It really boils down to the difference between "tidal waves" and "Tidal waves." A "tidal wave" is made by tides, a "Tidal wave" is made by asteroids, earthquakes and things like Godzilla.
I mean, I guess it happens that people accidentally reply-all... but I've never done it and I've never been on the receiving end of it. I've been using email since the mid-80's from a personal standpoint and I've had a number of corporate email accounts, both large and small. I can't recall a single instance of this happening. The reply-all storms that I have experienced were clearly intentional, with the people doing the reply-all knowing full well that is what they were doing.
So I wonder if there really is a case of people "accidentally" hitting reply-all and not just *claiming* they accidentally did it when they do something stupid. I mean, shit, I'm sure it happens now and then, but is it really that big of a problem, this "accidental" reply-all? It sounds more like a problem of people using it inappropriately than of people using it accidentally. I know my experience is purely anecdotal, but you'd think if it were that widespread of a problem I'd have run across it at least once in the past 25 years.
So here's the major problem with multi-screen gaming. Well, a couple problems actually. Prior to my build of a 3x 30" 2560x1600 gaming rig, I knew going in that one of the problems would be the same problem top gamers have had since the days of Robotron - too much screen real estate. Playing fast paced games, such as FPSs, multi-monitor set ups are actually a hindrance. I first experienced this with Robotron, in so far as the fact that the larger the screen, the more your eyes have to move. The more you eyes have to move, the longer it takes to react to a situation. The same goes for the fast paced games, but let me tell you on 7680 pixels of of view, something happening on the left that requires a response on the right becomes a huge problem. You just can't be competitive in things like FPS games on multiple monitors. I know some of you that think you're good at FPS will disagree with this statement, but the fact is you aren't as good as you think you are. The simple fact that you have wrecked your reaction time by having to traverse your screens from left to right is going to make you that much slower to react, or you may miss something all together.
The next problem with with FOV. Most games don't handle FOV properly across more than one monitor. Those that do usually handle it poorly. There are a few that handle it well. That's just in the FPS arena. If you go to RTS or other games where FOV doesn't matter as much, you still get the distortion but it doesn't affect game play nearly as much. However, again you have few games that support multi-monitor setups, and those that do usually handle it poorly.
In both cases, if you get around this by using an Eyefinity or NVidia's multi-monitor setup and present the game with one large monitor, game play just becomes wonky and a bit too big to move around efficiently. I haven't found a game that I like playing better on 3 monitors than just one monitor. I have since gone back to playing on a single monitor at 2560x1600 and find that game play is just as enjoyable and more efficient than the 3 monitor setup. I will probably try each new game I get in the 3 monitor setup, but I can't imagine what games coming out will be built well for that configuration. Until games start supporting multi monitors directly, there's really not any point in it, except perhaps driving or maybe flying games, which I don't really play.
To make multi-monitor gaming truly useful, I think what needs to happen is games A) need to support it natively and B) Allow elements of the screen to be moved where you want them. Right now, putting a HUD across all 3 monitors just makes the HUD information difficult to integrate, or in some games you can concentrate it all on the center screen, but then why have 3 monitors, since everything is happening on the middle screen anyway. Being able to move elements of things to the places you want them would boost the utility of a multi-monitor gaming setup dramatically.
If Facebook is your primary photo storage mechanism, you have other problems to worry about. Facebook should be a place you put low(er) resolution copies of your photos, or barring that, a place you put your photos after they are put in your long term storage facility. Be that your desktop, a backup system, a remote server, etc... Facebook is, by any definition, NOT the place you want to keep a sole copy of your precious photos.
Good god... A giant fail whale has been spotted in Hollywood, setting sail for Fail Island. I don't see how hit can possibly work out in any way that's even marginally good.
"However, there is no law requiring the judge to dismiss a case because one of the parties didn't show up."
There is. It's called the constitution. Everyone should get a Fair and Speedy trail. Just because no one in the system gives a shit about a speedy trial does not make the lack of them any less unlawful.
I had a family members life placed in limbo for more than year for something they did not do with BS new dates granted by the judge to the prosecutor 6 times... Then they dropped it. It's criminal to not give a person a speedy trial.
Unfortunately, nowhere is it written as to the definition of "Speedy." Thus "Speedy" can mean whatever they want it to mean. So no, it's not illegal according to the letter of the law and thus the judge can issue a continuance and be within legal bounds.
All the excitement? Really? This is the second story I've heard on the iPad 2. Yay... There was far more excitement around the original iPad than the iPad 2. "All the excitement" amounts to "Ho-Hum, a new iPad it the features the first one should have had."
Please... it's a "new" Apple product. Beyond that, there's nothing special about it and the tech news world pretty much agrees. Giving it the same amount of coverage as any other new product from a major company.
This is ultimately a failure of good design. Yes, Linux suffers from this as well (All OS's do to one extent or another). Windows has always suffered from this because of the various windows installer packages available to developers. Linux suffers more and more from this because most distributions have a package management system now, which has the same problems as the Windows installers.
If you install an application, either with a package management system (apt, rpm, etc...) or the Windows Installer, there's really no telling what it does to your system... flinging files here and there, modifying configuration files, etc... Yes, you could potentially get the manifest for most package installers on Linux and do some forensics on what it's suppose to be doing. Often times, though, the time it would take to do this far exceeds the time it would take to rebuild the computer. Throw in neophyte users or "system administrators" and this option is completely useless, so again you're back to reinstall. Good luck finding out what an installer has done in Windows.
So the only way to avoid this with the current designs is to go back to a time when it required heavy system knowledge to even install the OS... Obviously, this is not desirable nor is it going to happen. It's a product of our times, man. We are stuck with it, until someone comes up with a better design solution than we've currently got in the Linux and Windows world.
Overtook? Really? Why do we have editors? Why not just vote on the news items that get posted, since the editors apparently are incapable of doing their job. On top of that, the whole first sentence is a complete mess, not to mention the rest of the summary. Did a 5th grader write it?
Maybe the submitter should have plagiarized someone competent in grammar and spelling.
