At the meeting which my father wanted me at, he asked " since it's me you are testing on, what is the cut of the action I will get for each one sold" Honest questions ask jokingly. The reply was: you got to be kidding, we don't do such a thing.
Very interesting. Most IRB-approved research actually takes into account reimbursement for time lost and also provides at least some method of sharing any success (were it to occur) with those who helped with the research.
Do you recall if the consent form was IRB approved (big red stamp with the letters "IRB" at the bottom)?
Heh. Well, certainly, it depends on your tastes. I will admit that a lot of the songs, especially in recent years, have become a little tedious. However, a lot of the classic pop, like old Amr Diab or Mostafa Amar, are quite heavenly. For the past few years, I've consistently found a handful of beautiful -- both lyrically and tonally -- songs. I guess it is a little repetitive, but the ones I'd like to see brought over really aren't that bad... no worse than a normal pop song over here, and I've never found any of it, even the bad ones, dull. Arabic music is almost always quite lively. I will, however, admit a rather large bias, being Arab myself and all that.... I will also agree that the video clips are to be shunned at all costs. Blech.
heh. Guess it might just be me wanting to see part of my heritage become popular in the States.
Well, for starters, there's a book called "Rad Obees" (or something phonetically similar to that) that I have yet to see translated. It's by an Egyptian Nobel Laureate, though he didn't win it for that parituclar book. I'm reading it in Arabic right now and was looking for a translation for some non-Arabic speaking friends of mine.
Hrm. Lessee... I can't think of any good Arabic TV shows I've seen recently, but there were a couple really interesting movies that I would have loved to have seen translated. There's one (name escapes me at the moment) about two gay muslim men living in an apartment in Cairo and how they dealt with the culture there... there's also a hilarious satiricial film about terrorism (called "Terrorism and Kabobs". The title rhymes in Arabic, but isn't so catchy in English, I'm afraid) that I'd like to see translated/dubbed/remade into an American film. Those are just two examples, of course.
Frankly, even more than film, I'd love to see more Arabic music popularized this side of the Atlantic. It's all really catchy, and some of it is downright phenomenal. Much better than most of the drivel we hear nowadays.
Heh. You have a point, but I don't think (or at least, I've never felt) that the differenes between my dialect and, say, Moroccan, was as broad as the difference between, say, Spanish and Italian. Certainly, there's a large difference, but even if he speaks in Moroccan, I can understand him somewhat, and certainly better, I think, than a Spaniard can understand an Italian... and the people I've met have always been able to at the very least pidgin Qur'anic Arabic.
But then again, I've always been pretty good with languages. Is there another Arabic speaker around here who can give a second opinion?
Er... being an arab and an arabic speaker myself, I beg to differ about that last point. There is indeed a single version of spoken Arabic that all Arabs can understand. It's called "classical" or "Qur'anic" Arabic, since the standard for the Arabic language is the Qur'an. While I, in my Egyptian dialect, may not be able to understand a Moroccan in his dialect (the further away the country, the more different the dialect), we can always revert to Qur'anic Arabic. The downside is that because few people are as comfortable in Qur'anic Arabic as they are in their own dialects, we lose expressive power really quickly (just in case I wasn't clear, the loss is not the fault of the language, but instead is because of a lack of comfort). When talking about the "Arabic" language, most Arab scholars mean Qur'anic Arabic.
Your first point is interesting, though. I would love to see Arabic literature (including certain select TV shows) translated to English... I'm not quite sure why no one has done so.
I'm actually a little surprised no one's brought up the new Data Visualization and organization aspects of Vista. I've just finished taking an HCI class, and I have to admit, the MS rep quoted in the article brings up a very good point: searching is cool and all, but wouldn't it be even better "HCI" if it were harder to lose things in the first place?
I'm really curious to know if Apple, being the bastion of HCI and good design, is implementing anything of the sort. I'd be a little disappointed if they weren't.
Er... guess I should add that I don't expect Apple to use the exact same techniques and designs that ol' M$ is using (for example, having set folders for documents vs. movies vs. etc.... while this is all well and good, will the system allow me to make my own or change the existing ones? What if, sometime down the line, there's a mixed format file? Where would it go? There are other issues involved as well...). However, I/do/ agree with the idea that DataVis and InfoVis are important and should be added to an OS.
What worries me is that we haven't heard anything from Cupertino about such things... and meanwhile, Microsoft has actually come up with a good idea on its own, for once. Here's hoping they actually build it properly. It would be interesting to see them set the bar for Apple for a change. (You know, that whole "Let us compete in good works" stuff.)
Point conceded.
