The great thing about computers is that they make finding and manipulating digital data a snap. The bad thing about computers is that they make find and manipulating digital data a snap. It's a double edged sword that is, at least partially, dulled by encryption and other security measures.
You use a computer to generate sensitive data because its easier and more powerful than traditional methods, but that doesn't mean that you automatically want to forego the security that is implicit in a paper and pen solution.
Does this mean that keeping your photo album in a 'locked' house is evidence of criminal intent?
Open source entertainment is nothing new. There are plenty of examples from Folk Music and Hymns to Pantomime (christmas plays, that have nothing to do with christmas). You hear a song, you play a song, you change the lyrics/tune to suite your own politics. You never claim to have written it yourself, you just say something like "Here is a song I heard over in Sheepy Magna, it goes a little something like this..."
Copyrighted entertainment is new, and a little bit counter intuitive. My understanding is that it was brought about to protect the incomes of the artists, whilst provide recording companies to profit from the sale of recordings. Now, as recording companies start to fear for their livelyhood, it seems to be coming full circle.
People have always been able to make a living from providing entertainment and they always will (if they're good), they have not always been treated like gods and they have not always been richer than our leaders. Never mind the dotcom bubble bursting, I think the entertainment copyright bubble might be leaking a bit too.
envious of Americans. We 'foriegners' give you guys A LOT of crap over wars, the environment, religion, guns etc (not that the British have a leg to stand on... we forget our history way too quickly), but the fact is that we don't have the balls to do anything like this anymore. Creating an object that can travel out of the Solar System is HUGE. It is an achievement that should stand out as a moment in history that we can be truely proud of: no-one got killed, you're not doing it for greed or wealth - its a pure scientific achievement.
As ever, Mr. Jobs is right on the money. But look at what he's doing rather than what he's saying. By providing RSS downloads into iTunes he massively raises the profile of what was previously a geek only market. If this feature is used, no doubt they'll introduce a market place on iTunes for people share and talk about the podcasts they like.
Provide RSS feeds in iTunes
Provide market for podcasts
???
Profit!!!
Podcasts are a mess right now. Even if you find a really good podcast there is no way to promote them short of word of mouth. This presents another problem, podcasts are too complicated. You can't email your buddy and mine, Joe Sixpack, a link to an RSS feed and expect them to know what to do with it. People struggle to wrap their heads around web pages, never mind RSS feeds and MP3 files.
Apple getting behind podcasts with iTunes offers this interesting technology its best hope of becoming useful - like the BBC looking at this as a way of dropping Real, infavour of freeplay
I can't imagine why Apple would want to move towards x86 hardware, but there are many reasons why I can see Apple and Intel having a lot to talk about.
Intel make a lot of chips. Apple / IBM in comparison do not, but that doesn't mean that Apple doesn't want to. Intel could become a licensed manufacturer, and pick up the slack if volumes get too much for IBM to handle (in the wake of PS3 and XBox 360s).
Intel know a lot about 90nm technology. They have several patents that would no doubt make IBMs life a lot easier when it comes to making a G5 that works in a laptop (without sterilizing the user) and pushing the G5 beyond the 3GHz barrier
Intel make other technologies that Apple would be interested in, WiMax being the most obvious
Intel, have the potential to be great innovators. They're reaching the limits of what they can achieve with x86 because Microsoft are unlikely to want to support a new architecture anytime soon. Apple could offer them an oppertunity to try something new, and maybe make the next big thing in processors (if they don't already have it up their sleves).
I could even imagine a 'G6' or similar with a x86 instruction decoder. We all know that x86 instructions are internally reduced to RISC like microcode, why not bolt one onto the the front of a G5 and remove the software emulation in virtual PC? (ok, this is scraping the barrel)
Intel inside sells 200 million units a year, maybe that badge could make a difference to Apple sales - even if they used a different instruction set
...if I have a serious problem. I spend my whole day filtering information, code, tech manuals, slashdot etc. and only taking in the bits that I think are useful/interesting/funny. If I miss something I figure I can always go back and read it again.
