Understandably, most of the discussion here is about the pros & cons of various compression formats. But the first thing that jumped out at me when I clicked on the apple.com link was:
"Preview any song for free, when you find a song you want, buy it for just 99... It's what music lovers have been waiting for: a music store with Apple's legendary ease of use, offering a hassle-free way to preview, buy and download music online quickly and easily."
FINALLY, a business model for downloading music that makes sense! (Now if only I could afford to switch to Apple products.)
A lot of replies to this post seem to be missing the question. The poster is saying that he/she already has a strong team in terms of trust, morale, etc. So, telling him/her to go drink beer with his buddies is not what he/she needs to hear.
I think the poster is looking for help improving team technical skills, team problem-solving skills, etc.
(I must be feeling pretty PC today...all the he/she business.:^) )
Can't say as I've actually been in an environment that tried it/used it.
Short of that, I would try to get your team involved with more technical workshops, conferences, courses, etc. Staying on top of the research is important, too.
Of course, both of those things seem to be highly budget sensitive, but if you are already going on work-weekends to do ropes courses or something like that, maybe sending everyone to a big conference in your industry would be a good alternative.
I sort of agree, but take slightly different angle. Frankly, to me, any assertion that we are our own biggest threat seems false. Mother Nature *itself* is WAAAY more threatening. Sure, we can (and do) wreak a lot of havoc in our environment. I don't want to downplay the importance of that, nor belittle the importance and significance of responding to "new" threats like terrorism. Terrorist access to nuclear weapons would definitely up the ante in terms of scale of threat, but historically? Holistically? Seems to me that weather, natural disasters, disease, and famine are all more threatening and on a much bigger scale.
While taking the survey, I hit a "next"-type button and the page came up 404. I hit F5 and was taken back to the begining! I bailed. Anyone else have this happen?
(I realize this may be moderated off-topic, but...)
Irony is walking out into your front yard and finding half a styrofoam cup's worth of litter where the only thing identifiable is the phrase "Compliments of 7-11.":^)
First, a huge "Thank You" to Tim Bray and to/. for facilitating this important (IMHO) discussion on the relative merits and demerits of XML. I am a self-taught XML enthusiast. This sort of discussion, especially one with such expert validity, is useful to me because it grounds some of the vague notions I was coming up with through my own experience using XML.
I wanted to respond in particular to one thing in Mr. Bray's most recent article:
"But let's face it, when you parse XML, you get a data structure that is kind of an ordered sequence and kind of a tree and kind of a hypertext. This maps well onto no known programming paradigm."
I'm not sure if this precisely addresses what is asserted, but I think perhaps there is a known programming paradigm that does map well: SceneGraph APIs.
This is probably a much longer discussion that I have time for right now, but here's what I mean:
SceneGraphs are data structures commonly used for 3D graphics programming. SGs have concepts like nodes, parents, addChild, removeChild, and nested nodes, etc. XML can be extremely useful for representing a SceneGraph. If nodes are nested in the XML, then they are nested in the SG and vice versa. Nodes themselves are containers of attributes (PropertyBags, or whatever you like to call them), so serialization and deserialization is indeed a good thing here. The mapping is very tight between XML and SGs in this sense. But that just addresses the data structure and OO parts of the "equation" that maps XML particulary well to SG APIs.
Another important concept in SG APIs are SG traversals. Traversals are the sequential paths taken by the SG engine as it performs calculations on, updates to, and rendering of the SG. Some traversals process the entire SG, depth-first, left-to-right, and some just traverse down to a single leaf and stop, but essentially any traversal is a path through the graph. Traversals can be specialized. Some might search, some might render, some might calculate. This seems very XSL-like, but at the very least, there is a sequential processing of the structure (can be parallel but results are ultimately combined in the join and finalized sequentially).
Finally, as for hyperlinking (Mr. Bray actually said "hypertext"), that's there too. A technique similar to hyperlinking can be used to dynamically jump to different subtrees within the overall SG. If I want to render only a portion of an SG, I might move the traversal pointer from some SG root node down to a subtree containing just a few models. References are also used in SceneGraphs. If I want a model to appear 10 times, I don't want to load it 10 times - I want to load it once and make 9 references.
