Erm, that's true but it seems to me that there's comparatively little marketing targeting the "technical or sophisticated user" from hardware manufacturers, with the possible exception of graphics cards. Why? Because if you need an 8-core mac pro, there's a good chance you know you need it.
Yes. This applies (I suspect) pretty much everywhere outside the US/NA.
And -- as someone who spends a significant chunk of their time working on this sort of thing and looking for "local diversity" imagery to fit with a variety of places, it's not easy. Or rather, it's not easy and cheap. It's relatively easy to hire some models, a photographer, a studio/location and take great photos with suitable ethnic/gender/age balance for your uses, with the right clothing and in the right setting, and shot in an appropriate way. No, really, it isn't *that* hard.
It's very expensive though. Many thousands of [valuable currency unit]. And it's extremely time consuming to evaluate photographers, model portfolios, location scout/decide on studio set dressing, find free space in diaries.
So that's when we turn to the stock photo libraries, and they (for the most part) have *very* limited supplies of non-US focused diversity images.
Perhaps I'm misreading, but aren't you confusing "I really hate all doctors" with "I'm going to kill all doctors with this knife", or even "I'm going to kill Doc R with this knife"?
Legislation against "you should go kill him now, go on, do it, go and kill him" makes sense to me
Legislation against "I really don't like him, he smells of burned tyres and he wears lycra shorts the whole time" makes less sense.
Yes, that's fair. I have an old Microsoft Sidewinder FF2 which I loved to use with MW games -- not the most accurate setup, I know, but the immersion was (to me at least) well worth the lost accuracy and kills. A decent joystick setup *is* better than a 360 controller.
The OP was talking about keyboard and mouse though -- which leaves you with analog torso control and digital everything else -- so I'd still go with a 360 controller if my choice was either that or m&k alone. I don't think my mere 10 years of playing makes that any less valid.
There were also a number of 'mechs in the Battletech universe that featured rear-facing weapons -- for example, I think standard atlas (7k?) featured a pair of rear-facing medium lasers. I seem to remember there was also a 'mech which could shoulder rotate it's arms sufficiently to aim backwards. I suspect that they had difficult making a control scheme for this which wasn't deemed "too complex".
Eh? Keyboard-mouse? Multibutton joystick, I think.
Besides, to quote a poster on rockpapershotgun.com, Dominic White:
"Just reminding people that the 360 pad has four full analogue axes, two half-axes, and 14 buttons to play with. That is [i]plenty[/i] for a Mechwarrior game."
I'd suggest that a 360 controller would be *better* than mouse+keys for controlling a 'mech.
Take the example of acceptable clothing. How about you say, "we recommend something along the lines of x, y, z. O, P and Q are definitely forbidden. Basically, we're looking for [formal/biz casual/this dorky uniform/whatever]. If you wear something we don't like, we'll [tell you not to wear it again/send you home to change and dock your pay the missing time]. If you have to be cautioned about your clothes more than 5 times, we'll terminate your contract".
Doesn't that cover all the bases? And in any case, for pretty much all employees worth having, wouldn't "hey Dave, the combat pants don't really cut it..." be sufficient?
For large corporations (excepting Microsoft, where Mr Gates has the largest shareholding at ~8% of the corp) the largest shareholders are typically mutual funds and investment institutions. Individual officers might have extremely valuable shareholdings, but for large corps it's a small percentage of the total.
The biggest drawback to the "write and release yourself" school of music publishing is that it requires musicians have production/engineering/mixing/mastering/studio tech skills, as well as being able to play their chosen instruments and write good songs.
I *know* that you can go out and hire a studio, an engineer, a producer or whatever yourself, but if you don't know what you need it's difficult to get the best out of the experience.
It's (arguably) easier for people making music electronically, as they have a decent chance of going from creative idea to ready-to-master with the skillset they've acquired to be able to make the music, but I'm not sure how well that applies to a singer-songwriter, or a guitar/bass/drums/vocals band, or chamber music or whatever.
As other commenters have mentioned, it's about the trade off.
I guess I'd fit into the target market, as I'm a graphic designer and video editor, so more screen and more power are always nice. But I can't see me ever going larger than the 15.4" screen laptop I have now.
