Smarmy: unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech
Perhaps the word you were looking for is one of: deceptive, devious, underhand, sneaky, execrable, abhorrent, hateful, annoying, irritating, enraging, infuriating or inexcusable?
It's hard to believe that this practice is legal. I give my credit card details to one company, and it becomes perfectly legal for them to sell these details to a completely unrelated third party, simply because I clicked on an advert on a web site?
Have you seen how far I have to travel to get from here to Andromeda Customs? No fewer than four changes too. And it's a bloody long walk from one platform to the other at New Outer Junction, I can tell you.
So disable the auto start-up for each of the services, then schedule them all to run overnight once a week to get your updates. I'm not a fan of the proliferation of these services either, but this isn't rocket science.
There's not much use moaning about it. These things aren't going to amalgamate into one big service any time soon. Sure, it'd be easy enough technically, and great for the end-user, but it doesn't allow gaming companies to grab extra money from you in the short term, so no-one will even considering implementing it.
Sounds like we fundamentally agree on what we'd do, we just have different terms for it. To me, even calling it "handouts" means thinking in terms of the current, pre-abundance world. If there's plenty for everyone, who would be handing out to whom? If the robots and computers handle everything, why would any one person or entity have any more right to resources than any other (regardless of whether said person or entity decided to use their position to "help out the lesser people").
But I totally agree with you that it's an interesting question! Incidentally, have you read any of the Culture novels by Iain M Banks? They have an interesting take on such a society - only as background to the stories, rather than some kind of blueprint of how it might be achieved, but still interesting stuff.
The very phrasing of your question seems to reveal a prejudice towards free market thinking. I would contend that it's just this kind thinking which we have to fight against, if we're ever to come to terms with the problem.
Why "handouts"? If robots are doing all the work more efficiently than humans, the net result is not a bunch of worthless humans requiring handouts - it's a bunch of humans who are suddenly free to devote their lives to science, or to art, or even to sheer pleasure if they wish, while robots tend to their more mundane physical needs.
Of course, in a "free market economy" it won't work out that way, because the guy who paid for the robots in the first place will rake in the money that would have gone to his work force, and keep it all for himself. Meanwhile the people who would previously have worked for him starve. We need to start thinking in a new way, or this state of affairs will come to pass before the middle of this century.
I'm explaining how the iPhone can be as fast for typing as using a keyboard, not complaining the keyboards are slow.
Listing a bunch of features common to both styles of keyboard doesn't get us anywhere.:)
Tactile feedback allows increased typing speed, ask any touch typist.
You just did, and you're wrong. Think about how you ACTUALLY type. Are you really feeling keys around you in order to type?
Do a test. Close your eyes, wave your hand around a bit over your keyboard, and then (keeping your eyes shut and using only one finger) type the sentence "I am wrong".
The reason you've just typed something like "p d. ry],h" is that you need tactile feedback to know where your hands are on the keyboard, and without that feedback your muscle memory isn't worth jack. Just because you're not consciously "feeling around" for the keys, doesn't mean touch doesn't matter.
I actually was a little bit disappointed by this article.
Me too. I'd love to see a proper scientific comparison of text input speeds on different phones. Although I've no idea how you'd go about compensating for people's differing levels of experience with the various text input methods.
I'd also like to see a comparison with the new touch screen keyboards where you drag your finger through each key in a swiping gesture, instead of tapping each key individually. I have no idea if this would work out quicker or not, but it's certainly a novel idea.
Speaking of typing, what is up with the "Chiclet" style keyboards that are popping up on various laptop/netbook devices?
I completely agree, they're horrible things. I don't touch-type properly, but I can hit a pretty high speed on a decent keyboard. Chiclet keyboards cut my speed in half. I guess they allow manufacturers to make devices thinner, so I can forgive a chiclet keyboard on something ultra-thin like the MacBook Air. But there is no excuse for putting those abominations onto ordinary notebooks/netbooks.
1) Really good predictive input corrects small mistakes.
Agreed. Is predictive input banned on devices with tactile keypads?
2) Larger hit area. This may seem counter-intuitive
Counter-intuitive? Not at all, I completely agree on this point. Having a larger area is always better, so touch screen keyboards win on this count.
3) No physical key travel.
This is one of the main reasons why touch screens are inferior. Tactile feedback allows increased typing speed, ask any touch typist.
4) Multitouch.
Are you saying you can't physically press two keys at once on a physical keypad? However, the new "swipe" style text input apps for touch screens do look quite promising.
If you claim a physical keyboard is so much faster and he was just slow, by all means type in the sample text he posted and post your time for an accurate result with a keypad you know well.
I would be happy to, but I always donate or recycle my old gadgets as soon as I'm done with them, so I no longer have any devices around with a physical keyboard (unless you count my trusty old IBM Model M). As I said in my original post, I actually own a touch screen phone at the moment, so I'm certainly not arguing this point from any vested interest. I'm happy with the trade-off in typing speed that comes from having a phone with a nice big screen for browsing the web.
