I find that music people are the most compulsive customizers out there (look at the amazing number of skins and visualizations for most MP3 players).
An open iPod operating system would result in open source versions of PONG, PacMan, Breakout, heck, mebbe even SuperMarioBrothers.
And some truly useful bits like synching my desktop mail, todo list, calendar, and contacts info with the iPod.
Heck, I bet the IPod could even be used to dial a phone by generating ringtones.
Open source projects compete for developer interest. Closed source projects can offer interest and money. Sadly, monied interests don't necessarily have the best interests of all.
SCO could also be really overplaying some minor copying. But we won't know until the evidence is in.
Of course, SCO's current business model won't let that happen. Their hype machine alleges copying and then uses that to justify licensing fees which may or may not be legitimate.
Mark my words, SCO has no interest in a speedy trial. They will keep alleging as long and as hard as possible because that's the only way they (a) can bolster their stock price and (b) keep enough cashflow to keep them solvent.
Go ahead and sell expressions of ideas all you want. I can live with that. But don't claim that you can sell me an idea.
Once you tell me an idea, that expression of the idea might be protected (I can't repeat your words verbatim), but don't tell me I can't take that idea, think about it (adding my own ideas) and express it to others.
To prevent me from doing that is, in my opinion, thought control. I don't care if you try to do it with a NDA, a EULA, or a Software Patent: I think it wrong, at least in a 'free society'.
You see, Harper Lee can make sure no one distributes copies of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Heck, I'll even give you that she can stop someone from writing an unauthorized sequel; But she can't stop people from writing stories about a white lawyer defending a black man in the american south.
The point is, Microsoft has benefitted hugely from the ideas of others (look at the history of 1-2-3 and Excel, Windows and Macintosh). For them to benefit from other's ideas then and complain bitterly about people using their ideas now is hypocrisy.
If it's really for an academic project (say a master's thesis), you might want to direct your inquiry to Craig Silverstein. Since he's grad student it's likely he would be more interested in your project than the Google corporate types.
Who knows, mebbe you can parlay the project into an internship into a real live job.
The grandparent post said write valid XHTML. Last time I checked, all the current versions of the big browsers display XHTML with good to great CSS and DOM support.
Frankly, if you're using a browser less than IE version 5.0 or Netscape 6.0, you shouldn't expect modern websites to render appropriately. The days of client-sniffing javascript in order to display in Netscape 2.0 are over, or haven't you been reading Zeldman?
Of course, I wouldn't take a job with a shit scope like that. Nor would I be caught dead working for a flamebaiting anonymous blowhard like you.
Interactive Mapping: Imagine going to a SVG-enabled Mapquest where once you give them the address, they will deliver a SVG map of the area. You will be able to pan and zoom the map using client-side JavaScript offline. No more downloading another GIF or PNG or whatever they're using. Also, you could toggle street names, or layers (like gas stations, hotels, Starbucks) the same way. The only reason you would need to be on-line again is if you had 'gone off the end of the map'.
Accessibility: It's not just for the blind any more. Phones, PDAs and voice browsers would be able to make sense of a properly-constructed SVG document. Like a webpage using web standards, 'degrading gracefully' is part of the SVG motto. Also, since visual elements can be gouped logically and described with the equivalent of an alt tag, a SVG image of an org chart could turn to an ascii drawing in Lynx or a text description in a braille reader or a phone browser.
Since SVG is an XML application, it works well with CSS, XSL, DOM, and JavaScript. Many good drawing programs already output SVG, it's adding the organization and intelligence to the document which is harder. IMHO, the O'Reilly book SVG Essentials is one of the better books for interested self-starters.
Python had much of the same problem. Guido van Rossum is so much the center of the Python universe that he and his core developers spent a bit of effort getting the "truck number" above a certain point.
But I don't think it's a problem with Linux. See there's nothing preventing anyone from forking Linux and making a version without Linus' input. It's just that most people support his decisions because it's his project and he's involved.
