A single story about someone getting fired over saying "dongle"
That sort of reminded me of when my sister-in-law first started working in IT. She pretty much learned everything on the job, as she had a non-technical degree and sort of accidentally fell into that field. And of course, as is typical, she's the only female in the department. She was initially surprised at the use of the terms "male" and "female" to describe cabling, plugs, and sockets, thinking the guys were having a chuckle at her expense before realizing that that was, in fact, official nomenclature.
Fortunately, she's a pretty level-headed person, gets along well with others, and isn't looking for reasons to be offended.
Honestly, forcing computer programming on kids will have the same effect as forcing math on them.
You mean introducing it to them? Without school "forcing" topics on kids, many wouldn't know that those topics even existed.
By "forcing it on them", I simply meant that it shouldn't be mandatory. A computer science course should be an optional track, same as high-level math. There's no need to push it on students who don't have an interest or inclination for it.
Don't misunderstand, I absolutely support the notion of giving kids the option of taking CS courses as early as possible. I started programming around the sixth or seventh grade myself, if I remember correctly, and it was great to have that early head start when I took my first real CS courses in college.
That's a nice list of improvements, and I'm glad you're happy with them. Personally, I'll be waiting for a version of Windows that doesn't actually degrade the UI experience from Windows 7, or the year 2020, whichever comes first.
Yeah, I think you're correct. Windows 9 is just Windows 8.3 released as a new OS, since MS seems desperate to wash the taste of Windows 8 out of their mouths.
Unfortunately, it appears to be just Windows 8 with most of the glaring problems removed, but probably not compelling enough to make it anything of a must-buy, except for Windows 8 users. They're still too firmly focused their app store as a means to prop up their phone and tablet sales, rather than making actual improvements for their core users. It's sad that the features most anticipated are the return of the start screen, the ability to run Metro apps in a window, and generally not acting so much like a tablet OS. In other words, Windows 7, but with a flat, ugly UI. Whee.
I'm betting that Windows 10 will shift focus back to the desktop where it should have been all along, and we'll have finally broken Microsoft's "even=bad, odd=good" cycle, not with two successes in a row, but two failures. Apparently, they now have to release two OS failures in a row to have the lesson sink home. Probably the only way to avoid that will be if they give Windows 9 away as a free or very low-cost upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users, in which case adoption rates might be boosted at the expense of sales revenue.
Had they limited Windows 8 to touchscreens and digitizers only, it would have made things worse. Poor adoption rate is their big problem, and further limiting your user base with hardware restrictions would only exacerbate the situation. The platform doesn't move forward in practice if people don't actually upgrade. Here's the issue: Touch screens make sense for certain form factors, but not for desktops. Search the term "gorilla arm" to see why.
Even beyond that, the "metro" concept of full screen apps runs counter to what desktop users actually need for productivity. The desktop is not a "legacy" platform. It's a platform that's very specifically optimized for getting work done with a keyboard, mouse, and large form factor screen. That sort of work is not going away anytime soon, as the business world has demonstrated loud and clear by their absolute refusal to move to Windows 8. Naturally, the relevance of PCs is diminishing among home and casual users - people who didn't use the PC for production purposes, but mostly as a consumption, communications, and entertainment device. Smartphones and tablets are perfect for that. For actual production work, the desktop/laptop will remain king for the foreseeable future, albeit in much more of a specialized role than before.
Windows 8 would have been a fine OS had they discarded the idea of one-UI-fits-all devices, and instead focused on the coolness of Metro as a side-channel application experience. That would have meant allowing cross-platform tablet and phone apps to run on your desktop seamlessly with native or managed desktop applications, but without trying to make the whole OS touch-focused. Instead, the marketing hype overtook common sense and usability concerns, and they began touting it as the future replacement of the desktop, which is absurd. Not surprisingly, after the actual market kicked the marketing department's ass, they're starting to move in a sensible direction with Windows 9 by focusing on the benefits of cross-platform application development, and they're slowly backing off of the ridiculous notion that their desktop OS should behave like a tablet.
I don't think skeuomorphic means what you think it does.
Gah, you're right. I meant the move away from skeumorphic interfaces and toward... does the new flat, simple, textureless aesthetic have a name other than anti-skeumorphic? If it does, I can't think of it. Nothing like a lack of an edit function to make you look silly.
Microsoft will likely one day struggle to woo users off Windows 7, just like it is currently trying to do with the headache that is Windows XP.
I wonder if Microsoft is learning the wrong lessons from their "good" versions. They're having a hell of a time getting people to leave them. In the future, if people hate the version they're on, they'll be much more likely to buy a new version in the hopes that it's better. Brilliant!
That's the only think I can think of to fully explain Windows 8, and why even now they're refusing to admit that Metro apps are a steaming turd on top of an otherwise competent OS. The only idiots who like using those "apps" are the ones who would probably be better off with a tablet or smartphone instead of an actual desktop computer, for whom the actual power of a desktop is apparently wasted.
Ok, maybe I'm just a bitter throwback who's resentful that my desktop is being marginalized. Maybe it's also because I hate the new skeuomorphic design aesthetic. What's wrong with gloss, gradients, transparency, and attractive animations, or even a bevel or link here and there so we can actually tell something is clickable rather than playing mystery-meat navigation? I swear, everything is going flat-shaded, blocky, ugly, and indistinguishable, all because that's now the new "hip" look.