The problem is I can't switch it off. I skim everything, and now the problem is spreading: it's affecting my listening too! I have to really focus on someone to take in everything they tell me, especially people I listen too a lot, like my girlfriend. If she is talking to me about something 'really important', like shopping, holidays, TV or hair and my brain doesn't agree how important it is I simply don't hear what she's saying. What worse is that she has a typical female ability to multiplex two or more streams of information, one of which might actually be important. This has lead to all sorts of arguments.
I think we're all having a crisis of competance. The fact is that we managed to get the whole western world working on an IT backbone. Why? Because it really is the best thing since sliced bread. Hardware is getting cheaper, as is bandwidth which evens the playing field, making the market tougher. I can understand why people would be scared about this... I am.
Then I remember that people bought IT even when it was hideously expensive. Now that its cheap even more people want it... its just that the margins won't be as large. So we won't be rock stars, with huge cars and houses - if/. is right, rockstars won't be rockstars fror much longer anyway.
It doesn't matter how many people can generate code. The way technology is progressing high level languages will go the way of assembler. I created a Diary in Cocoa in 30 minutes using Core Data. I can now see that a database app I built in 2 months using J2EE can be built in 2 weeks, with almost no coding (this was only a small project - J2EE was over kill). Whats my point? I can now create a solid, bespoke data orientated application in 2 weeks. That means I can afford to pitch to SOHOs!
It doesn't matter how many MB of code you produce if all your doing is following somebody elses specs. As always what is important is talent, creativity and the right tools.
This is getting beyond a joke. We need to do our jobs better - this means you! Its no good us geeks sitting around on Slashdot agreeing with each other about how awful and dangerous this DRM crap is. We need to tell everyone else in a way that they understand. All the Joe Sixpacks, people in communist russia and the people in old korea. All of them! Once they understand, we need to make them care.
At the moment all people are hearing is that a few nerds are getting arrested for pirating dvds and music and that pirating dvds and music is BAD. 6 months ago I was talking to my girlfriends dad. He was harping on about how evil pirating music and dvds is, and that they should throw the book at them. 2 months ago I got him a mac and taught him how to use iTunes. Last night he asked me how he could share his iTunes with me so that we didn't have to buy the same disc/aacs twice, like he used to do with tapes. He didn't see the connection between doing that and piracy. Now he cares. He feels that his right to share music within 'the family' are being restricted. I also bought them a DVB-T box. He's annoyed that he can't watch one channel and record another, like he's always been able to... I wonder how long it will be until he starts to want to know how I do it.
And thats just the stuff thats out of beta. I'm already using Google Mobile and Maps. They're trusted by geeks and Joe Six Pack alike and look like their about to have another hit with they're caching system. 5 years? One hit wonders? FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD
I used to love the concept of PDAs. When I was at uni I used one to take notes and keep track of lectures, but I was fully aware that it was a toy more than a tool. As important as I like to think I am I don't need to put my shopping list, occasional creative thoughts on a PDA. I even sampled 'surfing' the web on it, but to be useful you had to do it through a mobile phone and that was less than useful. I still used it over my laptop because it was lighter and powered on imediately.
Then I bought a Powerbook and a T610 and most importantly of all - a pencil and notebook. I use my laptop for real computing and my phone holds and synchronises all of my PIM data so much more efficiently than my old PDA that I simply don't need a PDA, with one exception: taking notes. For that I find the notepad invaluable. The data is difficult to copy as I use a unique encryption system that only I can decipher (my handwriting), the power consumption is incredible, I haven't had to replace the battery once! It's instant on, the stylus can be replaced for pence and are universally availble and best of all you can use it to annotate the notes they give you when you go to meetings without any previous training. The price is good too, I'm not a rich man by any stretch of the imagination, but I can easily afford to have a notepad and pen in a selection of my pockets at all times, and if I want to share my data I can simply give the whole pad to that person! I've also noticed that I can freely mix drawings, and text in the same area and it doesn't constantly tell me how bad my handwriting is.
I'm sure there must be a situations where PDAs using current technology must be useful, I'll even hazard a guess: mobile, local database access for doctors, engineers and stock controllers, but really that's an industrial application for a consumer product.
Why on earth would he object to putting a fan in it? Did he think it'd make too much noise?
I work with PCs during the day and Macs at night. The PC at work is a dual Xeon. With the heat and the noise its like sitting next to a hairdryer. If your used to it and you don't know any better then you won't realise how much its bothering you. My iMac G5 is a good balance. It is practically silent until you ask it to do something intensive, then two very low rev fans kick in. It really makes you appreciate how great it would be if it had no fan at all, and how awful modern PCs noise levels are.
