Sony is relevant because they were the first licensee of Firewire, they got a low cost-per-chip royalty deal as an early adopter. Sony is out to push Firewire as a standard because it costs them less to produce than any other licensee except Apple. It's to their competitive advantage to see that Firewire is in every Sony consumer video product.
I got a call last night from Mediacom, apparently they were calling customers en masse to inform them that they'd reached an agreement and service would continue uninterrupted. And it did (at least until today when someone dug up the cable).
But I also received an interesting piece of news. In my state (Iowa) AT&T had been collecting sales tax, and now they were informed that those taxes were not required. So they're giving everyone a credit sometime in 3 or 4 months from now. Or you can send a form to the State tax board and get a refund immediately (well, immediately in bureacratic terms, probably a month or two). My tax refund will be over $70. Now if I can just get my other ISP to stop charging sales tax!
Come on now, Apple jumped on this one, it was only reported by a couple of people, and they corrected the problem almost immediately. This problem only came to light today, and they have a fix out the same day. I downloaded the new 2.01 version, installed with no problems.
This drive supposedly retails for $399, and all it has is a drive powered off a Firewire port. The iPod is like getting the mp3 player and the advanced battery, for the same price.
But surely these drives will continue to drop in price and increase in capacity. Think about a 20Gb iPod, or the future generations of 100Gb pods with video playback capability, and firewire connectivity to your MacTivo.
I'm listening to the interview right now, and I can assure you that much will be lost if you convert it to text. You can't hear Woz's tone, as he gets excited about some things, and his serious tone on others. Come on, listen to the man's words, this is a guy who is talking about his youth when he could barely stand to speak to people from sheer shyness, and now millions of people can listen to his voice all across the world through the personal computers that he popularized. It's worth hearing his voice.
I have Gnome running on MacOS X, and I like having a foreign-looking window manager running. In comparison, I use the banned Aqua X Kaliedoscope theme for my Classic windows, it makes classic windows look just like standard Aqua MacOS X windows. They function so similar to the standard Aqua windows but sometimes it is confusing when you are fooled by the appearance and go for an Aqua feature that isn't available in Classic. But doing this with X Windows is another thing altogether. X Windows functions so radically different that it would be perilous to use an Aqua theme.
Yes, Gnome runs on OS X. I used Fink to install Gnome on my Powerbook G3/500, it runs fine, although a few applets are a little flaky (this will improve with time). XWindows even runs rootless with XDarwin, you can have the Gnome control strip across the bottom and I put the OS X dock across the right side of the screen, so both are accessible at the same time. You ought to see a screenshot I made, I fired up Virtual PC with two windows of Win98SE, Win2k, then I fired up rootless XDarwin with Gnu Midnight Commander, then MacOS X and then Classic, and MacMame for good measure. By my count, that's 6 OSes running at the same time! Try that on your pathetic x86 machines!
I have no trepidation saying "never." How do CCDs function at temps near absolute zero? Some astronomers use liquid gas-chilled photographic films, it actually increases film sensitivity under some circumstances. How do digital cameras work when the batteries run out? Wildlife research photogs set manual cameras with tripwires out in the woods for months on end. I can easily envision hundreds of apps where digital imaging will never rule. Sometimes you gotta Keep It Simple Stupid.
OpenOffice needs MacOS X programmers!
on
One Year Of OpenOffice
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Since StarOffice dropped official support for MacOS X, OpenOffice needs more MacOS X programmers. Microsoft is going to make a huge marketing push for Office X, but if we had working OpenOffice versions, their monopolistic push could be thwarted. But it's too late for now. We need help!
Nope, it's never going to happen. Kodak will still be manufacturing 35mm film 100 years from now. You do realize that the consumer market is only a small fraction of Kodak's market? Kodak makes more money selling 35mm motion picture film than they ever do from the consumer market. Some applications will always require film, no matter what technological advancements occur. You can shoot 35mm film in conditions where electronic systems would never function.
