Those are designed by designers, not programmers. They don't really think about the fact that you might have to do it over and over again, they just know it looks cool and the clients (AKA the ones with the money) like it. As for the repeating scene issue, that's a limitation in the DVD programming - which would be the programmer's fault. If there was a way to do random scenes, or intelligently know that this was the third time you'd visited the subtitle menu during playback, then it would be much less painful.
I, for one, would prefer to keep DVD menus. I don't think they should necessarily be the first thing that comes up, no - but I watch a lot of foreign movies (I live in Japan) and I also buy DVDs with special features, etc. Also, as an independent movie maker, if I was able to distribute a Divx movie with a DVD structure, I could include subtitles and special features into my own internet-distributed offerings.
I dated a stripper for a lot longer than two months, and it was hell. You want to talk about your people with social issues? Strippers are not the most well-balanced of the lot. I wouldn't brag about it.
How is it illegal to say that you can only run Apple's OS on Apple hardware? You implicitly agree to it when you buy it (not like your typical EULA crap, but Apple doesn't beat around the bush on this one so you can't claim you didn't know.) You don't see Sony getting in trouble for insisting that their PSPs run with Sony software. It *is* their product; they can do whatever they want with it.
All Apple needs to say is, "We are protecting our corporate reputation with customers by insuring that the OSX experience isn't degraded by ensuring that our OS only runs on on Apple-certified hardware." What kind of reasonable argument do you have against that? You still have choice; you can choose to buy different hardware that will let you do whatever you want.
Anyway, since Apple doesn't enjoy a position of monopolistic power, they're more likely to get the benefit of the doubt in order to protect what market they have.
The fact that they will most likely cost significantly less will be an added bonus for them, and likely attract even more customers than the switch chased away.
Why on earth do you think Apple would drop their margins just because they switched to Intel? Alienware makes beautiful Intel-based PCs and charges a premium for them. Apple will claim you pay for the engineering and quality and keep those margins right where they are.
So we have to handle our own trash and can't just dump it on some poor, unsuspecting (well, probably pretty suspecting by now) person in another country? Sounds pretty responsible to me. "Not only will we bring jobs to your country, we *won't* bring our trash."
Would be nice to have an easy way to create the content without having to fork up that much cash to Adobe/Macromedia. Oh yeah...and all that stuff about software freedom and open formats, too.
Nothing personal against the parent, but this is flawed thinking. "It would be nice to have an easy way to create money-making content without paying for it." If you're using Flash to make web content, then you should be charging for your services. If you're a hobbyist and think it's not worth paying for, find a cheaper hobby that you are willing to spend money on. If you're charging a reasonable fee, then the price of the software truly becomes negligible.
So you're paying programmers for all of their hard work in developing the software and putting up with end users' grief. Why is this such a problem for people to comprehend?
QuickTime technologies are still an important part of the OS, and rightly so, IMHO. They give the user the out-of-the-box ability to seamlessly handle the huge variety of multimedia files available today. With the advent of the web, such functionality has become the standard that no longer requires a proprietary application. For that matter, OS X can also handle RTF, PDF, and text files natively; this kind of basic functionality is a good thing, no?
Only an esoteric few might try to claim that they'd prefer the choice to replace the QuickTime layer with something else or remove it entirely. And replace it with what? Something that does it "better"? Good luck with that.
OS X's 3D and 2D rendering is handled by the Quartz engine (replacing the old QuickDraw technology); web is handled by WebCore (which means that, technically, you can remove Safari-the-application and not affect the system); and video is handled by CoreVideo, which is the new name for the system-level layer of QuickTime services. The name implies two things: 1) this is an essential part of the OS; 2) you don't have to have QuickTime Player in order to utilize it. Technically, it also underscores the fact that QuickTime 7 is a complete rewrite of a very old architecture, and is really a different beast entirely.
Just like with Windows, 3rd-party applications are welcome to co-exist, augment, or work with the built-in Apple technologies. The issue is not that they're built into the system, but that by their very pervasiveness and de facto inclusion into the OS, they encourage the user to take advantage of them without doing any comparison shopping first. Such bundling means that the user doesn't have to spend extra money in order to find a solution, which makes the practice appear anti-competitive.
