I've been using newsmap every day since I first noticed it. It's a fantastic first stop of the day to see, at a glance, just what the hell is going on in the world (oh, and oyu can deactivate topics like Sports, which I think is great.. amazing how much more you can see of real news when you take that out).
This thing seems confusing and incomplete after newsmap. You only get a noun-type 2-3 word blurb for each story. Its interesting for the time-based approach, but it doesn't seem very useful for actually browsing the news.
Slashdot should consider using some kind of treemap interface as an alternative interface, based on number of comments and clickthroughs and such. I would definitely use something like that, just on the front page, to see what's getting attention. If you're anything like me, you often scan the stories to see how many comments they've received, and thus where the raging debate is.
(Of course, newsmap was made in Flash, which a lot of Slashdotters are chronically allergic to. Cue chorus of FlashHatas(TM) in 3, 2, 1...)
You know after thinking about this product for a bit (and reading the near-instantaneous consensus about what a Slashdot effect would look like) I think there should definitely be more work into things like this.
I could easily see how a few real world metaphors can be used in a sort of 'stretchy' fashion, the way the buildings get bigger and smaller in this thing based on how many people are 'in' it. I wonder how it handles the fact that people change locations pretty much instantly.
Of course the next step is full on Grand Theft Router with little armed PacketPeople who can actually fight for bandwidth! Yeah! Or maybe capture the flag, but the flag is actually a P2P connection. And moderators would be huge silent golems striding through the city, rearranging things as they see fit, stepping on some but lifting up others, and never telling us why... and of course the Ancient Editor Gods, resplendent in their ivory towers floating above, casting down both wisdom and duplicate stories in equal measure. Ah, what a sight it would be.
So have they programmed this thing to show a frothing, bloodthirsty mob with pitchforks and torches, to represent the Slashdot effect?
I can just see it... there would be a spotlight that comes out of the sky, and then the zombie users would descend, burning everything in their path and reducing the building to rubble. Then little clean-up crews and such afterwards.
A couple of other points you made aren't quite true, i don't think... for instance, arguments like 'has no web interface' and 'only works with Apple software' and 'multi-room synchronization'... those are negated by the fact that it is meant to be used with an iTunes-loaded wireless computer, no?
Also, there are plug-ins for iTunes. And I would call an optical jack a 'proper audio connector' but maybe that's just me.
See, I thought you wouldn't understand....Yanks. You do realise Ford Prefect was a joke at your expense with regard to "getting" British culture don't you? Anyway, moving on...
I find it amusing that you would assume that I am American, but not nearly as funny as the idea of you explaining a joke to me that we weren't even talking about.
I'll just leave it with this thought: comedy, even clever comedy, does not have a nationality.
Now, you just carry on with the classist British curmudgeon bit, and I'll go on not caring. Deal?
I was so surprised that I seemingly reversed the two names in my head. Warwick Davis the Paranoid Android, being played by Marvin.
(For some reason I always pictured Marvin as being seven feet tall. I think it was the voice from the radio plays. It was probably described differently in the book.)
So I went and did the IMdB like everyone else and after checking Mr. Kirkpatrick's credentials, I looked at the slated cast for the H2G2 movie... some interesting choices...
Arthur Dent = Martin Freeman ("Tim" from The Office)
Ford Prefect = Mos Def (weird, but I could see it)
Warwick Davis = Marvin (?!? uh, Willow?? is Marvin short, I can't remember)
Humma Kavula = John Malkovich (say no more)
Zaphod Beeblebrox = Sam Rockwell (right on!)
I have hope.
Re:Pushing what limits?
on
Shrek 2 How-To
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· Score: 2, Informative
From the Wired article.. take as you will:
These days, Bird, like the rest of us, is a Pixar convert (and that footage is soon-to-be bonus material on an upcoming DVD). Outspoken and high-spirited, Bird calls himself "the first virus let into this climate-controlled atmosphere." His Pixar debut, The Incredibles - an action comedy about a family of superheroes roused to action after having hung up their spandex - screens later this year. It's the company's first foray into animated human protagonists, withall that implies: beard stubble, bulging midsections, difficult-to-manage hair, and flappy clothing. But for the outfit that invented computer-generated animated films, finding the humanity in teraflops of rendered code is business as usual.