Imagine everyday coding in Cocoa and XTools as standard in businesses... bliss. Core Data is probably enough to shift the TCO and ROI on Apple Hardware in Apple's favour, but then what CFO in his right mind would get locked into a single vendor for the OS and hardware, especially with the initial investment in x86 hardware? If I were Apple I'd think seriously about licencing the fabled x86 build of OS X for business use only. Not only would they get a boost from support contracts, but more people would be exposed to the software at work, and hopefully, start thinking seriously about buying the hardware for home. They might even start to shift a few more XServes! I guess the biggest problem they'd be facing then is piracy but that could be curbed by limiting the processor compatability to Xeons and Opterons, kind of the anti Windows XP Starter Edition.
floppy disk? I've heard of those... didn't they go the way of RS232 and ISA. Oh.. Window's users still uses those too? Next you'll be telling me windows users still have to manually put their laptops into sleep and manually configure file and printer sharing... oh you still do that too.
Being religious is fun! I quite like being a mac zealot/fanboi;)
I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but I always thought of my GC as something a little bit different. I use my XBox for 'serious' games and PC Ports because I own a Mac, and to be honest £100 for an XBox seemed a lot more attractive than £1500 for a decent games machine.
I bought my GC for party games and genuine original content. I loved Monkey Ball, Doshin, Pikmin and Double Dash. The GC proved without a doubt that there was more to modern gaming than how many polygons you can process per second and how accurate your AI and physics engines are. I think thats what made it better for adults. When I was a kid I wanted more realism and violence, now I want more fun and originality.
This is why I'm excited by the Revolution as there will be something in there that is not obvious by the hardware specs, that will make it a worthwhile purchase - fun games.
There was program on the BBC the showed how potentially dangerous eating at your desk is. They took samples from the journalists desk, and a toilet from Glastonbury Festivals after it had been used/abused for three days (think steaming pile of shit and piss). There was nearly 100x more dangerous bacteria on the desk than on the toilet seat.
You have covered two points that really aggrivate me: xbox modding and downloading TV
Why should I even begin to think that either of these two activities are even remotely morally wrong?
The copyright for TV should simply state that broadcast, be it via cable, satalite, airwaves or internet should be as is, with no modification without the prior concent of the copyright holder, ie, if you share it, share it with the adverts. There should be no attempt by copyright holders to force the viewer to watch the adverts in the same way as there should be no attempt by advertisers to force me to buy their product. Free will and all that. I have a horrible feeling that the next thing to happen with digital tv will be that the box locks when adverts come on to stop you from channel hopping, follwed swiftly by a "You will buy our product or we will not release the last 5 minutes of your favourite show".
Your point about X-Boxes are equally valid. If I buy, not licence, hardware from a company, and I choose to change its functionality for my own use, and not profit at the expense of their RnD where is the problem? OK, X-Boxen are a lost leader - not my problem. The only reason I can see Microsoft getting narked by this is because the mod-chip people are profiting - which is ridiculous. X-Boxen had a good system of using a proprietary DVD format to handle games which only their hardware could read or write. The problem was that because the came fully DRMd the modchips enabled too much functionality. I may want to copy the game I purchased a licence for to the harddisk of the console I purchased for reduced loading times. With the exception of backups, I can think of no reason why I would want to be able to do this from an external harddrive or network drive so this functionality should be turned off, but I should be allowed to do this from the built in DVD-ROM, I don't even mind having to keep a copy of it in the ROM Drive whilst I'm playing as long as it isn't used for anything more than licence key checking. I should also be able to load my own software via external harddrive, ROM and network drive. If I had this functionality I wouldn't have purchased a modchip. I'm not saying others wouldn't, but it would massively reduce their market. Also, if microsoft was so upset by people using them to run linux, why didn't they allow it to run Windows? Whilst I fully agree with Microsofts policy on not letting X-Boxen with active modchips run on Live, I don't want to go up against cheaters, the limitations on harddisk size were just rude.