Honestly, forcing computer programming on kids will have the same effect as forcing math on them. It's no different - it's a way of solving problems, except by using logic and algorithms rather than equations. It's still a general solution in search of a problem. I think a lot of tech people tend to view technology as being interesting or important for it's own sake, but that's not how the world at large sees technology (nor should it). It's only real-world value is in what it can do for us that we couldn't do before without it, as heretical as that may sound here on slashdot.
My advice to educators is to let kids make their own computer games. You'll sucker them into doing some of the hardest sort of programming there is, and they'll likely enjoy it. More importantly, for those that are more artistically or creatively inclined rather than technically inclined, they can help out with artwork, story, music, and sound effects. Videogame programming is a fantastic cross-discipline project that can involve all sorts of different skills and abilities. So, not everyone has to write code, but everyone can contribute in some way.
I've found that computer games are great at driving home the need to learn higher math as well. Geometry, linear algebra, and matrix math are all used extensively in many types of games. Kids will naturally run into these problems, and probably work in vain to come up with a home-grown solution. At that point they're primed to learn a more elegant solution using higher math. The big advantage is that this lesson concretely demonstrates the value and usefulness of that math, making it much easier to learn and appreciate since it has a useful context.
I saw the article headline and immediately thought "Cool! Someone figured out how to do neat things with the hardware in the car?" I thought maybe even the car companies were cool enough to enable truly extensible functionality with their entertainment systems or whatnot (wouldn't that be something?). However, in this case, "insecure" wouldn't have been enough, since that would probably refer to their physical security.
I'm not naive - the masses will never use the admittedly ridiculous term "crackers" rather than "hackers" - it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Personally, I love applying the term "script kiddies" to anyone who does harm, even if it doesn't technically apply, since it's rather demeaning. Anyhow, that battle has long since been over. But Slashdot is not a site for the masses. I thought at least "hacking" here was still a term mostly used for clever if sometimes unofficially unauthorized use of one's own hardware in interesting ways. You know, hacking a videogame's cameras or input devices, for instance...
Thinking about this further, if I had a choice, I think I'd like to see separate options to allow or disallow that fifteen minute convenience window from crossing over to in-app purchases. For myself, I'm fine with trusting myself or the app store with that convenience. But it seems like giving an app blanket permission to charge my account whatever it wants for a limited time is a really, really bad idea. Call me paranoid, but I'd like tight security when it comes to what apps can take from my wallet *at all times*.
One way to deal with these permissions would be (for adult accounts) to have these options off by default. Only when the user attempts to make a purchase twice within the given window would a dialog pop up that explains this option and allows them to turn it on, after entering their password of course. It can then explain exactly what the option means and what ramifications it has. If it was simply off-by-default, it's likely many users would not even know it was available. The nice thing about this solution is that the option remains safely off until the user actually has need of it, and the company can ensure that people who would like that convenience can make use of it (and since it enables more frictionless purchases, obviously the company would prefer this option be ON).
A fifteen minute purchasing window is not something that is obvious to most people, but it's reasonable for adults and their own accounts, since it's just a convenience feature, and... well, they're adults. Hell, it can be even on by default. If you can't control your own purchases, no rules the government sets will make much of a difference as you destroy your own life.
Where these companies crossed the line is by not requiring an authorization password each and every time a purchase is made from a dependent's accounts. This seems like such a no-brainer to me that I have a hard time believing this was inadvertently overlooked. And good heavens, even if they thought this was a good idea in the store, they even extended the fifteen minute window to in-app purchases? I'm fine with the FTC bringing down the hammer on these practices, because it smells as sleazy has hell to me.
My fear, though, is that the choice of this option will be taken away from rational and responsible adults like you and me. I'm not a big fan of nannystate-ism that's run rampant. However, the balancing factor is that we need to give people reasonable protection with the advent of incredibly complex technologies that they may only have a tentative grasp on. And there's nothing nanny-state about requiring a password for each purchase a dependent makes using their parent's account. That's common-sense to me.
I don't see why this should be difficult. Disable this convenience feature for dependent's accounts, and leave it for adults.
People all over are arguing the *new* boss is different.
When the new boss quickly laid off a huge percentage of the workforce and used the term "synergies" three times in the e-mail that informed them of those layoffs, it pretty much told me all I needed to know.
Exactly. The "cloud" has a few absolutely killer apps. Offsite backup services are one of them, and everyone who has anything remotely important on their machines should be using one of them. No excuses at this point. My NAS device automatically backs up to my Amazon S3 account, which is so inexpensive for the few GB I need to backup, it literally costs me pennies per month ($.07 last month, in fact). Seriously, if you don't have huge amounts of data to backup, it's unbelievably cheap, since you only pay for what you need.
The other killer app I use is device synchronization, which is especially handy for my various Kindle devices / device apps (i.e. iPad, phone, PC, and Kindle, of course). I purchase Steam games as well, another sort of remote service and data synchronization type of platform, albeit of a specialized nature.
Think it's weird or hypocritical to be all-in like that with Amazon services or Steam but still be so leery of the cloud as an end-all be-all? Maybe, but this isn't about some religious aversion to the cloud - it's completely pragmatic from my point of view. If you're going to put your apples in a remote data basket, make sure it's a basket that's not likely to go *poof* anytime soon (i.e. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Apple). And make sure it's a basket where, if it does disappear, you're not completely boned. I'd miss my book or my games library, but I could live without them. I could *not* live without what's on my PC. Quite literally, in fact, since I work from home. So, there it stays.
