One console that I am excited about, though, is the Nintendo Revolution [wikipedia.org] due out probably some time next year. The president of Nintendo is going to do the keynote at this year's Tokyo Games thing, and will most likely reveal a giant mystery about it: what the controller is going to be like! Speculation is wide, and a lot of people are thinking it might use gyroscopic technologies to sense the moving of the controller. Also, the Revolution will be able to play every Nintendo game ever made all the way back to the NES!
Don't take this the wrong way. But...
How can you be so excited about a console you know practically nothing about?
I see this come out in every Xbox 360 / PS3 forum. You know nothing! Revolution may not even be the name of the bloody thing?
So - seriously - wft is there to be excited about? I like Nintendo, they do some neat stuff, but we don't know about the specs, the controller, the format, the lineup... anything!
(flicking holy water) The power of brand compels you! The power of brand..... compels...
Well, yes, that's what a lot of us, many of us Apple users, do deny. We have opened the cases, and looked at what's in them, and we just do not see it. We see the same drives, opticals, memory, psus, graphics cards as in our Dell boxes. We see main boards manufactured by, I think, Asus. We don't see any particularly wonderful layout of the components. We don't even see in general better cooled or quieter cases.
What bullshit. Up until the Dell reference I saw your point, but you cannot tell me that a G5 case is not cooler, better laid-out, easier to upgrade etc than a typical PC case. That is simply not true. I can open the thing in 2 seconds flat with no tools and it is super quiet. Tons of space inside, a really superior layout. I mean go look at it! When was the last time you saw a PC case that looks like that?
And BTW, undermining your point, that is no Asus motherboard. Jee-zus. It kills me that you complain of misinformed Apple zealots and yet you don't have the technical wherewithal to recognize a motherboard. Normally I wouldn't be so beliggerant in tone but you are way, way off the mark my friend. In my humble opinion.
It is largely a well propogated myth that 'Apple hardware' is in any way better than that of other brands and there can certainly be no real claim of innovation in the industrial design department outside of superficial stylistic impositions on case and chassis design. Where cooling is concerned it can safely be said that the powerbooks are perhaps the most poorly designed of any portable's I've come across; many colleagues in fact prop their's up on a book just to allow for air to circulate underneath the thing.
It is a largely propagated myth that there is no difference at all - and by the way, if that were true, would you not be criticizing the computer industry as a whole then?)The G5: Check the decibel levels. Check the layout and the schematic. Check the connectors. Check the ports. Observe how RAM is installed. What you say is not true. And I am not an 'apologist', you will have to do better than that. As for PowerBooks, also not true. They get warm, I agree (particularly the 12-inch model if you are charging and working at the same time) but we've all seen the reports of guys burning their nuts on regular PC laptops. Since we're playing Dueling Anecdotes here, I will just say my experience has been totally different with the Macs we have at work.
Re:I'm not an expert...
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Office 12 Exposed
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I see what you are getting at; but I do beg to differ on several points. I will qualify what I say by mentioning that I do graphic design and video editing, so much of my opinion is informed by the particular kind of work I am doing. Having said that...
hardware-accelerated compositing and rendering (Quartz/Core Image)
Not a usability benefit, just prettification.
Disagree. Anything that improves the speed and consistency of user feedback is a win across the spectrum. Also, anything that takes load off the CPU is also a big win. Quartz is so much more than eye candy - you are not seeing past the glitz here.:) Go check out the developer page for Core Image. This stuff is not just for swoopy Dock effects.
Dashboard is not much of an innovation, similar systems have been available for other systems for a while. It's prettier than most of those, though. Exposé is an attractive replacement for a "show desktop" button and a taskbar. It works fairly well, but is far from revolutionary (its only real innovation is allowing you to see the content of the Windows you're switching between).
Disagree vehemently. Every single day, I have 20-40 hi-res images open in Photoshop that I am juggling. With one keypress I have an instant contact sheet. Nothing comes even remotely close to this functionality that I have ever seen. Each preview is scaled bicubic and the windows remember their stacked positions when they snap back. It is not the same as Tile All Windows. Dashboard I would agree is less amazing but it is an outgrowth of Expose.
previews of vector-based files (PDFs, AIs, etc)
Previews aren't a huge thing, but this is nice "feature".