Around here you always want to protest the ticket and put up whatever evidence you can and hope the officer doesn't show. You can do it via the mail as well (just write your facts, again, hope the officer doesn't send in anything). So long as you don't incriminate yourself, and the officer presents no evidence, you must be found not guilty.
Plus, even if you are found guilty, you can still opt to go to traffic school and have it removed from your record (but you have to pay the fine), so long as you haven't been to traffic school in the last 18 months.
And this would be false. If the officer doesn't show, the judge will issue a continuance if he so chooses. Just because someone doesn't show up doesn't automatically mean the case is dismissed. More of then than not, the judge will set a later court date. Now, if one of the parties habitually misses the court date, then yes the judge is likely to dismiss. However, there is no law requiring the judge to dismiss a case because one of the parties didn't show up.
I gave up on Nokia back in the mid 1990's. Their phones always seemed like they would be awesome on paper, and then when you actually tried to use them you realized what a giant piece of shit they are. It wasn't because the phone was a piece of shit, though, like you usually find with products that look good on paper - the phones hardware is solid. It's the UI. Nokia has never been able to develop a usable UI. This was true in the 90's and several years ago when the N95 was the rage, I figured they'd had time to fix their mistakes. I bought an N95. Again, the hardware was awesome, but guess what? The UI was total garbage.
Nokia simply can't develop a UI that people want to use. In the 90's, long before smart phones, the UI was simply too slow. I literally had the problem of dialing too fast on Nokia phones. The UI couldn't even keep up with dialing a phone number. In the late 2000's, again the UI couldn't keep up with input, but add in the quasi-featurephone/smartphone hybrid that is Symbian and you have a graphically intensive, slow UI that is cumbersome to use. Another recipe for disaster.
I wish Nokia would pull their head out of their asses and take a step back to assess the fact that they have nothing to offer in terms of quality when it comes to the software end of things. Everything they have been doing up to know is complete fail; they need to realize this and look at successful software applications. Android, iOS and yes, possibly even WP7. Their new alliance with Microsoft is a step in the right direction, but it probably wasn't the best choice. Nokia could have dug themselves out of the giant hole they are in by going with Android (since I doubt even they could license iOS), simply, easily and quickly. Then again, they may feel the need to modify Android so much and re-write whatever they can that they'd make a mess of that, too. So perhaps the stern hand of Microsoft might let them put out a phone that's actually usable. Time will tell.
It's not scary because it's not really possible. Even Watson had the questions input before hand - and if a whole show that is dedicated to the process can't even produce a computer that can be communicated to in natural English, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions?), there's no way the average consumer is going to have a system capable of understanding them in a natural environment.
We simply aren't there yet. Talking to a computer is at best a frustrating, inaccurate experience. You get better concept recognition out of a 2 year old than you do out of a computer as a general rule. Specific situations and specific topics are/can be well understood by computers, but beyond that, computers aren't even close. Heck, I don't even know of a computer that can parse written natural English with anything approaching a 7 or 8 year old's ability to understand what's being discussed. With the vagueries of speech added in, a computer has no chance currently.
So is it scary? No, merely frustrating or curious/interesting at best. Useful or functional? Only in limited situations. I will be happy to talk to my computer when it can understand what I say with the same confidence level as an average adult, but until then, it's easier/faster/more efficient to communicate with the computer in a method IT can understand.
I'm one of those old fashioned guys who thinks that you can't punish sex offenders enough as soon as there is a kid involved. That being said I'm even more old fashioned to say that there is no humor IMO when it comes to threading on the edge of these things.
Making up saying dirty stuff to minors? my, my, what fun we're having...
We can whine all we want here but how is the justice system going to determine that this is or isn't real? Because you're saying so? Yeah right! Because you can show another vid. of those kids in class? How are we to know that the "proof vid" isn't actually the fake one? Or a deliberate one to cover up ?
I think its a very good sign that when in doubt the justice system acts and hauls your ass in. Don't want to risk such penalties? Easily done; don't get involved with explicit material in combination with minors. How simple can it be ?
Sorry, but I think he got what he had coming to him.
Guess what? You are not an "old fashioned guy" with you're thinking. You're a modern sheep without the ability to self-moderate, just like most of the rest of America. The current fad of "save the children" is a relatively modern movement. Prior to a few decades ago, sex offenses and child abuse was swept under the rug and/or just "accepted" far more than it is today. You are anything but old fashioned... except perhaps an old fashioned idiot. People like you without the ability to think rationally go back a long, long time... At least 2011 years, but I'm sure a lot longer than that.
No, it really doesn't. It CLOSES the window. If you open that window again, it is not in the same state. For example, a text document with the cursor halfway down the page. If you click the x the window closes. If you reopen the document it is as if the previous state never existed. Minimising specifically keeps the window open and in the same state as you left it so when you come to use it again, it is exactly the same. This is down with the yellow button. I said "some apps do close the whole app when you click the red button" but I specifically stated that this was *incorrect* behaviour that causes inconsistency. It is usually cross platform apps that "do it the windows way", although not exclusively - the worst offender for this from apple themselves is System Preferences, which fully closes if you close the main window with the x button.
If it behaves in the way you say (I no longer have my Mac, so I can't check), then it's so wildly inconsistent as to be impossible to say it does anything specific. Again, if it actually is intended to do it that way then it goes back to the document centric nature of OSX and while I will entertain the idea of it being a "what you're use to" thing, I very still maintain that because the buttons don't do what you expect them to do, it's broken/braindead. This may be the application developers at fault, it may be the OS at fault... it's immaterial. The OS should enforce behavior of the underlying window framework - that's why it's there!
How can that be? On the Mac, "It just works?" So it's impossible to have a bad install or something else.
No, that's just marketing. Everyone has it. It's not a carte blanche statement that things never go wrong - it's a computer with hardware and software; issues will crop up, which is why there is a large knowledgebase and Apple support network. If Apple users and Apple themselves genuinely thought it was "impossible to go wrong" then these things would not exist. In the majority of cases though, things do "just work" but not all the time - no different to any other software platform. You are being deliberately disingenuous if you are actually trying to argue this as a genuine point.
