Changing from CMD to Ctrl: Arguable, but as for "maybe it could be done with the switch to Intel, just to ease the pain slightly" -- that's just silly. I don't understand why people are convinced that when Intel CPUs are put inside, the OS is suddenly going to change to Windows. (Except for the Slashbots, who think it will suddenly change to Linux.) The switch to Intel will have zero effect on UI.
Save button on toolbars: This is hardly an OS X issue. Lots of Mac apps have them. I can't remember if iApps do or don't, but there's no big deal there.
Only showing relevant file types: The current method is classic Steve. You show all files because the user knows they exist and you don't want to confuse him. Advantages both ways.
Sort directories to the top: If that's a problem, you probably have your tree setup poorly. Again, one can argue this both ways.
Basically, things are on hold pending an order-of-magnitude increase in computational power, pervasive wireless, voice recognition that works and several other things. As you say, there's no compelling reason to replace WIMP and everything that's grown up around it, if you still need to read passwords off the sticky under your keyboard before typing them into your big beige box.
Parent and great-grandparent are correct; grandparent is missing the point. (And his explanation isn't quite right anyway -- the shape of the full table is driven by the different number of electrons in the different shells.)
That was Mendeleev's great triumph, that the table predicted then-unknown elements that turned out to exist with their projected properties.
If you love computers, and have a reasonable aptitude for programming, don't let the "OUTSOURCING!!!" panic scare you away from the field. The idea that software jobs are all going to disappear is as foolish as the previous notion that a high school dropout with a Cisco cert is set for life. The 90's aren't coming back (although you'll have to pry my Zubaz off my cold dead legs!) but that hardly means there won't be decent jobs.
Believe me -- with the dummies with new CS Masters degrees I see getting hired, you'll do fine.
Actually, I was under the impression that most crime was solved by hobbyist engineers / crime fighters. Especially crime committed by arch-villains and extraterrestrials. You probably just think you don't know any because they haven't let you in on their secret identities.
I have heard and read arguments like yours, and without a single exception, they came from people who did not use BeOS (booting it up is not using it). Those who used BeOS apps for at least a few hours, understand why BeOS is worth the effort.
Put me down as a first case. It worked beautifully and had the second-best API I've encountered (next to Qt). The problem wasn't the OS itself -- it was that using it for even basic real work required buying a whole set of new applications. The price barrier to entry was just too steep for no compelling advantage over MacOS System 8. (How often do I need to play multiple MP3s simultaneously?)
Linux took off because it was initially embraced by users who just wanted to run vi and pine in an xterm, and then prospered among desktop users because it had included, free desktop apps, if not necessarily good ones. And, of course, the whole thing was free (beer).
Is there really a significant base of people willing to pay $2 for videos, on top of the expensive new player needed to view them, though? Given that the network that's synonomous with music videos has pretty much abandoned them in favor of "reality" shows (and yet the bastards have canceled their one gem, Wildboyz!), I don't quite see it.
It's because the SAS software stops working when the license expires (or at least it used to, I'm not 100% sure about today). After a year, the statistical software has become indespensible to the customer and extremely important for their competitive advantage, so they almost always renew.
The lock-in goes beyond that -- it's pretty much essential for FDA submissions and I'd imagine there are other regulators who regard it similarly. And for a lot of experienced statisticians, that's almost all they know. (It seems like it's impossible to have a good grasp of both SAS and a programming language in the same brain.)
SAS's products are good quality...
Yes and no. The statistical quality is excellent (which is obviously the most important issue). But the UI, even on the Windows version, is absolutely horrid. And the Unix version doesn't (at least in the version we have) even have the "Advanced Editor" -- the one where the text isn't deleted when you run it! SAS certainly isn't the company from which I'd take lessons on encouraging fresh ideas and creativity.
Beyond that, I'd say it matters at least a little bit whether someone has played a really nasty, destructive hoax on Rockstar or if the Rockstar guys are just lying. But it matters to me because I'm curious.
So, now that we've thrown today's chunk of "Mean Grownups Are Mean To Gamerz Because Their Mean!" red meat to the kids...
Has the underlying technical question been figured out yet? Last I heard Rockstar was still claiming the hax0rs had rearranged content from the game to create the "sex scene". The hax0rs are claiming they just unlocked a flag. Obviously one of them is lying -- I don't understand why it's so difficult for someone in possession of the patch to figure out who.
I think you have the right analogy and the wrong conclusion. What it is -- it's easier to be destructive and nihilistic than to be careful and responsible. Spammers aren't smarter than the guys who developed mail protocols, they simply don't have to care about negative consequences of their actions.