Kodak has blown billions trying to adapt to new digital technology? They were the ones that pretty much started digital photography.
Excuse me Mr. Coward, I have a degree in Photography, and unlike you, I know what I'm talking about. I was working in the photo biz when digital cameras first started coming on the market. I was using Japanese pro digital cameras about 5 years before Kodak ever released a digital camera.
Polaroid's problems have nothing to do with any failure to compete with digital cameras. Polaroid did have some of the first really high-rez digital cameras on the market, but it was too early in the market for such an expensive product.
Kodak has also blown billions on trying to adapt to new digital technology, and they haven't made much of a dent in the market either. Kodak just has deeper pockets.
The biggest problem here that I see is that Polaroid never recovered from Kodak's pirating their patents for instant film. Polaroid received a hefty payment of damages, and Kodak was required to stop making instant film and recall all their instant cameras. Kodak tried to put Polaroid out of business, and now, in retrospect, it looks like they succeeded (just a lot later than they expected).
I think a very important point to make here is that by default, the user you set up when installing Mac OS X is an administrative user and not only that is automatically logged in when the computer boots. So obviously ~99% of the Mac OS X boxes out there are vulnerable to this bug.
You are incorrect. The default user does not have any root privileges, you have to specifically enable them. The rest of your assertions are equally bullshit. You must enable root to change anything in NetInfo Manager.
A few messages down from this is some more misinformation. Classic mode apps run as user, not root. No gaping security hole there either.
So will you guys give MacOS X a chance, and at least make SOME attempt to verify the accuracy of your statements before slagging on the product? MacOS X is your friend, Apple is now the largest Unix vendor in the world.
You don't need to reject cookies to get caught in a loop, I accept cookies in Mac Netscape 4.78 and the ads just loop, although they do run OK in Mozilla.
I note with disgust that Excite has also begun using these ads on their portal. Soon people will be disabling Flash just like they disabled pop-ups. Macromedia should really have a word with these advertisers, they're going to kill Flash if they keep this up.
I've been struck by the comparison to SimCity as well, ever since I saw the original high-rez satellite photos at http://www.spaceimaging.com and loaded them up in Photoshop. As I was zooming in, I noticed the buildings were all showing that orthagonal 45 degree angle look, and as I zoomed in or out, the SimCity parallel really struck me.
The NYTimes has also done some interesting graphics, like http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/index_OFFI CE.html and these sort of remind me of SimTower.
This has been a known problem for years amongst Mac emulator users. Virtual PC and other emus are suceptible to viruses just like on a native PC. I just run standard PC antivirus tools.
One of the advantages of using Mac PC emulation, I can just make a backup copy of my PC volume, save that state, if I have a Windows problem I just ditch the corrupted volume and use the backup.
Right, that is just what I said in the first place. Legal nonresidents (just to pick ONE affected group) are being denied due process, which is their Constitutional right.
You are incorrect. Constitutional rights are extended to all RESIDENTS of the US, not just citizens. Citizens do enjoy extra privileges, but ALL persons have the right to due process, equal protection, etc. If you don't believe me, go read the 14th Amendment:
Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Note that it says "nor shall any state deprive any PERSON.." not "any citizen." The language is deliberate, the sentence refers to citizens in the first part, and "people" in the second part. It explicitly refers to "all persons withing its jurisdiction" which means legal and illegal immigrants have rights too. This has been the basis of recent SCOTUS decisions, for example the INS was recently required to release some illegal immigrants who had been indefinitely detained while awaiting hearings for deportation.
This whole topic is moot. The US Constitution has now been suspended. In an egregious stretching of legal interpretation way beyond the breaking point, the US Government asserts it can detain legal immigrants indefinitely, without due process, Habeus Corpus, or a speedy trial. Nothing like this has happened since the Japanese internment camps in WWII. Here is the announcement:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/inv.ashcroft.pr es ser/index.html
Constitutional rights are guaranteed to all RESIDENTS of the USA, not just citizens. Equal protection under the Constitution is now just a memory. Bush has trampled on our most sacred political documents.