I agree, it IS just marketing. It's complete rubbish, to boot. Things on the Mac do not "Just work." They never have and they never will, specifically for the reasons you cite. However, the Mac fanbase totes this line out and the uneducated masses believe it. It's a huge selling point and it's a blatent lie.
You'll find that most video editing software wants the source material in specific formats - H.264 and Mpeg2 and Xvid and so on are temporally-based compressed formats, ie you have keyframes that can stand alone, but the majority of frames depend on data from earlier frames to save filesize. These do not edit well, so must be converted into non-temporal formats first. This is just basic video editing and is common to all NLE systems. Very few editors can actually work effectively with temporally compressed files.
I understand the underlying technical reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that the interface should do this transparently. I should be able to drag an H.264 or an XviD file into the timeline and be able to edit it. Whatever iMovie feels it has to do behind the scenes is fine and also irrelevant. If by "very few editors" you mean "crappy editors" then I agree with you. The big guns in the editing world let you work with common formats - the Mac doesn't.
Quicktime is absolute shit and the fact that OSX forces you to work in it is absolutely inexcusable, another braindead decision. Let people work in common formats.
Now you're just trolling. Quicktime is not a "format" - it's a system library (what OS X calls a Framework) that handles video and graphics. Calling it a format is like calling The big blue E on a windows desktop "the in
1. Single clicking on a window performs actions in that window, without bringing focus forward. I knew this was the case but I just double checked it. For example, you can start and stop iTunes when it is not the foreground app with a single left click on the play button. You can close tabs in non-foreground Safari windows with a single click. I can clear the downloads list (not in foreground, or even in active app) with a single click. Not sure what you're on about here.
Unless something drastic has changed in the versions between 10.5.2 and now, only some applications specifically designed to take the clicks on a non-focused window will take the clicks. Otherwise, the default mode for OSX is to bring a window into focus on the first click, regardless of where you click. Perhaps this has changed, but as of 10.5.2 it was exactly as I described and exceptionally annoying.
3. Clicking the red close icon closes the window. In some apps it also closes the app (it should *not* do this, it should always leave the app running). Minimising to the dock is the yellow button. The red button means "close window". The way to quit an app is command+Q, or from the menu. The only reason you don;t like this is because the "windows way" is that X closes the application (although it also closes just certain windows in some software, like Word etc). This is just personal preference.
You pretty much just made the case for me. Clicking the red icon closes the window - no it doesn't, it minimizes the window, but then you go on to say "in some apps..." Then minimizing to the dock is the yellow button - if that's the case then what does the red button do, if not minimize to the dock? That's the problem - there is no consistency with OSX when it comes to the red and yellow buttons. Often they do the same things, and according to you, sometimes they do different things and it's on an application by application basis. This is the definition of a braindead modality.
4. SMB seems to work ok for me, but I do not have that many Windows boxes around - only two of the people I live with have Windows boxes and they don't report any problems sharing my media collection (via XBMC, on SMB-mounted volume), but I'll take your word for it - I don't have enough data.
Perhaps it's been fixed, but please note I said authenticated sessions, not unauthenticated ones. Guest sessions worked just fine, but authenticated ones did/do not. This was awhile ago so I'm sure it's been fixed, but to leave a glaring omission like that out of a released OS and not issue a patch? Total garbage.
5. Safari is almost exactly like Chrome. I use both all the time (about 60:40 Safari:Chrome). Safari does have a memory leak that requires you restart it every week or so, but it's not bad. I like the speed of both browsers. Used to use FF3.6 but it was a bit chunky on OS X. The FF4 beta is dreadful.
Safari is not exactly like Chrome. Chrome has some similarities to Safari, but it's far more extensible and configurable than Safari and has a larger eco system at this point. I don't know why Apple is even bothering with Safari any longer (perhaps they aren't, which is why it's so crappy?) - Chrome took everything good about Safari and improved it.
6. There are very few UAC-like popups - these occur when privilege escalation is required, eg for installing certain apps (not all - eg just writing to the Applications folder [which is outside your home folder] does not require a password). There is *no way* there are as many warning prompts as there are in Vista. Vista prompts you with a UAC if you open the equivalent of System Preferences for goodness sake (which OS X does not do). Safari warns you by default if you download a file that can be executed or decompressed, but you can turn this off. The system will also prompt you if something wants access to your keychain (eg, Mail.app if it gets updated a
The Kevin guy retweeted (repeated what someone else said) in his tweet the alleged Sony master encryption key for the PS3. Other people are saying it's an old key and thus useless... in either case, it's probably not something Sony wanted to publish publically.
Since it was publically posted now, by an official Sony representative no less, it's going to be hard to claim that the key is a proprietary/trade secret in court.
"3x more for the privilege". Right 1995 called and wants its utterly inaccurate "fact" back.
Really? Go price out a given laptop config and then price out the same config in Apple clothing and we'll see how big a price difference we have there.
I would be interested to hear some of these "braindead modalities". I have already mentioned the weird sorting in column view in Finder (someone really needs to just rewrite it). What else? I really am interested in specific examples. I am going to be generous and assume you're not just trolling with some made up BS that you can't back up. I note you used modalities plural, so we're after more than one here.
Sure, here's a partial list:
1. Single clicking on a window only brings focus, does not perform actions. Major pain in the ass when you want to get stuff done fast. An exceptional pain in the ass if you have to work with Windows, Linux and OSX together, since OSX is the only one that behaves that way.
2. The finder menu bar being tied to the screen and not the application is exceptionally annoying on multiple monitors. This makes OSX almost impossible to use without developing RSI on large/huge monitors (I have 3x 2560x1600 monitors in landscape). This is clearly a vestigal modality from the days of single monitors. Unfortunately, it's 2011 and multiple monitors have been around for more than a decade, yes Apple hasn't been able to fix this deficiency. Go ahead, tell me it's a feature.
