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Comment Re:Why not MIDI? (Score 3, Informative) 106

Real sheet music doesn't indicate aftertouch, and a real piano can't even play aftertouch either. I realize there are more events to midi than the ones above, but I was focusing mostly on what you need to know to play a piece of music on an instrument. These are things like phrasing, dynamics, fingerings. It also involves placing notes on the score in a conventional manner so that they are quickly understandable- Whether the stem of a note points up or down, for example, depends on many things, none of which MIDI notates.

Comment Re:Why not MIDI? (Score 5, Informative) 106

Why not midi? As a musician, I'll ask you a parallel question: Why not write all documents in flat text? Who needs bold, underline, different fonts, pagination etc?? Midi doesn't make pretty sheet music. It only notates "note on" or "note off" or "patch change." It doesn't even notate which score a note should be on. This means, for example, that piano music would be just about impossible to play from a raw midi dump. An XML based markup, or the TeX based Lilypond allow for pretty, easy to read, scores. On the other hand, Lilypond has a midi import feature, so MIDI IS useful. It just requires some editing to make it human playable.

Comment Re:Nifty (Score 1) 104

Task switching in Unity is easy (and elegant). THere is a workspaces button on the "dock" that shows all of your windows/workspaces in an Expose type manner (Thank you OS X). You can drag programs between workspaces, as well as click on one to maximize. Also, if you have 3 windows open in firefox, for example, you can click on the firefox icon in the dock, and it will show all open firefox windows in miniature (also kind of expose like) and you can click on the one you want. I have some minor grudges with the file dialog, and a couple of instabilities, but overall, I think Unity will be a big improvement when all the wrinkles are worked out. (10.10 UNR on my HP netbook without fancy touch screen).

Comment Almost Believe You Steve (Score 1) 464

Too little too late if you ask me. Where else would Microsoft get all their "new" ideas for Windows 7 if it weren't for Apple and other Unix-like OSes. First thing I thought after installing Win7 on my boss's computer was that a number of the new features here are very similar to gnome laid over the top of OS X.

Comment Why Gestures? (Score 1) 185

Gestures are great when used on the screen (as in an iDevice). They feel natural... like you are interacting with a physical picture or list. I am am a bit baffled about how using gestures with my computer will improve the interaction. **Shrugs shoulders**

Comment Number Munchers? (Score 1) 81

FTS- "KansasFest, an annual convention for diehard Apple II users." I am now a college graduate. Last time a saw an Apple II being USED was in kindergarten. Ever since then, computers have just gotten more useful. I'm being slightly facetious and maybe a little ignorant, but what do they do at this conference? Play number munchers?

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