Still, Bird is asking a lot. "The knees of Pixar are trembling under the weight of my ignorance," he says, sitting in a lawn chair on Pixar's rolling, 16-acre grounds in Emeryville, California. "If you were to list the 20 hardest things to do in CG, I ordered double portions of all of them: hair, hair underwater, fire, explosions, humans, human clothing, clothing falling through the air," he says. "I was told by some that what I wanted was impossible, that it would cost 10 gazillion dollars and take 10 years. Fortunately there was another group that said: Bring it on."
Sound like they pushed the limits to me.. this is the director speaking... but I don't think he's kidding, likely there's man-hours he can point to.
Somebody grant the man his wish. This post says nothing but 'I think Shrek sucks'. Not Insightful.
Buddy - next time tell us a little more on why you think it sucks, other than 'the animation blows'.
What is with PDI/Dreamworks?
on
Shrek 2 How-To
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· Score: 4, Interesting
While I tend to prefer Pixar's style, you certainly cannot just discount PDI/Dreamworks' efforts. Shrek was a pretty good movie that brought an even larger audience to appreciate CGI movies. Antz certainly had its moments, especially the intro.
Having said that... what is the deal with Dreamworks ripping off ideas from Pixar?
I'm talking about Antz and the forthcoming Shark Tale. The Bug's Life/Antz controversy, as you may recall, caused quite a stir in the computer animation circles - I seem to recall someone at Pixar complaining about being the 'R&D dept. for PDI'. But now we have this other underwater movie, which seems an awful lot like it was inspired by Finding Nemo.. but with massive cash thrown at voice talent (check it out) and dumber-looking sharks.
'Bruce' and gang from Nemo were much more interesting visually than this goofy Dreamworks clown-shark if you ask me.
While the analogy of threat of global warming to threat of Hitler can be argued, if nothing else, non-conventional means of energy shall soon be required since there aren't that many natural resources available anymore.
There is one prominent natural resource that we still have plenty of....
Unfortunately that resource is coal. And burning coal is some of the nastiest shit we've ever done.
That is a whole 'nother worry about the oil situation: at some point, oil prices will start to go up, and won't ever stop. Maybe that's happening now. We'll have a choice - do we supplant our flagging energy sources with clean, risky, expensive nuclear... or clean, inadequate, expensive wind/solar... or dirty, plentiful, cheap coal?
We as a species have made decisions like this before and it doesn't look promising. Frankly, the problem of dealing with spent rods is a lot more palatable than a resurgence in coal burning....
(Aside: let's not forget, nuclear critics... 'threat of terrorism' is not a good reason to stop doing anything worthwhile)
Ummm, that's complete bullshit....A real documentary is supposed to DOCUMENT something. In fact, here's the definition from dictionary.com:
Heh. I could care less what 'dictionary.com' wants to call a Documentary. Here, let me put it another way: how would you make a documentary (by your def'n), about gun violence and the political winds that affect guns, without having any opinion on the matter whatsoever? Present the 'two views'? That is a fallacy; the idea that just having two views automatically makes it 'balanced and objective' is nonsense.
But it doesn't even matter. Ok -- the film is not a documentary anymore, we'll revoke that special privilege and say that its a completely partisan polemic. Now, what about those gun deaths? Is that a fake stat? Those kids, actors? Is Moore even real? Why don't you consider the actual issues?
A documentary may not have a political slant if the subject matter simply doesn't call for it or address it, such as the previous Palme winner, the Cousteau doc. Not a lot of partisan rancor there, underwater.
The real issue is: there are a fuck of a lot of gun deaths in the United States. Way more than there ought to be. Quibbling about the definition of a proper documentary misses the larger point that Moore raises, namely, that the US has some major issues to do with Fear and Guns.
You have got to be kidding. That man doesn't know what a documentary is.... All is his works are just opinions and editorials, little actual facts. And most of those 'facts' are twisted to fit his strange view of reality.
Not that I would dream of trying to change your mind, but... do you actually think that you know better than the Cannes jury? Really? The 20-minute standing O that Bowling got for instance, matched I believe by Fahrenheit - the longest in the history of the festival - that counts for nothing, eh? P.
That's it. You're right, the world's film experts are wrong. You've nailed it.
With his positions and enjoy his movies, the man's a troll, plain and simple. He won not because of his movie, but because of his message. The festival is supposed to be about art, but now its been perverted into politics.
A genuine question for Moore fans: doesn't it bother you even slightly that Moore expects you not to independently verify what he presents as fact? You're supposed to be geeks, people who're capable of thinking "out of the box". And doesn't it bother you that Michael Moore is personally getting very, very rich [mooreexposed.com] out of September 11th?