They are a huge thing if you do any work with print, vector animation, or PDFs. In Classic, I had to launch Illustrator just to see what a logo looks like.
- system-wide PDF support and printing
Functionality, not usability, again.
I'll give you that. I maintain that the vector previews are a usability plus.
- universal spell-check
If it's consistently implemented, then this could be a usability help, yes.
The interface for the spell check is the same in every application, be it Safari (this form I am typing into now), Mail, some shareware app, etc. In fact the holdout is... Office. It of course uses its own system.
We agree on Finder Column View and Spotlight.
You're not seeing past the glitz. Look at the layout of the windows and interface. This is not the same as how current Windows/Macintosh interfaces operate, it's a different metaphor for the layout of an application window.
I see your point - it does look like they made some big changes to the toolbar and how it is arranged, and at first blush it looks like an improvement to me. Hard to say without using it. I do think MS sort of tries to have its cake and eat it too, by not diverging too much from the old Toolbar From Hell. But I give them points for trying. I still hate that they mix tabs and menu items in the same space (WMP 10 is a bad offender for this.) I do not think this is a different metaphor as you mentioned; just a new layout. We're still talking menus, icons, and all the rest.
Believe me, I see no glitz. I was just referring to the specific use of that horizon-gradient gloss that is all the rage with buttons styles today, popularized by Aqua. And I've never thought that Aqua and Brushed Metal have co-existed peacefully, especially inside the same application. (Anecdotally I have disabled all the Brushed Metal on my Mac workstation.)
I think you kinda missed my point though. I didn't say they were "standing still" with features, only with real usability enhancements. Spotlight is a big step forward, but previous to that most of their "innovations" were prettier versions
Re:I'm not an expert...
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Office 12 Exposed
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, we know that there are problems with the way things work now. There are limitations. Apple are constantly being given praise for their "innovations" when their newer OSs have actually done very little more than System 9 in usability terms -- they're actually introduced some new issues, while simply prettifying what was there (and putting it on a far more solid base).
Oh, come on. I agree that OS X is less consistent than the Classic UI was, but you cannot say that they have been standing still with interface innovations. Off the top of my head:
- hardware-accelerated compositing and rendering (Quartz/Core Image)
- Expose/Dashboard
- previews of vector-based files (PDFs, AIs, etc)
- system-wide PDF support and printing
- universal spell-check
- Finder column view
- Spotlight searching
A lot of these are inherited from NeXTStep, but does it matter?... I can point to concrete improvements that affect me every day, and that's important. Photoshop without Expose is unthinkable for me now. I miss my spatial finder, and I hate that they keep fucking around with various 'themes'... but I definitely do not miss having 100+ extensions, 50+ control panel 'applets', a calculator that hadn't been updated since 1988 and a UI that would come to a screeching halt if I clicked a menu. There is progress being made and they deserve credit for things done right.
About the new Office 12 interface: its stupid that they just borrow elements (i.e.. glossy buttons, brushed metal with middle-lit gradient) because they think Apple made them cool. Microsoft is big and rich enough to come up with something really compelling and new. They just don't. They go with what they think is 'good enough'. Which is pretty bad to you and me.
Hasn't the market shown time and again that a hobbled version of a product will quickly be beaten out by an unhobbled one? In the short term this might keep iPod sales up, but in the long run somebody else will offer a full function cell with mp3 capability
It's going to have to be more than that... see: Danger HipTop
My second gen is still going strong as well. After a lot of hard use. I *almost* want it to break down so I can grab a new one... (grin)
I know! Mine stubbornly refuses to break. These guys complaining about dud batteries, they don't know what a gift Apple has given them! If only I could justify an upgrade. Ok some of that last bit was sarcasm but you catch my meaning. The one I have has been yanked off the treadmill by my uncoordinated, flailing arms sooo many times. And I've never used a case. The thing is a brick.
So I'm totally with you on the size thing, and I think I'll always have an iPod that can hold all of my songs. But having something that's really, really small for the times where I just want to take my "favorites" playlist around? That's mighty tempting.
