually appeal to some women. Already having experience in several programming languages, I found the BYOND system to be very easy and intuitive to pick up - within a week I was well on my way to completing my first game. I've now completed four games with more in the works.
You can also check out the site and see if there are any completed games that might appeal to you. Many of them are quite original, written by hobbyists for the love of the craft. If you see something interesting, just download the client and try out a few games. Best part - it comes free with the development environment in case you get the urge to create later on. Unfortunately the site is a bit swamped with pre-teen DBZ fans and their endless copycat "games," but if you ignore those, you'll fine a number of fun high-quality games to choose from.
Gosh, that sounded like quite the advertisement! No, I'm just a very happy user.
Not a good idea! Speaker level signals run at a much higher voltage than your typical mic/line in (they have to be strong enough to cause the speaker cones to physically move back and forth). Doing this will likely destroy that input along with whatever equipment/soundcard it's connected to.
If nothing else, you should be able to connect a CD player's analog out to anything that records and go from there. Until they start modifying analog stuff to prevent that too...
That's an excellent point, but consider this: the "strange, elaborate stuff surrounding the main story" just doesn't translate to the medium of film very well. It's not so much that these films are being made for the masses as opposed to the die-hard fans (though that is certainly a factor), but that film tells the story in one fluid, complete package. With a book, you can go back and re-read certain passages and get more out of it, but a film is designed to be viewed straight through.
In that context, I think it makes more sense to cut out things like Bombadil, and perhaps (hopefully?) this is what Peter Jackson and his crew were thinking as well. Hopefully it wasn't just to "dumb it down" for the masses.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, according to this comment over at MacSlash, the 20G drive is slightly larger and therefore wouldn't work. Take it for what it's worth, as it was posted by an AC... Maybe someone can find real information to back this up (or refute it)?
The calendar trick is pretty cool, called the Doomsday method (actually I don't know if this is what Benjamin uses - never had him for any of my math classes there). It was reported here last year.
I did, in fact, read all of the links in the story except the MacCentral one. I had submitted a story on all this just a minute or so after the guy that got it did, so I thought I'd add the little tidbit that I didn't see in his submission. I was wrong. Can slashdot ever forgive me?
As I said, moderators, please mod me down to -1 (I'm posting this at +2 for maximum karma damage) and if you find it in your hearts to do so, moderate all of my recent posts down as well. Thank you.
Unfortunately, the problem I most wanted fixed (and reported to Apple) wasn't fixed. It still miscalculates the playing time of VBR files (I did clear my iTunes library and reload just to be sure). I'm guessing this is also why crossfading doesn't work for me. iTunes thinks the file is longer than it is, so it doesn't even try to start the crossfade until it's already over.
Oh well.
Offtopic rant: I now officially hate IE for OS X. Apparently the Esc key clears a text boxes, which just happened as I finished typing this the first time around (vi habit). Arrg.
Also, The Mac Observer has a nice blow by blow of Steve's keynote.
Otherwise, cool stuff!
I think Apple needs to address how easy it would be to MOVE from Windows to Mac, and make it easy by making systems with Virtual PC bundled and a tool for moving data from the PC to the Mac.
From what I've heard, practically the only reason Apple won't bundle VPC with new Macs is support. They don't want to be swamped with the massive amounts of support calls that Windows will generate. Even if they put some sort of "you're on your own" disclaimer with the Windows stuff, I'll bet it would be a continual problem.
One of the beauties of Mac OS (classic or X) is that it's designed to be easy to use. I don't have any hard numbers, but I'll bet support incidents per user are much lower than for Windows. The very thought of supporting all kinds of Windows issues probably gives Steve nightmares and keeps him from ever doing it.
I kind of agree and disagree with you at the same time. Take me, for example. I'm definitely a "techie geek," as you put it. I've been using Linux since '93, FreeBSD for over a year, typing this on IRIX, etc. But I own two Apple machines, in large part because I was introduced to them and used them in college.
Your assertion that this is the only reason Apple is still around sounds like that of a Mac hater who thinks Apple is a crappy toy maker that should go under. Forgive me if I read into your comments wrong, but that's what the wording suggests to me. ;-) But anyway, I strongly disagree with that.
Yes, it was school programs using Macs that introduced me to Apple, but it was the quality that brought me back when I got out of school. I bought my first Mac because it was a damn fine machine and absolutely the best for creating music (my hobby). I bought my second because it is a damn fine machine, the best for digital video editing (my newest hobby), and OS X is a damn fine OS with lots of tech-geekiness under the hood.
While Apple gains many of its new customers because of products used in schools, it retains those customers because of the quality. Honestly I can think of few educational situations where a student is exposed to Apple more than Windows, and thus later chooses Apple only out of familiarity. Graphic arts and music are the only ones that come to mind, and anyone making a living out of those would have to be suicidal to use Windows for them anyway.
Really, I think this applies to any software used educationally, but depending on the software quality. If a student uses a mediocre application in school (but no competitors), he/she's likely to buy it out of familiarity. If the application is excellent, the student will buy it due to quality. And if it just sucks, the student will likely avoid it and look for alternatives later on.
As a Mac fan, I think a lot more people would end up buying them because of the quality if everything weren't moving more towards Windows these days. Instead, they're usually given zero exposure in school anymore, so they either think nothing of it, or think it must be that Macs suck. But that's an argument for another story... ;-)
Why not just patent "Selling Items Online" and be done with it?
As a few other people have rationally argued, there is no expectation of privacy in public places. The only public place where there is reasonable expectation of privacy is a public restroom. Yeah, if they started putting cameras in those, I might get a little upset. Otherwise, if I'm not doing anything illegal, what's the big deal? The US government, huge and bloated as it is, doesn't have the time, resources, money, or desire to track my every move. They don't care that I went to the mall last Saturday and had ice cream afterwards. If I rob somebody while I'm there, they'll be able to use the video as evidence against me, which is a good thing. Otherwise, big deal.