Honestly? I honestly don't think that Microsoft, Apple, or any other OS manufacturer is trying to squeeze out third-party developers so much as trying to stay competitive with each other, and in order to justify that next upgrade. As long as the features they integrate into the system remain "basic," they can claim to not be hurting the chances of the 3rd-party developer. For example, both Windows and OSX now offer built-in CD authoring support, but they don't hold a candle to the features offered by, say, Roxio's Toast CD and DVD-authoring application. It's not the basic function that sets the application apart from the OS, but its feature set that gives the user more options.
On the other hand, Apple's inclusion of Dashboard into 10.4 is an example of when feature inclusion goes a bit too far. Dashboard is obviously more for show than anything else, and an unspoken indicator of just how insecure Apple was that the OS would sell on its real merits. While 10.4 is an important upgrade, it's not an *obviously* important upgrade; the unfortunate side-effect of a maturing operating system. I suppose you could say that OS X is now robust enough that Apple is afraid that they're running out of major bug fixes with which to sell their OS.:)
I think this invention will work particularly well in a group situation where several people are in one car. You're less likely to downplay how much you've drunk when the car is telling you it's not safe for you to be driving your friends home.
I appreciate that you're trying to represent both sides, but I find your statement a little bit self-contradictory. For example, you say that in order to be compliant, efforts should be focused on programming for Linux, but that you should not focus on Linux specifically. So which is it?
Also, you say that you should keep a project's code clean so that it can be easily ported, but that you shouldn't port a project that isn't near completion so that you don't get incompatibilities. If the code is kept clean as you have suggested and the port focuses on that same criterium, then won't incompatibilities be avoided by default?
You're a member of a society, and the rule is, people in a society look out for each other. That's how it works. Your hard-earned taxes are put to work for other people who have the misfortune of being poor, but that doesn't make them bad people. I was a free-lunch kid because my mother was staying at home raising us and we were living on my father's teaching salary. Guess what? We pay teachers crap. Pretty pathetic. Even smart people can be poor.
My parents taught us to be hard-working, ethical people, and encouraged us to study and think about what we wanted to do with our lives. I went on to college on a full ride based on my academic merits, not because I was poor.
While the lunches weren't great, I would like to think that growing up to become a contributing member of society (I'm now a teacher, too.) Would that be considered money well-spent? Don't assume that poor means someone is inferior to you, or that they're poor just because they want to mooch off of the taxpayers.
Just like your moral standards dictated that you would rather starve than take a hand-out, my family's choice of having one parent be a teacher (you're definitely not doing it for the money), and one be stay-at-home for the sake of raising children properly dictated our financial situation. However, while keeping your pride is great, that's no reason to starve a growing body and mind.
Yeah, but it's not a prequel and they're not re-editing another director's vision after his untimely death, so maybe they'll do better this time around.
"Government imposed monopoly on the distribution of information called copyrights?"
The biggest criticism of Microsoft has to do with the fact that it's a monopoly. The government didn't one day decide that what America really needs is to have a monopoly imposed on them. They have been responsible for looking the other way thanks to the tireless efforts of Microsoft's own personal lobby.
What exactly is the "distribution of information called copyrights?" I assume you're referring to patents, not copyrights, and while Microsoft has been joining the bandwagon recently in patenting everything under the sun, they have as yet to go after anybody as a means of supplementing their income. Yes, they are trying to abuse their patents, but in a more straightforward, "we hold the patent on that, so pay us" sort of way. There's nothing illegal or despicable about that, no matter how undeserving they might be of the patent.
Microsoft realizes that the OS/office suite monopoly won't last forever, so yeah, they're trying to reinvent themselves, just as many other computer companies are right now (Apple, anyone?)
How an individual person chooses their money has nothing to do with Microsoft or its business tactics; I would be grateful if my employer made me rich, but that gratitude doesn't extend to turn around and giving my money right back to the company. Bit of flawed logic there.
