Some years earlier Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis postulated some friction between the two characters that they played out for a while (between the lines) as a result of Worf advocating the forced abortion of Troi's unborn child in the beginning of season two, in the episode appropriately called "The Child". (Which was, as it so happens, a story recycled from thea aborted - no pun intended - Star Trek Phase II series from the 70s.)
There was a scene later in the series where they decided the two reconciled, but I can't remember which one that was.
"Initially, we had some concerns around complexity and consistency - will it confuse users more than it benefits them? Is it confusing if IE has tabs, but other core parts of the Windows experience, like Windows Media Player or the shell, don't have?"
How soon until MS Office gets tabs? I for one often have up to a dozen Word and Excel documents open and having them all in the task bar is a pain in the UI.
playing video back on a 2" screen is even more than silly, it's downright stupid
I happen to agree, yet every PDA/smartphone these days includes video playback capability. Vodafone are creating original video content for phones. Are they just ticking the feature box or is there a genuine market for movies on a two inch screen?
Quite aside from the virtues or flaws of the bill itself how much support for it is there in the Australian parliament?
IIRC the Australian Democrats have only a handful of senators in the upper house and zero or one MP in the lower house so unless I'm misunderstanding how Australian bills become law they'll need substantial support from the mainstream parties to get this through.
I thought Bale was very good in Equilibrium and think he'll make a fine Batman mainly because of his performance in that movie. But the movie itself relied too much on hyperbole and cliche to be effective. That said, I respect Kurt Wimmer whose audio commentaries on the DVD were insightful, informative and entertaining.
It's called "-1, Overrated". Go for it.:-) I wasn't karma whoring, just adding some information which - though not terribly insightful - needed to be said for those not familiar with movie release schedules.
And who knows - maybe it'll be attached to XXX: State of the Union.;-)
If you look at Macromedia's actions over the past year or so, it seemed pretty likely that they were looking for a buyer. They were gradually buying up smaller companies to add to their arsenal and make themselves more attractive to potential buyers.
I don't think buying up companies indicates that someone is looking for a buyer. To me it signals they want to survive on their own by offering a comprehensive range of products and services. Usually buyers are after one or two valuable assets (which may well be Flash as this very poster points out), not all the detritus that goes with it.
PDF was great when web pages were static, but web pages aren't static anymore and PDFs are boring these days. The next generation web is all about media, and that is where Flash comes into the picture.
I've always wondered - is there a technical reason why google can't index Flash pages? Is the text not distinguishable from the graphics for instance?
Q. Archy sounds a lot like a program I use called 'GNU Emacs'. How is Archy different?
A. Indeed, Archy does share a number of similarities with GNU Emacs. Like Emacs, Archy has been designed to allow the user to accomplish a disparate variety of tasks quickly, without leaving the program. Like Emacs, Archy uses commands to manipulate content. Like Emacs, Archy provides a mechanism to navigate a document that is far faster than standard GUI methods.
However, Archy is also very different from Emacs in a number of salient ways.
For one thing, Emacs is rife with modes. In general, a system is in a mode when a given gesture is interpreted in a different way than it is when the system is in a different state. For instance, when you press C-x in Emacs, you put it into a mode whereby the next character you enter is the next key in a hotkey sequence, rather than a letter inserted into your document. Even seasoned Emacs users encounter problems with modes on a daily basis; Archy was designed with a philosophy that eschews modality, because we believe, based on principles of cognitive science, that it is a significant source of errors and confusion in user interfaces. As such, Archy has no modes, resulting in an extremely positive user experience.
Part of the reason Emacs is only really used by computer "experts" is because it's so difficult to learn and habituate to: often a user must learn a huge number of hard-to-remember hotkey combinations to do everyday tasks. Archy has no such hotkey combinations, yet it remains easy to learn and efficient to use because of its reliance on a small set of commands with simple, easy-to-remember names to perform operations.
Similarly, Archy achieves remarkable simplicity by providing a small set of fundamental operations that allow you to accomplish a wide range of tasks with ease. For example, Emacs provides a number of hard-to-remember hotkey combinations that allow the user to move the cursor one character, word, sentence, or paragraph at a time. Archy conflates all of these actions into a single, unified mechanism called Leap, which is similar to Emacs' incremental search, only easier to use and more powerful. To move to the next paragraph, for instance, simply Leap to a carriage return character; there's no need to remember a separate hotkey combination.