Absolutely. And everyone needs a USB thumb drive. (It is the new floppy.)
That's why I had no problem with the GF buying a Shuffle - I can steal it to go running, and keep my big fat iPod for myself.
Yeah, it only has 2/4 gigs, compared to 20, but that tradeoff versus the size is a total no-brainer for me. Besides, 4 gigs of music should keep me going for a pretty darn long time. There are other brands out there that have players that are also small and have a screen, but none of them has the aesthetically pleasing design and tactile feel of the iPods.
Sure, I get it. It was a no-brainer for my girlfriend also. But for me, personally, I still like the original idea of the iPod: all your music with you all the time. I have an old 10gig one (2nd gen still going strong! I got a miracle battery, I guess) and I just cannot see myself going down from 10 gigs, now that I've had it. That's the difference. I have about 20 gigs of music and I still hate having to pick and choose. I've become totally spoiled. So while I dig the small form factor, I (again personally) fall on the side of slightly bigger, way more storage. I don't consider my view to be 'correct', its just another view. I get the Smaller is Better thing. But I just have a lot of damn music I want with me.
Apple provides this, its just called a regular iPod, and that's the segment I fall into. They are smart to go with this stepped approach, roughly $50 between each model up the chain.
OK, so the display is color. However, if I'm interested in a music player, want music. I see the nano as a step backwards because the 4GB mini was $199, so I either get half the storage for the same price, or I pay $50 more for that 4G.
I agree with you, but we are possibly in the (or a) minority.
I said the same thing when the iPod mini came out: you could get another model of iPod at the time which was 10GB, and $50 more than the 4GB. I pointed this out to people. The response? Either 'but it comes in colours' or 'but its so small'. Lesson learned, people put a huge premium on the size/shape/appearance of the thing. The Shuffle underscores this.
Kinda too bad, I always liked the Mini body the best, with the metal... maybe it was deemed too heavy. So yes from a stats point of view it seems a bit daft but the market reaction sure seems to bear out Apple's thinking. I was also surprised that the battery life on the Nano is a touch less than a regular iPod... I guess a smaller battery overall.. but usually flash memory gives you a big power savings (eaten up in the Nano by that colour screen no doubt).
It's easy to say evolution happened. It's been hard to prove, but I feel it's been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. At least that evolution happens has been shown. Some of the mechanics are definately up for debate, we don't know all the finer details, but those will come with time.
I think perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been - I don't disagree with you at all, and I hold the observations made in the name of evolution to be scientific fact. I am simply open to the idea of there being a greater intelligence that may have had a say in the beginnings of our species - but readily admit that this has never been proven in any directly observable way.
How's that? If physics, chemistry, etc. still all work as expected, how is origin so critical?
Well, you do have to determine which point we switched from la-la-magic-man-in-the-sky to actually believing carbon dating. You can't just say go created the earth and creatures in seven days but then later he created science and made it all make sense, albeit in a contradictory way to the (literal) interpretation of the bible.
I do personally believe that there is nothing in evolution that directly contradicts the idea that some intelligence may have set evolution 'on its way'. Why does no one argue this? If god is truly all-knowing and omniscient then why is it such a stretch to believe that maybe he came up with evolution? You never really hear that argument.
The fact that you can even compare a beta version of Windows Vista to a final release of Apple's operating systems speaks volumes about their qualities. Microsoft truly trumps the hacker shop that is Apple.
Too true!
Here is another example that beautifully illustrates your point: Apple's Mac OS X vs a Pomegranate.
With OS X, I can perform instant desktop searches, organize my music and photos very easily, and it has a hardware accelerated desktop.
With the pomegranate, I cannot do those things. However! The pomegranate is aesthetically pleasing, tastes pretty good, is high in antioxidants and has a certain odour.
The fact that I can compare Apple's OS to an actual piece of fruit speaks volumes about their qualities. Apple truly trumps the hacker shop that is... uh... God.
But seriously, what are people actually using the psp browser for? I find that whenever I'm somewhere that has a wireless access point I am near a pc or laptop anyway. I doubt anybody who has used the psp browser would use it over something with a keyboard. I still love my psp but I don't know that I'll be using the browser feature that much unless I'm somewhere with no computers that also happens to have wifi access.