"He who would sacrifice a little bit of liberty for a little bit of safety deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin
This is all a byproduct of a new system called "environmental accounting." For years, corporations have been used to applying standard accounting techniques to manufacturing processes to maximize profits and process efficiency, but nobody ever thought of applying those accounting methods to environmental issues. The classic EA example is a company that uses mercury in manufacturing. The accountant measures the mercury the co. buys, and subtracts the amount that ends up in the product plus the amount reclaimed from waste. For example, they buy 20 tons a year, and 15 goes into the products, 3 are reclaimed from waste. 2 tons are unaccounted for and are presumed to go directly into the environment. To plug the mercury leak, you just go through the process and see where it's not accounted for.
This article just cites examples where the gov't has mandated environmental accounting and gives disincentives to inefficient processes. If only we could get people to use EA just because it's good for the environment!
As usual, MS takes credit for the work of others. I was particularly incensed by the article on fur textures. The algorithms for fur were first developed by Rhythm 'n Hues, an award-winning Hollywood effects shop (and an SGI shop). Their first applications of this algorithm should be familiar to all: the furry Coca-cola polar bear commercials.
But of course, giving credit to other pioneers means nothing to Microsoft. They steal the work of the people that make the REAL innovations, and proclaim it was their own invention.
Yep, ATG was amazing, I attended one lecture where they described their work in future computing trends. Back in the 80s, they were trying to see what you could do with the kinds of processors available today. The only way they could do that was to use their Cray as a single-user computer. In the day, they used it for chip design, at night the ATG came in and used it as a single user PC. And you know, their predictions about what kind of horsepower would be on our desktops was pretty accurate.
Alas, ATG was disbanded and the group folded into other development orgs at Apple.
It's already too late for the XBox. More delays in the Japan release will just mean fewer titles developed in Japan. The machine will flop in Japan, and if it flops in Japan, it will be a worldwide flop.
Now the REAL question is, since Bungie was bought out by M$, are they going to keep their promise and do a simultaneous Mac/PC/XBox release, or will M$ shaft everyone and force them to do an initial release on XBox only?
Slashdot Mirror
Sony is relevant because they were the first licensee of Firewire, they got a low cost-per-chip royalty deal as an early adopter. Sony is out to push Firewire as a standard because it costs them less to produce than any other licensee except Apple. It's to their competitive advantage to see that Firewire is in every Sony consumer video product.
I got a call last night from Mediacom, apparently they were calling customers en masse to inform them that they'd reached an agreement and service would continue uninterrupted. And it did (at least until today when someone dug up the cable).
But I also received an interesting piece of news. In my state (Iowa) AT&T had been collecting sales tax, and now they were informed that those taxes were not required. So they're giving everyone a credit sometime in 3 or 4 months from now. Or you can send a form to the State tax board and get a refund immediately (well, immediately in bureacratic terms, probably a month or two). My tax refund will be over $70. Now if I can just get my other ISP to stop charging sales tax!
Come on now, Apple jumped on this one, it was only reported by a couple of people, and they corrected the problem almost immediately. This problem only came to light today, and they have a fix out the same day. I downloaded the new 2.01 version, installed with no problems.
Here's an another manufacturer's product, a firewire disk drive using the 1.8in drive.
d uc ts/Hard%20Drives/FWFL.asp
http://www.smartdisk.com/Products/Storage%20Pro
This drive supposedly retails for $399, and all it has is a drive powered off a Firewire port. The iPod is like getting the mp3 player and the advanced battery, for the same price.
But surely these drives will continue to drop in price and increase in capacity. Think about a 20Gb iPod, or the future generations of 100Gb pods with video playback capability, and firewire connectivity to your MacTivo.
I'm listening to the interview right now, and I can assure you that much will be lost if you convert it to text. You can't hear Woz's tone, as he gets excited about some things, and his serious tone on others. Come on, listen to the man's words, this is a guy who is talking about his youth when he could barely stand to speak to people from sheer shyness, and now millions of people can listen to his voice all across the world through the personal computers that he popularized. It's worth hearing his voice.
