Don't we see one of these articles every six months or so?
It's kind of like complaining about fast food: everyone knows it's bad for you, yet people continue to buy it in mass quantities.
There's just not enough people who: a) Care enough about sound b) Have equipment good enough to reveal the difference c) Have sources for the better stuff
Agreed. I messed around with SVG about 5 years ago. I keep hoping it'll break into the mainstream. Maybe Safari 3.0 and the iPhone can help make that happen.
I wish that the USA was this forgiving. We have a culture/media here that will latch on to any "indiscretion" and run with it for all we can - until the next juicy tidbit pops up. Especially if the subject is in any way evasive or defensive about it - that's like blood in the water for the sharks.
Nudist colonies advertising the health benefits of their lifestyle?
They've been doing it for a long time. Back in the 20s and 30s when "nudist colonies" started up in the US, one of the primary reasons was health. Of course, they emphasized total health - diet, exercise, et al. - one component of which was letting the sun and breeze hit your whole body.
IMHO (with no medical training), one of the bad things about sun exposure is the way we "binge" and "starve" ourselves. In the summer, people will work in an office all week then go to the beach and be in the sun for 10 hours. Or we cower in our offices during winter and then fly to some sunny clime and lay on the beach for a week. Not good.
Long time Dvorak user chiming in here. I initially made the switch because I could NOT force myself to learn to touch type with QWERTY. Took me a few months of having a cheat sheet in front of me, but I finally learned it well enough to use regularly.
As other posters have pointed out, it works great for keeping other people off your machine. And password security is good too - just switch to QWERTY, type in your password as Dvorak, and you have an impenetrable mass of letters.
I like the mental gymnastics of switching back and forth when using QWERTY. I feel it keeps my mind flexible - perhaps a LITTLE bit like being bi-lingual is supposed to do.
I also find the stress on my hands to be less than when using QWERTY. Maybe that's because I never learned QWERTY "right", maybe it's because my muscles are more relaxed now when cranking along in Dvorak, maybe it's an illusion.
Yes, compared to a "real" gui, html forms don't have the same richness of user interaction possible. Guess what? For 90% of applications, that's a GOOD THING. Exactly. One nice thing about the web browser is that it provides a UI that users are very familiar with. All the UI elements have a standard look and behavior - that changes from browser to browser, but for each user, THEIR browser is consistent. And (hopefully) if you develop a web app you follow the established conventions - and users intuitively understand those conventions, like menu bars on the side, title stuff at the top, submit buttons at the bottom.
By developing in a web app you put the user in a context that they can easily understand. If you develop a desktop app, the "rules" are much looser and the user may spend more effort trying to understand how the app works, and you as the developer may spend more time writing "clever" UI rather than constraining yourself to those provided by HTML.
I'm developing a Java application using JMX (Java Management Extensions) and MX4J to expose the UI as web pages. I've been pretty happy with the way things have gone. I can write my classes, then expose methods and functionality via MBeans, and do the UI with some XSLT. All of those are technologies and tools _I'm_ familiar with. And I get the added bonus that the app can either be deployed locally on a user's machine or they can access it remotely.
So, as a publicly traded corporation, isn't Sony obligated to maximize shareholder value? If porn is a significant industry that can provide a viable revenue stream and help Blu-Ray compete against HD DVD, isn't Sony being negligent/acting against shareholder interests by prohibiting porn from being produced on Blu-Ray?
It doesn't seem to me that a corporation gets to have "morals" in a case like this. Porn is a legal, profitable, influential industry. To not allow people to use Blu-Ray because "the company" thinks porn is icky doesn't make business sense. I bet Sony equipment (cameras, editing decks, etc.) is used to make porn. Does Sony have a sticker on the side of all its cameras "Not to be used for porn."?
Maybe I'm getting too old, or maybe I have a short attention span, but 70+ hours seems like a LONG time to play a game.
I'm old (over 30, under 40) and have maybe 2-3 hours of "free" time in the evenings. On the weekends, maybe a few hours more. Assuming I did little else other than play Zelda, guesstimate 10 hours of play per week. That's two SOLID months of "free" time sucked up by Link! Toss in some family obligations, playing other games, watching some TV, going outside (*shudder*) - and it could easily take a geezer like me six months to finish the game!