3. Clicking the red close X icon on a window minimizes it to the dock. If it wanted to minimize to the dock, I would click the yellow minus. Why have two buttons that do essentially the same thing?
4. As of 10.5.2 (dunno about later versions), SAMBA has been brokenbrokenbroken when trying to to let windows machines with authentication. Not really a modality, but a core function of the OS doesn't work.
5. Safari = total joke. (Ok, that's not a modality, but I figured I'd slip that in.)
6. Lots and lots of UAC-like popups. As many as or more than Vista.
7. iLife? really? iDVD doesn't work to burn a DVD; trying to burn one causes a beep... no other error message, no explanation. Most programs would give an error message of some sort... not Apple! iMovie doesn't handle common media formats like H.264, DivX or XviD, go Apple! Multiple windows are stacked in the dock; windows has this, but can be turned off. You can't turn it off in OSX. I have enough screen real-estate that I don't need to stack multiple windows. Why does it force me to? Mail.app? Can't set unread! Can't set it to leave it unread for X number of seconds! iLife... please.
Yeah, Unix is the suckzor. It has no power. It's very limited. Good luck selling that on here. You'll have better luck selling your surveys.
I didn't say Unix sucks, I said Apple OS's are limited. Yes, you can dig into OSX and make it do things it wasn't intended to, but that doesn't mean it was meant to. Regardless, I was more speaking about iOS than OSX.
Yep, it's been killing Apple so far. Much more of this "growth stunting" and Apple will be the only tech company left in the world. Poor Apple. If only the had you running the company, they might be able to move products and turn a profit on them.
It has been killing them, that's why they were a niche product for decades and are only now starting to become mainstream, and we are starting to see a reversal of that trend in fact, sending Apple right back to the niche market. Learn to read.
Disillusioned by the "It just works" line of BS that Apple built a reputation around, they are finding just as many problems and incompatibilities as in the PC world
Such as...? Sorry, dude, I'm calling bullshit on your entire post. But, I gotta give you props for the exercise in creative writing.
Such as? Such as printers, scanners, graphics cards, to name just a few.
You're clearly an Apple Fanboi and that's OK, just don't come in and start spouting clear nonsense without anything to back it up.
People don't see iOS as limited since it does more things than any other mobile OS, and with less training and computer knowledge required. Other mobile systems do not even have native C apps, let alone the sheer number that Apple has. Not sure if you are including the Mac in your judgement, but since it has a full Unix and by far the best creative platform I don't see how it could be called limited in any way.
Are you talking about the same iOS that runs on the iPod and iPhone, etc...? Because it's one of the most limited mobile OS's on the market. I'm talking about from a user perspective, not necessarily from a developer perspective. The user experience of iOS is the equivalent of Fisher Price... consequently, it's great for the masses that are afraid of technology. Once you graduate to not being afraid of technology and have the ability to manuever in the digital space easily, the limitations of iOS are glaringly obvious and exceptionally annoying.
In fact, I have. It offers nothing other OS's don't already offer and I can run other OS's on commodity hardware without jumping through hoops or paying 3x or more for the privilege of running a pretty GUI that has some seriously braindead user modalities. OSX is great for Mom and Pop and people who aren't tech savvy. It's designed for that and it excels at that.
The iPad2 is going to murder the flagship Android tablets... shame, I really want an Android tablet, But give a wifi only version in the same price range as the wifi iPad! I only need to pay for one bloody data connection, and I already have one on my phone!
I doubt it's going to murder them, but it will probably be wildly successful... I also suspect it's going to be the last wildly successful product out of Apple for a long time, unless Jobs comes back. The problem with Apple, even with Jobs at the helm at this point, is that people are starting to realize how limited the Apple OS's are. That's both a good and a bad thing for Apple, but it's going to stunt their growth going forward unless they do something drastic. It's good from the standpoint that the people that just want something simple that does the few things they want, the Apple products are great fits, because they do those things well... but those people that want more, and want to be able to do useful things with their gadgets and computers are becoming frustrated with the curated garden that is Apple. Many of the staunch tech related Apple fanboys I know are turning sour on Apple's products and starting to migrate back to the PC arena.
Disillusioned by the "It just works" line of BS that Apple built a reputation around, they are finding just as many problems and incompatibilities as in the PC world. I think this is a function of the fact that there are more peripherals for Apple now, so there's more things to break. When the "It just works" campaign started, there was hardly anything available that wasn't Apple produced, so yeah, things "Just worked" in most instances, but you had an extremely limited choice of what you could use. Now that Apple products have a larger ecosystem, they are running into the same problems as PCs... and thus the migration away from the Apple price premiums for basically no benefit.
On the flip side, the non-tech people are liking the Apple garden as much or more than before, because iOS is very gentle and easy for the non-tech savvy; they have no need for flexibility and the large icons and limited customizability of the whole thing is perfect for them.
So no, I doubt the iPad 2 is going to murder the Android tablets in terms of functionality, usability, price or any other technical metric. I don't see iOS having any significant changes between now and the advent of the iPad 2. The latest iterations of Android absolutely destroy iOS in terms of usability, speed, stability, flexibility and visual interface. With Honeycomb on the horizon, and support for higher resolutions and multiple cores, the distance between iOS and Android is only going to get larger, leaving iOS firmly in the "Fisher Price" area for those people who need a starter system to use on their gadgets.
There will be a flurry of activity on the iPad2 and then it will quickly be eclipsed by the flood of Android tablets (both good and bad) that are superior to the iPad2 in every single way.
Believe it or not, almost all neighbourhoods are safe to drive through if you don't mind running over the guys who jump out into the road wielding baseball bats.
Personally, I don't mind a bit. However, OTHER people mind, for some reason, especially the police.
Slashdot Mirror
It really boils down to the difference between "tidal waves" and "Tidal waves." A "tidal wave" is made by tides, a "Tidal wave" is made by asteroids, earthquakes and things like Godzilla.