Back in the day, when games consoles were spectrum 48ks, amigas and amstrads companys were still able to make money selling games whilst individuals were also able to make software for their hardware, even sell it! I remember hackers getting praised in magazines for modifying the hardware to automatically start the tape drive, or make a cup of tea. Now, the same group of people are criminals. How did we let this happen?
There are so many options open to the networks to address this problem, that it is barely a problem. All they need to do is buy into a AdSense type model and the adverts can be added in during the download process. If they have a free login system they can demand that users submit their location details before download can commence. They don't even have to have commercial breaks. Why not have a RSS style feed for adverts built in? The other point is that the world market is becoming increasingly free. There is no reason why a small, local shop can't have an associated eShop allowing even small players to benefit from global advertising. Or better yet change nothing. It doesn't matter if half the people who see your product can't buy it. It simply generates demand. I live in the UK and, although it would be the death of me, I still hanker for Wendy's or Mountain Dew, I even fancy Root Beer every now and then. In the mean time, the Americans that have been lost to BittorrentTV are back in the fold absorbing the adverts that paid for their entertainment. The fact is, even if they only hit the American market, advertisers will still be happy.
The biggest problem I see advertisers having is demand control of what people can watch, similar to the restrictions placed on TiVo. But then I guess they think people don't use existing commercial breaks for making tea/coffee, going to the bathroom or channel surf for 3 minutes.
I just don't get it. If, and I know this is a big if, TV stations can make money giving away TV with advertisments, how can they not make money gioving away TV over internet. The cost of distribution has got to be massively lower, their market instantly becomes global. Which makes me think that the problem isn't the TV companies, it has got to be syndication people, who's job depends entirely on the limitations of current broadcast technology (and a smacking of DMCA to help keep it all sweet).
What I fail to understand is why there is a problem. Broadcast TV isn't going anywhere fast (although the broadcast flag may aid its decline). TV should have marked the end of radio, radio should have marked the end of newspapers. All of these media have an internet equivalent and yet people continue to use them because they fill a niche.
If I can watch and time-shift TV legally because I bought a TV and VCR / PVR, why shouldn't the same be true with my computer and internet connection?
Two companies are posied to take over the world if networks fail to absorb bittorent TV: Google and Apple. Apple know how to distribute low quality media in a high quality way for cash. Google know how to find the media you want and give it away for free whilst providing you with the ads that pay for the content. And if they don't do it, 90% of the people who are reading this article have the skills to do it for them and wrap it in a GPL - MythTV / RSS / Bittorent.
As a side note, has anyone else noticed the McDonalds adds that don't 'click-through' - now that is progress
Back in the day my dad tried to show me BASIC on the Spectrum and was less than awestruck. The amount of code I had to write just get simple text based program up an drunning was a real turn off. Then came Logo. That really opened my eyes to what a computer could do. With just a few lines of code I could get a whole robot turtle to move across the floor! I was hooked, and within a few months I'd written a simple sprite based game (why do kids always write games). Never looked back.
I'm really not convinced it does. I don't know of any university that doesn't normalise its exam results, its a fact of life. I sat a security class once where the difference between 60% and 80% final score was less than 2% on the paper (because every body scored in the high 90s). Essay subjects are even worse. Essays are graded by 'sorting' essays into piles. Jane's is better than Joe's and must therefore got in pile A not pile B. They arn't compared against previous years, they arn't compared against a 'standard' they are by definition objective. Even if the TAs agree that the whole class was rubbish, the grades are still normalised up. At the end of the year there is a review where profs duke it out to say how many 1sts, 2:1, 2:2 and 3rds are handed out. This is the closest your degree ever comes to being standarised and it is as more about politics and perception of the dept. than it is about standardisation. Then the pass grade boundaries are decided and your degree is awarded accordingly (based on your normalised module scores). YMMV, I'd be interested to how you think degrees are awarded. Please bear in mind that my experience is based soley on the UK system.
on earth who should be designing user interfaces are developers. Because we already know the answers we often assume we know the questions. We're constrained by widgets, HUI Guidlines, and a knowledge of how the underlying framework works and, almost by definition, we think differently to our end users.
We desperately need a 'language' or F/OSS IDE that an art/psycology grad can get to handle with little or no training that allows them to be as expressive as photoshop or dreamweaver and yet know no code.
Congrats to KDE. This has got to be a step in the right direction.