No wonder kids these days are fat. They spend hours and hours grinding through long games trying to get the rush of completion at the end.
Note to developers: How about making games 20-40 hours long, with good replay value. e.g. Have a straight, quick route through the game, but have a lot of side quests and interesting exploration for those who want to spend the time. Once the game is complete, have the second pass through be more difficult and/or mix up the plot. Add more required side quests on the harder levels.
I enjoyed Mario brothers, but then I was about ten years old when it came out, so that doesn't relaly count.
Actually, that counts quite a bit. I'm guessing that the target audience for Mario Brothers was kids that played the game. As an adult, sure the movie sucked, but to a kid it was good.
And now for some complete random speculation I've pulled out of the air:
Movie studios are notoriously conservative. They run the numbers seven different ways, flip them upside down, do it again. i.e. They try to make sure they'll make money. If Halo was done as a Doom-type movie with a big name actor, a known director, and a clear target audience - 14-20 year old males. It'd get made. Universal and Fox would be able to run the numbers and figure out how much $$$ they'd make from DVDs, action figures, Halloween costumes, PEZ dispensers, etc.
My guess is that PJ and crew are trying to turn Halo into a "serious" movie. They are doing "interesting" things with it. That scares movie studios. If it doesn't follow the formula, they can't run it and they cancel.
Would it be a "great" movie? Probably. But it'll probably be half an hour too long, not have a strong Burger King toy tie in, miss the crucial 13-15.5 year old girl market, etc.
While I have no idea what they're doing with the movie, haven't read the books, have played the games - how about this for an idea: Focus on what went on elsewhere while MC was out kicking butt. What was Sarge up to? Build on the internal power struggles amongst the aliens. There's a lot more material to work with than just "MC runs around and shoots things". Assume the target audience knows that and work it in peripherally.
1) This is part of the "Federalization" of the US. The States used to have a lot more responsibilty and autonomy. As communication, migration, and such have shrunk the size and diversity in our country, things that used to be local are now federal. Few people used to know or care that Mississippi had atrocious schools, that was their problem. Now, it's EVERYONE'S problem. The Federal government can't allow any State to deviate from some national norm in any area. Also, the rise of 24 hour national news networks speeds this along. Reporting on any local event brings it to national attention, and it becomes a national problem.
2) IMHO, party loyalty has become more important than constituent loyalty. I'm not enough of a history student to know if this was always so, but it seems that breaking from the Party line is VERY BAD - and will hurt a politician's chances of reelection. So while some Republicans may not like this legislation, they'd rather support it than be branded a traitor to their Party.
3) Bills are way too long and complex for legislators to accurately vet. The summary they read, or their staffers give them, may make complex bills like this seem good ideas. But buried in them are little clauses and legalese that grant WAY more power than (hopefully) they intended. I guess the best we can hope for is if/when a President attempts to exercise these powers in an unsavory manor the Congress in power at the time will reign him in (unless one Party controls both the Executive and Legislative Branches. See 2 above).
4) The mass media won't report this kind of stuff because it's too complex. The legal ramifications of a small clause in a big bill will just go over the heads of the eighth grade education they're targetting. (At least so they think.) There's no good video footage to go along with reporting the story. It's boring TV. MAYBE some obscure PBS station would to cover it, but don't look to CNN, Fox, et al.
I've decided not to vote for either major party anymore. They both are bent on maintaining power and excluding any other parties from the process. They both are utterly corrupted by lobbyist and corporate money (read bribes and kick-backs). Anyone with a real life, and a hint of dirt in a closet will be dragged out and flogged by the media and the opposition - Look! This candidate once looked at a dirty magazine, and/or rented an X-rated movie! He hates children! He wants to have sex with your daughter! It's just sad. (Here in VA, the Demo. candidate for Senator is a historical fiction author. The Rep. candidate's campaign is pulling quotes out of his books to show what a terrible person the Demo candidate is. I just can't tolerate stupidity like that.)
The mouse was not very popular back in the command line days. Once we went 2D with windows, buttons, menus, scrollbars, and all the other GUI components that are now standard the mouse became a standard input device. We now have mice with multiple buttons and scroll-wheels to help us quickly navigate the 2D conventions that have developed. (The scroll-wheel is a baby-step toward adding another axis to controllers.)
