This is an an excellent reason to develop with the Model-View-Controller paradigm. You can develop the UI to be as complete as you want. It becomes reasonable to turn the prototype into the final product. However, that doesn't mean you can release it right away since the interface is only the view.
Unfortunately non-developer clients often don't understand (and sometimes won't accept) that the view is not the whole product. They see the only thing they really grasp, the interface, is complete, and the natural reaction is that the whole thing is done.
I think it's management of these expectations that the article poster is seeking to improve.
I'd say that if anything, you should need to understand why you want to _close_ certain software.
Indeed... if your software is open to begin with. But, closed software can always be opened again, whereas once software is opened it can't be put back into the closed-source bag. The license for future versions might change but the earlier open-sourced stuff will always be open (assuming an OSI-approved licence).
The real point is that change is risky, and all changes as significant as closing OR OPENING software must be carefully considered and be based on real benefits - not just done for the sake of it.
What you call consumer apathy, I call consumer satisfaction. They may prefer something else, but they're quite content with the way it is right now.
Kinda... in reality consumers just don't realise what's going on. They don't realise that just about everyone violates copyright law all the time, whether it's taping a TV show and saving it,or taping a friend's CD, or getting the odd CD full of MP3s from their son. They don't realise that the reason they can't plug their DVD player into their VCR (perhaps because they don't have A/V in on their TV) is because there is actual circuitry deliberately put there to stop it (Macrovision). They don't realise that CDs increasingly aren't actual Audio CDs as defined by Philips, and may not play in some CD players, or that by putting these "copy-protected" CDs in their PC they're actually installing unwanted software.
In my experience "consumers" are usually shocked when informed of these facts geeks take for granted. They also don't realise how technology could transform our lives if only it were allowed to flourish for the good of society, rather than restricted for the good of huge corporations and their greedy executives and complicit shareholders. They don't think about the fact that most content released now won't be in the public domain in their lifetime - this is just how it is for them, it is how they were brought up. But it should be in the public domain in their lifetime. They don't think about the fact that repeated extension of copyrights for the benefit of entities like Disney, just to protect their "right" to profit from characters created over 70 years ago, takes quality of life and money out of their pockets. That every year we lose a little bit of the rights we had last year.
No, consumers aren't satisfied - they're ignorant. This is a position I loathe to take, because it sounds elitist - but it's true, and it's the real reason they're apathetic. Without constant and loud protests from those who see, they'll probably never wake up. They'll probably never stop and think, "wow, look at all the rights and possibilities and enlightenment we've lost" - thus is the goal of big business, slowly but surely crushing us into groveling serfs scrabbling for their precious "content". $1 for the first minute, $2 for each successive minute... that's the future these "satisfied" consumers have to look forward to.
Oh come on, you're living in a fantasy world. A boycott just cannot have any kind of effect here - people are too apathetic. Boycotts only work when a large lobbying group (like the NRA or the Women's League of Voters) gets behind it. That's just not going to happen in this case.
Besides which, you say the GPP should work within the capitalist system - well the entertainment industry don't! They manipulate lawmakers through campaign funding and they illegally operate as a cartel to fix prices. Really think, is it possible to boycott such a behemoth which has all the money, politicians, marketing, and consumer apathy on their side? I'd like it to be, I really would, but it's just not gonna happen that way.
He specifically asked "am I missing something" - read the goddamn post next time. And understand it.
Also, your analogies are terrible. All the applications you mentioned are clearly non-trivial... whereas exchange/outlook seems to be nothing more than a few entries in a database...
I never said it didn't belong in the game... My point was this: why does committing a crime warrant an M, but acting completely within the law warrant an AO?
I didn't mean to imply you said it didn't belong in the game, I'm just sick of hearing about that solicitation/murder/rob example as some kind of inherent part of the game. As for crimes - there are plenty of them in the game, in the form of missions which must be completed to "win". I'd say those crimes are far better examples for what you're saying about the ratings.
GTA III: Screw a hooker, kill her, take your money back. Rating: M.
Urgh, I'm so sick of hearing this. As games get more and more open and non-linear and allow more self-expression, we should be seeing things like this become possible. Possible - yes the prostitute sex is a "feature" (ie, it was deliberately added), but no one tells the player, or suggests to the player, that they should then go and kill and rob her. That action is made possible by the open nature of the game, and the only way to prevent it (without losing the relatively harmless [IMO] sex) is to break the immersion of the game and disallow robbing a person when you've had sex with them. Would that make any sense? No.