It's great if you are meeting someone who is running late, or you are on the bus in a city area. You can check slashdot or gmail and just 'hop' along. Not great for extended browsing (and terrible for typing) but its been really nice to have on you. This is where the PSP shines - if you are not sure how you would like to kill your time yet, you have options (watch a movie, watch tv, listen to MP3s, play a game, browsing - in one unit).
The DS is outselling the PSP by 4 times in Japan and has a 1.2 million unit lead worldwide. "Irrelevant" my foot.
I believe the reference was to the weird little GameBoy Micro they just released; and I'm inclined to agree with the Sony guy actually, it is a gimmick. However you are totally correct in saying Sony really has no history to stand on and make such comments.
Seriously, Nintendo has the brass set to delay big titles to ensure that they are up to par, and even go beyond. More true gamers should be behind them and in their endeavor with the Revolution as they are truly the last company FOR gamers and focusing on gameplay and quality in hardware and software. I especially think that if they can make some form of development kit for free/low cost for the Revolution all the/.'ers will have finally found a geek friendly console and company.
I agree with you, except for one thing: we really don't know a damn thing about the Revolution yet. It seems premature to just say 'lets all get behind Nintendo' before we see the thing, its controllers, and its game linup. As for the 'development kit' - I wouldn't hold your breath on that one. Big N has *no* history of doing any such thing.
They delayed Metroid Prime Hunters because as it was, it was going to ship minus a feature that practically every gamer thought was essential. They did the right thing, delayed the product and added the feature. They deserve credit for righting a bad design decision with a highly anticipated DS title. It bodes well, but lets wait for the Revolution (thats not even the final name yet!) before we crown them, yes?
Did they fix that one really significant bug? You know, where all the games fucking suck? If not, I hope they fix it soon.
Did you try Wipeout Pure? It doesn't suck at all.
Lumines doesn't suck at all.
But the rest mostly suck. Hand it to Sony to release their new handheld platform at the beginning of the slow summer season. Fall looks promising though (as usual).
I'm so used to Windows that I can't imagine doing it any other way. When I try to use a Mac I find it too awkwards since I don't have much experience with it. Maybe if I used it more my opinion would change, who knows. Thanks for replying with an honest answer.
You know, I think people really underestimate how much pain it is to 'switch' - to any new OS or interface. And I also think a lot of that pain and frustration is easy to direct at the offending platform, when in reality much (though certainly not all in many cases) of the pain is from the re-learning itself, and not necessarily because the new system flawed or worse. It could very well be, but when someone is so used to effortlessly accomplishing their typical tasks with the system they have already learned, trying something new is going to be painful, as they may have forgotten or subsumed the original pain of learning how to use the computer at all.
Sort of like FPS players. People who started with 'inverted' mouselook use that forever and can never switch; and vice versa. What is that expression? Habit is a thread we weave every day, until at last it is a cord from which we cannot break free.
It's funny how every time a person on a forum wants to push their favorite product over another product, they claim to use both regularly and have conclusive evidence that their favorite one is better. Feel free to produce the measurements of you being "measurably less productive" doing your job on a PC verses a Mac.
Sure, I can give you a few off the top of my head.
