I'm still confused about how Apple is acting monopolistic. I'm not directing that to you, but just in general as a reaction to what I'm reading in this thread.
Apple cares A LOT about design in a way that you don't. I make this assumption because you've indicated that you just want the operating system; you don't want to buy into the hardware and thus "the experience". And that's a fair consumer perspective. But Apple sees Macintosh as not an operating system or a computer, but both. It's not even a marriage like WinTel. The software and the hardware are one in a harmonious zen-like state. One cannot exist without the other. Maybe it sounds fruity, but this is what Macintosh is to Steve Jobs. He wants a unified single experience that just flows from power-on to shutdown. It's mostly psychological I think. I bet Sony can make a very Apple-esque PC, but Steve Jobs sees a real need. I imagine he probably finds the PC to still be a very schizophrenic ugly beige box. And from what I've seen, he's not all that wrong -- except I haven't seen beige in a while. There is some sense in not wanting to support the myriad of hardware configurations Windows has to. You reduce the chance of hardware conflicts. The whole Mac "just works" mantra is a function of the integration. Of course, this means I don't get to use some very cool PCs out there.
Apple doesn't want to be Microsoft, and they don't have to try. Apple has done very well in spite of naysayers screaming that Apple will fail if it doesn't be more like Microsoft.
I have agree with your stewardess... sorry, flight attendant. With the huge variance in oxygen levels throughout the plane and the great likelihood that a Nintendo DS can bring down a 747 if you 1-Up in Mario, it's a wonder I still fly.
I went to dinner tonight with my father. The restaurant had cramp seating, and the table immediately next to us had three chatty, loud, bouncy, but happy kids all sucking on pepsi. Another couple joined on the other side of our table with infants.
My father pulls out his smart phone and shows me a video of a first flight he managed (test pilot lingo for the first official flight of an experimental aircraft). The volume wasn't loud, but the sound of the aircraft drew a stare from the father of the kids next to us.
In short... anyone who thinks they should have the authority to kill my cell phone should consider that I'll in turn want the authority to kill your loud, chatty, caffeine-driven kids.
Suggesting critical thinking and discussion isn't a bad thing. However, it's clear that the motivation is political. The original article analyzed some of the subject areas and the alternative theories; and found that there is a misrepresentation of scientific facts as well as of the theory of evolution. It's all very tainted.
Sadly there are people out there who, despite showing every indication that they are deep thinkers, arrive at the conclusion that science has never brought anything positive. Ben Stein for example
Maybe the middle school atmosphere has changed significantly in the fifteen years since I set foot in a high school classroom, but I don't recall high school ever being a place for developing critical thinking skills. We did that in college, or just plainly after high school. High school is where interests are sparked, but creativity in its chaotic adolescent form is stifled and controlled - tightly regulated if you will. In high school, we memorize and regurgitate what the teachers and the school board expects us too. Taking fundamental scientific knowledge and muddying it with manufactured politically motivated controversies is very dangerous. Critical thinking does not exist without a firm grasp of fundamental knowledge.
I don't much about Chricton's own credentials on global warming, but since people are so quick to buy into the opinions of politicians and pundits on this matter, but I'd consider his opinion among others... many many others.
The same critics also suggest that we don't have enough TGI Friday-Chili-Tuesdays restaurants, and that there is a desperate need for more bland bleach blonde pop songs.
Gates was there. Paterson was too, and so was Kildall. However, neither had the hunger Gates had, and in business it's that hunger that matters most in the end. Could Stallman have filled the gap eventually? Maybe, but he became an activist, and arguably Torvalds is a bigger figure despite the dependency on GNU Linux has had.
How is this flamebait? Gates' work - the totality of it, which is something you cannot measure exclusively in KLOCs, helped to bring about the commodity PC. Gates' helped to bring about a standard for personal computing. We can joke about how it was a low standard, but so what?
IBM deserves credit too, but less. IBM didn't evangelize the PC platform the way Microsoft did. We can argue hypotheticals all we want, and say that it was a stroke of luck, or that IBM would have just bought an OS from someone else had Microsoft not been there; but the fact is, Microsoft was there. I have my problems with Microsoft and Gates, but the guy deserves recognition that he's actually achieved something positive.
