I agree, In fact, it's less of a soiler and more of a "but I thought he was dead?!?" lure. It doesn't say, where, when or even why he came back. It just shows enough to intrigue. And considering how large a role Gandalf plays in the plot, it would be bloody hard to hide the fact that he comes back.
I think the movie trailer does an excellent job in generating interest in the movie. The second of three parts is the hardest to sell, but New Line has managed to ratchet up the LotR fever at just the right pace.
You're too fixated on the short-term aspect. Consider the following:
1. Industrial nations enact a unified legal recourse against spam. Spammers move offshore to avoid lawsuits/damages.
2. Most spam filters now automatically kill the worst offending nations. The legitimate businesses located there pressure their governments to restrict spamming, since they are also getting blackballed by the filters.
3. In the end, only countries such as North Korea and Iran sponsor settlement of spam servers on their territory. Why? They hope it will annoy the rich nations, and that the spammers will invest in improving their telecom systems.
Another possibility is that ISP's start charging the e-mail senders a micropayment per message based on a per-recipient and per-size formula. Normal mail service would still cost the same (or even go down in connection price), but bulk e-mail sendings would skyrocket in price. I don't expect this to happen, though.
Well, the point is that one is a gamble that might pay off, but could just as well be a huge disappointment. The other is slightly bland, but at least you know beforehand what it's going to be like.
I'd have to agree about Babylon 5, especially considering the question. If you really think about it, the best fantastic universe is one that doesn't break its own rules. It's one that allows fow a wide breadth of stories. It's one that doesn't fall apart if a different writer takes over.
Babylon 5 (and to a lesser degree, Farscape) are the best examples of this. They are engaging universes that are fun to explore, and are rugged enough to withstand different writing styles. They invite the audience to explore other parts of the universe in their imagination.
Actually, my favourite fantastic universe is the "Third Imperium" setting from the roleplaying game Traveller. It starts with the definition, and the rich backstory has more than enough hooks to encourage storytelling on a grand scale. In fact, that's the whole purpose of most RPG worlds; to encourage the readers/players to create their own stories.
William Gibson's settings are interesting for an entirely different reason: he describes the world as the protagonists see it, and leaves the rest as much a blur as he can. His prose deftly tricks the reader into filling in the blanks. That's why cyberpunks bloomed and died back down again so quickly; too many people thinking they knew the world he was describing, and realising he wasn't really describing a world.
As a negative example, I feel Star Trek needs to be held up as an example. Too many inconsistancies, too many cases of the story distorting the setting. The Star Trek universe now is so full of paradoxes, hand-waves and kludges that it requires massive effort to imagine what it really is like. At one time, it was interesting enough a setting to allow for these paradoxes, but not any more. It's worn out.
There are plenty of mediocre settings that are held together by a great writer. Some, like Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series, are magnificent but too closely tied to the author. And then there are some that are locked into the story, and rather boring outside the scope of the protagonists. The best are the settings that can live without the story, that have a colour and texture all their own.
If I read the article and the warning correctly, it's a "pay up or meet me in court" letter. Well, maybe those hit with that letter ought to call their bluff. Let's see if the Group is willing to go after these people!
In a normal world, I wouldn't give them much of a chance, simply because it's nigh impossible to prove that the label truthfully describes the contents. Or that the "return address" wasn't spoofed by someone else. Not only that, but if this was a "sting", i.e. posting the data themselves, then they would be the guilty party for offering the works in the first place.
At least, that's one theory that's been tossed around. Apparantly there was a Sura (I'm not sure which one) about "Splitting the Moon" or some such End Times omen. Thus, a lot of conservative Muslims want dearly to prove the the moon landings never happened.
There was a clever French/German parody of lunar deniers recently, which "claimed" that Stanley Kubrik engineered the fake scenes, and that Nixon had the conspirators (camera crew and actors) liquidated. The nasty part was that the show kept its facade going until after the final credits rolled, then finally admitting that they had quoted out of context and did a lot of Photoshopping.