Presuming you mean a tactile keyboard, it's faster because it's easier for your fingers to find the keys. My "evidence" is simply personal experience with trying out several different types of keyboards, and seeing which was quickest. That's certainly not proof, but it's exactly what the guy in the article has.
the iPhone virtual keyboard came in a surprisingly close second... This probably matches most people's experience
Not at all. There is no way the iPhone keyboard can possibly be as fast to use as a physical qwerty keypad. I can only imagine that there's something sub-optimal about the Treo keyboard (having never tried it myself). Alternatively, perhaps the author hasn't used his Treo for a while, whereas he's well-practised on the iPhone at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I think virtual keyboards on touch screens are a wonderful innovation, and I personally would never buy a device with a physical keyboard, due to the extra bulk and weight it engenders in the device. At the end of the day, I read stuff on my phone a lot more often than I enter data, so I want the device optimised for viewing and portability rather than speed of text entry.
But that doesn't change the fact that a tactile keyboard is quicker than a virtual one. Perhaps the "swipe" style virtual keyboards that are now appearing will turn this around.
RPG elements are creeping into game genres that we never imagined they would
No they're not. Games like Deus Ex, like System Shock and System Shock 2 had RPG elements - games that were truly a clever blend of genres that worked perfectly. Shooting action along with a bit of thought too.
The dumbing down started with consoles and Deus Ex 2. It was completed in BioShock. Awesome graphics, great atmosphere, an interesting story, but hardly any RPG elements to speak of. Any trace of RPG elements in (non-RPG) games these days are so watered down that they just dilute the fun of the shooter, rather than adding any element of challenge of their own.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite an enlightening article overall. I also learnt that "Audi's steering system normally responds to the steering wheel". Fascinating stuff.
I've played Clue before, but you must have a different version to the rest of us.
You're singeing up an awful lot of things, even for a dragon.
Exactly - that would be like having Marvin on board the Heart of Gold.
Here's where things really get smarmy.
Excuse me?
Smarmy: unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech
Perhaps the word you were looking for is one of: deceptive, devious, underhand, sneaky, execrable, abhorrent, hateful, annoying, irritating, enraging, infuriating or inexcusable?
It's hard to believe that this practice is legal. I give my credit card details to one company, and it becomes perfectly legal for them to sell these details to a completely unrelated third party, simply because I clicked on an advert on a web site?
Have you seen how far I have to travel to get from here to Andromeda Customs? No fewer than four changes too. And it's a bloody long walk from one platform to the other at New Outer Junction, I can tell you.
I sometimes hook up my computer to my television, then use it to watch internet television... oh God, what's the point of all this.
Or entire -train- cars. In europe, they all seem to be coated in stupid spray paint logos from lazy taggers.
Why lazy ones? Do they simply move their hand up and down as the train goes by, thus saving the effort of moving from side to side?
it... is designed to be W3C compliant through the HTML Validator
But I thought you wanted it to work with IE6? :)
I noticed this years ago, when I noticed that compiling Firefox puts the exact date and time in your user-agent.
Well, duh. Get with the 21st century and go and buy yourself an operating system where they compile the web browser for you.
(I'm just slightly too nervous to post this without a smiley, so here ya go: :) )
Learning how to grow food in mineral-less soil
And learning how to grow ponies in a hard vacuum!
So disable the auto start-up for each of the services, then schedule them all to run overnight once a week to get your updates. I'm not a fan of the proliferation of these services either, but this isn't rocket science.
There's not much use moaning about it. These things aren't going to amalgamate into one big service any time soon. Sure, it'd be easy enough technically, and great for the end-user, but it doesn't allow gaming companies to grab extra money from you in the short term, so no-one will even considering implementing it.
Sounds like we fundamentally agree on what we'd do, we just have different terms for it. To me, even calling it "handouts" means thinking in terms of the current, pre-abundance world. If there's plenty for everyone, who would be handing out to whom? If the robots and computers handle everything, why would any one person or entity have any more right to resources than any other (regardless of whether said person or entity decided to use their position to "help out the lesser people").
But I totally agree with you that it's an interesting question! Incidentally, have you read any of the Culture novels by Iain M Banks? They have an interesting take on such a society - only as background to the stories, rather than some kind of blueprint of how it might be achieved, but still interesting stuff.
There are so many good quotes in that book, that you could make nearly a second book out of them.
Perhaps, but it would be a lot shorter, and it would be called "Quotes From The Shockwave Rider".
The very phrasing of your question seems to reveal a prejudice towards free market thinking. I would contend that it's just this kind thinking which we have to fight against, if we're ever to come to terms with the problem.
Why "handouts"? If robots are doing all the work more efficiently than humans, the net result is not a bunch of worthless humans requiring handouts - it's a bunch of humans who are suddenly free to devote their lives to science, or to art, or even to sheer pleasure if they wish, while robots tend to their more mundane physical needs.