I mean, I guess it happens that people accidentally reply-all... but I've never done it and I've never been on the receiving end of it. I've been using email since the mid-80's from a personal standpoint and I've had a number of corporate email accounts, both large and small. I can't recall a single instance of this happening. The reply-all storms that I have experienced were clearly intentional, with the people doing the reply-all knowing full well that is what they were doing.
So I wonder if there really is a case of people "accidentally" hitting reply-all and not just *claiming* they accidentally did it when they do something stupid. I mean, shit, I'm sure it happens now and then, but is it really that big of a problem, this "accidental" reply-all? It sounds more like a problem of people using it inappropriately than of people using it accidentally. I know my experience is purely anecdotal, but you'd think if it were that widespread of a problem I'd have run across it at least once in the past 25 years.
So here's the major problem with multi-screen gaming. Well, a couple problems actually. Prior to my build of a 3x 30" 2560x1600 gaming rig, I knew going in that one of the problems would be the same problem top gamers have had since the days of Robotron - too much screen real estate. Playing fast paced games, such as FPSs, multi-monitor set ups are actually a hindrance. I first experienced this with Robotron, in so far as the fact that the larger the screen, the more your eyes have to move. The more you eyes have to move, the longer it takes to react to a situation. The same goes for the fast paced games, but let me tell you on 7680 pixels of of view, something happening on the left that requires a response on the right becomes a huge problem. You just can't be competitive in things like FPS games on multiple monitors. I know some of you that think you're good at FPS will disagree with this statement, but the fact is you aren't as good as you think you are. The simple fact that you have wrecked your reaction time by having to traverse your screens from left to right is going to make you that much slower to react, or you may miss something all together.
The next problem with with FOV. Most games don't handle FOV properly across more than one monitor. Those that do usually handle it poorly. There are a few that handle it well. That's just in the FPS arena. If you go to RTS or other games where FOV doesn't matter as much, you still get the distortion but it doesn't affect game play nearly as much. However, again you have few games that support multi-monitor setups, and those that do usually handle it poorly.
In both cases, if you get around this by using an Eyefinity or NVidia's multi-monitor setup and present the game with one large monitor, game play just becomes wonky and a bit too big to move around efficiently. I haven't found a game that I like playing better on 3 monitors than just one monitor. I have since gone back to playing on a single monitor at 2560x1600 and find that game play is just as enjoyable and more efficient than the 3 monitor setup. I will probably try each new game I get in the 3 monitor setup, but I can't imagine what games coming out will be built well for that configuration. Until games start supporting multi monitors directly, there's really not any point in it, except perhaps driving or maybe flying games, which I don't really play.
To make multi-monitor gaming truly useful, I think what needs to happen is games A) need to support it natively and B) Allow elements of the screen to be moved where you want them. Right now, putting a HUD across all 3 monitors just makes the HUD information difficult to integrate, or in some games you can concentrate it all on the center screen, but then why have 3 monitors, since everything is happening on the middle screen anyway. Being able to move elements of things to the places you want them would boost the utility of a multi-monitor gaming setup dramatically.
Anyway, that's just my experience.
If Facebook is your primary photo storage mechanism, you have other problems to worry about. Facebook should be a place you put low(er) resolution copies of your photos, or barring that, a place you put your photos after they are put in your long term storage facility. Be that your desktop, a backup system, a remote server, etc... Facebook is, by any definition, NOT the place you want to keep a sole copy of your precious photos.
Good god... A giant fail whale has been spotted in Hollywood, setting sail for Fail Island. I don't see how hit can possibly work out in any way that's even marginally good.
"However, there is no law requiring the judge to dismiss a case because one of the parties didn't show up."
There is. It's called the constitution.
Everyone should get a Fair and Speedy trail.
Just because no one in the system gives a shit about a speedy trial does not make the lack of them any less unlawful.
I had a family members life placed in limbo for more than year for something they did not do with BS new dates granted by the judge to the prosecutor 6 times...
Then they dropped it.
It's criminal to not give a person a speedy trial.
Unfortunately, nowhere is it written as to the definition of "Speedy." Thus "Speedy" can mean whatever they want it to mean. So no, it's not illegal according to the letter of the law and thus the judge can issue a continuance and be within legal bounds.
All the excitement? Really? This is the second story I've heard on the iPad 2. Yay... There was far more excitement around the original iPad than the iPad 2. "All the excitement" amounts to "Ho-Hum, a new iPad it the features the first one should have had."
Please... it's a "new" Apple product. Beyond that, there's nothing special about it and the tech news world pretty much agrees. Giving it the same amount of coverage as any other new product from a major company.
This is ultimately a failure of good design. Yes, Linux suffers from this as well (All OS's do to one extent or another). Windows has always suffered from this because of the various windows installer packages available to developers. Linux suffers more and more from this because most distributions have a package management system now, which has the same problems as the Windows installers.
If you install an application, either with a package management system (apt, rpm, etc...) or the Windows Installer, there's really no telling what it does to your system... flinging files here and there, modifying configuration files, etc... Yes, you could potentially get the manifest for most package installers on Linux and do some forensics on what it's suppose to be doing. Often times, though, the time it would take to do this far exceeds the time it would take to rebuild the computer. Throw in neophyte users or "system administrators" and this option is completely useless, so again you're back to reinstall. Good luck finding out what an installer has done in Windows.
So the only way to avoid this with the current designs is to go back to a time when it required heavy system knowledge to even install the OS... Obviously, this is not desirable nor is it going to happen. It's a product of our times, man. We are stuck with it, until someone comes up with a better design solution than we've currently got in the Linux and Windows world.
... one with planets that all orbit their planets in less than 10 days
Yo Dawg... I heard you like planets. So we put a planet in your planets so you can orbit while you are resonating!
Overtook? Really? Why do we have editors? Why not just vote on the news items that get posted, since the editors apparently are incapable of doing their job. On top of that, the whole first sentence is a complete mess, not to mention the rest of the summary. Did a 5th grader write it?
Maybe the submitter should have plagiarized someone competent in grammar and spelling.