At the end of the show, the narrator then claimed that Al Qaeda was actively claiming that the Apollo mission was a "Zionist lie".
Still believe that all lunar deniers are harmless? But please, find out for yourself if I'm right or not; don't just take my word for it...
I think these pictures ought to be taken, but not for the sake of the naysaysers. The main reasons being that such pictures would be an excellent showcase of the telescope's resolution capabilities, and that we could see how the base camps have survived the past thirty years.
Not to mention that the pictures would be extremely cool to see. To Heck with the doubters; *I* wanna see those photos!
Re:XP Free? Not.. Office on Linux? Maybe.
on
Microsoft's New Hurdles
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· Score: 3, Interesting
You forget that one of the main purposes of Windows is to let MS apps have a hidden advantage over any and all competitors. It's to give you the illusion that Microsoft is all you'll ever need.
Let's say Microsoft makes a KDE port of Microsoft Office; now they're at the mercy of the KDE development roadmap. Or they make their own Linux GUI, but with MS-proprietary widgets to prevent other apps from fully using it; now they have to fight for mindshare in an entrenched battlefield.
No, it is unreasonable to hope for Microsoft to migrate to a platform they don't control. The Mac ports survive due to special reasons, mainly the hardware factor. Porting to a Linux GUI would cost them a big chunk of control they have now.
You misunderstand the PURPOSE of VirtualPC. It's good for slowly weaning you off of your Microsoft addiction, and getting you addicted to MacOS X applications instead.
The other purpose is to run those niggling little programs that the Accounting and IT trolls insist on installing. Let them plop into the VPC pseudocomputer, and leave them inactivated.
Virtual PC is a boon to Mac heads stuck with clueless, yet gullible IT departments like mine.
I think it's Mike Dell's deep-burning desire to imitate Steve Jobs' every move. The Dell PDA was first supposed to be an MP3 player/geek toy, but it was cheaper to just relabel a PDA instead. I'll bet that His Jobsness even leaked rumors of a Newton revival just to make Dell jump the gun.
And think about it: isn't that the REAL reason Dell's version of Ellen Feiss is called Steve? (Yes, I know the Dell Dude predates Ellen, but's a joke. Relax.)
It's entirely possible that some Microsoft wonks think that way, but in reality it would be leaving the market open to Sony and Nintemdo, and only hurt them in the long run.
What surprises me is that this is a totally different approach compared to how Microsoft leveraged itself into the OS and Office dominance it has now. Back then, their strategy was to lock customers in by letting them get the software by grey or even illegal means, and locking them in once they had a critical mass of users.
I guess the current policy wonks can only think in terms of monopoly leveraging. I hope Australia calls their bluff.
Well, for the current argument it's irrelevant. The main thing is that they'll be using software that didn't come from Microsoft. They're big enough a market to scare Ballmer whether they remain in the "Linux community" or not.
I don't think anybody assumes China is adopting Linux for altruistic purposes. Nor does anybody expect serious code contributions from the Chinese government. But they're big enough a target to keep Microsoft occupied, as well as to encourage Linux adoption outside of China.
Are you talking about Oni? The game was completed and published while Bungie was still in Chicago, and relatively independant. It even lost a bit of the Bungie touch when they removed persistant gore and bloodstains from Oni. If you mean Halo, then you've been hearing more acclaims than I have. The engaging storyline is still there, but the game suffers from the fact that it was meant to be played with a full keyboard.
Bungie is no longer the company it once was. It let wonderful properties like Myth go to smaller developers, and its current developments are, well, rare. All I ever saw was vague mention of a game with pirates and 70's style pimps roaming the Caribbean. Not exactly in the same vein as Marathon or Myth, is it?
To be honest, though, I think Bungie was sliding before Microsoft took over, and the previous owners grabbed the golden parachute as soon as they saw it. Now Microsoft gets slammed for "ruining Bungie" by virtue of timing.
