"'I've wondered for a long time why the computer interface hasn't changed from 20 years ago,'
OK, playing a little devil's advocate here. Perhaps the building bricks of computer interfaces and their basic interaction mechanics haven't changed because they are all right as they are now.
We have developed an interaction language that allows us to express interaction proposals and allows the users to understand those proposals and, therefore, to interact successfully with our systems. Why should we change that if it is working?
Change for change's sake, when we have an established language does not sound sound... I don't see no one complaining that we've been calling chairs "chairs" for so many years...
Actually I don't know this e.g. so I'm prolly talking out of my ass, but what *does* make her an idiot (or look like one) is the inhability to learn and to act in consecuence.
Being "very angry and confused" when learning that something simply is different sound a lot like some idiots I've had the dubious pleasure to meet...
You know, some time ago, after years of being pretty proficient in the English language, I had to actually look up if I was wrong and "then" and "than" could be interchanged freely.
And then I learned to not trust slashdot comments no more:D
It's pretty interesting, actually, that Open Source (once a synonym in the enterprise arena to crappy software, like the sharewares of the 90's) has became a trendy word and is used to give projects some kind of being-cool status.
I see it at work on a daily basis, when I say that the project I'm working in is based on OS software I always get the you-must-be-a-top-software-engineer look (and pretty much the same happens with AJAX and old engineers that are kinda scared because they don't understand why everyone is so crazy about something that looks just like the architecture they had long time ago).
Anyway, if the trendy thing keeps growing, soon both OS and AJAX phrases will be eaten by the PR machine and lose their meaning (in a similar way with the "hacker" word)
This might actually work, from a commercial and technologickal point of view.
Lots of comments did point out that procedurally generating graphical information (shadowmaps, textures, reflection maps, whatever) requires a lot of processing juice. But you can solve this by only running the procedures once and storing their output in the HD (which is, as has been pointed out, way cheaper than proc. cycles).
Lots of comments did also point out that game developers do not want a game to last unless they can charge for it. And, what would prevent them to charge users for the revamping of the game's graphics?
You set the procedures to run only if the user payed for it, while allowing them to download (previous payment) a new version of them...
It seems to be a good and sound way to a) allow users to improve their gaming experience and b) allow game publishers to charge for an actual service.
--krahd
Well, it seems that the idea is not really new. This guys are already offering a web OS (or at least a desktop) and a bunch of web office applications. All AJAX based.
And (I happen to know these guys), they are turning open source. The official announcement should be next week, methinks...
About the guys complaining that asm is just a lanparty.. not at all, there are a lot of gamers and little kids, but the whole thing is about demos, and the kill thing and the respect and applauses and everything confirms that feeling...
I'm writing this from the assembly'05 demoparty and it's a hackers fest in it's purest sense.
Thousands of people (actually 5k+), all geeks, enjoing one of the purest and greatest form of technology-based art (ok, all forms of art use technology, but you all know what I mean).
And what really amuses me is that we are all ejoying and finding an aesthetic (sp?) point of view of coding. It's great.
Also the mood.. no wonder why it's called a party.
Albeit it has been noted that "vista" has a meaning as an English word (my choice is Volunteers In Service To America) it actually means a lot of things in Spanish and has a very strong Spanish feeling in it.
I've been intrigued for a while for the increasing use of Spanish words in every day speek. Is MS name choice a deliberate attempt to make windows cooler? (well, obviously that is what all the branding thing is about but I meant asking, is there a coolness factor associated with Spanish or Latino things?). Are they trying to be sexier for Spanish speakers? Or is just because how it sounds?
What I would like to see (I'm not saying this robot is not cool, it's actually awesome) but, what I'd like to see is a bipedal robot with dynamic equilibrium. You know, the way that we animals walk is by being all the time in a controlled-falling state.
This robot and almost everyone I've seen manages the walking by substituting a stable state with another stable state (static equilibrium)...
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the future of UIs and the lack of new paradigms (besides the somewhat lame 3D extension of current window managers).
I think that we are in a situation with a lot to do with the early renaissance: before Piero della Francesca and he's works on perpective, drawings and paintings did not used perspective. At all.
Some years later, perspective became part of the pictorial language, and it was used to express things in a new way.
I believe that we need a paradigm shift in UI that will permit us enhance our capability to express (to transmit information).
What do I mean? I think that adding 3D to our desktops is cool (albeit, I'd prefer true 3D, not projected 3D), but it will demand a NEW way to give information to the user
If you're interested in emergent behaviour and like sci-fi thrillers, you must read Michael Crichton's Prey.
I know a lot of people here seems to despise Crichton but, IMHO, he writes book that are really fun (and much better than the movies they span).. so I encourage everyone to give them a try.