My one gripe with 'stolen' bittorent TV is that they rip the advertisments out. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather watch TV without adverts, but I also understand that making TV is not cheap and that somebody has got to pay for it and until Apple gets it together and start selling TV that means adverts.
I understand that its not a perfect solution. At the moment, advertisers pay networks, networks commission production houses and production houses pay the staff. But whilst they still exist distribution networks should be embracing this as, so long as the adverts are intact, they are getting paid for nothing. Geeks rip the TV using legal software and distibute it at their own expense. Advertisers hit a bigger market, and if the networks are savvy they can charge advertisers more. Where is the problem?
Here is my prediction for a happier TV future
Regular TV. Bored? Watched your faourite shows already? Why not sit back, open a can of beer and channel surf for a bit. Sure there are more adverts, no pausing and you can't choose whats next, but who cares?
Free Internet TV. Download your favourite shows from network websites for free with the adverts on. Sure they're released after the show was aired, but if you could have watched it then you would have.
Apple TV. ITMS expands to show your favourite shows 2 weeks early, with no ads for $0.50 a show. Sure its expensive, but the quality is l33t, and you feel like your a TV god. Its got DRM which limits Joe Public from distributing it legally. Apple modify the Bittorent protocol to reduce bandwidth costs.
DVDs and merchanise. Fans love em. Geeks love em. The highest quality money can buy, with additional bonus material and a cool box. They released just before the season finally on TV and generate an additional income for shows that are genuinely good.
The technology is there already. TV networks need to wake up and start doing this now.
Slashdot Mirror
The great thing about computers is that they make finding and manipulating digital data a snap. The bad thing about computers is that they make find and manipulating digital data a snap. It's a double edged sword that is, at least partially, dulled by encryption and other security measures.
You use a computer to generate sensitive data because its easier and more powerful than traditional methods, but that doesn't mean that you automatically want to forego the security that is implicit in a paper and pen solution.
Does this mean that keeping your photo album in a 'locked' house is evidence of criminal intent?
Open source entertainment is nothing new. There are plenty of examples from Folk Music and Hymns to Pantomime (christmas plays, that have nothing to do with christmas). You hear a song, you play a song, you change the lyrics/tune to suite your own politics. You never claim to have written it yourself, you just say something like "Here is a song I heard over in Sheepy Magna, it goes a little something like this..."
Copyrighted entertainment is new, and a little bit counter intuitive. My understanding is that it was brought about to protect the incomes of the artists, whilst provide recording companies to profit from the sale of recordings. Now, as recording companies start to fear for their livelyhood, it seems to be coming full circle.
People have always been able to make a living from providing entertainment and they always will (if they're good), they have not always been treated like gods and they have not always been richer than our leaders. Never mind the dotcom bubble bursting, I think the entertainment copyright bubble might be leaking a bit too.
envious of Americans. We 'foriegners' give you guys A LOT of crap over wars, the environment, religion, guns etc (not that the British have a leg to stand on... we forget our history way too quickly), but the fact is that we don't have the balls to do anything like this anymore. Creating an object that can travel out of the Solar System is HUGE. It is an achievement that should stand out as a moment in history that we can be truely proud of: no-one got killed, you're not doing it for greed or wealth - its a pure scientific achievement.
As ever, Mr. Jobs is right on the money. But look at what he's doing rather than what he's saying. By providing RSS downloads into iTunes he massively raises the profile of what was previously a geek only market. If this feature is used, no doubt they'll introduce a market place on iTunes for people share and talk about the podcasts they like.
Podcasts are a mess right now. Even if you find a really good podcast there is no way to promote them short of word of mouth. This presents another problem, podcasts are too complicated. You can't email your buddy and mine, Joe Sixpack, a link to an RSS feed and expect them to know what to do with it. People struggle to wrap their heads around web pages, never mind RSS feeds and MP3 files.
Apple getting behind podcasts with iTunes offers this interesting technology its best hope of becoming useful - like the BBC looking at this as a way of dropping Real, infavour of freeplay
I can't imagine why Apple would want to move towards x86 hardware, but there are many reasons why I can see Apple and Intel having a lot to talk about.
Why do companies on the web insist on click through ads? I can't click through on TV, Radio or Billboards and they've work fine for decades?