There are many other ways in which Archy is fundamentally different from Emacs, but we hope this is enough to whet your appetite. While Emacs and Archy are similar in some ways, they are built on entirely different philosophies, which results in very different user interfaces. We believe that Archy offers at least as much productivity as Emacs, while being far easier and less frustrating to use; we encourage you to test our theory and provide feedback if you are so inclined.
Re:A Hugo First: The British Invasion
on
2005 Hugo Nominations
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Not necessarily refuting your point, but I think that the Worldcon being held in the UK this year has contributed to the Anglo-centric slant of the nominations.
Incidentally, anybody else think that the convention venue looks like a low-budget Sydney Opera House?;-)
From a business perspective, making a profit is the only thing that matters. A show can be profitable with relatively low ratings, either by keeping down costs or by earning additional revenues via income streams such as DVD sales.
That said, ratings are undeniably vital given the current TV operating model.
If a studio makes a TV show that costs $1.6M per episode then it might sell the first-run US broadcast rights to a network for (making up a number here) $1.2M.
The network in turn has to make that amount by selling advertising slots, which are of course ratings dependent.
The $400K (or whatever it is) difference needs to be made up by international sales, second-run syndication rights, DVD/video sales and maybe even the "halo" effect a currently running series can have on sales of merchandising tie-ins such as toys or books. Then there's the need to make a profit of course.
UPN apparently came close to covering Enterprise's production costs in the first three seasons but from what I understand reduced its payment to $800K per episode for season 4, due to low ratings. At the same time the show's budget was reduced (by moving to cheaper high-definition video), but still the gap between Paramount's costs and first-run revenues is now around $500K-$600K per episode, or around $10M per year.
Some of this will be made up by the secondary rights, but I believe the gap is now larger than it was before.
If the Save Enterprise campaign can close that gap by offering a substantial donation, then the financial equation for Paramount/Viacom could change from Enterprise running at a likely loss to a likely break-even or profit.
I don't know what the size of the gap is, but a $3 million contribution (assuming the full amount can be passed onto Paramount) has to be a substantial addition to the bottom line. It represents an extra 8% (approx) return on funds (based on a $36M budget), which is a mighty fine bonus in anyone's book.
At this post at the TrekBBS forum one of the campaign organisers reveals that the donor is not Richard Branson (as was speculated by some) "but funny you should mention him", that two more Fortune 500 companies were interested and that the 'set' at paramount already knew the news before it was made public.
Later in the thread that the above post appears in it's explained that although the funds were not actually transferred to the campaign (can you imagine the Paypal fee on three million bucks?!), a contract was signed formalising the pledge, hence the reason for the delay in announcing the donation.
First, he almost never defines these terms. The only time he even comes close (in the inauguration address) he (or his speechwriters) equates freedom with making money.
Second, he often uses the words in relation to Iraq - like Pavlovian dogs he (or his speechwriters) wants to link the two concepts indelibly in people's minds. To oppose this administration's policies in Iraq is to oppose freedom itself.
McGrath is not making a technical argument, but a management/legal one. In business, security (ie peace of mind) is not defined by the tightness of a piece of code but by who you can make accountable for any failure.
Microsoft at least is the clear and sole owner of its product. Though any single customer's ability to make it responsible for product deficiencies is slight at best, a statement of "we're here and responsible for our stuff" is superficially reassuring.
In short, she was glad to trade some freedoms that she didn't personally care much about for safety and prosperity.
She's not the only one, as supporters of the PATRIOT Act demonstrate.
That said, I think your friend has a perfectly valid opinion. There's something to be said for the concept of a Maslowesque "hierarchy of needs" which has physical safety and a level of economic security as a prerequisite for more intangible freedoms such as democracy.
The difference being, in the United States, even after 9/11, physical safety and prosperity are already at such a high standard that incursions such as the more extreme PATRIOT measures are not justified.
