Filename extensions are a form of metadata, and I don't think it sets a good precedent to lie in the metadata for a file. It's bad enough that we have Windows hiding filename extensions from the user, and encouraging people to just double-click on a file to launch the associated app. This just seems like asking for more problems, as people try to double-click on mjthriller.png and it launches - and crashes - IE.
I don't know about the rest of the specs, but the stylus seems really, really unlikely. Apple is all about touch these days, and especially if this thing is running a variant of iPhoneOS rather than Mac OS X, it'll need multitouch input with fingers to work well. Plus, a stylus-using screen is just too TabletPC-like (i.e. Microsoft's big idea from 2001), and can you imagine Apple coming out with a device that will invite comparisons to the ModBook (i.e. someone else's design from 2007)? That would smack of playing "catch up" and introducing a "me too" product. Does that sound like Apple?
That's exactly what happened with my boyfriend. He'd had an aneurysm bleed followed by surgery and an ischemic stroke (from his circulatory system overreacting to the bleed). In the days immediately afterword, he couldn't produce single words, even simple nouns or his own name. But when they pulled out his nasogastric tube, he let out a string of anglo saxon that briefly brought a smile to my face. Definitely not a standard linguistic function. Incidentally, over the following week as his ability to speak returned, but he still couldn't put together a sentence to save his life, he could sing along with familiar songs just fine (music being a function of the right side of the brain, not the left side that had suffered most of the trauma).
Their OEM strategy for Android is for the smartphone market. By "OK so far" I mean that multiple OEMs have committed to using it, products are starting to appear, and it's developing both buzz and sales. Note that I didn't say "already a huge success!" or something of that sort; I said exactly what I meant and I meant exactly what I said. The fact that it hasn't been released on a netbook (yet) - as you apparently were hoping/expecting - says nothing about the actual strategy they're pursuing.
"There's only so many digits; people think every number has one person....it doesn't work that way."
Um, yes, it does. To be more precise, there are nine digits, which allows them to specify one billion different people without assigning two of them the same number. The population of the U.S. is less than a third of that, with dead people whose SSNs are used up we're still at less than half. Granted, in a few generations there will be allocation problems with the current algorithm, and they'll have to start reallocating numbers, then assigning the remaining ones randomly, and eventually we'll have a big "SSN1G" crisis when we switch to 10-digit SSNs. But for now, it really and truly is 1 SSN to 1 person.
SSNs started being used because A) "every one has one", B) they can't be changed, C) they're unique nation-wide, and D) they're all the same format nation-wide. If driver licences, phone numbers, checking accounts, or some other ID had met those criteria, we'd be using that instead.
No, it's not necessarily "survival of the breediest". The breediest does not survive in the long term if that population growth alters its habitat beyond its ability to adapt. Examples of this can be found at the cellular level (e.g. cancer cells breeding out of control may kill the organism, including the cancer) and at the cellular-phone-using level (e.g. H. Sapiens breeding out of control crowds out too much CO2-eating vegetation adds too much CO2 into the air, causing the greenhouse effect and its own eventual extinction).
Yeah, but if they tried to use the title without the blessing of Atari, the game company would raise a stink in the media, and the studio would lose whatever goodwill benefits might otherwise come from using that title. Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea to do it. Still... I hope the studio got a bag of chips thrown in with the trademark rights.
Once upon a time, a game could be just A Game. It didn't need a story or characters, just an entertaining activity. Like checkers or poker or tag. That was Asteroids, another classic.
What baffles me is that anybody paid money for the rights.... to what, exactly? There's no plot, no characters. Just a premise (aka "idea", which cannot be copyrighted), and a trademark: "Asteroids". All they're getting for their money is pile of middle-aged goodwill/nostalgia attached to the name.
The good news is that this movie has the potential to be far better than the new Mighty Transformin' Power Rangers film TFA is making fun of, because there's so much room to add a story. The bad news is that they probably won't, or the one they add will suck.
You know what's even worse? There are people getting paid to perform music, write screenplays, assemble television sets, sell insurance, and mix up alcoholic beverages for people. Have they run out of diseases to investigate, plagues to cure?
However, the press statement also states that the deal will only go through 'if GGF and its Board of Directors can use the asset in a legal and appropriate way.'
[EmilyLitella]Oh. Sorry. Never mind.[/EmilyLitella]
My theory is that the Decepticons are responsible.
(Sorry, but my brain is still recovering from the 2.5-hour Mighty Transformin' Power Rangers movie I sat through as a favor for my friend who wanted to see it. The dramatic parts made me laugh, the action scenes nearly put me sleep, and the comedy bits made me wish my phone would ring.)
Try substituting "humans" for "cows" in your comment and "petrol exhaust" for "methane" and see if it makes any sense. (Hint: it doesn't.) Animals are not simply interchangeable, and the global mammal population is not a zero-growth, zero-sum phenomenon. Humans are cultivating additional animals to feed on at rate comparable to their own exponential growth.
They seem to be hung up on sports. WTF? Are there really a lot of IT folks who give a damn about that nonsense? To the point that it affects where they'd want to live?!
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Filename extensions are a form of metadata, and I don't think it sets a good precedent to lie in the metadata for a file. It's bad enough that we have Windows hiding filename extensions from the user, and encouraging people to just double-click on a file to launch the associated app. This just seems like asking for more problems, as people try to double-click on mjthriller.png and it launches - and crashes - IE.