A short message to increase brand awareness is often all thats needed.
...if I have a serious problem. I spend my whole day filtering information, code, tech manuals, slashdot etc. and only taking in the bits that I think are useful/interesting/funny. If I miss something I figure I can always go back and read it again.
The problem is I can't switch it off. I skim everything, and now the problem is spreading: it's affecting my listening too! I have to really focus on someone to take in everything they tell me, especially people I listen too a lot, like my girlfriend. If she is talking to me about something 'really important', like shopping, holidays, TV or hair and my brain doesn't agree how important it is I simply don't hear what she's saying. What worse is that she has a typical female ability to multiplex two or more streams of information, one of which might actually be important. This has lead to all sorts of arguments.
Does this affect anyone else?
I think we're all having a crisis of competance. The fact is that we managed to get the whole western world working on an IT backbone. Why? Because it really is the best thing since sliced bread. Hardware is getting cheaper, as is bandwidth which evens the playing field, making the market tougher. I can understand why people would be scared about this... I am.
Then I remember that people bought IT even when it was hideously expensive. Now that its cheap even more people want it... its just that the margins won't be as large. So we won't be rock stars, with huge cars and houses - if /. is right, rockstars won't be rockstars fror much longer anyway.
It doesn't matter how many people can generate code. The way technology is progressing high level languages will go the way of assembler. I created a Diary in Cocoa in 30 minutes using Core Data. I can now see that a database app I built in 2 months using J2EE can be built in 2 weeks, with almost no coding (this was only a small project - J2EE was over kill). Whats my point? I can now create a solid, bespoke data orientated application in 2 weeks. That means I can afford to pitch to SOHOs!
It doesn't matter how many MB of code you produce if all your doing is following somebody elses specs. As always what is important is talent, creativity and the right tools.
At the moment all people are hearing is that a few nerds are getting arrested for pirating dvds and music and that pirating dvds and music is BAD. 6 months ago I was talking to my girlfriends dad. He was harping on about how evil pirating music and dvds is, and that they should throw the book at them. 2 months ago I got him a mac and taught him how to use iTunes. Last night he asked me how he could share his iTunes with me so that we didn't have to buy the same disc/aacs twice, like he used to do with tapes. He didn't see the connection between doing that and piracy. Now he cares. He feels that his right to share music within 'the family' are being restricted. I also bought them a DVB-T box. He's annoyed that he can't watch one channel and record another, like he's always been able to... I wonder how long it will be until he starts to want to know how I do it.
- Google Seach: hit
- gMail: hit
- Desktop Search: hit
- Google News: hit
And thats just the stuff thats out of beta. I'm already using Google Mobile and Maps. They're trusted by geeks and Joe Six Pack alike and look like their about to have another hit with they're caching system. 5 years? One hit wonders? FUD FUD FUD FUD FUDThen I bought a Powerbook and a T610 and most importantly of all - a pencil and notebook. I use my laptop for real computing and my phone holds and synchronises all of my PIM data so much more efficiently than my old PDA that I simply don't need a PDA, with one exception: taking notes. For that I find the notepad invaluable. The data is difficult to copy as I use a unique encryption system that only I can decipher (my handwriting), the power consumption is incredible, I haven't had to replace the battery once! It's instant on, the stylus can be replaced for pence and are universally availble and best of all you can use it to annotate the notes they give you when you go to meetings without any previous training. The price is good too, I'm not a rich man by any stretch of the imagination, but I can easily afford to have a notepad and pen in a selection of my pockets at all times, and if I want to share my data I can simply give the whole pad to that person! I've also noticed that I can freely mix drawings, and text in the same area and it doesn't constantly tell me how bad my handwriting is.
I'm sure there must be a situations where PDAs using current technology must be useful, I'll even hazard a guess: mobile, local database access for doctors, engineers and stock controllers, but really that's an industrial application for a consumer product.
maybe earlier than that, the galaxy far far away seems to be just as interesting 4000 years ago in Knights of the Old Republic.
Why on earth would he object to putting a fan in it? Did he think it'd make too much noise?