But like I said, there's probably a lot more to consider. I'd certainly like to hear what Mr. Bray thinks as well as what any Slashdotters w/ SG experience might have to say.
Folks, it's not just email. My "old-fashioned," land-based telephone line, which I keep in case of emergency, is almost entirely a vehicle for sales - like 98%. It's like I'm paying someone to advertise to me and I hate it! Then there's junk (snail) mail, which has been a problem for decades. Anyone have any figures on what percentage of snail mail is junk mail?
Some months ago I saw an episode of NOVA which postulated that the moon has been gradually drifting out of Earth's orbit for many hundreds (thousands? millions?) of years. This causes the Earth's spin to be less uniform, to wobble. The more drastic the wobble, the more extreme are the changes in weather. I haven't seen anything else on this since, so perhaps it is not a theory that holds much credibility with scientists. On the surface, it seems to make sense.
That was my exact initial reaction. Maybe what he really wants to do is scare away would-be contenders! That's a top 10 list for everything in the computer service industry, especially apps. So, what? Besides, whoever said there must always be an industry to support pop (technology) culture? I have little doubt that there are folks out there who accomplish phenomenal feats strictly in their spare time (or even just challenging but silly feats ala the linux Billy Bass). But that's beside the point. What he's really bitching about is the cash money (or lack thereof, though I bet he ain't hurting).
Of course, it's great that there is an industry for gaming and it's not trivial in economic terms. I have to question some of those counter-motivations. Why must it be a subscription service? People obviously don't trust what they can't put their hands on, so keep sending them to the store for the $50 box version. Tack on other options at $5-10 a one time pop, with the understanding that upgrades won't always be free, etc, etc. Before you know it, you too are a part of a multi-billion dollar gaming industry. Also it seems to me that a better model is to figure out how the technology can be reused between MMOG and business, even mission critical stuff. That way you get industry and goverment to carry the load while cool games are a nice spin-off. As much as it saddens me to admit, the DoD is certainly getting wise to that idea.
I have to think that all the negativism about the technology is maybe just indicative of the general mood. Sure it's riddled with flaws. Yes, we know it's been done. (And NO, it is not right for EVERYTHING!) But at least we are being offered this reminder that someone isn't going to quit until we can all beam a 3D movie of real-live Princess Leia onto our coffee tables. Me likey the 3D! Me wanty the 3D! We might take further encouragement from the fact that big guns like Sony and Sharp are moving in (again). Besides, you know a technology is about ripe when a big brand moves in and claims victory for years of everyone else's hard work, right? We are taking big steps in the right direction.
All the discussion I've seen thus far assumes, understandably, that these things are going to be next gen. computer monitors. What about next gen TVs?! Insert "Virtual" into "Reality Television."
No doubt everything will be tweaked. But it's mostly a matter of the display being able to render a stereo pair. With the card you have now you can plug in stereo glasses that take care of everything. I imagine this kind of hardware metioned in the article will try to be compatible with existing 32, 64, and 128 cards since we have a lot invested there already.
I sat in front of one of those about 4 years ago. It hurt my eyes more than a little. Maybe the tech has come along a lot since then, but one might not think so by the way they are talking about eye strain in that article. One can hope I guess. Shutter glasses are clunky, fragile and expensive, but they get the job done.
Not that the 757th comment matters, but I would think Hollywood actually can give kids a good idea about what goes into development. It's through the Discovery Channel-type documentaries on behind the scenes stuff. Tech TV is big into it too. I seem to run across shows all the time that are all about what the CS and 3D modeling guys are doing to make stuff happen. In fact there's been one recently about the battle scenes in Two Towers and the AI that went into the combatants, especially all those damn Uruk-hai.
Is it a hoax?
Every comment I've read here is a reaction under the assumption that the story is accurate and the website actually means something.
If it's truly illegal to accept the license just b/c one lives in the U.S., why is it even available to U.S. domains?
Good readers would see that the letter says "effective 8/26."
But like you, I am questioning the validity of the letter. Even if it is valid, one other reader pointed out that seems to only affect one product line.
Slashdot Mirror
is that emusic.com?