Finally, whether or not a private venture succeeds has nothing to do with Microsoft; what a person does in their spare time is their own business. There's not a lot of love lost between the Slashdot crowd and Redmond, but no sense in hating a bunch of people just because they made it big. Good for them. Wish I was rich, too.:)
I think you're putting a little bit more weight on the story than is necessary. George Lucas wasn't trying to spread some sort of egalitarian gospel to uplift the common man; he was trying to make a fun sci-fi movie. People take from it what they want, but in the end, it is his story to screw up as he sees fit. Now that we have the whole story, maybe people are finding they don't like Star Wars as much as they thought they did. Or perhaps they're watching it as adults rather than children, and find that their perspectives have changed.
I won't even get into the "fundamental egalitarianism of Western society.":)
Microsoft announced several weeks ago that they'd support transparent PNGs and more robust CSS support. From the same website:
Support the alpha channel in PNG images. We've actually had this on our radar for a long time, and have had it supported in the code for a while now. We have certainly heard the clear feedback from the web design community that per-pixel alpha is a really important feature.
Address CSS consistency problems. Our first and most important goal with our Cascading Style Sheet support is to remove the major inconsistencies so that web developers have a consistent set of functionality on which they can rely. For example, we have already checked in the fixes to the peekaboo and guillotine bugs documented at positioniseverything.net so use of floated elements become more consistent.
Great to be passionate about something, but make sure you check your facts before you wax melodramatic.;)
Apple will not be using Intel chips as processor chips anytime in the near future. The only people who would even consider that plausible are people who don't yet own a Mac, and therefore aren't faced with the problem of not only buying a new computer, but also re-purchasing every software title they own if they actually want it to work on the new machine.
As someone who uses his Mac for video and animation production, that would be a hefty price tag indeed. Apple's not interested in pissing off its current user base, so the answer should be pretty obvious. Intel chips, yes. Intel processors, no.
I got one, and my major beef with it is that it *isn't* precise. Ironic, isn't it? I've heard that it might be a Mac-related problem, and that Logitech is even talking about dropping support for the Mac. Looking at the pathetic excuse for drivers that they released for the mouse, it's no wonder.
I am using USB Overdrive now, but the developer is lagging behind big-time due to a new addition to his family. If I actually have to do anything requiring precise movements, I plug in my USB Kensington 5-button mouse. Kensington has treated Mac well for a long, long time. Well worth the investment.
I think this is a great example of the dangers of over-thinking.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Of course it does.
Are you the same person you were before, regardless of what the hell went on in your brain last night, or during that operation?
Yes, of course you are. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. You're not arguing science, you're arguing philosophy. Science only describes the how, not the why.
So do I pay 99 cents even if it gets it wrong? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I should start up a competing service myself. Of course, people might start getting suspicious when every song seems to be limited to whatever I've got currently loaded on my iPod...thank goodness for shuffle mode!
How many blogs in America specifically cover hot political issues? I have a blog for the purpose of keeping my friends and family back home posted about my life here in Japan. They enjoy reading it, I enjoy writing it, and nobody seems to mind that I'm not preaching my political values at them.
If a woman stops talking to you because you have porn, then you're far better off for it. If she's judging men by whether or not they own porn, she's the one who risks living a long life alone, not you. There *are* women out there who accept the fact that men like porn, and some of them will even watch it with you (part of the "good, giving, game," or GGG partner philosophy.)
Be with a woman who actually likes you for who you are and has a sense of humor. Every woman's beauty fades with time, so even if you have your choice of pretty girls, aim for the ones with good personalities.
My girlfriend gives me carte blanche on buying computer stuff because she believes in my desire to do great computer animation. She's also a great cook. Now that's the kind of stuff makes life worth living. And I think she's hot, so that's okay, too.:)
Plus, the choice of websites one can visit SHOULD be a factor in browser use. IE can visit some sites that require ActiveX, and Firefox / Opera can render properly sites that require better CSS2 support. Simple as that.
If a site can only interact with one site, then the developers aren't doing their job, or they're cutting corners. ATI, for example, is the Mac's single largest vendor of video cards, yet their site only works properly with IE for Windows. Ironic, ain't it?