I use a tablet most of the time, even for my general mousing. Its easier on the wrist for long stretches and destroys the mouse for illustration work. The Mac 1-button philosophy translates nicely to working this way as right-click is not essential for anything (although there are 2 buttons on my stylus). Spell check (Canadian dictionary) is pervasive throughout the OS, even in web forms like the one I am typing in now; I filter a lot of copy for presentation on web pages, and this has saved me many times. Support for PDF in every application that can Print is a godsend, I don't need Acrobat Distiller and I can be sure that I can save things in a printable form that is precise, from anywhere. The Clipboard also thinks in PDF on Mac. I deal with a lot of French copy; accents and special characters are a breeze to type on the Mac (mnemonic shortcuts like apple-u for umlaut... åéüîø etc) compared to the PC which requires the ASCII 4-digit code typed on the numpad that you must memorize. ColorSync is still the best solution out there for working with precise colour from screen to paper, and you can't get it for Windows. QuickTime itself makes much of my job possible, it is the rosetta stone of multimedia and it works best on the original Mac platform; I am *constantly* switching contexts with bits of disparate media and I find that cut-and-paste, or particularly drag-and-drop, are a pale shadow on WinXP compared to the Mac. Ever try to drag-drop Flash symbols into Illustrator? Works on Mac, doesn't on PC. Lots and lots of examples like this. Also, the MDI interface system that Windows uses is really counterproductive for doing graphical work when one is referencing, say, a logo spec or design document. Photoshop/Win has a gray 'backdrop' like most Windows MDI apps and this means you can't see past it to other things. On the Mac I can arrage the document and my Photoshop comps so that I can see everything while I'm working - and I'm using a widescreen display too, although that is not unique to Mac.
Throw on that pile the usual arguments of not having to deal with viruses or spyware, fewer driver issues, etc. and maybe you get the idea. Some of this is 'anecdotal' and not 'measurable' I grant you but how would I prove that in a slashdot submission anyway?
Not sure if it would be making better criminals, but someone needs to explain to these kids about booting in target disc mode.
Forget target disc mode, how about Single User mode? It's a key combo you hold on startup for any openfirmware Mac.
Besides, for target disc mode these kids would need access to a separate portable pocket-sized firewire drive! And I simply cannot imagine there are many of those floating around a high school. iReallyDoubtIt.
Putting aside the arguments over "natural selection", it remains in the gene pool because it works.
Just like male pattern baldness. Or hemophilia.
I don't think you can classify 'psychopathy' as a survival trait. Knock-on effects of being a psychopath may make it easier to live with yourself if you've had to kill or abuse others, but that's about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't take this the wrong way. But...
How can you be so excited about a console you know practically nothing about?
I see this come out in every Xbox 360 / PS3 forum. You know nothing! Revolution may not even be the name of the bloody thing?
So - seriously - wft is there to be excited about? I like Nintendo, they do some neat stuff, but we don't know about the specs, the controller, the format, the lineup... anything!
(flicking holy water) The power of brand compels you! The power of brand ..... compels...
What bullshit. Up until the Dell reference I saw your point, but you cannot tell me that a G5 case is not cooler, better laid-out, easier to upgrade etc than a typical PC case. That is simply not true. I can open the thing in 2 seconds flat with no tools and it is super quiet. Tons of space inside, a really superior layout. I mean go look at it! When was the last time you saw a PC case that looks like that?
And BTW, undermining your point, that is no Asus motherboard. Jee-zus. It kills me that you complain of misinformed Apple zealots and yet you don't have the technical wherewithal to recognize a motherboard. Normally I wouldn't be so beliggerant in tone but you are way, way off the mark my friend. In my humble opinion.
It is largely a well propogated myth that 'Apple hardware' is in any way better than that of other brands and there can certainly be no real claim of innovation in the industrial design department outside of superficial stylistic impositions on case and chassis design. Where cooling is concerned it can safely be said that the powerbooks are perhaps the most poorly designed of any portable's I've come across; many colleagues in fact prop their's up on a book just to allow for air to circulate underneath the thing.
It is a largely propagated myth that there is no difference at all - and by the way, if that were true, would you not be criticizing the computer industry as a whole then?)The G5: Check the decibel levels. Check the layout and the schematic. Check the connectors. Check the ports. Observe how RAM is installed. What you say is not true. And I am not an 'apologist', you will have to do better than that. As for PowerBooks, also not true. They get warm, I agree (particularly the 12-inch model if you are charging and working at the same time) but we've all seen the reports of guys burning their nuts on regular PC laptops. Since we're playing Dueling Anecdotes here, I will just say my experience has been totally different with the Macs we have at work.
One more thing: go look up customer satisfaction surveys across top-tier computer manufacturers. Guess who is #1.
hardware-accelerated compositing and rendering (Quartz/Core Image)
Not a usability benefit, just prettification.
