It's certainly not a textbook case of good design. The two identical search boxes, the huge fonts for the tags...the fact when I visit the homepage if I had no idea what a tagging system was (and plenty of people don't) I'd be totally confused...
Since when did Web 2.0 = forgetting all about usability and going with 'it looks minimal, so therefore cool'
I'm an international student studying in America. My credit rating is therefore practically zero, because I have no fixed long term address in the USA, few assets in the US, etc. To get a contract for my mobile phone I had to put down an extremely large deposit precisely because I had no credit rating.
One of my concerns would be it can take a very, very, very long time for someone in my position to build up a good US credit rating, if even my rating at home is quite good...
In fact, the carriers are already being built - all that's been signed is a formal agreement, with France giving Britain payment for prior research and development. They've actually been under construction since December!
There's a reason Bose stands for "Buy Other Sound Equipment". They shell out a lot of money of marketing on technology that is way behind the current standard, and it's because of this impressive mass marketing that people think their products are at the "cutting edge". They're not. Bose 802s are a nightmare speaker to deal with, requiring their own controllers and EQs made buy Bose...for little to no gain to sound fidelity, for a lot of the price. Their personal hi-fi equipment is not much better. Really overhyped, little actual performance for the money.
That is to say, they're not *bad* speakers, and their iPod dock gives a good sound - but for the money, you could do so, so, much better.
Re:Apple: we sell whatever we can hype up
on
iCell in the Works?
·
· Score: 1
"How the hell is a desktop machine more deserving of a camera than a portable camera shaped device:)"
I have one of the Cinea Players (a member of my family is a Bafta member) - to even play normally non spazzed up DVDs on them you need to ring Dolby to activate the damn thing. If I remember, no movies that were sent as screeners last year actually used the Cinea player, so its been sitting in a box somewhere. A lot of the screeners used to be just single layer DVD-Rs, meaning that quite a few films spanned several discs.
And they don't really stop the creation of pirate copies, given you can still just plug the video output of the thing into a capture device (although given a lot of the DVDs have serial numbers displayed pretty clearly, you really wouldn't want to).
Erm - some Irish politicians were rumoured to have links with the IRA at one point, and the offices of Sinn Fein at the Houses of Parliament were burgled not all too long ago.
When you talk about Britain and terrorists, do try to remember that we've kind of been dealing with the terrorist problem for some time, and they're not all from the Middle East. It wasn't all that long ago bomb threats in London were something of a regular occurance, and most of them were coming from the IRA - not the terrorists George Bush puts forward as the enemy everyday.
There have also been quite a few occasions were MPs have been bugged to aid weapons sales investigations, corruption, and the like - and that sort of investigation isn't limited to the UK.
Why dont you actually learn what a fake book is before commenting? A proper fake book takes *skill* to play well. You don't get the "dumb chords"...in fact, all you're given is the melody line - a single tune, along with chords in text running along the top. It's up to you, the (typically piano) player to improvise the accompianment, harmony, vamps, and the like.
There's a pretty big difference between a proper jazz fake book and the dumbed down classical books you're describing - nobody actually wrote down many of the jazz tunes in the fake books properly, and they're often carefully (and it used to be illegally) transcriped and published by jazz players.
...Gordon Davies would be so "stunned" if he was a creditor owed money by a liquidated company. This is great news for creditors, because they've got more money in the pot to cover the debts owed.
And at the same time, people get cheap software. And I don't really think this will be taking business away from Microsoft resellers - the article doesn't mention it, but I assume this second-hand software won't come with any of the additional support bundled with new programmes.
Slight correction: It's not a tax added on to the retail of TVs, but a yearly TV licence that must be paid. It's not particularly cheap, either, but having been working in the US for a few months now (I come from Britain)...it really is worth it. Sure, I complained a lot in the UK, but just be thankful we don't have anything like the TV out here. Yes, there are some good/great stuff kicking about, but there's also plenty of garbage, and news reporting can't really compare.
...I was sent a Cinea player by a film studio 12 months ago for the same purpose. It's standard practice for the screeners to have some distinguishing mark to prevent copying - I've seen one off DVD-Rs being sent with unique serial numbers, watermarks and the like, and the Cinea system. Of course, one might also view it as extended bribary, given that the Cinea DVD player they supply does function as a normal player (although you do have to register it first...)
Finale does have a competitor. It's called Sibelius. It's the standard in Europe - it's designed by *musicians*, not software engineers, and the UI is a godsend compared to Finale. Having just moved to states and been forced to use Finale, I have one piece of advice - get Sibelius.
