Who Really is the "Director" of Dashboard? 92
MacManX writes "Does the director of Apple's upcoming Mac OS X feature, Dashboard, have something to hide? Or does he wish to remain hidden? Or are we just reading into this way too much? Rick has an excellent observation over at MacMerc. The evidence will astound you."
Another Meaning (Score:5, Informative)
Example: the theatrical "Dune" movie was originally a David Lynch film, but subsequent prints bear the Smithee label.
Fun fact: "Alan Smithee" is an anagram of 'i.e., the alias man.'
Implication in context: rather than implying that Dashboard is so bad Apple took the project from its director, perhaps it means the project director doesn't want his name associated with it. Go Woz!
Re:Another Meaning (Score:2)
Um, no it's not. Count the i's in each. alan smithee --- the alias man.
Someone break out the -1 Dumb mod, please.
Re:Another Meaning (Score:1)
Now, don't you feel better?
Re:Another Meaning (Score:2)
Re:Another Meaning (Score:3, Funny)
alan smithee --- the alias man.
It's hard to disagree that the i's there are the same, but you left off the initial 'i.e.' Which doesn't really change anything except the particular letter which doesn't match up. Try counting the e's in your version:
alan smithee --- the alias man.
Someone break out the -1 Dumb mod, please.
Indeed.
Re:Another Meaning (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Another Meaning (Score:2)
Apple like playing with names BHA.
Re:Another Meaning (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Another Meaning (Score:2)
Re:Another Meaning (Score:2)
The article is spot-on.. (Score:5, Funny)
But the studio made them change it so they lived together in a cottage in exile after the King's wife told him she'd leave him childless if he sent them apart forever.
Stupid Hollywood.
(sheesh, the Alan Smithee conspiracy seems a bit far-fetched--if the guy in charge of the project didn't like what he was doing enough to go pseudonymous in a keynote, he has to be either really, really stupid, or hoping to be fired (or Steved, by some peoples' lexicon). My guess is that it's just Apple's new version of "John/Jane Doe").
This proves nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
A nice little thing to notice, but using it as proof for the one who designed Dashboard? That's stretching it...
Re:This proves nothing (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:This proves nothing (Score:2)
Re:This proves nothing (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps you want to go into the BSD section next and complain about one of the stores in there?
Re:This proves nothing (Score:5, Informative)
So don't get your panties in a bunch over the smithee pseudonym. Obviously someone got bored creating demo data with the same old names like John Doe and decided to have a little fun.
Is there a new Alan Smithee? (Score:2, Interesting)
Alan Smithee is one of those little pieces of knowledge that people know because it helps make them feel elite, which is weird because everyone knows about it by now. It's like the way mullets were a big joke a while back.
But really, odds are, if you know about it, then it's not hip and you're c
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
riiiight... (Score:5, Insightful)
people just seem to want to always find hidden meanings that, most times, aren't there at all.
Re:riiiight... (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, the calculator in the video demonstration [apple.com] has '1.337' on it!
If there's one nerd in-joke, there's probably more...
Re:riiiight... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:riiiight... (Score:1)
I was consultant for the TV channel for some movie buys at Cannes. We needed USA movies to air at 2 am for some reason, we bought "his" movies. Well he didn't exist of course
Believe Steve Jobs or Apple knows what that name is.
Dashboard Information (Score:5, Informative)
Dashboard is actually going to be a WebKit application, with some HTML Extensions to let you do things like put a transparent mask over the window and call local code. He's discussing putting the HTML extensions into their own default namespace right now, as well as submitting them for standards approval (well, some of them). It's a very interesting weblog, and certainly worth having on the RSS feed if you're at all interested in the development of Safari and webkit.
=Brian
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:2)
I think that because it's because it's a plugin architecture rather than a dynamically loaded code that the means of exploitation are less. However, poorly designed plugins will likely still be a problem.
=Brian
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:3, Interesting)
New Plugin Archtecture --> New way of interfacing and running Flash etc.
ActiveDesktop or HTAs --> Local HTML pages can call Local Code, proprietary tags for enhanced functionality.
AFAICT, "Dashboard" seems to be just another take on Windows HTAs from 1997. (Although, the orange calculator was a sexier demo than most of Microsoft's stuff.)
The problem with IE's implementation is that the browser is easly confused between local and remote pages (using iframe tricks, etc). It wi
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:4, Interesting)
I also suspect that the plugins for Dashboard items will be bundled all together, much as Applications are in OS X, so that other webkit applications can't access random Dashboard plugins. But that's just a guess.
=Brian
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:2)
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dashboard Information (Score:5, Informative)
Other Allan Smithee Work (Score:5, Funny)
So maybe there is something going on here.
Apple is innocent...
O.J. is innocent...
:Puts on his flame suit: it's only a joke. i swear!