I don't have to do a damn thing to verify his movie - I just sit back and see who sues him. I mean, the gun lobby alone is very, very large, and determined... if there was a single thing in Bowling that could even be remotely picked apart by a lawyer, it would happen. But it hasn't.
By the way, I'd like to make another point to the Slashdot crowd at large - Documentaries are NOT supposed to be "objective". News reporting is supposed to be objective. You have never, ever seen an 'objective' documentary that wasn't trying to inform you of some plight, or problem, or point of view. Ever.
However, to claim that Keynote does all you could possibly need in Powerpoint is ridiculous. What about diagrams and flowcharts?
No - I would never claim that Keynote does all the same things as PowerPoint. Keynote handily spanks PowerPoint into the ground, in my opinion.. even in version 1. Charts and diagrams are part of how your workflow goes - Keynote doesn't support those in an editable fashion, but I just do mine in OmniGraffle or some other program first, then paste them in. Obviously this doesn't work for everyone but in my workflow this is what I did with PP anyways (I'd never 'trust' a chart or data set to PP. Never.) I don't think I could ever go back after using the Smart Guides or text editor in Keynote. Or the transitions for that matter.
And to claim that TextEdit and Keypoint read Word and Powerpoint files is like saying that vi is the only Desktop Publishing Program you will ever need. Sometimes it works. If you have created any serious work, it won't.
My experience has been different. The Word features import to TextEdit properly for 99% of the documents I've received... its only when you've done some truly weird acrobatics in Word that it'll choke.. and even then, it never chokes to the extent that you can't fix it pretty fast. Embedded objects can be a problem, but hell, that's true just between different versions of Office.
Believe me I am comforted by the fact that I do have Office just in case something really breaks... but it hasn't happened yet, knock on MDF.
There once was a time when you really really had to have Office X on your Mac to interact with the vast majority of the Windows world.. while it certainly continues to work well (for Office anyways), I no longer think this is the case. I bought Office v.X but I haven't actually used it in quite some time.. instead:
Word = TextEdit (reads/writes Word files)
PowerPoint = Keynote (reads/writes Powerpoints)
Entourage = Mail/Address Book/iSync (I will never give up my Bluetooth)
Excel = Mariner Calc
Two of those you have to buy. Keynote is $100 CDN, Mariner Calc is around $160. Panther was around the same and includes the rest. This is all cheaper - combined - than the standalone version of Word, last I checked.
Don't shell out the massive cash for Office Mac unless you really think you need it. Mostly what I deal with day-to-day is Word and PP files, and I do just fine with the above.
Sure, TextEdit isn't Word, but on the other hand.. it isn't Word, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
I, personally, wish to god somebody would write some sort of plugin that would sort mp3's in some sane way. iTunes is absolutely horrible at handling mp3's and their various tags (or lack thereof) something winamp perfected years ago.
Can you specify exactly what your problem is? I find iTunes to be a fucking ninja with ID3 tags, so I'm curious.
My Mail folders contain 2.31gigs of email. Mail cannot handle this and chokes on it horribly.
Patient: "It hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Stop doing that."
While I admire your chutzpah, having 2.31 gigs of Mail around may just be one of those exercises in futility. I mean, I can't prove you wrong if you tell me you need instantaneous access to 2.31GB of mail all the time, but I do kind of doubt it.
Reminds me of those people who complained that you can't put 900 folders in the Dock and make sense of it.
Slashdot Mirror
This thing seems confusing and incomplete after newsmap. You only get a noun-type 2-3 word blurb for each story. Its interesting for the time-based approach, but it doesn't seem very useful for actually browsing the news.
Slashdot should consider using some kind of treemap interface as an alternative interface, based on number of comments and clickthroughs and such. I would definitely use something like that, just on the front page, to see what's getting attention. If you're anything like me, you often scan the stories to see how many comments they've received, and thus where the raging debate is.
(Of course, newsmap was made in Flash, which a lot of Slashdotters are chronically allergic to. Cue chorus of FlashHatas(TM) in 3, 2, 1...)
Best quote I've ever heard about the state of Classic Mac OS security, from a friend who really knows his shit:
"Sure, you're right, I can't break into OS 9. But I can't telnet into a fucking rock now, either, can I?"
True story.
I could easily see how a few real world metaphors can be used in a sort of 'stretchy' fashion, the way the buildings get bigger and smaller in this thing based on how many people are 'in' it. I wonder how it handles the fact that people change locations pretty much instantly.