In order for 3D to become readily accepted, there needs to be an evolution in the input devices as well. Logitech has some interesting devices (http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a.php), and there are others. Once the early adopters of these 3D environments move toward using true 3D input devices, I think we'll see folks start to understand the potential of a 3D computing environment.
Really just a comment to mark the article so I can find it later.
But while I'm at it, in case anyone ever bothers to read this...
I agree with those that say the question/argument is complete nonsense. Ajax is a display layer technology. J2EE is a giant stack of server side stuff and some display layer stuff. To use MVC: Ajax is all V, J2EE is MVC. Now, would it be spiffy to have some "standard" Ajax framework to interact with J2EE apps? Sure.
Never going to happen. Check the other comment I posted. The blame for the illegal activity has been shuffled down to some two-bit P.I. Dunn gets to claim that she just initiated the inquiry; then some firm was hired to handle it, they in turn hired others to do the actual dirty work. Lawyers checked everything and assured those at the top that all was nice and legal.
Oops! What's that you say? Something WASN'T legal? Oh heavens, how awful. Good thing Dunn and HP management are insulated by three levels of indirection and a phalanx of lawyers.
HP claims its Nominating and Governance Committee hired independent lawyers to review the conduct used in the investigation and those lawyers concluded that the company had hired an experienced firm. The firm retained another party, which obtained information about calls to and from HP directors, the company stated in the filing.
i.e. It's not OUR fault! We hired them, they hired someone else, those people are the ones to blame, not us! Our lawyers ASSURED us that everything was legal.
It's sounds like laundering money, only it's laundering accountability. Utterly disgusting.
- Jasen.
But isn't there some limit to the "bundling hurts others" argument? In this case: "Microsoft is appealing against a South Korean ruling that it must unbundle its media player and messaging service from its Windows software system."
What's next? Fining them for including Paint, Mine Sweeper, NotePad, and the Calculator?
At what point does extracting money from Microsoft become state sponsored extortion? Is MS really that evil that they are breaking laws all over the world illegally using their defacto monopoly?
There just seems to be a trend of "let's figure out something to prosecute MS for". I suspect all these countries that go after MS still have MASSIVE installed bases of MS software. Are all these fines just a round about way of getting lower license costs?
Less than 50% of the electorate voted. So the majority of the people didn't care enough about who won to voice their opinion. May as well have had a Supreme Court Justice flip a coin.
The Democratic and Republican Parties are both corrupt beyond redemption. Until there's some real third party choices, it's just a choice between turd #1 or turd #2.
I recently just finished re-ripping every CD I own to 256bit and I can tell the difference
Fool. You should have ripped everything to a lossless format like Apple Lossless or FLAC. Then when you wanted to play music on a device that doesn't support the lossless format, or put more songs on the device than lossless will let you, transcode to whatever lossy format you want.
I really wouldn't mind doing the same thing and making the same money.
Where I work there also seems to be the mentality of "don't you want to move up the ladder?" If you're not working to achieve the next rung on the corporate hierarchy, you must be lazy. Maybe. I happen to like the amount of responsibility I have now, like going home at a reasonable hour to see my wife and kid, don't really want to be working 60+ hours a week (and only reporting 40) to impress management. It really doesn't bother me if younger employees move past me on the ladder; good for them.
My job is not my life; it's what I do to earn $$$ so I can live my life. I've reached a point in my career where the job I perform, the $$$ I make, my enjoyment of that job, and the time I have to live my life are in a pretty good balance. So sorry if that doesn't make me a good employee.
MTV + Microsoft? Woohoo, Real World podcasts in DRMed WMA. Music? Maybe songs from whatever boy band, bubblehead blonde, and gansta rapper the music labels are pushing this week. Forget about any depth in the music catalog. Expect singles to cost more than on iTunes, be available for a month or two, drop to $0.89 for a week and then disappear from the catalog.
And you know MS will choose a format that locks out the iPod and claim "choice" in an effort to sell players that license MS technology. Nevermind the vast marketshare iPods have; rather than court iPod owners, they'll try to push their own proprietary format. (But it's not really proprietary because more than one DAP manufacturer uses it. See? It's open. It's choice. Choice is good.)
And expect either a Windows only software client, or a web app that only works with Windows IE. Even a Flash based front end would be better than whatever they dream up.