If he gets hit by a truck, it will certainly shake up core Linux development, but either (a) someone will emerge as a unifying leader or (b) Linux development will wanter off into a thousand different directions: some will die off, some will thrive.
But that being said, let's hope Linus has a long happy life and eventually wins the Vannevar Bush Medal.
I think GNU did themselves a disservice back in the late 80s/early 90s by not getting HURD written sooner.
If that had happened then they could have named it whatever RMS wanted. Instead Linus cobbled together Linux, GPL'd the source, and pretty much stole the show as far as naming the operating system.
Yet, much of the success of GNU is the freedom to distribute it WITHOUT permission of RMS (just as long as you provide the source code...). Of course, you can do this with non-GPL code too (*BSD, perl, python) but RMS hacked the copyright system first.
So the real success story is that GNU's bash can be used with Linux, Windows (under Cygnus), or with Mac OS X. RMS might have lost the battle (over GNU/Linux), but he certainly won the war (bash is just one successful example).
Crawford did some great stuff back when b&w bitmaps were considered state-of-the-art graphics. I remember his games fondly.
I think some of Crawford's games would do well today. I'd love to get a version of Balance of Power that would run on Mac OS X.
His advice is pretty spot on as well. Of course, on Internet Time 6 months to polish is simply not realistic. The advice is clear: a good game is simple, but not trivial to create.
Back in 2000, Microsoft's IE 5 for the Mac was THE standard-compliant browser, on any platform. Believe me, it's true because Zeldman tells me so.
The thing which frosts me, now that I'm a prospective home buyer, is why-o-why do all of the real estate databases refuse to work with Safari? I'm assuming they're filled with heinous IE-only HTML, because, ta-da, they do work at work.
We've seen mice and roaches in our apartment so I bought a small ultrasonic thingie for the kitchen.
The mice appear to have fled the area. We caught a mousie in the front room (glue trap), but we haven't seen any mice in the back of the house. If you can stand finding a dead mouse now and then, I recommend glue traps.
The roaches don't seem to mind the ultrasonic at all.
Surprisingly, Chrysantemum seeds work against roaches. We set some out a while back and the roaches dissapeared. Apparently there are more effective breeds (of seeds, not roaches), so do some research.
I'm a jazz singer and I google for lyrics all the time. The songs I'm looking for aren't exactly 'top 10 hitz', so they're not easy to find in the real world. I find most of them on people's personal websites.
Yes, I agree that song lyrics are the same as poetry, but I also feel that smart lyric writers shouldn't be too concerned. Making the lyrics more freely available just encourages the song to be performed/recorded. In a perfect world the more popular a song is, the more $$$ the lyricist makes.
I think a worse problem is the outdated method in which songwriters get paid. Performance royalties are paid to an organization which doles out the checks according to an obscure formula. In other words, no one keeps track of which songs are played in clubs. They estimate the popularity of songs and pay the songwriter accordingly. [sarcasm]Of course, they do this without any outside influence and without a taint of corruption, after all, this is the music business![/sarcasm]
Let's say, for some reason, the Gillespie/Coots songs "You Go To My Head" gets very popular in jazz clubs in 2003. Well, unless the organization figures this out, the estates of Gillespie and Coots will get no additional money for this song.
Not to worry, though, Gillespie and Coots also wrote "Santa Clause is Coming to Town". So these cats will get big checks for the next 70 years, er, 90 years, er, indefintely...
But I digress... The problem with MPA, RIAA, and MPAA's drives is they go against 'common sense'. See, posting a song lyric or two on the internet doesn't feel like stealing to Joe Sixpack, therefore it shouldn't be illegal (but it is). Conversely, Unsolicited Commercial E-mail feels illegal, even though it's currently not (fraudulents spams excepted).