So what if my book buying habits are stored somewhere in a database? Companies keep records of their transactions all the time, and for many good reasons other than tracking and screwing over their customers. The government is not, I repeat, is not actively searching this sort of information to look for potential felons. Any such information obtained in this manner would be completely inadmissible in court - unless probable cause and therefore a warrant already existed to look for information on a specific suspect, it doesn't hold. That means the government can't go and, out of the blue, upon discovering my book purchase mentioned above, assume I'm some sort of terrorist. Furthermore, conviction of any crime on the above evidence alone is completely ludicrous.
No, I'm not paranoid. Yes, I think it's very important to make sure the government doesn't overstep its bounds. There are many cases where it does, and people need to fight that, for sure. It's also important to be smart and protect my privacy - there are plenty of people, in business and yes, government, who would like to invade it for their own gain. I don't believe this is one of those cases. If I don't want anyone to know I bought a particular product, fine. I'll pay cash. But I don't think I'll be labeled a terrorist because I have an interest in cryptography. The sort of paranoia that seems rampant here whenever a story like this comes up is just ridiculous.
Personally, I think the slow erosion of civil liberties by the US government is just a drop in the bucket compared to how inappropriately large the federal government has become. It's a travesty that my tax dollars are so completely wasted on crap that the federal government neither needs to nor should do, and was never designed to do by the founding fathers. If you want to talk about problems with the government, talk about how it's run by a bunch of rich people who are in the business of helping themselves and their rich friends get richer. The fact that they actually want to improve crime fighting techniques by having cameras in public areas is great. One of the few things they're doing right.
As people were saying in an earlier story last night, everything in moderation.
It's a party game. The basic idea is that a bunch of people are in the game, and it goes around in turns. On your turn, you type in a few words to search for. The game goes and queries google for the first hit on that search, and sends everyone's browser to that page. Then the other players get 100 seconds to guess which words you searched for. The first player to guess correctly gets points for the amount of time remaining.
It's written using BYOND, which you'll have to download if you want to play.
I ordered my G4/733 (educational) with CD/RW last week. Turns out the SuperDrive is a Pioneer DVR-103. Pioneer has recently put out the DVR-A03, which is exactly the same drive, but marketed towards PCs. I picked one up online (check Pricewatch) for over $100 cheaper than what the Apple SuperDrives are going for on eBay. Cool! The machine should arrive tomorrow and hopefully the drive soon after...
This page even shows all the steps one G4 owner took to install the thing in his machine (pretty easy).
For a truly extensible network game development environment, my money's on BYOND. Great object oriented language, and it's not just for RPGs (but certainly slanted in that direction).
Heh. I have exactly the opposite problem from you. I want a SuperDrive - I want to be able to burn DVDs from the movies I take with my video camera. But I really can't justify spending the extra money for a 933 or dual 1000 just for the SuperDrive. I may end up getting a 733 (still available with educational discount) and getting a SuperDrive from ebay or something. I'm sure they're selling for more than they're worth on ebay but it's still cheaper than getting the 933 or above.
While it'd be nice to be able to configure the system with more flexibility, I'll bet Apple does this to maximize profit, plain and simple. Unlike me, most people who want a SuperDrive are probably willing to pay extra for the extra CPU power in those models. And unlike you, most who want the CPU power are probably willing to pay extra for the SuperDrive too. Oh well. ;-)
Exactly. I'm having a really hard time restraining myself from picking up a 733 with the educational discount. My current Mac is over 5 years old now and it's just now getting to be time to upgrade (contrast that with my various PCs, which have been upgraded once every year or two). This looks like about the best deal that's come out of Apple for quite some time now - I'm just wondering if I should wait for the G5s to come out. Will the 933 or 1000 get bumped down to this price range then? Darn money and cool hardware, always burning a hole in my pocket! ;-)
Anyway, here's to a better year in 2002!
Hmm, sounds like a job for Dateline Tuesday!
It's already been done.
What on God's green earth is a Hampster???
Yup. I don't know what that funky C:\ stuff is, but mine's basically /mp3/Genre/Artist/Album/Song.mp3. I just dump the output of 'find /mp3' to a text file for faster searching. Then my mp3 player perl script will search that text file for regular expressions to play whatever I'm in the mood for. If I want some weird playlist, I can probably concoct a regexp to cover it - if not, just build the playlist ahead of time and feed it to the player script. Works like a charm!
Actually one digit in that base could encode about 25 bits of information (technically more, but less than 26), or 3 full bytes and some change. If you have a way to compress (without loss) any file into 3 bytes or less, let's hear it! ;-)
I agree totally. Plus with my luck, I'd get the guy in the big Gandalf hat sitting right in front of me... I'll probably go see it sometime between Christmas and New Year's.
You can also check out the site and see if there are any completed games that might appeal to you. Many of them are quite original, written by hobbyists for the love of the craft. If you see something interesting, just download the client and try out a few games. Best part - it comes free with the development environment in case you get the urge to create later on. Unfortunately the site is a bit swamped with pre-teen DBZ fans and their endless copycat "games," but if you ignore those, you'll fine a number of fun high-quality games to choose from.
Gosh, that sounded like quite the advertisement! No, I'm just a very happy user.
If nothing else, you should be able to connect a CD player's analog out to anything that records and go from there. Until they start modifying analog stuff to prevent that too...
In that context, I think it makes more sense to cut out things like Bombadil, and perhaps (hopefully?) this is what Peter Jackson and his crew were thinking as well. Hopefully it wasn't just to "dumb it down" for the masses.