Rag on Apple all you want, but they developed an easy to use end-to-end product (iTunes + iPod) that did one thing well (no FM tuner, no voice recording, just play music). They started small - Mac only, got things tuned up nicely, and went on to dominate. Now that they've established their brand, they are slowly adding features - podcasts, photos, now video.
I think MS+MTV could give Apple a run if they: a) Offer songs in better quality than Apple. Use 300kbps as the default quality. Offer lower quality versions for cheaper, and near or better than CD quality for a bit more. b) Really work the music video angle. Apple may have a headstart here, but MTV may just have the branding power to take the lead as THE music video source. They should have the back catalog, but rights may be a big sticking point. c) Capitalize on the 80s nostalgia. The 80s saw the birth of the music video. Put all the cheesy early videos on there you can. Let users rate and comment on them. Build a community around mocking/loving that old stuff. d) And as much as I hate the current MTV, they should leverage the MTV programming. Yes, podcasts from all their current shows should be there. *shudder*
The PPI (pixels per inch) of screens has outpaced the ability of people to comfortably view them. It really doesn't matter how many thousands of pixels are on my screen, I can only look at about 100 pixels per inch, people with worse eyes can tolerate less.
The sooner OS GUIs go resolution independent, the better as far as I'm concerned. I suspect a well done UI on a 200 PPI screen scaled to 100 PPI would look gorgeous - nice anti-aliasing, etc. You can kind of get close in Windows by choosing large fonts and icons, but it's not quite there.
To feed my hunger for screen real estate, I have 2 1280x1024 (~90 PPI) LCDs on my desk, plus the 1920x1200 (~150 PPI) screen of my laptop. The laptop display is too small to use for anything more than iTunes or other casual purposes. I can't use large fonts, etc. to make the display acceptable on the laptop because then the LCDs would be too big.
There should be a way for the OS to detect the PPI of the monitor and then scale the interface to the PPI that the user is comfortable with (especially across multiple monitors).
- Jasen.
P.S. I have a friend with an HDTV. Not set up properly. Watches standard TV in 16:9. I just wince and bear it. It's not worth the trouble.
And he has one of those HTIB systems. Speakers placed willy-nilly around the room. Ugh.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't we see one of these articles every six months or so?
It's kind of like complaining about fast food: everyone knows it's bad for you, yet people continue to buy it in mass quantities.
There's just not enough people who:
a) Care enough about sound
b) Have equipment good enough to reveal the difference
c) Have sources for the better stuff
- Jasen.
Agreed. I messed around with SVG about 5 years ago. I keep hoping it'll break into the mainstream. Maybe Safari 3.0 and the iPhone can help make that happen.
- Jasen.
It's locked up (CPU consumption at 95%+ for a long time with nothing to show) on me a few times already and that's without stress testing.
I'm behind a corporate firewall, and while I can browse external sites I can't get to any internal servers. Sounds like a bug in the proxy handling.
Also, the edge window size controls don't show up.
- Jasen.
I wish that the USA was this forgiving. We have a culture/media here that will latch on to any "indiscretion" and run with it for all we can - until the next juicy tidbit pops up. Especially if the subject is in any way evasive or defensive about it - that's like blood in the water for the sharks.
- Jasen.
They've been doing it for a long time. Back in the 20s and 30s when "nudist colonies" started up in the US, one of the primary reasons was health. Of course, they emphasized total health - diet, exercise, et al. - one component of which was letting the sun and breeze hit your whole body.
Interesting that a remedy from ancient times has been the sun bath.
Walt Whitman
Some "Wellness Cafe"
Another site
IMHO (with no medical training), one of the bad things about sun exposure is the way we "binge" and "starve" ourselves. In the summer, people will work in an office all week then go to the beach and be in the sun for 10 hours. Or we cower in our offices during winter and then fly to some sunny clime and lay on the beach for a week. Not good.
- Jasen.
Long time Dvorak user chiming in here. I initially made the switch because I could NOT force myself to learn to touch type with QWERTY. Took me a few months of having a cheat sheet in front of me, but I finally learned it well enough to use regularly.
As other posters have pointed out, it works great for keeping other people off your machine. And password security is good too - just switch to QWERTY, type in your password as Dvorak, and you have an impenetrable mass of letters.
I like the mental gymnastics of switching back and forth when using QWERTY. I feel it keeps my mind flexible - perhaps a LITTLE bit like being bi-lingual is supposed to do.