Look, I know you're trying to be funny here, but in Chess the violence is being done by the pieces. You're expected to be the calm, calculating general. All the violence is delegated to the abstracts on the board.
The thing about violence and violent games is that YOU can ACT. You release energy in bursts. You don't just clench your hands in frustration as your opponent takes his own sweet time, you physically attack the problem.
In your analogy, you are making two big differences.
1. You are not only deleting, but also adding work (the other mascot). CleanFlicks, AFAIK, only removed scenes the customer wanted removed from a purchased film.
2. Microsoft (in your mental exercise) is paying for each copy, and then selling the crippled version. Either they are selling for more, or taking a hit with every purchase. In neither case can they argue that they are altering the game AFTER the customer has purchased it.
Now granted, CleanFlicks must be exercising some artistic judgement here, as I don't think that every customer is in the splicing room with their technicians, going "cut here, and here, but leave this starting here." If that were the case, this would be open-and-shut. As it is, the question remains if the changes to to the purchased product are merely according to customer's wishes or creating a new "artwork".
No, you're talking about adding stuff. I'm talking about stripping out stuff.
The point is, the media content (IP) has been paid for. The service privided is that unwanted portions of said content are stripped out, saving the end-user the hassle of erasing/splicing the content on his/her own.
Unfortunately, a lot of artists believe their work is sacred and rail against any editing by us "unwashed masses". Imagine how pissed Harlan Ellison would get if you bought a book of his, had the stories you didn't like removed and the book rebound. Harlan is the sort of author that would sue you and the bookbinder for destroying his artistic work...
Let's say a company spliced books for their customers with all of the unwanted pages ripped out? How would you feel?
How about a library that carried Playboy bacause they felt the articles were worthwhile, but removed the racy photos?
I'm not asking about taste, but the act itself. Is what this company is doing any different than taking a felt-tip to your own copy of a book/magazine?
IMNSHO, the company isn't any differnt. They aren't selling copyrighted works as their art, but performing a service on privately owned media containing that art.
I agree. This can turn out to be a "what have I done?" sort of realisation. With a broken, dispirited Yoda fleeing to Degobah and the High Council doing penance for his sin (getting slaughtered covering his escape).
I always felt that the hate that fuels the most powerful of the Dark Side is self-loathing. Vader hating himself for what he has become, and what he must do to maintain order. Palpatine could be driven by a hated of all that opposed his dream of a unified government, of all of those bickering fools. And probably a good deal of self-loathing for realising what price he paid for power.
Yoda's lesson at the end of Episode 3 could be that in denying all emotion, the Jedi imbalanced their souls. That with their concentration on the science of the Force, they forgot that it was a mystic power above science and "midichlorians". The Balance that Anakin/Vader brings is the balance between rational logic and passion. A spiritual illumination (rathar than a metaphysical balancing) that almost comes too late.
I lestened to the radio series back before there was a novelisation of a TV version. It was groundbreaking in that it actually used the medium to its limits.
DNA's plots were often a case of him figuratively painting the story into a corner, an pulling a solution out at the last second. I highly recommend the radio scripts for more juicy tidbits.
Here's hoping that H2G2: The Motion Picture is truthful to the original vision. Hells, if they can get Stephen Moore to speak the part of Marvin, I would be one swotting happy frood.
You misunderstand the cause for celebration. It's the fact that C# will no longer be required. AFAIK, it will still be available as an option.
You're right about Java, though. I think there ought to be an either/or option. Those students that want Java can take Java. Those that want C# can take C#. Those that want the third approved language choice can take the third choice.
The thing here is choice. Microsoft was trying to tilt the scales with their money, and the school backed off as soon as they saw the effects this would have had. It's true that you can't keep politics out of school curriculum. The best you can hope for is to stem the tide.
I took it as a serious lesson. Before, I had "kept the talking/driving to a minimum." Now I won't EVER talk while I drive. Do cell phones make people stupid? No, but it's most certainly a distraction, "hands-free" or not, and those little details that slip one's preoccupied mind are often the most important ones.