Incidentally -- Sky Dayton's CTO is named Tripp Cox? WTF? I grew up in Connecticut and went to Yale and I've never actually met people with names like that.
I could probably progress further and respond instead with 'So is a 10 year old girl in Pakistan with no access to running water, electricity, or computer'.
I'm sorry -- who is the idiot in that conversation?
Either the kid is really bright, or if a nine year old can pass them, what value is there?
I know you guys are incapable of believing there's any intelligence east of Paris and west of Seoul, but -- it's certainly possible that the kid is genuinely really bright. I mean, we're talking about a cert here, not proving P = NP.
I'm not sure why two mods decided this was Funny. It's something I certainly hadn't thought of, and it's definitely something that the questioner and any other traveller ought to keep in mind.
The trouble spots in West Africa tend to have too little law rather than too much, but if his girlfriend is in a country with fighting going on, it would definitely be worth her while to ask what the local militia might find objectionable. And stable but paranoid countries like Nigeria might well have laws similar to the Russian one.
With Spider-Man 3 (May 2007) and the Transformers (July 2007) coming out in the same summer, the amount of time I'll spend in the theater should remain unchanged from 2005, at zero.
I'm a Japanophile, too, but there's something about that culture that really attracts some creepy (or at least unsettling) gaijin. I'm having trouble putting a finger on what it might be, probably because it's a mix of technology, childlikeness, obscurity, sex but not too much sex, and a bunch of other things.
In fairness, the guys who glom onto Asian countries _primarily_ over sex are quite a bit creepier...
They do seem to make some real stuff, some of which is pretty sweet looking. (Although $125 for a whitebaord with a clock in the middle is a bit over my budget.)
At any rate, I'm pleased to see people catching on that the keyboard isn't real, especially after the 1000 post argument a few days ago over a joke about executing virus writers...
As with a lot of P2P-related Ask Slashdots, it sounds like you have a solution in search of a problem.
The value of P2P comes on several fronts: obviously, it's ideal for illegal sharing (which doesn't concern you), BitTorrent in particular is good for huge legal files with huge demand peaks (e.g. new Linux distribution ISOs and it's good for large distributed bodies of files (like Furthur.net).
In your case, a website and HTTP distribution seems the best way to go, despite its unsexiness. You control the process, so you can track downloads and referrers and you can make sure that things work properly, so your new fans don't suffer. Just bite the bullet and pay a good hosting provider.
In the next message, Matt R offers to buy one on EBay but it looks like he got sniped. (BTW, "current high bidder" has the best EBay nick I've ever seen.)
I wish them luck, but this has to give pause to anyone who wants to place a heavy bet on the continued availability of OpenBSD/Alpha -- if it can get wiped out because they can't get a specific piece of legacy hardware to fit Theo's rack!
1. OK, fine. They're deprecating it and letting it rot, not eliminating it.
2. Back to my point: Eliminating - sorry! - deprecating the Java option raises the barrier of entry to _Cocoa_!(Obviously, Java isn't going to be significantly hindered by losing the Cocoa API, but that has noting to do with my point.) Who I'd had in mind was new OS X owners who know some Java but know nothing about Objective C. You're talking about complete novices. Either way, Apple is now going to be telling new Cocoa developers to learn a language that has basically zero utility on any other platform.
"Typical Apple": Well, am I wrong? Whether or not it's a good idea, twisting Apple developers' arms to use the official Apple language strikes me as a 100% classic Apple move.
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Save button on toolbars: This is hardly an OS X issue. Lots of Mac apps have them. I can't remember if iApps do or don't, but there's no big deal there.
Only showing relevant file types: The current method is classic Steve. You show all files because the user knows they exist and you don't want to confuse him. Advantages both ways.
Sort directories to the top: If that's a problem, you probably have your tree setup poorly. Again, one can argue this both ways.
I said that the parent (Shawn) and GGP (you) were correct; it's the GP (autopr0n) who is missing the point.
Basically, things are on hold pending an order-of-magnitude increase in computational power, pervasive wireless, voice recognition that works and several other things. As you say, there's no compelling reason to replace WIMP and everything that's grown up around it, if you still need to read passwords off the sticky under your keyboard before typing them into your big beige box.
...and then CmdrTaco, the Father Of The Weblog, files it in the "so-sick-of-blogs dept."...
That was Mendeleev's great triumph, that the table predicted then-unknown elements that turned out to exist with their projected properties.
Believe me -- with the dummies with new CS Masters degrees I see getting hired, you'll do fine.
Actually, I was under the impression that most crime was solved by hobbyist engineers / crime fighters. Especially crime committed by arch-villains and extraterrestrials. You probably just think you don't know any because they haven't let you in on their secret identities.
