You might be able to get away with that if this article was about any other company, but Bioware? This is the company that has an almost completely unblemished reputation for quality, well made games that immerse the player and invite re-play. Take us back to the days of 'Baldurs Gate' and 'KOTOR'? Please.
I just wanted to make a quick comment on your last line. Even with modern programs and OSs requiring so much more processing and other resources to run there are certain places where 'more than they used to' is still a trivial amount. This is the point when almost any computer can be assumed to do a given task. What amount counts as trivial keeps going up and up. As laptops have hit more and more of those 'trivial' benchmarks, they have taken over more. Word processing and the like were the first benchmark to be hit, but you still needed a 'real' PC for other work. Then laptops passed the level for video playback. Now the majority of games are starting to reach that point. Take a look at your desktop. What tasks do you use it for that you would not want to do on a laptop at the moment? Now, given the current progression of computers, are there ANY that you can't see hitting that trivial level in roughly five years?
Yes and no. CSS at this scale always means commercial. One thing about commercial software is that popular, well used competitive software will not disappear because people got bored and moved onto other things. When the development of a piece of software provides a revenue stream, it is not going anywhere. People will be hired, an interested competitor will buy it out in order to give themselves a leg up, whatever. There are all sorts of survival mechanisms available to commercial software that doesn't exist for OSS. Sure, there is lots of abandoned CSS out there, and it is sad that the code is not available to the few faithful that would want it. However, CSS that is as large in its speciality as this seems to be doesn't. It might fade if something better comes along, but it won't just disappear when things are going good.
I don't think so. i think the difference would be similar to the one between vector and raster graphics. If you have a vector circle and you print it out, it ceases to be a perfect, mathematically defined, circle. it is instead a picture that looks like a circle.
In a similar way, if you used this formula to generate a mobius strip in the 3D program of your choice and then print it out on a 3D printer, it ceases to be a true mobius strip and becomes an object that is shaped like a mobius strip. it is a subtle, but definable, difference.
First, the idea of separate menu sections or menus for different families of tools is only one way to look at it. While first thought says that it should be more efficient, in reality I don't think it would pan out. There are multiple ways to define a 'family' of tools some of which are going to be more efficient than others. For example, you could group tools that are typically used for photo manipulation or colour correction together, regardless of what they actually do, and it would be arguably more efficient than grouping by type. This leads into your comment about how the current layout relies to some extent on the user already knowing what all the tools do without any aid from the interface. To some extent, this isn't a valid concern for either of these programs given their stated goals. As software that is designed for professional use, efficiency and robustness are the only real measures. A good interface only matters as far as it speeds up or streamlines the workflow. How it effects the learning curve is irrelevant. If either of these packages were targeting themselves at the general consumer market it would be differnt, but they are not.
The other question about layers all depends on point of view. They are only 'images' if you look at them as images. most programs that sue layers of one sort or another (Adobe products, video editing, 3D) treat layers as a method of organization first, something to hang modifiers on second and an actual element of the final product a distant third. In Photoshop's case it treats layers as components of images because the original (and still major) use of them was to organize and layer components of a single image. The ability to apply the same edits multiple layers at once would be a neat trick, but at the same time would never be used. Off the top of my head I cannot image any image workflow where multiple layers with portions of the same edits would not signal either massive wasted effort or a severe lack of understanding of most of the intermediate or advanced techniques of any image editor I have ever used.
I would be curious to hear your take on any of these points.
All things are judged in relation to the competition. GIMP is a stupid name, at least in relation to Photoshop. At least 'Photoshop' hints that photos and images in general might be involved. For all but a small subset of the population, the biggest association the word 'gimp' has is physically disabled people. And before it gets mentioned, 'GNU Image Manipulation Program" is a fine (if long) name, but no one, not even the official web site calls it that.
Nope, same as the US. However, I think that is because much of it is shipped in from the states, so using the same formula makes sense in a lot of ways. Wyou get to places either large enough or geographicly far enough away you start to see sugar.