So, maybe there's a different interpretation, and maybe it does take weeks to figure out HOW A FUCKING ECOSYSTEM WILL BE IMPACTED.
If you read the article instead of ranting angrily at me, you'd find that it really doesn't sound like the film crew or local authorities are ignoring the island's ecological safety.
The Irish Film Board, which helps international film producers locate in the Republic of Ireland, said consent was granted for a limited shoot on Skellig Michael after extensive scientific analysis by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
Ok, the National Parks and Wildlife Services seems to think things will be fine. They may have contacted Mr. Newton only days in advance, but you can bet they were in contact with the NPWS for a hell of a lot longer than that. I suppose the NPWS could be lying about their extensive scientific analysis, but I'm more inclined to take them at their word, with it being their butts on the line if anything bad happens to the island. Let's read on:
The film agency said experts are on the island during the shoot and have the authority to intervene if they suspect any impact on the habitat and wildlife.
"The production company also has a senior ecological advisor on set at all times," the spokeswoman added.
"Activity is confined to visitor areas and pathways."
Ok, that sounds reasonable, right? The ecological advisor has veto authority on the set, which is good. Now, let's note that last part. The film crew will only be filming where people already visit on a regular basis. So... you really think that, while staying on existing pathways and areas that visitors regularly use, the film crews are somehow going to damage this ecosystem? That, unless this particular expert, one Mr. Newton, studies the problem for weeks, that there may be some ecological damage?
Sorry, I don't buy it. And here's the biggest reason why. He was supposedly an expert on this particular ecosystem, right? Given the plans of what the film crew was to do, shouldn't he be able to tell immediately if their shooting would bother the local wildlife? What would weeks of study tell him that his previous years of expertise wouldn't? How would he be able to tell if the wildlife were being disturbed unless he were monitoring them as they were filming? It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Apparently, it didn't make much sense to the film company or the NPWS either, since they simply proceeded without him.
I don't think I've ever wasted this much time responding to an AC troll before, but you know what, I'm fucking tired of wacko environmentalist loonies strumming their heartstrings without engaging their brains. Guess what - I happen to love the environment too, and don't want to see any protected ecosystems get screwed up. But damn, you have to be reasonable or people just tune you out, and that ends up hurting a worthwhile cause in the long run.
"We can't tell what the filming of Star Wars on the site will do to the wildlife."
I'm pretty sure I can tell you. Not a fucking thing. Nature is not so fragile that a film crew will destroy an ecosystem just by walking around and filming a few scenes. They're under restrictions on what they can do (i.e. they're not going to be blowing up the island), and they've got an ecologist on the set at all times. This is all about a local jackass getting his nose in a snit.
Stephen Newton, a seabirds expert with Birdwatch Ireland, said he could not get onto the island to check the important colony.
Mr Newton said he was asked by the film producers only days before shooting was to begin if he would help them with an impact assessment to secure permits for filming.
He refused, arguing it would take several weeks to assess, as many of the species breed underground or in rocky crevices where it would be difficult to see what damage is being done.
Are you kidding me? Several weeks for an impact assessment? Does that strike anyone else as a bit over the top?
Likely translation: He tried to shake the movie company down for a few weeks worth of work rather than a day or two, and they told him to piss off, then contacted someone more reasonably inclined. They obviously got the permits, meaning that someone was able to do the work in just a few days. And why the hell should he be allowed on the island after what he tried to pull? The fact that he's blabbing to the press and causing trouble for them now shows they were probably right to snub him.
Videogame development houses are not like most places, especially not the smaller, more tightly knit development houses. I suppose nowadays you'd probably call them "indie" shops. Back then, they were just called "very small game studios". Most places you go to work because you want a paycheck. Videogame developers, for the most part, go to work because they want to make cool games, and the paycheck is an important yet ultimately secondary concern. If they were more interested in the paycheck, there are lots of places you can go work a must less stressful 8 to 5 job for more money than in the videogame industry (well, certainly for programmers, at least).
I was with a very small game studio when it lost the next big project it had lined up. We were small enough that we didn't have a backup plan of any sort, unfortunately, and after about half a year or so without any projects being landed, the company inevitably ran low on funds, and employees had to go on half pay. During my time there, I became friends with my fellow employees and got along great with my bosses, who were really good to their employees and genuinely nice people. I stayed on for another couple of months, but I eventually had to look after my own financial needs, and let them know I when started searching for another job. We parted on good terms, and several months later, the company folded.
Game development teams go through a lot together, often working under very stressful conditions on very demanding products, and developers are often loathe to break up a really good team. Additionally, finding a new job is, of course, a very stressful thing. Sometimes it's just developers not wanting to face reality, or hoping things improve. I can only speak for myself, but I stayed as long as I could on half pay because I really loved working at that company. It was really as simple as that. Had we managed to land one of the deals we were desperately trying to get, who knows how things might have turned out. It seemed worth trying at the time, and I don't regret it.
I perhaps worded it poorly, as I didn't mean to imply the EU judgement was necessarily without merit. Rather, I'm simply implying that the Chinese government may have been looking at the end result of Microsoft's and Google's cases (i.e. paying large fines to the EU), and could have seen that as a lucrative opportunity, either economically, politically, or both.