I agree with your comment on the message being sent by this furore over hot coffee though.
Also, I live in Australia, where the prostitution was censored, and hence have never seen or experienced the marvelous fabulosity of "working" prostitutes in GTA... what am I to do!?
Odd, when I took physics traction was a function of pressure and co-efficient of friction, and had zero to do with the size of the contact patch.
That's really what he meant; pressure itself is a function of the contact patch (varying inversely in proportion to it), which is then cancelled out when, in calculating friction, we address the area over which that pressure is being applied. Don't ask me for formulae, I'm a little way out of physics class.
I've seen a lot of comments to this story questioning whether this is really self-replication - since the robots construct their replicas out of pre-machined parts. Some posters earlier answered these comments saying that it's really quite arbitrary as to what inputs a self-replication process converts - in this case the inputs are pre-machined parts, but many would have the inputs be raw materials such as mineral ores.
But the question of how "raw" the inputs need to be for the process to truly be "self-replication" is not unanswerable. I think we can at least qualitatively characterise the key requirement on inputs for true self-replication, and that character is abundance.
In the example we have before us, pre-machined parts are used to replicate the robots. If there were some hypothetical location where these pre-machined parts were sufficiently abundant (and packed densely enough) to enable the construction of "enough" robots, then all well and good. In any other environment, then I don't think we could classify these robots as self-replicating. If the robots could self-replicate using "raw" materials such as mineral ores and the like, we still require a context in which these "raw" materials are sufficiently abundant.
If we broaden the context in which the robots are to self-replicate, then to decide what constitutes a "raw" material we must break down to the most basic material which is abundant and dense in the target context. On earth we could perhaps get away with specifying a few mineral ores and sunlight; in space or on other planets it becomes more difficult.
You should be able to setup alsa with asound server to accept connections from non-local source addresses, then it's just a matter of broadcasting via IP...
The difficulty I was referring to is not in the broadcast itself, but in synchronising the playback such that separate outputs are perfectly in time. Otherwise, weird reverb effects will occur where two outputs are audible (of course, due to the finite speed of sound this will always happen to some degree, but if the outputs are synchronised the effect should be negligible).
I've never tried the method you describe; perhaps it is not affected by this issue.
2. You only need one central music library really. You...
By "synchronisation" I think the GP meant playing the same music simultaneously in multiple rooms. This is, in my experience, the toughest thing to get right when dealing with digital streaming.
The thing that's interesting to me is that this is not really much different than the GMail compose address area, but suddenly it's brilliant in this respect.
I think you've missed the point. This isn't just some simple autocomplete/combobox thing like what we get in the address bar of Firefox - the key here is the use of Google's vast knowledge of what terms people tend to search for together. Using this, Google can suggest words you've never heard of to add to your search.
Don't make 1024x768 wallpapers anyway, make them 1600x1200 and scale them down. That way everybody can use them.
I think the better thing to do when creating wallpaper is to optimise it for 1024x768 but "fill out" the content to 1600x1200 (or even something wider for those lucky enough to have a 16:9 display).
In other words, make the wallpaper look great/complete at 1024x768 (which most people use), but have enough extra stuff around it so it doesn't have to be scaled up tio fill the screen at higher resolutions.
Blobs breaks new ground both on the UI side (for instance, the UI has no text whatsoever)
I'm pretty sure that isn't new ground.
It sucks when I have to figure out what the icon artists were thinking when I'm trying to learn a new interface, telepathy or something like that would come in handy there.
Hate to "me too!", but this is basically what I was going to post. When I read that line I shuddered and reached for the mouse...
The whole easy modeling thing, where the objects can be simply pushed and pulled to change the shape in useful ways, also isn't anything new. A 3D jellybean to whoever can actually remember where I've seen it, though...
No offense, but that's really a pretty poorly thought-out idea and you should probably stop "predicting" it.
I couldn't imagine the horror of being a recorded musician and having people messing around with my carefully crafted tracks. Add to that the fact that your "effects script" concept is inherently flawed, in that non-digital effects (ie, real stuff like overdriven tubes or even just a particular fuzzbox) are used extensively in music production, and the whole thing falls apart.
I'm reminded of the state of colour schemes under Windows 3.1 - 98 where the colour panel was easily found by the average user. The crazy schemes people came up with were often an affront to God - any UI expert, landscape designer, or interior decorator will tell you that people might think they know what they like, but most haven't a clue how to put things/colours/plants they like together to create a coherent and attractive result. The same applies to music.