Of course the next step is full on Grand Theft Router with little armed PacketPeople who can actually fight for bandwidth! Yeah! Or maybe capture the flag, but the flag is actually a P2P connection. And moderators would be huge silent golems striding through the city, rearranging things as they see fit, stepping on some but lifting up others, and never telling us why... and of course the Ancient Editor Gods, resplendent in their ivory towers floating above, casting down both wisdom and duplicate stories in equal measure. Ah, what a sight it would be.
I can just see it... there would be a spotlight that comes out of the sky, and then the zombie users would descend, burning everything in their path and reducing the building to rubble. Then little clean-up crews and such afterwards.
Yeah.. that's where you lost me.
A couple of other points you made aren't quite true, i don't think... for instance, arguments like 'has no web interface' and 'only works with Apple software' and 'multi-room synchronization'... those are negated by the fact that it is meant to be used with an iTunes-loaded wireless computer, no?
Also, there are plug-ins for iTunes. And I would call an optical jack a 'proper audio connector' but maybe that's just me.
NOONECARESNOKIA
I find it amusing that you would assume that I am American, but not nearly as funny as the idea of you explaining a joke to me that we weren't even talking about.
I'll just leave it with this thought: comedy, even clever comedy, does not have a nationality.
Now, you just carry on with the classist British curmudgeon bit, and I'll go on not caring. Deal?
(For some reason I always pictured Marvin as being seven feet tall. I think it was the voice from the radio plays. It was probably described differently in the book.)
Yeah that's probably why the book did so poorly over here in North America.
Arthur Dent = Martin Freeman ("Tim" from The Office)
Ford Prefect = Mos Def (weird, but I could see it)
Warwick Davis = Marvin (?!? uh, Willow?? is Marvin short, I can't remember)
Humma Kavula = John Malkovich (say no more)
Zaphod Beeblebrox = Sam Rockwell (right on!)
I have hope.
These days, Bird, like the rest of us, is a Pixar convert (and that footage is soon-to-be bonus material on an upcoming DVD). Outspoken and high-spirited, Bird calls himself "the first virus let into this climate-controlled atmosphere." His Pixar debut, The Incredibles - an action comedy about a family of superheroes roused to action after having hung up their spandex - screens later this year. It's the company's first foray into animated human protagonists, withall that implies: beard stubble, bulging midsections, difficult-to-manage hair, and flappy clothing. But for the outfit that invented computer-generated animated films, finding the humanity in teraflops of rendered code is business as usual.
Still, Bird is asking a lot. "The knees of Pixar are trembling under the weight of my ignorance," he says, sitting in a lawn chair on Pixar's rolling, 16-acre grounds in Emeryville, California. "If you were to list the 20 hardest things to do in CG, I ordered double portions of all of them: hair, hair underwater, fire, explosions, humans, human clothing, clothing falling through the air," he says. "I was told by some that what I wanted was impossible, that it would cost 10 gazillion dollars and take 10 years. Fortunately there was another group that said: Bring it on."
Sound like they pushed the limits to me.. this is the director speaking... but I don't think he's kidding, likely there's man-hours he can point to.
Somebody grant the man his wish. This post says nothing but 'I think Shrek sucks'. Not Insightful.
Buddy - next time tell us a little more on why you think it sucks, other than 'the animation blows'.
Having said that... what is the deal with Dreamworks ripping off ideas from Pixar?
I'm talking about Antz and the forthcoming Shark Tale. The Bug's Life/Antz controversy, as you may recall, caused quite a stir in the computer animation circles - I seem to recall someone at Pixar complaining about being the 'R&D dept. for PDI'. But now we have this other underwater movie, which seems an awful lot like it was inspired by Finding Nemo.. but with massive cash thrown at voice talent (check it out) and dumber-looking sharks.
'Bruce' and gang from Nemo were much more interesting visually than this goofy Dreamworks clown-shark if you ask me.
There is one prominent natural resource that we still have plenty of....
Unfortunately that resource is coal. And burning coal is some of the nastiest shit we've ever done.
That is a whole 'nother worry about the oil situation: at some point, oil prices will start to go up, and won't ever stop. Maybe that's happening now. We'll have a choice - do we supplant our flagging energy sources with clean, risky, expensive nuclear... or clean, inadequate, expensive wind/solar... or dirty, plentiful, cheap coal?
We as a species have made decisions like this before and it doesn't look promising. Frankly, the problem of dealing with spent rods is a lot more palatable than a resurgence in coal burning....