After seeing this and a few other things tagged with 'hardhack' I decided to find out just what a 'hardhack' is. Turns out that it's a shrub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardhack. Who knew?
Why? Because then people would be up in arms about apple tracking them based on some secret hidden number embedded in their songs. hackers woudl make big announcements about having located the secrect customer ID number and everyone would bash them for including it in the first place. And I would be replying to someone on/. who was asking "well, if they wanted to keep track of who had bought what, why didn't they just include the name or e-mail in plain text or something?"
It's all done direct deposit. Tax returns, pay checks, just about everything. I think the last time I handled a check was when my last landlord gave me back my damage deposit. As a Canadian, I think the only time I use cash money is hitting the bars and clubs, which are still very much a cash economy. Hell, half the pizza delivery and taxicabs have debit now.
I swear to god, the 'green movement' in the west has done more harm to the environment in the name of headlines that they can ever equal out with actual good work. Talk about a good idea with bad implementation.
Who cares what features it has? There is no way Sony has enough weight with the phone companies that any of these features will get through without being crippled. The bluetooth? My current phone has bluetooth. It will only connect to bluetooth headsets so that you still have to use the carrier's service to move data. WiFi? I would be shocked if this was left intact or not restricted in some way. Camera? 50/50 odds that you will still have to pay the carrier for every picture you transfer off of the phone. As for the storage space, my guess is that while it will be there, you will only be able to play songs and movies downloaded from the carrier's service (over the carrier's 3G connection paying for the data transfer).
It doesn't what features the phone has, it matters what features the carrier leaves you with. The one thing that does look good about the iPhone is that other than the manditory data plan, it looks like it should be completely unrestricted in terms of other service.
"All Apple has done is put a (very) slick UI on it. It's nice, but I'm still waiting for the paradigm shift to kick in."...said everybody when the iPod came out. Is anyone reasonable expecting a market change as big from the iPhone? I know I'm not. All the same, it is hard to underestimate the value of a good UI. There is a huge distance between having a feature and having the same feature intelligently implemented and easy to use. Personaly, if a feature is inconvientent enough to use, it may as well not be there.
If the iPhone can do only half of what the most 'feature rich' phones can do now, but implements those features powerfully and sensibly in a good UI, you'll see your paradigm shift.
The only problem with a pure free market is that it acts under the assumption that what makes the best business sense will be inherently good for everyone. Just because the average consumer want to pay less for goods in exchange for more environmental damage, that doesn't mean it is a good idea. The reason that we have (and need, unfortunately) governments is that often what the best choice for society at large is a poor choice for a give segment of that society. A dying environment is a bad thing for society. It may be fine for specific business or acceptable for some consumers, but that does not make it a good choice or outcome.
Anyone who thinks that Firewire is less than a success hasn't tried to use a digital video camera in the past few years. Just because it hasn't replaced USB is no reason to consider it a failure.
You might be surprised how much of that 'American Media' you are touting is being created by other countries. the Matrix movies you mentioned? Shot in Australia. Titanic was shot in Mexico. A large number of the TV shows and movies you watch are made in Canada, Australia and New Zealand taking advantage of the government sponsored industries and workers there. They money might be American, but the product is not.
That's because the second option is wrong. Or rather, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of data points that say that these bones are millions of years old. So far there is one that says anything different, and even that may jsut be a case of mistaken assumptions. What scientist bases their statements on a single bit of shakey evidence rather than dozens of pieces of more solid evidence?
Yeah, but then again Google has never claimed to be the white pages. For that matter, their stated business model of making money off of people looking things up sounds a lot more like the yellow pages to me. Just because a legislator in Utah has decided that Google should act like public service/reference manual doesn't make it so.
Slashdot Mirror
You might be able to get away with that if this article was about any other company, but Bioware? This is the company that has an almost completely unblemished reputation for quality, well made games that immerse the player and invite re-play. Take us back to the days of 'Baldurs Gate' and 'KOTOR'? Please.