There are instances when I'm driving when I'll use the phone for directions. When I'm going to meet somebody, I invariably flub the written directions, and will call the person I'm visiting so that they can guide me based on the landmarks/street names. Otherwise, I receive calls with "I'm driving, make it quick" and only half an ear.
And yes, I use one of those bodyguard-type sets on my phone. I even use it as a pedestrian. It's not to be cool, but I find it a lot easier than holding the darn thing to my ear all the time.
In addition to the vision impaired and ungodly resolution points already mentioned, it's good for Hollywood-style interfaces. Means you'll see more Mac OS X in TV shows and movies. Or games with funky cursors.
True Type font files with the extension '.ttf' are now recognized in Mac OS X. (r. 2823850).
Funny--I never thought they were needed. Fonts have always looked better on Macs...nothing wrong with support I suppose.
Mac and PC TrueType fonts were always close enough that you could convert between one or the other. Apple has just made the conversion step unnecessary.
Re-read the article. Bill was screwing Atari over anyways. He didn't hold his deadlines because he was working on MS-DOS for IBM at the same time. The only thing Atari did was save a little money. (On the other hand, though, it is typical of Microsofts business strategy: futz on a project for somebody else and secretly work for their competitors.
I have a feeling that Bill wasn't planning on delivering the goods. You need to remember that he's less of a programmer than a crack Monopoly player. He knows how to sweet-talk the others into giving him Boardwalk and Park Place for free.
Despite all of the nice tones coming from Emagic, I can't help but feel that this is Apple's version of Embrace and Extend. Even if they are open as all get-out, it's still locked to one platform.
Apple has been working hard recently to control the creative business. It's almost as if they've cribbed a page from Microsoft's playbook, only they swapped the phrase "lower price than the competitor" with "better quality than the competitor".
It would be interesing to see how Audio Units differs from VST at the code level. Is it an extension, loosely based or totally different (requiring a translator)? If it's just VST on steroids, then *maybe* we can relax.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, In fact, it's less of a soiler and more of a "but I thought he was dead?!?" lure. It doesn't say, where, when or even why he came back. It just shows enough to intrigue. And considering how large a role Gandalf plays in the plot, it would be bloody hard to hide the fact that he comes back.
I think the movie trailer does an excellent job in generating interest in the movie. The second of three parts is the hardest to sell, but New Line has managed to ratchet up the LotR fever at just the right pace.
You're too fixated on the short-term aspect. Consider the following:
1. Industrial nations enact a unified legal recourse against spam. Spammers move offshore to avoid lawsuits/damages.
2. Most spam filters now automatically kill the worst offending nations. The legitimate businesses located there pressure their governments to restrict spamming, since they are also getting blackballed by the filters.
3. In the end, only countries such as North Korea and Iran sponsor settlement of spam servers on their territory. Why? They hope it will annoy the rich nations, and that the spammers will invest in improving their telecom systems.
Another possibility is that ISP's start charging the e-mail senders a micropayment per message based on a per-recipient and per-size formula. Normal mail service would still cost the same (or even go down in connection price), but bulk e-mail sendings would skyrocket in price. I don't expect this to happen, though.
Well, the point is that one is a gamble that might pay off, but could just as well be a huge disappointment. The other is slightly bland, but at least you know beforehand what it's going to be like.
Bond = McDonald's
Solaris = pricey ethnic restaurant you've never tried
Yeah, it's easy to see which one works for you.
I'd have to agree about Babylon 5, especially considering the question. If you really think about it, the best fantastic universe is one that doesn't break its own rules. It's one that allows fow a wide breadth of stories. It's one that doesn't fall apart if a different writer takes over.
Babylon 5 (and to a lesser degree, Farscape) are the best examples of this. They are engaging universes that are fun to explore, and are rugged enough to withstand different writing styles. They invite the audience to explore other parts of the universe in their imagination.