(Aside: let's not forget, nuclear critics... 'threat of terrorism' is not a good reason to stop doing anything worthwhile)
Heh. I could care less what 'dictionary.com' wants to call a Documentary. Here, let me put it another way: how would you make a documentary (by your def'n), about gun violence and the political winds that affect guns, without having any opinion on the matter whatsoever? Present the 'two views'? That is a fallacy; the idea that just having two views automatically makes it 'balanced and objective' is nonsense.
But it doesn't even matter. Ok -- the film is not a documentary anymore, we'll revoke that special privilege and say that its a completely partisan polemic. Now, what about those gun deaths? Is that a fake stat? Those kids, actors? Is Moore even real? Why don't you consider the actual issues?
A documentary may not have a political slant if the subject matter simply doesn't call for it or address it, such as the previous Palme winner, the Cousteau doc. Not a lot of partisan rancor there, underwater.
The real issue is: there are a fuck of a lot of gun deaths in the United States. Way more than there ought to be. Quibbling about the definition of a proper documentary misses the larger point that Moore raises, namely, that the US has some major issues to do with Fear and Guns.
Not that I would dream of trying to change your mind, but... do you actually think that you know better than the Cannes jury? Really? The 20-minute standing O that Bowling got for instance, matched I believe by Fahrenheit - the longest in the history of the festival - that counts for nothing, eh? P. That's it. You're right, the world's film experts are wrong. You've nailed it.
Ahem. You haven't seen the film yet, jackass.
So who's the Troll?
I don't have to do a damn thing to verify his movie - I just sit back and see who sues him. I mean, the gun lobby alone is very, very large, and determined... if there was a single thing in Bowling that could even be remotely picked apart by a lawyer, it would happen. But it hasn't.
By the way, I'd like to make another point to the Slashdot crowd at large - Documentaries are NOT supposed to be "objective". News reporting is supposed to be objective. You have never, ever seen an 'objective' documentary that wasn't trying to inform you of some plight, or problem, or point of view. Ever.
Uh, doesn't Web Ontology Language make WOL?
(OWL)
But that doesn't...
(OWL)
No - I would never claim that Keynote does all the same things as PowerPoint. Keynote handily spanks PowerPoint into the ground, in my opinion.. even in version 1. Charts and diagrams are part of how your workflow goes - Keynote doesn't support those in an editable fashion, but I just do mine in OmniGraffle or some other program first, then paste them in. Obviously this doesn't work for everyone but in my workflow this is what I did with PP anyways (I'd never 'trust' a chart or data set to PP. Never.) I don't think I could ever go back after using the Smart Guides or text editor in Keynote. Or the transitions for that matter.
And to claim that TextEdit and Keypoint read Word and Powerpoint files is like saying that vi is the only Desktop Publishing Program you will ever need. Sometimes it works. If you have created any serious work, it won't.
My experience has been different. The Word features import to TextEdit properly for 99% of the documents I've received... its only when you've done some truly weird acrobatics in Word that it'll choke.. and even then, it never chokes to the extent that you can't fix it pretty fast. Embedded objects can be a problem, but hell, that's true just between different versions of Office.
Believe me I am comforted by the fact that I do have Office just in case something really breaks... but it hasn't happened yet, knock on MDF.
Word = TextEdit (reads/writes Word files)
PowerPoint = Keynote (reads/writes Powerpoints)
Entourage = Mail/Address Book/iSync (I will never give up my Bluetooth)
Excel = Mariner Calc
Two of those you have to buy. Keynote is $100 CDN, Mariner Calc is around $160. Panther was around the same and includes the rest. This is all cheaper - combined - than the standalone version of Word, last I checked.
Don't shell out the massive cash for Office Mac unless you really think you need it. Mostly what I deal with day-to-day is Word and PP files, and I do just fine with the above.
Sure, TextEdit isn't Word, but on the other hand.. it isn't Word, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Can you specify exactly what your problem is? I find iTunes to be a fucking ninja with ID3 tags, so I'm curious.
Patient: "It hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Stop doing that."
While I admire your chutzpah, having 2.31 gigs of Mail around may just be one of those exercises in futility. I mean, I can't prove you wrong if you tell me you need instantaneous access to 2.31GB of mail all the time, but I do kind of doubt it.
Reminds me of those people who complained that you can't put 900 folders in the Dock and make sense of it.
Well, since you brought it up, yes, let's compare:
Apple method:
Open Prefs
Click Viewing Options
Uncheck 'Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages'
I'll stick with Apple's method thanks.
Who came up with that one??
*ahem*Sun*ahem