I'll bet the Chinese government took a page from the EU and figured out it could levy whatever the hell sort of fines it wants against these tech giants, and they'll probably just eat it as a part of the cost of doing business. That is, so long as they don't fine them more than it's worthwhile to do business there, because of course, said company would simply say "screw you" and leave. They figured that a charge of "Microsoft is a monopoly!" would work just fine, since that's been bandied about in the West so much already. You watch - I wouldn't be surprised if MS is going to get a nice, hefty fine levied against them, but probably not so much that they'll contemplate pulling out of China's market completely. Nothing like a government-sponsored extortion racket.
The other possibility is, like the linked article implies, that this is part of the government's push for technological self-reliance, and a move to start pushing their own operating systems and squeeze MS out of the picture. We've seen that with Google pretty clearly already. Or, maybe it's a bit of both - a way to squeeze a bit more cash out of the tech giants before eventually pushing them out altogether.
Hard to say, really. China is a mystery wrapped in an enigma to most westerners like myself.
All I see is a natural settling of the app bubble. This is a good thing. It just means the market is maturing. The alternative is a hard crash, like when the dot-com bubble popped, and no one wants that.
The author all but admits that app development was seen as a get-rich-quick scheme, and acknowledges the market is maturing, but falters when it comes time to face reality. Removing "top sales" lists or curtailing frivolous app development would be a bandaid. It would inconvenience users in a ham-handed attempt to "spread the wealth" - exactly the wrong approach to take, since users would simply lash out at the app store developers for doing that.
What's the solution? Probably the same as it's always been: work hard, create a great product, sell it for a fair price, market it in a unique and clever way, and hope for the best. If an app developer goes under, it just demonstrates that wasn't exactly beating a door down for their app. It's harsh, but that's how markets work. App stores could better solve the problem by developing algorithms to show more relevant products based on purchasing and browsing history, but honestly, you can't rely on anyone else to sell your app for you.
Launching a startup has always been immensely risky. The notion that app developers should somehow be immune from normal market realities is laughable.
It seems he's basically arguing that there's a correlation (and therefore maybe causality) between being diverse and not leading the market.
Makes sense. Companies intent on "diversifying their workforce" are probably too focused on politics or appearances rather than paying attention to their products and customers.
If they're laying off mostly non-programmers (i.e. "overhead"), but are still hiring for programming positions, then this would make sense. If not, then it's pretty inexcusable. In either case, someone should have known that at the very least, this would end up looking really bad for them.
Regardless, the fact that the e-mail describing the layoffs actually used the word "synergies" three times told me all I needed to know about the new CEO. Someone in touch with today's culture would never have used that word unless he was mocking another company for using it. Even when using business buzzwords, Microsoft is still about five years behind the times.
I was actually going to make the comparison between "warm" vinyl sounds vs CDs (I'm not sure what SCAD is though), as well as tube amplifiers versus digital, but I thought it would distract from the point I was trying to make. Plus, the post was already getting long. But yeah, I think both of those are somewhat appropriate comparisons.
Read LoTR's description of Tom Bombadil again, an equally powerful but rather loony figure in his own right, and tell me that Tolkien couldn't have imagined Radagast the way he was depicted (admittedly probably without the bird shit).
Frodo and Sam stood as if enchanted. The wind puffed out. The leaves hung silently again on stiff branches. There was another burst of song, and then suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there appeared above the reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown and a long blue feather stuck in the band. With another hop and a bound there came into view a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, stumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs, and charging through grass and rushes like a cow going down to drink. He had a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. In his hands he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of white water-lilies.
A bit silly-looking for one of the most powerful entities in Middle-Earth, no? Somewhat frivolous-minded, too. The Council of the Ring considers Bombadil as a safekeeper:
‘No,’ said Gandalf, ‘not willingly. He might [take the ring], if all the free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough.’ ‘But in any case,’ said Glorfindel, ‘to send the Ring to him would only postpone the day of evil. He is far away. We could not now take it back to him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come.’
Why should Radagast have necessarily been a clone of Gandalf or Saruman? Tom comes across as halfway insane or a goofball, dressed like a clown and constantly breaking into song. Gandalf also speaks of him as ancient and powerful, but one who, if they gave him the ring, would literally forget about it. Jackson's take on Radagast was, I think, similar to Bombadil, one who concerned himself more with nature than the goings-on in the world of wizards, men, elves, and dwarves.
Believe me, 48FPS is not the future. Or if it is, then there is a long way to go in setting it up and filming it properly.
It probably is, but I'm guessing our generation will have a really hard time accepting it. Our minds have been conditioned to think of 24 FPS displays as "cinematic" and higher FPS (30 or higher) at "cheaper", because for years the TV images we've seen *have* looked much "cheaper". It's an association that I don't think we can easily rationalize our way out of. Why do you think videogames have gone so far as to artificially render fake film grain or lens flare artifacts? That's a completely illogical thing to do except for the pleasant association people have with the look of traditional movie media.
Simply put, I think the high frame rate and high fidelity end up causing a negative association in our minds. It's not that it really looks worse - we're just not used to it looking quite so sharp and fluid, and it just doesn't feel "cinematic" to us. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to. Honestly, nothing else makes much sense to me, because otherwise, we're always pushing to make the picture better, more realistic, etc. After all, you can't really blame increased frame rate for making a movie set look more "fake", right? Film has always been a "high resolution" experience, after all.
Or, put another way, I think film technology just fell into the uncanny valley for some people, where it looks so close to reality that their brains are rebelling a bit and causing distractions, which leads to a poor viewing experience.