I know this is a pretty offtopic but I am now reading Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's "The Light of Other Days" where they introduce the concept of WormCams (*).
The WormCams are worm holes stabilized with negative energy (!) which can be used (somehow) as video cameras... so they can have instant access to anywhere in the universe... (I won't tell more cos I've spoiled enough:))
Anyway, I'm so immersed in the book that all this Hubble things now looks soooo outdated;)...
Actually the book is a remake, as stated here: Bob Shaw's small, perfectly formed story 'The Light of Other Days' has enjoyed a prolonged life. It appeared in Analog in 1966 to widespread acclaim, and Shaw cover scanlater wrote sequel stories and expanded the concept into a novel, Other Days, Other Eyes (1972).
Based on the intriguing premise of 'slow glass', glass through which light takes years to travel, it remains one of the finest in 60s SF, and it is a small scandal that it is not now in print.
I dunno about you, but one of the main uses of my windows back at home is allowing the air to come in (and out) of my house.
I think that the perfect setup would be a LCD window, that can be opened (just as a regular one), and that can made translucent, ranging from a standard glass' window to a full opaque (like the virtual one presented here).
Just a side (OT) note, anyone else noticed that he masked his email address to avoid spam, leaving the mailto: target untouched?!?
That, until now, each major IE upgrade has a new, non standard and non-supported-by-other feature, that was immediately and widely adopted by web designers (perhaps because it gets immediately added to Dreamweaver et al).
So, here we go again, new pages that look like crap in non-IE...:(
One thing that's been increasingly bothering and intriguing me, as I get older and older (I'm 27, I'm getting middle-aged!) is what is the fscking point of having loads and loads of money (á là Mr. Gates), if you are going to die nevertheless...
I mean, it's pretty obvious that you can only spend a finite amount of money in a finite amount of time. Period. And why do people care about the future of business dozens (even hundreds) of hears after they're gone?!?
I've heard of some companies buying water from 3rd world's countries.... they're addressing a problem (as a company) that will arise after each-and-every employee is dead and buried...
I am not saying is wrong (althoug I do believe it is), but I just don't get it. Our society is builded upon negating the evidence that we are all gonna die.
So, finally, and to stay on topic, the idea of Microsoft giving back some of it's money, should not be as crazy as it sounds right now...
Yep, actually I don't know. Does it make sense to like something just because it is very hard to achieve? Is it art? Would it be the same a party or compo about who makes the biggest pile of cards? Or is it a sport? (ain't it what athletics is all about? doing useless stuff better/faster than the others?).
What bothers me is that offline rendering achieves much better graphics, so, again: what's the point? Is it beauty? Why then don't go offline? Realtime rendering obvius strength relies on interactivity, but demos are not interactive...
That said, I think I do like demos. I download'em mourning for the day I'll be so rich that I'll travel to every demoparty which looks cool...
--krahd
p.s. I love sports too, the list goes that way: sex, surfing, reading, football, eating are top 5 things of the world:) p.p.s. football is what most-of-you call soccer. Do you know why? 'cos it's original name was "Footbal Association" (that's where the A of FIFA comes from). So soccer comes from asSOCiation
Perhaps this kind of überchatting software is THE place where they can use those 3D desktop environments / window managers.
I don't really know if it would be useful, but perhaps it is cool to lean a window so you can see your partner while keeping an eye on the app content.
Anyway, beeing so far from the world as *I* am (yep, there are places on the south of the globe), where the bandwidth is kinda expensive, i can tell that i'll not be using this kind of technology for a while...
--krahd
Not ONLY Faster, lighter, but also IE-compatible
on
Browser Wars 2004
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I am pretty sure that no other browser can compete with IE until it achieves one thing: IE compatibility.
IE has one thing that no other browser has: it shows almos Every Single Page as it was intended by the designers.
I know, I know, web designers' fault. They should create cross-browser pages, but they don't.
So, while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does. What would be better is to provide the user with an option: "show this page as IE would or show it as it should be rendered attending to W3C standars".
Until then, we'll be in a IE driven web (which, btw, is cyclic, designers design for IE 'cos the own the market, and users use IE 'cos the web is designed for IT).
P.S. I know, Microsoft is bad. And ppl use IE 'cos is there, but ppl does not change browsers due to what is stated above.
Slashdot Mirror
if only there would be mediamonkey for mac... i'd be happier. way happier.
who cares about itunes, it. just. sucks.
"'I've wondered for a long time why the computer interface hasn't changed from 20 years ago,'
OK, playing a little devil's advocate here. Perhaps the building bricks of computer interfaces and their basic interaction mechanics haven't changed because they are all right as they are now.