I work with PCs during the day and Macs at night. The PC at work is a dual Xeon. With the heat and the noise its like sitting next to a hairdryer. If your used to it and you don't know any better then you won't realise how much its bothering you. My iMac G5 is a good balance. It is practically silent until you ask it to do something intensive, then two very low rev fans kick in. It really makes you appreciate how great it would be if it had no fan at all, and how awful modern PCs noise levels are.
Imagine everyday coding in Cocoa and XTools as standard in businesses... bliss. Core Data is probably enough to shift the TCO and ROI on Apple Hardware in Apple's favour, but then what CFO in his right mind would get locked into a single vendor for the OS and hardware, especially with the initial investment in x86 hardware? If I were Apple I'd think seriously about licencing the fabled x86 build of OS X for business use only. Not only would they get a boost from support contracts, but more people would be exposed to the software at work, and hopefully, start thinking seriously about buying the hardware for home. They might even start to shift a few more XServes! I guess the biggest problem they'd be facing then is piracy but that could be curbed by limiting the processor compatability to Xeons and Opterons, kind of the anti Windows XP Starter Edition.
floppy disk? I've heard of those... didn't they go the way of RS232 and ISA. Oh.. Window's users still uses those too? Next you'll be telling me windows users still have to manually put their laptops into sleep and manually configure file and printer sharing... oh you still do that too.
Being religious is fun! I quite like being a mac zealot/fanboi ;)
I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but I always thought of my GC as something a little bit different. I use my XBox for 'serious' games and PC Ports because I own a Mac, and to be honest £100 for an XBox seemed a lot more attractive than £1500 for a decent games machine.
I bought my GC for party games and genuine original content. I loved Monkey Ball, Doshin, Pikmin and Double Dash. The GC proved without a doubt that there was more to modern gaming than how many polygons you can process per second and how accurate your AI and physics engines are. I think thats what made it better for adults. When I was a kid I wanted more realism and violence, now I want more fun and originality.
This is why I'm excited by the Revolution as there will be something in there that is not obvious by the hardware specs, that will make it a worthwhile purchase - fun games.
There was program on the BBC the showed how potentially dangerous eating at your desk is. They took samples from the journalists desk, and a toilet from Glastonbury Festivals after it had been used/abused for three days (think steaming pile of shit and piss). There was nearly 100x more dangerous bacteria on the desk than on the toilet seat.
You have covered two points that really aggrivate me: xbox modding and downloading TV
Why should I even begin to think that either of these two activities are even remotely morally wrong?
The copyright for TV should simply state that broadcast, be it via cable, satalite, airwaves or internet should be as is, with no modification without the prior concent of the copyright holder, ie, if you share it, share it with the adverts. There should be no attempt by copyright holders to force the viewer to watch the adverts in the same way as there should be no attempt by advertisers to force me to buy their product. Free will and all that. I have a horrible feeling that the next thing to happen with digital tv will be that the box locks when adverts come on to stop you from channel hopping, follwed swiftly by a "You will buy our product or we will not release the last 5 minutes of your favourite show".
Your point about X-Boxes are equally valid. If I buy, not licence, hardware from a company, and I choose to change its functionality for my own use, and not profit at the expense of their RnD where is the problem? OK, X-Boxen are a lost leader - not my problem. The only reason I can see Microsoft getting narked by this is because the mod-chip people are profiting - which is ridiculous. X-Boxen had a good system of using a proprietary DVD format to handle games which only their hardware could read or write. The problem was that because the came fully DRMd the modchips enabled too much functionality. I may want to copy the game I purchased a licence for to the harddisk of the console I purchased for reduced loading times. With the exception of backups, I can think of no reason why I would want to be able to do this from an external harddrive or network drive so this functionality should be turned off, but I should be allowed to do this from the built in DVD-ROM, I don't even mind having to keep a copy of it in the ROM Drive whilst I'm playing as long as it isn't used for anything more than licence key checking. I should also be able to load my own software via external harddrive, ROM and network drive. If I had this functionality I wouldn't have purchased a modchip. I'm not saying others wouldn't, but it would massively reduce their market. Also, if microsoft was so upset by people using them to run linux, why didn't they allow it to run Windows? Whilst I fully agree with Microsofts policy on not letting X-Boxen with active modchips run on Live, I don't want to go up against cheaters, the limitations on harddisk size were just rude.