The Gamma energy that transformed Banner into the Hulk caused the molecules of Bruce Banner's pants (which were cheifly polyester, since he was 'born' in the 60s) to stretch. It is akin to the 'unstable molecules' in the Fantastic Four's outfits.
The only side effect was it turned whatever pants he was wearing purple.
At least that's what I remember from reading the Hulk's letter pages back in the day.
In a flashy cut trailer you don't an entire shot with the Hulk in it that lasts more than a second. You can freeze a frame and say 'it looks too smooth and fakey' or you can look at it moving for a subsecond and make a guess at how a longer shot would look.
There really isn't enough information at this time to make an informed decision.
But not being able to make an informed decision has never stopped a Slashdotter.
But doesnt that make my language LESS faster than C,
The standard Pythonista answer is that in most programs, 80% of the time is spend in 20% of the code. Profiling and careful optimization usually gets the performance hit down to the magic phrase "less than noticable".
The other half of the Pythonista answer is that working at a very-high level makes rapid application development possible. Your programs end up well factored because it's easier to rearchitect things.
Kent Beck calls it "First Make it Work, Then Make it Right, Then Make it Fast" and Don Knuth says "Premature Optimization if the root of all evil in programming". I think in the long run, C will end up occupying the same niche Assembler once held: You use it to extract extra performance when you need it, otherwise you use the higher level language.
(Caveat: I recently read the Debugging chapter in Python in a Nutshell. Most of the arguments are paraphrased from Alex Martelli's excellent writing. I'm simply not this intelligent usually...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
But imagine an open iPod operating system...
I find that music people are the most compulsive customizers out there (look at the amazing number of skins and visualizations for most MP3 players).
An open iPod operating system would result in open source versions of PONG, PacMan, Breakout, heck, mebbe even SuperMarioBrothers.
And some truly useful bits like synching my desktop mail, todo list, calendar, and contacts info with the iPod.
Heck, I bet the IPod could even be used to dial a phone by generating ringtones.
Open source projects compete for developer interest. Closed source projects can offer interest and money. Sadly, monied interests don't necessarily have the best interests of all.
So skip a version or two. It won't kill you.
I went from Mac OS 10.0 to Jaguar. The world didn't end...
Support isn't that much of an issue. Most of the support issues happen at the beginning of the products lifespan, not at the end.
I know someone who has run Mac OS 9 for at least 3 years. She's got the programs she needs and she never has a problem.
Stop feeding the beast and you'll find you won't miss it as much.
Of course, SCO's current business model won't let that happen. Their hype machine alleges copying and then uses that to justify licensing fees which may or may not be legitimate.
Mark my words, SCO has no interest in a speedy trial. They will keep alleging as long and as hard as possible because that's the only way they (a) can bolster their stock price and (b) keep enough cashflow to keep them solvent.
I was going to mention Grisham, as a matter of fact. What are you some mind reader?
Your name and this comment remind me of a joke in a Little Lulu comic book I once owned:
Q: "Have you ever had your palm read?"
A: "No, It's always been pink, like it is now."
Go ahead and sell expressions of ideas all you want. I can live with that. But don't claim that you can sell me an idea.
Once you tell me an idea, that expression of the idea might be protected (I can't repeat your words verbatim), but don't tell me I can't take that idea, think about it (adding my own ideas) and express it to others.
To prevent me from doing that is, in my opinion, thought control. I don't care if you try to do it with a NDA, a EULA, or a Software Patent: I think it wrong, at least in a 'free society'.
You see, Harper Lee can make sure no one distributes copies of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Heck, I'll even give you that she can stop someone from writing an unauthorized sequel; But she can't stop people from writing stories about a white lawyer defending a black man in the american south.
The point is, Microsoft has benefitted hugely from the ideas of others (look at the history of 1-2-3 and Excel, Windows and Macintosh). For them to benefit from other's ideas then and complain bitterly about people using their ideas now is hypocrisy.
This is where you tell her you have to take it into the shop for 'repairs'.