We have developed an interaction language that allows us to express interaction proposals and allows the users to understand those proposals and, therefore, to interact successfully with our systems. Why should we change that if it is working?
Change for change's sake, when we have an established language does not sound sound... I don't see no one complaining that we've been calling chairs "chairs" for so many years...
not really.. it'd be the same if I got angry at you, or confused, but instead I just feel sorry for you.
btw, you forgot the article.. it should be _the_ English language.
Actually I don't know this e.g. so I'm prolly talking out of my ass, but what *does* make her an idiot (or look like one) is the inhability to learn and to act in consecuence.
Being "very angry and confused" when learning that something simply is different sound a lot like some idiots I've had the dubious pleasure to meet...
You know, some time ago, after years of being pretty proficient in the English language, I had to actually look up if I was wrong and "then" and "than" could be interchanged freely.
:D
And then I learned to not trust slashdot comments no more
It's pretty interesting, actually, that Open Source (once a synonym in the enterprise arena to crappy software, like the sharewares of the 90's) has became a trendy word and is used to give projects some kind of being-cool status.
I see it at work on a daily basis, when I say that the project I'm working in is based on OS software I always get the you-must-be-a-top-software-engineer look (and pretty much the same happens with AJAX and old engineers that are kinda scared because they don't understand why everyone is so crazy about something that looks just like the architecture they had long time ago).
Anyway, if the trendy thing keeps growing, soon both OS and AJAX phrases will be eaten by the PR machine and lose their meaning (in a similar way with the "hacker" word)
This might actually work, from a commercial and technologickal point of view. Lots of comments did point out that procedurally generating graphical information (shadowmaps, textures, reflection maps, whatever) requires a lot of processing juice. But you can solve this by only running the procedures once and storing their output in the HD (which is, as has been pointed out, way cheaper than proc. cycles). Lots of comments did also point out that game developers do not want a game to last unless they can charge for it. And, what would prevent them to charge users for the revamping of the game's graphics? You set the procedures to run only if the user payed for it, while allowing them to download (previous payment) a new version of them... It seems to be a good and sound way to a) allow users to improve their gaming experience and b) allow game publishers to charge for an actual service. --krahd
Well, it seems that the idea is not really new. This guys are already offering a web OS (or at least a desktop) and a bunch of web office applications. All AJAX based.
And (I happen to know these guys), they are turning open source. The official announcement should be next week, methinks...
Me too.. iconoclast was really good.
About the guys complaining that asm is just a lanparty.. not at all, there are a lot of gamers and little kids, but the whole thing is about demos, and the kill thing and the respect and applauses and everything confirms that feeling...
--krahd
I'm writing this from the assembly'05 demoparty and it's a hackers fest in it's purest sense.
Thousands of people (actually 5k+), all geeks, enjoing one of the purest and greatest form of technology-based art (ok, all forms of art use technology, but you all know what I mean).
And what really amuses me is that we are all ejoying and finding an aesthetic (sp?) point of view of coding. It's great.
Also the mood.. no wonder why it's called a party.
Ok, gotta go, the Demo compo starts in 2 minutes
--krahd
Albeit it has been noted that "vista" has a meaning as an English word (my choice is Volunteers In Service To America) it actually means a lot of things in Spanish and has a very strong Spanish feeling in it.
I've been intrigued for a while for the increasing use of Spanish words in every day speek. Is MS name choice a deliberate attempt to make windows cooler? (well, obviously that is what all the branding thing is about but I meant asking, is there a coolness factor associated with Spanish or Latino things?). Are they trying to be sexier for Spanish speakers? Or is just because how it sounds?
What I would like to see (I'm not saying this robot is not cool, it's actually awesome) but, what I'd like to see is a bipedal robot with dynamic equilibrium. You know, the way that we animals walk is by being all the time in a controlled-falling state.
This robot and almost everyone I've seen manages the walking by substituting a stable state with another stable state (static equilibrium)...
tom
island
Not really.. how long did it take for ppl to learn how to write? Actually history is way shorter than prehistory.
It's like saying that animations aren't better than stills only because they weren't used until invented!
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the future of UIs and the lack of new paradigms (besides the somewhat lame 3D extension of current window managers).
I think that we are in a situation with a lot to do with the early renaissance: before Piero della Francesca and he's works on perpective, drawings and paintings did not used perspective. At all.
Some years later, perspective became part of the pictorial language, and it was used to express things in a new way.
I believe that we need a paradigm shift in UI that will permit us enhance our capability to express (to transmit information).
What do I mean? I think that adding 3D to our desktops is cool (albeit, I'd prefer true 3D, not projected 3D), but it will demand a NEW way to give information to the user
If you're interested in emergent behaviour and like sci-fi thrillers, you must read Michael Crichton's Prey.