The simple reason Apple won't release a Finale competitor is that Sibelius always does a pretty good job.
I think the *biggest thing* is the fact you can now download TV shows, like Lost, for $1.99 an episode. I think that's pretty earth shattering...a 3 minute pop video, or a 45 minute TV show for the same price?
The studios are actually out Aztect West way, if you're going to picky. The offices on Gas Ferry Road down by the docks are mainly admin and CGI stuff, with a couple of studios for small projects.
Here in Britain, police already have powers to retain DNA of those who are innocent - there was a court case in the Lords a few years ago, where the police had retained the DNA of an 11 year boy accused (and found innocent) of a crime, which led to a 4-1 ruling in favour of the police keeping the samples. For example, sometimes in Britain the police will have a mass dna swab session, where they test say a large number of males in a town. The police can then keep the samples, and use them to link anyone who went on to commit a crime.
Yes, you could refuse to give a sample, but if the police really wanted to obtain your DNA samples they'd just obtain a search warrant for your house, and attempt to collect it from hair/nails etc.
I think you're missing the point - this is a developer's model. It's sole purpose is to enable developers to transition across to Intel based macs. Lets just wait until Apple start releasing actual Intel based products before complaining about the hardware?
Kazaa encourages users to break the law. And if they're not particularly bright users, how to unknowingly break the law. There was a load of lawsuits sent out last month by the BPI (British equivalent of the RIAA) a month or so ago, and the general reaction was "Oh, I didn't know Kazaa was illegal" (generally everyone being sued were Kazaa users).
Aside from that, surely I'm not the only person here who finds it extremely hard - no, impossible - to believe that "while Zennström thought it had great potential from the start, he did not know exactly what people would use it for"? Because he then goes on to say in the article he didn't think Kazaa would get to the stage where it could compete with Napster...presumably he knew that the primary use of Napster at the time was illegal downloading?
Slashdot Mirror
It's certainly not a textbook case of good design. The two identical search boxes, the huge fonts for the tags...the fact when I visit the homepage if I had no idea what a tagging system was (and plenty of people don't) I'd be totally confused...
Since when did Web 2.0 = forgetting all about usability and going with 'it looks minimal, so therefore cool'
Oh, wait. It's always been like that.
I'm an international student studying in America. My credit rating is therefore practically zero, because I have no fixed long term address in the USA, few assets in the US, etc. To get a contract for my mobile phone I had to put down an extremely large deposit precisely because I had no credit rating. One of my concerns would be it can take a very, very, very long time for someone in my position to build up a good US credit rating, if even my rating at home is quite good...
...am I the only one praying they *don't* have proper backups?
...the article paints the picture this is something that happened today, but it's not - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4780630.stm
In fact, the carriers are already being built - all that's been signed is a formal agreement, with France giving Britain payment for prior research and development. They've actually been under construction since December!
It doesn't.
There's a reason Bose stands for "Buy Other Sound Equipment". They shell out a lot of money of marketing on technology that is way behind the current standard, and it's because of this impressive mass marketing that people think their products are at the "cutting edge". They're not. Bose 802s are a nightmare speaker to deal with, requiring their own controllers and EQs made buy Bose...for little to no gain to sound fidelity, for a lot of the price. Their personal hi-fi equipment is not much better. Really overhyped, little actual performance for the money.
That is to say, they're not *bad* speakers, and their iPod dock gives a good sound - but for the money, you could do so, so, much better.
"How the hell is a desktop machine more deserving of a camera than a portable camera shaped device :)"
Little thing called video conferencing?
The Register had a similar piece yesterday - pretty much the same complaints: "So far, it's just a really crap web site"...
It's not newspaper reviewers. It's BAFTA members.
BAFTA members comprise of critics, filmakers, production staff etc. Those who win a BAFTA become members, etc.
I have one of the Cinea Players (a member of my family is a Bafta member) - to even play normally non spazzed up DVDs on them you need to ring Dolby to activate the damn thing. If I remember, no movies that were sent as screeners last year actually used the Cinea player, so its been sitting in a box somewhere. A lot of the screeners used to be just single layer DVD-Rs, meaning that quite a few films spanned several discs. And they don't really stop the creation of pirate copies, given you can still just plug the video output of the thing into a capture device (although given a lot of the DVDs have serial numbers displayed pretty clearly, you really wouldn't want to).
Erm - some Irish politicians were rumoured to have links with the IRA at one point, and the offices of Sinn Fein at the Houses of Parliament were burgled not all too long ago.