While it's in the shop, you swap out her motherboard for a piece of crap P2.
Or, alternately, install "folding at home" on her computer so it does some useful work.
If it's really for an academic project (say a master's thesis), you might want to direct your inquiry to Craig Silverstein. Since he's grad student it's likely he would be more interested in your project than the Google corporate types.
Who knows, mebbe you can parlay the project into an internship into a real live job.
Duh, what do you think Goatse.cx is for??
Oh, sorry, I was trying to be funny... :-)
Not Linux/Gnu/X-windows... :-)
The grandparent post said write valid XHTML. Last time I checked, all the current versions of the big browsers display XHTML with good to great CSS and DOM support.
Frankly, if you're using a browser less than IE version 5.0 or Netscape 6.0, you shouldn't expect modern websites to render appropriately. The days of client-sniffing javascript in order to display in Netscape 2.0 are over, or haven't you been reading Zeldman?
Of course, I wouldn't take a job with a shit scope like that. Nor would I be caught dead working for a flamebaiting anonymous blowhard like you.
Since SVG is an XML application, it works well with CSS, XSL, DOM, and JavaScript. Many good drawing programs already output SVG, it's adding the organization and intelligence to the document which is harder. IMHO, the O'Reilly book SVG Essentials is one of the better books for interested self-starters.
Python had much of the same problem. Guido van Rossum is so much the center of the Python universe that he and his core developers spent a bit of effort getting the "truck number" above a certain point.
But I don't think it's a problem with Linux. See there's nothing preventing anyone from forking Linux and making a version without Linus' input. It's just that most people support his decisions because it's his project and he's involved.
If he gets hit by a truck, it will certainly shake up core Linux development, but either (a) someone will emerge as a unifying leader or (b) Linux development will wanter off into a thousand different directions: some will die off, some will thrive.
But that being said, let's hope Linus has a long happy life and eventually wins the Vannevar Bush Medal.
I think GNU did themselves a disservice back in the late 80s/early 90s by not getting HURD written sooner.
If that had happened then they could have named it whatever RMS wanted. Instead Linus cobbled together Linux, GPL'd the source, and pretty much stole the show as far as naming the operating system.
Yet, much of the success of GNU is the freedom to distribute it WITHOUT permission of RMS (just as long as you provide the source code...). Of course, you can do this with non-GPL code too (*BSD, perl, python) but RMS hacked the copyright system first.
So the real success story is that GNU's bash can be used with Linux, Windows (under Cygnus), or with Mac OS X. RMS might have lost the battle (over GNU/Linux), but he certainly won the war (bash is just one successful example).
Great article.
Crawford did some great stuff back when b&w bitmaps were considered state-of-the-art graphics. I remember his games fondly.
I think some of Crawford's games would do well today. I'd love to get a version of Balance of Power that would run on Mac OS X.
His advice is pretty spot on as well. Of course, on Internet Time 6 months to polish is simply not realistic. The advice is clear: a good game is simple, but not trivial to create.
I love them, especially Donny and Marie Osmosis...
... and then half of my keychain was gone. And I was like... huhh?
... ...a bummer.
It was a really good keychain.
It was kind of...
Isn't it funny what a difference of 3 years make?
Back in 2000, Microsoft's IE 5 for the Mac was THE standard-compliant browser, on any platform. Believe me, it's true because Zeldman tells me so.
The thing which frosts me, now that I'm a prospective home buyer, is why-o-why do all of the real estate databases refuse to work with Safari? I'm assuming they're filled with heinous IE-only HTML, because, ta-da, they do work at work.
I've got a larger model of the solar system that that!
It's at the 1 foot = 1 foot scale.
Currently, you're standing on it...
We've seen mice and roaches in our apartment so I bought a small ultrasonic thingie for the kitchen.
The mice appear to have fled the area. We caught a mousie in the front room (glue trap), but we haven't seen any mice in the back of the house. If you can stand finding a dead mouse now and then, I recommend glue traps.