McDonald's actually had great food once, early on. And Microsoft wasn't always hated. Remember back when IBM was the big bad? IBM and HP, two sucky companies that wanted to rule the world. Microsoft and Apple were the underdog then.
Yeah, he can be hard on his employees. Not Steve Jobs hard though, more like a child throwing a tantrum and calling you stupid over and over.
Ballmer's a really excitable person, which is what made him great for his role during the early years. I could easily see him screaming about burying competitors if he's excited and mad.
Create a true base distro with one unified (totally unified) look, feel, UI, etc.
It's been attempted before, again and again, and it always ends the same: with a fierce debate between camps on how best to create the one true distribution. Then everyone goes their separate ways.
I believe there is only one route to such a distro, and that is through a single commercial company which is driven by profit rather than karma and kudos, and which has deep pockets, a strong CEO that could care less what Slashdot thinks about his/her product beyond basic QA, and the ability to make its brand synonymous with Linux. And Distro X needs to be marketed the way other commercial consumer products are marketed, via television and popular magazines. Otherwise, the best Distro X can hope to become is another BeOS. My point is. Usability in a consumer focused product is not enough. It has to be marketed too. And that takes big bucks and the ability to sell Linux as chic.
Final thought, and this is just hip shot, but perhaps Desktop Linux's best chance for widespread consume appeal is via uber light net-focused laptops and iMac type desktops. My girlfriend was willing to try Linux as she came to hate XP and loathe the upgrade to Vista. All she needs is a good digital lightroom app, a good browser to handle her intense Flickr and Myspace sessions, and a stylish hot pink laptop.
I want Richard Dean Anderson to poke his eye out with a drinking straw, a rubber band, and a paper clip; but it's not going to happen. It would be a poor business proposition to set a MacGyver movie in the proper context of the show; so the movie would either become high-tech like Mission: Impossible, or a genre spoof like Starsky & Hutch. *shudder*
Wasn't KR's version also cynical? I always thought that the prevailing difference between KR's and RDA's version was that RDA didn't play it edgy and suicidal.
For all the reasons you outline, I feel a Macgyver movie would be a bad idea because it would likely be "updated" as Miami Vice and SWAT were for today, losing much of its relevance. It would end up being a spoof. Even a modern day A-Team where the team are former Iraqi war vets would do better, although if that one is set in Los Angeles but filmed in Phoenix, I'll be pissed.
Nah, better to not risk it. Make Garth Margengi's Dark Place into an actual show instead.
Don't give up hope. If this movie gets the greenlight, there's a good chance it will be a comedy spoof of the series featuring Owen Wilson as MacGyver and Ben Stiller as Murdoc, MacGyver's main nemesis. I don't know who Vince Vaughn will play.
Re:Putting resources where it makes the most sense
on
Java SE 6 For Mac OS X
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· Score: 1
I'd love to hear more about Lightroom's development. I prefer it over Aperture, and not just cause my Pentax gear isn't supported yet in Aperture.
I said in an earlier post in the thread that Lightroom was proof that Adobe could handle Cocoa. Obviously it's easier to write a new app from scratch than it is to migrate over a massive amount of code in a preexisting app. When you say the Lightroom team was a bit of a rogue group, can you safely elaborate more? Were they just very insightful in how they went about creating Lightroom altogether, or were they going against the grain totally by developing with Cocoa?
I don't think you were marked a troll because of Mac fanaticism, but I also don't think you were trolling either.
The Java bridge seemed experimental to me from the beginning, and it there didn't seem to be much interest in it, so it went away. Maybe Apple should have done more with it.
As for Carbon, that's been on its way out for years, and Adobe knew that. Adobe knew Cocoa was the direction Apple was going when it along with Microsoft refused to port their apps. This put Apple in a precarious situation with a major section of the Mac user base. And for a while, it seemed as if Adobe was more interested its the Windows-based consumers. But Apple created Carbon to please Adobe and Microsoft, and finally realized just how dependent upon those two companies Apple was.
It's no secret that Apple has been working hard to become independent of third-party developers, and I feel strongly that an independent Apple will ultimately benefit Macintosh. Just look at some of the good software that's come out as a result of Core Graphics. Yes, Apple has screwed Adobe with the decision to pull 64-bit Carbon. Everything I've read on this indicates that Apple had problems devoting engineering resources to that project, and even on occasion was forced to borrow talent from other projects such as iPhone.