Don't forget where that money he has came from: our pockets (either directly, through MS tax, or indirectly, through the costs of all the companies and agencies we buy goods and services from). In a sense, I'm giving twice since Bill took more than his fair share.
To claim credit for a donation made by an individual because you chose to buy that individual's company's product is.... interesting logic.
Okay let's say Bill is worth 50 billion dollars on paper. 750 million is something like 1.5% of his total worth? Is this a huge amount for him?
Let's put it this way. One individual (via a Foundation, granted) donated considerably more to charity than the entire US government committed in aid for the recent tsunami disaster. Also more than the entire US population gave in private donations for that same disaster.
Slashdot Mirror
Worf and Troi got together in season seven.
:(
Some years earlier Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis postulated some friction between the two characters that they played out for a while (between the lines) as a result of Worf advocating the forced abortion of Troi's unborn child in the beginning of season two, in the episode appropriately called "The Child". (Which was, as it so happens, a story recycled from thea aborted - no pun intended - Star Trek Phase II series from the 70s.)
There was a scene later in the series where they decided the two reconciled, but I can't remember which one that was.
My geek got outed a long time ago...
How soon until MS Office gets tabs? I for one often have up to a dozen Word and Excel documents open and having them all in the task bar is a pain in the UI.
Because most slashdotters did Comp Science or Engineering and not Arts. :D
I happen to agree, yet every PDA/smartphone these days includes video playback capability. Vodafone are creating original video content for phones. Are they just ticking the feature box or is there a genuine market for movies on a two inch screen?
Quite aside from the virtues or flaws of the bill itself how much support for it is there in the Australian parliament?
IIRC the Australian Democrats have only a handful of senators in the upper house and zero or one MP in the lower house so unless I'm misunderstanding how Australian bills become law they'll need substantial support from the mainstream parties to get this through.
... Fairuza Balk.
I thought Bale was very good in Equilibrium and think he'll make a fine Batman mainly because of his performance in that movie. But the movie itself relied too much on hyperbole and cliche to be effective. That said, I respect Kurt Wimmer whose audio commentaries on the DVD were insightful, informative and entertaining.
It's called "-1, Overrated". Go for it. :-) I wasn't karma whoring, just adding some information which - though not terribly insightful - needed to be said for those not familiar with movie release schedules.
;-)
And who knows - maybe it'll be attached to XXX: State of the Union.
It's likely that the Serenity trailer will be attached to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Humour. It is a difficult concept.
I've always wondered - is there a technical reason why google can't index Flash pages? Is the text not distinguishable from the graphics for instance?
Not really...
Q. Archy sounds a lot like a program I use called 'GNU Emacs'. How is Archy different?
A. Indeed, Archy does share a number of similarities with GNU Emacs. Like Emacs, Archy has been designed to allow the user to accomplish a disparate variety of tasks quickly, without leaving the program. Like Emacs, Archy uses commands to manipulate content. Like Emacs, Archy provides a mechanism to navigate a document that is far faster than standard GUI methods.
However, Archy is also very different from Emacs in a number of salient ways.
For one thing, Emacs is rife with modes. In general, a system is in a mode when a given gesture is interpreted in a different way than it is when the system is in a different state. For instance, when you press C-x in Emacs, you put it into a mode whereby the next character you enter is the next key in a hotkey sequence, rather than a letter inserted into your document. Even seasoned Emacs users encounter problems with modes on a daily basis; Archy was designed with a philosophy that eschews modality, because we believe, based on principles of cognitive science, that it is a significant source of errors and confusion in user interfaces. As such, Archy has no modes, resulting in an extremely positive user experience.
Part of the reason Emacs is only really used by computer "experts" is because it's so difficult to learn and habituate to: often a user must learn a huge number of hard-to-remember hotkey combinations to do everyday tasks. Archy has no such hotkey combinations, yet it remains easy to learn and efficient to use because of its reliance on a small set of commands with simple, easy-to-remember names to perform operations.
Similarly, Archy achieves remarkable simplicity by providing a small set of fundamental operations that allow you to accomplish a wide range of tasks with ease. For example, Emacs provides a number of hard-to-remember hotkey combinations that allow the user to move the cursor one character, word, sentence, or paragraph at a time. Archy conflates all of these actions into a single, unified mechanism called Leap, which is similar to Emacs' incremental search, only easier to use and more powerful. To move to the next paragraph, for instance, simply Leap to a carriage return character; there's no need to remember a separate hotkey combination.