Re:Other Allan Smithee Work (Score:3, Funny)
Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Alex.
Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:3, Interesting)
> corporations stop putting credits in their software a few years
> ago, to help prevent large competitors in or around Redmond
> from paying whatever it took to make ridiculously generous
> offers for those employees to work for them?
I've heard this, too, but I think this might be related to two other facts. First, it's impossible for everyone who is involved in delivering software to have their names included these days. Second, Jobs has mand
Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:1)
That and the fact that I could play Might & Magic III on it. :-(
Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:2)
> tiff (remove the space) count as an easter egg?
I'd say it does. I guess they snuck one in after all. I'm not sure what work the Golden Retriever did on Mail though.
Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain? (Score:1, Informative)
I'm an Apple campus representative and had to sign one.
sweet app (Score:1)
Re:sweet app (Score:3, Insightful)
(Liberal arts my ass. Two degrees in music and I work in a frickin' bookstore. But I'm not bitter!)
:P
Re:sweet app (Score:5, Interesting)
The subject you major in is just the vehicle you use to learn how to think. I majored in Chemistry and now, 10 years later, I manage a technology group at a financial services company. I have yet to set foot in a lab for work since I left college.
I find the kids these days that major in business (MIS, whatever) don't really know a whole lot outside of their discipline. Liberal Arts gives you exposure to different fields. If you use your college experience properly and learn how to THINK, then you can use your off-major classes as practive for the real world.
In the past few years I have interviewed ~30 students from the MIS program at Northeastern for internship positions in my company. i have found that most of them have no idea what MIS is and are a bit suprised when they realize they will be working the help desk or desktop support as one of their first jobs out of college.
--mike
Re:sweet app (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't expect music (or writing, foreign languages, film studies, etc...) to make me rich, but I do expect to find the life we lead more rewarding long-term in intangibles like contentment, creativity, personal pride in accomplishments,
Re:sweet app (Score:2)
Re:sweet app (Score:2)
Companies don't hire people who can think (Score:1, Insightful)
Companies want people who know X 5.0, Y Enterprise Edition, and Z 3.0 Server.
Thinking? Feh.
Generalists. Who needs em.
Re:OK this is ridiculous (Score:3, Informative)
No.
Sidney Lumet is credited as "Sidney Lumet" for 12 Angry Men (1957). He is credited as "Alan Smithee" for Q&A (1990).
John Frankenheimer is credited as "John Frankenheimer" for The Manchurian Can
Re:OK this is ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
No, the IMDB page is saying those directors, with their most famous movies in parenthesis so you'll know who they are, are sometimes AKA "Alan Smithee". So for instance John Frankenheimer directed "12 Angry Men" and was credited as such. He ALSO directed a 1987 TV movie "Riviera" under the name Alan Smithee - meaning that "Riviera" sucked, he hated it and didn't want his name associated with it.
OOPS (Score:2)
Somebody call and ask. (Score:4, Interesting)
ALAN SMITHEE
408-796-1010
-> Fritz
Re:Somebody call and ask. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Somebody call and ask. (Score:1)
Well no wonder he can't pay his phone bill; he keeps putting out crappy films!
-m
Re:Somebody call and ask. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Somebody call and ask. (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple Computer Inc. 1976-1986
Learned many things, including do's and don'ts for building executive teams
Best. Resume. Ever.
Re:Somebody call and ask. (Score:2)
Good lord (Score:3, Funny)
Good show old chap!
Re:Good lord (Score:2)
We can only assume one thing: that in fact, he was not born, but *re-born* on earth in 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico, and that IMDB's claim of a 1967 birth was sponsored by the illuminati.
i noticed that as well... (Score:2, Insightful)
WAAAY too little to go on (Score:1, Insightful)
Evidence Shmevidence (Score:2)
First they did it to Orson Welles! Now, to me! (Score:2)
Use that ridiculous dropshadow on my calculator widget, you no-talent bean counters, and I'm taking my name off the project.
Regardless, Dave Manning gave it a rave review... (Score:2)
I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you... (Score:3, Funny)
from http://www.konfabulator.com/ (Score:1)
Funny that Apple would put out "Redmond, start your photocopiers" tag when everybody knows what happened to Watson, and now Konfabulator.
What goes around comes around.
Enuff said.
Just to remind everyone... (Score:2)
More importantly (Score:2)
I'M Alan Smithee (Score:1)
Dashboard vs. Konfabulator (Score:1)
xox,
Dead Nancy
---
For all of the armchair critics who claim to know that Apple "should have" bought Konfabulator to serve as the basis for Dashboard, I ask:
Have you used Konfabulator? If so, have you measured its memory consumption?
Do you think Apple's OS engineers should be concerned about performance and resource consumption?
Do you think you know more about performance and resource allocation than Apple's engineers?
Do you believe reasonable engineering opinions can be dr