"Is this going to be the special edition versions or the original?"
I'd like a blend in between. I'd like the cleaned up matte lines, the windows at the Bespin city, and the celebration after Death Star 2 exploded. All this and Han Solo shoots first.
"They have something to refer to. You haven't read the link I posted, have you?"
I did. It's a Flash-wannabe plugin meant for web stuff.
There's no mention of 3D accelleration, nor is there any mention of integrating it into the desktop interface. If I'm wrong, please show me that reference, I'm really curious about it.
" Unfortunately it takes a certain level of awareness and some effort not to let "the messages" filter in passively."
I don't mean to imply that advertising doesn't influence our decisions. It does. It makes a product attractive to you. Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with that, especially when a solution to a problem becomes available. (That's what service is about, you pay somebody to solve your problem.)
It's funny, though. Everybody notices when advertising can be linked to popularity of a product. Nobody seems to notice all the stuff that isn't purchased despite being advertised. Anybody remember Crystal Pepsi?
"The bottom line is if we didn't let the advertising influence our decisions, it would disappear on its own."
Can't speak for Apple, but one of the things Microsoft has in mind is UI support for LCD screens in the 300dpi range. The Register had a story about a year ago about Microsoft teaming with a place like Samsung to develop a large LCD screen that had a ridiculously high resolution. Something along the lines of 5,000 pixels wide.
Flash isn't what's annoying, it's its use of it that is annoying.
Why am I nitpicking such a petty difference? Simple. The technology is cool. Flash is useful and can be used to do cool things. The problem is that there are places using it in an obnoxious way. Since the blame is placed in the wrong spot, people want Flash to disappear. This is not a good thing. If Flash disappears, those wishing to be obnoxious will simply find a new way to do it. So the problem is still there, but a valuable tool has been destroyed. Not the right way to solve the problem.
The problem is social, not in the program itself. Don't like when a place uses a flashy intro? Send the webmaster an email about it. Don't like obnoxious flash ads? Let the website know. "You need to know I won't visit your site anymore because I'm sick of the flashing monkey."
You can kill Flash, and it'll solve your problem. Then, you'll find yourself having to kill other things. Java applets, animated.GIFs, eventually even images all together. As long as they can show you a graphic in such a way that you really really can't avoid seeing it, you're going to get annoying adverts. One way or another, you'll find yourself fighting to make that style of advertising ineffective.
It worked with pop-up ads. They're not as bad as they used to be. Technology was made so that pop-ups were blocked, without destroying the functionality of popups. Same should happen with Flash.
" but make your computer go "huh?" and shit itself."
Depends on what the goal of Sparkle is. Is it a rendering engine, or an interactivity app like Flash. If it's the former, then I'd say "not likely" If it's the latter, then I'd wait a service pack or two before switching.
"They will port it to OS X just like Office, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer... and leave linux / freeBSD / other Open Source OS's aside as usual."
They won't port anything until Linux starts showing up on millions of desktops, where there would be an audience feasibly large enough to sell software to.
"Shame on us! We are intruded upon every day and no one complains."
People complain all the time. Perhaps you are unaware of software like pop-up blockers, spam killers, and TiVo?
"Why do we allow this tresspass into our daily lives?"
They're not boring into my skull, they're throwing up info where I might see it. Ultimately, it's still my choice to watch the commercial or go take a leak. It really isn't that big of deal.
"Why is it considered acceptable to allow companies to push products in our faces every second of every day?"
Don't confuse branding with advertising. I have a few major name brands on my desk right now. Aquafina, Dell, HP, IBM, etc. They're not bombarding me. They are recognizable because they are unique objects. So yeah, I see branded stuff all the time, but bombarding would be an exaggeration. Maybe if the dell logo on my laptop lit up and blinked or something.
"Why don't we have laws against advertising?"
They have regulations about advertising. A couple of months ago I caught a story on TV about an area of New York where they cracked down on storefronts with overly obnoxious signs. Awnings could only be so far out, only so many symbols could be used etc. So yes, there are practical limits to advertising.
The reason why it's not illegall altogether is because advertisements are passive. You are not strapped to your seat with your eyes forced open. Besides that, those advertisements are the reason you're able to get on here and post your knee-jerk rant.
Advertising is obnoxious a lot of the time. No offense, but your rant against it is quite nutty. Case in point:
"If someone dumps raw sewage in the streets, the cops will take them away. If someone plays their boom-box too loud in my neighborhood, they will eventually be fined. So why do we allow billboards, huge store signs, and ads on cars, busses, and park benches to pollute our visual environment?"
You're likening a billboard to sewage dumped on the street. A billboard does not pose a health risk. It is not dumped anywhere, a permit is required to put it up. There are regulations that govern how big the sign is, how bright it is, how blinkie it is, and even the words that are written on it are regulated. All that's being done is a sign is being placed where you might see it. You might even find useful information on it. It's there to look at, it's not forced upon you. It's not like somebody's standing outside of your house all day shouting "Buy My Product!" over and over, causing you to get kind of angry.