There are many other ways in which Archy is fundamentally different from Emacs, but we hope this is enough to whet your appetite. While Emacs and Archy are similar in some ways, they are built on entirely different philosophies, which results in very different user interfaces. We believe that Archy offers at least as much productivity as Emacs, while being far easier and less frustrating to use; we encourage you to test our theory and provide feedback if you are so inclined.
Not necessarily refuting your point, but I think that the Worldcon being held in the UK this year has contributed to the Anglo-centric slant of the nominations.
;-)
Incidentally, anybody else think that the convention venue looks like a low-budget Sydney Opera House?
WikiNews?
That said, ratings are undeniably vital given the current TV operating model.
Part of the TrekUnited charter was that all donations be made with no strings attached. Ie, donators give up all claims on profits or ownership.
The network in turn has to make that amount by selling advertising slots, which are of course ratings dependent.
The $400K (or whatever it is) difference needs to be made up by international sales, second-run syndication rights, DVD/video sales and maybe even the "halo" effect a currently running series can have on sales of merchandising tie-ins such as toys or books. Then there's the need to make a profit of course.
UPN apparently came close to covering Enterprise's production costs in the first three seasons but from what I understand reduced its payment to $800K per episode for season 4, due to low ratings. At the same time the show's budget was reduced (by moving to cheaper high-definition video), but still the gap between Paramount's costs and first-run revenues is now around $500K-$600K per episode, or around $10M per year.
Some of this will be made up by the secondary rights, but I believe the gap is now larger than it was before.
If the Save Enterprise campaign can close that gap by offering a substantial donation, then the financial equation for Paramount/Viacom could change from Enterprise running at a likely loss to a likely break-even or profit.
I don't know what the size of the gap is, but a $3 million contribution (assuming the full amount can be passed onto Paramount) has to be a substantial addition to the bottom line. It represents an extra 8% (approx) return on funds (based on a $36M budget), which is a mighty fine bonus in anyone's book.
But will it be a bonus big enough?
That makes an uncanny kind of sense actually...
Later in the thread that the above post appears in it's explained that although the funds were not actually transferred to the campaign (can you imagine the Paypal fee on three million bucks?!), a contract was signed formalising the pledge, hence the reason for the delay in announcing the donation.
I've been tracking the number of times President Bush uses the words "free" and "freedom" in his last three major speeches. Here are the results:
First 2004 presidential debate: 38 times
2005 inauguration address: 34 times
2005 state of the union address: a "mere" 27 times
Two things worth pointing out:
First, he almost never defines these terms. The only time he even comes close (in the inauguration address) he (or his speechwriters) equates freedom with making money.
Second, he often uses the words in relation to Iraq - like Pavlovian dogs he (or his speechwriters) wants to link the two concepts indelibly in people's minds. To oppose this administration's policies in Iraq is to oppose freedom itself.
McGrath is not making a technical argument, but a management/legal one. In business, security (ie peace of mind) is not defined by the tightness of a piece of code but by who you can make accountable for any failure.
Microsoft at least is the clear and sole owner of its product. Though any single customer's ability to make it responsible for product deficiencies is slight at best, a statement of "we're here and responsible for our stuff" is superficially reassuring.
She's not the only one, as supporters of the PATRIOT Act demonstrate.
That said, I think your friend has a perfectly valid opinion. There's something to be said for the concept of a Maslowesque "hierarchy of needs" which has physical safety and a level of economic security as a prerequisite for more intangible freedoms such as democracy.
The difference being, in the United States, even after 9/11, physical safety and prosperity are already at such a high standard that incursions such as the more extreme PATRIOT measures are not justified.
To claim credit for a donation made by an individual because you chose to buy that individual's company's product is.... interesting logic.
Let's put it this way. One individual (via a Foundation, granted) donated considerably more to charity than the entire US government committed in aid for the recent tsunami disaster. Also more than the entire US population gave in private donations for that same disaster.