Of course, in a "free market economy" it won't work out that way, because the guy who paid for the robots in the first place will rake in the money that would have gone to his work force, and keep it all for himself. Meanwhile the people who would previously have worked for him starve. We need to start thinking in a new way, or this state of affairs will come to pass before the middle of this century.
I'm explaining how the iPhone can be as fast for typing as using a keyboard, not complaining the keyboards are slow.
Listing a bunch of features common to both styles of keyboard doesn't get us anywhere. :)
Tactile feedback allows increased typing speed, ask any touch typist.
You just did, and you're wrong. Think about how you ACTUALLY type. Are you really feeling keys around you in order to type?
Do a test. Close your eyes, wave your hand around a bit over your keyboard, and then (keeping your eyes shut and using only one finger) type the sentence "I am wrong".
The reason you've just typed something like "p d. ry],h" is that you need tactile feedback to know where your hands are on the keyboard, and without that feedback your muscle memory isn't worth jack. Just because you're not consciously "feeling around" for the keys, doesn't mean touch doesn't matter.
I actually was a little bit disappointed by this article.
Me too. I'd love to see a proper scientific comparison of text input speeds on different phones. Although I've no idea how you'd go about compensating for people's differing levels of experience with the various text input methods.
I'd also like to see a comparison with the new touch screen keyboards where you drag your finger through each key in a swiping gesture, instead of tapping each key individually. I have no idea if this would work out quicker or not, but it's certainly a novel idea.
Speaking of typing, what is up with the "Chiclet" style keyboards that are popping up on various laptop/netbook devices?
I completely agree, they're horrible things. I don't touch-type properly, but I can hit a pretty high speed on a decent keyboard. Chiclet keyboards cut my speed in half. I guess they allow manufacturers to make devices thinner, so I can forgive a chiclet keyboard on something ultra-thin like the MacBook Air. But there is no excuse for putting those abominations onto ordinary notebooks/netbooks.
1) Really good predictive input corrects small mistakes.
Agreed. Is predictive input banned on devices with tactile keypads?
2) Larger hit area. This may seem counter-intuitive
Counter-intuitive? Not at all, I completely agree on this point. Having a larger area is always better, so touch screen keyboards win on this count.
3) No physical key travel.
This is one of the main reasons why touch screens are inferior. Tactile feedback allows increased typing speed, ask any touch typist.
4) Multitouch.
Are you saying you can't physically press two keys at once on a physical keypad? However, the new "swipe" style text input apps for touch screens do look quite promising.
If you claim a physical keyboard is so much faster and he was just slow, by all means type in the sample text he posted and post your time for an accurate result with a keypad you know well.
I would be happy to, but I always donate or recycle my old gadgets as soon as I'm done with them, so I no longer have any devices around with a physical keyboard (unless you count my trusty old IBM Model M). As I said in my original post, I actually own a touch screen phone at the moment, so I'm certainly not arguing this point from any vested interest. I'm happy with the trade-off in typing speed that comes from having a phone with a nice big screen for browsing the web.
Presuming you mean a tactile keyboard, it's faster because it's easier for your fingers to find the keys. My "evidence" is simply personal experience with trying out several different types of keyboards, and seeing which was quickest. That's certainly not proof, but it's exactly what the guy in the article has.
Er, damn - you got me there.
I still don't have a clue how a scripting language with image recognition reminds you of VB though.
There was still no VB97. Nice try though.
the iPhone virtual keyboard came in a surprisingly close second... This probably matches most people's experience
Not at all. There is no way the iPhone keyboard can possibly be as fast to use as a physical qwerty keypad. I can only imagine that there's something sub-optimal about the Treo keyboard (having never tried it myself). Alternatively, perhaps the author hasn't used his Treo for a while, whereas he's well-practised on the iPhone at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I think virtual keyboards on touch screens are a wonderful innovation, and I personally would never buy a device with a physical keyboard, due to the extra bulk and weight it engenders in the device. At the end of the day, I read stuff on my phone a lot more often than I enter data, so I want the device optimised for viewing and portability rather than speed of text entry.
But that doesn't change the fact that a tactile keyboard is quicker than a virtual one. Perhaps the "swipe" style virtual keyboards that are now appearing will turn this around.
I'm suddenly reminded of horrible apps written in VB97
You're 93 versions ahead of your time - VB6 was the last version of Visual Basic before .NET.
Perhaps more to the point, this not only targets a completely different purpose than Visual Basic, but also looks nothing like it whatsoever.
RPG elements are creeping into game genres that we never imagined they would
No they're not. Games like Deus Ex, like System Shock and System Shock 2 had RPG elements - games that were truly a clever blend of genres that worked perfectly. Shooting action along with a bit of thought too.
The dumbing down started with consoles and Deus Ex 2. It was completed in BioShock. Awesome graphics, great atmosphere, an interesting story, but hardly any RPG elements to speak of. Any trace of RPG elements in (non-RPG) games these days are so watered down that they just dilute the fun of the shooter, rather than adding any element of challenge of their own.
If ignorance is so easily remedied, why are the vast majority of people so ignorant?