Slashdot Mirror
A single story about someone getting fired over saying "dongle"
That sort of reminded me of when my sister-in-law first started working in IT. She pretty much learned everything on the job, as she had a non-technical degree and sort of accidentally fell into that field. And of course, as is typical, she's the only female in the department. She was initially surprised at the use of the terms "male" and "female" to describe cabling, plugs, and sockets, thinking the guys were having a chuckle at her expense before realizing that that was, in fact, official nomenclature.
Fortunately, she's a pretty level-headed person, gets along well with others, and isn't looking for reasons to be offended.
Honestly, forcing computer programming on kids will have the same effect as forcing math on them.
You mean introducing it to them? Without school "forcing" topics on kids, many wouldn't know that those topics even existed.
By "forcing it on them", I simply meant that it shouldn't be mandatory. A computer science course should be an optional track, same as high-level math. There's no need to push it on students who don't have an interest or inclination for it.
Don't misunderstand, I absolutely support the notion of giving kids the option of taking CS courses as early as possible. I started programming around the sixth or seventh grade myself, if I remember correctly, and it was great to have that early head start when I took my first real CS courses in college.
That's a nice list of improvements, and I'm glad you're happy with them. Personally, I'll be waiting for a version of Windows that doesn't actually degrade the UI experience from Windows 7, or the year 2020, whichever comes first.
Yeah, I think you're correct. Windows 9 is just Windows 8.3 released as a new OS, since MS seems desperate to wash the taste of Windows 8 out of their mouths.
Unfortunately, it appears to be just Windows 8 with most of the glaring problems removed, but probably not compelling enough to make it anything of a must-buy, except for Windows 8 users. They're still too firmly focused their app store as a means to prop up their phone and tablet sales, rather than making actual improvements for their core users. It's sad that the features most anticipated are the return of the start screen, the ability to run Metro apps in a window, and generally not acting so much like a tablet OS. In other words, Windows 7, but with a flat, ugly UI. Whee.
I'm betting that Windows 10 will shift focus back to the desktop where it should have been all along, and we'll have finally broken Microsoft's "even=bad, odd=good" cycle, not with two successes in a row, but two failures. Apparently, they now have to release two OS failures in a row to have the lesson sink home. Probably the only way to avoid that will be if they give Windows 9 away as a free or very low-cost upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users, in which case adoption rates might be boosted at the expense of sales revenue.
Had they limited Windows 8 to touchscreens and digitizers only, it would have made things worse. Poor adoption rate is their big problem, and further limiting your user base with hardware restrictions would only exacerbate the situation. The platform doesn't move forward in practice if people don't actually upgrade. Here's the issue: Touch screens make sense for certain form factors, but not for desktops. Search the term "gorilla arm" to see why.
Even beyond that, the "metro" concept of full screen apps runs counter to what desktop users actually need for productivity. The desktop is not a "legacy" platform. It's a platform that's very specifically optimized for getting work done with a keyboard, mouse, and large form factor screen. That sort of work is not going away anytime soon, as the business world has demonstrated loud and clear by their absolute refusal to move to Windows 8. Naturally, the relevance of PCs is diminishing among home and casual users - people who didn't use the PC for production purposes, but mostly as a consumption, communications, and entertainment device. Smartphones and tablets are perfect for that. For actual production work, the desktop/laptop will remain king for the foreseeable future, albeit in much more of a specialized role than before.
Windows 8 would have been a fine OS had they discarded the idea of one-UI-fits-all devices, and instead focused on the coolness of Metro as a side-channel application experience. That would have meant allowing cross-platform tablet and phone apps to run on your desktop seamlessly with native or managed desktop applications, but without trying to make the whole OS touch-focused. Instead, the marketing hype overtook common sense and usability concerns, and they began touting it as the future replacement of the desktop, which is absurd. Not surprisingly, after the actual market kicked the marketing department's ass, they're starting to move in a sensible direction with Windows 9 by focusing on the benefits of cross-platform application development, and they're slowly backing off of the ridiculous notion that their desktop OS should behave like a tablet.
I don't think skeuomorphic means what you think it does.
Gah, you're right. I meant the move away from skeumorphic interfaces and toward... does the new flat, simple, textureless aesthetic have a name other than anti-skeumorphic? If it does, I can't think of it. Nothing like a lack of an edit function to make you look silly.
From the article:
Microsoft will likely one day struggle to woo users off Windows 7, just like it is currently trying to do with the headache that is Windows XP.
I wonder if Microsoft is learning the wrong lessons from their "good" versions. They're having a hell of a time getting people to leave them. In the future, if people hate the version they're on, they'll be much more likely to buy a new version in the hopes that it's better. Brilliant!
That's the only think I can think of to fully explain Windows 8, and why even now they're refusing to admit that Metro apps are a steaming turd on top of an otherwise competent OS. The only idiots who like using those "apps" are the ones who would probably be better off with a tablet or smartphone instead of an actual desktop computer, for whom the actual power of a desktop is apparently wasted.
Ok, maybe I'm just a bitter throwback who's resentful that my desktop is being marginalized. Maybe it's also because I hate the new skeuomorphic design aesthetic. What's wrong with gloss, gradients, transparency, and attractive animations, or even a bevel or link here and there so we can actually tell something is clickable rather than playing mystery-meat navigation? I swear, everything is going flat-shaded, blocky, ugly, and indistinguishable, all because that's now the new "hip" look.