Back in the day, when games consoles were spectrum 48ks, amigas and amstrads companys were still able to make money selling games whilst individuals were also able to make software for their hardware, even sell it! I remember hackers getting praised in magazines for modifying the hardware to automatically start the tape drive, or make a cup of tea. Now, the same group of people are criminals. How did we let this happen?
The biggest problem I see advertisers having is demand control of what people can watch, similar to the restrictions placed on TiVo. But then I guess they think people don't use existing commercial breaks for making tea/coffee, going to the bathroom or channel surf for 3 minutes.
I just don't get it. If, and I know this is a big if, TV stations can make money giving away TV with advertisments, how can they not make money gioving away TV over internet. The cost of distribution has got to be massively lower, their market instantly becomes global. Which makes me think that the problem isn't the TV companies, it has got to be syndication people, who's job depends entirely on the limitations of current broadcast technology (and a smacking of DMCA to help keep it all sweet).
What I fail to understand is why there is a problem. Broadcast TV isn't going anywhere fast (although the broadcast flag may aid its decline). TV should have marked the end of radio, radio should have marked the end of newspapers. All of these media have an internet equivalent and yet people continue to use them because they fill a niche.
If I can watch and time-shift TV legally because I bought a TV and VCR / PVR, why shouldn't the same be true with my computer and internet connection?
Two companies are posied to take over the world if networks fail to absorb bittorent TV: Google and Apple. Apple know how to distribute low quality media in a high quality way for cash. Google know how to find the media you want and give it away for free whilst providing you with the ads that pay for the content. And if they don't do it, 90% of the people who are reading this article have the skills to do it for them and wrap it in a GPL - MythTV / RSS / Bittorent.
As a side note, has anyone else noticed the McDonalds adds that don't 'click-through' - now that is progress
Back in the day my dad tried to show me BASIC on the Spectrum and was less than awestruck. The amount of code I had to write just get simple text based program up an drunning was a real turn off. Then came Logo. That really opened my eyes to what a computer could do. With just a few lines of code I could get a whole robot turtle to move across the floor! I was hooked, and within a few months I'd written a simple sprite based game (why do kids always write games). Never looked back.
I'm really not convinced it does. I don't know of any university that doesn't normalise its exam results, its a fact of life. I sat a security class once where the difference between 60% and 80% final score was less than 2% on the paper (because every body scored in the high 90s). Essay subjects are even worse. Essays are graded by 'sorting' essays into piles. Jane's is better than Joe's and must therefore got in pile A not pile B. They arn't compared against previous years, they arn't compared against a 'standard' they are by definition objective. Even if the TAs agree that the whole class was rubbish, the grades are still normalised up. At the end of the year there is a review where profs duke it out to say how many 1sts, 2:1, 2:2 and 3rds are handed out. This is the closest your degree ever comes to being standarised and it is as more about politics and perception of the dept. than it is about standardisation. Then the pass grade boundaries are decided and your degree is awarded accordingly (based on your normalised module scores). YMMV, I'd be interested to how you think degrees are awarded. Please bear in mind that my experience is based soley on the UK system.
on earth who should be designing user interfaces are developers. Because we already know the answers we often assume we know the questions. We're constrained by widgets, HUI Guidlines, and a knowledge of how the underlying framework works and, almost by definition, we think differently to our end users.
We desperately need a 'language' or F/OSS IDE that an art/psycology grad can get to handle with little or no training that allows them to be as expressive as photoshop or dreamweaver and yet know no code.
Congrats to KDE. This has got to be a step in the right direction.
You mean I can't put my PowerBook in the dishwasher? How else am I supposed to it all pretty looking?
My one gripe with 'stolen' bittorent TV is that they rip the advertisments out. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather watch TV without adverts, but I also understand that making TV is not cheap and that somebody has got to pay for it and until Apple gets it together and start selling TV that means adverts.
I understand that its not a perfect solution. At the moment, advertisers pay networks, networks commission production houses and production houses pay the staff. But whilst they still exist distribution networks should be embracing this as, so long as the adverts are intact, they are getting paid for nothing. Geeks rip the TV using legal software and distibute it at their own expense. Advertisers hit a bigger market, and if the networks are savvy they can charge advertisers more. Where is the problem?
Here is my prediction for a happier TV future
The technology is there already. TV networks need to wake up and start doing this now.