Actually, my favourite fantastic universe is the "Third Imperium" setting from the roleplaying game Traveller. It starts with the definition, and the rich backstory has more than enough hooks to encourage storytelling on a grand scale. In fact, that's the whole purpose of most RPG worlds; to encourage the readers/players to create their own stories.
William Gibson's settings are interesting for an entirely different reason: he describes the world as the protagonists see it, and leaves the rest as much a blur as he can. His prose deftly tricks the reader into filling in the blanks. That's why cyberpunks bloomed and died back down again so quickly; too many people thinking they knew the world he was describing, and realising he wasn't really describing a world.
As a negative example, I feel Star Trek needs to be held up as an example. Too many inconsistancies, too many cases of the story distorting the setting. The Star Trek universe now is so full of paradoxes, hand-waves and kludges that it requires massive effort to imagine what it really is like. At one time, it was interesting enough a setting to allow for these paradoxes, but not any more. It's worn out.
There are plenty of mediocre settings that are held together by a great writer. Some, like Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series, are magnificent but too closely tied to the author. And then there are some that are locked into the story, and rather boring outside the scope of the protagonists. The best are the settings that can live without the story, that have a colour and texture all their own.
If I read the article and the warning correctly, it's a "pay up or meet me in court" letter. Well, maybe those hit with that letter ought to call their bluff. Let's see if the Group is willing to go after these people!
In a normal world, I wouldn't give them much of a chance, simply because it's nigh impossible to prove that the label truthfully describes the contents. Or that the "return address" wasn't spoofed by someone else. Not only that, but if this was a "sting", i.e. posting the data themselves, then they would be the guilty party for offering the works in the first place.
At least, that's one theory that's been tossed around. Apparantly there was a Sura (I'm not sure which one) about "Splitting the Moon" or some such End Times omen. Thus, a lot of conservative Muslims want dearly to prove the the moon landings never happened.
There was a clever French/German parody of lunar deniers recently, which "claimed" that Stanley Kubrik engineered the fake scenes, and that Nixon had the conspirators (camera crew and actors) liquidated. The nasty part was that the show kept its facade going until after the final credits rolled, then finally admitting that they had quoted out of context and did a lot of Photoshopping.
At the end of the show, the narrator then claimed that Al Qaeda was actively claiming that the Apollo mission was a "Zionist lie".
Still believe that all lunar deniers are harmless? But please, find out for yourself if I'm right or not; don't just take my word for it...
I think these pictures ought to be taken, but not for the sake of the naysaysers. The main reasons being that such pictures would be an excellent showcase of the telescope's resolution capabilities, and that we could see how the base camps have survived the past thirty years.
Not to mention that the pictures would be extremely cool to see. To Heck with the doubters; *I* wanna see those photos!
You forget that one of the main purposes of Windows is to let MS apps have a hidden advantage over any and all competitors. It's to give you the illusion that Microsoft is all you'll ever need.
Let's say Microsoft makes a KDE port of Microsoft Office; now they're at the mercy of the KDE development roadmap. Or they make their own Linux GUI, but with MS-proprietary widgets to prevent other apps from fully using it; now they have to fight for mindshare in an entrenched battlefield.
No, it is unreasonable to hope for Microsoft to migrate to a platform they don't control. The Mac ports survive due to special reasons, mainly the hardware factor. Porting to a Linux GUI would cost them a big chunk of control they have now.
You misunderstand the PURPOSE of VirtualPC. It's good for slowly weaning you off of your Microsoft addiction, and getting you addicted to MacOS X applications instead.
The other purpose is to run those niggling little programs that the Accounting and IT trolls insist on installing. Let them plop into the VPC pseudocomputer, and leave them inactivated.
Virtual PC is a boon to Mac heads stuck with clueless, yet gullible IT departments like mine.
I think it's Mike Dell's deep-burning desire to imitate Steve Jobs' every move. The Dell PDA was first supposed to be an MP3 player/geek toy, but it was cheaper to just relabel a PDA instead. I'll bet that His Jobsness even leaked rumors of a Newton revival just to make Dell jump the gun.