Anyone know of some screen shots of the new release? I haven't seen a recent version running, just wondering what it looks like.
I have Gnome running on MacOS X, and I like having a foreign-looking window manager running. In comparison, I use the banned Aqua X Kaliedoscope theme for my Classic windows, it makes classic windows look just like standard Aqua MacOS X windows. They function so similar to the standard Aqua windows but sometimes it is confusing when you are fooled by the appearance and go for an Aqua feature that isn't available in Classic. But doing this with X Windows is another thing altogether. X Windows functions so radically different that it would be perilous to use an Aqua theme.
Yes, Gnome runs on OS X. I used Fink to install Gnome on my Powerbook G3/500, it runs fine, although a few applets are a little flaky (this will improve with time). XWindows even runs rootless with XDarwin, you can have the Gnome control strip across the bottom and I put the OS X dock across the right side of the screen, so both are accessible at the same time. You ought to see a screenshot I made, I fired up Virtual PC with two windows of Win98SE, Win2k, then I fired up rootless XDarwin with Gnu Midnight Commander, then MacOS X and then Classic, and MacMame for good measure. By my count, that's 6 OSes running at the same time! Try that on your pathetic x86 machines!
I have no trepidation saying "never." How do CCDs function at temps near absolute zero? Some astronomers use liquid gas-chilled photographic films, it actually increases film sensitivity under some circumstances. How do digital cameras work when the batteries run out? Wildlife research photogs set manual cameras with tripwires out in the woods for months on end. I can easily envision hundreds of apps where digital imaging will never rule. Sometimes you gotta Keep It Simple Stupid.
Since StarOffice dropped official support for MacOS X, OpenOffice needs more MacOS X programmers. Microsoft is going to make a huge marketing push for Office X, but if we had working OpenOffice versions, their monopolistic push could be thwarted. But it's too late for now. We need help!
Nope, it's never going to happen. Kodak will still be manufacturing 35mm film 100 years from now. You do realize that the consumer market is only a small fraction of Kodak's market? Kodak makes more money selling 35mm motion picture film than they ever do from the consumer market. Some applications will always require film, no matter what technological advancements occur. You can shoot 35mm film in conditions where electronic systems would never function.
Excuse me Mr. Coward, I have a degree in Photography, and unlike you, I know what I'm talking about. I was working in the photo biz when digital cameras first started coming on the market. I was using Japanese pro digital cameras about 5 years before Kodak ever released a digital camera.
Polaroid's problems have nothing to do with any failure to compete with digital cameras. Polaroid did have some of the first really high-rez digital cameras on the market, but it was too early in the market for such an expensive product.
Kodak has also blown billions on trying to adapt to new digital technology, and they haven't made much of a dent in the market either. Kodak just has deeper pockets.
The biggest problem here that I see is that Polaroid never recovered from Kodak's pirating their patents for instant film. Polaroid received a hefty payment of damages, and Kodak was required to stop making instant film and recall all their instant cameras. Kodak tried to put Polaroid out of business, and now, in retrospect, it looks like they succeeded (just a lot later than they expected).
You don't need to reject cookies to get caught in a loop, I accept cookies in Mac Netscape 4.78 and the ads just loop, although they do run OK in Mozilla.
I note with disgust that Excite has also begun using these ads on their portal. Soon people will be disabling Flash just like they disabled pop-ups. Macromedia should really have a word with these advertisers, they're going to kill Flash if they keep this up.
I've been struck by the comparison to SimCity as well, ever since I saw the original high-rez satellite photos at http://www.spaceimaging.com and loaded them up in Photoshop. As I was zooming in, I noticed the buildings were all showing that orthagonal 45 degree angle look, and as I zoomed in or out, the SimCity parallel really struck me.
I CE.html and these sort of remind me of SimTower.