Around here you always want to protest the ticket and put up whatever evidence you can and hope the officer doesn't show. You can do it via the mail as well (just write your facts, again, hope the officer doesn't send in anything). So long as you don't incriminate yourself, and the officer presents no evidence, you must be found not guilty.
Plus, even if you are found guilty, you can still opt to go to traffic school and have it removed from your record (but you have to pay the fine), so long as you haven't been to traffic school in the last 18 months.
And this would be false. If the officer doesn't show, the judge will issue a continuance if he so chooses. Just because someone doesn't show up doesn't automatically mean the case is dismissed. More of then than not, the judge will set a later court date. Now, if one of the parties habitually misses the court date, then yes the judge is likely to dismiss. However, there is no law requiring the judge to dismiss a case because one of the parties didn't show up.
I gave up on Nokia back in the mid 1990's. Their phones always seemed like they would be awesome on paper, and then when you actually tried to use them you realized what a giant piece of shit they are. It wasn't because the phone was a piece of shit, though, like you usually find with products that look good on paper - the phones hardware is solid. It's the UI. Nokia has never been able to develop a usable UI. This was true in the 90's and several years ago when the N95 was the rage, I figured they'd had time to fix their mistakes. I bought an N95. Again, the hardware was awesome, but guess what? The UI was total garbage.
Nokia simply can't develop a UI that people want to use. In the 90's, long before smart phones, the UI was simply too slow. I literally had the problem of dialing too fast on Nokia phones. The UI couldn't even keep up with dialing a phone number. In the late 2000's, again the UI couldn't keep up with input, but add in the quasi-featurephone/smartphone hybrid that is Symbian and you have a graphically intensive, slow UI that is cumbersome to use. Another recipe for disaster.
I wish Nokia would pull their head out of their asses and take a step back to assess the fact that they have nothing to offer in terms of quality when it comes to the software end of things. Everything they have been doing up to know is complete fail; they need to realize this and look at successful software applications. Android, iOS and yes, possibly even WP7. Their new alliance with Microsoft is a step in the right direction, but it probably wasn't the best choice. Nokia could have dug themselves out of the giant hole they are in by going with Android (since I doubt even they could license iOS), simply, easily and quickly. Then again, they may feel the need to modify Android so much and re-write whatever they can that they'd make a mess of that, too. So perhaps the stern hand of Microsoft might let them put out a phone that's actually usable. Time will tell.
It's not scary because it's not really possible. Even Watson had the questions input before hand - and if a whole show that is dedicated to the process can't even produce a computer that can be communicated to in natural English, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions?), there's no way the average consumer is going to have a system capable of understanding them in a natural environment.
We simply aren't there yet. Talking to a computer is at best a frustrating, inaccurate experience. You get better concept recognition out of a 2 year old than you do out of a computer as a general rule. Specific situations and specific topics are/can be well understood by computers, but beyond that, computers aren't even close. Heck, I don't even know of a computer that can parse written natural English with anything approaching a 7 or 8 year old's ability to understand what's being discussed. With the vagueries of speech added in, a computer has no chance currently.
So is it scary? No, merely frustrating or curious/interesting at best. Useful or functional? Only in limited situations. I will be happy to talk to my computer when it can understand what I say with the same confidence level as an average adult, but until then, it's easier/faster/more efficient to communicate with the computer in a method IT can understand.
I'm one of those old fashioned guys who thinks that you can't punish sex offenders enough as soon as there is a kid involved. That being said I'm even more old fashioned to say that there is no humor IMO when it comes to threading on the edge of these things.
Making up saying dirty stuff to minors? my, my, what fun we're having...
We can whine all we want here but how is the justice system going to determine that this is or isn't real? Because you're saying so? Yeah right! Because you can show another vid. of those kids in class? How are we to know that the "proof vid" isn't actually the fake one? Or a deliberate one to cover up ?
I think its a very good sign that when in doubt the justice system acts and hauls your ass in. Don't want to risk such penalties? Easily done; don't get involved with explicit material in combination with minors. How simple can it be ?
Sorry, but I think he got what he had coming to him.
Guess what? You are not an "old fashioned guy" with you're thinking. You're a modern sheep without the ability to self-moderate, just like most of the rest of America. The current fad of "save the children" is a relatively modern movement. Prior to a few decades ago, sex offenses and child abuse was swept under the rug and/or just "accepted" far more than it is today. You are anything but old fashioned... except perhaps an old fashioned idiot. People like you without the ability to think rationally go back a long, long time... At least 2011 years, but I'm sure a lot longer than that.
It's a ST:TOS tricorder, yes.
No, it really doesn't. It CLOSES the window. If you open that window again, it is not in the same state. For example, a text document with the cursor halfway down the page. If you click the x the window closes. If you reopen the document it is as if the previous state never existed. Minimising specifically keeps the window open and in the same state as you left it so when you come to use it again, it is exactly the same. This is down with the yellow button.
I said "some apps do close the whole app when you click the red button" but I specifically stated that this was *incorrect* behaviour that causes inconsistency. It is usually cross platform apps that "do it the windows way", although not exclusively - the worst offender for this from apple themselves is System Preferences, which fully closes if you close the main window with the x button.
If it behaves in the way you say (I no longer have my Mac, so I can't check), then it's so wildly inconsistent as to be impossible to say it does anything specific. Again, if it actually is intended to do it that way then it goes back to the document centric nature of OSX and while I will entertain the idea of it being a "what you're use to" thing, I very still maintain that because the buttons don't do what you expect them to do, it's broken/braindead. This may be the application developers at fault, it may be the OS at fault... it's immaterial. The OS should enforce behavior of the underlying window framework - that's why it's there!
How can that be? On the Mac, "It just works?" So it's impossible to have a bad install or something else.
No, that's just marketing. Everyone has it. It's not a carte blanche statement that things never go wrong - it's a computer with hardware and software; issues will crop up, which is why there is a large knowledgebase and Apple support network. If Apple users and Apple themselves genuinely thought it was "impossible to go wrong" then these things would not exist. In the majority of cases though, things do "just work" but not all the time - no different to any other software platform. You are being deliberately disingenuous if you are actually trying to argue this as a genuine point.