And think about it: isn't that the REAL reason Dell's version of Ellen Feiss is called Steve? (Yes, I know the Dell Dude predates Ellen, but's a joke. Relax.)
It's entirely possible that some Microsoft wonks think that way, but in reality it would be leaving the market open to Sony and Nintemdo, and only hurt them in the long run.
What surprises me is that this is a totally different approach compared to how Microsoft leveraged itself into the OS and Office dominance it has now. Back then, their strategy was to lock customers in by letting them get the software by grey or even illegal means, and locking them in once they had a critical mass of users.
I guess the current policy wonks can only think in terms of monopoly leveraging. I hope Australia calls their bluff.
Well, for the current argument it's irrelevant. The main thing is that they'll be using software that didn't come from Microsoft. They're big enough a market to scare Ballmer whether they remain in the "Linux community" or not.
I don't think anybody assumes China is adopting Linux for altruistic purposes. Nor does anybody expect serious code contributions from the Chinese government. But they're big enough a target to keep Microsoft occupied, as well as to encourage Linux adoption outside of China.
Are you talking about Oni? The game was completed and published while Bungie was still in Chicago, and relatively independant. It even lost a bit of the Bungie touch when they removed persistant gore and bloodstains from Oni. If you mean Halo, then you've been hearing more acclaims than I have. The engaging storyline is still there, but the game suffers from the fact that it was meant to be played with a full keyboard.
Bungie is no longer the company it once was. It let wonderful properties like Myth go to smaller developers, and its current developments are, well, rare. All I ever saw was vague mention of a game with pirates and 70's style pimps roaming the Caribbean. Not exactly in the same vein as Marathon or Myth, is it?
To be honest, though, I think Bungie was sliding before Microsoft took over, and the previous owners grabbed the golden parachute as soon as they saw it. Now Microsoft gets slammed for "ruining Bungie" by virtue of timing.
Look, I know you're trying to be funny here, but in Chess the violence is being done by the pieces. You're expected to be the calm, calculating general. All the violence is delegated to the abstracts on the board.
The thing about violence and violent games is that YOU can ACT. You release energy in bursts. You don't just clench your hands in frustration as your opponent takes his own sweet time, you physically attack the problem.
In your analogy, you are making two big differences.
1. You are not only deleting, but also adding work (the other mascot). CleanFlicks, AFAIK, only removed scenes the customer wanted removed from a purchased film.
2. Microsoft (in your mental exercise) is paying for each copy, and then selling the crippled version. Either they are selling for more, or taking a hit with every purchase. In neither case can they argue that they are altering the game AFTER the customer has purchased it.
Now granted, CleanFlicks must be exercising some artistic judgement here, as I don't think that every customer is in the splicing room with their technicians, going "cut here, and here, but leave this starting here." If that were the case, this would be open-and-shut. As it is, the question remains if the changes to to the purchased product are merely according to customer's wishes or creating a new "artwork".
No, you're talking about adding stuff. I'm talking about stripping out stuff.
The point is, the media content (IP) has been paid for. The service privided is that unwanted portions of said content are stripped out, saving the end-user the hassle of erasing/splicing the content on his/her own.
Unfortunately, a lot of artists believe their work is sacred and rail against any editing by us "unwashed masses". Imagine how pissed Harlan Ellison would get if you bought a book of his, had the stories you didn't like removed and the book rebound. Harlan is the sort of author that would sue you and the bookbinder for destroying his artistic work...
Let's say a company spliced books for their customers with all of the unwanted pages ripped out? How would you feel?
How about a library that carried Playboy bacause they felt the articles were worthwhile, but removed the racy photos?
I'm not asking about taste, but the act itself. Is what this company is doing any different than taking a felt-tip to your own copy of a book/magazine?
IMNSHO, the company isn't any differnt. They aren't selling copyrighted works as their art, but performing a service on privately owned media containing that art.