Disagree. Anything that improves the speed and consistency of user feedback is a win across the spectrum. Also, anything that takes load off the CPU is also a big win. Quartz is so much more than eye candy - you are not seeing past the glitz here. :) Go check out the developer page for Core Image. This stuff is not just for swoopy Dock effects.
Dashboard is not much of an innovation, similar systems have been available for other systems for a while. It's prettier than most of those, though. Exposé is an attractive replacement for a "show desktop" button and a taskbar. It works fairly well, but is far from revolutionary (its only real innovation is allowing you to see the content of the Windows you're switching between).
Disagree vehemently. Every single day, I have 20-40 hi-res images open in Photoshop that I am juggling. With one keypress I have an instant contact sheet. Nothing comes even remotely close to this functionality that I have ever seen. Each preview is scaled bicubic and the windows remember their stacked positions when they snap back. It is not the same as Tile All Windows. Dashboard I would agree is less amazing but it is an outgrowth of Expose.
previews of vector-based files (PDFs, AIs, etc)
Previews aren't a huge thing, but this is nice "feature".
They are a huge thing if you do any work with print, vector animation, or PDFs. In Classic, I had to launch Illustrator just to see what a logo looks like.
- system-wide PDF support and printing
Functionality, not usability, again.
I'll give you that. I maintain that the vector previews are a usability plus.
- universal spell-check
If it's consistently implemented, then this could be a usability help, yes.
The interface for the spell check is the same in every application, be it Safari (this form I am typing into now), Mail, some shareware app, etc. In fact the holdout is ... Office. It of course uses its own system.
We agree on Finder Column View and Spotlight.
You're not seeing past the glitz. Look at the layout of the windows and interface. This is not the same as how current Windows/Macintosh interfaces operate, it's a different metaphor for the layout of an application window.
I see your point - it does look like they made some big changes to the toolbar and how it is arranged, and at first blush it looks like an improvement to me. Hard to say without using it. I do think MS sort of tries to have its cake and eat it too, by not diverging too much from the old Toolbar From Hell. But I give them points for trying. I still hate that they mix tabs and menu items in the same space (WMP 10 is a bad offender for this.) I do not think this is a different metaphor as you mentioned; just a new layout. We're still talking menus, icons, and all the rest.
Believe me, I see no glitz. I was just referring to the specific use of that horizon-gradient gloss that is all the rage with buttons styles today, popularized by Aqua. And I've never thought that Aqua and Brushed Metal have co-existed peacefully, especially inside the same application. (Anecdotally I have disabled all the Brushed Metal on my Mac workstation.)
I think you kinda missed my point though. I didn't say they were "standing still" with features, only with real usability enhancements. Spotlight is a big step forward, but previous to that most of their "innovations" were prettier versions
Oh, come on. I agree that OS X is less consistent than the Classic UI was, but you cannot say that they have been standing still with interface innovations. Off the top of my head:
- hardware-accelerated compositing and rendering (Quartz/Core Image)
- Expose/Dashboard
- previews of vector-based files (PDFs, AIs, etc)
- system-wide PDF support and printing
- universal spell-check
- Finder column view
- Spotlight searching
A lot of these are inherited from NeXTStep, but does it matter?... I can point to concrete improvements that affect me every day, and that's important. Photoshop without Expose is unthinkable for me now. I miss my spatial finder, and I hate that they keep fucking around with various 'themes'... but I definitely do not miss having 100+ extensions, 50+ control panel 'applets', a calculator that hadn't been updated since 1988 and a UI that would come to a screeching halt if I clicked a menu. There is progress being made and they deserve credit for things done right.
About the new Office 12 interface: its stupid that they just borrow elements (i.e.. glossy buttons, brushed metal with middle-lit gradient) because they think Apple made them cool. Microsoft is big and rich enough to come up with something really compelling and new. They just don't. They go with what they think is 'good enough'. Which is pretty bad to you and me.
Hmmm... you may be on to something there... Parody is a protected form of expression...
It's going to have to be more than that... see: Danger HipTop
Thats amazing. The Coral Cache reproduced the slashdotted site's error message perfectly. Will wonders never cease.