I agree, it IS just marketing. It's complete rubbish, to boot. Things on the Mac do not "Just work." They never have and they never will, specifically for the reasons you cite. However, the Mac fanbase totes this line out and the uneducated masses believe it. It's a huge selling point and it's a blatent lie.
You'll find that most video editing software wants the source material in specific formats - H.264 and Mpeg2 and Xvid and so on are temporally-based compressed formats, ie you have keyframes that can stand alone, but the majority of frames depend on data from earlier frames to save filesize. These do not edit well, so must be converted into non-temporal formats first. This is just basic video editing and is common to all NLE systems. Very few editors can actually work effectively with temporally compressed files.
I understand the underlying technical reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that the interface should do this transparently. I should be able to drag an H.264 or an XviD file into the timeline and be able to edit it. Whatever iMovie feels it has to do behind the scenes is fine and also irrelevant. If by "very few editors" you mean "crappy editors" then I agree with you. The big guns in the editing world let you work with common formats - the Mac doesn't.
Quicktime is absolute shit and the fact that OSX forces you to work in it is absolutely inexcusable, another braindead decision. Let people work in common formats.
Now you're just trolling. Quicktime is not a "format" - it's a system library (what OS X calls a Framework) that handles video and graphics. Calling it a format is like calling The big blue E on a windows desktop "the in
1. Single clicking on a window performs actions in that window, without bringing focus forward. I knew this was the case but I just double checked it. For example, you can start and stop iTunes when it is not the foreground app with a single left click on the play button. You can close tabs in non-foreground Safari windows with a single click. I can clear the downloads list (not in foreground, or even in active app) with a single click. Not sure what you're on about here.
Unless something drastic has changed in the versions between 10.5.2 and now, only some applications specifically designed to take the clicks on a non-focused window will take the clicks. Otherwise, the default mode for OSX is to bring a window into focus on the first click, regardless of where you click. Perhaps this has changed, but as of 10.5.2 it was exactly as I described and exceptionally annoying.
3. Clicking the red close icon closes the window. In some apps it also closes the app (it should *not* do this, it should always leave the app running). Minimising to the dock is the yellow button. The red button means "close window". The way to quit an app is command+Q, or from the menu. The only reason you don;t like this is because the "windows way" is that X closes the application (although it also closes just certain windows in some software, like Word etc). This is just personal preference.
You pretty much just made the case for me. Clicking the red icon closes the window - no it doesn't, it minimizes the window, but then you go on to say "in some apps..." Then minimizing to the dock is the yellow button - if that's the case then what does the red button do, if not minimize to the dock? That's the problem - there is no consistency with OSX when it comes to the red and yellow buttons. Often they do the same things, and according to you, sometimes they do different things and it's on an application by application basis. This is the definition of a braindead modality.
4. SMB seems to work ok for me, but I do not have that many Windows boxes around - only two of the people I live with have Windows boxes and they don't report any problems sharing my media collection (via XBMC, on SMB-mounted volume), but I'll take your word for it - I don't have enough data.
Perhaps it's been fixed, but please note I said authenticated sessions, not unauthenticated ones. Guest sessions worked just fine, but authenticated ones did/do not. This was awhile ago so I'm sure it's been fixed, but to leave a glaring omission like that out of a released OS and not issue a patch? Total garbage.
5. Safari is almost exactly like Chrome. I use both all the time (about 60:40 Safari:Chrome). Safari does have a memory leak that requires you restart it every week or so, but it's not bad. I like the speed of both browsers. Used to use FF3.6 but it was a bit chunky on OS X. The FF4 beta is dreadful.
Safari is not exactly like Chrome. Chrome has some similarities to Safari, but it's far more extensible and configurable than Safari and has a larger eco system at this point. I don't know why Apple is even bothering with Safari any longer (perhaps they aren't, which is why it's so crappy?) - Chrome took everything good about Safari and improved it.
6. There are very few UAC-like popups - these occur when privilege escalation is required, eg for installing certain apps (not all - eg just writing to the Applications folder [which is outside your home folder] does not require a password). There is *no way* there are as many warning prompts as there are in Vista. Vista prompts you with a UAC if you open the equivalent of System Preferences for goodness sake (which OS X does not do). Safari warns you by default if you download a file that can be executed or decompressed, but you can turn this off. The system will also prompt you if something wants access to your keychain (eg, Mail.app if it gets updated a
The Kevin guy retweeted (repeated what someone else said) in his tweet the alleged Sony master encryption key for the PS3. Other people are saying it's an old key and thus useless... in either case, it's probably not something Sony wanted to publish publically.
Since it was publically posted now, by an official Sony representative no less, it's going to be hard to claim that the key is a proprietary/trade secret in court.
Can you tell me what "maneuvering" you want to do you can't do on an iPhone or iPad?
Off the top of my head?
Widgets, place icons where I want them, size icons like I want them, arrange screens like I want them, install programs that I want to.
"3x more for the privilege". Right 1995 called and wants its utterly inaccurate "fact" back.
Really? Go price out a given laptop config and then price out the same config in Apple clothing and we'll see how big a price difference we have there.
I would be interested to hear some of these "braindead modalities". I have already mentioned the weird sorting in column view in Finder (someone really needs to just rewrite it). What else? I really am interested in specific examples. I am going to be generous and assume you're not just trolling with some made up BS that you can't back up. I note you used modalities plural, so we're after more than one here.
Sure, here's a partial list:
1. Single clicking on a window only brings focus, does not perform actions. Major pain in the ass when you want to get stuff done fast. An exceptional pain in the ass if you have to work with Windows, Linux and OSX together, since OSX is the only one that behaves that way.
2. The finder menu bar being tied to the screen and not the application is exceptionally annoying on multiple monitors. This makes OSX almost impossible to use without developing RSI on large/huge monitors (I have 3x 2560x1600 monitors in landscape). This is clearly a vestigal modality from the days of single monitors. Unfortunately, it's 2011 and multiple monitors have been around for more than a decade, yes Apple hasn't been able to fix this deficiency. Go ahead, tell me it's a feature.