Honestly, forcing computer programming on kids will have the same effect as forcing math on them. It's no different - it's a way of solving problems, except by using logic and algorithms rather than equations. It's still a general solution in search of a problem. I think a lot of tech people tend to view technology as being interesting or important for it's own sake, but that's not how the world at large sees technology (nor should it). It's only real-world value is in what it can do for us that we couldn't do before without it, as heretical as that may sound here on slashdot.
My advice to educators is to let kids make their own computer games. You'll sucker them into doing some of the hardest sort of programming there is, and they'll likely enjoy it. More importantly, for those that are more artistically or creatively inclined rather than technically inclined, they can help out with artwork, story, music, and sound effects. Videogame programming is a fantastic cross-discipline project that can involve all sorts of different skills and abilities. So, not everyone has to write code, but everyone can contribute in some way.
I've found that computer games are great at driving home the need to learn higher math as well. Geometry, linear algebra, and matrix math are all used extensively in many types of games. Kids will naturally run into these problems, and probably work in vain to come up with a home-grown solution. At that point they're primed to learn a more elegant solution using higher math. The big advantage is that this lesson concretely demonstrates the value and usefulness of that math, making it much easier to learn and appreciate since it has a useful context.
I saw the article headline and immediately thought "Cool! Someone figured out how to do neat things with the hardware in the car?" I thought maybe even the car companies were cool enough to enable truly extensible functionality with their entertainment systems or whatnot (wouldn't that be something?). However, in this case, "insecure" wouldn't have been enough, since that would probably refer to their physical security.
I'm not naive - the masses will never use the admittedly ridiculous term "crackers" rather than "hackers" - it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Personally, I love applying the term "script kiddies" to anyone who does harm, even if it doesn't technically apply, since it's rather demeaning. Anyhow, that battle has long since been over. But Slashdot is not a site for the masses. I thought at least "hacking" here was still a term mostly used for clever if sometimes unofficially unauthorized use of one's own hardware in interesting ways. You know, hacking a videogame's cameras or input devices, for instance...
We're getting old, aren't we? Sigh...
Thinking about this further, if I had a choice, I think I'd like to see separate options to allow or disallow that fifteen minute convenience window from crossing over to in-app purchases. For myself, I'm fine with trusting myself or the app store with that convenience. But it seems like giving an app blanket permission to charge my account whatever it wants for a limited time is a really, really bad idea. Call me paranoid, but I'd like tight security when it comes to what apps can take from my wallet *at all times*.
One way to deal with these permissions would be (for adult accounts) to have these options off by default. Only when the user attempts to make a purchase twice within the given window would a dialog pop up that explains this option and allows them to turn it on, after entering their password of course. It can then explain exactly what the option means and what ramifications it has. If it was simply off-by-default, it's likely many users would not even know it was available. The nice thing about this solution is that the option remains safely off until the user actually has need of it, and the company can ensure that people who would like that convenience can make use of it (and since it enables more frictionless purchases, obviously the company would prefer this option be ON).
A fifteen minute purchasing window is not something that is obvious to most people, but it's reasonable for adults and their own accounts, since it's just a convenience feature, and... well, they're adults. Hell, it can be even on by default. If you can't control your own purchases, no rules the government sets will make much of a difference as you destroy your own life.
Where these companies crossed the line is by not requiring an authorization password each and every time a purchase is made from a dependent's accounts. This seems like such a no-brainer to me that I have a hard time believing this was inadvertently overlooked. And good heavens, even if they thought this was a good idea in the store, they even extended the fifteen minute window to in-app purchases? I'm fine with the FTC bringing down the hammer on these practices, because it smells as sleazy has hell to me.
My fear, though, is that the choice of this option will be taken away from rational and responsible adults like you and me. I'm not a big fan of nannystate-ism that's run rampant. However, the balancing factor is that we need to give people reasonable protection with the advent of incredibly complex technologies that they may only have a tentative grasp on. And there's nothing nanny-state about requiring a password for each purchase a dependent makes using their parent's account. That's common-sense to me.
I don't see why this should be difficult. Disable this convenience feature for dependent's accounts, and leave it for adults.
People all over are arguing the *new* boss is different.
When the new boss quickly laid off a huge percentage of the workforce and used the term "synergies" three times in the e-mail that informed them of those layoffs, it pretty much told me all I needed to know.
Exactly. The "cloud" has a few absolutely killer apps. Offsite backup services are one of them, and everyone who has anything remotely important on their machines should be using one of them. No excuses at this point. My NAS device automatically backs up to my Amazon S3 account, which is so inexpensive for the few GB I need to backup, it literally costs me pennies per month ($.07 last month, in fact). Seriously, if you don't have huge amounts of data to backup, it's unbelievably cheap, since you only pay for what you need.
The other killer app I use is device synchronization, which is especially handy for my various Kindle devices / device apps (i.e. iPad, phone, PC, and Kindle, of course). I purchase Steam games as well, another sort of remote service and data synchronization type of platform, albeit of a specialized nature.
Think it's weird or hypocritical to be all-in like that with Amazon services or Steam but still be so leery of the cloud as an end-all be-all? Maybe, but this isn't about some religious aversion to the cloud - it's completely pragmatic from my point of view. If you're going to put your apples in a remote data basket, make sure it's a basket that's not likely to go *poof* anytime soon (i.e. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Apple). And make sure it's a basket where, if it does disappear, you're not completely boned. I'd miss my book or my games library, but I could live without them. I could *not* live without what's on my PC. Quite literally, in fact, since I work from home. So, there it stays.