Understandably, most of the discussion here is about the pros & cons of various compression formats. But the first thing that jumped out at me when I clicked on the apple.com link was:
"Preview any song for free, when you find a song you want, buy it for just 99... It's what music lovers have been waiting for: a music store with Apple's legendary ease of use, offering a hassle-free way to preview, buy and download music online quickly and easily."
FINALLY, a business model for downloading music that makes sense! (Now if only I could afford to switch to Apple products.)
A lot of replies to this post seem to be missing the question. The poster is saying that he/she already has a strong team in terms of trust, morale, etc. So, telling him/her to go drink beer with his buddies is not what he/she needs to hear.
:^) )
I think the poster is looking for help improving team technical skills, team problem-solving skills, etc.
(I must be feeling pretty PC today...all the he/she business.
Sorry for posting w/o reading all the replies yet. I don't think this has been covered.
I think Extreme Programming was intended in part to address this.
Can't say as I've actually been in an environment that tried it/used it.
Short of that, I would try to get your team involved with more technical workshops, conferences, courses, etc. Staying on top of the research is important, too.
Of course, both of those things seem to be highly budget sensitive, but if you are already going on work-weekends to do ropes courses or something like that, maybe sending everyone to a big conference in your industry would be a good alternative.
...this is what you get from places where drugs are legal. 8^)
I sort of agree, but take slightly different angle. Frankly, to me, any assertion that we are our own biggest threat seems false. Mother Nature *itself* is WAAAY more threatening. Sure, we can (and do) wreak a lot of havoc in our environment. I don't want to downplay the importance of that, nor belittle the importance and significance of responding to "new" threats like terrorism. Terrorist access to nuclear weapons would definitely up the ante in terms of scale of threat, but historically? Holistically? Seems to me that weather, natural disasters, disease, and famine are all more threatening and on a much bigger scale.
While taking the survey, I hit a "next"-type button and the page came up 404. I hit F5 and was taken back to the begining! I bailed. Anyone else have this happen?
...that in a free country with a free press, editors are willing to print corrections, and in many cases apologies, for such transgressions.
(I realize this may be moderated off-topic, but...)
:^)
Irony is walking out into your front yard and finding half a styrofoam cup's worth of litter where the only thing identifiable is the phrase "Compliments of 7-11."
XML != Hierarchical database. Not much more to say than that b/c the two are just not equivalent...period.
First, a huge "Thank You" to Tim Bray and to /. for facilitating this important (IMHO) discussion on the relative merits and demerits of XML. I am a self-taught XML enthusiast. This sort of discussion, especially one with such expert validity, is useful to me because it grounds some of the vague notions I was coming up with through my own experience using XML.
I wanted to respond in particular to one thing in Mr. Bray's most recent article:
"But let's face it, when you parse XML, you get a data structure that is kind of an ordered sequence and kind of a tree and kind of a hypertext. This maps well onto no known programming paradigm."
I'm not sure if this precisely addresses what is asserted, but I think perhaps there is a known programming paradigm that does map well: SceneGraph APIs.
This is probably a much longer discussion that I have time for right now, but here's what I mean:
SceneGraphs are data structures commonly used for 3D graphics programming. SGs have concepts like nodes, parents, addChild, removeChild, and nested nodes, etc. XML can be extremely useful for representing a SceneGraph. If nodes are nested in the XML, then they are nested in the SG and vice versa. Nodes themselves are containers of attributes (PropertyBags, or whatever you like to call them), so serialization and deserialization is indeed a good thing here. The mapping is very tight between XML and SGs in this sense. But that just addresses the data structure and OO parts of the "equation" that maps XML particulary well to SG APIs.
Another important concept in SG APIs are SG traversals. Traversals are the sequential paths taken by the SG engine as it performs calculations on, updates to, and rendering of the SG. Some traversals process the entire SG, depth-first, left-to-right, and some just traverse down to a single leaf and stop, but essentially any traversal is a path through the graph. Traversals can be specialized. Some might search, some might render, some might calculate. This seems very XSL-like, but at the very least, there is a sequential processing of the structure (can be parallel but results are ultimately combined in the join and finalized sequentially).