Why? Because, as nice as a bigger screen/more screens would be, it would guarantee that I couldn't do anything until I reached my destination unless I carried a smaller laptop as well. The laptop I have (Dell D820) is awkward on planes unless travelling business class or above, as it's slightly too big to fit on a tray table comfortably. Ditto for train travel (in the UK) -- even at a "table" seat (2 pairs of seats facing, separated by a small table) it's necessary to have the laptop uncomfortably close to the edge of the table so as not to use all of the table space belonging to the person opposite.
It seems to me that the extending display tech would be more suited to a smaller laptop -- if it can be made to work -- so you can have portability but still have a sizable working desktop when you have the space.
re: Fonts, um not so much. I haven't bought a non-opentype font in years, and they are a single download for Mac & PC, ergo the kerning is the same on both (subject to the apps/OS interpreting the kerning info correctly).
It's worth pointing out that all of the commercial apps you mention also run happily on Windows. There are plenty of professional graphic designers who use them, particularly in-house types.
3am where? Local, or server time. Can users even change local time? Would you expect an international exec to do so?
I can just see it. You're based in LA and on a business trip in London. The laptop is forced to reboot at 3am LA time. Which is 11am London time. Right in the middle of the big presentation.
Question: is caller display not available on regular POTS phones in the US?
I do the much the same with a regular landline here in the UK: the number flashes up on the phone's display (or the name, if they're in the address book), and if I don't know it or I'm not in the mood, I don't answer and they go to voicemail. No biggie.
The only time I find it annoying is when I can't do it -- say I'm working from home and not using a softphone over VPN, but instead forwarding calls from my work number to my home number. Then, it's a pain, as I need to answer every call. Otherwise, not so difficult.
And ofcourse, businesses in difficulties will stop throwing money away for overrated software when they can get a free and open equivalent.
Not convinced of this. Changing from commercial software to open-source software (or the other way round, for that matter) can be initially very expensive: training costs, new support contracts, new hardware (maybe), adjustment time, downtime or running parallel infrastructure. It does of course depend on what it is you're switching, and how many people interact with the software who will need retraining/initially more time to produce the same output, but I'd almost suspect there'll be less switching.
If the downturn becomes a full-on, long-term economic depression, then companies will look for long-term cost savings, but initially at least, they'll be doing as little as possible.
I think it's fair to say though, that if times are tight and you're about to laid off/actually have been laid off, then your priorities will be more along the lines of
1. Find new job 2. Find temp contract work to do whilst looking for new job 3. Find "make me a [website/database/application/whatever]" work to cover some expenses whilst doing 1 & 2 4. (maybe) Find other generic temp work to keep the mortgage payments going 5. Contribute to open-source projects
So, what are the results? I'd say smaller open-source projects (particularly those with no commercial arm or developers-paid-for-by-large-companies) might stagnate for a while, as the pool of people who do a couple of hours/night, a couple of nights/week are jobhunting or doing contract work. Larger projects with commercial backing should be less affected.
Take a look at some early DVDs - the quality of the transfers was (compared to most modern DVDs) fairly shocking. As transfers and the encoders got better and smarter, the finished product became considerably better.
I suspect the same thing may happen with Blu-ray - but with the significant difference being (as already repeated ad nauseum) that we're moving from a relatively high-quality digital format which has been (largely) perfected, to a very high quality format which is most likely still improving (from a skills/transfer/encoding point of view). The previous transition was not. Also, let's not forget that VHS tapes degraded over time/use...
Slashdot Mirror
it's "tongue-in-cheek", not "tongue-and-check".
Also, in the Transporter series of films he plays an American (with an *extremely* suspect accent).
Erm, that's true but it seems to me that there's comparatively little marketing targeting the "technical or sophisticated user" from hardware manufacturers, with the possible exception of graphics cards. Why? Because if you need an 8-core mac pro, there's a good chance you know you need it.
Yes. This applies (I suspect) pretty much everywhere outside the US/NA.