I agree. This can turn out to be a "what have I done?" sort of realisation. With a broken, dispirited Yoda fleeing to Degobah and the High Council doing penance for his sin (getting slaughtered covering his escape).
I always felt that the hate that fuels the most powerful of the Dark Side is self-loathing. Vader hating himself for what he has become, and what he must do to maintain order. Palpatine could be driven by a hated of all that opposed his dream of a unified government, of all of those bickering fools. And probably a good deal of self-loathing for realising what price he paid for power.
Yoda's lesson at the end of Episode 3 could be that in denying all emotion, the Jedi imbalanced their souls. That with their concentration on the science of the Force, they forgot that it was a mystic power above science and "midichlorians". The Balance that Anakin/Vader brings is the balance between rational logic and passion. A spiritual illumination (rathar than a metaphysical balancing) that almost comes too late.
I lestened to the radio series back before there was a novelisation of a TV version. It was groundbreaking in that it actually used the medium to its limits.
DNA's plots were often a case of him figuratively painting the story into a corner, an pulling a solution out at the last second. I highly recommend the radio scripts for more juicy tidbits.
Here's hoping that H2G2: The Motion Picture is truthful to the original vision. Hells, if they can get Stephen Moore to speak the part of Marvin, I would be one swotting happy frood.
You misunderstand the cause for celebration. It's the fact that C# will no longer be required. AFAIK, it will still be available as an option.
You're right about Java, though. I think there ought to be an either/or option. Those students that want Java can take Java. Those that want C# can take C#. Those that want the third approved language choice can take the third choice.
The thing here is choice. Microsoft was trying to tilt the scales with their money, and the school backed off as soon as they saw the effects this would have had. It's true that you can't keep politics out of school curriculum. The best you can hope for is to stem the tide.
I took it as a serious lesson. Before, I had "kept the talking/driving to a minimum." Now I won't EVER talk while I drive. Do cell phones make people stupid? No, but it's most certainly a distraction, "hands-free" or not, and those little details that slip one's preoccupied mind are often the most important ones.
There are instances when I'm driving when I'll use the phone for directions. When I'm going to meet somebody, I invariably flub the written directions, and will call the person I'm visiting so that they can guide me based on the landmarks/street names. Otherwise, I receive calls with "I'm driving, make it quick" and only half an ear.
And yes, I use one of those bodyguard-type sets on my phone. I even use it as a pedestrian. It's not to be cool, but I find it a lot easier than holding the darn thing to my ear all the time.
Are cursors that big really that necessary?
In addition to the vision impaired and ungodly resolution points already mentioned, it's good for Hollywood-style interfaces. Means you'll see more Mac OS X in TV shows and movies. Or games with funky cursors.
True Type font files with the extension '.ttf' are now recognized in Mac OS X. (r. 2823850).
Funny--I never thought they were needed. Fonts have always looked better on Macs...nothing wrong with support I suppose.
Mac and PC TrueType fonts were always close enough that you could convert between one or the other. Apple has just made the conversion step unnecessary.
Re-read the article. Bill was screwing Atari over anyways. He didn't hold his deadlines because he was working on MS-DOS for IBM at the same time. The only thing Atari did was save a little money. (On the other hand, though, it is typical of Microsofts business strategy: futz on a project for somebody else and secretly work for their competitors.
I have a feeling that Bill wasn't planning on delivering the goods. You need to remember that he's less of a programmer than a crack Monopoly player. He knows how to sweet-talk the others into giving him Boardwalk and Park Place for free.
Despite all of the nice tones coming from Emagic, I can't help but feel that this is Apple's version of Embrace and Extend. Even if they are open as all get-out, it's still locked to one platform.
Apple has been working hard recently to control the creative business. It's almost as if they've cribbed a page from Microsoft's playbook, only they swapped the phrase "lower price than the competitor" with "better quality than the competitor".
It would be interesing to see how Audio Units differs from VST at the code level. Is it an extension, loosely based or totally different (requiring a translator)? If it's just VST on steroids, then *maybe* we can relax.