3. Clicking the red close X icon on a window minimizes it to the dock. If it wanted to minimize to the dock, I would click the yellow minus. Why have two buttons that do essentially the same thing?
4. As of 10.5.2 (dunno about later versions), SAMBA has been brokenbrokenbroken when trying to to let windows machines with authentication. Not really a modality, but a core function of the OS doesn't work.
5. Safari = total joke. (Ok, that's not a modality, but I figured I'd slip that in.)
6. Lots and lots of UAC-like popups. As many as or more than Vista.
7. iLife? really? iDVD doesn't work to burn a DVD; trying to burn one causes a beep... no other error message, no explanation. Most programs would give an error message of some sort... not Apple! iMovie doesn't handle common media formats like H.264, DivX or XviD, go Apple! Multiple windows are stacked in the dock; windows has this, but can be turned off. You can't turn it off in OSX. I have enough screen real-estate that I don't need to stack multiple windows. Why does it force me to? Mail.app? Can't set unread! Can't set it to leave it unread for X number of seconds! iLife... please.
Yeah, Unix is the suckzor. It has no power. It's very limited. Good luck selling that on here. You'll have better luck selling your surveys.
I didn't say Unix sucks, I said Apple OS's are limited. Yes, you can dig into OSX and make it do things it wasn't intended to, but that doesn't mean it was meant to. Regardless, I was more speaking about iOS than OSX.
Yep, it's been killing Apple so far. Much more of this "growth stunting" and Apple will be the only tech company left in the world. Poor Apple. If only the had you running the company, they might be able to move products and turn a profit on them.
It has been killing them, that's why they were a niche product for decades and are only now starting to become mainstream, and we are starting to see a reversal of that trend in fact, sending Apple right back to the niche market. Learn to read.
Disillusioned by the "It just works" line of BS that Apple built a reputation around, they are finding just as many problems and incompatibilities as in the PC world
Such as...? Sorry, dude, I'm calling bullshit on your entire post. But, I gotta give you props for the exercise in creative writing.
Such as? Such as printers, scanners, graphics cards, to name just a few.
You're clearly an Apple Fanboi and that's OK, just don't come in and start spouting clear nonsense without anything to back it up.
People don't see iOS as limited since it does more things than any other mobile OS, and with less training and computer knowledge required. Other mobile systems do not even have native C apps, let alone the sheer number that Apple has. Not sure if you are including the Mac in your judgement, but since it has a full Unix and by far the best creative platform I don't see how it could be called limited in any way.
Are you talking about the same iOS that runs on the iPod and iPhone, etc...? Because it's one of the most limited mobile OS's on the market. I'm talking about from a user perspective, not necessarily from a developer perspective. The user experience of iOS is the equivalent of Fisher Price... consequently, it's great for the masses that are afraid of technology. Once you graduate to not being afraid of technology and have the ability to manuever in the digital space easily, the limitations of iOS are glaringly obvious and exceptionally annoying.
"How limited the Apple OS's are"
I see you've never used OS X then.
In fact, I have. It offers nothing other OS's don't already offer and I can run other OS's on commodity hardware without jumping through hoops or paying 3x or more for the privilege of running a pretty GUI that has some seriously braindead user modalities. OSX is great for Mom and Pop and people who aren't tech savvy. It's designed for that and it excels at that.
The iPad2 is going to murder the flagship Android tablets... shame, I really want an Android tablet, But give a wifi only version in the same price range as the wifi iPad! I only need to pay for one bloody data connection, and I already have one on my phone!
I doubt it's going to murder them, but it will probably be wildly successful... I also suspect it's going to be the last wildly successful product out of Apple for a long time, unless Jobs comes back. The problem with Apple, even with Jobs at the helm at this point, is that people are starting to realize how limited the Apple OS's are. That's both a good and a bad thing for Apple, but it's going to stunt their growth going forward unless they do something drastic. It's good from the standpoint that the people that just want something simple that does the few things they want, the Apple products are great fits, because they do those things well... but those people that want more, and want to be able to do useful things with their gadgets and computers are becoming frustrated with the curated garden that is Apple. Many of the staunch tech related Apple fanboys I know are turning sour on Apple's products and starting to migrate back to the PC arena.
Disillusioned by the "It just works" line of BS that Apple built a reputation around, they are finding just as many problems and incompatibilities as in the PC world. I think this is a function of the fact that there are more peripherals for Apple now, so there's more things to break. When the "It just works" campaign started, there was hardly anything available that wasn't Apple produced, so yeah, things "Just worked" in most instances, but you had an extremely limited choice of what you could use. Now that Apple products have a larger ecosystem, they are running into the same problems as PCs... and thus the migration away from the Apple price premiums for basically no benefit.
On the flip side, the non-tech people are liking the Apple garden as much or more than before, because iOS is very gentle and easy for the non-tech savvy; they have no need for flexibility and the large icons and limited customizability of the whole thing is perfect for them.
So no, I doubt the iPad 2 is going to murder the Android tablets in terms of functionality, usability, price or any other technical metric. I don't see iOS having any significant changes between now and the advent of the iPad 2. The latest iterations of Android absolutely destroy iOS in terms of usability, speed, stability, flexibility and visual interface. With Honeycomb on the horizon, and support for higher resolutions and multiple cores, the distance between iOS and Android is only going to get larger, leaving iOS firmly in the "Fisher Price" area for those people who need a starter system to use on their gadgets.
There will be a flurry of activity on the iPad2 and then it will quickly be eclipsed by the flood of Android tablets (both good and bad) that are superior to the iPad2 in every single way.
Believe it or not, almost all neighbourhoods are safe to drive through if you don't mind running over the guys who jump out into the road wielding baseball bats.
Personally, I don't mind a bit. However, OTHER people mind, for some reason, especially the police.
It's quite troublesome.