And -- as someone who spends a significant chunk of their time working on this sort of thing and looking for "local diversity" imagery to fit with a variety of places, it's not easy. Or rather, it's not easy and cheap. It's relatively easy to hire some models, a photographer, a studio/location and take great photos with suitable ethnic/gender/age balance for your uses, with the right clothing and in the right setting, and shot in an appropriate way. No, really, it isn't *that* hard.
It's very expensive though. Many thousands of [valuable currency unit]. And it's extremely time consuming to evaluate photographers, model portfolios, location scout/decide on studio set dressing, find free space in diaries.
So that's when we turn to the stock photo libraries, and they (for the most part) have *very* limited supplies of non-US focused diversity images.
Is it?
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2007/evaluation/editions.mspx
Perhaps I'm misreading, but aren't you confusing "I really hate all doctors" with "I'm going to kill all doctors with this knife", or even "I'm going to kill Doc R with this knife"?
Legislation against "you should go kill him now, go on, do it, go and kill him" makes sense to me
Legislation against "I really don't like him, he smells of burned tyres and he wears lycra shorts the whole time" makes less sense.
Yes, that's fair. I have an old Microsoft Sidewinder FF2 which I loved to use with MW games -- not the most accurate setup, I know, but the immersion was (to me at least) well worth the lost accuracy and kills. A decent joystick setup *is* better than a 360 controller.
The OP was talking about keyboard and mouse though -- which leaves you with analog torso control and digital everything else -- so I'd still go with a 360 controller if my choice was either that or m&k alone. I don't think my mere 10 years of playing makes that any less valid.
There were also a number of 'mechs in the Battletech universe that featured rear-facing weapons -- for example, I think standard atlas (7k?) featured a pair of rear-facing medium lasers. I seem to remember there was also a 'mech which could shoulder rotate it's arms sufficiently to aim backwards. I suspect that they had difficult making a control scheme for this which wasn't deemed "too complex".
Eh? Keyboard-mouse? Multibutton joystick, I think.
Besides, to quote a poster on rockpapershotgun.com, Dominic White:
"Just reminding people that the 360 pad has four full analogue axes, two half-axes, and 14 buttons to play with. That is [i]plenty[/i] for a Mechwarrior game."
I'd suggest that a 360 controller would be *better* than mouse+keys for controlling a 'mech.
Or, confusingly, for BT Group plc, the holding company.
I don't really get this.
Take the example of acceptable clothing. How about you say, "we recommend something along the lines of x, y, z. O, P and Q are definitely forbidden. Basically, we're looking for [formal/biz casual/this dorky uniform/whatever]. If you wear something we don't like, we'll [tell you not to wear it again/send you home to change and dock your pay the missing time]. If you have to be cautioned about your clothes more than 5 times, we'll terminate your contract".
Doesn't that cover all the bases? And in any case, for pretty much all employees worth having, wouldn't "hey Dave, the combat pants don't really cut it..." be sufficient?
Do you write for the Daily Mash (www.dailymash.co.uk)?
You should.
Um, no.
For large corporations (excepting Microsoft, where Mr Gates has the largest shareholding at ~8% of the corp) the largest shareholders are typically mutual funds and investment institutions. Individual officers might have extremely valuable shareholdings, but for large corps it's a small percentage of the total.
Some stores offer FLAC-encoded tracks. Bleep.com is one.
This is an excellent point.
The biggest drawback to the "write and release yourself" school of music publishing is that it requires musicians have production/engineering/mixing/mastering/studio tech skills, as well as being able to play their chosen instruments and write good songs.
I *know* that you can go out and hire a studio, an engineer, a producer or whatever yourself, but if you don't know what you need it's difficult to get the best out of the experience.
It's (arguably) easier for people making music electronically, as they have a decent chance of going from creative idea to ready-to-master with the skillset they've acquired to be able to make the music, but I'm not sure how well that applies to a singer-songwriter, or a guitar/bass/drums/vocals band, or chamber music or whatever.
As other commenters have mentioned, it's about the trade off.
I guess I'd fit into the target market, as I'm a graphic designer and video editor, so more screen and more power are always nice. But I can't see me ever going larger than the 15.4" screen laptop I have now.