Someday someone will get the idea that the customer, not the customer's wallet, should be the focus of their business.
Slashdot Mirror
Those are designed by designers, not programmers. They don't really think about the fact that you might have to do it over and over again, they just know it looks cool and the clients (AKA the ones with the money) like it. As for the repeating scene issue, that's a limitation in the DVD programming - which would be the programmer's fault. If there was a way to do random scenes, or intelligently know that this was the third time you'd visited the subtitle menu during playback, then it would be much less painful.
I, for one, would prefer to keep DVD menus. I don't think they should necessarily be the first thing that comes up, no - but I watch a lot of foreign movies (I live in Japan) and I also buy DVDs with special features, etc. Also, as an independent movie maker, if I was able to distribute a Divx movie with a DVD structure, I could include subtitles and special features into my own internet-distributed offerings.
I dated a stripper for a lot longer than two months, and it was hell. You want to talk about your people with social issues? Strippers are not the most well-balanced of the lot. I wouldn't brag about it.
How is it illegal to say that you can only run Apple's OS on Apple hardware? You implicitly agree to it when you buy it (not like your typical EULA crap, but Apple doesn't beat around the bush on this one so you can't claim you didn't know.) You don't see Sony getting in trouble for insisting that their PSPs run with Sony software. It *is* their product; they can do whatever they want with it.
All Apple needs to say is, "We are protecting our corporate reputation with customers by insuring that the OSX experience isn't degraded by ensuring that our OS only runs on on Apple-certified hardware." What kind of reasonable argument do you have against that? You still have choice; you can choose to buy different hardware that will let you do whatever you want.
Anyway, since Apple doesn't enjoy a position of monopolistic power, they're more likely to get the benefit of the doubt in order to protect what market they have.
The fact that they will most likely cost significantly less will be an added bonus for them, and likely attract even more customers than the switch chased away.
Why on earth do you think Apple would drop their margins just because they switched to Intel? Alienware makes beautiful Intel-based PCs and charges a premium for them. Apple will claim you pay for the engineering and quality and keep those margins right where they are.
So we have to handle our own trash and can't just dump it on some poor, unsuspecting (well, probably pretty suspecting by now) person in another country? Sounds pretty responsible to me. "Not only will we bring jobs to your country, we *won't* bring our trash."
Would be nice to have an easy way to create the content without having to fork up that much cash to Adobe/Macromedia. Oh yeah...and all that stuff about software freedom and open formats, too.
Nothing personal against the parent, but this is flawed thinking. "It would be nice to have an easy way to create money-making content without paying for it." If you're using Flash to make web content, then you should be charging for your services. If you're a hobbyist and think it's not worth paying for, find a cheaper hobby that you are willing to spend money on. If you're charging a reasonable fee, then the price of the software truly becomes negligible.
So you're paying programmers for all of their hard work in developing the software and putting up with end users' grief. Why is this such a problem for people to comprehend?
QuickTime technologies are still an important part of the OS, and rightly so, IMHO. They give the user the out-of-the-box ability to seamlessly handle the huge variety of multimedia files available today. With the advent of the web, such functionality has become the standard that no longer requires a proprietary application. For that matter, OS X can also handle RTF, PDF, and text files natively; this kind of basic functionality is a good thing, no?
:)
Only an esoteric few might try to claim that they'd prefer the choice to replace the QuickTime layer with something else or remove it entirely. And replace it with what? Something that does it "better"? Good luck with that.
OS X's 3D and 2D rendering is handled by the Quartz engine (replacing the old QuickDraw technology); web is handled by WebCore (which means that, technically, you can remove Safari-the-application and not affect the system); and video is handled by CoreVideo, which is the new name for the system-level layer of QuickTime services. The name implies two things: 1) this is an essential part of the OS; 2) you don't have to have QuickTime Player in order to utilize it. Technically, it also underscores the fact that QuickTime 7 is a complete rewrite of a very old architecture, and is really a different beast entirely.
Just like with Windows, 3rd-party applications are welcome to co-exist, augment, or work with the built-in Apple technologies. The issue is not that they're built into the system, but that by their very pervasiveness and de facto inclusion into the OS, they encourage the user to take advantage of them without doing any comparison shopping first. Such bundling means that the user doesn't have to spend extra money in order to find a solution, which makes the practice appear anti-competitive.