Yeah, I suppose you can't have it both ways. Frankly, I'd prefer that Apple just leave Real alone, crooks though they may be, and tell Virgin to go screw themselves.
Now/that's/ a thought... if Apple told Virgin to go screw, and Virgin did, would it still be called Virgin?
Hrm.
Ok, so, say for instance, a compay makes software that runs on only one platform. The software is an incredible hit and fuels the sale of this platform. Other companies want this killer app on their platform. Do they have a right to force the original company to make the software for their platforms?
Draw your own conclusions, but my opinion is thusly: hells freakin' no. Say my company makes software for Apple hardware (and by extension OSX) and it's so freakin' incredible that everyone goes out and buys OSX. No on, but _no one_ has the right to force me to port my app to their platform. It's _my_ software.
I see a similar thing here: Apple has this "app" (AAC wrapped in FairPlay) and it works on the iPod. Apple hasn't stopped anyone from writing other "apps" for the iPod (within the specs of the iPod, of course, just like you'd have to write hardware specific stuff for PPC), but it shouldn't be forced to license that "app" to anyone else.
Now, it _may_ be really good for them to let other people use FairPlay, but I don't feel I have the information I need to make that call.
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Very interesting. Most IRB-approved research actually takes into account reimbursement for time lost and also provides at least some method of sharing any success (were it to occur) with those who helped with the research.
Do you recall if the consent form was IRB approved (big red stamp with the letters "IRB" at the bottom)?
heh. Guess it might just be me wanting to see part of my heritage become popular in the States.
Hrm. Lessee... I can't think of any good Arabic TV shows I've seen recently, but there were a couple really interesting movies that I would have loved to have seen translated. There's one (name escapes me at the moment) about two gay muslim men living in an apartment in Cairo and how they dealt with the culture there... there's also a hilarious satiricial film about terrorism (called "Terrorism and Kabobs". The title rhymes in Arabic, but isn't so catchy in English, I'm afraid) that I'd like to see translated/dubbed/remade into an American film. Those are just two examples, of course.
Frankly, even more than film, I'd love to see more Arabic music popularized this side of the Atlantic. It's all really catchy, and some of it is downright phenomenal. Much better than most of the drivel we hear nowadays.
But then again, I've always been pretty good with languages. Is there another Arabic speaker around here who can give a second opinion?
Your first point is interesting, though. I would love to see Arabic literature (including certain select TV shows) translated to English... I'm not quite sure why no one has done so.
Hrm... perhaps I should start a company....
I'm really curious to know if Apple, being the bastion of HCI and good design, is implementing anything of the sort. I'd be a little disappointed if they weren't.
Er... guess I should add that I don't expect Apple to use the exact same techniques and designs that ol' M$ is using (for example, having set folders for documents vs. movies vs. etc. ... while this is all well and good, will the system allow me to make my own or change the existing ones? What if, sometime down the line, there's a mixed format file? Where would it go? There are other issues involved as well...). However, I /do/ agree with the idea that DataVis and InfoVis are important and should be added to an OS.
What worries me is that we haven't heard anything from Cupertino about such things... and meanwhile, Microsoft has actually come up with a good idea on its own, for once. Here's hoping they actually build it properly. It would be interesting to see them set the bar for Apple for a change. (You know, that whole "Let us compete in good works" stuff.)
Oh my God! Apple makes a cheesegrater now? When is it coming out? For the love of God, man, don't leave me hanging like this!
--
Sarcasm: along with wit and hubris, one of a geeks many tools.
Point conceded. Yeah, I suppose you can't have it both ways. Frankly, I'd prefer that Apple just leave Real alone, crooks though they may be, and tell Virgin to go screw themselves. Now /that's/ a thought... if Apple told Virgin to go screw, and Virgin did, would it still be called Virgin?
Ok, so, say for instance, a compay makes software that runs on only one platform. The software is an incredible hit and fuels the sale of this platform. Other companies want this killer app on their platform. Do they have a right to force the original company to make the software for their platforms?
Draw your own conclusions, but my opinion is thusly: hells freakin' no. Say my company makes software for Apple hardware (and by extension OSX) and it's so freakin' incredible that everyone goes out and buys OSX. No on, but _no one_ has the right to force me to port my app to their platform. It's _my_ software.
I see a similar thing here: Apple has this "app" (AAC wrapped in FairPlay) and it works on the iPod. Apple hasn't stopped anyone from writing other "apps" for the iPod (within the specs of the iPod, of course, just like you'd have to write hardware specific stuff for PPC), but it shouldn't be forced to license that "app" to anyone else.
Now, it _may_ be really good for them to let other people use FairPlay, but I don't feel I have the information I need to make that call.