I also find the stress on my hands to be less than when using QWERTY. Maybe that's because I never learned QWERTY "right", maybe it's because my muscles are more relaxed now when cranking along in Dvorak, maybe it's an illusion.
- Jasen.
(I know it's not valid. It's a joke, son. Laugh.)
By developing in a web app you put the user in a context that they can easily understand. If you develop a desktop app, the "rules" are much looser and the user may spend more effort trying to understand how the app works, and you as the developer may spend more time writing "clever" UI rather than constraining yourself to those provided by HTML.
I'm developing a Java application using JMX (Java Management Extensions) and MX4J to expose the UI as web pages. I've been pretty happy with the way things have gone. I can write my classes, then expose methods and functionality via MBeans, and do the UI with some XSLT. All of those are technologies and tools _I'm_ familiar with. And I get the added bonus that the app can either be deployed locally on a user's machine or they can access it remotely.
- Jasen.
So, as a publicly traded corporation, isn't Sony obligated to maximize shareholder value? If porn is a significant industry that can provide a viable revenue stream and help Blu-Ray compete against HD DVD, isn't Sony being negligent/acting against shareholder interests by prohibiting porn from being produced on Blu-Ray?
It doesn't seem to me that a corporation gets to have "morals" in a case like this. Porn is a legal, profitable, influential industry. To not allow people to use Blu-Ray because "the company" thinks porn is icky doesn't make business sense. I bet Sony equipment (cameras, editing decks, etc.) is used to make porn. Does Sony have a sticker on the side of all its cameras "Not to be used for porn."?
- Jasen.
Maybe I'm getting too old, or maybe I have a short attention span, but 70+ hours seems like a LONG time to play a game.
I'm old (over 30, under 40) and have maybe 2-3 hours of "free" time in the evenings. On the weekends, maybe a few hours more. Assuming I did little else other than play Zelda, guesstimate 10 hours of play per week. That's two SOLID months of "free" time sucked up by Link! Toss in some family obligations, playing other games, watching some TV, going outside (*shudder*) - and it could easily take a geezer like me six months to finish the game!
No wonder kids these days are fat. They spend hours and hours grinding through long games trying to get the rush of completion at the end.
Note to developers: How about making games 20-40 hours long, with good replay value. e.g. Have a straight, quick route through the game, but have a lot of side quests and interesting exploration for those who want to spend the time. Once the game is complete, have the second pass through be more difficult and/or mix up the plot. Add more required side quests on the harder levels.
And you kids get off my lawn!
- Jasen.
Actually, that counts quite a bit. I'm guessing that the target audience for Mario Brothers was kids that played the game. As an adult, sure the movie sucked, but to a kid it was good.
And now for some complete random speculation I've pulled out of the air:
Movie studios are notoriously conservative. They run the numbers seven different ways, flip them upside down, do it again. i.e. They try to make sure they'll make money. If Halo was done as a Doom-type movie with a big name actor, a known director, and a clear target audience - 14-20 year old males. It'd get made. Universal and Fox would be able to run the numbers and figure out how much $$$ they'd make from DVDs, action figures, Halloween costumes, PEZ dispensers, etc.
My guess is that PJ and crew are trying to turn Halo into a "serious" movie. They are doing "interesting" things with it. That scares movie studios. If it doesn't follow the formula, they can't run it and they cancel.
Would it be a "great" movie? Probably. But it'll probably be half an hour too long, not have a strong Burger King toy tie in, miss the crucial 13-15.5 year old girl market, etc.
- Jasen.
While I have no idea what they're doing with the movie, haven't read the books, have played the games - how about this for an idea:
Focus on what went on elsewhere while MC was out kicking butt. What was Sarge up to? Build on the internal power struggles amongst the aliens. There's a lot more material to work with than just "MC runs around and shoots things". Assume the target audience knows that and work it in peripherally.
- Jasen.
1) This is part of the "Federalization" of the US. The States used to have a lot more responsibilty and autonomy. As communication, migration, and such have shrunk the size and diversity in our country, things that used to be local are now federal. Few people used to know or care that Mississippi had atrocious schools, that was their problem. Now, it's EVERYONE'S problem. The Federal government can't allow any State to deviate from some national norm in any area. Also, the rise of 24 hour national news networks speeds this along. Reporting on any local event brings it to national attention, and it becomes a national problem.