I don't know about the rest of the specs, but the stylus seems really, really unlikely. Apple is all about touch these days, and especially if this thing is running a variant of iPhoneOS rather than Mac OS X, it'll need multitouch input with fingers to work well. Plus, a stylus-using screen is just too TabletPC-like (i.e. Microsoft's big idea from 2001), and can you imagine Apple coming out with a device that will invite comparisons to the ModBook (i.e. someone else's design from 2007)? That would smack of playing "catch up" and introducing a "me too" product. Does that sound like Apple?
That's exactly what happened with my boyfriend. He'd had an aneurysm bleed followed by surgery and an ischemic stroke (from his circulatory system overreacting to the bleed). In the days immediately afterword, he couldn't produce single words, even simple nouns or his own name. But when they pulled out his nasogastric tube, he let out a string of anglo saxon that briefly brought a smile to my face. Definitely not a standard linguistic function. Incidentally, over the following week as his ability to speak returned, but he still couldn't put together a sentence to save his life, he could sing along with familiar songs just fine (music being a function of the right side of the brain, not the left side that had suffered most of the trauma).
Their OEM strategy for Android is for the smartphone market. By "OK so far" I mean that multiple OEMs have committed to using it, products are starting to appear, and it's developing both buzz and sales. Note that I didn't say "already a huge success!" or something of that sort; I said exactly what I meant and I meant exactly what I said. The fact that it hasn't been released on a netbook (yet) - as you apparently were hoping/expecting - says nothing about the actual strategy they're pursuing.
And for my next trick, I will produce human blood outside of a laboratory. Could I have a volunteer from the audience to assist me?
They're offering it to OEMs (specifically notebook OEMs). It's the same strategy they're using with Android, which seems to be working OK so far.
"There's only so many digits; people think every number has one person....it doesn't work that way."
Um, yes, it does. To be more precise, there are nine digits, which allows them to specify one billion different people without assigning two of them the same number. The population of the U.S. is less than a third of that, with dead people whose SSNs are used up we're still at less than half. Granted, in a few generations there will be allocation problems with the current algorithm, and they'll have to start reallocating numbers, then assigning the remaining ones randomly, and eventually we'll have a big "SSN1G" crisis when we switch to 10-digit SSNs. But for now, it really and truly is 1 SSN to 1 person.
SSNs started being used because A) "every one has one", B) they can't be changed, C) they're unique nation-wide, and D) they're all the same format nation-wide. If driver licences, phone numbers, checking accounts, or some other ID had met those criteria, we'd be using that instead.
If Andreessen's looking for the next Netscape to give money to, I'll save him some trouble and email him my home address.
No, it's not necessarily "survival of the breediest". The breediest does not survive in the long term if that population growth alters its habitat beyond its ability to adapt. Examples of this can be found at the cellular level (e.g. cancer cells breeding out of control may kill the organism, including the cancer) and at the cellular-phone-using level (e.g. H. Sapiens breeding out of control crowds out too much CO2-eating vegetation adds too much CO2 into the air, causing the greenhouse effect and its own eventual extinction).
Yeah, but if they tried to use the title without the blessing of Atari, the game company would raise a stink in the media, and the studio would lose whatever goodwill benefits might otherwise come from using that title. Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea to do it. Still... I hope the studio got a bag of chips thrown in with the trademark rights.
Once upon a time, a game could be just A Game. It didn't need a story or characters, just an entertaining activity. Like checkers or poker or tag. That was Asteroids, another classic.
What baffles me is that anybody paid money for the rights.... to what, exactly? There's no plot, no characters. Just a premise (aka "idea", which cannot be copyrighted), and a trademark: "Asteroids". All they're getting for their money is pile of middle-aged goodwill/nostalgia attached to the name.
The good news is that this movie has the potential to be far better than the new Mighty Transformin' Power Rangers film TFA is making fun of, because there's so much room to add a story. The bad news is that they probably won't, or the one they add will suck.
You know what's even worse? There are people getting paid to perform music, write screenplays, assemble television sets, sell insurance, and mix up alcoholic beverages for people. Have they run out of diseases to investigate, plagues to cure?
J. M. Barrie (creator of Peter Pan) wrote of Never Land that the place was very compact, so that adventures would never be far between.
I always found games that actually took full advantage of having a whole keyboard were the most satisfying.
[EmilyLitella]Oh. Sorry. Never mind.[/EmilyLitella]
Ha! With good ol' human ingenuity, I'm sure we can hit bottom a lot faster than that!
She did, of course. Kind of like Chas Bono has decided he's not. Welcome to the 21st century. :)
As a matter of fact, he does.
I can't account for the other adults in the theater.
My theory is that the Decepticons are responsible.
(Sorry, but my brain is still recovering from the 2.5-hour Mighty Transformin' Power Rangers movie I sat through as a favor for my friend who wanted to see it. The dramatic parts made me laugh, the action scenes nearly put me sleep, and the comedy bits made me wish my phone would ring.)
I keep expecting Clarence "Uncle" Thomas to pull off the rubber mask and reveal that he's really Joe Stalin.
"Now, who to inherit the Earth once Homo sapien has been removed?" The meek, of course. It's in the Bible.
Try substituting "humans" for "cows" in your comment and "petrol exhaust" for "methane" and see if it makes any sense. (Hint: it doesn't.) Animals are not simply interchangeable, and the global mammal population is not a zero-growth, zero-sum phenomenon. Humans are cultivating additional animals to feed on at rate comparable to their own exponential growth.
Or we could raise and eat fewer cows.
They seem to be hung up on sports. WTF? Are there really a lot of IT folks who give a damn about that nonsense? To the point that it affects where they'd want to live?!