Back in 'Deconstructing H.264/AVC' I spent a bunch of time going through MPEG-4 and leading into the upcoming H.264/AVC codec. I got a lot of feedback, questions mostly, as people seem to be under the impression that I may or may not read the comments. :)
I've also been greasing the wheels of whispers with alcoholic beverages, trying to garner more info about what we'll be seeing with Tiger; keep in mind this is pretty much taken from bits I've been able to gather from here and there and then tried to form a coherent picture from. It's amazing what you can infer from scribbling on napkins while someone is using the loo.
So take the following answers to your questions with a salt mine, but it should be reasonable.
posted on August 22, 2004 at 05:58 PMReal friendship is getting a knock on the door and being presented with coffee and a few Krispy Kremes early in the morning; some people just have the best timing. This is the kind of gesture that gets one proposed to, but I've already used that threat multiple times so I'll just leave it at a thanks.
Had this come across the desk this morning... RealNetworks is really trying to heat things up, and are coming out of their corner firing:
...the temporary discount, making songs 49 cents and most albums $4.99, came at the same time as the full public launch of the newest version of the company's RealPlayer jukebox software."
Some of you have emailed about what's going on with the blog... and yes, the posting has been very sporadic since the "Convergence Kills" post. There's nothing "wrong" with the blog per se, rather it's more of a combination of things, and does not mean stuff isn't going on behind the scenes.
Let's just assume for the moment that you aren't a fan of Penny Arcade, and hence didn't see this comic, nor this one, or even this one. I don't know why these make me burst out laughing, but they do... I love Dilbert, but the world lost something when 'The Far Side' and 'Calivin & Hobbes' went away.
Many times, things that have built up into a craft are viewed as inaccessible magic to those who don't a background in them. People will look at programmers or architects or designers as though they're practicing voodoo, when in reality they're often taking very simple concepts and scaling them up.
Once you grasp those concepts, getting to a certain level is primarily about building your knowledge base and gaining experience. Talent very much plays a role, but talent in its base form is being able to intuitively grasp certain concepts almost unconsciously. It doesn't mean you'll be adept, but chances are you'll at least have an appreciation for what you're seeing.
If you were lucky enough to be a certain acquaintance of mine, you might be about to possibly get a tour of the Id offices before the upcoming QuakeCon 2004. If you were a humble nobody like myself, you might have to make do with jotting over to a friends to check the game out for yourself.
Been sifting through a ton of mail regarding the last post... learned a valuable lesson. People really take their iPods really, really seriously. Fair enough, but since a lot of the feedback seemed to fall into similar categories, I figured I'd paraphrase some of the questions and answer as best I know how...
There are some really interesting things going on in iPod land, starting with the fact that RealNetworks announced that after being diss'ed & dismissed by Apple when they approached them to talk about opening up the iPod to Real's competing service, they went ahead and reverse-engineered how the iPod deals with DRM'd media files via their new 'Harmony' software.
My view is going to be a little different than the direction other people are going on this one, as I believe the last few steps are pointing to greater maneuvering as a whole... they've found their Next Big Thing™. I don't really think RealNetworks themselves are significant, they're just the most desperate.