Finally, as for hyperlinking (Mr. Bray actually said "hypertext"), that's there too. A technique similar to hyperlinking can be used to dynamically jump to different subtrees within the overall SG. If I want to render only a portion of an SG, I might move the traversal pointer from some SG root node down to a subtree containing just a few models. References are also used in SceneGraphs. If I want a model to appear 10 times, I don't want to load it 10 times - I want to load it once and make 9 references.
But like I said, there's probably a lot more to consider. I'd certainly like to hear what Mr. Bray thinks as well as what any Slashdotters w/ SG experience might have to say.
Folks, it's not just email. My "old-fashioned," land-based telephone line, which I keep in case of emergency, is almost entirely a vehicle for sales - like 98%. It's like I'm paying someone to advertise to me and I hate it! Then there's junk (snail) mail, which has been a problem for decades. Anyone have any figures on what percentage of snail mail is junk mail?
well one thing is for sure, you just promoted the hell out of that movie! ;^)
Some months ago I saw an episode of NOVA which postulated that the moon has been gradually drifting out of Earth's orbit for many hundreds (thousands? millions?) of years. This causes the Earth's spin to be less uniform, to wobble. The more drastic the wobble, the more extreme are the changes in weather. I haven't seen anything else on this since, so perhaps it is not a theory that holds much credibility with scientists. On the surface, it seems to make sense.
well duh. whether one agrees w/ him or not, i think the problem he is implying is knowing what that model is and how to implement it.
Of course, it's great that there is an industry for gaming and it's not trivial in economic terms. I have to question some of those counter-motivations. Why must it be a subscription service? People obviously don't trust what they can't put their hands on, so keep sending them to the store for the $50 box version. Tack on other options at $5-10 a one time pop, with the understanding that upgrades won't always be free, etc, etc. Before you know it, you too are a part of a multi-billion dollar gaming industry. Also it seems to me that a better model is to figure out how the technology can be reused between MMOG and business, even mission critical stuff. That way you get industry and goverment to carry the load while cool games are a nice spin-off. As much as it saddens me to admit, the DoD is certainly getting wise to that idea.
I have to think that all the negativism about the technology is maybe just indicative of the general mood. Sure it's riddled with flaws. Yes, we know it's been done. (And NO, it is not right for EVERYTHING!) But at least we are being offered this reminder that someone isn't going to quit until we can all beam a 3D movie of real-live Princess Leia onto our coffee tables. Me likey the 3D! Me wanty the 3D! We might take further encouragement from the fact that big guns like Sony and Sharp are moving in (again). Besides, you know a technology is about ripe when a big brand moves in and claims victory for years of everyone else's hard work, right? We are taking big steps in the right direction.
All the discussion I've seen thus far assumes, understandably, that these things are going to be next gen. computer monitors. What about next gen TVs?! Insert "Virtual" into "Reality Television."
No doubt everything will be tweaked. But it's mostly a matter of the display being able to render a stereo pair. With the card you have now you can plug in stereo glasses that take care of everything. I imagine this kind of hardware metioned in the article will try to be compatible with existing 32, 64, and 128 cards since we have a lot invested there already.
I sat in front of one of those about 4 years ago. It hurt my eyes more than a little. Maybe the tech has come along a lot since then, but one might not think so by the way they are talking about eye strain in that article. One can hope I guess. Shutter glasses are clunky, fragile and expensive, but they get the job done.
Not that the 757th comment matters, but I would think Hollywood actually can give kids a good idea about what goes into development. It's through the Discovery Channel-type documentaries on behind the scenes stuff. Tech TV is big into it too. I seem to run across shows all the time that are all about what the CS and 3D modeling guys are doing to make stuff happen. In fact there's been one recently about the battle scenes in Two Towers and the AI that went into the combatants, especially all those damn Uruk-hai.
http://www.the-cloak.com/Cloaked/+cfg=32/http://ww w.thefreeworld.net/non-US/
Is it a hoax? Every comment I've read here is a reaction under the assumption that the story is accurate and the website actually means something. If it's truly illegal to accept the license just b/c one lives in the U.S., why is it even available to U.S. domains?
PoI: I believe Nature was the first to publish the journal results of the study (i.e., the story did not orginate @ Wired).
Good readers would see that the letter says "effective 8/26."
But like you, I am questioning the validity of the letter. Even if it is valid, one other reader pointed out that seems to only affect one product line.