I know! Mine stubbornly refuses to break. These guys complaining about dud batteries, they don't know what a gift Apple has given them! If only I could justify an upgrade. Ok some of that last bit was sarcasm but you catch my meaning. The one I have has been yanked off the treadmill by my uncoordinated, flailing arms sooo many times. And I've never used a case. The thing is a brick.
Absolutely. And everyone needs a USB thumb drive. (It is the new floppy.)
That's why I had no problem with the GF buying a Shuffle - I can steal it to go running, and keep my big fat iPod for myself.
Sure, I get it. It was a no-brainer for my girlfriend also. But for me, personally, I still like the original idea of the iPod: all your music with you all the time. I have an old 10gig one (2nd gen still going strong! I got a miracle battery, I guess) and I just cannot see myself going down from 10 gigs, now that I've had it. That's the difference. I have about 20 gigs of music and I still hate having to pick and choose. I've become totally spoiled. So while I dig the small form factor, I (again personally) fall on the side of slightly bigger, way more storage. I don't consider my view to be 'correct', its just another view. I get the Smaller is Better thing. But I just have a lot of damn music I want with me.
Apple provides this, its just called a regular iPod, and that's the segment I fall into. They are smart to go with this stepped approach, roughly $50 between each model up the chain.
I agree with you, but we are possibly in the (or a) minority.
I said the same thing when the iPod mini came out: you could get another model of iPod at the time which was 10GB, and $50 more than the 4GB. I pointed this out to people. The response? Either 'but it comes in colours' or 'but its so small'. Lesson learned, people put a huge premium on the size/shape/appearance of the thing. The Shuffle underscores this.
Kinda too bad, I always liked the Mini body the best, with the metal... maybe it was deemed too heavy. So yes from a stats point of view it seems a bit daft but the market reaction sure seems to bear out Apple's thinking. I was also surprised that the battery life on the Nano is a touch less than a regular iPod... I guess a smaller battery overall.. but usually flash memory gives you a big power savings (eaten up in the Nano by that colour screen no doubt).
I think perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been - I don't disagree with you at all, and I hold the observations made in the name of evolution to be scientific fact. I am simply open to the idea of there being a greater intelligence that may have had a say in the beginnings of our species - but readily admit that this has never been proven in any directly observable way.
Well, you do have to determine which point we switched from la-la-magic-man-in-the-sky to actually believing carbon dating. You can't just say go created the earth and creatures in seven days but then later he created science and made it all make sense, albeit in a contradictory way to the (literal) interpretation of the bible.
I do personally believe that there is nothing in evolution that directly contradicts the idea that some intelligence may have set evolution 'on its way'. Why does no one argue this? If god is truly all-knowing and omniscient then why is it such a stretch to believe that maybe he came up with evolution? You never really hear that argument.
Too true!
Here is another example that beautifully illustrates your point: Apple's Mac OS X vs a Pomegranate.
With OS X, I can perform instant desktop searches, organize my music and photos very easily, and it has a hardware accelerated desktop.
With the pomegranate, I cannot do those things. However! The pomegranate is aesthetically pleasing, tastes pretty good, is high in antioxidants and has a certain odour.
The fact that I can compare Apple's OS to an actual piece of fruit speaks volumes about their qualities. Apple truly trumps the hacker shop that is... uh... God.
It's great if you are meeting someone who is running late, or you are on the bus in a city area. You can check slashdot or gmail and just 'hop' along. Not great for extended browsing (and terrible for typing) but its been really nice to have on you. This is where the PSP shines - if you are not sure how you would like to kill your time yet, you have options (watch a movie, watch tv, listen to MP3s, play a game, browsing - in one unit).
Actually nevermind - he was talking about the touch screen. I take it back.
I believe the reference was to the weird little GameBoy Micro they just released; and I'm inclined to agree with the Sony guy actually, it is a gimmick. However you are totally correct in saying Sony really has no history to stand on and make such comments.