I certainly empathise with your desire to be able to mess around with the guts of favourite music, but there are way too many good arguments against it for it to ever, ever, EVER happen.
I assume that their goal is to become part of free/open P2P networks on I2. They're basically presuming (or maybe they have information) that there are such open P2P networks on I2, as there are on I1.
Note that the author of the article "Paul" is associated with the company (based on his email address). But at least he's honest in not trying to hide that info.
... for me to have a whinge about the state of replays in games today, particularly on consoles. Ludicrous lack of angles for no good reason, inability to select the object to follow, no rewind/fast forward, analog sticks not utilised, no zoom, too-short period of replay, no save/load, etc., etc.
It really pisses me off in a game such as Toca Race Driver 2, where with such pretty graphics and fun physics you could get some really cool replays happening if only the replay engine provided a reasonable set of controls.
Plus, since Cisco is at the heart of this particular scam, don't you think they have a few people working for them that kinda-sorta know how to track things through the Net?
The issue isn't with the technical feasibility of tracking traffic through the network - it's the feasibility of gaining access to the tens of rooted (or unscrupulous) boxes used as proxies. When one of them falls in China or Nigeria, good luck encouraging the owners to let your investigator take a look.
So she was only doing what she was doing before because she was paid to do it.
I could almost believe that; in theory the head of the RIAA could very well be at heart in support of free culture, but due to their responsibilities can't openly support it. However, the thing with such high-profile positions is that it's all about being in the "in-crowd" - I bet Rosen has all sorts of juicy contacts and favours to call in, and by proclaiming the joys of CC I'm sure she is burning a lot of bridges.
If, however, this about-face is actually part of a conspiracy to bring the CC down, then they're probably all still slapping her on the back.
... for instance, Australia. Here, everyone is required to enroll to vote once they turn 18, and once enrolled we are required to vote in all local, state, and federal elections. You're pretty likely to get away with not enrolling, at least for a few years, but once you're enrolled the electoral commission will very readily issue fines if you don't vote.
So, voter turnout is around 95% in Australia, and has been for many years. The great thing about this is that apathetic informed citizens are compelled to at least show up at the polling booth, and generally once they're there voters will, I believe, tend to cast a valid ballot. The bad thing about compulsory voting is that apathetic ill-informed voters will also tend to cast their ballots.
Is it worth forcing the latter group to vote in order to get the former group to do so? I don't know.
My CD changer reads CD-Text on the songs and the CD title.
I was going to have a whinge about how barely any CDs actually HAVE CD-Text encoded on them, even those from SONY (CD-Text creators), and how the recording industry are jerks, etc... but then I read your post properly and noticed that you put the CD-Text on yourself by copying the CDs. Errr, carry on:)
"I blame the USB committee for allowing devices to be touted as USB 2.0 when, in fact, they are the same speed as USB 1.1."
I think that we should actually blame the company, who is putting labels on their product which overstate the technology.
I disagree; this is indeed the USB committee's fault for being indecisive (and possibly underhanded) in their standards naming & marketing. The USB 2.0 claim on the product is perfectly accurate - it really means that the device can coexist on a hub with "hi-speed" USB devices without slowing them down, even though the product itself is only a "full-speed" device.
USB 2.0 allows devices to run at "lo-speed", "full-speed" and "hi-speed". It is not synonymous with "hi-speed". The moral is to check for USB 2.0 if you want to run the device on a hub with "hi-speed" devices, but check for "hi-speed" if you want to make sure the device itself runs at that speed.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately non-developer clients often don't understand (and sometimes won't accept) that the view is not the whole product. They see the only thing they really grasp, the interface, is complete, and the natural reaction is that the whole thing is done.
I think it's management of these expectations that the article poster is seeking to improve.
steve
Indeed... if your software is open to begin with. But, closed software can always be opened again, whereas once software is opened it can't be put back into the closed-source bag. The license for future versions might change but the earlier open-sourced stuff will always be open (assuming an OSI-approved licence).
The real point is that change is risky, and all changes as significant as closing OR OPENING software must be carefully considered and be based on real benefits - not just done for the sake of it.
steve
But which one has an open, Free, non-patent-encumbered file format?
steve
Kinda... in reality consumers just don't realise what's going on. They don't realise that just about everyone violates copyright law all the time, whether it's taping a TV show and saving it,or taping a friend's CD, or getting the odd CD full of MP3s from their son. They don't realise that the reason they can't plug their DVD player into their VCR (perhaps because they don't have A/V in on their TV) is because there is actual circuitry deliberately put there to stop it (Macrovision). They don't realise that CDs increasingly aren't actual Audio CDs as defined by Philips, and may not play in some CD players, or that by putting these "copy-protected" CDs in their PC they're actually installing unwanted software.