I know a lot of people here seems to despise Crichton but, IMHO, he writes book that are really fun (and much better than the movies they span).. so I encourage everyone to give them a try.
btw, if you like Prey you should read Andromeda Strain , also...
--krahd
mod me up, Scottie!
I know this is a pretty offtopic but I am now reading Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's "The Light of Other Days" where they introduce the concept of WormCams (*).
:))
;)...
The WormCams are worm holes stabilized with negative energy (!) which can be used (somehow) as video cameras... so they can have instant access to anywhere in the universe... (I won't tell more cos I've spoiled enough
Anyway, I'm so immersed in the book that all this Hubble things now looks soooo outdated
Actually the book is a remake, as stated here: Bob Shaw's small, perfectly formed story 'The Light of Other Days' has enjoyed a prolonged life. It appeared in Analog in 1966 to widespread acclaim, and Shaw cover scanlater wrote sequel stories and expanded the concept into a novel, Other Days, Other Eyes (1972).
Based on the intriguing premise of 'slow glass', glass through which light takes years to travel, it remains one of the finest in 60s SF, and it is a small scandal that it is not now in print.
I dunno about you, but one of the main uses of my windows back at home is allowing the air to come in (and out) of my house.
I think that the perfect setup would be a LCD window, that can be opened (just as a regular one), and that can made translucent, ranging from a standard glass' window to a full opaque (like the virtual one presented here).
Just a side (OT) note, anyone else noticed that he masked his email address to avoid spam, leaving the mailto: target untouched?!?
--krahd
None of them can compete with the origami boulder!
:)
--krahd
That, until now, each major IE upgrade has a new, non standard and non-supported-by-other feature, that was immediately and widely adopted by web designers (perhaps because it gets immediately added to Dreamweaver et al).
:(
So, here we go again, new pages that look like crap in non-IE...
The advantages of monopolys are endless.
--krahd
One thing that's been increasingly bothering and intriguing me, as I get older and older (I'm 27, I'm getting middle-aged!) is what is the fscking point of having loads and loads of money (á là Mr. Gates), if you are going to die nevertheless...
I mean, it's pretty obvious that you can only spend a finite amount of money in a finite amount of time. Period. And why do people care about the future of business dozens (even hundreds) of hears after they're gone?!?
I've heard of some companies buying water from 3rd world's countries.... they're addressing a problem (as a company) that will arise after each-and-every employee is dead and buried...
I am not saying is wrong (althoug I do believe it is), but I just don't get it. Our society is builded upon negating the evidence that we are all gonna die.
So, finally, and to stay on topic, the idea of Microsoft giving back some of it's money, should not be as crazy as it sounds right now...
--krahd
The teapot whas the first object made entirely of cubic splines (IFRC in the university of Utah).
--krahd
Yep, actually I don't know. Does it make sense to like something just because it is very hard to achieve? Is it art? Would it be the same a party or compo about who makes the biggest pile of cards? Or is it a sport? (ain't it what athletics is all about? doing useless stuff better/faster than the others?).
:)
What bothers me is that offline rendering achieves much better graphics, so, again: what's the point? Is it beauty? Why then don't go offline? Realtime rendering obvius strength relies on interactivity, but demos are not interactive...
That said, I think I do like demos. I download'em mourning for the day I'll be so rich that I'll travel to every demoparty which looks cool...
--krahd
p.s. I love sports too, the list goes that way: sex, surfing, reading, football, eating are top 5 things of the world
p.p.s. football is what most-of-you call soccer. Do you know why? 'cos it's original name was "Footbal Association" (that's where the A of FIFA comes from). So soccer comes from asSOCiation
Perhaps this kind of überchatting software is THE place where they can use those 3D desktop environments / window managers.
I don't really know if it would be useful, but perhaps it is cool to lean a window so you can see your partner while keeping an eye on the app content.
Anyway, beeing so far from the world as *I* am (yep, there are places on the south of the globe), where the bandwidth is kinda expensive, i can tell that i'll not be using this kind of technology for a while...
--krahd
I am pretty sure that no other browser can compete with IE until it achieves one thing: IE compatibility.
IE has one thing that no other browser has: it shows almos Every Single Page as it was intended by the designers.
I know, I know, web designers' fault. They should create cross-browser pages, but they don't.
So, while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does. What would be better is to provide the user with an option: "show this page as IE would or show it as it should be rendered attending to W3C standars".
Until then, we'll be in a IE driven web (which, btw, is cyclic, designers design for IE 'cos the own the market, and users use IE 'cos the web is designed for IT).
P.S. I know, Microsoft is bad. And ppl use IE 'cos is there, but ppl does not change browsers due to what is stated above.
--krahd
Mod me up, Scottie!