Honestly? I honestly don't think that Microsoft, Apple, or any other OS manufacturer is trying to squeeze out third-party developers so much as trying to stay competitive with each other, and in order to justify that next upgrade. As long as the features they integrate into the system remain "basic," they can claim to not be hurting the chances of the 3rd-party developer. For example, both Windows and OSX now offer built-in CD authoring support, but they don't hold a candle to the features offered by, say, Roxio's Toast CD and DVD-authoring application. It's not the basic function that sets the application apart from the OS, but its feature set that gives the user more options.
On the other hand, Apple's inclusion of Dashboard into 10.4 is an example of when feature inclusion goes a bit too far. Dashboard is obviously more for show than anything else, and an unspoken indicator of just how insecure Apple was that the OS would sell on its real merits. While 10.4 is an important upgrade, it's not an *obviously* important upgrade; the unfortunate side-effect of a maturing operating system. I suppose you could say that OS X is now robust enough that Apple is afraid that they're running out of major bug fixes with which to sell their OS.
Okay, thank you for the clarification. The previous comment seemed a bit ambiguous is all.
I think this invention will work particularly well in a group situation where several people are in one car. You're less likely to downplay how much you've drunk when the car is telling you it's not safe for you to be driving your friends home.
I appreciate that you're trying to represent both sides, but I find your statement a little bit self-contradictory. For example, you say that in order to be compliant, efforts should be focused on programming for Linux, but that you should not focus on Linux specifically. So which is it?
Also, you say that you should keep a project's code clean so that it can be easily ported, but that you shouldn't port a project that isn't near completion so that you don't get incompatibilities. If the code is kept clean as you have suggested and the port focuses on that same criterium, then won't incompatibilities be avoided by default?
You're a member of a society, and the rule is, people in a society look out for each other. That's how it works. Your hard-earned taxes are put to work for other people who have the misfortune of being poor, but that doesn't make them bad people. I was a free-lunch kid because my mother was staying at home raising us and we were living on my father's teaching salary. Guess what? We pay teachers crap. Pretty pathetic. Even smart people can be poor.
My parents taught us to be hard-working, ethical people, and encouraged us to study and think about what we wanted to do with our lives. I went on to college on a full ride based on my academic merits, not because I was poor.
While the lunches weren't great, I would like to think that growing up to become a contributing member of society (I'm now a teacher, too.) Would that be considered money well-spent? Don't assume that poor means someone is inferior to you, or that they're poor just because they want to mooch off of the taxpayers.
Just like your moral standards dictated that you would rather starve than take a hand-out, my family's choice of having one parent be a teacher (you're definitely not doing it for the money), and one be stay-at-home for the sake of raising children properly dictated our financial situation. However, while keeping your pride is great, that's no reason to starve a growing body and mind.
Yeah, but it's not a prequel and they're not re-editing another director's vision after his untimely death, so maybe they'll do better this time around.
"Government imposed monopoly on the distribution of information called copyrights?"
:)
The biggest criticism of Microsoft has to do with the fact that it's a monopoly. The government didn't one day decide that what America really needs is to have a monopoly imposed on them. They have been responsible for looking the other way thanks to the tireless efforts of Microsoft's own personal lobby.
What exactly is the "distribution of information called copyrights?" I assume you're referring to patents, not copyrights, and while Microsoft has been joining the bandwagon recently in patenting everything under the sun, they have as yet to go after anybody as a means of supplementing their income. Yes, they are trying to abuse their patents, but in a more straightforward, "we hold the patent on that, so pay us" sort of way. There's nothing illegal or despicable about that, no matter how undeserving they might be of the patent.
Microsoft realizes that the OS/office suite monopoly won't last forever, so yeah, they're trying to reinvent themselves, just as many other computer companies are right now (Apple, anyone?)
How an individual person chooses their money has nothing to do with Microsoft or its business tactics; I would be grateful if my employer made me rich, but that gratitude doesn't extend to turn around and giving my money right back to the company. Bit of flawed logic there.