In my experience "consumers" are usually shocked when informed of these facts geeks take for granted. They also don't realise how technology could transform our lives if only it were allowed to flourish for the good of society, rather than restricted for the good of huge corporations and their greedy executives and complicit shareholders. They don't think about the fact that most content released now won't be in the public domain in their lifetime - this is just how it is for them, it is how they were brought up. But it should be in the public domain in their lifetime. They don't think about the fact that repeated extension of copyrights for the benefit of entities like Disney, just to protect their "right" to profit from characters created over 70 years ago, takes quality of life and money out of their pockets. That every year we lose a little bit of the rights we had last year.
No, consumers aren't satisfied - they're ignorant. This is a position I loathe to take, because it sounds elitist - but it's true, and it's the real reason they're apathetic. Without constant and loud protests from those who see, they'll probably never wake up. They'll probably never stop and think, "wow, look at all the rights and possibilities and enlightenment we've lost" - thus is the goal of big business, slowly but surely crushing us into groveling serfs scrabbling for their precious "content". $1 for the first minute, $2 for each successive minute... that's the future these "satisfied" consumers have to look forward to.
steve
Oh come on, you're living in a fantasy world. A boycott just cannot have any kind of effect here - people are too apathetic. Boycotts only work when a large lobbying group (like the NRA or the Women's League of Voters) gets behind it. That's just not going to happen in this case.
Besides which, you say the GPP should work within the capitalist system - well the entertainment industry don't! They manipulate lawmakers through campaign funding and they illegally operate as a cartel to fix prices. Really think, is it possible to boycott such a behemoth which has all the money, politicians, marketing, and consumer apathy on their side? I'd like it to be, I really would, but it's just not gonna happen that way.
steve
Also, your analogies are terrible. All the applications you mentioned are clearly non-trivial... whereas exchange/outlook seems to be nothing more than a few entries in a database...
steve
I didn't mean to imply you said it didn't belong in the game, I'm just sick of hearing about that solicitation/murder/rob example as some kind of inherent part of the game. As for crimes - there are plenty of them in the game, in the form of missions which must be completed to "win". I'd say those crimes are far better examples for what you're saying about the ratings.
steve
Urgh, I'm so sick of hearing this. As games get more and more open and non-linear and allow more self-expression, we should be seeing things like this become possible. Possible - yes the prostitute sex is a "feature" (ie, it was deliberately added), but no one tells the player, or suggests to the player, that they should then go and kill and rob her. That action is made possible by the open nature of the game, and the only way to prevent it (without losing the relatively harmless [IMO] sex) is to break the immersion of the game and disallow robbing a person when you've had sex with them. Would that make any sense? No.
I agree with your comment on the message being sent by this furore over hot coffee though.
Also, I live in Australia, where the prostitution was censored, and hence have never seen or experienced the marvelous fabulosity of "working" prostitutes in GTA... what am I to do!?
steve
That's really what he meant; pressure itself is a function of the contact patch (varying inversely in proportion to it), which is then cancelled out when, in calculating friction, we address the area over which that pressure is being applied. Don't ask me for formulae, I'm a little way out of physics class.
steve
But the question of how "raw" the inputs need to be for the process to truly be "self-replication" is not unanswerable. I think we can at least qualitatively characterise the key requirement on inputs for true self-replication, and that character is abundance.
In the example we have before us, pre-machined parts are used to replicate the robots. If there were some hypothetical location where these pre-machined parts were sufficiently abundant (and packed densely enough) to enable the construction of "enough" robots, then all well and good. In any other environment, then I don't think we could classify these robots as self-replicating. If the robots could self-replicate using "raw" materials such as mineral ores and the like, we still require a context in which these "raw" materials are sufficiently abundant.
If we broaden the context in which the robots are to self-replicate, then to decide what constitutes a "raw" material we must break down to the most basic material which is abundant and dense in the target context. On earth we could perhaps get away with specifying a few mineral ores and sunlight; in space or on other planets it becomes more difficult.
steve
The difficulty I was referring to is not in the broadcast itself, but in synchronising the playback such that separate outputs are perfectly in time. Otherwise, weird reverb effects will occur where two outputs are audible (of course, due to the finite speed of sound this will always happen to some degree, but if the outputs are synchronised the effect should be negligible).