I'm genuinely surprised you were modded up here. If you'd left it at "why isn't advertising regulated to be less distrating?" I'd have been in full support of your statement. But, honestly dude, not knowing why a billboard is okay but shouting in front of somebody's house isn't?
"one assumes that sparkle will be embedded into the OS"
That would kick ass. It means that apps in Windows would have a vector based UI. This means that apps could be made resizable to any resolution up or down. If your 3D card does all the drawing work, bonus. Let the main CPU do important stuff.
I would heavily advise against doing anything like that. The point isn't to rip anybody off, it's to show the amount of money that the RIAA's customers can move. A relatively harmless (I hope) display of power.
"Web-based e-mail is so prevalent these days that having a Hotmail account for travel makes little sense."
It's also the best known client.
"Even the cheapest web hosting companies offer it..."
It's still not free, plus if they change providers for whatever reason, they have to change addresses.
" and if you're traveling for business,"
Business travelers are not the only people who use Hotmail. When I wrote that, I was thinking of a friend of mine that is visiting the USA from Brazil right now.
"How does the RIAA or the studio care about that? They've already made the sale to the music store who will the one seeing the apparent profit disappear."
a.) It turns the retailers against them. b.) Media buzz would surround it if the amount of money was high enough. c.) The RIAA would have to consider that they're actually being boycotted as opposed to people 'stealing music', as they put it.
"If you buy CDs you're paying the RIAA to sic lawyers on 12 year old girls."
If you don't buy CDs the RIAA sics lawyers on 12 year old girls.
Wanna get their attention? Buy a CD then return it unopened and in re-sellable shape. When a million dollars materializes one day and disappears the next, they'll have to notice.
Slashdot Mirror
"Buy either the Sound & Vision DVD or Video Essenetials and calibrate your fucking TV set"
Yeah, I suppose adjusting your TV so that subtle details don't go through would fix the problem of errors on the film.
"George Lucas doesn't try to re-edit them. Hans Solo would look stupid waving a walkie talkie around."
I just had this image of Greedo putting a walkie talkie to his ear and dying of cell phone radiation poisoning.
"Is this going to be the special edition versions or the original?"
I'd like a blend in between. I'd like the cleaned up matte lines, the windows at the Bespin city, and the celebration after Death Star 2 exploded. All this and Han Solo shoots first.
"a la the walkie-talkies for guns bit in E.T."
Is that what sparked the Indiana Jones ep of South Park? Never heard that ET was edited that way.
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
I've actually seen one of those running photos on it at that resolution. Oh my. It was stunning, and I run in 1600 by 1200!
"They have something to refer to. You haven't read the link I posted, have you?"
I did. It's a Flash-wannabe plugin meant for web stuff.
There's no mention of 3D accelleration, nor is there any mention of integrating it into the desktop interface. If I'm wrong, please show me that reference, I'm really curious about it.
" Unfortunately it takes a certain level of awareness and some effort not to let "the messages" filter in passively."
I don't mean to imply that advertising doesn't influence our decisions. It does. It makes a product attractive to you. Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with that, especially when a solution to a problem becomes available. (That's what service is about, you pay somebody to solve your problem.)
It's funny, though. Everybody notices when advertising can be linked to popularity of a product. Nobody seems to notice all the stuff that isn't purchased despite being advertised. Anybody remember Crystal Pepsi?
"The bottom line is if we didn't let the advertising influence our decisions, it would disappear on its own."
I agree with that.
KDE will have vector based graphics built into the UI for anybody to use that's 3D acellerated within 6-12 months?
You have more faith in the team than I do. I personally don't see it happening until after Longhorn is out so they have something to refer to.
Fair enough. That can happen to ANY app on any OS, though. Never overestimate anybody.
The biggest security problem isn't vulnerability, it's the creativity of the people trying to be obnoxious.
Can't speak for Apple, but one of the things Microsoft has in mind is UI support for LCD screens in the 300dpi range. The Register had a story about a year ago about Microsoft teaming with a place like Samsung to develop a large LCD screen that had a ridiculously high resolution. Something along the lines of 5,000 pixels wide.
;)
VERY excited about that.
If that were true iTunes would not have been so successful.
"It's going to be as annoying as Flash,"
.GIFs, eventually even images all together. As long as they can show you a graphic in such a way that you really really can't avoid seeing it, you're going to get annoying adverts. One way or another, you'll find yourself fighting to make that style of advertising ineffective.
Flash isn't what's annoying, it's its use of it that is annoying.
Why am I nitpicking such a petty difference? Simple. The technology is cool. Flash is useful and can be used to do cool things. The problem is that there are places using it in an obnoxious way. Since the blame is placed in the wrong spot, people want Flash to disappear. This is not a good thing. If Flash disappears, those wishing to be obnoxious will simply find a new way to do it. So the problem is still there, but a valuable tool has been destroyed. Not the right way to solve the problem.
The problem is social, not in the program itself. Don't like when a place uses a flashy intro? Send the webmaster an email about it. Don't like obnoxious flash ads? Let the website know. "You need to know I won't visit your site anymore because I'm sick of the flashing monkey."