The NYTimes has also done some interesting graphics, like http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/index_OFF
This has been a known problem for years amongst Mac emulator users. Virtual PC and other emus are suceptible to viruses just like on a native PC. I just run standard PC antivirus tools.
One of the advantages of using Mac PC emulation, I can just make a backup copy of my PC volume, save that state, if I have a Windows problem I just ditch the corrupted volume and use the backup.
Right, that is just what I said in the first place. Legal nonresidents (just to pick ONE affected group) are being denied due process, which is their Constitutional right.
You are incorrect. Constitutional rights are extended to all RESIDENTS of the US, not just citizens. Citizens do enjoy extra privileges, but ALL persons have the right to due process, equal protection, etc. If you don't believe me, go read the 14th Amendment:
Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Note that it says "nor shall any state deprive any PERSON.." not "any citizen." The language is deliberate, the sentence refers to citizens in the first part, and "people" in the second part. It explicitly refers to "all persons withing its jurisdiction" which means legal and illegal immigrants have rights too. This has been the basis of recent SCOTUS decisions, for example the INS was recently required to release some illegal immigrants who had been indefinitely detained while awaiting hearings for deportation.
This whole topic is moot. The US Constitution has now been suspended. In an egregious stretching of legal interpretation way beyond the breaking point, the US Government asserts it can detain legal immigrants indefinitely, without due process, Habeus Corpus, or a speedy trial. Nothing like this has happened since the Japanese internment camps in WWII. Here is the announcement:
r es ser/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/inv.ashcroft.p
Constitutional rights are guaranteed to all RESIDENTS of the USA, not just citizens. Equal protection under the Constitution is now just a memory. Bush has trampled on our most sacred political documents.
"He who would sacrifice a little bit of liberty for a little bit of safety deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin
This is all a byproduct of a new system called "environmental accounting." For years, corporations have been used to applying standard accounting techniques to manufacturing processes to maximize profits and process efficiency, but nobody ever thought of applying those accounting methods to environmental issues. The classic EA example is a company that uses mercury in manufacturing. The accountant measures the mercury the co. buys, and subtracts the amount that ends up in the product plus the amount reclaimed from waste. For example, they buy 20 tons a year, and 15 goes into the products, 3 are reclaimed from waste. 2 tons are unaccounted for and are presumed to go directly into the environment. To plug the mercury leak, you just go through the process and see where it's not accounted for.
This article just cites examples where the gov't has mandated environmental accounting and gives disincentives to inefficient processes. If only we could get people to use EA just because it's good for the environment!
As usual, MS takes credit for the work of others. I was particularly incensed by the article on fur textures. The algorithms for fur were first developed by Rhythm 'n Hues, an award-winning Hollywood effects shop (and an SGI shop). Their first applications of this algorithm should be familiar to all: the furry Coca-cola polar bear commercials.
But of course, giving credit to other pioneers means nothing to Microsoft. They steal the work of the people that make the REAL innovations, and proclaim it was their own invention.
Yep, ATG was amazing, I attended one lecture where they described their work in future computing trends. Back in the 80s, they were trying to see what you could do with the kinds of processors available today. The only way they could do that was to use their Cray as a single-user computer. In the day, they used it for chip design, at night the ATG came in and used it as a single user PC. And you know, their predictions about what kind of horsepower would be on our desktops was pretty accurate.
Alas, ATG was disbanded and the group folded into other development orgs at Apple.
Both Microsoft and Bungie have publicly promised a simultaneous release on Mac/PC/Xbox, on multiple occasions. Like for example:
http://www.imgmagazine.com/news/story.php?Artic
It is the Playstation 2 release that will lag.
It's already too late for the XBox. More delays in the Japan release will just mean fewer titles developed in Japan. The machine will flop in Japan, and if it flops in Japan, it will be a worldwide flop.
Now the REAL question is, since Bungie was bought out by M$, are they going to keep their promise and do a simultaneous Mac/PC/XBox release, or will M$ shaft everyone and force them to do an initial release on XBox only?