Fair enough. And I must say I am a little envious of your set-up. But we both know that you are .001% of the population
I just wanted to make a quick comment on your last line. Even with modern programs and OSs requiring so much more processing and other resources to run there are certain places where 'more than they used to' is still a trivial amount. This is the point when almost any computer can be assumed to do a given task. What amount counts as trivial keeps going up and up. As laptops have hit more and more of those 'trivial' benchmarks, they have taken over more. Word processing and the like were the first benchmark to be hit, but you still needed a 'real' PC for other work. Then laptops passed the level for video playback. Now the majority of games are starting to reach that point. Take a look at your desktop. What tasks do you use it for that you would not want to do on a laptop at the moment? Now, given the current progression of computers, are there ANY that you can't see hitting that trivial level in roughly five years?
Yes and no. CSS at this scale always means commercial. One thing about commercial software is that popular, well used competitive software will not disappear because people got bored and moved onto other things. When the development of a piece of software provides a revenue stream, it is not going anywhere. People will be hired, an interested competitor will buy it out in order to give themselves a leg up, whatever. There are all sorts of survival mechanisms available to commercial software that doesn't exist for OSS. Sure, there is lots of abandoned CSS out there, and it is sad that the code is not available to the few faithful that would want it. However, CSS that is as large in its speciality as this seems to be doesn't. It might fade if something better comes along, but it won't just disappear when things are going good.
I don't think so. i think the difference would be similar to the one between vector and raster graphics. If you have a vector circle and you print it out, it ceases to be a perfect, mathematically defined, circle. it is instead a picture that looks like a circle.
In a similar way, if you used this formula to generate a mobius strip in the 3D program of your choice and then print it out on a 3D printer, it ceases to be a true mobius strip and becomes an object that is shaped like a mobius strip. it is a subtle, but definable, difference.
Here is my take on your two propositions.
First, the idea of separate menu sections or menus for different families of tools is only one way to look at it. While first thought says that it should be more efficient, in reality I don't think it would pan out. There are multiple ways to define a 'family' of tools some of which are going to be more efficient than others. For example, you could group tools that are typically used for photo manipulation or colour correction together, regardless of what they actually do, and it would be arguably more efficient than grouping by type. This leads into your comment about how the current layout relies to some extent on the user already knowing what all the tools do without any aid from the interface. To some extent, this isn't a valid concern for either of these programs given their stated goals. As software that is designed for professional use, efficiency and robustness are the only real measures. A good interface only matters as far as it speeds up or streamlines the workflow. How it effects the learning curve is irrelevant. If either of these packages were targeting themselves at the general consumer market it would be differnt, but they are not.
The other question about layers all depends on point of view. They are only 'images' if you look at them as images. most programs that sue layers of one sort or another (Adobe products, video editing, 3D) treat layers as a method of organization first, something to hang modifiers on second and an actual element of the final product a distant third. In Photoshop's case it treats layers as components of images because the original (and still major) use of them was to organize and layer components of a single image. The ability to apply the same edits multiple layers at once would be a neat trick, but at the same time would never be used. Off the top of my head I cannot image any image workflow where multiple layers with portions of the same edits would not signal either massive wasted effort or a severe lack of understanding of most of the intermediate or advanced techniques of any image editor I have ever used.
I would be curious to hear your take on any of these points.
All things are judged in relation to the competition. GIMP is a stupid name, at least in relation to Photoshop. At least 'Photoshop' hints that photos and images in general might be involved. For all but a small subset of the population, the biggest association the word 'gimp' has is physically disabled people. And before it gets mentioned, 'GNU Image Manipulation Program" is a fine (if long) name, but no one, not even the official web site calls it that.
Nope, same as the US. However, I think that is because much of it is shipped in from the states, so using the same formula makes sense in a lot of ways. Wyou get to places either large enough or geographicly far enough away you start to see sugar.
After seeing this and a few other things tagged with 'hardhack' I decided to find out just what a 'hardhack' is. Turns out that it's a shrub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardhack. Who knew?