When you talk about Britain and terrorists, do try to remember that we've kind of been dealing with the terrorist problem for some time, and they're not all from the Middle East. It wasn't all that long ago bomb threats in London were something of a regular occurance, and most of them were coming from the IRA - not the terrorists George Bush puts forward as the enemy everyday.
There have also been quite a few occasions were MPs have been bugged to aid weapons sales investigations, corruption, and the like - and that sort of investigation isn't limited to the UK.
Why dont you actually learn what a fake book is before commenting? A proper fake book takes *skill* to play well. You don't get the "dumb chords"...in fact, all you're given is the melody line - a single tune, along with chords in text running along the top. It's up to you, the (typically piano) player to improvise the accompianment, harmony, vamps, and the like. There's a pretty big difference between a proper jazz fake book and the dumbed down classical books you're describing - nobody actually wrote down many of the jazz tunes in the fake books properly, and they're often carefully (and it used to be illegally) transcriped and published by jazz players.
...Gordon Davies would be so "stunned" if he was a creditor owed money by a liquidated company. This is great news for creditors, because they've got more money in the pot to cover the debts owed.
And at the same time, people get cheap software. And I don't really think this will be taking business away from Microsoft resellers - the article doesn't mention it, but I assume this second-hand software won't come with any of the additional support bundled with new programmes.
Slight correction: It's not a tax added on to the retail of TVs, but a yearly TV licence that must be paid. It's not particularly cheap, either, but having been working in the US for a few months now (I come from Britain)...it really is worth it. Sure, I complained a lot in the UK, but just be thankful we don't have anything like the TV out here. Yes, there are some good/great stuff kicking about, but there's also plenty of garbage, and news reporting can't really compare.
...I was sent a Cinea player by a film studio 12 months ago for the same purpose. It's standard practice for the screeners to have some distinguishing mark to prevent copying - I've seen one off DVD-Rs being sent with unique serial numbers, watermarks and the like, and the Cinea system. Of course, one might also view it as extended bribary, given that the Cinea DVD player they supply does function as a normal player (although you do have to register it first...)
Finale does have a competitor. It's called Sibelius. It's the standard in Europe - it's designed by *musicians*, not software engineers, and the UI is a godsend compared to Finale. Having just moved to states and been forced to use Finale, I have one piece of advice - get Sibelius. The simple reason Apple won't release a Finale competitor is that Sibelius always does a pretty good job.
I think the *biggest thing* is the fact you can now download TV shows, like Lost, for $1.99 an episode. I think that's pretty earth shattering...a 3 minute pop video, or a 45 minute TV show for the same price?
The studios are actually out Aztect West way, if you're going to picky. The offices on Gas Ferry Road down by the docks are mainly admin and CGI stuff, with a couple of studios for small projects.
See, now electronic tagging of prisoners can be cool too!
Here in Britain, police already have powers to retain DNA of those who are innocent - there was a court case in the Lords a few years ago, where the police had retained the DNA of an 11 year boy accused (and found innocent) of a crime, which led to a 4-1 ruling in favour of the police keeping the samples. For example, sometimes in Britain the police will have a mass dna swab session, where they test say a large number of males in a town. The police can then keep the samples, and use them to link anyone who went on to commit a crime.
Yes, you could refuse to give a sample, but if the police really wanted to obtain your DNA samples they'd just obtain a search warrant for your house, and attempt to collect it from hair/nails etc.
The Matrix clearly not running Linux then...
...as e- & i- are to Apple :)
The actual cost per episode of Futurama (and The Simpsons) was/is around $1 million for around 22 minutes of animation...
...for those (sad enough?) who are interested, that would be a quotation by Humbert Wolfe, a British poet, from "Over the Fire" 1930.
I think you're missing the point - this is a developer's model. It's sole purpose is to enable developers to transition across to Intel based macs. Lets just wait until Apple start releasing actual Intel based products before complaining about the hardware?
Kazaa encourages users to break the law. And if they're not particularly bright users, how to unknowingly break the law. There was a load of lawsuits sent out last month by the BPI (British equivalent of the RIAA) a month or so ago, and the general reaction was "Oh, I didn't know Kazaa was illegal" (generally everyone being sued were Kazaa users).
Aside from that, surely I'm not the only person here who finds it extremely hard - no, impossible - to believe that "while Zennström thought it had great potential from the start, he did not know exactly what people would use it for"? Because he then goes on to say in the article he didn't think Kazaa would get to the stage where it could compete with Napster...presumably he knew that the primary use of Napster at the time was illegal downloading?