I've never tried the method you describe; perhaps it is not affected by this issue.
steve
By "synchronisation" I think the GP meant playing the same music simultaneously in multiple rooms. This is, in my experience, the toughest thing to get right when dealing with digital streaming.
steve
I think you've missed the point. This isn't just some simple autocomplete/combobox thing like what we get in the address bar of Firefox - the key here is the use of Google's vast knowledge of what terms people tend to search for together. Using this, Google can suggest words you've never heard of to add to your search.
steve
I think the better thing to do when creating wallpaper is to optimise it for 1024x768 but "fill out" the content to 1600x1200 (or even something wider for those lucky enough to have a 16:9 display).
In other words, make the wallpaper look great/complete at 1024x768 (which most people use), but have enough extra stuff around it so it doesn't have to be scaled up tio fill the screen at higher resolutions.
steve
I'm pretty sure that isn't new ground.
It sucks when I have to figure out what the icon artists were thinking when I'm trying to learn a new interface, telepathy or something like that would come in handy there.
Hate to "me too!", but this is basically what I was going to post. When I read that line I shuddered and reached for the mouse...
The whole easy modeling thing, where the objects can be simply pushed and pulled to change the shape in useful ways, also isn't anything new. A 3D jellybean to whoever can actually remember where I've seen it, though...
steve
I couldn't imagine the horror of being a recorded musician and having people messing around with my carefully crafted tracks. Add to that the fact that your "effects script" concept is inherently flawed, in that non-digital effects (ie, real stuff like overdriven tubes or even just a particular fuzzbox) are used extensively in music production, and the whole thing falls apart.
I'm reminded of the state of colour schemes under Windows 3.1 - 98 where the colour panel was easily found by the average user. The crazy schemes people came up with were often an affront to God - any UI expert, landscape designer, or interior decorator will tell you that people might think they know what they like, but most haven't a clue how to put things/colours/plants they like together to create a coherent and attractive result. The same applies to music.
I certainly empathise with your desire to be able to mess around with the guts of favourite music, but there are way too many good arguments against it for it to ever, ever, EVER happen.
steve
steve
Honest, or perhaps stupid.
steve
It really pisses me off in a game such as Toca Race Driver 2, where with such pretty graphics and fun physics you could get some really cool replays happening if only the replay engine provided a reasonable set of controls.
steve
The issue isn't with the technical feasibility of tracking traffic through the network - it's the feasibility of gaining access to the tens of rooted (or unscrupulous) boxes used as proxies. When one of them falls in China or Nigeria, good luck encouraging the owners to let your investigator take a look.
steve
I could almost believe that; in theory the head of the RIAA could very well be at heart in support of free culture, but due to their responsibilities can't openly support it. However, the thing with such high-profile positions is that it's all about being in the "in-crowd" - I bet Rosen has all sorts of juicy contacts and favours to call in, and by proclaiming the joys of CC I'm sure she is burning a lot of bridges.
If, however, this about-face is actually part of a conspiracy to bring the CC down, then they're probably all still slapping her on the back.
steve
It basically just means to dismiss, disparage or criticise (depending on the context).
steve
So, voter turnout is around 95% in Australia, and has been for many years. The great thing about this is that apathetic informed citizens are compelled to at least show up at the polling booth, and generally once they're there voters will, I believe, tend to cast a valid ballot. The bad thing about compulsory voting is that apathetic ill-informed voters will also tend to cast their ballots.
Is it worth forcing the latter group to vote in order to get the former group to do so? I don't know.
steve
I was going to have a whinge about how barely any CDs actually HAVE CD-Text encoded on them, even those from SONY (CD-Text creators), and how the recording industry are jerks, etc... but then I read your post properly and noticed that you put the CD-Text on yourself by copying the CDs. Errr, carry on :)
steve
I think that we should actually blame the company, who is putting labels on their product which overstate the technology.
I disagree; this is indeed the USB committee's fault for being indecisive (and possibly underhanded) in their standards naming & marketing. The USB 2.0 claim on the product is perfectly accurate - it really means that the device can coexist on a hub with "hi-speed" USB devices without slowing them down, even though the product itself is only a "full-speed" device.
USB 2.0 allows devices to run at "lo-speed", "full-speed" and "hi-speed". It is not synonymous with "hi-speed". The moral is to check for USB 2.0 if you want to run the device on a hub with "hi-speed" devices, but check for "hi-speed" if you want to make sure the device itself runs at that speed.
steve