Why? Because, as nice as a bigger screen/more screens would be, it would guarantee that I couldn't do anything until I reached my destination unless I carried a smaller laptop as well. The laptop I have (Dell D820) is awkward on planes unless travelling business class or above, as it's slightly too big to fit on a tray table comfortably. Ditto for train travel (in the UK) -- even at a "table" seat (2 pairs of seats facing, separated by a small table) it's necessary to have the laptop uncomfortably close to the edge of the table so as not to use all of the table space belonging to the person opposite.
It seems to me that the extending display tech would be more suited to a smaller laptop -- if it can be made to work -- so you can have portability but still have a sizable working desktop when you have the space.
re: Fonts, um not so much. I haven't bought a non-opentype font in years, and they are a single download for Mac & PC, ergo the kerning is the same on both (subject to the apps/OS interpreting the kerning info correctly).
It's worth pointing out that all of the commercial apps you mention also run happily on Windows. There are plenty of professional graphic designers who use them, particularly in-house types.
Forced reboot at 3am?
3am where? Local, or server time. Can users even change local time? Would you expect an international exec to do so?
I can just see it. You're based in LA and on a business trip in London. The laptop is forced to reboot at 3am LA time. Which is 11am London time. Right in the middle of the big presentation.
Yeah, that works. Genius.
Question: is caller display not available on regular POTS phones in the US?
I do the much the same with a regular landline here in the UK: the number flashes up on the phone's display (or the name, if they're in the address book), and if I don't know it or I'm not in the mood, I don't answer and they go to voicemail. No biggie.
The only time I find it annoying is when I can't do it -- say I'm working from home and not using a softphone over VPN, but instead forwarding calls from my work number to my home number. Then, it's a pain, as I need to answer every call. Otherwise, not so difficult.
And ofcourse, businesses in difficulties will stop throwing money away for overrated software when they can get a free and open equivalent.
Not convinced of this. Changing from commercial software to open-source software (or the other way round, for that matter) can be initially very expensive: training costs, new support contracts, new hardware (maybe), adjustment time, downtime or running parallel infrastructure. It does of course depend on what it is you're switching, and how many people interact with the software who will need retraining/initially more time to produce the same output, but I'd almost suspect there'll be less switching.
If the downturn becomes a full-on, long-term economic depression, then companies will look for long-term cost savings, but initially at least, they'll be doing as little as possible.
Possible.
I think it's fair to say though, that if times are tight and you're about to laid off/actually have been laid off, then your priorities will be more along the lines of
1. Find new job
2. Find temp contract work to do whilst looking for new job
3. Find "make me a [website/database/application/whatever]" work to cover some expenses whilst doing 1 & 2
4. (maybe) Find other generic temp work to keep the mortgage payments going
5. Contribute to open-source projects
So, what are the results? I'd say smaller open-source projects (particularly those with no commercial arm or developers-paid-for-by-large-companies) might stagnate for a while, as the pool of people who do a couple of hours/night, a couple of nights/week are jobhunting or doing contract work. Larger projects with commercial backing should be less affected.
In fact, in order to be of some value socially, I think it is worthwhile to spend a decent amount of time reflecting and thinking - before we speak.
SHOCK NEWS! Man on internet advocates thinking before speaking. Film at 11.
In other news, flying pig breaks lightspeed barrier over Bermuda triangle, Best Buy declares 2008 "Year of the Linux desktop".
No, as earlier posters have pointed out, the files are stored in a hidden folder with hex names.
It's absolutely correct.
True enough - it's part of the learning curve.
Take a look at some early DVDs - the quality of the transfers was (compared to most modern DVDs) fairly shocking. As transfers and the encoders got better and smarter, the finished product became considerably better.
I suspect the same thing may happen with Blu-ray - but with the significant difference being (as already repeated ad nauseum) that we're moving from a relatively high-quality digital format which has been (largely) perfected, to a very high quality format which is most likely still improving (from a skills/transfer/encoding point of view). The previous transition was not. Also, let's not forget that VHS tapes degraded over time/use...
I don't know the full details of the trial but there is a movie about it [emphasis mine] if you really want to find out.
Oh dear.