i agree with you in terms of sites that are fully contained within a single flash movie. however having flash ELEMENTS on a site is quite a different matter and is quite acceptable where used effectively.
the first thing i thought when i watched the trailer a few months back was "this IS half-life". not even the monsters but how about the story line. if you remember half-life, it started off with you as a scientiest travelling on this mono-rail-like thing into the secret underground base and then the experiment went horribly wrong etc... so not just the monsters - the entire story line!
Re:I Will Be Out Like a Shot to Buy This One
on
DOOM III This Summer
·
· Score: 1
multiplayer was the reason that quake 1 kept going for years and years after its release.
when you get there, find another time machine and go another 100 years into the future - that way you can bring back a machine that will run Doom III on Longhorn!;)
i would say you are wrong, i've watched regular users (my g/f, my family, non-technical co-workers...) google and they hardly ever use inverted commas or any other such "advanced" searching techniques.
i felt in the old days it was much more neccessary to use such operators, but i very seldom find myself using them today; i'll just search for all the terms and normally i get what i want; if the 1st result page is not good enough for me, then will i start to play around with narrowing the search down by using this sort of stuff.
a) TurboTax can be run in a web browser b) By your (lack of) reasoning, as there is not Mac version of TurboTax, Apple is also not ready for this either. c) If she was asking you in the first place for it and you knew it wasn't available on Linux, you would use your (clearly brilliant) powers of deduction and subsequently find her a Linux-based tax package
um, no that is silly and obnoxious assumption. i'm one of those mid-way geeks that appreciates both the technical and marketing aspects of software (and hardware) products. my point is that, in the world we live in today, people ARE influenced by marketing, brand, appearance and the like. i would LOVE to see Linux overtake MS on the desktop and my point is that if Mandrake want to get more penetration (had to use the P word!) that they seriously need to work on their marketing material.
its a funny thing actually. i used to detest this whole marketing thing. i work in a software company and design all of or products. and i'm like, our products kick-butt - buy them. we were struggling to sell a particular product for quite a while and had invested millions of pounds in it's development. so we recruit this uber ex-Netscape ex-Sun product marketing person she just puts a different spin on our stuff: drastically re-works our web site, the way our product is demo'd and our marketing brochures and stuff like that and BAM, the product is selling like hot-cakes. so this last 8 months have taught me to not spit on the idea of effective marketing as no matter how good your tech is, it takes marketing to get it out there.
you may disagree with that last statement because you may have been a unix user for years - as have i. but then i consider why i installed linux in the 1st place - and it was because people had told me that it was more stable and open than MS products. the fact that i heard it through word-of-mouth is indeed a subsection of marketing called viral marketing (word of mouth - like hotmail).
i was looking at some of their product material on their web site and came across this page.
i was expecting those little thumbnails to enlarge to larger screenshots - but sadly they don't appear to. for a company that appears to pride itself on the visual appearance of it's distro i think they let themselves down very badly by the presentation and architecture of their web site.
so my point... it's all well and good to invest large amounts of time and money into bringing a good (from some of the threads that assumption appears debatable!) distribution to market and then not investing in the actual product marketing. personally i didn't feel compelled to even look at the product based on their site...
perhaps you will find this helpful. i haven't looked at it myself, but i understand its a piece of javascript code you can implement to fix the problem rather than converting all of your pings to gifs.
you assume too much. i do not have a pathological hatred for MS, in many of my posts i have argued against exactly such extremism...
what i suggest stems from the fact that there is an obvious imbalance in the battle between open and closed source projects. i'm not suggesting a traditional patent model i'm suggesting a caviat to such a model that could actually encourage the sharing of implementation rather than restricting the intellictual property.
i'm not an uber-low-level-geek, but lets say there was some sort of logical algorithm that is being implemented in open source. anyone at MS (for example!!) could look at that source code, extrapolate the algorithm and re-implement it without giving anything back. what i am suggesting is that one is free to implement the "open-source-patented" concept/algorithm/idea (its all very fuzzy in Patent Land), but any implementations thereof should be subject to a contract that enforces the open publication of the implemented code.
no: stealing the concept (probably by analysing the code) and writing it themselves.
so if MS make any improvements in their own implementation of the concept, then the code would not be made public and MS benefits and not everyone else.
to elaborate (and in some ways i believe this is what SCO are arguing), lets say i see an open source application that does something neat. it probably won't be patented because the author expects someone to contribute any modifications back. but lets so i don't because i'm a greedy commercial corporate and so i effectively copy the IDEAS behind the application. my code may look quite similar to theirs, but i certaintly have not infringed on the GPL (or have I - i'm no lawyer!).
so if this neat application had an "open source patent" in that anyone infringing on the patent would not be liable for millions, but rather they would be liable and forced to open up the source code of their particular implementation.
ok, i know this is evil and all - but lets say MS decide to implement this as a concept (so without "stealing" code)... the linux community will have given them something and received (probably) nothing in return.
