One of the developers (Wolfire's David) is building his game using the Unity game engine, which exports to Linux but only runs on OS X and Windows. Other engines / development environments like Unreal and Flash are similarly unavailable on Linux. The same is true of most 3D modelling and image editing packages.
The tools simply aren't available to make Linux an attractive game development environment.
This looks like a fantastic service for game developers (indeed, one of their examples is multiplayer Tetris). Building backend infrastructure to facilitate realtime communication and features like leaderboards, and making them scale when the game becomes a hit, is difficult. Anything that lets game designers get back to developing the gameplay itself is hugely beneficial. For certain types of games it'll probably make more sense to use a dedicated service like Photon Cloud [1] that focuses solely on realtime multiplayer, but for simpler web games, Firebase looks promising.
What do you make of a service like Siri that imposes a personality on the UI without disrupting its usability? Anecdotally, many people like communicating with such an interface that simulates human conversation, even if the results themselves aren't improved by it.
The article doesn't confirm that Amazon is actually planning to sell used ebooks, only that they were awarded a patent to do so. I hope that they do facilitate this someday — the lack of resale value with digital goods is concerning — but how could it be in their interests to do so? Anyone care to play devil's advocate and explain how this could lead to increased revenue over only selling new ebooks (which presumably they get a significant cut of)? I want to believe.
But do you wear a shitty t-shirt after you receive it? Part of a company's motivation for giving out t-shirts is cheap publicity — people literally walk around with that company's logo on their chest. They're unlikely to do that though if the shirt fits poorly or is otherwise uncomfortable.
Educational value aside, a degree makes it easier to work abroad. As a Canadian I may want to work in Silicon Valley and I might get hired based on experience alone, but the US government is less willing to issue visas to those without a degree. That itself may make it worthwhile to you. Additionally, there are some government grants for startups (in Canada, but presumably elsewhere) that require one of the founders to be a STEM grad. Prior to enrolling in university I was unaware of these hidden benefits, but they're numerous.
Perhaps one reason is that more hosting providers support MySQL but not PostgreSQL. Amazon AWS, Google Cloud SQL, and numerous others offer hosted MySQL solutions but not PostgreSQL. I'm unsure how much overall usage such service providers account for though; it would be an interesting stat.
I predict that a film's frame rate will become simply another choice for the cinematographer to make. Just like different film stocks and processing techniques are employed for different genres (e.g. bleach bypass in war movies), perhaps the FPS will indeed become genre-specific like you suggest. Debate about whether 48 is superior to 24 is misplaced -- it's an aesthetic choice, and the fluid movement that comes with additional frames works well in some scenarios but not in others. Many shots in The Hobbit looked terrible, perhaps demonstrating that 48 is not the ideal frame rate for an epic fantasy, but for some films it would be quite suitable.
It's a niche use case, but Apple's Qmaster software facilitates distributed video rendering and exporting for Final Cut Pro and some of their other pro applications. A server cluster like this would probably be overkill, but when you're working with massive video files, extra (OS X) machines to do the heavy lifting make a huge difference.
Agreed. The ability to edit files from the browser made fixing website typos on-the-go trivial, and this gives even more power to developers whose current machine limits terminal access (Prompt on the iPad + a remote server works wonders, but too often I've had only a colleague's tablet or smartphone to work with).
The shorter employment cycles also provide an opportunity to try different "styles" of company to see what you like best. Throughout university I've been employed in government, at a multinational corporation, at a startup of nine employees, and at the company I cofounded. This experience, combined with living in different cities (Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Waterloo) for each, has been invaluable.
As someone who owns many DVDs, I'm sad that the extra features often included on them (interviews, documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage) remain unavailable on streaming services like Netflix. I hope that as competition increases, this extra content is included as a value-add. Some of the features on Pixar DVDs showing the pre-production storyboarding and early animation are particularly interesting.
Smashing Magazine ran an article in 2009 exploring a Craigslist redesign. The author focuses on improving aspects like the login process, account management, nagation, and visual appeal. It's an interesting read from a UX designer who has considered the usability aspects of the site and suggests more than style tweaks. While I appreciate Craigslist's uncompromising text-heavy approach, the ease of use sometimes leaves much to be desired.