I agree with you, except for one thing: we really don't know a damn thing about the Revolution yet. It seems premature to just say 'lets all get behind Nintendo' before we see the thing, its controllers, and its game linup. As for the 'development kit' - I wouldn't hold your breath on that one. Big N has *no* history of doing any such thing. They delayed Metroid Prime Hunters because as it was, it was going to ship minus a feature that practically every gamer thought was essential. They did the right thing, delayed the product and added the feature. They deserve credit for righting a bad design decision with a highly anticipated DS title. It bodes well, but lets wait for the Revolution (thats not even the final name yet!) before we crown them, yes?
Did you try Wipeout Pure? It doesn't suck at all.
Lumines doesn't suck at all.
But the rest mostly suck. Hand it to Sony to release their new handheld platform at the beginning of the slow summer season. Fall looks promising though (as usual).
You know, I think people really underestimate how much pain it is to 'switch' - to any new OS or interface. And I also think a lot of that pain and frustration is easy to direct at the offending platform, when in reality much (though certainly not all in many cases) of the pain is from the re-learning itself, and not necessarily because the new system flawed or worse. It could very well be, but when someone is so used to effortlessly accomplishing their typical tasks with the system they have already learned, trying something new is going to be painful, as they may have forgotten or subsumed the original pain of learning how to use the computer at all.
Sort of like FPS players. People who started with 'inverted' mouselook use that forever and can never switch; and vice versa. What is that expression? Habit is a thread we weave every day, until at last it is a cord from which we cannot break free.
Sure, I can give you a few off the top of my head.
I use a tablet most of the time, even for my general mousing. Its easier on the wrist for long stretches and destroys the mouse for illustration work. The Mac 1-button philosophy translates nicely to working this way as right-click is not essential for anything (although there are 2 buttons on my stylus). Spell check (Canadian dictionary) is pervasive throughout the OS, even in web forms like the one I am typing in now; I filter a lot of copy for presentation on web pages, and this has saved me many times. Support for PDF in every application that can Print is a godsend, I don't need Acrobat Distiller and I can be sure that I can save things in a printable form that is precise, from anywhere. The Clipboard also thinks in PDF on Mac. I deal with a lot of French copy; accents and special characters are a breeze to type on the Mac (mnemonic shortcuts like apple-u for umlaut... åéüîø etc) compared to the PC which requires the ASCII 4-digit code typed on the numpad that you must memorize. ColorSync is still the best solution out there for working with precise colour from screen to paper, and you can't get it for Windows. QuickTime itself makes much of my job possible, it is the rosetta stone of multimedia and it works best on the original Mac platform; I am *constantly* switching contexts with bits of disparate media and I find that cut-and-paste, or particularly drag-and-drop, are a pale shadow on WinXP compared to the Mac. Ever try to drag-drop Flash symbols into Illustrator? Works on Mac, doesn't on PC. Lots and lots of examples like this. Also, the MDI interface system that Windows uses is really counterproductive for doing graphical work when one is referencing, say, a logo spec or design document. Photoshop/Win has a gray 'backdrop' like most Windows MDI apps and this means you can't see past it to other things. On the Mac I can arrage the document and my Photoshop comps so that I can see everything while I'm working - and I'm using a widescreen display too, although that is not unique to Mac.
Throw on that pile the usual arguments of not having to deal with viruses or spyware, fewer driver issues, etc. and maybe you get the idea. Some of this is 'anecdotal' and not 'measurable' I grant you but how would I prove that in a slashdot submission anyway?
Forget target disc mode, how about Single User mode? It's a key combo you hold on startup for any openfirmware Mac.
Besides, for target disc mode these kids would need access to a separate portable pocket-sized firewire drive! And I simply cannot imagine there are many of those floating around a high school. iReallyDoubtIt.
Just like male pattern baldness. Or hemophilia.
I don't think you can classify 'psychopathy' as a survival trait. Knock-on effects of being a psychopath may make it easier to live with yourself if you've had to kill or abuse others, but that's about it.
Here is your new default homepage.
You reminded me of one of my favourite Pierre Trudeau quotes (for those who don't know, one of Canada's most famous Prime Ministers).
Trudeau knew what Adams knew. The quote during his election campaign:
CBC Reporter: How badly do you want to be Prime Minister?
Trudeau (not missing a beat): Not very badly.
Imagine a politician today having the balls to say something like that... I'll end with another one:
"It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there."