... where your data disappears and your apps stop working the moment the company goes under.
Post-PC era my ass.
So, maybe there's a different interpretation, and maybe it does take weeks to figure out HOW A FUCKING ECOSYSTEM WILL BE IMPACTED.
If you read the article instead of ranting angrily at me, you'd find that it really doesn't sound like the film crew or local authorities are ignoring the island's ecological safety.
The Irish Film Board, which helps international film producers locate in the Republic of Ireland, said consent was granted for a limited shoot on Skellig Michael after extensive scientific analysis by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
Ok, the National Parks and Wildlife Services seems to think things will be fine. They may have contacted Mr. Newton only days in advance, but you can bet they were in contact with the NPWS for a hell of a lot longer than that. I suppose the NPWS could be lying about their extensive scientific analysis, but I'm more inclined to take them at their word, with it being their butts on the line if anything bad happens to the island. Let's read on:
The film agency said experts are on the island during the shoot and have the authority to intervene if they suspect any impact on the habitat and wildlife.
"The production company also has a senior ecological advisor on set at all times," the spokeswoman added.
"Activity is confined to visitor areas and pathways."
Ok, that sounds reasonable, right? The ecological advisor has veto authority on the set, which is good. Now, let's note that last part. The film crew will only be filming where people already visit on a regular basis. So... you really think that, while staying on existing pathways and areas that visitors regularly use, the film crews are somehow going to damage this ecosystem? That, unless this particular expert, one Mr. Newton, studies the problem for weeks, that there may be some ecological damage?
Sorry, I don't buy it. And here's the biggest reason why. He was supposedly an expert on this particular ecosystem, right? Given the plans of what the film crew was to do, shouldn't he be able to tell immediately if their shooting would bother the local wildlife? What would weeks of study tell him that his previous years of expertise wouldn't? How would he be able to tell if the wildlife were being disturbed unless he were monitoring them as they were filming? It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Apparently, it didn't make much sense to the film company or the NPWS either, since they simply proceeded without him.
I don't think I've ever wasted this much time responding to an AC troll before, but you know what, I'm fucking tired of wacko environmentalist loonies strumming their heartstrings without engaging their brains. Guess what - I happen to love the environment too, and don't want to see any protected ecosystems get screwed up. But damn, you have to be reasonable or people just tune you out, and that ends up hurting a worthwhile cause in the long run.
"We can't tell what the filming of Star Wars on the site will do to the wildlife."
I'm pretty sure I can tell you. Not a fucking thing. Nature is not so fragile that a film crew will destroy an ecosystem just by walking around and filming a few scenes. They're under restrictions on what they can do (i.e. they're not going to be blowing up the island), and they've got an ecologist on the set at all times. This is all about a local jackass getting his nose in a snit.
Stephen Newton, a seabirds expert with Birdwatch Ireland, said he could not get onto the island to check the important colony.
Mr Newton said he was asked by the film producers only days before shooting was to begin if he would help them with an impact assessment to secure permits for filming.
He refused, arguing it would take several weeks to assess, as many of the species breed underground or in rocky crevices where it would be difficult to see what damage is being done.
Are you kidding me? Several weeks for an impact assessment? Does that strike anyone else as a bit over the top?
Likely translation: He tried to shake the movie company down for a few weeks worth of work rather than a day or two, and they told him to piss off, then contacted someone more reasonably inclined. They obviously got the permits, meaning that someone was able to do the work in just a few days. And why the hell should he be allowed on the island after what he tried to pull? The fact that he's blabbing to the press and causing trouble for them now shows they were probably right to snub him.
Videogame development houses are not like most places, especially not the smaller, more tightly knit development houses. I suppose nowadays you'd probably call them "indie" shops. Back then, they were just called "very small game studios". Most places you go to work because you want a paycheck. Videogame developers, for the most part, go to work because they want to make cool games, and the paycheck is an important yet ultimately secondary concern. If they were more interested in the paycheck, there are lots of places you can go work a must less stressful 8 to 5 job for more money than in the videogame industry (well, certainly for programmers, at least).
I was with a very small game studio when it lost the next big project it had lined up. We were small enough that we didn't have a backup plan of any sort, unfortunately, and after about half a year or so without any projects being landed, the company inevitably ran low on funds, and employees had to go on half pay. During my time there, I became friends with my fellow employees and got along great with my bosses, who were really good to their employees and genuinely nice people. I stayed on for another couple of months, but I eventually had to look after my own financial needs, and let them know I when started searching for another job. We parted on good terms, and several months later, the company folded.
Game development teams go through a lot together, often working under very stressful conditions on very demanding products, and developers are often loathe to break up a really good team. Additionally, finding a new job is, of course, a very stressful thing. Sometimes it's just developers not wanting to face reality, or hoping things improve. I can only speak for myself, but I stayed as long as I could on half pay because I really loved working at that company. It was really as simple as that. Had we managed to land one of the deals we were desperately trying to get, who knows how things might have turned out. It seemed worth trying at the time, and I don't regret it.
I perhaps worded it poorly, as I didn't mean to imply the EU judgement was necessarily without merit. Rather, I'm simply implying that the Chinese government may have been looking at the end result of Microsoft's and Google's cases (i.e. paying large fines to the EU), and could have seen that as a lucrative opportunity, either economically, politically, or both.