I see what you're saying. That would indeed be a useful feature; I don't believe I've used an editor with such functionality (unless there's a shortcut in vim that does it?).
Something I admire about BBEdit, and all of Bare Bones' software, is the detailed release notes that accompany each new version. Not everyone wants to read through pages of additions and fixes, but those that do know exactly what has changed and what to expect upon updating. It's an example I would love to see more software companies follow.
There is an option to have the tab key indent code. I can't recall which version of BBEdit this feature was added in, but it can be enabled in the Keyboard preferences ("Allow Tab key to indent text blocks").
Before some productions start the studio will put together what's called an animatic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storyboard#Animatics), where the storyboard frames are cut together with rough dialog to give an idea of the final product. It's similar to what you're suggesting -- a comic book that moves and talks. It's essentially a film's MVP.
There certainly seems to be confusion about what the RFS advocates "killing." Is it the production and distribution system, or the medium itself? Hollywood can mean many things, and some of the RFS seems to be championing alternative delivery while other parts encourage creating alternatives to the medium itself. Those are two very different goals, and it seems that Ben has interpreted the latter as the RFC's message..
It's an interesting idea, but I'm unconvinced that a community effort can produce results (in this case, films) superior to that of a highly skilled artist. Has such a system worked in any other medium? We have the technology available now to collaborate on books on a massive scale, but are there examples of this happening and succeeding with results that rival Kurt Vonnegut or F. Scott Fitzgerald? Similarly, a GitHub for music is certainly feasible with today's tech, but I don't think this recipe guarantees results better than a small dedicated group of artists like Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails or <insert favourite band here>.
Don't get me wrong, I think the system you're proposing would be fascinating and could produce interesting material, but sometimes great artists produce their best work when every aspect is under their control.
At the time of The Godfather's release there was the same mountain of crap in cinemas that there is today. It's easy to look back on "the good old days" and conclude that the quality of modern filmmaking has decreased, but you'll be ignoring all the other junk that made it to the silver screen. Like any medium, 90% of what's produced commercially is garbage, but future generations will enjoy the films of P.T. Anderson, Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and countless other artists working today and say "they just don't make 'em like they used to."
Also, since Taxi Driver by Martin Scorcese was mentioned, take a look at his latest film Hugo. I think you'll agree it's every bit as good as his earlier work.
The university I attend recently switched to using Desire2Learn, a competitor which for many years was fighting a legal battle with Blackboard. I haven't used the software extensively yet, but my first impressions are that it's considerably better than the embarrassingly poor system employed before.
Additionally, iTerm2 supports splitting windows vertically and horizontally, with niceties like dimming inactive panes. However, not all terminal applications support this. When I move from my laptop to a public computer to my iPad I appreciate a consistent experience. If you don't use split windows in the first place then tmux's functionality won't thrill you, but as someone who logs into my dev machine from multiple locations I prefer to rely on the actual terminal application and host operating system as little as possible for window management.
As a (hypothetical) company with an API of my own, I'd be willing to pay to become a supported channel. This may be unwise initially -- once ifttt's third-party API is ready they'll want as many services as possible on board to strengthen the value proposition -- but perhaps there are scenarios where it makes sense. That is, charge the companies benefitting from increased traffic and awareness rather than the individuals using the system.
The game is decently fun, but it was the art that sold me. The voxel style looks like one of those themes that developers rocking a low budget can pull off beautifully.
I rarely do 3D modelling, so admittedly the applications I'd like supported are probably outside your initial target market, but here's the top three I want to pair Maide with:
- Apple Motion
- Unity
- Google Earth (I realize there's an iPad version and it's awesome, but Google Earth + projector + Maide would be incredible)
As someone who uses the Unity game engine extensively, using my iPad for even the most basic zooming, panning, and orbiting would be useful. I look forward to support for additional 3D environments. I have yet to use an input system where movement in 3D space doesn't feel clunky; any alternative to the current mouse/keyboard combo is welcome.