Adobe has a lot of work ahead porting Photoshop to Cocoa, and I know that's going to be irksome, but the world's smallest violin plays just for one of the richest and most successful software companies in the world to dominate an entire business sector. Adobe had since at least 2000 to start porting Photoshop to Cocoa. And it's not like Adobe can't handle Cocoa. Lightroom is a dream come true.
I don't believe Apple merely pays lip service to third-party software, at least not in these examples; maybe in others, but these things happen.
The only point of a democracy seems to be that everyone gets a voice. There is no further guarantee of satisfaction just as there is no promise that one person's voice won't be louder than another's. Democracies are still vulnerable to the same political corruptions that can affect other systems such as embezzlement, cronyism, graft, and patronage. If these corruptions are strong enough, and there are many corrupt politicians with a strong incumbency advantage, and the people feel sufficiently disenfranchised or are under the influence of jingoism, a democracy can produce a government everyone despises and even vote itself into extinction.
But I don't buy the previous line about most people from around the world being smarter and better at separating people from their governments than Americans are. Europeans and Asians have a lot of stupid, bigoted, xenophobic, and ethnocentric behavior in their own histories to answer to.
I still love going back to look at old video game box art. The art promised so much. Some of it looked like the art came off of covers for Choose Your Own Adventure books. The Psygnosis covers were some of the best ever - Roger Dean masterpieces. Box art today doesn't reach me as well as the classic stuff did.
Exactly. Maybe even throw in a Jim Kelly or a Foxy Brown as a player character too.
I never had a chance to play Driver, but now I'll have to check it out. I too am a fan of seeing hubcaps fly off cars during a chase.
I'm hoping we'll get to the point soon where we'll have players able to explore a giant sandbox modeled after a real metropolis totally. I mean, showing every street, capturing the look and feel of every neighborhood, and so on. Expensive yes, and perhaps squandered for anything other than an epic crime game, but IMO very cool.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still confused about how Apple is acting monopolistic. I'm not directing that to you, but just in general as a reaction to what I'm reading in this thread.
Apple cares A LOT about design in a way that you don't. I make this assumption because you've indicated that you just want the operating system; you don't want to buy into the hardware and thus "the experience". And that's a fair consumer perspective. But Apple sees Macintosh as not an operating system or a computer, but both. It's not even a marriage like WinTel. The software and the hardware are one in a harmonious zen-like state. One cannot exist without the other. Maybe it sounds fruity, but this is what Macintosh is to Steve Jobs. He wants a unified single experience that just flows from power-on to shutdown. It's mostly psychological I think. I bet Sony can make a very Apple-esque PC, but Steve Jobs sees a real need. I imagine he probably finds the PC to still be a very schizophrenic ugly beige box. And from what I've seen, he's not all that wrong -- except I haven't seen beige in a while. There is some sense in not wanting to support the myriad of hardware configurations Windows has to. You reduce the chance of hardware conflicts. The whole Mac "just works" mantra is a function of the integration. Of course, this means I don't get to use some very cool PCs out there.
Apple doesn't want to be Microsoft, and they don't have to try. Apple has done very well in spite of naysayers screaming that Apple will fail if it doesn't be more like Microsoft.
I have agree with your stewardess... sorry, flight attendant. With the huge variance in oxygen levels throughout the plane and the great likelihood that a Nintendo DS can bring down a 747 if you 1-Up in Mario, it's a wonder I still fly.
I went to dinner tonight with my father. The restaurant had cramp seating, and the table immediately next to us had three chatty, loud, bouncy, but happy kids all sucking on pepsi. Another couple joined on the other side of our table with infants.
My father pulls out his smart phone and shows me a video of a first flight he managed (test pilot lingo for the first official flight of an experimental aircraft). The volume wasn't loud, but the sound of the aircraft drew a stare from the father of the kids next to us.
In short... anyone who thinks they should have the authority to kill my cell phone should consider that I'll in turn want the authority to kill your loud, chatty, caffeine-driven kids.
Suggesting critical thinking and discussion isn't a bad thing. However, it's clear that the motivation is political. The original article analyzed some of the subject areas and the alternative theories; and found that there is a misrepresentation of scientific facts as well as of the theory of evolution. It's all very tainted.