I'll bet the Chinese government took a page from the EU and figured out it could levy whatever the hell sort of fines it wants against these tech giants, and they'll probably just eat it as a part of the cost of doing business. That is, so long as they don't fine them more than it's worthwhile to do business there, because of course, said company would simply say "screw you" and leave. They figured that a charge of "Microsoft is a monopoly!" would work just fine, since that's been bandied about in the West so much already. You watch - I wouldn't be surprised if MS is going to get a nice, hefty fine levied against them, but probably not so much that they'll contemplate pulling out of China's market completely. Nothing like a government-sponsored extortion racket.
The other possibility is, like the linked article implies, that this is part of the government's push for technological self-reliance, and a move to start pushing their own operating systems and squeeze MS out of the picture. We've seen that with Google pretty clearly already. Or, maybe it's a bit of both - a way to squeeze a bit more cash out of the tech giants before eventually pushing them out altogether.
Hard to say, really. China is a mystery wrapped in an enigma to most westerners like myself.
All I see is a natural settling of the app bubble. This is a good thing. It just means the market is maturing. The alternative is a hard crash, like when the dot-com bubble popped, and no one wants that.
The author all but admits that app development was seen as a get-rich-quick scheme, and acknowledges the market is maturing, but falters when it comes time to face reality. Removing "top sales" lists or curtailing frivolous app development would be a bandaid. It would inconvenience users in a ham-handed attempt to "spread the wealth" - exactly the wrong approach to take, since users would simply lash out at the app store developers for doing that.
What's the solution? Probably the same as it's always been: work hard, create a great product, sell it for a fair price, market it in a unique and clever way, and hope for the best. If an app developer goes under, it just demonstrates that wasn't exactly beating a door down for their app. It's harsh, but that's how markets work. App stores could better solve the problem by developing algorithms to show more relevant products based on purchasing and browsing history, but honestly, you can't rely on anyone else to sell your app for you.
Launching a startup has always been immensely risky. The notion that app developers should somehow be immune from normal market realities is laughable.
It seems he's basically arguing that there's a correlation (and therefore maybe causality) between being diverse and not leading the market.
Makes sense. Companies intent on "diversifying their workforce" are probably too focused on politics or appearances rather than paying attention to their products and customers.
If they're laying off mostly non-programmers (i.e. "overhead"), but are still hiring for programming positions, then this would make sense. If not, then it's pretty inexcusable. In either case, someone should have known that at the very least, this would end up looking really bad for them.
Regardless, the fact that the e-mail describing the layoffs actually used the word "synergies" three times told me all I needed to know about the new CEO. Someone in touch with today's culture would never have used that word unless he was mocking another company for using it. Even when using business buzzwords, Microsoft is still about five years behind the times.
I was actually going to make the comparison between "warm" vinyl sounds vs CDs (I'm not sure what SCAD is though), as well as tube amplifiers versus digital, but I thought it would distract from the point I was trying to make. Plus, the post was already getting long. But yeah, I think both of those are somewhat appropriate comparisons.
Read LoTR's description of Tom Bombadil again, an equally powerful but rather loony figure in his own right, and tell me that Tolkien couldn't have imagined Radagast the way he was depicted (admittedly probably without the bird shit).
Frodo and Sam stood as if enchanted. The wind puffed out. The leaves hung silently again on stiff branches. There was another burst of song, and then suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there appeared above the reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown and a long blue feather stuck in the band. With another hop and a bound there came into view a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, stumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs, and charging through grass and rushes like a cow going down to drink. He had a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. In his hands he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of white water-lilies.
A bit silly-looking for one of the most powerful entities in Middle-Earth, no? Somewhat frivolous-minded, too. The Council of the Ring considers Bombadil as a safekeeper:
‘No,’ said Gandalf, ‘not willingly. He might [take the ring], if all the free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough.’ ‘But in any case,’ said Glorfindel, ‘to send the Ring to him would only postpone the day of evil. He is far away. We could not now take it back to him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come.’
Why should Radagast have necessarily been a clone of Gandalf or Saruman? Tom comes across as halfway insane or a goofball, dressed like a clown and constantly breaking into song. Gandalf also speaks of him as ancient and powerful, but one who, if they gave him the ring, would literally forget about it. Jackson's take on Radagast was, I think, similar to Bombadil, one who concerned himself more with nature than the goings-on in the world of wizards, men, elves, and dwarves.
Believe me, 48FPS is not the future. Or if it is, then there is a long way to go in setting it up and filming it properly.
It probably is, but I'm guessing our generation will have a really hard time accepting it. Our minds have been conditioned to think of 24 FPS displays as "cinematic" and higher FPS (30 or higher) at "cheaper", because for years the TV images we've seen *have* looked much "cheaper". It's an association that I don't think we can easily rationalize our way out of. Why do you think videogames have gone so far as to artificially render fake film grain or lens flare artifacts? That's a completely illogical thing to do except for the pleasant association people have with the look of traditional movie media.
Simply put, I think the high frame rate and high fidelity end up causing a negative association in our minds. It's not that it really looks worse - we're just not used to it looking quite so sharp and fluid, and it just doesn't feel "cinematic" to us. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to. Honestly, nothing else makes much sense to me, because otherwise, we're always pushing to make the picture better, more realistic, etc. After all, you can't really blame increased frame rate for making a movie set look more "fake", right? Film has always been a "high resolution" experience, after all.
Or, put another way, I think film technology just fell into the uncanny valley for some people, where it looks so close to reality that their brains are rebelling a bit and causing distractions, which leads to a poor viewing experience.