should open source initiatives be able to patent their ideas in a similar model to the way the GPL applies to their source code such that if someone implemented the IDEA, they would also have to release their version of the implementation source code.
you are comparing chalk and cheese mate. JAVA applets cannot be replaced by perl or php.
and why you make the statement that it sucks is beyond me (actually, its not - this is slashdot after all!). there are very good reasons and applications for JAVA, especially in the enterprise environment where you can leverage a very rich set of specifications (J2EE) to handle complex tasks such as transaction control (2/3-phase commit!) and messaging integration to name but a few. additionally scripting languages such as perl and php generally encourage a blend of application and UI logical, whereas the JSP/Servlet/Bean relationship does lend itself nicely (perhaps not as nicely as.NET's aspx code behind) to writing well structured MVC (and similar patterns) applications. i'm not saying that perl or php do not have their place, i'm a big fan of both languages, but i don't believe that one should discount the advantages of JAVA when the architecture and environment is appropriate.
this JAVA sucks blanket statement is generally flaunted because a) its not open source and b) the misconception that JAVA is very slow. 1.1 was pretty darn slow sure, but performance has continued to increase to a point where 1.4 is pretty snappy - even at UI-based work with SWING.
does one really need "intelligence" to orchestrate something like this? surely one could simulate this today with logical algorithms that understand the properties of a vehicle (current speed, location, intended destination, max speed, braking force, height...). take 100 000 clustered Xbox's running linux (just because you can!) and perhaps we could have the processing power to do just this.
my understanding of the problem here is its almost impossible to get off the ground (no pun intended) because every vehcile would have to be part of the "grid" - as soon as there are any UFOs (or UGO - Grounded) that are essentially autonomous, then the whole system falls down. try restructuring the whole of NYC (not just the cars and people, but the buildings too) to accomodate such a vision; damn near impossible.
if this ban on smoking in public places continues to ripple around the world, you may find that your butane gas will cost more than a replacement battery!;)
Re:Way too much time on their hands...
on
PC In An XP Box
·
· Score: 1
what? you mean customising my pocket protector with my favourite star trek quotes is in fact a hobby? *calls mom*
Slashdot Mirror
i read this once or twice a year, just to remind myself how dumb people are.
Maybe not...they've cast John Malkovich who generally is involved with pretty good non-mainstream productions.
i agree with you in terms of sites that are fully contained within a single flash movie. however having flash ELEMENTS on a site is quite a different matter and is quite acceptable where used effectively.
the first thing i thought when i watched the trailer a few months back was "this IS half-life". not even the monsters but how about the story line. if you remember half-life, it started off with you as a scientiest travelling on this mono-rail-like thing into the secret underground base and then the experiment went horribly wrong etc... so not just the monsters - the entire story line!
multiplayer was the reason that quake 1 kept going for years and years after its release.
when you get there, find another time machine and go another 100 years into the future - that way you can bring back a machine that will run Doom III on Longhorn! ;)
i would say you are wrong, i've watched regular users (my g/f, my family, non-technical co-workers...) google and they hardly ever use inverted commas or any other such "advanced" searching techniques.
i felt in the old days it was much more neccessary to use such operators, but i very seldom find myself using them today; i'll just search for all the terms and normally i get what i want; if the 1st result page is not good enough for me, then will i start to play around with narrowing the search down by using this sort of stuff.
so there is, i apologise to the original author regarding the specifics, but the point still remains ;)
i know its just an example, but...
a) TurboTax can be run in a web browser
b) By your (lack of) reasoning, as there is not Mac version of TurboTax, Apple is also not ready for this either.
c) If she was asking you in the first place for it and you knew it wasn't available on Linux, you would use your (clearly brilliant) powers of deduction and subsequently find her a Linux-based tax package
that should be free OR commercial, sorry.
um, no that is silly and obnoxious assumption. i'm one of those mid-way geeks that appreciates both the technical and marketing aspects of software (and hardware) products. my point is that, in the world we live in today, people ARE influenced by marketing, brand, appearance and the like. i would LOVE to see Linux overtake MS on the desktop and my point is that if Mandrake want to get more penetration (had to use the P word!) that they seriously need to work on their marketing material.
its a funny thing actually. i used to detest this whole marketing thing. i work in a software company and design all of or products. and i'm like, our products kick-butt - buy them. we were struggling to sell a particular product for quite a while and had invested millions of pounds in it's development. so we recruit this uber ex-Netscape ex-Sun product marketing person she just puts a different spin on our stuff: drastically re-works our web site, the way our product is demo'd and our marketing brochures and stuff like that and BAM, the product is selling like hot-cakes. so this last 8 months have taught me to not spit on the idea of effective marketing as no matter how good your tech is, it takes marketing to get it out there.