Sadly there are people out there who, despite showing every indication that they are deep thinkers, arrive at the conclusion that science has never brought anything positive. Ben Stein for example
Maybe the middle school atmosphere has changed significantly in the fifteen years since I set foot in a high school classroom, but I don't recall high school ever being a place for developing critical thinking skills. We did that in college, or just plainly after high school. High school is where interests are sparked, but creativity in its chaotic adolescent form is stifled and controlled - tightly regulated if you will. In high school, we memorize and regurgitate what the teachers and the school board expects us too. Taking fundamental scientific knowledge and muddying it with manufactured politically motivated controversies is very dangerous. Critical thinking does not exist without a firm grasp of fundamental knowledge.
Just don't make the fatal mistake of inserting a countdown timer in your signal. A cable repair man might discover it and blow up your spaceship.
Ahh, that was my mistake. *cough* *cough*
I don't much about Chricton's own credentials on global warming, but since people are so quick to buy into the opinions of politicians and pundits on this matter, but I'd consider his opinion among others... many many others.
Screw the smart people and their radical smart agenda.
I want to hear more about cod.
The same critics also suggest that we don't have enough TGI Friday-Chili-Tuesdays restaurants, and that there is a desperate need for more bland bleach blonde pop songs.
Gates was there. Paterson was too, and so was Kildall. However, neither had the hunger Gates had, and in business it's that hunger that matters most in the end. Could Stallman have filled the gap eventually? Maybe, but he became an activist, and arguably Torvalds is a bigger figure despite the dependency on GNU Linux has had.
How is this flamebait? Gates' work - the totality of it, which is something you cannot measure exclusively in KLOCs, helped to bring about the commodity PC. Gates' helped to bring about a standard for personal computing. We can joke about how it was a low standard, but so what?
IBM deserves credit too, but less. IBM didn't evangelize the PC platform the way Microsoft did. We can argue hypotheticals all we want, and say that it was a stroke of luck, or that IBM would have just bought an OS from someone else had Microsoft not been there; but the fact is, Microsoft was there. I have my problems with Microsoft and Gates, but the guy deserves recognition that he's actually achieved something positive.
McDonald's actually had great food once, early on. And Microsoft wasn't always hated. Remember back when IBM was the big bad? IBM and HP, two sucky companies that wanted to rule the world. Microsoft and Apple were the underdog then.
Yeah, he can be hard on his employees. Not Steve Jobs hard though, more like a child throwing a tantrum and calling you stupid over and over.
Ballmer's a really excitable person, which is what made him great for his role during the early years. I could easily see him screaming about burying competitors if he's excited and mad.
Create a true base distro with one unified (totally unified) look, feel, UI, etc.
It's been attempted before, again and again, and it always ends the same: with a fierce debate between camps on how best to create the one true distribution. Then everyone goes their separate ways.
I believe there is only one route to such a distro, and that is through a single commercial company which is driven by profit rather than karma and kudos, and which has deep pockets, a strong CEO that could care less what Slashdot thinks about his/her product beyond basic QA, and the ability to make its brand synonymous with Linux. And Distro X needs to be marketed the way other commercial consumer products are marketed, via television and popular magazines. Otherwise, the best Distro X can hope to become is another BeOS. My point is. Usability in a consumer focused product is not enough. It has to be marketed too. And that takes big bucks and the ability to sell Linux as chic.
Final thought, and this is just hip shot, but perhaps Desktop Linux's best chance for widespread consume appeal is via uber light net-focused laptops and iMac type desktops. My girlfriend was willing to try Linux as she came to hate XP and loathe the upgrade to Vista. All she needs is a good digital lightroom app, a good browser to handle her intense Flickr and Myspace sessions, and a stylish hot pink laptop.
I want Richard Dean Anderson to poke his eye out with a drinking straw, a rubber band, and a paper clip; but it's not going to happen. It would be a poor business proposition to set a MacGyver movie in the proper context of the show; so the movie would either become high-tech like Mission: Impossible, or a genre spoof like Starsky & Hutch. *shudder*
Wasn't KR's version also cynical? I always thought that the prevailing difference between KR's and RDA's version was that RDA didn't play it edgy and suicidal.