2) IMHO, party loyalty has become more important than constituent loyalty. I'm not enough of a history student to know if this was always so, but it seems that breaking from the Party line is VERY BAD - and will hurt a politician's chances of reelection. So while some Republicans may not like this legislation, they'd rather support it than be branded a traitor to their Party.
3) Bills are way too long and complex for legislators to accurately vet. The summary they read, or their staffers give them, may make complex bills like this seem good ideas. But buried in them are little clauses and legalese that grant WAY more power than (hopefully) they intended. I guess the best we can hope for is if/when a President attempts to exercise these powers in an unsavory manor the Congress in power at the time will reign him in (unless one Party controls both the Executive and Legislative Branches. See 2 above).
4) The mass media won't report this kind of stuff because it's too complex. The legal ramifications of a small clause in a big bill will just go over the heads of the eighth grade education they're targetting. (At least so they think.) There's no good video footage to go along with reporting the story. It's boring TV. MAYBE some obscure PBS station would to cover it, but don't look to CNN, Fox, et al.
I've decided not to vote for either major party anymore. They both are bent on maintaining power and excluding any other parties from the process. They both are utterly corrupted by lobbyist and corporate money (read bribes and kick-backs). Anyone with a real life, and a hint of dirt in a closet will be dragged out and flogged by the media and the opposition - Look! This candidate once looked at a dirty magazine, and/or rented an X-rated movie! He hates children! He wants to have sex with your daughter! It's just sad. (Here in VA, the Demo. candidate for Senator is a historical fiction author. The Rep. candidate's campaign is pulling quotes out of his books to show what a terrible person the Demo candidate is. I just can't tolerate stupidity like that.)
- Jasen.
The mouse was not very popular back in the command line days. Once we went 2D with windows, buttons, menus, scrollbars, and all the other GUI components that are now standard the mouse became a standard input device. We now have mice with multiple buttons and scroll-wheels to help us quickly navigate the 2D conventions that have developed. (The scroll-wheel is a baby-step toward adding another axis to controllers.)
In order for 3D to become readily accepted, there needs to be an evolution in the input devices as well. Logitech has some interesting devices (http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a.php), and there are others. Once the early adopters of these 3D environments move toward using true 3D input devices, I think we'll see folks start to understand the potential of a 3D computing environment.
- Jasen.
Really just a comment to mark the article so I can find it later.
But while I'm at it, in case anyone ever bothers to read this...
I agree with those that say the question/argument is complete nonsense. Ajax is a display layer technology. J2EE is a giant stack of server side stuff and some display layer stuff. To use MVC: Ajax is all V, J2EE is MVC. Now, would it be spiffy to have some "standard" Ajax framework to interact with J2EE apps? Sure.
- Jasen.
Never going to happen. Check the other comment I posted. The blame for the illegal activity has been shuffled down to some two-bit P.I. Dunn gets to claim that she just initiated the inquiry; then some firm was hired to handle it, they in turn hired others to do the actual dirty work. Lawyers checked everything and assured those at the top that all was nice and legal.
Oops! What's that you say? Something WASN'T legal? Oh heavens, how awful. Good thing Dunn and HP management are insulated by three levels of indirection and a phalanx of lawyers.
Bah!
- Jasen.
But isn't there some limit to the "bundling hurts others" argument? In this case: "Microsoft is appealing against a South Korean ruling that it must unbundle its media player and messaging service from its Windows software system."
What's next? Fining them for including Paint, Mine Sweeper, NotePad, and the Calculator?
- Jasen.
At what point does extracting money from Microsoft become state sponsored extortion? Is MS really that evil that they are breaking laws all over the world illegally using their defacto monopoly?
There just seems to be a trend of "let's figure out something to prosecute MS for". I suspect all these countries that go after MS still have MASSIVE installed bases of MS software. Are all these fines just a round about way of getting lower license costs?
Just a thought.
- Jasen.
Less than 50% of the electorate voted. So the majority of the people didn't care enough about who won to voice their opinion. May as well have had a Supreme Court Justice flip a coin.
The Democratic and Republican Parties are both corrupt beyond redemption. Until there's some real third party choices, it's just a choice between turd #1 or turd #2.
- Jasen.