Put me down as a first case. It worked beautifully and had the second-best API I've encountered (next to Qt). The problem wasn't the OS itself -- it was that using it for even basic real work required buying a whole set of new applications. The price barrier to entry was just too steep for no compelling advantage over MacOS System 8. (How often do I need to play multiple MP3s simultaneously?)
Linux took off because it was initially embraced by users who just wanted to run vi and pine in an xterm, and then prospered among desktop users because it had included, free desktop apps, if not necessarily good ones. And, of course, the whole thing was free (beer).
Is there really a significant base of people willing to pay $2 for videos, on top of the expensive new player needed to view them, though? Given that the network that's synonomous with music videos has pretty much abandoned them in favor of "reality" shows (and yet the bastards have canceled their one gem, Wildboyz!), I don't quite see it.
This being a Lifetime survey, I'm just relieved they didn't provide the percentage of wives who have killed their husbands over the DVR...
That said, I agree about SAS. SAS is solid, certainly, but I doubt the word its users associate with it is "creativity".
The lock-in goes beyond that -- it's pretty much essential for FDA submissions and I'd imagine there are other regulators who regard it similarly. And for a lot of experienced statisticians, that's almost all they know. (It seems like it's impossible to have a good grasp of both SAS and a programming language in the same brain.)
SAS's products are good quality...
Yes and no. The statistical quality is excellent (which is obviously the most important issue). But the UI, even on the Windows version, is absolutely horrid. And the Unix version doesn't (at least in the version we have) even have the "Advanced Editor" -- the one where the text isn't deleted when you run it! SAS certainly isn't the company from which I'd take lessons on encouraging fresh ideas and creativity.
Sure. It matters because -- I'm curious.
Beyond that, I'd say it matters at least a little bit whether someone has played a really nasty, destructive hoax on Rockstar or if the Rockstar guys are just lying. But it matters to me because I'm curious.
Has the underlying technical question been figured out yet? Last I heard Rockstar was still claiming the hax0rs had rearranged content from the game to create the "sex scene". The hax0rs are claiming they just unlocked a flag. Obviously one of them is lying -- I don't understand why it's so difficult for someone in possession of the patch to figure out who.
Incidentally -- Sky Dayton's CTO is named Tripp Cox? WTF? I grew up in Connecticut and went to Yale and I've never actually met people with names like that.
I'm sorry -- who is the idiot in that conversation?
I know you guys are incapable of believing there's any intelligence east of Paris and west of Seoul, but -- it's certainly possible that the kid is genuinely really bright. I mean, we're talking about a cert here, not proving P = NP.
The trouble spots in West Africa tend to have too little law rather than too much, but if his girlfriend is in a country with fighting going on, it would definitely be worth her while to ask what the local militia might find objectionable. And stable but paranoid countries like Nigeria might well have laws similar to the Russian one.
With Spider-Man 3 (May 2007) and the Transformers (July 2007) coming out in the same summer, the amount of time I'll spend in the theater should remain unchanged from 2005, at zero.
In fairness, the guys who glom onto Asian countries _primarily_ over sex are quite a bit creepier...
At any rate, I'm pleased to see people catching on that the keyboard isn't real, especially after the 1000 post argument a few days ago over a joke about executing virus writers...
The value of P2P comes on several fronts: obviously, it's ideal for illegal sharing (which doesn't concern you), BitTorrent in particular is good for huge legal files with huge demand peaks (e.g. new Linux distribution ISOs and it's good for large distributed bodies of files (like Furthur.net).
In your case, a website and HTTP distribution seems the best way to go, despite its unsexiness. You control the process, so you can track downloads and referrers and you can make sure that things work properly, so your new fans don't suffer. Just bite the bullet and pay a good hosting provider.
Honestly, if the SEC outlawed April Fools Day altogether I'd consider it a net win.
I wish them luck, but this has to give pause to anyone who wants to place a heavy bet on the continued availability of OpenBSD/Alpha -- if it can get wiped out because they can't get a specific piece of legacy hardware to fit Theo's rack!
1. OK, fine. They're deprecating it and letting it rot, not eliminating it.
2. Back to my point: Eliminating - sorry! - deprecating the Java option raises the barrier of entry to _Cocoa_!(Obviously, Java isn't going to be significantly hindered by losing the Cocoa API, but that has noting to do with my point.) Who I'd had in mind was new OS X owners who know some Java but know nothing about Objective C. You're talking about complete novices. Either way, Apple is now going to be telling new Cocoa developers to learn a language that has basically zero utility on any other platform.
"Typical Apple": Well, am I wrong? Whether or not it's a good idea, twisting Apple developers' arms to use the official Apple language strikes me as a 100% classic Apple move.