For all the reasons you outline, I feel a Macgyver movie would be a bad idea because it would likely be "updated" as Miami Vice and SWAT were for today, losing much of its relevance. It would end up being a spoof. Even a modern day A-Team where the team are former Iraqi war vets would do better, although if that one is set in Los Angeles but filmed in Phoenix, I'll be pissed.
Nah, better to not risk it. Make Garth Margengi's Dark Place into an actual show instead.
Don't give up hope. If this movie gets the greenlight, there's a good chance it will be a comedy spoof of the series featuring Owen Wilson as MacGyver and Ben Stiller as Murdoc, MacGyver's main nemesis. I don't know who Vince Vaughn will play.
I'd love to hear more about Lightroom's development. I prefer it over Aperture, and not just cause my Pentax gear isn't supported yet in Aperture.
I said in an earlier post in the thread that Lightroom was proof that Adobe could handle Cocoa. Obviously it's easier to write a new app from scratch than it is to migrate over a massive amount of code in a preexisting app. When you say the Lightroom team was a bit of a rogue group, can you safely elaborate more? Were they just very insightful in how they went about creating Lightroom altogether, or were they going against the grain totally by developing with Cocoa?
I don't think you were marked a troll because of Mac fanaticism, but I also don't think you were trolling either.
The Java bridge seemed experimental to me from the beginning, and it there didn't seem to be much interest in it, so it went away. Maybe Apple should have done more with it.
As for Carbon, that's been on its way out for years, and Adobe knew that. Adobe knew Cocoa was the direction Apple was going when it along with Microsoft refused to port their apps. This put Apple in a precarious situation with a major section of the Mac user base. And for a while, it seemed as if Adobe was more interested its the Windows-based consumers. But Apple created Carbon to please Adobe and Microsoft, and finally realized just how dependent upon those two companies Apple was.
It's no secret that Apple has been working hard to become independent of third-party developers, and I feel strongly that an independent Apple will ultimately benefit Macintosh. Just look at some of the good software that's come out as a result of Core Graphics. Yes, Apple has screwed Adobe with the decision to pull 64-bit Carbon. Everything I've read on this indicates that Apple had problems devoting engineering resources to that project, and even on occasion was forced to borrow talent from other projects such as iPhone.
Adobe has a lot of work ahead porting Photoshop to Cocoa, and I know that's going to be irksome, but the world's smallest violin plays just for one of the richest and most successful software companies in the world to dominate an entire business sector. Adobe had since at least 2000 to start porting Photoshop to Cocoa. And it's not like Adobe can't handle Cocoa. Lightroom is a dream come true.
I don't believe Apple merely pays lip service to third-party software, at least not in these examples; maybe in others, but these things happen.
The only point of a democracy seems to be that everyone gets a voice. There is no further guarantee of satisfaction just as there is no promise that one person's voice won't be louder than another's. Democracies are still vulnerable to the same political corruptions that can affect other systems such as embezzlement, cronyism, graft, and patronage. If these corruptions are strong enough, and there are many corrupt politicians with a strong incumbency advantage, and the people feel sufficiently disenfranchised or are under the influence of jingoism, a democracy can produce a government everyone despises and even vote itself into extinction.
But I don't buy the previous line about most people from around the world being smarter and better at separating people from their governments than Americans are. Europeans and Asians have a lot of stupid, bigoted, xenophobic, and ethnocentric behavior in their own histories to answer to.
Actually, there's still Korea - the other "forgotten" war; so that makes three.
I still love going back to look at old video game box art. The art promised so much. Some of it looked like the art came off of covers for Choose Your Own Adventure books. The Psygnosis covers were some of the best ever - Roger Dean masterpieces. Box art today doesn't reach me as well as the classic stuff did.
Exactly. Maybe even throw in a Jim Kelly or a Foxy Brown as a player character too.
I never had a chance to play Driver, but now I'll have to check it out. I too am a fan of seeing hubcaps fly off cars during a chase.
I'm hoping we'll get to the point soon where we'll have players able to explore a giant sandbox modeled after a real metropolis totally. I mean, showing every street, capturing the look and feel of every neighborhood, and so on. Expensive yes, and perhaps squandered for anything other than an epic crime game, but IMO very cool.