Fool. You should have ripped everything to a lossless format like Apple Lossless or FLAC. Then when you wanted to play music on a device that doesn't support the lossless format, or put more songs on the device than lossless will let you, transcode to whatever lossy format you want.
-Jasen.
I really wouldn't mind doing the same thing and making the same money.
Where I work there also seems to be the mentality of "don't you want to move up the ladder?" If you're not working to achieve the next rung on the corporate hierarchy, you must be lazy. Maybe. I happen to like the amount of responsibility I have now, like going home at a reasonable hour to see my wife and kid, don't really want to be working 60+ hours a week (and only reporting 40) to impress management. It really doesn't bother me if younger employees move past me on the ladder; good for them.
My job is not my life; it's what I do to earn $$$ so I can live my life. I've reached a point in my career where the job I perform, the $$$ I make, my enjoyment of that job, and the time I have to live my life are in a pretty good balance. So sorry if that doesn't make me a good employee.
- Jasen.
MTV + Microsoft?
Woohoo, Real World podcasts in DRMed WMA. Music? Maybe songs from whatever boy band, bubblehead blonde, and gansta rapper the music labels are pushing this week. Forget about any depth in the music catalog. Expect singles to cost more than on iTunes, be available for a month or two, drop to $0.89 for a week and then disappear from the catalog.
And you know MS will choose a format that locks out the iPod and claim "choice" in an effort to sell players that license MS technology. Nevermind the vast marketshare iPods have; rather than court iPod owners, they'll try to push their own proprietary format. (But it's not really proprietary because more than one DAP manufacturer uses it. See? It's open. It's choice. Choice is good.)
And expect either a Windows only software client, or a web app that only works with Windows IE. Even a Flash based front end would be better than whatever they dream up.
Rag on Apple all you want, but they developed an easy to use end-to-end product (iTunes + iPod) that did one thing well (no FM tuner, no voice recording, just play music). They started small - Mac only, got things tuned up nicely, and went on to dominate. Now that they've established their brand, they are slowly adding features - podcasts, photos, now video.
I think MS+MTV could give Apple a run if they:
a) Offer songs in better quality than Apple. Use 300kbps as the default quality. Offer lower quality versions for cheaper, and near or better than CD quality for a bit more.
b) Really work the music video angle. Apple may have a headstart here, but MTV may just have the branding power to take the lead as THE music video source. They should have the back catalog, but rights may be a big sticking point.
c) Capitalize on the 80s nostalgia. The 80s saw the birth of the music video. Put all the cheesy early videos on there you can. Let users rate and comment on them. Build a community around mocking/loving that old stuff.
d) And as much as I hate the current MTV, they should leverage the MTV programming. Yes, podcasts from all their current shows should be there. *shudder*
- Jasen.
Rather off-topic, but I'll reply anyway.
The PPI (pixels per inch) of screens has outpaced the ability of people to comfortably view them. It really doesn't matter how many thousands of pixels are on my screen, I can only look at about 100 pixels per inch, people with worse eyes can tolerate less.
The sooner OS GUIs go resolution independent, the better as far as I'm concerned. I suspect a well done UI on a 200 PPI screen scaled to 100 PPI would look gorgeous - nice anti-aliasing, etc. You can kind of get close in Windows by choosing large fonts and icons, but it's not quite there.
To feed my hunger for screen real estate, I have 2 1280x1024 (~90 PPI) LCDs on my desk, plus the 1920x1200 (~150 PPI) screen of my laptop. The laptop display is too small to use for anything more than iTunes or other casual purposes. I can't use large fonts, etc. to make the display acceptable on the laptop because then the LCDs would be too big.
There should be a way for the OS to detect the PPI of the monitor and then scale the interface to the PPI that the user is comfortable with (especially across multiple monitors).
- Jasen.
P.S. I have a friend with an HDTV. Not set up properly. Watches standard TV in 16:9. I just wince and bear it. It's not worth the trouble.
And he has one of those HTIB systems. Speakers placed willy-nilly around the room. Ugh.
Sheesh. This intarweb thing. No humor I tells ya. Leave out one :) or ;) and people think you're a troll.
"It's like saying that if my town stops filling petrol for a week, petrol prices are going to drop."
Which town is that? Chicago? Los Angeles? B^) (-- Smiley indicating a joke.)
- Jasen.