you may disagree with that last statement because you may have been a unix user for years - as have i. but then i consider why i installed linux in the 1st place - and it was because people had told me that it was more stable and open than MS products. the fact that i heard it through word-of-mouth is indeed a subsection of marketing called viral marketing (word of mouth - like hotmail).
the RealPlayer with ad- and spyware that your are referring to, is it the free version of the commercial version?
i was looking at some of their product material on their web site and came across this page.
i was expecting those little thumbnails to enlarge to larger screenshots - but sadly they don't appear to. for a company that appears to pride itself on the visual appearance of it's distro i think they let themselves down very badly by the presentation and architecture of their web site.
so my point... it's all well and good to invest large amounts of time and money into bringing a good (from some of the threads that assumption appears debatable!) distribution to market and then not investing in the actual product marketing. personally i didn't feel compelled to even look at the product based on their site...
perhaps you will find this helpful. i haven't looked at it myself, but i understand its a piece of javascript code you can implement to fix the problem rather than converting all of your pings to gifs.
you assume too much. i do not have a pathological hatred for MS, in many of my posts i have argued against exactly such extremism...
what i suggest stems from the fact that there is an obvious imbalance in the battle between open and closed source projects. i'm not suggesting a traditional patent model i'm suggesting a caviat to such a model that could actually encourage the sharing of implementation rather than restricting the intellictual property.
i'm not an uber-low-level-geek, but lets say there was some sort of logical algorithm that is being implemented in open source. anyone at MS (for example!!) could look at that source code, extrapolate the algorithm and re-implement it without giving anything back. what i am suggesting is that one is free to implement the "open-source-patented" concept/algorithm/idea (its all very fuzzy in Patent Land), but any implementations thereof should be subject to a contract that enforces the open publication of the implemented code.
no: stealing the concept (probably by analysing the code) and writing it themselves.
so if MS make any improvements in their own implementation of the concept, then the code would not be made public and MS benefits and not everyone else.
to elaborate (and in some ways i believe this is what SCO are arguing), lets say i see an open source application that does something neat. it probably won't be patented because the author expects someone to contribute any modifications back. but lets so i don't because i'm a greedy commercial corporate and so i effectively copy the IDEAS behind the application. my code may look quite similar to theirs, but i certaintly have not infringed on the GPL (or have I - i'm no lawyer!).
so if this neat application had an "open source patent" in that anyone infringing on the patent would not be liable for millions, but rather they would be liable and forced to open up the source code of their particular implementation.
ok, i know this is evil and all - but lets say MS decide to implement this as a concept (so without "stealing" code)... the linux community will have given them something and received (probably) nothing in return.
should open source initiatives be able to patent their ideas in a similar model to the way the GPL applies to their source code such that if someone implemented the IDEA, they would also have to release their version of the implementation source code.
just a thought...
is it just me, or have they only posted binaries up on the site? what's the point of that then?
*missing something* ??
what really got me about that was the immaturity of the his statement - I mean how childish!
you are comparing chalk and cheese mate. JAVA applets cannot be replaced by perl or php.
.NET's aspx code behind) to writing well structured MVC (and similar patterns) applications. i'm not saying that perl or php do not have their place, i'm a big fan of both languages, but i don't believe that one should discount the advantages of JAVA when the architecture and environment is appropriate.
and why you make the statement that it sucks is beyond me (actually, its not - this is slashdot after all!). there are very good reasons and applications for JAVA, especially in the enterprise environment where you can leverage a very rich set of specifications (J2EE) to handle complex tasks such as transaction control (2/3-phase commit!) and messaging integration to name but a few. additionally scripting languages such as perl and php generally encourage a blend of application and UI logical, whereas the JSP/Servlet/Bean relationship does lend itself nicely (perhaps not as nicely as
this JAVA sucks blanket statement is generally flaunted because a) its not open source and b) the misconception that JAVA is very slow. 1.1 was pretty darn slow sure, but performance has continued to increase to a point where 1.4 is pretty snappy - even at UI-based work with SWING.
does one really need "intelligence" to orchestrate something like this? surely one could simulate this today with logical algorithms that understand the properties of a vehicle (current speed, location, intended destination, max speed, braking force, height...). take 100 000 clustered Xbox's running linux (just because you can!) and perhaps we could have the processing power to do just this.
my understanding of the problem here is its almost impossible to get off the ground (no pun intended) because every vehcile would have to be part of the "grid" - as soon as there are any UFOs (or UGO - Grounded) that are essentially autonomous, then the whole system falls down. try restructuring the whole of NYC (not just the cars and people, but the buildings too) to accomodate such a vision; damn near impossible.
surely if everyone walked then there wouldn't be any SUV's, smog or 300 pound people?
if this ban on smoking in public places continues to ripple around the world, you may find that your butane gas will cost more than a replacement battery! ;)
what? you mean customising my pocket protector with my favourite star trek quotes is in fact a hobby? *calls mom*
now THERE'S a real use for GM crops!