Why? Because then people would be up in arms about apple tracking them based on some secret hidden number embedded in their songs. hackers woudl make big announcements about having located the secrect customer ID number and everyone would bash them for including it in the first place. And I would be replying to someone on /. who was asking "well, if they wanted to keep track of who had bought what, why didn't they just include the name or e-mail in plain text or something?"
It's all done direct deposit. Tax returns, pay checks, just about everything. I think the last time I handled a check was when my last landlord gave me back my damage deposit. As a Canadian, I think the only time I use cash money is hitting the bars and clubs, which are still very much a cash economy. Hell, half the pizza delivery and taxicabs have debit now.
I swear to god, the 'green movement' in the west has done more harm to the environment in the name of headlines that they can ever equal out with actual good work. Talk about a good idea with bad implementation.
Who cares what features it has? There is no way Sony has enough weight with the phone companies that any of these features will get through without being crippled. The bluetooth? My current phone has bluetooth. It will only connect to bluetooth headsets so that you still have to use the carrier's service to move data. WiFi? I would be shocked if this was left intact or not restricted in some way. Camera? 50/50 odds that you will still have to pay the carrier for every picture you transfer off of the phone. As for the storage space, my guess is that while it will be there, you will only be able to play songs and movies downloaded from the carrier's service (over the carrier's 3G connection paying for the data transfer).
It doesn't what features the phone has, it matters what features the carrier leaves you with. The one thing that does look good about the iPhone is that other than the manditory data plan, it looks like it should be completely unrestricted in terms of other service.
"All Apple has done is put a (very) slick UI on it. It's nice, but I'm still waiting for the paradigm shift to kick in." ...said everybody when the iPod came out. Is anyone reasonable expecting a market change as big from the iPhone? I know I'm not. All the same, it is hard to underestimate the value of a good UI. There is a huge distance between having a feature and having the same feature intelligently implemented and easy to use. Personaly, if a feature is inconvientent enough to use, it may as well not be there.
If the iPhone can do only half of what the most 'feature rich' phones can do now, but implements those features powerfully and sensibly in a good UI, you'll see your paradigm shift.
The only problem with a pure free market is that it acts under the assumption that what makes the best business sense will be inherently good for everyone. Just because the average consumer want to pay less for goods in exchange for more environmental damage, that doesn't mean it is a good idea. The reason that we have (and need, unfortunately) governments is that often what the best choice for society at large is a poor choice for a give segment of that society. A dying environment is a bad thing for society. It may be fine for specific business or acceptable for some consumers, but that does not make it a good choice or outcome.
Anyone who thinks that Firewire is less than a success hasn't tried to use a digital video camera in the past few years. Just because it hasn't replaced USB is no reason to consider it a failure.
yeah, and 'fallout' is the right choice of word.
You might be surprised how much of that 'American Media' you are touting is being created by other countries. the Matrix movies you mentioned? Shot in Australia. Titanic was shot in Mexico. A large number of the TV shows and movies you watch are made in Canada, Australia and New Zealand taking advantage of the government sponsored industries and workers there. They money might be American, but the product is not.
A better comparison for your "site:za" (South Africa) might be "site:ca" (Canada).
.za web presence 16 million .ca web presence 107 million
South Africa, population 47 million
Canada, population 32 million
South Africa
Canada
That's quite the divide, isn't it?
Actually, the Wii beats these videos in resolution. It will do 480p at 720x480.
That's because the second option is wrong. Or rather, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of data points that say that these bones are millions of years old. So far there is one that says anything different, and even that may jsut be a case of mistaken assumptions. What scientist bases their statements on a single bit of shakey evidence rather than dozens of pieces of more solid evidence?
Of course the phrase is completely meaningless. It was a throw-away joke.
and in Soviet America, Industry Controls Government!
So, has anyone heard anything about Google's response to all this? Or Yahoo's or any other large search engine?
Yeah, but then again Google has never claimed to be the white pages. For that matter, their stated business model of making money off of people looking things up sounds a lot more like the yellow pages to me. Just because a legislator in Utah has decided that Google should act like public service/reference manual doesn't make it so.