You can kill Flash, and it'll solve your problem. Then, you'll find yourself having to kill other things. Java applets, animated
It worked with pop-up ads. They're not as bad as they used to be. Technology was made so that pop-ups were blocked, without destroying the functionality of popups. Same should happen with Flash.
" but make your computer go "huh?" and shit itself."
Depends on what the goal of Sparkle is. Is it a rendering engine, or an interactivity app like Flash. If it's the former, then I'd say "not likely" If it's the latter, then I'd wait a service pack or two before switching.
"They will port it to OS X just like Office, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer... and leave linux / freeBSD / other Open Source OS's aside as usual."
They won't port anything until Linux starts showing up on millions of desktops, where there would be an audience feasibly large enough to sell software to.
"Shame on us! We are intruded upon every day and no one complains."
People complain all the time. Perhaps you are unaware of software like pop-up blockers, spam killers, and TiVo?
"Why do we allow this tresspass into our daily lives?"
They're not boring into my skull, they're throwing up info where I might see it. Ultimately, it's still my choice to watch the commercial or go take a leak. It really isn't that big of deal.
"Why is it considered acceptable to allow companies to push products in our faces every second of every day?"
Don't confuse branding with advertising. I have a few major name brands on my desk right now. Aquafina, Dell, HP, IBM, etc. They're not bombarding me. They are recognizable because they are unique objects. So yeah, I see branded stuff all the time, but bombarding would be an exaggeration. Maybe if the dell logo on my laptop lit up and blinked or something.
"Why don't we have laws against advertising?"
They have regulations about advertising. A couple of months ago I caught a story on TV about an area of New York where they cracked down on storefronts with overly obnoxious signs. Awnings could only be so far out, only so many symbols could be used etc. So yes, there are practical limits to advertising.
The reason why it's not illegall altogether is because advertisements are passive. You are not strapped to your seat with your eyes forced open. Besides that, those advertisements are the reason you're able to get on here and post your knee-jerk rant.
Advertising is obnoxious a lot of the time. No offense, but your rant against it is quite nutty. Case in point:
"If someone dumps raw sewage in the streets, the cops will take them away. If someone plays their boom-box too loud in my neighborhood, they will eventually be fined. So why do we allow billboards, huge store signs, and ads on cars, busses, and park benches to pollute our visual environment?"
You're likening a billboard to sewage dumped on the street. A billboard does not pose a health risk. It is not dumped anywhere, a permit is required to put it up. There are regulations that govern how big the sign is, how bright it is, how blinkie it is, and even the words that are written on it are regulated. All that's being done is a sign is being placed where you might see it. You might even find useful information on it. It's there to look at, it's not forced upon you. It's not like somebody's standing outside of your house all day shouting "Buy My Product!" over and over, causing you to get kind of angry.
I'm genuinely surprised you were modded up here. If you'd left it at "why isn't advertising regulated to be less distrating?" I'd have been in full support of your statement. But, honestly dude, not knowing why a billboard is okay but shouting in front of somebody's house isn't?
Chill.
"one assumes that sparkle will be embedded into the OS"
That would kick ass. It means that apps in Windows would have a vector based UI. This means that apps could be made resizable to any resolution up or down. If your 3D card does all the drawing work, bonus. Let the main CPU do important stuff.
I would heavily advise against doing anything like that. The point isn't to rip anybody off, it's to show the amount of money that the RIAA's customers can move. A relatively harmless (I hope) display of power.
"Web-based e-mail is so prevalent these days that having a Hotmail account for travel makes little sense."
It's also the best known client.
"Even the cheapest web hosting companies offer it..."
It's still not free, plus if they change providers for whatever reason, they have to change addresses.
" and if you're traveling for business,"
Business travelers are not the only people who use Hotmail. When I wrote that, I was thinking of a friend of mine that is visiting the USA from Brazil right now.
"How does the RIAA or the studio care about that? They've already made the sale to the music store who will the one seeing the apparent profit disappear."
a.) It turns the retailers against them.
b.) Media buzz would surround it if the amount of money was high enough.
c.) The RIAA would have to consider that they're actually being boycotted as opposed to people 'stealing music', as they put it.
"If you buy CDs you're paying the RIAA to sic lawyers on 12 year old girls."
If you don't buy CDs the RIAA sics lawyers on 12 year old girls.
Wanna get their attention? Buy a CD then return it unopened and in re-sellable shape. When a million dollars materializes one day and disappears the next, they'll have to notice.
"Kind of hard to do that with a laptop..."
Microsoft cannot be blamed for the computer industry's unwillingness to make laptop parts availalbe for people to build.
"How many are poor around the world by choice?"
I doubt many do it by choice. Problem is, are they doing enoughh to get out of it?
"Now we have absolutely *no* way of telling who's crazy and who's just talking to their friend on their phone. Thanks a lot!"
Funny you should mention that. Just saw a guy yelling at himself the other day. I think his name was Al.
"yeah, but when you know that the screen is supposed to have a 4.5 inch diagonal, you can do some simple extrapolation for yourself."
Ugh. Not very pocket sized.