Finally, whether or not a private venture succeeds has nothing to do with Microsoft; what a person does in their spare time is their own business. There's not a lot of love lost between the Slashdot crowd and Redmond, but no sense in hating a bunch of people just because they made it big. Good for them. Wish I was rich, too.
Spoken like a true geek. ;) "It's a hoax, and that's not even counting the technological challenges."
It also fails to take into consideration *where* the watch battery is supposed to go. And what happens if the girl doesn't like the design.
Apparently the grandparent knows how to do that and knows it exists, therefore it represents a problem.
Virii are based on flaws in the system that the common user doesn't know about but that doesn't stop them from spreading.
I think you're putting a little bit more weight on the story than is necessary. George Lucas wasn't trying to spread some sort of egalitarian gospel to uplift the common man; he was trying to make a fun sci-fi movie. People take from it what they want, but in the end, it is his story to screw up as he sees fit. Now that we have the whole story, maybe people are finding they don't like Star Wars as much as they thought they did. Or perhaps they're watching it as adults rather than children, and find that their perspectives have changed.
:)
I won't even get into the "fundamental egalitarianism of Western society."
Apple will not be using Intel chips as processor chips anytime in the near future. The only people who would even consider that plausible are people who don't yet own a Mac, and therefore aren't faced with the problem of not only buying a new computer, but also re-purchasing every software title they own if they actually want it to work on the new machine.
As someone who uses his Mac for video and animation production, that would be a hefty price tag indeed. Apple's not interested in pissing off its current user base, so the answer should be pretty obvious. Intel chips, yes. Intel processors, no.
I got one, and my major beef with it is that it *isn't* precise. Ironic, isn't it? I've heard that it might be a Mac-related problem, and that Logitech is even talking about dropping support for the Mac. Looking at the pathetic excuse for drivers that they released for the mouse, it's no wonder.
I am using USB Overdrive now, but the developer is lagging behind big-time due to a new addition to his family. If I actually have to do anything requiring precise movements, I plug in my USB Kensington 5-button mouse. Kensington has treated Mac well for a long, long time. Well worth the investment.
Yeah, that would be the Japanese and their pride in their work. Now if only Hollywood would take a page out of their book.
I think this is a great example of the dangers of over-thinking.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Of course it does.
Are you the same person you were before, regardless of what the hell went on in your brain last night, or during that operation?
Yes, of course you are. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. You're not arguing science, you're arguing philosophy. Science only describes the how, not the why.
So do I pay 99 cents even if it gets it wrong? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I should start up a competing service myself. Of course, people might start getting suspicious when every song seems to be limited to whatever I've got currently loaded on my iPod...thank goodness for shuffle mode!
How many blogs in America specifically cover hot political issues? I have a blog for the purpose of keeping my friends and family back home posted about my life here in Japan. They enjoy reading it, I enjoy writing it, and nobody seems to mind that I'm not preaching my political values at them.
If a woman stops talking to you because you have porn, then you're far better off for it. If she's judging men by whether or not they own porn, she's the one who risks living a long life alone, not you. There *are* women out there who accept the fact that men like porn, and some of them will even watch it with you (part of the "good, giving, game," or GGG partner philosophy.)
:)
Be with a woman who actually likes you for who you are and has a sense of humor. Every woman's beauty fades with time, so even if you have your choice of pretty girls, aim for the ones with good personalities.
My girlfriend gives me carte blanche on buying computer stuff because she believes in my desire to do great computer animation. She's also a great cook. Now that's the kind of stuff makes life worth living. And I think she's hot, so that's okay, too.
Plus, the choice of websites one can visit SHOULD be a factor in browser use. IE can visit some sites that require ActiveX, and Firefox / Opera can render properly sites that require better CSS2 support. Simple as that.
If a site can only interact with one site, then the developers aren't doing their job, or they're cutting corners. ATI, for example, is the Mac's single largest vendor of video cards, yet their site only works properly with IE for Windows. Ironic, ain't it?
Someday someone will get the idea that the customer, not the customer's wallet, should be the focus of their business.