The roaches don't seem to mind the ultrasonic at all.
Surprisingly, Chrysantemum seeds work against roaches. We set some out a while back and the roaches dissapeared. Apparently there are more effective breeds (of seeds, not roaches), so do some research.
I'm a jazz singer and I google for lyrics all the time. The songs I'm looking for aren't exactly 'top 10 hitz', so they're not easy to find in the real world. I find most of them on people's personal websites.
Yes, I agree that song lyrics are the same as poetry, but I also feel that smart lyric writers shouldn't be too concerned. Making the lyrics more freely available just encourages the song to be performed/recorded. In a perfect world the more popular a song is, the more $$$ the lyricist makes.
I think a worse problem is the outdated method in which songwriters get paid. Performance royalties are paid to an organization which doles out the checks according to an obscure formula. In other words, no one keeps track of which songs are played in clubs. They estimate the popularity of songs and pay the songwriter accordingly. [sarcasm]Of course, they do this without any outside influence and without a taint of corruption, after all, this is the music business![/sarcasm]
Let's say, for some reason, the Gillespie/Coots songs "You Go To My Head" gets very popular in jazz clubs in 2003. Well, unless the organization figures this out, the estates of Gillespie and Coots will get no additional money for this song.
Not to worry, though, Gillespie and Coots also wrote "Santa Clause is Coming to Town". So these cats will get big checks for the next 70 years, er, 90 years, er, indefintely...
(Notice that the last link is a page at a public school. Isn't that funny in light of the MPA's "Is your school a Copy-free zone?")
But I digress... The problem with MPA, RIAA, and MPAA's drives is they go against 'common sense'. See, posting a song lyric or two on the internet doesn't feel like stealing to Joe Sixpack, therefore it shouldn't be illegal (but it is). Conversely, Unsolicited Commercial E-mail feels illegal, even though it's currently not (fraudulents spams excepted).
Step 1: Go to your preferences page.
Step 2: Scroll down to the "Star wars Prequels" checkbox.
Step 3: Check it.
Step 4: Done.
Then you won't be bothered with those pesky Star Wars articles that will contain filthy spoilers.
Oh, you want to know about the Star Wars Prequels, but you just don't want any spoilers?
Step 1: Stop reading slashdot.
Step 2: You can't have everything.
Step 2: Done.
The Gamma energy that transformed Banner into the Hulk caused the molecules of Bruce Banner's pants (which were cheifly polyester, since he was 'born' in the 60s) to stretch. It is akin to the 'unstable molecules' in the Fantastic Four's outfits.
The only side effect was it turned whatever pants he was wearing purple.
At least that's what I remember from reading the Hulk's letter pages back in the day.
In a flashy cut trailer you don't an entire shot with the Hulk in it that lasts more than a second. You can freeze a frame and say 'it looks too smooth and fakey' or you can look at it moving for a subsecond and make a guess at how a longer shot would look.
There really isn't enough information at this time to make an informed decision.
But not being able to make an informed decision has never stopped a Slashdotter.
But doesnt that make my language LESS faster than C,
:-)
The standard Pythonista answer is that in most programs, 80% of the time is spend in 20% of the code. Profiling and careful optimization usually gets the performance hit down to the magic phrase "less than noticable".
The other half of the Pythonista answer is that working at a very-high level makes rapid application development possible. Your programs end up well factored because it's easier to rearchitect things.
Kent Beck calls it "First Make it Work, Then Make it Right, Then Make it Fast" and Don Knuth says "Premature Optimization if the root of all evil in programming". I think in the long run, C will end up occupying the same niche Assembler once held: You use it to extract extra performance when you need it, otherwise you use the higher level language.
(Caveat: I recently read the Debugging chapter in Python in a Nutshell. Most of the arguments are paraphrased from Alex Martelli's excellent writing. I'm simply not this intelligent usually...